journal of education, 2022 issue 88,http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x editorial nazir carrim wits school of education, faculty of humanities, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa nazir.carrim@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7104-8704 moeniera moosa wits school of education, faculty of humanities, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa moeniera.moosa@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6231-9370 thokozani mathebula wits school of education, faculty of humanities, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa thokozani.mathebula@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0003-4762-6206 this special issue of the journal of education reflects on the experiences of the covid-19 pandemic in south and southern africa. it is based on the theme of the first virtual saera conference that was hosted by the wits school of education at the university of the witwatersrand, in johannesburg, south africa. the theme of the conference was education for inclusivity and sustainability in times of increasing inequalities. while the dominant experiences in education during the covid-19 pandemic are related to using digital technologies, and the inequalities associated with these, the role of education to ensure inclusivity and sustainability in the future raises questions on several other levels. in this special issue the need for alternative methodological approaches and curriculum changes, different leadership styles, and changes in policy frameworks and policies is also emphasised. the article by le fleur and dlamini asks, “is education for inclusivity and sustainability possible in times of increasing inequalities in the south africa?” they suggest that continual situated professional development of teachers, including the creation of professional learning communities and harnessing digital technologies, provides an effective, hybrid approach to teacher learning and instructional delivery in the 21st century. tunjera and chigona, however, argue for using multiple platforms for learning since this would enable greater access to learning by helping to reduce issues with connectivity and the lack of tools and resources, all of which are common barriers to accessing digital platforms for learning. 2 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 sengai, mokhele, and makumane, as well as dzinoreva and mavunga show how the covid19 pandemic affected southern african countries. looking at lesotho and zimbabwe respectively, they show how schools in rural areas developed novel forms of learning, and how the gap in teachers’ competencies in the use of information communication technologies (icts) impacts on their use. de souza focuses on inclusive education in malawi and reminds us that it is also the level of policy and policy frameworks that need to be revisited. additionally, the article by haufiku, grant, and kajee maintains that a conceptualisation of the academic leadership through the perspective of distributed leadership provides a possibility for inclusion and sustainability. the covid-19 pandemic also highlighted a period of escalating inequality and polarisation. jarvis and mthiyane look at xenophobia as a threat to social cohesion in south africa and indicate that pre-service teachers’ engagement with their beliefs about, and attitudes towards, xenophobia can assist in promoting socially inclusive education in a way that is sustainable. they offer empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying as a teaching-learning technique and methodological contribution to the ongoing discussion on the need for education to support a pedagogy of inclusivity and sustainability. linked to problems of increasing polarisation and the challenge to social cohesion in the way in which people view their identity and how they reflect on themselves, d’amant’s article explores the effectiveness of using visual methodologies to explore various aspects of identity. this is especially relevant for educators as transformative agents educating for inclusion and social justice. simmonds and ajani’s article discusses pre-service teachers’ emphasis on the significance of how they view the decolonization of the curriculum and propose restorative learning as an avenue to promote sustainable education. because it is attuned to an embeddedness in affiliation, it invigorates learning that is ecological and embraces radical relatedness that prizes how we live in relation to ourselves and others. the review of the book teaching and learning for change: education and sustainability in south africa by john bhurekeni suggests that a realist approach to exploring environmental and sustainability coverage and experiences in curricula of education for sustainable development can assist the development of active learning that fosters critical and inclusive thinking. it also highlights the value of working with emergent environmental knowledge(s) within the broader possibility of social-ecological systems thinking. the articles in this special issue highlight the ongoing discussions about the inequalities in education and societies, and the challenges of inclusivity and sustainability for education and the future. they also indicate some of the possibilities that may exist in assisting education to move into a sustainable and inclusive future. these articles, in showing the range of complex issues with which we need to be engaged, deal with policy, curriculum, methodology, leadership, self-reflection, polarisation, and pre-service teacher education as well as the use of digital technologies in education. they also indicate that these issues cut across southern carrim, moosa & mathebula: editorial 3 african countries. the importance of maintaining the conversations about these issues is crucial and the need to add to such conversations cannot be emphasised sufficiently. while covid-19 regulations have been relaxed and people, generally speaking, are going back to what is now normal, the experiences and lessons learnt during the pandemic should not be forgotten and we should build on them. this special issue aims to keep the conversations going so that we can draw on our experiences and lessons from the covid-19 pandemic as we move into complex, uncertain, and challenging futures that will be increasingly digitalised, and that should be inclusive and sustainable for all. this special issue demonstrates that education has a role to play in contributing to such a future. journal of education, 2023 issue 91, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x editorial labby ramrathan school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa ramrathanp@ukzn.ac.za the recent release of the progress in international reading literacy study (pirls) results, indicating that 81% of grade 4 learners cannot read with comprehension, once again brings to fore the stark realities of our current education system and its impact on the social, political, and economic situation of south africa. sexual violence, another of society’s ills, continues to be a dominant concern despite the educational interventions being made through research and scholarship. despite a proliferation of research and publications on school, higher education, and social issues, the learning outcomes of the education system continues to be suboptimal. key questions, then, need some responses. these include: “is the scholarship on education impactful within the south african context?” “are the research and scholarship on education in south africa filtering into the policy making processes?” “what are the obstacles in transitioning education scholarship into sustainable responses to the educational changes that our country needs?” and, finally, “why are we doing research and publications on educational issues?” in this general issue of journal of education, more insights on school and higher education are presented. following on from the last general issue, the article, “the use of information and communication technology in the teaching of sesotho as a home language,” continues the conversation on early reading. in this article, the authors explore the use of ict in the teaching and learning of an indigenous language, sesotho. the authors argue for the use of ict as a collaborative learning process for indigenous language competence acquisition, especially in rural communities. continuing with school education curricula, the article on “analysing the curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values, and its conceptualisation for integration into life sciences teaching in south african schools” explores curriculum policy statements specifically relating to values, and how these values could find expression in the learning and teaching of subjects like life sciences. using textual data from school curriculum policy documents, the author offers explanations on how values can be understood and interpreted in subject teaching. “a literature review of south african schools for the blind and their use of educational sexual models in comprehensive sexuality education” extends the scholarship of sexuality education in the school education system. in this article, the author explores, through a systematic literature review, teachers’ perceptions on the use of sexual models in teaching comprehensive sexuality education in a school for the blind. the debates on comprehensive sexuality education continue to be a global one. in the article on “teachers’ perceptions on 2 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 teaching comprehensive sexuality education in early grades in chipinge, zimbabwe,” the authors conclude that cse is essential in empowering early grade children with skills, knowledge, and attitudes needed to protect them from sexual abuse. the rest of the articles in this general issue relate to various facets of higher education. “publishing (mal)practices and their (re)colonising effects: double affiliations in academic publishing” exposes the misuse of the south african subsidy system for institutional financial gain through double affiliation. double affiliation has gained substantial momentum, especially within the university ranking systems, but there are (un)ethical issues that may have been driven by econometric drivers in an ever-increasing neoliberal higher education system. continuing with the discourse on decolonisation, the article, “decolonisation, knowledge construction, and legitimation at african universities in the 21st century: relevance of françois lyotard,” based on a desktop review, theorises a possible philosophical grounding for knowledge decolonisation in universities. then, on transforming higher education through the lens of vice-chancellors, the authors of “‘in the trenches’: south african vice-chancellors leading transformation in times of change” present nine vicechancellors’ accounts of leading transformation in the institutions they have led. the final articles in this issue focus on teaching and learning within higher education studies. the author of “the inclusions of critical thinking in an accounting curriculum: students’ perceptions” argues, using a mixed method design, that students do benefit from the inclusion of soft skills into the teaching and learning processes of an accounting curriculum. the final article contributes to the post-covid-19 teaching and learning experiences in higher education. the author of “an empirical analysis of the impact of mobile instant messaging for collaborative learning during a covid-19 lockdown in a rural-based university” makes an argument in favour of the use of mobile instant messaging for teaching and learning, especially in rural-based universities, because its yields positive results for collaborative learning. the issue closes with a book essay review, “light on the shadows,” of mark bray’s (2021) monograph, shadow education in africa: private supplementary tutoring and its policy implications. journal of education, 2021 issue 85, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x editorial carol bertram bertramc@ukzn.ac.za this editorial marks the end of my five-year stint as editor of the journal of education so i want to reflect on the development and growth of the journal since i took over as editor in 2017, as well as on how the journal has changed since it became the official journal of the south african education research association (saera) in 2014. i reflect on three main issues: the importance of the journal as an open access one; the growing imperative to focus on quality criteria in an era of predatory publishing; and on how much the journal has diversified in terms of the authors’ home institutions. in 2010, three previous editors, ken harley, wayne hugo, and volker wedekind collaborated on a history of the journal of education from when it started as an in-house journal of the university of natal in 1969, to its disappearance, and its reappearance in 1993. in 1998, it was awarded sapse accreditation that meant that the number of submitted articles increased substantially. the kenton education association that was established by academics in the historically white progressive universities such as the university of the witwatersrand (wits), the university of cape town (uct), and what was then the university of natal (un) and is now the university of kwazulu-natal (ukzn) approached the journal of education in 2000 to publish the proceedings of the annual kenton conferences. the first of these, issue 25, was guest edited by maureen robinson and linda chisholm. the journal of education was the official publication of the kenton education association between 2007 and 2013. this association voted to dissolve in 2013 and the journal became the official journal of saera the following year. the tradition of having the local organising committee, whose members host the annual conference, choose the colleagues who will be the guest editors of the conference special issue, has continued. when john aitchison took over the editorial layout in 1998, all pdf versions of the articles were published on the web 1 so it became available as an open education resource long before this was fashionable. this is significant because academic journals are not exempt from the rampage of neo-liberalism and managerialism that underpins the higher education sector. commercial publishers like elsevier, taylor & francis, and springer profit from the free labour of academics by publishing our work, taking copyright, and restricting access to our research by selling at a huge profit to universities who can afford to buy subscriptions to add 1 www.joe.ukzn.ac.za is the old website of the journal of education and it is here that the issues from 2003 to 2017 are available as pdfs. we are in the process of moving these pdfs to the current journal website https://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe/. it would worthwhile to digitise all previous issues as an historical record of the journal’s contribution to educational research in south africa. 2 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 to their databases. this means that once you have published your research with a commercial publisher, you no longer have the right to distribute this work, that was paid for by tax payers if you work at a public university. of course, you can pay these publishers about r40,000 to publish your research as open access. in contrast, the journal of education is committed to academics’ retaining copyright to their own published research, and thus being able to distribute it widely. given my commitment to open access publishing, i applied for the journal of education to be indexed in the scientific electronic library online (scielo) in 2017. the journal is also now indexed by the directory of open access journals (doaj) and scopus. to be included in these indices a journal must adhere to a range of quality criteria such as ensuring blind peer review, not having more than 35% of authors in an issue being from the same institution, having a credible editorial committee, and publishing regularly. these quality criteria are important given the upsurge of predatory journals that promise to publish one’s article within a week. since 2018, the journal has been published using the open journal system (ojs) software that is hosted on the ukzn library platform. the journal of education was one of the journals reviewed in the academy of science south africa (assaf) report on grouped peer review of scholarly journals in education. this report (released in june 2020), provides a peer-review of a number of education journals, based on the national editor’s code of best practice. the report noted that while the journal of education adheres to most of these best practices, it needs to recruit more members to the editorial board from african countries and must ensure that the editorial committee is more reflective of the broader saera membership. the editorial committee will focus on these and other issues such as supporting early career researchers, strengthening and expanding the reviewer base, and engaging with the substantive quality of published articles in the coming year. saera, which was established in 2013, “represents a historic attempt to bring together education academics and researchers from all over south africa into a unified educational research organization” (para. 3) 2 whose research this journal now publishes. reflecting on 40 years (1969–2009) of the journal of education, harley et al. (2010) noted that its publication history reflects the gender and race power relations in academia during the apartheid era that were not quickly erased post-1994. of the 161 authors who published in the journal between 1998 and 2009, 29% were from un/ukzn and 13% each from uct and wits, reflecting the hegemony of the historically white research-intensive universities. in comparison, 137 authors published in the 8 issues (78–85) published in 2020 and 2021. of these, 25% were from ukzn, 8% from higher education institutions outside of sa, 9% from wits, 6.5% each from cape peninsula university of technology and nelson mandela university, and 6% from north west university. so, while there is still a strong representation of authors from ukzn, there has been a shift to include authors from a wider range of higher education institutions (heis) including the university of pretoria, the university of fort hare, walter sisulu university, the university of free state, sol plaatjies university, and durban 2 see www.saera.co.za/about-saera/ bertram: editorial 3 university of technology who would never have been published in the journal of education before 2014. however, there is still work to do in this regard. there are eleven articles in this issue, spanning the fields of higher education, schooling, and vocational and teacher education. two of the articles focus on curriculum, five focus on inclusive education in a range of contexts, and four have a psychological focus, using correlational studies. while most of the empirical articles present data from gauteng, there are articles on two studies that generated data from the eastern cape, one from the free state, and one from the north west province. this geographical spread is important since urban centres are often still dominant in educational publishing. we start with a critical review of the literature on practical subjects in the vocational curriculum by christine winberg and shairn hollis-turner. they engage with the enduring question of how curricula should manage the “inevitable tension in vocational curricula between the logic of education and the logic of industry. this tension is evident in the connection (or disconnection) between theory (in the form of academic subjects) and practice (in the form of practical subjects and work-based learning).” they present a review of the international and south african literature on this topic, using the conceptual tools related to semantic gravity from legitimation code theory. the concept of semantic gravity provides a way of analysing the extent to which curricula focus on contextual knowledge that is rooted in a specific context or focus on decontextualized knowledge that can be lifted above a specific context. also on the question of curriculum, anja visser focuses on the extent to which the national school curriculum documents engage with the issue of child labour. child labour refers to work done by children under the age of 18 that could be legal or illegal; the latter would include hazardous forms of child labour, and trafficking. she analysed all the compulsory school curricula documents for grades 1 to 9. her findings show that the caps documents focus on work as legal labour for persons over 18 in subjects like economic management sciences and life orientation but do not engage with the question of illegal or hazardous child labour (except in the historical context of the industrial revolution, slavery, and indentured labour). the next five papers deal with the issue of inclusion in different contexts. the term inclusive education has many meanings; narrow definitions focus on special needs learners while broad definitions focus on the inclusion of all learners and on how schools respond to the diversity among them. moeniera moosa and tanya bekker conducted qualitative research at a public urban university in johannesburg with 200 third-year preservice teachers. the aim of the study was to establish how student teachers understand inclusive education and how they enact it, or fail to do so, in their lessons. the data was drawn from essays that students submitted in which they reflected on a lesson plan and explained why they thought their lesson was inclusive or not. also engaging with inclusive education in an education faculty, lorna dreyer focuses on the experiences of thirteen b.ed students with specific learning disabilities (slds). she 4 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 interviewed fourteen firstand second-year students with an sld to understand their experiences of being supported or unsupported at university. seven of the students had received concessions at school such as extra writing time during exams but most were not aware that the same kinds of concessions were available at university. the findings suggest that although heis have policies that promote inclusive education, many students with slds still experience exclusion from full access and participation in teaching and learning, partly because they were not aware of the policies and partly because they did not want to identify themselves as needing extra support. continuing the theme of inclusive education, but this time from parents’ perspectives, maximus monaheng sefotho, ronél ferreira, and bernard bongani lushozi investigate the experiences of 35 parents who have children with intellectual disabilities. all the parents in the study had children who attended one of four schools for learners with special needs in soweto, gauteng. the kinds of support that the parents hoped to receive fell into three areas: support from professionals who diagnosed their children; support in the accessing of the social disability grants; and the need to support their children in their transition from school to work. many parents felt that most doctors withdrew support after making their diagnoses. bullying is an increasing problem in many schools in that it also leads to experiences of exclusion. segun emmanuel adewoyea and annelize du plessis engaged in a qualitative study to understand the experiences of bystanders who observed bullying in a gauteng primary school. there were ten participants who were between 11 and 13 years of age. data was generated though in-depth interviews in which the participants noted that they wanted to intervene to stop the bully, but they were too afraid to do so. they feared that they, too, would be bullied and this gave rise to negative and fearful feeling about going to school. the findings indicated that it is not only those who are bullied, but those who witness “bullying behaviour can also be negatively affected emotionally, psychologically, and academically.” obakeng kagola and mathabo khau argue that male foundation phase (fp) teachers face exclusion from employment opportunities because of parents’ understanding of gender roles in their culture. they explore what school governing body (sgb) members from two primary schools in the eastern cape province think about the employment of male teachers in fp. using semi-structured focus group discussions to generate data with five sgb parentcomponent members, they found that participants were reluctant to employ men as fp teachers. the employment policy guidelines state that there should be no gender-based discrimination in the employment practices but this was over-ridden by participants’ understanding of gendered societal roles. they believed, mostly, that men should not teach in fp since they would be neither approachable nor nurturing. furthermore, these parents showed some lack of understanding of these policies so, at times, they misinterpreted them. in their study entitled “a comparative study of knowledge, beliefs, and opportunities to learn afforded to physical science b.ed students”, david letloenyane and loyiso jita generated survey data from b.ed physics students in two south african universities and two universities of technology (uots). they aimed to understand the nature of the opportunities to learn (otl) provided to these students and how these otl correlated with students’ bertram: editorial 5 content knowledge and desired beliefs about teaching physical science. it was interesting that students from one uot had higher scores for both knowledge and desired beliefs, but this institution did not score the highest on otl. the two uots offered students opportunities to learn that were statistically higher compared to the traditional universities; the authors explain this in terms of the greater number of weeks these students spent in teaching practice. continuing in the field of teacher education is an article that measures preservice teachers’ ethnocentrism. the definition of ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own culture is dominant. joyce west, rinelle evans, and joyce jordaan investigate the ethnocentrism shown by white teachers in a private hei in the student body of which there is almost no diversity. their rationale for the study is the premise that high degrees of ethnocentrism could possibly affect teachers’ attitude towards learners whose identity frameworks do not mirror theirs. data was collected using an online gene survey, also known as the 2002 generalised ethnocentrism scale, with 1,164 students who identified as white and afrikaans-speaking. the study found a high degree of variation between student’s ethnocentric scores, where 50 is considered high. this score was lower for students who indicated that they had been to multicultural schools. zandile stwayi, willie chinyamurindi, and herring shava also use survey data to determine which factors influence career development self-efficacy. they used a convenience sample of 150 students enrolled at a rural campus in the eastern cape who completed a survey that explored the role of self-directed learning with a focus on three sub-scales, namely a) selfmanagement; b) desire for learning; and c) self-control. the study by wk delport, leentjie van jaarsveld, and branwen challens aimed to investigate the relationship between personality and self-leadership of school principals and their school’s performance. they interviewed eight principals, four from underperforming schools (that achieved less than 50% for the grade 12 examinations over 5 years) and four from high achieving schools (that achieved a 100% pass rate for 5 years) in the north west province. unsurprisingly, the high performing schools were all urban schools, and the underperforming schools were all in township areas. given the structural differences, it is not unexpected that the researchers found that the personality of a principal has no relationship to the performance of the school. i have learned a tremendous amount about academic publishing during my term as editor and am hugely grateful to the members of the editorial committee and mrs rosemarie milburntrott for their ongoing support. the meticulous editing work done by moira richards and ann smith and the precise layout by john richards contributes enormously to the quality of each issue. thanks also to all the reviewers who perform the unpaid, vital, but hidden work that enables academic publishing to happen at all and to the members of the scholarly publishing unit at assaf who provided me with answers to questions that i did not even know existed (such as, “what is a doi?”) before i became an editor. 6 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 references harley, k., hugo, w., & wedekind, v. (2010). “a periodical of its time: a brief history of the journal of education 1969–2009.” southern african review of education, 16(2), 21–43. editorial reimagining education: poetics, practices and pedagogies aslam fataar, maureen robinson and doria daniels south africa is a country of challenges, and none more so than when it comes to the education of its children, young people and also its adults. ours is a country of poor literacy levels, pass rates and poor performance. south africa, however, is also a country of opportunity, hope and potential. it is in this light that the annual conference of the south african education research association (saera) endeavoured to reimagine an education system that can help all of south africa’s people live up to their full academic potential. the deliberations at this conference were founded on the pursuit of educational renewal based on intellectual integrity, rigour and critical illumination. illuminating the theme of conference, as poetics, the conference emphasised the pursuit of the ‘idea’ as pivotal to generating quality education scholarship. as edward said (1996) explains, our intellectual task is not always a matter of being a critic of government, but rather thinking of the intellectual vocation as a maintaining of a state of constant alertness, of perpetual willingness not to let half-truths or received ideas steer one along. at the heart of our reimagining education is the struggle to establish a rigorous research platform for our educational work that balances this intellectual task with the performative demands of our universities. the conference engaged head-on with south africa’s educational challenges, setting out to reimagine a system within which the children, students and adults of our country can flourish. it focused on institutional cultures, practice-based teaching and learning endeavours, and the centrality of curriculum and pedagogy in revitalising teaching and learning. the conference aimed to contribute to a knowledge base that builds on research being done to reimagine education in the light of the complex and diverse challenges that confront education for sustainable change. it considered research that goes beyond schooling by also addressing current matters concerning higher, further and adult education. the conference focused, among others, on questions of policy, language and literacy, educational psychology, inclusion, social justice and equity. 2 journal of education, no. 69, 20172 papers, posters and panel discussions addressed one or more of the following themes: g reimagining the epistemological/methodological terms of educational renewal g reimagining education systems for social justice g reimagining educational institutional change g reimagining teaching and learning cultures g reimagining teacher education policy and practice g reimagining how students experience educational access and success g reimagining curriculum and pedagogy g reimagining postgraduate study and thesis supervision g reimagining language, literacy and learning g reimagining professional educator identity g reimagining intersections of communities and education g reimaging data of, and for, education policy and practice g reimagining educational management, leadership, policy and law g reimagining maths, science, technology education we were privileged to listen to three generative keynote addresses presented by marie brennan from victoria university, australia and extraordinary professor at stellenbosch university; achille mbembe from wits university; and richard tabulawa from the university of botswana. articles by both tabulawa and brennan are the first and second published in this edition (see short summaries below). mbembe’s address focused on the topic ‘future knowledge and the humanities’ in which he highlighted the conceptual ambitions and challenges associated with calls in south african universities to decolonise our country’s educational offerings. warning that the object of decolonising education might be obsolete, he argued for the necessity of holding on to scientific and research protocols as a basis for critically working with broader, more inclusive, knowledge conceptions. explaining that the decolonising project is back on the agenda worldwide, he pointed out that it has has two sides. the first is a critique of the dominant eurocentric academic model, what is called ‘epistemic coloniality’, that is, the endless production of theories that are based on european traditions. the second is an attempt at imagining what the alternative to this model could look like. this is where mbembe believes a lot remains to be done. editorial 33 he suggests that there is a recognition of the exhaustion of the present academic model with its origins in the universalism of the enlightenment. calling attention to the notion ‘pluriversity’ in opposition to the monouniversalism of the university, he argued that imaging alternatives is not merely the extension throughout the world of a eurocentric model presumed to be universal and now being reproduced almost everywhere thanks to commercial internationalism. by pluriversity, many understand a process of knowledge production that is open to epistemic diversity. it is a process that does not necessarily abandon the notion of universal knowledge for humanity, but which embraces it via a horizontal strategy of openness to dialogue among different epistemic traditions. to decolonise the university is therefore to reform it with the aim of creating a less provincial and more open critical cosmopolitan pluriversalism – a task that involves the radical re-founding of our ways of thinking and a transcendence of our disciplinary divisions. moving on to the articles in this edition, the first is by tabulawa who locates his focus within his experiences at the university of botswana. he challenges the conceptualisation of interdisciplinarity as just a form of knowledge organisation, i.e. the repackaging of existing knowledge to be relevant and responsive to the needs of a changing university clientele and society. the author is critical about the ideological dimensions of interdisciplinarity to loosen academics’ grip on higher education, and to make them more acquiescent to market rationality. though he is not suggesting that they are ideologically similar, he identifies the affinity between interdisciplinarity and neoliberalism. in the article he motivates for a re-politicisation of the interdisciplinarity debate, and argues that it is the only way that the profound effects of interdisciplinarity on academics’ identities and the university, can be exposed. brennan’s article explores the role of teacher education during the anthropocene age. there are significant debates about the inextricable links between humans and the environment; how human presence has altered nature, but also how nature facilitates what humans can do. brennan reasons that it is important for education to come to grips with the complex reading of the world, as both global citizens and as members of multiple communities. she argues for new analyses and structures of knowledge that have the capabilities to respond to the serious interwoven challenges of capitalism with ecological and climate change. brennan posits that educators have a stake in the survival of the human species. education, however, struggles to bring balance to the two dimensions of education: the passing on of past 4 journal of education, no. 69, 20174 knowledges, and “entrusting the future to the next generations, equipping them with capacities to survive, to organise, to think and plan and act”. brennan employs strengers’ version of pragmatism to deal with the chaos that policy reforms continue to visit on educational practices. she considers teacher educators to be “helpfully placed” in universities, which are sites of multiple disciplinary resources, that can be brought to bear on key problematics in community and the broader society. teacher education, according to her, is opportunely placed to problematize the old grand narratives. as most of an educator’s work involves intergenerational activity, it is tied to the responsibility to help students navigate their way in changing conditions. brennan sees the potential of new narratives emerging when educators work alongside their students on local or regional problems, “bring(ing) together old and emerging knowledges and practices to understand more about the local, and how the local is linked to other locals”. new complex narratives can emerge that specify the big issues that are challenging local lives, and this opens up spaces for action. zipin’s article proposes a problematic-based curriculum approach (pbca) in which students work with knowledge in relation to community-based problems that matter. this interesting article contrasts pbca with the social realist approach that underpins south africa’s caps curriculum. applying nancy fraser’s call for a politics to “transform the deep grammar of framesetting”, zipin argues for changing the grammar of curriculum in the direction of social justice. he outlines an ethical-pragmatic rationale for why pbca would meet fraser’s key justice principles of redistribution, recognition and representation. zipin traces how shifts in post-apartheid curriculum policy reforms have been bi-polar. that is, curriculum 2005 emphasised everyday knowledge, with outcomes defined in terms of vocational skills and competences, and left pedagogy mainly to teachers. by contrast, the caps curriculum emphasises disciplinary knowledge to the virtual exclusion of everyday knowledge, and is highly prescriptive of content, method and pacing, leaving little space for pedagogic agency among teachers. according to zipin, both of these emphases fail to interrupt how schools reproduce inequalities of social-positional power. against such bi-polarity, zipin draws on vygotskyan ideas, and on those of pragmatist philosopher of science, isabelle stengers – to argue that there are richly meaningful knowledge processes – “funds of knowledge” – in the family and community lifeworlds of students, which curriculum should bring into dialectical connection with disciplinary knowledge. the most powerful curriculum, argues zipin, would focus on problems that matter in learners’ local lifeworlds, and that link to matters of editorial 55 global concern, drawing people with diverse community-based and specialist knowledge, including students and teachers, into collaborative work upon them. davids argues in his article that black south africans’ invisibility in the historiography of the country during the colonial-apartheid period is responsible for their present day epistemic marginalisation. he proposes memory work as a counter-hegemonic approach towards constructing a representative historiographic record of south africa’s history. in the article, he reports on an inter-generational memory project that brought forcedremoval survivors and third-generation learners who shared district 6 as ancestral home, together, to exchange memories and personal knowledge about this iconic community. though this new generation did not grow up in the area they were co-constructors of building new and multiple narratives about their parents and grandparents’ birthplace through the sharing of family and community memories. davids holds their co-constructed knowledge about district 6 up as one example of how epistemic justice can be advanced when indigenous and community knowledge about marginalised black communities are valorised. murris’s article problematises the traditional ways in which the educational relationships in schools are conceptualised for its role players, and thus advanced. she describes the three aims of education as being to develop students’ intellectual, linguistic and social capabilities, with the main purpose being, to socialise them into an existing order. murris opposes the objectification of the learner, and of him/her being acted upon by the teacher as the knower in the relationship. her focus, as central to the article’s argument is subjectification, which relates to how education influences the child’s development. murris positions subjectification as an event in which the teacher’s role is to mediate the child’s engagement with curriculum. murris however, is critical of the theorising of educational relationality as a process in which a teacher educates a learner, and argues for a post human educational focus, one in which the pedagogical focus shifts away from the teacher and the learner to the relationality of the learning encounter. using barad’s posthuman methodology, murris’ reconfiguration of the educator as pregnant stingray is an attempt to shift thinking away from the knower and to advance a more egalitarian inter-relationality between learner and educator. educational theory is a central part of the teacher education curriculum and mastery of learning theories are assumed to inform teaching practice. the 6 journal of education, no. 69, 20176 premise of kwenda, adendorff and mosito’s article is that there is a disjuncture between theory and practice, a situation that arises when academics and their student teachers’ conception and understanding of theory differs. not enough is known about how student teachers perceive and understand the place, purpose and role of theory in their teaching practice and their emerging identity as teachers. in the article, he then sets out to explore the role of theoretical knowledge with a cohort of third year teaching students who had completed a 16-week teaching practice period. the article exposes the challenges embedded in some learning contexts, and the inconsistencies in how teachers practice and understand theory. some teaching students devalue theory as book knowledge that is far removed from real-life classroom situations. when tutor teachers reinforce this view and dismiss theories as impractical and of limited value when seeking practical solutions in the classroom, it serves as validation for these student teachers’ stance. some students however, over time, do develop their own theoretical understandings, and show an awareness of the relationship between the teaching curriculum and their practice. in their study of the first year experience of students at a university of technology, pather, norodien-fataar, cupido and mkonto highlight the influence of pre-university non-academic factors on the way in which students engage and participate in university structures and programmes. these factors include family support, financial status of the family, and family level of education. the paper reveals the struggles of many first-generation students, particularly those from challenging socio-economic backgrounds. the authors make a strong argument for institutions to recognize and acknowledge the preuniversity profiles of students, and to build on these students’ knowledge assets in order to provide more effective and inclusive support. in our view, this article makes a substantial contribution to the discussions of institutional structures and cultures, as foregrounded in the south african #feesmustfall movement. reed continues this theme of resilience in a fascinating manner, locating the research in an entirely different historical and geographical period. she draws on a demonstration lesson notebook, lesson commentaries, a college handbook and interviews with the compiler of the notebook to provide a vivid account of the story of a primary school teacher’s entry into the teaching profession in the australian state of victoria in the 1940s. she compares this story with studies of early career teachers in australia in the early part of the twenty-first century. the comparisons indicate both similarities and differences in the way editorial 77 in which resilience plays out in the personal and professional growth of teachers entering the profession sixty years apart. reed concludes by encouraging teacher educators and school leaders to think about how one might support students and early career teachers to become resilient members of the teaching profession. msutwana and de lange explore the difficult and essential topic of sexuality education for adolescents. they work from a premise that teachers need to understand how they themselves learnt about sexuality, and how such knowledge can enable them to teach their learners in authentic and meaningful ways. the authors show how participatory visual methodologies allowed these teachers, from four secondary schools in port elizabeth, to explore their own sexuality education within the xhosa culture. through discussions about their own drawings, the teachers were drawn into open dialogue about the relationship between sex, culture and beliefs, thus establishing their own positionality about how they would teach sexuality education. tsakeni and jita considers the mutual, but often neglected, role of followership among teachers at a school. the article uses a follower-centred approach to explore how the role of the follower co-constructs and sustains leadership. through narrative inquiry of a single case study (purposefully selected for being a top performing school in science and mathematics), the author illuminates the elements of an active follower identity. these include significant teaching experience, subject expertise and proven records of good results in learner attainments. the article further identifies a number of premises for teacher participation in co-constructing leadership processes, namely a distributed leadership configuration, continuous learning through professional learning communities, and active classroom practice. this article helps us to consider new approaches to the very topical challenge of leadership education in south africa. mestry continues on the theme of school leadership, with a focus on the perspectives and experiences of the instructional leadership function of principals at eight public schools in the ekurhuleni district of gauteng. with all their administrative and management duties, it can become challenging for a school principal to maintain a role as an instructional leader and keep the school focused on curriculum, teaching, learning and assessment. as the author argues, a lack of effective leadership in curricular issues can result in poor academic standards of learners. mestry shows how the principals in this study refute that instructional leadership is their main responsibility, seeing 8 journal of education, no. 69, 20178 their primary involvement as monitoring and control of academic standards. he makes a strong case for principals to devote more attention to instructional leadership and curriculum management, and to participate in well-constructed professional development programmes towards this end. tvet colleges have been argued to be significant locations for skills development in our country, yet, as papier and vollenhoven argue in her article, little is known about the conditions that promote the intended integration of learning and work. this research thus looks at learners’ experiences of workplace learning and their perspectives on how they might learn best. drawing on the conceptual frameworks of collective activity theory, situated learning and the vygotskian socio-culturalist paradigm, papier shows that these candidates at the tvet college experienced diverse learning modalities and affordances in their workplace settings. the central role of the expert artisan in moving candidates towards competence is shown to be a key factor for these students. this, she argues, holds important implications for how learning in the workplace should be organized and supported. the last article in this edition discusses the shortage of skills in south africa’s private and public sector. mavunga and cross contend that what is missing from debates around skills shortages, and what they called ‘employee learning’, is a holistic conceptualisation of the culture associated with such shortages. they suggest that an understanding of culture needs to go beyond the government and employer initiatives to the actual process by which employee learning takes place. they argue that it needs to take into account the employees’ biographies, identities and subjectivities as well as the social interactions which they engage in as they learn in the workplace. the authors propose a two-tier framework which integrates implications from two theories, that is human capital theory (hct) and critical realism (cr). implied in hct is the suggestion that the culture of employee learning is a function of the employer-initiated learning programmes, such as short courses offered by private employee learning service providers, adult basic education and training (abet) and block-release programmes run by some institutions of higher learning. the basic aim of these forms of learning would be to increase profitability through improved productivity which itself is a result of employees having been equipped with the requisite skills. they argue that the final architecture of the culture of employee learning is not linear but a complex and multi-layered product of such factors as the employees’ family and educational backgrounds as well as individual and collective agency, in addition to the government and employers’ initiatives. the article suggests editorial 99 that attention be paid to employees’ lived experiences which also mediate their responses to the government and employee learning initiatives. this would help with aligning government and organisational employee learning initiatives and strategies to the employees’ individual and collective workplace learning aspirations. all in all, we, as guest editors are satisfied that the foci and diversity of the articles in this special saera 2016 conference edition is representative of the range of articles that were presented at saera’s very successful fourth annual conference hosted by the faculty of education of stellenbosch university in cape town in october 2016. the conference succeeded in advancing the objective of showcasing cutting edge research and debate on educational reform and renewal and providing a platform for the on-going development of junior academics. 300 individual papers were presented, 34 symposium panel sessions, 11 special interest group sessions, and 5 development workshop sessions. the best doctoral thesis was awarded at the conference to dr talita calitz from the university of the free state. her thesis is entitled, “agency and access through digital narratives: an application of the capabilities approach to academic literacy at a south african university”. the best article award was awarded to dr kathleen pithouse-morgan (ukzn), prof. nithi muthukrishna (ukzn), dr daisy pillay (ukzn), dr linda van laren (ukzn), prof theresa chisanga (walter sisulu university), prof. thenjiwe meyiwa (durban university of technology), prof. relebohile moletsane (ukzn), dr inbanathan naicker (ukzn), dr lorraine singh (ukzn), and dr jean stuart (ukzn) for their article, ‘learning through coflexivity in a transdisciplinary self-study research supervision community’. in k. pithouse-morgan & a. p. samaras (eds), polyvocal professional learning through self-study research, 145–171, 2015 (sense publishers). we end this editorial with the statement adopted at the conference about the universities’ crisis of 2015/6, which emphasises support for free education for poor students, decolonising the curriculum, universities to remain places of safety, and for saera to develop a research agenda to take these objectives productively forward. the statement is as follows: the south african education research association (saera) affirms that education is a public good and that social justice cannot be achieved without full access to quality education. 10 journal of education, no. 69, 201710 we note that the current crisis in higher education is not a crisis of the education system alone, and thus requires a response from the whole south african society and beyond. we thus affirm and encourage creative and sustainable solutions to the funding of higher education. we urge decision makers in all sectors of civil society, the state and government to consider the unevenness of this landscape, and to take special consideration of those institutions in funding to ensure that the needs of all and especially the most vulnerable students are addressed. we express our concern at any form of violence currently being acted out, both on and off university campuses. meaningful education and negotiations cannot take place in such violent environments. we support the right of academics to participate and show solidarity, and further call for and commit ourselves to meaningful and productive negotiations with all parties. as part of the ongoing commitment to the intellectual and administrative transformation of universities, we commit ourselves to the processes of reimagining, re-designing as well as coordinating efforts and engagements with what a decolonised higher education landscape could be. microsoft word c88 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 88, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i88a02 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x improve pre-service teachers’ online learning attendance and accessibility through multiple platforms nyarai tunjera postgraduate department, faculty of education, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa tunjeran@cput.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4305-0644 agnes chigona postgraduate department, faculty of education, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa chigonaa@cput.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4293-8190 (received: 2 february 2022; accepted: 8 august 2022) abstract in this paper, we report on the use of multiple platforms to circumvent challenges associated with nonattendance because of limited accessibility to conventional video conferencing digital tools such as microsoft teams (ms teams) and blackboard collaborate. one hundred and sixty-five participating pre-service teachers were given the autonomy to connect using any of the given platforms from a prescribed list that worked for them. the platforms’ attendance tracking systems were used to gather data. the findings revealed that using multiple online platforms lowered the challenges associated with lack of access to high-end technological tools and resources. most of the registered pre-service teachers attended an average 60% of the live classes and 50% of the students strongly agreed that they had followed the recorded sessions. multiple platforms afford preservice teachers a choice on what works better for them based on the technology to which they have access to and with which they are familiar. keywords: synchronous, asynchronous, online learning, multiple platforms, pre-service teacher introduction the covid-19 pandemic lockdown meant that traditional face-to-face (f2f) learning was no longer possible. given the abruptness of the situation, teacher educators and pre-service teachers were not prepared for the transition to online learning. just like many other educators, the teacher educators and pre-service teachers did not have enough online learning 22 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 platforms for effective emergency remote teaching and learning. in some cases where online teaching and learning resources were available, educators were unprepared to use digital technology for effective remote teaching and learning (chigona & chigona, 2013). this unpreparedness was illuminated during the lockdown during which the teacher educators and pre-service teachers were not able to incorporate online learning platforms for effective teaching and learning. studies observed that teacher educators were using technology to substitute for f2f teaching strategies by uploading content with limited engagement (marioni et al., 2020). nonetheless, the unprecedented shutdown forced institutions to improvise emergency remote learning interventions, such as providing data bundles and laptops to some needy pre-service teachers. additionally, internet service providers (isps) provided free access to data to educational sites and learning management systems (lms) platforms. all this was done to enable teaching and learning to continue during the lockdown. despite these interventions, we noted with concern that the online class attendance was low, and pre-service teachers complained about problems with connectivity and the lack of appropriate devices such as laptops or desktops and high-end smartphones. in one course taught by the first author that had an enrolment of 160 pre-service teachers, the attendance record always showed between 50 and 60 attendees and, in most cases, these were the same students. this meant that over 50% of the pre-service teachers enrolled were unable to attend courses and/or access the course material and this, of course, affected their performance. attendance is an important measure of educational quality and a predictor of student success (jones, 2018). we realised that pre-service teachers had access to difference technologies to access the course content and engage with fellow pre-service teachers. for instance, some students had mobile devices that were incompatible with blackboard but worked well with ms teams. this implies a disparity of access because of diverse socio-economic differences among pre-service teachers. the purpose of the study is to illustrate how the use of multiple platforms enabled and increased pre-service teachers’ online attendance. while there are many platforms available, the researchers choose to use a combination of conventional institutional driven and nonconventional social platform to cater for all students. the platforms used in this study provide attendance statistics, assessment scores and track students' engagement with content. the study will show which platforms the students were using and how they engaged the different platforms. the findings of the study could help educational institutions to implement policies that are more sensitive to the impact that socio-economic backgrounds have on access to online learning. these policies would facilitate a balance of both conventional and nonconventional online platforms to enhance an inclusive online learning environment. study question how can the use of multiple platforms increase students’ online learning attendance? tunjera & chigona: improve pre-service teachers’ online learning attendance . . . 23 online learning design online learning is defined as learning that uses electronic devices with internet access (susilawati & supriyatno, 2020). it is referred to as e-learning or virtual learning among other terms. online learning happens across physical distance; it is not carried out in a traditional classroom setup. in this study, we explored two types of online learning, synchronous and asynchronous. synchronous online learning, on the one hand, requires an educator and enrolled students to connect in real time and interact simultaneously, despite the physical distance (khafaga, 2021; murphy et al., 2020). on the other hand, in asynchronous online learning, educators provide content and assignments via an online platform and give a timeframe for the completion of activities and for assessment to be given (watts, 2016). in this case, learning does not take place in real time; students may complete the activities in their own time within the given timeframe. the covid-19 pandemic disruption entailed physical separation, hence both synchronous and asynchronous approaches were employed in this study. the main concern was to create an inclusive online learning environment that took into account factors such as students’ home environment, issues to do with their devices, accessibility, and connectivity, to name just a few. universal design for learning the study’s design of online learning followed the principles of the universal design for learning (udl) framework designed to create inclusive learning (cast, 2011). the goal of udl is to use a variety of strategies to reduce impediments to learning by providing all students with an equal opportunity to access learning resources (cast, 2011). the udl framework is about accessibility that incorporates and takes account of what is at the disposal of the students, their strengths, and their needs. according to udl, first, learning should be offered and represented in more than one format (cast, 2011). in the case of this study, using multiple platforms afforded all students multiple options from which to choose based on what was easily available to them. second, udl suggests giving students more than one way to interact with the learning resources (johnson-harris, 2014; xie & rice, 2020). using multiple platforms gives students various ways in which to interact with content and other knowledge sources, including their colleagues. finally, udl encourages educators to create platforms that motivate students’ engagement with content (xie & rice, 2020), thus increasing online class attendance and encouraging the students to take part actively in knowledge acquisition. 24 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 online learning platforms online learning platforms refer to web-based applications that take place over the internet (yamagata-lynch et al., 2015). the strength of online learning platforms lies in the fact that teaching and learning can take place anytime and anywhere. live streaming across platforms streaming across platforms in this study refers to broadcasting simultaneously to more than one platform. streaming to multiple platforms ensures that one reaches a larger audience (vryzas et al., 2020). in this study, we did not use a streaming application, but, rather, used what was available to us within our knowledge capability. they shared the computer sound that the students could hear while they were connected through the various platforms and devices available to them. we explored how we could stream the virtual class session across platforms accessible to all students. we logged into whatsapp desktop, blackboard collaborate, ms teams, and the online radio. the move to online virtual conferencing is hailed as a positive step for continuity in learning (murphy et al., 2020). however, this does not guarantee that every student can attend because of other contributing factors such as a lack of access to resources and the know-how necessary to use these resources. researchers have raised concerns about access barriers to some students and communities (dinc, 2019). making multiple connection points help to overcome these challenges. features for online learning platforms used in the study we discuss the features of each platform used in this study comparatively. it is important to understand the diverse affordances each platform offers, what kind of learner each supports, and how accessible each is to students. blackboard is the learning management system the institution under study uses to track attendance. however, the attendance is captured manually within the system and is displayed and analysed. blackboard has an added mobile device support that has made it even more usable, considering that many students have access to this technology off campus. this implies that given enough data and bandwidth, all students could easily attend live class sessions. the blackboard collaborate function provides a video conference facility that allows students to attend live sessions using video and audio. it also has a chat section in which students can exchange knowledge or resources and consult with others in real time. ms teams is part of the microsoft office 365 suite and every registered student can easily install the application on their devices (laptop, desktop and/or mobile smart phone). the students can use their registration credentials to access ms teams. this platform has features such as video and audio facilities, a chat function in which educators and students can engage with each other in real time. ms teams also allows for files and documents to be shared among users and this includes live documents to allow for collaborative work. in terms of tunjera & chigona: improve pre-service teachers’ online learning attendance . . . 25 attendance reporting, the platform provides several tracking statistics. during the live session, participants can see the number of people who are in attendance. it provides a list of all invitees in attendance as well as a list of non-attendees. at the end of the session, an excel file detailing who has attended, the relevant time, and when they left the class is generated and sent to the meeting organiser. furthermore, there is the actual attendance feature that can be used manually. in this study, we used all these features. the mixlr platform is an internet-based radio that allows content creators to broadcast live audio in real time. a broadcaster will share their link with the targeted audience so that others can follow the broadcast. followers receive a message whenever a broadcast starts. it provides on-the-go statistics on who is attending. when students download the app and register, they will start following certain programmes for which they get notifications once a session has been launched. for this study, we used the “dr blessed nyarai’s” radio channel. whenever a show or a live class session began, a message was sent to students who would be following the radio channel. unlike the platforms discussed above, this platform offered only audio access. however, the advantage of this platform was that it was easily accessible to students via multiple devices and required very little data to run. figure 1 mixlr attendance tracking system results after every broadcast an attendance register is sent on email (figure 1). mixlr has a chat section that allows students to engage with educators and other students using text messages. in turn, the educator can read the questions or comments out loud to share with others on other platforms. students connected on mixlr receive sound that comes from the educator’s computer system speaker. 26 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 figure 2 mixlr controls, showing only speakers are on figure 3 mixlr chat window figures 1 and 2 shows that the mixlr controls can be set to use broadcasting computer speakers, just like blackboard and ms teams or any other virtual conference platform. tunjera & chigona: improve pre-service teachers’ online learning attendance . . . 27 the whatsapp platform is a widely used platform that can be accessed on mobile smart phones, laptops, and desktops. the platform complemented the other three platforms, in that students were constantly on whatsapp and could easily and quickly get connected on-the-go. class representatives managed the class groups and had set times to open the platform to nonadministrators so they could post messages, and this helped to filter unnecessary communications. in this regard, only communications pertaining to the course were allowed. reminders, announcements, and links to the other platforms were shared in the whatsapp group in time for people to join class sessions. as indicated above, the affordances of each of the platforms and what they offered, helped increase inclusiveness by using multiple platforms during the online learning. methodology we explored the use of synchronous and asynchronous multiple platforms during the lockdown for online teaching and learning and its effect on student inclusiveness. we used a combination of descriptive quantitative analysis to enhance data accuracy through meticulous statistical analysis. descriptive studies are used to document the phenomenon of interest in the real situation. this means that the case’s reality is studied and interpreted within its social context (yin, 2013). this afforded us an in-depth understanding of how the different platform engagements can be employed to enhance inclusiveness and accessibility in digitally enhanced learning. sampling method and size the study invited all 160, 3rd year enrolled professional studies pre-service teachers who were taking the information communication technologies (icts) in education course. the pre-service teachers, 160 of them, were conveniently selected from a teacher training institution to participate in using this intervention that involved many platforms. the participating pre-service teachers were destined to teach at the intermediate phase. for preservice teachers to be part of a group they had to be enrolled in the course and were given access to the platforms either by a shared link or by default of being enrolled into the professional studies module. however, for whatsapp and radio, links inviting them to join were shared on blackboard and ms teams platforms and the class representatives also shared in their other social networks. all 160 students were registered in the professional studies course and all consented to be part of the research. data collection data was collected using online surveys and the platform-generated internal tracking systems embedded into each of the three platforms, blackboard, ms teams, and mixlr radio. a google form survey link was shared with all 3rd year intermediate professional studies preservice teachers. the data collection lasted for seven weeks, and participants were reminded to complete the survey during online sessions or platforms channels. 28 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 upon clicking on the shared link, participants had to read the informed consent page before proceeding and they had to indicate yes or no to participate in the study by ticking either box. if the participant selected the no option, the system automatically exited from the survey. if the participant indicated yes, this was taken as a signature acknowledging their consent. the participating pre-service teachers responded to questions on a likert scale from 1 to 5 with 1 representing “strongly disagree” and 5 representing “strongly agree.” this likert scale was designed specifically for this research project. data analysis to understand the usage of multiple platforms, an excel package was used to capture and analyse data generated from the platforms’ track history to produce frequencies and observe relationships between variables. descriptive statistics was used as the method for data analysis. descriptive statistics allows an effective strategy to summarise and organise descriptive statistical observations (yebowaah, 2017). we familiarised ourselves with the data to recognise patterns (see hollweck, 2016). we used trace analysis to gain insights into participants’ use of the different virtual platforms. we captured the data in a worksheet and frequencies and graphs were used to interpret the findings. data was presented in tables and graphs and by deductively interpreting and presenting observations. ethical considerations we observed the ethical norms by obtaining faculty ethical clearance. consent to take part in the study was obtained from each of the pre-service teacher participants. to protect the integrity of participants, pseudocodes were used to ensure anonymity. no identity information was collected from any of the platforms nor from the google survey used. to increase the credibility of data collection, the cleaned data was shared with the students. findings and discussion the purpose of the study was to illustrate how the use of multiple platforms enabled and increased pre-service teachers’ online attendance. therefore, inclusively reaching out to most of the pre-service teachers by using the technologies they had thus increased their online course attendance. as indicated earlier, each platform has a way of providing an inbuilt attendance monitoring tracking system and the findings are an analysis of these platform tracking systems. at the end of the course, we recorded the weekly reports from the platform's tracking systems and analysed them together with the feedback we received from the evaluation survey. pre-survey and post-survey as highlighted earlier the preand post-surveys were used to explore students’ variability in terms of their access to digital technologies and applications and, finally, their experience on the different platforms suggested for use in this course. the survey responses revealed that the wide range of devices was randomly distributed; for example, some students indicated tunjera & chigona: improve pre access to low-end mobile phone. remarkably, 100% of the participants had access to the social media teams and 58% had access to platforms was mentioned by 9% laptops, and 9% had access to desktop computers. figure 4 devices used to access online classes figure 5 platforms available to students figures 4 and 5 show the types of digital technological tools for remote learning t students had access. after we access, we explored technological affordance by linking tunjera & chigona: improve pre-service teachers’ online learning attendance . . . end mobile phone. remarkably, 100% of the participants indicated th social media platform whatsapp at all times while 54% had access to teams and 58% had access to both teams and blackboard respectively. access to was mentioned by 9%. all 165 had access to a mobile device, 35% had access to and 9% had access to desktop computers. figures 4 and 5 show the types of digital technological tools for remote learning t discovered to which devices and platforms that students explored technological affordance by linking different devices synchronously. for service teachers’ online learning attendance . . . 29 indicated that they 54% had access to ccess to other device, 35% had access to figures 4 and 5 show the types of digital technological tools for remote learning to which devices and platforms that students had devices synchronously. for 30 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 example, a greater number of students had access to mobile phones and this implied, of course, that mobile-mediated platforms would work better. platform session attendance tracking after every session mixlr would send a numerical summary of tracked statistics per broadcast and ms team would provide a text file with a summary of who attended and time at which they logged in and or out. blackboard has an inbuilt attendance link that allows the educator to capture attendance manually or students could record their own attendance. on blackboard collaborate, the number of logged in participants is also displayed in real time. whatsapp was not included because it was used to complement the live platforms, and it does not have a tracking system. it was used mainly for interaction and for easily sharing notes and other resources. high volumes of interactions revealed active participation of the 160 pre-service teachers as follow-up on online class lecture presentations. therefore, whatsapp became a medium for unlimited engagements. figure 6 attendance by platform figure 6 gives a summary of attendance by platform over the 7-week period of the study. the mixlr radio platform started slowly and later grew exponentially to a high of 40 connected devices and a low of 15. this was not a popular platform at the beginning of the study because of students’ unfamiliarity with online radio platforms. it is important, therefore, for educators to continue exploring connecting options for students, especially when necessary to meet their socio-economic circumstances. the blackboard started with 25 devices and maintained a downward trend; by week 4, no device was connected to the platform because of institutional technical challenges. interestingly, we observed that there were students who depended only on blackboard to access online learning. this could have been the few students who remained in students’ tunjera & chigona: improve pre-service teachers’ online learning attendance . . . 31 residences during lockdown and could access the blackboard using the institution’s computer laboratories. this shows that infrastructure challenges are a contributing factor to the use of online platforms. these findings showed that students moved away from platforms that presented technical challenges in favour of ones that provided reliable connectivity. ms teams maintained a high device connection of more than 25 devices connected. the table below summarises the attendance statistics for each platform during the period of research. table1 attendance statistics for each platform during the research 7-week duration week ms teams blackboard radio totals across platforms week 1 65 25 15 105 week 2 45 20 27 92 week 3 40 20 30 90 week 4 46 0 20 66 week 5 55 25 40 120 week 6 45 15 27 87 week 7 40 25 35 100 platform total 336 130 194 average 94.28571 the findings show that using multiple platforms increased the number of attendances as illustrated by the table above. the table shows an average of 94 students’ attendance (59%, an improvement over the previous 37% attendance pre-research), with a maximum of 120 in week 5 and a minimum of 66 in week 5 following technical challenges at the hosting institution. week 1 to week 7 showed an improvement in attendance apart from week 4 that was affected by blackboard downtime. of all the platforms ms teams seems to have attracted more students. we assume that this could be because ms teams was the least affected by technical challenges in having no downtime. it is also possible that students gravitated towards this platform since it was the platform of preference for the educator (see oleson & hora, 2014). interesting observation is that the downtime of blackboard in week 4, may have caused the students to migrate to the next best platform in terms of availability as evidenced by the increase in attendance via mixlr. this finding implies that connectivity is a contributing factor in choosing platforms to connect from. 32 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 conclusion and recommendation the purpose of the study was to illustrate how the use of multiple platforms enabled and increased pre-service teachers’ online attendance. this study helped to determine the applicability of using different platforms for inclusivity purposes. as results showed, using multiple platforms increased students' virtual class participation from 37% on average per session to 94%. it is crucial to observe that the covid-19 pandemic lockdown highlighted the need for the inclusion of students from different socio-economic backgrounds in the digital online learning environments. this inclusiveness can be achieved by using multiple online platforms. this is in line with the research in the field of educational technology that shows that students use social media for social interaction and believe that greater use of such technologies in academic contexts would lead to increased participation and engagement (june et al., 2014). streaming across platforms is used in social sectors, so using them for teaching and learning could ensure that no students would be left behind. it is therefore recommended that educators should use many different platforms for online learning to accommodate all students despite the type of technology to which they may have access and those they are comfortable to use for remote learning. this, as evidenced in this research, improved student participation and engagement. the use of multiple platform strategies should be explored further using streaming applications, entailing educators’ need to be innovative, since this promises to reduce the digital divide caused by varying socioeconomic circumstances and to increase inclusiveness. it is further recommended that teacher educators are adequately equipped to teach effectively using the available affordable digital technologies that are accessible to marginalised student communities. in so doing, teacher educators would provide the pre-service teachers with a model of teaching that uses many different platforms that thus ensures that no learner is left behind. references cast. 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(2020). the impact of covid-19 on higher education around the world. international association of universities global survey report. https://www.iauaiu.net/img/pdf/iau_covid19_and_he_survey_report_final_may_2020.pdf murphy, l., eduljee, n. b., & croteau, k. (2020). college student transition to synchronous virtual classes during the covid-19 pandemic in northeastern united states. pedagogical research, 5(4), em0078. https://doi.org/10.29333/pr/8485 oleson, a., & hora, m. t. (2014). teaching the way they were taught? revisiting the sources of teaching knowledge and the role of prior experience in shaping faculty teaching practices. higher education, 68(1), 29–45. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-013-96789 susilawati, s., & supriyatno, t. (2020). online learning through whatsapp group in improving learning motivation in the era and post pandemic covid-19. jurnal pendidikan, 5(6), 852–859. vryzas, n., tsipas, n., & dimoulas, c. (2020). web radio automation for audio stream management in the era of big data. information, 11(4), 205. https://doi.org/10.3390/info11040205 watts, l. (2016). synchronous and asynchronous communication in distance learning: a review of the literature. the quarterly review of distance education, 17(1), 23–32. xie, jingrong, & rice, m. f. (2021) professional and social investment in universal design for learning in higher education: insights from a faculty development programme. journal of further and higher education, 45(7), 886–900. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877x.2020.1827372 34 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 yamagata-lynch, l. c., do, j., skutnik, a. l., thompson, d. j., stephens, a. f., & tays, c. a. (2015). design lessons about participatory self-directed online learning in a graduate-level instructional technology course. open learning, 30(2), 178–189. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680513.2015.1071244 yebowaah, f. a. (2017). comparative study of library and internet use as a source of information by graduate students of the university for development studies, ghana. library philosophy & practice, 1–25. microsoft word b91 full issue.docx journal of education, 2023 issue 91, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i91a01 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x the use of information and communication technology in the teaching of sesotho as a home language naledi filita department of languages in education, faculty of education, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa filitanj@ufs.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3402-8581 thuthukile jita department of curriculum studies and higher education, faculty of education, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa jitat@ufs.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1173-5251 (received: 28 february 2022; accepted: 3 march 2023) abstract this paper focuses on the use of information and communication technology (ict) in the teaching of sesotho as a home language. it seeks to answer the questions, “what causes poor adoption of the use of ict to teach sesotho in secondary schools?” and “what should be done to promote more effective adoption of ict in the teaching of sesotho as an indigenous language?” the study employed a qualitative approach. a sample of 12 teachers was drawn to participate in the study, with the sampling design adopting a multi-stage sampling technique. our findings indicated there is poor adoption of ict in the teaching and learning of sesotho among some south african secondary schools. this poor adoption may be explained in terms of a lack of ict training among teachers and a shortage of resources in schools. in line with these findings, we recommend that the department of basic education capacitates schools by continually training, motivating, and resourcing teachers. keywords: information and communication technology (ict), school quintiles, sesotho, social constructivism introduction over recent years, information and communication technologies (icts) have become operative in educational settings, drastically changing and developing the teaching and learning environment (khan et al., 2012). in the past, teaching and learning depended on materials such as textbooks, chalk, and boards. today, the situation has changed significantly, especially in the mainstream learning areas such as science, technology, 4 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 engineering, and mathematics. the drive to embrace ict-based instruction internationally arose from the need to respond to the pressure to modernise instructional practices that have gripped most education systems. more recently, pressure from the covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent need to adjust to a new normal have also provided impetus for schools to embrace ict-based teaching and learning methods. however, it should be appreciated that for ict to be effectively integrated into teaching and learning, schools should be adequately resourced and teachers appropriately trained and motivated to embrace this new approach to instruction. school resourcing and teacher capacitation to embrace ict-based methods of instruction it is not by default but rather by design that in south africa, the department of basic education (dbe)—formerly, department of education (doe)—adopted the goal of promoting e-schools (doe, 2004). in line with this goal, “the department will determine and revise regularly the basic ict tools in each institution to ensure equity and guide schools in the implementation of ict-based teaching/learning” (doe, 2004, p. 18). clearly, the department was making a conscious effort here, at least on paper, to promote ict-based instruction. however, it is not clear whether schools and teachers across the social divide have been truly and adequately resourced, motivated, and hence capacitated to fully adopt, embrace, and integrate the e-school model into the teaching of sesotho as an indigenous language. to the best of our knowledge, no research has been carried out focusing on the adoption of icts by teachers in the teaching of sesotho. there is thus, an opportunity for educational researchers to identify the status quo on the use of ict in the teaching of indigenous languages, and to assist those schools that are lagging to access ict tools and develop teacher capacity to embrace ict-based instructional practices. in this way, the e-school goal of the dbe could be achieved as the teaching and learning of indigenous languages became more effective, especially during the current post-covid-19 era and consequent need to adjust to the new normal. in the context of this study, there is also a prima facie case for establishing whether schools that are teaching sesotho, and the teachers who teach the subject, have been adequately capacitated to teach this important subject using ict-based interventions. our interest in this topic arises from the view that given the emphasis that is placed on, for example, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) subjects and languages such as english and afrikaans, the danger may exist that a subject such as sesotho may end up being overlooked. according to moodley and dlamini (2021): the need to promote the status of indigenous african languages has been driven through acts and policies of government, which were formulated at the birth of south africa’s democracy, however, the enactment of these policies has not been effective in various fields including education. (p. 8) the assumption here is that sesotho, like any other subject, should be taught effectively and efficiently. however, it is not clearly understood how teachers across our schools use ictfilita & jita: the use of information and communication technology . . . 5 based methods to teach sesotho. it is for this reason that this study sought to explore the use of ict in the teaching of sesotho as a home language. according to the south african schools act (republic of south africa, 1996), the dbe classifies schools into quintiles based on the socioeconomic status of the community that each respective school is intended to serve. factors such as the surrounding infrastructure, availability of water, sewage, and communication networks, and the number of homes in the area made from brick, wood, and iron sheeting, respectively, are considered when categorising schools into quintiles. schools are ranked from quintiles 1 to 5. quintile 1 comprises schools in the poorest areas, and quintiles 4 and 5 comprise schools in the wealthier communities. the schools in quintiles 1 to 3 are no-fee paying schools and are wholly funded by the government. on the other hand, the schools in quintiles 4 and 5 are fee paying schools that are only partially subsidised by the government. it is not clear if this division of schools into quintiles has any ramifications on the extent to which teachers are resourced and motivated to use ict when teaching. in addition to this, the literature is silent on how teachers embrace ict-based methods of instruction in the teaching of sesotho as an indigenous language. practically, the e-schooling policy as promoted by the dbe applies to all schools in the country regardless of their socioeconomic status, the quintile class to which they belong, and the subjects taught. the assumption here is that all these schools will be properly resourced and teachers adequately trained and resourced, both materially and financially, to be able to teach sesotho using ict interventions. the issues of availability and adequacy of ict resources and infrastructure that promote the integration of icts into the teaching of sesotho in south africa have not been fully explored. this study sought to close that gap by exploring the extent to which teachers in south africa have been trained, resourced, and therefore capacitated to embrace icts in the teaching of sesotho as one of the indigenous languages of the country. the study sought to answer the following research questions: “what causes poor adoption of the use of ict to teach sesotho in secondary schools?” and “what should be done to promote more effective adoption of ict in the teaching of sesotho as an indigenous language?” the status of indigenous languages in south african schools sesotho is one of south africa’s 11 official languages in south africa. specifically, sesotho is the language spoken mainly in the free state province and in the southern parts of gauteng in south africa. despite living in the democratic era, south africans continue to experience inequality in terms of the status given to the languages in the country. ndebele (2018) argued that “the status quo that prevailed during the colonial and apartheid-era featuring the dominant high status of colonial languages, versus low status of indigenous african languages remains the same in south africa” (p. 93). in addition, gumbi (2018) affirmed that african languages are still neglected in terms of their value in the basic education sector, with no exception to the use of ict in the teaching and learning of these languages. 6 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 literature review alkamel and chouthaiwale (2018) performed a literature review of english language teaching and learning, and their findings showed that using resources such as images, animations, and audio and video clips enhanced the teaching and learning of the language. those authors further stated that such ict tools are reliable for producing, preparing, and storing teaching and learning materials. nikolopoulou et al. (2019) conducted a study on early reading skills in english as a foreign language via ict in greece. one of their most reported findings in relation to skills and strategies was that the teachers used computers (high percentage of agreement, over 70%) in their classrooms for the extension of children’s vocabulary and the motivation of children to read and like reading. alkamel and chouthaiwale (2018) conducted a study in india focusing on the positive effects of ict in order to keep up with modernised communities in the current digital world. their findings indicated that ict enables english foreign language learners to discuss information in real time on various blogs, work together on projects, and search for information. those authors mentioned that using ict in foreign language teaching contributed to assisting both the teachers and the learners to adapt to the modernised world, which is full of new technological demands. contrary to the above literature, in south africa, moodley and dlamini (2021) conducted a study on the experiences and attitudes of setswana-speaking teachers with regards to using an indigenous african language on an online assessment platform. the findings of their study indicated that accuracy of translation played a significant role in adopting and using teacher assessment resources for monitoring and improving instruction (tarmii) software in an african language. their participants indicated that the use of ict is more effective in english than in african languages because the latter are not intellectual and developed enough to be used in ict. although the above studies contribute to the study of the use of ict to teach languages, the causes of poor adoption of icts to teach sesotho in secondary schools in south africa are not fully known. apparently, the norm is to teach english and afrikaans using ict-based and -supported instructional methods, both in south africa and beyond (rank et al., 2011). according to ndebele (2018), english is still a dominant language in ict and ict-based learning resources, at the expense of the indigenous african linguistic heritage. this dearth of electronic indigenous-language resources on the internet may also be true of sesotho, although the real situation on the ground was not clearly discussed. specifically, the causes of poor adoption of the use of ict to teach sesotho in secondary schools, and what should be done to promote a more effective adoption of ict in the teaching of sesotho as an indigenous language, have not been fully investigated. the present study therefore sought to close this gap by focusing on the causes of poor adoption of the use of icts to teach sesotho as an indigenous language in south africa. theoretical framework the study is guided by the social constructivism theory of lev vygotsky. the social constructivism theory is a philosophical framework premised on the view that the reality that we perceive as human beings is socially constructed (vygotsky,1978). this theory holds that people construct new knowledge based on their prior knowledge as filtered through their filita & jita: the use of information and communication technology . . . 7 interaction with factors within their organisational ecosystems (koohang et al., 2009). vygotsky developed two concepts, namely, the zone of proximal development (zpd) and scaffolding. “based on the concept of zdp, vygotsky believed that rather than seeing intelligence as something to be measured in isolation, intelligence was better understood as what a learner could do with skilled help” (cameron, 2001, p. 6). even though, at first, learners may rely heavily on the help of others, they do gradually shift towards greater independence as they acquire skills and knowledge for themselves. the second concept of scaffolding refers to support that is designed to provide the assistance necessary to enable learners to accomplish tasks and develop understanding that they would not be able to manage on their own. through these two concepts, vygotsky has encouraged learner-centred practices in the classroom, where learners construct their own knowledge while the teachers facilitate and provide support during the process. this means learners learn “through actively constructing or creating their own subjective representations of objective realities” that they seek to understand (lachica, 2015, p. 3), and in which ict could play a pivotal role in enhancing sesotho. the dbe (2013) has affirmed that ict can change a teacher’s pedagogical practices from the traditional to more task-orientated practices, thereby assuring meaningful and authentic learner learning that results in the improvement of sesotho. it is, however, not clearly understood whether schools have been properly resourced, and teachers appropriately trained, to adapt ict-based methods in the teaching of sesotho. it is against this background that social constructivism is embraced as a theoretical lens for understanding and explaining the issues at stake in this study. methodology the research paradigm that underpinned the study is interpretivism. ryan (2018, p. 9) argued that interpretivism upholds that “truth and knowledge are subjective, as well as culturally and historically situated, based on people’s experiences and their understanding of them.” the study adopted a qualitative research design (creswell, 2014), whereby data were collected using semi-structured interviews and document analysis. document analysis was used to collect data from two data sources, namely, lesson plans and policy documents used in schools. the lesson plans analysed in the study were supplied by 12 teachers who were purposively drawn from the population of interest. the lesson plans were examined to establish whether the teachers integrated ict into their practices. teachers who taught sesotho had their plan of work further selected for detailed analysis. we purposively selected teachers who taught sesotho at the secondary school level, that is, grades 8 to 12. the sample represented different types of schools in a south african context, from quintiles 1 to 4. purposive sampling was used to yield a sample of both sesotho language teachers and schools to participate in the study. this sampling technique ensured that information-rich participants participated in the study. lesson plans were examined to establish whether the teacher participants integrated ict into their practices. participants whose plan of work indicated integration of ict into their teaching were selected for further participation in the study by taking part in interviews. one teacher per quintile from quintiles 1 to 4 was 8 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 purposively selected to participate in interview discussions with the researchers. the interviews were tape-recorded. we also took field notes during the interviews. the study sought to answer the following questions: “what causes poor adoption of the use of ict to teach sesotho in secondary schools?” and “what should be done to promote more effective adoption of ict in the teaching of sesotho as an indigenous language?” ethical issues were taken into consideration when conducting the study. this included carrying out the study after ethical clearance had been secured. permission to carry out the study in the district and selected schools was also granted by the provincial doe. consent forms were given to the participants to sign, which meant that research participants were given the opportunity to make an informed decision regarding their participation in the study (de vos et al., 2011). to ensure privacy and confidentiality of data sources, the district, research sites (schools), and research participants’ real names are not mentioned in this study. instead, pseudonyms are used. this practice is supported by yin (2018), who emphasised the need for best practices in research. thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. through the data analysis process, data were read, coded, and categorised into themes. member checking was employed to ensure validity in the study. data were sent to the participants before it was used in the study to confirm accuracy (creswell, 2014). findings and discussions this section presents the findings of the study. first, we present findings concerning the availability of ict resources in the schools that participated in the study and second, on teacher training on the use of icts in the teaching of sesotho. availability of ict resources in the school ecosystem the first question upon which the study was anchored was: “what causes poor adoption of the use of ict to teach sesotho in secondary schools?” data relating to this question are presented in this section. participant 1 (quintile 1) indicated that there was a lack of resources available at his school: i am not using much of the icts, as we speak, due to lack of school-owned devices, devices that belong to schools that you can always carry to class to use. participant 1 continued to discuss the available ict resources at his school: well, my school has a computer centre, but we don’t have access to the centre. the only things that we have that we can borrow from the clerks are projectors. participant 2 (quintile 2) mentioned that his school has projectors, laptops, printers, and copying machines and the internet. this is what he said: most of the laptops that we have in our school are used by people who teach science, especially mathematics. then, the desktops are used mostly by admin clerks. the only filita & jita: the use of information and communication technology . . . 9 time that we have to use laptops is when we use our personal laptops, and we mostly use them at home. the internet at school is only reserved for administration purposes, and for teachers who teach mathematics only. but as for us who are teaching geography and sesotho and other subjects, we are finding it very much difficult to have internet access, o a bona [you see]. unlike participants 1 and 2, the school where participant 3 (quintile 3) worked was a little more advantaged in terms of availability of ict resources. participant 3 said: in our school, there is a computer lab, which we can use if we make booking arrangements on time to avoid clashes. we also have a few classes with projectors; the internet is available, printers and photocopy machines are available for use. participant 4, on the other hand, was from an even better resourced school (quintile 4) and had access to many more ict resources. this is what he said: well, we have quite a number of icts here. to list them: we have . . . printers and photocopy room with machines, projectors in most classes, ehh . . . we have both whiteboards and chalkboards, the computers are available, and we can also have access to the laptops upon request through the hods [heads of department]. the school also has the internet, and we can also teach in the computer lab where the tablets are also available for use. the first finding in this regard is that although there is so much emphasis on the importance of ict integration for teaching in south africa, there is unequal distribution of ict resources among schools in the country. this finding is in line with jita and munje (2020), who observed: despite the desire [by various stakeholders] to ensure that ict emerges as a gamechanger in the south african education system, the pace of integration in some school contexts is slower than expected. (p. 266) data in the present study seem to show that lower quintile schools generally lack the needed resources for building e-schools and hence embrace ict-based teaching. however, schools in the higher quintiles seem to have more access to ict resources. the lesson plans of teachers in quintile 4 showed more evidence of ict integration into their classroom practices than those of teachers in quintiles 1, 2, and 3. this may be because schools in quintile 4 are more equipped with ict tools than those in the lower quintiles. this view is in line with hennessy et al. (2010), who argued that the effective introduction of technology into schools requires that ict resources (such as computers, mobile devices, internet connectivity, etc.) be accessible. in addition, vygotsky’s social constructivism theory proposed that cultural tools such as computers and other technologies enable the development of children’s learning process (dong & newman, 2018; pea, 1993). in recent years, these cultural tools have included technological tools such as social media, computers, digital technologies, and so forth (macblain, 2018), which are needed to enhance the teaching and 10 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 learning of subjects such as sesotho. these ict resources activate the scaffolding process given that its purpose is to regularly delegate learning duty to the student. data in the present study seem to show that government-funded schools in south africa lag behind the fee paying schools in terms of access to ict resources that can be used for instruction. this reality seems to explain why there is so much variation in the use of ict in the teaching of sesotho across schools in south africa. teacher training on the use of icts in the teaching of sesotho the second question on which this study was premised was: “what should be done to promote more effective adoption of ict in the teaching of sesotho as an indigenous language?” in addressing this question, participants were asked if they had received training on the teaching of sesotho using ict. this section discusses their responses. participant 1 indicated that he had not received any form of training to teach sesotho using ict. he said: not in any way whatsoever. there has not been any form of training. the participants explained how they had acquired the knowledge to teach sesotho using ict even though they had not received training to do so. this is what the other participants said: i went for the internet broadcast project [ibp] trainings. so, i used what i have learned in geography training and then i apply that knowledge to the teaching of sesotho. i use the knowledge in searching and compiling the needed content and then in using the content to teach using the ict-based tools. . . . not only that, i also apply my ict skills that i gained during my university years . . . i mean, during my training as a teacher. (participant 2) well . . . i received training for ict-based teaching in some subjects other than sesotho through the many in-service workshops that i have attended. of course, the trainings are not specifically on the use of ict in the teaching of sesotho home language. so, i have to use the knowledge gained through training in other subjects and try to incorporate it into the teaching of sesotho. at university, we were also taught icts, even though it was not specifically for the teaching of sesotho. (participant 3) the department of education gave us a resource person from within the district. this person is moving around the free state, reaching all the five schools that are classified as smart schools in the district. so, because we have been identified this way, this person normally also comes here to give us training when there are new programmes that have been introduced to improve teaching practices by teachers. when such need arises, the resource person visits schools and arranges in order to train teachers. as teachers, we then apply this knowledge in teaching our home filita & jita: the use of information and communication technology . . . 11 language. . . . what i mean is that this is where we also gain skills to teach sesotho as our home language. (participant 4) the excerpts above show mixed feelings and mixed experiences among research participants concerning the extent to which they were trained in using icts in the teaching of sesotho as home language. these differences seemed to align with the category of school of each respective participant. participant 1 indicated that he had not received any training on the use of ict-based interventions in the classroom. participants 2, 3, and 4 had similar experiences, and they all alluded to having attended teacher training and development programmes from which they gained ict skills that they transfused into the teaching of sesotho. the training they received on ict integration into the classroom focused on subjects other than sesotho. however, they applied this knowledge to the teaching of home languages. this situation suggests that there is no training in the district focusing on training teachers to integrate icts into the teaching of sesotho in particular. furthermore, data presented above suggest that university education comprises part of the training that teachers view as important for integrating icts into their classroom practices. data presented above further show that in some schools, the dbe is helping to train teachers to integrate icts into their classroom practices. however, the training does not focus on sesotho. the major finding in this regard is that some teachers teaching sesotho have not received any training in using ict resources in their teaching of sesotho. on being asked whether they had received any training in the teaching of sesotho, the participants responded that they had not received specific training in using ict to teach sesotho. this shows that some teachers of sesotho have not received any form of training in using ict to teach sesotho. conclusions and recommendations this study explored the use of icts in the teaching of sesotho as a home language in south africa. the purpose of the study was to unpack the causes of poor adoption in using icts in the teaching of sesotho as a home language in selected secondary schools in one district in the free state province. our first major finding was that there are disparities in the availability of ict resources in the schools studied. these disparities are associated with the categorisation of schools into quintiles. schools in the higher end of the continuum (i.e. quintile 4) seem to be more resourced in terms of ict tools than those on the lower end of the continuum (i.e. quintile 1). the second major finding in this study was that although teachers appreciated the importance of ict training for purposes of teaching, there is a lack of training focusing specifically on the teaching and learning of sesotho. those teachers who received some form of training in using icts for instructional purposes received that training when learning to teach other subjects, such as geography, either through in-service training programmes or during teacher education at university. the dbe has also assigned resource persons to train teachers in those schools identified as smart schools. all participants in this study appreciated the notion that ict tools ensure effective teaching and learning of sesotho. this is because these tools ensure that learning 12 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 processes do not completely depend on traditional methods of teaching, especially in the face of change—first, in response to modernisation and then, to covid-19 restrictions and the subsequent need to adjust to the new normal. the greatest challenge regarding ict integration into the teaching of sesotho as a home language is that there are very few electronic resources on the internet. this means there are limited sources of information on the internet that are usable for the teaching of sesotho, and which can save this endangered language from extinction. against the backdrop of these findings, we make certain recommendations. first, we recommend that more electronic resources in terms of reading materials should be provided and made available to teachers through the internet. second, we recommend that teachers across all schools that teach sesotho be trained in the use of ict resources for the teaching of sesotho. these teachers should also be motivated and materially resourced so that they are able and willing to embrace ict-based methods of instruction in the teaching of sesotho. this could be achieved through collaboration between the dbe, schools, and institutions of higher learning. the collaboration could involve ongoing training of teachers and the production of electronic resources that could be housed on the dbe’s website or the websites of universities and be accessible for teachers. what this means is that all knowledgeable stakeholders in the field of sesotho may need to be involved in the production and dissemination of learning materials for sesotho should schools effectively embrace ictbased instructional practices. since the present qualitative study involved only a few schools in a single district, we recommend that a broad study be carried out to expand on the knowledge garnered through this study. references alkamel, m. a. a., & chouthaiwale, s. s. 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(2018). case study research (6th ed.). sage. introduction part iii achieving ‘free education’ for the poor – a realisable goal in 2018? shireen motala since 1994 and the advent of democracy, government and universities have pursued equity in higher education in the context of limited public finances, leading to uncomfortable choices and decisions to be made. this resulted in widespread reaction and student protests in 2015 and 2016. a focus on equity and redress, without support for students who come poorly prepared from the schooling system, has negative implications for quality, limiting the production of high quality graduates with requisite knowledge, competencies and skills. this introduction addresses some of the major fault lines in the debate on education funding and resource allocation, identifying key issues and the seemingly intractable trade-offs associated therewith. these issues include: free or ‘fee free’ education for all or for the poor; expansion, massification and equity across the education sector; the articulation of schooling with higher education; education as a private and public good; and models and processes for achieving equity in education funding distribution. the final two articles in this special issue address the relationships between education equity and social equity, and social and cultural capital. the first article, by samukelisiwe mngomezulu, nicholas munro and rubby dhunpath, poses the counterintuitive question of whether funding is counterproductive to academic success, and investigates this in relation to the experiences of ‘at-risk’ students in a south african university. the authors observe that the high enrolment, high dropout and slow throughput scenario persists in spite of the increase in government and other funding for higher education students, and has had dire financial consequences for students and their families. drawing on data from a qualitative ethnographic study, the paper uses bourdieu’s cultural capital theory, which incorporates the 16 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 influence of the family on academic activity across historically evolving institutional systems, to highlight the crisis of student alienation and their difficulties in navigating a new and unfamiliar learning environment. their findings suggest that a seemingly positive event, such as the allocation of funding, may have far-reaching academic consequences and include the risk of academic exclusion. as a result, there is a need for higher education institutions to design interventions to curb financial illiteracy among their students. the second article, entitled food and housing challenges: (re)framing exclusion in higher education, by yasmine whitehead, begins by observing that food and housing challenges in higher education are increasingly apparent on a global scale, and south africa is no exception. the rising cost of living coupled with consistent fee increases has meant that students are struggling to access basic necessities such as food and shelter. the recent and ongoing #feesmustfall movement has, among other things, signalled that large numbers of students are experiencing material hardships, and are unable or unwilling to continue to pay the high cost of attending higher education institutions. the article argues that exclusion from higher education based on material hardship should be given more attention, given that much of the literature on exclusion tends to focus on academic barriers and challenges with respect to epistemological access. the article itself provides a platform for a critical examination of the assumptions and core features of selected institutional responses to food and housing challenges in higher education in south africa. some of the key themes from these two papers, in particular on the relationship between social equity and education equity, are discussed further below. expansion, massification and equity the increasing demand for higher education, due to globalisation and the rise of the knowledge economy, is reflected in fast-growing higher education enrolments in sub saharan africa, with a growth of 10% annually between 2004 and 2009 (wangenge-ouma, 2010) at the same time the provision of higher education has been shifting from an elite system to one promoting universal access, leading to a review of education financing models. equitable motala: achieving ‘free education’ for the poor. . . 17 access to higher education appears to be based on two criteria: there must be sufficient places so that all members of society who want to, and who have academic experience and ability to do so, can participate in higher education; and individuals must have a fair opportunity of obtaining a place in the institution of their choice (mccowan, 2007). this principle of fairness and equality of opportunity underlies the nature of the student demands in 2015/ 2016 in south africa – no exclusion if students qualify in terms of admission criteria, and access to institutions they choose. the latter point presents a powerful challenge to the current bifurcated tertiary education landscape (allais, 2016). consider the statistics in relation to the major indicators of access, efficiency, quality and resource allocation in tertiary education. student enrolments have increased dramatically, by 67% between 2002 and 2014, and the major growth has been in african enrolment, reaching 70% of the total student population. in the same period, the growth in permanent academic staff was 20%, and the headcount staff: student ratio grew to an alarming 1:55 from an earlier base of 1:40 (simkins, 2016). cohort studies (council on higher education (che), 2013, p.15) show that of the students entering a three-year degree, less than half complete, and of those who do, up to 50% take up to six years to graduate. one in four students (excluding those at unisa) drops out before the second year of study. only 35% of the total intake, and 48% of contact students, graduate within five years. while allowance is made for students taking longer than five years to graduate or who are returning to the system after dropping out, it is estimated that some 55% of an intake will never graduate. access, success and completion rates continue to be racially skewed, with white student completion rates being on average 50% higher than african rates. mngomezulu, munro and dhanpath (2017) in this volume, illustrate poignantly, how poverty and the lack of sufficient funding have consistently been cited as key reasons for student academic failure and progression difficulties. the evidence suggests that while financial assistance in itself is not a risk factor, students’ perceptions of their needs and their ability to prioritise how to meet these needs, can impact on the choices they make which in turn can impact academic success. these authors find that students continue to be faced with conflicting pressures of either prioritising their own, or their family’s financial needs. 18 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 the proportion of government funding to universities decreased from 49% in 2000 to 40% in 2014 (cloete, 2016). the shortfall was made up through student fees, which increased by 42% from 2010 to 2014. this is an increase of 9% per annum in contrast to the 5% to 6% inflation rate. what is apparent is that we have a higher education system under considerable strain, with low throughputs, rising enrolments, high staff to student ratios, and an unsustainable funding base, with poor nsfas loan recovery. to maintain a competitive edge in a rapidly transforming knowledge economy, countries need to invest more in quality education. but historically, south africa has not invested enough in higher education (less than 1% of gdp), nor has it reached its own target of 1% on research and development, a figure which is well below international targets. most comparable countries are spending closer to 2% of gdp, and some, like china, 3% (cloete, 2016) . as a percentage of gdp, higher education funding decreased to 0.67% in 2015. evidence of a system under strain is illustrated by steady reductions in building maintenance, and enrolment caps where enrolment growth exceeded the real growth in the public funding of education. for example, whitehead (2017) in this volume observes as early as 1998 there were signs that nsfas was being funded at inadequate levels and that the amount of funds disbursed to individual students was not sufficient to cover the actual cost of attending higher education. while the nsfas funding increased rapidly to r17 billion in 2017, she notes that fees continue to rise higher than nsfas funding, and there are concerns about maladministration. the nsfas model, also did not accommodate the ‘missing middle’ who do not meet the criteria for such funding, but whose socio – economic status excluded them from accessing tertiary education. a key priority in relieving funding pressures is to improve the internal effectiveness and efficiency of the higher education system and, indeed, the schooling system, bringing to the fore the relationship between equity and efficiency. this requires systematic interventions to address the knowledge and skills gap between school and university, through restructuring a curriculum and qualification structure which is not suited to the socioeconomic and educational background of students entering higher education. this is addressed in the section below. motala: achieving ‘free education’ for the poor. . . 19 equity across the education system – articulating schooling and higher education with the 2018 target date for meeting education for all goals imminent, education quality and reform remain key south african development challenges. education for all has been a consistent theme in government policy development since the advent of democracy in 1994. the overriding purpose has been to promote equitable and universal access to meaningful learning opportunities in schooling. there has been progress towards equity, equality and redress in post-apartheid south africa, and yet a sobering reality, noted by the national planning commission (2011), is that an estimated 48% of the population live on less than us$2 a day, and that, at 0.67, the gini coefficient is the highest in the world (mail & guardian, 30 september 2016). the unemployment rate in south africa increased to 27.7 percent in the first quarter of 2017 from 26.5 percent in the previous period. it is the highest jobless rate since the first quarter of 2004 as unemployment rose faster than employment than people joining the labour force (trading economics, 2017). in recent years, key education indicators have shown that mastery of basic competencies is at a very low level. this has strong implications for employment and economic growth. it has led to much policy and research activity, reflected in, for instance, the development bank of southern africa’s road map process in 2010, the national planning commission findings in 2011, the national education evaluation and development unit (needu) report in 2012 and the department of basic education’s action plan 2014. these findings and the surge in the numbers of students qualifying for university entrance suggested that the schooling system is not preparing students at the right level. a number of studies tracking particular groups of students have provided a more nuanced account, suggesting that the nsc learners are capable but have a different skill set, or that the nsc is a reliable predictor at the top end of the achievement scale (motala, 2014). the recent che task team report which proposes a four-year undergraduate degree shows the extent to which south africa is not getting the graduates it needs: “just half of those who start a degree programme at our universities get a degree”. it then notes that “poor academic preparation at school” is “the 20 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 dominant learning-related reason” for poor university performance – but that there is “no prospect” that the schooling sector will be able to produce the numbers of adequately prepared matriculants that higher education requires “in the foreseeable future” (che, 2013, 16f). the che report makes other important observations relevant to the quality of current matriculants and their prospects for throughput into the post-secondary sector. it notes that “despite there being a small intake that has good academic potential, performance in higher education is marked by high levels of failure and dropout”. what is clear is that there is insufficient differentiation in the system to meet the needs of all students. although structured differentiation could come to reflect the inequalities in our society, the absence of such pathways has not prevented this outcome in practice. the primary recommendation of the ministerial committee on the national senior certificate (2012) was that the nsc – the terminal school qualification after twelve years of schooling – should provide a more accurate assessment of learner capabilities, and direct learners to the most appropriate post-school opportunities in further education, tertiary education or the labour market. a more detailed differentiation between levels of nsc passes, and a review of the requirements, could ensure that all learners, irrespective of level, have the appropriate skills and knowledge. the review of the requirements includes the removal of life orientation from the nsc curriculum, raising the requirements for language of teaching and learning (lolt), and removing the provision for failing one subject from diploma and bachelors passes. these could provide better predictors of success in further and higher education, and to adequately prepare learners to meet the demands of the 21st century. in short, the proposed changes could contribute to addressing equity of opportunities and outcomes at all levels of the education system. mngomezulu et al. (2017) highlights both academic and non-academic support mechanisms that are needed to bridge the transitional gap between secondary school and university. cultivating competencies in attaining pedagogic access are equally important as providing empowering literacies and life skills for psycho-socio economic survival at university. how students negotiate alienating dilemmas of being socialised into university environments needs to be opened up for more rigorous enquiry, the authors argue. what is affordable, and for whom is discussed in the following section. motala: achieving ‘free education’ for the poor. . . 21 in the recent wave of student protests in 2015 and 2016, the calls for free education1 were made . there were many variants to this discussion, fee free education for all, focussed specifically on the demand for no fees for all students, the free education for all advocates included fees and the related full costs of education provision, which included housing and subsistence, and free education for the poor proposes a model, which differentiates students into groups or categories based on parental income. free education for all and free education for the poor – addressing inequality calculations of the cost of providing free higher education often draw on examples from developed countries. in africa, early post-independence provision of free higher education was for small numbers, and proved to be unsustainable. research from africa and latin america argues that free public education benefits the rich far more than the poor, because students from the wealthier classes are in a better positions to compete for access to selective public universities, while all but the most gifted students from poorer backgrounds are relegated to private fee paying institutions or public institutions of low quality. oketch (2003) highlights distributional problems in education funding in sub saharan africa with strong competition between the basic and higher education, archer (2015) argues that this situation is regressive in that the poor subsidise the rich, and barr (2004) notes that even in oecd countries state higher education subsidies predominantly benefit the rich. in our current discourse, there is a slippage between the concepts of ‘fee-free education’, ‘free education for all’ and ‘free education for the poor’. the1 different concepts have different consequences. cloete (2016, p.4) argues that, in a developing country, the call should be for “affordable higher education for all”, with a clear understanding that affordable means different costs for different social groups. this can be expanded to the provision of free education for the poor, with an agreed definition of which strata of society constitute ‘the poor’ (motala, 2016). as the articles by whitehead and by mngomezulu et al. in this volume make clear, while a fee remission is an important equity gain in a society characterised by high levels of inequality and poverty, a consideration of social inequity also requires attention to the full package required of accommodation, books and subsistence. whitehead, citing van den berg and rubenheimer (2015), describes a lack of food and 22 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 housing as a “powerful force” which may be contributing to poor academic performance, the inability to meaningfully participate in campus life and contribute to attrition. it has been argued that not having access to food in particular, could be one more reason why more than half of higher education students in south africa never graduate and that hunger in higher education institutions contribute to the high drop out rate (cited above). proponents of ‘free education for all’ suggest that current models, which classify households into income groups and apply means tests, are flawed, because they lead to increased vulnerability for the poor, high levels of indebtedness, reduced savings towards retirement and a compromised standard of living (oxfam, 2016). instead, one might consider increasing corporate tax from 28% to 30%, and the skills development levy from 1% to 3%, and dealing decisively with corruption. such an approach, which concentrates on the structural aspects of inequality and uses tax revenues for the purpose of higher education funding, is preferable to the idea of a differentiated approach to the ‘rich’ and ‘poor’. also persuasive is the argument to make free education available to the poor, based on the available disposable income of the family, through a differentiated post school system, with differentiated funding and fees. teferra (2016) notes that a number of african universities, in uganda, malawi and kenya, have moved away from free higher education for all, to cost sharing and to ensuring that university resource bases are both consolidated and diversified. this view for a redistributive model is gaining support in south africa, with the premise that free education must be made available to the poor and ensuring that the wealthy paid their share. wangenge-ouma (2010) notes that in south africa, with the shift from an elite to a more representative student population, the needs are greater, and must include the full package for the poorest in our society. in their empirical research, mngomezulu et al. (2017) show how the lack of experience and inability to handle money responsibly, proved to be a huge challenge for students who receive financial assistance, especially where students do not have the requisite skills to manage such funds. it is evident that students would benefit from prior training in and orientation to money management and budgeting as a life skill before transitioning from high school to further education. a pressing question is who higher expenditure benefits; the individual (private returns ) or the society ( social returns). this is considered in the next section. motala: achieving ‘free education’ for the poor. . . 23 public and private goods – returns to education higher education is arguably both a private and a public good, and there is a trend worldwide to expect individuals to pay more for the costs of their higher education. as noted earlier, decreases in state expenditure on higher education meant that student fees had to be increased to compensate for the lack of income. the profitability of investing in education can be calculated by undertaking a cost benefit analysis which reviews the social and private returns to education. higher education has a major effect on economic development and private returns. in sub saharan africa, returns to tertiary education are higher than returns to schooling, and south africa has one of the highest returns to higher education in the world. psacharoupoulos and patrinos (2002) show that rates of return for all levels of education in sub saharan africa are the highest in the world, with the private returns on higher education being especially high. very little research on this issue has been done for sa, but some earlier research (psacharoupoulos, 1994) does show that the social returns to education at all levels is higher than the rest of the world. in south africa, higher education brings considerable rewards to post matric qualifications, in terms of both wages and employment opportunities. so the private rate of return to education presents a persuasive argument for an increase in private fees, but the high social returns also indicate that investment in education is a profitable investment for the state since it impacts on positive externalities such as health and welfare (villiers and steyn, 2007). two factors preventing the effective development of the system is the slow growth and credibility of the post school system, the inefficiencies across the education system, and the concomitant capacity constraints. south africa has high returns to graduate employment and high tax collection which could bolster the argument for low fees or no fees. but low graduation rates make this a less feasible option. wangenge-ouma and cloete (2008) suggest that south africa's higher education system can be characterised as low government investment and low effective participation with very high costs. it is highly affordable for the elite, relatively affordable for the middle class with loans and debt, and totally unaffordable for the poor. for south africa to drive development and growth, government needs to invest more in tertiary education, increase participation with improved completion rates, and establish a differentiated fees structure. 24 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 moreover, to effectively contribute to economic growth and development a much higher participation rate (in the realm of 30%–50%) is required in higher education, well above the current rate of 20%. a che report suggests that higher education needs “between twice and three times as many wellprepared entrants as the pre-tertiary sectors [schools and colleges] are currently producing – around 100 000 additional candidates”. but neither the schooling nor the further education and training (fet) college systems make this achievable in the “foreseeable future” (che, 2013, p.17). modelling funding equity – task teams and progress over the last five years, several ministerial task teams and commissions have examined the chronic underfunding of higher education. these include teams led by deputy president cyril ramaphosa (2012), derrick swartz, vice chancellor of nmmu (2013), sizwe nxasana, chairperson of nsfas and the ceo of fnb (2015), and the che (2016). in november 2015, amid nationwide student protests over fees and funding, the president appointed judge heher to lead another commission to investigate the funding of fee-free higher education. the findings of this commission are yet to be publically released.the general remit of these teams, committees and commissions was and is to assess the possibility and promise of free tertiary education. the investigations have differed in their origin and scope; some being initiated by government, and others outside of this. alongside these deliberations, independent researchers along with civil society organisations, usaf, nsfas and a number of tertiary institutions have built up a significant body of knowledge on higher education funding (motala, 2016). a number of models have been presented, with different scenarios, including their likely impact in a context of low economic growth with a constrained fiscus. questions have been asked about the viability of the current funding model, and about whether, in a developing country, free higher education is affordable or even desirable. current mechanisms for dispensing student financial aid are also under intense scrutiny; and a more equitable allocation of resources for the entire education sector, one which is viable, credible and inclusive, is being considered. the relationship between poverty, access to quality education, and societal change has put such systemic issues into sharp focus. motala: achieving ‘free education’ for the poor. . . 25 among the substantive proposals from these investigations are a review of the nsfas funding model, an increase in the tax base, a graduate tax or a notional loan scheme payable on employment, a wealth tax, a corporate tax, and an increase in the skills levy. there seems to be unequivocal consensus that any new funding model must be based on a social justice approach – simply put, no academically achieving and deserving student should be excluded from university because they cannot afford it. publicly funded tertiary education for the poorest in our society, who meet the criteria for academic merit, must be made available as soon as possible. there is also agreement on certain key principles, which has shifted the discourse in a distinct manner: for example, that full cost provision for the neediest students must include accommodation, food and books; that the ‘missing middle’ students who are outside the nsfas criteria must be supported through a combination of grant and loans to guarantee their access; that funding for higher education must increase, and that a possible revision of the gdp contribution from 0.7 % to 1%–1.5% must be considered. undoubtedly, the diverse skills needs of our society and economy require serious attention to the entire cohort of young people in the 18–24 age group, and their learning needs (motala, 2016). students have put into sharp focus the inequalities in our society, and demonstrated their deep frustration with numerous inconclusive funding review processes alongside poor governance, corruption and wastage. at the same time, the student movement appears fragmented, and their ultimate objective is not clear. to end the impasse, proposals need to translate into firm and achievable short, medium and long term commitments. some of the proposals which require serious consideration are: ! for 2018, the conversion of the current nsfas loan scheme to a grant scheme for students whose parents are in the income bracket of r120 000. this must be available to all students who are eligible in terms of academic merit. ! between 2017 and 2018, the grant and loan scheme for the ‘missing middle’ (whose parents earn between r120 000 and r600 000) should be implemented, using the model of the ikusasa student financial aid scheme, based on a public-private partnership model. 26 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 ! the principle that those who earn above this threshold should pay fees and increases, must be maintained, thereby releasing more resources for poor and less affluent students. ! ensuring that the historic debt does not financially exclude students from entering academic studies in 2018, if they have succeeded academically in 2017. ! concluding by august 2017 a medium to long term plan for equitable funding for quality higher education. this would include reviewing the tax regime, the skills levy and the gdp allocation, and improving loan recovery, against the backdrop of the economic impact of such reforms. the macro funding principles embedded in the above commitments are cost sharing, efficiency and quality, and education as a public good. the degree of consensus on the above, provides a mandate for treasury, dhet and all key stakeholders to apply innovative and new thinking to the funding of higher education. and all can claim the victory for the provision of publicly funded higher education for the most needy in our society. this will go a long way to contributing to the much needed stability we require in our increasingly fragile higher education sector. mngomezulu et al. and whitehead, through empirical review, case studies, policy and literature review, and provide a nuanced understanding of equity, equality and the provision of higher education funding , contributing meaningfully to the above discussion. references allais, s. 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(2003). affording the unaffordable: cost sharing in higher education in sub-saharan africa. peabody journal of education, 78(3), 88–106. oxfam, 2016. financing, not funding, mechanism needed. proquest 26, november. psacharoupoulos, g (1994). returns to investment in education: a global update. world development, 22(9), 1325–1343 psacharoupoulos, g. and patrinos, h. (2002). returns to investment in education: a further update. world bank policy research working paper 2881. simkins, c. (2016). funding. south african higher education reviewed: two decades of democracy. in kagisano (10), council on higher education, 39–115. teferra, d. (2016). african flagship universities: their neglected contributions. higher education, 72(1), 79–99. trading economics (2016). https://tradingeconomics.com/southafrica/unemployment-rate van den berg, l., & raubenheimer, j. (2015). food insecurity among students at the university of the free state. south african journal of clinical nutrition, 28 (4), 160–169. villiers p. and steyn, g. (2007). the changing face of public financing of higher education, with special reference to south africa. south african journal of economics, 75(1), 139–154 motala: achieving ‘free education’ for the poor. . . 29 wangenge-ouma, g. (2010). funding and the attainment of transformation goals in south africa’s higher education. oxford review of education, 36(4), 481–497. wangenge-ouma, g., & cloete, n. (2008). financing higher education in south africa: public funding, non-government revenue and tuition fees. south african journal of higher education, 22(4), 906–919. shireen motala professor in the faculty of education senior director: research and innovation postgraduate school university of johannesburg smotala@uj.ac.za mailto:smotala@uj.ac.za 30 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 microsoft word c88 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 88, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x book review teaching and learning for change: education and sustainability in south africa (2021) edited by ingrid schudel, zintle songqwaru, sirkka tshiningayamwe and heila lotz-sisitka (african minds. isbn:978-1-928502-24-1) john bhurekeni department of education, faculty of education, rhodes university, makhanda, south africa bhurekenijohn@ymail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2634-9780 (received: 2 march 2022) one of the paradoxes of postcolonial education—one that contradicts many of its hopeful narratives, particularly in southern africa—is how coloniality remains persistent over time. this continued coloniality is made more noticeable by african governments’ poor or slow response to the challenges of low and inequitable access to education, irrelevant curricula and poor learning outcomes, insufficient education financing, poor education system capacity, and the weak link with the world of work (kallaway, 2020). teaching and learning for change: education and sustainability in south africa, edited by ingrid schudel, zintle songqwaru, sirkka tshiningayamwe, and heila lotz-sisitka, provides a perceptive and thorough response to these challenges. the contributors recognize contemporary educators as redemptive actors in education for sustainable development through the mediation of active and critical approaches to learning. however, the book also demonstrates that teacher and learner agency have limits if education is defined “via the modernist development trajectory” (p. 6). i had assumed that those limits were economic and political, but the 20 authors in this volume, including the editors, illustrate how pedagogical and curriculum abstraction excludes learners from an active learning life, and propose practical and doable solutions to avoid the pedagogical muddle and curriculum decontextualization that currently exist in schools (lotzsisitka, 2009). south africa’s national fundisa [teaching] for change programme that inspired this volume, encourages teachers to teach for change. as a result, teachers are being urged to take a step towards the democratisation of education, precisely education for sustainable development, in a national context that is still fraught with exclusions and inequalities. the themes of teacher empowerment, democratisation, and/or decolonisation of education have 162 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 received much attention in postcolonial regions of the world, including south africa, and they remain topical and relevant. this is, first, because they continue to be referenced in discussions about educational quality and curriculum changes and, second, because they are a difficult subject to plough through given the many stumps of conservative loyalists of the hegemonic colonial system of education that stick out of the political ground to halt the would-be promoter. however, one of the secrets to appreciating the uniqueness of the case studies presented in this edited volume is the authors’ expert understanding of teaching and learning, as well as the practical integration of environment and sustainability topics and themes into the curriculum in ways that are “oriented towards more sustainable and socially just societies” (p. 16). the book is divided into four sections: section a addresses environmental content knowledge in the curriculum, section b looks at transformative pedagogies for environment and sustainability learning, section c is concerned with assessing environmental learning, and section d considers teacher professional development for environment and sustainability learning. section a, comprised of six chapters (2–7), begins with a positioning paper that establishes a classical reference point for the chapters that follow in its main exploration of the nature of environmental content knowledge in the curriculum. the authors of this section are convinced that recontextualising the knowledge of scientists is an important starting point for “knowledge-building in environment and sustainability education” (p. 26), but they point to a need to consider situating the emergent environmental knowledge(s) within the broader possibility of social-ecological systems thinking. interesting for me in this section, is the salient issue of how recontextualisation of curriculum content knowledge opens space for the inclusion of a broader conception of knowledges that lead potentially to the undoing of continuities of coloniality and to improving access to equitable education (see lotz-sisitka, 2016 and padayachee et al., 2018). section b begins by theorising the notion of active learning that was, as revealed in the chapters in this section, one of the central principles guiding the fundisa for change programme. active learning involves making use of transformative pedagogical approaches that are sensitive to the learners’ needs, interests, abilities, and attitudes and that also engage them in the learning processes as al-odwan (2016) and o’donoghue (2007) have reminded us). the chapters in this section focus on how “active, critical and situated pedagogies interface with environment and sustainability-orientated disciplinary knowledge” (p. 17) and how these pedagogies could assist learners to take up agency in inquiry-based and problemsolving activities. to demonstrate how learner agency could be enhanced, some of the chapters suggest the use of reflexive heritage-based practices and products such as stories and pictures that are sufficiently imbued with the experiences relevant to the life worlds of the learners. by so doing, the curriculum, at least potentially, becomes relevant to the learners, thus translating into improved learning outcomes. in section c, the focus is on assessing environmental learning and the position paper that informs this section is “developed in the context of the fundisa [teaching] for change bhurekeni: book review 163 teacher education programme (www.fundisaforchange.co.za), as well as the sustainability starts with teachers programmes for teacher education (www.sustainabilityteachers.org/course)” (p. 201). the two programmes are both located in southern africa, with the former focusing primarily on south africa and the latter branching out to other parts of the region. in the introductory chapter to this section, an argument is made that “teacher quality, not teacher supply” is a key determinant of the quality of learning in schools (p. 257). the authors advocate for continual professional teacher development based on the hypothesis that deficiencies in teacher training occur, potentially, because of changes in time and patterns of cultural practices, they recognise that teachers need, always, to mediate contextual relevance (see mavuru & ramnarain, 2018). contextualising learning helps learners to best answer the question “why am i learning this?” and it helps learners to transfer knowledge into its appropriate context. the need for continual teacher training is made more indisputable in chapter 16 where the authors discuss inadequate pedagogical content knowledge as a barrier to effective teaching of biodiversity. given the education challenges that i highlighted earlier on, it is understandable that the authors in this section do not offer prescriptive suggestions on how teacher professional development has to be done. rather, the authors invite us to join a conversation on how teacher educators can provide more sustained and contextualised teacher professional development engagement. a realist approach to evaluating the fundisa for change training programme is offered in the final chapter of this section, which is also the final chapter of the book. what realism does is make room for a truthful, non-speculative representation of subject matter; it embeds the objective and scientific, and opposes subjectivity (pawson & tilley, 1997). while the fact that realities are socially constructed, and therefore subjective, may be an immediate critique of the realist-based approach to evaluating the project that has made use of other approaches such as the transdisciplinary one, pedagogical content knowledge (pck) framework, and sociocultural theory, it is important to note that for a nationally funded programme like fundisa for change, providing an honest account of the project’s process is crucial. perhaps one might argue that this book does not seek or provide a comprehensive understanding of the theories and philosophies, especially ubuntu that is associated with the indigenous lifeworld discussed in most case studies in this book. however, the authors have provided us with the most outstanding work to date on how best to present context-based environment and sustainability issues in a curriculum through creating a synergy between the official school curriculum and lifeworld praxis. this book is important if for no other reason than that the authors teach us that teaching and learning for change is a multi-actor activity that is best doable when teachers are empowered as curriculum agents in the true sense of the word. 164 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 references al-odwan, y. (2016). effectiveness of active learning strategy in improving the acoustic awareness skills and understanding what is heard by the basic stage students in jordan. educational research and reviews, 11(20), 1896–1905. kallaway, p. (2020). the changing face of colonial education in africa: education, science and development (1st ed.). routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003001904 lotz-sisitka, h. (2009). epistemological access as an open question in education. journal of education 46, 57–79. lotz-sisitka, h. (2016). absenting absence: expanding zones of proximal development in environmental learning processes. in l. price & h. lotz-sisitka (eds.), critical realism, environmental learning and social-ecological change (pp. 318–339). routledge. mavuru, l., & ramnarain, u. (2018). relationship between teaching context and teachers’ orientations to science teaching. eurasia journal of mathematics, science and technology education, 14(8), em1564. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/91910 o’donoghue, r. (2007). environment and sustainability education in a changing south africa: a critical historical analysis of outline schemes for defining and guiding learning interactions. southern african journal of environmental education, 24, 141– 157. padayachee, k., matimolane, m., & ganas, r. (2018). addressing curriculum decolonisation and education for sustainable development through epistemically diverse curricula. south african journal of higher education, 32(6), 288–304. https://doi.org 10.20853/32-6-2986 pawson, r., & tilley, n. (1997). realistic evaluation. sage. journal of education, 2017 issue 67, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za the role of museums in learning to teach with a critical lens sarita ramsaroop (received 19 august 2016; accepted 8 may 2017) abstract this study set out to explore the potential of student teachers learning to teach apartheid era history to learners in the primary school when learning in apartheid museums is blended with coursework. using qualitative methods of inquiry, the findings show that student teachers learning in museums that dovetail with coursework at the university strengthens their ability to ‘know, think, feel and act like a teacher’. the multiple narratives contributed towards addressing misconceptions, strengthened citizenship and pedagogic content knowledge, fundamentals that can equip student teachers to teach apartheid era history with an informed lens. the study highlights the importance of developing in student teachers investigative skills before and after museum visits so as to ensure that they are not merely consumers but are able to interrogate multiple narratives, resulting in them being active producers of knowledge. background to the research this study sets out to explore the effects of blending learning in apartheid museums with coursework on student teachers learning to teach apartheid era history to learners in the primary school. second year social science intermediate phase student teachers from a university in johannesburg study the apartheid era in their coursework. dovetailing with coursework, student teachers are taken to museums in gauteng that depict the apartheid struggle to gain a hands-on learning experience from different sources of knowledge. the museums visited are the liliesleaf farm, constitution hill, apartheid museum, mandela house and hector pieterson museum. in designing the museum visits, i draw on rohlf (2015), who indicated that advanced, critical learning can be achieved in field trips through designing a field trip in three phases: the pre-trip, the trip itself, and the post-trip. in 84 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 coursework, prior to the visits to the different museums, students were given an assignment whereby they had to design and present their own interactive museums depicting any south african leader of their choice from the past. this activity involved researching, designing and presenting their interactive museum to second year intermediate phase history students. the intention of student teachers designing their own interactive museums prior to visiting the different museums was twofold. i firstly wanted student teachers to learn how to interpret and evaluate the artefacts that they select for their interactive museums. it also serves as a means to think critically and reflectively on why they select specific artefacts. the aim was for student teachers to recognise that they are personally responsible for selecting materials that they think will influence the audience most and are thus subjective. here, i draw on gardner (2004, p.13) who argues that museums too “have perspectives, make choices, present arguments, just like our colleagues elsewhere in the profession.” the trip itself involved analysis of knowledge and skills and the post-trip involved synthesising and evaluating what was learned. there is an abundance of research that supports the value of learning in museums from a visitor’s perspective or from the experiences of children on a school field trip (baines, 2007; griffin, 2004; paris, yambor & packard, 1998; stronck, 1983; taub, 2016). however, research on the learning potential of museums from a student teacher’s perspective is limited. moreover, research on how student teachers engage with their learning in apartheid museums, dovetailed with their learning in coursework, to teach apartheid era history to learners in the primary school is also limited. this research therefore sets out to explore the following questions: 1. how do student teachers experience learning about apartheid era history in south africa when coursework dovetails with learning in museums? 2. to what extent does the experience strengthen student teachers learning to teach apartheid era history to learners in the primary school? learning potential of museums depicting the apartheid era in south africa the educational value of field trips to museums have been noted to show improvements in students cognitive skills (stronck, 1983), increased ramsaroop: the role of museums in learning. . . 85 motivation and aesthetic appreciation, and strengthened personal identity (schauble, beane, coates, martin, & sterling, 1996). the reasons for museums being able to foster learning is that the environment created is such that it enables individuals to construct their own meaning (griffin, 2004; paris, yambor & packard, 1998) as visitors are free to make their own choices in activities (andre, durksen & volman, 2016; griffin, 2004). in addition, museums present a multi-faceted narrative, with the visitor presented with choices to interpret in one of many ways (taub, 2016). thus, museums can be viewed as active producers of knowledge (baines, 2007). south african museums are viewed as providing “material form to authorised versions of the past, which in time become institutionalised as public memory” (baines, 2007, p.9). visitors construct meaning by assuming that what they see in museums is authentic and accurate (gardner, 2004). but, gardner (2004) raises concerns about this level of trust placed by visitors on the authenticity and accuracy of what they see in museums. i agree with gardner (2004, p.15) that the public needs to understand the social and political contexts that influence the formation of museums, “that the selection of artefacts. . .is itself a subjective act, a way of shaping perspective, establishing (a) point of view” and thus cannot be regarded as objective historical authorities. exhibits and artefacts in museums generally reflect the dominant discourse of society (baines, 2007) depicted through the selection of artefacts that shape the way visitors perceive the past (gardner, 2004). soudien (2008) draws attention to the discourses of post-apartheid museums, namely that of nostalgia and of reconstruction. witz (2010, p.4) suggests that one of the reasons put forth for the “apparent historiographical crisis” in south africa is a tendency in museums to present narratives that are “consistent with the dominant frameworks of a new national history.” examples provided of this new national history include “assertions of an indigenous precolonial nationhood, a paradigm that continually couples apartheid and resistance, centrality given to the ‘emergence’ and ‘triumph’ of the african national congress in the anti-apartheid struggle, . . . ‘victory’ by iconic figures, primarily nelson mandela, culminating in the emergence of a multicultural south africa” (witz, 2010, p.4). soudien (2012, p.183), in discussing the apartheid museum, draws attention to that which is omitted such as “the complex social structures, relations and habits that surround, precede and follow the horror.” the emphasis on the narratives of a country’s history, also referred to as national master narratives, results in students 86 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 having limited access to what is controversial about their country’s history, thus hindering the development of a critical perspective (carretero & van alphen, 2014). the role of museums in influencing how student teachers learn and teach about south africa’s ‘difficult past’ i use feiman-nemser’s (2008) themes, namely, “learning to think like a teacher, learning to know like a teacher, learning to feel like a teacher and learning to act like a teacher” ( p.698) to argue that student teachers learning in museums dovetailed with coursework at the university could strengthen the way they will eventually teach apartheid era history in the classroom. in knowing like a teacher, feiman-nemser (2008) refers to the knowledge that student teachers need to develop for the teaching profession. i draw on a framework for understanding teaching and learning (in darling-hammond, 2008) to discuss the knowledge that is needed for teaching. although the framework identifies three “key concepts within several domains of knowledge that are critical for teachers” (darling-hammond, 2008, p.1320–1321), i focus specifically on one of the key concepts, namely, curriculum content and goals, which highlights the importance of knowing the content to be taught. i am also reminded that historical narratives constructed by students about their own countries generally resemble historical master narratives (carretero & van alphen, 2014). according to feiman-nemser (2008), learning to think like a teacher involves student teachers critically examining their existing beliefs about teaching, against a backdrop of new ideas and understandings of good teaching. student teachers have already internalised a range of teaching and learning experiences, acquired from the ‘apprentice of observation’ (lortie, 1975) through the number of years spent at schools. i argue that museum visits dovetailed with coursework can provide the backdrop of new understandings about the teaching of apartheid era history. feiman-nemser, in describing learning to feel like a teacher, recognises that “teaching and learning to teach are deeply personal work” as it connects ramsaroop: the role of museums in learning. . . 87 emotions, identity, and intellect (2008, p.699). in discussing learning to feel like a teacher, i focus mainly on identity development as integral to learning to feel like a teacher as the development of a professional identity emerges as a key element in the literature influencing the way student teachers question who ‘i’ am as a teacher (beauchamp & thomas, 2006; beijaard, meijer, verloop, 2004; nieto, 2003). student teachers’ conceptualisation of who ‘i’ am is influenced by history. cultural background and upbringing influences learning in museums (falk & dierking, 2000) and inevitably influences the growth of personal identity (schauble et al., 1996). i draw on fienberg and leinhardt (2002) to reflect on the role of identity in museums. these scholars (fienberg and leinhardt, 2000) describe identity as part of a social context that takes into consideration the different kinds of knowledge and patterns of experience that individuals have pertaining to a given activity. in the fourth theme, learning to act like a teacher, feiman-nemser makes the case that teachers need to integrate a range of “skills, strategies, and routines and the judgement to figure out what to do when” (2008, p.699). using the multi-sensory exploration of museum objects can expose student teachers to its uses as a teaching tool and strategy in their own classrooms (guy & kelley-lowe, 2001). i argue that student teachers can draw on a museum setting to strengthen their skills and strategies to teach this content area effectively. research methods a qualitative research paradigm was suited to this study as it allowed for an in-depth enquiry into understanding the meaning as constructed by research participants (merriam & tisdell, 2016) on the potential of blending learning in apartheid museums with coursework in enabling their learning to teach apartheid era history. this study can be further described as a qualitative case study as it involves the description and analysis of a bounded system (merriam & tisdell, 2016). the bounded system that defines this case study is second year student teachers taking the module that integrates coursework with museum visits. these are student teachers who have selected social science as one of their subject specialisations to teach in the intermediate phase in the primary school. sampling is therefore purposeful as it involves all student teachers taking the module (n=25). 88 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 as this research aims to instil in student teachers the ability to reflect on their learning in coursework, museums and their prior learning experiences, a critical theoretical framework is used. patton (2015 cited by merriam & tisdell, 2016) describes critical research as that which critiques prevailing circumstances and through such critique, change is brought about. critical theory involves asking questions about power relations and structures in society that reinforce how power is distributed (merriam & tisdell, 2016). museums do advance their own perspectives (gardner, 2004), with exhibits and artefacts in museums generally reflecting the dominant discourse of society (baines, 2007). in this research, it is envisaged that by student teachers analysing, questioning and reflecting on their learning of apartheid history from different sources and through different pedagogies, they will be able to think critically about what and how they will teach apartheid era history to learners in the primary school. it also offers an important approach towards improving “citizenship education by emphasising the political nature of history curriculum” and provides opportunities for students to not only understand, but to “disrupt and challenge the official curriculum” (salinas & blevins, 2014, p.38). the methods of data collection included open-ended questionnaires with all student teachers (n=25) and individual interviews with five student teachers selected randomly from the group. as suggested by merriam and tisdell (2016), the theoretical framework informs how data will be collected. from a critical theory perspective, asking questions in interviews or other forms of data collection about their experiences can bring about a change in consciousness and encourage change (merriam & tisdell, 2016). data analysis was inductive as the study set out to combine information from interviews and open-ended questionnaires, which were then ordered into larger themes, “as the researcher works from the particular to the general” (merriam & tisdell, 2016). i used content analysis, as described by patton (2002) to reveal the patterns that emerged from the large volume of data collected which then led to the formulation of major themes. patton describes content analysis as reducing a large amount of qualitative data in order to make sense of the data by identifying “core consistencies and meanings” (2002, p.453). ramsaroop: the role of museums in learning. . . 89 the validity and dependability in terms of data analysis were ensured through the triangulation of sources (patton, 1999) from interviews and open-ended questionnaires. findings multiple narratives on apartheid era history strengthens knowledge for teaching student teachers have acknowledged that their prior knowledge about apartheid era history was acquired from parents, grandparents, the media and from teachers at school. there was however one student teacher who recalled personal encounters of the apartheid era when she was in primary school, of how “the students will protest and the police would come, we used to call them hippos and they would fire teargas. we would quickly run to the taps to wash our eyes.” student teachers therefore have personal narratives about apartheid era history. a few students recognised that narratives acquired as a learner at school on apartheid era history lacked depth (n=5). for example, at schools, “we were just told that black people were mistreated” and “they will not go into depth to explain how.” one of the students also explained that their learning at schools was limited to “mandela and walter sisulu.” student teachers acknowledged that if they did not have the knowledge and experience from coursework and the museums, they “would have taught it (apartheid era history) the way i was taught growing up, i would just tell them what happened,” and “it wouldn’t really be all the information they will need, i will lack the content knowledge.” on visiting the different museums sites and engaging with the narratives presented by each, student teachers’ misconceptions about apartheid from their prior learning experiences emerged. for example, at liliesleaf farm, the majority of student teachers (n=17) did not know that “white people actually fought against apartheid” as “i thought that only black people are the ones that were fighting for freedom.” after the museum visit, student teachers’ perspectives changed as “i know that not all white people were cruel but some of them were really against the law of apartheid.” another misconception that was addressed was at the hector pieterson museum were student teachers 90 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 (n=7) realised that hector pieterson “was actually not the first person to die.” responses from students that confirmed that misconceptions were being corrected are: “i noticed that there were lots of learners who died;” and “it was not only hector killed on that day.” at the apartheid museum, one student was “really hurt to see that blacks were against each other. they did not support one another in some aspects.” an intersection of the narratives from prior experiences with the multiple narratives presented in museums revealed and clarified some misconceptions that student teachers had. the data supports the view that student teachers’ prior knowledge and understandings on apartheid era history were expanded after the museum visits. after the museum visits, student teachers’ views expanded from “it was more than a court” to “it is also a prison where black prisoners were treated unfairly” and learning about “how the black people were treated in jail, the brutality they were faced with, having to eat next to a dirty toilet, eating from a dirty plate, and being tortured” (constitution hill). they also acquired “more knowledge of the brutality, pain and struggles” through “a somewhat personal experience of what it was like for both black and white person (people) during apartheid” (the apartheid museum). student teachers’ views of liliesleaf farm changed from expecting “the information we were going to get there was going to be related to farming” towards discovering “where the political struggle heroes were meeting and what led to the raid” and “gained knowledge about people involved in fighting against apartheid” (liliesleaf farm). other student teachers reported that they gained “primary knowledge from recordings of what truly happened” and “how other whites worked with blacks to fight for freedom.” student teachers stated that they “gained a lot of information about other young anti-apartheid activists” and “learnt how the youth changed the political history of the country.” “i think being in soweto and being in the same place where the events had taken place was very powerful” (hector pieterson museum and the mandela house). thus, the field trips “added to my knowledge of what i learnt at school and in coursework. it made the implicit, explicit” and “it showed exactly what happened.” from the above narratives, student teachers continuously reiterate that they are gaining “more knowledge” at each of the museum sites, and misconceptions are brought to the fore, which should translate into teaching the content with a more informed lens. however, it would seem that gaining ‘more knowledge’ did not prompt a critical engagement of different or similar perspectives from each of the museum sites. in addition, they take for granted ramsaroop: the role of museums in learning. . . 91 the ‘grand narratives’ presented in museums by stating that “it showed exactly what happened.” harnessing sentiments in museums to stimulate reflection the museum visits were very emotional for all students and “made me very sad; i cried on this day,” an indication that some student teachers were not prepared on how to deal with these emotions. one student teacher indicated that she was “very emotional seeing the ropes, how black and white had different entrances, often i found myself wiping tears from watching the videos.” another scene that evoked similar emotions was seeing “photographs of primary school children being shot. that hurt me quite a lot. kids being burnt. the poems.” some of these emotions translated into feelings of national pride and patriotism as some student teachers (n=12) indicated that “i have a sense of pride to be south african,” and “it gave me a sense of belonging. we should be proud of where we are right now because we are very privileged.” these feelings were stimulated by a sense of realisation about “how fortunate we are to have the freedom we have. it made me more passionate” and “it made me appreciate my rights, appreciate being a south african more.” however, some of these emotions (n=6) elicited “feelings of hatred for white people,” “anger” and “i felt i want revenge.” such feelings were elicited when “i saw photographs of primary school children being shot. i understand that is important” but “that hurt me quite a lot” that “when you leave, little to heal you.” these examples suggest that student teachers’ national identity was being influenced both positively and negatively. student teachers expressed the importance of “calm(ing) people down when they leave” by “maybe a quote from him (mandela)” who “pushed for reconciliation.” another example provided was at the apartheid museum “on our way out they played the south african national anthem. that inspired me. i started singing along as i felt proud to be south african.” the importance of ‘healing’ before you leave a museum can be viewed as an example of student teachers not just analysing the knowledge gained but they are now evaluating and synthesising what they learnt. it would seem that emotions spurred student teachers to analyse, reflect and provide solutions on how to manage emotional narratives. 92 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 the museums stimulated student teachers curiosity and reflection which encouraged further independent research. it made student teachers aware that “there is a lot that i need to learn about history” and that “there is a lot that i need to know about my country” which “delivered me to a point of wanting to know more and conduct more research.” most student teachers were also critically reflecting on their different experiences at each of the museums (n=20). some student teachers “felt that the place [liliesleaf farm] was not as celebrated/publicised as it should be because it is rich in history.” at the mandela house in soweto, student teachers described their experience as “not gain(ing) much because the house was changed,” “looks fake and renovated to suit some guests” and looking at “only pictures and pictures were not enough for me.” these experiences resulted in students feeling a “lack of attachment to the place” as “i did not feel the presence of him in the house” and “the mandela family struggles.” student teachers’ emotions seemed to have stimulated analysis and reflection on the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of their learning during the field experiences. curiosity and reflection that stimulates further research in student teachers suggests that the skills of lifelong learning needed for good teaching are being developed. learning in multiple contexts stimulated creativity on how to teach student teachers expressed the view that their learning in multiple contexts stimulated their creativity and vision of the type of teacher they would one day want to be. from coursework, learning creative teaching pedagogies was prompted when “we designed our own interactive museums. we knew what we were going to expect. it gave us prior knowledge that when you get there, this is what you are going to see. we came back and we studied some of the leaders. when i was studying, it brought to life what i was studying.” all student teachers (n=25), from their learning in coursework and the museum field trips, indicated that they will employ different strategies to teach learners. for example, “you need to be practical, sometimes you need to act like you were there” and “i would teach learners by bringing my own learning aids such as my homemade museum, i still have it so i am still going to use it in the future.” other student teachers indicated that “i would make use of pictures that depicts what really happened, not the ones that we usually see” and “i want them to know and feel what was happening at that time, not ramsaroop: the role of museums in learning. . . 93 just that it was here-say” by “play(ing) them songs to evoke those feelings, bring pictures, play them a video.” these views emanate from student teachers personal experiences at the museums being “very informative and technological;” “the letters. . .the technology that made the stories so real” and “the songs and sounds that they played made you feel that you were part of that struggle.” as such, many student teachers responded that they too will “bring my learners there (museums) one day to get a first-hand experience about the emotions and experience that people went through.” in addition, student teachers’ views about history as a subject was changed as some (n=6) indicated that “i thought history was a boring subject. i did not do history in school” and “i have learnt that there are strategies that you can use to make it interesting.” for example, in coursework, student teachers were asked to design their own museums choosing one south african leader of their choice. for student teachers, the experience “got me to use my imagination and then to go and actually experience that first hand; be at the places, see and hear what people have gone through, made my understanding easier.” these experiences “helped me to set a standard as a teacher one day. i would also like to get my children to experience like touch, senses and use their own imagination about how museums are and what they should represent and the experience it brings to an individual.” discussion of findings and recommendations the majority of the student teachers in this research had not directly experienced apartheid. the knowledge that they acquired is the stories that are told from parents, grandparents, community, school, texts and the media. student teachers learning about south africa’s difficult past through museum visits, dovetailed by their learning in coursework before and after their field trips did strengthen their ability to think, know, feel and act like a teacher. feiman-nemser (2008) emphasises the importance of an in-depth knowledge of the subject matter as one of the components to ‘know’ like a teacher. the data suggests that student teachers subject matter knowledge required to teach apartheid era history is strengthened, a finding that is also consistent with research conducted by rohlf (2015) that field trips reinforce what has been already learned and provides new knowledge. a good grasp of the subject matter would in turn enable teachers to organise and teach the school curriculum to suit the needs of the learners in the classroom (ball & bass, 2000; darling-hammond & baratz-snowden, 2005). however, the data also 94 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 suggests that student teachers were taking for granted what they see in museums, even though the aim of the pre-trip museum activity, constructing their own interactive museum, was to enable them to recognise the subjectivity that surrounds the selection of materials. gardner (2004), in earlier research also made similar assertions, that visitors construct meaning by assuming that what they see in museums is authentic and accurate. what is needed is for student teachers to learn to become reflective, pedagogical thinkers by ensuring that they are equipped with the skills and the knowledge to operate “autonomously as an academic professional and developer of their field” (krzywacki, lavonen, & juuti, 2015, p.92). thus, the post-museum trip needs to extend student teachers further by introducing them to skills that will enable them to interrogate grand narratives. students need to be taught skills and knowledge to become both consumers and producers of educational research (krzywacki et al., 2015: p.95), which i argue are necessary to assist them to interrogate the prescribed curriculum at schools and not accept taken for granted ‘grand narratives.’ the data also supports the notion that student teachers are beginning to feel like a teacher. feiman-nemser, in describing learning to feel like a teacher, recognises that “teaching and learning to teach are deeply personal work” as it connects emotions, identity and intellect (2008, p.699). student teachers, by describing how they will use the experience to teach their own learners one day shows that they are already visualising the type of teacher they want to be. as such, their professional identity as a teacher is being developed. one of the elements that also influence teacher professional identity is the perception of being an expert in terms of subject matter and pedagogy (beijaard, verloop and vermunt, 2000). the module designed to link coursework to museum visits was an attempt to develop student-teachers towards becoming experts in subject matter and pedagogy. the data did suggest that student teachers content knowledge was strengthened. however, what is needed is for student teachers to engage with the subject matter more critically and analytically. discussions after the museum visits must move students from being mere consumers of what they see to becoming active producers of knowledge. this study has also found that museum visits were able to address misconceptions acquired from student teachers prior learning experiences, an important finding that is suggestive of student teachers beginning to think like a teacher. they are able to engage in self-critique and self-awareness by admitting that there is still “a lot that they need to learn.” student teachers do need powerful and convincing alternatives that will enable new images of ramsaroop: the role of museums in learning. . . 95 good teaching to be developed (feiman-nemser, 2001) if they are to begin thinking like a teacher. museums do present a multi-faceted narrative, with the visitor presented with choices to interpret in one of many ways (taub, 2016). in acting like a teacher (feiman-nemser, 2008), student teachers did acknowledge that their own interactive museums in the pre-visit to museums, followed by learning in museums could strengthen their teaching strategies to teach learners. it was clear that they intended to teach with passion and use strategies that will invoke feelings in learners as if they were really ‘living the experiences of that era’. the multi-sensory exploration of museum objects (guy & kelley-lowe, 2001) has exposed student teachers to its uses as a teaching tool and strategy in their own classrooms. student teachers described their museum visits as very ‘emotional’. interpretive displays that provoke emotion, described as a ‘hot interpretation’, are aimed at engaging visitors emotionally so as to challenge them to examine their attitudes with respect to the specific and contentious issues displayed (ballantyne & uzell, 1993). the emotions elicited from the museum visits did challenge student teachers to examine their attitudes and actions. the result was that some student teachers experienced a sense of national pride and unity while other student teachers experienced emotions such as hatred and revenge. these very diverse attitudes point to the difficulties experienced by some student teaches in dealing with their emotions. what is needed are critical discussions to be held after field trips or as described by ragland (2015, p.617), “discomforting dialogues” which provide opportunities for reflection on one’s experiences, thoughts and feelings. while student teachers did acknowledge that post field trip discussions in lectures were helpful, they raised concerns about how learners from schools will deal with similar emotions. i interpret this response as indicative of student teachers beginning to think, feel, know and act like a teacher. while they are able to talk about their feelings and why they feel this way, they are simultaneously thinking about their learners and its effects on teaching and learning. student teachers did indicate that museums will need to do more to ensure that visitors leave with feelings of appreciation, national pride and unity and not hurt and hatred. ballantyne (2003), from a study of the district six museum in cape town, also raised the question of whether the museum could do more to enable visitors to channel their emotions towards promoting justice, peace and understanding in their own communities. drawing on the responses from student teachers, i agree that museums need to do more to ‘heal’ visitors. 96 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 conclusion student teachers learning in museums dovetailed with coursework did point to a number of immediate benefits for student teachers learning about the apartheid era and about how to teach this content area to learners in the classroom. their ability to ‘know, think, feel and act’ like a teacher was strengthened. integrating museum visits into one’s pedagogy recognises the importance of merging prior knowledge and experiences with new knowledge and understandings. it is a valuable method that can engage student teachers to think critically and reflectively about what and how they teach history. however, it would seem that student teachers developed more substantive knowledge (key facts) but perhaps still did not engage with the syntactic knowledge of the discipline (rules of evidence). thus, teaching investigative skills is essential if student teachers are to begin interrogating ‘grand narratives’ to become both consumers and producers of knowledge. in so doing, student teachers will not only understand, but be able to challenge and 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(working papers in museum studies number 3). university of michigan sarita ramsaroop faculty of education university of johannesburg saritaram@uj.ac.za mailto:saritaram@uj.ac.za microsoft word b8300 final.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 83, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i83a08 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x enhancing knowledge-building through communicative language teaching mildred shingirirai nyamayedenga faculty of social & gender transformative sciences, women’s university in africa, harare, zimbabwe mildrednyamayedenga@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3121-6130 lizette de jager faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa lizette.dejager@up.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5923-1490 (received: 30 september 2020; accepted: 12 may 2021) abstract zimbabwe’s new primary school curriculum aims at enhancing knowledge-building through the use of communicative language teaching (clt) to assist both the teachers and the learners to solve problems. in this qualitative case study, we investigated the extent of teachers’ inclination to use the clt approach. to do so, the study was guided by socio-cultural theory (sct) and the experiential learning theory (elt). five purposively selected participants in the warren park/mabelreign district in zimbabwe responded to semistructured interviews and were observed while they were teaching. the analysis revealed that although teachers understood that knowledge-building can be enhanced by clt they are ill prepared to implement it because they lack the skills and the knowledge, and they have to cope with inadequate resources. consequently, teachers still follow traditional pedagogic practices that do not lead to knowledge-building in learners. we recommend that a number of workshops be offered to in-service teachers and stakeholders on how to employ clt activities that enhance knowledge-building. keywords: communicative language teaching, experiential learning, interactive activities, knowledge-building, socio-cultural, teachers’ preparedness nyamayedenga & de jager: enhancing knowledge-building through communicative . . . 147 introduction after zimbabwean independence in 1980, the zimbabwean education system underwent a number of changes, of which the nziramasanga commission of 1999 and the new curriculum of 2017 are the most significant (esau & mpofu, 2017; zhuwau & shumba, 2019). the introduction of the new curriculum in 2017 was triggered by the need to improve the socioeconomic status of the country by producing learners who have a zimbabwean identity, who are honest, and who have the practical occupational skills that will allow them, eventually, to become job creators (ministry of primary and secondary education (mopse), 2014; esau & mpofu, 2017). mopse (2014, p. 22) stated that the introduction of the new curriculum is a way to “establish some strong scientific, mathematical and technological oriented learners to meet moral values, national identity, pride, civic obligations and value country heritage.” scholars like walsh (2016) have supported curriculum change by explaining that it enables teachers and stakeholders in the educational sector to reflect on teaching and learning content and methods and keep pace with wider societal developments. while the implementation of the new curriculum was a positive move to realign the curriculum to national aspirations, curriculum change, although desirable, is always complex in its involving a series of obstacles (bennie & newstead, 1999). these include a lack of clarity with respect to the essential expectations and objectives of such change, the boundaries of the content, the methods of teaching, and the assessment criteria. the new curriculum has exerted some form of pressure on schools and teachers to teach learners for the future. the new curriculum commends the use of the continuous assessment mode (mopse, 2014). this resulted in learners continually doing projects in their learning areas which will, at the end of the school year, form part of their final exit assessments. project work, as an interactive activity, is used in communicative language teaching (clt) to assist learners to learn communicatively and to build knowledge while they do research. this process of research to which learners are exposed through project work will enhance knowledge-building in that learners will improve on their old knowledge and create new knowledge. for project work in clt, learners may be asked, for example, to read true-life texts, make notes, or record information in a descriptive way (miller & krajcik, 2019). knowledge-building can be achieved only if teachers assist learners to do so through facilitation and guidance in project work (unesco, 2005). knowledge-building in the teaching of english as a second language can be achieved through the use of clt by allowing learners to be interactive. it also gives them the opportunity to put into practice their communication skills and thus create meaningful interaction (toro et al., 2019). the efforts to implement such new curriculum change, however, are fraught with problems and its implementers are experiencing difficulties using clt to implement it smoothly (ngwenya, 2020). although mopse has claimed that pertinent measures were taken for the curriculum to be implemented from 17 january 2017, these claims are contradicted by the teachers union in zimbabwe and by parents (mugadzaweta, 2017; nkala, 2017). we agree with ahmad and lukman (2015) who pointed out that curriculum implementation should be meticulously supervised to ensure that it stays on course, but we note that it has been two years since the new curriculum was introduced and there are still reports of problems with its implementation. we propose that in order for teachers to enhance 148 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 knowledge-building in the new primary school english language curriculum, they need to be prepared to use clt effectively. we sought to explore the level of such preparedness of primary school teachers to enhance knowledge-building through the use of clt in implementing the new english language curriculum. according to the new curriculum, teachers are expected to enhance knowledge-building through the use of the clt approach to produce learners who can create knowledge that will change their behaviour and help them influence their surroundings. learners are expected to be critical thinkers and problem solvers. according mopse (2014) knowledge-building is best supported through interaction that helps learners share and create knowledge to enable them to undertake tasks that include activities that resemble those found in the real world (bereiter & scardamalia, 2014). the use of the clt approach may assist learners to build knowledge that will, in turn, assist them to fit into the socio-economic environment when they leave school (mopse, 2014). studies on the new curriculum have been done in south africa and elsewhere (mashele, 2018). bennie and newstead (1999) carried out a study of obstacles to implementing a new curriculum in mathematics. some of their findings were that teachers lacked adequate knowledge and that learners did not have the pre-knowledge that could serve as a foundation for the new curriculum. a study by mandukwini (2016) on challenges surrounding curriculum implementation in high schools in mount fletcher district, eastern cape, south africa, found that there was a lack of resources and that teachers had heavy workloads. although some of the challenges found in other studies may be similar to those found in zimbabwe, in this research we address a particular issue with regard to the knowledge gap. it would seem that limited research in the zimbabwean primary school context has investigated the teachers’ preparedness to enhance knowledge-building in the new curriculum at primary school level through the clt approach. it is against the above background that we undertook our study. the following research question guided it. • what is the level of preparedness of primary school teachers in zimbabwe to enhance knowledge-building through the clt approach in relation to the new curriculum? communicative language teaching for knowledge-building according to ma et al., (2019), knowledge-building is viewed as giving learners collective responsibility for improving ideas they care about. scardamalia and bereiter (2006) have described knowledge-building as an attempt to modify education in an important way so that it becomes an intelligible effort to induct students into a knowledge producing culture. we define knowledge-building in terms of learners working collaboratively to produce and improve knowledge and ideas. in language teaching, one of the best ways of enhancing knowledge-building is the clt approach that is defined as a method of teaching using communication for learners to express their ideas, feelings, and thoughts (toro et al., 2019). richards (2006, p. 2) defined clt as an approach to foreign or second language teaching that emphasizes that “the goal of language learning is communicative competence.” littlewood nyamayedenga & de jager: enhancing knowledge-building through communicative . . . 149 (1981, p. 1) elucidated that “one of the most characteristic features of communicative language teaching is that it pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language, combining these into a more fully communicative view.” moss and ross-feldman (2003) stated that clt is any activity given to the learners that involves using communication to speak to and listen to their peers. we conclude that clt is an approach that uses communication for learners to develop and create knowledge and to express ideas about specific topics under discussion. given this definition of clt it is imperative that teachers enhance knowledge-building by using activities that are interactive. celce-murcia (1991) and littlewood (1981) suggested that activities include role play, group discussions, watching videos or films, answering guided questions, debates, jigsaw activities, and question and answer sessions in teaching. these activities help learners to build knowledge through interaction with others. the clt approach is recommended in the new zimbabwean curriculum and resonates well with knowledge-building since it can be used by teachers to assist learners in creating new knowledge through interaction. first, the use of clt in the new curriculum helps both teachers and learners to achieve knowledge-building through teacher-to-learner and learner-to-learner interaction (mopse, 2014). second, clt assists in knowledge-building because learners are responsible for their own learning as they produce their own knowledge and ideas, while teachers act only as facilitators. learning english as a second language will occur as a result of learners’ interaction in creative knowledge work (ma et al., 2019). teaching and learning methods such as doing field work, demonstrations, simulations, and role play along with engaging in group work, projects, drama, debates, and research should therefore be used for knowledge-building in english second language classes (maarof, 2018). it will be difficult for learners not to learn if they participate in authentic knowledge creation. we, therefore, sought to explore the preparedness of primary school teachers to enhance knowledge-building through the implementation of the clt approach in the new english language curriculum. conceptual framework socio-cultural theory (sct) (vygotsky, 1978) and experiential learning theory (elt) (kolb, 1984) were adopted in this study because both resonate well with knowledge-building and clt through the aspects of interaction, scaffolding, and collaborative learning in the creation of new knowledge. the core concepts of the two theories maintain that learners’ critical thinking levels originate from the collaborative learning or interaction they have with their peers before they transfer to an individual’s thinking level (wertsch, 2008; xiangui, 2005). these theories share the view that interaction is one of the key elements that help learners to construct new ideas and knowledge. this is supported by brown and gaskins (2014), and luna scott (2015) who claimed that new knowledge may be constructed when learners socialise with their peers. this implies that for teachers to help learners in knowledge-building, participatory activities, talk, and collaborative work should be used in english lessons (cross, 2010; vygotsky, 1978). this may be done if the teacher uses the recommended clt activities that help learners to work together and build knowledge. 150 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 the principles of sct and elt are based on learners being given challenging activities to facilitate learning. learners should work cooperatively on given activities that expose them to new information, and that assist them to contribute to, adopt, and circulate the new knowledge to their peers (knutson, 2003). both sct and the elt activities given to learners should form part of the learners’ experiences, thus building knowledge. the two theories can illuminate how the learner and the teacher build new knowledge through interaction, a tenet of clt (kolb, 1984; vygotsky, 1978). the core aspects of these two theories guided us in analysing the data. research design and methodology the study was qualitative in nature. gay et al., (2011, p. 7) have stated that “qualitative research is the collection, analysis and interpretation of comprehensive narrative (i.e., nonnumerical) data to gain insights into particular phenomenon of interest.” therefore, the qualitative research we undertook sought to probe deeply into the research setting to obtain an in-depth understanding of the preparedness of the primary school teachers to implement the new curriculum using clt in knowledge-building. data was collected and triangulated through non-participatory observations and semistructured interviews with teachers. we conducted the interviews and non-participant observations to obtain information about the teachers’ preparedness to implement the new curriculum using the clt approach. during observations we acted as outsiders and made sure that we did not interfere during the lessons. we brought into the classroom the observation checklist that guided us in recording information on the preparedness of teachers in knowledge-building using clt. non-participant observation was the main data collection instrument while we used interviews to crosscheck if teachers were adequately prepared and were implementing the new curriculum to assist learners in knowledge-building. we were concerned to collect rich data so that we could use it inductively to develop insights and generalisations from it. in this way teachers’ preparedness was brought out clearly. both data sets helped us to understand the extent of the teachers’ preparedness to implement the new curriculum using the recommended clt approach. participants and sampling procedures five participants were purposively selected. the criteria used were that they had to be holders of a diploma in education and had to have been teaching prior to the introduction of the new curriculum. the sample was comprised of five teachers from five primary schools in the warren park/mabelreign district. following denzin & lincoln, 2005, kaiser, 2009, and maree, 2007, for ethical reasons related to confidentiality, we have not disclosed the names of the participants or of their schools. we obtained permission from the ministry of education director, the district officer, and the head teachers. nyamayedenga & de jager: enhancing knowledge-building through communicative . . . 151 findings through the interviews held with the teachers and the observations we made, the level of the teachers’ preparedness to implement clt to build new knowledge emerged. the main findings of this study show that the teachers’ preparedness to enhance knowledge-building through the implementation of clt in the new curriculum was affected by a lack of resources and teaching materials, poor planning, overly large groups, insufficient time, and the high demands of the new curriculum. through the observations we established how teachers’ enhanced knowledge-building in learners through the use of clt in their classrooms, while the interviews cross checked their understanding of how they should enhance knowledge given the expectations of the new curriculum. limited resources to implement the new curriculum the main obstacle to enhancing knowledge through the use of clt for knowledge-building was the shortage of textbooks and teaching aids. all the participants felt that the new curriculum was ill planned. communicative language teaching had always been recommended but because of the lack of resources, it was never implemented. participant 1 said, “our school has not bought the new curriculum textbook; we only have one copy that we share as grade 5 teachers.” participant 2 added, “we have started implementing the new curriculum, but we have a lot of challenges in terms of the textbooks and ict gadgets to implement it effectively.” participant 3 explained, “i am not given learning aids to assist learners to interact among themselves. as a result, i use the chalk board and talk to the learners.” participant 4 said, i do not use interactive activities anymore. i used to buy manila to make learning aids but with the economic hardship now i cannot subsidise the school and the government. in the old curriculum we were using clt and in this new curriculum it is still recommended. however, our government has not improved in allocating us proper resources to implement it effectively. we thought the government would be prepared in this new curriculum. from these findings it is clear that the participants agreed that the new curriculum could have brought changes to the activities and methods used. however, teachers still do not have the resources and, as a result, it is difficult for them to teach learners using interactive activities like group work, role play, and discussions. while they agreed that communicative language teaching activities can assist learners to build and create new knowledge, they attributed the poor implementation of clt to a lack of resources. this finding echo those of richards and rodgers (2014) who noted that it is difficult to build knowledge through clt when there is a dearth of resources. teachers indicated that it was now expensive to buy even manila paper 152 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 and permanent markers to make simple learning aids like work cards that could assist learners to interact effectively and build new knowledge. these finding agree with those of esau and mpofu (2017) who claimed that curriculum implementation could not be done successfully if adequate resources for implementation were not in place. participating teachers indicated that the government did not supply the textbooks required to teach the new curriculum. furthermore, the teachers could not photocopy the textbooks for fear of copyright infringement. given the shortage of learning materials, these findings suggest that mopse was ill prepared for the implementation of the new curriculum that advocated for knowledge-building through the use of clt. participants applauded the inclusion of research which is presented as a clt activity in the new curriculum. they all concurred that if learners were required to do research, they would be able to build knowledge. the new curriculum encourages the use of information communication technology (ict) for enhancing knowledge-building (mopse, 2014). however, the challenge of limited resources was once again apparent. teachers believed that using computers, which is a compulsory activity in the new curriculum, would assist in knowledge-building through research activities. their assumption is supported by kalaš et al., (2012) who noted that learners apply research skills as they use computers to search for information and they create knowledge while determining if the information is correct, appropriate, and valuable. they also believed that computers would make it easy for learners to easily access some information that would benefit their research projects. however, while it was compulsory to use computers, schools did not have enough of them to allow learners to do such research. the other problem that prevented the teachers from enhancing knowledgebuilding through the use of computers were regular power cuts. these also interrupted learners’ use of computers and this compromised their knowledge-building endeavours. all participants agreed that the government should have taken the issue of resources into consideration prior to introducing the new curriculum. time allocated to classes is inadequate during the interviews, the participants indicated that too little time was allocated to the teaching of english language. they said that double periods were required to teach the subject meaningfully and interactively since it was impossible for learners to build new knowledge within the short periods provided for in the timetable. participant 3 said, when the new curriculum was introduced, it seems the ministry did not take the consideration of time. we have other subjects like physical education that require pupils to change into the right attire and to move from the class to the learning areas. these take our time. and participant 5 explained that the new curriculum did not change the time allocation of subjects, but it added more content. we are still finishing school at 4pm yet the subjects are many. this is putting nyamayedenga & de jager: enhancing knowledge-building through communicative . . . 153 pressure on us. in addition, we are expected to produce written exercises as per ministry’s recommendation of two written exercises in english every day, one composition every week, and two comprehension passages per week. the findings reveal that the time factor has affected the teacher’s preparedness to enhance knowledge-building through clt. all the participants agreed that the clt approach worked well and assisted in knowledge-building. they highlighted that perhaps they could have been in a position to use it if only they were not required to meet the demands of the ministry of education (circular no 36 of 2006) as listed above. the teachers are under pressure to cover the syllabus, but the limited time allocated for the teaching of english language compromises the quality of education since the time for learners to build knowledge is limited. this finding is similar to chang’s (2011) who found that clt activities are time consuming, and that it takes time for teachers to explain how to do given tasks. it would appear that the time factor has adversely affected knowledge-building through the use of clt in curriculum implementation in harare metropolitan primary schools. difficulties with implementing group work as a recommended teaching method the new curriculum recommends the use of the clt approach in the teaching of english language to enhance knowledge-building. however, the findings in this study show that teachers used mainly group work as the preferred activity because they found it easier to manage. we observed that the teachers divided the learners into large groups of eight, which did not positively impact individual performances in knowledge-building. we found that the groups were too large for communicative learning to take place. as a result, some learners did not participate but played around while one or two members in the group did the work. we also presumed that the teachers had challenges in organising and monitoring all the learners in a large group during the learning process. these findings agree with those of burke (2011) and chang (2011) who found that large groups were ineffective in relation to interaction since learners’ chances of participation were reduced, thus stifling knowledgebuilding. participants agreed that the interactive activities recommended in the new curriculum were not easy to use because not all learners in the large groups were able to participate. this is in line with coskun’s (2011) finding that teachers did not have the relevant skills to apply and use clt interactive activities to enhance knowledge for large groups. participant 1 commented, “we only use group work when we are being assessed by the head teacher because they expect us to use interactive activities according to the new curriculum. participant 2 said, i only use interactive activities when i am being visited by my administrators or the district. i prefer using the traditional methods of teaching because they are fast, and i manage to complete my day’s work. now i cannot afford using interactive activities 154 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 because subjects like agriculture and pe are now examinable, so i am forced to teach them. participant 3 explained, clt is a good method but to be honest, as you observed me, i cannot afford to use it. group work is easy to use but it needs time. with the new curriculum you have to race otherwise you get in trouble with the authorities. we have record books which have to be up to date and are time consuming. participant 4 felt that teaching is teaching, it does not matter which method you use. all i want is for my class to . . . pass. i have been producing good results; parents and my colleagues want their children to be in my class. i use the traditional methods and when there is need to use interactive activities, i do use [them]. we observed that when the participants used group work their lessons did not end on time. for example, participant 4’s lesson took more than an hour instead of the scheduled 30 minutes. we concluded that although the use of pair and group work seemed to align the observed lessons to the demand of the use of clt in the new curriculum, it was not used effectively. the use of group work was restricted by the participants’ failure to manage it, so it became time consuming. participants believed that it was one of the interactive activities that they could easily use, but as is clear, they did not use group work effectively. this was because the teachers themselves had limited skills in running clt activities for group work effectively. this finding aligns with those of chang (2011) and rahman et al. (2018) who found that teachers had poor understanding of how to handle clt activities. the use of group work is one of the activities required and recommended by the new curriculum because it creates natural dialogue that helps learners in knowledge-building. however, participants in this study failed to implement group work effectively. teachers engage in teacher-centred learning all observed lessons indicated that learners were restricted to answering questions and receiving commands from the teacher and this does not support the principle of clt and knowledge-building during which process learners are required to create knowledge and negotiate meaning. learners were not given opportunities to engage in sustained interactions with the teacher and they were afforded even fewer opportunities to interact among themselves. teachers asked simple questions which allowed learners to give factual answers. once the teachers discovered that learners knew the answers they were satisfied and did not require any additional information from them. this kind of teaching did not enable learners to interact effectively nor to develop the desired language skills. al-zahrani and al-bargi (2017) proposed that teachers should engage their learners by asking the kinds of questions that enable them to interact and build knowledge; this was not the case in the classes we nyamayedenga & de jager: enhancing knowledge-building through communicative . . . 155 observed. we could see that the participants employed more traditional methods of teaching and it appeared as though they were not conversant with the clt approach. insistence on rote learning during the class observations we noticed that teachers used a lot of drilling or rote learning, but this is not recommended in the new curriculum as a way of building knowledge. learners were asked to repeat through chorusing in order to memorise what they were being taught. once a learner gave the correct answer, the entire class repeated it. participants conceded to the use of repetition as a way of assisting learners to grasp what they were being taught. they believed that repetition assisted learners to commit this to memory for examination purposes. rote learning, repetition, and memorising stands in stark contrast to knowledge-building that is based on learners constructing their own knowledge through interaction (mertens, 2014; thomas, 2017). exclusion of teachers in curriculum planning interviews revealed that teachers possessed important information on, and understanding of, what the new curriculum entailed. participants indicated that the challenges in the implementation of the new curriculum resulted from teachers not being consulted at the planning stage. participant 2 said, “the ministry did not consult us on the planning of the new curriculum. we would have suggested to them not to recommend clt in the new curriculum because it never worked in the old curriculum.” participant 3’s point was that “clt in the new curriculum needed the ministry to sit with the teachers and speak about the resources before they implemented it.” participant 4 explained, “the ministry always makes the mistake of not consulting and involving teachers in curriculum planning. they forget we are on the ground and we know which approach works and which one does not work.” participant 5 said, the ministry of primary and secondary education should change their attitudes towards us as teachers. they are ever giving us instructions from their offices. they forget we are the classrooms practitioners who know the challenges found in the classrooms and have the answers to these challenges. teacher incapacity in implementing clt in the new curriculum the findings of this study show that teachers did not have the capacity in terms of knowledge and skills to use clt to enhance knowledge-building and were therefore ill prepared to do 156 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 so. prior to the introduction of the new curriculum teachers needed to attend empowering workshops and staff development courses. these would have capacitated them with knowledge and skills in relation to using clt in implementing the new curriculum. quyen and khairani (2017) were of the opinion that teacher knowledge is the biggest factor in the implementation of any new curriculum. participant 1lamented, “i do not know what this new curriculum requires. i am using traditional teaching methods of teaching and i am only concerned with my learners passing their exam.” participant 2 said, i think the ministry should carry out intensive training on how we should handle the lessons using clt to create new knowledge because as far as i am concerned, i am teaching the same content in english, and i do not have an idea of how i can use the computer for teaching the new curriculum. participant 3 explained, i have attended cluster training before. i did not benefit anything during the workshop and to be honest i am not the only one. we were told that it was a training workshop, but we were simply updated on the number of subjects to be taken. a lot of subjects have been introduced at primary school and we have to take them. participant 4 added, “the syllabus requires me to use ict tools, yet i do not have an idea on how to go about it.” a lack of adequate knowledge was evident during our observations. participants still used teacher-centred methods, which did not result in knowledge-building in all the classes we observed. they were not trained in the use of computers for teaching their learners. participants were more concerned with giving learners information to prepare them for the examinations, and there was no evidence in the learners of any knowledge-building taking place nor was the creation of new knowledge by the learners evident. we determined that the participants did not use the clt approach because of the lack of staff development. this meant, of course, that the teachers were ill prepared for the implementation of the new curriculum with its insistence on knowledge-building. similarly, schwartz (2006) found that curriculum planners did indeed put in place good educational plans, but these were foiled because curriculum users and teachers were not adequately prepared to implement the innovations. discussion the findings from this study suggest that the teachers were ill prepared to enhance knowledge-building through the implementation of clt in the new curriculum because of the lack of resources, poor planning, time constraints, their insistence on teacher-centred nyamayedenga & de jager: enhancing knowledge-building through communicative . . . 157 learning, the lack of the skills to implement group work, and generalised incapacity along with not having been consulted on the development of the new curriculum. as alsubaie (2016) has reminded us, teachers are important to the planning of any new curriculum because of the knowledge, skills, and capabilities they have. in addition, teachers know what is needed and what works for the curriculum to be successful. in this study teachers believed that since they were the implementers of the curriculum, they could have assisted the ministry in coming up with realistic time allocation, expectations, objectives, and suitable teaching methods to be included in the curriculum. this would have contributed to the teachers owning and working towards fulfilling the set goals of the new curriculum. the teachers did not approve of the ministry preparing the curriculum and imposing it on them. teachers acknowledged that they were not familiar with the procedures of the new curriculum. for example, they indicated that they were expected to use computers in teaching the curriculum and that they were not familiar with the technology. the teachers also lamented the unavailability of textbooks essential to implementing the new curriculum. they highlighted that their schools could not afford to buy the textbooks and that, in some cases, five classes shared one book. teachers agreed that they were not well prepared to present the new curriculum. the workshops they attended in preparation to teach the new curriculum effectively were not sufficient. they felt that the workshops were simply a way of conveying the ministry’s expectations to them. while the teachers lamented the challenges regarding the implementation of clt in the new curriculum, they appreciated the inclusion of research as a new area of learning. they applauded the ministry for including this component because it could help learners to build knowledge. despite the curriculum changes the findings corroborate those of other studies of this nature. despite the efforts made by teachers to be involved in curriculum planning, nothing has changed, and this means that in spite of this new curriculum, teachers are still not enhancing knowledge through the use of clt. however, what is novel in this study, is the cry for deeper engagement and involvement of teachers in curriculum planning. conclusion and recommendations in light of the findings and the discussion above, and in an attempt to address a dearth in knowledge enhancement, curriculum planners should seriously consider teacher involvement in the review of the curriculum in 2023. reconsidering teacher involvement will contribute to teachers taking ownership of a new curriculum and working towards achieving its goals. it will also help the ministry to achieve its goal of knowledge-building in learners, which form the basis for the change in the zimbabwean curriculum. furthermore, mopse needs to plan carefully so as to provide the necessary resources prior to implementing a new curriculum. teachers should be trained and enabled to acquire the necessary skills for the implementation of knowledge-building in accordance with the demands of the new curriculum. 158 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 references ahmadi, a. a., & lukman, a. a. 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(2005). learning theories and second language learning. celea journal, 28(5), 120–127. zhuwau, c., & shumba, m., (2018). factors limiting smooth implementation of new curriculum in rural secondary schools of zimbabwe: case study of nyanga north area, zimbabwe. the international journal of humanities & social studies, 6(11), 198– 207. journal of education, 2017 issue 69, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za followership and sustainability of school leadership for science and mathematics: a distributive perspective maria tsakeni and loyiso jita (received 21 february 2017; 26 june 2017 ) abstract in leadership-followership relationships, roles are exchangeable, portraying followers as coconstructors of school leadership processes. leadership literature largely focuses on the effectiveness of leaders and neglects the role of followership. the purpose of this study was to explore the role of followership in the construction of leadership processes for secondary school science and mathematics. we used a narrative inquiry in the form of a single school case study purposefully selected for being a top performing school in physical sciences and mathematics. narratives were elicited from seven participants who included positional leaders and teachers. follower role identities and the leader-follower trade (lft) were used as conceptual frameworks. an active follower role identity enabled teachers to co-construct and sustain leadership processes for science and mathematics. significant teaching experience, subject expertise and proven records of good results in learner attainments activated the identity. the teachers co-constructed and sustained leadership processes for science and mathematics through participative leadership, continuous teacher learning and classroom practice. introduction secondary school science and mathematics face unique challenges when it comes to meeting the goals of total number of learners enrolled for the subjects and learner achievement. learner outcomes in science and mathematics have perennially dented many south african secondary efforts at school improvement. learner enrolment and achievement in these subjects are uniquely and adversely influenced by a myriad of contextual factors stemming from the schools’ socio-cultural and historical backgrounds (maree, aldous, hattingh, swanepoel, & van der linde, 2006; cho, scherman, & gaigher, 2014; maringe, masinire, & nkambule, 2015; visser, juan, & feza, 238 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 2015). the contextual factors include a lack of parental involvement, impoverished conditions, staff instability and poor time management, reduced focus on instruction and narrow school improvement interventions that are sorely confined to the classrooms. enhanced learning is at the heart of school improvement efforts (hallinger & peck, 2010). poor school leadership practices are specifically singled out as one of the major obstacles to school improvement in south africa (van der voort & wood, 2014; govender, grobler, & mestry, 2015). in international literature, it has become a mantra that school leadership practices are second only to classroom practice in directly influencing learning (leithwood, harris, & hopkins, 2008). this scenario places a huge accountability responsibility for school improvement on the school leadership. however, leadership is not just about the leader, but a relationship between the leader and the follower (hollander, 1992; kellerman, 2007; malakyan, 2014). a growing body of literature has begun recognising the critical role played by followers in constructing and sustaining leadership processes (malakyan, 2014; uhl-bien, riggio, lowe, & carsten, 2014; alvesson & blom, 2015; mannion, mckimm & o’sullivan, 2015; starbuck, 2015). this study was conducted against a background in which the role of the follower in the leader-follower relationship has largely been understated in leadership theory and research. leadership processes have notably been understood from leader-centric perspectives (starbuck, 2015). there has also been a stigma attached to the follower role and a misconception that leadership is more important than followership (bjugstad, thach, thompson, & morris, 2006; starbuck, 2015). in the leader-follower dichotomy that resulted, the role of the leader has been regarded as more active than the role of the follower (alvesson & blom, 2015). the undermining of the role of the follower may have arisen from some conceptualisations of followership. kellerman (2008) defines followership as a rank characterised by less influence, power and authority than a leader. the portrayal of the leader role as more influential to organisational development is closely associated with designating leadership positions to individuals who would be in charge of steering change. since leadership is regarded as an act of exerting influence, the implication is that organisational development is largely attributed to the actions of the leader. however, follower-centric approaches assert that leadership results from mutual influence between a leader and a follower (mannion et al., 2015). in a clear tsakeni and jita: followership and sustainability. . . 239 illustration of leadership as a relationship between a leader and a follower, kellerman (2007, p. 1) asserts that, “there is no leader without at least a follower…” martin (2015) agrees that the leader-follower relationship is at the heart of effective leadership. although the leader may be in command of more authority, the follower has the ability to impede or promote the leader’s actions (hollander, 1992). leadership thrives on enabling follower identities, characteristics, styles and role orientations (kellerman, 2007; martin, 2015). these follower identities will be discussed in the literature review section. the discourses in school leadership research recognise the crucial role played by individuals occupying lower ranks (followers) in schools. however, the follower role in the construction of leadership has been understood through leader-centric perspectives such as distributed leadership, instructional leadership and teacher leadership. on the influence exerted by leadership practices on learner performance, the literature on distributed leadership perspectives highlight that it is exercised by various role players in schools (louis, dretzke, & wahlstrom, 2010; higgins & bonne, 2011; diamond & spillane, 2016). this assertion departs from the view that principal leadership may solely influence learning. distributed leadership perspectives have been able to demonstrate that positional leadership practices do not explain all the observed school improvement through enhanced learner achievements (sulleyman, 2015). as one of the foci for school improvement, science and mathematics learning has been put in the spotlight. local reports and international benchmarks such as timss portray learner performance in science and mathematics as very poor (department of basic education, 2014, 2016; ndlovu, 2011; noyes, wake, & drake, 2013; cho et al., 2014). the poor learner performance in science and mathematics reflects at a time when internationally governments are working to improve citizens’ participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem) to support the growth of economies (clothey, mills, & baumgarten, 2010). secondary school science and mathematics form part of the gateway subjects. however, these subjects are characterised by relatively low enrolments and reduced learner attainment (maree et al., 2006; ndlovu, 2011). accordingly, there is a noted scarcity of skills in the fields of stem in most countries including south africa (watt, richardson, & pietsch, 2007). the use of follower-centric approaches to study leadership processes has theoretical and practical implications. sy (2010) propounds that a follower240 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 centric approach makes the understanding of leadership theory more holistic. the practical implications are based on the understanding of traits that characterise the best follower (sy, 2010; martin, 2015). we use a followercentric approach to explore the leadership processes for the teaching and learning of science and mathematics in one top performing secondary school in bloemanda township in the south african city of bloemfontein. we ask the question: how does the role of the follower co-construct and sustain leadership for secondary school science and mathematics? the study findings will contribute to the growing literature on follower-centric approaches to explain leadership processes. furthermore, the study has practical implications in the debates that develop ideas on leadership practices for school science and mathematics. we consider the science and mathematics teachers as followers and the two terms may be used interchangeably. literature review the democratisation of the workplaces has resulted in the empowerment of followers who according to leader-centric lenses had fewer prerogatives to discharge leadership functions. through the leader-centric lenses, the individuals occupying lower ranks in an organisation have the duty and obligation to follow their leaders. bjugstad et al. (2006, p. 304) define followership “as the ability to effectively follow the directives and support the efforts of a leader to maximise structured organisation”. despite the notable leader-centric approaches to explain organisational behaviour, literature recognises that leaders cannot act independently without the support of followers (starbuck, 2015; monzani, ripoll & peiro, 2015; mannion et al., 2015). alversson and blom (2015) posit that effective leaders enjoy the support of a willing followership. monzani et al. (2015) further say that leaders, who are willing to involve followers in goal setting, give them a voice and an opportunity to provide input about the tasks they have to perform. the implication is that effective following can be as a result of participating in leadership processes. some of the leader-centric perspectives of leadership such as distributed leadership and teacher leadership are a clear testimony of the recognition of the follower role in the construction of leadership. in distributed leadership set-ups, leadership is decentred and spread among various individuals in the tsakeni and jita: followership and sustainability. . . 241 school including teachers (firestone & martinez, 2007). similarly, the concept of teacher leadership recognises teachers (followers) who are in charge of leadership responsibilities. the leadership tasks performed by teachers include using classroom practice to promote school improvement goals, owning change processes by being part of participative leadership processes, acting as experts and sources of information and participating in teacher learning processes (harris, 2003). after synthesising the growing literature that calls for a shift from explaining organisational processes through leader-centred perspectives to include follower-centred perspectives, uhl-bien et al. (2014) identify two strands of research focused on followership. one of the strands is based on the role theory approach, which is a reversal of the lens of studying leadership processes by focusing on aspects such as follower role identities, follower role characteristics and style and follower role orientations. the other strand is the constructionist approach or “the leadership process” (uhl-ben et al., 2014, p. 99) in which leaders and followers co-construct leadership when all of them may have occasions to assume leadership or followership roles. malakyan (2014) refers to the constructionist approach as the leader-follower trade (lft). we used both follower role identities and the lft as conceptual frameworks in this study. follower role identities sy (2010) highlights a theoretical implication for the integration of followers as a focal point in leadership research. our understanding of leadership becomes more holistic. sy (2010) further illustrates through the example of how the research focus on follower identities complements research on leader cognitions of followers. leaders may perceive followers in terms of metrics such as industry, competence, conformity, enthusiasm, insubordination and good citizenry (sy, 2010; martin, 2015). similarly, kellerman (2007) highlights the importance of the follower role in sustaining leadership by characterising follower role orientations. the author advances four followership typologies. firstly, the kellerman model uses one metric to define followers as either active or passive. kellerman (2007) further identifies a second model by abraham zalenik. the model also uses one metric to describe followers as either possessing self-initiative or lacking selfinitiative. thirdly, the robert kelley model typifies followership as alienated, passive, conformist, exemplary and pragmatic. lastly, the ira chaleff model 242 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 characterises followers as implementers, partners, individualists and resources. the typology serves to support the idea that followership identities sustain leaders by shaping their attitudes, behaviours and effectiveness (uhlbien et al., 2014). leader-follower trade (lft) approach based on the concern that the use of leader-centred literature is concerned with the effectiveness of the leaders while neglecting the role of followership in the process, we used the lft approach (malakyan, 2014) as another lens to explore leadership processes for science and mathematics teaching and learning. the lft approach proposes that leaders and followers co-construct the leadership processes (uhl-bien et al., 2015). the co-construction is made possible because leadership and followership are regarded as roles that are exchangeable (malakyan, 2014). leaders and followers experience mutual influence in such a way that leadership is shared (ibid). the task determines the leader. malakyan (2014) further points out that leaders and followers can co-construct the various leadership typologies. applied to a school set up, school leaders and followers (teachers) co-construct the leadership functions. these functions include the managerial, instructional, transformational, distributed, moral and authentic, contingent, systems and teacher leadership for school improvement as mentioned in bush and glover (2014). the challenges of poor learner achievement in secondary school science and mathematics accompanied by reduced learner enrolments in these subjects are a situation that calls for all stakeholders to act. zhang, wang and shi (2012) assert that the ever changing and competitive environments that characterise organisations call for employee initiatives. similarly, the constantly changing curriculums and calls for accountability due to high-stakes testing environments in schools call for teacher initiatives. to reiterate the point above, mannion et al. (2015) posit that in times of crisis, instability and constant change, followers need leaders as much as leaders need followers. similarly, we view the current challenges in science and mathematics education as a crisis in which leaders and followers need each other. tsakeni and jita: followership and sustainability. . . 243 methodology the primary aim of this study was to use a follower-centred approach to explore how the role of the follower co-constructs and sustains leadership for secondary school science and mathematics through a qualitative case study. we were able to “study things in their natural setting attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meaning people bring to them” (denzin & lincoln, 2003, p. 5). again, within the context of a qualitative study, narrative inquiry was applied to explore how people make sense of their lives by selecting and arranging information about noteworthy episodes (cousin, 2009). therefore, we gathered data from positional leaders and the followers (teachers) about their lived experiences and working relations in order to “crystallize or define an issue, view, stance or perspective” (cohen, manion & morrison, 2011, p. 553) this study was part of a wider research project on instructional leadership for science and mathematics in the free state province. the use of purposive sampling techniques to select one secondary school was based on the need to identify a data rich case study for the purpose of the research. the single school selected also represented a case to allow for an in-depth study. the school was located in an impoverished and predominantly black township of bloemanda in bloemfontein, south africa. despite the impoverished conditions, the school was one of the top performing schools in physical sciences and mathematics in the free state province. some study findings associate the impoverished socio-economic status of schools with poor learner performance and reduced enrolments in science and mathematics (maree et al., 2006; ndlovu, 2011, cho et al., 2014). we were keen to explore how the leadership processes for science and mathematics learning were coconstructed and sustained in the school. after obtaining informed consent from the prospective research participants in the school, we went ahead to elicit narratives from the principal, the viceprincipal, the head of the science department (who taught physical sciences), one physical sciences teacher and three mathematics teachers. the mathematics head of department (hod) was not available for the interviews. the vice-principal did not wish to be audio-recorded as we interviewed her. we respected her wishes and documented the interview as field notes. the teachers were assigned pseudonyms. joe was the physical sciences teacher. the mathematics teachers were assigned the names tim, rose and mandy. we did not assign pseudonyms to the positional leaders but refer to them 244 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 using their positions. the interviews explored the experiences of the teachers and the positional leaders in the construction of leadership practices for science and mathematics teaching and learning in the school. no parameter was placed on the length of the narrative or the structure and type of experience described. the content analysis of the narratives was conducted by using a recursive approach that was used to identify the recurring themes in the narratives. the trustworthiness of the study was ensured by systematically building the arguments in the findings from the data. furthermore, the findings of the study were developed through the triangulation of data from several participants. we used the themes to identify the emergent episodes that we used to construct the school’s story. findings of the study after subjecting the data to content analysis four themes emerged. the findings of the study are therefore presented under the four themes below. theme 1: teachers lead by engaging in participative leadership the tone of the leadership in the school was set for us by what the viceprincipal said. we could not quote her verbatim since she declined to be audio-recorded. she indicated that the top management of the school upheld the principles of democratic leadership. important decisions for teaching and learning were arrived at by reaching a consensus. firestone and martinez (2007) point out that democratic leadership is a quasi-synonym of distributed leadership. the approach works to decentre the leadership tasks in the school by granting teachers increased authority and autonomy (ibid). accordingly, under distributed leadership practices the power gap between the leaders and followers is minimised (malakyan, 2014). the vice-principal pointed out that the teachers were informed of what is expected of them in staff meetings, which we interpreted as a goal-setting exercise. monzani et al. (2015) assert that if goals are set in a participative way, the followers provide their input on how the tasks should be carried out. the vice-principal described hods as the ‘anchors’ of the school. they were tasked with monitoring syllabus coverage by using the pacesetter instruments and adhering to the policy. this is further evidence of how leadership was decentred in the school. tsakeni and jita: followership and sustainability. . . 245 the democratic leadership principles were practised alongside managerial leadership functions. the vice-principal mentioned that some meetings with teachers were used as accountability sessions whereby individual teacher performances were discussed by analysing results and mapping a way forward. this was evidence of how the managerial leadership was used to influence classroom improvement by the positional leaders. managerial leadership focuses on people’s functions and behaviours (bush & glover, 2014). in these accountability sessions, we noticed that teachers played the leadership roles for science and mathematics education whilst the other members of staff, including positional leaders, played the role of followership. the hod for mathematics and accounting (who specialised in accounting) relied on the mathematics subject leader, tim, to influence classroom practice. we figured out from the interview excerpt below that even the top management relied on tim for leadership in mathematics education in the school. interviewer: what interactions do you have, as a subject head, with the principal and vice principal? tim: i report to them every term on the progress of the teachers. this was clear evidence of the lft at play (malakyan, 2014), whereby followers and leaders co-construct the leadership processes. the leadership roles become exchangeable. the task to lead mathematics teaching and learning was performed by tim and the rest of the individuals in the school played the role of followers. as a subject leader, tim was very clear about the vision of the school concerning the teaching of mathematics in the school. he was in charge of making sure that the vision is achieved and the other mathematics teachers assisted him by being active followers (kellerman, 2007). developing and maintaining a vision is a leadership task (firestone & martinez, 2007; robinson, lloyd & rowe, 2008). we surmised the following from the interview excerpt. interviewer: as a leader with a vision, how do you prompt changes and make sure people buy the ideas that you have been mandated to pass to them? how do the teachers respond? tim: mathematics is a very challenging subject it doesn’t matter where in the world you go. our long-term goal as a school is to get every learner to do mathematics. we also have yearly goals of achieving at least more than 80%. the teachers do their part and we work very 246 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 well together. i sometimes don’t even feel like i am their leader as they always push themselves and do their part. they make my work very easy. in the above excerpt, tim began to describe the follower role identities of the other mathematics teachers which we follow up in the next theme. theme 2: follower role identities sustaining leadership for science and mathematics learning the teachers displayed particular follower role identities that enabled them to take part in the leadership processes for science and mathematics. alvesson and blom (2015) posit that effective leaders are complemented by a willing and supportive followership. the principal of the school praised the teachers for their commitment. the principal said: i would also like to say we are very fortunate that we have very dedicated teachers, very young mathematicians, they go all out. sometimes they have classes from monday up until sunday to try and bring out the best from learners, sometimes to try and close the gap from primary to secondary school. we have been doing very well in mathematics and physical sciences, we have a very great teacher of physical sciences with a lot of experience and he is doing very well. another excerpt from tim’s narrative revealed that teaching experience was vital for teachers to be placed in strategic leading roles to support school improvement through classroom practice. interviewer: what do you consider when allocating teachers to grades? tim: we meet to discuss allocation with the five teachers in my department. i prepare a draft plan myself before then engage with teachers on it. i usually put the more experienced teachers in grade 12 and the newer ones in the lower grades and give them an opportunity to progress as the years go by. harris (2003) confirms that teachers practise leadership through classroom practice. we were able to identify another criterion that allowed teachers to exercise leadership roles. the hod for science mentioned that ‘performing teachers’ were asked to mentor other teachers who looked up to them for tsakeni and jita: followership and sustainability. . . 247 guidance. ‘performing teachers’ were teachers who consistently achieved good results. he said: we also have sessions here at school where we ask the performing teachers to share their ideas with other teachers. we do try to create the environment where teachers are able to come together and share ideas. the interview excerpt below confirms that mathematics teachers engaged in similar exercises. we could also surmise why, in the configuration of school leadership, there was sometimes a need to appoint a subject leader. the existence of the mathematics subject leader is evidence of follower participation in leadership necessitated by the hod’s lack of expertise. below is the interview excerpt. interviewer: how easy or difficult is it to get any other assistance that you need with the teaching of maths? for example from the people in the school rose: we have a good team here in the school, we work together and assist each other with solving problems. we all use this room. interviewer: is your hod also using this room? rose: the subject head, a senior teacher, also uses the room. we do have an hod who oversees everything in maths and accounting but he specialises in accounting. so we report to the maths subject head and he will liaise with the hod. interviewer: what is the role of the subject head in the school? rose: his duties are the same as the hod’s, if we need anything for example resources we just tell him. rose seemed to imply that the mathematics subject leader was considered for the position based on seniority and experience in addition to expertise. higgins and bonne (2011) highlight the importance of school-based expertise in supporting instructional leadership efforts. harris (2003) mentions that teachers exert influence on other individuals by displaying expertise and as sources of information. tim’s follower identity in terms of expertise in mathematics put him in a better position to lead the subject than the hod. teachers may perform leadership roles when the situation demands. mannion et al. (2015) agree when they say that in times of crisis and instability leaders need the support of followers. to support rose’s claims that tim’s roles were similar to that of a positional leader such as an hod, mandy, another mathematics teacher, described her interactions with tim as follows: 248 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 interviewer: who supervises your work as a teacher? m andy: the subject head. he takes learners’ books and he also moderates tests. interviewer: do they come to classes to observe? m andy: only when we have iqms [integrated quality management systems]. additional to being willing and supportive, the teachers displayed follower role identities that could be described according to teaching experience, expertise and proven record of good results in learner attainments. theme 3: teachers lead by engaging in professional learning communities (plcs) from the teachers’ narratives, we managed to glean more insights on some leadership processes that influenced classroom practice in science and mathematics. we established that the teachers organised themselves in teams. the members of the team collaborated and worked together to ensure that teaching and learning became effective. responding to the prompt that sought to establish the source of influence in science teaching and learning, joe – a physical sciences teacher – said: we work as a team and assist each other at all times. learners do not feel the gap even if one of us is not present. the science hod corroborated what the physical sciences teacher said. he said: science hod: we also bring expertise from outside, if there is a teacher in another school then we bring them in to assist and also assist them where we can. interviewer: are these other schools in your cluster or people you know personally? science hod: its people we know personally, we form relationships with other teachers at workshops and learn from them. the learning facilitators are also very helpful. they make sure they present new topics to us. firestone and martinez (2007) describe teamwork and team building among teachers as a strategy of teacher leadership. the authors further describe teacher leaders as peers who have no authority over other teachers. we tsakeni and jita: followership and sustainability. . . 249 contend that if teacher leaders are peers who have no authority over other teachers then they can still be referred to as followers in relation to positional leaders in the school. joe further revealed that the nature of collaboration that took place within the teams enabled continuous teacher learning. one of the prerequisites for successful instructional leadership is teacher participation in continuous professional development and continual inquiry into practice (robison et al., 2008; sun, penuel, frank, gallager, & youngs, 2013). joe shared the successes of the team activities in the following excerpt from his narrative: in the free state we have reached a stage where we own science now. it’s not just a career anymore but a way of life. i am part of a forum that consists of eight science teachers. we get together and discuss all matters relating to the subject every day. we are constantly challenging one another and growing each other. we do winter classes, we assist the department with important projects etc. in this forum we have our lfs [learning area facilitators] as part of us. sometimes when we have camps we call them in and assist with certain topics because of late we have a problem of learners not wanting to listen to one person the whole year, so bringing other experts tends to help. the team comprised of teachers from a cluster of schools and it included one district official whose designation was that of a learning area facilitator. the use of systems leadership enables teachers from clusters to learn from each other (bush & glover, 2014). we noted that the teacher teams operated at two levels, namely cluster and same subjects within the school. the continuous teacher learning activities included inquiry into practice to ensure improved learner outcomes. joe revealed this in the following interview excerpt: we always have common tests per term or sometimes monthly, for example we have six topics per paper, learners write, we mark the papers and do error analysis. we then establish focus areas for example if learners are struggling with projectile motion and it is a common problem, it is then established that the problem is not with the learners but maybe with the teachers. we sit down as a cluster and find the best way to present it to the learners. we learn from one another because even if you know the content the way you deliver it is very important. 250 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 the inquiry into practice process is one way of ensuring an improved classroom. theme 4: teachers lead by using classroom practice to support school improvement goals the identification of teachers as subject experts, experienced and consistently ensuring enhanced learner achievement was based on classroom practice. teaching higher grades and possibly exam classes was an act of leadership in the school. as we interviewed the science hod, he mentioned what he termed “weaker teachers”. these teachers possibly had little teaching experience, limited mastery of subject knowledge and no established record of achieving high learner performance. these teachers received guidance and were led by teacher leaders. they were assigned to teach lower grades. we based our interpretations on the following narrative excerpt from the science hod. science hod: we look at the strength of the teacher in the subject and allocate the strongest teachers to grades 10–12 for mathematics and physical sciences. these teachers mentor the weaker teachers who are feeding them from get [general education and training]. they do class visits and if a teacher is not strong in a particular topic they bring another teacher in who is strong in that topic to assist and the teacher also learns from them. discussion and conclusion we set out to explore how the role of the follower co-constructs and sustains leadership for secondary school science and mathematics. the theoretical significance of the study lies in the contribution that it makes to follower role identity as a research area (kellerman, 2008; sy, 2010; uhl-bien et al, 2014). the teachers in this study were willing and supportive of the school vision for every learner to do well in science and mathematics. the teachers were prepared to focus on instruction beyond the call of duty. according to kellerman (2008), followers may display an active role in contrast to cases where followers may be described as passive and fail to adequately support change in an organisation. in this study, the above-mentioned change refers to leadership processes for school improvement through secondary school tsakeni and jita: followership and sustainability. . . 251 science and mathematics. additional follower role identities were established. firstly, the findings revealed that the teachers who took part in co-constructing leadership processes for science and mathematics were ‘senior teachers’ because they had significant teaching experience. secondly, the teachers had an impressive record for producing good results in classroom practice. they were referred to as ‘performing teachers’ in the school. thirdly, the teachers were recognised as ‘experts’. it became their responsibility to lead subjects and mentor other teachers with less experience and expertise. similarly, according to the ira challeff model (kellerman, 2008), these teachers can be described as implementers (success in classroom practice), partners (co-constructed leadership processes) and as resources (subject experts and mentors). teacher participation in co-constructing leadership processes was set on a number of premises. firstly, the democratic leadership, which was in place in the school, had characteristics of a distributed leadership configuration. teachers were provided with space to discharge leadership roles. according to lft leadership, responsibilities are distributed among the followers and the positional leaders (uhl-bien et al., 2014). malakyan (2014) says that leadership is a role or function and not a position that is occupied by an individual and therefore it is exchangeable. secondly, the teachers were organised in plcs through which teamwork and continuous learning took place. the activities of the teachers in the plcs empowered the teachers to lead processes to improve the teaching and learning of science and mathematics. thirdly, the teachers participated in the leadership processes for school improvement through classroom practice (harris, 2003). they exercised influence on school improvement by achieving good results obtained in science and mathematics. while the findings of this case study may not be generalizable, they succeed in underlining the crucial role played by followers in collaborating with positional leaders to co-construct leadership processes. the use of secondary school science and mathematics as a context of study advances efforts in the development of ideas leading to school improvement in that area. the development of ideas is achieved by putting issues of science and mathematics follower role identities on the agenda. additional to the follower role identities are insights on developing ways in which teachers may coconstruct and sustain leadership processes for school improvement through science and mathematics. 252 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 references alvesson, m. & blom, m. 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(2012). leader-follower congruence in proactive personality and work outcomes: the mediating role of leadermember exchange. academy of management journal, 55(1), 111–130. 256 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 maria tsakeni lecturer: school of mathematics, natural sciences and technology education faculty of education university of the free state tsakenim@ufs.ac.za loyiso c. jita professor: school of mathematics, natural sciences and technology education faculty of education university of the free state jitalc@ufs.ac.za mailto:tsakenim@ufs.ac.za mailto:jitalc@ufs.ac.za journal of education, 2017 issue 68, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za cognitive justice and the higher education curriculum brenda leibowitz (received 8 august 2016; accepted 11 january 2017) abstract this article is set against the backdrop of calls for the decolonisation of the curriculum in higher education institutions in south africa. it is an attempt to contribute towards the debate on decolonising the curriculum, with a focus on the tasks of academics and academic developers. the first half of the article outlines several key aspects of current theorising about academic development or teaching and learning in higher education, informed by more general debates about education. these aspects limit the potential to imagine a more inclusive or socially just, decolonised curriculum. the second half of the article proposes cognitive justice as a useful concept to lead thinking about how to change the curriculum. it discusses what cognitive justice is and how this intersects with writing on decolonisation. it outlines some of the gaps in this conceptualisation, which would need more attention if this concept were to be useful to take the process of transforming teaching and learning forward. introduction calls for decolonising the higher education curriculum, arising out of the student protests in 2015–2016 in south africa, have unleashed much soul searching as well as creative energy and intellectual excitement. at some universities academics, sometimes along with students and other role-players, have been getting together to explore the implications of the calls for curriculum redesign and to discuss what a decolonised higher education curriculum might look like (see report on a workshop at the university of johannesburg, leibowitz and mayet, 2016, or at rhodes university by jagarnath, 2015, as examples). a ‘decolonised curriculum’ is an all-embracing collective noun that lies between abstract and concrete. it could be concrete in that it could imply a system led by design, but it is also abstract, it implies various more formal and more informal aspects of the experience of a student’s university learning and 94 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 the aspects that influence learning, such as social behaviour or residence life. the notion of a ‘decolonised currriculum’ is all embracing in that it cannot happen in a piecemeal fashion, where one or two individuals tinker with their module frameworks – rather, it requires all role players to become involved. two important groups are teaching academics, and academic developers, whose task it is to support academics in the redesign of the curriculum. this article is written from the point of view of an academic developer who has been working in this field on an off for the past two and a half decades. it draws from the literature on teaching and learning as well as from observations of having worked in this professional sphere – the conversations, policy debates, seminars and colloquia, conferences and scholarly journals that inform work in academic development. by way of example, conferences attended include the local conferences higher education of learning and teaching association of southern africa (heltasa), kenton, the south african education research association (saera) and internationally conferences of the american education research association (aera), the society for research in higher education (srhe) and the international consortium for education developers (iced). the article focuses on the south african context and debates, but with an understanding that these are informed by, and hopefully inform, international scholarly debates. it should be noted that theorising of teaching and learning in higher education draws from a wide range of literatures, including those on adult education, general schooling, and more recently, on childhood education. this article makes two interrelated points: first, that the way academics and academic developers have been thinking about curriculum change towards more equitable and accessible education has been held captive by logics that prevent thinking of alternative and transformative approaches, and secondly, that a useful way forward would be the concept of ‘cognitive justice’, but that this concept would require significant elaboration. ‘logics’ has been used in the plural, since higher education and academic development are heterogeneous fields, working off a plurality of philosophical and ethical underpinnings, and of understandings of the word ‘curriculum’ and of ‘teaching and learning’. the problem with a discussion that attempts to characterise a field of study over several decades is that it either covers all tendencies, becoming extensive and possibly laborious and descriptive, or it is necessarily selective and possibly impressionistic. for this reason the discussion that follows in the next section, on the views that limit our thinking, is by admission subjective, focussing on the tendencies that as leibowitz: cognitive justice and the higher education curriculum. . . 95 author, i believe are significant and powerful, rather than those that might even have featured more times, if counted. they are also views of leftleaning, progressive thinkers, whom i believe have been influential in setting trends in this country. these are a variety of ways of thinking, and these may feature ontology, epistemology or theory. as a final word on the style of argumentation as well as purpose of the article, this represents the attempts of one academic developer to come to terms with and account for her developing understanding of what it might mean to take forward the transformation of the curriculum, such that it becomes more genuinely inclusive. limitations of current thinking about teaching and learning in higher education one important limitation emanates from the literatures about decolonisation and decoloniality themselves. calls for the decolonisation of the curriculum in south africa have been couched in arguments derived from the fields of philosophy, politics, literature and psychology, thus the social sciences broadly, for example with reference to contributions by franz fanon, steve biko, ngég« wa thing’o or edward said. there have been a small number of south african scholarly contributions on the subject of decolonising the curriculum which link these broader discussions with educational theory – for example on decolonising the curriculum, le grange (2016) or mbembe (n.d. and 2016), on africanising the university, seepe (2004) or on africanising the curriculum (for example msila and gumbo, 2016). by and large theory on teaching and learning with regard to schooling or higher education, has been produced in the west, and within the discourses and paradigms emanating from the west. whilst in the field of academic development and teaching and learning much literature, bibliographic or case study research has been produced in the global south, certainly from south africa, the ‘big ideas’ on which this literature rests remains western (see for example the theorists cited in msila and gumbo, 2016, on the subject of africanising the curriculum). my own work is also a case in point. there is thus no substantive ‘decolonised’ or ‘decolonial’ theory, to guide the transformation of the curriculum. this is related to a second limitation, namely that educationists in south africa are informed by our own class positions – mostly middle class and by writers that stem from or write about education from this mainly western and 96 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 cartesian, enlightenment point of view. being so dominant, this perspective influences all aspects of our thinking, leading many of us to an inability to think outside of the hegemonic form (kumashiro, 2015). mbembe (n.d.) describes the western hegemonic tradition as humanist, and that it so pervasive that it becomes difficult to see outside the frame: “this hegemonic notion of knowledge production has generated discursive scientific practices and has set up interpretive frames that make it difficult to think outside of these frames.” some ways of thinking are absolutely fundamental to the way we understand the world. yet as feminist writer harraway observes, it matters which stories tell stories, which concepts think concepts. mathematically, visually, and narratively, it matters which figures figure figures, which systems systematize systems (harraway, 2016, p.101). and it matters, what knowledge systems we use to consider how to generate new or more equitable and fair knowledge systems. in describing these two limitations there is the danger of the suggestion that the literature on decolonisation and decoloniality are outside of the influence of western enlightenment thinking, i.e. that one can draw a strict line between these as separate epistemologies or ontologies. there is also the danger that the article is advancing a strong standpoint theory, namely that one can only write about something if one originates from a particular social position. neither of these are intended, but one cannot escape the fact that the western cartesian and enlightenment approach is so pervasive, that thinking outside of its parameters is extremely difficult. a third limitation is the manner in which several important interrelated phenomena are seen as bounded: knowledge as separate from learning and as separate from language; the personal as separate from the social; and curriculum as separate from pedagogy or teaching and learning. the vision of knowledge as separate from learning, or doing, is most clearly expressed by the social realists, whose output has been very influential in south africa. according to young (2008, p.183) social realism “stresses the externality of knowledge that is separate from the processes of knowing and doing”. a separation between the social and the personal, as well as between experience and learning, is captured in the quote from durkheim, who was very influential in the work of the social realists: “one does not recreate science through one’s own personal experience, because [science] is social not individual; one learns it (durkheim 1956, p.48, quoted in young and muller, leibowitz: cognitive justice and the higher education curriculum. . . 97 2010, p.123). this once again denies the embeddedness and contextuality of coming to know so aptly demonstrated in the work of theorists on practice demonstrated by heath (1983), holland, lachicotte, cain and skinner (1998) or lave (2011). the work of the theorists on practice has been popular amongst some academic developers in south africa, but not as dominant as that of the social realists. linked to the idea of knowledge as relatively bounded and autonomous is the trend amongst the social realists to emphasise the rational, cognitive, and the importance of theoretical propositions: it is only when we understand the rules that we can meaningfully and purposefully change the rules. this is why theoretical knowledge must be at the centre of all educational qualifications, including occupational qualifications (wheelahan, 2010, p.145). work on learning and emotion by zembylas (2015; 2010), taken up in the south african context amongst others, by leibowitz, swartz, bozalek, carolissen, nichols and rohleder (2012), stresses that learning is not only cognitive: it is active and affective, and experiential (michelson, 2015). the problem with the view that knowledge is most importantly theoretical, is once again that it is viewed as disembodied, and separated from process, context and experience. what would be the means for students who do not share social worlds with the world where such theory is developed, to engage with this knowledge? how would they come to know it? social realists do not pronounce how students should be encouraged to learn. they specify that their sphere of concern is the curriculum and the place of knowledge within that. however they do imply that it is possible for all students to be able to access powerful forms of knowledge: “. . .all students should be provided with equality of access to the most powerful forms of knowledge through the means that most reliably enable that access” (maton and moore, 2010, p.8). the assumption that one can design a curriculum around what knowledge is, and not around how people come to know, is a problem: theorizing the nature of knowledge is thus a key task of the sociology of education, because this provides an understanding of the way it should be structured in curriculum so that there is equitable access to it (wheelahan, 2010, p.17). the artificial separation of private and social, and of learning from knowledge is not the prerogative of the social realists, and is perhaps so dominant in western educational writing that it is a common sense notion. michelson 98 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 (2015), for example, demonstrates how prevalent this thinking is amongst some writers on adult education and reflection, most notably kolb. she uses a cameo of adult student, mary, to demonstrate that when we think and reflect, our thought is social: the concepts we use are part of the received structures within which we experience, reflect, and act. thus, they are shared tools, not individual ones; even when we are thinking on our own, that thinking is mediated through the sociality of language and the social production of meaning (michelson, 2015, p.91). the point is that whilst it might be useful to separate out learning from knowledge as concepts, or curriculum and teaching and learning, this separation hinders thinking about how education could be more accessible or inclusive, since it forecloses the thinking about the very sociality durkheim refers to, with regard to how learning takes place. a further limitation has been the pre-eminence of a social reproduction theory of education, represented by the stringent critiques of capitalist schooling and higher education, pierre bourdieu and basil bernstein, amongst others. these critiques might be useful as critiques, but cannot be transposed into values or a vision for a way forward. with regard to bernstein this body of knowledge explains how the social stratification in society is perpetuated through schooling. further elaborations of his writing by those who write under the ambit of a ‘social realist approach to knowledge’ (wheelahan, 2010; young, 2008; maton and moore, 2010), provide a strong heuristic to analyse curricula and qualification frameworks. this critique is also useful in analysing how apparently liberal and progressive curricula obscure the means through which principally the humanities maintain exclusive. the work of bourdieu and his deployment of the concepts ‘social’, and ‘cultural’ capital, and their role in social reproduction, has allowed for a tendency to see education, or let us say knowledge, as a form of capital, and thus as a commodity. in other words, the metaphor of ‘capital’ has travelled further than its value as a tool for critique – it operates as a metaphor for what should be done with the curriculum. an example and the way the language of capital has permeated current thinking about the curriculum is this extract on the work of bourdieu in relation to literacy: [literacy is]a discursive space in which certain resources are produced, attributed value, and circulated in a regulated way, which allows for competition over access and, typically, unequal distribution (heller, 2008, p.50). leibowitz: cognitive justice and the higher education curriculum. . . 99 bernstein does not use the term ‘capital’ but his account of the role of social relations in influencing the acquisition of knowledge and the outcome of education, similarly stresses the manner in which education is part of society’s reproductive process, impacting on students’ access to status and power: finally, social class relations through distributive regulation, distribute unequally, discursive, material and social resources which in turn create categories of the included and excluded, makes crucial boundaries permeable to some and impermeable to others, and specialises and positions oppositional identities (bernstein, 2000, p.207). the word ‘distributive’ is evocative, such that in her outline of the social realist approach to knowledge wheelahan (2010, p.9) refers to ‘distributional justice’ which she admittedly does not equate with status and wealth, but with access to powerful knowledge and the ability to participate in the creation thereof. this notion of powerful knowledge as a form of capital has tacitly as well as overtly informed much intellectual and academic development work undertaken in south africa over the past two decades. it is one of the possible reasons why so much academic development work has focused on making adaptations to the curriculum so that students from ‘disadvantaged’ backgrounds can be successful within the current system, rather than on transforming higher education and its content more substantially. the suggestion that the current way of knowing can or should be ‘distributed’ is not only practically unfeasible – for all but a handful of extremely promising or driven students – but it also forecloses thinking of alternatives. the emphasis of the value of received wisdom is most prevalent amongst social realists. moore (2010) describes the richness of knowledges as these have been generated over time: collective representations are the product of an immense cooperation that extends not only in space but also through time; to make them, a multitude of different minds have associated, intermingled, and combined their ideas and feelings; long generations have accumulated their experience and knowledge. a very special intellectuality that is infinitely richer and more complex than that of the individual is distilled in them . . . (moore, 2010, p.152). the problem with the social realist approach is that it does not encourage multiplicity, including a welcoming of new epistemologies. 100 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 the notion that it is the present knowledge that should be more equitably distributed is akin to the phrase, ‘epistemological access’, which implies that all students, irrespective of social and educational backgrounds, should have access to the present knowledge system. this phrase was coined by wally morrow (2007) to distinguish between a student’s formal access to a higher education institution and the subsequent access to the knowledge therein. it is a useful distinction, and the phrase has become commonplace in academic development literature, including my own publications. it was yunus ballim, however, at a provocative keynote talk at a conference at the central university of technology in 2015, that led me to consider that the phrase is ‘colonialist’, as he argued on that occasion. the problem with an emphasis on the known and the given is partly that it impedes the consideration of what other societies or groups have to offer, and it impedes knowing what has not yet been said: in order to identify what is missing and why, we must rely on a form of knowledge that does not reduce reality to what exists. i mean a form of knowledge that aspires to an expanded conception of realism that incudes suppressed, silenced, or marginalised realities, as well as emergent and imagined realitie (de sousa santos, 2014, p.157). the social realists have also argued that students should be enabled to think the unthinkable. however the implication is that one requires access to powerful knowledge, in order to do so, and that outside of powerful knowledge, one cannot think the unthinkable. the difference in import here could be one of emphasis, or of application. in this section various approaches to knowledge and learning that have been influential in academic developers’ thinking – certainly if i think of my own academic biography – have been outlined. i have argued that these approaches make it difficult to imagine a new, decolonised or more inclusive approach to higher education. in the next section the concept of ‘cognitive justice’ is posed as a possible way to think differently about teaching and learning. cognitive justice the concept of ‘cognitive justice’ is a ‘normative principle for the equal treatment of all forms of knowledge’ (van der velden, n.d., p.12). this does leibowitz: cognitive justice and the higher education curriculum. . . 101 not mean that all forms of knowledge are equal, but that the equality of knowers forms the basis of dialogue between knowledges, and that what is required for democracy is a dialogue amongst knowers and their knowledges. this dialogue is necessary because the present context where western knowledge forms are all-powerful, is problematic in two ways. it is inadequate to solve the problems of social injustice and inequality of our times. it thus requires an ecology of knowledges and the availability of new knowledges (de sousa santos 2014). this hegemony of knowledge forms leads to the destruction of other forms of knowledge and other knowledge practices. according to visvanathan (2002) other knowledges become museumified, meaning that they become an object of study, lifeless and without voice, rather than equal players. de sousa santos (2014) calls this hegemony ‘epistemicide’, in that not only are the forms of knowledge lost or destroyed, but the practices of which they are a part. this destruction includes the natural ecology of the planet. cognitive justice requires the bringing into relation of different knowledges, ‘the plural availability of knowledges’ (visvanathan, 2016, p.4/8). cognitive justice allows for the unknown, and the awareness that our knowledge forms have absences (de sousa santos, 2014). it requires difference in order for democracy and creativity to flow and it is an awareness that all knowledges can and should be flexible: “cognitive justice is not a lazy kind of insistence that every kind of knowledge survives as is” (visvanathan, 2016, p.5/8). the call for cognitive justice is by no means a relativist position on knowledge, though it would perhaps lead to more unpredictability within education. writers have provided criteria for choosing between epistemologies, or for how to decide which knowledge is most appropriate, and under which conditions. de sousa santos stresses the important criteria of purpose or of which questions need answering, or that consideration should be given to how the knowledge was produced (de sousa santos, 2014). visvanathan (2007) provides a list of criteria that is by no means comprehensive, but is illustrative of the criteria one might want to develop further: 1. each knowledge system if it is to be democratic must realise it is iatrogenic in some context. 102 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 2. each knowledge system must realise that in moments of dominance it may destroy life-giving alternatives available in the other. each paradigm must sustain the otherness of other knowledge systems. 3. no knowledge system may ‘museumify’ the other. no knowledge system should be overtly deskilling. 4. each knowledge system must practice cognitive indifference to itself in some consciously chosen domains. 5. all major technical projects legitimised through dominant knowledge forms must be subject to referendum and recall (visvanathan, 2007, p.215). cognitive justice and related concepts cognitive justice, the ‘decolonisation of knowledge’ ‘decoloniality’, indigenous knowledge systems and africanisation of the curriculum can be seen as intersecting terms, depending on how one interprets each term. it is rare that protagonists of decolonisation adopt the view that the ‘pure’, ‘essential’, ‘african’ should obliterate the western, powerful or hegemonic, and mostly call for a “decentring” – making knowledge other than it is (le grange, 2016, p.6) or a ‘re-centring’ of for example african knowledge (seepe, 2004). it is not and should not be isolationist (mbembe n.d.). there are also significant written contributions cautioning against treating the ‘decolonisation’ term too lightly, and of allowing ‘settlers’ to escape the severity of harm they are associated with (tuck and yang, 2012). another approach to decolonisation relevant to cognitive justice is to select those aspects of a culture or epistemology that advance one’s ethical project. makgoba and seepe (2004, p.14) argue that to africanise requires identifying within african epistemology “that which is emancipatory and liberatory”. it is not an assumption that what is african is good and should be adopted, and that what is not african should be rejected. the cautionary point with regard to africanisation made by prah (2004), is that one should avoid romanticising the past. he also acknowledges the elitism of the middle classes in much of africa. most of these writers are not advocating a focus on one pure knowledge, but rather, for the value of some form of multiplicity. leibowitz: cognitive justice and the higher education curriculum. . . 103 an argument against the maintenance of a hierarchic separation of knowledges is the demonstration of the similarities of knowledge systems, and of how societies can learn from one another. comaroff and comaroff (2014), showed in how many ways europe or the global north can learn valuable lessons about social relations and politics from africa, with examples from botswana and south africa. if we can learn from different knowledge systems, we can also learn from comparing them: “through knowledge we liberate ourselves; through knowledge we question the limitations of a single culture/nationalistic identity” (anzaldua, 2015, p.91). we can also use knowledges to answer questions or plug the gaps created by unitary knowledge systems (de sousa santos, 2014). mbembe (2016, p.37) also calls for an embracing approach to knowledge: “a process that does not necessarily abandon the notion of universal knowledge for humanity, but which embraces it via a horizontal strategy of openness to dialogue among many epistemic traditions”. the focus on the ‘how’ or attributes of knowledge makers and knowledge seekers is an important contribution to cognitive justice, as it could have implications for how one might want students to learn (for example, that they are more active participants in the class, that the power relations are attended to). this encourages knowledge makers, users or acquirers from the global south to adopt a confident and agentic stand in relation to knowledge (ndebele, 2016). it “allows africans to be subjects of historical experiences rather than objects on the fringes of europe” makgoba and seepe (2004, p.41/42). cognitive justice – remaining questions frameworks on cognitive justice have been for the most part frameworks about knowledge rather than theorisation of teaching and learning, though educationists such as van der westhuizen (2015) or le grange have begun to write about this. there remain, therefore, a number of areas where these frameworks require further consideration. these areas are discussed in this section. the idea that knowledges and knowledge practices are intimately bound up with people’s cultures, practices and cosmologies (de sousa santos, 2014, visvanathan, 2016) is important in the light of the limitations to the current logics that were discussed in the first part of this article. knowledge is seen as 104 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 part of people’s practices, thus contextually situated, rather than as autonomous and objective, or ‘outside’. this has important ramifications for learning, as this leads to an important question: if one is not a participant within knowledge practices where particular knowledge forms were generated, how best does one acquire this knowledge? this question should not be interpreted to imply that a student needed to have been an ancient egyptian, for example, to be able to learn successfully about the wisdom of ancient egyptians. rather, it implies that one needs to be a participant in practices that value the learning of other historically prior cultures, one would require an understanding of the purpose of this learning that is shared by a particular community of practice, as well as a sense of what kind of questions this community would want answered by such study. at present, and since the enlightenment period, it is middle class schooling and western higher education that has set the terms for how ancient or extant cultures are discussed and learnt about. this is a generalisation, as many religious societies that are not considered mainstream encourage the study of ancient languages in more culturally specific ways, where ancient texts might be venerated rather than as viewed as the source of information in the light of current concerns and questions. however, these are not considered universal or hegemonic or typical of higher education practices. the idea of knowledge as practice or part of practice rather than as autonomous, gives rise to several challenges, or areas of higher education theorisation that require attention. the first is simply, what theories of teaching and learning can be used as a bridge in order to advance cognitive justice in teaching and learning? admittedly one cannot hope for learners to experience viscerally and via physical or emotional means, everything they need to come to know. however one important domain of experience, alluded to by practice theorists, is that of shared meanings within practical activity (schatzki, 2001). an important component of academic practices is the tacit or overt understanding of the purpose of a practice. this point is made clearly in relation to academic practices by reder (1994) or clark and ivaniè (1997). halliday (1985), the functional linguistic who shared ideas with bernstein. halliday (1995) made clear and important links between form, function and context – with regard to language, but the spill over from language to knowledge is evident. thus if learners lived or worked in social contexts where functions of particular practices were self evident to them, they would indeed come closer to experiencing the knowledge, even the theory or rules they need to acquire. if they do not experience these living conditions, one needs to create learning opportunities in which they can engage in the leibowitz: cognitive justice and the higher education curriculum. . . 105 practices, thus acquire the shared meanings and sense of purpose. a more poignant question would be, given that learning requires engagement with the familiar, with knowledge practices from one’s own community of practice, as well as with the unknown, with knowledge practices that are not shared with one’s own community, how is this leap from the known to the unknown advanced with students? an important dimension of cognitive justice is that it must be accompanied by social justice (de sousa santos, 2014). echoing the earlier work of nancy fraser (fraser and honneth, 2003) that social justice is based on the intertwined dimensions of recognition of value (of social categories such as class, race or gender) and distribution of material resources, de sousa santos writes that there can be no recognition without distribution (de sousa santos, 2001). this is all very well, but how does one advance cognitive justice in situations where there is social injustice, and can one use ideas pertaining to cognitive justice in order to advance social justice? young states that “it follows that instead of concentrating solely on ideology critique, a social realist approach to the curriculum seeks to identify the social conditions that might be necessary if objective knowledge is to be acquired” (2008, p.165.) he reminds us that bernstein once said that ‘education cannot compensate for society’ (2008, p.171). given that education is part of society, it would be a mistake to give up altogether on advancing change in education or in the curriculum. furthermore, given that the education system in south africa in the main appears to perpetuate rather than ameliorate social inequality along lines of class and race, as has been pointed out in relation to schooling in general by badat and sayed (2014) and in relation to higher education by bozalek and boughey (2012) and cooper (2015), not to work towards social or cognitive justice at all implies working to perpetuate social injustice. is working towards cognitive justice feasible, in contexts of social injustice? critical pedagogy is one tradition which operates as a resource in order to consider how to work towards social justice via the curriculum. this is not sufficient, however, or as appropriate in the south african context (jansen, 2009) as critical pedagogy has tended to remain within western academic discourses. it would be equally difficult for students not proficient in traditional academic discourses, of which critical pedagogy is generally a part. more recent writing on indigenous knowledge systems (cf le grange, 2016 on higher education, and pacini-ketchabaw and taylor, 2015, with regard to early childhood education, where disrupting colonial practices have become a significant body of work), on disruptive teaching (cf kumashiro, 2015), on 106 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 feminist pedagogy (cf michelson, 2015), and on posthumanist pedagogies (cf the snaza and weaver volume, 2015) that transverse the mind-body dualism have promise in this regard. although these are relatively new under-explored fields, especially with regard to higher education, where substantial translation of concepts is required. one of the most tantalising questions, is how to bridge the language of western ‘science’ with that of alternative languages providing accounts of teaching and learning. the dominant accounts of teaching and learning are provided through the cartesian, enlightenment lenses of research and theory building, not taking into account how learn is described in folk, religious and other communities across the world. selected indigenous african ways of describing learning are provided by banda (2008) with reference to metaphor and idiom, for example. how are these different accounts translated, bridged or brought into conversation with each other? conclusion this article has pointed to some of the limitations in current thinking about teaching and learning in higher education and academic development, limitations which hinder our thinking about how to respond to current calls for the decolonisation of the curriculum. some of these limitations are mitigated by an elaborated version of the concept of ‘cognitive justice’. this concept however has been intended for the general topic of knowledge, rather than for teaching and learning, and thus requires substantial development and bridging, to be of use in current debates. a helpful concept in this consideration is that of ‘practice’, and of viewing knowledge as a practice rather than as autonomous text. however, given the call for different knowledges to be brought into dialogue with each other, this dialogue will be most challenging. it will require the participation of a broader group of educationists than those of us working in higher education and academic development, who administer, perhaps colonially to students, and it will require the dialogue to be conducted in a broader range of languages, discourses and practices. leibowitz: cognitive justice and the higher education curriculum. . . 107 references anzaldua, g. 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(2015). emotion and traumatic conflict: reclaiming healing in education. oxford: oxford university press. brenda leibowitz faculty of education university of johannesburg brendal@uj.ac.za mailto:brendal@uj.ac.za 112 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 microsoft word c88 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 88, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i88a04 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x integrating icts into the zimbabwean secondary school pre-service teachers’ curriculum tendayi dzinoreva ali mazrui centre for higher education studies, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa tdzinoreva@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5652-6752 george mavunga academic development centre, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa gmavunga@uj.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2253-6477 (received: 15 february 2022; accepted: 7 july 2022) abstract the need for nations to enhance their competitiveness by leveraging the imperatives of the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) has seen major shifts in teaching and learning strategies employed globally by educators. research in zimbabwean education has pointed to a gap in teachers’ competence in the use of information communication technologies (icts) for teaching. using the unesco ict competency for teachers and bernstein’s (2000) theory of the pedagogic device we propose a conceptual framework for the pre-service ict curriculum at four zimbabwean secondary school teachers’ colleges in relation, in particular, to the complexities present in the nexus of the curriculum’s architecture, pedagogy, and delivery context. the framework suggests strategies on how this curriculum could address the gap in the teachers’ competencies through effective integration of content, knowledge, skills, technology, and pedagogy into the salient contextual aspects of the country’s education sector, given the constraining shortage of ict resources. keywords: ict, integration, pre-service, curriculum introduction globally, ict continues to advance and have an ubiquitous impact on aspects of everyday life such as the social, economic, and political. even in the most under-developed countries of the world, many areas of people’s lives are, in one way or another, linked to ict. so huge is the extent to which ict has become inextricably attached to human life that access to various forms of ict has become an inescapable human development imperative. ict refers to “technologies that provide access to information through telecommunication. it is similar 54 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 to information technology (it) but focuses primarily on communication technologies. this includes the internet, wireless networks, cell phones, and other communication mediums” (ratheeswari, 2018: s45). the numerous technology tools, therefore, afford education authorities the opportunity to integrate ict into teaching and learning. among the changes that icts have brought to human life are the ways in which business is done, in relation, for example, to issues such as: production, service delivery, and financial transactions; knowledge management; the flow of information globally, along with responses to natural disasters and the empowerment of citizens in times and situations that have seen the disruption of traditional forms of governance. in addition, icts have been responsible for the creation of the global village that the world has become since people across the world can now communicate with each other in real time as if they were in the same physical space. this is made possible by applications such as skype, zoom, and microsoft teams that allow people to hold meetings and connect virtually from different parts of the world. education at all levels around the world has been affected by the impact of icts on all forms of human enterprise with the major thrust being the integration of technology into teaching and learning. as a developing country, zimbabwe has embraced the integration of icts in education in a bid to both enhance its economic competitiveness and its human development trajectories. notwithstanding this, research in the use of ict in zimbabwean education has identified a gap in its use in teaching and learning with one of the major areas of concern being teacher competence (majoni & majoni, 2015; musarurwa, 2011). this raises questions as to the teachers’ capacity for knowledge transfer and, ultimately, the efficacy of their collective contribution to national economic and social development through the use of ict in education. however, strides have been made towards capacitating teachers with ict skills through a joint collaboration between the ministry of primary and secondary education (mopse) and the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation (unesco). as of june 2021, the joint collaboration aimed at training 2500 teachers through a rapid teacher training programme carried out via virtual platforms, face-to-face, and instructor-led workshops (mopse, 2021). the training of teachers is being carried out as an in-service strategy for teacher capacity development. this leaves a gap in the pre-service area where scant attention is being paid to capacitation in terms of resources as well as skills, thereby making ict integration difficult. in this conceptual paper, using the unesco ict framework for teachers and bernstein’s (2000) theory of the pedagogic device, we propose a conceptual framework for the preservice ict curriculum at four zimbabwean secondary school teachers’ colleges in relation to the complexities inherent in the nexus of the curriculum’s architecture, pedagogy, and delivery context. in the framework, we suggest strategies on how this curriculum could address the teachers’ competencies gap through effective integration of content, knowledge, skills, technology, and pedagogy into the salient contextual aspects of the country’s education sector such as the constraining shortage of ict resources arising from the economic challenges that have beset the country for the past two decades. dzinoreva & mavunga: integrating icts into the zimbabwean secondary school . . . 55 currently, the teacher training curriculum structure focuses on the teaching of content knowledge in the main subject area; the pedagogies for teaching and learning are covered through a professional studies course and theories of education modules that assist preservice teachers to understand the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of teaching. each pre-service teacher is expected also to complete an ict module that covers foundational theoretical knowledge and practical skills in the use of icts. pre-service teachers then go into the field to carry out teaching practice during which they use some of the knowledge they will have received from the teacher training institutions and the skills thus acquired before going back to complete the curriculum. in this paper, we give context to the relationship between ict and education under such subtopics as the impact of the ict revolution on education, 4ir and the need for increased ict competencies amongst teachers, the unesco framework for the integration of ict into teaching, zimbabwe’s policy response to the ict revolution, and bernstein’s (2000) theory of the pedagogic device. this is then followed by a conceptual framework that proposes strategies for the integration of ict into the zimbabwean pre-service secondary school teachers’ curriculum. the conclusion then re-emphasises the need for the unique aspects of the zimbabwean education context, as highlighted in the proposed conceptual framework, to be taken into consideration in the implementation of recommendations from suggested global best practices, reflected, for example, in the unesco framework for the integration of ict into the pre-service teachers’ curriculum. the ict revolution-education relationship as discussed in the introduction, the education sector has been massively transformed by icts. the extent to which icts have impacted on education has also led to changes in the way education is being perceived and understood as well as how it is being delivered. at the heart of these changes is the teacher who “plays a key role in this transformation process” (assar, 2015, p. 66). ict integration into education has led to the creation of alternative forms of teaching and learning such as e-learning. previously, society progressed largely as a result of capital and labour. however, fernandez (2017:340) has opined that “a competitive society has emerged that relies on the acquisition, transmission and application of knowledge. it is from these conceptions that, together with the technology edge, school educational processes emerge.” in the same vein, pescador (2014) stated that technology has transformed education by bringing new ways of communicating, interacting, studying, and investigating all of which have had a great impact on it. in the process, the role of the teacher has changed significantly. not only have icts changed the teacher’s role but they have also had a profound effect on the way learners engage with knowledge and how they handle their learning activities. suarez and custodio (2014) suggested that as a relevant aspect of human life, education, in combination with ict, has given rise to a learning environment characterised by students taking responsibility for their own learning. in this environment time and flexibility are key factors. more and more, education is becoming digital as a result of the digital revolution. 56 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 new technologies come together and give rise to new paradigms and pedagogies in education. for centuries, education and the way it was delivered remained static, with teachers being the ones to disseminate the knowledge conveniently stored in textbooks. the importance of ict integration into teaching and learning has been necessitated by the various advantages that it brings to education. moorhouse & wong (2022) assert that ict integration through blended teaching has facilitated the concept of remote learning which makes it easier for learners and teachers to continue with learning regardless of time or place. this was proven in the covid-19 era when all learning suddenly came to a halt. technology was very instrumental in the continuation of learning across the globe. technology has also improved the quality of education by opening various spaces and pools of information thus allowing learners and teachers to interact with information independently (ratheeswari, 2018: starkey, 2020). the emergence of new technologies has seen an expansion in the possibilities for knowledge creation and knowledge transfer (assar, 2015). rapid developments in ict have transformed and shaped the world, particularly in the education domain, into a dynamic space in which curricula are no longer fixed. learning has therefore shifted from teachercentred approaches to learner-centred approaches. in addition, learning is no longer fixed in time and space because it can now take place anywhere and anytime (collins & halverson, 2009; moorhouse & wong, 2022; oliver, 2002; ratheeswari, 2018 ;). while, on one hand, the technological transformations that are taking place in education are positive and make teaching and learning easier, they have placed huge demands on the teacher and on the methods of delivery, on the other. ict integration into education has thus become a critical area for both teachers and learners with the demand for teacher ict competencies, in particular, increasing. assar (2017) asserted that amid all these positive influences of ict, its innovative and effective integration into education is not a straightforward issue. rather, it is a multi-faceted and complex problem with far-reaching implications. the complexity characterising the issue lies in the embedding of pedagogy into technology as well as in the parameters that are brought to bear on user application by institutional policies. in all this, it is important to remember that teachers as critical change agents “at the academic floor are the instruments by which changes in education will become true” (assar, 2017, p. 68). thus, if teachers lack key skills in ict integration, these changes may never be implemented across the curriculum. therefore, “initial teacher education needs to prepare future teachers to deal with this technological implementation from both practical and pedagogical perspectives” (garcía-lázaro et al., 2022, p. 342). if this does not happen, traditional methods will continue to hold sway in classrooms and teachers will neither adapt nor evolve. it is therefore critical that ict integration skills be introduced at the pre-service level to ensure that content knowledge and pedagogical skills are taught simultaneously for the benefit of the students whom the teachers will teach in the schools. the importance of teachers in the process of integrating technology into teaching and learning cannot be underestimated. pelgrum (2001) in a survey to assess the barriers to ict integration in teaching identified the three key barriers of computer insufficiency, teachers’ lack of ict knowledge and skills, and difficulty in integrating ict in instruction in a relevant dzinoreva & mavunga: integrating icts into the zimbabwean secondary school . . . 57 manner. these points are echoed in studies carried out in zimbabwe where there is a wide gap in ict use and its integration in teaching and learning (majoni & majoni, 2015; mandoga et al., 2013; musarurwa, 2011; zengeya, 2008 ;). however, tondeur et al. (2008, p. 2542) pointed out that “integration of computer use in professional competencies implies a more complex approach.” cloke & sharif (2001) asserted that there is more to ict integration than mere competencies since factors such as teacher beliefs about teaching and learning with icts. along with technology resource and education management are also critical to the discourse of ict integration. changed mind-sets regarding ict integration have to stem from a constructivist perspective in order to help teachers acquire a broader and deeper understanding of the expectations of ict integration into teaching and learning. furthermore, higher self-confidence gained through programs that improve teachers’ ict self-efficacy and awareness of the benefits of ict are important in ensuring effective and efficient integration of ict (kreijns et al., 2013). thus, ict integration into teaching and learning requires a more holistic approach than the mere acquisition of ict competencies. the ict revolution has not only introduced educational technologies for teaching and learning but has placed emphasis on the need to acquire the right competencies and the right attitudes and strategies for using the tools. john & sutherland (2004) pointed out that effectiveness and efficiency in ict integration is not based on ict only but on the strategies used in incorporating it into the various teaching and learning activities and the learning content. this assertion is premised on shulman’s (1986) pedagogical content knowledge (pck) model for ict integration. shulman (1987, p. 8) defined pck as “the blending of content and pedagogy into an understanding of how particular topics, problems, or issues are organised, represented and adapted to the diverse interests and abilities of learners, and presented for instruction.” additionally, assar (2005, p. 66) noted that “to be used as a lever for pedagogical innovation and institutional transformation, teacher competencies need to go beyond skills in ict use per se, and to enclose contextual knowledge about technology and, pedagogy and content.” this implies a shift from traditional methods of knowledge delivery to technology-based education in which digital pedagogy skills are key to improving the educational experiences of learners as they engage with content. evolutions in technology have seen major shifts in how technology tools nurture the educational environment and the way in which education is being perceived. technology has brought with it new forms of content creation and knowledge transfer. unesco (2008) stressed that successful ict integration into education is dependent on the teacher competencies to structure the learning environment in alignment with icts. this is also heavily dependent on the knowledge that teachers acquire through training or capacity building programs. such shifts have had a huge impact on the demands placed on teachers in terms of their pedagogical knowledge. in this paper, therefore, we advance the need for a teacher training framework that capacitates teachers with the requisite competencies for full utilisation and integration of ict into teaching and learning. 58 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 4ir and increased demand for ict competencies in teachers the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) is a term coined by klaus schwab, founder and executive chairman of the world economic forum, to describe a world “where individuals move between digital domains and offline reality with the use of connected technology to enable and manage their lives” schwab, 2015, p. 3). 41r is driven towards five key targets: reduction of barriers between inventors and marketing due to new technology; increasing trends in artificial intelligence; and innovative technologies that will integrate different scientific and technical disciplines, robotics and the internet of things (iot) (xu et al., 2018). aligned to education are innovative technologies that will integrate different scientific and technical disciplines. schwab (2015, p. 1) asserted that, in the era of the 4ir, “key forces will come together in a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between physical, digital, and biological spheres.” thus, synergies between technologies that will grow opportunities across the various fields, education included, will emerge. furthermore, the iot through the “internetworking of physical devices” (xu et al., 2018, p. 92), is “expected to offer advanced connectivity of devices, systems, and services that goes beyond machine-to-machine (m2m) communications and covers a variety of protocols, domains, and applications.” such advancements of technology have brought in new technologies to transform teaching and learning thereby improving education in the form of new pedagogical strategies and content access and creation across learning areas. essential to these technological advancements and effects on education is a teacher who possesses the requisite competencies and knowledge to integrate technology into teaching and learning. for unesco (2018), the use of new technologies in education implies new teacher roles, new pedagogies and new approaches to teacher education. the successful integration of ict into the classroom will depend on the ability of teachers to structure the learning environment in new ways, to merge new technology with a new pedagogy, to develop socially active classrooms, encouraging co-operative interaction, collaborative learning and group work. this requires a different set of classroom management skills. the teaching skills of the future will include the ability to develop innovative ways of using technology to enhance the learning environment, and to encourage technology literacy, knowledge deepening and knowledge creation. teacher professional learning will be a crucial component of this educational improvement. (p. 8) a shift in teacher training models is therefore crucial if we are to meet the technological shifts and demands of the new technology-based education. however, the models must seek to address the ict competencies that are required for successful integration of ict into teaching and learning. the ict competency framework provided by unesco (2018) segments the competencies into three main levels beginning with knowledge acquisition. at this level teachers are expected to gain basic knowledge in using technology as well as basic ict competencies. in addition, they must acquire knowledge of the use of technology in knowledge transfer across dzinoreva & mavunga: integrating icts into the zimbabwean secondary school . . . 59 their different disciplines. it is at this level that teachers need to appreciate the benefits of ict to teaching and learning as well as understand national policies for the betterment of the school and help in making key decisions where ict investments are being made. it is also at this stage that attitudes and beliefs regarding ict integration are shaped. unesco (2018) provided a list of outcomes that indicate mastery of ict competencies at the level of knowledge acquisition. teachers who have fully comprehended this level are able to: • articulate how their classroom practices correspond to, and support, institutional and/or national policy; • analyse curriculum standards and identify how ict can be used pedagogically to support attainment of the standards; • make appropriate ict choices to support specific teaching and learning methodologies; • identify the functions of hardware components and common productivity software applications, and be able to use them; • organize the physical environment to ensure technology supports different learning methodologies in an inclusive manner; and • use ict to support their own professional development (p.9) at the knowledge deepening stage teachers gain ict competencies for facilitating student centred, collaborative and cooperative learning environments (unesco, 2018). furthermore, at this stage teachers have the ability to “link policy directives with real action in the classroom, have the capacity to build technology plans to maintain the school ict assets, and forecast future needs. in addition, teachers can study further by linking to national and global teacher networks” (unesco, 2018, p.9). the outcomes for measuring competency mastery at this levels are aligned to teachers who are able to: • design, modify and implement classroom practices that support institutional and/or national policies, international commitments (for example, un conventions), and social priorities; • integrate ict across subject content, teaching and assessment processes, and grade levels, and create a conducive ict-enhanced learning environment where students, supported by ict, demonstrate mastery of curriculum standards; • design ict-supported project-based learning activities and use ict to facilitate students to create, implement and monitor project plans, and solve complex problems; • blend varied digital tools and resources to create an integrated digital learning environment to support students’ higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills; • use digital tools flexibly to facilitate collaborative learning, manage students and other learning partners, and administer the learning process; and • use technology to interact with professional networks to support their own professional development (unesco, ibid). the third and last level that shows understanding and mastery of complex technology skills is that of knowledge creation. teachers develop competencies for modelling good practice and 60 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 setting up learning environments in which learners feel encouraged to create novel knowledge of their own (unesco, 2018). at this level teachers are able to: • critique institutional and national education policies alike, suggest revisions, design improvements and speculate on the impact of these changes; • determine how best to incorporate student-centred and collaborative learning to ensure mastery of multidisciplinary curriculum standards; • determine learning parameters, encourage student self-management in studentcentred and collaborative learning; • design knowledge communities and use digital tools to support pervasive learning; • play a leadership role in devising a technology strategy for their school to turn it into a learning organization; and • continually develop, experiment, coach, innovate, and share best practice to determine how the school can best be served by technology (p.9 ) fig. 1 provides a summarised framework showing the eighteen ict competencies that teachers are expected to possess for efficient and effective ict integration. thus, teacher training colleges need to re-align and redesign training curricula to ensure that they meet the demands of technology-based education. figure 1 unesco ict competency framework for teachers (unesco, 2018) dzinoreva & mavunga: integrating icts into the zimbabwean secondary school . . . 61 zimbabwe’s policy responses to the ict revolution the proliferation of ict has seen a growing demand for its inclusion in education curricula from early childhood to higher education. thus, equipping teachers with ict competencies central to their professional development has become a highly prioritised aspect of education globally. the inclusion of ict in teacher education in zimbabwe is founded on global developments in the technology space, the provisions of the national ict policy (2015), and the department of teacher education (dte) ict policy of 2007 which stipulates that it is mandatory for every student teacher to receive it education (musarurwa, 2011). policy statement 11.1 in the zimbabwe national ict policy (2015) focuses on ict skills development. (national ict policy, 2015, p.28). the government of zimbabwe’s commitment to the development of ict skills to improve education shows the importance of integration of icts into teaching and learning. this means that education training institutions are expected to provide ict human capacity skills since these are central to improved teaching and learning. in 2007 the dte introduced a policy that made it education compulsory for all teacher education students (musarurwa, 2011). the policy stipulated that no student would be certified if they failed the ict course. therefore, in zimbabwe every teacher training college offers ict as a course. there is, however, no specific ict in education policy in zimbabwe. to ensure development of technology in education institutions, there have been partnerships with international organisations in previous years to enhance ict skills development in teacher training colleges. in a bid to enhance ict usage in teacher training colleges and polytechnics in zimbabwe, along with global trends in icts in education, a non-governmental organisation, vlaamise verening voor ontwikkelingssamenwerking en technische bystand (vvob), after carrying out a needs analysis survey and realising that there was a gap in the use of ict for teaching and learning, rolled out the college information technology (citep) programme. this program was meant to improve skills training, access, and use of icts in the higher education space. the citep program ran from january 2003 to december 2008, training selected lecturers from three secondary teacher training colleges and ten polytechnics (musarurwa, 2011). citep managed to advance ict capacitation and training in teacher training colleges by developing infrastructure, providing ict support, and support development. such moves and developments show a dedication and commitment to ict advancements in zimbabwe. despite efforts made from the beginning of 2003 to 2008, very little has been done to increase technology infrastructure in teacher training colleges. the zimbabwe ministry of higher and tertiary education, innovation, science and technology development (mohteistd, 2022) that is the overseeing ministry for teacher education colleges in zimbabwe, acknowledges the limited and inadequate technology resources and is undertaking discussions with local and international investors to improve infrastructure in the various institutions of higher education. this makes it difficult for teacher training institutions to then provide adequate training and skilling of pre-service teachers in ict integration strategies. 62 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 the challenge of integrating icts into teaching research findings in the area of ict integration into teaching and learning show that teachers have the right attitudes and beliefs regarding icts. the problem, however, is that they lack the requisite skills to integrate icts into the teaching of various subjects. this has the capacity to derail the national ambition to leverage icts (ganyani, 2016; majoni & majoni, 2015; mandoga et al., 2013; musarurwa, 2011; zengeya, 2008 ;). the lack of skills regarding ict integration into teaching and learning could possibly suggest a deficiency in ict resources and teacher training models which is, in essence, the curriculum that is used in the training of the teachers. it therefore becomes necessary to reflect on this curriculum in the search for the possible source of the problem of teachers’ post-training inability to integrate icts into their teaching of different subjects. left unattended, this problem could derail the national bid to leverage icts for the realisation of socio-economic development which is exemplified by the government’s promise that by 2030 zimbabwe should be an uppermiddle-class country. chitiyo and harmon (2009, p. 807) discovered that integration of ict in teacher education institutions is hampered by “lecturers’ computer proficiency and competencies which are at the basic level in internet usage, with little confidence shown in basic productivity software skills and in it integration tasks and processes.” further complicating the challenge is the lack of institutional support evident in the lack of access, the absence of an it integration policy, and the absence of appropriate initial and continuous staff development. bhukuvhani et al., (2010), in a study evaluating pre-service teachers’ use of improvised and virtual laboratory experimentation in the teaching of science, in which pre-service teachers from bindura university, zimbabwe, were the participants, discovered that despite knowing the value and advantages of virtual experimentation, the pre-service teachers did not employ technology in teaching. the researchers discovered that the pedagogies used to teach the pre-service teachers merely focused on familiarisation with technology without paying much attention to specific instructional uses of technology and technical skills. there is, however, limited research on ict integration in the pre-service teacher training curriculum, so this paper could assist in adding to the scope of knowledge in the area of ict integration at pre-service teacher training level in zimbabwe bernstein’s theory of the pedagogic device: implications for the ict curriculum over the years various theories have been put forward in an attempt to explain the processes that are involved in the design and implementation of curricula and the implications that this has for effective teaching and learning, and, ultimately, the realisation of the multi-faceted goals of education. one theory that could be applied to the ict curriculum in zimbabwe is bernstein’s (2000) theory of the pedagogic device. according to bertram (2012) the theory envisages the re-contextualisation of knowledge produced at one site when it is transferred and reproduced at different sites. bernstein (2000) identified three fields in which different processes involved in curriculum formulation take place. these are the field of production, the field of re-contextualisation, and the field of re-production. constituting the field of dzinoreva & mavunga: integrating icts into the zimbabwean secondary school . . . 63 production are the processes whereby new knowledge that should be in the curriculum is generated, for example, by university and industry experts (singh, 2002). in the case of icts, ict experts could be found at any of the institutions of higher learning that offer ict programmes in their various faculties. industry experts in ict could be found in both the government and private sectors. these experts could separately or collectively generate new ict knowledge that should go into the secondary school pre-service teachers’ ict curriculum. in this regard, insights could be drawn from global trends, for example, in terms of the infusion of elements of 4ir into the curriculum. in the field of re-contextualisation pedagogic discourse on what constitutes knowledge is produced from the knowledge generated in the field of production (ensor, 2004). in terms of the ict curriculum for pre-service secondary school teachers, in the field of recontextualisation, pedagogic discourse related to the ict knowledge that should be imparted to pre-service teachers is produced from the field of re-contextualisation. the field of reproduction is the site at which selection is made of what counts as legitimate knowledge to be delivered to learners. included in the selection are elements such as content knowledge and assessment practices (betram, 2012). in the context of icts for pre-service secondary school teachers, in the field of re-production choices would be made, for example, by the college ict lecturers of which skills, knowledge, and competencies the pre-service teachers should have imparted to them in order for them to be able to transfer these to secondary school learners. according to betram (2020), bernstein made a distinction between the official recontextualising field and the pedagogic recontextualising one. usually found in the former are state and ministry of education agents who come up with the official curriculum after selecting from the knowledge produced by experts in a specific field. operating in the latter, usually, are practitioners such as teacher trainers and textbook writers who select from the official curriculum what is to be taught in schools and indicate how it will be taught. bernstein & solomon (2000) also highlighted the importance of agency in the theory of the pedagogic device when they suggested that in each of the fields identified in the theory, there are agents who use their positions to seek domination of other role players. thus, in the training of teachers, curriculum developers decide on what should be taught and how it should be taught, without any awareness of the needs of the pre-service teachers in relation to knowledge and skills. we propose, in this paper, that pre-service teachers must be consulted in the process of curriculum development. towards a conceptual framework for pre-service secondary school teachers’ ict curriculum drawing insights from both the unesco (2018) ict competency framework for teachers and bernstein’s (2000) theory of the pedagogic device, we suggest a conceptual framework from which insights can be drawn for the formulation of an ict curriculum that could contribute effectively to pre-service teachers’ ability after graduation to integrate icts into the teaching of various secondary school subjects. figure 2 above is a representation of our 64 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 proposed conceptual framework. as shown in the figure, in coming up with the curriculum for pre-service teachers, the first step should be to come up with a national ict strategy. this needs to be predicated on the country’s socio-economic development goals. however, in order for the plan to stand any chance of being implemented, it also needs to be underpinned right from the beginning by the intention to mobilise resources needed for its implementation. for example, greater internet penetration at national level is possible only in cases where the requisite infrastructure has been put into place. this implies the need for teacher training colleges to consider upscaling their ict infrastructure or finding strategies to ensure that each student has the necessary resources that enable effective and efficient implementation and utilisation of ict. otherwise, the national ict policy will remain an abstract proposition. figure 2 proposed conceptual framework for the zimbabwean pre-service secondary school teachers’ ict curriculum individual institutions, as shown in the diagram, should borrow from the national strategy in coming up with the curricula for pre-service secondary school teachers’ curricula. drawing insights from bernstein’s (2000) theory of the pedagogic device, the colleges need to determine what constitutes knowledge that enables pre-service teachers to effectively integrate icts into their curricula. this should take place in their fields of production. on the basis of the unesco ict competency framework for teachers (2018), we propose that it is at this level that the colleges need to formulate strategies for the pre-service teachers to acquire both content and pedagogic knowledge for the effective use of ict in teaching when they graduate. constituting bernstein’s (2000) field of recontextualisation would be the production of discourse on what constitutes pre-service secondary school teachers’ knowledge for the integration of ict into teaching and learning. this would entail the acquisition of the relevant knowledge by the preservice teachers in terms of what they need to know. however, in doing so, in the field of reproduction, the teachers’ colleges need to take cognisance of their own realities, for example, the number of departments which they have as well as the infrastructure already in place for the implementation of the policy. based on the unesco (2018) competency framework for teachers, the teachers’ colleges need to enable the national strategy (underpinned by resource mobilisation) institutional policy (borrowing from national policy, anchored in contextual realities hybrid training curriculum (both face-face and online) training with technology (digital pedagogy) teacher competencies for knowledge transfer and national socio-economic development dzinoreva & mavunga: integrating icts into the zimbabwean secondary school . . . 65 preservice teachers to create new knowledge and also transfer such skills to their own learners. for greater effectiveness, drawing from the institutional strategy, the secondary school teachers’ colleges could, for example, also come up with hybrid curricula, whereby the pre-service teachers could be trained using both online and face-to-face methods. while some of the content to be learnt could be posted online, certain skills and pedagogic strategies could be imparted in face-to-face sessions with lecturers. the integration of technology into the curricula used for the training of pre-service teachers should, however, be privileged over training which is purely theoretical. then, in the light of the concerns raised over zimbabwean teachers’ inability to integrate icts into their teaching, as the curriculum design process goes through different sites as propounded by bernstein (2000), emphasis should be put on equipping them with the capacity to transfer knowledge and competencies to their learners through the use of ict when they are deployed to schools upon graduation. in the long term, as suggested in the proposed conceptual framework (figure 1) this will contribute to improved socio-economic development since learners leave school with the requisite ict skills for their participation in 4ir. conclusion in this paper, we have brought to the fore the general consensus on the need for training zimbabwean secondary school teachers to integrate icts into the teaching of various subjects. in light of the inseparability of education from ict in the 21 st century and taking cognisance of zimbabwe’s socio-economic development aspirations, we have argued that the need for this gap to be closed is evident. relying on the unesco ict competency framework that suggests the different types of ict knowledge that teachers should possess and bernstein’s (2000) theory of the pedagogic device, we have suggested a conceptual framework that would develop zimbabwean secondary school pre-service teachers’ capacity for integration of icts in teaching. this is an inescapable imperative in the light of the desperate need there is in the country for accelerated socio-economic development that can only be realised through ict competences, especially those that are formally imparted at school level where teachers are a vital cog. references assar, s. 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(2008). information and technology (ict) skills for bachelor of education degree students at the university of zimbabwe: implications for university policy on a computer course for undergraduate student teachers. zimbabwe journal of education research (zjer), 20(3), 349–370. journal of education, 2017 issue 67, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za dangers of generic pedagogical panaceas: implementing service-learning differently in diverse disciplines amanda hlengwa and sioux mckenna (received 9 may 2016; 7 june 2017) abstract descriptions of service-learning in the literature tend to position it as a powerful pedagogic tool as well as an exemplar of ‘best practice’ applicable across all disciplines and institutional contexts. furthermore service-learning is couched as a moral imperative. in the south african context, this moral imperative is translated into policy pronouncements driving institutions of higher education to demonstrate responsiveness to the transformation needs of broader society. in this article, two departments, philosophy and environmental science, at one university are used as case studies to interrogate what enables the uptake of service-learning as a pedagogic tool. drawing on the work of fairclough, this paper identifies the dominant discourses at play and considers how they constrain or enable the uptake of service-learning. we advocate for the infusion of service-learning in curricula, but argue that institutional culture, disciplinary values and the structure of knowledge impact on its uptake and should not be dismissed in the implementation process. introduction the transformation agenda of south african higher education is informed by policies such as the 1997 white paper which calls for a re-examination of institutional values: south africa’s transition from apartheid and minority rule to democracy requires that all existing practices, institutions and values are viewed anew and rethought in terms of their fitness for the era. higher education plays a central role in the social, cultural and economic development of modern societies. in south africa today, the challenge is to redress past inequalities and to transform the higher education system to serve a new social order, to meeting pressing national needs, and to respond to new realities and opportunities (department of education (doe), 1997, p.7). 130 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 the white paper indicates that universities have to show social responsibility by engaging in community service programmes (lazarus, 2001). policy pronouncements such as these contain a strong moral imperative by overtly articulating the role of higher education in driving a transformation agenda in society. the white paper of 1997 further stated that promoting social responsibility and awareness in students through community service programmes is a goal of higher education, the national plan for higher education (2001) reinforced this by indicating that enhancing responsiveness through community service was a priority, and then the white paper of 2013 argued that there is a need to explore the ways in which community service can foster constructive social engagement. despite regular calls for community engagement to be central to the work of our universities, it is not always evident what is meant by the term. while teaching and research can be seen to enjoy relatively stable conceptualisations, community engagement is plagued by ‘epistemological ambiguity’ (hall, 2010). it is not clear who should be responsible for it, who should benefit from it, or what its purpose is; the methods, approaches and scope of community engagement are ill-defined and often contested. community engagement activities can be taken to include infusion into teaching and learning (for example, as service-learning) as well as initiatives provided by academic staff in their professional capacity and by students using disciplinary expertise (council on higher education (che), 2006). it thus comprises a messy spectrum of activities which often draw from fairly disparate ideological positions that range from notions of charity and good deeds through to being spaces for engaged research and authentic learning. a number of universities have drawn on the concept of ‘public good’ (walker 2012, williams 2016) to consider how their core activities can enable advantages beyond the private benefits accrued by individual students through their graduation. community engagement is often cited as one means of correcting the balance between the university’s contributions to public and to private goods (see, for example, subotsky, 2001) and, thus to the forging of a new ‘social contract’ (braskamp & wergin, 1997) in which universities become jointly responsible for social change, along with bodies in the community with which they partner. a consideration of public good benefits provides a platform for more focused attention on community-engaged activities such as service-learning in higher education curricula. hlengwa and mckenna: dangers of generic pedagogical panaceas. . . 131 this paper looks at the ways in which service-learning has been conceptualised with a moral charge and then looks at two case studies, philosophy and environmental science, to question the extent to which this moral charge is enough to translate into uptake across the institutional and disciplinary landscape. the paper focuses on two disciplines within a specific university context to consider constraints on the uptake of service-learning as a pedagogic tool. the argument is not against the implementation of servicelearning, but rather it is a call for a more nuanced approach that takes disciplinary norms and institutional cultures into account, and indeed challenges them where appropriate. emergence of service learning service-learning emerged in the 1960s (see hollander, 1999) as a vehicle that would promote engagement and rejuvenate democracy in the academy (bringle & hatcher, 2002), through the ‘integration of community service into academic study’ (hollander, 1999, p.vii). because service-learning was positioned as a means of connecting educational processes with real-world issues, the concept was picked up in south africa in the 1990s, in light of the desperate need for change in the country following the shift to democracy. these are some of the factors that culminate in service-learning emerging as a morally charged concept. bringle and hatcher, who are frequently cited in the south african context, note that: service-learning is a credit bearing education experience in which students participate in an organised service activity that meets identified community needs and reflect on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility (1995, p.112). service-learning, like its broader counterpart, community engagement, is a concept mired by contestation, evident in the varied definitions describing this pedagogic tool as designed to promote “academic enhancement, personal growth, and civic engagement” (ash & clayton, 2004, p.138). the intention of service-learning modules is to involve students in organised community service that addresses local needs while developing academic skills, and providing students with opportunities to further develop their sense of social responsiveness and commitment to the community (hlengwa, 2010). the idea 132 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 peter is the pseudonym of the senior academic interviewed. 1 charlotte is the pseudonym of the masters student interviewed, who has since graduated with2 a doctorate in philosophy. of service-learning has often been introduced as an exemplar of ‘best practice’ of engagement between the university and broader community (che 2008). service-learning is framed as having the potential to contribute to higher education through engagement with societal issues and thereby showing a more visible measure of social responsiveness (singh, 2014). service-learning can be seen as a means by which to produce graduates steeped in disciplinary knowledge who are conscious of how that knowledge can be used to alleviate societal pressures. methodology this paper draws from a phd study (hlengwa, 2013). presented as two case studies, this article explores the response to calls for community engagement within two departments: philosophy and environmental science. this allows an in-depth investigation of how programmes within their context of a particular university attempt to implement a national level push towards community engagement as a moral imperative. rhodes university is one of five ‘research-intensive’ universities in the south african system (cloete, 2010) which affirms discourses within the university constructing it as a ‘scholarly university’ (boughey, 2009). there are also strong financial imperatives whereby research is strongly validated in the institution because the state funding formula drives the privileging of research in all universities in south africa (mckenna & boughey, 2014). data for the cases take the form of curriculum documentation, including departmental handbooks and course guides, and interviews. in philosophy, interviews were conducted with a senior academic in the department, peter,1 and charlotte, a masters student. both were involved with ‘the logic2 course’ offered as a community outreach project to school learners. the primary researcher initially approached the head of department to ask where service-learning was happening in the department. he explained that the only example was the logics course and indicated the two people most involved in hlengwa and mckenna: dangers of generic pedagogical panaceas. . . 133 mona is the pseudonym of the senior academic interviewed.3 the running of the course. both agreed to participate and signed informed consent forms indicating their voluntary participation and detailing their rights. in environmental science, the whole department of four people, all of whom were involved in various service-learning initiatives, participated in a discussion about service-learning and the concerns of the research. this was followed by an in-depth interview with one staff member, mona.3 the aspects of the data being reported here were analysed through critical discourse analysis whereby sets of statements ‘which give expression to the meanings and values of an institution’ (kress, 1989, p.7) were identified. discourses here are understood as a means by which ideological positions are expressed, but more than this, they are understood to function as mechanisms with power over how the world is experienced (fairclough, jessop & sayer, 2002). discourses are thus not merely seen to be reflections of ideas, but as also having power to enable or constrain events from occurring. furthermore, discourses are understood to be but part of the explanation for the events and experiences in the world. the position taken by the authors of this article, in line with fairclough (2005), is that all there is to know about a phenomenon cannot be made up only of discourses. in contrast to some postmodern approaches to discourse analysis then, in this article discourses are understood to be but one set of powerful mechanisms which sit alongside a number of other structures each having enabling and constraining powers (fairclough, 2005). this study is thus partial in its attempts to account for how servicelearning emerged in these two case study departments. what follows are the findings of the study presented as a set of dominant discourses that can help us to account for the varied emergence of service-learning as a pedagogic tool in philosophy and in environmental science in this particular research intensive university. we can thereby to begin to consider the various constraints and enablements on the implementation of this pedagogical approach across a range of contexts. 134 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 the grahamstown area distress relief association (gadra) runs a number of projects4 intended to support citizens of the town. the project of interest to this study is the ‘matric school’. this provides an opportunity for school learners needing to rewrite grade 12 subjects, which they have either failed or for which they require better marks for the purpose of entering tertiary studies. the gadra logic course offered by philosophy master’s students is included as an extracurricular activity in the matric school. the case of philosopy in line with the small size of rhodes university, the philosophy department has a small staff complement as well as moderate student numbers. it comprised six full time academic staff and an administrator and under four hundred students from first year through to doctoral level. despite significant pressures on academic departments to formally include service-learning in the curriculum, the philosophy curriculum did not offer courses that use service-learning as pedagogic tool. as will be seen, an argument was made that this was because the nature of the discipline constrained possibilities for such courses. the closest community engaged interaction in the department was at master’s level where students participated on a volunteer basis in the teaching of a course in philosophical logic, ‘the logic course’, at the grahamstown area distress relief association (gadra) ‘matric school’. 4 this course focuses on teaching informal logic structures at a level accessible to high school learners exposing them to philosophy at a basic level through application rather than an overly theoretical approach. this entailed learners being introduced to the uses of argument and to the nature of fallacies. the masters students guided the learners into identifying different types of arguments as a way of providing a form of grounding logic. these students worked with the school learners over a nine-month period towards achieving the goals of the course. it is important to note that the logic course is neither a formal part of the school learners’ curriculum, nor does the service that the students provide by teaching on it provide credits towards their master’s degree. however, the gadra logic course meets some of the servicelearning criteria identified by bringle and hatcher because the students’ participation offers them opportunities “to gain further understanding of course content and simultaneously broaden an appreciation of the discipline while enhancing a sense of civic responsibility” (1995, p.112). hlengwa and mckenna: dangers of generic pedagogical panaceas. . . 135 valuing the abstract the approach to teaching philosophy in this particular department, according to various course guides, is to induct students into the discipline by exposing them to the breadth of the discipline. interview data indicates that charlotte and peter were in agreement that the approach used leads students through argumentation by asking the really ‘big’ questions such as ‘what is knowledge’? and ‘is scientific enquiry a way to gain knowledge’? the ‘big’ questions may well be inspired by contemporary issues in communities and therefore driven by a genuine regard for the need to analyse and arrive at plausible explanations of the observable and experienced, but the form of the inquiry is expected to remain theoretically abstracted. central to the discursive construction of the discipline in the interviews was the idea that it focuses on theorising as means of providing insights of everyday living, but that it does so in formally abstracted ways, thus making it an unlikely discipline to consider service-learning activities; a point echoed in the literature (zlotkowski in lisman & harvey, 2000, p.vi). academics draw on ‘procedures’ that result in carefully structured arguments following the rules of logic but the activity is essentially theoretical rather than practical. philosophy as a discipline was generally taken by the interviewees, and in line with much of the literature, to be concerned with general and fundamental problems focused on existence, knowledge, values, and reason (valentine in lisman & harvey, 2000, p.145). the academic pursuits of colleagues in this department, in the realms of both teaching and research, are framed by such abstracted approaches. philosophy in this particular department had very strong boundaries between its concerns and what is seen to be outside of its domain. knowledge production was thus understood as being ‘inward looking’ to the norms and values of the philosophy disciplinary community. peter’s candid reflection illustrates why it would thus seem that the way that knowledge is valued in the discipline makes it less likely to be open to curriculated community based activities: i do think philosophy does see itself largely as a discipline that is not practical, all right? . . .now the idea of practical is an interesting philosophical concept, we did a lot of analysis about what practical means because, honestly, i don’t know what it means. i think when you say that philosophy is not a practical discipline you mean; “i don’t care about the world, my focus is on these deep theoretical issues”, 136 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 allegedly deep theoretical issues. and if i go practical. . . i’m going to water down my discipline. there was also a particularly strong discourse of academic freedom as an important value in the data. in the philosophy department at rhodes university curricula discussions are not centralised and individual academics have a great deal of autonomy in determining what to teach and how to assess. as peter noted: “it is very individualistic the way we choose ‘things’”. there was a valuing of the individual academic’s right to select what gets taught and how it gets taught. this, in turn, means the academics have significant ability to influence the development of the disciplinary identities assumed by their students. in discussing discourses found in research intensive institutions in south africa, boughey & mckenna (2014) identified a discourse of ‘academic argumentation’ where a critical disposition is seen to include the demand to be trusted to develop and implement a curriculum without interference. it is possible that this discourse would work against the systemlevel implementation of service-learning, despite a ‘moral charge’ in the national documentation. the identities forged by academics in this department were closely tied to those of the disciplinary community where the focus for most philosophers is on contemplating the existence of a real world rather than being engaged in practical pursuits in a real world (lisman & harvey, 2000, p.ix). furthermore, the academics’ identity seemed aligned to the ‘argumentative academic’ identity identified as common in research intensive universities. however, these identities are potentially in conflict with demands that institutions of higher education, particularly in south africa, should be socially responsive to the challenges facing society. peter draws attention to this tension by critically questioning the stance taken by philosophers: we are an institution that is embedded in society. what is our role? what have we done as a community [of philosophers]? i think south africa presents us with a very interesting format for thinking about this because the problems are so obvious – it hits you in the face every day. are you just going to be looking inward and ignoring it and drawing your salary whatever, and writing for your peers, or are you going to think about things? the gadra logic course would seem to be an opportunity for philosophy academics to be more involved in community. however, the level of hlengwa and mckenna: dangers of generic pedagogical panaceas. . . 137 disciplinary knowledge is not even at a first-year level of philosophical theory, as expected given that the gadra logic course is a school level introductory course. this made it unlikely, according to the interview data, that the course would be broadly appealing as an activity for most academics in the department. philosophers, like members of any other discipline, are beholden to ideas, values and practices that are conceived, argued for and maintained by the disciplinary community which, in turn, then shape the curriculum offered in the department (henkel, 2005). this seems to imply that the introduction of new ideas about philosophy, how it should be taught and how it relates to the world ‘outside’ the discipline (such as the idea that service-learning should be infused into the curriculum) would potentially have consequences with regard to the way the department is viewed by colleagues elsewhere. however, the existence of a volume of essays “beyond the tower – concepts and models for service-learning in philosophy” (lisman & harvey, 2000) and various other texts (for example, ramona & hawthorne, 2011; oxley & ramona, 2015) provide evidence that others in the disciplinary community have indeed found it possible to use service-learning to teach philosophy. primary audience discourse what became apparent from the data is that the nature of the discipline of philosophy itself, and the curriculum this engenders, promotes an approach to teaching and learning with a tenuous link to practical involvement in social concerns. in this regard, the primary audience discourse has the potential to constrain the likelihood of service learning being used as a pedagogic tool in philosophy. the primary audience for philosophers identified in the data is the disciplinary community. as peter explains: what we do in the first instance is speak to our colleagues. we have a community, we speak to each other, and i think that there are some who are not for that, right? our primary audience should be our peers, but that does not mean that we should not have an impact, that we should not be concerned about issues? it would seem that the semantic density of philosophical concepts and theories (that is, the degree of condensation of meaning, maton, 2014) is so strong that they require considerable adaptation before they could be 138 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 it is interesting to note that since 2014, peter has been instrumental in developing a5 credit-bearing course called lintetho zobomi (zobom) conceptualised as providing students with access to existential conversations. this course which draws strongly on the discipline of philosophy but explicitly uses service-learning as a pedagogic tool. however, it has found its home outside of the philosophy department in another academic centre. accessible to audiences beyond the boundaries of the discipline and the academy, and this is not viewed as a valuable endeavour. by making semantically dense concepts accessible, there would be the potential to ‘water down’ the discipline. the focus on the disciplinary community as the primary audience is important as it impacts on the emergence of service-learning. i could tell you some of the things that i would say, that the community [of philosophy] would say as a whole, one of the things that the community would say as a whole is: ‘who cares?’ we are not here to impact on an issue. we are interested in issues, right? whether it has an impact or not, that is neither here nor there. perhaps a little less honest response would be – it is a true response but a less honest oneis that there will be a trickle-down effect. we do not really know. this discourse constructs philosophers, and the activity of philosophising, as detached from worldly concerns because they are engaged in semantically dense conversations with each other. philosophers seem to embrace this reputation of research as having limited practical application, and, according paphitis and kelland, philosophers working the south african context “have done little to dispel this reputation” (2015, p.420). paphitis and kelland reject this dominant view of philosophy and argue for an ideological paradigm shift that opens up the possibility of infusing service-learning.5 having the disciplinary community of philosophers as the primary, or even singular, audience for the work of philosophy reinforces a focus on research as the core business of the academy. this issue was raised in various ways in the data: i will tell you how i see myself, right? i see myself, as primarily, my first love is research, right? that is my first love. although areas of research interest for philosophers are varied, the data suggested that these philosophers concentrate on what is commonly understood as ‘pure’ or ‘basic’ research. the value of this type of research that “lies in the furtherance of human knowledge for its own sake” (graham, hlengwa and mckenna: dangers of generic pedagogical panaceas. . . 139 2005, p.82) is different to that of applied research that has utility and a ‘further end’ framing. a claim can be made that the research driven discourse in this philosophy department adds to the factors that constrain the emergence of service-learning, especially since the emphasis and interest of the disciplinary community is on understanding the world within their disciplinary community rather than changing it. discourse of teaching as common sense the discourses discussed thus far account for the systemic discipline based factors constraining the use of service learning as pedagogic tool in philosophy. in contrast to this is a discourse whereby teaching is not particularly valued as a complex social practice. peter offers insights into the emphasis placed on pedagogy in his discipline, from which emerges a discourse of teaching as common sense: i do not think philosophers on the whole – i do not know what happens in other disciplines, i imagine similar things do not really reflect that much on their teaching. teaching is something that just happens naturally. it is a thing that happens when you go into a lecture you impart information. but the focus is on research, not everyone, but for the most part. as a pedagogic tool, service-learning would in part require academics to reflect specifically on pedagogic practice. as long as pedagogy is understood to be a common-sense practice undertaken alongside more valued research activity, then it seems unlikely that there would be an opportunity to reimagine teaching of philosophy to include service-learning modules. having discussed some of the dominant discourses which seem to constrain the easy implementation of service-learning in the case of philosophy, we now move to consider the discourses that emerged in the case of environmental science. the case of environmental science environmental science was a relatively young department in the institution, originating out of a cross-departmental programme located in the science faculty. the four permanent academic staff members had committed 140 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 themselves to answering the growing demand for suitably qualified environmental professionals able to tackle environmental management and sustainable development. while the department did not use the term service-learning, there is a course offered by the department that meets the definition. the course, environmental monitoring and monitoring systems (env 301), is offered in the third year and has seven outcomes that culminate in a practical year-long research project. the outcomes capture the academics’ aspirations of what students would experience of the ways in which project management principles can be applied in the field. central is the ability to work outside of the university with members of the community in interrogating a particular real-world issue. the students are divided into project teams required to answer questions about specific environmental conditions and trends that affect humans and the broader environment, and which manifest locally. the projects also values students’ developing an understanding of the significance of society’s response. as mona explains: so, they might go out and do some measurements on the vegetation and they will interview some people and see how they are using the commonage and that kind of thing. so, it will be, we try and make those third-year projects span the three focus areas of social, economic and ecological. the theory introduced in the course centres around the design and implementation of environmental monitoring systems appropriate at different spatial and temporal scales and which integrate the biological, social and economic components of environmental systems. these are then investigated and reflected upon by means of the research project. the research projects require the students to view environmental sciences from a range of perspectives thus making it important to not only interact and work in teams with each other, but also to work with other teams drawing on knowledge and expertise beyond the borders of the academy. the expectations of the course align readily with service-learning criteria. hlengwa and mckenna: dangers of generic pedagogical panaceas. . . 141 discourse in environmental science valuing research rhodes university’s status as a research-intensive institution is aligned with this department’s culture of constructing research activities as being the most prestigious of their activities. the valuing of research is of course not limited to this institution, or even to research intensive universities, and is arguably driven by notions of status and, as mentioned earlier, by the ‘flat’ nature of the national funding formula. the ‘valuing research’ discourse signifies a conscious and purposefully deep engagement with research processes. the staff in this department draw on this discourse in justifying time spent on developing funding proposals for research projects. staff members often collaborate in order to produce contract research. mona alludes to this in discussing the premium placed on research: well, we publish a lot. we’re a very productive department. we bring in masses of money. for us, because our fields apply, because the world is worried about what’s happening, there is masses of opportunity for money. you have to work hard to get it, but you can. so that brings us recognition. we’re a tiny department, there’s four of us but we bring millions of rands into this university that helps fund our students, and helps build linkages with other organizations around the world and so on. staff members in the department drew on this discourse in developing the env 301 course, which has research as its focus. a key aim of the course is to inducat students into the knowledge production processes in the field of environmental sciences, from problem identification, to data collection, to data analysis and dissemination of findings. intergrative discourse the interview with mona was replete with evidence of an integrative discourse. here integrating oneself into the academic community in ways that entail being able to work across fixed boundaries of traditional disciplines, is valued. this is evident in the emphasis environmental science places on a 142 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 what is understood to be a successful education in the field – the undergraduate curriculum is, according to the data, firmly focused on the production of graduate students with a particular orientation towards and relationship with the environment. one of the key concerns in the department is thus the production of the next generation of a particular kind of ‘knower’ (maton, 2014). while there is a strong knowledge base to environmental science, it draws from multiple disciplines and it is the development of the attributes of the knower that is central in the curriculum. the quintessential environmental scientist, according to mona, has a sound foundation in a specialist discipline, but, most importantly, takes on a particular ‘understanding of the world around them’. this understanding entails acknowledging different worldviews from which different value systems emerge. this acknowledgment is critical to successful interaction in interdisciplinary research groups understood to be central for the addressing of complex socio-ecological issues. linked to the integrative discourse, where environmental scientists are expected to be able to integrate themselves into various inter-disciplinary communities to address environmental concerns, was the ‘in society’ discourse. this discourse promoted the ideal of situating the university closer to broader society, thus answering the call for universities to be a partner in a new social contract. this was linked to a wider social justice agenda of addressing social inequities. the ‘in society’ discourse clearly understood the university, and the environmental sciences department in particular, as having a role to play in addressing inequities not as an adjunct concern but as central to the identity of the department. mona and her colleagues explicitly focus on responding to the world beyond the university walls. this involves responding to environmental and sustainable development challenges and thus requires that curricula are developed that allow students to respond to these challenges. the everchanging nature of the challenges means that course content needs constantly to be reviewed. so [we draw] examples from the latest publications, [and] other materials that come across our desk. you know, like now this year, when i teach climate change i am going to have to do the conclusions from the [latest conference]. so, you have got to be constantly updating things. hlengwa and mckenna: dangers of generic pedagogical panaceas. . . 143 indaba is a zulu word for ‘news’, used in south african english context to constitute a6 meeting or a forum where different views on a topic are shared. the process of updating and keeping the material current is the responsibility of individual lecturers, which echoes the discourse of academic freedom found in the philosophy case. however, in this department the curriculum development process that is followed entails that the changes are not only made at the level of the individual lecturer’s syllabus but rather involve a sharing of practice amongst colleagues. mona and her colleagues participate in regular curriculum review processes where the changes at individual course level are reviewed in order to see how they integrate and enhance the programme as a whole. but we do meet [at least] twice a year for our kind of long departmental indabas. we look at the course evaluations and get feedback from that,6 and we discuss it. [we ask] ‘is this too difficult at second year level?’ are they grasping this? but yes, it is important that they get it at this early stage. so, we do talk about it and reflect on our courses and see if any changes need to be made. and then, every year, we update our courses all the time, because in our field there is no textbook, and the field’s changing so rapidly. valuing pedagogy valuing pedagogy was another discourse evident in the environmental sciences case study data. this discourse privileges a focused attention on pedagogical practice. for example, conference presentations could include knowledge from the field or from the classroom. i’ve just come back from florida, and i was invited to present at a conference which was held by what’s called the tropical conservation and development programme. . . and there was a whole session on education on the last day, and it was absolutely fascinating. i got up and i said, “this has been amazing.” you know, it really reinforced for me that we’re doing the right thing back here. the valuing pedagogy discourse is located within the broader order of integrative discourses because it is indicative of a broader commitment to the way attention to teaching is linked to the broader ideals of environmental 144 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 bernstein (2000) distinguishes between singular disciplines which are inward looking in7 their knowledge production (such as philosophy) and regions which draw on multiple disciplines and look out to the world of work (such as environmental sciences). science. it can be argued that the explicit focus on pedagogy and the culture of overtly considering curriculum issues in departmental conversations makes it more possible to include service-learning approaches which would require careful understanding of how teaching and learning occur. conclusion this paper offers insights into factors that influence curriculum decisionmaking in a philosophy department and an environmental sciences department at a research-intensive institution. these specific curriculum cases are used to question the generic imposition of service-learning as both morally and pedagogically best practice. while this paper advocates servicelearning as a beneficial pedagogic tool of any socially concerned curriculum, we argue that the development of any service-learning initiative needs to take seriously the knowledge structure of the target discipline as well as the inherent disciplinary values and institutional culture. the argument presented concedes that singular, inward-looking disciplinary7 communities are faced with the task of balancing the disciplinary values with the call to consider the use of pedagogic tools such as service-learning as a mean of heeding the strong moral imperative faced by the academy. the knowledge structure of a discipline like philosophy has been shown to impact on the incorporation of service-learning as a pedagogic tool. on the other hand, the structure of knowledge in environmental sciences, with its strong valuing of integration and the development of a knower who can respond to concerns in the world, is likely to have an easier time of implementing service-learning. it becomes apparent that service learning is not generic and may differ significantly across disciplines to the extent that it challenges the simplistic definitions promoted in generic guides. universities increasingly have to contend with pressures from outside the academy that impact on core disciplinary values and functions. publically funded institutions like rhodes university are, to some level, autonomous yet at the same time they are held accountable to the public purse by various mechanisms. university leaders and individual academics then have the hlengwa and mckenna: dangers of generic pedagogical panaceas. . . 145 responsibility to maintain a balance between these external demands and the integrity of the academic enterprise. until we understand what the discipline values then we cannot impose a pedagogical approach as generic good practice. this has significance for those in academic development who are responsible for working with academics around issues of curriculum development. such considerations of the impact of disciplinary structures and values also provide an important critique of decontexualised ‘best practice’ discourses prevalent in many national documents, including the framing of a number of national quality initiatives. with an understanding of the ways in which the values and structures of the disciplinary knowledge impact on what is pedagogically possible, the notion of ‘best practice’ comes under scrutiny and we are forced to work in more careful ways to implement curriculum initiatives. references ash, s.l. & clayton, p.h. 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(2016). a critical exploration of changing definitions of public good in relation to higher education, studies in higher education, 41(4), 619–630. amanda hlengwa centre for higher education research, teaching and learning (chertl) rhodes university a.hlengwa@ru.ac.za sioux mckenna director of postgraduate studies & higher education studies phd coordinator rhodes univesity s.mckenna@ru.ac.za mailto:a.hlengwa@ru.ac.za mailto:s.mckenna@ru.ac.za microsoft word b91 full issue.docx journal of education, 2023 issue 91, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i91a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x a literature review of south african schools for the blind and their use of educational sexual models in comprehensive sexuality education lindokuhle ubisi department of psychology, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa ubisilm@unisa.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5228-6686 (received: 9 january 2023; accepted: 26 may 2023) abstract internationally, educational sexual models (esms) have been gradually incorporated into comprehensive sex education (cse) in schools for the blind (sfb). however, there is limited evidence that this has been taking place in south african sfb. this review sought to establish how these models are perceived by teachers and whether south african teachers receive any exposure to, or training to use, these models during their teacher education. the review not only established that limited training and exposure is taking place, but that teachers state that they need these models but feel constrained by social censorship. this means that crucial information was lacking from their lessons (e.g. authentic demonstrations where learners can feel and touch to learn). the review suggests that teachers need to be capacitated with appropriate pedagogy, competencies, and resources to respond to controversial areas of teaching and learning such as the place of esms in cse lessons. keywords: comprehensive sexuality education, educational sexual models, learners with visual impairment, parental censorship, schools for the blind introduction despite the public panic, the south african department of basic education (dbe, 2021) has gone ahead and introduced a comprehensive sexuality education (cse) curriculum in both mainstream and special needs schools. cse refers to an age-appropriate, value-driven approach to equipping individuals with knowledge, values, and beliefs about gender, sexuality, power, safe sexual practices, age of consent, communication in relationships, and more, in order to make informed decisions about their growing psychosexual development (unesco, 2018). however, the controversies surrounding cse are that some parents and religious organisations feel that it sexually grooms learners through its explicit imagery, encourages early sexual debut and, in turn, corrupts learners’ innocence (chappell, 2015; rohleder et al., 2009; ubisi, 2020a). it is crucial to consider these debates (which will be 38 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 addressed elsewhere in this paper) given that, in the african context, disability and sexuality are rarely discussed simultaneously (chappell, 2015; rohleder et al., 2009; ubisi, 2021a). particularly when it comes to children living with disabilities, it is believed that these learners are forever children (groce et al., 2007; hanass-hancock et al., 2013; louw, 2017), meant to be kept pure (de reus et al., 2015; hanass-hancock, 2009; rohleder et al., 2009), and believed to be uninterested in sex, therefore not needing any cse (krupa & esmail, 2010; rohleder et al., 2012; ubisi, 2021b). at the same time, local and international research has indicated that children living with various disabilities, including learners with visual impairment (lvis), 1 are at a heightened risk of rape, exploitation, and hiv infection if not adequately prepared with appropriate cse (chirawu et al., 2014; kelly et al., 2002; kelly & kapperman, 2021). yet, even though the south african dbe has rolled out content such as cse-scripted lesson plans (slps) with learners living with various disabilities in mind (ubisi, 2021c), no detailed slps are specifically available for teachers in schools for the blind (sfb). in addition, to facilitate tactile learning, there are no prescribed educational sexual models (esms) teachers can use that lvis can touch and feel. for this study, an esm refers to any external, anatomically correct model of human genitalia used for demonstrative and educational purposes (kapperman & kelly, 2013, 2014; krupa & esmail, 2010). it should be pointed out here that dildos, vibrators, and masturbators do not fall within the category of esms referred in this study. 2 esms are used much like biological models where, for example, the physiology of the digestive system is broken down into various main and sub-components to demonstrate how food is processed in several stages, including the responsible organs and their functions. much like these biological models, esms can be produced from silicon or cast material with or without a foreskin and include testicles to demonstrate a real-world impression of male or female genitalia (see seminal work by kapperman et al., 1993). another way esms can be used is through designs that dissemble into parts to demonstrate the inner make-up of, for example, the vagina and its internal and external layers, or the penis and its urinary tract glands (kapperman et al., 1993). this is because for cse to be effective for target audiences such as lvis, it is recommended that such tactile learners be given access to tangible objects like esms to make meaningful connections between anatomy and its functions (kapperman & kelly, 2014; reynolds, 2019; trief et al., 2010). at the same time, teachers must be adequately trained, and feel comfortable in how to use these models (kapperman & kelly, 2013; kelly & kapperman, 2021; krupa & esmail, 2010). in resource-rich countries like the usa, some teachers in sfb are prepared as to when and how to incorporate esms during their cse lessons during their teacher training (kapperman & kelly, 2013; kelly & kapperman, 2012; krupa & esmail, 2010). to date, there are few studies in south africa to ascertain whether this exposure or mode of instruction is taking place in local sfb. the aim of this study is therefore to ask: “how are these models being perceived by teachers” and “do south african teachers in sfb 1 lvis refer to learners with low, partial, one-sided, or complete loss of vision (kapperman & kelly, 2013). 2 the consulted literature (e.g. taylor, 2011) has suggested that products such as dildos, vibrators, and masturbators are considered assistive sexual devises or sex toys, and are not primarily used for educational purposes but to enhance sexual pleasure. parents may resist esms because they might falsely associate them with pleasureenhancing devises. but the esms would have been used during teaching education for pre-service teachers to deliver cse lessons to lvis (kapperman & kelly, 2013, 2014; kapperman et al., 1993). ubisi: a literature review of south african schools for the blind . . . 39 receive any preparation to utilise these models during their teacher training?” foucault’s (1990) 3 theorisation of the pedagogisation of children’s sexuality provides a useful framework to start thinking about this subject as well as its implications for teaching and learning. theoretical framework: foucault’s theorisation of the pedagogisation of children’s sexuality foucault (1990) saw sexuality as a construct created by knowledge and power. and for foucault (1977), influential disciplines such as medicine, psychiatry, and religion have created discourses that regulate who can/cannot say what, or perform/not perform certain actions. according to foucault (1977), discourses construct subjects (e.g. sane/insane) which, in turn, create certain consequences (fertile/infertile). for example, kempton and kahn (1991) maintained that the mass sterilisation movement of persons with significant disabilities in the 1880s was propelled by a socio-medical discourse that assumed that persons with significant disabilities were “sexual perverts” born with a propensity for sexual promiscuity (p. 96). foucault (1990) would have claimed that these discourses were not only constructed to control the minds and bodies of persons with disabilities, but also raise questions as to who is deemed desirable (ubisi, 2021a) and worthy to reproduce—and with whom (ubisi, 2020b). when it came to the sexuality of children, 4 foucault (1990) theorised that after the seventeenth century, powerful institutions such as the state, church, and schools placed limitations on who was allowed to be seen as sexual. this included a further restriction on children being seen as sexual beings because sex was seen as reserved only for procreational purposes; children were to be kept pure (bennett & harden, 2019; deacon, 2006; egan & hawkes, 2008). the topic of sex was seen as dangerous and likely to lead to early sexual debut. sex education in schools, as a site of disciplinary power, therefore, was replaced with chastity and abstinence (foucault, 1990). today, there are still parents, teachers, and institutions who rely on foucault’s pedagogisation of children’s sexuality to dismiss cse as unnecessary or potentially detrimental for children (chappell, 2015). this is mostly the case when children with disabilities such as lvis come to mind (kelly & kapperman, 2021; rohleder et al., 2009; ubisi, 2020c). these perceptions not only suggest that there is something evil about teaching children about their sexuality, but also that there is something problematic about the sexuality of persons living with disabilities (rohleder et al., 2009). in this paper, i ask, what are teachers in sfb’s perceptions around the use of esms in cse? moreover, what exposure (if any) are teachers given during their teacher training to use esms in their cse lessons? to do this, i first discuss the pedagogy of how cse is currently being taught to lvis, including the available support materials for teaching this subject. then, i discuss the need for esms in sfb and the inclusive education policies that support 3 see recent interpretations of foucault’s pedagogisation of children’s sexuality in bennett and harden (2019), deacon (2006), as well as in egan and hawkes (2008). 4 it should be noted that in this study, “children” refers to children in the age group of 16–18 years. these learners are usually in grades 10–12. 40 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 the inclusion of these resources in special schools. and i further discuss the potential controversies that might arise with the introduction of controversial topics (and the associated resistance) such as the use of esms in sfb. current pedagogy of delivering cse to lvis according to esra and mayet (2020), it is believed that there are over 1.4 million children living with a severe visual impairment, worldwide. in south africa, the national repository, statistics south africa (2014), estimated that about 11 per cent of children aged five years and older have some difficulties in seeing. despite these statistics, sfb usually consist of small classes (about 7–10 learners of various ages per class) with learners with either partial to complete sight, or some even with multiple disabilities (du plessis, 2020). the cse curriculum in south african schools is housed within the school subjects, life skills (grades 4–6) and life orientation (grades 7–12; dbe, 2021). as for the teaching of cse to lvis, there are various classroom practices and teaching methods to remove the barriers to learning associated with the visual demonstration of these materials. for example, teachers can employ various curriculum differentiation techniques such as using visual outlines, tracing, and assistive technologies such as optical character recognition, screen reader, and text-tospeech software (du plessis, 2020; erwee, 2020; viljoen, 2020). the role of these strategies is to create tactual descriptions of a real-life object such as a human hand or other everyday items. teachers can also use language to provide lvis with a description of the object or item (du plessis, 2020; erwee, 2020; viljoen, 2020). however, there are complexities when these representations are to be explained to learners who are completely blind (bray, 2021; kapperman & kelly, 2013; krupa & esmail, 2010). for example, while it might perhaps be easy to trace the major parts of the male reproductive system including the body of the penis, its head (glans), and testicles, it would be more challenging to provide a meaningful illustration using a 2-dimensional drawing of the female reproductive system. for one, the outer layers of the female reproductive system are multi-fold, including the vagina, clitoris, as well as the inner and outer labia (kamegawa, n.d.). moreover, the shape, texture, and look of these parts differ from one female body to another (kamegawa, n.d.). as for the topics covered within this curriculum, in a recent content analysis, i (ubisi, 2021c) interrogated the type of activities included within the dbe’s slp teacher and learner books. the aim of that study was to find if the dbe’s cse slps had any focus on the sexuality of persons with various disabilities. of the only three activities in grades 10 to 12 found within the entire grades 4–12 curriculum (ubisi, 2021c), none had an applied, realistic, or hands-on approach to providing lessons to lvis. thus, teachers of lvis need more detailed, scripted, and practical methods to teach cse in a more meaningful way. the controversies (and resistance) that arise with the integration of esms in sfb according to inclusive education policies, such as the education white paper 6 on special education needs (department of education, 2001), every child has unique qualities, ubisi: a literature review of south african schools for the blind . . . 41 potential, and educational needs. this implies that the diversity of these characteristics, abilities, and learning needs must be considered during the planning, design, and implementation of educational material as well during the teaching and learning process (department of education, 2001). the national legislative framework, for example, the children’s act 38 of 2005 (republic of south africa, 2006) safeguards all children’s sexual and reproductive health rights. for instance, chapter 2 (section 13) of the children’s act states that with the age, maturity, and phase of development taken into consideration, every child, including lvis, are entitled to the right to age-appropriate cse is offered to them in a clear and accessible manner. for this reason, it is suggested by the available literature that it is not enough for teachers to just talk about cse to lvis; they should provide resources that allow for a more practical demonstration of the dbe’s cse slps (bray, 2021; kapperman & kelly, 2013; krupa & esmail, 2010). in some us states, the use of esms in cse lessons for lvis is part of the practical components of teacher training (kapperman & kelly, 2013). however, the cost and controversies surrounding these models might be a concern for underresourced and diversely populated countries such as south africa. for example, some parents might oppose cse and esms, based on cultural and religious reasons. but cse, in fact, is intended to protect the rights of sexual minority groups by sensitising learners to the repression of othered groups such persons living with disabilities (ubisi, 2023). moreover, in south africa, there is a pedagogy of discomfort amongst teachers responsible for teaching cse due to limitations in their own teacher training (hanass-hancock et al., 2013). louw (2017) added that cultural and religious taboos regarding talking about sex also contribute to the problem, and rohleder and swartz (2009) highlighted tensions in the balancing of discourses of human rights and potential harm as another area of concern. this implies that the call for inclusivity in cse is not just for accommodating learners with special educational needs, but for teachers to also be capacitated with the required knowledge, skills, values, practices, and resources to deliver this curriculum (chirawu et al., 2014; de reus et al., 2015; rohleder et al., 2012). when it comes to the resources needed in delivering cse to lvis, the literature has been clear about the need for accessible formats such as braille and audiotapes (e.g. philander & swartz, 2006). however, there is limited exploration into teacher perceptions and training regarding the use of esms during their cse lessons, except for khau’s (2022) study. material and methods no ethical clearance was required to conduct this study. a desktop search was conducted on google scholar, world of science, and ministerial educational departmental websites for local online publications, journal articles, teaching and training materials, books, and official documents published between 1992 and 2022 to investigate the perceptions, training, and exposure of south african teachers in sfb to esms. the search used broad key terms to search for publications in the area including terms such as “sex education,” “sexuality education,” “comprehensive sexuality education,” “educational sex(ual) models,” “nonverbal demonstration,” “children with various disabilities,” “blind learners,” “learners with visual impairment,” “schools for the blind,” “teachers in special need schools,” and “south 42 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 africa.” to ensure a maximum of publications were found, snowballing of literature from reference lists of prominent researchers in field were consulted. in total, 310 publications were obtained from an initial search. after perusing and classifying these publications into interpretative themes (see table 1), the search reached data saturation based on these themes. all in all, 31 local publications were selected for final analysis and discussion. selection/inclusion criteria the publications that were selected for analysis and discussion had to have discussed perceptions of teachers of lvis (experiences, beliefs, practices, tensions, and challenges) as well as training and exposure through teacher education in utilising esms during cse lessons. preference was extended to publications that (a) focused on lvis instead of generally focusing on children living with various disabilities, (b) interrogated teachers’ voices or experiences in using or recommending educational resources like esms to deliver cse, and (c) publications issued during the 30-year time span of 1992–2022. it should be noted that because this study relied on a desktop search approach, there are several publications that may not have made it into the search. findings table 1 presents clustered themes of local literature based on a desktop search investigating teachers of lvis’ perceptions with regards to teacher training to use resources such as esms in their cse lessons. the table shows that there is a dearth of literature in the south african context exploring previous exposure to the use of resources such as esms in cse during teacher training. table 1 local literature review of teachers of lvis’ perceptions around, and previous exposure to, the use of educational sexual models during comprehensive sexuality education teachers of lvis’ perceptions of the use of resources such as esms during their cse lessons • literature suggests that teachers need resources for lvis to feel, but it is unclear what types of resources they might need (e.g. hanasshancock, 2009; hanass-hancock et al., 2013; kelly et al., 2002; louw et al., 2014; rohleder & swartz, 2009). • some teachers identified the need for practical and suitable visual materials like braille, audiotapes, pictures, posters, dvds, charts, and visual prompts (e.g. chirawu et al., 2014; de reus et al., 2015; louw, 2017, 2019; philander & swartz, 2006; rohleder, 2008; rohleder et al., 2010). • other teachers reported that they found the resources in their schools unsuitable and therefore developed their own customised materials for their own purposes (e.g. chirawu et al., 2014; de reus et al., 2015). ubisi: a literature review of south african schools for the blind . . . 43 • limited literature suggesting the need for assistive technology, practical tools, and real-life models of sexual anatomy for blind learners to touch (e.g. de reus et al., 2015; louw, 2017; ubisi, 2020c; ubisi, 2021c). teachers of lvis’ previous exposure to the use of resources such as esms in cse during their teacher training • a single paper found (khau, 2022). teachers showed an uncomfortableness towards using sexual devices. discussion this study wished to explore the perceptions and previous exposure of south african teachers of lvis’ to the use of esms in cse. based on the findings of this study, there were teachers who identified the need for esms (khau, 2022). others pointed to the need for resources that lvis could feel and touch such as objects, tools, or visual or sound materials (chirawu et al., 2014; hanass-hancock, 2009; louw, 2017) but were not clear if these included resources like esms (except for khau’s study). khau (2022, p. 34) reported that the teachers in her study were uncomfortable in using “sexual devices” because of shame, and the fear that their learners would not respect them. most of the literature identified a need for audio-visual materials like braille, audiotapes, and pictures (philander & swartz, 2006; rohleder, 2008; rohleder et al., 2010). the reason for this may be that some teachers rely on resources they have more access to such as visual aids, dvds, as well as braille machinery. another reason for this might be that these resources provide teachers with an easy, cheap, and convenient way of teaching cse without provoking any anxiety or discomfort. as has been established, some teachers reported feeling embarrassed or uncomfortable in teaching sensitive and controversial cse themes (hanass-hancock et al., 2013, louw, 2017, rohleder et al., 2009) such as masturbation, oral sex, and homosexuality. given the backlash that cse as a curriculum has received in previous years (see ubisi, 2020a), it makes sense to teach cse in a modest and restricted way that avoids the need for further non-verbal instruction. considering foucault’s (1990) theorisation of the pedagogisation of children’s sexuality, the image of a teacher walking into class with models of an erect penis and vagina would incite far more public censorship from parents, certain political parties, and religious leaders given that these groups hold influence over what should or should not be included in the curriculum. furthermore, it goes without saying that esms are costly (bray, 2021; kamegawa, n.d.; kapperman & kelly, 2013), with some sfb relying on donations to keep up with the daily operation of running their schools. yet again, it must also be acknowledged that some teachers may not be aware of the existence or use of these resources. this suggests that the use of esms to teach cse is a relatively new area of teaching and learning that few teachers of lvis have been exposed to. this was corroborated by the limited literature that suggested that teachers of lvis have been given prior knowledge on how to use esms during their teacher education. this further 44 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 highlights the need for more training of special needs teachers in south africa to equip these teachers with the necessary skills to teach the topic without stressful discomfort. however, a promising finding from this study was that when some teachers found the available resources allocated to them unsuitable, they created or customised materials that they found appropriate with the age and maturity level of their learners in mind (chirawu et al., 2014; de reus et al., 2015; ubisi, 2020b). given that some teachers of lvis expressed the need for esms (de reus et al., 2015), inclusive guidelines as to how and when to incorporate esms during their cse lessons need to be provided to assist teachers in sfb. for example, kapperman and kelly (2013) cautioned that if a teacher feels opposed to using esms during their lessons, then the lesson should be taken by a more inclined teacher. krupa and esmail (2010) suggested that teachers focus on three categories (content, environment, and delivery) to be considered when preparing for a sex education lesson with lvis in mind. while age appropriateness seems to be the recommendation when it comes to content, it should be kept in mind that learners in a class may vary in age with some learners being much older than the expected age for their grade. the learning environment refers to the processes and procedures that need to take place before instruction is delivered, such as planning the lesson with a specific audience (e.g. individual versus a group audience) in mind (krupa & esmail, 2010). although the dbe (2021) has rolled out a cse curriculum to be taught in all schools, a key recommendation by kelly and kapperman (2021) was that teachers and the school inform parents about the esms to be used, as well as get written permission before the lessons. this is because some private or single-religion schools may have a code of conduct that differs from public schools’. however, as foucault’s (1990) thoughts on around the pedagogisation of children’s sexuality suggest, religion may stand as one the barriers to children receiving cse. this, in some cases, may contradict the values and principles of the public schooling system—by for example, replacing the teaching of sexuality diversity with religious studies (ubisi, 2023). during the delivery of instruction, kapperman and kelly (2013) recommended teachers utilising other supporting tangible objects such as condoms as well as anatomically correct models for tactile learners to feel and touch. for example, the jim jackson 3-d genital models can be used to demonstrate putting on male and female condoms (kapperman & kelly, 2013). in the us, the american printing house for the blind’s “touch, label, and learn poster: human skeleton” (https://www.aph.org/product/touch-label-and-learn-posterhuman-skeleton-anterior-view/) has provided an interesting way for lvis to make connections of sexual anatomy by allowing contact, characterisation, and understanding of general human sexual anatomy (kamegawa, n.d.). the cast by artist jamie mccartney titled “the great wall of vagina” was made following 400 castings of women’s vaginas to demonstrate the diversity of this female sexual organ. the “gena: models for inclusive sex ed” (https://disabilitylab.berkeley.edu/gena-models-for-inclusive-sex-ed/) has rolled out one of the first affordable, user-friendly, modular, and 3-d sex positive models of the female ubisi: a literature review of south african schools for the blind . . . 45 anatomy that allows for various structures to be demonstrated in one session (kamegawa, n.d.). this study suggests that there is a need for researchers in future studies to explicitly ask teachers of lvis if they are aware of, as well as how they feel about, using esms to teach cse; and to consider ethical procedures such as do the dbe, parental permission, or the school’s governing body require them to use esms. researchers can do this by asking teachers to imagine how they would use esms in their classrooms. changes in the teacher preparation curriculum can assist upcoming teachers by exposing them to esms during their pre-service training. for example, develop a manual to accompany the current dbe cse slps for teachers in sfb. secondly, an attempt can be made to provide teachers with assertiveness training to develop the confidence to teach using these models. furthermore, there needs to be workshops and preand post-assessments of their ability and confidence levels to utilise esms. teachers already involved in delivering the cse curriculum need to clarify their fears about working with these models and, if further training is needed, they need to voice these issues with their departmental heads. as most south african sfb are already under-resourced and must rely on community donations to run their school’s operational demands, intergovernmental organisations such as the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization and world health organisation could be approached to assist in bringing in experts in the field, and to provide affordable models for schools free of charge. given that parents have been identified as one of the potential sources of censorship when it comes to schools offering cse to learners living with various disabilities (chirawu et al., 2014; de reus et al., 2015; rohleder & swartz, 2009), further research not only needs to explore the views of parents regarding these models, but what they understand about why such resources are needed in a classroom with tactile learners such as lvis. the problem may be that parents are not aware of the nature and purpose of esms and how they are used, and therefore might require education themselves to understand the educational value of the models during these lessons. as foucault’s (1990) theorisation of the pedagogisation of children’s sexuality has suggested, the concept of evil being associated with children’s sexuality was previously not as restrictive as it is now. that is, the idea that children are pure and sexually innocent or do not have sex was not the dominant socio-cultural discourse (bennett & harden, 2019; deacon, 2006; egan & hawkes, 2008). however, due to the influence of religion, the governing of mentalities, conduct, and decision making around sexuality has been controlled through conservative socio-cultural discourse (bennett & harden, 2019; deacon, 2006; egan & hawkes, 2008). perhaps by engaging with parents and other powerful social institutions involved in curriculum design and policy-making, the discourse around protection versus empowerment might shift the dominant socio-cultural discourse when it comes to the need for esms in cse for lvis. the limitation of this study is that only publications that conformed to the selection criteria were selected. there are many other publications online and some not available in print that could have been missed. however, the paper presents an ongoing study into the knowledge, 46 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 skills, and resources needed to understand the psychosexual development of children and adults living with visual impairment. conclusion this study aimed to explore the perceptions of teachers of lvis and their preparation during their teacher training as well as their readiness to use esms during their cse lessons. the findings suggest that some teachers might be unwilling to use these models during their cse lessons due to shame and embarrassment (khau, 2022). another reason might be that they may have had limited exposure to these models during their pre-service training. therefore, a follow-up study to explore the link between personality and readiness or teacher competence (e.g. emotional intelligence, open-mindedness, resilience, and openness to change, to name a few) could be conducted. given that the available literature suggests that children living with various disabilities are at an increased risk of rape, molestation, and hiv infection (chirawu et al., 2014; kelly et al., 2002; kelly & kapperman, 2012), the need for cse for them is far more urgent (kelly & kapperman, 2021; philander & swartz, 2006; rohleder et al., 2010). for this reason, for cse to be effective for learners with special needs such as lvis, these lessons need to be carried out with appropriate resources such as esms (bray, 2021; de reus et al., 2015; krupa & esmail, 2010). however, even with the enactment of inclusive education policies by the south african education system, the findings of this study suggest that south african sfb continue to grapple with their position in integrating controversial pedagogy such as the use of esms in cse lessons (khau, 2022). this may be due to other factors such as limitations in teacher education, parental censorship, as well as the cost of esms. future research should explore how teachers and parents feel about the use of these models. where education is needed to understand the place of esms in cse, experts together with intergovernmental organisations such as the united nations could step in to offer training with these models free of charge. references bennett, c., & harden, j. 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(2020). adaptation of learning and teaching support material and assessment of learners with visual impairment. in m. m. sefotho & r. ferreira (eds.), teaching learners with visual impairment (pp. 219–261). aosis. microsoft word c88 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 88, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i88a01 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x towards learner-centric pedagogies: technology-enhanced teaching and learning in the 21st century classroom jeanette la fleur wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa 0414073w@students.wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1451-5745 reuben dlamini wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa reuben.dlamini@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6451-333x (received: 27 january 2022; accepted: 18 july 2022) abstract effective professional development contributes to improved teacher knowledge and practice as well as deep and meaningful student learning. despite professional development being cited by the south african department of basic education as a priority goal, teacher professional development activities have been inadequate. in this article, we use a socio-cultural perspective to investigate the pedagogical affordances of digitalisation and technology integration. this study is part of a larger mixed methods study but for the purpose of this article we focus solely on its qualitative results. the aim of the study was to understand teachers’ best practices with digital technologies and how these technologies are being used to inform the 21st century classroom and encourage a learner-centric environment. the findings reveal weaknesses in the professional development activities regarding digital technologies and learner-centric pedagogies that are generally episodic, one-size-fitsall events focused largely on technical knowledge. the chief impediment towards learner-centric pedagogies and the implementation of technology-enhanced teaching and learning is the misalignment between teachers’ digital abilities and the demands of the 21st century technology-equipped classrooms. our recommendation is the continual situated professional development of teachers, including the creation of professional learning communities and the harnessing of digital technologies to provide an effective blended approach to teacher learning and instructional delivery in the 21st century. keywords: digital capital, digital equity, digital learning environments, hybrid learning, professional learning communities, situated learning la fleur & dlamini: towards learner-centric pedagogies 5 introduction recognising the importance of integrating digital technologies into teaching and learning, substantial investments have been made by the south african government to procure computer hardware and software for schools. however, these investments in digital technologies have not been matched by similar investments in professional development activities for educators. consequently, teachers lack the necessary skills to teach effectively with technology. the recent disruptions caused by the ongoing pandemic and the subsequent push towards a blended model of teaching and learning, require teachers to have the necessary skills to be able to teach in such an environment. the meaning of the term blended learning, also referred to as hybrid learning, has evolved over the years. garrison and kanuka (2004) defined blended learning as a “blend of text-based asynchronous internet technology with face-to-face learning” (p. 96). they stressed that what is important is “the quality and quantity of the interaction and the sense of engagement in a community of inquiry, achieved through the effective integration of internet communication.” they further argued that blended learning represents “a quantum shift in the nature and quality of the educational experience” and “a fundamental reconceptualization and reorganization of the teaching experience” (p. 97), that goes far beyond the simple mixing of traditional approaches with internet-based technologies and involves, rather, a completely novel approach to teaching and learning. bonk and graham (2012, p. 5) proposed a working definition of the term blended learning as the convergence of “face-to-face and computer mediated instruction” suggesting that it is “the combination of instruction from two historically separate models of teaching and learning: traditional face-to-face learning styles and distributed learning systems.” we treat blended learning as a combination of face-to-face and computer mediated learning that includes both asynchronous and synchronous technologies. garrison and kanuka (2004) posited that this type of learning allows students to be together yet apart and be connected anytime and anywhere to a community without being time, place, or situation bound. however, in order to create inclusive teaching and learning environments, classroom practices incorporating digital technologies must be improved, first, through the development of digital capital, and second, through the development of digital pedagogies to enhance students’ classroom experience. according to dlamini and nkambule (2019, p. 1), the presence of information and communication technologies (ict) in education “has ushered in unparalleled transformation in knowledge representation and pedagogical practices and introduced new methods of communication, presentation of information, and presentation of text.” therefore, there is no doubt about the pedagogical affordances of icts in the education sector. concerning teacher professional development, one of the priority goals stated in the department of basic education’s action plan to 2019 focuses on “teacher capacity and professionalism” with the aim of improving “the professionalism, teaching skills, subject knowledge and computer literacy of teachers throughout their entire careers” (department of basic education, 2015, p. 34). therefore, there is an expectation that meaningful investments will be made in the development of digital skills and professional learning communities (plcs) to improve teachers’ professional practice. however, the creation of meaningful and well-coordinated professional development opportunities demands collaboration between and 6 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 among the department of basic education (dbe), provincial departments, and unions. this work acknowledges that there have been serious hurdles and that little time has been spent on professional development. in 2019, the dbe published guidelines for the creation of plcs, emphasising the importance of continual professional development, but it noted that these activities are still organised as isolated, one-time training sessions that lack a coherent strategy, monitoring, and follow-up. according to these guidelines, plcs should respond to teachers’ needs and be organised mainly at school level and between schools to minimise transportation and organisational costs but should take financial and logistical constraints into consideration. continual teacher development in the affordances and integration of digital technologies is vital since digital technologies, such as computers, hand-held devices, and software apps are opaque, change rapidly, and “present new challenges to teachers who are struggling to use more technology in their instruction” (koehler et al., 2013, p. 14). the study on which we based this article investigated the characteristics of the 21st century south african secondary school learning environment that produces rich learning experiences. we therefore explored the following question: how can teacher professional development activities in the use of digital technologies for high school teachers be reconceptualised to provide the knowledge and skills needed to teach in the contemporary classroom? policy aspirations for e-education in 2004, the dbe published a white paper on e-education with the explicit goal of making every south african manager, teacher, and learner in the general and further education and training bands ict capable by 2013 (dbe, 2004). however, this goal is yet to be realised. subsequently, in 2015, the dbe published the department of basic education’s action plan to 2019: towards the realisation of schooling 2030. while the plan reiterated the government’s commitment to the integration of digital technologies into teaching and learning, it pointed to weaknesses in the system for the adoption of new technologies for this purpose (department of basic education, 2015). despite the pedagogical affordances of digital technologies, pedagogical content knowledge remains central to overall technology integration (shulman, 1986). however, for teachers to organise their digital activities optimally in the classroom, they need continual professional development opportunities (dlamini & mbatha, 2018). the 21st century classroom incorporates modern technologies to enhance students’ engagement and their interaction with the content. the reasons for the poor uptake of digital technologies in the schooling sector are multifaceted, as indicated by several studies conducted on the pedagogical integration of ict in the classroom (ajani, 2020; dlamini & dewa, 2021; dlamini & mbatha, 2018; pamuk, 2012). the dbe published a professional development framework for digital learning to provide a roadmap for the development of educators’ digital fluency and pedagogies (department of basic education, 2018). this framework is an enabler for digital education and pedagogies in arming educators with the necessary digital skills to navigate the complex digitally informed schooling environment. the development of information, media, and la fleur & dlamini: towards learner-centric pedagogies 7 technology fluency in the education context is important if we are to respond with agile pedagogies. early adopters of digital technologies in education have indicated that technology integration is not easy (pamuk, 2012). however, the covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption and appropriation of digital technologies. ng’ambi et al. (2016, p. 845) asserted that the emergence of new technologies shifts the focus “to more active learning and collaborative production of knowledge enabled by social computing tools.” context is key to any transition, but in south africa there has been systematic delegitimisation of the identities and cultures of most south africans, and this has also extended to the classroom. thus, any one-size-fit-all approach to the pedagogical integration of ict into schools is flawed. fataar and norodien-fataar (2021) argued for “an approach based on e-learning ecologies, promoting students’ critical epistemic engagement to enable them to secure viable futures” (p. 155). in this article, we advocate for differentiated professional development activities on digital pedagogies and the development of plcs to enhance classroom practices. according to borko et al. (2010), “the opportunity for teachers to participate actively and collaboratively in professional communities is an essential component of high-quality professional development” (p. 549). such communities will see teachers working and learning together in “collegial teams” and will help them “develop and draw on collective intelligence” and, in this way, develop a new professionalism (hargreaves, 2003). the chief impetus in our research was the inequalities that exist in schools in south africa, especially public schools where there is insufficient digital equipment to accelerate the application of digital pedagogies. there are also insufficient well-coordinated and meaningful professional development opportunities aligned with the future of education. wellcoordinated, meaningful professional development opportunities have the potential to cultivate teachers’ digital acumen to enhance their teaching modalities. koehler et al. (2013) argued that “many approaches to teachers’ professional development offer a one-size-fits-all approach to technology integration when in fact teachers operate in diverse contexts of teaching and learning” (p. 14). angeli et al. (2015, p. 306) held a similar view and blamed this approach for teachers’ lack of skills to teach effectively with technology since it emphasises “teaching technical skills” and spends “a limited amount of time that is usually devoted to matters of how technology interacts with subject matter, pedagogy and learners’ conceptions about specific content domain.” the above examples point to a decontextualised approach to teacher learning. literature review the advancement of digital technologies is fundamentally changing how education is delivered, and the reality is that governments must invest in professional development activities and digital infrastructure. desimone (2009) noted that teacher professional development not only increases teachers’ knowledge and skills but changes attitudes and beliefs and leads to an improvement in pedagogical approaches and, ultimately, student learning. continual professional development activities that are grounded in teachers’ 8 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 classroom practices will help teachers respond to the various demands of the 21st century classroom and to unpredictable situations. a situated approach to teacher learning has been proposed as a way of improving teacher knowledge and practices and of contributing to improved student learning outcomes (borko, 2004; borko et al., 2010; darling-hammond et al., 2017; putnam & borko, 2000). putnam and borko (2000) posited that a situative perspective “should be grounded in their teaching practice [and] be meaningfully situated in their own classrooms, group settings, where participants’ teaching is the focus of discussions” (p. 12). darling-hammond et al. (2017) defined effective teacher learning in terms of the following key principles: be content focused; incorporate active learning; support collaboration; use models of effective practice; provide coaching and expert support; offer feedback and reflection; and be of a sustained duration and not episodic nor fragmented since this does not afford sufficient time for rigorous and cumulative learning. active learning encompasses aspects of collaboration, coaching, feedback and the use of models and modelling, involves the use of authentic artefacts, is interactive and highly contextualised, and provides the opportunity for teachers to engage in the same types of learning they design for their students. furthermore, collaborative activities could range from “one-on-one or small group interactions to school wide collaboration, to exchanges with other professionals beyond the school” and be either face-to-face or facilitated by technology with opportunities for “cyber collaboration” among teachers or with a coach or mentor (darling-hammond et al., 2017, p. 10). regarding the use of a technology coach, drennan (2019) proposed the concept of an educational technology coach who would assist teachers to harness the affordances of technology and ipads in particular. borko et al. (2010, p. 554) argued for the incorporation of electronic technologies into professional development activities to “provide just-in-time work-embedded support and accommodate individual teachers’ busy schedules.” a blended approach has therefore been advanced as a viable model for teacher professional development (owston et al., 2008). they posited that with blended learning, teacher learning activities could be designed to take place over an extended period without teachers having to neglect their classrooms. the online aspect of the learning could further provide teachers access to different contexts and to an online community beyond their immediate school environment. according to goldman (2001, p. 22), “many forms of electronic technologies can overcome time and place constraints and provide the means to reach large numbers of individuals, potentially at costs lower than those associated with the physical presence of professional development personnel.” despite the widespread recognition of the importance of teacher professional development, activities focused on technology integration have been largely ineffective in changing teacher practices regarding the adoption of digital technologies. tarling and ng’ambi (2016, p. 554) postulated that “they tend to fail to create sustainable change in teachers’ practices using emerging technologies.” looi et al. (2008) suggested that one possible explanation for this is the lack of relevance of “pre-packaged training courses” initiated and conducted by external la fleur & dlamini: towards learner-centric pedagogies 9 agencies that “presuppose the needs of teachers” with limited input and feedback. for li and choi (2014), [c]onventional models of technology infusion generally suggest that changing teachers’ perceptions of the value of technology and equipping them with relevant pedagogical skills through proper teacher professional development programmes is one of the key determinants of success in integrating technology into schools. (p. 2) developing teachers’ digital pedagogical skills therefore requires a fundamental shift in our current approaches to teacher professional development. mishra and koehler (2006) initially developed the technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack) framework building on shulman’s (1986) concept of pedagogical content knowledge. this framework, as articulated in mishra and koehler (2006), and, more recently, in koehler et al. (2013) advances seven different knowledge domains: technological knowledge (tk); content knowledge (ck); pedagogical knowledge (pk); technological content knowledge (tck); pedagogical content knowledge (pck); technological pedagogical knowledge (tpk) and technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack). these domains indicate the types of knowledge teachers need for technology enabled learning with tpack being crucial. however, brantley-dias and ertmer (2014) in critiquing the tpack framework, argued that it is too vague and, hence, a possible barrier to technology-enhanced teaching and learning. they believed that an important distinction should be made between knowledge of something and the ability to apply that knowledge in practice. one way of applying that knowledge in practice is for teachers to become learning designers or co-designers (cviko et al., 2014; emin-martinez et al., 2014; kafyulilo et al., 2016). emin-martinez et al., suggested that learning design “is informed by subject knowledge, pedagogical theory, technology knowhow and practical experience” (2014, p. 4). it involves the design of new practices, plans, and resources aimed at realising specific educational goals. in a tanzanian study investigating the impact of teacher design teams as an aspect of their professional development in technology integration, teachers collaborated in small design teams (kafyulilo et al., 2016). this study was conceptualised around the tpack framework and involved teachers collaborating to redesign and implement aspects of the science curriculum using digital technologies. findings confirmed that teacher learning could be effective if it is meaningfully situated in teachers’ practices. although poor teacher technological knowledge was cited as one of the weaknesses, it was concluded that the formation of teacher design teams is an effective collaborative professional development strategy to advance technology-enabled learning. teacher collaboration as co-designers to create new resources could be one way in which tpack could be actualised for technology-enhanced teaching and learning. theoretical underpinning a socio-cultural approach to learning has its roots in vygotsky’s (1978) social constructivism that emphasises the social aspects of knowing that is “participatory, distributed and socially grounded” (crook, 2001, p. 19). another fundamental aspect of the socio-cultural theory is 10 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 the notion that learning is situated and this suggests that knowing and doing cannot be separated (seely brown et al., 1989). the situated view of learning originated with lave and wenger (1991) who argued that learning is first social and best occurs in authentic, real-life situations as a product of context, activity, and culture. this implies that learning is not an individual activity but a process of becoming a member of a sustained community of practice. social interaction and participation are thus integral to learning. wenger (1998) developed the concept of a community of practice to refer to a shared enterprise that is continually negotiated by its members and functions as a mutual engagement that binds them into a social entity and produces a shared repertoire of resources. such communities develop around things that matter to people and consequently, the practices of these communities would reflect issues which they consider important (wenger, 1998). research approach although this study is part of a larger mixed methods research project, this article is focused solely on the qualitative results. a convergent mixed methods design, following creswell and plano clark (2017), was used as a framework to plan, implement, and analyse this study. with this design, qualitative and quantitative data were collected concurrently, and then analysed and the results merged. “a key feature of mixed methods is its methodological pluralism” since it does not privilege qualitative methodology over quantitative methodology but instead combines the strengths of both and thereby leverages their benefits to provide “the best opportunities for answering important research questions” (johnson & onwuegbuzie, 2004, p. 16). by intensively investigating the 21st century classroom, the qualitative data collection involved non-participant observations of 10 history classrooms and 10 english classrooms. the purpose of these observations was to get insight into teachers’ day-to-day practices with and without digital technologies and to observe one of their teacher learning activities. semi-structured interviews were also conducted with educators participating in the qualitative phase of the study. participants two well-resourced public schools and three well-resourced private schools participated in the study. the total number of educators who participated in the qualitative phase of the study was 21, which represents 10 subject teachers, 5 heads of information technology/innovation; 5 principals and the head of the growth curriculum and enrichment of one of the schools that had recently implemented an integrated curriculum for children between the ages of 13 and 16. in this article, each school is referred to by a pseudonym. the pseudonyms for the private schools are queenstown college, baker college, and duke’s college, and those for the public schools are hampton high school and southridge high school. data collection and analysis data collection involved non-participant observations of 10 history classrooms with children between the ages of 13 and 16 and 10 english classrooms with children between the ages of la fleur & dlamini: towards learner-centric pedagogies 11 14 and 16. the purpose of these observations was to gain insights into teachers’ day-to-day practices with and without digital technologies and to observe one of their teacher learning activities. semi-structured interviews were also conducted with the educators participating in the qualitative phase of the study. the most significant insights into teacher professional development came from the semi-structured interviews with the various teachers, and this article is framed within these insights. inductive and deductive approaches were used to analyse the qualitative data. creswell (2014) described the use of both approaches as the process in which pattern, categories, and themes are built from the bottom up and where data is organised into more abstract units of information. therefore, an iterative and inductive process of open coding was first used to see which categories would emerge from the interview transcripts and fieldnotes. then key concepts from the research questions along with the identified categories were deductively used to identify themes that were subsequently used to group the findings from the research. the results were therefore analysed using thematic content analysis. scope and limitations while this study focused on well-resourced private schools and public schools that could be described as more privileged, this could be seen as limiting in some respects, some of the findings with regard to professional development are applicable to most schools. some of the lessons learnt and recommendations from this study can also be adapted and applied to other learning environments. findings teachers in queenstown and baker colleges, both technology-rich schools, had access to weekly professional development activities. at baker college, a so-called microsoft showcase school, most of the academic staff members were trained as microsoft certified educators. the principal stated, “i’m a big proponent of professional development and creating professional learning networks.” since professional development was deemed a priority, the role of the head of innovation and it services had been expanded to include staff development. in response to the question about ongoing training, this head stated that “we do [this] in both schools every week . . . [and it] ranges between 20 minutes to half an hour, 40 minutes maximum, depending on the school.” baker college also created a new portfolio, that of a curriculum innovation mentor, generally known as the education technology coach, whose role, according to the principal, was “to liaise with teachers in ways in which they can be more active in integrating technology in their subjects.” teachers at queenstown college were apple accredited teachers while some were also microsoft certified educators. when asked about teacher professional development, the principal stated, “it’s part of what we do”, although she acknowledged that the system was not perfect. in our interview she stated that some form of staff training was conducted once a week and this had been ongoing for a number of years. she added, 12 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 you can’t expect staff on top of all that they are doing. you’ve got to give them the time to train. and as i say, some people jumped on particularly like the apple educator . . . and that was something they could do in their own time as well. so, we had the initial training together and then you could continue and there are different levels that you could do. so that was really, really important. however, in duke’s college, a mixed learning environment was encouraged, and this meant that the school was not tied to any one platform, so teacher learning in digital technologies was not a regular occurrence. the it director, who had been employed eight months prior to our classroom observations, stated that his focus was to sort out the issues with technology. he said, “i’ve sent a lot of the teachers over the last few months for google training where they do google certified educators’ level 1.” however, the history teacher who had been employed at the school for over four years said, “i did go on an ipad summit but for me i fail to see where i could bring in those ideas”, while the english teacher who had recently been employed at the school did not attend any of the school’s teacher learning activities. however, she stated, “i haven’t had a lot of formal training (but) i figured most of it out myself . . . i’ve experimented with a lot of apps and technologies.” a similar comment was made by the english teacher at queenstown college; this suggested that intrinsic teacher motivation and interest also contributes to teacher learning hampton high school and southridge high school are both government schools with less digital access than the three private schools enjoy. the head of it at hampton high school that used the microsoft office 365 platform, indicated that training in the use of digital technologies occurred as the need arose. one session on microsoft teams had been conducted at the beginning of that year and a follow-up session was held but with minimal staff attendance. the english teacher confirmed what was mentioned in the dbe action plan (2015) that “sometimes the unions provide it (training). sometimes the department provides it. sometimes the school provides, but it’s on a needs basis.” the head of it further highlighted the challenges with getting teachers to attend such training sessions stating, “(t)he problem i have with training, is it’s very difficult to get the teachers to the training because we’re such a busy school. there’s so many things happening and activities happening and to try and get them to the training is difficult.” southridge high school is technology constrained with limited access to digital technologies, particularly for learners. no digital learning was provided for teachers according to the head of computers since continuous wi-fi access is limited to staff and students who did information technology as a subject. the english teacher, however, indicated an awareness of the workshops offered by the national professional teachers’ organisation of south africa (naptosa), through their newsletter although she had not attended any. regarding the content of teacher development activities, the data suggests that these were focused mainly on technical skills. in hampton high school, the teachers were taught to use microsoft teams with the training being conducted by an external facilitator. according to the english teacher, “he came and showed us how teams works.” based on this training she la fleur & dlamini: towards learner-centric pedagogies 13 was not convinced that microsoft teams worked for every subject particularly english and hence she hardly used it. the ipad and google workshops attended by teachers at duke’s and queenstown colleges focused on how to use different apple and google apps. teachers at queenstown college also extended their technological knowledge by doing other “apple courses” either individually or as a staff, according to the principal. the history teacher added that apart from the ipad workshops, “[w]e’re given lots of opportunities to go and learn and gain more skills and knowledge” while the english teacher stated that she attended the ipad summit, which “really shifted my teaching practice.” in baker college, the compulsory and mainly whole-group weekly sessions were focused on the latest trends in technology and on increasing teachers’ technological knowledge. the head of it services and staff training described it as an “ignite” session, stating, the idea was . . . i’m going to show you something, like vr, i’m going to put you in goggles. i’m going to let you experience it and hopefully, i will light a fire under you and you know that i know that you can come back and ask me, how do i do that more? . . . also, we try and make it very hands-on . . . even if you’re going to say that this is not for me . . . now we’ve started splitting it so on monday they had teams training or ‘stop-go’ motion and in two weeks’ time, the same two options on so they can go around. but we don’t say you only go to stop-motion if you are a language teacher or a this. we [say] ‘go, go there! we’re gonna teach you how to make a stopmotion video, a story.’ … like on monday, but i’m doing ‘arrow code’, not every teacher needs to know how to code, but yes, every teacher does need to know how to code . . . yes, you won’t use it in your classroom, but say, ‘i’ve coded, i’ve coded for an hour, i’ve done something.’ baker college was the only school that organises regular plcs for teachers. three sessions are held yearly with teachers from other schools being invited to share their best practices with technology. the head of innovation and staff services said, the idea came . . . if i got the community here and . . . forced (their emphasis) our teachers to participate, basically i’m bringing the community to you, the like-minded community to me, not to you, necessarily. . . so i hopefully get a bunch of digitally inclined teachers to come here to mix with you to share ideas. so, everybody goes away and learns something. one of the sessions that the first author attended involved large groups of about six teachers all observing the various presentations with minimal hands-on interaction. apart from teachers sharing various educational applications, short technology hacks were shared, such as how to do screen recordings on your iphone and how to use microsoft stream to make videos, and a teacher who is a microsoft certified educator gave a brief demonstration on how to use microsoft teams. another teacher shared how to use microsoft forms to do simple language quizzes. 14 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 additionally, baker college, like duke’s college, selected what they called champions of technology, who provided one-on-one or small group assistance to a teacher or small groups of teachers to help them integrate technology into their lessons. at duke’s college, there was a champion for google classroom. the principal of baker college described them as “the goto people for technology”, while the head of it services at duke’s stated that these champions “are willing to share with other people and say, ‘look what i’ve done with this tool and how it works,’ but at the same time show how it will work in that teacher’s environment.” discussion technology-enabled learning that would advance learner-centric pedagogies require active teacher learning as described by darling-hammond et al. (2017) and not one-size-fits all decontextualized training sessions. teacher learning activities at queenstown college could be described as job-embedded and linked in some respect to teachers’ specific learning needs. for instance, both teachers interviewed attended the ipad workshop which, though prepackaged, was beneficial since it “shifted her teaching practice” according to the history teacher. additionally, the school’s teacher learning activities ranged from small group interactions and school wide collaboration to collaboration with others outside the school as in line with the key features of professional development articulated by darling-hammond et al. (2017). teachers also had opportunities for individual learning since they are given a choice to continue learning about the various technologies in their own time. however, the focus seems to have been on gaining “knowledge and skills” as indicated by the history teacher. the approach of baker college indicated an effort to provide ongoing training for teachers as described in the literature. however, their weekly learning activities were based mainly around technological trends, and not always on teachers’ needs; “even if you say that is not for me”, as the head of innovation and staff development indicated, teachers had to attend the sessions. these were often one-shot or one-size-fits all whole staff events in the hope that they would “light a fire” under the teachers, causing them to explore that piece of technology further. this is the very approach criticised by angeli et al. (2015) and koehler et al. (2013) because a limited amount of time is spent on how technology could be integrated into pedagogy. in fact, only one session was devoted to showing teachers how to use microsoft teams, an application that teachers were expected to use. these events were described as “hands-on”, but little (1993, p. 138) argued that “teachers do not assume an active professional role simply by participating in a ‘hands-on’ activity as part of a scripted workshop.” however, the informal plcs that met three times a year focused on job-embedded activities and specifically on teachers sharing experiences from their classroom practices at staff development sessions. but, while there were opportunities for teachers to share best practices with technology, most of the activities observed focused on technology hacks and provided la fleur & dlamini: towards learner-centric pedagogies 15 no opportunities for meaningful collaborative learning among teachers. this meant that the session seemed more like a one-size-fits all ignite event. apart from these whole-group experiences with teachers from other school environments, teachers at baker college were able to have one-on-one learning experiences with champions. the employment of a curriculum innovation mentor echoes darling-hammond et al.’s (2017) and drennan’s (2019) recommendation of an educational technology coach or mentor to provide expert support for teachers to help them integrate technology into their pedagogy. the interview data revealed a fragmented and intermittent approach to professional development at duke’s college that borko et al. (2010), more than a decade ago, likened to the traditional in-service approach using one-shot workshops away from school premises. the history teacher’s comment that she failed to derive any value from the ipad summit suggested that the training was not relevant to her specific needs since she did not use any apple products for teaching and learning. the identification of champions across different grades to provide expert assistance for google classroom provides an opportunity for increased technology-enabled teaching and learning at baker college. like duke’s college, hampton high school had an episodic approach to teacher learning, although the training was job-embedded and linked to teachers’ specific school needs. the workshop on microsoft teams that was held used a one-size-fits-all approach with a limited amount of time spent on technological pedagogical integration. hence, there was insufficient time for rigorous, cumulative learning that possibly explains the english teacher’s remark that she did not use teams often since it “doesn’t always work for every subject.” this comment demonstrates a lack of awareness of the affordance of the application. our findings, therefore, revealed flawed teacher professional development strategies, especially relating to digital technologies since they tended to focus largely on technological skills instead of providing digital pedagogical skills. while baker and queenstown colleges provided continual opportunities for teacher learning in technology, such activities at hampton high school and duke’s college were episodic. teacher technology development activities at southridge high school were non-existent suggesting that technology-enhanced teaching and learning was not a priority. it also indicates a possible misconception about the relevance of such activities to teacher learning. consequently, we recommend that the current approach to teacher professional development be reconceptualised in favour of a sustained and strategic approach based on the day-to-day realities of teachers’ practices. teaching and learning in the 21st century demand a situative perspective to teacher professional development, as articulated in the literature. a situated approach involves more opportunities for active learning (darling-hammond et al., 2017), including collaboration, coaching, interactive activities using authentic artefacts, and other strategies that all combine to provide highly contextualized learning. 16 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 another way for teacher professional development activities to be specific to their practices would be to use technology coaches or mentors to provide one-on-one or small group support for teachers. examples of this are the curriculum innovation mentor at baker college and the use of champions by baker and duke’s colleges. however, given that most schools, and in particular government schools, cannot afford to employ an additional staff member to fulfil the role of technology coach, this could be a resource that is shared among schools or districts. alternatively, there could be technology champions for each learning area in school districts who are also part of the dbe’s structure to lead various subject specific communities of practice in schools as a means of facilitating technology-enabled learning. conclusion in this article, we provide a glimpse into the teacher learning activities at five secondary schools in johannesburg. the study, although limited in scope, confirmed statements made in the dbe’s action plan and plc guidelines, in particular that professional development activities are mainly isolated one-time training events that lack a coherent strategy. a situated professional development approach would, therefore, respond to teachers’ specific needs in their specific environments. it would also help address the issue of tehnological pedagogical dissonance and provide teachers with the skills necessary to teach in the contemporary classroom. the creation of plcs is also a good way to foster collaboration among teachers and to provide opportunities for teachers to collaborate as designers of learning resources and challenge their misconceptions about the affordance and use of digital technologies. however, this should be a bottom-up, teacher-led grouping based on what teachers deem to be important to their work and not according to the dictates of an external department. these communities could be created with teachers in their particular educational setting or with others outside of their own school setting. given the great push for teachers to teach in blended learning environments, it is crucial that teachers experience what it is like to learn in such an environment. equally, a blended approach could address concerns raised by the head of information technology at hampton high school regarding the issue of insufficient time for training and those raised in the dbe’s guidelines and action plan (department of basic education, 2015, 2019). garrison and kanuka (2004) argued for a reconceptualisation and reorganization of the teaching experience that includes a novel approach to teaching and learning. we argue that this is particularly applicable to teacher professional development activities in order to accelerate the adoption of learner-centric pedagogies. statement of ethics ethics approval was sought and granted by the university of the witwatersrand. permission to conduct the research and use its data for academic articles was granted in writing by the la fleur & dlamini: towards learner-centric pedagogies 17 participating schools and teachers whose identities remain anonymous. there are no known conflicts of interests, and the data is not available to open access. references ajani, o. a. 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(1998). communities of practice: learning as a social system. systems thinker, 9(5), 2–3. microsoft word b86 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 86, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i86a04 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x investigating opportunities for integrating methodology when teaching a life science topic (meiosis) to fourth-year pre-service teachers: a case study robyn raina kahn wits school of education, marang group for research in mathematics and science education, university of witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa robynkahn777@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3177-5605 eunice nyamupangedengu wits school of education, marang group for research in mathematics and science education, university of witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa eunice.nyamupangedengu@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2338-8012 (received: 26 august 2021; accepted: 1 february 2022) abstract pre-service teachers (psts) are expected to effectively integrate their content knowledge with their knowledge of teaching when teaching classes after qualification. this integration can, however, be challenging for psts because the two components are often taught separately at teacher education institutions. this qualitative case study investigated the possibilities of integrating the teaching of the two components at a south african university educating future science teachers. data in the form of video-recorded lectures, video-stimulated recall interviews with a teacher educator, and focus group interviews with 15 psts were collected. data analysis was mainly deductive informed by the topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge conceptual framework. many opportunities for integrating methodology were created by the teacher educator while teaching meiosis content. the study concludes that integrating methodology when teaching content courses is possible. however, the integration should include explicit discussion of the pedagogical reasoning behind the visible teaching routines. keywords: teacher education programmes, pre-service teachers, pedagogical content knowledge, topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge, meiosis, subject matter representations, curricular saliency, pedagogical reasoning kahn & nyamupangedengu: investigating opportunities for integrating methodology . . . 65 introduction teacher education has a dual purpose: teaching content or making sure pre-service teachers (psts) learn content (the disciplinary component), and teaching psts how to teach that content—the professional component (garbett, 2012). however, the two main models of teacher education programme that are used in higher education institutions—the concurrent model and the consecutive model (sederevičiūtė-pačiauskienė & vainorytė, 2015)—teach these two components separately. at many universities, in the concurrent model, psts learn the disciplinary studies alongside the pedagogical studies but in separate programmes (zuzovsky & donitsa-schmidt, 2017). in the consecutive model, the psts first obtain an academic degree in the discipline that is related to the subjects that they will teach at schools (sederevičiūtė-pačiauskienė & vainorytė, 2015). thereafter they complete a teaching qualification where the pedagogical knowledge needed to teach that particular subject is taught, usually a post-graduate certificate in education (murray, 2005). despite the fact that the two components are taught separately, there is still an expectation that the teacher, after qualification, would be able to automatically integrate these two components for effective teaching to occur. experience of supervising teaching experience practicals—what rusznyak and bertram (2021) referred to as work integrated learning (wil)—has shown that integrating the two components during teaching is a challenge for psts because they are taught as separate courses at teacher education institutions. garbett (2012) argued that it should be the role of a teacher educator to marry the teaching of content and how to teach it during the teaching of psts. that was the motivation for this study in which we investigated the opportunities for integrating methodology1 when teaching a content course to psts. nyamupangedengu and lelliott (2018) argued that there needs to be integration between the teaching and learning of content and methodology for psts to gain pedagogical content knowledge (pck)—knowledge of how to teach. this pck would enable them to enter the classroom well prepared to teach. it is not known if teacher educators can create meaningful, integrative lessons that enable psts to learn content and how to teach that content. the aim of this study was, therefore, to investigate the opportunities for explicitly integrating methodology when teaching a content course to psts. the questions that guided our study were: 1. how does the teacher educator teach meiosis (a biology topic) to pre-service teachers? 2. what opportunities (if any) of integrating methodology with the teaching of content, are presented in the way the meiosis lecture is taught? 3. what are the pre-service teachers’ experiences of the lecture? 1 the term methodology will be used throughout this paper to refer to methods of teaching. 66 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 literature review what the literature says about the teaching of pre-service teachers at teacher education institutions according to zuzovsky and donitsa-schmidt (2017), the way in which psts are taught is critical because it initiates the psts into the teaching profession. in addition, as indicated by musset (2010), the knowledge and quality of future teachers depends, among other things, on the teaching that occurs in the teacher preparation programmes. as part of improving the way psts are prepared for teaching, rusznyak and bertram (2021) have argued for a wil experience that integrates the teaching of visible classroom routines (such as the use of visual representations and various other teaching strategies) as well as the less visible classroom routines that inform a teacher’s decisions in the classroom—also known as pedagogic2 reasoning. the authors (rusznyak & bertram, 2021) argued that successful integration of these two components during wil is essential for psts to develop the specialised knowledge that they need to be effective teachers once they are qualified. in this paper, as an extension to the argument by rusznyak and bertram (2021) above, we argue that teacher educators should also integrate the teaching of content and methodology, by making explicit the classroom routines as well as the pedagogical reasoning behind the visible actions that they take when teaching psts. this is because, according to pella (2015), engagement with the teacher educator’s teaching as well as pedagogical reasoning helps to shift the psts’ initial content knowledge to pck. in this way, psts would be exposed fully to the content that they are taught as well as how it is being taught. teacher professional knowledge just as with other professions, there is a knowledge base that a qualified teacher should possess in order to competently and effectively teach learners. according to carlson and daehler (2019), teacher professional knowledge comprises of various knowledge bases including content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, knowledge of students, curricular knowledge, and assessment knowledge. these knowledge bases are essential foundations for teachers to become experts. the integration of content knowledge and the other professional knowledge bases in pedagogical reasoning during teaching contributes to the development of teacher pck. many aspects of these teacher professional knowledge bases are taught in methodology courses in teacher preparation programmes and psts are expected to integrate them in practice during wil and after qualification, leading to the development of their pck. in this study, we are advocating for teacher educators to show the utility of the these knowledge bases by making explicit the pedagogical reasoning behind the classroom routines and actions that they display when teaching content courses to psts so as to promote what mavhunga and rollnick (2013) described as fast-tracking the development of psts’ pck. by giving the psts opportunities to delve deeper into their teacher educator’s pedagogical 2 rusznyak and bertram (2021) used the term pedagogic reasoning while shulman used the term pedagogical reasoning. in this study, for consistency with the original source i.e., shulman (1987), the term pedagogical reasoning will be used. kahn & nyamupangedengu: investigating opportunities for integrating methodology . . . 67 reasoning, it is envisaged that they are likely to begin to develop their own pedagogical reasoning whilst learning the content that they need to teach. pedagogical reasoning pedagogical reasoning is a term that shulman (1987) introduced. it describes the process when teachers use their professional knowledge to make decisions about what to teach and how to teach it (bishop & denley, 2007). pedagogical reasoning is not a simple process of just thinking about teaching (nilsson, 2009) but, rather, a complex process that occurs in a cycle of six stages, namely, comprehension, transformation, instruction, evaluation, reflection, and new comprehension (shulman, 1987). comprehension refers to a teacher’s understanding of the content in a variety of ways so that they will be in a position to present it in alternative ways when learning difficulties are encountered—as well as an understanding of purpose, of learners, and of ideas within and outside the subject area (shulman, 1987). transformation is a highly complex process that involves critical interpretation of content to be taught, representation, selection, and adaptation and tailoring of that content. during critical interpretation, teachers engage critically with the subject matter and the teaching material in order to design suitable activities for students. representation refers to anything that a teacher uses to make the subject matter comprehensible to others. it can be analogies, metaphors, illustrations, examples, explanations, demonstrations, and models (bishop & denley, 2007; shulman, 1986). selection refers to the choices that a teacher has to make regarding the activities, models, analogies, and so forth, that the teacher will use in the classroom. there are many reasons why teachers would choose certain activities and analogies and not others. principal among them is the teacher’s knowledge of the learners, which includes their cognitive levels, their attitudes, and their predispositions towards the subject matter. the final stage of transformation is adaptation and tailoring. this is a process in which a teacher designs classroom materials and activities specifically for the students in the classroom. it is not a case of “one size fits all.” a teacher has to modify the content to be taught to make it suitable for the students in the classroom. the modification may involve a change to a facet of an activity or to the sequence of concepts to be taught. some of the considerations a teacher has to make include students’ prior conceptions, cultural beliefs, gender, ability, and motivation (geddis & wood, 1997). instruction follows the process of transformation. it refers to the acts of teaching and learning, which may include the presentations of explanations and descriptions of subject matter, questioning and probing students, answering questions, and discussing with students. evaluation includes teachers checking for understanding in their students as well as looking at their own teaching to assess the effectiveness of the instruction process. reflection is a process where teachers review the teaching and learning that has occurred in the classroom in the light of the educational goals, purposes, and ends that were being sought. lastly, new comprehension refers to the new understanding of content to be taught, of students, of purposes, of self, and of the process of teaching itself that a teacher gains through the acts of preparation, teaching, evaluating, and reflecting (geddis & wood, 1997). 68 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 as can be seen in the description presented above, every stage involves decision-making by the teacher—making pedagogical reasoning a rich source of teaching insights for teacher educators if it is shared during the teaching of a content course. the description of the pedagogical reasoning cycle above also shows that it is a complex process that is not easy to retrieve by a teacher in a moment. this means that teacher educators may need to practise metacognition if they are to successfully share their pedagogical reasoning with their students. in this study, in order to help the participant to relive the original lecture events and share her pedagogical reasoning, the authors used the video-stimulated recall interview method as described by vesterinen et al. (2010). conceptual framework to guide this study, we made use of the topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge (tspck) framework by mavhunga and rollnick (2013), with a focus on one of the three grain sizes of pck, namely, enacted pck (carlson et al., 2019). the tspck framework describes knowledge that is required by a teacher in order to adequately reason about the transformation of concepts of a topic into a form understandable by learners, and enacted pck (epck) refers to, the specific knowledge and skills utilised by an individual teacher in a particular setting, with a particular student or group of students, with a goal for those students to learn a particular concept, collection of concepts, or a particular aspect of the discipline. (carlson et al., 2019, p. 84) the tspck framework was chosen because this study focuses on the teaching of one biology topic (meiosis), and it also indicates what teachers need to consider in order to effectively reason about the transformation of the content of a topic into an understandable form. the framework includes the following components: learners’ prior knowledge (including misconceptions), appropriate representations (including analogies) of subject matter for that topic, what makes the topic easy or difficult to understand, the place within the curriculum that the topic falls as well as the purpose for teaching that topic (curricular saliency), and conceptual teaching strategies (mavhunga & rollnick, 2013). in this study, using the tspck framework as the lens, we examined a teacher educator’s enacted pck when teaching meiosis. we focused on the manifestations of the components of tspck as offering opportunities for integrating methodology during the teaching of a content topic. research methods and design research approach this was a case study that allowed for the exploration of both the process and the outcome of a complex phenomenon, namely, teaching in the real world (harrison et al., 2017; zainal, 2007) which, in this case, was the teacher educator’s classroom. we explored a teacher kahn & nyamupangedengu: investigating opportunities for integrating methodology . . . 69 educator’s teaching of meiosis as well as the outcome in terms of the opportunities for the integration of teaching content and methodology, and what the psts experienced about the teaching of meiosis. the study was an exploratory case study because we explored the pedagogical practices of the teacher educator that allowed for the integration of methodology when teaching content. this was a qualitative study because it focused on understanding and exploring phenomena through “organising data into categories and identifying patterns (relationships) among categories” (mcmillan & schumacher, 1993, as quoted in astalin, 2013, p. 118). teacher educators’ epck, pedagogical reasoning, and student experiences are examples of phenomena that were explored in this study. setting of the study the setting of our study was a south african university that uses a unique concurrent model of training secondary school teachers. the model is unique in that the content courses are taught along with the methodology courses in the same school of education. this means that, every week, a pst at this university has periods allocated for attending content courses and periods for attending methodologies and this is the arrangement from first year up to fourth year. however, it is important to note that, although the programme delineates the teaching of methodology courses in relation to content majors, what is taught in methodology courses may not necessarily be linked to the content that is covered in the content courses. for example, students being taught the topic of genetics in the content course may not be taught how to teach genetics, namely, skills and competences associated with the teaching of genetics. in addition, the content and the methodology courses at each level are not necessarily taught by the same teacher educator, meaning that one teacher educator may be teaching the content course while a different teacher educator teaches the methodology course. the teacher educator who participated in this study was teaching a life sciences content course (focusing specifically on the topic of genetics including meiosis) to fourthyear psts training to be life sciences secondary school teachers. population and sample the participants in the study were one teacher educator and 130 fourth-year pre-service teachers who were registered for the genetics course. fifteen of the psts gave their consent to participate in focus group interviews. data sources and collection data sources for this study were video recordings of three 50-minute meiosis lectures taught by the teacher educator, and video-stimulated recall (vsr) interviews with the teacher educator to determine the pedagogical reasoning behind the practices observed in the lectures. audio-recordings of focus group interviews with the psts were also collected, which aimed to determine their experiences of the lectures and to see what pedagogical practices they had learned from the course. although the average number of participants in focus group interviews is usually between four and six, our focus group interview consisted of 15 participants. this is because when we approached the class with the request, 15 psts 70 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 showed interest and consented to taking part in the interview. all 15 then indicated that they wanted to do the interview on the same day, after class, and be done with it because it was the last day of the genetics lectures. seeing their immediate availability and readiness to do the interview, we could not divide the group and send others away to find another time for the interview. therefore, we decided to interview all 15 psts at one go. in order to overcome the negative effects of large focus groups, we made sure to give each pst an equal opportunity to express their opinions. this was done by allowing each pst to respond to the questions that we were posing and to say what they wanted to say. allowing each participant to have a voice helped to reduce bias within the interview. data analysis the analysis and coding of the three data sets mentioned above was deductive because they were guided by the tspck model. analysis of video recordings we familiarised ourselves with what transpired in the lecture by watching each recorded lecture twice. we then transcribed the video, during which we wrote out the audio and took screen shots of important aspects about the teaching process. the choice of the important aspects was informed by the conceptual framework—specifically, the various stages and aspects of pedagogical reasoning as described earlier. after transcribing, we coded the transcripts. as indicated above, our method of analysis was deductive because it was guided by the different aspects of the tspck model as well as the various aspects of the pedagogical reasoning cycle. however, we were open to new aspects that arose during analysis that were not covered by our initial framework and from those, we incorporated an inductive research analysis approach (gabriel, 2013) as we progressed. see figure 1 for an excerpt of a coded transcript. figure 1 excerpt of coded video transcript (te = teacher educator) coding te: teacher educator te so, this is what we are going to look at, what meiosis is, preparation for meiosis, process of meiosis and products. (curricular saliency – cs) comment: content selection is an aspect of pedagogical reasoning. kahn & nyamupangedengu: investigating opportunities for integrating methodology . . . 71 coding te: teacher educator te meiosis is linked to reproduction; we want to be clear on some things before we go into detail (teaching strategy-q & a – question and answer session) comment: selection of an instruction strategy, an aspect of pedagogical reasoning. te subject matter representation – smr comment: selection of pool noodles as representations and designing learning material, an aspect of pedagogical reasoning. analysis of vsr interviews and focus group interviews as with the video recordings, we deductively coded the interview transcripts using the tspck framework as a guide. figure 2 is an excerpt of a coded transcript of the vsr interviews with the teacher educator. an excerpt of a coded transcript of the focus group interviews can be seen in figure 3. 72 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 figure 2 excerpt of coded vsr interview (te = teacher educator) interview excerpt i: interviewer te: teacher educator i: you presented the outline of meiosis shown in this screen shot. what was the purpose of emphasising these concepts in the lecture? te:those cover the whole objective of teaching and learning that topic (curricular saliency cs). so, i want them to be clear on what the objectives are, so when i say this is preparation, they are already able to see so what we mean by preparation, what happens during preparation? when we look at processes, they will look at the whole process of meiosis to see how this purpose is achieved. so, it was structured so that when they are constructing their own knowledge, it’s already structured for ease of storage and retrieval (pedagogical reasoning (pr) behind how the te structured the content for teaching). i: what was the purpose of the questions asked at the beginning of the lecture? te: the questions were on reproduction and reproduction is directly linked to meiosis (curricular saliency). so, i wanted the students to see the link (pr). what we call curricular saliency (cs). i.e. why do we look at meiosis and what other topics and concepts do you need to know that will help you to understand meiosis. if i teach the topic in isolation, they won’t see the relevance, so by asking those question i wanted them to see, oh meiosis is linked to reproduction (pr behind today’s questions-discussing the connection between the process of reproduction and meiosis so that students can see the relevance of the topic). i: how did you come up with the idea to use pool noodles as representations for meiotic processes? and why did you use these? kahn & nyamupangedengu: investigating opportunities for integrating methodology . . . 73 interview excerpt i: interviewer te: teacher educator te: it was really just creativity. i got the idea of using pool noodles when i was struggling to figure out visuals that students in a big lecture room can see. the number of students in my class was increasing (context of te cte). previously i would have 30 students, so other things like thread would work to show the behaviour of chromosomes, but eventually the number of people increased and went on to 40, to 80 and this year i have 130. so, i can’t use a thread or a string to represent all the different aspects that i wanted them to see (cte). so, a colleague said why not use pool noodles? they can be seen right from the end of the lecture. and when i got the pool noodles (subject matter representation smr), that’s when creativity set in. i realised that i could actually cut them and build structures that would help them to see that initially we don’t see chromatids although each chromosome will be made up of chromatids (subject matter representation smr). then we can move as they shorten and thicken. so, making up those structures was my creativity trying to figure out how best to use materials. so now i actually use so many different materials that i use to model genetics concepts. i no longer buy readymade models. now i focus more on every day stuff, materials that students can get. again, for the purposes of them seeing that you can be creative, that you can use every day items (context of students cos) (pr behind the choice and use of pool noodles and other easy to get materials instead of ready-made materials). i: why do you probe students to answer questions instead of giving them the answer? (probing students pr) te: it’s sort of a constructivist approach where they need to construct their own knowledge (pr). so, if i just tell them, then it’s like pouring the knowledge into their heads instead of them constructing their own knowledge. and in addition, for my teaching to be effective, i want to start from what they know (an indication that the lecturer is aware that students bring in prior knowledge), so when i ask a question and they say something, immediately i use that response to build on their understanding, although it does show immediately in my actions, when i listen to the answers, in my mind, i will be assessing what is correct and what is wrong and i’m trying to figure out what it is the student’s thinking. so that in the process of probing, i am pushing them to think further (pr), i can eventually correct the misconceptions as well as add to the knowledge that they have (pr behind probing students for answers-to facilitate knowledge construction). 74 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 figure 3 excerpt of coded focus group interview ethical considerations the research study was formally approved by the ethics committee of the faculty of at the south african university at which the study was conducted (protocol number: 2019ece065h). all ethical requirements were adhered to. permission to conduct the study with fourth-year psts at the institution was granted by the university head participants were given a cover letter that clarified the purpose of the study and the nature of the research, and each participant signed an informed consent form giving permission to include them in the research. to ensure that all inform access to the data was restricted to the authors of this paper only, and responses to interviews were not shared with anyone else. to ensure anonymity of the participants, participants were not required to use their names when responses were used for the final write up of the study. participants were aware that they could withdraw from the study at any time. arrangements were made for interviews to take place at a time and venue that was convenient for all participants. journal of education, no. 86, 2022 ethical considerations the research study was formally approved by the ethics committee of the faculty of at the south african university at which the study was conducted (protocol number: 2019ece065h). all ethical requirements were adhered to. permission to conduct the study year psts at the institution was granted by the university head participants were given a cover letter that clarified the purpose of the study and the nature of the research, and each participant signed an informed consent form giving permission to include them in the research. to ensure that all information given was kept confidential, access to the data was restricted to the authors of this paper only, and responses to interviews were not shared with anyone else. to ensure anonymity of the participants, participants were not required to use their names during the interview and non-identifiable labels were used when responses were used for the final write up of the study. participants were aware that they could withdraw from the study at any time. arrangements were made for interviews to time and venue that was convenient for all participants. the research study was formally approved by the ethics committee of the faculty of education at the south african university at which the study was conducted (protocol number: 2019ece065h). all ethical requirements were adhered to. permission to conduct the study of school. the participants were given a cover letter that clarified the purpose of the study and the nature of the research, and each participant signed an informed consent form giving permission to ation given was kept confidential, access to the data was restricted to the authors of this paper only, and responses to interviews were not shared with anyone else. to ensure anonymity of the participants, participants were identifiable labels were used when responses were used for the final write up of the study. participants were aware that they could withdraw from the study at any time. arrangements were made for interviews to kahn & nyamupangedengu: investigating opportunities for integrating methodology . . . 75 presentation of findings and discussion the results of this study showed that: 1. the teacher educator taught by using a variety of teaching strategies and representations. 2. there were many opportunities for integrating how to teach meiosis methods while teaching the meiosis content. 3. pre-service teachers’ experiences of the lecture included experiences of the teaching strategies and representations that were used by the teacher educator, which seem to have created opportunities for the psts to reason about the teaching they were experiencing. results from the analysis of interviews with the teacher educator use of subject matter representations the analysis of the video-recorded lectures showed explicit manifestation of subject matter representations in the teacher educator’s epck. the teacher educator made use of multiple subject matter representations, the visible classroom routines (mavhunga & rollnick, 2013; rusznyak & bertram, 2021) including a powerpoint presentation, diagrams on the chalkboard, pool noodles on a board, posters, and hand-drawn labelled diagrams. these subject matter representations can be seen in figure 4. figure 4 subject matter representations used by the teacher educator throughout the lecture example picture powerpoint presentation 76 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 example picture an illustration on the chalkboard an illustration using pool noodles posters hand drawn diagrams as can be seen in figure 4, classroom routines (rusznyak & bertram, 2021) were present in the lectures for psts to see. the powerpoint presentation was the central visual aid used throughout the lectures. use of a powerpoint presentation was central to the teacher educator’s teaching because of, according to her, its diverse and flexible nature as a visual aid. she can choose the font as well as the size and colours of that font, add pictures and diagrams, and adjust the layout of the slides as needed. she indicated that all of these factors aid in grasping the attention of the students so that they are able to focus on the subject matter kahn & nyamupangedengu: investigating opportunities for integrating methodology . . . 77 in front of them and concentrate on understanding the concepts that are being taught without getting bored or losing sight of what it is they are learning. instead of presenting the psts with slides full of writing, the teacher educator introduced new concepts on the slides pointby-point, and made use of pictures and diagrams so as not to overwhelm the psts with too much information at once while also getting the point across. this pedagogical reasoning behind the epck is what rusznyak and bertram (2021) described as the less visible routine, which is crucial and must be made accessible to psts for better learning gains. the teacher educator did not, however, make known to her class this crucial pedagogical reasoning aspect of her enacted pck. hence, it remained inaccessible to psts, which we viewed as a missed opportunity for integrating the teaching of content and methodology. in addition to the use of powerpoint presentations, the teacher educator illustrated certain concepts through writing on a chalkboard. the teacher educator’s pedagogical reasoning for this was: to show diversity in the visual aids that can be used in the classroom as well to develop and build conceptual understandings together with the pre-service teachers. the teacher educator also made use of pool noodles on a board, which was a creative way of using every day household objects to create an impactful visual aid. according to the teacher educator: the illustrations done using pool noodles are big enough to be seen throughout the lecture theatre and they succinctly represent the behaviour of chromosomes during meiosis, specifically synapses and crossing over. in addition to showing pre-service teachers a clear representation of the content, the illustration also shows psts that they do not need to spend a lot of money buying ready-made models to demonstrate processes, but they have the ability to make use of every day, easy-to-find objects. the teacher educator also reasoned that because the class size was growing, use of smaller representations like pipe cleaners was no longer suitable because they cannot be seen by everyone; she had to think out of the box to get a bigger representation that could be seen throughout the class. the teacher educator therefore also showed a consideration of the changing learning context in her pedagogical reasoning. all of these invisible classroom routines are opportunities for integration of methodological aspects that should be made visible to psts during the teaching of a content course. other subject matter representations used by the teacher educator to demonstrate certain processes were strings and posters. these, along with question-and-answer sessions, were used to represent the importance of the formation of chromosomes because these concepts are often difficult for psts to understand. the teacher educator used analogies throughout the lecture in order to give psts the ability to relate new concepts to experiences that were familiar to them. as the teacher educator said: 78 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 it becomes easier for them to remember because they are able to identify the unfamiliar concept with the known and familiar analogy. use of conceptual teaching strategies the teacher educator made use of multiple teaching strategies including probing the psts for answers, initiating class discussions, making reference to textbooks and what is easy or difficult to teach, and identifying learner prior knowledge (which mavhunga & rollnick, 2013, highlighted as important aspects of tspck for effective teaching). throughout the lecture, the teacher educator probed the psts to answer questions instead of her giving them the answers, and she provided her pedagogical reasoning behind the probing aspect in the video-stimulated recall interview: probing allows psts to verbalise their thinking and, in the process of interaction, to construct their own knowledge. the teacher educator therefore made use of a constructivist approach during her lectures to provide opportunities for psts to build on their understanding of the concepts that were being taught. through probing, the teacher educator said that she was pushing the psts to think further. in addition, probing provided opportunities for psts to verbalise their ideas and thinking, thereby enabling the teacher educator to address any misconceptions that the psts might have. in this way, the teacher educator was gaining an understanding of the prior knowledge of the psts (including misconceptions), and she was then able to add to the knowledge that the psts already had. in addition to probing, after explaining certain content, the teacher educator would give the psts time to discuss what they had learned amongst themselves, and her reasoning was: it is only when you verbalise your thinking that you know whether you have understood the concept or not. the teacher educator also made reference to errors in school textbooks during the lecture in order to: highlight some of the weaknesses in the text books that can lead to misconceptions. throughout the lecture, the teacher educator emphasised the importance of understanding certain terms. the video-stimulated recall interview showed that the teacher educator knew which terms and concepts to emphasise through extensive reading of the research literature on genetics teaching and learning. by reading literature, the teacher educator was aware of problematic terminology that learners might find difficult to understand (knowledge of the learning context). aside from emphasising the important terms, the teacher educator also made sure to mention and explain the links between the topics of meiosis and genetics and where dna, chromatin, and chromosomes fit in. by emphasising these during the lecture, the teacher educator ensured that the psts were able to understand the terms and concepts as well as their importance, which will be essential when they teach their own learners. the teacher educator decided to explain the complicated terms before beginning the lesson on kahn & nyamupangedengu: investigating opportunities for integrating methodology . . . 79 meiosis in order to create fluidity within the lecture. once the teacher educator had begun to teach, she would just mention these terms without having to interrupt the flow of the lesson to explain the terminology. it is clear to see that the epck had many opportunities that could be drawn on for purposes of integration. these processes and reasoning were however, never made explicit to psts. curricular saliency a teacher is said to display curricular saliency through their decisions of which aspects of the topic that they are teaching they choose to include or withdraw when teaching. they also need to understand how the topic of interest fits into the overall curriculum (rollnick et al., 2008). the teacher educator demonstrated curricular saliency throughout the lecture in various ways, namely, linking meiosis to reproduction through a question-and-answer session, emphasising specific terms, analogies, and deciding what was essential for the lecture. curricular saliency also manifested throughout the teacher educator’s teaching as the teacher educator made links between specific topics and chose what content to focus on and what content to leave out of the lectures. again, all of these manifestations of curricular saliency were opportunities that the teacher educator could have used to integrate and emphasise the importance of curricular saliency, a methodological aspect, during the teaching of content. results from the analysis of the focus group interview an analysis of the focus group interview showed that psts gained knowledge of the use of subject matter representations from the meiosis lecture. when asked if they felt that they would be able to teach meiosis after these lectures, the psts reacted positively with certain psts stating they felt that they would be able to use the different subject matter representations to teach meiosis effectively to their own learners: student 3: she made lots of learning aids for us to use, for each stage of meiosis . . . and you can use them, for example, representing chromosomes in a grade 10 class . . . bringing a representation to every class and not just a picture, it gives you the 3d and it allows you to actually picture what the abstract chromosomes look like. student 4: we would use the same visual aids that she used. student 13: for me, in terms of representations, i feel like i am prepared [to teach]. the psts’ utterances show that while they were learning the content of meiosis, they were also learning different ways of representing meiosis concepts from their experiences of the teacher educator’s epck—the visible routines. the psts gained what rusznyak and bertram (2021) described as an understanding of how the teacher educator conducts a lesson. in a number of instances, psts reasoned about the observed classroom routines: 80 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 by asking probing questions, the teacher educator wanted to go through what we know and wanted to determine our prior knowledge. instances of pedagogical reasoning such as this one could be seen several times in psts’ interview transcripts. in the instance above, psts showed an awareness that the teacher educator could be determining their prior knowledge. this reasoning aligned with the teacher educator’s reasoning: for my teaching to be effective, i want to start from what they know, so when i ask a question and they say something, immediately i use that response to build on their understanding . . . when i listen to the answers, already i am seeing what is correct, what is wrong and i’m trying to figure out what is the student’s thinking. so that in the process of probing, i am pushing them to think further, i am able to correct the misconceptions and to add to the knowledge that they have. as can be seen above, the students’ and the teacher educator’s reasoning are similar. therefore, if the teacher educator could integrate this thinking in her teaching by making it explicit to her class, that would confirm their interpretation of the teacher educator’s classroom routines—thereby possibly achieving what pella (2005) described as a shift from content knowledge to pck. making psts aware of the pedagogical reasoning can lead to the psts understanding the importance of doing certain classroom routines when teaching such as using a question-and-answer strategy. it also shows psts how to use a question-andanswer strategy and build on learners’ prior knowledge, which are strategies that they can apply in their own classrooms after qualification. therefore, psts can learn the techniques for teaching their own learners in a content course. in their interviews, the psts made mention of the teacher educator’s strategy of pointing out misconceptions in the textbook. for example, student 10 said: in some schoolbooks, there are a lot of misconceptions so, with this lecture, we’ve gotten to understand that. this is how it actually happened rather than what we were taught in high school. in this manner, we could see that the teacher educator was linking content to pedagogy because, while teaching the content of meiosis, she was also pointing out to the psts how to recognise certain misconceptions in order to not pass those misconceptions on to their future learners. this is an instance of integration of methodology during the teaching of content. although the psts might not know what curricular saliency is, and the teacher educator did not mention curricular saliency during the lecture, the psts were still aware of the structures that the teacher educator was putting into place during the lecture. furthermore, the subject matter that the teacher educator covered in the lecture was aligned to the meiosis content that is covered in the curriculum assessment policy statements (caps) curriculum. psts, however, did experience curricular saliency: student 4: we started with learning the phases of meiosis. kahn & nyamupangedengu: investigating opportunities for integrating methodology . . . 81 student 2: we learned why meiosis occurs. student 8: i think with meiosis we had to first go through what we already know, the prior knowledge. and the prior knowledge was focused on the differences between meiosis and mitosis and then we moved on to the actual stages of meiosis and, in meiosis, we had to differentiate between the two stages of meiosis and be able to label it. the psts’ responses above present an opportunity for integration of teaching content and methodology because through the teacher educator’s process of teaching all the concepts of meiosis and determining what the psts did and did not know, the psts could learn the content that they needed to know and the order in which to teach it, and they could also see what they needed to cover and do in order to teach meiosis to their own future learners. the teacher educator’s curricular saliency therefore allowed the psts to know and understand essential concepts, different techniques to teach, as well as how to structure those concepts in order to portray this knowledge to their learners. the teacher educator’s pedagogical reasoning behind these curricular saliency concepts was, however, again not made explicit— indicating a missed opportunity for integrating methodology during the teaching of content. conclusions and recommendations the problem that motivated this study was that many teacher education programmes are structured such that content and methodology are taught separately. this makes it difficult for psts to develop pedagogical content knowledge in an integrated manner (nyamupangedengu & lelliott, 2018). it had not been determined whether, if teacher educators were able to create meaningful and integrative lessons, that would help psts to learn content as well as how to teach that content. the purpose of this study was therefore to investigate if a teacher educator teaching a content course to fourth-year psts could integrate methodology aspects, or if there were opportunities during the teaching of content for integrating methodology aspects. the key findings of the study showed that the teacher educator created many opportunities for integrating how to teach meiosis (methodology) while teaching the meiosis content through the use of visible classroom routines (including powerpoint presentations, writing on a chalkboard, pool noodles on a board, strings, posters, and analogies). the teacher educator also used conceptual teaching strategies such as probing the psts for answers, initiating class discussions, making reference to textbooks and what is easy or difficult to teach, and identifying learner prior knowledge, which are important aspects of tspck for effective teaching (mavhunga & rollnick, 2013). curricular saliency also manifested throughout the teacher educator’s teaching as the teacher educator made links between specific topics and chose what content to focus on and what content to leave out of the lectures. the teacher educator’s pedagogical reasoning was revealed through video-stimulated recall interviews. the pedagogical reasoning and the use of the strategies above demonstrates the opportunities that the teacher educator created that could be used to integrate the teaching of content and methodology. 82 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 the use of multiple teaching strategies created these integration opportunities, resulting in psts gaining pck through observing how the teacher educator was teaching (visible classroom routines). psts collectively showed a positive response to the different strategies used in the content lecture, stating that they felt they would be able to teach their own learners using these strategies. in several instances, the psts were able to appropriately reason about the purposes of the teaching strategies that the teacher educator was using. this appropriate reasoning by psts shows that the teaching strategies that teacher educators use are opportunities that can be used to develop psts’ pck during the teaching of content. the study showed that consideration and application of the tspck components during both the planning and the teaching enabled the integration of methodology in the teaching of content by the teacher educator. this study therefore showed that it is possible to integrate the teaching of methodology with the teaching of content. the study, however, recommends that the teacher educator’s pedagogical reasoning behind the teaching strategies and the choice of representations be made explicit to allow psts to reflect and critically engage with the teacher educator’s teaching. it is envisaged that this approach would further support the learning about teaching that psts gain through their experiences of the visible classroom routines. acknowledgements we would like to acknowledge the fourth-year life sciences pre-service teachers who participated in the focus group interviews and contributed to our understanding of the teacher educator’s teaching. this original research article comes from the project that is funded by the national research foundation of south africa under the competitive support for non-rated researchers’ programme, grant no. 216271. references astalin, p. k. 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(2017). comparing the effectiveness of two models of initial teacher education programmes in israel: concurrent vs consecutive. european journal of teacher education, 40(3), 413–431. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2017.1318377 journal of education, 2017 issue 68, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za food and housing challenges: (re)framing exclusion in higher education yasmine dominguez-whitehead (received 13 september 2016; accepted 10 may 2017) abstract food and housing challenges in higher education are increasingly apparent on a global scale, and south africa is no exception (see, for example, broton & goldrick-rab, 2016; gallegos, ramsey, & ong, 2014; munro, quayle, simpson, & barnsley, 2013). the rising cost of living coupled with consistent fee increases, has meant that students are struggling to access basic necessities such as food and shelter. the recent and ongoing #feesmustfall movement has, among other things, signalled that large numbers of students are experiencing material hardships, and are unable or unwilling to continue to pay the high cost of attending higher education institutions. this paper provides a review of food and housing challenges within the south african context, before arguing that exclusion from higher education, based on material hardship should be interrogated, given that much of the literature on exclusion in higher education has been based on interrogation of academic barriers and challenges with respect to epistemological access. this discussion will serve as the basis for a critical examination of the assumptions and core features of selected institutional responses to food and housing challenges in higher education in south africa. the recent #feesmustfall movement, which prompted student protests across south africa, has brought into the limelight varied issues relating to student activism, curriculum transformation, class and race (badat, 2016). it has also brought attention to issues concerning inclusion and exclusion, and the financial/material barriers (which include issues of food and housing) confronted by students when pursuing a higher education. the widespread protests ultimately compelled the national government and universities to put in place a moratorium on fee increases in 2016. while student activists have made some gains in keeping the cost of higher education down in 2017 (at least for those who are under-resourced), debates with respect to how higher education should be financed and who should be financing it continue to take place at a national level and within institutions of higher education. thus, concerns with respect to financing higher education require taking into 150 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 consideration not only fees, but the actual cost of studying, which must necessarily factor in food and housing costs. the high levels of inequality within south africa and the highly unequal education system that was inherited from the apartheid government have prompted the need to implement practices that promote redress and equity (anderson, 2016; christie, 2008; rugunanan, 2014). in particular, instituting practices that make higher education available for under-resourced students, has been a concern for the department of higher education and training, given the department’s comment that “everything possible must be done to progressively introduce free education for the poor in south african universities”(2013, p.39) providing free education, would entail not only eliminating fees, but also making available resources, free of cost, that are necessary to complete a university degree (such as books, housing and a living allowance), and therefore free education constitutes an ambitious endeavour. fee-free education on the other hand, would only constitute the elimination of fees, but would require students to fund their own study supplies and pay for their living expenses. a genuinely inclusive higher education system would allow opportunities for access, participation and success for students irrespective of their socioeconomic status or available monetary resources (cf. unesco, 1994). in engaging with participation, inclusivity and exclusion in higher education, nunan, george and mccausland have noted that “an education system can reproduce existing economic power structures by excluding those who cannot afford to attend. . .it can reproduce non-representational forms of power to advantage the already advantaged (2000, p.64). accordingly, this paper is foremost concerned with framing and interrogating exclusion in higher education by examining the role that material resources (or lack thereof) play, in particular food and housing. for the purposes of this paper exclusion refers to experiencing compromised access to meaningful learning and engagement at the university that allows for fruitful experiences, academic success and timely graduation. first, i provide a review of the literature on food and housing challenges within the south african context. i then argue that exclusion based on material hardship should be interrogated, given that much of the literature on exclusion in higher education has been based on interrogation of academic barriers and challenges with respect to epistemological access. lastly, i dominguez-whitehead: food and housing challenges. . . 151 provide a critical examination of the core features of selected institutional responses to food and housing challenges in higher education in south africa. food and housing challenges in south african higher education while food and housing are essential resources for academic success, they are often overlooked and assumed to be resources that higher education students will automatically be able to access. in other words, it is presumed that students who are able to gain entry into higher education institutions, which have been traditionally reserved for the elite, will as a matter of course, have food and housing resources available to them. food, in particular, has been viewed as playing an essential role in early childhood education. it has been well documented that malnutrition and undernutrition have ramifications for stunting, and poor cognitive and educational performance for children (alaimo, olson, & frongillo, 2001; grantham-mcgregor, cheung & cueto et al., 2007). however, less is known about the food acquisition struggles of higher education students and the ramifications of this. food challenges food challenges are prevalent at higher education institutions across south africa, with nutrition and hunger issues being faced at all universities across the country (department of higher education and training, 2011). while food concerns within higher education have been under-researched, we know that students are more likely to experience hunger toward the end of a term, when they have depleted their funds (munro et al., 2013). this is particularly concerning given that students write examinations at the end of the term, and this is a time of year when students perhaps most need to have access to food in order to perform well. students who lack sufficient food may suffer in silence, due to the stigma associated with experiencing a lack of food (gwacela, 2014). we also know that students who experience food acquisition challenges consume poor diets that lack nutritious food. this is due to more affordable foods having high energy density and a low nutrient density (kassier & veldman, 2013). for, example, fruits and vegetables have more nutrients and fewer calories, but tend to be more expensive, than for example, bread (kassier & veldman, 2013). given that this is the case, food 152 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 insecure students could be more obese than their food secure counterparts, as a result of consuming less expensive food that is high in energy density, but low in nutrient density (cf. wilde & peterman, 2006). food insecurity, which for the purposes of this paper refers to experiencing compromised access to sufficient food generally or to healthy, nutritious, safe, culturally and religiously appropriate food, specifically, varies across higher education institutions. for example, at the university of kwazulu-natal’s pietermaritzburg campus, approximately 20% of a sample of students was found to be vulnerable to food insecurity (munro et al., 2013). at this same campus, over 60% of students who receive financial aid reported experiencing food insecurity (kassier & veldman, 2013). at the university of the witwatersrand approximately 7% of a sample of participants reported being moderately or severely food insecure (landman, marinda, rudolph, & kroll, 2014). this may appear to be a relatively low percentage, when compared to the university of the free state, where 60% of a sample of students reported experiencing food insecurity and hunger, while 26% reported experiencing food insecurity but did not report hunger (van den berg & raubenheimer, 2015). these figures suggest that food insecurity exists at several campuses across the country, however, data on food insecurity for all south african higher education institutions is not available and this signals that more research is necessary to fully examine the severity of food insecurity within higher education. the food challenges reported by university students vary, with some students reporting depleting their funds (due to them having paltry budgets in the first place) and thus resulting in them being forced to go without food. others report challenges acquiring food on campus due to campus food being expensive; such students report seeking food outside of the university. this in turn has implications for the amount of time students spend on campus and their involvement in university life. still others do not report food challenges, but display awareness that some of their peers experience these challenges. this suggests that food challenges on university campuses could be a systemic problem that is either experienced first-hand by some or that is widely known about by those who do not themselves experience these challenges (dominguez-whitehead, 2015). food acquisition challenges on university campuses have also brought to light the ways in which inequalities are reproduced by students when they engage in discussions about food. students who struggle to acquire sufficient and dominguez-whitehead: food and housing challenges. . . 153 sufficiently nutritious food, discuss their food troubles as shared and systemic concerns. in contrast to this, students who take for granted the material resources necessary to purchase food, discuss food consumption as a matter of individual choice (dominguez-whitehead & whitehead, 2014). it thus becomes relevant to ask how students with vastly different resources and orientations to food can engage with each other within higher education settings, especially given that breaking bread with others is a significant site for socially engaging with others (ochs & shohet, 2006) and that in postapartheid south africa concerns have been raised with respect to a lack of socialising and integration among students from different backgrounds (pattman, 2007). it is necessary to acknowledge that a lack of access to food can negatively impact students in a variety of ways. students who lack funds to meet basic needs (including food) are at greater risk of negative outcomes including dropping out (letseka and maile, 2008), academic under-performance (jama, mapesela & beylefeld, 2008; kassier & veldman, 2013), and decreased ability to socialise with their peers (firfirey & carolissen, 2010). it is therefore not possible to expect students who are severely under-resourced to perform well academically and socially within institutions of higher education. housing challenges housing, similar to food, is a basic necessity and university students have traditionally been provided the opportunity to live on-campus in residence halls or in the university vicinity. living in campus residence halls comes with the convenience of not having to endure a long commute and being able to access support staff who are tasked with helping students transition to living on their own (harwood, huntt, mendenhall, & lewis, 2012). adequate and well-developed student housing can also have a powerful influence on academic success and can contribute to a smooth transition to the university and enhanced learning (blimling, 2015; inkelas, daver, vogt, & leonard, 2007; schroeder & mable, 1994; zeller, 2005). however, housing challenges have been pervasive at institutions of higher education in south africa. in 2010 only about 20% of enrolled students lived in residence halls, due to a shortage of on-campus housing (department of higher education and training, 2011). some of the largest universities, such as the university of the 154 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 witwatersrand and the university of johannesburg, only accommodate about 15% and 9% of their students, respectively (department of higher education and training, 2011). first year students are expected to transition to university life, but they have few opportunities to access university housing, with only about 5% of first year students being housed within university residence halls (department of higher education and training, 2011). these housing shortages continue to be apparent, but insufficient funding has made it difficult to generate additional much needed student housing (nzimande, 2016). under-resourced students may not have sufficient funds to pay for on-campus housing, even if such housing becomes available to them (machika & johnson, 2015). some students may be forced to commute between the university and their family homes, which could be situated far from the university (jama, mapesela, & beylefeld, 2008). these housing challenges must necessarily take into consideration south africa’s previous apartheid regime, which dictated where people could reside. while segregation certainly existed before the group areas act of 1950, this legislation brought about the racial restructuring and racial zoning of metropolitan areas (mabin & smit, 1997). in the process of this racial restructuring thousands of people were forcibly moved “on or beyond the urban periphery” in order to “tidy-up cities” and “control the movement of africans” (mabin & smit, 1997, p.206). this resulted in the creation of different neighbourhoods with few available transportation routes between the periphery and the centre, reinforcing social exclusion, thus making it difficult and time consuming for those without a private vehicle to access the city centres (czegledy, 2004; murray, 2011), which is where many of south africa’s former white universities are located. thus, gaining physical access to such universities for students whose families reside in the periphery, is time consuming and burdensome. some students could endure round-trip commutes upwards of two hours and are required in some instances to take several different modes of public transportation. these transportation challenges have been known to compromise co-curricular involvement and academic outcomes (wawrzynski, heck, & remley, 2012). having sufficient funds for transportation may also present a problem, given that a lack of such funds could adversely impact attendance and academic performance (cf. firfirey & carolissen, 2010). many students, however, do not attend universities in the same cities where their families reside. for these students, access to affordable on-campus or nearby housing is crucial. students who are able to access on-campus or nearby housing, but who subsequently experience financial hardships may not be able to continue to dominguez-whitehead: food and housing challenges. . . 155 pay for accommodation. staff members working in student affairs offices are all too familiar with students who find themselves sleeping in classrooms due to a lack of resources to pay for accommodation. thus, long and burdensome commutes for students who cannot afford nearby accommodation and a lack of accommodation facilities all together for those who cannot afford to pay for accommodation, mean that these students are faced with wholly inadequate everyday living arrangements that could severely hamper academic success. those fortunate enough to access and retain university accommodation may be faced with a different set of problems. given that many residence halls have made the shift to a self-catering model in an attempt to make higher education more affordable, it becomes relevant to examine kitchen facilities, or lack thereof. in some cases kitchens are available but lack essentials such as stoves. in other cases, kitchens are non-existent and students are required to cook meals in their own rooms and use ablution facilities to clean-up after their meals. problems extend beyond suitable kitchen facilities and include broken toilets, over-flowing sewage, collapsing ceilings, exposed wires and over-crowded rooms (department of higher education and training, 2011; koen, cele, & libhaber, 2006). indeed “the state of on-campus residence infrastructure and facilities at a number of universities is so inadequate that even the poorest students are being forced to find private off-campus accommodation” (department of higher education and training, 2011, p.57). substandard housing has in the past prompted student protests and in 2010 university of kwazulu-natal students engaged in demonstrations to demand adequate accommodation and an end to financial-based exclusions (mottiar & bond, 2011). academic staff members may assume that students have access to housing that is adequate, affordable and allows students to devote sufficient time for their studies. however, housing presents considerable challenges for students from under-resourced backgrounds who cannot afford on-campus housing, housing near the university vicinity, suitable and safe housing or any form of housing at all. despite that on-campus housing plays a central role in the academic lives of students and creates more opportunities for student learning, involvement and engagement (astin, 1999; zhao & kuh, 2004), housing challenges in south africa have received little attention from higher education researchers. a lack of housing or a lack of suitable housing is not conducive to pursuing one’s studies and these challenges should be taken into consideration when engaging with factors that contribute to exclusion. 156 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 why exclusion based on material hardship should be interrogated a lack of food and housing may be contributing to poor academic performance, the inability to meaningfully participate in campus life and attrition. in other words, food and housing challenges can manifest themselves as exclusionary forces that make it extremely difficult for students to gain access to meaningful learning and engagement at the university that allows for fruitful experiences, academic success and timely graduation. it has been argued that not having access to food in particular, could be a reason why more than half of higher education students in south africa never graduate (van den berg & raubenheimer, 2015) and that hunger in higher education leads to high drop-out rates (department of higher education and training, 2011). despite that food and housing challenges can prevent students from fully participating and achieving academic success at the university, they continue to be under-researched and overlooked by the body of literature on exclusion in higher education. the emergence and growth of south africa’s national financial aid schemes could explain, at least in part, why exclusion based on material hardship has been under-researched. in line with strategies to redress past inequalities in higher education, in 1994, r20 million was allocated (by the minister of education) to assist under-resourced students in financing their higher education pursuits, and the amount of national funding for under-resourced students increased to r300 million in 1996 (moja & hayward, 2005). the funding scheme which grew rapidly in the early to mid-1990s came to be known as the national student financial aid scheme (nsfas) in 1999. nsfas funding continued to increase and by 2004 over r900 million was made available to students who qualified. it is noteworthy that nsfas was developed with the specific aim of helping “students from poverty-stricken backgrounds” attain a higher education (department of higher education and training, 2011, p.26). in other words, at a national level, strategies were implemented to provide higher education opportunities to the neediest and most under-resourced students. given the consistent increases in nsfas funding, there may have been a pervasive assumption that sufficient measures were in place that addressed the material needs of the neediest students and that such students were therefore granted the resources necessary for meaningful learning and engagement in order to complete a degree. dominguez-whitehead: food and housing challenges. . . 157 despite that nsfas funding increased rapidly, as early as 1998 there were signs that nsfas was being funded at inadequate levels and that the amount of funds disbursed to individual students were not sufficient to cover the actual cost of attending higher education (bunting, 2006). it was becoming apparent that the amount of nsfas funding was insufficient to fund the increasing number of students enrolling in higher education. insufficient nsfas awards contributed to widespread financial exclusions that first emerged in 1998, and continue to be apparent, as a result of many students being unable to settle their university debts (bunting, 2006; koen et al., 2006). nsfas funding has also been compromised my maladministration. nsfas recipients across different institutions have reported receiving their living allowance late, with some students only receiving this allowance at the end of a term (jones, coetzee, bailey & wickham, 2008). concerns have also been raised with respect to under-resourced students who have been termed the missing middle, as they are not eligible for nsfas funding or private loans (badat, 2016). since 1994, financial aid has become available to many under-resourced students, but we have also seen student numbers double, block grants decline in real terms, state funding as a proportion of university budgets decrease and tuition fees increase exponentially (badat, 2016; wangenge-ouma & cloete, 2008). indeed, years before the #feesmustfall movement came about, higher education researchers expressed concern about fees increasing at a higher rate than nsfas funding, and proposed a redistributive fee model that would make higher education more affordable for the poor while ensuring that the wealthy paid their fair share (wangengeouma & cloete, 2008). at the time of writing, the nsfas budget for the 2017 academic year was r15 billion and in order to help offset the cost of fee increases, students with a family household income of up to r600 000 per year qualified to receive subsidy funding to cover the gap between the 2015 fees and the increased 2017 fees at their institution (for fee increments up to 8%) (south african government, 2016). in the face of the #feesmustfall protests, universities have continued to implement fee increases for the 2017 academic year, but it is apparent that the government has put in place strategies, which essentially mean that all nsfas students and missing middle students will not experience a fee increase in 2017 (south african government, 2016). on the other hand, inefficiencies continue to be apparent, with students who have applied for nsfas funding complaining that their applications are being processed late, thus preventing them from enrolling. additionally, some students who have been admitted to universities, complain that they have been 158 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 advised to study at technical and vocational education and training colleges, due to a shortage of funding for university students (nicolson, 2017). exclusion: moving toward examining both academic and material challenges given the aforementioned discussion, which brings attention to a dearth of higher education funding for under-resourced students, it becomes relevant to examine exclusion by taking into consideration material challenges in addition to continuing to examine challenges that are concerned with academic and epistemological barriers. much of the literature that has examined exclusion and exclusionary forces within south african higher education has been concerned with barriers to academic and epistemological access (see, for example, boughey, 2005; ellery, 2011; layton, 2015). this body of work has contributed to new knowledge that extends beyond providing physical access to higher education, and is concerned with access to the epistemology of the academy and the unspoken rules and conventions of engaging in academic work. as a result of this literature, some of the detriments and benefits of bridge and scholarship programmes, which seek to impart knowledge and academic skills to students who have been historically under-represented, have been examined (see, for example, essack & quayle, 2007; liccardo, botsis, & dominguez-whitehead, 2015; mabokela, 2000). additionally, the ways in which under-prepared students can be initiated into dominant academic discourses and practices have been investigated (see, for example, slonimsky & shalem, 2006; steinberg & slonimsky, 2004) and eurocentric curricula have been called into question (higgs, higgs, & venter, 2003; nunan et al., 2000). examining issues of exclusion by interrogating academic and epistemological access is necessary. indeed, the literature on academic and epistemological access has made substantial contributions to better understanding some of the ways in which students are, or can be, excluded from higher education. with this in mind, i propose that a more complete interrogation of exclusion would continue to be concerned with academic and epistemological factors, and would additionally be concerned with interrogating material factors. in other words, the study of exclusion in higher education can be expanded to incorporate more than one lens, especially given that academic and material barriers may overlap; students confronting material challenges may also confront challenges relating to epistemological access. dominguez-whitehead: food and housing challenges. . . 159 examining exclusion that stems from a lack of material resources requires taking into consideration logistical and methodological matters. for instance, the investigation of material resources would benefit from an approach that is concerned with students’ access to food and housing at various stages of their higher education careers. this does not mean that examining material resources necessarily requires longitudinal research, but it does mean that material resources should not be investigated only upon entry into higher education. this is important given that students’ circumstances are not static and can fluctuate according to changes in the livelihoods of their families, the regularity of nsfas living allowance disbursements and other factors. both quantitative and qualitative methodologies would allow for a holistic examination of the food and housing challenges that students experience (dominguez-whitehead, 2016). employing quantitative methodology can help us learn about the extent of the problem at national, regional or institutional levels, and employing qualitative methodology can reveal the ways in which students experience food and housing challenges, their coping mechanisms and any recurring patterns. undertaking research that examines food and housing challenges is important for contributing to knowledge production, but it is also significant because it holds potential for engaging with policy makers and informing policy that could bring about positive changes for students struggling to access food and housing (goldrick-rab, 2016). institutional responses to food and housing challenges in the absence of sufficient nsfas funds and in light of decreased state funding for institutions of higher education (badat, 2016), addressing food and housing challenges in higher education has proved to be exceptionally difficult. indeed, universities are being called to respond to the material needs of under-resourced students in ways that promote integrity and respect. for example, in may 2016 the university of witwatersrand’s vice chancellor received a memorandum that called for ending hunger at the institution and instituting practices that treat under-resourced students with dignity, particularly when it comes to disseminating food (safsc & inala, 2016). given the pressure to respond to the material challenges faced by students, institutions across the country have been compelled to institute some measures to meet these challenges. 160 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 food assistance programmes (such as those that provide already-made meals and food parcels) have been made available by many higher education institutions such as the durban university of technology, the university of the free state, the university of kwazulu-natal, the university of johannesburg, the university of the witwatersrand and the university of zululand, but such programmes and relief efforts often operate without earmarked funds. in order to keep these food programmes running, institutions resort to seeking funds or food from philanthropists and community members. in some cases, such as the university of the free state, the leadership of the university launched a ‘no student hungry’ campaign in 2011 and in so doing actively sought donors from within and outside of the free state. other universities such as the university of kwazulu-natal and the university of the witwatersrand have sought donations from administrative and academic staff members. such donations can be deducted from a staff member’s monthly salary. the ways in which universities have responded to food challenges, assumes that charity and the goodwill of others can adequately address the food challenges experienced by students. while institutions have engaged in pro-active efforts to raise needed funds, donations do not constitute guaranteed funds. this means that when donations are scarce or cease, programmes that provide food relief become compromised. given the difficulties that depending on donations presents, a model that moves beyond philanthropy to creating meaningful and sustainable collaboration with local businesses has been proposed (gwacela, 2015). this type of model would rely heavily on community social responsibility practices (gwacela, 2015). the importance of sustainable programmes and practices that treat students with dignity cannot be overstated when the goal is to serve the most under-resourced students. a lack of policy that informs or supports the implementation of sustainable food assistance within higher education has been noted as a challenge to meeting the food needs of under-resourced students (sabi, 2015). instituting policies at national or institutional levels could promote sustainable programmes and serve to secure reliable and earmarked funds. with respect to housing challenges, despite that all universities and campuses across south africa are experiencing a shortage of student housing (nzimande, 2016), insufficient measures have been taken to address this problem. some recent efforts that address housing challenges are however apparent. for example, in 2011 the department of higher education and dominguez-whitehead: food and housing challenges. . . 161 training released a comprehensive government document, the ‘report on the ministerial committee for the review of the provision of student housing at south african universities’, which reported on housing related challenges at twenty two universities. the report outlined many short comings (including, but not limited to, infrastructure problems, a lack of resources and poor housing provision), but it also affirmed a commitment to improving student housing (department of higher education and training, 2011). specific recommendations included in the report call for implementing a minimum standards code for the accommodation and housing of students; the regulation of private accommodation accessed by students; sound, robust and efficient governance of student accommodation; investigating all complaints pertaining to corruption and maladministration; and increasing nsfas funding for accommodation. more recently, in 2016, a housing symposium was hosted by the minister of the department of higher education and training. this symposium brought to light the particular housing shortages at tvet (technical and vocational education and training) institutions. scarce national funds for higher education coupled with the financial challenges posed by the moratorium on fees in 2016 mean that the department of higher education and training and individual institutions are not equipped to generate or acquire more student housing options. in light of this, it is proposed that the private sector will be instrumental in the goal of making 15,000 additional beds available across eleven institutions of higher education (nzimande, 2016). while property developers and investors may have the capital to build housing for more students, concerns have been previously raised with respect to the provision of affordable rooms that are made available by the private sector in south africa, since this sector may be more concerned with making profit and less concerned with generating safe and suitable accommodation (poulsen, 2010). students who find themselves without accommodation or funds for accommodation struggle to acquire assistance from their institution. it is not uncommon for institutions to attempt to address these challenges as they emerge, without formal policies, procedures or earmarked funds for students in need. given the lack of formal policies or structures in place, a student could be referred from office to office (for example, from a housing office, to a financial aid office, to a student affairs office) before receiving assistance (if assistance is ever received). generally, institutional responses to student homelessness leave much to be desired as a result of both a lack of resources and a lack of institutionalised procedures. 162 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 conclusion it is increasingly relevant to take into consideration the current political and economic climate and its relevance for challenges facing higher education, such as a lack of access to food and housing for students (cf. badat, 2016). indeed, the neoliberal agenda which has been adopted by many sub-saharan african countries has placed an emphasis on university partnerships with business, user fees, privatisation of public goods and diversification of the higher education system (brock-utne, 2003). the ramifications of this have been that the cost of a university education has been transferred to private households, thus disproportionately benefitting social elites (levidow, 2002). given the significance of the broad socio-political and economic climate and its relevance for higher education, it is apposite for future research to be undertaken which considers the impact and the role of economic structures/resources, socio-cultural conditions, political circumstances and political will, when it comes to addressing food and housing challenges in higher education. the material challenges experienced by students in higher education have come to light as a consequence of the #feesmustfall movement and in light of an emerging body of literature on food acquisition struggles (see, for example, munro et al., 2013; van den berg & raubenheimer, 2015). researchers are thus beginning to pay more attention to material challenges and students are demanding that their needs be met. in light of this, it has become relevant to interrogate exclusion that stems from a lack of access to food and housing, and to thus expand our view of what exclusion refers to and how it is experienced by students. exclusion can no longer be only engaged with as relating to academic barriers and epistemological access. this paper has thus been concerned with (re)framing exclusion and with a critical examination of selected institutional responses to the food and housing challenges confronted by students. my examination of the features of selected institutional responses suggests that food and housing challenges are not being addressed in sustainable ways that provide long-term solutions and that policies and procedures to address these challenges are lacking. if we are 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(2004). adding value: learning communities and student engagement. research in higher education, 45(2), 115–138. yasmine dominguez-whitehead school of education university of the witwatersrand dominguezwhitehead@gmail.com mailto:dominguezwhitehead@gmail.com journal of education, 2017 issue 69, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za student-teachers’ understanding of the role of theory in their practice chiwimbiso kwenda, stanley adendorff and cina mosito (received 14 february 2017; accepted 17 july 2017) abstract in the current educational context there are calls worldwide for a shift from the perspective which treats theory separately from practice, to a more organically evolving, more grounded conception of theory which integrates campus-based courses with school teaching and learning. this study adopts a guided reflection conceptual framework in making sense of student teachers’ understanding of the role of theory in their practice. a qualitative design is employed. the aim was to establish how student teachers think about theory in their teaching. following a survey aimed at identifying a relevant sample for a guided reflection, a focus group interview was conducted with a sample of twelve 4 -year student teachers.th data analysis involved transcribing, coding and classification of the codes into themes. findings indicate that contrary to popular notions of student-teachers not being sure of what is meant by ‘theory’ in the practice of teaching, they have very particular and nuanced understandings of the position and role of theory. introduction the argument that theory learnt as part of campus teacher education programmes is largely divorced from the real challenges of classroom teaching has a long history globally (anderson and freebody, 2012; feimannemser, 2001; laughlin, 2011; childs, edwards and mcnicholl, 2013; gravett, petersen and petker, 2014). there have been calls for a change from the old teacher education model which treats theory separately from practice, to one which integrates campus-based courses with school teaching and learning more explicitly and effectively. while there is a plethora of studies focusing on the perceived theory-practice gap (yayli, 2008; brouwer and korthagen, 2005; allen, 2011; reidy 2006; reid and o’donoghue, 2001; 140 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 roth, mavin and dekker, 2014), there appears to be much fewer research, particularly in south africa, which examines the way student-teachers themselves perceive and understand the place, purpose and role of theory in their teaching practice and their emerging identity as teachers (dye, 1999). this study focuses on this under-researched niche area in addressing the question: what are student-teachers’ understandings of theory in their practice? zeichner (2010) makes a strong case that teacher education continues to be characterised by a traditional approach whereby academic knowledge is viewed as the authoritative source of knowledge about teaching. according to zeichner, evidence from years of research indicates that many university teacher programmes do not make effort to understand how students of education value and make use of the theory they are taught to meet the practical demands of classrooms. the old perspective of teacher education which views academic knowledge as the authoritative source of knowledge about teaching continues to be applied. in this respect educational theory is assumed, in an uncritical way, as forming a central part of teacher knowledge which student-teachers should master in their preparatory courses so that they can use this theory to guide their practice (dye, 1999; gravett 2012). as dye points out, learning theory and child development theories have become normative and taken-for-granted in designing teacher education curricular with no critical examination of how student-teachers understand, value and use theory in their emerging practice and as part of their evolving teacher identity. indeed, as abend (2008) argues, ‘theory’ is a word which is thrown around in seemingly unproblematic and clearly uncritical fashion when researchers and academics discuss teacher education. in most cases when academics speak of theory they refer to ‘public’ as opposed to ‘private’ theory (dye, 1999). gravett (2012) also posits that by ‘theory’ academics often mean their ‘pet theories’ or theories arising from their own research interests. this conception and understanding of theory might be different from that held by student-teachers. this study sets out to, first, understand what is meant by ‘theory’ and then, second, explore the understandings of ‘theory’ that studentteachers hold. this way, it can be established whether lecturers and studentteachers have the same conception and understanding of ‘theory’ in teacher education. by extension, inferences can be made by way of suggesting how the theory-practice relationship can be reconceptualised within pre-service teacher education programmes. chiwimbiso et al.: student teachers’ understanding. . . 141 literature review and conceptual framework there is a tendency globally in the present-day educational setting for a swing away from dealing with theory disconnectedly from practice, to a more organically evolving, more grounded conception of theory which integrates campus-based courses with school teaching and learning. thompson (2000) and wrenn and wrenn (2009), for example, allude to the disjuncture between theory and practice as unacceptable. as such, clapton and cree (2004) and wrenn and wrenn (2009, p.261) emphasise the “need for learning models that integrate theory and practice in ways that bring the field into the classroom as well as take the classroom into the field”. in addition they stress that the pursuance for integration should be an intrinsic feature of the student teacher’s educational experience. gravett (2012, p.2) talks of restoring “the unity of theory and practice in teacher education”, whilst dye (1999, p.315) expresses the need “not merely for greater legitimation of the practice to theory approach, but for a pluralistic approach to the theory–practice relationship. the aim of this study as stated earlier primarily is to gauge student teachers’ understanding of how they perceive the relation between theory and practice through guided reflection. this study consequently adopts a guided reflection conceptual framework in making sense of student teachers’ understanding of the role of theory in their practice. the south african education policy stated in the government gazette (2011, p.53) as one of the key competencies (also referred to as minimum requirements for teacher education qualifications (mrteq) that novice teachers should “be able to reflect critically, in theoretically informed ways and in conjunction with their professional community of colleagues on their own practice. . ..”. in this regard falkenberg, goodnough and macdonald (2014, p.340) refer to the integration of theory and practice as “not a problem of applying theory in practice, but rather a problem of helping teacher candidates develop practical wisdom”. this view is supported by korthagen, kessels, koster, lagerwerf and wubbels (2001). in order to develop a better understanding of the relation and consequent integration of theory and practice, it is important to unpack what is meant by theory in an educational context. abend (2008, p.173) concerns himself with the meaning of theory, and maintains that confusions regarding this concept have resulted in “undesirable consequences, including conceptual muddles 142 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 and even downright miscommunication”. he addresses two aspects, namely, what it means and what it should mean. he puts forward a typology consisting 1 7of seven meanings, namely theory to theory which he calls ‘lexicographically. . . seven different senses of the word’ (p. 173). this coincides with dye’s (1999, p.310) research findings that student teachers “use and operate with theory in different ways”. this typology of abend (2008, pp.177–178) is used in this paper as a lens through which to analyse and describe student teachers’ narratives, especially in terms of which senses of the concept they are more aligned to. furthermore, the seven categories of how theory is perceived enable us as researchers to critique the assumption by teacher education course designers that theory “is an object out there that our concepts or language can track down” (abend 2008, p.176). guided reflection is commonly considered a form of reflection that occurs between facilitators and practitioners or students in a structured way (de swardt, du toit, and botha, 2012) such as a focus group discussion as was the case in this research. guided reflection was used as a strategy to facilitate focused discussions by student teachers about their theoretical and practical experiences that occurred over four years of pre-service training. the rationale for guiding the reflective process was to steer the discussion in a direction that could reveal student-teachers’ understandings of the phenomenon under study. we also realised that it may be challenging for preservice students to reflect on their experiences without some form of structured guidance (de swardt, du toit and botha, 2012, p.2; duffy, 2008, p.335). according to leijena, allasa, toomb, husuc and marcosd et al. (2014, p.315) “the premise of the guided reflection procedure is to develop such pedagogical practices in teacher education that are effective in enabling student teachers to construct professional agency and acquire such knowledge and skills they need when they enter into the teacher profession”. dewey is generally considered the proponent of this theoretical model (dewey, 1933) which he defines as involving systematic and rigorous thought processes. in addition “it emphasizes student teachers’ personal aims and goals of learning, interaction with others, spoken and written reflection, and time used for prolonged reflection” (leijena, 2014, p.315). however, guided reflection is not used in the present study in the sense depicted in these studies mentioned above. rather, we use guided reflection as a methodological framework, and not a teaching-learning tool in the pedagogical sense. chiwimbiso et al.: student teachers’ understanding. . . 143 methodology this qualitative explorative study adopts a guided reflection framework to examine student teachers’ perceptions and understandings of the role played by theory in the practice of teaching. guided reflection is described as “a form of reflection which occurs between facilitators and practitioners or students in a structured way” (de swart, du toit and botha, 2012, p.2). reflection in its many forms is regarded as a powerful strategy through which participants can examine their own interpretations, look at their perspectives from another position, and turn a self-critical eye onto one’s own authority as interpreter and author (husu, toom and patrikainen, 2008, p.40). the researchers engaged participants (student teachers) in a focus group discussion involving a series of questions that required them to reflect on their own interaction with theory, and how they have perceived others’ (their lecturers on campus and tutor teachers during teaching practice) engagement with theory. previous studies that have used guided reflection as a method report on several steps that inform the unfolding of the process (husu et al., 2008; de swart et al., 2012). furthermore, the studies have demonstrated the value of guided reflection as a method for helping student teachers achieve their learning potential. the present study involved a group of students and researchers who have interacted in a different context as students and lecturers respectively, while working with the phenomenon under study (understanding of theory). the aim of the study was not to reflect students’ learning potential but to enable researchers to examine participants’ understandings and interpretations of theory. methodological procedure the guided reflection framework was adapted to inform (i) a choice of questions in the focus group interview schedule, (ii) probing participants’ responses in order to enable deeper reflection on the role a particular concept (theory) played in their lives and those they interacted closely with (their lecturers and tutor teachers). the interview questions are framed around specific teaching-theory episodes on which student teachers could share their perceptions. ideas from scholars such as schon (1983), zeichner (2009), husu et al. (2008) and de swart et al. (2012) were used as lenses through which to 144 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 understand students’ perceptions which were further probed for their understandings and interpretations. the site of data collection was the faculty of education at cape peninsula university of technology in cape town, south africa. in keeping with ethical principles, all 192 3 -year students registered for both b edrd foundation phase and intermediate phase in 2015 were invited to voluntarily participate in the study and 90 students volunteered. this category of students was chosen because they had, by 2015, had sixteen weeks of teaching practice behind them already. the sample was chosen for convenience since all three researchers were involved in assessing the students on teaching practice. fourth-year students were considered to be too focused on completing their programme to participate fruitfully in the research. between them, the researchers also taught the students in the sample modules in education, professional studies, inclusive education and mathematics education. these students were thus in a position to reflect more usefully on their experiences with campus modules and with classroom practice. data collection was conducted in two phases. first an open-ended questionnaire was administered. following the analysis of the questionnaire data, the findings informed the construction of questions that formed part of the guided reflection during the focus group interviews. this paper reports on students’ reflections from the focus group interview only which probes and expands on the questionnaire data findings. a sub-sample comprising 12 students was identified from the main sample based on the emerging themes. these students were by this time (2016) in their 4 year.th analysis of students’ reflections occurred in two stages. the initial stage involved coding of their utterances which were later classified into themes. the research addressed the following question: what are student teachers’ understandings of theory in their practice? following up on participants’ views gathered from questionnaire data and using such views in constructing an instrument for the guided reflective interview was in line with ensuring trustworthiness of the findings. furthermore, in supporting a particular finding, participants’ utterances are used as illustrative narrative extracts that provide thick descriptions of the interpretations. we were cognisant of the ethical implications of researching on our own students as a result of our positioning as lecturers hence we obtained informed consent from participants. ethical clearance was also obtained from the ethics committee of the faculty in question. chiwimbiso et al.: student teachers’ understanding. . . 145 findings the findings from the focus group discussion revealed a number of issues which were divided into the themes discussed below: student teachers’ understanding of theory in education dye (1999, p.306) posits that, “how theory and practice are dealt with as constructs are likely to influence the way in which individual student teachers interpret, identify and internalise them”. with that view by dye in mind, theory was understood by some of the student teachers in this study to mean ‘published authoritative knowledge’. it appears that these student teachers did not conceptualise ‘theory’ as insights which provide adaptable tools to inform their choices and decisions in the classroom. instead there is technicalrationalism involved in how these student teachers understood the relationship between theory and practice. this group of student teachers did not feel that they theorised about their practice unless they ‘applied’ specific theories such as those by vygotsky and piaget. in the opinion of this group of students theory is ‘out there’ and can be acquired and lost over time. this is seen in the following transcript: for me, during my teaching practice experience, generally when i’ve spoken to my tutor teachers and other members of staff. a lot of them have actually dismissed the theories that they’ve learnt at the varsity and said it’s pretty much useless and when you get into the classroom it’s a total different situation. when you become a first year teacher, you sort of start from scratch again and you adopt your own approach. i’ve spoken to him a few times and a lot of the other teachers have also discredited some of the theories so i really haven’t come into that contact besides during a lecture when people speak positively about theories. a lot of the teachers dismiss it and don’t really give it much thought i’ve found. from the above it can be argued that the ‘theory’ which this student teacher preferred are those specific ‘strategies’ that enabled her/him to cope with specific classroom challenges such as learner behaviour and lesson planning. student teachers such as this one do not seem to consider their own reflection and meta-cognition to be valuable sources of theoretical insight. some student 146 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 teachers thus tend to understand theory from a ‘behavioural perspective’ and not a ‘grounded’ one. gravett (2012), citing feiman-nemser (2001), observes how some mentor teachers in schools take it upon themselves to shield student teachers from the abstract ideas taught by university lecturers who are assumed to be out of touch with what is happening in real classrooms. this way student teachers develop an understanding of theory as ‘university impractical ideas’ which they would rather forget or ignore. these student teachers understand theory as ‘book knowledge’ about ideas, which is less important than the ‘practical knowledge’ which their mentor-teachers share with them. however, other student teachers demonstrated an awareness of the relationship between their campus theoretical courses and their subjectivity which enabled them to develop their own theoretical understandings in practice, what gravett (2012) has termed ‘learning to be’. this emerged in the extract below from the focus group interview: yes. when you’re learning about the scaffolding and different cultures and all those things, you apply it in your classroom. you become more aware of those situations in your classroom and therefore adapt your teaching and your environment in your classroom. i also think like now in fourth year because it’s become like general knowledge to us now, sometimes you aren’t even aware that you are doing it but if you then go back and think about it, you are because right from first year it gets drilled into you. this is what you should do. the student above was describing what had become practical wisdom for her with regard to her understanding of theory. practical wisdom is also referred to as “perception-based knowledge” by kessels and korthagen (2001) as cited by gravett (2012, p.141). contrary to the conventional perception of the existence of a binary between theory and practice in teacher education, views such as the ones these students were raising appear to indicate a strong awareness of the fact that a teacher needs to first develop personal theories from their practice, before refining these private theories with insights from formal theories. similarly, some of the student teachers reported being guided by theory in their teaching, albeit unconsciously. such student teachers appeared to appreciate the value of theory in practice when they acknowledge how theory informs practice implicitly, as the transcript below indicates: chiwimbiso et al.: student teachers’ understanding. . . 147 i think that you don’t realise, even what we’ve learnt in education over the four years. i don’t remember everything, i can’t say in my first year i learnt about this theorist and this one and that one. i know a little bit but the rest of it is unconscious, like you do it without even thinking about it and if you look back like you said earlier, you have done those things. the observation above is in line with gravett’s (2012) assertion that theory in teacher education should be directed at nurturing a professional identity through the process of ‘learning to be’ by which student teachers can develop the requisite outlook, demeanour and disposition of a teacher. when theoretical insights from formal conceptual knowledge become embedded in the practice and rituals of teaching as performance, the student teacher makes use of such insights ‘unconsciously. the student above is describing how she learnt from reflection on experience which, for dye (1999), enables student teachers to value theory. in dye’s (1999, p.307) words: “the valuing of educational theory is embedded within the way student teachers are able to extrapolate, make sense of and use theory in practice or relate theory to experiences encountered in the practice of teaching”. dye goes on to explain that as student teachers become more experienced they will develop and demonstrate implicit patterns of ‘doing’ and ‘being’ for dealing with particular demands of practice. all these views appear to indicate that student teachers develop quite nuanced understandings, beliefs and values about theory in teaching, contrary to the normative perception that a conceptual gap always exists between educational theory and teaching practice. however, allen (2011) suggests that the perception regarding the existence of a conceptual, perceptual and practical separation between theory and practice is co-created by the role-players involved in teacher education and teacher practice, such as lecturers, students and practicing mentor teachers. practicing teachers are especially implicated in creating the perception that theory is separate from practice, a perception which might not necessarily be shared by student teachers, as we show below. the perceptions of student teachers on teaching practice regarding in-service teachers’ attitudes towards theory in practice evidence from the data indicates a trend that when student teachers go on teaching practice (tp) their experiences with their mentor teachers practicing in the schools tends to create doubts in these student teachers regarding the 148 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 value and place of theory in classroom practice. this doubt can affect the understanding of theory that student teachers have. in this regard one student reported thus: we did a research assignment for one of our lecturers and we’ve had to research how a teacher in foundation phase provides for a child whose home language is not allowed. and we are seeing that teachers are not providing that support. and my partner and i are realising it’s because they are ignoring some theoretical underpinning concepts, that they are ignoring this poor child. he’s sitting in a foundation phase class not understanding and it’s because the teacher is not acknowledging theory. there was a general agreement amongst the student teachers that teaching which is not guided by theory and in turn feeds into theory is inadequate and poor. the student teachers acknowledged that a teacher is unable to repackage the curriculum content or adjust teaching methods and pace to suit the content and the learners in the absence of theory to inform practice, as the transcript below shows: it’s not what we see in class and it’s something we should implement. i don’t know if everyone does but you can tell by looking at your tutor teachers, how they teach something and how you have been taught to teach it. and i think there the theory does come into play because the tutor teachers forget that theoretical knowledge. you’re still new in it and you can see the differences. it’s also knowing that you need to adapt that content and not use the curriculum as a bible. and i think that’s the problem, where teachers aren’t taking the curriculum and adapting it. they’re just using it how it is, this is what must be done and they don’t go . . . oh these children will benefit if i teach it in this way. they just go,. . . i need to teach the content, need to teach the content. hence, these student teachers did not seem to have always witnessed good practice from their mentor teachers when it came to demonstrating how theory informs practice while, at the same time, practice generates theory. there was the perception amongst the interviewed participants that in-service teachers still operated in a behavioural paradigm, as the following shows: i think a lot of my teachers are still in the behavioural shift. i don’t think they fully understand how to adapt caps for social constructivism so they’re still very much drilling, memorising not chiwimbiso et al.: student teachers’ understanding. . . 149 really allowing children to learn themselves by discovery but more they feel that they need to have to teach in order for children to actually get information. it was the view of these students that established in-service teachers miss out on valuable teaching moments by not taking theory seriously. in my opinion in my experience they don’t (use insights from theory). the teachers that we have currently in schools, maybe not the ones that just graduated or are new teachers but the ones that i’ve had as mentor teachers they haven’t. and i think that they should because then you see that they miss out on those things that we’ve just said about like the guided reinvention and the scaffolding and all those things that we’ve just spoken about. some of the student teachers understood ‘theory’ in multiple and composite terms and advocated the utilisation of broad theoretical insights and orientations in teaching. in this regard one student teacher said: i think that you don’t have to necessarily refer to one specific theory because every teacher’s different so you have a specific way that works for you. so by having a general informed idea of what theories you agree with, you implement that. the way you teach them, the environment you create. so it’s not subconscious but i think it is necessary to have that knowledge of the theories when you teach. because you also know what to look out for to see if a learner’s struggling. you might see the foundation phase levels missing or they’re missing just that one step so now you have to go back ‘coz you know vygotsky’s got his levels and whatever. it is the argument forwarded in this paper that, contrary to the much researched concept of the theory-practice gap, the student teachers in this study demonstrated an understanding of the role, purpose and place of ‘theory’ in their teaching. if we consider the typology by abend (2008) we can see that these student teachers think of ‘theory’ not only as theory 4 (knowledge of authoritative, seminal theorists such as piaget, bruner and vygotsky), but also as theory 5 (a broad perspective of understanding and interpreting the world). the student teachers are aware that they develop their own personal theories by ‘adapting’ the authoritative theories for particular learning/ teaching contexts, in line with abend’s (2005) theory 7 (theory as ways in which reality is socially constructed). these student teachers understood that lecturers could not teach them everything and that they 150 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 needed to also learn in practice through their own reflection, thinking and experiencing. this is seen when a student teacher observed that: i fully agree with them to a certain extent and then there’s also, i feel like most of the theory helps, it’s going to help but i feel like we learn while we are in the classroom but maybe we pick up things that we haven’t learnt at university. i’m actually fortunate that my parents are both teachers and therefore for me i can sit and tell them you know what guys, this is what i’ve learnt today and i’m gonna apply that. and sometimes they tell me you know what, that actually might not work like that. because depending on the situation you might not be able to apply it exactly the way it’s been given to you in theory. i definitely agree but i also think we need that theory to be able to see whether we can teach that way or not teach that way. i have found that it has definitely helped us. taking the above extracts into consideration, it can be argued that what exists in teacher education in this case is not a theory-practice gap but, rather, inconsistencies in the way teacher educators and practicing teachers understand theory. these students actually expressed frustration at the way they were not given adequate space and opportunity to practice with and reflect on the theoretical approaches learnt in their university courses, since their mentor teachers insisted that the students teach in the same traditional way the mentors did. we see this frustration in the words of the student teacher who said: i just wanna say that they’re teaching in a behaviourist way but they’re not even willing to try and teach in a new way. often when you go to tp they go okay i know that university expects you to teach all these beautiful lessons but you teach it that way but then i’ll teach it my way. so they don’t even want to try and learn from you or adapt a social. . . and if you do teach it your way then they then go and reteach it almost as if your way wasn’t good enough. just because it’s not how they taught it and they would expect certain things like they would expect a certain word. they would look for that word in the exam and you didn’t perhaps use that word so they will reteach which makes you feel useless. if their way of teaching was so good then the state of teaching would be much better however, some student teachers felt that their lecturers on campus were not succeeding fully in making these student teachers understand why they had to chiwimbiso et al.: student teachers’ understanding. . . 151 learn educational theories. examining this issue of student teachers’ perception of the way lecturers view and use theory in practice is important since this might determine whether inconsistencies exist in the manner in which these two parties understand theory in teacher education. we examine this issue by exploring the student teachers’ views regarding how theory was utilised by subject didactics lecturers in various subjects. the perceptions of student teachers regarding teaching of theory on campus when asked about whether their subject didactics lecturers taught them ‘theory’ during lectures some student teachers reported that: i think they do in certain subjects and in certain parts of the subject. like when we learnt that, it might not be in every single thing that we learn but in certain things we learn, they do apply the theories and things face to face like when you should teach it and how you should teach it. and they model how you should do it, so i think not in all but in certain subjects. so, whilst there was general agreement amongst the student teachers that some lecturers ‘taught’ them ‘about’ theory and ‘demonstrated’ how, where, when and why to use that theory, this was not done by all the lecturers. this tended to compromise the value that some of the student teachers placed on theory and their understanding and beliefs about the role and purpose of theory in their practice. still, there was ample evidence from the data to suggest that most of the participants understood both their personal ‘private’ theories and the formal ‘public’ theories to be important for good classroom practice. we explore this issue briefly below. theories understood by student-teachers as important although the student teachers in this study did not remember all the theories learnt and the theorists by name, the data shows an awareness of a variety of learning theories and teaching approaches and their relationship to practice. the transcripts below shed light on this claim: definitely for me would be scaffolding and moving from known to unknown. just working on knowledge that they have and building on 152 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 knowledge that they have from other concepts to bring it through and make a connection so that they don’t feel that it’s separate topics alone (interview participant). i would also say for me when we learnt pythagoras in maths. you don’t tell them, they figure it out on their own. so you give them the tools to find their rules discover it on their own. so you don’t give them what it is from the beginning, they find it out on their own. (guided re-invention) (interview participant). the one thing that i also found was group-work, i think it’s vygotsky (social constructivism) and that i find the best. like things that i learnt at school i maybe didn’t understand but i think being here and the way our desks are arranged that you’re always in a group, you’re always talking, you’re always getting help from other people (interview participant). these student teachers appeared to be sufficiently aware of the different formal theoretical orientations in educational theory, their implications for classroom practice and for their own beliefs about effective teaching and learning. discussion some interesting issues are raised in this study. the perception that a gap exists between theory and practice in teacher education programmes as well as in the practice of teaching generally is well-researched and reported on, as some of the literature reviewed for this paper indicates. what is not as wellresearched and reported on is the issue coming out of this study, namely that student teachers are quite aware of the value, importance and relevance of ‘theory’ in their practice. it can be argued, from this realisation, that the much discussed theory-practice gap in teacher education is actually a misconception. the challenge is presented not by the existence of a ‘gap’ as such, but by the different ways in which different stake-holders view, interpret and understand ‘theory’ in teaching and learning. the findings of this study appear to confirm gravett’s (2012) conception of educational theory as constituting two sides of the same coin which involve student teachers ‘learning about’ formal knowledge of teaching and learning while, at the same time, ‘learning to be’ teachers. these processes necessarily occur simultaneously and cannot be conceptually separated. a great deal of research chiwimbiso et al.: student teachers’ understanding. . . 153 occurred in the developed world in the later part of the twentieth century on the issue of the relationship between theory and practice. waghorn and stevens (1996, p.70), for instance, found out in a study with australian student teachers that these students were quite aware of “the discrepancy between how they teach and how they would like to teach”. they conclude, in this study, that student teachers develop strong beliefs and theoretical understandings about teaching and learning. however, the researchers also conclude that despite these well-developed beliefs and understandings, student teachers were powerless to use their repertoire of tools in practice schools because of the pressure from mentor teachers to teach in particular ways. waghorn and stevens end by noting that: [t]heories of teaching held by student teachers are overlooked during the teaching practice component of their programme and that student teachers’ theories of teaching and learning based on research can be reversed by prevailing conditions in classrooms. while the present study confirms the findings by the above authors, it also reveals that student teachers develop some coping mechanisms such as teaching in the way they know works best in a particular context and ignoring the humiliation of having the mentor teacher reteach the lesson. the student teachers in this study were aware of the short-comings of the methods used in class by many of their mentor teachers and were able to use insights from their professional knowledge to critique these methods. when the student teachers speak of theory becoming a second nature to them, a part of their emerging teacher identity, they are speaking about how they have developed some key pedagogical concepts and principles that enable them to develop personalised beliefs about teaching and learning. these personalised models are partly a result of the student teachers’ need to cope with critical incidents they encounter in their teaching which compel them to reflect in practice using insights from what they have formally and informally learnt. waghorn and stevens (1996) as well as dye (1999) all value guided reflection as a way of enabling student teachers to analyse particular moments in their teaching in a way which provides them an opportunity to theorise about practice and evaluate and interrogate their models and beliefs about their teaching. this study argues that the student teachers reported on here illustrated these processes. student teachers are theorists. this study has shown that student teachers have nuanced and well-articulated understanding of theory in teaching and learning. however, they require the guidance of their lecturers and good 154 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 mentor teachers if they are to learn powerfully from the perceived discrepancy between what they learn in their campus courses and what they experience in classrooms and schools. what appears to be required are insightful lecturers who use guided reflection to assist student teachers in structuring, ordering, clarifying and crystalising their experiences of teaching using their understandings and insights from learned formal theory. this process should begin with the premise that student teachers already possess certain understandings of teaching based on personal theory. coursework can then be designed around this assumption in such a way that the ‘personal theories’ are first foregrounded through guided reflection before ‘formal theory’ is introduced as a lens through which each student can interrogate, question and critique their own assumptions and beliefs about teaching and learning. this way the students will deepen their understanding of theory in the practice of teaching. recommendations based on the discussion above a few issues appear to stand out as requiring attention in teacher education. first is the issue of what student teachers bring with them to pre-service teacher education programmes and how teacher educators can make the most out of this anecdotal knowledge in designing courses and modules. university coursework should strive to tap more into the personal beliefs and values student teachers already hold since these have a powerful influence on how teacher identities, professional demeanours and understandings of theory as formal conceptual and practical knowledge all develop. if we acknowledge that the most effective learning is that which starts with the known before moving to the unknown, as some of the student teachers in this study mentioned, then we need to also acknowledge that theory is best learnt in action. in addition, we need to acknowledge that personal theorising underpins the acquisition and understanding of formal conceptual knowledge (gravett, 2012). to make university coursework more meaningful and relevant for student teachers in their development of formal theoretical and professional knowledge about teaching we suggest that the period that students are in schools on teaching practice (tp) be extended in faculties such as the one reported on here. by spending more time in real classrooms student teachers will have more time to explore their beliefs and intuitive personal theories while simultaneously critiquing their knowledge of formal theory in context. chiwimbiso et al.: student teachers’ understanding. . . 155 this process can be assisted by lecturers through guided reflection utilising portfolio-type action research-based assignments (kwenda, 2014; robinson 2014). such guided reflection would enable student teachers to make sense of what they are doing, where, when, how and why. this way the student teachers would develop a deeper understanding of theory in practice. a longer tp period would also enable the student teachers to develop a rapport with their mentor teachers so that a more open relationship develops. this would encourage co-teaching and cross-pollination of ideas and beliefs about teaching and learning. some of the student teachers in this study complained about how their mentor teachers were set in their ways and resented the ‘new’ approaches student teachers used in class. a longer tp stay would remove this mistrust and animosity. this way the inconsistencies characterising the way student teachers and their mentor teachers understand theory might be eliminated. university lecturers would also need to collaborate more formally with school-based mentor teachers in order for these stake-holders to narrow the perceptual and conceptual gaps in their understanding of theory and its role and purpose in practice. further research into individual student teacher beliefs and experiences during teaching practice as variables influencing their understanding of theory in practice is required in order to shed more light on this theme. references abend, g. 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(2010). rethinking the connections between campus courses and field experiences in college and university-based teacher education. journal of teacher education, xx (x), 1–11. chiwimbiso m. kwenda stanley a. adendorff cina p. mosito faculty of education cape peninsula university of technology kwendac@cput.ac.za adendorffs@cput.ac.za mositoc@cut.ac.za 160 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 journal of education, 2022 issue 86, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x editorial labby ramrathan school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa ramrathanp@ukzn.ac.za i write this editorial for the 86th issue of journal of education as the new editor of the journal. having spent a day with the managing editorial team of the journal, developing a strategic plan for the next five years, i am pleased with this edition—largely because it resonates with the intent of that plan, going forward. the papers in this general issue speak to issues of inclusivity, regionality, deep methodological insights, and conceptually grounded articles, which are amongst the key elements that this journal engender. in the edition, there are articles that focus on teacher education, on school education, on higher education, and on regional and global issues that have relevance to south african education. with the firm footing of the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) globally, who defines what this means and what constitute the elements of 4ir are the focus of nazir carrim’s article on 4ir in south africa. using foucault’s notion of enunciative modalities, the author shows how positions of authority delimit who defines what 4ir is and who brings it into visibility— especially in the educational context. deidre geduld and heloise sathorar’s paper on transforming teaching education calls for critical reflections on teacher education to engender innovative approaches. these approaches include community mapping as pedagogical tool for student teachers to deepen their understanding of the contextual realities that influence educational experiences, especially amongst poor and working-class south africans. in their article on representing teachers’ voices, wedsha appadoo-ramsamy, michael anthony samuel, and aruna ankiah-gangadeen present innovative methodological processes that allow teachers’ voices to be heard within a compliance context of teaching and learning. using ethnodrama, the teachers reveal multiple forms of agencies, which serve different interests that influence dialogue within specific spaces. keeping with the theme of teacher education, robyn raina kahn and eunice nyamupangedengu’s article on investigating opportunities for integrating methodology when teaching a life science topic advance the notion that integrating pedagogical methods of teaching a particular content area is possible—thereby extending on the form of pedagogical content knowledge that teachers need to develop as reflexive student teachers. inclusive education from a leadership perspective is one of the many challenges that schools face in developing a culture of inclusivity. seipati patricia ramango and suraiya r. 2 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 naicker’s article proposes a framework for school leadership to facilitate an inclusive education culture in their schools. covid-19 has been very revealing within educational institutions, especially in unequal societies. the article on covid-19 and the virtual classroom conundrum in zimbabwean universities is yet another example of the extent to which inequalities in societies have impacted on universities. although wonder muchabaiwa and reniko gondo’s article focuses on what has happened in zimbabwe, their findings are congruent with the substantive literature in the south african context. there have been ongoing attempts to address inequalities in the south african context, especially within the focus of access and success in higher education studies. temwa moyo, sioux mckenna, and clever ndebele’s article on how the teaching development grant had been used shows how the institutions rely on and use development grants to support students. the authors claim that these institutions have developed untheorised assumptions about curriculum and pedagogy and have used common-sense assumptions about teaching and learning, which reinforce the status quo related to differentiated throughput and success rates amongst the student populations. although globally, the research on education of migrant children is extensive, in the south african context the literature is sparse. sarah blessed-sayah, dominic griffiths, and ian moll’s article on a social psychological perspective on schooling for migrant children is one of the few articles on the education of migrant children in the south african context. using a case study of a south african school, these authors illuminate the challenges faced by migrant learners, especially those who are undocumented. noting the frequent disruption of schooling in south african due to several reasons including conflict situations, we can learn a lot from education in countries that have ongoing conflicts. michael ntui agbor, mercy aki etta, and hannah mbua etonde present a snapshot of the effects of ongoing conflicts on teaching and learning in cameroon. the authors illuminate the challenges of schooling in such situations—especially those of teaching and learning being ineffective, and which may result in further damaging effects. their article provides us with an opportunity to explore in greater depth, the effects of ongoing disruptions to school education—be they from school closures due to health issues (e.g., covid-19), protest actions, or other political events. this issue closes with sherran clarence’s review of the book, understanding higher education: alternative perspectives (2021), which illuminates the need for a theorised understanding of teaching and learning in higher education beyond common-sense understandings that have characterised interventions from access through to success in higher education studies thus far. she highlights, in her review, the advocacy by chrissie boughey and sioux mckenna in their book, for a critical social theory to deepen our understanding of the needs of students and academics in promoting a socially just opportunity for academic success. microsoft word c73 full issue 17dec2018.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 73, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i73a02 developing epistemologically diverse learning frameworks louis royce botha division of studies in education, wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa louis.botha2@wits.ac.za (received: 05 october 2017; accepted: 20 august 2018) abstract education in south africa is referred to regularly as being in crisis, with learners and educators struggling with various local and international assessments. this state of affairs persists despite considerable efforts having been made to reform and revise the national education system. i contend that these efforts will meet with limited success for as long as schooling continues to be grounded exclusively on the current dominant epistemological bases. i argue for the need to diversify the epistemological foundations of educational systems in south africa and in africa in general and offer a strategy for pursuing such aims. i suggest that the notion of an historical epistemology together with expansive learning and cultural-historical activity theory (chat) may offer useful conceptual and methodological tools for developing a counterhegemonic epistemological framework in the form of a networked-relational model of learning. introduction i argue that a significant source of the poor educational achievement of the majority of south african learners can be traced to their alienation from the ontological and epistemological foundations of the country’s curricula. more precisely, the majority of south africa’s learners come from black african sociocultural backgrounds where, as thabede (2014) has insisted, african, or indigenous worldviews and practices endure despite the dynamism of culture and the diversity of people’s life experiences. yet, national educational institutions continue to be organised almost exclusively around what can be considered western 1 ontological and epistemological assumptions, resulting in a problematic relationship between these divergent epistemic communities. 1 le grange and aikenhead (2016) express concisely the interpretation of the concept of western that governs this article. botha: developing epistemologically diverse learning frameworks 21 it is well known, for example, that the worldviews of indigenous people differ in significant ways from those immersed in the dominant western culture and, hence, so does their treatment of knowledge. referring to african worldviews, carroll (2014) outlined these differences. distinctions between african and european ontologies are based upon an african ontology that posits that the nature of being/reality is fundamentally spirit with material manifestations, and a european ontology which suggests that reality is only material (ani, 1980; kambon, 1992, 1996, 1998; myers, 1987, 1991). distinctions between african and european axiologies are based upon an african axiology that places the highest prioritization upon interpersonal relationships among people and the collective group, and for the european axiology the highest prioritization is on acquisition of objects and individual gain (kambon, 1992, 1996, 1998; myers, 1987, 1991). (p. 259) these distinctions have implications for how indigenous people, in this case african indigenous people, value and respond to events and experiences and generally relate to social reality (carroll, 2014). for our purposes here, i want to emphasise the relational aspect of knowledge-making as pointed out, for example, by fyre jean graveline (1998), who stated that we learn in relationship to others, so knowing is a process of “self-in-relation” (as cited in kovach, 2009, p. 14). her sentiments about the central role of relationships in the process of knowing are echoed by mawere (2015) who has asserted that “traditional education placed great importance on interpersonal relationships and reciprocal obligations” (p. 66). such considerations are not incorporated into transformations of educational institutions on the african continent, and south africa is no exception. as kaya and seleti (2014) have reminded us, instead of nurturing locally and culturally relevant relationships, african educational institutions and their graduates tend to foster ties that perpetuate the disempowering social, economic, and epistemological relations initiated by colonial and imperial conquest. elsewhere, i have used maurial’s (1999) conceptualisation of a “continuum between conflict and dialogue” (cited in botha, 2014a, p. 152) to describe the indigene-western relationship in the context of south africa. there i allude to one end of the spectrum as being characterised by the kind of conflict that is illustrated by the colonial conquests of indigenous people’s lands, bodies, and minds, through a point of assimilationist processes of disindigenisation which involves slave, mission, and bantu education, among others, to a further point on the spectrum which is more dialogical and which involves the incorporation of indigenous knowledges into western ones, and vice versa. these interactions give rise to an essentially dialectical relationship which gives meaning to what can be understood as indigenous (and western). hence, breidlid and botha (2015) define indigenous primarily in terms of a shared experience of domination “which, for indigenous people, originates with and is perpetuated by their contact with a modern western system of social organization” (p. 321). this particular form of contact, when it takes the 22 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 shape of western schooling, can be an overwhelmingly negative experience for those, like south africa’s black learners, whose epistemic roots lie in indigenous ontological bases. shiza (2013) supported such a view in his observation that the african experience of schooling, or “europeanized education, in other words, is a means of mystifying knowledge and reality, an alienating and dehumanizing process that continues to this day” (p. 6). in making this argument, shiza started off by pointing out that school knowledge is an expression of socio-cultural need and development and therefore “should align itself with learners’ experiences that are characterized by their socio-cultural worldviews” (p. 5). he then pointed out that schooling on the african continent was initiated by a colonial process that sought to undermine indigenous peoples and their knowledges, and continues to be rooted in, and oriented toward this foreign cultural, ontological, and linguistic experience. further, shiza claimed that this colonial education “did more than corrupt the thinking and sensibilities of the africans; it filled their minds with abnormal complexes, which deafricanized and alienated them from their socio-cultural milieu” (p. 9). this perception of the impact of colonial education was shared by mazrui (1993) who drew on fanon’s work to argue that continual dehumanisation of the colonised through religious and educational processes ultimately results in alienation. defining alienation as “the separation of individuals from their existential conditions, from their individuality and culture” (p. 355), mazrui argued that once this alienation is in place, the cultural resources of the colonised become closed off for their development. thus, education for the colonised africans becomes a process through which they attempt to access the zone of the coloniser but are denied this and are forced to stay trapped in the zone of the colonised where they are disconnected from and see no value in the cultural resources of the colonised. the effects of this alienation are evidenced by the numerous reports by researchers such as stavenhagen (2008) who claimed that “the academic performance of indigenous pupils . . . falls far below that of the non‐indigenous population.” he went on to say that in chile, the levels of education attained by the indigenous population are significantly lower than those of the non‐indigenous population; twice as many indigenous people lack any formal education at all (6.3% as compared to 3.1%) or have not completed basic education (21.3% as compared to 10.2%). (p. 165) castagno and brayboy (2008) showed similar disparities between the academic achievement of american indian and alaska native students and other groups of students in us schools. similarly shay (2016) cited a report that indicated that only 53.9 per cent of indigenous australians aged 20–24 years attained a year 12 qualification or the equivalent, while hare and pidgeon (2011) claimed that “in canada, the proportion of aboriginal youth, aged 15 and over, who do not complete high school is 40 per cent, compared with 13 per cent for nonaboriginal young adults” (p. 94). in summary, these authors all indicated that conventional schooling presents an epistemological challenge for indigenous students. botha: developing epistemologically diverse learning frameworks 23 in line with this, south african learners’ academic performance on international comparative tests seems to indicate that the majority of them are not coping with the education that is on offer. the 2015 trends in international mathematics and science study (timss) which is “an assessment of the mathematics and science knowledge of fourth and eighth grade students around the world” (reddy et al., 2016, p. 1) showed that the south african learners achieved the second lowest score for mathematics—372 points—and the lowest for science— 358 points—compared to singapore, which achieved the highest scores of 621 and 597 respectively, in these categories. similarly, taylor (2009) pointed out that for the southern and eastern african consortium for monitoring education quality (sacmeq), south africa performed poorly compared to its neighbours, most of which are more impoverished countries. to this end, taylor (2009) made the point that material resources do not seem to be the determining factor when it comes to performance on these international tests. like long and wendt (2017), he showed that some of the well-resourced schools in south africa also struggled in key assessment areas. however, the achievement gap across schools seems to be strongly related to the country’s historical racial classifications, “with african schools overwhelmingly represented in the poor performing category” (taylor, 2009, p. 11). interestingly, when song, perry, and mcconney (2014) compared the programme for international student assessment (pisa) 2009 scores for new zealand and australia, they found that although these two countries consistently scored well on the international assessment instrument, their indigenous students did not. for new zealand, pisa scores of māori and pacifika students are much lower than the average for päkehä/european students . . . specifically, students identifying as päkehä/european (71% of all students) achieved an average reading score of 541 score points in reading literacy on pisa 2009. in contrast, students identifying as māori (19%) and pacifika (10%) scored 478 score points and 448 score points, respectively, considerably below the oecd mean. they also claimed that for australian indigenous students, the picture may be even bleaker . . . indigenous students lagged behind their non-indigenous peers by 82 points in reading literacy. this gap equates to more than one pisa proficiency level or more than 2 years of schooling (p. 181). bang, warren, rosebery, and medin (2012) cited cheryl harris’s (1995) concept of “settled expectations” to explain the barriers to learning experienced by students from non-dominant communities. they used her definition of this notion as “the set of assumptions, privileges, and benefits that accompany the status of being white . . . that whites have come to expect and rely on across the many contexts of daily life” (bang et al., 2012, p. 303) to uncover the ways in which the dominant (white) group’s values and practices are rewarded by social structures and institutions such as schools. as they put it, 24 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 when applied to schooling, the construct of settled expectations can usefully articulate and problematize entrenched, usually hidden, boundaries that tend to control the borders of acceptable meanings and meaning-making practices. these have also shaped deficit-oriented discourses concerning students from non-dominant communities. (p. 303) thus, in relation to schooling, settled expectations give value to what is acceptable in terms of content, explanations, experiences, behaviours, knowledge-making practices, and so forth. bang et al. (2012) illustrated the operation of this concept through the story of jonathan, a middle-school learner from a non-dominant community who questioned explanations offered by the conventional science of the curriculum, and by his classmate, both of whom were based in the dominant group. the authors pointed out that “despite the intellectual force of his argument, he ultimately yielded to the normative authority of the curriculum” (p. 305), with his query being dismissed and his european american classmate’s explanation valued. the result of this was not only that the dominant paradigm was shown to be incontestable, but also that jonathan effectively withdrew from engaging with it. this north american example can be seen to parallel the experiences of black students in an african or south african context when they draw on the kinds of indigenous ontological or axiological assumptions outlined earlier to question the content or expectations of their current curricula about, for instance, how lightning works, how diseases manifest, what constitutes appropriate protocols for debating with an older person, and so forth. considering jonathan’s response (see bang et al., 2012), it is worth noting that sheppard (2015), in his discussion of research on school retention in south africa, reported that 17% of african/black and 30% of coloured respondents indicated that their reason for dropping out of school was that “education is useless and uninteresting.” none of those in the categories indian and white, who more readily conform to the “settled expectations” (p. 21) of the south african classroom, cited this reason. a call for epistemic diversity thus far, i have discussed the concept of indigenous as arising from an experience with a dominating, colonial force that has, in relation to education, produced students who are alienated from their significantly different ontological, epistemological, and axiological foundations, and who therefore experience difficulty negotiating the dominant educational structures. with reference to south africa as well as other national contexts, i have in this way suggested that the alienation of indigenous students, as members of a non-dominant community, could be a major contributing factor to their poor academic performance at school. in making this claim, i am not denying the significant correlations found between socioeconomic factors relating to school communities, and teachers’ knowledge (carnoy & chisholm, 2008), the role played by a lack of basic amenities, or weak and under-resourced early childhood education (mcfarlane, 2011), poor professional practices on the part of botha: developing epistemologically diverse learning frameworks 25 teachers (taylor, 2009), or the many factors, from hunger to an inability to pay school fees, that lead to students dropping out (sheppard, 2015). i am also cognisant of the constraints imposed by dominant international frameworks that jones (2007) has described, that indicate that “despite the persistence of local uniqueness, education around the world is seen to become increasingly standardized” (p. 331). even though south africa may have sought to address fairly unique educational challenges brought about by its colonial and apartheid history, many of its efforts have been compromised by the current transnational structuring of educational systems that are aligned to a dominant western notion of education that is currently driven by a neoliberal agenda (biesta, 2009). as subreenduth (2013) has argued, curricula and social justice policies developed by the post-apartheid government are framed in discourses that “reflect neoliberal globalizing and market-oriented trends more than transformative social justice ideologies” (p. 593). she went on to say that global, neoliberal social justice discourse on education is clearly linked to the global knowledge economy that prizes market efficiency, standards, and corporate-style accountability. in the case of south africa, this discourse also clearly undermines the fundamental social justice efforts undertaken to redress apartheid oppression and to rehumanize black south africans through recentering indigenous knowledge (culture, language, ritual) as a valuable component of the fabric of society. (p. 596) fataar (2016), however, has suggested that the failure of policy rests with the unanticipated consequences of its implementation brought about by “the survivalist circumstances of the township” (p. 39). he also cited “the failure of theoretical indigenisation” (p. 40) and the fact that “the sociology of south african education lacks a rigorous account of the educational subject” (p. 41) as two more reasons behind the difficulties faced by the south african education system and, consequently, its learners. the above perspectives resonate with my position here in its agreement with fataar’s (2016) call for “thinking at the limits of our epistemological frames and our methodological orientations” (p. 41) by proposing a re-modeling of our ideas about knowledge-creation, especially in predominantly non-western contexts. letseka (2014), too, has called for a complete redesign or re-engineering of the system. as she has said, “presumed in the discourse of ‘redesigning’ and ‘reengineering’ is a radical shift from outdated modes of thinking to a completely new, often uncertain ways of doing work” (p. 4867). such a shift is appropriate for current developments in the world of work where notions of learning and expertise are being reconceptualised (engeström, 2004) as the boundaries between micro and macro-level processes, and mental and material resources become increasingly blurred. however, it also resonates with calls for a more socially just education. recently, in south africa, demands for social justice have included louder calls for the decolonising of institutions of higher learning by student protest movements such as #rhodesmustfall and #feesmustfall. while such transformative processes may have, to some extent, already begun in the form of initiatives such as the iks programme at north26 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 west university 2 (see, for example, kaya & seleti, 2014), they seem to be confined to institutions of tertiary education. while curriculum changes and policy initiatives abound, there have not been similar government-led or civic-led endeavours for addressing the apparent contradictions that lie at the root of south african learners’ difficulties with accessing knowledge-making in their schools. in attempting to address this issue, i have drawn on a sociocultural approach to learning and human development in general. rogoff (2003) has explained the way in which learning is seen from this perspective. cognitive development consists of individuals changing their ways of understanding, perceiving, noticing, thinking, remembering, classifying, reflecting, problem setting and solving, planning, and so on – in shared endeavors with other people building on the cultural practices and traditions of communities. cognitive development is an aspect of the transformation of people’s participation in sociocultural activities. (p. 237) socioculturalists, therefore, view learning as an activity that is shaped by participation in a cultural community; its beliefs, knowledges, values, and practices, shape and take shape around historically developing artifacts. as rogoff put it, “individuals and social groups build on connections made for them by previous generations, often mediated by cultural tools that they inherit” (p. 258) the earlier description of the development of schooling in an african (colonial) context demonstrates clearly that the culturally mediated activity of schooling has not followed such an historical process for the indigenous people. it is not surprising, therefore, that members of some communities will not engage with schooling and the knowledges it favours since this is discrepant with what is seen to be culturally necessary. rogoff (2003) demonstrated this by referring to how various communities understand learning and intelligence differently. she points to ugandan villagers who “associated intelligence with adjectives such as slow, careful, and active,” while for mexican americans educado includes “a sense of moral and personal responsibility and respect for the dignity of others that serves as a foundation for all other learning” (p. 249). similarly, nzelu is a zambian concept of intelligence that implies its use in a socially productive way only, while for the baoule` of ivory coast o ti kpa is intelligent behaviour that impacts positively on the family’s well-being. these notions do not readily resonate with what is prioritised in south african schools and the kinds of assessments mentioned earlier. this implies that introducing different tools and values into the education system might be useful. the sociocultural approach to understanding learning and development as participation in a social activity, and cultural-historical activity theory (chat), expansive learning in particular, offer useful conceptual and methodological tools for developing a new model of knowledge-making in educational institutions. i envision this project as being guided by the 2 according to kaya and seleti (2014) this programme is one which brings local languages, community practices, content and practitioners into the teaching and research of the university, and is the only accredited higher education programme for indigenous knowledge on the african continent. botha: developing epistemologically diverse learning frameworks 27 principles offered by expansive learning and chat analyses that include the historicisation and harnessing of the tensions inherent in bringing diverse ontologies and epistemologies together. the model proposes that the technicist market-oriented approaches that frame current educational policies and curricula be brought into dialogue with more inclusive, indigenous perspectives. moreover, i will show that the model is intended to instigate the epistemological change it represents. modelling future epistemologies with chat as mentioned above, the analytical framework for my proposed project of epistemological diversification in education is that of cultural-historical activity theory (chat) together with expansive learning. while this complex theoretical framework cannot be elaborated upon here, elsewhere (botha 2014b), i have summarised it as follows: chat has developed from lev vygotsky’s attempts to account for socially mediated learning and offers an analytical framework that investigates human activity as a system of individual, communal and societal relationships which are historically developing and mediated by tools, rules and the division of labour. in addition to offering an analytical system of relations that are artifact-mediated and historically situated (see for example engeström, 1987; engeström & glăveanu, 2012; kaptelinin & nardi, 2006) other key aspects include understanding human activity as objectoriented, that is, activities such as learning are driven by objectives; and harnessing contradictions as opportunities for change and development (engeström, 2001). although these and other chat principles are clearly relevant for an agenda of epistemological change (see, for example, botha, 2012), they will be alluded to only briefly since their operation is not what i want to demonstrate here. instead, what i want to put forward is the process whereby the model itself becomes a tool for transformation, and for this purpose the process of expansive learning is key. thus, in applying chat and expansive learning i am proposing that the key to effective, systemic change lies beyond the development of the analytical model, and more toward an emphasis on the promotion of the model. the success of radical new forms of learning, such as those based upon the kind of indigenous african epistemologies and philosophical principles mentioned above, is primarily connected to the successful modelling of these forms of learning, starting with the process of expansive learning. expansive learning, as engeström (2001) explains, develops gregory bateson’s (1972) theory of learning into a systematic framework in which the conditioning that comprises learning i and learning of rules and patterns that characterises learning ii, can give rise to conflicting impulses leading to learning iii, where the situation is called into question. consider the following explanation, bearing in mind the problem that i am addressing in this article. thus, in classrooms, students learn the ‘hidden curriculum’ of what it means to be a student: how to please the teachers, how to pass exams, how to belong to groups, etc. sometimes the context bombards participants with contradictory demands: learning 28 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 ii creates as double bind. such pressures can lead to learning iii where a person or a group begins to radically question the sense and meaning of the context and to construct a wider alternative context. learning iii is essentially a collective endeavour. (engeström, 2001, p. 138) expansive learning, therefore, is the process of resolving contradictions in an activity system, so that new forms of activity emerge (engeström, 2007). i am suggesting that, for learners from non-dominant, indigenous communities, learning in schools constitutes an activity fraught with conflicting impulses as they try to assimilate, appropriate, reject, and experience rejection through their historically dominating schooling. through expansive learning the object, tools, and organization of activities in the school activity system could take on broader new forms, and, in the process, also transform the subject (engeström & sannino, 2016). this process of imbuing the subject with transformative agency can be explained by vygotsky’s principle of double stimulation: the first stimulus provides a problematic situation characterized by contradictions, and the second stimulus provides the tool that propels the attempted resolution of the contradiction. elaborating on the operation of double stimulation, engeström and sannino outline several stages, including apparatus 1, a four phase process of formulating a response to a conflictual situation, and apparatus 2, implementing the response. the authors refer to vygotsky’s “experiment of the meaningless situation” (as cited in engeström & sannino, 2016, pp. 404–406), during which the experimenter leaves a participant in a room without any instructions thus creating a situation of conflicting motives to do with whether to leave or stay. typically, the participant uses the clock on the wall to set a deadline for when to leave. “the clock functions as a second stimulus . . . it becomes a sign that enhances the will of the subject and allows breaking out of the paralyzing situation” (p. 404). this process explains the mechanism by which i think the proposed model of relational knowing could be adopted. the generative principle of double stimulation offers a theoretical insight into how the impetus for transformative agency could develop among learners from non-dominant communities, allowing them to break free of the alienating situation imposed by the culturally foreign activity of schooling. in this case, the networked relational model of learning, which i outline below, becomes the second stimulus that prompts the volitional actions that lead to the development of new forms of learning in schools. an illustration of this process was offered by engeström and sannino (2016) through an example from a research intervention with a farming community in ethiopia. they explain how a threedimensional community map produced by the villagers instigated their recognition that the problems of poor soil, failing crops, and hunger could be traced to the recent destruction of the nearby forest. at the same time the map also spurred them to take action, as the clock did for the participants in the meaningless situation. . . . it was a representational device that allowed the villagers to expand their vision beyond the here-and-now, both in space and in time, and to start building a model for the future. such a model will itself turn into a new second stimulus in a long chain of actions of transformative agency (engeström & sannino, 2016, p. 408). botha: developing epistemologically diverse learning frameworks 29 i believe that non-dominant communities could be inspired to make similar conceptual leaps about the current and possible future forms their education could take, if confronted with a relational model of learning that reflects familiar indigenous epistemological principles. in this regard wartofsky’s (1979) concept of an historical epistemology offered some further insight. consider, for example, his view that “the cognitive artifacts we create are models: representation to ourselves of what we do, of what we want, and of what we hope for. the model is not, therefore, simply a reflection or a copy of some state of affairs, but beyond this, a putative mode of action, a representation of prospective practice, of acquired modes of action” (p. xv). the idea is that the model shapes the activity of the system, becoming something of a template around which the expanded learning develops. this idea of a model that shapes activity is not foreign to vygotsky and to activity theory. one could, for example, point to sannino and sutter’s (2011) explanation of how vygotsky advocated the use of the indirect method, to suggest that a similar idea of a das kapital for learning is needed to develop new forms of knowledge-making. such a revolutionary theoretical treatise could use the conceptual framework of chat to interrogate dominant epistemological models and instigate the formation of new ones. in doing so it would produce a clear representation of exactly what the new activity system of alternative epistemologies would look like, a complex task that can only be hinted at here. the purpose of the model would then be to instigate the development of ideas and practices that conform to the character of the model and eventually realize its principles, as described above by the double stimulation process. to this end i am proposing a networked relational model of learning, one that focuses on relationships as a key component of its epistemology. the prioritisation of relationships in learning and development is based on the earlier identification of the primacy of relationships in indigenous people’s knowledge-making. it further represents a desettling of dominant constructions of how such learning and development happens. for example, for the teaching of science, bang et al., (2012) have suggested the need to move away from human centred, hierarchical and atomised understandings of nature, “toward relational frames in which humans are part of thickly networked, multiple storied ‘hives of activity”’ (p. 315). taking a chat approach to education more generally, edwards (2017) has stated that “the starting point is the premise that pedagogy, i.e., teaching to enhance learning, is a relational and therefore responsive activity” (p. 556). she goes on to explain the dialectical relationship between the learner and practice, arguing that this externalisation-internalisation relationship shapes the various elements of the activity system; motives, tools, practices, and so forth shape each other through historically mediating processes. the networked relational model of learning seeks to bring to the fore this fundamental epistemological principal of knowing as relational by identifying the making of connections between its nodes as the primary means by which knowledge is constructed and held, thereby also drawing attention to its networked structure as a representation of knowing. in order to put into effect such a model, relevant artifacts and actors have to be identified and connected into a network in ways that prioritise the desired processes, values, and outcomes that are to characterise the new forms of learning. here i propose a careful examination of 30 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 indigenous and other marginalised knowledge-making systems in order to identify the who, what, where, and why of their functioning. the networked model would then be developed by carefully mapping out the relative positions of the actors and the material and conceptual tools that comprise the alternative knowledge-making activity system so that they appear as a network of relationships that represent the ways in which the artifacts, subjects, rules, community, and division of labour are connected in pursuit of their object (objective) of creating the desired (relational) knowledge and practices. the patterns of connections could then be analysed in terms of a social network perspective (phelps, heidl, & wadhwa, 2012; tichy, tushman, & fombrun, 1979) framed by cultural-historical activity theory, so that appropriate resources may be introduced in ways that enhance their collective potential for achieving the desired change. such a networked relational approach focuses, first, on the meditational tools, or artifacts, that comprise the knowledge-making activity systems. it assumes that the cultural artifacts of an activity determine fundamentally the ways in which it is performed, regardless of the nature of the knowledge that the activity is developing. representing these resources as nodes in a network makes it possible to locate them and identify the potential of their roles in terms of the arrangement within the activity, that is, the network’s structural properties. furthermore it is reasoned that the nature of the activity and its outcomes can be influenced by introducing, modifying, and/or rearranging tools and other resources that mediate the activity. from an activity theory perspective, identifying the meditating role of persons or instruments would involve a thorough investigation of how they are historicised within the rules, community, and division of labour of the activity. this implies a second, related aspect to facilitating the co-construction of mutually beneficial development and research activities that focus on the nature of the links between actors and other resources in the network. qualifying these connections in terms of their proximity, intensity, durability, and so forth offers different possibilities for understanding and influencing the shape of the model, and therefore the nature of the practices and knowledge that it produces. i offer a basic outline of the modelling process here. the first step is to construct a model of knowledge-making that conveys its key principles in a way that captures the imagination. in this case, because the intention is to emphasise the relational nature of knowledge construction, i want to evoke the image of a neural network and depict the connections between and among various actors, tools, and rules as being like neurons in the brain. the new model would then present learning as a network of relationships in the activity system. its brain-like appearance, as indicated by figure 1, below, would facilitate the acceptance of the desired alternative perception and enactment of knowledge as being constructed and held within connections, or relationships. figure 1. a model of knowledge as a ne the second step of the model making process involves identifying all the possible contradictions that may arise as a result of implementing the new model. these contradictions are testimony to the fact that the project is situated i by the dominant epistemology. from a chat perspective the contradictions occur at four levels: primary level contradiction that entails systemic tensions between the use, value, and exchange value of the system’s to contradictions occur between nodes in an activity system; tertiary contradictions arise when an object from a more “culturally advanced” activity is introduced; and quaternary level contradictions involve neighbo such contradictions would stem from the incompatible philosophical assumptions that form the bases of predominantly western hegemonic models of learning, on the one hand, and counterhegemonic epistemologies such as those of african and other indigenous communities on the other. included among these contradictions would be diverging ideas about what constitutes knowledge, logic, and rationality, who can access and produce knowledge, and why we need to know at all. currently, in the south african educational contexts these contradictions would be related to some of the factors alluded to earlier, such as the neoliberal agenda driving educational reform, politically motivated policy changes, botha: developing epistemologically diverse learning frameworks . a model of knowledge as a network of relationships the second step of the model making process involves identifying all the possible contradictions that may arise as a result of implementing the new model. these contradictions are testimony to the fact that the project is situated in contexts that are fundamentally shaped by the dominant epistemology. from a chat perspective the contradictions occur at four levels: primary level contradiction that entails systemic tensions between the use, value, and exchange value of the system’s tools, rules, and division of labor; secondary level contradictions occur between nodes in an activity system; tertiary contradictions arise when an object from a more “culturally advanced” activity is introduced; and quaternary level neighbouring activities (foot & groleau, 2011). as indicated above, such contradictions would stem from the incompatible philosophical assumptions that form the bases of predominantly western hegemonic models of learning, on the one hand, and nic epistemologies such as those of african and other indigenous communities on the other. included among these contradictions would be diverging ideas about what constitutes knowledge, logic, and rationality, who can access and produce knowledge, and we need to know at all. currently, in the south african educational contexts these contradictions would be related to some of the factors alluded to earlier, such as the neoliberal agenda driving educational reform, politically motivated policy changes, developing epistemologically diverse learning frameworks 31 the second step of the model making process involves identifying all the possible contradictions that may arise as a result of implementing the new model. these contradictions n contexts that are fundamentally shaped by the dominant epistemology. from a chat perspective the contradictions occur at four levels: primary level contradiction that entails systemic tensions between the use, value, and ols, rules, and division of labor; secondary level contradictions occur between nodes in an activity system; tertiary contradictions arise when an object from a more “culturally advanced” activity is introduced; and quaternary level groleau, 2011). as indicated above, such contradictions would stem from the incompatible philosophical assumptions that form the bases of predominantly western hegemonic models of learning, on the one hand, and nic epistemologies such as those of african and other indigenous communities on the other. included among these contradictions would be diverging ideas about what constitutes knowledge, logic, and rationality, who can access and produce knowledge, and we need to know at all. currently, in the south african educational contexts these contradictions would be related to some of the factors alluded to earlier, such as the neoliberal agenda driving educational reform, politically motivated policy changes, 32 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 inappropriately theorized and implemented interventions, and so forth. what i therefore suggest is that we make use of chat to expose the roots of these contradictions in terms of the divergent activity systems of knowledge-making by which many african and other learners from indigenous communities are expected to operate. a third related step in developing the model for empowering marginalized epistemologies entails introducing actions and artifacts into the system that promote the development of the envisioned epistemological model. thus, one would systematically identify the relationships between and among the various actors and resources that are instrumental to the ways in which the new process of knowledge-making should work. we need, therefore, to ask which types of people, instruments, documents, institutions, spaces, ideas and so forth are valued most highly for the construction of the proposed new kind of knowledge. some of the suggestions indicated above, such as theoretical indigenization (fataar, 2016) and the desettling of dominant epistemologies (bang et al., 2012) can be considered in this way by looking at how new groups of stakeholders, policies, concepts, learning spaces, and other resources can be included and empowered within the system. the alternative (indigenous) resources to be included into a learning network as illustrated in figure 1, above, could be the kind, indicated by carroll (2014), that would include material, epistemological or moral resources from indigenous communities. in a similar way to that of scientific communities of practice which operate according to shared norms, values, and practices, a knowledge community based on an indigenous epistemology would proceed from an ontological position that values the connectedness of its actors and artifacts. such a relational approach to knowledge-making is evident in the indigenous prioritizing of community through approaches like the te kotahitanga approach to maori education (see for example hynds et al., 2011), confianza in the funds of knowledge approach (gonzález, moll & amanti, 2006) which draws minority communities’ knowledge resources into the classroom, or the notion of ubuntu 3 originating from african cultural values prioritizing connectedness (le grange, 2011). this will inevitably result in further tensions and conflicts as the competing hegemonic and counterhegemonic systems of knowledge-making come into contact with each other. as engeström (1994) pointed out, “each action is shaped by, and in turn gives shape to the historically evolving structures and contradictions of the entire activity system, including the not immediately visible factors of communities, institutional rules, and division of labour” (p. 410). consequently, i propose that the fourth step towards attaining the envisioned epistemological change would be to employ the historical elements of the activity system’s responses (development) to harness the contradictions and direct the systemic change. the logic behind this is effectively captured by engeström (1994) who noted that 3 these are complex concepts that have been developed by academics who argue that they entail more than what a translation can convey; they defy translation. however, confianza has connotations of trust and ubuntu is often translated as “i am because we are.” botha: developing epistemologically diverse learning frameworks 33 from an activity theoretical viewpoint, the specific contradictions of any practice should be interpreted against the historical evolution and developmental potential of that particular activity system . . . this inclusion of history into the situation can turn contradictions into a resource: they give rise to disturbances and failures, but they also elicit innovative solutions that point toward possibilities of systemic change. (p. 411) needless to say, the identification and application of chat principles to the construction of the networked/relational model requires a more detailed and specific analysis than is possible to offer here. however, it should be evident from the above that this analytical framework is compatible with the suggested programme of change envisioned here for epistemologically marginalised south african and african communities in general, one in which they can take command of the shape and direction of their learning. conclusion that the majority of black south africans are struggling with the national system of education is clear, as should be the fact that good policies and moderate reforms are not enough to alter this situation. this set of affairs, however, is not a uniquely south african, or even african one, but seems to pertain wherever indigenous communities are educated in a system that ignores or undermines their epistemic heritage. while considerable political will and a strategic use of resources are required to change these hegemonic western systems meaningfully, i have argued here that the key component to appropriately re-engineering them lies with the modelling of alternatives. if we are to achieve the aim of diversifying our knowledge-making, such a vision will not be achieved by its desirability or even its necessity alone, but it will also depend upon its ability to capture the imagination and move it in the desired direction. radical educational change must therefore begin with a model that convincingly portrays alternative epistemological processes as effective and that resonates with concepts and values held by influential knowledge-makers from all kinds of backgrounds. it should allow them and persuade them to visualise knowing in particular ways, thereby conditioning discourses and practices around learning, teaching, and other knowledge-making activities. when we picture knowledge-making as producing brain-like neural networks of people, spaces, and artifacts, for example, and when that image resonates with how we understand the shaping of ideas, emotions, and other components of knowing we will adapt our conceptual and other tools, values, and activities so that they reflect and nurture that perception. furthermore, a model should be grounded in a strong theoretical framework so that it offers clear pathways for the uptake of new, unconventional, or counterhegemonic ideas. here i have demonstrated that chat is able to provide analytical tools and strategic support for a programme of change like the one proposed for diversifying the epistemological foundations of educational institutions. the way in which it employs contradictions, mediation, and historicity enhance the significance of relationships that make up the networked model, giving further credence to this vision of knowledge-making. 34 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 references bang, m., warren, b., rosebery, a. s., & medin, d. 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(1979). models: representation and the scientific understanding. dordrecht, nl: d. reidel. journal of education, 2017 issue 69, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za reconfiguring educational relationality in education: the educator as pregnant stingray karin murris (received 16 february 2017; accepted 3 july 2017) abstract in my paper, i discuss student, teacher-centred and ‘post-postmodern’ educational relationality and use karen barad’s posthuman methodology of diffraction to produce an intra-active relationality by reading three familiar figurations through one another: the midwife, the stingray, and the pregnant body. the new educational theory and practice that is produced is the ‘superposition’ of the pregnant stingray – a reconfiguration of the educator that disrupts power producing binaries, such as teacher/learner, adult/child, individual/society. the reconfiguration of the pregnant stingray makes us think differently about difference, the knowing subject (as in/determinate and unbounded), and creates a more egalitarian intra-relationality ‘between’ learner and educator through the shift in subjectivity. student centred or teacher centred education? educators are trained to regard schools as places of learning for human development and achievement. for example, philosopher of education gert biesta argues that education works in three domains and has three concurrent, overlapping purposes or aims (biesta, 2010, 2014). education, he argues, should concern itself not only with schooling or qualification, but also with socialisation and what he calls ‘subjectification’. educational institutions need to ensure that students are qualified, that they are equipped with the right kind of knowledge, skills and dispositions (‘qualification’). the emphasis on qualification is orientated around cognitive and linguistic capabilities, measured through observations by the teacher and through standardised testing administered by the adult knowledge expert. educators also need to ensure that ‘newcomers’ to the world are familiarised with the values and traditions that enable learners to become part of existing social practices 118 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 therefore, a teacher’s identity is not absolute, but “sporadic”, that is, “only emerges at those1 moments when the gift of teaching is received” (biesta, 2014, p.54). receiving the gift of teaching is to welcome the unwelcome, to give a place to inconvenient truths and difficult knowledge and it is at precisely that “moment that we give authority to the teaching we receive” (biesta, 2014, p.55). it is difficult to extract a coherent notion of subjectivity from his writings. for example,2 against the idea that a teacher is a facilitator of learning, biesta argues that the teacher has “to bring something new to the educational situation, something that was not already there” (biesta, 2014, p.44) and teaching can therefore not “be entirely immanent to the educational situation but requires a notion of transcendence”. his arguments are complex and not directly relevant for my key arguments here, but there does seem to be a tension between his conception of a teacher and the subjectivity it presupposes and the notion of ‘coming into the world’. there is no space in this article to do justice to the complex notion of practical judgements3 or phronesis and it is not relevant for the main argument. (‘socialisation’) (biesta, 2014). children learn to excel through the acquisition of knowledge, skills and dispositions with the main purpose of integration within human society as it is (snaza, applebaum, bayne, carlson, rotas, sandlin, wallin and weaver, 2014). educationalists differ in their opinions about whether education should include more than these two, but, drawing on levinas, biesta enriches this debate by offering an important third aim, ‘subjectification’, which relates to how education impacts on the person. although each aim of education is legitimate, biesta does prioritise them, and he regards the third, 'subjectification' as fundamental for education. it is on this basis that questions about knowledge, skills and dispositions, competence and evidence can be asked. for biesta, the aim of education should not be a mere focusing on the acquisition of knowledge, or a process of socialisation into an existing order, but to speak with one’s own voice and to bring something new into the world. for biesta, subjectification is not an outcome, or a thing to be produced, an essence or identity, but an event. educational action is not guided by what a student might become; as educators we should show “an interest in that which announces itself as a new beginning, as newness, as natality, to use arendt’s term” (biesta, 2014, p.143). teaching is not a quality or something a person possesses; it emerges only in an encounter with the other, because a teacher can never control the “impact” her activities have on her students (biesta, 2014, pp.54, 56). the teacher’s role,1 for biesta, is that of a person who mediates in any concrete moment between2 child and curriculum when making practical judgements. but, as biesta3 (2014, p.142) insists, such education should not be in terms of “a truth about what the child is and what the child must become”. murris: reconfiguring education relationality. . . 119 biesta’s relational subjectivity mapped out earlier involves surrendering the idea that individual subjectivity is pre-social. as he explains, teaching and learning is not a: . . .one-way process in which culture is transferred from one (already acculturated) organism to another (not yet acculturated) organism, but as a co-constructive process, a process in which both participating organisms play an active role and in which meaning is not transferred but produced. (biesta, 1994, p.311–312; my emphasis). in other words, meaning is the result of co-constructive processes between two or more organisms. production of meaning is not a ‘one-way process’. both human subjects (teacher and learner) “constitute the meaning of what is learned” (biesta, 1994, p.315) – a subject is an existential event, not an identity or essence (biesta, 2014, p.143). therefore, education should not start from ideas about what children (or students) should become (according to the educator), but “by articulating an interest in that which announces itself as a new beginning” (biesta, 2014, p.143). ‘coming into the world’ cannot be done in isolation, and meaning can be co-produced only when students are treated as a subject. the advantage of biesta’s articulation of subjectification as the third (and most salient) aim of education is that it shifts the typical teacher-centred versus student-centred polemic debate into a different direction with its focus on collaborative co-production of knowledge by teacher and learner with “both participating organisms” (see above citation) playing an active role in meaning-making. this ‘post-postmodern’ philosophical shift renders the student/teacher binary redundant and offers a justification for the kind of emancipatory, critical and democratic (teacher) education in which there can be epistemic equality (murris and verbeek, 2014). there is an important difference between biesta’s philosophy of education and a student-centred approach to teaching and learning. he is well-known for his critique of the current focus in education on learning rather than teaching – a dangerous shift in educational discourse and practices, he calls ‘learnification’ (biesta, 2010, 2014). this global tendency to talk about ‘learning’ (see e.g. ‘lifelong learning’), rather than ‘education’, has meant a moving away from concerns about what content is taught to concerns about process (skills and competences). biesta agrees with the critique levelled at traditional teaching with its authoritarian conception of teaching as control. he argues that the learner does not exist as a subject in her own right, but merely as an object of the interventions of the teacher. however, (without setting up a binary between teaching and learning) he is equally critical of student-centred 120 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 teaching that positions the teacher as a facilitator of learning (biesta, 2016). teaching, he claims, is always about content, that is, about something for particular purposes and is always relational because it involves someone educating somebody else (biesta, 2012, p.12; my emphasis). his main point is that learnification hides the importance of content, purpose and the ‘who’ or the subjectivity of the teacher in the educational relationship (biesta, 2006, 2010, 2012). as an individualistic concept, learnification shifts the attention away from relationships (biesta, 2014). student-centered education puts the individual, the student, at the centre of pedagogy in terms of planning by foregrounding their interests, backgrounds, needs and goals. in student-centered education, the development of educational relationships relies on dialogical and sociocultural pedagogies, mentoring, formative assessment, (self-) reflection, reflexivity and relational and interactive strategies such as peer and small group work (ceder, 2016, p.16). with the emphasis on knowledge and the important role of the teacher, one might mistakenly believe that biesta is proposing a teacher-centred approach. in the latter, the teacher is an authority of knowledge production, and consequently positions the learner as knowledge consumer. therefore, the relationship between teacher and learner is that of epistemic inequality (murris, 2013). the recent emphasis on evidence-based research, student performance, national and international assessments, yearly exams and tests and homework at increasingly earlier ages positions the teacher as the authority. but biesta is highly critical of the politics of the lingo of the educational measurement culture and, as we have seen through the discussion of his work above, biesta foregrounds relationality. however, educational relationality is still theorised as someone educating somebody else (see above citation), therefore in humanistic terms – education is about human development (see also murris, 2016). both, the knowledge-centered approach with the educator as the ‘sage on the stage’, and the student-centred approach “find their points of departure not in the processes, but in stable identities existing before and after the process” (ceder, 2016, p.18; my emphasis). the knowing subject is formed (teachercentred) or transformed (student-centred). the pedagogical relationship is between pre-existing entities, individual people. and this is even the case in biesta’s educational philosophy. the relationality presupposed is that between “both participating organisms” (see above citation) in an existential event. now, what difference does it make to move the focus away from the human individual (either teacher or learner) and put relationality at the centre murris: reconfiguring education relationality. . . 121 of pedagogy? what difference does this make epistemologically, politically and ethically? does it shift the ‘who’ of knowledge production and would the knowledge produced be different? what is the role of the educator in this kind of education? in order to answer these questions, i turn to the philosophy of critical posthumanism and conceptualise an educational intra-relationality with, at the heart of my argument, a posthuman reconfiguration of the educator. for the latter, i will draw on the posthuman methodology of diffraction to read two familiar platonic metaphors (the midwife and the stingray) through the figuration of a pregnant body. epistemological orphans and nomadic subjectivity despite the transformational potential to think in terms of teaching as a relational encounter, biesta’s notion of ‘subjectification’ is still too much of a humanist notion and assumes human exceptionalism (although he refrains from articulating what a human is). inspired by levinas and arendt, biesta’s ethics of subjectivity is, of course, not formulated in indivi-dual metaphysical terms such as ‘being’, ‘essence’ or ‘nature’ (biesta, 2014, p.19), but agency seems to be attributed to human subjects and the discursive only. critical posthumanist rosi braidotti (2002, 2006, 2013) argues against a notion of subjectivity that attributes agency only to (individual) humans. moreover, she points out that only certain humans have been accredited full agency: the capital ‘i’ as transcendental signifier. the yardstick by which the worth of the knowing subject (the ‘i’) is measured, is the human of a particular gender (male), race (white), able-bodied and with a particular sexual orientation (heterosexual); the humanist ideal of leonardo da vinci’s vitruvian man (braidotti, 2013). posthumanists problematise this narrow, patriarchal view of the ‘human’ of humanism and have “given us a language where we can now describe much more intricately and robustly how human beings — not just their minds but their bodies, their microbiomes, their modes of communication and so on — are enmeshed in and interact with the nonhuman world”, and this includes technology (lennard and wolfe, 2017, n.p.). the power producing human/nonhuman binary is based on certain engrained habits of thought about knowledge and intelligence and is “inherently oppressive and violent” (lennard and wolfe, 2017: n.p). why is this the case? meaning making and knowledge production as an anthropocentric affair separates the knower (mind) from the known (body) and knowledge (epistemology) from being (ontology). in contrast, education in the 122 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 posthuman age abandons the patriarchal cartesian project that privileges the mind as a substance – the ontological and epistemological home of consciousness and thought. the power producing binaries on which this substance ontology rest are multiple: inner/outer, mind/body, cognition/emotion, reality/fantasy, culture/nature and so forth. these binaries produce differences that include and exclude, and structure what counts as ‘real’ knowledge and ‘worthwhile’ learning (murris, 2016). modernist education assumes that the knowing subject has so-called ‘objective’ access to this world ‘out there’, at a distance, with the mind producing knowledge through cognition, for example, acquiring knowledge of a concept through definitions. in education, we tend to rely on words to define, to pin down truth, but as tim ingold (2015, ix) puts it strikingly “adrift upon the printed page, the word has lost its voice”. helena pedersen points out that there are “many ways of relating to the world, of which ‘human’ ways only constitute a small subset” and human language is after all, only “part of a wider naturalsemiotic system”, transcending “traditional disciplinary boundaries between natural sciences and social/humanist sciences” (pedersen, 2015, 60, 65). posthumanists position the knowing subject as part of the world and not separate from it, therefore the challenge is to find other, more tacit ways of experiencing the world that also account for nonhuman or more-than-human experiences. braidotti (1991, p.2) urges everyone instead to be “epistemological orphans”, that is, knowing subjects without an authoritative father who is ‘the’ expert of the meanings of texts, for example, and ‘nomadic subjects’ (braidotti, 2006, 2013). the nomadic subject is not only epistemologically homeless, but also dis/continuously (barad, 2014) ‘becoming’ – a corporeal entity that has spatio-temporal force – that is, embedded and embodied, and therefore immanent and dynamic (braidotti, 2006, pp. 151–152). importantly, ‘embodied’ is meant as ‘transindividual’ (massumi 2014), not a body bounded by a skin as a unit in space and time, but an in/determinate subject. the nomadic subject does not have one singular stable identity and is not firmly located geographically, historically, ethnically, or ‘fixed’ by a class structure. the key idea here is that self is not ‘subject-as-substance’, but always ‘subject-in-process’, and always produced involving contradiction and multiplicity. biesta’s educational philosophy also does not take into account the agential performativity of matter. although neither braidotti, nor feminist philosopher and quantum physicist karen barad, talk about child (or age) as a category of murris: reconfiguring education relationality. . . 123 exclusion, their work is highly relevant for education. for a further broadening of who, or what, matters epistemologically, ontologically and ethically in education, i turn to karen barad’s agential realism. agential realism, distributed agency and runny noses a posthuman relational ontology changes how we see the more-than-human; not inert, passive things in space (as mere background to what happens, for example, in a classroom), but requires an un/learning of agency “outside the acting, human body” (rotas, 2015, p.94). the posthuman notion of distributed agency (bennett, 2010), or mutual performativity (barad, 2007), changes how we think about causality, and shifts what we mean by knowledge-production in education. karen barad argues that agency is an enactment (barad, 2007, p.235). matter is an “active participant in the world’s becoming” (barad, 2007, p.136). with ‘matter’, barad (2014) does not mean inert, passive substances that need something else (e.g. a spirit) to bring them alive or to have agency – a rupturing of the animate/inanimate binary. matter is not a thing, ‘in’ time and space, but it materialises and unfolds in different temporalities. the key to understanding karen barad’s agential realism is her diffractive reading of queer theory and quantum physics. it provides ‘multiple and robust’ empirical evidence that atoms are not as ‘simple’ as they were once thought to be (barad, 2007). they are real in the sense that they are bits of matter that can be ‘seen’, picked up, one at a time, and moved (barad, 2007). they can be further divided into subatomic particles such as, for example, quarks and electrons, but importantly they do not take up determinate positions ‘in’ space and time (barad, 2007). nature (or world) is not simply ‘there’ or ‘given’, but the entangled nature of nature means that things only become distinguishable as determinately bounded through their intra-action (barad, 2007). they cannot be located, as their being extends ontologically across different spaces and times (barad, 2007). it is the queerness of quantum phenomena that unsettles the distinctions we routinely make between being, knowing and doing. barad (2007, pp.392–393) argues that the “very nature of materiality is an entanglement” and not only at micro-level as the dichotomy between micro and macro is human-made. the interconnectedness of all human and nonhuman bodies implies that there are no individual agents and no singular causes (barad 2007). all actions of 124 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 as we have seen earlier, with ‘queer’ barad does not just mean ‘strange’ but it disrupts the4 nature/culture binary and is therefore an ‘undoing of identity’, because waves and particles are ontologically different entities. it raises the key question how is it possible that an electron can be both. see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs7szdfwxyg. [accessed: 21/02/2015]. human and nonhuman bodies matter epistemologically, ontologically and ethically and at the very same time. agential realism disrupts not only ontologies and epistemologies, but also an ethics that takes human exceptionalism as its starting point. barad (2012, p.81) explains that “responsibility is not an obligation that the subject chooses, but rather an incarnate relation that precedes the intentionality of consciousness. responsibility is not a calculation to be performed” (barad, 2012, p.81). so what does it mean to be take responsibility for one’s actions as educator? taking responsibility is not about choosing “the right response, but rather a matter of inviting, welcoming, and. . . “providing opportunities for the organism to respond” (barad, 2012, p.81). therefore, posthuman ontology implies an intra-relational ethics – an ethics that is implied, not applied (ceder, 2016) and requires a different relationality ‘between’ educator and learner. although barad would probably be sympathetic towards biesta’s proposal of a relational subjectivity, she maintains that meaning and matter are always ontologically entangled and she therefore queers an anthropocentric4 epistemology – the idea that meaning making is a social process, that is, involves human animals only. she writes: “neither discursive practices nor material phenomena are ontologically prior or epistemologically prior…matter and meaning are mutually articulated” (barad, 2007, p.152). therefore, teaching means “transcorporeal engagements, involving other faculties than the mind…[making] matter intelligible in new ways” (lenz taguchi, 2010, p.267). for a posthumanist human and nonhuman, matter always exists in entangled intra-active relations. barad’s neologism ‘intraaction’ or ‘intra-activity’ should not be confused with notions such as ‘intersubjectivity’ or ‘inter-activity’ (as in student-centred pedagogies), which assume pre-social independently existing human subjects (in relation with one another) – the kind of subjectivity assumed by psychological scientific discourses, for example. murris: reconfiguring education relationality. . . 125 barad’s seminal work meeting the universe halfway (2007) has already influenced educational practices (see e.g. lenz taguchi, 2010; hultman and lenz taguchi, 2010; kuby and gutshall rucker, 2016; murris, 2016; pedersen, 2016). this ‘material’ or ‘ontological turn’ has informed a new scholarship in education to focus not only on the human and the discursive, but also to include the more-than-human, such as chairs, textbooks, the national curriculum, governing bodies, atmosphere, runny noses, the absence of nonhuman animals, ancestors, the land, or the video cameras that ‘collect’ data for educational research. these scholars include, but at the same time, move beyond the discursive. posthuman subjectivity and methodologies posthuman and non-representational methodologies move beyond the personal and avoid psychological, psycho-analytical or sociological interpretations that involve reflection on what has happened (see e.g. snaza and weaver, 2015; koro-ljungberg, 2016; lather, 2016; st pierre, jackson and mazzei, 2016; taylor and hughes, 2016; vannini, 2015). they are characterised by “overwhelming subject-fatigue” (pedersen and pini, 2016, p.1), and involve being suspicious of any method “that privileges both speaking and hearing human subjects” and regard ‘voice’ “as a prime source of ‘lived experience’ and meaning” (pedersen and pini, 2016, p.2). a posthumanist articulation of teaching and learning disrupts how in education we traditionally see the knowing subject, whether this subject is a teacher or learner. the posthuman subject is not an individual with distinct boundaries, but “spread out”, like “a flow of energies, constituted in a total interdependence with other humans and the matter and physical intensities and forces around us” (palmer, 2011, p.7). an individual is not a “centred essence” who remains the same through time and space, but instead comes into existence through the encounter with other material-discursive agencies (petersen, 2014, p.41). it is this move from the discursive to the materialdiscursive that constitutes a posthuman ontology that has implications for the figuration of the educator. for deleuze and guattari (1987/2013), a human being is not a singular subject (or product), but multiple. mazzei (2013, p.733) explains this multiplicity as an “assemblage, an entanglement, a knot of forces and intensities that operate on a plane of immanence and that produce a voice that does not emanate from a singular subject”. this also means that agency and intentionality are not located ‘in’ a person (learner or 126 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 teacher), but are always produced in relation with material-discursive human and nonhuman others. an intra-active relational ontology disrupts our understanding of causal relations and enables us to talk about materials intra-actively and how human and more-than-human bodies render each other capable (haraway 2016). posthumanism provokes the urgent question about what the role of the (human) educator is in educational settings. i will now use barad’s posthuman methodology of diffraction to propose a posthuman reconfiguration of the educator. the diffractive methodology and the subjectivity of the researcher the non-representational posthuman methodology of diffraction aims to playfully breathe new life into existing pedagogical practices and create an interference pattern that disrupts humanist binaries, particularly the individual/society, child/adult, learner/teacher, theory/practice binary. first developed by haraway (1988) and built on by barad through her interpretation of quantum physics (2003, 2007, 2012, 2014), diffraction should not be understood as a metaphor, which would imply representationalism. barad’s significant contribution to both physics and philosophy is to see the ontological implications of what feminist philosopher donna haraway and quantum physicist niels bohr before her thought were mainly epistemological issues. i have already shown how quantum physics troubles the determinate position of the electron in space and time. what was not clear yet though, was the role of the apparatus that measures in research. barad (2014, p.178) shows that quantum entanglements are not about intertwining “two (or more) states/entities/events”, but that they call into question “the very nature of twoness, and ultimately of one-ness as well”. the concept ‘between’ will therefore never be the same and this also holds for the relationship ‘between’ researcher (‘subject’) and the researched (‘object’). salient here is the idea that there are no absolute insides or outsides and that the researcher participates in re/configuring the world. does this disruption of the nature/culture binary mean that the researcher is therefore subjective? barad (2007, p.91) explains the cartesian assumptions involved in the question itself: murris: reconfiguring education relationality. . . 127 making knowledge is not simply about making facts but about making worlds, or rather, it is about making specific worldly configurations – not in the sense of making them up ex nihilo, or out of language, beliefs, or ideas, but in the sense of materially engaging as part of the world in giving it specific material form. and yet the fact that we make knowledge not from outside but as part of the world does not mean that knowledge is necessarily subjective (a notion that already presumes the preexisting distinction between object and subject that feeds representationalist thinking). at the same time, objectivity cannot be about producing undistorted representations from afar; rather, objectivity is about being accountable to the specific materializations of which we are a part. and this requires a methodology that is attentive to, and responsive/responsible to the specificity of material entanglements in their agential becoming. for the rest of the paper, i show how such a diffractive methodology can be put to work. bohr’s famous two-slit diffraction experiment (barad, 2007) made evident that under certain conditions light behaves like a particle (as newton thought) and under other conditions it behaves like a wave, described by bohr’s influential complementarity theory. electrons are neither particles nor waves – “a queer experimental finding” (barad, 2014, pp.173). wave and particle are not inherent attributes of objects. but, “the nature of the observed phenomenon changes with corresponding changes in the apparatus” that measures it (barad, 2007, p.106). electrons and the differences ‘between’ them are neither here nor there, this or that, one or the other or any other binary type of difference; and what holds for an electron also holds for a human (barad, 2014). the ontology of entities emerges through their relationality, and not only at quantum level. as we have seen, quantum physics gives experimental evidence that subject and object are inseparable, non-dualistic wholes at all ontological levels. diffraction as a methodology is different from reflection, which involves a looking for the same or similar. diffraction means “to break apart in different directions” (barad, 2014, p.168). diffraction patterns hold for water waves, as well as sound waves, or light waves (barad, 2007, p.74). it is where they interfere or overlap that the “waves change in themselves in intra-action” (lenz taguchi, 2010, p.44) and create a “superposition” (barad, 2007, p.76). the diffractive activity of reading texts, images or ideas through one another is methodologically a ‘cutting together-apart’ as one move (barad, 2014). as barad (2014, p.168) explains “the quantum understanding of diffraction troubles the very notion of dicho-tomy – cutting into two – as a singular act of absolute differentiation, fracturing this from that, now from then”. dichotomies (from the greek äé÷ïôïìßá) derive from particular ‘cuts’, therefore differences are not found, but made and their production needs to be queered (barad, 2012). to queer is not a fixed, determinate term with a stable meaning and referential context (barad, 2012), but it is the ethico-political 128 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 practice of radically questioning identity and binaries (barad, 2012). especially relevant for education, this queering includes the disruption of the nature/culture binary, and informed by the experimental findings of quantum physics the queerness of causality, matter, space, and time. queering is an un/doing of identity. so how does the diffractive methodology work in the context of the role of the educator in posthuman intra-relationality? barad’s methodology is affirmative, not critical, but to place different transdisciplinary practices in conversation with one another whilst paying attention to fine details and the exclusions this action produces by investigating how ‘objects’ and ‘subjects’ and other differences matter, and for whom they matter (barad 2007). the methodology helps to get a feel for how differences are produced without rejecting, comparing or synthesising. the experimentation is not a cerebral (cognitive) engagement by the researcher. it involves playful experimentation by paying attention to how bodies affect one’s own being as part of the world. living without bodily boundaries opens up spaces for imaginative, speculative philosophical enquiry that ruptures, unsettles, animates, reverberates, enlivens and reimagines. the methodological use of diffraction unsettles the separateness of being, knowing and responding. reading three figurations of the educator through one another diffractively rosi braidotti (2002) uses the term figurations as an alternative to metaphors. these figurations are embodied imaginings, cognitive assumptions and beliefs. she explains that “figurations are not figurative ways of thinking, but rather more materialistic mappings of situated, or embedded and embodied positions” (braidotti, 2012, p.13). they are not metaphors, but social-material positions: “living maps, a transformation account of the self” (braidotti, 2011, p.14). educational relationality involves (sometimes contradictory) enacting figurations of teacher and learner, that is, acts of shaping into particular figures; and they always express particular locations and power relations (and are therefore political). unlike metaphors, figurations demand a sense of “accountability for one’s locations” and a “self-reflexivity” that is not an individual activity, but an intra-active process that “relies upon a social network of exchanges” (braidotti, 2002, p.69). these subject positions are hybrid, multi-layered, often internally contradictory, interconnected and webmurris: reconfiguring education relationality. . . 129 downloaded from 5 http://proustmatters.com/tag/socrates/; accessed 15/05/2015. one can freely copy material from this site provided full and clear credit to sharon girard and proustmatters.com has been given. like. drawing on deleuze, braidotti (2002, p.78) argues that the transformational project is to develop alternative “post-metaphysical” figurations (or reconfigurations) and new images of subjectivity that break with theoretical representations, and that creatively express active states of being – one that helps materialise a different kind of knowledge and produces a more equal epistemic relationship. the first figuration of the educator i use in my diffractive reading is that of a stingray – a famous image from ancient greek philosopher socrates in the platonic dialogue, meno: meno: ‘socrates, even before i met you they told me that in plain truth you are a perplexed man yourself and reduce others to perplexity. if i may be flippant, i think that not only in outward appearance but in other respects as well you are exactly like the flat sting-ray that one meets in the sea. whenever anyone comes into contact with it, it numbs him, and that is the sort of thing that you seem to be doing to me now…’ socrates: ‘…if the sting-ray paralyses others only through being paralysed itself, then the comparison is just, but not otherwise. it isn’t that knowing the answers myself, i perplex other people. the truth is rather that i infect them also with the perplexity i feel myself.’ (meno, 80a-c; in guthrie, 1956) so, for socrates, an educator is not just a ‘stingray’ (see figure 1), but a selfstinging stingray. figure 1. socrates as self-stinging stingray. ©sharon girard and proustmatters.com.5 130 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 in the sea, the stingray is dangerous; it numbs its victims. socrates as stingray also numbs himself. in socratic teaching the educator is as ‘numb’ and perplexed as the learners (matthews, 1999). the figure of socrates is wellknown as someone “who questions others, not from a position of assumed knowledge, but rather from a position of self-confessed ignorance” (matthews, 1999, p.89). typically, his questions are not about difficult matters, but exactly those matters that “most people think too simple and basic for a grownup to question” (matthews, 1999, p.89). the danger, therefore, of the stingray is that its paralysis undermines confidence and can start to shake the certainty with which people habitually take for granted the meaning of the abstract concepts we routinely use in education, such as ‘number’, ‘causality’ or ‘world’. it can also cause embarrassment, because concepts investigated are often common words that adults claim familiarity with and certainty about their meaning. so they can be made to look foolish. the meaning of these concepts is, however, always contestable, and everyone has ideas about what they mean by them, based on their own lived experiences. and it is here that the more positive figure emerges – the educator as a midwife, another famous character of socrates, whose mother was a midwife. interestingly, stingrays give birth to multiple, live young. the figuration of the midwife is introduced in the dialogue theaetetus. socrates, himself barren (of both child and wisdom, he claims), helps others to deliver their theories, insights and ideas about philosophical concepts (matthews, 1999, p.88). the educator assists in the process of giving birth (‘labour’), so has a more productive role, even assisting in abortions and false pregnancies, that is, identifies “sham theories, doctrines and analyses” (matthews, 1999, p.91). the power of plato’s figuration of the midwife is that the educator is not seen as the source of the knowledge – understanding has to come from ‘within’ through reasoning (including the emotions and feelings). the educator has no knowledge to impart or transmit, but learners “discover within themselves a multitude of beautiful things, which they bring forth into light” (socrates quoted in matthews, 1999, p.88). there is not one theory (baby), but multiple, like the stingray giving birth. this “superposition” (barad, 2007, p.76) created by diffracting the two figurations of the pregnant self-stinging stingray and the midwife foregrounds an educational relationality that is not about transmission (from teacher to learner), nor is it about students discovering knowledge by themselves. there is an interaction between student and educator as an essential part of teaching and learning with multiple and unpredicted outcomes (births are notoriously unpredictable). murris: reconfiguring education relationality. . . 131 although it is not impossible that men will also be able to birth babies in the future.6 now, despite the power of this concept of the educator, both stingray and midwife assume individual subjectivity, that is, a relationality between two ontological entities ‘in’ the world: educator (self-stinging stingray and midwife) and learner. however, there is something more that can be said of the stingray, which does justice to intra-relational subjectivity. as barad (2011) points out, the neuronal receptor cells in stingrays make it possible for these creatures to anticipate a message which has not yet arrived – a kind of clairvoyance, one could argue, that strikingly describes the embedded and transindividual embodied listening of the posthuman educator. this practice disrupts linear time: past, present and future are threaded through one another in barad’s diffractive reading of quantum physics. it would mean, as an educator, not only listening to and following what the human is saying or writing, but to trace the human and more-than-human relational corporeal entanglements and to be attuned to what is not there as yet, but has the potential to be expressed (the virtual), for example, by including silences, transmodal opportunities for expression, small group work, or going for a walk. this cannot be predicted or planned for. confounding the logic of causality, stingrays unlock themselves before this is (apparently) necessary (barad, 2011). furthermore, an even more powerful figuration can be created through diffracting the created superposition of the pregnant stingray with that of another body that is part of this world: the female human animal. 6 the pregnant stingray reconfiguration the pregnant female body (not as a metaphor) contests western metaphysical assumptions about subjectivity. the relationship between mother and unborn baby is not simply one of containment. lakoff and johnson (1980, p.29) argue that metaphors of containment work at a pre-conceptual level and shape our (mostly universal) experience of embodiment and territoriality. feminist philosopher christine battersby rejects the idea that everything is either inside a container or outside of it. when reading lakoff and johnson’s account of embodiment she comments: i register a shock of strangeness: of wondering what it would be like to inhabit a body like that. and that is because i do not experience my body as three-dimensional container into 132 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 which i ‘put various things’ – such as ‘food, water, air’ – and out of which ‘other things emerge (food and water wastes, air, blood, etc.). (battersby,1998, p.41–2) she argues that the containment model for bodily boundaries and selves might be more typical of male experience, which has shaped the western metaphysical notion of self and self-identity: bodies as containers and selves as autonomous (battersby, 1998, p.54) – a body that is one and not the other. in metaphysical constructions of self, philosophers have bypassed the female body which “is messy, fleshy and gapes open to otherness – with otherness ‘within’, as well as ‘without’” (battersby, 1998, p.59). take, for example, the meaning of the concept ‘innate’. when theorists use the concept, it is assumed that what is meant is ‘before birth’, and not ‘before conception’. the relationship the mother has with her unborn baby simply does not count in the western construction of subjectivity. intrapersonal relationships do not exist before the baby is born. but the female body is different from the male body. it has the potential of becoming more than one body out of its own flesh. battersby concludes that there “…is no sharp division between ‘self’ and ‘other’. instead, the ‘other’ emerges out of the embodied self, but in ways that mean that two selves emerge and one self does not simply dissolve into the other” (battersby, 1998, p.8). in other words, the male body “has acted as both norm and ideal for what is to count as an entity, a self or a person” in western philosophy (battersby, 1998, p.50). inspired by french feminist philosopher, luce irigaray, battersby proposes a different account of identity: a different understanding of boundaries leads to a different conceptualisation of (self)identity. she understands identity as emerging out of patterns of potentialities and flow (battersby, 1998, p.53). when there are no clear boundaries between ‘self’ and ‘not-self’, it becomes possible to think of the self as always in flux, and to privilege ‘becoming’ over ‘being’ (battersby, 1998, p.55). for lenz taguchi (2010, p.95), the pregnancy image holds within itself “a potentiality of new invention and new becoming from what already is”. so, what are the implications of the interference pattern or superposition created by reading these three figurations diffractively through one another? what is the new created through the posthuman methodology? and what are the implications for a different ethics in education? the figuration of the pregnant stingray en-courages educators to reconfigure their own practices through a doing of subjectivity differently. the relationship ‘between’ learner and educator is not characterised by body boundaries that are closed, autonomous or impermeable, but allows “the potentiality for otherness to exist within it, as well as alongside it”. the agency of both teacher and learner are murris: reconfiguring education relationality. . . 133 characterised “in terms of potentiality and flow. our body-boundaries do not contain the self; they are the embodied self” (battersby, 1998, p.57). both teacher and learner do not have pre-existing identities (as in post-postmodern relationality), which, for example, respond or react to new information. intrarelationality is an ontology whereby teacher and learner are engaged in a continuous flow and fluidity between humans and more-than-humans: “new identities are born out of difference; self emerges from not-self; and identity emanates from heterogeneity via patterns of relationality” (battersby, 1998, p.58). pregnant stingrays are multiple and unbounded inhuman becomings, who can anticipate the not-yet-thought with a fleshy openness to otherness (battersby, 1998), including doing justice to the in/determinate agency of the material world in knowledge construction. the pregnant stingray reconfiguration of the teacher has been created through a diffractive reading of three figurations: the midwife (who assists in giving birth to new ideas from ‘within’), the stingray (who numbs others and herself through philosophical perplexity), and the pregnant body (a body that can be one and more than one at the very same time, thereby queering identity). the pregnant-stingray-educator treats her own knowledge as contestable, and is willing to inhabit the perplexity of the dynamic and always contestable nature of knowledge itself. this ‘being-with’ the human and more-than-human in knowledge construction (haraway, 2016) also renders human learners capable, whatever their age or social status. this ontological shift in educational intra-relationality involves epistemic modesty and epistemic equality with bodily boundaries that are not closed, autonomous or impermeable, but allow the potentiality for otherness to exist within it. such educators are not ‘ventriloquists’ (kennedy, 2006), which is the case in teacher-centred education when teachers already know beforehand what learners are going to say. in posthuman education, the aim is not to represent, or reproduce, or recognise (as in qualification and socialisation as aims of education), but to embrace a practice that is passionate and spontaneous, with “students and teachers entering a zone of interrogation – in putting themselves, their lives, their passions and beliefs into question through the experience of thinking together (kohan, 2015, p.65). rather than ‘filling’ students, they are ‘emptied’ of the truths in which they are installed (kohan, 2015, p.66). this process of intra-active unlearning cannot be anticipated or expected (kohan, 2015), either by the teacher, or by the learner; and it is this playful relationship with knowledge that comes easier for children who have not invested as much of their identity yet in what they know. what this could look like in practice is described elsewhere (murris, 2016) and goes beyond 134 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 the scope of this paper. the challenge indeed is how to prepare (student) teachers for their role as pregnant self-stinging stingrays where they need like a stingray “to anticipate …. a kind of clairvoyance” (barad, 2011, p.131). disrupting the binaries of individual/society, teacher/learner and child/adult – the binary logic of western metaphysics – requires posthuman educators to listen with an open fleshiness towards the human and the more-than-human in order to anticipate the not-yet-thought. acknowledgement this work is based on research supported by the national research foundation of south africa [grant number 98992]. references barad, k. 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(2015). non-representational methodologies: re-envisioning research. london: routledge. professor of pedagogy and philosophy school of education university of cape town karin.murris@uct.ac.za microsoft word b87 full issue 14072022.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 87, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i87a07 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x investigating the differential item functioning of a pirls literacy 2016 text across three languages karen roux department of science, mathematics and technology education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa karen.roux@up.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4181-1382 surette van staden department of science, mathematics and technology education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa surette.vanstaden@up.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5276-5705 elizabeth j. pretorius department of linguistics and modern languages, college of human sciences, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2137-1604 (received: 16 november 2021; accepted: 7 june 2022) abstract this study forms part of a larger study (roux, 2020), which looked at the equivalence of a literary text across english, afrikaans, and isizulu from the progress in international reading literacy study (pirls). pirls is a large-scale reading comprehension assessment that assesses grade 4 students’ reading literacy achievement. pirls literacy 2016 results for south african grade 4 students indicated poor performance in reading comprehension, with approximately eight out of 10 grade 4 students who could not read for meaning. descriptive statistics led to the rasch analysis, which was conducted using the south african pirls literacy 2016 data. even though the rasch analysis indicated differential item functioning across the three languages for this specific passage, there was no universal discrimination against one particular language. by conducting differential item functioning, it was possible to determine whether the selected text had metric equivalence, in other words, whether the test questions were of similar difficulty across languages. keywords: differential item functioning, equivalence, large-scale studies, pirls literacy 2016, reading comprehension, translation 136 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 introduction and background since 2006, south africa has participated in three cycles of the progress in international reading literacy study (pirls; cf. howie et al., 2008, 2012, 2017). pirls is a large-scale international comparative study that assesses grade 4 students’ reading comprehension in 5year cycles (mullis & martin, 2015). the pirls assessment comprised of narrative and informational texts. students completed the pirls assessment in the language of learning and teaching (lolt) in the foundation phase, for example, if the lolt of the school was isizulu, the grade 4 students would have been tested in isizulu. pirls is conducted under the auspices of the international association for the evaluation of educational achievement (iea). the aim of pirls is to provide participating countries with reading comprehension trends across different cycles as well as the students’ educational opportunities by collecting contextual information from the students’ home environment, classroom practices, and school climate. during each cycle, it was shown that south african students performed poorly in comparison with other participating countries. in the pirls 2016 study, the majority (78%) of south african grade 4 students did not reach the low international benchmark (400 score points), which means that these students struggled with basic, literal questions and could not retrieve explicitly stated information in the text or make straightforward inferences about events or actions (howie et al., 2017). therefore, south african grade 4 students are not moving beyond the literal understanding of the text and, as a result, not developing higher order reading comprehension skills (van staden et al., 2019). in the 2006 pirls study, south african grade 4 students obtained a score approximately 250 score points below the international average of 500 (howie et al., 2008). in the course of the next cycle, south africa participated in pre-pirls 2011: an easier version of pirls 2011, which had a lower cognitive demand. even though south africa participated in pre-pirls 2011, the results were disappointing because the students obtained the lowest score (461 score points) amongst participating countries such as botswana (463 score points) and colombia (576 score points). in the next cycle of pirls, south african grade 4 students participated in pirls literacy 2016 (previously pre-pirls). again, south africa obtained the lowest score (320 score points) whereas other african countries such as egypt and morocco obtained 330 and 358 score points, respectively. this low achievement prompted national awareness of the importance of reading comprehension, with the president of south africa including reading comprehension as a national priority (south african government, 2019, 2020). 1 1 it should be noted that a recent study by gustafsson (2020) questioned the gains made between the 2011 and 2016 cycles by referring to the re-scaling of the data. even though growth was underreported for the trends between 2011 and 2016, “it would be of importance to qualify where and what kind of growth we are seeing” (s. van staden, personal communication, march 20, 2020). based on the findings from gustafsson’s re-analysis, the trend data was recalculated by the iea. van staden (2020, para. 19) stated that the gains made should be unpacked by conducting further analyses, specifically “into areas of the system that need improvement.” roux et al.: investigating the differential item functioning of a pirls . . . 137 based on the above, this article uses rasch analysis, specifically differential item functioning (dif), to examine the south african pirls literacy 2016 results across english, afrikaans, and isizulu. the selection of these languages is based on performance, lolt in south africa, as well as the largest spoken language (isizulu) in south africa. this study only focuses on one of the passages examined as part of a larger study (roux, 2020). literature review and conceptual framework it is important to consider whether international large-scale assessments (ilsas) such as pirls are equivalent across different languages and cultures, that is, whether the assessment items are understood similarly across all participants (bundsgaard; 2019; peña, 2007; stubbe, 2011). therefore, when assessments are designed and implemented across different countries, it is important that the same construct is measured and that achievement in the assessment only depends on the students’ proficiency in the subject or topic area that is being measured. the importance of equivalence this article focuses on one of four considerations made by peña (2007) when conducting cross-cultural and cross-lingual studies such as pirls. the four considerations highlighted by peña (2007) include linguistic equivalence, metric equivalence, functional equivalence, and cultural equivalence. linguistic equivalence linguistic equivalence refers to the translation instructions for test instruments, which usually make use of the back-translation method (chesterman, 2016). when a test instrument is translated and back-translated, the researchers should ensure that the source text (st) is linguistically equivalent to that of the target text (tt). consequently, the st is translated and then back-translated by a second translator to ensure that words, sentences, and phrases are similar across both versions of the text (behr, 2017). thus, the aim of linguistic equivalence is to ensure that the linguistic meanings are the same across the st and the tt (peña, 2007). metric equivalence the second consideration is metric equivalence, which concerns the difficulty of an item expressed in two different languages (kim et al., 2003). the goal of metric equivalence is to make certain that the items used in a test are the same in terms of difficulty across different languages (peña, 2007). when ilsas such as pirls develop tests, these are usually in english and then translated into the different languages of the participating countries. it is important that when the test items are translated, that the source items’ and target items’ difficulty remain the same; the english items and, for example, the corresponding isizulu items should have the same level of difficulty. 138 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 functional equivalence the third consideration entails functional equivalence. this provides evidence that the test instrument produces the same behaviour across different groups (greenfield et al., 2006). functional equivalence aims to ensure that there is a natural translation from the st to the tt (bermann & porter, 2014). to put it another way, from a measurement perspective, the two versions of the test should behave similarly. the translator should keep in mind the receptors of the tt—meaning that the translated version of the text should be understood as if they were the receptors of the st (nida & taber, 1969). cultural equivalence the last consideration by peña (2007) includes cultural equivalence. it considers how students interpret a test item that taps into the same cultural meaning for each cultural group (chan & so, 2017). basically, cultural equivalence aims to ensure that the meaning of the construct remains the same across different cultures and language groups (peña, 2007). each student who completes a test brings with them their own knowledge and understanding. therefore, it may be difficult for ilsas to achieve cultural equivalence given that each culture may perceive certain cultural aspects differently. equivalence of cross-cultural assessments refers to the similarity and comparability of an assessment across different language and cultural groups—and ensuring that students sampled from different populations, according to their lolt, have equal opportunities to demonstrate their abilities (peña, 2007). by focusing on metric equivalence and using dif as evidence, it is possible to indicate whether there is item bias against a particular group of participants, in other words, whether there is measurement invariance. translation of international large-scale studies over the years, theories of translation and adaptation have been developed and adapted (rios & sireci, 2014; van de vijver & leung, 1997). in some part, the changes in educational assessment translation are due to the cross-cultural and cross-lingual nature of ilsas (international test commission [itc], 2017). translation refers to linguistic discourse moving from a source language (sl) into the target language (tl). furthermore, the act of translation requires the transfer of content and linguistic features from the sl to the tl. the translator should ensure that the translated version of the text is equivalent to that of the source text. text characteristics such as the plot, setting, themes, characters, as well as the author’s intent should be comparable and equivalent across the source and translated versions of text. according to arffman (2013), when ilsas translate their assessment instruments into multiple languages, these translated versions of the source texts should be “equivalent, or comparable, to each other” (p. 2). translation of pirls pirls is a cross-cultural and cross-lingual study conducted in over 50 countries, worldwide. each text that forms part of the study is translated into the different participating countries’ roux et al.: investigating the differential item functioning of a pirls . . . 139 languages. the timss & pirls international study center has, over the years, developed a rigorous translation verification procedure to ensure that the translations of the pirls texts are equivalent or comparable. each participating country receives these guidelines to ensure that the texts are comparable across different languages and cultures (martin et al., 2017). ebbs and wry (2017) stated: the ultimate goal of the translation and adaptation process was to create national versions of the pirls 2016 instruments that accommodate national languages and context while maintaining international comparability. (p. 7.1) in terms of local translations, the aim of the south african pirls literacy 2016 was to generate translations that were equivalent across the 11 official languages (howie et al., 2017). after the south african national research coordinator received the international version of the texts, they were adapted to british english and then translated into the 10 remaining official languages. if any changes were made to the texts, the changes would have been recorded on the national adaptation forms in order to provide some form of quality assurance and to keep the changes minimal while, at the same time, acknowledging the different national contexts of each participating country. research question one method to determine if there is item equivalence in the different versions is to perform item response theory analysis or rasch analysis (cf. andrich, 2011; linacre, 2016). in their guidelines, the itc (2017) acknowledged that it is possible that participants who write the translated and adapted versions may score lower or higher. therefore, this article asks the following research question: “how did grade 4 student performance differ across english, afrikaans, and isizulu languages on the flowers on the roof text?” the null hypothesis declares that the mean score of the english, afrikaans, and isizulu learners are equal (µenglish = µafrikaans = µisizulu). however, if the null hypothesis is rejected, then an alternative hypothesis could be accepted (ha = µenglish ≠ µafrikaans ≠ µisizulu). research design and methods participants the sample included 12,810 grade 4 students from 293 schools who participated in the south african 2016 pirls study (howie et al., 2017). in all schools, students were tested in the language of learning and teaching (lolt) of the foundation phase (grades 1 to 3); however, it needs to be acknowledged that the lolt may not necessarily be the home language of the grade 4 students. for the purposes of this study, a sub-sample (n = 761) 2 was selected of english (n = 323), afrikaans (n = 186) and isizulu (n = 252) students who completed the pirls literacy 2016, flowers on the roof text. 2 fifty-nine grade 4 learners were removed from the analysis due to extreme scores. 140 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 data collection instruments pirls literacy 2016 included both achievement tests and background questionnaires. the achievement tests consisted of two types of texts, namely, reading for literary experience (narrative texts) and reading to acquire and use information (informational texts; mullis & martin, 2015). the background questionnaires gathered information regarding the students’ educational environments such as the home, school, and classroom. for the purposes of this article, attention is paid to the flowers on the roof text because it is one of the limited released texts used during pirls literacy 2016. all other items from the pirls instruments are kept confidential. 3 the flowers on the roof text is a realistic fiction narrative text and revolves around two characters, granny gunn and a boy who is also the narrator of the story. the story focuses on intergenerational friendship and comfort, for example, making new friends and adding things around you so that you feel at home. flowers on the roof has 13 items that took the form of multiple-choice questions and constructed response questions. all multiple-choice items counted one point whereas the constructed response items ranged between one and three points. the majority of items (eight) entailed lower order skills: two items required students to find explicitly stated answers in the text, and six items needed students to make straightforward inferences based on the text. the remaining five items tested higher order skills such as interpreting information across the text and evaluating content (cf. mullis et al., 2017, pp. 381–400). the analysis of the pirls results is presented on a scale ranging from 0 to 1,000 with a fixed international centre point of 500, using plausible values derived from the three parameter item response theory model (mullis et al., 2017). therefore, an achievement score can be achieved, which is either above or below the international centre point. procedure this study takes the form of a secondary analysis of the pirls literacy 2016 data, specifically the flowers on the roof achievement data. the students’ overall achievement was determined by using idb-analyzer, a software add-on for statistical package for the social sciences, created by the iea because it can process large-scale data (foy, 2018). the descriptive statistics involved calculating the mean score for the flowers on the roof items for each of the three selected languages. descriptive statistics were used to identify any differences in reading literacy achievement between english, afrikaans, and isizulu language sub-group responses. after the initial exploration of the student results on flowers on the roof, differential item functioning (dif) was conducted to address the research question. dif is utilised to determine whether an item was much harder or easier for a group of respondents compared to a different group of respondents of equal ability, in other words, to determine whether 3 the pirls literacy 2016 limited release passages and items are strictly confidential. access to these passages and items in english and the translated versions must be granted by the iea as well as the national research centre. the request form can be accessed here: https://www.iea.nl/publications/form/iea-permission-request-form roux et al.: investigating the differential item functioning of a pirls . . . 141 individual items functioned differently across different groups. dif is a technique used to analyse, survey and, more importantly, test data that is conducted via rasch measurement (boone et al., 2014). rasch analysis is a useful technique because it can detect differences in the item-level performance for different sub-groups of equal ability because person ability and item difficulty are included on the same scale. as part of this analysis, analysis of variance (anova) statistics were produced to compare the means across the three languages. this study made use of the rumm2030 software (andrich et al., 2012) to analyse the pirls literacy 2016 data. results descriptive findings figure 1 presents the overall south african grade 4 student results of pirls literacy 2016. this figure also indicates the english, afrikaans, and isizulu student results. the pirls scale ranges from 0 to 1,000 with an average of 500 (the centre point). figure 1 south african grade 4 student achievement across selected languages (source: roux 2020, p. 123) overall, south african grade 4 students obtained a mean score of 320 (se = 4.4), which was the lowest among the participating countries (cf. appendix 1 for percentiles and confidence interval levels across each language). of the three selected languages for this study, the english students obtained the highest score (372 score points, se = 14.4), followed by the afrikaans (369 score points, se = 13.4) and isizulu (303 score points, se = 4.4) students. no statistical difference was found between those students who wrote the pirls literacy 2016 assessment in english and afrikaans although both these languages achieved mean scores significantly higher than the isizulu students (p < 0.05). 372 369 303 320 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 english afrikaans isizulu overall m e a n a c h ie v e m e n t sc o r e test languages 142 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 this article examines the grade 4 english, afrikaans, and isizulu students’ results for the flowers on the roof text. table 1 presents the percentage of english, afrikaans, and isizulu students who correctly answered the 13 flowers on the roof items. note that this table indicates the number of students who completed the test items and shows the percentage of students who were able to correctly answer each question. this analysis was conducted prior to the rasch analysis to provide a snapshot of the specific items that were difficult for students. table 1 percentage of grade 4 students who correctly answered items in english, afrikaans, and isizulu (source: roux 2020, p. 129) item no. english afrikaans isizulu n completed n correct % correct n completed n correct % correct n completed n correct % correct 1* 334 151 45** 196 59 30** 270 61 23** 2* 323 199 62 191 109 57 251 105 42** 3* 323 161 50 197 86 44** 260 92 35** 4* 333 176 53 198 82 41** 272 107 39** 5* 332 76 23** 198 85 43** 272 103 38** 6 326 65 20** 196 41 21** 252 11 4** 7 327 22 7** 197 19 10** 266 4 2** 8 320 49 15** 196 34 17** 265 10 4** 9 318 72 23** 195 20 10** 255 7 3** 10 313 99 32** 194 81 42** 243 71 29** 11* 321 108 34** 191 75 39** 248 52 21** 12 300 0 0** 181 0 0** 237 0 0** 13* 304 138 45** 182 64 35** 235 82 35** *indicates multiple-choice items. remaining items are open-response questions. **less than 50% of the responses were correct. based on the results captured in table 1, it is evident that the students found the text difficult. the text was especially difficult for the isizulu students given that none of the items was correctly answered by at least 50% of the students. in terms of the afrikaans students, 57% responded correctly to item 2, while fewer than 50% responded correctly to the rest of the items. similarly, 62%, 50%, and 53% of the english students respectively, answered items 2, 3, and 4 correctly. overall, item 12 appeared to be the most difficult item because none of the students across the three languages was able to correctly answer it. to unpack the descriptive results, dif was conducted to determine whether the items function in the same manner across the different languages. roux et al.: investigating the differential item functioning of a pirls . . . 143 differential item functioning the guiding question of this study asked how grade 4 student performance differed across english, afrikaans, and isizulu languages on the flowers on the roof text. in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the aforementioned text, this article examined the individual item-fit as well the dif results per item of the flowers on the roof text as a possible source of misft across the three languages (van staden, 2018). the bonferroni correction was selected for the anova conducted with rumm2030. this type of correction was used because some scholars have a concern regarding test of fit because it reduces the risk of type i errors (andrich & marais, 2019). the individual item-fit statistics of the text are in order of difficulty. table 2 presents evidence of whether the items and the persons (grade 4 students) link to the fit of the model because the assumption of the model declares that, as the person’s ability increases, so should the chance of correctly responding to the more difficult items (combrinck, 2019). however, when there is a lack of fit, it causes a violation of the assumption. in addition, table 2 provides the chi-square value, which can reveal whether there is invariance across the trait (pallant & tennant, 2007). table 2 individual item-fit statistics for flowers on the roof (source: roux 2020, p. 163) item difficulty se fit residual chi-square probability flowers item 2 −1,236 0,083 2,442 11,90 0,219 flowers item 4 −0,975 0,080 −3,456* 37,66 0,000** flowers item 3 −0,837 0,082 −1,676 19,41 0,022 flowers item 13 −0,547 0,086 2,398 7,79 0,454 flowers item 1 −0,338 0,083 −2,742* 28,88 0,001** flowers item 10 −0,260 0,087 1,780 33,17 0,000** flowers item 5 −0,220 0,084 5,727* 52,72 0,000** flowers item 11 −0,128 0,087 2,315 15,69 0,074 flowers item 9 0,260 0,063 −4,085* 33,41 0,000** flowers item 7 0,909 0,076 −0,234 14,55 0,104 flowers item 12 0,964 0,079 −1,024 11,37 0,251 flowers item 6 0,989 0,107 −2,744* 18,05 0,035 flowers item 8 1,419 0,120 −3,530* 42,52 0,000** *fit residuals are indicated if above +2.5 or below −2.5. **bonferroni adjustment is 0.001282 for 13 items. all items smaller than the bonferroni adjustment are indicated and are significant. 144 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 there is no clear pattern in terms of the pirls process of comprehension whether the students struggled more with higher order levels of comprehension such as interpreting information from across the text and evaluating content and textual elements (cf. mullis & martin, 2015). five of the 13 items displayed a misfit that was significant. item 5 was the only overfit item, meaning that the item discriminates a great deal between students. items 4, 1, 9, and 8 displayed underfit, which means that the items do not adequately discriminate between the less able and more able students (van staden, 2018). this finding indicates that these items have statistically significant chi-square probabilities, which shows they do not fit the model at the 5 per cent significance level. table 3 presents a summary of the flowers on the roof items that displayed dif across the english, afrikaans, and isizulu languages. an anova test is included in the dif summary. this table offers evidence as to whether the mean scores of each language are indeed comparable. table 3 dif summary for flowers on the roof text (source: roux 2020, p. 167) item f-ratio probability flowers item 2 1,278 0,279 flowers item 4 3,444 0,032 flowers item 3 0,406 0,666 flowers item 13 3,349 0,036 flowers item 1 8,644 0,000* flowers item 10 6,661 0,001 flowers item 5 30,393 0,000* flowers item 11 2,267 0,104 flowers item 9 19,500 0,000* flowers item 7 2,597 0,075 flowers item 12 8,305 0,000* flowers item 6 7,270 0,001* flowers item 8 6,621 0,001 *significant at the 5 per cent level (bonferroni 0.001282) table 3 demonstrates the anova statistics. results significant at the 5 per cent level are highlighted because the p-value is smaller than 0.05. five of the flowers on the roof items roux et al.: investigating the differential item functioning of a pirls . . . displayed differential functioning across the english, afrikaans, and isi these include items 1, 5, 6, 9, and 12. consequently, each of the aforementioned items was analysed further by looking at their item characteristic curves (icc). the iccs showed for each item, the differential functioning across languages intervals (van staden, 2018). flowers item 1 was a multiple integrate ideas and information” by asking: who is telling the story? a. a granny. b. a child.* (correct answer) c. a doctor. d. a farmer. figure 2 indicates that there is extreme inconsistency across the lower class interval (between −3 and 0). across all three languages, between the had less than 10% probability of correct would appear that item discriminated against students at the lower class interval. the distractor analysis provides evidence that students across the lower class interval were much more likely to select distractor a (a granny) rather than the correct answer, namely, distractor b (a child). a chi-square test of independence showed that there was a significant association between language and difficulty of the item, indicates that the distribution of distractors differs significantly from the expected model. figure 2 flowers item 1 characteristic curve (source: roux 2020, p. 1 flowers item 5 is the next item that displayed dif across the three langua students to make a straightforward inference. it was also a multiple the following: roux et al.: investigating the differential item functioning of a pirls . . . displayed differential functioning across the english, afrikaans, and isizulu sub these include items 1, 5, 6, 9, and 12. consequently, each of the aforementioned items was analysed further by looking at their item characteristic curves (icc). the iccs showed for each item, the differential functioning across languages as well as lower and upper class a multiple-choice question that required students to “interpret and integrate ideas and information” by asking: answer) figure 2 indicates that there is extreme inconsistency across the lower class interval (between 3 and 0). across all three languages, between the −3 and −2 person locations, the students had less than 10% probability of correctly responding to the item. based on the figure, it would appear that item discriminated against students at the lower class interval. the distractor analysis provides evidence that students across the lower class interval were much stractor a (a granny) rather than the correct answer, namely, distractor square test of independence showed that there was a significant association between language and difficulty of the item, χ2 (9, n = 761) = 28.877, p < indicates that the distribution of distractors differs significantly from the expected model. flowers item 1 characteristic curve (source: roux 2020, p. 169) flowers item 5 is the next item that displayed dif across the three languages that required students to make a straightforward inference. it was also a multiple-choice question asking roux et al.: investigating the differential item functioning of a pirls . . . 145 zulu sub-groups; these include items 1, 5, 6, 9, and 12. consequently, each of the aforementioned items was analysed further by looking at their item characteristic curves (icc). the iccs showed for as well as lower and upper class students to “interpret and figure 2 indicates that there is extreme inconsistency across the lower class interval (between 2 person locations, the students ly responding to the item. based on the figure, it would appear that item discriminated against students at the lower class interval. the distractor analysis provides evidence that students across the lower class interval were much stractor a (a granny) rather than the correct answer, namely, distractor square test of independence showed that there was a significant association .001 which indicates that the distribution of distractors differs significantly from the expected model. ges that required choice question asking 146 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 granny gunn did not like the walls and windows in her new flat. why else was she unhappy? a. she was ill. b. she missed her cat. c. she did not like the d. she felt homesick.* figure 3 presents the item characteristic curve for flowers item 5. the figure indicates extreme inconsistency across the three languages. based on the item characteristic curve, the students who completed the test in english found the item considerably more difficult, and the english sub-group did not follow the expected model curve. the correct answer for flowers item 4 is distractor d (she felt homesick), however, the students across the lower class interval were attracted by all three incorrect distractors. moreover, the chi independence showed that there was a significant association between language and difficulty of the item, χ2 (9, n = 761) = 52.718, figure 3 flowers item 5 characteristic curve (source: roux 2020, p. 1 flowers item 6 was a constructed response type question, worth one mark, which required students to “make straightforward inferences why did granny gunn scream when the c figure 4 illustrates that the grade 4 students found the item extremely difficult. the isizulu students who completed this item between the cent chance of correctly responding to the item. between the same person locations, the afrikaans students experienced inconsistency whereas the english students had an approximate 10% chance of correctly responding to the item. overall, the isizulu students remained below the expected model curve across the lower and upper class intervals. n, no. 87, 2022 granny gunn did not like the walls and windows in her new flat. why else was she cat. the balcony. homesick.* (correct answer) figure 3 presents the item characteristic curve for flowers item 5. the figure indicates extreme inconsistency across the three languages. based on the item characteristic curve, the ompleted the test in english found the item considerably more difficult, and group did not follow the expected model curve. the correct answer for flowers item 4 is distractor d (she felt homesick), however, the students across the lower ass interval were attracted by all three incorrect distractors. moreover, the chi independence showed that there was a significant association between language and difficulty = 761) = 52.718, p < .001. item 5 characteristic curve (source: roux 2020, p. 171) flowers item 6 was a constructed response type question, worth one mark, which required make straightforward inferences” from the text by asking: why did granny gunn scream when the cat jumped out of the window? figure 4 illustrates that the grade 4 students found the item extremely difficult. the isizulu students who completed this item between the −2.3 and −1.5 person locations had zero per e of correctly responding to the item. between the same person locations, the afrikaans students experienced inconsistency whereas the english students had an correctly responding to the item. overall, the isizulu students d below the expected model curve across the lower and upper class intervals. granny gunn did not like the walls and windows in her new flat. why else was she figure 3 presents the item characteristic curve for flowers item 5. the figure indicates extreme inconsistency across the three languages. based on the item characteristic curve, the ompleted the test in english found the item considerably more difficult, and group did not follow the expected model curve. the correct answer for flowers item 4 is distractor d (she felt homesick), however, the students across the lower ass interval were attracted by all three incorrect distractors. moreover, the chi-square test of independence showed that there was a significant association between language and difficulty flowers item 6 was a constructed response type question, worth one mark, which required at jumped out of the window? figure 4 illustrates that the grade 4 students found the item extremely difficult. the isizulu 1.5 person locations had zero per e of correctly responding to the item. between the same person locations, the afrikaans students experienced inconsistency whereas the english students had an correctly responding to the item. overall, the isizulu students d below the expected model curve across the lower and upper class intervals. roux et al.: investigating the differential item functioning of a pirls . . . figure 4 flowers item 6 characteristic curve (source: roux 2020, p. 1 flowers item 9 took the form of a constructed type item for two marks. this question required students to “focus on and retrieve explicitly stated information asked the following: write two ways in which granny gunn made her new flat feel like home. student responses had to include two actions of how granny gunn made her new flat feel like home. figure 5 indicates inconsistency across the languages across both lower upper class intervals. notably, the afrikaans and isizulu sub below the expected model curve. figure 5 flowers item 9 characteristic curve (source: roux 2020, p. 1 the last item, flowers item 12, was also a constructed response type item worth three marks. the item required students to “ text by asking: roux et al.: investigating the differential item functioning of a pirls . . . flowers item 6 characteristic curve (source: roux 2020, p. 176) flowers item 9 took the form of a constructed type item for two marks. this question focus on and retrieve explicitly stated information” from the text and write two ways in which granny gunn made her new flat feel like home. student responses had to include two actions of how granny gunn made her new flat feel ike home. figure 5 indicates inconsistency across the languages across both lower upper class intervals. notably, the afrikaans and isizulu sub-groups were more often than not below the expected model curve. e (source: roux 2020, p. 173) the last item, flowers item 12, was also a constructed response type item worth three marks. the item required students to “interpret and integrate ideas and information roux et al.: investigating the differential item functioning of a pirls . . . 147 flowers item 9 took the form of a constructed type item for two marks. this question ” from the text and write two ways in which granny gunn made her new flat feel like home. student responses had to include two actions of how granny gunn made her new flat feel ike home. figure 5 indicates inconsistency across the languages across both lowerand groups were more often than not the last item, flowers item 12, was also a constructed response type item worth three marks. interpret and integrate ideas and information” from across the 148 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 what were the little boy’s feelings about granny gunn when she first moved in and at the end of the story? use what you have read to describe each feeling and explain why his feelings changed. even though the item carries three marks, none of the students was able to obtain and therefore, the model discarded the three parameter. figure 6 indicates that this item was exceptionally difficult for all students, especially for the students at the lower class interval (between variation between −2.3 and −1.5 across the three languages. it appears that the students struggled to make the required inferences regarding the little boy’s feelings about granny gunn and how his feelings changed over time. person location had a 100% chance of correctly responding to the item, in other words, obtaining at least two marks. figure 6 flowers item 12 characteristic curve (source: roux 2020, p. 1 discussion the goal of this article was to gain insight into the south african grade 4 students’ reading comprehension performance, particularly on the texts used during pirls literacy 2016. in addition, this article aimed at pro of item functioning for three south african languages given that the country has a multicultural and multilingual background. the analysis by the current study illustrated the south african grade 4 students’ inability to correctly respond to both lower order and higher order reading skills. of the five items that were detected as displaying some level of dif, three items tested lower order skills such as finding explicitly stated information from the text or making straightforward inferences remaining two items tested the students’ ability to interpret and integrate information across the text. n, no. 87, 2022 boy’s feelings about granny gunn when she first moved in and at the end of the story? use what you have read to describe each feeling and explain why even though the item carries three marks, none of the students was able to obtain and therefore, the model discarded the three-mark parameter, using only the two parameter. figure 6 indicates that this item was exceptionally difficult for all students, especially for the students at the lower class interval (between −3 and 0). there is very little 1.5 across the three languages. it appears that the students struggled to make the required inferences regarding the little boy’s feelings about granny gunn and how his feelings changed over time. peculiarly, the isizulu sub-group at the 0.8 person location had a 100% chance of correctly responding to the item, in other words, flowers item 12 characteristic curve (source: roux 2020, p. 174) l of this article was to gain insight into the south african grade 4 students’ reading comprehension performance, particularly on the flowers on the roof text that was one of the texts used during pirls literacy 2016. in addition, this article aimed at pro of item functioning for three south african languages given that the country has a multicultural and multilingual background. the analysis by the current study illustrated the south african grade 4 students’ inability to o both lower order and higher order reading skills. of the five items that were detected as displaying some level of dif, three items tested lower order skills such as finding explicitly stated information from the text or making straightforward inferences remaining two items tested the students’ ability to interpret and integrate information across boy’s feelings about granny gunn when she first moved in and at the end of the story? use what you have read to describe each feeling and explain why even though the item carries three marks, none of the students was able to obtain full marks mark parameter, using only the two-mark parameter. figure 6 indicates that this item was exceptionally difficult for all students, 3 and 0). there is very little 1.5 across the three languages. it appears that the students struggled to make the required inferences regarding the little boy’s feelings about granny group at the 0.8 person location had a 100% chance of correctly responding to the item, in other words, l of this article was to gain insight into the south african grade 4 students’ reading text that was one of the texts used during pirls literacy 2016. in addition, this article aimed at providing evidence of item functioning for three south african languages given that the country has a the analysis by the current study illustrated the south african grade 4 students’ inability to o both lower order and higher order reading skills. of the five items that were detected as displaying some level of dif, three items tested lower order skills such as finding explicitly stated information from the text or making straightforward inferences. the remaining two items tested the students’ ability to interpret and integrate information across roux et al.: investigating the differential item functioning of a pirls . . . 149 the item-fit statistics showed which items experienced overor underfit across the three languages. only five of the 13 items displayed misfit that was significant. this finding indicates that the items do not adequately discriminate between more and less able students (van staden, 2018). from the results of the item-fit statistics, dif was conducted on the flowers on the roof items completed by the south african grade 4 students. the anova indicated that the five items functioned differently for the english, afrikaans, and isizulu students. these items included problematic responses between the three languages and provided possible evidence of measurement invariance across the flowers on the roof items. to gain a better understanding of these problematic items, item curves were conducted. in terms of the dif and icc, no clear pattern was observed given that there was no universal discrimination against any one language. the translation of the text and items may have contributed to the poor performance because translation infelicities may occur between the source text and translated texts. however, as explained in the literature review, the iea drafted a comprehensive guideline detailing aspects such as the selection criteria for translators, and the aim or goal of the translations. if any changes were made, these changes had to be meticulously added to the national adaptation forms to ensure that the changes did not affect the meaning or purpose of the text. when conducting ilsas such as pirls, it is important to ensure that the item difficulty remains the same, in other words, ensuring metric equivalence of the assessment (peña, 2007). the pirls texts are developed in english, and then translated into the languages of the participating countries. in terms of the current study, flowers on the roof was provided to the participating countries in american english and then adapted into british english and translated into afrikaans and isizulu. it is important to keep in mind that the st and tt may have different typological and orthographic features. english has an opaque orthography whereas african languages such as isizulu have a transparent orthography (spaull et al., 2020). it is key that the item be at the same difficulty level across the different test languages and often, this gives rise to methodological complexities. according to fischer et al. (2018), most research surrounding ilsas focuses on pedagogic or systemic factors and not necessarily on translation issues. they contend that testing for measurement invariance is overlooked, although these differences may occur between countries due to the students’ cultural background (fischer et al., 2018). in his research, stubbe (2011) investigated how different versions of a test instrument (pirls) function when translated into a single language. he found that even though only one language, german, was used, there was measurement invariance, especially with those items with differing translations. furthermore, it was found that one version of the same test instrument was easier than the other two. this example of assessment of instrument translation highlights the importance of having metric equivalence across all assessment instruments. 150 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 conclusion the pirls literacy 2016 results paint a bleak picture of the south african grade 4 student results. this study analysed the south african grade 4 results by focusing on the flowers on the roof text. by doing so, it was possible to determine whether there was measurement invariance across the english, afrikaans, and isizulu languages. one important characteristic of ilsas such as pirls is to ensure that the test instruments are equal across different languages and cultures (cf. itc, 2017; peña, 2007). another characteristic that should be taken into consideration includes the difficulty of the question items. although this study only focused on metric equivalence, ilsas should adhere to peña’s (2007) four considerations to assist in developing test instruments that are equivalent and that are similarly understood by the source and target readers. the descriptive findings showed that, overall, the south african grade 4 students struggled with most of the flowers on the roof items. across the three languages, the majority of students were not able to provide correct answers for the items. a deeper analysis indicated that five of the 13 items displayed differential functioning. however, the findings of the rasch analysis showed that the isizulu students found item 5 easier but afrikaans and english students did not, and that english students found item 9 less difficult than did afrikaans or isizulu students. there were also items that displayed extreme inconsistency across the three languages, which did not follow the model curve. if the flowers on the roof text had been unfair in one of the three languages, the above kind of variation would not have occurred. perhaps another opportunity may include examining the translations and metric equivalence of the remaining eight african languages. there may be translation infelicities for each of these languages that could partially explain these students’ poor performance on the pirls 2016 test. one way of ensuring metric equivalence could be to develop a source language and target language glossary and word list (cf. peña, 2007); however, this exercise may not be achievable because some languages may not have this kind of corpus linguistic data available. yet, when assessments are developed for multiple languages and cultures, it could prove valuable to consider the different typologies of the languages given that word frequencies and word classes can be different (ntshangase-mtolo, 2009). references andrich, d. 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(2020). investigating the comprehension iceberg: developing empirical benchmarks for early-grade reading in agglutinating african languages. south african journal of childhood education, 10(1), article 773. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajce.v10i1.773 stubbe, t. c. (2011). how do different versions of a test instrument function in a single language? a dif analysis of the pirls 2006 german assessments. educational research and evaluation, 17(6), 465–481. https://doi.org/10.1080/13803611.2011.630560 van de vijver, f. j. r., & leung, k. (1997). methods and data analysis for cross-cultural research. sage publications. van staden, s. (2018). exploring possible effects of differential item functioning on reading achievement across language subgroups: a south african perspective. in l. d. hill & f. j. levine (eds.), global perspectives on education (pp. 9.1–9.22). routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351128421 van staden, s. (2020, april 6). international study shows where south africa’s education system needs more help. the conversation. https://theconversation.com/internationalstudy-shows-where-south-africas-education-system-needs-more-help-134448 154 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 van staden, s., combrinck, c., roux, k., tshele, m., & palane, n. m. (2019). moving beyond league table standings: how measures of opportunity to learn can inform educational quality and policy directives. south african journal of childhood education, 9(1), article 712. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajce.v9i1.712 roux et al.: investigating the differential item functioning of a pirls . . . 155 appendix 1 figure 7 below depicts the distributions of south african grade 4 students across the test languages, and includes the average scale score along with its 95 per cent confidence interval. the figure includes the 5th to 95th percentiles where the 25th to 75th percentiles comprise the middle of the students while the 5th and 95th show the extremes. figure 7 comparison of south african pirls literacy 2016 results per language (from howie et al., 2017, p. 55). this study only focused on three languages, namely, english, afrikaans, and isizulu. in terms of the variation of the mean scores, the greatest variation occurred in english and afrikaans, which indicates that these two languages have a wider range in achievement compared to isizulu, whereas isizulu presented the least variation in terms of mean scores. moreover, both english and afrikaans at the 95th percentile achieved over 500 score points, whereas isizulu obtained approximately 100 score points less (cf. howie et al., 2017). microsoft word c88 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 88, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i88a07 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x using empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying as a teaching-learning strategy to confront xenophobic attitudes in a context of higher education janet jarvis life orientation education, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa jarvisj@ukzn.ac.za. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1340-5344 ncamisile mthiyane life orientation education, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa mthiyanen1@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0965-9683 (received: 14 february 2022; accepted: 6 july 2022) abstract xenophobia poses a threat to social cohesion in south africa. it is vital that pre-service teachers engage with their beliefs and attitudes about this phenomenon, so that they can promote socially inclusive education in a way that is sustainable. in support of the march 2019 national action plan in south africa to address racism, including xenophobia, we recently undertook a small-scale research project, underpinned by the notions of diversity and inclusivity, at a higher education institution, in the school of education. in this article, we offer a methodological contribution in arguing for the efficacy of empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying as a teaching-learning strategy that contributes to transformed teaching praxis. this could provide a pathway to social inclusivity for education. this teaching-learning strategy serves a decolonial agenda in changing the way in which teaching-learning takes place. we explored various perspectives and positions with regard to the other in the interests of building a sustainable foundation for future generations to live with dignity, regardless of ethnicity. keywords: classroom praxis, empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying, social inclusivity, sustainability. xenophobia introduction we maintain that promoting meaningful, social inclusivity for education can never be achieved with a mere technicist approach to the curriculum. such an approach is limiting, reducing education to merely quantifiable measures and techniques. there is a need to go 108 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 against this grain (batchelor & sander, 2017; cochran-smith, 2004; reyes et al., 2021) by employing teaching-learning strategies that can provide for transformative classroom praxis (hargreaves & fullan, 2012; quinlan, 2014). to this end, we offer a methodological contribution by presenting empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying (erdr) as a teachinglearning strategy that contributes to “a continuous rethinking and re-contexualising [of human rights issues, in particular] to bring about newness in a dialectical manner” (hlatswayo et al., 2020, p. 3), that is potentially emancipatory. erdr is infused with mbigi’s (1997) collective fingers theory, with voice and agency given to the lived experience of the participants. in alignment with an understanding that knowledge is a social construct and that currere is a coproduced set of understandings as individuals engage with one another, creating something new and, as yet, unseen (le grange, 2014), erdr provides a teaching-learning strategy that promotes a deeper understanding of socially constructed concepts. a “deep examination of current hegemonies. . . for a reimagining [or re-storying] of how to shape the outcome” (council for higher education (che), 2017, p. 2) serves an understanding of quality higher education that is purposeful with the potential to be transformative. such transformation could begin to heal a broken society through “increasing understanding, reducing prejudice and expanding toleration” (chidester, 2008, p. 273), protecting the dignity and human rights of all peoples (gupta & vegelin, 2016). decoloniality focuses on the iniquitous balance of power around the globe, with special reference to the global north and global south, theoretically, epistemologically, and pragmatically. however, it is equally about examining prejudicial relationships within and between african continental partners (sium et al., 2012). decolonial theory suggests that the historical philosophy of colonialism is premised on a process of othering and that the polarity of difference between those who other and those who are othered has to be addressed. erdr, as a teaching-learning strategy, serves a decolonial agenda, changing the way in which teaching-learning takes place, by contributing to debates against xenophobia, including how colonial othering continues to pervade relations within and between african countries. the concept of ubuntu “calls for an ontology of co-being and coexisting” (de sousa santos, 2018, p. 10). ubuntu principles, linked with humaneness, sharing and cooperation, and the spirit of participatory humanism (chinomona & maziriri, 2015; letseka, 2014; mangena, 2012; mugumbate & nyanguru, 2013) are implemented since this strategy allows the curriculum to be shaped by all stakeholders. the participants become agents of their own learning as they engage in a way that is transdisciplinary, engaging in the space between, across, and beyond academic disciplines (mcgregor & volckmann, 2013; nicolescu 2005, 2012). they move to a place “where they become open to others’ perspectives . . . letting go of aspects of how they currently know the world” (mcgregor & volckmann, 2013, p. 62). erdr creates the opportunity for participants to explore various perspectives and positions with regard to the other, with the possibility of generating new understandings (nicolescu, 2005) that have the potential to be socially transformative. social inclusion contributes to the well-being of all people, including migrants described as those leaving their country of citizenship to stay and live in another country, for whatever reason (carnemolla et al., 2021; felix, 2016). these migrants rarely experience inclusion in broader communities. on the jarvis & mthiyane: using empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying . . . 109 contrary, their lived experience is that of social isolation. by promoting empatheticreflective-dialogical engagement, classroom praxis could well serve the united nations sustainable development goal 8 (united nations, 2012) that focuses on social inclusion. erdr has been implemented previously with groups of pre-service teachers in south africa (sa) to consider human rights issues and best practice in teaching (jarvis, 2018, 2021a, 2021b; jarvis & mthiyane, 2018, 2019; jarvis et al., 2018, 2021). in 2020, in support of the march 2019 national action plan in sa to address racism, including xenophobia, we undertook a small-scale research project, employing erdr, at a higher education institution, and, more specifically, in the school of education where pre-service teachers were given the opportunity to engage with the phenomenon of xenophobia. the phenomenon of xenophobia xenophobia is a global phenomenon fuelled by rising fundamentalisms and protections of nation-states and their borders in reaction to neo-liberal market forces ushered in by globalisation (chao et al., 2017; haslam & hollard, 2012; kinge, 2016; munro, 2017). powerful nationalistic forces are associated with this, and these, in turn, have shown themselves to be capable of reinforcing xenophobic attitudes (hjerm, 1998). such attitudes manifest themselves strongly in more economically developed countries that are able to generate more employment opportunities in attracting labour migrants from less developed countries. xenophobia, with its social, political, and economic roots that are closely intertwined, could be considered a product of the colonial project of reinforcing differences of groups of individuals based on race and so-called nationhoods (essentialist nationlisms). the construct of nationhood is increasingly being challenged as the world becomes more intersected (entangled) through coerced or natural migration across previously hardened and defined boundaries/borders (calhoun,1993). xenophobia has been defined as a strong dislike, prejudice against, or fear of people from other countries (hornby, 2005). attitudes, prejudices, and behaviours that exclude individuals based on perceptions and stereotyping lead to discrimination (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco), 2017). xenophobia is an attitudinal orientation of great hostility against those who are not locals, and they are, accordingly, often prey to victimisation (petkou, 2006). the tendency exists for people to categorize those similar to them as the ingroup and people different to them as the outgroup. hostility towards the latter is inevitable since the outgroup is viewed as a threat (hogg & vaughan, 2002). on the level of a national collective, categorisation of ingroups and outgroups plays a major role in the perpetuation of xenophobia. ingroup members (the locals) consider migrants as less than themselves and react negatively towards them during encounters. the african continent has not been spared, with xenophobic sentiments rife in countries including botswana, ghana, nigeria, zimbabwe, mozambique, and tanzania. almost without exception, xenophobic incidents and attacks have been fuelled by hatred of foreign 110 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 africans, called amakwerekwere (kinge, 2016). this term originated in sa and is now used in other african countries in referring disparagingly to migrants who are believed to pose a threat to the wellbeing of locals (kinge, 2016; ngwane, 2016). according to the citizens rights in africa initiative of 2009 (cited in misago et al., 2015), the racial segregation and isolation under apartheid created fertile ground for xenophobia by creating “racialised notions of identity and worth, which encouraged black south africans to see themselves not only as inferior to whites, but also as separate from the rest of the continent” (p. 93). in addition, separation and compartmentalisation of various populations was encouraged as a means of governance and this discouraged integration or contact between groups. apartheid was premised on the notion of difference, stressing the difference between white and black, teaching black people that they were the other and, therefore, teaching whites to other black people. the spate of xenophobia in south africa (post-apartheid) has been variously regarded as the dark side of democracy, a new pathology, apartheid vertigo and substantiation of the demonic nature of the society (bonga, 2021; crush & ramachandran, 2014). xenophobia in the south african context tends to equate those they see as foreigners with african migrants, not with european or american immigrants. sium et al. (2012, p. iii) have spoken of this as complicity with the political legacy of colonialism in the way in which difference and separation continue to be manifested both in sa and globally. the scapegoating hypothesis of xenophobia states that the foreigner is used as a scapegoat, to be blamed for many of the country’s socio-economic ills, and, thereby, becoming a target for hostility and violence (amisi et al., 2011; maringe et al., 2017; misago, 2011; peberdy & crush, 1998). the very term foreigner indicates othering. the pew research poll of 2018 (tamir & budiman, 2019) showed that 62% of south africans viewed migrants as a burden on society in their taking jobs and social benefits, and they were considered to be more responsible for crime than other groups. during the recent covid-19 pandemic and especially during harsh lockdown measures, attitudes of discrimination, dislike, and hatred became increasingly evident. there are several accounts of xenophobic attacks in sa along with the appearance of anti-migrant slogans such as phansi ngama kwerekwere (down with foreigners). there are two categories of migrants, namely illegal immigrants (referring to migrants who do not have the authorisation of the south african authorities) and legal immigrants (migrants who are in possession of a valid work visa). the constitution of the republic of sa (republic of sa, 1996) protects the rights of all people in sa, including immigrants. everyone in the country is entitled to human rights by virtue of being human. in order to work in sa, immigrants require a valid work visa and employers are required to ensure that they do not employ illegal immigrants. notwithstanding the systemic roots of xenophobia and mindful of underlying xenophobic attitudes at the higher education institute (hei) where this small-scale research project took place, we sought, in the interests of social inclusivity, to address this human rights issue by engaging pre-service teachers in a consideration of their own position with regard to migrants and the way in which they are treated by south africans. the premise driving this research is jarvis & mthiyane: using empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying . . . 111 that a society free of xenophobia will not be possible if generations are not educated to become agents of inclusion and conscious of living in harmony with people who do not belong to the same group. building an understanding of what it means to be inclusive of migrants could, possibly, build a pathway to connected communities and opportunities to foster a sense of belonging, and social inclusivity that is sustainable (carnemolla et al., 2021). theoretical framework against this theoretical analysis of the origins and consequences of xenophobia and, in particular, the historical philosophy of colonialism that is premised on othering, intergroup perception theory provides a framework for understanding the perceptions, causes, and consequences of the social categorisation that creates conflict (kawakami et al., 2017). categorisation of the ingroup and the outgroup, or outsiders, is dependent on identifying and emphasising similarities and differences between groups of people (hogg & vaughan, 2002). when people are categorized into either the ingroup or the outgroup, this dramatically influences identification, stereotyping, intergroup conflict, and group relations (kawakami et al., 2017). locals are regarded as us and migrants as them. intergroup perception theory shows how the attitudes associated with this categorisation can manifest as xenophobia. the way in which people perceive themselves is determined by how they understand, perceive, and interact with others in a social environment (kawakami et al., 2017). intergroup contact theory speaks to social cohesion enhanced by tolerance, mutual respect, acceptance, and understanding of each group. graf and paolini (2016) advocate for the establishment of common ground between the ingroups and outgroups. for this to take place preconceived ideas need to be revisited. such preconceptions by locals include the notion that migrants are criminals, and that their aim is to steal jobs and positions that rightfully belong to the locals (otu, 2017). migrants are then targeted and abused, often violently, in a quest to protect what locals think belongs to them (kawakami, et al., 2017). methodology we undertook the research within a feminist research paradigm adopting narrative inquiry (clandinin, 2013; craig, 2011) as the research approach. forty pre-service teachers in social sciences in education honours registered for the module called perspectives in social sciences education, at a south african hei agreed to participate in this study. it so happened that all the participants were black african, south african citizens. as researchers, we positioned ourselves as facilitators guiding the research process. given covid-19, engagement took place via zoom and whatsapp and written narratives were submitted via email. the ethical protocols of the hei were followed including our receiving consent from each of the participants, who also consented to our recording the zoom sessions. limitations in this study became apparent when only 26 participants were able to engage via zoom because of inadequate network coverage, load shedding, or lack of data. another limitation is that the participants all belong to one ethnic group and the findings could well have been 112 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 different had they come from various ethnic groups and had included migrants. possible future research could consider this. erdr provided the opportunity to re-search in a way that decolonises interviews as typically western methods of data collection (tuhiwai smith, 2012). rather, an opportunity was created for seeking to engage in a re-search context that was safe. participants met in a figuratively safe space, both in terms of dignity and intellect (callan, 2016). callan (2016) defined dignity safe as being free from any reasonable anxiety that others will treat one as inferior; this means that all contributions have legitimacy. this was also a brave space (arao & clemens, 2013) since participants were required to challenge previously held positions, often rooted in deep-seated prejudices, with regard to migrants. participants took responsibility for the generation of new knowledges and by so doing, become agents of their own learning. this disruptive learning (mills, 1997), encouraging the participants to identify and challenge assumptions, relies on the participants’ participation, with their being honest with themselves as they confront prejudices and stereotypes. if there had been migrants in the group, this learning may well have been more challenging. erdr, with five levels of engagement, provided the framework for these pre-service teachers to explore their self-dialogue with regard to their understandings and lived experiences of xenophobia. a visual participatory method was introduced in the interests of generating, interpreting, and communicating knowledge (morris & parish, 2022), with the intention of shedding light on the political, cultural, and ethical dynamics of xenophobia in sa. we acknowledge that the video clips (level 1) might impose a particular way of thinking about xenophobia, either presenting stakeholders as demonised or as heroic (see bagnoli, 2009). participants may also have seen themselves at the centre of a relational world with no opportunity to express an individual perspective. however, the use of collage (level 3) afforded an opportunity to deconstruct the work of representation and to explore stereotypical responses. level 1 hermans’s dialogical-self theory provides a link between self and society (hermans, 2011; hermans & hermans-konopka, 2010) advocating that the dialogical self is multi-voiced, private but also collective, and that individuals live not only in external spaces, but also in the internal space of their society-of-mind. the dialogical self in action (hermans & dimaggio, 2007) takes place when the individual, engaged in self-dialogue about xenophobic attitudes, to an internal audience in their society-of-mind, considers their own positionality, and possibly adopts a counter-position to a dominant narrative such as that of othering. this counter-position assists them to move from one position to another in their society-of-mind as a way of gaining an understanding about themselves in relation to the world (hermans & hermans-konopka, 2010); in this case, in relation to migrants and the dominant narrative of xenophobia. the participants were shown three video clips each depicting xenophobic attacks in sa. in the first migrants are blamed for stealing jobs, committing crime, promoting prostitution, and jarvis & mthiyane: using empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying . . . 113 engaging in illegal narcotics trade. the overriding sentiment expressed in this clip is that the migrants should be punished. the second clip captures scenes of xenophobic violence with migrants being aggressively threatened and told to go back to their countries. there is the possibility that watching these clips could have predisposed students to reinforce their own xenophobic attitudes. however, the third clip explores the notion of possibly learning from and working together collaboratively with skilled migrants. the participants were then asked to consider the following in their self-dialogue to an internal audience: their understanding of the phenomenon of xenophobia; how they feel about migrants living in sa; their possible lived experience of xenophobic attitudes; and their considered position with regard to xenophobia. by considering these questions participants would be required to think about the phenomenon of xenophobia and why african migrants are othered and what the consequences are for these people. they would be required to reflect on their own possible xenophobic attitudes. level 2 the participants were asked to capture their self-dialogue (level 1) in the form of a written self-narrative. this written form of their dialogical self in action can play a central role in fragmenting master narratives (spry, 2001). scholars have emphasised the importance of individual agency that is borne of being able to tell your own story (mcadams, 2011; riessman, 2008). as participants construct their own meaning, translating their self-dialogue into their written narrative, the potential exists for them to create an alternative to a dominant narrative (tsang, 2000), such as that of xenophobia. as participants author themselves in self-narration they are engaged in a “dialogic experience that encompasses the multitude of discourses that shape life experiences” (white, 2012, p. 30) and the potential exists for them to reclaim themselves by identifying their own positionality regarding relation to othering and then employ agency to reposition themselves (nuttall, 2009; white, 2012). level 3 visual methods can articulate written self-narratives in a way that can shed light on participants’ understanding and positionality with regard to the political, cultural, and ethical dynamics of xenophobia in sa since images can travel in ways that words cannot (glaw et al., 2017, morris & parish, 2022). meaning is constituted by representation, by what is present, what is absent, and what is different (bagnoli, 2009). when dialoguing about sensitive and possibly emotive issues, such as xenophobia, that might be difficult to articulate textually or verbally, using a visual representation, namely, a collage, served to provide the participants with the opportunity to consider their position regarding relation to their other (in this case, migrants) and to synthesise and contextualise their responses (pink et al., 2011; winton, 2016). they could exercise agency by possibly dis-identifying with and adopting a counter-position to the master/popular narrative with regard to xenophobia. the participants took control of their construction of these collages. particular attention was paid to what they made visible and also to what was absent. 114 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 some participants constructed hard copy collages while others did so digitally. the collages were shared via zoom and participants were equipped with the skills required to scan and save hard copy collages and taught how to share their screens. for the most part this was successful, given the limitations referred to previously. in a community in dialogue (cid) (level 4) participants would be able to speak to these visual representations to an external audience. level 4 a cid, referred to by chilisa (2012, p. 212) as a “talking [circle]” promoted the opportunity for reciprocal exchanges based on tolerant and empathetic understanding. this approach refers to the capacity to understand and respond to one another with an increased awareness of the other person’s position and concerns, and recognising that these matter (barton & garvis, 2019). the participants met online, via zoom, to share their self-narratives expressed through collage (level 3). dialogue reflected different positionalities in response to, inter alia, understandings of the root cause of xenophobic violence in sa and the consequences of an exclusionary xenophobic attitude. participants were given the opportunity at the end of the cid to listen to the testimony of a rwandan refugee who fled the genocide in his country after losing seventeen family members, and who now resides in sa. this powerful disrupting testimony brought the lived experience of a migrant who is now a legal immigrant into the virtual classroom space. while in levels 1–3 the opportunity was afforded to consciously challenge othering, this testimony was pivotal in redirecting the trajectory of the possible reinforcement of othering. this disruption, moving the participants out of their comfort zones (see mills, 1997), was key to leveraging re-storying of previously held narratives of othering. level 5 a community for transformation (cft) followed the cid with the aim of reflecting on erdr as a teaching-learning strategy for transformed teaching praxis. in particular, participants were asked to consider the possible value that erdr could add to lessons focusing on human rights issues, such as xenophobia, with the aim of promoting social inclusivity that is sustainable. the participants were encouraged to be reflective, thinking back on their own engagement in erdr, each step of the process, and possible transformation in their own attitudes. they were asked individually to commit their reflections in a written piece for submission and, in particular, to write about possible restorying that took the place of their previously held xenophobic attitudes. findings and discussion the findings are drawn from the cid (level 4) and from the cft (level 5), and are presented according to three themes: ingroup and outgroup; efficacy of erdr; and erdr for transformed classroom praxis. pseudonyms are used throughout in the interests of anonymity. jarvis & mthiyane: using empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying . . . 115 while the term migrant has been used throughout this article, some participants used the othering term, foreigner and this is retained in their verbatim quotations. ingroup and outgroup it became clear that the participants had a good understanding of what xenophobia is, with several having had lived experiences of holding xenophobic attitudes towards migrants. one of the participants, bongani, recounted what happened to his friend’s father, a legal immigrant. my friend’s father had opened a clothing shop in town and mangosuthu buthelezi had announced that illegal migrants should go back to their respective countries. the next few days south african citizens organized a violent march. they raided his shop and took all his stock, he was left with no goods sell. he had lost money to feed his family. he went on to explain the devastation this caused his friend and the family, emphasising that it is not only illegal migrants that are subjected to xenophobic violence. lindo had a similar experience in 2019 when country-wide, violent xenophobic attacks were prevalent. some people in my area took it into their own hands to break in and demolish migrants’ shops and stole stock and gave them a beating claiming that they were taking away opportunities for them to make money. he went on to say that while he was against this behaviour, there were many members in the community who were very supportive thereof. this anti-migrant sentiment was endorsed by andile, thabile, and zanele. andile stated his position clearly when he said, i feel like they are over populating our country, increasing the percentages of poverty and unemployment. as much as we are one as africans, but i feel intimidated when i get to a particular work place with my qualification and get to be told that the vacancy has been filled by a migrant and i [become one of] the large number of unemployed graduates in sa. according to thabile, [m]ost of them [migrants] are here in sa illegally, and others, their passports being expired. they have occupied most buildings of an area, selling drugs, making sa’s women prostitutes. killings and crime rate reportedly have increased . . . zanele stated that she is not happy with migrants living in sa. she contended that 116 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 since the arrival of migrants, unemployment rate increased in our communities. local employers, particular indians, are no longer interested in employing local south africans but are employing migrants because they are cheap to hire. she specifically blamed nigerians for the perceived increase in drug peddling and usage and contended that “they [the nigerians] are using our young girls to work for them in their clubs as prostitutes.” amanda concurred, citing an increase in human trafficking. she did concede however, that migrants can contribute to the south african economy saying that migrants are equipped with skills that us south africans do not have. they are cognitive well-developed and they can turn what we consider as trash into a product, and that can impact greatly in the south african economic development. they seem to be doing well for themselves because of the long hours they put in their work. zanele also conceded that the main cause of xenophobia violence or attack in sa is that migrants are hardworking and succeeding accordingly. south africans are jealous that foreign nationals are succeeding in doing business. this ambivalence towards illegal migrants was also expressed by sabelo who said that he was raised “knowing that calling foreigners by kwerekwere [insulting] words is right” and that this influenced him to think that “foreigners deserve attacks and violation of rights.” he provided an example of a zimbabwean science teacher, in a particular south african school, who was promoted to head of the science by the school principal (a promotion for which he also had to pay said principal). this teacher was then “attacked by community members and jealous teachers who thought a foreigner not deserving of being promoted.” sabelo said he agreed with the community, and their behaviour served to entrench his xenophobic attitude towards foreigners. it became clear that the social categorisation of ingroups (locals) and outgroups (migrants) has created conflict (kawakami et al., 2017; hogg & vaughan, 2002). the use of language including us and them, and the other, entrenches this polarisation. conflict appears to be founded largely on perception, fear, and suspicion. a generalisation was made, based on specific examples, that all migrants are up to no good and that their aim is to take jobs away from locals and to promote drug abuse, prostitution, and other related criminal activities (see otu, 2017). jerome commented on the role played by social media in promoting this social categorisation that underpins xenophobic attitudes when he said, social media has a power to influence a community whether the report is valid or just a propaganda. this then creates an image or conclusion about what is being said in a report, video, or magazine about foreigners. i have seen many videos circulating on social media where foreigners being involved on many evil acts . . . this has then led me not trusting foreigners anymore, especially african foreigners. jarvis & mthiyane: using empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying . . . 117 amanda concurred but added that social media seldom, if ever, records any positive contribution made to south african society by migrants. she said that [t]he media always projects us with what we seek for, to feed our mind set. we always seeking someone to blame with regards the challenges we face and not own up to our own mistakes. for example, the media will show us the drugs trafficked by a nigerian to south african borders but will not show you the number of foreign doctors who [save] lives in our hospitals and clinics. the participants noted that one of the video clips in particular, shown at the beginning of the erdr process, did the same. however, the third clip offered a different perspective that drew their attention. thabo made an interesting contribution to the discussion when he said that he faced xenophobia in what he referred to as “a cultural manner.” he explained, i did not experience it from other countries but within the boundaries of my country. i have travelled to other provinces where they spoke different language and cultural norms were different from where i came from. some of the people would laugh at me when i ask questions in middle language (english) they would respond with their setswana language just to tease me. basically, my experience was about the differences of language and culture not to mention that i was from kwazulu-natal, which made them feel threatened in some sort way due to the propaganda that says zulu people are violent people. it would appear that it is difficult to establish common ground between perceived ingroups and outgroups, even, as in the case of thabo’s experience, when crossing provincial borders, let alone international ones (see misago, 2011). in this article, we advocate for the inclusion of empathetic-reflective-dialogical engagement with groups of people, such as the participants in this small-scale project. these engagements, infused with empathy and mutual respect, could contribute to social cohesion by unpacking xenophobic attitudes founded on perception and by establishing common ground between the ingroups and outgroups (see graf & paolini, 2016). efficacy of erdr in the cft, participants reflected that they are far more aware of their self-dialogue (level 1) to an internal audience in their society-of-mind and how this determines their othering attitudes. they said that each step of the process contributed to sensitising them to the possibilities of their dialogical self in action (see hermans & dimaggio, 2007). thabo expressed the opinion that the cid provides informal sharing of information in a good condition of a space. this is a good approach when dealing with the issues such as xenophobia . . . conversation refers to negotiations and collaboration. meaning that different opinions, perspectives, 118 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 and personal experiences from different people can collaborate their understanding of who is foreign, why there are issues such as xenophobia and how can we integrate those perspectives and deal with this matter. for jabu, erdr provided me with the opportunity to empathetically search for meaning and understanding of xenophobia which are different from my own as i engaged in discussions with the whole class. bongi concurred, saying that erdr “is a good strategy. . . it allows people the ability to view the world through the lens of other people.” she was referring to the video clips that showed the violent abuse of migrants and, in particular, the clip that explored the notion of possibly learning from and working collaboratively with skilled migrants. the refugee testimony also impacted many of the participants, including bongi, dispelling, as it did, the perception that all migrants are criminals. lawrence illustrated this saying that [i]t is important to look at an issue from different perspectives. . . having looked at different sides of the story about the xenophobic attacks i have come to realise that it is not always the case that people leave the countries for engaging in illegal activities in sa. thabile, who initially displayed strong anti-migrant sentiments (see above), concluded that the empathetic-reflective approach promoted in erdr was helpful. she said that erdr takes one through the process of empathy, which is putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes and look at a situation from their point of view. it then goes on to allow one to reflect after witnessing what others have been going through, to think about what one can change so that one will not repeat the same mistakes. thabile is an example of a participant who underwent a re-storying of her previously held narrative. the same can be said for zanele who had previously presented with ambivalent feelings towards migrants (see above). a few weeks after the conclusion of the module, she sent one of the researchers an email saying that she had, once again, listened to the audio testimony of the rwandan refugee. she said, thank you so much for opening my eyes on xenophobia. i never knew how this is so serious. i cried when am listening to this story. . . my heart just [aching]. . . this is a sad story. i so wish everyone especially south africans can hear this message. #no to xenophobia #we are all foreigners somewhere. several participants expressed the view that erdr can be transformative, promoting as it does, social inclusivity that could be sustainable. jerome said, erdr gave me a chance to hear other people’s perspective regarding xenophobia violence in sa. . . and to change how i used to understand xenophobia violence. i jarvis & mthiyane: using empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying . . . 119 used not to blame south african people when attacking foreigners. but after watching the videos and engaging with zoom discussion, i was convinced that there is no need to be xenophobic to migrants. we are all african no matter the differences we may have regarding dress code, language, and country of origin. nonhlanhla said that she found hearing the different perspectives of her peers, coming from different backgrounds, beliefs, and cultures, nothing less than inspiring. after the cft, she reflected again on her self-dialogue and how she initially positioned herself with regard to xenophobia attitudes. she concluded that participating in erdr has only made my feelings and beliefs about this human rights issue stronger. . . i still stand firmly and believe that no one should be living in fear because they chose to uplift themselves, no matter which part of the world you [are] in . . . erdr for transformed classroom praxis thabile observed that learners who are exposed to violent xenophobic attacks are taught that it [is] okay to beat people up and vandalize resources if you want to be heard . . . the children take what they see outside of school inside the classroom. you would find them bullying and being racist towards the foreigners and sometimes towards other learners that are south african, but from a different ethnic group. in response to this observation, zoleka commented, in particular, on the value of using erdr as a teaching-learning strategy in the classroom, for transformative teaching praxis. she said that erdr. . . as a strategy to engage with issues such as xenophobia could be of a high value because it will allow teachers to mediate or facilitate knowledge and skills concerning human rights in education. thabo expressed the opinion that erdr, employed in the classroom, “could identify challenges and possibilities for constructive engagement that can result in new dynamics of understanding of xenophobia and that can as well lead to [transformatory] action.” sandi concluded that [t]he curriculum needs to be adjusted [to include] strategies such as empatheticreflective-dialogical re-storying as a teaching and learning strategy as it gives learners and teachers an opportunity for self-introspection and thereafter makes changes to initial myths and perceptions. empathetic-reflective-dialogical re-storying would be effective in the classroom as daily, teachers deal with learners from a diverse cultural background . . . [and] sensitive issues in human rights may make learners shy away from the topic or display hostility against other learners in the classroom. through the various levels in this teaching-learning strategy, the experience of learning becomes more enriched. 120 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 conclusion in this article, we have attempted to provide a theoretical basis for the phenomenon of xenophobia and, in particular, the colonial legacy of othering that extends to migrants from africa. we have offered a methodological approach to considering xenophobic attitudes, as was employed with pre-service teaching in an african hei. this teaching-learning strategy provided the framework for participants to engage dialogically, empathetically, and reflectively in a space in which, following ipgrave (2016), they were open to the possibility of learning from the other. erdr provided the opportunity for the participants to think critically about social categorisation, to discuss this, and begin the process of deconstructing it. they became empowered agents of change. there was evidence of re-storying of previous narratives of othering and the co-production of new knowledges occurred as new interpretations of perceptions were applied in the light of clarified, or new, understandings (see foote, 2015; slabon et al., 2014; thomas & stornaiuolo, 2016). we believe that while these participants engaged in erdr they experienced teaching against the grain (cochran-smith, 2004; reyes et al., 2021) and the possibilities to move from “technical educators to teacher leaders and educational advocates” (batchelor & sander, 2017, p. 3). such transformed teaching praxis could possibly provide a pathway for education that is socially inclusive and sustainable. references amisi, b., bond, p., cele, n., & ngwane, t. 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(2016). using photography as a creative, collaborative research tool. the qualitative report, 21(2), 428449. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2016.2240 microsoft word b91 full issue.docx journal of education, 2023 issue 91, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i91a02 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x analysing the curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values, and its conceptualisation for integration into life sciences teaching in south african schools eyitayo julius ajayi wits school of education division of science & technology, faculty of humanities, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa eyitayo.ajayi@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1697-5016 (received: 1 july 2022; accepted: 12 june 2023) abstract value(s) is a conceptualisation, and it is abstract because it does not have physical presence. the national curriculum statement (ncs) grades r–12 is a postapartheid values-driven policy statement currently used for teaching and learning in south african schools. from the start of democracy, curricular documents used in south africa have been built on certain fundamental values that inspired the nation’s constitution. however, against the backdrop of its imprecision in the policy statement, this study examined what the ncs’s philosophy of equipping learners with values connotes, and how it could be conceptualised for integration into classroom teaching of life sciences concepts. the qualitative study was underpinned by the cultural-historical activity theory as theoretical framework. textual data in form of words, phrases, sentences, excerpts, quotations, or entire passages from policy documents were analysed using the bowen (2009) approach to document analysis. the manifesto on values, education, and democracy (department of education, 2001) provided the framework for deductive and inductive approaches to analysis. the study offers explanation on how equipping learners with values can be understood and interpreted in terms of nurturing, seeding, instilling, or inculcating south african constitutional values in learners and awareness pertaining to strategies that can be used to accomplish this are established. how the curriculum philosophy can be conceptualised for integration into classroom teaching of life sciences concepts is also proposed. keywords: curriculum philosophy, equipping learners with values, values (noun), cultural historical activity theory (chat), manifesto on values, education and democracy 16 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 introduction the national curriculum statement grades r–12 serves the purposes of: equipping learners, irrespective of their socio-economic background, race, gender, physical ability or intellectual ability, with the knowledge, skills and values necessary for selffulfillment, and meaning for participation in society as citizens of a free country. (department of basic education [dbe], 2011a, p. 4) the excerpt above conveys an important aspect of the general aims of the national curriculum statement (ncs) grades r–12, which is a postapartheid values-driven policy statement currently used for teaching and learning in south african schools. against the backdrop of its imprecision in the ncs, this study examined what the policy statement’s philosophy of equipping learners with values connotes, and how it could be conceptualised for classroom teaching of life sciences concepts. this study becomes pertinent considering that teachers, among others, have been blamed for not “convey[ing] a positive value system to learners—thus perpetuating the problem of a society in decline” (anass & louw, 2011, p. 199). hence, how a positive value system could be conveyed to learners through classroom teaching of life sciences formed a premise upon which the study was established. although an ambiguous term (maringe & prew, 2014), curriculum has been variously defined (maringe & prew, 2014; sherin & drake, 2009; young, 2013). unesco (2017) described curriculum as a systematic and intended packaging of competencies (i.e., knowledge, skills and attitudes that are underpinned by values) that learners should acquire through organized learning experiences both in formal and non-formal settings. (p. 12) in this regard, and from the start of democracy, curricular documents used in south africa have been built on certain fundamental values that inspired the nation’s democratic constitution (dbe, 2011a). well-established in this constitution are 10 fundamental (constitutional) values, namely, democracy, social justice and equity, equality, non-racism and non-sexism, ubuntu (human dignity), open society, accountability, rule of law, respect, and reconciliation (department of education [doe], 2001; dube, 2020). furthermore, these values form the basis of the multiracial republic of south africa (rsa) and are thus fundamental to the survival of its postapartheid democratic structure. moreover, the values are well delineated in the manifesto on values, education and democracy (mved; doe, 2001), another values-driven educational document in the country. congruent with this, values indicate the significance or worth of something (kostrova, 2018; wilson & dufrene, 2009; bonow & follette, 2009). values are “concepts and not facts . . . [they] are relative and not understandable till they become objective” (dehghani et al., 2011, p. 3079). values have also been reported to impact human behaviours, choices, and decisions (gamage et al., 2021; kostrova, 2018; sagiv & roccas, 2021). correspondingly, the ncs’s curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values is “necessary for self-fulfillment, and [their] meaningful participation in society as citizens of a free country” (dbe, 2011a, p. 4). ajayi: analysing the curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values . . . 17 however, challenges related to curriculum are still on the front burner of education in south africa (dbe, 2018). according to the south african department of education (dbe, 2011c), school curriculum presents one of the fundamental barriers to learning. critical features of curriculum normally arise during curriculum development and design (priestley & philippou, 2019; rizvi & lingard, 2009), and can result in curriculum complexities (alexander & hjortsø, 2019; priestley & philippou, 2019). moreover, such features comprise major philosophical underpinnings as noted, for example, in a science curriculum (hodson, 1985; levinson, 2018). additionally, these philosophical underpinnings are based on particular epistemological views (barnett, 2000). consequently, curricula are designed and developed with a philosophical approach whose underpinnings certain scholars have referred to as curriculum philosophy (bialystok, 2017). the ncs’s equipping of learners with values is considered one of such philosophies that need to be unpacked. maringe (2014) has argued that educators and other stakeholders within the educational context of south africa may have been given the opportunity to freely interpret the curriculum. however, coherent interpretation of curricula, especially with respect to certain philosophies or critical features is pertinent to achieving educational outcomes. rhodes and roux (2004) stated that not only should teachers be cognisant of the values prevalent in a curriculum, they need to facilitate these in their teaching in the classroom. consequently, an understanding of what equipping learners with values connotes is germane to conceptualising how values can be appropriately incorporated into the classroom teaching of life sciences concepts (rhodes & roux, 2004). thus, the motivation for this study resulted from the ambiguity of the ncs regarding its curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values during classroom teaching. the study was guided by the following research questions: in line with its general aims, • what does the ncs’s curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values connote? • how can the curriculum philosophy be conceptualised for integration into classroom teaching of life sciences concepts? literature review the concept of value(s) the concept of value(s) as a social phenomenon is abstract (frese, 2015) and has an elusive nature (seewann & verwiebe, 2020). this is because value(s) does not have physical presence—it is unobservable or intangible (huitt & cain, 2005). this makes values a “conceptualization” (kluckhohn, 1951, p. 395) depending on the lens with which it is viewed. additionally, values may be in form of a noun (magendanz, 2003), for example, honesty, love, truthfulness, respect, and so forth. moreover, different uses of the concept of values portend that it influences human behaviours (eyal et al., 2009). rhodes (2003) reported that values were integrated into the eight learning areas of two curricula policy documents known as curriculum 2005 (doe, 1997) and ncs 2002 (doe, 2003) formerly 18 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 used in south africa. in relation to this, rhodes and roux (2004) acknowledged and identified factors that determine the values in a society. thus, certain parameters, which include the following, can be used to determine the values in a society: moral, aesthetic, political and legal activities, etiquette, intellectual, religious, economic, and custom (rhodes & roux, 2004). these factors determine the key words (values) that underscore the nature of societal activity, and the values-laden key words identified and described by rhodes and roux (2004) comprise religion; ideologies, ethics and morals; humanitarian, values and beliefs systems; human and social values; policies and procedures; aesthetics and norms of appreciation and culture. these values are commensurate with the 10 fundamental constitutional values mentioned above. curricular transformations in south africa as a values-driven cultural acquisition (gervedink et al., 2013), the ncs grades r–12 is ideologically and socio-politically inspired (hildebrand, 2007) arising from apartheid rule in south africa. over a period of 17 years, a number of values-driven curriculum transformations have been recorded in the country (dbe, 2011a). these began with curriculum 2005, implemented in 2000 (doe, 1997). this led to enactment of the revised ncs grades r–9 and ncs grades 10–12, 2002 (dbe, 2011b). these policy documents were reviewed in 2009. moreover, “from 2012 the two national curriculum statements, for grades r–9 and grades 10–12 respectively, are combined in a single document” (dbe, 2011a, foreword) that culminated in the development of the currently utilised ncs grades r–12. the policy statements containing the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) for senior phase (grades 7–9) natural sciences (dbe, 2011a), and further education and training (fet) phase (grades 10–12) life sciences (dbe, 2011b), were examined in this study. according to the tenets of the ncs, offering natural sciences is compulsory for all learners at the senior phase. congruent with this, the senior phase prepares learners for subject selection (including life sciences) in the fet phase during which they write their final national senior certificate examination at the end of grade 12. ultimately, natural sciences “prepare[s] learners for active participation in a democratic society that values human rights and promotes responsibility towards the environment” (dbe, 2011a, p. 9). this further underscores the focus of the current study. values-driven curricula initiatives the initiative, values, education, and democracy: report of the working group on values in education (rsa, 2000) was targeted at identifying values to be included in the south african curriculum (ferreira & schulze, 2014; rhodes & roux, 2004). this climaxed in another document, manifesto on values, education and democracy (doe, 2001), which was built on the 10 fundamental constitutional values mentioned earlier. postapartheid educational reforms tied to a values-driven curriculum also included the enactment of the guidelines for inclusive teaching and learning (dbe, 2010) and guidelines for responding to learner diversity in the classroom (dbe, 2011c). notably, these postapartheid transformations and initiatives were targeted at promoting values of and for social justice, equity, and development, among others, in a democratic south africa (chisholm, 2005). ajayi: analysing the curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values . . . 19 against the backdrop of a postapartheid democratic context, the current ncs grades r–12 was “built . . . on the values that inspired [the south african] constitution” (dbe, 2011a, foreword). a similar global trend in this direction was reported pertaining to curricula used in china (wang, 2019) and australia (australian curriculum, assessment, and reporting authority [acara], 2012). in the same vein, using the categories of values described by caravita et al. (2008), clément (2012) characterised those values espoused by science and science education curricula. these values, closely related with values enshrined in the constitution of the republic of south africa (rsa, 1996), comprise existential, ecological, aesthetic, economic, cultural, social, political, and ethical aspects. curriculum challenges in south africa as stated above, challenges related to curriculum are still on the front burner of education in south africa (dbe, 2018). moreover, concerns regarding improved classroom teaching through curricula reforms were reported in the 2008/09 annual report of the south african department of education (doe, 2009). such reforms relate to how critical features of curriculum are understood for appropriate implementation during classroom teaching (roblin et al., 2017; dbe, 2018). congruent with this, the failure to achieve desired outcomes regarding science teaching is related to science teachers’ “degree of confusion in the philosophical stance implicit in many science curricula” (hodson, 1985, p. 19). similarly, it has been argued that challenges pertaining to classroom science teaching in south african schools are traceable to an inability to comprehend critical features of the curriculum (hoadley & jansen, 2009; rhodes & roux, 2004). as previously discussed, one of the underlying philosophies of the ncs grades r–12 is that through the teaching and learning of caps-approved subjects, teachers are required to equip learners with values enshrined in the south africa constitution (rsa, 1996). further to this, jeannette and julialet (2003) have argued that, in south africa, violence, lack of discipline and high crime rate are associated with a “lack of values conducive to a healthy society and a well-disciplined school community” (p. 354). such occurrences have been reported as a global phenomenon (steyn et al., 2003), and teachers, amongst others, have been blamed for this. contingent upon that, this study suggests how classroom teaching of life sciences concepts could be used to equip learners with values (for example, those values enshrined in the south african constitution) and help to instil a positive value system in them. theoretical framework the cultural-historical activity theory (chat) was used as theoretical framework in the study. the chat, which originated from the activity theory (engeström, 1987), evolved from vygotsky’s (1978) social constructivist principles. that is, human (subject) actions or activities in relation to an aspect of the world (object) are negotiated via culturally evolved artefacts (alexander & hjortsø, 2019; mentz & de beer, 2021). in other words, human interactions are mediated by the use of cultural tools (culture and history) that impact the collective will of a people regarding the activities they engage in (alexander & hjortsø, 20 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 2019). moreover, such actions or activities usually culminate in an outcome or transformation of that aspect of the world. consequently, the chat undergirded by the activity theory: emphasizes how tools mediate action between a number of subjects, oriented by an object to produce an outcome . . . the analysis also examines the impact and influence of the surrounding community, explicit and implicit rules, and the division of labor. (alexander & hjortsø, 2019, p. 306) these tenets (my italics) comprise the nodes of the activity system (engeström, 1987). however, a major aspect of the chat is that during the symbolic-tool mediation process, there may be contradictions between the nodes in an activity system (alexander & hjortsø, 2019). barab et al. (2002) described contradictions as an anomaly that exists within and among elements, different activities, or between various formative stages of a single activity. also, this usually creates problems or challenges within the activity system (kuutti, 1996). correspondingly, the contradictions impede efficient implementation and thus need to be addressed by reexamining and reevaluating each tenet of the activity system (alexander & hjortsø, 2019). these authors stated that contradictions could assist in recognising challenges that emerge in the process of curriculum development. thus, the chat provides the study with a framework for “linking micro-level analysis of the human interaction with macro-level processes in its environment and draws on two perspectives relevant to the process of curriculum development: systems thinking and social constructivism” (alexander & hjortsø, 2019, p. 305). therefore, tenets of the chat are used to foreground the cultural-historical perspective of curriculum development (or reforms) that culminated in the ncs grades r–12. i consider that one of the ways in which the reform was expressed is through the curriculum’s philosophy of equipping learners with values. furthermore, the curriculum reform took place within the activity system of an educational context located in a larger south african sociocultural milieu. considering that knowledge and context are inseparable (batiibwe, 2019), learning about curricula ambiguities requires the construction of considerable knowledge in the same context in which the knowledge will be used (mishra & koehler, 2006). figure 1 below indicates a proposed framework by which the chat is used to analyse the ncs’s curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values. the figure illustrates the tenets and nodes pertaining to their relationships with briefs of their specific content in relation to the subject matter of focus in the study. ajayi: analysing the curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values . . . 21 figure 1 proposed framework by which the chat was used to analyse the ncs’s curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values, based on the 2nd generation of activity theory by engeström (1987) in figure 1, all events surrounding both the preand post-colonial and apartheid, but now democratic context of south africa, form the bedrock of the cultural-historical aspect of the chat. these events are all embedded within the activity system of south africa. however, the postapartheid democratic constitution represents the now fundamental symbolic-tool mediator (vygotsky, 1978) guiding all activities within the cultural milieu of south africa. the environment of these activities is analysed in terms of the major influence or forces of a post-colonial and apartheid democratic context within which such activities now take place. thus, the above values-driven constitution, as a cultural acquisition or artefact, is a cultural object found within the south african socio-cultural context but employed adaptively, depending on the social activities being engaged in (hennig & kirova, 2012). moreover, the constitution of south africa serves as a “source of life” for other policy documents such as the ncs and the mved. as previously explained, these policy documents are built on the values that inspired the constitution. in particular, the constitution’s bill of rights (rsa, 1996) underscores the 10 fundamental values of democracy, social justice and equity, equality, non-racism and non-sexism, ubuntu (human dignity), open society, accountability (responsibility), rule of law, respect, and reconciliation (mentioned previously) enshrined in the constitution. these values underpin the ncs’s curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values. the above-mentioned policy documents are cultural tools available within the larger community of a postapartheid south africa and the microcosm of an educational context. in this case, such tools particularly provide guidelines for teachers and other stakeholders such as principals, subject *constitution of the rsa (act of 1996) bill of rights *curriculum transformations c2005 rcns ncs ncs grades r–12 *mved *guidelines outcomes *ncs, grades r–12 (curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values during classroom science teaching) *teachers *school teachers *community of the roles of: *teachers (educators) *principals *subject advisors *administrators *school *governors *families *learners’ selffulfillment and meaningful participation in society as citizens of a free country (rsa) *postapartheid rsa curriculum developers schools school teachers (educators) families society *implicit & explicit classroom rules school rules administrative regulations +ncs (section 1.3b: purpose of the curriculum equip learners with values 22 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 advisors, administrators, school governors, and other personnel within the educational community in the country. in essence, the documents foreground “rules” upon which such a community is established. the community (context) considered in the activity system in this study has to do with schools in a postapartheid south africa. the idea of context is an essential factor to the chat, and was considered when employing it as a theoretical framework for this study. this is because a snag in curriculum change research has been identified as failure to fully analyse the context, with only a sketchy and shallow conception of it (hargreaves, 2005). this gap has been avoided in this study as the cultural-historical context of south africa within which curricula changes are experienced is well defined. moreover, the subject is the teacher who, as a facilitator or activator of classroom teaching (science teaching to be specific) is the end user or operator of the curriculum in the classroom. to achieve educational outcomes and goals, subjects depend on the tools, which are produced through transformation or reform processes. furthermore, the subjects (life sciences teachers, in this study) do not work alone but within a community of teachers (of other subjects). more importantly, each of the stakeholders within the community has differentiated responsibilities and roles to perform (division of labour). these divisions, according to alexander and hjortsø, can “run horizontally with tasks spread across members of equal status in the community, and vertically where tasks are distributed up and down divisions of power” (2019, p. 306). it is only through the use of tools directed towards an object, that the subject will produce expected outcomes. in this study, the object relates to the ncs policy statement and, specifically, the curriculum philosophy of “equipping learners with . . . values” as requested by the document (dbe, 2011a, p. 4). and, the outcome pertains to the values “necessary for [learners’] self-fulfillment, and meaningful participation in society as citizens of a free country” (dbe, 2011a, p. 4). thus, in proposing the chat framework, the context of the study is to fully understand the above value-driven object (curriculum philosophy), and how it can be conceptualised for integration into classroom life science teaching in the educational context of postapartheid south africa. further, the contradiction (problem/challenge), as earlier explained, associated with the activity system in our proposed chat framework relates to the imprecision of the ncs’s curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values. research methods qualitative research design as a qualitative research study, i explored a systematic inquiry into questions arising from people’s perspectives and meanings attached to certain vital aspects of a social phenomenon (hammarberg, et al., 2016). hence, i searched for descriptions in words (texts) or any forms of description in policy documents that could assist in answering the research questions. ajayi: analysing the curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values . . . 23 data collection bowen’s (2009) approach to document analysis (or document review, dalglish et al., 2020) was employed in the study. bowen (2009) stated that document analysis involves an “iterative process of . . . skimming (superficial examination), reading (thorough examination), and interpretation [combining] . . . elements of content analysis and thematic analysis” (p. 32). the following policy documents were selected for document analysis because that they contained pertinent information that could assist to achieve the research aims of the study: two ncs grades r–12 policy statements, one comprising caps for senior phase natural sciences (dbe, 2011a) and the other comprising caps for fet life sciences (dbe, 2011b). by skimming and reading, textual data in form of words, excerpts, quotations, or entire passages were extracted from the above policy documents (bowen, 2009). moreover, topics related to life sciences were randomly selected from the policy statements (section 3 in both documents), and they supplied textual data from which values infused in scientific content and concepts were identified (and characterised). an adaptation of the grids used for description of values suggested by rhodes and rouxs (2004) and caravita et al. (2008) guided how the values incorporated into the topics were characterised. further, the mved (doe, 2001) provided a framework by which i resolved how the characterised values corresponded with the 10 fundamental values enshrined in the constitution of south africa. the topics randomly selected were used to propose how the curriculum philosophy could be conceptualised for its integration into classroom teaching of life sciences. the processes of superficial and thorough examination of documents were repeated throughout the document analysis process. i familiarised myself with the textual data collected through reading and rereading personally before engaging in general discussions among colleagues to share notes. this enhanced data immersion (green et al., 2007). data immersion strengthened overall meaning making of data and assisted in coding and category construction (bowen, 2009). the coding process produced substantive categories and these interlinked data collection and interpretation (charmaz, 2006). this reduced the whole pile of data into “small chunks of meaning” (maguire & delahunt, 2017, p. 3355). coding underscored the element of content analysis while the “authenticity criteria” (guba & lincoln, 2001, p. 7) underlined that research quality and rigor were ensured. data analysis content analysis involves “organising information into categories related to the central questions of the research” (bowen, 2009, p. 32). therefore, values characterised from the content and concepts inherent in the topics selected were categorised accordingly. through thematic analysis, patterns within the data portraying emerging themes were recognised. i did a back-and-forth interplay with the data by carefully re-reading and reviewing the codes and categories. ultimately, a hybrid of inductive and deductive approaches to data analysis (azungah, 2018) was used for coding, category, and theme development (fereday & muircochrane, 2006). these approaches were particularly employed to propose how the 24 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 curriculum philosophy could be conceptualised for integration into classroom teaching of life sciences (i.e. answering research question 2). figure 2 below shows an example of the processes involved in the hybrid of inductive and deductive approaches to data analysis using a topic approved in the caps for natural sciences. by these processes, themes were developed through interpretations made from the raw data and using the mved as a framework. my experience as a life sciences teacher for more than two decades enhanced my interpretations. figure 2 processes involved in the hybrid of inductive and deductive approaches to data analysis in the study (author’s design) topic: the concept of the biosphere (biosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere); requirements for sustaining life inductive process *detailed reading of data in form of content and concepts of life sciences topics. *codes are assigned for values incorporated into content and concepts. deductive process: organising framework comprising of themes for the coding process (i.e. deducing how coded values could be incorporated into classroom teaching. codes: *ecological—related to natural systems, biodiversity and environment. *existential—value assigned to the quality of life, to a person and to life itself. theme: how values can be conceptualised for integration into classroom life sciences teaching. existential: the biosphere represents a space for all living things. hence, the existence (or being) of all forms of life is facilitated by the spaces provided by the biosphere. that is, the being of all forms of life is dependent on the niche which each occupies in the different aspects of the biosphere (lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere). in essence, the topic of biosphere is infused with existential value, which underscores all the constitutional values. in other words, without being or existence, all the constitutional values cannot be espoused. ajayi: analysing the curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values . . . 25 results the results are discussed in the following order: theme 1 presents my findings on what the curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values connotes, theme 2 highlights the mved’s strategies for instilling democratic values in young south africans in the learning environment, and in theme 3, using the values characterised from the selected topics, and in consonance with the 10 constitutional values described by the mved, i indicate a proposal on how the curriculum philosophy could be conceptualised for integration into classroom teaching of life sciences concepts. theme 1: what the curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values connotes the excerpts below, derived from the mved (doe, 2001), provide clues that suggest how the curriculum philosophy could be better understood and interpreted. excerpt 1 (doe, 2001, p. 3) inculcating a sense of values at school is intended to help young people achieve higher levels of moral judgement. excerpt 2 (doe, 2001, p. 3) we also believe that education does not exist simply to serve the market, but to serve society, and that means instilling in pupils and students a broad sense of values that can emerge only from a balanced exposure to the humanities as well as the sciences. excerpt 3 (doe, 2001, p. 7) [constitutional values] are explored in a way that suggests how the constitution can be taught, as part of the curriculum, and brought to life in the classroom. excerpt 4 (doe, 2001, p. 3) the manifesto outlines sixteen strategies for instilling democratic values in young south africans in the learning environment. as a start, the literary meaning of the word “equip” was examined and, according to the cambridge dictionary (n.d.), it stipulates, “to give someone the skills needed to do a particular thing.” in this regard, findings arising from the above excerpts indicate that the mved provides clues with which to understand or interpret the curriculum philosophy. correspondingly, the excerpts above contain phrases that are related to, or provide some insight into, what the curriculum philosophy connotes. such phrases include “inculcating a sense of values at school,” “instilling in pupils and students a broad sense of values,” and “how the constitution can be taught.” 26 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 theme 2: the strategies for instilling democratic values in young south africans in the learning environment unlike the ncs, the mved suggested 16 strategies for instilling democratic or constitutional values in young south africans as conveyed below. excerpt 5 (doe, 2001, pp. 4–5) • strategy 1. nurturing a culture of communication and participation in schools. • strategy 2. role modelling: promoting commitment as well as competence among educators. • strategy 3. ensuring that every south african is able to read, write, count and think. • strategy 4. infusing the classroom with a culture if human rights. • strategy 5. making arts and culture part of the curriculum. • strategy 6. putting history back into the curriculum. • strategy 7. introducing religion education into schools. • strategy 8. making multilingualism happen. • strategy 9. using sport to shape social bonds and nurture nation building at schools. • strategy 10. ensuring equal access to education. • strategy 11. promoting anti-racism in schools. • strategy 12. freeing the potential of girls as well as boys. • strategy 13. dealing with hiv/aids and nurturing a culture of sexual and social responsibility. • strategy 14. making schools safe to learn and teach and ensuring the rule of law. • strategy 15. ethics and the environment. • strategy 16. nurturing the new patriotism, or affirming our common citizenship. thus, having provided insight into what the curriculum philosophy denotes (theme 1), the mved also suggested 16 strategies for instilling democratic values in learners. this further enunciates my findings on how the mved offered explanations of what the curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values implies. to reiterate, the mved not only offered better understanding of what the philosophy stipulates but also provided suggestions on strategies to achieve it. theme 3: how the curriculum philosophy could be conceptualised for integration into classroom teaching of life sciences concepts the excerpts below provide examples using certain concepts, approved for teaching, and derived from the ncs/caps policy statements examined in the study. excerpt 6 (dbe, 2011a, p. 17) the biosphere content & concepts: the concept of the biosphere (biosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere); requirements for sustaining life. ajayi: analysing the curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values . . . 27 what values could be taught using the above concepts and explanations? 1. social justice: the topic on biosphere presents values of social justice in that it provides a space for all forms of life or all living things (organisms). these living things include plants, animals, and microorganisms. the biosphere comprises the lithosphere (soil and rock), hydrosphere (water), and atmosphere (gases). each living thing occupies and exists in any of these areas, thus indicating that the value of social justice is infused in the topic of biosphere. moreover, all the forms of life are equal in the sense that they all carry out the same life processes of nutrition (feeding), growth, reproduction, respiration (energy production), excretion, sensitivity (to the environment), and movement. consequently, the topic is integrated with the value of social justice and equity. 2. existential: as explained above, the biosphere represents a space for all living things. hence, the existence (or being) of all forms of life is facilitated by the spaces provided by the biosphere. that is, the being of all forms of life is dependent on the niche that each occupies in the different aspects of the biosphere (lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere). in essence, the topic of biosphere is infused with existential value, which underscores all the constitutional values. in other words, without being or existence, none of the constitutional values could be espoused. 3. ubuntu: given that the biosphere provides space within which all forms of life coexist, it creates interdependence among all living things because no single one is autonomous. moreover, non-living elements also impact the interdependence among all form of lives. the value of ubuntu can therefore be nurtured in learners through teaching the concept of biosphere. excerpt 7 (dbe, 2011b) support systems in animals; human skeleton—the axial skeleton and the appendicular skeleton (p. 30). diseases that affect the skeleton: rickets in children, osteoporosis, arthritis, etc. (p. 31). applications of indigenous knowledge systems e.g. traditional medicines and healers (p. 28). what constitutional values could be taught using the above concepts and explanations? 1. equality/non-discrimination: the topic is infused with this value in the sense that there is need to accord dignity to individuals who suffer from musculoskeletal-related diseases. hence, such individuals should be treated fairly and not discriminated against but given the help and assistance they need. 2. responsibility/accountability: the topic promotes a sense of responsibility towards one’s body and, specifically, the muscles, bones, ligaments, and tendons because there could be damage resulting from carelessness. for example, ensuring appropriate measures of vitamin d from the sun for kids to prevent a disease such as rickets, the consumption of calcium to reinforce bones against osteoporosis, and avoiding smoking as it might cause arthritis. 28 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 3. respect: the topic of indigenous knowledge and traditional medicine and healing espouses the value of respect for culture and indigenous knowledge systems. this is the premise upon which 11 languages are enshrined in the south african constitution. 4. democracy: in view of the above, a democratic society is feasible where there is respect for each other’s cultures (faith, beliefs, religion, language, etc.). discussions and conclusions curricula reforms are usually accompanied by “tensions and contradictions [which] often result in unintended consequences, especially when they are not carefully analysed and understood” (alexander & hjortsø, 2019, p. 302). roblin et al. (2017) stated that critical curriculum features impact teachers’ outcomes. against the backdrop of a scarcity of such studies in the literature, this study analysed policy documents to shed more light on what the ncs’s curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values connotes, in view of its vagueness regarding what the curriculum philosophy stipulates. however, together with the clarity provided in the mved (doe, 2001), the curriculum philosophy does indicate how values enshrined in the constitution of south africa could be taught as part of curriculum during classroom teaching. thus, i put forward that equipping learners with values means how learners can be taught about the fundamental values that are enshrined in the constitution of south africa (rsa, 1996). i argue that the philosophy does imply how the values promoted in the constitution can brought to life in the classroom. and that through this, learners can be inculcated, or instilled, or nurtured with a broad sense of values that may “help [them] achieve higher levels of moral judgement” (doe, 2001, p. 3). thus, the curriculum philosophy is expressed in the mved as a principle of teaching, instilling, seeding, nurturing, enriching, inculcating learners with the values enshrined in the south african constitution. moreover, awareness is promoted via the 16 strategies that the mved proposed for equipping learners with values. through use of these strategies, the curriculum philosophy requires that teachers should teach, instil, seed, nurture, enrich, and inculcate learners with south african constitutional values using the content of subjects approved in curriculum. ultimately, in response to the dearth of studies in the literature, this study proposed how the aforementioned could be conceptualised in classroom life sciences teaching. descriptions in theme 3 above suggested how the selected topics are infused with certain values. the explanations showed how the teaching of the concepts could be used to equip learners with values during classroom teaching of the life sciences topics—how equipping learners with values can be conceptualised during classroom life sciences teaching of those topics. accordingly, the life sciences concepts embedded in the topic “support systems in animals,” for example, can be taught in a manner that enables the teacher to equip learners with constitutional values such as equality, responsibility/accountability, respect, and democracy. furthermore, according to havnes (2010), human functioning is embedded in culture and history, and “cultural embeddedness implies that human action and interaction cannot be understood without including social and cultural context in the analysis” (p. 492). this ajayi: analysing the curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values . . . 29 indicates the expediency of chat in the current study in identifying historical social interactions among multiple human activities (igira & gregory, 2009), and how previous activities could influence fresh ones (yamagata-lynch, 2010). therefore, the concept of the activity system is not to only understand the embeddedness and interactions of humans within socio-cultural contexts but how they are impacted by their history and culture. thus, the chat situates the policy curriculum documents in the postapartheid educational activity system (engeström, 1987) of a larger south africa with its cultural and historical perspectives. influences of socio-cultural, historical, and political underpinnings on curriculum developments have also been reported in the literature (de wet & wolhuter, 2009). in view of the above, the issues of culture and history become essential to microand macrolevel elements of change involved in curriculum development and design (priestley & philippou, 2019; rizvi & lingard, 2009). furthermore, using the chat as a theoretical lens, alexander and hjortsø (2019) have reported that critical tensions underlie curriculum development activity. in this respect, curriculum reforms or transformations are often associated with commonalities of uncertainties and chaos (doll, 2008; priestley & philippou, 2019). such influences within the south african social milieu have been values-driven (chisholm, 2005; doe, 2001; dube, 2020; ferreira & schulze, 2014; masango & mfene, 2017; rhodes & roux, 2004). a similar trend is recorded globally (wang, 2019; acara, 2012), and there are global trends of new curricula (priestley & biesta, 2013) characterised by critical features (roblin et al., 2017). the curriculum philosophy of equipping learners with values is well stated in the ncs/caps policy statement as one of its underlying principles and stemmed from such aforementioned curricular features. ultimately, the study did not only bring awareness to this curriculum philosophy but proposed how it might be conceptualised during classroom teaching of life sciences. future research on how this could be done during classroom teaching of other subjects such as physics, chemistry, and mathematics is intended. references alexander, i. k., & hjortsø, c. n. 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(2013). overcoming the crisis in curriculum studies: a knowledge-based approach. journal of curriculum studies, 45, 2, 101–118. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2013.764505 microsoft word b87 full issue 14072022.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 87, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i87a05 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x from measuring impact to informing course design: the second design trial of the maths intensive course nicky roberts faculty of education, university of fort hare, east london, south africa nroberts@ufh.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1910-0162 jerry maseko department of childhood education, faculty of education, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa jerrym@uj.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6790-7115 (received: 27 october 2021; accepted: 5 february 2022) abstract this paper describes the changes made to the administration of assessments in the second design trial of the maths intensive course at a comprehensive university in south africa because of covid-19. the course was designed in direct response to poor attainment in the primary teacher education project’s mathematics test. building on positive findings of improved attainment evident in the first design cycle, the maths intensive course was further refined for a second cohort of students, and shifts in attainment were once again analysed. the covid-19 lockdown meant that student could not write the post-test on campus. as a result, the post-test data were not used to measure impact but, instead, were used to establish what the student teachers knew and were able to do at the end of the course. the maths intensive test framework mapped the test items to the learning outcomes for the course. facility scores revealed areas where students were capable and areas where they still required support. the assumption that students would use calculators in un-invigilated circumstances was challenged, and requires further research. these findings may be of interest to lecturers and teachers seeking to develop assessment reports that provide useable information to improve their instructional design and teaching practice. they may also be of interest to academics and training providers designing mathematics education programmes for initial teacher education or for ongoing professional development courses for teachers in primary schools. keywords: assessment reports, initial teacher education, primary/elementary education, mathematics 94 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 introduction this paper is situated within the literature on assessment—particularly assessment purposes and utility to improve teaching and learning. moloi and kanjee (2018) reported that a challenge facing south african teachers is the inadequacy of meaningful reporting and effective utilisation of evidence from assessment. they argued that meaningful reporting includes finding effective ways of converting raw data into information that can inform decision-making and explained: at classroom level, “meaningful information” refers to information that the teacher could use for determining what learners at a particular grade level know or do not know, and can or cannot do, and to develop relevant interventions to address specific learning needs of learners. (moloi & kanjee, 2018, p. 2) we contend that this observed challenge pertains to both teachers in schools and lecturers engaged in initial teacher education (ite) in universities. in ite programmes, the primary teacher education (primted) standardised assessments in mathematics and english have been used by lecturers to inform current and future course design. one of the key elements of the primted assessment work is reflection on meaningful reporting (moloi et al., 2019). such reporting is intended to provide ite lecturers and course designers with usable information relating to a particular year group in the bed mathematics courses. such information ought to describe what student teachers know and do not know, and can do or cannot do, so that lecturers and course designers are able use this information to develop relevant interventions that address specific learning needs of their students. poor attainment in mathematics for primary teaching was evident from the 2018 assessment results that were obtained using a cross-sectional study of firstand fourth-year bed students using the primted mathematics assessment. these findings led to the design and implementation of the maths intensive course with first-year students (roberts et al., 2020). the course was first implemented in 2019 with all first-year students in the bed programmes for foundation phase and intermediate phase at a comprehensive university in south africa. students completed the pre-test before, and the post-test after, the implementation of the maths intensive course (see figure 1). this course (the first design) resulted in a positive shift in attainment (of 14 percentage points) on the mean scores in the 17 matched items from the pre-test to the post-test, with a large effect size (d = 0.82; roberts, 2020). roberts & maseko: from measuring impact to informing course design 95 figure 1 maths intensive research design over two cycles building on the promising results of the 2019 first design cycle intervention, the course was repeated. a second design cycle was therefore undertaken in 2020. the intention was to establish whether the second design cycle led to even greater shifts in attainment than were seen in the first design cycle. a difference-in-differences design was planned. using designbased research approaches, this study set out to use assessment to further improve bed programme impact through analysing assessment data on student teacher attainment in the online pre-test and an online post-test following the intervention in the second cycle of implementation (in 2020). however, the covid-19 pandemic impacted significantly on the research design for the experiment. in 2019, both pre-test and post-test were administered online under invigilated conditions in a university computer laboratory. the pre-test in 2020 was administered in the same way. however, given the pandemic restrictions, the administration of the post-test in 2020 was changed. because students had no access to campus, it was not possible to administer the post-test under the same invigilated examination conditions. rather than abandon the assessment data entirely, the 2020 post-test was administered by allowing student teachers to write the online assessment remotely, without any supervision. this denoted a significant change in the administration conditions of the 2020 post-test compared to the 2019 preand post-test and 2020 pre-test. the 2020 post-test was administered under different conditions and consequently no longer provided a direct comparison that could be used to measure impact of the second design cycle for the maths intensive course. this paper reports on the changes to the maths intensive post-test that were necessary because of the covid-19 pandemic. it exemplifies a change in utility of assessment data— from measuring impact to informing course design. the design pivots away from using the 2020 post-test to measure the impact of the second intervention cycle compared to the first 96 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 intervention cycle, towards using the assessment data to provide meaningful feedback to lecturers and course designers. we set out to establish what the student teachers knew and were able to do at the end of the second design cycle. this analysis first takes into account their knowledge and skills when they entered the bed programme in first year, as evident from the invigilated pre-test administered at the outset of their course in 2020. then separately, it considers their knowledge and skills as evident at the end of the course—and evident in their responses to the post-test, which they responded to in an un-invigilated setting, after the course. thus, the paper contributes to this special issue’s themes of “how mathematics assessment has been applied in a particular initial teacher education programme” and “the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on these assessment practices.” methods the overall design of the maths intensive research draws on design-based research that aims to “improve educational practices through iterative analysis, design, development, and implementation, based on collaboration among researchers and practitioners in real-world settings, and leading to contextually-sensitive design principles and theories” (wang & haffanin, 2005, p. 2). the first and second design cycles of maths intensive had the same learning goals. first-year student teachers in the bed programmes were expected to: • think deeply about how numbers work, which is necessary for the underlying patterns and structures which they will introduce to children. • interpret and use flexible strategies to add and subtract whole numbers, which they needed to both explain and listen to children’s ideas. • interpret and use flexible strategies to multiply and divide whole numbers, which they needed to explain and listen to children’s ideas (roberts et al., 2020). from the course design side, each learning outcome was discussed in some detail in roberts (2020), for example: learning goal one, “how numbers work” focused on the meaning of the equal sign, counting on a back in 1s, 10s and 100s, and base-10 place value, all four operations using multiples of 10s and 100s, and rounding off. the focal representations were a balance scale, the number line, hundred square and gattegno chart. (p. 132) from the assessment design side, the constructs assessed for each learning outcome in the tests are described in some detail in this paper. research questions taking the design experiment as a whole, there are several themes of interest: (1) the change of assessment design, (2) the shifts in learner outcomes, and (3) the course content itself (and its adaptations from one cycle to the next). in this paper, we focus on assessment— considering how we applied assessment in the maths intensive course and the impact of the roberts & maseko: from measuring impact to informing course design 97 covid-19 pandemic on these assessment practices. we posed the following research questions: • “how did the students in the second design cycle compare to the students in the first design cycle in relation to their attainment in the pre-test?” this provided insight into the knowledge and skills that student teachers possess when entering the bed evident from the 2019 pre-test and 2020 pre-test. • “in 2020, how was the administration of the post-test assessment in maths intensive adjusted because of the covid-19 pandemic?” we reflect here on the changes we made. • “what does the 2020 post-test (which was not invigilated) reveal about what students in the second design cycle know and can do in relation to how numbers work and interpreting and using flexible strategies for the four mathematical operations with whole numbers?” data collection data collected to answer these research questions were drawn from the pre-test and post-test scores obtained in 2019 and 2020. ethics the primted assessment work stream followed a voluntary, informed consent process for educational research with the university of johannesburg’s protocol number, 2017-072. student teachers were invited to opt in for their data to be used anonymously for this research, with no consequences if they chose to opt out. the assessment instruments as for the first design cycle, the pre-test for this course was the primted mathematics assessment (comprising 50 marks), the design of which is discussed by venkat et al. (2017), fonseca et al. (2018), and bowie et al. (2019). the primted mathematics assessment is being used across south african universities to provide information on student teachers’ mathematics knowledge for teaching in primary school. the pre-test was an online test consisting of 50 items, and students had 90 minutes to complete the test. the test items were spread across two cognitive demand levels: lower and higher cognitive demand levels as well as a pedagogical category. fonseca et al. (2018) explained that the primted mathematics assessment items were also classified as either lower or higher cognitive demand as stipulated by the stein et al. (1996) framework on tasks: while “lower cognitive demand” items were considered to be routine procedures, the “higher cognitive demand” items involved moves between representations, required insight, connected across topic areas, and/or had no obvious procedure or starting point. (fonseca et al., 2018, p. 6) 98 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 the mathematics content domains and their weighting across the test were as illustrated in table 1. table 1 weighting of content domains in full primted mathematics assessment (50 items) content domains weighting whole numbers and operations 24% patterns functions and algebra 16% rational numbers and operations 38% geometry 8% measurement 14% source: fonseca et al., 2018, p. 6 it is important to note that one quarter of the primted mathematics assessment focuses on whole numbers and operations, and a further 16% concerned patterns, functions, and algebra. these two content domains were the focus of the maths intensive course. regarding whole numbers and operations, bowie et al. (2019) offered the following examples in the primted mathematics assessment: examples of lower-cognitive-demand whole number items (a) 700 − 292 = (b) identify the approximate position of 706 on a number line marked from 700 to 800 in divisions of 10. examples of higher-cognitive-demand whole number items are (a) fill in the number to make the number sentence true 623 − 298 = 622 − . . . (b) container a weighs 23 kg more than container b. container a weighs 87 kg. how much does container b weigh? (bowie et al., 2019, p. 292) to exemplify the patterns, functions, and algebra items in the primted mathematics assessment, bowie et al. (2019, p. 294) offered the following examples: example of lower-cognitive-demand patterns, functions, and algebra items. a is a number and b is a rule (an operation and number) in the diagram below. what is a? example of higher-cognitive given that 3n 2 + 6 = 10 what will the value of 3n the post-test assessment for the the post-test in the first design cycle in 2019. there were also 50 items, and it was designed for online administration. compared to the pre limited, and the weighting of items was matched against the learning outcomes for the intensive course (see table 2). table 2 weighting of learning outcomes for the post and algebra) learning outcomes how numbers work adding and subtracting multiplying and dividing the pre-test and the post-test had 17 items which were matched or anchor items. the 17 matched items “was a sub-set of the content covered in the primted assessment” (roberts, 2020, p. 130). data analysis in the preand post-tests, all the items were single answer or multiple choice, and each item was recorded as correct, incorrect, or no response. the items were coded in relation to the content area. item level data were summed to provide a score out of 5 to a percentage. to answer the first research question compare to the students in the first design cycle in relation to their attainment in the pre test?”—the mean and standard deviat the second research question— maths intensive adjusted as a result of the covid roberts & maseko: from measuring impact to informing course design cognitive-demand patterns, functions and algebra items. + 6 = 10 what will the value of 3n 2 + 8 be? he maths intensive course in 2020 was identical to that used as test in the first design cycle in 2019. there were also 50 items, and it was designed for online administration. compared to the pre-test, the post-test content domains were more ted, and the weighting of items was matched against the learning outcomes for the course (see table 2). weighting of learning outcomes for the post-test (50 items, focused on whole numbers and operations and patterns, functions test had 17 items which were matched or anchor items. the 17 set of the content covered in the primted assessment” (roberts, tests, all the items were single answer or multiple choice, and each item was recorded as correct, incorrect, or no response. the items were coded in relation to the content area. item level data were summed to provide a score out of 50, which was converted to answer the first research question—“how did the students in the second design cycle compare to the students in the first design cycle in relation to their attainment in the pre the mean and standard deviation of the pre-test were calculated. —“how was the administration of the post-test assessments in adjusted as a result of the covid-19 pandemic?”—was answered by maseko: from measuring impact to informing course design 99 demand patterns, functions and algebra items. course in 2020 was identical to that used as test in the first design cycle in 2019. there were also 50 items, and it was designed test content domains were more ted, and the weighting of items was matched against the learning outcomes for the maths test (50 items, focused on whole numbers and operations and patterns, functions weighting 34% 32% 34% test had 17 items which were matched or anchor items. the 17 set of the content covered in the primted assessment” (roberts, tests, all the items were single answer or multiple choice, and each item was recorded as correct, incorrect, or no response. the items were coded in relation to the 0, which was converted “how did the students in the second design cycle compare to the students in the first design cycle in relation to their attainment in the pretest assessments in was answered by 100 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 describing the changes to the post-test administration in comparison to how the post-test was administered in the first design cycle. given that both authors were involved in arranging the test in both cycles this was a description from memory by the first author, which was then checked for accuracy and edited by the second author. answering the third research question—“what does the post-test data (that was not invigilated) reveal about what students in the second design cycle know and can do in relation to how numbers work and interpreting and using flexible strategies for the four mathematical operations with whole numbers?”—required the most detailed analysis. for the pre-test and the post-test, we calculated the mean and standard deviation using the total composite score. we calculated the differences from pre-test to post-test in each design cycle. this was to provide an indicative comparison. because the 2020 post-tests were not administered under the same conditions, we did not use a t-test to establish the significance of the difference in means for the second design cycle. to extract meaningful information from the test data we turned to the facility scores, which we calculated at item level. an item facility (if) score provides the percentage of students who obtained an item correct. it is measured on a scale of 0 to 1 where if = 0 means no students responded correctly, and if = 1 means all students responded correctly. an if of 0.4 means that 40% of students answered correctly. we calculated the facility scores for each item for the post-test in each design cycle. by reflecting on each question and examining the underlying construct, which we obtained from the assessment framework, as well as the facility scores from each cycle, we could infer the knowledge and skills needs of the students. to compare the difficulty levels of topic sections within a test we calculated the attainment for each student on each section and then found the average marks (expressed as a percentage) for each section. of particular interest were the differences (delta = [1st cycle facility score] subtract [2nd cycle facility score]) in item facility scores from the first cycle to the second cycle (see table 3). a negative delta means that more students in the first cycle got this item correct. a positive delta means that more students in students in the second cycle got the item correct. we used a colour coding scheme for the relative sizes of the delta. table 3 colour coding scheme for delta ([average facility in second design cycle] minus [average facility in first design cycle]) facility score on post-test subtract facility score on pre-test delta upwards of 31% more students in the first cycle got this question correct < −0.30 21–30% more students in the first cycle got this question correct −0.30 to −0.21 11–20% more students in the first cycle got this question correct −0.11 to −0.20 0–10% more students in the first cycle got this question correct −0 to −0.10 roberts & maseko: from measuring impact to informing course design 101 facility score on post-test subtract facility score on pre-test delta 0–10% more students in the second cycle got this question correct 0 to 0.10 11–20% more students in the second cycle got this question correct 0.11 to 0.20 21–30% more students in the second cycle got this question correct 0.21 to 0.30 upwards of 31% more students in the second cycle got this question correct > 0.30 of interest was whether the students who wrote the post-test in the second cycle (where it was not invigilated) made use of calculator. the students in the first cycle in 2019 could not use a calculator when doing the post-test on campus under invigilated conditions. but in 2020, the students wrote the post-test remotely and we could not control whether they used a calculator or not. we could identify questions that could be answered easily using a calculator. an example of a question that can be answered more easily with a calculator is: 700 – 292 = . . . an example of a question where access to a calculator is not helpful is: identify the approximate position of 706 on a number line marked from 700 to 800 in divisions of 10. we assumed that students in the second design cycle would use calculators (which are easily accessible on smart phones) and thus would find these questions easier than the students in the first design cycle. to empirically check on our assumption that students would find these questions easier (most likely due to the greater calculator use) in the second cycle, we calculated the difference (delta) in facility scores for each design cycle. we expected a larger delta, with a greater proportion of second cycle students answering correctly, for items where calculator use would assist accuracy. findings in this section, we answer each of the research questions in turn. how did the students in the second design cycle compare to the students in the first design cycle in relation to their attainment in the pre-test? table 4 provides the mean and standard deviations for each of the assessments administered in the first and second design cycles. 102 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 table 4 comparison of the pre-test attainment in the two design cycles first design cycle: 2019 (n = 213) second design cycle: 2020 (n = 212) mean (sd) mean (sd) pre-test 45% (14%) 48% (13.8%) the 2020 cohort of learners performed slightly better (m = 48%, sd = 13.8%) in the pre-test than their peers in the 2019 cohort did (m = 45%, sd = 14.0%). the pre-tests results were similar and both were administered under invigilation conditions in a computer laboratory prior to the start of their bed programme. in 2020, how was the administration of the post-test assessment in maths intensive adjusted because of the covid-19 pandemic? both cohorts of students wrote the same post-test after the intervention. for the students in the first design cycle, the post-test was administered under invigilated conditions one month after the one-week maths intensive course. for the students in the second design cycle, the post-test was administered during the covid-19 pandemic. as a result, this test was not invigilated but completed by the students remotely within a one-hour time period. it was also conducted four months after the one-week intervention. this impacts on the analysis of results because it is possible that students may have used a calculator (where this was not allowed in the invigilated assessments). it was also possible that students communicated with each other about the test items. there were several aspects of the post-test administration that were designed to mitigate against student collaboration. first, the order in which the questions appeared in the test was randomised for each student. second, for multiple-choice questions the order of the options (a, b, c, and d) was randomised. this was intended to make collaboration on questions by number more difficult. a testee could not confer with a fellow testee by referring to question x as having the answer of option y. instead, to collaborate, they would have to refer to the question stem and the actual options. third, the students were given a 24-hour period in which to complete the post-test. this was done for two reasons. the students were given data by the university, but their data bundles were cheaper outside office hours. several students therefore opted to write the test between 18h00 and 06h00 to save on data costs. in addition, there was a risk of students experiencing load shedding (and so not having access to electricity for their device and their internet connection). the load-shedding timetables were known and impacted on different geographic locations at different times. a student could plan to take the test in the 24-hour window at a time when they had electricity. finally, the test was timed for a maximum of one hour. once a student started the assessment, they had to finish it within that hour. this was intended to discourage collaboration given that roberts & maseko: from measuring impact to informing course design 103 there was a limited time to respond. in cases where students lost power, the test interface saved their work, and they could continue after the interruption and the clock counted down from their last log in. this feature was not communicated to the students prior to the test. it was intended to be invoked should a student suddenly lose access to electricity. we also made some adjustments to the test design to accommodate the fact that students working remotely may use either a computer or a mobile device. previously—because the students wrote the test in a university computer lab—we knew they were using a computer. so we made sure that the test was designed to be interoperable between a computer screen and mobile handset. the images used were scaled for visibility on a mobile screen. this influenced the test layout because, in considering students who might be using mobile handsets to access the test, horizontal layout was minimised. by way of example, instead of presenting options in a table by displaying options in a row, a vertical column format was used. this is because on a mobile device it not possible to scroll from left to right but only from top to bottom. what do the 2020 mathematics post-test (and pre-test) data reveal about what students in the second design cycle know and can do? focusing on the pre-test result provides us with some information about the mathematics knowledge and skills of the students as they enter the bed programme. in particular, it shows us whether the second cohort (2020) was similar to, or different from, the first cohort (2019). table 5 compares attainment in the pre-test and post-test for the two design cycles: table 5 comparison of pre-test and post-test attainment in the first and second design cycles first design cycle: 2019 (n = 213) second design cycle: 2020 (n = 212) mean (sd) mean (sd) pre-test 45% (14%) 48% (13.8%) post-test 74% (6.8%) *80% (5.3%) percentage point shift from pretest to post-test +29 +32 note: *denotes the assessment which was not invigilated. we therefore limit our analysis to descriptive statistics. for the post-test, the students in the second design cycle obtained a higher mean (by 6 percentage points), and lower standard deviation compared to their peers in the first design cycle. we cannot infer that that the observed improvement was a result of the design changes made to the maths intensive intervention. the observed changes may have been a result of the change in assessment administration. 104 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 we therefore turn to analysing the assessment data to establish what the students know and can do in relation to the learning outcomes. we consider the relative difficulty evident across each topic within the post-test, and analyse the shift (delta) in facility scores for each item from the pre-test to post-test period for the two cycles (table 6). table 6 comparison of pre-test and post-test average attainment by section in the first and second design cycles post test items first design cycle (2019) second design cycle (2020) delta (pp) additive relations 17 77% 76% 1 how numbers work 16 76% 84% 8 multiplicative reasoning 17 70% 82% 12 regarding additive relations, there was very little change (1 percentage point) in the proportion of students who got questions correct for this topic. there were greater improvements evident for the second design cycle; when considering how numbers work, the average attainment improved by 8 percentage points and for multiplicative reasoning, there was an improvement in average attainment of 12 percentage points. if one assumes that the change in administration of the test (which was not invigilated for the 2020 cohort) was uniform across the three topic areas, one may infer that there was better learning in relation to multiplicative reasoning and how number works in the second intervention cycle. however, this claim is made cautiously, given the confounding effect of the change in administration (which may not have been uniform across the test). we turn now to considering the item facility in relation to particular learning outcomes within each topic. this level of analysis provides information about how each cohort of students responded to the questions in the test at item level. it can be used to make claims about what the 2020 students know and are able to do (when they are not under invigilated conditions). we first consider the item facility for additive relations (ar). the average attainment for this section was 76%. in the first design cycle the average attainment was 77%. so there was very little change from the attainment of the first design cycle. there were several assessment criteria of relevance to this topic: • ar 1: addition facts: a. add or subtract 10 and 100 from any number b. near doubles c. multiples of 10 d. add or subtract 9. • ar 2: addition and subtraction are related. • ar 3: addition and subtraction strategies: e. rest on the 10s f. count up to reach a target and rest on 10s roberts & maseko: from measuring impact to informing course design 105 g. break up the second number in expanded notation h. break up the second number using the medium and small number sequence i. compensation. • ar 4: two models for subtraction (take-away and difference). • ar 5: identify the calculation required for a word problem. table 7 item facility for additive relations item learning outcome 2019 item facility 2020 item facility delta 1 ar 3: calculate/compensate 0.91 0.98 0.07 34* ar 3: adding and subtracting strategies; own strategy 3 digits 0.83 0.97 0.14 22 ar 4: two models for subtraction (take-away and difference); take-away situation, difference calculation 0.89 0.95 0.06 18 ar 2: adding and subtracting are related 0.91 0.92 0.01 20 ar 3: adding and subtracting strategies; rest on the 10s 0.89 0.92 0.03 25 ar 2: adding and subtracting are related 0.88 0.92 0.04 31 ar 5: identify the calculation required for a word problem 0.90 0.92 0.02 33 ar 1: addition facts; add or subtract 10 and 100 0.84 0.91 0.07 26* ar 1: addition facts; near doubles 0.96 0.82 −0.14 19 ar 1: addition facts; multiples of 10, estimate on a number line 0.65 0.80 0.15 21 ar 4: two models for subtraction (take-away and difference); compare situation 0.68 0.74 0.06 29 ar 3: adding and subtracting strategies; break up the second number in expanded notation 0.78 0.68 −0.10 2* ar 3: adding and subtracting strategies; own strategy 4 digits 0.51 0.57 0.06 27* ar 1: addition facts; add/subtract 9 0.90 0.57 −0.33 23 ar 3: adding and subtracting strategies; count up to reach a target and rest on 10s 0.68 0.56 −0.12 24 ar 1: addition facts/patterns 0.40 0.37 −0.03 32 ar 3: adding and subtracting strategies; rest on the 10s 0.48 0.31 −0.17 *denotes an item involving a bare calculation (where use of a calculator would be an advantage). these are discussed below, considering all such items across the different sections of the test. table 7 reveals that the majority of students in both intervention cycles (item facility of more than 0.9) were are able to: 106 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 • apply the two models of subtraction—take away and difference—(ar 4). • know that adding and subtracting are related, and write equivalent number sentences for the same additive relation (ar 2). • use the “rest on the 10s” strategy (ar 3). • calculate by compensation (ar 3). however, in the second intervention cycle calculating by compensating was not yet mastered for 43% of the students who could not correctly subtract 9 (ar 1). subtracting 9 can be done using compensation given that one can subtract 10 and then add 1. so, although they could ensure that both sides of an equal sign were equivalent (by compensating) they could not yet apply this skill to subtracting 9. this is despite the vast majority of them being able to add or subtract 10 which is a pre-requisite skill for subtracting 9 by compensating. considering the addition facts (ar 1) in the second design cycle, most students (> 80%) were developing accuracy with adding or subtracting 10 or 100 from any number (such as 43 + 10 = . . . ), near doubles (such as 16 + 17 = . . . ). these were question types where it would have been possible for the students in the second design cycle to use a calculator (and so we cannot infer that this is an improvement in mental arithmetic). that 80% of students in the second design cycle could estimate multiples of 10 on a number line is an encouraging finding. this estimation could not be done using a calculator. focusing on addition and subtraction strategies (ar 3), the students in the second design cycle were better able to use their own strategy for 3-digit numbers than for 4-digit numbers. this was consistent with the student responses from the first intervention cycle. there were greater proportions of students who could “break up the second number using expanded notation” than there were students able to “count up to, reach a target and rest on the 10s.” very few students (only 31% of the second cycle) were able to break up the second number to bridge or rest on the 10s in simple subtraction situation. for example, they were not able to select how to break up the second number (in this case 5) to rest on the 10 in a calculation such as 13 − 5 = . . . . the expected response was “subtract 5 is broken up into subtract 3 then subtract 2” because 13 − 5 = 13 − 3 − 2 = 10 − 2 = 8. this question was also difficult for the students in the first design cycle, suggesting that greater attention should be paid to this skill in future intervention cycles. we now consider what can be learnt from the student responses to the post-test items pertaining to the topic of how numbers work (hnw). in this section, the average attainment improved by eight percentage points, from 76% in 2019 to 84% in 2019. there were six assessment criteria: • hnw 1: equals means “is the same as.” • hnw 2: count on or back from any number in 1s, 10s, and 100s. • hnw 3: break up flexibly in 100s, 10s, and 1s. • hnw 4: add/subtract 10s and 100s. • hnw 5: multiply and divide by 10s and 100s. roberts & maseko: from measuring impact to informing course design 107 • hnw 6: round off the nearest 10, 100, and 1,000. table 8 item facility for how numbers work item learning outcome 2019 item facility 2020 item facility delta 4 hnw 3: break up flexibly into 100s, 10s, and 1s 0.93 0.93 0.00 3 hnw 6: round off to the nearest 100 0.89 0.92 0.03 8 hnw 5: multiply and divide by 10 and 100 0.89 0.92 0.03 14 hnw 3: break up into 100s, 10s and 1s 0.83 0.92 0.09 28 hnw 1: equals means the same as 0.92 0.90 −0.02 12 hnw 7: order of operations 0.78 0.89 0.11 37* hnw 7: order of operations 0.76 0.89 0.13 13 hwn 2: count on or back from any number (small number sequence) 0.73 0.88 0.15 16 hnw 2: count on or back from any number (small, medium, large number sequence) 0.71 0.88 0.17 6 hnw 4: add on/subtract 1s and 10s 0.81 0.86 0.05 10 hnw 3: break up flexibly into 100s, 10s and 1s 0.68 0.86 0.18 9 hnw 3: place value; break up into 100s, 10s and 1s 0.81 0.82 0.01 15 hnw 1: equals means the same as (compensate) 0.70 0.76 0.06 5 hnw 3: break up flexibly into 100s, 10s and 1s 0.67 0.75 0.08 17 hnw 4: add on/subtract 10s and 100s (inverse operations) 0.64 0.66 0.02 11 hnw 6: round off to the nearest 1,000 0.43 0.57 0.14 the relative difficulty of the items in this topic, noted in the second design cycle, largely reflected the same pattern as for the first design cycle. this is evident in table 8 where all the deltas are less than or equal to 0.17. by the end of the maths intensive course, most students in the second design cycle (more than 80%) demonstrated secure knowledge of place value (hnw 3), and were successfully able to respond to items relating to place value and breaking up numbers into 100s, 10s, and 1s. it should be noted that this included ordering 4-digit numbers from smallest to biggest. students found it more difficult when working on flexible ways to break up numbers (such as 450 = 3 hundreds and 15 tens) although this was done better than in the first design cycle. 108 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 most students in the second cycle (more than 80%) were able to work on missing number problems and apply the knowledge that equals means “is the same as” (hnw 1). they were able to round off to the nearest 100 (hnw 6), and apply knowledge of the order of operations (hnw 7). their application of order of operations when working mentally is not known from this test. most students were also making use of the small, medium, and large number sequences—counting on and back in 1s, 10s, and 100s from any number (hnw 2). a sizable proportion of the students (> 30%) in the second design cycle were not able to work with inverse operations for adding and subtracting 10 and 100 (hnw 4) and rounding off to the nearest 1,000 (hnw 6), although they could round off to the nearest 100 (hnw 6). the multiplicative reasoning (mr) topic saw the greatest improvement in attainment from the first to the second design cycle (table 9). the average attainment improved by 12 percentage points, from 70% in 2019 to 82% in 2020. multiplicative reasoning included attention to: • mr 1: multiplication is a group of something that is repeated. • mr 2: times table facts and divisibility rules. • mr 3: multiplication and division are inverses. • mr 4: sharing and grouping problems. • mr 5: distributive property. • mr 6: representing multiplication and division (using area and using clue boards). • mr 7: calculating with medium and large numbers (area model and using clue boards). table 9 item facility for multiplicative reasoning item learning outcome 2019 item facility 2020 item facility delta 38 mr 3: multiplication and division are inverses (using multiplication for division) 0.94 0.96 0.02 47 mr 6: represent multiplication (using area with variables) 0.77 0.95 0.18 35 mr 1. multiplication is a group of something that is repeated 0.92 0.94 0.02 42 mr 4: sharing and grouping problems 0.62 0.91 0.29 40 mr 6: representing division (using clue-boards) 0.87 0.91 0.04 30 mr 7: calculate with medium and large numbers (using area model) 0.16 0.89 0.73 44 mr 2: times tables facts (divisibility rules) 0.60 0.89 0.29 45 mr 5: distributive property—you can break up a number and divide each part 0.86 0.86 0.00 49 mr 6: represent multiplication (using area with numbers) 0.91 0.85 −0.06 roberts & maseko: from measuring impact to informing course design 109 item learning outcome 2019 item facility 2020 item facility delta 39 mr 6: representing multiplication (using clue-boards) 0.89 0.85 −0.04 36 mr 5: distributive property—you can break up a number and multiply each part 0.87 0.84 −0.03 7 mr 2: facts; doubling and halving 0.75 0.82 0.07 43 mr 5: distributive property—you can break up a number and divide each part 0.46 0.78 0.32 41* mr 7: calculate with medium and large numbers; division 0.50 0.75 0.25 48* mr 7: calculate with medium and large numbers; multiplication 0.76 0.68 −0.08 46 mr 7: calculate with medium and large numbers (using area model) 0.65 0.63 −0.02 50* mr 2: times table facts (multiplying by 100) 0.31 0.38 0.07 it was in the multiplicative reasoning learning outcome where the most substantial change in performance was evident when comparing the first to the second cycle. the majority of students (more than 80%) could correctly respond to items pertaining to multiplicative reasoning (mr 1–7). a key concept in this section of work was using an area model for multiplication. this is a representation used in primary schools as an alternative to the long multiplication algorithm, which is known to be less error prone. it was new to the students in both design cycles. an example of multiplication using medium and large numbers, and which makes use of the area model is presented in figure 2. most students who completed the second design cycle maths intensive course were able to use and interpret this multiplication method (mr 6). of particular interest was the apparent improvement in attainment by the students in the second cycle relating to division problems. this was evident in the substantial increases in item facility scores for the following: • sharing and grouping problems which are word problems involving division (mr 4). • times table facts involving divisibility rules; (mr 2). • using the distributive property for division (mr 5). • dividing with medium and large numbers (mr 7). 110 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 figure 2 area model for 87 × 34 only one of these four items (dividing with medium and large numbers, mr 7) would be easier when having access to a calculator, yet there were substantial increases (or more than 25% of students) in the proportions of students in the second design cycle who successfully answered these items. this is a promising finding with regard to the instructional design for the second design cycle. it requires further examination in relation to the changes made in instructional design. however, table 9 also revealed that there are several areas where students in the second design cycle were not yet proficient. they require further support and practice with multiplying large numbers (using their own methods and the are with decimals (which was not given attention in the maths intensive course). we now consider items where the students in the second design cycle may have been advantaged by using a calculator. table 10 item facility items involving bare calculations (where a calculator is an advantage) item learning outcome 34* ar 3: adding and subtracting strategies; own strategy 3 digits calculate: 600 − 194 = . . . 37* hnw 7: order of operations calculate: 3 + 3 × 3 − 3 50* mr 2: times table facts (multiplying by 100) calculate: 53.08 times 100 2* ar 3: adding and subtracting strategies; own strategy 4 digits calculate: 1,497 + 840 = . . . journal of education, no. 87, 2022 only one of these four items (dividing with medium and large numbers, mr 7) would be easier when having access to a calculator, yet there were substantial increases (or more than proportions of students in the second design cycle who successfully answered these items. this is a promising finding with regard to the instructional design for the second design cycle. it requires further examination in relation to the changes made in however, table 9 also revealed that there are several areas where students in the second design cycle were not yet proficient. they require further support and practice with multiplying large numbers (using their own methods and the area model, mr 6) and working with decimals (which was not given attention in the maths intensive course). we now consider items where the students in the second design cycle may have been advantaged by using a calculator. ng bare calculations (where a calculator is an advantage) 2019 item facility ar 3: adding and subtracting strategies; own strategy 3 digits 194 = . . . 0.83 order of operations 0.89 mr 2: times table facts (multiplying by 100) calculate: 53.08 times 100 0.38 ar 3: adding and subtracting strategies; own strategy 4 digits calculate: 1,497 + 840 = . . . 0.51 only one of these four items (dividing with medium and large numbers, mr 7) would be easier when having access to a calculator, yet there were substantial increases (or more than proportions of students in the second design cycle who successfully answered these items. this is a promising finding with regard to the instructional design for the second design cycle. it requires further examination in relation to the changes made in however, table 9 also revealed that there are several areas where students in the second design cycle were not yet proficient. they require further support and practice with a model, mr 6) and working with decimals (which was not given attention in the maths intensive course). we now consider items where the students in the second design cycle may have been 2020 item facility delta 0.97 0.14 0.76 0.13 0.31 0.07 0.57 0.06 roberts & maseko: from measuring impact to informing course design 111 item learning outcome 2019 item facility 2020 item facility delta 48* mr 7: calculate with medium and large numbers; multiplication calculate: 41 × 7 0.68 0.76 +0.08 26* ar 1: addition facts; near doubles calculate:28 + 29 = . . . 0.96 0.82 −0.14 41* mr 7: calculate with medium and large numbers; division 92 divided by 4 0.75 0.50 −0.25 27* ar 1: addition facts; add/subtract 9 calculate: 72 − 9 = . . . 0.90 0.57 −0.33 looking across the learning outcomes (table 10) there were five bare items where more students in the second cycle answered correctly compared to the first cycle: • (1) ar 3: 600 – 194 = . . . • (3) hnw 7: 3 + 3 × 3 – 3 • (4) mr 2: 53.08 times 100 • (4) ar 3: 1,497 + 840 = . . . • (5) mr 7: 41 × 7 = . . . these are the items that support the assumption that students in the second cycle used a calculator when writing the test remotely. however, looking at the item facility scores for mr 2 (53.08 times 100; if = 0.31) and ar 3 (1,497 + 840 = . . . ; if = 0.57), the majority of the students in 2020 were not able to answer these correctly. all of these bare calculation items could have been done accurately with a calculator, simply by pressing the digits and operation symbols in the order provided, on the calculator. it seems that whereas some students in the second design cycle may have used a calculator, it was not the majority of students. if they had all used a calculator, the item facility on the bare calculation items would have been higher. and there is further empirical evidence that students in the second design cycle seem unlikely to have used calculators. there are a further three bare calculation items where the students in the second design cycle obtained fewer correct answers, when compared to the first cycle: • (1) ar 1: 28 + 29 = . . . • (2) mr 7: 92 divided by 4 • (3) ar 1: 72 − 9 = . . . the students in the second design cycle were less successful than their first cycle peers. the very low item facilities of 50% of students answering correctly for division calculation, and 57 % answering correctly for the subtraction problem, suggest that calculators were not widely used. 112 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 conclusion this paper describes how results from a mathematics assessment was applied to develop and apply the maths intensive module in an initial teacher education programme, and how adjustments had to made to the assessment practices as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. in particular, it demonstrates how, by mapping each assessment item to a learning outcome and analysing shifts in attainment at item level, effective ways of converting raw data into information that could inform decision-making were found—leading to meaningful reporting (moloi & kanjee, 2018). this demonstrated a shift in the purpose of assessment from measuring impact to informing course design and so ultimately, to improving learning and teaching. responding to evidence of poor performance in the primted mathematics assessment, the maths intensive course was trialled with first-year students in bachelor of education programmes (foundation phase and intermediate phase) at a comprehensive university. for the first design cycle, a pre-test/post-test design was used to establish the impact of the intervention on learning. the results were promising. the second design cycle was interrupted by covid-19 and consequently, this design loop was not possible to complete in terms of impact. however, the post-test assessment was used to investigate in some detail what the post-test data revealed about what students knew and could do. their relative attainment in each topic area was calculated. because the test was designed against the articulated learning outcomes, it was also possible to reflect on relative attainment by learning outcome. it was clear that there were more substantial learning gains in the second intervention cycle in relation to the topic focus on multiplication and division (compared to how numbers work and additive relations). there was clear evidence of improvements in relation to use of the area model for multiplication. reasons for this should be investigated further by attending to the changes in materials design and pedagogy that took place from the first to the second design cycle. this use of the post-test data was useful in that is provided meaningful information to guide detailed and targeted examination of the instructional design changes to inform the future course design. this paper also reported how the covid-19 pandemic impacted on the administration of the post-test. because students were not allowed onto campus, this test was administered remotely. the changes made to the online test design in relation to the sequencing of questions, sequencing of multiple-choice options, and allowing a 24-hour period to respond to the test were documented. concerned that the shift in administration from invigilated (in the first design cycle) to un-invigilated (in the second design cycle), we did not use the posttest as a basis for comparing the impact of the second design cycle compared to the first. we assumed that the second design cycle test would be found to be easier by students, given its un-invigilated administration. we examined the bare calculation items that could have been answered correctly simply by pressing the calculator keys in the order provided. roberts & maseko: from measuring impact to informing course design 113 however, there were clear examples where a calculator could have been used but the majority of students still found three of the bare calculation items item difficult. this suggests that the assumption of calculator use and collaboration in un-invigilated settings may not be substantial, or that students—even when they could use a calculator—did not use it correctly. further research is required on this issue. testing the assumptions made about student behaviour (if they will cheat by collaborating or by using a calculator) will be important for lecturers making choices about online and remote testing. using the item facility scores at item level, it was still possible to obtain meaningful information about relative performance, weighing up attainment in particular topics, and considering the learning outcomes for which there were the greatest and smallest shifts in attainment. we have drawn on the assessment data from this analysis to further improve our instructional design and our assessment design. we trust that others responsible for developing mathematics knowledge for primary teaching in initial teacher education will find the assessment exemplars and learning outcomes useful. considering a broader interest in assessment design and practices, this article provides an example of how assessment data has been used to create meaningful reports, as well as how assessment practices had to adjust to the covid-19 pandemic. acknowledgements and conflicting interests this paper has been developed through the teaching and learning development capacity improvement programme (tldcip), which is being implemented through a partnership between the department of higher education and training and the european union. the authors acknowledge and thank all the ite institutions and colleagues in mathematics who have contributed, and continue to contribute, to the primted assessment work stream. references bowie, l., venkat, h., & askew, m. (2019). pre-service primary teachers’ mathematical content knowledge: an exploratory study. african journal of research in mathematics, science and technology education, 23(3), 286–297. https://doi.org/10.1080/18117295.2019.1682777 fonseca, k., maseko, j., & roberts, n. (2018, june 25–29). students’ mathematical knowledge in a bachelor of education (foundation or intermediate phase) programme [paper presentation]. 24th annual national congress of the association for mathematics education of south africa, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa. moloi, m., & kanjee, a. (2018). beyond test scores: a framework for reporting mathematics assessment results to enhance teaching and learning. pythagoras, 39(1), article 393. https://doi. org/10.4102/pythagoras. v39i1.393 114 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 moloi, q., kanjee, a., & roberts, n. (2019). using standard setting to promote meaningful use of mathematics assessment data within initial teacher education programmes. pythagoras, 40(1), article 493. https://doi.org/10.4102/pythagoras.v40i1.493 roberts, n. (2020). maths intensive: first design trial in response to primted mathematics assessment. in p. vale, l. westerway, z. nhase, & i. shudel (eds.), proceedings of the 28th annual conference of the southern african association for research in mathematics, science and technology education (pp. 126–142). saarmste. roberts, n., mostert, i., kakoma, l., maseko, j., fonseca, k., libusha, e. (2020). maths intensive course. university of johannesburg, centre for education practice research (cepr). stein, m. k., grover, b. w., & henningsen, m. (1996). building student capacity for mathematical thinking and reasoning: an analysis of mathematical tasks used in reform classrooms. american educational research journal, 33(2), 455–488. venkat, h., bowie, l., & alex, j. k. (2017, october 22–26). the design of a common diagnostic mathematics assessments for first-year bed students [presentation]. south african education research association (saera) conference, port elizabeth, south africa. wang, f., & hannafin, m. (2005). design-based research and technology-enhanced learning environments. educational technology research and development, 53(4), 5–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf02504682 microsoft word c8900 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 89, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i89a07 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x in search of teacher professionalism: tvet teachers’ “dual narrative” of professionalism jeanne gamble school of education, university of cape town, cape town, south africa jeanne.gamble@uct.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9232-3074 lynn hewlett school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa lynn.hewlett@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9931-7806 (received: 15 october 2022; accepted: 29 november 2022) abstract teachers in public sector technical and vocational education (tvet) colleges in south africa have recently moved into the ‘required to be professionally qualified’ category. required professionalism differs from enacted professionalism, so the research study on which we report in this article sought to understand how national certificate (vocational) (nc(v)) lecturers in engineering studies and business studies comply with, accommodate, or resist the institutionalised professional culture(s) of their colleges and classrooms. we gathered data through surveys and focus group interviews from 205 lecturers in 10 tvet colleges in five provinces for this study. we found a “dual narrative” of professionalism. nc(v) teachers aspire to a distinctive vocational pedagogy that confirms their status as professional tvet teachers, but it is beyond their reach when institutionalised professional cultures constrain rather than enable. they, therefore, describe the cultural milieu of college and classroom in terms of idealised educational values (as they would like them to be rather than as they are) to enable, potentially, an enacted professionalism that allows them to cope with restrictive and assessmentdominated professional cultures as currently experienced. keywords: professionalism, teacher qualifications, technical and vocational education, national certificate (vocational) introduction situated at the intersection of general education, higher education, and the world of work, technical and vocational education (tvet) in south africa is viewed as being closely related to economic development. public tvet colleges are required to be responsive to both the gamble & hewlett: in search of teacher professionalism 123 market and to state-led visions of development (fisher et al., 2003). with “skills development” being the key priority in a “demand-led education system” (kraak, 2004, p. 126) along with broader systemic factors that shape skill formation (allais, 2022), linkages between tvet institutions and actual workplace practices are regarded as essential. vocational teachers or instructors with recent work experience are highly prized (akoojee et al., 2008). somewhat paradoxically, this market-driven impetus, intended to move public tvet colleges away from public sector bureaucracy, has coincided with an increased demand for administrative efficiency through the introduction of new qualifications, programmes, and learnerships. theoretical and practical internal and external assessment and moderation in each subject have brought new bureaucratic demands (allais, 2013; gamble, 2011; kraak, 2004). rather than relying almost entirely on lecturer expertise based on previous workplace experience, the teaching expertise required in public tvet colleges has shifted to a vocational pedagogy that spans formal conceptual knowledge and practical work (du plooy & du preez, 2022; gamble 2013; papier, 2011). against the backdrop of the two-fold imperative of market responsiveness (or, relevance) and quality (as measured through student through-put rates), policy frameworks identify the public tvet college sector as the higher education and training (het) sub-system targeted to undergo the greatest expansion and diversification, in terms of a projected increase in enrolment. at the same time, it is acknowledged that the sector does not have the capacity to ensure that students who enrol in a programme successfully complete the programme within the stipulated time frame. the main types of tvet qualifications—national certificate (vocational) and report 191 qualifications, also known as nated, have demonstrated exceptionally low success rates over the years (department of higher education and training, 2012; department of higher education and training, 2013a). the international literature (e.g., chiang and trezise, 2021; evans, 2008; whitty, 2008) has reported that the improvement of teacher quality through teacher professionalism, is generally advocated as the solution to concerns about quality in educational contexts where the contract with teachers is no longer just with the state but is also with the market (robertson, 1996). it is therefore perhaps not surprising that south african education policy leaders followed international trends and turned to credentialling, in the form of minimum formal qualification requirements for tvet educators, as a mechanism for improving the overall quality of tvet provision (department of higher education and training, 2013a). despite policy confidence in tvet teacher professionalism, a required or demanded professionalism is not considered to be the same as an enacted professionalism (evans, 2008). it is further argued that the concept of professionalism cannot be understood or talked about outside of a specific social and institutional context of enactment (gleeson et al., 2009; egetenmeyer et al., 2019). following a brief exploration of the extensive sociological literature on professionalism and teacher professionalism that sets the theoretical frame for a research study undertaken in 2018 124 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 in the tvet college sector in south africa, we explain how we developed an analytical framework for studying enacted professionalism. we wanted to understand how nc(v) lecturers in engineering studies and business studies comply with, accommodate, or resist the institutionalised professional culture(s) of their colleges and classrooms. we further distinguish between enacted professionalism and professionality as the repertoire of knowledge and pedagogic expertise of individual teachers. study findings show that even though, as in many other countries, the college context is experienced as managerially minded, educationally alienating, and individualised, the impact of the market is not experienced directly in south african colleges. instead, national policy prescriptions are interpreted as market forces imposed from outside the college. voicing disagreement rather than showing active resistance to nc(v) admission policies, curricula and assessment practices prescribed by a democratically elected government, teachers direct their resistance towards college managerialism and bureaucracy, even though they support the professionalising imperative of qualifications upgrading and embrace the possibility it presents of organisational career paths into management. nc(v) teachers aspire to a distinctive vocational pedagogy that will confirm their status as professional tvet teachers. understanding that, on its own, credentialling does not bestow this status, they recruit idealised educational values (as they would like them to be rather than as they are) into the cultural milieu of college and classroom. potentially, this enables an enacted professionalism that allows them to cope with the restrictive and assessment-dominated professional cultures they currently experience in their working lives. we conclude this paper by positioning the emerging and complex teacher professionalism ethos found in south african tvet colleges at this early stage of professionalisation in relation to international and local trends. contesting meanings of professionalism for robson et al. (2004), the three concepts of knowledge, autonomy, and responsibility are conceived of as being inter-related and central to the idea of professionalism. because professionals face complex and unpredictable situations, they need a specialised body of knowledge (i.e., not simply technical skills). if they are to apply that knowledge, they need the autonomy to make their own judgements (even though individual autonomy may be restricted in organisational settings). autonomy requires them to act with discretion and responsibility; collectively, they need to develop appropriate professional values. tied to responsibility are the notions of accountability (usually to peers), trust in professional relations, and care for others (even of altruism). teacher professionalism in state-funded education systems has long been a contested and stratified terrain. while university teachers are usually deemed to have professional jurisdiction to control their own work by virtue of a specialised and autonomous relation to disciplinary knowledge, logic, and science (abbott, 1988; freidson, 2001), such a claim cannot be sustained at primary and secondary school levels. here state regulation and gamble & hewlett: in search of teacher professionalism 125 prescription over curriculum, classroom, and assessment practices are prevalent. the knowledge base required of schoolteachers is also more diversified, with subject knowledge intersecting with knowledge related to pedagogy, to learning, and to learner contexts. wilkinson (2005, p. 428) argues 1 that “members of the education community are not united around any common body of knowledge which they collectively perceive to be essential for teaching.” despite differences and contestations about the knowledge base of teacher professionalism (hegarty, 2000; shulman, 1986), there is common agreement that shifts in education-state relations have led to increasing pressure on all educational sectors for public accountability through performance management and measurement under quasi-market conditions (dale, 1997). at a more general level this shift is described as new public management (npm). pollitt (2003) summarises npm as involving a number of characteristics that vary across countries. these include: a shift in efforts and systems from inputs (processes) to outputs (efficiency); a shift towards more measurement and quantification, in relation to standards and indicators; greater employment of market mechanisms for delivery of public services; and a shift in values from equity and security to efficiency and individualism. evetts’s (2009, p. 23) distinction between “occupational professionalism” constructed within professional occupational groups and “organisational professionalism” as a form of control used by managers in work organisations, captures succinctly the terrain of potential contestation between the two types of professionalism. hoyle (1982) agrees that organisational professionalism has become by far the dominant form of professionalism. he argues, however, that even though professional characteristics such as those referring to the autonomy of the individual to self-regulate practice, accountability for ethical work, and standards set by the profession, as an autonomous collegial collective, are no longer deemed to be “descriptive” of most professions and occupations, they remain a “prescriptive” benchmark to which all occupations continue to aspire in some form or other (p. 161). in literature related to teacher professionalism, evans’s (2008) occupational and organisational classification of forms of professionalism are re-described by sachs (2016, p. 419) as “democratic professionalism” and “managerial professionalism” respectively. in sachs’s view teachers are likely to support occupational/democratic professionalism, while governments will endorse organisational/managerial professionalism. other authors simply refer to the latter form of professionalism as managerialism (o’leary, 2013; randle & brady, 1997). it should be noted, however, that hoyle & wallace (2007, p. 16) draw a firm distinction between the effective management of an educational institution and managerialism as “the belief that not only can all problems be ‘managed’ but that they should be ‘managed’.” in the united kingdom and australia, aggressive education reform through marketisation started in the mid-1980s and early 1990s not only in schools and universities but also in the 1 we use the present tense here because the difference is one of specificity (past tense) vs generality (present). we have kept all verbs in the literature review in the present tense for this reason. 126 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 uk further education (fe) system and in australia’s technical and further educational (tafe) system. publications from these countries analyse a range of teacher responses to policy reforms impacting on teachers’ work. fe and tafe teachers’ response strategies refer to explicit compliance and active consent but also to strategies of passive and active resistance (gleeson et al., 2005; gleeson & james, 2007; hodge, 2016; locke & maton, 2019; robson et al., 2004; shain & gleeson, 1999). debates about redefining professionalism re-insert “caring relationships with students and colleagues” as central to the professional nature of teachers’ work (shacklock, 1998, p. 187). this is viewed as both a strategic and a moral commitment, based on a definition of quality through process and not only as an output in term of results (shain & gleeson, 1999). south african literature in relation to teacher professionalism in schools investigates a wide range of topics. these include how macroand meso-influences beyond the level of the school have shaped teacher professionalisation and professionalism (de clercq, 2013); how teachers’ personal beliefs, mind sets, values, and identities play a significant role in why they practise as they do (msibi & mchunu, 2013); the ways in which teacher education policy understands the process of teacher learning (bertram, 2014); professional learning communities (plcs) (brodie & borko, 2016); how evolving professional teaching standards constrain teacher professionalism (kimathi & rusznyak, 2018); and the implementation of professionalising interventions aimed at developing cultures of collaboration (bantwini, 2019), to cite but a few examples. research studies in south african tvet colleges have explored lecturers’ understanding of the impact of post-1994 policy reforms on classroom practices and teacher identity (buthelezi, 2018; papier, 2011; wedekind et al., 2016); have analysed how the impact of students’ socio-economic circumstances highlight multiple systemic failures (powell & mcgrath, 2018); and have reported on lecturer professional development initiatives (rudman & meiring, 2018). recent south african work refers to the impact of managerialism, a debate that has been ongoing in the uk and australian literature. studies by coetzee (2019) and bertram and mxenge (2022) that are both framed analytically in terms managerial professionalism, offer a connecting point to the conceptual framework that guided the design, data analysis, and interpretation of the empirical study we present in the next section. professionalism in public tvet colleges: a south african research study analytical framework and research design when a research study investigates a sample of possible sites (in this instance, ten colleges out of a possible fifty), it cannot claim overall validity for all public tvet colleges in south africa. a common prescription for achieving generalisability is through “theoretical inference” (silverman, 2000, p. 105; yin, 1994, p. 32). gamble & hewlett: in search of teacher professionalism 127 in this study we followed the strategy of adopting three hierarchically related conceptual frames to guide the design of the study and to provide principles of analysis for the interpretation of the findings. the first two conceptual frames have already been discussed. at the highest level we started with evetts’s (2009) distinction between occupational professionalism and organisational professionalism. at the second level we employed evans’s (2008) distinction between required or demanded and enacted professionalism. our study focussed on enacted professionalism. the diagram below offers a schematic representation of the analytical framework. figure 1 analytical framework for research study on teacher professionalism in order to separate the characteristics of market and internal organisational efficiency implicit in organisational professionalism, we recruited freidson’s (2001) ideal-type 128 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 institutional logics, namely market, bureaucracy and profession or occupation. freidson uses this model to explain the effects of neo-liberalism on the organisational logic of educational, health, legal, and other institutions where professionals work. when the notion of profession/occupation is recast as an educational teaching-learning logic, these concepts articulate clearly with public tvet college realities. they provide a “translation device” (bernstein, 2000, p. 132) to connect the theoretical domain to the empirical field of public tvet colleges. for our study we interpreted, the concept of market as being externally focussed on the world of work signalling policy and strategic responsiveness and the notion of bureaucracy as being internally college-focussed, signalling a management-led culture. a further theoretical concept was drawn from hoyle’s formulation of “practice-based professionality” (1982, p.169) to refer to the knowledge and expertise of individual teachers. analytically, this allowed us to distinguish between the tvet college as a professional institution and the professionality of individual teachers. the research instruments did not ask direct questions about professionalism or professionality. we developed concept-indicator links to explore freidson’s three concepts in relation to topics that college respondents would recognise. the topics were: our college, my teaching practice, and my development as a teacher. the survey questionnaire was carefully designed to provide two possible indicators for each logic. below we offer an example. it should be noted that the type of logic was not indicated in the questionnaire. it is inserted in the example below to show the concept-indicator relation. table 1 table 1 pre-allocated concept–indicators links in the survey questionnaire 1. my college 1.1 which of the following does my college rate highest? choose 2 1. academic success educational logic 2. public image of the college as a ‘cutting-edge’ provider market logic 3. students valued and developed holistically educational logic 4. staying within budget and not wasting money or resources bureaucratic logic 5. partnerships with local employers for work placement and jobs market logic 6. internal organisational efficiency bureaucratic logic 7. other (not mentioned in this list) if 7 above, describe briefly. since deprofessionalisation is a major theme in the literature, we included response options relating to either professionalisation (p) or deprofessionalisation (d). gamble & hewlett: in search of teacher professionalism 129 pre-allocated concept-indicator links enabled systematic coding of the survey responses to provide an initial indication of how nc(v) lecturers perceive the tvet college as a site of professional practice (a context of enactment). methods of data generation field work, conducted in march and april 2018, employed a multi-method research design. an initial survey targeted teachers in business studies and engineering studies nc(v) in a representative sample of ten public south african colleges (one urban and one rural college in five out of nine provinces). these study fields were selected as the most established nc(v) programmes with the highest enrolments. after securing official permission from the department of higher education and training (dhet), ethical clearance from the university of the witwatersrand, and consent from identified colleges and respondents, an electronic questionnaire was distributed as a web-based google-form and via a whatsapp link to teachers. we received 266 responses in total. after a cleaning process, the final sample analysed amounted to 205, made up of 141 business studies and 64 engineering studies responses. initial coding in ms excel led to the final analysis in spss (version 25). subsequent focus group discussions with seven groups of survey participants in four of the sample colleges elicited a more nuanced understanding of survey results. the respondent sample was comprised of 41 nc(v) teachers, with 21 from business studies and 20 from engineering studies. we tried to organise separate focus groups for comparative purposes, but this was not always achievable. reported comments were taken from focus group transcripts and from responses to open-ended survey questions. teacher profile table 2 tvet teacher profile business studies engineering studies total total 141 64 205 gender male 49 (35%) 47 (73%) 96 (47%) female 92 (65%) 17 (27%) 109 (53%) teaching experience < 5 years 23 (16%) 17 (27%) 40 (20%) 6–10 years 72 (51%) 29 (45%) 101 (49%) 11–15 years 24 (17%) 5 (8%) 29 (14%) < 15 years 22 (16%) 13 (20%) 35 (17%) previous industry experience 43% 70% 52% formal qualification in subject fields 130 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 business studies engineering studies total wo workplace training (‘on-job/ in-house’) 2 (1%) 3 (5%) 5 (2%) national certificate or national trade diploma 10 (7%) 25 (39%) 35 (17%) artisan/ industry qualification 0 (0%) 5 (8%) 5 (2%) bachelor’s degree 33 (23%) 10 (16%) 43 (21%) honours degree 37 (26%) 4 (6%) 41 (20%) master’s degree 4 (3%) 1 (2%) 5 (2%) no response 55 (39%) 16 (25%) 71 (35%) formal teaching qualifications hde (higher diploma in education) 33 (23%) 11 (17%) 44 21%) pgce (postgraduate certificate in education) 35 (25%) 6 (9%) 41 (20%) npde (national professional diploma in education) 21 (15%) 13 (20%) 34 (17%) ace (advanced certificate in education) 3 (2%) 0 (0%) 3 (1%) no response 49 (35%) 34 (53%) 83 (40%) the teacher sample reported considerable teaching experience; 20% had less than five years’ experience, 80% had at least 6–10 years’ experience, with 31% of those in the 10 years or more category. the engineering studies teachers tended to have a higher-than-average percentage in both the highest and lowest teaching experience categories. on the face of it, this may point to transition in the sector. considerably more engineering studies teachers reported having workplace experience in industry than did the business studies teachers. a high response rate to the overarching question on highest qualifications (not shown in the table) indicated that 90% of business studies and 67% of engineering studies teachers had certificate/diploma level or above professional qualifications. in engineering studies, 25% of teachers ignored the subject qualification question, and 53% ignored the teaching qualification question. a degree or post-graduate qualification was a prominent trend in business studies, while occupational qualifications predominated among teachers in engineering studies. most of the engineering studies teachers did not hold professional teaching qualifications while 25% of the business studies teachers held a post graduate certificate in education (pgce) qualification. the national professional diploma in education (npde) accounted for 20% of professional qualifications in the engineering studies cohort. the pgce requires a bachelor’s degree or equivalent with at least two recognised teaching subjects and this may account for different qualification trajectories. gamble & hewlett: in search of teacher professionalism 131 nc(v) as curriculum context given that the study respondents all work in a nc(v) context and constantly referred to the way in which the qualification is structured, we offer a brief explanation of formal curriculum policy. the three-year, full-time nc(v) at national qualifications framework (nqf) levels 2–4, introduced in 2007, was intended as a general vocational equivalent to the general academic national senior certificate (nsc) offered in academic schools, with a grade 9 school certificate as the minimum entry requirement for nc(v) level 2. as intended, … the national senior certificate (nsc) would cater for those school-leavers with immediate aspirations to enter higher education after grade 12. the nc(v) was designed to offer a powerful general education with a programmatic bias towards a vocation of choice. the structure of the nc(v) was geared to provide a strong theory base as well ample opportunity to engage with practical work within the college environment. (department of higher education and training, 2013b. p. 7) the classroom-based or theory part of the nc(v) curriculum consists of three compulsory and four vocational subjects. compulsory subjects are english, afrikaans or isixhosa (as first additional language), life orientation, and mathematics or mathematical literacy. subjects are assessed through a combination of external assessment (50%) and internal continuous assessment (icass) (50%). a theoretical component counts for 40% and a practical component for 60% of the overall icass mark. when it was introduced, icass, which takes the form of assignments, case studies, and practical exercises and tests in a simulated environment, represented a new assessment practice for most tvet colleges. the nc(v) was never intended to support students who, after completing grade 12, fail to gain entry into higher education institutions or the world of work and yet the nc(v) review concludes that [t]he reality is that many students who complete the nsc are referred to the nc(v) as a possible opportunity to embark on a trajectory towards a career-driven qualification; or simply because there is no other learning opportunity for them. (department of higher education and training, 2013b, p. 17) student results do not indicate educational quality in nc(v) programmes. reportedly, in the 2018 academic year, 9.2% of the students who enrolled for the nc(v) level 2 programme in 2016, completed ncv level 4 (khuluvhe & mathibe, 2021). similarly, in 2019, 10.4% of all students enrolled in the nc(v) 2 programme in 2017 reached and completed nc(v) level 4 within the expected time frame (khuluvhe & mathibe, 2022). against this curriculum background we present and analyse the study findings. 132 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 findings and analysis in this section, we offer an analysis of coded survey responses in relation to focus group and open-ended survey questionnaire comments. even though they teach in different study fields, tvet colleges, and provinces, remarkable agreement was found between the survey responses offered by business studies and engineering studies nc(v) teachers. limitations of article length allow us to present only the two highest ranked responses in each survey category. in each table the type of institutional logic represented by the possible response is indicated on the left-hand side of the table in italics, with the priority ranking indicated by the 1 or 2 in bold next to the percentages. as explained in a previous section, the type of institutional logic did not appear in the survey questionnaire sent to respondents. we include it here to show how questions were coded for analysis. table 3 highest –scoring responses for our college 1. our college 1.1 our strongest college values business studies (n = 141) engineering studies (n = 64) educational logic ‘academic success’ 79% 1 78% 1 educational logic ‘developing our students holistically, for both life and work’ 55% 2 63% 2 1.2 most significant features of our college's internal culture business studies engineering studies bureaucratic logic ‘compliance to rules and regulations’ 51% 1 64% 1 bureaucratic logic ‘cost-saving rather than investing in resources’ 35% 2 educational logic ‘creativity and innovation developing critical thinking and problem-solving’ 36% 2 1.3 our college most prefers teachers who… business studies engineering studies educational logic ‘understand students as young people and get the best out of them’ 49% 1 44% 1 bureaucratic logic ‘comply with programme and assessment requirements’ 41% 2 42% 2 gamble & hewlett: in search of teacher professionalism 133 1.4 most significant key future challenges for our college business studies engineering studies educational logic ‘making students more employable though work-integrated learning’ 71% 1 83% 1 market logic ‘convincing the public that tvet colleges are institutions of choice’ 48% 2 53% 2 survey respondents agreed strongly that the dominant values of tvet colleges are educational ones rather than bureaucratic or market related ones. in contrast, colleges’ internal cultures are viewed as strongly driven by a bureaucratic institutional logic. focus group data and responses to open-ended survey questionnaire questions indicated that tvet college cultures are experienced as directly impacted upon by national policy requirements regarding enrolment, curriculum, and assessment. it seems that tvet college training has become all about numbers—we must just take all students regardless of whether they are suited to a certain course or not . . . no selection criteria applied. (focus group 4 – business studies) the internal college culture is predominantly experienced as top-down managerialism in a bureaucratic culture where students and teachers are side-lined. teachers’ inputs within their fields of expertise [are] not considered. management makes decisions whether or not it is going to work in practice. (anonymous openended survey response) the emphasis is not on the students and teaching and learning but rather on administrative processes and record keeping. (anonymous open-ended survey response) we receive no or very little emotional support but are rather bombarded with policies and procedures. (anonymous open-ended survey response) nc(v) teachers reported having to cope (unsuccessfully) with students in a wide range of grades, ages, maturity levels, and learning needs. most respondents experience this as impacting negatively on their pedagogic practices. at the same time teachers are assessed in terms of student performance. lecturers are under pressure to produce results [in respect of pass and throughput rates]. (focus group 7 – engineering studies) the tvet college is experienced as remote from employers and workplaces. while nc(v) teachers rate employability (a market value) highly in the survey they view it as remote from what they can achieve in their daily teaching practice. 134 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 we are supposed to be training future engineers or technicians. but how are you supposed to do that when you’ve got no tools and equipment in the workshops, no safety boots and goggles . . . only using a textbook? how can you teach them about fault-finding and problem-solving under these circumstances? the so-called workshops are workshops in name only . . . not facilities providing work exposuretype training. (focus group 5 – engineering studies) examination results considered the only yardstick of student learning. (anonymous open-ended survey response) colleges are experienced as strongly bureaucratically compliant to rules and regulations in relation to programmes and assessment without a strong culture of budgeting, resourcing, and internal organisational efficiency (lowest coded values) that might enable this compliance. now with assessment, you need to be able to set a question paper that is of [a high] standard . . . but only a few people have been for that training. (anonymous openended survey response) with some college-specific exceptions, the dominant culture described is one of management autocracy, not one of professional respect and collaborative decision-making. an open-ended response referred to a culture of “dictatorship management” and another to “the dark picture which is hidden among tvet sector lecturers.” nc(v) teachers stated repeatedly that they feel undervalued and unsupported by management. table 4 highest -scoring responses for my teaching practice 2. my teaching practice 2.1 what makes me a good teacher? business studies (n = 141) engineering studies (n = 64) educational logic ‘i know my subject and i feel confident’ 81% 1 84% 1 educational logic ‘i care for the well-being of my students’ 40% 2 42% 2 2.2 main teaching challenges business studies engineering studies educational logic `language barriers’ 62% 1 42% 1 market logic `preparing students to have good work habits’ 37% 2 39% 2 gamble & hewlett: in search of teacher professionalism 135 2.3 what i rate as evidence of student learning and development business studies engineering studies educational logic ‘when they can trouble-shoot and solve problems on their own’ 64% 1 67% 1 educational and/or bureaucratic logic ‘when they do well in the examinations’ 50% 2 44% 2 2.4 biggest learning challenges for my students business studies engineering studies educational logic ‘language difficulties and struggling to write’ 70% 1 64% 1 educational and/or bureaucratic logic ‘interpreting test and examination instructions to understand what the question requires’ 41% 2 42% 2 * some responses could be interpreted in terms of an educational and/or a bureaucratic logic. across both subject areas, nc(v) survey respondents asserted the primacy of subject knowledge and care for students (both educational logics). examination performance and the predominance of formal examinations came second to more wholistic educational values as indicators of successful learning. this is perhaps not surprising given exceptionally low nc(v) throughput rates. teachers highlighted the difficulties they experience with working with diverse student groups in their classrooms in terms of language, literacy, numeracy, work ethic, study habits and inappropriate placements. specialist remedial teachers should be introduced in support of teaching and learning, with a particular focus on language and numeracy as well as psycho-social support to students. (focus group 7 – engineering studies) while these difficulties were often expressed as student deficit and a need for “remedial teachers”, this indicates that teachers do not feel adequately prepared for the wide diversity that het massification and shifts to the nc(v) have brought about. i realise that as the years went by the quality of our student is becoming weaker. i have nc(v) l2 [english second language] students who cannot read, have serious barriers to learning, and feel that tvet colleges are their last hope. (anonymous open-ended survey response) dissatisfaction with resourcing and infrastructural support focuses mostly on the lack of appropriate current teaching resources, poorly equipped workshops, and inadequacies in student workplace preparation. college management was generally blamed for not making resources available to enable the college to fulfil its nc(v) mandate regarding practical work. 136 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 yes, we can talk to them and tell them [students] about the world of work out there but we have no teaching resources or materials that speak to what we are saying. (focus group 4 – business studies) we only teach them theory; they have to visualise what machines look like . . . [for example] a blast furnace . . . so, when they go to industry, they know nothing about the machines and how things work. (focus group 2 – engineering studies) resource constraints make it difficult for teachers to enact a specifically vet pedagogy, to bring theory and practice together, and to prioritise practice. respondents say their practices fall way short of the practical-theoretical learning ratio prescribed by nc(v) curriculum policy. this has a cumulative demoralising impact on teachers. when i came here in 2011, i was of the understanding that training would be 60% practical and 40% theory . . . but honestly, it is 100% theoretical. i was given a textbook and told these are the five groups of students you will be teaching. the only thing practical is when they go out there [to a workplace] on a practical assignment and we mark what they bring back. (focus group 4 – business studies) teaching has become more administration-based than actually teaching. (anonymous open-ended survey response) i came here expecting teaching and learning to be practically orientated, but it soon began to feel like i was back teaching in high school. (focus group 1 – business studies) limitations in their ability to respond to the educational and personal needs of students caused concerns about student care and welfare needs. one focus group participant described intermittently meeting with individual students for “motivational talks” to share “words of wisdom and guidance to which they can relate.” other comments included these: the pressure becomes too much for our children and they cannot cope with the work. hence the high rate of dropouts. (anonymous open-ended survey response) students make college bearable. (anonymous open-ended survey response) i had a student who went onto a learnership and when they showed him how to approach a particular task he disagreed and suggested a better way based on how he was taught during his studies. i felt so proud of him when i heard about this. (focus group 4 – business studies) gamble & hewlett: in search of teacher professionalism 137 table 5 highest -scoring responses for my development as a teacher 1. my development as a teacher 3.1 teacher views on changing conditions in tvet sector business studies (n = 141) engineering studies (n = 64) professionalising logic ‘college teachers need to have formal academic and professional qualifications’ 58% 1 64% 1 deprofessionalising logic ‘increased workloads and mounting job stresses’ 54% 2 42% 2 3.2 most important in my development as a teacher business studies engineering studies education logic ‘to reflect and gain insight into my teaching practice’ 62% 1 41% 2 bureaucratic logic ‘formal learning opportunities outside the college’ 47% 1 market logic ‘opportunities to enter the world of work and to update myself’ 40% 2 3.3 how i would like to develop professionally business studies engineering studies market logic ‘in my occupational field of expertise (i teach in this field)’ 54% 1 80% 1 bureaucratic logic ‘as an organisational leader and manager’ 47% 2 41% 2 3.4 challenges to my development as a teacher business studies engineering studies deprofessionalising logic ‘lack of availability of financial support’ 49% 1 59% 2 deprofessionalising logic ‘lack of collegial support and enthusiasm’ 35% 2 deprofessionalising logic `limited study options and opportunities in my field of work’ 56% 2 overall, nc(v) teachers responses indicated that they accept the need to acquire formal teaching and subject qualifications to develop their occupational careers. more than 40% across both subject areas see possibilities for progression as managers (either inside or outside the college). 138 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 formal teaching qualifications are particularly valued by engineering studies teachers (where fewer have a teaching qualification). for me, having to [formally] teach for the first time . . . and others like me who come from industry . . . obtaining a teaching qualification is vital. i have taught in the technical department where i worked but it is not the same as having to teach someone who does not understand anything or does not have the basics in place . . . neither motivation to really want to study. i need to acquire strategies to deal with the many challenges being faced by nc(v) lecturers. (focus group 5 – engineering studies) subject knowledge and knowledge about teaching are rated highly as developmental priorities. however, focus groups respondents caution against the promotion of educational expertise over subject expertise. practical or workplace exposure is reported to be the most urgent developmental requirement for most teachers, but they also say they would be reluctant to pursue this during their holidays. all the teachers are qualified to teach their subjects–they have the subject knowledge but most of them struggle with ‘methods’ . . . [because] they do not have teaching qualifications . . . [on the other hand] those teachers who have teaching qualifications . . . about 10 percent of the teachers . . . don’t come with a trade. (focus group 2 – engineering studies) teachers mostly report the absence of a culture of collegiality and practices of working together, sharing best practices, and team teaching. [lecturers] are all doing different things . . . in isolation; you teach and you go home. (focus group 1– business studies) the lack of a culture of collegiality is placed at the door of both campus management and apathetic teachers. while respondents on the whole commend their colleges for opportunities to attend short courses and workshops in support of continuous professional development, the overwhelming verdict is that the dominance of non-formal interventions, for which only attendance certificates are issued, ultimately do not add any significant value. there are also concerns about limited resourcing for bursaries towards obtaining professional qualifications. the trend emerging most clearly, even in the abbreviated data set offered above is that, apart from those referring to an “internal college culture”, in all survey response categories the highest ranking was always given to responses with an educational logic. for tvet teachers the world of work is an integral part of the curriculum and even though some of the top ranked responses reflect a market logic, they can be viewed as having an educational intent. overall, questionnaire responses ranked an educational logic as the dominant logic in colleges and classrooms and a professionalising logic of formal qualifications as the most important change in the tvet sector. in contrast, narratives offered in focus groups and in anonymous open-ended survey questions tell an entirely different story of perceived lived gamble & hewlett: in search of teacher professionalism 139 reality. yet, the same respondents participated in both phases of the study. why there should be such a “dual narrative” is what we discuss in the next section. a “dual narrative” of professionalism an explanation for the dual narrative of professionalism encountered in analysis of the research data requires a return to the theoretical concepts that frame the study. when we relate hoyle’s concept of the professionality of teachers to evetts’s (2009) distinction between occupational professionalism and organisational professionalism, we find an explanation that is consistent with the dhet’s qualification-driven professionalisation strategy (as discussed above). tvet teacher professionalisation through the regulation of teacher qualifications, places tvet college teachers within a “required to be professionally qualified” category, alongside schoolteachers. the common denominator is the role of educator. however, like professionals in other areas of educational provision, tvet teachers find themselves working under conditions of constraint that make it more or less impossible to be tvet teachereducators. it is clear from the larger data set that they embrace their roles as tvet teachers within a theory-practice curriculum. they view student employability and work-readiness as their educational task, and they are in favour of work placements and work-integrated learning as central curriculum components. such a curriculum gives them a distinctive teacher-educator role, but we question how they can perform this role when they view the professional culture of their colleges as severely constraining rather than enabling. what we see in the questionnaire responses is an insertion of an idealised set of educational values (as they would like them to be rather than as they are) into the cultural milieu of college and classroom. phrased in the language of the literature we could describe this as an idealised occupational professionalism inserted into a dominant culture of organisational professionalism. such a conclusion comes with caveats though. the reported absence of a culture of collegiality, the lack of formal professional collaboration, the minimal location of classroom practice within a broader social context (other than a socio-political concern for historical disadvantage), and little if any participation in a formal professional development ethos, make this an individualist rather than a collective mode of professionalism. furthermore, support for professionalisation through qualifications and the possibility it presents of organisational career paths into management, seems to be given without recognition that individual career mobility may entail co-option into the values of organisational professionalism, i.e., the same values that tvet teachers currently experience as constraining and that they seek to overcome, even if only symbolically. so, where does tvet fit in the range of types of teacher professionalism? framed by literature reporting ongoing contestation about the nature of professionalism in public organisational life, the findings and conclusions of this study place a nascent tvet teacher professionalism at the intersection of tensions between occupational professionalism 140 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 (real or idealised) and managerial or organisational professionalism. in the international literature it is argued that what is urgently required in tvet/fe is an “expanded and collective concept” of tvet professionalism (gleeson & james, 2007, p. 464). in a recent south african study, bertram & mxenge (2022, p. 14) concluded that the secondary school teachers in their study “have internalised the managerial discourse that the purpose of teaching is primarily to ensure that learners get good grades on the final examinations.” it is too soon to tell which way tvet professionalism in the public tvet college sector will go. research over the coming years will show which road is taken. it may be that pockets of occupational professionalism will nest in a hegemonic organisational professionalism to keep alive the educational values to which this sample of nc(v) teachers currently give their allegiance. acknowledgements the research project reported on in this paper was undertaken under the auspices of and with the financial support of the researching education and labour (real) centre of the university of witwatersrand that received permission from dhet to conduct research in tvet colleges. we thank dr presha ramsarup and professor stephanie allais for their support. the project is especially indebted to dr yoesrie toefy and carel garisch, the researchers responsible for data collection and synthesis and to marianne spies for assistance with coding. we thank the nc(v) tvet lecturers who gave of their time and mobile data to complete the electronic survey questionnaire and to participate in focus group discussions outside of class time. we also thank college management for arranging contact with the nc(v) lecturers in their colleges. we acknowledge the helpful comments and suggestions received from reviewers. references abbott, a. 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(1994). case study research: design and methods. sage. microsoft word c8900 full issue 12dec.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 89, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i89a01 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x randomized control trials in education (rcts): what is their contribution to education theory about teaching? yael shalem school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa yael.shalem@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6710-7150 francine de clercq school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa francine.declercq@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9209-059x (received: 6 december 2021; accepted: 28 june 2022) abstract random controlled trials (rcts) have become one of the most sought-after approaches to impact evaluations of large-scale educational interventions in developed and developing countries. in this paper, we examine the contribution of rct-based evaluations of large-scale early grade interventions to education theory about teaching. after a brief introduction of the development context of rct-based evaluations, we examine the research model of rcts in education and some of the knowledge claims made by rct scholars, with specific attention to their claims about changing modes of teaching. we then introduce, briefly, five multi-pronged interventions to improve early grade reading in three developing countries (india, kenya, and south africa). finally, we discuss two key educational ideas about teaching supported by these early grade interventions and locate them in education theory about teaching. our argument is that these ideas about teaching are not new; they are debated by education researchers and because rcts’ evaluation research does not provide empirical analysis of these ideas, it cannot be integrated by teacher educators and education researchers into knowledge about teaching and teacher education and development. teaching is not seen as an empirical object to be theorised by this massive growing research field. if collaboration and dialogue were to emerge between development economists, education researchers, and teacher educators, rcts’ findings of educational interventions could contribute to what is already known in educational theory about teaching. keywords: rcts, large-scale interventions, teacher education and development, education theory, teacher knowledge about teaching 4 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 introduction randomised control trials (rcts) have become the gold standard research method that influences decision-makers and funders on the most effective and cost-effective large-scale interventions to be funded. in the field of education, large-scale interventions (henceforth interventions) aim to add reading resources and textbooks, improve alignment between teaching and the curriculum, monitor classroom instruction, time on task, and curriculum coverage, and strengthen accountability. in addition, and important for our paper, interventions are increasingly experimenting with different forms of teacher training, including instructional coaching, and developing unique teaching material in the form of scripted and/or semi scripted lesson plans (slps). underlying these latter “treatments”, as commonly termed by rcts scholars, is a model of teacher development but also a theory (or theories) of teaching. in this paper we do not focus on the model of teacher development used by interventions (de clercq & shalem, 2014; shalem & de clercq, 2019). our aim is to examine the contribution of rct-based evaluations of early-grade interventions in education theory about teaching. we begin with a brief introduction to the development context of rct-based evaluations. second, we examine the research model of rcts in education. third, we examine knowledge claims made by rct scholars to show that, although the general opinion is that rct knowledge claims are confined to the correlation between variables in a specific intervention, some rct scholars make far more extensive and wide-ranging knowledge claims, including changing human behaviour. in the field of education, this includes changing modes of teaching. fourth, we introduce briefly five multi-pronged interventions to improve early grade reading in three developing countries (india, kenya, and south africa). fifth, we discuss two key educational ideas about teaching supported by these interventions and locate them in education theory about teaching. we want to show that these ideas about teaching are not new; they are debated by education researchers and, with due collaboration, between development economists, education researchers, and teacher educators, rct findings of educational interventions could contribute to what is already known in research on knowledge about teaching. we argue that if educational ideas promoted by rct research about teaching are placed within existing education theories about teaching, a meaningful conversation can begin between development economists, teacher educators, and education researchers. this conversation will also improve the external validity of rct-based evaluations. we contend that research that declares that “poor quality of learners’ learning correlates strongly with poor quality of teachers’ teaching” (bunyi et al., 2012, p. 5), and that is so well funded for the purpose of collecting massive amount of data, should support education theory about teaching, so that future generations of teachers can learn teaching practices that have been shown to be successful and appropriate for complex educational environments. in its current form, rct-based evaluations contribute robust evidence about the impact of certain treatments on learners’ outcomes. but, as we will show, despite the recurring claim that a specific mode of teaching (supported by learning and teaching materials and coaching) makes shalem & de clercq: randomized control trials in education (rcts) 5 a significant difference to learners’ results, there is no way in which teacher educators and education researchers can integrate the rct findings into knowledge about teaching and teacher education and development. this is because teaching is not seen as an empirical object to be theorised by this massive growing research field. context and development of rcts in the mid-1990s by the mid-1990s, international agencies became seriously concerned that most interventions in various public sectors did not work or did not have a substantial or sustained impact on the ground. the rise of international large-scale assessments that followed a global change in the culture of assessment supplied new comparative performance data and put pressure on countries, in particular poor and middle-income ones, to develop better policies and programmes in line with their assessment results (addey et al., 2017). many governments in the global south came under pressure because of their ineffective and poorly performing education system, a pressure increased by the recommendations to provide quality education for all coming from education for all and more recently by the millennium goals and the sustainable development goals. the subsequent growth in education enrolment and participation came, not unexpectedly, with a simultaneous decline of educational quality in many countries of the global south. determined to alleviate the education inequalities of disadvantaged communities, the international agencies (united states agency for international development, united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization and the uk department for international development) became resolute that they should allocate funds only to programmes that could be backed up by large-scale research evidence of their effectiveness and their specific modality (de souza leão & eyal, 2019). 1 the growing trend became investments in programmes that used what we might call a systems lens to deal with education problems at scale and improve learning levels for all (gibbs et al., 2021). the partnership between governments or non-governmental organizations working with disadvantaged communities and researchers using rcts was a perfect match. this context gave rise to the involvement of development economists in advising and evaluating the impact of social policy interventions while at the same time strengthening their evaluation tools such as rcts (banerjee, duflo et al., 2016; banerjee & duflo, 2009; duflo et al., 2016). the data base index of rct-based evaluations (impact evaluation repository (ier) created by the international initiative for impact evaluation included close to 700 evaluations by 2012, growing to 2500 by 2014, and to 4205 by 2015 (cameron et al., 2016; sabet & brown, 2018). the sectors of health, nutrition, and population, education and social protection constitute 65% of all rct-based evaluations in the ier data base (sabet & brown, 2018). the largest share (34.4%) of studies was conducted in sub-saharan africa. there was a rapid massive growth of international evaluation agencies such as the abdul latif jameel poverty action lab (jpal), the world bank’s development impact evaluation initiative (dime) and 1 https://www.usaid.gov/evaluation/usaid-program-effectiveness 6 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 the strategic impact evaluation fund (sief) at the world bank (cameron et al., 2016). jpal, based at the massachusetts institute of technology, conducted more than 1000 randomised evaluations in different development sectors in more than 80 countries. 2 in addition, these statistical/quantitative evaluations came to dominate at international development conferences; they were widely published in many academic journals for their large-scale quantitative research findings and their influence on social development policy and research funding continues to grow. rcts came to take “a larger place in the policy conversation at the turn of the century and received substantially more funding from donor organizations and local governments” (banerjee, banerji et al., 2016, p. 2). how do rcts in education evaluations work? rct-based evaluations in education set out to find answers to questions such as “which version of a given educational treatment programme seems to produce the largest increase in learners’ outcomes” and “can it work in other contexts or be scaled up?” in the case of improving educational outcomes, interventions are about testing different combinations of mechanisms that seem suitable to changing and improving teachers’ practice by relying on a specific model of change, and on previous ideas about teaching. the confidence in the knowledge claims produced after the testing is determined by quantitative variables measured at the beginning, mid-way, and at the end of an intervention, with quantifiable evidence, most often the percentage of learning gains achieved for a certain multi-pronged treatment (bhide et al., 2018) or part of it. by replicating these interventions in different geographical contexts and testing difference in modality, rct scholars hope to provide knowledge about how to change teachers’ practice. their model of teacher development is based on the idea that, by providing teachers with support and accountability measures, their new repertoire of practice will be expanded, and teachers will be encouraged “to incorporate practices of new and effective lesson strategies” (fleisch et al., 2016, p. 158). rcts: claims to knowledge development economists argue that, through randomised experiments, they can test treatment interventions, and find out which components of the interventions are truly necessary and should be adapted by policy makers (and by other researchers or practitioners in their respective fields). inspired by what they have read or researched, and by previous randomised experiment projects, development economists test different variations of interventions that did not exist before (banerjee, duflo et al., 2016), with the view to testing and changing human behaviour (2016). 3 rct-based evaluations have big ambition for grand change in the poor communities in the world which they seek to influence by identifying “scalable” 2 de souza leão and eyal (2019) report that when jpal was founded in 2003, “it consisted of 4 affiliated professors and conducted 33 projects. by 2017, there were 161 affiliated professors and they were involved in 902 evaluations in 72 countries (p. 384). 3 for example, “if citizens vote for candidates based on their ethnicity or caste is that because of very strong preferences, clientelistic networks, or a combination of weak preferences and no alternative information on candidate quality? do people only value what they pay for? how important are liquidity constraints, as opposed to lack of information or low human capital, in explaining poor child health and low business profitability in lowincome families?” (2016, p. 18) shalem & de clercq: randomized control trials in education (rcts) 7 innovations (the next cell phone), or change “systems” (health care) or reform institutions (democracy) (banerjee, duflo et al., 2016). their first claim to knowledge suggests the intention to have large transformative influence by advising policy makers on educational interventions that could change attitudes and behaviours towards better teaching practices and better learners’ outcomes that are critical to the survival of poor communities in developing countries. the second aspirational claim to knowledge associated with rct-based evaluations is for “external validity.” in the words of athey and imbens (2016), external validity is concerned with generalizing causal inferences, drawn for a particular population and setting, to others, where these alternative settings could involve different populations, different outcomes, or different contexts. (in banerjee, duflo et al., 2016, p. 8) using production functions, statistical regressions and/or hierarchical data modelling, and rct-based evaluation, researchers look to identify the factor/s within a treatment that has/have the highest correlation with improved learners’ outcomes (de souza leão & eyal, 2019). for an effective treatment to be justified and adopted, a particular multi-pronged intervention must be replicated (in the same basic intervention program or similar enough) across different contextual conditions and time periods. replications across different contexts are intended “to increase the operational value of the multi-pronged treatment for policy makers” (who can choose the best combinations of mechanisms across slightly different multi-pronged treatments) (banerjee, duflo et al., 2016, p. 17). the literature on external validity of rcts research is vast. the problems of generalising to other time periods, other countries, etc., are issues that have been discussed extensively (banerjee, duflo et al., 2016; deaton, 2010; duflo et al., 2006; muller, 2015). claims for external validity are made with care since they attract strong criticism within the rct research community itself. they are contrasted by those who state that interventions that work in one context cannot be recommended to poor communities from different contexts because evaluation studies cannot take account of the specific characteristics of communities, nor explain the reasons behind a behavioural change (gibbs et al., 2021; jones et al., 2009; tomlinson et al., 2015). as long as rct-based evaluations and other related research studies do not explain (and most rct scholars say that they are not meant to explain) how the identified variables of an intervention (and their best modality) work to improve results, their external validity is constrained. theoretically, this should pose limitations on advising policy makers about the benefits of any evaluated interventions. the third aspirational claim of rct-based evaluations deals with the confidence in the accumulative power of rcts in advocating a different model of teacher development. an example of this is found in the kenyan and south african studies (see later). rct-based evaluations were brought to these countries in times of desperation for a new model of teacher development. for a long time, different forms of interventions were trialled but they 8 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 brought about little change in the system as a whole and in teacher practice more specifically (bertram, 2011; de clercq & shalem, 2014; hoadley, 2016; shalem & de clercq, 2019). south african advocates of rct testing of interventions went as far as claiming that rcts provide “a sound basis for building powerful knowledge on large-scale reform of instruction in the global south” (fleisch & schöer, 2014, p. 11). this claim of powerful knowledge, that can predict, explain, and enable us to envisage alternatives by providing the best understanding of the social world (young and muller, 2013), was made at the beginning of sets of interventions trialled on a large group of mainly poor schools in south africa with the view to improving learning and teaching of reading in these schools. we acknowledge these aspirations. we also acknowledge their important contribution to a model of teacher development. moreover, we acknowledge the value of rcts in evaluating educational interventions in developing countries because of the immense importance of improving the teaching of learners from poor communities. we acknowledge debates on external validity. our serious concern, however, is about the weak integration of rct-based evaluations with education theory about teaching. we concede that rct-based evaluations show that small-scale training interventions have not made much difference to teacher practice in developing countries. but, because proponents of rct-based evaluations aspire to change human behaviour, and, in education more specifically, to improve teaching practice and learners’ outcomes, the knowledge about teaching accumulated from this research needs to be brought not only to policy makers but into the educational arena as well. before engaging with this argument, we need to describe, briefly, the interventions. in the section that follows, we foreground and locate in educational debates two educational ideas about teaching that these interventions are known for as well as their educational assumptions about how teachers teach and how learners learn. rcts in education in three developing countries the five interventions aimed at improving reading 4 of poorly performing learners in three developing countries are pratham’s read india, the primary mathematics and reading programme (primr) as well as tusome in kenya, and the gauteng primary literacy and mathematics strategy (gplms) as well as the early grades reading study (egrs) in south africa. rct-based evaluations of these interventions report some success, measured by an increase in testing scores that are shown by rcts to be correlated with specific components of the respective interventions. our aim is to introduce each intervention and its impact (increase in learning outcomes) but not to examine in detail the strategies and implementation over time nor to interrogate the detailed results. india cognisant of the fact that school systems are not well designed to address the needs of learners who have not gained early-learning skills, the pratham read india programme developed a reading deficit programme to give such learners a chance to catch up. the 4 and, in some, mathematics was targeted as well. shalem & de clercq: randomized control trials in education (rcts) 9 pratham-trained teachers and/or community volunteers worked to teach the pratham curriculum either in or outside school hours or in summer camps. the programme targeted what it saw to be the root of the learning crisis by transforming the grade 3 and 5 structures and introducing two components that were subsequently assessed by jpal evaluators: 1) “teaching-at-the-right-level” (tarl); and 2) the use of pratham-trained volunteers rather than teachers to implement the programme in/outside of the schools (banerjee, banerji et al., 2016). a sample or template of semi-slps was also provided for each reading task at the five distinct language ability levels. the approach to teaching reading followed a balanced approach of back-to-basic phonics and whole language. after reaching about 33 million children by 2007, this remedial early grade learning programme aimed to contribute to knowledge on strategies under which effective pedagogy can be brought to scale. the intention was to change government policy and practice in schools (banerji & chavan, 2016) and institutionalise the pratham’s methodology that was said to be cost effective and easy to scale up (banerjee et al., 2007). it was tested in a slightly different manner in three states: in the first state, the intervention was led by teachers supported by government supervisors, while, in the second state, the reading methodology was taught by pratham volunteers during school time and this is what led to the greatest improvement of learners’ reading results (banerjee et al., 2017). a third version of the programme, that involved teachers implementing themselves the programme in their classroom, failed. this is because teachers reported a conflict between pratham’s back-tobasics phonics pedagogy and the grouping of learners of same reading ability on the one hand, and the national indian primary school curriculum emphasis on coverage, on the other. teachers preferred to account through official channels for their coverage of the national curriculum rather than change their pedagogy and organisation of learners in compliance with the non-compulsory pratham’s approach. the best impact is recorded in uttar pradesh in 2013–4 with trained volunteers (not teachers) teaching in two learning camps (10-day and 20day each) during school time, leading to increased test scores test score gains of 0.7 to 1.0 on average (banerjee et al., 2017). by now this programme 5 has expanded its reach beyond india and is found in many african governments such as those of cote d’ivoire, nigeria, ghana, kenya, and zambia. 6 kenya primr in kenya was an intervention begun in 2011 that targeted early grades and involved basic instructional materials such as english/kiswahili learners’ books with ongoing instructional support and coaching to teachers. according to the research triangle institute (rit) evaluators, primr foregrounds “starting at the basic level” and “utilizing explicit pedagogy” (piper et al., 2015, p. 80), mediated by teachers’ guides with semi-scripted daily 5 https://www.teachingattherightlevel.org/tarl-in-action) 6 the programme was not implemented by teachers in the schools of bihar and uttarakhand. attempts to institutionalise the programme in classrooms failed because teachers felt more accountable to curriculum advisers for curriculum coverage than to this alternative pedagogical intervention. sharma and deshpande (2010) paraphrase what teachers told them in interviews: “[t]he materials are good in terms of language and content. the language is simple and the content is relevant . . . however, teaching with these materials require patience and time. so, they do not use them regularly as they also have to complete the syllabus” (banerjee et al., 2017, p. 89). 10 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 lesson plans and teachers being coached by curriculum support officers (piper, simmonszuilkowski, et al., 2018). the rationale behind this kind of intervention was that [m]any teachers do not understand how children learn how to read and that they lack the pedagogical skills needed to teach this skill. interventions that train teachers in the components of literacy acquisition, appropriate pedagogical skills, and appropriate use of teaching-learning materials have reported positive gains in children learning how to read. (bunyi et al., 2012, p. 5) this intervention also follows the balanced approach to literacy learning “with attention to both decoding skills and interpretation” (piper et al., 2014, pp. 13–14). primr impact saw a moderate increase in learners’ reading scores (0.73 to 1.29 sd respectively for english and kiswahili). the largest effect size came from teachers’ guides with lesson plans (piper, simmons-zuilkowski, dubeck et al., 2018, p. 333). these results sustained, and in most cases, strengthened in the four-year intervention. following the success of primr, the kenyan ministry of education decided to take it to scale in 2015 with a similar literacy programme, known as tusome, for the first three grades of schooling (piper et al., 2015; piper et al., 2018; piper, simmons-zuilkowski, dubeck et al., 2018; piper, sitabkhan et al., 2018). the idea behind this national programme was to build capacity in government structures to support and monitor effectively this new instructional programme. teachers guides (aligned with the national curriculum), and coaching were also used to explicate the sequence of lessons and reading activities. piper, destefano, kinyanjui et al. (2018) reported that tusome’s impact doubled or tripled the kenyan literacy benchmarks (0.6 to 1.0 standard deviations respectively on english and kiswahili learning outcomes). but although reading comprehension, the most difficult subtask, improved in kiswahili and english, it remained the lowest level of improvement in relation to other reading sub-tasks. less-poor learners benefited more since they had more school resources and this reaffirms the notion that equitable outcomes demand inequitable allocation of support resources as these scholars pointed out. they found that the instructional change in teachers’ practice was lower than expected, partly because of weak utilisation of the internal project monitoring information to target instructional support. in the evaluation of teachers’ use of teacher guides, it was noted that “most of these modifications (59 percent) negatively impacted the quality of the lesson” and “more should be done to support teachers in understanding the activities in each lesson and to encourage the teachers to use the instructional methodology” (piper, sitabkhan et al., 2018, p. 23). south africa the south african gplms in gauteng province, the first system-wide intervention targeting teachers of poorly performing primary schools, focused on improving “the instructional core.” teachers were provided with detailed slps that specified the what, when, and how of teaching specific curriculum content, as well as quality learning materials. teachers were shalem & de clercq: randomized control trials in education (rcts) 11 trained by coaches who modelled what good practice looked like, and who reflected with teachers on their enactments of the lesson plans. similar to what happened in kenya, this intervention followed the balanced approach to teaching reading that combines phonics and whole language. as fleisch and schöer (2014) put it, “there is recognition in the simple literacy approach that primary school children move from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’, ‘reading for a purpose’ and ‘reading for pleasure’” (p. 2). this intervention relies on a particular modality of changing teachers’ practices. it was expected that, by following slps and by working with coaches (once a month), teachers’ repertoire of good practices would expand. as in many of these interventions, the idea is that more repeated teacher practice of the new practices (with the help of coaches and lesson guides) will increase their understanding of the curriculum topics and this will encourage them to go back to their classroom to “incorporate practices of new and effective lesson strategies” (fleisch et al., 2016, p. 158). programmes such as the egrs are used to develop teachers, to facilitate the expansion of their knowledge and skills, to contribute to their growth and competency and to implement instructional strategies that enhance the teachers’ content knowledge, pedagogy and teaching styles. (motilal & fleisch, 2020, p. 5) a 2012 evaluation of the gplms intervention was done through regression discontinuity design and difference in differences studies and it revealed some, but not substantial, changes. low increase in learners’ reading scores was found and this meant that schools below the 40% cut off benefited most. it is generally concluded that the gplms led to improvement of treated schools by 19.3 percentage points from 2008 to 2012 (fleisch & schöer, 2014, p. 6). subsequently, three egrs quasi-experiments were introduced in different provinces over a period of two years. in these different permutations, the structured pedagogic intervention continued to rely on the so-called triple cocktail 7 of fully slps (prescribing/guiding the order of the content, the pacing of their teaching), learner resources, and training/coaches. on-site coaching was found to be more successful than “just-in-time” centralised teacher training (kotze et al., 2019) or virtual coaching (cilliers et al., 2020). the rct-based evaluation pointed out the important value of on-site teacher coaching (0.24 sd); “[b]etween 10 to 20% more learners surpassed reading fluency at the end of grade 2 as a result of the coaching intervention” and the reading gap between non-fee and quintile 5 schools closed by about one-fifth (taylor, 2019, p. 11). a second egrs classroom observation study on early grade reading in grade 1 (department of basic education, 2017) noted improvement in the form of more assessment, more speaking and writing, more print visibility, and better learner pacing and time-on-task. the argument put forward was that a virtual coach is less able to monitor, model, and correct the more difficult teaching practices, and that on-site coaches are better able to relate to teachers, win their trust, encourage accountability, and, most importantly, allow for more reflection. 7 this concept was first used and developed by brahm fleisch who was instrumental in initiating the gplms (see fleisch & schöer, 2014) 12 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 if the participating teachers were given an opportunity to explain the reading strategies, talk to coaches about them and reflect with other teachers, there would be significantly greater awareness and understanding of the strategies. (sailors and price, 2015, p.124 in motilal & fleisch, 2020, p. 9) key educational ideas supported by these large-scale interventions and debates in education theory about teaching the five interventions we have reviewed here rely on similar educational ideas about teaching and its underlying notion of learners’ learning. they emphasise individualised teaching (by grouping learners, even if in different organisational forms), explicit instruction, as well as a balanced approach of back-to-basic phonics and whole language. in what follows, we focus on the first two ideas and locate them in debates in education theory about teaching. our main aim is to show that the ideas are not new; they are contested and are without empirical evidence concerning these ideas of teaching. also, rct-based evaluations cannot contribute to how education theory about teaching has been theorised for decades. we believe that this is a missed opportunity. the first key educational idea for teaching, used by the pratham read india programme, is “[t]eaching-at-the-right-level” (known as tarl). in south africa, a similar idea is applied to one of the teaching activities referred to as group guided reading. this term is used to describe the organisation and grouping of learners for some period of the day or part of the school year “not according to their age, but according to what they know—for example, by splitting the class, organizing supplemental sessions, or reorganizing children by reading level—and match[ing] the teaching to the level of the students” (banerjee et al., 2017, p. 84). an assessment tool is used to group learners: five different language levels are used to distinguish different ability levels. 8 this intervention advocates more dedicated time to basic skills and group work with “plenty of reading material at the children’s level and simple tools to track progress and give attention to children who need help” (banerji & chavan, 2016, p. 463). regular one-on-one assessment of learners is a key element to track progress even though this idea is reported to be foreign to the formal indian system. “the pedagogy became more structured and more formal, with an emphasis on frequent testing” (banerjee et al., 2017, p. 84). organisation of learners by some or other form of ability assessment is not a new idea and has been debated for decades. these debates are ignored by the interventions and their rctbased evaluations and, even more so, the idea is presented as common sense (banerjee et al., 8 the literacy components are beginning level, letter and phoneme recognition, reading words, reading paragraphs, and reading a short story (https://www.teachingattherightlevel.org/the-tarl-approach/classroom methodology/reading). these levels have increasingly sophisticated dimensions of language comprehension and expression and reading comprehension as well as fluent/creative writing. they each consist of activities such as reading aloud, discussions, phonetic games, vocabulary exercises, mind-mapping and writing (banerji & chavan, 2016). shalem & de clercq: randomized control trials in education (rcts) 13 2017). this is despite the fundamental tension that underpins this idea and that makes it difficult to apply. one interesting take on the tension involved in grouping learners goes back to darlinghammond’s work on accountability where she points to the tension between the “best” and the “equal” principles. the former principle refers to the idea that each learner is “entitled to receive the education that is best for him or her.” the latter principle refers to the idea that each learner “is entitled to receive an education at least as good as (equal to) that provided for others” (darling-hammond, 1989, p. 65). during the 1970s, sociologists of education argued that this kind of classification brought about alienation and labelling. individualised teaching is, ideally, dealing with these tensions but it demands high levels of skilled teaching, sensitivity, and judgment, let alone cost. bernstein (1990) whose sociological theory of education developed in view of the inequality of educational achievement between middle and working-class children, discussed what he called educational forms of ‘repair’, and he shows that each form of ‘repair’ embodies its own curriculum and/or pedagogical trade-off. some depend on the availability of certain economic conditions of possibility while others give preference to some educational priorities at the expense of others (allais et al., 2019). the above-mentioned educational theorists point to social and pedagogical tensions associated with teaching-at-the-right-level in the sense of the grouping of learners according to their ability. conceptually, teaching-at-the-right-level in a mixed classroom (as is the case in kenya and south africa but not in india) is the most challenging form of teaching because it requires a complex set of curriculum and pedagogical decisions, both at system and classroom levels. the pratham read india programme intervention foregrounds the idea of recognising and separating learners with different abilities in the class and (in some parts of the lesson also by ways of diagnosis) ensuring that teachers can tailor their teaching according to their learners’ different reading abilities. but what variations of individualised teaching the grouping of learners give rise to, how they are enacted, what kinds of decisions teachers make, and how teachers manage coverage as well as individuation, are not explained, much less explicated. the kenyan and the south african rct-based results suggest that the most vulnerable schools remain so and this suggests that teachers find the idea of individuation very difficult. hence, what will be crucial evidence to collect and analyse for new generations of student teachers and for educational research more broadly are case studies (from such a large sample of schools), that demonstrate what strong and confident teachers do to individuate teaching and whether this is correlated (or not) with their knowledge of content, use of time (for example), or selection of certain activities over others. the second educational idea or concept embedded in the kenyan and south african interventions is that of explicit instruction. “explicit instruction” in the kenyan intervention includes a focus on the five reading skills, the use of graded readers, “moving teachers away from using whole-class oral repetition” (piper et al., 2014, pp. 13–14); the “sequential stepby-step manner that reinforces the five components of reading” (piper et al., 2015, p. 72) and 14 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 “teacher and student interactions” (piper, simmons-zuilkowski, dubeck et al., 2018, p. 325). as can be seen below, “explicit instruction” is described as a curriculum organisational issue. teachers’ guides were provided in kiswahili and english, including structured lesson plans for english, kiswahili and mathematics. the guides, developed for the first and second grades, included one lesson per day for the full school year. the kiswahili and english lessons focused on the explicit instruction of early reading skills, such as letter sounds, blending, reading comprehension methods and writing activities. (piper, simmons-zuilkowski, kwayumba et al., 2018, p. 112) in the above extract the term “explicit instruction” could mean that an enacted curriculum tool in the form of a teachers’ guide makes the content to be taught (here, it is early reading skills) explicit to teachers. this is, of course, not the same as making the teaching of those reading skills explicit to learners (shalem, 2018; shalem et al., 2016). “instructional core” is the term for explicit instruction promoted by the south african interventions (gplms and egrs). its educational roots are in the work of richard elmore on school reform. instructional practice is broadly defined as the set of interactions that occur at the level of the instructional core, that is, the relationship between a teacher and a learner in the presence of knowledge. (city et al. 2009 and cohen et al. 2003 in rincóngallardo & fleisch, 2016, pp. 381–382) ideas we found associated with instructional core include a focus on the reading skills (motilal & fleisch, 2020); the use of graded readers; repertoire of practices and daily and weekly routines (fleisch & schöer, 2014); interaction between teachers and learners; appropriate expectations from learners of lower socio-economic environment; habituation; systematic completion of tasks; reorganization of classroom space (near teacher desk, on carpet, etc); and small groups working in a different space (individualization) (fleisch & dixon, 2017). some of the terms used to describe explicit instruction refer to what curricula specify as well as to what lesson plans (if used) can specify in more detail (for example, repertoire of practices, daily and weekly routines, and focus on the reading skills). other terms are simply too broad and common-sense (interaction between teachers and learners, and the systematic completion of tasks). as mentioned earlier, we found one paper linked to an rct-based evaluation of a south african intervention that aims to understand the mechanism that explains the shift in teachers’ teaching and that introduces ideas from foucault to explain the use of routines and activities with specific emphasis on habituation and use of space (fleisch & dixon, 2017). this is a productive attempt made by two education researchers to explain and explicate explicit instruction. however, here is the issue with the term explicit instruction: different curriculum forms prescribe and specify (make explicit), to a different degree, the selection and sequencing of the knowledge to be taught. south africa is noted for its history of curriculum reform that has, over time, succeeded in making the selection and sequencing of knowledge more explicit shalem & de clercq: randomized control trials in education (rcts) 15 (hoadley, 2018). but curriculum specification is not the same as explicit instruction. moreover, no theory of teaching advocates implicit forms of instruction. rather, different approaches to teaching make explicit different aspects of teaching because they rely on different learning theories. to explain this point, we locate the idea of explicit instruction in two very different education theories of teaching. the first theory follows lave and wenger’s (1991) situated learning theory (and that of other social constructivists) that argues that, by being directly involved with real world objects in authentic contexts and experimenting with them, learners come to understand the use of things in the world and the meanings of ideas embedded in them. concepts associated with this view include terms such as participation in social practice, learning-by-doing, and communities of practice. in this theory, ideas about teaching foreground designing learning activities, creating an interactive learning environment, and the gradual transition of learners from peripheral to complex forms of participation. the role of teachers is to bring learning out into the open and this includes making explicit learners’ opinions and ideas—i.e., their voice. teaching is expected to be individualised, useful, and relevant to the life of learners. activity forms a crucial representational resource. the whole language approach to reading has affinity with this view (pearson, 2004). the teacher is expected to diagnose and interpret learners’ actions, allow different reactions to texts, and, over time, help them to participate in a wider system of literacy practices. in this view, explicit instruction would refer to the activities that teachers design, the variety of forms of participation they encourage, and their acceptance of the plurality of meanings and of the variety of ways of knowing. the second theory of teaching draws on a social realist view of knowledge that emphasises relations between concepts, strong demarcation between school and everyday knowledge, and the role of evaluative criteria in education transmission (bernstein, 1990). activity and mediation are means of transmission of specialised knowledge, procedures and rules; they demarcate what is expected to be known and how, and are used to assess levels of proficient performance with an emphasis on what is not achieved. this approach is associated with systemic functionalists’ emphasis on direct teaching of the formal properties of language (clark, 2005) and of phonics. according to this theory, the teacher is expected to provide instructions that explain what aspect/s of reading is/are practised by the activity, identify and correct misunderstandings of the meaning of the text exhibited by learners, make decisions on what ideas, language structures, rules, and meanings to elaborate (as well as when and how to elaborate those), as well as transmit knowledge criteria (hoadley, 2018) about what is particularly important and why, what ideas belong together and which do not, and which ideas are correct and which are false. in this view, explicit instruction would refer to accuracy and correctness of knowledge, teachers’ explanations of concepts, and the transmission of evaluative criteria of what counts. the huge potential of evidence for research to be conducted by both education researchers and development economists on teaching located in such educational debates is not mined by rct-based evaluations; the different types of explicit instruction and when, during the lesson, teachers use them, are not explicated. this means that new generations of student 16 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 teachers (and teachers in professional development courses) can continue to rely only on the conceptual debate and on the small case studies that already exist. yet, rct-based evaluations may have contributed more to knowledge of teaching if this debate on explicit instruction were acknowledged seriously by development economists and donors, if the enactment of slps were examined systematically and forms of modelling by coaches explicated, and if the knowledge needed to enact the teaching-at-the-right-level were investigated and modalities of individualised teaching explicated. these evaluations may also have contributed better knowledge about teaching that could explain and/or enable alternatives about making explicit teaching techniques and evaluative criteria or about gradually becoming a participant of the social practice of reading, and what affordances for learning in practice teachers need. it is possible that analysis of data on teaching would help transcend the polarity that structures current debates in education theory about teaching. knowledge of teaching would mean further empirical verification or falsification of the knowledge of these two different schools based on specific evidence to be collected from the thousands of teachers teaching in these interventions or from a sample of these. lack of discussion and engagement with these important issues by rcts make their pragmatic empirical evaluations a danger if they are used exclusively to advise policymakers and donors since it could be undermined by what is already shown by education theory. conclusion the literature on rct-based evaluations we report on provides a lot of educational data used to evaluate what has or has not worked (generally by measuring short and sometimes medium-term learning gains). it does not, however, refer nor attempt to engage explicitly with a theory of teaching embedded in these interventions. nor does it show what the evaluations can add or change about what education researchers and teacher educators already know from its rich conceptual tradition. a response to our request could be that rct-based evaluations are not meant to explain or answer these kinds of questions. it is argued that, to understand how and why an intervention works and what the generative mechanisms for change are, small qualitative studies are required (fleisch & dixon, 2017). the truth is that these are few and far between and that rct scholars of educational interventions refer mainly to other rct studies by replicating what has been shown to work or not. research work is shared among quantitative researchers who work for donor agencies, economists who deal with large educational data, and, increasingly, with policy makers. education researchers as well as teacher educators are not seen as potential interlocuters with whom to discuss these issues and theorise the complexities involved in teachers’ knowledge about teaching (and learning to teach). ambivalences and disagreements that characterise educational knowledge for teaching appear to be ignored as if they are of little interest. some go so far as to argue that educational knowledge about teaching is merely common sense. how do you get a bureaucracy to make a common-sense change that has a very strong chance of being beneficial—like not totally ignoring students who have fallen behind shalem & de clercq: randomized control trials in education (rcts) 17 and instead offering them a path to catching up? (banerjee et al., 2017, p. 95, emphasis added) one could also argue that we cannot expect economists to engage with education theory about teaching and that education researchers and teacher educators have not come to the party because of some prejudice against these kinds of studies. this may be true. the question, however, is not about this. if the reservoir of knowledge developed from rctbased evaluations is mainly system change-focused, and if the reservoir is developed and stored within this narrow stratum of similar researchers only, how will that knowledge be relayed to education researchers and teacher educators? how will the rcts’ claim to knowledge of changing teacher practice, that, as we show above, is a complex conceptual issue and is subject to all sorts of conditions of possibility, support education theory so that it can be used to develop better teaching and learning? what is needed is not only combining rigorous quantitative and qualitative research but, more importantly, combining conceptual and empirical research of concepts such as teaching-atthe-right-level, systematic teaching, teaching/learning-by-doing, etc., since this will assist in building education theory about teaching for teacher education research from rct-based evaluations. after all, it is the teachers who are expected to carry on with the educational ideas that drive the treatments of intervention and future generations of teachers can only benefit from appropriate explication of knowledge about teaching methods in general and of teaching reading in particular. without these kinds of foci or analyses and as long as the findings and instructional regimes used in the interventions and their underlying theory of change are not subjected to educational theorisation, teacher educators and researchers of teacher knowledge will convey the findings as something to emulate (or ignore). clearly this approach cannot contribute to professional knowledge scholarship of learning and teaching, and to teacher development. we sum up this discussion with the question, “are rct-based evaluations in education conducted to influence policy makers and donor agencies or do they intend to be of any value to teacher education and development research?” if the answer is the former, how can they then be of real systemic value? references addey, c., sellar, s., steiner-khamsi, g., lingard, b., & verger, a. 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(2013). on the powers of powerful knowledge. review of education, 1(3), 229–250. microsoft word c8900 full issue 12dec.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 89, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i89a05 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x parents resist sexuality education through digital activism sisa ngabaza department of women’s and gender studies, university of the western cape, cape town, south africa sngabaza@uwc.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0003-4137-9566 (received: 24 april 2022; accepted: 5 december 2022) abstract south africa has high rates of hiv infection among its young population, high rates of unintended pregnancy among the youth, and extremely high rates of gender-based violence. given all this, it is essential that young people be taught skills that will enable them to manage their sexuality. schools have been shown to be best placed to provide accurate and relevant information on young people’s sexualities. through the life orientation (lo) curriculum, the department of basic education (dbe) offers age-appropriate sexuality education as a response to these concerns. however, research in sexuality education shows that there is a lack of guidance and preparedness by educators, and this hampers how sexuality education is delivered in south african schools. a recent attempt by the dbe to upscale and strengthen the sexuality education curriculum in south african schools was met with resistance from parents and other lobby groups. this resistance was driven across many different media platforms, and particularly through an online hashtag #leaveourkidsalone, largely on facebook and twitter. through this resistance, we are introduced to parents/adult response to the teaching and learning of comprehensive sexuality education (cse) in south african schools, a voice that has been missing to a great extent in this debate. working within a broad feminist qualitative framework, i use critical discourse analysis to map out some of the key discourses emerging from the #leaveourkidsalone resistance in an attempt to understand how parents/adults use social media to resist cse in south africa. i foreground critically adult voices and the implications of these for the teaching and learning of cse in south african schools. keywords: parents, sexuality education, resistance, digital activism, south africa introduction in this paper, i will first outline briefly how social media has been used as a means of resistance to education in general and sexuality education in particular. i then discuss how sexuality education in south africa has been widely resisted. i follow this with a brief overview of sexuality education in south africa to define the context within which i make my argument. ngabaza: parents resist sexuality education through digital activism 85 social media as a tool of resistance using social media as a tool of resistance has gained prominence all over the world. hashtag movements, as they are popularly known, have the power to facilitate real-time connections as users take note of issues they would not otherwise have noticed or acted on. in different parts of the world, hashtag movements have been used to drive change and resist inequality or policies promoting social injustice and lack of transformation (avigur-eshel & berkovich, 2018; brennan et al., 2021; david, 2018; gerbaudo & treré, 2015; selvi, 2022; thapliyal, 2018). in south africa, advocacy for decolonial and free education, through #rhodesmustfall and #feesmustfall, took centre stage in digital activism in 2015 and 2016 as young university students resisted the lack of transformation and demanded change in curricula at higher education institutions. hashtag movements have become a very popular way of sparking, organising, and sustaining protests (de fina, 2021; spiro & monroyhernández, 2016) and the power of these movements lies in their ability to network and to connect people (bennett & segerberg, 2013), as well as in their ability to shape public discourse (yang, 2016). in this paper, i will draw on one such hashtag, #leaveourkidsalone, to foreground how adults’ voices resist comprehensive sexuality education (cse), and how such resistance intensifies complexities in the teaching and learning of cse in south african schools. resistance to comprehensive sexuality education in south africa in 2015, the department of basic education (dbe) developed and piloted scripted lesson plans (slps) in five of the nine provinces in the country in an attempt to strengthen the teaching of cse in south african schools. these slps were a response to an independent review of sexuality education in south africa (see kirby, 2011) that pointed to the way in which educators are challenged in teaching in this particular learning area. in the last quarter of 2019, a facebook group using #leaveourkidsalone reacted to these slps, displaying shock and outrage at what was disseminated to young people in schools. what began as a resistance to slps spiralled into huge resistance to the teaching of cse in south african schools. within a few weeks, the group had garnered more than 100,000 supporters, and by the last week of march 2021 it had about 136,328 members. this backlash against slps has become a full-blown resistance to cse. the key concerns raised by the users on the facebook page were that there had been inadequate consultation with parents and school governing bodies. they deemed the curriculum inappropriate for children of primary school age, claiming that it would sexualise them and promote risky sexual behaviour. further claims suggested that the curriculum is based on western ideals, funded by the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation (unesco) and the united states agency for international development, that undermine the authority of parents and was therefore unsuited to the south african context (#leaveourkidsalone facebook page). a few scholars have reacted to this pushback (chaskalson et al., 2019; davis, 2019; mcewen, 2019; ubisi, 2020) but most of this work appears to be in the popular media. 86 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 writing about narrative agency in hashtag activism, yang (2016) indicated how the power of digital activism plays out in shaping public discourse. i find yang’s notion very useful since i focus on the power of the narratives shared on #leaveourkidsalone. these are personal stories, shaped broadly by the narrators’ social context and ideological inclinations. it is from these narratives that i map out emerging key discourses with the aim of understanding how adults resist cse in south africa, and what the implications of this resistance are to the teaching and learning of this subject area in schools. there is limited work on resistance to cse in south africa (ubisi, 2020), particularly by parents. in contrast, this work is quite prominent in other parts of the world (see robinson et al., 2017; saarreharju et al., 2020), all of which shows how parents push back and contest the teaching and learning of cse in their different contexts. bialystok and wright’s (2019) work on how parents resist cse in ontario, canada, is also interesting to note for its relevance to this work. they argue that cse debates in most cases tell us more “about the identities of particular groups and individuals and the cultural narratives they represent than any pedagogical issues related to youth sexuality” (p. 343). this notion is highly useful in thinking about and reading the voices of public resistance to cse on the #leaveourkidsalone online platform. to provide a basis for further understanding these adult online discourses, i provide below a brief background to the discourses emerging in cse research in south africa. teaching and learning sexuality education in south africa since 2000, the dbe in south africa has offered life skills education at primary and secondary schools through its life orientation (lo) syllabus. the current curriculum, national curriculum statements (grades r–12) that appears in all lo curriculum assessment statements, aims to equip young people with the appropriate knowledge, skills, and values necessary for self-fulfilment and meaningful participation as citizens of a free country (department of basic education, 2011, p. 4). although this learning area was introduced as a response to the challenges experienced in relation to hiv and aids, teaching sexuality education was a response from the department of education to sexual and reproductive health and gender injustice—concerns affecting young people of school going age. schools have been shown to be ideal spaces for disseminating knowledge on sexualities to young people, since they can take into account the appropriate packaging of relevant information in a structured manner (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation, 2009, 2018). in addition, young people spend most of their time in school. however, a substantial body of empirical work in south africa points to many complexities that complicate the teaching and learning of cse in schools. scholars have questioned who should be teaching the subject and on whose culture the subject content should draw in a multicultural and diversified context (baxen & breidlid, 2009; depalma & francis, 2014; francis, 2010; francis & depalma, 2014; helleve et al., 2009; shefer et al., 2015). such questions are not unique to the south african context. see, for example, khau (2012) who has written from lesotho, robinson et al. (2017) from the united kingdom, and sham et al. (2020) from malaysia. in south africa, research further shows how teachers are struggling ngabaza: parents resist sexuality education through digital activism 87 with the subject content; this struggle is rooted in the challenges educators experience with regard to their beliefs and convictions (ahmed et al., 2009; bhana et al., 2008; depalma & francis, 2014; diale, 2016; rooth, 2005), as well as a lack of adequate skills and readiness for the pedagogical issues related to teaching about sexualities (helleve et al., 2009; kirby, 2011; masinga, 2009; mathe, 2013). research with learners further speaks to the complexity of the pedagogical process, thus magnifying these concerns. cse is most often taught from the perspective of danger and disease (macleod, 2009; shefer & ngabaza, 2015). young people, particularly female learners, are warned and cautioned to guard their sexuality (ngabaza & shefer, 2022; ngabaza et al., 2016) and to steer away from immoral and risky sexual behaviour. in addition to this, sexual abstinence is promoted (francis, 2012; moletsane, 2011; smith & harrison, 2013). homophobic language is (however inadvertently) used and explicitly accommodated in classrooms as heterosexual notions of personhood are reinforced (francis, 2019; mayeza & vincent, 2019) in the controlling and regulation of sexualities (francis & depalma, 2014; ngabaza et al., 2016). using these key narratives as a backdrop, i map out discourses emerging from the online hashtag #leaveourkidsalone in an attempt to make sense of how adults resist cse, and the implications of this resistance. although research has widely documented the voices of teachers and learners (bhana et al., 2010; francis, 2019; mayeza & vincent, 2019; morrell et al., 2012; ngabaza et al., 2016: shefer et al., 2015), the online hashtag responses are critical for highlighting the missing voice in sexualities research in south africa, i.e., that of parents and other adults. although digital communication is the new mode of communication, access to digital spaces is racially and socially stratified. this is also true in south africa. one should, therefore, be cautious of universalising this voice to all parents in this country. avigur-eshel and berkovich (2018), writing from israel, claimed that middle-class parents use social media to mobilise as aggrieved parents, but also use this very mode to push for a middle-class agenda. it is also helpful to consider that not all adults in this group are parents, and that not all parents are represented here. making sense of how adults used this digital platform to resist cse, however, cannot be overemphasised since it contributes to a holistic view of key discourses shaping cse teaching and learning in south africa. methodology facebook is a commonly used source of data in social media, particularly to identify and select content associated with a particular set of circumstances, in this case resistance to cse. via the #leaveourkidsalone facebook group, the founder of the group, a parent, has conducted numerous media interviews with different radio stations defending the group’s stance. most of the group’s activity took place between october 2019 and february 2020. my focus in this paper is on the discourses emerging from collective social media posts linked to the hashtag between 26 october 2019, when the facebook group emerged, and august 2020. 88 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 relevant posts and comments were randomly extracted from facebook, copied manually and then pasted thematically onto a spreadsheet in a secure archive. given that social media posts contain personalised information, all extracts were edited to maintain users’ privacy and all identification links removed from the data. this is in line with recommendations by franz et al. (2019) and kosinski et al. (2015) that while facebook data can be used for research purposes without user consent, all data should be anonymised. i was also careful to extract both user-generated and user-directed content (franz et al., 2019) from the group activity to enable a collection of detailed nuances. i employed a feminist qualitative methodological framework to explore facebook and twitter posts as personal narratives embedded in users’ sociocultural ideologies. it is essential to understand the personal within the broader discursive frameworks for understanding the political, and a feminist lens is critical to making sense of this interplay (cole, 2009; thompson et al., 2018). after extracting and inserting posts into a spreadsheet, the posts were checked for relevance, i.e., all posts had to show resistance. a total of 696 facebook and twitter posts were then grouped thematically and examined for discursive patterns. i then conducted a critical discourse analysis to understand the key discourses that appear in these social media posts in order to explore how adults use social media to resist cse in south africa. critical discourse analysis discourse analysis is generally concerned with how language is used to create meaning in particular contexts. discourses are usually dominant sites of struggle in which power relations are perpetuated and ideological positions are entrenched in societies (fairclough, 2001; lazar, 2007). by using critical discourse analysis, i was able to explore how the emerging discourses entangled with other social and political concerns within this context, and how these emerging discourses further competed for “dominance, power and control” (foucault, 1980, p. 35), as users collectively lobbied against and resisted cse in south african schools. the critical exploration of the text used, and how meaning was created and conveyed through these texts from the posts, allowed language to operate as a tool for the enactment of ideology (fairclough, 2001, 2013). through these texts i was able to identify how personal views and positionalities were not only entangled with other popular views raised in the posts, but that they also collectively sustained particular discursive modes of resisting cse, as explained below. discourses from #leaveourkidsalone by means of critical discourse analysis, i identified five key discursive messages from the posts, which i present here, that point to how parents use social media to resist cse in south africa. the emerging discourses include the following: 1) leave our kids alone 2) cse is immoral and out of line with religious beliefs ngabaza: parents resist sexuality education through digital activism 89 3) parental control and authority: teach sexual health only or abstinence until marriage 4) fear and sensationalism: do parents have a say? 5) cse as a western concept: discourses of prejudice and intolerance childhood innocence: leave our kids alone #leaveourkidsalone is a direct message of resistance to cse. the hashtag is a clear illustration of the critical significance of how language is intentionally used for a particular effect, and how the intentional use of language enacts discourses that remain embedded in the broader community’s ideologies on sexuality (fairclough, 2013; thompson et al., 2018). the use of the word “kids” in this hashtag communicates the assumed innocence of children and their ignorance of sex and sexuality. one parent noted, “a child does not need to lose their childhood innocence that fast”, and another, “children need to be children.” scholarly work broadly criticises educators for assuming that children are innocent of sexual knowledge, and that they need adult wisdom and guidance to understand their sexuality. (bhana, 2008, 2016; goldman, 2008). this is especially so because young people know that the internet is readily available and that knowledge on sexualities is easily accessible (beyers, 2013; francis, 2019); this poses a direct challenge to the narrative of childhood innocence. the entire resistance is premised on childhood innocence and the perception that schools sexualise young people. ringrose (2016) argued that the discourse of childhood innocence is simultaneously a debate on the sexualisation of young people. a further implication of this debate is that childhood sexuality is then considered a moral problem in some societies, as is evident from the media posts i discuss below. entangled with the childhood innocence debate is what is known as protectionist discourse (goldman, 2008). parents want to protect their children, hence the use of the word kids to communicate resistance and to emphasise innocence. for example, a parent says, i don’t want other people teaching my kids stuff they don’t have the emotional capacity to handle . . . i don’t want them exposed to things they are not ready for. this resistance is based on the parents’ belief that schools have no right to communicate about sex and sexuality to their children, and that educating young people on sexualities should remain solely their domain (see goldman, 2008). robinson et al. (2017) suggested that such resistance could be associated with fear based on the lack of knowledge about what schools would teach, and a deep-seated desire to shelter kids from sex-related information, or, as goldman (2008) further suggested, a fear of the uncertainty of the long-term benefits of cse for young people. at the same time, research shows that children are sexual beings who are conscious of their sexuality from an early age (bhana, 2015, 2016). despite a few studies indicating that parents communicate information about sexualities to their children, this communication is considered inconsistent, inadequate, and poorly conveyed (goldman, 2008). additionally, some parents claim that they are unprepared to talk to their children about sexuality, or that it is taboo to do so (beyers, 2012). it is therefore still optimal to disseminate information about sexuality in school, as empirical studies show, and school is 90 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 still the most suitable place for disseminating knowledge about sexuality; this has been confirmed empirically (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation, 2009). immorality: cse “immoral” and out of line with religious beliefs the exchanges and posts on facebook are made up of personal narratives, people’s stories about their values and their faith, and their ideological position on sexualities. the idea of cse as a moral problem that is founded on the notion of childhood innocence, intensified in the social media posts as parents continued to draw on their ideological positions to justify why their kids should be left alone. plummer (2012) reminded us that concerns about sexualities always bring other social factors into play, and bialystok and wright (2019) have added that these factors are about people’s identities, their beliefs and values, and not about pedagogy. it is therefore not surprising that users draw on faith and culture, mobilising discourses of morality to challenge cse. a hashtag user 1 said its morally wrong. we have tolerated this nonsense for long, i subscribe to both christian and traditional culture and none of those endorse it. fact that we keep quiet about it doesn’t make it right. it’s even worse teaching a 10 year old about this gabbage of behaviour. another asked, “are our religious leaders captured? is this why they are so quiet on the cse issue? if so, we are truly on our own.” this attitude to cse and what parents think their children should or should not be exposed to is reminiscent of early 20th-century anxieties about young people’s sexualities, evoking what burns (1996) termed the “sexuality crisis of the 1930s.” these anxieties, which continue to be revisited, were associated with the “lax morality” (p. 87) of young people in the burgeoning urban spaces in colonial south africa. for this reason, cse is also perceived as being out of line with parents’ religious beliefs, and therefore generally immoral, with some associating it with the work of the devil in saying things like, “the devil is a liar” thus fuelling anxiety among parents. schools are seen to be lacking the right to expose their children to cse. the group narrative is that of petitioning, demanding, and appealing (yang, 2016) to the government and the dbe to leave their children alone. in this morality discourse, there is a further condemnation of the removal of religious education from the school curriculum, with some users suggesting that this is the reason why cse has found its way into mainstream education. as one parent put it, i think this is punishment from god baba, i mean why did they close bible studies at school in the first place. i don’t know where is this country is leading us. only god can help us from this subject, in him we shall never fail. more sentiments point to an unacceptable change in the school curriculum, with messages such as “now children are trapped in subjects that are taking our children straight to hell” that 1 users’ words are presented here verbatim; nothing has been edited. ngabaza: parents resist sexuality education through digital activism 91 illustrate the concern with cse. there is emphasis on the fear that cse will clash with parents’ religious teachings and values (robinson et al., 2017). christian values (as expressed here) seem to underpin the sentiments of most of the group, and there is a deep yearning for the colonial approach to sexuality education that dictated that the main aim was instilling moral values in young people through the church (duff, 2015). parents see this gradual departure from religious education in favour of the current cse as problematic. a parent said, after removing the bible and religious studies at school, assemble prayers reduced to only 1 day or nothing now this, how important is this to our kids as it will damage their future and tarnish good morals and values. referring to cse as “this” speaks to moral panic about the teaching of sexuality and a lack of understanding of cse by parents, as noted in another context by fine (1993), that is linked to the assumption that children are innocent and having knowledge of sexualities is immoral. this discourse is further sustained in this statement: i am surprised that parents are only realising this now, you should have realised this when bible studies, home economics and woodwork was removed from the curriculum. the main concern propagated in this discourse is that cse is not in line with christian, traditional, and cultural values. the statement that “some policies are here to confuse society and destroy the little morality left in society” and that cse is unsuitable for children remind me of the discourses based on reminiscing about the value of colonial education in south africa. for a nuanced understanding of the discourse of morality in the context of religion, it is helpful to revisit south africa’s colonial history; sexuality education was introduced after the first world war to promote physical and sexual hygiene. this was at a time when there was huge concern about the global outbreak and spread of syphilis. duff (2015) explained how the church and state converged in an attempt to produce morally upright young people who would then be channelled into compulsory heteronormativity through other parallel systems adopted at the time. religion, particularly with christian principles, has always been, and continues to be, a very significant discourse in benchmarking moral values (burns, 1996; duff, 2015). what is concerning is that moral values are always juxtaposed against shame, stigma, immorality, and the concept of evil, and condemnation is targeted at those who subvert this (supposedly) moral standard. these discourses sustain the way in which parents deploy religion to control and regulate their children’s sexuality. the bulk of these posts suggests that cse is immoral and goes, therefore, against religious beliefs, and this assumption fuels adult/parent anger. bialystok and wright (2019) also reported on how immigrant parents mobilised religion to resist cse in ontario, arguing that this resistance was more about parents’ beliefs and identity than about pedagogy. 92 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 parental control and authority: teach sexual health only or abstinence until marriage i note, however, that although this resistance is driven by a collective voice, this voice also disintegrates and the collective resistance fragments as it becomes disrupted by other intersectional voices and factors that underlie the group dynamic. some users understand the basic need to teach sexualities to young people and they are selective in pushing back. we are not against sex education . . . we saying we want age appropriate sex education not this hogwash they wanna bring into the schools . . . of course children need to be educated about sex . . . however a 10 year old does not need to be taught how to pleasure her boyfriend. they are careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater as they advocate for the necessity of allowing schools to teach age appropriate cse. parental power and control further play out as different discursive tones emerge, competing with and challenging the voice of the collective. while other voices focus on a complete rejection of cse, some disrupt this collective voice, advocating instead for the teaching of the biomedical nature of sexuality (see blake, 2008). these adults understand that south africa struggles with high rates of hiv infection among its young population along with high rates of unintended pregnancy, and that young people require reproductive health knowledge (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation, 2018). however, even if these parents are aware of these concerns, they are careful about, and quite clear on, what they want schools to teach and this is sexual health. but what is worth noting is how these voices also prefer to problematise sexual rights knowledge in this discourse. in the following post, the phrase “sexual rights” is presented in uppercase with exclamation marks to recreate and convey as fairclough (2013) might have put it, utter resistance and the power to control what should and should not be done. note the power in the tone of this statement. now before i start, let me make one thing clear . . . we have no problem with our children being taught these principles within the life orientation subjects. however, cse is nothing even closely related to sexual health, cse is about sexual rights!! the united nations calls it a ‘right based education.’ adults here are also lobbying the government and the dbe to teach sexual reproductive health to alert young people to the danger and likelihood of sexually transmitted diseases but to avoid any other issues of sexualities education. as the parent quoted above, put it, every parent in south africa we would love our children to be taught about sexual health at school as we will also be teaching our children sexual health in our homes. sexual health teaches our children about the diseases and infections which are sexually transmittable, especially in south africa with a high prevalence rate of hiv. there is an acknowledgement that reproductive health challenges are a reality with which every parent should deal, and that parents should school their children in this area. research ngabaza: parents resist sexuality education through digital activism 93 also shows that reproductive health challenges among young people are linked to inadequate knowledge and lack of information on sexual and reproductive health (mturi & bechuke, 2019). schools are therefore expected to teach abstinence or faithfulness to one partner. the parent quoted above agrees: “it is important that our children are taught the right moral principles of abstinence till marriage, being faithful to one partner.” these voices illustrate the authority parents want to have over their children in requiring young people to refrain from sexual activity until they are ready for it, or until they are married. but the reality is that young people are engaging in sexual activity, are exposed to sexually explicit material (bhana, 2019, 2022), and they are open about it (mayeza & vincent, 2019). in studies on sexuality education conducted with young people, responses revealed that they are not even listening to messages about abstinence and disease (francis, 2019; ngabaza et al., 2016). the notion that abstinence until marriage should be the only approach taught in schools, as emphasised by some facebook group users above, assumes that everyone wants to be and should be married and should be faithful to one heterosexual partner (francis & reygan, 2016). such assumptions discount and deny the reality of sexual diversity in school age young people. these facebook texts raise concerns and assumptions about young people’s sexualities that i find essentialist, mainstream, and worrying in that sexuality is conflated with sexual activity and such misframing becomes a source of rage among adults. most adults do not seem to have a clear understanding of sexuality education in thinking that it is education on sexual activity (sham et al., 2020) and the pushback hinges on this misunderstanding, pointing to a need for wider and deeper consultation with adults on the nature of the cse curriculum. despite resisting cse, adults realise that gender-based violence is on the rise, particularly among young people, as demonstrated in the statement that “[w]e are not ignorant of the crisis we face with increased sti infection rate, teenage pregnancy etc.” they suggest that young people should be taught the psychological effects of abuse and be guided on where and how to seek help and go on to comment on the necessity of “teaching children the deep psychological impact of being raped, abused etc. and where to seek help.” the emphasis is on equipping learners with knowledge of the impact of violence on their bodies. the irony is that rejecting cse is in fact disallowing young people the possibility of circumventing such violence through accurate knowledge that can be empowering. interestingly, the parents’ call to teach children and young people about the diseases and consequences here resonates strongly with the approach taken by educators in teaching sexualities. most educators are comfortable with teaching cse in relation to danger and risk of disease (francis, 2011; macleod, 2009; ngabaza et al., 2016; shefer & ngabaza, 2015) and they have been criticised for approaching cse in a such a manner. fear and sensationalism: do parents have a say? another key emotion mobilised throughout the facebook texts is fear. some users carefully select language that is sensational to make claims that intend to instil fear in other users, sensationalising the pushback against cse. for example, one of the posts reads, 94 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 researh has shown that cse has caused enormous damage to parent/child relationships everywhere it has been taught. cases of sti’s have sky rocket, abortions have increased, kids have been left disoriented not having any morals attahced to sex, anything goes. the results of cse is then a generation who have been sexualised at young age, many who go into depression havev low self esteem issues. the user does not cite or substantiate this claim, although there is reference to research, and this creates an assumption of evidence. this type of post carries inaccuracies while at the same time contributes to instilling panic and inciting backlash. the language used here is meant to sensationalise, terrify, create panic, and present cse as a crisis. this sensationalist momentum has been taken up by other users, one of whom posted, please keep fighting and please keep posting. this is an insidious attempt to harm our children and all adults should be taking a stand against this. as a teacher myself i would refuse to have anything to do with this never mind teach it. other voices further reproduce this sensationalist tone. one person said, “where is the world actually heading to?” and another exclaimed, “no, no, no to this insanity. i am not having my unborn grandchildren learning about this madness.” responses to these posts show how such sensationalist discourses force some parents into a hopelessness that fuels uncertainty while drawing support and momentum for the pushback. subsequently, we see some parents raising concerns and uncertainty about their roles, their capabilities, and their options as this post illustrates. my question do we as parents have a say? lately everything is being discussed and we just have to fall in. how fair is this to us parents it seems like we dont know how to raise our kids. who decicdes all these things? what happens if i dont wnt my child expose to this cse#jsasking. another user says “this is shocking. it is to do with parenting. do parents not teach values to kids anymore?” this fear and uncertainty are fuelled by what emerges as a lack of appropriate information on cse as is evident here: “i wonder what the benefits of cse will look like. parents beware!” and “we just need clarity on the sex education side. what exactly will be taught?” these statements remind us of the conclusions reached by robinson et al. (2017) and fine (1993) writing from other contexts, that parents are in some instances unsure of cse and its potential value, and this could be a genuine concern that needs to be considered in this case. one post summarises this as “parents need more influence over curriculum choices” and another says, “how can we be involved?” and “what can we parents do?” the perpetuation of the discourse of fear is further noted in the language of mobilisation in the plea, “keep fighting and keep posting.” cse as a western concept: discourses of hate and intolerance the dynamics of this resistance are undercut by narratives that take a different form. the general form followed by the voices of resistance is that parents challenge the dbe from a ngabaza: parents resist sexuality education through digital activism 95 collective position and from their different individual positionalities. some posts use hate speech, especially homophobic statements, to project their personal views on diversity and difference as one user said, thank you, sir, this issue must be dealt with strongly. why is the government so hasty to introduce this at such an early age. my view is power of the lgbt communities to normalise homosexuality as violence and witchcraft are normalised through sabc. in this discourse, cse is associated with the power of lgbt communities to normalise homosexuality in the same way as violence and witchcraft are said to be normalised by the south african broadcasting corporation. it is not surprising that some parents resort to homophobia to challenge diversity and difference. these discourses once again bring the issue of power to the fore. earlier, i referred to mainstream discourse that explicitly normalises heteronormativity, silencing any form of sexual diversity in schools. in the same way, hate speech is mobilised to silence sexual diversity, projecting heteronormativity as the powerful norm, but also pointing to what davis (2019) saw as a culture war in which children are used as pawns. davis reminded us of plummer’s (2011) observation that any concerns with sexuality always bring in other intersectional power relations in their wake. parallel to the hate speech, the discourse of sexuality education emerges as a western concept, and this discourse is an attack on the government. the assumption raised here is that the government fails to appreciate being voted into power by south african citizens, and it is blamed for failing to uphold african ideals, choosing instead to buy into cse, a foreign concept. politics is conflated with african identity as the government is understood to work in collusion with unesco and the united nations, thus betraying the citizens who voted them into power as the following post claims. the insensitive way which this document (slps) deals with the sensitive issues of sexuality in un-african. the interlocuters of this government are not the people who elected them into power . . . it fails to appreciate the fact that it has been elected by the south african citizens but behaves as if it has been put into power by western countries and the united natins. when it suits its agenda, it proclaims its allegiance to african identity but when it comes to matters of sexual ethics it disregards african cultural practices and ethos. another user refers to the un as “a criminal organisation” and some continue to challenge cse for its association with unesco, suggesting that cse content is unesco’s content that is age inappropriate. unesco’s content is not age appropriate. i don’t want other people teaching my kids stuff they don’t have the emotional capacity to handle. i don’t want them exposed to things they are not ready for . . . 96 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 this controversial program is forced on children by un agencies like unesco without the knowledge and consent of parents. mcewen (2019) claimed that this adult/parent pushback is ironically supported by profamily conservative american organisations that are against progressive ideals. discussion discourses emerging from the social media posts linked to the hashtag #leaveourkidsalone are shaped by personal stories. these stories are moulded around people’s beliefs and are embedded in their identity and convictions as well as in their religious and cultural ideologies concerning sexualities (fairclough, 2013; plummer, 2011). it is evident, though, that the parents’ resistance to the teaching of cse attracted some form of cohesion since key discourses suggest this unity. for example, “leave our kids alone” shows a partly harmonised resistance driven by discourses that mobilise religion, culture, and tradition, and an intense belief in childhood innocence. i deliberately use “partly” because this harmonised resistance fragments when some users begin to acknowledge the significance of scientifically accurate reproductive health information in cse, and the necessity for children to be exposed to it. even then, the voices are resolute on what should and should not be taught, pointing to parents’ desire to control that to which their children are exposed. the determination to teach cse through a biomedical lens and not from a rights approach, is emphasised and resonates strongly with the group members. i realise that parents’ appeal for a focus on teaching about disease is in line with the silent resistance shown by some educators in the teaching of sexuality education in south african schools. research has shown how selective educators are regarding what to teach and how to teach it, because of the discomfort they experience with some cse curricula content (ahmed et al., 2009; helleve et al., 2011; rooth, 2005). in the same way, parents are discomforted by the slps and by cse broadly, thus complicating the teaching and learning of cse in south african schools but also justifying the need for intense engagement by all stakeholders in cse. further, scholars who critique the biomedical approach to teaching cse acknowledge that this approach is grounded in the link between the teaching area and hiv and aids education. parents similarly acknowledge the link with hiv and aids, supporting the need for accurate knowledge for young people in this area, but carefully pushing back on any focus on young people’s rights. given that south africa is a multicultural and diverse society, teaching sexuality education has always been characterised by complexity (ngabaza et al., 2016). francis (2011) spoke about the rifts between policy and personal and community values, arguing that educators feel trapped by the expectations of policy and the mandate of their jobs (see also ahmed et al., 2009). the same challenges play out in discourses emerging from parents who are questioning their personal and collective roles and how they can be pivotal in educating their children on sexuality issues instead of having schools and the state (policy) taking over completely and leaving parents helpless. one can discern fear, panic, and anxiety in their voices. ngabaza: parents resist sexuality education through digital activism 97 noteworthy in these voices is evidence that some parents genuinely lack knowledge on cse (see fine, 1993) and what its value could be (see robinson et al., 2017). this is of critical concern for the teaching and learning of cse, and there may be need for extensive consultation with parents by key stakeholders from the dbe. not all parents are comfortable discussing sexuality issues with their children (beyers, 2013) and not all children have parents who can give them appropriate information on sexuality (chaskalson et al., 2019). therefore, sexuality education remains a necessity in south african schools. discourses from the online engagement point to anxieties and a crisis in sexuality education (burns, 1996; ringrose, 2016), rendering cse a very emotive subject. the use of homophobic language and the assumption that cse is a western concept both point to the intricacies of cse. some scholars (see hearn, 2018) would argue that adultist and protectionist ideologies form the bedrock of this resistance since parents believe that they know what is good for their children and are keen to protect them from what they see as immorality. but what they fail to accept, as allen (2008) suggested, is the reality and experiences of young people. other scholars dispute this protectionist view, suggesting that young people should be central to the teaching and learning of sexuality. they should be given an opportunity to contribute to what is best for them (beyers, 2013) and not what their parents wish for them. conclusion cse is a complex matter. parents/adults’ voices in #leaveourkidsalone mobilise childhood innocence to resist cse that they perceive to be immoral. drawing on religion and culture they collectively justify why their children should not be exposed to cse. the collective, however, fragments when some voices acknowledge the significance of teaching young people about reproductive health and the dangers of sexually transmitted disease. while parents are generally raising mixed opinions in resisting cse, these discourses resonate with key themes and factors arising from empirical research on sexuality education in south african schools. recommendations there is fear, uncertainty, and anxiety as to who should be teaching cse and what content should be covered. this is a question that researchers have raised and is linked to the complexities inherent in the teaching and learning of cse in south african schools. one critical issue arising from this work is that parents are broadly showing a lack of understanding about what cse is and how it will benefit their children, and this points to a great need for extensive consultation and education on cse. this lack of knowledge about cse in parents is of critical concern for key stakeholders in cse. given this lack of knowledge about cse, there is a need for stakeholders in this field to consult extensively with parents in order to develop a harmonised approach to cse in south african schools. 98 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 references ahmed, n., flisher, a. j., mathews, c., mukoma, w., & jansen, s. 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(2016). narrative agency in hashtag activism: the case of #blacklivesmatter. media and communication, 4(4), 13–17. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v4i4.692 journal of education, 2017 issue 67, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za non-formal adult education for selfemployment: the importance of posttraining support for micro-enterprise development in south africa celestin mayombe (received 30 march 2016; accepted 22 february 2017) abstract the concern that informed this article is that adults who face long-term unemployment due to a lack of marketable skills remain unemployed after completing adult non-formal education (nfe) programmes in south africa. the purpose of the article is to investigate major challenges trainees of nfe programmes for self-employment encounter in starting and growing small businesses, and the types of post-training support they receive from public and private institutions in kwazulunatal (kzn) province. while the structure of the south african economy is at fault, the findings reveal that weak institutional linkages result in trainees not having access to essential post-training support, community resources, public goods and services. the author concludes that centre managers did not take into consideration the importance of institutional linkages and the socioeconomic background of the trainees who have faced long-term unemployment and poverty leading to social isolation, which then further reduce the likelihood of self-employment. introduction it is widely acknowledged today that many unemployed adults are hindered from entering into labour markets due to a lack of marketable skills. since its inception in 1960, adult non-formal education (nfe) was intended to be a tool to create opportunities for marginalised social groups in order to bridge unemployment and employment (georgiadou, kekkeris and kalantzis, 2009). kedrayate (2012, p.12) points out that nfe is perceived as a “second chance education” to those who have been “pushed out” from the formal system. according to langer (2013) and kyndt, dochy and nijs (2009), adult nfe centres in sub-saharan countries have been able to develop holistic and integrated approaches to contribute to unemployment reduction. the 150 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 significance of nfe in poor communities is that where jobs are scarce, people learn to earn a living as self-employed. adult nfe can be seen as being related to the concepts of recurrent and lifelong learning. scholars in the field (kamil, 2007; kedrayate, 2012; jjuuko and kwiri, 2010; ololube and egbzor, 2012) suggest that whereas recurrent and lifelong learnings have to do with the extension of education and learning throughout life, nfe is about acknowledging the importance of education, learning and training which takes place outside recognised educational institutions. in this article, nfe reflects a combination of the terms ‘nonformal’, ‘education’ and ‘training’ and refers to skills programmes carried out outside the framework of the established education system that involves foundational knowledge, technical and manual skills, entrepreneurial skills and competencies tailored to the specific requirements of a gainful employment or self-employment (dvv international, 2011; mckay, 2007; erasmus, 2010). furthermore, nfe is linked to self-employment for people who are currently not self-sufficient and who are at or below the poverty line, and to the informal sector where jobs are scarce (rogers, 2004). adult nfe distinguishes itself from the formal education and informal education on basis of its purpose and approach. weyer (2009) notes that nfe is an educational system outside the recognised framework that typically provides occupational access only to the lowest-level jobs because it does not have the legitimacy to grant school-based diplomas and credentials required to gain access to white-collar and professional jobs. for the nfe programmes to achieve this purpose, great attention is taken to ensure that training is tailored to a specific requirement of employment or income-generating activities (international labour organisation (ilo), 2009). the programmes are provided not only in technical skills but also in business, organisational and management skills to facilitate an adult trainee to become self-employed or to run a small business, most often a micro-enterprise. in the context of south africa, non-formal education is any education that carried on outside the formal school and higher education system and not certificated (aitchison, 2007). non-formal education (nfe) was an important part of the anti-apartheid struggle in south africa. it helped prepare people for democracy, something formal education did not do. prior to 1994 nfe was provided by religious groups, ngos/cbos, civic associations, workers organisations, political parties and social movements (mckay, 2007; aitchison, 2007). the provision of formal technical training was in the former mayombe: non-formal adult education for self-employment 151 white technical colleges and some schools of industries for coloureds and mission schools for black students (aitchison, 2007). the adult nfe in south africa took a new conceptualisation during the postapartheid era. mckay (2007, p.286) points out that “after the first democratic elections in south africa, the new government faced a number of challenges, not the least being the high number of adults who were functionally illiterate”. the poverty reduction process was challenged by the fact that there were many unemployed people whose levels of literacy were such that they were virtually unemployable due to the competition for the small number of available jobs requiring a certain level of education (grade 12 certificate) and skills training. there was a need to add the word ‘training’ in order to conceptualise adult education programmes relevant to socio-economic needs of unskilled and unemployed adults (mckay, 2007). it is important to mention that the letter ‘t’ of training in nfe was added to refer to a wide range of skills and expertise including technical skills such as plumbing, dressmaking, beadwork, and other crafts (mckay, 2007). previous studies attempted to explore the dynamics of the relationship between adult nfe programmes and employment. other researchers investigated the learning conditions for non-formal education (kyndt, et al., 2009); job-related non-formal education and training (kaufmann, 2015); the relevance of nfet for income generation (islam, mia and sorcar, 2012; blaak, openjuru and zeelen, 2012); and socio-economic empowerment of poor adults (morton and montgomery, 2011; akpama, esang, asor and osang, 2011). similarly, georgiadou, et al. (2009) and islam, et al. (2012) report practical skills acquisition by graduates but without mentioning the conducive factors. however, little is known about the effectiveness of the external factors in fostering links for skills utilisation in self-employment of graduates. research shows that nfe graduates continue to experience challenges due to the insufficiency of enabling environments, both internal and external (islam, et al., 2012; blaak, et al., 2012; georgiadou, et al., 2009). as a result, adults who face long-term unemployment due to a lack of workrelated skills, remain unemployed after graduating from nfe centres. the nfe centres under investigation are run by not-for-profit organisations and provide work-related skills training programmes for unemployed adults. these nfe centres are not the same as the recently referred to public adult learning centres in the national policy on community colleges (republic of south africa (rsa), 2015). they are private skills training programmes in 152 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 non-profit training centres managed by non-profit organisations; in the public adult education and training (aet) centres, are also non-accredited skills training courses funded by private sectors or organisations. these are vocationally related skills programmes for income-generation activities in the form of non-formal vocational training and rural and community development in south africa. the programmes intend to respond to the learning needs of adults who did not have access to formal education, to increase their employment opportunities, and to improve social inclusion (aitchison, 2007). while previous studies addressed the issue of effectiveness of nfe programmes in skills acquisition by graduates, the importance of post-training support for self-employment in micro-enterprises of graduates has not been sufficiently studied. in the context of this article, the linkages of nfe centres involve a collaboration with public institutions and agencies, private sectors, ngos, self-help associations, community leaders, local businesses, business development services, financial institutions and private enterprises. these linkages aim at fostering skills utilisation in self-employment; or assisting graduates to establish micro-enterprises and co-operatives. the purpose of the article is to investigate major challenges trainees of nonformal adult education for self-employment encounter in starting and growing small businesses, and the types of post-training support they receive from public and private institutions in kwazulu-natal (kzn) province. the following questions are addressed: ! what are the main sources of start-up capital for trainees’ small businesses? ! what are the main causes of trainees’ small business failure? ! what types of post-training support for small business development trainees received? in this article, self-employment is a situation in which an individual works for himself instead of working for an employer that pays a salary or a wage (meager, martin and carta, 2011; fields, 2013). self-employed trainees are here defined as persons operating individual enterprises, plus persons operating or working in household enterprises. enabling environments to refer to internal and external factors of the nfe centre which create conducive conditions for skills acquisition and skills utilisation in wageor mayombe: non-formal adult education for self-employment 153 self-employment (king and palmer, 2006; world bank, 2004). the article begins with the conceptual framework guiding the study. next, the focus is on the study’s context and methodology. the presentation of the findings is followed by discussions of the findings. finally, conclusions and recommendations are presented. conceptual framework of the study adult nfe programmes for self-employment in micro-enterprise need external factors to the nfe centre which create conducive conditions for helping trainees start their own micro-enterprise in a sustained and effective manner. the existence of supportive factors will influence the skills acquired through adult nfe centres to contribute to the self-employment and poverty reduction of a given target group. this is because a conducive factor allows skills to be utilised effectively (palmer, 2007; palmer, wedgwood, and hayman, 2007). among the critical factors external to the adult nfe centres that foster the utilisation of business skills in self-employment are the linkages they have with public and private institutions including agencies, and the social networks which provide or enhance post-training support programmes (dunkley, 2008; white and kenyon, 2005). likewise, adams (2007) argues that skills training programmes alone are unlikely to address the problems of unemployment or meeting all the needs of underprivileged adults. without enabling factors, skills training for adults may lead to higher educational achievement that has to be valued for its own benefits and not to immediate self-employment. there are debates today around linking adult training to self-employment and poverty reduction in poor communities. palmer (2007), in his article “skills for work?: from skills development to decent livelihoods in ghana’s rural informal economy”, argues that “it is acknowledged that skills training alone is not sufficient for developmental outcomes to materialise”. palmer’s view infers that skills acquired from nfe centres are only a part of the package in the process of self-employment and poverty reduction. likewise, king (2012) points out that skills acquisition is very different from skills utilisation in the labour market, and especially for the poorest who can only access basic education of very low quality. king’s argument also suggests that nfe requires an enabling environment for the skills to be utilised in the labour 154 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 market. similarly, king (2012), pantea (2016) and preece (2010) note that adult nfe alone, as a strategy of poverty reduction, is not enough. it does not create employment, nor does it guarantee better living conditions or incomegenerating activities in micro-enterprises or co-operatives of trainees. there is no automatic connection between business skills training for adults and selfemployment. the linkages with public and private institutions the linkages of the nfe centre to public and private sectors are crucial and the key to success in skills utilisation in self-employment. an adult nfe centre does not operate in a vacuum, but in a given community with social and political entities. therefore, a quality nfe programme is aware of the resources and needs of the community in which it is located (world bank, 2005). it establishes and maintains links with various referral sources and community agencies as well as other relevant educational programmes and organisations. it regularly reviews its community, sectoral and organisational relationships (freedman, 2008). according to freedman (2008), the collaboration should be between the nfe centre and the agencies at local and national levels and keen involvement of social partners. however, linkages may still not be sufficient for trainees to become selfemployed if there are structural problems in the economy that perpetuate unemployment. allais (2014) notes that the problem is not lack of skills, but insufficient demand. if the problem is bound up with the nature of economic development, the solution accordingly lies in changing the pattern and character of the growth path. similarly, vally and motala (2014) argue that unemployment in south africa is caused by skills shortage or gap and limited economic growth. the figure 1 is a conceptual framework presenting the key concepts and then how they are linked together. mayombe: non-formal adult education for self-employment 155 figure 1: conceptual framework of the study post-training support for self-employment in microenterprises new entrants into micro-enterprise need support from both the nfe centre and other stakeholders in the public and private sectors. successful entry into self-employment and establishment of a micro-enterprise requires much more than delivering skills training to adults. according to dunkley (2008), white and kenyon (2005), hasanov, biybosunova and hasanova (2009), the posttraining support for trainees who are interested in self-employment in microenterprise entails the service to start a small business; accessing credit, suitable premises for production purposes, equipment and tools, marketing support, support for the formation of groups or forming enterprises/cooperatives, follow-up advisory services or technical assistance; support to access business development services and financial assistance. the support will help overcome the disabling factors outside of the nfe system at macrolevel (stevenson & st-onge, 2011). the present study was an attempt to ascertain if there were these post-training support services as result of centre institutional linkages. 156 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 study context the study was conducted in communities where many people have difficulty in generating enough incomes in order to become self-sufficient and enjoy a reasonable quality of life. the study focused on assessing the effectiveness of the centre linkages with public and private institutions in fostering posttraining support in self-employment of trainees in kwazulu-natal (kzn). the provision of educational and training opportunities for adults is rooted in social empowerment and transformation strategies. central to the provision is ensuring that all unemployed adult citizens of kzn are either wage-employed or self-employed (kzn, 2013; kzn-doe, 2011). the sample of the nfe centres was drawn from the education districts of umlazi, pinetown, ilembe and umgungundlovu (msunduzi) in kzn province. the nfe programmes target out-of-school and socio-economically vulnerable adults (such as street youths and domestic workers) from marginalised communities. in order to empower vulnerable and marginalised adults, both kzn government and ngo-based nfe centres provide vocational and livelihood training, and entrepreneurial skills to poor adults to enable them to take up self-employment or wage employment in urban and rural areas (kzn-doe, 2012; kzn, 2012). all these endeavours aim at: – creating sustainable learning opportunities that nurture adult empowerment; – providing adults and out-of-school youths from marginalised communities with marketable livelihood/vocational skills in order to enhance their employment (formal and/or informal) opportunities, or venture into business enterprises; – empowering poor adults to establish viable income generating projects (aitchison, 2007; kzn-doe, 2012). research methodology mixed research methods were used for the study which consisted of a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods. in support of weyer’s (2009) view, measuring only quantitative results of an assessment of mayombe: non-formal adult education for self-employment 157 the effectiveness of entrepreneurial training for self-employment can fail to provide a full picture of the programme. therefore, this study used survey questionnaires as the primary source of quantitative data. the reason for using the survey was based on its primary purpose which is to determine cause-andeffect relationships or comparability (creswell, 2013). the method used for qualitative data collection was semi-structured interviews. in support of creswell’s (2009) view, the qualitative method was beneficial to the study because it helped to present the data from the perspective of the trainees, trainers and managers on the effectiveness of the centre linkages with public and private institutions in fostering post-training support in self-employment. semi-structured interviews provided an understanding of the mechanisms which link particular variables, by looking at the explanation and account (creswell, 2009). the researcher also used documents related to the training programmes of the centres under investigation. for the focus of this article, the documents included the monitoring and evaluation documents and annual reports. from a descriptive content analysis point of view, the researcher identified information linked to variables such as training design and implantation, and post-training support for self-employment. then the data were compared with responses from questionnaires and interview schedules. sampling technique and sample size the study sample was drawn from the 326 adult training centres in kzn province. following the explanation of nieuwenhuis (2012) on sampling methods, out of 326 centres, the researcher used a purposive sampling of a non-probability sampling method to select 21 centres. a centre was selected if it provides technical and entrepreneurial skills to enable an adult to take up wage or self-employment in the field of agriculture, industry, services and small business activities. from the selected 21 centres, the sample size consisted of 420 trainees. the sample from each of 21 centres depended on the number of trainees who enrolled on skills training programmes. the sampling method for trainees (420) in the quantitative study was purposive. a trainee was selected if he/she had completed the technical and/or entrepreneurial programme and became wage or self-employed. 158 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 in this paper, <private centre’ means a non-profit training centre managed by non-profit1 organisations (npos), community-based organisations (cbos) and church or other faithbased organisations (fbos). the sample consisted of adult trainees from both urban and rural settings from the public and private training centres.1 the manager of each of the selected centres also completed the survey. therefore, the sample consisted of a population of 21 managers. for the purpose of the one-on-one interview, five out of 21 managers were selected for one-on-one interviews. they were selected if their centres make provision for at least one of the following additional criteria: – post-training follow-up and support programmes for selfemployment; – linkages with public institutions and agencies or private sectors; – linkages with social networks, associations and employers; – having mentorship and psychological support programmes for selfemployed trainees. in addition to the centre manager and trainees, 31 trainers also completed the survey. the trainer (instructor) sample for the quantitative element of the study was drawn from the total number of trainers in the selected 21 training centres. the researcher used the purposive sampling method to select 31 trainers; two or three trainers per centre. the selection of trainers was based on the following criteria: – he/she must have a minimum of 2 years of experience in training technical and/or entrepreneurial skills at the specific training centre; – he/she must be the most senior at the centre so to provide the needed information for the study. for the qualitative interviews, the researcher selected six self-employed trainees out of 420 for one-on-one interviews. to ensure representation from urban and rural areas, with an equal number of males and females and an equal number from private and public training centres, the selection of selfemployed trainees was based on the following criteria: mayombe: non-formal adult education for self-employment 159 – currently self-employed whether in informal business area or services area; – reputable for excellence in their small businesses; – selected according to the type of technical and/or entrepreneurial course obtained on one side and type of micro-enterprise activity on the other; – one trainee from each four districts, gender, areas (urban and rural) and the nature of the centre. based on the selection criteria, only one male and five females were interviewed. data gathering and analysis the data collection involved survey questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. using the approach mentioned in delport and roestenburg (2011), nieuwenhuis (2012) and maree and pietersen, (2012), for the quantitative data, three types of self-completed questionnaires were administered respectively to trainees, trainers and centre managers. the questionnaires included a mix of both qualitative (open-ended) and quantitative (closed-ended) questions. the closed-ended questions used in the study were binary with ‘yes or no’ responses and multiple-choice questions which allowed the respondents to tick all answers that apply. the interviews with the centre managers aimed at getting information on training delivery, post-training support for micro-enterprise development and the types of the factors that enable/disable the trainees entering the selfemployment in kzn province. other semi-structured interviews were conducted with six successfully self-employed trainees. the interviews mainly concentrated on trainees’ sources of start-up capital and the posttraining assistance (financial and non-financial) received from the centre and government agencies. the quantitative data was analysed using statistical packages for social sciences (spss) software. using the method of data mentioned in creswell (2009), nieuwenhuis (2012), fouché and bartley (2011), semi-structured 160 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 in the south african formal education system, primary school encompasses2 foundation phase (grades r–3) and intermediate phase (grades 4–6). the secondary school involves senior phase (grades 7–9) and further education and training (fet) phase (grades 10–12). interviews were used for data collection in the qualitative study, and data was analysed through thematic analysis. data was coded, then sorted and classified to find common themes and sub-themes to be matched and compared with the findings on the sections and sub-sections of the quantitative findings. findings the quantitative findings are presented first, followed by the qualitative findings on the related themes which emerged from the interviews. the quantitative and qualitative findings are then jointly interpreted in order to shed more light on the views and concerns of managers, trainers and trainees in an integrated manner. the presentation starts with a socio-economic profile of the trainees. socio-economic characteristics of the trainees the majority of the sample were females (83.6%, 351/420) as compared to males (16.4%, 69/420). the finding indicates that adult training programmes constitute a second chance for women, who are more vulnerable and unskilled (kwazulu-natal province, 2013) to complete their basic education and gain skills in order to overcome unemployment. half of the respondents (50.5%, 212/420) had been unemployed for more than five years. the analysis of the type of work before joining nfet centre reveals that almost half (48.8%, 205/420) of trainees were unemployed during the time of application for skills training at adult centres. only 8.1% (34/420) had full-time jobs in the formal sector. very few had part-time jobs (16.7%, 70/420). the analysis of the highest level of formal schooling reveals that only 20.7%2 (87/420) of trainees in the sample had completed the final year of schooling (grade 12). more than a quarter (27.4%, 115/420) of respondents had completed grade 11 and 20.47% (86/420) left school in grade 10. less than mayombe: non-formal adult education for self-employment 161 quarter (11.9%, 50/420) left school in grade 10, and 9.8% (41/420) of trainees completed grade 8. the lowest school achievers were those who only completed primary school (5%, 21/420) and 4.8% (20) completed some primary school. types of small businesses of trainees exploring post-training activities of the graduates in the labour market was a paramount focus of the empirical study. this is because trainees entered the training programmes with very high expectations of finding a job or opening an own small business. some trainees studied small medium and microenterprise (smme) as a course on its own as part of business skills training. yet others, in the case of most of the private centres offering technical skills training in tailoring, handicraft, agricultural technology, poultry and cooperatives, the provision of business skills training was taught alongside technical skills or at the end of the training programmes. the findings on post-training activities reveal that of those trainees who were unemployed (49.04%, 206/420) before registering to the nfe programmes, 41.25% (85/206) became wageor self-employed immediately after graduating from their respective adult centres. in the survey, self-employed graduates were asked to mention the types of small business that they were mostly involved in. since the researcher could not reach all self-employed trainees, it was important to ask the managers and trainers about the types of small business their graduates were likely to start and manage successfully. the responses are presented in table 1. the findings on the side of managers and trainers are from the records of the monitoring and evaluation documents of each centre. table 1: the distribution of trainees’ current types of small businesses types of small businesses responses from trainees (n = 147) responses from managers & trainers (n = 48) total (n = 195) small businesses area small services area agricultural projects total n 63 46 38 147 % 42.86 31.29 25.85 100 n 15 22 11 48 % 31.25 45.83 22.92 100 n 78 68 49 195 % 40 34.87 24.13 100 162 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 graduates were involved in three main types of small businesses after being trained in their respective centres. the analysis of table 1 reveals that 42.85% (63/147) of trainees became entrepreneurs in small business areas such as tuck shops, food and co-operatives. the other types of small businesses were small services areas. trainee respondents (31.29%, 31/147) became entrepreneurs in the small services area mostly in tailoring micro-enterprises. this finding on the small services area was also confirmed by the managers and trainers (45.83%, 22/48). very few graduates became involved in agricultural projects such as vegetable gardens and cooperative farming. with regard to whether or not trainees’ small enterprises were related to the skills training programmes that they enrolled for at nfet centres, a great majority (91.83%, 135/147) said ‘yes’ and only 8.16% (12/147) said ‘no’. sources of start-up capital the availability or provision of start-up capital is an element of enabling environments for self-employment. findings revealed that more than half of the respondents (50.5%, 212/420) had been unemployed for more than five years, thus they were chronically poor. furthermore, almost half (48.8%, 205/420) were not working during the time of application for skills training at adult centres. these findings are an indication that trainees needed external funds and equipment to start small businesses. in the survey questionnaires, self-employed graduates were asked to mention more than one source of startup capital for their small businesses. a similar question was asked to the centre managers and trainers, but they had to refer to their records of the monitoring and evaluation, and annual reports. table 2 presents the main sources of the start-up capital for small business. mayombe: non-formal adult education for self-employment 163 frequency in the above table 2 was a multiple question and refers to the number of times3 each source of start-up capital was mentioned. although few trainees, managers and trainers mentioned only one of the six sources of start-up capital, there were many who mentioned in the questionnaire more than one source of start-up capital. stokvels are invitation clubs of twelve or more people serving as a rotating savings scheme4 in south afica where members contribute fixed sums of money to a central fund on a weekly or monthly basis. each month a different member receives the money in the fund, which was collected during that period. the members can use the collected fund for payment or investment purposes. table 2: sources of start-up capital for small business 3 source of start-up capital responses from trainees responses from managers & trainers total own money (savings) stokvel4 spouse (husband or wife) gifts from parents/relatives organisation loans from bank or a friend total n 105 17 6 34 2 6 170 % 61.76 10 3.52 20 1.18 3.52 100 n 24 20 8 8 2 4 66 % 36.36 30.3 12.12 12.12 3.03 6.06 100 n 129 37 14 42 4 10 236 % 54.66 15.67 5.93 17.8 1.7 4.24 100 according to the total respondents (trainees, managers and trainers), as reflected in table 2, the major source of start-up capital was trainee’s own money raised by savings (54.66%, 129/236). the majority of the trainees (61.79%, 105/170) reported having started a small business with own money raised by savings. only 3.25% (6/170) of trainees mentioned having received loans from a bank or friends. very few of them obtained start-up capital from relatives (20%, 34/170) or stokvel involvement (10%, 17/170). the difference of responses between trainees (61.76%) and managers and trainers (36.36%) on savings as a source of start-up capital indicates that centres have no effective tracking system to the graduates in order to provide post-training support in starting and growing small businesses. interviews with self-employed trainees and managers confirmed the quantitative findings on difficulties to find start-up capital. they reported that the lack of start-up capital was one of the major causes hindering trainees from starting micro-enterprises or progressing in small businesses after graduation. in this regard, a self-employed graduate reported the following: 164 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 our training centre always organises workshops as a post-training assistance. we meet twice a year to attend a seminar on technology and marketing support. but as an entrepreneur, the type of support i need to improve my small business is business money. the most needed support is money to buy good quality machines and to purchase fabrics. by my own savings, i cannot, it is very hard to buy machines. another self-employed graduate said: business skills are not a problem because we were taught intensively how to manage a small business and finance. we also attended seda [small enterprise development agency] business plan workshop which took us about a month. during the training, they used to give homework like at school. the only type of support i need is finance. the money i saved helped me buy the business equipment, materials and to pay fivemonth rent of the room. a centre manager also reported the same financial challenge facing the trainees by saying: a lack of start-up capital for our trainees is the real problem in selfemployment. i thought the government was bringing in khula [a microfinance institution] system which was meant to help the poorest of the poor. first of all, they charge a little percentage of interest. since khula was closed, it is now hard to get a soft loan. as a result, it is so hard to start a business. the main problem is that there is nowhere for the poorest of the poor to get start-up capital at reasonable interest rate. our trainees are keen to open small businesses. educators are trained to teach entrepreneurship skills because they attend workshops organised by an institution like rotary club and others. the problem resides on how to enable our trainees to start small businesses while there is no start-up capital. as a solution to the lack of start-up capital, all five managers interviewed reported that the majority of those who succeeded to start a small business with their own savings were working in the centres’ workshops. certain centres were using training equipment and materials to help trainees earn an income. this is the way trainees managed to save money during the training period and start a micro-enterprise. self-employed trainees were still facing the financial challenge to sustain their small businesses because of using their mayombe: non-formal adult education for self-employment 165 own savings. the lack of start-up capital from any other sources was one of the leading causes of small business stagnation or failure as the findings reveal in chart 1 below. the main causes of trainees’ small business failure some graduates reported that they had started small businesses that failed due to various factors. chart 1 below presents the causes of trainees’ business failure according to both types of centres. the responses are from trainees, managers and trainers grouped according to public and private centres in order to ascertain whether the causes of business failure depended on the type of the centres. chart 1: causes of business failure by type of the centre firstly, in the public centres, the highest cause of business decline was the shortage of business funds (18.56%, 44/237). the next main cause was the fact that business was not profitable and little (14.34%, 34/237), followed by the lack of access to business market information (12.23%, 29/237), no access to credit services from banks which in turn impacted on insufficiency of materials for the small enterprise (10.97%, 26/237) and lack of business premises (8.43%, 20/237). secondly, in the private centres, there were two main causes mostly mentioned, namely the lack of business mentorship (25%, 7/28) and poor access to business market information (21.42%, 6/28). the 166 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 shortage of business funds (10.7%, 3/28) and lack of business premises (10.7%, 3/28) were equally important in the third instance. the findings in chart 1 above reflect that there is a link between the causes of trainees’ business failure and the type of centre where they trained. the link concerns the extent to which the type of the centre works in partnership with local institutions and agencies, financial institutions and ngos that provide or enhance the post-training support for trainees who are interested in selfemployment in micro-enterprise. the support entails the service to start a small business, suitable premises for production purposes, equipment and tools, support for the formation of groups or forming enterprises, technical assistance; support to access business development services and financial assistance. as chart 2 below reveals that private nfe centres have more linkages than public centres. in connection with the main causes of small business failure, trainees were asked to suggest possible solutions allowing them to start and develop a sustainable business. table 3 reports the main themes which emerged from the graduates’ responses in an open question in the questionnaire and which they regarded as important for start-up and sustaining small businesses. the number reflects the frequency of times a theme occurred as opposed to the number of graduates (106 out of 420) who responded to the open question. table 3: themes for small business sustainability no. themes as suggested by trainees to sustain their businesses n = 106 % 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. provision of start-up capital for small businesses after graduation provision of financial and material assistance in business partnering with banks to ofer financial assistance training in small business loan application from the banks provision of marketing assistance to attract many customers provision of business guidance/mentorship 72 63 40 57 35 83 67.92 59.43 37.73 53.77 33.02 78.3 the analysis of table 3 reveals that the provisions of business guidance/mentorship (78.3%), start-up capital for small businesses after graduation (67.92%) and financial and material assistance in business (59.43) were paramount for poor graduates to start and develop a small business. it is noteworthy to mention that the training centres could not provide these types of post-training support for micro-enterprise development. trainees would mayombe: non-formal adult education for self-employment 167 benefit from post-training support from the linkages of the centres with public institutions/agencies, ngos, business development services, financial institutions/banks and private enterprises. chart 2 displays the extent of the centre linkages with public and private institutions according to the responses from managers and trainers. chart 2: the extent of the centre linkages with public and private institutions the analysis of quantitative data in the chart 2 reveals that 60% of the managers and trainers agreed that their centres had linkages with community leaders. the general findings also reveal that less than half of respondents reported that their centres had linkages with ngos and self-help associations, local businesses and private enterprises, public institutions and agencies, business development services (bds), financial institutions/banks, and employers within their local communities. it is evident from chart 2 that the training centres had weak linkages with other external stakeholders who could foster skills utilisation in self-employment, or assist graduates in establishing micro-enterprises or co-operatives. in the interview data one centre manager reported on the lack of provision of business guidance/mentorship as the cause of business failure as follows: small entrepreneurs are not remaining in the business after starting it because there is a lack of mentorship. in business, sales depend on the marketing of the business. both sales and marketing depend on the customers. the reason why south africa has such a poor record of smme development is because there is very little mentorship of a startup business. we believe that every new business must have a mentorship programme for at least two or three years. a mentor is able to make a follow-up of the trainee’s business and monitor the progress. both quantitative and qualitative data confirm that the shortage of business funds and lack of business mentorship or assistance were the two major causes of business failure. the study also examined the types of post-training support for micro-enterprise development graduates received from their centres and other external role-players. 168 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 post-training support for micro-enterprise development some trainees could not start an own small business and others found it difficult to sustain theirs because of a lack of internal and external posttraining support. in one-on-one interviews, four out five managers reported that there were no mechanisms utilised to assist a graduate with establishing a micro-enterprise or co-operative. stressing the necessity of the post-training assistance for small business, a private centre manager argued that his centre works in accordance with the principle that entrepreneurship training is a process. this particular centre had mechanisms in place to assist a trainee graduate with establishing a micro-enterprise or co-operative. the manager said the following: in business, a trainee never graduates. we start a training programme which produces an entrepreneur who can work independently. the training is a process which starts from lower stage to higher stage in business. at the end of the training programme, the centre trained how to articulate a business plan and present it to possible funders. every trainee was given an opportunity to orally present his/her business plan in a workshop attended by different delegates from micro-finance institutions such as absa bank, ithala bank, and capitec bank, ngos and local businesses. after the training, the centre used stakeholders to facilitate the transition from training to small business implementation. however, six successfully self-employed graduates were asked to indicate the types of assistance received from any institution, agency or municipality to develop their micro-enterprise or co-operative. one female graduate in a periurban area angrily said: i have come to realise that there are a lot of things to know in order to start a business. but in the classroom, our educators [trainers] were just telling us, “start a business, start business”; and then what? we train them and then leave them!” another self-employed trainee with a tailoring micro-enterprise reported: i have not received any assistance from any private or public institution beside the one from our ngo [training centre] which gave me a new sewing machine and start-up capital. i don’t receive mentorship in the business. so, i just use the skills and knowledge acquired from the mayombe: non-formal adult education for self-employment 169 training programme to sustain my business. however, in case i have a technical problem with the machines or how to sew a certain style of fashion, i just walk to my trainers for more advice. the other problem is that i do not know where to get supplementary assistance outside my training centre, whether from institutions, agencies or local municipality. the qualitative findings from these two selected quotes suggest that a major problem to access external post-training support was the unawareness about agency or municipality programmes for micro-entrepreneurs. the problem of unawareness about external post-training support is evident in the document analysis. there are in kzn agency and municipality programmes in small business or co-operative incubation available. qualitative findings confirmed that trainees benefit from support and advice of agencies or the municipality with regard to their small businesses. this is evident in the views of three self-employed trainees. a first successful trainee in the tailoring microenterprise reported the following: i have not yet received any material or financial supports from my training centre. but i usually receive help from other agencies and my local municipality to develop my small business. for instance, the municipality has a workshop furnished with industrial sewing machines. the purpose of the workshop is to help poor residents involved in sewing and fashion self-employment to use the machines for their customers’ clothes. we use the municipal machines for free and get some advice on our small business. a second successful trainee working in a group of five graduates who formed a poultry and agricultural co-operative echoed the support from the ‘inside out’, referring to assistance from the municipality and seda: the training centre helped us to form a co-operative. after that, we have not yet received any support in terms of money from any institution or agency. we use the same money received from member contributions and our customers to buy chicken food, medicines and equipment. the municipality has offered us a premise for the agricultural project, and we have now started planting vegetables. the municipality has again promised us to give more support[s] for the success of the project. 170 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 a third successful trainee in small business who received continual posttraining support from seda said: financially i only dealt with seda [small enterprises development agency]. since i have attended several pieces of training in small business development, they continue informing me about other relevant business workshops on business and financial management, business plan and marketing. they have been a great help to me in marketing strategies such as producing business cards, flyers and advertisements. seda has also helped me with renting a place. in summary, the findings reflect that centres’ inadequate post-training support is seen by self-employed trainees as not linking them with available business incubation programmes provided by local agencies and municipalities. most self-employed trainees expected post-training support to derive from the centre and thought only in terms of money for business, forgetting technical, financial management and legal aspects of the business. discussions of findings in this discussion section, the key findings are presented under themes in relation to enabling and disabling environments in fostering links for skills utilisation in self-employment of trainees. next, a brief discussion and integration of literature follow. the research findings are analysed in line with the conceptual framework of the study. the training delivery approach enables graduates to save money as a major source of start-up capital following by group members’ contributions. the approach consists of ‘learning by earning’ training delivery. these findings are in contrast with king and palmer’s (2007) study on step trainees who could not utilise the acquired skills in micro-enterprise due to the unsuccessful loan applications. in connection with the present study’s findings, langer (2013) and preece (2010) point out that in a community where social welfare systems fail, people need to learn how to take the initiative to organise self-help. in a similar vein, blaak, et al. (2012) argue that the nfe centres should empower individual trainees to realise their own ability to produce goods and services in the informal sector. mayombe: non-formal adult education for self-employment 171 a lack of reliable sources of start-up capital was one of the major disabling factors for self-employment in micro-enterprise. the problem is that trainees are not told about options for accessing funds for small businesses. the first cause of the problem is the weak linkages with micro-financial institutions and agencies, and the second is that nfe centre managers and trainers who knew about these institutions and agencies in kzn were poorly informed about the application processes of start-up capital in terms of a soft loan. however, it is vital to mention that at the centre level, there is a disjunction between training delivery components and the pursuit of self-employment in micro-enterprises. there are no formal mechanisms in place designed to assist nfe trainees with establishing a micro-enterprise or co-operative. these findings correlate with those from nfe programmes for roma women in greek thrace reported by georgiadou, et al. (2009). there were still large numbers of nfe activities that were designed without taking into consideration the post-training support for self-employment of the graduates. weak institutional centre linkages with public and private sectors constitute disable factors hindering the utilisation of skills into self-employment. in relation to this finding, langer (2013) and pantea (2016) argue that nonformal training programmes are most successful when centre managers carefully assess training needs together with other stakeholders within the community. most of the managers did not visit the private sector operators in order to find out whether they might be interested in providing post-training support to graduates willing to start micro-enterprises. furthermore, the weak institutional linkages of the nfe centres may be one of the causes of low application for post-training support available on government sme schemes. due to weak centre linkages, most of the managers and trainers lacked information and knowledge about possible posttraining support provided by local agencies and municipalities. the findings of this study confirm mahembe’s (2011) argument that most smes are not aware of the financial products on the market (or other support available) in the community. in kzn this information on these support initiatives is publicised in the local municipalities and business development services (bds) such as seda. 172 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 conclusions and recommendations it is evident from the findings that at the centre level, the disabling factor is that there are no mechanisms designed to assist graduates interested in selfemployment. while the structure of the south african economy is at fault, weak institutional centre linkages result in trainees not having access to essential post-training support, community resources, public goods and services. the study demonstrates that technical and business skills training alone, as a strategy of adult education and training for self-employment are not enough. due to the existence of structural problems in the economy that perpetuate unemployment, the type of adult training does not create selfemployment in micro-enterprises. the author concludes that centre managers do not take into consideration the importance of institutional linkages and the socio-economic background of the trainees who have faced long-term unemployment and poverty leading to social isolation, which then further reduce the likelihood of employment. without linking the nfe programmes to stakeholders who provide posttraining support to graduates, adult trainees will continue finding it difficult to be integrated into the labour market which perpetuates unemployment and chronic poverty. based on the findings and conclusions, the paper provides four major recommendations. firstly, centre managers should consult public, private agencies and local leaders from the planning stage of the training programmes. secondly, centre managers should put great effort into posttraining support and have an employment co-ordinator who will maintain contact with partners and trainees. thirdly, centre managers should link selfemployment programmes to credit schemes of banks and financial institutions so that graduates can access business funds in terms of soft loans at reasonable interest. fourthly, centre managers should find out, and inform their graduates about all forms of support available including government sme schemes. mayombe: non-formal adult education for self-employment 173 references adams, a.v. 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(2005). education sector strategy: achieving education for all, broadening our perspective, maximizing our effectiveness. available: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/education/resources/essu/educati on sector. accessed 10 november 2015. celestin mayombe school of built environment and development studies college of humanities university of kwazulu-natal mayombec@ukzn.ac.za http://siteresources.worldbank.org mailto:celestin-may@hotmail.com microsoft word b91 full issue.docx journal of education, 2023 issue 91, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i91a05 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x publishing (mal)practices and their (re)colonising effects: double affiliations in academic publishing alexander andrason faculty of humanities, university of cape town, cape town, south africa living tongues institute for endangered languages, salem, oregon, usa aleksand@hi.is https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8507-9824 jessica van den brink department of ancient studies, faculty of arts and social sciences, university of stellenbosch, stellenbosch, south africa jessvdbrink@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0009-0001-3455-9748 (received: 18 august 2022; accepted: 11 june 2023) abstract this article is dedicated to one of the less-researched flaws in the south african subsidy system (sass), namely, the issue of doubly affiliated appointees. the authors review the case of an undisclosed organisational entity at a south african university, and analyse the role doubly affiliated appointees (specifically, extraordinary professors and research fellows) played in the research output generated over six years, that is, from 2016 to 2021. the authors couch their findings within decolonial theories and conclude the following: the recruitment of doubly affiliated appointees to boost the research output of tertiary educational centres constitutes a practice that violates the principles of sass and contributes to the epistemic recolonisation of academy. keywords: publication subsidy, double/multiple affiliation, research output, de-/re-colonisation, tertiary education, south africa introduction the south african subsidy system (sass), which was created to enhance research done by and at south african academic institutions, has been a controversial issue since its origin. despite yielding positive results, sass has attracted criticism and several problems—either inherent to the system or resulting from its abuse and exploitation by human actors—have been identified and discussed in scholarship (see next section). the present article contributes to this evaluation of sass; it considers whether the recruitment of doubly affiliated andrason & van den brink: publishing (mal)practices and their (re)colonising effects 71 appointees to boost the research output of tertiary educational institutions may be abused and, in some instances, constitutes an unethical practice that violates the principles of sass. to respond to this question, we examine the research output generated by an undisclosed organisational entity (oe) at a south african tertiary educational institution over the last six years (i.e. from 2016 to 2021) and locate our critique within decolonial theories. 1 the article is structured as follows: first, we present the background of our study. we describe the structure of sass and discuss its reception in scholarly literature; then we review literature dedicated to the problematic nature of double (or multiple) affiliations observed recently in the global research ecosystem. next, we familiarise the reader with the method of data collection and the conceptual framework that underlies and guides our research. after that, we introduce our original evidence, which is subsequently evaluated within the adopted framework. we conclude the paper with a few recommendations. the south african subsidy system and its scholarly critique the current south african subsidy system (sass) was established in 2004. it replaced an earlier system that had operated between 1997 and 2003. sass stipulates that research outputs, having the form of an accredited article, book chapter, book, master’s thesis, or doctoral dissertation will generate various numbers of funding units per output type from the department of higher education and training (dhet). the value of such units varies year on year due to fluctuations in the ministerial budget and the number of publications to be funded but is approximately 120,000 zar (dhet, 2015; ministry of education, 2003; tomaselli, 2018; wild, 2020). each article that is published in a journal appearing on any of the dhet accredited lists generates one unit. since 2016, a book chapter in an edited volume, which had previously generated a respective portion of the units allocated to a book, also equals one unit. the value of monographs is greater than that of articles and chapters. since 2016, a book may generate a maximum of 10 units (dhet, 2015; ministry of education, 2003; tomaselli, 2018; garrison & vaughan, 2008) dependent on the number of pages, which is arguably an inefficient measure of research impact. monographs and volumes are reviewed every year by special panels because they are not included in the dhet accreditation lists. the subsidy is usually allocated to the institution, for example, a university or research centre, which then decides whether or not a portion of it should be given to the author and the way in which these funds may be spent (woodiwiss, 2012), despite the dhet (2015) having cautioned against such incentivising. importantly, only authors who are affiliated to south african institutions recognised by the dhet may generate and receive subsidies (garrison & vaughan, 2008; woodiwiss, 2012). the aim of sass was noble and its intentions, in our view, laudable. by incentivising the research done at south african institutions, the system was designed to counteract decreasing research output and its fall by 20% between 1997 and 2003 (wild, 2020; woodiwiss, 2012). 1 we use the broad term “organizational entity”—that is, an institutional structure of any type—rather than more specific labels such as “(research) centre,” “(university) department,” or “(teaching) unit” to avoid potential identification of the space, the research output, and behaviour that we examine. 72 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 more broadly, the system aimed to curb the imbalance that exists between research done in the global north versus the global south, and thus contribute to the reduction of epistemic inequality in scholarship. on paper, sass seemed to have worked. quantitatively, the system generated positive results (tomaselli, 2018; woodiwiss, 2012): south african research grew from 4,063 articles in 2005 to 25,371 in 2018 (wild, 2020) or from 7,230 research units in 2005 to 18,872 in 2015 (muthama & mckenna, 2020). this translates into a more than 500% increase in articles and a 160% increase in research units in the respective time spans. the abovementioned decreasing tendency in research output observed at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st was thus not only stopped but effectively reversed (woodiwiss, 2012). however, concurrently with these positive quantitative effects, several negative phenomena that could be encompassed under the umbrella of “unethical practices” have gradually emerged and caught the attention of scholars. all such problems have either been attributed to the corrupt (i.e. gaming, perverse, or abusive) behaviour exhibited by subsidy receivers (institutions and, in many cases, academics) or to design flaws inherent in the system itself (tomaselli, 2018). the following types of unethical behaviours have been reported: “salami slicing,” that is, the division of a single study into an excessively large number of articles (woodiwiss, 2012, p. 424; see also muthama & mckenna, 2020; wild, 2020); manipulating authorship by adding illegitimate authors (wild, 2020); and submitting articles to journals in which it is easier to publish—this includes publishing in lower-ranked journals (muthama & mckenna, 2020; tomaselli, 2018; woodiwiss, 2012), in-house journals, journals on the editorial boards of which the potential author sits (woodiwiss, 2012), and, in extreme cases, predatory journals (muthama & mckenna, 2020; tomaselli, 2018). indeed, predatory journals, which most often do not conduct quality checks despite charging a fee, resulted in the payment of government subsidies up to 300 million zar in 2017 (wild, 2020). further problems associated with sass that have been identified in scholarly literature include the following undesirable phenomena: academics tend to focus more on “the incentive attached to measurement systems, rather than the incentive of impacting the discipline/s” (tomaselli, 2018, p. 1); the system has created and sustained an incomplete value chain—it does not “feed” all the links in the chain but instead leaves “editorial, peer review, production and publishing processes” (2018, p. 2) un-resourced and thus allows for the exploitation of some people involved in them; some journals have become excessively dependent on publications written by members of a single university or centre (tomaselli, 2018); and the system of paying incentives to individuals has in some cases led to resentment among fellow academics (muthama & mckenna, 2020). overall, nearly 20 years after the introduction of sass, south africa has plunged into a culture of publication performativity pressure, which is neither cooperative nor competitive and ultimately results in publication fatigue (inamdar & kirloskar, 2021). many institutions and academics have “become rent-seeking, or at minimum, engage in the pursuit of perverse incentives”—a behaviour that essentially contradicts the intended aims of the system (tomaselli, 2018, p. 1). andrason & van den brink: publishing (mal)practices and their (re)colonising effects 73 certain practices that have only recently been suggested as potentially problematic concern double and foreign affiliations (the topic of our article)—that is, academics who work at foreign universities or centres may also be affiliated with a south african institution and, given this secondary (sometimes even tertiary) affiliation, generate and receive subsidies. at a workshop organised before the annual southern african research & innovation management association’s conference in 2021, johann mouton from the centre of excellence in scientometrics and science, technology and innovation policy at stellenbosch university flagged some problems related to doubly attributed authors such as the (increasing) omission of their foreign affiliations in publications submitted for sass (see a short news report written by nordling, 2021). the dhet (2015, p. 34) had been even more explicit and flagged the practice of “appointing individuals, who are based elsewhere as honorary employees, for the purpose of claiming subsidy for the publications produced by these individuals” as “counter-productive.” double affiliation: an emerging problem double affiliation is not a south african phenomenon only. on the contrary, double affiliation has become common practice in research around the globe. the number of researchers with multiple affiliations has risen worldwide, across countries and fields, from 10% in 1996 to 16% in 2019 (hottenrott et al., 2021; de mesnard, 2012). despite this remarkable trend, double affiliation and its impact on research and publication-related behaviour, and, in particular, a systematic assessment of problems of which this practice may have been the manifestation have been studied very little—a fact that is deplored in nearly all articles published recently (bachelet et al., 2019; hottenrott & lawson, 2017; yegros-yegros et al., 2021). multiple affiliations may certainly have several positive effects on research, scholars, and academy in general. nevertheless, there has been a growing body of evidence suggesting that this practice—and especially its noteworthy proliferation—is related to, or even a manifestation of, serious problems and potential abuses (bachelet et al., 2019; de mesnard 2012; hottenrott & lawson, 2017; hottenrott et al., 2021; yegros-yegros et al., 2021). it seems that most problems are related to so-called “double counting” whereby the same author’s output can be calculated twice (or more times) for each institution that submits it for any type of assessment (de mesnard, 2012, p. 497). in this way, the institution at which the author is affiliated in a secondary or tertiary rank shares the entire output recognition with the primary home of an academic. it thus entertains an equal status to the researcher’s main institution (hottenrott et al., 2021). this, in turn, allows the institutions that offer their affiliations to such scholars to improve their own position in international rankings, perform better in a range of institutional assessments, and eventually have access to more (public) funding (hottenrott & lawson, 2017; hottenrott et al., 2021). conversely, the need to ascend in rankings and assessments, where research output plays a pivotal role, and linking research output more or less directly to potential (public and statal) funding, drives universities and research centres to expand the number of their affiliated members and include especially 74 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 those who are prolific and already affiliated elsewhere (bachelet et al., 2019). in this manner, the increase in research productivity experienced by a university or a research centre (i.e. output number and citation impact) runs the risk of being primarily propelled by co-affiliated researchers (yegros-yegros et al., 2021). the problem is that the above manner of counting publications and the equal inclusion of all listed affiliations in research metrics “distort . . . institutional performance measures and rankings” (hottenrott et al., 2021, p. 18). accordingly, some universities and research centres “game the . . . system . . . by spuriously pumping up their productivity” through the coaffiliation route and thus the misrepresentation of the actual institutional affiliations (bachelet et al., 2019, p. 2). this type of behaviour has been viewed as misconduct. the practice not only, as explained above, distorts rankings, but also, and perhaps more importantly, “violat[es] public trust” and leads to the “misappropriation of public funds” given that this inflated output is reflected in the state funding that the university receives (bachelet et al., 2019, p. 2). the clearest examples of the “research integrity breach” accompanying double affiliations are seen in the so-called “non-legitimate” multiple affiliations, namely, cases where “the affiliation is not reflecting a real or substantial contribution by the [co-affiliated] institution to the study” (bachelet et al., 2019, p. 2). in other words, although the output of such co-affiliated researchers is added to the centre’s performance, these researchers contribute very little to that institution’s research culture (yegros-yegros et al., 2021). all of this makes it significantly more difficult to assign research funds to well-deserving universities because funds may go to institutions whose performance has been largely inflated or misrepresented (hottenrott et al., 2021, p. 18). method our study emerges from these potential flaws related to the presence of doubly affiliated scholars in sass, and the concerns raised with regards to the role of double affiliation in the global research ecosystem. we respond to yegros-yegros et al.’s (2021, p. 14) plea for more “research that goes . . . in-depth into the salient phenomenon of multiple affiliations in contemporary research systems.” we also echo bachelet et al.’s (2019, p. 6) hope that studies such as ours, “will contribute to raise awareness and guide key stakeholders in developing standards for reporting institutional affiliations.” to be exact, our article offers a detailed case study that provides the first empirically based assessment of possible abuses of the role of doubly affiliated academics for sass purposes. with this aim, we review the research output of an undisclosed but, in our view, exemplary oe located at a south african tertiary educational institution. we do not name the particular centre because we do not wish to target it or shame it. rather, we want to draw attention to an issue that could be, and indeed, probably is more systemic. we have also decided not to disclose the identity of this institution in order to avoid potential legal or social ramifications, following the suggestions of a number of experienced researchers and editors, and again, because we suspect such issues to be more widespread than this particular institution. andrason & van den brink: publishing (mal)practices and their (re)colonising effects 75 because our research is a case study, we did not use any randomised sampling mechanism to select the oe. this selection was primarily motivated by our impressionistic observations, which had made us aware of some problematic practices that this oe was engaged in. it was because of these preliminary, yet carefully documented observations that we decided to study the role of double affiliations in the research output of the oe in more detail. such an approach constitutes common practice in case studies across disciplines and fields (yin, 1993), including education (cf. corcoran et al., 2004; nath, 2005). this purposeful choice of oe allowed us to include certain qualitative elements in our analysis. we were able to focus on the oe and examine the provenance of double affiliated scholars, the titles of their papers, and the journals in which they published, as well as more generally their relation to the oe. the quantitative and qualitative data presented in our article were extracted from the material available on the institutional and oe websites. while our conclusions may raise important ethical questions and point to very problematic practices, and thus concern sensitive topics, none of the documents consulted could be considered sensitive or confidential. in fact, the information related to extraordinary professors and research fellows is widely accessible and is publicly disclosed by all universities in south africa through various online platforms. that said, because we did not have access to the internal reports related to the quantity of subsidies awarded to the oe by dhet, we focus on publication numbers (i.e. the number of articles, chapters, and books) rather than the number of research units. however, the outputs included in our analysis have been awarded subsidies and have been declared as such—not only by the oe but also by the larger institution to which this oe belongs. following the rules of sass, when discussing the total output declared by the oe (i.e. articles, chapters, and books), we ascribe to books a value greater than the value of articles and chapters (given their respective weights in sass). we have decided to count a book as five subsidy units, that is, a median of the 1–10 units available to monographs. conceptual framework: decoloniality to tackle the issue of the role doubly affiliated academics play in sass, we make use of decolonial theories. the choice of this paradigm as our conceptual pillar bestows us with a theoretical lens that is, in our view, the most critical with and unforgiving towards systems that shape the behaviour of academics in the modern world. furthermore, these theories are fully compatible with—if not specifically designed for—our local (south) african context. the backbone of our approach is the idea of epistemic (de)coloniality—one of the four domains of (de)coloniality distinguished by scholars, the three others being personal, relational, and structural (kessi et al., 2020). epistemic coloniality distorts the way in which human knowledge is created in the world. knowledges developed in the global north are centred and universalised, while knowledges developed in other places, in particular in the global south, are viewed as peripheral and contextual (kessi et al., 2020). northern epistemes are glorified, humanised, and exported all over the planet, while southern epistemes are erased, dehumanised, or have their relevance minimised (kessi et al., 2020; see 76 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 also cakata & segalo, 2017; du preez et al., 2018; le grange, 2014, 2016, 2018; mheta et al., 2018; ndlovu-gatsheni, 2015). this is reflected in the division of work permeating scholarship: the south is reduced to providing manual force or raw material (i.e. data and data collection), which the north then uses to produce theories (see hountondji, 1990; shefer et al., 2015). in other words, “research capital both literally and figuratively accrues to western principal investigators and institutions, which invariably host grants (taking overheads) because of institutional and funder requirements” (kessi et al., 2020, p. 273). this perpetuates colonial power structures given that the global north mainly includes “white/european/euro-american societies such as western europe, canada, australia and the united states,” whereas the global south corresponds to the zones inhabited by “previously colonised non-european people” (grosfoguel, 2011, p. 16). to undo the epistemic imbalance described above, decolonial scholars argue for epistemic decoloniality whereby all knowledge is viewed as subjective and contextual and thus necessitating plurality of perspective rather than a single, falsely universal perspective. instead of such “a monologic, monotopic, imperial, [and] global knowledge,” which is always developed in the global north, decolonial scholars propose a “pluri-versal” spectrum of knowledges (grosfoguel, 2013, p. 89). this pluri-versality can be achieved by embracing a “decolonial epistemic turn” (maldonado-torres, 2016, p. 24) in academy; the voices that have historically been ignored, minimised, or banned are given prominence and “worldviews and theories and ways of knowing that are not rooted in, nor oriented around euro-american theory” are redeemed, centred, and promoted (kessi et al., 2020, p. 274). given the context of south african universities, this epistemic reversal implies the centring, rather than exploitation, of black, african, and afro-diasporic epistemes (asante, 2010; see also du preez et al., 2018; le grange, 2014, 2016, 2018; mheta et al., 2018; ndlovu-gatsheni, 2015). indeed, five centuries of colonisation forced non-europeans to “christianise,” then to “civilize” and “develop,” and now, following (late) capitalism, to “neoliberalize” (grosfoguel, 2011, p. 29). accordingly, the global north has provided a naturalised “universal blueprint” for the lives, relationships, and behaviours of society and individuals in the south, often resulting in the repression and co-opting of alternative local perspectives, or the colonial exploitation of the people themselves (stein & de oliveira andreotti, 2016, p. 1; see also du preez et al., 2018; grosfoguel, 2011, 2013; ndlovu-gatsheni, 2015). this blueprint is “extractivist” (fabricant & postero, 2018, p. 139): it “manifest[s itself] in the extraction of surplus value and the ceaseless accumulation of capital” (grosfoguel, 2011, p. 9), all of which eventually force one to “consume, compete, and win at any cost” (deleon, 2006, p. 85) and thus “brings out the selfish . . . side of people’s nature” (suisa, 2019, p. 520). this greedy reality is particularly true in higher education. the devotion to this north-centred socio-economic system embraced by tertiary-education institutions is visible through a number of phenomena: commodification of knowledge and monetarisation of nonmonetarised skills (suissa, 2019; swanick, 2012), corporatisation of non-corporative relationships (du preez et al., 2018; suissa, 2019; swanick, 2012), quantification of qualities and activities that are unquantifiable (armaline, 2009), privatisation of public services (stein andrason & van den brink: publishing (mal)practices and their (re)colonising effects 77 & de oliveira andreotti, 2016), and standardisation, normalisation, and regimentation (armaline, 2009; deleon, 2008; swanick, 2012). as a result, the success of education (including at universities) and the benefits of knowledge for society are primarily measured in quantitative production-related terms, thus valuing their financial contribution rather than many other non-quantifiable benefits (stein & de oliveira andreotti, 2016). overall, knowledge has changed its purpose from being intrinsically advantageous for a field of science or arts and learning in general, into something that can be traded for monetary or social gain and thus be profitable (knoche, 2020). knowledge has become a trade commodity in the modern global market (collyer, 2016; knoche, 2020). this makes knowledge vulnerable to exploitation and the individuals and organisations that produce it susceptible to corruption (cf. corruption watch, 2022; transparency international, 2022). actors partaking in knowledge production may abuse (i.e. misuse or mistreat) entrusted power—namely, the power granted “on the premise that they act with integrity to advance the public good”—for private and/or personal gain, that is, “financial, material . . . or social” capital that benefits “individuals or specific interest groups at the expense of society at large” (bullock & jenkins, 2020, p. 2). in terms related to the scope of the present article, the people responsible for, and benefitting from, the publication of research units may misrepresent the process in order to receive extra benefits from the outcome of any given publication. such corrupt practices “violate one’s duty towards one’s principal resulting in harm to the interest of another party and in financial benefit for the perpetrator” (rossouw et al., 2000, p. 887; see also open government partnership, 2015; van schalkwyk, 2017). one of the most palpable effects of colonial knowledge economy on education is a “tremendous institutional pressure to produce peer-reviewed publications,” which largely stems from the need to keep up with northern measures of success and productivity (ratele et al., 2018, p. 9; see also du preez et al., 2018; inamdar & kirloskar, 2021). this pressure to produce exposes all publication systems to manipulation and generates a wide spectrum of corrupt behaviours. publication systems adopted in the global south are especially vulnerable because, in this manufacturing of publications, global south universities are expected to quickly reach the level of institutions in the global north (inamdar & kirloskar, 2021). findings as explained in the introductory section, our evidence concerns the research output produced at an undisclosed oe at a south african tertiary educational institute over a period of six years, namely, 2016 to 2021. in this oe, most double affiliations come from the so-called extraordinary appointments (specifically, extraordinary professors) and research fellows. according to the institutional policy—which has been anonymised—extraordinary appointments, whether those at the post of professor, associate professor, senior lecturer, or lecturer, are offered to scholars who enjoy professional or scholarly prestige, and are not concurrently employed in any position at 78 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 the institution granting this secondary affiliation. the aim is to involve these appointees in teachingand supervision-related activities and academic programmes developed at the oe. research fellows also tend to work at external institutions although they may be affiliated with another department or unit of the same institution as the oe. similar to extraordinary appointees, research fellows should have demonstrated considerable specialist skills. although research fellows enjoy academic freedom, their research is expected to contribute to the discipline studied in the oe and thus be coordinated with research done in that environment. additionally, research fellows should be physically present in the oe for at least two months a year and interact with students. both extraordinary appointees and research fellows can be nominated for the (renewable) period of one to three years. they are not remunerated, although they may receive some honorarium. if one considers the 6-year research output presented in the form of journal articles and chapters in edited volumes, which all equal one subsidy unit, the following picture emerges. the publications authored by extraordinary professors and research fellows constituted 49/50% of all articles and chapters declared as the research output of the oe (49 indicates the percentage of the publications attributed exclusively to extraordinary professors and research fellows and 50 indicates the percentage of the papers co-authored with staff and the members of other groups (e.g. students, post-doctoral fellows, and emeriti). 2 to be exact, extraordinary professors and research fellows produced 58% of articles and chapters in 2016, 41%/43% in 2017, 44% in 2018, 58% in 2019, 39%/40% in 2020, and 51%/53% in 2021. this radically contrasts with the quantity of publications written by the staff members, who only contributed to 20%/23% of the oe’s output over the six years. the remaining contributors (i.e. students, postdoctoral fellows, and emeriti to whom we refer as oe non-staff) created 27%/29% of the articles and chapters. overall, despite oscillating between 40% and nearly 60% in a specific year, the research output of extraordinary professors and research fellows seems to be relatively stable in the analysed time period. indeed, if the 6-year period is divided into two triennia, 2016–2018 and 2019–2021, the contribution of these authors increased only minimally—from 49% to 51%. table 1 below provides raw data related to journal articles and volume chapters declared by the oe as its research output. 2 this notation will be used for the remainder of this discussion. that is, two digits separated by a slash (e.g. 7/8) should be read as follows: the first number indicates the number (or percentage) of the publications attributed exclusively to one of the three groups (e.g. publications only authored by staff), and the second number indicates the number (or percentage) of the papers attributed to the participial group including the publications that were coauthored with members of the two remaining groups (e.g. publication authored by staff together with non-staff and extraordinary appointees). andrason & van den brink: publishing (mal)practices and their (re)colonising effects 79 table 1 research output in the oe: journal articles and chapters in volumes year quantity of publications produced by members of the oe doubly affiliated extraordinary professors and research fellows total subsidised publications per annum staff non-staff 2016 21 total 29 50 7/8 13/14 2017 22/23 total 16/17 39 11/13 10/11 2018 24 total 19 43 11 13 2019 29 total 41 70 13/14 15/16 2020 37/38 total 24/25 62 14/18 20/23 2021 22/23 total 24/25 47 7/9 14/15 with regard to books, to each of which we have ascribed five subsidy units—a median of the one to 10 units available to a monograph—the imbalance between the doubly affiliated appointees (extraordinary professors and research fellows) and the oe’s combined staff and non-staff was even more drastic. books published by double appointees in the six years, all of them being extraordinary professors, constituted 91% of all monographs. the contribution of the staff amounted to 9% (see table 2 below). given the very limited number of monographs declared in the oe’s output (11 in total), it is difficult to propose any generalisations with regard to trends over time. however, monographs authored by extraordinary appointees more than doubled in the second triennium if compared to the first triennium, with three publications in 2016–2018, and seven in 2019–2021. 80 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 table 2 research output in the oe: monographs year quantity of publications produced by members of the oe doubly affiliated extraordinary professors and research fellows total subsidised publications per annum staff non-staff 2016 0 total 0 0 0 0 2017 1 total 3 4 1 0 2018 0 total 0 0 0 0 2019 0 total 2 2 0 0 2020 0 total 4 4 0 0 2021 0 total 1 1 0 0 if all the research output is combined and thus articles, chapters and monographs are counted jointly (with each book being equivalent to five units), the disproportion between the output created by extraordinary professors and research fellows on the one hand, and the authors only affiliated with the oe (especially the staff) is patent. 3 overall, doubly affiliated scholars created 54%/55% of the entire research output, specifically: 48% in 2016, 53%/54% in 2017, 44% in 2018, 64% in 2019, 54%/55% in 2020, and 56%/58% in 2021. this again contrasts sharply with the research generated by the permanent staff, who only contributed 16%/21% and students, postdoctoral fellows, and emeriti contributing 23%/24%. there is a visible increase of at least 20 points or 42% in the contribution of doubly affiliated appointees if one compares the first triennium (48% in 2016–2018) with the second triennium (58%/59% in 2019–2021). the main factor behind this increase was books authored by extraordinary professors (see the paragraph above). table 3 below captures the raw data with regard to all types of research output presented by the oe and puts into perspective the scale of the exploit across all research unit forms. 3 it is likely that these books received more units. therefore, the contribution of the extraordinary professors and research fellows could even be greater. andrason & van den brink: publishing (mal)practices and their (re)colonising effects 81 table 3 research output in the oe: articles, chapters, and monographs combined. year quantity of publications produced by members of the oe doubly affiliated extraordinary professors and research fellows total subsidised publications per annum staff non-staff 2016 21 total 29 60 7/8 13/14 2017 27/28 total 31/32 59 16/18 10/11 2018 24 total 19 43 11 13 2019 29 total 51 80 13/14 15/16 2020 37/38 total 44/45 82 14/18 20/23 2021 22/23 total 29/30 52 7/9 14/15 it should be noted that out of the total of 156 papers authored by extraordinary professors and research fellows over the six years, only three involved collaborations with a permanent staff member of the oe, specifically, one in 2017, one in 2020, and one in 2021. this means that, in 2016, 2018, and 2019, no collaborative publication was developed despite the high number of articles and chapters that were written by extraordinary professors and research fellows in these years and subsequently claimed by the oe as its own output. overall, collaborative articles and chapters constituted less than 2% of the extraordinary professors’ and research fellows’ publications captured for the purpose of sass. no book was co-authored by an extraordinary professor or research fellow with a staff member. it is noteworthy that some articles or chapters authored by extraordinary professors or research fellows are on issues that seemingly have nothing in common with research done in the oe in question. the most instructive cases are four articles (published in 2016, 2017, 2019, and 2020) that have no thematic, conceptual, or theoretical relationship with the research conducted in the oe and instead, concern entirely different areas of research (cf. bachelet et al., 2019; yegros-yegros et al., 2021). 4 4 unfortunately, in order to preserve the anonymity of the oe, we cannot disclose the titles or themes of these publications. 82 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 the vast majority of doubly affiliated appointees, specifically, 16 out of the total of 21 academics, were located in the global north. their primary affiliations are universities or centres in europe, north america, and australia. significantly, all of the europe-based extraordinary professors and research fellows came from an anglo-saxon cultural sphere, and thus economically aggressive and essentially (post)colonial countries, for example, germany, netherlands, and united kingdom. in contrast, there were only five appointees working in the global south. of those, three were placed outside south africa, each from a different country. 5 only two appointees conducted their research within south africa. these south african appointees contributed eight articles/chapters to the research of the oe, which constitutes only 2% of the total research output. 6 the vast majority (96%) of the output generated by the extraordinary professors and research fellows appeared in northern journals and publishing houses. only slightly above 2% was published in south africa, and less than 2% in another country in the global south. importantly, with the exception of one article, only the appointees based in the global south published in the global south at all. this means that extraordinary professors and research fellows whose primary affiliation institutions are located in the global north, almost never collaborate with southern publishers (cf. du preez et al., 2018). out of the 21 extraordinary professors and research fellows affiliated with the oe, only 11 (52%) mentioned their affiliation to the oe on external websites including other higher education institutions as well as profile pages such as those on academia.edu, linkedin, and researchgate. 7 inversely, approximately half of the doubly affiliated members of the oe made no mention of their affiliation with the oe on online institutional or professional platforms. finally, in the last two years investigated, that is, 2020 and 2021, a significant contribution to the output generated by the single-affiliated non-staff members was attributed to the inclusion of authors who were affiliated with other oes of that same institution: five such papers were included in 2020, and six papers in 2021. although the primary or unique affiliation of these authors was internal rather than external, and thus they do not qualify as double affiliated in the same sense the extraordinary professors and research fellows discussed in this article do, these academics were not officially affiliated with the oe in question in any way. nevertheless, their research was included in this oe’s output and thus contributed to its increase. discussion the evidence provided in the previous section suggests that doubly affiliated appointees may be misused for sass purposes. first, while sass was created to stimulate research done at south african institutions, by researchers who are based in the country and actively 5 we do not disclose these countries because they could reveal the identity of oe. 6 out of the 21 appointees located in the global north, only two scholars originate from the south. out of the five appointees working in the global south, one was a global north scholar. 7 three of these academics did not have accessible web pages. andrason & van den brink: publishing (mal)practices and their (re)colonising effects 83 contribute to its academic and scientific life, nearly all the doubly affiliated appointees resided and worked outside of south africa and primarily contributed to the scholarly life of their respective countries. the scarcity of publications that were co-authored with the oe staff members, and thus the lack of any sizable positive impact of doubly affiliated appointees on researchers residing in south africa, and the fact that the south african affiliation of these extraordinary professors and research fellows was rarely acknowledged on the authors’ institutional or professional websites, clearly indicate that doubly affiliated appointees are primarily, if not almost entirely, concerned with their own (i.e. foreign) academic reality. second, and related to the above, the practice of declaring the publications done by extraordinary professors and research fellows allows for the outsourcing of research that should, in principle, be done by the permanent staff of the oe to other centres. the quantitative comparison of the output produced by doubly affiliated appointees with the output produced by the staff illustrates this sharply. it seems as if the oe were trying to coopt scholars from other institutions and “seize” their publications in an attempt to counterbalance problems with generating its own output. 8 overall, the practice disincentivises academics based in the oe from excelling in or contributing to research because perceived research production is at an acceptable level. even highly productive researchers who might contribute with several articles in top international journals per year would appear insignificant given that they can, at any time, be replaced by two or three doubly affiliated appointees. there is no need for the oe to encourage its own researchers—the research output can simply be found elsewhere. third, the practice described in this article contravenes the aims of the appointments of extraordinary professors and research fellows. according to the institution’s policy, extraordinary professors should primarily be involved in teachingand supervision-related activities carried out by the oe. notably, students had little to no knowledge of the existence of these extraordinary professors and the highest degree of contact occurred during the occasional guest-lecture in the course of a module, which happened once a year at most. in contrast, the contribution of extraordinary professors to the research of an oe is not considered by the same policy. research fellows, in turn, are expected to conduct their research in the areas that would be coordinated with and enrich research done in an oe. they should not conduct entirely unrelated research that has no association in terms of field or faculty and does not enrich the research activities of that centre. they should also be physically present in the oe for at least two months—which did not happen. fourth, the use of the output generated by doubly affiliated appointees for sass purposes constitutes, in our view, a case of “double counting” (de mesnard, 2012, p. 497). that is, extraordinary professors and research fellows recycle the work that has been submitted (or will be submitted) whether for subsidy or evaluation at their home foreign-country 8 the co-opting of the research output produced by academics affiliated with other oes of the same intuition as the oe in question—which intensified in the last two years—is another example of a “fishing for publications” tactic. while this would not result in additional funding to the university, it would constitute gaming sass at an oe level. 84 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 institutions and declare it as the original research output of another (co-affiliated) institution in another country. the same output written by the same author is thus credited twice: it first benefits the primary affiliation of the academic and subsequently, their secondary affiliation. accordingly, a south african institution enables a foreign researcher to potentially benefit twice from the same publication (for instance, the funds are used to pay for their trips to south africa and stays at hotels). one thus deals with duplicate submission for credit, subsidies, recognition, and eventually, direct or indirect financial gain. fifth, related to the above, the practice inflates the global picture of knowledge production, suggesting that there is more knowledge being generated than there actually is. primary home institutions declare themselves as knowledge producers and the institution of the secondary affiliation of an academic does the same. it seems that twice the number of articles, chapters, and books have been produced (cf. bachelet et al., 2019; de mesnard, 2012; hottenrott et al., 2021). sixth, the practice of outsourcing research to doubly affiliated appointees and linking it directly to sass results in epistemic recolonisation, at least as far as the oe is concerned. instead of nurturing research in the global south and reducing the epistemic imbalance between south and north, as originally aimed by sass, the outsourcing of research to other centres—predominantly located in western europe, the united states, and australia (cf. grosfoguel, 2011)—contributes to the further increase in this disproportion. the knowledge of the global north is centred and universalised even further. this makes the knowledge of the global south increasingly more peripheral. euro-american epistemes are again exported, while the relevance of african epistemes is minimised (cf. du preez et al., 2018; kessi et al., 2020). consequently, the infamous division of scholarly work, with the south providing manual labour or raw material and with the north developing theories (hountondji, 1990; shefer et al., 2015), becomes even more bizarre. in the oe studied in this article, the south uses its own financial capital to recruit the north to do research in its stead and publish it in the north as well. almost perversely, northern institutions, researchers, and publishers are incentivised to produce research and export it and ultimately dominate a southern institution and its researchers, as well as southern publishers (cf. du preez et al., 2018; inamdar & kirloskar, 2021; kessi et al., 2020). this eventually solidifies the colonial power structures of the colonisers over the previously colonised (cf. grosfoguel, 2011) and blatantly violates the goals and ideals of sass, reinforcing—even at a micro scale—the epistemic coloniality in southern systems of education. even though south african students and a number of academics have persistently argued for the decolonisation of tertiary education (heleta, 2016)—in particular, the reduction of an imbalance in knowledge production and the dominion of northern epistemes inherited from the 20th century (du preez et al., 2018; le grange, 2014, 2016, 2018; le grange et al., 2020; mheta et al., 2018; ndlovu-gatsheni, 2015) and thus the development of epistemic pluriversity, the practice adopted and expanded by the oe effectively hampers the decolonial turn in education. knowledges that originate and centre the black, african, and afro-diasporic episteme, are neither “redeemed, centred, [nor] promoted” (kessi et al., 2020, p. 274). andrason & van den brink: publishing (mal)practices and their (re)colonising effects 85 instead, the practice reinforces the “monologic, monotopic, imperial [and northern] knowledge” (grosfoguel, 2013, p. 89). the few (i.e. euro-americans) continue defining for the rest, south africans included. the epistemic re-colonisation explained above (i.e. self-inflicted and developed to obtain material gains)—perhaps consequential rather than voluntary—is even more troubling because the vast majority of the staff members of the oe have been and continue to be white. the majority of the extraordinary professors and research fellows who have become affiliated with the oe are also white. this may be a source of the ongoing recolonisation of the oe as it continues to centre whiteness in the knowledge produced. in light of the behaviours described above, it is possible to argue that, at least since 2016, the oe has engaged in practices that abuse sass, contravene its goals, and violate its essence. although the practice is certainly not illegal in the current system, it does seem to directly contravene the dhet (2015) policy and comply, to a considerable extent, with the definitions of corruption developed by transparency international (bullock & jenkins, 2020; corruption watch, 2022; transparency international, 2022). that is, by presenting research done by others as its own and, at times, thereby claiming a considerable sum of money from dhet as well as the accolades and clout associated with publication output, the oe seems to have exploited entrusted power for its own (more or less direct) reputational and eventually financial gain. compare with a similar assessment of the problematic cases of double affiliation by bachelet et al. (2019, p. 2) who noted that this practice “violat[es] public trust” and leads to the “misappropriation of public funds.” the quantitative significance of doubly affiliated scholars to the research output submitted for subsidies to dhet by the oe (and thus the scale with which the research output of extraordinary professors and research fellows has consistently surpassed, year after year, the research output generated by the staff itself), and the increase of the research output claimed over the years, suggest the profoundness and entrenchment of this malpractice at the oe. the minimal incorporation of the doubly affiliated appointees into the scholarly life of the oe and, inversely, those scholars’ lack of interest in south african and southern academic reality (whether teaching, research, or publishing) further suggest that the aforementioned problematic effects of the practice are not some epiphonema of essentially appropriate activities and could thus be only attributed to the design flaws inherent to the system. rather, the sources of this problematic behaviour are subsidy receivers: institutions and academics who, through this unethical behaviour and misconduct (bachelet et al., 2019; hottenrott et al., 2021), reinforce the epistemic recolonisation of knowledge in the global south, whether wittingly or unwittingly. while recolonisation is the ultimate and, in our view, most tragic result of perverting sass through the doubly affiliated appointees scheme by the oe, we propose that the fundaments of this practice reside in institutional greed for either reputation or reward. as the value of academic centres is increasingly reflected not in the knowledge they formulate but in the monetary gain and renown they produce (knoche, 2020; tomaselli, 2018), it seems that the oe imagines its own contribution to academy in mainly production-oriented terms— 86 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 quantifiable parameters that benefit the (collective of) individuals within the system (stein & de oliveira andreotti, 2016). since currently this knowledge production is directly linked to research output, and the publication of articles, chapters, and books is understood as currency to be traded for money, favour, and prestige rather than as a means of solving a problem (muthama & mckenna, 2020; tomaselli, 2018), it might be argued that the oe’s main focus is on producing research units regardless of the implications of their publication. the problem with such approaches is that the main (if not the sole) concern is the number of publication units that is reflected immediately. it does not consider the long-term value of a publication for the relevant institution or entity: what it is about, who does it, or where it is published. one such manipulation—probably the most effective one—is the practice of appointing foreign extraordinary professors and research fellows (as well as any other academics who are not staff, students, or contract workers) and declaring their output as the output done by the entity itself. this practice is highly profitable within the blueprint that applies pressure to generate income for the institution or entity, to improve the entity’s (and indeed the entire institution’s) position in a variety of rankings, and eventually, to ensure job security that pushes academics to seek potential publications everywhere and anywhere (cf. inamdar & kirloskar, 2021). therefore, the colonial commodification of knowledge, education, and publishing for financial and social profit is the principal force that drives, promotes, and recompenses the problematic practices that foment and reinforce the recolonisation of academy. in summary, the results of our study corroborate the maladies associated with double affiliation that have recently been identified in scholarship. because of double counting, the research done by scholars whose primary institutional home is located elsewhere can be captured and recognised in its totality at co-affiliated centres (de mesnard, 2012; hottenrott et al., 2021). this allows these co-affiliated centres to eventually generate more (public) funding, namely, governmental subsidies (hottenrott & lawson, 2017; hottenrott et al., 2021). the practice is problematic because of its extent (yegros-yegros et al., 2021)— indeed, in our case, most output was created by co-affiliated researchers. accordingly, through doubly affiliated scholars, centres are able to artificially inflate their productivity and misrepresent the actual state of research activities conducted in situ (bachelet et al., 2019). this in turn distorts internal and external performance assessments or rankings (hottenrott et al., 2021), violates public trust, and allows the co-affiliated centres to access more public funds than they could have on their own (bachelet et al., 2019). we agree with previous scholarship that such behaviour is an ethical misconduct and “research integrity breach” (bachelet et al., 2019, p. 2). conclusion the above case study demonstrates that the recruitment of doubly affiliated foreign appointees to boost the research output of tertiary educational institutions can be abused and constitute an unethical practice that violates the principles of sass. although we have only analysed one oe, we suspect that this practice is not limited to that centre. there is a andrason & van den brink: publishing (mal)practices and their (re)colonising effects 87 persistent narrative promoting the capture of externally affiliated scholars and the constant addition of yet another extraordinary professor or research fellow appointed. more importantly, given the ease with which foreign affiliations can be captured and their minimal cost in contrast to the considerable financial gains generated, this practice seems ideal to quickly boost the research output of any oe or institution. it does not require much funds, infrastructure, or planning. since the north still dominates knowledge production, and establishing links with the south has become a social currency, it is very likely that the majority of the captured appointees will come from the north and contribute to the recolonisation of the south. 9 overall, we worry that the practice conducted by the oe and the resultant recolonisation that we described may be much more widespread and perhaps prevalent at many tertiary centres and institutions in south africa. certainly, we need large-scale systematic research in this area looking at more oes and their publishing practices so that a more informed generalisation can be made. in our view, however, double foreign affiliations constitute a perfect loophole in the system—easily exploited by many more centres. therefore, we believe that south african tertiary education institutions should further address the issue of secondary foreign affiliations (cf. dhet, 2015) and, continuing the tradition of constant reviews of sass, curb the problematic practice presented in our study. this also means that south african research institutions themselves, including the oe considered in this paper, should take the aim of sass to heart: they should incentivise the research done by their own academics and contribute to the recentring of knowledge production in the country’s research and educational spaces. to fight the misconduct, exploitation, and distortion that involves doubly affiliated foreign appointees, both universities and the dhet have a number of measures they can implement, well known from literature. these include, for instance, “undermine the motivation for [abuse]” by disconnecting the doubly affiliated extraordinary professors and research fellows from sass, “restrict the opportunities for committing [abuse]” by monitoring and publicly disclosing the affiliations of all authors, “ensure that feelings of guilt will be invoked in those who commit [abuse]” (rossouw et al. 2000, p. 888), define this practice as incompatible with the ethical code of conduct (cf. costantino et al., 2019), and, more generally, promote quality of research rather than its quantity (woodiwiss, 2012). in order to eradicate this practice, structural solutions are required (tomaselli, 2018) and these depend considerably on the willingness of leadership (van schalkwyk, 2017). 9 this type of research output distortion and unethical behaviour would not be isolated, neither in the educative system nor in south africa nor the south more widely. in south africa, the system’s exploitation for any type of gain is not only pervasive but perhaps also systemic (merchant, 2016; van schalkwyk, 2017). it is endemic to both public and private sectors and no single sector seems to be abuse free or particularly exploitation prone (van schalkwyk, 2017). however, the education sector is hit by abusive and exploitative practices heavily and scores highly among all these sectors (corruption watch, 2015; van schalkwyk, 2017). this is, in turn, congruent with the trends observed in other countries where education, including tertiary education, research centres, and research output, are common loci of highly problematic behaviours (hallak & poisson, 2007; heyneman, 2004), for example, in india (aulakh, 2016), bolivia (costantino et al., 2019), europe (hallak & poisson, 2007), and the united states of america (woshburn, 2005). 88 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 to conclude, we would like to state clearly that we are not against doubly affiliated foreign scholars, including extraordinary professors and research fellows. they can indeed enhance the value of our institutions and our own research. however, to avoid any room for problematic, exploitative, and unethical practices, we propose to disconnect their research output from sass so that research conducted in, at, and through south african institutions can be incentivised, thereby contributing to the knowledge generated by the global south without added pressure from the global north. this would hopefully contribute to the reduction of epistemic imbalance between the global south and north. we hope that the case study discussed in this paper highlighted the issue and will allow the system to be adjusted, by “avoid[ing] the mistakes made by some and follow[ing] the successful examples of others” (woodiwiss, 2012, p. 426). nevertheless, we are afraid that as long as education is the hostage of colonial practices, and as long as knowledge is commodified, monetarised, and deconstructed into numerical quantities, understood as beneficial only if economically or socially profitable, other forms of abuse—after this one is eliminated—will continue to emerge. acknowledgments we would like to thank several anonymous readers for their highly valuable comments, which have allowed us to considerably improve our original manuscript. references armaline, w. 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(1993). applications of case study research. sage. journal of education, 2022 issue 87, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i87a01 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x entrenching performativity or enhancing pedagogy: addressing the challenge of assessment policy and practice anil kanjee department of primary education, school of education, tshwane university of technology, pretoria, south africa anil.kanjee@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0161-0233 nicky roberts centre for education practice research, faculty of education, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa nroberts@uj.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1910-0162 osman sadeck department of research and postgraduate studies, faculty of education, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa osadeck@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4887-6744 jeanette ramollo department of primary education, school of education, tshwane university of technology, pretoria, south africa ramollojk@tut.ac.za (received: 25 may 2022; accepted: 6 july 2022) abstract the focus of the south african education research association’s assessment and testing special interest group (sig) is to contribute to current initiatives and debates pertaining to the development and implementation of assessment systems for improving learning and teaching. in particular, the sig’s members aim to address dominant performativity discourses impacting schools and universities by (1) providing a common understanding of the purpose and use of assessment, (2) locating the different assessment applications across the broader system within which learning and teaching occurs, and (3) highlighting recent initiatives impacting on assessment policy and practices. we think it essential to highlight critical policy and practice questions, while simultaneously acknowledging ongoing challenges for implementing enabling assessment systems that support the specific pedagogical needs of learners, teachers, students, and lecturers. notwithstanding the complexities of 2 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 effecting change, increasing discourse on, as well as relevant critique of, policies and practices that fail to improve learning and teaching, enhances possibilities for implementing enabling assessment policy and practice that seek to address the elusive challenge of equity and quality within the education system. keywords: assessment systems, performativity, formative assessment, assessment for learning introduction a key output of the south african education research association’s assessment and testing special interest group (sig) has been the publication of a special issue to provide an additional platform for debate and to discuss the range of critical matters that have been raised by sig members over the years. one underlying theme across different sig sessions has focused on the tension between performativity requirements on the one hand, and the provisioning of effective support to improve learning and teaching within the schooling and higher education systems on the other. in particular, we sought to address dominant discourses that privileged performance over learning, and its implications on the expertise and experience of educators, teacher educators, policy makers, researchers, and scholars in their understanding (and effective use) of assessment evidence for addressing the challenge of quality and equity in schools and universities. a review of the seminal assessment policy (department of education [doe], 1998) implemented in the postapartheid era reveals that the underlying approach advocated was a shift from the dominant high-stakes examinations-based system in which performance and test scores were privileged over learning and teaching. however, several scholars have argued that this policy intent failed to materialise, and have highlighted the negative impact of performativity and test-based accountability policies and practices impacting on teaching and learning in south african schools (chisholm & wilderman, 2013; jansen, 2001; kanjee & sayed, 2013). jansen (2001) noted that these performance-based pedagogies privilege external behaviours that are easily codified into discrete outcomes that lead to the fragmentation of knowledge into that which can be measured. more critically, jansen (2001) argued that these performance regimes also undermine fundamental commitments to equity with greater negative implications for the no-fee schools that serve the majority of learners from poor and marginalised backgrounds in south africa. in their review of assessment reform in the postapartheid era, kanjee and sayed (2013) reported that while notions of assessment for learning (afl) and/or formative assessment have been promoted across different versions of the policy, the current system is strongly dominated by policies and practices that are assessment focused and measurement driven, citing the dominance of school-based testing and the national matriculation examinations. chisholm and wilderman (2013) highlighted similar concerns regarding the potential abusive use, and consequences, of both local and international standardised tests. focusing on the curriculum reform process muller and hoadley (2019) reported that the current curriculum and assessment policy statements represent a performance-based curriculum that is highly kanjee et al.: entrenching performativity or enhancing pedagogy 3 prescriptive regarding the subject content to be covered, as well as the sequencing and pace of coverage. more recently, bertram et al. (2021) also questioned the use of the annual teaching plans for supporting curriculum implementation, arguing that this approach would result in teachers focusing on content coverage over learners’ understanding of the content. the introduction of the foundations for learning campaign (doe, 2008) and the annual national assessments (anas; department of basic education [dbe], 2012) provided further evidence of accountability-based national programmes for improving the quality of education in south african schools (kanjee & sayed, 2013). kanjee (2021) revealed that between 1994 and 2019, 95 large-scale assessment studies were implemented in south africa for monitoring and evaluating the education systems or intervention programmes (see figure 1). figure 1 large-scale assessment studies implemented in south africa between 1994 and 2019 these studies include international and regional studies (i.e., timss, 1 sacmeq 2 ), national and provincial assessments (grades 3 and 6 systemic evaluations, western cape systemic evaluations, anas) as well as studies by governmental organisations (e.g., quality learning project 2004, early grade reading assessment). further entrenching the dominant performativity regimes impacting on learning and teaching in schools was the introduction of action plan 2014 3 (dbe, 2012), which prescribed the attainment of 13 key outputs, measured by 18 indicators, of which 12 were derived from national examinations as well as national and international learner assessment surveys. significantly, the national assessment directorate introduced the national integrated assessment framework (dbe, 2017) to address several key limitations impacting on assessment policies and practices. these include (1) the dominant role of examinations, (2) the limited use of (afl) approaches, (3) the poor quality of school-based assessment, and (4) 1 trends in international mathematics and science study (https://www.timss-sa.org/). 2 southern and eastern africa consortium for monitoring educational quality (http://www.sacmeq.org/). 3 updated to action plan 2024 (dbe, 2020a) though the goals and the indicators remain unchanged. 0 3 3 7 14 1 0 1 12 15 3 20 12 1 3 0 5 10 15 20 25 1994 1999 2000 2004 2005 2009 2010 2014 2015 2019 dbe prov ngo 4 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 the lack of a reliable indicator of system performance (chetty, 2019; dbe, 2017; mweli, 2018). notwithstanding the challenges of effective implementation, the renewed emphasis on improving the assessment system, in particular the implementation of afl approaches, is a positive step that has the potential to significantly impact improvements in teaching and learning. however, to date, there has been limited information on how the proposed framework will be implemented. to contribute to current initiatives and discussions, while also accounting for the unprecedented effect of the covid-19 pandemic, the following title was identified for this special issue: “entrenching performativity or enhancing pedagogy: unpacking the impact of assessment systems on equitable and quality education.” the intention is to stimulate debate around the follow areas: • the understanding and use of assessment to improve pedagogical practices within the schooling sector, as well as in initial teacher education programmes (iteps) • innovative pedagogies that integrate the use of assessment and which challenge current performativity regimes • the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on assessment in schools and iteps. the papers presented in this special issue make important and timely contribution, especially given current trends impacting on changing contexts of education systems, nationally and internationally, regarding learning, learning outcomes, and especially the impact of the covid-19 pandemic. in contextualising the contributions submitted to this special issue, we highlight three key assessment themes. these themes, which also require further deliberation and debate, have a significant impact on teaching, learning, policy, and research, generally and particularly within schools and initial teacher education programmes: 1. arriving at a common understanding of the purpose and use of assessment within the education sector. 2. locating the different assessment applications within and across the broader system and subsystems within which learning and teaching occurs across schools and initial teacher education programmes. 3. an overview of recent initiatives, primarily by the dbe in south africa, aimed at addressing several challenges impacting on assessment policy and practices. common understandings: assessment purpose and applications a review of current policy documents as well as relevant literature reveals a wide range of different terms used when discussing issues of assessment. these include summative assessment, formative assessment, formal assessment, informal assessment, continuous assessment, diagnostic assessment, dynamic assessment, assessment for learning, assessment of learning, assessment as learning, national assessment, regional assessment, international assessment, large-scale assessment, school-based assessment, classroom assessment, learner kanjee et al.: entrenching performativity or enhancing pedagogy 5 assessment, teacher assessment, systems assessment, and so forth. given the different purposes and contexts within which these concepts are applied, the range of definitions provided, as well as the conflation of these concepts, it is not surprising that a range of different understandings and interpretations exists regarding the concept of assessment. it is critical to acknowledge that current understandings and interpretations of the concept of assessment is highly contested. moreover, its application and value within any education setting must account for both the specific contexts in which assessment policies and practices are applied as well as the worldviews and underlying rationales and assumptions of those who undertake the assessments and use their results. it is equally critical to ensure that current understandings and interpretations of the concept of assessment, as well as its application, not only portray specific meanings and significance but also add value to, and promote, relevant practices that address aims and objectives of education systems. within education systems, assessments are intricately linked to pedagogy, and comprise a critical component of teacher and teacher educator daily practices. it is within this context that we provided the following understanding and interpretation of assessment and its application in the education sector: the primary purpose of assessment within the education sector is to obtain evidence for use in enhancing decisions regarding learning and performance. the use of this evidence, however, depends on the specific teaching and learning related decisions that the evidence is intended to support. across the education system, assessment evidence serves two primary purposes. in practice, assessments undertaken at the end of a unit of learning or course are known as summative assessments, also referred to as “assessment of learning” (aol), with the purpose of producing a shared meaning among all users (christodoulou, 2017). thus, results emanating from such assessments can be used to (1) monitor and evaluate progress of learners or students, (2) inform learners/students, teachers/lecturers and other key actors of what learners/students have achieved, (3) certify completion of a course of programme, and (4) select learners/students (e.g., into the next education level, or for employment). in addition, along with other information, summative assessment results can also be used to monitor and evaluate the performance of institutions and organisations, for example, schools, districts, or teacher education programmes. assessment evidence used for improving teaching and learning, referred to as “assessment for learning” (afl), comprises (1) formative assessment and (2) formative use of summative results (kanjee & bhana, 2020). in practice, the purpose of applying afl is to produce an actionable consequence for learners/students and/or teachers/lecturers (christodoulou, 2017). in highlighting the critical role of formative assessment, black and wiliam (2009) provided the following definition: practice in a classroom is formative to the extent that evidence about student achievement is elicited, interpreted, and used by teachers, learners, or their peers, to 6 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 make decisions about the next steps in instruction that are likely to be better, or better founded, than the decisions they would have taken in the absence of the evidence that was elicited. (p. 9) several key characteristics of formative assessment that need to be highlighted are that it involves both learners/students and teachers/lecturers, it is conducted during the lesson, does not comprise the awarding of any marks, and is used to address specific learning needs of learners/students during the lesson. importantly, black and wiliam (2009) argued that the failure to use or effectively apply assessment evidence to address specific needs of learners/students cannot be considered as assessment for learning. we note that these types of assessment refer to “assessment for nothing” or afn. the introduction of this concept and acronym is intended to at least convey a message that collecting assessment evidence and failing to use this evidence to inform and improve teaching or learning processes amounts to a waste of time, and should be actively discouraged, especially given teachers’ and teacher educators’ large and often challenging workloads. a related set of practices that has gained popularity in recent times pertains to what is known as “assessment as learning” (aal), which earl (2012) defined as the process where students act as active agents in the development and improvement of their own learning. in practice, aal can be considered as an extension of the formative assessment process where learners take the primary responsibility to monitor what they are learning, to identify information they can use to improve their learning, and to use this information as feedback for themselves to improve their knowledge, understanding, and skills. the formative use of summative assessments is defined as the process in which assessments conducted for summative purposes are also used to obtain evidence that can be used to improve the teaching and learning process. in practice, this means that results from summative assessments (e.g., class tests, final examinations, or marks on a project) are analysed and the evidence used to identify, and thereafter address, specific learning and teaching needs of learners/students and teachers/teacher educators. for example, a teacher educator would analyse the results of semester exams to identify areas in which students performed poorly and would use this information to (1) identify what they as the lecturer should do to improve how they teach the specific topic, and (2) provide feedback to students that address their specific learning needs. overview of an integrated assessment system an integrated assessment system can be defined as a group of interrelated policies, practices, structures, and processes implemented by stakeholders at the different levels of the education system to obtain evidence about learner performance (kanjee, 2008). in the context of the schooling system, kanjee (2008) noted that an integrated national assessment system generally comprises four components (as noted in figure 2). figure 2 components of a national assessment system (adapted from kanjee, 2008) evidence of learners’ learning comprises the core (denoted by the triangle) of the system and indicates the purpose of undertaking assessment within each of the four components. emanating outward from the core, the first component, classroom assessment (denoted by the innermost circle) has a direct impact on the teaching and learning process and comprises formative assessments, class tests, projects, and assignments as well as internal examinations. the second component comprises external examinations followed by the third component, school evaluations, and the fourth component, large provincial, national, regional, as well as international assessments. each of these components addresses specific assessment issues that have an indirect impact on the teaching and learning process, and their impact on learners, teachers, parents, education officials, and other education actors varies depending on how assessment evi national policies, structures, and systems that define the education sector and the socioeconomic and cultural context in which learning and teaching take place within the kanjee et al.: entrenching performativity or enhancing pedagogy national assessment system (adapted from kanjee, 2008) evidence of learners’ learning comprises the core (denoted by the triangle) of the system and indicates the purpose of undertaking assessment within each of the four components. m the core, the first component, classroom assessment (denoted by the innermost circle) has a direct impact on the teaching and learning process and comprises formative assessments, class tests, projects, and assignments as well as internal examinations. he second component comprises external examinations followed by the third component, school evaluations, and the fourth component, large-scale assessments that manifest as provincial, national, regional, as well as international assessments. each of these components addresses specific assessment issues that have an indirect impact on the teaching and learning process, and their impact on learners, teachers, parents, education officials, and other education actors varies depending on how assessment evidence is applied. furthermore, national policies, structures, and systems that define the education sector and the socioeconomic and cultural context in which learning and teaching take place within the kanjee et al.: entrenching performativity or enhancing pedagogy 7 evidence of learners’ learning comprises the core (denoted by the triangle) of the system and indicates the purpose of undertaking assessment within each of the four components. m the core, the first component, classroom assessment (denoted by the innermost circle) has a direct impact on the teaching and learning process and comprises formative assessments, class tests, projects, and assignments as well as internal examinations. he second component comprises external examinations followed by the third component, scale assessments that manifest as provincial, national, regional, as well as international assessments. each of these three components addresses specific assessment issues that have an indirect impact on the teaching and learning process, and their impact on learners, teachers, parents, education officials, and dence is applied. furthermore, national policies, structures, and systems that define the education sector and the socioeconomic and cultural context in which learning and teaching take place within the 8 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 sector also impacts on the assessment system. the different components of an assessment system are all interrelated and dialectically impact on one another. consequently, they should not be viewed as discrete components that function independently and in isolation of other components in the assessment system as well as in the overall education system. the integrated assessment system can also be applied to higher education institutions, albeit within a different context. component 1: classrooms classrooms comprise the first level of this system, denoted by the inner circle, in which assessments directly impact on pedagogical practices. typically, assessment evidence is obtained by teachers and learners within the context of classroom-based activities and can be used for both formative and summative purposes. formative assessment activities include teacher and learner questioning, classroom discussions, class work, as well as peer and selfassessment (wiliam & thompson, 2007). regular summative assessment activities include assignments, projects, homework exercises, class tests, and internal examinations (which are linked to the second component and discussed below). the primary purpose of evidence obtained from both formative and summative assessments is to provide verbal and written descriptive feedback and/or to modify teaching practices to address specific learning needs of learners. the classroom level is the only component in which formative assessments can be implemented, together with the formative use of summative assessment evidence. in practice, assessment at this level is usually high stakes for learners and parents given the use of assessment evidence for addressing learners’ learning gaps or selection into the next grade, and low stakes for teachers, school leaders, and education officials. assessment activities at the classroom level apply equally to teachers in school classrooms and lecturers in universities or colleges. component 2: examinations the second component of an integrated assessment system comprises examinations, which have a direct, and often significant, impact on teaching and learning practices in classrooms. examinations refer to the assessment taken under standardised conditions for determining a learners’ mastery of relevant knowledge and skills covered. by definition, the function of examinations is to discriminate learners who are deemed to have or have not mastered the content being examined. in the education sector, two types of examinations are usually conducted: internal and external. internal examinations are conducted by the teachers, and are usually developed by teachers within a school, or in the case of common examinations, provided by education officials within a district or province. the primary purpose of internal examinations is to monitor and report on progress of learners as well as to select learners for promotion into the next grade. internal examinations are also administered and graded by teachers within a school, reported on at the learner level, and are usually conducted on a quarterly, half-yearly, and/or annual basis. common examinations, which have been introduced recently within many provinces and districts, also comprise a form of internal examinations. kanjee et al.: entrenching performativity or enhancing pedagogy 9 external examinations are conducted by bodies outside the school to certify completion of a specific phase of education, for example, the national senior certificate in south africa that certifies successful completion of 12 years of schooling or the basic education certificate examination in ghana, which certifies successful completion of form 3 (ninth grade). key distinguishing factors of external examinations include setting of papers as well as marking, moderation and reporting undertaken by external bodies, usually national examinations boards, for example, umalusi in south africa or the west african examinations council in ghana. assessment evidence obtained from classroom-based summative assessments is also used to contribute to the final grade of an external examination across many countries. given the high stakes nature of external examinations for all education stakeholders, and the use of examination results for accountability purposes, the form and format of modern day (external) examinations have taken a very different character that has had a profound impact on equity within the education system of many countries. in the higher education context, with regards to external examinations, across many disciplines, students are required to take specific credentialing examinations offered by different professional bodies, for example, medical and dental professions board or law society of south africa. component 3: school evaluations school evaluations comprise the third component of this system and refer to the process of gathering evidence about the effectiveness and efficiency of a school for improving learning and teaching (kanjee, 2008). school evaluations are typically undertaken as part of the quality assurance processes within many education systems and are based on site visits conducted to review school polices, practices, and challenges as well as the performance of teachers, school management, and school governing bodies, for example, whole-school evaluation in south africa or the school evaluation programme in vietnam. in practice, a key indicator for school evaluations is learner performance, data that are usually obtained from assessment evidence that is already available (e.g., examination or test results), although it is also possible to undertake learner assessments as part of this evaluation process. evidence obtained from school evaluations is usually used to determine whether schools need additional support or to identify additional interventions to support schools to improve teaching and learning. within the context of most education systems, school evaluation activities have a critical impact on whether and how assessments are implemented, what gets assessed, who is involved in the assessments, and even the amount of funding available for key activities that determine how learning and teaching takes place, including the nature, content, and target audience of training and support in schools. in essence, the school evaluation system as currently implemented can serve as a key lever for enhancing assessment systems and practices within the education system. for teachers, school leaders, and education officials, school evaluations are extremely high stakes given that such information is often used to identify poor performance and thus linked to sanctions or special interventions. school evaluations are similar to university institutional audits that are usually undertaken by teams of external evaluators on behalf of specific governing bodies, for example, the council on higher education in south africa. 10 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 component 4: large-scale assessment studies the fourth component of the integrated assessment system comprises large-scale assessment studies (lsas). large-scale assessment studies refer to the process of obtaining evidence from an education system (or part thereof) on the performance of learners and other roleplayers (such as teachers, principals, education officials, parents) as well as on the functioning of structures and programmes within that system (kanjee, 2007a). the primary purpose for undertaking lsas is to obtain information to monitor and evaluate the functioning of various aspects within an education system, to make decisions about the need for interventions and for resource allocation, for enhancing public awareness, and for accountability purposes (kanjee, 2007a). in practice, lsas are usually conducted at the provincial and national levels within countries, or at the regional and international levels across countries. these assessments comprise the administration of standardised tests and questionnaires to learners and/or teachers, and may include questionnaires, site visits, and interviews with key education officials including the school principal, ministry officials, and other role-players in education. in practice, these assessments are administered to a sample of schools and learners or, in some countries, on an entire population of interest (census-based studies). however, several countries have also conducted national assessment studies in which data is only collected on learner performance, usually referred to as national assessments or national learning assessment studies. for education officials, results of lsas can be extremely high stakes given the political implications as well as public responses to poor performance of the education system. the ghana national education assessment and the grades 3, 6, and 9 systemic evaluation in south africa as well as the regional and international assessment are all examples of a sample-based lsas. examples of census-based national assessments include the annual national assessments undertaken in south africa, the system for the measurement of quality in education (simce) conducted in chile, and the systemic tests implemented by the western cape education department. regional lsas currently conducted include the southern africa consortium for monitoring educational quality, the program for the analysis of educational systems of the confemen (conference of the ministers of education of french-speaking countries), and the latin-american laboratory for assessment of the quality of education (llece). international lsas that many countries have participated in include the trends in international mathematics and science study, the progress in international reading literacy study, and the programme for international student assessment. considering the various audiences, types and uses identified in table 1 there are corresponding stakes for each component of the integrated assessment system, as then shown in figure 3. kanjee et al.: entrenching performativity or enhancing pedagogy 11 table 1: different types, uses, and audiences for each component component evidence obtained by primary users target audience purpose type classroom teachers and learners teachers and learners teachers and learners feedback, monitoring, selection formative, summative, formative use of summative results external examinations external certification body education officials, school leaders, teachers learners, teachers, parents, education officials, education stakeholders certification, selection, monitoring summative, formative use of summative results evaluations education officials education officials, school leaders, teachers learners, teachers, school leaders monitoring, evaluation, feedback summative, formative use of summative results assessment surveys education ministry or external body education officials teachers, education officials, education stakeholders monitoring, evaluation, feedback, policy review summative, formative use of summative results figure 3 stakes for various stakeholders of each component of a national assessment system 12 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 impact of covid-19 globally and nationally, issues of assessment have featured prominently in reform initiatives across many education systems both prior, and in response, to the covid-19 pandemic. this manifested primarily in pedagogical responses aimed at mitigating the impact of the pandemic on teaching and learning across the schooling and higher education sectors. although the covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing disparities impacting schools across the poverty quintile categories, it has also provided opportunities for key decision makers to address long-standing challenges that have plagued assessment systems for decades. interestingly, responses in both chile and south africa have sought to address several challenges impacting on the assessment system while, in ghana, no specific education initiatives were implemented that focused on the assessment system. in south africa, the key initiative within the dbe pre-covid focused on the implementation of a national integrated assessment framework for improving the assessment system in the country. proposals for such a framework called for introducing three complementary tiers within the general and further education and training band: systemic evaluation, examinations, and school-based assessment (chetty, 2019; dbe, 2017; mweli, 2018). the introduction of this framework is intended to address several limitations that hinder the effective use of assessment data for improving learning and teaching. these include the dominant role of examinations, the limited use of assessment for learning (afl) approaches, the poor quality of school-based assessment, and the lack of a reliable indicator of system performance. the renewed emphasis on improving the assessment system, in particular enhancing the implementation of afl approaches, is a positive step that has the potential to significantly impact improvements in teaching and learning in their response to the covid-19 pandemic, the dbe has implemented several reform initiatives to mitigate its impact on teaching and learning in schools. with regards to assessment, these methods have long been regarded as ‘sacred’ and ‘untouchable.’ specifically, the new measures called for (1) limiting the number of summative assessments, including cancelling examinations for grades 4 to 11, (2) greater use of diagnostic assessments, and (3) the implementation of formative assessment. more importantly, the dbe (2020b) have also provided detailed guidelines on the use of formative assessment, addressing a long-standing gap in the new assessment policies implemented in the postapartheid era. not only do these reform measures suggest ways in which decision makers have begun to think differently about long-standing challenges that have plagued the system for decades, but they also have the potential to challenge and transform current systems and practices intended to entrench performativity regimes in the education sector. however, limited information is available on the impact on teaching and learning across schools in the different poverty quintiles. similarly in chile, responses to the covid-19 pandemic generated substantial revisions to their current assessment policy and practice. critically, in a country that is known for its census-based high-stakes testing system (simce), this assessment system was postponed kanjee et al.: entrenching performativity or enhancing pedagogy 13 after 30 years of continual operation (llece, 2020). across several schools, this change created opportunities for pedagogical innovation allowing teachers to experiment with interdisciplinary work as well as for the application of formative assessment practices that were more connected to the daily lives of students and their families, (mesa social covid-19 educación, 2021). moreover, a national report produced by a group of academics and teachers provided guidelines to support schools to work with formative assessment in the context of the crisis (mesa social covid-19 educación, 2021). this report also highlighted the possibility that the pandemic should be understood as a turning point in the way in which assessment policies and practices are conceived in chile, with the aim of moving towards a system where a formative purpose is at the core of teaching and learning. within this context, the ministry has alluded to the possibility of implementing a low-stakes sample-based national curriculum assessment system aimed at informing policy and modifying the consequences and characteristics of the current quality assurance system. however, discussions are still ongoing, and there is no certainty about the direction that political debate will take in connection to assessment policies in the future. in south africa, within initial teacher education programmes, little is known about the impact of the pandemic on the assessment practices of teacher educators, especially given their dual roles of using assessment as lecturers/teachers as well as modelling and supporting students to develop their theoretical knowledge and practical skills in the effective use of assessment as future teachers. across both the schooling and higher education sectors, calls for online or blended learning, have added an additional level of complexity to the assessment debates in how learners and students should be assessed. an additional challenge for many teachers and teacher educators pertains to the disparity in access to facilities and resources and, in particular, devices and the internet for learners and students from poor and marginalised communities. the articles in this special issue that focus on initial teacher education provide a starting point for ongoing reflections and debates. the contributions in this special issue the articles presented in this special issue need to be read within the context outlined above. they cover a range of issues impacting on the different components of the assessment system and address critical implications in the various applications and specific uses of assessment evidence. although we present each article as providing an example of addressing key issues that focus on different components of the integrated assessment system (see figure 4), we also acknowledge that in practice, these components are integrally intertwined and impact differentially on specific actors across the assessment system. 14 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 figure 4 mapping articles across components of the integrated national assessment system integrated assessment system: components 1, 2, 3, and 4 the submission by le grange, simmonds, maistry, blignaut, and ramrathan is a rhizome article that is an assemblage of five heterogeneous essays intended to problematise standardisation, measurement, quantification and other technologies of performativity that dominate contemporary assessment practices in schools and universities. the article offers critiques of assessment practices in various sites in south african schools and higher education undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. the discussions span different grain sizes from high-stakes assessment such as the national senior certificate examination, to s examples of particular assessment criteria. the authors describe its form as an assemblage of five short essays on assessment that invokes two rhizomatic principles: connection and heterogeneity, and multiplicity. they argue that the rhizome figuratio about assessment as not being fixed but rather in constant state of becoming. in so doing, they invite readers to challenge the current dominant performative nature of assessment and to re imagine assessment possibilities for more key intention listed by the authors is to explore how to “open up avenues to move assessment more in a direction to accommodate equity aspirations in a structurally and socially unequal society such as south africa?” although four of the five essays focus on assessments in the higher education sector, and the fifth focuses on fairness in assessments, the issues discussed impact on all components of the assessment system. in the first essay, maistry, focusin discourse prevails and permeates pedagogy and assessment practices with the consequence that “assessment regimes degenerate into protocols that measure economic utility knowledge and skills.” he reflects on the assessment predicaments that presented in the abrupt transition to online higher education programme delivery, making two claims. first, that neoliberal ideology at work in south african higher education enabled the transition to journal of education, no. 87, 2022 mapping articles across components of the integrated national assessment system integrated assessment system: components 1, 2, 3, and 4 the submission by le grange, simmonds, maistry, blignaut, and ramrathan is a rhizome emblage of five heterogeneous essays intended to problematise standardisation, measurement, quantification and other technologies of performativity that dominate contemporary assessment practices in schools and universities. the article offers assessment practices in various sites in south african schools and higher education undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. the discussions span different grain stakes assessment such as the national senior certificate examination, to s examples of particular assessment criteria. the authors describe its form as an assemblage of five short essays on assessment that invokes two rhizomatic principles: connection and heterogeneity, and multiplicity. they argue that the rhizome figuration allows for reflections about assessment as not being fixed but rather in constant state of becoming. in so doing, they invite readers to challenge the current dominant performative nature of assessment and to re imagine assessment possibilities for more humanising processes that invoke social justice. a key intention listed by the authors is to explore how to “open up avenues to move assessment more in a direction to accommodate equity aspirations in a structurally and socially unequal th africa?” although four of the five essays focus on assessments in the higher education sector, and the fifth focuses on fairness in assessments, the issues discussed impact on all components of the assessment system. in the first essay, maistry, focusing on higher education, argues that a performativity discourse prevails and permeates pedagogy and assessment practices with the consequence that “assessment regimes degenerate into protocols that measure economic utility reflects on the assessment predicaments that presented in the abrupt transition to online higher education programme delivery, making two claims. first, that neoliberal ideology at work in south african higher education enabled the transition to the submission by le grange, simmonds, maistry, blignaut, and ramrathan is a rhizomeemblage of five heterogeneous essays intended to problematise standardisation, measurement, quantification and other technologies of performativity that dominate contemporary assessment practices in schools and universities. the article offers assessment practices in various sites in south african schools and higher education undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. the discussions span different grain stakes assessment such as the national senior certificate examination, to small examples of particular assessment criteria. the authors describe its form as an assemblage of five short essays on assessment that invokes two rhizomatic principles: connection and n allows for reflections about assessment as not being fixed but rather in constant state of becoming. in so doing, they invite readers to challenge the current dominant performative nature of assessment and to rehumanising processes that invoke social justice. a key intention listed by the authors is to explore how to “open up avenues to move assessment more in a direction to accommodate equity aspirations in a structurally and socially unequal th africa?” although four of the five essays focus on assessments in the higher education sector, and the fifth focuses on fairness in assessments, the issues discussed g on higher education, argues that a performativity discourse prevails and permeates pedagogy and assessment practices with the consequence that “assessment regimes degenerate into protocols that measure economic utility-producing reflects on the assessment predicaments that presented in the abrupt transition to online higher education programme delivery, making two claims. first, that neoliberal ideology at work in south african higher education enabled the transition to kanjee et al.: entrenching performativity or enhancing pedagogy 15 the online space, which has nudged assessment systems in the direction of assessing what is easily measurable. second, the neoliberal surveillance blueprint (of “monitoring, tracking, tracing, sorting, checking and systematic watching” of students) has morphed into “liquid surveillance” in the online space. he envisages response to these two changes to turn to the emerging body of literature of students as partners in higher education to find constructive ways in which faculty and students construct the teaching, learning, and assessment enterprise. he argues that this holds potential for reframing assessment towards more socially just, inclusive, and democratic practices in higher education. in the second essay, simmonds also reflects on assessment practices in higher education from her new position as “online lecturer.” she frames her essay in relation to the inequities in the south african education and socioeconomic system, which have been exacerbated by the covid-19 pandemic—evident in digital and resource divides as well as psychosocial impacts. simmonds notes that the covid-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to critically engage with new learnings and the complexity of learning, teaching, and assessment. she observes that institutions using, and students participating in, measurement-driven assessment hold assessment at a distance from teaching, learning, and the world to which this could relate. she documents her experiences as an online lecturer in an education system entrenched in performativity that is not premised on the ideals of social justice but, rather, on how her performance is being measured, how many of her students will pass, and on her meaningful use of assessment for learning and teaching. she comments on students having to take on fulland part-time employment alongside their full-time studies with the result that students do not participate in all learning opportunities but merely complete the assessments needed to pass the module. as an appropriately mindful response to these challenges, simmonds offers the notion of diffraction—a critical practice of engagement with differences, how they matter, and for whom. her hope is a shift from assessment as a tool to uncover preexisting disciplinary facts towards assessment with the generative potential to develop different kinds of knowledge such as trans-disciplinary knowledge. simmonds argues that assessment, when viewed as “a complicated conversation,” is more humane and socially just because it provides a productive space to ask difficult questions about assessment practices: how might they (1) be imagined as vectors of escape from dominant thinking, (2) embrace difference to open up alternative pathways for students to become, and (3) include more collaborative approaches contributing to knowledge-making that is socially just, affective, and mindful? in a third essay, blignaut draws on his experience as a lecturer of honours and master’s students. he argues that students’ conceptions of assessment lead to shallow learning, which is informed by their instrumental/technicist notions of learning in which they regard themselves as clients paying for a service. students seem to be neither curious for learning, nor invest the time needed to read, and are not willing to engage in assessment as learning processes. noting the increasingly narrow focus on assessment for qualification in higher education, blignaut questions whether the tests are fair given the very different obstacles that students have had to overcome to sit for these tests. in response to these observations of students’ views on assessment, he argues for an extended notion of epistemological access 16 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 that provides for all knowledge forms so that epistemological access subsumes epistemic/cognitive justice. next, ramrathan reflects on his work in a higher education institution trying to shift away from an audit culture. here, he conceptualises an audit culture where assessments are used for grading and ranking for external stakeholders towards using assessment to provide feedback to students on their progress, and to provide staff feedback on the effectiveness of their teaching programmes. ramrathan first exemplifies this with an attempt to offer students three possible levels of attainment on their teaching practice: fail, pass, or pass with distinction. after initial uptake there was resistance from students and from the university assessment capture system, with both advocating for grades as percentages. his second example makes explicit the expected differences between undergraduate and postgraduate assessment practices: from exposure to the knowledge base and established processes of inquiry to inquiry-based processes that generate knowledge. yet, postgraduate students found it difficult to accept a proposed lack of particle marking for referencing (either they can reference or they can’t). as a proposed response to the quantification of assessment, ramrathan offers assessment as learning. he suggests that the determination of pass or fail could include a quantitative and a qualitative element, proposing a gradual shift over time from the former to the latter. finally, le grange focuses his reflection on fairness, noting that fairness has received less attention than reliability and validity in assessments. he argues that fairness ought not to be viewed simply in technical terms relating to assessment design—standardising particular aspects such as administration processes and assessment criteria—but rather, be viewed as ethical practice that can contribute to social justice concerned both with what precedes the assessment as well as its consequences. preceding assessments are the educational opportunities and resources together with their out-of-school environments, and the consequences are assessments that depend on how assessments are interpreted, and their effect on learners’ life chances. noting the bi-modal distribution of south african national senior certificate results, le grange argues that the prior experiences of learners should be taken into account to allow for a more nuanced interpretation of results (particularly for university entrance) where currently, principles of equality (rather than equity) are applied. component 1: classrooms three articles discuss an aspect of the core component of the integrated assessment system— classroom evidence of learning. all three submissions address a critical issue impacting the education sector raised by beets (2007), who argued for reframing assessment to support efficient learning so that: developing the ability to use useful and timely feedback in order to understand and recognise quality with the aim of improving performance and fostering selfregulation—will open up possibilities for lecturers to develop a better understanding of students’ learning and to reflect on the effectiveness of the teaching practice involved. (p. 581) kanjee et al.: entrenching performativity or enhancing pedagogy 17 nakidien, sayed, and sadeck reflect on the efficacy of a continuous professional development (cpd) programme implemented to enhance teachers’ use of formative assessment in no-fee schools. these authors provide valuable insights for consideration as the dbe implements its assessment for learning pedagogical strategy in south african schools (dbe, 2021). the authors note that the cpd programme not only served as an alternative to the prevailing dominant views in which assessment is reduced to a process of testing, but also sought to be developmental and transformative. thus, the programme was based on the principles of participant involvement and engagement that sought to promote reflective and reflexive practices. the cpd programme was implemented in a cyclical process in which teachers were provided with both opportunities and support to try out what they had learnt at the workshops in their classes then assess and reflect on its implementation. this process allowed participants to determine what, how, and why the model worked so that they could make informed decisions on their own adoption and implementation. moreover, to enhance effective development and implementation of the assessment strategies and techniques, and to promote sustainability, the participants included members of the school management team as well as district officials responsible for supporting teachers; materials were specifically designed to promote the model of action-reflection. the authors note that their study represents schools functioning in “fragile contexts,” which required that the cpd be both practical and sustainable. notwithstanding the positive response from participants, the authors note several challenges impacting the programme and highlight the importance of accounting for the context within which learning and teaching occurs, especially for schools in fragile contexts. enu and ngcobo locate their study within the realm of classroom practice, focusing specifically on formative assessment in the context of higher education. the authors report on mathematics teacher educators’ conceptions of assessment knowledge and understanding, and how this translates to practice when engaging their students. the authors highlight the value and merits of the assessment policy in ghana, noting its emphasis on the use of formative assessment over summative assessment and, in particular, foregrounding feedback for improving learning and teaching. however, drawing attention to the disjuncture between policy and practice, the authors acknowledge that examination-orientated assessment practices dominate current practice in ghana, and they raise specific concerns about such practices in the teacher colleges. aptly presenting exemplars coupled with detailed explanations, enu and ngcobo conclude that the participants’ considered effective feedback as a means to highlight knowledge gaps, and that their feedback practices were premised on the development of procedural knowledge at the expense of supporting students to selfregulate their learning and thereby become owners of their own learning. the findings of their study have serious implications for initial teacher education programmes, and the extent to which teacher educators are able to support student teachers develop the requisite practical and theoretical knowledge and skills to effectively contribute to the schooling system beset by a myriad of challenges, foremost of which pertains to supporting all learners to address their specific learning needs. 18 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 in their submission, roberts and maseko also focus on teacher educators’ assessment practices, located at the classrooms level within the higher education context. however, in contrast to enu and ngcobo, their study explores the formative use of summative results to improve the teaching and learning process. roberts and maseko argue that there is a paucity in meaningful reporting and effective utilisation of evidence from assessments administered in initial teacher education programmes. the authors demonstrate how data intended for use in measuring the impact of an intervention programme could be applied to determine the specific learning needs of student teachers. similar to enu and ngcobo, roberts and maseko utilise exemplars and detailed explanations that demonstrate how the results obtained from an online summative assessment were applied to identify students’ level of proficiency. these results also served as evidence for determining specific content areas in which students demonstrated improvement, and areas in need of assistance. of specific interest was the finding indicating that the majority of students did not use calculators when responding to specific items even though the online assessment was not implemented under standardised examinations conditions. at a time when the use of online learning and assessment has received sustained focus with ranging views on issues of validity and reliability of results as well as privacy, security, and rights of students dominating current discourse (see submissions by maistry and by simmonds in this issue), this finding has added significance, not only for teacher educators but for instructional and assessment practice within the entire higher education sector. components 3 and 4: large-scale assessment and school evaluations flórez petour reflects on the policy process impacting on the national assessments in chile, arguing for a reconceptualising of policy to account for the multiple voices of key actors in the system to ensure the assessment system focuses on improving learning and teaching. interestingly, the chilean system for the measurement of quality in education (simce) provides an example in which assessment evidence obtained from a census-based national assessment system is used for monitoring and evaluating the functioning schools as well as for rewarding or sanctioning schools and teachers. the article by flórez petour offers much food for thought for the south african context. the south african pivot—away from annual national assessments towards a greater focus on assessment for learning (dbe, 2017, 2021)—offers a counter trajectory in the national assessment system seen in chile. flórez petour reflects critically on the assumption that large-scale assessment systems necessarily have a positive impact on teaching and learning and, therefore, on the quality of education as a whole. she argues that research evidence about the effect of these assessment systems on the improvement of learning results is not conclusive and, therefore, questions the assumption that accountability mechanisms (based on standardised assessments) drive increased learning. flórez petour notes the numerous negative impacts familiar to the south african audience such as teaching to the test, narrowing of the curriculum, teacher burnout and stress for school communities, discrimination and gaming practices in schools, stigmatisation of schools that serve more socioeconomically disadvantaged students, the lack of motivation kanjee et al.: entrenching performativity or enhancing pedagogy 19 towards pedagogical innovation and the search for success formulas, and the feelings of frustration and demotivation in school communities with low results. the chilean situation sees high-stakes accountability mechanisms in place with schools categorised in relation to levels of performance, publicly ranked, performance-based funding allocations, and even teacher salaries or employment being linked to assessment outcomes. south african readers ought to take note that the market-orientated coupling of standardised national assessments with funding mechanisms at school and individual teacher level are functional in chile. flórez petour notes the significant disconnect between policy design (by “expert” policy actors) and policy implementation (by apparently “less expert” teachers). her analysis highlights distance and lack of dialogue between these actors and posits that intelligent accountability, where principles such as trust and mutual responsibility replace the top-down and control-oriented approaches, would be preferable. a similar analysis of the assessment policy environment in south africa—considering basic education and the initial teacher education policy frameworks—would be worth conducting. as in the chilean case, we must ask how we can move to greater parity of participation where “better and healthier connections between large-scale assessment systems and the enhancement of pedagogy” may be more likely. component 4: assessment surveys the final contribution focuses on large-scale assessments, demonstrating how the formative use of summative evidence is applied to address issues of equivalence and fairness. roux, van staden, and pretorius investigate the use of differential item functioning (dif) techniques to determine linguistic and culture equivalence of results when reporting results of international assessments involving different subgroups. this article is an important and timely contribution, especially within the south african context, given the current implementation of systemic evaluation studies by the dbe (2017). previously, roberts and barmby (2016) have argued for strengthening the design of annual national assessment, posing the question: how can investments in large-scale assessment be leveraged to focus attention on better learning, better teaching, and better assessment? it is precisely these types of questions that need to be addressed by the dbe in their systemic evaluation studies. given increasing concerns raised regarding issues of fairness and social justice in recent years (see article by le grange in this issue), dif studies have taken on greater significance given the heterogenous nature of student populations participating in the assessments. in the context of the limited number of similar studies undertaken within the south african education context (bansilal, 2015; kanjee, 2007b; mtsatse & van standen, 2021), this paper provides a stark reminder of the value of dif studies. moreover, given the significant impact of language on learning and learner performance, especially within the context of south africa, it is critical to ensure that assessments in which learners take part do not unfairly advantage any one sub-group. a key point to note is that results of dif studies only indicate instances where test items are functioning differentially across two or more sub-groups compared, and cannot detect bias as such (kanjee, 2007b). however, the potential for using similar dif analyses to explore underlying reasons for differential performance may provide 20 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 invaluable insights that impact on how support is provided to learners for whom meaning and interpretation of text may differ as a function of language, culture, or gender. conclusion developing and implementing enabling assessment systems that provide valid and reliable information for use in improving learning and teaching has been an ongoing challenge that many countries have yet to attain. several factors continue to impact on how assessment policies and practices across and within educations systems are understood and implemented. key among these include the tension between performativity requirements on the one hand, and the provision of effective support to address the challenge of equity and quality on the other. in practice, this often leads to performance being privileged over learning, given the dominant discourse of curriculum coverage as learning, and the assessment-focused, measurement-driven policies that privilege examination and test results over learning. other factors include inadequate professional development opportunities for developing the requisite assessment knowledges and skills of key actors across schooling and higher education systems, the lack specialised courses on assessment (in particular, those focusing on the technical areas of testing and measurement) within initial teacher education programmes, and the absence of a national assessment framework or policy guidelines. however, issues of assessment have featured prominently in national responses aimed at mitigating the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on teaching and learning across both the higher education and schooling sectors. although the covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing disparities impacting schools, it has also provided opportunities for key decision makers to address long-standing challenges that have plagued assessment systems for decades. notwithstanding the complexities of effecting change in education and assessment systems, increasing discourse on, as well as challenging policies and practices that fail to support, the learning needs of all learners and students bodes well for developing enabling assessment 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(2016, january 12–15). analysing annual national assessments to improve both teaching and assessment practices [paper presentation]. the 24th annual conference for the southern african association for research in mathematics, science and technology education (saarmste), tshwane university of technology, pretoria, south africa. wiliam, d., & thompson, m. (2007). integrating assessment with learning: what will it take to make it work? in d. dwyer (ed.), the future of assessment: shaping teaching and learning (pp. 53–82). lawrence erlbaum associates. introduction – part i curriculum stasis, funding and the ‘decolonial turn’ in universities – inclusion and exclusion in higher education in south africa jonathan jansen and shireen motala the crisis faced by higher education systems and institutions across the world is urgent. the sharp and consistent decline in public funding, the pressure for rapid expansion, contests over worthwhile knowledge, concerns about social and economic responsiveness, demands for greater accountability, and increased competition for high quality students, are only some of its features. against this backdrop, in 2015 and 2016, universities in south africa faced a number of strikes and protests which highlighted issues of institutional culture, equitable access, black identity, racial inequality, intersectionality and curriculum relevance. this particular conjuncture has forced us to rethink theory, research and practice. the nature of the protests brought difficult and uncomfortable questions to the fore. twenty years since the end of apartheid, has curriculum and knowledge production been ‘decolonised’? have our lofty discourses and policies on governance, institutional autonomy, academic freedom and social justice translated into effective strategies and practices, and transformed higher education? what are the implications of the shifts in the student movement from 2015 to 2016, from a broad and diverse movement united across race, class and gender, to highly politicised formations which are using different sets of strategies, including direct action? competing positions are clearly evident with regard to the meanings of equitable access, free education, and university education for all. in fact the macro economic framework for education funding has itself come under increasing scrutiny, as has the unresolved matter of institutional differentiation. furthermore, whether the state’s steering and accountability mechanisms can be reconciled with institutional autonomy and academic freedom remains an open question. more broadly, how does the advancement 2 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 of knowledge through research, teaching and learning respond to global challenges without neglecting local complexities, particularly in a context of poverty, unemployment, disease and conflict? the purpose of this special issue is to deepen our understanding of the current crisis in higher education through sustained and critical analyses of the problems of funding, knowledge and institutional change in south african universities. this introduction is divided into two parts: jonathan jansen begins with an overview of the first set of articles, providing critical discussion on curriculum stasis, decolonisation and knowledge production. shireen motala follows with an overview of the second set of articles, on funding and resourcing, and uses an equity lens to critically consider current debates on #fees must fall. professor jonathan jansen center for advanced study in the behavioral sciences stanford university usa jj@ufs.ac.za shireen motala professor in the faculty of education senior director: research and innovation postgraduate school university of johannesburg smotala@uj.ac.za mailto:jj@ufs.ac.za mailto:smotala@uj.ac.za microsoft word b87 full issue 14072022.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 87, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i87a02 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x assessment and social justice: invigorating lines of articulation and lines of flight lesley le grange department of curriculum studies, faculty of education, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa llg@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7096-3609 shan simmonds research unit for education and human rights in diversity, faculty of education sciences, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa shan.simmonds@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5005-9906 suriamurthee moonsamy maistry department of social science education, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa maistrys@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9623-0078 sylvan blignaut department of postgraduate studies, faculty of education, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa sylvan.blignaut@mandela.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5514-0604 labby ramrathan department of teacher development studies, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa ramrathanp@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9963-0675 (received: 4 september 2021; accepted: 17 may 2022) abstract this article is a collective project. it is a rhizome-article that is an assemblage of five heterogeneous essays that trouble dominant practices of assessment, generally, but also within the context of the covid-19 pandemic. the authors problematise standardisation, measurement, quantification, and other technologies of performativity that dominate contemporary assessment practices in schools and universities. in the essays, the authors invigorate lines of flight from dominant assessment practices and do so in the interest of assessment that is more humane and socially just. they point out that, as with anything else, a rhizome-article also has lines of articulation/connection and invite readers to invigorate these as they read the essays. the authors of this article le grange et al.: assessment and social justice 25 draw on the works of several scholars but do so to think with them rather than having their work framed by them. keywords: assessment, social justice, performativity, lines of articulation, lines of flight introduction this article is a collective project. as authors, we are inspired by those who have been experimenting with alternative genres of article writing that represent collective projects of performing academic work (for examples, see peters et al., 2020, waghid et al., 2020). our article is an assemblage comprising five short essays on assessment, which align with some of the key topics outlined in the call for contributions to this special issue of journal of education. however, the assemblage here is not tree-like (arborescent) but rhizomatic. in their influential work, a thousand plateaus, deleuze and guattari (1987) distinguished between arborescent and rhizomatic thinking. arborescent thinking refers to conceptions of knowledge as hierarchically articulated branches of a central stem or trunk rooted in firm foundations, whereas rhizomatic thinking refers to chaotically complex networkings of stems interconnecting the upshoots of some grasses (sellers, 2006). deleuze and guattari (1987) identified six principles of a rhizome and, in this article, we shall invoke two: the principle of connection and heterogeneity, and the principle of multiplicity. the principle of connection and heterogeneity means that any point of a rhizome can be connected to any other, implying that the rhizome is a network that is in a continual process of becoming. deleuze and guattari (1987, p. 8) remind us that the rhizome has no points or positions such as those found in a structure, tree, or root—there are only lines. these lines enable proliferation in all directions to form an assemblage. concerning the principle of multiplicity, deleuze and guattari (1987) argued that the rhizome is a true multiplicity because, as new lines form and grow, the nature thereof changes itself. in contrast, arborescent thinking produces pseudo multiplicities whereby a single trunk produces branches that are variants of the same. the rhizome has no beginning and end and is always in the middle (en milieu). thinking with deleuze and guattari (1987) helps us in understanding assessment as an assemblage connecting learners, educators, knowledge, material resources, physical spaces, rubrics, concepts, criteria, objectives, and so forth. the assessment assemblage that dominates schooling and higher education is arborescent: integral to curriculum development in the tylerian mould, with iterations such as outcomes-based education and constructive alignment (le grange, 2014). assessment has also become territorialised by a measurement culture, standardisation, and performativity regimes. however, assessment can become deterritorialised (become other than what it is) through invigorating lines of flight from its current dehumanising effects. the rhizome figuration enables us to think about assessment as not having fixity and always in a process of becoming. the essays in this article assemblage invigorate lines of flight from the dehumanising effects of dominant assessment practices, based on the assumption that there can be no quality 26 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 education (system) if attention is not given to the quality of life of the human being. drawing inspiration from john rawls, murillo and hidalgo (2017) reminded us of the notion of fairness, arguing that “only with fair schools can we contribute to fair societies” (p. 15). they contended that fair assessment is usually construed along two ontologically confounding (binary) lines of thought, namely, legal justice versus social justice conceptions, with the former “related to equality, transparency, objectivity, and evaluation of class content; that is, an egalitarian conception” and the latter “associated with ideas such as adaptation, diversification of tests, and qualitative assessment, even taking into account students’ effort and attitudes” (murillo & hidalgo, 2017, p.14)—assessment strongly connected to the notion of equity. given the stark socioeconomic unevenness of schooling in south africa (maistry & africa, 2020), we argue that a purist egalitarian, legal justice-oriented conception of assessment is likely to undermine the rawlsian (1971) notion of fairness. in light of this, we encourage conceptions of assessment that invoke social justice as we trouble the performative nature of assessment and its perpetuation of socioeconomic unevenness, especially when assessment is (i) configured through the metric adequacy of a student, (ii) used to keep students on track toward a predetermined path (such as attaining a qualification, for example), and (iii) a way of normalising students within an individualistic and competitive culture of standardised assessment (biesta, 2009; flórez et al., 2018; reddy et al., 2015). flórez et al. (2018) proffered that assessment should rather embrace a “broader perspective” of social justice that “links metrics, education and society” so as to imagine “a contextualized approach to social justice” (pp. 662–3). through the five essays of this paper, nuanced conceptions of a contextualised approach to social justice are imagined to invigorate new lines of flight to generate alternative pathways to thinking about assessment in post-covid times. in the first essay, suriamurthee maistry reflects on the territorialisation of assessment in an era of neoliberalism including performative regimes and forms of surveillance that have become more nuanced during the covid-19 pandemic. his critique opens up possibilities for rethinking assessment in a post-covid-19 era. in the second essay, shan simmonds reflects on how the covid-19 pandemic has laid bare existing injustices in education systems and how online teaching, learning, and assessment in higher education has had further dehumanising effects. she finds inspiration from the new materialist concept of diffraction and the productive form of power (potentia) to generate vectors of escape from dominant thinking on assessment. in the third essay, sylvan blignaut focuses on what precedes assessment and particularly on the concept, epistemological access. he argues that if assessment is to contribute to enhancing the quality of education systems, then students should not only gain formal access to the university but should also gain epistemological access. he opens up ways of expanding the notion of epistemological access so that it goes beyond granting students access only to what is in the western canon. in the fourth essay, labby ramrathan troubles the measurement culture that dominates assessment practices in education systems and focuses specifically on the effects of quantification in assessment. he suggests ways in which we might rethink quantification in assessment. in the final essay, lesley le grange focuses on the concept of fairness in relation to classroom assessments, large-scale assessments, and examinations . he argues that a focus on what precedes assessment, and on le grange et al.: assessment and social justice 27 the consequences of assessment, offers lines of escape from fairness applied only to assessment design. deleuze and guattari (1987) have also helped us to think this article itself a rhizomatic assemblage. the essays comprise heterogeneous parts of the assemblage that were constructed by each author on their own with the only common thing in mind, the call for papers of this special issue. there is no single theory that has produced variants of same, as is the case with an arborescent assemblage. lines of connection between and among the ideas/concepts in the essays can of course be invigorated. we invite the reader to generate such conceptual connections as we shall do in the parting section of this article. the rhizome has no beginning and end; it does not have a single entry point. each essay in this article has a different point of focus. the different points of focus include higher education, schooling, undergraduate education, postgraduate education, broader systemic issues, and anecdotal musings. unlike the tree, the rhizome predominantly grows horizontally, and so in this article-rhizome, the essays should be read transversally rather than vertically; seeking linearity and golden threads should not be the aim. instead, what is envisaged is the invigoration of lines of connections that the disparate points of foci in the essays make possible so that unlikely fidelities may be constructed. we invite readers to relinquish their arborescent blinkers so as to increase their coefficient of transversality. transversal thinking proliferates newness because it maps rather than traces—the rhizome is cartographic and therefore always becoming. while the concept of assessment is commonly known as a measurement-based broad approach to obtaining information about what is learnt and whether students have acquired sufficient knowledge (van der vleuten & schuwirth, 2005), the concept has evolved substantially over the last few decades in terms of its purpose, its forms, and its processes. in this article we do not go into the details of what assessment is—nor of its evolution because there is a significant body of literature that speaks to this concept and its evolution—save to briefly summarise the main purposes of assessment. archer (2017) outlined broad purposes, namely, assessment to support learning, assessment for accountability, and assessment for certification, progress, and transfer. based on the purposes of assessment, the following assessment types have been identified: assessment of learning (van der vleuten & schuwirth, 2005), assessment for learning (kanjee & sayed, 2013), and assessment as learning (dann, 2012). assessment for learning data helps teachers to plan and decide how they could use such data to support learning better, and assessment of learning (also generally referred to as summative assessment) is to ascertain what students have learnt. however, our focus in this article is centred on a broader macro gaze on assessment informed by a social justice lens. a central question then to be pondered is: “how can we open up avenues to move assessment more in a direction to accommodate equity aspirations in a structurally and socially unequal society such as south africa?” 28 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 neoliberalism, performance assessment, and liquid surveillance (suriamurthee maistry) in this piece, i offer an account of the neoliberal meta-narrative that has been shaping higher education pedagogy and practices in the last three decades. i also reflect on the assessment predicaments that presented in the abrupt transition to online higher education programme delivery. i argue that the architecture of the online space (learning management systems such as moodle) has mutated into an efficient surveillance technology, especially as it relates to assessment and student performance monitoring. there is little contention that neoliberalism’s substantive ideational thickening in south african higher education is a response to global knowledge economy prerogatives (maistry, 2015). this marks a shift from the transformation (social justice) imperative—namely, that of higher education as social good for communal upliftment—to higher education as economic good. neoliberal creep into all facets of higher education (and society in general) has resulted in what might be described as normative ambivalence, a situation in which university academics can recognise and even articulate the perils that a knowledge economy ethos presents, but appear to acquiesce (raaper, 2016) in response to the neoliberal tidal wave of higher education performativity “initiatives.” žižek (2011) reminds us that ideology works at the level of subconscious, that subjects have an imaginary relationship with the real world that is mediated through language. in the contemporary higher education space, a performativity discourse prevails and permeates pedagogy and assessment practices. the marketisation of higher education (schwartzman, 2013) as a consumer product (commodification) has had the detrimental effect of curriculum narrowing—streamlining tight sets of graduate attributes in the preparation of subjects (human resources) with immediate economic production potential. the consequence is that assessment regimes degenerate into protocols that measure economic utility-producing knowledge and skills. the competitive market for labour (un)wittingly fuels a narcissism—individual pursuits (personal advancement) at the expense of the communitarian (gane, 2012). there is also much extant literature that applies foucauldian theory/concepts (the examination, hierarchical observation, and normalising judgement) that critiques and exposes the disciplining effect of performance assessment (see, for example, raaper, 2016) and the rendering of a visible subject susceptible to constant measurement and scrutiny. while a critique of the swing towards a performance culture in higher education is offered, i also recognise that in the “pre-performative era, higher education assessment practice has not been without tensions as it relates to inherent power hierarchy in student-professor teaching and assessment enterprise (lorente-catalán & kirk, 2014). in the discussion that follows, i argue that the neoliberal surveillance blueprint (already well established in the higher education space) as it relates to “monitoring, tracking, tracing, sorting, checking and systematic watching” (bauman & lyon, 2013, p. iv) of students (and their performance) has morphed in the online space into what might be described as liquid surveillance. the use of online assessment submission systems, online grading, and feedback le grange et al.: assessment and social justice 29 marks the creation of permanent digital profiling. while this might be considered an efficient way of monitoring student progress, it has the effect of rendering a permanent visibility—a valuable neoliberal spinoff brought on by the covid-19 pandemic, which has forced higher education institutions to move their programme offerings online given the health risks that close human proximity presents for virus transmission. there was a sudden but necessary move from face-to-face lecture hall teaching to emergency remote teaching (pandemic pedagogy), a distinct and distant relative of online teaching in the purist sense (barbour et al., 2020). the exigency that presented after a period of mandatory state-imposed lockdown was that of timeous academic year completion, an imperative that higher education neoliberal managerial elites believed was fundamental to the survival of the economic entities (universities) under their governance given the inherent competitive relationship between higher education institutions. the completion of the academic programme online, however, hinged on the ability of universities and the coalface academics, to rapidly “convert” traditional face-to-face assessment practices/protocols to the online space. assessment of learning to determine student success, usually determined through formal, sit-down examinations in confined venues, for extended periods of time (up to three hours or more), was unprecedentedly eliminated as an option. this marked a departure from traditional assessment practice in undergraduate (and some postgraduate) programmes in south africa. that university managers and academics were wholly unprepared for the challenges that the online space would present for both pedagogy and assessment is without contention. in the absence of costly proctoring technologies, the issue of test-taker authentication (rahim, 2020), assessment reliability, and validity presented as serious challenges and have been the focus of much academic energy (research and scholarship). some disciplines readily moved their objective-type assessments (multiple-choice protocols) online and utilised randomisation techniques to discourage student dishonesty (copying). disciplines that apply a variety of methods to assess student learning, that value conceptual knowledge and discursive skills development, were found wanting as they struggled to find ways to determine student success. two key issues emerge. firstly, neoliberal ideology at work in south african higher education facilitated the “ease” of transition to the online space with likely deleterious effects on assessment protocols, further nudging assessment regimes in the direction of assessing what is easily measurable. secondly, the technology afforded by learning management systems (like moodle) present as effective post-panoptic surveillance mechanism—“the everquickening march of technology, colonising more and more life areas and leaving intact fewer and fewer untouched ‘indigenous’ areas” (bauman & lyon, 2013, p. 9) like holistic, authentic assessment for and as learning. the current crisis (of) in assessment presents as opportune moment for academics to review and reflect on normative assessment practices and to reflect on how the neoliberal metanarrative is enabled through acquiescence. how might we turn around the assessment postpanopticon (in the online space)? how might we imagine a synopticon (mathieson, 1997), a 30 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 situation of agentic exercise of power in which subjects engage a process of surveilling the powerful few (neoliberal higher education governing elites, in this instance), their ideological intent, and how such ideology translates into degenerative pedagogy and assessment conventions—with a view to subverting such manoeuvres? the emerging body of literature of students as partners in higher education (see mercer-mapstone et al., 2017 for a comprehensive literature review of scholarship), which speaks to constructive ways in which faculty and students construct the teaching, learning, and assessment enterprise, holds much potential for reframing assessment towards more socially just, inclusive, and democratic (lorente-catalán & kirk, 2014) practices in higher education. when assessment rides the waves of covid-19: unmasking alternative imaginaries (shan simmonds) there is no doubt that covid-19 has exposed the inequities in our education system (jansen, 2020; motala & menon, 2020). the pandemic has further exacerbated the crude realities perpetuating south africa’s already stark socioeconomic inequalities. these include social injustices through digital and resource divides that have been detrimental to higher education transformational agendas, including the need to widen epistemic access (du preez & le grange, 2020). the emotional impact of the pandemic is also pervasive. the psychosocial well-being of students has intensified as they predominantly remain online, devoid of human contact, creating both a physical and social void and exposing that “the human cost of the covid-19 period is yet to be seen” (motala & menon, 2020, p. 95). we are reminded now, in a time where we must cover our faces with protective masks, that we need to unmask and face the injustices of our education system and seek alternative possibilities. for soudien (2020), this required being mindful of what our new learning about education (learning, teaching, and assessment) is telling us. being mindful requires more than a fixation on responding to practical anxieties around continuing business as usual to salvage the academic year, and managing health and safety by prohibiting contact classes on university campuses (motala & menon, 2020; soudien, 2020). for fataar and badroodien, it reminds us of our responsibility to ensure that the future of education post covid-19 provides opportunities for new and emergent imaginaries that “challenge our stances on reciprocity, human dignity, repair and a commitment to equal sharing” (2020, p. 4). said differently by soudien, the systemic shock of the pandemic has made profound the importance of recognising that learning is complex, and that mitigating this complexity requires “the just and moral step of recognizing that our children, all of them, are different” (2020, p. 17). the outcry to use the pandemic as a carpe diem moment sounds optimistic and hopeful in a period that has mostly been occupied by fear, darkness, and death. but it remains romantic when imagined in an education system entrenched in performativity regimes that are often not premised on the ideals of social justice. as a wolf clothed in sheepskin, the deceit of performativity fuels the university in all aspects including assessment. as an academic, i continue to face numerous online assessment challenges. the continuum ranges through fostering assessment that stimulates deep and inclusive learning (soudien, 2020), assessment le grange et al.: assessment and social justice 31 that recognises the social dimension in a time when social learning is not entirely impossible but, because it is devoid of physical contact, often comes at a cost—resources, digital literacies, and time (motala & menon, 2020)—as well as pressures from institutions for students to perform through continuous assessments with multiple opportunities until they are successful (simmonds, 2020). in this systemic shock (soudien, 2020), i strive for equality, fairness, and justice in my assessment practices but experience a constant tug-of-war with assessment as the qualification function of learning (biesta, 2009). i experience this through (i) institutional priorities measuring my performance as a lecturer, based more on how many of my students pass without acknowledging the meaningful utilisation of my assessment practices for learning and teaching and (ii) some of my students who, for financial reasons (examples include parents’ loss of employment) or their frustration with no-contact classes, have resorted to full and part-time employment alongside their full-time studies—sometimes resulting in measurement-driven learning, that is, students not participating in all learning opportunities but simply doing only the assessments needed to pass the module. the possible danger hereof is that assessment is commodified as “the sum of what is known” rather than an exhibition of learning that strives for the continuous becoming of knowing and the productive endeavour for the unknown. i invest these experiences in foucault’s (1977) idea of dynamic normalisation to try and make sense of them. dynamic normalisation, as surveillance or the awareness of being observed, has the potential to stifle individuality and create conformity. people are normalised when they end up acting, thinking, and being the same for fear of being caught out or punished (foucault, 1977). as an instrument of power, dynamic normalisation imposes homogeneity and self-governance (foucault, 1977). as an online lecturer, i am conscious of the need to mitigate a culture of measurement-driven assessment for the qualification function of learning. i feel the effects of surveillance now more than ever in terms of how my institution measures my performativity as a lecturer. what these musings also lead me to recognise is how this could make assessment representationalist (barad, 2007). representationalism is founded on the premise that “words, concepts, ideas, and the like accurately reflect or mirror the things to which they refer” (barad, 2007, p. 86). this leads to reflecting on representations like a mirror image where representations have no effect on the objects of investigation in the sense that they are “nothing more than iterative mimesis” (barad, 2007, p. 88). what this means for the type of measurement-driven assessment that i experience, is that institutions hold assessment at a distance from teaching, learning, and the world to which this could relate and, in addition, students experience assessment as a separate object. for me, this form of assessment depicts inter-action—when representations are “set up to look for homologies and analogies between separate entities” and as a result “reflecting on the world from the outside.” barad’s (2007, p. 88) so, what then are the implications of covid-19 for the future of assessment? i think barad’s (2007) ideas on shifting our thinking from reflection to diffraction is one alternative pathway. diffraction is a critical practice of engagement with “a commitment to understanding which differences matter, how they matter, and for whom” (barad, 2007, p. 90). what this could entail for assessment is the need for a heightened level of mindfulness. the type of 32 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 mindfulness that is not a reactive or descriptive response to the inequalities that have surfaced from covid-19 but, rather, a deeper engagement that exposes various nuances entangled in thinking about assessment as an opportunity for thinking beyond what is—and to image what could be. vested in agential realism, diffraction eschews representationalism and advances a performative understanding of different kinds of knowledge-making practice. here, “performative” is power that produces (potentia)—not power that normalises (potestas) (foucault, 1977, p. 194). when power is productive, knowledge-making is the “material practice of intra-acting within and as part of the world” (barad, 2007, p. 90). in terms of assessment, this could invigorate a shift from assessment as a tool to uncover preexisting disciplinary facts, towards assessment with the generative potential to develop different kinds of knowledge such as trans-disciplinary knowledge (barad, 2007). when assessment is embodied and embedded in this way, practices of knowing “are specific material engagements that participate in (re)configuring the world” (barad, 2007, p. 91). when assessment is an enabler for (re)configuring the world and how we participate in it, assessment practices are able to challenge performativity regimes that dehumanise assessment. when assessment is dehumanised, it is detached and preoccupied with keeping students on track of a predetermined path such as using their metric “worth” to determine whether they can attain a qualification. one of the effects thereof is that assessment practices can fall short in locating “bodies, brains and social spaces in their full entanglement” (soudien, 2020, p. 17)—so that assessment can be a complex entanglement of the material, discursive, and social; so that it can navigate any systemic shock (covid-19 or otherwise) because it is embraced in all its complexity and as a complicated conversation. as a complicated conversation, assessment is more humane and socially just because it provides a productive space (that is positive, hopeful, and affirmative) to ask difficult questions: “how might one work through and within performativity regimes in ways that are productive so as to imagine vectors of escape from dominant thinking on assessment?” “how might assessment practices be critical of normalising students as the same and, rather, embrace difference to open up alternative pathways for students to become?” “how might dominant individualistic and competitive assessment practices include more collaborative approaches so that assessment could contribute to knowledge-making that is socially just, affective, and mindful?” assessment and learning in postgraduate studies (sylvan blignaut) the danger here is that we end up valuing what is measured, rather than that we engage in measurement of what we value. (biesta, 2009, p. 43) in this essay, i will reflect on my experiences of assessment and learning in my capacity as lecturer teaching a research module to bachelor of education honours students, and teaching master of education students over many years. postgraduate studies as used here, therefore, refers to these two programmes. i will present this reflection predominantly from students’ views gleaned from teaching the module and my interactions with them. the main thrust of le grange et al.: assessment and social justice 33 my argument is that students’ conceptions of assessment are informed by instrumental/technicist notions of learning that lead to shallow learning, and which are closely aligned with neoliberal imperatives. the views of students on assessment that they bring to the classroom are largely inherited from their undergraduate years and the tacit/covert messages relayed to them in the neoliberal university. assessment has radically changed over the last two decades in higher education institutions in south africa (mcfarlane, 2016). as neoliberalism has gained momentum worldwide, south african public institutions have not escaped this hold. it is perhaps apposite to commence this essay with the observation that there is a conceptual link between teaching, learning, and assessment. the idea of assessment in education, generally, and higher education, particularly, links with one of the three central purposes of education as espoused by biesta (2013), namely, qualification. assessment is intricately linked to obtaining a qualification in higher education. as far as postgraduate qualifications are concerned, the assessment criteria are uncomplicated, straightforward, and transparent. what is required from students is to produce a treatise, dissertation, or thesis that meets the criteria as prescribed by the postgraduate studies committees of different institutions, and which are largely uniform throughout higher education institutions. to use an analogy from a sporting code such as a triathlon where athletes are required to participate in and complete three disciplines/legs, namely, a swim, a cycle, and a marathon—once the athlete crosses the finish line at the end, they are deemed to have completed the event. in an ideal world, this seems uncomplicated and easy enough but, concealed here, are the vastly different pathways students have travelled just to get to the access point of a postgraduate qualification. i am cognisant of the obstacles some might have encountered in their voyages. a question one can ponder is whether the test is a fair one for all. in order to successfully complete the event, the athletes have to put in months, if not years of training, which is the same for postgraduate students who must immerse themselves in the literature, engage in extensive reading, and work towards the skills required for the task. ideas encountered in the classroom should be explored further outside the classroom in order to craft a coherent research proposal consisting of all the elements that constitute it. generally, the postgraduate students who grasp the task and responsibility required early on are the ones who become successful in meeting the examination and assessment requirements and completing the qualification. meeting the assessment criteria for postgraduate studies requires effort, skills, responsibility, and agency from students. there is often a tacit expectation in higher education institutions, especially in the grip/age of neoliberalism, that all students should be successful. morrow (1994) similarly argued that students require epistemological access and agency in order to achieve success in higher education. epistemological access, as used here, refers to the extent to which students are capable of accessing the knowledge structures that universities offer. it goes without saying that without epistemological access, students will struggle to meet assessment criteria. morrow (1994) further drew a close relationship between achievement and agency; on epistemological access he continued thus: 34 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 epistemological access is not a product that could be bought or sold, given to someone or stolen. . . . epistemological access cannot be supplied or “delivered” or “done” to the learner, nor can it be “automatically” transmitted to those who pay their fees. (p. 40) similarly, in postgraduate studies, students should be committed to the task at hand, exhibit curiosity for learning, and set the necessary time aside required to read for such a qualification. in the classes i teach, i often encourage my students to read, ask questions, and to form peer groups to interact with one another. recently, when one of my students did not do as well as she had expected in an assignment, she asked me what the point was to interact with peers. she did not say it directly, but what i deduced from this observation was that she expected that all the learning she had to do should come from my teaching because that was my job. this is what waghid (2006) referred to as a frivolous notion of learning and which, i argue, is embedded in neoliberal thinking where students regard themselves as clients who pay for a service. this faith in teaching and the application of technical measures takes us perilously close to the idea of scientism and the idea that we can teach ourselves out of trouble. to meet the assessment criteria in postgraduate studies, students require responsibility or agency, as morrow (1994) put it. on one occasion, a student who obtained a reasonable pass mark asked me if she could resubmit given that she is a distinction candidate. in some undergraduate modules, students routinely achieve 100% and the expectation is that they can replicate that in the postgraduate research module. without getting too entangled in these issues, the idea of multiple opportunities is not something i necessarily oppose, and i have no issues about granting second opportunities to students who stumble in their first attempt; but, to extend that to all students who pass is impractical. also, i am more than willing to engage again with their work—not to attach a numeric value to it but, rather, for developmental and formative purposes, that is, to produce an improved research proposal. it is, after all, an important responsibility of lecturers to assist students with formative and developmental feedback given that they do the epistemological labour to facilitate epistemological access for their students. but, there is also a responsibility on the part of the student to engage in assessment as learning. in conclusion, assessment in postgraduate studies is contrary to, and not congruent with, neoliberal imperatives that are number based. it is not the main purpose of this essay to provide proposals as remedy, thus, a few ideas will suffice. one strategy that could be implemented to enhance epistemological access is a return to coursework master’s studies, which have almost disappeared from south african universities due to the higher subsidy that is earned from the department of higher education and training for master’s studies by research. taught master’s courses scaffold students better intellectually and could enhance epistemological access and simultaneously serve social justice purposes. we need to rethink admission criteria that presently, are based on percentages and consider, rather, a more holistic approach that is congruent with equity considerations such as background, potential, motivation, resilience, tenacity, and so forth. i will not elaborate here on admission criteria le grange et al.: assessment and social justice 35 because lesley le grange addresses this issue in his essay. we could also learn from the united states where coursework is an important requirement for doctoral studies. only by subscribing to, and adhering to, time-honoured and authentic assessment practices in postgraduate studies that allow epistemological access can we lay the foundation for rigorous postgraduate studies in south africa. i have invoked morrow’s (1994) idea of epistemological access for invigorating lines of flight and vectors of escape from the technicist/instrumentalist lenses with which postgraduate students view assessment in the neoliberal university. however, morrow’s (1994) notion of epistemological access should be expanded because it is restricted to knowledge that forms part of the western canon. i argue for an extended notion of epistemological access—one that makes provision for all knowledge forms, as has been called for by other scholars (see du preez & le grange, 2020; le grange, 2011) so that epistemological access encompasses epistemic/cognitive justice. quantification of assessment: an impediment to quality education (labby ramrathan) the quantification of assessments into grades or percentages that give an indication of the extent to which students and other interested parties have learnt or are competent has largely been within an audit culture in an audit society (hardy & boyle, 2011). shifting outside this culture requires bold steps and acceptance, especially in a social justice framework where the starting points are not the same for diverse constituents of the education system—yet end points (quantification of assessment) become the epistemic access decider. noting that assessment serves a diverse range of functions including grading and ranking for external stakeholders, providing students with feedback on their progress, and providing feedback to staff on the effectiveness of learning and teaching programmes (brew et al., 2009), moving out of this quantification culture in educational practices requires a complex process associated with beliefs (fullan, 2007)—especially in a context where meritocracy has been normalised. in this short essay, i show how complex the shift from the quantification of assessment can be—from a systemic perspective as well as from an individualistic perspective—as i reflect on my experiences in reconceptualising the undergraduate and postgraduate teacher education curriculum at my university. my attempts in shifting the dominant perspective of quantification of assessment using criterion-based assessment processes initially gained some interest amongst staff and students, but soon thereafter reverted to quantification. i present two examples of such shifts, one at the undergraduate level and one at the postgraduate level. in reviewing the conceptualising of teaching practice, both in pedagogy and assessment, in the bachelor of education degree, i advocated for three categories of assessment. the first category of assessment was a fail, the second a pass, and the third was pass with distinction. the rationale for these categorisations of assessment for teaching practice was a simple one: either one can teach learners in a classroom, cannot teach learners in a classroom, or there are 36 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 identifiable qualities that make one stand out as an exceptional teacher (faull, 2008). the fundamental question that formed the basis of this rationale was: “how can one quantify a pass or fail for a practice-based assessment based in a context influenced by some controllable variables, like knowledge of subject content, and a large number of uncontrollable variables like diversity of learners and learning contexts?” initially, this shift in assessment for teaching practice was quite acceptable and, after the first implementation of this way of assessment, challenges emerged. two particular challenges need noting. the first is that students complained that they were not able to ascertain from the pass or fail categorisation of teaching practice the extent to which they failed or how well they performed. a further concern raised by the students was that they were unclear in what aspects of teaching practices they performed well, and in what they did not perform well. quantification of the pass or fail would give them this knowing. the second concern was from an institutional perspective. the academic recording system was number based, and a qualitative entry could not be accommodated in the recording system. to get around this, quantifications were needed for a fail, pass, and pass with distinction. a number was then allocated for each class of fail, pass, and pass with distinction. the second example relates to a deep reflection on the difference between undergraduate and postgraduate studies, and the transition to independent inquiry and learning. as i worked through the policy documents framing programme design to reconceptualise undergraduate and postgraduate programmes within the revised national qualifications framework (nqf), i thought deeply about the intended learnings and the assessment thereof across these programmes. drawing on the level descriptors and purpose of qualifications of the nqf (south african qualifications authority [saqa], 2013), there is a transition from exposure to, at the undergraduate level, the knowledge base and established processes of inquiry towards the independent generation of knowledge through inquiry-based processes at the postgraduate levels of study. in this transition, there is a shift in the focus on knowledge and inquiry. in undergraduate studies, knowledge of, understanding of, and critical engagement with, amongst others, established concepts, theories, principles, and processes in established knowledge disciplines were the focus of engagement. the level descriptors include concepts such as fundamental knowledge, sound knowledge, and well-rounded knowledge, suggesting a grading on the acquisition of disciplinary knowledge. in the postgraduate study programmes, amongst others, positionality, process of inquiry, and critical thinking formed the basis of higher order teaching and learning. concepts such as intellectual independence, development of knowledge at an advanced level and demonstrate high-level research capability and make a significant and original academic contribution captured the intended learning in terms of the nqf (saqa, 2013). while it may be possible to determine the extent to which students know and can recall existing knowledge and processes within a discipline or across disciplines at the undergraduate level, it becomes more difficult at the postgraduate level to quantify learning, thinking and innovative inquiry processes that could change in a moment, inspired by various stimuli including assessment activities. in the following two examples of postgraduate studies that follow, i first show how quantification of assessment is meaningless to the students’ learning and, in the second example, i show how critical le grange et al.: assessment and social justice 37 engagement and transition to advanced knowledge and independent learning renders quantification meaningless based on the level descriptors for postgraduate studies of the nqf. in a research module that i was co-teaching at the master’s level, we engaged with the students about the expectations of the module and its assessment. we indicated that 10% of the marks would be allocated to demonstration of skills in referencing in the assessment tasks. they would get either 10% or 0% for referencing, and this could be a determining factor in their pass or fail of the module. the students were highly confused with clear indication of agitation through their facial expressions and questioning. they were reluctant to accept that there would be no partial marks for referencing; that either one knows how to reference according to an established form of referencing technique—or not. we used another example in the form of a sketch relating to late coming of a learner to school. in this sketch, we problematised the ontological notion of late from a teacher’s perspective based on time, to that of a learner’s perspective on how they planned their day. from the teacher’s perspective, the learner was late, arriving only at 10h30 to school yet, from the learner’s perspective, they were not late because they had planned their day accordingly to arrive at school at 10h30. through this sketch, the master’s students were unsettled from their epistemological understanding of late and, through further engagements, came to understand positionality and ontology in knowing. how does one then assess these master’s students’ learnings? can quantification reflect their learning which, in a moment, was disrupted? these two examples demonstrate the limitations of the quantification of assessment as the basis for quality education in teacher education and, indeed, across disciplines. the normalised discourse as symbolic power (bourdieu, 1991) on assessment being a measured quantity that makes certain thoughts, beliefs, and actions about success and quality education legitimate because of the power dynamics associated within an audit culture, both personal and systemic, sustains a view that quality education can be measured, quantified, and ranked. disrupting these power dynamics may open up new ways of conceptualising assessment. assessment as learning (dann, 2012) might be an alternative to the quantification of assessment for quality education. learning as a result of assessment, which the sketch on lateness illustrates, demonstrates the yet to be realised learning. noting that quantification of assessment has been ingrained within the education terrain, a process of re-enculturation is needed. in this respect, small but significant moves are needed in the way assessments are done within a module/subject. for example, the determination of pass or fail in a module/subject could include a quantification and a qualitative element—initially more quantitative with fewer qualitative elements and gradually shifting the balance in favour of qualitative assessment elements. this gradual shift should also be accompanied by an increasing number of modules/subjects taking similar assessment changes. this gradual shift is possible, as we have seen with the shift away from the dominance of quantitative methods in research to increasing levels of qualitative methods in research. 38 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 fairness in assessment (lesley le grange) broadly, assessment comprises three types: classroom assessment, examinations and largescale assessment (clarke, 2012). classroom assessment is performed by teachers, and involves the design and administering of assessment tasks that have at least three purposes: to support learning (formative assessment), for the teacher and the learner to gauge how a learner is performing against assessment criteria (criterion-referenced assessment), and to give teachers feedback on the effectiveness of their pedagogical strategies (evaluation). examinations are assessments that take place at the end of a learning cycle or grade, or at the end of formal or compulsory schooling. examinations provide information for high-stakes decisions such as whether a learner progresses to the next grade, whether a learner obtains a school-leaving certificate, or whether a learner gains access to higher education. in south africa, the national senior certificate examinations (nsce) results are also used in the calculation of academic performance scores by universities for admission purposes to particular qualifications. nsce results are also used to classify and rank schools, with some receiving the negative label of “underperforming schools.” clarke (2012) argued that the high-stakes nature of examinations creates a backwash effect on the schooling systems in terms of what is taught and how it is taught. given its high-stakes nature, the nsce, which is administered by the department of basic education (dbe) is quality assured by the independent quality council for general education and training, umalusi. large-scale assessments are system-level assessments designed to provide information on performance at a system level, and factors relating or contributing to such performance (clarke, 2012). they are mainly conducted by agencies outside of schools but there are instances worldwide, where large-scale assessments are conducted by panels of teachers and therefore based on teachers’ judgement. large-scale assessments happen at regional, national, and international levels. an example of regional assessments is the systemic testing done by the western cape education department, which involves the testing of learners’ achievements in mathematics and languages at grades 3, 6, and 9. the annual national assessments are an example of large-scale assessments occurring at a national level. examples of international large-scale assessments are the cross-national benchmarking tests that south africa participates in, such as the progress in international reading literacy study (pirls) and the trends in international mathematics and science study (timss). external large-scale assessments are focused on how a system is performing rather than on individual learners, and results in schools, provinces, and nations are compared with one another against a norm (norm-referenced assessment). large-scale assessments involving panels of teachers could focus on learners and could also be criterion-referenced. this background is shared because in this essay, i wish to explore the concept of fairness in relation to the three broad assessment types i have outlined. it is important to bear in mind that the three assessment types have different purposes (kanjee & bhana, 2020) and therefore, the importance of fairness may weight differently depending on the assessment type. fairness might require greater consideration in high-stakes examinations than in large-scale assessments that are le grange et al.: assessment and social justice 39 sample-based. specifically, i wish to explore vectors of escape from the technical manner in which fairness in assessment is conceived and applied. reliability, validity, and fairness are core concepts in assessment. in classroom assessments, examinations, and large-scale assessments, reliability is typically improved through focusing on matters such as the number of assessment tasks, the difficulty of the test or task, the wording of items and instructions, as well as clarity and completeness of assessment guides (reddy et al., 2015). validity in classroom-based assessments, examinations, and large-scale assessments often narrowly places emphasis on content (curricula) validity, which concerns the extent to which a test is representative of the domain that it is intended to assess.1 for example, umalusi, will quality assure all nsce papers in relation to validity and reliability. validity should, however, be conceived more broadly. messick (1990, p. 1) argued: validity is an integrated evaluative judgment of the degree to which empirical evidence and theoretical rationales support the adequacy and appropriateness of interpretations and actions based on test scores or other modes of assessment. in other words, validity inferences should not only be derived from test scores but also from observing actions and behaviours. of the three concepts, fairness has generally received the least attention but, in recent years, we have seen a growing interest in fairness vis-à-vis assessment (tierney, 2017; rasooli et al., 2019). in relation to classroom and large-scale assessments, fairness is generally applied in technical terms in the sense that examiners ensure that learners sit for the same test at the same time, and that the same assessment criteria are used. mislevy et al. (2013) argued that fairness is improved when aspects of examinations are standardised to reduce variations that would advantage some and disadvantage others. however, i shall argue that fairness should be liberated from the technical manner (standardising) in which it is understood and applied so that it is invoked in the interest of social justice. the concepts, reliability, validity, and fairness inevitably intersect, but it is important to understand what makes (or could make) fairness different from the other concepts. tierney (2017) argued that “fairness is similar to validity and reliability in that it is not dichotomous, which means that it is determined by degree” (p. 797). however, he pointed out that whilst validity and reliability are technical qualities, fairness is not, although it is affected by technical quality. he suggested that “fairness is a requirement for the ethical practice of educational assessment, which in turn contributes to the broader matter of social justice” (tierney, 2017, p. 797). what tierney (2017) argued may, generally, be the case but messick’s (1990) broader understanding could make validity ethical too. however, the focus here is on fairness. for educational assessment to be an ethical practice that can contribute to social justice, assessment needs to be viewed as a social practice and not as a technology. fairness in assessment cannot therefore be a technical matter concerned with test construction. importantly, gipps and stobart (2009) pointed out that fairness should be 1 an expanded view of validity could, of course, be applied to assessment. see le grange and beets (2005) for insights on how validity is understood within different research paradigms. 40 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 concerned with what precedes the assessment and its consequences, and not only with assessment design. what precedes assessment and the consequences of assessment, are matters of social justice. the first relates to the educational opportunities learners are provided with, the access they have to resources, the environments in which they learn, and so forth. studies have shown that factors outside the school have a much greater impact on learner achievement than factors inside the school (fleisch, 2007; le grange, 2019). the major variables influencing learner achievement in south africa include the socioeconomic status of learners, teachers’ subject matter (content) knowledge, teachers’ pedagogical knowledge, resources, geographical location, and language of learning (fleisch, 2007). in south africa’s bimodal schooling where a large number of materially poor students underachieve and a smaller number of materially privileged learners perform relatively well, what precedes assessment requires attention. assessment cannot be deemed to be fair if what precedes the assessment in terms of educational opportunities and access to resources are so vastly different for the two sets of learners. the second, the consequences of assessment, relates to how assessments are interpreted, and the effect that assessments have on learners’ life chances. twenty-eight years into south africa’s democracy, the participation rates in higher education still reflect legacies of apartheid. in 2018, the participation rates for the different population groups (apartheid categorisations) were 19%, 15%, 46%, and 55% for african, coloured, indian, and white students, respectively (council on higher education, 2020). this means that the life chances of black students, in terms of career opportunities and for them to serve as role models in south african society, are significantly more curtailed than is the case with white students. this inequity could be addressed if the results of assessments such as those of the nsce are interpreted in more nuanced ways. gipps and stobart (2009) made a helpful distinction between equality and equity in relation to fairness. equality takes a mere quantitative approach in comparing the achievement of learners, whereas equity is concerned with the justice of the arrangements prior to the assessment. what might help to improve participation rates of black students is if equity and not equality becomes the principle of fairness when it comes to how universities interpret nsce scores and use them as part of their admission requirements. where universities have applied some aspects of equity as part of their admission criteria this has led to a public outcry, with privileged sectors of society invoking equality as fairness and not equity as fairness (for a review of equity in admission policies of some south african universities, see matsepe et al., 2020). if assessment is to contribute to social justice in south africa, the concept of fairness requires greater attention—fairness that incorporates what precedes assessments and also the consequences of assessments. there are many factors that precede assessments, and which lie outside the ambit of schools. however, there are strategies that teachers can apply in order to promote fairness in classroom assessments. broadly, these involve ensuring that all learners have equal opportunities to achieve learning objectives, providing a range of assessment tasks that test a range of abilities, eliminating all sources of bias in the curriculum and in assessments, taking cognisance of the sociocultural realities of learners, and bridging le grange et al.: assessment and social justice 41 knowledges,2 and so forth (for more specific strategies, see reddy et al., 2015). when it comes to public examinations, given the nature of such assessments, efforts to promote fairness is curtailed. however, examiners can reduce sources of bias, provide learners with certain disabilities more time to write, offer examinations in braille, and so forth. the proposal by the dbe to offer examination papers in multiple languages also promotes fairness. fairness also relates to how nsce results are interpreted and used by the universities in their admission criteria. in the interest of social justice, nsce results should be interpreted through an equity and not equality lens. as le grange (2010, p. 335) wrote in relation to the controversy over the university of cape town’s admission policy: fairness in the case of university admission policies would mean that one cannot simply apply the same criteria for admitting advantaged and disadvantaged students. the implication is that, in a country which has experienced decades of legal discrimination based on race, and where legacies of disadvantage remain, colour consciousness in public policies is crucial for a certain period of time. large-scale assessments involving panels of teachers have greater promise in promoting fairness if such panels comprise a diversity of teachers who serve different communities so that the needs, interests, and values of all learners are included in assessments. this would ensure that assessment is ethical where fairness and validity intersect, if messick’s (1990) broader conception of validity is embraced. parting thoughts this article assemblage comprises heterogeneous parts in which different authors attempt to invigorate lines of escape from the way assessment has become territorialised in contemporary times. the rhizome figuration helps us to understand that, even though in its territorialised forms assessment has the appearance of fixity, it is always becoming. although standardisation, measurement, quantification seem so entrenched, these practices can become other—can become deterritorialised. we have shown that concepts such as epistemological access and fairness can become other, can be deterritorialised and reterritorialised in the interest of cognitive and social justice. we noted that this article is a rhizomatic rather than a tree assemblage. the essays are not rooted in a single theory or theoretical framework (taproot of a tree) as is the case with the classic article. the article is a becoming, attempts to be something other, and maps alternative ways of doing assessment. as with a rhizome, as authors we were at times out of step and out of rhythm with one another: four essays focused on higher education, whilst one mainly focused on schooling; some authors focused on undergraduate education and some on postgraduate education; thoughts were generated from broader systemic issues but also anecdotal ponderings; and so forth. the attempt was to produce something new in the interest of social justice. this article-rhizome has multiple entry points, making multiple readings 2 for more detail, see le grange (2007, 2019). 42 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 possible. the reader is invited to start at any point and the essays can be read in any sequence. in this article, “as in all things, there are lines of articulation or segmentarity, strata and territories, but also lines of flight, movements of deterritorialisation and destratification” (deleuze & guattari, 1987, p. 3). lines of articulation evident in the essays are that irrespective of the context (higher education or schooling, undergraduate or postgraduate) the dominant assessment culture is technicist/instrumentalist. essays 1 and 2 articulate how the covid-19 pandemic is laying bare inequalities and entrenching practices of performativity; all essays articulate the dominance of measurement in assessment, and essay 4 expands on this by focusing the problem of quantification. there are many more lines of articulation/connection that can be invigorated and we invite the reader to map them. all the authors generated lines of flight from current assessment forms, practices, and concepts that have resulted in homogenisation, normalisation, and dehumanisation. we do not wish to conclude by putting what we have written in a nutshell for the reader. we have asked questions, and trust that our critiques of assessment practices have not produced variants of what exists but have opened up pathways for 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(2011). living in the end times. verso. journal of education, 2017 issue 69, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za interdisciplinarity, neoliberalism and academic identities: reflections on recent developments at the university of botswana richard tabulawa (received 10 february 2017; accepted 3 july 2017) abstract this paper explicates the growing interest in interdisciplinarity as a form of knowledge organisation at the university of botswana (ub). it accomplishes this by locating this development in a global context of a growing instrumentalisation of knowledge, partially occasioned by the advent of the knowledge society. generally, the paper argues that interdisciplinarity is not some neutral, apolitical technical re-arrangement of knowledge, as often presented. rather, it is a political technology implicated in attempts to break academics’ monopoly on the processes and products of higher education (he). it attributes interdisciplinarity’s rise to the emergence in the 1970s of neoliberalism as a social settlement that privileges market rationality. there is, therefore, affinity between interdisciplinarity and neoliberalism, and it is a relationship in which the former is being deployed by the latter in he to produce ‘neoliberal academic subjects’. the case of ub is presented as a specific case of the general argument that interdisciplinarity is designed to effect new forms of academic subjectivities attuned to market rationality. introduction interdisciplinarity has assumed centre stage in calls for reimagining higher education. the relevance of disciplines as the structures around which the university’s core activities of research, teaching and outreach revolve has been called into question (forman, 2012; fairbairn & fulton, 2000). interdisciplinary research and teaching are on the surge in canada (shailer, 2005), germany (weingart & padberg, 2014), usa (sa, 2008), uk (holmwood, 2010), south africa (moore, 2003; ensor, 2004) and australia (millar, 2016). research grants and quality assurance agencies insist on it 12 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 being self-evident in both research proposals and university teaching programs (tress, tress & fry, 2004). interdisciplinarity has assumed the status of a ‘travelling policy’ and is a measure of a university’s ‘responsiveness’ to the demands of its clients. in south africa it is in vogue through the concept of ‘programmatisation’ (moore, 2003; ensor, 2004). the university of botswana (ub), on its part, plans to increase interdisciplinarity and decrease departmental compartmentalisation (university of botswana, 2009). originating from the metropolis, the debate on interdisciplinarity has reached the shores of the global south, the periphery of the global geopolitical system, courtesy of agents of globalisation, such as the world bank (wb) and the organisation for economic cooperation and development (oecd), among many others. interdisciplinarity as a reform initiative is rationalised in terms of attuning higher education to the demands of ‘consumers’ (e.g. students, parents and the labour market) of higher education goods and services. quite a good deal has been written on it, even though it still remains a fuzzy concept (newell & green, 1982; klein & newell, 1998; welch, 2009; weingart & stehr, 2000; frodeman, 2011; forman, 2012). while it is the case that this literature has impressively mapped the conceptual contours of the phenomenon, at the level of practice however, inter-disciplinarity often is presented as a technocratic exercise that involves simply repackaging existing knowledge to achieve the twin ends of relevance and responsiveness. this ‘technicist’ view of interdisciplinarity abounds in policy documents on higher education (millar, 2016; tabulawa, polelo & silas, 2013). less emphasised is interdisciplinarity’s ideological dimension i.e. how it impacts university culture and reshapes academics’ professional identities. viewed as ideological, interdisciplinarity becomes a political technology, which advances by “taking what is essentially a political problem, removing it from the realm of political discourse, and recasting it in the neutral language of science” (dreyfus & rabinow, 1982, p. 196). stripped of its political character, interdisciplinarity is little more than a technical reorientation of knowledge. this technicist orientation is more striking in a particular strand of interdisciplinarity, instrumental interdisciplinarity, which has proved quite seductive in the re-imagining of the contemporary university (salter & hearn, 1996), and has impacted all domains of knowledge, the humanities included (martin, 2012; donoghue, 2008). tabulawa: interdisciplinarity, neoliberalism. . . 13 in this paper i adopt a political economy approach to explicate the growing interest in and influence of interdisciplinarity as a form of knowledge organisation. i locate this development in a global context of a growing instrumentalisation of knowledge, partially occasioned by the advent of the knowledge society. generally, i argue that interdisciplinarity is not some neutral, apolitical technical re-arrangement of knowledge, as often presented. rather, it is a political technology implicated in attempts to break academics’ monopoly on the processes and products of higher education (he) to form new academic identities and subjectivities that reflect a corporatist ethos. i attribute interdisciplinarity’s rise to the emergence in the 1970s of neoliberalism as a regime of accumulation that privileges market rationality. there is, therefore, affinity between interdisciplinarity and neoliberalism. however, and as i shall argue in the paper, this affinity does not suggest an ideological similarity. introduced in he as part of a gamut of neoliberal nostrums, interdisciplinarity is concerned to produce what ball (2012, p. 29) calls a ‘neoliberal academic subject’. it seeks to achieve this by (a) wresting the power to control the processes and products of the university away from academics and, following that, (b) forming new academic identities and subjectivities that support the needs of the market-based economy. this imbrication of interdisciplinarity with the neoliberal project is clearly manifest at the university of botswana (ub), where recent reforms, which include both interdisciplinary research and interdisciplinary teaching programmes, have sought to loosen academics’ grip on higher education with a view to make them more amenable to market rationality. interdisciplinarity, the paper argues, is predominantly about refashioning new academic identities. it urges a re-politicisation of the interdisciplinarity dabate, for it is only by re-inserting politics into the debate that we may demonstrate its profound effects on academics and the university as we have always known them. the structure of the paper is as follows. the section that follows defines both interdisciplinarity and disciplinarity with the aim to expose the political nature of the former as well as the fact that while interdisciplinarity is an antidote to disciplinarity, it is not explicable without reference to the latter. the section is followed by a brief historical context of the rise of interdisciplinarity, from a political economy perspective. i emphasise here the dynamic relationships between the state, market and society in interdisciplinarity’s surge. this is followed by a section on the relationship between neoliberalism and interdisciplinarity. the rise of market governance 14 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 in the 1970s provided a platform for the ascendancy of interdisciplinarity. the latter’s mission, i argue, is to prise open disciplinarity so as to expose those inside – the academics – who are accused of ‘capturing’ disciplines for their own selfish interests. using the neo-liberal concepts of ‘provider-capture’ and ‘knowledge re-purposing’, i show how finally the assault on disciplines was launched and with what effects. in the penultimate section i consider initiatives at the university of botswana, especially their foregrounding of interdisciplinarity, and the neoliberal national context in which they emerged. i argue that the initiatives, while portrayed as apolitical, have immense potential to mobilise the identity of the consumer among students and of the entrepreneur among academics. i conclude the paper by reflecting on the difficult position the spectre of interdisciplinarity puts academics in. definitional issues interdisciplinarity notwithstanding the diverse definitions of interdisciplinarity in the literature, a consensus on some of its major features is decipherable from some of the representative definitions. two prominent scholars of interdisciplinarity define it as: a process of answering a question, solving a problem, or addressing a topic that is too broad or complex to be dealt with adequately by a single discipline or profession… [it] draws on disciplinary perspectives and integrates their insights through construction of a more comprehensive perspective (klein and newell, 1998, p. 393–394). the national academy of sciences (2005, p.188), on its part, defines interdisciplinary research as: a mode of research by teams or individuals that integrates information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, concepts, and/or theories from two or more disciplines or bodies of specialized knowledge to advance fundamental understanding or to solve problems whose solutions are beyond the scope of a single discipline or area of research practice. three main features are clear in the two definitions. first, both definitions emphasise problem-solving. in other words, interdisciplinary knowledge has instrumental value. second, interdisciplinarity integrates approaches or methodologies from different disciplines. this is an acknowledgement of the fact that contemporary problems are too complex to be satisfactorily tabulawa: interdisciplinarity, neoliberalism. . . 15 addressed by appeal to the canons of a single discipline. integration is what distinguishes interdisciplinarity from the related concepts of ‘multidisciplinarity’ and ‘transdisciplinarity’. the former is best defined as a juxtaposition of disciplines (shailer, 2005), with ‘little or no effort to integrate different data sets, approaches or fields’ (frodeman, 2011, p. 106). transdisciplinarity, on the other hand, involves knowledge production in collaboration with non-university entities (e.g. industry) i.e. it takes knowledge production beyond the university borders. gibbons, limoges, nowotny, schwartzman, scott and trow’s (1994) ‘mode 2’, where knowledge is produced in the context of application, exemplifies transdisciplinarity. often, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity are used interchangeably. third, both definitions present interdisciplinarity as some neutral, technical and apolitical concept, thereby concealing its political nature. this is the sense in which interdsciplinarity is a political technology. wrapped up in neutral language, interdisciplinarity is not easy to appreciate as a micro-technology of change. de-neutralising it is the first step towards understanding it as a technology of change. paradoxically, this ‘deneutralisation’ process has as a pre-requisite an understanding of disciplinarity (nowacek, 2009). but before i can look into disciplinarity in any detail, let me first delineate the strands of interdisciplinarity, for it is not a homogenous or unitary concept. klein’s (1986) and salter and hearn’s (1996) delineations of interdisciplinarity, which overlap, are instructive here. the former distinguishes between endogenous interdisciplinarity, which is “concerned with the production of new knowledge” with the aim of achieving the unity of science and exogenous interdisciplinarity, which “interrogates the disciplines on the demarcations they apply to ‘real life’ and demands that the university fulfil its social mandate” (klein, 1986, as cited in shailer, 2005, p. 2). salter and hearn (1996, p. 29) on the other hand (but working on the basis of klein’s distinction) distinguishes between instrumental interdisciplinarity (iid), which is a “a problem-solving activity that may be designed to cater to the demands of industry and government” and conceptual interdisciplinarity (cid), which is “concerned specifically with theoretical issues, epistemology, pedagogy, and the disciplining of knowledge”. endogenous/conceptual interdisciplinarity challenged disciplinarity in that it endeavoured to produce knowledge in context and the sort of knowledge that was responsive to context, but it shared with disciplinarity a commitment to ‘for-its-own-sake’ knowledge (forman, 2012). the result of this challenge was the emergence of 16 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 ‘interdisciplines’ such as women studies, cultural studies and gender studies. however, the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s as a political-cultural project appropriated cid to promote its (neoliberalism’s) pro-market policies in higher education. this appropriation represented a shift to iid, with its focus on instrumental knowledge. the economic realities of the 1980s and 1990s could only serve to promote iid in academic institutions and funding agencies. therefore, the term interdisciplinarity as used in this paper refers to ‘problem-based, instrumental interdisciplinarity’ since it is the one that has assumed an almost hegemonic status in knowledge production and curation (forman, 2012). disciplinarity definitions of disciplinarity abound. weingart and stehr’s (1996, p. xi) is quite comprehensive and i cite it at length here. disciplines are: . . . intellectual but also social structures, organizations made up of human beings with vested interests based on time investments, acquired reputations, and established social networks that shape and bias their views on the relative importance of their knowledge. as social organizations, disciplines participate in and contribute to conflicts over political, economic, legal, and ethical decisions. . . in all these functions, scientific disciplines constitute the modern social order of knowledge, and the order of knowledge is in this sense a political order as well. two observations; first, as social structures, disciplines suffuse with power relations. they condition the behaviours, practices, values and attitudes of academics (becher and trowler, 2001). reputation and status accrue to academics as a result of their membership of disciplinary fields: the “status of academics rests on their ability to enforce claims to a monopoly of expertise within a disciplinary field” (middleton, 2000, p. 546). in terms of gidden’s (1984) ‘structuration postulate’, disciplines, as social structures, simultaneously enable and constrain academics’ actions. this is a dialectical dynamic – disciplines are created by, and in turn create academics. in short, disciplines are political entities; second, is the question ‘whose interests are served by disciplinarity?’ disciplines “believe in the priority of their own concerns and turn from their larger mission to the training of professionals for whom those concerns are not only prior but exclusive” (fish, 1989, p. 16). they are inward-looking and self-serving. in short, disciplines are selfreferential, a necessary condition for production of ‘for-its-own-sake’ or esoteric knowledge. this effectively insulates academics from the interests of tabulawa: interdisciplinarity, neoliberalism. . . 17 consumers such as industry, parents and students, what fish (1989) above refers to as the ‘larger mission’ of disciplines. consequently, where instrumental knowledge and student employability are at a premium (as is the case today), disciplinarity, as a form of knowledge organisation, is considered dysfunctional. disciplines connote “being static, rigid, conservative, and adverse to innovation” (weingart, 2000, p. 29). conversely, interdisciplinarity is a discourse of innovation (klein, 2000). it is this perceived anti-innovation quality of disciplinarity that is the target of interdisciplinarity. to make the university relevant and responsive to the demands of those outside the “constricting circles of expertise” (frodeman, 2011, p. 108), it is essential to dismantle its building blocks (i.e. disciplines) as a way of rescuing knowledge from capture by academics. klein (1996, p. 36), on her part, is not as radical; rather than dismantling, she sees interdisciplinarity as calling for a “lowering of disciplinary walls, opening gates between fiefdoms, and lessening tariff mentality”. thus, while definitions of interdisciplinarity appear technocratic, when juxtaposed with those of disciplinarity their political character is unambiguous. to summarise, interdisciplinarity is a “critique of the current authority and autonomy of disciplines to govern academic knowledge production” (huutoniemi, 2015, p.16). it is a political technology (shore and wright, 1999; krejsler and carney, 2009) meant to profoundly change not only the work of academics but also their self-understanding and identities. a brief historical context interdisciplinarity’s political nature lies in the fact that it has the potential to change the: discourses through which the university is spoken of, and the cultures within which it is lodged [as well as] (re)shape [academics’] professional identities and subjectivities in ways that support the new dominant discourses, especially in order to make university practices more accountable to the citizen and employer as client (krejsler & carney, 2009, p. 89). the dominant discourses today are those associated with neoliberalism as a regime of accumulation, a regime that, as noted above, has appropriated interdisciplinarity for the purpose of reconstituting the university through mentalities of the market (davies & bansel, 2010). martimianakis and muzzin (2015, pp. 1466–1467) capture nicely the relationship between neoliberalism and interdisciplinarity: 18 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 the discourse of instrumental interdisciplinarity manifests as a particular technology of neoliberalism that supports a mechanism of exploitation by dismantling structures that interfere with a mutable and interchangeable workforce aligned to economic imperatives, while those caught up in the discursive relations of interdisciplinarity maintain a sense of freedom and possibility. the remaining sections of the paper demonstrate how interdisciplinarity as adopted at the university of botswana, as well as elsewhere for that matter, seeks to dismantle disciplinarity as a structure that is seen as interfering with the production of a flexible workforce aligned with the country’s economic imperatives. i posit that interdisciplinarity seeks to accomplish this by (a) wresting the power to control the processes and products of the university away from academics and (b) forming new academic identities and subjectivities that support the needs of the market-based economy. but first, a brief note on the historical context of the decline of disciplinarity and the subsequent rise of interdisciplinarity. interdisciplinarity emerged as a serious challenge to disciplinarity in the 1980s. otherwise between the 1920s and the 1970s disciplinarity reigned supreme. how are we to understand disciplinarity’s decline relative to the rise of interdisciplinarity in the dying decades of the 20 century? answering thisth question requires a political economy approach in which special attention is paid to the historic shifts between the state, market and society that have characterised western societies since the late nineteenth century. historically, state-market-society relations are dynamic and unstable. from time to time the relations get strained, but ultimately they must stabilise somehow. the stabilised relations yield a ‘social settlement’, defined by robertson (2000, p. 8) as: a particular combination of thought patterns, material conditions and human institutions which have a certain coherence among its elements. these structures do not predetermine actions; rather, they constitute the framework within which actions are shaped and take place. robertson (2000) identifies three settlements in modern history, namely, laissez-faire liberalism (1850–1900), keynesian welfarism (1945–1970) and neoliberalism (1970 to present). briefly, laissez-faire liberalism had the selfregulating market and the state as separate domains of society. by the turn of the 20 century, however, liberalism was imploding since it “carried within itth the seeds of its own destruction” (robertson, 2000, p. 67). the implosion led to the institution in the post-world war ii era of a social settlement which “involved active state control of the economy and extensive interference with tabulawa: interdisciplinarity, neoliberalism. . . 19 the self-regulating mechanism of the market…” (fotopoulos, 2005, p. 6). within this social settlement emerged a new social contract between the state and the citizen/society, in which the state had an obligation to protect the citizen/society from the vagaries of the market by managing the latter. similarly, a social compact was drawn between the university on one hand and society and the state on the other: universities enjoyed high levels of trust from both the state and society, resulting not only in generous funding but also in academics being recognised as professionals protected from state interference when discharging their social mandate: by and large, the respect which universities received was accorded on the grounds of their dispassionate concern for truth, and of the contribution which they made to national wellbeing. . . it was generally thought that the high status of the members of universities entitled them to freedom to pursue the truth in accordance with the rules and traditions of their various disciplines and institutions (shils, 1975, as cited in du toit, 2007, p. 48). with the academics now in charge of their own labour, disciplines entrenched themselves, not least because of their (disciplines) promise to produce the knowledge required for social engineering purposes (mishra, 1984). this interface of the state and expertise is succinctly summarised by bottery and wright (2000, p. 12): governments, the general public, public service managers, and the professionals themselves saw their welfare state systems as ones that were underpinned by professions who through their expertise had the ability to know what needed to be done; and who through their codes of ethics and altruism could be trusted not only to know what was best, but also would do this as well. they could and should be trusted to perform their crucial social functions in an independent and autonomous manner (emphasis added). the autonomy allowed academics to determine the outputs of higher education insulated from the users of those outputs, with the result that: the modern university became a closed epistemological circle: knowledge production circulated between researchers, and between researchers and students, reaching the larger world through indirect means. the transmission of knowledge to society was understood as largely automatic in nature, and commonly devalued as ‘dissemination’, ‘outreach’ and ‘dumbing down’ (frodeman, 2011, p. 107). in neoliberal parlance, academics had ‘captured’ knowledge production and curation, thus turning the university into an insular institution. but this was not an isolated development. rather, it was part and parcel of a general loss of faith in professional expertise that emerged in the late 1960s in the form of the ‘revolt of the client’ (haug and sussman, 1969), partially occasioned by the ‘postmodern turn’. taking place almost simultaneously was the rise of neoliberalism as a challenge to the keynesian welfare state settlement. this 20 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 neoliberalism is not monolithic and uniformly global both geographically and historically.1 geographically, its manifestations are dependent on the local context that it encounters. it is for the reason that brenner at al., (2010) talk of variegated neoliberalisation. it is informed by divergent intellectual traditions such as the chicago school of neo-classical economics, freiburg ordoliberalism and the virginia school of public choice. however, these ‘schools’ share at least one assumption, that “the state. . .can and should be reformed through a deliberate re-organisation around principles associated with the marketplace.” (davies, in press). challenge entailed a realignment of the state-market-society relationship, in which the market threatened to dominate the other two sites. the advent of neoliberalism meant a break down in the high levels of trust the university had enjoyed since the inter-war period. what we are witnessing today is an attempt to invert almost everything that the university stood for under the keynesian welfare state settlement, including the view that the university exists for its own sake and is an end in itself. calls for universities and academics to account for their activities indicate that they can “no longer trusted to benefit state and society if simply left to their own devices (sic)” (du toit, 2007, p. 7). this leaves disciplinarity, that unquestioned sanctuary of academics, exposed and amenable to neoliberal technologies of change. neoliberalism: inter-disciplinarity’s support structure neoliberalism is highly “controversial, incoherent, and crisis-ridden”1 (venugopal, 2015, p. 166). brenner, peck, and theodore (2010, p.184) describe it as a “rascal concept – promiscuously pervasive, yet inconsistently defined, empirically imprecise and frequently contested”. this amorphous nature of neoliberalism partly stems from the fact that it has changed in meaning and expanded in usage over the last century. when it emerged in the 1930s, it primarily referred to a collection of largely disarticulated economic ideas that sought to reconstitute nineteenth-century economic liberalism, which ideas opposed the evolving keynesian political-economic order (brenner et al., 2010). the latter’s socialising of the market was seen by the ‘proto-neoliberals’ as the ‘road to serfdom’ (hayek, 1944). no wonder that when it finally ascended to prominence in the 1970s, neoliberalism sought to exploit “strategic vulnerabilities in keynesianism” (brenner et al., 2010, p. 213), the aim being to ‘roll back’ the state i.e. the state and the market were viewed as two antagonistic sites which existed in a zero-sum relationship; tabulawa: interdisciplinarity, neoliberalism. . . 21 what the market gained, the state lost. given this thesis, brenner et al., (2010, p. 213) surmise that: from its beginnings, then, neoliberal practice…prioritized a series of institutional rollbacks in those sites where vulnerabilities, instabilities and ruptures in the old order presented strategic opportunities for neoliberal modes of intervention. the rolling back of the state was to be effected through market deregulation, liberalisation, privatisation as well as the withdrawal of the welfare state (hursh, 2007). these neoliberal nostrums reached the global south through the activities of, among many others, the world bank (wb), the international monetary fund (imf) and the organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd), which proffered policy advice (as was the case with botswana) and/or imposed structural adjustment policies (as was the case in most sub-sahara african countries) (tabulawa, 2011). but the ‘rolling back’ was just a passing phase. by the early 1990s the understanding of neoliberalism as involving the dominance of the market over the state had begun to wane. a new political economy in which the state and market were viewed as mutually constitutive was gaining ground, anchored on the realisation that the two spheres in fact inter-penetrate: the state was needed to promote the market and the market in turn strengthened the state. the regulatory function of the state, not its demise, under this understanding of neoliberalism gained prominence. this is what marks neoliberalism from liberalism: whereas liberalism’s vision was of a market that was independent of the state, neoliberalism’s vision is that of a market buttressed by the state. that is, a strong state “is a defining feature of neoliberalism” (davies, in press). peck, (2008, p. 39) expresses this paradox thus: “neoliberalism’s curse has been that it can live neither with, nor without, the state”. another way of capturing this paradox is to distinguish between ‘government’ and ‘governance’; less of the former does not mean less of the latter: “neoliberalism problematises the state and is concerned to specify its limits through the invocation of individual choice” at the same time as “it involves forms of governance that encourage both institutions and individuals to conform to the norms of the market” (larner, 1997, p. 12). that is, neoliberalism is inherently contradictory. it distrusts the bureauprofessionals because it views them as inefficient and self-seeking. it is, therefore, determined to reform them through marketisation processes, and it accomplishes this by using the very same state apparatuses it distrusts, which state is simultaneously the object of its (neoliberalism) market principles. 22 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 it is beyond the remit of this paper to discuss the complex relationship between neo-liberalism 2 and post-modernity. suffice it to state that existing accounts describe their relationship as an ‘unholy alliance’ (van zon, 2013, p. 110); ‘cultural siamese twins of late capitalism’ (kachur, 2010, p. 13); and, post-modernity as the ‘cultural logic of late capitalism’ (jameson, 1991). while the two concepts should not be conflated, there is no doubt that they are in some sense inextricably intertwined. hopenhayn (1993, p. 98) summarised the relationship in these words: ‘postmodernist rhetoric has been profitably capitalized on by neoliberalism in order to update its longed-for project of cultural hegemony’. furthermore, neoliberalism is determined to filter market rationality into areas that hitherto were out of its reach. this ‘economising of the social’ involves pushing: competition and competitive dynamics into areas of social life that are otherwise resistant to entrepreneurial values and ethos, such as universities, and to inculcate people with a respect for competition generally (davies, in press). the aim is to transform relations between institutions and citizens on the one hand and the state on the other. suffusion of the market logic across all spheres of social life is aimed to limit the “interventionist and globalising excesses of the state” (hopenhayn, 1993, p. 99). this is achieved through the ‘responsibilisation’ of the individual so that they become entrepreneurs of the self (peters, 2001). social risk is transferred from the state to the individual, the net effect being a citizen who is no longer dependent on state welfare. in the process, both the state and citizen are transformed. how was this suffusion of the market logic achieved? as already argued above, neoliberals’ antipathy to ‘public monopolies’ (e.g. universities) and all kinds of politicised collectives, such as trade unions and professional bodies, made these entities natural targets for reform. but neoliberals were aware that reforming the professions and state bureaucracy needed public support, without which their endevours would never succeed. in a sense, the ground work for their offensive had already been done by postmodernist thinking, which precipitated the ‘revolt of the client’ against professional expertise in the 1960s, as mentioned above. the mood at the2 time was that “[the traditional picture of a] distant and peer-responsible professional and a humble ministered-to client [must be replaced by] new forms of participation and a new responsive professional practice” (gartner, 1969, cited in haug and sussman (1969, p. 159). ever so attentive to cultural politics, neoliberalism appropriated the ‘revolt’, inflected it, and subsequently mobilised it to exploit keynesianism’s vulnerabilities. this predatory character of neoliberalism is not surprising; it is in its nature to de-/retabulawa: interdisciplinarity, neoliberalism. . . 23 articulate, displace, co-habit with and appropriate competing discourses. as clarke (2008, p.144) states, “neoliberalism involves articulating practices – appropriating other discourses, practices, and even imaginaries and inflecting them”. so by exploiting in this way the seductive postmodernist narrative of the ‘revolt of the client’, neoliberals were able to “legitimize the market offensive [and] make the desires of the public coincide with the promotion of pro-market policies” (hopenhayn, 1993, p. 98). for example, to justify its onslaught on academics’ control of higher education, neoliberals mobilised rhetorical strategies which discursively re-positioned disciplinarity as archaic and a sanctuary for self-seeking professionals, whose relevance, in any case, the public was already questioning. two such rhetorical strategies are worth elucidating. these are (a) the ‘producer-capture’ metaphor and (b) knowledge re-purposing. producer-capture in order to discredit it, neoliberals discursively repositioned bureauprofessional power as out-dated and dysfunctional. they exploited the people’s general disquiet with it, combined this disquiet with neo-classical economic and public choice theories to invent a neoliberal strategy – ‘producer capture’ – which they used to discredit professionals generally and academics in particular, casting them as enemies of progress. producer capture has been described as the: process whereby the goals of an organization reflect the interests and prejudices of its employees (the producers) rather than those it is supposed to serve (the consumers, customers or citizens). more precisely, given that workers in a customer-friendly organisation will see their own interests served by serving the customer, capture is evident when producer interests are not aligned with those of the consumers, and it is the former that predominate (mcmenamin, c, 2009, http://itslifejimbutnotaswknowit.blogspot.com/2009/02/producer-captureturn-ideological-gu ns.html.) producer capture became a rallying point for neoliberals, who saw professional power as impeding cultivation of an entrepreneurial ethos and values in the university. they started to target teachers, doctors, academics etc. for transformation. this required ‘depoliticisation’, by which wilkins (2017, pp. 4–5) means “the removal of certain policies, agents, dialogue, structures, bases or organisations that permit any consolidation of power among politicised ‘collectives’. . .with significant bargaining power over claims to how education should be governed”. this included universities (as 24 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 it is partly because of this repurposing of knowledge (i.e. its instrumentalisation) that the3 ‘interdisciples’ that arose from cid (e.g. womens studies, gender studies) find themselves marginalised. the humanities have had to make concessions to corporate values, argues donoghue (2008). organisations) and disciplines (as structures), from which academics (agents) derived their power. through interdisciplinarity, disciplines as structures in which academics insulated themselves from external scrutiny and accountability, were prise opened to expose them to a panoply of marketoriented technologies to turn them into neo-liberal academic subjects. knowledge re-purposing a strategy more specific to academics was the conversion of knowledge into a “strategic input of new productive processes” (hopenhayn, 1993, p. 95), i.e. repositioning and re-purposing knowledge as a strategic factor in production. this privileged instrumental knowledge over ‘for-its-own-sake’ or esoteric knowledge of both cid and disciplinarity, a subtle move to delegitimise both. . to academics, this had a deskilling effect, at the same time providing3 an opportunity for re-skilling. knowledge instrumentalisation gave birth to the pervasive discourse of the education (knowledge) – economy nexus. neoliberals re-purposed education through what ball (1990) terms a ‘discourse of derision’, i.e. deriding the separation of education and the economy, calling instead for a closer relationship of the two spheres. education was blamed for the poor performance of the economy since it was ‘failing’ to supply the latter with personnel with the right knowledge and skills, but was at the same time presented as the salvation. the result of the ‘discourse of derision’ was a repositioning of (higher) education as the key to national prosperity (brown & lauder, 1997) and an important ‘‘tool of microeconomic reform” (dudley 1998, p. 36). once cast as a sub-sector of the economy, education could easily now be subjected to market discipline. now central to the economic reform agenda, (higher) education had to restructure so as to provide ‘‘society with a means of reproducing technically exploitable knowledge in the creation of a trained labour force’’ (delanty, 2001, p. 108). but before this could be possible, this important factor of production (knowledge) had to first be wrest from the control of self-seeking academics. the effects of converting knowledge into a factor of production are captured in the following trends identified by mccowan (2016): (a) instrumentalisation of knowledge i.e. the valuing of knowledge for its instrumental worth rather tabulawa: interdisciplinarity, neoliberalism. . . 25 than for its intrinsic qualities; (b) application of knowledge and; (c) opening of the university to the outside world. all these trends stand disciplinarity on its head and fundamentally transform the university and its academics. to sum up this section, inter-disciplinarity, in the form in which it developed in the 1980s and 1990s, aimed at attuning universities, knowledge and academics to the interest of capital. it is not the only devise, though. it is more potent when introduced together with an array of other reforms, such as semesterisation/modularisation, student-centredness and cost recover/sharing mechanisms, geared towards construction of a customer mentality among students and parents. collectively, these reforms change the identities of students, parents, academics and institutions; education institutions/academics become ‘providers’ and students ‘clients/customers’ ready to demand an education that positions them favourably in the labour market (tabulawa, polelo & silas, 2013). academics are then transformed from in-ward to outward looking professionals. new identities and market-responsive subjectivities are fashioned out, hailing the arrival of the neoliberal academic subject. interdisciplinarity at ub ub’s embracing of interdisciplinarity would be appreciated far much better when referenced to higher education developments in postcolonial africa. the contextualisation i render here is brief, precisely because there is a plethora of literature on the field (see ajayi, goma, & johnson, 1996; wiseman & wolhuter, 2013). i acknowledge that the contextual factors that have shaped higher education in africa are many and varied. but there is one that i feel, for the purposes of this paper, is more critical than the others in understanding contemporary developments in higher education in africa in general and botswana in particular, and that is the spread of neoliberal tenets (such as privatisation, deregulation, liberalisation and cuts in public spending) from the metropolis to africa, starting in the 1980s to present. these reforms, packaged in the form of the world bank-inspired structural adjustment programmes (saps), were imposed on many sub-sahara african (ssa) states. the overarching objective of saps was to integrate sub-saharan africa into the emerging neoliberal global economy. saps’ prescriptions for sub-sahara african countries to cut public spending and reduce indebtedness forced them to divest in higher education and to prioritise primary education, again at the behest of the world bank on the basis of its ‘rates of return analysis’, which 26 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 on the effects of managerialism on an african university, see mamdani (2007).4 ‘established’ that “of all the levels of the education system, primary education was one with the highest public and social returns on public education investment. . .” (tabulawa, 2011, p. 437). the bank was to capitulate on this position in the 1990s (at a time when ssa was already reeling in debt and bankruptcy) when the advent of the knowledge economy dictated that knowledge, an important product of universities, was a necessary ingredient for economic development. this repositioning of knowledge in economic development profoundly altered the university-state compact. as the main funder, and also given the growing strategic importance of knowledge, demand for relevance and the spectre of ‘schooled unemployment’, african states started “demanding accountability and a say in the running of universities” (wiseman & wolhuter, 2013, p. 9). this intensified universities’ vulnerability e.g. autonomy was attenuated and managerialism entrenched4 itself as the main framework for running universities. however, these issues of relevance and state-university relations need some nuancing, lest a wrong impression is created that they were predominantly an external imposition. in fact, african universities themselves called for these changes before anyone else did. yesufu (1973) (as cited in collins, 2013, p. 26) states that at the 1972 association of african universities’ accra workshop on creating the african university: emerging issues of the 1970s, it was declared that “all [african] universities [should] be “development universities” and that it was the “responsibility of governments to steer universities in the development direction”. the concept of ‘developmental university’ implies an activist state in the affairs of the university and therefore, an inherently circumscribed university. this then was the global context in which ub was born in 1982 – a context of a call for african universities to meet the continent’s developmental needs; of a heightened importance of knowledge and the knowledge economy; of a growing demand for higher education; of a global economic crisis; and, of pressure on states to cut public spending. in his graduation address in 1984, the first chancellor of the ub, the late president quett masire, stated that: the university must produce the much-needed high level manpower to engage in the economic, political and social development of its people. a university in a developing country is part and parcel of the development process. . . . this goes to explain why we invest so much resources in the university (cited in mokopakgosi, 2008, p. 410). tabulawa: interdisciplinarity, neoliberalism. . . 27 ub took note of this call for relevance, and in 1990 it invited an external review commission to, among others, provide guidance on the restructuring of the academic organisation of the university. when the academic organisational structure was finally reviewed twenty years later, (instrumental) interdisciplinarity emerged in the review as the preferred mode of knowledge organisation for the institution (university of botswana, 2010). in the early 2000s interdisciplinarity became a frequent topic in discussions at the university. in his inauguration speech as the 3rd vice chancellor of the university of botswana, professor bojosi otlhogile mooted interdisciplinarity when he asked rhetorically: “is 21st century ub still served by the present structures of departments, faculties, centres etc.?” (otlhogile, 2003, p. 7). at the same occasion, the then chancellor of ub and president of the republic of botswana, mr festus mogae, made this pointed observation: our university must set itself the mission of supplying in full its share of the resources and skills of the economy. what it must not do is descend into an academic institution that exists for its own sake and as an end in itself, or become a tool in the hands of those who would put it to uses other than those commanded by the national interest… (mogae, 2003, p. 6. emphasis added). both speeches call for changes in the university. otlhogile is questioning the organisation of the university in terms of disciplines and seems to be suggesting that alternatives should be explored. the chancellor, on the other hand, raises the broader issue of the mission or purpose of a university, implying a need to re-purpose it. if the university cannot exist for its own sake and as an end in itself, then it must serve some instrumental purpose. no sooner had these speeches been delivered than we started seeing developments that clearly aimed at changing the nature of ub. shaping our future (2004), ub’s first ever strategic plan, was rolled out to run from 2004 to 2009 and beyond, and its revised version, a strategy for excellence (2008), was introduced to run from 2009 to 2016 and beyond. these strategic plans were largely responses to external developments, which developments themselves mirrored the global trends described above. the policy environment neoliberal thinking was mainstreamed in botswana’s development planning through national development plans (ndps), starting with ndp vii (1991/92–1996/97), whose theme emphasised decelerated government 28 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 expenditure due to falling revenues. commitment was made to privatisation, deregulation, economic liberalisation, cost recovery/sharing measures and private sector growth. here we see an attempt to redefine the state-marketsociety relationship; the state was to be ‘rolled back’ by elevating the market: “as the private sector matures, it can be given greater responsibilities for promoting national development, relieving the government of some of the tasks it necessarily assumed when the private sector was nascent” (republic of botswana, 1991, p. 78). this was a major rethink of the botswana developmental state, in which the state was the prime mover in development, but did so without seeking to supplant the market (tabulawa et al., 2013). withdrawal of the state was expected to lead to a scaling down of the welfare state. similar developments in south africa are reported by baatjes (2005), who bemoans their implications for higher education in that country. public sector reforms reminiscent of the new public management (npm), have since been implemented and are now part and parcel of public sector life in botswana. these reforms are not an end in themselves, though; their end is to alter the state/society relationship by ultimately producing a responsibilised citizen, one who is an entrepreneur of the self , a ‘consumer-citizen’ who is not dependent on the state. the education sector has been tasked with producing this kind of citizen, in addition to producing workers for a changed workplace; a workplace that demands sets of skills, knowledge and attitudes congenial with a knowledge-based economy. a re-purposed type of education is needed, one that is in an inextricable nexus with the economy (republic of botswana, 2009; 2015). this linking of education and scholarship to the economy and skills development is the main justification for contemporary education reforms globally as nations seek to favourably position themselves in the highly competitive global economic environment (winberg, 2006; king & mcgrath, 2002). the first step to re-purpose education was taken in 1994 when government released the revised national policy on education (rnpe). the rnpe was produced for implementation during ndp vii. the rnpe has been described as botswana’s response to globalisation (tabulawa, 2009). its main thrust is linking education with labour market requirements: in the past decade rapid economic growth and the resulting changes in the structure of the economy have resulted in shortages of skilled personnel. however, the education system was not structured to respond to the demand (republic of botswana, 1994, p. 3). tabulawa: interdisciplinarity, neoliberalism. . . 29 note how the rnpe explains youth unemployment, not as a function of the economy, but of the education system; the economy is doing well, it is the education and training system that is faltering; it is not producing people with the requisite skills to take advantage of available job opportunities created by a supposedly buoyant economy. this marked the beginning of the discourse of derision in education in botswana. this discourse, as has been argued above, is seductive, precisely because it exploits public anxieties, especially in times of economic distress. it is little surprising that subsequent government policy documents, such as the tertiary education policy (tep) (2008), national development plan 10 (2009 – 2016) and the national human resource development strategy (2009) all stress how the education system is failing the economy and the need to get this problem addressed. the perceived education-economy disconnect stands out as the main rationale for the education and training sector strategic plan (etssp) (2015). in the last three policy documents, the discourse assumes an ‘economistic’ tone, talking of the ‘supply-side’ (education and training) that is failing to read the cues from the ‘demand-side’ (industry, employers etc.). this language marks the economy’s final subsumption of the education sector. university of botswana’s response the macro-economic policy developments described above did not go unnoticed at ub, particularly government’s concerns that the (perceived) education-economy dislocation was harmful to the country’s economic wellbeing. ub’s response to this concern came in the form of strategic plans. first was shaping our future (2004–2008), followed by its revised version, a strategy for excellence (2009–2016). although they had a broader vision for university education, the two strategic plans had as their motif, the tightening of the ‘education-economy nexus’. a strategy for excellence, in particular, had a more elaborate neoliberal agenda, a feature that is least surprising given the neoliberal context in which it was crafted. two related aspects of the agenda ran parallel. the first aimed to transform the academic organisational structure, curriculum and research, with a view to address concerns about relevance and responsiveness to societal needs. the second aspect aimed to open up the university, making it more porous in order to facilitate seamless interaction with its external environment. these thrusts had the potential to transform the university. interdisciplinarity suited 30 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 this was expected to be achieved through the revision of the academic organisational5 structure (raos) exercise, which sought to merge/disappear faculties with a view to create new academic structures which would be porous and flexible. this exercise was crafted as ub’s response to the charge of a dislocation between the needs of the economy/society and the products of tertiary education. however, it has not been implemented in full. the realisation of both, through interdisciplinary research and interdisciplinary academic programmes. re-structuring the academic organisational structure, curriculum and research the restructuring foregrounded inter-disciplinarity. a strategy for excellence’s strategic priority area 2: providing relevant and high quality programmes, provided for “[c]oherent academic structures that promote interdisciplinarity” (university of botswana, 2008, p. 25). there was commitment to a “more efficient course provision and integrated curricula, and new disciplinary relationships including increased interdisciplinarity and decreased departmental compartmentalization” (university of botswana, 2010, p. 6). this was to be facilitated by a major restructuring of the faculties and departments, which aimed to weaken the boundaries between disciplines.5 furthermore, emphasis on interdisciplinarity was seen as a continuation of the spirit of the semesterisation (with its emphasis on student choice, credit accumulation and learning outcomes) exercise carried out in 2002: “it is important that the university exploits more fully the potentials of the semesterised approach to the curriculum that was introduced in 2002, particularly with regard to interdisciplinarity and student choice” (university of botswana, 2010, p. 6). ensor (2004, p. 344) emphasises the ‘antidisciplinary’, let alone economic nature of constructs such as credit exchange and student choice: the credit exchange discourse…favours modularization of the curriculum, a focus on generic skills and selection from these modules by students to create curriculum packages to meet their own requirements. this discourse also favours interdisciplinarity and portability. furthermore, the credit system, with its emphasis on choice, favours a student-centred curriculum. such curriculum de-centres the academic and repositions him/her as a: tabulawa: interdisciplinarity, neoliberalism. . . 31 ‘facilitator rather than expert, one who places emphasis on competence or skills rather than knowledge, or content. in other words, the vertical pedagogic relations associated with academic apprenticeship into domain-specific knowledge favoured by a disciplinary discourse are explicitly eschewed (ensor, 2004, p. 347). all these constructs (student-centredness, credit accumulation and student choice) are central to curriculum reform, in particular semesterisation, at ub. naturally, they are not compatible with disciplinary knowledge arrangements. they deconstruct the discipline, allowing for interdisciplinary re-arrangement of knowledge, and introduce flexibility in the way the student assembles a degree programme (tabulawa et al., 2013). not only that, and as ensor (2004) observes, they also alter fundamentally student-teacher pedagogic relations; the power to control these relations is wrested from the teacher. student power is further enhanced through promotion of a customer mentality; the student-as-customer’s satisfaction with the quality of ‘service’ is to be established through, among others, graduate satisfaction surveys (university of botswana, 2008). once positioned as customers, students are expected to put pressure on the university to “make courses more relevant to the skills they require for the workplace” (naidoo & jamieson, 2005, p. 268). these developments are beginning to impact ub considerably. implementation of the tep (2008) has led to a phenomenal growth of the private tertiary education sector (from one degree-offering institution to the current five) (tabulawa and youngman, 2017), giving students alternatives to ub. for academic year 2016/17, ub failed to meet its quota by almost 2000 students, raising questions about its competitiveness vis-à-vis private institutions. a junior minister in the ministry of tertiary education, research, science and technology is reported as having told ub to ‘adapt’ if it is to survive the competition (morima, 2016). in government’s view, students’ newly found identity as ‘consumers’ of tertiary education is beginning to steer the sector. research in 2008 the university of botswana approved the university research strategy (urs), which foregrounded inter-disciplinarity and knowledge instrumentalisation: a new emphasis will be given to the impact of research on the wider society and the goal of ensuring that research has tangible public benefits, so that wherever possible new knowledge is turned into action, innovation, products or services. thus encouragement and incentives will be given to research proposals that clearly specify how dissemination and 32 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 application will be undertaken and impact achieved (university of botswana, 2008, p. 6, emphasis added). note the emphasis on an instrumentalist view of research knowledge in the urs: ‘impact’, ‘public benefits’, ‘innovation’ and ‘application’. there does not seem to be room for ‘blue sky’ research that traditionally defines university research. the instrumental view of research and its outputs features prominently in a strategy for excellence as well through an emphasis on research ‘impact’, to be facilitated by “involvement of users of research (business, government, civic society) in the era [external research assessment]” (university of botswana, 2008, p. 28). this valuation of ‘applied’ research relative to ‘basic’ research blurs the divide between knowledge production and knowledge application, leading to a ‘mode 2’ knowledge production system (gibbons et al., 1994; cloete & bunting, 2000). under this arrangement, increasingly academics account to external bodies, no longer to themselves in their constricting circles. diminishing research funding that is accompanying a growing expectation for ub academics to ‘research and publish’ is forcing them to seek external research funding from research grants agencies, the very same agencies that foreground interdisciplinarity in research grants proposals. this is a fertile ground for transforming academics into ‘academic entrepreneurs’. further, the urs encourages “increased [research] collaboration amongst staff, particularly on inter-disciplinary research projects” (university of botswana, 2008, p. 4). the strategy identifies seven priority research themes, which are expected to be inter-disciplinary in orientation. ‘priority’ was determined in terms of a theme’s potential contribution to the national research and innovation system, an expectation on universities clearly stated in the tep (2008). however, ‘incentivised’ research themes limit what academics can research on i.e. they define what constitutes legitimate research ‘problems’. so the idea of research themes takes away academics’ traditional responsibility to define research problems. this responsibility is transferred to outside bodies (e.g. research councils) and academics’ role is that of executing research agendas set elsewhere. although they have not been discussed here in detail as neoliberal technologies, elsewhere the innovations (i.e. the credit system, studentcentredness, semesterisation, student choice and learning outcomes) noted above have been found to foreground interdisciplinarity as a technology of change (ensor, 2004; moore, 2003). collectively, they have the potential to tabulawa: interdisciplinarity, neoliberalism. . . 33 disrupt the power academics wield, which power is often viewed as impeding the transformation of the university into an institution responsive to the needs of a neo-liberal, market-based economy. however, there is no inevitability about such transformation occurring. after all, even the most hegemonic of practices are often countered, contested and even resisted. we would be better off heeding clarke’s (2008, p. 138) distinction between “the presence of [interdisciplinarity] almost everywhere, and whether it is everywhere dominant”. the distinction suggests that interdisciplinarity is not monolithic in its effects. indeed, accounts of academics and administrators across generations both resisting and facilitating neoliberalism in general (churchman & king, 2009; peters, marginson & murphy, 2009) and interdisciplinarity in particular (martimianakis & muzzin, 2015) have been noted. conclusion in this paper i have sought to illustrate the potential of a particular strand of interdisciplinarity, (instrumental interdisciplinarity), to transform the university and its academics. i have argued that through seemingly apolitical ‘technologies’ such as interdisciplinarity, higher education is increasingly becoming implicated in knowledge capitalism. mbembe (2016) lists the effects of this emerging governing rationality, among which are; subordination of politics to capital and; commodification of knowledge. these developments mobilise particular identities, one of which is the casting of academics as ‘knowledge workers’ or ‘entrepreneurs’ and universities as production sites for instrumental knowledge. this is emasculating, and interdisciplinarity is central to the process. the same way the relevance debate somehow justified the state’s interference in university affairs, interdisciplinarity might justify the capture of the university by corporate interests. hearn’s (2003) warning is worth heeding: here, we can see how the rubric of “interdisciplinarity” functions as a trojan horse, smuggling external political and economic interests inside the wall of the academy. and so “interdisciplinarity” becomes a sign or a code word. cloaked in the rhetoric of academic freedom and innovation, “interdisciplinarity” can serve as a rationale and as a source of legitimation for private interests and corporate-style institutional arrangements inside the academy. 34 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 while such capture is not self-evident at ub, there are nonetheless concerns with the growing influence of government bureaucrats whose numbers have increased considerably in the university council with successive reviews of the university act (tabulawa & youngman, 2017). paradoxically, the same interdisciplinarity is also central to the modernisation of the university and its continued relevance in the midst of profound change. this puts academics in a quandary – should they resist the disciplining technology of interdisciplinarity and render themselves irrelevant, or embrace it, thereby 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(2000). interdisciplinarity: the paradoxical discourse. in p. weingart and n. stehr (eds.), practising interdisciplinarity (25–41). toronto: university of toronto press.. weingart, p. & padberg, b. (eds). (2014). university experiments in interdisciplinarity: obstacles and opportunities. blelefeld: verlag. weingart, p. & stehr, n. (2000) (eds.). practising interdisciplinarity. university of toronto press. wilkins, a. (2017). rescaling the local: multi-academy trusts, private monopoly and statecraft in england. journal of educational administration and history, doi:10.1080/00220620.2017.1284769 42 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 winberg, c. (2006). undisciplining knowledge production: development driven higher education in south africa. higher education, 51, 159–172. wiseman, a. w. & wolhuter, c. c. (eds) (2013). the development of higher education in africa: prospects and challenges. emerald group. van zon, h. (2013). the unholy alliance of neoliberalism and postmodernism http://www.imavo.be/vmt/13214-van%20zon%20postmodernism.pdf. richard tabulawa department of languages and social sciences education faculty of education university of botswana tabulawa@mopipi.ub.bw http://www.imavo.be/vmt/13214-van%20zon%20postmodernism.pdf. mailto:tabulawa@mopipi.ub.bw microsoft word b91 full issue.docx journal of education, 2023 issue 91, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x book essay review: light on the shadows shadow education in africa: private supplementary tutoring and its policy implications (2021) by mark bray (comparative education research centre. open access at https://cerc.edu.hku.hk/books/shadow-education-inafrica-private-supplementary-tutoring-and-its-policy-implications/) gerard guthrie independent researcher, wellington, new zealand gerardguthrie@hotmail.com (received: 20 february 2023) introduction those of us concerned with what happens inside the classroom and the relationship between teaching and learning also often consider contextual influences outside the classroom. between the classroom and its cultural and social contexts, a grey and often overlooked space is the influence of “shadow education”—not a high priority for many academic researchers, although something in which many do have personal experience. shadow education is an apt metaphor for an often unclearly demarcated area where economic and social pressures for high-stakes examination success influence parents to take greater control over the educational process by paying for extra tutoring for their children. in angola and egypt, this new monograph overviewing shadow education in africa tells us that over 90% of final secondary students receive or have received private tutoring. survey figures on primary students range from 29% of south african grade 6 students, through 46% of upper primary students in burkina faso, to 81% of grade 6 students in mauritius. although countries in southern africa typically have lower participation rates than the rest of the continent, the indications are that their rates are increasing. mark bray (formerly director of unesco’s international institute for educational planning) was one of the first to recognise shadow education as a global phenomenon (bray, 1999) and is a leading analyst on this topic. his present monograph—shadow education in africa: private supplementary tutoring and its policy implications (bray, 2021)—draws together data from the 54 african member countries of unesco, which organisation financed the study as input to its 2021 global education monitoring report on non-state actors in education. the monograph is concise and commendably short at 73 pages of text plus an executive summary and 26 pages of references. the study brings together disparate information obtained from the extensive literature review, previous field visits in africa, and a workshop involving 47 educators and administrators from 17 african countries. guthrie: book essay review 171 “shadow education,” bray’s executive summary concludes, “has much expanded in recent decades, and will not go away” (p. xiv). bray’s analysis throws light on three features in particular. one is the sheer size of the shadow, another is the role of corruption, and the third is the impact of exams. clearly, something is going on and it directly affects schooling across the whole continent. how concerned should educators be? the answers to that question are somewhat mixed. field of study shadow education is rather polarising and studies in different parts of the world show varying degrees of enthusiasm for it. a considerable academic literature now exists, including recent studies on “developing” countries with cultural contexts as diverse as cambodia (marshall & fukao, 2019), china (zhang, 2020), and uzbekistan (khaydarov, 2020). shadow education has become well recognised as a global phenomenon (e.g. entrich, 2021) but, like the phenomenon it studies, the field lies somewhat outside mainstream school effectiveness and classroom improvement research. in africa, terminology for shadow education varies considerably, bray (pp. 5–8) writes. the terms include “private tutoring” in kenya and nigeria, “coaching” in rwanda and uganda, soutien scolaire in francophone africa, and explicações in lusophone countries, while egypt has a number of specific arabic names for different modes of delivery. the various labels encompass forms of delivery that involve fee-paying, private, supplementary tutoring. usually, this extramural teaching is concerned with academic subjects in primary and secondary schools and has a particular focus on improving students’ exam performance. complex forms of delivery can include various sorts and sizes of companies, and often involve mainstream teachers supplementing their incomes, as well as university students, retirees, and the otherwise unemployed. study of shadow education does not conventionally consider extramural classes for preservation of minority languages not taught in school, freeof-charge assistance from family and community members, or religious education (such as in madrasas). extent in africa quantifying the extent of shadow education, bray (pp. 13–24) shows, is not easy, especially given an absence of agreed definitions for data collection. a list of 31 studies conducted in 25 nations across africa during the last two decades indicates considerable levels of shadow education in most of the countries. commonly, the most recent snapshots in a variety of grades identified that over a third of students were taking part (e.g. in algeria and botswana), often over half were (e.g. in ethiopia and kenya), while in angola, egypt, and ghana, over 90% were. high usage was reported from most parts of the continent although levels were consistently lower in southern africa where eswatini, lesotho, malawi, namibia, and zimbabwe were all under 20%. there was also considerable variation within countries where such data was available, as in south africa where the percentage of grade 6 students receiving private tutoring in 2013 ranged from 10% in limpopo, to 62% in free state, with a 172 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 national average of 29%. typically, higher participation rates occur in urban areas and in more prosperous communities where families can better afford the costs. varying reports occur about participation by gender, the number of hours of tutoring per week, and its spread during the year. where comparable data are available over time, usage is increasing, including in botswana, eswatini, malawi, mozambique, and south africa. types of delivery variably include one-on-one tutoring, school-like teaching to full classes, and large-scale lectures (where, in egypt, 300–500 students are not unusual). in some countries, such as morocco, internet delivery is common and use of mobile phones is likely to increase. face-to-face delivery variously occurs in tutors’ homes, tutorial centres, churches, and mosques. in all contexts, the most popular subjects are maths and languages (variously arabic, english, french, or portuguese, according to the country concerned). this is partly because they are core subjects in the exams and partly because they facilitate achievement in other subjects. beyond this generalisation, bray (p. 26) notes, much depends on the curriculum, although a tendency also exists for demand for tutoring in science subjects. costs and comparisons between countries are difficult to establish, but various studies identify substantial household expenditure; indeed, some estimates were that annual expenditure on tutoring in egypt exceeded the government’s education budget. such data are crude, but high levels of demand very clearly exist for tutoring and many tutors—trained and untrained—are willing to supply the service. supply and demand what drives demand for shadow education? bray (pp. 25–30) ascribes the demand to social competition. in essence, the more students receive private tutoring, the more others have to follow suit to keep up, especially when confidence in the quality of schools and teachers is lacking. families see educational qualifications as a major pathway to either improve or maintain their socioeconomic status and increasingly view schools as inadequate. mixed parental motives for engaging tutoring can also include their own lack of knowledge of school subjects and a perceived need to keep their children occupied when they cannot themselves provide supervision. perceptions about social competition and rising expectations of education have occurred against widespread but slow improvements in access to primary schools in the decades following independence in most countries, subsequent expansion of secondary schooling, increased stratification of tertiary providers, and increasing competition for entry to all levels. high-stakes exams act as gateways between and within levels, determining who is pushed out, who progresses to the next level, and how they are streamed. even where full progression occurs from primary to post-primary schooling, as in mauritius, high prestige secondary schools can be selective. even though there is considerable official hostility to shadow education in many countries, over the decades it has become more acceptable on the national policy front (pp. 8–11). in the guthrie: book essay review 173 years following independence, most countries in africa ambitiously placed strong emphasis on the state role in education, especially to expand access to schooling. financial constraints and population growth meant governmental provision of primary, then secondary, schooling was an uphill battle in most countries. shadow education helps relieve that pressure. topdown policy concerns coincided with the bottom-up parental concerns about meeting strong competition for educational places to better position their children in difficult job markets. the opportunities for the commercial sector are considerable. urban areas commonly have a range of suppliers. most are based locally but some have extensive reach. bray (pp. 32–35) describes at some length a report by a company promoting educational investment in subsaharan africa (caerus capital, 2017). the company considered that investment opportunities were founded in the demographics of a young population, expansion of the middle class, rapid urbanisation, and increasing use of communications technology—all of which could generate considerable opportunities in supplementary education. prime investment targets were said to be south africa then nigeria, kenya, ethiopia, senegal, and liberia. commercial opportunities could range from franchising established educational brands to development of small and medium-sized companies. caerus capital viewed the potential for educational investments in sub-saharan africa as being usd 0.4–0.5 billion, generating revenues of 15–20%. economic realities lest the gentle reader be shocked by the volume of dollars predicted by caerus capital, and whatever the merits of its specific claims, they are consistent with other reports. bray (pp. 35–36) notes several studies indicating extensive and sometimes quite innovative commercial operations in african education, and international literature has discussed the emergence of the global education industry (e.g. moeller, 2020; mohamed & morris, 2019; verger et al., 2016; wolhuter & van der walt, 2019). in international policy arenas, as neoliberalism took hold in the 1990s, private sector provision of education became not just a pragmatic response to pressure on state provision, but also an ideological position that continues to operate in support of western economic and political interests (guthrie, 2021b, pp. 35–39). delivery of education aid activities has increasingly been taken over by a network of private sector and commercialised university interests. internationally, the industry is embedded in all stages of policy making, delivery, and monitoring that revolve around the selling for profit of dubious “best global practices.” developed countries exercise soft power and obtain hard currency, their universities increase financial strength, and their academics find employment. the nexus of donor aid programmes and the education industry can disadvantage local providers while projecting a progressive academic and policy worldview that aligns with cultural imperialism. indeed, in australia the head of idp education (the commercial marketing arm of australian universities) was, in 2019, australia’s highest-paid chief executive, taking away aud 38 million (in considerable part as shares gained) when idp became a publicly listed company (khadem, 2020). much less well remunerated, teachers in 174 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 africa have considerable involvement in shadow education as tutors so that demand for tutors has been met by supply. supply of tutoring by teachers occurs with many variations around the continent, but especially in rural areas in the absence of commercial providers. pressure on families to fund private tutoring can increase where teachers demand rights to provide it to supplement low and eroding salaries. surveys variously show that teachers sometimes justify this in terms of the importance of exam performance to students’ futures; sometimes the justification is to complete overloaded syllabuses or to provide remedial work for those falling behind. all this generates and shapes the types of tutoring that occur, especially towards the end of secondary schooling. quite commonly, when teachers are the tutors, delivery occurs in schools, with or without official approval. where delivery occurs in schools with official approval, a high proportion of the income typically goes to the teachers, some to the school, and some can also go to administrators in the system. corruption the sheer size of the shadow stands out in bray’s monograph; so too, does the role of corruption. the positioning of teachers and their organisations generates potential for conflicts of interest and for corruption, especially given that considerable amounts of money can be involved. an opaque phrase in the executive summary refers to “an opportunity to steer the shadow education sector before it gets engrained in cultures” (p. ix). this alludes to remediation of several downsides expanded upon later in the report (pp. 42–46). many examples of corruption are given. for example, in a 2013 egyptian survey, where tutoring can officially occur in schools, teachers explained that they had to make periodic gifts to key administrators, and some school principals imposed “fees” on teachers for showing leniency over teacher absenteeism, poor teaching, and toleration of veiled coercion of students to enrol in tutoring. in egypt, kenya, and zanzibar, anecdotal evidence of coercion also occurs: teachers can open tutorial centres alongside their regular duties, absent themselves from classes, or teach ineffectively and then ask their students to join extra classes. in kenya, a parent reported that teachers can omit vital content in school and ask parents to pay for extra tuition. cases were also reported of schools that made holiday coaching compulsory and refused students reentry to school if they did not pay the fee. the extent of such matters is difficult to determine but the examples seem genuine. other downsides include backwash effects such as competition between shadow education and schooling. in many places, bray further discusses, teachers want to teach in subjects that demand tutoring, in higher grades, and in communities with sufficiently affluent parents—all of which contributes to teacher shortages in less favoured areas and subjects. widespread allegations include that teachers can neglect their regular duties to devote their energies to private tutoring. in zimbabwe, one report was that teachers created separate groups in their classes and paid special attention to those whom they tutored. teachers in kenya, where there guthrie: book essay review 175 is official disapproval of the use of schools, can provide tutoring out-of-school to avoid being found out in the face of official disapproval. the generation of psychological pressures on students—pushed by their parents and becoming overburdened with homework from both teachers and tutors—has been described as burnout, even child labour. private tutoring can also open opportunities for sexual abuse. abuses of shadow education are symptomatic of wider societal problems, including poverty and corruption. likewise, the ability of families in more prosperous communities to pay for shadow education generates an inherent socioeconomic bias that facilitates social class formation. as bray writes, backwash effects include adding to educational inequalities: since in practice shadow education is more commonly accessed by students who are already higher achievers, it is much more likely to increase gaps than reduce them. in turn, these disparities raise challenges at the classroom and school levels as well as at the system level. (p. 47) the underlying issue is that social and educational inequalities are not a function of shadow education alone. its downsides reflect the nature of the school systems and the societies in which they exist. corruption, especially, should be dealt with strongly in shadow education as elsewhere. however, political attacks on shadow education run the risk of creating a public sideshow that can deliberately divert attention from inequalities and from wider corruption in schools and in society and, ironically, place corruption further in the shadows. examinations despite actual and potential abuses, the upside of shadow education is indicated by expanding demand, in large part because it is perceived as contributing to exam success. this leads to the third feature highlighted by bray’s analysis: the impact of exams. the evidence about actual improvements in academic performance from tutoring is very limited, but several widespread surveys indicate that students usually perceive it as improving their knowledge or study skills (pp. 40–42). the major function of high-stakes exams is selection and, as bray notes, they can reward diligent students regardless of their home or school circumstances. further discussion of exams and the problems that go with them (pp. 52–55) indicates that exams exacerbate issues arising from the structure of schooling and unequal access to it. long-standing academic criticism of the “diploma disease” (dore, 1976; little, 1997) does not appear to have influenced this social reality in africa. exam systems and shadow education respond to competition for education, channel students through the system, and reinforce social and economic inequality. external selection exams become especially important at the end of primary and secondary schooling if they decide students’ future in the formal education system or subsequent employment. as a sidebar, we can note that the organisation for economic co-operation and development’s pisa and the timss international testing regimes are not a substitute for high-stakes public exams. these regimes test student achievement against international standards that may or may not conform with each country’s intended or implemented curricula. the measures are of system 176 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 performance rather than individual student progress and they do not have a selection function for further education or employment, which is the role of the public exam systems that shadow education supplements. many technical critiques of exams are founded in progressive curricular challenges to formalistic teaching and related disapproval of exams that test factual knowledge rather than higher-order thinking skills. such challenges occur predominantly in anglophone-influenced countries. my own literature survey (guthrie, 2021a, pp. 235–238) estimated that progressive curriculum policy take-up was much lower in northern sub-saharan africa (0%), western africa (18%), and central africa (0%), where francophone and islamic educational influences prevail, than in the predominantly anglophone eastern africa (64%) and southern africa (91%). there is no evidence of sustained adoption of progressive methods by classroom teachers anywhere in the continent, nor of successful challenges to exam systems. over time, many examples occur of exam-led teaching and its social and cultural foundations even where progressive or neoliberal curricular pressures exist, for example, in botswana (tabulawa, 1997, 1998, 2004), ghana (brooke, 1980; zimmerman, 2011), malawi (ginsburg, 2009), and tanzania (bartlett & vavrus, 2013). intended reformist curricula based on national policy are usually neither implemented by teachers nor tested by exams. indeed, bray notes (p. 55) that one of the unintended outcomes of curriculum reforms is that new approaches often lead to parents being unable to provide subject support at home and teachers identifying need for supplementary tutoring to complete the syllabus. despite all these issues, especially reinforcement of socioeconomic inequalities, the examination system offers hope to the poor. public exams in mainstream schools are a highstakes opportunity that might provide a rare, and hopefully corruption-free, chance for upward mobility, escape from poverty, and the capacity to support family; indeed, somewhat like lotteries, they offer hope. whatever the content validity of public exams (kellaghan & greaney, 2019), they have cultural validity (guthrie, 2021b, pp. 72–74). as bray puts it in economic terms, “the marketplace to some extent sends signals about what families want and are even willing to pay for” (p. 55). implications while the available data are improving, there are major gaps. some countries appear to have no data and only egypt and mauritius have relatively more information, bray notes. however, while filling data gaps is important enough, it is not fundamental to the underlying issue. this is the ongoing need to improve the quality of and accessibility to schooling, especially for disadvantaged sectors of society, and there is plenty of data about that. undoubtedly, many aspects of shadow education are problematic but it could provide a stimulus for state systems to improve their performance. how far should government regulation of shadow education go? can regulation be more than window dressing? some african countries, including mozambique, zambia, and zimbabwe, have taken regulatory action about tutorial centres. in ethiopia, registration of centres guthrie: book essay review 177 identifies requirements about facilities, location, tutors’ qualifications and experience, the curriculum, timing and duration of classes and their sizes. the complexities are considerable: over-prescription of requirements can lead to non-compliance, implementation and enforcement can be costly, and regulation of online programmes is difficult to enforce. several african countries have also attempted to regulate teachers’ involvement, including unsuccessful attempts to prohibit serving teachers from providing tutoring (pp. 59–63). most regulatory efforts are punitive, although a more creative effort in zanzibar allowed schools to offer extra teaching after hours for a fee, which at least could channel payments to supplement teachers’ salaries and take pressure off over-stretched government budgets. in effect, the opportunity could be taken to anticipate issues in countries where shadow education is not yet entrenched. however, important though controlling abuses is, no overriding prescription exists about regulations and their enforcement. shadow education varies considerably from country to country and continues to evolve. governments have widely differing attitudes to it, and each country’s approach needs to be appropriate to its own context. conclusion bray provides a considerable service in bringing together such a wide range of information and throwing light on shadow education across the whole of africa. the source data is often patchy but the monograph provides a coherent and insightful overview. the resulting picture is very mixed. clearly, there is demand for and supply of shadow education, but it has many downsides. so, how concerned should educators be? the phlegmatic social realism in which my own reactions to bray’s analysis are based interprets shadow education as a manifestation of deeper issues, not as an aberration. neither the corruption that can be associated with some tutoring, nor the exam pressures that shadow education feeds on, would disappear from society were shadow education eliminated. there is no doubt whatsoever that many abuses need rectification. however, the most fundamental issue involves improvement of educational quality in schools, especially in poorer communities where families cannot afford tutoring. this is where educators can make the most constructive long-term contribution. teachers struggling to survive on inadequate incomes and parents trying to do the best by their children have legitimate grounds for their involvement in shadow education. many tutors appear to do their work faithfully and well, and many parents and students appear to be satisfied with their investments of money and time. shadow education is here to stay—in africa as elsewhere. 178 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 references bartlett, l., & vavrus, f. (2013). testing and teaching: the tanzanian national exams and their influence on pedagogy. in f. vavrus & l. bartlett (eds.), teaching in tension: international pedagogies, national policies, and teachers’ practices in tanzania (pp. 93–113). sense. bray, m. (1999). the shadow education system: private tutoring and its implications for planners (fundamentals of educational planning 61). unesco international institute for educational planning. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000180205 bray, m. (2021). shadow education in africa: private supplementary tutoring and its policy implications (cerc monograph series in comparative and international education and development no. 14). comparative education research centre. https://cerc.edu.hku.hk/books/shadow-education-in-africa-private-supplementarytutoring-and-its-policy-implications/ brooke, n. (1980). the quality of education in rural ghana and mexico. ids bulletin, 11(2), 42–48. institute of development studies, university of sussex. https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/123456789/10781 caerus capital. (2017). the business of education in africa. https://edafricareport.caeruscapital.co/thebusinessofeducationinafrica.pdf?aug_2017 dore, r. (1976). the diploma disease: education, qualification and development. allen & unwin. entrich, s. (2021). worldwide shadow education and social inequality: explaining differences in the socioeconomic gap in access to shadow education across 63 societies. international journal of comparative sociology, 61(6), 441–472. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339353303 ginsburg, m. (2009). active-learning pedagogies as a reform initiative: synthesis of case studies. american institutes for research. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.608.2996andrep=rep1andty pe=pdf guthrie, g. (2021a). foundations of classroom change in developing countries: volume 1, evidence. download: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349094827 guthrie, g. (2021b). foundations of classroom change in developing countries: volume 2, synthesis. download: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349679870 kellaghan, t., & greaney, v. (2019). public examinations examined. world bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/32352 guthrie: book essay review 179 khadem, n. (2020, aug 10). idp education ceo andrew barkla tops acsi's list of highestpaid bosses in 2019. abc news. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-07/idpeducation-ceo-andrew-barkla-tops-acsi-list-of-highest-paid/12531862 khaydarov, s. (2020). shadow education in uzbekistan: teachers’ perceptions of private tutoring in the context of academic lyceums. orbis scholae, 14(2), 81–104. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347282208 little, a. (1997). the diploma disease twenty years on: an introduction. assessment in education, 4, 5–22. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233263362 marshall, j., & fukao, t. (2019). shadow education and inequality in lower secondary schooling in cambodia: understanding the dynamics of private tutoring participation and provision. comparative education review, 63(1), 98–120. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/701064 moeller, k. (2020). accounting for the corporate: an analytic framework for understanding corporations in education. educational researcher, 49(4), 232–240. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x20909831 mohamed, m., & morris, p. (2019). buying, selling and outsourcing educational reform: the global education industry and “policy borrowing” in the gulf. compare, 51(2), 181– 201. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333090798 tabulawa, r. (1997). pedagogical classroom practice and the social context: the case of botswana. international journal of educational development, 17, 189–194. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0738-0593(96)00049-1 tabulawa, r. (1998). teachers’ perspectives on classroom practice in botswana: implications for pedagogical change. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 20, 249–268. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240529121 tabulawa, r. (2004). geography students as constructors of classroom knowledge and practice: a case study from botswana. journal of curriculum studies, 36(1), 53–73. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248986034 verger, a., lubienski, c., & steiner-khamsi, g. (2016). the emergence and structuring of the global education industry: towards an analytical framework. in a. verger, c. lubienski, & g. steiner-khamsi (eds.), world yearbook of education 2016: the global education industry (pp. 3–24). routledge. wolhuter, c., & van der walt, j. (2019). neo-liberalism and the human rights creed: conflicting forces vying for control of the global education agenda. south african journal of education, 39(4), 1–9. https://www.ajol.info/index.php/saje/article/view/193282 180 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 zhang, w. (2020). shadow education in the service of tiger parenting: strategies used by middle‐class families in china. european journal of education, 55(3), 388–404. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343145120 zimmerman, j. (2011). “money, materials, and manpower”: ghanaian in-service teacher education and the political economy of failure, 1961–1971. history of education quarterly, 51(1), 1–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-5959.2010.00308.x microsoft word c8900 full issue 12dec.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 89, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i89a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x life orientation teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and skills in using a group investigation cooperative teaching approach aloysius claudian seherrie department of curriculum and instructional studies, college of education, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa 41003276@mylife.unisa.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-0029-9925 ailwei solomon mawela department of curriculum and instructional studies, college of education, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa mawelas@unisa.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-7043-8716 (received: 12 december 2021; accepted: 6 october 2022) abstract in this qualitative phenomenological study, we explored the pedagogical content knowledge and skills needed by life orientation teachers to implement a group investigation cooperative teaching approach. this study is based on constructivist theory and employed purposive sampling. seven teachers from selected secondary schools in the northern cape province, south africa, participated in face-to-face interviews. data was analysed using inductive thematic analysis; it was supported by the literature review and by constructivist theory. findings revealed that the participants’ lack of adequate life orientation content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge has an impact on their teaching praxis. we found that challenges such as the lack of training in implementing group investigation prevent them from participating in such practice. it is therefore recommended that the department of basic education develop strategic plans and training sessions to promote the use of group investigation as a school-based professional development initiative. further research on group investigation to benefit in-service life orientation teachers may pave the way towards the establishment of professional collaboration as a sustainable practice among them. keywords: life orientation teachers, cooperative learning, group investigation, teaching approach, secondary schools, subject content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge 48 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 introduction we derived this article from a more comprehensive study that investigated the pedagogical content knowledge and skills of life orientation (lo) teachers in the northern cape province of south africa. the purpose of this paper is to answer the question: • what pedagogical lo content knowledge and skills should secondary teachers have in planning group investigation as a cooperative teaching and learning approach? internationally, there is a growing focus on the command of content required for successful teaching. noting that the literature on the subject repeatedly offers that of inexperienced teachers we characterise an effective teacher's knowledge as being more connected and integrated (see krauss et al., 2008). shulman (1986) and kleickmann et al., (2013) have asserted that whenever a teacher's knowledge can be identified, this will enhance successful teaching and learning strategies and positive learning outcomes. this means that teachers need to be equipped with various kinds of knowledge about teaching and learning. shulman (1986) distinguished between subject content knowledge (sck), pedagogical content knowledge (pck), and general pedagogical knowledge (gpk). gpk has been described as "those broad principals and strategies of classroom management and organisation that appear to transcend subject matter" (shulman, 1987:13). it is used with sck and pck. the rationale for introducing lo into the school curriculum as a fundamental subject focused on a theory-driven and skills-oriented approach to teaching the subject, was mainly to develop south african youth into effective and productive citizens with strong values. but the different topics that comprise lo pose challenges to teachers since they have not been trained in all facets of these topics. they include: • social and environmental responsibility; • development of the self in society; • democracy and human rights; • careers and career choices; • study skills; and • physical education (department of basic education, 2011). these topics require teachers to design authentic lessons to which learners can relate and be enabled to acquire the relevant knowledge, skills, and values that promote responsible behaviour (swarts et al., 2019). although the assumption is that everybody can teach this subject, teachers need to be equipped with the necessary critical, analytical, problem-solving, and technical skills to join the lo community of practice. this is of serious concern because specialisation in the subject is needed along with the confidence to build on effective professional subject knowledge. teachers need to be informed and knowledgeable about the broad spectrum of different topics covered by this subject area. since their knowledge, seherrie & mawela: life orientation teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge . . . 49 competencies, and skills are limited this necessarily prevents the successful implementation of effective teaching. in a study by hartell et al. (2013), their findings revealed that teachers did not have sufficient knowledge and skills to implement the lo curriculum effectively. they identified insufficient knowledge of subject matter and inadequate skills along with uncertainty and disregard for the subject framework principles established by the department of education in 2008. similarly, diale (2016) indicated that although teachers were expected to teach lo as a subject, they had not received the training. as a result, teachers experienced various challenges, including those related to their limited understanding of how to effectively implement the lo curriculum and their limited knowledge of the mediating tools and practice skills needed for effective teaching. many teachers were expected to teach the subject without having been trained. rooth (2005) found that teachers were not trained sufficiently to allow them to be considered specialists in lo since they lacked the expertise to teach a subject whose topics vary from physical and health education to career guidance. teachers need on-going training and professional development to update their knowledge, competencies, and skills to deepen their expertise and professionalism (see krutka et al., 2017 and whitworth et al., 2018). lo is a multidisciplinary subject grounded in knowledge domains such as psychology, sociology, political science, human movement, and labour studies, all of which cater to successful integration in other subjects in the school curriculum (geldenhuys et al., 2013). this subject, as with all others, requires a specialist teacher well-versed in both sck and pck. teachers need to have good in-depth subject knowledge to ensure that learners can fully conceptualise and interpret the content (kleickmann et al., 2013); in this way effective teaching and learning occurs in the classroom. a good understanding of the content will assist the lo teacher in responding to learners' queries and challenges and prepare them for life in the 21st century. description of the problem amid the turbulence of curriculum transformation in south africa, teachers were expected to deliver the new curriculum (see nkambule & amsterdam, 2018), in which lo was a new subject. since there were no experienced lo teachers, the alternative was to consider teachers who had no lo subject knowledge and teaching experience. the reason behind teachers being considered as qualified to teach lo was based on their being a teacher in one of the former subjects of guidance, religious studies, or physical education and they were made responsible and accountable for the diverse demands of this multidisciplinary subject (stroebel et al., 2019). these new lo teachers attended a three-day hiv/aids course, or a two-day lo workshop (prinsloo, 2007) in preparation. this was regarded as a quick-fix approach that has made it difficult for teachers as well as district officials to implement the new curriculum, since most teachers did not acquire enough sck to teach the subject (department of basic education, 2011; diale, 2016). these teachers were faced with 50 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 tremendous challenges and, as a result, the quality of education was jeopardised (dada et al., 2009). over the years, many efforts have been made by the south african education system to improve lo teachers’ competence, professional knowledge, self-efficacy, and classroom practice, and to skill them through in-service training (hofmeyr, 2015), but we cannot help but wonder to what extent the teaching of lo has been compromised. here we investigate the knowledge and skills needed by lo teachers when they are implementing group investigation as a cooperative teaching and learning approach. a critical initiative of the department of basic education, as stipulated in the national strategy for learner attainment, states that teachers must adhere to the correct implementation of the curriculum. research indicates that teachers in south african schools are not yet fully capacitated with pck to teach lo effectively. this means that teachers with limited sck of lo (and of the other subjects they teach) find it challenging to respond effectively to learners' concerns and to clarify any misconceptions in their understanding of the subject content. similarly, they are unable to deal with other cognitively challenging learning situations (gama, 2015). as a result, we believe that the gap between the department's theoretical aspirations and the teachers' role as subject experts in lo means that problems in the classroom are difficult, if not impossible, to overcome. our research question is: what pck and skills should secondary lo teachers have to enable them to use group investigation as a cooperative teaching and learning approach? literature review conceptualising sck and pck for lo many scholars have made a distinction between and among content knowledge (ck), pck, and gpk in the examination of teacher knowledge (shulman, 1986, 1987). researchers suggest that such knowledge should be identified since it contributes to effective teaching and learning outcomes. ck can be defined as the knowledge of the specific subject and the subject matter that teachers must teach. shulman (1987, p. 8), described gpk as "those broad principals and strategies of classroom management and organisation that appear to transcend subject matter" and is to be used in conjunction with sck and pck. pkc is described as the compulsory knowledge needed to make the subject matter accessible to learners and serves as the "category most likely to distinguish the understanding of the content specialist from that of a pedagogue." teachers' subject content knowledge teachers of the 21st century must possess good in-depth subject knowledge to respond to learners' needs and challenges. sck is the acquired and developed knowledge that a teacher has within their field of specialisation. significantly so, teachers’ knowledge of the subject matter is at the heart of professional competence (ballet al., 2008). shulman (1986, pp. 9–10) seherrie & mawela: life orientation teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge . . . 51 contended that the teacher "must not only understand that something is so, but the teacher must further understand why it is so." teachers should have knowledge about contemporary theories of teaching and learning as well as different evidence-based teaching practices and their implementation in class (abramczyk & jurkowski, 2020). with limited sck of the subjects they teach, teachers will find it difficult to effectively respond to learners' concerns and clarify any misconceptions in their understanding of the subject content and deal with cognitively challenging learning situations (gama, 2015; hill et al., 2008) as mentioned above. the constant and marked changes in the contemporary world mean that teachers must develop new competencies and skills to adequately respond to the ever-increasing demands of the 21st century that relate to the tasks they must perform (barrios, 2021). teachers must understand the content that needs to be taught if they are to conceptualise or interpret it thoroughly and be in a position to implement it according to policy. muller and hoadley (2019) reported that the current curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) represents a performance-based curriculum that is highly prescriptive regarding the subject content to be covered, as well as the sequencing and pace of coverage. bertram et al., (2021) therefore suggested that such an approach results in teachers focusing on content coverage instead of helping learners to understand the content. teachers play a crucial role in a changing society and this calls for their multidimensional role to include teaching, demonstrating, guiding, facilitating, and initiating learning communities (zhu & wang, 2014). this means that today's teachers should have the ability to broaden the scope and depth of learners' understanding in constructing knowledge in a socially constructed environment (kleickmann et al., 2013; krauss et al., 2008). however, as previously indicated, subjects such as lo are allocated to teachers who have no sck and this allocation is based on the need to fill up the timetable (mosia, 2011); this is of great concern. to implement cooperative learning effectively the complex interplay of factors such as the teacher's knowledge of its procedures, curriculum alignment, and school policy (ghaith, 2018) needs to be taken into account. the importance of life orientation teachers’ subject knowledge since the south african education system has changed from a teacher-oriented approach to a learner-centred one, it has become important that teachers be capable of applying various teaching strategies. providing teachers with the knowledge to organise quality instruction that helps learners to achieve their full potential and sustaining this effort is a challenge to education systems worldwide (neumann et al., 2019); teachers must be given the necessary skills and competencies to fulfil this task (slavin, 2014). however, moving teachers from one learning area to another, to fulfil school placement needs compromises the teaching and learning process (stroebel et al., 2019). lo teachers need to have a well-developed pck that includes a broad repertoire of teaching approaches. one such innovative approach is cooperative learning that could assist in ensuring effective teaching and learning (van wyk, 2012, 2019). we argue that teachers’ subject knowledge is a prerequisite because the lo curriculum is composed of various topics drawn from other domains, but in addition to this, 52 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 teaching skills and competencies are vital to implement the curriculum effectively. we do not claim that teachers are the sole source of knowledge, but they are required to assist, facilitate, and guide learners with interaction and participation, problem-solving, and the interpretation of information (johnson & johnson, 2018). current research on teachers’ pck and skills has indicated that teachers lack sufficient knowledge and skills to implement the lo curriculum in the classroom not only because of a lack of training and a lack of subject matter knowledge but also because of uncertainty (diale, 2016; hartell et al., 2013; swarts et al., 2019). this means that little information is available on lo teachers’ pck and even less on their skills in using a group investigation cooperative learning approach. teachers' pedagogical content knowledge teachers' pck has been conceptualised in different ways. some researchers see pck as an innovative process in which teachers develop new ideas and repertoires for teaching a topic (hashweh, 2013), while others see it as an integrative process in which teachers apply their pck to new situations (aydin et al., 2015). pck kicks in when teachers create new knowledge in the sense of an intervention of a new instructional strategy. the teacher must develop new insights related to the new topic to understand previously unknown student learning difficulties and integrate their understanding of previous knowledge related to the topic in their teaching (chan & yung. 2018). furthermore, pck is an umbrella term for teaching strategies or methodologies, curriculum, and learning support material that the teacher uses to deliver content to learners (kleickmann et al., 2013). to break it down, pck, therefore, integrates content and pedagogy and demonstrates an understanding of how to translate subject matter knowledge into a classroom that has learners from diverse backgrounds and with different levels of ability (shulman, 1987). it is incumbent on every teacher to be equipped with pck to teach the subject content so that it can enable learners to develop a clear understanding of the new information. pillay (2012) concurred that knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes are essential attributes for a successful lo teacher who is not only a teacher of the subject but also one who possesses the ability to engage in several diverse roles in the school community. as alluded to earlier, pck also includes having and using innovative teaching strategies and approaches to accommodate learners in a diverse teaching setting (kleickmann et al., 2013). to sum up, teachers must be abreast of the subject's content to be effective and proficient in curriculum delivery and equipped to implement an innovative strategy such as a group investigation. however, samuels (2012) expressed the same opinion as gama (2015) about how limited some teachers’ knowledge is and suggested that many teachers were not sufficiently trained to teach the lo content and that this has resulted in a less effective implementation of the lo curriculum. seherrie & mawela: life orientation teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge . . . 53 implementing group investigation in general as a cooperative learning strategy group investigation, as a cooperative learning strategy, enables learners to become interactive in the classroom, and leads to positive interdependence and individual responsibility during social interaction in group work (ahsanah, 2015). group investigation, as a technique, should be implemented with a set of guidelines, as illustrated in figure 1 below. figure 1 implementing group investigation to ensure that group work is correctly and successfully implemented, teachers must continually practise cooperative learning procedures with their learners. group member roles should be stipulated, evident, and assessable so that the teacher can intervene appropriately in a helping and encouraging manner (masoabi, 2015). however, interconnectedness can be established only if the group members have common goals, information is shared among them, and members of the group are rewarded jointly (van wyk, 2012). the teacher's primary role is to facilitate the learners' growing awareness of what interests them most about a topic and what they want to investigate. in stage 1, learners form groups to work collaboratively on the same topic. tran (2013) asserted that optimal interaction relies on the size of the group in which learners will cooperate in their learning tasks. during stage 2, learners plan what they want to investigate cooperatively and develop their research questions related to their chosen sub-topics. the teacher moves among the groups and encourages learners to be more helpful. moving from group to group gives the teacher a chance to see if any members of groups are having difficulty cooperating. however, the teacher may need to intervene to strike a balance between the heterogeneity of the group and the interest of the learners (sharan, 2010). group investigation step1: identifying the topic and organising learners into groups step 2: planning the learning task and assignments step 3: gathering information during class step 4: group work while analysing and evaluating information step 5: presenting the final group report step 6: assessing the various groups’ presentations 54 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 at the third stage, each group carries out the plans for their assigned work, gathering the relevant information from a variety of sources. thereafter, at stage 4 students apply their skills through analysis, synthesis, and evaluation to create new knowledge and to summarise their findings. the groups decide which of their findings to share with the class and how to present them. the teacher then organises and coordinates the groups' plans for their presentation (sharan, 2010). in this way teachers integrate the teaching of content with innovative methodology (kahn & nyamupangedengu, 2022). at the fifth stage, the groups are invited to present their findings to the class with members of other groups listening and evaluating. at the end of each presentation, the teacher leads a short discussion and the audience comments on the presentation (sharan, 2010). at the final stage, the achievement of each learner and the group is assessed. as antagonists for implementing group investigation as a cooperative approach, baloche and brody (2017), highlighted issues that might be problematic in schools such as efficacy, theoretical relevance, and policy support. aim and research question in this study, we aimed to explore lo teachers’ pck and skills when they are implementing a group investigation cooperative learning approach. the research question is: “what pedagogical life orientation content knowledge and skills should secondary teachers have in planning group investigation as a cooperative teaching and learning approach?” theoretical framework this study is underpinned by constructivist learning theory (vygotsky, 1978, and piaget, 1896–1980), along with a number of learning theories that contributed valuable ideas to help inform it. social constructivism posits that knowledge is constructed through negotiated social interactions based on reflection, discussion, and explanation (vygotsky, 1978); reality and truth are subjectively constructed in a social environment (nieuwenhuis, 2007). the teaching and learning strategies involved in group work offer learners the possibility of democratic participation in socio-environmental issues in their lived environment. vygotsky emphasised social interaction and collaboration in the classroom and stated that such a society (in this case, a school) plays a vital part in understanding reality as happens in cooperative learner-centred teaching. piaget (1973), through his theory of constructivism that covers learning theories, teaching methods, and education reform, maintained that learners generate knowledge and skills from experiences. the emphasis for lo moves towards the how and why instead of what is taught in the classroom (nel, 2014). against this conceptual and theoretical framework, we go on to explain the research methodology. seherrie & mawela: life orientation teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge . . . 55 methodology the research design this investigation employed a qualitative-phenomenological research design so data on the everyday situations of the participants was collected (maree, 2016). our intention was to gain an in-depth understanding of, and insight into, teachers' responses on questions related to how they used their sck and pck to implement group investigation in their lo lessons. population and sampling this study focused on seven selected secondary schools in the pixley ka seme district of the northern cape province, south africa. the purposive sampling of seven secondary school lo teachers (three male and four female) resulted in an in-depth analysis of their experience, expertise, and knowledge as related to the central issues of our study (nieuwenhuis, 2007). participants were in the age group of 24 to 50. one teacher had one year of experience, two teachers had between seven and eight years, and four had more than eight years of teaching experience in grades 10 to 12. data collection procedure we conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews over a period of three months. face-toface interviews with the seven lo teachers were conducted at the district office according to the availability of each participant. interviews, that ranged between 30 and 45 minutes, were guided by an interview schedule consisting of a series of open-ended questions. teachers were required to motivate their answers using narratives. the questions were aimed at establishing the lo teachers' teaching praxis, particularly which aspects of sck and pck they felt they needed in a cooperative teaching and learning situation (see marshall & rossman, 2006). each interview was used to determine the teacher’s perceptions of their sck and their pck and how they apply both in their classrooms; their view of their training on cooperative learning and specifically group investigation; and the value of cooperative learning and the challenges they experience with it in the teaching of lo. the nature of the questions provided an opportunity for elaboration by participants on issues raised during the interviews. data analysis following glaser and strauss (1967), we employed thematic analysis to analyse this qualitative data inductively based on categories and sub-categories that emerged as the data was being analysed. independent researchers transcribed the interview data, then coded it manually and condensed it into meaningful units (see miles et al., 2014). themes were generated based on the objectives we sought to achieve. dependability was assured through having two researchers working independently and then analysing the data together, through 56 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 critical discussion, and arriving at consensus. we voice-recorded the interviews and discussed these recordings with the participants to complete an audit trail. trustworthiness this was ensured through our giving a complete explanation of the research to participants along with the context of the research. credibility was also ensured through engagement with the research participants in the field (see lincoln & guba, 2000). after the data was transcribed and analysed, it was returned to the participants for member checking so that they could scrutinise it and elaborate on it if they felt this to be necessary. all responded that they were satisfied with the analysed data. any form of bias that could influence the findings of this study was attended to. ethical considerations these involved applying for and being granted ethical clearance from the university of south africa (unisa) and having the ethics committee approve the research. 1 the northern cape department of education granted permission to conduct the study at the selected schools. informed consent was obtained from the participants, and tenets of confidentiality and anonymity were adhered to. findings our study aimed to determine the skills and pck of seven secondary lo teachers in planning group investigation as a cooperative teaching and learning approach. we discuss the findings according to the themes that emerged from the analysis: teachers' sck, pck, and training in implementing cooperative learning in the lo classroom. subject content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge this theme reveals the commitment of lo teachers towards their professional development and the improvement of learner performance. the participants illustrated that their purpose in a classroom is to implement important subject and pedagogical knowledge for the effective teaching and learning of lo. teachers expressed themselves as follows. it is not just anyone who can teach the subject, although people assume that. when you understand the method, you can teach . . . and you are on top of the content (know the content well). (veliwe) once you love teaching, it is easy to integrate pedagogical knowledge into your daily teaching. you must understand how to apply group investigation to be successful. (monti) 1 reference number: 2019/11/13/41003276/08/am seherrie & mawela: life orientation teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge . . . 57 i think my understanding about group investigation is broad enough to teach it correctly. i am in a better position to help other teachers as we normally do at our school because i am on a higher level regarding my knowledge of the subject. (umathi) these statements confirm that these three teachers are aware of the need to attain an in-depth understanding of subject knowledge. they acknowledged that they have sufficient subject knowledge, and they are well informed about the lo content. the subject matter is of such a nature that one teacher feels capable of helping other teachers. one can also deduce from these extracts that teachers need to be competent and skilful with a sound understanding of lo that incorporates sck and pck. veliwe regards content knowledge as extensive knowledge (broader and deeper knowledge) that they obtained during their years of study and during the experience gained from teaching. . . . teacher [content] knowledge is extensive subject knowledge, and teacher pedagogical knowledge is the relationship between knowledge of teaching and subject knowledge . . . teacher knowledge is the knowledge you have learned at the college or university, experiences during practice teaching, and a real classroom environment. the pedagogy refers to the day-to-day management of the subject content with interaction with the learners . . . also, how you teach and your way of instruction to the learners. richi referred specifically to skills and capabilities that lo teachers should acquire and develop. teacher [content] knowledge . . . can be the different skills and capabilities you as a teacher have. teacher pedagogical knowledge refers to the specialised knowledge you developed during the years of study, training, workshops on how to teach in the classroom. monwabi indicated that content knowledge was acquired during his studies and that over the years he has developed this in conjunction with pedagogy. he realises the importance of assisting learners in developing an understanding of the content so that it can be applied to their lives. he said, [you] demonstrate teacher knowledge when you convey information to learners. it is the theory you learnt during your studies and the experience you have gained over the years. pedagogical knowledge [is] how to make information understandable to learners, the assessment they will do, and how learners must show an understanding about the content they learnt. the above responses reflect the teachers' conceptual understanding of sck and pck. it remains essential for teachers to have an in-depth understanding of the content knowledge in order to teach the subject matter effectively so as to enable learners to develop a clear understanding of the new information and be able to apply it to their lives. 58 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 training in implementing group investigation as a cooperative learning approach umathi reported on the value of group investigation thus: i see group investigation as a progressive teaching approach in a sense that it stimulates learners and everyone in the group, also those who are just listening and watching to what is presented by the different groups. however, it is essential for teachers to be trained in this type of teaching approach. teachers reported that although the essence of training, especially in this case, is to up-skill teachers on cooperative learning methods, it also aims to broaden their understanding and professional competence and skills so that they might be an effective resource for others in the lo classroom. phakama said, you must at all-time attend training sessions. never miss out. it empowers you, keeps you updated, and you learn new things every time. teachers acknowledged the importance of training and professional development in preparing them to implement an innovative teaching method. for veliwe, the preparation of group investigation needs thorough planning. you have so much confidence in yourself, and you are better prepared to work with learners . . . when i do proper planning, learners immediately know how to do their tasks. the above extracts indicate that teachers have positive perceptions of group investigation as a cooperative teaching-learning approach, but it also means that training is needed in order for this learner-centred approach to be effectively implemented. veliwe acknowledged that “group investigation requires thorough planning” and that this paves the way for learners to know exactly what is expected from them. training to perform and execute effective teaching forms an important way of assisting teachers to acquire the necessary skills, knowledge, and capabilities to become productive and competent contributors to the work environment. however, some teachers had different views about their training. petra said, one other thing to say, we were trained on cooperative learning but not on group investigation, to be specific. when you hear cooperative learning, you think about group work. for richi, it is important to mention that i have never received any formal training in group investigation so that you understand my background. i read many sources about cooperative learning, and because of the projects, i found group investigation the most proper to assist learners in research and assignments [and] this is how i try to keep myself updated and make planning for myself easier. seherrie & mawela: life orientation teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge . . . 59 it seems that even though some of the participants had not undergone training specifically on group investigation, their experience and self-study gave them insight into cooperative learning techniques. richi raised three major issues facing lo: training; group investigation (cooperative learning); and planning. for all learners with their diverse learning styles to be catered for, teachers have to be mindful to ensure that their teaching approaches are always learnercentred, innovative, and focussed on not only “guiding and preparing learners to respond appropriately to life’s responsibilities and opportunities” (department of basic education, 2011, p. 8) but also ensuring that learners develop the necessary skills and competencies for the 21st century. discussion of the findings we set out to explore the pck and skills that secondary teachers of lo should have in planning group investigation as a cooperative teaching and learning approach. subject knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge of life orientation teachers this study established that subject knowledge and pck are the acquired and developed knowledges that a teacher possesses and that forms the cornerstones of effective teaching and learning within their field of specialisation. confidence in the subject content and how to teach it was highlighted by teachers, but it was found that some teachers were not fully conversant with the subject matter and did not have adequate pck, so they lacked sufficient knowledge to teach the subject effectively. this statement corroborates the assertion of neumann et al. (2019) that it is quite difficult for teachers to acquire and constantly develop their knowledge in order to ensure organised quality instruction. what must be considered is that teacher sck is at the heart of professional competence (hill et al., 2008) and needs constant development. it is evident from the literature (see mosia, 2011) that any teacher who wants to teach lo has not only to become knowledgeable about the subject matter but must acquire in-depth sck. most of the teachers in this study were confident in their knowledge of the lo content and also in their competency and skill in the teaching methods employed, which is in line with shulman’s (1986, p. 7) point that the teacher "must not only understand that something is so, but the teacher must further understand why it is so." teachers who have not been trained to teach lo assume that they could teach the subject at the same level as those who have been trained. this assumption has been refuted; teachers with limited sck of the subjects they teach will find it challenging to respond to learners' concerns effectively and will be unable to clarify any misconceptions in their understanding of the subject (swarts et al., 2019). another finding revealed teachers' perceptions of their understanding of teacher knowledge that incorporates sck and pck. we deduced that teachers have a reasonable interpretation of the conceptualisation of both, but the application thereof remains a challenge. we argue that it is not enough to understand these concepts and teachers must have in-depth knowledge and 60 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 practical experience of the subject matter of what they teach along with pck. this finding aligns with that of kleickmann et al. (2013) who asserted that every teacher must acquire and be equipped with pck to teach the subject matter in such a way that it enables learners to develop a clear understanding of the new information. johnson and johnson (2018) supported this assertion in stating that the importance of a teacher, not only as the source of knowledge, but as a guide and facilitator is that they be able to assist learners to develop deeper learning. shulman (1986) suggested that teachers of all subjects, and in this study, lo in particular, should be able to present the content of their subject appropriately and should be conscious of typical misconceptions of students and regarded this as an essential precondition for the development of pck. in this study, some lo teachers were unable to demonstrate well-developed pedagogical knowledge that implies knowledge about what a task can contribute to the students’ successful construction of knowledge. shulman (1986) contended that pck also includes an understanding of what makes the learning of specific topics easy or difficult. he further postulated that students of different ages and backgrounds bring different conceptions and preconceptions with them to the learning of those most frequently taught topics and lessons, so teachers need to know strategies that address the understandings of learners. training in implementing group investigation as a cooperative learning approach findings revealed that four of the participating teachers had not received training in group investigation as a teaching approach. all the teachers had undergone formal training in cooperative learning in general, and thus had some understanding of this technique that includes group work, but they lacked specific training in group investigation as a teaching approach. the reviewed literature suggested that many teachers who were required to teach lo had not been sufficiently trained to teach its content and thus had not developed appropriate teaching methods. this resulted in a less confident teacher delivering the lo curriculum (samuels, 2012). this finding is congruent with that of muller and hoadley (2019) who argued that not being knowledgeable about the subject matter may lead to a superficial covering of curriculum content in relation to the prescriptive nature of caps. however, to effect a good teaching and learning process and respond to the needs of the learners, the teacher should employ a variety of teaching strategies and deliver the subject matter in a meaningful manner (kleickmann et al., 2013). we argue that training also contributes to teachers' professional development, and this aligns with rooth’s (2005), postulation that as long as teachers are not professionally qualified in the subject, quality teaching will never be realised. therefore, teachers should be up skilled in their lo pck when they plan to use group investigation as a cooperative teaching and learning approach so that content coverage does not supersede learner understanding of the content (see bertram et al., 2021). diale (2016) reported that many teachers were expected to teach lo as a subject without any training and that this has resulted in a variety of challenges that includes their limited knowledge of the mediating tools and practice skills needed for effective teaching. however, although some teachers lacked training in cooperative learning, they were optimistic in their seherrie & mawela: life orientation teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge . . . 61 belief that group investigation as a learner-centred teaching approach during which learners create their own understanding and knowledge that can then be applied to their lives, is very useful. the lack of training has not prevented them from employing innovative strategies like this. conclusion and recommendations we examined secondary teachers' sck and pck in planning to use group investigation as a cooperative teaching approach in the teaching of lo. for teachers to be regarded as competent to effectively implement the lo curriculum, they ought to have an in-depth understanding of sck and pck. results from this qualitative-phenomenological study revealed that in lo teaching pck was conceptualised but not operationalised in a cooperative learning framework that could successfully employ group investigation. a result of great significance is the fact that the pck of a teacher, but not content knowledge per se contributes substantially to the learning development of learners. therefore, it is worth investing in teacher training of lo teachers, especially with respect to pck, based on a sound foundation of sck. given these challenges, we recommend that lo teachers should be trained to make a paradigm shift from the traditional teaching approach to a learner-centred one that deploys different teaching and learning approaches such as cooperative learning. a developmental training programme on group investigation as a cooperative teaching and learning approach should the implemented for lo teachers to assist them in balancing the different cooperative learning approaches. equipping lo teachers with further innovative teaching strategies will assist them in implementing a learner-participatory approach that could enhance learners' performance in the lo classroom and ensure that the lo knowledge and skills can be applied to their lives. limitations only a small sample of secondary teachers' praxis on the sck and pck in planning group investigation as a cooperative teaching approach was examined in this study. for further research, a participatory action research study could be employed to obtain first-hand experience and insight into how learners experience this teaching approach in the lo classroom. acknowledgments acknowledgment is given to the lo teachers who voluntarily participated in this research study. 62 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 references abramczyk, a., & jurkowski, s. 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(2014). key competencies and characteristics for innovative teaching among secondary school teachers: a mixed-methods research. asia pacific educational review, 15(2), 299–311. microsoft word c8900 full issue 12dec.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 89, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i89a11 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x comment on yunus ballim’s “the place of teaching, learning and student development in a framework of academic freedom: attending to the negative freedoms of our students” adam cooper equitable education and economies, human sciences research council, south africa chair for youth unemployment, employability and empowerment, nelson mandela university, gqeberha, south africa acooper@hsrc.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0003-3605-2032 ntimi mtawa higher education and human development research group, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa department of educational foundations management & life long learning, school of education, university of dar es salaam, tanzania mntimi@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8099-8998 (received: 16 november 2022; accepted: 29 november 2022) abstract in this commentary, we engage with yunus ballim’s article in this issue that explores how academic freedom can enhance teaching, learning, and institutional culture in south african universities. ballim uses the concept of negative freedom to show how the institutional culture and everyday practices of universities can play a vital role in shaping students’ learning and development. negative freedom is the degree to which an external power interferes or constrains the choices that people have, limiting the area of action in which they are free to be or do what they want. this creative approach to the issue of academic freedom takes the debate beyond the freedom to choose what is taught or researched at universities and the relationship between universities and the state. we call for further exploration into how student agency is conceptualised from this perspective, questioning how universitysociety relations intersect with forms of academic freedom. keywords: academic freedom, negative freedom, institutional culture, students 202 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 introduction yunus ballim’s article, based on his 2021 t.b. davie lecture, focuses on how academic freedom can enhance teaching, learning, and institutional culture in south african universities. he uses the concept of negative freedom to argue that the institutional culture and everyday practices of universities can shape the kinds of education students receive and, potentially, enhance their learning, development, and humanity. we appreciate this creative approach to the concept of academic freedom that moves beyond classic understandings of the term. we also call for further exploration into how student agency is conceptualised from this perspective, questioning how university-society relations intersect with forms of academic freedom. ballim’s article, based on his lecture, hints that debates on academic freedom should move beyond deliberations on external interference to focus on promoting academic freedom “as value” expressed through teaching and learning, institutional culture, and its effects on student development. this approach to academic freedom moves beyond classic understandings of the term that were contested in south africa during apartheid, when some liberal universities demanded the freedom to choose what was taught, who should teach, and who should attend their institutions. the classic perspective perceives academic freedom as being similar to a universal human right, like freedom of speech (du toit, 2001; hall, 2006. ballim “pause[s] briefly at the shrine” to pay homage to t.b. davie and other defenders of university autonomy who advocated for the classic view of academic freedom. this “pause” should perhaps be somewhat longer since the african university remains plagued by political influence, with critical voices regularly silenced, student agency constrained, and certain campuses militarised. in some african countries vice chancellors are still appointed by a country’s president, raising questions about the independence of institutional leadership and university autonomy. such circumstances make professional autonomy, freedom, and the pursuit of truth difficult. academic freedom, in its classic form, is limited across much of the continent, with political sanctions and restrictions impeding the ability of universities to cultivate and nurture critical voices, intellectual contestation, and agency. this situation requires urgent support from south african scholars. with his focus on democratic south africa, however, ballim appropriately takes a contextual rather than a classic approach to academic freedom, acknowledging that institutions need to be accountable to the societies in which they operate and, to some degree, the state that funds their existence. as owusu-ansah (2015, p. 174) noted, [e]ach community of academic intellectuals and students must wrestle with the problem of what academic freedom in that society at that time actually is and should be. while many articles that adopt the contextual rather than classic perspective consider critically the domains in which the state may be involved acceptably in universities (see for example. du toit, 2001, hall, 2006, and jansen, 2005), ballim’s article does not focus on cooper & mtawa: comment on yunus ballim’s “the place of teaching, learning and . . . “ 203 state intervention. instead, he zones in on the core business of the university, namely teaching, learning, and research over which most scholars agree universities should have substantive autonomy. 1 ballim, drawing on isiah berlin’s (2017) distinction between positive and negative freedoms, shows how these issues may contribute to academic freedom; for berlin, the ‘negative’ sense, is involved in the answer to the question ‘what is the area within which the subject—a person or group of persons—is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons? . . . the second, which i shall call the ‘positive’ sense, is involved in the answer to the question ‘what, or who, is the source of control or interference that can determine someone to do, or be, this rather than that?’ (p. 34) negative freedom is the degree to which an external power interferes or constrains the choices that people have, limiting the area of action in which they are free to be or do what they want to do. on the one hand, the ways in which governments enforced mask-wearing and closed national economies during the covid-19 pandemic are examples of negative freedoms. on the other, positive freedom is the capacity or opportunities that people have to obtain the things they desire, with poverty or addiction, for example, restricting positive freedoms. this may be seen as two sides of the same coin, but berlin argues that the question, “[w]ho governs me?” is logically distinct from “[h]ow far does government interfere with me?” (berlin, 2017, p. 42). the answer to the question “who governs me?” produces answers like “myself, the government, or my circumstances” that pertain to positive freedoms, whereas that which relates to how far and in which ways governments intervene exists in the realm of negative freedoms. applying these concepts, ballim argues that the role of the university should be to use negative freedoms, through the liberating value of education and the institutional culture of the university, to develop students’ capacities as thinking and moral beings. negative freedoms can inculcate a healthy scepticism and the ability to deal critically with dogma, prejudice, and false claims. this is an unusual but creative way of framing the issues since the use of the term negative means that certain things interfere with students—with their thinking, values, and aspirations—but these interferences are not negative in the normative sense. the term negative, in this context, implies that interferences are intended to have a constructive effect on student development. negative freedoms are fostered through three levels of institutional culture, according to ballim. the first is the most basic experience visitors have of the institution, observed in the physical grounds and in the messaging found at the university. the second is the way in 1 helpfully, hall (2006, p. 12) divides university autonomy into “substantive autonomy” and “procedural autonomy”, the former referring to objectives and academic programmes and the latter to the procedures that enable academic programmes to happen. 204 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 which relationships are regulated through formal policies and practices. the final and most important level of institutional culture that may promote negative freedoms is the thick and complex network of unwritten rules that shape how choices are made, norms are maintained, and members of the university community understand their place in the institution. institutional culture may promote negative freedom, with positive effects, through challenging students to think in new ways. however, it may also increase negative freedoms, through, for example, inhibiting changes to the status quo, with damaging effects. ballim offers the example that junior academics are regularly rebuked by more senior colleagues who make statements like “this is not how we do things at [institution x]”, illustrating how institutional patterns of identity-based exclusion and inclusion may operate through the university community’s most mundane comments and mores, thus resisting change. problematically, members of a university community may try to protect negative freedoms, warning newcomers or outsiders not to agitate for change. institutional culture may therefore be used to protect privilege and prevent new practices. ballim rejects these kinds of practices, countering exclusionary tendencies to argue that the effects of negative freedoms “must permeate the walls of the institution so that all can recognise its presence and feel its effects” in shaping choices and behaviours in constructive ways. most importantly, this should be infused with and shape teaching and learning practices at the institution, providing students with the tools to navigate the contexts through which they move in an increasingly ambiguous and confusing world. such pedagogical practices should not tell students how to answer the big existential questions but should endow them with the capacities to answer these for themselves. this will enable “students to engage positively with the unfamiliar while also helping them see the familiar in unfamiliar ways and encourage in them a sceptical attitude towards all received knowledge, including the theories and hypotheses that they receive from their lecturers.” teaching and learning should value knowledge for its own sake, promote the ability to hold opposing ideas or truths simultaneously, celebrate diverse views, and embrace critique as an opportunity to learn and enrich one’s perspective. lecturers should encourage these values, generate dialogue with students, and engage with their diverse cultural and epistemological worlds. students’ education is enhanced when teachers are aware of complexities and differences in the ways of seeing the world. ballim therefore argues that scholars should engage regularly with ideas outside of their disciplinary locations since this practice exposes them to different, unfamiliar concepts and ways of reasoning. while ballim helpfully points out that academics need to embrace student diversity as a fertile source of teaching and learning, the agency of students, in this account, is somewhat reduced to their potential to contribute to diversity. rather than viewing students as passive recipients who bring diversity into the university for academics to use and act upon, students could, alternatively, be thought of as mediants (appadurai, 2015), a concept that highlights the dynamic and fluid relationship between human beings and the worlds they inhabit. instead of thinking of people as acting on their environments in a mechanistic way, mediants partly constitute systems, in this instance forming a bridge between universities and the cooper & mtawa: comment on yunus ballim’s “the place of teaching, learning and . . . “ 205 outside world. students have often used this role to agitate for liberatory social change. while ballim correctly points out that some of the cruder decolonial arguments negated the complexity of, for example, scientific versus traditional knowledge, the #feesmustfall and decolonisation movements in south africa pointed helpfully to untransformed institutional cultures at universities in the post-apartheid era, and curricula and institutions that were experienced as alienating by many students. andre du toit (2001, p. 9) pointed out, many years before these movements, that [p]erhaps efforts towards de-colonisation and de-racialisation are perceived as threats on the assumption that these are likely to be external impositions. let us turn the question around then: is the intellectual colonisation and racialisation of our intelligentsia and academic institutions not a historic reality, and if so are these not threats to academic freedom? . . . it is difficult to realise that the enemy had been within the gates all this time! the 2015 south african student movements protested the lack of transformation at many south african universities, they demanded that universities engage more urgently with the deep structural and systemic injustices that exist in the wider south african society, and they pointed out that redress has been slow. these events demonstrated that students might contribute to enhancing negative forms of academic freedom in ways that transcend their potential role as agents of diversity. in the light of these events, would it be possible to understand negative academic freedom as a co-constructed set of relations, rather than as a benevolent force that institutions may use, somewhat paternalistically, to protect students from harm? negative academic freedom could be understood as the ways in which all members of the university community, students included, work productively towards liberatory forms of knowledge production that enhance both the university and society. for this to happen, negative academic freedom needs to be conceptualised as transcending the university’s institutional culture in exploring the relationship universities have with the wider society. university-student interactions indicate that universities have a porous relationship with society, and we believe that theorising negative academic freedom should include ideas about how the kinds of freedoms universities aspire to promulgate are enhanced and also inhibited by the broader society. universities are not immune to wider societal ideologies that currently include neoliberal managerialism that infiltrates all aspects of life, inhibiting negative academic freedoms. while it might be argued that a separation can be made between “substantive autonomy” and “procedural autonomy” (hall, 2006, p. 12), between the content of academic programmes and the procedures that allow them to happen, the ever-expanding effects of neoliberal ideologies constrain universities, producing a form of techno-rationalism that impinges on the substance of teaching, learning, and research. universities are increasingly characterised as places dominated by competition, funding cutbacks, the need to keep pace with emerging technologies, prestige, and rankings. they are forced to graduate large numbers of students and demonstrate agility in relation to the market. the pressures of managerialism, performativity, and accountability therefore rub off on teaching, learning, and forms of public engagement, shaping the freedoms academics possess to design their own 206 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 teaching, learning, and research agendas. negative forms of academic freedom need to theorise these relationships between universities and society. yunus ballim’s article, therefore, challenges us to examine how academic freedom is fostered through the people who move through the university embracing diverse forms of knowledge and being willing to learn new, unfamiliar things, rather than protecting their scholarly patches from interference. in this way, academic freedom can become embedded in how things are done at the university, transcending policies, practices, and the everyday classroom interactions that form the bedrock of university life. this requires sensibilities that are open to change and newness, understanding the historical contexts in which we live and the ways in which they connect with everyday life. this is an emancipatory form of academic freedom, but it also requires further theorisation of the relationship between the university and what is perceived as lying beyond its walls. references appadurai, a. (2015). mediants, materiality, normativity. public culture, 27(2), 221–237. berlin, i. (2017). two concepts of liberty. in d. miller (ed.), the liberty reader (pp. 33–57). routledge. du toit, a. (2001). revisiting academic freedom in post-apartheid south africa: current issues and challenges. the centre for higher education transformation, rsa. hall, m. (2006). academic freedom and the university: fifty years of debate. south african journal of higher education, 20(3), 8–16. jansen, j. d. (2005). accounting for autonomy: how higher education lost its innocence. south african journal of higher education, 19(2), 214–228. owusu-ansah, c. (2015). academic freedom: its relevance and challenges for public universities in ghana today. journal of education and practice, 6(5), 173–179. journal of education, 2017 issue 68, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za 20 years of higher education curriculum policy in south africa lis lange (received 26 september 2016; accepted 12 february 2017) abstract this article revisits teaching and learning policy in south african higher education from the 1990s to the present, against the grain of the student revolt that started in 2015, in order to focus on curriculum. the paper distinguishes two moments within this period, one developed around the national qualifications framework (nqf) that concentrated on the structure and purpose of qualifications; the other starting around 2003 that focused on the effectiveness and efficiency of teaching and learning without regard for the curriculum. it argues that the overall policy choices made by the democratic government, together with the preoccupation and the reaction of academics to some of the underpinnings of the nqf, did not create the space for an investigation of knowledge and pedagogy in the curriculum that had sufficient range to talk about the transformation of the curriculum beyond the concern about responsiveness to national needs in relation to economic and developmental goals. if south african universities want to address the unrealised aspects of institutional transformation that students have been raising it is necessary to explore more carefully the relationship between curriculum, knowledge and identity. introduction this article was written in the context of two very different events in the history of south african higher education. the first one was the commemoration of 20 years of democracy in the country and its manifestation in higher education. this created the space for the production of a series of reflective and evaluative papers on different aspects of higher education policy development and implementation. a good example of this type of reflective interventions is the volume produced by the council in higher education (che) to mark the 20th anniversary of democracy in the sector, which gathered the writings of a number of specialists on south african higher education. the second event was almost the reverse of the first. it consisted of a student revolt that started at the university of cape town in 32 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 early 2015 and lasted until october/november 2016 as it extended to other universities and reached national scale with its epicentre at the university of the witwatersrand in gauteng. the revolt, which had different phases, took shape around what students regarded as the unfulfilled promises of higher education policy since 1997, with the greatest emphasis on the demand for free higher education (booysen, 2016). the celebration of the second decade of democracy generated reflections on the achievements and failures of the higher education system, and, in particular, provided a status report on south african higher education in the present. its tone was at the same time evaluative and prospective, but it did not provide radical critiques of the shortcomings of existing polices or point out to gaps in policy development or implementation. the conversation stayed mainly within the institutional space whether universities or government, and the voices foregrounded were those of academic specialists in higher education. the second event spilled over from the formal space of the classroom to the open spaces of the university and off the campuses into the streets of the cities in which universities were located. the voices coming to the fore were angry in tone, and the media used to transmit the message was not the academic paper but a variety of representations outside the ‘academic code’ mostly sustained by the use of social media. the student revolt focused initially on the dissonance between a changing student population and universities stuck in a colonial frame both intellectually and aesthetically. it demanded the recognition of black students as black and the decolonisation of the institutional space, of pedagogies and curriculum (godsell and chikane, 2016). soon enough the material reality of the majority of black students gained pride of place in the movement and the call for free education became a rallying cry that galvanised the movement nationally (bond, 2016; pillay, 2016). this article revisits teaching and learning policy in south african higher education from the 1990s to the present, against the grain of the student revolt, in order to focus on curriculum. it investigates what the higher education policy framework had to say about curriculum, and, in particular, curriculum transformation, and with what effect. given the focus of this article, it is essential to provide a working definition of curriculum to make clearer the main argument of the paper. curriculum is the process of engagement of students and staff with knowledge, behaviour and identity in different disciplinary contexts. here knowledge refers to the specialist professional or disciplinary knowledge that universities offer in a variety of combinations. it includes conflicting traditions, research lange: 20 years of higher education curriculum policy. . . 33 approaches, notions of method, focus, boundaries, etcetera, and more than anything else, contains the rules of making knowledge and sense in that particular discipline (barnett and coate, 2005). with this definition as scaffolding, my argument is that during the early part of the period under review higher education policy was more interested in the exoskeleton of the curriculum, that is, the structure and purpose of qualifications as presented in the national qualifications framework (nqf) than in the actual curriculum. after the first decade of democracy, in the context of poor system throughput at undergraduate level, the preoccupation with teaching and learning policy moved to focus on the efficiency of teaching and learning, leaving out once again the engagement with knowledge from the agenda of work. it is important to note that neither the che publication on the first decade of democracy (che, 2004), nor the twin volume celebrating the second decade (che, 2016) indicate any systemic, sectoral or institutional attempt at engaging with the transformation of higher education curriculum. the paper concludes by arguing that the nature of the political settlement together with a trend to global isomorphism (ozga and lingard, 2007; singh, 2011) in policy resulted in a particular choice of policy goals and priorities that did not encourage direct engagement with curriculum and pedagogy. this, in a context of deeply engrained institutional cultures, allowed for the continuation of largely unexamined curriculum and pedagogy at institutional level. this does not mean that for 20 years the curriculum has been completely beyond the horizon of research or preoccupation in the higher education system in south africa. on the contrary, issues of knowledge and curriculum have appeared in the context of the academic development movement, in the debate about mode one and mode two knowledge, and in the fleeting discussions about the africanisation of the curriculum. in 2008 the report of the ministerial committee on transformation and social cohesion and the elimination of discrimination in public higher education institutions (known as the soudien report), the work of which stemmed from the minister’s preoccupation with failed (or lack of) transformation at institutional level, raised the importance of curriculum transformation: it could be argued, given that the primary function of higher education is the production and transmission of knowledge, that epistemological transformation is at the heart of the 34 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 transformation agenda. and at the centre of epistemological transformation is curriculum reform – a reorientation away from the apartheid knowledge system, in which curriculum was used as a tool of exclusion, to a democratic curriculum that is inclusive of all human thought. (department of education (doe), 2008: p.90) yet, i think it important to understand and to accept that even after the soudien report, with exceptions already mentioned, there has been no serious engagement at institutional level with knowledge as epistemology, with knowledge as different frames of understanding, with knowledge as a necessary critique of knowledge, and with knowledge as creator of identity. it is my contention that the overall policy choices made by the democratic government, together with the preoccupation and the reaction of academics to some of the underpinnings of the nqf, did not create the space for any investigation of knowledge and pedagogy in the curriculum that had sufficient range to talk about the transformation of the curriculum beyond the concern about responsiveness to national needs in relation to economic and developmental goals. this inevitably created an epistemological vicious circle in which lack of examination of curricula supported a lack of examination of institutional cultures, especially in relation to academic and student identity. if south african universities are to get anywhere in terms of addressing the unrealised aspects of institutional transformation that students and some staff are raising (booysen, 2016; nyamnjoh, 2016; mbembe, 2015) it is necessary to explore more carefully the relationship between curriculum, knowledge and identity as currently they are being defined and see where universities stand in relation to these. this article is organised based on a periodisation of policymaking in south africa that was developed in 2014 with the objective to analyse governance and management in south african higher education between 1994 and 2014. the periodisation uses four analytical categories to examine any given period at system level. these are: focus, policy, instruments, and governance structure. focus refers to the predominant object and purpose of a policy. policy itself refers to the actual legislation or policy document that shapes the chosen priority. instruments refers to the tools developed or established by the state for the purpose of policy implementation. finally, governance refers to the structure responsible for the implementation of a specific policy that sits at the top of the accountability chain. this article will not make use of all of lange: 20 years of higher education curriculum policy. . . 35 these elements in the analysis, but it is important to understand what underpins the proposed periodisation (lange & luescher, 2016). this article is organised into three sections and a conclusion. the first section covers the period 1990s–2001 and looks mostly at the implementation of the nqf, its impact on curriculum and the debates about knowledge that took place at the time. the second section focuses on the impact that the preoccupation with teaching and learning had on the debate about curriculum and it provides a detailed analysis of the che 2013 proposal for a flexible curriculum. the third section looks at the work of the higher education quality committee (heqc) (2001–2015) as a crucial instrument in the implementation of a national system of quality assurance, and focuses especially on the role of the heqc in relation to curriculum. from the point of view of the periodisation that organises this paper sections 2 and 3 fall within a period of heightened policy implementation and establishment of a strong systems of accountability (lange & luescher, 2016). in the conclusion i interpret some of the questions raised in the first part of the #feesmustfall student movement in relation to the issue of curriculum, knowledge and identity in order to highlight the importance of engaging with these issues if transformation of knowledge and institutional cultures of south african public universities is to have a deeper dimension than the one we have observed up to now. access and democratisation: the ascendancy of the nqf, 1990s–2001 this period has as its main focus access, equity and redress. the policy frames that were produced with a view to addressing these objectives were the report of the national commission on higher education (nche) (1996), white paper 3 (wp3) (1997), the higher education act of 1997 and the south african qualifications authority (saqa) act of 1995 that created the nqf. from the point of view of the policy instruments used at the time, there is no doubt that the nqf itself was a fundamental element in the realisation of notions of democratisation of knowledge and access to higher education institutions (heis). at the level of governance the department of education was responsible for all education in the country including higher education, while the department of labour was responsible for training and skills development outside higher education. 36 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 the evolution of the nqf over the full period under review, and particularly the immediate contestation that erupted between aspects of the nqf’s and the heis’ understanding of knowledge and qualifications, is a good example of the kind of tensions that accompanied the implementation of the nqf. the notion of the nqf itself posed contradictions between global trends and pressures and the local needs and realities of the south african education system (allais, 2012). the democratisation of knowledge that was one of the main objectives of the nqf required, as ensor has aptly put it, the breaking of three sets of boundaries “between education and training, between academic and everyday knowledge, and between different knowledges, subjects or disciplines within the academic domain” (ensor, 2004a: p.340). consistent with this, the initial purpose of the nqf architecture was to achieve outcomes-based qualifications independent from the institutions that delivered them. the organisation of the nqf, based on stakeholder participation in standard setting across 12 domains and first eight and then 10 levels, never quite took place, but it certainly was underpinned by an understanding of knowledge that was not shared by the universities. even if outcomes-based education did not touch higher education the impact of the nqf was definitely felt in the outer form that curriculum had to take (mckenna, 2016). the overall intention of the nqf to democratise education and training was not politically isolated. the main documents framing the future education and training system in south africa – the national education policy investigation (1992); the anc’s ‘a policy document for education and training’ (1994) and the national training board’s national training strategy initiative (1994) – took as their point of departure the impact that the systematic lack of training and education among the working class had on economic development and democratisation. an educational system that had been designed to maintain racialised capitalist accumulation needed to be replaced by its opposite. the white paper on education and training (1995) and, especially, the saqa act (1995) were supposed to bring about this necessary change. warnings about the implications of the suggested policy choices to respond to this problem were voiced as early as 1992 by harold wolpe, who, although understanding that “to educate and to equip the people with the skills to participate in the management of the economy (. . .) has become a matter of particular urgency”, was also concerned that this was leading to “a lange: 20 years of higher education curriculum policy. . . 37 preoccupation with human resource development outside the context of political and economic development strategies” (unterhalter, wolpe and botha, 1992, p.5). as ensor has argued, in all the documents prior to the constitution of the nche “there is the desire to steer south africa through the high-skills high growth path of economic development” (ensor, 2004b: p.180). essential for this to happen was access to higher education for large numbers of young south africans but also the possibility of training, and recognising the knowledge of the working class on the job. the ideal of ‘from sweeper to engineer’ permeated the debate about education and skills development in the country through the first decade of democracy. time was going to demonstrate that wolpe’s concern about political obfuscation was misplaced. this was not a moment of confusion but the setting out of a strategy that was to guide human resource development in the country for the next two decades (bond, 2000; hart, 2010 and 2013; motala & pampallis, 2001; vally & motala, 2014). human capital theory ended up framing education and training policy in south africa (see allais, 2003 and 2012; kraak, 2000 and 2008; motala, vally and spreen, 2010). this choice prevented a direct and serious engagement with the relationship between curriculum and knowledge and displaced the conception of curriculum as process for a focus on outcomes and structure although, as already mentioned, higher education was not subjected to the crudest version of outcomes-based education. it must be noted that far from being a south african problem, the displacement of knowledge for skills and the marketisation of higher education are a global trend studied by specialists in a variety of national settings (see barnett, 1997 and barnett & coate, 2005, and young, 2008 for the uk; mollis, 2003; coraggio and vispo, 2001 for latin america; giroux and giroux, 2004, and brown, 2015 for the usa; mamdani, 2007 for uganda; marginson, 2004a, 2004b for australia, to name but a few. for a broader view see king, marginson and naidoo, 2011). few works show as clearly this trend as the research report done by allais, raffe, sthathdee, wheelahan, and young (2009) for the international labour organisation on the impact and effectiveness of national qualification frameworks in 17 countries (see also allais, 2007). what in later work allais (2014: p.xvii) calls the “intertwining of education and economy”, that is the notion that education can solve social and economic problems such as unemployment, 38 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 this is not the place to expand on the history of the nqf; suffice it to say that political1 tensions both in the state bureaucracy and dissatisfaction with the nqf architecture and functioning accompanied the first decade of democracy including an independent investigation in 2001, the introduction of sub-frameworks in 2008 and a reorganisation of the bureaucracy in 2009. for a sharp and detailed critique of the nqf see allais, 2014. has led to governments in many countries developing policy on qualifications reform, qualifications frameworks and outcomes-based education that were supposed to address issues such as unemployment and poverty. the nqf was the chosen tool in south africa to respond to the government’s commitment to the democratisation of knowledge and the articulation between professional, formative and vocational knowledge. it was designed to respond to the desperate need for skills development among the majority of south africa’s population. the discussion about knowledge generated by the nqf revolved around the structure of knowledge in the professional, formative and vocational bands of the framework and the obstacles and objections to the realisation of the ‘from sweeper to engineer’ dream. underpinning the desire for high growth was an economic model that was as much influenced by globalisation as it was by the terms of the political settlement (bond, 2000). market liberalisation in a neo-liberal cast accompanied the democratisation process, shaping in more ways than one the terms of the debate between training and education. added to this were the tensions between the ministries of education and of labour for the control of the nqf and its complicated architecture. higher education’s rejection of the first version of the nqf led to an independent investigation in 2001 which resulted down the line in the creation of a sub-framework for trades and occupations and in the development of the higher education qualifications sub-framework (heqsf) in 2008.1 the focus of the nche (1996) and the wp (1997) on teaching and learning and on curriculum specifically were shaped by the need to increase south africa’s ability to compete internationally by increasing the number of ‘knowledge workers’ and the concept of lifelong learning that would allow students vertical and horizontal mobility across the nqf. both documents stressed the need for higher education programmes to be responsive to local and regional development challenges including labour market needs. lange: 20 years of higher education curriculum policy. . . 39 as i have argued elsewhere (lange & luescher, 2016), higher education policy during this period was particularly concerned with establishing a diagnosis of the state of the system, identifying values and principles to shape transformation. it is then unsurprising that policies lacked detail about how to implement the proposed solutions. this led to institutions interpreting policy frames by themselves. in the specific case of the introduction of programmes and modularisation there were a variety of institutional responses. in particular, the introduction of programmes as different from qualifications with one or two majors translated into a conceptualisation of knowledge acquisition and ‘transmission’ that had different impacts at different institutions depending on a variety of elements from resources to the characteristics of the student body (ensor, 2004a). this policy did not result in a focus squarely on knowledge and curriculum transformation but rather on a new structure for the curriculum. as mentioned earlier, the policy frame did not impede debate about curriculum and knowledge, and, as it will be seen by the dates of publication, this debate has been more or less constant over two decades but, with few exceptions (development of the foundation and extended programmes), it did not influence policy. the topics of debate during the early period were knowledge, identity and curriculum transformation in africa, introduced by the centre for higher education transformation (cloete, muller, makgoba and ekong, 1997), and the critiques of mode two knowledge presented in the work published by the human sciences research council (kraak,2000). topics of extensive debate were social constructivism, bernstein’s notions of knowledge, the role of language in knowledge acquisition and even at times what/whose knowledge was being prioritised (ensor, 2003; hall, 2009; moore and muller, 1999; muller, davies and morais, 2009; sauvca, 2004; young, 2008). these debates remained more or less within the circle of the academics dedicated to sociology of education and, from the point of view of curriculum transformation, it operated above the disciplines themselves. in this sense the debate did not filter down sufficiently to disciplines other than education. in this sense it can be said that neither did academics lead a discussion about curriculum transformation. the argument in this section is not that a curricular review should have been led by government but that the policy choices made by government allowed for curriculum, as defined here, to remain unexamined. institutions were struggling to modularise curriculum and translate syllabi to nqf speak. the 40 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 access, redress and democratisation sought in the policy were to existing knowledge, behaviour and identity but did not question the fundamental epistemologies and values underpinning this knowledge. as we will see in the next section, policy development entered a new phase from 2001 in which the influence of human capital theory on the country’s education and training policy framework was centred unequivocally on high-skills development. this per force left curriculum and the interrogation of disciplinary knowledge out of the policy equation. throughput and efficiency: the preoccupation with teaching and learning, 2001–2016 as can be seen this period comprises more than a decade and includes the creation of a separate minister and department for higher education and training in 2010. from the perspective of a system level analysis of higher education policy, the period until 2009 was characterised by a strong implementation drive including mergers and incorporations, the creation of tools to aid the realisation of policy objectives and a variety of initiatives to improve what were regarded as higher education inefficiencies and lack of delivery, especially in relation to the required graduates. the second part of the period, 2010–2016, saw an increase on the demands for accountability and reporting to government, the production of a new white paper (2014) and major student protest around higher education fees (lange and luescher, 2016). all of this, as explained below, had a bearing on teaching and learning and therefore on curriculum. bridging the gap: the rediscovery of articulation and transition by the 2000s institutions and the state knew much more about higher education performance through the data generated by the new management information system set up in the higher education branch of the then department of education. a new funding framework and a national system of quality assurance were, together with planning, the acknowledged steering mechanisms of higher education policy. it was the combined effect of these instruments that added one more layer of complexity to the problem of access to higher education. it was not enough to increase the access of black students to higher education (the focus of the first period of policy development) if lange: 20 years of higher education curriculum policy. . . 41 they did not graduate on time or at all. not only was this defeating the goals of the democratisation and redress but it was financially wasteful (scott, yeld and hendricks, 2007). the notion that south african higher education was failing to meet its commitment to access, supported by the publication of the first cohort study of the 2000 student intake, rang alarm bells in both institutions and government. while it is true that the effectiveness of teaching and learning had been already a focus of the academic development movement, the expansion of the higher education system created a problem of both scale and funding. it is important to remember that until the establishment of the teaching development grant most academic development programmes were externally funded or remained on the fringes of heis (walker, 1984; boughey, 2007). it was at this stage that the preoccupation with the effectiveness and efficiency of the higher education system shifted its gaze to teaching and learning to discover that success rates were poor and that extra support was needed for students to be successful in bridging the articulation gap between schooling and higher education. the solution for this conundrum was sought in the domain of teaching and learning where extended programmes were introduced and where improved teaching practices were seen as the answer to the failure of large numbers of students. these interventions dealt with knowledge through structure, that is, a different organisation of the programme (foundation and extended programmes) was designed for those students who were identified as not ready to negotiate the mainstream curriculum. the new structure provided extra scaffolding, especially in the areas of language and academic literacy, in order for students to be in a better position to master successfully university knowledge. once again it was the exoskeleton of the curriculum that received attention. neither the universities nor the department of education engaged with the type and purpose of knowledge embedded in the curriculum, and there was no discussion about the meanings of curriculum as a whole. epistemological access was the fundamental concept around which the effort of the extended programmes was built. this concept had its roots in the academic development movement of the 1980s and its application in subsequent years can be seen as the closest approximation that the heis were going to have to knowledge and the curriculum. from morrow’s (2009) formulation to the many elaborations that followed it (boughey, 2000, 2002, 2008 to cite a few) it seems possible to draw two main conclusions. first, 42 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 it is interesting to note that the report of the ministerial committee on2 transformation and social cohesion and the elimination of discrimination in public higher education institutions, 2008, mentioned in its analysis of the students and the learning experience (chapter 4) the complicated perceptions that extended programmes seemed to have among some students from those who bemoaned the fact that foundation programmes were discontinued to those who find the set up discriminatory. epistemological access is a useful shorthand to describe the articulation gap between, especially, first generation university students, and the tacit assumptions of knowledge made in the ‘mainstream’ university curriculum. second, the acceptance of epistemological access as a problem has resulted in the creation of special programmes offered by special lecturers to ‘special’ students who need extra help to succeed in higher education. once again the focus on curriculum is displaced; this time by a focus on the ‘special’ (disadvantaged) students. this notion moves away from the knowledge2 embedded in the curriculum and focuses on building student capabilities to access that knowledge. ballim (2015) has argued that the very notion of epistemological access seems to be confined to this special environment while the university as institution abdicates its responsibility to “teach properly”, as he puts it, all students. ballim’s critique makes two useful points; first, he is suggesting implicitly that providing epistemological access is the task of the university and not of academic development/extended programmes. put differently, everybody who enters the university has to be initiated into the construction of academic knowledge within specific disciplinary fields. therefore, university education, especially at undergraduate level, is to a very large extent an exercise to make transparent the ‘black box’ of knowledge construction within the disciplines. students thus taught were not only going to be able to make knowledge in those fields but would also acquire the behaviours, practices and identities expected from them as engineers, doctors, historians, etc. second, and no less important in ballim’s argument, is the inversion of the notion of epistemological access as something staff, particularly at historically white universities, need to be helped with in order to understand the variety of ways of knowing and making sense of the world that their students have and which can actually constitute the point of entry for epistemological access to university knowledge instead of its opposite. i will come back to both points later in this article. lange: 20 years of higher education curriculum policy. . . 43 the bull by the horns? the flexible curriculum proposal the report of the che task team on flexible curriculum published in 2013 (che, 2013) was the last attempt at dealing with knowledge and the curriculum from a policy perspective. the report was based on new more reliable cohort data as well as on studies of the impact of different types of extended programmes, augmented or foundation. it argues that: a) it is necessary to create more space in the curriculum in order to support students to negotiate successfully the articulation and transition gaps within the curriculum; and b) that more space is needed for improving the quality of the curriculum itself by providing enriching learning experiences. thus the che proposed to extend the undergraduate degree for another year at level 8 of the heqsf, to allow the re-structuring of the existing curriculum taking into account the obstacles to student progression previously mentioned. while this proposal went a long way in actually addressing some of the most vexing issues about the current structure of the undergraduate curriculum, it fell short of introducing much needed radical change in the manner in which universities look at higher education qualifications in south africa and at the knowledge embedded in the curriculum. the proposal did not engage with knowledge except in the sense of a better scaffolding for teaching existing (accepted) knowledge and did not address the critique of epistemological access raised by ballim. moreover, the proposed curriculum is not for everybody but for the majority who need extra space/time to achieve the expected outcomes. the enticement for the other students is an enhanced curriculum; one that offers supplementary skills that can make graduates more competitive in the labour market and the possibility of being ‘rpl-ed’ for first-year modules (che, 2013). the flexible curriculum proposal reflects the understanding that academic knowledge has a vertical organisation and that scaffolding is needed for the grammars of the different disciplines to make sense to students. at the same time, the proposal leaves untouched again the prickly matter of whose knowledge is presented in the curriculum and how. the notion of the enhanced curriculum, from which the majority of students would benefit, stops before falling into the trap of the skills discourse but nods to added activities that will result in the development of graduate attributes such as critical citizenship and laying the foundations of 44 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 this despite the fact that the report included a thorough analysis of the costing of3 teaching and learning and the impact of low throughput on the dhet budget. postgraduate research (che, 2013). all of this is added to a curriculum that has been restructured around articulation and transitions, without tackling the knowledge underpinning it and the pedagogic possibilities of infusion instead of addition of, for example, critical citizenship. a second problem with the che proposal is that it changes the structure of the undergraduate degree without addressing the problems in the structure of the heqsf, that is, without challenging the status quo sanctioned in 1995 and in 2008. in particular, the proposal does not want to touch the honours degree, that is, the fourth year of study that follows a three-year first degree and that south africa inherited from its british colonial past. the purpose of the honours degree, seen as the first echelon of postgraduate education, is the initiation of students into research in a particular discipline and constitutes what is seen as a necessary articulation with the master’s degree. in this proposal the structure of the nqf trumps engagement with knowledge and prevents the radical review of the undergraduate degree through the introduction of, among other things, the teaching of and carrying out of research at undergraduate level in the longer degree. this option would require confronting the perception that the staff have of undergraduate students and interrogation of the actual purpose of the longer degree. as it turns out this proposal was not accepted by government, apparently based on the costs of implementation. it is my contention that the che3 proposal could have provided an interesting point of departure for a radical rethinking not just of the structure of the degree but also of its curriculum. the role of the heqc in curriculum renewal the heqc is a permanent committee of the che, which was created through the higher education act 1997. according to the act, the responsibilities of the heqc were: to promote quality assurance; to audit the quality assurance mechanisms of heis; to accredit programmes of higher education; and to coordinate and facilitate quality assurance activities with other education and training quality assurers. the heqc was officially launched in 2001 and developed a quality assurance system taking into account international trends lange: 20 years of higher education curriculum policy. . . 45 and practices while seeking to address national objectives and local needs. for the last 15 years the heqc has worked to implement this mandate. in tune with the national objectives of access, equity and redress, one of the heqc’s main preoccupations in its founding moment was to ensure “a quality-driven higher education system that contributes to socio-economic development, social justice and innovative scholarship in south africa” (heqc, 2004: p. 5; lange and singh, 2010). in order to implement this, the heqc deployed the characteristic tools and methodologies of international quality assurance: institutional audits, accreditation of programmes, and a variety of activities that supported the promotion of quality and institutional capacity development for quality assurance. teaching and learning were a fundamental focus of the heqc in all its methodologies (heqc, 2004a; heqc, 2007). the criteria for both institutional audits and programme accreditation gave primacy to teaching and learning. together these criteria looked at the existence of policies, processes and structures that support tasks such as assessment, curriculum design and programme management, or academic governance, but did not specifically address curriculum. the two main objectives of the heqc audit system were to encourage and support institutions to maintain a culture of continuous improvement and to ensure that institutions had internal systems that allowed them to assure the quality of their core functions (heqc, 2007). the main objectives of the accreditation system were to ensure that programmes satisfied minimum standards of provision, to protect students from poor quality programmes and to increase public confidence in higher education programmes and qualifications (heqc, 2004). the heqc conceptualisation of quality implied more than minimum standards; it linked the concept of transformation as an emancipatory socio-political change process with transformation as an individual change process and argued that the “fitness for purpose” of heis depended on them seeing the three core functions (teaching and learning, research and community engagement) as the sites of transformation (heqc, 2008, p.17). the manner in which this was done was left to the institutions for them to exercise their academic freedom. therefore, the concerns of the heqc with ‘fitness of purpose’ and transformation in relation to teaching and learning were generally focused on the responsiveness of heis to national needs and 46 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 did not entail the explicit encouragement of curricular review or the notion of curriculum transformation. the closest the heqc came to look at the curriculum in the first decade of its existence was the conduct of its ‘national reviews’, which were processes of re-accreditation at system level of selected programmes. the review of the mba (2002) and the review of teacher education qualifications (2005 –2007) are cases in point. however, in neither case was the outcome of the reviews a revision of the curricula in these disciplines, a task necessarily left to the academics. it is possible that the overall analyses of these reviews published by the heqc (heqc, 2003 and 2010) could have been used as a point of departure for an interrogation of at least some aspects of the curriculum content and organisation in these fields, but this was not an explicit intention of the heqc. given the possible outcomes of accreditation (accreditation, conditional accreditation which requires the fulfilment of heqc-established conditions, and no accreditation), and the outcomes of national reviews (accreditation, conditional accreditation and withdrawal of accreditation), the attention of institutions would in most cases be on compliance with the minimum standards and not critical engagement with the curriculum. this was beyond the scope and the purpose of quality assurance. the second phase of the quality enhancement project that since 2013 has replaced institutional audits in the che’s approach to quality will now be focusing directly on curriculum. it is still too soon to say what impact this will have on institutions’ practices in relation to curricular review and transformation and how will this sit with the compliance-focused and bureaucratised accreditation system still in operation. whatever happens in the future it is important to understand that quality assurance in whichever incarnation (enhancement or improvement) can encourage institutions to pay attention to a particular issue, but it is not an appropriate tool with which to approach curriculum transformation. this is so not only because of methodological limitations already mentioned but also because curriculum transformation needs to originate in the critical engagement of academics and students with their disciplinary fields and not as the imposition of a national agency. lange: 20 years of higher education curriculum policy. . . 47 conclusion: the curriculum as question, 2015– . . . the policy choices of the last two decades did not create the space for an examination of the curriculum from the point of view of epistemology and identity. if anything, what academics regarded as an assault on the organisation and grammar of academic knowledge during the early unfolding of the nqf reinforced the closing off of academic departments to critique and engagement with that very knowledge. the national quality assurance system was oriented to an unpacked broad notion of transformation (report of the review of the heqc, 2009). this, combined with an understanding of quality as the responsibility of heis and the limitations of the classic quality assurance methodologies, resulted in the heqc having little, if any, impact on a critical engagement with curriculum. the closest the policy frame came to touch the curriculum was when it became clear that formal access to higher education was being jeopardised by the lack of epistemological access. however, as we have seen in this article, the revitalisation of the spirit and experience of the academic development movement in the mid-2000s did not include a full-blown critique of the knowledge being accessed. the focus on teaching and learning, although much more successful in terms of its own objectives – improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the educational process – did not concern itself with curriculum but with teaching and learning practice. it is interesting that only in the most recent proposed revision of the teaching development grant is curriculum reform included as a possible project within the parameters of the reframed university development grant (dhet, 2016). the fleeting moment of deeper reform proposed in the che 2013 report suffered some of the same limitations of its predecessors: functioning within the already problematic conceptualisation of knowledge embedded in the nqf. yet it did come closer to a way out, which was unfortunately not to be. almost 10 years ago the soudien report showed how fossilised institutional cultures and untouched curriculum were obstacles to the transformation of higher education and were alienating black students and black academics. twenty years into south africa’s democracy, the call for the democratisation of the curriculum is coming from them. it is students and black academics who have put the issue of university knowledge on the political horizon. the calls for the decolonisation and the africanisation of the curriculum that were the focus of the first #mustfall movement pointed not only at the content of the curriculum, which they did, strongly, but also, without 48 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 articulating it in these terms, to the curriculum as institution (jansen, 2009; lange, 2012a); that is, the tacit assumptions about knowledge and the identity of the student and of the university that permeates the social fabric of the university as institution and that has, in general, gone unexamined during the last 20 years. the questions about disciplinary knowledge and institutional knowledge raised in different ways by the #mustfall movement at each of the universities involved, puts squarely on the table two problems: the nature of the south african public university in the 21st century, and the identity of students and academics at the university. under the first heading we are faced with issues such as what is the nature of the university in africa today? what does this nature say about the process of knowledge production; the relationship between knowledge and society; knowledge and the state; knowledge and development? these questions are not new; they were raised during the 1960s and 1970s as african universities emerged in newly independent countries. to these questions, it seems, students added issues about academic authority and its origins, the meaning of democracy, as well as about equity inside the university and in the classroom. the fact that the ‘social epistemological’ moment of the student movement was overtaken by the ‘political economic’ moment meant that existing joint initiatives to review the curriculum at different universities have been overshadowed, but they are there; some institutions have established participative processes for this purpose, and new proposals for curricula are emerging. regardless of, or in fact precisely because there is, mounting pressure on the universities on other fronts, it is necessary that institutions engage with the questions put by students. these questions involve institutional culture from the administration to the lecture hall and affect curriculum in terms of purpose and content. under the heading of identity, the student movement has raised in forceful ways the issue of blackness and the perceptions of black students’ identity at the university and especially in the classroom. while notions of intersectionality (miller, 2016) seem to have made this protest rather different from a black consciousness revival, it is the issue of black identity as a ‘collective’ that especially affects the curriculum debate. who are the, mostly, black students that, mostly, white academics teach at these universities? how lange: 20 years of higher education curriculum policy. . . 49 do academics engage students in the pedagogic process in such a way that there is an acknowledgement of the identity of these black students as something that matters educationally? in the 1980s the academic development movement started combating the notion of all students as autonomous, self-sufficient learners in order to open up the space for the access of black students into higher education by providing necessary scaffolding; hence, as we have seen, the notion of epistemological access. this did not mean that because black students did not have white middle class cultural capital they did not have any that could help them negotiate university knowledge. the call ‘look at me i am here’ in the #rhodesmustfall student movement seemed to be asserting precisely that. it appeared as a cry for a fuller recognition of the student as individual whose collective ‘genealogy’ has been one of oppression and subordination. understanding the meaning of this call and searching for ways of responding to it require the interrogation of the pedagogies that are used at the university as much as the question about ‘decolonised’ knowledge requires the interrogation of the curriculum as content. under this second heading, there is one more element that has been hidden throughout the protest and in the ensuing discussions. academic identity has been unspoken except obliquely as it refers to the plight of black academics at historically white universities. yet, academic identity, that which defines an academic as academic, has not really been engaged with. if, as most research suggests (belcher and trowler, 2001; henkel, 2005 and 2007; marginson, 2008), academics identify primarily with their disciplines, and these disciplines are being called into question by the proposed decolonisation of the curriculum, how does this affect academics’ sense of self? does this, supposedly, ‘crisis of identity’ affect equally white and black academics? moreover, the struggle to define what is western, what is global, what is local and how is knowledge constituted, does not seem to be only a ‘white thing’, as suggested by some of the interventions in the decolonisation debate (comaroff & comaroff, 2012; mbembe, 2015; dhawan, 2014). what kind of relationship can be established in the pedagogic environment between academics and students as they confront each other’s search for personal, social and intellectual identity in a new institutional environment? none of these questions can be answered by a new policy framework. it is not the government’s role now to develop a blueprint for the transformation of the curriculum in the same way that it negotiates free education for the poor. this 50 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 is a university responsibility that has to be exercised by all academics and students and that will not be fulfilled very soon as it requires bold self-examination, the unbalance of power and the creation of instances of dialogue and debate to which we are not used. the mere fact that these questions have been raised publicly suggests, as mbembe (2015) put it, that “the age of innocence and complacency is over”. it is the responsibility of institutions, and especially of academics and students, to sustain the moment by making knowledge the permanent object of collective reflection if south african universities are to address the 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(1984). explorations in change: case studies in academic development. bellville: university of the western cape. white paper 3. (1997). a programme for higher education transformation government gazette, no. 18207. wolpe, h. (1992). education and social transformation: problems and dilemmas. in e. unterhalter, h. wolpe and t. botha (eds), apartheid education and popular struggles (1–16). trenton: africa world press. young, m. (2008). bringing knowledge back in. from social constructivism to social realism in the sociology of education. london and new york: routledge. lis lange university of the free state langeml@ufs.ac.za mailto:langeml@ufs.ac.za 58 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 book review – in defence of knowledge young, m. and muller, j. curriculum and the specialization of knowledge. routledge (2016). isbn: 978–1317600411 wayne hugo michael young and joe muller’s curriculum and the specialization of knowledge collects eight years of their co-operative theorising into one volume. the book systematises and rewrites the papers into a satisfying whole that grapples with the current state of curriculum studies and the sociology of education. it contains critique and new moves forward in equal measure. at the heart of the book lies a defence of knowledge as worthwhile in its own terms, and not just any old knowledge, but knowledge that specialises, differentiates, innovates, improves the world, liberates minds, increases life opportunities and equality, produces good citizens, and advances democracy. knowledge provides a win-win scenario – it is both intrinsically wonderful and it results in all sorts of economic, social, political, cultural, and individual goods. the problem is that this magnificent force is hamstrung on two sides – those who wish to stultify knowledge by making it about learning the traditions in an out-of-date way; and those who wish to relativise knowledge into a warm soup where everyone has a valid standpoint that is gratefully slurped by all and sundry. young and muller chart a middle line between traditional knowledge and relativism, holding to specialisation and differentiation as their two guiding lights into a present and future world that valorises knowledge. young and muller are, in essence, updating the radical enlightenment project for a new generation (israel, 2001, 2006, 2011). around three hundred years ago, a massive struggle between traditional religion and the forces of reason played out. we celebrate key philosophers engaged in articulating how reason rather than faith should be at the core of how we live our lives. read through young and muller and you will find references to cassirer, the great historian of the enlightenment and updater of its legacy for the early twentieth century. brandom’s early twenty first century book articulating reasons (2001) also finds its place – but you will have to be attentive, because young and muller are not philosophers – they are sociologists of education. so rather than spinoza, cassirer, and brandom, you will find extended discussions of durkheim and bernstein. rather than intricate discussions about how 180 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 specialisation and differentiation work as concepts you will find how specialisation and differentiation play out in education, work, and society. young and muller chart how knowledge and reason have changed and evolved in the twentieth and the twenty-first century – and their key insight for education is that the change has to do with specialisation and differentiation. to understand and elaborate on specialisation, young and muller turn to durkheim, vygotsky, and bernstein. durkheim showed us how to socialise reason without losing its power. durkheim’s great master was kant (one of the original philosophers of the enlightenment). like kant, he deeply respected reason, but unlike kant he did not want to leave reason either in the mind or in some kind of transcendent space – durkheim embedded reason in social reality. durkheim opened out for the modern age the social realist grounding of specialised knowledge with the key insight that it revolved around the division of labour. as traditional societies became more and more complex, they shifted away from a mechanical type of solidarity where everyone held similar beliefs and learnt similar practices. it became increasingly difficult to deal with evolving complexity in societal development through traditional practices of induction into adult life. education had to start specialising the consciousness and bodies of the young to make sure that they could do different specialisations at higher and higher levels of difficulty. as humanity evolved so education had to keep track, and it did so through specialisation and differentiation. not only did education have to ensure that higher levels of complexity were reached to cope with the massive spurt in economic, scientific, social, and technical development; but also it had to do so in a differentiated way, because there was not enough time to specialise everyone in everything. different learning pathways to different occupations had to be developed that continuously adjusted to increasing skill and knowledge levels. jobs became professions, work became specialised, longer and longer periods of study and induction were needed to induct the young into increasingly differentiated and complex careers that demand expertise and professional judgement. for sociologists of education dedicated to the social justice cause of improving the lot of the disadvantaged, the key issue becomes how education can address inequality. one clear route is to fight for the disadvantaged gaining increased access to, and improved throughput in, specialised and differentiated knowledge. to sidestep or oversimplify this hard ascent through genericising and/or relativising knowledge is to do a disservice to the hugo: review of curriculum and the specialization of knowledge. . . 181 disadvantaged and to reduce the powers education has. generic forms of knowledge have their uses and advantages, but to substitute generic for specialised is like trying to deal with the world’s assorted illnesses with aspirin. it might ease the pain but will not get to the specifics of the issue. relativised knowledge can be useful as both entry point and contextual relevance, but to substitute relativism for differentiation is like trying to deal with the world’s increasing complexity by holding hands and listening to everyone’s standpoint. it’s a start but the real work lies in tackling a complex problem using multiple skill sets of different people working together – differentiation and specialisation in unity. much of curriculum and the specialization of knowledge involves young and muller fighting hard for these powerful types of knowledge against relativism, genericism, and traditionalism. evolving complexity not only demands specialisation and differentiation, but also innovation. new levels are pushed for and reached, often not by increasing complexity but by finding new and innovative solutions that open new pathways – new pathways that then also specialise and differentiate. young and muller stand for knowledge that specialises, differentiates, and innovates against forces that push towards genericism, relativism, and traditionalism. it’s a clarion call to academics, parents, teachers, and curriculum developers to stand up for the following manifesto (young and muller, p.150): 1. knowledge is worthwhile in itself. tell children this: never apologise that they need to learn things. 2. schools transmit shared and powerful knowledge on behalf of society. we teach what they need to make sense of and improve the world. 3. shared and powerful knowledge is verified through learned communities. we need to keep in touch with universities, research and subject associations. 4. children need powerful knowledge to understand and interpret the world. without it they remain dependent on those who have it. 5. powerful knowledge is cognitively superior to that needed for everyday life. it transcends and liberates children from their daily experience. 182 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 6. shared and powerful knowledge enables children to grow into useful citizens. as adults they can understand, cooperate and shape the world together. 7. shared knowledge is a foundation for a just and sustainable democracy. citizens educated together share an understanding of the common good. 8. it is fair and just that all children should have access to this knowledge. powerful knowledge opens doors: it must be available to all children. 9. accepted adult authority is required for shared knowledge transmission. the teacher’s authority to transmit knowledge is given and valued by society. 10. pedagogy links adult authority, powerful knowledge and its transmission. a call as powerful and clear as this serves as a rallying cry, but it also inspires passionate resistance. zipin, fataar, and brennan (2015) have critically responded with a call for a deeper understanding and immersion into ethical, contextual and cultural forces that nourish and embed knowledge within the soil of relevance and locality. although this critical debate is useful for setting up academic lines of engagement, it is often about emphasis rather than contradiction. young and muller recognise the value, import and richness of the everyday and the local; only they strongly see how powerful knowledge emerges from this soil and grows upwards on limbs the learners can climb. muller specifically engages with the complex intersection of the moral and the epistemological in chapter 11 (the promise and pathos of specialized knowledge). on the other side, fataar, brennan, and zipin see the importance of powerful knowledge but want to ensure the soil it grows from is the richest and most fertile soil ever, to the point where they can’t see the tree for the soil, nor can they see the light from the top branches because they are immersed in dark pedologies [sic] of the soul. my complaints are different. when i used the term ‘manifesto’ i was partly alluding to marx’s communist manifesto – a powerful, intelligent and intellectually sophisticated call to arms. but behind the communist manifesto lies capital, the sustained theorisation of the commodity form of capitalism. where, in the book, lies a sustained theorisation of specialisation, differentiation and innovation of hugo: review of curriculum and the specialization of knowledge. . . 183 knowledge? this complaint is partly unfair, as the book combines articles written over an eight-year period. it is also unfair because sociologists of education tend to take a look at the social construction and impact of forces, rather than the force in its own right, even more so when applied to education. but writing at the same time as durkheim was spencer – the great theoriser of specialisation and differentiation within society, education, and knowledge (see spencer’s highly readable three volume set the principles of sociology written between 1882 and 1898). writing at the same time as bernstein was luhmann – the great systems theoriser of evolving complexity and differentiation within social processes (see luhmann, 1977 for an introduction). both spencer and luhmann engage with the intricate specifics of how evolving complexity results in the specialisation and differentiation of society and knowledge and the role education plays in this. i missed this intricate level of theorisation – what karl maton would call semantic density. collaboration between authors often brings out their mutual strengths, but sometimes can obscure individual abilities in the process. excellent overviews and maps of a terrain are outstanding strengths of both writers, but some of the detailed engagements and theorisation characteristic of muller’s earlier book are less evident. my second complaint is not with the call to powerful knowledge but the range of forces increasingly sapping its energies (hugo, 2016). here i am not thinking of genericism, relativism, or traditionalism, rather a world of increasing inequality, global warming, and technical innovations that are stripping humanity’s claim to expertise and professional judgement. the more unequal the world gets, the less power education holds to address inequality – the knowledge of the powerful trumps powerful knowledge. global warming is and will result in massive disruptions that will make the long and difficult road to powerful knowledge even harder for the poor and disadvantaged. artificial intelligence and robotics will increasingly strip humanity of the privilege of working, throwing millions into a strange new world we barely understand. it is this difficult, dangerous world that the clarion call to powerful knowledge needs to be placed within, and it is this world that i only found glimmers of in the book. but when i stand back from the book, what stays with me longest is simply how enthralling it is. the writing is continuously lucid – never shrinking from the difficulty of the debate but always putting it in the simplest way to catch the complexity. the range of theorisation and theorists used is impressive, and never used to just show off. each theorist is carefully chosen to illuminate 184 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 specific problematics and there is not a single case i found where the theorist was not apt. this is exceptionally hard, as anyone involved in doctoral supervision knows. how many of us can find the right theorist to deal with a specific problem research throws up? how many of us can use theory diagnostically? how many times do we grope through the data, often turning to theorists who we know, but who do not deal with the issue, or to a new theorist who we think can help, but turns out to be a waste of precious time? how many of us read new theorists and enjoy their ideas, but cannot fully see how they apply to education? not muller and young. these are expert theorists, diagnostic theorists, able to decide at the edge who and what to use to see further. it is one of the most valuable and difficult skill sets for intellectuals – it is why such intellectuals deserve respect, admiration and applause when they perform such a service for us with levity and lucidity. we call such a skill wisdom – and it is in ample supply in this book. references brandom, r.b. (2001) articulating reasons: an introduction to inferentialism. cambridge usa: harvard university press. hugo, w. (2016). think piece: what education is of most worth in a world where we are consuming the future of our children? southern african journal of environmental education, 32, 11–25. israel, j. (2001). radical enlightenment: philosophy and the making of modernity, 1650–1750. oxford: oxford university press. israel, j. (2006). enlightenment contested: philosophy, modernity, and the emancipation of man, 1670–1752. oxford: oxford university press. israel, j. (2011). democratic enlightenment: philosophy, revolution, and human rights 1750–1790. oxford: oxford university press. luhmann, n. (1977). differentiation of society. canadian journal of sociology, 2(1), 29–54. available at http://cepa.info/3018 spencer, h. (1882–1898). the principles of sociology (3 vols). london: williams and norgate. http://cepa.info/3018 hugo: review of curriculum and the specialization of knowledge. . . 185 young, m. & muller, j. (2016). curriculum and the specialization of knowledge. oxon: routledge. zipin, l., fataar, a, & brennan, m. (2011). can social realism do social justice? debating the warrants for curriculum knowledge selection. education as change, 19(2), 9–36. wayne hugo school of education university of kwazulu-natal hugow@ukzn.ac.za mailto:hugow@ukzn.ac.za microsoft word c88 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 88, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i88a09 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x restorative learning for fostering a decolonised curriculum attuned to sustainable teacher education shan simmonds education and human rights in diversity research unit, faculty of education, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa shan.simmonds@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5005-9906 oluwatoyin ayodele ajani education and human rights in diversity research unit, faculty of education, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa oaajani@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6545-0203 (received: 10 february 2022; accepted: 19 september 2022) abstract social sustainability is paramount for peaceful and inclusive societies. it embraces all cultures and civilizations while promoting that these contribute to, and are crucial enablers of, sustainable development. one aspect hereof is knowledge—what is taught and who decides. south african students remain frustrated with the eurocentric and western dominated university curriculum. this was made evident in the iconic 2015 student protest movement that, along with current and preceding protests laid bare the stark inequalities that persist in higher education and students outcries for socially relevant education that acknowledges the global south. in this article, we draw on data that emanated from qualitative interviews conducted with ten north-west university postgraduate teacher education students to unlock their concerns and aspirations for a decolonised curriculum in higher education. students expressed their concerns with the political nature of the systems of power in higher education that are exclusionary, the need for the curriculum to be contextualized, and the tendency for decolonisation to be perceived as a threat. students voiced their aspirations for a decolonised curriculum by specifying the importance of decolonisation as a process through teaching approaches like storytelling. we propose restorative learning as one avenue in response to students’ outcries for the need to be critical of abyssal thinking and to challenge the root of hegemonic knowledge systems in such a way that decolonising the curriculum can be attuned to sustainability aspirations related to justice and social equity. keywords: decolonisation, curriculum, sustainable teacher education, restorative learning simmonds & ajani: restorative learning for fostering a decolonised curriculum . . . 145 introduction in 2015, the united nations member states adopted the 2030 agenda for sustainable development with its 17 sustainable development goals (sdgs). this agenda reflects a concerted effort to ending all forms of poverty, sustainably managing our planet’s natural resources, and bringing about peace and prosperity for all. a commitment to economic and environmental sustainability and social sustainability is a key dimension of peaceful and inclusive societies. the aim is to achieve the integration of, and a balance between and among, the three dimensions of sustainable development—economic, environmental, and social (united nations, 2015). as we look at south africa’s higher education landscape and the journey towards a decolonised education in this article, the focus falls on sdg 4: to strive to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all (united nations, 2015). key directives range from quality education, gender equity, access to education, skills development, and the promotion of sustainability through education for sustainable development as well as sustainable lifestyles to foster, among others, an appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development. this resonates strongly with one of the pledges in the agenda of sustainable development “to foster inter-cultural understanding, tolerance, mutual respect and an ethic of global citizenship and shared responsibility” as part of acknowledging the natural and cultural diversity of the world and recognizing that “all cultures and civilizations can contribute to, and are crucial enablers of, sustainable development” (united nations, para. 36). it is against this backdrop that we conceptualise decolonisation and its potential to (re)configure sustainable development through aspects such as inter-cultural understanding, appreciation for diversity, and respect for difference. the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (2015) publication rethinking education: towards a global common good? echoes the tenets of the united nations agenda. irina bokova (the then director-general of unesco) underlined the urgent need for education to be reenvisaged in our complex and rapidly changing world. this requires, in part, “moving beyond literacy and numeracy, to focus on learning environments and new approaches to learning for greater justice, social equity and global solidarity” (bokova, 2015, p. 3). for her, this also required cultural literacies of respect and dignity so that education, as a common good, can foster social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. to embrace this concern the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (2015) stressed the need to involve education in exploring alternative approaches to fostering cultural literacies. this is essential because cultural literacies are a source of creativity and wealth central to education that encompasses diverse ways of coming to know the world and being in the world and, in so doing, “valuing fundamental aspects of life: the natural ecosystem, the community, the individual, religion and spirituality” (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization, 2015, p. 29). this requires alternative knowledge systems, more specifically, those that recognise diverse knowledges beyond the hegemonic structures that continue to 146 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 dominate education. this necessitates recognising that education can be an engine of sustainable development, not only physically (through access to education) but also epistemologically by developing thinking communities in which people can live together, and with nature, in peace and harmony in leading “meaningful lives in equal dignity” through socially relevant learning that reflects “what each culture, each human group, defines as what is required to live in dignity” in the human and more than human world (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization, 2015, p. 32–33). education for the common good will be possible only when dominant utilitarian conceptions of education are succeeded by integrated, alternative knowledge systems, in which silent voices are heard and the global south is fully acknowledged in international debates on education (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization, 2015). bonnett (2002) endorsed unesco’s (2015) complex call and argued strongly for a shift in perspective from sustainability as policy to that of sustainability as a frame of mind. to invigorate sustainability as a frame of mind, le grange (2017) was inspired by deleuze and guattari’s (1987) rhizomatic thinking and his musings on sustainability as a rhizome prove insightful. a rhizomatic view of sustainability recognises that there is no fixed central point to sustainability and, therefore, it is always in-becoming. le grange (2017, p. 96) explained this by saying that [s]ustainability education does not signify an a priori image of sustainability nor define what the education pathway towards achieving sustainability should be. instead, it opens up possibilities for critical discussions on sustainability and suggests a process that is always in-becoming. entangled herein, le grange (2020, p. 5) encourages us as educationalists to ask, “how might we (re)think education so that it will open up pathways for the becoming of pedagogical lives attuned with sustainability?” higher education in south africa is currently at the epicentre of (re)thinking education in the face of stark inequalities that, once again, revealed their ugly face in the iconic 2015 demonstrations and in ongoing student protest movements. these protests, especially the outcries of students for socially relevant education, foreground the inequities of the global south in relation to its many cultural literacies. this article is divided into five sections. the first focuses on the south african higher education landscape amid the ongoing #fallism student protest movements that have foregrounded decolonising the curriculum. in this setting, santos’s (2018) positions on the sociology of absences and the sociology of emergences provide a vital dialectic that opens up alternative pathways for imagining decolonising the curriculum as being in-becoming and concerned about the sustainability of society. the second section provides a description of the research that we undertook. the third presents the student participants’ voices in our drawing on semi-structured interview data. four key research findings emerged. each of these findings lays bare the concerns and aspirations that students have for a decolonised curriculum with the potential to unlock sustainable teacher education in south africa. in the penultimate section, we provide a discussion in which we read the findings in proximity to the potential vested in restorative learning to foster the process of decolonising the simmonds & ajani: restorative learning for fostering a decolonised curriculum . . . 147 curriculum as in-becoming rather than hierarchical and hegemonic. a brief conclusion highlights the essence of the research. literature review the statue of cecil john rhodes, former prime minister of the cape colony, was unveiled in 1934 and placed on the renowned jameson steps (familiarly known as the jammie steps) located on the university of cape town’s upper campus. the jammie steps remain a popular, central meeting point for students to socialise. they offer scenic views of devil’s peak and the world heritage site of table mountain and lead to jameson hall (now renamed the sarah baartman hall) that seats hundreds of students for graduation ceremonies. hunma (2018) saw the students as making history every day just by sitting or walking on these steps. on march 9, 2015, politics student chumani maxwele emptied a bucket of excrement over the statue of cecil john rhodes as a protest against this statue that symbolised a still divided south africa, 20 years into its democracy as well as the dominance of white, western, phallocentric knowledge (hall, 2015). it was not long before many students, academics, and various workers demanded that the statue be removed as a symbol of racism, white supremacy, colonialism, and postcolonial struggles (masondo, 2015). on march 20, 2015, a campus march was held, and the slogan rhodes must fall was born. this was to prove iconic in the subsequent south african higher education student protest movements, many of which were born under the banner of #mustfallmovements: #feesmustfall; #outsourcingmustfall; #rapemustfall; and other protest movements that were initiated in revolt against the injustices and inequalities still prevalent in south africa (booysen, 2016; ngcaweni & ngcaweni, 2018). one month later (on april 9, 2015), the statue of cecil john rhodes was removed. this paved the way for deep deliberations on the need for a decolonised university curriculum and on the lack of transformation in academic appointments (see hall, 2015). although student protests are not new to south africa (see becker, 2019), the #rhodesmustfall movement once again highlighted the urgent need for higher education curricula to be decolonised. it is important to make a distinction between a decolonised curriculum and a transformed one. south africa has made great strides toward transforming higher education through developing policies geared to redress structural and ideological dimensions such as increased accessibility, forming one national higher education system, establishing equality of race and gender, as well as economic and resource provision to universities (du preez et al., 2016; lange, l., 2017). however, less has been done in terms of “institutional cultures and epistemological traditions” that remain substantially unchanged (heleta, 2016, p. 2). in response to student calls for a decolonised curriculum during the student protest movements, higher education government officials and university leaders took action and convened seminars, workshops, and conferences on decolonisation and set up formal curriculum committees and task teams to search for effective strategies to decolonise disciplines, institutional cultures, and even management. funding from the united states mellon foundation was also received by seven selected universities in view of the urgent need to find sustainable solutions. for jansen (2019, p. 52), this decolonial moment became a political act, and decolonisation a political slogan because it was mostly a policy discourse 148 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 framing the lack of transformation at university campuses that received little critical engagement and the consequence was a “lack of critical analysis and informed activism.” the concern of le grange et al. (2020) was a different one. they highlighted the danger of decolonial-washing, a term adapted from the environmental studies term greenwashing, to argue that universities disguise decolonisation under the notion of transformation, resulting in instrumentalist and quick-fix solutions, rather than substantive change. as a result, this decolonial moment in south african higher education institutions has revealed stark paradoxes. santos’s (2018) call for a wider sociology of absences and emergences as critical to the decolonisation process offers one avenue through which to navigate these paradoxes and provide alternative pathways for understanding the process of decolonising the curriculum. the sociology of absences involves an inquiry into the ways in which colonialism of power, knowledge, and being operates with capitalism and patriarchy to produce exclusion that represents certain forms of social life as radically inferior. in previous work, santos (2014) revealed that this inferiority stems from the monocultures that often characterise modern eurocentric knowledge. for him there are five monocultures that have been responsible for the production of absences: valid knowledge; productivity; linear time; social classification; and the superiority of the universal and global. absences reveal the hegemony of these monocultures that view nonconforming social groups and modes of social life as “ignorant, primitive, inferior, local and unproductive” (santos, 2018, p. 26). here, some traits of coloniality surface. maldonado-torres (2007) made a generative distinction between colonialism and coloniality that captures the very core of how coloniality lives on as the darker side of modernity, even after countries have declared the end of colonies or political colonialism and claim to be postcolonies. coloniality, therefore, remains vested in long-standing patterns of power that emanate from colonialism, and that continue to define “culture, labour, intersubjectivity relations, and knowledge production” (maldonado-torres, 2007, p. 243). he argued powerfully that coloniality survives colonialism [since coloniality] is maintained alive in books, in the criteria for academic performance, in cultural patterns, in common sense, in the self-image of peoples, in aspirations of self, and so many other aspects of our modern experience. in a way, as modern subjects we breathe coloniality all the time and every day. so, in this era of modernity, absence (like coloniality) “highlights and denounces the suppression of social reality brought about by the type of knowledge validated by northern epistemologies” (santos, 2018, p. 28). while santos pointed out that the sociology of absences focuses attention on the “negativity of such exclusions” so as to “denaturalize and delegitimize specific mechanisms of oppression”, he refers to the sociology of emergences as the “positivity of such exclusions.” for him, the sociology of emergences affords “new potentialities and possibilities for anticapitalism, anticolonialism, and antipatriarchal social transformation” so that “new evaluations of lived conditions and experience that resignify individual and collective subjectivities emerge.” emergences have symbolic and material simmonds & ajani: restorative learning for fostering a decolonised curriculum . . . 149 potential and are thus affirmed as “always in a holistic, artisanal, hybrid way” that recognises the multidimensional presence of exclusion and oppression “as embryonic realities, as inchoate movements” because they enable pathways for “a successful struggle against domination”, the type of struggle that is vested in hope (santos, 2018, p. 28). as embryonic and always in the process of becoming, the sociology of emergences is different from the sociology of absences that “produce[s] a radical diagnosis” of exclusions and oppressions (p. 29). what can we learn from this in thinking about alternative pathways for understanding what it could mean to decolonise the curriculum? for u,s it means that as long as south african higher education institutions continue to avoid critical engagement with the concept itself, decolonisation remains a “catch-all description of, and solution for, the lack of transformation on university campuses” (jansen, 2019, p. 52). we argue for recognition of the potential of the sociology of absences to “diagnose” (santos, 2018, p. 29), through rich inquiry, the ways in which colonialism of power, knowledge, and being form the key foundations of decolonising the curriculum. as jansen (2019) incisively argued, this makes it possible for the meaning of decolonisation not only to be assumed, but also engaged with critically. although the sociology of absences is pivotal, this should not limit the process of decolonising the curriculum to the “negativity of . . . exclusions” (santos, 2018, p. 28) at the cost of only abandoning hegemonic knowledge systems that deem social groups and certain modes of social life invisible and/or irrelevant. this results in representationalist forms of knowledge that gives rise to reflecting on representations that are like a mirror image in that representations have no effect on the objects of investigation in the sense that they are “nothing more than iterative mimesis” of the cognitive injustices perpetuated by phallocentric, western knowledge or “reflecting on the world from the outside” (barad, 2007, p. 88). although this could provide differing perspectives, it has little transformation potential since it is not embodied nor embedded. instead, using the diagnosis generated from the sociology of absences juxtaposed with the sociology of emergences could open up the landscape of the western dominated curriculum “into a field of lively, rich, innovative social experience” that takes account of “new evaluations of lived conditions and experiences that resignify individual and collective” knowledges (santos, 2018, p. 28–29). we consider that both the sociology of absences and the sociology of emergences stimulate a vital dialectic that opens up alternative pathways for imagining sustainable societies in general and sustainable teacher education in particular. in this way, sustainability is not an instrumentalist policy directive that dictates what sustainability education should signify and decides on which technocratic checklists that must be met to achieve it. rather, as a frame of mind, sustainability is always in-becoming in that it has no fixed end goal but, instead, invokes many pathways to (re)imagine a decolonised curriculum that is attuned to many different knowledges along with positive and generative avenues to challenge western dominated education. research methods the data presented in this article is from a phenomenological research study called curriculum studies as an intellectual space for decolonising education: in pursuit of human 150 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 rights education. in this research study, we listened to the voices of ten students who were enrolled for postgraduate research studies in the curriculum studies programme in education. eight of the students were enrolled for a phd and two for a master’s. we deem their perceptions on decolonising the curriculum significant because they were doing research in the field and were thus in a position to advance research on curriculum studies and, more generally, influence curriculum change in teacher education. the participants were purposively selected based on their area of research in curriculum studies and their enrolment in this postgraduate programme. the ten participants included three black and two white females, along with four black males and one white from all three campuses of the university (potchefstroom, vaal triangle, and mafikeng). while some students were in their final year of study, others had only just commenced, thus increasing the potential of the sample to generate diverse, rich, and insightful data. these participants voluntarily took part in semi-structured interviews during 2020. the interview questions allowed them to voice their understanding of what it means to decolonise the curriculum in higher education, discuss the influence of institutional cultures, topics, and/or teaching approaches that they thought could foster decolonisation in teacher education, and suggest possible challenges that they foresaw or experienced in their dealings with the curriculum. to comply with covid-19 regulations, the interviews were conducted via zoom so did not involve physical contact. with the participants’ permission, the interviews were recorded using zoom’s recording software so that accurate transcriptions could be compiled to ensure the trustworthiness of the data. these transcriptions were used to do an open, inductive coding of the data to arrive at key findings. employing thematic analysis, the main findings are presented as themes (see creswell & creswell, 2018). the relevant ethical protocols were followed stringently. the research study received ethical clearance from the university where it was to be conducted. 1 informed consent was also obtained from each participant. to ensure anonymity, the participants are referred to here as p1 to p10. to ensure that no hierarchy (in terms of order of importance) is operating, the number represents the participants in the chronological order in which the interviews took place. this approach was used to anonymise the participants and to allow for valid and trustworthy presentation of their responses. research findings four key research findings emerged from the data generated by these ten postgraduate students who were enrolled for postgraduate research studies in the curriculum studies programme. each of these findings reveals the concerns and aspirations students have for a decolonised curriculum that would lead to realising the unlocking of sustainable teacher education in south africa. 1 the ethics clearance number is nwu-01229-20-a2. simmonds & ajani: restorative learning for fostering a decolonised curriculum . . . 151 south africa’s higher education landscape some of the students alluded to the ways in which higher education systems of power produce exclusions and hierarchal forms of knowledge and this was in line with santos’s (2018) position on a sociology of absences. for p1 this is, in part, the result of institutional cultures that are still strongly under the influence of colonisation. this situation reinforces what le grange et al. (2020) denoted as decolonial-washing and is elaborated on by p1 who said, the university adopts a symbolic approach. one of the approaches is to talk about it. act like you’re doing something and gradually raise the students’ expectation that something will happen and in time it dies off. colonisation is about power. so, when you decolonise, if you don’t go to the root of where the power is, whatever you do, is just symbolic. therefore, decolonisation is disguised when universities resort to symbolic and political acts that lead to instrumentalist and quick-fix solutions, rather than substantive change (le grange et al., 2020). for p10 one form of substantive change had to do with the management of universities. he explained, “the university system needs to do things in african ways. the management has to introduce things that will encourage decolonisation through african approaches.” this requires a radical shift from “university management’s rigid structures that are stereotypical of western ways of doing” and occupied by “people in the system who refuse to embrace change.” but for p10, this requires that the “south african system of education be revised to accommodate african initiatives and to break away from colonization.” this remains a tall order as can be seen in the three pertinent examples raised by the students participating in this study. the first example relates to students’ identities and needs. p1 explained, students are protesting in response to a certain sense of awareness of their identity and what they are being subjugated to at their universities. they are finding themselves in the system that does not speak to them and their need. the second example resonates with what jansen (2019, p. 52) terms “the political act of decolonisation.” p5 stressed that universities have put in place policies to promote and foster decolonising the curriculum. however, these remain policies “that are not in practice.” the third example has to do with the neoliberal culture underpinning assessment at south african universities. p6 explained, performativity seems to work against decolonisation. assessment is focused on grades, and it encourages students to focus on regurgitation of knowledge for examination purposes, and this does not result in lifelong learning. assessment methods that will encourage critical thinking and reflective skills are lacking. assessment methodologies in higher education rely heavily on summative and formative scores. they consider these [to be] the only method of determining students’ abilities. and as such [this is] not decolonising education. we are after high 152 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 marks that do not create life-long learning rooted in african ways of living and learning. the voices of these students indicated that the south african higher education landscape is in need of shifting its symbolic and political tactics if it is to decolonise the curriculum. this remains a complex endeavour and these students highlighted many layers in the process of decolonisation including changing institutional culture, management, identity, policy, and even how universities dictate practices such as assessment to measure student abilities. the need for teacher education to be contextualised since the participants of this study were postgraduate students in the field of education, they were adamant that decolonising the curriculum is possible only if the teacher education curriculum is contextualised. for them a contextualised curriculum emphasises two core aspects. one aspect refers to the design and development of the university curricula. p3 believed that the design of the curriculum is in the hands of the department of higher education and training. this is because the department has the power to determine the structure and purpose of qualifications through its national qualifications framework (nqf). this top-down approach is not uncommon in south africa’s young democracy where the concern about responsiveness to national needs is often viewed in relation to economic and developmental goals (lange, l., 2017). for p1, “contextualisation of the curriculum is part of the universities institutional culture.” institutional cultures play a central role in designing curricula that seek to meet needs. as p3 asked, “what is beneficial for students?” for p5, these are underpinned by “an awareness of the socio-economic environment and its students.” p8 said, “the university needs to look at the demographic of its students . . . so that there is inclusion for every group or tribe” and went on to explain that this would also mean that institutions take account of multilingual diversity among students to promote student learning and interaction. for this participant, “students should be given a choice of any african language to learn in or communicate with.” for lange, l., (2017), this dovetails with recognising both the institutional identity and that of its students. for p1, this requires interrogating institutional culture and how it dictates the ways in which curricula are designed and developed at universities. p1 went on to say, “does this curriculum speak to our culture? if it doesn’t speak to our culture, then is not us.” on a micro level, p1 believes that lecturers play a central role because they are responsible for responding to the tenet that the curriculum they teach “should not apply in absence of context, context should come first.” the other aspect of a contextualised curriculum is that it chimes with content knowledge. content knowledge “should help students learn about where they come from and where other people come from” (p4). similarly, p6 averred that “education that focuses on local contents, real life experiences, and where our students [are located] will [enable them to] reflect on the societies they are coming from.” this also involves “using examples in the curriculum to teach why decolonisation is important” (p7). for p10 this could require a level of courage, because they believe that “[i]t is high time that we africans stand up for an african education and not other people’s education.” in addition, p10 advocated for curriculum reform that asks, “what curriculum content needs to be removed from the curriculum so that we can simmonds & ajani: restorative learning for fostering a decolonised curriculum . . . 153 promote decolonisation?” in terms of which content knowledge needs to be removed, students mentioned “curriculum content that promotes racial discrimination” (p7) and “topics on african approaches to learning that do not build-up our education system” (p10). p3 explained, the literature we are giv[en] to read do[es] not focus on african literature. i was just thinking of courses in my honours [where] we were comparing [the]south african curriculum with australia [and] canada. why don’t we compare[the] south african curriculum with [the] nigerian [and] egyptian curriculum? another thing is the use of herbs that our grandparents used rather than the drugs that give us side effects. we should start integrating the use of these herbs. history and origin are the cornerstone for p10, who explained, there is need for teacher education to integrate topics like origin of africa, how africa started and how we were enslaved. history is important. there is need for us to understand our origin [and] history very well. contextualising the curriculum is not simple and straightforward. p2 alluded to the mind shift that is needed for effective implementation of a decolonised curriculum and noted that this will require that “existing teachers need to be trained.” for p4 the challenge lies in “south africa’s many cultural practices and languages” and how “to reflect all cultures and design an inclusive curriculum that speaks to this diversity.” p5 explored the complexity of a contextualised curriculum in saying, one should be aware of [one’s] own context and indigenous environment, africa. one should be aware of this context without ignoring the worldviews of european cultures. in order words, one should expose students to different worldviews otherwise they become isolated. the participants stressed the importance of recognising the value of a contextualised curriculum. they also alluded to its complexity to illustrate both absences in the existing curriculum and proposals of emergences to afford new potentialities to successfully struggle against domination (see santos, 2018). challenges inhibiting decolonisation some of the participants expressed their views and described their lived experience of the challenges of decolonising the curriculum. for p1 the promise of decolonising the curriculum is hampered when people perceive it as a threat. it’s the threat that decolonisation brings. it is a threat to colonial thought in the higher education intellectual space . . . it becomes a war that is played in an intellectual space with a lot of disadvantage to the person that is being colonised. and for me, we need to do it in a very quiet way . . . when it makes sense to my society, we will rise up and 154 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 speak for ourselves. we need to do it smart[ly], diligently, or otherwise we will end up with a new colonised or neocolonised curriculum. to move beyond seeing decolonisation as a threat, p3 believes that the challenge lies in “decolonising the colonised minds of communities.” he elaborated, “we need to enrich our people about africanism. things the colonisers made us to believe are evil. the challenge is not only to the curriculum or our lectures but taking it to our communities, our parents.” in echoing this view, p3 became reactive and assertive in claiming, i think for our colonisers, we need to colonise them too, so that they can know some things about us. they need to know we are intelligent, smart people, and we have our own indigenous knowledge. maybe we need to do more student exchange programmes so that they know we are not stupid people. this speaks to the sensitive nature of decolonisation and how the personal becomes political. for p4 misconception plays a role when there is a “lack of understanding why the curriculum needs to be decolonised.” similarly, p8 commented that the “misconception about decolonisation is that people always think decolonisation means excluding one major knowledge.” p3 emphasised the importance of including traditional practices. they recounted an experience from their graduation ceremony: i remember when i was graduating, we were told not to make noise. africans are noise making people especially during ceremonies. we had choral songs. african songs should be introduced to graduation ceremonies instead of choral songs . . . p6’s experience was related to the way in which teaching is structured. the strict timetable in the higher institutions does not allow the students to do other things than memorizing the knowledge. the timetable in higher institutions does not allow [a] decolonised curriculum. the present curriculum needs reviewing—the assessment methods, teaching strategies, and the contents. another frustration seen by p3 was the need for the racial transformation of the lecturing staff. they said, “universities should hire more tswana lecturers. they should introduce more black south african lecturers.” the participants raised several challenges to decolonising the curriculum that reaffirm the stance of heleta (2016) that in south african universities’ institutional cultures and epistemological traditions continue to produce exclusions. these exclusions speak vividly to monocultures that produce absences (santos, 2014) by dictating what constitutes valid knowledge, productivity, linear time, social classification, as well as global and universal superiority. simmonds & ajani: restorative learning for fostering a decolonised curriculum . . . 155 decolonising the curriculum is a process the participants described decolonising the curriculum as a process and not a product. for p3, “it’s going to be a process, it’s not going to be done in a day” and for p5, “decolonisation is a long process that will take many years to realise.” as a process, the participants shed light on decolonising the curriculum in relation to receptivity, relatedness, and responsiveness. p2 commented, my understanding is that the process of decolonisation attempts to create a learning environment that is open and supportive of students from various backgrounds . . . working with instead of around cultural differences [and] finding culturally relevant material for all learners by introducing new teaching methods and information from non-traditional sources to expand the student experience. this is needed to build a stable education system that won’t just fall apart in a few years and require a brandnew curriculum. p3 said, “let’s revise our african curriculum. let us also write our african history. let us not allow the one that colonised us to write our history. the one who colonised will leave out many.” according to p4, “i think it is important for lecturers to examine themselves and present information in different ways. we learn from our teachers, so they should model students correctly. i think we need skills to receive different opinions.” p5 called for equal distribution of african contexts and western scenarios. we should start with worldviews. we should start to merge african beliefs, values, and ethics with western beliefs together. we should expose students to african culture, knowledge, and ethics without compromising western knowledge. p6 said, “education should emancipate and empower students in the society they live. for students to transform, they need to be fully engaged rather than mere receiver[s] of dominant knowledges.” p7 explained, “i think people should be giv[en] same opportunities to indicate what they can offer or bring to the table. the people that have been silent for so long should be given opportunity to air their views.” and for p9, “maybe to give the students more voices in learning. to hear their voices on what benefits them and to empower them.” these aspirations for the process of decolonising the curriculum breathe the type of hope that santos (2018)) framed as occurring in inchoate moments and embryonic realities that envelop symbolic and material affirmations needed to resignify individual and collective knowledge that is holistic, artisanal, and hybrid. some of the participants referred to specific teaching 156 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 approaches that could promote decolonisation. these included “storytelling” of “our own stories and legacies in our communities” (p3). p10’s belief that students “don’t know their roots” echoed the statement that “african cultures must be taught for preservation and protection of heritage.” this could foster “african cultures being celebrated and free from marginalisation.” other participants placed an emphasis on communication. p1 emphasised the need for curriculum to be a space that “initiates scholarly conversations that re-imagine thinking and lead to decolonisation.” for p4, “critical discussion is needed to expose students to various and different knowledges” and for p5, “more discourses on decolonisation will aid in realising the idea of decolonisation in practice and not just in policy or theory.” p10 insisted that one of the teaching approaches best suited to a decolonised curriculum are communicative approaches. most of the teaching approaches we use in africa are based on how to communicate colonial knowledge. an african interactive approach allows students to contribute while teachers also learn from the learners and . . . teachers will not dominate. p10’s view matches p5’s emphasis on “peer learning” as valuable “to understand other people’s cultures” and p6’s injunction that we should “encourage the students to interact with one another.” this can be generative since it stimulates an “open-mindedness” (p5) that “enables students to question existing beliefs and practices” (p6) and a meaningful “interaction with the environment for deep learning experiences” (p6). but for p6, this requires a non-western approach in which the process of decolonisation sees students and lecturers as “co-participants in [the] learning process.” discussion: decolonising the curriculum for sustainable teacher education higher education government officials and university leaders reacted immediately to actions during the 2015 #rhodesmustfall student protest movement that aimed at decolonising disciplines, institutional cultures, and even management (jansen, 2019). decolonising the curriculum remains a generative issue in sustainable teacher education (and higher education as a whole) in south africa. in the field of higher education, teacher education is responsible for developing professionals who will enter the schooling sector and educate the children who are the future of our country. a decolonised curriculum should not only prepare teachers for their profession, but it should also infiltrate all sectors of schooling and the higher education curriculum so that it has an impact on society and, in that way, invigorate its sustainability. but the participants’ voices and lived experience made it plain that decolonising the curriculum is both determined and shaped by larger ecosystems such as the higher education system that has predominantly colonised systems of power though institutional cultures, symbolic change, performativity regimes, and hierarchical management (heleta, 2016). the participants also revealed the need for the teacher education curriculum to be contextualised, not only through the content simmonds & ajani: restorative learning for fostering a decolonised curriculum . . . 157 knowledge prescribed and taught but also in the approach to designing and developing it. various challenges inhibiting decolonisation were raised and these will need to be overcome if we are to unlock its many layers as well as realise its personal and socio-political nature given the complexity of the decolonial moment. these experiences mostly reflected what santos (2018, p. 28) described as the sociology of absences that “highlights and denounces the suppression of social reality brought about by the type of knowledge validated by northern epistemologies.” but juxtaposed with these absences, the participants also raised the affordances of decolonising the curriculum as a process. these concur with a sociology of emergences since they complement the potential of decolonising the curriculum that could positively challenge the western dominated curriculum “into [becoming] a field of lively, rich, innovative social experience” so that “new evaluations” of lived experience can regenerate individual and collective knowledges (santos, 2018, p. 28–29). deeply ingrained in “hope” (santos, 2018, p. 28), these affordances and their affirmative possibilities provide a vantage point for us to argue for decolonising the curriculum through an ethos attuned to learning and being as constantly being in-becoming rather that predetermined and prescribed (le grange, 2019). when it embraces human and different knowledges as always being in-becoming and not defined or essentialised, an image of education as embodied and embedded in the desire to live, to connect, and to care for each other can be unlocked through multiple coursings for the becoming of a pedagogical life, with immanent potential (le grange, 2019). similarly, braidotti (2011, p. 14) presented a view of the subject as always in-becoming through an affirmative ethic that “actively strives to create collectively empowering alternatives [as] transformative and inspirational” through active commitments of hope, and we firmly support this. we deem such an ethos of being inbecoming as prolific since it challenges “abyssal thinking” (santos, 2014, p. 119) and troubles the root of hegemonic knowledge systems. research done by lotz-sisitka (2017) called for a wider sociology of absence and emergence since this is critical to the decolonisation process. they enable an in-becoming ethos because of its “commitment to generativity, and emergence as principle” (p. 50) so that decolonising education is less about acculturation and “more about aspiration, change, transformation and hope.” situating ourselves in an ethos of being in-becoming, we argue that alternative pathways are necessary for sustainable development. one such pathway, we believe, could be through methodological approaches such as restorative learning (lange, e., 2017). our belief is that this methodological approach speaks to some of the participants’ calls for teacher education to employ approaches like “storytelling” (p. 3) and “an african interactive approach” (p. 10) so that african heritages are celebrated, preserved, and protected. lange, e. (2017, p. 41) averred that “all peoples need to do the work of cultural reclamation and decolonization, as colonization has touched most peoples, some more recently or more extensively than others.” as maldonado-torres (2007, p. 6) put it, “[a]s modern subjects we breathe coloniality all the time and every day” and for this reason no one can be exempted from the process of decolonisation. cultural reclamation and decolonisation can be made possible through approaches like restorative learning that enable “us to retrieve the ancient 158 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 knowledge we carry” through “a process of growing attunement and ancient practices that ‘speak’ outside western frameworks” since stories, ritual and/or ceremonies “access forgotten channels of knowing/being” (lange, e., 2017, p. 40). restorative learning is cognisant of the fact that often our inner intuitive ethical compass is dictated by cultural expectations and rationality at the cost of the individual and collective moral and ethical sensibility within a cosmic vision (lange, e., 2017). we believe that three key dimensions of restorative learning could foster sustainable teacher education that is underpinned by an ethos of being in-becoming. first, lange, e. (2017, p. 41) advocates for education that embraces “hopeful elements for rebuilding a way of living that recognizes embeddedness in affiliation.” an embeddedness in affiliation can be made possible through “the reinvigorating and reinventing of traditions and identities as well as a reappropriation of our modernized consciousness, knowledge, bodies and relations.” second, education needs to see subjectivity and the subject as embodied and embedded (braidotti, 2011). in this regard, lange, e. (2017, p. 41) challenges education to break “the bounds of skin and brain and the inside/outside view of the self in humanist notions” so that learning is more ecological and akin to le grange’s (2019, p. 221) view of education as “the becoming of a pedagogical life, with immanent potential.” third, restorative learning shifts “the mode of having to the mode of being.” the emphasis on “the mode of being” is the need to be not only preoccupied with “who we are or what we are to do”, but also the need to focus on “how we are” through radical relatedness that can “break through the property structures of western consciousness and cultivate a new moral scope and social imaginary” (lange, e., 2017, p. 41–42). conclusion restorative learning can help foster a decolonised curriculum that is attuned to sustainable teacher education in south africa. this approach highlights the importance of unlearning in order to relearn (ndlovu-gatsheni as cited in omanga, 2020). ndlovu-gatsheni contended that how we teach and what we teach must be “subjected to decolonial interrogation” to unlearn education that “carries the dirty history of colonialism and racism.” he explained, you need to unlearn that one geographical space in the world cannot be teacher of the world. and then relearn that all human beings are born to valid and legitimate knowledge. at the decenter of unlearning is also the important process of debourgeoisefication of knowledge. (ndlovu-gatsheni as cited in omanga, 2020, p. 4) we concur with ndlovu-gatsheni and urge higher education institutions, academics, and students to stand as one and consider the potential in approaches like restorative learning, underpinned by unlearning and relearning, to bring about a sustainable process of decolonising the curriculum. references barad, k. (2007). meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. duke university press. simmonds & ajani: restorative learning for fostering a decolonised curriculum . . . 159 becker, h. (2019). south african student protests, 1968 to 2016: dissent, disruption, decolonization. https://isreview.org/issue/111/south-african-student-protests-19682016. bokova, i. (2015). forward. in the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (eds.), rethinking education. towards a global common good? (pp. 3– 4). united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization. bonnett, m. 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(2015). sustainable development goals. https://sdgs.un.org/goals united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (2015). rethinking education. towards a global common good? united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization. in this paper science education and natural science are used interchangeably.1 journal of education, 2017 issue 67, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za analysis of teaching and learning of natural sciences and technology in selected eastern cape province primary schools, south africa bongani bantwini (received 8 february 2016; accepted 26 april 2017) abstract great consensus exists that high-quality natural science teaching and learning at primary school level is fundamental for learner success and advancement in life. this paper discusses how natural science is taught and learnt in selected primary schools in the eastern cape province, south africa. data was collected through 22 classroom observations during a science lesson and 55 responses to a questionnaire. findings reveal that: teaching in most classrooms used non-stimulating pedagogical approaches that lacked practical activities that promote deeper learning of science content and develop learner’s inquiry abilities; the classroom environment was impoverished for science teaching and learning. i argue and conclude that science teaching and learning in these schools requires attention as it hardly aligns with the curriculum assessment policy statement requirements in south africa. moreover, there is a need for stimulating classroom approaches that attract and inspire young learners to pursue science learning at high school and tertiary level. introduction there is great consensus that high-quality science education teaching and1 learning at primary school level is fundamental for learner success and advancement in life (halverson, 2007; national research council, 2012). the early science learning can help learners develop curiosity, appreciation and understanding of the natural world, which are fundamental for learning progression (eshach & fried, 2005; halverson, 2007; trundle, 2009). according to the international council for science (2011), stimulating of 40 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 science education is fundamental for both the future of science and the ongoing development of our global knowledge society. however, despite the above consensus, james and pollard (2006) posit that teaching and learning are what ultimately make a difference in the mind of the learner and thus affect knowledge, skills, attitudes and the capacity of young people to contribute to contemporary societies. teaching becomes the centre stage of science learning and learner achievement. in developed countries, the issues and complexity of teaching and learning of science education has received considerable attention due to the envisaged returns (glenn, 2000; goodrum, hackling & rennie, 2001; osborne & dillon, 2008; teaching and learning research programme, 2006). in the us for example, the national commission on mathematics and science teaching for the 21st century headed by john glenn (2000) argued that the future well-being of their nation and people depends not just on how well they educate their children generally, but on how well they educate them in mathematics and science specifically. also underscoring the significance of teaching and learning of science education, diamond (teaching and learning research programme [tlrp] 2006) in the united kingdom report on science education in schools asserted that the ability to generate new knowledge and use it innovatively depends upon having a scientifically literate population and therefore good science education in schools is a vital preparation for scientific literacy in later life. undoubtedly, effective science teaching assist in developing learner motivation and self-confidence necessary and crucial to increase their academic performance (chalufour, 2010). despite the various countries’ attention to science education, in south africa such attention has not been much, especially in the natural sciences and technology at the intermediate phase level (grades 4–6). research on the teaching and learning of natural sciences and technology is still fledgling (set, hadman & ashipala, 2017), leaving us with knowledge gaps regarding the various issues that may be impeding or enhancing successful results in the learning area at that particular level. nevertheless, snippets of research do indicate that: natural science teaching hardly support the conceptual development of primary school learners (set, hadman & ashipala, 2017); there is lack of requisite infrastructure which renders teaching and learning in rural schools nearly impossible (mtsi, maphosa & moyo, 2016); some educators lack proper foundation in natural sciences teaching methods and content knowledge (mtsi, maphosa & moyo, 2016; mpanza, 2013; ngubane, 2014); and there is neglect and insufficient support of primary school natural sciences and technology teachers by their school districts (bantwini, 2012; bongani: analysis of teaching and learning. . . 41 ngubane, 2014). the less attention on natural sciences and technology is also visible from the omission of the learning area in the annual national assessment, a key instrument currently used to measure learner performance at general education and training band (primary school level). this is despite the concerning results from the trends in international mathematics and science study (1995, 1999, 2002, & 2011), the only standardised international test that includes natural sciences and technology in which south africa participates. in this paper i intend to add to the existing scholarly knowledge on teaching and learning by focusing on the intermediate phase (grade 46) natural sciences (ns) in selected public primary schools in the eastern cape. the following questions guided the inquiry: (1) how is natural science taught in some public primary schools? (2) what are teachers’ perception regarding how learners learn natural science in their classrooms? hoadley (2012) asserts that gaining deeper and more robust understandings of instructional practice is critical to understanding why and in what ways schooling in south african primary schools continues to fail the vast majority of learners. this is also aligned with the minister of basic education’s (2010) concern that the levels and quality of educational outcomes achieved by learners are far below the national targets. moreover, the national development plan vision 2030 views foundational skills in science as an essential component of a good education system (the presidency, 2011). a sound foundation in science education can arguably increase learner interest and continuity in studying science, thereby increase the pool of learners who can pursue science at tertiary level, which may ultimately reduce the country’s skills shortage. thus, by improving teaching and learning (natural science in this case), as the department of basic education [dbe] (2011) asserts, learners will benefit from a higher quality of education and the nation as a whole will also benefit as school graduates with better skills and knowledge levels enter further and higher education and the workplace. however, as dbe (2011) argues, without substantial improvements in the learning outcomes, the future development of the country will be seriously compromised. in this paper attention is drawn to some of the teaching and learning issues that potentially contribute to learner understanding of and achievement in natural sciences and technology. 42 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 the term ‘student’ is used interchangeably with learners, as the international literature2 mainly uses ‘student’ while in south africa we use ‘learners’. teaching and learning of natural science this paper is premised on the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) grades 4–6 natural sciences and technology (dbe, 2011) aims that, effective teaching and learning of natural sciences and technology should develop learner’s ability to: (1) complete investigations, analyse problems and use practical processes and skills in designing and evaluating solutions; (2) grasp scientific, technological and environmental knowledge and apply it in new contexts; (3) understand the practical uses of natural sciences and technology in society and the environment and have values that make them caring and creative citizens. the paper further draws on james and pollard’s (2006) principles of teaching and learning (in general), which advocate that teaching and learning should: equip learners for life in its broadest sense; engage with valued forms of knowledge; recognise the importance of prior experience and learning; require the teacher to scaffold learning and ensure that needs assessment is congruent with learning and promote the active engagement of the learner. additionally, the paper subscribes with the notion that effective science teachers should also know and understand how learners learn science as well as the theories related to effective learning, how the content is represented, the scope and sequence of the subject matter as well as the level and appropriateness of the language of instruction (luneta, 2012). the significance of teaching and learning of natural sciences and technology is crucial and forms a critical part of the discussion for several reasons. naude (2015) argues that when children in the south african schools enter the intermediate phase, they engage with a demanding science curriculum, which requires a higher level of depth and detail different from the foundation phase curriculum. as a result of this gap between the phases, children are largely left to the development of their spontaneous development, based on some ad hoc instruction. complicating the matter, magano (2009) highlights that some teachers have an attitude towards the teaching of certain knowledge areas, which has a negative impact on the teaching of natural sciences as these concepts are also critical in establishing learner’s basic scientific skills. from the international perspective, fraser-abder (2011) argues that existing evidence indicate that only a small amount of the students who go through2 the school system develop any useful scientific literacy. she further contends bongani: analysis of teaching and learning. . . 43 that schools keep on producing graduates who lack even a basic understanding of science and technology, with negative attitude towards science and with no fully developed critical thinking skills capability. thus, effective teaching and learning of natural sciences and technology becomes vital to develop a stronger foundation required in the next levels. the goal of science education, osborne and dillon (2008) argue, is to develop students’ understanding both of the canon of scientific knowledge and of how science functions. thus, effective and quality science teaching can help to develop the necessary inquiry abilities and a sound learning foundation for science concepts, leading to the desired learner performance and outcomes. chalufour (2010) asserts that cognitive stimulation in the early years is critical for brain development and that young children have cognitive capacities far beyond what was previously believed. learning, according to james and pollard (2006) should aim to help individuals and groups to develop the intellectual, personal and social resources that will enable them to participate as active citizens, contribute to economic development and flourish as individuals in a diverse and changing society. the national center on time and learning (2011) argues that science education should build on children’s innate curiosity, expanding their scientific knowledge and engagement over time as they examine objects, design and analyse investigations, collect data and discuss and defend their ideas. chalufour (2010) believes that effective science teaching needs to embrace knowledge and science processes and practices, as well as provide multiple opportunities for students to use these processes and apply them across many experiences. however, she argues that many early childhood teachers are unprepared to promote science inquiry and learning in their classrooms due to the way science was presented to them as students, a static collection of facts to be transmitted by their teachers and memorised by students. the american association for the advancement of science (aaas, 1990) state that science teaching that attempts solely to impart to students the accumulated knowledge of a field leads to very little understanding and certainly not to the development of intellectual independence and facility. with the critical and scarce skills shortage in sa, quality natural sciences and technology teaching and learning at primary school level can be a good investment. 44 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 research design and methodology the reported study used a mixed methods approach with the aim of obtaining breadth and depth of understanding and corroboration of findings while offsetting the weaknesses inherent in using either a quantitative or qualitative method alone. in hoadley’s (2012) view, mixed methods are increasingly regarded as crucial in obtaining valid and reliable understandings of classroom knowledge and processes of its transmission. a mixed method design allows for triangulation, which requires careful analysis of the type of information provided by each method, including its strengths and weaknesses. the participants for both the quantitative and the qualitative stages were natural sciences teachers in the intermediate phase (grades 4–6) from public rural, township, urban and farm schools spread across eight school districts in the eastern cape province, a large and predominantly rural province in south africa. permission to conduct the study was requested and granted by the provincial department of education superintendent, as per their research policy requirement. data was collected using classroom observation during the teaching of a science lesson and a questionnaire. classroom observations according to cohen, manion and morrison (2011), observation as a research process affords the researcher an opportunity to collect live data from natural occurring social situation. an observation tool informed by literature review and questions from other previously used observation instruments was used (see appendix 1). the tool comprised the following foci: classroom management; instructional learning; teacher pedagogical content knowledge and planning; and general comments. the classroom management section focused on classroom description, seating arrangements (gender, language, race and special needs), learner interaction and access to materials and strengths and weaknesses of the classroom environment. instructional learning was divided into three sections: lesson delivery, conceptual focus of the lesson and assessment during the lesson. for each of these sections several observational guiding questions were posed. the last section on teacher pedagogical content knowledge and planning also comprised many guiding questions. these areas of focus were developed based on key attributes for successful science teaching. bongani: analysis of teaching and learning. . . 45 a purposive sampling technique focusing on natural sciences and technology teachers in grades 4–6 and willingness to be observed teaching was applied. twenty two primary school science teachers, 20 females and two males, were observed teaching a science lesson. table 1 below summarises the characteristics of the observed classrooms. of the 22 classroom observations, six 4th grade classes were observed, seven 5th grade and nine 6th grade classrooms. in 4th grade the number of learners varied from 27 to 57 in one classroom, in 5th grade from 26 to 99 learners in a classroom and 6th grade from 4 learners to 82 learners in one classroom. the coding and analysis of the classroom observation data followed the iterative process as suggested by miles and huberman (1984). the observation forms were reviewed to determine common trends and emerging issues. this led to the identification of common themes and issues presented and discussed in the findings section. table 1: characteristics of 22 observed classrooms school types grade # of observed teachers male female rural township farm urban 4 6 0 6 (100%) 2 (33%) 1 (17%) 1 (17%) 2 (33%) 5 7 1 (14%) 6 (86%) 1 (14%) 4 (57%) 1 (14%) 1 (14%) 6 9 1 (11%) 8 (89%) 5 (56%) 1 (11%) 1 (11%) 2 (22%) total 22 2 20 8 6 3 4 questionnaire a questionnaire comprising likert scale and open-ended questions was used to elicit teachers’ opinions regarding: teaching of science in their respective grades; how learners learn science in their classrooms; and their general beliefs and philosophy about science teaching (see appendix 2). one hundred and eight natural sciences and technology teachers were asked to complete a questionnaire. the use of a questionnaire also intended to afford teachers who were not observed teaching an opportunity to participate in the study. of the 108 questionnaires distributed, 55 (51%) responded. the completed 46 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 questionnaires were imported into the statistical package for the social sciences (spss) for frequency distribution analysis. the respondents were from 32 schools spread across eight districts (4 from each district), purposively sampled. the sampling focused on science teachers in grades 4–6, ensured that each grade level was represented, and that each teacher was willing to participate in the research. they were from rural (54%), township (29%), and urban public (15%) and farm schools (2%) spread out across the districts. the 55 teachers who completed the questionnaire were 26% males and 74% females. they were all south africans and the racial distribution was as follows: blacks (89%), whites (6%) and coloureds (6%). about 17% of the participants’ age range between 25–34yrs, 47% were between 35–44yrs, 24% were between 45–54yrs, 13% were between 55–59 and above. the majority of the respondents had taught for more than 10 years. also, all the teachers taught more than two learning areas at different grade levels. findings a brief description of the infrastructure of classrooms is presented, followed by findings from the questionnaire. thereafter, the themes emerging from the classroom observation are presented and finally, a discussion of the qualitative and the quantitative findings. brief description of the observed classrooms (n=22) findings from classroom observations show that the lack of proper school buildings, classroom environments conducive to learning, teaching and learning resources, and proper sanitation facilities were common in many of the visited schools. in rural schools (65%) the infrastructure was dilapidated, whereas most township and urban schools had recognisable physical infrastructure. over 50% of the classrooms were overcrowded with learners seated on a very few old desks and broken chairs arranged one behind another while in some classrooms learners were seated in groups. there was a clear lack of space for both learners and the teacher to freely move around. in 83% of the classrooms teachers stood in front of the classroom with limited movement and learners walked on top of the desks to reach the other end of bongani: analysis of teaching and learning. . . 47 the classroom. nevertheless, a few of the observed classrooms (17%) did have enough space for both the teacher and learners to move around. these classes were usually located in a big hall or church building where there was a multi-grade classroom teaching. the cement floor in some classrooms had cracks and dust, not healthy for breathing, whereas others had old dirty wooden floors or mud floors. despite these conditions, tidiness was noted as one of the positive things in the observed classrooms. the classrooms were also characterised by walls bare of posters or illustrations. eby, herrell and jordan (2009) assert that drab, undecorated spaces lead to expectations of dullness and boredom. these authors argue the necessity for creating a therapeutic environment that will allow all the students to succeed. the physical environment hardly supported science learning; a conclusion based on the lack of space for learners to move around and resources to engage in the inquiry-based science activities. in some classroom (though not many) learners were seated in groups of seven. however, the arrangement of groups raises questions regarding their formulation, as some learners had their backs towards the blackboard, the main teaching aid. the teaching and learning environment, especially of science, plays a fundamental role in the learners’ success. the organisation for economic cooperation and development (oecd, 2009) highlights that the quality of the learning environment is the factor affecting student learning and outcomes that is most readily modified. the findings reported in this study indicate that the observed classroom environment did not support effective teaching and learning. this is despite the research that indicates that young learners develop science understanding best when given multiple opportunities to engage in science exploration and experiences through inquiry (bosse, jacobs, & anderson, 2009; gelman, brenneman, macdonald & roman, 2010). the physical structure of a classroom is a critical variable that affects student morale and learning (phillips, 2014) and therefore should be inviting to make students enthusiastic about learning. a science classroom should inspire learners and not depress them and make the subject seem difficult, especially learners from disadvantaged backgrounds. according to marcinek (2011), the physical space and environment, the lighting, the colour of the walls and the arrangement of tables and chairs affect our overall mood, our ability to learn and productivity. teachers should therefore ensure that the classroom environment is conducive for learners to progress well. 48 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 classroom teaching and assessment approaches in the questionnaire, teachers were asked about their classroom teaching and assessment approaches. their response rate to the questions is shown in table 2 below. table 2: teachers’ responses to questions on the questionnaire (n= 55 responses) statement never sometimes mostly always begin a session by determining prior knowledge on the topic and their expectations for the training session 10% 8% 45% 37% do you set appropriately challenging expectation for learners 17% 51% 32% learners listen to lecture style presentations 28% 30% 32% 11% use teaching strategies that promote learner enquiry 10% 54% 37% choose different teaching strategies for different instructional purposes 20% 33% 46% maintain an orderly, purposeful learning environment for science learning 4% 17% 35% 44% use variety of assessment methods 4% 28% 69% evident from the data is that the majority of teachers (82%) begin a session by determining prior knowledge on the topic; set appropriately challenging expectation for learners (83%); use teaching strategies that promote learner enquiry (91%); employ different instructional approaches and maintain conducive learning environment for science learning (79%); and employ a variety of assessment methods (97%). teachers were also asked to reflect their beliefs in regard to their teaching philosophy, their responses are shown below: bongani: analysis of teaching and learning. . . 49 table 3: teaching and learning of natural science statement frequencies percentage when teaching i usually • deal with facts and real life situations • deal with ideas and theories 467 8713 it is more imortant to me to • lay out the material in clear sequential steps • give an overall picture and relate the material to other 3021 5941 though 87% of the teachers indicated that they deal with facts and real life situations as shown above, findings from the 22 observed classrooms show that 88% of the teachers facilitated connections between prior knowledge and new learning while 12% did not. in several classrooms teachers began their lesson by asking a few questions related to the previous lesson. in some classrooms teachers introduced the new lesson by writing the topic on the board and then asked questions about it. the paraphrased interchange below illustrates this point. teacher: today we are going to talk about electricity. does anyone of you know what electricity is? learner: electricity is what we use at homes to light or cook teacher: yes, electricity is what we use at home. teacher: yes, what else can you say about electricity? during classroom observations about 59% of the teachers did not express their expectations of the learners and the learning goals. while, the other 41% of teachers only communicated the learning goals, with some teachers even writing the goals on the chalkboard. in all the classrooms teachers used a lecture style, telling method and textbook reading approach. the teaching mainly focused on the imparting of science facts that were not integrated in the learners’ real world. for example, in one classroom the topic was about plants. however, instead of taking the learners outside to observe and explore the surrounding vegetation, learners 50 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 were kept in the classroom to observe two dead plants. the entire lesson was based on transmission of facts with the assumption that learners knew about plants from their community. based on observations, in 45% of the classrooms there were opportunities to make learning meaningful by making deeper connections that will facilitate knowledge construction. for example, the teacher could have drawn examples from the learners context to clarify the topic under discussion. however, in 55% of the observed classrooms teachers did not provide opportunities to make learning meaningful. additional to the employment of the above instructional approaches was that very little visual material was used to provide clarity or emphasise the point under discussion. ironically, in almost all the classrooms, opportunities were available to employ materials that could easily be found around the community. based on the classroom observations 80% of the teachers did not provide challenging learning tasks to the learners. this means that the activities did not require learners to make any analysis, prediction, synthesis or drawing of conclusions. the remaining 20% of teachers only required learners to analyse and draw conclusions on the assigned learning activities. also of interest from the data was that the questionnaire finding indicating that most teachers use teaching strategies that promote learner inquiry did not resonate with the classroom observations as the inquiry learning process was not used in the classrooms. furthermore, in about 68% of the classrooms the differentiated instruction and assignments were lacking and the content and resources seemed not matched to the expected learner’s level. additionally, during lesson instruction 75% of the teachers hardly gave clear instructions or modelling before students began an assigned activity. in about 94% of the classrooms learner engagement during instruction was through question and answer method intended to check their level of understanding. the observation data analysis shows that in 67% of the classrooms teachers did not pose a range of questions/tasks that required different levels of learner response. however, most teachers appeared to be impatient when learners were silent or gave responses that were considered incorrect. in most classes (72%) learners were not encouraged to explain what and why they were learning and to reflect on their thoughts, processing and strategies. rather, the learners who gave incorrect responses were not challenged or probed as to how they reached their conclusions. commonly, teachers would tell the learner, “let’s hear from other people” or “what do others think?”. control was seldom delegated to the learners to self-initiate and reflect on their learning. bongani: analysis of teaching and learning. . . 51 encouraging from the observed classrooms was that 95% of the teachers did not struggle with natural science content knowledge. however, the remaining 5% of teachers demonstrated some science misconceptions, lack of clarity and incomplete teaching of the topic or concept. for example, in a lesson on electricity a teacher referred to a dry cell as a battery. the learners were not taught the components of a dry cell nor did the teacher explain the difference between a dry cell, wet cell and battery. further, the teacher did not bring the dry cell to class so that learners could explore it. throughout the lesson the teacher read from the textbook. based on observation, it was in only a third of the classrooms where the teaching approach/method matched the lesson topic. common in most of the observed classrooms was that at the end of the lesson teachers would give learners some questions (three at most) or a problem to work on in groups. these groups were usually gender mixed. evident during the group work was that not much attention was given by the teacher to ensure that all learners benefitted from the group work. in 67% of the classrooms the teachers dominated the instruction and in only 33% there was equal involvement of teacher and learners. in 55% of classrooms, the teacher did not appear to have rapport with the learners. the relationship was professional but not warm and a power relationship was visible between the teachers and learners. research indicates that the best teachers are able to inspire a love of learning in their students, to build a positive relationship with their students, to get to know them and to show interest in their overall development and progress (o’neill, 2007). 52 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 table 4: summary data from classroom observation instrument statement yes % no % learning tasks that are challenging to learners, requiring them to analyse, predict, synthesise and draw conclusion. n=20 4 20% 16 80% opportunities to make learning meaningful or available. n=20 9 45% 11 55% evidence is differentiated instruction and assignment is apparent. content and resources are matched to learner level. n=19 6 32% 13 68% providing clear instructions and modeling before learners begin an activity. n=16 4 25% 12 75% posing range of questions/task during instruction that require different levels of learner response n=18 6 33% 12 67% learners are encouraged to explain what they are learning and why, and to think about their thoughts, processing, and strategies. n=18 5 28% 13 72% assessment criteria are clear, explicit, and aligned to task and curriculum. n=15 10 67% 5 33% control is delegated to the learners to self-initiate and reflect on their learning. n=18 6 33% 12 67% is there any evidence during the lesson observed that the teacher struggles with natural science content knowledge? n=19 1 5% 18 95% is the teaching approach/method used appropriate for teaching the topic of the lesson? does it allow effective transmission of knowledge? n=18 6 33% 12 67% teachers’ perceptions regarding how learners learn natural science in the observed classrooms in the questionnaire, teachers were also asked about how learners learn natural sciences and technology in their classrooms. the used questions and responses are represented in the table below: bongani: analysis of teaching and learning. . . 53 table 5: summary data on how learners learn natural science in the questionnaire statement never sometimes mostly always encourage learners to share their science ideas with the class 6% 44% 50% learners solve science problems on their own 6% 38% 38% 19% learners show active participation during the lesson 2% 13% 35% 50% you ask learners to explain reasoning behind an idea 15% 59% 26% learners work on science investigation 22% 42% 36% use group work as a teaching approach 24% 34% 42% you link the importance of science to career choices 2% 13% 38% 47% from the above table, the questionnaire results show that 94% of the teachers claim to encourage learners to share their science ideas with the class, a finding that did not resonate with classroom observations. in almost all the observed classrooms learners learnt through verbal instruction, with hardly any visual and practical activities. learners were only given time to discuss questions developed by the teacher in groups and were never given an opportunity to develop their own questions or conduct an investigation. however, observation of the group dynamics indicated that learners do not share ideas; groups were dominated by the more talented learners. the tlrp (2006) states that teaching and learning should engage learners with the big ideas, key processes, modes of discourse and narratives of subjects so that they understand what constitutes quality and standards in particular domains. this engagement was missing in 72% of visited and observed classrooms. about 80% of the observed teachers did not seem to grasp their learners’ preferred learning styles, which should inform the selection of their pedagogical approaches. also, it was evident that teaching was routine and without critical reflection. 54 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 discussion the teaching and learning of science in the observed classrooms hardly aligns with the dbe (2011) caps teaching aims for natural sciences and technology, the cognitive and practical process and design skills that learners should develop. according to the caps (dbe, 2011), the teaching and learning should promote understanding of science as activities that sustain enjoyment and curiosity about the world and natural phenomena. learners should be able to raise questions, identify problems and issues, predict, plan and conduct investigations, communicate results, to mention a few. however, teaching in the observed classes hardly promoted these goals and objectives. some incongruence emerged between the findings from the completed questionnaire and classroom observations. for example, the questionnaire revealed that 81% of teachers claim to begin a session by determining a learner’s prior knowledge; a finding not borne out by observation. in most cases preliminary questions were raised to remind learners about previous lessons and not to diagnose their comprehension level. in most classrooms, the teacher’s questioning skills focused on comprehension and never moved to application, analysis or synthesis as suggested by blooms taxonomy. considering the learner performance in south africa (dbe, 2013 & 2014), questioning can be used as an effective tool whereby one determines learners’ thinking, experiences and shortfalls regarding the topic under discussion. hence, a teacher should plan and reflect on the type of questions to be asked, something that was missing in most classrooms. sound teaching, according to the aaas (1990), usually begins with questions and phenomena that are interesting and familiar to students, not with abstractions or phenomena outside their range of perception, understanding, or knowledge. moreover, effective questioning is essential to developing scientific habits of mind (national research council, 2012). based on data from the questionnaire and classroom observation, there was an evident mismatch or conflict of ideas. this mismatch indicates a possible flaw in self-reporting, which finds that teachers respond in a manner that will please the researcher, rather than an honest reflection on their own practice. this indicates a potential methodological flaw when collecting data by questionnaires alone and hence the need for the use of various data collection instruments. the questionnaire data shows that most natural science teachers (62%) used a lecture style to teach their learners. these findings concur with the classroom observation data. in all the classrooms, the dominant teaching approach was bongani: analysis of teaching and learning. . . 55 the lecture style and telling method. there was a lack of differentiated instructional approach to accommodate learners with various abilities and learning styles. this raises questions as to whether teachers have access to a reservoir of pedagogical approaches that they can use in their classrooms for a diverse group of learners. to accommodate every learner, teachers should explore various teaching approaches that can benefit the different learners. schleicher (2012) argues that the kind of teaching needed today requires teachers to be high-level knowledge workers who constantly advance their own professional knowledge as well as that of their profession. in most classrooms, teachers appeared to hardly understand or know their learner’s preferred learning style. this knowledge can help in choosing the appropriate teaching method that will accommodate diverse learners in their classrooms. davidoff and berg (1990) suggest that learning is more effective if the teaching methods used match students’ preferred learning styles. in addition, effective learning occurs when the conditions for learning are maximised through the deliberate use of instructional design principles that consider learning differences and increase the possibilities of success for all learners; which is also the foundation of the dbe (2011) caps. thus, effective teachers personalise (supposed to) learning for their learners, as they recognise that they develop at different rates and have different abilities. that being said, the challenges associated with the implementation or use of learner centred education approach are widely noted (vavrus, thomas & barlett, 2011: schweisfurth, 2011). schweisfurth (2011) identifies the challenges as having been labelled a ‘paradigm shift’ and the failure metaphorically described as ‘tissue rejection’. however, schweisfurth (2011) argues that some successful implementation seems most likely in contexts where teachers are supported in a multi-stranded, sustained, joined-up manner, and are ‘scaffolded’. hence, i argue that for teachers to succeed in using learner centred approaches in their classroom they require some support from their colleagues, districts and the department of education. obviously, the nature of support will vary as it will include coaching and mentoring, material resources, infrastructure and more. to vary teaching strategies, science teachers should constantly reflect on their practice to determine if learners are still benefiting from their lessons. evidently, most teachers were not familiar with reflective teaching practice. reflective teaching practice is viewed as a means by which practitioners can develop a greater level of self-awareness about the nature and impact of their performance, an awareness that creates opportunities for professional growth and development (osterman & kottkamp, 1993). i argue that an effective and 56 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 a caring teacher comprehends the significance of making sure that every learner is involved in the learning process, and that they benefit from every lesson taught in the classroom. thus, it is critical that teachers are reflective in their teaching, as this alerts them to struggling learners as well as their weaknesses or strengths in a particular lesson or topic. teaching and learning, as james & pollard (2006) contend, should equip learners for life and engage them with valued forms of knowledge. findings also indicate that the natural science teaching hardly promoted inquiry abilities in learners, as they learnt through transmission of established knowledge. the majority of classes lacked practical exercises which promote deeper learning of science content knowledge and critical thinking. in her study, ngubane (2014) found that educators did not grant learners an opportunity to assimilate and make sense of new knowledge as they were expected to respond to many close-ended questions. young learners, as halverson (2007) argues, are naturally curious and constantly explore the world around them. therefore, science teaching should provide the opportunity for learners to expand their natural curiosity and building of theories. this is particularly important in south africa given the low numbers of learners who pursue science at fet level and eventually at tertiary level. the use of an inquiry teaching approach at the primary level can cultivate learner inquisitiveness and interest in science. the oecd (2009) argues that even excellent pre-service training for teachers cannot be expected to prepare them for all the challenges they will face throughout their careers. thus, use of inquiry based teaching and learning has implications for teacher continuous professional development provided by school districts in south africa. furthermore, it has implications for school facilities such as laboratory, libraries as well as the number of learners in each classroom. learner assessment and their learning, as dbe (2011) states, is integral to the teaching and learning process. however, the assessment approach, mostly the question and answer approach, common in many classrooms was less effective for science learning. effective assessment should be carefully, thoughtfully and intentionally planned to achieve its goal. this does not mean, i argue, that teachers should not pose spontaneous questions to learners, but the lesson assessment process should not be entirely based on unplanned questions. learners should be provided with projects that require them to develop a question, predict, formulate a hypothesis, conduct an investigation, collect and analyse data, draw conclusions, develop reports and make presentations to their peers. this approach will help to address learner bongani: analysis of teaching and learning. . . 57 diversity in classrooms and ensure cognitive domain gains suggested by bloom’s taxonomy. furthermore, it will help the teacher with more insight regarding his/her teaching practice or facilitation of a particular science lesson. conclusion this paper reveals how natural sciences and technology is taught in some schools in the ec province. it is concluded that the teaching approaches used are not likely to attract and inspire young learners to continue studying science at higher school and tertiary level. the teaching approaches are intellectually non-stimulating, making science boring and confusing, as they treat the subject as isolated from learner’s daily lives. south africa needs active and stimulating classrooms that will inspire the young ones to continue studying sciences despite the existing myths about it. it is therefore critical that we pay close attention to how we train and support both new and experienced teachers. to change the status quo of the classroom results, intermediate phase science teachers should be imbued with knowledge of various pedagogical approaches that will cater for their diverse learners. the teaching of science should promote deeper learning that sets a foundation for the next grade level and later learner success and advancement in life. it is also concluded that the poor quality of science teaching that some learners receive, especially those from previously disadvantaged backgrounds, can be one of the contributing factors towards poor learner performance, if not attended to soon. also, many teachers lack the ability to reflect on their own practice. effective teachers are reflective in their practice. they are constantly aware of what is going on, continuously make changes and adapt their teaching practice to ensure learner success. they are creative and do not fear to take risks and make decisions to improve their performance and that of their learners. these teachers can creatively adapt and teach any group of learners with any learning styles. based on the findings, intermediate phase natural sciences teaching in the eastern cape requires urgent attention as it hardly aligns with most of the caps principles of teaching and learning. also critical is the physical environment where the teaching and learning process takes place. the environment hardly corresponds with the classroom objectives in terms of learner interaction and teaching approach. it is 58 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 concluded that teachers can improve the state of their classrooms by ensuring that furniture, walls and floors are well maintained. this will increase their learners’ sense of well-being and motivation. every teacher should ensure that the learning environment is conducive for teaching and learning. similarly, the department of education has a 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(2011). ensuring quality by attending to inquiry: learner-centred pedagogy in sub-saharan africa. addis-ababa: unesco. bongani bantwini school of natural sciences and technology for education north west university bongani.bantwini@gmail.com mailto:bongani.bantwini@gmail.com 64 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 microsoft word b91 full issue.docx journal of education, 2023 issue 91, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i91a09 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x an empirical analysis of the impact of mobile instant messaging for collaborative learning during the covid-19 lockdown in a rural-based university nkhangweni lawrence mashau department of business information systems, faculty of management, commerce and law, university of venda, thohoyandou, south africa lawrence.mashau@univen.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2731-5462 (received: 28 july 2022; accepted: 8 may 2023) abstract the world-wide outbreak of covid-19 effected radical change in most institutions of higher learning. these institutions were forced to adopt any technologies at their disposal to continue with teaching and learning and, during that time, many students and lecturers at rural-based universities adopted mobile instant messaging (mim) for collaborative learning. this study investigates the impact of mim for collaborative learning during a covid-19 lockdown in one rural-based university. data were collected from both students and lecturers using a closed-ended questionnaire, and analysed using ibm spss statistics. the study found that mim had a positive impact on collaborative learning in the rural-based university during the covid-19 lockdown. keywords: mobile instant messaging, collaborative learning, rural-based university, covid-19 introduction a decade ago, several scholars predicted that mobile instant messaging (mim) tools would be one of the enablers for teaching and learning in universities (el-hussein & cronje, 2010; ryu & parsons, 2012). mim tools enable unified communication between students by providing cutting-edge functionality for instant connectivity (kim et al., 2014). more recently, the literature has noted an increase in the adoption of mim tools globally by higher institutions of learning (bere, 2019; bere & rambe, 2016; yadegaridehkordi et al., 2019). this rise in the adoption of mim was due to the covid-19 pandemic (zaidi et al., 2021). during the covid-19 lockdown, south african universities were closed for contact lectures and were expected to continue teaching and learning using other methods of teaching (netshakhuma, 2021). these universities adopted mim to realise its optimum benefits for communicating, collaborating, and sharing learning material with students (bere & rambe, 156 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 2016; netshakhuma, 2021; zaidi et al., 2021). the literature shows that students in universities use mim tools for collaborative learning, especially for assignments and group discussions (sarwar et al., 2019; tang & bradshaw, 2020). collaborative learning through mim tools is defined as a state in which two or more students study, or try to study something together, using these tools (kim et al., 2014). collaborative learning using mim improves students’ critical thinking and information sharing through interaction (bere & rambe, 2016). studies have been conducted on the use of mim for collaborative learning, focusing on students and lecturers (jeong & hmelo-silver, 2016), and some have focused on the process of collaborative learning and its outcomes in other countries (kim et al., 2014). these studies do not reveal the impact of instant messaging on collaborative learning in rural-based universities. the available literature focuses on semi-urban and urban universities (bere & mckay, 2017). however, there is a lack of literature exploring the impact of mim on collaborative learning in rural-based universities during the covid-19 lockdown, which indicates a need to investigate this. therefore, this study seeks to investigate the impact of mim on collaborative learning in a rural-based university during the covid-19 pandemic. theoretical foundation to explore the impact of mim on collaborative learning in rural-based universities, a theoretical foundation was needed. to establish the theoretical foundation of this study, delone and mclean’s (2002, 2003) is success model (d&m is) and the diffusion of innovation (doi) theory were employed. the d&m is success model is one of the most significant theories used to measure information system effectiveness and success. this theory is critical for understanding the value that information systems have for individuals (delone & mclean, 2003). the d&m is success model was created by delone and mclean in 1992, and figure 1 shows the adapted model with its six constructs. figure 1 d&m is model (delone & mclean, 2002, p. 9) mashau: an empirical analysis of the impact of mobile instant messaging . . . 157 according to delone and mclean (2002), these constructs are described as follows: • information quality. measures the impact of relevant, complete, accurate, timely, and consistent information generated by information systems for individuals. • system quality. measures the perception of the system on how it can be used to support and address user needs. • service quality. measures what the information system can do. • intention to use. measures the purpose of the system. • user satisfaction. this is an important construct used to measure individual opinion about the information system. • net benefits. used to measure the positive and negative impacts of the information system. the diffusion of innovation theory was developed by rogers in 1962. this theory comprises five characteristics that influence the use of technology (rogers, 1962, 1995, 2003). those five characteristics are relative advantage, trialability, compatibility, observability, and complexity (rogers, 2003). relative advantage is a measure used to explore the benefits and advantages that promote the innovation (rogers, 1995); trialability is seen as an experiment of the innovation to see if it addresses the user’s requirements (rogers, 1995, 2003). compatibility refers to an innovation that is able to function together with other innovations without causing problems, observability refers to the benefits provided by the innovation and lastly, complexity refers to the difficulty of understanding technology (rogers, 1995, 2003). in this study, the d&m is success model and the doi theory are selected as an ideal foundation to explore the impact of instant messaging for collaborative learning during the covid-19 lockdown in rural-based universities. proposed framework and hypotheses the framework proposed for this study was derived from the d&m is success model and the doi theory using compatibility, information quality, observability, system quality, complexity, intention to use, relative advantage, and user satisfaction as constructs to predict the impact of instant messaging on collaborative learning in rural-based universities. the literature postulates that intention to use, relative advantage, and user satisfaction are critical for predicting the impact of using technology (delone & mclean, 2002; rogers, 2003). as shown in figure 2, learner intention to use, relative advantage, and user satisfaction of mim influenced the impact of using mim tools for collaborative learning. 158 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 figure 2 proposed conceptual framework this study then hypothesised compatibility, information quality, observability, system quality, complexity, intention to use, relative advantage, and user satisfaction to explore the impact of mim on collaborative learning. the following eight hypotheses were derived from the aim of the study. • hypothesis 1: compatibility of the mim tools for collaborative learning may affect the intention to use, relative advantage, and user satisfaction of the learners in ruralbased universities. • hypothesis 2: information quality will influence the intention to use mim applications and realise their advantages, as well as user satisfaction with collaborative learning in rural-based universities. • hypothesis 3: observable advantages of, and user satisfaction with, using mim tools will affect students’ perception of using these tools for collaborative learning in ruralbased universities. • hypothesis 4: system quality will influence intention to use the mim and leverage the advantages and user satisfaction of using mim tools for collaborative learning in rural-based universities. • hypothesis 5: the complexity of mim tools will influence the students towards realising the advantages and satisfaction of using mim for collaborative learning in rural-based universities. • hypothesis 60: the intention to use mim tools will affect the relative advantages of using mim for collaborative learning. • hypothesis 6a: the intention to use mim tools will influence the impact of mim for collaborative learning in rural-based universities. • hypothesis 7: the relative advantage of mim tools will influence the impact of mim on collaborative learning in rural-based universities. mashau: an empirical analysis of the impact of mobile instant messaging . . . 159 • hypothesis 80: user satisfaction with mim tools will affect the relative advantage of using mim for collaborative learning. • hypothesis 8a: user satisfaction with mim tools will influence the impact of mim on collaborative learning in rural-based universities. research design data were collected from students and lecturers at a rural-based university. this study followed a quantitative rather than qualitative approach. qualitative study relies more on human understanding, perception, and narrative (cresswell & clark, 2011; myers, 2013); a quantitative approach relies more on calculations and statistical analyses that comprise aggregations, relationships, or associations between constructs to approve or disprove a hypothesis (myers, 2013; oates, 2006). a quantitative approach was selected for this study because it was aimed at generalising the results analysed from data collected through a survey at a rural-based university in south africa. participants the target population for the study was students and lecturers from a rural-based university in south africa. this study was limited to all the lecturers and students from the business information systems and computer science departments. the researcher used purposive sampling to select the lecturers and students from these two departments. purposive sampling is a non-probability sampling technique that is used to select participants through the personal judgement of the researcher, examining the qualities and experiences of the participants associated with the research problem (babbie, 2005). data collection procedure data were collected using an online survey. the researcher developed a closed-ended questionnaire on google forms. an email with a google forms link was sent to the lecturers and students in the business information systems and computer science departments. in total, the email was sent to 532 participants, of whom 341 participants completed the survey. of the 341 responses received, 93 were not usable. in total, the researcher analysed 248 responses to address the research problem. ethical clearance this study was cleared for ethical considerations before data collection commenced. before participating in the survey, all participants were requested to sign an informed consent form. where the participant was a minor, consent was sought through their parents or guardians who signed the consent form on their behalf. it was stipulated in the consent form that participation was voluntary and that there would not be any benefit or financial reward. 160 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 results and analysis descriptive statistics as indicated in table 1, the majority of the respondents were female (140; 56.5%)] and most of them were students (238; 96.0%). most of these students were doing undergraduate programmes (178; 71.8%). the results show that 186 (75%) of the respondents were between 17 and 29 years old. of all the respondents, 70 (28%) held postgraduate degrees and out of those respondents, 2 (0.8%) were doctoral students. table 1 demographic information moderating factor moderating variable frequency percentage title dr 2 0.8 miss 120 48.4 ms 0 0 mr 106 42.7 mrs 20 8.1 gender male 108 43.5 female 140 56.5 age 17 to 19 years 90 36.3 20 to 29 years 96 38.7 30 to 39 years 52 21.0 40 years and above 10 4.0 status student 238 96.0 lecture 10 4.0 level of study undergraduate 178 71.8 honours 46 18.5 master’s 22 8.9 doctoral 2 0.8 from the total number of participants, 142 (57.3%) used facebook, 90 (36.3%) used twitter, 88 (35.5%) used skype and 32 (12.9%) used other instant messaging applications. however, all 248 (100%) of the participants used whatsapp. most of them had six years or more experience using instant messaging applications and most of them used it daily. mashau: an empirical analysis of the impact of mobile instant messaging . . . 161 table 2 instant messaging application usage moderating factor moderating variables frequency percentage instant messaging application facebook 142 57.3 twitter 90 36.3 skype 88 35.5 whatsapp 248 100.0 other 32 12.9 experience using instant messaging application 0 to 1 year 28 11.3 2 to 3 years 52 21.0 4 to 5 years 42 16.9 6 or more 126 50.8 instant messaging application usage frequency frequently 126 50.8 daily 104 41.9 weekly 14 5.6 monthly 4 1.7 normality testing table 3 below presents the results of normality testing on all measured constructs using the kolmogorov-smirnov a and shapiro-wilk tests. the results show that all measured constructs for both kolmogorov-smirnov a and shapiro-wilk are significant because the p-value is equal to 0.000. table 3 results of normality testing measured constructs kolmogorov-smirnov a shapiro-wilk statistic df sig. statistic df sig. compatibility .298 248 .000 .753 248 .000 information quality .259 248 .000 .764 248 .000 observability .195 248 .000 .886 248 .000 system quality .217 248 .000 .879 248 .000 complexity .252 248 .000 .781 248 .000 intention to use .175 248 .000 .916 248 .000 relative advantage .238 248 .000 .706 248 .000 user satisfaction .255 248 .000 .811 248 .000 a. lilliefors significance correction 162 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 reliability analysis a reliability test is a way to measure the reliability of the results using a combination of constructs (ritter, 2010). this test uses a set of scores for each construct. to determine reliability, cronbach’s alpha scores were used. according to gliem and gliem (2003), cronbach’s alpha reliability score ranges between nil (0) and one (1). an acceptable score starts from 0.07 (ritter, 2010; schober & schwarte, 2018). this study’s instruments achieved acceptable and good reliability scores (cf. table 4). based on table 4, all constructs were consistently acceptable because scores were between 0.703 and 0.843. table 4 results for cronbach’s alpha reliability analysis constructs cronbach’s alpha comment compatibility .716 acceptable information quality .721 acceptable observability .802 good system quality .784 acceptable complexity .727 acceptable intention to use .843 good relative advantage .703 acceptable user satisfaction .796 acceptable correlation analysis in this study, correlation analysis is presented to show the relationship between various constructs: compatibility, information quality, observability, system quality, complexity, intention to use, relative advantage, and user satisfaction. a negative correlation between two constructs shows that the constructs are moving in opposite directions (mukaka, 2012). negative correlation happens when a score between two constructs is less than nil (0) (asuero et al., 2007; mukaka, 2012; schober & schwarte, 2018). the results displayed in table 5 below show that the constructs between observability and system quality, intention to use and information quality, intention to use and observability, and user satisfaction and information quality relationships move in opposite directions because they have a negative correlation. mashau: an empirical analysis of the impact of mobile instant messaging . . . 163 table 5 correlation analysis results cp iq ob sq cm iu ra us cp 1.00 iq 0.14 1.00 ob 0.03 0.31 1.00 sq 0.179 0.07 -0.08 1.00 cm 0.01 0.15 * 0.187 ** 0.02 1.00 iu 0.373 ** -0.07 -0.07 0.230 ** 0.08 1.00 ra 0.14 0.07 0.06 0.237 ** 0.179 ** 0.142 * 1.00 0.339 ** us 0.27 * -0.02 0.04 0.229 ** 0.01 0.179 ** 0.339 ** 1.00 ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). * correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). abbreviations on the construct for table 5: compatibility = cp, information quality = iq, observability = ob, system quality = sq, complexity = cm, intention to use = iu, relative advantage = ra, user satisfaction = us hypothesis testing in this research, eight hypotheses were created using p-value and beta from the regression analysis. each independent construct was regressed against the dependent construct to test the hypothesis. the results depicted in table 6 show that the impact of using mim for collaborative learning during the covid-19 lockdown can be associated with compatibility, information quality, observability, complexity, intention to use, relative advantage, and user satisfaction. in this study, hypothesis 4 (system quality) was not supported. table 6 hypothesis test results hypothesis variables beta p-value comment hypothesis 1 compatibility 0.692 0.000 supported hypothesis 2 information quality 0.732 0.000 supported hypothesis 3 observability 0.710 0.032 supported hypothesis 4 system quality 0.038 0.423 not supported hypothesis 5 complexity 0.890 0.000 supported 164 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 hypothesis variables beta p-value comment hypothesis 6 intention to use 0.713 0.000 supported hypothesis 7 relative advantage 0.772 0.013 supported hypothesis 8 user satisfaction 0.870 0.000 supported this research used path co-efficient (β) to test the model. the hypothesis test rejected hypothesis 4 (system quality). the study found that system quality did not have a positive influence on intention to use mim in order to realise its advantages. when students realise the advantages, they will probably be satisfied with the use of mim for collaborative learning in rural-based universities. the findings further show that compatibility, information quality, observation, and complexity are significant for students to experience the advantages, satisfaction, and intention to use mim for collaborative learning. thus the findings reveal that the impact of using mim for collaborative learning is dependent on the intention to use and the advantages and satisfaction of mim. figure 3 research framework with co-efficient path discussion this research aimed to investigate the impact of mim on collaborative learning during the covid-19 lockdown in a rural-based university. to achieve the aim of the study, eight mashau: an empirical analysis of the impact of mobile instant messaging . . . 165 constructs (compatibility, information quality, observability, system quality, complexity, intention to use, relative advantage, and user satisfaction) were used to validate the proposed conceptual framework. the uniqueness of this study is that it was conducted at a previously disadvantaged university, also known as a rural-based university, to explore the impact of mim on collaborative learning during the covid-19 lockdown. rural-based universities have limited social, economic, and digital infrastructures (bere & rambe, 2016). therefore, the investigation into the impact of students using mim for collaborative learning in a ruralbased university was crucial. most participants indicated that they had been using mim (whatsapp, facebook, twitter, and skype) for different purposes before the covid-19 pandemic. all claimed that they resorted to mim to communicate with their peers during the nationwide lockdown. most of them were using whatsapp. consistent with previous studies, the students reported that they used whatsapp for collaborative learning because it was compatible with their digital devices, and they used the platform to acquire the information that they needed (bere, 2019; fu & hwang, 2018; so, 2016). moreover, most of the students indicated that they used mim to discuss various concepts and assignments with their peers because of the relative advantages that it offers (habes et al., 2018; yadegaridehkordi et al., 2019). they claimed that they could study wherever they were. indeed, previous studies have suggested that mobile learning enables students to study at any time without being confined within four walls (habes et al., 2018; mashau, 2016; sarwar et al., 2019). in addition, students indicated that mim is not complex to use, share, and receive learning material (ansari & khan, 2020; alwreikat et al., 2022). this is consistent with findings by mashau and mokwena (2017) who indicated that if instant messaging is not complicated, students are likely to see the advantages of adopting it. furthermore, instant messaging that is simple to use is likely to have a positive impact on the students (ansari & khan, 2020; mashau, 2016). this study also found that system quality did not have any impact on using mim for collaborative learning in the rural-based universities during the covid-19 lockdown. therefore, compatibility, information quality, observability, complexity, intention to use, relative advantage, and user satisfaction positively impacted the use of mobile instant messaging for collaborative learning during the covid-19 lockdown. limitation and recommendation this study has a limitation that could be addressed in future studies. data were collected from only one rural-based university due to covid-19 restrictions preventing travel to other provinces in south africa. future studies could sample more than one university, compare the results, and possibly reveal critical factors that had an impact on the use of mim for collaborative learning in south african rural-based universities during the covid-19 lockdown. furthermore, future studies could use mixed methods and incorporate interviews and questionnaires to collect data. 166 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 conclusion this paper investigated the impact of mim on collaborative learning in a rural-based university during the covid-19 lockdown. the data were collected using a closed-ended questionnaire on google forms. the data were later analysed with the ibm spss statistical tool. the constructs derived from the d&m is success model and the doi theory were used to validate the proposed conceptual framework. after conducting hypothesis testing using beta and p-value, hypothesis 4 (system quality) was rejected as a predictor of the impact of the use of mim for collaborative learning. all the other hypotheses were supported as predictors for measuring the impact. the findings show that most participants used mim to communicate and collaborate with their peers. most of them used it to access and share learning materials while others used it to discuss the subject matter and assignments. the study shows that mim had a significant impact on the rural-based university because students were able to work together even though they were “locked down” in their homes. in addition, lecturers were able to continue teaching and learning using mim. however, going forward, more constructs could be explored by examining the issue of the availability of devices and internet connectivity for rural-based universities students. references alwreikat, a., zaid, m. k. a., & shehata, a. 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(2021). adoption of mobile technology for mobile learning by university students during covid-19. international journal of information and learning technology, 38(4), 329–343. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijilt-02-2021-0033/full/pdf microsoft word b8400 fullissue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 84, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x interlocking inequalities, conflicts, and crises: covid-19 and education in the global south vaughn m. john school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, south africa johnv@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0001-5991-5019 yusuf sayed school of education and social work, university of sussex, falmer, united kingdom centre for international teacher education, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa sayed.cite@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0000-0000-4049 adam cooper human sciences research council, south africa chair in youth unemployment, employability and empowerment, nelson mandela university, gqeberha, south africa acooper@hsrc.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0003-3605-2032 this special issue of the journal of education takes the covid-19 pandemic as a starting point to interrogate and reflect critically on how crises and pandemics interlock with, and impact on, education in contexts of substantial existing inequities, particularly those in the global south. we sought contributions that evaluate how pandemics and crises have impacted education choices, the manner in which education decisions have been taken, and how these exacerbate or disrupt existing inequalities. this special issue provides a critical space for reflection on how the pandemic and crises in general afford us an opportunity to rethink and reimagine the purposes and values of education. the pandemic, devastating as it is, is also a wakeup call to deliberate on alternative education imaginaries. articles in this issue provide critically reflective and empirically grounded perspectives on the effects of the covid-19 pandemic and other interlocking pandemics and crises that affect education in the global south. this special issue opens with a critical editorial essay, crises and disruptions: educational reflections, (re)imaginings, and (re)vitalization, by sayed, cooper, and john that situates the concept of crisis in its historical, economic, and political contexts. this essay explores a 2 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 range of images and imaginings in education policy discourses, the media, and everyday life. it provides a robust critique of the dominant images from the deficit-oriented learning loss variety to a hard-sell of edtech solutions and capitalist-inspired development and policy paradigms, before proposing an alternative vision based on (re)consideration of the purpose of education and whose interests it should serve. it seeks to make sense of how the pandemic has illuminated what boaventura de sousa santos (2001) calls a sociology of absences and emergences since certain educational objects have been foregrounded by the pandemic and others have been silenced or marginalised, thus unveiling what has been suppressed and those who “have not been allowed to exist, to become pronounceable as a need or an aspiration” (p. 91). six of the other ten articles in this issue focus on three sectors of education, university, technical and vocational education and training (tvet), and schools, with two articles examining each of these sectors. a set of four articles on early childhood education and community engagement, as well as some imaginings and theorization of pedagogy and cognition, together with a book review constitute a final cluster that speaks to a sociology of emergences and absences that resonates with the opening essay in this special issue. the issue concludes with an overview of the field of education scholarship on covid-19 in south africa and points to several research gaps that need to be addressed. university the two articles on the impact of the pandemic on the university sector provide perspectives from students and lecturers respectively. the article, african female university students’ experiences of online education at home during the covid-19 pandemic, by pillay, khosa, campbell, nyika, and sheik explores the experiences of remote online education among a small group of female african students at a south african university. adopting a critical feminist paradigm, the case study on which this article is built investigated the role of students’ home environments on their online learning during covid-19 and how gender and material inequalities intersected and shaped their learning experiences. the study found some evidence of student agency amid dominant experiences of marginalisation and discrimination. bekker and carrim’s article, online teaching and learning and epistemological access during covid-19 pandemic conditions in two universities in south africa, is based on a survey of lecturers at two south african universities. their study explored lecturers’ views on how covid-19 had affected their teaching and learning, with a particular focus on how epistemological access was impacted because the pandemic necessitated a switch to emergency remote online teaching and learning. reporting that lecturers found that the switch had compromised their teaching, bekker and carrim discuss the implications for quality assurance if online modes of teaching and learning become the new normal as a modality for curriculum delivery at universities. john, sayed & cooper: editorial 3 technical and vocational education and training (tvet) the articles in this special issue that focus on tvet delve into the ways in which an already marginalised sector was forced to deal with forms of blended learning and accommodate the powerful interests of big business and employers. joy papier’s article, 21st century competencies in tvet: rhetoric and reality in the wake of a pandemic, explores how the pandemic exacerbated the conditions of an already stressed tvet sector and exerted additional pressure on it. prior to the pandemic, she argues, colleges and lecturers had been forewarned about modern technology shaping 21st century teaching, learning, and skills. some progress had been made to initiate blended and remote learning in the sector, but colleges were not adequately prepared for the sudden onset of the pandemic; they were expected to substitute face-to-face classroom interactions with remote teaching and learning—a technological leap for which they had minimal preparation. papier’s research findings paint a picture of tvet lecturers under inordinately difficult conditions overwhelmed by anxiety and consternation, but with deep concern for students and their wellbeing. a different view of tvet in times of crisis is provided by lesley powell in her article, planning for freedom: from human capital to human capabilities. in it, she challenges the dominant skills paradigm, national skills planning systems (nsps), and the primarily human capital development framework that underpins its construction in south africa. powell argues that the skills debate is commonly understood as consisting of a skills mismatch that foregrounds the needs and interests of employers and big business—groups whose needs are apparently left unmet by a tvet sector that produces what she refers to as the “wrong kinds of skills.” this article builds on critiques of nsps by offering a reconceptualisation of skills planning that gives “weight to a broader range of capabilities and human motivations.” to this end, powell uses the capabilities approach to propose an alternative perspective on skills by prioritising the interests and wellbeing of people and the public good. such an approach recognises peoples’ aspirations and identities, locating these in relation to partnerships, communities, social formations, and education and training institutions. this article proposes a seven-dimension model of an emancipatory skills planning system that will provide an alternative conception of skill, the economy, and society in general. schools the covid-19 pandemic has adversely impacted schools, with teachers and learners unable to engage in meaningful teaching and learning. two articles in this special issue consider the impact of this by focusing on pandemic policymaking while paying particular attention to the effect on teachers. mudaly and mudaly’s article, pandemic policy during unpredictable periods: exposing fault lines of inequality, pays particular attention to policymaking during the pandemic in south africa in its exploration of the interrelationship between policy formation and its enactment 4 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 by teachers in schools. the data for this paper arose from the analysis of a policy document, an interview with a policymaker, and a survey sent to teachers, principals, and teachers’ union representatives at schools. from a convenience sample of 73 participants, 30 questionnaires were completed and returned. these authors argue that policy realisation during the pandemic revealed sharp differences between rich and impoverished schools, with the former better prepared to realise the intention of policy since teachers’ ability to implement education policies was shaped by the contextual realities of the school in which they worked. they argue for an approach to policymaking that is cognisant of the diverse realties of schools in south africa and that provides teachers working in disadvantaged and marginalised school contexts with the necessary infrastructure to implement policy. the issue of pandemic policy and its effect on teachers is also the focus of the article, teacher support, preparedness and resilience during times of crises and uncertainty: covid19 and education in the global south, by sayed, singh, bulgrin, henry, williams, metcalfe, pesambili, and mindano. based on research commissioned by education international in collaboration with the open society foundation, this article considers the effects of crises such as the covid-19 pandemic on teachers and their well-being in eight african countries—burkina faso, cape verde, ethiopia, ivory coast, mali, mozambique, south africa, and uganda. it is based on a desktop review of policy documents, academic journals, news media, and reputable covid-19 online statistical dashboards, as well as semistructured interviews conducted with at least one government and one union official in each of the eight african states. the authors argue that the pandemic has revealed an absence of teacher involvement in policymaking and a neglect of their professional development and psychosocial needs in the failure of governments to support them in managing teaching and learning during the pandemic. the article calls for an approach to education policymaking that recognises teachers as active agents and that supports them in their work to build a resilient and responsive education system that could provide equitable and quality education for all. these two articles in this special issue, in both addressing pandemic policy and teachers’ needs, underscore the need to involve teachers actively in education policymaking in general and during times of crisis in particular. teacher professional development and wellbeing are essential components of quality education. these articles are a wakeup call to governments to bear in mind, when they are making policy for and on behalf of teachers, the diverse and unequal schooling contexts in which these teachers find themselves. sociology of absences and emergences in the final section of this special issue there are four articles based on the notion of the sociology of absences and emergences in the global south. this concept is used by boaventura de sousa santos (2001; see also oliveira, 2017) to trace the silhouette of objects, perspectives, alliances, and interests whose existence is largely unimaginable, but that may be conceived of through initiating alternative social processes and connections. through unmasking the social and political circumstances and forces that suppress counter-hegemonic john, sayed & cooper: editorial 5 tendencies, the sociology of absences makes audible that which is silent. during the pandemic, dominant educational discourses were publicly broadcast by powerful forces through images and terms like learning loss, building back better, and technological futures, concepts expanded upon in this editorial. a sociology of absences names and attempts to describe the processes and concepts suppressed by these kinds of hegemonic ideas. at the same time, a sociology of absences needs to be wary of the paradoxes, context-specific considerations, and changing geo-political forces that the pandemic has highlighted. in line with these complexities, fataar and norodien-fataar’s paper treads a line between the beliefs of technology pessimists and those of technology advocates and soudien and harvey’s contribution does something similar in navigating the perspectives of bio-cognitive warriors and sceptics. in their article, towards an e-learning ecologies approach to pedagogy in a post-covid world, fataar and norodien-fataar argue that students’ knowledges and engagement can be enhanced through using reflexive pedagogy as a central component of digital technology. they analyse the two discourses that have dominated debates on teaching and technology during covid-19; the first warns, sceptically, that technological modalities have exacerbated inequalities and the second promotes online learning as necessary and useful, a position predominantly advocated by university management. fataar and norodienfataar argue for adopting an emergent hybrid ecologies approach that highlights the importance of pedagogy in the use of digital technology and departs radically from current conceptualisations (or the lack thereof) of pedagogy implicit in the two main discourses described in their article. hybrid ecologies promote students’ critical epistemic engagement in perceiving them as knowledge makers rather than content absorbers, while simultaneously developing their capacity for understanding contextual knowledge. similarly, soudien and harvey theorise learning by critiquing dominant perspectives that either fail to adequately address the range of social differences students bring to the educational encounter, or that largely ignore the effects of biology and cognition on learning. their bio-cognitive-social approach insists that cognition remain a primary focus in theorising teaching and learning, but that it should not be reduced to universalised ideas about brain processes that lack social complexity. in advocating for intersectionality as a concept able to integrate biological, cognitive, and social processes, soudien and harvey, in the crisis of covid-19 and opportunities for reimagining education, develop an emergent classroom learning model that theorises social intersections. they argue that cognition as an intersectional phenomenon should not decontextualise or compromise how we understand the social processes relevant to learning, nor should it “downstream” the effects of race, class, and gender to outcomes beyond or after the pedagogical encounter. these two articles take the interests, circumstances, and different kinds of marginalisation of students in one part of the global south as their starting point, and, through the tenets of a sociology of absences and emergences, move these beyond conventional perspectives on what constitutes conservative or progressive politics to produce novel educational approaches to teaching and learning. similarly, thabethe and reddy’s article investigates how students from poor communities brought epistemic value to university spaces that were both online 6 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 and face-to-face but add that the students’ unique knowledges remained largely absent. they describe a community-based learning course that took place during covid-19 at the university of kwazulu-natal (ukzn), using a community of inquiry framework to analyse the epistemological experiences of third-year students enrolled in the course. the community-based learning approach looks at the connections between and among the university, community, and curriculum, and analyses the intersections of these in the production of culturally relevant knowledge. as santos (2001) pointed out, a sociology of absences needs to make the links between segregated and suppressed forces and interests explicit, something that the ukzn course struggled to do since the students’ epistemological experiences were not well integrated with the university and its curriculum, and this was exacerbated by online learning among students with poor connectivity, data shortages, and limited (or no) study space. the result was that students’ knowledges remained predominantly absent and marginalised. community-based learning can become an important methodology for a sociology of emergences, integrating knowledge production between universities and communities, but it requires educators who are sensitive to the sociocultural contexts of knowledge production and who value students’ lived experiences as being crucial for learning. absences also feature in ebrahim, martin, and excell’s study of teachers and managers in the early childhood development (ecd) sector during lockdown. they point out that coping with “learning loss” in schools and universities drowned out the needs of younger children in ecd. these authors use a phenomenological lens, together with a systems theory approach, to illuminate struggles, tensions, and resilience in the ecd sector. an online survey and semi-structured interviews showed that covid-19 disruptions entrenched inequities in service provision and early learning opportunities. a million children were excluded from ecd programmes because of the pandemic and the authors’ survey showed that 68% of participants working in disadvantaged centres reported not receiving an income and that 99% of these parents were compelled by circumstances to stop paying fees. different parts of the sector fared differently, with ecd centres in vulnerable communities suffering from a lack of government support, while centres in more affluent communities were better able to absorb the shock created by the pandemic. when centres reopened after the hard lockdown, learning opportunities were limited in poor centres since they struggled to adapt their programmes to altered modes of delivery. while the basic education and university sectors have received a lot of attention, the needs of people associated with the ecd sector have been largely ignored. the final piece in this special issue is a review by michael samuels of teaching in and beyond pandemic times (jansen & farmer-philips, 2021). this well-crafted review, titled professionals in pandemia: our reimagined new world, picks up the power of story for reading the “wor(l)d” of teachers during the pandemic. samuels notes that “underpinning the sixty-five stories of the anthology is fear, anxiety, and possibility, as teachers are presented (or represented themselves) as active professional learners who embraced the uncertain times” and thereby present, through this edited anthology, a counter-narrative to a view that teachers were on “an extended holiday break” during the covid-19 closures of schools. john, sayed & cooper: editorial 7 while applauding this book and recommending it to the education community, believing that practicing teachers in particular, “will fall in love with [it]”, samuels does question whether the social-media based methodology employed by jansen and farmer-philips did not paradoxically allow “the technological divide of our unequal society” to exclude some voices and silence the stories of teachers who had “abandoned hope.” thus, while this book addresses to some extent the absence of teachers’ voices during the pandemic, as lamented by mudaly and mudaly and by sayed et al. in this special issue, its mode of recruiting teachers may also have followed the pattern that results in the absence of the most marginalised in the profession. emerging and future scholarship on education in the time of covid-19 as the editors of this special issue, we sought to solicit articles that engaged critically with crises and disruptions such as the covid-19 pandemic and its effect on education. as noted in this issue, there has been a dearth of scholarship and thinking about adult and community education, for example. in the opening editorial essay, we comment on the reasons for the marginality of this sector and the consequences of its continued absence. to get a better sense of trends and gaps in the emerging covid-education literature, we, the editors, undertook a basic review of articles published in a set of the academy of science of south africa (assaf) journals. we used the assaf collection of journals for a quick scan of covid-education scholarship in the global south, particularly in south africa from march 2020, when the first lockdown was announced, to june 2021. in this review, keeping a broad definition to secure the widest possible range of articles, we searched for those that focused on covid-19 and education. 1 our look across the assaf journals revealed several interesting patterns about the form and nature of scholarship during and about the pandemic. first, the search revealed that many of the articles that focused on the pandemic and education were compiled in special issues, thus indicating that the response of the academy was to generate these. second, there was a distinct focus on school and university in many of the articles published in these journals. the scholarship during and on covid-19 suggested a very narrow vision of education with a remarkable absence of attention being paid to sectors such as adult education and tvet, a dearth in the latter that we have tried to address in this special issue. third, the concern was nationally focused, but many failed to locate the scholarship and debate across contexts. there was a remarkable absence of writing from an internationally or nationally comparative 1 this review was restricted to primarily those journals that were part of the assaf review of education journals. the review is illustrative rather than conclusive in seeking to map general trends and point to the broad trajectory of scholarship. it is not intended as an exhaustive and detailed review of literature and the detailed content analysis of each article. the journals that were reviewed included education as change, independent journal of teaching and learning, journal of education, journal of education studies, perspectives in education, south african journal of childhood education, south african journal of education, african education review, southern african review of education, and south african journal of higher education. from this process, we identified about 25 articles that focus on education and the covid-19 pandemic. 8 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 point of view, particularly in the context of the regional global south and especially in articles that see the pandemic as interlocking with other crises. fourth, much of the scholarship reflects a narrow view of the covid-19 pandemic, failing to see different crises as interlocking, intersectional, and inter-relational. there is a sense of exceptionalism regarding covid-19 in the way in which scholarship about this latest crisis has been penned. finally, scholarship about the crisis tends to focus narrowly, as this special issue argues, on learning loss and learning content, with a limited focus on a broader and more holistic conception of education and the contexts in which it is practised. our brief review of this scholarship suggests several important directions for future research in this area. first, there is a need for scholarship that takes a holistic, comparative, and interlocking approach to examining crises. such scholarship will examine not only the crisis of covid-19 in relation to other crises but will also see the adverse effect of the pandemic on education in relation to other social sectors such as social welfare; as scholars we need to connect across our narrow areas of expertise in order to deepen our knowledge of crises and their effects on education. second, it is evident that this crisis is truly global in reach, effect, and consequence. scholarship in south africa needs to make more conscious and proactive efforts to learn from other countries in the region, as well as from the rest of the world. third, there is a need for funding that enables scholarship about crises that is transand multidisciplinary in nature. finally, the crisis invites reflective, considered, and theoretically grounded research about what all these events imply for the future. this particular crisis is an opportunity to rethink orthodoxies, to provide, as ladson-billings (2021) has argued, a hard reset, and encourage a wider range of voices and scholarship in mapping the post-pandemic world. yet as the crisis continues to unfold and become accepted, there seems to be a default to the previous pattern as is evident, for example, in the south african department of basic education’s curriculum recovery strategy. references ladson-billings, g (2021). “i’m here for the hard re-set: post pandemic pedagogy to preserve our culture. equity and excellence in education, 54(1), 67–78. oliveira, i. b. (2017). boaventura and education. sense publishers. santos, boaventura de sousa (2001). nuestra america: reinventing a subaltern paradigm of recognition and redistribution. theory, culture & society, 18(2/3), 185–217. journal of education, 2017 issue 68, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za investigating factors that impact the success of students in a higher education classroom: a case study eunice nyamupangedengu (received 27 august 2016; accepted 17 may 2017) abstract south african higher education institutions (saheis) were rocked by student protests in 2015 and 2016. while the main issue that sparked the protests was unaffordable fee hikes which were negatively impacting equitable access to he, the protests also brought to the fore, other issues impacting students’ success such as lack of transformation and the manner in which universities deliver their curricula which does not cater for the now diverse student body. the main educational challenge is not the diversity of the student body but rather the failure by institutions and individuals to tailor the standard teaching and learning processes to the realities of the great majority of the current student body. this was the motivation for this study in which i sought to investigate factors that impact students’ success in my classroom. data was collected from students in the form of students’ responses to an openended question at the beginning of a course and to semi-structured group interviews at the end of the course. students’ responses were analysed using various bodies of literature as a lens. the factors that are likely to impact the success of the diverse student body in a higher education classroom were identified and discussed and recommendations were made. introduction south african higher education institutions (saheis) were rocked by student protests in 2015 and 2016. while the main issue that sparked the protests was unaffordable fee hikes which were negatively impacting equitable access to he, the protests also brought to the fore, a host of other issues impacting students’ success at heis such as lack of transformation, curriculum relevance and the manner in which universities deliver their curricula. historically, south african higher education used to target and to serve a minority ethnic group (mdepa & tshiwula, 2012). however, with the dawn of democracy in 1994, the student body at heis has been changing and 114 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 is continuously changing in terms of numbers, race, and socio-economic, cultural and academic backgrounds (scott, yeld, & hendry, 2007). despite these changes that have taken place in the student intake, traditional educational approaches such as the curriculum frameworks, course design methods and content, lecture delivery practices and even time tabling of lectures that were suitable for the then ethnic minority groups continue to prevail in the present diverse south african higher education arena (scott et al., 2007). this state of affairs has led to some students being privileged while others are disadvantaged. as highlighted by scott et al. (2007), the main educational challenge in these circumstances is not the diversity of the student body but rather the failure by institutions and individuals to tailor the standard teaching and learning processes to the realities of the great majority of the current student body. if institutions and lecturers can consider student diversity in their mainstream teaching and learning approaches, this is likely to enable many students to realise their potential. however, as indicated in the che report of 2009 and in scott et al. (2007), the academic staff body at saheis is poorly prepared to deal with the many reasons for the unsatisfactory student outcomes. after reflecting on the issues that students had raised during the protests, i realised that i was one of those members of the academic staff who was not only pedagogically underprepared for teaching the current diversity of students in my courses but also lacked an understanding of the issues of both access and success. when one considers how critical these issues of access and success are in higher education in south africa, one cannot overemphasise the importance of research that would allow for a better understanding of the issues. this was the motivation for this study in which i sought to understand the issues that impact epistemological access at the level of my classroom. literature review and conceptual framework for the study the concept of epistemological access was used as the framework for the study that is reported in this paper. the term epistemological access (ea) was coined by morrow during an address at the then university of the north (now university of limpopo) in 1992. the address was later published in a book called learning to teach in south africa in 2007. in his 1992 address morrow described two dimensions of access namely formal access and ea. the latter is the dimension of access which was used as the conceptual framework in nyamupangedengu: investigating matters that impact. . . 115 this study and for the purposes of this paper, morrow’s 2007 definition of ea was adapted. morrow (2007, p.18) defined ea as “access to the knowledge that universities distribute”. it (epistemological access) includes the use of teaching and learning strategies that would enable students even those poorly prepared by schools for university study to learn what is taught at universities and succeed. morrow’s definition seem to be suggesting that the lecturers are the ones that are responsible for enabling ea with the student as the passive recipient. however, in his 1994 paper titled <entitlement and achievement in education’, he clearly articulated that ea cannot be supplied or transmitted, meaning that agency of the learner is necessary. that being the case, i am of the idea that while lecturers must teach in a way that enable access, the students must also actively participate in the academic practices in order for them to gain that access. therefore, both the lecturers and the students are key players in enabling ea. contexts differ from one institution to another and from one classroom to another and so do students’ learning needs. therefore, pedagogical practices are not a one size fits all i.e. the pedagogical practices that may be suitable and effective in one context may not be effective in a different context, and the kind of support that students require in order to gain ea also vary depending on the contextual situation. therefore, while issues that impact ea are known, the manifestations of these issues differ from one academic institution to another and from one learning context to another. that being the case, it is important that lecturers should study their classroom contexts so as to be in a position to effectively support their students’ ea. in addition, when one considers what is in the pedagogical content knowledge literature e.g. rollnick, bennett, rhemtula, dharsey, & ndlovu (2008), effective teaching strategies emanate from a knowledge base for teaching that includes knowledge of students. this means that knowledge of one’s students is a prerequisite if lecturers are to choose teaching strategies that would enable epistemological access. knowledge of students mean among other things, being aware of their level of competencies and the kind of support that they will need in order to gain ea. this was the motivation for this study, to initiate a social dialogue that would enable me to understand the students in my course in terms of what they considered would enable them to learn. 116 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 context of the study i am a teacher educator at a sahei. i am responsible for teaching genetics a content course to pre-service teachers (psts). my institution, which in this paper i refer to as sax is the setting for this study. sax offers both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in education. in its undergraduate programmes the institution follows a concurrent model of teacher education whereby undergraduate psts study both the content subjects and how to teach those subjects in the same school then qualify as teachers for those subjects at the end of their studies. at sax therefore, teacher educators are responsible for teaching both content and methodology courses to psts. the focus of this study was the teaching of a content course, genetics to psts who were training to be high school life sciences teachers. the genetics course is a life sciences course which is offered to fourth year students who are taking life sciences as their major. the teaching of the course takes six weeks. the student population in my classes represented diversity in all its many forms: race, class, culture and academic background. observations from some of my previous teaching activities showed that students have different levels of content knowledge and in some cases culture and language hinder meaningful learning of genetics concepts. therefore, the issues that were raised by students such as the manner in which universities deliver their curricula which is seen to privilege some students and disadvantage others motivated me to carry out this study. my belief is that while universities don’t have to necessarily change the content of their curricula as the reputable standards have to be maintained, lecturers who are tasked with the responsibilities of delivering the curricula to students can adjust their teaching practices in order to cater for the diverse student body at heis. this necessary shift in teaching practices calls for lecturers, through research, to continuously seek to develop the knowledge that is appropriate for effectively transforming the syllabus and for teaching the complex and diverse student body. dialogue with students is one way of gaining information that can inform one’s teaching. the aim of this study was therefore to investigate the factors that impact ea and success of students in a he classroom through social dialogue with the students. the research question that guided this study was: what factors within a higher education classroom impact epistemological access and success of a diverse student body? nyamupangedengu: investigating matters that impact. . . 117 research design participants the participants were the 70 students who were registered for the genetics course. all 70 students were invited to be participants and they all gave their consent. data sources there were two main data sources for this study. the first data source was the open ended question that i asked students to respond to at the beginning of the course. the question was: what do you expect from me as your lecturer for the genetics course? the question appears to be simplistic but by asking the students to respond to this question, my aim was to initiate a dialogue between me and the students that could bring to light what they view as teaching practices that would enable them to learn. insights from students’ responses were going to inform my teaching of the genetics course. in addition, empathy and care are key to transformative pedagogy and those aspects can only develop through social interactions including social dialogue (ellery, 2016). the second data source was the interviews with students at the end of the course to find out their experiences of the genetics course. my hope was to glean from students’ experiences what could increase or hinder epistemological access and success from what i had implemented in the course. data collection on the first day of the genetics course, students were given plain sheets of paper with the question <what do you expect from me as your lecturer for the genetics course?’ printed on them. i then explained to the students that by asking them this question, my aim was to get to understand what their expectations were and what they thought would enhance their chances of success in a course. the information was going to inform my teaching of the course. they were free not to participate if they did not wish to. the students were given the time they needed to respond to the question. those who participated took about 10 minutes to write down their responses and to 118 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 submit them. after collecting students’ responses, i collated them and went back to students for an open discussion in which i explained how i had understood their expectations and also asked for clarification of some of their responses. an audio-recording of the discussion of students’ responses formed a secondary data set. students’ expectations as disclosed in their responses to the above question informed my teaching of the genetics course. at the end of the course, students were interviewed to find out their learning experiences during the genetics course. a semi-structured interview was used to do group interviews. i chose group interviews because according to bogdan and biklen (2007), group interviews can generate a wider range of responses than in individual interviews. group interviews can also bring together people who hold varied opinions or maybe “representatives of different collectives” (cohen, manion, & morrison, 2000, p. 287). in my case, group interviews were going to bring together students who were representative of the diverse groups in my classroom. on a practical note, group interviews were going to be quick as they allow the interviewing of many students at a go. i was aware of the disadvantages of group interviews which included need for skilful interviewing, difficulties that may arise if personal matters emerge (cohen et al., 2000). i however felt that the advantages outweighed the disadvantages especially because the issue that students were going to be interviewed about was not a personal one. i also made sure that the interviews were going to be done by an experienced interviewer. five groups of students were interviewed. data analysis i used inductive coding to analyse the collated student responses and deductive coding for the interview transcripts. analysis of students’ responses i had a total of 136 statements of students’ descriptions of their expectations. in figure 1 below, i used the first 10 statements to show the coding process. nyamupangedengu: investigating matters that impact. . . 119 students’ expectations 1. transparency: let us know in advance what will be done in the lectures (prior access to teaching/learning materials – (pat/l) 2. make ppt presentations available in advance to make preparation possible – pat/l 3. tuts and pracs should be marked and returned to us before tests are written (assessment expectations – ass) 4. well prepared lectures (t/l process – tlp) 5. memos for pracs, tests and exams to be made available – ass 6. content explained at our level (tlp) 7. to be provided with sufficient notes (tlp) 8. have many visual aids to help us understand the concepts – tlp 9. good communication in terms of what is due, when and where as well as what the tests are on and when – communication on ass 10. lecture notes that can be kept – tlp as can be seen in the box above, the 10 student responses were about teaching and learning and about assessment. the coding of the rest of 136 responses from the class also showed these two broad categories namely students’ expectations about pedagogical practices and students’ expectations about assessment practices. the expectations on pedagogical practices category had three sub-categories namely: expectations about access to t/l materials, expectations about the type of t/l materials and expectations about the teaching methods. analysis of interview transcripts five interviews were done with 13 students in five focus groups. the interviews were first transcribed then analysed. to identify and to describe students’ experiences as reflected in the interviews, i used what alsop and watts (1997), referred to as lenses. these lenses are the cognitive, the 120 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 affective, the conative and self-esteem. although the study by alsop and watts was on conceptual change, i saw the four components as frames that could help me to describe how students engaged with the teaching phenomena that they were encountering during my teaching of the genetics course and hence the extent to which they had accessed what i had offered in the course. i describe these four components below. cognition occurs when stimuli is mentally processed by an individual resulting in the formulation of concepts about those stimuli. therefore, the cognitive frame describes what happens when information in the environment is transformed into knowledge in the mind of a learner. evidence of cognition in students’ experiences can be taken to be an indication that the students are accessing what is being taught. the component affective refers to the expression of feelings and emotions (nyamupangedengu, 2016). affective expressions can be categorised as enjoyable, germane, salient and wonder. the category enjoyable covers anything that is enjoyed, liked or disliked by the students. germane describes the extent to which something is personally relevant to the students. the extent to which a learning experience is prominent or important in the students’ environment is what is described as salient and the fourth category of wonder describes the dimension of affective when students show amazement or awe at something they have learnt about (lelliott, 2007). the third lens is conation which describes how a student views the knowledge and understanding s/he gained in terms of usefulness and applicability. alsop and watts used three elements to delineate conation; trust which is the level by which students are able to trust their understandings of the knowledge gained, control describes the quality of control students have over the use of knowledge gained and action, the degree of applicability of the knowledge gained. the fourth lens self-esteem relates to how individuals see or feel about themselves (alsop & watts, 1997). the aspects that cover self-esteem include image, confidence and autonomy. image refers to the perceptions students have of themselves. confidence describes the sense of self-belief that enables individuals to persist in the face of incomprehension and autonomy refers to the individual’s capacity and motivation to pursue issues and to find answers to questions. the above descriptors of students’ learning experiences can be taken to indicate epistemological access. this is because students cannot enjoy, develop confidence or show conative experiences if they are not accessing the knowledge that they are being taught. nyamupangedengu: investigating matters that impact. . . 121 i used the above descriptions of learning experiences as a framework for both analysing the interview transcripts and describing students’ experiences of the genetics course. the analysis of interview transcripts therefore involved deductive coding. below are two examples of coded students’ utterances. munya: i think also the key aspect that she displayed was planning. i learned that if you're going to teach learners, and make sure that they understand, you first as a teacher must first be prepared – fully prepared – and organise each and every thing that you are going to use, so that when you implement whatever plan you had, you have, you cannot be confused and will be able to clarify any misconception and challenges that you're going to encounter(germaine aspect) tendai: yeah, i think that it was always nice (aspect of enjoyment) that she was always early and you could see she was always prepared, she always had something prepared for us to do. it wasn't like she stood up there and thought, "well today we'll do this...", you could see she was always prepared and that made it so much easier to trust what she was saying; to believe it – you know what i mean? (aspect of conation) munya’s utterance shows that the planning that he experienced in the course was personally relevant to him. therefore, the utterance was coded as reflecting germaine learning experiences. through careful planning by the lecturer, munya was able to access the ‘goods’ that the lecturer was ‘distributing’ in her classroom. (morrow, 2007). tendai’s utterance it was always nice shows aspects of enjoyment and her reference to trust is an aspect of conation. these two learning experiences were accordingly coded in tendai’s utterance. i coded the first transcript and then asked a colleague to also independently code the same transcript as part of the validation process. after independently coding the transcript, i met with my colleague and discussed our coding and ironed out any differences. i then coded all the other four transcripts. findings and discussion as indicated earlier, the analysis of students’ responses yielded two broad categories of students’ expectations. i used these categories as subheadings in the discussion of findings below. 122 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 students’ expectations about pedagogical practices students’ responses showed that they had certain expectations regarding the t/l process. those expectations could be divided into three sub-categories namely access to t/l materials, types of t/l materials and teaching methods. i discuss these expectations below. expectations about access to t/l materials twenty-two of the 67 students (32.8%) who responded to the open-ended question indicated that they expected access to the t/l materials before the lectures are delivered: 11.. transparency: let us know in advance what will be done in the lectures 2. make powerpoint presentations available in advance to make preparation possible. 3. tutorials to be handed out timeously it was clear during the discussion with the students and during interviews that students were aware of the importance of accessing lecture material before the lectures and what they could gain. a student’s utterance during the discussion that followed the writing of the responses is testimony to the above claim: student: when you get the lecture material in advance, you prepare and you are much more focused during lectures and sometimes you even know in advance what you don’t understand highlighting the need for advance access to t/l material is an indication of agency on the part of the student and as argued in the literature, agency by students is a necessary requisite if ea is to be achieved (morrow, 2007). the student showed motivation and eagerness to learn and that motivation has the potential to promote ea. in response to students’ expectation above, i made an effort to prepare a six week long programme detailing what would be covered and in each lecture practical and tutorial and posted on the university’s e-learning site together with other relevant t/l materials. the utterances by ephy and tendai below reflect the impact that the posting of the course materials had on students nyamupangedengu: investigating matters that impact. . . 123 ephy: she was engaged with us as a class, . . .by having the website, sakai, she used that really well, like giving us all the resources we need, whenever we did a practical, she after the practical was done she would give us a memo to see where we went wrong, how we can correct ourselves, she gave us extra information on the website which helped us with the course – things that she couldn't cover in the lecture were on the website, so i think that strategy by making us all involved all the time instead of just that time that is allocated with us (salient aspect). tendai: the strategy gives you the opportunity to be as prepared as she is. that you've never felt like you were behind or that you had to catch up (salient aspect). students’ utterances above show that providing students with the t/l materials in advance, enabled them to prepare for lectures and to engage with the t/l materials both before and after the lectures. providing students with t/l materials in advance is therefore a pedagogical practice that can promote epistemological access as students can be better prepared for the lectures and can engage with the materials any time before and after contact hours. universities should therefore strive to have working e-learning systems as a way of promoting student access and success. however, discussions with the students showed that many lecturers do not fulfil this pedagogical expectation. when i reflected on my own experiences as a lecturer, i could see that one of the reasons for failing to fulfil this expectation is that preparing t/l course materials in advance that students can effectively use to study requires lots of time that i hardly have due to heavy teaching workloads. most of the time, i find myself just fighting to keep afloat by focusing on preparing for one lecture at a time. in the study that is reported in this paper, because i was doing this study, i dedicated lots of time to the genetics course which is not something that i can sustain if i have to write journal articles and publish. universities need to therefore, recognise that effective delivery of lectures requires time. heavy teaching workloads and high demands for research and publications at the same time negatively impact lecturers’ ability to offer pedagogical practices that will increase both access and success of our students. expectations on the t/l resources that students should be provided with forty-one students (61%) indicated that they were expecting to be given notes. below are three examples of such responses: 124 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 1. to be provided with sufficient notes 2. notes that are clear and summarised in such a way that the notes make sense and go hand in hand with the prescribed textbook. 3. good lecture notes the expectation from students of being given prepared notes reflects student under preparedness. students’ mindset which shows that even after being at university for a minimum of three years, they were still expecting their lecturer to prepare notes for them indicates how underprepared these students were for university studies. when i reflected on this situation, i wondered why so many students were not taking responsibility of their own learning. why were they still expecting lecturers to prepare notes for them? a discussion with the students revealed that some students did not know how to prepare their own notes, others were not confident that they will prepare good quality notes and some said they commute every day, therefore there is not enough time during the course of the week for them to use the library or the computer lab to study, do research and write own notes. students’ inability to prepare own notes confirms poor academic literacy, a well-documented challenge for many students in south africa who come from poor educational backgrounds (scott et al., 2007). according to scott et al. (2007), lack of preparedness of students going into tertiary institutions is an aspect that negatively impacts epistemological access. in their paper, scott et al. (2007) made suggestions on what the higher education sector can do at both institutional level and classroom level in order to deal with student under preparedness. at institutional level, the suggestions by scott et al. included change in curriculum frameworks and provision of foundational courses. however, as argued by wingate (2007), provision of foundational courses is ineffective because the courses are generic and do not consider context and the nature of knowledge to be acquired. at classroom level, scott et al. (2007) suggested that teaching should be research-informed as a way of ensuring that the support that students will get is what they need in a particular context to achieve success. therefore, if as lecturers and as universities, we do not do research in our classrooms in order to understand the kind of support that the students in our courses would need in order to learn and to learn how to learn (wingate, 2007), we will struggle to provide epistemological access to our students thereby negatively impacting their success at our universities. students’ responses in this study offer not only opportunities for further research but also opportunities for me as the lecturer to offer support that is nyamupangedengu: investigating matters that impact. . . 125 tailored to the needs of the students in my classroom. in this study, as a starting point, i made a suggestion to the lecturers in my discipline that we could help students to prepare own notes by providing a guideline in the form of headings and subheadings. then, under subheadings have questions that students need to respond to as part of writing their notes. the headings and subheadings will give structure to the notes and the questions will guide students in terms of the important content that should be included under each subheading. the feasibility and success of this approach is yet to be investigated and while this structure may work in one discipline, it may not work in another. hence the need for research at classroom level. the other issue that students highlighted as impacting their learning was the issue of transport. because students commute every day, there is not enough time for them to utilise university resources such as libraries and computer labs. the use of digital resources such as the e-learning system can alleviate the issue of insufficient time for studying as a result of commuting. universities can lobby or push for students to be provided with funding that allows them to buy laptops or tablets. having a laptop of your own can enable students to download information from the e-learning systems and other online resources while still at the university and use it for studying at home after lectures and during weekends. otherwise, ea and success at tertiary institutions will continue to elude many students from poor backgrounds. expectations on teaching methods students’ responses showed that powerpoint presentations were the most commonly used mode of teaching by lecturers. the students however expected me to use other ways of teaching such as audio/visual aids. i therefore used lots of t/l visual aids in my teaching of the genetics lecture. i also included learning activities like presentations and role playing to increase student participation during the course. the inclusion of these teaching methods positively impacted students’ learning: ngoni: she was the first one for me, since i was here, from first year and second year; she was the first one to introduce presentation in science. like, i haven’t talked for two years in science, so like, everybody got the chance to say something about genetics, so if you didn't understand then there will be a platform to show that you don't understand and then the misconception you have will be corrected. 126 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 there are two aspects that are important to note from ngoni’s utterance above. the first one is that ngoni displayed that by including teaching methods that required oral participation, students got chances to show their level of understanding and to be corrected where they had developed misunderstandings. this is an indication that students were accessing the knowledge that was being taught. therefore, our pedagogical practices as lecturers can promote epistemological access. the second aspect is that ngoni said that she had not talked for two years in the science classroom. considering that attaining ea to any educational field is not only about acquisition of knowledge, but also about becoming a participant in practices (morrow, 2007), it means that ngoni had not been fully attaining ea and one reason was that no opportunities had been created that had motivated her to participate in the learning activities. therefore, our pedagogical practices as lecturers can hinder ea at classroom level. the ‘other’ teaching and learning issues the other teaching and learning issues that students raised had to do with the teaching pace and the volume of work in class and in the course. the students were appealing for a ‘manageable’ pace and for the volume of work per time to be reduced. 1. move through content at a fair pace 2. suitable pace (not too quickly) so that we can follow and understand, manageable pace these expectations created a challenge for me. this is because at that time, i could not offer a solution to what they were requesting. slowing down the pace and reducing the volume of work per given time would only result in me not completing the teaching of what is specified in the course in the specified time. this scenario again highlights the need for research and for continuous social dialogue within our classroom where issues that hinder ea are discussed and collective solutions sought. students need support on how to manage large volumes of work and lecturers need research-informed support or solutions for students. nyamupangedengu: investigating matters that impact. . . 127 demonstrators are persons in most cases post-graduate students who help students during1 practical sessions and also mark the practicals. assessment expectations assessment expectations refer to what students expected with regard to tutorials, practicals and tests. students’ responses reflected the anxieties that they have when it comes to assessment and what they hope for. what the students were expecting was that firstly, all assessment tasks must be linked to content taught. secondly, marking of all assessment tasks must be timeous. thirdly, the lecturer and the students must review all marked tasks together as part of feedback and lastly, adequate time must be allowed for completion of tasks. for me, all these expectations were reasonable but sadly not always fulfilled due to large classes and bigger workloads among other reasons. for example, due to having a large class of 70 students, i have three demonstrators who help me in the laboratories during practical work and1 also help with the marking of the work. the demonstrators’ marking is not always uniform and also the quality of help they give to students also differs. this problem which can hinder both ea and success is an example of a problem that is context-specific and would require context-specific solutions hence the need to look for solutions to the issue of ea not only at institutional level but also at classroom level. therefore, considering that students’ success at university is measured by the marks they get from the assessment regimes, it is of great concern to see that our assessment practices could be negatively impacting both epistemological access and success of our students. one of the things that i started doing during the teaching of the genetics course was to randomly pick and remark 10 scripts from every practical and tutorial session to assess the quality of students’ work and the quality of marking by the demonstrators, then use my observations to give feedback to both the demonstrators and the students. i would also use my observations to prepare and to provide students with detailed memoranda for practicals, tutorials and tests with the hope that they will be able to identify the errors and omissions they were making and learn from them. from the feedback that i got from the students during interviews, it seems that these practices were positively impacting their learning: ephy: . . .by having the website, sakai, she used that really well, like giving us all the resources we need, whenever we did a practical, she after the practical 128 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 was done she would give us a memo to see where we went wrong, how we can correct ourselves. having an e-learning system in place at tertiary institutions and utilising it can go a long way in increasing ea as students will be able to access, outside the contact hours, not only the teaching and learning resources but also feedback on the assessment tasks done. conclusion in this study, i used a simple question ‘what do you expect from me as your lecturer for the genetics course?’ and focus group interviews to initiate social dialogue between myself and the students who were registered for the genetics course. the social dialogue was meant to help me to understand students’ perspective of what they thought i needed to do as their lecturer to ensure their success and also to help me critically reflect on my teaching so that i could become aware of the impact of my pedagogical practices on students’ ea and success. ultimately, my aim in this study was to find out what we can do at classroom level to afford ea to our students. the study has revealed a number of factors that can impact epistemological access and success of students at classroom level. one known hindrance to ea at universities that is well-documented in the literature is the under-preparedness of many students who gain formal access to our universities. in this study, specific aspects of under-preparedness which include inability to prepare own notes and to deal with high volumes of work were identified. suggestions were made as to how students can be supported at classroom level to overcome these difficulties. the suggestions that made a positive impact in this study were: the use of the university’s e-learning system to provide advance access of t/l materials to students and for providing feedback on assessment tasks. this study has shown that our pedagogical practices can make a difference in promoting both ea and success of our students. for example, the use of visual aids positively impacted the learning of content by students hence access to knowledge. as lecturers, we have a key role to play in order to enable epistemological access and success of our students. practice-based research can go a long way in informing our teaching and how we can support our students to access the knowledge that we offer in our classrooms. a number of such opportunities for research and for developing deeper insights into how we can promote ea at classroom level presented nyamupangedengu: investigating matters that impact. . . 129 themselves in this study e.g. the over-dependence of students on academics’ notes and inability to cope with high volumes of work. how can students be developed to become more independent and responsible for their learning? references alsop, s., & watts, m. 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(2008). the place of subject matter knowledge in pedagogical content knowledge: a case study of south african teachers teaching the amount of substance and chemical equilibrium. international journal of science education, 30(10), 1365–1387. scott, i., yeld, a., & hendry, j. (2007). a case for improving teaching and learning in south african higher education. he monitor no.6. october 2007. cape town: centre for higher education development, university of cape town. wingate, u. (2007). a framework for transition: supporting “learning to learn” in higher education. higher education quarterly, 61(3), 391–405. eunice nyamupangedengu school of education marang centre for mathematics, science and technology education university of the witwatersrand eunice.nyamupangedengu@wits.ac.za mailto:eunice.nyamupangedengu@wits.ac.za microsoft word joe-issue71jun30.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 71, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i71a04 using a vygotskian sociocultural approach to pedagogy: insights from some teachers in south africa edmore mutekwe northwest university, faculty of education, school of professional studies in education email: edmore.mutekwe@nwu.ac.za/emutekwe@yahoo.com (received 22 november 2017; accepted 17 may 2018) abstract the goal of the study on which this article is based was to examine teachers’ perspectives on the effectiveness of adopting a vygotskian sociocultural approach to teaching and learning in the classrooms. the study used focus group interview discussions to gather views from 20 classroom practitioners who had completed a bed hons in education psychology. the teachers were from five secondary schools in the gauteng region. among the key concepts explored in the focus group discussions (fgds) were the role of scaffolding when linked to mediated learning experiences (mles), the use of situated learning experiences in the learners’ zones of proximal development (zpd), and how the approach helped transform the learners’ skills from lower to higher psychological functions through the use of material, psychological and semiotic tools in the classroom. the analysis of the data followed a thematic approach, with emerging codes being clustered into code families. among the key findings of the study was the view of teachers that adopting a multipronged strategy that includes the use of authentic learning conversations, learning tools (material, psychological, and semiotic) and situated learning experiences goes a long way towards fostering useful teaching and learning. the study illustrated that classroom practitioners do need to take into account and adopt the many and varied benefits that can be derived from an authentic sociocultural approach to teaching and learning. keywords: scaffolding, learning tools, zone of proximal development, transform introduction the purpose of this study was to examine how adopting a sociocultural pedagogy in teaching and learning enhances effective classroom interaction and ultimately promotes an equity pedagogy while also catering for diversity. in adopting a qualitative methodology and using focus group discussion as the data collection strategy, this study gathered views from 20 selected experienced socioculturally trained secondary school classroom practitioners in gauteng, south africa. following wood, bruner, & ross (1976), the study explored the role of scaffolding and linked it to mles, the use of situated learning experiences in the learners’ zones of proximal development (zpd). it examined how mediation helps transform the learners’ skills into executive functioning through the use of material, psychological, and mutekwe: using a vygotskian sociocultural approach to pedagogy . . . 59 semiotic tools in the classroom. however, although the term scaffolding is not necessarily directed at the dialectical relationship between scientific and everyday concepts and has no specific developmental aspect in terms of vygotsky’s notion of the zpd, i use it as a western take on vygotsky’s soviet psychology. problem statement the work of john-steiner and mahn (2008) on cognitive justice and inclusivity in educational institutions highlights the challenges many classroom practitioners encounter in their quest to provide all learners with equal educational opportunities in schools. in their view, complete inclusion and equality of educational opportunity implies ensuring that learners are treated equally and fairly in their learning institutions. however, this is often lacking in many of the multicultural educational settings the world over (eisner, 2010). among the varied challenges many classroom practitioners encounter in promoting complete inclusivity in their classrooms is the lack of ideal strategies to promote equitable learning. eisner (2010) asserts that it is important to note that the need for learning equity should be articulated not only through human rights declarative documents but also through educational policies and practices for schools. this implies, essentially, advocating for non-discriminatory practices in the school in relation, directly and indirectly, to gender, sex, race, class, socio-economic status, culture, and/or creed (darling-hammond, 2012). what many classroom practitioners fail to understand is that equity pedagogy entails not just affording learners’ equality of educational opportunity but also ensuring that they are treated justly and fairly in their institutions of learning (magano, mostert, & van der westhuizen, 2012). equitable learning is therefore crucial in all multicultural educational settings if the education system is to ensure that learner diversity is catered for in education. theoretical framework contemporary educational practice is based on a paradigm shift from traditional pedagogies to modern progressive constructivist approaches that foster learning equity in the classroom (kozulin, 2012). social constructivism as defined by mutekwe, machingambi, maphosa, ndofirepi, & wadesango (2013) is an epistemology that foregrounds the social construction of knowledge through interactive teaching and learning activities in the classroom. it undergirds the importance of knowledge as a product co-constructed by the educators in meaningful interactions with the learners (mutekwe et al., 2013). the pioneers of this approach to learning and development are jean piaget and lev vygotsky, whose cognitive and cultural-historical theories respectively laid the foundation for what pedagogists now claim to be formidable epistemologies (wertsch, 2008). according to mutekwe et al. (2013) the sociocultural approach to teaching and learning has the advantage of affording virtually all learners in the classroom an opportunity to participate in interactive learning activities since, as vygotsky (1987) made clear, this approach emphasises drawing from the learners’ diverse sociocultural backgrounds. for kozulin (2012), according to vygotsky, mle describes learning situations facilitated by a go-between (mediator) who ensures that the learners understand the content at stake. 60 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 chaiklin (2003) notes that the term zone of proximal development is probably one of the bestknown ideas associated with vygotsky’s scientific production. it now appears in most developmental and educational psychology literature, as well as in some general psychology textbooks. the concept is now used widely (or referred to) in studies about teaching and learning in many subject areas, including reading, writing, mathematics, science, secondlanguage learning (see dunn & lantolf, 1998), moral education (tappan, 2012) and violin teaching (gholson, 2010) with many different kinds of pupils, including so-called disadvantaged, learning disabled, retarded, and gifted ones. it is used with preschool children (see rieber, 2015) and with adults with information technologies and computer-mediated communication and in discussions about teacher training (rieber, 2015; torres, 2016). the concept has also been picked up and used in serious and substantive ways in other academic disciplines and professional areas, including psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and occupational therapy (exner, 2010; lyons, 2011). the term itself describes the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers (vygotsky, 1978). the term is now being used more often than not in conjunction with scaffolding, a term coined by wood, bruner, and ross (1976). in other words, zpd has become synonymous in the literature with scaffolding. however, it is important to note that vygotsky never used this term in his writings. it was introduced by wood et al. (1976) to imply that once the learner, with the benefit of scaffolding, masters the task, the scaffolding can then be removed, and the learner will be able to complete the task on his or her own. chaiklin (2003) further observes that the common conception of the zpd presupposes an interaction between a more competent person and a less competent one on a task such that the less competent person becomes independently proficient at what was initially a jointly accomplished task. in this general conception, three main aspects—generality assumption (applicable to learning all kinds of subject matter), assistance assumption (learning is dependent on interventions by a more competent other) and potential assumption (properties of the learner that enable best and easiest learning)—are often emphasized (chaiklin, 2003). the first aspect focuses on the idea that a person is able to perform a certain number of tasks alone but a greater number in collaboration. the range of tasks performed in collaboration is sometimes presented as the definition of zpd (see berk, 2017), but this is surely mistaken for even the classic definition refers to levels of development, not tasks. at best, the number or kinds of tasks must be taken as indicators to be interpreted in relation to a level of development. a related issue has to do with what kinds of tasks involve a zpd. it is often assumed that the zpd is meant to be applied to any kind of learning task (tharp & gallimore, 2010) or, in an expanded conception formulated by wells (2015), it applies to any situation in which, while participating in an activity, individuals are in the process of developing mastery of a practice or understanding a topic. the second aspect, assistance assumption, emphasizes how an adult, teacher, or more competent person should interact with a child. sometimes this aspect is presented as the defining characteristic. arguably, the notion of the zpd is little more meaningful than that of a learning situation presented to a child, where adults or more advanced children directly or indirectly have a positive influence on the child (gillen, 2010). mutekwe: using a vygotskian sociocultural approach to pedagogy . . . 61 the third aspect, potential assumption, focuses on properties of the learner including notions of the learner’s potential and or readiness to learn. this aspect often seems to inspire the expectation that it is possible to accelerate or facilitate a child’s learning greatly if the zone can be identified properly. for fabes and martin (2011), “it is within this zone that a person’s potential for new learning is strongest” (p. 42). for lefrancois (2010), this is vygotsky’s phrase for the individual’s current potential for further intellectual development, a capacity not ordinarily measured by conventional intelligence tests. sometimes this aspect is interpreted to mean that teaching in the zpd should result in the easiest or most effortless form of learning for the child. as rieber (2015) puts it, “a student’s zone of proximal development is the range of book readability levels that will challenge a student without causing frustration or loss of development [and] is meant to be applied to any kind of learning task (p. 37). a mediator, for vygotsky, is therefore not only a human being such as a teacher, parent or more competent peer collaborator but can also be the tool(s) used to enhance learner understanding of the concepts covered in the teaching and learning process (wertsch, 2008). the concept of mediation is central to the vygotskian sociocultural perspective. it implies that developmental teaching and learning situations need to be facilitated or mediated in one way or another (john-steiner & mahn, 2008). for vygotsky (1987), there are different forms of mediators: material; psychological; semiotic; and other human beings. the role of mediation in learning is therefore to transform the learners’ skills from lower to higher cognitive functions as the learner progresses from prior to new knowledge forms (kozulin, 2012). mediated learning experiences thus describe scaffolded learning activities during which learners are taken through the paces (de valenzuela, 2009; wertsch, 2008). the objective of all forms of mediation is to ensure that every function in the learner’s cultural development appears thrice—first, on the social level, and later on the individual level or between people (inter-psychological), and then inside the learner (intra-psychological; de valenzuela, 2009; vygotsky, 1978). this is the perspective of this study. aims of the study the study aims to explore teachers’ perspectives on how adopting a vygotskian sociocultural approach to classroom practice enhances inclusion and contributes towards equitable learning in schools. the study has the following objectives: • to establish the benefits, if any, of using the sociocultural approach to teaching and learning in the classroom; • to explore the usefulness of mediation in the learners’ zpds; and • to examine the benefits of using learning tools to mediate learning in the classroom. the following research questions guided the study: • what benefits does the sociocultural approach to teaching and learning offer for classroom practice? 62 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 • how does mediating learning in the learners’ zpd help in the learning process? • what role is played by learning tools in mediated learning experiences in the classroom? research methodology the 20 participants had studied educational psychology, which included the vygotskian sociocultural theoretical framework, at the bachelor of education honours level. thus, all the participants had a thorough knowledge of how scaffolding learners in their zpds ensures that their skills are transformed from lower to higher mental functions (kozulin, 2012) and knew how to take learner diversity seriously in their classroom practice and effectively mediate the learning situation in the learners’ zpds. i purposefully sampled from the list of educators i taught in the bachelor of education honours programme and who then taught in schools in the gauteng province. they were regarded as trained and capable of effectively handling the sociocultural diversity elements of humanity such as race, class, differential ability, different learning conditions and styles, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, and other dimensions that make up the identity of individual learners and impact their learning experiences. i adopted a qualitative approach and a case study design involving five coeducational secondary schools in which the social sciences educators were consciously attempting to teach using the principles of both learner diversity and equitable learning. data was collected through focus group discussions. following babbie and mouton’s (2010) caution regarding participants’ proximity to researchers, the five coeducational, secondary schools were located in the townships of meadowlands, randfontein, krugersdorp, sophiatown, and orlando to cover the different socioeconomic status of the learners. each school provided four participants for the study. the participants were asked questions related to the role of learning tools as an aspect of mles, the use of learning tools and situated learning experiences in the learners’ zpds and how mediation helps transform the learners’ skills from lower to higher mental functions. ethical considerations were followed, including requesting permission from the gauteng department of education, assuring participants of the principles of confidentiality, anonymity, voluntariness of participation and protection from harm, as well as obtaining their informed consent after highlighting the study’s objectives to the school personnel who constituted the important gate keepers. data analysis the analysis of data followed a thematic approach, with emerging codes being clustered into code families or what nieuwenhuis (2016) calls superordinate themes. the themes emerging from the focus group discussions were the importance of fostering equitable learning in the classroom; improving access to learning through mediated learning experiences in the classroom; scaffolding learning through material, psychological, and semiotic means as well as other human beings; the role of learning conversations or class discussions in enhancing mutekwe: using a vygotskian sociocultural approach to pedagogy . . . 63 equitable learning in the curriculum; how situated learning experiences (sle) promote equitable learning and how adopting indigenous knowledge systems (iks) can advance the equitable learning agenda. these themes thus form the basis of the discussion of the findings in the next section of this article. the importance of fostering equitable learning in the classroom in line with the notion of equitable learning as described by van der westhuizen (2009) and mcgee banks and banks (2009) as a process of empowering all learners by affording them not only equality of educational opportunity but also ensuring that they receive fair treatment in their educational institutions, many participants argued that through equitable learning many if not all learners will have an opportunity to enjoy parity in their learning processes regardless of race, sex, gender, religion, social class, ethnicity, disability, culture, or creed. this view seemed to resonate with eisner’s (2010) assertion that equitable learning should prevent cultural discrimination. asked to explain how, as classroom practitioners, they can promote equitable learning, the participants cited integrating all of the learners’ sociocultural attributes in the social construction of knowledge, refraining from viewing them as empty vessels, considering them as important partners to their educators in the co-construction of knowledge, adopting equity pedagogies in the school and classrooms, and avoiding the use of stereotypes along such unreasonable grounds as race, sex, age, ethnicity, religion, or disabilities. in their view, ensuring these aspects certainly enhances meaningful learning and improves learning attainment among the learners. these views are shared by darlinghammond (2012) in her contention that equitable learning as a practice should regard all learners as equals irrespective of their diversities, differences, or handicaps. improving access to learning through mles in the classroom it emerged from the fgds that 12 of the 20 participants claimed that access to improved learning can be achieved through mles that describe scaffolded learning situations during which classroom practitioners need to explain, demonstrate, facilitate, and scaffold learners’ skills constantly from lower to higher cognitive functions. for 15 of the 20 participants, mediation should involve the use of learning tools classified as material, psychological, semiotic, and other human beings (vygotsky, 1987). consistent with the views of vygotsky (1978), the objective of the mediation effort would certainly be to ensure that every function in the learner’s cultural development appears on the social and, later, on the individual level or between people (inter-psychological) and then inside the learner (intra-psychologically) as described above. the mediation process thus needs to occur when learners desperately need to develop the psychological tools with which they can then alter their lived experiences thus establishing the dialectical link between every day and scientific processes (chaiklin, 2003). 64 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 scaffolding learning through material, psychological, semiotic means, and other human beings according to the views of 11 of the 20 participants, it is clear that tool-mediated learning experiences enable the learners’ lower psychological functions to be transformed into higher psychological ones as participant 8 explained. sometimes when as educators we use material tools to demonstrate mathematical concepts, for example using the abacus to demonstrate place value, our learners master the concept pretty well and can then use that mastery to develop a further understanding of the link of position values in multiplication, division or even addition and subtraction of figures. of the 20 participants, 13 noted that if carried out within the learners’ place of potential development, the mediation or facilitation process is highly likely to yield heavy dividends in the learners themselves. these sentiments resonate with those of wertsch (2008) who notes that mediating learning in the learners’ zpd takes into account that every individual learner is perfectly able to achieve more with the help of a mediator. it was at this stage that i noted that although this needed to be proven not through fgds but through engagement on objective tasks, vygotsky’s double stimulation methodology, although not used here, would have worked well. asked to exemplify the material tools used in their classrooms in the teaching and learning of different subjects, participants cited flash cards, lecture slides, transparencies, posters, wall charts for language teaching, abacuses, number line charts, multiplication and division charts for mathematics, worksheets, and all other teaching and learning media such as computers and digital gadgets like calculators and smart phones used to enhance learner understanding of concepts in the classroom. this view lends credence to tudge’s (2010) assertion that any physical artefacts (teaching aids) that classroom practitioners employ to enhance learner understanding in the classroom can be regarded as learning tools. a specific category of learning tools identified by the participants as crucial in mles are what vygotsky (1987) termed psychological tools. although the participants used the terms teaching and learning aids and did not describe the learning tools as theoretically as did vygotsky, the fact that the examples they cited included common types such as gestures, counting fingers, casting lots, semiotics, and other discourse markers shows that they valued the use of physical and psychological artefacts in the teaching and learning process. no wonder proponents of the vygotskian sociocultural approach to learning and development (for example, hardman, 2004; john-steiner & mahn, 2008; kozulin, 2012; wertsch, 2008) maintain that the learners’ higher mental processes are functions of mediated learning activities. this implies that, for example, through language or discourses, gestures and counting fingers as used in scaffolding learning, the learners’ knowledge base is transformed to a higher or superior level and this constitutes efficient and effective learning in the curriculum. participant 10 illustrates this viewpoint. mutekwe: using a vygotskian sociocultural approach to pedagogy . . . 65 when i use teaching and learning aids such as individual and group worksheets in for example teaching sentence construction in essay writing skills, my learners can easily master and their learning improves from constructing individual sentences to constructing sensible paragraphs. i can actually see that the learners’ skills have improved from a lower to a higher level. the role of learning conversations in enhancing equitable learning in the curriculum of the participants, 10 also pointed out that learning conversations as verbal social interactions in the school and classroom have the potential to foster equitable learning. asked to give examples of how this can occur in the classroom in different subjects, they cited class discussions, group discussions, seminars, debates, role plays, and/or drama. such conversations mediated by the classroom practitioner thus need to be implemented in the classrooms if the learners from the diverse sociocultural backgrounds are to be assisted to enjoy learning equity and the benefits of true inclusivity. participant 11 had the following to say in relation to the role of learning conversations in fostering equitable learning. the current pedagogical thrust especially in the south african context of schooling is for educationists to embrace learning conversations or dialogic multi-cultural educational practices in the interest of complete inclusivity in the educational classrooms. carefully thought-out learning conversations in the school and classroom can go a long way towards promoting the goal of equitable learning. some of the participants claimed that learning conversations are certainly among the most effective strategies for achieving inclusivity and equitable learning in schools. their argument centred on the view that through such approaches they are able to provide their diverse learners with the support base necessary for them to feel equally empowered with a strong sense of belonging so, when motivated enough, they will then not only be able to do their best academically but will also start believing in themselves which will then culminate in their being able to motivate others to follow suit. for wertsch (2008) this is in tandem with the premise that learning through chalk and talk awakens a variety of internal developmental processes that can operate when the learners interact. kozulin (2012) adds that it is in such interactions that the learners coconstruct knowledge with their classroom practitioners as mediators. how situated learning experiences (sles) promote equitable learning in the curriculum of the 20 participants, 14 noted that whenever learning activities are located within familiar experiences, the chances are that learners enjoy learning and maximize the benefits thereof. for 11 participants one of the important ways through which diverse classrooms can become learning communities in which each participant makes significant contributions to the 66 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 emergent understandings and knowledge of all members, despite having different backgrounds, is through social interactive activities involving the use of the learners’ everyday experiences as the building blocks for their motivation. in my view, such an understanding resonates with that of lave and wenger (1998), who have put forward an interesting account of how locating learning activities in socially interactive activities helps learners develop some degree of social cohesion, which they describe as communities of practice. similar views are echoed by brown, collins, and duguid (2009) in their discussion of reciprocal teaching, an approach in which learners and their educators take turns leading discussions about shared texts to foster structured dialogues and authentic learning communities of practice. for brown et al. (2009) such an approach enables positive conceptual changes in both the learners and their educators as they begin to share welldefined tasks through questioning, clarifying, summarizing, and predicting issues with each other in order, for example, to co-construct text-based knowledge. these approaches thus exemplify two themes in the sociocultural approach to classroom learning and development: the implementation of an educational program that allows for or encourages the coconstruction of knowledge; and the analysis of a learning programme that contributes to an understanding of classroom learning from a sociocultural point of view (john-steiner & mahn, 2008). for 16 of the 20 participants experiential learning appears to offer important insights into their learners especially when compared with the lecture method they sometimes adopt. asked to elaborate on this view, these participants argued that this means, essentially, that their learners learn better through the sensory experiences of sight, feelings, touch, smell, and hearing as well as experimentation, trial and error, independent observation of nature and human behaviour, and voluntary community sharing of information, story, song, and ritual, among others. this lends credence to assertions by pablo and ragoff (2012) that in many modernized societies, situated learning experiences often refer to learners operating in a variety of ways, including free play or interaction with other multi-ethnic, multi-racial, or multi-religious learners, immersing themselves in and directly helping each other with work and communal activities. further to this, other proponents of the situated learning approach to learning and development, (see black, 2012), maintain that once learning is institutionalized and alienated from the learners’ everyday experiences, both the freedom of the individual and his or her respect for the elder’s wisdom are ruined. additionally, as black notes, when this occurs, family and community are side-lined as the classroom practitioner assumes all control over the learner. how adopting iks can advance the equitable learning agenda adopting ikss, as 12 participants pointed out, is one way through which the promotion of the equitable learning agenda can be enhanced. in unpacking this argument one dominant view, as expressed by participant 18, emerged. mutekwe: using a vygotskian sociocultural approach to pedagogy . . . 67 the teaching and learning of ikss ensure that the traditional knowledge, models, beliefs, norms, values, methods, and content are imparted within the formal educational systems to the satisfaction of virtually all learners. this is consistent with the view of semali and kincheloe (2009) who contend that the growing recognition and use of indigenous education knowledge and methods can be a vehicle for promoting learner inclusivity and equity in education. asked to further elaborate on this view, participant 19 argued that adopting ikss in educational institutions is, and should be, a worthwhile response to the erosion and loss of the ikss as a consequence of the processes of colonialism, globalization, and modernity. it is clear that adopting ikss in the school curriculum has the potential to make indigenous communities reclaim and revalue their socio-cultural traditions, languages, beliefs, attitudes, and values and in so doing, improve the educational success of all learners, thus ensuring their respect, survival and integration into the global culture. aikman (2003) and sha (2014) have contended that using collaborative learning experiences is essential because the learners’ ikss are used as prior learning experiences worthy of recognition as part of the lower psychological functions to be transformed to higher ones through mles. for them this has the potential to go a long way towards increasing the learners’ desire for more interactive classrooms. the same view is shared by odora-hoppers (2011) and magano et al (2012) who have claimed that for educators to promote equitable learning through pedagogy, the learning conversations to be adopted need to draw from the learners’ ikss so as to bring their existing iks backgrounds into the co-construction of new forms of knowledge in line with the constructivist approaches emphasized in today’s teaching and learning paradigms (van der westhuizen, 2012; wertsch, 2008). this dovetails with assertions by pablo and rogoff (2012) that where indigenous knowledge learning tools are used to mediate learning, the potential for social harmony is higher than where unfamiliar learning tools are employed. ten participants (50% of the total sample) claimed that the ikss and indigenous learning styles often included observation, imitation, use of narrative or storytelling, collaboration, and cooperation as seen among african, american, indian, alaska natives, and latin american communities and therefore, if adopted in the classroom in line with the tenets of the sociocultural approach, this form of hands-on emphasising of direct experience and learning through inclusion has the potential to go a long way towards fostering the equitable learning agenda. this view resonates with those of deyhle and swisher (2007) who concluded in one of their studies that such a learning approach enables learners to feel that they are vital members of the wider school community. black (2012) also added that it encourages them to participate in a meaningful way as important community members. fourteen participants argued that in many traditional educational societies, children often learn skills this way without being taught explicitly or in a formal manner and this may differ from western learning styles, which tend to include methods such as explicit instruction, testing, and quizzing. this view is in line with that of wilson (2011) who believes that creating an educational environment that is consistent with the learners’ upbringing and the need for equitable learning, rather than advocating an education that strictly follows a traditionally western format, allows for learners to retain knowledge more easily because 68 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 they are learning in a way that recognizes them as equals in society and this has huge potential to yield success for them (mutekwe, 2014; verna, 2011). findings reported here show clearly that despite the contention by researchers such as felder (2010) that there is nothing in the twentieth century that deserves to be called a learning style, the styles of learning learners use best are the ones typical of their indigenous learning systems or those that occur in the context of their community (may & aikman, 2003; rohrer & pashler, 2012). fifteen participants claimed that effective classrooms modelled along the principles discussed above should focus typically on group or cooperative learning strategies that provide an inclusive learning environment. according to these participants, a key factor for successful equitable learning through integrating iks educational practices is the kind of learnereducator relationship that is socially constructed in a way that allows the classroom practitioner to share control of the classroom with the learners. this echoes the unesco (2012) view that rather than taking an authoritative role, the classroom practitioner should be viewed as a co-learner by the learners and that both need to maintain a balance between personal warmth and the demands for academic achievement. for example, in such a classroom, learners should be encouraged to use group work activities and be allowed to move freely about the classroom while working in order to consult with other learners. of the participants, nine (45%) were unanimous that for indigenous learners and instructors the inclusion of these methods into the curriculum often enhances educational effectiveness by providing an education that adheres to an indigenous person’s own perspectives, experiences, language, and customs, thereby making it easier for children to transition into the realm of adulthood. this is consistent with the views of cornel (2002) and unesco (2012) that for non-indigenous learners and classroom practitioners, an education system that promotes equitable learning often has the effect of raising awareness of individual and collective traditions surrounding indigenous communities and people in general, thereby promoting greater respect for and appreciation of various cultural realities. duane (2009) and wilson (2011) agree in noting that in terms of educational content, the inclusion of ikss in curricula, instructional materials, and textbooks has, largely, the same effect on preparing learners for the greater world as other educational systems, such as the western models. drawing on the above, one is left with no choice but to infer that what proponents of ikss such as odorahoppers (2011) and sefa and rosenberg (2010) assert about the structure of classrooms is meant to promote equitable learning by integrating iks needs so as to eliminate the distinction between the community and classroom and thus make it easier for the learners to relate to the material aspects of their lives. conclusion the findings reported here show clearly that it is of utmost importance that equitable learning be fostered in the classroom and that this can be done through mle in the learners’ zpds where learning needs to be scaffolded through learning tools (material, psychological, and semiotic as well as other human beings). the findings show that class discussions play an important role in mediating the learning experiences essential to following the curriculum. in mutekwe: using a vygotskian sociocultural approach to pedagogy . . . 69 addition, sles also help promote equitable learning especially coupled with ikss. many participants believe that there is value in integrating ikss in education in the public schooling system since this benefits learners of all backgrounds. participants noted that these strategies can contribute enormously to reducing such social ills as racism, sexism, tribalism, regionalism, and even nepotism in the classroom thereby increasing a sense of community in a diverse world. references aikman, s. 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(1976). the role of tutoring in problem solving. the journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 17(2), 89–100. journal of education, 2017 issue 69, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za revisiting the role of the ‘expert other’ in learners’ acquisition of workplace competence joy papier and gerald vollenhoven (received 22 january 2017; accepted 28 june 2017) abstract skills development policies in south africa and further afield consider learning in and from the workplace as critical to the training of artisans at intermediate level, bringing together theoretical learning undertaken in formal institutions and practical, on-the-job training for the purpose of achieving occupational competence, demonstrated ultimately in the prescribed trade test. ellstrom (2001) asserts that “in spite of a widespread belief in the importance of integrating learning and work, little is known about the conditions that promote such integration” (p.421). while apprenticeship training has a long history in south africa, and historical anecdotal accounts exist of the workplace experiences of trainee artisans, there are only a few recent local empirical studies that have advanced our understanding of this domain. this research thus sought to investigate learning in the workplace from the perspective of the candidates: the methodologies, practices, and affordances for learning which they perceived to be available to them, and employed a qualitative approach for exploring how candidates in engineering trades experienced the ‘real world environment’ of learning and engagement in the workplace. the juxtaposition of complementary theories that lent themselves to explaining workplace learning phenomena, in particular the works of engeström (1987); vygotsky (1978); and lave and wenger (1991), formed a richly informative system for the data which showed that candidates experienced diverse learning modalities and affordances in their workplace settings. however, the central role of the expert artisan as a quintessential didactic practitioner in moving candidates towards competence was a significant finding, pointing ultimately to the need for collective effort in harnessing the teaching potential of this ‘expert other’. 282 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 apartheid’s racial classification terms are employed here simply for explanatory purposes1 and in no way implies acceptance of such categories. also referred to as ‘sitting-with-nellie’, this expression derives from the uk and was2 commonly used to refer to a teaching approach where the apprentice was required only to observe the expert and implement later on the basis of his/her observation. learnerships were intended to replace apprenticeships but this proved difficult to effect, as3 is explained later herein. introduction during the 1970s the south african government’s industrial decentralisation policies encouraged employers to train more black workers though they were1 still prohibited from being accepted into formal apprenticeships (department of education (doe), 2001). only in 1981, with the promulgation of the manpower training act, were blacks formally accepted into the apprenticeship system and could progress from being simply ‘tool boys’ and ‘artisan aides’, to becoming qualified artisans (potgieter, 2003). apprenticeship entailed signing a contract with an employer for a period of between three to four years and was trade-specific. but a consequence of the national training board’s (ntb’s) lack of resources and training ‘know-how’ led in many instances to training in the workplace that was unsupervised, uncoordinated and to a large extent unstructured, characterised by the pejorative term ‘sit-by-nellie’, referring to learning through2 observation of the expert. employers often used apprentices as cheap labour without developing their overall competence (human sciences research council (hsrc)(1984). the 1998 skills development act required that learnerships link formal3 theoretical learning at an accredited tvet provider to learning in the workplace, and that both institutional formal learning and on-the-job training lead to a registered qualification on the nqf. the act also stated that both the formal and informal training components should be structured and goal-directed (department of labour (dol), 1997), and that learnerships should result in the acquisition of occupational competence. however, theory and practice in the apprenticeship system were often unrelated, to the extent that theory learned in the college was seldom if ever applied in the workplace. similarly, while workplace learning is seen as an important aspect of the learnership today, simply combining workplace experience and formal college papier and vollenhoven: revisiting the role of the ‘expert other’. . . 283 learning does not guarantee the integration of theoretical knowledge and practical experiences (hardy & menard, 2004). despite contestations, research has shown that theory and practical integration are key to raising competency levels (bereiter and scardamalia, 1993; martinez and badeaux, 1994). while it is posited that strengthening the knowledge-practice relationship through learning in the workplace (vygotsky, 1978 and engeström, 1994) might lead to the kind of en-skilling required in a post-fordist economy, how does this learning take place, indeed, how should this take place? the study reported herein was therefore concerned with the opportunities for learning afforded to apprentices in the workplace, the nature of the situated learning process, and the modalities (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, tactile) by which learning occurred. first, a brief sketch of the context of artisan training in south africa is provided, followed by some perspectives on learning in the workplace. the bulk of the article then proceeds to deal with the research conducted, its methodology, significant findings, and conclusions that can be drawn to inform future approaches to learning in and from work. artisan development in south africa the national skills development strategy (nsds) iii, argues that artisanal skills are not keeping pace with the skills required to remain competitive in an increasingly knowledge-based economy, and that workplace learning is an important component of formal learning at tvet colleges, hence the need for integration of knowledge and skills. the apprenticeship system historically had a weak linkage between theoretical training and work experience, with each site of delivery (theory and practice) having minimal interaction between them. theoretical training was often unrelated to the practical training of the apprentice, and little supervision or structured induction into skilled work at the apprentices’ place of employment was undertaken. in the national development plan 2030 a stated goal is a workforce of at least 30,000 artisans per year, whilst the new growth path sets an ambitious target of 50,000 trained artisans by 2015. ironically, the decline in the numbers of new artisans over the last decade exists alongside a significant expansion of tvet college enrolments in engineering at the national certificate levels n1, n2 and n3 (levels offered in tvet colleges). 284 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 theoretical training for most artisan trades consists of the official national curricula (nated or ‘n’ courses) delivered by public and private accredited colleges, with the n2 certificate being the required level of theory for taking the trade test. public colleges are deemed accredited to offer the theory component which has a prescribed syllabus and assessment regime, and these colleges do not undergo the formal accreditation process which private colleges are compelled to take. in the classroom, learners are taught various concepts and theory underpinning the use of, for example, hand tools, power tools or machine tools used in trades. formal learning in colleges has been characterised as theory ‘devoid of context’ and divorced from practice, in situations where the skills acquired in learning institutions cannot be easily applied in the ‘real world’. after completion of formal learning at the tvet college, the candidate moves into an authentic workplace environment and attempts then ‘to find connections between prior experiences and the affordances and the constraints of new kinds of working environments’ (evans, 2004, p.10). some perspectives on how these connections may be established are set out in the next section. learnership and apprenticeship candidates are subjected to a competency test and the passing of the level test and the final trade test deems them competent to practice, giving them recognition as artisans in the relevant trade. the standards-based system of training and competency based modular training (cbmt) as implemented in south africa and elsewhere place critical emphasis on competent workplace performance and assessment thereof, however knowledge is seen as an important component in the development of skills (gamble, 2003). learning for competence meghnagi (2004) notes that competence may arise out of knowledge and skills acquired through practice and defines competence as, “…an undivided complex of knowledge, abilities, ideas and ways of doing things that make it possible to carry out an occupation” (p. 62). to expand on this, billett (2009) suggests that the competence required for a particular occupational practice and in a specific workplace can be elaborated through categories of work activities and interactions, and that interactions in workplaces are premised on enhanced engagement with tools and artifacts, and with others, as follows: papier and vollenhoven: revisiting the role of the ‘expert other’. . . 285 . . . apprehending what constitutes workplace competence is not so easily undertaken. rather than being uniform across an occupation or even nationally consistent, competence is shaped by situational factors, emerging technologies, specific occupational requirements, and the capacities of those who enact those requirements. competence has many elements which are acquired through different ways (p.34). the south african outcomes based approach to education and training has placed a huge emphasis on specifying as clearly as possible the outcomes required for competent performance. however vocational outcomes have tended to be located within observable performance, with knowledge being viewed as embedded in or supporting performance, rather than as a distinctive component of curriculum. this approach has been critiqued for its diminishing of the knowledge that underpins performance, resulting more recently in a renewed commitment to foundational knowledge and the integration of theory and practice in vocational education. standpoint theories in vocational scholarship have tended to polarise disciplinary learning and practical learning within categorisations such as formal/informal learning; institutional/workplace learning and so on. billett (2001) argues that learning discourses uncritically privilege formal academic education and that learning needs to be understood as a participatory practice which is an engagement with the social world. furthermore, fuller and unwin (2003) hold that ‘expansive learning’ may include learners participating in various workplace settings so that they reflect on differences and similarities in these situations. developmental or expansive learning according to jonsdottir (2007) “fosters innovative performance, changes, and even transformations at work” (p.6) or as engeström (2004) explains, “expansive learning at work produces new forms of work activity”. anecdotally, where workplaces have been secured by candidates for practical experience, they have been critiqued as falling short of an optimum learning environment for vocational students, but few empirical studies, particularly in south africa, have attempted to understand the learning that takes place and how students experience the workplace as a learning environment. everyday activities in the workplace expose learners to situations that support learning, assisting them to learn new work-related knowledge and strengthening that learning (billett 1993, 1994a, 1994b, 1996; harris and volet 1997). billett (2000) also holds that engagement in authentic workplace activities contributes significantly to the construction of new work related knowledge. available empirical evidence shows that almost two thirds of all workplace 286 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 learning may be informal or incidental but is key to the acquisition of competencies for work (leslie et al., 1998). effective learning in contemporary apprenticeships can be fostered by enabling young people to work and learn in communities of practice, defined as a set of relationships among persons, activity and world (lave and wenger, 1991). the implication of lave’s research is that people’s motivation to learn is triggered when a relationship is established between what they learn and its application. this is likely to occur when individuals participate, peripherally at first, but gradually more fully in their chosen occupational field. empirical research on this (lave and wenger, 1991; lave,1990) provides convincing evidence of successful learning from doing and interacting with a range of more experienced others in communities of practice. while the primary location in which the community of practice of an apprenticeship is manifested is the workplace, the concept is not only defined geographically, but also by connections and relationships that are developed between members and the activity that brings them together. initially newcomers join communities and learn at the periphery, but as they become more competent they become more involved in the main processes of the community, moving from legitimate peripheral participation into full participation (lave and wenger, 1991). legitimate peripheral participation provides a way to speak about the relationship between newcomers and old-timers, about activities, identities, artifacts, and communities of knowledge and practice. in addition to being part of a community of practice, vygotsky furthermore holds that an individual can achieve more when provided guidance and assistance in achieving objectives. his description of learning ‘in the zone of proximal development’ concerns itself with how learners relate concepts learned in everyday activities to scientific concepts in the formal curriculum. both activity theory and situated learning theorists view learning as a social practice and subscribe to the notion that learning is socially, historically and culturally driven (lave, 1990). social interaction and collaboration are thus essential components of situated learning where learners become involved in a ‘community of practice’ that embodies certain beliefs and behaviors. participation in communities of practice is therefore a critical aspect of developing ‘knowledgeability’ or understanding of ideas within their contexts (guile and young, 1999). furthermore, within the zone of proximal development a learner may experience the intervention of an expert via mediation, which lave and wenger (1991) agree can enhance learning. papier and vollenhoven: revisiting the role of the ‘expert other’. . . 287 theorising practical learning through the conceptual frameworks of collective activity theory, situated learning and the vygotskian socio-culturalist paradigm, enabled a re-examination of often un-problematised critiques of learning in the workplace. exploring candidates’ workplace learning experiences an interpretive approach was employed for this research in undertaking a qualitative case study of engineering candidates across three streams of engineering studies at tvet colleges, namely fitting and turning; motor and diesel repair and maintenance; and auto electrical trades. learnerships and apprenticeships in these trades are well-established at most public tvet colleges, amongst the long-standing historical college offerings. as these programmes are nationally standardised, learners across the country undergo prescribed theoretical training at accredited colleges. according to andrade (2009, p.43) an interpretive approach provides a deep insight into “the complex world of lived experience from the point of view of those who live it” (schwandt, 1994, p. 118). furthermore, a qualitative case study made it possible to explore how learners experienced things in their ‘natural settings’ (firestone, 1987 cited in merriam, 1998) or ‘everyday life’, from their own perspectives (morse 1994; duffy, 1987). in line with this approach, research methods used were semi-structured interviews (denzyin and lincoln, 2005) and documentary analyses. in addition, students were asked to keep a journal of ‘critical incidents’ occurring in the workplace that in their view particularly illuminated their learning ‘moments’. interviews probed learner perceptions of what they were learning, how they were learning, their ability to apply their college learning to the workplace, and the conditions in the workplace that facilitated or hampered learning. while it is generally acknowledged in research methodology literature that qualitative enquiry is fraught with potential biases, the onus is on the researcher to increase ‘trustworthiness’ of the data, for instance by using multiple sources. as all learnership/ apprenticeship candidates are required to have logbooks signed off by both the candidate and their supervisors in the workplace, the logbooks provided verification of the curricula activities that the candidate had completed, and could be probed in interviews to detail the learning that had taken place in relation thereto. this provided a secondary source of evidence against which the candidates’ understandings of their own learning 288 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 could be ‘tested’. semi-structured interviews also enabled questions to be framed in ways that made comprehension of the question easier for the respondent, especially where english was not the first language of the candidate. in the data analysis core themes identified from convergences in the data and that found purchase in the literature on workplace learning were: learning methodologies used in the workplace; the influence of the workplace environment in the learning process; the influence of mentors and others; perceptions of how best to learn in the workplace; integration of theory and practice in the workplace; coaching and assessment in the workplace; opportunities to practice in the workplace; and workplace expectations and their impact on learning. candidates were employed across a wide range of workplaces, which increased the range of their possible learning experiences and contributed to building evidence of trends or patterns in the data across multiple locations. what follows therefore are the themes that have been formulated by trends in the data on candidates’ learning in the ‘real world’ of work. given that this article is of limited scope, and has a focus on the didactic role of the workplace ‘expert’, themes from the data have had to be selected. it should be noted though that this forms part of a more extensive dataset that cannot be accommodated herein. some themes from the data on learning experiences in line with the conceptual framing of socio-cultural activity theory (schribner and cole, 1971; griffiths and guile, 2001) and notions of the workplace as a collective activity system (engeström, 1987), the data that was gathered covered candidates’ everyday practices in the authentic work environment, workplace learning techniques, artifacts and affordances used, mentoring and guidance given, and problem-solving strategies. the selected themes highlighted below emerged from strong convergences in the data pertaining to learner perceptions on aspects of the workplace that particularly facilitated learning for them. papier and vollenhoven: revisiting the role of the ‘expert other’. . . 289 learning in an authentic environment learners said they experienced the workplace as a dynamic environment where ‘the work had to get done’. some candidates pointed out with regard to work that, “it’s about production….because of the production schedule, you are required to work a lot faster, but you are exposed to a lot more work” (r2a). in spite of the pressures of production, they reported that they were exposed to repeated activities or practice that gave them confidence and helped them to ‘master’ the tasks. learners commented on these ‘real’ learning experiences (brooker and butler, 1997) which they compared with the more theoretically focused college environment. engagement in authentic work activities contributed significantly to constructing and learning ‘new’ work-related knowledge. for instance, a learner explained that at the college, wiring the lights of a vehicle was simulated on a flat board, whereas in the workplace one had to rewire the lights on a vehicle whose wires had been completely burnt out. machines in the case of learners in the fitting and turning trades were functional and operational and part of a production activity, similarly for those in the motor and diesel trades, engines and gearboxes were mounted in vehicles belonging to customers. a learner remarked that at the college engine components were worked on as single units, whereas in the workplace the units formed part of the whole, for instance in a running engine, an aspect of learning which constituted a new experience. candidates valued the authenticity of the activities in the workplace above the simulated environment in the college, precisely because they could see the interrelatedness of individual parts they had worked on in the college. a large number of respondents acknowledged that they had, in the workplace, recognised theory learned at the college and were therefore able to make sense of their practice. in the everyday activities of the workplace, candidates were confronted by many tasks that required problem solving, and an integration of knowledge and skills. here they could apply their institutional learning in a variety of situations, as was evident from the critical incidents recorded in their journals. however, most of the candidates reported being ‘tested’ by the mentor or expert whilst being observed, and being asked questions relating to the activity. though workplace learning has both tacit and explicit dimensions, many learners could describe and explain how they went about solving the problems which they were confronted with in the workplace. to illustrate, a respondent 290 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 mentioned designing a food container which had to be conceptualised from starting idea to its final stages (r2); another described two tapers that had to be fitted with precision, using mathematical calculations (r3); while a third explained how he had to widen the rim of a tractor wheel which involved precision cutting on a machine and inserting a piece by welding (r8). candidates explained how they manipulated problematic situations, evaluated problems in the workplace, and solved them by integrating institutionally acquired knowledge and skills acquired at college into their practices in the workplace (anderson, 1993). it was clear from the evidence that their range of everyday practices enabled candidates to derive significant learning from the integration of theory with practice, and that they recognised practices that were informed by theory. learning in the authentic environment of the workplace was key to the integration of theory and practice in the case of these learners, and enabled them to participate within a community of practice, as the following section reports. learning in a community of practice taken together, the workplace environment of candidates in the study was an arena involving artisans, technicians, apprentices, support staff, as well as communication systems and work processes, and could be termed a collective activity system as described by vygotsky (1978); leon’tev (1981); and engeström (1987). candidates detailed that they were able to ask how to do things, to enquire as to how things worked, to obtain guidance, to learn from the experiences of experts, to share information about work, and to seek understanding. such interactions in their view provided many opportunities to learn new knowledge and skills for the various tasks and activities assigned to them in the workplace. entering the workplace as newcomers, the findings confirmed that candidates moved from being peripheral participants to being fully engaged in work activities as they reported their listening to the experts, asking questions, observing what experts were doing and then practicing in an attempt to master the job. however, despite the dominance of methodologies of learning such as observation, demonstrations, asking questions and doing, learners recorded that they valued the engagement with their mentors and experts, and the papier and vollenhoven: revisiting the role of the ‘expert other’. . . 291 guidance they received from such engagement. it was noteworthy that although learners said they learned a lot through practice, what emerged from their interview transcripts was the overwhelming number of times they mentioned how they were actually learning from their proximity to the expert, and the variety of ways in which this learning occurred, hence the focus on this aspect of workplace learning in the topic of this article. learning from the expert as this theme featured prominently in learner accounts of their learning moments, and is the topic of this article, it is afforded greater amplification hereunder. in spite of an array of learning methodologies available to the candidates in the workplace, what emerged unequivocally from the research was the learning that was acquired through engagement with the ‘expert other’. this concept of ‘expert other’ locates itself within vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development (zpd) as mentioned elsewhere herein, and emphasises the intervention and guidance by a ‘teacher’ (engeström, 1987) in the learning process, using mediating tools and structured activities that are object and goal oriented. candidates were not left to their own learning, but were supported by being in the presence of a mentor, a ‘teacher’ or ‘expert other’ who through their engagement (to a greater or lesser extent in some cases) provided guidance to these newcomers. candidates experienced close individual contact with the experts in the workplace, proximal situations in which they could ask for an explanation or demonstration of practices and processes. qualified artisans appeared to play a key role in mediating the subject’s learning, through both direct and indirect guidance. far from just ‘sitting by nellie’, the pejorative description of how apprentices learned in the past, these novices engaged extensively with the experts. the evidence indicated that candidates looked to and trusted the advice of the experts in the workplace, as in this response: “i interacted mostly with my artisan because i wanted to understand my trade, so i asked a lot of questions” (r4a); and another: “i would go to the guys and ask them what they are doing, what is wrong” (r9a). however, learning from mentors and other experts in the workplace did not always involve being directly guided, as often there was indirect guidance 292 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 based on observations made and questions asked by the candidate. a respondent in the motor trade illustrated this as follows: learning the skill comes by doing the activity yourself over and over so you get the necessary experience, but one has to know why you do things and this understanding comes from questioning the expert (r7b). what became clear time and again was that learners believed they could learn best ‘by doing’, however they kept discovering that they needed, and wanted, affirmation of the expert to confirm their learning. a learner expressed this as follows: . . . by doing the work physically, practically, it gives me understanding, by asking questions, by watching them (the expert)….i also like to do something under guidance in case i make a mistake (r4a). practical knowledge according to the literature is best acquired through a combination of listening, observation, asking questions, modeling and doing. learners placed much value on doing the work themselves, for the opportunity to practice gave them confidence, but in spite of valuing their own practice, they kept an eye on the expert and desired to perform the tasks under guidance. learning through observation, demonstrations and listening to others might be argued by some to be non-intentional learning, however (billett (2000) holds that it contributes directly to the development of competence when candidates are engaged in these ways. candidates were convinced that they learned and developed both knowledge and skills for performing their tasks. there were those who were given opportunities to work on their own, but the mentors kept a watchful eye to ensure that mistakes were kept to a minimum and to ensure that there would be no comebacks. a respondent commented on this type of guidance as follows: they talk to me about something that i am not supposed to do, or there is something that i was supposed to do that i am not doing. sometimes they show me, demonstrate to me, it is easier than explaining (r6a). since candidates had to be productive in the workplace they also learned from the experts, easier ways of working more efficiently. this they referred to as ‘short cuts’, clearly the result of experience gained over many years, or part of the experts’ ‘tacit knowledge’, as in the words of a respondent: papier and vollenhoven: revisiting the role of the ‘expert other’. . . 293 these experts who have a lot of experience tend to at times find it difficult to explain to someone who does not understand, so you must watch him closely, they know the shortcuts and the tricks to save time (r1). while learning in the workplace was dominated by methodologies such as observation, questioning, demonstration and practice, none of these methodologies could be performed in the absence of the expert. under this watchful oversight, and with artifacts as additional affordances, candidates were able to make sense of theory, while direct guidance provided information and knowledge that candidates might not have had access to through observation only. discussion lessons from the learners the artisan candidates in the study were not just passive receivers of knowledge, but were socially engaged with their experienced colleagues, and were involved in finding solutions to the situations they encountered. dynamic interactions between candidates and expert others in the workplace for purposes of obtaining guidance were illustrative of the relationship between the ‘newcomers’ and the ‘old timers’. through these relationships learners moved constantly from peripheral participation into (almost) full participation (lave and wenger, 1991) in the socio-cultural practices at the workplace. candidates revealed multiple opportunities to tap into the vast knowledge and experience of their communities of practice. they indicated that for many of them the transition from an institutional, simulated environment to the authentic, real workplace environment was a new experience. encountering high-tech engines and industrial machines for the first time was indeed daunting for many of them. when they were asked what had helped them to learn and deal with the new challenges, more than two thirds agreed that guidance from expert others who might be mentors, technicians, supervisors and so on, had contributed significantly to their knowledge and skills acquisition and learning about work, whether through direct or indirect guidance. in the experience of these candidates, practical knowledge was being learned by ‘getting one’s hands dirty’ (gamble, 2004), and, as suchman (1985, p.21) argues, “in situations where learning is embedded in the situation”. 294 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 young (2005) argues that the link between formal and informal learning is critical, and in this regard the findings indicated a very high correlation between institutional learning and practice in the workplace. candidates, although recognising some of the theoretical underpinnings more strongly than others, reported that they were able to apply a substantive amount of theoretical knowledge to their everyday activities in the workplace but this, a respondent cautioned, also depended on what activities and situations they were exposed to. responses suggested that doing things ‘procedurally correct’ was important in the application of practical knowledge in the workplace, as this was a way of ensuring that there would be minimum mistakes or risk of ‘comebacks’. the designated trades in this study are known for their procedural, domain specific knowledge that underpins the execution of trade specific activities. although novices were required to follow certain protocols to ensure compliance with the ‘rules’, they quickly also learned the ‘short cuts’ that experts had developed through practice, and adopted these while in the workplace. however it is worth noting that there were also constraints associated with learning in the workplace, in ‘real time’, as the following experiences illustrate. constraints of learning on the job candidates in this study aspired to qualify as competent artisans ready to take their place in the world of work. in order for them to be found competent in the trade test they needed exposure to an abundance of learning opportunities that would make them trade test ready. maximum exposure to work activities was viewed as a way to enhance knowledge and skills acquisition and that sufficient on-the-job ‘practice’ would give them enough confidence to face the final competency test. all the respondents in the various engineering trades had the opportunity to practise the main areas of theoretical knowledge that they had learned at college. respondents also confirmed that they had practised most of the activities covered by the trade test, but there was some concern about not having had sufficient time to practice the skills. diesel mechanic candidates reported more limited workplace exposure and opportunities to practice skills learned at the college, as the extent of their practice depended on what jobs were required on a specific day in the papier and vollenhoven: revisiting the role of the ‘expert other’. . . 295 workplace, since, ‘you do not get enough time to practice on the work activities because some activities do not come up a lot’ (r6a). the limited time for practicing skills in the workplace was the result of production requirements since practice by the candidates formed part of the regular job activity and was not performed separately from that. candidates said they were required to work a lot faster, even though they appreciated getting exposed to a lot more work. in spite of constraints on practice time, production in the workplace provided candidates with the opportunity to get exposure to generic skills such as time management, learning to work with others, being exposed to tight time schedules and learning to work under pressure. the disadvantage of such pressure though, from the perspective of the candidates, was that the skills practiced in the workplace were fewer than the skills taught in the prescribed college curriculum. final year students exiting their apprenticeship training felt that they had not been exposed to sufficient skills practice in the workplace and that lack of exposure to such activities might compromise their success in the trade test. to some extent time was limited ‘to time on the job’, though a respondent explained that one needed to practice a skill by doing the same job over and over, to sharpen skills through repetition. the findings in this study showed that although learning occurred predominantly through interactions with and through the mediation of mentors and other experts, a challenge to the candidate-expert learning scenario was posed by production pressures in the real work environment. the expert was tied to a production schedule, where time was a commodity to be used for ‘selling hours’ and meeting production targets. thus pressure on the expert potentially limited the quality of learning which the candidate was able to rely on, and ways may need to be found to free the expert from the production space from time to time, in order to be able to support candidates’ learning in the ways demonstrated in this study. significance of this research skills development and tvet in particular have been the targets of extensive policymaking in the last fifteen years, with much policy borrowing from other contexts. the local research base in the skills development domain has been shown to be thin, and there is much that is not known about how 296 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 vocational/occupationally directed students learn in both the academy and the workplace apart from a popular notion that ‘learning by doing’ is beneficial to trainee artisans. while there has been a major policy drive to encourage employers to partner with tvet colleges and to open their workspaces for practical learning, there is little understanding of how the candidate learns in and from practice in the workplace. this research has attempted to contribute to this lacuna by focusing on the students, their experiences of workplace learning and their perspectives on how they might learn best. in spite of their assertions that they indeed learned best by ‘doing things themselves’, the data is interspersed with evidence that they needed constant reassurance from the expert practitioner, the mentor, the ‘expert other’ to affirm that they were ‘doing the right thing’ and to push them to further understanding. this window onto apprenticeship learning holds important implications for how learning in the workplace should be planned for, organised and supported, taking into account the production pressures upon qualified artisans and their limited availability to guide, model and engage with the novices, and in the light of just how powerful their mentorship of the student could be. it is hoped that the findings conveyed herein will find purchase in the spaces where skills development decisions are made. conclusion there can be little doubt that workplaces currently provide essential and complementary learning to that which takes place in tvet colleges, offering real work experiences and situating learning within communities of practice. second, candidates in this study did not simply ‘sit by nellie’ – they engaged dynamically with expert artisans, mentors and co-workers, learning from the periphery and at the centre, and demonstrating through their responses that their most valuable learning resource was the expert practitioner. despite the positive feedback around the huge learning potential of the workplace, this research also identifies challenges to be addressed in strengthening that context, such as harnessing and nurturing the role of the expert, increasing the use of (high tech) artifacts and enhancing the scope of practice opportunities for candidates in preparation for the trade test, the final test of their competence. finally, it can be confirmed that candidates are learning in the workplace, far more than we might suppose, and that their papier and vollenhoven: revisiting the role of the ‘expert other’. . . 297 occupational competence is being advanced in no small measure. 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(2005). the knowledge question and the future of education in south africa: a reply to michelson’s ‘on trust, desire and the sacred’: a response to johan muller’s reclaiming knowledge. south african journal of education, 36, 7–17. joy papier director: institute for post school studies university of the western cape jpapier@uwc.ac.za gerald vollenhoven institute for post school studies university of the western cape gerald.vollenhoven@westerncape.gov.za mailto:jpapier@uwc.ac.za mailto:gerald.vollenhoven@westerncape.gov.za 302 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 microsoft word b8400 fullissue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 84, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i84a09 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x the crisis of covid-19 and opportunities for reimagining education crain soudien centre for non-racialism and democracy, nelson mandela university, gqeberha, south africa crain.soudien@uct.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8821-5839 jaqueline harvey inclusive economic development research programme, human sciences research council, durban, south africa jharvey@hsrc.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3020-1842 (received: 16 july 2021; accepted: 20 october 2021) abstract our argument in this brief contribution is that covid-19 has brought the experience of education to a crisis with respect to its practices and the theories that inform it. the practice crisis is about the glaring inequalities in peoples’ access to education. the theory crisis is about how we learn. our contention is that our dominant cohort learning approaches fail to address the many differences children bring to the learning task. in response we make two key moves: the first is to restore the centrality of cognition in all processes of teaching and learning, and the second is to situate cognition in its full biopsychosocial complexity. with respect to the first move we begin our discussion of teaching and learning with a focus on cognition and particularly on its executive function component. we provide the explanation of what it is, and with that, we move to our second to show the importance of new learnings about epigenetics that explain the significance of the relationship between the biological and the social to the cognitive process. keywords: covid-19, executive functioning, learning, cognition, inequality, cohort learning introduction in the build-up to the yalta conference to discuss the post-world war ii reorganisation of germany and europe in february 1945, britain’s leading 20th century politician, winston churchill, introduced to the world, in his own inimitable way, the expression “never let a good crisis go to waste.” clichéd in the context of covid-19 as the expression has become, 170 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 we take seriously its insight that crises force societies to examine themselves. in this short contribution, in the context of covid-19’s unprecedented disruption of teaching and learning around the world, we seek to contribute to the effort of re-examining ourselves in education. we start with the premise that covid-19 has brought the world of education, as it has to that of health, to a complex crisis with respect to its practices and the theories that inform it. the practice crisis is essentially that of the glaring inequalities in the material realities of communities around the world (see saavedra, 2020; the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco), 2020). the theory crisis is less well understood and explicated. it has to do with what schools, teachers, learners and households, parents and caregivers in the main, encountered in the experience of dealing with what they thought was the apparently straightforward and well-understood task of managing the task of learning. challenged by having to mediate ideas, concepts, and information in meaningful ways for their children, they came to realise that the task of learning is complex and that each child requires a distinct learning plan. the value of the crisis, we argue, is that for the first time in almost the whole of the history of mass education, stakeholders in the learning process intuited that new approaches needed to be developed for facilitating the making of deeply just and equitable learning regimes, methodologies, styles, and practices. our appeal in this contribution is that we not let the moment go to waste. it is an opportunity to rethink mass education. we have begun developing, elsewhere, a set of arguments for the attainment of socially just education (see soudien & harvey, 2020; soudien et al., forthcoming; soudien et al., 2021). here we seek to extend those arguments. what, in the wake of covid-19, we ask, does a socially just approach to education constitute for the management of the teaching and learning experience? the heart of our argument is the contention that the core activities of the educational experience—teaching and learning—if they are to be socially just, need urgent revitalisation. covid-19 provides us with an important opportunity to clarify why and how this might happen at the many levels at which teaching and learning find expression. in soudien and harvey (2020), we drew attention to the problem inherent in our dominant approaches to learning. we argue here that covid-19 has not only emphasized the nature of this problem but has brought it into stark relief. it has shown the inadequacies and blind-spots as well as the culs-de-sac to which our dominant approaches to teaching and learning have brought us. while these approaches, we acknowledge, have been attentive to important dimensions and facets of the issues and problems that arise in teaching and learning they have not, first, focused sufficiently on teaching and learning as primarily cognitive phenomena, and second, to bring us to the thematic focus of this special issue, led to an adequate comprehension of the intersectional nature of the processes surrounding teaching and learning. in this contribution we make two key moves: we restore the centrality of cognition in all processes of teaching and learning, and we situate cognition in its full biopsychosocial complexity. with respect to the first move we begin our discussion of teaching and learning, quite simply, with a focus on cognition. we pay particular attention to its executive function component. soudien & harvey: the crisis of covid-19 and opportunities for reimagining education 171 we provide the explanation of what it is, and acknowledge that, it is, of course, relatively well-known, but we add to this the new learnings that we have acquired in the field of epigenetics about the relationship of social factors to the cognitive process. while we anticipate that this work will ultimately hold value for pedagogy, for what teachers do, and for curricula, we focus here on the theoretical issues that are before us in this crisis rather than on those pertaining to practice. with respect to the second move, our point of departure is that most discussions of teaching and learning have effectively essentialised intersectionality as a largely social phenomenon. we attempt here to explore intersectionality in its full capaciousness, and we seek to bring the psychological and the biological to whatever social dynamics are made of the units of analysis of teaching and learning experiences however they are identified and interpreted. to that end we offer an exploratory model for understanding cognition as an intersectional phenomenon; we make the argument that while conventional explanations of intersectionality are important for understanding teaching and learning processes, explanations of how these processes work cannot depend only on abstracted social analysis. important as that analysis is, it risks losing sight of how, for learning—the focus of our contribution—cognitive processes work in the brains and bodies of learning subjects. this is the great weakness in many of our contemporary explanations of teaching and learning. these often fail, first of all, to put cognition at the centre of their approaches, and, if they do, they build their analyses around mono-categorical framings of the teaching and learning experience. educational psychologists tend to have in mind an abstracted brain generalised and universalised to the point of near irrelevance. sociologists of education, for their part, work with downstream effects, race, class, gender and more that explain all the accompanying realities to the teaching and learning experience but have few resources to comprehend the experience itself. we argue here that an intersectional explanation of teaching and learning has to have cognition at its centre. our point, to repeat ourselves, is that if we are to deepen our comprehension and analysis of how our children are learning, we have to find ways of making cognition our major unit of analysis. of course, we can continue, as sociologists, to look at class, race, and gender, but we must articulate clearly that these factors are not about teaching and learning in and of themselves. they illuminate the questions of teaching and learning but are not the actual phenomena itself. we come to this insistence with the understanding that sense-making is central. it is fundamental to how human subjects learn. of course, learning is contingent on socially determined factors. one’s social background, however one wishes to describe it, matters. but (and this is in some ways our major point) so is one’s biology and one’s psychological make-up. in arriving at this point we do not wish to revisit the old nature-versus-nurture dichotomy. we dispense with this debate by taking the expanded intersectional view here that at stake in teaching and learning are both nature and nurture. building on our discussion of cognition, we move on to discuss intersectionality and show how an augmented explanation of intersectionality is of value for arriving at a deeper understanding of socially just learning. 172 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 re-centring cognition in explanations of teaching and learning all individuals, regardless of any social description we wish to attach to them, possess the capacity to learn. we are endowed with the ability to learn new skills and concepts throughout our lives. education depends on this learning capacity. how this capacity is developed, however, and comes to be realised as human agency, in all its wondrous manifestations—to be, to think, to do, to relate and to prosper as a capacitated and, we hope, a fulfilled human being—is dependent on many factors. how these factors come together is what produces the defining outcomes of human beings’ lives—great achievement, simply doing what they think is expected of a normal person, or failure. it is this question of how the factors come together that preoccupies us here because in the dynamic of their combination we, as education theorists, have come to emphasise some things and neglect others and, as a result, have developed partial explanations of how learning works. but to get to the point of determining how learning capacity is shaped—the politics of learning—we need to separate out some of the key concepts that are pertinent to our discussion. if we do not clarify their relation to, or relevance for, our discussion, we could easily misunderstand what is at stake here. an obvious first concept, one that we could easily take for granted but that is utterly essential for understanding what we are trying to do in this essay, is that of good education. what is good education? it is, in any social environment in any part of the world and at any historical time, an education that gives a human being the ability to live in critical harmony with his/her/their ecology, to appreciate and honour that which nurtures their physical and spiritual selves, and to work with, sceptically and constructively, that which diminishes, degrades, and despoils all of life’s joint inheritance. it can be described clinically, as piaget (cited in brearley & hitchfield, 1966, p. x) did, as the human capacity to move beyond superficial observation “. . . in chase of the ever-receding thought, (it) drives it from cover, pursues and tracks it down, till it can seize it, dissect it and lay bare the secret of its composition.” it can also be explained in distinctly social terms, as freire (1973, p. 3) did in education for critical consciousness, as the ability to . . . relate to their world in a critical way. they apprehend the objective data of their reality (as well as the ties that link one datum to another) through reflection . . . and in the act of critical perception, men [sic] discover their own temporality. transcending a single dimension, they reach back to yesterday, recognize today, and come upon tomorrow. they develop what freire called a critical consciousness of the world. good education, in these terms, is evident in the ability of human beings to comprehend, engage with, and always stand in readiness to transcend their circumstances, whatever they might be. it is, in the language of our current period, postand de-dominance of any kind. piaget drew attention to the mental processes involved in good education, freire, the social. important about piaget, moreover, and taken several steps forward by vygotsky (see soudien & harvey: the crisis of covid-19 and opportunities for reimagining education 173 bradbury, 2020), is the location of mental processes in their contextual realities. education as a mental process depends on the social environment in which a child finds him/her/themselves. a second critical concept is that of cognition. as flavell’s (1977, p. 2) no longer current cognitive development still usefully explains, general conceptions of cognition tend to restrict it to what are described as the higher mental functionings of the human mind such as “consciousness, intelligence, thinking, imagining, creating, generating plans and strategies, reasoning, inferring, problem solving, conceptualising, classifying and relating, symbolizing, and perhaps fantasizing and dreaming.” but, as he said, there is no principled reason to exclude “non-cognitive-sounding things as emotions, personality, aggression and so on.” in his work he emphasised the importance of taking an integrated view of how human minds work and thinking, therefore, of human beings as sentient life forms with complex cognitive systems. a final, almost confounding, concept that needs to be noted here is that of assessment. the point that we have reached in the assessment discussion, wonderfully, is that our education process should yield, as learning outcomes, remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating, and creating. these constitute what we now refer to as bloom’s revised taxonomy (see the chapters in anderson & krathwohl, 2001). powerful about these outcomes is that they represent, as we shall see, the core elements of executive function. assessment, however, and this is why the concept is confounding for our purposes, is aimed at the outcome of the teaching and learning process. to be sure, these outcomes are reverseengineered by many teachers, encouraged by assessment theorists, to shape and produce deeply cognition-rich experiences for their learners but, to stress the point, it is not part of executive functioning in and of itself. the outcome is different from the process; our interest is in the process. with these clarifications, we emphasize that our point of departure, like flavell’s, now fifty years later, is to focus on particular aspects of cognition. the aspect that concerns us here is that of executive functioning, or, simply, executive function. executive function includes higher order processes—working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility—that enable complex decision-making goal-directed behaviour, and the development of key cognitive and socioemotional skills (ibrahimet al., 2017; ji & wang, 2018; logue & gould, 2014). executive function refers, essentially, to the psychological processes that consciously control thought and action (zelazo & müller, 2011). the depth and breadth of literature regarding executive function is immense, but the requirements of this publication constrain us to focus this presentation in a particular way. we thus refer to executive function in a general sense. we are sensitive, as we shall show below, to how executive function works in the context of other features of human beings’ mental make-up, their wellbeing, and, therefore, their susceptibility to happiness, depression, distress and so on. our interest, however, is in how human beings function in relation to the processes involved in the development of their education. 174 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 we come to this interest understanding that the idea of executive function has a long and distinguished research history. it came into prominence in the 1970s and is now recognized as central to thinking about the development of learning (see the collected chapters in meltzer, 2007). it is central to the learning process. it can, moreover, be shaped and steered. its framework of reference, however, has been largely clinical with a focus on the learning challenges of the individual learner and the consequence of producing a psychology of learning that is asocial. our intention here is to take executive function into a larger analytic frame in which we bring into play the biological, the psychological, and the social. a recent contribution by meltzer and greschler (2018, para. 22), interestingly, roots its significance in the social environment of the school and the family. they noted, when teachers and parents build an executive function culture in their classrooms and their homes, they empower children to learn how to learn and problem-solve flexibly. when schools and families foster effort, persistence, and executive function strategies, students develop self-confidence, resilience, and a strong work ethic, the gateways to academic and life success in our 21st century world. social as the inputting factors and the spaces of enactment of executive function are in meltzer and greschler’s plea, there is little in their discursive framing of the concept that suggests that it could be placed in a larger analytic. the general literature, too, it should be noted, shows little awareness of such a possibility. to activate a larger analytic, we begin with the assertion that all individuals, as human subjects, must be able to adapt to their changing environments. covid-19 has been an environmental change of great magnitude. it has forced us to adapt and demonstrates, now, the need for adaptation. it has come to underline the importance of understanding executive function better. the ability to adapt through goal-directed behaviour and regulation of reflexive reactions is based on executive function (ji & wang, 2018; logue & gould, 2014). a key marker of successful education is thus the development of cognitive and executive functions in what we term cognitively resourceful individuals. these individuals have the capacity for lifelong learning and adaptability and are, furthermore, motivated to develop their individual capabilities. a meta-analysis of studies of the relationship between executive functioning and academic performance by cortes pascual et al. (2019, para. 10) found executive function “to be more significant for academic performance than the intelligence quotient, the variable traditionally considered to be the best predictor of academic success.” intersectionality between nature and nurture having, we hope, made clear why we are focusing on executive function, it is important now to explain the intersectional approach we take in this contribution. cognitive functions rely on brain activity that, in turn, is dependent on brain development and neural circuitry (bueno, 2021). therefore, to explain how cognitive capabilities are developed, and more specifically executive function, we need to consider child development and, in particular, the intersectionality of the biological and the social. advances in the biological, developmental soudien & harvey: the crisis of covid-19 and opportunities for reimagining education 175 neuroscientific, epigenetic, and social sciences have provided key insights into the process of healthy development and into how it can be disrupted, and how it can be supported. we now understand that both genetic and environmental experiences interact at many levels to influence child development (shonkoff, 2010). gene-environment interplay (g × e interplay) reflects a reciprocal relationship between an individual’s genetic endowment and his/her/their environment (anreiter et al., 2017). children are not born as blank slates, but instead have a genetic blueprint as an initial framework for development. many environmental factors then act as influences to enable children to fully develop their capabilities (bueno, 2019; national scientific council on the developing child, 2020; shonkoff, 2010). all biological systems develop in this way, including the brain and, therefore, the cognitive, social, and emotional capacities required for learning and success. importantly, the physiological basis of executive function is the prefrontal cortex in the brain and neural connectivity between this region and other brain areas is crucial to executive function (li & wang, 2018); healthy development is thus of great significance. the foundations of brain architecture are built in the early years of a child’s life and are shaped by interactions between genes and experiences in an environment of relationships over time (fox et al., 2010; national scientific council on the developing child, 2020). during these early years of development, the extreme adaptability of the brain enables it to respond to environmental factors, be they positive or negative influences. this is thus a period of both enormous opportunity but equally sizable vulnerability. when his/her/their environment includes supportive responsive relationships and adequate resources, a child’s well-functioning development is more likely. however, environments characterised by hardships or adversity, such as living in poverty, disrupt the development of multiple biological systems (knudsen, et al., 2006; national scientific council on the developing child, 2020; shonkoff & bales, 2011). this can initiate a cascade of negative outcomes across the life span, including inadequate school readiness, lowered academic performance and socio-emotional development, decreased tertiary education completion, lower economic productivity and earnings, and increased likelihood of crime and ill health (babcock, 2014; national scientific council on the developing child, 2020). it is thus crucial that proposed policy and interventions as well as education systems recognise that early experiences influence biological system development, including neural circuitry, with lifelong impacts on learning, behaviour, wellbeing, and health outcomes. it is not just in early life, however, that life events exert an impact on executive function. using a sample of 700 university students, ji and wang (2018) showed that recent stressful life events had a negative impact on participants’ performance on three executive function tasks compared to their peers who had not experienced such events. in contrast, adverse childhood experiences (aces) impacted performance on only one task, although this may need further exploration given the diversity of these experiences. aces refer to forms of abuse (e.g., domestic violence, sexual abuse), neglect (e.g., emotional neglect, physical neglect), and household dysfunction (e.g., parent divorce, premature death of parent) during childhood that cause harm or distress, negatively impacting the physical or psychological health and development of the child, including executive function (felitti et al., 1998; ji & 176 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 wang, 2018; lund et al., 2020). nevertheless, this indicates that life events, and we show how these can include a spectrum of contexts, from inside the family to the larger social world, have an important influence on executive function. we argue that covid-19 is one such stressful life event. johnson et al. (2021) highlighted how the closure of physical educational spaces and the transition to online learning during covid-19 limited opportunities for face-to-face transactional engagements. these types of interactions are crucial to deep thought and to positive epigenetic changes. additionally, the closure of these spaces was a source of stress for both instructors and students (johnson et al., 2021). furthermore, in this special issue, pillay and colleagues explore how the home environment influenced the experience of online learning by female african university students. the authors highlight excellently the role that environmental factors, in this case gender as well as material resource inequities, played in the experiences of the participants. an interesting point made by the authors is that some participants were able to draw inspiration from the strength and determination of prominent female figures in their lives that enabled them to develop resilience. in this situation, while the participants had lost meaningful face-to-face engagements in their educational environment, they had still been able to gain positive influences through other relationships in their home environment. consideration of executive function in studies such as these can be of immense value. gene-environment interplay not only influences brain architecture but is able, furthermore, to affect gene expression (center on the developing child at harvard university, 2016). both positive and negative experiences can leave a “chemical signature” on genes (center on the developing child at harvard university, 2016, p. 8), that influences how easily a gene is expressed without altering the dna sequence itself. this is referred to as epigenetic adaptation and is the mechanism through which factors within one’s environment, such as relationships, resources, and nutrition, influence one’s observable traits or phenotypes (bueno, 2021; denhardt, 2017; ibrahim et al., 2017). epigenetic mechanisms include dna methylation, histone modifications such as acetylation or methylation of histone tails, or noncoding rnas such as micrornas (ibrahim et al., 2017). this field has provided compelling evidence regarding the influence of the environment on genetic expression and executive function, largely using animal studies that have linked diet and early stressors to epigenetic adaptations and resultant executive function changes (ibrahim et al., 2017). in terms of studies using human subjects, the systematic review by ibrahim et al. (2017) provided evidence that epigenetic changes, such as dna methylation, in response to environmental cues were able to influence executive function, particularly working memory. more recently, chen et al., (2020) produced the first study to identify genes that interact with parental warmth to influence executive function. this study showed that the interaction between parenting style and the genetic makeup of his/her/their children is able to impact outcomes. although this is an emerging field and further studies need to be conducted, it has therefore been proposed that early environmental factors influence gene expression that, in turn, impacts executive function (ibrahim et al., 2017). examples of environmental factors that have been linked to executive function development include stress, nutrition, relationships with family members, and school education (denhardt, 2017; ji & wang, 2018; logue & gould, 2014). however, with reference again to the study by ji and wang (2018), the effect soudien & harvey: the crisis of covid-19 and opportunities for reimagining education 177 of childhood events on executive function are further influenced by other factors such as social support, personal growth, and environmental changes. a holistic perspective is achieved only when both biological and social factors are considered. furthermore, it has been indicated that epigenetic markers formed as a result of negative environmental influences can be reversed (see frías-lasserre et al., 2018). this has highlighted the potential of providing adequate support, and possibly interventions, in the formal education space to all learners. important to note at this point is the universality of the experience of biological and social factors in human development; they can arise anywhere. 1 at this juncture an important characteristic of epigenetic research must be made clear along with a strong cautionary note: epigenetic changes in response to environmental stimuli are not deterministic (mansfield & guthman, 2015). the complexities of the interplay between our biology and our experiences over time do not allow for such a viewpoint. instead, we must focus on how insight from epigenetic research aids us in understanding individual variation as both biological and social, a constant refinement as we develop. this emphasis moves us towards social justice; it is not the individual and his/her/their genetic material that solely determines their outcomes, but the broader environments in which they live as well. in this sense it is an “anti-racist science” as described by mansfield and guthman (2015, p. 4). the caution, however, is that the plasticity of epigenetics—the susceptibility of its chemical variation to environmental influences—makes it akin to eugenics when based on notions of what is normal or optimal, the latter often based on race or class (see mansfield & guthman, 2015). we note this tension in order to position ourselves against it and argue for critical scrutiny of epigenetic research. while we have argued that individuals may require support to achieve their full potential, we do not aim to evaluate differences against an unstated (but often western) norm and attempt to fix them. bearing this in mind, based on the argument we have presented, epigenetic mechanisms and executive function should be core foci in the education system. slade (2020, para. 9), blogging for the ascd on their website ascdinservice, emphasized that the most critical skill the most successful american schools and classrooms dealing with the crisis of covid19 have demonstrated is a sense of student agency and ownership over their own learning. trying to replicate a standard, traditional classroom where the teacher is constantly present does not work as we teach and learn remotely . . . students need to develop an understanding of their own role in the learning process and encouraged to see themselves more as agents, or ideally owners of their own learning. in this situation, wellbeing stands at the very centre of the learning experience. in the context of south africa, the significance of this is evident in jansen and o’ryan’s (2020) collection 1 in making this point we are acutely aware of the racial uses to which educational analyses using intelligence quotient tests have been put and the not-quite adequately analysed consequence of that development—an avoidance of questions of biology in discussions of learning (see the collection of chapters in richardson & spears, 1972). our bodies and our biologies do not carry any racial markers, and, emphatically so, our brains do not. race is a social construct so there is no such thing as a white brain or a black brain or a european brain or an african brain. 178 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 of stories penned by learners about their lockdown experience. in every other story, learners talk of taking charge of their learning. in evidence is intense executive function. usman desai, for example, said, “i encourage every student to start by making a few timetables . . . start by managing your life” (cited in jansen & o’ryan, 2020, p. 70). but they also discover how hard it is to discipline themselves. “despite this”, says 18-year-old tamar jansen of her success at having managed to exercise executive functioning in class—to pay attention in class and come to her revision process relatively successfully, “learning under lockdown gave me a good dose of depression and suddenly i realized that this is what i asked for” (p. 76). she wanted school to be cancelled. but she had taken far too much for granted. sisonke del fava had to go through failure to understand better what he needed to do. he explained, the first day i attempted to do my schoolwork and it became a real struggle—almost every 15 minutes or so i would get up and lose focus. i would even tell myself that i would do my work at night, but when the time came, i would just start making up excuses and would delay for the next day. it is also true when people say the excuses sound best to the ones that make them up. i can relate. on the fourth week of the lockdown, i told myself that i cannot torture myself with negativity and mediocrity, so that is when i decided to read books, seeking for motivation and the drive of productive work ethic and yes, it helped—i wanted to read more. (p. 168) these young learners discovered the need to develop executive function but realised that it is not something that is just switched on at will; it has to be cultivated. in this, the nature of three environments in which children most often find themselves are crucial: immediate family; community in which they live; and their school. the cultivation of many skills, including executive function, is influenced by the positive and negative stimuli they experience in these environments (frías-lasserreet al., 2018). we have listed some influential factors in this contribution, but, largely, these have been in broad terms. for example, we have referred to poverty as a stressful experience. however, there are specific factors that need to be explored. how, for example, does the experience of parental stress from living in poverty influence their parent-child relationship and the child’s development? in order to explore these types of questions, we propose the model below as a starting point. bringing it all together: towards a model of how learning works clearly, what is needed to deal with the challenges thrown up by covid-19 is to understand what is actually happening in the experience of learning and, as piaget explained (see brearley & hitchfield, 1966), to understand and deconstruct the actual experience. covid19 has been an extremely challenging and stressful experience for learners in that it carries consequences for their development. as shown in the work of ji and wang (2018), stressful events can impact executive function. already known as crucial psychological functions in the process of learning, we see in the examples of jansen and o’ryan’s students’ narratives illustrations of the centrality of executive function. there is a need to ensure that all learners are provided with enriched environments in which to fully develop their biological capacities. soudien & harvey: the crisis of covid-19 and opportunities for reimagining education 179 but how might we more systematically and analytically approach the teaching and learning experience? how might we understand it more conceptually? as an exploratory foray into a more analytic approach to undertaking research into executive functioning, we provide here the basic foundations of a model (figure 1) for discussion. this model is based on those developed for other sociobiological interactions by researchers such as shonkoff et al., (2012), alvarez et al. (2018), and others. prominent in the model is the principle of articulation and interaction. we take as a starting point here patricia hill collins’s (2019, p. 15) statement that “relationality is an essential core construct for intersectionality itself.” targeted in this approach is what she calls “mono-categorical thinking” (p. 25). the categories in the rapidly developing intersectionality literature are those of race, class, gender, sexuality and all the structural or social forces and registers at work in activating power and the making of difference. this is acknowledged in the model through recognition of individual factors, e.g., gender and race, as well as social and physical factors of their environment, e.g., socioeconomic status and relationships with caregivers. these environmental aspects both independently and jointly impact development. for instance, responsive caregiving is able to act as a buffer against adversity which may otherwise negatively impact development (alvarez, et al., 2018; shonkoff, 2010). another example is the finding that socioeconomic status is significantly associated with brain structure and most cognitive skills, including executive function (brito & noble, 2018; finders et al., 2012; tomalski & johnson, 2010). the model then takes this a step further. it brings to the array the factor of biology to produce an activating frame within which to hold and make sense of the learning experience—principally, executive function. it brings the biological into conjunction with the social and proposes a frame within which social experiences and environmental factors interact with genetic makeup. the crux of the model lies here where “genetic predisposition moderates the effects of environmental influence and differential sensitivity to context can result in differential outcomes” (shonkoff, 2010, p. 360. see also fox et al., 2010 and wiebe et al., 2009). this dynamic and complex interaction over time or within a critical period of development then results in various physiological adaptations and disruptions that influence lifelong outcomes in learning, behaviour, and health (shonkoff et al., 2012). for example, our genes determine the formation of brain architecture and neural circuits, but this process is also shaped by experiences, such as children having caregivers who read to them or who engage responsively when their children reach out for interaction. healthy development of this foundation over the course of early childhood is the basis of higher-level skills such as executive function, an important outcome for learning (center on the developing child at harvard university, 2016). in order to adequately develop the potential of all individuals, we argue that south african research needs to consider how the relationship between genes and environment contributes to individualised capacities and outcomes. the model described here is an initial step towards exploring this gap in empirical research, bearing in mind the potential tensions in epigenetic research that we described above. 180 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 figure 1 the basic foundations for a model. consideration of gene-environment interplay can add valuable insights into individual development and understanding students’ responses to the educational environment. elucidating the relationship between genes and environment can empower teachers to use respectful and flexible teaching practices that act as a positive environmental factor that enables full development of a student’s potential (bueno, 2019). for example, the dynamic complexity of genetic and environmental factors can lead some students to p in the classroom, while others may prefer another (anreiter et al., 2017). teachers who are able to provide a range of experiences flexibly in their classrooms are better able to embrace this diversity of interests and abilities and supp potential (anreiter et al., 2017; bueno, 2019). this leads us to a fundamental point: there is a need to forgo a one-size-fits-all approach to learning and develop, instead, educational approaches that maximise each student’s potential. environments do not operate independently of our genes but rather in conjunction with them. equally, genes do not operate independently of experience and therefore educationalists need not fear genes as deterministic. indeed, te themselves as drawing out a child’s genetic potential rather than writing haphazardly on a mythical blank slate. (ashbury & plomin, 2014, p. 145) it is thus important to acknowledge that genes are responsive to the environment and t given this interplay, all individuals are unique in their outcomes. covid this for us. we argue that there must be a move away from cohort learning and, instead, the embracing of more flexible teaching approaches. the ability to pro teaching practices designed to draw out the full extent of their potential is the crux of socially just teaching. journal of education, no. 84, 2021 environment interplay can add valuable insights into individual development and understanding students’ responses to the educational environment. elucidating the relationship between genes and environment can empower teachers to use espectful and flexible teaching practices that act as a positive environmental factor that enables full development of a student’s potential (bueno, 2019). for example, the dynamic complexity of genetic and environmental factors can lead some students to p in the classroom, while others may prefer another (anreiter et al., 2017). teachers who are able to provide a range of experiences flexibly in their classrooms are better able to embrace this diversity of interests and abilities and support each individual student in reaching their potential (anreiter et al., 2017; bueno, 2019). this leads us to a fundamental point: there is a all approach to learning and develop, instead, educational each student’s potential. environments do not operate independently of our genes but rather in conjunction with them. equally, genes do not operate independently of experience and therefore educationalists need not fear genes as deterministic. indeed, teachers should think of themselves as drawing out a child’s genetic potential rather than writing haphazardly on a mythical blank slate. (ashbury & plomin, 2014, p. 145) it is thus important to acknowledge that genes are responsive to the environment and t given this interplay, all individuals are unique in their outcomes. covid-19 has highlighted this for us. we argue that there must be a move away from cohort learning and, instead, the embracing of more flexible teaching approaches. the ability to provide each individual with teaching practices designed to draw out the full extent of their potential is the crux of socially environment interplay can add valuable insights into individual development and understanding students’ responses to the educational environment. elucidating the relationship between genes and environment can empower teachers to use espectful and flexible teaching practices that act as a positive environmental factor that enables full development of a student’s potential (bueno, 2019). for example, the dynamic complexity of genetic and environmental factors can lead some students to prefer one activity in the classroom, while others may prefer another (anreiter et al., 2017). teachers who are able to provide a range of experiences flexibly in their classrooms are better able to embrace ort each individual student in reaching their potential (anreiter et al., 2017; bueno, 2019). this leads us to a fundamental point: there is a all approach to learning and develop, instead, educational environments do not operate independently of our genes but rather in conjunction with them. equally, genes do not operate independently of experience and therefore achers should think of themselves as drawing out a child’s genetic potential rather than writing haphazardly it is thus important to acknowledge that genes are responsive to the environment and that, 19 has highlighted this for us. we argue that there must be a move away from cohort learning and, instead, the vide each individual with teaching practices designed to draw out the full extent of their potential is the crux of socially soudien & harvey: the crisis of covid-19 and opportunities for reimagining education 181 conclusion an obvious objection to what we are proposing here is how we will come to implement our executive function model, both as a research task and as teaching and learning practice. we argue that an initial step is to facilitate discussions regarding the learning brain. this includes the development of cross-disciplinary collaborations and dialogues, including, and here we are mindful of intelligence testing’s deeply racialised history, with scientists working in fields such as psychobiology, epigenetics, and brain behaviour. we also have to vigilantly remain abreast of what the latest literature across a wide domain of scientific fields is telling us. this would enable the identification of the main principles and factors in the south african context that are influential in outcomes. additionally, interviews should be conducted with stakeholders in the south african education system, e.g., teachers, parents, learners, training institutions, etc., to explore how these principles and factors are understood as well as to identify knowledge gaps. this will also provide information regarding learner behaviour in the classroom and learners’ responses and experiences in relation to different environmental contexts. these engagements will form the foundation of research regarding the impact of environmental factors and experiences on outcomes such as executive function. furthermore, we have in the studies by ji and wang (2018) and chen et al. 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(2011). executive function in typical and atypical development. in u. goswami (ed.) the wiley-blackwell handbook of childhood cognitive development (2nd ed.). john wiley & sons. journal of education, 2017 issue 69, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za first year students’ experience of access and engagement at a university of technology subethra pather, najwa norodien-fataar, xena cupido and nosisana mkonto (received 20 february 2017; accepted 26 june 2017) abstract universities in south africa have opened access to a diverse population of students, which has resulted in an increased participation of first-generation, low-income and mature students. concomitant to the widening access, issues relating to retention and success continue to remain a challenge. student engagement persists as a key concern at universities both locally and globally. this study draws on the theoretical observations of tinto (1975, 1993), and leach and zepke (2011) to explore first year (fy) students’ pre-university nonacademic factors and its influence on student engagement experiences with institutional support initiatives. data was collected from a quantitative questionnaire completed by 195 participants and from a follow up of qualitative data gathered from focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews. the findings from this study reveal that students’ preuniversity non-academic factors play a significant role in the way students engage with institutional support initiatives. one such factor include students’ motivation and resilience to succeed and the key role it plays in enhancing their engagement with peers and lecturers at the university. introduction south african universities, despite moving from an elite, racially divided education system to one that is more democratic and representative of the country’s demographics (pather, 2015), still face numerous critical challenges to verifiable transformation. the historically unequal distributions of economic, social and cultural capital in the south african landscape have created disparities in the way students access and engage with the university. research into student access to higher education emphasises the fact that access does not necessarily guarantee meaningful social and academic 162 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 engagement, levels of retention and/or attainment of success (morrow, 2009). discussions in the reviewed literature about access to higher education raise critical issues about students’ acquisition of knowledge regarding courses, admission, financial capacity and social equity (mckenna, 2012; akoojee & nkomo, 2012). the preponderance of critical literature on the topic highlights what institutions must provide to ensure better access and engagement for students in higher education (trowler, 2010, strydom, basson & mentz, 2010). research in this field has largely been reviewed from an institutional perspective (kuh, 2009). to date there has been limited research that focuses on the influence of pre-university, non-academic factors and how such factors affect student access and engagement at university. this paper addresses this gap. it focuses on students’ pre-university, non-academic factors as significant resources influencing students’ engagement experience with institutional support structures. the first year experience (fye) student mentorship programme was used as the vehicle for enquiry into student engagement experiences with institutional support structures. this paper expands on the work of leach and zepke (2011), and zepke (2013), who emphasise non-institutional factors influencing student engagement. zepke (2013) outlines that in much of the research done on student engagement; the effects of background contextual differences, culture and power, have been either neglected or incorrectly identified and described. to capture a more cogent understanding of student background and its influence on university engagement we used concepts from tinto’s (1975, 1993) theory of social and academic integration together with leach and zepke (2011) as a conceptual organiser. quantitative data was collected from fy students before they entered university in order to gain an understanding of students’ pre-university non-academic profiles and how such information impacted on student engagement. the qualitative data collected from fy students explored student experience of engagement in terms of the fye mentorship programme. our main finding in this study reveals that students’ pre-university non-academic factors are important resources that can be used to enhance institutional support programmes to cater for a more diverse student population. we highlight the need for faculties and institutional student support services to forge a closer link and connection so that more inclusive and coherent academic and social support initiatives could be developed to cater for the varying needs of students; in particular, first-generation and academically disadvantaged students at universities. pather et al.: first year students’ experience. . . 163 literature on student engagement and pre-university factors it is a common understanding that students enter south african universities from positions of extreme inequality, in terms of schooling, race, class, and socio-economic resources. pym and kapp’s (2013) study acknowledges these diversities and add that although students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds gain admission to university they experience a crisis of confidence and self-esteem which influences their sense of belonging in the new environment. thomas (2002) suggests that in order for all students to be fully engaged in educational practices at university, they have to feel a strong sense of belonging. he adds that researchers involved in student engagement debates need to be mindful of ethnicity, age, gender, socio-economic status and backgrounds of students. kuh (2009) adds that student engagement research tends to be blind to cultural and other differences; he suggests that quality in engagement requires appropriate institutional cultures that cater for diversity. krause (2005) cautions that some institutional cultures alienate many first-generation students; many of whom lack the necessary cultural and social capital, and therefore struggle to engage effectively at university. to address this challenge, it is imperative that south african higher education institutions (heis) take on a multidimensional view to identifying the factors that influence student academic engagement practices, which include factors internal and external to the university. previous studies on student engagement focused exclusively on student engagement at university (strydom, basson & mentz, 2010). however this study takes a more holistic view and includes students’ pre-university factors as an additional lens to investigate how it influences student engagement. studies done by pather & chetty (2016), norodien-fataar (2016), van zyl, gravett and de bruin (2012) and gillies (2006) acknowledge pre-university non-academic factors such as, family support (parental encouragement and mother’s emotional support) and life circumstances, play an important role in the nature of student engagement. this paper introduces the significance of pre-university non-academic factors as a key influence in students’ social and academic engagement at university. in contrast to the above studies, kuh (2009) believes that what students bring to higher education matters less to their success than what they do during their time as a student at university. although this may be true to some degree, we 164 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 assert that pre-university, non-academic factors are important attributes for student engagement at university, which cannot be ignored. this is in light of the fact that students’ pre-university non-academic factors could play a key role in assisting institutions to design institutional support programmes aimed specifically at helping diverse students to successfully transition and engage with university life. in addition to understanding the influence of students’ pre-university factors on university experience, cleyle and philpott’s (2012) study suggests that factors such as institutional support structures at the institution could be instrumental in supporting student engagement and success. they add that providing students with: access to information and advice, connection to university services, high quality of courses and programmes, and quality instruction and guidance are all critical components of institutional factors that could improve student engagement. however, smit (2012) questions the nature of the university support provided to the current students. she suggests that further investigation is needed in understanding student diversity and the nature of support offered. the fye mentorship programme is an example of a support service that has the potential to improve student engagement. according to chester, burton, xenos, elgar, and denny (2013), the fye mentorship programme has been widely recognised as having a constructive impact on students’ first year experience. moreover, peer mentor programmes have been shown to be beneficial in facilitating fy university transition by affording incoming students an opportunity to enhance their cognitive and personal growth and social engagement opportunities (du preez, steenkamp, & baard, 2013). kuh, kinzie, cruce, shoup, and gonyea (2006) suggest that careful consideration should be given to the design and implementation of university support programmes and structures as they play a critical role in advancing successful student engagement and enhanced academic performance. they add that to create a successful student support culture, institutions need to focus on the following key components: student success; foregrounding student learning; establishing high expectations; investing money in support services; asserting the importance of diversity; and preparing students for learning in higher education. while these features may be valid from within the institution, this paper foregrounds students’ pre-university non-academic factors as key components that are external to the university and discusses pather et al.: first year students’ experience. . . 165 how they impact on student engagement within the institutional support structures. theoretical and conceptual framework in understanding the complexities of student engagement, the student integration model of tinto (1975, 1993) and the conceptual organiser of leach and zepke (2011) offer a pertinent framework for this study. students entering university come from diverse backgrounds, most evidently, poor state of basic education, and limited access to funding and other resources. tinto’s (1975, 1993) integration model acknowledges these disparities in students’ backgrounds; individual attributes and prior academic experience. he regards students’ pre-entry characteristics as having an influence on students’ ultimate social and academic integration. in this study, we also highlight pre-university non-academic factors and further describe how these factors influence student experience of engagement with university support structures. tinto theorises that the interactions between student characteristics and level of commitment to the university influence their level of engagement and success. tinto’s integration model emphasises structural and normative integration within the institution, which provides a useful framework to analyse data in terms of student support structures available in the institution. tinto (1975) regards structural integration as the explicit standards required by the university (duties, responsibilities, procedures) while normative integration refers to norms and expectations of the student identification of normative structures of the academic system that are not officially stated. the use of leach and zepke’s (2011) conceptual organiser in this study expands on tinto’s notion of commitment and engagement by providing key lenses that could be used to investigate student engagement. two distinctive features in their model are that firstly, the authors identified key lenses from the literature reviewed on student engagement, indicated as perspectives on engagement in their model; and secondly, they suggest indicators of outcomes that may be reached by using the six lenses. leach and zepke’s six perspectives of student engagement is summarised in table 1 below. 166 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 table 1: leach and zepke (2011) a conceptual organiser for student engagement perspectives on engagement indicators motivation and agency (engaged students are intrinsically motivated and want to exercise their agency) a student feels able to work autonomously. a student feels they have relationships with others. a student feels competent to achieve success. transactional engagement (students engage with teachers) students experience academic challenge. learning is active and collaborative inside and outside the classroom. students and teachers interact constructively. students have enriching educational experiences. transactional engagement (students engage with each other) learning is active and collaborative inside and outside the classroom. students have positive, constructive peer relationships. students use social skills to engage with others. institutional support (institutions provide an environment conducive to learning) there is a strong focus on student success. there are high expectations of students. there is investment in a variety of support services. diversity is valued. institutions continuously improve. active citizenship (students and institutions work together to enable challenges to social beliefs and practices) students are able to make legitimate knowledge claims. students can engage effectively with others including the ‘other’. students are able to live successfully in the world. students have a firm sense of themselves. learning is participatory, dialogic, active and critical. non-institutional support (students are supported by family and friends to engage in learning) students’ family and friends understand the demands of study. students’ family and friends assist with, e.g. childcare, time management. students’ family and friends create space for study commitments. pather et al.: first year students’ experience. . . 167 leach and zepke’s conceptual organiser illustrates the complexities of student engagement which provided us with a starting point into our investigation. these complexities assisted us in gaining a deeper understanding of student engagement as a “complex interaction between personal and contextual factors” (p.200). they conceptualised student engagement at the university as a form of transaction that students enter into with other parties at the university. we found the concept of transaction useful to explain fy students’ engagement at the university as they transition from an ‘outsiders’ to ‘insider’ at the university. while tinto’s model of integration provided a scope to be more descriptive in analysis of student engagement, leach and zepke’s (2011) conceptual organiser allowed an enhanced understanding of the nature of student engagement experiences in relation to the institutional support provided. research design in this study, we explore fy students’ pre-university non-academic factors and its influence on engagement at a university of technology (uot). the aim of this study was to understand in greater depth the issues and complexities related to fy student engagement experiences with university support structures within a uot. this study was framed within an interpretive paradigm which employs the assumption that meaning in the social world is constructed by individuals engaged in the world they are interpreting (creswell, plano, clark, gutmann, & hanson, 2003). the interpretive view resonates with this study in order to adequately capture the subjective experiences of students and the influence of their pre-university factors on their educational engagement practices. a case study approach was applied to capture the experiences of incoming, fy students at a uot. the focus was on gaining first-hand knowledge of students’ engagement experiences in the fye mentorship support programme, which forms part of the institutional support structure. a major advantage of this approach is defined by yin (2003, p.3) as an empirical enquiry which “investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context especially when the boundaries between the phenomenon and the context are not clearly evident”. an understanding of incoming students’ backgrounds was particularly important to capturing and understanding their engagement experiences at university. in this regard, both quantitative and qualitative data informed this study’s findings. 168 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 quantitative data collected through a survey from 195 incoming fy students established their pre-university non-academic profiles and the influence of such on academic engagement. the participants for the quantitative survey included all incoming students who returned their completed fye survey forms. a 65% participation rate was achieved from the selected faculty responses. qualitative data was collected through focus group discussions and one-on-one semi-structured interviews. sixty fy students from the fye mentorship programme were selected for this study. the participants were purposively selected to represent the diversity in the uot’s fy student population. one-on-one interviews with the participants were conducted towards the end of the first term while, five focus group discussions with 12 participants in each group was conducted towards the end of the academic year. the intention of the interviews and focus group discussions were to draw on a rich diversity of opinions concerning student engagement with the institution, support structures, peers and lecturers. these interviews provided information on students’ experience of engagement with the fye mentorship programme. interviews and focus group discussions were transcribed and coded using atlas.ti. the focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews were generated to provide thick descriptions of participant engagement with the university (patton, 2002). a broad range of perspectives was shared constructively leading to meaningful conversations (brown, 2002). for the quantitative part of the study, information about students’ prior school experience, demographic and socio-economic information formed the backdrop in understanding pre-university factors influencing students’ university engagement. the descriptive statistical analysis provided a detailed and realistic overview of incoming student pre-university, non-academic profiles. data obtained through the questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussions were coded and refined into meaningful categories. patterns that emerged from the various categories provided insight into student engagement practices. ethical clearance was received from the institution and full, informed consent was obtained from each participant prior to the study; thereby ensuring protection and privacy. confidentiality was maintained throughout the research process, including reporting of data. pather et al.: first year students’ experience. . . 169 findings and discussions in this section, we reflect on the findings of this study. leach and zepke’s (2011) conceptual organiser was used as a framework with which to discuss students’ experiences of access and engagement. leach and zepke’s six perspectives were grouped and discussed under the following four headings: non-institutional factors and student motivation influencing engagement; institutional support; transactional relations with lecturers; and transactional relations with students. leach and zepke’s perspective of active citizenship together with tinto’s notion of commitment and engagement is discussed across all four headings below. non-institutional factors and student motivation leach and zepke (2011) identify the non-institutional support perspective as a crucial component that is often an overlooked perspective of student engagement at universities. in this perspective of engagement, they identified family and friends as key role players in assisting students’ success at university. our findings support leach and zepke’s perspective and identified the following three factors that had a direct impact on student academic and social engagement at university: students’ financial status, students’ immediate family encouragement and support for higher education, and students’ status as first-generation students. table 2 below indicates that 67.7% of the participants entering the uot were first-generation students, implying that they were the first member from their immediate family to attend university. this finding is crucial as it will influence the kind of support students receive at home and their awareness of support offered at university. we contend that it will be the universities responsibility to make students aware of the support available and to adapt their current support programmes to suit the needs of these first-generation students. 170 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 table 2: first-generation university students first-generation students total are you the first in your immediate family to attend university? yes 67.7% 32.3% 132 no 63 total 100% 195 the interviews revealed that first-generation students were intrinsically motivated to succeed as a result of being the first to attend university, as indicated in the following quotes: i am the only one in my family who has gone to university; i want to be a role model for my siblings. my mother and father did not go to university, so that’s why they encouraged me; i think i’m going to be the first one to graduate from university. the kinds of support first-generation students received are corroborated by the following findings: 61% of the participants reported on receiving intangible support from their parents while 39% received tangible support. although many of the parents could not assist with academic work or provide lived advice on university life, they provided the following tangible and intangible support shown in table 3. table 3: nature of support from family response tangible (39%) financial: paid partial fees; full fees; registration fees informational: career advice; university selection; context shaping; finding information assistance: filling in application forms; registration process intangible (61%) emotional: nurture; empathise; compassionate personal advice: spiritual; finance; goal setting, commitment, safety, friends companionship: sense of belonging, listening, understanding encouragement: positive, positive reinforcement: motivating, supportive pather et al.: first year students’ experience. . . 171 the kinds of intangible support received from parents, such as, emotional support; personal advice, which included empathy and spiritual guidance; encouragement and positive reinforcement, made the students feel a sense of belonging which led to them feeling supported in their university studies. the focus group discussions with students on campus provided further explanations of family support received. the emotional support, particularly from single mothers, aunts and extended families were a strong motivational factor as indicated in the following quotes: my mother she just wanted me to get education. when i struggled to cope in my first year, she was always there supporting and saying don’t give up. my extended family is very supportive, my aunt’s sisters and my aunt’s children play a part in saying that this is good for you, keep doing what you are doing. they ask me about what is happening on campus and stuff like that so i call them my family, they care about me. mothers, aunts and extended families played a more significant role in providing intangible support to many first-generation participants. data revealed that mothers motivated the students to access university; they also provided motivation before tests were written; and encouraged students to persist once they were admitted into university. gillie’s (2006) research on working class mothers suggests that a mother’s emotional support is an important resource for some students. norodien-fataar’s (2016) research showed that parent’s moral discourses about education in the south african contexts played an important role in students’ motivation to pursue university study. yosso (2005) refers to this element as family capital which she describes as “the cultural knowledge nurtured among families that carry a sense of community history, memory and cultural intuition” (p. 79). it may be argued that this type of support developed resilience in students since they felt a sense of accountability to their mothers’ sacrifice. these findings corroborate the work of leach and zepke (2011) who identified the significance of support received from family and friends in terms of understanding the demands of study by assisting through various support mechanism such as childcare, time management and creating space for study commitments. 172 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 another important indicator influencing student engagement is their financial capacity to pursue higher education; which is linked to their status as firstgeneration students. figure 1: first year students’ financial support the findings from the study revealed that 94% of the participants were financially unable to support their own university study. forty-three per cent of the students relied on student loans, 10% had secured bursaries and 41% received financial assistance from parents and extended families. students’ financial constraints would impact on their social and academic engagement at university. many would have to seek alternative means of gaining funds to support their studies, which would limit time spent on campus. as one participant explains: i’m working every weekend now to pay like for my food & studies. i work on a wine farm, every friday i take the taxi home and then my dad brings me back sunday night because the hours are long and there is no taxi so late at night to the city. i take my university work with me and when there are no customers i would take my bag and quickly do something and then when a customer comes i will leave it aside. . . pather et al.: first year students’ experience. . . 173 cabrera, nora, & castaneda (1992) posit that when the financial needs of students are addressed it could, to some degree, level the playing field between advantaged and disadvantaged students; allowing students to focus on their studies as a primary concern. thomas (2012) adds that universities must be aware of, and give careful attention to, student backgrounds. from the findings, it was noted that some of the participants’ cultural capital and/or family habitus was incongruent with the university’s habitus. however, this study’s results clearly demonstrated that these students’ emotional support and family capital provided them with a strong emotional basis from which to access and engage with the university. a distinctive feature that enabled the students to persist and become resilient in their quest for a tertiary level qualification. student engagement with institutional support structures the next section focuses on students’ accounts of their engagement with the institutional support structures. our data show that students made extensive use of the library. many used the library as a resource centre, to engage in study sessions with friends or study individually. however, most of the participants acknowledged that their visit to the library was largely influenced by the availability of the internet facility. one participant explained: i live at university residence at the moment and use the internet at the library a lot. when i’m doing research or have a project. . ..i do go to the library to also get books. another participant added: i prefer using the online sources at the library. our exploration of students’ engagement with the teaching and learning unit (tlu) at the university reveals mixed reports. from the participants’ responses below it was evident that some students were aware of the tlu services but unable to use it due to heavy workload, others were unaware of such services and some students reported on using tlu services when instructed by some of their lecturers as it formed part of their assessment task. 174 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 no, we don’t have time. our timetable, it’s very full and by the time we’re finished it’s very late. i hear from my township friends about the centre but i don’t even know about it. i always go to the tlu for my reports, yes, especially when i have those big reports that you combine everything. ja, so they [department] said that if we send it [assignments] to tlu you will get some certain percentage. these statements indicate the importance of establishing a connection between departments and the tlu centre to ensure successful student engagement. a significant feature of the data was reports from participants about their cautious engagement with the student counselling services. one participant stated: i wanted to use the counselling services because i was having difficulties coping with first year. my personal problems affected me with concentrating on my studies and i made an appointment. but i couldn’t keep the appointment, because i was busy with my classes and workload. the findings reveal that many of the participants did not prioritise their need for counselling and did not have the ‘map knowledge’ which is a detailed understanding of what is required to maximise their behaviour in social spaces, such as the university (de certeau, 1984). the institution, in turn, did not provide students with a deep understanding of how to use the counselling services effectively for their development. results from students participating in social support structures such as choir, sport, and religious, social and political organisations showed a low level of interest. most of the participants in the focus group discussions indicated they lived off campus; many of them were from informal settlements and townships, located long distances away from the university. this factor influenced their access to and participation in many of these social activities that took place outside of the formal structure of their programmes. many of pather et al.: first year students’ experience. . . 175 them commented on the time and money spent on travelling to campus and back. other participants expressed their concern for safety when travelling home late in the afternoon or evenings. many recounted on their home environment as a barrier to their social engagement, indicating the following: they felt unsafe walking home with laptops, cell phones and books; the high crime rate; and risky surroundings such as thugs, loud music and informal pubs near their homes, which limited their use of social institutional support structures. zipin (2009, p. 330) describes this environment as ‘dark life world assets’, in which poor students are faced with and are forced to find a way to navigate through in order to achieve their aspirations for higher education. living in the townships and travelling long distances to the university is another preuniversity non-academic factor that institutions must take into consideration when providing support to students from diverse backgrounds, more specifically to students coming from challenging socio-economic circumstances. a lack of this type of engagement reduces students’ sense of belonging and connectedness to the institution and their programme. transactional engagements with students this section focuses on student-peer engagement at the university in the context of the fye mentorship programme. odey and carey (2013) suggest that peer engagement both informally and formally provides many opportunities for students to develop their academic goals. the findings of this study revealed that engagement with peers in the mentorship programme provided fy students with a sense of belonging. students who engaged with the same mentor tended to socialise together outside of the formal mentorship programme. many of them formed academic friendships that gave them the base from which to meet their academic aspirations. study groups were key to the formation of their academic friendships. students who were involved in these study groups eventually became friends who socialised over weekends and celebrated important events as one participant commented: i became friends with the other students, we had the same mentor, and we even went to movies together and celebrated each other’s birthdays. 176 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 this transactional relationship is corroborated by briggs, clark & hall (2012). they state, that interaction among students often goes beyond academic life to include social interactions. according to tinto (1993), the social engagements between students assist with an easier student transition into the culture of the institution. our research showed that students who shared the same language and culture often studied together and were able to form strong academic friendships. data from the interviews showed that these students often reached out to other students in their communities who could support them in their academic work. students thus preferred to associate and seek support from like-minded peers. seeking help from knowledgeable peers was also noted in the findings. students commented that they sort assistance from peers who were more knowledgeable in subjects such as mathematics. they identified these peers as not only being more knowledgeable but also easily accessible. this was a practice they related they had used when they were at school. this behaviour we suggest is an example of a pre-university factor, which can be regarded as a key resource. seeking peer support and associating with like-minded peers was a ‘pre-university practice’ that these students brought with them to the university. one participant commented: i am very careful when i choose peers to work with and therefore the friends that i have really contributed a lot to my good maths marks, because in high school my friends were ambitious, and now all the people i have surrounded myself with are very ambitious. it was evident from this study that student-peer engagement provided students with opportunities to actively engage in their learning collaboratively inside and outside the classroom. some students were able to develop positive, constructive peer relationships through their transactional engagement with each other. the students’ pre-university background characteristics influenced the way they positioned themselves to take full advantage of academic support initiatives offered by the institution, specifically from the mentor programme where fy students regarded their peers as important people who could assist them with their academic goals as shown in the following comment: pather et al.: first year students’ experience. . . 177 inside the classroom, i found that working with peers in a group was something new for me. i didn’t do that before so i engaged myself with the group and that had made my understanding of mathematical concepts more easier for me. i became more comfortable with mathematics and i really enjoyed the group work, students in the group became friends. our research shows the capacity of platforms such as the fye peer mentorship programme to harness student engagement, sense of belonging and connectedness to the university. we suggest that when faculties and departments build stronger connections with fy peer support programmes, students can begin to address their university learning in more constructive and formal ways. transactional engagements with lecturers establishing a collaborative relationship between student and lecturer is key to enhancing student engagement and success. our findings show that lecturer-student engagement was complex. some participants expressed their feeling of apprehensiveness to engage with their lecturers due to a fear of being embarrassed by them. one student explained that: …it was not like easy to go and consult a lecturer because one of the things is that if you go to a lecturer and he explains or she explains the work then at the test and maybe you didn’t understand the question well then you mess it up he will do an example about you. some students enjoyed their engagement with lecturers especially when they received positive feedback about their academic work. they found it very beneficial, as mentioned by the following participant: when he gives us back the test we can even like see our mistakes and we discuss them, we always get the feedback, its good. other students revealed that their engagement with their lecturers were not a usual engagement as it was endured out of necessity. for example, when students felt frustrated with getting low marks for a subject, only then out of desperation, they would find the courage to consult the lecturer. however, many of them indicated that lecturers who were friendly were easier to 178 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 approach. another interesting finding was that students who were part of a study group supported their peers and went as a group to consult lecturers, which gave students the courage to engage with lecturers. the findings suggest that lecturers’ approaches and attitude to students are areas that need to be explored to ensure better lecturer-student engagement. the findings also indicate the important role of student study groups as an essential resource that can be utilised by lecturers as strategies to ensure optimal student engagement. the findings from the student-lecturer engagement thus outlines the need for lecturers to be more aware of the needs of first-generation students in their classrooms and to use learning and teaching styles that will encourage both student-lecturer and student-peer engagement inside and outside the classroom. conclusion first year student engagement was discussed under four headings that addressed the six perspectives from leach and zepke’s conceptual organiser and tinto’s model of student integration. our paper highlighted the significance of understanding students’ pre-university non-academic factors and its influence on student engagement at university. in many studies, preuniversity non-academic factors were either regarded as a fixed variable or insignificant in understanding student engagement at university. in this study, it was evident that students’ non-academic background factors had a direct influence on the way the students engaged and participated with the university support structures and programmes. the study revealed that pre-university non-academic factors are assets and resources that students use to engage with university support structures. the findings of this study bring to the fore three important indicators from the pre-university non-academic factors, these include, family support, financial status of the family, and the family’s level of education. all three of these indicators are central to understanding students’ engagement at university. as revealed in the findings, it had increased students’ motivation and persistence to stay and succeed. this element was particularly evident in students’ participation in the fye peer mentorship programme, which increased their sense of belonging at the university. pather et al.: first year students’ experience. . . 179 the study revealed that many of the fy students did not optimally use the institution’s support services, offered by the university’s teaching and learning unit. the findings show that although students were aware of these support services available, external factors such as family commitment, financial constraints and living off-campus, precluded them from engaging easily with the institutional services. academic engagement was a key indicator that emerged from our findings relating to student-peer engagement in the mentorship programme. our study revealed that students prioritised academic engagement over social engagement. due to the students’ challenging backgrounds they regarded their academic involvement as a priority over extramural and other social support services at the university. the study showed that the fye mentorship programme was a crucial vehicle for peer engagement, increased students’ sense of belonging and deepened their commitment to their own academic goals, aspirations and academic success (tinto, 1975; and lizzio, 2006). the findings from the student-lecturer engagement revealed that there are many complexities when understanding this relationship but when the lecturer created an enabling environment, it brought about a positive student-lecturer engagement experience. this study demonstrated the significance of students’ pre-university nonacademic factors influencing students’ engagement experience with university support services. the paper reveals the nature of the struggle of many firstgeneration students and students from challenging socio-economic backgrounds to engage with the institutional support structures identified in this study. we assert that institutions need to recognise and acknowledge the pre-university profiles of diverse students as resources and build on their knowledge assets in order to provide more effective and inclusive support. we believe that institutions can be more proactive in 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(2013). student engagement: a complex business supporting the first year experience in tertiary education. the international journal of the first year in higher education, 4(2), 1–14. zipin, l. (2009). dark funds of knowledge, deep funds of pedagogy: exploring boundaries between life worlds and schools. discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 30(3), 317–331. subethra pather teaching and learning specialist university of the western cape supather@uwc.ac.za najwa norodien-fataar xena cupido nosisana mkonto cape peninsula university of technology norodien-fataarn@cput.ac.za cupidox@cput.ac.za mkonton@cput.ac.za mailto:supather@uwc.ac.za mailto:supather@uwc.ac.za mailto:norodien-fataarn@cput.ac.za mailto:cupidox@cput.ac.za mailto:mkonton@cput.ac.za 184 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 microsoft word b90 full issue.docx journal of education, 2023 issue 90, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i90a06 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x the dilemmas inherent in curriculum design: unpacking the lived experiences of australian teacher educators angela fitzgerald school of education, college of design and social context, rmit university, melbourne, australia angela.fitzgerald@rmit.edu.au https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8010-2215 wendy goff school of education, college of design and social context, rmit university, melbourne, australia wendy.goff@rmit.edu.au https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0665-2793 simone white school of education, college of design and social context, rmit university, melbourne, australia simone.white@rmit.edu.au https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5014-2977 (received: 8 october 2022; accepted: 8 february 2023) abstract teacher educators often find themselves struggling to enact a continually shifting teacher education reform policy agenda in relation to increasing standardisation and more strident accountability measures. this has to be balanced with best trying to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population in different community settings and to be well prepared for current and future challenges. we are three teacher educators who use narrative inquiry to interrogate these dilemmas and the ways in which they play out in teacher education curriculum design work. we analyse the stories and identify the three themes of contexts, currency, and connection. we offer a number of pro-active strategies to help teacher educators to make an agentive response to the task of curriculum planning. we suggest a variety of ways in which teacher educators can use their knowledge of place, policy, and working in partnerships to navigate through this highly regulated space. keywords: curriculum design, initial teacher education, teacher educators, dilemmas 110 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 introduction for many countries affiliated with the organization for economic cooperation and development (oecd), it is acknowledged that the marketisation agenda has led to the widespread diversification of initial teacher education (ite) programming in these settings (whitty & power 2000). as a direct result of this agenda, educating future teachers now occurs in many ways and across a multitude of learning sites. when this reality is coupled with significant worldwide teacher shortages, the result is the accretion of further demands on an already stretched system (mclean davies & watterson, 2022). unsurprisingly, given the current climate, debates about who should take responsibility for preparing and educating teachers and about the best place in which to do this, have been rife and are gaining further traction. in australia, our context, teacher preparation remains the central responsibility of universities. there has been, however, great pressure to share the responsibility of preparing teachers by using school-university partnership models (white et al., 2018). of note, australian ite providers have experienced three distinct waves of partnership policy reform over the last 15 years with each underpinned by increasing calls for pre-service teachers to spend more time in schools (mayer et al. 2017). to date, the australian government has mandated school-university partnerships as part of its ite accreditation requirements (craven et al., 2014) following the lead of england and the united states (menter et al., 2010). more recent reform has included the formalisation of internships (universities australia, 2022), including the return of accelerated ite programming, and granting final year pre-service teachers with permission to teach status (paul et al., 2022). these rapid shifts in policy requirements and community expectations have left ite providers grappling to define what it is that they are preparing future teachers for and how best to achieve this within a higher education context that brings with it a certain academic rigour along with budgetary obligations. with this issue comes a series of considerations on how to design ite programs that best meet the needs of all students and prepare teachers who are both classroom ready and future focused. in this paper, we examine these considerations from the perspective of curriculum design and, as teacher educators, we explore a number of dilemmas that relate to the challenges and opportunities they afford. as teacher educators, we occupy a potential space of influence and agency amidst competing demands and external forces regarding the re-design of curriculum for ite programming. while how to understand the enactment of ite curriculum reform in practice remains a largely untold story among academics and in the research literature, teacher educators certainly play a critical role as curriculum developers and in addressing curriculum reform dilemmas (bourke et al. 2022). and, if the emphasis on how to best prepare future teachers remains at the top of policy agendas globally (see darling-hammond, 2016), the quality of ite programs that include the design and delivery of curriculum content will continue to require ongoing introspection and improvement. as a result of this imperative, we three teacher educators who work collaboratively in ite draw here on narrative traditions (see parr & doecke, 2012) to offer and explain our insights in response to the research question: “what fitzgerald et al.: the dilemmas inherent in curriculum design 111 are the dilemmas of curriculum design in teacher education, and how do teacher educators position themselves in relation to these dilemmas?” literature review by means of positioning this study within the broader literature, this review situates ite in australia historically, before we use the emergence of the theory-practice debates as a mechanism for understanding curriculum development, design, and delivery. we focus on the notion of dilemma since it allows us, as teacher educators, to problematise curriculum design in teacher education and to consider areas ripe for improvement and innovation. teacher preparation: whose responsibility? historically, the preparation of teachers in australia was situated in what were considered to be second-tier institutions within the australian adult education structure (mayer, 2015). such institutions, often known as teachers colleges, were vocational in nature, closely aligned with schools, and were practice-focused and driven. in 1988, ite moved away from these vocational institutions into the universities (mayer, 2015). during this time, there was pressure on the profession of teaching to prove its academic legitimacy and intellectual worth, both in the university and in the wider educational research field and community. accompanying this physical shift and the subsequent pressure to become more academic was also a perceptual shift in those working in schools and in policy makers that a universitybased ite curriculum is highly theoretical and disconnected from schools and, more particularly, from classroom practice (mayer, 2015). such historical changes and the long-held debates about the best place to learn to be a teacher (see dewey, 1904) have resulted in the perceived dichotomy of theory and practice in ite that sees universities problematically championed as the contexts that develop theoretical knowledge through their curriculum on the one hand, and schools as the contexts in which practical knowledge is taught and learned, on the other. loughran and hamilton (2016), however, warned of the consequence of perceiving theory and practice in dichotomous terms in the preparation of classroom teachers and suggested that this not only restricts thinking, but also limits the possibility of conceptualising and reconceptualising new ways of ite preparation. this perceived theory-practice dichotomy has resulted in various criticisms of ite in australia over the past few decades, as well as in ongoing calls for teacher educators situated in higher education institutions (heis) to bridge the gap (darling-hammond, 2016; zeichner, 2010). these criticisms have often positioned teacher educators as both the reason for, and the solution to, the problem as well as the brokers or boundary crossers working between and across heis and school contexts (green et al., 2020). they have also proved challenging for heis that are now balancing and delivering a highly regulated and compliance-driven ite curriculum while simultaneously provisioning for school-based professional experience and curriculum opportunities. 112 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 ‘mind the gap’: bridging the theory-practice divide over the years, university-school partnerships have been heralded by australian policymakers as a way to remedy the perceived gap between theory and practice (green et al., 2020). the notion of work-readiness has also been high on the agenda and “australian universities have come under increasing pressure to be accountable for the effectiveness of their teaching programmes” (kenny et al., 2018, p. 13). this has prompted new ways of working in ite as well as the emergence of several different variants of the university-school partnership model across the ite landscape. both the challenges and benefits of the university-school partnership have been well documented (heide, 2017; jackson & burch, 2019). however, little is known about whether bridging this perceived gap in ite education in australia better prepares ite students for the classroom experience. this poses more challenges for teacher educators who are often left to balance the expectations of navigating the university-school partnership model, while simultaneously attempting to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the enacted curriculum on pre-service teachers’ preparedness to teach. ite curriculum design and delivery: a balancing act in illuminating the balancing act required of teacher educators, simon (2013) got straight to the heart of the key dilemma influencing curriculum design in the australian ite context when she wrote about “the need to effectively incorporate compliance and accreditation obligations within innovative and inspiring programs for pre-service teachers” (p. 1). this tension is not reserved, however, for teacher education alone since it plays out in curriculum intentions and development across higher education (scott, 2018) and is often positioned within a model of rapid contextual change (forster, 2012). this need for change ultimately becomes the catalyst for significant adaptations to programmatic approaches and structures, while bearing in mind the integrity of the profession as an underlying constant. teacher education is particularly susceptible to dilemmas such as this because of the highly visible and high stakes nature of learning and teaching in our society. the practice of “bricolage” as adapted by denzin and lincoln (2000, p. 4), has been used to describe curriculum development in ite since it brings together a range of approaches, influences, interpretations, and techniques to represent a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts. the curriculum dilemma a dilemma, by its very nature, is challenging and requires creative problem solving to be resolved. in the context of ite and curriculum development, alsubaie (2016) identified that curriculum itself is a “living document that is in constant flux” (p. 107). alsubaie’s research in saudi arabia, surfaced the importance of adapting to ongoing change by involving classroom teachers in assisting to ensure curriculum relevance and currency. similarly, darling-hammond (2006), in calling out the contemporary dilemmas facing teacher education particularly in the united states but also internationally, referred to the need for teacher educators to work more closely than ever with teachers and schools to engage in a fitzgerald et al.: the dilemmas inherent in curriculum design 113 “mutual transformation agenda” (p. 302) with curriculum development forming part of this shared work. the successful enactment of curriculum goes hand-in-hand with the support of effective pedagogies of teacher education. these pedagogies have been described by darlinghammond and her colleagues (2007) as being intended to “support teacher abilities to learn in and from practice” (p. 441, emphasis in original), which includes working in collaboration with classroom-based colleagues. darling-hammond (2006) noted that change in ite is “messy” and can be a “struggle” (p. 302). it can also be political; plomp (2007) specifically described curriculum development as “complex” (p. 11), particularly with respect to global educational reforms. the notion of dilemma is of interest as a tool for navigating and negotiating messy and complex spaces, such as curriculum development in ite. cabaroglu and tillemaa (2011) recognised that dilemmas can be a useful trigger for supporting teacher educators to think, and, ultimately, act differently in terms of their own educational practices. importantly, the notion of a dilemma when used as a framework for reflection can lead teacher educators from a place of understanding the beliefs that underpin their practice to engaging with improvement-focused strategies (tillema & kremer-hayon, 2005). similarly, caspari-gnann and sevian’s (2022) recent study demonstrated that, in fact, contradictions in teaching practice can be conceptualised as sources of change through a framework that considers dilemmas to be conceptual, pedagogical, cultural, and/or political in nature. they were able to show that when contradictions were reconsidered as dilemmas there was a change in educators’ mindsets from seeing obstacles to seeing possibilities for growth. it was from this perspective that we considered using narrative traditions to uncover both challenges and opportunities for change. research design the subjective states of being and feeling are privileged in qualitative research (creswell & creswell, 2018). by foregrounding these states, we allow values and perceptions that align with particular social mores, values, and worldviews to surface. in seeking to better understand and gain greater insights into these social phenomena, qualitative research is “interested in understanding how people interpret their experiences, how they construct their worlds, and what meaning they attribute to their experiences” (merriam & tisdell, 2016, p. 5). critical qualitative research, however, moves beyond uncovering an individual’s lifeworld perceptions to a more politicised stance. bearing in mind the risk that the voices of critical qualitative researchers will be marginalised and relegated to the periphery (cacciattolo et al., 2020), engaging in this research approach is an act designed to uncover previously side-lined truths. within spaces of tension, critical qualitative researchers are committed to paving the way for transformative change. we, as teacher education researchers, adopted a critical research approach as a means of challenging the many agendas that impinge on teacher education. 114 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 participants as co-authors of this paper, we currently work together in a school of education at a metropolitan university situated in south-eastern australia. collectively, we represent 54 years of experience in teacher education in a variety of roles ranging from program coordination to directorships to dean. individually, our time working in teacher education and current roles are detailed in table 1 below. table 1 participant experiences and current roles in teacher education teacher education experience (years) current role in teacher education simone 28 dean (school of education) wendy 12 director (work integrated learning) angela 14 director (initial teacher education) data creation we adopted a dialogic narrative-based approach (parr & doecke, 2012) for this study as a means of representing and analysing our lived experiences regarding curriculum development in teacher education. to start the data creation process, we each independently developed a written narrative account to document a significant dilemma we had experienced and/or identified in relation to curriculum development. this approach can be defined as a form of case writing (shulman, 1992); it provided us with an effective vehicle for documenting and critically reflecting on a dilemma identified as requiring further exploration. schön (1991) identified case writing as providing a method of systematic inquiry that encourages educators to reflect in and on their practice. we chose to collect data in this way because it was an effective way to respond to the research question that prompted us to grapple with dilemmas connected to curriculum development in teacher education. by documenting, interrogating, and sharing dilemmas in this way, new possibilities opened to us for rethinking practices and policies linked to curriculum development. data analysis once all the narratives had been circulated and critiqued by all of us, we generated initial insights and bundled them together. ary et al. (2009) use the term open coding to describe this stage of initial coding. the next step is to then make connections between and among each of the open codes. to achieve this, we looked for links between sentences and passages that we extracted from the cases, and we looked for similarities and differences between and among the narratives. this step, known as axial coding, shows the connections between the raw data and the emergent data themes. according to hawkins (2017), “recognition of a recurring theme can result from a researcher hearing items over and over in interviews relating to views, emotions and ideas” (p. 1757). once patterns in the cases were identified, we collaboratively established overarching umbrella themes that highlighted similar or fitzgerald et al.: the dilemmas inherent in curriculum design 115 different elements of our curriculum development experiences in teacher education. we identified three umbrella themes: 1. context 2. currency 3. connection in the section on discussion, we explore and theorise these themes in some detail. case studies using the medium of narrative, we present the cases in this section as three individually written responses to our key research question: “what are the dilemmas of curriculum design in teacher education, and how do teacher educators position themselves in relation to these dilemmas?” separately, these cases tease out the nuances of our lived experiences of curriculum development in teacher education. collectively, they represent an understanding of the shared dilemmas facing teacher educators as they seek to prepare the future graduate teacher workforce in a climate of change, uncertainty, and demand. through the notion of dilemmas, we problematise notions of place, praxis, and currency in teacher education as experienced through our own pathways as educators. simone’s dilemma: forging place-conscious teacher education while there is a growing recognition of the need to prepare teachers to better understand student diversity in their classrooms, there is still little focus on preparing teachers for the diversity of the contexts or communities in which these teachers might find themselves placed, in particular, in rural, regional, and remote contexts. yet, knowing place matters particularly when it comes to best serving the needs of students, their families, and community. preparing teachers to know how to teach in, with, and for place should be a key aspect in any teacher education program but is often not a central curriculum feature. i argue that rurality is a concept that must be understood by all teacher educators, not just those who are geographically located in rural locations and if we do so, we can better address all students’ needs. this is not the first time i have written about this issue. for some time now i have been researching and writing about the staffing needs of rural, regional, and remote contexts and the best ways teacher education can better support these staff members. like many of our research interests, this focus comes from my own experiences as a child moving from rural town to rural town. also, in my first teaching position in a small rural community with a high indigenous population, i did not feel best equipped to teach all the students in my class. the community’s gaze on me as a beginning teacher sent me on a quest to better support the preparation of teachers. after many years of working in teacher education, i now find myself a dean of education and hope to leverage this role, in partnership with colleagues at both the 116 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 university and schools, to explore how to build a place-conscious teacher education curriculum and to investigate which features of place can be embedded into all aspects of our teaching and learning design. this desire is set against a backdrop of increasing standardisation of the curriculum that has occurred over the past two decades and that produces, typically, what i call a metro teacher education model that is based on the notion that one size fits all and is often urban by default in its response to a set of prescribed standards, rather than framed by concepts such as rurality and place in mind. standardisation, testing, and regulation in all aspects of teacher education have increased in australia, as these have for all oecd countries. so, too, has the dire teaching shortage. indeed, we are currently experiencing a severe dearth of teachers that has been exacerbated by the pandemic and its aftermath. these crises and the current reforms to address them by moving to school-based teacher education models, following the uk and us, while deeply problematic, might also help enable a greater diversification of models. new models that showcase context could enable placebased and place-consciousness ones to be placed at the heart of teacher education. exploring school-based or employment-based routes could, ironically enough, support schools that are often further away from universities and could become more visible in teacher education. wendy’s dilemma: navigating the theory-practice dichotomy in australia, education is in crisis. as i reflect on the shortage of teachers, the declining enrolments in initial teacher education (ite), and the archaic industrialrevolution-borne system that has seen little change since its inception, as a teacher educator i cannot help but feel responsible. for me, this feeling of responsibility centres around the dichotomy of theory and practice found in the teacher education curriculum, and the almost unchallenged notion in australia that universities are the contexts that develop theoretical knowledge, and schools are the contexts in which pre-service teachers (psts) gain their practical understandings. over the past decade i have worked hard at developing the theoretical knowledge of psts and i have remained silent on my thoughts about the notion that schools prepare psts adequately with the practical understandings necessary to be effective teachers in a changed environment. when i reflect deeply on this dichotomy of theory and practice, and my lack-of-challenge of regulatory requirements and curriculum design in teacher education over the years, i know that i have been complicit in preparing people to enter a system that is no longer viable in the current world. over the past ten years my research has reflected my wrestle with the theory-practice dichotomy evident in curriculum design in teacher education. my research has been pragmatic, situated in schools, and has primarily involved some element of partnership work. this work has been an attempt to bridge the dichotomy that is so uncomfortable and unsettling for me as a teacher educator, and an intentional attempt to disrupt the fitzgerald et al.: the dilemmas inherent in curriculum design 117 deeply held belief in australia that schools are the contexts in which pre-service teachers gain their practical understandings. more recently, however, i have become a little bolder in my research work and have actively sought to demonstrate how the university context can develop the practical understandings and skills of psts. this work has involved harnessing virtual reality (vr) in the university context and investigating the ways in which the tool can develop, improve, and support risk-taking and innovation, as well as refine classroom practice. gathering evidence that demonstrates the potential of universities to prepare a new-aged teacher who is equipped to innovate, challenge, and change the system, has provided me with a way to position myself effectively in disrupting the current curriculum separation of theory and practice and push towards system change that allows for an entanglement of theory and practice that travels across and between universities and schools. angela’s dilemma: remaining ‘current’ as a teacher educator i have a strong memory from my first few weeks back in a secondary school in 2021 that is hard to shake. i hadn’t been employed in a school since 2006 and found myself as the assistant principal of a rural school dealing with the day-to-day realities captured by the three (unofficial) ds of the role: • dunnies [an australian slang word for toilet]; • dickheads [a disparaging term for someone being stupid, irritating, or ridiculous]; and • disasters. i remember thinking that this moment is not meant to be about my past life as a teacher educator, but i had most definitely not prepared the pre-service teachers i worked with for this. and by this, i didn’t mean the work of a school leader but the challenging contextual elements of what it means to be a teacher in a school setting right now. there was a deep sense of guilt and disappointment in feeling that i had completely missed the mark. this feeling was reignited in me when i read next steps, the report of the quality initial teacher education review (australian government, 2022), the latest review of initial teacher education (ite) in australia, earlier in the year. in particular, recommendation 13 grabbed my attention: “[r]equire higher education providers to publicly report the proportion of academic staff in ite who have substantial recent experiences teaching in schools or childcare centres” (p. 66). this is not necessarily a new or original requirement with current accreditation standards in australia for ite requiring an identification of staff recency of school experience where relevant. (see program standard 2: program development, design and delivery (australian institute for teaching and school leadership (2015)). in practice, for ongoing academic staff, this recency is often recognised through initiatives, such as classroom-based research and/or work-integrated learning partnerships. 118 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 for me, the classroom currency of teacher educators is part of the dilemma that plagues curriculum design in teacher education. being on the periphery of schools, no matter how frequently, resulted in my thinking that this was not enough. you don’t know what you don’t know. my experience suggests that it wasn’t the content or even the pedagogy that i felt lacking in; it was the context that i didn’t have a real grasp on and in many ways context is key. i was lacking a true understanding of the reality of the work of teachers on the ground day in and day out alongside the lived experiences of students, both inside and outside the school gate. in some ways, i think it is not about how teacher educators position themselves within this dilemma but how they engage with teachers via targeted initiatives, such as team teaching and school-based experiences, to bring currency to the ways in which curriculum is designed, developed, and ultimately delivered. discussion as previously mentioned, three umbrella themes emerged from the data analysis phase in relation to curriculum design in teacher education: • context • currency • connection each of these themes provides a window into the dilemmas faced by us as teacher educators and the ways in which we position ourselves within them. we recognise that curriculum design in teacher education is located in messy, complex, and culturally situated spaces and that there are a multitude of dilemmas that could be surfaced to respond to this particular provocation. here, we have chosen to focus on these three themes since they are the ones that became apparent, in relation to the research question, through the narrative writing process. the sections below explore and extend these research findings and offer additional insights into the challenges and opportunities afforded by curriculum design in teacher education. context for some time now many scholars have written about the importance of developing a placeconscious curriculum in teacher education (azano et al 2019; green & reid, 2004; white, 2019; white & kline, 2012). place consciousness (see gruenewald, 2003) acknowledges the importance of getting to know a place and of considering its history, geography, and demography through a strengths-based approach. context is important. given that most of the teachers come from suburban places, teachers who are to be successful in a rural/remote context, for example, need to be prepared to teach students from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. they need to approach the decision to teach in a rural community by looking at the benefits of the community rather than its apparent deficits (thompson, 2002). they need to acknowledge and match learning experiences that significantly build on the rich and diverse lives of rural and regional students and must be prepared to teach at fitzgerald et al.: the dilemmas inherent in curriculum design 119 different developmental stages and ages in the classroom setting. rural teachers also need to know how to work in teams using technology to develop their own professional learning. while all these skills, understanding, and knowledge might arguably be necessary for all teachers, their value is increased for those who work in rural, regional, and remote contexts. these aspects need to be reflected in the curriculum that students experience. both simone and angela’s reflections grapple with the notion that context matters and that ite programs have a role in preparing future teachers to be flexible and adaptable in their mindsets and practices to enable meaningful engagement with different cohorts in a range of settings (see herodotou et al., 2019). in reality, the achievement of this goal is a challenge. while first-hand experiences, such as participation in professional placement opportunities in rural/remote communities, are optimal, they are not practicable from the perspective of scalability, sustainability, and accessibility (vranjesevic, 2014). curriculum design becomes a key mechanism through which to create space and conversations about diversity and the role that innovative pedagogies can have in empowering learners and valuing where they are contextually situated. a recent report from the joint research centre (jrc, 2022), a subsidiary of the european commission, highlighted that a flexible curriculum that allows for personal reflexivity, creates communities of practice, and involves educators of different backgrounds and that this can have a powerful influence on the ways in which pre-service teachers navigate and negotiate diverse educational contexts. this approach speaks to the importance of exposing future teachers to all possibilities and equipping them with a set of tools to build their personal attributes. currency while it may seem trivial and perhaps pedantic, language and the words we ascribe to things matter (fine marron, 2017). in this instance, it is an examination of the similarities and differences inherent in the terms currency and recency. recency of school experience in teacher education is in some ways the holy grail since it brings a significant number of kudos and a great deal of credibility that speak volumes to pre-service teachers and school-focused stakeholders (williams et al., 2022). the notion of recency is especially relevant in the context of curriculum design because it provides a sense of engaging with learning and teaching in ways that directly relate to what it means to be a teacher in the current moment rather than to a potentially dated conceptualisation of the realities of the classroom (hicks, 2018). angela’s narrative certainly captures a dilemma that caused her to question her own currency despite being someone who has spent significant time in schools and with teachers as a teacher educator. equally, wendy’s narrative uncovers her own personal tussle with the theory-practice divide in ite and the potentially inadequate preparation of pre-service teachers for the current school system. despite their attempts to maintain currency, both angela and wendy no longer had recent classroom experience and therefore their attempts to prepare classroom-ready teachers, via curriculum development and delivery, was impacted. care does need to be taken, however, since the currency-recency debate in ite runs the risk of becoming reductionist. on the one hand, to seek only teacher educators with classroom recency may reduce ite to a series of tips and tricks for managing the daily realities of the 120 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 classroom (loughran, 2010), whereas, on the other, skilled teacher educators who maintain current links to the classroom have the potential to encourage pre-service teachers to engage differently and deeply with what it means to teach and be a teacher (darling-hammond, 2016 in reality, this is not an either-or proposition since learning to be a teacher is multi-faceted. both recency in schools and currency in educational best practice are needed to truly prepare classroom-ready, future-focused graduates. with some ambiguity inherent in the australian government’s (2022) current policy push for teacher educators to have “substantial recent experiences teaching in schools” (p. x), there is a need for teacher educators to seek out creative ways in which to position themselves within this dilemma. the adoption of a coteaching model that brings together classroom teachers and teacher educators to develop and deliver the ite curriculum in collaboration is one such solution (graziano & naverrete, 2012). as murphy and martin (2015) have pointed out, co-teaching is a particularly powerful way to break down the theory-practice divide in ite by providing pre-service teachers with a balanced perspective on appropriate classroom strategies that have been interrogated and critiqued from a strong evidence base. connection ultimately, learning and teaching is a relational activity (reeves & le mare, 2017). through ite, teacher educators are trying not only to connect with their pre-service teachers but to support them in developing the skills and strategies required to meaningfully connect with their students, families, and school communities in their capacity as future teachers (graue & brown, 2003). equally, teacher educators are also seeking ways for pre-service teachers to engage authentically with an evidence base to inform understandings of quality learning and teaching as a way of connecting theory and practice (belford et al., 2020). while the practical elements of ite, namely school placements, certainly enable these connections to be established and fostered in obvious ways, there are still some challenges inherent in how the curriculum implemented through ite programs is perceived as also preparing graduates for the realities of the classroom. notions of connection are grappled with in both wendy’s and simone’s narratives. through her reflections, wendy details how she has sought to disrupt the disconnections in ite apparent between not only theory and practice, but also schools and universities in terms of their shared role in preparing future teachers. this disruption led to a reconsideration of the role of ite and the place that curriculum design has in being more forward thinking in equipping graduates with the resources to innovate, challenge, and change the education system rather than perpetuate the status quo. for simone, it is an acknowledgement that an understanding of place matters and that if learning and teaching is to be meaningful in any given context then understanding how to connect at an educational level is critical. thinking about curriculum design in teacher education through the framework of dilemma supports what loughran and hamilton (2016) describes as going “beyond the common rhetoric” (p. 254). loughran explains that “calm, tenacious and honest reflection on purpose” is not only necessary in teacher educators but that it is and can be an important driver of change in ite (p. 262). in this study, not only did it provide us with a way to individually fitzgerald et al.: the dilemmas inherent in curriculum design 121 begin this forward movement, but it also provided a way for us to identify the collective dilemmas that might drive such movement. the three umbrella themes of context, currency, and connection that emerged through the three dilemmas provide a useful way of moving “beyond the common rhetoric” (loughran et al., 2016, p. 262) and repositioning teacher educators within these dilemmas in ways that drive and facilitate change. repositioning the teacher educator in curriculum design co-design is underpinned by the philosophy of a participatory mindset and the repositioning of the expert as anyone with lived experience of the problem or challenge being explored. recently, co-design has been championed by policymakers in australian education as a new way for universities and schools to work together in partnership. however, this championing is problematic, particularly in university-school partnerships that are focused on bridging the gap between theory and practice. it fails to recognise that teacher educators’ expertise often spans both theory and practice and repositions teacher educators as having no or little lived experience of schools and the classroom. this positioning can act as a barrier to universityschool partnerships, particularly for teacher educators who might feel unseen or unheard by the teaching profession. interestingly, co-design of curriculum in ite programs also poses a significant opportunity to break down some of these assumptions and barriers and can better connect teachers and teacher educators in achieving the shared goal of preparing classroom-ready teachers. it opens potential avenues to shift both language and practice away from gaps and divides to more collaborative partnerships by repositioning teacher educators as academic practitioners who are still very much engaged in the teaching profession. similarly, co-teaching offers the same vehicle for teacher educators to reposition themselves within the field of curriculum design, develop their currency, and extend the impact of their research in the modern teaching profession. the process of co-designing with a classroom teacher provides teacher educators with an opportunity to place new theoretical understandings and ideas directly into the hands of practitioners while simultaneously learning about new developments in the profession and in the wider education system. when classroom teachers and teacher educators engage in the process of co-teaching, a workembedded professional development emerges that crosses over both school and university context and opens opportunities for reciprocal sharing and learning to emerge. it not only becomes a vehicle for innovation, change, and unity in the preparation of classroom teachers but it also presents a way of harnessing the expertise of both school and university contexts to talk back to government and the community and generate systemic and regulatory change. place, if repositioned at the forefront of teacher educator thinking, also becomes an effective vehicle for enhancing and instigating change in the teaching profession. when place is at the forefront of thinking it becomes the driver of change where regulatory requirements and increasing standardisation in teacher education need to be justified within context, rather than squeezed into places for which they are simply not suitable. place-conscious teacher 122 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 education provides a way for teacher educators to talk back to the regulatory requirements and increasing standardisation in ways that are based on data and evidence. it also provides teacher educators with a way to drive change and address the one-size-fits-all approach that is generally adopted by governments and regulatory bodies. coupled with place-based models of teacher education, a place-conscious teacher educator can become a powerful voice in provisioning for contextual nuances and ensuring that teacher education students are better prepared for the diversity of the contexts in which they find themselves. conclusion as outlined earlier, contradictions posed as dilemmas can be conceptualised as great sources of change and can enable possibilities of growth. as teacher educators squeezed into an everincreasing high stakes standardised teacher education landscape, it has been refreshing to use the tools of narrative inquiry to help us think through the opportunities that the current reforms of more employment-based routes pose. in posing the question, “what are the dilemmas of curriculum design in teacher education, and how do teacher educators position themselves in relation to these dilemmas?” we have not only identified the key themes of contexts, currency, and connection but also identified a number of pro-active strategies to help us in our curriculum planning. the analysis helped reveal a variety of ways in which teacher educators can use their knowledge of place, policy, and working in partnerships to navigate through a highly regulated space. references alsubaie, m. a. 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(2010). rethinking the connections between campus courses and field experiences in collegeand university-based teacher education. journal of teacher education, 61(1–2), 89–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487109347671 journal of education, 2022 issue 89, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x editorial labby ramrathan school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa ramrathanp@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9963-0675 having now completed a year as the editor of the journal of education, i begin by reflecting on the advantages and challenges of being an editor of an accredited and indexed journal. some of these advantages include having been exposed to the wide and diverse range of educational issues that are impacting on education in general and, more specifically, in south africa. reading almost every article that was submitted to the journal exposed me to the breadth and depth of educational issues that need spaces, like the journal of education, for articulation and engagement. this exposure to the breadth and depth of issues relating to education enabled me to enrich my engagement with potential authors of manuscripts for this journal. often, as editors, we are called upon to engage with academics on what to write about and on how to prepare manuscripts for publication in journals. the challenges of being an editor are numerous, including dealing with efficient time management to cope better with the plethora of things a senior academic is expected to do as an active academic citizen. other challenges include attending to reviewing processes, mediating between and among differing review comments, dealing with authors’ queries and concerns, and managing the on-line platform on which the journal is located. the journal of education, since its indexing on scopus, has seen a rise in the submission of manuscripts, especially from authors beyond the borders of south africa. this is welcomed by the journal’s editorial team since it signals the growing global presence of this journal. the widely circulated phrase “publish or perish” continues to pervade the academic terrain with higher education institutions institutionalising both sanctions and rewards to propel and dictate the agenda of scholarly publishing; this agenda is perhaps the reason for the increase in global submissions to this journal. while this trend may be seen as good for knowledge production, what gets published, who publishes, how reviewers review manuscripts, and who does so, are emerging concerns raised in the scholarship on academic publishing (tomaselli, 2020). these concerns are what i have noted during my first year as editor of this journal. some of them relate to the quality of articles submitted, responsiveness to review requests for the manuscripts we receive, the quality of these reviews, and to the increasing number of submissions that are not within the scope of the journal. in each of the editorial notes for the journal of education going forward, i will engage with some of these emerging concerns to illuminate the issues that editors of journals face and will attempt to explain why these issues continue to exist, along with possible solutions to them. in this final general issue of the journal for 2022, the articles address a range of educational concerns. there are articles that focus on topics like teaching, learning, and assessments, links between education and the world of work, sexuality education, teacher education, and one on a dedicated lecture on academic freedom along with a comment on it. this collection of diverse articles speaks to current and on-going educational issues, not only relative to the south african context, but also to global discourses and debates. 2 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 the article, “randomized control trials in education (rcts): what is their contribution to education theory about teaching?” introduces five multi-pronged interventions to improve early grade reading in three developing countries. this topic is of global concern in improving reading and comprehension skills. keeping to the theme of improving the quality of education, “exploring the use of assessment for learning in the mathematics classroom” engages with feedback as a way of enhancing classroom teaching. focusing on teaching competence, “life orientation teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and skills in using a group investigation cooperative teaching approach” advocates for further research on group investigation in in-service life orientation teacher education. “a new feminist materialist analysis of girls and the sexual violence assemblage” brings to the fore deleuze and guattari’s (1998) concept of assemblage as a perspective from which to engage more deeply on dominant gendered scripts that illuminate issues of agentic possibility for girls in schools while “parents resist sexuality education through digital activism” addresses the concerns raised by parents about the appropriateness of sexuality education in this country. the author’s use of facebook to gather data on this issue indicates that it is essential that we teach young people skills that will enable them to manage their sexuality. a group of papers focuses on career decisions, vocational education and training, and on graduate employment. in using correlation studies, the authors of “influence of selected social factors on career decision-making of grade 12 learners” show that the social influence of teachers and siblings on career decisions have been found to be quite strong. “in search of teacher professionalism: tvet teachers’ ‘dual narrative’ of professionalism” shows that required professionalism differs from enacted professionalism and seeks to understand how nc(v) lecturers in engineering studies and business studies accommodate or resist the institutionalised professional culture of tvet colleges. then, “is education blithely producing unemployed graduates? a reflection based on a review of environmental skills initiatives (2016–2021)” discusses the view of the black business council that what our education system continues to produce is unemployed graduates. this issue closes with articles that focus on higher education. “sink or swim: exploring resilience of academics at an education faculty during covid-19” highlights the demands placed on academics in responding to the demands of a changing higher education landscape during the covid-19 lockdowns in relation to resilience and points to the need for further research on and engagement with the notion of resilience. the final two articles relate to the t.b. davie academic freedom lecture that was presented by yunus ballim in 2021 at the university of cape town. in “the place of teaching, learning and student development in a framework of academic freedom: attending to the negative freedoms of our students” he addresses issues of negative and positive freedom. the issue ends with a response to this article in which its authors call for further exploration into the conceptualisation of student agency and into the questions relating to the intersection of academic freedom and the relationship of the university to society. reference tomaselli, k. g. (2020). peer review is academic citizenship. south african journal of science, 116(9–10), 1–2. introduction – part ii decolonising the university curriculum given a dysfunctional school system? jonathan jansen i recently had occasion to visit one of the top girls’ schools in zimbabwe. this high school of young black women produced some of the leading graduates in the sciences and mathematics on the continent. their matriculants could be found top of class in south africa’s leading research universities in math-requirement disciplines like actuarial science, human genetics and computer science. since i was early i wandered through the school grounds and found myself in the simple but spacious school chapel. behind the seats in every pew there was a christian hymn book, as could be expected in an independent church school that survived both colonial rule and the nominally marxist government following independence. i sat down, opened the hymn book and there was the opening song: ‘god save our gracious king’. if this school was in south africa during the student protest movement, i thought to myself, there was a good chance the hymnals would be burnt, if not the chapel, in the name of decolonisation. that the school produced outstanding black graduates in challenging disciplines would be irrelevant. in the 2015–16 student protest movement on south african university campuses there was a short but intense period of demands for the decolonisation of former white institutions and, in particular, a call for the decolonisation of the curriculum. while the curriculum call was quickly superseded by more basic demands such as free higher education for all students, it left in its wake a series of institutional energies that took the original demand at its word. an american foundation made millions available for decolonisation research and some of the more established universities brought to life curriculum committees to act on the demand for decolonisation. it was not surprising, therefore, that four of the six articles submitted to this special issue deal with the vexing problem of the curriculum question in south african universities. what is the significance of the call for the decolonisation of curriculum? will it make a difference to the institutional curriculum? in other words, is the call 4 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 it is saleem badat who boldly inserts the term into the ferment of debates on the1 transformation of higher education in the wake of the student protest movement; badat, s. (2017) trepidation, longing, and belonging: liberating the curriculum at universities in south africa, university of pretoria, public lecture series on curriculum transformation matters: the decolonial turn, 10 april. for the first use of the metaphor, see j.d. jansen (2009), knowledge in the blood, stanford,2 california: stanford university press, p.174. jansen, j.d. (2017b), the lost scholarship of changing curricula, south african journal of3 science, 113 (5,6). itself sustainable within the fast-changing agendas of student politics and the direction of government policy in relation to higher education? or was the promise of a ‘decolonial turn’ merely a passing fad that offered a potentially1 exciting moment in the politics of knowledge but one that would – like so many other earlier initiatives – collapse under the weight of curriculum stasis? lis lange, in this collection, takes the long view. as she correctly notes, a series of curriculum reforms since the 1990s changed the exoskeleton of the curriculum but left the soft and sensitive inner parts – the endoskeleton – untouched. that outer frame of changes came down to refined debates about2 learning outcomes tailored to the production of high-level skills for economic growth. there would be a progressive, ladder-like qualifications structure that would allow enable seamless passage for workers from sweeper to engineer, in the heady language of those times. the policy goals of the new country were breathtaking in their ambitions but as lange concludes, nothing fundamentally changed in terms of the substance (content, pedagogy, assessment) of curriculum. in her telling of the curriculum narrative, the enormous investment in a national qualifications framework, and its exit-level outcomes, would come to be replaced by more immediate and ‘practical’ concerns about efficiency – addressing the low throughput and graduation rates of university-enrolled students. what lange does not address is why this was the case; that is, was the real curriculum debate simply deferred for the sake of the transitional peace or was the transformation of knowledge assumed to be part and parcel of these union-inspired policy reforms focused on workplace transformation? that there is a knowledge problem in south african universities is not in question. long before some students raised the flag about ‘decolonisation’ of3 the curriculum various scholars had made the point repeatedly that the jansen: decolonising the university curriculum. . . 5 jansen, j.d. (2009); see also m. mamdani (1998) is african studies to be turned into4 a new home for bantu education at uct? social dynamics, 24(2), 63–75. institutional curriculum remained unaltered. sayed and others, in this4 volume, argue that position in relation to teacher education curricula across a sample of south african universities. the curriculum problem matters in terms of content and its relevance to african conditions but also because of the ethnocentric character of curriculum authorship; in other words, who teaches what to whom and where – raising, in the last instance, the institutional complexity (or what they call ‘multi-layered struggles’) under which curriculum change is pursued. in other words, curriculum transformation is limited by institutional conditions like the decline in state funding and the prior socialisation of academic teachers. what is required, these three authors argue, is a much more ‘expansive imagination’ when it comes to thinking about curriculum work. brenda leibowitz takes up this challenge with her review of a powerful set of concepts for the re-imagination of curriculum thought and practice. for her the ‘social realist’ position on knowledge and curriculum is the problem; she charges social realism with separating knowledge from doing, learning from experience, and cognition from emotion. in its place liebowitz argues for cognitive justice – a normative position that advances the equal treatment of all forms of knowledge. the domination of western knowledge, she insists, has marginalised, even museumified, alternative knowledges. we take as self-evident the organising principles and internal logics of dominant knowledge formations across the disciplines. recognising other knowledge forms, bringing them into dialogue and tying these to an ethical commitment, such as social justice, not only broadens the knowledge repertoires available to students but remedies vital absences from the public curriculum. while these conceptual forays into curriculum thought are invaluable in the present period, students on monday morning still show up for classes and this is where eunice nyamupandengu takes off in her contribution to this edited collection of journal articles. an academic teacher of genetics, the author decides to open up what she calls ‘social dialogues’ with her students. her opening question in the engagement with students is as simple as it is rare among university teachers anywhere: what do you expect from me as your lecturer for this genetics course? student expectations are, unsurprisingly, concerned with the practical and the immediate – to know what will be taught 6 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 by curriculum criticism i mean a critical assessment of the qualities of concepts, their5 underlying arguments and assumptions, their histories and aesthetics, their values and politics, as expressed through curriculum claims made in different public forms see chapter 7 in j.d. jansen (2017a), sense and non-sense in the decolonisation of6 curriculum. in author’s as by fire: the end of the south african university, pp153–171. cape town: tafelberg publishers; see also j.d. jansen (2002) political symbolism as policy craft: explaining non-reform in south african education after apartheid, journal of education policy, 17(2), 199–215. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02680930110116534?journalcode=ted p20 and to be well-taught and fairly assessed. nyamupandengu is concerned with how her very diverse body of students can access specialist ideas – or epistemological knowledge, as she calls this borrowed term. in lectures and the laboratories, how can students access and command complex knowledge in the field of genetics? to answer such questions, she asks her students. these four contributions add value because they enter the debate from very different vantage points – as a curriculum developer (liebowitz), a policy maker (lange), a geneticist (nyamupandengu) and as teacher educators (sayed et al.). they each define curriculum differently and give differential weight to discussions about the theoretical and the practical when it comes to decolonisation. together they advance our thinking on curriculum change. but there are questions and i wish to raise and reference them in relation to various studies which i have published in other places as contributions to curriculum criticism in south africa. 5 to begin with, i am not at all convinced that the call for the decolonisation of curriculum carried much practical import among the student protestors. in other writings i have spent time considering the enormous symbolic value of curriculum in the politics of education that has little to do with the problematics of change. the curriculum, in short, is a familiar weapon drawn6 in battles between students and authorities, politicians and universities, churches and schools, scientists and educators. when there is a moral panic of any kind, the curriculum is both the problem and the solution to resolving public tensions. it is useful in this regard to think of a curriculum as a flag – it is carried into battle to signal intentions even though the flag itself matters little in the context of the broader struggles being fought. for this reason the rapid shift in student politics from demands for the decolonisation of curriculum to demands for material relief under the banner of fees-must-fall jansen: decolonising the university curriculum. . . 7 jansen, j.d. (2016), leading for change: race, intimacy and leadership on divided7 university campuses. london: routledge. did not surprise me at all. the curriculum had done its flag-waving duties, so to speak. on the one hand, lange is correct that the curriculum call by students still has ‘importance and impact’ despite its displacement by the fees movement, and liebowitz is also on the mark when she mentions the ‘abstract’ value of curriculum thought beyond immediate practicalities such as design matters. but my deep concern is that the reaction by progressive academics has been completely out of proportion to what the students raised in the first place. it was, to be blunt, an opportunistic reaction to what for most of the protesting students was a flag-waving exercise. to begin with this, the call for the decolonisation of curriculum came from a very small group of protestors from for the most part 3–4 universities. that some progressive scholars ran with the label (decolonisation) and started important curriculum conversations said more about academic enthusiasm than about student persistence. the overwhelming majority of students in south african universities speak and demand like nyamupandengu’s students – ‘to be provided with sufficient notes’. their expectations of higher education are instrumental and immediatist in the narrowest of senses, a problem i explored in some depth in relation to the only university-wide interdisciplinary core curriculum for all first-year students at the university of the free state. the resistance was intense especially from student leaders7 who in political terms considered themselves to be part of the progressive left. all of this happen, at considerable costs, before the 2015/16 student protests. having made the demands – for decolonisation of the curriculum – many universities complained about getting students into those critical curriculum conversations on a consistent basis to take forward such important dialogues and to change the institutional curriculum. if the curriculum is a flag to fight other battles, then such frustration on the part of committed curriculum workers is inevitable. of course the problem is also more than that. students have limited time and they are there to achieve their degrees. curriculum work demands enormous sacrifices and an investment of learning time for those who are not experts in the relevant fields. students come and go, seniors graduate and leave. so curriculum committees with elaborate names are not 8 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 francis, b. nyamnjoh (2016) #rhodesmustfall: nibbling at resilient colonialism in south8 africa. bamenda, cameroon: langaa rpcig (research & publishing common initiative group), p.1. in response i tried to unravel some of these social meanings of decolonial thought9 and associated terms in curriculum history; see jansen (2017a). going to survive among transient students whose agendas change from one period to the next. there remains, however, a more serious problem in the academic reaction to the decolonisation demands. it was the carelessness with which the term itself was embraced without the kinds of conceptual (and also political) interrogation that was urgently required. one of the tasks of a critical scholarship is to test the veracity of emerging concepts and ideas as they surface within society in general and universities in particular. so when a handful of protestors lobbed the term ‘decolonisation of curriculum’ into the corridors of some prominent universities, what followed was an almost slavish acceptance of student language and a feverish determination to give it traction in academic practice. but what does decolonisation even mean? is it the kind of language that adequately describes curriculum stasis in south africa? if those are the terms, what exactly is the colonial project more than two decades into democracy? and what is the colonial project in a context where, as one scholar puts it, colonialism is non-resident? 8 one of the reasons for the conceptual muddle that followed was that the persons punting the language of decolonisation were not curriculum theorists in the first place. they were everybody – from undergraduate activists to engineers and linguists to anthropologists and postgraduate communication science students. conceptions of curriculum were all over the place as were the few attempts to even give meaning to decolonisation or decolonisation of curriculum. no disciplinarian, such as a social psychologist or vertebrate anatomist, would take kindly to non-specialists delving uninvited into the concepts and methods of their field with militant opinions about what should be; but this was curriculum theory where everyone believes they know. as a result, a long history of grappling with these ideas were ignored and the fervent politics of the moment overrode any attention to curricular meanings, methods and motivations.9 jansen: decolonising the university curriculum. . . 9 john dewey (1938) experience and education. new york: macmillan.10 michael apple (2004). ideology and curriculum (3 edition). boston: routledge & keganrd11 paul. the classic text here remains henry giroux’s (2001) theory and resistance in12 education: a pedagogy for the opposition (2 edition). westport, ct: bergin &nd garvey. pinar, w. (1978). the reconceptulization of curriculum studies. journal of curriculum13 studies, 10(3), 205–214. one manifestation of the conceptual clumsiness in these debates is reflected in the position that everything wrong with the university curriculum is now presumed to be ‘colonial’ since the urgent political task is to replace or reposition repugnant knowledge. but the dilemmas of curriculum often referenced – such as the under-teaching of poor students or the privileging of scientific rationality – are universal problems that cannot be reduced to colonial roots or apartheid motivations. such knee-jerk responses to global problems of knowledge and identity were on display at the embarrassing science panel at uct where a non-science student demanded attention for alternative scientific explanations for elders in her community summonsing lightning to deal with their enemies. the only thing sadder than that display of ignorance were the fawning attempts by some academics, no less, to seek justification for the student’s reasoning. another conceptual sleight-of-hand in ‘decolonial’ activism in south africa is to set alight and then hose down a curriculum straw man – that western forms of knowledge is one thing, such as the separation of cognition from experience, and what is therefore needed is an african-centered knowledge of the indigenous variety that will correct such cartesian views of the world. this is of course misleading, to put it mildly, for it is the so-called west that spawned over more than a century a wide range of curriculum responses to establishment theory whether cartesian or taylorist or reproductionist in their claims on knowledge and society. those curricular responses range from the liberal standpoints of john dewey in experience and education to the10 radical positions of michael apple in ideology and curriculum and11 countless others under the broad curriculum umbrella of the resistance theory and the broad band of alternative theorists once called12 reconceptualists. in fact the most profound responses to colonial knowledge13 (to coin a phrase) came from within the west itself as several of us showed in 10 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 see the edited collection under jansen, j.d. (ed.). (1991). knowledge and power:14 critical perspectives across the disciplines. johannesburg: skotaville press. jansen, j.d. (2017b). the lost scholarship of changing curricula. south african15 journal of science, 113(5,6). jansen, j.d. (2018). decolonising the curriculum and the monday morning problem.16 foreword to chaunda, l. scott and eunice n. ivala (eds), the status of transformation in higher education institutions in post-apartheid south africa. london: routledge. much earlier writings on the subject. the critical tune in south africa’s14 curriculum resistance that holds up the evil west against the noble african sounds, at least in epistemological terms, false. then, if you believe the decolonialists, the curriculum has not changed at all since 1994. but as i have indicated elsewhere, there have been some15 remarkable curriculum reforms across universities in south africa in recent times led by african scholars often in partnership with colleagues in universities across the world. the examples given were cardiovascular16 research led by bongani mayosi at uct, as well as aids research inspired by quarraisha abdool karim and salim karim at ukzn, and the critical histories of mining in southern africa at the ufs under the leadership of ian phimister. these are massively funded research programmes producing african graduates from across the continent. these research programmes are not controlled by knowledge agencies in the north working with junior partners in the south. benefits are reciprocal and learning is mutual. in these and many other cases knowledge is entangled in mutual interests and collaborations rather than imposed on innocent and impotent victims of external powers. these changing relations of knowledge/power remain under-theorised in the curriculum literature but what they do perform, for now, is a different and more complex set of relationships across borders that the dated language of ‘decolonialism’ simply cannot account for. the very language of decolonisation of curriculum is therefore inappropriate and even misleading in 21st century south africa. unless of course white south africans are colonialists who should be driven into the sea and who’s outsized influence on the public curriculum hold us hostage in a black majority country under black governance for two decades. our curriculum problems are much deeper than such one-dimensional frames as decolonisation. and by the way, we trap already disadvantaged children and jansen: decolonising the university curriculum. . . 11 two pieces by michael young make the point about ‘powerful knowledge’ in the face of a17 seemingly progressive call for the privileging of experience in a weak version of critical pedagogy. see m. young (2013). overcoming the crisis in curriculum theory: a knowledgebased approach. journal of curriculum studies, 45(2), 101–118; and m. young (2014) curriculum theory: what it is and why it is important, cad pesqui (online) 44(51), 190–202. http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=s0100-15742014000100010&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en youth in a curriculum cul-de-sac when we reduce essential and powerful disciplinary knowledge to the everyday experiences of students – ‘it must be about me and my world’ – with all the chauvinism that entails. 17 which brings me back to that girls’ school in harare, zimbabwe. in south africa we are fighting the wrong battles. surely the most powerful statement on decolonisation would be to provide every school student with a high quality education that enables them to engage the world of science, knowledge and authority with confidence and competence. in a society where schools are systemically dysfunctional for the majority, we are in danger of imposing an elegant, even profound, language of decolonisation on a broken school system whose products (sic) show up angry and inarticulate in our public universities. in other words, we are gripping the wrong end of the political stick when it comes to the daunting task of curriculum change in schools and universities. of course that does not mean that the knowledge question in curriculum goes away; it is about setting priorities and then doing both. for now the curriculum anxiety among the minority of political protestors represent a symbol of other things that are not working. as flag bearer, the curriculum stands in for the paucity of black professors, the narrowing pipeline of graduates from school to baccalaureate studies to the phd, the estrangement of the institutional cultures of former white universities, the impoverishment of whole communities whose children might never finish school let alone access our best universities and the affordability of higher education in a poor country. that is why the named ‘decolonial turn’ with respect to curriculum was not a turn at all. regardless of the symbolic significance of the call to decolonise curriculum, the activist students and academics are silent on the problem of implementation. how will all of this happen? it will not. to change the curriculum requires a political will at the centre of the university system to 12 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 drive deep change even if only at the level of content; that is, changes in the representation of curriculum knowledge towards an africa-centered knowledge system. it also requires reckoning with the power of institutions and their autonomy in a loosely coupled system of higher education. an engineering dean at uct or an architecture professor at the ufs or an accounting department head at fort hare is not going to change board-certified curricula because a group of student and staff activist demand decolonisation; they are unlikely to even know what that means in their disciplines nor would their senates bend in political obedience to what they might well consider to be noise. it is one thing to remove an obnoxious statue; it is a completely different matter to change an institutional curriculum. curriculum stasis is a problem everywhere and especially in institutions concerned with much more immediate problems such as the quality of their offerings and the success rates of their graduates. the decolonisation moment was, in retrospect, a fleeting act of hubris in a largely dysfunctional education system that works for the few and requires much more basic reconstruction for system-wide curriculum reforms to even take hold. but curriculum is, by any definition, much more than content. it is about the critical engagement with knowledge between teachers and students. as a transactional event, the curriculum is what is taught but more importantly what is learnt and the consequences of that knowledge for personal and social change. this curriculum-in-action requires academic teachers who understand and embrace the new demands on their teaching – such as in the form of a decolonised curriculum – and make that work in the process of student learning. where, might i ask, are those academic teachers? they do not exist except in small enclaves of professors and programmes, even whole departments, in some cases, who design and teach what is better described as a critical curriculum that is inclusive of rival knowledge traditions and responsive to the real-life experiences and desires of a new generation of students. but that is not a decolonial curriculum. in broad terms, it is a critical theory of education that through the knowledge transaction across the disciplines recognises history, race, class, gender and power in ways that advance social justice in the classroom. such teaching is incredibly difficult even for those who subscribe to critical perspectives in the social, natural and biomedical sciences. it is even more challenging for those who do not buy into this particular perspective on curriculum, knowledge and society. which of course raises the ethical question: since this is one view on curriculum, can it be jansen: decolonising the university curriculum. . . 13 required of those who teach in open institutions called universities and in democratic societies such as south africa? we might, in fact, have to settle for a more liberal version of a just curriculum. one in which every young adult entering university has access to high quality education and who is prepared with the capabilities to acquire critical knowledge and succeed in post-school studies. if we fall at this first hurdle, everything else becomes an exercise in curriculum angst and anger that scapegoats the past rather than develops the future. one marked, moreover, by a curriculum that is inclusive of the store of human knowledges anchored in the african experience but richly engaged with and related to other knowledges of the south. one distinguished by a relational study of curriculum that recognises the social and epistemological entanglements of knowledge from the north and the south, and how this has changed over time beyond colonial/decolonial narratives that are both simplistic and anachronistic as i have tried to show in this essay. all of which raises a final and troubling question for radical change in our universities. if in fact the curriculum problem is one in which african-centered knowledge displaces western forms of knowledge, where are the new intellectual authorities to displace resident powers? let’s start with south africa. who are the prominent black south african theorists of education or philosophers of knowledge? where are the black curriculum theorists – their books, journals and creative works that frame alternative ways of thinking about learning, teaching and leading in public schools? we can and should demand more black professors in the academy, and we can and should insist on more black authorities in the curriculum from social anthropology to molecular genetics. but that does not happen without phds to begin with and then, following post-doctoral years of academic labour, without research productive and intellectually imaginative (not the same thing) black scholars in the academy in south africa and the continent of which it forms a part. there are no shortcuts to producing the weighty corpus of advanced knowledge across the disciplines that we so desperately need from this side of the world. professor jonathan jansen center for advanced study in the behavioral sciences stanford university usa jj@ufs.ac.za mailto:jj@ofs.ac.za 14 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 microsoft word b86 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 86, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i86a06 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x covid-19 and the virtual classroom conundrum in zimbabwean universities wonder muchabaiwa department of educational policy studies and leadership, midlands state university, gweru, zimbabwe muchabaiwaw@staff.msu.ac.zw https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5570-5145 reniko gondo okavango research institute, university of botswana, maun, botswana rgondo@ub.ac.bw https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0957-0179 (received: 20 july 2021; accepted: 28 january 2022) abstract whilst the virtual classroom has become the most tenable alternative to address educational needs under the circumstances of the covid-19 crisis, most universities in zimbabwe have been found wanting—lacking responsive information communication technology (ict) infrastructures and techno-savvy human capital. this exploratory study employed in-depth telephone interviews with five purposively sampled deans, lecturers, and disadvantaged students—one each from each of five universities (three state, and two private). forty more students for five focus group discussions were selected through stratified random sampling. our study adopted a qualitative approach to collect, present, and analyse data. the key finding was that covid-19 has certainly amplified the digital divide and preexisting inequalities in institutions of higher education, particularly in developing nations like zimbabwe. further, the study revealed that a techno-based curriculum delivery approach becomes discriminatory and intensifies social exclusion because some students living in poverty struggle to access the e-learning resource materials. in zimbabwe, the situation has become dire and complicated because of the economic meltdown prevailing in the country. universities as service institutions are thus encouraged to invest heavily in ict infrastructure, and the government to subsidise the cost of internet bandwidth and data bundles to enable students to access the e-learning materials. keywords: covid-19, virtual classroom, social distancing, techno-based pedagogy, digital divide, e-learning 108 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 background bekker and carrim (2021) observed that the education sector in south africa has been severely affected by the covid-19 pandemic through the closure of schools, colleges, and universities. zimbabwe lies in the same southern african region as south africa and has been equally affected by the pandemic and the resultant closure of educational institutions. institutions of higher education in zimbabwe were closed due to the covid-19 pandemic in march 2020, just two weeks after they had opened for the first semester—disrupting the entire learning systems of university education in the country. thereafter, there have been intermittent closures of universities. this study interrogated the preparedness of information communication technology (ict) infrastructure in zimbabwean universities to deliver virtual curricula and pedagogies in the wake of the covid-19 crisis. it was carried out at the end of 2020 and spilled into the first quarter of 2021. it explored the emerging learning challenges and prospects as much of curriculum delivery moves to online platforms. according to a report by zimbabwe national statistics agency (2020), there are currently 16 universities in zimbabwe (five private and 11 public); the same report reveals that there are 92,276 students in zimbabwean universities (43,589 males and 48,875 females). although there are more female students in universities, of those studying science-related programmes, only 40% are female. students pay fees and in private universities the fees are higher, explaining why there are depressed student populations in private universities. murgor (2015) conceptualised ict as an umbrella term that includes any communication device or application encompassing radio, television, cell phone, and computer and network hardware and software. in this context, a virtual classroom is perceived as a teaching and learning environment located within computer-mediated communications where students participate in synchronous instruction (duţă & martínez-rivera, 2015). thus, the availability of ict provides an opportunity for e-learning and virtual classrooms in education institutions. a study by fataar and norodien-fataar (2021) in south africa suggested that online education via digital technology should now be central in addressing ongoing educational access and outcomes challenges. this suggestion also applies to zimbabwe because zimbabwe was equally affected by the covid-19 pandemic. our study argues that while elearning becomes the most valuable option to address education needs under the circumstances of the covid-19 pandemic, in which social distancing is encouraged, it concomitantly intensifies social exclusion by discriminating against some students who are living with disabilities, and others who come from poverty-stricken backgrounds. it is against this backdrop that the study interrogated the preparedness of local universities to offer online tuition. covid-19 is a pandemic that took the world by surprise, leaving many health experts and scientists confounded. it was first discovered in the city of wuhan in china in december 2019 and declared a global public concern by the world health organisation (who) on 11 march 2020 (who, 2020). it spread through the whole world with the united states, italy, spain, united kingdom, france, and china being the most affected statistically (jakovljevic muchabaiwa & gondo: covid-19 and the virtual classroom conundrum in zimbabwean universities 109 et al., 2020). the university calendar has been disturbed several times because universities were closed in an effort to contain the coronavirus. instead of having the normal two semesters in the 2020 academic year, the erratic learning time allowed for only one semester. the same happened for the 2021 academic year, and the second semester spilled into 2022 for most institutions due to the covid-19 induced lockdowns. in south africa, fataar and norodien-fataar (2021, p. 158) observed that “digital technology has been a ubiquitous, albeit uneven, feature of educational platforms for at least forty years, growing exponentially over the last twenty.” the zimbabwean situation with regards to digital technology appears to be different because there are hardly any institutions (urban or rural) with a sound ict infrastructure due to the prevailing economic crisis (maunganidze et al., 2021). further, a study carried out in europe by martin et al. (2021, p. 2) revealed: although the teaching and learning processes in higher education were already in continuous evolution in relation to the influence of technology on the incorporation of emerging methodologies, the truth is that due to the confinement caused by the coronavirus it seems the full use of icts in methodological adaptation has been enforced and its inclusion accelerated, as a test of organisational agility. thus, due to the spread of the virus, ict has played a prominent role during the crisis (monzón, 2020). the pandemic resulted in the lockdown of most countries affecting the education systems of those countries disproportionately due to the existing digital divide between developed and developing countries of the globe. the digital divide is the unequal provision of opportunities to access icts due to the differentially developed ict infrastructures in various countries (owen et al., 2020). in developed countries, particularly in the us and europe, e-learning has become the norm with some academic programmes being offered entirely online. martin et al. (2021) observed that many european university students use ict daily and seamlessly for both their studies and for recreation. murgor (2015) underscored that ict has grown tremendously around the globe, particularly in the developed nations. martin et al. (2021) concurred, and add that elearning has become the norm in the us and other developed nations because web technology has been available for more than 20 years. to this end, fataar and norodien-fataar (2021) observed that a pandemic pedagogy based on the rapid move to emergency remote teaching (ert) has starkly revealed the depth of the digital divide in south africa and the world. hodges et al. (2020, p. 3) explained emergency remote learning as follows: a temporary shift to alternative delivery modes that would return to face-to-face instructional delivery once the emergency had passed: it is meant only to be an emergency response to an emergency situation. ert has not always been possible because of a lack of responsive ict infrastructure. and in the same vein, zheng and walsham (2021, p. 1) argued: 110 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 the covid-19 pandemic has unveiled and thrown a spotlight on deep-seated inequalities. . . . under the pandemic, existing socio-technical discrepancies are often magnified, and diverse forms of exclusion, marginalization and vulnerabilities emerge. such observations of digital divide and socio-technical discrepancies are also applicable to zimbabwe, a developing country suffering from serious economic and political crises. the literature has shown that much of the learning in developed nations has moved to online platforms, thereby confirming the existence of a conspicuous digital divide between the northern and southern countries (martin et al., 2021; murgor, 2015; owen et al., 2020). by extension, the education systems in developed countries have made a seamless transfiguration—becoming entirely virtual in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic that encouraged lockdown and social distancing (martin et al., 2021). however, this has not been the same in developing countries. the untimely emergence of the covid-19 pandemic provided an acid test for the ict infrastructure and human capital in zimbabwe’s universities. the digital divide between developed and developing countries has remained conspicuous as africa continues to struggle with poverty. to this end, sayed et al. (2021) observed that covid-19 has certainly amplified preexisting inequalities between the global north and south but it is unclear how this crisis differs from other crises. although ict provides unprecedented opportunities to fight against poverty in developing countries by facilitating access to education (owen et al., 2020), the high cost of broadband internet access remains a major deterrent to african countries’ broadband penetration rate. in the wake of the covid-19 crisis, zimbabwe’s educational infrastructure network and its ability to sustain the implementation of e-learning platforms has come under the spotlight. a study by the united nations children’s fund (kleine et al., 2014) revealed that many developing countries were largely excluded from ict and its benefits because of poverty. furthermore, the 2011 internet penetration rates in africa and asia were just 11.4% and 23.8% respectively—both less than the world average of 30.2%; and, only 1.2% of the population in the least developed countries had access to the internet (touray et al., 2013). under such circumstances, the implementation of ict in developing nations was nonviable due to the high bandwidth requirements to support communication tools including voice and video conferencing, a shared whiteboard, instant messaging, and file sharing (ruhinda, 2013). murgor (2015) concurred and added that africa’s ict situation was worsened by the fact that the african continent lacked a continent-wide broadband optical fibre network, which made access to ict more difficult for most african countries. moreover, the issue of integrating ict into teaching is yet to be given serious consideration by many developing nations of the world, particularly in africa where many countries do not have national ict policies (murgor, 2015). a lack of national ict policies leads to the situation where each academic institution has to do what it knows best without any central coordinating protocol. the importance of a national ict policy cannot be overemphasised because it would go a long way towards streamlining ict implementation across academic institutions, both private muchabaiwa & gondo: covid-19 and the virtual classroom conundrum in zimbabwean universities 111 and public. thus, the literature reveals that most african countries lag behind the world in terms of ict infrastructure and human capital development. the covid-19 pandemic caused a crisis that disrupted the traditional learning approaches in universities. however, in their study in south africa, sayed et al. (2021) showed that from crises, synthesis and potential for fundamental social change can also emerge. crisis compels a search for alternatives in response to an unstable equilibrium, resulting in opportunities to adopt digital technologies in developing countries like zimbabwe. “crises then, as in the case of the corona crisis, interlock both with existing frailties and coalitions and intersect with existing challenges against colonialism, subjugation, and marginalisation” (sayed et al., 2021, p. 12). we argue that the covid-19 pandemic has created an opportunity for a migration to e-learning platforms that can be complemented with blended learning approaches but which, however, continues to be affected by the digital divide. this coronavirus crisis not only promotes the notion of change but it is also reflective of the deepseated and unequal relations in society (mccann & matenga, 2020). having looked at ict challenges at the national level, we now explore institutional challenges with regards to viable and responsive ict infrastructure and ict-competent human capital. digital possibilities must be combined with the quality of professionals to reveal their power of transformation; thus, digital transformation needs both technology and people (martin et al., 2021). many universities in developing countries are grossly underfunded and consequently not able to sustain the infrastructure required for securing viable ict facilities. a study carried out in indonesia by owen et al. (2020) revealed that universities in developing countries have problems with the acquisition of ict facilities such as computers and implementing viable networking infrastructure. owen et al. (2020) further underscored that most universities in developing countries do not have the learning management systems, which in developed nations, have become virtual classrooms. lack of such critical ict infrastructure becomes a major deterrent in implementing an online curriculum. murgor (2015) elaborated that other challenges relate to staff retention, inappropriate ict infrastructure, and computer illiteracy amongst staff and students. lack of computers becomes a real concern when students are required to navigate a learning management system, set up email and twitter accounts, and know how to scan the internet. under such circumstances, e-learning has become problematic in most universities in african countries. developing and retaining ict human resources also remain a major challenge in african universities because of low salaries and poor conditions of service (murgor, 2015). although the covid-19 pandemic has affected university education globally, universities in developing nations have been caught unprepared because of inappropriate ict infrastructure and lack of adequate ict human resources. our study thus explored the emerging challenges and prospects of e-learning in the wake of the covid-19 crisis in zimbabwe. the study aimed to examine the extent to which zimbabwean universities are prepared to adopt e-learning approaches in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic. this was done by interrogating the staff’s perceptions on the state of ict infrastructure in zimbabwean universities. issues of concern also included the competence of the human resource with regards to ict and the extent to 112 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 which students can use ict independently. furthermore, the study assessed the gender stereotypes in ict and their effect on the learning of the female student during a lockdown. theoretical underpinnings the efficacy of e-learning in the institutions of higher education is adequately illuminated through the lenses of open systems theory. in this regard, institutions of higher education are viewed as an open system that interacts with the environment (norlin, 2009). a system is an interrelated set of elements functioning as an operating unit (senge, 2006). the interrelated elements include inputs, a transformation process, outputs, feedback, and the environment (figure 1). figure 1 open systems theory (senge, 2006) organisational environment (political & socioeconomic) feedback based on norlin (2009), inputs to a system such as a university include human, financial, physical, and information resources. for our study, the interest was on people who possess ict skills, students, and the ict infrastructures that are relevant to e-learning pedagogies (inputs). ict infrastructure and equipment and ict skills tend to compromise the effective implementation of virtual pedagogies in universities. the transformation process includes virtual classrooms where ict is used to deliver the curriculum through techno-based pedagogy. outputs comprise graduates from universities who would have gone through the transformative process. the transformation process is effected with consideration of the external environment to produce competent graduates as outputs. in this process, feedback is crucial in informing the formation of a national ict policy. open systems theory presupposes that institutions such as universities operate in an environment that mediates the management and pedagogical processes therein. world over, universities have been exposed to an environment disrupted by the covid-19 pandemic. the advent of the pandemic created a new learning environment that demanded universities migrate to virtual learning. by extension, universities do not operate in a vacuum, but within given socioeconomic and sociopolitical environments that define management and inputs: ict equipment & infrastructure, university ict technicians & lecturers transformation process: online teaching and learning outputs: university graduates muchabaiwa & gondo: covid-19 and the virtual classroom conundrum in zimbabwean universities 113 pedagogical processes. however, for zimbabwe, the operating environment for universities was further exacerbated by the economic crises prevailing in the country (maunganidze et al., 2021). according to the african development bank (2021), before the covid-19 pandemic, zimbabwe’s economy was already in recession, contracting by 6.0% in 2019. the same report revealed that the onset of the pandemic and continuing drought led to a 10% contraction in real gdp in 2020 and inflation soared, averaging 622.8% in 2020 (african development bank, 2021). under these conditions, institutions of higher education in zimbabwe may not be able to fund the procurement of the required ict equipment and infrastructure. more so, the economic crisis has resulted in skilled people (experienced lecturers and ict technicians) moving to other countries. in this socioeconomic environment, issues of governance in institutions of higher education have become compromised, thereby affecting the implementation of the national ict policy. furthermore, the politically unstable environment affects planning and responsiveness of institutions of higher education institutions to crisis emergences like the covid-19 pandemic. thus the unresponsive ict infrastructure (including the learning management systems) together with some ictincompetent human capital has tended to derail the transformative process—hence, virtual learning remains a challenge. thus when analysing the covid-19 and virtual classroom conundrum in zimbabwean universities, we were cognisant of the environmental factors and the digital divide that shape the pedagogical processes in universities. the open systems theory thus illuminates the preparedness of (or lack thereof) the ict infrastructure and human resources in zimbabwean universities to adopt an online learning model in the wake of the covid-19 crisis. research methodology our study adopted an exploratory research design to guide the process of collecting, presenting, and analysing data. five universities (three public, and two private) were purposively selected because they were the only universities in the conveniently selected province where the study was conducted, and they have a fair representation of students from both urban and rural areas. the qualitative study allowed an in-depth exploration of the experiences, attitudes, feelings, and perceptions of the research participants (neuman, 2014) regarding the preparedness of universities in zimbabwe to offer online programmes and techno-based pedagogy in the wake of the covid-19 crisis. the sample (see table 1) comprised five deans and five lecturers (representing the faculties of sciences, education, medicine, commerce, and law) who were purposively chosen due to their experiences with online lectures. simple random sampling was used to select 40 students of whom 20 were male and 20 female from the aforementioned faculties. in other words, one faculty per institution with its dean, a lecturer, and students were selected. students were recruited through different module whatsapp groups provided by the lecturers. the different faculties revealed peculiar experiences with online teaching and learning. based on patton (2007), purposive sampling allows researchers to identify information-rich sites. the 40 students participated in five focus group discussions (fgds) with eight members each, and groups were balanced in terms of gender. 114 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 table 1 participants of the study university (public or private) faculty selected no. of staff no. of students public university 1 faculty of commerce 1 dean, 1 lecturer 8 public university 2 faculty of sciences 1 dean, 1 lecturer 8 public university 3 faculty of medicine 1 dean, 1 lecturer 8 private university 1 faculty education 1 dean, 1 lecturer 8 private university 2 faculty of law 1 dean, 1 lecturer 8 the key informants—comprising the five deans, five lecturers and five disadvantaged students (one per institution, and who were part of the eight students selected per institution)—shared their experiences with regards to ict infrastructure and ict human resources in light of the closure of universities as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. in-depth interviews helped to elicit constructs and narratives on university preparedness to offer programmes online in the wake of the covid-19 crisis. other factors explored through indepth interviews included disability, gender, and location of students to the ict infrastructure and accessibility of the internet. we adopted a thematic analysis approach in which we analysed the data set collected through the fgds and in-depth interviews and then coded the data, which addressed specific research questions. to this end, braun and clarke (2006) have explained that a theme captures something important about the data in relation to the research question. the themes reported in this study are predetermined because they were guided by specific research questions. open systems theory was thus used to illuminate the challenges for and prospects of the ict infrastructure and human resources in moving learning to online platforms. to observe research ethics, permission to conduct research was sought from the university authorities. participation was entirely voluntary and we sought informed consent from the research participants who completed consent forms. to protect the anonymity of the participants the collected data were aggregated and generalised. findings findings of our study reveal that because universities were compelled to abruptly close down as a measure to observe social distancing during the covid-19 pandemic, the only tenable alternative to continue education was to move much of the learning to online platforms. however, the universities in this study were caught flat-footed and unprepared to migrate to e-learning platforms for curriculum delivery and techno-based pedagogy. major problems that emerged related to the lack of a learning management system, inadequate ict muchabaiwa & gondo: covid-19 and the virtual classroom conundrum in zimbabwean universities 115 infrastructure and ict human resources, lecturers and students with challenges using ict, the high cost of internet bandwidth and data bundles, as well as inaccessible internet and telecommunication services in some parts of the country, particularly in rural areas. against this backdrop, provision of education during the period of lockdown through ict became discriminatory given that some students with disabilities, and others in poverty struggled to access e-learning materials. the state of ict infrastructure in five universities in-depth interviews with deans of faculties in the different universities revealed that ict infrastructure was still a long way from allowing the offering of education programmes based entirely on e-learning platforms. it emerged that the two institutions that do have a reasonable ict infrastructure are offering blended learning. blended learning is a combination of faceto-face and online learning via the blackboard learning system (hakami, 2017). the other three universities largely remained stuck in traditional face-to-face classrooms (the approach before the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic) which, however, was not possible under the circumstances of the covid-19 pandemic. an interview with one dean of a faculty at a private university revealed: at the moment, we don’t have a learning management system per se, but our institution provides a strong bandwidth so that students on campus can surf the internet. all our lectures are offered in physical classrooms [when given the reprieve to open] although of late we have introduced some projectors for powerpoint presentations. the university recently procured an anti-plagiarism software, so our students are now required to submit soft copies of their assignments through emails such that they are marked online. another dean at a public university shared her experience with ict at her institution: yes, we have a learning management system, but i think many applications have to be installed such that the blackboard learning system becomes operational. what is possible for now is that students can open their e-learning portals where they can receive and submit their assignments. lecturers can, as well, submit different learning materials on students’ portals. i can say what we have is a blended learning approach. a lecturer at a private university had this to say: as a university, we are far away from being able to offer our curriculum entirely online. our ict infrastructure needs a lot of reworking and this process costs a lot of money. what we have been doing is to use ict in presenting lectures and then receiving assignments from students and mark them online. in other words, we don’t have a learning management system as yet. discussions with fgd 1 from public university 1 and fgd 4 from private university 1, as well as with fgd 3 from public university 3, confirmed that these universities had no functional learning management systems. the ict infrastructure in these universities is 116 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 meant to support physical face-to-face class sessions and not distance learning. fgd 5 from private university 2 highlighted that other challenges with ict infrastructure include the high cost of acquiring, installing, operating, maintaining, and replacing obsolete hardware and software. students said that the ict infrastructure was incompatible with the needs of students living with a disability. for instance, the blind students and hard-of-hearing students were not considered in the current online teaching and learning system. however, only one private university has computers that are compatible with the needs of their visually impaired students. generally, virtual learning experiences from both public and private universities were similar, although private institutions’ response rate to the demands of the emergent crisis was faster because there is less bureaucracy and red tape. this may explain why they have ict facilities that cater for the blind students. another challenge mentioned by participants was the high cost of bandwidth and licensed software. an interview with a lecturer revealed: because of the high costs that go with licensed software, we have resorted to the use of unlicensed software. however, such software can be problematic legally and have high costs of maintenance. more challenges come about when the pirated software is not in standard formats. another challenge has to do with the computers that we bought long back; they are outdated and almost obsolete, but the university cannot replace them. a faculty dean at one university elaborated: i have already said that as a university, we do not have a learning management system. this means offering our programmes online in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic becomes a serious challenge. we may resort to emails and whatsapp group discussions, but i think you agree with me that such platforms are not as immersive as virtual classrooms. in summary, three universities (one private, and two public) had no functioning learning management systems and appropriate ict infrastructure. for these institutions, lectures were conducted through whatsapp. the other two institutions conducted some classes on the google meet platform and also sent some work to students via email. there were peculiar challenges linked to specific faculties. the faculties of sciences and medicine had serious challenges with online lectures. one dean at a public institution shared his experiences: although we have a learning management system at our institutions, conducting laboratory work and other practicals was not possible. lecturers simply sent notes to students explaining certain experiments. similarly, a dean in a faculty of education revealed: we could not place student teachers for teaching practice because schools were closed. we had to wait until such a time when schools were allowed to open. muchabaiwa & gondo: covid-19 and the virtual classroom conundrum in zimbabwean universities 117 students from the faculties of law and commerce could also not place their students for workrelated learning. on the whole, practical lectures were a quite a challenge as was revealed by many of the universities we studied. ict competencies of staff and students from an open systems theory perspective, the ict competencies of staff and students constitute part of the critical inputs that have a strong bearing on the teaching and learning process through different online platforms. four of the five lecturers said that they struggle to deliver lecturers lectures on e-learning platforms because they lack the requisite ict skills. an interview with one lecturer at private university revealed: most of us have challenges using ict devices and the learning management system. some lecturers cannot set and prepare a skype discussion with students. it is even worse when it comes to grading, rating, and assessing students’ work using the learning management system. in the worst scenario, we have lecturers who cannot mark assignments online. the covid-19 outbreak caught us unawares; otherwise, when we talk of going online, there is a serious need for induction and training workshops, which again may not be possible because of the lockdown restrictions. a dean of faculty concurred and added: to be honest, the majority of lecturers lack the requisite skills in ict. even for simple connections to run projectors for powerpoint presentations, they seek assistance from ict technicians or some techno-savvy students. some of them struggle with elearning portals where they are expected to upload students’ learning materials, receive, and mark students’ assignments online. what it means is that migrating to entirely e-learning approaches gives us some challenges. right now, we are in a dilemma because with the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic we are forced to go virtual. another dean shared his sentiments during an interview: the outbreak of covid-19 and the subsequent closure of universities caught us offguard. the only way to continue offering education under the circumstances of this pandemic is to move much of the learning to online platforms. unfortunately, most lecturers are incompetent when it comes to ict applications. furthermore, we have a limited number of ict technicians in the university. there is a need to capacity-build our lecturers so that they can use ict competently. under these circumstances, we will have to make do with emails and whatsapp group discussions, which may not be reliable because of other factors. an interview with one lecturer revealed that ict incompetence acquired a gender dimension because more female lecturers than their male counterparts were perceived to have greater challenges. she said: 118 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 you may want to know that more female lecturers tend to have more challenges with ict applications as compared to their male counterparts. some of them are reluctant to attempt to learn, they always seek the assistants of ict technicians or other male lecturers. i have seen many female lecturers who fail to operate a projector or an interactive learning board. as a woman myself, i understand them better. it is the way we are brought up through gender role socialisation. sciences and icts have always been stereotyped as masculine hence, female students never put effort to understand it. under the circumstances of the covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, female lecturers are found lacking and this may compromise effective delivery of online programmes. discussions with fgd 5 from private university 2 revealed that, although the majority of students could use ict applications with no challenges, a significant number still had challenges using the learning management system. there were students who, because of poverty or a rural background, struggled to operate ict devices. when universities were compelled to abruptly close down, they had barely been open for two weeks. therefore, new students had not been inducted on how to use the learning management system and other ict devices that facilitate learning in the respective institutions. thus, the ict incompetence of some students made it difficult to have viable online teaching and learning sessions. the discussions also confirmed that some of the lecturers struggled with ict applications. and it emerged that lack of computer skills in students took on a gender dimension. a participant in fgd 4 from private university 1 revealed that more female students than their male counterparts struggled with ict applications because often, female students seek the assistance of male students. it was revealed that most female students and female lecturers tended to lack technical skills in ict because of gender stereotypes. disadvantaged university students and ict our study revealed that certain groups of students were more affected than others were by the closure of universities due to the covid-19 pandemic. while e-learning is supposed to offer prospects for more access to education for these students, it has become a means for intensifying social exclusion. to this end, the coronavirus crisis tends to interlock with existing frailties and coalitions, and intersect with existing challenges of marginalisation (sayed et al., 2021). such students include those with disabilities, the poor, and some female students. female students experienced disadvantages because of lack of exposure to ict while growing up due to gender stereotypes attached to science and ict. a technical report of a study on gender and stem (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects in zimbabwe by chingarande et al. (2021) revealed that the female university students struggled with ict. students who have disabilities were also disadvantaged. a telephone interview with a student who is visually impaired revealed: in my studies, i rely very much on audios of recorded lectures. however, by the time we closed they were no recorded lectures for us. moreover, we don’t have computer muchabaiwa & gondo: covid-19 and the virtual classroom conundrum in zimbabwean universities 119 devices that have braille so that we can do our assignments from here. so, for some of us, learning has stopped during this period of the covid-19 pandemic. students living in very remote rural areas also experienced disadvantage. a student who lives in one of the remote rural parts of zimbabwe shared his experience: i have to walk for about 25km to get to the growth point to access the internet. at times, i get there only to find there is no electricity. the major challenge is to acquire data bundles to download materials to respond to assignments sent by lecturers through emails. similarly, deliberations with fgd 3 from public university 3 revealed that there were students who did not have an electronic device, not even a simple cell phone. most of such students live in remote rural areas where access to the internet and telecommunication services is very poor. in some remote rural areas, one has to travel long distances to get to a point where the internet is accessible and even at such points, the internet transmission remains weak. during periods such as the lockdown as a result of covid-19, such students became completely shut out from communication. these sentiments were echoed by fgd 2 who elaborated that students who live in poverty may own a phone but cannot afford data bundles. in the same discussions, it was revealed that most female students struggled with operating ict devices. girls in the discussion groups admitted that, quite often, they sought assistance from their male counterparts. discussion the unavailability of responsive and compatible ict infrastructure remains a major challenge for the five studied universities in zimbabwe. ict infrastructure constitutes critical inputs in the form of ict equipment, learning management systems, as well as lecturers with ict skills that necessitate the transformation process, that is, learning through online technobased pedagogies. irresponsive and incompatible ict infrastructure in local universities compromises e-learning through virtual classrooms in the wake of the covid-19 crisis. the findings of this study thus confirmed observations by owen et al. (2020) that most universities in developing countries have no learning management systems. in their study in south africa, fataar & norodien-fataar (2021) observed that digital technology has been a ubiquitous, albeit uneven, feature of educational platforms for at least 40 years, growing exponentially over the last 20. however, in zimbabwe, technical development has been stalled by the economic crisis (maunganidze et al., 2021) and the digital divide between developed and developing nations has become more conspicuous in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic given that most universities in african countries have struggled to provide comprehensive online education packages during this period. although e-learning offers prospects for social inclusion, in the zimbabwean case, it further intensified social exclusion. 120 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 owen et al. (2020) further observed that in developed nations, learning management systems have transformed traditional classrooms into virtual classrooms in which skype is used as a tool for video conferencing and conference calls with students at a distance. by extension, universities in developed nations have adapted more easily, going virtual during this period of covid-19 crisis. under the pandemic, existing socio-technical discrepancies were often magnified and diverse forms of exclusion, marginalisation, and vulnerabilities emerged (zheng & walsham, 2021). although two of the studied institutions had established a learning management system, participants noted that the system was not fully operational because it lacked the critical applications that facilitate virtual classrooms. critical applications for learning management systems include centralised learning materials incorporating videos, slide decks, assessment tools, and smart scheduling tools amongst others. the learning management systems need to be upgraded so that simulations and experiments can be demonstrated through online lectures. the high cost of bandwidth was also found to be a deterrent to online curriculum delivery. in this regard, a study by ruhinda (2013) in kenya underscored that there is a need to provide lower bandwidth-demanding applications for virtual classrooms, which are suitable to the general user with less internet bandwidth. thus, in developing nations like zimbabwe, the high cost of broadband internet access becomes a major deterrent to deliver online programmes. the situation in african universities is further exacerbated by the fact that the african continent lacks a continent-wide broadband optical fibre network (murgor, 2015). a continent-wide broadband optical fibre network would improve internet accessibility at reasonable costs for universities in africa. thus, the incompatible and irresponsive ict infrastructure, high cost of bandwidth, as well as inadequate and unreliable telecommunication services create a challenge for many universities in zimbabwe to offer their programmes entirely on e-learning platforms in the wake of the covid-19 crisis. another serious challenge with ict infrastructure has to do with its incompatibility with the needs of students with a disability. our study revealed that four of the five studied universities in zimbabwe have ict devices that cannot be used by students who are visually impaired or hard of hearing. to this end, zheng and walsham (2021) observed that the covid-19 pandemic has unveiled and thrown a spotlight on deep-seated inequalities. we argue that due to the covid-19 pandemic, students with disabilities have become further discriminated against because they lack ict devices that are user friendly for them. it is also clear that the lack of ict skills by both lecturers and students was a major hindrance to the full implementation of online models of teaching and learning in the circumstances of covid-19. in this regard, a study by chisango and marongwe (2021) found that the inadequacy of ict and familiarity with ict modes of teaching and learning in south african schools created “digital, information and knowledge divides” (p. 161). the zimbabwe scenario confirms the south african situation given that students in urban areas have more access than those in rural and remote areas. when looked at from an open systems theory perspective, ict human resources and students constitute part of the critical inputs that could drive the transformative process (e-learning through virtual classes) during periods like the muchabaiwa & gondo: covid-19 and the virtual classroom conundrum in zimbabwean universities 121 covid-19 crisis where social distancing became a real issue. a study by owen et al. (2020) in developing nations revealed that another barrier to e-learning is the universities themselves, which lack experience and understanding of online learning. a similar study by hakami (2017) in saudi arabia revealed that successful use of e-learning models was compromised by the lecturers’ lack of knowledge of the features offered by blackboard, the learning management system used to support the teaching and learning process. martin et al. (2021) concurred and elaborated that ict skills not only help to provide in-depth knowledge of basic courses but also increase the flexibility of delivery of education such that that students can access knowledge anytime and from anywhere. it remains indisputable that ict skills have become one of the critical resources to institute a viable alternative teaching and learning platform in the wake of the covid-19 crisis. however, for the studied five zimbabwean universities, the digital divide between developed and developing nations was evidenced by the lack of ict skills in both lecturers and students. zheng and walsham’s (2021) study confirmed that under the pandemic, existing sociotechnical discrepancies are often magnified and diverse forms of exclusion, marginalisation, and vulnerabilities emerge. in the same vein, owen et al. (2020) underscored that lack of computer skills by the students is a major deterrent to online learning given that they are required to navigate the learning management system, set up email and twitter accounts, and know to scan the internet. in zimbabwean universities, first-year students who had been barely two weeks in university when they closed were the hardest hit by the sudden closure due to the covid-19 pandemic because they did not have any opportunity for induction and training in ict skills. murgor (2015) further observed that developing and retaining ict human resource remains a major challenge, particularly in african universities, because salaries are too low and the working conditions are not sustainable. it can thus be concluded that the combination of a lack of compatible ict infrastructure and ict-incompetent lecturers and students is a recipe for disaster with regards to virtual learning—particularly during the covid-19 pandemic where observation of social distancing becomes a critical practice to avoid the spread of the virus. the failure of ict infrastructure and human resources to adapt teaching and learning models to e-learning modes has resulted in a grossly disproportionate access to education among university students. the digital divide between disadvantaged students and students in urban areas further intensified social exclusion during the period of the lockdown as a result of the pandemic. our findings confirm those of the study by sayed et al. (2021) that covid-19 has amplified the digital divide and preexisting inequalities in institutions of higher education, particularly in developing nations like zimbabwe. we argue that e-learning models in the wake of covid-19 further marginalise groups already excluded or marginalised from existing educational practices and the environments. and yet, a study by murgor (2015) revealed that in developing nations, the use of ict can create improved prospects and opportunities for facilitating a greater inclusion of the marginalised groups into online learning platforms. although ict can be very empowering, providing opportunities for education otherwise inaccessible to the disabled, it can also create new barriers that exclude them even more 122 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 (unesco, 2006). the digital divide in the era of covid-19, which emphasises social distancing, will further intensify social exclusion. conclusions although virtual learning has become the most tenable method of providing education in the wake of the covid-19 crisis, most universities in zimbabwe are not yet prepared to migrate entirely to e-learning models of learning. the main challenges relate to poor ict infrastructure and ict-incompetent lecturers and students. the cost of bandwidth and data bundles was found to be another deterrent to online curriculum delivery. students living with disabilities, and others in poverty were found to struggle to access e-learning materials during the period of lockdown due to the covid-19 pandemic. furthermore, gender stereotypes were seen to affect female students’ competencies in ict because ict, just like any other science, has been stereotyped as a masculine field. our study observed that the digital divide between disadvantaged students and well-positioned students intensifies social exclusion of the former in the circumstances of the covid-19 pandemic. in the circumstances of ict infrastructure in local universities, e-learning intensifies the social exclusion of students in difficult circumstances. zimbabwean universities are still a long way from being able to adapt entirely to e-learning models and, as a consequence of covid-19, access to education remains an illusion for many prospective students. recommendations based on the findings of this study, we recommend the following: • there is a need for universities to consider substantial investment in ict infrastructure because the global trend shows that learning has gone virtual. • local universities also need robust training workshops to capacity build lecturers in using the learning management systems and other e-learning facilities. • ict induction for all first-year students should be made compulsory. • the government, through the relevant ministry, should be encouraged to subsidise the cost of bandwidth in universities. • a national ict policy should be put in place to regularise and standardise the implementation of e-learning in public and private universities. references african development bank. 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(2020). the education report for 2017. https://www.zimstat.co.zw/wpcontent/uploads/publications/social/education/education-report-2017.pdf microsoft word joe-issue71jun30.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 71, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i71a02 legitimation of knowers for access in science karen ellery chertl, rhodes university k.ellery@ru.ac.za http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3974-4974 (received 26 october 2017; accepted 01 may 2018) abstract based on poor performance of students in the higher education science context, this paper questions the current focus on content knowledge and, in so doing, examines the role student knowers play in enabling epistemological access. using legitimation code theory, and drawing on data from interviews, course documents, observations, and critical reflections, the social relations of a science foundation course in the south african context are examined empirically to reveal the valuing of two kinds of knowers—learning-context knowers (or science learners) and production-context knowers (or scientists). since being both kinds of knowers is necessary for access to powerful science knowledge, and home and educational contexts of certain groups of students are better in terms of enabling science knowers and learners than others, it is argued from a social justice perspective that science (and other) curricula account for knower attributes in enabling access for success for all students. keywords: science access; legitimation code theory; knowers introduction this paper is about the role the student knower 1 plays in enabling access in the sciences. science higher education students in south africa, where this study is located, are performing particularly poorly in terms of retention and throughput rates. according to a study done on the 2006 cohort at contact universities for the 3-year bsc degree, only 48% graduated within 5 years and for the 3-year diploma only 37% graduated (che report, 2013). when broken down by race 2 the statistics are of greater concern with 39% of coloureds, 41% of africans, 48% of indians, and 60% of whites graduating with a bsc within 5 years (che report, 2013). while conceding there are many nuances in race-class groupings in south africa (cooper, 2015), it can be argued that because of historical and social precedents associated with the system of apartheid, african higher education students are mainly from workingclass backgrounds and whites from middle-class ones. similar classor race-based disparities 1 who a person is and how s/he knows (maton, 2014). 2 race-related terminology is in keeping with the che report (2013): african (black), indian, coloured (mixed descent), and white. ellery: legitimation of knowers for access in science 25 in performance in science occur in a global context (see review article by banerjee, 2016) suggesting that creative and innovative pedagogic transformations are needed to enable access and success for all participating groups in the field. a common understanding is that science is about neutral and known so-called facts about the natural world, and that we come to know these facts through disinterested and objective inquiry, which means that a priori personal biases, values, or emotions do not form part of the inquiry (mccomas, 2002). this empiricist view of science is often translated into a pedagogy in which the primary focus is on the transmission of decontextualised disembodied knowledge and, since learning is assumed to be an individualised cognitive process (leach & scott, 2003), responsibility for knowledge acquisition often rests with the learner. for this reason, content-laden, overloaded curricula are common, particularly in university contexts, despite there being much evidence to suggest that they can be inadequate in promoting student learning (see case, 2013; leach & scott, 2003; ramsden, 2003). underpinned by a realist ontology that recognises the reality of the natural world beyond our experiences and beliefs (matthews, 2015), this paper draws on a constructivist epistemology that views scientific development and inquiry as being inherently social in nature (see carter, 2007). stemming from this, it also views science learning as a social process, influenced by underpinning norms and values, requiring curricula and pedagogic practices that take this into account. in this regard it employs the conceptual and analytical tools developed by sociologists of education bernstein (2000) and maton (2014) to address the question of how and why student knower attributes (disposition/s, value/s, and gaze/s) are valued or legitimated in a higher education science foundation course. rather than serving as an evaluation of the curriculum per se, the data is instead used to develop more generalised conceptual thinking about the role of knower attributes in access in the sciences. conceptual and analytical framework: legitimation code theory both bernstein (2000) and maton (2014) have developed fine-grained theoretical and analytical tools that enable the close-up study of curriculum, pedagogic, and assessment practices. central to their work are the concepts of codes and legitimation. codes are the organising principles or rules of the game, or a practice. by engaging in a practice in a particular way an actor is making a claim for legitimacy of the practice as well as for the underpinning code/s (maton, 2014). however, because these codes or rules are often implicit they can serve to exclude. by analysing educational practices using legitimation code theory (lct) underpinning codes can be surfaced, which allows for their effects to be considered (maton, 2014). two key lct codes, knowledge and knower codes, are based on the principle that “practices and beliefs are about or oriented towards something and by someone” 3 (maton, 2014, p. 29, 3 in lct terms referred to as the specialisation dimension of a practice (maton, 2014). 26 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 emphasis added). this allows for analytical distinction between two sets of relations— epistemic and social. epistemic relations relate to “what can be legitimately described as knowledge” and social relations relate to “who can claim to be a legitimate knower” (p. 29). these two relations therefore indicate “what counts” (luckett & hunma, 2014, p. 183) in a particular practice. the basis for legitimacy in many disciplines in the humanities does not depend on acquisition of specialised knowledge but, rather, on the attributes of the knower. these disciplines are therefore considered to represent knower codes. in contrast, the basis for legitimacy in the field of science and in science disciplines depends on possession of specialised knowledge rather than on the attributes of the knowers. sciences and associated disciplines are therefore considered to represent knowledge codes. this paper considers the role a knower code may play in students’ accessing of the sciences. for maton (2014) knowers can be distinguished based on who knowers are (kinds of knowers) and how they know (ways of knowing). when a practice bases legitimacy on how someone knows, it requires a knower to see and do things in particular ways and involves acquiring a feel for the practice through prolonged participation and apprenticeship. these knowers are said to have a cultivated gaze, where a gaze refers to a particular mode of recognising and realising what counts or is valued in a certain context (bernstein, 2000). in contrast, when legitimacy in a practice is premised on who someone is, the kind of knower is important and legitimacy stems from their social position (such as in standpoint theory based on race, class, or gender), and they are said to be in possession of a social gaze. practices requiring both a particular kind of knower based on their social position as well as a particular way of knowing based on apprenticeship by an expert knower, legitimate a born gaze. practices that require neither a specialised knower nor a specialised way of knowing are said to require knowers with a trained gaze that can be gained through explicit teaching in specialised skills and procedures. humanities disciplines would usually legitimise one of a cultivated, social, or born gaze. in contrast, science disciplines are considered to legitimise a trained gaze. since becoming a knower in the sciences is considered a matter of training, maton (2014) suggests that anyone, regardless of their social background, can be successful in science provided they can develop the knowledge, skills, and appropriate trained gaze. this raises the question as to why students in south africa and elsewhere, and certain groups of students in particular, are often so unsuccessful in science. this study provides some insight into this issue by examining the kinds of knowers who are being legitimated in the curriculum of a higher education science foundation course. it forms part of a larger study that examines the role both knowledge and knower codes play in enabling epistemological access in the sciences (ellery, 2016). context of the study the main government-funded means of addressing equity and access issues in south africa is through extended curricula programmes (ecps) in which students who do not meet the direct-entry faculty requirements take an additional year to achieve their degree. for most students in ecps, neither their home backgrounds (dukhan, cameron, & brenner, 2011) nor ellery: legitimation of knowers for access in science 27 school contexts (che report, 2013; fiske & ladd, 2004) have prepared them well for success in tertiary institutions. based on a range of entry criteria, students in the rhodes university (ru) science ecp are mainly african, working-class, first-generation higher education learners who attended poor quality and under-resourced schools generally, and for whom english is an additional language. a single, year-long, multidisciplinary foundation course called introduction to science concepts and methods (iscm) is the main course in the ru science ecp and is the focus of this paper. the aims of iscm are (a) to teach the concepts, literacies, and academic practices required by first-year students in a science degree, and (b) to prepare students for success in mainstream (sesp review report, 2011). four mainstream staff from physics, chemistry, earth sciences, and life sciences disciplines provide disciplinary input in lectures and practicals, and two literacies facilitators, one with a science background (the author) and one with a language and literacies background, provide much additional support in tutorial sessions. the literacies work, which is deeply embedded in the disciplinary contexts, focuses on broad scientific concepts (for example, hierarchies, spatial and temporal scales, diversity, valuing of empirical data), how scientific knowledge is constructed (different kinds of reasoning, observation, measurement, experimentation), the basis upon which claims are made, and reading, writing, and thinking critically in the sciences. both literacies and disciplinary staff work closely as a team to provide a carefully coordinated and structured curriculum for the 50 students. methodology data for this study was derived from a number of sources over a period of a single teaching year. first, semi-structured interviews, with questions relating mainly to the perceived purpose of the course, were conducted with five of the six teaching staff. second, document analysis of the course outline and handouts for lectures, practicals, and tutorials provided an indication of the purpose and objectives of the course as articulated to students, as well as of the course content, skills, attitudes, and behaviours expected of students. furthermore, document analysis of student critical reflections relating to their own progress, attitudes, and approaches to their studies throughout the year provided insights on personal development and how students were engaging with their studies. to support my own teaching as the scientific literacies facilitator, i attend most teaching sessions of other staff members during which i make informal observations related to class activities constantly. these observations gave rise to the third data source and provided insights on how knower attributes are legitimated and valued in iscm pedagogic interactions. the fourth data source, which also revealed legitimation of knower attributes, came from critical reflections of my own pedagogic interactions as recorded in a reflections journal. to bridge the discursive gap between the abstract theoretical concepts of knowers and their gazes and the empirical data from interviews, document analysis, observations, and reflections, an “external language of description” (bernstein, 2000, p. 133) was developed. this entailed repeated analytical movement between abstract concepts and concrete data, 28 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 ultimately resulting in categorisation of two kinds of knowers who are being legitimated in iscm: a learning-context knower (or science learner) and a production-context 4 knower (or scientist). i draw on this data to describe these in turn in the following sections. although being an insider researcher provided ease of access to data and legitimacy with participants, i was highly conscious of the need to be critically reflexive of a context with which i was familiar, and which had become what chavez (2008) would describe as normalised. furthermore, to establish internal validity (or credibility) and reliability (or dependability) i used member checking with all participants as well as triangulation in terms of data sources and methods, as suggested by practitioners of qualitative research (creswell, 2007; maxwell, 2012). learning-context knowers: becoming and being science learners when they were asked about the purpose of iscm it was clear from interviews that staff members perceived the primary goal of iscm as enabling students to become effective science learners in an academic context. staff members articulated the norms, values, and practices they perceived as necessary for becoming a science learner in a number of ways. first, they mentioned the need for students to learn how to study and their comments quite often related to metacognitive aspects of thinking about learning. as one mentioned, . . . they need to know what to do if they don’t understand . . . thinking about how they learn and what they’re going to learn and what they’re going to do about it . . . and i suppose also realising that they don’t know what’s going on . . . a lot of it is, you know, helping them know how to study and thinking about study . . . to learn that there are places that they can go to find answers. (staff interview, l2) four of the five interviewees spoke about appropriate study techniques. as one stated, . . . they need to become capable as students to study effectively . . . unlearning of poor learning techniques . . . (staff interview, l5) all staff members commented on the need to learn to work independently. one lecturer added that this required reflexivity. students need to work independently, not always rely on someone to teach them everything nor rely on someone to always check whether they have understood . . . requires reflexivity . . . (staff interview, l1) 4 the terms are derived from maton’s (2014) epistemic-pedagogic device where production-context relates to the field of production where new knowledge is produced, and the learning-context relates to the field of reproduction where learning takes place. ellery: legitimation of knowers for access in science 29 all staff members spoke about students needing to develop good conceptual understanding rather than merely rote learning and needing to engage at a higher level. in this regard, one staff member said that students need to . . . develop an ability to understand and to ask the right questions of what’s in front of them . . . to bring them up to the right kind of academic level in terms of the scientific reasoning approach and that fact that they can’t rote learn . . . (staff interview, l3) similarly, another maintained that students need to . . . have the skills to select the right kind of material, to extract the meaning, to put it together into coherent text and this way to generate a new piece of knowledge . . . be able to engage with course handouts and material on a higher level . . . acquisition of higher-level learning techniques . . . (staff interview, l5) two staff members recognised the important role that affect plays in student learning. the first suggested, i’ve always felt that the work that [we] do is very much around the person, and a lot less around the science. it’s about motivation and self-esteem but always within the context of becoming a scientist, and thinking and being curious . . . it’s all those more socio-affective things than necessarily the science. (staff interview, l1) the second said, . . . [the course] starts off as not so difficult and it gets more challenging where they are definitely going to find things that they don’t know . . . you are building their confidence in the transition. (staff interview, l2) when questioned about successful learners in their own disciplines, the disciplinary staff members seldom mentioned particular disciplinary content knowledge and practices but spoke, instead, of knower dispositions such as willingness to engage, participate, be challenged, and seek help as well as being confident, motivated, curious, and reflective. the aims of the course, as articulated in the above statements, point to a recognition of the need to develop knower attributes that are appropriate for learning in a higher education science context. this includes dispositions such as being independent, engaged, critical, reflective, confident, and responsible for one’s own learning, all of which i encapsulate here as being autonomous learners. bhattacharya and chauhan state that autonomy is defined by a “capacity for detachment, critical reflection, decision making, and independent action” (2010, p. 376). an autonomous learner should take responsibility for their own learning, be able to set goals and find ways of meeting those goals by choosing appropriate strategies and by monitoring and evaluating progress, and responding appropriately (bhattacharya & chauhan, 2010; po-ying, 2007). 30 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 the above interview data relates to perceived pedagogy and the needs of students as expressed in staff interviews. however, course documents, pedagogic interaction observations, and my own and student critical reflections relate to the enacted pedagogy and provide an indication of how iscm pedagogy enables the development of autonomous learners. the data indicates that explicit articulation of expectations as well as modelling and scaffolding of practices are common. in this regard all staff members are deliberately overt about expectations with respect to students being active, engaged, and independent self-regulated science learners. however, the two literacies practitioners actively support students in this regard. for example, in tutorial sessions that relate to their developing independent learning practices, pedagogic observations and my own critical reflections indicate that students are explicitly informed that these activities are modelling practices expected of them in the future without lecturer input. course documents reveal that such tutorials cover developing good note-taking and notemaking practices, consolidating lectures, doing what we call joining the dots, developing a big picture, linking theory with practice, testing understanding, asking questions, practising technical aspects (such as calculations, measuring, estimating), responding to feedback, and locating and using resources (past papers, readings, resource notes, handouts, dictionaries, internet, youtube, and model answers). pedagogic observations and my own critical reflections reveal a deliberate scaffolded reduction of support by the literacies lecturers. for example, preparation for and consolidation of lectures is a key tutorial activity during term one, but this decreases during term two and desists by term three. however, students are constantly reminded that this support is being deliberately withdrawn so that they may continue the work independently. similarly, individualised feedback from staff on drafts of large assignments is gradually withdrawn, being replaced by supported peer-evaluation of assignments in the third term and supported self-evaluation in the fourth term. the reasons for these shifts in terms of developing learner autonomy are discussed with students. self-reflective exercises in the literacies tutorials also contribute in this regard. one student indicated an appreciation that they need to develop understanding at university themselves . . . because the lecturer is not like teaching you the school work where they tell you each and every detail but they give you the key notes then you have to go back to the library, or wherever you get the information and try to think what it’s trying to tell you . . . i think the lecturers are highlighting what you must [know], and everything that is said there is important, then you have to follow it . . . i know that after the lecture i have to go and do the work again. (student critical reflection, s14) in addition, course documents and pedagogic observations indicate that independent work is an underpinning aspect of a research project in the second semester during which students examine the influence of an environmental factor on the growth of plants in pots. although given guidance on proposal writing, data collection and analysis, and final poster and oral presentation, students are expected to drive the entire process themselves. as one student stated in a critical reflection on working independently, ellery: legitimation of knowers for access in science 31 during my research project i have encountered numerous challenges which i think were caused by the fact that i had to adapt myself to the fact that i was independent and had only my partner to rely on . . . included the fact that i had to take care of the environment my research treatments were under . . . being responsible for the recording of data which was very important and the core underlying factor of our experiment . . . (student critical reflection, s22) the above analysis suggests that all iscm staff have interpreted the second aim of preparing students for success in mainstream in a relatively broad sense through focusing on social relations that enable the development of autonomous learners in the sciences. this is embedded in the notion that iscm is a foundation course that provides much support to students in their first year at university, but that students will need to work in autonomous and independent ways once in mainstream, where opportunities for support are greatly diminished. one staff member encapsulated these ideas thus: when they leave us [to go into mainstream] students need to be able to get on with the job. they need to be able to work on their own, find help when they need it . . . know when they are battling and know what to do about it. (staff interview, l1) in developing the course, iscm staff have therefore identified that learning in an academic context, particularly in the sciences, requires knower dispositions, values and attributes such as being engaged, critical, reflective, confident, independent, proactive, responsible, and autonomous—aspects that are being overtly articulated as well as modelled in tutorials. production-context knowers: becoming and being scientists in contrast to the learning-context knower the production-context knower is based on a valuing of epistemic norms and values that underpin the process of students becoming and being scientists. science is a way of knowing and attempts to generate reliable knowledge about the natural world (matthews, 2015). the practices that promote this goal relate mainly to how knowledge is generated (e.g., inductively through seeking patterns, or deductively through hypothesis generation and controlled experiments, careful observation and measurement, making and confirming predictions) and to the basis on which claims are made (e.g., based on empirical evidence, recognising the changing and therefore tentative nature of science). therefore, for students to become and be scientists they would be expected to develop practices and knower dispositions based on scientific epistemic values linked to knowledge generation and claim-making, such as being rigorous, curious, reliable, and objective, working accurately and precisely, estimating appropriately, observing carefully, seeking simple solutions, and thinking analytically and critically. this type of work on epistemic values frames much of the work done in iscm and is usually addressed in the context of understanding the nature of science. as one staff member stated, “wherever appropriate both the understanding of the concept, as well as the valuing of the concept, are considered” (staff interview, l1). i present here only three examples from among many in iscm. first, when writing a scientific laboratory report on the effect of 32 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 weight training on muscle strength, students need to know that scientists in this context cannot prove something to be true but they can add evidence to support an idea or hypothesis. consequently, their writing would need to reflect both the tentative and fallible nature of science. second, when, for example, plants die unexpectedly in the previously-mentioned independent research project, this presents an opportunity to discuss not only scientific concepts related to replicates and statistical analysis in experimental design, but also knower attributes such as being objective, trusting the empirical data, reporting honestly, and thinking critically and creatively to explain unexpected phenomena. third, when students are taught to measure precisely and accurately in physics and chemistry practicals or observe meticulously rock features on a geology field trip, the value of and necessity for such careful working in the development of new science knowledge is discussed with them. discussion: knower attributes in science the analysis indicates that two kinds of knowers are legitimated in the iscm curriculum—a learning-context knower, in this case a science learner, and a production-context knower, or scientist. each knower is intimately shaped by the other. in other words, the productioncontext knower who is engendered needs to be a certain kind of learner to access the sciences, and the learning-context knower who is being legitimated is not necessarily a generic knower who would be successful in any higher education context. in this regard, i would argue that when iscm tries to engender autonomous and independent learners, where students need to be organised, purposeful, and systematic in their learning practices and develop a deep questioning approach related to their own conceptual understanding, this is better suited to disciplines in the sciences than, for example, the dramatic arts, where perhaps a creative, expressive, networked, and visually-communicative approach to being an autonomous learner may be more appropriate. as mentioned above, every knower has a gaze. by indicating that both learning-context and production-context knowers are valued in iscm pedagogic practices, i am making a claim for something more than a trained gaze. in both cases i suggest a gaze in which the knower’s way of knowing is valued (i.e., a cultivated gaze) rather than a gaze in which the kind of knower is valued (i.e., a social gaze). this claim for two forms of cultivated gaze is strengthened by the ideological contention that all practices have socio-cultural origins and that accessing them, and therefore developing the appropriate gaze, is neither a neutral nor an uncontested process (bernstein, 2000). this suggestion is based on four interlinked premises. first, any social practice is underpinned by norms, values, attitudes, motivations, and perspectives. second, taking on new norms, values and attitudes is a social act that results in developing new knower attributes. third, becoming a new kind of knower is difficult identity work that takes time and effort. fourth, the greater the gap between prior knower attributes and those expected in the new context, the more time it will take, and the more guidance, immersion, and socialisation in the new context is required. given these four premises it is, in fact, difficult to envisage any form of trained gaze. ellery: legitimation of knowers for access in science 33 the idea of prolonged participation in, and apprenticeship into, the new context is key in developing a cultivated gaze (maton, 2104). this is best illustrated by my looking at the two knower types identified in this study in turn, and in so doing drawing on the distinction of acquisition through apprenticeship and learning or training (maton, 2014) through direct instruction, a distinction made by others as well (see gee, 2012; morrow, 2007). in terms of enabling a learning-context knower, i make the argument that, since learning science in academia requires acquisition of knower attributes based on norms and values of the specific context, they cannot simply be taught in neutral and acontextual ways but must be embedded in context. for example, science academia requires learners to be responsible for their own knowledge and, therefore, to work in self-regulated ways to develop real, rather than rote, understanding. if a learner comes from a home or social context in which communal and negotiated interactions are more valued than independent ways of working, as do many students in foundation courses in south africa (dison, 1997; ellery, 2016; niven, 2005), or, if their educational context has resulted in an underdeveloped capacity for independent reading (mgqwashu, 2012), autonomous learner dispositions and practices will be foreign to them and will therefore be more difficult to take on. although explicit instruction would assist, apprenticing through modelling, scaffolding, and supported interaction by experienced others would facilitate the becoming and being of such an autonomous learner. in another example, learning to know whether one understands a difficult concept (i.e., cultivating a metacognitive understanding of the nature of understanding in academia) cannot simply be taught through direct instruction; it is about honing appropriate reflective and questioning practices and developing metacognitive awareness within the context of a particular discipline. as bhattacharya and chauhan state, autonomy does not happen on its own: it requires “[i]nteraction, negotiation, [and] collaboration” (2010, p. 377). in terms of enabling a production-context knower (or scientist), i make the same argument. since the values and associated norms and practices of science have developed in particular social contexts, they, too, cannot simply be addressed acontextually. for example, being objective is highly valued in science. however, this is not a natural way of working or thinking for most of us since we tend to draw automatically on our experiences and feelings to make judgments about, and develop understanding of, the world around us. i contend that suppressing our subjective perspective is not simply a matter of training but, rather, requires socialisation into practices that not only require the learning of technical practices to gather objective empirical data, but also require the development of attitudes and dispositions that allow us to value such data and give us the confidence to believe in what the data is telling us. as matthews (2015) states, much of western science does not make intuitive sense and therefore requires apprenticeship into scientific traditions. this argument runs somewhat counter to maton’s (2014) claim that in the sciences legitimacy arises from the knowledge one possesses rather than from any sort of privileged (cultivated, social, or born) gaze. while knowledge is clearly highly valued in science, i suggest here that the gaze in science, although not necessarily dominant, may in fact be a 34 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 privileged gaze. maton (2014) claims that the sciences engender a trained gaze that is gained through “training in specialised principles or procedures” (p. 95) and “in principle anyone can be trained into the legitimate gaze” (p. 96). i think this may well be true for many middleclass learners who enter higher education as the right kind of knower with the right kind of gaze for orthodox, western sciences. in other words, their home and educational backgrounds have engendered the necessary privileged gaze such as being objective, analytical, and critical. however, it is unlikely that mere training of a student entering higher education with a subjective, non-analytical, and uncritical gaze would result in their easily developing the required gaze but would require, rather, social processes of active participation and enculturation. i suggest that the concept of a trained gaze in the sciences may have developed because science practices have become so normalised in western, middle-class society that, for the majority of science academics, the socio-cultural nature of science and its underpinning values are tacit and even unarticulated (jacobs, 2007). science is treated as a disinterested and acontextual set of practices that can be overtly taught. however, in this paper i suggest, as does relatively recent work by wolff and hoffman (2014) in engineering, that knower attributes and a privileged (cultivated) knower gaze may be more important in the sciences than previously imagined. in this regard, the broader work in which this study is located, through its use of bernstein’s (2000) concept of acquisition of recognition and realisation rules, indicates an important aspect of social relations: being both a science knower and a science learner is in fact key to accessing the powerful science knowledge (ellery, 2016). it, too, develops the idea, as does this study, that prior educational and social experiences play a significant role in attaining this gaze. these ideas can offer an explanation for the disparity in performance between race groups in higher education in south africa. the combination of home and school cultural conditioning of working-class african students, as well as a strong focus on content knowledge in most science curricula, is likely playing a role in hindering epistemological access for this group of students. research in a broader context supports the contention that formal curricula are generally better geared towards accommodating middle-class than working-class students (archer, hutchings, & ross, 2003; arum, gamoran, & shavit, 2012; bernstein, 2000). concluding comments this paper is about social relations and knowers in the sciences and how they may be more important in enabling access than previously realised. in this regard i make two main conceptual contributions. first, two kinds of knowers are identified: learning-context knowers for whom the focus is on affective, moral, and social values of students as learners, and production-context knowers for whom the focus is on epistemic values of the field or discipline. although both sets of social relations and their associated values are likely present in any educational practice, studies usually focus on either one or the other. examining them together in this study allows for a more holistic, nuanced, and close-up analysis of a ellery: legitimation of knowers for access in science 35 foundation educational practice in which both sets of social relations are equally valued. i suggest this dual-focussed framework could prove useful even in non-scientific and nonfoundational contexts to indicate where pedagogic effort is required depending on student needs. second, i argue that acquisition of knower attributes appropriate to science and science learning is unlikely to be a matter of mere training, but is, rather, one of cultivation. this argument is based on the social realist assumption that all practices, even scientific ones, are socially and culturally embedded and that becoming and being an active and contributing member of these practices requires some explicit instruction, but, more importantly, immersion and enculturation into the ways of being appropriate to the practice. this appears to be particularly so when cultural conditioning in the working-class home and school environments do not align well with expectations at university, making access for some extremely difficult. this study suggests, as does case (2013) in her work on access in engineering, that space should be created in current content-laden science curricula to focus, too, on knower attributes. while this represents a weakening of epistemic relations and strengthening of learning-context and production-context social relations, it is not a suggestion to move away from the knowledge code that is central in sciences, but is, rather, a shift in emphasis to better accommodate knower codes, too. although articulated slightly differently, a similar suggestion is made by muller (2015) when he speaks of the need for a third curriculum space in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) education that lies between a knowledge-dominated traditionalism and skillsand learningdominated progressivism spaces. the extent to which a curriculum accommodates knower attributes, such as identified in this study, would depend on the purpose of the curriculum and the background context of students. based on the argument that some groups of students are better prepared for epistemological access and success in science in higher education than others, it is a matter of social justice that curricula today more appropriately accommodate the range and diversity of students entering the sector. in this paper i suggest that social relations and associated knowers, who have traditionally been ignored or downplayed in science, could play a key role in enabling such access. i further suggest that making the codes or rules explicit is an important part of this process. acknowledgments i thank professor chrissie boughey sincerely for her contribution to this work, as well as an anonymous reviewer who provided valuable comment on this manuscript. the study was supported by funding from the national research foundation (grant no: 92685) and rhodes university. 36 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 references archer, l., hutchings, m., & ross, a. 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(2014). “knowledge and knowers” in engineering assessment. critical studies in teaching and learning, 2(1), 74–95. jaamia galant and i conducted the initial analyses of the data, especially the large-scale1 analysis of pedagogy. jaamia also provided valuable comment and input on the rest of the paper and her contribution is gratefully acknowledged. journal of education, 2017 issue 67, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za learning to fly: pedagogy in the foundation phase in the context of the caps reform 1 ursula hoadley (received 25 july 2016; accepted 12 october 2016) abstract this paper presents an empirical analysis of pedagogy in relatively well-performing classrooms in poor contexts in the context of the most recent curriculum reform, the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps). amongst a set of teachers from a recent research project, shifts in pedagogy from what had been prevalent practices in classrooms (see hoadley, 2012) were found. these shifts, however, appeared to be largely surface rather than substantive. what the study found was surface compliance to policy dictat; taking on of the form rather than substance of a different pedagogy. a subsequent, closer analysis of the pedagogy of eight of the ‘best’ performing teachers allowed for the theoretical development of the distinction between surface and substantive change, and to consider more closely questions of curriculum, knowledge and pedagogy at the foundation phase level. this was accomplished primarily by drawing on bernstein’s (1996) notion of evaluation and extending it in relation to other studies that have begun to explore the relationship between knowledge and pedagogy, especially venkat (2013) and shalem and slonimsky (2010a; 2010b). introduction in 2012, shortly after the implementation of the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps), the schools performing against demographic expectations (spade) project was set up to explore the relationship between particular aspects of schooling and educational attainment in a sample of 14 schools in poor communities, selected on the basis of them achieving consistently better than their socio-economic peers. part of the spade project 14 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 this ideal included the following features: strong and clear explanation and explicit verbal2 feedback to learners; individualising of learners; coherence in lesson topics/components; variable learner/topic directed pacing; text(vs oral-) based pedagogy; reading and writing extended text in language; conceptual focus and elaboration in mathematics. aimed to explore the role of pedagogy in contributing to differential outcomes in schools, attempting to address the fact that classroom practice is “typically treated as an outcome variable with relatively few studies including it as a potentially powerful explanatory or independent variable” (spillane, 2014, p.722). initial analyses of the spade data suggested shifts in pedagogy from what had been prevalent practices in classrooms (see hoadley, 2012). these shifts, however, appeared to be largely surface rather than substantive. what the study found was surface compliance to policy dictat; taking on of the form rather than substance of a different pedagogy. a subsequent, closer analysis of the pedagogy of eight of the ‘best’ performing teachers allowed for the theoretical development of the distinction between surface and substantive change, and to consider more closely questions of curriculum, knowledge and pedagogy. this was accomplished primarily by drawing on bernstein’s notion of evaluation and extending it in relation to other studies that have begun to explore the relationship between knowledge and pedagogy. the broader project: shifts in the form of pedagogy the sample for the analysis of the relationship between pedagogy and performance within the spade project consisted of 46 grade 3 teachers in 14 schools located in poor communities. each teacher was observed for three lessons, in the subjects mathematics, home language and first additional language. part of the intention of the project was to attempt to conduct classroom observations in a larger sample as opposed to the myriad case studies that have generally characterised research on pedagogy in south african schools. from the international and especially local school effectiveness and general classroom research, we compiled a set of factors that the research suggested influenced student performance. we constructed from the literature a set of teacher attributes that represented an ‘ideal pedagogy’, in particular for children from poor homes. this drew on both the2 international and local literature on pedagogy (westbrook et al., 2015; coe et al., 2014; hoadley, 2012) and is shown in appendix a. on these attributes we generated a ‘pedagogic score’ for each teacher, hypothesising that the higher hoadley: learning to fly. . . 15 for detail on the analysis of the large sample see hoadley & galant (2014). 3 the teacher ‘score’ on this ideal pedagogy, the better the student outcomes would be as measured on standardised tests. appendix a shows the3 dimension of pedagogy measured, the empirical indicators for these dimensions and the axes of variation on the indicators that were used to derive a pedagogic score. although the analysis found variation in pedagogic scores across the sample of teachers, we found no clear relationship between these pedagogic scores and student achievement outcomes at the school level. high and low scoring teachers were found across higher and lower performing schools. there was also no relationship between individual teacher pedagogic scores and achievement outcomes at the teacher level. a number of reasons could have contributed to this. although streaming was officially not a policy in the schools, there was clear evidence of streaming across a number of classes. secondly, the scores were not a value added measure that would provide a more reliable indication of a teacher effect on outcomes. third, achievement outcomes generally fell within a very low achievement range, thus the difference between better and worse outcomes was often marginal. and fourth, the data was cross-sectional, and thus we are not able to pick up cumulative pedagogic effect over time. there was also more variation within schools than originally expected, thus constraining the derivation of a meaningful average pedagogic score for a school (across 3 to 4 teachers). a pedagogic effect at the school level in the way measured according to an ideal pedagogy could not be discerned. further, ‘good’ pedagogic scores were relative and did not represent an exemplary form of pedagogic practice that we hoped to identify through the broader project. we therefore failed where other school effectiveness studies had failed – in showing a relationship between pedagogy and performance (for example, taylor, muller & vinjevold, 2003; carnoy, chisholm & chilisa, 2012). while school effectiveness studies are criticised for studying pedagogy in an atomistic way, we essentially had done the same through a listing of attributes in a segmental way. it also became clearer why in larger sample studies of pedagogy the focus is in general on the use of time and curriculum coverage – variables which are amenable to accurate quantitative measurement precluding the need for high inference judgments on the part of observers. 16 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 these kinds of studies however, tell us little about the actual pedagogic process in classrooms (see alexander, 2014). an initial scan of the data, especially of teachers with ‘good’ and ‘moderate’ pedagogic scores, found pedagogic features that represented a shift from existing descriptions of the majority of south african classrooms (for example ensor, 2015; hoadley, 2007; macdonald, 1990; chick, 1996; hoadley, 2012). these characterisations were of a communalised pedagogy that was largely oral, and that worked below grade level. we found in the spade ‘good’ and ‘moderate’ teachers’ classrooms higher levels of individualising. this was seen especially in the use of the mat for ability grouping and a decrease in the collective chanting and chorus mode. in many of the classrooms teachers were observed to listen to individual learners reading. there was more work at grade level, a greater proportion of textbased activity in classrooms and time on task had increased. most of the time of observation entailed students engaged in instructional activity. we attributed these shifts to both the reform just preceding the caps, the foundations for learning (ffl), and the caps. the shifts in pedagogy that were seen in the classrooms related to pedagogic attributes prescribed in the reforms – especially greater individualising and more text-based activity. there appeared to be a degree of compliance with these reforms across the teachers. we were particularly interested in the shifts in pedagogy, and whether these held any potential to shift achievement outcomes, even if we had failed to detect these in our study. although the practice of the ‘good’ teachers did not represent an exemplary pedagogy we hoped we would identify in the research we were interested in what the nature and implications of the shifts in form might entail. in order to explore this further, i considered it productive to return to bernstein’s conceptualising of evaluation. evaluation the reason for a focus on bernstein’s concept of evaluation is two-fold. firstly, it derives from a particular definition of pedagogy, where pedagogy is understood as a process of continuous evaluation (bernstein, 1996, p.161). the purpose of pedagogy is to transmit criteria (or exchange criteria, in some pedagogic relationships). these evaluative criteria are transmitted through hoadley: learning to fly. . . 17 testing, but also questioning, explaining, in fact all student-teacher interactions where criteria (that which is to be learnt) are transmitted and their acquisition checked. considering the teachers’ practice in relation to evaluative criteria would allow for an investigation of how they were engaged in these processes. secondly the emphasis on evaluative criteria follows a robust research tradition that identifies the importance of explicit evaluative criteria as essential to student success, especially in working class contexts. a number of studies have come up with strong and consistent findings: strong (explicit) control over the evaluative criteria is crucial to success for students who come from less literate or less pedagogically-oriented homes (morais, neves & pires, 2004; hoadley, 2007; reeves, 2005; lubienski, 2004). in the broader literature strong evaluative criteria is akin to notions like ‘visible learning’ (hattie, 2009) or direct instruction, feedback and formative evaluation. within the bernstein schema all aspects of pedagogy pace, selection, sequence, the teacher student relation – are related to or derive from the evaluative criteria (i.e. what is to be transmitted and acquired). morais et al. (2004) usefully explain what is meant by “making the evaluative criteria explicit” which consists of “clearly telling children what is expected of them, of identifying what is missing from their textual production, of clarifying the concepts, of leading them to make synthesis and broaden concepts” (p.8). in order to deepen the investigation in relation to what was going on in the classrooms where teachers had higher scores, a sub-sample of eight teachers with high pedagogic scores was selected, in other words teachers who best approximated the form of the ‘ideal pedagogy’ we had constructed in the earlier investigations. four teachers with high mathematics pedagogic scores and four teachers with high language pedagogic scores were selected, and their pedagogy considered in relation to bernstein’s notion of evaluative criteria. bear in mind that these pedagogic scores were relative to those of other teachers in the sample. they did not represent what one might describe as ‘excellent’ or exemplary practice, and at this stage of the research i was not trying to relate them to student outcomes. the interest was, however, in the fact that these teachers appeared to be doing something different (better?) to other teachers in the sample. 18 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 analysing evaluative criteria in order to focus the analysis a coding scheme was designed to specifically measure evaluative criteria (based on hoadley, 2005 and morais et al., 2004). given preceding research on the importance of explicit evaluative criteria in poorer school contexts, the coding scheme, shown in table 3 below, considered the framing or extent of control the teacher has over the evaluative criteria in the course of instruction. control can be seen in the clarity and explicitness of the evaluative practice. framing is expressed in terms of its strength or weakness using standard bernsteinian notation – f representing++ the strongest framing (or teacher control) over the evaluative criteria and f-representing very weak framing or control. the lessons of eight of the top scoring teachers were coded across three empirical indicators: 1. in the teacher’s introduction/explanation/instruction for an activity/task 2. in the teachers’ monitoring of and comments to learners in the course of conducting an activity or task 3. in the kinds of teacher responses to learners’ oral or written responses in an activity or task the coding scheme with indicators, descriptors and examples from the data are shown below. some of the examples are drawn from the larger sample of teachers in order to capture the range in the coding. hoadley: learning to fly. . . 19 table 1: coding scheme for the analysis of evaluaive criteria and coding examples empirical indicator 1: in the introduction/explanation/instruction for an activity/task f f f f++ + -evaluative criteria very clear and explicit evaluative criteria quite clear and explicit evaluative criteria quite unclear and implicit evaluative criteria quite unclear and implicit the teacher always or almost always makes the evaluative criteria explicit in the introduction, explanation or instruction for an activity or task. she explicitly defines and explains the purpose and meaning of the task or activity and makes it clear exactly how a task should be completed. most of the time the teacher makes the evaluative criteria available in an explicit and clear manner through explication or instruction for an activity or task. the requirements for the successful completion of a task are generally clear, although there may be some aspects that remain implicit. some attempts are made to make the requirements for the successful completion of a task or activity available to learners, but these are at times unclear or not articulated. there is some ambiguity or lack of clarity as to what is expected of learners in the task or activity. generally the teacher does not make the evaluative criteria explicit in the introduction, explanation of instructions of a task. how the task should be completed, its purpose and meaning is not clear. learners are unclear as to how to proceed, or proceed in any manner they choose. example f teacher d tells the learners that the letter of the day is the letter ‘p’.++ she tells learners that she wants them to give her words that start with ‘p’. she gives an example, ‘pad [road]’ and then proceeds to ask almost every child in the class to produce a word. example f after reading a short narrative text teacher n draws lines on the boardand writes the instructions for a task. she does not explain what the actual instruction is. one child walks up to her with her books and asks a question, she then tells learners to write in their books. then she tells learners to identify verbs in the text and write them down. about a third of the way into the activity she defines verbs as ‘doing words’. 20 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 empirical indicator 2: in the teachers’ monitoring of and comments to learners in the course of conducting an activity or task f f f f++ + -evaluative criteria very clear and explicit evaluative criteria quite clear and explicit evaluative criteria quite unclear and implicit evaluative criteria quite unclear and implicit the teacher constantly monitors what learners are doing and makes comments. to the whole class and to individuals she repeatedly goes over what is expected and what constitutes an appropriate performance. the teacher monitors learners’ work and makes some points either to the whole class or to individual learners so as to clarify what is expected of them in the task. statements around what is expected are sometimes partial, or made available to only some members of the class. the teacher sometimes monitors what learners are doing in an activity or task, and makes a few comments, however, this is not sustained and the criteria for a successful production are not made explicit to all. the teacher does very little or no monitoring of learners work and rarely or never attends to their productions. she makes no or very few comments to individual learners or the class. example f teacher m writes an exercise on the board – learners must pick out the+ verbs and nouns from 8 sentences and write the words in their books. learners work alone while the teacher walks around and checks some learners’ work. teacher m takes a long time to try and get a learner to understand the difference between verbs and nouns, sitting at the learner’s table and using objects around her to demonstrate. she does this again with another learner who is struggling. no additional tasks are given. most learners draw pictures or try in a game to make static electricity with their rulers example f teacher n does a number of three digit column addition examples on-the board with learners. she then writes up 3 word problems that learners all read aloud together. teacher n then sits at her desk sending messages on her phone while about half the class do the problems and the rest sit idle or play. hoadley: learning to fly. . . 21 empirical indicator 3: in the kinds of teacher responses to learners’ oral or written responses in an activity of task f f f f++ + -evaluative criteria very clear and explicit evaluative criteria quite clear and explicit evaluative criteria quite unclear and implicit evaluative criteria quite unclear and implicit the teacher always responds to learners’ written or oral responses. in incorrect responses the teacher shows why the answer is incorrect. the teacher often elaborates on a correct answer, modifies a response or draws out a general principal. the teacher mostly responds to learners’ oral or written responses. in incorrect responses the teacher sometimes shows/tells the correct answer and sometimes why the answer is incorrect. the teacher sometimes elaborates on a correct answer. she does not modify a response or draw out a general principle. the teacher sometimes responds to learners’ oral or written responses. in incorrect responses the teacher shows/tells the correct answer and but not why the answer is incorrect. the teacher rarely elaborates on a correct answer. the teacher responds to learners’ responses rarely or not at all. in incorrect responses the teacher seldom indicates whether or why the answer is incorrect. the teacher rarely or never elaborates on a correct answer. example f teacher f writes a word sum on the board that requires the calculation+ 43 – 19. a learner goes to the board and writes 43 – 19 = 23. the teacher tells her to repeat her calculation. the learner tries again, failing once again to derive the correct answer. the teacher shows her on the board: 43 – 20 = 40 – 10 = 20 13 – 9 = 4 example f teaching 3d shapes the following exchange takes place between-teacher s and a learner: teacher: what shape are you holding? learner: [referring to the sphere in her hand] a circle teacher: how is it? learner: it’s green teacher: look at it. how is it? learner: [no response] teacher: is it rough or smooth? learner: [no response] teacher: [moving onto next student] what shape are you holding? based on the video data, and taking the lesson as the unit of analysis, each of the teachers’ practice was coded using the coding scheme. once the lesson 22 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 was coded on each of the indicators individually, a global framing code was then derived and assigned to each lesson/teacher. in other words values were derived by assigning numerical values to each of the framing values for each indicator, and then by taking an average of the three and converting this back to a framing value. so for example, a teacher’s score would be calculated as follows where f = 4; f = 3; f = 2; and f = 1. the final framing value++ + -assigned would be based on the cumulative score on the three indicators, where 0–3=f ; 4–6=f ; 7–9=f ; and 10–12=f . an example is given below:-+ ++ coding procedure teacher p indicator 1 code and score indicator 1 code and score indicator 1 code and score total score cumulative framing code language lesson f (=3) f (=3) f (=2) 8 f (=7–9)+ + + the outcome of this coding exercise is shown in table 4 below. table 2: coding of framing over evaluative criteria teacher indicator 1 indicator 2 indicator 3 numerical value global code teacher p language f f f 8 f+ + + teacher m language f f f 6 f+ -teacher s language f f f 6 f+ -teacher h language f f f 9 f+ + + + teacher s mathematics f f f 6 f+ -teacher sm mathematics f f f 8 f+ + + teacher h mathematics f f f 8 f+ + + teacher z mathematics f f f 8 f+ + + hoadley: learning to fly. . . 23 an extended example is given below to illustrate how the coding on the three indicators was conducted and how the findings were derived. in a mathematics lesson of teacher z, with learners on the mat, the teacher explains that learners must count out 10 beans in front of them, then make equal groups with 10 beans. as they make equal groups with the beans, the teacher writes each representation on the board as a number sentence, first as repeated addition, and then as multiplication (e.g 2+2+2+2+2=10 or 5x2=10). she ends up with multiple representations of the same number (10) on the board and makes sure that learners are aware they are making groups with the same number all the time (indicator 1: f /3). the teacher uses the number 12+ as a second example, which learners also have to break up into equal groups. the teacher again writes multiple representations of 12 on the board, showing different equal groups as repeated addition or multiplication (6 + 6 = 12; 2 x 6 = 12; 4+4+4 = 12; and 3+3+3+3 = 12). learners are then instructed to use their beans to represent their own number greater than 12 by breaking the number up into equal groups, similar to the examples on the board. the teacher makes some points either to the whole class or to individual learners so as to clarify what is expected of them in the task (indicator 2: f /3). in particular, the teacher checks on learners as they are making groups+ with beans and makes sure the learners check their totals, then writes the number sentence representing their groups on the board (indicator 2: f /3).+ learners are seldom asked to give reasons for their answers. when learners have to verify their totals, they don’t actually count in their groups, they count in ones to check. the teacher pauses with errors, but rather than engaging with the error, she often makes learners change the number they are working with to make it easier for them to make equal groups (indicator 3: f /2). theteacher never writes the number sentences with the total first (e.g. 12 = 3 x 4 and 12 = 2 x 6 etc) to underscore the point that the same number is represented in different ways and this is not expressed in teacher talk. rather, the randomness and collection of number sentences on the board, appears to learners as the representation of numbers as equal groups. teacher z’s practice was characterised as f+ (a score of 8). across the teachers, the closer video analysis found that in the introduction to tasks and activities teachers generally presented clear explanations or instructions of what to do (indicator 1). in the course of conducting activities, in most classes there was evidence of the teachers monitoring what learners were doing and clarifying expectations (indicator 2). on indicator 3, however, 24 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 there was predominantly weak framing across the teachers. in responding to learners’ verbal or written productions teachers often did not make the evaluative criteria explicit. they provided restricted responses to what learners said or did, or gave no response. across the indicators and teachers, however, in these classrooms the transmission of explicit criteria that are argued in the literature to be optimal in teaching in poor settings are evident. none of the high-scoring teachers’ practices was characterised globally as f--. at the same time none of the teachers scored f++ on the scheme. the ‘good’ is tending towards the explicit, but teachers’ evaluative practices are not extended or elaborated. the higher scoring teachers provide clearer explanations and some correction in exerting greater control over evaluative criteria. however, none of the teachers respond to learner productions in an extended way providing more general principles for the learning or elaborating on the evaluative criteria. whilst there is no f in any of the- classrooms (or f0 – see hoadley, 2005), there is also no evidence of very explicit pedagogy, strong control and an elaborated exercise of evaluation (f ). ++ looking at the extended example above, it is evident that although evaluative criteria are stronger, the analysis is not capturing what is being transmitted. in this regard, two aspects of the pedagogy across the teachers were not captured by the evaluative criteria coding scheme. the first was that although the data showed that there were strong points of evaluation, looking across lessons these points or particular pedagogic instances were not connected to a sense of what content had gone before or what was to come after in the pedagogic trajectory. second, there appeared no instance where the teaching of isolated fragments of content or skills was connected to a more general principle or subject trajectory. in other words it was difficult to retrieve the ‘bigger picture’ of the pedagogy. perhaps it was these factors that accounted for a lack of connection between ‘better’ or more visible pedagogies (with stronger framing evaluative criteria) and student outcomes. evaluative criteria and evaluative rules the research that has been done within the bernstein frame with respect to evaluation in pedagogy has focused almost exclusively on framing or relations of control (muller and hoadley, 2010). explicitness of evaluation is treated as strong framing within classroom interaction. hoadley: learning to fly. . . 25 the distinction between evaluative rules and evaluative criteria was first made by muller &4 hoadley (2010) in relation to the operation of regulative discourse (moral order) within pedagogy. in their argument, similar to the present one, evaluative rules are derived from the macro level (moral order) derived from forms of knowledge. the rules distil the durkheimian moral social-formative dimension of knowledge realised in the evaluative criteria. criteria are nested in rules. recent interrogation of the concept of evaluative criteria has suggested that what framing is able to pick up are essentially ‘teaching styles’ and what it misses is the actual content or the ‘what’ of the pedagogy, “the operation of instructional discourse or the meeting of knowledge criteria” (muller & hoadley, 2010, p.165). the focus is on the social relation between teacher and learner, and whether the teacher is controlling the transmission of criteria. this is evident in the examples above. but what of the criteria themselves and how they are related? what of the ‘what of the pedagogy’? the ‘what’ refers to the knowledge principle (derived from the distributive rules) that structures learning. it refers to the ‘broader map’ of ‘systematic organised learning’ (shalem and slonimsky, 2010b), or conceptual, disciplinary base of the subject. evaluative criteria are criteria that are derived from the level of the production of discourse – both subject-specific and education-theory. when the basis for criteria are made explicit in the classroom, it potentially allows students to read the field more broadly. i suggest that we can refer to these bases that make visible a form of generalisation from the pedagogic particular to the disciplinary general, evaluative rules. evaluative rules regulate evaluative criteria, establishing4 connection between them in pedagogic practice. bernstein (1996) argues that evaluative rules condense the process whereby knowledge becomes pedagogic communication in the classroom. this means that they refer to both interaction in the classroom (framing) as well as to the knowledge transacted. evaluative rules regulate criteria, and this is accomplished in relation to external referents – a key one being the knowledge base of the subject. thus evaluative rules have conceptual potential to describe both the connection between pedagogic instances as well as the reference of evaluative criteria (instances) to more general knowledge principles. 26 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 temporal range and ordering logic the ‘bigger sense’ alluded to earlier can thus be conceptualised in terms of evaluative rules, regulating criteria instantiated in the pedagogy in reference to a ‘disciplinary or subject map’. they have a connecting and a generalising function. in using this relatively abstract concept of evaluation to analyse data i drew on the work of venkat (2013) and shalem and slonimsky (2010a; 2010b). venkat (2013) develops the concept of ‘temporal range’ to consider teaching of mathematics in the early grades. venkat identifies two temporal dimensions in mathematics teaching. the first is what she calls ‘mathematical temporality’ that relates to mathematical ideas, their precursors and horizons i.e. the past, present and future of mathematical topic strands. the second dimension is what she calls ‘mathematical learning temporality’, that relates to a learning trajectory that connects learners’ past understandings with present understandings. she argues that while mathematical temporality might well be primary in teaching, this temporality is necessary, but not sufficient. she asserts that “if mathematical learning temporality (i.e. students’ understandings) cannot be linked with a mathematical temporality within teaching and mediated, possibilities for learning in well-connected and solidly founded ways continue to be disrupted” (p36). so mathematical temporality deals with what logically comes before and after the concept or operation at hand; whereas mathematical learning temporality deals with how the concept is connecting with the individual learners’ past understanding and present sense making. venkat uses these two dimensions of temporality to re-interpret empirical studies of teaching number in the foundation phase. she shows how across studies, teaching often either accepts, or produces the answer to the immediate problem, without attention to the broader understandings and longer term efficiencies needed for autonomous student work with similar and related problems. this production allows lessons to progress without any need for learning to progress within them (p.36). in other words, the teacher does not connect with either mathematical temporality or mathematical learner temporality in anything but an immediate and superficial way. the teacher does not connect with the broader demands of a mathematics learning trajectory, or the learners’ prior understanding of mathematics. venkat’s concept of temporality is firmly located within pedagogy, where progression of a topic is considered in relation to what has come before and after (temporal range), as well as considered in relation to what students have hoadley: learning to fly. . . 27 acquired, their ‘learning pasts’ (mathematical temporal range). in venkat’s empirical investigations she has been concerned with the ‘stubborn immediacy of the present’ (venkat, 2013) in many foundation phase classrooms. shalem and slonimsky’s work concerns itself with the ordering logic in educational practices. in their work focused on feedback at a higher education level, shalem and slonimsky (2010a) argue for the necessity of providing students in assessment of their work with “epistemic means that will help them to order ideas vertically” or to learn what counts as an epistemic relation between ideas (p.765). shalem and slonimsky (2010b) helpfully point to the question of the ‘ordering logic’ or the ‘epistemic relation between ideas’ in a lesson by using an analogy drawn by educational philosopher wally morrow: let’s take an example of a teacher of someone who wants to become a pilot. a good teacher of piloting has in the back of his mind an understanding of what is involved in flying an aeroplane. in the practice of teaching [the teacher] says, ‘ok, the first thing we need is to teach how to do this and how to do that’ . . . or something like that. you can contrast such a teacher of piloting from a teacher of piloting who in a sense does not understand what the bigger thing is, but is following a book which says in lesson one you need to do this and in lesson two you need to do that and it is never properly tied together (shalem and slonimsky 2010b, p.21). what ties ‘it’ together is an ordering logic, which orders ideas vertically, in other words in relation to a broader map, schema or totality of the knowledge to be acquired. this conceptualisation points to upward generalisation in pedagogy when the ‘bigger picture’ is elucidated. drawing together the insights of venkat and shalem and slonimsky then. the evaluative rules in pedagogy then can be seen to have a temporal, connecting dimension (temporal range) and a categorical, generalising dimension (ordering logic). this potentially provides a structural understanding of how knowledge relates to pedagogy. knowledge and pedagogy it seems possible then to have strong evaluative criteria with weak evaluative rules, and this describes the practice of the 8 ‘best’ teachers sampled for this study. ‘good’ teachers in the sample make the requirements for a tasks and activities explicit and are to some extent are explicit around requirements when they monitor and intervene while students engage with the content of 28 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 the lesson. to a much less extent they make evaluative criteria explicit in their responses to learners. although evaluative criteria are more strongly framed, reference is made to the particular pedagogic instances rather than generalisation across time or across instances or the connectivity both in terms of what has gone before and what will come after, and in making connections between bits of knowledge. i provide two examples of this below. recall teacher z sits with learners on the mat and asks them to count out 10 beans, and then make equal groups with 10 beans. as they make groups with beans, the teacher writes each representation on the board, first as repeated addition, and then as multiplication (e.g. 2+2+2+2+2=10 or 5x2=10). she ends up with multiple representations of the same number (10) on the board. she also goes on to write x2, stating it is the same as doubling, and then says halving is its inverse, and includes the commutative property by saying that 2x5 and 5x2 both equal 10. although here, the principle of number decomposition and the commutative property are structuring the activity, the displays of the teacher on the board makes it appear as if the representations are just different groupings and different calculations. the overall pattern and principle structuring the activity is never made explicit or visible to learners through discursive elaboration or, for example, by writing 10=5x2 and 10=2x5 and 10=2+2+2+2+2 etc. in the analysis of framing over evaluative criteria, the lesson of teacher z was characterised as having strong framing over the evaluative criteria. but there is an atomisation of knowledge ‘bits’, without the connections between being made visible and intelligible. the connection between concrete and symbolic representations of groups of ten, and multiplication as repeated addition, and doubling is not made. there is a lack of a coherent thread through these temporally fragmentary topics. there is also no reference to a pedagogic past (prior topics, concepts introduced) nor learners’ prior understandings. further there is no upward generalisation of the activity to more general rules or principles, such as that of number decomposition and the commutative property. here then we have an example of strong framing over evaluative criteria but weak evaluative rules. another example comes from teacher p, who in a small graded reading group, reads a story with a clear moral message about a boy who was too proud. the teacher begins by showing learners the back of the book, and asks what the book is about. learners don’t respond so she shows them the front cover and asks what the boy on the cover is doing. the teacher asks a series hoadley: learning to fly. . . 29 of cloze questions about the cover picture and title to which the learners provide single word answers in a chant. they chant the name of the author after her. they chant the title after her a number of times. the teacher begins to read. after a sentence she points to the speech bubble on the first page and asks “but class, i am looking here on the first page. what are these? these things?”. the intercom interrupts with an announcement. she says “speech bubble” and the learners repeat after her. the teacher writes ‘question mark’ on the board, explaining that when you ask a question you use a question mark. she also writes ‘full stop’ and ‘exclamation mark’ on the board and briefly explains what these look like. she writes ‘comma’, but doesn’t explain this. she starts to read again. at the end of the first page the teacher stops reading and shows the learners how to turn the page. she shows incorrect ways of holding the book. she reads a sentence and then says that the learners must have respect for the book because “books make a person clever”. learners repeat after her “books make a person. . .clever”. she reads a few more sentences and then asks learners where they can get “a book for free to learn”. learners reply in chant “library”. she shows learners again how to turn the page of the book. the teacher continues reading, stopping at times to explain words and at other times to discipline the rest of the class. the teacher continues reading and some learners join her in chorus. she stops to ask them what comes after the word “sjoe!” in the text, and they answer “exclamation mark”. an individual learner reads while the rest of the learners follow in their books. the teacher goes to see what the rest of the class is doing while the learner reads. the teacher returns to the mat and takes up the reading and then the learners join in a chant. the teacher explains a quotation mark. she shows them a sentence in the story that is in quotation marks. the learners repeat the sentence after the teacher. they then continue reading. at the end the teacher gives the learners a comprehension exercise to do when they return to their desks. the exercise is unrelated to the reading that has been completed. the reading of the text is fragmented by constant interjection (insertion of evaluative criteria) in the pedagogy including aspects related to vocabulary, punctuation, the mechanics of reading (how to turn a page) and the value of reading (it makes you ‘clever’; the importance of libraries). by the end of the reading session it is very difficult for the researcher, let alone struggling readers, to retrieve the narrative. reading as a sustained activity where text communicates meaning does not emerge. the activity ends abruptly and learners are given questions related to a completely separate and unrelated text to the text just read. 30 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 in this example, we have the form of guided group reading, which as a pedagogic form aims for enhanced focus on reading for meaning and comprehension and more individualised evaluation by the teacher. we find strong framing over the evaluative criteria with constant intervention by the teacher. but the focus of the evaluative practice lacks specific strategies or engagement to decode unfamiliar words and no attention is given to retrieving meaning from the text. a broader sense of what it means to read – i.e. decode and retrieve meaning (and pleasure) from text – is absent from the activity. the text is treated as an undifferentiated whole. there is no inferential or evaluative discussion of the narrative structure, genre or meaning of the story (in this case the ‘moral’). thus upward generalisation in relation to knowledge about texts, especially genres and forms (fountas and pinnell, 2012) and text meaning (fisher, 2008) are not made. there is no sense of what has been read before in this group. nor is their evidence in the development of decoding skills, although vocabulary development is a focus. in short, while there are strong evaluative criteria transmitted, a bigger sense of what it means to read is lost. across the data for both language and mathematics there was little evidence of teachers marking certain pedagogical moments to state a rule, to “compare and contrast between ideas, demand precision of meaning and confer what can and cannot be inferred from a proposition” (shalem, 2015). both connecting and generalising, temporality and categorical generalisation, are not evident in the data even while the teachers make criteria explicit for what learners do in the classroom or particular elements of the topic. the analysis raises the question as to whether learners are exposed to systematic ordered instruction (shalem and slonimsky, 2010b), or what i started out with as the ‘substance’ of learning mathematics or language, what i am suggesting here constitutes a temporal and categorical aspect or evaluative rule. conclusion the study reported on in this chapter began with an attempt to investigate the relation between pedagogy at the school level and performance in the sample of spade schools. the broader analysis was based on an ‘ideal pedagogy’ constructed from the research literature around optimal pedagogic forms in poor schooling contexts (see appendix a). we found some features of pedagogy that approximated the ideal form spread across the sample (higher and lower performing schools), but an aggregated pedagogic score in a school that was related to performance was not found in these schools. hoadley: learning to fly. . . 31 muller argues that in relation to pedagogy the most common way of representing this kind5 of verticality in the literature has been characterised in terms of ‘cognitive demand’. how much of different levels, for example, ‘memorisation’, ‘problem solving’, apparent in teaching becomes a proxy for ‘opportunity to learn verticality’. what this does, he argues, is shift the focus from a knowledge approach to a knower approach. it shifts the focus “from what knowledge is made available, to what levels of complexity teachers make available” (2007, p.82). subsequent analysis took a subsample of eight teachers with high pedagogic scores on the metric developed for the whole sample. in this smaller sample of four mathematics and four language teachers, in certain respects the pedagogy represented the form of the ‘ideal pedagogy’. it also conformed to expectations set out in the curriculum and assessment policy statement for a more individualised pedagogy, the use of more written text and explication of evaluative criteria. the form adopted in the eight classrooms represented a substantial shift in pedagogic practice from the dominant pedagogic forms reported in research. again, however, the form at the teacher level did not represent an exemplary pedagogy and was not associated with higher student performance. amongst the ‘best’ teachers in the sample there was stronger control over evaluative criteria. but there was no evidence of teachers connecting the pedagogic instances to a broader subject map. using the notion of evaluative rules, which were defined as regulating evaluative criteria, both temporally and categorically, the paper shows how weak evaluative rules can render the pedagogy fragmented. ‘organised systematic learning’, in relation to a broader sense of the discipline or subject would appear to be absent across all classrooms in this sample, even while teachers consistently transmit criteria. a highly specified curriculum, with clear content, sequencing and pacing requirements such as those found in the caps does not necessarily make visible the conceptual structure of a subject. generalising and connecting in the pedagogy is dependent on the articulation/underpinning of the referent knowledge field/s, its concepts and their relations. visibility or5 understanding of the conceptual structure of the subject allows for the movement between criteria and rules. as shalem and slonimsky (2010a, p.761) point out, “pedagogy is concerned both with explicating to students the structure between ideas as well as teaching them to instantiate abstractions”. in order to make the moves between one has to be clear on the knowledge object and the ordering principle of the pedagogy. the caps clearly articulates the procedures for teaching reading and early mathematics (hoadley, 2017). it advertises certain desirable pedagogic attributes, and there 32 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 is a measure of teacher compliance. but compliance satisfies accountability requirements but is unlikely to accomplish the trick of learning. while teachers can enact the desired form of pedagogy and transmit appropriate criteria, a curriculum alone cannot bring about a pedagogy of substance, where learners can grasp the ordering logic of the lesson, organise ideas categorically and comprehend the trajectory of concepts/content/knowledge over time. what emerges from the discussion above is the idea that you can do criteria without rules or generalisations, but to return to morrow’s pilot metaphor, that won’t enable the student to fly. criteria are nested in rules, and regulated by them. teachers’ control over the evaluative criteria in classrooms is stronger and that is potentially good. in the classrooms of teachers with high pedagogic scores there is constant exchange of evaluative criteria in the classroom instructional context. but this occurs atomistically and in the present tense. categorical referents and knowledge temporality is weak. this is how exclusion in this set of working class classrooms is working. control is being brought back into classrooms but power in relation to the distribution of knowledge is still restricted. whether teacher compliance in strengthening control over criteria represents a terminal point or a step towards being able to generate rules will hopefully become clearer in classroom research to come. references alexander, r. 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(2013). pedagogy, curriculum, teaching practices and teacher education in developing countries. eppi education rigorous literature review. london: institute of education. appendix a: dimensions of pedagogy and axes of variation dimension of pedagogy empirical indicators axis of variation 1. classroom discourse type do the students engage mostly with written text (in book, on board or other written source) or with oral discourse? do students produce oral or written responses to teacher questions/directives? text-based/oral 2. engagement with text (language only) do students predominantly engage with individual sounds, words or single sentences, or with extended pieces of written text, in reading or writing activities. extended/restricted 3. evaluation/feedback the extent to which the teacher makes evaluative criteria explicit through exposition, through monitoring what learners are doing and giving feedback on correct and incorrect responses i.e. does the teacher make clear to learners what the central concept to be learnt is, and what they are required to do to produce correct answers. elaborated/restricted 4. pacing the extent to which the time allocated in the lesson was appropriate to the difficulty or extent of the content/activities introduced. the extent to which students were differentiated in the pacing (fast learners given extra/different work) appropriateness of pacing/high/low hoadley: learning to fly. . . 37 5. lesson coherence the extent to which the lesson has clear and related starting point, build up and conclusion and presents accurate content related parts – accuracy/fragmented inaccurate 6. cognitive demand is lesson pitched appropriately at grade level? too high/low/at grade level 7. reading practices (language only) does the teacher listen to individual students read? individualised/communalised 8. time on task the extent to which learners are on-task when working independently and the extent of disruptions to instructional time. high/low 9. orderliness/discipline the extent to which learners are self-regulating and teacher needs to regulate learners’ behavior. high/low 10. student individualization do all learners do the same tasks or exercises, or do different learners get different tasks? do learners who complete tasks ahead of time, get additional work to complete independently? is there evidence that learners are differentiated into ability groups through the use of graded readers or differentiated tasks? differentiating/uniform ursula hoadley school of education university of cape town uk.hoadley@uct.ac.za mailto:uk.hoadley@uct.ac.za 38 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 microsoft word b86 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 86, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i86a05 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x conceptualising a framework for school leaders as they foster an inclusive education culture in schools seipati patricia ramango department of education leadership and management, faculty of education, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa seipatir65@yahoo.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5045-8050 suraiya r. naicker department of education leadership and management, faculty of education, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa snaicker@uj.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3796-5028 (received: 29 august 2021; accepted: 14 february 2022) abstract the need to identify and address south african school leaders’ challenges in developing an inclusive education culture frames the purpose of this study. a qualitative methodology using a multiple case study design in three secondary schools was employed. data collection ensued through focus group interviews with school management teams (smts) and teachers. the findings highlight areas that both challenge and overwhelm smts. these areas include the inadequate implementation of the screening, identification, assessment and support (sias) policy, the need for parent support for inclusivity, and inclusive pedagogy limitations. furthermore, there is a need for human and financial resources to support inclusive education. the study proposes a framework that clarifies the role of the smt in facilitating inclusivity. the framework posits the need for visionary, strategic, and social justice leadership, focuses on ways to transform the school culture, and offers practical guidance for translating the sias policy into practice. keywords: inclusive education, inclusivity, school management teams, school leaders, screening identification assessment and support policy, school-based support team introduction inclusive education was introduced into south african schools in 2001 through education white paper 6 (department of education [doe], 2001), which provided a framework for an inclusive education system. the ideal of inclusive education is that all learners, irrespective 86 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 of their physical disabilities or learning barriers receive access to schooling (south african human rights commission, 2018), and that their learning needs be provided for in mainstream schools (engelbrecht et al., 2015a). at the forefront of white paper 6 was the need to promote equity, human rights, and social justice in south african schooling (department of basic education [dbe], 2010). social justice is underpinned by values of “respect, care, recognition and empathy” and draws attention to the experiences of marginalised groups and forms of discrimination in education (furman, 2012, p. 194). social justice leadership requires “ongoing actions, skills, habits of mind, and competencies” (dematthews & mawhinney, 2014, p. 847) that seek to eradicate all forms of exclusion in education. school management ought to adopt inclusion as a social justice paradigm and strive to remove all forms of learning barriers—decreasing fear, prejudice, and rejection, and encouraging tolerance among individuals (yilmaz & yeganeh, 2021). south africa, in particular, faced difficulties in moving to an inclusive education system, which necessitated reforms to address the needs of all learners (meltz et al., 2014). despite efforts to conceptualise the idea of inclusive pedagogy (makoelle & van der merwe, 2014), research in school leadership and management largely points to numerous challenges that school management teams (smts) encounter in implementing inclusive education. smts comprise the principal, deputy principals, and departmental heads (dhs) in schools. a challenge is that smts lack skills and knowledge of inclusive education policy, resulting in implementation challenges for teachers (mkhuma et al., 2014). furthermore, kanjere and mafumo (2017) asserted that smts are confronted with the problem of adapting to inclusive education curricula to meet a range of diverse learner needs. similarly, naicker (2006, p. 5) pointed out the need for a refined curriculum because it is “the traditional curriculum that alienated learners from mainstream classes.” kanjere and mafumo’s (2017) study revealed that smts lack definite policies and systems for training teachers to implement inclusive education, and emphasise the importance of training school principals to manage inclusive education. kgothule and hay (2013, p. 33) found that smts can play a greater role in “changing teachers’ perceptions regarding inclusion,” a notion supported by makoelle (2014), who postulated that a mindset change is essential to creating an inclusive education culture. various contextual issues exacerbate the quest for truly inclusive schooling such as overcrowded classrooms and a lack of comprehensive educational resources (marais, 2016). in addition, many schools have insufficient basic infrastructure and inadequate service provision, which increase the burden that smts have to contend with (engelbrecht et al., 2015b). heeralal and jama (2014) maintained that, without adequate resources, smts are hindered from fulfilling their mandate to implement inclusive education policies. in view of the pressing difficulties faced by smts concerning the implementation of inclusive education, this research sought to contribute to knowledge in the field of inclusive education from the perspective of education leadership. the purpose of our study was thus twofold: firstly, to ascertain the prevailing and/or new challenges that smts face regarding the implementation of inclusive education and secondly, to propose a way forward for school leaders on the path towards an inclusive school culture. ramango & naicker: conceptualising a framework for school leaders . . . 87 conceptual perspectives inclusive education from a social justice perspective this study used social justice as a theoretical framework. the practice of social justice requires the provision of equal rights and opportunities for everyone in any organisation. fraser’s (1998, 2009) social justice theory focused on the applicability and utility of a threedimensional approach emphasising redistribution (economic), recognition (cultural), and representation (political). fraser (2009, p. 1) emphasised that social justice is increasingly split into redistributive demands seeking a more equitable allocation of resources and income, and a “politics of recognition.” she explained a justice theory based on “parity of participation,” which “needs social arrangements that allow all members of society to interact with one another as peers” (fraser, 2009, p. 5). social justice has one of its foundations rooted in “educational disciplines like curriculum and pedagogy” (jean-marie et al., 2009, p. 3). thus, social justice education integrates aspects of “democratic education, critical pedagogy, critical multicultural education, and culturally responsive education” (dover, 2013, p. 6). striving toward social justice requires an ongoing struggle to share knowledge and resources equitably. moreover, social justice development for educational leaders may be organised around a set of “principles that include acquiring the knowledge, skills, and dispositions” required to understand social justice, human rights, and the implications for schools (furman, 2012, p. 199). inclusive education as a human rights priority adopting inclusion as an operational vision at both the school and individual levels necessitates the integration of inclusive education as a mindset of how schools as a unit remove learning barriers and value all members of the school community (carter & abawi, 2018). as a concept, inclusive education entails improving schools by modifying instructional materials, policies, procedures, and strategies to address learning problems experienced by learners who encounter barriers to learning (united nations educational scientific and cultural organisation, 2009). in this research, inclusive education is seen as a basis for learning focused on human rights principles and social justice for all learners. moreover, inclusivity can be perceived as part of a larger fight toward human rights violations and the effort to ensure that social justice prevails in education (du plessis, 2013). participation, social cohesion and redress of historical injustices, equal and equitable access to schooling, collective responsiveness, and cost-effectiveness are the core sets for inclusion (dbe, 2010). inclusive education encourages equality and necessitates that the range of curriculum delivery is broad enough to meet the needs and requirements of every learner in society (murungi, 2015). moreover, aligned with social justice and equality, inclusive education promotes the notion that learners with a range of learning barriers should be accommodated in public classrooms (lampen, 2014). furthermore, inclusive education acknowledges the rights of all learners to attend school in regular classrooms with peers of the same age (mcconkey, 2014). 88 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 school leadership and inclusive education school leaders are gatekeepers for change (fullan, 2014). thus, their leadership effectiveness is pivotal in moving towards an inclusive education culture (gill, 2003). school leaders play a role in promoting inclusion, addressing diversity, and embracing multiculturalism (cherkowski, 2010). leaders with a commitment to inclusive values are likely to foster inclusive school cultures (ainscow & miles, 2008). leadership is an influence process (bounds et al., 2013). thus, changing attitudes of staff towards the new paradigm of inclusivity is necessary (gill, 2003) and, perhaps, an important first step. school leaders worldwide and in south africa, are being held accountable for learner performance. thus, leading for inclusivity towards the improvement of learning outcomes (de villiers & pretorius, 2011; mcglynn & london, 2013; setlhodi-mohapi & lebeloane, 2014) raises an interesting challenge for school leadership. pertaining to this challenge, the doe (2001, p. 49) contended that leading inclusive education would require new conceptualisations of “curriculum development, assessment, and instructional development programmes.” south african school leaders require greater knowledge and skills in addressing learning barriers (motitswe, 2014) and how they can lead cultural change pertaining to inclusivity in their organisations (kgothule & hay, 2013). improving the implementation of inclusive education requires support structures and resources (motitswe, 2014). transformative leadership strives for “equitable change” in society, and is relevant for education leaders who possess the agency to create “inclusive, respectful, and equitable” school cultures (shields & hesbol, 2019, p. 3). leaders should align the school vision to inclusivity and diversity to address inequalities in their own schools (dematthews & mawhinney, 2014). portela (2011) made the important point that diversity must first be understood in order to understand inclusivity. a thorough conceptualisation and awareness of diversity is required in school leadership and management practice (rayner, 2009). issues of diversity encompass but are not limited to religion, culture, language, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, gender, disability, belief, and sexual orientation. msila (2008) proposed the concept of ubuntu, which school leaders can use as a frame to scaffold inclusivity in schools. ubuntu is an african concept that espouses “compassion, reciprocity, dignity, harmony, and humanity” (letseka, 2014, p. 547). with regard to inclusive education, smts must make “all efforts to address school policies, improvement plans, programmes, and ethos” so that they reflect inclusive practices (dbe, 2010, p. 13). the main policy for the implementation of inclusive education in schools is the screening, identification, assessment, and support policy (sias), which provides “a framework for the standardisation of the procedures” for inclusion (dbe, 2014, p. 11). smts are expected to take the lead in sias policy implementation, which requires specific competencies at different levels of authority within the system. smts ought to ensure that learning programmes, resources, and assessment procedures accommodate learners with diverse learning needs (dbe, 2014). the sias policy framework stipulates that smts should ensure that school-based support teams (sbsts) are set up to implement inclusive education ramango & naicker: conceptualising a framework for school leaders . . . 89 in schools (dbe, 2014). furthermore, smts must ensure that sbsts are functional, and that they coordinate learning interventions for learners experiencing difficulties (dbe, 2010). teacher development is a responsibility of smts, which ensures effective inclusive teaching and learning in schools (bush et al., 2010). for example, information communication technology has been introduced to enhance teaching and learning in south african schools. smts should ensure that the process of inclusion is incorporated in discussions during staff meetings (kgothule & hay, 2013). kgwete (2014) maintained that smts hold the capacity to inspire, motivate, build teams, resolve conflict, and enable others to contribute toward the school’s effectiveness and success. inclusive school culture as a support strategy culture has been described as “the driving principles and values apparent in school operations,” which play a role in promoting change, shared decision-making, and learning (deal & peterson, 2016, p. 13). an inclusive education culture adheres to an ideology of acceptance in which all learners are accepted and regarded with dignity (gillies & carrington, 2004). moreover, a culture of inclusion in a school observes the norms, principles, and values that provide teachers with a sense of stability in the face of change brought on by learners, parents, and shifts in school communities. an inclusive ethos requires listening to and motivating all school stakeholders so that both real and perceived exclusion prejudices are identified and dismantled (gillies & carrington, 2004). an inclusive education culture aims to support learners, especially those who face learning challenges, by improving learning outcomes, social skills, academic performance, and personal growth (wang, 2009). moreover, wang (2009) contended that an inclusive culture would improve the academic performance of learners with developmental disabilities as they engage with their peers in mainstream classrooms. in an inclusive school culture, learners of the same age, no matter their diversity, are brought together in the same learning environment and classroom. thus, smts ought to examine their management strategies, curriculum provisions, and pedagogical practices in order to turn schools toward inclusivity (gillies & carrington, 2004). research methodology a qualitative research approach was employed, underpinned by a social constructivist paradigm. qualitative research is concerned with “the studied use and collection” of personal experiences that describe moments and meanings in people’s lives (denzin & lincoln, 2003, p. 5). constructivism places emphasis on “the subjective human creation of meaning” (baxter & jack, 2008, p. 545), which enables an understanding of the reality of smts in their school contexts. a multiple case study design using three secondary schools from various settings allowed us to explore the research phenomenon in each setting to obtain a more comprehensive understanding (creswell, 2007). furthermore, the use of multiple case studies enabled data comparison across sites to fully explore the topic under investigation (baxter & jack, 2008). data were gathered through six focus group interviews: three with smt members and three with teachers. the smt focus group at each school comprised eight smt participants and included the principal, two deputy principals, and five dhs. the teachers’ 90 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 focus group comprised six participants from each school who were members of the sbst. there were no specific gender requirements for this research given that the sample was formed by the smt and sbst members. however, for biographical information, the sample consisted of 11 male and 13 female smt members and six male and 12 female teachers. in total, there were 42 participants in this research. focus group interviews in a qualitative research rely on the “interaction of participants led by the interview topics addressed throughout the interview” (morgan, 1997, p. 2). thematic data analysis (creswell, 2012) was employed to analyse the data. data were coded, codes were clustered into categories, interpreted, and themes were formulated (maree, 2010). each case was first analysed independently. thereafter, the data were analysed across cases. four measures of trustworthiness were applied. credibility was applied by the rigorous analysis of the data (mcmillan, 2000), transferability by the use of rich descriptions from the data (babbie & mouton, 2001), dependability by reporting the research processes thoroughly, and confirmability by minimising researcher bias (shenton, 2004). ethical considerations such as protecting the instructional time of schools and obtaining informed consent from participants were addressed. confidentiality, anonymity, and protection from harm were respected and applied (babbie, 2010). permission from the education department and relevant school district ensued in order to execute the research. the following section presents a discussion of the case contexts. case contexts school a is a township school characterised by areas rife with poverty, crime, and violence. the school is a no-fee-paying school that is financially subsidised by the dbe. learners receive stationery, are loaned textbooks, and provided with free nutrition. the school has consistently produced good academic results. school b is located in a semi-rural industrial region. the majority of learners come from low-income families. there is also a paucity of resources, which may impede effective teaching and learning. however, the school’s performance has regularly surpassed the district target throughout the years. school c is a mixed-race, former model c school that serves learners from its surroundings including the nearby townships. this school is a fee-paying public school, which is partially subsidised by the dbe and receives donations from private businesses and local organisations. despite having more resources than other schools, the school performs on par with underprivileged schools—which is not what was envisioned. findings the data from each case were first analysed. thereafter, findings across the cases were analysed. due to the limitations on length, the research findings presented emanate from establishing comparisons across the three cases. ramango & naicker: conceptualising a framework for school leaders . . . 91 smts’ understandings of the concept of inclusive education the findings revealed disparities in meanings towards the concept of inclusive education. for instance, during the focus group discussion it emerged that participants in school a were confused—limiting the concept of inclusion to physical disability or complex special educational needs (sen). one smt member (principal) explained: we are not inclusive because the learners that we have here, most, actually all of them don’t have the disabilities that anyone can see. another smt member (dh), stated: i don’t think we know the difference between inclusive and special schools. similarly, an smt member (dh) at school c expected learners with severe handicaps at their school to render the school completely inclusive, stating: i think we are partially inclusive. we have quite a few learners with learning problems. but we don’t have learners, like, with severe physical handicaps. another smt member at school c (dh) questioned: who’s supposed to be in lsen school. who are being brought to our school? there was some evidence of recognition, differentiation, and curriculum adaptation in school b, demonstrating the implementation of core social justice principles. however, similar to schools a and c, there were a few smt members in school b who were of the misconception that inclusive education in a full-service school needed to cater for blind, dumb, and deaf learners. an smt member (dh) from school b stated: i don’t consider it [the school] to be inclusive. my reason is based on the infrastructure. for the physically handicapped, for the blind, the dumb, the deaf and the partially disabled. another smt member (dh) added: much as we meant to be more an inclusive school, but practically, sometimes not. but we do accommodate such learners [learners with physical disabilities]. south african learners with severe physical disabilities, for example blind and deaf learners, are required to attend special schools with access to high-intensity educational support programmes and services (dbe, 2014). on the other hand, a full-service school is inclusive when it accommodates a full range of learning needs with an emphasis on inclusive principles that include “flexibility in teaching and learning, and the provision of support to learners and teachers” (dbe, 2010, p. 1). it is concerning that smt members do not fully understand the concept of inclusion and its application to schools in south africa. learners’ equity, equality, and rights cannot be meaningfully addressed if inclusion is not well understood. leadership 92 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 for social justice requires school leaders who have a “heightened sense of awareness of issues related to oppression, exclusion and marginalisation” (dematthews & mawhinney, 2014, p. 847). social justice leadership requires leaders who strive to portray leadership that would create shared meanings around inclusion. smts’ understanding of their role in the implementation of the sias policy there was evidence that smt members in all three schools had not fully grasped the sias policy, or were confused about how it should be implemented. however, at school b, it was evident that all the smt members demonstrated insufficient knowledge of the sias policy: but we then haven’t familiarised with the document. (dh) maybe we know it [sias policy] at a superficial level. (another dh) the policy on sias . . . i’m totally lost. (teacher) what was more concerning in the latter case is that the teacher was a member of school b’s sbst and, as such, ought to be well versed with the sias policy. at school a, a narrow understanding of the sias policy emerged when three smt members (dhs) were vocal about sias in terms of referral forms, thus missing its essence. for instance, one dh remarked, when asked about the sias policy: there are forms i think from the district office that assist us, what we need to do when we want to help these learners. so, yeah. that’s the only thing i am aware of. furthermore, limited awareness of the sias policy became evident when another dh exhibited confusion about the role of the smt and the sbst, stating: our role is not different. all smt members are sbst members. yes. because whatever problem that has been identified by the educator, it will be referred to the smt. and then the smt needs to attend to that problem. a third dh in school a demonstrated unawareness of the function of the sbst as per the sias policy. this dh commented that educators report problems to the smt who then approach the learner teacher support material (ltsm) committee or, alternatively, an educator could go the route of reporting learning barriers to the principal who would then consult the dh. there was evidence from four smt members at school c that revealed a blurring of the sbst and smt’s role. for instance, smt members often took the lead in addressing learner needs rather than the sbst members. one member (dh) explained: we are part of the sbst. so, if there’s for instance, if there is a grade 11 learner that people are worried about, then they will come to me. ramango & naicker: conceptualising a framework for school leaders . . . 93 another member (deputy principal) revealed: even though we are an smt, we also do this school-based support. we read, we write, we also jump in and do it. the findings at school c coincided with those at school b: that the smt members generally were not fully aware of the sias policy. an smt member (dh) asserted ma’m, i don’t know if we’ve used the sias policy because i don’t know the policy off by heart. it was interesting to note that at school c, the sias policy was not formally implemented, as an smt member (dh) stated: see, i don’t think we really implemented anything? the system adapted us. so, as the whole thing developed, we adapted all our staff to it. so, we didn’t really go sit down and say, now we have to become inclusive. the previous quote indicates that the sias policy was not carefully studied before being implemented nor has strategic planning for inclusive education taken place. the sias policy aimed to improve access to quality education by providing operational guidelines for schools “regarding the provision of support for those learners who experience barriers to learning” (dbe, 2014, p. 10). the purpose is to develop “a policy framework for the standardisation of the procedures to identify, assess, and provide programmes” enhancing learners’ participation and inclusion in schools (dbe, 2014, p. 11). the sias policy is thus a tool that enables inclusive education to be implemented in practice. by means of correct implementation of the sias policy, social justice is promoted and “parity of participation” (fraser, 2009, p. 5) is promoted. in schools a and b, teachers were vocal that that smts did not show interest in the sbst except when there were workshops to be attended. furthermore, teachers expressed frustration about their ignorance of inclusive education policy. it appears that in school a, the smt does not arrange for information sharing sessions after a teacher has attended workshops pertaining to inclusive education policy. a teacher asserted: i think seriously as a school we have a problem, because sometimes we do have an educator who goes for a training for such (sias) policies, but when they come back, they don’t give us the information. this view indicates poor leadership by smts in driving the inclusive education agenda and providing teachers with the necessary support. smts in this study lack the vision for promoting inclusive education. social justice leadership compels smts to engage in processes that lead to inclusive practices and to promote the continuing development of socially just ways to meet the needs of all learners in every school. an earlier study by kanjere and mafumo (2017) revealed that smts do not have definite policies and systems in 94 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 place for training teachers to implement inclusive education. it appears that this situation prevails in schools such as schools a and b in our study. smts’ progress in advocating and promoting an inclusive education culture while the findings discussed thus far identify gaps that ought to be addressed, there were areas where smts have made progress in moving towards inclusivity. in schools b and c, there was evidence that transformation towards non-discriminative attitudes had taken place. these two schools redressed historical societal injustices by openly admitting learners of all races, genders, disabilities, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic statuses. at school b, learners from poorer backgrounds were assisted with the purchasing of school uniforms, textbooks, haircuts, and sanitary items. social justice is characterised as “supporting a process based on respect, care, recognition, and empathy,” and it focuses on the experiences of marginalised groups and different types of discrimination in education (furman, 2012, p. 194). there was evidence that schools b and c had embarked on intervention programmes to reduce social ills as well as improve learner performance. at school b, parents or guardians were consulted to support their children through various intervention strategies. staff members initiated various intervention campaigns addressing, for example, drug abuse, police searches, and teenage pregnancy. there was a peer support programme as well as remedial classes. teachers admitted that, although they had not reached their desired level of achieving an inclusive education culture, they were trying their best. at school c, there were interventions to address individual student needs, meetings to discuss learner problems, and an ethos of care. in contrast, there was an absence of inclusive intervention programmes in school a and teachers struggled with differentiated methods of teaching. while it was easier to identify the learning barriers, participants grappled with how to address these barriers. an smt member (principal) in school a remarked: the only thing we can do is to identify. learners that are progressed, we still teach them like any other learner. there’s not special way of teaching them. the challenges experienced by smts in implementing inclusive education the findings identified some common challenges that smts in all three schools encountered, which hinder inclusive teaching and learning practices. an area of concern was that parents are hesitant to acknowledge that their children are struggling with learning. an smt member (dh) at school a shared: the parents deny that their learners (children) are having learning barriers! it further emerged that in all three cases, parents are not supportive in assisting their children. a teacher at school c expressed that: it is a joint effort. it doesn’t help if teachers are there every day but the parents and the learners are not part of it. ramango & naicker: conceptualising a framework for school leaders . . . 95 at all three schools, participants expressed the need for support from school districts as well as social services. participants wanted district officials to visit schools and engage about the challenges pertaining to inclusive education. an smt member (dh) from school c was vocal about the lack of district support and asserted: support, none. criticise, a lot . . . but they [district] are never there to actually help you. the need for specialists such as nurses and psychiatrists came up in school b, and smt members in school a expressed the need for social workers and a psychologist. teachers at school a were vocal about the need for specialised learning materials that could address barriers to learning. a teacher stated: there is no different material or no different person that you’re going to take you through for that learner. school c was fortunate to be able to fund a social worker but felt that there was a need for more specialist teachers to address learning barriers. an smt member (dh) in school c elaborated that the expectations of teachers were too demanding as follows: the teacher is not only a teacher anymore. you should be the teacher, the doctor, and the whatever. that is problematic because the department expects from us to be everything. but we are specifically here teachers. across all three cases, it emerged that there was a need for better infrastructure to support inclusivity. teachers pointed out that: if we are to implement inclusive education. we need to change some of the infrastructure here at school to cater for all the learners. (school b) regarding our, the buildings of our schools, we’ve got all those learners with physical disabilities. so, it’s very difficult for them to climb stairs. (school a) i think that’s the problem, our school, we don’t have enough space for everyone. so, we have teachers who don’t have classrooms and they have to move around with the kids to other classrooms. (school c) smts as leaders have the responsibility of ensuring a safe accepting environment in which learning can take place. inclusive education is about creating a welcoming culture and ethos that accommodates the needs for all learners including those with physical disabilities. a concern that emerged across all three cases was that smt members and teachers do not have sufficient pedagogic skills to teach and include learners who are experiencing learning barriers. hence, learners experiencing learning barriers are being taught in the same classroom as their competent peers, with no pedagogy differentiation. a teacher at school c expressed that they were not trained to address learning barriers: 96 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 then even teachers that’s trained to work with learning disabilities to take an example, i mean i’m not trained to really deal with it! so, in a way it is really hit and run. but if we can get people at school that’s trained to do it [assist to fast-track the learner]. a teacher at school a grappled with the notion of assessing learners with learning barriers. the teacher stated: the very questions that we say are easy, targeting those we feel have got barriers, we even give them to those that we feel are intelligent. another teacher found it difficult to teach physical education for the life orientation programme to learners who are physically disabled together with the rest of the class. a teacher at school b was of the view that training is necessary and remarked: yeah. because inclusive education, they just introduced it, and i had to adjust to it, without proper training. the same teacher pointed out that the smt members too, required training, highlighting that: they [smt] must also be equipped, ma’m. they cannot train, they cannot assist us if they also don’t know much about this. so, they need to be trained thoroughly. there is a need for pedagogical training for teachers so that they receive the knowledge and skills required for differential learning activities. makoelle (2014, p. 1260) maintained that inclusive pedagogy should entail a “totality of teaching methods, approaches, forms, and principles” that enhance learner participation and respond to the individual needs of learners through differentiation strategies. towards a framework for smts to promote an inclusive education culture makoelle (2020) highlighted that for the successful implementation of any educational programme such as inclusive education, the correct social framework is typically necessary to establish an environment conducive to change. moreover, education modifications aimed at achieving inclusive education necessitate various “systemic, structural changes, in theory, principles, and practices,” and schools’ reorganisation (makoelle, 2020, p. 3). thus, the findings of this research led to the synthesis of a framework emphasising three essential components required for smts to promote an inclusive culture. the framework is illustrated in figure 1. each of the three main components, namely “leadership,” “fostering an inclusive education culture,” and “sias policy implementation,” has supporting elements that contribute to the fulfilment of the main component. the leadership component of the framework has three supporting elements. the first, social justice leadership, which served as a theoretical lens, highlights that smts must advocate for ramango & naicker: conceptualising a framework for school leaders . . . 97 inclusive education as a means to promote an equitable society in striving for social justice. social justice leadership ought to be represented in a school’s vision, beliefs, and practices (zhang et al., 2018). smts should recognise oppressive and unjust behaviours and utilise democratic methods to correct them by “reclaiming, appropriating, sustaining, and advancing inherent human rights, equality, and fairness in social, economic, and educational contexts” (dematthews & mawhinney, 2014, p. 847). bearing in mind the challenging contexts particularly of schools a and b in this study, smts need to identify, investigate, and create solutions to socioeconomic disparities and other challenges affecting learning in their schools. figure 1 the school management team’s role in managing an inclusive education culture (adapted from ramango, 2021, p. 186) leadership fostering an inclusive education culture sias policy implementation social justice leadership visionary leadership strategic leadership teaching and learning culture understanding the sias policy management of learner rights stakeholders’ collaboration and involvement, e.g., dbe, dbst, peer supporters, parents, specialist teachers, psychologists, social workers, community groups, and police setting-up and utilising structures to drive the sias policy implementation managing continuing professional development for teachers managing intervention, remedial programmes, and referrals for learners with barriers resource management funding strategy for learning materials (ltsm) infrastructure, staff provisioning, and development 98 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 the second element of leadership that is proposed in the framework is visionary leadership. such leaders may formulate and communicate “distinct visions that provide meaning and purpose to an organization’s work” (taylor et al., 2014, p. 567). thus, the second element emphasises that it is necessary for smts to promote the vision of inclusive education by establishing clear goals aimed at fostering inclusive school cultures. visionary leaders consider what is best for the entire school, including its staff, learners, and parents. smts should be dedicated to driving change processes to achieve the school’s envisioned inclusive education goals. moreover, smts can strive to establish internal and external relationships through a shared vision, with the hope of mutual acceptance and advancement of that vision by others for the benefit of the school (roueche et al., 2014). the third element of leadership posited is strategic leadership. strategic leadership refers to the leader’s capacity to “anticipate, envisage, and retain flexibility while empowering others to accomplish strategic change” (jooste & fourie, 2009, p. 52). strategic leadership for inclusive education is about managing and guiding teachers to cope with change, as well as encouraging them to participate in making decisions that would improve a school’s long-term performance. to create social cohesion through cooperation, smts can engage in strategic planning, thinking, leading, and developing teachers. furthermore, smts ought to develop financial plans and budgets that align with the school’s goals, model healthy instructional practices, strategically analyse learner performance, and foster shared knowledge on curriculum and social justice activities (darling-hammond et al., 2017). the second component in the framework in figure 1 is fostering an inclusive education culture, which proposes three supporting elements. the first, teaching and learning culture, requires that smts strive towards a teaching and learning culture where curriculum delivery is “broad enough to equally accommodate the needs and conditions of every learner in society” (murungi, 2015, p. 3166). smts should create awareness that learners are not all the same and, as a result, cannot be approached in the same way in terms of pedagogy, including assessment practices. inclusive pedagogy requires “teaching techniques, approaches, forms, and ideas” that cater to differentiated learning styles (makoelle, 2014, p. 1260). the second element of the component, fostering an inclusive education culture, is management of learner rights. smts are responsible for managing the rights of all learners to learn in a safe school and classroom environment. smts can encourage beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours in the wider school community that respect learner rights. in this study, schools b and c had made strides towards encouraging constitutional values such as nondiscrimination. stakeholders’ collaboration and involvement is the third element proposed for fostering an inclusive education culture. smts can engage with educational psychologists, social workers, school district authorities, police, health professionals, and community-based groups to involve them in supporting inclusivity. furthermore, smts could make an effort to include parents in general support for learners but also create awareness about the concept of inclusive education. smts need to find ways to collaborate with school district officials and alert them to some of the challenges that they face. for instance, school districts can arrange ramango & naicker: conceptualising a framework for school leaders . . . 99 training for inclusive pedagogies. smts could attract the commitment and participation of teachers, parents, and other stakeholders by “creating a school vision, defining school goals, modelling best practices, and exhibiting high-performance expectations” (bush & glover, 2016, p. 6). the third component in the framework in figure 1 is sias policy implementation, and comprises five elements. the first element posited is understanding the sias policy. smts must understand and be conversant with the sias policy guidelines, which serve as the agenda for regulating inclusion processes (dbe, 2014). the managerial plans of smts should complement the sias policy framework, focusing on identifying learners encountering various barriers, assessing them, and providing support to increase their involvement in school activities (dbe, 2014). furthermore, smts should implement support programmes to address learning barriers, and assist learners who have not fulfilled the specified standards for competence in previous grades (dbe, 2014). there was evidence in this study that schools b and c were on the right path in introducing interventions in their schools to address both social ills and academic performance. the second element is setting up and utilising structures for sias policy implementation. principals are responsible to establish structures to support and implement the sias policy. the principal is tasked to set up a sbst, which is the main coordinating structure for inclusive education, and ensure that it is functional (dbe, 2014). as specified by the sias policy, support structures such as smts, sbsts, district based support teams (dbsts), and parents or caregivers should be used to serve various levels of learner needs (dbe, 2014). what came across in this study is that smts could not make a clear distinction between their roles as sbst members and those as smt. the third element important to the component of the sias policy implementation is managing continuous professional development for teachers. this component emphasises the need for smts to manage continuing professional development for teachers to achieve inclusive education goals. smts can focus on “improving individual performance, correcting unproductive processes, laying the basis for policy implementation, and facilitating change” (blandford, 2012, p. 3). arising from the study findings, smts should ensure that teachers are trained and equipped with pedagogic content knowledge, skills, and tools to meet a wide range of learner needs. managing intervention, remedial programmes, and referrals is the fourth element. smts are encouraged to create planned interventions, remedial programmes, and referral mechanisms to assist learners who have been identified as having learning barriers. the goal is to improve teaching and learning in inclusive classrooms without making learners feel marginalised. smts should help teachers gather evidence regarding at-risk learners, those experiencing learning breakdowns, and those who may drop out of school to provide interventions (dbe, 2014). support for learners should not only focus on the diagnosis and remediation of individual learning needs but also on the holistic approach where a whole range of possible learning barriers have to be considered (dbe, 2014). 100 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 the fifth element posited is resource management funding strategy. this element proposes that funding is required for various aspects including professional development, school infrastructure, pedagogic learning material, specialist teachers, and psychologists. the south african schools act (republic of south africa, 1996) stipulated that sgbs are responsible for a school’s financial and physical resource management, and to supplement state funding. mestry (2016, p. 1) emphasised the need for sgbs to obtain funding from “parents, corporations, and the broader community through school fees, donations, and other fundraising projects” to support effective teaching and learning. parents cannot be asked to pay for infrastructure changes because such arrangements are the responsibility of the dbe, (2010). however, sbgs are mandated to raise funds for increased personnel provisioning such as securing human resources necessary to support learning and provide specialised services. conclusion the global shift toward inclusive education has had a significant impact on educational change in south africa. for inclusive education to succeed in a developing economy like south africa, it is important to reflect on the progress that has been made, identify where the shortcomings are, and contemplate how to move forward to make the ideal of inclusive education a reality. notably, the policy framework for inclusive education has been set and is in alignment with the values and principles of the constitution of the country. inclusive education has been introduced in schools and this research indicated that transformation towards non-discriminative attitudes is taking place. furthermore, attempts to provide interventions in at least two of the three schools studied had materialised. however, various shortcomings prevail that both challenge and overwhelm smts. smt members need to fully conceptualise the concept of inclusivity and empower themselves with thorough knowledge of the sias policy. this will enable them to better implement the sias policy. it is necessary to work with parents to enable an understanding of inclusive education in order to garner their support. advocating for professional development opportunities for teachers in order to improve inclusive pedagogy is a matter that smts must drive resolutely. furthermore, there is a need for human and financial resources to support inclusive education. arising from this research is a framework that identifies three components that smts might find helpful in promoting an inclusive education culture in their schools. the three components draw attention to the need for appropriate leadership, fostering an inclusive school culture, and translating the sias policy into practice. school leaders hold the key that can drive transformation 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(2018). social justice leadership in education: a suggested questionnaire. research in educational administration & leadership (real), 3(1), 53–86. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326657535_social_justice_leadership_in_ education_a_suggested_questionnaire microsoft word c8900 full issue 12dec.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 89, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i89a08 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x is education blithely producing unemployed graduates? a reflection based on a review of environmental skills initiatives (2016-2021) eureta rosenberg environmental learning research centre, faculty of education, rhodes university, makhanda, south africa e.rosenberg@ru.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7421-7120 (received: 27 february 2022; accepted: 1 september 2022) abstract a statement from the president of the black business council (bbc) that “our education system continues to produce the unemployed graduates” (newzroomafrika, 2021) because “the courses they are doing are not required by industry” reflects the perennial perception that south africa’s education system is a cause of unemployment. in this paper, i explore aspects of this perception through a meta-review of environmental skillsrelated studies conducted over the past five years. data used in these studies include graduation trends based on higher education, employer surveys, analyses of skills needs in the workplace compared to courses offered, and case examples of internships and teacher development. using an ecological-systems model, i relate the findings, in a layered critical realist analysis, to the socio-cultural milieu in south africa. i challenge the conception of relevant graduate education evident in the bbc’s statement. keywords: graduate unemployment, higher education, skills, green economy, sustainability, re-thinking development introduction despite policies focused on reducing poverty and inequality, south africa has become a more unequal society after 1994, rather than a more equal one. (rosenberg, g., 2020, p. 4) this paper was inspired by the theme of the 2021 conference of the south african education research association: education for inclusivity and sustainability in times of increasing inequalities. its thrust was motivated by a statement from the president of the black business council (bbc) (newzroomafrika, 2021) suggesting that education providers are to blame for south africa’s high unemployment figures. pervasive unemployment is one of the main causes of income inequality in south africa. for education providers, the view that students rosenberg: is education blithely producing unemployed graduates? 147 are rendered unemployable by what we offer or fail to offer, has to be carefully interrogated—repeatedly if necessary. in this particular paper, i probe the relationship between employment and education (in particular higher education) through a meta-analysis of a recent review of a strategy to produce skills for the biodiversity sector (rosenberg et al., 2021), while also drawing on related studies in the broadly defined field of environmental education. as a scholarly field, environmental education may well yield relevant contributions to long-standing deliberations on the relationship between employment and education (such as allais, 2012) since it has consistently asked the question: what is education for? (orr, 1992). environmentalists have also consistently probed economic trajectories for the extent to which they can sustain both nature and human livelihoods (raworth, 2017). allais (2012) explored the problematic alignment between social and educational policy in the south african macroenvironment, and, focusing in particular on vocational education, questioned “the assumption that bringing vocational education closer to employers will improve its relevance and quality.” instead, she argued that “protecting vocational education from the immediate short-term needs of employers and from a narrow labour market focus may be the best way of improving it” (p. 640). here, i explore aspects of this argument in the context of higher education. the analysis on which it is based brings to the fore diverse factors that contribute to unemployment. i show that both policy and education providers are responding to signals about which skills south africa needs, but also that implementation is patchy and information on what exactly is needed is limited. it is also easy to misconstrue skills needs given the lack of clarity on what an inclusive, sustainable socio-economic development trajectory might entail. in conclusion, i caution against mistaken assumptions about the kind of socio-economic context in which graduates need to work and/or build a business and the mis-direction of educational programmes. to explore the relevance of educational offerings in relation to graduate success, a useful lens to employ is that of (transitioning) systems models (ramsarup, 2017). when learners move through educational spaces towards participation in society as active citizens, the relevance of what they study and learn is determined and shaped by a number of overlapping systems, that are, in turn, shaped by wider systems, with the macrolevel of the socio-cultural milieu of values, ideologies, resources, risks and opportunity structures infusing all others (härkönen, 2007). of particular relevance for this paper are economic systems, workplaces and attendant government systems, as well as educational systems, associated policies, and their enactment. these systems are graphically presented in figure 1 and figure 2 that are further explained in the methodology section. using figures 1 and 2 as a guide, this review follows the graduate moving through the overlapping systems of educational spaces and potential workplaces as shaped by various policy frameworks. one such policy framework is the national biodiversity framework of 2007 that noted a lack of transformation and skills shortages at a graduate level in the biodiversity sector. only loosely definable as a sector (vass et al., 2009), biodiversity employers include government, non-governmental organisations, industries, and private 148 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 companies working with and impacting on biodiversity and related natural resources such as water, as well as climate change, land degradation, and food security (south african national biodiversity institute (sanbi), 2010). to address the transformation and skills challenges and the delivery challenges in organisations responsible for the protection of natural resources, a biodiversity human capital development strategy (bhcds) 2010–2030 (sanbi, 2010) was produced in 2010, informed by a labour market analysis (vass et al., 2009). the mid-term review of the implementation of the bhcds (rosenberg et al., 2021) is a key resource in this (meta) review, hence highlighting it, but the biodiversity sector is only one sub-field in the broader field of environment-related skills and occupations. (for an overview of what the field constitutes, refer to rosenberg & ramsarup, 2020). among the institutions that need to consider environment-related learning outcomes are the educational role players: schools; community colleges; technical and vocational education and training (tvet) colleges; and universities while the department of higher education and training (dhet) and the national skills fund (nsf), among others, have related policy and provisioning roles (mohamed & ramsarup, 2020). government agencies outlining environmental imperatives for south africa and developing related policies include the department of forestry, fisheries and environment (dffe), department of science and innovation (dsi), department of water and sanitation (dws), and sanbi among others. universities have a particular role in this space since, beside their own programmes, they also play broader system building or mediating roles through focused research, centres, and programmes (lotz-sisitka, 2020). in the macrolevel milieu, water scarcity and the electricity crisis have worsened in south africa in the past five years. these issues are significant, not only because they involve environmental sustainability, but because they exacerbate inequalities. climate change has received attention in south africa in relation to jobs, renewable energy, food security, and just transitions to a green economy (satgar, 2018). in some international contexts there has been, in the past five years, a greater recognition of the links between nature and economics. the united kingdom treasury, for example, commissioned a review titled the economics of biodiversity: the dasgupta review (dasgupta, 2021) that identifies two of the most influential leverage points for addressing biodiversity loss as (1) reforming education and economics and (2) transforming the financial sector. in the intersection of these leverage points, sits an overhaul of economics education (see pp. 70, 76), a point that will become relevant in my discussion of the findings of this review. methodology the methodology i employed was a small-scale meta-review of selected environmental education and skills development studies that drew on the following theoretical frameworks: • ecological systems theory (bronfenbrenner, 1979; härkönen, 2007) rosenberg: is education blithely producing unemployed graduates? 149 • dialectical critical realism (bhaskar, 2016; rosenberg, 2020) • contradictions (engeström, 1987) and absences (bhaskar, 2016) i used a systems perspective to look at a phenomenon as complex as the relevance of educational outcomes as a whole and that would guide me to focus on the interrelationships between the elements in the system. 1 bronfenbrenner’s theory of human development (1979) draws on the work of kurt lewin and, in its later iterations, on vygotskian socio-cultural theory. it has been used in educational and workplace settings (härkönen, 2007; ramsarup, 2017) to foreground the interactions between learners and the layered contexts in which they find themselves, on an ever-increasing scale, and, in later iterations, has a time dimension as well. it is useful in explaining the outcomes of human development and is pertinent if one assumes that education is geared towards optimising human development (härkönen, 2007). based on such a systems framing, the following are important dimensions for an analysis focusing on education and employment. 1. the individual learner with their particular capabilities, who needs both an education and a livelihood, i.e., the opportunity to access economic and other resources; 2. the home, family, and community context of the individual learner; 3. the primary and secondary schooling of the individual-in-their-context; 4. further and higher education and workplace learning; 5. the economy (configurations and outcomes) of the country, region, and world; 6. the physical environment with its natural resources and their relationship with livelihoods and economies; and 7. policies and related practices such as fiscal and other planning, that may or may not influence all of the above. two models of this system guide the analysis: i developed the first one (figure 1), and this was published in the biodiversity human capital development strategy 2010–2030 (sanbi, 2010). the second model (figure 2) was originated by ramsarup (2017) drawing on bronfenbrenner (1979), and then further developed and published by rosenberg and ramsarup (2020). 1 see preiser (2019) for a useful outline of the features of complex systems. 150 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 figure 1 ‘expanded pipeline’ model of factors influencing green skills (sanbi, 2010) figure 2 green skills systems map (rosenberg and ramsarup, 2020) to interrogate critically the relationship between educational programmes and employment, the following questions related to each of these s journal of education, no. 89, 2022 factors influencing green skills (sanbi, 2010) green skills systems map (rosenberg and ramsarup, 2020) to interrogate critically the relationship between educational programmes and employment, the following questions related to each of these system domains, and the interfaces between to interrogate critically the relationship between educational programmes and employment, ystem domains, and the interfaces between rosenberg: is education blithely producing unemployed graduates? 151 them, were used for the current meta-review. these questions were initially identified by an expert group informing the mid-term review of the bhcds (rosenberg et al., 2021) and seemed pertinent also to guide the meta-review. table 1 the question sets guiding the meta-review question set 1: are environment-related education and training providers offering relevant programmes? question set 2: are employers satisfied with the skills of environmental graduates? question set 3: are learners aware of work opportunities, and the learning pathways required in the environmental field, and can they access these? question set 4: are the economy and the physical environment (dimensions of the macroenvironment) providing opportunities and resources? question set 5: are broader society and policies (further dimensions of the macroenvironment) providing opportunities, resources? a systems lens, in itself, would not necessarily provide particularly new or deep insights; a more probing analysis becomes possible when we use additional theoretical lenses to better understand the system and what is happening in it. in the review on which this paper is based i use the lenses of contradiction (engeström, 1987) and absences (bhaskar, 2016): what is contradictory about the interrelationships between the elements listed in table 1? what are the gaps or lacunae? what should be, that is not? do these gaps also take the form of contradictions, e.g., there is a stated intent but an opposite action or outcome, or there is a stated intent but the imbedded assumptions about how the intent is to be achieved, thwart its achievement? these lenses complement the bronfenbrenner (1979) framework; engeström, too, draws on socio-cultural theory and bhaskar’s critical realism shares an ontological framing of layered reality and emergence with bronfenbrenner’s ecological model. the data scrutinized for the meta-review were the environmental education and skills development studies (evaluations, reviews, and academic research by a range of scholars), conducted over the past five years. these studies are listed in table 2. the methodologies used in each of these studies is described in more detail in the studies themselves. table 2 provides a short summary of the approach followed in each of the studies. table 3 lists other studies that were not subjected to the same level of analysis, but which nonetheless yielded findings relevant to the analysis while economic analyses outside the selection were perused for question set 4. the selection of this sample was not made to inform a comprehensive systematic review, but aimed to be indicative, with the mid-term review of the bhcds (rosenberg et al., 2021) being one of the most recent and comprehensive of the studies reviewed. none of these studies was designed to directly interrogate the relationship between education and employment beyond their particular scope and this puts some limitations on the generalisability of conclusions that should therefore be interpreted in context. 152 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 table 2 studies reviewed in depth study reference methodology in each study green economy needs assessment, south africa (page, 2016) partnership for action on the green economy (page), 2016 i used a multi-leveled, mixed method methodology with focus groups, interviews, and case studies and policy review based on document analysis (see rosenberg, 2020 for an overview of the methodology) as well as an online and web-based survey of provider offerings. a multi-method, critical realist analysis of learning pathways using life stories and system data on environmental occupations with a transitioning systems framing (2017) ramsarup, 2017 phd thesis elucidating and exploring green skills learning pathways for environmental scientists and engineers an initial assessment of biodiversity related employment in south africa (2019) driver et al., 2019 an estimate of existing and potential employment in direct and indirect biodiversity related jobs doing labour market analysis mid-term review of the implementation of the biodiversity human capital development strategy 2010-2030 (2021) rosenberg et al., 2021 baseline comparisons of higher education management information system (hemis) data; employer surveys through online questionnaires; case studies based on interviews, focus groups, document analysis; meta-evaluations and a review of newer policies/policy revisions. the biodiversity human capital development strategy (2010) and the human sciences research council (hsrc) research informing it (vass et al., 2009) used interviews, particularly focused on transformation and scarce skills, a case study, hemis and labour market calculations to predict skills needs, noting that the necessary data was not always available fundisa for change green economy educator course for economics and management science and business studies (environmental learning research centre, elrc, 2021) (o’donoghue & rosenberg, in press) participatory observations and online engagements with course participants (teachers, lecturers, and education officials) as a course copresenter rosenberg: is education blithely producing unemployed graduates? 153 table 3 studies additionally considered in less depth on career guidance and internship programmes analysis of the programmes offered by world wide fund for nature south africa (wwf-sa, raven & eksteen, n.d.); m.ed. study evaluating the sanbi groen sebenza job creation programme (fullard, 2021) on training and skills development in environmental expanded public works programmes phd study: waste management knowledge, its production, recontextualisation and circulation in expanded public works programme training programmes (giqwa, 2018) on the national skills funding system phd study evaluating the environmental provisions of the national skills fund (nsf, sauls, 2018); evaluation by ramsarup (2017) of environmental skills planning and expenditure by sector education and training authorities (setas) as part of the evaluation of the implementation of the national skills development strategy (nsds) iii 2011–2016 (national skills authority, nsa, 2021) findings and analysis question set 1: are education and training providers offering relevant programmes? comprehensive (environmental) skills needs analyses are difficult to find, but the green economy learning assessment conducted for the partnership on action for the green economy (page, 2016) is pertinent. guided by various government departments, international agencies, employers, and education providers, this study explored employer and stakeholder perceptions of the broad generic skills that graduate level environmental champions need. these learning needs were, with some caveats, framed as technical, relational, and transformational competencies (rosenberg et al., 2018). they ranged from technical skills such as how to maintain a water purification plant or conduct an energy audit to relational skills such as an energy auditor’s ability to encourage maintenance staff to take care of retrofitted green buildings, or a graduate in one discipline to work with contributions from other disciplines using inter-disciplinary teamwork. transformational competencies included the ability to forecast what a system or organisation needs for the future, what a new, functioning system could look like, and how to achieve it. the introduction of south africa’s first public-private partnership-based renewable energy programmes had many of these transformational competencies in evidence since they involved not only the first attempt at scale to materialise renewable energy in the country, but also innovative institutional arrangements to make this possible despite an uncertain policy environment (eberhard et al., 2014). other studies that addressed the question of what employers need were green skills audits undertaken for the setas like, for example, the 154 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 public seta (ward et al., 2016) and the mining qualifications authority (rosenberg, e., 2020). were universities attempting to produce these sought-after skills? by and large, yes, but with some caveats. based on hemis data, the bhcds review (rosenberg et al., 2021) found that 34,418 students graduated in 2018 with a degree in study fields of primary, secondary, or generic relevance to biodiversity, including in the computer and data processing sciences—a particularly scarce skill set in this sector (vass et al., 2009). this is an 88% increase in relevant graduations in the 11 years since the baseline constructed by vass et al. (2009, based on 2007 hemis data) for the bhcds (sanbi, 2010). the provider survey component of the green economy learning assessment (page, 2016) found that universities and other providers do offer education and training programmes for the spectrum of learning needs identified in the assessment. however, some emerging and niche relevant courses were often not accredited on the national qualifications framework and therefore not eligible for skills levy funding; employers also found accessing seta funding prohibitively onerous. hence funding for relevant training was often an issue, and courses could not be offered on the scale at which there was a demand. emerging graduate skills needs, involving, for example, mine pollution remediation, were also reported to be underfunded (rosenberg, e., 2020). the steep rise in graduate numbers reflected in the hemis data, combined with reduced subsidies, left some university programmes significantly under-resourced. noting that there was often not enough attention paid to relational and transformational competencies in the programmes on offer, respondents in the national green economy learning assessment also disagreed on whether universities, or at least in relation to a bachelor’s degree, could build the full scope of competences required in many environmental occupations. some respondents indicated that further degrees were needed to develop these competences; others argued that they could be more fully developed only in the workplace. post-graduate programmes that supported employees to develop leadership, reflexivity, and other transformational competencies in relation to challenging environment-related work, were regarded as important, but also oversubscribed and underfunded, with too few educators available to design and offer such courses (page, 2016). question set 2: are employers satisfied with the skills of graduates? the mid-term review of the bhcds (rosenberg et al., 2021) included a questionnaire-based employer survey. this found that compared to 10 years ago, employers of environmental skills are now equally or slightly more satisfied with the skills of graduates (see figure 3), and they are finding it easier to fill senior scientific positions, including with black and women graduates. however, some concerns remain (a high number report that the situation is unchanged, or that they are unsure), and the pattern reflected by employers is generally uneven, as it was when the bhcds (sanbi, 2010) was developed. some employers/tasks require specialisation and depth from graduates, others need greater breadth. rosenberg: is education blithely producing unemployed graduates? 155 figure 3 biodiversity employer survey data: perceptions of current graduate skills and knowledge compared to 10 years ago (prepared by jenkin in rosenberg et al., 2021) several skills needs assessments showed that employers are also not necessarily clear on workplace skills needs. a study for the mining qualifications authority (rosenberg, e., 2020) noted that where a government official reported that his department had suitably qualified skills to process mining licenses, a former employee and sector stakeholders identified skills gaps. employees processing license applications work with conflicting mandates that on the one hand, advance industrial development through mining, and on the other, protect environmental resources. they were inadequately equipped to perform this task under time and other pressures, despite their qualifications. in summary, • employers in the biodiversity sector are somewhat more satisfied than they were 10 years ago with graduate level skills; • different employers need different things: some need more depth and others more breadth; • employers need a range of skills that can be described as technical, relational, and transformational competences, and some of these develop with time and experience; • employers are not always fully cognisant of what they need, or there may be contradictory views, linked in some cases to conflicting organisational mandates, on what is needed; • there is generally a good match between what some institutions offer and what employers require; however, many of the most relevant courses are oversubscribed and under-resourced, with too few skilled staff or financial resources; and • further developing graduate competencies in the workplace seemed vital. based on these findings for environment related skills, it is clear that we cannot make unequivocal statements that the skills with which graduates leave an educational institution 9 29 31 11 2 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 0-20 20-40 40-60 60-80 80-100 n u m b e r o f re s p o n s e s better no change/unsure worsebetter no change/unsure worsebetter no change/unsure worsebetter no change/unsure worse current situation regarding knowledge and skills of graduates, compared to 10 years ago 156 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 are uniformly irrelevant or not valued by employers. some are highly valued why graduates were more sought after than non the studies in this meta-review, and why there is a high demand for graduate level training. what then could cause a graduate to be unable to fin the issue of access that speaks directly to inequality and inclusivity question set 3: are learners aware of livelihood opportunities and the learning pathways required, and can they access these? in their research to inform the development and the evaluation of an environmental careers programme for universities, raven and eksteen (n. d.) of the world wide fund for nature south africa (wwf-sa), found that students were often not aware of the environment as an employment sector, and that south african universities’ career expos have little to no coverage of environmental careers. when raven and eksteen presented them with environmental careers information, students from a range of faculties e.g., resource economists (for economics graduates) or environmental engineers (for engineering graduates) expressed an interest in such careers. noting the need for an accessible platform to promote environmental careers, the national environmental skills planning forum encourag to develop environmental careers resources for university students, which are now available on the wwf-sa website (see figure 4). dhet’s careers portal also flags green careers. figure 4 career guidance resources raven and eksteen (n.d.) further programme offered were consistently oversubscribed; they received literally hundreds of applications each year for a handful of positions. the bhcds review, too, found that while young people need workplace journal of education, no. 89, 2022 are uniformly irrelevant or not valued by employers. some are highly valued why graduates were more sought after than non-graduates in all the positions in the scope of review, and why there is a high demand for graduate level training. what then could cause a graduate to be unable to find a job? the next question set explores the issue of access that speaks directly to inequality and inclusivity. question set 3: are learners aware of livelihood opportunities and the learning pathways required, and can they access these? to inform the development and the evaluation of an environmental careers programme for universities, raven and eksteen (n. d.) of the world wide fund for nature sa), found that students were often not aware of the environment as an loyment sector, and that south african universities’ career expos have little to no coverage of environmental careers. when raven and eksteen presented them with environmental careers information, students from a range of faculties e.g., resource s (for economics graduates) or environmental engineers (for engineering graduates) expressed an interest in such careers. noting the need for an accessible platform to promote environmental careers, the national environmental skills planning forum encourag to develop environmental careers resources for university students, which are now available sa website (see figure 4). dhet’s careers portal also flags green careers. raven and eksteen (n.d.) further found that the opportunities the annual wwf programme offered were consistently oversubscribed; they received literally hundreds of applications each year for a handful of positions. the bhcds review, too, found that while workplace-based opportunities to further develop their technical, are uniformly irrelevant or not valued by employers. some are highly valued, which explains graduates in all the positions in the scope of review, and why there is a high demand for graduate level training. d a job? the next question set explores question set 3: are learners aware of livelihood opportunities and the learning to inform the development and the evaluation of an environmental careers programme for universities, raven and eksteen (n. d.) of the world wide fund for nature – sa), found that students were often not aware of the environment as an loyment sector, and that south african universities’ career expos have little to no coverage of environmental careers. when raven and eksteen presented them with environmental careers information, students from a range of faculties e.g., resource s (for economics graduates) or environmental engineers (for engineering graduates) expressed an interest in such careers. noting the need for an accessible platform to promote environmental careers, the national environmental skills planning forum encouraged raven to develop environmental careers resources for university students, which are now available sa website (see figure 4). dhet’s careers portal also flags green careers. found that the opportunities the annual wwf-sa internship programme offered were consistently oversubscribed; they received literally hundreds of applications each year for a handful of positions. the bhcds review, too, found that while based opportunities to further develop their technical, rosenberg: is education blithely producing unemployed graduates? 157 relational, and transformational competencies, organisations report not having adequate resources to take in and mentor (more) young people even though they had need for their skills. a shortage of workplace-based opportunities for graduates and school leavers was also noted in the national groen sebenza programme (fullard, 2021). academic studies further reveal unequal access to the limited opportunities along with reasons for this. black women, for example, are less likely to progress from a bachelor’s or honours degree to a further degree; this is evident in hemis data (rosenberg et al., 2021). dotwana (2014) and ramsarup (2017) both found that in order to access a supervisor and funding for post-graduate studies, or a job after earning a degree, graduates need networks and other forms of social capital. the first-generation graduate has less access to such social capital, and often less confidence with which to venture forth and build such capital and the black female student is most at risk of dropping out before completing sought-after further degrees. this was the rationale for the greenmatter fellowship (greenmatter, 2020; rosenberg et al., 2021) and the groen sebenza programme (fullard, 2020), both of which introduce graduates to new networks and build networking skills. thus, microlevel systems (in bronfenbrenner’s terms), of environmental and educational organisations and funders, are found to interact in order to transition small numbers of individual graduates into environmental jobs. but the levels at which internship programmes are oversubscribed points to question set 4, regarding whether the labour market can absorb the 34,000+ environmental graduates who graduated in 2018. question set 4: is the economy providing opportunities and resources? is the physical environment providing opportunities and resources? the question set on opportunities and constraints in the economic and physical environment takes the analysis to the outer circles of bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development. here broader economic and environmental reports were read. this reading analysis suggests that these two dimensions of the macro-level system are intertwined. south africa’s formal economy has been stagnant for some 40 years, with an average annual growth of 0.29% (bhorat, 2021) in stark contrast to the growth in the population (the size of which not only increased by some 108% between 1980 and 2020, but also exploded in the 1990s when policy had to cater for the first time for the entire population, and not just a politically privileged elite). it stands to reason that labour absorption will be inadequate. a recent study by the growth lab at harvard university (hausmann et al., 2022) attributed around 25% of what they described as the degrowth in the south african economy to the shrinkage of commodity-based industries like mining (linked to physical depletion of the resource base), while 35% was attributed to failures in the utilities sector. erratic electricity supply has impacts across the economy, as does an inadequate supply of water, for which demand is outstripping availability, with governance failures also creating inefficiencies on top of droughts linked to climate change. growing uncertainty regarding economic and 158 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 regulatory policies has also reduced investment, according to the hausmann et al. (2022) study. responding to the limits in the labour absorption capacity of the formal economy, government has both invested in public works programmes and called for the youth to start businesses so as to secure their own livelihoods and boost growth. following our systems model we can then ask what livelihood and enterprise development opportunities the environment presents in south africa’s towns, townships, and rural areas. taking care of the physical environment presents opportunity structures in the form of water quality monitoring, leaks preventions and the equitable provisioning of water, decentralized supply of clean and safe energy, sustainable transport, food security, climate change and air quality monitors, propagation of indigenous plants; and land, river and wetland rehabilitators. 2 the expanded public works programmes (giqwa, 2018) have been a source of livelihoods on a large scale, with its most successful programmes being the working for water, working on fire, working for the coast, and working for ecosystems programmes, with even greater potential envisaged (maia et al., 2011). this green jobs study calculated that 462,000 full-time, direct jobs could be created through a greening of the economy. more recently driver et al., (2019) estimated that south africa already employs 418,000 people in biodiversity related jobs, a figure comparable to the mining industry. in other words, the environment is already providing and could potentially provide more work opportunities. why then the contradiction of large numbers of interns knocking on closed doors and unemployed graduates? in the employer survey component of the bhcds mid-term review (rosenberg et al., 2021) environmental employers indicated that they are underfunded and understaffed; they have been experiencing chronic budget constraints (see figure 5), and they could readily employ more people if they were more adequately resourced. budget constraints were reported to be one of the most significant issues affecting organisational effectiveness in the biodiversity sector. this emerged as a contradiction: organisations that could potentially grow the green economy, and associated employment, are under-resourced, and have been for at least a decade. reflecting back across the systems components to question sets 1 and 2, there is also a contradiction between the scale at which the need for environmental protection and rehabilitation could be creating employment, and the scale at which there is an investment in the development of such skills. the roots of these two sets of contradictions may be found in the final set of questions asked in this metareview. 2 see https://restory.co.za/ figure 5 biodiversity employers’ perception of budgetary constraints in their organisations question set 5: is broader society, with its policies, providing opportunities, resources? many national policies make provision for environmental education and training, starting with the white paper on education and training environmental education should be an integral part of education and training at all levels in the system. environmental content and related learning outcomes feature in the school curriculum and teacher development initiatives. alignment with a plethora of environmental policies, from the national water act of 1998 to the more recent climate change adaptation strategy, all of which have skill (mohamed & ramsarup, 2020). environmental sustainability and notes not only the links between a healthy environment and the economy, but also the importance of a capable state (in whi south africa’s natural resources. of human capital development and transformation remains a priority in national biodiversity strategy and action p affairs, 2015). the green economy accord (economic development department (edd), 2011) signalled awareness of the possibility of and need to create jobs on what it has termed a clean, green and inclusive development but between these policy level intentions and implementation on the ground a glaring gap was identified. in her analysis of seta expenditure on green skills as part of an evaluation of the implementation of the national skills development strategy ( found that setas fund research into green skills, which then appear as priorities in sector skills plans, but seldom invest in related training. similarly, sauls (2018) found that despite 3 see https://fundisaforchange.co.za/ rosenberg: is education blithely producing unemployed graduates? employers’ perception of budgetary constraints in their organisations question set 5: is broader society, with its policies, providing opportunities, many national policies make provision for environmental education and training, starting white paper on education and training (rsa, 1995) that indicated that environmental education should be an integral part of education and training at all levels in the system. environmental content and related learning outcomes feature in the school urriculum and teacher development initiatives. 3 such educational responses indicate some alignment with a plethora of environmental policies, from the national water act of 1998 to the more recent climate change adaptation strategy, all of which have skill (mohamed & ramsarup, 2020). the national development plan 2030 dedicates a chapter to environmental sustainability and notes not only the links between a healthy environment and the economy, but also the importance of a capable state (in which skills are key) to govern south africa’s natural resources. the national biodiversity framework’s strategic objective of human capital development and transformation remains a priority in south africa’s second national biodiversity strategy and action plan 2015-2025 (department of environment affairs, 2015). the green economy accord (economic development department (edd), 2011) signalled awareness of the possibility of and need to create jobs on what it has termed a clean, green and inclusive development path. but between these policy level intentions and implementation on the ground a glaring gap was identified. in her analysis of seta expenditure on green skills as part of an evaluation of the implementation of the national skills development strategy (nsa, 2021), ramsarup found that setas fund research into green skills, which then appear as priorities in sector skills plans, but seldom invest in related training. similarly, sauls (2018) found that despite see https://fundisaforchange.co.za/ rosenberg: is education blithely producing unemployed graduates? 159 question set 5: is broader society, with its policies, providing opportunities, many national policies make provision for environmental education and training, starting (rsa, 1995) that indicated that environmental education should be an integral part of education and training at all levels in the system. environmental content and related learning outcomes feature in the school such educational responses indicate some alignment with a plethora of environmental policies, from the national water act of 1998 to the more recent climate change adaptation strategy, all of which have skills implications the national development plan 2030 dedicates a chapter to environmental sustainability and notes not only the links between a healthy environment and ch skills are key) to govern the national biodiversity framework’s strategic objective south africa’s second (department of environment affairs, 2015). the green economy accord (economic development department (edd), 2011) signalled awareness of the possibility of and need to create jobs on what it has termed a but between these policy level intentions and implementation on the ground a glaring gap was identified. in her analysis of seta expenditure on green skills as part of an evaluation of nsa, 2021), ramsarup found that setas fund research into green skills, which then appear as priorities in sector skills plans, but seldom invest in related training. similarly, sauls (2018) found that despite 160 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 policy directives, the national skills fund (nsf) does not fund environmental education and training on a significant scale. what about the school curriculum? the mid-term review of the bhcds included an analysis of the fundisa for change programme 4 for building environmental education capacity among educators. here, in the final part of the meta-review, an analysis of a fundisa for change educator course focused on green economy, sustainability and entrepreneurship 5 in which i was a co-presenter (see rosenberg & o’donoghue, in press), adds a micro-perspective that speaks back to the macro-context, following the layered systems analysis deployed for this meta-review. in grade 7, the compulsory subject economics and management sciences (ems) features a major project titled entrepreneurs’ day (department of basic education 2011a) or what some teachers referred to as “market day”. teachers on the course described how learners bring cupcakes or buy large packets of treats and re-package them to sell at a profit (production and retail as economic activity). others wash cars for a fee. some schools’ approaches to entrepreneurs’ day stand out because of their context-sensitive approach to economics. in these schools the learners, under teachers’ guidance, advertise the event in the surrounding community weeks in advance to drum up support. they propagate plants in discarded tins that are decorated, crochet pencil cases from plastic packets, and repurpose old jeans into shopping bags. these regenerative activities are impressive in themselves. in some cases, part of the profit is used to cook a meal for the elderly and unemployed members of the schools’ feeder community (o’donoghue and rosenberg, in press). several primary school teachers did resonate with these examples and they had their own versions to share. but when high school teachers were asked how the green economy or sustainability features in business studies, they had no examples. their teaching was strongly focused on the development of a business plan and pitch, and aspects like outsmarting the competition and maximizing profit growth were prominent. while the grade 8-12 business studies curriculum (dbe, 2011b) required learners to consider the environment (e.g., “how will you manage the waste”) and to “create business opportunities, creatively solve problems and take risks, respecting the rights of others and environmental sustainability” (p. 8) creating business by or while taking care of the environment or community, did not feature in any of the participating high school teachers’ teaching activities. discussion: who or what is producing the unemployed graduates? from the analysis of studies pertaining to the biodiversity field, the following emerged: universities cannot be singled out and blamed for unemployment. according to the hemis analysis and employer surveys in the bhcds review, universities are producing graduates with environment-relevant qualifications. according to the 4 see https://fundisaforchange.co.za/ 5 see https://course.greenskills.co.za/ rosenberg: is education blithely producing unemployed graduates? 161 policy context outlined above, as well as our socio-material realities of water and energy shortages, climate change and biodiversity loss, south africa needs such graduates. sector skills plans confirm this (nsa, 2021). however, the level of training and work-based learning opportunities provided, and the resourcing of such opportunities, is inadequate compared to the scale of the need and the associated opportunities. the bhcds and related studies also suggested that graduates have unequal access to the knowledge and social networks that provide access to the limited further study and employment opportunities. and unfortunately, environmental agencies who have work that these graduates could do, often carry unfilled vacancies for years, in the context of at least a decade of chronic underfunding. the contradiction of not adequately funding a stated national priority might well be linked to ideological tensions: death (2014) and cock (2018) among others have argued that there are ideological tensions, flaws, and contradictions in the way government approaches the green economy. the green economy accord (edd, 2011) has not seen concerted implementation efforts, and the general thrust of discussions about economic opportunity remains in the realm of industrial development. is the economy to be blamed for creating the unemployed graduates? the loss of revenue as a result of state capture, inefficiencies, and bailouts described in the hausmann et al. (2022) study has certainly reduced the fiscus. a lack of growth has been noted earlier (see bhorat, 2021), but economic growth might not necessarily be the answer since it is not always a clear contributor to either employment or well-being (fioramenti, 2017; raworth, 2017). thus, if we are to look to the economy for employment creation, it could well be that a different kind of economy is needed. this was to some extent envisaged in notions of a green economy that would be inclusive, low-carbon and job intensive (edd, 2011). however, there have been policy inconsistencies (death, 2014; eberhard et al., 2014) and little follow-through. this makes targeted green skills development very difficult (mohamed & ramsarup, 2020). in such an incoherent policy context it is challenging and could be entirely misdirected to tie education tightly to employer needs described as “what industry needs” (newzroomafrika, 2021, n.p.). allais (2012) and others (e.g., gamble 2004, 2011, quoted in allais) argued that vocational training should not be tightly tied to specific employer needs. this study, focusing on graduate education, bears out this observation, in a number of ways. employers require diverse skills, e.g., some require more breadth, some more depth from graduates. there are also different opinions on what employers need in the context of complex and contradictory mandates. and employers are not always clear on what skills they need, with the uncertain and inconsistent regulatory and policy environment a considerable factor in this regard. furthermore, the work and livelihood opportunities of the not-too-distant future may not yet be known today. a generic green education, in which issues and sample solutions (hoffman, 2021) are explored, as well as ideological tensions, along with the development of basic academic life, learning, and research skills, could be valuable. 162 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 the review also suggests that not all educational programmes on offer are necessarily appropriate. in the green economy learning assessment (page, 2016) employers and sector stakeholders noted that while technical competencies were important, education and training providers tended to give much less attention to the relational and transformational competencies that complement technical know-how. transformational competencies speak to graduates’ ability to envisage and (co)create ‘what is not yet there’ and would be an important part of a future-creating curriculum, that is, a curriculum with the power to create livelihoods despite and in fact, in response to, the intractable social-environmental problems of our context. a germ cell of possibility exists in the way in which some primary schools work with the entrepreneurs’ day component of the grade 7 ems curriculum (o’donoghue & rosenberg, in press). here teachers worked with the environmental content in the curriculum, the schools’ feeder community, and their learners in creative and context-appropriate ways. their approach to entrepreneurship, in which profits are shared with the community, thus sustaining the cycle of production and profit-making year after year, is environmentally and socially sustainable, builds community, and develops academic skills (literacy, numeracy, budgeting, accounting, crafting, and communicating) in one curriculum activity that is apparently also fun. as one teacher on the fundisa for change course noted, and others echoed, “the learners look forward to be[ing] in grade 7 because of market day.” this socio-environmental approach to enterprise development stands in stark contrast to entrepreneurship training observed by rosenberg, g. (2020) who critiqued programmes that prioritise individualism, competitiveness, and the pursuit of growth for its own sake as the de rigeur business model, as being inappropriate for south african township contexts. it also seems not to be used by business studies teachers in high school (although the data is perhaps too limited for me to make this claim). while i could not locate many studies on environmental entrepreneurship training, an evaluation of the green matter programme (greenmatter, 2020), like the preliminary work by rosenberg, g. (2020) suggests that approaches to entrepreneurial training outside of the school context tend to follow a conventional approach to the analysis of market forces and profit growth models. the training modules provided in epwp programmes in a bid to turn beneficiaries into business owners, were found by giqwa (2018) to be inefficient and costly in financial terms and in fading human hopes. conventional approaches to business development may need an overhaul. dasgupta (2020) advised that the most important leverage points for social-environmental change are reforms in the financial and education systems. in the contexts outlined in this paper, programmes in economics, business studies, and entrepreneurship development would seem to be key among those needing a new orientation. thus, while education cannot be blamed for creating the unemployed graduates, education is probably not yet doing enough to support graduates to create a new future, including new economies and livelihood options. in the field of entrepreneurship education, there is the danger of approaching it with the fixed idea of the high consumption, profit, and growth model in mind that has been critiqued for its rosenberg: is education blithely producing unemployed graduates? 163 flawed assumptions of trickle-down benefit (fioramenti, 2017; raworth, 2017). a different approach takes the form of green work and social enterprises for creating work and livelihoods. 6 environmental economists argue that the environmental challenges of our time, such as energy and water failures or land degradation, present better opportunities to create livelihoods (crookes & blignaut, 2019). there are regenerative, inclusive green economy livelihoods and business opportunities in restoring, repairing, remediating, and regenerating environmental resources. such economic forms have been explored, and exist in pockets (fioramonti, 2017; raworth, 2017). individual studies reviewed here, and the meta-review overall suggest, however, that despite policy directives, key role players in the skills system do not invest in environmental skills at the scale required. perhaps the role-players in the skills system are ironically too closely led by the vision that industrial growth will eventually benefit all. with this observation, the caution to not tie education and training too closely to perceptions of what industry needs, is borne out in a context in which there is contestation of what form(s) of economic development will actually benefit people and planet. conclusions: implications for education by 2030, as much as 42% of the world’s young people may be living in africa (united nations, 2015). this raises the spectre of many more unemployed graduates. south africa’s formal economy cannot absorb the growing youth population. it is not doing so in its current contracted state, and it could also not do so from 1997 to 2007, when it experienced “remarkable economic growth” (hausmann et al., 2022, p. 0). along with far more accountable governance, and policies that effectively foreground societal needs (boraine, 2021), new forms of economic activity and livelihoods creation are needed. however, education cannot be let off the hook. as dasgupta (2021) noted, new forms of education are also needed. the recently released education futures report (unesco, 2021) asks us to envisage new ways to educate under current realities, towards greater abundance for all, rather than increasing scarcities. what do we learn from the multi-level meta-review in this paper, that informs how we think about education? first, the macro-context is one of dire social needs and environmental degradation, with policy that signals a desire to address these issues, but also contradicts itself in many ways, including with internal inconsistencies across policies and mandates (page, 2016; rosenberg, e., 2020), lack of aligned implementation (boraine, 2021, eberhard et al., 2014; page, 2016) and failure to show results. in this context, education providers, policy makers, and funders would find it difficult (and would be unwise to try) to tie educational programmes tightly to perceived employer (industry) needs. what these needs are, and whether they will lead to the desired outcome of well-being for all, are unclear and contested (cock 2018; death 2014; fioramenti, 2017). 6 see http://restory.co.za/ 164 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 what we can consider is to have education equip the youth with transformative knowledge and skills to work out new solutions and pathways to sustainable futures. education is shaped by, but also feeds into, the socio-cultural macrosystem that permeates all other systems, sensu bronfenbrenner—the beliefs, values, ideologies, resources, risks, opportunity structures, and life options that are imbedded in the systems (härkönen, 2007). environmental and social sustainability teaching is already taking place in schools and universities, although seemingly at far too small a scale. the vignette of teachers (re) orienting entrepreneurs day into a market day that responds to their prevailing conditions and the aligned values of social wellbeing and environmental sustainability, is, in my view, an example of responsive education that ask learners to think in socially and environmentally responsible ways about business and how to sustain themselves and others within those communities and environments. in conclusion, i challenge the opening statement by the black business council that presents a narrow view of industry needs as the aim of graduate education and call for a more careful and transformative take on what we are educating for. references allais, s. 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(2009). guidelines for a human capital development strategy in the biodiversity conservation sector. human sciences research council. ward, m., jenkin, n., misser, a., & ramsarup, p. (2016). occupationally directed green skills development for green public supply chain management. public sector education and training authority and the greenskills programme. https://www.greenskills.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/consolidated-psetareport-final.pdf. microsoft word b91 full issue.docx journal of education, 2023 issue 91, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i91a04 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x teachers’ perceptions on teaching comprehensive sexuality education in early grades in chipinge, zimbabwe thaddeus mahoso department of early childhood, faculty of education, botswana open university, gabo rone, botswana teddymahoso@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1104-9569 michelle finestone department of educational psychology, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa michelle.finestone@up.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0797-3529 (received: 21 august 2022; accepted: 7 june 2023) abstract this study aimed at unravelling and comprehending teachers’ perceptions on the teaching of comprehensive sexuality education (cse) in early grades. the study opted for a qualitative case study design in an interpretive paradigm, with semi-structured interviews and document analysis as data-gathering instruments. ten primary school teachers responsible for early childhood development were selected through purposive sampling. the collected data were analysed using a thematic approach. this study revealed that early grade teachers in zimbabwe perceived cse as essential in empowering early grade children with skills, knowledge, and attitudes needed to protect them from sexual abuse. however, they were uncomfortable teaching it due to several cultural restrictions. the teachers felt the need to be supported in the teaching of cse in early childhood by being provided with a curriculum, appropriate professional development strategies, and teaching materials. the study recommends the teaching of cse at early childhood development level. parents should be educated on the significance and objectives of cse for their children. keywords: child sexual abuse, comprehensive sexuality education, adolescence, policy, early childhood development (ecd) introduction child sexual abuse is rampant in zimbabwe (nyamanhindi, 2015; vinga, 2014). its consequences are inimical to child development, hence comprehensive sexuality education (cse) should be taught to bring it under control (kenny & wurtule, 2012; mantula & mahoso & finestone: teachers’ perceptions on teaching comprehensive sexuality . . . 53 saloojee, 2016). several attempts in zimbabwe have been made to contain it, attempts such as crafting laws that match international standards in criminalising child sexual abuse and the imposition of heavy punishment to transgressors, but they have failed (mantula & saloojee, 2016). lack of effective implementation due to a paucity of funding weakens these strategies (kenny & wurtule, 2012; mantula & saloojee, 2016). however, research has shown that cse effectively controls child sexual abuse; hence there is a need to provide cse in early grades in zimbabwe. zimbabwe is one of the countries in dire need of cse because it is one of the nations hardest hit by child sexual abuse, which is exacerbated by the lack of cse provision in the curriculum. zimbabwe ranks in the fifth position in the world concerning the prevalence of child sexual abuse (laccino, 2014; mantula & saloojee, 2016). this position points to a need to provide cse to children in early grades in zimbabwe. cse could provide them with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they need to resist sexual abuse (mantula & saloojee, 2016; ogolla & ondia, 2019). and the rate of this child sexual abuse is ever escalating (feltoe, 2018), hence the need for cse for zimbabwean children should not be underestimated. sexual abuse is not limited to adolescents but also rampant in children in early grades in zimbabwe (mantula & saloojee, 2016). children from five to eight years old should be taught cse, following the guidelines laid out for teaching this (unicef, 2014). cse refers to education purported to help learners to acquire knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values that can enable them to enjoy their sexuality in all domains (international planned parenthood federation, 2010). according to unesco (2018), cse is curriculum based and delivers age-oriented content using culturally acceptable approaches. for this paper, early grades refers to the first sector of primary education in zimbabwe (thabela, 2018; tsiko, 2018). early grade learners are aged from three to eight years. their educational levels are ecd-a, ecd-b, grade 1, and grade 2 (thabela, 2018). early grade teachers need to be involved in cse in order to teach it successfully. however, several prohibitive factors exist. zimbabwean culture prohibits cse teaching to children who have not attained adolescence (maviya, 2019). however, cse advocates the teaching of ageappropriate content to children and there is a lot pertaining to cse that can be taught to children before the attainment of adolescence. like most african nations, zimbabwe believes that teaching cse to young children drives them to experiment with sex (maviya, 2019) yet in the netherlands, it is offered successfully, starting from children aged four years (rough, 2018). some religions believe that cse defiles children. in addition, it is construed as taboo to talk about, especially to children who have not yet attained adolescence (gudyanga et al., 2019; mugweni et al., 2013), hence inappropriate for young children. consequently, attempts to teach the cse content are resisted by most zimbabweans. this study aimed to unearth and comprehend the perceptions of teachers in chipinge, zimbabwe on the teaching of cse to children in early grades. this could help determine appropriate strategies to provide cse in early grades in order to help curtail child sexual abuse. the teaching of cse in primary schools in zimbabwe is essential because of zimbabwe’s particularly high prevalence of child sexual abuse (laccino, 2014; mantula & 54 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 saloojee, 2016). children in early grades are also vulnerable to this form of child abuse, which must be stopped because it hinders proper child development. the main research question that guided the study was: “how do teachers perceive the teaching of comprehensive sexuality education in early grades in chipinge?” the subresearch questions of the study are as follows: • what value is given by teachers to the teaching of comprehensive sexuality education in early grades? • what do teachers perceive as inhibitive factors to the teaching of comprehensive sexuality education in early grades? • what strategies do teachers believe could help to promote the teaching of comprehensive sexuality education in early grades? theoretical framework the study was guided by bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory of human development. according to this theory, human development occurs in five nested systems: the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem (bronfenbrenner, 1977, 1979). the theory was chosen as the theoretical framework because all its systems apply directly to this study. the microsystem refers to the immediate environment of human beings, like their home and peers (bronfenbrenner, 1977). factors within this environment like religion, norms, values, and beliefs can influence teachers’ perceptions of cse teaching in early grades. these environmental factors may well favour the provision of cse, in which case the teachers may well have a positive attitude on the issue because these proximal factors are the most influential. however, if the environment is negative, these teachers may also have a negative attitude towards the provision of cse. the mesosystem refers to the relationships among two or more microsystems (bronfenbrenner, 1977). this could be the relationship among homes, communities, and religion. if these systems support cse teaching in early grades, the teachers may not encounter difficulties in teaching the subject. a conflict among the systems on the issue could be inimical to the provision of cse in early grades. the exosystem is about the systems in which an individual is not directly involved, yet what happens in them impacts the individual. teachers may not be part of the curriculum development unit that determines whether cse should be taught in infant early grades. yet these teachers would be affected because they are the ones who implement the curriculum. if they are excluded from the decision-making process, they may choose not teach it. the macrosystem is the furthest from the individual (bronfenbrenner, 1979). an example of these systems is the parliament. these systems influence what happens in all the other systems. for example, if the members of a parliament pass a law that mandates the teaching mahoso & finestone: teachers’ perceptions on teaching comprehensive sexuality . . . 55 of cse in early grades, teachers can teach the subject with impunity. and, if a law that prohibits the teaching of cse were passed, teachers would be hesitant to teach it. the chronosystem refers to change over time. for example, a teacher living during the aids pandemic period might want children to be taught cse in order for them to be protected, but those who lived before the advent of the pandemic might not see a valid reason for doing so. methodology a qualitative case study design located in the interpretivist paradigm was chosen for this study because it allowed the researcher to study the phenomenon in its context (baxter & jack, 2008; yin, 2011). it allowed the researcher to study the perceptions of teachers in the context of chipinge district in zimbabwe on the teaching of cse in early grades. this made it easy for the researcher to unearth and comprehend the teachers’ perceptions, and then determine appropriate strategies for promoting the teaching of cse in early grades, as envisaged by yin (2011). the interpretivist paradigm enabled the researcher to consider the uniqueness of the participants and to be cognisant of reality as presented by different participants, which further strengthened trustworthiness. a case study allowed the selection of a small manageable number of participants, which guaranteed rigour in the study (johnson & christensen, 2014). the semi-structured interviews used in this study enabled the researcher to probe (johnson & christensen, 2014) and also allowed the participants to request further clarifications on any the questions that they failed to comprehend, which helped to eliminate wild responses from participants (dejonckheere & vaughn, 2019). several documents were analysed in order to acquire rich information for answering the research questions (bowen et al., 2017). schemes of work, plans of work, anecdotal records, and children’s exercise books were analysed. the schemes of work and plan books were analysed to ascertain whether teachers schemed and planned work on cse. the depth and breadth of coverage had to be established too. this analysis played a complementary role in reflecting the perceptions of teachers on teaching of cse in early grades. children’s exercise books were examined to see whether written work on cse was given and, if given, the nature of cse topics covered. anecdotes recorded by teachers were analysed to see whether there was anything pertaining to cse that could help to reflect the teachers’ perceptions on the teaching of cse. document analysis was opted for because it is not affected by the researcher effect (bowen et al., 2017). this triangulation of instruments in data generation promoted comparison of teachers’ perceptions from different perspectives, which helped to ensure trustworthiness as envisioned by jackson (2010). purposive sampling was employed to select information-rich participants who then provided appropriate and adequate data, which enhanced trustworthiness (bowen et al., 2017). ten teachers whose teaching experiences in the early grades ranged from 5 to 30 years were selected. these participants were considered information-rich participants due to their vast 56 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 experience in teaching children in early grades in chipinge district in zimbabwe where child sexual abuse is rampant, partly due to the lack of cse provision for them. in this study, the participating teachers are coded ta to tj, with the first teacher being ta followed by tb, up to tj. these are the teachers whose documents were also analysed. the participants were requested beforehand by the researcher to be interviewed and to have their documents analysed. the researcher explained the purpose of the study to them. they were shown the researcher’s ethical clearance letter from the university of pretoria and were asked to read, understand, and sign consent letters. findings and discussion data analysis led to the emergence of the themes given below: • teachers’ perceptions about the merits of offering cse in early grades • prohibitive factors to the teaching of cse in early grades • approaches that could be applied to promote the teaching of cse to early grade children the findings are now discussed under these themes. teachers’ perceived merits of teaching cse in early grades the data collected revealed succinctly what the teachers perceived as meritorious in offering cse to early grade children. in response to the question on why cse should be taught in infant classes, ta stated: children need to be taught how to avoid sexual abuses. they should be taught about all forms of sexual abuses so that they are in a good position to tell whether one would have abused them or not. tc demonstrated feelings in line with what was said by ta by saying: the teaching of cse is pertinent because it brings light to our children so that they may not be abused since the rate at which they are abused is alarming. . . . it makes children aware of abusers and also enables them to resist sexual abuse. te said the following about cse: cse has to be taught to young learners because it actually empowers them to be able to say no to various forms of abuses. it will protect them from contracting aids and other sexually transmitted infections. the information above indicates what the teachers perceived as the merits of teaching cse to early grade children, namely, helping to control child sexual abuse which culminates in minimising the contraction of sexually transmitted infections among early grade children. mahoso & finestone: teachers’ perceptions on teaching comprehensive sexuality . . . 57 this implies that teachers in chipinge did not support the common misperception among people that cse propels children to experiment with sex (unesco, 2015, 2018). the teachers’ perception that cse was instrumental in controlling child sexual abuse is appropriate given that the control of child sexual abuse is one of its integral functions (unesco, 2015). unesco’s (2018) technical guidelines on cse have confirmed this viewpoint. the explicit belief of cse being a helpful tool in empowering children to avoid being sexually abused was also articulated by bonjour and vlugt (2018). ta said: cse . . . protects children at the present moment and prepares them for their future roles in life. the information provided above further gives information on what the teachers perceived as meritorious in teaching cse, which is preparing children for their future sexual roles. this perceived merit of teaching cse is in tandem with unesco’s (2018) assertion that cse assists learners to construct useful knowledge that they need throughout their lifetime. unesco (2018) has asserted that cse helps to minimise children’s vulnerability to sexual abuse and prepares them to take up their future roles. this assertion thus shows that some of the teachers in chipinge had a sound perception of the virtues of teaching cse in early grades. and tb said: teaching cse is a good idea because it enables children to report when abused which may help to prevent further abuses. this teacher portrayed teachers as believing cse has the functionality of enhancing the development of communication skills among young children, which could subsequently enable them to report when abused or when an attempt was made to abuse them. this perception is in tandem with giannini (2019), who asserted that cse enhances children’s communication skills development. this clearly shows that these teachers have brilliant views pertaining to the significance of providing cse if we take into consideration the development of communication skills among children in early grades. this envisioned function of cse to early grade children is crucial because some victims of child sexual abuse in zimbabwe do not report it because of a lack of communication skills (maviya, 2019). the other teachers’ perceived merit of offering cse to early grade children was its potential to provide information that prompted early grade learners to rectify their sexually risky behaviours. consequently, teachers disclosed several sexually risky behaviours among children that could be addressed through the provision of cse. these included engaging in sexual intercourse, forcing each other to engage in sexual intercourse, playing with their sexual organs, showing each other their sexual organs, using vulgar language, and imitating sexual activities. ta had this to say on the use of vulgar language by children: 58 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 in most cases, you can hear children speaking in vulgar language. children talk in vulgar language at school, and even songs they sing are jam-packed with sexuality. in line with information pertaining to vulgar language, tc said the following: children use vulgar language. you can be shocked to hear learners talking in vulgar language at school and even songs they sing are replete with sexuality. they repeat songs sung during rain-making ceremonies and those sung by drunken people in their communities, which is a shame. some songs are sung at funerals. these interviewees’ contributions indicate the teachers’ concern over the use of vulgar language by children, which is socially unacceptable in any society. anecdotal records of children also indicated the same, which implies that it is a living problem among children in chipinge, zimbabwe, hence teaching cse to early grade children is meritorious because of its perceived capacity to address this problem articulated by the teachers. the use of vulgar language by children could be realistic because according to the behaviourists like skinner, these children could possibly copy their language from drunken people since children can learn language through imitation (mwamwenda, 2015). thus, the teachers felt the necessity of teaching cse in order to rectify such behaviour. the other merit of teaching cse perceived by the teachers was its potential to rectify the children’s unacceptable behaviour of imitating sexual activities. this was reflected in the contributions they made as a way of attributing cse with the potential to efficaciously deal with children’s socially unacceptable behaviours. ta said the following about this imitation: do you know mr mahoso, that these little children imitate what they see elders doing? they imitate what they see their parents doing. . . . i mean imitating people having sexual intercourse, especially during social dramatic play. ta’s comments were in tandem with tb’s: i want to let you know that most learners, these young early grade children, imitate whatever they see their fathers and mothers doing at home, having sexual intercourse. children portray several behaviours which show us openly that they need to be taught cse. on this issue, tj just said: children imitate people and animals having sex. what the participants said above was complemented by information obtained from several anecdotal records. the information given by teachers portrays the significance of cse to young children as that of stopping their socially unacceptable behaviour of imitating sexual activities. mahoso & finestone: teachers’ perceptions on teaching comprehensive sexuality . . . 59 teachers claimed that by imitating sexual activities, children were copying their parents who could be sharing bedrooms with their children and might engage in sexual intercourse when the children are still awake. these children may witness these activities frequently given that bronfenbrenner identified the home as a microsystem that the children always occupy (morrison, 2015). the sharing of bedrooms between parents and children could be prompted by poverty and parents could be unable to afford separate rooms for themselves and their children. the children may be imitating without full capacity to understand, hence cse could be used to enlighten children in this predicament. if not enlightened, they may continue to imitate their parents since, according to the social learning theory, perfect behaviours for children are those practised by their parents, with boys imitating their fathers and girls emulating their mothers (mwamwenda, 1985, 2015). it was also lamentable to learn that children in early grades engaged in sexual intercourse. teachers thus wanted cse to be taught to children to correct this age-inappropriate behaviour. below is information pertaining to children having sexual intercourse that was obtained from te: children force each other to have sex when playing away from parents or adults. tj also provided information that was in tandem with te’s information by expounding: one day a child came to me and said this one is doshing another, meaning having sexual intercourse, because they don’t want to use the real word. the word dosh is their own word to describe sexual intercourse. cse can stop this behaviour if taught to children. td added: some children are reported by others to the teacher for trying to have sexual intercourse with other children. some even force other children to have sex. these teachers who expressed the need for cse to be taught in early grades may have been driven by the fact that children were having sexual intercourse whilst still very young. they could pass hiv on to each other because some of these children could have already been abused sexually by hiv-positive adults. some people believe that sexual intercourse with young children can enhance animal fertility, make them rich, promote bumper harvests, and cure aids. some children could have been born hiv-positive. the most upsetting practice was that some of these very young children were coercing each other to have sex, which bears a resemblance to rape in adults, hence teachers perceived that cse could help to curb such behaviours—which shows how crucial it is to teach cse to children in early grades. the imitation of such sexual behaviours by children was acknowledged by kellogg (2010) and fletcher et al. (2013) who also acknowledged that the behaviour was extremely risky. consequently, they saw cse as important because they believed it could be taught to children to safeguard them from abuse by adults as well as stopping them from abusing each 60 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 other given that contracting sexually transmitted infections, including hiv, is also possible among children themselves. other socially unacceptable sexual behaviour noted by teachers, which they felt could be addressed effectively through the provision of cse, was showing each other their sexual organs. tc said: children even play with their sexual organs and sometimes show others or their friends their sexual organs, especially erect penises. i believe if children are effectively taught cse such behaviours could be terminated. te had this to say on the same issue: the tendency to show each other sexual organs is also a clear indicator. children can just say, look at my penis, my friend. you know, young children are very funny, they actually show their colleagues those sexual organs, both boys and girls. tj stated the following: these children enjoy stimulating their sexual organs and showing them to each other. this is done by both boys and girls. the information provided above clearly indicates the teachers’ discomfort with the sexual behaviours of the children they teach; as a result, they wanted cse to be taught to children because they anticipated that it might assist these children in discarding such behaviours— which further shows what teachers believed to be another merit of teaching cse to young children. the showing of each other, and the stimulation of, their sexual organs by children at the phallic stage is considered normal childhood behaviour by sigmund freud (mwamwenda, 2015). however, the teachers were not comfortable with it. they wanted cse to be taught in order to control such behaviour because it is socially unacceptable and sexually risky. chavula (2016) also noted this behaviour among children given that they are sexual beings and consequently advised that it should not be ignored but rather be given attention through the provision of cse. td had this to say: cse must be taught to young children because it can help to stop risky behaviours among children. myself, i saw some of the children i teach playing with used condoms which was pathetic and undesirable. this is done by most children because when i shared my experience with other teachers, they also told me that they also saw children playing with used condoms as balloons. cse should be taught in order to eradicate such behaviour among children. the information provided by td indicates that teachers perceived cse as having the potential to stop children from picking up and playing with used condoms. this reinforces cse as significant in promoting good health among learners because, if children are taught cse, they may be able mahoso & finestone: teachers’ perceptions on teaching comprehensive sexuality . . . 61 to distinguish a balloon from a condom, which could help them avoid this risky health behaviour. the teachers also expressed the view that cse could be effective in clearing children’s misconceptions pertaining to sexuality.tc said: children ask questions that are in line with sexuality . . . like about names of sexual organs. te had this to say: you know, in fact, as i interact with children at classroom level, you find out that those children tend to ask me a lot of questions that are in line with sexuality education, which is an indicator that they need that form of education. they need it, and we should not delay to teach for their risky misconceptions to be cleared. the information here again shows another of the teachers’ perceived merits of teaching cse to children in early grades—the clearing up of sexual misconceptions noted among children. mayeza and vincent (2019) also acknowledged misconceptions related to sexuality among children aged five and below, and ascribed these to exposure to pornography through media. collins et al. (2017) expressed awareness of such misperceptions among children eight years and younger that had emanated from media. they attributed the misconceptions to the inability of children of this age group to distinguish between what happened on the screen and reality—due to their immaturity. according to mayeza and vincent (2019), areas that reflect children’s misunderstandings regarding sexuality pertain to the names of their genitals and their functionality, the anatomical differences between boys and girls, and reproduction. if we consider the cse aspects that the teachers wanted to be taught in early grades, they are justified because such concepts can be adequately catered for in cse. prohibitive factors to the teaching of cse in early grades although teachers in this study indicated in a loud and clear way that they perceived the teaching of cse in early grades as being crucial, the study also revealed a number of factors that militate against its provision. teaching pupils anything against the will of their parents was perceived by teachers as potentially harmful to them because some parents could react in a way that might jeopardise them; they were afraid of the parents; afraid to teach cse to young learners because it could be against the will of these parents. teachers expressed their fear to teach cse to young learners as follows: ta said: the community members think teaching children about cse encourages children to engage in sexual activities at a very young age. they think being silent about it is the best thing to do in order for them to be safe. th echoed ta, saying: 62 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 teaching about sexuality is regarded as violation of beliefs, norms and values of the people within the school and community at large. because of this factor, no one becomes comfortable to say out names of sexual organs. at our school, children are taught never to listen to someone using vulgar words. they are told that if they listen, they will be listening to the devil, which means if you try to teach them, they will end up taking you as the devil. this information reveals the fear of teachers as one of the factors militating against the teaching of cse in early grades. they felt the parents of these children would recognise it as a way of encouraging their children to engage in sexual activities—a direct violation of their norms and values, a view echoed by (maviya, 2019). this notion can be explained by bronfenbrenner’s theory in which culture belongs to the macrosystem, which means it impacts on how people within that culture construe things. the teachers anticipated opposition from the guardians of these children. this resistance to the teaching of cse to young children raised by these teachers could be valid given that browne (2015) and ketting and ivanova (2018) have also described it as a key challenge to cse teaching in most nations. most people, like these parents, believe that teaching cse to young children can propel them to engage in sexual intercourse too early—a belief also upheld by nigerians, zambians, and the tswana (kadonsi, 2019) even though there is strong empirical evidence to the contrary (haberland & rogow, 2015). emmanuel (2015) and francis (2010) also acknowledged parental resistance as a major factor that can inhibit teachers from teaching cse to young children. nevertheless, muridzo and malianga (2015) and ketting and ivanova (2018) still recommended teaching cse to children, arguing that it is dealing with the problem before it gets out of hand and is perhaps the most effective strategy. the religious beliefs of the people of chipinge, zimbabwe were also other perceived as prohibitive factors to the teaching of cse in early grades in zimbabwe. tb succinctly elucidated this factor by saying: most christian churches within our community take the teaching of cse as a taboo. these churches prohibit the teaching of cse to early grade children. . . . they think it corrupts the children. they also think that talking about sexuality is unholy. ti contributed as follows: christians believe that it makes people unrighteous before god. tc had this to say: at my school, most teachers are christians. this religion does not allow children to be taught about sexuality. some religious sects see it as too early to educate or talk about it to early grade learners. they take it as a taboo to teach children about sexuality, and then we avoid teaching it. you cannot do what is taboo. to be safe, you avoid it. what tc said resonates with the following information from tc: mahoso & finestone: teachers’ perceptions on teaching comprehensive sexuality . . . 63 christianity does not allow people to talk about sexuality. christian parents do not want their children to be taught sexuality, saying it’s immoral. it is regarded as taboo to talk about sexuality with children. and tj said: the belief is that teaching them about sex can offend god since it spoils the innocence of the children that they are born with. the statements from all these teachers portray religion as another factor that impedes the teaching of cse—even though it is imperative to teach the subject to young learners. teachers may avoid teaching cse because as they anticipate opposition from parents and the community at large due to their religious beliefs. browne (2015) also acknowledged religion as one of the sources of opposition to the teaching of cse. approaches that can be applied to promote the teaching of cse to early grade children the teachers in zimbabwe also felt that they could not teach cse efficaciously without backup. they require backing in the form of a cse curriculum to teach early grade learners. the following is what tb said about the cse curriculum issue: a curriculum is needed. teachers must be provided with a syllabus for cse. in a similar vein, te said: teachers must be given a curriculum. . . . it will give us a green light to teach that form of education. we will know the content to teach for it will guide us on that. tf complemented the above information by stating: even if teachers want to teach cse, there are some militating factors. there is no syllabus. this should be provided. the contributions of these teachers succinctly indicated the need to provide teachers with a curriculum to teach cse in early grades. the absence of such a curriculum was also noted during document analysis. indeed, a curriculum to facilitate the teaching of cse is necessary (emmanuel, 2015). this could be a good strategy because it would signpost to teachers the content that should be taught to these children (unesco, 2015). this could also help to bring about uniformity in the content taught. if specialists on cse were to develop a curriculum in this area, crucial aspects of cse would be taught to children in early grades. a curriculum would guarantee quality in the delivery of cse in early grades in zimbabwe. these teachers also wanted to be provided with a stand-alone curriculum because they felt that if cse topics were factored into other subjects, their value could be eclipsed by them. this was substantiated by tc in the subsequent argument: 64 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 it is wise to teach cse as a subject that stands alone because it will be dealt with thoroughly. teachers may overlook if cse content is factored in other subjects because if factored in other subjects, it may give an impression to them that it is not important. if it stands alone as a subject, it will have its own allocated time and will be valued. the teachers also believed that if they were provided with staff development training on cse curriculum implementation they would become sufficiently empowered to teach it. this viewpoint is portrayed by ta’s contribution below: teachers need to be staff developed on how to implement this curriculum. in schools, what should be done is to staff-develop the teachers on cse. . . . this can be done through in-service training. tf argued thus: once the syllabus is available teachers must then be taught how to implement it. in addition to the above, tj advised: it may also help if a curriculum for cse is developed. the teachers should then be staff developed to implement it . . . by specialists of cse. the need for teachers’ training in cse curriculum implementation expressed by these teachers shows it to be another indispensable strategy needed by teachers to enable them to effectively deliver cse to early grade children in chipinge. unesco (2015) offered similar advice. and emmanuel (2015) pointed out that in 1986, teachers in portugal failed to teach cse, which had been made mandatory, simply because of a lack of training in how to implement the curriculum. ketting and ivanova (2018) also recommended training in curriculum implementation, arguing that it equips the teachers with skills to motivate children to learn cse, handle sensitive topics, develop critical thinking skills, and use the participatory methodology in teaching cse to young children. enlightening parents on the significance of cse to early grade children was also viewed by teachers as a strategy that could be employed to enable parents to allow teachers to teach cse to their children. this was reflected by tj who said: teachers and parents should be taught together to discard their wrong beliefs about teaching of sexuality to young learners. they should then be taught the benefits of teaching sexuality education to young children. tc, in sharing the same line of thinking as tj, said: parents should be helped to understand that cse should be taught for the sake of their children’s safety. mahoso & finestone: teachers’ perceptions on teaching comprehensive sexuality . . . 65 this strategy of convincing the parents of the importance of cse to their children in early grades before teaching it to the children so as to avoid conflict with them was also brought forward by maviya (2019). the involvement of the government, through the crafting and implementation of legislation that legalised the teaching of cse, was also viewed as a strategy that could facilitate the teaching of cse to early grade children. the following information from two of the teachers indicates this: if the mandate to teach cse in early grades comes from the government that it should be taught and if it is then taught as one of the early grade subjects, people will accept it. (ti) i think the government must also intervene. it can make the teaching of cse to young children mandatory. if the government can come up with a circular requiring all schools in zimbabwe to teach it, that could be helpful. parents will not challenge the teachers if they teach their children cse because they will be afraid to do so. (tg) the enactment of such a law in zimbabwe was also suggested by maviya (2019) and again recommended in zambia (kadonsi, 2019). in the netherlands, germany, and kenya it has produced dividends. conclusions several conclusions about the teaching of cse in early grades were drawn from this study. with regards to teachers’ perceptions on the merits of teaching cse to early grade children, it can be safely concluded that teachers in chipinge district of zimbabwe believed that cse can help to stop children from engaging in sexually inappropriate behaviours like forcing each other to have sex during social dramatic play, publicly playing with their sexual organs, and showing each other their sexual organs. the other unwanted children’s sexual behaviours perceived to be controllable through the provision of cse among children in early grades were the use of vulgar language, and imitation of sexual intercourse activities. development of skills to report sexual abuse, and development of skills to avoid being sexually abused, were other perceived merits of teaching cse to these young learners. it can also be concluded that teachers in chipinge considered the teaching of cse to be efficacious in clearing up children’s misconceptions on sexual matters, which otherwise could make children vulnerable to sexual abuse. besides the merits of teaching cse, this study also unearthed factors that were instrumental in prohibiting the teaching of cse in chipinge. the culture did not allow anyone to teach or even talk about anything pertaining to sexuality with children because it is considered taboo. any attempt to teach this subject could attract conflict with parents of the children. opposition to the teaching of cse to early grade children was also precipitated by religious beliefs because religious people in chipinge believed that talking about sexuality with children can defile children’s innate innocence. 66 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 conclusions about the support needed by teachers in order to be able to deliver cse are also made. teachers need to be provided with a cse curriculum. and when given, they should be taught how to implement it through workshops. the crafting and implementation of policies that legalise the teaching of cse to early grade children should also be promulgated. teachers would feel more comfortable about teaching cse if they knew they were backed by the law. recommendations this study makes several recommendations, which follow. cse in zimbabwe must be taught in the early grades to protect children and to guide their sexual behaviours. a cse curriculum for early grade teaching should be developed and teachers must be taught how to implement it. early grade teachers should be provided with in-service training on teaching cse to children. early grade teachers’ training institutions in zimbabwe should also equip teacher trainees with skills to teach cse so that they can change the situation in schools and communities. a policy that mandates teachers to teach cse to early grade children must be made available. parents must be made aware of this policy and of the importance of cse so that they allow teachers to teach it to their children. references baxter, p., & jack, s. 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(2011). applications of case study research. sage. microsoft word c8900 full issue 12dec.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 89, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i89a04 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x a new feminist materialist analysis of girls and the sexual violence assemblage raksha janak school of education, college of humanities, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa janakr@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3878-9855 deevia bhana school of education, college of humanities, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa bhanad1@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8504-041x naresa govender school of education, college of humanities, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa naresa.govender@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5610-232x (received: 10 august 2022; accepted: 8 november 2022) abstract inspired by deleuze and guattari’s (1988) concept of assemblage, in this paper we address 12–13-year-old girls’ experience of sexual violence as a materially embedded, relational, and affective event. in doing so, we contribute to the understanding of how girls are both constrained by violent gendered cultures in school and of their capacity to resist such violence. we give attention to sexual violence as an assemblage of materialities in the form of bodies, objects, expressions, spaces, and ideas that connect in ways that affect what girls can and cannot do within a specific place and moment in time. drawing on semi-structured interviews, we show how the assemblage creates the potential to challenge dominant gendered scripts that structure girls’ experience in schools but also point to the disabling environments that curtail such potential. we argue that while the assemblage produces agentive capacities, it may simultaneously constrain them. we conclude by offering possibilities to address sexual violence through addressing gender norms while including boys in gender transformative work. keywords: girls, sexual violence, assemblage, new feminist materialism, south africa 68 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 introduction “the sky is vast enough for all birds to fly without collisions.” drawing on this african proverb, the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation (unesco, 2020) laments, the loss of choice, freedom, and opportunities for young girls amid the ongoing collisions in education systems in sub-saharan africa that are deeply rooted in gender inequalities and violence. in the last decade, scholarship on schooling and gender in this region has focused on violence and girls’ disproportionate vulnerability to verbal, sexual, emotional, and physical abuse (dejaeghere, 2018; parkes, 2015; porter, 2015). evidence from these studies suggests that public institutions such as schools are high-risk contexts since girls continue to remain scared at school. concerns about the ongoing violent collisions in schools and the effects on girls’ education and well-being has become the subject of important reports and inquiries (artz et al., 2016; the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation & the united nations entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women, 2016). committed to a world without collisions, unesco (2020) has reinforced the need to “walk alongside african girls on their journey to a life where they are empowered to make positive choices” (p. 1). changing gender and cultural norms in socio-economic contexts has become a key objective that drives debates and interventions to prevent gender violence and develop young people’s skills to address power relations and female subordination (le mat et al., 2021; parkes, 2015). however, this process is not easy. in south africa, meinck et al. (2016) indicated that among children between 10 and 17 years of age, it is estimated that physical violence is most prevalent and reported at 56.3% in comparison to other forms of violence, with the experience of gender violence impacting negatively, particularly on girls’ agency. in school-based studies, scholars have documented how asymmetrical relations of power permeate spaces such as toilets, corridors, classrooms, and playgrounds and how this has a negative impact on girls’ experience of schooling (ngidi, 2022; porter, 2015). girls are exposed to sexual violence in the form of coercion, harassment, rape, bulling, and physical and verbal abuse from both schoolboys and male adult personnel such as teachers and caretakers (burton & leoschut, 2013). it has been argued that dominant socio-cultural norms and the use of violence reinforces girls’ vulnerability to sexual harm (bhana et al., 2021). key to understanding the enduring patterns of gender violence is its inextricable link to race and class inequalities as well as to heteropatriarchy (shefer, 2014). binary constructions of gender and sexuality are reinforced through local cultural norms and practices that reinforce girls’ subordination in gender relations in which male power is reified. in this binary, hegemonic masculinity is structured around sexual prowess, physical strength, and the use of violence, while femininity is viewed positively when it revolves around sexual respectability and acquiescence to cultural norms (jewkes & morrell, 2017). male culpability in the mobilisation of violence and in the broader social, cultural, and structural processes affects gender norms (jewkes et al., 2015). as gibbs et al. (2017) reported, changing masculine identities requires long-term interventions that cannot necessarily guarantee transformation. despite efforts to change harmful norms, sexual violence in schools remains problematic (leach et al., 2014; parkes et al., 2020). social, janak et al.: a new feminist materialist analysis of girls and the sexual violence assemblage 69 cultural, and economic circumstances aggregate to limit gender equitable relationships and change “may not be as transformative as those working for gender justice hope for” (gibbs et al., 2017, p. 15). if change is not as transformative as we hope it will be, we have to acknowledge that the current position is largely stagnant and the promise of a life without collisions for girls remains unfulfilled. what might enable us to move beyond this cul-de-sac? given the dissatisfaction with current ways of thinking about and researching gender violence, pincock (2020) argued that the existing body of work has obscured the dynamic relationality of the social-material and affective processes through which girls’ capacity to affect and be affected materialises. following pincock (2020), a new feminist materialist lens that attends to the significance of the socio-material reality (bodies, things, objects, context, gender, expressions, and feelings) may help us understand how girls are capacitated or incapacitated in a specific time and place (renold, 2018). drawing upon deleuze and guattari’s (1988) concept of assemblage we are interested in what capacities are produced in girls’ experiences, as they talk about violence. we are concerned with the way in which girls’ capacities are produced, how these capacities intraact, affect and are affected by other materialities in the assemblage (see pincock, 2020). consequently, we consider materialities through their relationship with other ideas, things, and objects that all come to matter in the experience of gender and sexual violence at school. materialities constitute matter that includes things, bodies, emotions, context and is inclusive of consciousness since it intra-acts with the material forces that are produced by such interactions (davies, 2020). in developing these ideas, we are hoping that this realm of theorisation will allow us to think about what more girls can do as they navigate their way through collisions of sexual violence. through reporting on semi-structured interviews, we demonstrate how girls aged between 12 and 13 years of age in a south african primary school are entangled within the everyday socio-material world that serves to mediate their potential. in doing so, we suggest that the experience of femininities and sexual violence operates through the connection between human and more-than-human elements (barad, 2007). in this regard, we illuminate how girls adhere to and disrupt socio-cultural norms to create spaces for what they can and cannot do while simultaneously being complicit in the perpetuation of dominant norms through which their capacities are curtailed. understanding girls’ and sexual violence through an assemblage the conceptualisation of girls and sexual violence has been predominantly established through socio-constructivist frameworks that privilege the voices and experiences of girls (porter, 2015; renold, 2002). we are interested in the significance of the more-than-human connection to girls’ experiences of sexual violence (renold, 2018; ringrose & rawlings, 2015). we seek to re-think the ways in which sexual violence and femininities are currently understood by considering the socio-material reality at work. we draw specifically on deleuze and guattari’s (1988, p. 22) idea of assemblage. according to them, “assemblage, in its multiplicity, necessarily acts on semiotic flows, material flows, and social flows 70 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 simultaneously” (p. 22–23). we make reference to concepts such as “intra-action” and “affect” (barad, 2007, p. 33) along with “thing-power” (bennet, 2010, p. 23), all of which are essential to the assemblage. here, we consider girls’ experiences of sexual violence within what we term a sexual violence assemblage of materialities in both human and non-human forms that join to produce a series of “actions” and “events” (alldred & fox, 2017, p. 1163), that unlock what girls are capable of becoming, doing, and feeling. our new feminist materialist lens takes a turn to the agentic potential of matter in the form of objects, things, space, ideas, the “relations of movement and rest between molecules or particles” and the ability of matter to produce capacities to “affect and be affected” in return (deleuze & guattari, 1988, p. 261; see, also, barad, 2007). of significance to the sexual violence assemblage are its relations that are formed through “intra-action” between bodies and other heterogenous materialities that can “affect” and be “affected” (barad, 2007, p. 33), creating spaces for girls’ (in)capacities. these relations are unpredictable rather than systematic, are rather fluid, and depend on the materialities that exist within the location of the assemblage (alldred & fox, 2017). we locate the sexual violence assemblage within the south african schooling context where girls navigate a highly complex socio-cultural landscape underpinned by race, class, dominant discourses of gender and sexuality, as well as socio-economic inequalities and heteropatriarchal norms. from a new feminist materialist perspective, these materialities are not isolated entities but come to affect girls’ (in)capacities in their experiences of sexual violence. for instance, in south africa, localised practices and cultural norms sanction men’s use of violence, physical strength, and sexual entitlement over women as key signifiers to an idealised heterosexual masculine status that positions women as vulnerable and acquiescent, thereby constraining their capacity to become something other than passive (jewkes & morrell, 2017). acquiescing to gender norms is grounded in socio-cultural patterns in which girls are seen to be complicit in the reinforcement of male power and in which resistance to this would question the basis of normative understandings of gender relations (jewkes & morrell, 2012). such understandings of gender and sexuality are woven into school spaces where girls may accommodate such norms in their experience of violence, thus constraining their capacities for resistance. however, acquiescing to male domination is not the full version of girls’ lives at school. according to deleuze and guattari (1988, p. 400) the way in which a “rhizome” grows is a good way of illuminating the ways in which the assemblage is susceptible to change as bodies combine with other materialities to form new relations to unlock alternative ways of being and becoming. in relation to our study, the dynamic nature of assemblages allows for the interrogation of dominant ideologies that seek to reduce what girls are capable of becoming other than passive and submissive. however, we must acknowledge here that within a materialist framing, the notion of human agency is de-privileged to consider how the agentic potential of objects, things, and space mediate what girls can or cannot do (deleuze & guattari, 1988). in the study on which this paper is based, girls’ (in)capacities in their experiences of sexual violence are not individualised, but are, rather, facilitated through intraactions with other matter that embodies agentic power. a materialist lens allows us to janak et al.: a new feminist materialist analysis of girls and the sexual violence assemblage 71 perceive objects, ideas, expressions, and space as “vibrant” matter imbued with “thingpower” (bennet, 2010, p. xvi) that provides specific (in)capacities within a specific moment in time, transforming a body into a new “becoming” (deleuze & guattari, 1988, p. 256) that “represents a change of state” that may be “physical, psychological, emotional or social” (alldred & fox, 2017, p. 1164). deleuze and guatarri (1988, p. 88) posited that the process of new becomings is ongoing, fleeting, and always open to change through the three distinct movements of “territorialisation”, “de-territorialisation”, and “re-territorialisation.” following deleuze and guatarri (1988), our thinking in terms of assemblage allows us to perceive a territory as more than just a geographical location and permits us to see that affects produced in relations have the capacity to control matter in ways that set limitations on what girls can do, feel, or become in their experience of sexual violence. for example, an assemblage bound by heteropatriarchal norms, as discussed earlier, will seek to territorialise girls’ bodies in ways that restrict their potential for new becomings. however, girls may intra-act with other forms of matter to de-territorialise such affects, thus enabling the possibility to become something else. yet these relations, too, are unstable since girls’ intraactions within assemblages may serve to curtail their capacities through re-territorialisation that repositions them within former assemblages (deleuze & guatarri, 1988). conceptualising sexual violence as an assemblage is significant since girls’ experiences of sexual violence are not bound by systematic structures of thinking or predetermined knowledge. instead, these are perceived as events that are materially embedded, affective, relational, and immanent within the assemblage (barad, 2007). it is within the complex network of affective flows of capacities and incapacities produced through intra-actions (deleuze & guattari, 1988) that we analyse what girls can do, be, or feel in their experience of sexual violence from the point of view that rejects the notion of femininities as homogenous and passive. methods we focus on selected narratives in a qualitative case study that forms part of a broader research project entitled learning from the learners: growing up as girls and boys and negotiating gender and sexuality that sought to examine how 40 grade 7 primary schoolgirls between 12 and 13 years of age give meaning to their femininities in the context of gender and sexual violence. in the broader study, data collection methods included semistructured individual interviews, focus group discussions, and participant observation. for the purpose of this smaller study, we draw specifically on the narratives offered in semistructured individual interviews of 14 primary schoolgirls who attend pep primary school 1 (pps), the context for this study. pps is situated in a peri-urban town in the kwazulu-natal province (kzn) of south africa. learners who attend pps are from a mixed class base; incomes range from middle to low and extend to very low in some cases. this variation in income has ramifications for the ways in which girls experience sexual violence. a purposive sampling technique was facilitated by the third author to recruit female participants in grade 1 this is, of course, pseudonymous, as are the names of the participants. 72 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 7 since we were particularly interested in how a cohort of girls in the final year of primary school were entangled within a sexual violence assemblage. the participant selection criteria were provided to teachers at the school, and they assisted in identifying girls who were either witnesses to, or victims of sexual violence at pps. participation in the study was voluntary. permission for this study was granted by the university and by the department of basic education in kzn. access to the research site was permitted by the principal of the school. parental or guardian consent was necessary for learner participation in the study as well as signed learner assent. participants were informed of the purpose of the study and their right to withdraw from it in the event of any discomfort experienced during participation. the use of pseudonyms ensured confidentiality and anonymity. to ensure that no psychological harm was done to the participants, access to the school counsellor was made available for support. fieldwork was conducted between 2018 and 2019 by the third author (see govender, 2022). prior to conducting the interviews, we developed, as a guide, an interview schedule that included questions such as: “does sexual violence occur at school and how?”; “what are your experiences of sexual violence?”; “which places make you feel unsafe?”; “who makes you feel uncomfortable at school?”; and “do you report sexual violence to your teacher?” we considered semi-structured individual interviews to be valuable in revealing the connection between girls, violence, sexuality, and the material and affective world (fox & alldred, 2022). we conducted all the interviews in a classroom during the second break. the duration of each interview was approximately 30 minutes, and they were conducted in english, the medium of instruction at school. learners whose first language is isizulu are very proficient in the use of english. interviews were audio-recorded to prevent loss of information and were manually transcribed by the authors. we analysed the data using braun and clarke’s six-step thematic coding system that involved “familiarising [ourselves] with the data”, “generating initial codes”, “searching for themes”, “defining and naming themes” and “producing the report” (2006, pp. 16–24). all authors worked collaboratively to review the data. to ensure the accuracy of the data, interview transcripts were returned to the participants for review (see lincoln and guba, 1985), but no adjustments needed to be made to their responses. thereafter, we manually colour-coded the data and developed it into themes. a new feminist materialist data analysis seeks to refrain from presenting the authenticity of human accounts by attending to the affective flows that emerge through girls’ entanglements (fox & alldred, 2022). our data analysis was informed by concepts of assemblage as its main focus; we paid careful attention to the affects and capacities produced through both human and non-human relations following deleuze and guattari (1988). the data revealed the different ways in which girls experienced movements of territorialisation, de-territorialisation, and re-territorialisation that mediated their capacity for new becomings. we identified two major themes and focus on the territorialisation of girl bodies as well as the resistance through which their potential to act is curtailed. we go on to discuss this focus on girls’ constraints and capacities in the next section of the paper. janak et al.: a new feminist materialist analysis of girls and the sexual violence assemblage 73 “bad touches, isihwápha, and misogyny”: the territorialisation of girl bodies and the reproduction of gender norms girls at pps navigated a highly heterosexualised landscape. here we show how collisions of materialities—both human and non-human—joined to form a sexual violence assemblage that reduced girls’ capacities and their possibilities for new becomings. the overt forms of such collision gave rise to sexual violence in the form of misogynistic harassment, bad touches, swearing, objectification, and coercive practices. our findings demonstrate how girls’ entanglements with bodies, objects, imagination, socio-cultural norms, and space within the assemblage affectively territorialised them into their positions as subservient and passive. the extracts below demonstrate the movements, affectivity, and capacity that emerged within each intra-action in the assemblage. ayabonga: boys touch girls’ private parts (bums, thighs, and breasts). they even pull our bra straps . . . they hit and swipe us on our bums [demonstrating how a bank card is swiped]. when we are walking around the school, they run, and they spank us also. ayanda: some of the boys even hold us and kiss us without permission. eish! as girls we are so scared, we don’t go and report it. andiswa: i have seen girls being touched by boys who sit next to them on their thighs and breasts, and they don’t usually react; they keep quiet. the sexual violence assemblage constituted a series of intra-actions, both in its human (people) and more-than-human forms (bra-straps, bank card, school uniform, seating arrangements, socio-cultural norms) that affectively produced capacities for girls’ continual sexual harassment at school. drawing on girls’ references such as “pull our bra straps”, “hit and swipe us on our bums”, and “kiss us without permission”, it becomes demonstrably evident how gender power dynamics unravel as boys asserted control over girls’ bodies. these enforced actions were not randomly performed but were interconnected to the broader space of the assemblage in which socio-cultural norms privilege male entitlement and heterosexual prowess, capacitating the territorialisation of girl bodies in the assemblage. in south africa, boys’ misogynistic use of violence and objectification is deeply rooted in the claim to heterosexual male power that signifies what is thought of as a real boy or man (morrell et al., 2012). such understandings not only reinforce male dominance as normative but regulate girls as passive and vulnerable to harm. the affective flow in such actions ignited fear that fuelled girls’ hesitance in reporting such misconduct to teachers. girls’ reluctance and silence does not simply reinforce passivity; it alerts us to their sophisticated sense of their vulnerability and the consequences of reporting violence. materials featured strongly in the narratives that, when enacted, affectively capacitated the territorialisation (deleuze & guattari, 1988) of girls’ body parts (bums, thighs, and breasts). within a materialist framing, “bra-straps” as stipulated by ayabonga, must be understood 74 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 within the concept of thing-power through which such materials are not simply without potential but are, rather, filled with capacities to affect and be affected. in this case, bra-straps embody agentic power to ignite sexual desire in the presence of the male gaze, yet simultaneously spark capacities for sexual harassment, transforming from a material of sexual desire into something that serves as a potential source of risk for girls (see deleuze & guattari, 1988). the rhizomatic connections of materials like bra-straps can be connected to renold’s (2018) study of 15-year-old girls and gender-based sexual violence in that an object like a ruler was not confined to its ability to measure but, upon intra-action, was transformed into a tool for sexual violence. through “artaphacts” crafted from girls’ experiences, a ruler became imbued with the capacity to branch into becoming something other such as a “rulerskirt” (renold, 2018, p. 44), thus demonstrating the potential of a ruler to be intra-acted by boys so as to sexually violate girls through their dresses in class. other relations evoked metaphorical connections to objects (a bank card and a machine) used in bank transactions to illustrate how the random swiping of a bank card can be associated with the rough mishandling of girls’ private parts, as reflected in ayabonga’s narrative. such imaginative thoughts, although not tangible, embodied transformative affects that commodified girls’ bodies and violated their dignity. the sexual violence assemblage was also underlined by socio-economic materialities that constrained girls’ capacities as is evident in kerina’s statement: if you don’t give the boys what they want like lunch, money or homework, they hit you . . . i can’t hit the boys back because they are stronger. what is visible here is how objects filled with vibrant power such as “lunch, money and homework” constrained kerina’s capacities as she is coerced into submitting to boys’ demands. kerina’s entanglement reflects the socio-economic circumstances of girls who attend pps in that a variation in household income exists, and this shapes their access to resources and thus their capacity for resistance to sexual violence. given that not all girls may have access to such materials, the possibility of sexual violence was ever present. in this case, on the one hand, kerina’s capacity appears curtailed but, on the other, she acknowledges that her resistance to boys’ demands will result in violence and that her anatomy in comparison to that of boys impedes her escape. also, kerina’s silence and submission to material demands affirms and reinforces her as submissive and obedient to male power and domination, thus amplifying boys’ capacities for continued coercive demands and sexual violence. as do jewkes and morrell (2012) in their study of young women’s capacity to resist violence, we also show the limits of what girls can do in challenging violence. other materialities within the assemblage included buildings such as school toilets where girls felt unsafe, as the following demonstrates. researcher: do you feel safe at the school toilets? priya: no, it’s because of boys and what they do to girls. they [boys] sexually assault girls. there was this boy from grade 7, he pushed this girl onto the wall, and he started asking her questions and it was very sexual questions and questions that he janak et al.: a new feminist materialist analysis of girls and the sexual violence assemblage 75 [was] not supposed to be asking her. i didn’t really hear but i did go to see what was happening and then the girl that was standing there told me if she doesn’t date him, he is going to do something really bad to her. they [boys] go banging on the girls’ doors, pushing [them] open and ask them what they are doing inside, and it’s scary because you may never know what they [boys] up to, especially if you’re a girl and you’re in a girls’ toilet and a boy enters. siyethaba: we can’t tell the teacher because the boys say that they will catch and hit us after school. we stay quiet, even though we know it’s wrong. who will help us? how ma’am how can you come and just touch a girl anyhow you want but if it’s you, you touch a boy on his private part, it’s something big but if they [boys] do it, it’s like nothing. visible in priya’s response is how school toilet spaces form a significant part of the sexual violence assemblage. in this case, toilet spaces served as the immediate material context in which forms of sexual violence were manifested. while school toilets, as opposed to other spaces at school, are presumed to be sites of privacy, priya’s narrative highlights how boys violated this by invading these spaces. in the absence of teacher surveillance and other school adult personnel, these isolated spaces provided a platform on which boys could exercise power and authority over girls in the form of violent threats and physical force. evident here is how such spaces affectively increased girls’ vulnerability, and in which showing resistance to boys’ coercive demands would result in sexual violence. in recent research on geographies of sexual violence in a south african school, ngidi (2022) draws our attention to how schoolrelated sexual violence is connected to toilet spaces where girls faced increased risks of bullying, rape, and sexual harassment. despite such harassment, siyethaba acknowledges the sexual double standards and asymmetrical relations that exist, yet she simultaneously recognises the danger that lurks outside school spaces should she report such violence to her teachers. her narrative displays the lack of confidence in teacher support that reinforces her hesitancy in reporting the harassment. the absence of teacher supervision outside school hours and out of school spaces actively capacitates feelings of vulnerability in girls since the risk of sexual violence is ever present in such spaces. karabo: i do have friends who walk from their homes to school. i don’t think it’s safe to walk to school because many children live in [anonymised] and the girls, they walk down by the school, and there are many thieves over there and it’s dangerous. many [girls] walk from the taxi rank and they have to walk by the tunnel. in the tunnel there are many thugs and thieves. as well, many rape cases have been reported of children who walk by the tunnel so it’s very unsafe and dangerous. researcher: do you think the girls feel safe in the taxis to and from school? kanyo: no. taxi drivers are very rude . . . the harassment i see mostly in taxi ranks, people that are being harassed. some men, when you are walking on the street and see 76 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 men smoking or drunk, they will see you and like look at your butt and tell you, that you look amazing, and you will try to ignore, and he will go and hit you somewhere in your body maybe your butt or somewhere. i think [girls] feel unsafe. of particular significance here is how materialities in the form of bodies, road spaces, tunnels, taxi ranks, and taxis were all integral parts of the assemblage where girls’ capacities became further constrained. the narratives reveal how girls perceived features such as tunnels outside school spaces that they encountered on their way to and from school as being dangerous and risky. structural features such as tunnels are physically characterised by darkness and isolation, serving as places for perpetrators to hide and commit sexual crimes. areas such as taxi ranks were not just places of transportation but places where the expression of male power contributed to girls’ daily risk of violence. kanyo’s encounter with taxi drivers and other men who sexually harass and objectify girls’ body parts, created harmful affects through which girls felt unsafe and vulnerable. the sexual violence assemblage expanded to include verbal sexual harassment and objectification of girl bodies as can be seen below. asanda: lindo said in zulu ‘ngquza ka ma’ [a popular vulgar term that refers to a mother’s genitals]. annastacia: this one boy came to me and said he loves me and wants me to be his girlfriend. i said no, please leave me alone. he then turned around and said to the other boys around, i am an isifebe [bitch]. ansu: boys do tease us, and they call us ‘isihwápha’ [flat bum]. what they mean is that we are too thin, we are flat, we don’t have nice boobs or a nice big butt. we feel hurt. the incorporation of linguistic elements such as vulgar words embodied affects that resulted in negative consequences for girls. derogatory comments reduced girls’ capacities. previous research has documented boys’ use of pejoratives as a strategic use of power that serves to materialise an idealised heterosexual masculine performance in the presence of other individuals (summit et al., 2016). pejoratives spoken in isizulu were underpinned by cultural affects and mobilised a phallic form as reflected in other research (see renold, 2018). words and terms such as “ngquza ka ma”, “isifebe”, and “isihwápha” used within local parameters embodied meanings that defied cultural norms. for example, in zulu cultural norms, inhlonipha (respect) views children’s association with sex and sexuality as problematic (irvine & gunner, 2018). the affective flows generated through such pejoratives violated cultural norms. from annastacia’s narrative, we see how a rejection of male advances has implications for femininity where girls who resist such advances stand to lose reputational value, leading to insults and abuse. it also becomes apparent how body shape becomes integral to the sexual violence assemblage where girls who do not meet the heteronormative ideal were subjected to harassment and shame through words like “isihwápha.” this categorisation produced affects that constrained girls’ enactment of heterosexuality. it is also janak et al.: a new feminist materialist analysis of girls and the sexual violence assemblage 77 suggestive of how sexual objectification at a young age creates conditions for the normalisation of body shaming and the pressure to conform to what counts as an idealised and desirable heterosexual female. we can see that girls’ responses are reflective of the highly sexualised environment that produced territorialising capacities limiting what they could do. the everyday lives of girls in school affects and is affected by the politics of gender. while it may be easy to condemn boys’ conduct through arguments based on toxic masculinity, we argue with keddie and bartel (2021) that blaming boys in working class contexts has the effect of reifying racist tropes that position black men experiencing poverty as violent and hypersexual without understanding the social-material and cultural realities that produce particular understandings of masculinity. indeed, masculinities are complex, fluid, and contextual and to reduce the experience of the sexual violence assemblage to toxic masculinity alienates boys further while diminishing the dynamic ways in which the assemblage makes certain plays of power possible while curtailing others. “go away! don’t touch me! i will fuck you up!”: girls’ deterritorialisation and resistance not all girls ascribed to the affects associated with an oppressive sexual violence assemblage. in this section, we show how girls’ collisions with other materialities transgressed the notion of girls as passive victims of sexual violence and as incapable of resistance. instead, the rhizomic nature of the sexual violence assemblage assembled with other relations of matter, is filled with affective potential to challenge the collisions inflicted upon girls that constrain their capacities. it is through their intra-actions with matter that affects to unlock avenues for new potentials and becomings in nuanced ways are produced, as is evident below. karuna: boys sometimes touch girls anyhow. some girls they don’t do anything, other girls push the boys away and say, ‘go away! don’t touch me! i will fuck you up!’ but still, this is something that continues to take place at school. inhle: once when she [angel] was absent, vusi was talking about her. he said she is an isifebe [bitch]. angel found out and went to him and she swore at him. they say things like ‘msunu wenja’ [dog’s penis], ‘masimba’ [faeces], ‘s’hlama’ [stupid]. angel even took off her shoe and hit vusi. he ran out through the window. then angel came out the door and went after him, she hit him even more. violence sparked flows of rage, anger, and disgust that capacitated both karuna’s and inhle’s ability to fight back. of significance here are the ways in which materialities (body parts, objects, words, forces) each embodied with power assembled in specific ways to deterritorialise and provide girls with the space to resist. within a new materialist framework, girls’ capacities for new becomings are beyond human agency but involve other “material agents” filled with vibrant capacities that when enacted, trigger a change in state (ringrose & rawlings, 2015, p. 14). in this case, an object like a shoe as suggested by inhle, is not 78 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 confined to its categorisation of dress but upon collision with other elements pulsated thingpower that transformed it into a tool of violence, demonstrating what else it could become or do in a distinct moment in time (bennett, 2010). it is the agentic force of the shoe intra-acting with the body (for inhle) that unlocks a moment of de-territorialisation, illustrating what else angel could become, other than passive. the fluidness of touch through hitting is also pertinent here. while touch as shown in the previous section can violate girls’ bodies, touch is now used by girls as a defence mechanism, indicating the reconfiguration of matter. however, while karuna’s and inhle’s capacities de-territorialised gender norms, such capacities were produced through the exact mechanisms (hitting, swearing, objectification) that are used by boys to inflict sexual violence. according to paechter (2018), the hegemonic formation of femininities is illustrative of qualities similar to hegemonic masculinity in their mobilisation of power. in this case, notwithstanding girls’ ability to resist sexual violence through new becomings, it is the violent affects produced through such a change in state that contribute to a perpetual culture of violence at pps. in addition, the sexual violence assemblage unlocked new becomings in new ways. amahle: the other day victor was walking, and he came and hit my bum. and then i cried that day, and i went to tell the principal. the principal said he was going to talk to victor. ayabonga: they [boys] hit the girls; they touch the girls’ private parts. they [girls] cry, they tell ma’m. it stops a little but continues again. they [boys] get a parent’s letter. their parents don’t end up coming school, they still look at girls in a sexual way and they [boys] just laugh, ma’m. kanyo: some of them can hide, they hide in the girls’ toilet, maybe if the boys chasing the girls, the girls can run into the girl’s toilet because the boys can’t go in. when you are walking in a group of girls, you need to be aware of things around you. you must not get too close to certain people while walking. from amahle’s and ayabonga’s narratives, it is clear that girls de-territorialised the affects of humiliation through reporting these events to the principal and teachers. drawing from ayabonga’s response, we see how boys were not deterred, but, rather, dismissed girls’ power, thus suggesting their lack of concern for the consequences that may emerge while simultaneously reinscribing male power. consequently, girls’ capacities appear curtailed as the male sexual gaze remained prevalent even after reporting. thus, the male sexual gaze produces capacities that are bound by patriarchal ideologies and operative within a broader socio-cultural backdrop where male entitlement and privilege is pervasive. girls’ actions, while illustrating capacity, are apprehended by dominant masculine norms. this intra-action is reflective of re-territorialising capacities that seek to reduce girls’ potential. the entanglement here illuminates how girls’ capacities for new becomings are in a constant state of flux and never fixed but exist within a process of relational and infinite intra-actions that shape what girls can do, feel, or be. janak et al.: a new feminist materialist analysis of girls and the sexual violence assemblage 79 visible here are other relations in the assemblage such as parents and their lack of cooperation, and this suggests their compliance with such gendered ideologies that capacitates male power and reinforces boys’ use of violence. in their research, paechter (2018) cautioned that irrespective of the amount of power girls are able to mobilise against boys, their agentic capabilities run alongside the existing gender binaries and inequalities. from kanyo’s response, we see how buildings such as toilets can change from being unsafe to being safe within particular moments in time, demonstrating the nature of materialities as fluid and being always in flux. kanyo highlights the girls’ toilets as being a safe space that provides protection against boys who harass them and who are forbidden from entering such spaces. additionally, girls like kanyo showed resistance through developing their own strategies by walking in groups with other girls to mitigate the risks associated with sexual violence and thus prevent possible harm. kanyo acknowledged the dangers of associating or allowing close contact with strangers who could be perpetrators of violence. conclusion in this paper, we sought to explore girls’ experience of sexual violence by attending to the surrounding materialities at play. using deleuze and guattari’s (1988) concept of assemblage as a theoretical backdrop, we revealed sexual violence to be a constellation of human and more-than-human elements co-existing in an affective relationship. by attending to the affective connections with matter (bodies, things, objects, buildings, space, forces, norms) within an assemblage, we have demonstrated how specific (in)capacities were produced in girls’ experiences of sexual violence that mediated what they could do, feel, or be in a specific moment in time. we illuminated how girls’ entanglement with matter generated capacities in ways that reduced their potential to become something other than subservient to male power. however, the vibrancy of matter in the assemblage also capacitated girls to deterritorialise the restrictive affects that constrain their potential, enabling new becomings. notwithstanding, girls’ capacities for new becomings, such capacities in some cases were unlocked by their using violence. looking back at the opening quotation of this paper and unesco’s (2020) aspiration for a collision free world for girls, we suggest that girls continue to encounter sexual violence in overt forms through their daily interactions with the socio-material reality, where limited adult support reduces their capacities. girls’ agential capacities are produced in and interconnected to the socio-material reality. to understand girls’ experience of violence requires paying attention to their actual lives in and outside of school. in keeping with a materialist lens through which relations are volatile, we suggest that a re-examination of the repressive ideologies that underpin girls’ entanglements is indeed possible. following kohli et al. (2021, p. 818), a localised understanding of social norms becomes critical to the prevention of sexual violence and would “involve different agents of gender socialisation.” this requires a collaborative intra-action of all relations (teachers, parents, boys, chieftains, community, government authorities) within the micropolitical level of the assemblage to address the gendered attitudes, behaviours, and inequalities through which male entitlement is upheld at schools. 80 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 acknowledgment this work is based on the research supported wholly by the national research foundation of south africa (grant number 98407). references alldred, p., & fox, n. j. (2017). young bodies, power and resistance: a new materialist perspective. journal of youth studies, 20(9), 1161–1175. artz, l., burton, p., ward, c. l., leoschut, l., phyfer, j., loyd, s., & le mottee, c. 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(2016). unraveling the slut narrative: gender constraints on adolescent girls’ sexual decision-making. american journal of sexuality education, 11(2), 113–128. janak et al.: a new feminist materialist analysis of girls and the sexual violence assemblage 83 the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation & the united nations entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women. (2016). global guidance on addressing school-related gender-based violence. https://www.unicef.org/documents/global-guidance-addressing-school-related-genderbased-violence the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation. (2020). fulfilling our promise to girls in east and southern africa will give voice to and secure their equal future. https://www.unicef.org/esa/stories/fulfilling-our-promise-to-girls microsoft word c88 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 88, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i88a06 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x towards inclusivity and sustainability in the leadership of an academic department in a south african university: a distributed perspective kenneth d. haufiku faculty of education, rhodes university, grahamstown/makhanda, south africa kennethd888@yahoo.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2828-3757 carolyn (callie) grant faculty of education, rhodes university, grahamstown/makhanda, south africa c.grant@ru.ac.za (corresponding) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4188-7408 farhana amod kajee faculty of education, rhodes university, grahamstown/makhanda, south africa f.kajee@ru.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6269-0025 (received: 14 february 2022; accepted: 6 july 2022) abstract historically, the concept of head of department (hod) in a university context has been understood as a oneperson role. despite the increasing complexity of the role, the position remains exclusive and, for many academics, undesirable. reliant only on a single individual, the position, located at the centre of complex relational interfaces, is known to generate tension and role ambiguity between the scholarly project on the one hand, and management and administrative matters on the other. in response to this problematic, in this paper, we draw on a higher education leadership study that explored the take-up of a distributed leadership approach in an academic department in a south african university. framed by a socio-cultural conceptualisation of distributed leadership comprising a leader-plus and a practice aspect, we designed the research as an exploratory case study. participants included the academic and administrative staff in the department and qualitative data was generated through document analysis as well as individual and focus group interviews. findings revealed that the framework provides a useful analytical tool for departmental leadership, understood inclusively and expansively beyond the formal hod position. offering an empirical case of a distributed leadership approach in an academic department, we contribute to a gap in the literature and argue for further studies in other faculties and universities in the global south. keywords: higher education, head of department, leadership and management, distributed leadership, inclusivity, sustainability 88 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 introduction higher education leadership and management is an ambiguous and disputed practice (sewerin & holmberg, 2017). conventionally, research in this area has focused on senior staff, including deans, deputy vice-chancellors, and vice-chancellors, (chilvers et al. 2018). consequently, less is known about the work of university middle managers, particularly heads of academic departments (floyd, 2016). nevertheless, studies in this under-researched area are increasing, given the critical role that middle-level academic managers play in higher education institutions around the world (degn, 2015). however, most of these studies have a western bias (nguyen, 2013) with only a few located in developing countries like south africa (davis et al., 2016). this gap in the literature provided the initial (and partial) impetus for the research we report on in this paper. university heads of department: a review of the literature chiefly, the field of leadership and management in higher education adopts a leader-centric approach (jones et al., 2017). accordingly, the position of hod in the university sector is understood as a one-person role with incumbents appointed for a fixed-term period, at the conclusion of which they return to their original academic role (chilvers et al., 2018). the position of hod is considered central to higher education, primarily because it is “where institutional policy and procedure are predominately enacted” (gibson, 2020, p. 365). the position has been described as complex since hods are expected to lead the academic project in the department while also engaging tactically and diplomatically with senior management and external partners (degn, 2015). thus, as middle managers, they are positioned invidiously between the vision and needs of the staff they lead, and the goals and ways of working of the broader university (floyd, 2016). the roles associated with the position of hod feature strongly in the literature. while these roles may vary across institutions and contexts, typically, they cluster around staff matters, curriculum and student related issues, as well as departmental administration. staff matters include but are not limited to providing a sense of direction/ strategic vision, allocating staff teaching time/workload, acting as a role model, creating a positive and collegial work atmosphere and advancing the departments cause internally and externally of the institution mentoring individual staff, undertaking staff performance reviews and responsibility for staff development. (gibson, 2020, p. 367) curriculum and student related issues apply at undergraduate and postgraduate level and include responsibility for the calibre of students admitted, monitoring of student progress, scheduling and supervising department examinations, overseeing departmental curricula, courses, and programmes, as well as scheduling classes and timetabling (nguyen, 2013; sarros et al., 1997; sewerin & holmberg, 2017). typically, departmental administration haufiku et al.: towards inclusivity and sustainability in the leadership . . . 89 involves financial operations, budgets, resource allocations, prospectuses and policies, community and professional duties, as well as communication with senior management and others within and beyond the institution (floyd, 2016; nguyen, 2013; sarros et al., 1997; sewerin & holmberg, 2017). hod roles have become much more complex in a higher education sector increasingly underpinned by globalisation, neo-liberalist ideologies, managerialism, technological advances, and market driven principles (alonderiene & majauskaite, 2016; floyd, 2016). these global changes have led to the massification of universities and the concomitant increase in student diversity (grant et al., 2018). however, this rise in student numbers has not seen a concomitant increase in academic staff numbers, with the consequence being substantial pressure on hods and their leadership of the academic project (floyd, 2016). against this backdrop, it stands to reason that role ambiguity (chilvers et al., 2018; nguyen, 2013) may be experienced by hods as they attempt to hold in balance the academic project and the administration of the department. this balance is tenuous at best, and it is, most often, the academic project—the teaching and research—that is known to suffer (gibson, 2020; gmelch, 2000). frustration, fatigue, stress, and burn out may be experienced by hods as they try desperately to hold onto their academic work (sarros et al., 1997)—the very reason they entered the academy (chilvers et al., 2018). therefore, for many, the pressures associated with being a hod outweigh the rewards of the position and it is often viewed as a backward rather than a forward career step in an academic trajectory (anderson et al., 2008; davis et al., 2016). the complexity of the hod position is also very often exacerbated by the limited support hods receive on entry into middle management. few, if any, preparatory leadership and management training programmes are available to university managers; this is a pervasive problem according to the literature (chilvers et al., 2018; jones et al., 2017). consequently, when hods take up their middle management positions, they seldom have the knowledge, skills, and experience to be successful leaders (bryman, 2007). poorly prepared, they learn (or not) how to lead and manage the department while on the job (gmelch, 2000)—a risky business to be sure. floyd (2016) referred to this absence of a systematic approach to the training and development of hods as institutional neglect, a stance supported by chilvers et al. (2018, p. 431) as evidenced in the following extract. to become skilled in their areas of research, academics spend years in mentored educational experiences; however, there appears to be limited knowledge transfer or education for those who wish to transition into management roles. how can managers be successful in handling the business and people management expectations which come with university management and administrative roles without proper mentoring, support and training? from the discussion thus far, it can be argued that the hod position in a university academic department requires urgent re-imagining. new approaches to departmental leadership are therefore crucial, ones that are more inclusive and that take account of local contexts, cultures, and situations. one such contemporary approach that has been touted is distributed 90 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 leadership, given that it takes account of context and, in the case of the university, a specialised and professional one (floyd & preston, 2018; jones et al., 2012). furthermore, academics, by virtue of their education, autonomy, and criticality, are leaders in their disciplinary fields with the authority to effect real change, regardless of whether they hold formal management positions or not (floyd & fung, 2017). therefore, studies that focus on a distributed approach to leadership in a university context are necessary (floyd & fung, 2017; jones, 2014; jones et al., 2012), and particularly so at the middle management level. distributed leadership: a research framework distributed leadership has been adopted widely in school leadership research (see for example gronn, 2002; harris, 2013; spillane, 2006), particularly in the global north. as a contemporary school leadership theory, distributed leadership is currently in vogue primarily because of its normative, representational, and empirical power (harris & spillane 2008). in the global south, distributed leadership is less well known, although it is emerging as what might be called the new kid on the block in school leadership research (grant, 2017). however, despite its popularity, the term has been criticised because it lacks conceptual clarity and theoretical sophistication (grant, 2017; lumby, 2019). all too often it has become an expedient descriptor for any form of shared or collaborative leadership practice (harris, 2013). consequently, distributed leadership is seldom presented neutrally in the south african literature and is often promoted as the right way to lead (grant, 2017). in direct contrast, distributed leadership has been applied non-normatively in the literature and is considered a research framework for conceptualising and analysing leadership practice (harris & deflaminis, 2016; torres, 2019). researchers working with distributed leadership as a research framework draw on the seminal works of gronn (2002) and spillane et al. (2004). these theorists argued for an integrated and situated leadership framework that considers the what of leadership but also the how and why. this framework, underpinned by distributed cognition and activity theory, recognises how leadership is situated and cannot be extracted from its socio-cultural context or its historical and institutional settings (grant, 2017; spillane et al., 2004). conceptualised in this way, distributed leadership is neither a blueprint for undertaking leadership more successfully nor is it a panacea (harris & deflaminis, 2016; spillane, 2006). instead, it functions as a context-sensitive sensing-device for registering the complex practice of school leadership (spillane et al., 2004), involving the two aspects of leader-plus and practice. the leader-plus aspect distributive leadership has emerged in response to traditional leadership approaches including the so-called great man theory and the heroic leadership paradigm that champion the individual leader (floyd & preston, 2018; yukl, 1999). conceptualised as leadership by many, distributed leadership acknowledges many leaders who work collaboratively across organisational levels and boundaries (azorín et al., 2020). it is referred to as the aggregated haufiku et al.: towards inclusivity and sustainability in the leadership . . . 91 leadership of an institution that “is dispersed among some, many, or maybe of all the members” (gronn, 2002, p. 429). therefore, a distributive perspective on leadership, by its very definition, is inclusive. drawing on the work of blessinger and stefani (2018), we understand inclusion as “a set of practices that help create more diverse environments” (p. 4). diversity, a complementary term, “is grounded in the premise that having diversity in a workplace or any group provides positive benefits overall since it has the potential to draw on different strengths, viewpoints, talents, etc.” (p. 4). distributed leadership, therefore, is premised on the principle that all people have the potential for leadership but that it may lie latent, waiting for the appropriate socio-cultural conditions and the necessary expertise of the people in the organisation (harris, 2004; van dartel, 2013). of importance is the collective wisdom co-created at different levels in the institution in pursuit of the development goals of the institution and of broader society (ramakrishnan & abukari 2020). the practice aspect a distributed perspective on leadership is not merely about the inclusion of many leaders in leadership, however. although crucial, this leader-plus aspect does not fully account for the intricacies of leadership, necessitating a focus on socio-cultural practice (spillane, 2006). a practice focus is defined as a product of the interactions of school leaders, followers and their situation. the issue is not whether leadership is distributed but how it is distributed. most important, the interactions among leaders and followers (as distinct from an exclusive concern with leaders’ actions) are central in studying leadership practice. (spillane, 2005, p. 385) in keeping with its socio-cultural foundations, this perspective on practice focuses on “leaders’ thinking and action in situ” (spillane et al., 2004, p. 10) with the unit of analysis being leadership activity. the location or site of leadership is therefore integral to the leadership practice, as are the socio-cultural tools, routines, structures, and the institutional culture. from this perspective, leadership is understood as a “dynamic organisational entity process” (azorín, et al., 2020, p. 119) in which the researcher asks how features of the sociocultural situation enable and constrain practice and, in so doing, contribute to defining and redefining it (spillane, 2006). in other words, “material artefacts and tools are constituting components of leadership practice—they help define that practice—and are not simply devices that allow individuals to execute a task in some a priori determined fashion” (spillane et al., 2003, p. 537). in an increasingly unequal higher education sector, we argue that a priority for hods and their departmental staff is the cultivation of inclusive leadership practices, i.e., practices that “respect and engage different identities and viewpoints (related to race, ethnicity, sex, gender, 92 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 sexual orientation, socio-economic class, caste, age, language, religion, disability, and their intersections) in its teaching, learning, curricula, etc.” (blessinger & stefani 2018, p. 5). benefits of distributed leadership given the leader-plus aspect of a distributed leadership perspective, inclusivity of organisational members in the practice of leadership is a logical benefit. naumov et al. (2021) stated that “distributed leadership is far more inclusive as it goes beyond a focus on teambased leadership to capture entire firms as units of analysis and importantly, takes into account their organisational environments” (p. 7). this distributed perspective on leadership affords increased prospects for organisational members to learn from one another (shava & tlou, 2018). it also enables capacity building since leadership opportunities are created for colleagues to work together in collaborative and supportive ways, regardless of their formal position (sol, 2020). in so doing, the opportunity exists for personal and professional learning and a fuller understanding of the complexity of work-related issues (melville et al., 2014). therefore, when distributed leadership works well, “individuals are accountable and responsible for their leadership actions, new leadership roles are created, collaborative teamwork is the modus operandi and interdependent working is a cultural norm” (shava & tlou, 2018, p. 283). sustainability may well be an outcome of such distributed leadership practice. critiques of distributed leadership the conceptual confusion regarding the meaning of distributed leadership is perhaps its biggest drawback (grant, 2017). the term also lacks rigorous empirical research, particularly in the context of higher education (ramakrishnan & abukari, 2020). this is because “the empirical research based on distributed leadership is still largely undeveloped and evidence grounded in practice is thin” (naumov et al., 2021, p. 9). therefore, the higher education distributed leadership study in south africa on which this paper is based has long been overdue. another significant critique of distributed leadership is the paradox of the vital role of the formal leader in the leadership practice (spillane, 2006). it has been argued that a strong leader or leader-collective is necessary to provide guidance and direction and to instil confidence amongst colleagues (spillane, 2006; van dartel, 2013). this necessitates “providing time, space and opportunities and knowing when to step back to enable staff members to contribute and participate in decision making and to establish concerted action” (van dartel, 2013, p. 12). in this way, the leadership capability and capacity of others is likely to be developed (harris, 2013). however, questions have been posed about the redistribution of power (zulkifly et al., 2020). for example, grant (2017) queried whether only technical tasks are being distributed or whether authority and responsibility are also distributed. haufiku et al.: towards inclusivity and sustainability in the leadership . . . 93 methodology the research that underpins this paper draws from a master of education study that sought to explore how a distributed perspective on leadership was understood and practised in an academic department in a south african university and what the constraints to, and enablements of, this leadership approach were. we adopted a small-scale qualitative casestudy approach to try to interrogate the leadership of the academic department under investigation. this university department was purposively selected because it was piloting the new leadership approach. fifteen departmental staff members (about half the staff) participated in this study. data was generated through three focus group interviews, organised programmatically with four participants per focus group. individual interviews were held with six participants. all interviews (focus group and individual) were semi-structured and ranged between an hour and a half and two hours in length. a range of departmental documents including meeting agendas, minutes, and departmental reports provided an additional data set. data was analysed using an open method of coding to identify common themes and patterns of difference (braun & clarke, 2012). thereafter, the theoretical principles of distributed leadership were brought to bear on the data. the study received ethical approval from the institution at which the master of education candidate was registered, and ethical principles were observed throughout the study. following renganathan (2009), self-reflection, examination, scrutiny, and interrogation of the whole research process contributed to the trustworthiness of the findings. the master of education candidate, a namibian school principal, was an outsider to the south african higher education system, distancing him to some degree from the politics and subjectivities of the academic department under scrutiny. however, his experience as an educational leader transcended geographical contexts and provided some synergy and gave him an insider status to some degree. the findings of this study cannot be generalised, given its case study design and small sample size. despite this, the findings contribute to a gap in the literature, providing a much-needed account of the take-up of a distributed leadership approach in an academic department in a south african university. we suggest that follow-up studies focus on a range of university types and different academic departments and incorporate a wider range of participants, including students. in the next section we present and discuss our findings. in presenting the data and ensuring anonymity, we use a simple coding system. the 15 participants are referred to as p1 to p15. the individual interviews are referred to as ii, the focus group interviews as fgi 1 – 3 while the documents are named and dated. 94 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 discussion of findings in discussing the findings, we begin with the problematic of the hod position in the academic department. we then discuss the data in relation to the leader-plus as well as the practice aspects, core to a distributed leadership approach. the importance of the situatedness of the leadership practice is then raised. thereafter, and in line with the theme of this journal, the paper comments on inclusivity and sustainability in the practice of leadership. the hod position in the academic department as a problematic the catalyst for the introduction of a distributed perspective on leadership in the academic department was a practical, real-world problem: the hod position became available and there were no volunteers willing to take it up. the departmental practice of election of the hod by peers resulted in none of the top three nominated candidates being willing to take up the position (fgi 3). this aligned with the literature that acknowledges that the hod position is not sought after, given its complexity, and that it interferes with the scholarly work of an academic (gibson, 2020; gmelch, 2020). to illustrate, participant 8 explained that there have been crises of leadership or management in the department going back over decades, in which it was really difficult to find people who would volunteer, who would accept a nomination. (fgi 2) this point was endorsed by participant 15 who said, so, i think one of the tricky things at this institution or at most universities is that often when a position of leadership becomes available nobody really wants to do it, but also the reason why nobody wants to do it sometimes is because nobody knows what it involves. (ii) participant 9 expanded on this reasoning by referring to “the tension between being both an academic (scholarly role) and manager/leader (leadership and business/management role). taking on both roles is often seen as being onerous, difficult, and challenging because as academics none of us have been trained as managers” (ii). participant 7 referred to the “huge workload on one person” (fgi 1) as another contributing factor. situational factors were also considered including the point that “the department was not in a good space” with a “break down in trust” as a consequence of a “forensic audit” (ii). given these historical and contextual challenges, and the fact that “no one expressed an interest in being hod” (p9, ii), an alternative strategy was urgently required. participant 7 was of the view that the traditional approach to the hod no longer suited the department and required modification “to suit the vision of the department going forward” (fgi 1). after lengthy negotiations, the top three nominated candidates for the hod position agreed to share the load (fgi 3), with the explicit intention to experiment with a distributed approach to leadership as a research project and see how it unfolded during their tenure (p13, ii). colleagues were supportive of this initiative: “[a]nd to put a model like that on trial, i think is haufiku et al.: towards inclusivity and sustainability in the leadership . . . 95 a very good idea” (p10, ii). one of the initial goals of the hod team was “to create a more trusting, inclusive, and vibrant departmental culture” (hod team report, january 28, 2020) in which staff, academic and administrative, could thrive (p13, ii). threats to this goal included inequalities as a consequence of the institution’s colonial history, the juniorisation of staff, and the increasing reliance on contractual rather than permanent employment (hod team report, january 28, 2020). in seeking to address these inequalities, we now turn to a discussion of numerical inclusivity in the leadership of the academic department. numerical inclusivity: the leader-plus aspect if we begin by conceptualising inclusion as the number of people participating in the practice of leadership in the academic department, i.e., the leader-plus aspect (spillane, 2006), then many leaders (van dartel, 2013) were immediately identifiable. the hod team was comprised of three academics and the administrative manager (staff meeting minutes, july 18, 2019). given that there was no script for this distributed approach to departmental leadership, the hod workload was distributed among the team according to their strengths and what each was passionate about (p13, ii). participant 12 described how, in dividing up the work, they “would always take responsibility for the programmes that we’re currently taking responsibility for because they kind of resonate with our strengths and our expertise” (ii). expanding on this idea, participant 11 explained, “so i think from that aspect when we find what the other person is really good at, we almost try to incorporate that into where we are going” (ii). other leaders, identified across the data sets, included academics and support staff in a range of pivotal roles, both formal and informal. these related mainly to the academic project, primarily teaching and research. for example, the more formal roles included qualification coordinators and course coordinators at postgraduate and undergraduate level, research chairs, project and professional development managers, a research design course coordinating team, work-integrated learning coordinators as well as a bursary scheme coordinator (fgi 1, fgi 2, fgi 3). at faculty and university level, the more formal leadership roles included representation on senate, and leadership of the teaching and learning committee, the environmental committee, the higher degrees committee, and the ethics committee. in some of these formal committees, the more senior academics held positions of chair and deputy chair (fgi 2; p15, ii and p10, ii). in addition to the formal roles, examples of informal leadership were also mentioned. these included i) the re-curriculation of department qualifications, as regulated by the department of higher education and training, led by academics with extensive experience in the relevant fields (p9, ii; fgi 2), ii) leadership in the department building committee (fgi 2, p8), and iii) master of ceremony during departmental functions (fgi 1, p6). the basis for this leadership was dependent on one’s passion, interest, and expertise (fgi 2) and because one was good at it (fgi 1). however, we need to move beyond mere access to leadership (blessinger & stefani, 2018). like spillane (2006), we argue that this leader-plus aspect in focusing only on individuals included in leadership, whether in formal or informal leadership roles, does not do justice to the complexity of the leadership of the academic department. therefore, our analysis must 96 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 take a practice focus, defined as a product of the interactions of leaders, their colleagues, 1 and the situation in which they find themselves. it is to this discussion of leadership as a sociocultural practice that we now turn. the situatedness of leadership practice given that the socio-cultural context is an essential element of, not just a background to or holder for, intelligent activity (spillane et al., 2004), it is imperative that a distributed perspective on leadership practice must focus on the leaders’ thinking and action in situ. the situation at the time of this leadership experiment in the academic department was principally influenced by two phenomena, one local and the other global. locally, the academic department endured an almost eight-month period of major building renovations to the 100+ year-old education building (hod team report, january 28, 2020). globally, what followed was the covid-19 pandemic and accompanying national lockdown (hod team report, july 31, 2020). ironically, both phenomena resulted in colleagues being obliged to leave the education building, their taken-for-granted place of work, and create an on-line office space in their homes (p13, ii). this disruption was difficult for all staff involved but particularly for the administrative staff, many of whom did not have immediate access to laptops and internet connectivity (fgi 3) and so were excluded from some of the initial on-line activity. this remote and on-line substitute for face-to-face teaching, research, and postgraduate supervision was massively disruptive to the daily routines and was experienced as overwhelming (p13, ii) with colleagues feeling isolated and lonely (p9, ii). the academic department faced its biggest crisis to date in working out how colleagues were to offer quality teaching and research, dispersed as they were, both geographically and psychologically. what structural innovations were necessary to bring colleagues together virtually, hold them steady, and help them thrive, despite the odds? for the purposes of this paper, we discuss two structural innovations. friday check-in the friday check-in was a weekly routine, a structural innovation, in the leadership practice of the department. initially conceived of in a face-to-face context, it provided “regular communication and a safe and generative space for colleagues to raise any issues deemed important in our department” (hod team report, august 10, 2020). with the onset of the building renovations and the covid-19 pandemic, the check-in was redefined (after spillane, 2006) and it morphed into an on-line communication mechanism with the support of zoom as an it tool (p12, ii). it became a crucial departmental structure that provided an on-line assembly point and vital communication channel for staff during lockdown (hod team report, july 31, 2020). as the demands of remote and on-line ways of working increased, the original purpose of the check-in was superseded by a multitude of pressing imperatives. 1 as already mentioned, spillane (2006) uses the term followers in relation to the practice of leadership. we choose, instead, to adopt the term colleague that we believe to be more appropriate to the higher education context. haufiku et al.: towards inclusivity and sustainability in the leadership . . . 97 remote and on-line teaching, learning, and assessment challenges, the communication of covid-related university policy, qualification and supervision discussions, as well as ensuring the wellbeing of colleagues (p13, ii) competed for check-in time. minutes of the friday check-ins, emailed every week to the staff (p10, ii), academic articles related to the topics being discussed (fgi 1, p1), as well as staff reflections and hod team reports (fgi 2) constituted the check-in related tools of the leadership practice. for the most part, check-ins were regarded as safe, discursive spaces that encouraged participation and inclusion of all colleagues. to illustrate, participant 15 experienced the check-ins as very much about hearing voices and voices of experience. so, it’s not just we want your voice on a course or the date or the nuts and bolts of what we need to do in the department to get our jobs done. it’s also we want to hear your voice on how you are experiencing the difficulty of your job under the current covid challenges, and we want to hear about that as well. (ii) participant 9 understood the weekly check-in as one of a number of different strategies to facilitate different voices being heard . . . where different people will be asked to present, and tasks and reporting are devolved from the leadership team to others. (ii) in contrast, two participants were of the view that the zoom technology constrained the collegiality of the check-ins. participant 8 experienced zoom exchanges as “extremely hierarchical in a way that is destructive of the distributed leadership model . . . the technology has eroded what we were building in terms of collegiality” (fgi 2). participant 2 also felt that the technology had reduced some of the gains that the department had made, primarily because “you see, we can’t even see other faces and how they’re reacting to anything. you can’t even, you don’t even know it’s the other person who is at the other end” (fgi 2). a way around this real constraint was to draw on the zoom break-away meeting rooms as an alternative communicative platform. this option, particularly where colleagues were less confident to talk in the wider zoom forum, appeared to have worked better. participant 6 explained, i can speak in a meeting and not be worried about who i am. i can voice my ideas by not being afraid as to who is going to say, ‘oh, what are you saying?’ or ‘you’re saying it incorrectly’ or even ‘you’re speaking english incorrectly’, because in those meetings we were told that it’s not about what you are saying, it’s about being part of the whole team. (fgi 1) the buddy system a second structural innovation that was constituted in the academic department during the period of the building renovations and the covid pandemic, was the buddy system. aside 98 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 from the weekly friday check-in, departmental colleagues remained isolated and vulnerable, particularly during lockdown level 5 of the covid pandemic (fgi 2, p8), this necessitated further mechanisms for staying in touch. the idea of a buddy system, a strategy to enable inclusivity, was suggested by a colleague during a friday check-in. the purpose of the system was “to ensure that all colleagues stay connected to each other and remain safe during the covid-19 pandemic” (hod team report, july 31, 2020). it involved teams of about four colleagues working in similar programmes checking in with each other outside of the formal friday check-in (fgi 2, p2) to ascertain if anyone was sick or in any kind of need (fgi 2, p8) or to assist with the emotional and personal challenges of each other (p15, ii). pastoral care, as a consequence of the pandemic, became a priority in the department (fgi 1, p6). the buddy system as a loose structure worked well for some teams, with colleagues supporting each other emotionally. as participant 6 said, “whereby when someone is down, the group will lift their spirit. or just talking to each other, finding each other, where are you?” (fgi 1, p6). some of the buddy teams really gelled in offering essential support to one another as is evident in this comment: “it is for my team, we talk all the time, we check on each other all the time. and it also helps because we work together” (fgi 2, p2). for another team, the support was helpful in decision-making. as participant 4 acknowledged, “it’s a team effort where there are still individual decisions can still be made but with the support of your team” (fgi 1, p4). participant 9 was aware of “clear communication within the teams/cells/groups working in a programme” (ii). given this data, it seems safe to argue that the weekly friday check-in and the buddy system were significant structures that, for the most part, enabled a sense of inclusivity and connectivity in the department. this sentiment was summed up in the words of participant 15, who said, the individuals in the department have a sense that they want to be heard by the leadership. i think they have a sense that they can raise things and they will be heard, and i think they have a sense of belonging even while we’re in this covid and it’s online. i think there’s a sense of community that the hod team has been able to maintain throughout the covid challenges and the on-line meetings, which is no small ask. (ii) inclusivity in the decision-making process inclusivity featured strongly in the process of decision-making in the academic department as did decision-making based on consensus. across the data sets there was reference to decisions being made by teams rather than by individuals or, in other words, what spillane (2006) and others refer to as co-leadership. the following excerpt refers to the leadership of the hod team. there is no one person who is making all the decisions exclusively; decision-making is a joint exercise, and i think a lot of input comes from all . . . of our leaders. and haufiku et al.: towards inclusivity and sustainability in the leadership . . . 99 they’re all so very different, which makes the decision making, i think, even better because of the diversity. (fgi 1, p1) similarly, participant 15 described the benefit of having four people who can support each other on challenges that arise and on strategically thinking through challenges that arise. so, on the one hand when challenges arise, you need careful strategic thinking and i think if you’ve got four people with different knowledge of different people and areas in the department. i think you are better off coming up with a strategy that in fact more people will buy into, because you’re not just getting one perspective. (ii) however, decision-making was not only in the hands of the hod team. most of the participants were of the view that there were opportunities for staff to involve themselves in decision-making as is clear in this observation. so, it also grows the department in that manner because it’s not only the hod team who are making decisions, but they also allow us to bring, to become part of, the decisions and to be the decision makers within the department. (fgi 1, p6) participant 13 argued for the importance of developing “heterarchical relations” in order to “work within a flatter structure and growing and leading in that way” (ii). similarly, participant 7 described the decision-making as “a flat structure where, you know, it’s shared, shared decision-making; it’s collegial decision making” (fgi 1). this flatter leadership structure in the department was thought to enable a process of lateral leadership during which “leadership practices are shared by organisational members and built on interactions that involve leaders, members, and situations in the context of influencing work practices” (musa et al., 2020, p. 185). for example, participant 5 described how the culture of the department was such that he could “go straight to the qualification coordinator knowing that everything that i need, she will be able to resolve the issue before even the hod team are aware of the kind of issue” (fgi 2). participant 1 described how, in the decision-making process, “the decision is a distributed decision, it is an elective decision rather, because then everybody feels heard and the repercussion is also then felt by everybody and accepted by everybody” (fgi 1). the concept of trust in one another was associated with an inclusive decision-making process. as participant 1 noted, “so, i think the connection is important, the fact that they trust one another to be able to make the decisions when maybe one of them is not available” (fgi 1, p1). participant 4 referred to a “circle of trust” that allowed for a particular scenario, in saying, if one of them made a decision and the other two don’t really disagree they’ll still back the person up who has made the decision. that’s my interpretation. so that’s the amount of trust they’ve got in one another. (fgi 1) 100 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 perhaps also because of this culture of trust, participant 6 made the point that there was no evidence of micro-management in the department (fgi 1). trust, it seems, was gained because of one’s professional integrity. someone that i could go to with an issue, with someone that i know will have my back because they trust my professional integrity. and that is something that one needs to build, it doesn’t just happen. so, for them [the hod team] to have done this in this period of time and in the pandemic and all that stuff, for us to kind of feel very much more connected than what we did in a regular kind of top-down leadership structure, i think is quite phenomenal. (fgi 1, p1) while inclusive decision making was thought to have real benefits, it also had its downsides. for example, while acknowledging that the departmental culture was “very engaging and very active in affirming members of staff in what they do,” participant 10 judiciously cautioned against “a selective affirmation syndrome” (p10, ii). he explained that while the hod team was proactive in generating an inclusive environment, this was in relation to race and gender but not age. as he said, the hod team “has given opportunity to young members of staff to take on leadership roles, sometimes at the expense of the older members of staff” (ii). a similar sentiment was shared by participant 9 who said, “i think it highlights my comment about inclusivity being selective at times. my experience has not been one of inclusivity by the hod team” (ii). inclusive decision making was also experienced as time consuming (fgi 1) and therefore inefficient. according to participant 10, this was because it was based on consensus, which is problematic, i think. not that consensus is bad, i mean it’s a pillar, i think, of democracy. but getting consensus is sometimes cumbersome at the expense of efficiency and moving ahead. (p10, ii) this view was endorsed by participant 9 who bemoaned the time lost with the consensus decision-making approach. frustrated by the delay in communication, this participant reverted instead to email communication to all hod team members but was concerned about the slow response time (ii). in contrast, participant 7 valued email communication because it seemed a faster and more transparent option and explained, [i] think an email is quicker than actually speaking to anyone, because in an email you send an email and you cc everyone, the hod team. and then you get a response quicker . . . i think it is so beautiful to witness . . . i find it’s quite simple, but i think it’s so profound in such a leadership structure. (fgi 1, p7) on the issue of the speed of decision-making, participant 12 was of the view that it was the status of the issue at hand that determined the speed or otherwise of the decision-making process. so, i think that [decision-making] is a bit of both; i think it’s slower when it comes to the more important new decisions that have to be made. but if it’s kind of something haufiku et al.: towards inclusivity and sustainability in the leadership . . . 101 that’s pretty simple and that you are able to deal with immediately, then you don’t have to go and have a conversation and consult with other people. i don’t believe, i don’t think the hod team consults on every issue, though, i think that the team members have enough confidence in each other to allow one person to take the lead in a decision. (fgi 3, p 12) participant 13 highlighted the importance of acknowledging the strengths of the members of her team and trusting them to lead the decision-making in the areas of their expertise. she said, “i know that my team members have strengths in areas i don’t have, so they are going to make a better decision [than] i would” (fgi 3). it seems from the data presented that inclusion in the departmental decision-making processes contributed in some way towards the advancement of an inclusive culture and mindset (see blessinger & stefani, 2018). we turn now to discuss how a department’s inclusive culture and mindset has the potential to lead to sustainability in the leadership practice. sustainability in the practice of leadership sustainability in the practice of leadership refers to the ability to maintain or support the practice continually over time. it is about preserving that that is valued (bottery, 2016) that is, in this case, an inclusive and vibrant academic department leadership practice. the literature reviewed earlier showed that the traditional conceptualisation of the hod position is unsustainable, particularly given the challenges of recruitment and retention (bottery, 2016; chilvers et al., 2018). leadership sustainability, in the form of induction and succession planning, featured as a theme in this distributed leadership study. induction into the academic department and the university was thought to be crucial to the sustainability of the leadership practice. however, the data indicated that, historically, induction into the hod position in the academic department was limited, resulting in discontinuity in the hod work. as participant 3 put it, “he came in, he hadn’t been at the institution long, he didn’t know the systems. there was no system of handover, no induction” (fgi 2, p3). participant 13 described how “no-one’s done an induction about human resources or finance or whatever; we asked for that support [but] we never got it institutionally” (ii). participant 15 reflected on the effects of this absence of support in saying, “ja, i guess people might have looked at previous single person leaderships over the years and thought well, when somebody leaves, where is the continuity” (p15, ii). however, a distributive approach to departmental leadership with its focus on inclusivity, was thought to incorporate induction opportunities. participant 15 said, “i see it as distributing, sharing the leadership responsibility amongst more people but in the same process inducting more people into leadership” (p15, ii). induction into the hod role, from this alternative perspective, was understood to take place while on the job. as participant 2, said, 102 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 but there are people who are experiencing it, who are seeing what is required of the position, who will be able to step up at the next cycle of us needing people who lead. (fgi 2, p2) benefits to this on-the-job induction included: i) retaining institutional memory within the hod team, should one of its members leave (fgi 2, p 2); ii) developing a team of colleagues “who know more about how the systems work” (fgi 2, p3); and iii) creating opportunities for leadership development according to participant 15 who said, “so, i don’t think it’s only about sharing the load, i think it’s about more people having leadership experience” (p15, ii). continuity and succession planning were considered an outcome of this on-the-job learning of the hod team. participant 3 was of the view that there was “more opportunity for people to move up and for it not to be such a shock to the system, and to bring others in” (fgi 2) while participant 15 believed that “people might be more willing to do it [the hod work] in this distributed mode of leadership” (ii). however, continuity and succession planning were not only discussed in relation to the hod team but were also central to the issue of coordination of qualifications housed in this academic department. for example, in a bachelor’s programme, there were academic coordinators allocated to each academic year as well as the more experienced qualification coordinator. in this coordinating team, according to participant 9, there would be opportunities for collaborative team leadership both in terms of the course management associated with the different staff teaching on the programme and students and the academic endeavour (curriculum and pedagogy choices and decisions), curriculum development and review, progression, formative and summative assessment; there are heaps of opportunities to participate in [including] debates about what knowledge should be included, how we teach and learn and assess, to name but a few. (p9, ii) it can be argued, therefore, that a distributive approach to departmental leadership, as evidenced in this study, incorporates the notion of sustainability. by foregrounding the drivers of induction and succession planning, change-capable managers are developed, and a leadership pipeline created (chilvers et al., 2018); this is essential if we wish to see growth and renewal in the higher education sector (jones et al., 2017). conclusion historically, the concept of hod in a university context has been understood as a one-person role. despite the increasing complexity of the role, the position remains exclusive and, for many academics, undesirable. reliant only on a single individual, the position, located at the centre of complex relational interfaces, is known to generate tension and role ambiguity between and among the scholarly project and management and administrative matters. in response to this problematic, in this paper, we drew on a higher education leadership study that explored the take-up of a distributed leadership approach in an academic department in a south african university. findings revealed that a socio-cultural conceptualisation of distributed leadership comprising a leader-plus and a practice aspect, provided a useful haufiku et al.: towards inclusivity and sustainability in the leadership . . . 103 analytical tool for departmental leadership, understood inclusively and expansively beyond the formal hod position. offering an empirical case of a distributed leadership approach in an academic department, we contribute to a gap in the literature and argue, as do shava and tlou (2018), for further studies in other faculties and universities in the global south. we argue, along with floyd and fung (2017), that higher education distributed leadership studies are important because they challenge the more traditional leadership models and have more chance of success because of their collective capacity (blessinger & stefani, 2018) and the relative autonomy and criticality of university academics. references alonderiene, r., & majauskaite, m. 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(2020). collegial and distributed leadership: two sides of the same coin? international journal of leadership in education. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2020.1804623 microsoft word b90 full issue.docx journal of education, 2023 issue 90, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i90a07 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x hybrid problem-based learning in technology teacher preparation: giving students a voice in their learning process mbofheni abbie mulaudzi research unit for self-directed learning, faculty of education, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa mulaudzima@ufs.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7055-5093 adri du toit research unit for self-directed learning, faculty of education, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa dutoit.adri@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3354-6830 aubrey golightly research unit for self-directed learning, faculty of education, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa aubrey.golightly@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5744-1438 (received: 23 april 2022; accepted: 22 february 2023) abstract technology education instils technological literacy in south african learners, preparing them for life and employment. yet, few high school-level technology 1 teachers are being trained and ensuring that technology student teachers are optimally prepared, is vital. learning strategies such as problem-based learning need to be implemented to provide students with opportunities to have their voices heard as well as being actively involved in their education. hybrid problem-based learning has been successfully implemented in geography and life sciences teacher education, but its use in technology teacher preparation has not been reported. therefore, we conducted a concurrent triangulation research study at a south african university offering technology teacher preparation. in the study, we explored how teacher students experienced and perceived hpbl as a teachinglearning strategy and how this gave them a voice in their teacher training. the study, therefore, substantiated hpbl as a beneficial teaching-learning strategy that can give technology student teachers a voice and actively involve them in their construction of learning. keywords: hybrid problem-based learning, active learning, south africa, student voice, technology education, technology teacher preparation 1 we use a capital letter here and throughout to avoid having readers confuse the subject area, technology, with the use of technologies such as computers etc. mulaudzi et al.: hybrid problem-based learning in technology teacher preparation 129 introduction and problem statement technology education is vital if we are to instil technological literacy in south african learners to prepare them for their future and develop their knowledge and 21st-century skills (department of basic education, 2011). few teachers are adequately trained to teach technology in the senior and fet phases of south african schooling, despite the valuable educational benefits of the subject (ankiewicz, 2020; gumbo, 2020). since many teachers struggle to understand the subject content or have limited pedagogical knowledge, they adopt teaching-learning strategies that are misaligned with the preferred technology education problem-based pedagogy (ankiewicz, 2020; gumbo, 2020). therefore, teacher educators at universities must prepare student teachers for technology education by using strategies that will be responsive to these contextual requirements and professional expectations while keeping in mind the learning needs and development of the students during the learning process. it is therefore suggested that teacher educators implement active teaching-learning strategies, such as problem-based learning (pbl), in teacher education programmes (golightly & muniz, 2013). few other teaching-learning strategies can accomplish the quality of learning that can be attained by using pbl and, in so doing, contribute to attaining the general aim of the south african national school curriculum that is to prepare and produce learners for the 21st century who can “identify and solve problems, make decisions using critical and creative thinking, and communicate effectively” (department of basic education, 2011, p. 8). to attain these aims, south african student teachers must be trained to construct learnercentred learning environments. they must be involved in active teaching-learning strategies and given a voice in the planning and execution of their learning tasks (flavian & kass, 2015; fouche & andrews, 2022; strydom & loots, 2020). students being encouraged to voice their feedback and perspectives on the learning process can “shape our analysis and . . . inform our practice” (fouche & andrews 2022, p. 137) as university lecturers. we concur with flavian and kass (2015), that “the absence of the students’ voice is detrimental to their learning process” (p. 38) and that their input and participation contribute to developing better teacher training programs. the first issue we aimed to address in this study was how students could be given a voice and play a more active role in their being prepared to become technology teachers. the second problem had to do with our limited insight into how technology student teachers perceived hybrid problem-based learning (hpbl) as a teaching-learning strategy as part of their preparation, since this strategy could be useful in increasing their participation and, therefore, their voice in their own learning process. the research questions guiding us were: “how can the use of hpbl contribute to students’ voice in the process of preparing them to be technology teachers?” and “how do students perceive the roles of the different role players in hpbl?” along with “how do students perceive hpbl as a teaching-learning strategy as they prepare to be technology teachers?” addressing the third question had to do with our wanting to see how this strategy could be refined in order to increase student participation and voice in their own learning process. here, we report on a study in which teacher 130 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 educators implemented pbl along with direct instructional strategies such as lecturing and demonstrations in first-year technology student teachers’ first encounter with the hpbl process. theoretical and conceptual framework the theoretical framework underpinning this study is social constructivism; “the constructs are the social product of the actors involved” (van der walt, 2021, p. 65). learners, as actively participating actors, construct their knowledge and understandings of the world individually and through collaborating with others (van der walt, 2021). in this social constructivist study, we viewed learning as a process of collaboration and knowledge sharing between and among individuals as students interacted with each other and with more knowledgeable others such as facilitators, peers, parents, and community members. this led to the construction of many different subjective participant meanings contributed by these actors (see creswell & creswell, 2018). core to the study were the notions of active learning, pbl and hpbl, technology education, and technology student teacher preparation. active learning an active teaching-learning strategy is not a single specific method nor a uniform scientific one (gleason et al., 2011); it combines diverse teaching-learning strategies to support students’ learning. active learning refers to “how students engage with instruction” (chi, 2021, p. 451) and includes “anything else students do that is more than paying attention only, such as solving a problem” (p. 452). in other words, students are not observers in the learning process; they participate actively as part of their learning. active teaching-learning strategies combine subject content with the application thereof in learning activities. students actively construct and become deeply involved in their learning (chi, 2021). some prominent active teaching-learning strategies embedded in social constructivism include pbl (golightly, 2018), hpbl (ahmad et al., 2015) and project-based learning (du toit, 2015). problembased learning is an active, constructivist teaching-learning strategy and is the preferred one for technology education in the south african curriculum (department of basic education, 2011; du toit, 2022). this pedagogical approach to technology education requires learnercentred strategies based on real-world problems (du toit & gaotlhobogwe, 2018). problem-based learning and hybrid problem-based learning for pbl to be effective, the teaching-learning process needs to be well-planned and implemented attentively. the roles of different contributors (or role players) in the process need to be differentiated, and the type of pbl needs to be considered. problem-based learning formats pure pbl is a format implemented in a fully problem-based methodology based on the mcmaster school pbl format (gleason et al., 2011), often used as the primary teachinglearning strategy throughout an entire curriculum (al-drees et al., 2015). the main difference mulaudzi et al.: hybrid problem-based learning in technology teacher preparation 131 between pure pbl and hpbl is that in the latter format, facilitators include direct teachinglearning strategies, such as mini-lectures and demonstrations as scaffolds during the pbl process (baresh et al., 2019) to present and explain fundamental concepts and difficult topics. however, hpbl is less resource-intensive and more flexible than pure pbl (kharay et al. 2018). we found no studies on the implementation of hpbl in the area of south african technology teacher education in social environments. the problem-based learning process problem-based learning uses real-life ill-structured problems as a context for students to construct knowledge and provide many solutions (golightly, 2018), based on a more structured way of approaching problems (malan & ndlovu, 2014). examples of ill-structured problems involve having school learners provide ways of using electricity more wisely in their schools or making recommendations about how their school can use recyclable materials to earn extra income to support needy learners. as can be seen in these two examples, there can be many correct answers or solutions to the given problems. before initiating the pbl process, students are divided into small manageable groups (ravindranath et al., 2016) and are given training about the process. in hpbl activities, the pbl groups have to attend scheduled face-to-face tutorial sessions. during the first hpbl tutorial session the students are presented with a problem, they analyse the problem in their groups and clarify the different concepts, whereafter they formulate learning issues for further research (ravindranath et al., 2016). these learning issues are conceptualised into different learning tasks and team members have to do self-directed research in their own time (golightly, 2018). in subsequent hpbl tutorial sessions, groups and the facilitator meet to discuss their research and the new knowledge. if necessary, students must do further research on some of the learning issues. in the last tutorial session, the group members apply their newly acquired knowledge and formulate possible solutions to the problem (malan & ndlovu, 2014). role-players in hpbl during hpbl activities, the facilitator plays a role, and so do students as group leaders or as members of various other groups. the facilitator plays many roles (as observer, guide, consultant, and assessor) and ensures that the hpbl activities are designed to align with the module outcomes (mulaudzi, 2021). facilitators guide and support students in formulating learning objectives and keep them focused on their tasks in hpbl activities (du toit, 2022) to sustain effective student involvement (golightly, 2018). the facilitator sets out rules and boundaries, defines the terms of assessment (raath & golightly, 2017), and assists students in selecting learning content. the group leader is responsible for leading the group, encouraging group members’ participation, and ensuring effective time management (ahmad et al., 2015). group leaders must treat group members with respect and involve all members in meaningful discussions (golightly & muniz, 2013). 132 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 the roles of members in groups include being leader, recorder, timekeeper, problem reader, and general group member (raath & golightly, 2017). group members define, demarcate, and discuss the problem together, then identify the learning gaps and formulate the learning issues (mulaudzi, 2021) that will guide them all during self-study (malan & ndlovu, 2014) outside hpbl tutorial sessions. during self-study, group members gather information to assist them to resolve the problem. they reconvene, present their research findings to the group, compile suggestions, generate ideas, and propose, present, and evaluate solutions (ahmad et al., 2015). preparing and evaluating the learning experiences and presenting their solutions to other group members all contribute to social constructivist learning (mulaudzi, 2021). students’ perceptions of pbl and hybrid pbl existing literature indicates that students hold positive perceptions of pbl as a teachinglearning strategy (du toit, 2022; golightly & muniz, 2013). golightly and muniz’s (2013) study with geography student teachers revealed that hpbl contributed to their learning motivation, to their taking responsibility for their learning, and to doing problem-solving research. pbl further developed students’ subject content knowledge and learning outcomes (ahmad et al., 2015; du toit, 2022). however, studies also reported that some students viewed pbl negatively, based on the belief that pbl increased their workload (golightly & muniz, 2013). when students first encounter pbl, they require additional guidance and need to be given a clear scope of work (du toit, 2015). therefore, proper planning of pbl to support the intended learning of both skills and the subject content knowledge is needed (du toit, 2022). the increased structured guidance provided in hpbl will address these recommendations. tican and deniz (2019) reported that hpbl activities improved students’ 21st century skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking. to expand the constructivist nature of this learning, students’ voices in relation to their perceptions and experiences of the approach must be included to better align the process to their learning needs (du toit, 2022). the preferred pedagogy for technology education in the south african curriculum is pbl (department of basic education, 2011) as has already been mentioned, so we go on to explain why this is so. technology education in our study, technology education refers to the teaching and learning of a set of south african school subjects collectively referred to as technology subjects. comparable subjects elsewhere include design and technology in botswana (du toit & gaotlhobogwe, 2018) and the united kingdom (hardy, 2023, while new-zealand’s technology education describes a subject “that enables students’ engagement in creative and practical tasks, to problem solve and think in a critical manner about a range of global or local issues” (reinsfield, 2020, p. 427). in south africa, technology as a school subject is task-oriented and activity-based and this means that it has to be presented differently from other school subjects (gumbo, 2020). technology education is intended to be a creative, purposeful learning activity linking mulaudzi et al.: hybrid problem-based learning in technology teacher preparation 133 material, emotional, cognitive, and creative resources to meet needs and opportunities through the development of products to address practical problems within a particular social context (department of basic education, 2011). technology is problem-based and scaffolded around the design process, and this challenges teachers to implement constructivist learning approaches (ankiewicz, 2020). the technology curriculum requires that learners work individually and as teams and this implies that teachers must be prepared to facilitate such constructivist learning effectively. secondary school education in south africa encompasses the senior phase (grades 8 and 9) and the further education and training (fet) phase (grades 10, 11, and 12). in the senior phase, technology is a compulsory subject that includes four core content areas: structures; processing; mechanical systems and control; and electrical systems and control (department of basic education, 2011) that are expanded into four specialised subjects in the fet phase. these are civil technology, electrical technology, mechanical technology, and engineering graphics and design (department of basic education, 2011). to enable senior phase technology teaching, the teachers must know, apply, and facilitate active teaching-learning strategies across all four content areas (gumbo, 2020) so student teachers must be prepared thoroughly if they are to meet these objectives. technology teacher preparation technology teacher education aims to equip student teachers with knowledge, skills, and values to teach technology in south african schools competently (gumbo, 2020). student teachers must develop deep content knowledge and strong pedagogical skills to assist the learners in their classes to achieve a deep understanding of technological knowledge and develop the skills needed to function optimally in the 21st century (mulaudzi, 2021). student teachers should be adequately trained to develop these skills, including techno-pedagogical, communication, critical thinking, and problem-solving in their learners (tican & deniz, 2019). technology education is learner-centred and grounded in constructivism. the design process that forms the “backbone for the methodology” in technology education (department of basic education, 2011, p. 10) aligns well with the requirements of hpbl that emphasises giving learners ownership as co-constructors of knowledge in the learning process. flavian and kass (2015) have stressed that students want to be viewed as partners and want to have a more active role in their own learning; hpbl could provide technology student teachers with a voice by having them actively construct knowledge as part of their learning process. to attain all these goals for the adequate preparation in all respects of technology student teachers while still giving them a voice in their learning will require careful construction of the teacher preparation programme. 134 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 research methodology research design we used a concurrent triangulation research design, as described by warfa (2016). this design is referred to by several terms, including mixed methods research and convergent parallel mixed methods research design (creswell & creswell, 2018). it is used when the object of the study is to collect both qualitative and quantitative data concurrently in the same phase, after which it is analysed (warfa, 2016). the design allows for the triangulation of findings and results about a single issue, thus contributing to a more complete or comprehensive understanding of the topic or phenomenon (creswell & creswell, 2018). against this background, we followed a pragmatic research paradigm. according to ivankova et al. (2022), the pragmatist combines quantitative and qualitative research methods in a study. this study relied mainly on quantitative data (quan) and the qualitative data findings (qual) were used to support and help explain the quantitative results. the main objective of this research design is to corroborate or cross-validate findings and/or results by using both quantitative and qualitative means for data collection and analyses (warfa, 2016). in our study, the quantitative and qualitative data were collected in the same phase of a larger research study, but each data set was analysed separately, after which findings and results about the phenomenon (hpbl and students’ experiences thereof) were triangulated to seek convergence from the different methods. study context we selected a first-year b.ed. technology education module from a south african university. this module (coded fete 121) prepares technology student teachers to teach one of the four content areas in senior phase technology, namely electrical systems and control. the primary module outcome is to develop student teachers’ knowledge and understanding of electricity as a content component of technology education. the module was previously presented using only lectures that were not student-centred but, for this study, hpbl was implemented as the teaching-learning strategy in two of the five study units of the module, amounting to 40% of the entire module. participants and scaffolding of the hpbl process all student teachers registered for the module fete 121 in 2019 (n=29) were invited to participate in this study that replaced the normal programme. participation (in other words, contributing information that could be used as data for the study) was voluntary, and they all consented. the electrical technology fete 121 module is compulsory in b.ed. technology education. all the stipulations of the ethics committee for conducting this research were carefully adhered to, including obtaining informed consent, and respecting confidentiality, anonymity, and the ethical handling of data. before implementing hpbl as the teachinglearning strategy, the technology student teachers were thoroughly prepared by a pbl and hpbl expert to ensure that they understood what would be expected of them. the hpbl expert has been using the strategy for several years and has published extensively on the mulaudzi et al.: hybrid problem-based learning in technology teacher preparation 135 topic. this preparation included a 90-minute orientation workshop during which the roles of students and the facilitator were discussed. printed information and websites with additional information on the pbl process were distributed. the student teachers spontaneously formed groups of four or five members resulting in six groups overall. subsequently, these six groups were presented with three hpbl activities. activities were based on problems related to electrical technology content, such as types of energy, and connecting various components in circuits for particular outcomes. the three hpbl activities were developed in consultation with the module facilitator to ensure alignment with the prescribed fete 121 module outcomes. a lecturer guided and assisted students and acted as a facilitator during the pbl activities. the researcher (the first author) was a detached observer during the process and was helped by a research assistant (the second observer) to collect and organise data sets. the second and third authors supervised the study. data collection quantitative data (using an adapted hpbl questionnaire) and qualitative data (using semistructured individual interviews, students’ self-reflective journals, and observations) were collected. the hpbl questionnaire was adapted from golightly and muniz’s (2013) pbl questionnaire (43 items) in geography education, from which 18 items were selected based on their alignment with the purpose of our study. the discarded items dealt with assessment that fell outside the scope of the current research. the acronym pbl was changed to hpbl (to include the hybrid approach), and references to geography were changed to technology in all the questionnaire items used. the adapted hpbl questionnaire was divided into two parts to measure the technology student teachers’ perceptions and experiences of the hpbl process (11 items) and students’ perceptions and experiences of the conduct of the different role players (facilitator (2 items); group members (3 items); and group leader (2 items)). items were answered on a 5-point likert scale. researchers’ field notes detailing their observations and technology student teachers’ reflective journals provided qualitative data, together with semi-structured individual interviews (lasting about 30 minutes each, audio-digitally recorded, and transcribed) were conducted with eight voluntary participants regarding their experiences of hpbl. table 1 overview of methods and types of data collected methods types of data collected hpbl activities 1 to 3 qualitative data researcher observation and field notes (during the activities) student reflective journals (at the end of each activity) questionnaire quantitative data students completed the adapted hpbl questionnaire interviews qualitative data semi-structured individual interviews with volunteers 136 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 these methods (see table 1) were designed to give students a voice in their learning development, thus forming an integrated qualitative data set of detailed descriptions of students’ experiences and perceptions of hpbl to provide deeper insights into the quantitative results. to ameliorate potential participant bias regarding the questions in the questionnaire, the researcher, as well as the assistant researcher (the second observer), observed and took field notes during the pbl tutorial sessions. data analysis descriptive statistics such as the mean, standard deviation, and percentages were used to report the results. an independent statistical consultation service processed quantitative data using statistical software spss (version 25). concept-driven codes and categories (based on existing literature) were used for qualitative data analysis by systematically dividing up raw qualitative data (researchers’ field notes, transcribed interviews, and student teachers’ selfreflective journals). the reliability of the adapted hpbl questionnaire was calculated using cronbach’s alpha coefficient, delineating that if the questionnaire is used at different times or with different respondents of the same population, similar results should be obtained (creswell & creswell, 2018). the cronbach’s alpha coefficient values for the two components of the adapted hpbl questionnaire, namely technology student teachers’ perceptions of the hpbl process and their perception of the conduct of the different roleplayers in hpbl, were 0.781 and 0.821, respectively, contributing to the reliability of the quantitative data. the procedures proposed by thomas and magilvy (2011) for dependability of the qualitative findings, were used. the procedures used to ensure the credibility of the findings were that the researcher explicitly defined the purpose of the study and discussed in detail: • the sampling framework and criteria to explain how and why the technology student teachers were selected; • the data collection methods and the time period needed to collect the data for the study; • the data analysis process used in the study; and • the presentation and interpretation of the study findings. study limitations the small sample size may have limited this study’s eligibility as a determinant of the full potential that the hpbl-intervention had (or could have) on technology student teachers. the current investigation was implemented over a short period (5 weeks) and might have yielded different results had it been implemented over a more extended time period. mulaudzi et al.: hybrid problem-based learning in technology teacher preparation 137 research results and findings the quantitative data obtained from the adapted hpbl questionnaire informed the results reported on in this section. the findings are based on qualitative data (table 1) that contributed complementary and deeper insights into the results through triangulation. statements from individual students that reflect the views of most of the students were included to illustrate some of the findings. technology student teachers’ perceptions and experiences of the hybrid problembased learning process during the hpbl activities table 2 displays data concerning students’ perceptions of the hpbl process. students’ mean scores of the hpbl process scale items ranged from 3.07 to 4.41 (all items above-average x̄ = 2.5) on the 5-point likert scale. overall, students held positive perceptions of all the items associated with the hpbl process, therefore most students perceived their involvement in the hpbl activities as a positive learning experience. the highest scoring items in table 2 indicated by students include “i find it to be effective when fellow students assist me with the mastering of skills and knowledge” (mean = 4.41), “i had the opportunity to share my knowledge with the other students in the hpbl activities” (mean = 4.17) and “hpbl encourages the integration of different study materials (resources) in order to solve the problems” (mean = 4.00). this is encouraging since the implementation of hpbl challenged students to take responsibility for their learning. numerous qualitative findings supported this quantitative result. for example, an interviewed student (participant 3) mentioned that the hpbl process helped their group solve problems and learn about electrical concepts and said, the technology problems we had to solve helped us to learn a lot about the electrical concepts found in the fete module, in particular, the difference between parallel and series wiring. a focus group student (participant 1) commented that more hpbl should be applied in other technology modules, thus echoing positive perceptions about this teaching-learning strategy when they said, in my opinion, the way we worked well within our groups, hpbl activities should be implemented on a more regular basis in all our technology modules and other modules as well. other students pointed out that the hpbl activities developed their collaborative abilities, improved their communication and time-management, and had them take responsibility for their learning. for participant 2, hpbl provides us with the opportunity to communicate in writing when one had to submit the self-study information and that had improved my writing skills as the 138 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 hpbl compiler effectively compiled our documents for submission without any difficulties. for participant 1, hpbl is advantageous in the sense that it provides students with the opportunity to take responsibility for their own study by giving students the opportunity to set learning objectives and set certain times and to be able to meet them on their own. these findings indicate that enabling communication and creating a conducive environment in which students can openly voice their views are vital elements during students’ learning in hpbl environments. table 2 technology student teachers’ (n=29) perceptions of the hpbl process hpbl process scale items totally disagree disagree neutral agree totally agree mea (x̄) std dev f freq % f freq % f freq % f freq % f freq % i find it to be effective when fellow students assist me with the mastering of skills and knowledge. 0 0 0 0 3 10.4 1 37.9 1 51.7 4.41 0.682 i had the opportunity to share my knowledge with the other students in the hpbl activities. 1 3.4 0 0 2 6.9 1 55.2 1 34.5 4.17 0.848 hpbl encourages the integration of different study materials (resources) in order to solve the problems. 1 3.4 1 3.5 2 6.9 1 62.1 7 24.1 4.00 0.886 i experienced quality interaction with fellow students in terms of learning. 0 0 1 3.5 5 17.2 1 62.1 5 17.2 3.93 0.704 the group easily identified learning issues. 0 0 1 3.5 7 24.1 1 62.1 3 10.3 3.79 0.675 the assessment rubrics for the hpbl reports effectively guided the group in the writing of the reports. 1 3.5 2 6.9 7 24.1 1 37.9 8 27.6 3.79 1.048 hpbl will definitely assist me in becoming an independent, selfdirected learner. 0 0 2 6.9 1 34.5 1 34.5 7 24.1 3.76 0.912 the hpbl assessment rubrics were useful in enabling group members to monitor their progress. 4 13.8 3 10.4 7 24.1 9 31.0 6 20.7 3.34 1.317 mulaudzi et al.: hybrid problem-based learning in technology teacher preparation 139 hpbl process scale items totally disagree disagree neutral agree totally agree mea (x̄) std dev f freq % f freq % f freq % f freq % f freq % the use of direct instructional strategies (lectures/demonstrations) during the hpbl process assisted students in solving the problems. 4 13.8 1 3.5 1 44.8 4 13.8 7 24.1 3.24 1.431 hpbl increases the workload of students. 2 6.9 7 24.1 9 31.0 5 17.3 6 20.7 3.21 1.236 the delimitation of the stated technology problems is difficult. 0 0 6 20.7 1 55.2 6 20.7 1 3.4 3.07 0.753 the two items, “the delimitation of the stated technology problems is difficult” and “hpbl has increased my workload” received the lowest mean scores of 3.07 and 3.21, respectively. interestingly, 38% of the students believed hpbl increased their workload. remarks by two students in their reflective reports echo this finding: “hpbl demand[s] that we carry [out] our own research . . . which is more work than when the lecturer gave us a powerpoint to prepare for test and exam” and “hpbl demanded a lot from us, it required us to get along with each other and search for information . . .” technology student teachers’ perceptions and experiences of the conduct of roleplayers during the hpbl activities students’ perceptions and experiences of the different role-players in hpbl were measured by seven items in the adapted hpbl questionnaire (see table 3). the qualitative data from individual semi-structured interviews, observation field notes, and students’ self-reflective journals were triangulated with quantitative data. table 3 technology student teachers’ perceptions and experiences (n=29) of the conduct of role-players role-players and items totally disagree disagree neutral agree totally agree mean (x̄) std dev f freq % f freq % f freq % f freq % f freq % f a c il it a to r the facilitator (lecturer) encouraged groups to make use of different resources to solve the problem. 0 0 0 0 7 24.1 10 34.5 1 41.4 4.17 0.80 the facilitator gave constructive guidance to foster effective group work for the solving of the problems. 0 0 1 3.5 9 31.0 12 41.4 7 24.1 3.86 0.83 g r o u p l e a d e r the group leader involved group members in meaningful discussions and communications. 1 3.5 4 13.8 7 24.1 8 27.6 9 31.0 3.69 1.16 the group leader encouraged group members to share their own opinions 1 3.5 3 10.3 9 31.0 8 27.6 8 27.6 3.66 1.11 140 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 role-players and items totally disagree disagree neutral agree totally agree mean (x̄) std dev f freq % f freq % f freq % f freq % f freq % g r o u p m e m b e r s group members exhibited respect for one another’s opinions and views. 0 0 0 0 5 17.3 7 24.1 1 58.6 4.41 0.78 group members helped me to understand the necessary concepts, ideas, and study content towards the problem solution. 1 3.4 1 3.4 5 17.3 8 27.6 1 48.3 4.14 1.06 group members worked together well to solve the problems. 0 0 2 6.9 7 24.2 9 31.0 1 37.9 4.00 0.96 the technology student teachers’ perceptions of the role played by the facilitator in hpbl the mean scores of the two items that reported on the conduct of the facilitator were 3.86 and 4.17, respectively (table 3). students clearly agreed that the facilitator encouraged them to use different resources to solve the problem, as evidenced by the 75.9% (n = 22) of students who agreed or totally agreed on this. an interviewed student commented that the facilitator constantly encouraged her to consult different resources to gain different perspectives in understanding electrical concepts. another student reported in their reflective journal that the lecturer gave them information on what to expect when solving the problem and which resources they should use to help them solve the problem. interview participant 1 said, okay, firstly the lectures gave us the knowledge of what we should expect when solving the problem and which resources we should look at to find information in solving the problem. for interview participant 4, because of his [the facilitator’s] guidance and encouragement to always listen to each other, nobody argued in our group. our entire group ended up understanding the problem better after our group discussions. and in the self-reflective journal no. 9, we read, the lecturer encouraged us to use different resources so that we gain different perspectives as some resources explain better than the other resulting in understanding the electrical concept in multiple ways. this assisted us in understanding the electrical concepts better by comparing the characteristic of parallel and series circuits using both text and diagrams. these results and findings underscore the facilitator’s critical role in hpbl in enabling students to solve the problem and master the intended learning content successfully. students also commented that the facilitator provided them with constructive guidance that effectively fostered group work to solve the problems. they all affirmed that they believed that hpbl as a process would have been overwhelming and discouraging without this guidance. mulaudzi et al.: hybrid problem-based learning in technology teacher preparation 141 furthermore, 37.9% of students in the study believed that direct instructional strategies in the hpbl process assisted them in solving the hpbl problems (x̄ = 3.24), but 44.8% were neutral. some students believed that they would have struggled to identify the problem and learn the content in the module without direct instructional strategies. for example, interview participant 2 said, it [direct instructional strategies by the facilitator] provided us with guidelines so you know more or less what is expected of you. for example, activity three was about designing the circuits for the trailer lamps, we thought we had to perform a practical activity like really making the trailer, but we were only expected to design the electrical circuits and we manage to finish the activity with the help of the direct instructional strategies provided to use by the lecturer. students reported that mini-lectures and demonstrations enabled them to identify the problem independently and learn the required electrical technology content. technology student teachers’ perceptions and experiences of the conduct of the group leader the mean scores of the two items that report on the conduct of group leaders were 3.69 and 3.66, respectively (table 3). 58.6% (n=17) of the students agreed or totally agreed that group leaders had involved group members in meaningful discussions and communication, thus indicating that most participants believed that the conduct of the group leader contributed to their meaningful learning during the hpbl activities. the two observers’ field notes reflected that the group leaders had effectively encouraged and involved group members in meaningful discussions on the identified learning issues during the hpbl tutorial sessions, as was also evident in students’ own experiences. for interview participant 2, the group leader encouraged every member to come prepared for the tutorial sessions and actively contribute to the discussion that helped our group to come out with multiple ways to solve the problem. he encouraged us to explain electrical concepts using our own words and asked us clarity-seeking questions so that every one of us gains a common understanding of the electrical concepts being discussed. interview participant 4 said, the group leader encouraged us to freely communicate and wanted us at all times to treat each other with respect and dignity, as a result, we gained confidence in expressing ourselves during group discussions. technology student teachers’ perceptions and experiences of the conduct of the group members the mean scores of the three items that reported on the conduct of group members in the hpbl process were 4.41, 4.14, and 4.00, respectively (table 3). most of the students (82.7%) agreed or totally agreed that group members exhibited respect for one another’s opinions and views. most interviewed students added that their involvement in group activities helped 142 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 them to socialise and that it fostered effective communication. several students also mentioned that their presentation and self-expression skills developed during the hpbl activities. their involvement in group work activities and the respect from fellow students when they were presenting and discussing the technology problems boosted their confidence and contributed greatly to their learning. group members also helped each other understand the concepts, ideas, and learning content necessary to solve the stated problems. most students (n = 22; 75.9%) agreed or totally agreed that fellow group members helped them gain a better understanding of electrical concepts (table 3). several students expressed their enjoyment of the learning process in solving real-world problems. for example, we read in the self-reflective journal no. 22, the way we worked well together was very much encouraging, the way we freely contributed ideas and brainstormed them helped us to find the solution without any difficulties. we proudly presented as a group a respectable and quality report at the end of each activity. and, according to the self-reflective journal no. 26, it was fun when we [had] to design electric circuits (brake light, hazard, indicators, and tail lamps) of the trailer. everybody. . . played the part due to them and we ended [up] submitting a highly respectable hpbl activity report. discussion of the findings and results we discuss first the results and findings concerning the technology students’ perceptions of the hpbl process and then those regarding the different role players. in support of the view that students’ feedback and perspectives on the learning process can “shape our analysis and . . . inform our practice” (fouche & andrews, 2022, p. 137), we also indicate how the socially constructed hpbl process provided opportunities for students to use their voices and be actively involved in their education. these discussions also link back to the theoretical framework and the study’s pragmatic research paradigm. technology student teachers’ perceptions and experiences of the hpbl process students held positive perceptions of the hpbl process. they highlighted, in particular, the support and assistance of fellow students in their mastering of knowledge and skills, as well as their sharing of this knowledge with other students during the hpbl activities. most students agreed (in their self-reflective journals and interview responses) that the collaboration between and among group members during the hpbl process contributed to and enabled them to control the learning process, in line with the findings of golightly (2018). in this study, only 37.9% of the students agreed or totally agreed that the use of direct instructional strategies in the pbl process assisted them in solving the stated problem. this finding differs from that of chilkoti et al. (2016) in which most of the medical students mulaudzi et al.: hybrid problem-based learning in technology teacher preparation 143 highlighted the importance of using lecture-based methods and group discussions during the hpbl process in solving the problem. according to the module facilitator, the student teachers solved all the technological problems with the support of the scaffolding in the hpbl, as was evident from their assessment marks for the three hpbl activities. the technology problems used to guide the learning process were regarded as neither easy nor difficult. this result echoes the recommendations of wass and golding (2014) that the problems used for pbl activities should be designed so that students complete the task with some assistance from the facilitator and group members. in our study, students held positive perceptions about the hpbl process, confirming the findings of al-drees et al. (2015). technology student teachers reported that hpbl was interesting and a good learning approach and this finding was similar to those of golightly and muniz (2013). the guidance students received from the facilitator and the discussions during group tutorial sessions contributed to the construction of their social learning. expressly inviting students’ feedback and comments on the process gave them a voice in how the hpbl was presented and explained in their electrical technology module since it helped shape the insights of the module developer and the facilitator on this praxis. students’ feedback will also serve to inform future adaptations to improve the implementation of similar hpbl strategies in the technology education teacher preparation programme. technology student teachers’ perceptions of different role players in hpbl the primary role players in hpbl were the facilitator, the group leaders, and the group members. the technology student teachers’ perceptions of the role played by the facilitator the facilitator used their technology education expertise to facilitate and guide students in the hpbl tutorial sessions towards solving the stated technology problems successfully. a number of interviewed students mentioned that the facilitator had guided them in implementing the hpbl and helped them to stay focused on the task at hand. this was in line with the recommendation of yadav et al. (2018) that the facilitator should ensure that students fully understand the hpbl process before its implementation to gain their acceptance of this teaching-learning strategy. they also highlighted that facilitators need training to enable them to facilitate hpbl effectively. interestingly, most of these technology students appreciated to a great extent the conduct of the facilitator who contributed to their learning by encouraging them to use critical and creative thinking to solve technology problems, and apply the knowledge gained. they believed that this contributed to fostering their 21stcentury skills. the results and findings of our study support those of yadav et al. (2018) regarding the critical role of the facilitator during the hpbl process. in their role as a listener the facilitator served as the main audience for what the students had to say, and they then used this feedback to reflect on their own praxis for future implementation or adaptation of the same strategies. all interviewed students mentioned that the facilitator motivated them to consult different resources. several comments in students’ self-reflective journal entries made 144 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 the same point. the importance of students consulting different sources to solve the illstructured problems was mentioned by du toit (2015). it can be seen, therefore, that the facilitator plays a vital role as a co-constructor of knowledge in the successful implementation of hpbl. technology student teachers’ perceptions of the role played by the group leader students were very appreciative of the group leaders’ contributions during the hpbl process. all interviewed students noted that group leaders treated them with respect, led the groups well, encouraged group members to participate in meaningful discussions, ensured that hpbl tutorial activities were started on time, and managed time effectively during tutorial sessions. the results and findings in this study indicate that group leaders’ positive conduct in tutorial sessions contributed to technology student teachers’ positive perceptions of hpbl. these results and findings align with those of ahmed et al. (2015) and golightly and muniz (2013), who reported that influential group leaders treat group members with respect, perform their duties effectively, encourage group members’ active participation, and involve group members in meaningful discussion. it is clear that group leaders play a vital role in the implementation of hpbl by encouraging students to co-construct knowledge and, in this way, have a voice in the learning process. technology student teachers’ perceptions of the roles played by the group members most group members exhibited respect for each other’s opinions and views during the hpbl process, mirroring the recommendation of baresh et al. (2019) that group members treat each other’s opinions and views in this way. our study also found that most group members worked well together to solve technology problems. in their reflective journals, most students noted that their hpbl activity reports were completed because of good communication, collaboration, and the sharing of ideas between and among group members. effective communication, collaboration, and problem-solving are valuable 21st-century skills for teachers to have (tican & deniz, 2019). the lecturer encouraged students to listen to each other and offered ample and explicit opportunities to comment on the construction, implementation, and effectiveness of the hpbl process. all these aspects provided opportunities for students to contribute to the co-construction of the learning process by having their say and, in this way, adding their voice. in summary, student teachers in this study were given a voice in their learning process, developed 21st-century skills, and gained more knowledge when they were respectfully exchanging ideas and resources. in this way, group members acted as scaffolding agents during the hpbl process and can be seen to have been vital for the effective implementation of hpbl, developing knowledge and skills, and giving voice to students in their construction of learning. conclusion and recommendations this study highlighted the benefits that hpbl can contribute to technology teacher preparation and how it supports teacher educators in their quest to prepare these student teachers optimally for the various contextual demands and particular professional mulaudzi et al.: hybrid problem-based learning in technology teacher preparation 145 expectations required in the implementation of technology education. the socially constructed development of knowledge and meaning making in the hpbl process was perceived positively by students and the module facilitator, who were all co-constructors of this learning. students reported positive perceptions and experiences with all components of hpbl, including the process and the different role-players involved. the students’ feedback confirms that the hpbl approach motivated them to learn. technology student teachers perceived and experienced hpbl sessions as an interactive teaching-learning strategy and reported on its contribution to improving their electrical technology content knowledge and fostering their 21st-century skills development. the effective use of hpbl as a teachinglearning strategy in technology education gave students a voice in planning and constructing their learning and in their preparation as future teachers. subsequent longitudinal studies could explore the long-term influence of hpbl-interventions on the preparation of student teachers. we also recommend experimental studies dealing with the implementation of hpbl with students in experimental and control groups at different universities in south africa. investigating the suitability of hpbl as a teaching-learning strategy could be extended to other technology subjects and year groups in future studies. references ahmad, m., khan, h., hasan, s., & asim, m. 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(2016). mixed-methods design in biology education research: approaches and uses. cbe—life sciences education, 15(rm5), 1–11. https://www.lifescied.org/doi/full/10.1187/cbe.16-01-0022 wass, r. & golding, c. 2014. sharpening a tool for teaching: the zone of proximal development. teaching in higher education, 19(6), 671–684. yadav, a., subedi, d., lundeberg, m. a., & bunting, c. f. (2018). problem-based learning: influence on students’ learning in an electrical engineering course. journal of engineering education, 100(2), 253–280. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.2168-9830.2011.tb00013.x journal of education, 2017 issue 69, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za becoming a teacher in australia: reflections on ‘the resilience factor’ in teacher professional development and teacher retention in the 1940s and at the beginning of the twenty-first century yvonne reed (received 11 january 2017; accepted 28 june 2017) abstract early career teacher retention and attrition rates have implications for the provision of quality education. recent investigations of why some teachers survive and thrive while others leave the profession, disillusioned and/or burnt out, have identified ‘resilience’ as a key factor in teachers’ personal and professional growth and commitment to a long-term career in education. this paper uses data from a demonstration lessons notebook compiled by a student teacher in 1942, accompanied by lesson commentary from her supervising teachers, a teachers’ college handbook c.1943 and interviews with the compiler of the notebook to tell the story of an entrant into the teaching profession in the australian state of victoria in the 1940s. her story is compared with findings from studies which focus on early career teachers in several australian states in the first decade of the twenty-first century. the comparisons indicate that while resilience is a key factor in the personal and professional growth of teachers entering the profession sixty years apart, perhaps unsurprisingly, there are more differences than similarities in the nature of the challenges experienced by a novice teacher in the 1940s and several cohorts of early career teachers at the beginning of the twenty-first century. the paper concludes with some suggestions for nurturing teacher resilience and long-term commitment to the profession which could be considered by teacher educators and school leaders globally, with adaptations for addressing the specific challenges of the local. introduction internationally (e.g. darling-hammond, 2003; mason & matas, 2015; organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd), 2005) 186 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 and in south africa (e.g. deacon, 2012; deacon, robinson & simkins, 2015) there are concerns about early career attrition in the teaching profession. ewing and manuel (2005), tait (2008), day, edwards, griffiths, & gu (2011) and cornu (2013) suggest that what they term ‘resilience’ is a key factor in differentiating teachers who survive and thrive from those who leave the classroom. according to tait (2008, p.58), resilience is “a mode of interacting with events in the environment that is activated and nurtured in times of stress”. she quotes grotberg (1997) who defines resilience as “the human capacity to face, overcome, and even be strengthened by experiences of adversity” (grotberg, 1997, p. 13, in tait, 2008, p. 58). while acknowledging this definition of resilience, day et. al. (2011) argue that, in education, there is increasing recognition that the nature of teaching and learning, and the contexts in which this takes place, demand what might be termed “everyday resilience”. they also argue that “the capacity to be resilient is an important factor in teaching and teacher effectiveness over time; and that resilience can be developed” (day et. al., 2011, p.5). in their view, it can be developed because “resilience is not simply an individual trait, but a capacity that arises through interactions between people within organisational contexts” (2011, p. 3) – a view shared by johnson, down, le cornu, peters et.al (2010) and pearce and morrison (2011). if this is so, then resilience can be nurtured in initial teacher education programmes and through continuing professional development and teacher support networks. central to this paper is the story of a primary school teacher’s childhood and adolescence, initial teacher education and induction into the profession in the australian state of victoria in the early 1940s. in reflecting on this story, i suggest that on the one hand, resilience is an important factor in the initial achievements of iris k and in her lifelong commitment to education but on the other, that in some respects teaching in a rural primary school in the 1940s is likely to have been less stressful, and thus to have required less resilience, than teaching in either rural or urban contexts – in australia and elsewhere – today. iris k’s story is compared with stories of beginning teachers in several australian states in the first decades of the twenty-first century, as documented and reflected on by ewing and smith (2003); ewing and manuel (2005); johnson et al., (2010); pearce and morrison, (2011) and le cornu, (2013). findings from the comparison are used to make suggestions for nurturing teacher resilience and long-term commitment to the profession which could be considered by teacher educators and school leaders globally, with adaptations for addressing the specific challenges of the local. reed: becoming a teacher in australia. . . 187 a note on methodology the main sources of data for the case study of iris k’s “teacherly becoming” (fataar, 2012) in the early 1940s are the melbourne teachers training college handbook (c.1943), a demonstration lessons notebook compiled in 1942 (iris k’s lesson plans and the comments of several supervising teachers), and transcriptions of a series of informal interviews with iris k, aged 92 and still keenly interested in education. connolly and clandinin (1990) use the term storytelling for research participants’ accounts of their experiences and narrative for the researcher’s interpretive re-telling of participants’ stories, with the latter process involving the researcher moving “out of the lived story to tell, with another “i”, another kind of story” (clandinin & connolly, 1990, p. 10). as narrator, i use information from the interviews with iris k to situate the textual analysis of the handbook and demonstration lessons notebook and to inform the discussion of findings. the textual analysis consists of a critical discourse analysis of extracts from both the handbook and the notebook, together with a content analysis of the curriculum for primary school teacher education. findings from the case study are then compared and contrasted with those from recent studies of early career teachers in several australian states (ewing & smith, 2003; ewing & manuel, 2005; johnson et al., (2010); pearce and morrison, (2011); le cornu, (2013). becoming a teacher in victoria in the early 1940s fataar (2012) coined the term “teacherly becoming” to “call attention to the intersection between student learning and pedagogical and subject content knowledge as students proceed through a teacher education programme on the one hand, and how they navigate their own learning relative to their subjective becoming – their becoming teachers – on the other” (p. 40). he suggests that teacherly becoming involves navigation across three lived spaces: (i) “the complex performative space of higher education”; (ii) “the challenging environments of schools in which they do their teaching practice”; (iii) “the space of their lives, rooted in their biographies, which they transact across complex urban and rural spaces” (p. 38). to these could be added navigating the challenging environment of their first teaching appointment (ewing & smith, 2003). the case study of iris k begins with a brief biographical account of her location in the three lived spaces of her formative years. 188 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 from primary school learner to qualified teacher: a brief biography of the formative years of iris k iris k grew up on a farm from which she walked three miles to the local primary school. after completing grade 8 she studied for the secondary school leaving certificate by correspondence, both at home and at her former primary school, where she was frequently assigned ‘monitoring duties’ which included disciplinary and teacher assistant activities such as listening to pupils while they read aloud. literacy was valued in her home where there was a small selection of child and adult fiction, a set of encyclopaedias, a bible, hymn book and sheet music. iris remembers being delighted to receive a chambers dictionary for her tenth birthday. her father, who was a member of the school committee of the primary school, expected a high standard of handwriting from his four children. he also encouraged them to draw, using slates and chalk, and to ‘play school’ at home, with iris as the eldest, usually in the role of teacher. a respected aunt, who worked as an unqualified teacher in another school in the area, was a frequent visitor. in 1941 iris k passed the secondary school leaving certificate examination and qualified to attend a teachers’ college. however, many male and some female teachers had enlisted in the australian armed forces and to alleviate the staffing crisis in schools, prospective student teachers were required to first “have at least one year’s experience as a teacher, and be strongly recommended by their head teacher and an inspector of schools” (mttc handbook, c. 1942 p. 10). thus in 1942, at the age of 18, iris k left her home for the first time and travelled by bus to a small town, in another part of the state, which served a farming community. she had the name of a church minister on whose door she knocked, with no prior introduction, to request temporary accommodation – a request which fortunately was granted. she was assigned to teach a combined grade 3 and 4 class of 35 children under the supervision of the principal who taught in the adjacent classroom, and was paid a small salary for doing so. the lesson notes and the comments of supervising teachers discussed in this paper were written during this year. towards the end of the year a school inspector pronounced iris k competent to manage a one teacher school on her own and arranged for her to shadow the teacher at another such school for three weeks prior to taking up her new appointment at the beginning of 1943. she became the sole teacher of 38 children in grades 1 to 8 and considers one of her achievements that year to reed: becoming a teacher in australia. . . 189 have been the success of the three adolescents in grade 8 who all passed the external merit certificate, with one of them obtaining a scholarship for secondary school studies. she acknowledges the key role of the senior pupils who, by performing a range of ‘monitor duties’, enabled her to focus on her multiple teaching and management tasks as ‘head teacher’. finally, in 1944 she was admitted to one year of full time study at melbourne teacher’s college, graduating at the end of that year and taking up her first post as a qualified teacher at another rural, one teacher school at the beginning of 1945. the student teacher/newly qualified teacher in the australian state of victoria in the early 1940s all texts work to position their readers. in other words, they have designs on the reader or viewer (janks, 2010). if the reader/viewer is aware of such positioning, he or she may choose to accept or contest the position constituted in the text. however, where there is an imbalance of power, as in the student teacher-lecturer or student teacher-supervising teacher relationship, acceptance is more likely than contestation. several ideal student teacher/ newly qualified teacher subject positions identified in the mttc handbook and in the demonstration lessons notebook are presented and discussed below in relation to the concept of resilience. a tradition-valuing conformist but also an independent pioneer the foreword to the mttc handbook (c. 1943) begins with an unattributed quotation: ‘tis good to feel that we’re a part of one great glorious throng. these lines are followed by the sentence “no student can enter into membership of a college in the fullest sense unless he understands something of its history” (mttc handbook. c. 1943, p. 1). the high modality of these introductory statements, together with the attitudes expressed in the adjectives “great” and “glorious”, position student teachers to value tradition and belonging. the use of the exclusionary pronoun “he” is particularly ironic, given the largely female student body of the second world war years. the 190 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 handbook informs student teachers that “[e]fficiency in the course is judged by the standard reached in a number of spheres, namely: academic work. practical teaching. personal qualities and general attitude towards college work” (mttc handbook, c. 1943, p. 11) and that they are expected to contribute to “college corporate life” by taking “an active part in games and social activities” (mttc handbook, c. 1943, p. 12). this positioning of the student teacher as conforming to group values, having the appropriate attitudes to college work (though these attitudes are not specified in the handbook) and contributing to the well-being of a large community, contrasts with one of the stated aims of the course which was to prepare teachers for a posting to a small rural school (often with only one teacher) “so that the schools of the rural areas should be as well-served as the schools of the cities” (mttc handbook, c. 1943, p. 11). in such schools, with no professional community of peers available, initiative and self-reliance would arguably be of more value than conformity to group norms. in the case of iris k, at the successful completion of her studies she was “instructed to take up duty as temporary head teacher at school no. 2766 arkona … for the purpose of welfare work in rural districts grouped under the leadership of the head teacher of school no. 1372 dimboola” (education department memorandum, 11 january 1945). with reference to one of the three aspects of teacherly becoming – the space of her life, rooted in her biography and transacted across complex urban and rural spaces (fataar, 2012) – it could be argued that her experiences of ‘playing school’ at home, of studying the secondary school curriculum independently by correspondence, of being a monitor of younger learners’ behaviour and a teacher’s assistant at her former primary school, and of being the sole teacher at a rural school for the year prior to her year of study at mtc, are likely to have made a greater contribution to the formation of a self-reliant and resilient pedagogic habitus (grenfell, 1996; janks, 2010) than her year as a student teacher in which she was expected to conform to college norms. a novice in regard to pedagogic strategies but a subject matter expert munby, russell and martin (2001) date the beginning of research interest in ‘teacher knowledge’ to the early 1980s, with shulman’s 1986 and 1987 reed: becoming a teacher in australia. . . 191 publications giving impetus to this interest. common to many recent conceptualisations of knowledge for teaching are the following: (i) subject/disciplinary knowledge; (ii) pedagogic knowledge; (iii) knowledge of how learners learn; (iv) knowledge of the curriculum; (v) contextual knowledge; (vi) knowledge of self as learner and teacher. with the possible exception of the final category of ‘self-knowledge’, each of these categories is accommodated in grossman’s (1990) four domains of teacher knowledge, summarised by rusznyak and bertram: in grossman’s model, knowledge of context refers to the teacher’s knowledge of the milieu in which she teaches, including the curriculum to be covered, the school policies and environment, and the learners’ contexts. the second domain, content knowledge, comprises both the propositional and the procedural knowledge that the teacher has of the subject she is teaching. the domain of general pedagogic knowledge (gpk) refers to the teacher’s knowledge of a range of lesson planning, classroom organisation and assessment strategies, as well as her ability to use these strategies successfully. gpk is the general knowledge that is shared by teachers irrespective of their subject or phase specialisations. the fourth domain, pedagogic content knowledge (pck), is understood as the teacher’s knowledge of how to teach specific content by using conceptually sound explanations, analogies, models or activities that are both accessible to learners and address their common misunderstandings about the topic (rusznyak & bertram, 2015, p. 34; italics in the original). while the designers of the curriculum for the mttc primary teachers’ course did not have access to the scholarship on teacher knowledge which has accumulated since the 1980s, statements in the mttc handbook indicate that they had definite views on what should be foregrounded: “[t]he course is almost entirely a professional one, in that all the subjects relate to child study and the new courses which have recently been introduced into primary schools” (mtc handbook, c.1943, pp. 11–12). all courses were compulsory and an examination had to be passed in each one for a student to qualify as a primary school teacher. in table 1 below, the foregrounding of ‘method’ and the backgrounding of content knowledge courses related to school subjects (with the possible exception of the ‘new’ school subjects art and handwork and physical training) is striking. student teachers are positioned as having acquired sufficient knowledge of history, geography, science, mathematics, english, health and music from their primary and secondary school studies, requiring only knowledge of how to teach these subjects and how to manage a rural school, supported by content knowledge in the field of education studies (history of education; principles of education; modern developments in education; psychology). 192 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 table 1: placement of compulsory courses for the primary teachers course, melbourne teachers college 1943, into grossman’s four domains of teacher knowledge context knowledge content knowledge general pedagogic knowledge pedagogic content knowledge rural school organisation history of education principles of education modern developments in education psychology art and handwork (?) physical training (?) infant school method method of english method of social studies method of science method of mathematics method of health education method of music building on morrow’s (2007) work on the importance of systematic learning, shalem (2010) argues that “a teacher’s work is located within a knowledge field, within a specific discipline and so any choice that a teacher makes (professional authority) must attest to that field” (2010, p. 94; italics in the original). even if the content of the curricula for secondary school subjects had been at an advanced level, without opportunities to deepen their understanding of a knowledge field or discipline (e.g. history or mathematics) during tertiary studies, it is unlikely that novice teachers could develop the disciplinary gaze necessary for making authoritative choices that would enable systematic, knowledge-focused learning for pupils. however, as will be demonstrated below, such learning appears not to have been central to the primary school curriculum of the time and thus limited subject knowledge is unlikely to have been a cause of stress for a beginning teacher. a transmitter of ‘facts’ in most lessons; occasionally an enabler of learning although lesson preparation notes for the 93 demonstration lessons and the comments of supervising teachers on these lessons do not give a reader access to all the lessons taught or to the details of the curriculum on which they were based, at least two important ‘patterns’ can be identified in the notebook. firstly, in the history, geography, nature study and health lessons there is little evidence of learners being apprenticed into the structure and discourse(s) of reed: becoming a teacher in australia. . . 193 the respective disciplines. instead, they were presented with either ‘stories’ or collections of facts which they were usually expected to memorise. secondly, and by contrast, in some of the english and arithmetic lessons, there were opportunities for learners to manipulate letters, words, grammatical categories, numbers and objects in constructing knowledge, although there was also considerable emphasis on rote learning in these subjects. in her study of the curriculum used in victorian primary schools from 1934 to 1952 macknight (2005) notes the curriculum statement that “history should be a pageant rather than a philosophy” and observes that “[i]mplicitly this meant that historical truth would not be a central aim. formal conceptual models were displaced by processions of larger than life events and characters” (2005, unpaginated). the examples of history lessons in the notebook illustrate this observation. firstly, what was presented to learners as history was frequently based on greek and roman mythology. secondly, learners did not engage with texts as historians but instead listened to or read ‘stories’, committed to memory the ‘facts’ in these stories on which they were asked questions and then performed the story or, as in the case of a lesson on the trojan horse, made a drawing of the wooden horse. the student teacher’s preparation of content and of learner activities was applauded by the supervising teacher: “the teacher thoroughly revised the lesson on the wooden horse. the children answered questions well. as an application, the children coloured cut-outs of the wooden horse and pasted them in their books which were made to look very attractive. this was a very good lesson”. such comments positioned the student teacher as a successful interpreter of the grade 3–4 history curriculum. in the numerous examples of geography lessons, often the only identifiable connection with the discipline is the use of a map to situate the geographic region in which an animal, bird or reptile is located (in one lesson, indian and african elephants, in another the grizzly bear, in two others, crocodiles and turtles). in each case learners were required to memorise facts about the creature on which the lesson focused and the lesson usually ended with a connection being made to a literary text (e.g. kipling’s story elephant child; the turtle soup story in alice in wonderland). as was the case for the history lessons, the supervising teachers commended the ‘very good lessons’ in which learner interest was aroused and sustained and thus the student teacher was positioned as successful. however, contemporary curriculum theorists would be concerned about the lack of disciplinary focus and the lack of concept development. for example, shalem (2010) quotes maton and 194 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 muller’s (2007) argument that if the criteria by which we organise and assess school knowledge (history, english, natural science) bear no relation to their parent knowledges (social sciences, humanities, physics) in the realm of production (the intellectual field), “then schooling will undermine its role as a relay of specialised knowledge” (shalem, 2010, p. 96). it is likely that the lack of subject content courses in the primary teachers course would have constrained student teachers’ acquisition of the specialised knowledge which “enables a teacher to enrich the learning process with a broad range of illustrations, and to make connections between different concepts and ideas at different levels” (hoadley, 2012, p. 134). however, as stated above, the primary school curriculum appeared not to require such connection-making and the emphasis on subject methodology in the teacher education curriculum is likely to have contributed to teacher confidence in lesson presentation and classroom management (although, in the case of iris k and others of her generation, only after they had already gained considerable experience in the classroom.) in contrast to the history and geography lessons, some of the english and arithmetic lessons offered learners opportunities to construct knowledge rather than only to memorise and recall. for example, the lesson plan for a ‘composition lesson’ indicates that learners were required to work with grammatical metalanguage to develop a vocabulary frame for the composition they were to write. again, the supervising teacher approves: “this was an excellent vocabulary period… it was noticed that every child in the class worked hard to supply nouns, verbs and adjectives …” in this lesson, and in others in which learners constructed knowledge (grammar, vocabulary, procedures in arithmetic) the student teacher is likely to have been familiar with the disciplinary content from her own primary and secondary school studies. a disciplinarian responsible for shaping children’s bodies and minds in literacy, power and the schooled body, dixon argues that “for schooling to be effective, children need to be managed in particular ways, and to be taught to manage themselves in ways that are socially acceptable” (2011, p.63). throughout the demonstration lessons notebook there is evidence that regulation of children’s bodies and minds was prioritised in both the intended and enacted curriculum, particularly during handwriting, art, health, physical culture and music lessons. what is common to these lessons is the emphasis reed: becoming a teacher in australia. . . 195 on disciplining the body and conformity to what is positioned as ‘correct’. while guiding learners in the development of legible handwriting and good posture can be considered legitimate goals of the primary school curriculum, the insistence in the handwriting lesson on one correct way of producing a letter and in another, the stigmatising of the camel whose hump serves a practical purpose, and people with humps, can be questioned. (see the health lesson in the appendix.) however, it is in the pastel drawing lesson that the enacted curriculum of the 1940s is most noticeably different from its twentyfirst century counterparts. instead of being encouraged to create their ideal or favourite cake using media of their choice, each child was expected to produce an identical, straight line-drawn cake on a plate under a heading and date in the pastel book. the lesson preparation notes include the following: “teacher warns children to keep their vertical lines vertical. the cake must not be drawn too high in order that the candles may be drawn. teacher supervises the drawing of the cake.” the choice of the verb ‘warns’ and the prescriptive modal ‘must not’ indicate that any deviation from the instructions is unacceptable. the lack of freedom of expression in this lesson and the student teacher’s close surveillance of the learners’ drawings were endorsed and approved by the supervising teacher: “preparation was well carried out and procedure followed the lines indicated. children must learn to listen carefully when instructions are given. the drawings were generally well done, and the colour applied lightly. supervision was thoroughly carried out. the period was very good.” the lack of choice/creativity in the drawing lessons and the learners’ apparent acceptance of the teacher’s instructions for the production of ‘sameness’, are likely to have made classroom discipline easier than in contemporary classrooms in which individual responses may be both messy and noisy and thus more stressful for some early career teachers. rural primary school learners in the australian state of victoria in the early 1940s critical discourse and content analyses of the demonstration lesson notes and supervising teachers’ comments on many of the lessons enabled identification of contrasting constructs of ideal rural primary school pupils in these lessons. these constructs are presented and discussed below in order to argue that for a beginning teacher from a similarly rural background to their own, these constructs are more likely to have provided reassurance and pleasure than uncertainty or anxiety. 196 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 regulated and responsible but also fun-loving and imaginative as indicated in the previous section, regulation of children’s bodies and minds was one of the main goals of many of the lessons taught and one that was strongly endorsed by each of the supervising teachers. in addition to being positioned to accept the value of sitting, standing, writing, drawing and singing ‘correctly’, learners were positioned to behave responsibly from the time they started school. as explained by iris k, a feature of the design of the one-roomed school was a covered entrance porch on which there was a peg for each child to hang his or her school bag, drinking mug and towel, and a basin for hand washing. part of behaving responsibly involved being tidy and clean and looking after one’s personal property. the porch was also the place to which learners were sent to ‘cool off’ when judged by the teacher to have misbehaved in class. inside the classroom each learner had a wooden desk, with a lift-up top, in which to store textbooks, exercise books, a slate, a library book from the classroom library cupboard, pencils, a pen and blotting paper – all of which he or she was expected to take care of and use responsibly. learners in the senior grades were expected to perform a range of maintenance (e.g. mixing ink and filling ink wells) and teaching assistant duties, according to a weekly ‘duty roster’. outside the classroom, learners in a particular grade were responsible for looking after a designated part of the school’s vegetable and flower garden. however, school life was not just about regulation and responsibility. macknight (2005) notes that a teachers’ guide to the 1934 version of the victorian primary school curriculum still in use in the 1940s, stated that children “delight in speech and dramatic action, and in creating a miniature world from their own imagination. these activities are not aimless but are processes by which the child will grow” (no page reference). in the demonstration lessons notebook, there is evidence that opportunities for learners to engage in ‘speech’ or ‘dramatic action’ were either the focus of whole lessons or were the concluding revision activity. two examples of dramatisation and storytelling are reproduced in the appendix, together with the supervising teacher’s comments. in both the primary teachers course and the primary school curriculum, oral presentations were highly valued. ‘voice training’ was part of the student teachers’ programme and clarity of speech and voice projection were assessed during the ‘teaching rounds’. a feature of the one roomed rural school was a raised platform in front of the chalkboard, on which children stood to make speeches, read aloud, tell stories or act plays. in the student teacher’s reed: becoming a teacher in australia. . . 197 planning notes for the drama and storytelling lessons included in the appendix, as for all other lessons outlined in the notebook, there is no statement of intended learning outcomes. for the ‘retelling a story’ lesson, the supervising teacher’s comments suggest that such a lesson should enable learners to practice voice production and appropriate expression and should enable the teacher to assess learners’ use of logical connectors and to guide them in using these. in this lesson children have limited freedom but there is room for some creativity. in the second lesson, within the story frame, the lesson notes indicate more opportunities for learners to contribute their own ideas by ‘suggesting conversations for various characters’. although the supervising teacher does not comment on the learners’ ideas’, it appears from her brief comment that she approved of their ‘realistic acting’ and of ‘acting freely’. while ‘speech and drama’ activities may have been a source of anxiety for some student teachers and early career teachers, for iris k they were the highlight of her teaching day, given her confidence in public speaking and reading (activities in which she still participates at a business and professional women’s club of which she remains an active member). some nature study lessons involved a ‘nature ramble’ during which learners were permitted some freedom as indicated in the nature ramble lesson plan included in the appendix. the words used in the plan indicate that the nature ramble is another example of ‘structured freedom’: free discussion is ‘allowed’ but under teacher guidance. it appears that what the children ‘learned’ about cloud formation and rain was to be stored in their memories as there was no written activity, with the lesson ending in song and play. literate, numerate and orally confident, ‘generally knowledgeable’ on a range of topics but with limited foundations in specialised disciplinary knowledge a review of the 93 lessons in the notebook indicates that primary school pupils were guided to become literate and numerate through lessons that focused on the development of knowledge and skills related to reading aloud, silent reading, oral re-telling or performing of stories and poems, legible hand writing, descriptive and narrative composition writing, number patterns and operations with numbers. they are likely to have accumulated what is often referred to as ‘general knowledge’ on a range of topics such as greek and roman mythology, animal characteristics and behaviours, the characteristics and uses of plants, the environment, and factors contributing to good health. 198 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 what is not evident is any opportunity to develop critical thinking or to establish the foundations of specialised knowledge in disciplines such as science, biology, history or geography that are required for systematic engagement with these subjects. as already noted, if the curriculum had required these, then a student teacher who had had somewhat limited opportunities to develop specialised knowledge, though she was an avid reader, might have been anxious about her limitations. in the absence of such a requirement, she could feel confident in the adequacy of her knowledge. socialised to value rural community life and to care for the environment the rural school was a focal point of community life. while some children lived in the village or small town in which their school was located, the majority walked or rode a bicycle or horse from the family farm to the school. families worked together on farming tasks that required additional labour (e.g. haymaking) and on community projects such as building maintenance at the school. four important days in the school calendar were bird day on which the whole school walked in the area surrounding the school to record bird species; arbor day on which each child planted a tree in the school plantation, with some parents assisting the teacher; school picnic day on which parents joined their children and the teacher in a variety of outdoor games and sporting activities and the school ‘concert’ at which children performed songs, poems and plays. iris k recalls preparing for a special concert held in august 1945 to celebrate the ending of world war ii. all of these events connected learners with their local community. what today would be called environmental awareness was given prominence in the formal and informal curriculum. in addition to the nature study lessons and nature rambles, children were assigned in rotation the duty of reading a thermometer and rain gauge and of recording these readings and, as indicated above, all were expected to care for a portion of the school garden. iris k, whose own primary school experiences had been similar to those of the children she was now teaching and who had helped care for plants at home from her pre-school years onwards, was in familiar, comfortable territory, unlike many of the newly qualified teachers whose experiences of entering the profession in australia early in the twenty-first century are discussed by ewing and smith (2003), ewing and manuel (2005), johnson et. al (2010), pearce and morrison (2011) and le cornu (2013). reed: becoming a teacher in australia. . . 199 becoming a teacher in australia in the early years of the twenty-first century in twenty-first century australia, an initial teacher education qualification may be achieved through either a four-year bachelor of education degree programme or through a degree followed by a oneor two-year post-graduate teacher education programme. as a result of following either route, new teachers are likely to feel confident of their subject knowledge (unless they have been asked to teach outside of their disciplinary areas) as was confirmed in ewing and smith’s study in which early career teachers report that, regardless of programme type, respondents were generally satisfied with their pre-service preparation and felt “competent to begin teaching” (2003, p. 30) although concerned about their ability to cope with “assessment and reporting and classroom management” (2003, p. 30). johnson et. al (2010) reported early career teachers’ approval of their education theory courses, quoting one newly qualified teacher as saying that “doing all of the learning theories and all that kind of stuff … puts you in the right headset” (early career teacher, quoted in johnson et. al, 2010, p. 6, ellipsis in the original). however, findings from questionnaire and interview data (ewing & smith, 2003; ewing and manual, 2005); single interview data with multiple informants (johnson et al., 2010); data from multiple interviews with a single informant (pearce and morrison, 2011) and data from multiple interviews with multiple informants (le cornu, 2013) indicate that, in all of these studies, new teacher graduates identified similar challenges or issues – across a broad range of school and community contexts – for which they felt underprepared. ewing and smith categorise these issues as involving: (i) adjusting to the demands of teaching full time; (ii) negotiating colleague relationships; (iii) understanding classroom, school and community cultures; (iv) coping with self; finding a niche; (v) the idealism of the pre-service preparation (ewing & smith, 2003, p.17). using data from their studies of recently qualified teachers in australia, ewing and smith (2003), ewing and manuel (2005), johnson et al. (2010), pearce and morrison (2011) and le cornu (2013) all argue that positive ‘relationships’/‘interactions’ with colleagues, learners, and learners’ families 200 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 enable resilience in relation to each of the five issues. for johnson et al. (2010) early career teacher (ect) resilience is enhanced when: “! relationships are developed that nurture a sense of belongingness and acknowledge the complex emotional needs of ects. such relationships are based on respect, trust, care and integrity; ! positive school cultures are developed that actively promote collaborative relationships, professional learning communities, educative forms of leadership and dialogic decision making; ! ects successfully integrate personal, professional and structural discourses in ways that sustain both a coherent sense of personal identity and emerging teacher identity over time” (johnson et al., 2010, p. 14, bold type and bullets in the original). with reference to relationships and school cultures, many of the stories of etcs in twenty-first century australian schools included in the studies listed above, attest to the kinds of stressful experiences illustrated in these three examples: (i) “the teachers who work alongside norah do not share many of her views about teaching and learning, such as the value of play in the curriculum. this has made her feel rather alone in the school, as she has no-one to talk to about how to develop as the kind of teacher she would like to become” (pearce & morrison, 2011, p. 52, reporting their case study of norah, an early career primary school teacher). (ii) “i had known teaching would be professionally tough. i hadn’t thought much about how your self-esteem, your self-worth and your sense of self is invested in your vision of yourself as a teacher. i loved my years of undergraduate study – i was an able student, i worked hard and this hard work was always rewarded with high grades. … on reflection, i see that my success was grounded in a traditionalist conception of education …. the move to classroom teacher was therefore a fracturing experience … “ (ewing & smith, 2003, p. 19, ellipsis in the original). (iii) “i wasn’t prepared for how much of me, how much of myself, would be embedded in these relationships and how difficult classroom and school cultures would be to negotiate. how do you work in a school that reed: becoming a teacher in australia. . . 201 professes an ethos of care and attacks those who don’t fit their mould?” (early career secondary teacher, quoted in ewing & manuel, 2005, p. 9). le cornu (2013) reports that one of the key findings from interviews with 60 early career teachers and with the principals of the schools in which they taught, is that their relationship with themselves (“how comfortable they felt as a person and in their role of teacher” p. 6), contributed to their resilience: “where the early career teachers demonstrated a high level of personal awareness, viewed themselves as learners, and were reflexive, their resilience appeared to be enhanced. this had a positive effect on their self-confidence and their sense of personal agency” (le cornu, 2013, p. 6). from their indepth study of norah as a beginner teacher, pearce and morrison conclude that “understanding how early career teachers shape their new professional identities while at the same time enabling personal selves to persist and remain coherent would seem to be an important part of understanding resilience” (2011, p. 49). in investigating the kinds of professional support that best assist early career teachers, the research reported by le cornu (2013) found that early career teachers flourished when they were viewed as having a contribution to make to the learning of their colleagues and when they were invited to “participate in reciprocal learning relationships” (p.11). this finding is similar to that reported in day et al.: “resilience emerges in interactions in workplaces where practitioners are taken seriously and able to take forward their intentions and exercise professional agency in their day to day decisions” (2011, pp. 6–7). the resilience factor: past and present there can be little doubt that to begin teaching all subjects across several grades, without any formal teacher education qualification, as iris k did at the age of 18 in 1942, to have sole responsibility for the education of children across eight grades in 1943 and again in 1945 after her year at teachers’ college, would have required considerable resilience. however, i suggest that in some respects iris k faced fewer ‘stress factors’ than today’s early career teachers. with reference to the five broad issues identified by ewing and smith as the most challenging for today’s etcs, iris k was used to teaching full time from 202 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 her first days in the classroom and she was teaching a curriculum which had not changed since her own primary school days so that ‘adjusting to teaching full time’ would not have been as great a challenge for her as for many of today’s etcs. although she worked with colleagues in her first year of full time teaching as an unqualified teacher and during the ‘teaching rounds’ that formed part of her year at teachers’ college, for one year prior to qualification and for her first appointment as a qualified teacher, she had no colleagues with whom to ‘negotiate relationships’. while the authors of each of the recent studies of etcs discussed in this paper argue for the value of supportive professional and personal relationships, they also recognise the likely negative consequences of unsupportive relationships. the third issue identified by ewing and smith, ‘understanding classroom, school and community cultures’, is a challenge likely to be experienced by any teachers who begin their careers in unfamiliar contexts. this was not the case for iris k for whom there was continuity between her own primary schooling in a one-room school, in a close-knit farming community and her first experiences of teaching in similar schools and communities, made even closer as they faced together the challenges of a country at war. some of the early career teachers interviewed in recent studies, spoke of being underprepared for the challenges of classroom management and of the negative consequences for their confidence in themselves as teachers: “i had two kids who just screamed at me across the room … nothing worked … no matter how hard i tried … i hit rock bottom” (early career teacher quoted in le cornu, 2013, p. 4; ellipsis in the original). according to iris k, discipline was seldom an issue. as described in an earlier section of the paper, learners were positioned to behave responsibly from the time they started school – a positioning that was generally accepted, with only occasional ‘time outs’ on the school porch required for some. the contrast between the ‘ideal’ classroom world of their initial teacher education courses and the reality experienced in their first teaching appointment was an issue raised by etcs in each of the recent studies. these graduates have had far more opportunities to develop in-depth subject knowledge and to develop theorised pedagogic content knowledge than could possibly have been the case for iris k during her one-year, methodologydominated teacher education programme. as a result, they are likely to be more aware of possibilities for creative engagement with learners and learning reed: becoming a teacher in australia. . . 203 than was iris k but also more likely to become frustrated if school and classroom cultures make it difficult to teach as they would wish to do. johnson et al. (2010), pearce and morrison (2011) and le cornu (2013) all identify ‘relationship with self’ or ‘feeling comfortable as a person and in their role as teacher’ (le cornu, 2013, p. 6) as important for teacher resilience. for iris k, playing school at home, assisting her former primary school teacher with teaching assistant duties during her teenage years, taking on the responsibility of head (and only) teacher in a supportive community context all contributed to growing self-confidence and personal agency as the teacher she wished to be. for many student and early career teachers today, family, school and community contexts and school curricula are likely to be more complex and demanding than was the case in a rural community in the 1940s and thus the challenges of constructing their personal and professional identities are arguably greater than in the past. nurturing resilience: roles for teacher educators, school leaders and teaching colleagues in beyond survival, day et. al. (2011) argue that resilience can be fostered in initial teacher education programmes, through professional development opportunities within and across schools and through teacher support networks. in this final section of the paper their suggestions, together with those of other contributors to the beyond survival booklet (smethem & hood, 2011; handscomb, 2011) and suggestions from ewing and smith (2003) and ewing and manuel (2005), are outlined and related to the studies discussed above. nurturing resilience in initial teacher education programmes findings from the study discussed by ewing and smith (2003) indicate that while generally satisfied with their pre-service teacher education programmes, early career teachers in the australian state of new south wales would have liked more emphasis on classroom/student management and on assessment and reporting and also more opportunities to gain ‘professional experience’ – all of these to enable them to feel more confident in their professional role. however, there was no indication in the responses of these novice teachers 204 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 that they wanted less of what had been included in their curriculum. as pointed out by rusznyak (2015), given the “multitude of concepts and techniques that could be important for teachers to learn during their initial teacher education”, teacher educators need to make “rational knowledge selections” (2015, p. 7). in making these selections, teacher educators could include knowledge selections and ways of interacting with student teachers that are likely to nurture resilience. for example, smethem and hood (2011), in focusing on the teaching practicum in initial teacher education, suggest that student teachers are likely to develop resilience if teacher educators establish realistic expectations of the roles and responsibilities of student teachers while at the same time devising challenging targets for development, assisting them to establish collaborative rather than individualistic solutions to the challenges they experience, and working with their mentors in schools to “devise supportive yet challenging ways of giving feedback and advice” (2011, p. 10). nurturing resilience in the first years of teaching by the time she qualified as a teacher, iris k had accumulated extensive classroom teaching and school leadership experience. this is not the case for some early career teachers today – particularly those who study for a one year post-graduate teaching qualification after obtaining a degree. according to ewing and manuel, such teachers are much more likely to develop resilience and to remain in the profession if they receive “supportive induction into their specific school context; its conditions, culture and ethos, as well as the teaching profession more broadly” (2005, p. 12; italics in the original). one of the findings of johnson et.al’s investigation into conditions that support etc resilience in australian schools is that schools that operate as professional learning communities promote a sense of “belongingness and social competence” while providing both formal and induction opportunities (2010, p. 4). in similar vein, handscomb (2011) reports findings from a study in the united kingdom in which etcs became more resilient as a result of being given more rather than less responsibility, being supported in exercising this responsibility and being acknowledged for the contribution they were making to the school. a similar suggestion is made by le cornu (2013) who notes that the early career teachers in the study on which she reports “flourished when they were able to participate in relationships which recognised them as new professionals who had something to offer the reed: becoming a teacher in australia. . . 205 teaching profession” and who were “viewed as active participants in their own learning as well as being able to make a contribution to others’ learning” (2013, p. 11). however, ewing and smith (2003) and ewing and manuel (2005) note that some of the etcs in their respective studies were left to ‘sink or swim’ receiving “inadequate or unmanaged induction” (ewing & smith, 2003, p. 26) with their voices not heard (ewing & manuel, 2005, p. 13). these authors suggest that “[p]roviding meaningful contexts, on a regular basis, for early career teachers to connect with other staff, to express concerns, and to contribute ideas and perspectives would go some way towards offsetting the isolation and professional disconnectedness that can lead to attrition” (ewing & manuel, 2005, p. 13). a concluding comment although this paper has focused on initial teacher education and early career teaching, past and present, in australia, with some references also to the united kingdom, i hope that its discussion of resilience, possible reasons for teacher resilience or lack of resilience in different times and places, and suggestions for ways of fostering resilience in initial teacher education programmes and in schools, may encourage teacher educators and school leaders to think about contextually appropriate ways of supporting student teachers and newly qualified teachers to become resilient members of the teaching profession. references connelly, f. m. & clandinin, d. j. 1990. stories of experience and narrative inquiry. educational researcher, 19(5), 2–14. darling-hammond, l. 2003. keeping good teachers: why it matters, what leaders can do. educational leadership, 60(8), 6–13. day, c., edwards, a., griffiths, a. & gu, q. 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in y. shalem, & s. pendlebury, (eds), retrieving teaching: critical issues in curriculum, pedagogy and learning (pp.87–100). cape town: juta. shulman, l. 1987. knowledge and teaching: foundations of the new reform. harvard educational review, 57(1), 16. smethem, l. & hood, p. 2011. fostering resilience through initial teacher education. in c. day, a. edwards, a. griffiths, & q. gu, (eds), 2011. 208 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 beyond survival: teachers and resilience. nottingham: university of nottingham. pp. 9–10. tait, m. 2008. resilience as a contributor to novice teacher success, commitment and retention. teacher education quarterly, fall 2008, 57–75. appendix two pages from the demonstration lessons notebook: health lesson for grades 3–4 on the topic ‘good posture’ reed: becoming a teacher in australia. . . 209 retelling a story. the town band grades 1-2 9-6-42 procedure. a member of the class can come out to the front and begin telling the story. teacher helps child and other members of the class are invited to volunteer assistance. other individuals are asked to continue the story. when the part of the story, where the animals call out, arrives, each member of the class becomes a certain one of the animals and calls out the sound of that animal. a member of the class completes the story. in any remaining time, the children can draw some of the members of the town band. supervising teacher’s comments: retelling is a test of a child’s vocabulary. quietly check the ‘ands’, giving the child other words each time – ‘so’, ‘then’, ‘at last’. encourage good voices and expressive tones. dramatization of the three little pigs grades 1-2 10-6-42 step 1. teacher chooses members of the class to act various parts three children as the three pigs, someone as mother, three others as the owners of the straw, sticks and bricks respectively, and some else as the wolf. step 2. the wolf goes to a certain place in the room away from all the other actors. the mother pig and the first little pig take their places together. she farewells him and he meets a man with some straw … step 3. the dramatization of the story is continued. other members of the class help in the dramatization by suggesting conversations for the various characters. they may perhaps join in the chorus – “no, no, no, by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin … so that all can take part. supervising teacher’s comment: children’s appreciation of the most realistic acting, encourages others to act more freely. other examples of lessons, transcribed verbatim from the demonstration lessons notebook 210 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 nature ramble 11-6-1942 week’s observations: wood grub brought by a member of the class; earthworms noticed after a fall of rain; rain clouds present frequently; rain has fallen. cootamundra wattle has been noticed in bud. nature ramble as this is the children’s ramble they are allowed to discuss freely, under teacher’s guidance, the various specimens of nature study found and seen during the ramble. include a discussion about clouds and the formation of rain which has fallen during the week. to complete the discussion, children can sing ‘down came the raindrops’ before having a game in the open air. (lesson plan signed by supervising teacher but no comment made.) yvonne reed visiting associate professor school of education university of the witwatersrand yvonne.reed@wits.ac.za journal of education, 2023 issue 90, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x editorial lee rusznyak school of education, faculty of humanities, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa lee.rusznyak@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-6835-8215 maureen robinson department of curriculum studies, faculty of education, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa mrobinson@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0003-1963-7629 heloise sathorar faculty of education; nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa heloise.sathorar@mandela.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-4947-0885 melanie luckay department of educational studies, faculty of education, university of the western cape, belville, south africa mluckay@uwc.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-8601-1215 the complexities of learning to teach: advancing the debates this special issue was motivated by a need to respond to two discourses on teacher education that have recently become prevalent in south africa. the first is informed by size and shape concerns such as teacher supply and demand (green et al., 2014), graduation and attrition rates, and the need for teachers in particular subjects (van der berg et al., 2020). these are important concerns since they guide decisions about enrolment planning and the allocation of student funding into priority subjects and phases. the second is about the quality and substance of teacher preparation that ensures that future teachers have the knowledge, skills, and commitment to offer quality learning opportunities to those whom they teach. there are tensions between these two priorities. faced with projected short-term teacher shortages, proposals have been made for school-based internships as a cost-effective way of 2 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 rapidly increasing the number of qualified teachers in the education system (hofmeyr, 2016; shiohira et al., 2022). however, claims that alternative routes potentially address concerns about the quality of teaching preparation have yet to be supported by an empirical research base grounded in the south african context. some versions of the internship route, with their emphasis on school and classroom exposure, run the risk of either privileging practice over theory, or treating them as separated components of teacher preparation. our concern is that what is often missing from the consideration of models and interventions for preparing teachers for the south african context is a deep appreciation of the complexities of learning to teach, and an acknowledgement of the growing body of evidence-based research that supports quality teacher preparation. as a contribution to the debate and to this research base, the special interest group on initial teacher education of the south african education research association (saera) invited teacher educators and researchers to consider the complexities involved in developing curricula and interventions that support pre-service teachers as they learn to teach. authors were invited to submit studies on how future teachers are being prepared to consider a range of priorities in their pedagogic choices. these include subject/phase specific pedagogic considerations, varying contextual priorities, ethical imperatives, linguistic complexities, diverse learning needs, new modes of curriculum delivery, and national priorities for inclusion, transformation, and decolonisation. the group sought papers that could contribute conceptual debates, empirical research, theoretical explorations, and innovative practices that illustrate how south african teacher educators work within and between these complexities to prepare students for conceptually informed, contextually responsive teaching practices. recent initiatives in teacher education in south africa this special issue is located against a background of several recent teacher education initiatives taking place across the country. the south african teacher education sector has come a long way since it was fragmented and managed by 17 governmental authorities, with neither a national policy nor a substantial research base (welch, 2002). following the dismal failure of an outcomes-based approach that expected teacher preparation to be designed around seven roles of the educator (department of education, 2000), a policy shift led to the adoption of a knowledge-based approach to teacher preparation. the revised policy, known as the minimum requirements for teacher education qualifications (mrteq) (2011, revised 2015), moved away from listing many discrete outcomes. it regards teaching as a complex and integrated praxis, and offers a vision of graduate teachers as knowledgeable, adaptable practitioners. teaching is a complex activity that is premised upon the acquisition, integration and application of different types of knowledge practices or learning. a purely skillsbased approach, which relies almost exclusively on evidence of demonstrable outcomes as measures of success, without paying attention to how knowledge should underpin these skills for them to impact effectively on learning, will produce technicians who may be able to replicate performance in similar contexts, but who are rusznyak, robinson, sathorar & luckay: editorial 3 severely challenged when the context changes. (department of higher education and training, 2015, p. 9) this policy requires that teacher preparation curricula offer an appropriate mix of different bodies of knowledge and opportunities for various kinds of learning. however, different bodies of knowledge do not in themselves guarantee effective practice. an essential role of teacher education is to provide opportunities for pre-service teachers to (1) access relevant bodies of knowledge that inform their work as teachers and (2) draw on them to guide their decision-making and judgement in the enactment of practice (bertram & rusznyak, 2021). this requires that different bodies of knowledge are both understood and used as a basis for reasoning in practice, together with other issues such as priorities and opportunities in their context (carrim, 2019), the curriculum’s ethical orientations (sathorar and geduld, 2018), and the imperative for transformation and agency (america et al., 2021). in addition to this policy intervention, there have been several important recent initiatives in the south african teacher education sector that have sought to advance a scholarly-praxis agenda. a research-led approach to teacher education has been advanced through the establishment and activities of the unesco chair in teacher education for diversity and development 1 as well as a south african research chair initiative in teacher education. 2 two recent systematic reviews found that a significant number of research publications in the field of teacher education emanated from south africa (ananin & lovakov, 2022; ellis, et al., 2023). in addition, two major national studies on the state of teacher education and curricula have taken place. the first, conducted by the council on higher education, released its report in 2010, while the second, the initial teacher education research project (iterp), was conducted as a collaboration between the education deans’ forum, the department of higher education and training (dhet), and jet education services. the findings of the council on higher education that the uneven conceptual underpinnings of teacher education curricula constituted a major challenge to the sector informed the knowledge-based approach taken by the mrteq policy developers. all initial teacher education curricula were required to be redesigned and reaccredited in line with mrteq’s policy changes. despite the fact that iterp analysed initial teacher education curricula offerings before programmes were reaccredited to align with mrteq requirements, the findings of iterp (deacon, 2016) have been used to inform curriculum adjustments and subsequent sector initiatives to strengthen teacher preparation programmes. in one such initiative, the findings of iterp (deacon, 2016) led to the establishment of the primary teacher education (primted) project. through primted, networks of teacher educators working across different institutions have collaborated to identify the fundamental knowledge and practices to be taught to pre-service teachers across the sector. as a result, teacher education knowledge and practice standards have been developed for the teaching of literacy (taylor & mawoyo, 2022); numeracy (alex & roberts, 2019; taylor, 2021); 1 see https://www.wits.ac.za/education/research-centres/unesco-chair-in-teacher-education-for-diversity-development/ 2 see https://www.cput.ac.za/research-technology-and-innovation/centres/cite 4 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 inclusive education in teacher preparation programmes (walton & rusznyak, 2019) and work-integrated learning (primted, 2019). despite the active engagement of teacher educators and researchers in promoting research-led education (see brennan, 2020; osman and venkat, 2012), a strong notion of teaching as a craft-occupation that privileges tacit practical knowledge (winch, 2017) continues to circulate among various ngos and private donors with interests in supporting apprenticeship models of education, particularly in the independent schooling sector. extended internships have been advocated as a rapid and cost-effective way of addressing an expected short-term teaching shortage. the question then becomes one about how an appreciation of complexity and depth can be infused into prevalent discourses so that expectations of competency are fundamentally premised on deliberation, ethics, and agency. it is this concern that papers in this special issue seek to address. the contributions to this special issue drawing on her involvement with iterp, bertram, in her paper, is concerned with how teacher education can compensate for novice teachers’ reality shock, thus offering a crucially important contribution to the debate. she argues that teacher education is neither a silver bullet nor an ineffective intervention in preparing student teachers for the realities of teaching. although classroom life is diverse and can be unpredictable, the conceptualisation, organisation, and enactment of learning requires principled knowledge and thoughtful consideration of different possibilities. many of the decisions that effective teachers take are thus not idiosyncratic in nature or made according to personal preferences. while universitybased coursework cannot supply ready-made answers to the context-specific dilemmas that arise in practice, theoretical and contextual knowledge provides teachers with invaluable insights and discernment about ethical and principled teaching choices for the relevant content and contextual priorities. bertram makes a compelling argument that the very point of teacher education is to provide principled and rational grounds for decisions that need to be worked out given the priorities, opportunities, and challenges of different teaching contexts. one of the crucial priorities for teacher education is to ensure the strong content knowledge of pre-service teachers in the subjects they teach. the paper by roberts and mort addresses developments in the assessment of literacy practices of pre-service teachers as part of the primted project. an initial testing of the subject and pedagogical knowledge of newly qualified teachers during iterp indicated areas of concern. in light of these findings, some universities moved beyond mrteq requirements and amended their curricula to ensure that primary education students undertake extended studies over several years to ensure their competence in numeracy/mathematics and the teaching of literacies/languages. roberts and mort address the subsequent need to refine and extend the testing of final year pre-service teachers to ensure that assessment instruments are fit for purpose and that they work across diverse contexts. the vision of a professional cohort of thinking, reasoning teachers can bring teacher education into some tension with the structure of the current schooling system. several papers rusznyak, robinson, sathorar & luckay: editorial 5 in this issue address the tension that arises between the current schooling and policy contexts and potentially powerful interventions that could prepare future teachers to be agents of change. maistry’s paper problematises the assumptions that underpin the existing economics fet curriculum assessment policy statements (caps) curriculum. he critiques the way in which it presents capitalism as an unproblematic and uncontested economic structure. as part of the imperative to decolonise and teach for greater social justice, he argues for the use of approaches from philosophy that trouble assumptions about how the subject is constructed and presented in the national curriculum. he argues that future teachers need to be prepared to be critical thinkers in relation to their subjects, not merely trained in the implementation of the current curriculum. their ability to see beyond the current curriculum and prevalent practices is essential for the transformation of the education system. in similar vein, nkealah and simango address the ways in which the current schooling system undermines attempts by teacher education to prepare future teachers. they argue that teacher educators have an obligation to prepare future teachers to use critical pedagogies in their teaching of literature. this pedagogic approach promotes literacy development while simultaneously addressing crucially important issues in society. they point to the way in which inconsistencies in the goals and requirements of caps and the highly prescriptive annual teaching plans drastically constrain opportunities for newly qualified teachers to use such empowering pedagogic interventions effectively. they note that in this way, policy and institutional contexts effectively undermine the purpose of teacher education policy to prepare teachers who can offer transformative learning opportunities to the classes they teach. in her discussion on pedagogic learning in deeply rural contexts, pennefather discusses the importance of contextual responsiveness in developing teaching practices. her paper highlights the situated nature of pre-service teacher learning as well as the multidimensional and expansive nature of the learning that can emerge through mediation. in moving outside of their comfort zones, pre-service teachers in a rural area were exposed to opportunities for deep learning and the development of professional knowledge. she shows how the unique situation of shared living and working space influenced the development of the pre-service teacher-university tutor relationships and practices. she explains how, through collaborative inquiry groups, students were able to confer in authentic and meaningful ways on challenges, strategies, and successes in a deeply rural context. facing up to the complexity of learning to teach is not restricted to the south african situation. working in the australian context, fitzgerald, goff, and white offer insights from teacher educators working within the requirements of a continually shifting teacher education reform policy, increasing standardisation, and more strident accountability measures. narrative accounts illustrate the dilemmas of three teacher educators as they try to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population, different community settings, and a profession that is well prepared for current and future challenges. importantly, the article reminds us that, despite competing demands and external forces, teacher educators still inhabit a space of influence and agency. as they position themselves within the many 6 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 curriculum dilemmas, so teacher educators are able to develop pro-active strategies for responsive and forward-looking curriculum planning. the final paper in this special issue discusses a situation that has become more prevalent in recent years, that of hybrid learning in teacher education. mulaudzi, du toit, and golightly locate their paper within a problem-based approach to technology education and explore the experience of giving a voice to students in their learning process. according to these authors, it is important to understand how students perceive problem-based learning and how this approach can be refined to increase student participation and active involvement in their education. data collected from the implementation of a hybrid problem-based module shows that the socially constructed knowledge development and meaning-making process were perceived positively by students and the module facilitator, and that it motivated students to learn. furthermore, technology student teachers reported the sessions as having been significant in improving their electrical technology content knowledge and fostering their 21st-century skills development. saera’s special interest group on initial teacher education the range of complexities in learning to teach articulated by the authors in this special issue confirms our reservations about attempts to short-cut the potential value offered by teacher education programmes that offer both access to bodies of knowledge and mediated opportunities to see theory in practice and vice versa. here we are not merely referring to implementing protocols learned in coursework, but are, rather, using theoretical insights to understand the successes, failures, and incidents that occur in practice and students’ own learning as future teachers. it also means using observations and experiences in practice to extend or challenge what is learned theoretically. models of teacher preparation that offer parallel or alternating sessions of coursework and school-based learning without bringing them into meaningful relation with each other offer, potentially, inert theory and stagnant practice (walton & rusznyak, 2020). although some pre-service teachers may see links and transfer insights across the boundaries, others remain trapped in a theory-practice divide. in a context in which teacher professionalism and innovation are under threat through mechanisms like scripted lessons, it is essential that teacher educators continue to create knowledgeable, reasoning, ethical, and responsive practitioners whose practices can transcend compliance with the status quo. we are concerned by the possibility of any moves toward de-professionalisation of the teaching sector that replace an explicit knowledge base with a tacit one, as in extended internships that are predominantly school-based with tenuous links to university-based learning. without understanding teaching and learning theoretically, and how teaching practices are enacted in contextually appropriate ways, there is a risk that pre-service teachers will either revert to delivering education in the same manner in which they were taught (borg, 2004; rusznyak, 2009) or adopt prevalent practices irrespective of their effectiveness (rusznyak et al., 2022). in the south african context where inequalities, ineffective practices, and prejudices shape pre-service teachers’ perceptions of normalised schooling, amin and ramrathan (2009, p. 73) have argued for the need to “reframe rusznyak, robinson, sathorar & luckay: editorial 7 memories” about schooling and to “disrupt their suppositions about schools based on [preservice teachers’] biographical experiences.” given the time demands on teachers, there is a tendency for teachers to focus on showing their teaching rather than explicating the reasoning that informs their practices to the students they mentor (loughran, 2019). the large-scale cross disciplinary study of grossman et al. (2009) showed that learning in work-based contexts, under the mentoring of an experienced practitioner, requires a conceptual language of practice that enables them to decompose practice, and “provide targeted feedback on students’ efforts to enact the components of practice” (p. 2075). the development of such a language of practice needs to go hand in hand with exposure to, and practice in, the practical skills of classroom management and materials development. similarly, it is our view that mentor training needs to focus on more than understanding roles and responsibilities, providing support, and encouraging reflection. mentors also need a shared analytic conceptual language that enables them to have learning conversations with novices about their mediation of content knowledge, the value of learning activities, the appropriateness of pedagogic decisions taken in response to contextual priorities, and the overall effectiveness of their developing teaching practices. in summary, teacher education goes far beyond skilling workers to be workplace ready. it also requires that future teachers understand the logics that inform teaching practices and the grounds on which some pedagogic choices are more appropriate than others. they need to navigate their own personal experiences of schooling (samuel, 2009) and consider the demands of the subject, priorities, challenges, and opportunities of the context and the support needs of learners. while the current system reduces teachers to implementors of materials through mechanisms like highly prescriptive annual teaching plans, scripted lesson plans, and pre-designed materials, we envisage future teachers who do more than copy prevalent practices irrespective of their effectiveness or appropriateness. for them to advance the transformation of the education system, they need to have a strong knowledge base, contextual understanding, and the capacity to use that knowledge base to make reasoned and responsive choices in their teaching decisions (loughran, 2019). it is against this background that in 2016, members of saera established a special interest group (sig) in initial teacher education to advance scholarly debate in this area. this special issue of the journal of education is one of its initiatives that seek to put the quality of teacher education and its complexities on the research agenda. without access to such depth, there is a danger that pre-service teachers learn to replicate prevalent practices in the context regardless of their effectiveness and without interrogating their unintended exclusionary effects. the papers in this issue contribute to our understanding of teacher education as working at the intersection of vastly different social and educational histories, a complex set of knowledge practices, diverse contextual priorities, opportunities and challenges, and ethical priorities. through highlighting the practices and reflections of teacher educators themselves, the papers illustrate the intersecting set of theoretical, political, social, and/or educational imperatives that drive the curriculum design and pedagogical choices of teacher 8 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 educators. building on existing scholarship, we hope that the papers in this special issue surface philosophies and practices of teacher educators from the global south, to understand how these inform curriculum and pedagogy, and to consider how local debates on teacher education contribute to international scholarship. references america, c., edwards, n., & robinson, m. 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(2017). teachers’ know-how: a philosophical investigation. wiley. microsoft word b91 full issue.docx journal of education, 2023 issue 91, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i91a08 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x the inclusion of critical thinking in an accounting curriculum: students’ perceptions elmarie papageorgiou school of accountancy, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa elmarie.papageorgiou@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9356-6123 (received: 2 june 2022; accepted: 3 may 2023) abstract employers and professional bodies have called repeatedly for critical thinking to be included in the curricula of higher education courses. therefore, researchers should actively engage in developing course material that includes critical thinking. the purpose of this paper is to explore students’ perceptions of the inclusion of a critical thinking course in an accounting curriculum in order to develop and foster their critical thinking. the study adopted a mixed method design to understand students’ perceptions of the inclusion of critical thinking in the accounting course. the findings revealed positive results and the promising perceptions that most students benefitted from the inclusion of the critical thinking in the curriculum. the five highest ranked areas in which students benefitted were communication skills, gaining confidence, writing skills, improved reading, and teamwork skills. in addition, most students confirmed that the critical thinking course assisted them to think logically and clearly and be independent. this study contributes to the improvement of student preparedness and readiness for the workplace and to the acquisition of lifelong skills through formal education. keywords: accounting curriculum, critical thinking, higher education, learning, skills, students introduction this study was motivated by those of hart et al. (2021) and wolcott and sargent (2021), which asserted that educators should actively engage in activities to include critical thinking skills throughout the accounting curriculum. wolcott and sargent (2021) further identified key recommendations for the development of critical thinking skills and, at the same time, accounting technical knowledge. earlier studies have also called for exploring new measures to assess critical thinking skills. wilkin (2017) engaged on how assessment design was used to enhance students’ critical thinking. abbott and palatnik (2018) adapted teaching methods to assist students to meet professional demands for critical thinking skills. hart et al. (2021) explored higher education students’ critical thinking skills. douglas and gammie (2019) investigated the development of non-technical skills in undergraduate accounting papageorgiou: the inclusion of critical thinking in an accounting curriculum 133 programmes and confirmed that critical thinking is un-actioned; it is purely identified as need for critical thinking rather than actioned as such. other studies have also affirmed the importance of developing higher order and critical thinking skills among accounting graduates prior to entering the job market (muhamad & sulaiman, 2013; sangster, 2014; sangster et al., 2020; stoner & milner, 2010). bezanilla et al. (2019) asserted that educators should do their best to include critical thinking in their curricula because it is an important competency for students’ personal and professional lives. terblanche and de clercq (2021) stated that critical thinking is currently an ill-developed skill in accounting education. and young and warren (2011) noted that accounting educators should develop students’ critical thinking skills as a prerequisite for a successful accounting career. wolcott and sargent (2021) confirmed this by pointing out that accountants entering the workplace are expected to demonstrate strong critical thinking skills early in their careers. wilkin (2017) noted the importance of developing critical thinking skills as a vital part of higher education courses—in line with repeated calls from employers and professional bodies. education should be universal and grounded, with a focus on real-world readiness (institute of singapore chartered accountants [isca] & institute of chartered accountants in england and wales [icaew], 2017) given that it plays a large role in preparing students for their future careers. the purpose of this paper was to explore students’ perceptions of the inclusion of critical thinking in a first-year accounting curriculum, and to determine if critical thinking was developed and fostered. the following two research questions were used to address the purpose of the study: • what were students’ self-evaluations and perceptions of the concept of critical thinking—before and after including the critical thinking interventions in the accounting curriculum? • will these critical thinking interventions assist students in their studies by growing or establishing an awareness of being critical thinkers? the research questions are important to address the gap in response to repeated calls from employers and accounting bodies for the inclusion of critical thinking in accounting curricula. giving students the opportunity to answer open-ended questions, compared with likert-scale questions provided students with a voice for their opinions. the main finding of this study was that most accounting students benefitted from the inclusion of critical thinking in the accounting curriculum, which created an awareness of critical thinking skills. further, the critical thinking intervention can not only create an awareness of critical thinking, but also, with continued exposure to critical thinking, students may grow into critical thinkers, which may contribute to better academic results. the paper is structured as follows: first, the literature review, and then the theoretical framework are presented, followed by detail of the methodology. thereafter, the findings and discussion of students’ perceptions and opinions and, finally, the conclusion are presented. 134 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 literature review accounting education has been criticised for not preparing graduates for their professional careers by equipping accounting students with a wider range of skills (christensen et al., 2019). recent studies have stated that accounting degrees continue to be criticised for failing to develop non-technical skills to the required level, and have called for an increased emphasis on developing students’ soft skills and revisiting the skill set requirements for professional accountants (bayerlein & timpson, 2017; coady et al., 2018; douglas & gammie, 2019; moore & morton, 2017; rebele & st. pierre, 2019). in addition, calls for changes have been made repeatedly by accounting educators and researchers. flood (2014) stated that accounting education is failing students in two ways; firstly, by inadequately preparing students for the workplace and secondly, by failing to develop critical thinking. in recent years, professional accounting bodies, institutions, and associations have engaged with educators to determine whether university accounting programmes develop skills that prepare students for the workplace (moore & morton, 2017). st. pierre and rebele (2014) called for an increased emphasis by accounting educators on developing students’ soft skills, including critical thinking, communication skills, and ethics. therefore, there is a gap to include critical thinking skills in the accounting curriculum to equip students to be ready for the workplace. however, lubbe (2017) stated that the process of changing a curriculum is always problematic and may provoke conflict, passion, anxiety, and resistance to change. critical thinking is now discussed in the accounting context. as per wolcott and sargent (2021), no definition of critical thinking has been agreed on in the accounting context or accounting profession. thus, critical thinking will be explored through various accounting bodies, institutions, and associations. the south african institute of chartered accountants (saica, 2019) indicated that curriculum developers and educators should address the skills deemed appropriate for inclusion in the academic programme. one of the competencies per the saica competency framework is decision-making, which comprises analytical/critical thinking, integrated thinking, problem solving, judgement and decision-making, and professional scepticism. the saica (2019) framework also indicated that critical thinking is the process of actively conceptualising, applying, analysing, synthesising, and/or evaluating information. the american institute of certified public accountants defined critical thinking as follows: critical thinking incorporates the capability to link data, knowledge, and insight from various disciplines to provide information for decision-making (as cited in abbott & palatnik, 2018). and the association of chartered certified accountants (n.d.) listed critical thinking as part of the seven professional competencies that are included in the softer skills and interpersonal behaviours that future accountants need to excel in their careers and adding value to employers and clients. the chartered institute of management accountants’ (2019) global management accounting principles highlights that good communication improves decision-making and facilitates integrated thinking. the south african institute of professional accountants (saipa, 2017) indicated that critical thinking is embedded in the mission of the institute to improve the wealth of stakeholders by developing unique skills such as the use of professional judgement to evaluate situations, to communicate effectively, and to apply knowledge in a dynamic environment. the southern african institute of papageorgiou: the inclusion of critical thinking in an accounting curriculum 135 government auditors’ (2020) competency framework incorporated critical thinking as a higher-order thinking skill. internationally, isca and icaew (2017) indicated in their report the 10 highest ranked skills listed by the world economic forum (turner & taylor, 2022). the second highest ranked skill was critical thinking, and the highest ranked skill was complex problem solving (isca & icaew, 2017). the education sector has responded to a discussion on the role of the accountancy profession to develop higher order thinking skills as an important skill for lifelong learning (isca & icaew, 2016), and some united kingdom educators were interviewed on different aspects of the future accountant. pedley-smith, head of learning, kaplan, united kingdom, responded on current gaps in terms of skills and knowledge that the accountancy profession needs to build up quickly; by starting to build these skills now, will assist in providing the building blocks for accountants of the future to be able to survive “a more volatile, uncertain, and disruptive environment” (isca & icaew, 2017, p. 35). another interviewee, jones, senior lecturer in accounting and finance, newcastle university business school, responded on the uncertain and disruptive world in which we live and the implications of this for professional learning to develop higher level skills like analysis, reasoning, and problem solving (isca & icaew, 2017). a study by lucas and mladenovic (2014, p. 133) investigated what educators can do to change the perceptions of accounting and confirmed that when the “traditional lecture-based, technically-focussed course was compared with a non-traditional, case-based course, less emphasis was placed on technical material and more emphasis on critical thinking and discussion.” young and warren (2011) indicated that there is no general consensus on how to assess critical thinking skills in an introductory financial accounting course, but stressed that accountants do need critical thinking skills to be successful in practice. flood (2014) stated that educators and researchers need to drive change by fostering critical thinking among accounting students. st. pierre and rebele (2014) raised concern with the concept of teaching critical thinking, which focused on the ability of educators to teach this soft skill. they further confirmed that while the majority of educators (89%) stated that critical thinking was of primary importance in their instruction, 77% of these educators had little or no conception of critical thinking content coverage. a study by sangster (2014) stated that in recent developments in the accounting curriculum in the national university of córdoba, argentina, an introductory course was introduced to encourage the development of critical thinking before the study of accounting standards. cunningham (2014) stated that accounting educators need to collaborate with other educators in teaching critical thinking skills because accountants value critical thinking differently from others in other disciplines. these pressures continue with the finding in the study by st. pierre and rebele (2014) that the main concern is the ability of academic staff to teach critical thinking. the following five critical thinking skills elements were developed from the literature review to guide students using a think model (see figure 1) to understand what critical thinking is, and how to use it in accounting studies as preparation for the remainder of their studies. 136 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 figure 1 think t teach and trust yourself to make good decisions and become a contributing member of society (facione, 2013). h how to act professionally and ethically in all areas, and be confident in reasoning and solving problems (facione, 2013; snyder & snyder, 2008). i interpretation: express the meaning or significance of a wide variety of situations, data, judgements, decisions, rules, procedures, information to each situation (facione, 2013). n engage and participate actively (papageorgiou, 2021; precourt & gainor, 2019). k link theory to application in the process of learning, and link critical thinking skills to content (snyder & snyder, 2008). theoretical framework the critical thinking concept is embedded in bloom’s taxonomy, which includes higher order thinking skills to assist students to inquire, thus leading to deepened knowledge (anderson et. al., 2001; krathwohl, 2002). and the five elements of think (facione, 2013; precourt & gainor, 2019; snyder & snyder, 2008) were used as a framework to develop a critical thinking intervention in an accounting curriculum. in an accounting context, both institutes (isca and icaew, 2016) referred to bloom’s taxonomy in a visible shift for accountants to analyse, evaluate, and create—rather than only apply accounting or auditing standards. in addition, in order to enhance companies’ performance and producing significant results, accountants should be able to integrate, examine, and evaluate when interpreting financial and non-financial information. these institutes confirmed that critical thinking is one of the crucial skill sets that important for accountants (isca & icaew, 2017). therefore, bloom’s taxonomy (bloom et al., 1956) is used as a framework to explore higher order skills such as critical thinking skills within the accounting context. an approach to deepen students’ knowledge and understanding of the five elements of think was used to assist them to demonstrate critical thinking skills. the definition of “critical thinking” was developed in the context of accounting, using the top category of bloom’s taxonomy (anderson et al., 2001; krathwohl, 2002), and “create” was used in relation to thinking creatively, teaching, and trusting yourself to make good and ethical decisions—especially in the wake of some recent corporate accounting scandals. thus, critical thinking also includes interpretation and especially, sifting and filtering through data to extract the correct data to make decisions, report problems, find solutions, interpret data, and make judgements (facione, 2013). another important aspect is to engage and participate effectively (papageorgiou, 2021; precourt & gainor, 2019). and finally, including critical thinking in education programmes could assist with students’ higher order thinking skills, linking theory learnt with application (lorencová et al., 2019). papageorgiou: the inclusion of critical thinking in an accounting curriculum 137 context of the study the university where the study took place responded to calls to prepare students for the workplace by developing a new critical thinking component to be included in the accounting curriculum, which could promote students’ development and becoming critical thinkers. students would be exposed to critical thinking in their first year of study to prepare them for the remainder of their studies and to embed lifelong learning, which contributes to the learning of new skills (kanuru & priyaadharshini, 2020). snyder and snyder (2008) indicated that critical thinking is a learned skill or set of skills that must be practised by students, and wolcott et al. (2002) stated that these skills develop slowly. therefore, in this study, the decision was made to introduce critical thinking skills to students to be practised and learned in their first year of study, and developed slowly over their studies until graduation. methodology a mixed method was used, quantitative and qualitative, that was exploratory in nature, employing an on-line electronic questionnaire (bryman & bell, 2015) consisting of closed and open-ended questions addressing the research questions. participants the sampling frame included first-year students from two registration periods (one cohort was influenced by covid-19, and the other cohort not) registered for an accounting course at a south african university. students who were enrolled for the first-year accounting course that is compulsory for the bachelor of commerce degree were invited to participate in the study. a total of 908 students were sampled over the two-year period (year 1 = 474, year 2 = 434). research instrument questionnaires were developed specifically to address the purpose of this study, which was to obtain students’ perceptions of critical thinking in an accounting curriculum. students received an invitation via the university portal to participate in the research and links to the questionnaires were posted on the student portal to the 908 students registered for the firstyear accounting course. lecturers briefed students on the aim and contribution of the research during lectures. the “critical thinking questionnaire” consisted of questions developed to capture students’ perceptions of critical thinking, and included closedand open-ended questions. open-ended questions and responses are a more extensive way of viewing students’ thinking skills, perceptions, and opinions and provide richer data about students’ experiences to assess student thinking (smith, 2014). data collection data were collected using four questionnaires over a period of two years, two questionnaires per year. each year consisted of two waves (see figure 2). ethical clearance to administer the 138 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 questionnaires was obtained from the ethical committee of the university. the quest were reviewed by the institution and participants were invited and provided their consent to participate in the study. figure 2 research procedure: waves 1 and 2 wave 1 (before intervention) the first wave was administrated at the beginnin critical thinking interventions. three questions were asked. questions 1 and 2 were closed ended questions. the first question indicated six qualities: think outside the box, think clearly, think rationally. answers were to be indicated on a 5 point likert scale ranging from “very much true of me” to “not at all true of me” for each quality. the second question asked, “how would you describe yourself by using five descriptive words?” the third question was open critical thinking?” •week 2 of the academic year •the ‘critical thinking' questions consisting of closeand open-ended questions relating to students' perceptions and opinions on what critical thinking is and selfevaluation. critical thinking questionnaire before intervention wave 1 questionnaire 1 1 questionnaire 1 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 questionnaires was obtained from the ethical committee of the university. the quest were reviewed by the institution and participants were invited and provided their consent to the first wave was administrated at the beginning of the academic year in week 2 before the critical thinking interventions. three questions were asked. questions 1 and 2 were closed ended questions. the first question indicated six qualities: creative, independent, practical, nk clearly, think rationally. answers were to be indicated on a 5 point likert scale ranging from “very much true of me” to “not at all true of me” for each quality. the second question asked, “how would you describe yourself by using five s?” the third question was open-ended and asked, “what do you think is week 2 of the thinking is and •week 6 of the academic year •the ‘critical thinking' questions consisting of closeand openended questions relating to students' perceptions and opinions on what critical thinking is, selfevaluation and skills benefitted with the inclusion of critical thinking critical thinking questionnaire after intervention course outcomes wave 2 questionnaire 2 i n t e r v e n t i o n questionnaires was obtained from the ethical committee of the university. the questionnaires were reviewed by the institution and participants were invited and provided their consent to g of the academic year in week 2 before the critical thinking interventions. three questions were asked. questions 1 and 2 were closedcreative, independent, practical, nk clearly, think rationally. answers were to be indicated on a 5point likert scale ranging from “very much true of me” to “not at all true of me” for each quality. the second question asked, “how would you describe yourself by using five ended and asked, “what do you think is on successful completion of the ct intervention the student should be able to: communicate effectively in the english language critically think through the development of logical arguments, read and comprehend material with advanced critical literacy apply imaginative and logical responses to accounting problems assessments are evaluated using four competencies: language reading and comprehension creativity, and critical thinking course outcomes papageorgiou: the inclusion of critical thinking in an accounting curriculum 139 the critical thinking intervention a critical thinking course pack was included in the accounting course material and distributed to the students. this pack was developed by a team consisting of accounting educators, curriculum developers, english educators, a writing specialist, an external member of a different discipline, and another person who ensured all the critical thinking components were included as per the conceptual frameworks of the accounting bodies. the following elements were included in the pack: analytical/critical thinking, integrated thinking, problem solving, judgement and decision-making, and professional scepticism (saica, 2020). the pack was first circulated among accounting educators to be reviewed and minor adjustments were made. students were constantly reminded about the five elements of think and the concept of lifelong learning (kanuru & priyaadharshini, 2020). the main aims of the critical thinking component were firstly, to develop communication and critical thinking skills by exposing students to a range of readings to encourage them to think about the dialectical relationship between critical thinking and accounting and secondly, to encourage them to think about the consequent effect this dialectical relationship has on individuals and society. the title of the critical thinking course material pack was “putting a human face to numbers,” and consisted of readings on various topics such as the politics of language, corruption and ethics, and artificial intelligence. by engaging them with a diverse media of still pictures, motion pictures, poetry, short stories, journalistic articles, opinion pieces, and theoretical grounded readings, students were presented with numbers and how they influence and affect human lives. in addition, the integrated annual reports of three companies listed on the johannesburg stock exchange (jse) were included in the pack. students were informed that they were the preparers of financial statements and that it would be their responsibility to prepare these reports. this can be described as a touch and feel approach. normally, students would only have been exposed to, or have learned about, the structure of the statement of comprehensive income and statement of financial position at the end of the first semester. but, by showing them the annual reports at the beginning of the academic year, students could visualise what they were working towards in preparing financial statements. in addition, students engaged in writing exercises, developing presentation skills in front of an audience (small and large groups), identifying what a professional person is, how to act in a working environment and be ethical, and how to communicate effectively and efficiently. lecturers demonstrated these to the students in various settings using their knowledge and expertise. secondand thirdyear accounting lecturers attended the lectures to observe, and to include and build on these first-year student interventions and experiences in their following years to graduation. the critical thinking educators consisted of sessional non-accounting lecturers and tutors from the humanities faculty’s writing centre, and an associate professor from the school of accountancy who was also the accounting course co-ordinator. the non-accounting lecturers or tutors typically have completed a doctorate in english or are registered for a master’s or doctoral degree in english. the teaching team was common across both years. the accounting students were divided into smaller groups for tutorials. tutorials were compulsory 140 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 and attendance registers kept; students had to attend the lectures to be able to tackle the tutorials. in the tutorials, the tutorial assistants monitored each student’s ability to communicate, write, sift through data, analyse, think critically, raise opinions, judge, and present. wave 2 (after intervention) the second wave was administered in week 6 after the critical thinking interventions. the critical thinking questions consisted of closedand open-ended questions relating to students’ perceptions and opinions on what critical thinking is, self-evaluation, and their skills benefitted by the inclusion of critical thinking. students’ critical thinking skills were tested at the end of week 7 by using a formal written assessment on the work done in the critical thinking lectures. students were briefed on what material had to be prepared for the assessment. on successful completion of the critical thinking components, the students should have developed or gained critical thinking skills (see figure 2). students were assessed by using the following criteria: to be able to answer open-ended questions, relate to real-world scenarios, ability to apply theory to new situations, ability to compare different situations, ability to sift through data to make judgements, and reasoning skills in solving problems. examples of two questions are as follows. in year 1, the critical thinking question consisted of an article “steinhoff collapse: a failure of corporate governance” (rossouw & styan, 2019) with relevant questions testing the students’ critical thinking skills and whether they could raise opinions and make decisions in an accounting context. one of the required tasks was to write a short essay of 300 to 350 words from the perspective of a professional accountant on what could have been done to prevent the steinhoff crisis. marks were allocated for logic, clear writing, argumentation, and structuring of sentences and paragraphs. students had to use their critical thinking skills to read, write full sentences, group sentences in paragraphs, present their arguments, provide reasons for their arguments, and structure an essay. in year 2, the critical thinking question consisted of a jse company’s integrated annual report and an article from a business magazine with questions assessing students’ accuracy, judgement, reading skills, understanding, analysing of information, reporting on data gathered, opinions, and general knowledge. questions such as the following were included: “was there an increase or decrease in the company’s revenue in the current year compared to the previous year? provide two reasons for your answer.” students used their critical thinking skills to read, extract the correct information from the report, analyse the information, and provide the answers. students also used their general knowledge to interpret the results. data analysis the statistical package for the social sciences (ibm spss statistics v27) was used to describe and analyse the quantitative sample of closed-ended questions and present the descriptive statistics. a content and thematic analysis was adopted to analyse the qualitative sample of open-ended questions. the responses to the open-ended questions were analysed papageorgiou: the inclusion of critical thinking in an accounting curriculum 141 and various patterns and themes evolved and took shape to address the purpose of the study. the themes and the students’ responses were grouped into the two waves: critical thinking before, and critical thinking after, the intervention. for each wave, the qualitative data were copied into a spreadsheet and a manual coding method was used to identify the themes. themes evolved, which allowed the classifying of the data under the relevant themes. core words were used to assign codes to the students’ answers to the open-ended questions. in each wave, the data were analysed to classify and identify key words and common themes in the students’ responses. findings and discussion a total of n = 1,618 responses were recorded—an average response rate of 89.4% for the four questionnaires over the two years. a total of 908 students were registered for the course over the two-year period (year 1 = 474, year 2 = 434). there were two questionnaires per year and responses were as follows: questionnaire 1, year 1 = 414 and year 2 = 410; questionnaire 2, year 1 = 372 and year 2 = 422. see detailed responses presented in table 1. table 1 responses year n = number of students registered n = responses wave 1: questionnaire 1 response rate wave 2: questionnaire 2 response rate 1 474 414 87.3% 2 434 410 94.5% 1 474 372 78.5% 2 434 422 97.2% the analysis first sought to address the first research question, namely, “what were students’ self-evaluations and perceptions of the concept of critical thinking—before and after including the critical thinking interventions in the accounting curriculum?” students had to indicate their perceptions of “very much true of me” to “not at all true of me” before (wave 1) and after (wave 2) the critical thinking interventions in each of the two years. descriptive statistics were performed of the frequencies of the six qualities, independent, think clearly, practical, think rationally, think outside the box, and creative (see table 2). descriptive results indicated that students rated themselves in year 1, wave 1 (n = 414) to be “independent” as the highest (79.0%), “think clearly” second (73.9%), and “practical” as the third highest (71.3%). results for year 1, wave 2 (n = 372) indicated “independent” as the highest (86.6%), “practical” second (81.6%), and “think rationally” as the third highest (79.6%). there was a significant shift in students’ self-evaluation from wave 1 to wave 2 for all the six qualities. interestingly, the “practical” and “think out of the box” values increased dramatically from wave 1 to wave 2. 142 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 descriptive results indicated that students rated themselves in year 2, wave 1 (n = 410) to be “independent” as the highest (79.5%), and “think clearly” together with “think rationally” as second highest (76.3%). results for year 2, wave 2 (n = 422) indicated “independent” as the highest (84.1%), “think clearly” second highest (80.9%), and “think rationally” as third highest (78.3%). there was a significant shift of students’ self-evaluation from wave 1 to wave 2 for all six values. interestingly, the value that shifted the most from wave 1 to wave 2 was the “think out of the box” (increased by 9.9%). this could be due to the covid-19 epidemic when students participated in wave 1 before the epidemic, and in wave 2 during covid-19, and when students had had to adjust to this new phenomenon. table 2: students’ self-evaluation per year and per wave year wave ranking of values % year 1 wave 1 (n = 414) independent think clearly practical think rationally think outside the box creative 79.0 73.9 71.3 69.1 57.5 53.4 wave 2 (n = 372) independent practical think rationally think clearly think outside the box creative 86.6 81.6 79.6 77.4 68.0 62.4 year 2 wave 1 (n = 410) independent think clearly think rationally practical creative think outside the box 79.5 76.3 76.3 74.6 60.0 56.8 wave 2 (n = 422) independent think clearly think rationally practical think outside the box creative 84.1 80.9 78.3 79.7 66.7 61.7 students also responded to the third question, “what is critical thinking?” in waves 1 and 2. the responses were analysed, grouped, and reported verbatim. students’ responses were compared between waves 1 and 2 to indicate the differences in their knowledge of the critical thinking concept before and after the intervention. students responded as follows in wave 1 before the critical thinking intervention: i don't know. papageorgiou: the inclusion of critical thinking in an accounting curriculum 143 high level of problem solving. to think about something deeply. cool. not everyday thinking. thinking that solves problems rationally. thinking hard. not jumping to conclusions, but rather, unpacking a topic or statement. thinking about a situation by looking at facts. thinking deeply about something. students responded as follows in wave 2 after the critical thinking intervention: critical thinking is the ability to challenge, interpret, analyse, and question certain situations and topics. critical thinking is a mode of thinking that is utilised to conceptualise and rationalise complex (or simple) subject content to form a well-informed opinion. being able to unfold a certain situation and apply logical sense and more, do it according to what you understand about the problem. critical thinking is the skills when you can think from a different perspective and “out of the box” along with analysing problems in order to form a judgement. critical thinking is being able to analyse a situation and to use creative and innovate solutions to solve the problem. it is about using your knowledge to understand beyond the problem. it is thinking “out of the box,” always being responsive to every issue put in front of you to come up with a response or solution. in wave 2, the written responses provided richer data about students’ experiences after the inclusion of the critical thinking interventions and the reasoning behind their views. in wave 1, students were not yet exposed to critical thinking and their responses on critical thinking were in some cases vague, short phrases or only one word. after the intervention of critical thinking in wave 2, most students responded with full and longer sentences describing critical thinking in detail. these findings indicated students were definitely aware of critical thinking and could define it. students also used the knowledge learned in the critical thinking lectures and tutorials to write clear sentences. the second research question addressed the purpose of the study: “will these critical thinking interventions assist students in their studies by growing or establishing an awareness of being critical thinkers?” in questionnaire 2, wave 2, students had to indicate their responses to five statements about whether the critical thinking interventions assisted them; they had to select one of the following: “strongly disagree,” “disagree,” “agree,” “strongly agree,” and “neither agree nor disagree.” descriptive statistics were performed on the frequencies of 144 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 these statements, and responses are illustrated in table 3. the results indicated that most of the students responded well to the inclusion of critical thinking module in the accounting curriculum. year 2 responses were slightly lower compared to year 1 and this could be due to the interruption of lectures, tutorials, and assignments during the covid-19 period. one of the five options on the likert scale was “neither agree nor disagree,” and 4.3% of the students selected this option in year 2, which could also be a reason for the lower score compared to the previous year. table 3 critical thinking statements after intervention: wave 2 statement % agreed year 1 n = 372 year 2 n = 422 the critical thinking course assisted me in thinking logically. 81 80 the critical thinking lectures were beneficial to think critically. 82 77 the critical thinking tutorials were beneficial to gain selfconfidence. 74 73 i would recommend critical thinking to be included in the remaining part of my degree to enhance lifelong learning and selflearning. 73 68 the critical thinking assignments helped me to explore other resources in the accounting field. 73 70 students had to each name three skills that they had benefitted from being exposed to the critical thinking interventions. the qualitative data were analysed using an excel spreadsheet, and n = 2,014 benefits in skills were recorded. the benefits in skills students experienced after the inclusion of the intervention, critical thinking, were grouped in different skill categories as per table 4. the highest ranked skill was “communication skills” (18.7%), and second highest, “confidence” (15.1%; some students indicated “self-confidence” because it was grouped under the theme, “confidence”), and the third highest “writing skills” (11.0%). the category, “improved writing skills” (4.8%), was reported separately to “writing skills” and not combined because with the inclusion of critical thinking interventions in the accounting curriculum, some writing skills were “developed” while others “improved.”’ table 4 skills students benefitted after the inclusion of the intervention critical thinking skill frequency % communication skills 226 18.7% confidence 183 15.1% writing skills 133 11.0% papageorgiou: the inclusion of critical thinking in an accounting curriculum 145 skill frequency % reading skills improved 101 8.3% teamwork skills 82 6.8% improved writing skills 58 4.8% think logically, clearly, rationally, quickly 42 3.5% understanding 40 3.3% analysing 39 3.2% listening skills 36 3.0% presentation skills 36 3.0% creativity 32 2.6% structuring an argument and response 28 2.3% thinking critically 21 1.7% referencing skills 20 1.7% active listening 15 1.2% open-minded 14 1.2% time management 13 1.1% social awareness 12 1.0% reading skills 10 0.8% interpretation skills 9 0.7% critical thinking 8 0.7% debating skills 8 0.7% academic writing 7 0.6% stating facts 7 0.6% expressing opinions 6 0.5% knowledge 4 0.3% patience 4 0.3% rational thinking 4 0.3% evaluation skills 3 0.2% explanation skills 3 0.2% flexibility 3 0.2% technical skills 2 0.2% punctuality 2 0.2% 146 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 students’ perceptions most students seem to have benefitted from the inclusion of the critical thinking module that sought to create awareness around critical thinking, and that sought to develop their critical thinking skills. the analysis of the open-ended questions’ responses was grouped into themes using the five elements of think as per the literature review. students responded as follows to each theme. teach and trust yourself to make good decisions students indicated that the critical thinking intervention assisted them in understanding the world after high school, in adapting from school to university, learning more about the realworld, making decisions, and trusting their thinking. facione (2013) asserted that by teaching and trusting yourself to make good decisions you can become a contributing member of society. the bloom’s taxonomy (anderson et al., 2001; krathwohl, 2002) asserts the “create” aspect of critical thinking as one of the elements through which to trust yourself and make good and ethical decisions. some verbatim responses include: i think the critical thinking course teaches valuable lessons and is a good introduction for students to learn more about the real-world upon leaving school. it [critical thinking] is beneficial to help first year students understand the world beyond high school and to make the correct decisions throughout their studies. to think thoroughly and rationally before making decisions or accepting things the way they are. allowed me to see what the broad scope of accounting will look like especially out of school. allowed me to look at myself and makes me make sure my decisions are not selfish. carefully analysing outcomes of decisions before making a choice. it [critical thinking] helped me gain confidence in being able to participate in group discussions and presentations. it also helped me think logically and creatively. it helped me make rational decisions. to trust that what i am thinking about is worth being said also. act professionally and ethically in all areas and be confident in reasoning students aired their opinions on being ethical, applying good governance, the ability to think rationally and outside the box, being creative without being unethical. students also indicated their stances on their ability to differentiate between ethical and unethical. snyder & snyder (2008) confirmed that students who think critically are able to solve problems effectively and also be effective in the workplace after completing a professional degree. further verbatim responses include: papageorgiou: the inclusion of critical thinking in an accounting curriculum 147 the critical thinking course is a very good course for first year students [to] take because it increases the students’ ability to interpret, analyse, and evaluate problems in an ethical way that allows them to give proper judgements thus preparing them for the workplace. think ethically, with empathy. understanding the facts. the critical thinking course has helped me understand the importance of concept understanding in education. for one to understand, relate, and apply logical thinking to many situations that we face in our daily lives, be it in our personal or professional life we need to understand the background or identify the root cause to any situation. i'm glad it [critical thinking] was introduced into the syllabus, especially after reading the articles. . . . it was clear how important critical thinking is in both university and in the professional world. interpretation of situations around critical thinking students voiced their opinions on the critical thinking interventions to help them interpret any situation, being it reading material, facing a problem, and interacting with other students and lecturers. they now interpret situations better on a daily basis, resulting in their making better choices and becoming better critical thinkers. facione (2013) stated that experts include “interpretation” as one of the very core elements of critical thinking. while institutions indicated that accountants should be able to integrate, examine, and evaluate when interpreting financial and non-financial information (isca & icaew, 2016). the extent to which students directly benefited from the interventions are evident in their responses: my interpretation of reading material changed for the best. critical thinking is a type of process that allows for a person to see a problem with a clear and objective lens in order to form the correct type of judgement and interpretation the ability to think clearly and be able to analyse and interpret a problem then come up with a solution. critical thinking is the ability to challenge, interpret, analyse and question certain situations and topics. engage and participate actively engagement and participation are important for students, and they indicated that participating in discussions, debating, and presenting in a small group benefited them in various ways like increasing their communication skills and boosting their confidence. another important element is to engage and participate effectively in lectures and if students engage effectively, they can become critical thinkers (papageorgiou, 2021; precourt & gainor, 2019). verbatim responses included: i learned to better engage with reading matter in a critical way. 148 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 the critical thinking course has been engaging and fun to participate in. i think critical thinking should be included as one of the courses that accounting students do, because it has much greater benefit to students as it encourages them to engage in discussions and debate on certain issues in class. this improves their communication skills and boosts their confidence. it [critical thinking] made me want to engage in creative thinking and look for certain issues and be able to find solutions for them and how can i go about trying to solve them. linking theory to application, critical thinking skills to content linking theory to application using critical thinking skills can enable students to know more and therefore be able to perform better. critical thinking is the skill or ability to think past what has been taught, or the theory, and apply it to the specific situation; it allows individuals to find solutions applying both what they have learnt within a schooling environment and in higher education. abbott and palatnik (2018) indicated that critical thinking incorporates the capability to link data, knowledge, and insight from various disciplines to provide information for decision-making. snyder & snyder (2008) stated that critical thinking is the result of education, training, and practice in linking critical thinking skills to the content of a course with the focus on how students learn. some verbatim responses include: [critical thinking] is the importance of a narrative and how it links to objectivity. learning how to apply theory into practice. applying your mind to everyday problems that you encounter. looking at problems in a different way. summary this study will hopefully contribute to the goal of embedding critical thinking skills at the first year of study. achieving this goal will not only enable students to grow into employable graduates but may guide improvements in how accounting educators can assist students through the inclusion of critical thinking in the curriculum to develop these skills. two student responses: the more i engage with people about the everyday societal issues that are not humanities students the more i think everyone needs this course across all faculties. the course is very good and should play a larger role in the complete module. perhaps a session of critical thinking each week running parallel to the accounting theory to create constant stimulus. papageorgiou: the inclusion of critical thinking in an accounting curriculum 149 conclusion the purpose of this paper was to explore students’ perceptions of the inclusion of a critical thinking module in a first-year accounting curriculum to determine if critical thinking was developed and fostered during the course. this study addressed the recommendations of studies by hart et al. (2021) and wolcott and sargent (2021) to actively include critical thinking skills throughout the accounting curriculum. the critical thinking module was embedded in bloom’s taxonomy and included higher order thinking skills to assist students to inquire leading to deepen knowledge (anderson et. al., 2001; krathwohl, 2002), and the five elements of think (facione, 2013; precourt & gainor, 2019; snyder & snyder, 2008) were used as a framework to develop the intervention in the accounting curriculum. the findings reveal positive results and the promising perceptions that most students benefitted from the inclusion of critical thinking in the curriculum. the highest five ranked skills students benefitted from were communication skills, gaining confidence, writing skills, improved reading, and teamwork skills. in addition, most students confirmed that the critical thinking course assisted them in thinking logically and clearly, and to be independent. the study contributes to students’ preparedness and readiness for the workplace and gaining of lifelong skills through formal education. the findings of the two research questions are now discussed further. the answer to the first research question, “what were students’ self-evaluations and perceptions of the concept of critical thinking—before and after including the critical thinking interventions in the accounting curriculum?” was addressed as follows. based on the responses from first-year accounting students, the study found that in both years, there was a significant shift in students’ self-evaluation from wave 1 to wave 2 for all six values. interestingly, the “practical,” and “think out of the box” values increased dramatically from wave 1 to wave 2. the answers to the second part of the first question (“what is critical thinking?”) indicated that the written responses provided richer data about students’ experiences before and after the inclusion of the critical thinking interventions. these findings indicated that students were definitely aware of critical thinking and could engage in the material taught in the critical thinking component. the answer to the second research question, “will these critical thinking interventions contribute to assist students in their studies by growing/establishing an awareness of being critical thinkers?” was addressed as follows. the results indicated that most of the students reported positively on the inclusion of the critical thinking module in the accounting curriculum and that the critical thinking interventions had a positive influence on the mindsets of the accounting students. this may influence students’ perceptions on the impact of critical thinking to equip students and graduates with a skill set required for the workplace. the results of the different skills reported and experienced by the students compares with saica’s (2019) view of what critical thinking is: to actively conceptualise, apply, analyse, synthesise, and evaluate information. the results of this study support koeplin (2003) and howcroft (2017) that employers require students to possess critical thinking skills and creative problem-solving abilities when entering the workplace. thus, the inclusion of critical 150 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 thinking in the accounting curriculum could contribute to increasing students’ communication, writing, and presentation skills, which would prepare them for the workplace. the results confirmed that most students responded positively to the inclusion of the critical thinking module in the accounting curriculum. year 2’s responses to the question to include critical thinking in the accounting curriculum were slightly lower compared to year 1, which could be as a result of the interruption of lectures, internet connectivity, and access to the questionnaire during the covid-19 period. the value of the study is that it provides new insights and evidence on students’ perceptions and opinions on critical thinking with particular reference to accounting studies. on successful completion of the critical thinking skills module, the student should be able to communicate effectively, critically think through the development of logical arguments, read and comprehend material with advanced critical literacy and apply logical responses to problems. this study contributes to creating an awareness among accounting students on the value of embedding critical thinking skills early in their studies (in their first year of study rather than in their third year) to foster their critical thinking skills for the remainder of their studies. in addition, the inclusion of the critical thinking intervention in the accounting curriculum was a learning curve for both the lecturers and students. this study has some limitations. only one university was used. only first-year accounting students participated. and only students’ perceptions and opinions were tested in the study. collaborations with other disciplines and 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(2011). encouraging the development of critical thinking skills in the introductory accounting courses using the challenge problem approach. issues in accounting education, 26(4), 859–881. https://doi.org/10.2308/iace-50065 microsoft word b90 full issue.docx journal of education, 2023 issue 90, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i90a02 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x designing an english language and literacies knowledge and skills test for initial teacher education students in south africa nicky roberts kelello consulting, johannesburg, south africa nicky@kelello.org https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1910-0162 thelma mort department of language, arts and culture, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa mortkb@unisa.ac.za / thelmamort@gmail.com (corresponding) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8775-0618 (received: 15 july 2022; accepted: 17 february 2023) abstract since 2016 the primary teacher education (primted) project has assessed first and fourth year student teachers’ english language and literacies knowledge and skills with a view to optimising what is offered in teacher education courses. in 2021, after a critical review of these english language assessments, a process of test redesigning that also provides professional development opportunities for language teacher educators, was initiated. in this paper, we report on this process of modifying an existing test and discuss a new design that is still a work in progress, in order to make it more responsive to the english language needs of the student teachers. we argue that the emerging test has the potential to contribute to improved english language teacher education at universities and to improved teaching and learning of languages and literacies in south african primary schools. keywords: assessment, primted english language project, test item development, core academic language skills, initial teacher education (ite), professional development of language teacher educators introduction this special issue calls for research that contributes to answering the research question, “how can teacher educators prepare student teachers to be responsive to varying contextual demands, ethical imperatives, diverse learning needs of learners, new modes of delivery, specific professional expectations, transformation priorities, amongst others?” this question roberts & mort: designing an english language and literacies knowledge and skills . . . 33 is both timely and highly relevant to the initial teacher education (ite) sector in south africa. it is timely since covid-19 disrupted ways of working in ite and this led to both opportunities and challenges with regard to what is taught, how it taught, and how it is assessed. it is highly relevant since it invites alternatives to what moloi and kanjee (2018) describe as an increasing focus on performativity over learning in both the formal schooling system, and in the ite sector. we identify two critical features of this call: first, it expects a professional teacher education community that makes explicit its choices about how best to support student teachers, and second, it identifies responsiveness as the core hoped-for attribute of the student teacher. by focusing on how teacher educators can better prepare student teachers to be responsive, the editors of this special issue place the teacher educator at the centre and consider how they engender responsiveness in the student teachers given that this is considered the most valuable skill of a teacher. this is a provocative claim in a context in which teachers in schools are being deprofessionalised and expected to follow slavishly a highly prescriptive annual teaching plan (atp), and in which they are policed in relation to pacing and curriculum coverage. a responsive student teacher responds to varying contextual demands, ethical imperatives, diverse learning needs, new modes of delivery, and transformation priorities. by necessity, the responsive student teacher cannot follow a recipe but must act as a professional in making professional judgements about the best course of action given the particular circumstances. the professionalisation of the teaching profession that will lead to teachers being trusted to make such professional judgements in relation to varying contextual demands is sorely needed. we hold that for teachers to make such professional judgements and be responsive to their learners’ needs they require deep subject matter knowledge. we concur with robinson and rusznyak (2020) that the practice of teaching is structured by the principles of pedagogy as well as by those of the subject domain. in the end, it is “the degree of connectivity” (liakopoulou 2011 p. 69) between the different types of teacher knowledge that will ensure teaching effectiveness therefore student teachers need strong foundational subject knowledge. a focus on english language and literacies indicates that there is abundant evidence that in south africa, student teachers’ (and teachers’) foundational knowledge is not yet secure. taylor (2014), reporting on findings from the initial teacher education research project (iterp), noted that “low levels of english proficiency among both teachers and learners [place] a fundamental limit on academic progress, since english is the medium of teaching and learning in around 90% of schools” (p. 6). for maja (2015), in south africa the majority of “teachers themselves are not native speakers of the english language [so] south african learners are challenged by being taught by teachers whose own english proficiency is limited” (p. 6). wildsmith-cromarty and balfour (2019) noted that 34 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 the majority of teachers, especially in the under-resourced schools, are not l1 [first language] speakers of [english] and neither do they have adequate competence in it sufficient to facilitate deep understanding and learning of concepts for their pupils. (p. 313) in south africa, the failure of many teachers to draw optimally on learners’ linguistic repertoires, together with their own limited competence in speaking and teaching english, contributes to a spiral of academic failure for learners. according to madikiza et al. (2018), many teachers are unable to teach reading and “have an underdeveloped understanding of teaching literacy, reading and writing” (p. 2). mpiti (2015) concluded that “more work still needs to be done in this area, especially in training teachers to be in a position to assist learners in the development of efal [english first additional language] writing” (p. 222). it has also been argued that teachers need much more pedagogical knowledge in order to help efal learners since “learner proficiency in medium of instruction largely determines academic success” (manyike & lemmer, 2014, p. 1). the southern and eastern african consortium for monitoring educational quality (sacmeq) report of 2011 found that teachers’ literacy knowledge and skills were below an acceptable level. the 2014 national education evaluation development unit (needu) report advised that if we are improve the educational outcomes of primary school pupils, teacher quality had to be addressed since “the quality of teaching and learning cannot rise above the ceiling imposed by teachers’ capacity to teach” (p. 61). wildsmith-cromarty and balfour (2019) asserted that attention needs to be given to creating teacher education courses, both for initial and in-service teacher education and training, that focus on teaching reading specifically at primary level. this needs to be coupled with a principled basis for determining professional competence in additional language teaching. (p. 316) given the above, there is clearly a national need to identify the levels and kinds of competencies of entering and exiting student teachers with a view to enabling high level exit competence in english language and literacies. in this paper, we report briefly on the primary teacher education (primted) project’s work in developing standards to be achieved by student teachers in ite programmes and, more extensively, on the design and redesign of tests to measure student teachers’ english language and literacies knowledge and skills on entering and on exiting the degree programme. this provides an example of how the teacher education curricula in the particular subject domain of english language and literacies knowledge for primary school teachers can be collaboratively developed by a professional community of teacher educators. further, it makes explicit the ways in which english language and literacies knowledge for primary school teachers is being assessed, at entry and exit levels, through a standardised primted english assessment. tests of teacher knowledge are common in north america, as bertram et al. (2015) have remarked, but south africa has not the same history. it is precisely this that primted wishes to accomplish, believing that this testing of student teachers’ english language and literacies knowledge and skills offers roberts & mort: designing an english language and literacies knowledge and skills . . . 35 the possibility of turning around south africa’s poor school results in the long term. this process of designing the english first additional language and literacies tests is our concern in this paper. the problem we trace the selection and use of english tests by teacher educators involved in the primted project from the inception of the assessment strand of this project in 2016 to its second and on-going iteration in 2021. in these two phases of the project, a continual refining, testing, and redesigning of the overall test and of individual test items has resulted in changes that aim to create an improved assessment measure. the research question addressed in this paper therefore is, “how does one design a test and improve it through ongoing reconceptualisation and redesign in order to effectively and fairly assess student teachers’ english language competence on entry and at graduation?” conceptual framing this paper is framed by two types of discourse arising from first, local research into the necessity of improving additional language teaching and teacher education, and second, the discourses around english additional language teaching assessments, discussed below in relation to the primted english language tests. discussion the context when the first democratically elected government came into power in 1994, the provision of education was unequal at every level. in teacher education, there were no commonly agreed upon standards of proficiency for graduates from ite and, a decade later, there was widespread concern about low standards of primary school teaching (deacon, 2012; spaull, 2013). the national education evaluation and development unit (needu) was established in 2009, to see how inequality could be reduced in schooling. its 2014 report showed that although the south african school system now provided more access to education, “for a very high proportion of children of school-going age, the overriding problem is systemic underperformance” (2014, p. 5). the report noted, “[t]o make matters worse, the quality of schooling is inequitably distributed, with the poorer 80% of the population generally receiving schooling of significantly inferior quality to that enjoyed by the most affluent 20%” (p. 2). needu valuably offered specific guidelines, the first being about “strengthening recruitment and promotion procedures” but primted’s (2014) work responds to the second and third of their three recommendations. the second of these is to work with a “scientific, evidence-based trajectory, through allocating adequate resources for evaluation, research and development, and acting on research results” (p. 61). primted aims to use assessment in a rigorous way. perhaps the need for rigour has been put most strongly by soudien (2008) who, lamenting the poor state of literacy and numeracy in the country, stated, 36 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 we do not . . . have a body of empirical work and theoretical engagement that is able to speak to this situation . . . after almost 50 years of serious research into teaching and learning, we cannot say, without qualification, what works and what does not (p. 7). the third needu recommendation was to “improve the quality of ite” (2014, p. 61). the necessity of improving the quality of teacher education with a view to improving pupil learning outcomes led to the development of the minimum requirements of teacher education qualifications by the national department of higher education. the primted project began in 2016, as a department of higher education and training project, with funding from the teaching and learning development capacity improvement programme and the european union. the intention was for primted to focus on improving standards in mathematics and english language education, the two greatest areas of systemic weakness. it was important to focus on ite since this four-year programme is the link between matriculants exiting grade 12, on one hand, and newly qualified teachers leaving university to take up posts in schools, on the other. it is a key cog in the school system, and a strong case can be made for its primacy as a lever, if we mix the metaphors here, for effecting systemic change (needu, 2014). findings from iterp (2012–2014) indicated that the curricula and pedagogies of ite programmes at south african universities differed in significant ways from one another and also varied greatly in terms of resource provision, including the provision of well-qualified teacher educators in sufficient numbers to meet the needs of student teachers. one of the aims of primted was to build a professional community of teacher educators in and between the historically uneven and fragmented teacher education programmes offered by south african universities. to this end, teams of teacher educators drawn from across south african universities worked to develop a teaching standards framework for ite. primted teacher standards in 2018, teams of teacher educators acting on the integrated strategic planning framework for teacher education and development in south africa 2011–2025, (departments of basic education and higher education and training, 2011, pp. 76–77) recommended that teacher knowledge and practice standards in each learning area be developed to assist teachers to identify their specific development needs focused on their core functions (such as classroom teaching of a specific subject or in a specific phase, or for school leadership and management purposes etc.). (aitchison et al., 2018, p. 5) the team that developed standards for primary school teachers of languages consulted widely with teacher educators and representatives of education ngos. it is important to note that the standards developed are not generic since they “include only standards that apply specifically to language and literacy or to generic type standards as specifically applied to language and literacy” (aitchison et al. 2018, p. 6). roberts & mort: designing an english language and literacies knowledge and skills . . . 37 the standards that teachers should meet were conceptualised in terms of the following: “knowledge (graduate teachers have knowledge of language and literacy and how to teach learners to read and write); practice (graduate teachers can organise systematic language and literacies instruction with a focus on reading and writing, guided by the requirements of the curriculum); english first additional language (efal) (graduate teachers demonstrate that they understand the knowledge, skills, and processes required to teach english as a first additional language); and, first additional language (fal): graduate teachers demonstrate that they understand the knowledge, skills, and processes required to teach african languages or afrikaans as first additional languages” (primted primer, 2021, p. 4, bold type in original). the standards documents include notes on teaching learners to read, different types of literacies, a desirable environment for promoting literacies and, importantly, very specific lists of what language and literacy teachers need to know and be able to do ((primted primer, 2021, p. 7). with regard to language learning, reference is made to the importance of using all the languages and varieties of languages that learners know as classroom resources. as will be explained below, these standards became the reference point for redesigning the english tests used for diagnostic purposes in ite programmes at several universities from 2016 onwards. the first language test used in the primted project the designers of the language tests aimed to develop an instrument that could be used twice—at the entrance to and exit from the bachelor of education degree. the test aimed to measure first, student teachers’ entry level language and literacies competence at the start of the first semester of the b.ed degree and, second, to compare their results on this test with those obtained after a second writing of the same test late in their fourth and final year of study. first year students’ answers to test questions could be used by language and literacies teacher educators to redesign aspects of their curricula and to reconsider their pedagogic approaches in ways that would both fill knowledge and skills gaps and enhance and extend students’ knowledge and skills. mathipa and manyike, (2016, p. 382) described the important role of diagnostic assessment in assisting teacher educators to “design intervention programmes and strategies.” the hope is that when final year student teachers retake the test there will be results-based evidence of considerable improvement. ultimately, all those involved in the primted project would like graduating teachers to have the knowledge and skills required to teach learners how to read, write, and present texts of various kinds, including multimodal texts, and to use subject discourses effectively for learning across the curriculum. it is important to describe and discuss the level of the primted test. while the core academic language assessment (cals)-1 test (uccelli, barr and phillip galloway, 2014) was designed for pupils in grades 4–8 (uccelli & galloway, 2017), the primted test was designed for university students. this is because south africa’s efal results in the grade 12 public examination have been determined to be comparable with those of middle year pupils 38 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 internationally. while this might be seen as the acceptance of a very low level of proficiency, it was a pragmatic decision. as pretorius and currin (2010) noted, it is important that targets are modest and pragmatic . . . if reading levels are initially very low, then literacy changes do not come about easily or quickly. reading skills improve slowly and reading gaps between weak and more able readers can persist in such contexts. long-term interventions of at least four to five years are needed to bring about effective changes. stakeholders involved in such interventions need to be aware of this and avoid the allure of short-term or ‘quick fix’ interventions. (p. 75) it was therefore decided that the level of the test needed to be suitably modest if it was to minimise floor effects and provide maximum information about student teachers’ levels in terms of disaggregated results on a test consisting of the two components: persuasive language and authentic texts. while the test is intended for all primary school student teachers it is weighted more towards assessing the knowledge and skills required for teaching in the foundation phase (grade r– 3), because “it is there that initial literacy skills are learned.” however, intermediate phase teachers also need the knowledge and skills central to foundation phase teaching because “current evidence is that a majority of south african intermediate phase learners are not yet competent readers or writers in any language and intermediate phase teachers have to remediate this” (aitchison et al., 2018, p. 7). the two components of the first primted english test, in its first iteration, were authentic texts (english)—this part of the test assesses comprehension skills and is an abridged version of the tea test, so named because of its content being about tea, 1 and persuasive language (english). this is a reduced and adapted version of cals. the authentic texts (english), adapted from the academic language skills test, was a comprehension test that had been designed by alan cliff (2014) at the university of cape town (uct) 2 and used by academics from cape peninsula university of technology (cput) almost a decade ago. the intention was for it to be used diagnostically at cput to first assess and then to strengthen the english language knowledge and skills of student teachers. the test assesses vocabulary, separating the essential from the non-essential, inference, metaphorical expression and text genre, and editing and understanding the communicative function of sentences. the primted assessment team reduced the length of the tea test and renamed it authentic texts in recognition of the need for assessments in african languages to make use of texts and passages originating in the language being assessed (rather than being translations from english). the concept of a test using authentic passages on a common theme was considered 1 to some extent the subject matter, because of its being local and about a locally produced tea, rooibos, could be said to be familiar to southern africans, thus meeting one of primted’s criteria to produce a test that speaks to a southern african experience and understanding. 2 cliff subsequently worked on the national benchmarking test design, focusing on english academic literacy assessments for selection into higher education in south africa. see cliff and hanslo (2009). roberts & mort: designing an english language and literacies knowledge and skills . . . 39 valuable. the underlying constructs being assessed could then be applied when the test was re-versioned into particular african languages. the version of the tea test used at cput initially included a composition-writing component, but when the test was moved online (to save the labour of physical marking), this component was dropped. the persuasive language (english) test was adapted from the cals-1 test that was designed initially for pupils in north america to cater to a multilingual school population with a range of home languages. for these pupils, english was an additional language with which they experienced challenges in the classroom. it was found that what was holding these learners back substantially was a lack of core academic language skills (gee, 2004; snow, 1986). according to gee, a core feature of “academic languages is that they demand that learners learn how to produce lots of explicit language around one focused topic” (2004, pp. 24–25). thus, to succeed in the classroom, learners require strong language knowledge and skills as well as the ability to use the discourse and terminology specific to the discrete content and processes of certain subjects. to promote equity in education it is necessary to focus on academic language skills in teaching and in testing because these are crucial for “supporting students’ independent learning from text in school and beyond” (uccelli and phillips galloway, 2017, p. 1). uccelli et al. (2013) recognised that high frequency or commonly used words and terms are required as a foundation for the development of the academic language knowledge and skills that are core to progression and success not only in english but also across other subjects. similarly, the primted team, in developing the first iteration of an english test to be used with south african student teachers from 2016 to 2020, recognised that while all primary school teachers need to be able to communicate in english, they should also have the language and literacies knowledge and skills to teach all subjects across the curriculum. uccelli and phillips galloway maintained that “academic texts across content areas exhibit some recurrent language patterns” (2017 p. 2). in other words, specific language features appear in academic texts repeatedly, and if students are not proficient in these core academic language skills they are precluded from understanding texts, from using that academic language, and thus, from performing optimally at school. the cals-1 test, on which the initial primted language test was based, is described as being a group-administered instrument designed to assess core academic language skills (cals) in grades 4 to 8. each cals-i form consists of a 50-minute paper-and-pencil test that includes eight tasks: connecting ideas, tracking themes, organizing texts, breaking words, comprehending sentences, identifying definitions, interpreting epistemic stance markers, and understanding metalinguistic vocabulary (uccelli, barr & phillips galloway, 2016, p. 1, emphasis in original) however, of necessity the test needed to be redesigned for the south african academy. 40 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 redesigning the test initially used by the primted project in 2021 the next iteration or cycle 3 of primted work began, based on the intention to develop further items so that these could be rotated, africanising the items, and aligning them more to the primted teacher standards developed by aitchison et al. in 2018. by 2021, one of the interests of the assessment team in the primted project was the match or mismatch between the first test used and the primted teacher standards. after the completion of a mapping exercise undertaken by several members of the assessment team, a new core item writing team of six english language and literacies lecturers from six national universities was constituted. this group received substantial input and was involved in ongoing dialogue about africanising 4 the test items, and using vignettes and multimedia sources in test items. the group went beyond cals and looked at other sources such as the global proficiency framework tests (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization) (unesco) (2019), examining these too, for examples of excellence. moloi (2021) advised the group on designing multiple choice question (mcq) items and on how to identify examples of well-designed mcqs. towards the end of 2021 each item writer was tasked with writing 30 new items in 2022 that would be put into a randomised new test in 2023, after review and if necessary, redesign. this new test will be piloted in five universities and data from it will be captured. designing so many new items (as opposed to using the same 30 items repeatedly in the previous version of the persuasive language part of the test) creates an item bank that enables the use of new combinations of items each time the test is administered. it is hoped that eventually none of the primted test items will give floor or ceiling results, but will give, rather, specific, accurate and rigorous information about each candidate’s knowledge and skills. designing the second test much work went into the consideration of items from the following perspectives: accuracy; fairness; validity and reliability; and accessibility (moloi, 2021). 5 these criteria are also a consideration in the interpretation and the application of the test results, and we discuss these below. in terms of accuracy, it was decided that the most recently used (2017–2021) test needed to be improved in the following ways: first, the current test has ceiling results, evident when many students achieve extremely high marks on some questions. the new test needed to include more difficult questions to give more diversity and information in the results. diversity is needed in that when scores are disaggregated per university cohort, they reveal language areas that are weak. this gives the teaching staff at universities information that 3 these iterations relate to funding cycles, work streams and responding to previous data – where ceiling results are found new items which seek to show disaggregated data, or a more detailed result are being developed. 4 this involved writing for a southern african audience and reflecting southern african experiences, language, and context. 5 moloi (2021) drew on black and wiliam (2011). since we direct this paper at teacher educators, and not assessment experts, we describe the concepts in non-technical terms, thus capturing the perspectives and interpretations of their application by the primted english language and literacy team. roberts & mort: designing an english language and literacies knowledge and skills . . . 41 enables them to attend to these weaker areas in terms of remediation and course design, to effect improvement. this is done through data analysis and is where the primted project’s specialised data analytic skills are used. on the subject of data, it is imperative that in the primted work involving assessment, there is a focus on quantitative data analysis since results involve basic statistics. we calculate the mean and standard deviation for each year group and compare the phase specialisations (ip and fp) at first year and fourth year level. this is done to establish whether the observed differences in means is significant or not and we conduct a t-test for unpaired data. where significance is found we quantify this difference by calculating the effect size using cohen’s d. we also report five-point summaries, to offer another indicator of the distribution of the results for each group and reflect on their similarities and differences. to obtain more detailed information at item level, the facility scores for each item are calculated, and areas of strength and weakness in the test are noted. being able to assess constructs through different items is a key aspect of the assessments. measuring performance on these constructs has an impact on the iterative process of designing further testing items, enabling primted to refine them and allowing for increasingly disaggregated results. examining the test results over time, and construct by construct, explicates a process of improvement, showing how specific standards of engagement with authentic texts in english can be assessed, and shows how such rigorous work can potentially improve standards in english language education. it is also hoped that this provides standard setting processes meeting the minimum requirements for teacher education (mrteq). 6 the results also give universities the opportunity to define and design their english language courses, giving them the tools to attend to language issues in more depth in ite. having understood the key features of the assessment data, academics in teacher education can then give attention to their current university course offerings and design in relation to english language. this is indeed one of the ways in which responsivity can be enabled by making use of the test data; one of the exciting features of the testing is that it offers the opportunity for real and efficient changes to be made to curricula on ite courses that should improve language teacher standards in ite, and ultimately standards in schools. with reference to fairness, the team decided that this aspect would be promoted if items were well written and culturally accessible to students from diverse backgrounds. for example, in the case of the former criterion, each aspect of the item (from the instruction to the stem, the stimulus, and the distractors) had to be unambiguous, well written, and purposeful. the distractors had to be plausible answers rather than obviously incorrect. the appearance of the key (correct answer) and distractors had to be visually similar, so as not to make the correct answer too apparent. there could be no repetition in the distractors, so that the test candidates’ time would not be wasted with unnecessary reading. with reference to the latter criterion, that of cultural accessibility, the content of prompts—either written texts and/or 6 as promulgated by the department of higher education 42 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 images—needed to be accessible to students from widely varying socio-cultural backgrounds, and to express southern african diction and experience. in terms of reliability and validity, the first test could not be closely linked to primted teacher standards since its selection, modification, and use pre-dated the availability of these standards. the second iteration is linked to these standards, with the aim of increasing its reliability. to make the test more robust and give the whole test instrument further validity, the number of question items had to be increased so that there could be an unpredictable rotation of like-for-like items. the original persuasive language (english) test had been based on a test for pupils. it was decided to make the new, redesigned test relate more to the experience of beginner teachers than to children. (the cals-1 test, being designed for children from grades 4 –8, as discussed earlier, is related more to children than to teachers, and it therefore includes questions that relate to a child’s experience of the classroom, not to a teacher’s experience.) while it is particularly challenging in a written mcq language test to assess pedagogical content knowledge, it was decided to make the test more about teaching and to do so by creating a sense of the test being for future teachers. to do this, the questions include in their stimulus examples from classrooms and language teachers’ decisions including the kind of knowledge and skills that language and literacies teachers should know and be able to enact. this aspect of the item writing really reflects the complexity of teacher knowledge as bertram et al. (2015) have noted, including “knowing that” [and] “knowing how” (p. 170). it was hoped that by doing this the student teachers who sat the test would be showing not only the primted team what they knew but how that knowledge could be applied in the classroom, and also that the test might even extend their understanding. finally, with reference to another important aspect of reliability and validity, the process of item writing has been a rigorous one. after participating in professional development workshops, item writers (all academics from national universities, and english language specialists) signed a non-disclosure agreement to protect the test, and attended an item writing retreat, during which they produced 30 draft items, in the style of the persuasive language component of the 2017–2021 test. all these were discussed at the retreat and subsequently refined, blind-reviewed, and critiqued by pairs of item writers. a list of review criteria was supplied to each pair: is the item clear, well written, appropriate in context, and level? is it coded 7 correctly? the feedback of each pair was sent to the item writing coordinator for return to the original writer. the writers were required to engage with this feedback to further improve the items before all items designed to date are taken to a round table discussion and another round of review. this rigour is part of the test’s accuracy. at the conclusion of this process selected items will be packaged into a pilot version of the test to be used in 2023. 7 all new items are coded in terms of language difficulty level for ease of filing, reference, comparison, and discussion, as well as area or type of core academic language covered. also among the codes were expressions of teacher standards relating to knowledge as well as to teaching standards or pedagogic skills. roberts & mort: designing an english language and literacies knowledge and skills . . . 43 in terms of accessibility, it was decided to further southern africanise the test. this meant finding topics and texts (both written and visual) that reflect a southern african experience and going beyond what had happened in the first test that involved southern africanising the language of items like, for example, changing american words such as yard to the south african equivalent that would be garden or plot, and american style school terms like recess to breaktime. in the new wave of item development, this meant going further, beyond words, in also paying attention to the context and the type of world view and experience reflected in the stimuli or prompts for test items. 8 given the current importance of visual literacy, identified in both the unesco global proficiency framework standards tests and in the new teacher standards, it was decided to include diverse stimuli such as graphs/tables, paragraphs, photographs, pictures/cartoons, maps, vignettes, formulae, and recipes. in another way these stimuli also became more meaningful in that they were related to the african context, to teaching and learning, and/or to content in current age-appropriate text 9 books. another important aspect of the development of the current test and test items is that writers were encouraged to design questions at the three levels of easy, medium, and difficult. this will also increase the accuracy of the results and the information given by the results by establishing levels of difficulty and achievement within the test. it is hoped that creating test items at each of these levels will produce results with disaggregated information that can indicate to language teacher educators what student teachers know and where they need support. going forward before we conclude this paper, we think it useful to note the new directions in which the work and impetus of the project’s current iteration has grown. the first one to be noted relates to technology. this concerns the relationship of the item design to the programme or platform used for administering and marking the test online. taking the test online provides both constraints and opportunities. it is intended that item writers will participate in jumptrak 10 training, or an introduction to it, so as to be better acquainted with the platform on which the tests will be located, and the way this affects, and creates possibilities for, the construction of test items. new items are being developed for piloting. when the new test is piloted, because the new items are similar in form to those used in the persuasive language component of the existing test, it is hoped that these new data sets will be used for longitudinal cross-sectional data comparisons. 8 given the confidentiality of the test item design, examples cannot be shared. breaching this would, understandably, compromise the test data. 9 one of the locally written books that contains many good resources and comprehension sources is teaching reading comprehension by pretorius and murray (2019). 10 jumptrak is an online educational assessment and tracking programme and platform, on which primted tests are taken. it is also very important to primted’s work that there is a reciprocal relationship between the structure of the platform and the primted assessment questions since it is a repository of all the test items. 44 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 since this process began, another exciting development has occurred in that a primted african languages development unit has been initiated. from early in 2021 teacher educators, whose focus is the teaching of african languages in teacher education and in schools, have participated in online and face to face meetings with the english item writing team. their contributions have enriched the english test development process through their raising of important issues in relation to teachers’ and learners’ linguistic repertoires, together with the complexity of teaching both english and african languages in diverse classroom contexts. through this engagement with colleagues across the language teaching spectrum, primted hopes to contribute to the improvement of all language teaching and learning in south african teacher education programmes and schools, and the strengthening of african languages’ place in schools, and teacher training institutions, as well as the promotion of multiliterate education in south africa. conclusion in this paper, we have reported on primted’s considered and multi-faceted strategy to contribute to improved english language teaching knowledge and skills through the development and use of a standardised assessment of first and fourth year b.ed students’ english language and literacies knowledge and skills in southern african ite programmes. an important feature of the primted assessment team’s work is that it leads to strong data sets being captured over time, which is, as manyike and lemmer (2014) have pointed out, a necessary component of research in improving south african language in education over time. and, as taylor (2019) observed, “[w]ithout very significantly improving teacher disciplinary knowledge, and pedagogic proficiency, all other efforts aimed at improving the quality of south african schooling are likely to come up against low ceiling effects” (p. 279). the testing of student teachers’ english language and literacies knowledge and skills and the using of test results to enhance the quality of teacher education programmes offers the possibility of turning around south africa’s poor school results in the long term. by working collaboratively with teacher educators who specialise in african languages and in english as an additional language, participants in the assessment strand of the wider primted project hope to see the teaching of english as a first additional language take place in the context of african languages, and not in a vacuum. collaboration across south african languages and the resulting academic reciprocity strengthens the biand multi-lingual teaching that is required to increase responsivity. if teacher educators to support student teachers to be responsive when teaching english and when teaching in english, we contend, first, that the teacher educators themselves must be responsive. teacher education curricula need to be responsive to student teachers’ entrylevels of subject knowledge, and to consider student teachers’ own biographies, as their personal experiences at school and their particular social conditions affect how they engage with the process of learning. roberts & mort: designing an english language and literacies knowledge and skills . . . 45 second, we contend that teacher educators should act as professionals, setting and assessing their own subject knowledge curriculum standards and making explicit their subsequent course design choices. in this way, they would indicate their being responsive to their students and to the need for a national intervention. we think that it is incumbent on teacher educators to assess 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(2019) language learning and teaching in south african primary schools. language teaching, 52. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444819000181 microsoft word b87 full issue 14072022.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 87, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i87a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x unpacking the efficacy of a continuous professional development programme to support teachers to use assessment in no-fee schools toyer nakidien centre for international teacher education, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa tnakidien@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2034-2369 yusuf sayed department of education, school of education and social work, university of sussex, uk and centre for international teacher education, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa y.sayed@sussex.ac.uk or sayed.cite@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2534-8420 osman sadeck centre for international teacher education, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa osadeck@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4887-6744 (received: 6 december 2021; accepted: 19 may 2022) abstract since the first democratic elections in 1994, south africa’s education system has undergone four curriculum revisions. in each of these iterations, the teachers who were among the first in line to implement change were the foundation phase (fp) teachers. however, since then, the low numeracy and literacy levels of primary school learners have been of increasing concern. in this context, in 2017, a series of continuous professional development (cpd) workshops were run with 18 grade 3 fp teachers from five no-fee primary schools in the cape winelands to enhance their use of assessment to improve teaching and learning. this professional development model comprised six monthly workshops, in which the teachers were introduced to various assessment for learning (afl) techniques and strategies. each workshop was subsequently supplemented with a classroom support visit by one of the workshop presenters. a few months after the conclusion of the workshops and support visits, the participating teachers, subject advisers, management, and district officials were interviewed about programme efficacy. what emerged was that although all stakeholders saw value in this cpd initiative, the subject advisers and teachers felt that they had particularly benefitted from the programme in terms of the training received, the training model, materials, and follow-up support visits. however, despite the nakidien et al.: unpacking the efficacy of a continuous professional development programme . . . 49 teachers’ enthusiasm, there was a varied level of implementation of afl practices in classrooms—shaped by the context in which the schools were located and their internal dynamics. affecting the efficacy of the programme—and thus having implications for sustainability—were extraneous factors such as programme timing, competing priorities, and school dynamics. this suggests that for any such cpd programme to succeed, the various factors that could inhibit programme success need to be noted and circumvented. keywords: assessment for learning, cpd, foundation phase, professional development, school management support, subject advisors, teacher training introduction after south africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, the education system underwent radical reform in curriculum and policy (department of education, 1996). to bring teachers up to speed with the changes in curriculum, teacher continuous professional development (cpd) was identified by the national education authority as an imperative. however, many cpd programmes were ineffective due to a variety of factors such as applicability and the model of training. in addition, such programmes were rarely presented in rural areas where the need was greatest. as unesco (2014) has emphasised, “all teachers require continuing support once they reach the classroom to enable them to reflect on teaching practices, to foster motivation and to help them adapt to change” (p. 242). and, the countries that “have achieved the highest and most equal learning outcomes are those that invest the most in both initial and ongoing training, allowing teachers to adapt to new approaches” (unesco, 2014, p. 242). furthermore, providing cpd is sometimes a more cost-effective method of upskilling the existing teaching force, and “regular supervision and ongoing training have the potential to address knowledge gaps and upgrade and reinforce acquired skills” (unesco, 2014, p. 242). in the south african situation, this is particularly relevant. since 1994, when the country experienced regime change, one key narrative was transformation of the education system at all levels, from curriculum to governance to policy. as teachers were integral to this transformation, much cpd was provided. however, training resulted in mixed levels of success; it variously did not meet teacher needs, was ineffective, or was not linked directly to practice (chisholm, 2000). and again, where such programmes were introduced, they were largely focused on urban areas and less so on rural areas where the need was greatest. in this context, three partners—oxford university, the centre for international teacher education (cite) based at the cape peninsula university of technology (cput), and the tshwane university of technology (tut)—initiated an assessment for learning in africa (afla) cpd programme focused on developing teachers’ pedagogical and assessment skills for numeracy in foundation years. the purpose of the afla programme was to empower teachers to use assessment for learning to enhance the learning of mathematics. specifically, the afla cpd programme aimed at developing and enhancing classroom pedagogical practices to address the challenges faced by teachers in impoverished south african schools. 50 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 these are schools that are classified as no-fee schools—generally, quintile 1, 2, or 3 schools (department of basic education, 2015). the programme presupposed that learners were not performing to their full potential because existent pedagogical practices (i.e., the formative assessment strategies applied in the classroom) did not lead to quality outputs of learning. the afla programme was implemented in two provinces, namely the western cape and gauteng. in the western cape, the implementation and research was conducted by cite, located with the south african research chair in teacher education based at cput, in partnership with the cape winelands education district office (cwed)—both located in the western cape. this paper explores the successes and challenges that emerged with the implementation of the model of cpd employed in the afla programme by utilising data drawn from the interviews conducted with the various participants and role players who participated in the project. after presenting an argument for a cpd model of longer duration with continued support, a brief overview of the afla programme is presented. the views of the various participants and officials are presented regarding the programme model and the content, namely, assessment for learning (afl), and the factors that impacted on the successful implementation of the programme are explored. literature review1 according to unesco (2014), the education received by most children throughout the world is hugely inadequate and reflects the broader political and economic inequalities in which the children find themselves. unesco (2014) contended that many sub-saharan countries, besides having to bring about change at the pre-service level, also face the dual task of training teachers who have not had any training, and improving the knowledge and skills of underqualified and inadequately trained teachers. it suggests that, despite the enormity of the challenge to train these teachers, such training would be the most cost-effective and efficient means of building a desired teaching core (unesco, 2014). this suggests that providing cpd programmes that are both appropriate and effective is an imperative that, as burns and lawrie (2015) insisted, cannot wait. more so, this demands cpd programmes that are both practical and sustainable, and take into account the contexts in which such programmes are to be implemented. burns and lawrie, however, pointed out that in their research of “fragile contexts” where teacher professional development has been implemented, “the frequency of professional development is episodic, its quality variable, its duration limited and support or follow-up for teachers almost non-existent” (2015, p. 7). this is supported by descriptions by researchers in some sub-saharan countries where cpd programmes have taken place. these descriptions range from haphazard (jiya et al., 2005), to ad hoc (gathumbi et al., 2013), to piecemeal (burns & lawrie, 2015). mulkeen (2010) added that the cpd provided is skewed away from where it is needed the most. teachers in rural areas, in particular, have limited opportunities to access cpd (adedeji & olaniyan, 2011; buckler, 2011; chikoko, 2008; penny et al., 1 this section draws on the edited work of sayed (2018), continuous professional development of teachers in subsaharan africa: improving teaching and learning. nakidien et al.: unpacking the efficacy of a continuous professional development programme . . . 51 2008). moreover, such opportunities are especially limited in sub-saharan africa contexts where cpd plays a crucial role in educational change initiatives such as, for example, where a new curriculum is being implemented. these initiatives generally require “high-quality continuing professional development” (phorabatho & mafora, 2013, p. 617) to bring about significant paradigm shifts in teachers’ thinking and practice, which their previous training has not equipped them to do (akyeampong, 2003). such dramatic shifts cannot be brought about by short-term programmes—which botswanan teachers admitted to in a 2015 study— especially with regard to important educational change imperatives (mangope & mukhopadhyay, 2015). this finding then effectively negates any argument for a cascade or training-of-trainers model (bett, 2016; burns & lawrie, 2015; chisholm, 2000; mulkeen, 2010). this model, employed predominantly during the south african government’s system-wide implementation of a new, postapartheid curriculum framework (de clercq & phiri, 2013), is considered problematic for a number of reasons. the core is what gathumbi et al. (2013, p. 7) referred to as the “shallow-coverage of inset [in-service training] content.” in contexts where it is expected that teachers undergo substantial change, professional development programmes that rely heavily on filtered content provided by poorly qualified and poorly trained instructors (burns & lawrie, 2015) will not result in the depth and breadth of professional learning that teachers require. this is because, in many cases, cascading requires that selected teachers train other teachers despite having had only limited exposure to the content that they are expected to transmit to other teachers (hardman et al., 2011). effective cpd that would lead to changed practice (and which is sustainable), requires time and ongoing learning opportunities with high levels of support and follow-up (villegasreimers, 2003). this means that for cpd to be effective, it is equally important that such programmes provide sustained learning opportunities over a relatively long period of time—a provision that ensures quality of outcomes through depth and rigour. gulamhussein presented three principles relevant to effective, and therefore sustainable, professional development: 1. the duration of professional development must be significant and ongoing to allow time for teachers to learn a new strategy and grapple with the implementation problem. 2. there must be support for a teacher during the implementation stage that addresses the specific challenges of changing classroom practice. 3. teachers’ initial exposure to a concept should not be passive, but rather should engage teachers through varied approaches so they can participate actively in making sense of a new practice. (2013, p. 3) given this, it is important to note that whatever the aim, outcomes, knowledge, skills—or whatever the training focus concerns—the training must be built on sound pedagogical decisions and be of value to the participants. 52 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 the afla western cape model of professional development, drawing on the principles of teacher involvement and engaged participation, sought to promote reflective and reflexive practices. the model required that the teachers try out what they had learnt at the workshops, implement it in their classes, then assess and reflect on its implementation. the model employed afl techniques and strategies as an alternative to the prevailing view that assessment is just about testing (kanjee & sayed, 2013). the cpd model used in this initiative thus enabled teachers to learn, practise, and reflect on afl techniques and strategies with strong support from the afla team. in light of the issues raised above regarding the nature and shortcomings of the types of cpd employed in various parts of sub-saharan africa, and the principles suggested for effective cpd, the research question that drives this investigation is: “what are the factors facilitating and/or hindering the efficacy of an afl professional development training model for teachers in the western cape?” overview of the afla cpd programme the participating teachers and subject advisers engaged in six afla workshops that provided them with knowledge, skills, and dispositions for afl and techniques for enhancing learner interaction in the classroom. the first of the workshops introduced the teachers to various learner engagement/participation techniques and the rest of the workshops covered topics such as learning intentions (li) and success criteria (sc), higher order questioning and think time, effective feedback, and peerand self-assessment (wiliam & thompson, 2007). each workshop was designed to expose the participants to an aspect of afl through interaction, modelling, and discussion, and incorporated a reflection exercise with feedback. the workshops were spaced approximately four weeks apart (see table 1). table 1 the afla professional development workshop content and dates workshop number date content covered 1 18 feb � overview of the programme � establishing teacher learning communities � reflection on assessment practices � introduction to formative assessment techniques 2 18 mar � reflection on the implementation of formative assessment techniques � introduction to formative assessment � clarifying and sharing learning intentions and criteria for success 3 22 apr � reflection on implementation � clarifying and sharing learning intentions and criteria for success—continued 4 20 may � reflection on implementation � engineering effective classroom discussions to elicit evidence of learning 5 5 aug � reflection on implementation � providing feedback that moves learners forward nakidien et al.: unpacking the efficacy of a continuous professional development programme . . . 53 workshop number date content covered 6 9 sep � reflection on implementation � assessment by learners of their peers and their work support workshops 1 8 june � reflection on implementation � clarifying and sharing learning intentions and criteria for success 2 12 june � reflection on implementation � engineering effective classroom discussions to elicit evidence of learning 3 20 oct � reflection on implementation � providing feedback that moves learners forward 4 23 oct � assessment by learners of their peers and their work teachers were given reasonable time between the workshops to practise the techniques and strategies in the classroom, with one lesson attended by a peer who had attended the workshops and gave feedback on the lesson observed. then a classroom support visit by one of the workshop facilitators and the completion of a teacher’s reflection journal would ensue. in addition, the participating schools were required to establish professional learning communities (plcs) wherein they could exchange ideas and experiences and support each other in terms of the implementation of afl techniques and strategies. consultation with schools and the district office regarding the spacing of the workshop sessions, time, and duration led to agreement on dates of the workshops, timing, venue, support visits, peer-observation and plcs, but not on the content. the number of sessions and the timing of the sessions were based, as noted, on the successful implementation of a similar programme in gauteng during 2016 (kanjee, 2018). afl learning support materials used given the lack of any relevant texts, specific learning materials in the form of a teacher portfolio were developed for each formative assessment strategy introduced to participants during the workshops (kanjee & bhana, 2015). these portfolios, which were adapted for the afla project, (i) addressed the reality that english, the language of learning and teaching used for all workshops, was the second language of most teachers, 2 (ii) presented additional information on relevant theory regarding the assessment strategies and techniques presented, (iii) included practical exemplars, vignettes of classroom experiences, tools and templates for teachers to use in their classrooms, which were based on the content and activities specified in the curriculum and assessment policy statement (department of basic education, 2011), 2 although the ideal would have been to have the workshops in the mother tongues of the participants, it has to be borne in mind that, despite there being three official languages of instruction in the western cape, most workshops are run in english. 54 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 (iv) incorporated practical tasks as well as reflection activities for teachers to complete, either during or after workshops, to provide an avenue for recording discussions and outcomes of professional learning community meetings, and (v) were aligned and sequenced to the workshops presented to facilitate teachers to develop and consolidate new theoretical concepts and practical skills. in practice, the portfolios were also intended to serve as a journal and abridged assessment textbook. participants were required to complete all activities in the portfolio including reporting on their professional learning community meetings, recording their lesson planning and preparation, reflecting on their classroom practices and experiences, and listing any recommendations or challenges that needed to be shared during workshops as they applied their new assessment knowledge and skills. methodology the afla western cape cpd model, initiated in 2017, was driven by a predetermined set of outcomes and range of activities. the core of this was developed for a similar initiative that had been implemented successfully in the gauteng province in 2016 (kanjee, 2018). the outcomes focused on knowledge and understanding of afl, and the skills to use afl techniques and strategies in the teaching and learning environment. the model of cpd employed was thus designed to facilitate these outcomes and activities. this research is a multi-sited case study. the case study approach was selected to gain a rich understanding of the factors that influenced the efficacy of the classroom and afl practices of participants in their own contexts. case studies are suitable when the contextual factors of the issues are critical, when a researcher has no control over contextual factors or events (baxter & jack, 2008), and when a researcher is integrally involved in the case (merriam, 2002). furthermore, as baxter & jack (2008) suggested, a characteristic of case studies is the ability to delineate boundaries around the case such as individuals, context, and time. the strength of case study lies in exploring and generating theory, its methodological flexibility, and its ability to provide insight through detailed contextual analysis of similarities and differences (yin, 2003). the research was applied to singularities, that is, practising teachers in their natural school settings. it was bound to a cohort of teachers primarily teaching grade 3 learners in the foundation phase (fp), and was a snapshot in time of teacher practices. given the diversity of constructs, and as responding teachers interact within the same world, a single case study would not have yielded enough diversity to observe emerging patterns; it is important to understand the uniqueness of each teacher’s world in each particular case (baxter & jack, 2008). the individual research sites, or schools, each represented a separate case. multiple cases then contributed to the overall purpose of the research. sampling approach this research used purposive sampling of participants, with the sampling frame comprising both the following key parameters: nakidien et al.: unpacking the efficacy of a continuous professional development programme . . . 55 • schools within challenging contexts serving mainly marginalised and impoverished learners. • schools that offer fp (i.e., first four years of schooling) which in south africa translates to grades r to 3. in partnership with the cwed office, five no-fee, public primary schools were selected to participate in the cpd programme over two years (2017–2018), with the specific focus on teachers teaching mathematics at grade 3 level. four of the five schools were located within a radius of approximately five kilometres of each other. the fifth school was situated in a township approximately 30 kilometres away from the other schools. two of the schools were classified as black township schools (serving mainly learners whose home language was isixhosa) and the remaining three were known as coloured schools (serving mainly learners whose home language was afrikaans). it needs to be noted that although south africa has 11 official languages, there are three official languages of instruction in the western cape, namely, english, afrikaans, and isixhosa. in the isixhosa schools, the language of learning and teaching is isixhosa in the fp and english from grade 4 onwards (pluddermann, 2015). the grade 3 teachers at the schools were invited to be part of the project. principals at three of the schools requested that other fp teachers be included. the final sample of teachers was thus a negotiated and voluntary participation of teachers across the schools. the sample size was 18 teachers. grade 3 teachers formed the core of the sample (i.e., 14 of the 18). the median ages of the teachers were in the 41 to 45-year range with the average age of the teachers being 43 years. all teachers taught in their mother tongue, which matched the language of learning and teaching of the classes taught. all the teachers were women. all the teachers had the minimum of a teacher’s qualification, and had taught for at least two years in the fp. district officials, who included the director, head of curriculum, general education and training (get) coordinator, assessment coordinator, and fp subject advisers were an integral part of the project. the director, head of curriculum, get coordinator, and assessment coordinator formed part of the cwed management with whom the afla team consulted and who provided support to the subject advisers. nine fp subject advisers were identified by the cwed management to attend all the workshops. subject advisers were allocated one school each alongside one of the two afla programme presenters to provide additional classroom support. in addition, principals were allowed to attend the workshops as observers. the cpd model required that the teachers and subject advisers attend the workshops, with the teachers participating in the various activities and returning to their schools to practise and reflect on the various strategies they had been exposed to in the workshops. a week or two after each workshop, one of the workshop presenters would do a lesson observation and give support to the teachers. teachers were also required to observe their colleagues’ lessons and discuss them as part of the training. 56 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 instruments used in the programme the instruments used to collect the data for this project comprised teacher profiles (to determine age, qualifications, and teaching experience) in the form of google (electronic) forms, school profiles (to determine number of learners, teachers etc.), lesson observation forms (to observe afl practices in the lessons), and interview schedules (to determine the various participants’ views about the cpd programme). however, for the purpose of this paper, only interview data were utilised. data collection data for this paper were drawn from semi-structured interviews and focus group interviews with the teachers, principals, subject advisers, and district officials, all of which were conducted between three and six months after the completion of the cpd training workshops. all the interviews were done in english but, where necessary, teachers were allowed to switch to afrikaans. however, a shortcoming in this approach was that the isixhosa teachers were not afforded a similar concession—although there was no request for it, either. the interviews were recorded with the permission of the interviewees and transcribed for analysis. the sections of the interviews that were expressed in afrikaans were translated into english. an independent reviewer was also tasked with doing an appraisal of the learning material employed in the programme. analysis qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis (maguire & delahunt, 2017), which identified common themes based on the research focus and which are reported in this paper. in particular, the analysis sought to assess the efficacy of the cpd programme aimed at the realisation of quality teaching, learning, and assessment in disadvantaged schools and classrooms such as those found in challenging rural contexts. trustworthiness of the qualitative data was established through credibility, dependability, and confirmability. the study findings were discussed with researchers and other research students who form part of a professional learning community for research conducted on and about the professional development of teachers. ethical clearance ethical clearance for the study was obtained from cput as well as the wced. all participants were assured of their and their schools’ anonymity, and informed that the data obtained would only be used for research purposes. the names of the participants and institutions were changed to protect their identities. participants were also informed that they could withdraw their contribution at any point before the findings were presented without any fear of repercussion. nakidien et al.: unpacking the efficacy of a continuous professional development programme . . . 57 findings this section presents the findings based on interviews and comments from the various role players in the cpd programme. given that context is a key factor to programme success and sustainability, this section is localised in the context of participating schools as disadvantaged schools in a rural context in the western cape. an approach to supporting teachers for changing pedagogic practice the afla cpd programme was a move away from traditional, once-off training through its suggestion of action and reflection. a second aspect built into the model was a decisive support component. then, as the model sought to be developmental and transformative, a third design decision was to include key role players in the training. the model provided for learning, testing, and checking as a scaffolding approach. this allowed participating teachers and subject advisers to determine what, how, and why the model worked so that they could make informed decisions on their own adoption and implementation. the requirements that came after the training sessions proposed an alternative practice from that of traditional training delivered once-off or as one-week holiday training. these design decisions in the cpd model were favourably received, as evidenced by the following comments: whenever you train something, you need to do a follow-up of monitoring . . . whether it is applied. (school manager) yes, but at university it’s so ideal; you’re not here [in a school]. there’s no reality at university so this was reality here. (teacher) the workshops with follow-up classroom support is a winning recipe. (district official) programme support included class visits and meetings in between training sessions during the implementation phase. this support appeared to be appreciated by the teachers, school management, subject advisers, and district officials. this cpd was not only about frequency and intensity but also about the quality of support offered, as can be inferred from the comments above. the cpd model included principals, subject advisers, and district officials. the inclusion of subject advisers in the programme meant that not only would they be au fait with what they observed during their routine school visits, but that they were able to provide additional support when requested by the teachers. this was advantageous for teachers, subject advisers, and education authorities. one district official noted: they’ve [subject advisers] been exposed to the same kind of workshop and same information. when they went for their normal school visits they could talk from the same experience. 58 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 the materials used in the implementation of the afla programme revealed both applicability and utility value. the programme suite of materials—videos, templates, training guides, and afl notes—appeared to be ideally suited to further develop the knowledge and skills necessary for quality classroom practices. given that the afla or any other set of relevant materials constitutes a tool, and that no tool is effective in the hands of an unskilled practitioner, a model and materials for pedagogical training at both initial teacher education and cpd levels will always be necessary. feedback from the teachers and other role players regarding the programme material and the way it was utilised during the workshops included the following: the facilitators’ explanations were good. group discussions at the workshops also allowed for teachers to share ideas and further strengthen their understanding of concepts, techniques and strategies. (subject adviser) workshops [using the afl materials] were conducted in a very practical manner; with simple and basic strategies to follow in classroom. (school manager) one of the teachers who claimed to have struggled with the li and sc, reported that she could then refer to the afl manual they had been given to gain clarity: “so i went back and i read about it [in the manual].” an independent reviewer who had been asked to assess the relevance of the workshop material, noted: the materials are clearly developed for the purpose of in-service training. at the end of each workshop, teachers are given an exercise to complete, and reflect back on. teachers gain the theoretical knowledge at tertiary institutions but not necessarily the practical experience. the dominance of english text and audio-visual material renders it [the materials] satisfactory rather than exemplary—they could have been more tailored to the audience when one considers language in particular. going forward, this last is a useful comment when one bears in mind that none of the participants was a first-language english speaker, and the translation of certain terms—like the li and sc—could have made it easier for the teachers to apply. thus, given the broad language policy in the south african education system with its 11 official languages, this comment is instructive for the successful implementation of future, similar cpd programmes. in addition, two teachers’ comments were significant: if i have to sit and read it or watch the video then it takes up time. too much for me, to be honest. i don’t have time to read all the notes. i just go through them and later because i got lot of work to do here at school and i got lot of work to be honest, haai [afrikaans exclamation]. i don’t read them all really. . . . nakidien et al.: unpacking the efficacy of a continuous professional development programme . . . 59 make it short, minimal, [we] can have it, but short, straight to the point, just have short . . . they [materials] are helpful very helpful. these comments further point to additional consideration for future implementation of similar cpd programmes where materials could be reduced and made more accessible, especially to participants who are not first-language english speakers. despite these observations, and although the materials were designed for a grade 3 initiative, the role players recognised that the content could be shared and applied in all grades and across schools and thus provided valuable support for the participants. also, the design of the materials and the manner in which they were presented in the workshops promoted the model of action and reflection, specifically its synergy with the model of training workshops with follow-up classroom support. as mentioned earlier, while isixhosa and afrikaans were the languages of teaching in the schools, the materials were in english. nevertheless, the teachers appeared to cope relatively well and the language did not seem to pose any problems for the teachers, although, as noted by the teachers, they would prefer that the materials were fewer, and that their use would not consume so much of their time. however, this does not suggest that the implementation of afl would cause a disruption in the workload of the teachers, rather, it points to a relook at the kind of paperwork—in the form of the reflection exercises, for example—required from the teachers during the training phase of any such future programme. sustainability outcomes of the programme sustainability (han & weiss, 2005) was a key component of the design of the model of cpd employed. this included ensuring district support and buy-in by working with the subject advisers as front-line staff in the cwed who would continue to support the teachers even after the conclusion of the cpd programme. district officials expressed the view that there was merit in the training that the teachers had received, and believed that the possibility exists that practices can be sustained on account of its applicability value across the educational setting at schools, and subject adviser capacity to model and support the training. the following quote captures this: they [subject advisers] will be able to sustain the practice in the foundation phase but it will be about sharing and exploring other possibilities in terms of strategies. it all depends on the school and the way they take it forward. it’s not a case of a strategy that can only work for foundation phase. . . . it can be shared amongst the other grades as well. (district official) from comments such as this, it is evident that district officials saw merit in the training in that they saw value in subject adviser participation in the training because the subject advisers could recognise programme implementation while simultaneously supporting and advising teachers when needed. furthermore, the district officials agreed with the potential to expand the training to the rest of the school. however, as stated elsewhere, this would depend on the school leadership’s willingness to do so. on the other hand, given that the participating 60 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 teachers, subject advisers, and district officials saw both the potential and advantages of the successful implementation of afl, it should not be particularly difficult to convince the schools’ leadership to implement it throughout the schools—albeit with additional training for the rest of the teaching staff. the subject advisers believed that the cpd training model had merit, and one noted: there is sharing, there’s new knowledge. then you go back and you try it out and then you come back and, you know, the practices you often talk about. this comment is particularly pertinent in that it not only speaks to the acquisition of new knowledge and pedagogic support but also the sharing of that knowledge with peers, which more strongly reinforces the pedagogic practices. more importantly, this comment speaks to the efficacy of the action and reflection aspect of the model. however, principals felt that the teachers would need time to familiarise themselves with the afl techniques and strategies acquired on the cpd programme: i think a project [such] as [this, is] that you can't have a short time span. you need a longer period so people can work on it [on] a trial-and-error basis. does it work or not? (principal) this statement reinforces the idea that teachers should support each other in the implementation of the training. teachers can try out the various techniques and strategies and then discuss their classroom experiences, advising each other on ways to adapt their acquired knowledge to their particular classroom situations. the school managers also alluded to the initiative being extended to other grades and phases, which aligns with district official sentiments. in both cases, as will be seen with the teachers and the subject advisers too, there was a strong feeling that it should encompass the entire system. in all cases, this was attributed to its applicability value. with this kind of support— from teachers to district officials—and taking into consideration the kind of comments proffered, it could be assumed that this kind of initiative could be met favourably not only in the district but beyond, even throughout the country. however, human resource retention was highlighted by one principal as a concern for sustainability. teacher movement across schools is a perpetual challenge. schools find that much is at risk of loss when teachers migrate. however, the solution is not in retention of teachers at a site but, rather, on retention of skills and knowledge at a site. to this end, a principal was enthusiastic to offer how he believed this could be done: i recommend that there should be a workshop for all the teachers by the afla teachers [referring to an in-house cascade model] so that the information that they have is transferred or transmitted to all the teachers. nakidien et al.: unpacking the efficacy of a continuous professional development programme . . . 61 one aspect highlighted in terms of the support rendered has implications for sustainability as the following quote reveals: the monitoring was done well for me. . . . it doesn’t matter how many actions you have on paper; the implementation and monitoring is the most important to me. (principal) this observation is significant in light of the need to ensure that the content of the cpd programme is implemented, rather than remain just a policy on paper. for any programme to be successfully implemented, there needs to be commitment from all stakeholders involved. however, since the advantages of the programme are seen from the start—in terms of learner involvement, for example—these would serve as further motivation for teachers to actively promote its implementation. subject advisers further provided valuable insight into issues of sustainability. they believe that sustainability depends on the inclusion of the other grades in the fp (bearing in mind that this was a grade 3-focused initiative) and on other school phases and, additionally, to other schools in the district as part of a systemic approach to enhancing teaching and learning, as the following quote reveals: sustainability will be a challenge if the approach will not be rolled out to all schools. . . . it’s got to be taken on in grade 4, 5 and 6 and groom teaching should carry on into those grades. (subject adviser) this not only suggests that the sustainability of the programme outcomes would be improved if it were to be implemented throughout the school, but the chances of success would be much greater if it were to be implemented in all the schools in the district. this would, no doubt, prove useful in terms of support during cluster meetings and plcs wherein teachers from the various schools could share their experiences and advice and, in so doing, further embed efficacy and sustainability. however, subject advisers noted some challenges for sustainability, which included structural challenges for support and monitoring and buy-in and commitment from school management. their opinion was that “it all depends on the principal who’s driving the curriculum.” this was the reason that principals were invited to participate in the programme; it is acknowledged that if school management does not support an initiative, the chances of it succeeding are low. from a more personal view, a subject adviser also saw the structure of the subject advisory service in the district as a challenge. this was due to the number of schools in the district and the model of support we are currently following [2017/18] and with change next year [2019]. the 2019 changes meant that some of the subject advisers who had previously been responsible for an afla school no longer worked with the school or even in the geographical area where the afla programme had been implemented. this meant that some subject advisers were shifted to work with schools that had not been involved in the 62 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 programme. those subject advisers were thus not able to provide the continued support and motivation to the teachers who might have needed them. the teachers agreed unanimously that the programme training was useful and should be extended to the other grades in the phase, to other grades at the school, as well as to other schools. they believed that the afla training had equipped them with a useful set of techniques and strategies to apply in their classrooms. some of the comments were as follows: i did this and this and it worked and then when you try it for the second time you feel like, okay, now i can see the difference so, yah, it was good. (teacher) a lot more goal-orientated and learners know exactly what we are going to do. . . . it made my lessons more detailed and better to understand . . . i am more focused on the specific. (teacher) in the year following the training, it was found that some schools’ organisational structure was to rotate the teachers to grades. this meant that some of the grade 3 teachers moved to grade 1 the year following the training (in 2018). they reported some successes and challenges of implementing afl with their new classes. examples of these were the no-hands rule, the use of the mini-white boards, and the exit tickets. in the latter two cases, the grade 1s had difficulty because they were still learning to write, and some of the learners also found it difficult to contain their excitement when they knew an answer but were not allowed to raise their hands when the teacher asked a question. in most cases, they reported that the learners eventually got used to this way of work: they are taking a bit of time to get used to the new methods. . . . it is beginning to work with my new class. (teacher) these teachers felt that if the programme had permeated the phase, it would have been part of the learners’ way of working, and implementation would have been easier and quicker. the researchers believe that through sustained effort, this could improve exponentially. teachers appeared to have become more reflective, more focused, more confident, more competent, and certainly more motivated. i did not use most of the techniques [afla] but now i am comfortable to use the techniques as well as learners. (teacher) the data revealed a use of afl techniques and strategies that was judicious, qualitative, and evolving from developing positions of strength. based on their convictions and experiences, teachers were making improvements: planning differently in a more focused manner, delivering lessons with confidence and competence, teaching with more focus, monitoring with increasing levels of quality feedback, and reflecting on their actions in the teachinglearning process: nakidien et al.: unpacking the efficacy of a continuous professional development programme . . . 63 it also helped us with our lesson preparations and to develop us in the areas of weakness when we presented our lessons. (teacher) as soon as you ask “why” learners tend not to know what the reason for answer is, so i give them time and we discuss it—the question must be giving an opportunity to a learner to express fully his/her thought with reasons . . . why the thought is like so. (teacher) context and the shaping of the model and outcomes bearing in mind that the successful implementation of any model of training must assess the critical role of context, the following contextual issues need to be foregrounded. competing priorities: the data pointed to numerous instances where the researchers found competing priorities to be an inhibiting factor. while some of these may be generalised to teachers across the world, those specifically contextually relevant to this study in the south african context were interlinked to a range of factors including culture, teacher-learner ratios, timetable design, extra-curricular requirements, personal life, and time. some teachers’ comments pertaining to these factors were: there are other things [such] as family matters, funerals and other [responsibilities on saturdays]. i started neglecting it . . . something very easy to set aside because there’s other [school] things going on so it takes the backburner. if this was maybe at a different time then there will be much better implementation and then a person will not have so divided attention . . . not split between other people and other things. (teacher who was also attending another series of workshops) these comments illustrate that the teachers were generally hard-pressed to fully meet the requirements of the cpd programme due to time constraints. this was as a result of the numerous personal and professional demands placed on them in the case of this programme, but which teachers in general also face (sayed, 2018). some of the family matters referred to above were household chores and parental duties that the teachers had to fulfil on saturdays when the workshops were held. some teachers had school activities to attend while others had to attend workshops pre-arranged by the district. some teachers were unable to attend some of the workshops because they had to attend funerals, which are important activities from a cultural perspective. demands such as these, coupled with the everyday workload of fp teachers—where the learner-teacher ratio is generally 35:1 but could stretch to 40:1 and higher—meant that some teachers were unable to devote their full attention to the training programme, thereby diminishing its efficacy. because of the heavy workload of teachers—“we work in an environment where we [are expected to do] a lot in terms of administration”—many of the teachers initially viewed the lesson planning sheets and reflection exercises as burdensome, but once they were accustomed to them, the teachers became more accommodating. a teacher noted: 64 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 in the beginning, afla was seen as extra . . . but in the end, it didn’t turn out to be like that. the latter part of her comment was echoed by another teacher who noted: [the lesson plan] that we use every week, every day is more complicated than your page [lesson plan template]. these two comments raise another issue—that of change of practice. most people are reluctant to adopt changes unless they see tangible advantages or receive support and encouragement from peers (sadeck, 2016). an associated systemic issue refers to timetabling and teacher workload. being fp teachers, they spend the whole day with their classes—without any non-teaching periods—which meant they were not able to support each other by sitting in on each other’s lessons and observing and commenting on lesson planning and presentations. (this was one of the strategies proposed by the cpd programme to facilitate efficacy and sustainability.) two relevant comments in this regard were: no. . . . for example it’s very difficult to sit in each other’s lessons and you gonna have to really motivate that to [school management]. (teacher) it is difficult to share best practices if we are not able to sit in each other’s classes . . . we don’t have free periods like [school management] . . . nobody actually has it. (teacher) this situation, wherein teachers were unable to support each other through observation, although not necessarily crucial to the sustainability of the programme, diminished the efficacy of the programme because a level of peer support was then negated. on the other hand, the loss of support evidenced in this instance was countered by the support received by another teacher through her phase plc as indicated below: it was useful for us to implement . . . because you knew you had to come to your colleagues with the plc and share that. like me, i didn’t get the project from the beginning and then my group, my team was so helpful to me. (teacher) this teacher’s comment underscores the importance of peer support, which not only motivates the colleagues but also bolsters the sustainability of a programme. although not exhaustive and not common to all teachers’ lived experiences, the examples cited illustrate the various contributing factors, which, in various knock-on permutations, compromised the teachers’ total commitment to the training programme. nakidien et al.: unpacking the efficacy of a continuous professional development programme . . . 65 discussion in the previous section, we explored the delivery model of a cpd in afl in supporting a shift in pedagogy across schools in a rural district of the western cape. the emphasis of this paper and the findings above have related to the model of cpd employed to the shift in teacher pedagogy and in relation to issues of sustainability. the argument made above was around context. in this discussion, we now reflect on crosscutting themes emerging from the three sets of findings. as pointed out earlier, most of the countries south of the sahara fall into what burns and lawrie (2015) called fragile contexts, and south africa is no exception due to its fractured past, particularly bearing in mind the number of curriculum changes the country has undergone in the past 28 years. this, coupled to the need for equipping unor under-qualified teachers, and the south african council for educators (sace) requirement of teacher development, speaks to a need for effective cpd programmes in south africa, especially in impoverished and rural settings, that cannot wait. however, as burns and lawrie (2015) expressed, the kind of cpd programmes prevalent in such fragile contexts are generally of limited duration, variable quality, and suffer from nearly non-existent support or follow-up for teachers. the afla cpd programme was an attempt to address this, running over a period of two years with regular on-site support for the teachers in the first year. the model was further strengthened by breaking a mould that restricts participation to teachers only and, in this instance, allowed school and district officials to participate to serve as additional levels of support for the primary role players— the teachers. this approach is also in line with the three criteria identified by gulamhussein (2013), namely, that the cpd should be significant and ongoing, there should be support during its implementation stage, and initial exposure should not be passive. the approach was further enhanced by the requirement that the teachers try out what they had learnt, assess and reflect on implementation, and solicit support from peers, officials, and programme trainers who conducted follow-up visits at the schools. in this way, the “high-quality continuing professional development” referred to by phorabatho and mafora (2013, p. 617) could be achieved, with the aim of bringing about a significant paradigm shift in teacher thinking and practice as envisaged by the introduction of afl in the classrooms. based on teacher, school management, and district official responses, the implementation of the cpd programme was deemed successful. comments from the various stakeholders were generally favourable. unfavourable comments referred to the timing of programme workshops, which cut into the personal and administrative time of the teachers. the materials utilised in the cpd programme included notes, relevant videos, and reflection exercises. these were largely useful because they could be used for reference both during and after the workshops—as reported by the teachers and subject advisers. however, some teachers felt that there was too much information and the materials took too much time to get through. this is a significant comment because material quantity could be a deterrent to the effective implementation of the training and thus its sustainability. it was suggested that more 66 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 succinct notes be provided for support. another comment raised for consideration was the issue of language. the language of the notes, videos, and workshops was english, yet this was not the first language of any of the participants whose mother tongues were either isixhosa or afrikaans. although none of the participants raised any concerns in this regard, it could well be that there would have been a different level of engagement during school support visits. however, at this juncture, the materials are considered adequate to advocate, promote, and develop knowledge and skills specific to afl. but given that the subject advisers and teachers noted that they continued consulting the materials after training, it would be advisable that materials be provided in the mother tongue of the participants. one major concern of any cpd programme is its sustainability. villegas-reimers (2003) asserted that effective teacher and learning that translates into changed practice takes time and requires ongoing learning opportunities with high levels of support and follow-up. the afla programme provided this in that it comprised a 6-month period of training with monthly support and follow-up from programme presenters. additional support was available from subject advisers who had attended the workshops and from the programme presenters on request from the teachers. further attempts to ensure sustainability were effected by obtaining buy-in from school management and district officials. as can be seen from the data provided, all saw merit in the training and felt that it had a positive effect on the teachers. however, as mentioned by a subject adviser, success of the training relies heavily on principals to drive the process. the efficacy or failure of a programme is largely determined by context. as can be seen from the study data, there was a varied level of up-take on the part of teachers due, in part, to the pressures of competing priorities. because the workshops were conducted on saturday mornings, they occasionally clashed with other commitments of the teachers, ranging from personal chores, children’s extra-mural activities, school commitments, and funerals. the everyday demands of teachers impacted their commitment to the programme, and one teacher admitted that when pressed for time, she would put afla priorities on the backburner. there are also structural issues at school and district levels that would affect the efficacy of the training. as one subject adviser noted, and as referred to earlier, efficacy also depends on how the principal drives the process. coupled to this was the refrain from all levels that for the training to be effective and sustainable, it should not be implemented only at a whole school level but, rather, at district level (bearing in mind that this was a grade 3-focused initiative). a further issue raised by subject advisers concerned their reallocation of schools, which resulted in the inability of some to continue with support provision because they were allocated to schools that had not participated in the cpd programme. conclusion this study was a snapshot in time of a few rural, non-fee schools in the western cape, south africa. it was a cpd initiative that used afl as the context and sought to be developmental and transformative in nature. the initiative and study were negotiated at district and school nakidien et al.: unpacking the efficacy of a continuous professional development programme . . . 67 levels, closely investigating the impressions of, and effects on, various role players in the initiative. it was determined that there was an interdependence and interrelationship among these role players. in addition, the findings of this cpd initiative suggest that not only did the programme receive a stamp of approval from all role players, but various levels of learning had also taken place among the participants, particularly the teachers. these issues speak positively to the sustainability of programme outcomes. however, sustainability issues cannot be predicated on positive outcomes alone. such outcomes are influenced by context and systemic factors. outcomes need to be understood in context and the dynamic way in which they could alter when changes occur in other parts of a system. issues of sustainability are determined by, and interrelated between, individuals and units of individuals and systemic factors and, specifically as highlighted in this case, by issues raised by various role players. the lessons learnt and the shortcomings highlighted in the study of this programme should inform the development of a comprehensive cpd framework in south africa, as the department of basic education is currently engaged in doing. at the same time, it is acknowledged that it is unrealistic to expect any programme to be fully implemented immediately. this implies that the level of success of any cpd programme will only be seen over an extended period and depend on continued support from school and 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(2003). case study research: design and methods (3rd ed.). sage. microsoft word b86 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 86, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i86a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x representing teachers’ voices: an ethnodrama of mauritian teachers under times of curriculum reform wedsha appadoo-ramsamy higher education studies, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa mauritius institute of education, mauritius wed_wesh@hotmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2551-8976 michael anthony samuel higher education studies, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa samuelm@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9425-7186 aruna ankiah-gangadeen curriculum development, implementation and evaluation, mauritius institute of education, mauritius a.ankiah@mie.ac.mu https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4106-3951 (received: 17 november 2021; accepted: 22 february 2022) abstract this article emphasises the motivation for a methodological representation choice that captures teachers’ voices in a small island developing state context during the introduction of a curriculum reform. the diverse voices of teachers as they inhabit a context that gears towards compliance and managed intimacy demands are explored through the representational choice of an ethnodrama. narrative inquiry led to an ethnodrama representation that protected the anonymity and confidentiality of participants and simultaneously revealed multiple forms of agencies in entangled spatial and temporal dimensions. the findings foreground teachers’ choice of agencies and representations that serve different interests influenced by whom they dialogue with in specific spaces. with a fictionalised future enactment of the ethnodrama at the end, this article closes with teachers negotiating their agency and opening reflections for future research in new normal covid-19 spaces. keywords: teacher agency, teacher voice, ethnodrama, methodological representation appadoo-ramsamy et al.: representing teachers’ voice 41 maya: but are all of these policy documents not the same? why read these bulky documents? sorry, but if you were working at my school—a school that emphasises work, work, and work—you’d know that it’s a waste of time to read these! i have more important things to do! (appadoo-ramsamy, 2021, p. 117) introduction: teacher agency under scrutiny hearing teachers’ voices is a recurring interest in recent research literature. this concern to present the worldviews of teachers, to hear their interpretations of their contextual spaces, and delve into their work challenges and opportunities is perhaps a response to the declining status and lack of respect from the general public about the daily trials facing the teaching profession, globally (jansen & farmer-philips, 2021). researchers have become conscious of their responsibility to present these silenced voices (biesta et al., 2017; singh-pillay & samuel, 2017). a notable trend within present research is a celebration of teachers’ voices with an emphasis on the influence of external ecological forces on their choices and enactment of agency. furthermore, this research agenda tends to explore an interpretation of teacher agency within the struggle for political voice in macro-systemic environments— either in large democracies within oppressive regimes, or in institutional spaces that cast teachers as servile technicians of other agendas (pantić, 2015; ryder et al., 2018; toom et al., 2015). this research trend, whilst affirming teachers’ voices, unfortunately reinforces the caricaturing of teachers as agents of others rather than as autonomous decision-makers (oolbekkink-marchand et al., 2017; tao & gao, 2017; themane & thobejane, 2018). teachers are perhaps unintentionally depicted as struggling s/heroes without internal, individual, agentic capacities. additionally, a feature of this “affirmative research” trend is that it tends to ignore whole groups of teachers who are not usually in the foreground of world attention, namely, those in small island developing states (sids). small contexts are afforded scant attention in mainstream research. moreover, the relationship between the smaller contexts and their broader global, larger contexts is not adequately dealt with in teacher development literature. this article redresses that gap and aims to trigger questions about how researchers choose to engage with the representation of their teacher participants’ voices. rather than foreground propositional content about how teachers activate their agency (appadoo-ramsamy, 2021), this article highlights how researchers choose to represent their findings and accent the voices of the participants from the field. the article focuses on a methodological agenda exploring the role of researchers in the representation of silencing or foregrounding their research participants’ voices. two central questions underpin this exploration: • are researchers complicit with the agenda of downgrading teachers’ complex presence and operational participation in their worlds? • do researchers underplay the complexity of being a professional teacher while constructing their research reports? the article argues that the representational messaging that accompanies research depictions from the field is as much a part of the broadening of listening complexly to the voice of 42 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 teachers. how we tell the stories of the teachers (representation) is as important as what stories need to be told (the propositional content). the specific milieu within which this reflection is conducted looks at the spaces where teachers of one sids context were being drawn into the agenda of implementing a national curriculum reform in which they had limited direct influence. the observations made in this article emanate from a study of teacher agency in mauritius (appadoo-ramsamy, 2021). as the reform was being introduced, a multiplicity of teacher voices expressed their fear of embracing something new, and their confusion or enthusiasm regarding a changing structure. the purpose of this study was anchored in understanding the phenomenon of teacher agency as interpreted and exercised in varied ways by teachers. an interpretivist paradigm was adopted alongside life history and narrative inquiry in order to prioritise teachers’ voices and experiences. the voices and agency of teachers surfacing during data production revealed the complexity of teacher agency within shifting temporal and spatial dimensions. to capture the entangled forms of agency in embedded spaces, an ethnodrama was chosen as mode of representation. merging the researcher and participant voices in this mode of representation, the ethnodrama captured the nuances of experiences and agency in a sids where teachers’ voices were consciously or unconsciously stifled in some spaces. the ethnodrama provided an opportunity to reflect on where and how the suppressed voices of teachers became active. this article will first outline the shifting traditions of sids research, noting the specific cultural context of the mauritian society. the contestable view of managing intimacy within small contexts is explored here. secondly, the article outlines the motivation for the methodological construction of an ethnodrama to include the diverse, contradictory, and complex voices of teachers in this space. the third section reveals the entangled nature of teacher agency in voice and representation in varied spaces. the argument reinforces teachers as agentically choosing their representation of themselves to serve different interests to varying audiences and for different purposes. the article closes with a fictionalised future enactment of teachers in new evolving circumstances in a covid-19 pandemic context. this constitutes projections beyond the earlier terms of reference of the original study (appadooramsamy, 2021) but opens reflections about how to conduct research in new normal spaces. like maya, one of the emblematic teacher’s voices of the ethnodrama depicted in the epigraph to this article, much work has to be done and perhaps the fetish with policy prescriptions is only one force of influence on teachers’ agency and action. researching small island developing states within traditions of qualitative inquiry, the unique nature of a data production site is considered as having significant influence on the nature of the data yielded. the smallness of the location of mauritius offered new ways of looking at teacher agency. after analysing the raw data, the complexity of teachers’ personal and professional experiences and spaces as entangled within the context of the reform initiatives being introduced was revealed. challenges arose about the choice of framing to represent the specific research study and its appadoo-ramsamy et al.: representing teachers’ voice 43 context. furthermore, one had to acknowledge that sids research trends too, have been undergoing recognisable shifts in research emphases. sids have been theorised as a group of small islands with “similar characteristics” (crossley, 2016, p. 10) such as the need to improve access to education and the quality of education, or even the need to tackle economic vulnerabilities. sids was conceptualised differently across three generations of research traditions (mariaye, 2016). the first-generation approach to researching sids contexts emphasised demographical features of smallness and vulnerabilities because of geographic, environmental, and economic isolation—categorising sids as marginalised communities with little to offer the wider world of research. the second generational research tradition further accented deficiencies in relation to larger and advanced social systems, suggesting that research from these contexts was confined to imitating traditions developed elsewhere. the third, affirmatory generative approach was directed towards the distinctiveness and strengths of small states. these research trends about how to frame the agenda of sids research itself may influence how researchers choose to depict teachers’ conceptions of agency differently. for instance, the emphasis on marginalisation and deficiencies during the first and second generational research may indicate an inferiority position of submissiveness and lack of confidence whereby teachers follow policy unquestioningly. meanwhile, the emphasis on strengths during the third sids generation may trigger questions about policy implementation and the need to prioritise the uniqueness of the nation during policy-making and implementation. this article aims to contribute to research within the third generation sids research agenda that highlights the need to explore the nuances and complexity of “lived experiences of sids institutions, individual and nations, and their collaborating partners” (mariaye, 2016, p. 15). furthermore, the agenda is influenced by a need to hear the silenced voice in complex and contradictory ways and offer interpretations of creative and imaginative research approaches that span beyond sids contexts. the site of data production was mauritius, a sids with a 1.3 million population and a relatively rapidly changing contextual educational policy landscape that is responsive to shifts in local and global discourses about curriculum reform and the professional development of teachers to sustain these transformation agendas. mauritius becomes a researchable laboratory where smallness can enable bigger states to better understand macro issues as teachers negotiate their roles and agency within a layered spatial and temporal space with nationalistic agendas, colonial heritage, global recognition, and evolving cultural trends such as digitalisation. the mauritian sociocultural context: managed intimacy and portrayal of technicians of compliance this article draws from a broader study that reviewed how teachers came to assert their conceptions of agency in contexts that were largely expecting teachers to be compliant public servants of state agendas (appadoo-ramsamy, 2021). indeed, what was revealed during the data production was the impact of relational and entangled spaces on teacher-participants’ representation of their voices in public and private spaces. for instance, teacher-participants demonstrated a constant need to reinforce compliance to national state agendas. however, at 44 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 other times, these same teachers showed manifestations of rebelliousness. bray (2020) offered a possible explanation: that there is a deeply rooted mauritian cultural practice that does not question officialised systems. drawing on lowenthal’s concept of managed intimacy, he commented: small state inhabitants learn to get along . . . with folk they would know in myriad contexts over their whole lives. to enable the social mechanism to function without undue stress, they minimise and mitigate over conflicts. they become experts at muting hostility deferring their own views and containing disagreement and avoid dispute in the interest of stability and compromise. (lowenthal, 1987, as quoted in bray, 1991, p. 512) regarding this politeness culture, samuel and mariaye (2016) observed from their studies of shifting historical trends in teacher education in mauritius, that managed intimacy contributes to a stifling of the voices of teacher-participants who suppress their views and agency in public spaces. researching teacher voice in such sids contexts becomes a problematic endeavour because teacher talk diverges in contradictory and complex ways: altered voices surface in public spaces (such as the public classroom) and in private spaces (such as professional peer reflections in the privacy of staff rooms or with peers during professional workshops). these submerged contextual voices should be read against a common assumption of the general public that mauritian teachers are seemingly passive. by contrast, teachers in their more private worlds—as depicted by the study’s data (appadoo-ramsamy, 2021)—assert a more critical interpretation of their institutions and the wider education schooling system. this raises questions about why teachers choose to present themselves in public spaces in the way they do. it may be argued that, in public spaces, teachers consciously choose to project themselves as victims of a highhanded autocratic regime with limited involvement in national policy-making. despite their critique of the official system of education, or overt critique of national examinations-driven school cultures, teachers are nevertheless fully engaged in exercising their roles as implementers of the state’s official curriculum. it appears that teachers represent an entanglement of many kinds of agencies, exercising different layers of agentic actions at different points, spaces, and with varied audiences. for example, their verbal resistance to adopting an informational digitalised mode of delivery for the new state curriculum was counteracted by their noted creative practical uses of digital platforms (hardware and software) in their own classrooms. drawing on a theoretical framing to guide methodological representation representing this managed intimacy in the varying spaces inhabited by the teacherparticipant became a challenging task for the lead researcher (wedsha appadoo-ramsamy) whose initial intention was to tell the stories of the teachers’ engagement with curriculum reform in a rapidly changing educational policy environment. narrative inquiry had been chosen to capture the data from interviews conducted with a range of practising teachers. drawing on the traditions of life history research to tell the stories of teachers’ lives in their appadoo-ramsamy et al.: representing teachers’ voice 45 specific contexts (dhunpath & samuel, 2009; samuel, 2015), the study initially aimed to represent the data through biographical narratives, with an omniscient third-person narrator telling their personal stories (creswell, 2009; smith & sparkes, 2012). but this mode of representation did not appear to capture the complex intertwining spatial and temporal spaces that gave rise to different types of teacher agency. for instance, it was observed that individual teachers defined themselves, not in isolation, but in relation to other members in their communal environments. the research representation was guided by the overarching theoretical framework of the study, which challenged the limited conception of teacher agency as a simplistic and permanent feature of the character or trait of the individual teacher. most research on teacher agency to date tends to emphasise particular conceptions of teacher agency as personalistic (bandura, 2006), focusing on teachers’ personal and professional experiences and how these experiences exert forces on teachers’ choices and decisions in a changing macro-policy environment. for instance, agency is conceptualised as emanating from personal dimensions of self such as within home, family, and community spaces (pappa et al., 2017; priestley et al., 2015; ryder et al., 2018). these research studies constructed agency as a direct outcome of influences at home, teaching strategies of one’s teacher, or personal motivation for promotion. however, studies are also showing that professional terrains and institutional spaces exert a dominant force on teacher agency (oolbekkink-marchand et al., 2017; ryder et al., 2018; themane & thobejane, 2018). moreover, these spaces are fluid and evolving (fullan, 2013; samuel, 2008; singh-pillay & samuel, 2017). recent studies on teacher agency have adopted a case study methodological approach to produce data that emphasise the contextual specificities of the phenomenon (mitchell, 2016; oolbekkink-marchand et al., 2017; themane & thobejane, 2018; tran, 2018). however, these case studies are mostly limited to the micro-institutional spaces. the interlinks between the micro-contextual worlds and the broader systemic forces activating a growing performativity culture are underreported. the choice of narrative inquiry in the study reported on was made to capture nuances between macro-global and micro-institutional spaces, and how teachers straddled these multiple contexts. constructing narratives became a three-dimensional affair of depicting shifting personal experiences and practices of teachers, alongside micro institutional and macro-national/global landscapes (clandinin, 2013). the nuances and influences of changing contexts within spatial and temporal dimensions also surfaced during data production. teachers in the study revealed their entanglement in multiple spaces. these spaces were also shifting over time under the influence of new forces. consequently, what emerged as dominant in a descriptive analysis of the transcripts drawn from the field was the centrality of different types of spaces that were part of a teacher’s reality—personal spaces, the school environment, professional meeting spaces during professional development programmes, staffrooms, and classrooms. for instance, in mauritius, many teachers provide tuition in a private space, such as their homes, after school hours. this operation is not regulated by the ministry. this phenomenon was described by bray (2020) as a culture deeply rooted in the mauritian society. despite many attempts by the official departmental structures to regulate private tutoring by public-paid practising teachers, or restrict the use of public school spaces to exercise this practice, the phenomenon of private tutoring endures. 46 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 teachers dominate that space with their chosen teaching strategies and selected teaching tools. parents, moreover, interpret this “shadow education” system as enhancing the potential of their children’s success in the competitive exit schooling certificate examinations (bray, 2020). while this private space was not observed during the study, the interviews revealed the dominance of the space and the types of agency emanating from this unregulated space, at times, differed from those they exercised at school in a space regulated by policy and the school management. while these spaces were deemed to be significant aspects of the representation, it was difficult to represent them in biographies or autobiographies. the fieldwork showed that teachers’ conceptions of agency were both relational (to context, time, and space) and dialogical (in relation to participants and co-collaborators). another challenge in the choice of representation of the fieldwork arose with guaranteeing the anonymity of the participants. within a small context of about 400 schools and a generally well-known schooling community, this proved to be tricky despite using pseudonyms. the participants, who were subject teachers, met regularly during professional workshops or in managing the national/international examinations. particular school characteristics could lead to schools being easily identified because of public knowledge of differing schools. it thus became clear that the choice of a methodological representation should resolve ethical challenges to protect the anonymity of participants and reduce their vulnerability and exposure. it would reassure them that they would not be targeted for being assertive or refusing to abide by the state agenda. the data revealed complex embedded forms of agency emanating from different spaces inhabited by an individual teacher-participant. consequently, capturing the nuances that explained the different types of entangled agency became daunting. an ethnodrama was therefore chosen as a methodological representation to resolve these issues. selecting a methodological representation representation of participants’ narratives is at the core of narrative inquiry and helps explore themes related to the phenomenon under study (ely, 2007; mattingly, 2007). the process of representing participants’ stories involved revisiting transcripts and field notes (polkinghorne, 1995). the first attention to validating the teacher participants’ voices was established via the transcripts of their interviews being sent back to them for member checking. this provided an opportunity for participants to confirm their responses to the interviewee/researcher’s questions. additionally, the representation should be an authentic interpretation and construction of the participants’ complex life stories (germeten, 2013). therefore, selecting the right form of narrative is a crucial analytical component to aptly depict multiple layers of participants’ stories, the spaces they inhabit, and how they choose to represent themselves. reflections on the mode of representation thus led to choosing the dramatic representation (ely, 2007; mattingly, 2007) through which teacher-participants could be fictionalised as emblematic, anonymous characters who would realistically mirror their storied landscapes and experiences in a context of change. the drama format comprised temporal and spatial dimensions as the acts moved from one moment in time to another, and as characters appadoo-ramsamy et al.: representing teachers’ voice 47 reflected on past, present, and future dimensions related to their experiences. this multilayered representation provided a detailed ethnographic depiction of individuals in varied times, spaces, and contexts, interacting with different interlocutors. each dramatic moment captured a fuller insight into the voices of the teacher participants embedding simultaneously their multi-facetted, coherent, and contradictory elements. constructing the ethnodrama, and its analysis drawing on the data set from the study fieldwork, the ethnodrama involved the scripted dramatic representation of interview transcripts (saldaña, 2003, 2011), fieldnotes, observations (davis, 2018; saldaña, 2008), and other forms of data produced during qualitative narrative research. this form of representation is perceived as an attempt to move away from traditional research reports (davis, 2018; gallagher, 2007) to include nuanced data with regard to participants’ experiences. constructing the ethnodrama script is a challenging process that includes a priori and thematic analysis of data generated in the quest of representing a narrative close to lived experiences. during a first level of analysis, thematic categories of forces influencing agency emanated from a priori categories of forces identified in the existing literature review. however, a further process of refining analytical processing included developing codes and categories emerging from the data with minimal a priori expectations (corbin & strauss, 2008; freeman, 1996). following the principles of a grounded theory approach to analysis (corbin & strauss, 2008; freeman, 1996), the codes and categories were assembled in a dataled, field-sensitive generation of abstraction into themes that explored the phenomenon of the study. for the last act of the ethnodrama, the original literature and theoretical framework about teacher agency was temporarily suspended in order to resist theory-led analysis and the confirmation of predetermined categories (mcadams, 2012). this comparative engagement between the fieldwork and the original framing lens of the study thus was constituted as a dialogical, iterative, and ever-expanding form of understanding the phenomenon. the drama was named the cockroach, a title that was inspired by a poem that many participants had referred to during data collection. the cockroach i watched a giant cockroach start to pace, skirting a ball of dust that rode the floor. at first he seemed quite satisfied to trace a path between the wainscot and the door, but soon he turned to jog in crooked rings, circling the rusty table leg and back, and flipping right over to scratch his wings— as if the victim of a mild attack of restlessness that worsened over time. 48 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 after a while, he climbed an open shelf and stopped. he looked uncertain where to go. was this due payment for some vicious crime a former life had led to? i don’t know, except i thought i recognised myself. (halligan, 2005, p. 171) the participants identified with this poem in which the cockroach is confused, experiencing a sudden change, and also unconsciously trapped in repetitive behaviour. moreover, the title reflects the disruption the teachers underwent—at the levels of teaching practices, beliefs, and even conceptions of professional identity—while exercising agency in changing times. this constructed ethnodrama, the cockroach, constituted a representation of a narrativised record, which polkinghorne (1995) in her seminal article referred to as a narrative analysis of the fieldwork data. however, after this first representation of an analysis from the field, the ethnodrama was further analysed to abstract recurrent themes across this narrativised record. this latter form of analysis, polkinghorne (1995) referred to as an analysis of the narratives (see also mccance et al., 2001; smeyers & verhesschen, 2001). the analysis of the multidimensional ethnodrama representation brought fresh illuminations (clandinin, 2007), which revealed the complex interweaving ways in which agency is exercised in times of change. these complex and entangled forms of agency emanating from a thematic analysis of the ethnodrama led to the choice of an analytical framework—barad’s (2007, 2010, 2014) theory of diffraction—to capture the diffractive multiple possibilities in which an individual may exercise agency. barad’s concept of diffraction captures the complexity of rooted beliefs, especially those countering a simplistic binary structure that orders life and experiences in terms of dichotomous opposites such as self/other, i/we, or black/white. in the same vein, barad (2010) observed that the concepts of space and time cannot be understood and limited to continuity and homogeneity because there exist multiple possibilities of experiences (possibilities that transcend binary opposites). these possibilities are often intertwined and there is no clear demarcation between them. as barad (2010) pointed out, “entanglements are not the intertwining of two (or more) states/entities/events, but a calling into question of the very nature of two-ness, and ultimately of one-ness as well” (p. 251) therefore, she argued, there is a need to look at actions and experiences as part of deconstruction, de-continuity, and multiplicity. at the onset of the fieldwork, data gathering was guided by a theoretical lens that captured the coexistence of three identified types of agency: curriculum making (lambert & morgan, 2010; priestley et al., 2012), deliverology (ball et al., 2012; kelly, 2008; mitchell, 2016; pring, 2013), and strategic mimicry (mattson & harley, 2003). however, the analysis of the ethnodrama revealed a coexisting multiplicity of agentic possibilities and this theory provided me with a lens to understand the multiplicity of appadoo-ramsamy et al.: representing teachers’ voice 49 agencies and how these different forms of agency coexist as teachers negotiate their professional selves in changing times. therefore, the ethnodrama, along with the chosen analytical framework, allowed the researcher to go beyond the dichotomous representation of agency as being either enabled or constrained. the structure of the ethnodrama the ethnodrama was structured in three acts, which revealed multiple agentic possibilities within different spaces. act i constituted an introduction to the characters’ macro-policy context. policy documents and the standardised mauritius institute of education (mie) textbook were used as props to present the exploration of agency as an interaction between human (actors) and non-human (objects/texts) elements, thereby capturing the authenticity of teachers’ experiences during the reform. the three fictionalised emblematic characters, sara, maya, and veena, came from different types of schools (public and private schools). as teachers within a broader mauritian educational landscape, they met at a workshop organised for english teachers at the mie. in line with the reform orientation of new policy imperatives, the mie, which is the sole teacher education institution in the country, was mandated to oversee the strategy of familiarising prospective implementers with the expectations of the new educational policy. the reform-related workshop was chosen as a common space where these three characters from different school realities met and shared their experiences and enactment of agency. the choice of the mie as the location was significant because, during the data production phase, it emerged that many participants equated the reform with the mie, especially given that the institution had produced the related documents and textbooks. therefore, the location reflected the micro-policy context. in act ii, as the setting shifted to an informal space, namely the canteen, the characters’ discussion moved from the formalised macro-policy structures that enabled or constrained their agency to personal experiences that had moulded their professional selves. they shared, for instance, anecdotes of their student days and the influence of their family members or peer teachers. these anecdotes assisted in understanding teachers’ professional identities and choices, which shift across time and space in relation to various sources of influence. the act foregrounded forces emanating from their micro-institutional spaces, suggesting that agency is a complex, nuanced, simultaneous interaction between macro, meso, and micro levels of engagement. by abstracting from the raw data produced in the field, this ethnodrama, like all narrative construction, constituted a level of analysis. the micro-institutional spaces were highlighted in act ii, after which act iii comprised three scenes with the characters in their classrooms. this representation was constructed based on classroom observations, interviews, and informal conversations with the participants. the scenes juxtaposed contrasting classroom spaces in which the characters were seen enacting agency. in addition to the regulated classroom spaces of formal schooling environments, this act also presented the non-formal practices of private tutoring, which constitutes a parallel kind of schooling/educational system that sits alongside the formal regulated system. ever50 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 present knowledge of the force of non-formal schooling emanated from data production where participants reflected on their own classroom practices being driven by the culture of performativity. including the voice of the researcher in the representation saldaña (2005) proposed different ways in which the researcher can be made part of the ethnodrama: as a leading character, the character’s best friend, a chorus member, an offstage voice, an extra, or a servant. he added that, although reflexivity is an important component of qualitative research, the researcher “could detract from rather than add to the principal participants’ stories” (saldaña, 2005, p. 19). however, the researcher’s significance in the coconstruction of narratives cannot be denied in narrative inquiry. as noted by clandinin: we are not objective inquirers. we are relational inquirers, attentive to the intersubjective, relational, embedded spaces in which lives are lived out. we do not stand metaphorically outside the inquiry but are part of the phenomenon under study. (2013, p. 24) for the narrative inquirer, the positionality of the researcher is repeatedly redefined as the researcher comes to make sense of the world of those who are participating in their study. as part of the storied landscape, the researcher’s narratives (and experiences) blend with those of the participants. instead of reacting subjectively to participants’ lived experiences, the lead researcher allowed herself to be disrupted—questioning her beliefs as an insider, and being more critical as she engaged in an analysis of the understanding of participants’ stories. rather than interpret these disruptions as negative, the listening researcher was more attentively engaging the entry and representation of the world of the teachers. the researcher, therefore, deliberately chose to be part of this drama as a disrupted choral voice offering a synthesis and reflection on emerging common themes. act iv offered an evaluative analysis and acknowledged the researcher’s role as simultaneously data producer and data analyser in this representational product. in this act, the characters—wedsha (lead researcher), sara, veena, and maya—entered and exited the stage as a representation of the cross-case analysis conducted for the production of thematic categories. the tempo of this act was very rapid to capture the complexity of teacher agency, experiences, and identities in an ever-changing macro-policy context. clandinin (2007) observed that, in drama representation, the substance of the temporal happening, the contextualisation, offers readers layered, nuanced pictures that make sense of often puzzling, complex events—pictures meant to trigger understandings, feelings, and considerations about past, present and future. (p. 590) thus, the dramatic representation was seen as a representational form, which captured the teacher’s ecology as her agency was impacted by a myriad of influences within the macropolicy and micro-institutional environment. appadoo-ramsamy et al.: representing teachers’ voice 51 harmonising data, ensuring confidentiality and anonymity this new representational form of an ethnodrama constituted an abstraction and a form of initial analysis, which cohered the raw data into more cognate processed units that aggregated the social and spatial dimensions of the work contexts within which the participants worked. aggregation further enabled protection of the participants’ anonymity, especially given that any attention to individual specificities of the interviewed participants would easily be identifiable. yet, the researcher deemed it important to acknowledge the schooling landscapes, which constitute a major influence on teacher agency. hence, the emblematic characters enabled anonymity and confidentiality but, more importantly, allowed the researcher, as the narrator of the ethnodrama, to foreground matters of immediate contextual believability for mauritian readers of the study who could see themselves represented in the unfolding spaces of credibly depicted schooling environments. while the dramatic script involved interpretations of data generated through different tools, some dialogues were verbatim extracts from interview transcripts with minor changes to echo the voices of the participants without giving away their identity. for instance, during the interview, miriam (pseudonym) had compared herself to a withered plant at school. however, when referring to private tuition conducted in her home (in her personal space), she expressed happiness and satisfaction. miriam: i would say er, the school environment, the people that are around you, your departmental er . . . the people in your department, in your group, it plays a very big role in making you who you are as a teacher because your surroundings . . . if your surroundings are not very okay for you, for you it’s not even acceptable for you, then whatever happens, you are not going to do well. it’s the same as with the plant. you know the plant needs sunshine and water. if you are not going to give this so automatically the plant will wither. so, this, i believe that’s exactly what happening to me i am not very comfortable in the school at all. (interview transcript) miriam: i love teaching in fact because when i’m giving tuition at home . . . i feel very very very at ease. i can shift to creole without fearing the fact that someone is standing next to my door to go to report to the office that i’m using creole to explain. yeah. . . . the deputy rector, she stands at the door of some teachers and then she is looking, she is not looking . . . she’s peeping in the class, what’s happening. (interview transcript) the ethnodrama therefore not only allows anonymity but also, as discussed by saldaña (2005), emphasises the complex multi-layered voices and experiences of participants. following the conventions of drama scripts with italicised stage directions and realistic interactions between participants, the ethnodrama aimed at showing the narratives instead of telling (saldaña, 2005). meanwhile, through his exemplars, saldaña (2005) indicated how the ethnodrama can be used to create an artistic voice for the voiceless. this mode of representation was thus appropriate for the study where the researcher could capture the shifts of politeness within entangled spaces. besides, this form of representation provided artistic 52 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 licence for the creation of emblematic characters (saldaña, 2005) that were representative of character traits displayed by the participants. these characters were developed by merging verbatim words from participants, similar experiences and agency, and an artistic interpretation of data generated. despite not celebrating the participants’ individual traits and biographical experiences in individual life stories, the aggregation into emblematic characters creatively offered the narrator/dramatist the opportunity to present the intertwining life histories of teachers as they faced similar struggles while negotiating their agency in a changing environment. because the ethnodrama comprised emblematic characters constructed from different participants and the researcher’s interpretations of their shared stories, to further ensure anonymity and confidentiality, the ethnodrama script was not shared with participants but, instead, member checking was done on their individual interview transcripts. revealing entangled teacher-participants’ voices in space and time capturing choices of agency in varied spaces the choice of spatial contexts in the creation of the ethnodrama allowed the researcher to show that agency is not solely the product of specific spaces within which data was produced—in line with the aim of elevating the fieldwork and locating it in broader theoretical landscapes. these landscapes depicted the worlds that the participants reflected or commented on during data production. they were reimagined in the construction of the drama space to activate a conception of a framing rather than a deterministic environment within which to explore the phenomenon. the teachers’ connections beyond the immediate specificities of space during fieldwork were also connected into complex spatial contexts. these multi-layered spatialities (sometimes also spanning different temporal confines), which the ethnodrama flowed in and out of, captured the encircling levels of space that surround teacher agency, experiences, and practices. constructing an ethnodrama thus entails a creative, elaborative project connecting the (parochial) fieldwork to broader (theoretical) spatialities. it is acknowledged that, although the ethnodrama might at first glance appear to be strongly field-sensitive, it stands as an initial level of analysis, which embeds abstractions at a more theoretical level. meanwhile, as foregrounded in this article, the different spaces represented showed an understanding of the dominance of compliance in public spaces and the manifestation of other forms of agency in other spaces. for instance, the raw data from miriam (in the previous section) were represented through emblematic fictional characters in different spaces. this need to comply with micro-institutional regulations and the different agency expressed in the private space was captured through contrasting scenes with maya (an emblematic character) in her classroom at school and in her private tuition space at home, as exemplified below. note that the character of maya was not a representation of miriam but appadoo-ramsamy et al.: representing teachers’ voice 53 an emblematic character, which reflected the common traits, narratives, and experiences of various participants: the curtains open with white smoke on the stage signalling a flashback as maya remembers a day at school. this scene takes place in maya’s classroom with a grade 8 class of 20 students. the walls are empty: a withering plant, a pencil case, a ruler, her scheme of work, two books, and maya’s smart phone are on her table. maya is writing on the whiteboard. students are seated: some are writing in their copybooks and others are fighting (making a lot of noise). maya does not seem to care and appears mechanically involved in her teaching. maya [moves to the middle of the stage and addresses the audience]: no respect, no greetings. is this called teaching? teaching is not my dream job . . . i’m not passionate about teaching [pause and feeling dejected]. . . . with pressure from school, time constraints due to the timetable, with a difficult home environment, with changing curriculum and examination pressure . . . [breathing heavily, suffocating, closes eyes]. my personal problems pressurise me further, i’m unhappy at home, unhappy at work . . . [failing voice] i am verbally abused at home, and, in turn, i verbally abuse my students. . . . what am i doing? why? i’m tired [points at the plant on her table] i’m like this plant. the plant needs sunshine and water, otherwise it will wither. that’s exactly what is happening to me! i’m withering in this school and, i must admit, my chaotic personal life is also contributing to my state! how i wish i could work as i do during tuitions at home! [heavy sigh] i’m so free and comfortable at home. there is a shift from maya’s classroom at school to her private tuition classroom at home. the grade 9 students take their seats and start working in groups. after some minutes, maya enters the stage, casually dressed, carrying her laptop and some books. her phone is still on her table; she puts her books on the scheme of work so that it is no longer visible to the audience. she has a broad smile and seems very happy. maya: hi, everyone. students: good afternoon, miss. neila: how was your day, miss? maya: oh, as usual—tiring! but, now my day is brightening [smiles broadly]. so, have you done your work? (appadoo-ramsamy, 2021, p. 130) the micro-institutional space maya’s agency varied in different spaces. her micro-institutional space was dominated by restrictions imposed by the rector who, as what foucault (1975) termed a technician of behaviour, controlled the teachers into subservience. the overshadowing rector’s presence 54 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 curtailed maya’s actions and behaviour. although the classroom is a space where the teacher should be free to enact her chosen agency, maya’s agency in that space was regulated by the rector’s unexpected but regular inspections. her choice to deliver and give much class work and homework was a response to the systemic conditioning at school. while during private tuition, teaching was therapeutic, at school she was miserable and continued to teach the way she was teaching prior to the reform. she did not show any interest in the reform and prioritised students’ performance because she was answerable to the school management. the burden of accountability constrained her agency. maya was thus presented as a bird with clipped wings—experiencing suffocation, which arose from a strict school culture privileging results. the dramatic representation, therefore, brought out the coexistence of multiple types of agencies by the same individual as exercised in different spaces. the officialised macro space teachers inhabit officialised spaces regulated by forces emanating from the broader macropolicy and micro-institutional environment. they often feel trapped in an uncontested terrain where they are expected to practise managed intimacy and adhere to policy dictates. for instance, the dominance of compliance within a conditioned context is captured in the following lines in the ethnodrama. veena: i’m sure there are so many other things that influence our way of thinking, but we can’t deny that the school and especially this exam-oriented structure controls the way we act, behave or think! maya: we have to embrace changes. i don’t think we have a choice. and, my school still functions in the same way. i don’t expect it to change unless the management changes! we continue to teach the way we have been teaching. but, yes, i’m investing a lot of time in my tuition. i need to prepare my students for their national examinations and the cambridge examinations! at least there i can teach the way i want to teach . . . no restrictions, no strict scheme of work, no “maya you can’t do this or you can’t do that.” . . . well, at work i can’t go against my rector, i still need my job! veena: sometimes we prefer not to voice our thoughts to rectors or deputy rectors, because we choose to stay in our comfort zone and because some of us have financial commitments. (appadoo-ramsamy, 2021, pp. 137–138) instead of being empowering, the school environment is dominated by an examinationoriented culture that echoes the sociocultural reality. while, during workshops, some teachers expressed a strong intent to innovate and devise new strategies to participate in curriculummaking, school realities often counter these tendencies with expectations of compliance to standardisation and accountability structures (erss, 2018; ryder et al., 2018). appadoo-ramsamy et al.: representing teachers’ voice 55 beyond active and passive teachers: agentic presentation of self the multiple forms of agency exercised in different spaces are mainly strategic and deliberate in response to personal and stakeholders’ expectations. an independence of self may, however, be observed as teachers consciously exercise agency in specific ways. for instance, aware of expectations within a socially, politically, and economically bounded space regulated by macro-policy forces, some teachers deliberately put up compliance for fear of losing their jobs or being tagged a “bad” teacher. although their dissatisfaction surfaces when talking with colleagues (in the staffroom or during workshops), they give in and adhere to a performance-oriented system. thus, these teachers consciously choose a representation of self and cannot be categorised as docile or as agentic. nor can it be deduced that a docile teacher is passive and withholds from challenging educational structures. instead, compliance and resistance, including potential rebelliousness, are various forms of agency that may emanate from the same individual. moreover, while literature on teacher agency acknowledges the influence of accountability and varied autonomy on agency (erss, 2018; tan, 2016), the helplessness of teachers who are compelled to comply is not emphasised. compliance is not a choice but a norm, as seen in maya’s reflections on her agency. maya: i’ve been working in a school, which functions like a form of dictatorship. we don’t have a voice, we can’t question anything, and we are always reprimanded. so, that’s sometimes discouraging. besides, the load of work and being scolded because you are supposedly responsible for students’ failure . . . yes, your place of work makes a difference. but i don’t think it’s only the school. look at me, i’m aware that my personal problems are frustrating me and i can’t give myself fully to my work. it’s not just the school. (appadoo-ramsamy, 2021, p. 137) ethnodrama enabled the researcher to present the complexity of teachers’ choices. despite being part of a managed intimacy guided by a politeness culture, their compliance emanates from various relational sources such as personal commitments and problems. the threedimensional structure of the ethnodrama allowed for a realistic depiction of teachers negotiating their roles, identities, and agency in spaces moulded by various influences (such as personal, micro-institutional, and macro-policy contexts). the final act of the ethnodrama: a fictionalised interaction about pandemic times while the ethnodrama enabled the presentation of the nuanced and complex ways in which teacher agency is exercised during curriculum reform, ending it with a fictional act was a means of emphasising the dynamic changing spaces that constantly influence agency. the closing act of the study was located two years after the introduction of the new reform (data were collected when the reform had been introduced). this movement in time 56 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 showcased the evolving roles, identities, and agencies of teachers. another change, namely the covid-19 pandemic that is impacting the social and temporal dimensions inhabited by the teacher, was introduced in this fictionalisation. this inclusion highlighted the fluidity of experiences and how the teacher’s context is influenced by both internal (new challenges as teachers reconsider teaching practices) and external forces (exerted on the macroand micropolicy contexts by the pandemic and other changes). also, by including another space (that of the examination workshop) and a new change in the dramatic landscape of the closing act, emphasis was laid on the fluidity of social, cultural, and political influences. the managed intimacy and politeness culture were therefore interpreted as part of a context that is evolving. despite the prevalence of this dominant capitulating culture in the data production site, participants displayed certain resistance and their desired agency or inner thoughts surfaced during the data production and co-construction of narrative. hence, the closing ethnodrama act underscored evolving teacher’s roles, identities, and agency, as seen below. maya: by the way, how was teaching during the confinement? veena: tiring! it was such a mess at the beginning! it was difficult for some students to cope with zoom, teams. . . maya [interrupting veena and sounding annoyed]: difficult? it was horrible! some students had no access to internet. fortunately, i already had whatsapp groups for some students. at a point, i started enjoying it, but then we had to report regularly to the rector. sara: poor you! it wasn’t easy, but a different experience . . . [lights dim as their voices gradually die down]. (appadoo-ramsamy, 2021, p. 219) imaginatively, the fluidity of experiences and entanglement of agencies presented in this fictional conversation between the emblematic characters reflect the plurality of agencies and the entangled and evolving experiences. most importantly, this form of representation of teacher agency was not to proffer a solution to the phenomenon. instead, it opened doors to future research on teachers’ responsiveness to a dynamic personal and professional environment. the researcher mediating the co-construction of the ethnodrama the positionality of the researcher was an important influence on the construction and coconstruction of stories. according to barad (2012), the researcher is part of the diffracted and entangled experiences, and truths that come out of a study as researchers are “part of the world’s differential becoming” (p. 77) and there is no “absolute insides or outsides” (p. 9). hence, the positionality of the researcher is redefined during the analysis, interpretation, and representation. in the ethnodrama, the lead researcher allowed herself to be disrupted and appadoo-ramsamy et al.: representing teachers’ voice 57 included her narratives and reflection in act iv. this dramatic space echoed her immersion in the lives or life histories of the participants who, at times individualised and at times emblematically exercised various forms of agencies while negotiating their roles and identities in a changing landscape. the co-construction and interpretation of narratives increased subjectivity even if ethical considerations and reflexivity were upheld. the researcher’s presence in the lives of the participants as an insider (an educator) and as an outsider (textbook writer and lecturer) may have catalysed the filtering of memories or fear of sharing in the initial stages. as an insider, she was an accomplice in complying with the examination culture despite at times resisting; she had also been conditioned by similar ideologies, which explains the parallel ontological positions of the participants and researcher. hence, the impossibility of dissociating the participants’ and the researcher’s experiences was highlighted in act iv where the researcher’s and teachers’ voices merge. concluding thoughts while the different characters reflect different biographical experiences and represent different types of micro-institutional spaces, it is interesting to observe the entanglement of their experiences and how the different life stories fuse into common truths—why they exercise agency the way they do. theoretically, the ethnodrama allowed the researcher, by adopting barad’s (2007, 2010, 2014) theory of diffraction at a later stage of analysis, to bring out the entanglement whereby a teacher may exercise agency in different entangled ways simultaneously: in regulated and unregulated spaces; in dealing with students, rectors, and parents; and in sharing with peers during workshops and at school. the ethnodrama, therefore, assisted in acknowledging the plurality of agency. while existing literature has explained agency as an ecological and sociological phenomenon, the ethnodrama, along with barad’s analytical framework, reveals the turbulence, complexity, fluidity, and coexistence of diffracted agencies as teachers exist simultaneously in different spatial and temporal dimensions. a closer analysis of the thematic strands of embedded spatial and temporal forces and the impact on agency sheds light on the reasons why teachers exercise agency— not in the simplistic dichotomous way that we started with at the beginning of the study, but through complex and entangled ways. as a methodological representation, the ethnodrama resolved the challenges of exposing and rendering vulnerable participants in a small island through the creation of emblematic characters. moreover, the similarities in experiences and forceful compliance in a context of managed intimacy were captured within the three-dimensional structure of the ethnodrama. also, while the emblematic characters were created to protect the participants’ identity, this artistic creation filtered the individuality of participants for the creation of a collective voice. nevertheless, this does not challenge validity or the representation of truths (saldaña, 2005) as verbatim lifting from transcripts and creation of settings based on observations and descriptions of experiences during interviews ensured a realistic portrayal of experiences in the ethnodrama script. 58 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 the ethnodrama, therefore, emanates as a choice made by the researcher to engage with participants’ voices in the co-construction of a representational form that valorises both researcher and participants’ voices and interpretations. the argument emphasises the challenges of representing the varied voices of fieldwork activity. moreover, it suggests that the voices include not just the researcher’s interpretations of the fieldwork, but also the multifaceted worldviews of the researched as well as the potential broader audience of the research. the research space is entangled with varied living present entities and off-the-stage interlocutors. this study challenges the arrogance of researchers who choose to talk on behalf of their participants. researchers may be considered as patronising or even silencing the voice of the researched when the powerful teller of participant stories chooses to represent the “voice of the voiceless.” sometimes, researchers present their research endeavour as some form of empowerment of those who are placed on the margins. instead, the ethnodrama as a representational device allows both the researcher and their participants to coexist in an interactive dialogical engagement. this dialogical space allows for both the researcher and the researched to authentically cohere, contest, and even oppose varying views about the phenomenon that is being explored. furthermore, the representation of a drama format invites an unseen audience into making its own interpretations of the presented unfolding dramatic dialogue. the format celebrates the complexity of shared meaning-makings drawing on multiple interlocutors rather than presenting hierarchically only the voice of the researcher as the prime teller of the tale. this ethnodrama, therefore, invites a broadening of talking and listening complexly to the voices of the participants in the field. the medium is the message because the ethnodrama attends to how we tell the stories of the participants (representation), which is as important as what stories need to be told (the propositional content). the choice of representation is an essential analytical component, which captures the complexity of the phenomenon as lived and experienced by participants. the drawing of the voices of the specific participants of this study of teachers from a small island context into a world stage of theorising teacher agency is 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(2015). teachers’ professional agency in contradictory times. teachers and teaching, 21(6), 615–623. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2015.1044334 tran, h. (2018). teacher agency in times of educational change: the case of transitioned teachers in vietnam. current issues in language planning, 20(5), 544–559. https://doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2018.1553912 microsoft word b86 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 86, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x book review understanding higher education: alternative perspectives (2021) by chrissie boughey and sioux mckenna (african minds. isbn: 9781928502210) sherran clarence doctoral school and research operations, nottingham trent university, nottingham, united kingdom sherran.clarence@ntu.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2777-4420 (received: 2 march 2022) higher education globally faces multiple challenges from decreased state funding, through increased enrolments, to the growing diversity and changing needs of students and staff. in countries like south africa and others in the global south—the higher education systems to which this book speaks most directly—universities are also asked to stand in where the state may struggle to provide adequate support, for example, by providing students with funding, housing, food, and health care, including mental health care. in such a complex, layered, and challenged system, the questions we ask about students’ access to, progress through, and ultimate success in attaining the “goods” higher education can provide need to be carefully posed. and we need critical answers that look beyond what individual students (and staff) are doing to succeed towards theorised understandings of universities as comprising structures and deeply rooted (and protected) cultures that reflect the societies they are part of. this book offers such an account, positing that we cannot truly understand and, therefore, provide the necessary access to and success in higher education if we cannot see the connections between, for example, neoliberal market forces, the culture of new public management, and the way universities are managed and funded. in other words, we must see individuals—lecturers, students, administrators, vice-chancellors—as part of a much larger system that has its own “rules of the game” and ways of working, which are internally and externally shaped and influenced. this system, therefore, has structures and cultures that impact on what individuals can achieve, sometimes despite all their motivation and hard work. if we cannot see these structures and the deeper culture of our institutions as both able to constrain and open possibilities for students and staff, we are more likely to fall back onto common-sense or overly individualised explanations for why some students succeed and many others do not, and why some staff feel at home and many others feel otherwise. these kinds of explanations, and the processes and policies they would give rise to, would be far more likely to entrench and protect statuses quo that are exclusionary, unjust, and unkind to those who have always been excluded or pushed to the side in one way or another, such as working-class students and staff, those who identify as lgbtqi+, students and staff with 184 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 disabilities, black and indigenous students and staff, and international students and staff to name a few of the main markers of exclusion. if we are protecting the status quo that offers meaningful success to those who have always had access to this and, perhaps, a few more but not to all students, then we are resisting deeper transformation of the cultures of our universities and of the structures we create that enable some to move through the system with ease while many others encounter hurdle after hurdle. if we are serious about social justice— and we should be—then we need to challenge this resistance and move past it. it is this broader issue that this book addresses: how do we see, theorise, and thereby really understand our own roles in the higher education system and the university we are part of, and which is part of the larger system? how do we use this understanding to create more socially just ways of doing higher education? the premise of the book is that we need theorised understandings of how higher education has been created and sustained, especially in post-colonial societies where higher education is tasked with providing both public and private goods—educating graduates who can contribute ably and critically both to the growth and development of the economy and to the growth and transformation of society. theorised accounts, especially using critical social theory as the authors have (specifically the work of roy bhaskar and margaret archer), can help us to look past common-sense understandings of, for example, why students are not doing what we expect them to do with their writing, reading, or assessments, or why some lecturers come to all the staff development events and others tend to stay away or seek help elsewhere. if we cannot actually see that, in the first example, students may be doing something else because we have not actually made clear to them how and why the discipline we are teaching works in terms of how we write, read, and create, debate, and critique knowledge, then how can we change this? if we cannot see, in the second example, that the environments we create and sustain may make some staff members feel comfortable and others feel excluded, then how can we help everyone to find a place of belonging? we need critical theory to help us push past easy accounts towards more difficult but more productive and necessary perspectives that can engender change. one of the significant strengths of this book is how clearly and accessibly it is written; the theory is complex but the authors tread lightly, explaining the theoretical framework clearly in chapter 2 and then weaving it through their discussion of the dominant discourses and policy challenges (chapter 3), discourses that shape how we see and teach our students (chapter 4), curriculum design (chapter 5), and academic staff development (chapter 6). the authors walk the reader carefully and concisely through a complex and layered system, drawing out relevance for higher education contexts outside of south africa and the global south. this is no mean feat and it is refreshing to read a text that actually explains what terms like “the knowledge economy,” “neoliberalism,” and “massification” mean, given that these have become buzzwords and, as such, are often mentioned as if their meaning is clear when that is not always the case, especially for scholars and readers who are new to higher education studies. this book is essential reading for scholars of higher education and for academics who want to better understand the system they work in, themselves, and their students. microsoft word b87 full issue 14072022.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 87, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i87a06 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x voice and voicelessness in the construction of assessment policies: participation as a relevant dimension in the potential impact on teaching and learning1 maría teresa flórez petour department of pedagogical studies, faculty of philosophy and humanities, university of chile, santiago, chile mtflorez@uchile.cl https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3704-726x (received: 14 october 2021; accepted: 23 may 2022) abstract this article critically analyses the currently predominant processes of construction of large-scale assessment policies by applying bowe et al.’s (1992) policy cycle framework in the analysis of the national curriculum assessment system in chile. based on qualitative evidence that includes media and policy texts analysis, ethnographic work, and interviews with key policy actors, it aims at illustrating the disparity of participation in policy design as a potential reason for the lack of impact of these policies on teaching and learning. the findings point to a need for reconceptualising our framework for the understanding of the processes of construction of large-scale assessment policies by overcoming the rationale of market-oriented accountability systems that predominate nowadays. alternatives are explored through examples of large-scale assessment systems with a higher parity of participation of stakeholders in policy design and policy enactment. keywords: participation, large-scale assessment, accountability, policy the conceptualisation of large-scale assessment policies in market-based accountability systems the expansion of market-based and result-oriented accountability systems in education, in which large-scale standardised testing plays a significant role, has been widely documented in recent decades. authors like falabella and de la vega (2016) have systematised this global trend and its main components, which they described as characterised by: • a focus on the concept of quality as measured by standardised assessment systems with an aim of establishing hierarchies and comparisons in the context of a market 1 the study on which this paper draws was developed in the context of two different funding schemes: iniciativa bicentenario, university of chile (2015–2016) and fondecyt iniciación no. 11170316, anid (2017–2021). 116 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 oriented education system. this focus also involves an assumption of these systems as being able to generate an improvement in the quality and equity of teaching and learning. • the responsibility for results and their improvement as being situated in school communities—thus sidelining broader social, cultural, and economic factors that might have an influence in the quality and equity of education. • competition and comparison as the main drivers of the education systems—under the assumption that increased competition through school choice has the potential of improving the quality of education. • a managerial perspective in which results should be the basis on which informed decision-making is made, with a high reliance on assessment instruments as valid evidence of quality and as a good means to inform good teaching and learning. in this context, the links between the reports of results and the processes of pedagogical reflection that should derive from them are seldom explicit. • a series of incentives and consequences that are connected to results, and which operate under the assumption that they will motivate schools towards improvement— thus sidelining other internal motivations of school communities and reducing the functioning of the system to extrinsic motivation through external control. this summary of the characteristics that falabella and de la vega (2016) attributed to these systems reveals the way in which a connection is assumed between large-scale assessment systems and a positive impact on teaching and learning and, therefore, on the quality of education as a whole. research evidence, however, has been consistent in highlighting that the effects of these systems in the context of market-oriented accountability policies are quite the contrary. negative effects such as teaching to the test, narrowing of the curriculum, teacher burnout and stress for school communities, discrimination and gaming practices in institutions, stigmatisation of schools that serve more socioeconomically disadvantaged students, the lack of motivation towards pedagogical innovation and the search for success formulas, and the feelings of frustration and demotivation as a consequence of low results have been widely documented in recent decades (berryhill et al., 2009; darling-hammond & rustique-forrester, 2005; falabella 2016a, 2016b, 2020; falabella & de la vega, 2016; shepard, 1992; unesco, 2017, among many others). in addition to this, falabella and de la vega (2016) concluded that research evidence about the effect of these assessment systems on the improvement of learning results is not conclusive and, therefore, the assumption of accountability mechanisms as a driver for increased learning is called into question. in the case of chile, a context that is seen as an extreme example of the implementation of these mechanisms, policy reports tend to place in school actors the responsibility for these consequences, and for the lack of an informed use of results (comisión sistema de medición de la calidad de la educación, 2003; equipo de tarea, 2015)—arguing for the need for increased support and capacity building in these communities. this perspective leaves as blind spots the need to revise the design of policy, as well as the pedagogical relevance of the instruments used by policy as a potential reason for the lack of positive impact on teaching and learning. flórez petour: voice and voicelessness in the construction of assessment policies 117 authors like bowe et al. (1992) have provided a framework on how policy is conceptualised in neoliberal and market-oriented education systems, which could explain why the assumptions of result-oriented accountability policies are not met. according to these authors, with the spread of managerial logics in education, a linear and top-down understanding of policy construction became predominant (bowe et al., 1992). from this perspective, the stages of policy design and policy implementation are seen as separate spaces, where the former is seen as the realm of “experts” who develop guidelines for action, and the latter is seen as the responsibility of school actors who are conceptualised as mere executors of someone else’s design (bowe et al., 1992). when policy is understood from this logic, schools become an easy target in the responsibilisation for the failure of policy, leaving the design made by experts unscathed. this could also be among the reasons why schools experience these policies as external, imposed, and scarcely relevant to pedagogical practice, with the lack of use of results as a consequence (flórez et al., 2018). given the predominance of market-based accountability systems, it is not strange to forget that other approaches to accountability are possible, such as bureaucratic and professional accountability (falabella & de la vega, 2016). authors like onora o’neil (2013) and pasi sahlberg (2010) have argued for the need to question current approaches to accountability and to promote new ways of understanding collective responsibility in education. these authors advocate for the development of what they call intelligent accountability, where principles such as trust and mutual responsibility replace the top-down and control-oriented approaches that currently dominate policy (o’neil, 2013; sahlberg, 2010). they have also criticised the narrowness of the information that is collected and provided through large-scale assessment systems, given that it does not point at relevant and contextualised learning and it does not benefit pedagogical practice from a formative perspective (o’neil, 2013; sahlberg, 2010). quite the contrary, the consequences attached to these systems generate an impoverishment of pedagogical practice due to its reduction to what external tests promote as valuable learning. long-standing critical voices in the field of assessment policy have provided evidence about the disconnection between test-based accountability systems and the enhancement of pedagogy—despite this being an assumption in these systems. this article aims at questioning current modes of understanding the construction of assessment policies and situates this understanding among the reasons for the lack of impact on teaching and learning. it assumes a more complex, dynamic, multi-voiced, and contested conceptualisation of these processes and applies it to the critical analysis of the national curriculum assessment system in chile as a policy case in order to illustrate how lack of parity of participation in policy design might be one of the reasons why market-based accountability policies are unable to fulfil their promises. theoretical framework in order to gain a more complex understanding of policy construction processes, this study draws on the tradition of critical policy scholarship. this involves going beyond the strand of 118 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 research for policy, which is limited to provide guidelines for policy improvement, and assuming an approach that considers a critical analysis of how policy is constructed in the context of a struggle for meaning in its definition. in particular, the policy cycle model by bowe et al. (1992) was considered appropriate for the kind of problems that were addressed by this research. this approach seeks to overcome linear conceptualisations of policy as something that “‘gets done’ to people by a chain of implementors whose roles are clearly defined by legislation” (bowe et al., 1992, p. 7) and where the dissociation between those who generate policy and those who are expected to implement it is naturalised. exclusion of the latter from policy design is taken for granted in these conceptualisations. as bowe et al. (1992) stated, the governmental position is assumed as unequivocal and problems are, thus, seen as errors of implementation. bowe et al. (1992) instead developed a dynamic understanding of policy as a process characterised by power struggles in which meanings are negotiated, contested, reinterpreted, and translated through a continual recontextualisation of policy texts. this approach involves, on the one hand, an understanding of policy as text in terms of the diverse contexts where it is used and the procedures through which different actors get involved in what the authors saw as “continual political struggles over access to the policy process” (bowe et al., 1992, p. 10). from this perspective, policy texts are understood as open spaces where contradictions can be traced as “the outcome of struggle and compromise” (bowe et al., p. 21). on the other hand, this also involves understanding policy as discourse, that is, as a series of claims about the values through which education should be understood and taken into practice, with multiple effects and possibilities for reinterpretation across the policy process (bowe et al., 1992). later developments by stephen ball and his colleagues have added new layers to the understanding of policy processes and these were also considered relevant in the conceptualisation of the study. in particular, the policy cycle model suggests considering three main contexts, namely, the context of influence, the context of policy text production, and the context of practice, which are not seen as rational stages of a linear process (ball, 1993) but, rather, as spaces that overlap and interact with each other in the struggle for meaning. the context of influence is understood as the domain where the definition of the politics of policies is disputed by antagonist actors. in the words of bowe et al., “it is here that interested parties struggle to influence the definition and social purposes of education, what it means to be educated” (1992, p. 19). the context of influence demands an answer to questions around those ideologies, power relations, and interests that take place within a broader sociopolitical context—aspects that frame who can speak, and what can be said about policy. the context of policy text production refers to the space in which ideologies, values, and hegemonic discourses disputing the context of influence are represented in texts, usually “in the language of the general public good,” as an attempt to control the meaning of policy (bowe et al., p. 20). it entails the process in which policy is encoded in the form of official documents, instructions, public speeches, and press communications that seek to guide the roles, goals, and practices that the different policy subjects/agents should follow. policy text production is not coherent, and the resulting texts tend to express diverse tensions, contradictions, and discontinuities. policy texts, indeed, often result in a fabric “heteroglossic flórez petour: voice and voicelessness in the construction of assessment policies 119 in character,” which interweaves different interests “to achieve apparent consensus and legitimacy” (lingard & ozga, 2007, p. 2). finally, the context of practice is the main realm to which policy text production is addressed, and specific responses are expected from its actors and institutions. but policy texts involve both constraints and possibilities and, given that practitioners “come with histories, with experience, with values and purposes of their own,” their responses are never passive because they always entail interpretation and recreation (bowe et al., p. 22). hence, questions regarding this dimension focus on how recontextualisation takes place and is disputed by the different actors involved in the context of practice, and the ways in which policy shapes subjectivities, values, and power relations at a micro level. these processes of recreation, interpretation, translation, and resistance are understood in later developments by ball et al. (2012) as policy enactment. this framework has the potential to offer a more complex and dynamic approach to the understanding of market-based accountability policies that strongly rely on external assessment systems. from this perspective, the lack of impact of these systems on teaching and learning is not merely seen as a failure of practitioners who have not been able to implement policy as intended by policy makers but, rather, as the result of a way of constructing assessment policies that has systematically excluded practitioners from the formulation of policy. this exclusion, as discussed later in this paper, leads to a perception of these policies as distant and imposed, with the lack of use of its results in teaching and learning as a natural consequence. methodological design the sistema de medición de la calidad de la educación [system for the measurement of quality in education], known as simce, was selected as a case for this study. this system was created in 1988 as a means to measure learning around the curriculum at a national level in chile. it was legally instituted in 1990 by the organic law for education promulgated before the end of pinochet’s dictatorship, with the specific aim of informing the school market with an indicator of quality that facilitated parental choice and competition for student enrolment between schools, along with the purpose of informing policy through its results. it was administered by the ministry of education from 1992 and, after 2012, its administration was transferred to the agency for quality in education, a governmental agency independent from the ministry. it consists of a battery of tests in language and mathematics (and history and science, in some levels) where items predominantly correspond to multiple-choice questions. its purposes have accumulated in time and its frequency has also grown. more importantly, its consequences have increased, with an impact that, in the present, includes not only the public image of the school through open publication of results but also the salaries of teachers, a part of schools’ financial scheme, and the potential closure of educational institutions with repeated low results (flórez, 2018). all this turns simce into a high-stakes assessment system connected to a wide variety of policies, and also into a crucial piece in the operation of the market-oriented education system in chile. this has led to increased 120 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 criticism towards the policy among different actors; demands for its reform have emerged throughout the different waves of the social movement for education in 2006 and 2011, with support from different actors (critical researchers, students, teachers), culminating in a call from students to boycott the test in 2013. criticism continues in the present and an intense debate is now taking place in chile around the continuity of simce. it is, therefore, an interesting case in the exploration of large-scale assessment policies given that it is situated in a country that is known as a paradigmatic case in the implementation of market-oriented education policies (verger et al., 2016). with the policy cycle approach as a conceptual framework, this study aimed at exploring the following research questions: • what are the main actors and their interactions in the definition of policy in simce and the discourses they sustain in connection to the test? • who speaks and who is spoken for or (re)presented in policy texts in simce? • what processes of interpretation, translation, and resistance occur in school communities when enacting the simce policy? • how is the policy around simce constructed and produced, considering the network of actors involved in the whole process, their interactions, and the discourses that circulate between them? to respond to the complex nature of these questions, a multidisciplinary approach guided the study, facilitated by a team whose composition involved multiple fields of expertise (media analysis, discourse analysis, sociology of education, and ethnography). using the varied expertise of the team to enrich our understanding of policy, multiple sources were considered, including media texts, policy documents, interviews with key actors, and ethnographic data collection. the strategies for data collection and analysis are described below. media texts the selection in this case was restricted to editorials and news in written press, specifically in two major circulation newspapers in chile (el mercurio and la tercera). a first round of selection included all the editorials and news that were published in connection to simce in 2014, which were analysed using critical discourse analysis (cda). in order to broaden our findings in terms of the historical trajectory of simce, a second phase of the project involved the selection of the editorials and news that were published in both newspapers during the years 2000, 2003, 2008, and 2010, specifically in those months when results were released and when the test was taken. these years were selected because they constituted crucial points in the development of simce, according to our previous knowledge about its historical trajectory. the second sample was first analysed using the concept of framing in media studies (entman, 2007), which allowed for a general mapping of actors and sources and for a general view of the problems and solutions attached to the (re)presentation of simce in media. these news and editorials were later analysed using cda, keeping some of the categories used in the 2014 sample, in order to facilitate some comparisons. flórez petour: voice and voicelessness in the construction of assessment policies 121 policy texts and interviews with key actors a sample of 272 policy texts (33 texts from experts, 59 legal documents, 180 policy-useroriented documents) was selected considering different periods in the historical trajectory of simce (1988–1995, 1996–2000, 2001–2005, 2006–2010, 2011–2015). an initial scanning and analysis of these documents was carried out. on the basis of this first round of analysis, seven documents were selected for detailed cda, considering the degree to which they represented the tensions that characterised each period. simultaneously, the initial scanning and analysis served as a basis to select a group of 12 actors who held key roles in the trajectory of construction of policy texts around simce. some of these actors were also the authors of the policy texts that were selected for detailed analysis. participants included government officials, heads of technical units for the development of the test, and two members of the teachers union who had been actively involved in public discussions around this policy. semi-structured interviews were carried out with these actors with the aim of enriching the information provided by documents. ethnographic data a qualitative ethnographic methodological approach was used to understand how schools translated and interpreted the simce policy. this involved sustained presence in schools with a special emphasis on daily social relations (geertz, 2005; rockwell, 2009). cases were selected considering three main criteria: school categorisation, geographic location, willingness to participate in the study. two schools categorised as “emergent,”2 which were previously categorised as “recovering,” were selected (sur school and rosa school). a third school categorised as “autonomous,”3 and from the same geographic area was also included in the study (novo school). data collection focused on the period when simce was taken, and involved observation registers, interviews, as well as more informal observations. for ethical reasons, the names of the schools correspond to pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. during and after the process of data collection and analysis, the interdisciplinary team held extensive meetings both to increase consistency in the process of analysis (when multiple analysts were working with a single set of data) and to discuss emerging findings and trends or patterns in data. these meetings allowed for an increasingly integrated approach in the reconstruction of the process around the simce policy, where the three contexts were portrayed as interacting in a single dynamic whole. 2 since the promulgation of law 20.248 in 2008, which establishes a system for preferential subvention for schools who receive higher levels of vulnerable students, chilean state schools are categorised in three types according to their results in simce and other indicators—although simce constitutes the main means of categorisation (70% against 30% of other indicators). in this context, “recovering” schools are those who have had repeated low results in these tests, “emergent” schools are the ones who have not shown consistently increasing results over time, and “autonomous” schools are those whose results have improved systematically. the consequences of this categorisation are related to a higher or lower level of supervision and intervention according to results. 3 see footnote 2. 122 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 voice and voicelessness in the construction of assessment policies: why would an impact on teaching and learning be expected? as can be imagined, findings from a study of this magnitude are multiple and open different avenues for interpretation. in this paper, only those findings that are relevant to the topic under scrutiny are addressed, namely: • whose voice predominates in the policy landscape and whose voice is spoken for. • the discursive strategies that are deployed in public discourse in order to exclude or silence some voices who hold differing views about the use and meaningfulness of simce in practice. • the way in which actors see each other as a source of distance that hinders mutual understanding and the inclusion of different groups of interest in policy design. these findings are presented through examples that are illustrative of features that emerged as relevant patterns in the process of analysis. with regards to the voices that predominate in the policy landscape, the analysis of media and policy texts showed similar patterns. part of the analysis involved categorising the types of actors that appeared in these texts and also distinguishing between those who were (re)presented as mere actors and those who were given direct voice through quotations. as figure 1 illustrates, in media texts “executive power and bureaucracy” and “experts” were the voices with the highest number of direct quotations; members of school communities showed a high presence as actors and were mainly presented as receivers of policy actions and as a sort of background where they were spoken through predominant voices. direct quotations for these actors were lower compared to authorities and experts, and they appeared in the material predominantly in the shape of testimonies of teachers, head teachers, and students who, despite their socioeconomically disadvantaged context, were able to perform well in the test. some examples of this (re)presentation of schools can be found in headlines such as “the case of the poorest school with the best score” (pavez, 2008), “the strategy of children in melipilla who overcame the limits of simce” (gutiérrez, 2003), “vulnerable schools narrate new methods: strategies to triumph in simce” (dalgalarrando, 2008), “exceptions in simce: new strategies demolish the myth of the socioeconomic factor. private [consultants] raise performance of poor schools” (zúñiga & aravena, 2003). in that sense, the direct voice of school communities is used to legitimise the discourse sustained by authorities and experts. flórez petour: voice and voicelessness in the construction of assessment policies figure 1 total of frequency actors and sources 2000 consistent with the results from media analysis as one of the predominant sources in sources that emerged from this analysis were “international organisations,” with “think tanks” and “private foundations” acquiring a more prominent presence after 2003 completely absent from these documents, appearing again as a background and as the passive receivers of policy. some documents produced by expert committees whose work involved audiences with school actors present a sort of simulation of their direct voices by grouping their perspectives in a single whole, thus generating a consensus effect where they all appear to agree. the excerpt below illustrates this discursive strategy: summary of audiences with head teachers, teachers and school administrators: on the basis of the audiences it is possible to identify positive and negative elements in connection to simce from the perspective of schools and administrators. positive aspects: [simce] is considered a technically solid measurement system, whose results can be relied upon. pra manifested that they believed that a national assessment of learning is necessary, particularly to monitor achievement and to generate support when weaknesses are identified. (author’s translation of this quotation illustrates the way in which potential differences between these actors are hidden under an appearance of consensus. no differences in trends were detected between the perspectives of head teachers and administrators compared to those of tea a highly segregated education system like chile, it is hard to believe that the views of actors from state-administered schools would be similar to those of privately owned schools. this difference was not made explicit in the text. ou in the context of cda also detected a fallacious construction of the argument in this example petour: voice and voicelessness in the construction of assessment policies frequency actors and sources 2000–2014 consistent with the results from media analysis, “executive power and bureaucracy” predominant sources in the analysis of policy texts. additionally, other relevant is analysis were other policy “documents,” “experts,” and “international organisations,” with “think tanks” and “private foundations” acquiring a more prominent presence after 2003. the direct voice of actors from school communities is om these documents, appearing again as a background and as the passive receivers of policy. some documents produced by expert committees whose work involved audiences with school actors present a sort of simulation of their direct voices by grouping perspectives in a single whole, thus generating a consensus effect where they all appear to agree. the excerpt below illustrates this discursive strategy: summary of audiences with head teachers, teachers and school administrators: on the ences it is possible to identify positive and negative elements in connection to simce from the perspective of schools and administrators. positive aspects: [simce] is considered a technically solid measurement system, whose results can be relied upon. practically all the actors invited to the audiences manifested that they believed that a national assessment of learning is necessary, particularly to monitor achievement and to generate support when weaknesses are identified. (author’s translation of equipo de tarea, 2015, p. 4) this quotation illustrates the way in which potential differences between these actors are hidden under an appearance of consensus. no differences in trends were detected between the perspectives of head teachers and administrators compared to those of teachers. similarly, in a highly segregated education system like chile, it is hard to believe that the views of actors administered schools would be similar to those of privately owned schools. this difference was not made explicit in the text. our analysis of rhetorical elements of discourse in the context of cda also detected a fallacious construction of the argument in this example petour: voice and voicelessness in the construction of assessment policies 123 “executive power and bureaucracy” emerged . additionally, other relevant other policy “documents,” “experts,” and “international organisations,” with “think tanks” and “private foundations” acquiring a more . the direct voice of actors from school communities is om these documents, appearing again as a background and as the passive receivers of policy. some documents produced by expert committees whose work involved audiences with school actors present a sort of simulation of their direct voices by grouping perspectives in a single whole, thus generating a consensus effect where they all appear summary of audiences with head teachers, teachers and school administrators: on the ences it is possible to identify positive and negative elements in connection to simce from the perspective of schools and administrators. positive aspects: [simce] is considered a technically solid measurement system, ctically all the actors invited to the audiences manifested that they believed that a national assessment of learning is necessary, particularly to monitor achievement and to generate support when weaknesses are this quotation illustrates the way in which potential differences between these actors are hidden under an appearance of consensus. no differences in trends were detected between the chers. similarly, in a highly segregated education system like chile, it is hard to believe that the views of actors administered schools would be similar to those of privately owned schools. this r analysis of rhetorical elements of discourse in the context of cda also detected a fallacious construction of the argument in this example 124 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 in that the necessity and relevance of having a national assessment system is artificially connected to the need for maintaining simce—a system that is criticised by actors from school communities, critical research, and social movements. this simulation of direct voice, therefore, shows the way in which the perspectives of actors outside the elite of policymakers and experts are appropriated in order to support and legitimise predominant voices. this is reinforced in our analysis of policy texts by the detection of a higher level of individualisation and nomination for actors from executive power and bureaucracy and experts—in contrast to the presentation of actors from school communities mainly grouped in categories related to their role in the system. the effect is an invisibilisation of their experiences with simce in public discourse, as illustrated bellow. a second pattern in our findings is related to a series of discursive strategies commonly deployed in media and policy texts, all of which contribute to the silencing and exclusion of voices from the context of influence and the context of practice. these strategies are defined below: • delegitimisation: refers to the representation of opposing views in discourse as nonlegitimate (van dijk, 1999). • affiliation: involves those strategies in which actors do not speak for themselves but are rather spoken for through members or representatives of a group or institution that appropriates their voices (van dijk, 1999). • naturalisation/neutralisation/depoliticisation: to present a specific policy/political/ideological context as a given, as naturally emerging and, therefore, as neutral and potentially unchangeable. • positivisation: aspects that are portrayed as negative by school communities and some researchers are presented in positive terms. • silencing/exclusion: the elision of a specific actor or its voice in the construction of the text. while a myriad of examples of these strategies emerges from the study, only a small set of illustrative cases is offered here. first, a contrast of voices is presented in the excerpts below to show how positivisation and affiliation generate an invisibilisation of the experience of school communities. one of them comes from an expert who was the national coordinator of simce between 2008 and 2012 and who continues to hold high management positions in connection to this policy in the agency for quality in education: [1] additionally, results from the tests have allowed for feedback in relation to pedagogical and management practices in schools, through the distribution of reports for teachers and school managers, the organisation of seminars to disseminate results and days of analysis in schools. (author’s translation of document from expert also in charge of the unit that develops simce, 2011) the second set of quotations emerges from the ethnographic strand of the study, showing the way in which simce is experienced in schools: flórez petour: voice and voicelessness in the construction of assessment policies 125 [2] i would say it is chaotic at some points. the stress is too much. it goes beyond you being supervised or not. it is personal; it is related to the goals they set for you, along with the reality of children. (author’s translation of rosa school teacher) [3] i am worried that my colleagues, because i retire in a couple of years, my new colleagues, the young ones, won’t have a job, because you know that a school with bad results can even be closed. (author’s translation of nova school teacher) [4] standardised instruments do not consider diversity . . . they do not include the context, they do not consider these children who learn in a different way (author’s translation of head teacher, sur school) the contrast is apparent between a positive view of the potential value of the test for improving pedagogical reflection and practice, repeatedly articulated in the policy documents that were analysed, and a distressing narrative of the experiences of teachers in connection to the test—and who also highlight the way in which diversity and context are sidelined to the detriment of students’ learning needs; this is very distant from the pedagogical use of results that is intended in policy documents. the findings from the ethnographic work repeatedly show that schools participate in simce mainly due to its consequences and not because they see the test as pedagogically useful. this is consistent with findings from research in the last decade about the effects of simce in schools (see, for example, acuña et al., 2014; centro de investigación y desarrollo de la educación, 2012; de la vega & picazo, 2016; falabella 2016a, 2016b, 2020; flórez, 2013; ortiz, 2012; rojas & leyton, 2015, among many others), so this is far from being an isolated experience. in that sense, the idea of the potential impact of high-stakes standardised tests used for market accountability purposes on teaching and learning is more an assumption of experts and policymakers than a reality in schools. this interpretation is supported by research that reveals the lack of use and understanding of results in school communities (taut et al., 2009), along with perceptions of the limited potential of the test in terms of feedback for pedagogical practice (manzi et al., 2014). policy documents, however, place the responsibility for this lack of use in the need for capacity building in schools in terms of learning how to use results (see, for example, equipo de tarea, 2015), without any consideration that the information provided by these assessment policies might be pedagogically irrelevant. this analysis illustrates how the strategies of affiliation, positivisation, and silencing/exclusion operate in policy and media texts. in excerpt 1, the voice of actors from schools is spoken by the expert author to assimilate it to his views. the negative experiences of schools, presented in excerpts 2, 3, and 4, are erased from public discourse (silencing/exclusion) and are presented from a positive narrative about the impact of simce in their pedagogical practice (positivisation). in another policy document, the distressing narrative of teachers is positivised by using the term “urgencia por mejorar [urgency for improvement]” (equipo de tarea, 2015, p. 6) to describe the effect that the test generates in schools as a means of presenting negative experiences in a positive fashion. another example that illustrates the deployment of these strategies derives from the analysis of the ways in which some actors are portrayed throughout the trajectory of the simce 126 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 policy. in the case of students, for example, before the series of social movements for education that began in 2006, media and policy texts tended to address them in a passive way; they were represented as recipients of actions related to simce and its results or as illustrative examples of success from disadvantaged schools. however, since their attempt to boycott the test in 2013, students became agents in the policyscape by opposing and acting against simce, and their representation in discourse changed accordingly. as the following examples from an editorial in a national circulation newspaper illustrate, their position began to be neutralised, affiliated, and delegitimised by those actors who held a higher degree of power over public discourse. although there were very specific cases, the test boycott attempt is absurd, as it goes against themselves and their own schools. although the instrument can be improved and complemented with other measurements, it is one of the few tools with which the education system counts to measure the level of learning of students and it is a device that allows to identify strengths and weaknesses, thus facilitating the correction of formative processes. additionally, it is a mechanism that provides parents with useful information in the election of the school for their children; in the same vein, it is used as a factor in the provision of performance-related funding. students must recognise that actions of this sort are counter-productive and reflect an inconsistency with their own demands, which point at the strengthening of school teaching. additionally, criticisms towards simce expressed by minority sectors of students have been favourably welcome by the authority. (author’s paraphrase of la tercera, 2014) a first mechanism of delegitimation in these excerpts is portraying the movement as a small group or a minority (very specific cases/expressed by minority sectors). a second delegitimation strategy apparent in the editorial referenced above is the use of negative terms to refer to the intentions of students (absurd/counter-productive), along with the naturalisation of the good effects they attribute to the test (facilitates correcting formative processes/provides parents with useful information/a factor in the provision of performancerelated funding). the demands of students in relation to the negative effects of this policy and its connection to a market-oriented model of education, therefore, are silenced and criticism is reduced to aspects of the test that can be improved. additionally, a strategy of affiliation is detected in the use the students’ demand for ‘the strengthening of school teaching’ against themselves; if students want an education of good quality, then they should agree with simce. a positivisation strategy is also found, for example, when the provision of performance-related funding is presented in a positive light—contrary to evidence from research and also from our own ethnographic data that refers to the perception of teachers and school leaders about the negative consequences of these mechanisms. these include effects such as the decontextualisation of pedagogical practice to the detriment of diversity in learning, teacher burnout, and stress for schools. finally, depoliticisation is illustrated by the way in which policies that are part of a market-oriented neoliberal model of education, such flórez petour: voice and voicelessness in the construction of assessment policies 127 as competition through parental choice and performance-related funding, are presented as a given and as inherently positive. it is important to add, with regards to students, that the way in which they were considered in the process of revision of simce by a committee of experts in 2014 also reveals the use of delegitimation, affiliation and silencing/exclusion strategies. the executive report of the committee (equipo de tarea, 2015) portrays in its introduction the student movement as having a crucial role among the motivations for a critical review of simce. in terms of their participation in this review process, however, not only their representatives are absent from the committee itself; student organisations are mentioned once in the report in a footnote that indicates that they were summoned to one of the meetings but they could not attend. this means that one of the main voices mentioned at the beginning of the document as motivating changes to simce was eventually absent from this debate. their role in the context of influence is, therefore, recognised only in terms of a phony inclusion that mentions them but then rules them out of the formulation of policy texts. a third strand of findings that contributes to the focus of this article is related to the way in which actors see each other. the following contrast of quotations offers a clear example of this problem. the first illustrates the way in which teachers are seen by experts and policymakers in terms of their role in the construction of policy. the second excerpt is an example of how teachers portray those actors who are in charge of assessment policy development. interview with expert, policy-maker, and member of an education private foundation: interviewer: what is the role that you think teachers should have in the construction of education policy? interviewee: well, the topic of teachers in chile is quite complicated because teachers, especially primary teachers, don’t know much, i mean, it is difficult that they can contribute in a very informed way to a well-designed policy. i would spend all the money in the world to teach teachers well but i know is very difficult. interview with former member of the teachers union studies area: i think there is a weight of the technical above life, then, with all the respect i have for [name of expert in charge of the initial design of simce], she only had a technical perspective, real life was not there and in real life this technique didn’t work and she realised this later. the distance and lack of dialogue between these actors is apparent in these quotations. on the one hand, teachers are portrayed by experts and policymakers as lacking the necessary knowledge to be able to participate in policy formulation, thus excluding experiential professional knowledge as a legitimate and necessary source in the design of assessment policies. on the other hand, teachers see experts as people with valuable technical knowledge but also as distant from reality, which has as a consequence that technically sound solutions 128 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 do not work when they are taken into practice. this mutual misunderstanding could be part of the reasons why large-scale assessments and pedagogical enhancement seem to be disconnected. both experiential and technical knowledge are potentially valuable for the design of successful assessment policies but they remain two separate realms under charge of different actors who do not interact with each other. this dissociation contributes to the development of assessment policies that are disconnected from practice, which nevertheless have to be implemented by teachers who are told what to do, even when these policies do not make sense to them. nothing different from this can emerge when policy is conceptualised through the separation of the stages of design and implementation, as bowe et al. (1992) criticised. concluding remarks: the need for a deep reconceptualisation of assessment policies and their relationship with practice the findings of this study tend to confirm that current approaches to assessment policy design, where experts and authorities are in charge of thinking and developing policies that schools are expected to implement, play an important role in the disconnection between large-scale assessment systems and the improvement of teaching and learning. the separation between the stages of policy design and implementation, that bowe et al. (1992) saw as characteristic of managerial perspectives and market-oriented education systems, relegates the formulation of policy to “idealizations of the ‘real world’” (bowe et al., 1992, p. 21) that are doomed to fail when their enactment is carried out in real and highly complex contexts like schools. in his research on the micro-politics of the school, ball (2012) analysed how traditional organisational approaches, highly prevalent in current education policies, tend to impose an ideal model on how schools should work—a prescriptive attempt he understood as fundamentally ideological—instead of understanding school communities from an approach that accepts their complexity and their contextual diversity. this is the type of understanding that schools in our ethnographic evidence seem to be expecting from large-scale assessment policies. the analysis of simce through the policy cycle framework has not only allowed for a more complex, multi-voiced, and dynamic understanding of policy processes but has also highlighted the need to deeply rethink these processes in order to develop assessment policies that become beneficial for the education system. the paper has illustrated how one of the aspects that requires a deep and urgent reconceptualisation is related to questions around who participates in policy and how this participation is enacted. nancy fraser’s (2008) concept of parity of participation in her discussion around social justice might be of help in systematising the aspects that require transformation in the process of construction of large-scale assessment policies. according to fraser (2008), a socially just society requires the establishment of social agreements where all interest groups participate as peers in the formulation of norms. this requires that flórez petour: voice and voicelessness in the construction of assessment policies 129 institutionalised obstacles for equality of participation are overcome, thus preventing the over-representation of some voices to the detriment of others whose legitimacy has not been justly recognised. the findings discussed here reveal how currently predominant processes of assessment policy formulation fail in the equal representation of voices. both the definition of problems to be addressed and the means to do this are limited to the community of national and international experts, along with political authorities. in a very narrow concept of the expert, teachers’ experiential and professional knowledge is excluded as a relevant source, with their participation not moving beyond consultation initiatives where their perspectives, as was illustrated in this article, are often appropriated to legitimise the assumptions of dominant groups of interest or are simply silenced (flórez & olave, 2020). from the perspective of policy makers, their knowledge is not seen as a legitimate source in the construction of assessment policies. this lack of recognition in the processes of deliberation around assessment policies leads to the perception in school communities of these systems as imposed, decontextualised, and alien to the meanings they attribute to their work and, therefore, as meaningless to their practice (flórez et al., 2018). these views, however, are scarcely represented in public discourse, where an over-representation of the voice of policy elites generates an illusion of consensus that legitimates the continuity of these measures despite criticisms. the paper has illustrated how this injustice of participation could be considered among the reasons why large-scale assessment systems are not meeting the assumptions of market-based accountability policies. bowe et al. (1992) argued that the separation between the stages of design and implementation is predominant in managerial and market-oriented approaches. an increased parity of participation, therefore, requires moving away from these approaches and exploring new avenues for other conceptions of accountability that are able to construct genuine links between large-scale assessment systems and the improvement of learning. the response from experts and authorities to this problem, however, is far from a reformulation of policy construction processes. consistent with the design/implementation divide, they resort to the responsibilisation of teachers for their lack of capacity to give these results a relevant use. the lack of genuinely respectful dialogue and collaboration between these actors does not contribute to solve the problem. the question remains as to how we move from current modes of thinking assessment policies to a different approach, where parity of participation enables better and healthier connections between large-scale assessment systems and the enhancement of pedagogy. an essential starting point for this transformation is to overcome the use of large-scale assessment systems for market accountability purposes and to prioritise, instead, formative purposes in a low-stakes context. this is the case, for example, in countries such as portugal, uruguay, and denmark where large-scale assessment systems are explicitly low-stakes and are mainly focused on providing detailed feedback to schools (luaces, 2010; simoes & pereira, 2017; wandall, 2009). parity of participation is also crucial and some good examples of co-constructed assessment policies where teachers’ judgment is valued come from experiences such as the externally moderated school-based assessment in queensland, 130 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 australia (maxwell & cumming, 2011), the assessment system of the school success trajectories project that was piloted at a municipal level in valparaíso, chile (flórez & olave, 2020), and the ontario secondary school diploma (ossd) that is based on consensus moderation processes carried out by teachers (cuff, 2018). along with more agency and participation from school communities, these systems also allow for an increased contextualisation and pedagogical pertinence of assessment activities because they are developed by schools based on shared criteria, a feature that enhances respect for diversity as well as the possibility of developing meaningful learning rather than focusing on training for a multiple-choice test. these are only a few examples of the direction that different countries have been following towards school-based assessment systems—finland among them (partnership for educational revitalization in the americas, 2009)—in order to overcome the shortcomings of high-stakes testing regimes. all these changes require, of course, political willingness. but an emerging horizon can be envisioned from the experiences mentioned above, characterised by equal and respectful participation of all groups of interest in assessment policy design and enactment, the development of low-stakes systems with formative purposes, and priority given to meaningful teaching and learning. acknowledgements the author wishes to recognise the work of the team of researchers, research assistants, and students who have been part of this project at different times of the process and in connection to different funding schemes. this study would not have been possible without the involvement of cristian cabalin, jenny assael, loreto montero, camila cárdenas, jennyfer poblete, paulina contreras, eduardo santa cruz, francisca corbalán, felipe acuña, joaquín deutelmoser, benjamín pujadas, bárbara campillay, javiera arce, javiera quiroga, alexis echeverría, verónica carreño, sandra rivera, and francisca contreras. references acuña, f., assaél, j., contreras, p., & peralta, b. 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(2003, may 5). excepciones en el simce: nuevas estrategias derriban el mito del factor socioeconómico. privados elevan el rendimiento de escuelas pobres [exceptions in simce: new strategies demolish the myth of the socioeconomic factor. private [consultants] raise performance of poor schools]. el mercurio, section c, p. 3. journal of education, 2017 issue 67, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za the role of professional learning communities in facilitating teachers’ pedagogical adaptation and change jennifer feldman (received 9 march 2016; accepted 7 december 2016) abstract this article draws on a two-year plc process to explore the role of professional learning communities (plcs) in facilitating teachers’ pedagogical adaptation and change. situated within the context of the current south african curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps), which is described as tightly scripted and regulated, this article argues, drawing on nancy fraser’s conceptualisation of justice, that there is a need for teachers to dialogue about ways in which the pedagogical process can include ethical concerns of recognition of student cultural knowledge and a representation of diverse social-cultural groups in the process of knowledge redistribution, and suggests that plcs hold the potential to mediate this process. drawing on bourdieu’s thinking tools, this article conceptualises teachers’ pedagogical adaptation and change via the plc process, as a form of ‘habitus engagement’ that engages with the teachers’ firmly held pedagogical dispositions, their ‘pedagogical habitus’ which over time has acquired a depth of complexity that is difficult to shift. introduction situated in south africa, this article discusses the role of professional learning communities (plcs) in changing or adapting teachers’ pedagogy in consonance with a socially just teaching orientation. the discussion for this article draws from a two-year plc process where teachers from different school contexts collaborated together to find ways to conceptually and pragmatically shift and change their pedagogy towards a more socially just teaching orientation (fataar & feldman, 2016). the teachers, who were mostly serving students from low-income areas, were invited to participate in an on-going dialogical process of a plc to interrogate their current teaching practices to find ways to shift, adapt or change their pedagogies to include 66 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 fraser’s notion of justice in their teaching orientation. fraser emphasises the need to consider a recognition of students’ social-cultural constructions of identity and student participation within the redistribution of school knowledge. this entails teachers finding ways in which they can create opportunities for students to engage in activities and dialogue that draw the students’ social-cultural knowledge into the school curriculum knowledge, i.e. caps, as well as involving the students in an engagement with wider social worlds. in the first year, five teachers from different school contexts committed to the plc process. during the second year one teacher from the first year remained in the plc and was joined by six teachers from three different school contexts. the focus of the plc discussions over the two-year period was not aimed at working outside of, or undermining the caps framing, but rather finding ways within the current caps system to generate an enriched, socially just teaching environment (feldman & fataar, 2014). the plc was based on a pedagogical perspective aimed at working against the deterministic orientation associated with a scripted curriculum towards providing a platform for the teachers to explore the spaces of intervention and possibilities of adapted pedagogy in order to promote more productive student educational engagement. the current south african curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps), which is described as regulated, prescriptive and externally controlled in its implementation approach, has tended to reduce teaching to a scripted pedagogy that expects teachers to teach to the test in a climate of standardised systemic testing intended to improve the quality of education in schools (ramatlapana & makonye, 2012). fataar (2015) argues that this policy discourse, that has dominated current educational developments, has eroded teacher autonomy and leaves little space to stimulate and meaningfully engage students in their learning. this article suggests, therefore, that given the current curriculum framing and positioning of teachers, there is a need to instantiate a different, more socially just pedagogical orientation in teachers’ classroom practices and suggests that the dialogical plc process holds the potential to mediate a change towards a more engaging form of pedagogy that includes all students in the learning process. the article draws on bourdieu’s thinking tools to consider teachers’ pedagogical adaptation and change, which is conceptualised as a form of ‘habitus engagement’ (described below) that engages with the teachers’ firmly feldman: the role of professional learning communities. . . 67 held pedagogical identities (feldman & fataar, 2014). habitus engagement suggests that any adaptation or change in the teachers’ pedagogy must contend with teachers’ embodied pedagogical dispositions from their initial teacher training and subsequent educational fields they have inhabited. i describe these embodied pedagogical dispositions which have formed over time as the teachers’ pedagogical habitus, and which have acquired a depth of complexity that is difficult to shift. i suggest, therefore, that given the current south african school context and the caps scripted pedagogical framing, plcs can provide a platform to support on-going deliberate conversations that engage with the durability of the teachers’ embodied pedagogical habitus to include new pedagogical possibilities that involve a more enriched and socially just teaching orientation. south african schooling context the current south african curriculum policy reform, the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) that was implemented in march 2011 is based on a mode of teaching that includes strong classification and framing that makes curricula knowledge visible and explicit to all students (bernstein, 1975). the caps was implemented in response to an educational system that was described as exacerbating, rather than ameliorating, inequality in student educational outcomes, particularly in working class communities (jansen & christie, 1999; christie, 2008; fataar, 2010). in other words, it was based on the plausible argument that education in south africa’s democratic postapartheid school system was failing the students who needed it the most, i.e. students from working-class homes and communities. maringe and moletsane (2015, p.348 citing weeks, 2012) argue that not only is the educational system failing our students, three quarters of south africa’s schools can officially be described as dysfunctional, and are not serving the purposes for which they are meant. thus, south african schooling remains precariously unsatisfactory for the majority of learners and the education system can be described as resembling a “two nation or two economies state” (fleisch, 2008, p.1). on the one hand, schooling takes place in former white schools that are well-resourced and provide a decent quality of education to white, coloured and black children of the middle classes, while a second system, which is for the most part poorly resourced with a poor infrastructure, caters for children (mostly black african and coloured learners) from poor working class townships, rural areas and informal settlements (maringe & moletsane, 2015). 68 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 in response therefore to the immense diversity and on-going inequality found in the south african schooling system, the caps was implemented with the aim of shifting the curriculum policy focus to a controlled transfer of knowledge and learning with the aim of attempting to meet the basic educational needs of all learners and, in particular, those in impoverished circumstances. ramatlapana and makonye (2012) and msibi and mchunu (2013) criticise caps for being a pre-packaged curriculum that restricts teacher autonomy and professionalism. the emphasis on the use of workbooks, text books and a tightly scripted curriculum designed ostensibly to improve the educational quality of teaching in schools (spreen & vally, 2010), has produced an educational regime that demands uniformity in curriculum implementation across south african schools which is strictly monitored by governmental officials (ramatlapana & makonye, 2012). caps is further accompanied by a results-driven assessment regime that requires annual national assessments (anas) to be written by all schools in grades 3, 6, 9 as well as a national senior certificate (nsc) examination at the end of students’ twelve years of formal schooling (department of basic education, 2016). the caps, as a policy orientation, has therefore resulted in a “preponderance of policy discursivity that has had pernicious consequences for teachers’ relative autonomy” and arguably leaves little pedagogical space for an enriched and critical perspective in education or an opportunity for socially engaging pedagogy to be established (fataar, 2012, p.57). it is within this predominantly narrow focus to teaching and learning in schools, as is currently packaged in south africa’s curriculum policy approach that i argue for the role of plcs to support teachers dialoguing about ways in which they can adapt and change their teaching practices to include a recognition and representation of students’ diverse social-cultural groups in the process of knowledge selection and knowledge redistribution. this approach, within the south african schooling context, builds on fataar’s (2015) argument that the current narrow scripting of the school curriculum fails to leverage a rich curriculum and pedagogical platform that accords schools and teachers the necessary conceptual space to engage students in productive learning. a pedagogically just orientation, therefore, requires that we find ways to bridge the gap between student learning and the school’s functional and pedagogical orientations by placing student subjectivities and their lifeworld knowledges and literacies at the centre of teachers’ feldman: the role of professional learning communities. . . 69 pedagogical repertoires and their curriculum engagement with their students (fataar, 2015). christie notes: the challenge is not to view what exists as inevitable and unchanging – and not to underestimate the task of changing what exists. the task is to keep envisaging alternatives, to keep challenging with new ideas, and to keep pressing against the boundaries of common sense towards something better. the task is always to hold an ethical position on education, which entails a commitment to continuously thinking about how we may best live with others in the world we share. as educators our task is to enrich debates from within educational discourses (2008, p.216). this article, therefore, suggests that the dialogical and on-going conversations of plcs, as a form of habitus engagement that engages with and challenges the teachers’ embodied pedagogical dispositions, plays a crucial role in challenging teachers to find ways to enrich the teaching and learning environment by adapting and changing the manner in which they develop and implement lesson units. this combines fataar’s (2015) challenge to create classroom practices that leverage the pedagogies necessary for productive school engagement for all students and christie’s (2008) invitation to continually press against the boundaries of the status quo towards something different, something better. the role of professional learning communities in adapting and changing practice professional learning communities (plcs) can be described as a learning space in which “teachers work together and engage in continual dialogue to examine practice and student performance and to develop and implement more effective instruction practice . . . teachers learn about, try out and reflect on new practices in their specific context, sharing their individual knowledge and expertise” (darling-hammond & richardson, 2009, p.3). plcs are fundamentally about professional and collective teacher learning with a specific focus on problematising the learning needs and outcomes of the students (stoll & louis, 2007; katz & earl, 2010; brodie, 2013). central to the learning process in a plc is the on-going dialogue that focuses on teacher development and improved student learning. senge (1994) makes a distinction between discussion and dialogue, stating that, while discussion is intended to provide a space for the voicing of viewpoints, dialogue goes beyond individual understanding and allows the participants to gain insights 70 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 that they would not have been able to achieve individually. plc work is thus enhanced by the collaboration of the plc members dialoguing together around the plc’s focus of inquiry. a crucial element within all plcs includes having a clear organisational purpose or focus that the community collectively enquires into (brodie, 2013). a challenging focus is one that requires teachers to reconceptualise and rethink their existing practices, challenge taken-for-granted assumptions and make adaptations or changes in their practice based specifically on the needs of their particular students within the context of their school. the intention of plc work is to build collaborative learning communities where relationships and supportive conditions can be used to assist teachers to shift from the traditional isolation which is often found in schools, to that of a more community-based culture of learning. the value of the plc lies in its focus both on process (how we teach and students learn) and product (or the outcomes) of the learning process. research indicates that there is a measurable difference in student achievement in schools where teachers form plcs and place student learning at the centre of their focus and inquiry with an unrelenting attention to successful student learning (stoll & louis, 2007). by way of providing practical examples of how the dialogical engagement of the plc holds the potential to shift and change the way in which teachers engage students in the learning process, i offer two examples that emanated from our plc dialogue and related classroom activity; one is from a grade 6 english class and the second is from a grade 6 geography class. the focus of the plc’s conversations centred on problematising ways in which the plc teachers could enrich school learning opportunities by inviting students into meaningful participatory educational experiences that both recognised student subjectivities and enabled a representation of the diverse social-cultural student groups in the process of knowledge selection. in order to facilitate this approach to learning in a grade 6 english class, one teacher chose to negotiate, based on the caps requirements for the term, a ‘theme’ that would guide the manner in which the students’ learning and written tasks would take place. the decision to find alternative ways to present the school knowledge was made by the teacher following his reflections on the previous term’s work. during the plc, the teachers discussed their concerns regarding the disinterest the students often displayed in the tasks presented in the textbook. collaboratively the teachers discussed different ways of engaging the students. the decision was made to experiment with moving away from the scripted textbook tasks to engaging the students in negotiating both the ‘what’ feldman: the role of professional learning communities. . . 71 and ‘how’ of the written tasks and assessments. subsequently, the grade 6 english class chose the theme of ‘music and drama’ for the term’s lessons. based on the caps requirements and using the theme of ‘music and drama’, the teacher and students then negotiated the written tasks and assessment opportunities for the term. in this manner, the teacher was able to both recognise the students’ diverse cultural knowledge and enable a representation of this knowledge through the redistribution of the school knowledge code. a second example from a diverse grade 6 geography class was a lesson unit on: “why people live where they do (south africa)” (caps social sciences p.32). this unit included reasons for people settling in different areas with a focus on why people move from rural to urban areas. for this lesson the teacher tasked the students with interviewing family and/or community members to investigate why they were currently living where they were. this lesson unit, which by the teachers’ own admission, would normally have been presented narrowly as a redistribution of knowledge, i.e. a list of reasons that people move from rural to urban environments, was able to become recontextualised within the learning process as a more socially just learning experience that provided for an opportunity for cultural recognition of the students, their families and community and a representation of the diverse social-cultural groups in the process of school learning. my point of departure, therefore, in arguing for plcs within the south african schooling context, is based on the view that what is required to enhance the professional agency of teachers, within the current regulative teaching environment which is framed by the caps, is a far richer notion of pedagogical practice aimed at leveraging an engaging pedagogical orientation that actively involves all students in the learning process. i suggest that this type of approach is required in a context, such as south africa, where the space for professional dialogue about ways to enrich the teaching and learning at schools has been eroded by the scripted pedagogical approach of the caps, which requires very little dialogue among teachers in schools about their actual pedagogies. in order to provide a theoretical consideration of how pedagogical change can be mediated through the on-going collaborative plc dialogue, i now turn to a discussion on the methodo-logic of the two-year professional learning community process. 72 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 facilitating pedagogical justice: the methodo-logic of a professional learning community in arguing for the logic on which a pedagogically just plc process can be founded, i draw on hattam, brennan, zipin and comber’s (2009) framing approach which they call the methodo-logic of a research process. this method does not refer to research methods or methodology but rather provides the logic of an approach that includes the guiding principles that underpin the decisions and activities of the project. for a pedagogically just plc process, this methodo-logic is founded on an ethical commitment to finding ways in which teachers can adapt or change their current pedagogies in consonance with a more pedagogically just teaching orientation. this approach draws on fraser’s (2009) conceptualisation of social justice that considers the dialectic between the redistribution of the school knowledge code, recognition of student social-cultural constructions of identity and a representation within school knowledge of the lifeworld knowledges that the students bring with them to school, combined with fataar’s (2015) argument for the terms on which a pedagogical justice orientation can be leveraged within our current school curriculum framing. my argument for finding ways to provide a more pedagogically just learning platform for students is evidenced on a bourdieusian insight. this premise states that students enter schooling from different structural positions due to early-life immersion in the family and communities that embody distinctive qualities of dispositions or ‘habitus’. bourdieu (1984) describes the ‘primary habitus’ as repetitive patterns of practice and interaction from early childhood that have been internalised within our family. these social habits are based on ways of knowing from our family positions, economic class, and other structural power relations that emerge in different contexts. in schools, students begin acquiring overlays of a ‘secondary habitus’ as they assimilate the new conditions and new information and scaffold it onto the existing primary habitus. the degree of this secondary assimilation will depend on whether the codes of pedagogic interaction as well as other features in the school site are familiar to the primary habitus. the dispositions of the students’ lifeworld-based habitus, therefore, acquire greater or lesser ‘capital’ value depending whether these cultural codes align with the dominant mainstream curriculum. bourdieu states that educational systems, and especially schools, reproduce social stratification by maintaining feldman: the role of professional learning communities. . . 73 the pre-existing order, that is, the gap between pupils endowed with unequal amounts of cultural capital … by a series of selection operations, the system separates the holders of inherited cultural capital from those who lack it. differences in aptitude being inseparable from social differences according to inherited capital, the system thus tends to maintain pre-existing social differences (1998, p.20). students whose embodied cultural capital or habitus aligns with the school system allow those children access to the codes of schooling while denying others the opportunity to achieve success at school or feel that school is in their best interests. these students find that the curriculum makes no connection to the learning from their community contexts or lifeworld knowledges and therefore they see no intrinsic value in engaging with the educational experience. the conceptual underpinning of pedagogically just plc work as suggested in this article, is an attempt to bring all three dimensions of a social justice approach into a productive relationship with each other so as to inform the teaching practices of teachers. the aim is to provide teachers with a productive set of conceptual resources that inform their teaching in terms of which they are able to intellectually engage all their students in the learning process. hattam and prosser (2008) challenge us to move beyond mere compensatory programmes which are mostly based on a view that the problem lies in student and community deficits. this view challenges a deficit theorising approach that blames the underachievement of minority and lowincome students as “a plethora of inadequacies, such as inadequate home literacy practices, inadequate english language, inadequate motivation, inadequate parental support and inadequate self-concept.” (hogg, 2011, p.666) this deficit theorising leads to acceptance of students’ low academic achievement and expectations by teachers. while many teachers would dispute holding such views, these views may lurk below consciousness as attitudes or beliefs and provide an obstacle in teachers realising the potential of all their students. in contrast, a pedagogically just approach to teaching and learning allows teachers to engage with students as individuals, rather than based on assumptions and stereotypes. this allows teachers to move away from “the intense brutality of a system that does not really seem to ‘see’ children” (spindler & spindler, 1983, p.75) to one that engages educators in a deep understanding of the students that they teach. this approach values the recognition and representation aspects of a socially just orientation and challenges meritocracy that privileges conformity and standardisation. conceptualising a more pedagogically just stance allows teachers to confront 74 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 the hegemonic forces that continue to shape curriculum and schooling on a middle-class value system, and find ways to work effectively with the diversity of students to support and value their cultural identities and lifeworld knowledge in order to afford them success within mainstream school learning. working with bourdieu: a conceptualisation of pedagogical change in this section i offer a conceptualisation of pedagogical change by drawing on the theoretical resources offered by pierre bourdieu. by arguing for the role of plcs as a form of ‘habitus engagement’, i offer an understanding of how pedagogical adaptation and change can be mediated between the dialogical plc process and the teachers’ practical implementation of their adapted or changed pedagogy at the school site. habitus operates as a system of durable, transposable patterns of sociocultural practices or dispositions gained from our cultural history which stay with us across various contexts. conditioned primarily during early childhood, habitus operates largely below the level of consciousness and gives one a sense of what actions are possible (or impossible) and provides one with a sense of how to act and respond “without consciously obeying rules explicitly posed as such” (bourdieu, 1990a, p.76). habitus includes our ways of acting, feeling, thinking and being and captures how we carry our history within us and how that history plays out in our present circumstances (grenfell, 2008, p.52). a crucial feature of habitus is that it is embodied and is not composed solely of mental attitudes and perceptions; it is a whole body experience (reay, 2004). bourdieu describes this as ‘bodily hexis’. bodily hexis incorporates a relationship between social structures (or social fields) and one’s habitus and refers not only to our motor functions in the form of patterns and postures but includes a thinking or feeling that is inscribed in our physical beings and that determines our corporeality. bourdieu describes bodily hexis as, a whole system of techniques involving the body and tools, and charged with a host of social meanings and values . . . a way of walking, tilt of the head, facial expressions, ways of sitting and using implements, always associated with a tone of voice, a style of speech, and . . . a certain subjective experience . . . bodily hexis is political mythology realized, embodied, turned into a permanent disposition, a durable manner of standing, speaking, and thereby of feeling and thinking (1977, p.87, p.93; italics in original). feldman: the role of professional learning communities. . . 75 while we may think of the body as subjective, something individual or belonging to the self (webb, schirato & danahar, 2002, p.37), our body is an incorporation of our history, a repository of ingrained and durable dispositions that structure at a corporeal level the way we generate meaningful social activity. for bourdieu it is through the habitus that social reproduction in schools takes place. education as a field or social context comprises of complex relations and structures that operate between teachers, students, and the curriculum. these structures and relations are constantly shifting and changing while at the same time being embodied and absorbed by both teachers and students as the values and relations of schooling (webb et al., 2002, pp.115–6). one’s responses, although they seem natural and unconscious, are always largely determined or regulated by contexts or cultures which have informed the structuring of one’s habitus. bourdieu refers to this as the partly unconscious ‘taking in’ of rules, values and dispositions, which he defines as “the durably installed generative principle of regulated improvisations, [which] produces practices” (bourdieu, 1977, p.78). a teachers’ pedagogical habitus thus incorporates the values and imperatives and embodied mental and corporeal pedagogical practices that have formed over time given the educational fields they have encountered. these educational fields include their own schooling experiences, their training as teachers and their teaching experience in schools. a teachers’ pedagogical habitus, as “a system of cognitive and motivating structures” or “dispositions” that function “as principles that generate and organise practices” (bourdieu, 1990b, p.53) therefore organises and positions them as certain types of teachers, which in turn structures their teaching practices in certain ways. consequently, any substantial or effective change in the teachers’ practices has to contend with the durability of the teachers’ pedagogical habitus formation over time and the teachers’ relationship with the various social and/or educational ‘fields’ in which they are engaged. it is, therefore, the embodied pedagogical beliefs of the teachers, “that escapes questioning” (bourdieu & wacquant, 1992, p.98) that can be seen in the ‘hardness’ of change in their classroom teaching practices. adapting or shifting teachers’ pedagogy thus requires an on-going engagement with the conscious and unconscious educational values and beliefs that teachers have imbibed over time and which has structured the manner in which they enact their classroom pedagogy. it is this engagement, that i refer to as pedagogical 76 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 ‘habitus engagement’, which i argue must challenge the teachers’ embodied pedagogical habitus which has formed over time, in order to move beyond dialoguing about the possibility of pedagogic change, to the pragmatic implementation of a more socially just teaching orientation. the role of professional learning communities in adapting and changing teachers’ pedagogy: pedagogical habitus engagement changing the way in which teachers enact their pedagogy is highly complex. professional development programmes are usually designed to initiate change due to a new curriculum or instructional innovation or to initiate change in teachers’ attitudes and beliefs (guskey, 2002, p.382). fullan states that “[e]ducational change depends on what teachers do and think – it is as simple and complex as that” (2007, p.129). in order for sustained education change to occur, teachers need to be involved in processes of challenging and rethinking assumptions and theories on which their practice is based (fullan, 2007). unless this happens, any form of new innovation advocated will simply be filtered through the lens of teachers’ already established beliefs and practices and will be colonised by the existing practice (reid & lucas, 2010). in order to engage with the teachers’ pedagogical habitus to elicit sustained adaptation and change in their pedagogy, bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and bodily hexis provide us with an understanding that one’s beliefs, that are embedded in one’s habitus and enacted in and through practice, are both a ‘state of mind’ and ‘state of the body’ (bourdieu, 1990b, p.68). thus, for teachers, their pedagogical dispositions, how they are thinking and feeling about teaching and learning, is embodied and inscribed within the unconscious formation of their pedagogical habitus and enacted, on an almost pre-conscious corporeal level, within their classroom pedagogy. what this means, therefore, is that in order for the dialogical plc process to effect pragmatic adaptation and change in teachers’ pedagogical practices, it is necessary to engage with the corporeality of the teachers’ embodied pedagogical dispositions. feldman: the role of professional learning communities. . . 77 conclusion my argument as discussed in this article has argued for the role of plcs as a form of habitus engagement, in adapting and changing teachers’ pedagogy in consonance with a more pedagogically just teaching orientation. situated within the current south african schooling context and the caps, i have argued that the paucity of a meaningful and engaging pedagogy, particularly in schools that service working class students, has not resulted in the necessary amelioration of inequality within the south african schooling system. the current scripted, regulated and performative-driven caps, implemented in an attempt to alleviate the disparity found between the schools in wealthier leafy green suburbs and those situated in impoverished circumstances, has tended to erode teacher autonomy and resulted in an achromatic pedagogical approach to teaching which doesn’t meaningfully engage all students in their learning. for this reason, i argue for plcs that place teacher professionalism, collaborative learning and a more enriched pedagogical approach to student learning, as central to the on-going dialogical plc process. this approach, as a form of habitus engagement, i suggest, holds the potential to challenge teachers to find ways to instantiate a more pedagogically just approach that meaningfully engages all students in productive learning. drawing on bourdieu’s concept of habitus and bodily hexis, i have argued that shifting or changing teachers’ pedagogical practices must engage with the teachers embodied pedagogical habitus, as it is here that their deepest pedagogical dispositions reside, ‘tattooed’ in their physical being over time given the educational fields they have inhabited. thus, to effect change in the teachers’ pedagogical practices that over time have become embedded in their pedagogical habitus, these practices must be brought to consciousness, challenged and engaged, in order for the teachers to embody new or adapted pedagogical practices. bourdieu warns of the durability of one’s habitus, but offers a window of hope stating that the structures of habitus are not set, but can evolve, “they are durable and transposable but not immutable” (maton, 2008, p.53). my argument for plcs, as a form of pedagogical habitus engagement, thus invites teachers to heed the call of an ethical responsibility to negotiate the “mad breach of social-educational justice” (zipin, 2005, p.7) by dialoguing collaboratively towards finding ways to change or shift their pedagogical habitus, and consequently their teaching practices, in consonance with a more 78 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 pedagogically just teaching orientation. zipin (2005), drawing on philosophers immanuel levinas and jacques derrida, calls the tension between the redistribution and recognition logic an aporia, which involves a “transaction between two contradictory and equally justified imperatives”, each of which is impossible, but yet must be pursued (p.7). zipin (2005) describes this impulse as a “disturbed peace” for teachers who realise that for their students and for themselves, the rewards of chasing a socially just aporia, which may be far from just or fair, will make schooling for all students, particularly those most marginalised, “better than otherwise” (zipin, 2005, p.7). in understanding the limits that school contexts and curriculum 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(2005). the pedagogical challenge: facing the aporetic madness of social justice. australia association for research in education. south australia. jennifer feldman department of education policy studies faculty of education stellenbosch university jennf2103@gmail.com mailto:jennf2103@gmail.com 82 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 microsoft word c88 full issue 5oct.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 88, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i88a05 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x reframing policy trajectory for inclusive education in malawi ben de souza department of education, rhodes university, grahamstown, south africa souzaben@outlook.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6746-9511 (received: 8 january 2022; accepted: 1 september 2022) abstract this qualitative study proffers ways of reframing the policy trajectory for inclusive education in malawi. the study involved a document review of inclusive education policies and strategies and in-depth semi-structured interviews with mainstream teachers at a secondary school in malawi. the results from the document review show that the framing of the education policies and strategies regarding inclusive education pedagogy as an educational practice is influenced solely by learners’ cognitive proficiencies. however, the analysis of the semistructured interviews points towards multi-scalar pedagogical responses to inclusive education. therefore, i argue that the framing of inclusive education policies and strategies ignores crucial interactive schooling systems such as the onto-pedagogical framings of mainstream teachers and specialists that shape pedagogy in the context of inclusivity. the study concludes that inclusive education policy formulation and implementation requires interactions among and across schooling systems, such as mainstream and specialist teachers, and not merely attending to the epistemological needs of learners. i recommend a bio-ecological systems policy reframing that could help the malawian and other southern african education systems to use different factors that influence inclusive education. keywords: education policy, inclusive education, pedagogical responses, policy reframing, malawi introduction inclusive education is now on a global agenda that has impelled countries to increase their efforts towards its implementation and realisation. most countries from the global north and the global south have instituted policies that foster inclusion in mainstream education (slee, 2018). as part of the efforts toward implementing international treaties on inclusive education, many southern african countries have developed their policy frameworks (de souza, 2021; mitchell & sutherland, 2020). since the salamanca summit in spain in june 1994, the education for all conference in thailand in 1990, and the world education forum 70 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 (dakar framework of action) in senegal in 2000, malawi has undeniably registered a tremendous improvement in inclusive education that is evident in the formulation of policies and the incorporation of learners with disabilities in mainstream classes (de souza, 2020). in this regard, malawi drafted and adopted several policies and strategies, including the national education policy (2016) and the national strategy on inclusive education (2017–2021), to speed up the implementation of inclusivity in its education systems (mgomezulu, 2017). nonetheless, there are doubts about whether countries are adopting their promise of inclusive education (slee, 2018). for many southern african countries, the primary concern is whether inclusive education equips mainstream teachers to educate learners with disabilities alongside their peers in the mainstream classroom as stipulated by national education policies and strategies (de souza, 2020). the philosophy of inclusive education expects mainstream teachers to enact inclusive practices regardless of the learning barriers that learners with disabilities face in mainstream education (kamchedzera, 2010). i argue that the framing of inclusive education policies and strategies ignores fundamental interactive schooling systems such as mainstream and specialist teachers who shape pedagogy in the context of inclusivity and discourse inclusive education as a privilege for learners. purpose and questions of the study purpose the study aims at proffering ways of reframing policy trajectory for directing pedagogical responses in inclusive education in malawi and other educational settings that share similar education circumstances especially in the southern african region. objectives: 1. to proffer a theoretical model for reframing inclusive education policy trajectory; 2. to propose a methodological framework for formulating inclusive education policies; and 3. to demonstrate an evaluation model for inclusive education policy implementation. questions 1. which theoretical underpinnings can reframe inclusive education policy trajectory? 2. how can inclusive education policies be formulated? 3. what are viable ways of evaluating inclusive education policy implementation? legal and policy context for inclusive education in malawi in southern africa in general, and malawi in particular, policies and strategies on inclusive education support opportunities for inclusivity. the policies and strategies accentuate a need for educating all children together in mainstream schools. for instance, the national policy on the equalisation of opportunities of persons with disabilities (npeopd, 2006) aims to de souza: reframing policy trajectory for inclusive education in malawi 71 protect and promote the rights of persons with disabilities. the npeopd acknowledges that universal education is unobtainable if persons with disabilities are excluded and outlines strategies for the inclusion of persons with disabilities in education and training, including the “incorporation of special needs training in the teacher-training curriculum [and] supporting and encouraging inclusive education” (malawi. ministry of persons with disabilities and the elderly, 2006, pp. 23–24). in malawi, education colleges and some universities train mainstream teachers for primary and secondary education. the npeopd strategies can be incorporated into the teacher education curriculum to ensure the inclusion of teachers in inclusive education (baranauskiene & saveikiene, 2018). when they teach, mainstream teachers would be mindful of inclusive education and would demonstrate this by preparing effective strategies for supporting learners with disabilities. however, teacher education curricula in malawi seldom incorporate issues of inclusive education (kamchedzera, 2010). thus, in-service mainstream teachers cannot support inclusivity (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation, 2020). legal and policy frameworks need to respond to contemporary inclusive educational needs (chilemba, 2013). the disability act of 2012 explains policy responsiveness and inclusive educational needs. the act proclaims that “the government shall recognise the rights of persons with disabilities to education based on an equal opportunity and ensure an inclusive education system and lifelong learning” (malawi. ministry of justice, 2022, p. 7). the act recognises everyone’s right to education and the government talked about making premises and buildings, including schools, accessible to everyone regardless of disability and aimed to remove exclusion from the education system and provide equal access to education to the less privileged, just as it would for persons without disabilities. surprisingly, the disability act of 2012 did not address the plight of school-going children with disabilities who have been abducted (and often killed) since 2010 to date because of beliefs about albinism. the act was the only legislative text to address the inclusion of learners with albinism and reduce misconceptions about this. notwithstanding this, the act remained mute. the muteness was a missed opportunity since the act could have assisted in the formulation of the national education policy of 2016 and the national strategy on inclusive education of 2017, that did not highlight this evident need for inclusive education. the mismatch of policy formulation and practice implementation remains a significant setback in inclusive education. for example, the malawian child care, protection and justice act of 2010 illustrates this situation. the act resonates with the united nations convention on the rights of the child and the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child. part ii, division 5 of the act focuses on registering children with disabilities. in the same division, section 72 stipulates that a local government authority shall keep a register of children with disabilities within its area of jurisdiction and give assistance to them whenever possible to enable those children to grow up with dignity among other children and to develop their potential and self-reliance. (malawi. ministry of justice, 2010, p. 29) 72 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 confining children with disabilities to their local areas limits their prospects of acquiring education in various mainstream schools across malawi. for example, malawi has national government secondary schools that select students on merit and not on geographical location. the fact that a child with a disability has to be under the jurisdiction of a local authority does not inspire the spirit of striving for excellence in education seen in their peers. moreover, this situation does not align with the philosophy of inclusive education. the act can influence the formulation of policies that confine learners with disabilities to special schools within their localities, thus defeating the ends of inclusive education. to recap, inclusive education overwhelms policy development in the broader educational policies worldwide, including in malawi (baranauskiene & saveikiene, 2018; de beco, 2018). however, chimwaza’s (2015) study found that most of the teachers in malawi believe that the provision of physical accommodation in the schools guarantees educational success for the learners with physical disabilities. yet, there is more to be done, especially in the teachers’ practices, because dealing with disability as a reality needs a holistic approach (de souza, 2020). moreover, implementing policies in education is approached as a linear process so teachers do not realise the complexity of the process (mbewe et al., 2021). for example, teachers often fail to realise that they must engage with inclusive education policies on behalf of the learners (chimwaza, 2015). hence, there is no doubt that teachers’ perceptions, understandings, and interpretations of the national inclusive education policies and strategies are critical for inclusive pedagogical proficiency. bioecological systems theory in inclusive education this study employs bronfenbrenner’s (2005) bioecological systems theory to interrogate the pedagogical responses emerging from education policy and teacher practices on inclusive education in malawi. key to this theory is the tenet that development and learning do not occur in a linear sequence. instead, development and learning are very sophisticated processes involving the interaction of different systems in one’s environment. this study adopts a particular theoretical research design that bronfenbrenner (2005) termed the process-person-context-time model (or ppct model), as explained below. process is a relationship between an individual and their context (bronfenbrenner, 2005). essentially, this component is comprised of proximal processes—the nature and form of frequent interactions an individual encounters with their physical, social, and cultural environment. the individual entails a child and the environment entails factors that influence the child’s development. bronfenbrenner designated the proximal processes (the key feature of the process) as “primary engines of development” (2005, p. 6). however, for this study, the process means the interactions of mainstream teachers with their practices, learners, peers, policies, and affiliated institutions. person is an individual and biopsychosocial characteristic (bronfenbrenner, 2005). this definition entails that the person component theorises individual characteristics that determine the individual’s development. the person component is comprised of unique de souza: reframing characteristics such as the experiences and mainstream teachers were the unit of analysis, and their biopsychosocial characteristics included their experiences and beliefs about inclusive education policy and practice. context refers to nested level (bronfenbrenner, 2005). the context component macro-systems. put differently, the context component of the model bioecological systems that intertwine time components. time entails “dimensions of temporality component reminds us that a theory is very fluid and much more prone to further development than dogmatists would have it. initially, bronfenbrenner overlooked the essence of time in human development. a significant revision of the theory saw the chronosystem added as an element of human development. figure 1 below summaries the figure 1 bronfenbrenner’s (2005) ppct model the ppct model is employed in interactions between and across the systems in inclusive education. in the study context, mainstream teachers, specialist teachers microsystem. when these elements of the microsystem interact, such as through instruction, de souza: reframing policy trajectory for inclusive education in malawi characteristics such as the experiences and beliefs of the developing child. for this study, mainstream teachers were the unit of analysis, and their biopsychosocial characteristics included their experiences and beliefs about inclusive education policy and practice. nested levels or systems in the ecology of human development (bronfenbrenner, 2005). the context component is comprised of micro-, meso systems. put differently, the context component of the model is comprise bioecological systems that intertwine with other model components, i.e., process, person dimensions of temporality” (bronfenbrenner, 2005, p. xv). the time component reminds us that a theory is very fluid and much more prone to further atists would have it. initially, bronfenbrenner overlooked the essence of time in human development. a significant revision of the theory saw the chronosystem added as an element of human development. figure 1 below summaries the process-person-context-time model (or ppct model) the ppct model is employed in this study to explain different systems and the nature of interactions between and across the systems in inclusive education. in the study context, ream teachers, specialist teachers, and learners are theorised as elements of the microsystem. when these elements of the microsystem interact, such as through instruction, policy trajectory for inclusive education in malawi 73 beliefs of the developing child. for this study, mainstream teachers were the unit of analysis, and their biopsychosocial characteristics included their experiences and beliefs about inclusive education policy and practice. s or systems in the ecology of human development , meso-, exoand comprised of with other model components, i.e., process, person, and (bronfenbrenner, 2005, p. xv). the time component reminds us that a theory is very fluid and much more prone to further atists would have it. initially, bronfenbrenner overlooked the essence of time in human development. a significant revision of the theory saw the chronosystem me model (or ppct model): study to explain different systems and the nature of interactions between and across the systems in inclusive education. in the study context, and learners are theorised as elements of the microsystem. when these elements of the microsystem interact, such as through instruction, 74 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 they form a mesosystem. education factors such as inclusive education policies and strategies are theorised as part of a macrosystem. however, when teachers interface with these policies and strategies, for example, during professional development activities, they form an exosystem because the learners are not directly involved, although the effects of the interactions funnel down to the learners through the mesosystem. the chronosystem (time component) is included for its ability to track strides made in inclusive education. the study uses the ppct model to propose a policy trajectory framed from pedagogical responses to inclusive education that are emerging in a multi-scalar fashion. research methodology philosophical design the study was framed around ontology, epistemology, and methodology that conform to the tenets of a qualitative research approach in general and critical realism under-labouring in particular. in a philosophical sense, ontology focuses on the nature of reality that preoccupies an inquiry (hart, 2010). in this study, the reality was the practices of mainstream teachers in inclusive education. the focus was on whether and how their practices help develop inclusive pedagogy. expectedly, not all teachers had similar practices as far as inclusivity was concerned. since critical realism offers a less restrictive and more inclusive perspective, the study captured different meanings that teachers construct from their practices and experiences (see danermark & bhaskar, 2006). epistemology concerns itself with knowledge and how it is acquired (flick, 2018; roth, 2019). the epistemological standpoint of the study is that teachers construct their knowledge. in the study, i was interested in how teachers construct knowledge. for instance, i sought to explore how teachers understood the issues of inclusive education. a critical realist perspective became important since it afforded space for explaining the understandings impartially and elaboratively (see danermark & bhaskar, 2006). within the critical realist under-labouring, i was concerned with the appropriateness of the chosen methods to generate data that addresses the research purpose. i assumed that the teachers had multi-layered understandings of their practices. thus, these practices were perceived better through a critical realist perspective since it construes reality from a multi-layered point—a necessarily laminated system (danermark & bhaskar, 2006). participants and methods the study involved document review and in-depth semi-structured interviews with five mainstream secondary teachers at one inclusive school in blantyre, malawi. the participants were purposively selected based on the criterion that they had learners with disabilities in their classrooms. the participants were requested to participate willingly in the study after i acquired enrolment information from the head of the institution and consent from the participants themselves. the interactions with the participants were situated in the critical realist perspective to challenge the dichotomic binary opposition that institutionalised de souza: reframing policy trajectory for inclusive education in malawi 75 exclusion in the education system by othering disabilities and brought new ontological framings that require teachers to embrace inclusive education into discourse. data analysis the study employed a threefold data analytical framework: data triangulation; thematic analysis; and the theoretical framework. data triangulation was an ongoing process that happened concurrently and synchronically between document review and interviews. insights drawn from the document review analysis were applied in the in-depth face-to-face interviews. second, a thematic method was used to analyse the interviews and document reviews. in essence, thematic analysis organises research data by identifying central ideas observed in data (braun & clarke, 2006; thomas & harden, 2008). therefore, thematic analysis was crucial to uncovering key and central themes and categories at an inductive level in the data. central themes and categories were drawn in both emic and etic fashion from the theories, literature, research questions, and data. ethical considerations rhodes university ethics committee gave me ethical clearance for the study. the gatekeeper’s permission was obtained from the south-west education division manager in blantyre, malawi. the negotiation process emphasized that participation in this study was voluntary. informed consent of the participants in the study was used to negotiate access and permission to acquire, use, and refer to the data collected (see maree, 2016; sotuku & duku, 2015). each participant in the study was requested to sign an informed consent form and return it to me as the researcher. the informed consent form was evidence of their agreement to be included and involved in the study. the purpose of the study was explained verbally to the participants before they were requested to sign the consent forms. the participants who opted to participate were informed that they reserved the right to withdraw at any time should they find it necessary. research findings this section presents research findings from interviews with five mainstream secondary teachers at one inclusive school in blantyre, malawi. these findings are presented in a synchronising manner with the document review analysis. emergence of communities of practice for inclusive education the interviews show an emergence of communities of practice for inclusive education. teachers recognised that inclusive education involves interactions between and across schooling systems. participant 1 said, it is very important to do what we call inclusive education because, first of all, i believe all of them are students, all of them have got a right to education. 76 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 participant 3 offered another perspective in saying, i believe that when you educate them together, they also learn from each other because the knowledge that these students have is not only the knowledge they get from the teachers, but they also help each other. so, if you do inclusive education, those with disabilities might benefit from the able ones. moreover, for participant 5, some of us teachers we do not know the sign language, so if they learn together with those that are able those are kids they learn faster, they master the sign language and when they are in class and if maybe you are delivering something and they seem not to understand their friends come in and help them. in a sense, these supportive systems that emerge from inclusive education can be termed communities of practice influenced, theoretically, by microsystems such as learners without disabilities. hitherto, a critical reading of the national education policy of 2016 suggests that it overlooks the microsystems that influence inclusivity. a microsystem is a “pattern of activities, roles, and interpersonal relations experienced by the developing person in a given face-to-face setting with particular physical and material features and containing other persons with distinctive characteristics of temperament, personality, and systems of belief” (bronfenbrenner, 2005, p. 148). the original tenet of the microsystem (see bronfenbrenner’s ecological and socioecological theories) put a child (a learner) at the core of this system. the national education policy of 2016 seems to frame inclusive education as focusing simply on the learner with disability. however, according to bronfenbrenner’s revision of the theory in 2005, this does not mean that the child would be the only unit of analysis in this system since they interact with other factors such as teachers, parents, and peers (swartz, 2015). in essence, it is possible to theorise and centralise other factors apart from the developing child. thus, a new policy framework on inclusive education needs to recognise mainstream teachers and their practices as a unit of analysis in the microsystem. differentiated epistemic strategies lynch et al., (2014) established that learners with disabilities, specifically those with albinism, do not have the same educational opportunities as their peers. the study attributed this worrisome development to several factors, including a lack of relevant materials and incorrect information about people with albinism. the interviews conducted with the mainstream teachers suggest that the trends in inclusive education are shaping up in an interactionist fashion that has learners without disabilities and specialist teachers assisting mainstream teachers in inclusive pedagogy for learners with disabilities. for example, as participant 2 said, when you go to a class with students with hearing impairment, you are supposed to stand in front. when you stand in front, you have to look at the students, mainly de souza: reframing policy trajectory for inclusive education in malawi 77 focusing on those that have got a hearing impairment so that if they, of course, they will not get what you are saying, lip read, they will sense what you are saying. furthermore, for participant 4, we are encouraged to write on the board so that if they fail to understand the language when they read at the chalkboard, they get the points. additionally, as participant 1 put it, we also learn basics of sign language, so if you can mix up those things: sign language and your words, they learn better. within mainstream education, according to participant 5, [w]e also have teachers from the special needs department. they come in class, and they do interpret the sign language, whatever you are saying they interpret to sign language, whenever they have got questions maybe when you ask a question to those students, and whenever they are answering the question, they will speak to their specialist teacher, and the teacher tells you. interestingly, for participant 3, if the specialist teacher is not available, other students without disabilities are also there to help. these developments speak to the efforts made by communities of practice presented earlier, but they directly affect epistemological access in a mainstream class. nevertheless, in the national education policy of 2016, the ministry of education is a leading and centralised partner in implementing the policy without necessarily having a clear division of labour among other interested and concerned stakeholders. this situation ignores the fact that elements of microsystems need to interact to form mesosystems for inclusivity. theoretically, a mesosystem is “a system of microsystems” (bronfenbrenner, 2005, p. 160). this definition entails a mesosystem interacting with two or more factors within a microsystem. for example, an interaction between a developing child and parents forms a mesosystem. other interactions could be between a teacher collaborating with another teacher and a teacher interacting with students. central to the mesosystem is the influence that units of the microsystem have on each other (de souza, 2020). thus, a new education policy framework for inclusivity needs to acknowledge that mainstream teachers have the potential to influence inclusive pedagogical proficiency, which would eventually influence inclusive practices in schools, and theoretically, this assumption would manifest in the mesosystem. 78 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 experience-informed pedagogical framings the interviews with mainstream teachers found that they try to provide education for all learners regardless of their disabilities. indeed, for participant 5, [a]s a human being, you always have the passion for teaching those students with disabilities. for my part, i am pleased whenever that student, maybe even out of ten concepts that you were trying to teach and even if they grab two that is better rather than if they go outside completely with nothing. participant 2 said that as somebody who has taught these students for a long [time], i feel delighted when they grasp the concepts that you teach, but also, i feel terrible whenever you go there, and you come out, and you see that they have grasped nothing because sometimes you ask them, they say they have not heard anything, maybe you ask a friend to ask them what they have learned they will say they have not got anything. so, you feel bad and say why they are here then? participant 4 suggested that because they are here to learn so if they are not getting anything it means the purpose of coming to school is not there, it is like they come to school to pass the time. but if they grasp something better and from my experience, the time when i came to [this school], teachers in the special needs department were not making the interpretations in the classrooms, but since they started interpreting what you teach to those students, there have been great improvements, you are seeing that you are together in the same boat though they might not get everything but seeing them being in the same boat that’s fine. however, when the national education policy of 2013 was revised and adopted in 2016, it did not respond to the local needs of special needs learners with disabilities and albinism in particular. it copied international protocols without meaningful consultations with persons with albinism and mainstream teachers to address the issue in schools. inclusive education has an excellent opportunity to offer pathways for epistemological integration of learners with disabilities within their learning environments in malawi (de souza, 2022). the epistemological integration of learners with disabilities in malawi is at stake. an example can be seen in the context of the abduction and killing of persons with albinism in malawi. the malpractice advances the myths about people with albinism, including learners with this skin disorder. theoretically, the situation overlooks the essence of the exosystem in which different education stakeholders need to make meaningful interactions in the absence of the learners for the betterment of the learners. exosystem is a system in which interactions involve units that are not the core of analysis in the microsystem (bronfenbrenner, 2005). put differently, the exosystem involves those factors in which, in the case of the original tenets of bronfenbrenner, the developing child is not involved, but the effects of the interactions de souza: reframing policy trajectory for inclusive education in malawi 79 funnel down to the child in the microsystem through the mesosystem (mclinden et al., 2018; stofile et al., 2013). thus, a reframed policy trajectory on inclusive education has to recognise that whatever the teachers practise in the absence of the learners funnels down to the learners. practice-informed policies and strategies the analysis of interviews suggests there is an expressed need to formulate policies and strategies that are informed by practice. as participant 1 indicated, mainstream teachers recognise that the policy says there is a need for inclusive education. the aim is to make all students or to make all children in malawi get educated, regardless of the disabilities that they have. at least they want students to attend the basic education. in essence, for participant 3, when it comes to tertiary education, many students do not have access. so, i have seen that the government of malawi is now trying to introduce some subjects which might help those learners, for example, clothing and textiles, home economics, technical drawing, woodwork and metalwork. at least what the government wants is that when they finish the four years of secondary school, they should be independent when they go out there. those students should be independent regardless of the disabilities. it was further indicated by participant 5 that the policies help a lot because sometimes you take things for granted, you feel you are there to teach them, you do not mind them. however, when we are reminded by that policy to say there is a need for inclusive education when you go to class, you are alert, to say i have got these students whom i am supposed to attend to. the national education policy of 2016 “recognizes the importance of inclusion of special needs education” (malawi. ministry of education, 2016, p. iii). from what the policy proclaims and what the situation on the ground tells, it is very clear that the policy is not well informed, implemented, or evaluated. for example, mainstream teachers raised the issue of post-school skills as a key benefit for learners with disabilities in inclusive education. nonetheless, the policy sees the aim of the education of learners with disabilities as being to acquire basic competencies epistemologically. with such a lack, it is not viable to come up with workable educational plans unless the policies recognise the influence that the macrosystems have on inclusive education. bronfenbrenner (2005) designated a macrosystem as being composed of metaphysical and sociocultural factors that surround a developing child’s physical, social, and cultural environment. thus, a new policy framework on inclusive education has to take into account such factors as teacher education institutions, projects, programmes, policies, and curricula because these are the metaphysical and sociocultural factors that shape teacher practices for inclusivity. 80 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 responsive changes to the mainstream education malawi has put in place policies that aim to provide equal educational opportunities to all learners (chitiyo et al., 2019; de souza, 2022). participant 5 welcomed this development but observed that [i]nclusive education is there, but when you try to follow it fully, you fail because of time. why am i saying so? when you teach those students, you need to dedicate more time, so our policy says forty minutes for a lesson, but you will discover that if you want to use more inclusive education, you will not likely finish the syllabus. so, it needs more time. also, for participant 3, the workshops are supposed to be there to remind us because we forget, with time you forget. so maybe this year i am teaching the class which has got those students with disabilities, next year i am no longer teaching that class it means i will relax. the evaluation of the national education policy of 2016 is assigned to the ministry of education itself. it is not very likely that such evaluation would present reviews critical to the opportunities inclusive education can offer to promote inclusive education in malawi. thus, its evaluation is likely to be limited, and its findings are irrelevant to inclusive education unless the time factor (the chronosystem) is considered in the policy formulation. chronosystem is the “patterning of environmental events and transitions over the life course” (bronfenbrenner, 2005, p. 43). this delineation entails that the chronosystem is a tracking system of what happens in the life of a developing child, at least according to what bronfenbrenner initially propounded (hayes & bulat, 2017). however, national education objectives, sustainable development goal 4 indicators, etc., fall within this system. all these units are interested in monitoring and evaluating what happens after a while concerning inclusive education. therefore, a new policy trajectory towards inclusive education should be interested in what happens in inclusivity over time. model for reframing inclusive education policy theoretical model often, policymakers overlook the essence of theory in formulating national education policies. this situation has led to the development of policies primarily divorced from the context in which they are intended to be implemented (done & andrews, 2020). a theory is not just something academic but rather an onto-epistemological tool that helps policymakers to contextualise policy stipulations. therefore, for developing a national inclusive education policy for malawi or other southern african countries, it is imperative to employ a bioecological model that has much potential for developing inclusive education praxis, primarily de souza: reframing because of its emphasis on interactions in a socio education. this theoretical model draws on the ideas of bronfenbrenner bioecological systems theory especially the process in the theoretical context of the p inclusive education policy should reflect a systems approach to inclusive schooling. in a conduit of systems, one system should eventually help to achieve the goal of inclusive education regardless of the starting point. for example, the mesosystem helps to explain the intersectional relationships and interactions between the teachers national education policies and the learning processes (velez words, the teachers are entrusted with implementing policies and have to interact with several microsystems such as the parents, peers education policy should be able to reflect and encourage these in figure 2 below. figure 2 bronfenbrenner’s (2005) five nested bioecological systems theoretically, the interaction of the t interactions between the teachers and the inclusive education policies are in the exosystem, the influencing factors funnel down to the microsystem, thus intersecting with the other systems (swartz, 2015). hence, the exosystem is essential in explaining influencing factors that affect learners from inclusive education policy. thus, a national inclusive education policy should be formulated using a systems approach to contextualise the schooling systems. fundamentally, a national inclusive education policy should be based on the systems approach because of its ability, over time, through the chronosystem, understanding of the learning processes inclusive schooling. de souza: reframing policy trajectory for inclusive education in malawi because of its emphasis on interactions in a socio-cultural environment and transformative education. this theoretical model draws on the ideas of bronfenbrenner’s (2005) theory especially the process-person-context-time (ppct) model. in the theoretical context of the process-person-context-time (ppct) model, a national inclusive education policy should reflect a systems approach to inclusive schooling. in a uit of systems, one system should eventually help to achieve the goal of inclusive education regardless of the starting point. for example, the mesosystem helps to explain the intersectional relationships and interactions between the teachers’ interpretati national education policies and the learning processes (velez-agosto et al., 2019). in other words, the teachers are entrusted with implementing policies and have to interact with several microsystems such as the parents, peers, and learners. this means that a national inclusive education policy should be able to reflect and encourage these system interactions s (2005) five nested bioecological systems theoretically, the interaction of the teacher and the policy forms an exosystem. while the interactions between the teachers and the inclusive education policies are in the exosystem, the influencing factors funnel down to the microsystem, thus intersecting with the other . hence, the exosystem is essential in explaining influencing factors that affect learners from inclusive education policy. thus, a national inclusive education policy should be formulated using a systems approach to contextualise the schooling systems. ndamentally, a national inclusive education policy should be based on the systems approach because of its ability, over time, through the chronosystem, to acquire an learning processes of the learners, especially those with disabilitie policy trajectory for inclusive education in malawi 81 cultural environment and transformative s (2005) time (ppct) model. model, a national inclusive education policy should reflect a systems approach to inclusive schooling. in a uit of systems, one system should eventually help to achieve the goal of inclusive education regardless of the starting point. for example, the mesosystem helps to explain the interpretations of the , 2019). in other words, the teachers are entrusted with implementing policies and have to interact with several a national inclusive interactions, as shown eacher and the policy forms an exosystem. while the interactions between the teachers and the inclusive education policies are in the exosystem, the influencing factors funnel down to the microsystem, thus intersecting with the other . hence, the exosystem is essential in explaining influencing factors that affect learners from inclusive education policy. thus, a national inclusive education policy should be formulated using a systems approach to contextualise the schooling systems. ndamentally, a national inclusive education policy should be based on the systems acquire an especially those with disabilities, in 82 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 methodological model in light of interactive bio-ecological systems involved in inclusive education, i suggest that the policy formulation process would be more relevant if undertaken using the agile participatory approach (apa) of project planning (see whiteley et al., 2021). through an apa methodological model, policymakers can work closely with education specialists and a multi-disciplinary core team set by a national ministry responsible for education. this approach embraces the bio-ecological systems theory that has the potential to reframe inclusive education policy. to make this approach more serving, the research components of the policy formulation process should follow the apa model using a phenomenologicalexploratory nested case study (pencs) (see silverman, 2020). in the pencs method, participants should be selected across the country, reflecting factors such as gender, disability, and social status. expert informants such as government policymakers, nongovernmental organisations, academics, and activists should be selected for their engagement with inclusive education issues. exponential snowball sampling, convenience and purposive sampling (see flick, 2018) should be used to locate individuals involved in inclusive education with connections being made through the experts involved in various issues related to inclusivity. evaluation model technically, evaluation of an inclusive education policy would need a mixed methods research model in which quantitative and qualitative data is collected (mertens, 2019). the quantitative data would be used to measure the impact of the policy on fostering inclusivity. the qualitative data would be used to explain the successes, shortfalls, and prospects of the policy in the context of inclusive education. a quantitative questionnaire could be developed based on different sources of information, including reports. qualitative data could be collected through a biographical approach (see van marrewijk et al., 2021). the understanding is that some relative educational change would have occurred as far as inclusive education is concerned. thus, the biographical approach is better placed to provide the data necessary from key stakeholders such as teachers, learners, specialists and parents to explain any educational changes. the biographical approach could include interviews, focus group discussions, observations, and life stories. adopting this proposed evaluation model would ensure that evidence is solicited from the interactive systems involved in inclusive education which resonate with the bio-ecological policy trajectory reframing agenda. conclusion malawi, just like other southern african countries, made promises to ensure the inclusion of learners with disabilities in mainstream education in response to international agreements. like many countries, malawi promised to educate all learners together regardless of disabilities and afford necessary support within mainstream education. in this study, i de souza: reframing policy trajectory for inclusive education in malawi 83 examined national policies, strategies, and practices for inclusive education in malawi. findings from the policy analysis point to a lack of theory-based framing of the policies to reflect interrelated and transformative systems necessary for advancing inclusivity in school practices. these findings also speak to the reporting of the united national educational, scientific and cultural organisation (unesco) (2020) in profiles enhancing education reviews (peer) on inclusion in education that reflects the inadequate ways in which inclusivity is represented in the peer profile for malawi and other southern african countries. based on the analysis of interviews in this study, i recommend a theory-based reframing of the policy trajectory for inclusive education in malawi that emphasises inclusive pedagogical proficiency. potentially, the theory-based reframing can inform future policy formulation in southern africa and reshape educational reporting such as the global education monitoring (gem) report. since government policies are benchmarks for formulating sector plans, southern african countries should develop comprehensive and inclusive education policies and well-informed, inclusive education strategies that are specific, attainable, and grounded in bio-ecological systems framing. presently, the policy ignores the essence of mainstream teachers’ pedagogical competencies and systems. thus, it is challenging for malawi to formulate and implement a national inclusive education policy to ensure the epistemological inclusion of learners with disabilities in mainstream schools. references african union. 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(2021). the origins of agile and iterative methods. the journal of modern project management, 8(3), 21–29. journal of education, 2017 issue 68, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za does financial assistance undermine academic success? experiences of ‘at risk’ students in a south african university samukelisiwe mngomezulu, rubby dhunpath and nicholas munro (received 6 september 2016; accepted 4 april 2017) abstract in the current #feesmustfall activism, financial relief and support for higher education students are promoted as strategies to enhance access, persistence and progression in higher education. however, despite the increases in government and allied funding for higher education students, high-attrition and unsustainably low graduation rates persist. this reality has dire consequences for individual students, their families and the capacity of higher education to meet the development needs of the country. this article draws on data from an ethnographic study which used interpretive methods to explore the academic experiences of south african university students who despite receiving financial assistance for their studies, continued to be classified ‘at-risk’ of academic failure and exclusion. the findings suggest that an ostensibly positive outcome (such as receiving financial assistance) may have unintended negative academic consequences, including increasing students’ risk of academic exclusion, by virtue of the tendency for such funds to be utilised to ameliorate family poverty. while the cultural capital framework is a valuable tool in understanding student spending behaviours from economically advantaged communities, its explanatory power diminishes when applied to students from low socio-economic backgrounds, who manage competing demands on their student funding. the authors signal the need for higher education institutions to design alternative funding models and interventions to curb financial illiteracy in order to minimise the potential for misappropriation of financial assistance, which compromises academic success. introduction in the last two decades, student enrolments have expanded considerably and resulted in increased access for students from diverse backgrounds, including first generation students (gladieux and swail, 2000; council on higher 132 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 education [che], 2010; bailey and dynarski, 2011). in south africa, total student enrolment in 1994 was around 425 000 students (che, 2010), and by 2013, enrolment had increased to just under one million students (che, 2015). the proportion of african student enrolments has also grown considerably, from 43% in 1998 (che, 2010) to 71% in 2013 (che, 2015). the increased enrolment of african students in higher education suggests increasing access for students from economically and educationally disadvantaged groups. however, increasing access has not resulted in increasing success. despite government and other forms of financial assistance, a substantial number of students fail to complete their degrees in minimum time, or drop out of programmes completely (che, 2014). student poverty and the lack of sufficient funding have consistently been cited as key reasons for student academic failure and progression difficulties (africa, 2005; letseka and maile, 2008; che, 2010). the presidential task team (ptt) on higher education funding (2016) underscores the pressure of persistent underfunding of higher education in a “context of increasing enrolment growth which leads to most institutions passing an increasing burden of costs onto students through high annual fee increases” (che, 2016, p.6). this article explores the phenomenon of academic failure and poor academic progression in spite of the availability of student financial support. the study reported in this article sought to understand and explain how the choices that students from families with low socio-economic status make in using financial assistance, can compromise their academic success, and predispose them to risk of academic exclusion. the evidence suggests that while financial assistance in itself is not a risk factor, students’ perceptions of their needs and their ability to prioritise how to meet these needs, can impact on the choices they make which in turn can impact academic success. this article will attempt to analyse the problem through the eyes of students who have experienced dilemmas associated with financial assistance and the competing demands on such assistance. the article will posit that the current loosely regulated funding regime creates conditions and opportunities for students to misappropriate financial assistance for other imperatives, deemed more urgent, especially for students from low income households. alternative funding models with greater accountability measures and financial literacy are needed to curb misappropriation of student funding. mngomezulu, dhunpath and munro: does financial assistance . . . 133 funding and financial assistance challenges in higher education hayward and ncayiyana (2014) note that while most academic institutions, even in prosperous industrialised nations, face financial problems, such challenges are more keenly felt in africa than elsewhere. expansion and massification have placed unprecedented strain on the national fiscus and its ability to meet multiple demands such as health care, housing and social welfare. moreover, using their own income, without assistance, the majority of south african households are unable to support a dependent at university (in terms of study and related accommodation and living costs) (che, 2016). the current wave of student protests over fees in south africa (# fees must fall), and the emergent debates around higher education funding (butleradam, 2015), point to the consequences of increasing costs of higher education in the contexts of declining employment opportunities. many students from low socio economic status families seek (higher) education as a mechanism to disrupt blockages to intergenerational mobility and progression (blanden and macmillan, 2014). propelled by common discourses around education as a solution to poverty and underpinned by section 29 of the south african constitution (republic of south africa (rsa), 1996) which affirms the right to basic and further education, south africans have come to expect that education can and must be ‘provided’ to all. notwithstanding the nuanced conceptions of access, success, and throughout in higher education, expectations of education being ‘provided’ are resonant with morrow’s (1994) notion of a ‘culture of entitlement’ which he claims often accompany political-educational protest movements and mindsets. yet, the quest for education and consequent liberation from poverty can generate unintended consequences for academic success and throughput, as this article will demonstrate. mindful of the challenges of affordability and its impact on students with insufficient financial resources, the question of how they can be financially supported to achieve academic success and economic independence has been a concern for government and non-government entities for some time (see gladieux and swail, 1998). in south africa, a funding framework for higher education was introduced in 2004 (dhet, 2004), closely linking funding to student success and throughput (essack, barnes, jackson, majozi, mcinerney, mtshali, naidoo, oosthuizen, and suleman, 2009; che, 2010). however, establishing a tight causal link between funding and academic success may not be a useful one. 134 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 breier (2010) observes that despite general consensus on the impact of adequate financial assistance on academic success, the phenomenon of student success should not simplistically be linked to financial assistance alone, but requires a more nuanced understanding of other factors such as institutional and social forces that contribute to student success. indeed, the effect of inadequate financial assistance should not be dismissed as inconsequential to the biological and psycho-social health of students, especially since higher education inflation is historically higher than the general inflation index (che, 2016). it has been established that students with insufficient financial resources struggle to afford escalating student fees, accommodation, meals and books and erratic transportation costs (budlender and woolard, 2006). what is not adequately established in the literature is the impact on academic performance when students from poverty stricken backgrounds are also under pressure to support their families with their limited financial assistance. bourdieu (2011) asserts that students enter learning institutions from different structural positions in society, and are therefore endowed with differential echelons of cultural capital (i.e. knowledge and skills that can be transferred from one structural position to another). students from privileged backgrounds are more likely to have acquired forms of cultural capital from their schooling and upbringing that more easily enable accessing the complex and subtle (academic) practices in higher education that lead to academic success. whereas students can be granted physical access to higher education (through space and financial assistance), epistemological access cannot “be supplied . . . [or] ‘done’ to the learner . . . [or] ‘automatically’ transmitted to those who . . .attend classes regularly” (morrow, 1994, p.40). epistemological access can only be earned through an individual student’s agency and efforts, and agency and effort are often made easier depending on the cultural capital that a student brings into the learning environment. similarly, bourdieu (2011) highlights the crisis of student alienation: of having to navigate unfamiliar and sometimes hostile university environments, while negotiating additional cost drivers associated with university life. the central element of bourdieu and morrow’s work is that it is necessary to recognise the socioeconomic and sociocultural contexts that may impact on individual students’ capacity for agency, self-actualisation, and academic success in higher education. morrow’s (1994) notion of the culture of entitlement (introduced earlier in relation to the demands for education provision) is also useful at this point as he claims that the culture of entitlement undermines the role of individual agency in academic and educational achievement. if students do mngomezulu, dhunpath and munro: does financial assistance . . . 135 not understand how academic success in higher education may be negotiated, they (and their teachers) may anticipate less from themselves in the learning and achievement trajectory. similarly, behaviours and attitudes around responsible money management are likely to be located within the family and the sociocultural environment. the complexities of money management in extended families with limited earning power should not be understated. additionally, students from working-class backgrounds are also more likely to experience “academic disengagement and a less welcoming campus climate in relation to their peers from upper income families” (soria,weiner and lu, 2014, p.5). feelings of disengagement could motivate students to seek affirmation to compensate for such feelings. bourdieu (2011) argues that cultural capital is determined by familiarity with the dominant discourses in a society. in the context of student financial assistance, discourses on how families conceive of ‘income’ and their notions of budgeting, has implications for how such income is disbursed among the extended family. methodology data was drawn from the first author’s doctoral study. a qualitative approach was used as it enabled the researcher to make sense of students’ experiences, perceptions, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours in a given cultural context (clissett, 2008). a case study research design was selected for an in-depth enquiry into the phenomenon of students who received financial assistance and became ‘at-risk’ of academic exclusion (maree, 2007). email invitations to participate in the study were sent to 30 students who met the study’s inclusion criteria. all students were reading for a bachelor of education degree in the school of education at the university of kwazulu-natal in 2010. the researcher purposively sampled (academically) ‘at-risk’ students who were receiving financial assistance, aiming to elicit in-depth descriptions of their experiences. in acknowledging the financial challenges which contribute to students’ enrolment and academic programme choices, the department of education (doe) introduced various funding schemes that aim to increase the number of qualified teachers being produced by the higher education system (onwu and sehoole, 2011). the funza lushaka bursary programme, nsfas, and the national skills bursary are examples of such funding schemes. students who are awarded financial aid via the nsfas and other funding schemes generally 136 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 receive an additional stipend for incidental academic and living expenses. of the 30 students who were invited to participate in the study, 12 responded and participated in a focus group discussion. of these 12 students, six introduced content on ‘funding’ into the focus group discussion. a data set derived from four participants who produced particularly rich accounts was drawn upon for this article. the students were informed that their participation in the study was voluntary and that they could withdraw from the study at any time. interpretive phenomenological analysis was employed to analyse the interview and focus group discussion transcripts. this analysis assisted in identifying repeated themes across transcripts. the approach that was used involved taking each case (i.e. students), describing it, and then inductively identifying themes from the data. inductive analysis allows patterns, themes and categories to be constructed from the data, rather than being imposed on them prior to data collection and analysis (rule and john, 2011). biographical snapshots of participants this section introduces the student participants by providing snapshots of their backgrounds. the four students, who received financial assistance, provided rich accounts of their experiences in managing their funding obligations. some of the students received national student financial aid scheme (nsfas) financial assistance based on their family’s socio-economic status, and some received financial assistance based on merit and subject priority area (e.g. the funza lushaka bursary programme for teacher trainees). sizwe, a first language isizulu speaker, is a 22-year-old male from an urban area who attended a private primary school and moved to a public school for his secondary education. both his parents are alive and his father is a principal at one of the secondary schools in their neighbourhood. sizwe, who stays in a campus residence, was awarded a funza lushaka bursary in his first year of study because of his good performance in grade 12. sabrina comes from a middle class family of four where she is the eldest sibling. her father passed away during early childhood and her mother is employed as a chef. two of sabrina’s siblings are still in school while her sister is registered for the first year of a bachelor’s degree at ukzn. sabrina’s home language is english and she attended her primary and mngomezulu, dhunpath and munro: does financial assistance . . . 137 secondary education in an urban area. although, she had originally hoped to pursue a career in nursing, sabrina’s “mom insisted that [she] take teaching”. she was awarded a funza lushaka bursary for her good performance in grade 12. this financial assistance was meant for sabrina’s studies, but she also used it to cover costs associated with her sister’s studies. zodumo, a first language isizulu speaker, is a 23-year-old female from a rural area. she attended both her primary and secondary school in a disadvantaged area. zodumo’s aunt has supported her throughout her education as both her parents passed away. she received financial aid (nsfas) in her first year of study, and she now uses part of this funding to support her aunt. khethiwe is a 24-year-old female from a township and her home language is isizulu. she completed both her primary and secondary education in a disadvantaged area. she has a very supportive mother who paid her secondary school fees. khethiwe’s first year of study was funded by the national skills fund, which is a one year scarce skills bursary. she stays at an off-campus residence and commutes by bus to campus. emerging trends from the data use of funding to support family needs participants in the study indicated that coming from a poor home or a working class family exacerbates their inability to sustain satisfactory performance in their studies. students receiving bursaries for their studies are sometimes expected to redirect part of the funding they receive to their families so as to alleviate the family’s living conditions. as the students explained, the suffering of their families contributed to their psychological schemas which consequently impacted on their academic performance. the following quotation illustrates how students redirect their financial assistance to support their families. i have a bursary, funza lushaka bursary, i can’t use it for my studies only. i also use it to pay for my sister’s university fees. i don’t have to stress about my single parent having to struggle to pay for my transport fees and my sister’s university fees. it also took a lot of pressure from my mother. now i can’t really buy all what i need for my 138 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 modules because i have to use my scholarship to look after my family. (sabrina) students are faced with conflicting pressures of either prioritising their own, or their family’s financial needs. redirecting funds toward the family can be seen as a generous gesture but it sabotages a students’ own financial resources which have been allocated for the express purpose of supporting them through their studies. my aunt, who is receiving social grant, helped me to pay for [my] school fees. at university i have nsfas bursary which is supporting me. i also use this nsfas to support [family] at home because there is no one who is working. i received funding, but moved out of campus because it is too expensive. i wanted to send money home but my new accommodation is very far from campus. now i cannot use the library in the evenings. (zodumo) for sabrina, zodumo, khethiwe and sizwe, it is evident that at least three factors contributed to their low academic performance and subsequent ‘atrisk’ status. the first factor is using money awarded for study funding, for financially supporting families at home. this redirection of funding compromises academic performance in that it reduces the amount of funding available for study related expenses. the second factor that contributed to the students’ low academic performance pertains to their anxiety and concern with the welfare of their families at home. their constant apprehension about how their families at home are struggling to meet daily expenses leads to a decision to provide for their families by using money received from their funders. preoccupation with their families’ welfare results in students’ attention to their studies being negatively impacted as indicated by khethiwe. i come from a poor family; i use money from national skills fund bursary to support my family. as long as i have money left for me to eat and i know that at least my family can buy few things to keep them for a while. i worry a lot about them. (kethiwe) the third factor which seems to have contributed to the students’ poor academic performance relates to the choices students make when faced with competing demands on the limited funds they have. this results in their funds being spread so thinly that the purposes for which the funds were intended are not achieved. coupled with the generally inadequate financial literacy skills, mngomezulu, dhunpath and munro: does financial assistance . . . 139 the consequent misappropriation of money leads students to prematurely being heralded into the ‘at risk’ category, from which it is often difficult to be rehabilitated. financial illiteracy a lack of budgeting skills and a lack of experience in handling money resulted in sizwe’s focus being shifted from studying. when i got a bursary things fell apart having to experience having money in my account for the first time. there have been such as freedom, it’s tough, having access to funding sometimes you misuse the money, handling the money and using it for wrong things. (sizwe) sizwe received funds at the point of his entry into higher education, based on merit. he refers to ‘things falling apart’ as soon as he received financial assistance. inexperience in money handling, excitement at accessing money for the first time, difficulties of not knowing what to do with the money, and a lack of budgeting skills contributed to his misuse of funds which in turn resulted in his poor performance. the ‘freedom’ of having received funds becomes an inhibiting factor to his academic success. this finding suggests that as much as bursaries are intended to make students’ lives less stressful, they sometimes have the opposite effect. all students in the study acknowledged that a lack of budgeting skills and misdirection of funding contributed to their poor academic performance. the lack of experience and inability to handle money responsibly according to priorities proved to be an inexorable challenge for students who receive financial assistance, especially where students do not have the requisite skills to manage such funds. it is evident that students would benefit from prior training in and orientation to money management and budgeting as a life skill before transitioning from high school to further education. this skill should assist them with becoming more independent and responsible at money management, and enhance the likelihood that financial assistance intended to make students’ lives less stressful and help them to meet financial needs does not become a hindrance to success. 140 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 renegotiating identity whilst funding may not be a challenge for middle class families, other distractions subject them to the same levels of risk as disadvantaged students. in the absence of little or no prior experience in managing finances, without parental supervision, students’ new found financial independence and decisional power to spend at will, can and does lead them to make inappropriate choices on what and how to utilise the available funding. this is evident, for instance, in some students’ preoccupation with being trendy and the temptation to party to satisfy expectations of friends and peers. peer pressure is another critical influence on how students who receive funding make choices and decision on how to spend funds. i always wondered how other students afford to have all these things. . .(so) i used my money to buy a new cell phone and new clothes. . .(and) i was able to go out with my friends. (sizwe) students faced with the pressure to acquire certain status symbols are afforded the opportunity to demonstrate a new social status on and off campus. they shift from who they were to what they have always aspired to be (for instance, in their choice of fashionable clothing and cell phones). the shift into who a student aspires to be may compromise his/her academic performance if this shift involves redirecting study related financial assistance to non-study related expenses. in some ways, this shift may be conceptualised as the consequence of how a new cultural environment (i.e., a university) could impinge on a student’s sense of self-worth, which in turn influences their values and what they deem valuable as an expression of their emergent identities in the new cultural field. the paradox of financial assistance the ostensibly simple choice of disbursing funding to purposes for which it was intended such as purchasing a meal or a textbook can become a source of a spending dilemma, as students make decisions based on emotional impulses, rather than educational ones. students from poor socio-economic backgrounds, who currently account for the vast majority of funded students in south africa, are likely to experience challenges associated with money management when they arrive at university. in their study on a group of south african university students, shambare and rugimbana (2012, p.581) found mngomezulu, dhunpath and munro: does financial assistance . . . 141 “moderate levels of financial illiteracy.” the level of financial literacy is a function of both disadvantaged schooling backgrounds which do not privilege money management skills as a life skill, as well as the absence of fiscal cultural capital in low socioeconomic status households, which renders money management superfluous as these households typically have little to manage. whilst students’ academic success can be undermined on different fronts (mushtag, 2012), findings from this study suggest another layer of challenge, related to the influence of funding which impact their experiences and serve as barriers to academic success. it is evident that when faced with financial illiteracy, students are vulnerable to a myriad of competing influences such as heightened peer pressure and anxiety to construct a new self-identity on campus which work in concert to expose students to the residual effects of misuse and mishandling of funds. similar studies amongst college students in the usa reveal that low-income students were more likely to borrow and accrue more debt than their middle/upper-income peers (see soria et.al., 2014). in this context, while bourdieu’s cultural capital framework is a powerful tool in explaining spending behaviours in households with surplus income, the framework has limited explanatory power in explaining student behaviours and student outcomes particularly when family needs compete with individual desires as students pursue tertiary qualifications. while social and cultural capital provide a useful lens in understanding choice, we have an obligation to draw on more nuanced models that draw on multiple theoretical perspectives relevant to the context of higher education, where students from lower/working-classes encounter challenges in the middle-class habitus of higher education (soria et.al., 2014) the implications of competing interests are that even if students do have the cultural capital to succeed in higher education, by virtue of their academic attributes and aspirations to interrupt the cycle of inter-generational mobility, their perceived sense of responsibility, obligation and commitment to supporting families, conspire to divert attention and funds to securing the means of survival for their families. in diverting funding to family, some students inadvertently predispose themselves to academic risk, as study resources are eroded, and with it, follows the erosion of objectified cultural capital. universities, thus, which are institutionalised forms which credentialise and cultivate cultural competence, have in the south african context, been co-opted to become agencies for alleviating family poverty, and by implication, become sites of social stratification. 142 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 financial in(dependence) and decisional power higher education funding is allocated to qualifying students on the presumption that all students have the same skills and level of maturity in money management. however, the reality of the south african context is that students receive funding based on their satisfactory academic performance as they exit secondary schooling. there are no preconditions linked to students’ money management skills. additionally, schools, particularly those located in low socio economic contexts, rarely provide training and/or orientation in how to manage funds appropriately. swart (2005) posits that the inclusion of financial literacy and management components in the higher education curriculum should be compulsory for all students. however, the critical question relates to when this competence should be acquired. upon first entry, students not only experience the challenges of transitioning from school to campus life, and from dependency on family authority to independence and self-regulation with decisional power. students’ new found independence includes the power to manage money and make concomitant choices independently. faced with the novel experience of having a bank account and handling money for the first time, students should be exposed to financial literacy programs to cultivate awareness of money management skills and allied decision-making skills. absence of these fundamental skills, generate unintended consequences including the lack of capacity to prioritise needs and make prudent choices. as the findings in this study reveal, students’ ability to make judicious decisions points to a critical disconnect between the structural arrangements at universities which require particular forms of cultural capital to navigate an unfamiliar field, and students’ inclination to make choices which actually compromise their capacity to succeed. first entry students receive funding at a vulnerable stage in their lives (in terms of social, emotional and cognitive development). this is a stage when there is peer pressure to conform, to be acknowledged by peers and the pervasive pressure to engage in new modes of entertainment afforded by campus life. their priorities change in response to the affirmation they receive from their peers on the one hand, and the sense of obligation they feel for their families on the other. faced with these choices, some students consider supporting their families as a priority, which in turn finds expression in the choices they make in how much to appropriate for sustenance and support in pursuit of their qualifications. these choices are influenced by the intermeshed experiences mngomezulu, dhunpath and munro: does financial assistance . . . 143 of deprivation, poverty, effects of unemployment, and poor socio-economic status which defines and shapes reality for the student and his/her family. bronfenbrenner (1995) supports the contention that in attempting to understand student behaviours, we should be cognisant of the interrelatedness of factors affecting the individual such as family, peer, the community and broader societal ecosystem. the burden of having to shoulder such complex layers of challenge in their new found positions of independence with disposable income, leads to a psychological burden which in turn impacts negatively on academic performance. pressure to construct new identities and the expectation that students should have skills in making independent judgements requires support from appropriately skilled mentors, the absence of which can result in students engaging in potentially risky behaviour. the potential for risk can be mitigated by the condition that funding should be accompanied by curriculum interventions and mentorship programmes that cultivate financial literacy. making financial accountability transparent once students receive financial assistance, the choices they make are often hidden from view, until these choices reveal themselves in the unintended consequences that predispose them to risk. it is therefore crucial that higher education institutions acknowledge financial literacy as a necessary life skill, the absence of which could undermine student progression and success. “higher education has a remarkable capacity to insulate itself from change, as is evident in the mismatch between the prevailing inherited qualification frameworks and the needs and capacities of the student body” (dhunpath and vithal, 2012, p.13). it is vital for institutions to elevate financial literacy to a curriculum concern. opportunities exist for the prevailing curriculum to be configured to provide financial skills. these include short courses, online portals and counselling centres. for students who receive financial assistance, institutions could develop monitoring mechanisms to identify students who are potentially at risk and institute rehabilitation strategies. “when financial literacy is embedded in the campus culture, students know how to access institutional support and resources that support their personal development” (soria et.al., 2014). 144 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 concluding comments the quest to increase and expand access to higher education as a global phenomenon has produced interesting but varied results in different contexts. one feature that is perhaps common across contexts in the global higher education landscape is the impact of increased access on the fiscus. whereas the implications of such impact are studied at a macro level, its effects at a micro level and the ripple effects it produces on the students and their families, particularly seen through the students’ own experiences, are less well documented. increased access to higher education has resulted in universities opening their doors to diverse groups of non-traditional students, who come from differing socio economic backgrounds. bourdieu (2011) recognises the difference in structural conditions impacting students who enter higher institutions with varying levels of cultural capital. associating the phenomenon of students’ poor progression in university to an understanding of their inability to successfully navigate unfamiliar and sometimes hostile environments and structures of the university system can provide insights into the kinds of alienation students experience when faced with dilemmas on how to appropriate funding in the context of competing demands. a clear message from this study is that a focus on both academic and nonacademic support mechanisms are needed to bridge the transitional gap between secondary school and university. this indicates the need for cultivating competencies in attaining pedagogic access but equally importantly, providing empowering literacies and life skills for psycho-socialeconomic survival at university. this has key policy implications for higher education curriculum planning, and the need for an expanded conception of academic support which includes financial planning. currently in south africa, the focus in higher education institutions is on curriculum content. how students negotiate alienating dilemmas of being socialised into university environments needs to be opened up for more rigorous enquiry. the authors submit that the phenomenon of misappropriation of student funding to ameliorate conditions of family poverty is not intended to negate the related problem of the culture of entitlement displayed by some students, nor their predisposition to use student funding to satiate their desire for largess. while these may be real or perceived challenges, the data generated in the study portrays the sampled students as being conflicted in using their student funding for the purposes intended. this suggests that providing mngomezulu, dhunpath and munro: does financial assistance . . . 145 financial assistance solves some problems but creates others. this emphasises the need for higher education institutions to research and design interventions to curb financial illiteracy among their students. while universities cannot and should not be agencies to alleviate poverty, university officials and funders have an obligation to acquire cultural competence that helps both to navigate the contested terrain of student funding in conditions of relative deprivation. references africa, h.p. 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(2014). financial decisions among undergraduate students from low-income and working-class social class backgrounds. journal of student financial aid, 44(1), 2–24. swart, n. (2005). “why financial literacy is a complete failure”. management today, 48–50. samukelisiwe mngomezulu school of education university of kwazulu-natal rubby dhunpath teaching and learning office university of kwazulu-natal nicholas munro school of applied human sciences university of kwazulu-natal mngomezulus1@ukzn.ac.za dhunpath@ukzn.ac.za munron@ukzn.ac.za mailto:mngomezulus1@ukzn.ac.za mailto:dhunpath@ukzn.ac.za mailto:munron@ukzn.ac.za journal of education, 2021 issue 83, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x knowledge-building and knowers in educational practices lee rusznyak school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa lee.rusznyak@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6835-8215 mlamuli nkosingphile hlatshwayo curriculum studies, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa hlatshwayom@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9180-8803 aslam fataar department of education policy studies, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa afataar@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6880-9223 margaret blackie department of chemistry and polymer science, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa mblackie@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2465-4987 introduction the south african education system continues to be confronted with calls for free decolonial quality education. sparked by the #rhodesmustfall and #feesmustfall student protests in 2015 and 2016, students pushed for the need to re-think and reimagine teaching and learning and the kinds of knowledge(s) that are valued and legitimated in curricula (fataar, 2018; heleta, 2018; maxwele, 2016; ngcobozi, 2015). part of realising a more inclusive education system requires paying attention to knowledge-building in practices and intellectual fields. the articles in this special issue make a case for research on knowledge-building that deepens our understanding of how to enable newcomers to develop specialised forms of expertise. knowledge-building (maton, 2009) connects what is taught to what has gone before. the knowledge taught should have relevance in the contexts in which it is taught and should be able to be abstracted beyond that context. the basis of achievement in practices and intellectual fields needs to be made explicit to students so that their success is intentionally supported. knowledge-building has implications for students’ engagement with 2 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 broader societal debates that seek to address the structural and racialised inequality in society. success in their studies enables them to access graduate studies and feed potentially into the emergent knowledge economy. we argue that understanding how knowledge-building works in practice is an important part of the call for decolonised quality education. we make the case that research into knowledge-building strengthens practices by contributing to their knowledge base. doing so creates opportunities to extend the horizon of what is deemed to be possible, to envisage change and transform practices, especially when these no longer meet the needs of changing contextual priorities. the guest editorial team and the authors of articles included in this special issue are members of the special interest group (sig) in knowledge-building in educational practices. this sig was constituted at the south african education researchers’ association (saera) conference in 2019. the articles in this special issue grapple with complexities involved in the teaching and learning of practices (such as critical literacy, literacy, and teaching) and intellectual fields (such as physics). they address different levels in the education system from primary school to undergraduate and postgraduate studies in higher education. they consider how knowledge-building is supported across various settings including formal coursework, informal interactions, and work-based learning. articles report on findings from studies in south africa, zimbabwe, and the united states of america. some articles in this issue analyse how achievement is supported through interactions between more experienced practitioners and novices during practice-based activities. several articles use concepts and analytic tools from legitimation code theory (lct)1, a multidimensional sociological approach that enables analysis and transformation of knowledge practices (maton, 2014). various authors also draw on insights from decolonial theory, knowledge taxonomies, experiential learning theory, professions and professional judgement, critical literacies, and inclusive education in their articles. we offer a brief discussion on the nature of practices and how relationships between and among knowledges and practices can be understood. we then consider their implications for working with the complexities involved in the learning of practices and in teaching them to novices. we make a case for how research that analyses knowledge-building contributes to a social justice agenda, and we show how the articles in this special issue do so. the nature of practices a practice is understood to be “coherent and complex forms of cooperative human activity” in which people engage in recognisable patterns towards a common purpose (macintyre, 2007, p. 187). practices are enacted by communities and supported by institutional structures. the more people participate in the activities of their chosen practice and strive for excellence, the more deeply they come to understand its constitutive activities and the goals of the practice. while the distinction between excellence and mediocrity can be self-evident to 1 some of the articles included in this issue were presented at the third international legitimation code theory conference hosted by the university of the witwatersrand in july 2019. rusznyak, hlatshwayo, fataar & blackie:editorial 3 experienced practitioners, the criteria on which such judgements are made are not always as obvious to novices. although macintyre’s (1981, 2007) view of practice offers explanations of how they are socially sustained, he makes little mention of the knowledge and logics that underpin them. when the knowledge that supports and informs practices is tacit, the grounds for decisionmaking in practice are not easily noticed by novices. experienced practitioners may find it difficult to understand why beginners struggle to participate in activities that have become second nature to them (berliner, 1994). the specialization dimension of lct can be used to make the basis of achievement of social practices explicit. this empowers those whose participation in practices have become almost intuitive but seek to support novices as they learn. its organising principles are derived from a premise that practices are oriented towards some part of the world and are enacted by social actors who participate in them (maton, 2014). the basis of achievement in practices rests on a consideration of both its relations to knowledge as well as the extent to which successful participation relates to the dispositions of social actors and the specialised ways in which they perceive and think in practice. together, these enable analysis of how practices come to be enacted in their prevalent forms. they also reveal that knowledge-building works in very different ways depending on the extent to which the basis of achievement lies in the mastery of bodies of specialised knowledge and skill and/or in the development of specialised ways of thinking and making reasoned judgements. making explicit the expectations of what is valued across educational practices has important implications for enabling student achievement in more intentional ways. postgraduate studies in the sciences, for example, are usually focused on inducting a novice researcher into the role of an academic. however, only a small fraction of those who graduate with masters or doctoral degrees continue their scholarly work in academia. connell and padayachee’s article in this special issue grapples with the complexity of what it means to prepare a student for different workplace contexts. they analyse how the focus and demands of assessment tasks shift as students move through their undergraduate physics degrees and into postgraduate research-based degrees. as they progress, students are required to take more responsibility for selecting relevant concepts and procedures in response to increasingly complex real-world problems. through analysing these shifts, connell and padayachee argue that students can be simultaneously prepared for careers in and outside of academia. practices and knowledge there has been intense debate about how practices and knowledge are related, particularly in teacher education. in their influential paper, cochran-smith and lytle (1999, p. 250) make analytic distinctions between “knowledge-for-practice”, “knowledge-in-practice” and “knowledge-of-practice.” knowledge-for-practice, they suggest, values formal knowledge produced by university-based researchers. formal, abstract concepts drawn from different intellectual fields constitute a knowledge base that practitioners receive and must apply in their daily work. a knowledge-in-practice stance regards practice as being spontaneous and unpredictable. knowledge is tacit and emerges in action. there are no principles that guide 4 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 what counts as an appropriate decision. rather, effective practice depends on wise judgement in addressing the challenges and dilemmas that arise in changing and uncertain contexts. in this view, preparing novices for practice involves their spending time in the workplace alongside more experienced others and observing what they do and how they respond to various situations. these two conceptions of the relations between knowledge and practice effectively perpetuate a so-called theory-practice divide. much attention is then devoted to how this divide can be bridged (e.g., gravett, 2012; jeram & davids, 2020; walton & rusznyak, 2020). cochran-smith and lytle’s third conception, knowledge-of-practice, suggests an intricate relationship between knowledge and the knower. as they explained, [k]nowledge is not bound by the instrumental imperative that it be used in or applied to an immediate situation; it may also shape the conceptual and interpretive frameworks teachers develop to make judgments, theorize practice, and connect their efforts to larger intellectual, social, and political issues as well as to the work of other teachers, researchers, and communities. (p. 273) this view of the relation between knowledge and practice foregrounds the agency of the knower whose practice can be both conceptually informed and contextually responsive. instead of working with static knowledge types (such as everyday and formal knowledge, knowledge for/in/of practice, tacit and explicit knowledge, or theoretical and practical knowledge), lct’s semantics dimension conceptualises the organising principles of social fields of practice in terms of how meaning relates to their context-dependence and their complexity (maton, 2019). by avoiding knowledge typologies, researchers can analyse how different forms of knowledge manifest and shift over time in real-world contexts. langsford’s article in this special issue, for example, analyses the way in which beginner teachers draw together abstracted concepts from theory to analyse and evaluate the quality of lessons they observe. she identifies the capacity of teachers to articulate the reasons for their judgement as a valued attribute of professional teaching practices. she uses lct’s concept of semantic gravity to show how pedagogic reasoning can be operationalised empirically as shifts between context-dependent and more abstract forms of knowledge. she demonstrates the significant differences occur in the way semantic gravity changes during discussions between cohorts of newly qualified teachers as they analyse a lesson and evaluate its success. langsford’s work reveals the affordances of different pathways through pre-service education and the extent to which they provide new teachers with a shared language of practice and explicit opportunities to articulate their reasoning and judgements in practice. complexity in the teaching and learning of practices practices are difficult to teach and difficult to learn. the ways in which the relations between knowledge and practice are understood have significance for the design of curricula that prepare novices for practice. curricula that adopt a knowledge-for-practice stance emphasise the mastery of bodies of knowledge before expecting novices to apply these insights in the rusznyak, hlatshwayo, fataar & blackie:editorial 5 field. different bodies of knowledge are taught and learnt separately, with an expectation that connections between them become self-evident in the moments of practice. in contrast, a knowledge-in-practice conception advocates the primacy of learning practice through experiential learning opportunities. novices are expected to learn what constitutes wise judgement by working alongside experienced practitioners in an apprenticeship model. however, research has suggested that this does not always happen as intended when mentors in practice have neither the time nor what might be called a grammar of practice to articulate the reasons underpinning the ways in which they enact their practices. in a comparative study of various practices, grossman et al. (2009, p. 2075) have explained that the ability to decompose practice depends on the existence of a language and structure for describing practice—what we earlier described as a grammar of practice. without such a language, it is difficult to name the parts or to provide targeted feedback on students’ efforts to enact the components of practice. the capacity to articulate what one is doing and provide a rationale involves different kinds of activity to that of enacting exemplary practices in front of an observing novice. since practices are socially constructed, novices become knowers through “interactions with significant others” (maton, 2014, p. 185). these interactions may include the study of exemplary cases as experienced practitioners discuss with novices the salient features of the case and what makes them noteworthy. however, when knowledge-building processes are not well understood it is difficult to clearly articulate the criteria for successfully completing learning tasks. when expectations are vague, novices have little choice but to learn through trial and error. furthermore, when the logics that inform decision-making are opaque, students are left to figure out how different bodies of formal knowledge along with their interactions with practitioners and experiences in the field contribute to the coherence of practice (hoban, 2015). instead of curricula supporting students’ successful entry into the practice, they become responsible for effectively enabling their own development (ӧsterling, 2021). thus, an enduring challenge of preparation programmes is drawing novices’ attention to the ways in which theoretical knowledge and contextual priorities inform how practices are realised in diverse ways. the actions of practitioners can be more visible to beginners than the practitioners’ knowledge bases, intentions, and reasoning. this can result in beginners focusing on the visible routines that accompany a practice rather than on the situational judgments made in response to achieving its goals in the contextual realities. rusznyak & bertram’s article in this special issue considers the preparation of pre-service teachers for classroom practice through work-integrated learning (wil). their article reviews empirical research that highlights concerns about the variable quality of wil in initial teacher education programmes. they argue for a conceptualisation of wil that explicitly prompts student teachers to pay attention to the pedagogic reasoning of their mentor teachers. this should also involve the restructuring of student expectations and assessments to value how they articulate the grounds for their choices in the design and execution of their lessons. articulation of their thinking in action encourages novices to consider teachers as knowers who draw on different knowledges to inform their practice. it opens spaces for interrogating 6 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 what choices are most appropriate given the content demands, the learners’ needs, and the contextual priorities. this article offers an approach to work-based learning that moves it beyond simply acquisition of experience. in so doing, it offers potential for transforming work-integrated learning in pre-service teacher education. one mechanism for socialising novices into practices is through the provision of both the criteria for success on assessment tasks and formative feedback on their work. feedback from a more knowledgeable experienced other should ideally show novices where they are succeeding, where they are not meeting expectations, and what they should do differently to achieve more successfully. when knowledge-building is not well supported, students are often “unable to recognize or enact what is required for achievement and [remain] reliant on common sense” (maton, 2014, p. 107). it is unsurprising in such situations that novices find the demands of learning activities to be arbitrary and the expectations of them confusing. two articles in this special issue consider the demands of assessment practices and what is involved in making knowledge-building visible. in one of them, mahabeer and akoo show how university students struggle to make sense of the assessment feedback they are given. their discussion focuses on students’ understanding of the feedback, their emotional reactions to it, and their preferences for specific forms of feedback. in this study, students’ perceptions of feedback on assessment tasks reveal a sense of being judged personally rather than having their engagement in the knowledge practices evaluated. in the other article, jackson analyses how learners work with knowledge in response to an assessment task. he uses the autonomy dimension of lct (maton & howard, 2018) to analyse knowledge-building in a high achieving response to a critical literacy assessment task. by analysing how the learners works with the literacy text and contextual realities, jackson demonstrates that achieving the dual aims of literacy and critical awareness requires students to move beyond the task limits and work with integrating text-based perspectives and real-world insights. the study of how students worked with knowledge in this task makes the implicit criteria of achievement more visible to teachers, who can then, in turn, make requirements for understanding critical literacies more explicit. by making the criteria for success more visible to teachers and learners alike, the analysis offers a potential means of supporting learners’ achievement more intentionally. by way of contrast, nyamayedenga and de jager’s article illustrates what happens when criteria for success are not clear. the goals of the practice, in this case, effective teaching and learning, become compromised. they consider the teaching practices of primary school teachers in zimbabwe who are expected to use communicative language teaching (clt) in a newly introduced curriculum. the recommended strategies expect teachers to use project work in which learners address real-world problems. interactive tasks should give learners opportunities to explain their understanding of ideas, articulate their thoughts, and express their feelings. the successful use of this strategy intends to support knowledge-building and develop learners’ communicative competence. although teachers have been informed about these evidence-based strategies for supporting learner achievement, they feel ill-prepared to implement them. nyamayedenga and de jager show that knowledge-building in a resourcerusznyak, hlatshwayo, fataar & blackie:editorial 7 constrained context was hampered when the teachers themselves did not sufficiently understand the basis of achievement of the intervention. through the interviews held with the teachers and the observations made, the level of the teachers’ preparedness to implement clt to build new knowledge emerged. teachers’ preparedness to enhance knowledgebuilding through the clt implementation in the new curriculum was further hampered by a lack of resources, poor planning, and ineffective introductory workshops. they suggest that to mitigate these challenges, teachers need to be more involved in the national review of the curriculum and the government must be called upon to offer more support on how to implement a new curriculum effectively. knowledge-building as a means of attaining greater educational justice knowledge practices and intellectual fields represent the promise of evidence-based interventions that offer hope of building a just society. knowledge can be alienating if it remains at the level of theoretical ideas divorced from students’ lived realities and contexts (samuel, 2009). similarly, the study of a series of contextual examples or practices that remain under-theorised have neither explanatory power nor do they transcend common-sense perspectives. knowledge is fundamental to opening practices to scrutiny, shaping its ideals, and generating criteria for recognising excellence and achievement. however, there is debate about the extent to which knowledge has innate explanatory power (shalem & allais, 2019). on one hand, scholars (e.g., morrow, 2007; young & muller, 2016; wheelahan, 2012) have expressed the view that formal curricula should “privilege systematic, coherent, and generalizable knowledge that provides the best understanding of the natural and the social worlds” (shalem & allais, 2019, p. 145). on the other, however, is a view that all knowledge claims are “partial”, and they reflect power relations between social groups. from this perspective, curricula that offer pluralism of knowledge are seen to be “more just for those who are not linked to ‘powerful structural positions’” (p. 145). even though knowledge is constructed by social actors in a particular historical context and in response to a particular set of imperatives, it offers explanatory power and has real-world effects that are not reducible to power relations between social groups (maton, 2014). this includes the power to marginalise but also the power to transform and empower. every practice includes activities in which practitioners strive to achieve their goals within the realities of the context in which they work (morrow, 2007). carrim (2019) has reminded us that education is not constituted by politically and ideologically neutral structures outside societal struggles for social justice. although ethical principles and specialised knowledge guide practice, practices cannot be reduced to a mechanical application of skills irrespective of contextual factors. in as much as the practices of teachers, for example, are informed by a knowledge base, they are equally informed by the multiple and intersecting identities of themselves as actors, as social beings, and the opportunities and constraints of the contexts in which they work (carrim, 2019). knowledge becomes useful when used by people to participate in broader discussions that impact on their lives and the lives of others, and to 8 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 think through their options and actions in response to contextual demands. without insights from theoretical ideas and evidence-based empirical research, there may be few possibilities of transforming systems in which prevalent practices may be ineffective or exclusionary. instead of a conservative view of practice in which old-timers pass on their craft to newcomers, insights into knowledge-building opens possibilities for understanding how knowledge can extend the boundaries of practices. this in turn creates potential conditions for practices to be re-imagined and transformed. in this way, practices need not be static and conservative. they can tranform as mentors impart their craft to novices. the intersection of actors and contexts is explored by cross and govender2 in their article in this special issue. they highlight the deeply embedded coloniality and euro modernity in knowledge production in africa. they suggest that epistemological decolonisation should be our point of departure in scrutinising the kind of knowledge with which we are working, and perhaps most importantly, the kind of silenced epistemologies that continue to be othered and marginalised in african higher education. drawing on what they term the “intersecting contexts”, they propose a complex framework that accounts for our past (where we come from), our internal existential experiences (looking inward for reflections and personal experiences), and the present (looking outward in responding to our current complex global village as well as using our experience to fashion and shape the future). they suggest that this new framework would be helpful in thinking about alternative, inclusive, and socially just epistemologies and knowledge(s) in the global south. through demands for free decolonised quality education, those who work in higher education institutions have realised the extent to which institutions have marginalised members of increasingly diverse student bodies. moosa and langsford’s article critiques the notion that the primary responsibility to assimilate into higher education lies with students. assimilation cannot be condoned when institutions are structured to advantage students from particular social groups and educational backgrounds. they compare the reported expectations and experiences of a diverse group of first-year students as they enter a higher education institution. their perceptions and feelings of being included and their experiences of feeling excluded shift from an initial concern with belonging to concerns about the mastery of academic practices. their research challenges institutions to better support students as they enter higher education. researching knowledge practices this special issue starts to fulfil the aims of the sig in knowledge-building in educational practices. it is our collective intention to promote research that makes knowledge-building in practices an object of study. as winberg et al. (2020) have pointed out, concerns about how education often serves to reproduce social inequalities has led to much research that ignores the kinds of knowledge and knowers that are produced and valued. this special issue responds to an observation that generic approaches are increasingly being advocated to prepare students for an unknown future. this includes calls to future-proof students by 2 we include a tribute to prof. michael cross at the end of this editorial. rusznyak, hlatshwayo, fataar & blackie:editorial 9 teaching them how to learn generic critical thinking skills. our collective concern is the way in which these approaches potentially undermine the value of education for developing expertise in specialised practices. ultimately, we are concerned that approaches that ignore knowledge disempower students who are learning a practice, especially those with historical and educational disadvantage. analysing knowledge-building across educational practices make the basis of achievement more explicit to experienced and novice practitioners alike. understanding how knowledge shapes practice and the ways in which practitioners think enables them to act and mentor novices in ways that are more intentional. the articles in this special issue show how research into knowledge-building also offers potential mechanisms for extending the knowledge base of practices. they demonstrate how consideration of knowledge-building creates possibilities for reimagining prevalent practices and transforming them. postscript at the launch of the special interest group in knowledge-building in educational practices, professor michael cross was particularly enthused by the need for this sig and the importance of research into knowledge-building in educational practices. he volunteered to be a committee member of the sig. it was with deep sadness that the guest editorial team learned of his untimely passing during the covid-19 pandemic. we are thankful to logan govender for ensuring that their co-authored article could be finalised and included in this special issue. in recognition of professor cross’s remarkable contribution to education, the guest editors and editorial board of the journal of education include the tribute written by colleagues at the ali mazrui centre for higher education studies (amches). in memory of prof. michael cross (11 september 1952 – 6 june 2021) professor michael cross, or “prof” as he was fondly known, was the founder and director of the ali mazrui centre for higher education studies (amches), university of johannesburg. previously, from 1986 to 2012, he was attached to the university of the witwatersrand (wits). professor cross served in several initiatives, such as the governance task team of the national commission on higher education (nche) and the technical committee on norms and standards for educators in south africa. he had been involved in reviews across the continent, including the tertiary education linkages project (telp), finnish aid to developing countries (south africa, zambia, mozambique, bosnia, bolivia, and nepal), quality assurance of postgraduate programmes in tanzania and mozambique, programmes of the association for african universities (aau), and in the development of the rwanda higher education sector strategic plan (hessp). he was a visiting scholar at johns hopkins, northwestern, stanford, stockholm, and jules-vernes universities. professor 10 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 cross received the first association for the development of education in africa (adea) award in 2012 as the most outstanding mentor of educational researchers in africa. this was testimony to his great passion for developing young scholars. he was also a co-founder and co-editor of the book series on african higher education: developments and perspectives with brill/sense publishers and higher education transformation with sun press. professor cross authored 15 books, of which 6 were single authored while 9 were coauthored. he also produced 27 book chapters and 45 articles in leading scholarly journals. in addition, he wrote 35 reports on different topics. at a mentorship level, prof. cross produced 37 med/ma graduates, 15 phds, and mentored 12 post-doctoral research fellows, including several who were still under his supervision at the time of his passing. family meant everything to prof. cross; he enjoyed family debates, imparting his knowledge and entertaining family, friends, and colleagues with his unique sense of humour. an avid supporter of chelsea football club, he loved watching soccer and had his own sworn theories about coaching tactics. professor cross leaves behind him a rich legacy of academic networking, friendship, and a commitment to critical scholarship. may he rest in peace. references berliner, d. (1994). the wonder of exemplary performances. in j. n. mangieri & c. c. block (eds.), creating powerful thinking in teachers and students (pp. 161–186). harcourt brace. carrim, n. (2019). complexities of professional practice in south african education. southern african review of education, 25(1), 35–51. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/ejc-1877c79d30 cochran-smith, m., & lytle, s. l. (1999). chapter 8: relationships of knowledge and practice: teacher learning in communities. review of research in education, 24(1), 249–305. fataar, a. (2018). placing students at the centre of the decolonizing education imperative: engaging the (mis)recognition struggles of students at the post-apartheid university. educational studies, 54(6), 595–608. gravett, s. (2012). crossing the ‘theory-practice divide’: learning to be(come) a teacher. south african journal of childhood education, 2(2), 1–14. rusznyak, hlatshwayo, fataar & blackie:editorial 11 grossman, p., compton, c., igra, d., ronfeldt, m., shahan, e., & williamson, p. (2009). teaching practice: a cross-professional perspective. teachers college record, 111(9), 2055–2100. hoban, g. f. (2005). developing a multi-linked conceptual framework for teacher education design. in g. f. hoban (ed.), the missing links in teacher education design: developing a multi-linked conceptual framework (pp. 1–15). springer. heleta, s. (2018). decolonizing knowledge in south africa: dismantling the ‘pedagogy of big lies.’ ufahamu: a journal of african studies, 40(2), 47–65. jeram, r., & davids, n. (2020). in support of practice-based teacher professional learning. south african journal of higher education, 34(3), 112–127. maton, k. (2009). cumulative and segmented learning: exploring the role of curriculum structures in knowledge building.‐ british journal of sociology of education, 30(1), 43–57. maton, k. (2014). knowledge and knowers: towards a realist sociology of education. routledge. maton, k. (2016). building knowledge about knowledge-building. in k. maton, s. hood & s. shay (eds.), knowledge building. educational studies in legitimation code theory (pp. 1–24). routledge. maton, k. (2019). semantic waves: context, complexity and academic discourse. in j. martin, k. maton & y. doran (eds), accessing academic discourse: sfl and lct (pp. 59–85). routledge. maton, k. & howard, s. k. (2018). taking autonomy tours: a key to integrative knowledgebuilding. lct centre for knowledge-building. macintyre, a. (2007). after virtue: a study in moral theory. duckworth. (original work published 1981) macintyre, a., & dunne, j. (2002). alasdair macintyre on education: in dialogue with joseph dunne. journal of philosophy of education, 36(1), 1–19. morrow, w. (2007). learning to teach in south africa. hsrc press. maxwele, c. (2016). black pain led me to throw rhodes poo. business day live, march 16. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2016-03-16-black-pain-led-me-to-throwrhodes-poo/ ngcobozi, l. (2015). #rhodessowhite: an insight. the con, march 27. http://www.theconmag.co.za/2015/03/27/rhodessowhite-an-insight/ 12 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 österling, l. (2021). invisible theory in pre-service mathematics teachers’ practicum tasks. scandinavian journal of educational research, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2021.1897874 samuel, m. (2009). on becoming a teacher: life history research and the force-field model of teacher development. in m. a. samuel, r. dhunpath & m. samuel (eds.), life history research: epistemology, methodology and representation (pp. 1–17). brill sense. shalem, y., & allais, s. (2019). polarity in sociology of knowledge: the relationship between disciplinarity, curriculum, and social justice. the curriculum journal, 30(2), 144–161. shalem, y. (2014). what binds professional judgement? the case of teaching. in m. young & j. muller (eds.). knowledge, expertise and the professions (pp. 93–105). routledge. young, m., & muller, j. (2016). curriculum and the specialisation of knowledge: studies in the sociology of education. routledge. walton, e., & rusznyak, l. (2020). cumulative knowledge-building for inclusive education in initial teacher education. european journal of teacher education, 43(1), 18–37. wheelahan, l. (2012). why knowledge matters in curriculum: a social realist argument. routledge. winberg, c., mckenna, s., & wilmot, k. (2020). ‘nothing so practical as good theory’: legitimation code theory in higher education. in c. winberg, s. mckenna & k. wilmot (eds.). building knowledge in higher education (1–15). routledge. microsoft word b8400 fullissue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 84, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x book review teaching in and beyond pandemic times (2021) edited by jonathan d jansen and theola farmer-phillips (africa sun media. isbn: 978-1-928314-01-1) michael anthony samuel school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa samuelm@ukzn.ac.za (received: 31 august 2021) professionals in pandemia: our reimagined new world in "essays 2003–2020: languages of truth" salman rushdie (2021) unapologetically celebrated the potential of stories as catalysts for nourishing the imagination. he suggested that, as adults, we lose some of the awe children have for repeated stories with which they fall in love. i believe that books and stories we fall in love with make us who we are, or, not to claim too much, that the act of falling in love with a book or story changes us in some way, and the beloved tale becomes a part of our picture of the world, a part of the way in which we understand things and make judgments and choices in our daily lives. (p. 4) in this explanation, rushdie suggested that stories are a way of creating a reading of our world. they are simultaneously an evocative, philosophical, and educative agent. readers see themselves co-constructing images not only of the characters that float in the pages; they are concurrently re-reading their own lived and experienced past and present selves, along with imagining their future selves. the reader is also making critical judgments about what the storyteller has silenced or fashioned for the readers. often, literary scholars are examined against their ability to read the text's social, cultural, and political times, not just read the unfolding plot or the messaging of the fictive characters of the story. these literary choices of the staging of the text, along with its structure and ambience also come to be reviewed in the act of reading the wor(l)d. for example, we often view skeptically a didactic narrator of the tales we read while open narratives invite us to create worlds within the world of the storyteller. the literary storyteller as wordsmith initiates the potential to question the vantage point, the authenticity, and the truth value of the personae and/or the narrators of the text, in their temporal and spatial orchestrations. a magical reality is created in the work of fictional writing that chooses to mask and celebrate the flow of ideas and events. samuel: book review 223 jansen and farmer-philips's edited anthology expands the potential of stories by drawing not on imagined fictive spaces and personae but, instead, on sharing the lived experiences and reported emotional traumas and triumphs of teachers who had to negotiate sustaining schooling in the context of the rapidly changing social, health, and pedagogical landscape of the 2020–2021 covid-19 pandemic. we are gifted with the perspectives of many storytellers in the book. the editors have chosen to allow the stories of the teachers to speak for them. yet, the anthology is not just about the teachers’ stories; it examines, too, how we are reading the potential of our pandemic times as present and future educationalists. the anthology is about the kind of society we wish to establish prospectively since pandemia is with us now. this anthology consciously claims that it is not "a standard academic book with dutiful reference to theory, literature reviews and methodology" (p. 3). the editors emphasise their orchestration as a capturing of the moment as a historical record. they invite a wider audience than just academics, teachers, educational researchers, and policymakers in this choice. i believe that the book's strength lies in its ability to provide a counter-narrative to a broader public myth that during the pandemic teachers were simply on an extended holiday break. we share the world of teachers negotiating their growing anxieties about colleagues and children who were being left behind and of systems being unresponsive to, and confused about, the situated realities of context. we hear the personal and professional traumas of inadequacy enter the world of those driven by passionate hope. we also hear the counterpoint of these selected teachers about the affordances of technology. we hear the voices of teachers who embraced the need for new etiquettes of engagement with technology and learn that not all new technological literacy practices necessarily encouraged learner cheating and fraudulent behaviours. the stories attempt to present a reinterpreted vision in the general public eye of the tellers of the tales while all the while, the realities of demise lurked in their midst. the fashioned plan of the text unashamedly evokes a celebratory tone, one that applauds teachers as (s)heroes and activates hope and courage despite the vulnerability these teachers encountered. underpinning the 65 stories of the anthology is the repetition of fear and anxiety along with possibility since teachers are presented (or have represented themselves) as active professional learners who embraced the uncertain times. the curated stories constitute the response on social media to a request for teachers to respond to the questions of the researchers in the project upon which the book reports. this methodological strategy is not a departure from traditional narrative inquiry approaches in research since the editors declared their critical interest in asking a nationally diverse set of teachers to question what it is that we have learned from the pandemic. the researchereditors defined the critical reflective research questions and encouraged the teacher-writers to refrain from straight-jacketing their responses. who and what were the affordances and drawbacks in teachers' situated contexts across racial, geographic, class, and levels of teaching experience in different subject specialisations? who were the collaborators and what were the obstacles on this journey? how were peers, managers, district officials, the 224 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 departmental officers, learners, and parents implicated in the upheaval of previous rituals and habits of schooling? i will return presently to the matter of whose voices indeed came to be heard in this anthology. the editors chose an organisational approach to selecting, reviewing, and categorising the texts they gathered from the social media platforms in clusters of themes: pressure; pedagogy; (p)reparation; pioneering; poverty; privilege; perspective; parents/parent-teachers; peer teaching; perseverance; and pastoral care. none of these suggest any deflection from the seminal research tradition of fieldwork analysis of life history and narrative inquiry that chooses to argue that stories activated in a research agenda are vehicles for examining a theoretical phenomenon. the analysis of the stories, as the editors argue, can take many forms. instead of the imposition of an a priori theoretical framework, the research choice was to develop a bottom-up, data-driven, grounded theory approach to generate an interpretation from the fieldwork. following polkinghorne (1995), the stories themselves constitute an assemblage of narratives paying attention to the voices from the field. the curators of the narratives in this anthology then reassembled the narratives into cognate thematic groups to develop synthetic theoretical insight across the data set. accordingly, the narrated stories are loosely edited versions of what the teachers said. the editors, of course, attended to requests for anonymity and addressed matters of linguistic and stylistic preference. they declared that their concern was to use their editorial scissors only to sanitise overt departmental bashing. what percolates through the anthology's stories is the teachers' recurrent critique of the ambiguity that resulted from the department of education’s repeated fluctuations of policy that created more turbulence and added to teachers’ work stress. teachers had to mediate the vacillating uncertainties of their managers and of the departmental directives in relation to the learner and parent body. consequently, teachers came to be misinterpreted as being under-prepared or disorganised. for example, most teachers, on pedagogical grounds, resisted the department's directive to disregard existing term two curriculum content and concentrate on the expected term three scope of work. the department suggested that the lost curriculum time in 2020 because of the closure of schools during the lockdown could be restored during the next academic year. trying desperately not to appear officious, the department suggested that these decisions could be made by in situ school management teams and their teachers. teachers (at least those whose stories we hear here) believed the original curriculum to be the foundational basis of future curriculum learning, yet they were supposed to market the departmental notion of "curriculum trimming" and "curriculum reorganisation" as a pragmatic strategy for managing in pandemic times. most stories reflect concerns about the long-term effect of such naïve thinking. other commentary offered by some of the teachers suggests that this heralded an opportunity for major national curriculum policy rethinking of the overloaded current school curriculum. but this was a missed opportunity since the department seemed intent on saving political face in defending its original curriculum reformulations. much talk was directed to what must be jettisoned, but little was offered about anything that could be included to address the present samuel: book review 225 circumstances of learners, their parents, and their teachers. some teachers saw this as an acknowledgement by the department that their policy statement with its overloaded curriculum needed overhauling. but was the department ready to make such courageous decisions? were contextual realities indeed being acknowledged in the new official choices? amin and mahabeer (forthcoming) have detailed their critique of the paradoxical messaging that departmental structures infused into the system. a curriculum reconfiguration was being professed that was, seemingly, about recovery, renewal, equity, and inclusion. however, the draft framework for curriculum recovery plan policy: post covid-19 (department of basic education, 2020) paid no attention to the demographic specificities of educational resource provisioning across the iniquitous schooling systems. the recovery plan seemed to paper over the wide divergences of capabilities such as the lack of expertise in management skills in differing schooling contexts, under-prepared and under-qualified teachers in the schooling system who lack the sophisticated curriculum design potential to adjust and reorganise the curriculum, the lack of technological and electrical infrastructure and resources along with the lack of physical conditions for alternative pedagogical curriculum design and monitoring. the one-size-fits-all departmental approach, as amin and mahabeer (forthcoming) concluded, accentuated the economic stratification of schooling in a supposedly postapartheid society. i believe that these stories provide a repository of lessons learnt of what it means to teach (and learn) in times of uncertainty. if anything, the anthology accentuates the existing fault lines in the bifurcated two-tiered education system in which the education offered to the under-served and to the privileged is so different and remains unaddressed in national educational policy much less eradicated in any significant way through deliberate intervention. however, this anthology suggests that all teachers, irrespective of context, had to negotiate uncertainty and had to shift towards alternative pedagogies that disrupted their lives. here, again, the effects of poverty and privilege endure as recurrent themes across the stories. i suggest that this anthology aims towards a shared experience among all teachers in a levelling to the same challenges and opportunities in response to the pandemic times. if so, this book, then, suggests that a future professional space is possible via the sharing of experience among most teachers across diverse contexts. could teachers in both privileged and poor schools collaborate prospectively? what would enable such a shared cooperation? some school managers whose writing appears in the book were conscious that the earlier stages of survival in the privacy of online classroom teaching and learning reinforced, potentially, insular teachers' old competitive and non-collaborative agendas. however, over time as the pandemic endured, the urgency for innovative and pragmatic pedagogies in short turn-around times, coupled with the emerging reliance on the affordances of technological resources, produced new collaborative endeavours. increased efforts were being noted across departmental, institutional, regional, and national levels that resulted in a form of collaboration that bodes well for further on-site teacher professional development. after all, working together was just sensible. 226 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 this book allows its readers to enter the everyday world of teachers, learners, parents, and managers. it shows the divided workforce of those with expertise in pedagogo-technology and those who lack it. it opens a window into a world of schooling and its silo-ed spaces. it shows the extraordinary levels of fatigue of committed teachers. yet, the book is also a severe critique of the curricular departmental and district official management structures whose spokespeople seemingly, although not in all cases, chose to be high-handed and disconnected rather than deeply supportive of teachers. some of what was dictated to teachers was well-received in its provision of adequate scaffolding to activate alternative exemplars. some teachers’ stories reflected how district officers choose to support teachers in pragmatic ways. these teachers appreciated that the district officers were not simply agents of the national departmental structures who ensured adherence to the official national policies. these teachers saw the district officers as supporting schools in practical rather than in officious administrative ways. this bodes well for the future. however, these district interventions could also be interpreted as an indirect way of imposing the department’s preferred sets of action. were teachers indeed being regarded as autonomous professionals capable of self-managing their professional spaces? were new modes of collective action being forged between schools, teachers, and the departmental regulators? were schools indeed significantly re-examining their previous patterns of home-school partnerships with the parents of their learners? the editors advertised that this present anthology follows on the heels of the successful lessons under lockdown: voice of south african children (jansen & o’ryan, 2020) a book that captured the experiences of learners under the pandemic. they announced a forthcoming anthology that will focus specifically on parents under lockdown. this points to a recognition of how valuable stories are in activating the imagination. we need other imaginative works, too, about how teacher education and higher educator students, lecturers, and managers embraced the pandemic space. how does the autonomy of professional teachers become reimagined in this new tradition of nonfictional real stories about the realities of teaching and learning under trying times? and what of the voice of teacher unions in these times? will the agenda shift away from myopic self-interested conditions of service? are there new stories to tell about the self-in-service of the wider society? are there new stories of departmental officials re-examining their responsibilities as curriculum shapers? this anthology concludes with a well-written synthesising chapter about ten lessons learnt from the varied conceptions of technology, the nature of teaching, the processing of curriculum policy and design, the need for collegiality, the aspirations for a post-pandemic era, for leadership and a broader interpretation of the role of schools as a social institution, and of teachers as frontline workers in reconstructing a reimagined society. i believe that this book will appeal to many practising teachers. they will see themselves represented and valued. they will, perhaps, recognise that their actions and fears have not been in vain since someone heard them. however, i note, too, that, this book accentuates the technological divide in our unequal society. these stories represent those who contributed their lived experiences via the technology of social media. samuel: book review 227 many voices in this anthology have not yet been heard across the diversity of contexts of the south african schooling system. what about the many silenced stories of those teachers who indeed abandoned hope and are perhaps waiting nostalgically for some return to a prepandemic world? do the teachers of hope represent a significant majority or minority in the teacher professional spaces? which contexts produce teachers who are resilient and hopeful? what enables them to withstand the pressures of performativity and of political panoptical surveillance? the rituals and routines of professional teaching are unlikely to remain the same in the future because of these disruptive pandemic times. how will departmental and all curriculum developers, as public intellectuals, make bold choices drawing on these resourceful stories that encompass both hope and abandonment? some may have already capitulated. yet, we all will have to live collectively in post-pandemia. references amin, n., & mahabeer, p. (forthcoming). curriculum tinkering in situations of crises and inequalities: the case of south africa. prospects. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-02109564-8 department of basic education (dbe). (2020) 2020: draft framework for curriculum recovery post covid-19. government printer. jansen, j. d., & o’ryan, e. (2020). learning under lockdown: voices of south african children. cna publishers. polkinghorne, d. (1995). narrative configuration in qualitative analysis. in a. j. h. hatch & r. wisniewski (eds.), life history and narrative (pp. 5–23). falmer press. rushdie, s. (2021). essays 2003–2020: languages of truth. jonathan cape. . journal of education, 2017 issue 69, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za pursuing a problematic-based curriculum approach for the sake of social justice lew zipin (received 18 may 2017; accepted 4 july 2017) abstract this article envisions, and argues for, what i call a problematic-based curriculum approach (pbca) in which students work with/on knowledge in relation to local lifeworld problems that matter. in the process, students and teachers would extend curriculum work beyond school walls, engaging with diverse knowledgeable actors – ‘lay’ and ‘expert’ – in relation to mattering problems. in outlining pbca, i draw significantly on vygotskyan thought, including the funds of knowledge approach to curriculum design, and on isabelle stengers’ pragmatist arguments for a proactive politics of knowledge in which ‘expertise’ proliferates. the article also contrasts pbca with the social realist approach to curriculum (sr) that underpins south africa’s curriculum and assessment policy statements (caps). in this contrast, i argue that sr/caps is re-formative, whereas cpba would be trans-formative in nancy fraser’s sense of “chang[ing] the deep grammar” that frames curriculum, towards robust and vitally needed social-educational justice. introduction: aiming to transform the curriculum frame [t]he transformative politics of framing aims to change the deep grammar of frame-setting in a globalizing world. (fraser 2009, p. 23) this article outlines what i call a problematic-based curriculum approach, in which students work with/on knowledge in relation to local lifeworld problems that matter (problematics). in the process, students and teachers extend curriculum work beyond school walls, engaging with diverse knowledgeable actors –‘lay’ and ‘expert’ – in relation to mattering problems. i argue that this curriculum approach is trans-formative, not merely reformative, in nancy fraser’s sense of “chang[ing] the deep grammar” that frames curriculum. 68 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 as a social philosopher, fraser (2009) derives principles for practice of robust justice in conditions of the present-becoming-future. she seeks justice that is inclusive and egalitarian in terms of: (a) redistributing material and cultural resources needed for good lives; (b) recognising cultural histories and practices of diverse groups in the institutional formations within which they are subjected; and (c) participatory-democratic representing of diverse social groups in processes that define and enact the ways, means and norms for ‘a good life’. fraser finds that, in current globalising contexts, not only are historically inherited institutional norms becoming precariously unsettled, but social-structural inequalities of power and wellbeing are intensifying. thus, says fraser (2009, p. 158), “i can’t ever remember such a dark period in my lifetime”, whereby it is “a crucial job for the critical theorist to reflect on the historical situation one inhabits, to ask oneself: what do the times ‘demand’? what are the challenges, the opportunities, the perils?” to address such questions requires analysis of severe barriers to robust justice, and pragmatism about how to proceed in redressing barriers. such ‘pragmatism’, however, is not as the term is commonly inflected in mainstream political discourse: e.g. “don’t make ‘perfect’ the enemy of ‘possible’” (paraphrasing obama) – which calls to limit pursuit of change to what ‘realities’ (simplistically defined) allow. such low-commondenominator ‘realism’ pushes, at best, towards ameliorative re-formation rather than radical (getting to the root of what matters) trans-formation. in the philosophical register in which i see fraser, and myself, as ‘pragmatist’, i define the term as practical pursuit of what works to achieve what, in ethical terms, is worth working towards. proper pragmatism is thus driven by an ethical impulse. fraser’s “transformative politics of framing” expresses such ethical-pragmatic impulse to fathom critically, in order of pro-act beyond, historically received limits. “the problematic of framing”, says fraser (2009, p. 2; original italics), hinges on the ethically charged question: “what, if anything, should delimit the bounds of justice?” (ibid; italics added). present limits on possibilities for future justice are not only material but also epistemological, encoded in takenfor-granted assumptions – fraser’s “deep grammars” – historically sedimented into features of institutions such as schools. hence, a job for critical theorists – including critical curriculum thinkers – is to articulate and interrogate underpinning assumptions of present frames, in relation to ethical principles and proactive possibilities, with intent to further ethical-practical impetus toward trans-formative social justice. zipin: pursuing a problematic-based curriculum. . . 69 deep grammars codify institutionally through histories of power struggle. they thus correlate with deep structures of social-relational power asymmetry. schooling, as a key institution within social formations, and curriculum as a key ‘message system’ within schooling (bernstein, 1975), thus encode tacit grammars that, deeply sedimented, are most difficult to change (tyack & tobin, 1994). pursuing transformation of deep grammars runs against a thick matrix of deflective, refractive and cooptative forces that tend to conserve coded grammars, in turn reproducing power inequalities (bourdieu & passeron, 1990). however, curriculum – as a locus of highstakes contestation over what/whose needs and aspirations schooling addresses – attracts ongoing vigorous effort not just to preserve power of some social groups relative to others, but political momentums to transform grammars – which, in times (such as now) of acute unsettlement, gain possibility. curriculum is formulated, and contested, most directly at government policy levels. as such, curriculum can appear to change relatively quickly, if we think in a time-scale of policy re-form cycles. however, if we think in a timescale of powerful sedimentation, and possible trans-formation, deep grammars encoded in curriculum tend, within all the policy flux, to resist change. curriculum policy shifts issuing from governments, such as national curricula, tend – with all their fanfare of ‘major reform’ – not to dent deep codifications that select for (re)production of inequalities. indeed, curriculum reforms in the time-scale of political cycles can tend towards pendulous bipolarity around two sides of a coin of deep grammars that does not change. in the next section i argue that post-apartheid south african (sa) curriculum policy reforms display just such coin-conserving binariness. ensuing sections pursue this article’s primary project: an ethicalpragmatic rationale for a problematic-based curriculum approach. i build, first, on a vygotskyan curriculum logic, which i then extend via the ‘experimental constructivist’ thought of isabelle stengers, a pragmatist philosopher of science. in conclusion, i argue that a problematic-based approach holds grammar-transforming potentials to advance socialeducational needs and aspirations of all learners, and especially powermarginalised groups that constitute so much of sa’s population, through robust cultural inclusion and participatory parity (fraser, 2009) that, as fraser suggests, “the times ‘demand’”. 70 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 the bi-polar coin of post-apartheid curriculum reforms given textual space limits, i here provide only a very abbreviated tracing of shifts in post-apartheid curriculum reform. my focus – as central to this article’s argument – is on a bi-polarity regarding use, versus rejection, of ‘everyday knowledge’ within curriculum. after the ‘long walk’ to 1994’s mandela/anc government, post-colonial impulses for ethical renewal included curriculum for greater social justice – in terms of both cultural recognition of the diverse majority of powermarginalised peoples under apartheid (recognitive justice), and education for capacities by which a broader range of citizens could realise economic wellbeing (redistributive justice). hence, says slonimsky (2016, p. 38), “[t]he first post-apartheid curriculum explicitly aimed to promote the political goals of equity, redress, a culture of human rights, democratic citizenship and social justice and the skills and dispositions necessary for individual and social economic development”. such justice aims both led to, and dissipated within, a comprehensive reform, curriculum 2005 (c2005), introduced in 1997. c2005 framed social-justice orientations within the neoliberal cast of 1990s ‘development’ and ‘globalisation’ discourse. sa policy makers, looking to the usa, uk and australia, borrowed an outcome-based education (obe) design for c2005, defining ‘outcomes’ in terms of competences (jansen, 2002; fataar, 2006). in educating structurally less-powerful groups, aims to instil economic skills and dispositions translated to a vocational – as against academic – focus. as observed by fataar (2006), a lack of coherent curriculum architecture, and a bits-and-pieces approach to naming and including ‘everyday competences’, inhibited social-justice aims to build meaningful cultural knowledge from the lives of diverse social groups into curriculum. ‘everyday knowledge’, says fataar (2006, p. 649), thus became an object of overly simplistic, equal-butopposite criticisms about “over-emphasis on everyday knowledge” at cost of “undervaluing of formal school knowledge”. a government review in 2000, notes fataar (ibid, p. 656), targeted “curriculum 2005’s emphasis on everyday knowledge” as a “weak conceptual framing” that “impeded conceptual progression”; hence, “[t]he review accorded pride of place to … formal school knowledge acquisition as central to the developmental role of the school curriculum”. zipin: pursuing a problematic-based curriculum. . . 71 in 2012, the swing to ‘formal knowledge’ became official and firm in a new national curriculum policy: the curriculum and assessment policy statements (caps). in logic and implementation, caps departs sharply from c2005. against using ‘everyday knowledge’ in curriculum, caps virtually excludes it (as i discuss shortly). also, whereas c2005 left much pedagogically open for teachers to determine at the classroom level, by contrast, observes slonimsky (2016, p. 33): “caps is highly prescriptive of content, method and pacing, and has arguably closed down spaces for teacher discretion”. in slonimsky’s kantian philosophical terms, caps effects excessive “heteronomy”, i.e. “authority from outside”; whereas c2005 effected excessive “autonomy”, i.e. “authority from the inside”, for which teachers – too soon after decades of heteronomous habits, cultured in apartheid teachereducation and school practice – were not ready. i find slonimsky’s distinction – autonomy/heteronomy – analytically useful in indicating a dimension of the bi-polarity of post-apartheid national shifts in curriculum policy. against such polarised swings, slonimsky appeals for policy and teacher-education that supports flexible balancing along “a continuum between heteronomy and autonomy” (ibid, p. 38), such that teachers can both operate within sensibly authoritative regulations and exercise creative pedagogic determinations emergent from their autonomous agency in situations of classroom work. otherwise (ibid), “[t]oo much regulation and stability constrains initiative and an imagination for the possible”, but “[t]oo few limits result in extreme anxiety (anomie) or extreme detachment (egoism)”. i argue further that neither c2005’s unclarified conception of ‘everyday’ knowledge, nor caps’ prescriptive disciplinary content and pacing/testing, actually interrupt how schools serving power-elite populations reproduce their students’ social-positional power through schooling. schools with histories of strong academic results, linked to powerful structural positions and associated cultural capital of students inhabiting them, typically retain much relative autonomy to continue with, and innovate further on, curricular and pedagogic approaches that have ‘proven successful’. rigorous accountability for following scripts of either c2005 or caps is more apt to apply in schools inhabited by power-marginalised groups who are likely to be alienated by culturally unfamiliar curriculum and pedagogy. to be fair, the theory underpinning caps is not perfectly translated in caps policy or practice. however, the theory poses problems too, i argue, hinging 72 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 on the key curriculum issue of what/whose knowledge counts. i accord with slonimsky’s affirmation (2016 in what follows) that knowledge is a “constitutive condition for autonomy” (p. 40) in culturing teacher and student capacities for “reason, critical reflection, deliberation and initiative in a … morally acceptable [to communities] manner” (p. 32). however, a vital question becomes: what/whose knowledge, worked with/upon in what ways, can culture such critical-ethical capacities? slonimsky valorises “disciplinary knowledge” (p. 36), i.e. “specialised forms of knowledge necessary for critique” (p. 32), as warranted in “durkheim’s social realist science of morality” (p. 36; my emphasis). this valorisation of social realism (sr) raises what, to me, is the more vexing bi-polarity of post-apartheid curriculum reforms: c2005’s positive valuation, followed by caps’s negative valuation, of ‘everyday knowledge’ as useful for school curriculum work. sr is an academic movement of high influence in the conceptual formulation of caps. as to what knowledge should be used in curriculum, sr argues in terms of durkheim’s distinction between ‘sacred’ (disciplinary) and ‘profane’ (everyday) social bases of knowledge, and bernstein’s (1999) parallel distinction between ‘vertical’ (disciplinary) and ‘horizontal’ (everyday) knowledge modes. i lack space to amplify sr concepts and rationales (see zipin, fataar & brennan, 2015, and edwards, 2014, who elaborate arguments by key sr authors, in articles critical of these arguments). i focus here on how sr valorises ‘disciplinary’ as against ‘everyday’ knowledge. as young (2014, p. 62) puts it: “[curriculum that] celebrates the experience of pupils, whatever that may be … [goes against] the idea that the purpose of schools is to introduce them to knowledge beyond their experience”. in more theoretical vocabulary, young says (2008, p. 89; italics added): bernstein’s distinction between vertical and horizontal knowledge structures … assumes that … the codes and practices associated with subjects and disciplines … are designed to set the curriculum apart from the everyday knowledge that students bring to school … [i]t is this separation of the curriculum from everyday life that gives the knowledge acquired through it an explanatory power and capacity for generalization that is not a feature of everyday knowledge tied to practical concerns…. certain principles for guiding curriculum policy necessarily follow … [e.g.] curriculum cannot be based on everyday practical experience. such a curriculum would only recycle that experience. as remarked above, the ‘everyday knowledge’ upheld in c2005 lacked epistemological clarity in policy texts, in school practice, and in attacks by critics who, like young, saw it to offer only deficits for school learning. however, in ensuing sections i argue that there are richly meaningful zipin: pursuing a problematic-based curriculum. . . 73 knowledge processes in family and community lifeworlds of powermarginalised (and all) students, which, if put into dialectical interaction with disciplinary knowledge, hold great asset potential for curriculum work that extends learners’ capacities for explanatory power far beyond what they already experience (which, for that matter, is not static in everyday life). i argue that curriculum which valorises either disciplinary or everyday knowledge, to the exclusion of the other: (a) weakens the knowledge, and its learning value, that is given polarised valorisation; and (b) sustains the frame of deep grammars by which curriculum work unjustly reproduces socialstructural inequalities. the life of knowledge and curriculum [t]here [should] exist within the very nature of the educational process … as close an interaction, with life itself as might be wished for. ultimately only life educates, and the deeper that life burrows into the school, the more dynamic and the more robust will be the educational process. that the school has been … walled in … from life itself has been its greatest failing. education is just as meaningless outside the … [life]world as is a fire without oxygen, or as breathing in a vacuum. the teacher’s educational work, therefore, must be inevitably connected with his [or her] creative social and life work. (vygotsky, 1997, p. 345; cited in moll, 2014, pp. 120–121) “ultimately only life educates”: so, curriculum should be designed for lifebased knowledge to burrow deeply in, rather than wall it off. notably, vygotsky conceives what is embodied in socio-cultural life beyond school as importantly creative; and he calls for its deep connection with educational processes among both students and teachers. clearly, vygotsky sees vital powers stemming from use of life-based knowledge in curriculum work, rather than – as per young – keeping curriculum separate from everyday knowledge and its practical concerns. however, vygotskyan curriculum does not valorise everyday knowledge to the exclusion of specialised disciplinary knowledge, the powers of which vygotsky also significantly valued. he conceived a dialectical “relationship in schooling between what he called ‘spontaneous’ and ‘scientific’ concepts”, says moll (2014, p. 34), a leading figure in the vygotsky-informed funds of knowledge approach to curriculum design (to be discussed below). 74 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 spontaneous concepts emerge in the sensuousness of everyday life, as embodied consciousness engages with natural and social worlds, mediated by cultural tools and artefacts available in everyday lifeworlds. however, spontaneous concepts do not cohere in refined knowledge systems; whereas scientific concepts, says moll, “form part of an organised system of knowledge and thus can more easily be reflected upon and deliberately manipulated” (ibid, p. 35). that is, everyday knowledge is not to be made curricular in any direct take-up whereby, as young worries, it does not offer capacities for generalisation. rather, everyday concepts are to be recontextualised for school curriculum use – a key aspect of which is interaction with systematised bodies of scientific (disciplinary) knowledge, from which greater powers of reflexivity, manipulation and cogent explanation accrue. vygotsky thus theorised curriculum work, says moll (ibid, p. 35), as a “relationship between scientific and everyday concepts [that] is reciprocal”; i.e. “[t]hey mediate each other”. however, in this dialectical reciprocity, life-based knowledge contributes not just vitality but meaningfulness that is fundamental to the knowledge value of scientific concepts. says moll (ibid; italics added): everyday concepts provide the “conceptual fabric” for the development of schooled concepts, and the everyday concepts are also transformed through their connection with the more systematic concepts. scientific concepts grow into the … domain of personal experience, thus acquiring meaning and significance. however, scientific concepts bring … conscious awareness and control, which vygotsky believed to be essential characteristics of schooling. conceiving everyday concepts as the conceptual fabric is notable. the idea is not that schooling can make initial use of life-based knowledge, to ‘meet learners where they start from’, but then leave everyday concepts behind as learning progresses to specialist knowledge of ‘higher worth’. rather, in educative processes, specialist concepts acquire meaning and significance, and contribute to powers of matured thought, only by virtue of growing into domains of life experience – the conceptual fabric – and not by tearing away. i will now begin pushing vygotskyan knowledge dialectics further towards an argument for a curriculum approach that focuses such dialectics around problems that matter in locales of learners’ lives. i start with the funds of knowledge approach (fk) to curriculum design, which draws on vygotskyan principles. fk emerged in mexican-american populated areas of the u.s. southwest (vélez-ibáñez & greenberg, 1992; gonzalez, moll & amanti, zipin: pursuing a problematic-based curriculum. . . 75 2005). a typical methodology is ethnographic collaborations in which academics and teachers together scout students’ neighbourhoods and visit their homes, researching for “funds of knowledge”, defined as “historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills essential for household … [and community] functioning and well-being” (moll, amanti, neffe & gonzalez, 1992, p. 133). after their research, teacher-academic teams review the ethnographic data for life-based knowledge with worthy potentials for recontextualising into curriculum units linked to school subjects. it is important to appreciate the purposeful selectivity in this process (as compared to c2005’s unclear senses of ‘everyday knowledge’, left too much to teachers alone to figure out). fk curriculum design seeks knowledge put to richly meaningful socio-cultural use in lifeworlds of, say, arizona’s mexican-american communities, or cape flats communities of south africa, as resources for “transforming students’ diversities into [curricular and] pedagogical assets” (moll & gonzalez, 1997, p. 89). lifeworlds of power-marginalised groups are thus not seen as social spaces of cultural deficit that schools must bracket out: not “as places from which children must be saved” but “that, in addition to problems (as in all communities), contain valuable knowledge and experiences that can foster ... educational development” (ibid, p. 98). indeed, problems that vex community life can resource robust learning assets: what zipin (2009, 2013; also zipin, sellar & hattam, 2012) calls “dark funds of knowledge”, about which students from power-marginalised groups can prove surprisingly literate to teachers. such lived problems can spur powerful spontaneous thought in the conceptual repertoires of students, their families and communities. thus, say moll et al. (1992, pp. 133–134): our approach also involves studying how household members use their funds of knowledge in dealing with changing, and often difficult, social and economic circumstances … [and] develop social networks that interconnect them with their social environments … [in] multiple spheres of activity within which the child is enmeshed. as moll et al. suggest, deeply problematic conditions – e.g. declining youth employment, ecosystem damage, gang violence, etc. – in locales where students’ lives are enmeshed: (a) emergently change over time, inciting ongoing labours of thought and learning; and (b) are never simply ‘local’ but link to broader social-structural dynamics. such global-in-local problems hold potentials to interconnect students in expanded networks of knowledge 76 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 co-labour with teachers, community members and disciplinary specialists beyond schools. in the next section, i push further towards a problematicbased curriculum approach (cpba), in taking up isabelle stengers’ pragmatist arguments for putting proliferated expertise to work on mattering problems. problematics that gather, proliferate and deepen knowledge we are talking of a problem ‘that gathers together’, not of a problem to be resolved. (pignarre & stengers, 2011, p. 112) each place that it was forbidden to enter, where it was thought neutral, objective experiments, independent of the uses that would be made of them, were being constructed, becomes a place that it is henceforth imperative to penetrate so as to make expertise proliferate, so as to imagine new ways of creating commonality among competences, indeed of rehabilitating excluded competences. (ibid, p. 85) i quote from capitalist sorcery by philippe pignarre and isabelle stengers (henceforth p&s): a journalist and activist in struggles of poor populations to access affordable medicines (pignarre), and a pragmatist philosopher of science (stengers). in stengers’ writing (solo and co-authored), she develops arguments, concepts and strategies for a politics of democratic science that generates informed publics in putting knowledge to work on situated problems (with broader implications) that matter to people’s life-based needs and aspirations. such situations, suggest p&s, gather actors from diverse standpoints of social-cultural knowledge in relation to the problematic. that is, a mattering problem is the attractor that assembles varied actors, all of whom – whether with ‘lay’ experience of living the problem, or in ‘specialist’ areas relevant to it – are seen as bearers of knowledge with potential use-value for working on the problem. this includes “knowledges and techniques of professional researchers”, say p&s (p. 86), “but they wouldn’t be in command”. rather, all are accorded participatory-democratic agency on equal footing, yet appreciated distinctly for what, in their re-combinational diversity, they bring to the problem. knowledge thus transacts in educative reciprocity, as different stakeholders mutually inform each others’ perspectives, working towards zipin: pursuing a problematic-based curriculum. . . 77 more complex purchase on the problem, with all whom the problem gathers nurturing humility – an attitude of “apprenticeship” (p&s, pp. 78ff) – about what they know, what is yet to learn, and from whom. such inclusive, nonhierarchical respect for proliferated expertise rehabilitates varied competences. indeed, compared to outcome-based education’s vague sense of ‘competences’, p&s reclaim a robust sense of proactive capabilities (knowledge-abilities) to contribute to work on problems that matter. the principle of inclusive proliferation is both ethical in its democratic impulse, and practical in its methodo-logic for pursuing ‘solutions’. from the premise that mattering problems are complex and emergent, the argument is that social sources of knowledge which may offer powerful knowledge towards working ‘solutions’ are more diversely proliferated than the specialist communities that durkheimian social realists deem ‘sacred’. the logic, then, is to expand, rather than contract, connections across knowledge sources that can elucidate the problem: to “honor the making of connections”, says stengers (2012, n/p). as nicolini (2012, p. 216), discussing stengers, puts it: “[g]ood science is generative, not eliminativist: its goal is to increase our capacity to make connections among phenomena, not to eradicate interesting features in the name of generalization”. hence, sources from whence knowledge may improve purchase on the problem cannot be presumed in advance. “in all these cases”, say p&s (p. 86), “the connections do not preexist, they have to be created”. by this logic, putting knowledge to work on a problematic – which both uses and (re)makes knowledge – generates working solutions, not definitive resolution, as the problem is too complex and unfolding to yield a ‘once-forall’ reckoning. nor can working solutions for emergent problems derive simply from a priori principles or precedents. thus stengers (2012, n/p) urges us not to work from “models and norms” that frame problems narrowly, but rather to nurture “empirical and pragmatic concern about effects and consequences”. as p&s (p. 17) define it: “pragmatism is an art of consequences, an art of ‘paying attention’”. to this aesthetic sense of good science as artfully attentive practice, stengers (2011, p. 12) adds an ethical sense of care: “pragmatism is the care of the possible”: it frees our work towards emergent futures from overly narrowing fixations on past as precedent, sustaining a sense of possibility for change at fraser’s frametransforming level of depth. recalling my discussion of ‘pragmatism’ early in this article: stengers conceives an ethical-pragmatic science, attentive to what works for pursuing what is worth working towards. 78 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 i note that social realists reject the pragmatist attitude, arguing that emphasis on diverse practical uses of knowledge dilutes the generalisability that gives disciplinary knowledge its coherence and explanatory power. says young (2008, p. 66): “vygotsky’s emphasis on social activity … preclude[s] him from treating knowledge as … separate from its uses … [which is] durkheim’s key point in his critique of pragmatism”. and (ibid, p. 70): “for durkheim ... [the] power [of knowledge] could never arise out of its usefulness in terms of satisfying specific needs”. regarding the question of what knowledge is curriculum-worthy, young’s gist is that to mix life-based and disciplinary knowledge debilitates the organising powers of the latter, devolving thought processes towards an undisciplined, ‘anything goes’ relativism. i have already argued, via vygotsky, that if curriculum links lifebased and disciplinary knowledge dialectically, the latter infuses its systematising powers into the conceptual fabric without losing potency, while in turn gaining meaningful significance. (see zipin et al., 2015, for more amplification of this debate.) i here argue further that, when a mattering problem draws diverse knowledges to it, its centripetal pull generates organisation. moreover, with artful attention on the problem, knowledge diversities are all tested as to whether/how they provide insight and proactive possibility regarding the problem. stengerian proliferation of expertise thus does not run to relativism, since the gravity of the problematic is selective for what knowledge is gathered and held in bounds. in the previous section, by way of vygotsky/moll and the funds of knowledge approach, i argued a rationale for building curriculum around dialectical interactions of life-based and disciplinary knowledge. in this section, by way of stengerian pragmatism, i extended the vygotsky/fk logic to a rationale for building knowledge dialectics around problems that matter in locales of students’ lives. however, principles for connecting such problematics to school curriculum need explication, as does the claim that such an approach furthers robust social justice that transforms reproductive framings. these are tasks for the next section. towards problematic-based curriculum in this section, i aim to outline principles for curriculum that develops knowledge-abilities in working on problems that matter in students’ locales. i here draw significantly on an article by sarah whatmore and catharina zipin: pursuing a problematic-based curriculum. . . 79 landström (henceforth w&l): ‘flood apprentices: an exercise in making things public’ (2011; unless otherwise indicated, quotes below are from this article, with only page numbers provided). w&l discuss a situation where proliferated expertise gathered to work on a problem of chronic river floods, affecting people in/around the town of pickering in the ryedale district of england’s north yorkshire region. this case of problematic-driven knowledge work did not involve schools. however, in deriving principles from w&l’s account, i apply them to a problematic-based curriculum approach. w&l were part of a multi-disciplinary network of academics, concerned with issues of rural economy and land use, and attentive for sites where local populations had become aroused to want other than ‘official-expert-only’ solutions to problems. this was the case in pickering after engineering consultants, contracted by a government environment agency (ea), issued a report recommending that a floodwall be built through the town, which the ea promoted “as the solution circulated as expert knowledge” (p. 592; italics in original). however, the pickering & district civic society, a volunteer organisation, gathered expressions of “local disagreements … when this was put out for public consultation” (p. 588), questioning whether the floodwall would address all matters in which citizens had stakes, “thereby challenging the expert knowledge claims that underpinned the initial ea proposal” (p. 589). this emergent politics of knowledge drew w&l’s team of “social and natural scientists” to the scene, with the aim of “working collaboratively with people affected by flooding … to interrogate the science that informs local flood management and intervene in the public controversy to which it had given rise” (p. 582). collaboration took form in a ryedale flood research group (rfrg). in what follows i do not detail the history or science of the flood controversy (as w&l do in their article). my focus is on passages that amplify stengerian elements of the rfrg’s work on a mattering problem, which i translate to curriculum principles, at once ethical and strategic. (within space limits, i can give these principles only minimal pedagogic translation, leaving it to readers’ to imagine putting them into practice in specific school contexts.) 80 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 focussing on molten matters that attract and force thought michel callon’s ‘hot situations’ (1998), bruno latour’s ‘matters of concern’ (2004a) and isabelle stengers’ ‘things that force thought’ (2005a) … provide vocabularies for addressing those moments of ontological disturbance in which the things on which we rely as unexamined parts of the material fabric of our everyday lives become molten. (p. 583) for student energies to be drawn to knowledge work on problematics, the problems selected for curriculum focus must really matter in lifeworld milieus. in the above passage, w&l cite philosophers of science, including stengers, who define such concerns in a language of ‘materiality’ and consciousness-raising ‘heat’. that is: a mattering problem substantively disturbs resources, infrastructures and other materialities that people tacitly count on to sustain life; and such social-ontological disturbance to “the material fabric” of everyday life incites epistemic molten-ness in vygotsky’s ‘conceptual fabric’, such that unexamined dimensions of lived conditions boil up into thought. curriculum work that builds around mattering problems thus extends thought in new ways and degrees. contrary to young’s earlier-cited claim that “curriculum … based on everyday practical experience … would only recycle that experience”, focus on life-based problems quickens awareness and reach of vygotsky’s ‘spontaneous concepts’, catalysing capacity for dialectical interaction with disciplinary concept-systems. making such problems curricular thus “forces thought” – which, in stengers’ terms, does not mean external authoritative demand on learners (slonimsky’s ‘heteronomy’: e.g. ‘it will be on the test; so study it.’), but that an attracting problematic impels thought-activation. redistributing expertise; building collective competences [t]he experimental research apparatus we draw upon here – the ‘competency group’ (cg)4 – … [puts] stengers’ experimental constructivism into research practice. cgs are forums for collaborative thinking designed to … highlight the connections between scientific work and other types of activities … [and] generate new zipin: pursuing a problematic-based curriculum. . . 81 collective competences in handling the uncertainties of flood-risk knowledge and redistribute expertise. (p. 586) for students to develop knowledge-abilities to think and pro-act, pedagogic contexts should be rich in knowledge presence and transaction, connected to meaningful work on matters of compelling interest. there are inevitable limits to school-based teachers’ expertise across (a) multi-disciplinary knowledges; and (b) how things are known, and what matters, in students’ lifeworlds. why not, then, bring students and their school-based teachers into milieus that redistribute expertise across a wider range of pedagogic agents? problems that both matter in local communities, and connect to broader structural issues, present opportune scenes for proliferation of pedagogic actors who – in learning-from/teaching each other – expand collective knowledge competences. this is the methodo-logic for calling the rfrg’s research apparatus a “competency group”: a term, as w&l explain in footnote #4 (embedded in the above quote), adapted “from the notion of ‘competent publics’ in a web essay by stengers on ‘sustainable development’” (p. 606). to initiate the rfrg, w&l’s network used local press advertisements “for recruits to join an ‘experimental research forum’ on flooding in ryedale” (p. 592). schools cannot expect such fortuitous occurrences of academic specialists taking initiative to gather distributed expertise around a mattering local problem to which they could link. however, students and school staff could act as instigators, using funds of knowledge methods – ethnographic forays in local community settings; classroom discussion of what they find; and so on – to identify molten life matters. they could investigate whether such matters have drawn attention from disciplinary specialists, and/or contact specialist and civic organisations, and canvass across family and community networks, seeking ‘competency group’ participants. by such activist means, students and teachers can recognise their agency to affect futures regarding problems that matter for their lives with others, learning to see themselves not as mere knowledge receivers, but as socially collaborative knowledge creators. thus to cast curriculum as knowledge-creating co-labour is, i suggest, framechanging for students, teachers and schools. in social-justice terms, it is especially vital for learners from power-marginalised groups, who tootypically ‘learn’ – from schooling’s hidden-curricular messages – that they lack ‘inborn’ potentials for effective agency in social life. that work on mattering problems is necessarily knowledge-creative is indicated in w&l’s 82 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 claim (above) that such work cultivates new competences in handling uncertainties. given the emergent (and emergence-y) nature of problems such as pickering’s floods, conceptions of ‘problem’ and ‘solution’ are necessarily experimental, at-work, under construction: hence stengers’ “experimental constructivism”. slowing down reasoning; framing problems alternatively [f]or stengers, emergent publics are induced by generative events … in which … problems that ‘slow down reasoning’ make a difference. (p. 584) staging the cg experiment in the context of this extant [flood] controversy, our aim … was to ‘slow down’ reasoning by creating a space in which the expert knowledge claims that informed the flood wall proposal could be more closely interrogated, and residents moved by the event … could try out alternative ways of framing and addressing the problem … informed by their experiences. (p. 589) experimental grasp on thought and action in the heat of generative events requires frame-changing in another dimension: time. curriculum work needs to abandon rush-paced syllabi – as in caps and most national curricula – that push teachers and students to ‘keep up’. a matter that forces thought correlatively compels thought to slow down, such that learning is framed as a problem-regarding cultural process of dynamic knowledge-making (gutiérrez & rogoff , 2003), wherein learners see themselves as knowledge co-workers among others “moved by the event”. this does not disregard acquisition and use of content knowledge linked to school subjects that bear on a problem. as already discussed, learning is enriched in a pedagogic milieu of both community-resident and discipline-based ‘teachers’ (from within and beyond school walls). however, the emergent nature of a problematic event makes controversial all knowledge that it gathers, including from disciplinary experts. all gathered knowledge needs pragmatic testing – not by specialists ‘sacredly’ aloof from ‘profane’ life-residency, but in a competency-group milieu of redistributed ‘expertise’ – in terms of how it contributes to grasping a problem in its complexities and uncertainties that compel slowed-down collaborative reasoning. zipin: pursuing a problematic-based curriculum. . . 83 slowing down thought is key to curriculum development of a vital collective competence: to “try out alternative ways of framing … the problem” in dialogue that hears, considers and interrogates, in relation to the problematic, “experiences and observations” from diversely situated others. culturing such knowledge-practicing capacity to open the framing of mattering problems is indeed a frame-changing virtue of the competency-group approach. reconfiguring the ethics of knowledge work local group members’ visceral experience of the recent flood event and frustrated dealings with the flood-risk ‘experts’ charged our collective flood apprenticeship with a keen sense of urgency … [to] reconfigure flooding expertise among group members. working with brought objects (such as maps, photos, satellite images … a piece of mouldy carpet) … to situate each member’s attachments to the event … helped to dissociate the ‘university’ members from the normal networks constitutive of their authority. (p. 593) [o]ne of the group’s university members … is quoted [in a local newspaper] as saying ‘“the people who live with flooding know as much, if not more, as scientists like me”’ … [a local member] said it had been a “‘true collaboration” between local people with local knowledge and academics who were experts in the field of flooding issues’. (pp. 597–598) i argue that curriculum is, crucially, about cognitive-and-ethical development. my hyphens signify ‘cognitive’ and ‘ethical’ as inextricable dimensions of all knowledge work (see zipin et al., 2015 for fuller argument). in cognitive terms, w&l reflect the vygotskyan premise that lifeworlds are sources of rich “visceral” (spontaneous) concepts for meaningful inter-elucidation with disciplinary concept systems. w&l’s stengerianism highlights the ethical point that curriculum work ought to encourage learners not to defer when, viscerally, they register dissonance with ‘official’ knowledge claims. curriculum work on a mattering problem should teach that knowledge controversies are agentic opportunities to bring visceral sense into conceptual articulation, in dialogue (including debate) with bearers of disciplinary concepts, aiming to advance collective sophistication regarding the problem. 84 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 another cognitive feature of vygotskyan curriculum work is purposeful use of mediative cultural-historical tools: “artifacts with which students themselves are expert”, and through which, in classroom analytical practices, “students are socialized into academic discourse as they learn more about their familiar tools and practices, as well as about unfamiliar and even alienating canonical texts” (gutiérrez, morales & martinez, 2009, p. 231). the rfrg made just such use of artefacts to, as w&l say, “situate each member’s attachments to the event” and – with stengerian ethical import – democratise openness to whose ‘expertise’ might prove ‘authoritative’ in relation to the problem. in this group, comprising local and academic agents, “brought objects” were aptly representative: from repertoires of everyday life use (photos; bits of flood-mouldy carpet) and specialist use (satellite images). in dialogue among members who share problem-focussed interest in each other’s use-values, such diverse artefacts all have stories to tell, laden with ‘spontaneous’ and ‘scientific’ concepts, the interchange of which facilitates mutual respect and educative reciprocity. significant in rfrg members’ reconfiguration of ‘expertise’ was an ethical attitude of “collective flood apprenticeship” wherein all share: (a) humility in appreciating how the unavoidably provisional grasp on an emergent and fraught problem means that no position of attachment to the event has automatic ‘best knowledge’ about the problem; and yet (b) courage to act as knowledge-able contributors towards grasping the problem. say pignares and stengers (2011, p. 76–77): apprenticeship is not a pedagogy, it is a production of knowledge, the production of a new type of expertise … new means of grasping a situation, leading to the production of new ways of acting, of connecting, of being efficacious. across diverse rfrg members, an apprenticeship praxis supported dehierarchic “true collaboration” (as w&l quote a local newspaper). i suggest that schooling for such humble-yet-agentic collective responsibility across diversities, committed to producing new knowledge for grasping new futures, would radically reconfigure the framing of curriculum. indeed, it could help to reconfigure how schools, communities and governing bodies might connect efficaciously in a vital political-ethical project: capacitating knowledgeably informed, participatory-democratic and justice-oriented citizenry. zipin: pursuing a problematic-based curriculum. . . 85 educating for knowledge-able publics; democratising the frame of governing mentalities [d]iversifying the publics with whom scientists collaborate, and the terms on which they do … facilitate[s] the emergence of new kinds of public … capable of producing … ‘in the very process of their emergence, the power to object and to intervene in matters which they discover concern them’ [w&l here quote stengers]. (p. 606) [r]ethinking of the relationship between science and democracy … [must attend] as closely to the practices involved in constituting publics as to those of producing knowledge. (p. 603) rfrg knowledge work produced an alternative to the floodwall: what members called a bund model, which they believed took better account of diverse local and academic concerns, experience and knowledge. “all members of the rfrg contributed to constructing and testing the bund model in different ways”, say w&l (p. 594). details of this model’s differences from the floodwall, and how it was tested, are beyond this article’s purview. i here focus on the ethico-politics by which this alternative circulated to a wider sociality, beyond its rfrg origins. a public exhibit/discussion, organised by the rfrg at the pickering civic centre, “attracted some 200 visitors” including local residents and “ea [environment agency] staff, local politicians and journalists” (p. 596). reference here is to the same ea that had touted the floodwall, designed by its chosen ‘experts’, as the definitive solution. in ensuing months, the ea fluxed between doubting the credence of rfrg ‘lay’ members, and weighing the bund model on its merits. meanwhile, “[i]n the wake of the public exhibition”, say w&l (p. 599), “the bund model … gather[ed] a public to it, multiplying the ‘actors’ and amplifying the ‘matter’ at stake”. eventually, local and national government bodies funded trials of the bund model, some noting possible applicability to flood situations elsewhere: thus “the project’s significance extrapolated beyond the local case” (p. 601). governing institutions, as power-loci in processes shaping ‘public mindedness’, tend, if left to their devices, to conserve status-quo deep grammars. yet rfrg efficacy shows how projects moved to “amplify a ‘matter’ at stake” can stir frame-changing epistemologies into public thought. extending its knowledge-work to wider publics, the rfrg was politically 86 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 persuasive that public-meets-specialist science can do better than specialistonly. indeed, it stood as antithesis to government and media populism that frames public thought within ideo-logics that simplify grasp of lived problems. in contrast, rfrg mediation both aroused and slowed down public thought, capacitating citizens to grapple with lived complexities. gathering wider publics into its knowledge processes, the rfrg thus “facilitated emergence of new kinds of public” with new knowledge-able competences. this public-educational extension of micro-group competency incited a mesolevel of government and media actors to join processes of frame-changing thought. daring to be ‘utopian’, i suggest that if, across a range of social geographies, projects for working on life-based problems emerged and linked schooling of young people into them, this could help to transform framing mentalities at macro-structural levels of “extrapolation beyond the local case”. conclusion: problematic-based curriculum for framechanging social justice across the previous section, i noted what i see as the frame-transforming ethical-pragmatic virtues of a problematic-based curriculum approach (henceforth pbca). in this concluding section i contrast pbca, in ethical terms, with the social realist approach (sr) underpinning south africa’s current caps national curriculum. in doing so, i draw on nancy fraser’s 3-‘r’ principles for robust social justice: redistribution, recognition, and representation. (i lack space to elaborate fraser’s definitions and arguments. for amplification, see fraser, 2009; and, applied to curriculum, zipin et al., 2015.) i begin with redistribution. sr proponents maton and moore argue (2010, p. 10) that discipline-based curriculum works “in the service of progress and social justice” by making “epistemologically more powerful forms of knowledge … accessible to everyone”. as i read it, their justice claim is that discipline-based curriculum carries superior epistemic powers to other modes of knowledge; hence school redistribution of this ‘powerful knowledge’, such that all learners gain access and proficiency – including those from powermarginal social positions – will redress how schooling historically has provided selectively greater access to learners from power-central positions. and more equal distribution of knowledge powers will help towards zipin: pursuing a problematic-based curriculum. . . 87 equalising social power across all future citizens, instead of reproducing the greater power of those already privileged. drawing on vygotsky, i have argued that disciplinary knowledge by itself – not interacting dialectically with life-based knowledge – lacks sufficient scaffolding meaningfully to engage most power-marginalised learners. i here note further that sr valorises redistributed access to the same knowledge for all, on the premise that it is best for all by virtue of deriving from ‘sacred’ spaces of specialist knowledge work. sr thus redistributes culturally assimilative knowledge, bracketing out most people’s diverse cultural knowledge as ‘profanely’ less worthy for curriculum. pbca also redistributes disciplinary knowledge, but in dialectical engagement with life-based knowledge. the premise is that, with careful selection of rich knowledge-strands – funds of knowledge (fk) – from lifebased conceptual fabrics, people’s diverse social-cultural ways of knowing all can contribute to rigorous knowledge work. in stengerian extension of the fk approach, i have argued that mattering problems test what cultural knowledges are rich for purpose. pbca thus claims that (re)distributing a proliferated expertise furthers more powerful work with/on knowledge than can ‘specialist’ expertise alone. pbca’s concept of ‘redistribution’ thus strikes deeper ethical registers than sr. it transforms framing grammars of knowledge-valuation from: (a) ‘knowledge is best if specialists are confident in it’; to (b) ‘from our diversely competent knowledge co-labours, our emergent consensus is that these understandings better grasp the problem’. from different framings, sr and pbca both aim to redistribute ‘power’ in the sense of agency, thus attenuating ‘power’ in the sense of structurally unequal social leverage. however, sr assimilationist stress on ‘specialist’ knowledge fails to recognise – by valued inclusion in curriculum – knowledges of meaningful use among diverse cultural-historical groups. likewise, fetishising ‘specialist’ provision of knowledge fails to nurture diversified participatory representation in social-decision processes – including curriculum knowledge-selection. to sr, “[t]he purpose of schooling is to specialize learners’ voice with respect to the school code” (hoadley, 2008, p. 65). by implication, only after initiation in specialist knowledge codes are people fit to participate in social decisions guided by those codes. 88 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 by contrast pbca – valuing diverse specialist and life-based codes, put interactively to work in knowledge-and-action praxis – extends redistribution into the further ‘rs’ of inclusive cultural recognition and participatorydemocratic representation. in south africa, where so many schools serve students from power-marginal positions and high-poverty lifeworld conditions, i argue it is vital that students, teachers, families and community stakeholders are culturally recognised and democratically represented in deciding what curriculum work can help empower their futures. and there are abundant molten problems – in complexly intermeshed domains of environment, employment, technology, health and social-service needs – to attract both local and specialist expertise that, linking students in, could provide opportune learning milieus for students to gain immersion in the praxis of all three of fraser’s ‘rs’. in this article i have made a case for curriculum frame-change in south africa, joining debate about what curriculum grammars are ‘best’ for sa young learners. i must end, however, on notes of caution and humility. i recognise that policy reforms, once initiated, take time to play out, surfacing pros and cons to ‘iron out’. how entrenched is caps’ time to run, and whether, in that time, there are spaces to experiment with pbca-like alternatives, i am not situated to speculate. visits in the past few years to sa, giving invited workshops on the funds of knowledge approach, and more recently the pbca approach, have drawn me into sa curriculum debates; but i do not live in sa or have a lived sa history. i recognise that, in my search in this article for ethical-pragmatic shift in curriculum framing, it is a philosophical pragmatism that i have primarily outlined. while my argument draws support from praxical illustrations, such as the funds of knowledge track record and the rfrg experiment, these are not sa-based instances. nor are my instantiations african, or ‘southern’. i have indeed countered sr’s set of ‘northern theory’ tools (connell, 2007) with another ‘northern’ set. i do not suggest that ‘north’ has nothing to offer ‘south’, or that ‘global south’ is utterly distinct from ‘global north’. these can be overly generic categories, essentialising ‘wholes’ from ‘parts’ that do not simply reduce to them; and elements of ‘south’ and ‘north’ have formed over long histories of complex interaction. yet the distinction remains analytically important, recognising that epistemologies do emerge variously in different geographies; and in the geographic south, meaningful epistemes have undergone suffocations in histories of domination by forces from northern geographies (santos, 2007). by the very ethical principles i take from fraser, stengers and others – which zipin: pursuing a problematic-based curriculum. . . 89 themselves, if put to work in new spaces, require tests of those spaces – i affirm that regional ownership of key social-epistemological projects, such as curriculum, is vital for the future of those whose lives will be subjected to their regimes. i humbly invite critical examination, from diverse sa-situated stakeholders, of the thought this article has put towards a problematic-based curriculum approach, and whether/how it might hold viability and promise for sa educational praxis. acknowledgements first and foremost, i thank aslam fataar and marie brennan for ongoing conversations that contribute richly to the thought this article articulates. thanks to two blind reviewers for comments. thanks to dialogic friends within the funds of knowledge community of scholars: luis moll, cecilia rios-aguilar, rebecca neri, adrian huerta, rob hattam, gloria rodriguez, and moises esteban-guitart. thanks to sam sellar for discussions about isabelle stengers’ writings. finally, i note that, while this article works at a theoretical level, its ideas have evolved across participation in three major empirical projects of curriculum research and design, funded by the australian research council: redesigning pedagogies in the north (lp0454869), 2004–2007; pursuing equity through rich accountabilities (lp100200841), 2011–2016; and capacitating student aspirations in classrooms and communities of a high-poverty region (dp120101492), 2012–2017. these projects involved co-researchers and ‘industry’ partners, too numerous to name here, but who have been interlocutors in the researchful praxis of pursuing social-educational justice. references bernstein, b. 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(2008) bringing knowledge back in: from social constructivism to social realism in the sociology of education. milton park & new york: routledge. young, m. (2014). why start with the curriculum? in m. young, & d. lambert, with c. roberts, & m. roberts, (eds/authors), knowledge and the future school: curriculum and social justice (41–64). london: bloomsbury. zipin, l. (2009). dark funds of knowledge, deep funds of pedagogy: exploring boundaries between lifeworlds and schools. discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 30(3), 317–331. zipin, l. (2013). engaging middle years learners by making their communities curricular: a funds of knowledge approach. curriculum perspectives, 33(3), 1–12. zipin, l., fataar, a. & brennan, m. (2015). can social realism do social justice? debating the warrants for curriculum knowledge selection. education as change, 19(2), 9–36. zipin, l., sellar, s. & hattam, r. (2012). countering and exceeding ‘capital’: a ‘funds of knowledge’ approach to re-imagining community. discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 33(2), 179–192. lew zipin extra-ordinary professor faculty of education stellenbosch university south africa zipin@sun.ac.za mailto:zipin@sun.ac.za mailto:lew.zipin@unisa.edu.au mailto:lew.zipin@vu.edu.au microsoft word joe-issue71jun30.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 71, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i71a03 are instructivist pedagogies more appropriate for learning the sciences in south african low-quintile schools than western literature suggests? angela elisabeth stott university of the free state south campus stottae@ufs.ac.za [received 5 dec 2017; accepted:1 may 2018) abstract some research suggests that the use of instructivist teaching strategies may be detrimental to learning while other research asserts that such strategies can enhance learning under certain conditions. in this article i make the argument that the conditions present in south african low-quintile 1-3 schools, and, probably, more broadly in schools typical of developing countries, make such strategies appropriate and may indeed be the only strategies currently implementable on a large scale in the south african low-quintile school context. i propose two kinds of instructivist resources, low-language-demand drill-and-practise worksheets and software, that may be effective in improving learning in this context by developing language competence, increasing feedback and reinforcement, and extending teaching and learning time. i caution against a simplistic interpretation of the argument, and discuss possible difficulties. discussions such as this are necessary in our search for appropriate and implementable solutions to the crisis of south african underperformance in education. keywords: developing countries, information and communication technologies (ict), instructivism, elearning, formalism, science learning, south african low quintile schools introduction south africa has a bimodal education system (spaull, 2013). learners who attend schools serving the richest 25% of the population (quintile 5 and some quintile 4 schools) perform close to international averages. the remaining 75% (learners in quintile 1–3 and some quintile 4 schools) perform at or near the bottom on international science and mathematics benchmarking tests (spaull & kotze, 2015) and show very low levels of general skills, including numeracy and literacy (pretorius & spaull, 2016). despite numerous interventions and considerable amounts of money being channelled into improving this situation, there has been little large-scale improvement (bayat, louw, & rena, 2014), and, possibly, decline, rather (graven, 2014). while little is known about how to improve the situation, it appears that the factors correlated to academic achievement are not the same for the richest 25% and the poorest 75% of south african learners (spaull, 2013). however, most of the existing 40 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 literature about interventions aimed at promoting learning report on studies conducted in developed countries that experience conditions similar to those of the top 25% of south african schools. obstacles to progress in the context of learners learning the sciences in low-quintile south african schools include a poor command of the language of learning and teaching (lolt) (pretorius, 2015); low levels of prior knowledge and skill of learners and teachers; a general attitude of apathy; and inefficient use of time (van der berg, spaull, wills, gustafsson, & kotzé, 2016). this article contributes to the search for possibilities which may be implementable in the south african low-quintile school context given these problems, and possible amelioration of them. problem statement while both instructivist and constructivist pedagogies may be consistent with a constructivist view of learning (ausubel, novak, & hanesian, 1986), they differ in their views of how to best promote construction of learning. instructivists view pedagogy that reduces extraneous cognitive load as far as possible, provides repeated practice to attain mastery, and gives immediate feedback, as being the most effective and efficient (klahr, 2009). such a view is embedded in cognitive psychology that extends the stimulus-response approach of behaviourism to include models of what happens within the brain during learning (mayer, 2009). teacher-centred, formalistic, drill-and-practise pedagogy is consistent with instructivism (niederhauser & stoddart, 2001). constructivists, in contrast, believe that deliberately introducing cognitive load and withholding feedback can enhance motivation and depth of learning, thus leading to the longer retention of knowledge (wise & o’neill, 2009). this may, for example, be done by embedding learning within authentic contexts, such as in problem-based learning (savery, 2006), and using other learner-centred, progressive pedagogies. cronjé (2007) describes the international historical pendulum swing between instructivist and constructivist pedagogies. south africa’s education history since 1994 (chisholm, motala, & vally, 2003; hoadley, 2018) provides an excellent example of this, with my own experiences having some correspondence to our national changes. snippets of this personal story are relevant to this discussion since they illustrate and contextualise the argument i make in this article. in 1980 my father brought one of the first personal computers, with all of eight kilobytes of ram, into south africa. the software he programmed included a highly rigorous drill-andpractise quiz generator created to help my brother and me with our school work. while my marks rose as a result, the repetitiveness and unrelenting requirement for exactness frustrated my brother, inducing avoidance behaviour. consistent with our differing experiences, research on the effectiveness of the use of computers in education has yielded widely different conclusions. burns and ungerleider (2003), in their review of northern and western literature about information and communication technologies (ict) usage, report much stott: are instructivist pedagogies more appropriate for learning . . . 41 success for the promotion of learning using ict, but also cite studies suggesting that some ict, particularly drill-and-practise software, may retard learning. thanks, largely, to an immense amount of drill-and-practise exam-training, i topped the department of education and training (det) matriculation list in 1990, receiving considerable media attention since, as a white learner in a mainly black school in apartheid south africa, i had crossed the racial divide. despite the fact that in some cases my understanding was very limited, enough practice had made me proficient at answering questions as required. the accolades i received suggested to me, at the time, that this was sufficient. the very next year i began my teaching career in the same well-managed rural mission school in kwazulu-natal from which i had matriculated, while pursuing a degree through correspondence. my early years of physical, natural, and life sciences teaching were characterised by strong instructivist pedagogy. however, i became increasingly exasperated by my learners’ surface approach to learning, low intrinsic motivation, and the meaninglessness of repetition without understanding. in addition, i embarked on an exciting personal pursuit of deep understanding of science concepts, which convinced me of the hollowness of superficial exam training. i was therefore more than ready for south africa’s swing towards constructivist pedagogy with the introduction of outcomes-based education in the early 2000s. together with the rest of our country’s teaching population, i sat through poorly delivered teacher training workshops that vilified the rigid, individualistic, rote drill-and-practise of the past, and painted the bright new possibilities of open-ended questioning and collaborative group work that promote deep learning and develop twenty-first century skills. these workshops evoked a general aversion to the new system and its pedagogies in my colleagues—a view shown to have been wide-spread (chisholm, 2000). but, for me they coincided with my enrolment in a master’s programme, and subsequently a phd in science education, which provided a solid conceptual base regarding the advantages of constructivist pedagogy. nevertheless, my conversion of this theory into practice was fraught with difficulties. some of these, as well as my own pendulum swings in search of an appropriate balance along the pedagogical continuum, are documented in stott (2008) and stott and hobden (2008). however, the sense of arrival achieved through this process was quickly dispelled in my move to the mentorship of science teachers in townships over the past four years. this has brought me into daily contact with the extremely low knowledge and skill levels of the majority of our country’s learners, overcrowded classroom conditions, low content knowledge of the teachers in general, and the state of dysfunctionality of the schools. i have never seen any of the teachers or teacher-educators with whom i work using constructivist teaching strategies in this environment. some of these teachers are able to inspire considerable numbers of their learners out of the pervasive apathy characteristic of their environment and guide them to reasonable achievement. however, when i evaluate their teaching in terms of western literature, such as knight et al. (2015), i cannot acknowledge their skill, since they teach in a completely instructivist manner with strong behaviourist elements. similarly, i find that the kinds of resources which these teachers use to apparent 42 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 effect may be considered harmful when evaluated in terms of western literature, such as that by burns and ungerleider (2003). therefore, i experience a tension between what seems to be effective in low-quintile schools and what i believe to be good teaching based on the literature and my own teaching in a stable, well-managed environment. this tension has made me pose the question: are instructivist pedagogies more appropriate for learning the sciences in south african low-quintile schools than western literature suggests? in this article i argue that the existing literature supports the use of both constructivist and instructivist pedagogies in all contexts, but that both the limited empirical evidence available and the arguments embedded in a collection of learning theories support a view that instructivist pedagogies are more appropriate for learning the sciences in south african lowquintile classrooms than western literature suggests. although the arguments made are seen to be consistent with those given in relation to five of hugo and wedekind’s (2013) six pedagogical fallacies regarding optimal pedagogy for the poor, i argue that what they term the formalisation first fallacy is not a fallacy at all. their theoretical motivation against the placement of formalism as the necessary starting point in the evolution of quality education in developing countries, is compelling. however, in practise, i contend, it does seem to be necessary, as beeby (1966) found, to start with a focus on formalism, also termed instructivism (guthrie, 2018). as mentioned above, i propose particular types of instructivist resources as being potentially beneficial in the context of learners in south african low-quintile schools learning the sciences—low-language-demand drill-and-practise worksheets and software. this proposal emerges from my own experience, as well as from my reflection on the existing literature expounded here. this argument is probably generalisable to learning of any subject in classrooms typical of developing countries. conceptual and theoretical framework commentators on the instructivist-constructivist continuum, also referred to as the formalistic-progressive or teacher-centred-learner-centred continuum, such as cronjé (2007), hugo and wedekind (2013) and schweisfurth (2013), call for a cessation of the simplistic view that instructivism and constructivism are diametrically opposed, and suggest, rather, that each pedagogy that lies on the continuum between the extremes should be selected for use according to the context and required outcomes. the value of the employment of a wide range of pedagogy can be understood if we acknowledge the values of both acquiry and participatory models of learning, each of which has strengths and weaknesses for describing and explaining the complexity of learning. the issue that does need further discussion, as wise and o’neill (2009) have observed is this: in which conditions is each pedagogy more appropriate and implementable in an effective manner? stott: are instructivist pedagogies more appropriate for learning . . . 43 learning models and associated pedagogy the information processing model of learning (ipm) is an example of an acquiry model of learning since it focuses on the conditions necessary to help learners acquire knowledge by effective management of the limited space of working memory. this involves the reduction of extraneous cognitive load and emphasises ways of presenting information as clearly as possible so as to harness learners’ use of essential and generative cognitive processing to appropriately select and integrate knowledge elements to lead to both recall and understanding (mayer, 2009). this is very different to situative learning theory, which is an example of a participatory model of learning since it focuses on socialisation into the domain as learners pursue their own goals while participating in sense-making activities within a community of practice (wenger, 1999). this leads to the development of identity, purpose, and motivation through social interaction with the complexity of knowledge embedded in authentic contexts (mattar, 2018). it is difficult, and also meaningless (wise & o’neill, 2009) to compare the relative merits of constructivist and instructivist pedagogies. however, it is also dishonest to compare poor instructivist teaching with idealised constructivist teaching, the apparent fallacy underlying the argument that the underachievement of learners in south african low-quintile schools results from the prevalence of instructivist, and the absence of constructivist pedagogy. such a view is clearly fallacious given evidence of high achievement associated with skilful instructivist pedagogy in the south african low-quintile context (christie, butler, & potterton, 2007; jansen & blank, 2014; malcolm, keane, hoohlo, kgaka, & ovens, 2000), as well as in other contexts, such as the highly instructivist knowledge is power program (kipp) schools in the usa (cheng, hitt, kisida, & mills, 2017). the small amount of relevant empirical work available in the south african low-quintile context (e.g., christie et al., 2007; malcolm et al., 2000) suggests that schools that succeed, despite serving learners from low socioeconomic backgrounds, use exemplary traditional chalk and talk teaching. of course, these findings say nothing about the results had constructivist pedagogies been employed skilfully in these contexts. moreover, constructivists have never denied the strength of instructivism at raising learners’ marks but have questioned only how meaningful this is (wise & o’neill, 2009). however, these results do lend empirical support to the argument based on the implementability of skilful instructivism in the low-quintile school context and the possibility of such pedagogies leading to some form of learning gain in a context where this is extremely difficult to achieve (bayat et al., 2014). until similar empirical support is available for the skilful implementation of constructivism in the south african low-quintile school context, we are left with the impression that instructivism is more appropriate in this context than western literature suggests. 44 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 support for an instructivist focus in the south african lowquintile school context in this article i argue that, in general, in the south african low-quintile school context, situated learning theory and associated constructivist pedagogy are luxuries we are sadly not yet ready to implement on a large scale. further, i take the view that a focus on constructivist pedagogy is appropriate in contexts where learners perform at least moderately well in the classroom setting, or where highly-skilled teachers with strong content knowledge and experience in implementation of constructivist pedagogy teach learners of any kind. in such contexts exploring ways to enhance knowledge transfer to more complex settings is likely to be feasible. in the typical south african low-quintile context, where rates of passing on merit in grades 8-11 may be 20% or lower (branson, hofmeyr, & lam, 2014) and teachers are often not familiar with the content knowledge (van der berg et al., 2016), we first face the challenge of helping learners to recall knowledge and become able to perform routine operations stipulated by the curriculum (stott, 2017; van der berg et al., 2016). i present three reasons to support this view. first, constructivist pedagogies are very difficult to implement (schweisfurth, 2013). this is the case even in typical western classrooms which are well-resourced, have relatively small numbers of relatively articulate learners with reasonable levels of prior-knowledge, teachers with strong content knowledge, and a less authoritarian culture that encourages critical dialogue between teachers and learners. south african low-quintile schools typically lack all these features (hoadley, 2018). one of the reasons for the greater implementation of instructivist pedagogies is that they are timeefficient (klahr, 2009), a much-needed feature in south african low-quintile schools where the time available for learning and teaching is severely reduced by school dysfunctionality (van der berg et al., 2016). in addition, the social, epistemological, and pedagogical culture present in south african low-quintile schools and, more broadly, in the majority of subsaharan african schools, is authoritarian in nature (cooper, 2015; tabulawa, 2013), with instructivist pedagogies predominating (hoadley, 2018), making the adoption of skilful instructivist pedagogies more likely to lie within the zones of proximal development of the learners and implementation of the teachers (mckenney, 2013; tabulawa, 2013), than the adoption of skilful constructivist pedagogies would be. second, learners with low levels of prior knowledge and reading comprehension skills, such as the majority of those attending south african low-quintile schools (pretorius & spaull, 2016), experience the limitation imposed by the small size of working memory to a greater extent than other learners (tobias, 2009). instructivist pedagogies help learners to manage effectively the limited size of working memory during the learning process (fletcher, 2009). they may also help reduce the limitation working memory imposes for future learning by helping learners to automate some knowledge, thus freeing up space in working memory for new learning (sweller, 2009). third, learners in low-quintile south african schools perform poorly even in questions requiring the recall of science knowledge in well-structured domains (stott, 2017; van der stott: are instructivist pedagogies more appropriate for learning . . . 45 berg et al., 2016), which instructivist pedagogies are highly appropriate for addressing (de villiers, 2007). such an argument assumes that a knowledge classification system such as bloom’s taxonomy (anderson & sosniak, 1994), is subsumptive and sequential in nature for a particular area of knowledge. this view has some empirical support (seddon, 1978), but is also contested (resnick, 1987), thus opening up the possibility that in the right environment a more constructivist approach may be more effective at developing learning even of lower levels of knowledge. however, it would probably be extremely difficult to turn an overcrowded, under-resourced, low-quintile classroom into such an environment. education in developing world contexts the argument is made, above, that although the complexity of learning requires the employment of multiple learning theories and multiple pedagogies, in contexts of low levels of learner and teacher skill and knowledge such as those that characterise the majority of south african low-quintile schools and the classrooms of developing countries, a greater use of instructivist pedagogy is more appropriate than is the case in the kinds of classrooms more typical of western contexts. this corresponds to what johnson, monk, and hodges (2000) see as the selection (environmental pressure) view that different strategies are needed to support effectively most of the teachers working in low-quintile schools than has been reported to be effective in literature from developed countries. these authors liken the environment in south african low-quintile schools to that of a desert where few pedagogies can survive, as opposed to the tropical rainforest of the classrooms found in developed countries. they refer to a four-stage model of teacher development, rooted in beeby’s (1966) work, with most of south african low-quintile teachers falling into the first two stages, unskilled and mechanical. further, the individualisation of learner-centred pedagogy, together with its constructivist epistemology, is mismatched to the communal culture and strong authoritarian social structures and epistemology prevalent in developing countries (tabulawa, 2013). it is therefore unsurprising that the implementation of learner-centred, progressive, constructivist pedagogies has failed in developing country classrooms (guthrie, 2017; schweisfurth, 2013) despite considerable attempts by aid agencies and policy-makers to enforce the adoption of such pedagogies (tabulawa, 2003). authorities such as tabulawa (2013) and guthrie (2018) go so far as to view constructivist pedagogies as inappropriate in developing countries. tabulawa argues that the popularity of constructivist pedagogies among academics, funders, and politicians is ideological and political rather than being founded on empirical research into comparative learning effectiveness. he urges his readers “to question the desirability of constructivist, learner-centred pedagogy in third world contexts, given its colonising and hegemonic tendencies” (2013, p. xxii). in contrast, these very ideals, which include the promotion of critical thinking and democratisation, were embraced by the post-apartheid curriculum writers in south africa so as to “transform south african society” because of “a need to address the legacy of apartheid” (department of education, 2003, p. 2). despite this 46 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 ideological rhetoric, however, over 20 years after the fall of apartheid, teacher-directed rote and surface learning and collective chanting dominate the south african low-quintile classroom (hoadley, 2018). the colossal failure of outcomes based education in south africa is consistent with schweisfurth’s conclusion, based on a meta-analysis of attempts to implement learner-centred education (lce) in developing country contexts, that “the history of the implementation of lce is riddled with stories of failures grand and small” (schweisfurth, 2011, p. 425). this undisputed failure of constructivist pedagogies, in the main, in the developing world has led guthrie (2018) to oppose the use of such pedagogies in such contexts; he warns that “progressives can be caged in a cosmology of cumulative hallucination where errors compound, leading to a vicious circle of misinformation for continuing the irrational pursuit of the unattainable” (p. xvi). in contrast, schweisfurth sees the value of the ideologies of learner-centred pedagogies worthy of encouraging persistence since “human rights arguments rise above these questions of evidence” (2013, p. 5). her proposed solution includes a focus on culturally-relevant learning-centred pedagogies and essential dimensions of quality education which are attainable even when a teacher-dominated, instructivist pedagogy is employed (lattimer, 2015). in a similar attempt to find pedagogical principles that are generalizable across social and cultural contexts, todd and mason’s (2005) review of the literature revealed that learner performance is enhanced in any context by the provision of feedback and reinforcement and by increasing time for teaching and learning. it is obvious that there is a need for improvement in these areas in the context of south african low-quintile schools where a productive rhythm of effective time-management is largely absent (van der berg et al., 2016). effective solutions to the observed severe underperformance have to be time-efficient, provide the structure needed to encourage more effective time-management, feedback, and reinforcement, and provide practical ways to extend learning and, if possible, teaching time. they also have to address the poor language competence of the learners. the use of particular kinds of teaching and learning support material, mentioned above, that are consistent within this framework are again proposed—low-language-demand drill-and-practise worksheets and software. low-language-demand drill-and-practise resources in this article low-language-demand worksheets and software refer to resources that support the acquisition of language and concepts without expecting users to be already proficient in the use of the language. drill-and-practise software refers to software that requires users to input answers that have a definite right or wrong status. the software provides immediate feedback to the user’s response, including rewards or corrective punishment (de villiers, 2007). a printed, non-interactive equivalent of such software is a drill-and-practise worksheet. stott: are instructivist pedagogies more appropriate for learning . . . 47 authorities on the role of language and literacy in science education, such as wellington and osborne, state that “one of the major difficulties in learning science is learning the language of science . . . attention to language is one of the most important acts that can be done to improve the quality of science education” (2001, p. 1). proficiency in lolt, usually english, is one of the major obstacles to progress in the south african low-quintile context (pretorius, 2015). vocabulary acquisition, the first step towards language competence, requires repetition (chukharev-hudilainen & klepikova, 2016), suggesting that drill-and-practise worksheets and software are appropriate ways to support the acquisition of the vocabulary foundational to the learning of science concepts. conceptual understanding is embedded in language (konicek-moran & keeley, 2015) and this language tends to be complex and sophisticated for science concepts. it is possible, by using appropriate scaffolding, to help learners with low lolt abilities to develop levels of understanding which might otherwise be considered beyond their reach (stott, 2008). lowlanguage-demand worksheets and software provide a highly structured form of such scaffolding. the kinds of low-language-demand resources envisioned as being useful in the south african low-quintile context have sections that are aimed at drilling necessary vocabulary, developing understanding of scientific concepts, and developing competence in algorithmic manipulation. one format in which this can be done is by the use of gap-fill worksheets. in their electronic format, these are gap-fill quizzes. gap-fill (also called cloze-procedure) questions, have mixed appraisals on their value. jongsma (1971), in a review of the relevant literature available at the time, found no convincing evidence for the enhancement of learning through use of cloze-procedures. more recently, o’toole and schefter (2008) found that language-conscious approaches to science teaching, including the use of cloze-procedures, were beneficial for learners of a variety of levels of english language competence. lidbury and zhang (2008) found that a languagefocused intervention, including the use of electronic cloze-procedures, improved the test scores of the higher achieving english foreign language molecular biology university students involved in their study and improved the self-reported reading and language confidence of the students of all achievement levels. highly structured low-language-demand drill-and-practise worksheets are likely to meet the criteria laid out in the conceptual framework above. their highly instructivist nature and lowlanguage demand make them time-efficient. the security they offer to a teacher should increase the likelihood that he or she will be empowered to complete the curriculum which, in this context, is rare and is associated with enhanced learner performance (van der berg et al., 2016). furthermore, such worksheets should increase the likelihood of teachers being in class, rather than missing lessons as a strategy to avoid having to teach topics they feel illequipped to teach (van der berg et al., 2016). they should also enhance learning time because of increasing the likelihood that learners will engage with the worksheets for homework, given their attainability. where it is possible to support learning further by the use of corresponding software, feedback, reinforcement, learning, and virtual teaching time can be further increased without 48 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 burdening the teacher with excessive extra lessons. the extent of the learning backlog present among almost all south african learners in low-quintile schools is so great that an enormous amount of extended learning time and additional feedback and reinforcement is needed to bring these learners up to par with their more privileged peers. it is impossible for all this extra learning time, feedback, and reinforcement to be provided by the teacher. a caution to avoid political semantic side-tracking i interpret the call for a shift of “focus from a discourse of deficit and helplessness towards a discourse of possibilities in the struggle for equity and quality for all” (graven, 2014, p. 1) to refer to a movement away from dwelling on the problems present in our context to one in which we focus on solutions, while still acknowledging the existence of the problems. i hold that appropriate solutions cannot be obtained without acknowledging the problems that the solutions need to address. this includes the acknowledgement of the existence of deficit, such as the firmly established fact of the low skill and knowledge levels of the vast majority of the learners and many of the teachers in south african low-quintile schools (van der berg et al., 2016). of course, this view of deficit is restricted to the kinds of skill and knowledge valued in the curriculum. it is expected that some exception may be taken to such a view, such as that expressed by zipin (2013) in his rebuttal of hugo and wedekind’s (2013) argument that teaching and learning may be largely absent in classrooms in developing countries and therefore the establishment of a minimal pedagogy is the first priority in such a context. zipin’s call for debate concerning the kinds of knowledge which should be valued is seen as a separate issue. instead of being side-tracked by politically correct semantics or debates on the acceptability of the standards currently valued by our education authorities, i focus, in this article, on the acquisition of solutions that are appropriate to our particular context at this time. envisioned difficulties in my experience, the provision of low-language-demand drill-and-practise worksheets is greatly welcomed by teachers, with adoption mainly limited by access to photocopying facilities. the problems envisioned regarding the use of such worksheets are mainly restricted to inappropriate use which may lead to sub-optimal or detrimental usage. these concerns are addressed later in the article. adoption of corresponding software will, in my experience, be low unless appropriate external technical, logistical, and motivational support is provided. a lack of access to computers remains a barrier despite many low-quintile schools having received donations of computers for learner-use, and sometimes, in my experience, having multiple computer centres which can rival those of the wealthiest schools in the country, but which remain locked up. software that runs on mobile devices has a greater chance of learner-use, given the more ubiquitous nature of such devices among learners themselves, even in contexts of poverty. stott: are instructivist pedagogies more appropriate for learning . . . 49 while south african teachers tend to have positive attitudes towards the use of icts for improving the effectiveness of learning and teaching, they have low perceptions of their control over the actual use of ict in their teaching, particularly regarding getting learners to engage with software (stott, 2018). the reasons for this include technical problems and a lack of confidence at trouble-shooting these, high syllabus pressures, and a lack of access to computers for subject use. additionally, in my experience, many learners in low-quintile schools have had little to no prior exposure to computer use and so need help with basic skills. furthermore, many of the learners have such poor english speaking and reading abilities that they find engagement even with low-language-demand software difficult. these factors tend to make engagement with software slow, particularly initially. unlike the ability of a teacher to move on with a crowded curriculum despite little learning occurring, software restricts progression until some level of mastery has been attained. while this is one of the pedagogical strengths of the software, it does create obvious logistical difficulties which could cause avoidance behaviour by the teachers. despite these difficulties, in my experience in working in south african low-quintile schools in botshabelo and thabanchu, it is possible to achieve adoption of drill-and-practise software out of school hours for some learners, with some positive results (stott, 2017). continued research into such use is currently underway, with positive preliminary findings. in a context in which any intervention is difficult and many interventions seem to yield few or no learning gains (bayat et al., 2014), it seems that this possibility should be pursued further. caution against simplistic interpretation the arguments made may imply that in the south african low-quintile context, instructivist pedagogies are the only pedagogies suitable; that drill-and-practise exam-training, devoid of an emphasis on understanding and focusing only on lower order thinking skills, is the most appropriate pedagogy; that the drill-and-practise resources referred to are incorruptible and should replace all other resources; and that these views should be generalised to south african education as a whole. these are simplistic interpretations that must be refuted. first, although it seems that in the south african low-quintile school context it is most appropriate to choose teaching strategies that lie on the instructivist side of the pedagogical continuum for a greater proportion of the time than in many other contexts, this does not mean that the use of strategies further on the constructivist side of the spectrum are never appropriate in this context. for example, the motivational benefits of embedding learning in real-life, complex contexts and the importance of development of twenty-first century skills through opportunities to collaborate, communicate, and think critically apply to low-quintile learners just as they do to learners from more privileged contexts. nevertheless, the low prior-knowledge and skill levels of these learners make attainment of such lofty outcomes unlikely in the time-frames available to them and require even more skilled scaffolding by teachers than is needed in other contexts. 50 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 i have done research (as yet unpublished) on two formats in which it was possible for a few low-quintile learners to achieve these outcomes to some extent. these are extracurricular voluntary participation in the expo for young scientists science fair, and an inquiry-based holiday programme. both of these required a large amount of skilled input and considerable funding. programmes such as these are clearly important, but they require too much time, and money, and too many already scarce skills to be implemented on a large scale. the argument is therefore made that teacher-educators should model continually and provide support for some constructivist pedagogical practices in the low-quintile context, including voluntary extracurricular programmes. however, the expectations set by much of the western literature about general day-to-day pedagogy should be appropriately modified for the south african low-quintile context. second, it seems possible to create thinking-intensive, although heavily guided, worksheets with a low-language demand that focus on the development of understanding as well as recall. this will probably not be as effective at developing deep understanding as more openended, complex, and high-language-demand resources would be, if the latter provide attainable outcomes. however, the likelihood of achieving attainable outcomes with openended resources is probably low in typical south african low-quintile schools, given the constraints discussed above. third, the dangers of misusing the kinds of resources argued for in this article must be acknowledged. in the software context, such misuse is referred to by muldner, burleson, van de sande, and vanlehn (2011) as efforts to game the system, which means making progress without having to engage in the thinking that the activity is intended to elicit. another danger is what carey (2014) refers to as the fluency illusion—a superficial proficiency that creates a false sense of competence, hindering engagement in deeper learning. the extents to which these dangers are realised should be researched empirically for valid claims to be made. this said, it is expected that the current situation is so bad, with so little learning occurring, and so apathetic an approach to learning being prevalent, that the learners who would be prone to falling prey to these dangers would not learn less than they currently do. similarly, although drill-and-practise methods that target the development of automated recall may be criticised for encouraging surface and achievement, as opposed to deep, approaches to learning, this may not be entirely negative if the alternative is the apathetical approach that is currently prevalent. besides, surface and achievement approaches to learning do have their place within the learning spectrum and appear to be the most effective and appropriate methods of learning in some contexts (beattie iv, collins, & mcinnes, 1997). fourth, it is important to caution against a view that low-quintile learners are incapable of engagement in higher order thinking and that teachers in these contexts should not employ pedagogies that aim to develop such thinking. on the contrary, i take the view that pedagogies that develop higher order thinking are important in every context, including that of the low-quintile school. it seems, however, that the feasible route to achieving this is a high emphasis on the development of basic skills and knowledge, while also trying as much as possible to develop higher order thinking and deep understanding. stott: are instructivist pedagogies more appropriate for learning . . . 51 finally, low-language-demand drill-and-practise worksheets and software are not proposed as the only type of resource to be used in the south african low-quintile context, and particularly not in the broader south african landscape. to do so would be to commit what hugo and wedekind (2013) call the extensional fallacy. i think that multiple resources and multiple pedagogies should be used wherever possible to mitigate the weaknesses of any one of these. teachers and learners should be encouraged to use text-books and answer openended questions with higher language demand, as well as the kinds of resources argued for here, provided that constraints of time, and learnerand teacher-prior knowledge and skill are not prohibitive. limitations, implications, and suggestions for research the greatest weakness in the argument made in this article is the lack of empirical research into the large-scale implementability of the software proposed, and the extent to which learners and teachers are likely to avoid the dangers, discussed above, which these types of resources present. my limited published (stott, 2017), and continuing, but not yet published, empirical research into the small to medium-scale implementation of after-school softwareengagement suggests that this is feasible with appropriate support and motivation. personal, unpublished observation also suggests to me that these types of resources are effective teacher-education tools that empower teachers to teach better, leading to empowering learners to learn better, all of which results in learners avoiding superficial engagement tricks to game the system. these observations need to be researched more fully, however, before they can be presented as claims. it should be pointed out that a simplified form of the argument made in this article, which denies any applicability of more constructivist pedagogies and attempts to develop higher order thinking, is already held by the majority of south african teachers teaching in lowquintile schools and those who support teachers in this context. those practitioners, like me, who also function in an academic realm, experience the tension created by a mismatch of the literature and what appears optimal and feasible in practice in this context. while such a tension can be effective in pointing to where we should surely be headed, it creates a frustrating sense of the literature being out-of-touch with the reality of the south african lowquintile school context. this can fuel a view that educational literature cannot be applied to actual practise, resulting in a disregard for such literature. this includes the avoidance of constructivist pedagogies in contexts where they would be implementable, appropriate, and very valuable, with reasonable levels of effort and attainable levels of skill. therefore, i suggest that everyone will benefit by an acknowledgement in the literature that instructivist pedagogies and a focus on so-called lower order thinking are more appropriate in the context of developing countries than the research performed in developed countries suggests. at the same time, it is important to pay some attention to higher order thinking skills and develop capacity in the implementation of constructivist pedagogies. it would be particularly helpful if concrete exemplars of effective constructivist, higher-order thinking approaches within the south african low-quintile school context could be provided to help teachers to move towards such practice. 52 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 most of the argument i offer in this article has been embedded within ipm, which seems particularly useful for guiding an understanding of learning and the challenges of teaching in the south african low-quintile school context. this would probably be the case for any context in which language barriers and low levels of prior knowledge and skill significantly reduce the size of working memory. in such cases, it seems more likely that motivation will come from success, even in some small task, than it would from the provision of a complex authentic context which adds cognitive load to the already severely taxed working memory. i propose that a minimum threshold of competence, and therefore of available working memory space, is needed before participatory learning models, such as situativity learning theory, become useful on a large scale in understanding learning and in guiding pedagogy in the south african low-quintile context. conclusion the following lines of progression are central to the argument i make in this article: progression from a state of low to high language ability and prior skill and knowledge competence of learners; progression of school environments along what johnson et al. (2000) liken to an ecological continuum; and progression of teachers through their four pedagogical stages. these three progressions could be seen as forming the axes of a three-dimensional representation within which any particular learning situation could be plotted. it seems reasonable to suspect that most practical learning situations would lie roughly equidistantly along each of these axes, and for such situations it is suggested that instructivist pedagogy should be used to a greater extent initially, with a progressively greater proportion of time and emphasis being given to constructivist pedagogy along these progressions. currently, classrooms in south african low-quintile schools are situated near the beginning of each of these progressions, making acquiry models of learning and instructivist pedagogies more appropriate. this implies that the effectiveness of resources, such as the ones proposed in this article, lie in their ability to promote success at the point at which learners, teachers and school environments currently find themselves, while also moving them forward. references anderson, l. w., & sosniak, l. a. 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(2013). starting from pedagogical zero in “developing” contexts? let’s re-imagine! a response to hugo and wedekind. southern african review of education, 19(1), 158–166. microsoft word c88 full issue 5oct.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 88, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i88a08 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x visual methodologies as effective tools in reflecting on aspects of identity as an educator for inclusion and social justice antoinette d’amant social justice education discipline, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa damant@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8276-5792 (received: 11 february 2022; accepted: 6 july 2022) abstract as an educator for inclusion and social justice, it is essential to be self-reflective about all aspects of identity that relate to diversity and differential power relations. as part of this commitment, i am part of a group of critical academics and practitioners who comprise the south african education research association (saera) special interest group on self-reflexive methodologies. in this paper, i include reflections on two artworks i created during self-reflexive exercises using visual methodologies. the first artwork led to my interrogating aspects of meaning and identity as a white person in post-apartheid south africa. what emerged was, first, the need to confront my privileged racial identity that had been fashioned in a divided and exclusive past and second, i needed to reposition myself beyond my white socialisation, recognising the possibility of new frames of understanding and new identities, new social spaces, and new communities beyond the historical differences that keep south africans separated and alienated. critical reflection on the second artwork reveals embedded commentary on the need to challenge patriarchal articulations of the professional identity and dominant discourses of learning and teaching in academia. what emerged was the possibility of how lost feminine aspects of knowledge could inform teaching and learning strategies. these strategies could then contribute to a critical pedagogy that challenges the prevailing system of social relations and disrupts and unsettles the stereotypical assumptions of a dominant masculine discourse in academia. here, i highlight the effectiveness of using visual methodologies to explore various aspects of identity, especially relevant for educators as transformative agents educating for inclusion and social justice. keywords: self-reflexive methodology; visual methodology; educating for social justice; racial identity; challenging patriarchal articulations of professional identity in academia the need to educate for inclusion and social justice by the last decade of the twentieth century, the exclusionary politics of south africa’s past had run their course. we needed to find a way to transform our social landscape by creating a 128 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 radically inclusive and participatory social discourse in which diversity would be celebrated and equality of opportunity promoted. such a discourse requires informed citizens who possess certain attitudes, a particular consciousness, and a commitment conducive to a deep sense of common good. however, a well-intentioned constitution and a set of progressive educational policies are not enough to bring about the healing of the divisions of our past and the social transformation that our country desperately needs. south africans still need to find ways of confronting and breaking down existing myths, deal with ignorance, prejudice, and the fundamental failure to respect others, and learn to relate to each other in ways that sustain social cohesion and co-operation without suppressing our differences. we need to put our energies intentionally into creating and maintaining education for inclusivity and sustainability in times of increasing inequality. embracing such a progressive vision requires a radical restructuring of our society and our education system. such a vision has important implications for teacher education in that educators still need to develop new ways of thinking and teaching that seriously challenge the prevailing system of social relations and that “enable attitudes to shift” (howell, 2007, p. 90). we need to take on the mantle of transformative agents (giroux, 1988), become cultural workers for self and social emancipation (freire, 1998), and commit to teaching for social responsibility, social change, inclusion, and social justice (cochran-smith, 1991). background and context against an historical backdrop of exclusion, segregation, and unequal power relations, education in south africa today is responsible for nurturing a vision that takes seriously the project of human liberation from all forms of discrimination and oppression, and that embraces the tenets of social justice. as a social justice lecturer, it is essential for me to always be self-reflective about all aspects of my personal and professional identity that relate in any way to diversity and differential power relations. my university work involves the critical interrogation of all forms of oppression (including sexism, racism, xenophobia, classism, ableism, ageism, religious oppression, cultural imperialism, heteronormativity, homophobia etc.) and how our various identities are linked to them. my investment and work in the specific field of social justice affords me a strong foundation in theories and models of oppression. it encourages critical interrogation of these issues (racism, sexism, oppression, and identity), and helps to disrupt the internalisation of prejudicial messages and manifestations that follow a systematic process of racial and gender socialisation. ultimately, my role is to function as an agent of transformation, recognising and disrupting injustices, and to facilitate this in my students, in the hope of developing a world free of oppression. seeing myself as accountable and responsible for challenging the oppressive power relations between different social groups and, in so doing, encourage anti-racist and anti-sexist change, i need to acknowledge and examine the issue of power relations and how these inform aspects of my identity formation. i must engage in constant critical interrogation of my own placed identity. i cannot expect my students to consider the ways in which their socialisation influences their personal and professional identities, without engaging in the same critical reflection. to this end, i am part of a group of critical academics and practitioners who comprise the saera special interest group on self-reflexive methodologies. we are d’amant: visual methodologies as effective tools in reflecting on aspects of identity . . . 129 committed to researching ourselves in the context of autoethnographic studies. as part of personal and professional transformation and social awareness, we employ various visual arts-based methodologies as tools for developing self-reflexivity. since we are consciously and unconsciously invested in our identities, i have found using visual methodologies, and specifically process art, extremely helpful in critically unpacking these investments. in this paper, i offer critical reflections on two artworks i created as part of my commitment to researching myself in the context of autoethnographic studies employing visual arts-based methodologies. the critical reflection with which i have engaged through the process of creating and making sense of these artworks has prompted in me a deeper consideration of social change and of my role as an agent of transformation. this has also given me the opportunity and space to explore how issues that emerged from an analysis of these artworks were bound up with identity, power, and social structures. visual methodologies and arts-based research visual methodologies provide opportunities for investigating how the creative process can be a key feature of engaging a politics of location, positioning, and situation, or what haraway (1991, p. 169) has called “the view from a body.” according to turner (2017, pp. 52–53), “[y]ou can’t argue with creative forms that come from this place of being fully present in the body as they are the result of a process of inwardness, and critical self-reflection.” arts-based projects work from the premise that our inner world of imagery and metaphor holds a wisdom that bypasses the rational mind and that our souls present us with images before we have a thought or an emotion. the imagery in artworks created through arts-based methodology inevitably always links to what needs to be said and heard by the individual and by the greater society. i have come to understand this process as process art as opposed to outcomes-based art. instead of having a firm idea of what a piece of art will ultimately look like and what its significance and meaning will be from the outset, process art is essentially spontaneous, in the moment . . . free creative expression . . . and is always broader, more expansive and multi-layered than words and opens the door to our deepest intuitive wisdom. as soon as we connect to a deeper level of ourselves and create without pre-planning and holding fast to intentional outcomes, we are able to open up to possibilities outside the realm of the rational mind. process art takes us to that place where we are able to connect with our souls at a deeper level and access imagery that keeps us connected to our inner compasses. it is a process of intuitive listening to where we are and how our lives need to unfold. almost always, uncomfortable emotions and old patterns of thought or behaviour start to shift when we acknowledge them. (mcclunan, 2013, para. 1) julia cameron, in the artist’s way, said that “the act of making art exposes a society to itself. art brings things to light. it illuminates” (1995, p. 67). these interactive processes with visual texts have the potential to reveal embedded commentary on facets of our own identities in relation to our socio-political contexts. these interactive processes can lead to critical 130 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 subjectivity that allows us to consider “what it is we have become, and what it is we no longer want to be” and enables us “to recognize, and struggle for, possibilities not yet realized” (giroux and simon, 1988, p. 17). this offers us the potential to “intervene in the formation of our own subjectivities” (p. 10), to define ourselves anew and speak our narratives of liberation and desire (mclaren, 1995). these insights can then inform teaching and learning and, ultimately, contribute to developing a critical pedagogy. it is the emphasis on embodied responses to the world and non-conventional ways of meaning-making that constitute both the rationale and the critique of arts-based research. cameron (1995) expressed a belief that “artists and intellectuals are not the same animal” and that the halls of academia, “with their preference for lofty intellectual theorems, do little to support the life of the forest floor. . . [and that] academia harbours a subtle and deadly foe to the creative spirit.” for her, “the subtle discounting” (p. 131) of anything artistic is dangerous and can lead to the neglect of including anything remotely artistic in the academic grove. when i chose the two artworks described in this paper, it was with the understanding of the significance of the brief for the exercises that led to their creation; we were told to bring portraits of ourselves and other images and writings to which we felt drawn or that had inspired us. the way that process art works is to engage in visual exercises simply as aesthetic exercises, indulging aspects of personal experiences and interests, with no initial critical agenda or scholarly thought on identity or professional practices. in other words, each of the critical reflections on the artworks i discuss in this paper began purely as an aesthetic exercise with no scholarly forethought or critical agenda behind them. once created, i engaged critically and intuitively with each and noted the various themes and overall messages that emerged from the visual text. this is why the intuitive processes of process art and arts-based methodologies may appear to the rationally minded to work backwards. for cameron, [c]reativity cannot be comfortably quantified in intellectual terms. by its very nature, creativity eschews such containment. in a university, where intellectual life is built largely upon the art of critique and deconstruction—the art of intuitive creation and creative construction, in general, meets with scanty support, understanding or approval. (132) cameron warns that to become overly cerebral is, in itself, crippling and that the entire thrust of intellectualism runs counter to the creative impulse. this is not to say that an artistic endeavour lacks rigour but, rather, that artistic rigour is grounded differently from what intellectual life usually admits. there is no doubt that the boundaries of what has traditionally constituted academic research are being pushed and blurred through process art and artsbased methodologies. for me, these visual research techniques are profoundly forthcoming in terms of understanding personal and professional identity. they lead me to re-assess critically my subjectivities and open up possibilities of understanding and re-creating myself in respect of attitudes and behaviour regarding racial differences and racial identities. d’amant: visual methodologies as effective t reflecting on the first artwork: interrogating my whiteness, imagining my artwork 1 interrogating my whiteness, imagining my african for this artwork, i felt drawn to include a portrait of myself wearing a combination of masai and zulu beadwork as its central image surrounded by images of prose on the meaning of home no scholarly thought or critical agenda on race or whiteness extended into a critical investigation of importan apparent that the artwork represented a commentary on the densely charged political context of whiteness and on the legacies of racial oppression and political struggle, thus placing this personal visual narrative within a dynamic public history. given my intention to be accountable and responsible for anti and privilege as central aspects of my identity formation and engage in constant critical interrogation regarding my own placed racial identity. through this self reflect on the permanent elephant what it means to be white in a country that is still deeply raciali mckaiser, 2011). insights and influences of other voices gaze i feel that it is important to acknowledge that while my authorship of this paper carries traces of a creator, none of us works in a vacuum. i cann create conditions that supported my journey of reflection. i owe a debt to the insights and influences of predominant theorists in areas related to the white hegemonic gaze. (2012) and hooks (1992) have d’amant: visual methodologies as effective tools in reflecting on aspects of identity . . . reflecting on the first artwork: interrogating my ng my african-ness magining my african-ness this artwork, i felt drawn to include a portrait of myself wearing a combination of masai central image surrounded by images of african elephants and some home. what began purely as an aesthetically appealing exercise with no scholarly thought or critical agenda on race or whiteness behind its creation critical investigation of important issues hidden in the visual text. it became apparent that the artwork represented a commentary on the densely charged political context the legacies of racial oppression and political struggle, thus placing this ive within a dynamic public history. given my intention to be accountable and responsible for anti-racist change, i realised the need to acknowledge power and privilege as central aspects of my identity formation and engage in constant critical on regarding my own placed racial identity. through this self-reflexive exercise, i reflect on the permanent elephant—race—in any south african room and in grappling with what it means to be white in a country that is still deeply racialised and deeply pol insights and influences of other voices: the necessity of a black counter it is important to acknowledge that while my authorship of this paper carries traces creator, none of us works in a vacuum. i cannot, therefore, forget those who helped to create conditions that supported my journey of reflection. i owe a debt to the insights and influences of predominant theorists in areas related to the white hegemonic gaze. (1992) have argued that whites themselves cannot solve the problem of ools in reflecting on aspects of identity . . . 131 reflecting on the first artwork: interrogating my this artwork, i felt drawn to include a portrait of myself wearing a combination of masai african elephants and some an aesthetically appealing exercise with behind its creation, soon t issues hidden in the visual text. it became apparent that the artwork represented a commentary on the densely charged political context the legacies of racial oppression and political struggle, thus placing this ive within a dynamic public history. given my intention to be racist change, i realised the need to acknowledge power and privilege as central aspects of my identity formation and engage in constant critical reflexive exercise, i in any south african room and in grappling with ed and deeply political (see he necessity of a black counterit is important to acknowledge that while my authorship of this paper carries traces ot, therefore, forget those who helped to create conditions that supported my journey of reflection. i owe a debt to the insights and influences of predominant theorists in areas related to the white hegemonic gaze. yancy that whites themselves cannot solve the problem of 132 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 whiteness without the critical voices of blacks, and they emphasise “the necessity of a black counter-gaze, a gaze that recognizes the ways of whiteness” (yancy, 2012, p. 7). throughout this process, i have taken heed of yancy’s (2008, p. x) warning that “whiteness is not an objective social location entirely independent of the self, but rather, a central feature of subjectivity, or one’s lived, interior self.” mckaiser (2011) highlighted for me that south african whites are unconsciously habituated into an uncritical white way of being and this made me aware that i need to be constantly critically aware of my whiteness and what this means to me and to others. this process has forced me to admit that i am a subject of everyday white normalcy and have “inherited the privileged status of being the ‘looker’ and gazer, with all the power that this entails” (yancy, 2008, p. xviii). i am also inherently unfamiliar with the direction of a gaze that objectifies and critically analyses whiteness, being “more familiar with the role of the person that sees than of the person who is seen” (p. x). it has taken careful and critical reflection to distinguish my defensive responses from true critical engagement. i also owe a debt to my colleagues and friends of colour, who have facilitated my critical reflection on the complexities of white anti-racist efforts and have persevered and loved me through my “blind spots” (yancy, 2008, p. ix), where my whiteness has clouded my critical reflection. i have been encouraged to see the world and my identity through the critical analysis and experiences of blacks, and while i may always fail to comprehend the sheer complexity of what it is like to be black, i am aware of the operations of white privilege and hegemony (see yancy, 2012). appropriating another cultural identity reflection on this artwork has facilitated my growing sensitivity to larger questions raised in connection with a white person wearing traditionally african items of adornment. i could well be accused of appropriating another’s cultural identity and using cultural objects that i have no right to make my own. i have come to understand this criticism in terms of africa’s history of colonisation and south africa’s legacy of apartheid. as a white person of european ancestry in south africa, i am a walking reminder of colonialism and racism and all with which it is associated given its history of conquests, dominance, alien rule, and the humiliation of conquered people. wearing these traditional cultural items could be interpreted as my exercising my power to take from others and make these things my own, following the example my forefathers set in exercising their white right to define and construct their own reality of dominance and privilege. i have realised through this exercise that i need to be mindful always of my whiteness and to consider visual representations and how they might tie into discourses invested in power that maintain certain constructions of the world. socialised to overvalue whiteness and devalue blackness my reflection on this artwork prompted me to consider the burden of years of colonialism and racism and the need to engage critically with the issue of my whiteness. yancy (2008, p. xxiii) noted that “whiteness is a form of conscious and unconscious investment that many whites would rather die for than call into question, let alone dismantle,” and that “when it comes to race, we need forms of expressive discourse that unsettle us, that make us d’amant: visual methodologies as effective tools in reflecting on aspects of identity . . . 133 uncomfortable and unnerve us with their daring frankness” (yancy, 2012, p. 30). in my professional and personal position, i realised that it was vital for me to engage with this challenge, however uncomfortable and unnerving, in the hope of building a better future. my feelings of discomfort during the process of critical interrogation of this artwork were red flags that showed me where further interrogation was needed and led me to a better understanding of why i was feeling uncomfortable. generally, when we feel uncomfortable about any issue(s), we should take the opportunity to press on and further engage with the challenging questions that emerge. my journey of reflection forced me to admit that i was born into an era in south african history where whiteness was supreme and was socialised to “over-value whiteness” and “devalue blackness” (hooks, 1992, p. 12), and raised in “segregated spaces that restricted black bodies from disturbing or tainting the tranquillity of white life, white comfort, white embodiment and white being” (yancy, 2008, p. xvi). i realised that any investigation of my identity must necessarily explore my white body in terms of an historical ontology in which whites and blacks experienced vastly different histories with the latter enduring one of violence, oppression, and white power and world-making. in unpacking her white privilege, mcintosh (1989) discovered that even though whites may readily grant that blacks are disadvantaged, they may be unwilling to grant that they are overprivileged. i have had to face the reality that as a white child growing up under apartheid in south africa, i was carefully taught not to recognise white privilege and, thus, to remain oblivious to it. as mcintosh stated, this serves to deny and protect the phenomenon of white privilege. many of the whites whom i encounter every day believe that they are not racists but fail to realise that they work from a base of unacknowledged privilege and dominance. i think it has been helpful for me as a white person to acknowledge my years of privilege and be honest and outspoken about it to other people. this has helped other white people whom i have encountered to recognise their own privilege that so often renders us all insensitive to the reality of racism. as yancy put it, “[t]he production of the black body is an effect of the discursive and epistemic structuring of white gazing and other white modes of anti-black performance.” these performances are not always enacted consciously but are “the result of years of white racism calcified and habituated within the bodily repertoire of whites” (yancy, 2008, p. xix). learning to disarticulate the white gaze for yancy (2008), “disarticulating the white gaze involves a continuous effort on the part of whites to forge new ways of seeing, knowing and being” (p. xxiii) and hooks has argued that it is only when radical self-interrogation takes place that the white person can have the power to create new different cultural productions and that their acts of resistance can be truly transgressive (hooks, 1992). through the cycles of interrogation and critical engagement with the visual text, i came to interpret this artwork as eroding the certainty of white dominance and indicating disloyalty to the supremacy of whiteness. for me, it suggested the possibility of me, as the coloniser, turning my back on the accepted norms of overvaluing whiteness and devaluing blackness, and, following mitchell et al., (2011), deepening my understanding and 134 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 acceptance of indigenous ways and cultures. as a white south african, i cannot remain ignorant of or unaffected by my whiteness. of course, there are risks involved in confronting and critically engaging issues of racism and whiteness, but i stand in agreement with yancy about the importance of raising unsettling questions to encourage critical engagement that is “not afraid to critique hegemonic forces” (yancy, 2012, p. 16). this process of critical selfreflexivity encouraged me to engage the white world and call it forth from a different perspective. it helped me to foreground my whiteness, to name and identify whiteness as a site of privilege and power, and served to “unsettle my normative pretensions of whiteness” (p. 13). i also came to realise that just as it is important to remember “where we come from,” it is as important to re-imagine “who we may yet become” (mitchell et al., 2011, p. 10) and consider ways in which i could re-imagine the future. none of us need be passive victims, powerless against cycles of socialisation. instead, we can, and must, disrupt them in the endeavour to build our world anew. this critical process reinforced and highlighted the realisation that i had the potential to “intervene in the formation of my own subjectivities” (giroux and simon, 1988, p. 10), to reconstruct myself as a new historical subject. insights from a masai bride my reflexivity prompted me to further interrogate the image in my artwork—more specifically, the beadwork featured in it. young masai brides are adorned with layers of exquisite jewellery on the day of their marriage as a symbol of the young woman preparing to leave her childhood home and begin a new life. according to masai tradition, she leaves the familiarity of her mother’s hut and family compound and follows her husband to a new home which brings with it different roles, responsibilities, and loyalties (beckwith & fisher, 2009). this knowledge highlighted for me the similarities of our individual contexts of change and disruption in leaving something behind and beginning something new. the artwork spoke to me of the possibility of overlapping domains, the intertwining and integration of different cultures, the emergence of a sense of common identities, the multiplicity, complexity, and fluidity of identity, and the dismantling of conventional modes of western imperial thought in favour of developing hybrid identities. while remembering that we have all developed an acute sense of racial difference, separating them from us, i was offered the opportunity to imagine elements of a common identity that has the potential to bring people together rather than separate them. i join with said (1994, p. 340) in believing that my commitment to the domain of racial liberation requires a vision that presents an “impossible union” of coloniser and colonised, white and black. d’amant: visual methodologies as effective tools in reflecting on aspects of identity . . . 135 reflecting on the second artwork: challenging patriarchal articulations of dominant discourses of learning and teaching artwork 2 challenging patriarchal articulations of dominant discourses of learning and teaching for this second artwork i used as the central focus a portrait of me and my horse, willpower, against a backdrop of the medieval labyrinth in chartres cathedral. themes of understanding the equine perspective and acknowledging the lost feminine emerged from my interactive process with this visual text and uncovered embedded commentary on the need to challenge masculine articulations of the professional identity in academia and dominant discourses of learning and teaching. i met willpower, a gentle chestnut gelding, about twelve years ago. after having two bad falls while riding other horses and losing my confidence and nerve to ride, it was suggested that i try riding him. willpower had come to the yard from a previous owner at whose hands he had suffered abuse and neglect. he was an angry horse with a large saddle sore on his back, refusing to allow anyone too close to him. months later, after his saddle sore had healed, he slowly succumbed to being ridden, but would constantly bite anyone attempting to groom him or saddle him up and would constantly rear in protest before going out of the gate on a ride. his mistrust of people in general was obvious. the suggestion that i try riding him was unnerving to say the least. as i was warned, willpower reared at the gate. it was more an instinctual than conscious decision when i leaned over his head and rubbed his forelock, gently telling him we were both going to be alright. he calmed, walked out of the gate and we had a wonderful ride. my confidence grew a little more every time i rode willpower. i 136 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 can now say that i am a relaxed and confident rider again. i have spent as much time on the ground working with willpower as i have in the saddle, and we have developed a respectful and loving relationship. he now knows my voice and comes to the fence with greetings when i arrive at the yard. he allows me to groom him and clean his hooves with no hint of biting, and he no longer rears at the gate. this magnificent creature has become an important part of my life, bringing me hours of joy and friendship. it seems that we have brought each other much healing. we have learned to trust each other and draw courage from each other. from a horse whose spirit had been broken and his body abused, i have witnessed a growing change in this beautiful gelding and have seen him regain his spirit and individuality. i have always treated him with love and respect, in contrast to his previous owner who viewed his mounts as machines to be dominated, used, and discarded without conscience. i ride him with a light yet persuasive touch, encouraging him as an “agile, thoughtful partner rather than a dissociative, machinelike mode of transportation” (kohanov, 2013, p. 54). no doubt my gentleness would be criticised by those who believe riders need to show their horses who is in control. i believe people have historically relied too much on the use of abusive dominance techniques in their workings with horses and that there are other ways to work with these exquisite, sensitive, and intelligent animals. i remain committed to becoming a rider capable of harnessing the power and intelligence of my horse without conquering and repressing his spirit. the equine perspective: power with rather than power over kohanov (2003, 2013) has written extensively on mastering an alternative human-equine relationship. i find her writings intriguing and much of her philosophy informs my relationship with willpower. i have chosen to develop a partnership with him that is one of trust, genuine caring, and mutual respect that demands compassion, sensitivity, and a continual awareness and respect for the other’s dignity. i have learned that if i force him to do something through a show of dominance, he loses the trust that i have been at pains to build between us. but if i come alongside him in a manner that shows my intention to be an equal partner eager to work with him, the trust and mutual respect is maintained. in such an atmosphere there is no place for abuse or enslavement. the more i spend time with willpower, the more i understand why kohanov (2013) encourages riders to set aside the need to be in control and work, instead, within an ethic of collaboration. i found this notion inspiring in both my relationship with willpower and in my work as an educator for inclusion and social justice. understanding the equine perspective and translating horses’ intensely social and nonpredatory perspective on power into a human context, “models how members of a free society are expected to treat their colleagues, and their subordinates” (p. 56), thus providing the ultimate education in being able to empower ourselves and inspire others towards social change. this link between the equine perspective and educating for inclusion and social justice emerged very clearly for me through the interrogation of this artwork. fundamental to both, is building relationships of trust and respect and developing power with others, rather than perpetuating the historical focus on power over others. as an agent of transformation, the d’amant: visual methodologies as effective tools in reflecting on aspects of identity . . . 137 nature of my relationship with my students is based on establishing safe environments of mutual trust and respect, coming alongside them in a supportive but challenging way, and encouraging them to critically examine sensitive and personal issues through a variety of methodologies and strategies. working with students towards social transformation within an ethic of collaboration exactly mirrors the perspective that kohanov described. acknowledging the lost feminine my fascination with the chartres labyrinth inspired the background image of this artwork. walking the labyrinth is a spiritual practice believed to symbolise finding our path through life, to healing, balance, and spiritual wholeness. my interest in labyrinths lead me to visit chartres on a recent trip to france and walk this ancient labyrinth that was constructed in the twelfth century and is one of the original middle ages labyrinths (artress, 2006). the labyrinth is an ancient symbol of importance in heretic cultures, symbolising matriarchal spirituality and acknowledging the equal importance of both the masculine and feminine aspects of all things. this way of thinking was especially heretical in the middle ages since the church did not recognise the equal role of the feminine but limited the feminine presence to the periphery of things sacred. the circular design of the labyrinth symbolizes “the inner map of knowing in women” (artress, 2006, p. 54)—the feminine aspect that has historically been absent from much of life and spirituality in our western culture or, in other words, the lost feminine. patriarchal power relations: devaluing the feminine and over-valuing the masculine historically, men and women have inhabited very different worlds. in patriarchal societies, men have traditionally had the power and autonomy to make the rules and define knowledge and truth, while women have been domesticated and subordinated, rendered powerless and subservient, and have had their choices and potential restricted and limited. women have lived for centuries under patriarchal rule being overlooked, disenfranchised, exploited, devalued, and often dehumanized. years of masculine domination and the subordinating and devaluing of the feminine have resulted in the suppression and demonisation of many aspects of feminine knowledge and values. cycles of socialisation (harro, 2000) have proved to be a powerful force in keeping men and women trapped in rigid roles and definitions of masculinity and femininity. in addition, they produce and maintain stereotypes of which characteristics and qualities different genders should possess and to which they should aspire. human qualities have been systematically divided, polarised, and labelled masculine or feminine, with the feminine being consistently devalued. this has resulted in our present tendencies to emphasise thought over emotion, logic and reason over intuition, territory over relationship, goal over process, strategy over responsiveness, force and coercion over collaboration, competition over cooperation, and judgement over compassion. essential to the equine perspective is the need to reclaim modes of wisdom and interaction, based not on conquest and domination, but on harmony and collaboration that are indicative of a more intuitive and compassionate spirit in having us relate to each other as sensitive 138 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 beings worthy of collaboration rather than deserving of domination. in its quest to discover new ways of negotiating power, the equine perspective is directly aligned to the notion of acknowledging the lost feminine; both are movements facilitating the discovery of ways of being and working together during which the differences between individuals and social groups add richness to our lives rather than making us retreat into the traditional imbalances of the past. while i created this artwork with no critical agenda and the two images to which i felt drawn include two different concrete historical moments for me, the embedded meanings in both visual images are remarkably similar. what emerged from these artworks was a commentary on the densely charged political context of challenging masculine articulations of the professional identity in education, reclaiming feminine aspects in educating for inclusion and social justice, and finding a healthy balance between the two. the perpetuation of a masculine culture despite a pervasive belief that gender equality has been achieved in most first world countries, studies provide evidence that educational institutions remain inherently gendered and essentially patriarchal in being “defined, conceptualized, and structured in terms of a distinction between masculinity and femininity” (britton, 2000, p. 419). research results from katila and meriläinen’s (1999) study of gendered social and discursive practices give clear support to the dominance of patriarchy in the academic context. their study demonstrated how women in academia are characterised as lacking in relation to the characteristics required for a professional identity and indicated that these are perceived to be “tied to a system of values in which identities defined as masculine are prioritized” (p. 4). the perpetuation of a masculine culture in many academic and educational institutions worldwide indicates how deeply rooted patriarchal articulations and underlying assumptions of the professional identity in academia/education are (kantola, 2008). one of the most insidious aspects of contemporary sexism is its ability to remain camouflaged in everyday academic and educational practices, policies, notions, and ideas. despite our being critical of the masculine culture in academia and education, the persistent and pervasive nature of sexism and patriarchy results in structural factors often being difficult to recognise. many academics and educators thus opt for settling voluntarily into the position and space that is created for them in the masculine organisation and accepting it as their own. katila and meriläinen (1999) have warned that after years of hearing how feminine characteristics are lacking in one respect or another and have no place in academia, many academics may start to believe in this as an objective fact. unsettling stereotypical assumptions of a dominant masculine discourse rather than trying to fit in with the dominant expectations, defining self and their relations with others in terms of the dominant discourse, and adopting its language in the endeavour to gain legitimacy, katila and meriläinen (1999) have encouraged academics and educators to become agents of change who resist and challenge the dominant masculine discourse in academia through intentional acts. such counter-identification of rejecting the dominant d’amant: visual methodologies as effective tools in reflecting on aspects of identity . . . 139 assumptions and expectations of the professional identity and dis-identification in replacing the dominant discourse allows radical alternative ideologies and pedagogies to flourish. educators for inclusion and social justice need to be committed to and vigilant about unearthing the complexities of sexism and patriarchy in all aspects of the curriculum (schmidt, 2005). in attempting to find my place in academia, i can sustain and reproduce the dominant discourse by fitting in and conforming to its underlying assumptions and expectations, or i can contribute to disrupting it and transforming it. educating for inclusion and social justice within a critical pedagogy using non-conventional, non-conformist, creative and innovative methodologies, disrupts traditional academic discourses, and unsettles the stereotypical assumptions of the dominant masculine discourse in academia and education. historically, there have been powerful essentialist notions of male and female and the characteristics that have been assigned to each. we are all still products of history and socialisation processes that encourage the perpetuation of essentialist gender characteristics (harro, 2000). jewkes et al., (2015) have explored the critical question in developing processes of gender change as to whether it is indeed possible to deconstruct gender as a binary. they conclude by citing alsop and colleagues (2002, p. 132) who have argued that “even critical studies of masculinity . . . retain a residual essentialism that makes a division between men and women and draws on the assumption that masculinity belongs to men and femininity to women (jewkes et al., 2015, p. 118). feminist re-culturing according to noddings (2003), ethics, academia and education have so far “been guided by logos, the masculine spirit, whereas the more natural and perhaps, stronger approach would be through eros, the feminine spirit.” she refers to the feminine ethic in the deep classical sense, rooted in receptivity, relatedness, and responsiveness, believing that “the notion of psychic relatedness lies at the heart of the feminine ethic” (p. 1). despite highlighting contrasts between masculine and feminine approaches to ethics, academia, and education, noddings did not intend to divide men and women into opposing camps, but, rather, has illustrated “how great the chasm is that already divides the masculine and feminine in each of us” and has suggested that we “enter a dialogue of genuine dialectical nature” in order to achieve transcendence of this divide. highlighting such contrasts does not imply that logic should be discarded or that logic is alien to women. noddings presents “an invitation to dialogue and not a challenge to enter battle” (p. 6). re-culturing is not the exclusive domain of women; implementing feminist ideals into pedagogies is not new and is advocated by both female and male educators seeking to improve the practice of education in general. the intention of feminist critique is to suggest alternatives to the traditional masculine models (that focus on power over, competition, and domination), to subvert prescriptive methodologies in favour of developing redemptive methodologies that recognise women’s ways of thinking and acting and incorporating a greater concern for context and explanation along with a diminishing concern for control and domination, and using the need to communicate (kramarae, 1988; wajcman, 1991). 140 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 i believe that when we abandon honouring the masculine and the feminine as equal and essential parts of an integrated whole, we suffer a great loss to our humanity. in acknowledging the lost feminine, i am not proposing a radical form of feminism that seeks to supplant the dominant discourse with women’s modes of thinking and acting but i am advocating for the possibility of re-evaluating and re-defining the professional identity in academia and acknowledging feminine aspects of knowledge as valuable. such a discourse aligns with the feminism of the new moral vision that integrates cultural feminism without radical feminism, and works towards the goal of addressing inequality as the result of the masculine bias, and thus creates, for both men and women, inclusion in a male dominated society (donovan, 1994). an issue of identity alternative teaching and learning practices challenge the deep culture of traditional discourses and power relations in academia and education that include forms of exclusion, non-participation, and authoritarianism. attempts to transform this culture could lead to negative critique, disrespect, or perceived grounds for questioning my professional identity as an academic by those still embedded in traditional patriarchal discourses. such “professional diminution” and “hidden forms of discrimination” (kantola, 2008, p. 17) pose an ongoing challenge to advancing the agenda for inclusion and social justice in academia and education, and it is a professional and personal test of perseverance “trying to listen to our muse over the din of skeptics who don’t believe in what we are doing” (kohanov, 2013, p. 16). disrupting existing deep cultures within academia and education necessarily incorporates the issue of identity and of how my identity as an academic and educator is defined for me (according to the traditional expectations of rational, logical, and quantitative thought) and how i might redefine this identity for myself (with the inclusion of intuitive and qualitative thought). developing a critically inclusive pedagogy and praxis creates educational sites for greater social equity and inclusion, and enables educators to situate themselves as active social, cultural, and historical agents who are resisting and transforming history (mclaren, 1995), thus becoming “cultural workers for self and social emancipation” (p. 22). disarticulating any dominant discourse involves a continual effort “to forge new ways of seeing, knowing and being” (yancy, 2008, p. xxiii) and “demands uncommon courage and awareness and a creative intelligence willing to take chances outside conventional thought and behaviour” (kohanov, 2003, p. 7). visual methodologies as a reflexive tool for a critically inclusive pedagogy educating for inclusion and social justice and critical pedagogy are closely aligned. both recognise that meaning is produced through the construction of forms of power, experiences, and identities, and that these need to be analysed in terms of their wider political and cultural significance. both necessitate a refusal to sustain codes of the dominant culture and existing relations of power and aim to reverse the tradition of demonising the other by affirming diversity. the argument for educational environments as sites of struggle, and for pedagogy d’amant: visual methodologies as effective tools in reflecting on aspects of identity . . . 141 as a form of cultural politics was made by giroux and simon (1988), who believed that academic and educational institutions should be places that expand human capacities to develop critical subjectivity that should lead to individuals being able to “intervene in the formation of their own subjectivities” and “exercise power in the interest of transforming the ideological and material conditions of domination into social practices which promote social empowerment and demonstrate democratic possibilities” (p. 10). i am committed to carrying the torch of educating for diversity, inclusion, and social justice with passion, sensitivity, and effectiveness, and to developing my transformative capacity to challenge all forms of prejudice, discrimination, and oppression on a personal level as well as on an academic one. in this endeavour, i am aware of constantly positioning myself in the role of agent of transformation, cultural worker for self and social emancipation, and in doing so, i acknowledge the important role that critical self-reflection, emotion, intuition, relationship, process, responsiveness, collaboration, cooperation, and compassion play in my work. i have learned much from interrogating my whiteness and the need for feminist re-culturing as a result of using process art with the two artworks i have presented in this paper. the insights gained from this process of interrogation have important implications for teacher education since they inform both professional and personal identities. by learning to reposition myself beyond my white socialisation and recognise the possibility of new frames of understanding and new identities beyond the historical racial differences and power relations that keep us separated and alienated, i am able to encourage student teachers to do the same. in interrogating the lost feminine, i realise the need to acknowledge feminine aspects of knowledge as valuable and, in so doing, advocate for the possibility of reevaluating and re-defining professional identities in education and academia (see donovan, 1994). there remains the need to maintain the clarity of intention along with courage and conviction to constantly disrupt and unsettle the stereotypical assumptions of a dominant white and masculine discourse in academia and education through alternative methodologies such as arts-based visual methodologies, and, specifically, process art, within a critically inclusive pedagogy. critical self-reflection and alternative teaching and learning practices have the potential to challenge deep cultures of traditional discourses and power relations in education. visual arts-based methodologies have proved to be highly effective tools in reflecting on aspects of my personal and professional identity and have highlighted important issues for me as an educator for inclusion and social justice. references artress, l. 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(2012). look, a white! philosophical essays on whiteness. temple university press. microsoft word b8400 fullissue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 84, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i84a08 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x towards an e-learning ecologies approach to pedagogy in a post-covid world aslam fataar department of education policy studies, and currently attached to the transformation office, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa afataar@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6880-9223 najwa norodien-fataar fundani ched: curriculum development unit, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa norodien-fataarn@cput.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8286-8089 (received: 2 august 2021; accepted: 15 september 2021) abstract in this article, part of the special covid-19 issue of the journal of education, we concentrate on digital technology as one of the core dimensions of education’s pandemic-related response. as the default teaching mode during the pandemic, online emergency remote teaching evoked contentious responses about future education directions in a post-covid world. we shed light on the role of digital technology in south african education, specifically in relation to current debates on higher education. we present an argument that supports an approach based on e-learning ecologies to pedagogy to inform teaching and learning in institutional contexts. we argue that a reflexive pedagogy-led response to digital technology holds promise for creating a systemic educational approach to promoting students’ critical epistemic engagement to enable them to secure viable futures. keywords: post-covid pandemic, digital technology, e-learning ecologies, reflexive pedagogy, design-based learning 156 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 introduction a governmentality inspired by human dignity goes beyond the protection of mere existence or the status quo. it allows us to rethink social life—to rethink globalization, ecology, the use of technology—favouring an inclusive society that places the needs of the weakest people in the foreground. (colombo, 2020, p. 580) a post-covid-19 world beckons. the pandemic has impacted all our lives fundamentally. contending with the ravages of the pandemic will be the crucial concern of our planetary existence in the immediate future. in arundhati roy’s (2020, april 3) words, we must “imagine another world” (p. 13). this article forms part of a nascent dialogue about reimagining education in light of the pandemic, revealing our educational failures and, importantly, articulating how to pursue inclusive educational futures. rupture or a decisive break from the structures and systems of domination is central to such a reimagination. however, the terms on which a fairer world would emerge are contested and unclear. in this article, we respond to some of the debates raised in this special covid-19 pandemic edition of the journal. we highlight how covid -related educational practices and discourses have stimulated educational thinking on digital technology. online education has rapidly come to represent an authorised vision of the default academic life under the pandemic. fenwick et al. (2021 p. 141) have argued that “covid-19 has forced the adoption of new digital technologies and many aspects of the experimentation and learning that the crisis has triggered will prove hard to dislodge.” a pandemic pedagogy based on the rapid move to emergency remote teaching (ert) has starkly revealed the depth of the digital divide in south africa and the world. middle-class institutions moved their curriculum online relatively seamlessly. institutions serving the working poor struggled to gain access to data, devices, and digital learning systems. here, we offer a perspective on the productive links between digital technology and education. ng’ambi et al. (2016) offered a 20-year review of technology-enhanced learning in south africa. they argued that while there have been various phases of technology immersion, teaching and learning in institutions have not witnessed widescale systemic changes involving digital technology. in tandem with such a view, what is apparent is that there has not been systemic attention devoted in mainstream educational circles to understanding the substantive role of digital technology in teaching, learning, and pedagogy. knox (2019) posited that this might be partially an outflow of digital technology being regarded as “unconventional and anti-institutional, thus [struggling with] positioning itself . . . as authentic, mainstream” (364). knox asserted that the prevailing view of digital education is that it is largely on the periphery of core educational practice. the utilisation of digital technology may thus be regarded as marginal to educational practice. moreover, the negative experiences of digital inequality during the pandemic may have obstructed the emergence of productive dialogue about the use of technology in mainstream educational practice. fataar & norodien-fataar: towards an e-learning ecologies approach to pedagogy . . . 157 we examine the link between pedagogy and digital technology in education. we respond to two types of discourse that emerged prominently during the covid-19 pandemic. the first is the scepticism concerning the use of technological modalities in education that have accelerated educational inequality during the pandemic. the second revolves around the move to remote online education currently punted by various education institutional managers and actors. we argue for inserting pedagogy into the centre of this debate or, in other words, seeing pedagogy as central to what is referred to as a hybrid ecologies approach to education (hilli et al., 2019). a critical discussion of the terms of this pedagogical task is central to our argument. we have arranged our response into two sections. the first is an account of online and digital technology discourses and practices that emerged in south african (higher) education during the covid-19 pandemic. here we aim to locate digital technology within education institutions’ existing discourses and practices; this is essential for a concerted systemic approach to digital technology in education. the second presents a discussion of an elearning ecologies platform that, we argue, holds promise for instantiating a compelling pedagogical approach to digital technology in education. ‘online digital technology’ in (higher) educational discourse during the covid-19 pandemic many perspectives on the role of digital technology in education emerged during the pandemic lockdown that started in march 2020. these appeared in the media, in academic journals, and in statements by education associations such as teacher unions and academic groups and by individual pundits and various individual academics. the academic study of education has produced special journal issues on covid-19 and education, such as the southern african review of education, (2020) and this special issue of the journal of education (84, 2021). alternation published a book on the covid-19 pandemic and the humanities curriculum edited by ramrathan et al., (2020). there is consensus in the literature on education that emerged during the pandemic that ert was characterised by digital inequality across the system. some well-endowed mainly urban universities took their curriculum online relatively seamlessly. they extended and adapted their existing learning management platforms to facilitate students’ migration to digital learning and assessment. one university was ready to go live online by early april, days after the announcement of the national lockdown. many less endowed, mainly rural, universities struggled with less-than-optimal digital learning platforms and students without devices and data (myende & ndlovu, 2020). in a survey commissioned by the department of higher education and training (dhet) in 2020, students reported obstacles to remote learning such as network connectivity and data problems, lack of devices and study space as well as the lack of skills to use devices to access content online along with feelings of isolation and disconnection from lectures and peers. 158 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 differing perspectives by authors such as black (2020, may 11) and groottes (2020, may 6) in the online news platform daily maverick placed the spotlight starkly on the future of digital technology in education. groottes’s headline screamed, “online to the rescue.” his opinion piece advocated large-scale investment in online education as the means to secure access. he argued that those who opposed online education cannot prevail. he was supported by watson and calland (2020, june 10), who declared on the same platform that online learning must now be central to the way we educate the young. for them, “[e]ducation ecosystems are now and forever, digital.” they suggested that online education via digital technology should now be central in addressing ongoing educational access and outcomes challenges. black (2020, may 11) demurred. she rejected groottes’s propagation of online learning as advocating an approach that undervalues the critical knowledge-mediating role of the teacher. she made a distinction between teaching with and teaching through technology. she argued that the latter (teaching through technology) lacks the “supposed benefits of releasing learning from the bonds of specific spaces and time” (p. 2). favouring teaching with technology, she suggested that those proposing technology as a quick fix for education problems overlook the significance of pedagogy that is the essence of teaching expertise. the call for widespread online-based education via digital ecosystems cannot simply be brushed aside. digital technology has been a ubiquitous, albeit uneven, feature of educational platforms for at least forty years, growing exponentially over the last twenty. nevertheless, the call to devote attention to pedagogy is central to a consideration of the use of digital technology, a focus that has gained limited sustained attention in south african higher education. a related set of contentions emerged among groups of academics amid the institutional politics of universities. academic groups such as the black academic caucus at the university of cape town expressed misgivings at the outset of the pandemic about the rapid rolling out of online teaching without sufficient preparation and resources (black academic caucus statement, 2020, march 14). a group of lecturers at the coalface of south african universities expressed concern in a statement at the end of 2020 about the view that “online learning has been successful because average marks have gone up from previous years” (cited in pikoli, 2020, december 14). they explained that their experience of the 2020 academic year was mainly of loss and that “closing campuses may have been necessary to fight the pandemic, but in the rush to online teaching we lost important face-to-face engagement with our students” (p. 2). they averred that online learning diminished meaningful student peer interaction and engagement in campus politics and that this limits the scope of their education. learning online in impoverished domestic circumstances with problems accessing data and devices is disastrous for meaningful knowledge access and engagement. academics from educational development quarters attenuated this perspective. czerniewicz (2020, april 30) and shay (2020, may 3) suggested that the debate over online and remote education should be seen in the light of higher education’s broader context and functioning. fataar & norodien-fataar: towards an e-learning ecologies approach to pedagogy . . . 159 shay questioned whether, in an unequal higher education sector, online remote teaching is really the problem. condemning online teaching, according to her, is not accompanied by pragmatic solutions. czerniewicz argued against conflating teaching with technology during the covid crisis with the pedagogical affordances of technology. negative experiences with digital technology should presumably not negate the positive role digital technology can play in education. such a view aims to keep the pedagogical promise of digital technology in sight, albeit in a highly unequal higher education sector. two critical features of teaching online are worthy of consideration: one is the experiences of digital inequality that accompanied ert; and the other is the mode of traditional curriculum delivery that characterised ert. vandeyar (2021) and fataar (2020, june 11) described how university lecturers and school teachers respectively adapted to meet the novel challenges associated with ert. what emerged among educators was an account of a pedagogy of care in vulnerable school circumstances (fataar 2020), mention of responsive humanising pedagogies by university lecturers (strydom et al., 2020), and a description by vandeyar (2021) of lecturers infusing their ert with the cultivation of care, compassion, and social capital among their students. calling attention to the “multiple and coexisting forms of inequality in higher education,” czerniewicz et al. (2020) emphasised the caring and collaborative relations between staff and students. they expressed the hope that when people and systems confront their challenges courageously, they place themselves in a position to address them. the south african educational experience is echoed in zheng and walsham’s (2021, p. 1) argument. the covid-19 pandemic has unveiled and thrown a spotlight on deep-seated inequalities. . . . under the pandemic, existing socio-technical discrepancies are often magnified, and diverse forms of exclusion, marginalisation and vulnerabilities emerge. some are more visible than others, but not all of them, the excluded and vulnerable, have a voice. many of these disparities are mediated through digital technology, partly due to social distancing and lockdowns which replace face to face contacts with digital interactions. ert is entrenching class inequality in higher education. one key consequence of ertrelated inequality is that it brought to the surface a truncated view of online learning. because online learning is unequally experienced across the system and benefits the urban middle classes, not disadvantaged students, the logic is that online and digital technology must therefore be kept at bay. the pedagogical potential of online learning and digital technology is never brought adequately into view. ert occludes from view the role of online modalities as a core part of the learning experience. its educational potential and affordance are thus unable to emerge. the second aspect of ert that has implications for digital technology in education is its curriculum delivery mode. the traditional pedagogy of knowledge transfer has been the 160 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 predominant mode of curriculum delivery associated with ert. under pressure to move their curriculum online, university lecturers rushed to load their curriculum onto their institutions’ learning management system (lms) platforms. web-based applications such as teams, zoom, and google meet were popular for lectures where data availability allowed for the use of these applications. materials were made available on the lms platforms or sent via email or whatsapp. recorded content with low data usage for asynchronous access by students was used ubiquitously by lecturers. bekker and carrim’s article in this issue discusses lecturers’ concerns in adapting their content for online delivery. their findings on lecturers who taught on teacher education programmes at two universities highlight how courses changed when put online; 53% of lecturers kept their content the same, while 47% changed it. many of the latter group reduced their content. significantly, all the lecturers indicated that they had changed their assessments. the key finding of the article is that the majority of lecturers felt that the move to online learning had compromised their teaching. this situation applies anecdotally to lecturers across the system. it aligns with the december 2020 statement signed by the group of academics referred to earlier who warned that “our experience of this year was that online platforms only allowed us to engage in limited, crisis-oriented ways, and with a fraction of our students participating meaningfully in our courses” (cited in pikoli, 2020, p. 2). bekker and carrim did not investigate the pedagogical adaptations that the lecturers made as part of their ert. in other words, what is lacking is an understanding of how the lecturers in their sample taught the content via online modalities. the research of these two authors concentrated on lecturers’ approaches to online content, not its pedagogical transfer via teaching modalities. this might be because they assumed that ert pedagogy would involve the traditional transfer of relatively pre-packaged knowledge with clear instructions and rigid pacing and sequencing of content. nevertheless, information about the lecturers’ etr pedagogies would have given important clues about the crucial question of the relation between digital technology and pedagogy. this would allow us to understand how students are engaging in their online learning. digital technology is already ubiquitous in the lives of young people. not only are they immersed every day in social media via their smartphones and other devices, but they are also using digital technology to support their learning. norodien-fataar (2018) offered a detailed discussion of how university students use technologies to assist their concept acquisition and linguistic navigation. such technology use is often carried out with little aid from, or connection to, their mainstream classes and this points to a pedagogical disconnect between formal lecturing and students’ informal digital engagement to support their learning. our position in this article is that the centrality of digital technology in ert has placed the question of the relation of pedagogy to digital technology on the table; this is the topic we discuss more fully in the next section of this article. fataar & norodien-fataar: towards an e-learning ecologies approach to pedagogy . . . 161 towards an e-learning ecologies approach to pedagogy this section is based on a brief synthesis of the work of mary kalantzis and bill cope, two australian partner collaborators based at the university of illinois (urbana-champaign), illinois, usa. they developed their work over thirty years and have recently produced what they call an “e-learning ecologies approach to new learning and assessment” (2017, p. 1). their essay, in a compendium of essays on covid and education (peters et al., 2020), caught our eye. they pointed out that ert was based on migrating traditional lecturing practices to online platforms using video lectures, digital applications, and online tests. they suggested that lecturers had stepped back into all that was wrong with didactic modes of teaching. in other words, teaching during the covid-19 pandemic reinforced the conventional wisdom that the “gold standard for learning is traditional face-to-face, while online is second best” (kalantzis & cope, 2020, in peters et al. 2020, p. 51). they pointed out that even if the move to online platforms during the pandemic had not been so precipitous, inperson learning was, in any event, ripe for radical transformation. such a transformation could productively be founded on what recent theorising on digital technology in education describes as a postdigital perspective of education. jandric et al. (2018) explained that postdigital refers to a critical engagement with technology. such an engagement would consider the interaction between humans and technology and how technology has become entrenched in humans’ political, social, and cultural lives. knox (2019, p. 358) defined the postdigital era as a “period of change” in human beings’ relationship with technology. he alerted us to the embedded and entangled nature of technology in our existing social practices. he challenged binary notions of technology use as either an unmitigated good for optimal use in education or as having no utility in teaching and learning. in response to such a simplistic either/or view, jandric et al. (2018, p. 895) succinctly describe the postdigital as a ‘holding-to-account’ of the digital that seeks to look beyond the promises of instrumental efficiencies, not to call for their end, but rather to establish a critical understanding of the very real influence of these technologies as they increasingly pervade social life. a critical exploration of postdigital perspectives on education would focus on how digital technology is interwoven into our personal, social, and educational lives. a postdigital perspective emphasises the digital as entwined in educational practices. in other words, it emphasises the entanglement of the digital in education. we argue, therefore, that a postdigital perspective should inform a critical engagement with digital technology as constitutive of education practices. such a perspective is currently being developed in the ongoing publication of articles in the recently established journal, postdigital science in education. we argue that a postdigital perspective is a necessary precursor for developing an e-ecologies of learning pedagogical platform. 162 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 cope and kalantzis’s (2017) work provides a productive schema for developing a digital learning ecology. they have presented a particular account of pedagogy as central to elearning ecologies, which is a metaphor for a learning environment founded on “an ecosystem consisting of complex interaction of human, textual, discursive and spatial dynamics . . . which take on a coherent, systemic form” (p. 1). such an ecosystem would lead to changes in configurations of learning space and relationships as well as knowledge engagement and assessment. what is crucial to their argument is that the use of technology ought to be informed by appropriate approaches to pedagogy. they support the view that transformation of learning based on an e-learning ecologies approach in which digital technology plays an important role depends on the productive role of pedagogy in such an ecology. they laid the foundation for their work during the 1990s as part of the new london group (1996) whose members developed a multiliteracies approach to pedagogy. this work challenged the traditional view of literacy pedagogy that was based on reading and writing in page-bound, official, standard forms of national language and restricted to standard monolingual, monocultural, and rule-governed forms of language. multiliteracies pedagogy emphasised negotiating a multiplicity of discourses founded in diverse cultures and in a plurality of texts. crucially, the group argued for a pedagogy that must “account for the burgeoning variety of text forms associated with information and multimedia technologies” (p. 61). ict-based communications media, they argued, were reshaping how we use language, and this has implications for pedagogy. kalantzis and cope (2012) have developed this early multiliteracies grounding more fully in their work on pedagogy in relation to digital technology since the 2000s. based on the earlier multiliteracies foundations, pedagogy for elearning ecologies is founded on disciplined and constructive interaction between and among the principles of situating knowledge in context, overt instruction of disciplinary knowledge, critical framing of knowledge, and transforming knowledge in practice. this is based on an understanding of teaching that views students as meaning makers and designers of social futures (new london group, 1996), not passive recipients of knowledge. in a 2012 article, they developed their proposal for a learning charter for change in education motivated by the view that emerging digital information technologies demand greater participation than the knowledge systems of our recent past, blurring as they do the boundaries between authors and audiences, creators and consumers, knowledge makers and knowledge users. our knowledge systems have to be transformed to acknowledge these new demands and related changes in epistemologies and ways of being. (kalantzis & cope, 2012, p. 83) such a view implies a radically different conception of pedagogy than the one that prevailed in ert during the pandemic and in educational discourses and practices in south african institutions more generally. we have been mired in traditional top-down and tightly scripted pedagogical orientations associated with our national school curriculum as well as the predominant approaches in higher education. knowledge making and process-oriented fataar & norodien-fataar: towards an e-learning ecologies approach to pedagogy . . . 163 pedagogies fly in the face of traditional knowledge-transfer pedagogies. learner-centred teaching received a bad rap during the implementation of the conceptually inchoate outcomes-based education school curriculum (see fataar, 2006). a culture of lock-step content transmission of standardised curricula, it seems, would stymy curriculum design and pedagogical processes. nevertheless, traditional pedagogies have failed to provide south africa with an educational basis to develop the necessary critical intellectual capacity and skills to enable young people to engage in the world as productive citizens amid rapidly changing societal and economic circumstances. knowledge-transfer-oriented curricula and pedagogy may have provided neither the knowledge engagement bases for socially just living nor the critical knowledge and skills for entry into a rapidly changing economy. more fundamentally, with respect to the focus of this article on digital technology, our current educational infrastructure and curriculum arrangements are struggling to respond to the challenge of utilising technology meaningfully. we are failing to use technology’s capacity productively for multimodal meaning-making to stimulate students’ intellectual engagement as knowledge producers for critical citizenship to secure viable futures. two aspects of an e-learning ecologies pedagogical approach are critical to such a project: the first is moving to reflexive pedagogy that views students as knowledge makers, and the second is design-based learning. regarding reflexive pedagogy, curriculum knowledge and pedagogy are not simply about learning content. developing the capacity to understand knowledge in context and applying knowledge in novel situations are central to e-learning ecologies. a reflexive pedagogical orientation is required in learning sites that are being transformed by digital technologies. this requires a shift from didactic pedagogy in which the balance of control of the learning environment is with the instructor and the focus is on cognition and long-term memory. a didactic pedagogy places the emphasis on “a narrow range of epistemic processes by means of which learners can demonstrate that they can replicate disciplinary knowledge. . . this is a pedagogy of mimesis or knowledge replication” (cope & kalantzis, 2017, p. 9, emphasis in original). such a perspective ought to be jettisoned in favour of a reflexive pedagogy that shifts the balance of agency to a situation in which students have the scope for significant epistemic action, one in which “knowledge activity is dialogical, with backward and forward movement between instructor and students and between students and students” (p. 10). reflexive pedagogy is not without structure or an explicit teaching role for the teacher. teachers’ pedagogy would enable a form of “scaffolding [that] makes the learning more tractable for students by changing complex and difficult tasks in ways that make these tasks accessible, manageable, and within students’ zone of proximal development” (vygotsky, 1962, in cope & kalantzis, 2017, p. 10). a reflexive pedagogy places the focus on artefacts and knowledge representations that are accessible via digital devices. cope and kalantzis (2017) have argued that in an era of ubiquitous knowledge access via digital technology, long-term memory is not as important as the capacity for engaging and reflexively interacting with disciplinary knowledge. the “object of learning now shifts from long-term memory to knowledge processes . . . 164 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 involv[ing] a shift in cognition to epistemic artefacts . . . [where] the focus is on the social sources of knowledge” (p. 11). e-learning ecologies are founded on the affordances that digital technologies present. some of these affordances are ubiquitous learning, differentiated learning, and recursive feedback. in a perceptive article on the role of artificial intelligence for education, cope et al. (2020) discuss the potential of ai computing and learning analytics for formative (and summative) individualised assessments as part of students’ knowledge engagement processes. finally, an e-learning ecologies approach makes the possibility of pursuing a knowledge design process available to teachers. learning design has long been promoted by educators who teach productively with digital technology (see loveless, 2011). hill et al. (2019) placed design at the centre of a hybrid pedagogy in learning spaces that “moves beyond the distinctions between online and offline spaces, but also challenges divisions between teacher/student roles, formal/informal contexts, analogue/digital communications media” (p. 67). the order of the activities to be used in the learning process is key to pedagogical design. the range of learning activity types, use of specific digital affordances, considerations of appropriate learning contexts, and scaffolding sequences are essential considerations in learning by design. cope and kalantzis discussed knowledge processes that move between experiencing the known, experiencing the new, conceptualising by naming and conceptualising through theory as key to learning design (2017). to teach something by design is to teach it via a premeditated design focus that involves a series of explicit action stages. in such a view, teachers become designers as they select the range of activities that they will bring to their hybrid e-ecologies of learning, plan their pedagogical sequences, and reflect on the learning outcomes during and after their lessons. design-based pedagogy proceeds based on carefully scaffolded pedagogies. goodyear and dimitriadas (2013) have argued that scaffolding student practices through a combination of design and orchestration is crucial to learning design. teachers orchestrate the learning activities by responding to student needs and feelings and the conditions in which students learn. students’ active engagement with their learning is a crucial part of designing learning. the teacher’s central role in explicitly teaching disciplinary knowledge and directing learning is fundamental in digital education (fawns, 2019). design-based pedagogy emphasises that teachers teach bodies of knowledge and guide and move students through the various knowledge processes. the emphasis is on utilising the affordances accompanying e-learning ecologies to enable students to become reflexive knowledge interlocutors. we suggest that such a reflexive pedagogical approach is necessary to secure for students their critical citizenship roles in society. conclusion digital technology is not the silver bullet for rescuing education in post-covid times. its centrality in teaching and learning, however, cannot be denied or discounted. the negative fataar & norodien-fataar: towards an e-learning ecologies approach to pedagogy . . . 165 experiences with online technology during ert should not cloud important debates about its appropriation as core to education. the how of appropriating digital technology, not its negation, is the focus of this response article. we offer some perspectives on the recent discursive framings of digital technology during the pandemic. we argue that hesitation about engaging with the affordances of digital education should be avoided. in this light, we have developed an e-learning ecologies account as one productive perspective on digital technology in education. a multiliteracies and multimodal approach to teaching and learning is central to such an account. our account turns on the need to shift teaching from traditional pedagogy to reflexive pedagogy as a means of stimulating knowledge acquisition and critical engagement with knowledge by students. we present digital technology as central to a reflexive pedagogy. we are not so naïve as to think that the shift to reflexive pedagogy as a cornerstone of an e-learning ecologies platform will be easily achievable over the short term. nevertheless, we believe that our ubiquitous interactions with the digital as constitutive of educational practices means that we must develop a generative response to teaching and learning. e-ecologies of learning processes should play an important formative role in our educational institutions. importantly, conversations about pedagogy must now be central to these processes. failure to do this would mean that digital technology in education overdetermines our institutional teaching platforms in such a way that we continue to favour traditional learning regimes that circulate epistemic inequality. acknowledgement we would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the copy editor, ann smith, for their comments and suggestions that informed the finalisation of this article. references black academic caucus statement. 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(2021). inequality of what? an intersectional approach to digital inequality under covd-19. information and organization, 31(1), 1–6. microsoft word joe-issue71jun30.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 71, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i71a06 human rights and neo-liberal education in post-apartheid south africa thokozani mathebula wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand email: thokozani.mathebula@wits.ac.za (received 4 january 2018; accepted 7 may 2018) abstract internationally, people have different concepts of human rights. in this article, i discuss three dominant schools of thought through which human rights have been conceived of. these are the natural school (human rights as given), the deliberative school (human rights as agreed upon) and the protest school (human rights as fought for). i show that the thinking of deliberative scholars forms the basis of rawls’s (1971) principles of the social contract reflected in global, regional, and domestic human rights frameworks. i argue that the neo-liberal state (and, by implication, the neoliberal education agenda) in post-apartheid south africa does not guarantee equal access to education as agreed upon during the political negotiation period in south africa. echoing the tenets of the protest school of thought, i maintain that, despite the anti-apartheid struggle movement’s achievements in human rights, the right to education is yet to be fully realised. i employ two basic questions of political philosophy to support the protest scholars’ call for continual struggle by (or for) those denied the right to education in post-apartheid, neo-liberal south african schools. introduction we live in this world at a juncture where [neoliberal] global 1 [isation] has shown that many of humanity’s great achievements in human rights in recent centuries have begun to be eliminated. (torres, 2009, p. 5) . . . post-apartheid education . . . (re)normalises the (ex)clusions of [many] within neoliberal capitalist human rights framework(s). (becker & du preez, 2016, p. 55) south africa’s anti-apartheid struggles that gave rise to [human rights] are now out of view. [human] rights are fought for, won, lost, and won again. (christie, 2010, p. 6) 1 davids (2016) defines globalisation as the extension and intensification of worldwide social and economic relations. however, the focus of this article is on neoliberalism, a term that refers to the global economic system that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. 92 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 it is clear that neo-liberalism is the “new demon” (torres, 2009, p. 2) of modern-day societies. in terms of education, the neo-liberal human rights framework undermines gutmann’s (1987) principle of non-repression by not granting all educable children the right to education in south africa. i submit that the right to free, equal, and democratic education is also being eroded in post-apartheid south africa. it is therefore reasonable to say that opposition to the neo-liberal state 2 and its education agenda should be the main focus of the supposedly new struggle in post-apartheid south africa. i • trace the origin of human rights in three 3 different schools of thought: 1) human rights as entitlements based on nature; 2) human rights as existing through the social agreement; and 3) human rights as struggles waged “by or on behalf of the poor, the unprivileged and the oppressed” (dembour, 2010, p. 3); • show that through the principles of the social contract, human rights become the foundation of modern constitutional democratic states; • argue that neo-liberal state ideology, governance, and policies sit uneasily with the right to education envisaged in the human rights framework in south africa; and • advocate for protest scholars’ continual struggle by (or for) those denied the right to education in post-apartheid neo-liberal south african schools. ontology of human rights: schools of thought dembour (2010) maintains that natural scholars conceive of human rights as given. most importantly, the natural scholars accept that human rights entitlements are based on “nature, a short-cut which stands for god” and that “the universality [of these rights] derive from their natural character” (pp. 2–3). the state of nature, says locke, is first a state of perfect freedom where a human being possesses strength and reason, capable of providing own support and preservation, and govern his [sic] actions according to the dictates of the law of reason which god had implanted in him [sic]. it is evident that all human beings [are] born indiscriminately with all the same natural advantages and faculties—are equal amongst themselves. second, a state of equality in which power and authority is reciprocal—[with] no relationship of subordination or subjection unless god (the lord and master of them all) had clearly set one person above another and conferred on him an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty. (1689/1960, pp. 304–305) 2 raphael (1990) defines the state as “an association that maintains order and security, exercises universal jurisdiction backed by force and has sovereign authority” (1990, p. 55). as far as can be judged, the state has power to prevent harm to existing human rights (negative freedom) or promote the welfare (positive freedom) of its citizens. sadly, in neo-liberal states, individual freedoms are guaranteed by freedom of the market economy and free trade. 3 dembour (2010) identifies four schools of thought on human rights, i.e. natural scholars, deliberative scholars, protest scholars, and discourse scholars (human rights as talked about). i argue that because of the “lack of faith in human rights” the discourse school of thought is “the least prevalent . . . among human rights academics” (2010, p. 19). it is against this background that my historical exploration of what human rights are focuses mainly on the three major schools of thought. mathebula: human rights and neo-liberal education . . . 93 locke’s (1689/1960) ontological claim above supports the natural scholars’ argument that individuals do not possess rights; rights flow from nature or god. human beings govern their actions according to the dictates of the law pronounced by god and there is a link between the natural law and a “rational plan of nature established by god” (horsthemke, 2016, p. 327). smit (2013) agrees that “natural law states that rights flow from nature or god” (p. 49). but horsthemke (2016) raises problems and objections against natural law that claims that whatever is natural is good or moral. first, horsthemke maintains that the natural law “is not only logically deficient but it conflates facts and values.” second, after all “what is or is not natural or unnatural is the subject of considerable debate.” third, “natural law is not supported by the world view of modern science.” fourth, natural law “errs in building rationality, values, and purposiveness into the natural order of things” (p. 327). it is no surprise, therefore, that what was known as the natural school shifted towards the deliberative school of thought. as their starting point, the deliberative scholars maintain that rights do not flow from nature or god; “human rights are political values that societies choose to adopt” dembour (2010, p. 3). similar to grotius’s (1620/2005) assertion that human right(s) are in the possession of individuals, deliberative scholars discard the natural scholars’ ontology of human rights. deliberative scholars argue that individuals have intrinsic “natural power to right [themselves]” (p. 157). as we shall see in the next section, at the heart of sartre’s transphenomentality of being “the law of being of the for-itself, is the ontology foundation of consciousness” (1974, p. 53). as berlin argues, a “positive sense of the word liberty derives from the wish on the part of the individual to be his own master” (1969, p. 131). as a consequence, kant (1785/1969) locates the basis of rights not in nature, but in the rational capacities of autonomous human beings. for kelly et al., people “abandon the state of nature and submit to external public and lawful coercion” (2013, p. 127) that can rule society. the rational nature of humans as free, intelligent, self-directing beings enables them to establish absolute laws applicable to humanity. by applying our reason, all rational agents ask themselves the following questions: • what would happen if we universalise absolute law? • what rule (or maxim) would we be following if we were to universalise absolutism? • would we be willing for that supreme rule to be followed by everyone all the time? if the deliberative scholars’ argument is accepted, human rights emerge from a societal agreement that “govern[s] the assignment of rights and duties and regulate[s] the distribution of social and economic advantage” (rawls, 1971, p. 61) as i will show later in this article. as already stated, the protest scholars view human rights as a struggle waged on behalf of those denied the basic rights, privileges, and benefits of citizenship. in line with the position of the protest scholars, dembour maintains that they 94 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 look at human rights as claims and aspirations . . . in favour of the oppressed . . . they advocate relentlessly fighting for human rights, as one victory never signals the end of all injustice . . . most of them are more concerned with concrete source of human rights in social struggles, which are as necessary as they are perennial. (2010, p. 3) there are four points worth noting about the concept of human rights as held by protest scholars. first, the protest school accepts that human beings are rights holders; human rights are a call to ensure that the basic rights of fellow citizens are respected and protected. second, protest scholars maintain that human rights injustices (and abuses) bring about an endless demand for, or need of, redress in societies. third, the inability of human rights institutions to realise justiciable rights is the source of perennial struggle to give actual form to the ideal. fourth, the protest scholars’ call for a “return to true human rights” (dembour, 2010, p. 9) is a perpetual fight for the realisation of human rights for the oppressed, in particular. it may be added that at times human rights become the site of struggle for recognition even if this means death. for example, this struggle inspired the haitian revolution in 1791 that ushered in black independence to the former french colony; led to the abolition of the french monarchy and the execution of king louis xvi in 1793; and propelled nelson mandela to fight for a free, equal, and democratic society even if it meant that protesters paid the ultimate penalty. overall, the historical exploration of human rights can be summarised as follows: natural law is the law according to the will of god; human rights are attributed to a rational, consensus-oriented deliberative discourse; and human rights are a life and death struggle for many. social contract: human rights framework as noted above, locke (1689/1960) maintained that the state of nature is first a state of perfect freedom, i.e. human beings are free, equal, and independent of any social order. second, the state of nature is a state of equality in which “power and authority is reciprocal [with] no relationship of subordination” (p. 304). in stark contrast, hobbes’s (1651/1985) state of nature is one of “war of every man against man.” to put it bluntly, in the state of nature, men compete for survival, safety and glory, and in the process “life [becomes] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (p. 185). to escape the natural condition, hobbes (1651/1985) employed the device of the social contract, “the mutual transferring of right . . . which men call contract” (p. 192). as social creatures, “one of the main reasons human beings would be willing to enter into a social contract and submit to being ruled by a government” is that government regulates “disagreements and conflicts in a neutral way” (kelly et al., 2013, p. 106). with this insight, rawls (1971) argues that the social contract becomes just if two principles of justice are chosen: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with similar liberty for others. mathebula: human rights and neo-liberal education . . . 95 social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all. (p. 60) there are three points worth noting about rawls’s (1971) social contract theory. it defines and secures equal liberties of citizenship, that is, rights and duties (the liberty principle); the distribution of wealth and income in society should be equal (the difference principle); and political positions (or authority) should be accessible to all (the fair opportunity principle). from a perspective of political philosophy, 4 there is a general presumption (by those in positions of authority) in favour of an equal distribution of goods among all citizens. to sum up, social contract theory states that human beings “living together according to reason, without a common superior on earth, with authority to judge between them” is the state of nature” (locke, 1689/1960, p. 304). the primary purpose of government is to protect natural rights. “[m]an’s [sic] right is laid aside, either by simply renouncing it; by transferring it to another . . . and when a man has . . . abandoned or granted away his right; then he is … obliged or bound . . . and it is his duty, not to make voyd that voluntary act of his own” (hobbes, 1651/1985, p. 191). on the whole, “the social contract is based on a coalition of the wills of all private individuals in a nation” (scruton, 2007, p. 365). if we agree to be governed, we must rationally consent to obey every law the government passes. it is not surprising, therefore, that human rights are firmly rooted in a democratic state with the power to protect and promote them. the universal declaration of human rights (united nations, 1948) proclaims that “[a]ll human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights . . . endowed with reason” (p. 1). the united nations convention on the rights of the child (united nations, 1989) pledges to provide, as well as enforce, the development of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the principles enshrined in the charter of the united nations. the african charter on human rights and people’s rights (organisation of african union, 1986) “recognise[s] that the fundamental rights stem from the attributes of human beings, which justifies their national and international protection . . . that the reality and respect of people’s rights should necessarily guarantee human rights” (p. 1). the constitution of the republic of south africa (republic of south africa, 1996) establishes a society based on democratic values, social justice, and fundamental human rights. the rights protected in the south african bill of rights (republic of south africa, 1996) include, inter alia, • first-generation rights: civil and political rights, i.e. rights and freedoms that prohibit the state from interfering in the affairs of the individual; • second-generation rights: economic and social rights, i.e. rights concerned with the state’s obligation to provide and improve socio-economic conditions of the individual; and 4 according to runes (1960) political philosophy is the branch of philosophy that deals with political life, namely, the relationship of individuals and communities to the state. for wolff (1996), there are only two questions in political philosophy: who gets what? and says who? the first of these questions is about the distribution of citizens’ rights, for example, the right to education. the second question concerns political power, that is, it is about rulers who hold power to distribute citizens’ rights, such as the right to education. 96 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 • third-generation rights (or group or solidarity rights), namely, rights that are people centred rather than individual-centred. my focus is on the second-generation rights, one of which is the right to basic education. the united nations declaration of human rights (united nations, 1948) claims that “everyone has a right to education [that] shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms” (p. 4). the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (organisation of african unity, 1999) states that the education of the child must be directed to “fostering respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms” (p. 4). in addition to safeguarding fundamental human rights, the constitution of the republic of south africa (1996) also promises the right to basic and adult education in south africa. the south african schools act (department of education, 1996) aims to uphold the rights of all learners. against this backdrop, the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) (department of education, 2012) promotes “human rights, inclusivity [and] social justice as defined in the constitution of the republic of south africa” (p. 5). i question whether the post-apartheid south african human rights framework translates into the reality of people’s lived experiences. in christie’s (2010) words, the gap between the expression of rights and their delivery in practice has haunted [the] existence [of a human rights framework] . . . [o]ne of the major shortcomings of formal statements of rights is that when they encounter the texture of lived experience, they easily prove to be abstract and empty. [t]here are dangers in not recognising the limited nature of rights. (p. 5) there are a few points worth noting about christie’s (2010) analysis of the formal concept of human rights posited by deliberative scholars. she warns us of justiciable human rights that, according to liebenberg (2010) “are abstracted from their social context and the real-world consequences flowing from the enforcement of these abstract rules” (p. 44). in relation to this, hulme and hulme (2012) remind us of the “ahistorical and de-personalised accounts of [human rights frameworks] complete[ly] devoid of human experiences” (p. 44). waghid (2005) also cautioned us against formal human rights declarations, charters, and bills of rights that are unlikely to “create space[s] in which . . . [political authorities] are able to break with what is supposedly fixed and finished and awaken us to the multiple voices and multiple realities” (p. 337). as prinsloo (2003) puts it, an international and national human rights framework must be “useable and useful within a particular context, and which concerns that context” (p. 61). this notion can be thought of as personal relevance. viewed in this way, personal relevance has its origin in sartre’s (1974), transphenomenality of being, i.e. being for-itself whose “destiny is infinite . . . a fullness” (p. 50) “. . . the form of presence to itself” (p. 53). the disjuncture between a human rights framework and citizens’ lived experiences raises the following questions: first, should social and economic rights (especially the right to education) be classified as human rights? after all, the right to education is often promoted mathebula: human rights and neo-liberal education . . . 97 through reasonable means and is not easy to enforce, whereas civil and political rights, i.e. the rights and freedoms which prohibit authorities from interfering in the affairs of the individual (like life) are easy to enforce. second, if the second-generation rights are hardly protected by law, as protest scholars suggest, what is the point of listing them as human rights? third, given this disconnect between the ideal (human rights framework) and the reality (achieving human rights), is it possible to protect and guarantee the right education in the face of neo-liberalism? the neo-liberal state agenda in education: trends and debates harvey defines neo-liberalism as “a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms within an institutional framework” (2007, p. 2). steger and roy (2010) add that neoliberalism is committed to “human rights as a springboard for a market-oriented society that glorifies individual self-interest, economic efficiency, and unbridled competition” (2010, p. x). as i will go on to show, steger and roy also conceptualise neo-liberalism in three intertwined dimensions: (1) an ideology; (2) a mode of governance; and (3) a policy package. • neo-liberal ideology codifiers are a global power elite, managers and executives of large transnational corporations, corporate lobbyists, influential journalists and publicrelations specialists, intellectuals writing for a large public audience, celebrities and top entertainers, state bureaucrats, and politicians. (p. 11) • neo-liberal governmentality is rooted in entrepreneurial values such as competitiveness, self-interest, and decentralization. (p. 12) • educationally speaking, neo-liberal public policies are expressed in the d-l-p formula: (1) deregulation (rolling back state control of the education system); (2) liberalisation (individual education is a springboard for a market-oriented society); and (3) privatisation (individuals buy and institutions sell education). steger and roy’s neo-liberal dimensions are reflected in post-apartheid south africa. mensah (2008) maintained that “the ideology of neo-liberalism seeks to expand global capital accumulation through free-trade, financial deregulation, privatization . . . spearheaded by the world bank (wb), international monetary fund (imf), world trade organisation (wto)” (p. 1). bassett (2008) asserted that when the anc-led government came into power, it embarked on neo-liberal restructuring; in doing this it “called for a minimal state that permitted (international) market allocation of resources and setting of prices (p. 222) . . . lower[ed] government spending (p. 222) [and] cut corporate taxes” (p. 226) . as hanson and hentz (1999) put it, the anc government’s “move to neoliberal orthodoxy had implications for south africa’s budgets” (p. 496) . . . “budgets [were] ‘depoliticised’ [and] remov[ed] from the realm of public debate and plac[ed] into the hands of economists and technocrats” (bassett, 2008, pp. 222–223). 98 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 according to harris (1997), a neo-liberal agenda has shaped global education system(s), education discourse, education budgets, formal and hidden curricula, and educational relations. first, schools are viewed as “units of production whose performance is regulated by the mechanism of consumer choice based on the information about their relative effectiveness and efficiency” (p. 59). second, writing about south africa, chisholm and fuller (1996) argued that earlier talk of people’s education and robust community participation g[ave] way to a technocratic discourse that “has relieved the right and bewildered the left” (p. 693). third, chisholm and fuller also asserted that “education budgets are now justified in human capital terms, depoliticised and less frequently linked to participatory aims” (p. 697). fourth, business interests in schools seem to drive the curriculum through “upskilling, life-long learning and transferable skills” (phillips, 1998, cited in allais, 2014, p. 58). last, the rights and responsibilities of communities, parents, parents and learners, and other social groups with an interest in education are “defined as those of consumers of the products of education rather than those of participants in education” (harris, 1997, p. 59). given this neo-liberal global education agenda, how has neoliberal ideology, governmentality, and public policies influenced education in post-apartheid south africa, in particular? as neoliberal ideology codifiers, the anc political elites, in the words of christie, “opted for a macroeconomic policy that severely curtailed social spending, including spending on education . . . introduced a market-related system of fees [and] curtailed the rights of many poor children to education” (2010, p. 8). put differently, neoliberal ideology insists on the primacy of markets over the right to education by arguing that the attainment of socioeconomic rights (human rights) depends on free-market economics—a neo-liberal definition of school governance. as a notable example, the idea of decentralisation of power to school governing bodies 5 (sgbs) is tied to neoliberal governmentality. to elaborate on this point, lewis and motala argued that the establishment of the sgb as a vehicle for the decentralisation of power to schools “was an outcome of the macroeconomic policy shift and their global influences” (2004, p. 117). as such, the neo-liberal school governors take good governance to mean a “reinvented and efficient form of government in a market-oriented society.” they exercise fiscal restraint, they identify new sources of funding, and take a new look at “how we do business” (lewis & motala, 2004, p. 120). in public schools run by school governing bodies the introduction of market-related systems of fees means that a form of structural inequality is built into the education system, thus “render[ing] abstract and largely meaningless the idea of education as a right” (spreen & vally, 2006, p. 356). although teese and polesel are not writing about south africa, they argue that schools themselves have become part of structural inequalities with schools serving rich communities (fortified sites), on the one hand, and schools serving working class and poor communities (exposed sites), on the other hand” (2003, cited in christie 2008, p. 177). this implies that neoliberal governmentality put markets before human rights and this 5 the south african schools act (1996) paved the way for democratically elected and representative school governing bodies. the governance of every public school is vested in its governing body. the sgb of an ordinary public school is comprised of a) parents of learners at the school; b) educators at the school; c) learners in the eighth grade or higher in the school; d) non-teaching staff; e) the principal, in his or her official capacity; and f) coopted members. mathebula: human rights and neo-liberal education . . . 99 reinforces structural inequalities in post-apartheid south africa; schools serve elite groups attending private schools at one extreme, and a mass of poor individuals from public schools, at the other. i note that neo-liberal governmentality interprets learners’ failure or success in society purely on their individual attributes (not socio-economic inequalities). if we look more closely, we can see that the neoliberal education agenda in post-apartheid south africa is likely to deny millions their right to education. allais (2014) has discussed how, in post-apartheid south africa, the neoliberal economic framework penetrated educational policy. the extract below is worth quoting for what it reveals about state support of entrepreneurial values in education. neo-liberalism represents a new modality of government predicated on interventions to create the organisational and subjective conditions for entrepreneurship—not only in terms of extending the ‘enterprise model’ to schools and so forth, but also in inciting individuals to become entrepreneurs themselves. (hart, 2006, cited in allais, 2014, p. 57) similar to allais’s (2014) assertion, motala and vally point out that “the value of education is not defined by human rights terms, but is reduced to the needs of economic growth” in postapartheid south africa (p. 3). consequently, neoliberal education policy in south africa treats learners as investors (and customers) who buy education in order to increase their competitive edge. in the words of enslin and horsthemke, “neo-liberal conceptions of the learner as both an investment and a customer . . . enable her to take her place as a competitive individual working for private profit . . . [and] play her part in making the national economy more globally competitive than others” (2016, p. 184). i agree with torres (2009) that the language deregulation, liberalisation, and privatisation of education is intended to “open [international] markets while simultaneously training more competent [learners] to compete in those international markets” (p. 12). unfortunately, neoliberal public policies are prescriptive and dictatorial. the market is conceived of as an efficient way to ensure the provision of the right to basic education. seeing education as “entrepreneurial, ferociously competitive, profit-making corporations” (sewpaul, 2014, p. 247) presents a clear and present danger to human rights education in south africa. instead of liberating the human potential, the state’s neoliberal education entrenches social inequalities. human rights: a critique of neo-liberal education in the history of education in south africa, the role of schooling “from the official pronouncements of the rulers was to serve the perceived wishes, hopes, interests, and fears of those who rule the country, and to serve the creation and maintenance of a particular economic order” (van den berg, 1987, p. 4). this was the basis of the struggle for the right to education. • the student-slaves resisted colonial christian schooling that prepared them for subordinate positions, by flight and hiding in caves (le roux, 2016; molteno, 1991); 100 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 • the dutch (religious) and british (industrial) colonial governments saw schooling as a device to ‘domesticate’ the natives, to instruct them in the christian religion, and to train them to meet the economic needs of the british empire (christie, 1988); • apartheid education “socialised black students to accept social relations of apartheid as natural, i.e. superiority of whites and inferiority of blacks.” (nkomo, 1990, p. 2) scruton’s (2007) conciliatory idea of politics (the art of the possible) is likely to provide answers to the questions of political philosophy by emphasising the struggle for the equal right of all to education. it is no surprise, therefore, that the anti-apartheid struggle movement’s concept of people’s education became an alternative philosophy of education in the 1980s (vally, 2007). at the national education co-ordinating committee (necc) conference in durban in 1986, zwelakhe sisulu stated that “the necc has opened the way for people’s power to be developed in our struggle for a free, democratic, compulsory and non-racial education (p. 107) . . . [as] part of the struggle for a free, democratic south africa” (sisulu, 1986, p. 111). soon after the advent of democracy in 1994, compulsory school attendance was introduced for all south african learners from grade 1 to 9 (7–15 years). regrettably, despite the laudable emphasis of the necc’s promise to eliminate “norms of competition, individualism and stunted intellectual development” (necc, 1985, cited in nkomo, 1990, p. 425), the educational milieu was fraught with problems of “persistent inequality, inadequately trained teachers, poor infrastructure, lack of educational materials, poor support and management, unmotivated learners, and low educational outcomes” (centre for development and enterprise, 2017, p. 1). in addition, from a social market perspective, the right and responsibilities of a school democratic community (parents, teachers, learners, non-teaching staff, principal, and co-opted members) is defined as those of consumers of the commodity called education rather than those of participants in education. also, teachers face difficulties in dealing with “socio-economic problems in the community, e.g. poverty and substance abuse” (department of education, 2015, p. 37). it is, i believe, fair to observe that if we find the contribution of necc’s concept of people’s education as a vehicle for political mobilisation justifiable, we must also find neoliberal ideology, neoliberal governmentality, and neoliberal public policies untenable at best and unjustified at worst. i want to argue one small, but significant point: protest scholars understand the adage that history can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards. concurring with this view, mbanjwa declared that “we are our history” (2014, p. 199). for the protest scholars human rights is always a creature of its past, but, also, a creature of its future. they see a logical relationship between stands taken on human rights and people’s struggles. the protest scholars’ refusal to take ahistorical and apolitical stances (sending the poor, unprivileged, and oppressed “back to the caves”) to use fanon’s (1968, p. 183), expression, is supported by numerous pieces of legislation on human rights and education curriculum policy documents in post-apartheid south africa. as liebenberg has demonstrated, our “constitution is simultaneously backwardand forward-looking” (2010, p. 25). the preamble of the constitution of the republic of south africa “recognises the injustices of our past . . . so as to . . . heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social mathebula: human rights and neo-liberal education . . . 101 justice and fundamental human rights” (1996, p. 1). equally important, the preamble of the south african schools act states that “the achievement of democracy in south africa . . . requires a new national system for schools which will redress past injustices in educational provision, [and] provide an education of progressively high quality for all learners” (1996, p. 1). along these lines, the principles of caps are, inter alia, meant to transform south african society and promote human rights “to . . . ensur[e] that the educational imbalances of the past are redressed, and that equal educational opportunities are provided for all sections of our population . . . [and to promote] social justice . . . as defined in the constitution of the republic of south africa” (2012, p. 3). human rights legislation and education curriculum policy need to be commended for proclaiming learners’ entitlement to social and economic rights. most laudable is the attempt to transform and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice, and fundamental human rights. as the human rights framework tries to make its mark, however, the fundamental difficulties in realising the right to (high quality) education since the transition in 1994, is, arguably, yet to be achieved. one hopeful note is that we can draw inspiration from our history of triumphant struggle to reclaim the right to education that south africans “fought for, won, lost, and [will win] again,” to use christie’s (2010, p. 6) words yet again. furthermore, to reinvigorate “people’s power to advance people’s agenda” (rutledge, 2017, p. 1), south africans should also take the word protest [invoking socio-economic rights as an integral part in the process to transformation, reconstruction and development] in the active, not passive, sense. the phrase that human rights are people’s struggle gives voice to local protesters to curtail the impact of neoliberal ideology, governmentality, and public policies that repress and attack individual liberty in post-apartheid south african schools. boyte (2005) argues that there is a re-emergence of civic agency, i.e. of social movement struggles for equal rights and social and economic justice for “those experiencing continued oppression” (suttner, 2015, p. 74). without doubt, retrieving the gains of 1994 starts with protests for those denied their justiciable right to education by neoliberal ideology, governmentality, and policies in postapartheid south african schools. if one thinks in these terms, “it is within the intersection of (non)existing rights that all south african should assume common responsibility, dissolve the illusion and structure political spaces by insisting on the full realisation of the right to education” (becker & du preez, 2016, p. 72). as freire said, “the prophets are those that submerge themselves in the waters of their . . . history and the history of the oppressed . . . prophets know their ‘here’ and ‘now’ and . . . they can not only foresee the future, but they can realise it” (1970, cited in torres, 2009, p. 94). only a return to a source, i.e. the struggle to reclaim our lost right to education as envisioned in the necc and its concept of people’s education as reflected in the constitution of the republic of south africa (1996) can liberate educable learners from the bondage of neoliberal state ideology, governance, and policies. margetson (1978) asserts that “participation together with democracy and education forms a three-piece suit (p. 35) . . . [p]articipation is educative in that it is itself a learning process with the crucially valuable 102 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 function of developing what is essentially human about persons” (p. 40). after all, neoliberalism as theory of political economic practices is “radically inconsistent with the defence of human rights, if human rights are perceived in relation to suffering rather than as abstract ground rules governing the relations of individuals to the state” (spreen & vally, 2006, p. 353). conclusion the concept of human right has undergone a transition from the beliefs of natural scholars, via deliberative scholars, to protest scholars. it is through the social contract theory that human beings recognise and reaffirm the status of socioeconomic rights as justiciable rights in modern democratic societies. unfortunately, these socioeconomic rights are undermined by the neoliberal state education agenda’s influence on global education system(s), education discourse, education budgets, formal and hidden curricula, and educational relations. in postapartheid south africa, national legislation, education policy, and curriculum development make provision for education as a basic human right. but, in a different guise, the right to education lends impetus to the social market ideology, governance, and policies in schools. neoliberal state education sits uneasily with the right to education but fits easily with the ideals of competitive elitism. as things stand, south africa’s democracy that guarantees fundamental rights and access to education for the elites is not best suited for demos, the “poor, the unprivileged and the oppressed” to borrow dembour’s (2010, p. 3) words. as democrats, we should take a leaf from protest scholars’ conception of human rights to mean eternal vigilance, true and genuine human rights in post-apartheid south africa. more importantly, human rights claims remain our political, philosophical, and collective struggle for equal education that liberates rather than domesticating those less fortunate than others. references allais, s. 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(1987, february). people’s education: its context, essence and (possible) direction. paper presented at the second southern african educational conference of the institute for reformational studies, potchefstroom university for che, south africa. journal of education, 2017 issue 69, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za the culture of employee learning in south africa: towards a conceptual framework george mavunga and michael cross (received 20 february 2017; accepted 26 june 2017) abstract the shortage of skills amongst employees in both the private and public sectors in south africa continues to be a topical issue as exemplified by the continued existence of a list of scarce skills which is published by the department of higher education (dhet). however, the notion that there is a shortage of skills in the country has begun to be challenged with some scholars arguing that the real problem is a jobs shortage attributable to structural inequalities which are a legacy of apartheid and failure by the government post-1994 to address these inequalities. this, we argue, is the reason why unemployment, unemployability and wide workplace inequalities, especially as they affect people from previously disadvantaged groups (mainly women and black employees), persist. we further contend that what is missing from the debates around skills shortage in south africa and the wider phenomenon to which these debates belong, that is, employee learning, is a holistic conceptualisation of the culture associated with it on the part of the government, employers, workers’ unions and even academia. conceptualisation of this culture needs to go beyond the government and employer initiatives to the actual process by which employee learning takes place. in other words, it also needs to take into account the employees’ biographies, identities and subjectivities as well as the social interactions which they engage in as they learn in the workplace. we therefore propose a two-tier framework which integrates implications from two theories, that is human capital theory ((hct) and critical realism (cr). implied in hct is the suggestion that the culture of employee learning is a function of the employer-initiated learning programmes, such as short courses offered by private employee learning service providers, adult basic education and training (abet) and block-release programmes run by some institutions of higher learning. the basic aim of these forms of learning would be to increase profitability through improved productivity which itself is a result of employees having been equipped with the requisite skills. using cr, and bourdieu’s (1986) idea of habitus, we, however, argue that the final architecture of the culture of employee learning is not linear but a complex and multilayered product of such factors as the employees’ family and educational backgrounds as well as individual and collective agency in addition to the government and employers’ initiatives such as the afore-mentioned short courses. we also draw on bernstein’s (1996) notion of learning domains to suggest that attention be paid to employees’ lived experiences which also mediate their responses to the government and employee learning initiatives. 304 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 this would help with aligning government and organisational employee learning initiatives and strategies to the employees’ individual and collective workplace learning aspirations. introduction the shortage of skills amongst employees in both the private and public sectors in south africa continues to be a topical issue as highlighted in government documents such as the successive national skills development strategies and the continued existence of a list of the so-called scarce skills which is published by the department of higher education (dhet). however, the notion that there is a shortage of skills in the country has begun to be challenged. some scholars argue that the real problem is a jobs shortage which is a result of both apartheid-related structural inequalities and failure by the post-1994 government to effectively address these inequalities. this is despite the passing of various pieces of legislation, the establishment of a number of institutions and the formulation of strategies aimed at doing so (ngcwangu and balwanz, 2014). examples of these respectively include the skills development act number 97 of 1998; the setas and national development strategies 1–3. yet problems such as unemployment and unemployability and widespread workplace inequalities especially as they relate to people from previously disadvantaged groups persist. as a result, some scholars assert that the skills revolution in the country has failed (freeman, 2015). as an addition to this argument we contend that what is missing from the debates around skills shortage in south africa and the wider phenomenon to which these debates belong, that is, employee learning, is a holistic conceptualisation of the culture associated with such learning on the part of the government, employers, private employee learning service providers, trade unions and even academia. this culture and its conceptualisation are dynamic and complex phenomena which both academics and human resource development practitioners are continuously grappling with (govender, 2009). in addition, while a lot has been written about organisational learning as exemplified by senge’s (1996) notion of systems thinking, and the ways in which individuals and small teams learn (mcgourty and de meuse, 2001), very little is known about how to systematically create strong, mutually beneficial and sustainable learning cultures in organisations (coutu, 2002). mavunga and cross: the culture of employee learning. . . 305 a major factor to which the problems discussed above are attributable is the tendency to conflate organisational learning and individual or team learning, on the one hand, with effective individual learning on the other (antonacopoulu, 2006). it therefore needs to be acknowledged that organisations may have all the requisite systems, structures and strategies for their employees to learn, but these may not be matched by the actual learning which their employees realise. this may be due to the absence of the culture or glue that holds together the systems, structures and strategies, on the one hand, to individual employees’ learning aspirations and the practices which they engage in to acquire new knowledge, competencies and attitudes, on the other (antonacopoulu, 1999). the limited focus on skills shortage in the debates about employee learning in south africa has created a skewed focus on the supply-side (ncgwangu, 2014; vally and motala, 2014). consequently, a lot of attention has been paid by both government and employers to the official framework of employee learning. constituting this framework are government and employer’s initiatives. these are the normative strategies and policies which continue to be privileged over the employees’ own biographies, identities and subjectivities which critically influence the actual process by which workplace learning takes place. as a contribution to attempts to address the current employee learning challenges in south africa such as the failure by government’s legislative and strategic initiatives to solve the workplace inequalities between different racial groups, we argue for a holistic conceptual framework which interrogates the culture of such learning beyond the government and employer’s initiatives. to this end, we advocate the incorporation of insights from two contesting theories, human capital theory (hct) (almenndarez, 2011; olaniyan and okemakinde, 2008) and critical realism (bhaskar, 1978; archer, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2006). we also borrow from the notion of domains of learning (bernstein, 1996, 2000) and the idea of habitus (bourdieu, 1986). the culture of employee learning: crystalising the concept the concept of culture refers to the norms, values and practices that influence how people live their lives (spencer-oatey, 2008). like social entities, organisations also have cultures and sub-cultures which have a bearing on the form of relationships, policies and practices in them (sponaugle, 2014). rebelo and gomes (2011, p.173), say the culture of employee learning is a 306 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 sub-culture of organisational learning which is, “…oriented towards the promotion and facilitation of workers’ learning, its share and dissemination, in order to contribute to organizational development and performance.” this sub-culture manifests itself in the learning activities that both groups and individuals in an organisation participate in (vergas, 2008; senge, 2006). since learning takes places in more than one way, we argue that constituting this sub-culture are elements other than just techncist training or skills acquisition. these include the nurturing of positive attitudes towards learning, awareness of diversity and responsible citizenship of the world. from the foregoing, we conclude that the culture of employee learning is both a determinant of, and is determined by, employees’ perceptions of workrelated learning. it also influences how they respond to the work-based learning initiatives and, ultimately, an organisation’s capacity to achieve its goals. an organisation in which there is a strong culture of employee learning is therefore one where learning is promoted, incentivised and valued by all role players including management and unions. rebelo and gomes (2011, p.27) add that this is done through, amongst, other ways, “… a social process of sharing…” which places emphasis on people; accommodates the interests of all stakeholders and encourages collaborative sharing of knowledge, for example through the formation of communities of learning in workplaces. employee learning in south africa: context and challenges since 1994 the south african government has taken a number of steps to redress the skills shortage problem. an example is the passing of legislation and formulation of strategies which are specifically aimed at creating the framework for skills development. these include skills development act number 97 of 1998; the skills development levies act number 9 of 1999; the series of national skills development strategies; adult basic education(abet) programmes and the establishment of structures such as the sector education and training authorities (seta’s) and creation of the department of higher education and training (dhet) in 2009 (tshilongamulenzhe and coetzee, 2013). as alluded to earlier, whereas a lot of effort has been expended towards a framework for employee learning at both government and individual mavunga and cross: the culture of employee learning. . . 307 organisation levels, there are still huge challenges in terms of actual practice in both spheres and in terms of employees as a collective and individuals (freeman, 2015). in our view, this is because, to date, many of the interventions have tended to narrowly focus on short term skills training at the expense of cultivation of a culture which enables employees to both individually and collectively embrace learning as an ever-existing imperative. this has seriously constrained cultivation of a strong culture of employee learning at national, organisational and individual levels thus contributing to the persistence of challenges such as unemployment and unemployability. as highlighted earlier, manifest themselves in the existence of a list of skills which south african employers struggle to find potential employees in possession of as well as high unemployment levels, especially amongst the youth some of whom have tertiary education qualifications. blamed in part for the challenges discussed above is the sector education and training authority (seta) system, which is supposed to be one of the key drivers of employee learning. some commentators on human resource development have actually labelled it a waste of resources. for example, nkosi (2015, p.11) says this is because implementation of its mandate has “…fallen woefully short.” the constant policy and strategy changes in the sector have also not helped matters. tembe and sehume (2016, p.18) thus accuse the government of making, “…schizophrenic policy choices….” ultimately, this has a negative bearing on employee learning and the culture associated with it. freeman (2015, p.2) also faults the setas for having become very bureaucratic as they are, “… mired in systems, processes, compliance mechanisms and tick-boxes”. freeman argues that by narrowly focusing on such aspects of skills development as unit standards, the country is now saddled with, “…people who are competent in unit standards but not workplace performance”. there is therefore doubt over the efficacy of legislative solutions to the problems in employee learning whose genesis lies in apartheid and its legacy. this is because these solutions are mainly characterised by performativity regimes, reflecting superficial conformity with government legislation on the part of organisations without paying much attention to the realities of the disadvantaged backgrounds from which a large number of south african workers come from in terms of both basic and postschool education. 308 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 the problems discussed above are aggravated by weaknesses in terms of the participation of key stakeholders such as the unions. yet according to radebe (2017, p.1), for employee learning initiatives to bear fruit, “stakeholders should have an important voice at the table of policy level and be involved in decision-making at the institutional level.” a major constraining factor seems to be that, generally, the unions’ major pre-occupation is still the immediate bread and butter issues such as parity of employees’ remuneration across different races in spite of their commitment, on paper, to employee learning. secondly, a large number of workers still come to the workplace without the requisite competencies to demand a full stake in their own learning (kraak, jewinson, pillay, chidi, bhagwan, nomvete and engelbrecht, 2013) this makes workplace learning initiatives the preserve of the government and employers. yet it is these initiatives which the culture of employee learning reflects, for example, in terms of values and attitudes. the national outcry about skills shortages thus persists, hence the need for a reconceptualisation of both the practice and culture of employee learning in south africa. employee learning: the conceptualisation debate two theories on the basis of which employee learning and its culture can be conceptualised are human capital theory (hct) and critical realism (cr). the primary concern in (hct) is skilling employees for efficiency in productivity, thus leading to greater profitability (foray and lundvall, 1996; fitzsimons, 1999). proponents of hct therefore believe that both individuals and societies learn in order to prosper (senge, 1996). hct implications for employee learning hct has several implications for employee learning and the culture associated with it (olaniyan and okemakinde, 2008). one of these, for example, is that where the intention by the state or any organisation is to improve the performance and efficiency of workers, it has to be accompanied by a concomitant investment in their learning activities. this implies positive intentionality on the part of the state and the individual organisations to ensure employee learning. since in our view, employee learning is broader than just technicist training and short courses offered by the employer, this potentially creates conflict and tensions in a situation where employees want mavunga and cross: the culture of employee learning. . . 309 to independently pursue their own learning. on the positive side, though, this implies that the higher the investment in a learning programme, the higher should be the earnings of the individuals engaged in the programme upon successful completion (olaniyan and okemakinde, 2008). this could be a source of motivation for employees, thus strengthening the culture of employee learning. the influence of hct on employee learning in south africa manifests itself at conceptualisation level (vally and motala, 2014; ngcwangu, 2014. an example is the proposal that in order for the country to unlock its economy, it needs to improve its educational outcomes starting from primary school as this would produce learners who can more easily engage in post-school learning such as that which happens in the workplace (peacock, 2013). similarly, molelemane (2015, p.16) says investment in education and skills development and, by extension, the creation of a strong national culture of work-related learning is seen as the sin qua non for both the economic and social problems in the country (nkwanyana, 2015). this argument is illustrated with reference to the relative success achieved by some resourcepoor european nations that have invested in quality education and have nurtured strong cultures of learning in their citizens. another specific example given is that of japan which also has fewer natural resources than south africa, and emerged from the second world war with most of its industry destroyed. yet it is one of the most powerful economies in the world today because of investing in quality education which, amongst other strengths, prepares people for continuous learning beyond the basic education level (molemane, 2015). this is perhaps why, speaking at the 2017 world economic forum, (radebe, 2017) highlighted the need for countries to invest in education which guarantees effective skills development which in turn would enable them to compete in a “…knowledge-based global market where the key differentiators are skills, expertise, know-how and the ability to deliver excellent services speedily, with agility and efficiently”. the hct phantasmagoria: the illusion of jobs, higher earnings and prosperity hct has been criticised, for example, because of evidence refuting a strong link between education and economic prosperity for individuals and society (ashton and lauder, 2003). for example, evidence from many parts of the 310 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 world shows that this purported link is actually illusionary (vally and motala, 2014). in addition, cope and watts (2000) also argue that simply putting in place employee learning structures and systems and declaring positive intentions is not enough as it tends to be centralist-driven, sets rigid milestones (cope and watts, 2000). ultimately, it leads to deterministic outcomes (fejes and nicoll, 2008). criticism of hct has led to attempts to reconceptualise it to broaden its applicability to human resources development (vally and motala, 2014). this has been done, for example, through the notion of learning organisations (senge, 2006). however, doubts still persist over some of the theory’s claims. for example, skyrme and amidion (2002, p. 265) argue that it is incorrect to conflate organisational learning with individual learning because of the risk of categorizing some organisations, “… by default to be ‘not learning’, which is patently not true”. similarly, harrison (2010, p.131) cautions that, organisations comprise many, and often, conflicting, human needs and interests, and are themselves influenced by wider contexts. diverse interests and influences do not always conveniently converge in common pursuit of mutual learning that will benefit the organization. sometimes their reconciliation is impossible. as explained earlier, overall, these arguments imply that it is not always an easy task to establish a perfect point of convergence between organisational and individual learning as hct would have us believe. multi-faceted and multi-layered tensions between the two are not uncommon thus making it difficult to conclude that in all cases, organisational learning will translate into individual learning. consequently, poell (2005, p.108) concludes that, “…if there is such a thing as a learning organization, it represents a process rather than a fixed state”. hct and its related concepts such as learning organisations are also said to be a limited notion as organisations are products of visions, ideas, norms and beliefs. the sum total of their architecture is therefore more malleable than that of their material structure. as learning agents of their organisations, human beings behave in ways that cannot be easily systematised. organisational cultures (the defining norms, values and practices of an organisation), employee backgrounds and social environments, therefore, become more critical as determinants of how employee learning takes place than the official systems put in place with the hope of satisfying strategic imperatives (armstrong, 2007). mavunga and cross: the culture of employee learning. . . 311 in respect of south africa, the influence of structural factors that act as barriers to employment and employability also brings some of the claims in hct into question (baatjies, 2014). for example, based on the results of research at four public universities, walker (2015, p.1) concludes that it is futile to talk about employability in south africa without taking into consideration how “...socially inclusive the labour market is”. these results show that there is a correlation between race and unemployment amongst university graduates because of friendship and family networks with potential private or public employers. sikhakhane (2016, p.11) confirms these findings when, he draws parallels between south africa and countries such as chile and columbia in terms of the paradox of the low returns from higher education when he points out that, “many of the young people who have swelled south africa’s higher education system are headed for the boulevard of broken dreams.” this shows that there are limitations to conceptualising both school and post-school learning in terms of it serving the utilitarian purpose of guaranteeing employment and efficiency in job performance. in addition, according to moya (2016, p.10), the south african statistician– general revealed that in relation to employability, “…for indians and whites, the future is very clear. for coloureds and black youth, it’s not. it takes twice the effort for a black child qualified from the same university”. this represents a structural reality which may result in some black graduates taking up jobs which they did not specialise in at tertiary education level. an implication for the culture of employee learning from this is that such employees might need to acquire new knowledge and competencies. this raises the question as to their preparedness and ability to do so. critical realism: we learn because we are cr advocates a holistic analysis of the historical and social contexts in which social events such as employee learning take place (bhaskar, 1978). in this regard, a cross-link is said to exist amongst three components which can be used to explain any social phenomenon. the three components are structure, culture and agency (archer, 1996). structure refers to those institutions which are mandated with the power to give direction to social activities (westhood and clegg, 2003). such institutions do not necessarily have to be physical (archer, 2006). structures therefore manifest themselves in the systems of interaction that occur between 312 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 members of different social groups (dobson, 2002; spasser, 2002). this influences both public and private behavioural patterns which themselves, “… create obligations for continuity and even reproduction”, (jarvis, 1996, p.123) structures which have the capacity to exercise power over others thus try to generate authenticity to their expectations of those with less power (mingers, 2004; witgren, 2004). the culture of employee learning is inherently layered (conner and clawson, 2004). in the south african context, layers of employee learning are connected to structures such as the government, the (dhet), setas, public and private organisations, and their management, and workers’ unions. this means that, for example, the form of this culture is a reflection of the expectations of each of these structures. while at the level of the government and dhet levels, the culture might reflect the expectation that organisations will conform with national legislation and policies governing employee learning, at the level of management in individual organisations it might reflect the strategic direction in which the management intends to move the organisation. yet at the individual employee level it might be characterised by the employee’s beliefs, behaviour and expression of career aspirations which themselves are a function of his or her background apart from the government and employer-initiated learning activities. in light of the above, cr calls for an analysis of the power relations amongst the different structures and the resultant culture mainly because of their hierarchical nature (archer, 2000). power relations manifest themselves differently across these different layers. this is in keeping with the foucauldian view that, “people know what they do, they frequently know why they do what they do; but what they don’t know is what what they do does” (dreyfus and rabinow, 2013, p.187). the form of the culture of employee learning is therefore also a function of the complex power dynamics across different structures and how they mediate the different factors with a bearing on employee learning. as alluded to above, individual organisations, for example, may not always implement employee learning as prescribed by government or setas to the letter because of profitability and survival imperatives. yet, however small a way in which they deviate from government or seta prescriptions directly influences the form of the culture of employee learning in the organisations. similarly, any way in which individual employees engage in work-related learning activities outside the mavunga and cross: the culture of employee learning. . . 313 government of employer’s initiatives, also still contributes to the shape of the culture of employee learning in their organisations. the relationship between structures and the social reality whose form they contribute to is a mutually influential one (bhaskar, 1998). in other words, there is a reflexive relationship between culture and actors within society which enables man to both be made by, and make, culture (layder, 1993; archer, 2006). with respect to employee learning in south africa, the unionisation of labour, for example, given the country’s history, makes negotiation of endeavours to create a culture of employee learning an imperative. ultimately, therefore, the culture should be characterised by a particular set of values, rules and standards reflecting degrees of consensus amongst the different stakeholders (chia, 2000). the gap between the desired levels of consensus and the current contestation in prioritisation of employee learning by different role players is, as discussed earlier, a result of continued differences in foci, for example, between employers and unions despite agreement, at least in principle, on the need for an employee learning trajectory intended, amongst other things, to bring about equity in the workplace. critical realists acknowledge that unobservable events can be the cause of the observable (fleetwood, 2005). sometimes this is because the constituent components of structure do not always work harmoniously to shape the culture or sub-cultures in societies and organisations (archer, 1996; wigren, 2004). as alluded to earlier, the individual employee, for example, brings his or her own social and intellectual capital to the workplace learning situation (chia and king, 2011). this may not be directly aligned to the organisation’s employee learning agenda. the individual out of his or her own choice or through the influence of entities such as unions, work teams and study groups may thus pursue work-related learning goals tangential to those of the organisation (o’mahoney and vincent, 2014). the form of the culture of employee learning is therefore also, in part, influenced by the inter-play of the harmony or tension across the different structures within an organisation. culture is inherently not static but morphogenetic, implying that what may characterise the culture of employee learning in an organisation today may be different tomorrow (archer, 2006; bhaskar, 1998). this is because of culture’s responsiveness to influences both internal and external to the organisation thus making cultures and sub-cultures unstable, emergent 314 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 systems (layder, 1994; archer, 2004). for example, a change in the physical infrastructure related to learning in an organisation can lead to a change in the employees’ attitudes to employee learning. the role of agency in shaping the culture of employee learning social structures do not exist independently of the role players’ conceptions of what they are doing when engaged in a particular activity. these role players are referred to as agents (bhaskar, 1978). wright (1999, p.10) suggests that, ‘agency is embedded within, and dependent upon, structural contexts.’ in this view, agents are inextricably linked in behavior to the structures which they belong to. according to archer (2000), agency refers to the mandate (and the ability to exercise it), which different social entities have to influence the activities and, therefore, the culture of a particular society. in terms of organisations, jarvis (2000, p 252.) says agency is, “the vehicle by means of which institutions provide procedures through which human conduct is patterned”. to achieve this, agents institute specific, rules, regulations and policies (jarvis, 1996). this can be through rewarding or imposing certain sanctions on specific role players for conformity and violation of expected norms respectively (fleetwood, 2005). while most structures derive their agency from formal systems such as legislation and policies, others derive it from informal systems (archer, 2000). with respect to employee learning, while the agency of formal structures such as management and unions is easily identifiable, that of structures like informal study, friendship and even prayer groups should not be discounted. it therefore needs to be appreciated that the culture of employee learning is also a function of how the employees mediate the oftenconflicting interests of formally recognised agents and the informal ones (drinkurth, reigler and wolff, 2003). agency can manifest itself at either the collective or individual level (mutch, 2004). at the collective level, this can be a consequence of involuntary positioning, as a result of demographic factors such as age and gender, or corporate, where those with a perceived common interest act or are made to act collectively. as shown in figure 1, such agency expresses itself, for example, through collaboration; cooperation; association; the formation of mavunga and cross: the culture of employee learning. . . 315 social networks and the exchange of information all of which, generally, facilitates learning. at the individual level, agency can be a result of identities, subjectivities and other factors such as perceptions, attitude, motivation and aspirations (merriam, 2001). all these have a bearing on the employees’ behaviours and responses to the employers’ learning project. cumulatively this contributes to the architecture of the culture of employee learning. as a result of individual agency, there is a degree to which employee learning is so self-directed that we may not be able to decipher the role of collective agency in it. agents are therefore cautioned against pursuing organisational goals and seeking to maintain the organisational status quo through employee learning at the expense of the aspirations or capabilities of the individual employees (jarvis, 1996). overall, cr enables us to appreciate that the culture of employee learning is not just a linear function of the relationship between the employer-initiated learning activities and the employee’s responses to them. rather, it needs to be looked at as a layered, multi-dimensional and, therefore, complex function of a multiplicity of factors such as the employees’ collective and individual agency in addition to government and employer’s initiatives. while some facets of each of these factors may manifest themselves easily, others may not. yet the influence of the later in trying to establish the character of the culture of employee learning should not be ignored towards a two-tier conceptual framework: we learn to prosper and because we are bernstein (2000) suggests that learning takes place within the official recontextualising field and the pedagogic field. drawing on this insight, we consider three important domains in which learning occurs, namely the official, social and pedagogic (see figure 1). found in the official domain would be two categories of structures, namely, the visible and invisible. this is based on the notion that not all structures are physical and/or visible. there are, for example, structures such as traffic rules that remain invisible but operate as structures in conditioning human behaviour. while the visible structures are identifiable with respect to any organisation, the invisible ones lie below the surface. examples of the visible structures which influence employee learning are the dhet, setas, company boards, senior management all of which are responsible for the formulation of employee 316 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 learning policies and strategies. to these can be added training committees and the unions. these structures can be said to be visible because their existence is generally legislated for. one therefore does not struggle to identify them. similarly, the culture of employee learning as represented in these structures is also easily identifiable. for example, amongst other characteristics, reflected in them would be senior management’s conceptualisation of employee learning and their strategic intentions. these intentions are operationalised through the dhet and senior managers’ agency and are captured in the normative employee learning initiatives. workers’ unions as mediating structures represent the various interests of the workers including those related to employee learning. given that they have a statutory role to play in employee learning, conceptually we see them as exercising their agency through the mandate given to them by both the government and their members to champion employee empowerment through learning and development. this would be achieved through their participation in the programmes of training committees. attributable to this is the growing realisation that for effective employee learning to take place, cooperation amongst different actors is necessary (gustavsen, 1992, radebe, 2017). in other words, though inherently the relationships between unions and management are not characterised by consensus on many issues, we propose a situation in which this relationship is characterised by rapprochement and collaboration in order to cultivate a learning culture which is mutually and sustainably beneficial to organisations and their employees. at the national level, the culture of employee learning can be conditioned through, for example, legislation aimed at mediating the tension between the social justice agenda and the country’s competitiveness concerns. in different organisations, this culture is therefore mediated through conformity with national legislation and performativity. beyond the national layer, are global structures such as the international labour organisation whose statutes may have an influence on employee learning locally, depending on compliance with international standards or alignment with global examples of good practice. the final form of the culture of employee learning thus becomes a function of the balance achieved in the inter-play of each of these oftencompeting pressures in addition to the employees’ collective and individual work-related learning aspirations. constituting the invisible structures would be aspects such as organisational vision and mission statements; policies; programmes and regulations governing employee learning. what makes these structures invisible is that mavunga and cross: the culture of employee learning. . . 317 they are not immediately recognisable as illustrated by the fact that, for example, as opposed to the existence and general mandate of the dhet which is common knowledge, one needs to carry out a search for the vision and mission statement of a particular organisation. yet, like traffic rules which condition human behaviour without being visible, the influence of these structures still has a bearing on the form which the culture of employee learning assumes. thus reflected in them, as in the visible structures, would be individual organisations’ conceptualisation of the place of employee learning in their strategic intentions as well as the expected roles, responsibilities and behaviours of each of the different stakeholders involved in such learning. on the basis of the foregoing, the final architecture of the culture of employee learning is either overt or covert. the overt components such as the workplace skills plans (wsps); annual training plans (atrs); training rooms and training equipment are either tangible or easily observable. the covert ones, such as the hierarchical tensions across different structures and positive intentionality on the part of senior management are intangible and one would have to dig below the surface to identify them. to these, conner and clawson (2004) add values, assumptions, beliefs, expectations and how they are communicated in the organisation. a critical dimension of the culture of employee learning arising from the interplay of its covert and overt elements would thus be the extent to which it is seen as empowering to the employees as well as the degree to which there is affirmation of the efficacy of its outcomes and therefore their relevance. we therefore concur with rebelo and gomes (2011) who assert that ultimately, the form of the culture of employee learning should be such that throughout their working lives and beyond, ordinary employees’ are inspired to learn how to prosper in an increasingly changing world with organisations also reaping the benefits. the social and pedagogic domains represent the employees’ lived experiences with respect to employee learning. constituting the social dimension, would be the employees’ biographies; schooling and tertiary education backgrounds and membership of social entities such as churches and political organisations. it is from these entities that the employees derive the habitus which they bring to the employee learning landscape. this is in keeping with the bourdian view that habitus is, “…the way society becomes deposited in persons in the form of lasting dispositions, or trained capacities and structured propensities to think, feel and act in deterministic ways which guide them.” (wacquant 2005, p.316). it therefore needs to be acknowledged that employees in south africa, bring different forms of social capital which they 318 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 use to navigate employee learning initiatives thereby also contributing to the form of the culture of employee learning at both national and organisational levels. influencing the culture of employee learning in the social domain as well are the employees’ everyday social relationships with their colleagues, resulting in, for example, the creation of workplace communities of learning. as illustrated in figure 1, in this domain, the employees’ agency is expressed through interactions, social networks, information sharing, collaboration and accommodation to attain work-relevant knowledge. kaufman, deyoung, gray, jimenez, brown and mackintosh (2010, p. 233) concur with this view when they assert that, “successful learning happens with, and through, other people and what we learn depends on who we are and what we want to become, what we care about and which communities we wish to join”. the importance of social interactions in the workplace lies in that they present learning opportunities through successful solutions to everyday work situations. this largely based on informal and often improvised ways of solving problems and dealing with challenging circumstances (marsick and watkins, 2003). what happens in the social domain therefore plays a critical role in shaping the process by which employee’ acquire workplace knowledge and competencies. influencing the culture of employee learning in the pedagogic domain would be such aspects as the methods used in an organisation to impart knowledge and competencies to employees. these range from forms of employee learning such as classroom-based training, learning through mentorship to such instructional techniques as the lecture and demonstration. they also entail the different methods by which learning is assessed and those providing it are evaluated. all of them contribute to the culture of employee learning in an organisation. despite the distinction that we make amongst the different domains, we conceptualise the mediation of the culture of employee learning between the official domain, on one hand, and the social and pedagogic domains on the other we see employee learning as being made possible by the reflexive relationships amongst the different entities in these domains. for example, while senior management-one of the entities in the official domain may feel duty-bound to steer employee learning in a particular direction as captured in the organisation’s vision and mission statements, for this to succeed they need the buy-in of entities such as the employees who have to express their agency as individuals or a collective. mavunga and cross: the culture of employee learning. . . 319 figure 1: a proposed conceptual framework for the culture of employee learning in south africa conclusion the proposed conceptual framework for the culture of employee learning in south africa takes cognisance of the concerns of both hct and cr. for example, in light of both global, national and sectoral competitive imperatives, the need to equip employees with the requisite skills as advocated by hct is inescapable. the practice of employee learning in south africa should therefore both conform with legislative requirements and reflect senior management’s strategic intentions. however, borrowing from cr, the proposed framework suggests a holistic approach which takes into account all the factors with a bearing on the culture of employee learning. these revolve around the interplay of culture, structure and agency which gives rise to a complex, layered and multi-dimensional architecture of the culture of employee learning. inherent in this is the influence of employees’ social biographies and educational backgrounds as well as their individual and 320 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 collective agency. borrowing from the notion of domains of learning (bernstein, 1996, 2000), the proposed framework also suggests that attention be paid to not only to what happens in the official domain but in the social and pedagogic domains as well. what obtains in the last two domains is particularly critical as it represents the employees’ identities, subjectivities and everyday lived experiences which have an often-ignored but vitally important influence on the culture of employee learning, especially in light 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(1999) they shoot dead horses, don’t they? locating agency in the agency-structure problematique, european journal of international, relations, 5 (1), 109–142 george mavunga academic development centre university of johannesburg gmavunga@uj.ac.za michael cross faculty of education university of johannesburg mcross@uj.ac.za mailto:gmavunga@uj.ac.za mailto:mcross@uj.ac.za microsoft word joe-issue71jun30.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 71, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i71a05 exploring pre-service teachers’ opportunities to learn to teach science with icts during teaching practice thuthukile jita school of education studies, university of the free state jitat@ufs.ac.za (received 24 january 2018; accepted: 24 may 2018) abstract teaching practice is an important component of the teacher education programme that provides opportunities for pre-service teachers to learn in the context of real classrooms. in this paper, i use the framework of opportunities to learn (otl) to analyse data from a mixed-methods study on the experiences of pre-service teachers with learning to integrate information and communication technologies (icts) into the teaching of science during teaching placement in schools. a sample of 103 science pre-service teachers from one mid-size university in south africa completed a survey on their use of icts for subject teaching during teaching practice, 21 of whom submitted 33 actual lesson plans from teaching practice for analysis and participated in 4 focus group interviews. the findings show that the teacher education programme provided uneven opportunities to learn for students in the same cohort. these findings have implications for how universities should structure teaching practice experience for equitable otl for all pre-service teachers, especially with respect to the integration of icts for subject teaching. thus, i recommend restructuring of teacher education programmes to better the opportunities for future teachers to learn to use icts for subject teaching during and after teaching practice. keywords: otl, science education, ict, teaching practice, teacher education programme introduction teaching practice is a platform for pre-service teachers to apply the theoretical knowledge learned from their coursework in the teaching of specific subjects in schools (darlinghammond, 2015; kisalama & kafyulilo, 2012; shulman, 1986). literature suggests that preservice teachers tend to use icts for many purposes such as motivating learners, communication, basic research, and less so for improving their actual teaching of specific subject content (cleaves & toplis, 2008; kisalama & kafyulilo, 2012; milner-bolotin, 2016). the reasons for the rather low take-up of icts for the actual teaching of specific content and/or subjects are unclear. information and communication technologies (icts) in the context of this paper refer to both hardware, software, and other digital applications technologies such as computers, 74 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 laptops, software programmes, mobile technologies, online tools, and other such e-platforms. online tools such as emails, facebook, and learning management systems use an internet connection to give an opportunity to preservice teachers to communicate and provide science concepts and content in real time, thus providing a better teaching quality. in this paper i explore the development of ict competencies of pre-service teachers on the use of these digital technologies to teach science during teaching practice. previous studies have offered important insights on the relationships between otl and competence to teach specific subjects by pre-service teachers (abedi & herman, 2010; cogan & schmidt, 2015; hebard, 2016; schmidt, cogan, & houang, 2011). these studies demonstrate that pre-service teachers’ otl are determined not only by the number of courses taken, but also by the nature of the field experiences provided for them to practise the required skills. over the past two decades of curriculum change, the south african education system has focused attention increasingly on the teaching of critical subjects such as science and mathematics to improve learner performance in the subjects (jansen, 1998; reddy, visser, winnaar, arends, juan, prinsloo, & isdale, 2016; stols, 2013). not enough attention, however, has been paid to the preparation of teachers to use ict tools for teaching such subjects during teaching practice. i therefore present data on the nature and quality of the otl extended to a cohort of south african pre-service teachers’ through the entire teacher education programme including during teaching practice in schools. my study focuses on two key contributors to the pre-service teachers’ otl, specifically the on-campus coursework and the school-based teaching practice experience that enables them to integrate theory and practice in real classroom situations. while the recently introduced curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) in the republic of south africa (rsa) envisages teaching through icts for each subject, it is silent on the otl for teachers to develop the required competence on ict for such teaching (dbe, 2011). khoza (2016) observes that caps’s indication of skills, specifically related to the psychomotor domain, may even be more confusing for subject teachers since it fails to break down the type of skills that should be learned. this is in contrast to “the new opportunities fund (nof) training program in the uk which was criticized as being unwieldy, over prescriptive and insufficiently geared to meet the needs of different subject specialisms” (haydn & barton, 2007, p. 365) by being too definitive that ict skills should be encouraged. it is important for ict skills to be clearly defined for pre-service teachers without being too prescriptive. against the background of the two contrasting approaches to the development of competence and use of icts for teaching as adopted in south africa and the uk, in this paper i therefore investigate the democratic or laissez faire approach to the use of icts by pre-service teachers in south africa by examining the following research questions: • what are the pre-service teachers’ otl to teach science through icts as presented in the education courses offered on university campus? • how can we make sense of the otl to use icts for subject teaching and the alignment (or non-alignment) of in-class and field experiences? jita: exploring pre-service teachers’ opportunities to learn . . . 75 review of relevant literature the study on the preparation of pre-service teachers through the use of icts is anchored in three bodies of scholarship, specifically the literature on otl that provides the conceptual framework, that on integrating icts in teacher education programmes, and that on integrating icts during teaching practice in school. opportunity-to-learn (otl) as a conceptual framework in the context of this paper, otl defines whether or not pre-service teachers have had the opportunity to learn the theory of teaching a particular subject content through icts and also the opportunity to demonstrate competence to teach such a subject using icts during their teaching practice (floden, 2002; stevens, 1993; wang, 1998). most work on otl in education focuses on in-service teachers’ professional development (jita & ndlalane, 2009) and on its relationship to classroom practices for specific subject areas (hebard, 2016, schmidt et al., 2011; stols, 2013). the few researchers who have investigated otl at preservice level tend to focus only on courses taken in teacher education programmes (abedi & herman, 2010; cogan & schmidt 2015; hebard, 2016; schmidt et al., 2011). while some of this research suggests a linear relationship between number of courses taken and otl to teach a particular subject, there is more to otl than just the coursework offered at university. in this study, i took a different approach by examining otl from the teacher education programme in its broadest sense to include the learning offered on campus and off campus through teaching practice. i take a multidimensional approach to otl that examines different components such as the alignment between ictrelated modules, methodology modules in the teacher education programme, and the opportunity to observe and use icts during teaching practice (wang, 1998). such an investigation provides answers to the question of whether ict-related modules in the teacher education curriculum give prospective science teachers the opportunity to integrate knowledge and skills on icts with the practical aspects of teaching their subject (e.g., science) in schools. from a social justice perspective, an important question arises as to whether all pre-service teachers have equal opportunities to transfer ict knowledge and skills learned in their coursework to learners in different school settings as part of the pre-service teacher placement programme. this is important to explore given that teaching practice serves as an opportunity for pre-service teachers to use what they have learned in their coursework. a key conceptual framework that influenced this study is the otl framework as discussed in some detail in schmidt et al. (2011). schmidt and his colleagues argue that since the “goal of teacher education is to prepare highly competent future teachers” it is important to examine how “universities and colleges design a set of courses and experiences that presumably help to develop the necessary knowledge and skills.” in their reference to previous studies on 76 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 otl, these scholars lament the fact that “many studies use (only) the number of courses or the kind of teacher licence to define otl” (p. 140) thereby resulting in inconsistent findings about the effects of content in teacher education on their professional competence. similarly, i use the otl conceptual framework to understand how the coursework that pre-service teachers engage with leads to competence to teach in a specific subject (science). more importantly, i explore, in some depth, how the teacher education programmes provide opportunities for students to integrate ict knowledge and skills from their coursework with the teaching practice component in the development of competence to teach science. thus the present study goes beyond just (re)counting the number or type of ict courses offered to preservice teachers. a number of international studies that may provide encouragement to the sa initiatives on ict integration show that an increase in the integration of icts for teaching and learning in many universities leads to improvements in student learning (bingimlas, 2009; haydn, 2014; haydn & barton, 2007; valtonen et al., 2015). in a recent study of teacher education students in nigeria, reju and jita (2017), for example, established the importance of icts in improving the learning of students engaged in studying university level mathematics, especially for distance education students. similarly, liebenberg, chetty, and prinsloo (2012) and asunka (2008) also confirmed the positive impact of ict on distance education students in south africa and ghana respectively. taking a cue from these and other research findings, the case study institution has adopted policies to integrate icts in teaching and learning (ufs, 2015). what remains unclear from all the studies on the integration of icts in the teacher education programmes, however, are issues of social justice in terms of equitable access to otl to use the icts. in this study, i seek to provide a check on the issues of access and equity of opportunities to learn the ict skills as well as the time taken to practise them during teaching practice for one cohort of students in this case study. integration of ict many international studies, especially from developed countries in europe and usa, have chronicled the use of icts for teaching and learning various subjects in schools (ananiadou & claro, 2009; bingimlas, 2009; leask, 2013; usun, 2009). these studies argue that the development of ict skills for teaching cannot be divorced from the subject content taught. thus, icts might, for example, be integrated with teaching and learning of science content through the use of a learning management system, collaboration with social media tools, skype, and many other appropriate tools. one major downfall in many of these studies of ict integration is that there is a common assumption that teachers have had opportunities to learn and use icts during pre-service teacher training, which is not necessarily true (hinostroza, 2018; kirkwood & price, 2005; law, pelgrum, & plomp, 2008). the south african government has followed international trends by introducing various strategies and policies to close the gap on ict knowledge and use across the different schools in the country (dhet, 2013; doe, 2004; dtps, 2016; hindle, 2007). south africa has announced ict integration as a priority that will eventually lead its citizens to the digitisation of school classrooms. to date, however, not much is known about the chances of all pre-service teachers to learn and jita: exploring pre-service teachers’ opportunities to learn . . . 77 use icts for the teaching of specific subjects such as science, and whether they are able to be equally proactive when they are in schools during teaching practice. the main object of this study is to review opportunities provided to pre-service teachers to teach science subjects during teaching practice using icts. the underlying assumption is that the provision of such opportunities will provide a solid base for pre-service teachers to be competent in the integration of ict in the teaching of science, specifically in south african classrooms. researchers argue that in spite of ict-related courses being part of teacher education programmes for the preparation of teachers, there is still a concern that most graduates have almost no practical experience of using them to teach science (bingimlas, 2009; kisalama & kafyulilo, 2012). there is not much written about pre-service teachers otl to integrate ict skills in the real world of teaching in the schools. the major conclusion from this literature on the integration of icts in schools is that national curriculum policies and teacher education programmes have not gone far enough to enable the implementation of ict policies in teaching specific subjects such as science in the higher education institutions and in schools. while the scholarship on ict knowledge and use has improved a great deal, questions on social justice issues such as whether graduates are given equal otl and use icts in schools, remain unanswered. future teachers need to be trained deliberately to have a solid understanding of the various ways the subject matter can be taught and assessed, especially through icts (scheerens, 2016; wiley & yoon, 1995). part of this training involves pre-service teachers being given the opportunity to select the proper tools for presenting content well enough to enhance learning. the ability to operate ict tools in addition to knowing one’s subject matter are critical skills to be developed through teaching practice (bingimlas, 2009; higgins, 2003). the merging of icts and the appropriate teaching of content can best be learned in real classroom situations during teaching practice. pre-service teachers need not only to understand their subject matter such as science but they also have to practise the use of different technologies to best represent the content to their students in an effective manner. thus, the context for this investigation included the teaching practice component of the teacher education programme. for many learners, especially in developing countries, science can sometimes be obscure because of the lack of appropriate specialised facilities and equipment required to demonstrate systems, processes, and reactions. this is where icts can become useful. for example, the use of educational software programmes such as augmented reality to show the functioning of a heart can suddenly open up the horizons for science students in different contexts. the ability to select and operate the appropriate icts, in addition to knowing the content of the subject, can suddenly add value to the quality of teaching and learning in many such science classrooms, for example. given the various challenges of teaching science in many developing countries, including south africa, and the possibilities arising from the rapid development of appropriate educational ict tools, it was important for me to use science as a context for exploring the pre-service teachers’ otl and their use of icts for subject teaching in schools. 78 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 methodology data for this case study was collected from final-year pre-service teacher education students, across two campuses of the university, in both the bachelor of education (bed) and the postgraduate certificate in education (pgce) qualifications. the case study provided rich insights on one particular university, and on a specific teacher education programme. a stratified random sample of 103 volunteer pre-service teachers studying science at all three levels of teaching, specifically the intermediate or middle school phase (ip), the senior primary and/or lower secondary phase (sp), and the senior secondary or further education and training (fet) phase, completed surveys immediately after the second of the two annual teaching practice sessions. i examined 33 lesson plans from 21 participants who agreed to share them for useful themes on the use of icts for teaching. focus group interviews with 4 groups of between 4 and 7 pre-service teachers were also conducted. data was collected during the second semester of the year over a period of three months, which, following johnson and onwuegbuzie (2004), creswell (2014), and yin (2014) allowed for in-depth exploration of the findings. the benefits of using a mixed method approach was that it provided the opportunity to test and augment the survey report with information from the lesson plans and, in line with locke, silverman, and spirduso (2010), to triangulate with thick descriptions from the focus group interviews. thus, the mixed method approach allowed for the strengths from each method used for data collection while mitigating the weaknesses in each method. i used items from the survey to explore the otl and use of icts for teaching and learning. the survey consisted of different types of questions that included demographic ones, and ones on ict knowledge and skills predominantly learned. i used the technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack) instruments developed by schmidt et al. (2009) whose reliability has previously been established by a number of other researchers. the tpack subject teaching-related research has extensively demonstrated the validity and reliability of the tpack survey for pre-service teachers, and it was thus not surprising to find that the instrument was reliable in the context of this study as well. following creswell (2014) and yin (2014), i took ethical issues into account and respect for the privacy of the participants and sites was paramount. the ethical clearance approval was obtained from the sampled institution and a consent form was signed by the participants prior to completing the survey. survey participants, focus groups interviewees, as well as lesson plans were assigned unique numbers in the study to protect the names of the participants and their institution. jita: exploring pre-service teachers’ opportunities to learn . . . 79 data analysis data was analysed according to a mixed analysis methodology. the quantitative data was cleaned, coded and entered into an excel spreadsheet and then analysed using the sas software (sas, 2013). the initial descriptive analysis aimed to report on the frequencies of exposure to opportunities before qualifying as a teacher. descriptive statistics presented data for all survey participants (n=103) with no inferences (see cohen et al., 2011). in the qualitative phase, all lesson plans submitted were copied and the originals returned to the students. the information from each lesson plan was manually entered in an excel sheet and coded as displayed in table 1 below. table 1: lesson planning form analysis lesson plan phase (grade) which ict tools are commonly used how ict tool(s) was (were) to be used lp1 sp (8) powerpoint lesson presentation lp2 sp (8) scratch pad not indicated lp4 ip (4) pictures, projectors, computer lesson presentation lp6 sp (8) powerpoint with pictures lesson presentation lp 7 fet (11) word document/worksheet learner engagement lp 8 ip (4) pictures learner engagement lp 10 fet (11) images from the textbook copied lesson presentation lp 11 fet (11) laptop and projector, video whiteboard. lesson presentation lp 12 fet (11) video & projector lesson presentation lp 14* fet (10) laptop and projector, hand out, chart lesson presentation lp 18 fet (10) slides lesson presentation lp 19 fet (10) hand outs learner engagement lp 20 fet (10) hand outs learner engagement lp21 fet (11) word document/worksheet lesson presentation lp 23 sp (8) projector lesson presentation lp 25 fet (11) hand out, projector learner engagement lp 26* fet (11) video & slides lesson presentation lp 28 sp (7) hand outs, pictures learner engagement lp 30 fet (11) poster presentation lp 31 fet (11) n/a lp 32 fet (11) hand outs presentation lp 33 fet (11) n/a *lesson plans with missing information such the name of the school, date on which the lesson was used were removed from data capturing. 80 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 the interview transcripts from the audiotapes were coded and categorised into various themes for developing the narrative accounts and then compared with notes taken during the interviews. the analysis followed a “side-by-side approach where the two types of data collected were analysed separately and brought together in the convergent parallel design” (creswell, 2014, p. 222). the initial combined data sources for the study were from a survey and focus group interviews; lesson plans analysis was further included in order to corroborate the claims and for validity and reliability purposes. through a clear coding system and involvement of multi-method strategy during the analyses of the collected data, triangulation was implemented (see creswell, 2014). the use of different data collection and analysis strategies complemented each other in answering the research question posed. results preservice teachers’ ict knowledge and skills pre-service teachers’ otl to use icts was explored through the survey and triangulation was done with the focus group interviews. the survey required final year pre-service teachers to indicate whether they completed any of the computer related modules offered in the teachers’ education programme. results from the survey show that most of the participants (n=99 or 96.12%) seem to have had opportunities to complete computer-related modules and only a few (n=4 or 3.88%) had not received such opportunities in their teacher education programme. it turned out that the few students who had not completed ict related modules had had the opportunity to learn such skills outside of the programme. these results of 3.88% (n=4) were confirmed by one participant who, when asked during the focus group interviews, “what module prepared you more to start using ict tools or resources at the university?” responded, at the university, i did not take any computer course. there was a promotional test. i also got a chance to write that test and i was also promoted coming with my own basic knowledge on the use of computers. (group four, 17) in this excerpt, the participant emphasises that he had learned ict skills on his own. in this instance, there would have been no need for such otl. i further examined the sources of the pre-service teachers’ ict skills and knowledge in order to find out where ict skills were learned. scores were assigned to the likert scale options as follows: “a great deal” (4); “great extent” (3); “some extent” (2); “little bit” (1) and “not at all” (0). the results from the survey are displayed in table 2. table 2: sources of ict skills items mean sd from a school or schoolmate 2,03 1,16 jita: exploring pre-service teachers’ opportunities to learn . . . 81 from university/college class 3,02 0,92 from a friend and/or family members 1,81 1,22 on my own 2,81 1,03 other, please list: 0,09 0,53 table 2 shows data as closely distributed, with a small variation in the standard deviation from 0.53 to 1.22. the source with the highest mean being “from university” (m=3.02) followed by “on my own” with a mean of: m=2.81 while the unspecified other has a very low mean value of 0.09. the results were also confirmed in the focus group interviews when participants were asked, “what do you think prepared you more to start using ict tools or resources in the first place?” most of the responses identified the university as a source of their ict skills as explained by one of the participants, i only started working on computers when i got to the university because of a lack of resources at my schools. (group one, 2) overall, almost all the participants in the focus group interviews concurred that the university was a major source of their ict skills, even those participants who had an ict skills background from school confirmed that the university resources assisted them to fine-tune their ict skills. this observation therefore seems to confirm the argument that the teacher education programme plays an important role in equipping pre-service teachers with ict skills competence (twining, raffaghelli, albion, & knezek 2013). evidently, according to the present case study, the programme turned out to be a major contributor to providing preservice teachers with the required otl in terms of knowledge and skills. whether those otl were adequate to enable them to teach science through icts during teaching practice became the subject of further analysis in this study. teaching practice experiences the lesson plans used during teaching practice were examined line-by-line, to determine which ict tools were to be used and how they would be used. when considering the categories or themes of the data in a lesson plan, i made cross-reference to the responses from the focus group interviews to verify implementation during teaching practice as planned (see table 3). table 3: frequency of ict tools per participant and per lesson plan ict tools number of times in which icts were mentioned per participant during the focus group interviews per lesson plan form submitted 82 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 internet 11 0 mobile technology 6 0 projector 8 8 printer 9 9 multimedia 15 5 standard applications (e.g. word document) 2 4 computers 6 3 the evidence in table 3 suggests that multimedia, such as videos, audio, and youtube were the most frequently mentioned icts, followed by the internet; both tools were mentioned in all 4 focus group interviews. multimedia was mentioned 15 times in the focus group interviews while in the lesson plan they were mentioned only 5 times. the internet was mentioned 11 times as a basic tool for searching information during lesson preparation, but it was not mentioned at all in the lesson plans as an ict tool for teaching science content. the tabulated evidence also demonstrates that printers and projectors were as commonly used as described in the focus group interviews and lesson plans. while printers serve mainly an administrative role, they contribute to effective delivery of quality lessons as diagrams, tasks, and notes can be captured beforehand to allow the teachers to focus more on conceptual development instead of note-taking or reproducing diagrams to scale, for example. in terms of otl, these less specialised tools help to free up more time and space for content development during the science lesson. further evidence suggested that printers might be readily available even in the schools with fewer ict resources. for instance, one of the participants reported, teachers handwrote the tests and the tests were then photocopied. i also made one copy on campus and made more copies at school for my class. (group two, 4) it is interesting to note that the use of mobile technology was commonly mentioned in all the focus group interviews as a common personal device used for lesson preparation and “enhancing knowledge” for pre-service teachers. the mobile devices were also frequently used for communicating with peers but they were not mentioned at all in the lesson plan forms. for example, one participant explained, i use my phone, my usb cable and stored the information to print at school and also used a friend’s laptop (group one, 3). jita: exploring pre-service teachers’ opportunities to learn . . . 83 clearly, the respondents appear to have understated the use of such mobile devices to facilitate their teaching in the lesson plans, even though the interviews suggest otherwise. the use of mobile devices may have become so routine that the pre-service teachers do not see it as an innovation or an instance of using icts for classroom improvement. the use of standard ict tools such as ms word documents and excel sheets seem to have been used exclusively to prepare a lesson and for administrative purposes, and less for conceptual development and content exposition. the standard applications were pointed out as mostly used by mentors, only after the researcher specifically asked participants whether they had ever used the specific data management tools and how they had used them, if at all. two participants reported, i have seen teachers use excel to record information like test results. i used the word document once that is when i was displaying the rules of the lab, i wrote them on the microsoft word and then i printed them out and i displayed it in the class (group four, 17). i used a word document to set up the multiple-choice quiz and to assess the learners. teachers used excel for the attendance register (group three, 7). again, these icts seem to have been commonly used for data management and/or administrative purposes as opposed to facilitating content exposition. it is possible for such tools to be used for content development, for example when a teacher uses an excel file to record and analyse data from a microbial growth experiment and show the plot from such data to illustrate an exponential growth phase. word documents can also be used to prepare draft reports and to run word searches in conceptual development. it is interesting to note that these and other ict tools, as discussed above, which seem to have been used during teaching practice were not mentioned at all in the lesson plans. it could be that this is just an honest omission by pre-service teachers in their lesson plans though the planning and the teaching of the lesson is supposed to go together. an important message from this data is that it may be important for lesson plan templates that are used by pre-service teachers to state clearly the need for the plans to include all ict tools used, both for administrative purposes and for content exposition, in more explicit terms. notably though, none of the ict tools that were identified in the lesson plans and focus group interviews were specialised tools specifically developed for teaching science topics. the use of multimedia such as videos, audio, and youtube were mentioned 15 times in the conversations during the focus group interviews (see table 3) and were mostly related to the teaching of specific topics. for example, these participants pointed out, i used the school’s internet to search and show learners for videos on youtube while the learners watched on the screen. for example, i showed them different types of joints (group two, 6). i also used internet and watched a video on youtube on the process of photosynthesis (group three, 7). 84 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 the use of videos to deliver science content seems to be a common ict tool among the science pre-service teachers to enhance their knowledge and for teaching. the use of videos and audio can offer exciting opportunities for pre-service teachers in preparing them to be innovative teachers (see hartsell & yuen, 2006; mccullagh, bell & corscadden, 2013). discussion the main goal of this study was to explore pre-service teachers’ otl to teach science through icts prior to and during teaching practice. the otl framework guided the study in terms of examining the balance between exposure, variety, and time available to practice with the icts. however, i note that teaching practice placement has variations in terms of quality on the use of icts for teaching and learning science in the classrooms. different school placements lead to different experiences in mentorship and available resources for the preservice teachers, which, in turn. lead to variations in competence. these results are similar to those of the comparative study by schmidt et al. (2011), in which variations were observed even within the teacher education programmes from the same country. thus, there seems to be sizeable variations in the preparation of teachers from the same institution, based on their otl to teach science content with ict. in this case study, teaching practice seems to account for the variations in otl and, thus, competence. all participants in the study did their teaching practice in public schools, although the schools varied in terms of their socioeconomic status (ses). schools in south africa are categorised into quintiles 1, 2 or 3, which denote schools of low ses, and quintiles 4 and 5 that denote higher ses schools. for example, one of the participants who was placed in a quintile 2 school, a township school, described her school context thus: the situation was very much bad in that other school because they do not have much resources comparing to the last school i did my teaching practice. they do have a computer lab but it is not accessible, it is always locked. they do have projectors, but they said to us we will not be able to use projectors, since their walls are a little bit darker and also there are some stuff on the walls, so they say we must rely only on the textbooks and some additional sources. my friend used his own projector but when he was projecting nothing appeared there. it was disruptive or distracting to the students. (group four, 17) based on the results of the analyses of lesson plans and the focus group interviews, the variations in the otl to use icts for subject teaching may be a result of the lack of standard requirements for noting icts in the lesson plans and perhaps the lack of appropriate ict resources in some of the teaching practice schools. thus, it important for teacher education programmes to conduct situation analyses of the teaching practice schools before placing preservice teachers, and partner with schools in offering ict support to provide equal otl to all preservice teachers to use the ict tools during teaching practice. on the question of how icts are used by pre-service teachers during teaching practice, i argue that the use is highly dependent on at least two major factors: the school’s ict jita: exploring pre-service teachers’ opportunities to learn . . . 85 situation; and the support or lack thereof from the mentor teachers. the findings suggest that in some of the schools there was absence of otl or limited access to ict tools or facilities to give pre-service teachers’ otl through icts. given that many schools in south africa, irrespective of quantile, have been provided with computers, tablets, and other ict devices through programmes such as the south african schoolnet, donations from the shuttleworth foundation, and ict for rural development education (ict4red) just to mention a few (assan & thomas, 2012; dzansi & kofi, 2014). therefore, i continue to draw attention to the fact that it is the absence of otl rather than mere presence or absence of icts that sometimes lead to the failure of ict integration in subject teaching in schools. previous studies have confirmed the observation that many universities tend to invest generously in icts, partly to prepare their students to be globally competitive and relevant for twenty-first century careers (goktas, yildirim, & yildirim, 2009; haydn, 2014; ufs, 2015; valtonen et al., 2015). the findings in this study thus go beyond the general findings about the state of readiness by universities to unpack the various otl about the use of icts that are orchestrated within the various programmes including teacher education programme. in this study i have shown that otl to use icts for subject teaching is not only limited to oncampus readiness and faculty resources but include the need to pay attention to other resources and opportunities available during school placement. if teaching practice is an important component of the teacher education programme, then its resourcing in terms of competent staff and ict resources in this case is as important. conclusion the use of icts in daily life and the economy have led to major developments and changes across the world. yet, the use of icts remains a significant challenge for many teachers in schools and this creates a digital divide that threatens social justice and democracy in general but also presents a challenge to future teachers as they graduate and compete for jobs in the twenty-first century. in this study i aimed to establish the levels of knowledge and skills of pre-service teachers regarding ict tools that are appropriate for teaching science during teaching practice in relation to the otl provided through the teacher education programme. evidently, a vision and comprehensive plan specifically for ict integration into subject teaching is necessary. it is important that teacher education programmes continue to play a crucial role in giving student teachers otl to use ict tools for subject teaching during teaching practice. methods-based courses in the teacher education programme are not enough and we need to design lesson plan templates deliberately and carefully so that they encourage pre-service teachers to include ict tools from the beginning stages of their training. more importantly, teacher education programmes need to be deliberate about selecting functional schools, with basic resources for teaching practice placement, and with consideration of the availability of basic ict infrastructure and supportive mentors. functional schools that would be able to provide necessary and appropriate support for teaching science with icts, if not for all subjects, need to be identified across all communities, including in rural and lowsocioeconomic settings. in some cases, it may be possible for universities and teacher education programmes to become catalysts in providing the required infrastructure, such as 86 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 laptops and other small or transferable ict devices to facilitate otl using icts and content development through partnerships with schools and industry. the role of teacher education programme in preparing future teachers to be systematically competent in the use of icts for subject teaching largely depends on the available otl including the opportunities provided by the teaching practice placement. acknowledgement support was received from the national research foundation (nrf) via thuthuka grant # ttk150617119570. references abedi, j. & herman, j. 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(1995). teacher reports on opportunity to learn: analyses of the 1993 california learning assessment system (clas). educational evaluation and policy analysis, 17(3), 355–370. journal of education, 2017 issue 69, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za “squeezed oranges?”: xhosa secondary school female teachers in township schools remember their learning about sexuality to reimagine their teaching sexuality education nomawonga msutwana and naydene de lange (received 13 february 2017; accepted 10 july 2017) abstract several concurrent and complex issues seem to influence the teaching of sexuality education in south african schools. studies have shown that teachers believe they can teach the subject as they have the content knowledge of sexuality education, but experience discomfort when they actually begin the task. we were therefore interested in understanding their perspectives on their own learning about sexuality within their xhosa culture. working with 9 purposively selected female xhosa teachers from 4 secondary schools in townships in port elizabeth, we used participatory visual methodology, located within a critical paradigm, generating data with them through drawing. the data was analysed using thematic analysis. the findings show that the women teachers largely learnt about sexuality through piecing together the ‘puzzle’ of limited information from various quarters; through strict rules and fear; through own mistakes and through shame. this remembering facilitated ideas to rethink and reimagine sexuality education, drawing the value-laden xhosa cultural teachings about sexuality into contemporary sexuality education. the participatory visual research process enabled a deep and open engagement, and in more than one way the claiming back of power, demonstrating a way to engage today’s xhosa adolescents on matters of sexuality. introduction school is positioned as the logical site for clear, evidential, age-specific knowledge about sexuality and reproductive health (francis, 2010; goldman, 2012). in spite of schools offering sexuality education, a research review cited by pound, langford and campbell (2016) acknowledges that for young people the present school sex and sexuality education is perceived to be negative, is based on heteronormativity, does not speak to adolescents’ life-worlds and is taught by poorly trained, embarrassed teachers. reality is 212 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 that risky and sometimes violent sexual behaviour among adolescents does not seem to be abating in south africa (health, 2016; stats sa, 2012). we therefore draw on moletsane’s argument that something different is required, a “reimagined sexuality education that utilises the contradictions and ambivalences of past and contemporary south africa and that creatively looks ahead … towards interventions that might address the actual needs of the target group” (moletsane, 2011, p. 205). similarly, van dyk (2001) suggests that africa should look into her own past and bring in some of the ways it used to ensure safe (and healthy) sexuality. the supposition of researchers like barr (2008) and anderson and beutel (2007), where the latter say that “hiv and aids education might be more successful if tailored to specific racial or ethnic groups” (p.143), encourages this study. also, according to eisner (1985) who refers to views of education scholars such as william pinar, max van manen and madeline grumet, personal relevance in the school curriculum is essential. structured opportunities for culturally relevant and scientifically accurate knowledge as a key part of hiv prevention and sexuality education can and should be provided at school (unesco, 2009; wood, 2009a; zuilkowski & jukes, 2012). it shouldn’t be biased knowledge, like that which the male teacher of one of the participants provided, when he said that girls are like squeezed oranges when they have had sex (and have lost their virginity) – they are useless and nobody would want them. it is therefore necessary that teachers who teach sexuality-related topics understand their own sexuality, how they learnt it, and how such knowledge could enable them to teach the adolescents in their classes in an authentic way. in this article the following question is therefore posed: what are xhosa life orientation (lo), life sciences (ls) and natural sciences (ns) secondary school teachers’ perspectives of learning about their own sexuality within their xhosa culture? teaching sexuality education although the south african government formulated policies to be implemented by teachers to address hiv and aids through the related sexuality education, a policy/practice challenge continues to exist. a policy usually provides guidelines on a philosophical and content level, while teachers have to implement the fairly abstract guidelines on a practical level. for example, the curriculum assessment policy statements (department of basic education, 2011a,b,c,d) for life orientation, life sciences and natural msutwana and de lange: “squeezed oranges. . .” 213 sciences provide guidelines for teachers to teach sexuality and sex education, yet studies show that teachers struggle to implement them (ferreira & ebersöhn, 2011). harley, barasa, bertram, mattson and pillay (2000) hold that policy describes the work for the ideal teacher but does not take into account the real teacher and the cultural and material constraints imposed by classroom realities. as noted in the review of sexuality education studies by pound et al. (2016), south african authors helleve, flisher, onya, mukoma and klepp (2009), macleod (2016) and mclaughlin, swartz, kiragu, walli and mohammed (2012) also attest to the fact that teachers find it difficult to take on the work of teaching some of the content knowledge of sexuality education. however, glover and macleod (2016) note that the teacher’s confidence in teaching sexuality issues improves with experience in teaching the subject, with formal ‘training’, with the increase in openness on sexuality issues, and within an in-school ‘nurtured’ policy. msila and gumbo’s (2016) claim that “whilst africans cannot ignore the western belief systems, africans will be stronger if they start by describing their own environment, even for the formal ‘western’ education” (p. iii), should be taken into consideration. this suggested undertaking requires what darder, baltodano and torres (2009) term “… an emancipatory vision and practice of critical pedagogy” (p. 24). critical pedagogy can be seen as a teaching and learning approach in which teachers and learners learn together by challenging existing dominant perceptions. placing this study within the african and south african context, we have identified a few of the many authors and researchers on sexuality, such as becker (2007), delius and glaser (2002), moletsane (2011; 2014) and steyn and van zyl (2009), who all confirm a seeming silence in communicating about sexual matters in contemporary african cultures as opposed to precolonial times. this silence seems to be a justification for the lack of adults engaging appropriately with their children about sexual matters. this prohibition, acknowledged by depalma and francis (2014), about sex and sexuality in several south african cultures, makes both teachers and learners guarded and unable to engage authentically on issues of culture, sexuality and hiv and aids. although the rules that govern sexual behaviour differ widely across and within cultures (unesco, 2009), all people are cultural beings in the sense that everyone is influenced by an infinite number of social forces that have shaped a person’s mental outlook and perspectives on life (tamale, 2008). 214 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 mbananga’s (2004) study of xhosa high school teachers in mthatha, for example, clearly points out that culture (as it is understood in contemporary xhosa society), can contribute to tensions that surface when having to teach sexuality education due to intergenerational issues. according to mbananga (2004, p. 153) the xhosa teachers were “wearing masks” when it came to teaching adolescent learners about sexuality and reproduction. they took on a technical, moralistic and superficial stance when approaching the subject (macleod, 2016). this implies that educators teach sexuality in the curriculum by prescribing to the learners how to behave, instead of engaging in a participatory manner with the learners. a question arises about how to present a curriculum regarding sexuality in a manner which will be enabling to teachers and learners alike. the recent media uproar about a grade 10 life orientation textbook, in which the rape of a girl is framed as being her fault, is a demonstration of how an uncritical text also perpetuates sociostereotypical views on matters regarding sexuality (health-e news, 2016). it is therefore necessary to explore how xhosa culture – which is also the first author’s culture influences the manner in which curricula relating to sexuality is taught by female xhosa teachers in the context of secondary schools in a township. the invitation to participate in the study was open to both male and female teachers, but only women were willing to join this journey, bringing an interesting focus. in this article we first outline the theoretical lens which we used to make meaning of the findings, followed by an explaination of the methodology. we then offer the findings and the discussion thereof. theoretical framework it is through a lens of critical theory (specifically its subsidiary feminist theory) that literature on sexuality education and its curriculum, and xhosa cultural perspectives on the teachers’ learning about sexuality are examined and the data analysed. critical theory refers to both a school of thought and a process of critique; on the one hand it points to an essential body of thought of educational theorists and on the other it refers to a body of work that calls for the need to continually critique the world being studied against presented reality (giroux, 2009). giroux claims that critical theory posits that it is “in the contradictions of society that one could begin to develop forms of social inquiry that analysed the distinction between what is and what should be” msutwana and de lange: “squeezed oranges. . .” 215 (giroux, 2009, p. 28). this critical orientation is a perspective that seeks to challenge conservative practices in the teaching and learning environment and to find alternative democratic pedagogies that can shift relations of power and voice (darder et al., 2009). this is in line with the critical paradigm within which this study is located. teachers are enabled to disrupt and transgress the hegemonic expectations of the curriculum; both the ‘official’ and ‘enacted’ curriculum. as darder et al. (2009) postulate “… teachers learn to assess inequalities in their lives and question the notions of common sense that perpetuate our cultural, linguistic, economic, gendered and sexual subordination” (p. 23). darder et al. (2009) point out that critical theory is criticised because it is said that it leaves unchallenged the unjust “structures of patriarchy in society and the sexual politics that obstruct the participation of women as full and equal contributing members of society” that it is supposed to disrupt (pp. 14–15). this critique motivated the use of another theoretical lens for this study; feminist theory. carlson and ray (2011) posit that feminist theories are used to “explain how institutions operate with normative gendered assumptions and selectively reward or punish gendered practices” (n. p.). this basis makes feminist theory a ‘just’ abstract of critical theory to inform this study. feminist theory in this study includes drawing on personal narratives (the women’s cultural stories of learning about sexuality) and feminist remembering (mitchell, 2012, p.1), and a rethinking of authority (reclaiming women’s power to reimagine the curriculum), within the historical and political context of women as knowing subjects (having insider cultural knowledge to be used in rethinking the teaching of sexuality education underpinned by their xhosa culture). research design and methodology we chose to use a qualitative design within the critical paradigm, employing participatory visual methodology to explore the participants’ life worlds (understanding their reality) – the female xhosa teachers teaching sexuality education in port elizabeth’s township secondary schools. we also wanted the research process to enable the participant teachers to consider how they could transform how things are, following the critical paradigm (taylor, 2013). participatory visual methodology was used as it enables a process of reflection and action by the participants (cornwall & jewkes, 2010). 216 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 participants the teachers were purposively selected from four secondary schools in townships in port elizabeth. we conveniently selected the four schools whose management team was welcoming the invitation to be part of the research. the invitation was open to all teachers, male and female, who teach either life orientation, life sciences or natural sciences. only nine female teachers volunteered. they were all xhosa women, between the ages 42 and 55 and all were qualified to teach their subject. data generation method – drawing drawing is a relatively simple and inexpensive method that can be a highly participatory and a potentially powerful force for policy and social change (de lange, mitchell & stuart, 2011), and was used to explore how the teachers themselves learnt about sexuality when they were growing up. they responded to the following prompt: “draw how you learnt about your sexuality when you were growing up. the quality of your picture is not important. write a brief explanation of your drawing.” the teachers were given 15 minutes to make a drawing – using pen and a sheet of a4 paper – and write a caption. they then explained their drawings to the others in the group. this served as the first layer of analysis. the drawings, captions and their explanations were analysed using thematic analysis (braun & clarke, 2006). a code-recode procedure was used and we held a consensus discussion with the supervisor. i, the first author, acknowledge that i came into this study with an emic perspective of the phenomenon under study in that i, a xhosa woman, had been a life orientation teacher in secondary schools in townships within the nelson mandela metropole. however, drawings and direct quotations are used to carefully represent the participants’ voice, respecting their viewpoints and ensuring integrity of the data. there was adherence to quality standards of trustworthiness and authenticity (guba, 1981). authenticity was ensured as we did not impose our own views when participants reflected on their own learning about sexuality, but listened attentively. in terms of ethics, ethical clearance was gained from the msutwana and de lange: “squeezed oranges. . .” 217 university, and informed consent was sought before partcipants embarked on this research journey. due to the sensitive nature of the phenomenon under study, the first author arranged with the university’s psychological support services to make themselves available to any participants who needed them. we adopted the philosophy of equal researcher-participant relations. the participants agreed that all their data (visual and verbal), may be shared. findings four themes were developed from the data, i.e., the xhosa women learnt about sexuality through piecing together limited information from various sources; through the strict rules made by the parents and teachers and which instilled fear; through learning the hard way from own mistakes; and through the lens of shame. we present each theme by beginning with a brief conceptualisation of the theme, then provide a relevant drawing that best explains the theme, which is followed by direct quotations and meaning-making of the theme. theme one: learning through piecing the ‘puzzle’ together the xhosa women felt they were not provided with either appropriate or adequate guidance where sexuality was concerned in spite of gaining knowledge from different avenues. the following are some of the many avenues from which they made meaning of sexuality; i.e. from the little talk about sexuality at home and from whoever was parenting them, from those in their friend zone, from some concerned teachers at school, from those at church, and also the media. it seemed that they had to piece the puzzle together on their own about sex and about expressing sexuality. a natural science teacher made the following drawing showing how her learning about sexuality was piecemeal, coming from the home, school, church and friends. 218 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 figure 1: a drawing depicting a teacher’s learning experience regarding sexuality although some xhosa women indicated that they had some talk at home, it was limited to selected aspects of sexuality, largely menstruation, and then in a very superficial way, leaving the relationship between menstruation and pregnancy unattended to. another teacher explained as follows: “in this picture there is me, there’s home, there’s community, there’s school. and then, what i’ve learnt from home, what i was taught at home: there was not much information that i would get. i was just told when i started menstruating; ‘you see now. . . because you are menstruating, should you have a boyfriend, you are going to fall pregnant.’ that’s the only thing i was told.” msutwana and de lange: “squeezed oranges. . .” 219 some of the xhosa women were not raised by their parents, as the parent or parents were either working in the big city, deceased or had deliberately walked out on the family. “i grew up in a family where my father was working in johannesburg and i stayed with my mother at home and my father used to come back during the easters and december, so i saw him twice a year.” “i grew up with my grandfather, my mother was not there. . . .” “i grew with my mother’s friend in transkei, then moved to my father’s wife, to my uncle. so was moving up and down.” so the substitute parent, relative or guardian, in the absence of a parent, might have offered bits of sexuality-related information or not. like any adolescent these xhosa women also remembered how they wanted to hang out with their friends, but they were xhosa and growing up in a xhosa community and had lots of chores to do or had to stay inside the yard. “in our community there were many girls that go out as friends but i remember when now we were not allowed to go out like go to films and everything that we would sit in the yard behind the closed gate. . . .” they however had enough time with friends at school where they talked about things adolescents are curious about, also about sex and sexuality. the participants learnt about sexuality from the stories of their friends, some of the learned information was correct, some inaccurate and but altogether left some gaps. “and then at school, the bigger girls that were with us in class, they would talk about stuff, in class and in break. and they would say ‘share your story your story, don’t just listen to us, what’s happening in your own life, don’t just listen and say nothing’. and from that information also i know that some of the stuff that was shared was not correct. so there is some correct stuff that i’ve learnt. but there was also a lot of gaps from the information that i got.” not all the xhosa women learnt about sexuality in school, as sexuality was not in the curriculum, but some of their teachers took it upon themselves to 220 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 guide the girls where sexuality was concerned. because of that some of the participants preferred school over home. “so she took me to a boarding school and i think that’s where i got a lot of information from my consumer studies teacher. she used to tell us about how to behave as a girl and decision making and she introduced us into this menstruation stuff, to me school was better than home, home it was like a prison.. . .” the christian church played a big role in the lives of these xhosa women, and in one instance they pointed to how space was provided for girls – within the church structures – to talk about sexuality and about being a woman. in the church they also saw that women and girls and men and boys sat separately, as if to support the idea of difference between the sexes, and also to keep them apart. in some instances the church prescribed how adolescents (and others) should behave. “i think church played a big role in my life and there are those sessions for girls ministry whereby we talk as girls and the visions that we have how many children that we want to have, you want to keep your virginity and you just have a picture when you get married, how is it going to be sleeping for the first time. . ..” there was also learning about sexuality from the media when these women were growing up. one xhosa woman referred to watching a television programme where the male character was kissing a woman, although she learnt from it, she pointed out that that was westernized behaviour. this statement might imply that there was an african (or xhosa) way of enacting sexuality. “i would say more on sexuality level, the influence was through the media. i remember at my mother’s work while i am sitting with my mother’s boss, watching knight rider and in it this particular lady in the film, there would be a romantic part and when they are kissing you go like this, so it is not so much of an influence from outside because i grew up in a more westernized society.” the piecemeal knowledge seemed to leave the participants unequipped to express their sexuality in a relationship, and so did not know how to deal with conflicting feelings, or that such feelings were normal. msutwana and de lange: “squeezed oranges. . .” 221 “. . .but this boyfriend of mine expected me to say yes i love you, but those words couldn’t come out of my mouth i couldn’t say them, i was shy but inside. . ..” theme two: learning through strict rules and fear the xhosa women teachers talked about how their upbringing was characterised by prescriptive and restrictive rules, in the home and at school. according to them a xhosa home run and conducted according to strict rules had prestige in the community. breaking the rules (by having sex and becoming pregnant) would ruin the family prestige and so fear was instilled to ensure that the girls police their own behaviour under the surveillance of the family and community. a life sciences teacher made the following drawing of herself and her boyfriend going to the bioscope, with some friends in couples surrounding them, depicting how she did not know how to express her love and how she was afraid to do so. figure 2: a participant’s drawing depicting her own learning about sexuality 222 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 the strictness of their xhosa mothers at home is seen in what they permitted the children to do and not to do. for example, the children were not allowed to play outside the yard lest they do something that is not right and get into trouble: “my mother was very strict it was even difficult to go and play with other children so i was always at home if it’s not home its church, if it’s not church i am in town with her.” in the xhosa home, there was restricted movement for the growing children put in place by the parents which, in some cases, caused the children’s humiliation. “in our community there were many girls that go out as friends but i remember when now we were not allowed to go out like go to films and everything that we would sit in the yard behind the closed gates and i remember those that were passing by in a space (we call it a square), we would say it’s a gap, so everybody would laugh at us and say ‘hey, they are dogs of the yard’….” sometimes it was an instruction that evoked the fear. in a xhosa home there was less dialogue and the common thing to do was to be commanding when dealing with sexuality matters. “should you have a boyfriend, you are going to fall pregnant”. at other times the fear was so real that it affected the growing young woman’s life. being brought up by a guardian meant that the child had to think twice about things that would affect the dynamics in the household. “it was my aunt who played the role of being a mother to me because my mother passed on when i was only 8 years old. . . . so she was the one who showed me, ‘you see, what will happen, when you get pregnant, i will not take care of your child because i am taking care of you.’ so i was so afraid to get pregnant in a very big way. i was really afraid because i thought; ‘what will happen to the child’. as a result, i got children when i was very old. my first child, i think i was about going to my 30s i think”. msutwana and de lange: “squeezed oranges. . .” 223 a teacher, in trying to talk about sexuality, used the analogy of a “squeezed orange” (see figure 2) which managed to evoke some fear in the young women learners. the teacher said that once squeezed the orange becomes useless, so a girl having sex with a boy loses her value. “. . .there was a teacher by the name of mr z. he used to tell us that ‘you girls must know that you are like an orange. you see the orange. . .. you don’t open an orange and cut it, you squeeze the orange, and you take that juice, if you have boyfriends you will be like that orange. once that juice is taken out of that orange, nobody wants that orange’. so at the end of the day i told myself that, no ways i can’t be like that orange and be thrown away and not be wanted by anyone. so we had those fears of not being those oranges and be squeezed.” it is a worrying analogy in that besides negatively focusing on only the girl, it takes away from sex as a pleasurable act between consenting individuals. theme three: learning the hard way some xhosa women learnt about sexuality from being confronted with having to act or make a decision regarding sexuality. the xhosa girls were not enabled to be proactive with regard to their sexuality, they were living the submissiveness that they were expected to in contemporary xhosa culture, and hence found themselves to have kissed and have had sex without planning nor contemplating it. a life orientation teacher made the following drawing of herself as a free spirit in learning about sexuality since she grew up as an only child to a travelling single mother. 224 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 figure 3: a drawing showing the participant’s learning about sexuality “i learnt about sexuality when i first developed feelings, emotions and i remember on this one friday i met polo, there was a time i grew up in limpopo and polo proposed to me and i said yes, the chemistry was so strong it was 30 minutes of hugging and kissing just so tight but thanks god that nothing happened.” a xhosa girl learnt from her own negative experience from being coerced into sex. at another time she was with a boyfriend and was ‘persuaded’ or forced to have sex. “and then i met this guy i think i was probably 19, it was my first time to have sex. i would like to say this that being girl meeting someone you don’t need them with the intention to have sex, you just don’t know what msutwana and de lange: “squeezed oranges. . .” 225 is going to happen when they invite you over, you go over to their place as a friend as a girlfriend not knowing that they are gonna say you can come into my room, and from there they say (kaloku)… then you move from one corner of the bed to the other trying to avoid this up until it happens and you realize only later but that was not my will, and i never said yes.” theme four: learning through shame everyone in the xhosa community was expected to rebuke youths engaging in sex as it was not embraced and was seen as shameful. any deviance from the rules at home and in the community was treated harshly, shaming the girl who became pregnant, stripping her of dignity as she would not be given voice. for instance, she would be compelled to let her child grow up as if he or she was her parents’ child and sometimes not be allowed to tell her child who the biological parents were. a natural sciences teacher made the following drawing of a pregnant teen and two children having sex in depicting how she learnt about sexuality. 226 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 figure 4: a participant’s drawing of her own learning about sexuality sex was referred to as ‘something dirty’ (izinto ezimdaka) which is an indication that sex was not viewed positively nor embraced. it was the same with teen pregnancy, it brought great shame to the girl as well as her family. this is not uncommon in xhosa culture where intimacy and sex are treated as very private things. msutwana and de lange: “squeezed oranges. . .” 227 “ . . .in our culture . . . sex is ‘izinto ezimdaka’ translated in english as ‘something that is very dirty’ and that is what we call it in our culture, and we were raised to call it like that because we take it from our parents even if the small boy sees the others doing sex they will run and say mother those two are doing something dirty; sex is referred to as something that is dirty.” “ i grew up without knowing my father because it was a shameful thing [for my mother] to get pregnant while you are not married. it would not be talked about in the family, and when you ask your mother who your father is, she won’t tell you, she will go into the grave without telling you. it will be a secret in the family.” the four themes collectively shed light on what these xhosa women teachers remembered about their own learning about sexuality during their adolescent years. we draw on the themes to tease out what their remembering might mean in terms of their reimagining teaching sexuality education to the adolescents in their classes. discussion although sexuality education was not part of the school curriculum when the participants grew up, they did learn about sexuality from different sources, often leaving them with inadequate knowledge on how to avoid risk and how to express healthy sexuality. sexuality education, as we know it today in south africa, came with the revised national curriculum statement (rncs) (ramrathan, 2015) requiring teachers to engage with the curriculum and teach it to the children in their classes. we pointed out that most teachers struggle to teach sexuality education and so following moletsane (2011) we tried to explore whether enabling the xhosa women teachers to draw on their own personal and cultural knowledge of learning about sexuality might yield some insights into how they might reimagine teaching sexuality education to the xhosa adolescents currently in their classes. although we used a participatory method such as drawing which enabled a deep engagement with and reflection on the topic, and while the xhosa women thought critically about their own learning about sexuality, we did not seem to get to a specific culturally informed and culturally sensitive way of teaching sexuality education for the target group, i.e. modern day xhosa adolescents in secondary schools in townships. 228 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 considering the socio-historical context of south africa, black african people’s beliefs about sexuality have been contoured by colonisation and its western thought, christianity, apartheid and its philosophy of separate development, and urbanisation, diluting the strengths of indigenous cultures. this left indigenous people, in this instance, xhosa people, having to contend with tensions and contradictions, and the loss of openness with which sexuality was handled (delius & glaser, 2002; 2004; dickinson, 2014; mudhovozi, ramarumo & sodi, 2012). it was thus not strange to find that there was limited talk about sexuality when these xhosa women were adolescents, as contemporary (xhosa) culture still makes it difficult to talk about such matters (delius & glaser, 2002; wood, 2009b). in the xhosa culture difference in age between an adolescent and an adult places restrictions on what could be said to the adolescent who needs to be taught about sexuality, limiting the discussion of sexuality. as such the notion of intergenerationality (hunting, 2012; moolman, 2013) explains such limited talk about sexuality. culture, drawing on patriarchy, also influences the behaviour of boys and men and girls and women worldwide, also the xhosa people (chabaya, rembe, wadesango & mafanya, 2009). the xhosa adolescents should thus have learnt about their roles and about sexuality at home and at initiation schools. delius and glaser (2002), however, point out that initiation schools had begun disintegrating also because black africans began embracing city life. there was no direct substitute for the teaching done at the initiation schools, leaving the adolescents on their own to figure out how to express their sexuality. sexuality, in most cultures, also the xhosa culture, is considered to be an area for adults only and from which children, who are seen to be innocent, need to be protected (beyers, 2013; robinson & davies, 2008). strict rules and instilling fear regarding sexuality is then a way to try to keep them from engaging in sex. parents and teachers alike often take a technical and moralistic stance when addressing sexuality matters (macleod, 2016) avoiding engaging with the matter in an appropriate way. xhosa adolescents might have accepted the directives and restrictions from the parents rather than dare be disrespectful. this respect for older people is called ukuhlonipha in isixhosa (mkhwanazi, 2014). adherence to the ideals of ukuhlonipha is alleged to be one of the causes behind girls falling pregnant in townships (mkhwanazi, 2014) and women and girls being at the receiving end of sexual msutwana and de lange: “squeezed oranges. . .” 229 violence in the form of unwanted or coerced sex (schefer, 2010). the women teachers talked of a time before theirs in xhosa culture, around the 1940s and 1950s, and of the teachings regarding sexuality which were focused on values such as respect for self. they appraised that such value was useful then, and could still be useful in teaching today’s adolescents too. traditional xhosa culture also requires, along with christian religious values, that girls remain pure until marriage. breaking this through having sex is frowned upon as sex outside of marriage is regarded as izinto ezimdaka (something dirty). this is a way of policing of girls and women expressing their sexuality, leaving boys and men to do as they please. in this instance too, xhosa culture and patriarchy contribute to such a state of affairs (gqola, 2007; msibi, 2009), with women feeling disempowered to stand up and negotiate relationships and sex. in doing the research with the xhosa women teachers, enabling them to remember and reflect on how they learnt about their sexuality, created a space for them to think about what they as xhosa women teachers could draw on to make their teaching of sexuality education authentic so that the adolescents don’t have to piece together the puzzle of sexuality, which might leave them with an incomplete (and dangerous) understanding of sexuality. conclusion drawing on the findings and discussion, and having exposed the xhosa women teachers to a participatory visual methodology, we extrapolate what this might mean for reimagining teaching of sexuality education to xhosa adolescents in township secondary schools. we showed how personal narratives about learning about sexuality can enable an open discussion on sexuality, where all learn from each other, perhaps fulfilling the claim that mitchell (2012) makes, that memory-work shifts teacher perceptions and practices. a critical pedagogy founded on the principle of dialogue, can only be enacted in interactive classroom spaces, where teachers and learners together can reflect, critique, and act upon their world (darder et al., 2009). the pedagogy facilitates a democratic teaching and learning space which helps ease the tensions that usually surface in a teacher-centered instruction on sexuality. if the teachers are closer to 230 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 understanding what it takes to teach sexuality differently, to listen to the learners, to learn together, the xhosa women teachers would have claimed back their power to speak about sexuality, drawing the value-laden xhosa cultural teachings about sexuality – through open dialogue – into contemporary sexuality education. it is necessary that innovative work on the self be done with teachers, in particular those who teach sexuality education, so that they can establish their own positionality in terms of their culture, their beliefs, and how these inform what 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(2009). the prize and the price: shaping sexualities in south africa. cape town: hsrc press. tamale, s. (2008). the right to culture and the culture of rights: a critical perspective on women’s sexual rights in africa. feminist legal studies, 16(1), 47–69. taylor, p. c. (2013). research as transformative learning for meaning-centred professional development. in o. kovbasyuk & p. blessinger (eds), meaning-centred education: international perspectives and explorations in higher education (pp. 168–185). new york: routledge. unesco. (2009). international guidelines on sexuality education: an evidence informed approach to effective sex, relationships and hiv/sti education. draft document. paris: united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation. van dyk, a. c. (2001). traditional african beliefs and customs: implications for aids education and prevention in africa. the south african journal of psychology, 31(2), 60–66. 236 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 wood, l. a. (2009a). ‘not only a teacher, but an ambassador’: facilitating hiv/aids educators to take action. african journal of aids research, 8(1), 83–92. wood, l. (2009b). teaching in the age of aids: exploring the challenges facing eastern cape teachers. journal of education, 47, 127–149. zuilkowski, s. s., & jukes, m. c. h. (2012). the impact of education on sexual behaviour in sub-saharan africa: a review of the evidence. aids care, 24(5), 562–576. nomawonga veronica msutwana naydene de lange faculty of education nelson mandela university nomawonga.msutwana@mandela.ac.za naydene.delange@mandela.ac.za mailto:veronica.msutwana@nmmu.ac.za mailto:naydene.delange@mandela.ac.za journal of education, 2017 issue 68, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za decolonising initial teacher education in south african universities: more than an event yusuf sayed, shireen motala and nimi hoffman (received 7 november 2016; accepted 19 april 2017) abstract calls for the decolonisation of university curricula have been central to the demands of the south african student movements since they first gained prominence during 2015. in this paper, we examine this debate by examining teacher education at universities as a way of understanding what future school teachers are exposed to and consequently learners. defining decolonisation as a process of expanding imaginations, and drawing on a metaanalysis of teacher education curricula, and interviews with teacher education lecturers, at five south african universities, the paper examines the kinds of intellectuals and intellectual debates to which student teachers are being exposed, how teacher educators understand the factors underlying their curriculum decisions, and the broader institutional and policy dynamics that impact on efforts to rethink curricula. introduction there is a debate unfolding globally, and in south africa in particular, about what universities teach and whether their curricula are relevant to today’s students. students in south africa have recently re-energised this debate through collective political action across the country, organising initially around decolonising university curricula and academic culture, thereafter calling for the in-sourcing of workers, and subsequently demanding free university education and an end to a rape culture at the institutions (naicker, 60 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 while the relationship between these various demands is subject to internal contestation1 and debate, it is argued that they are different aspects of colonial institutions (see, for instance, the mission statement of rhodesmustfall, 2015). they claim that settler colonialism relied on and strengthened specific forms of racialised patriarchy; that it sought to define access to the public sphere on racial and gender terms; that it relied on the exploitation of black workers; and that the knowledges that it produced were raced and gendered in particular ways. consequently, issues such as sexual violence, worker rights and the marketisation of public goods are unified under the conceptual rubric of decolonisation. this paper, however, focuses on only one of these issues: the curriculum as it relates to teacher education in university settings. 2016). in this paper we mainly focus on issues of curriculum as it relates to teacher education. 1 decolonisation of academic curricula has been a key aspect of student demands and other sectors including academics. for example, the uct rhodesmustfall manifesto, for instance, asserts that one of its long-term goals is to “[i]mplement a curriculum which critically centres africa and the subaltern. by this we mean treating african discourses as the point of departure – through addressing not only content, but languages and methodologies of education and learning – and only examining western traditions in so far as they are relevant to our own experience” (uct rhodesmustfall, 2015, p.8). this critical approach to ‘western traditions’ – here understood to refer especially, although not exclusively so, to the kinds of theoretical and empirical scholarship dominant in countries such as the united states and the united kingdom – and for an african-centred academic curriculum is said to be rooted in a particular understanding of colonial education, characterised as one in which “ [t]o be a radical african intellectual[,] is to challenge, on fundamentally personal, institutional and societal levels, this form of alienation that colonial education encourages” (gamedze and gamedze, 2015, p.1). as mafeje has argued, “[t]o evolve lasting meanings . . . we must be ‘rooted’ in something” (mafeje, 2000, p.66), and that ‘something’ is specifically african conditions, discourses and experiences. for the moment, student movements and others have been more concerned about calling for decolonisation, and experimenting with different ways of thinking and organising, than about prescribing the particular shape that decolonised curricula should take. in this regard, naidoo (2016) characterises the student movements as “. . . clarifying the untenable status sayed, motala and hoffman: decolonising initial teacher education. . . 61 quo of the present by forcing an awareness of a time when things are not this way. they have seen things many have yet to see. they have been experimenting with hallucinating a new time.” in this sense, the call to decolonise the curriculum can be understood as a challenge to give expression to an imaginary beyond existing thought and institutions that have become normalised as unchanging and unchangeable. scholars (mama, 2015; pillay, 2015) have emphasised that south africa’s intellectual community is beginning a conversation that others have been having for a long time, stretching from edward blyden in liberia in the nineteenth century (blyden, 1872) to intellectuals’ struggles in the postindependence years at african universities such as cheikh anta diop (bathily, diouf and mbodj, 1995), ahmadu bello (mustapha, 1995), ibadan (ake, 1982), dar es salaam (shivji, 1993) and makerere (mamdani, 1990). these conversations teach us that there are different ideas of what decolonisation means, in part because there are different historical and institutional contexts with different intellectual actors at work. the meaning of decolonisation therefore cannot be taken for granted, but must instead be subject to public deliberation and reflection. this paper, drawing on the student movements’ intellectual work, offers one such reflection: decolonisation is here characterised as a process of expanding imaginations. among other things, this involves rethinking what counts as relevant and rigorous scholarship.first, there is scientometric evidence that suggest that the rules of scholastic excellence are inherently biased along the lines of race and gender (milkman, akinola and chugh, 2012), language (gonzález-alcaide, valderrama-zurián and aleixandre-benavent, 2012) and geographic location (mazloumian, helbing, lozano, light, and börner, 2012). reworking these rules is therefore not only a question of “epistemic justice” (fricker, 2007), but also a question of improving scholastic excellence. second, there is compelling historical evidence of the ways in which colonial regimes and post-independence developments, such as structural adjustment programmes, have acted to limit the knowledge contributions of africans (diouf and mamdani, 1994; zeleza and olukoshi, 2004; mkandwire, 2005; tilley, 2011). it is therefore important for africans, and south africans, to cultivate the capacity to theorise their own conditions. this implies a concomitant responsibility to pay careful empirical attention to lived realities and the multiple histories underlying them (mafeje, 1971), although the focus of this paper is on knowledge and the curriculum. third, there is bibliometric evidence that the south african intellectual community is 62 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 student movements have paid little attention to the link between basic and higher education2 through attempts to understand initial teacher education preparation programmes offered by higher education institutions. for instance, the special edition of the johannesburg salon devoted to the uct rhodesmustfall campaign makes no reference to teachers and teacher education, and mentions schools just ten times in a document of 222 pages (rhodes must fall, 2015). often isolated from broader intellectual currents on the rest of the continent and across the global south more generally (schubert and sooryamoorthy, 2010; boshoff, 2010). there is thus clearly much to be gained from expanding our intellectual horizons beyond the narrow confines of south africa (see, for instance, amin, 1988; hountondji, 1990; imam and mama, 1994; sow, 1997; mamdani, 1998; wa thiong’o, 2005; nyamnjoh, nkwi and konings, 2012; mama, 2015; mbembe, 2015; pillay, 2015; diagne, 2016; bwa mwesigire, 2016). our starting point in this paper is to acknowledge our relative ignorance of these debates from which our country has been isolated for so long, without over-specifying a concept that requires extensive contextualisation and public deliberation. one implication of this conceptualisation of decolonisation is that we also need to consider the silences in current discourses, particularly the silence about teacher education at universities and their role in decolonising schools. 2 as mamdani (2007, p.213) argues: higher education is where teachers are trained and curricula developed. without research in higher education to develop curricula for the entire system of education, all curricula will be as an off-the-shelf imported facility, with little relevance to the lived circumstances of both student and society. if our object is to transform general education, we need to begin with higher education. higher education is the strategic heart – indeed head – of education. to reflect on decolonisation in part requires breaking the silence about teacher education, and asking: what does it mean to decolonise the curriculum as it relates to initial teacher education, and what sort of processes will this require? this also provides a way of thinking about education as a unified system, since teacher education links schools and universities together. the paper is divided into four main sections. the first section outlines the methodology of the study. the second section presents the results from a meta-analysis of teacher education curricula at five south african universities, concentrating on the kinds of intellectuals and intellectual debates to which student teachers are being exposed. the third section draws sayed, motala and hoffman: decolonising initial teacher education. . . 63 on interviews with teacher educators at these universities and explores how they understand the factors underlying their curriculum decisions. the fourth section considers the institutional and policy dynamics that enable and constrain lecturers’ approaches to the curriculum. the final section concludes the paper by considering emerging issues and debates that warrant further reflection. methodology the meta-analysis on which this paper draws was conducted in 2016 at five selected universities. they were comprised of two historically black universities, two historically white universities, and one university that merged to combine these two institutional types. of these five universities, two of them are in the eastern cape, and three are in the western cape. the meta-analysis provides a snapshot of the curricula for final-year initial teacher education students in the year following the rise of the south african student movements and the call for the decolonisation of university curricula. the timing of the meta-analysis was deliberate, in that it sought to explore the extent to which the intellectual demands of students might be reflected in teacher education curricula. the term ‘curriculum’ is here narrowly understood to refer to the written literature and topics that lecturers formally cover in their modules, and in this instance the core modules for the postgraduate certificate in education (pgce) and the bachelor of education (bed) degree. these modules invariably include educational theory, philosophy and sociology as well as other ‘foundations of education’ such as history of education and educational psychology. we selected these modules as they are core modules which all students enrolled in a teacher education programme are expected to take and are regarded as foundational modules for teachers in training. the selection of the institutions and courses therefore enables us to illuminate and explore the intellectual content and debates that student teachers are exposed to. as such, they provide markers about what decolonisation of the curriculum of higher education might entail. bibliographic data from reading lists and course outlines for each module was coded with the following information: the biographical profiles of authors (institutional affiliation, gender and race, with ‘black’ coded as encompassing the apartheid categories of ‘african’, ‘coloured’ and ‘indian’); publication details of texts (publisher, year and place of publication); text types 64 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 (academic, government or popular); and text formats (book, journal article, textbook, report, working paper, newspaper article or website); and key words were generated from the titles of each text as well as from the topics in each course outline. semi-structured interviews with teacher education lecturers (including one black female, two black males, one white female and one white male) then explored lecturers’ understandings of various factors – from their personal intellectual backgrounds through their institutional contexts to national policy requirements – that influence their curriculum decisions. there are several limitations to this exploratory study. first, it is restricted to just five universities in two provinces in south africa. second, it considers only the core modules in the initial teacher education programmes and not these programmes in their entirety. it also does not reflect on students’ extracurricular readings, their engagements with their lecturers, or lecturers’ teaching approaches in the classroom. third, the interview sample is limited to a purposive selection of lecturers at only three of the five institutions. this study therefore does not aim to provide generalisable findings. instead, it explores how tensions and contradictions in current curricula speak back to the demands of the student movements, and how lecturers make curriculum decisions within complex and changing institutional contexts. intellectual trends in the curricula this section explores the kinds of intellectuals and intellectual debates to which student teachers are introduced, and the ways in which teacher education curricula across different universities connect to intellectual thought on the african continent, thereby expanding the imaginations of student teachers. across the five institutions, black authors constituted a minority in teacher education curricula: out of a total of 108 authors in the database, only 18 (17%) were black while 82 (76%) were white (figure 1). however, the number of readings varied substantially between universities (see figure 2). sayed, motala and hoffman: decolonising initial teacher education. . . 65 figure 1: author race and gender characteristics figure 2: number of readings at each university 66 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 thus, in order to provide a common basis of comparison, author profiles were normalised by considering their percentage contributions to the total number of readings for each module, as shown in figure 3. while black authors were a minority across programmes, there were important differences across institutional types. at historically black universities, black female authors and white male authors contributed equally to the readings (33% each), followed by white female authors (25%) and black male authors (8%). at historically white universities, white male authors make the largest contribution (49%), followed by white female authors (24%) and black male authors (16%), with black female authors making a negligible contribution (3%). at the university that had merged, the majority of authors were white females (53%), followed by white males (29%); black female and male authors each contributed only a small amount (5% each). figure 3: proportion of authors by race and gender across university types sayed, motala and hoffman: decolonising initial teacher education. . . 67 table 1: frequency of appearance of first names of authors expression expression count frequency sally 3 3.1% pete 3 3.1% richard 3 3.1% donald 3 3.1% john 3 3.1% emmarentia 3 3.1% norma 2 2.1% linda 2 2.1% deidre 2 2.1% sindiswa 2 2.1% jonathan 2 2.1% david 2 2.1% sue 2 2.1% maurianne 2 2.1% paolo 2 2.1% the bibliographic data also reflects a specific geographic pattern. figure 4 summarises the geographic locations of authors, as indicated by their institutional affiliations. across sampled universities, there was a strong emphasis on authors based at south african institutions. at historically black universities, over 90% of authors were based in south africa, while at historically white universities and at the merged university, nearly 60% of authors were based in south africa. there were few authors from other african countries amongst the curricula of historically white universities, while they contributed only 9% at historically black universities and just over 3% at the merged institution. authors from south america and asia were almost wholly absent from the five universities’ curricula. in contrast, authors based in western countries contributed just over 40% of the written material at historically white and merged universities, but were completely absent from historically black universities. 68 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 figure 4: geographic locations of authors by university type the presence or absence of authors in the curricula suggests a particular ‘geography of reason’ (gordon, 2011) centred, in this instance, primarily in south africa and to a lesser extent in western countries. in turn this indicates that students are mostly isolated from intellectual debates in african scholarship and across the global south more generally, despite the fact that countries in these regions typically share certain experiences of colonisation and education characteristics (tabulawa, 2013). these countries include several with much higher research productivity than that of south africa (jeenah and pouris, 2008), which shows that an absence of scholarship or its lack of relevance does not explain why scholarship from these regions seems to be omitted from south african university curricula. in addition to a ‘geography of reason’, the bibliographic data reveals a ‘time of reason’. figure 5 indicates the distribution of authors over time. sayed, motala and hoffman: decolonising initial teacher education. . . 69 figure 5: distibution of authors by year of publication there is a strong emphasis on the present and immediate past, with the majority of texts cited having been published between 2010 and 2014. the earliest text cited was one published in 1969; the earliest black male author to be cited was published in 1999, and the earliest black female author in 2003. yet african intellectual history and written records, let alone those of the global north, stretch back at least a millennium in islamic africa and the horn of africa (diagne, 2016), and even within southern africa there is a substantial written archive of intellectual work on the histories and roles of different education systems stemming from the mid-nineteenth century (ndletyana, 2008). a content analysis of article titles and course topics reveals a similar trend. the word ‘africa’, for instance, always appeared in the term “south africa”, with just one exception. no reference was made to other countries in africa or the global south (see tables 2a and 2b). moreover, socrates and, to a lesser extent, paulo freire, were the intellectuals most often referred to; there was no reference in article titles or course topics to any african intellectuals. 70 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 table 2a: frequency of words in article titles word occurrences frequency rank africa 12 3.3% 1 south 11 3% 2 education 11 3% 2 teaching 10 2.7% 3 learning 9 2.4% 4 pedagogy 8 2.2% 5 educational 7 1.9% 6 social 7 1.9% 6 socratic 6 1.6% 7 context 5 1.4% 8 sayed, motala and hoffman: decolonising initial teacher education. . . 71 table 2b: frequency of two-word phrases in article titles expression expression count frequency prominence south africa 11 1.52.10% 44.9 in south 6 1.2% 24.7 teaching and 5 1% 70.4 educational psychology 4 0.8% 50 pedagogy of 4 0.8% 74 learning a 4 0.8% 89.4 education in 3 0.6% 47.5 in secondary 3 0.6% 58.5 southern africa 3 0.6% 64.2 in southern 3 0.6% 64.4 applications in 3 0.6% 64.6 ecosystemic applications 3 0.6% 64.8 context ecosystemic 3 0.6% 65 social context 3 0.6% 65.2 in social 3 0.6% 65.4 psychology in 3 0.6% 65.6 and learning 3 0.6% 74.2 africa perspective 3 0.6% 93.2 a south 3 0.6% 93.6 to learning 3 0.6% 94 barriers to 3 0.6% 94.2 addressing barriers 3 0.6% 94.4 africa 2 0.4% 11.1 and practice 2 0.4% 25.7 socratic pedagogy 2 0.4% 33.8 matric results 2 0.4% 34.1 education the 2 0.4% 36.4 educational 2 0.4% 52.3 secondary schools 2 0.4% 56.2 teaching in 2 0.4% 59.4 of education 2 0.4% 60.5 and social 2 0.4% 66.1 diversity and 2 0.4% 66.3 for diversity 2 0.4% 34.1 reflective teaching 2 0.4% 36.4 critical pedagogy 2 0.4% 52.3 secondary schools 2 0.4% 56.2 72 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 teaching in 2 0.4% 59.4 of education 2 0.4% 60.5 and social 2 0.4% 66.1 diversity and 2 0.4% 66.3 for diversity 2 0.4% 66.5 reflective teaching 2 0.4% 67.3 critical pedagogy 2 0.4% 67.9 paulo freire 2 0.4% 72.5 learning in 2 0.4% 72.8 teaching for 2 0.4% 75.4 social justice 2 0.4% 75.7 edition addressing 2 0.4% 94 while the content analysis suggests that considerable attention is paid to the history of apartheid, across sampled universities there seems to be limited coverage of the colonial and missionary roots of the education system, let alone of other kinds of education systems such as initiation schools (matoba, makatsa and obioha, 2009), islamic schools (chohan, 1988) and schools started by the descendants of slaves (williams, 2016). nevertheless, at one university a week is set aside for oral discussion of indigenous knowledge systems (although no references are provided for this), and at a second university a week is set aside for discussions of the relationship between the philosophy of ubuntu and that of existentialism. this suggests a (very) slowly expanding imagination of what counts as important intellectual work. the analysis reveals that there is a strong emphasis on authors based at south african institutions in the sample. one might argue that this is an example of decolonisation already at work, since student teachers are exposed to local authors who reference local issues and contexts. however, we contend, a focus on local authors to the exclusion of authors from the rest of africa and the global south may reinforce a kind of parochialism that reinscribes apartheid narratives of south african exceptionality. this is because the omission of intellectual work north of the limpopo implies a history of education and intellectual work that seems to begin and end with south africa, so that african knowledge appears as though it is exhausted in the south african narrative, or that south africa is located outside of africa. furthermore, this is a parochialism not only of place, but also of time, since student teachers’ exposure to intellectual debates is limited to discussions of the present and very recent past. this suggests that africans’ intellectual sayed, motala and hoffman: decolonising initial teacher education. . . 73 capacities are dependent on the colonial encounter, so that colonialism appears not only as though it is the pivot upon which history turns, as mamdani (1998) suggests, but also as though it is the point at which africans become thinkers and teachers . such parochialism is, as pillay (2015) argues, a defining character of settler colonialism in general, and apartheid in particular, since it equips “us excellently to be ignorant of most of the world and arrogant about our ignorance.” the practical consequence of such parochialism is that there is little scope for students to pose, in an informed way, questions such as: how do education systems in other african countries operate? what can we learn from other education systems in the global south? or, how have different african intellectuals conceptualised their schooling systems in relation to pre-existing forms of education, and how has this changed over time? by narrowing the questions that student teachers can ask in an informed way, the curriculum limits student teachers’ ability to expand their imaginations beyond the conceptual boundaries that colonialism has normalised into a form of common sense. this in turn limits their future capacity as teachers to influence the bodies of knowledge and imaginaries to which south african children are exposed (sayed and novelli, 2016). lecturers’ curriculum approaches and understandings this section focuses on lecturers’ own education histories, their different conceptualisations of what it means to decolonise the curriculum and their understandings of the expectations of learners relative to the demands of the university. lecturers’ curriculum decisions are arguably shaped in part by their own intellectual biographies, and much of this is a product of their own higher education, which plays a strong role in moulding their intellectual outlooks and the bodies of knowledge with which they are most familiar. however, the influence of one’s intellectual community is not always direct or obvious. as one interviewee pointed out, when he moved to south africa to pursue his doctoral studies he was exposed to a university that is a centre of western knowledge in an african context. there’s nothing really speaking about the african heritage, unless you go to a small unit in the library on african academic material, where people who really write from an african perspective – many of them . . . are white people who have steeped themselves in african thought, they have studied african philosophies, african knowledge forms, and they have something to say about it . . . [that 74 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 got me thinking] why don’t we have more of that kind of ethos in our faculty of education? (lecturer c2, 2016). in this sense, the influence was one of critique, of thinking about how not to do things. for another interviewee, his influences were those that were considered subversive when he was a graduate student, although they may have now become more mainstream. he explained: my main interest, and it has remained my main interest, has been unequal performance. and that’s the way in fact i shape these sociology courses – how do we explain these differences between groups of kids – the black-white scenario here, in other countries the class scenario. and at that time in the late ’80s the neo-marxists had finally reached south africa. i say that jestingly, but up until 1994, anything with the word ‘marxist’ in it was banned. you simply weren’t allowed to read, teach, do anything with it. maybe belatedly, but people i worked with then, and in a more contemporary way still do, would be neo-marxist theories about educational reproduction . . . so what i try to do is take [students] back to the classics, and . . . obviously we’ve moved on and taken them to the more contemporary interpretations, but [still] to say, ‘in order to understand x you need to begin with y’ . . . so my theorists [are] kind of post-bowles and gintis, post-althusser, post-bourdieu ... but overarchingly, i run a functionalist story (lecturer b2, 2016). in some instances, the influence of particular theorists was strong enough for interviewees to cast their identity in terms of their theories. thus one interviewee described himself by saying, broadly speaking, i’m a social constructivist . . . so . . . freire, and some of the other traditional psychologists, such as piaget, vygotsky, bruner, those kinds of guys. but i am also a bit pragmatic, and to a certain extent, eclectic, because i think one can learn from a wide array of theories. but essentially i’m a constructivist (lecturer e5, 2016). the notion of an intellectual identity was a recurring motif in lecturers’ understandings of what it means to decolonise the curriculum. while there seemed to be no consensus about the details of what decolonisation entails – some emphasised the use of african languages as a medium of instruction, others emphasised a more south african focused set of references – there was a common acknowledgement amongst all interviewees that decolonisation involves a transformation of one’s intellectual worldview and ways of understanding. as one interviewee argued: so i think until maybe south africa and other countries on the african continent and other developing parts of the world, until they start looking at themselves through a different lens, which says we are part of the world, we are different from other parts of the world, this is what we have to offer the world, this is what is unique about us, and these are the unique contributions that our cultural development, our cultural expressions, our heritage can contribute to the rest of the world, unless we do that i don’t think we can seriously talk about decolonising anything (lecturer c2, 2016). sayed, motala and hoffman: decolonising initial teacher education. . . 75 similarly, another interviewee argued that decolonisation involved growing self-knowledge: decolonising means for people to begin to grasp their own identities as teachers . . . you are beginning to learn a new way of operating in the world, and it’s not just about you and the classroom, it’s about you and the world . . . in [that] sense . . . i’m not placed to dictate that to anybody, that you can only become as you understand who you are and to move in that space (lecturer b2, 2016). however, precisely because it involves fundamental questions about individuals’ intellectual identities, a number of lecturers characterised the process of decolonising the curriculum as bound up in one’s struggle with the self. an interviewee at a historically white university described the process as follows: fundamentally, what would be happening is that the understanding of self as an academic is being challenged. but it is also so, i think, as you’ll see in any university, a particular cadre of staff trained in a particular tradition – it’s why schools are so difficult to change – trained in a particular way and you’re asking them to shift completely. and for some it’s very, very difficult, impossible almost, just like teachers with obe and child-centred learning. it threatens their identity, it threatens their knowledge base, it threatens all kinds of things. so it may be a generational thing that younger academics coming in would have access to very different traditions, maybe (lecturer b2, 2016). what emerged powerfully from the interviews was pessimism about the dominance about western curriculum and ways of knowing . as one put it: so the curriculum that we have is a curriculum that comes largely from the west and the knowledge forms that we use. we can’t run away from that. the more globalised the world becomes the more privileged western thought becomes, western ways of knowing become. so that is what we teach, we can’t run away from that (lecturer c2, 2016). another interviewee described the process of decolonising the curriculum as the attempt to accommodate local understandings within an overarching western canon: here’s a particular western traditional way of seeing things, and whether you like it or not it’s a dominant, overarching hegemony of ideas. are there ways in which we can respond to that, that derive from our own understandings of the world? (lecturer b2, 2016). this strong awareness of the hegemony of western knowledge often informed lecturers’ understandings of decolonisation as a process of struggle, not only with the self but with one’s broader historical context: 76 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 this is perhaps how i would conceptualise [decolonising the curriculum], with the foucauldian statement that we need to recognise our historical constraints, but to work with ourselves in the recognition of how that history hinders us simultaneously (lecturer b2, 2016). indeed, the notion of struggle was a central theme in the interviews. lecturers’ understandings of knowledge and their attempts to re-shape curricula in particular ways were often articulated in terms of being buffeted by multiple layers of struggle, of which struggle with the self was but one form. in this regard, one lecturer explained how even fairly ‘cosmetic’ changes within teacher education were strongly resisted by colleagues: at least you have white students learning basic isixhosa, greeting words, black students learning a bit of basic afrikaans. but . . . it’s not a big shift in thinking about knowledge, its forms and its purposes. and even those more cosmetic changes have been resisted because this country is coming out of a very complicated past and people still look at any change suspiciously. i think that goes for most of us. people are quite afraid of change and transformation. when i first arrived here there were only two other black lecturers on the whole campus, i was the third one. the faculty is becoming blacker and more coloured, and that just in itself has created some – i wouldn’t want to call it animosity as such – but some suspicion and some discomfiture and sort of a bad vibe . . . [it is] quite toxic . . . people are highly suspicious about where the faculty is going and what the curriculum changes and staffing changes are leading to. so within such a climate as that it becomes quite self-defeating really to expect any, to try and effect any sort of meaningful fundamental curricula changes (lecturer c2, 2016). lecturers’ made little mention of formal discussions about these issues within their faculties; and their reflections also took place in a context of limited engagement with the student movements with regard to decolonising the curriculum. indeed, several argued that student teachers were reluctant to engage in student politics due to financial pressures. furthermore, the student movements themselves were said to be unclear about the nature of their demands regarding decolonisation: [t]he question has been asked [by academics]: what concretely could that [i.e. decolonising the curriculum] mean beyond putting a few more african writers in the reading list? [we need to try to] . . . concretise what that might mean. people are very unclear about all of that . . . the parameters have never been awfully clear, and i doubt whether they ever will be. the minute you put a parameter on it then it’s: why this boundary, why not that boundary? you know how that goes. whether that’s obfuscating, or ducking and weaving, or genuine intellectual concern, it’s a mixture of all of those things (lecturer b2, 2016). while echoing these sentiments, another interviewee pointed out that academics’ own relative lack of engagement with the student movements may contribute to students’ lack of understanding about the movements’ goals: sayed, motala and hoffman: decolonising initial teacher education. . . 77 “and so, maybe there’s no coherent message, and maybe it’s our fault and we should get involved more with what students are doing, i don’t know” (lecturer e5, 2016). this lack of engagement, coupled with a sense that the movements’ goals were shifting and developing over time, perhaps help explain why no single interviewee planned to change her or his curriculum in response to student activism. interviewees made frequent mention of their students, their backgrounds and their investment in their teacher education programmes. for some, the issue was not principally about content or about whether african intellectuals were present in or absent from the curriculum. instead, it was about getting their students to read academic literature and engage in independent study. one lecturer characterised it as follows: [our] students are mostly from disadvantaged backgrounds and lower middle class and working class backgrounds, so they have to work themselves. many of them do have part-time jobs and they struggle to find time to really sit and do their own thinking, their own reflection, their own learning, which is why they pressurise us to just give them what will assist them … they resist even being given a list of references to follow up at the library. they want notes that have been prepared by the lecturer . . . so one has to understand that . . . probably it’s the pressure of having to work [part-time] (lecturer c2, 2016). the process of decolonising the curriculum thus cannot be disconnected from the intellectual frames and biographies of lecturers and their everyday struggles and concerns. while lecturers were cognisant of hegemonic forms of knowledge, the picture that emerged was one of multi-layered struggles, between lecturers and themselves, their students and hegemonic forms of knowledge, as they reflect on the nature of the theoretical knowledge canon of initial teacher education. the broader institutional context lecturers’ abilities to rethink curricula were found in addition to be linked to their broader institutional contexts, which are marked by two features in particular: first, declining public investment in higher education, and second, a lack of coordinating mechanisms for lecturers and students collectively to think more about curricula. 78 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 funding for higher education in south africa has decreased steadily in real terms since 1987. government expenditure on higher education (including now-defunct colleges of education and recently expanded technical and vocational education and training colleges) decreased from just over 1% of gdp in 1987 to 0.67% of gdp in 2009 (figure 6a). while the enrolment rate of students has been variable over this period (albeit gradually increasing over time), government expenditure per student has decreased in real terms from just over r27,000 per student in 1987 to just under r15,000 per student in 2009 (figure 6b). a corollary of the decrease in government funding has been a substantial increase in student fees and, therefore, student indebtedness (le roux and breier, 2012). sayed, motala and hoffman: decolonising initial teacher education. . . 79 source: le roux and breier, 2012. figure 6a: estimated actual government expenditure on higher education as percentage of gdp, 1987–2009. source: le roux and breier, 2012. figure 6b: government expenditure per tertiary student, in rands, 1987–2009 80 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 this reduction in government support has been accompanied by a funding formula that inadvertently rewards historically white universities and incentivises them to focus on enrolling wealthier students from private and historically white public schools (le roux and breier, 2012). this is the case for three reasons. first, a large proportion of government funding is now allocated to research outputs, which historically white universities are better placed to achieve than historically black universities, given state-mandated advantages received in the past (habib and morrow, 2007). second, relative to programmes in teacher education, languages and the humanities, the funding formula allocates 3.5 times more subsidy to students who complete programmes in the physical and medical sciences and 2.5 times more subsidy to those who complete engineering and mathematics programmes (welch and gultig, 2002). moreover, given a highly inequitable school sector, wealthy students who were taught at private or historically white public schools are much more likely to qualify for and complete these latter programmes (le roux and breier, 2012). whilst various efforts have been expended to equitably fund higher education, these have not, as the recent protests show, been adequate to achieve equity and redress. third, rising levels of student indebtedness have been accompanied by cash-strapped university efforts to exclude students or not to graduate them unless they pay outstanding fees. this means that even academically competent poor and lower-middle class black students at all institutions may be forced to exit university prematurely. however, since middle-class black students often migrate to historically white institutions, historically black universities face a funding formula that penalises them for admitting poor black students; and they also have a disproportionate number of national student financial aid scheme (nsfas)-funded students, and are therefore more financially constrained due to government underfunding (che, 2016). one implication of this is that while all teacher education programmes are under enormous financial pressure, those at historically black universities are under even greater pressure because their research outputs and student completion rates are often lower than those of historically white universities. the negative impact of declining funding on teaching and learning was a theme that emerged strongly in interviews with all lecturers. one lecturer explained: the universities are run like businesses . . . they’re getting less and less subsidies from government. so they are under immense pressure to survive financially. so that’s why sayed, motala and hoffman: decolonising initial teacher education. . . 81 there’s a massification of access . . . in the pgce, for example, there’s over 190 students. and so you’ve got to try, in one semester, with one of your modules, to try and do a reasonable job, because with 190 students it does affect your pedagogy, it does affect what you can do in terms of trying to get individuals to work. i, for example, give self-study tasks. but if they don’t do it there’s nothing that can be done, because i don’t have the time to mark six or seven self-study tasks in a semester (lecturer e5, 2016). some universities responded to the reduction in funding by cutting programmes and removing posts. according to one lecturer, “cutting all those bursaries, and . . . in-service staff, never mind pre-service, killed us. i mean, our b.eds went from 200 to 40” (lecturer b2, 2016). as a consequence, the b.ed programme was shut down, a number of staff left and were not replaced, and modules in the history, psychology and philosophy of education also fell away. “and that meant immediately, because of time constraints, a restriction on the amount of time given to topic areas . . . so now we’re down to, in my view, a very constrained curriculum”. overall, interviewees argued that declining funding has not only increased workloads and decreased teaching support for academics, but also directly impacted the curriculum. furthermore, reductions in funding may also limit the potential for innovation in the curriculum. for instance, one lecturer’s faculty had discussed the development of open source textbooks so as to make sure that poor students can access materials, but the “immense pressures in terms of staffing, in terms of capacity”, mean that “you are not given the space to really interrogate an issue, and really work it through. so, for example, let’s talk about designing our own open-source textbooks. i don’t know how we’re going to get the time . . . i know, it sounds depressing” (lecturer e5, 2016). lecturers often seemed to be simply trying to survive amidst these financial pressures, which have since increased under the impact of student demands. one lecturer explained that the consequences of meeting student demands for insourcing workers meant that the original money that was saved by outsourcing, which funded student bursaries, then got lost, and that then meant – and that’s where i think things started to get very complex and emotional – is that what in effect it meant is that all academics have had to take a salary cut this year. we’ve lost two professorial posts, and likely to lose more posts. at this university there’s academic posts being lost to try and retain the student bursaries and [also] have the insourcing. so now those who were championing the students’ rights are not so happy as they were a year ago . . . i think by the end we were all so completely exhausted that the thought of re-curriculating the whole thing, and trying to understand what the heck we were 82 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 doing, just became too much; let’s just survive this year and we’ll see how we go from there (lecturer b2, 2016). the evidence suggests, then, that declining public investment in higher education has narrowed the scope for lecturers to design and teach rich and meaningful curricula, and decreased the time and resources they may have to engage in collective deliberations about innovations in the curriculum, not least the question of how to decolonise the curriculum and what this means. within this institutional context of mounting pressures and multiple struggles, a number of interviewees spoke of the need to find space to think through curriculum decisions. such collective deliberation between students and staff requires some kind of coordinating mechanism, of which there was little evidence. one potential coordinating mechanism could be the student movements themselves. however, lecturers did not indicate any form of sustained engagement with the movements. furthermore, like any form of collective action, these movements are heterogeneous and subject to contestation (badat, 2015). the consequence of this seems to be that, while the student movements have substantially influenced public discourse, they have had a very limited ability to provide a unified coordinating mechanism for rethinking our universities in general, and teacher education curricula in particular. when asked about whether their university had collaborated with other universities in thinking through their teacher training curricula, all interviewees indicated that there were no such communities of practice, particularly for the theoretical components of their programmes. one interviewee who had been deeply involved in redesigning the curriculum in response to government’s minimum requirements for teacher education qualifications (mrteq) (department of higher education and training (dhet), 2015), which were first introduced in 2011, stated flatly that they had worked in isolation: “our re-curriculation was done solely by us within the faculty. i don’t even remember us bringing in any experts from outside, from the other universities in the country. so it was purely done internally here” (lecturer c2, 2016). another lecturer reflected that there had been some attempts at coordination across universities in the western cape in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but then, “with the restructuring of the universities, sayed, motala and hoffman: decolonising initial teacher education. . . 83 the amalgamations [i.e. mergers], that impetus just fell away completely, if there had been an impetus at all” (lecturer b2, 2016). moreover, interviewees noted that, in their experience, none of the teacher unions has been involved in facilitating discussions around curricula, nor has the professional body of teachers, the south african council for educators (sace). as one interviewee put it, “[t]eacher unions and sace are non-existent in higher education from my experience . . . what happens is they may be invited to come and give presentations to our senior students about what’s expected of them in terms of sace’s requirements. but there’s no real working together” (lecturer e5, 2016). in this situation then, government policy on teacher education curricula might have provided the space for collective reflection. however, one interviewee saw policies such as the mrteq as specifying “graduate attributes [that] are nice to put on some template when you have to do a presentation. but i’m not sure how much of it is really focused in a regular basis in your teaching and learning” (lecturer e5, 2016). for this respondent, the mrteq was not a framework which enables collective reflection on curricula, but instead an additional bureaucratic burden on already over-worked and resource constrained staff. this problem about spaces for discussion seems inherent in current teacher education policies. the mrteq emphasises the development of a mix of knowledge and skills appropriate for student teachers studying towards particular teacher education qualifications, but it is remarkably silent on curriculum content (sayed and novelli, 2016). this lack of specification about curriculum content may be understandable in an approach which seeks to protect academic freedom and autonomy, but it leaves open the issue of coordination, which even the teacher education programme accreditation and qualifications committee (tepaq) – a technical committee of the department of basic education, the south african council for educators, the council on higher education and the skills education and training authorities – does not fill, despite it seeking to align teacher education programmes with policy requirements for teacher education qualifications (interview with government official, 2015, in sayed and novelli, 2016). as a consequence, specification of content is left to the discretion of teacher education providers who may or may not collaborate with other universities, let alone students. nevertheless, the recent teaching and learning development capacity improvement project seems to have picked up the 84 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 challenge of forming communities of practice – in foundation phase literacy and numeracy – to deliberate upon and reach voluntary consensus on what should constitute key subject and pedagogical content knowledge in their respective domains (dhet, 2016). if encouraged by policy and supported by institutions, such communities of practice could respond to the call to decolonise the curriculum by creating spaces for deliberative discussion and consensus building, which in turn could make possible the collective development of initial teacher education curricula which provide student teachers with common learning and knowledge experiences whilst recognising differing academic traditions and institutional histories. overall, the picture that emerges is an absence of robust coordinating mechanisms for collective deliberation between staff, students and practising teachers on what decolonising the curriculum might mean and how to go about doing it. this is compounded by the financial pressures on, and dwindling resources of, universities, which hinder attempts at reflection about what decolonised academic curricula could look like in initial teacher education. by way of conclusion: emerging issues from the preceding analysis, there are several emerging issues and debates that warrant reflection. first, the meta-analysis suggests that curricula are all-too-slowly moving towards a more expansive imagination of who counts as an intellectual and what counts as important intellectual work. however, across universities, it remains the case that student teachers have extremely limited exposure to multiple understandings of africa and its complex education histories, and are largely isolated from broader southern debates. second, lecturers’ curriculum decisions are shaped in multiple ways. lecturers characterised the process of decolonising the curriculum as a form of struggle with the self, one which involves coming to terms with the brokenness of our knowledge, and requires us to cultivate the virtues of epistemic tentativeness, humility and courage. however, while lecturers engage in this personal struggle, they must also grapple with an institutional context of dwindling resources and increasing workloads. furthermore, there is a generational dimension to this narrative (naidoo, 2016), as lecturers seek to understand and negotiate the demands of their own students and the student sayed, motala and hoffman: decolonising initial teacher education. . . 85 movements. taken together, these indicate that lecturers often occupy a difficult space as mediators of teaching and learning; while they seek to negotiate and traverse institutional imperatives in stringent financial circumstances, they do so marked by their own biographies and histories. third, a key theme emerging from the analysis is the tension in efforts to decolonise initial teacher education curricula content. on the one hand, it is evident that decolonisation consists of more than including african writers in modules and reading lists. on the other hand, lecturers often seemed unable to articulate in concrete terms what a curriculum might look like outside of hegemonic forms of understanding and knowing. this dialectic between hegemonic forms of knowing and challenges speaks to the incompleteness, fragility and contested nature of knowledge making as a collective enterprise. this is particularly relevant to decolonisation debates, which can be understood in terms of the pursuit of expanded imaginations, where the very terms of this pursuit require space for competing imaginations. it follows from this that decolonisation of the curriculum is not an event that can easily be achieved, but is rather a process of continuous negotiation and struggle with the self, with institutions and with others. however, the analysis suggests that lecturers’ different understandings of decolonisation were often privately-held views, which were not subject to public deliberation and reflection, and therefore not subject to contestation or collective endorsement. related to this, there were different understandings of what constitutes curriculum content in initial teacher education programmes, and hence a differentiated student teacher experience across institutions. the picture that emerged was of a community that is often fragmented and isolated from itself with regard to deliberations on curricula, in the sense that there is little coordination between different universities, and limited engagement with unions and professional bodies. one reason for this may be the absence of coordinating mechanisms for collective deliberation, particularly in the form of communities of practice. this limits opportunities to develop shared understandings about curricula content and to deepen the community’s thinking on what decolonisation of the curriculum might mean. however, this does not mean that the conditions for the creation of such communities of practice are simply absent. for instance, for the first time, the 2015 specification of mrteq (dhet, 2015) requires all final year bed and pgce students to engage in research at an introductory level. this presents an opportunity for lecturers to develop research programmes on curriculum decolonisation, particularly across historically black and white universities, 86 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 and thereby to establish communities of practice between academic staff and students. this exploratory study suggests that decolonisation of the curriculum in initial teacher education is a multi-layered process and requires attention to lecturers’ different understandings and intellectual biographies, their institutional contexts and their relationships with student teachers. conceptualising decolonisation as an expansion of imaginations means that questions about how to 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(2004). the struggle for african universities and knowledges. african universities in the twenty-first century, vol.1, 1–18. yusuf sayed professor of international education and development policy centre for international education (cie) university of sussex & south african research chair in teacher education y.sayed@sussex.ac.uk shireen motala professor in the faculty of education senior director: research and innovation postgraduate school university of johannesburg smotala@uj.ac.za nimi hoffman centre for international teacher education (cite) cape peninsula university of technology nimi.hoffman@gmail.com mailto:y.sayed@sussex.ac.uk mailto:smotala@uj.ac.za mailto:nimi.hoffman@gmail.com 92 journal of education, no. 68, 2017 journal of education, 2017 issue 70, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za embodying pedagogical habitus change: a narrative-based account of a teacher’s pedagogical change within a professional learning community jennifer feldman and aslam fataar stellenbosch university jennf2103@ gmail.com, afataar@ sun.ac.za (received 19 september, 2016; 10 july 2017) abstract situated in the context of teaching in south africa, this article narrates the journey of pedagogical change and adaptation of one teacher who participated in a professional learning community (plc ). it discusses the durability and m alleability of this teacher’s pedagogical disposition by arguing for a conceptualisation of teacher change that moves beyond a cognitivist approach, i.e. one that is driven primarily by knowledge acquisition, to one that engages the embodied practices of teachers in the light of the shifts and adaptations that they undergo when trying to establish augmented pedagogical approaches. d rawing on b ourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field, bodily hexis and doxa, this article argues that sustained pedagogical change involves an engagement with the teacher’s embodied pedagogical habitus which has formed over time given the educational spaces they have inhabited. t he article is based on data collected over a two-year period from plc transcripts, observational school visits and multiple in-depth interviews with the teacher. t his article describes the constraints or ‘hardness’ of change as the teacher engages with his embodied pedagogical habitus which has developed over time. however, this article further argues that possibilities of embodied pedagogical adaptation and change exist in the reflexive, on-going dialogical space that a professional learning community offers. introduction situated in the context of teaching within south africa, this article focuses on the journey of pedagogical change and adaptation of one teacher within the context of his participation in a professional learning community (plc). it discusses the durability and malleability of this teacher’s pedagogical dispositions by arguing for a conceptualisation of teacher change that moves beyond a cognitivist approach. that is, an approach that is driven solely by teachers’ knowledge acquisition, to one that engages the embodied practices of teachers in the light of the shifts and adaptations that they undergo when trying to establish augmented pedagogical approaches. central to the argument is the role of plcs in facilitating teachers’ pedagogical adaptation and change in consonance with a socially just approach to teaching and learning. this pedagogical approach, informed by fraser’s (1997) conceptualisation of social justice, considers the interaction between the redistribution of the school knowledge code, recognition of student social-cultural constructions of identity and a representation within school knowledge of the lifeworld knowledges that the students bring with them to school (fataar, 2015). such an approach, we contend, is central to a transformative account 74 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 of educational change in south africa in its attempt to advance an understanding of process orientated pedagogical modalities that is able to elicit optimal student engagement in their education. drawing on bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field, bodily hexis and doxa, we conceptualise teachers’ pedagogical adaptation and change as a form of habitus engagement (feldman & fataar, 2014). we argue that sustained pedagogical change requires an engagement with teachers’ embodied teaching practices, what we will call their ‘pedagogical habitus’, which has formed over time in the educational spaces that they inhabit. through a presentation of johan’s narrative – the teacher whose story is at the centre of this article – we consider habitus as both a topic and tool of investigation (wacquant, 2011; 2014). habitus as a tool of investigation allows us to come to an understanding of the manner in which johan acquired his teaching habitus and his embodied corporeal disposition. as a topic of investigation, habitus enables us to understand how actively engaging his embodied habitus holds the potential to effect changes in his teaching practices. the article is based on data collected over a two-year period, transcripts of the plc conversations, six months of weekly school observation visits and multiple in-depth interviews with johan. we include a discussion on the ‘methodo-logic’ of a social justice approach that was the focus of the plc conversations and use bourdieu’s thinking tools to conceptualise johan’s pedagogical change mediated through the plc process. this article, exemplified by johan’s narrative, argues that changing or adapting teachers’ pedagogy as central to leveraging students’ engagement with their knowledge processes, is never linear or straightforward, but rather recursive, messy and deeply reflexive. further, we suggest that teachers’ pedagogical change requires a form of habitus engagement that takes into account the teachers’ embodied cognitive and corporeal habitus which, we argue, is best facilitated within a reflexive and dialogical plc process. the article’s focus on pedagogical change is situated in the current south african curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) which is described as tightly regulated, results driven and ‘teacher proof’ (fataar, 2012). the plc is motivated by a desire to generate a pedagogy that invites teachers to move beyond the mandated curriculum requirements to a more enriched notion of teaching and learning that embraces a social justice orientation. the premise of the plc’s deliberations, and the research process that we have facilitated, is that teachers’ pedagogical practices are extremely difficult to shift or change. we argue therefore that conceptualising plc work as a form of habitus engagement, provides an opportunity for the teachers to reflexively and collaboratively investigate their embodied pedagogical practices in order to consider possible adaptation and change. this article singles out johan’s story from the plc participants as he remained in the plc over a two-year period and actively worked to adapt and change his embodied teaching practices. by embodied teaching practices we refer to not only the teachers’ mental attitudes, beliefs and perceptions about teaching, but also their corporeal teaching dispositions. feldm an and fataar: em bodying pedagogical habitus change. . . 75 the professional learning community as context for johan’s pedagogical habitus engagement we first met johan in the bachelor of education (bed) honours module education and society in our capacity as the lecturer (fataar) and class tutor (feldman) for the module. the honours module focused, among others, on student learning in complex educational contexts and a consideration of the pedagogical bases on which students, in particular working class students, disengage from their learning. this is founded on an understanding that the school knowledge message system does not engage with the students’ cultural knowledges that they bring from their homes and community environments. the readings and class discussion included a consideration of ways in which south african schooling can be transacted to include a more socially just approach to teaching, one that engages all students in their learning. a group of the honours students who taught in schools in working class communities displayed an interest in finding ways to adapt their pedagogy to incorporate the theoretical concepts discussed in the module. in response to their interest, we invited the five honours students, at the end of the course module, to participate in a plc process which we would establish for the purpose of engaging the teachers in pedagogical learning informed by social justice orientations. the plc was intended as a dialogical space where participating teachers could collaboratively consider ways of adapting their pedagogy in consonance with a socially just approach to teaching. incorporating their students’ social-cultural knowledge from their homes and communities into the standardised school curriculum would be one key feature of such an approach. the plc process included on-going reflexive conversations about pedagogical adaptation as well as the practical design and implementation of lesson units. johan was one of the teachers who committed to the process and this article narrates his pedagogical adaptation and change driven by the plc process over a two-year period. methodo-logic of the professional learning community in order to guide the dialogical process of the plc conversations and practical design of lesson units by the teachers, we adopted what is called by hattam, brennan, zipin and comber (2009) a ‘methodo-logic’ approach for chasing socially just change through research. this approach does not refer to research methods or methodology, but to the logic of an approach that guides the decisions and activities of the process. in other words, the methodo-logic provided the logic for the unfolding dialogical engagement within the plc process. the methodo-logic of the plc was premised on a bourdieusian insight that students enter schooling from different structural positions, bringing with them to school embodied qualities, dispositions and knowledges from their families and communities (bourdieu, 1998). these dispositions operate as ‘cultural capital’ which resonate and align with the school knowledge code, as is the case for most middle class students. conversely, the 76 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 school code alienates and isolates working class students from school learning because their ‘cultural capital’ does not align with the ‘cultural capital’ codes valued by the school. bourdieu describes this form of social stratification via education thus: t he education system . . . maintains the pre-existing order, that is, the gap between pupils endowed with unequal amounts of cultural capital. m ore precisely, by a series of selection operations, the system separates the holder of inherited cultural capital from those who lack it. differences in aptitude being inseparable from social differences according to inherited capital, the system thus tends to maintain pre-existing social differences (1998, p.20). middle class students whose embodied cultural capital aligns with the education (school) system enables them access to the codes of schooling while at the same time operating in such a way as to deny most working class students the opportunity to achieve success at school. these students find that the curriculum makes very little connection to the capitals they bring from their community contexts and therefore they see no intrinsic value in engaging with the educational experience (see fataar, 2012). in order to find ways to engage the students more deeply in the learning process, the plc conversations drew on the ‘funds of knowledge’ (fok) framework (moll, amanti, neff & gonzalez, 1992). this approach discursively and practically mobilises community and family knowledge and resources and draws them into classroom curriculum and lesson units in a manner that moves beyond the rote-like teaching instruction that students commonly encounter in schools (moll et al., 1992). utilising the fok framework enables teachers to draw on the cultural capital of their students and recontextualises their lifeworld knowledge and interests into relevant and meaningful lesson units that are better able to create cultural congruence in school learning. in this manner classroom learning becomes a hybrid space where school knowledge combines with the students’ fok and cultural interests to enable the students to experience meaningful connection to, and greater intellectual engagement with, their school learning. theoretical considerations: bourdieu’s social field theory in order to theorise the change process with regard to johan’s pedagogy, we draw on bourdieu’s ‘thinking tools’ of practice, habitus, bodily hexis, field and doxa. these ‘tools’ allow us to analyse and explore both the durability and possibility of change in johan’s teaching practices at the intersection of his classroom discourse and individual agency. in particular, we consider the manner in which johan was able to embark on strategic action that moved him beyond his embodied teaching practices in relation to his classroom (field) context. habitus is fundamentally an embodied disposition that denotes not only how we think about the world, but includes a bodily system of dispositions that are physically enacted in a field. habitus, as a system of durable transposable patterns of socio-cultural practices, is a complex amalgamation of one’s past and present. feldm an and fataar: em bodying pedagogical habitus change. . . 77 conditioned primarily during early childhood, habitus operates largely below the level of consciousness and gives one a sense of what actions are possible (or impossible) and how to act and respond “without consciously obeying rules explicitly posed as such” (bourdieu, 1990a, p.76). one’s habitus, described as a “strategy generating principle” (bourdieu, 1977, p.72), provides one with a way of responding to cultural rules and contexts as well as unforeseen and ever-changing situations in different ways. bourdieu (2000, p.161) explains that, h abitus change constantly as a function of new experiences. dispositions are subject to a sort of permanent revision, but one that is never radical, given that it operates on the basis of premises instituted in the previous state. t hey are characterized by a combination of constancy and variation that fluctuates according to the individual and his degree of rigidity or flexibility. thus, one’s habitus is able to respond and adapt to different social experiences and circumstances and these experiences are internalised and become another layer that is added to one’s habitus. bourdieu expands the cognitive and dispositional focus of habitus to include an individual’s corporeality which he calls ‘bodily hexis’. bodily hexis refers not only to our motor functions in the form of patterns and postures but includes a thinking or feeling that is inscribed in our physical being and that determines our corporeality. bourdieu describes bodily hexis as, a whole system of techniques involving the body and tools, and charged with a host of social meanings and values . . . a way of walking, tilt of the head, facial expressions, ways of sitting and using implements, always associated with a tone of voice, a style of speech, and … a certain subjective experience . . . bodily hexis is political mythology realized, em -bodied, turned into a permanent disposition, a durable manner of standing, speaking, and thereby of feeling and thinking (1977, p.87, 93; italics in original). for bourdieu there is no separation between one’s body and one’s mind. he describes the body as a mnemonic device on which the very basics of culture are imprinted and enacted. the way we relate to our bodies reveals the very deepest dispositions of habitus, nothing seems more ineffable, more incommunicable, more inimitable, and, therefore, more precious, than the values given body, m ade body by the transubstantiation achieved by the hidden persuasion of an implicit pedagogy (b ourdieu, 1977, p.94). hence the two concepts, habitus and bodily hexis, are inextricably linked, in that our practical beliefs are both a ‘state of mind’ and a ‘state of the body’ (bourdieu, 1990b). one’s body, bourdieu states, is a “living memory pad, an automaton that ‘leads the mind unconsciously along with it’” (1990b, p.68). our dispositions that are embodied and inscribed within the unconscious formation of habitus, and through our social practices and discourses form the mediating link between our subjective and personal worlds and our cultural and social worlds (jenkins, 1992, p.46). habitus does not act alone. there exists an iterative relationship between habitus and field, in that they are produced and reproduced in relation to each other through social practice. 78 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 bourdieu uses the analogy of playing a game to give insight into the dynamic role that field and habitus play in the logic of one’s practice and states that the adjustments and demands of a field require a certain ‘feel for the game’ (bourdieu, 1990b). similar to a game, a social field such as a school is assembled with specific structures and rules. the relative smoothness of playing the social game in a school field often depends on the members accepting and following the given structures and rules within the field, regardless of how arbitrary they might seem. the longer that one continues to engage in the ‘game’, the more the structures and rules seem natural and unquestionable. bourdieu describes how this complicit and (re)productive role is compounded from early immersion into a field: t he earlier a player enters the game and the less he is aware of the associated learning … the greater is his ignorance of all that is tacitly granted through his investment in the field and his interest in its very existence and perpetuation and in everything that is played for in it, and his unawareness of the unthought presuppositions that the game produces and endlessly reproduces, thereby reproducing the conditions of its own perpetuation (1990b, p.67). if we consider that teachers enter the game of schooling at the age of five or six, when they start formal school, it can be assumed that their embodied educational experiences include a tacit or unconscious investment in the game and rules of schooling which are acquired over a period of time given the school fields they have inhabited. we describe these embodied educational dispositions as the teachers’ pedagogical habitus. pedagogical habitus, we suggest, can be conceptualised as a layer of habitus formation which is grafted over time onto a teachers’ primary habitus. incorporated into a teacher’s habitus are embodied social and cultural messages from the field of education which organises and positions them as certain types of teachers, and which in turn structures their teaching practices in particular ways. these dispositions include different teaching repertoires which include, for example, their speech styles and patterns, their use of resources and the manner in which they both verbally and physically respond to their students. bourdieu holds that our dispositions are preconscious and therefore not easily amenable to conscious reflection and modification – we perform them without conscious reflection, they are obvious, common sense, and in fact, we have forgotten that we even learned them. consequently, any substantial or effective change in a teacher’s embodied teaching practices has to contend with the durability of their pedagogical habitus formation over time given the various social and/or educational ‘fields’ they have inhabited. it was these uncontested pedagogical beliefs, which bourdieu describes as a form of doxa, which the plc conversations sought to interrogate and challenge. the taken-for-granted or common sense values, discourses and practices of a social field, such as the field of education, “come to be viewed as natural, normal and inherently necessary, thus working to ensure that the arbitrary and contingent nature of these discourses are not questioned nor even recognized” (nolan, 2012, p.349). for johan, his doxa of schooling, which had been established on a particular worldview, which we discuss in more detail below, structured a certain form of teaching as natural and self-evident. it was this view, embodied in his pedagogical habitus and enacted in his teaching practices that the plc conversations sought to engage in order to engender his pedagogical adaptation. feldm an and fataar: em bodying pedagogical habitus change. . . 79 t he ‘v oortrekker’ youth movement in south africa is the afrikaner alternative to the international1 english-speaking b oy scout movement. in order to come to an understanding of the constraints and possibilities of johan’s strategic action within his pedagogical adaptations, we discuss in the following section johan’s embodied habitus through key aspects of his biographical narrative (see connelly & clandinin, 1990; andrews, squire & tamboukou, 2013 for a more extensive discussion on biographical and experience-based narrative enquiry). this discussion highlights both the durability and malleability of his pedagogical habitus in relation to the educational fields he has occupied. johan’s embodied habitus johan is a young, white, middle class afrikaans male who grew up in ‘a very white afrikaans farming community’. as the middle child of three children he describes his family as ‘very close’. johan displays a firm embeddedness in his family and values his parents’ opinions and affirmation regarding his decisions or practices. johan describes his parents: my father is a firm, white conservative afrikaans man who has always run his own business. he is very strict and can get very angry when people don’t do what he tells them to do. you have to respect my father and speak to him properly . . . he believes that you must respect those in authority. my mother is gentle and kind. she is submissive to my father, but also finds ways to do things she wants to, like when my father made the family go to the ng kerk (an afrikaans church). my mother didn’t really want to go, she wanted to attend an english church, but she always made us go as a family to the ng kerk with my father. then, she would go to the english church in the evenings. johan describes his family as a typical white afrikaans family. his father was the dominant and authoritarian head of the family while his mother obeyed his authority and helped to ensure that the children were respectful and did what was expected of them. johan’s mother also played a mediating role that ameliorated the harshness of his father’s authoritarian manner by providing a ‘buffer’ between the children and the strict manner of their father. johan started school in 1990 at the age of six. he attended the local white afrikaans primary and high school. despite schools in south africa becoming racially integrated in 1994, johan notes that during his time at school the schools in the rural town where he lived remained exclusively white. during johan’s primary school years he was involved in the ‘voortrekker’ youth1 organisation, which he describes as playing a significant role in his life. the ‘voortrekkers’ 80 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 is founded on a christian afrikaner nationalistic ideology that empowers young afrikaans boys to be successful in their ‘afrikanerskap’ (the condition of being an afrikaner), as well as becoming positive citizens and dependable and committed christians. johan describes the role that his involvement in the ‘voortrekkers’ played in his life, . . .being part of the ‘voortrekkers’ was a very important part of my life and i believed in their value system. i liked the discipline that they taught us . . . we did marching and standing to attention and rituals when we hoisted the flag. we had ceremonies where we were rewarded for things we did . . . they taught us respect and discipline and they valued team work and team building . . . i always feel so proud when i talk about it . . . it was something that i really liked, especially the uniform we had to wear. i loved that uniform. here johan describes his embodied childhood corporeality, both an ideology and a physical hexis that the ‘voortrekker’ organisation embedded in his early year’s habitus. this corporeality is later evident in the way johan comported himself as a teacher. johan’s socialisation into the field of education took a more circuitous route than usual. after completing school johan initially enrolled to study psychology at an afrikaans university, but he did not complete the course and left before the end of the first year to work in london. six months into his time overseas his father pressurised him to return home to work in the family business. he returned to south africa, but did not enjoy working in the family business and decided to enrol to study pastoral psychology through a distant learning college. after two years he changed to an education degree which he completed via correspondence, through the university of south african (unisa). during his degree he was required to complete a practical teaching component and following one of his practical teaching stints he was invited to work as a substitute teacher at a high school which comprised of mostly black students with a diverse teaching staff. johan describes this time of his life: i felt excited about the opportunity to teach but shortly after i started i felt confused and shocked because everything was so different. the school and the children were so different to my culture and background. i had to learn how to teach these learners because the school was very different to the schools i went to. at first it was chaos and i realised that i had to find ways to structure and control my classes. here johan is describing the disjuncture between his embodied habitus and the field context of the school. his pedagogical habitus that had been structured in a white privileged afrikaans school context was incongruent with the students and school structure in which he was now teaching. johan describes how he felt overwhelmed and frustrated by the unruly student behaviour, the noise, the different languages the students spoke, their attitude to school and the way they interacted with him and responded to his authority as a teacher. drawing on bourdieu’s concept of bodily hexis, johan highlights the dissonance between the students’ behaviour and outlook and his expectations of how the students should behave, show respect and respond to his authority as a teacher. feldm an and fataar: em bodying pedagogical habitus change. . . 81 unsure of how to respond, johan drew on support from an older staff member who became his mentor during the two years he taught at the school. this teacher, also a white afrikaner male, was instrumental in assisting johan to put firm discipline structures in place to cope with the large and often times unruly classes, while at the same time encouraging him to develop a caring attitude to his students. this approach to his teaching, which was rigid and somewhat paternalistic in nature, in conjunction with his embodied corporeality which favoured a teacher-centred authoritarian style, formed the basis of johan’s teaching practices. johan’s embodied educational ideals, consolidated by his mentor relationship with a white afrikaner male authority figure, draws on an educational ideology adopted by the apartheid state namely christian national education (cne). cne, which was the education policy until 1994, is described by enslin (1984) as a curriculum ideology for white afrikaansspeaking children that “purport[s] to constitute the lifeand world-view of the afrikanervolk”. (pp.139–140). as underpinning of curriculum policy, cne, while advocating for a particular dominant ideology of afrikaner education, claimed a notion of racial superiority over coloured and black african education based on the view that the boer (afrikaans farmer) nation is “the senior white trustee of the native”, described as being in a state of “cultural infancy” (enslin, 1984, p.140). based on the ideals embodied in johan from his family and educational field contexts he moved through, johan was positioned in a particular manner in his school. johan describes how he initially struggled to relate to the black students which he describes as “very different, at first i didn’t know how to talk to them, or physically interact with them”. in order to survive in this unfamiliar schooling environment, johan relied on the ideals and principles inscribed in his habitus, those of control, authority and discipline combined with a reward system which he used to manage the behaviour of the students. these systems formed the basis of his classroom structures and consequently came to form an integral part of his enacted pedagogy. johan states that his father was not happy with him teaching at a predominantly black african school. he pressurised johan into leaving the school by offering to provide financial support for him until he found a new teaching position. after two years of teaching at the school johan agreed and moved back home and substituted at the local primary school for a year until being offered a school governing body post at the primary school where he currently teaches. his current school is located on the outskirts of a middle class, predominantly white afrikaans area. during apartheid the school was for white students only, however, with the desegregation of schools, the school now mostly enrols black and coloured students and a small group of white students. the school has retained a predominantly white afrikaans staffing component, which, by johan’s own admission, continues to perpetuate a white afrikaans culture despite the racially diverse student group that now attends the school. fataar argues that many schools have “made some adjustments to deracialise their reception cultures, but found ways to assimilate incoming students into their dominant cultural registers” thus retaining the existing cultural orientation of the school (fataar, 2015, p.17). 82 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 johan’s school, therefore, by not acknowledging the diversity of its students, has created a teaching environment that likely works against the possibility of pedagogical adaptation that engages the cultural capital and everyday literacies of the students in their school learning. currently johan teaches a variety of different subjects to grade 5 and 6 students, including english home language, geography, maths and life orientation. he describes himself as a good teacher with firm structures and systems. his general demeanour could be described as someone who is affable, seeks to please others and who elicits on-going affirmation that he is liked by both students and colleagues. being seen as a good teacher by his colleagues and liked by the students is important to johan, and has formed the basis of many of his pedagogical decisions. habitus engagement: reflexivity and strategic action engaging johan in plc discussions about changing the way in which he transmitted his content knowledge to include student engagement and participation was initially difficult. he struggled to accept that he needed to change the structures and systems, specifically those of control, order and discipline that he had worked hard to put in place. these structures were not only embodied in his dispositional corporeality and deeply embedded in his habitus but, according to johan, it was these structures that made him a good teacher. he followed the departmental textbooks diligently and exclusively, stating that this made him feel safe, “if i did what the government wanted me to do and the students failed then i could argue that i had done what they told me to and therefore it wasn’t my fault”. this approach is indicative of the current ‘teacher-proof’ curriculum that reduces the work of teachers to technical system implementers that require them to follow departmental rules and regulations and transmit a pre-determined syllabi determined by departmental curriculum experts. this approach stands in contrast to one that treats teachers as professionals who are informed by an internal accountability system and who take responsibility for their students’ learning and teaching outcomes (fataar, 2012). for johan, adapting his teaching practices to include student engagement involved grappling with his embodied pedagogical habitus. during the first year of the plc discussions johan struggled between an adherence to the regulative forces and constraints found in the doxa of institutionalised schooling practices, and working against his embodied pedagogical habitus to shift his teaching in accordance with a socially just approach to student learning. during the plc conversations he engaged willingly with the possibilities that this approach offered his teaching and student learning, but shifting his embodied pedagogy to engage with this approach required him to leverage a corporeal change in his teaching which he initially found extremely difficult. for johan the objective structures that had produced his subjectivity, his embodied worldview based on authority, discipline and respect, were deeply constraining and regulating in his teaching practices. the plc’s focus on a socially just approach to teaching and learning, was initially incongruent with johan’s tightly controlled and teacher-centered pedagogy. reay (2004) suggests that a disjuncture between an individual’s habitus and feldm an and fataar: em bodying pedagogical habitus change. . . 83 social field holds the potential to produce a new awareness and self-questioning where the habitus finds ways to adapt or shift in alignment with the new field conditions. throughout the first year of the plc conversations johan acknowledged that he struggled to shift his teaching orientation to that of a more socially just approach noting that, . . .it was exciting to think about teaching differently but i was still unsure how to make the changes, so i kept my structures and systems in place because they worked for me. i would try out some of the new ideas and then talk about them in the plc, then test it a bit more . . . after each plc i felt like i had new fresh ideas, but during the week i seemed to end up back in my comfort zone . . . insisting on a quiet class, with order and discipline and being in control. it was during the second year of the plc that a number of factors came together to support his decision to adapt his pedagogy and classroom practice. choosing to remain committed to the plc process for a second year, johan was joined by a new group of teachers. this positioned johan as a supporting facilitator of the plc conversations and required him to assist in leading the dialogue with the new teachers regarding the socially just focus of the plc, as well as share the practical implementation possibilities from his own classroom practices. a further factor, and probably the most pivotal in supporting a more sustained adapted pedagogy, was a physical classroom change that saw him moving to a prefabricated classroom that was approximately 100 metres beyond the school building. johan’s new classroom was positioned at a distance from the rest of the school building. this move signalled a substantial change in the way in which he managed his physical classroom space, which was directly related to his own growing awareness of his embodied pedagogical dispositions that he wanted to adapt and change. johan acknowledges that relinquishing control over his students’ behaviour within the classroom space had been one of the most difficult aspects to adjust to. he had previously been vocal among his colleagues about the importance of a quiet disciplined class, and thus, foregoing these structures that were observable by his colleagues acted as a constraining factor within the school environment. johan explained: i knew that changing my teaching was right, but i needed time to try it out before i felt confident that i could show my colleagues that teaching that looks uncontrolled and allows the students to talk and become noisy, can actually change the way the students learn. from the start of the new year the new, more isolated, classroom space acted as an enabling environment which facilitated johan beginning to shift his corporeality in relation to his teaching and students. he allowed his students to negotiate how the classroom environment was organised and encouraged the students to take ownership of their learning environment. with amusement johan describes how he discovered that the prefabricated classroom walls allowed him to write on them with whiteboard pens and wipe them clean again as one would a whiteboard. to the delight of his students the entire classroom wall space became a large whiteboard which they could write and paste their work on. the wall space, which framed the classroom environment, became a continuation of their learning and written 84 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 work and became a continuation of their learning and written work and provided a space where they could share their ideas and drafts of work with one another and display their group projects. the changed classroom environment instigated a more open disposition in both the manner in which johan engaged with his students and the way in which his students involved themselves in the learning environment. this openness coincided with johan’s use of the ‘funds of knowledge’ (fok) framework to inform his teaching. this approach utilises the students’ lifeworld knowledge from their homes and communities to design and implement lessons that connect the students into the school knowledge. at the start of the second year johan and the plc teachers discussed the possibility of using this framework in their classes and during the plc meetings the teachers collaboratively discussed the design of lesson units using aspects of the fok framework. when johan presented the lesson units to his class, the enthusiasm with which the students involved themselves in the new lesson approach exceeded his expectations. his two grade 6 english classes chose ‘music and drama’ as the overarching theme for the term and together johan and the students decided on the written tasks and assessments based on the caps requirements for the term’s work. he divided the students in each class into groups and each group of students took responsibility for creating their own drama production which included a written story, an oral, prepared reading, and a newspaper article to mention but a few of the curricula tasks that this theme easily encompassed. the students’ story ideas were unique and some, particularly the boys, enacted real world scenarios such as violence, gangs and drugs, while others, mostly the girls, chose stories about singing contests, beauty competitions or broken friendships that were restored through a tragic event. their english lesson units revolved around a combination of their ideas, the caps requirements for the term and the students’ lifeworld knowledge from their homes and communities. the excitement and enthusiasm of the students for their english learning through the negotiated lesson units provided a creative impetus in johan’s pedagogy which he shared with enthusiasm in the plc meetings. how the physical classroom space was claimed by the students for their use, was significant in forcing a shift in johan’s corporeality. initially he tried to control what the students displayed or how they displayed their artefacts, however the students, once invited into the physical learning space in this manner took ownership of the space and, as the items on display were theirs, they began to take control of the classroom space and would daily change or add to their display. they also negotiated how the desks were configured in the classroom in order that each group was closer to their display space on the classroom wall. the weekly collaborative plc discussions also played a significant role in johan’s pedagogical adaptations. the plc teachers had agreed to work on similar pedagogical themes, and plc teachers both affirmed and critiqued johan’s (and each other’s) pedagogical adaptations, providing suggestions and possibilities emanating from their own pedagogical adaptations. the final point which johan describes as being instrumental in consolidating his belief in his adapted pedagogy was the results from his mid-year assessments. the results from the formal school assessments positioned his class as making such significant improvements in feldm an and fataar: em bodying pedagogical habitus change. . . 85 english that only four students were placed on the ‘at risk’ school list, whereas previously more than half of the same class were considered ‘at risk’ for not achieving the basic requirements in english. in conjunction with this, some students who had been failing english before were now in his top ten students. johan describes the role that the plc played as central in him engaging in reflexive pedagogical adaptations thus, . . . besides the plc providing a form of accountability, motivation and guidance, it was also the intellectual support that really helped . . . if it wasn’t for the academic based discussions and the literature and readings provided each week to support our plc conversations, i don’t think i would have been so successful in thinking about my teaching differently. during the first year i thought a lot about changing and tried some things, but it was hard to change what i had been doing. in my second year i decided to take action. it really helped that all the plc teachers were doing it together. the role of the plc process in the teachers’ adaptations and changes cannot be overemphasised. the collaborative and reflexive weekly plc environment provided a safe space for the teachers to share and challenge one another regarding their pedagogical adaptations, and, as johan notes, it also provided a form of accountability. he also highlights the importance of the cognitive input and the manner in which this supported his thinking about his adaptations as well as providing practical support and guidance. johan’s own description of how hard it is to change is indicative of how a cognitivist or knowledgedriven approach is unable to work in isolation of one’s embodied habitus to effect adaptation and change. conclusion this article has provided a narrative account of johan’s pedagogical adaptation and change facilitated through his involvement in the plc process over a two-year period. central to our discussion we offer an understanding of pedagogical change and adaptation as a form of bodily hexis and habitus engagement. exemplified by johan’s story, the article demonstrated both the durability of his embodied pedagogical habitus that needs to contend with his deeply held educational beliefs and values, and the possibility of change capacitated by the on-going reflexive plc dialogue. acknowledging the doxa of his schooling context is described through johan’s storytelling as a necessary consideration within his adaptation and change in pedagogy. the plc conversations did not encourage the teachers to move out of the caps framing but placed an emphasis on finding ways for the teachers to design and implement lessons that generated a richer notion of student engagement and participation by connecting to the students’ lifeworlds and lifeworld knowledge. johan’s narrative highlights how, despite the seemingly intractable nature of the caps framing, there exists a gap, which can be widened 86 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 and enriched, allowing teachers to invite students into curriculum work that is participatory, engaging and richly related to their own cultural lifeworld knowledges. johan’s story reveals a cycle of pedagogical adaptation and change, that we have argued, needs to move beyond cognitive learning to involve a teachers’ corporeality and embodied habitus. this cycle of change is neither predictable nor smooth, but rather recursive, chaotic and often discordant with one’s embodied habitus and taken-for-granted doxa of schooling. wacquant reminds us that “practice is engendered in the mutual solicitation of position and disposition, in the now-harmonious, now-discordant encounter between ‘social structures and mental structures’, history ‘objectified’ as fields and history ‘embodied’ in the form of this socially patterned matrix of preferences and propensities that constitute habitus.” (wacquant in bourdieu, 1984, p.xvi) the body therefore, as a ‘memory pad’, perceives and enacts embodied structures, both cognitive thoughts and physical behaviour that is expressed in the systematic functioning of one’s socialised body within a particular field structure. thus, adaptation and change, facilitated via dialogical plc engagement, requires a deep reflexivity with one’s inveterate embodied pedagogical habitus, which is read on and through one’s bodily hexis. for teachers, therefore, adherence to the social school field, and a submission to the existing school conventions, can be seen as a ‘bodily dressage’ which is visible in one’s hexis and enacted in one’s pedagogy. it was therefore the re-ordering of thoughts and marshalling of the teachers’ bodily dispositions, emotions and practices as well as “deep-rooted linguistic and muscular patterns of behaviour” (bourdieu, 1990b, p.69) that the plc sought to bring to consciousness and interrogate in order to engage with the constructs of a more socially just pedagogy 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(2014). homines in extremis: what fighting scholars teach us about habitus. body & society, 20(2), 3–17. microsoft word b90 full issue.docx journal of education, 2023 issue 90, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i90a05 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x student teacher learning in rural contexts: challenges and opportunities jane pennefather school of education, university of kwazulu natal, durban, south africa pennefatherj@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000 -0002-4276-5664 (received: 29 july 2022; accepted: 8 february 2023) abstract in this article, i explore particular aspects of the learning of postgraduate certificate in education (pgce) student teachers in the context of a collaborative partnership between a university and rural schools in the wild coast rural schools’ partnership project (wcrspp). this focus is especially important given the neglect of rural education in south africa, and of student teacher preparation for placement in rural schools in particular. in considering how student teachers might be prepared to teach effectively in deeply rural circumstances, with its challenges and opportunities, my objectives are to understand the complexity of the process of what student teachers learned and how they learned in this context. using case study methodology within an interpretive paradigm, i draw on the lived experiences of selected student teachers and their university tutors, as revealed in interviews and reflective journals. i frame the learning of the student teachers in the potentially generative nature of rural contexts and seek to illuminate the transformative potential of these in challenging their understanding of teaching and their motivation and performance as teachers. therefore, i highlight the situated nature of the student teacher learning as well as the multidimensional and expansive nature of the learning that emerges through significant moments of mediation. by highlighting the potential for deep learning that can emerge in unexpected ways, i challenge the notion of student teacher learning as being clearly defined and stable. keywords: student teachers, expansive learning, rural context introduction we have learned that the steep hill we take to school is more than just a good physical work-out! but also, a steep hill to learning—where we leave most of our illusions about teaching and theories that don’t work at the foot of the hill. this statement made by a student teacher supports the purpose of this article in which i argue that although learning to teach is complex, particularly under challenging circumstances, there is the potential for expansive learning in these contexts. it is the tensions, disturbances, 88 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 or contradictions here that can be the impetus or the energizing force for change, development, and deep learning that i refer to as expansive learning. building on initial partnership work in the pgce programme, the wcrspp was designed to provide pgce students, supported by university tutors, with the opportunity to complete six weeks of their second school placement period living and teaching in deeply rural school environments on the eastern cape wild coast, an opportunity afforded by my history as a member of that rural community. this was a three-year partnership project involving 25 student teachers per year who were each placed in one of seven deeply rural schools and supported by four university tutors. by situating student teacher learning in a deeply rural area, supported by significant others, their often-narrow conceptions of teaching and context can be challenged, and their professional knowledge can develop as they become increasingly cognisant of what it means to organise learning systematically in a contextually responsive way. it is these reconceptualised views about context, teaching, and learning that can shape their professional identity which has at its core a belief in teacher agency. in this article, i consider the extent to which student teachers’ conceptions of teaching and context are challenged in the wcrspp and how opportunities for the construction of alternative conceptions emerge. i focus particularly on what they learned regarding context and the organisation of teaching and learning, and how they learned, and i refer to this aspect in terms of key moments of mediation in the learning. review of literature by considering the complex nature of learning how to teach and the frequent disjuncture between teacher education programmes and the realities of school contexts, in this section i draw on relevant literature and give a rationale for the development of the multifocal theoretical framework needed to understand the student teacher learning in the wcrspp. the complexity of teaching, which suggests the difficulty of learning how to teach, is captured by winch et al. (2015) who noted, teaching as professional endeavour demands of teachers practical knowhow, conceptual understandings of education, teaching and learning and the ability to interpret and form critical judgements on existing knowledge and its relevance to their particular situation. (p. 202) student teachers enter teacher education programmes with preconceptions of what teaching is from a lifetime of immersion as learners in the schools they attended. this calls for a “reframing of memory” (amin, 2009, p. 73) because of the influence of this memory on their conceptions of teaching. given how many learners attend schools with poor examples of effective teaching, it becomes very important that teacher education courses confront this “pedagogical immunity” (rusznyak, 2009, p. 263) by explicitly examining the notions of teaching held by the student teachers. rusznyak (2009) elaborated that, although student teachers may also have been exposed to the teaching of excellent teachers, they may have developed narrow conceptions of the nature of teaching which may then hinder the pennefather: student teacher learning in rural contexts 89 development of their teaching practice as they are confronted by diverse schooling contexts. similarly, darling-hammond (2006) suggested that opportunities to engage with previously held conceptions of teaching need to be created in teacher education. clandinin and connelly (2000) argued that teacher education should be a process of reconstruction during which the teacher knowledge grows as their existing or personal knowledge is challenged and engaged with, resulting in a shifting or disrupting of existing knowledge. the process of deconstruction of prior beliefs and subsequent reconstruction emerges from opportunities for the creation of cognitive dissonance in student teachers’ thinking (opfer & pedder, 2011). this suggests that teacher education should provide opportunities for the disruption of existing knowledge, for challenging existing narrow preconceptions of what it might mean to be a teacher, and for generating opportunities for the construction of alternatives. furthermore, for many student teachers there is inadequate preparation for the real world of schooling (korthagen et al., 2001; petersen, 2017; sharplin et al., 2010), leading to a reality or culture shock. botha and rens (2018) offered insights into particular challenges beginner teachers face in south africa and questioned the role of tertiary institutions in equipping them both emotionally and academically for the realities of this. they argue that this would include empowering beginner teachers to cope with unpredictable situations. similarly, samuel (2003) suggested that student teachers are taught theoretical concepts in their university courses and are then expected to apply such “theoretical conceptions into the world of practice” (samuel, 2003, p. 270), without taking into account the diversity in authentic schooling contexts. this points to the narrowness of many teacher education programmes with their linear mechanistic ways of thinking that contribute to a theory-practice gap. korthagen & wubbels (2001) suggested the need to reduce this reality shock or theorypractice gap, by confronting student teachers during the teacher education programme with realistic problems that they may face as novice teachers in an effort for better integration of theory and practice. part of this process requires engagement with student teachers’ preconceptions about education, making their tacit knowledge explicit to enable critical engagement and possible development. they explained that the process requires opportunities for practical experiences during which perceptions can be tested and where scaffolding provides the kind of support and mediation for learning to occur. they stressed the impossibility of preparing student teachers for all sorts of contexts but focused, rather, on the development of a “problem-solving attitude” or a “growth competence” that can help develop what they referred to as an innovative capacity (korthagen & wubbels, 2001, p. 47). theoretical framework by considering the complex nature of learning how to teach and, in particular, learning how to teach in a challenging context, in this article i draw on a number of perspectives to understand student teacher learning. these range from teacher knowledge to rurality and from communities of practice to cultural historical activity theory (chat). the need for many different perspectives is supported by putnam and borko (1997) who suggested an eclectic approach to understanding teacher learning. rather than a cognitivist 90 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 approach in which the focus is on the individual and a process of transfer of knowledge, skills, and understandings from one setting to another, a broad socio-cultural approach to understanding student teacher learning is useful because it takes into account an understanding of the collaborative nature of the development of their knowledge-in-practice (schon 1983, 1987) and their process of knowing that is distributed (pea, 1997) or stretched (lave, 1991) across people and settings (kelly, 2006). the concept of boundary zones or transaction spaces (mcmillan, 2011) is useful to understanding the dynamics of social and contested practices that take place between the university and the community. exploring how the student teachers develop a process of reflection-in-practice through which they can engage in a continuing dialogue with the permanently changing situation of their practice (schon, 1983, 1987, cited in kelly, 2006) and what the impact is of group collaboration and feedback in emerging communities of practice, is supported by a socio-cultural approach to understanding learning. if part of the teacher learning in the wcrspp is a process by which the student teachers were moving towards expertise in these particular social settings, or what lave and wenger (1991) explained as full participation in social settings, then what needs to be understood is the processes, both formal and informal, that facilitated, in a challenging context, both their increasingly capable participation in classroom practices and their participation in and understanding of the rural communities in which they lived, and what impact this had on their identity. using only the perspectives of teacher knowledge or communities of practice would be focusing on aspects of their learning but would neglect to address the complexity of the rural context in which the student teachers were living and working, and the potential for learning in contexts characterised by instability and contradiction. this is where the perspectives of chat and rurality enabled a deeper understanding of the learning. activity theory as part of situated learning theory, with its emphasis on the potentially generative nature of contradictions, disturbances, or tensions, offers a further perspective. given the significance of the rural context in the study, using a generative theory of rurality assists in further understanding the situated nature of the student teachers’ learning. the inherently contradictory and conflictual nature of activity systems is seen by engestrom (2009) as potentially generative for learning since it is in the resolution of tensions, through the construction of a wider alternative context, that change and expansive learning can emerge. he saw this learning as a collective endeavour. the concept of interconnectedness between contradictions, expansive learning, and collective endeavour has relevance in the wcrspp where i needed to understand the possibility for student teacher learning in the complex social fabric of a deeply rural context in which there were frequent deviations from predictable norms and practices. in any understanding of student teacher learning, we need to engage with the situatedness of the learning in a particular context. the rural contextual framework of the study was premised on an asset-based approach (preece, 2017) or a generative theory of rurality (balfour et al., 2008) that postulates that, despite the challenges in rural contexts, there are strengths that also need to be understood. this approach, therefore, frames the student teacher learning in the potentially generative nature of rural contexts and seeks to illuminate the pennefather: student teacher learning in rural contexts 91 transformative potential of the rural context in changing their understanding of context, teaching, and their motivation and performance as teachers. of interest are the “cultural immersion experiences” that boyle-baise and mcintyre (2008, p. 310) suggested could help educators venture outside their cultural comfort zone and transform their understanding of others. part of understanding the student teacher learning is to understand whether, in these new “transaction spaces” or “boundary zones” with their “new social contract” (gibbons, 2005, pp. 11–12) where the relationship between higher education and this rural context is reimagined, there is any transcending of an urban middle class hegemony, reflected in an identity and attitude change in the student teachers when viewed through the lens of rurality. giroux (1992, p. 33) refers to the concept of “border pedagogy,” a form of critical pedagogy that provides “the conditions for students to engage in cultural remapping as a form of resistance.” he defined these “borderlands” as more than simply exposure to diverse space, but, rather, as “sites for both critical analysis and as a potential source of experimentation, creativity and possibility” (p. 34.) the extent to which the student teachers in the wcrspp questioned their assumptions and engaged with this knowledge and brought it into their teaching space suggests increasing place sensitivity and enhanced learning. methodology the data that i collected and on which this article is based, included semi-structured interviews and reflective journals from 14 purposively selected student teachers and four university tutors. student teachers and university tutors were required to keep a reflective journal on their daily experiences, including both teaching and living, in which they reflected on their teaching and learning. student teachers from each year of the wcrspp were selected as samples of the total population of 75 student teachers, based on the university tutors’ observations of potentially rich data sources and representations of teaching subjects, race, gender, and site. what facilitated the process of purposive sampling was the residential nature of the wcrspp and the very close living and working conditions of the participants, including the university tutors. this meant that the latter were able to have insiders’ views of informants and an authentic sense of which informants would be most likely to yield the richest data for the study. it also meant that accessing data became part of the natural process of living and working together since relationships and trust were constantly developing. although five focal areas of learning emerged from the study, in this article, i explore two areas of the student teacher learning and the mediation of this learning. i discuss these in the next section. what did the student teachers learn? focal area 1: living as learning here, i focus on the situated nature of the student teacher learning where an increasing place sensitivity shaped the way they viewed the context, their teaching, their relationships, and themselves. 92 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 ian, 1 a university tutor, captured the situated nature of their learning when he said, the nature of the wcrspp which placed students into the communities in which they were teaching, helped them to use local knowledge which afforded access to the potential of the school context. for example, they lived among the parents and learners, travelled the same routes to school, used the same transport to get to local towns and drew many resources from the local environment. they met parents and community leaders and learned first-hand what keeps communities intact. drawing on boyle-baise and mcintyre (2008), i see these as examples of the cultural immersion experiences of the students: they ventured outside their cultural comfort zones and their preconceptions were dislodged, as reflected in their voices, and this led to new shared understandings that transformed their perceptions of place, teaching, and of themselves. this journey of learning is a form of boundary crossing with its often contradictory and tensionfilled practice that can lead to new and different knowledge, values, and skills; this is more than just learning about the formal practices of teaching, in that it can inform the practice of teaching. these are the new transaction spaces (gibbons, 2005) in which the students are immersed and where new relationships are developed, and new learning occurs. this is about a growing knowledge of context that helps to frame and inform their relationships, their identities, and their organisation of teaching and learning. insiders, outsiders and brokering the insider-outsider binary was a recurring concept discussed in the student teacher reflections. in attempting to understand what their experiences of inclusion and exclusion meant for their learning, i draw on melissa's journal reflections to illustrate the experience of increasing inclusion as well as the concept of brokering. she highlighted the impact of my history in the community as a key factor in the students’ inclusion when she wrote, people knew you. there are all the preconceptions with newcomers. not easy for them just to accept us. it is a very deeply rural close-knit community. it is amazing just to accept these outsiders and then you become insiders in a way and then you can start working. as a teacher, you can’t accomplish much as an outsider. you have to be an insider and be accepted. that is key. your history and your relationship with the community made them accept us more easily. this is an example of brokering (wenger, 1998) or boundary work (mcmillan, 2011) that helps facilitate the journey of the student teachers from the outside or the periphery into the inside. quoting wenger (1998), mcmillan (2011, p. 558) explains brokers as “agents who assist participants make new connections across communities of practice, enable coordination and, if experienced, open new possibilities for meaning and therefore learning.” however, in order for the connections to be made, legitimation is needed on both sides of the boundary, namely within the university and the community. my role as university lecturer and project leader as well as community member with deep historical roots afforded the 1 pseudonyms are used throughout. pennefather: student teacher learning in rural contexts 93 legitimacy described by mcmillan (2011), that contributed to the forging of the connections across the various communities of practice. when melissa was probed regarding what else may have facilitated their journey from the outside to the inside, she responded, people like thabo who took us to the sacred initiation pool; the grandmothers who brought the oysters and whose children were at the school. they would come and visit us and tell us how much their children now loved school. these were the members of the community, emerging as brokers, with whom there were deepening moments of contact and communication. as the relationship with thabo deepened, he also took them to the sacred circumcision pool deep in the forest where young men are inducted into manhood and adulthood. as thabo himself had relatively recently gone through the circumcision ritual, he was able, as an insider, to facilitate or broker a boundary crossing for the student teachers. given the sacred nature of a cultural activity like this, this is a particularly intimate example of boundary crossing characterised by deep trust and a sense of mutual responsibility. through this experience they learnt that when boys go into the forest, they leave home and school as boys and emerge as men with very different demeanours. they learnt that as teachers you need to understand this change and differentiate your teaching in order to ensure that you are being inclusive of young men now at a different stage of their lives. as an outsider, without understanding the deep cultural significance of the ritual, any change in behaviour could be interpreted as boys misbehaving and being uncooperative. the student teachers also began to understand that for the boys themselves, there are challenges in managing this new identity. melissa highlighted the authentic nature of this experience of immersion when she explained that “it was a way of integration but learning to look at things as they do.” she concluded by reflecting that if the experience were not authentic then you would always be distant from the place. she said, “you have to be members of the place otherwise you are not going to see the realities of how difficult it is to teach there.” her deepening knowledge of context and its link to her teaching suggests her growing understanding of how important context is in organising teaching and learning. with acceptance comes mutual responsibility, so she reflects on this and on the respect that enables the journey from the outside to the inside. for her, “becoming an insider is about becoming part of them and doing things that are constructive to them, to their own benefit so that when you leave you have left something.” there is a sense of melissa’s discomfort with being an outsider, and an understanding and questioning of what keeps people outsiders. this is learning that is moving towards what engeström (2009) describes as expansive learning, since, through the contradictions and tensions she experiences, melissa begins to construct a wider alternative context for herself, leading to the possibility of culturally new patterns of activity. 94 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 focal area 2: organisation of teaching and learning in this section, i discuss the student teachers’ learning as they attempt to work with the challenges they encounter as they organise teaching and learning. the data revealed a number of key processes in the organisation of learning, including lesson planning and resources, teaching strategies, in particular, developing learner centred pedagogy, and the development of professional judgement. lesson planning planning for lessons is a process that is part of the training in the pgce programme, and that is then implemented in the teaching practice periods. this process involves outlining a lesson plan, with its outcomes and procedures, taking into account the learners, the time, and the resources as part of a series of lessons. in this rural school’s teaching practice so much more was required because there were many more and varied challenges, including erratic timetabling, transport challenges, unpredictable interruptions including the timing of the school feeding scheme meal, and a lack of conventional resources. in discussing specific challenges that she experienced, cathy focused on lesson preparation and how she came to recognise the importance of planning carefully, given the rural context with its lack of resources. she reflected on what she was able to do given these constraints, and pondered, “what can i do with the materials i have? sometimes they only have two or three [copies] of the same text for 60 kids. so, i have to choose carefully what i teach based on the available materials.” implied in this statement is a view of herself as being able to work within the constraints of the context; there is a clear sense of her own agency. there is a recognition that when contexts are challenging, there is even greater need for strategic planning in order to meet these challenges. here she is engaging with the process of teaching in this context and, by being responsive to it, is developing her procedural knowledge that will enable her to organise teaching and learning based on taking into account the shortage of textbooks. colin’s recognition of the need for teachers to plan and prepare effectively is captured in his reflection on the consequences for learners of poor preparation by teachers, particularly in this context where teachers are seldom challenged. he explained, that made me realize that what you say to learners they take seriously so you have to be quite sure that you understand what you say and what you teach and how you think about it; otherwise you may have to unteach what you taught because you are teaching the wrong thing. if you are doing english or maths and you teach them the incorrect thing, they will carry on doing this; especially being in this environment you have to be really prepared; that what you say you think about. . . . in this situation they really do take up everything you say. by observing examples of inadequate planning and preparation, questioning them and reflecting upon them, rather than succumbing to an emulation of these practices or what pennefather: student teacher learning in rural contexts 95 lortie (1975, p. 61) referred to as an “apprenticeship of observation,” colin demonstrates expansive learning. he shows an increasing understanding of the complexity of teachers’ work in the construction of an alternative approach. his developing knowledge-in-practice therefore emerges from an experience of disturbance that widens his perspective on teaching. although the student teachers understood the vital role of the school feeding scheme, they also reflected on the disruption caused by the often-haphazard timing of the break for the meal and the need to plan in taking into account disruptions like these. in dealing with these disruptions, colin affirms the importance of adaptation and flexibility in planning for learning. for him, . . . and it was the whole structure of the school; the reality. those kids are hungry – they have to eat after break; not much you can do, so you have to be flexible. the thing i saw was that the school had a period after school. school closed at 1.45 then had a recreational period after that. the students were always willing to go the extra mile. for me i saw when the bell rang the learners wanted to stay in class. they did not run there. this could be an opportunity to use extra time to make up for lost time. enough time to make up for lost time in lessons. his understanding of the need to acknowledge the context and plan flexibly is captured in his conclusion, “you had to work with time differently.” similarly, cathy, upon reflecting on what she learned about her teaching said, i learnt that spontaneity and improvisation is a very important tool especially working in those kinds of circumstances; that you can plan and planning is very important; you can plan your lessons but something will happen or the children won’t respond and then you have to think on your feet and i came up with things just on the spur of the moment which worked beautifully. drawing on activity theory, i see these as the contradictions, tensions, or disturbances that emerge, and, in many cases, generate opportunities for learning. the potential for contradictions in the context to act as catalysts of learning is exemplified in the student teachers’ struggles since, through these struggles, they began to ask searching questions about teaching and it is this that is at the heart of deepening learning and widening perspective. resources the student teachers’ learning is demonstrated further in their attempts to find ways of overcoming limited resources through having to think creatively about the resources they could use and understanding the importance of drawing on learners’ prior knowledge and interests. this is reflected in sipho’s response to a question about how he overcame the challenge of few resources. he wrote, as you know our schools, they didn’t have books. so, i had to research for my teaching using my cell phone … we try to be resilient, so we use the resources we 96 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 had and also, we try to incorporate different kinds of things in our teaching, especially environment and stuff … to make learners have interest in the subject. when you bring what they know around their communities they get to be interested. so that’s how we rose above those adversities. his reflection on growing learner involvement in lessons as a consequence of a particular action on his part, is also indicative of the pedagogic interpretations that grossman (1990) saw as central to teachers’ work and that reveal sipho’s deepening teacher knowledge. the increasing ability to face a challenge and weigh up options is evidence of his developing knowledge-in-practice in that he is exercising his professional judgement in order to ensure effective teaching. in terms of activity theory, this is evidence of expansive learning whereby, through activity in this context and drawing on both his growing knowledge of the context and his subject knowledge, he is able to reconceptualise his approaches to teaching his subject in taking the context into account. learner-centred pedagogy as the student teachers struggled with the lack of resources, with large, passive classes of unreceptive learners, with unease over the liberal use of corporal punishment, and with examples of poor teaching, they began to ask searching questions in their attempts to organise teaching and learning. in particular, their concern with learner passivity encouraged them to attempt more learner-centred pedagogies. student teacher learning is revealed in their explanations of their use of new approaches and their reflections on the consequent impact of these on learner behaviour. this is evident in colin’s ability to reflect on his movement from teacher-centred to learner-centred instruction. when he was asked about what he had learnt most about teaching from this experience, he focused on the concept of inclusion and the role his university tutor, pat, played in guiding him. he explained, when pat sat in my class and she helped me to realize that i was excluding pupils because you would just carry on teaching and people would be so passive in the back. so, you would not pay attention to them. so you learn how to include people in the class – one of the main things i learnt – how to include everyone; also prior learning; you really have to really know what you are talking about; how to explain more; how to clarify more; how to include all sorts of people in your classrooms. this is an example of the development of his procedural knowledge as he shows an increasing cognisance of the need to make disciplinary knowledge accessible to learners. similarly, this was also captured in khanyi’s reflection when she explained the need to adapt her teaching to the context of the learners because “they take long to understand what you are saying; participate little in your lessons and . . . are not exposed to a variety of things like tv, radio.” she continued by explaining that “you always had to adjust your everyday learning and use examples that they might know.” here she is drawing on analogies that may be pennefather: student teacher learning in rural contexts 97 familiar to the learners in order to enhance their comprehension rather than focussing on her own comprehension. these examples of student teacher responsiveness to learner needs and the organisation of their teaching and learning around these needs, is at the heart of teacher learning as emphasised by shulman (1987, p. 136) when he said, “these forms of transformation . . . wherein one moves from personal comprehension to preparing for the comprehension of others, are the essence of the act of pedagogical reasoning.” developing professional judgement the development of professional judgement is a key construct in understanding student teacher learning. the process of emerging critical reflection and the development of inner questioning is highlighted by shulman (1987) in the development of teacher knowledge. this professional judgement is demonstrated in the many instructional considerations reflected in sarah’s description of her lesson. an increasing understanding of her learners, their barriers to learning, and how to organise learning so that it is comprehensible to her learners and her questioning of assessment practices all formed part of her developing professional judgement. in her discourse below, i have inserted my analysis in parentheses. in grade 9 there are a lot of boys who are much older than the other students. they seem angry with life and not interested in school. i had noticed a few of these boys on the soccer field so i decided to select a soccer poem for our lesson. this turned out to be such a great lesson because they were all interested and involved in the lesson. (here she is drawing on learner interests and prior knowledge.) she then reflects on why she believes the lesson was successful. i believe that there were a few factors that really contributed to this lesson being such a success. firstly, many teachers were not at school, so the learners seemed more at ease. (here she is recognizing the importance of classroom environment as part of the affective domain of effective teaching.) secondly, i had about three periods in a row which meant that i really could take my time and i could really explain the poem and different figures of speech. (this is about her recognition of the substance of learning rather than simply adherence to the forms of teaching). thirdly, the material that i had selected was fun and enjoyable. (this is about her recognition of the importance of creativity and relevance in the selection of resources). even though the three periods were long i never felt like the learners were getting tired of doing work. in the last period i got the learners to answer the questions i had set for these poems. i explained that they should answer in full sentences. i gave them a few examples of full sentences and i explained how to quote from the text… (here she is scaffolding learning). when i marked them this afternoon, i was so happy with how well the learners had done . . . when i paged back in their assessment books the marks were shocking. many books had big red rings with 6/20 or 2/20 written in them. no book had a single comment or word of encouragement. (here she is questioning the 98 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 purpose of assessment and the importance of formative assessment). this really upset me because i knew that these learners were smart and that they want to learn. it really showed that they weren’t being taught properly. even though they were grade 9 learners i got my stickers out and i wrote encouraging comments in each learner’s book. (here she shows that she understands the importance of positive reinforcement). sarah is engaged in what mcewan (1987) as quoted in grossman (1990) described as “pedagogic interpretations” (p. 8) that he sees to be the central activity of teachers when they interpret specific content in terms of learner prior knowledge and interests. this act of pedagogical reasoning that requires flexibility and adaptation to “the moment of teaching” (shulman, 1987, p. 136) is also seen in zinhle’s reflection on the lack of comprehension of her learners because of their lack of prior knowledge and her response to this. she said, “you’d come up with an idea and the children would just look blank but as soon as you take that quick moment to think about it, then everything else just fell into place. i just learnt that i can stretch myself far.” she is demonstrating her understanding that teachers need to be responsive to “the moment of teaching” when she sees learners’ blank looks and she reflects on the reasons for this and alters her course of action. this is evidence of her developing professional judgement. understanding the need for a differentiated approach in order to include all learners is at the heart of the pedagogic knowledge needed for effective teaching. how to implement this approach is frequently challenging even for experienced teachers, but in melissa’s reflections in her journal there is evidence of a growing professional competence in this regard. she emphasised these insights by bracketing and italicising her emotions. so, you end up having a class where half the learners are finished with the task whilst the other half is still busy writing down the questions. (what do you do?) you end up preparing extra for those ‘bright/fast’ learners whilst you gradually work with, encourage, and help the others. (it is exhausting and sometimes very difficult.) you also just have difficult learners – but the trick is to build a good rapport with your learners. professional and approachable – kids want structure and they want to learn. they want to engage, and i don’t think any kids should be taught at. this kills creative and innovative thinking – it closes their minds – this is a great injustice. what melissa is describing is at the heart of professional judgement in that her increasing capacity to focus on her actions and their consequences is indicative of her growing expertise. as melissa and the other student teachers have demonstrated, it includes the exercising of professional judgement in so many aspects of their work, including: the selection of the content to be taught; the pacing and sequencing of the content; the selection of examples to demonstrate a concept; assessment challenges; classroom management decisions; and issues relating to cultural diversity. their reflections reveal that many of their assumptions regarding context, teaching strategies, resources, and classroom management were challenged, resulting in the need for them to ask deep searching questions about what they are pennefather: student teacher learning in rural contexts 99 doing in order to ensure that learning is happening for these learners in this context. this point is reinforced by ian, one of the university tutors, when, reflecting on the student teacher learning, he said, i think the student teachers learned that teaching is not the same in every context. many students probably reflected on their own experience as learners and expected their teaching to reflect these experiences. for some it was likely to have been quite similar but for others it was undoubtedly worlds apart. essentially, i think that students generally learned the importance of questioning their own models of what good teaching might mean to them. those with excellent subject knowledge soon came to realize that this alone was largely worthless and without a knowledge of context, they were left with very little, so making decisions about what to do with their knowledge and how to engage with different contexts became the focus of making professional judgements. using evidence from the data and insights from the theory, each of these focal areas demonstrates significant development in the student teachers’ learning, as well as highlighting the complex nature of this learning. the student teachers begin to gain what clarke and winch (2004, p. 519) called “a perceptual, judgemental and manipulative confidence,” in their understanding of context and the organisation of teaching and learning. although in discussing what the student teachers learnt, i touched on aspects of how this happened, in the next section, i explore in more depth the question of how the student teachers learned in the activity system of the wcrspp. moments of mediation: how did the student teachers learn? although shulman (1987, p. 140) suggested that teacher education should “provide students with the understandings and performance abilities they will need to reason their ways through and to enact a complete act of pedagogy”, he does not clarify how this should be done. i consider two of the mediational processes, referred to as moments of mediation, that enabled this process of learning for the student teachers. drawing on activity theory and on engestrom’s (2009) work in particular, i show how these mediating tools have the potential to change the contradictions, tensions, and disturbances into forces for new learning. moment of community integration as melissa said, “you have to be members of the place otherwise you are not going to see the realities of how difficult it is to teach there.” living in the community this is about the transformative nature of this rural context captured by balfour et al. (2008, p.102) when they said that “rurality is an actively constituted constellation of forces, agencies and resources that are evident in lived experience and social processes in which teachers and community workers are changed.” 100 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 the transformative nature of the context is also captured in ian’s reference to the facilitating role rurality played in affording student teachers access to the potential of the school’s broader context. by living and interacting in the rural communities, both formally and informally, they came to understand who their learners were, and this enhanced their ability to plan for their teaching. this increasing understanding of their learners’ context contributed to the development of one of the key domains of their developing teacher knowledge, i.e. their procedural or practical knowledge (knowledge-in-practice). this developing knowledge-in-practice is illustrated in many of the student teacher reflections including melissa’s on how she had to adjust her strategies in response to the level and interests of the learners. as she put it, i had so many ideas and ideals – which were modified in my first week at the school. i realized quickly that the kids/learners weren’t at their respective levels in terms of the requirements of the ncs. so, i worked with their existing knowledge to try and build on it. these learners are amazing. i learned the importance of scaffolding, sticking to themes, code-switching, and repetition. sometimes referred to as context specific knowledge, this knowledge is learned mainly informally through participation in social activities (knight, 2002; stuart et al., 2009; wilson & demetriou, 2007), and this supports the contention that the experience of living in the community was a key moment of mediation in their learning. in terms of the student teacher learning, the integration in the community can be seen as part of an extended “web of mentoring” (shank, 2005, p. 78) that enabled opportunities for additional avenues of mentoring, both formal and informal in terms of community, culture, and context, all essential aspects of understanding the learners whom they taught. student teacher reflections revealed that they could move around unafraid and cared for where they were supported materially, physically, and emotionally as they were welcomed into homes, and traditional ways of living, including being offered local traditional food. these, as well as the opportunities offered by the natural environment for teaching opportunities, were the assets of the rural community that contributed to the mediation of the student teacher learning as they developed a new understanding of what it means to be a teacher in these rural contexts with their deeply held beliefs and practices. the development of professional judgement in this context required knowledge of learners and their context. student teachers were beginning to understand that teaching involves learning including learning about how to teach a subject in different contexts that require learning about the learners’ worlds. for example, the student teachers were able to respond appropriately to those boy learners who had emerged from the winter circumcision rituals as men in adapting their approaches to meet the needs of these learners’ changed identity. instead of interpreting these learners’ changed demeanour as insolence, their integration into the community enabled the student teachers to understand cultural nuances and their consequent impact on learner identity. this growing knowledge of context affected their organisation of teaching and learning. without integration into the community through the opportunities afforded to them by various brokers, they could have remained oblivious to pennefather: student teacher learning in rural contexts 101 these kinds of contextual factors. this is a challenge faced by many teachers in rural schools when they deliberately exclude themselves from the context of their schools by invoking their status as teachers and by living outside these communities. community and identity the potential for expansive learning emerged from the contradictory demands between many of the student teachers’ previously lived experiences and this new largely unfamiliar context. there are many examples of the impact, frequently transformative, of their cultural immersion experiences, epitomised by melissa’s description of what it meant when she said, “we basically did everything as though we were in the community. we weren’t there as visitors, as tourists . . . it was a way of integration [and] learning to look at things as they do.” melissa reflected on the concept of integration as involvement in a range of local activities but also there was a sense of deeper belonging and transformation in her reflection about “learning to look at things as they do.” this supports wenger’s contention that “building an identity consists of negotiating the meanings of our experience of membership in social communities” (1998, p. 145). in the wcrspp, the moment of integration into the rural community became an experience of changing identity for the student teachers in that the learning transformed who they were and what they could do. they confirmed a new understanding of rural contexts with their challenges and strengths, as well as what it means to be a teacher in these rural contexts, demonstrating an increasing sense of what they were able to do (i.e. their agency) and why they chose to become teachers. this growing sense of agency and self-efficacy is captured in the student teacher reflections, epitomised by bongeka when she said “it just built me and made me as a person you know…” korthagen & wubbels (2001, p. 142), defined reflection as a form of meta-cognition that can be threatening to the self-image. therefore, for reflection to occur, they suggested that a high degree of self-efficacy is needed. there is evidence in these student teachers’ voices of an increasing reflectiveness as they become more adept at living and teaching in this context. the moment of community integration as a transformative moment in the student teacher learning, when many of their preconceptions were challenged, is captured by anne, one of the university tutors, when she said, i think they had to rethink their whole attitude – how do i handle a context like this? i think putting them in that project made them think about themselves, how to react to that, but i think a lot of them came away enriched by it – they had been transformed by what they saw there, the way that school functioned, the community functioned and they had to rethink their whole idea what it can be like; what it can entail being a teacher, what being a teacher is … and they had to rethink a lot of what they presumed teaching would be about. anne used the term “rethink” here several times in relation to “being a teacher,” in pointing to their learning through reflection in this context that was indicative of expansive learning. 102 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 moment of conferring with university tutors she feeds us both nutritionally and mentally. the metaphor used by nonhlanhla above, captures the dynamic of the moment of conferring with the university tutors and the multi-faceted aspects of the mediation. it suggests that the tutor support was both formal and informal, that the tools of mediation were both psychological and pedagogical, and the concept of feeding suggests how vital this support was to their personal and professional growth and development. there is a sense of the university tutors’ mediational role as being life supporting in an unpredictable and challenging context. these processes of analysing contradictions and resolving conflictual tensions, modelling new approaches; and examining new models are seen as key by engeström (2009) in the development of expansive learning, so evident in the student teachers’ moment of conferring with their university tutors. university tutors in their roles as guides, brokers, co-learners, and friends were never perceived by the student teachers as the central authority in a hierarchical sense, so the concept of “negotiated knotworking” (engeström, 2008, p. 19), with its emphasis on collaboration between participants without rigidly defined rules, emerging through the facing of “constant disturbances, ruptures, and unanticipated learning imperatives” (p. 20), has relevance to an understanding of the nature of the student teacher-university tutor collaboration. the concept of knot refers to “rapidly pulsating distributed, and partially improvised orchestration of collaborative performance . . [where] the locus of initiative changes from moment to moment in a knotworking sequence” (p. 194). similarly, the complex interdependent nature of the student teacher-university tutor relationship, with its shifting “locus of initiative,” as they draw on different strengths in teasing out the solutions to difficult situations or dilemmas together, is a form of knotworking. emerging community of practice drawing on wenger’s (1998) elaboration of the concept of practice as the source of coherence of a community of practice, the student teachers and the university tutors were mutually engaged in the joint enterprise of organising learning in a deeply rural context in drawing on and together developing a shared repertoire of resources. given the unpredictability in terms of context and demands, university tutors needed to support the student teachers in the development of the flexible problem solving and professional judgement needed to respond to the unexpected demands of this context. in a sense, the moment of conferring was about the student teachers and the university tutors together learning new forms of activity that could not be planned for, with the university tutors, through their experience and expertise (as old-timers) able to guide and support the student teachers (as newcomers) in the development of their procedural knowledge. relationships drawing both from the student teacher and university tutor voices, in the wcrspp the unique situation of shared living and working space influenced the development of the pennefather: student teacher learning in rural contexts 103 student teacher-university tutor relationships and practices. this particular relationship embodied what shank (2005, p. 73) called “a collaborative enquiry group” in a mentoring space that is “dynamic and reciprocal.” this is captured in the student teacher voices as they reflected on the diverse and dynamic nature of the support and the many moments in which, together with their university tutors, they conferred on challenges, strategies, and successes. reflections like kelly’s in which she describes her university tutor as a “sounding board” and someone who “helps put your issue into perspective”, suggest the many opportunities for conferring between student teachers and their university tutors. the importance of a conferring space or moment is also highlighted by the university tutors themselves, as ian pointed out when he said, the more unusual provision of time and space to engage with student teachers more fully was, in my opinion a significant feature of the project . . . [and] provided a grounded, safe space to face unexpected and unusual challenges. drawing from engeström (2009), i suggest that it is in the affordances of this extended space of mentoring and support that processes of analysing contradictions and resolving conflictual tensions, modelling new approaches, and examining new models become part of the mediational tools necessary for the development of expansive learning. the extended opportunities for learning are what colin alluded to when he compared the nature of the mentoring experience in the wcrspp to traditional mentoring experiences. he said, also, i feel that the (usual) university approach of watching one lesson, writing out stuff and short feedback is not great. here we could talk about stuff – extended time. we had more time to be more reflective. anne, one of the university tutors, similarly reiterated the significance of these extended periods of interaction when she said, i think it was because i was with them all the time . . . so i think this was a much more personal relationship and it extended beyond just a crit, and quite often it was – let’s do it again and let’s see if it will work better. this is about a deep moment of conferring emerging from a significant relationship of trust; in both reflections there is an emphasis on the extended moment of conferring, as well as on the expanded nature of the process. here, the traditional approach of the isolated visits or socalled crits in conventional teaching practice, with their emphasis on the acquisition of welldefined knowledge and skills, is replaced by what engeström (2009, p. 64) called “care relationships” that become the key conceptual tool in the student teacher learning process. similarly, manning and hobson (2017), drawing on recent studies, reflected on the increasingly judgemental approaches to mentoring that emerge from an over emphasis on assessment instead of developmental approaches that incorporate the roles of counsellor, guide, and coach, with their transformative potential. 104 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 an important aspect of the university tutor mediation included the modelling of different aspects of teachers’ work. engeström (2009, p. 69) saw modelling as a strategic action in expansive learning when he explained its emergence and significance in saying, modelling is already involved in the formulation of the framework and the results of the analysis of contradictions, and it reaches its fruition in the modelling of the new solution, the new instrumentality, the new pattern of activity. an example of how modelling was used by a tutor, is illustrated in anne’s reflections on the development of student teachers’ increasing reflexivity in reconceptualising their actions in a challenging school space. she noted that the staff, particularly the leadership were quite dysfunctional, but all this time they (the student teachers) were having to say what do i do in this situation, where do we go from here. her reflection on her role in this reconceptualisation suggests the modelling of an alternative that is able to generate “a new pattern of activity” (engeström, 2009 p. 69) by the student teachers that is indicative of deepened learning. for her, i think there were a lot of aspects that i was able to share, like practical classroom management, just how do you get on in your classroom and organise your day. emerging identity the data revealed increasing evidence of the development of student teachers’ reflections in and on practice that frick et al. (2010) suggested can facilitate the development of professional identity. they explained this professional identity in terms of the development of core beliefs about teaching and being a teacher, including the concept of mission, in relation to others. the many examples of student teacher reflections on teaching, their roles as teachers, and their increasing agency, “transforming who they were and what they could do” (wenger, 1998, p. 215), suggested that their developing professional identity was emerging through the moments of conferring with their tutors. as i suggested earlier, the moment of conferring enabled a reflective, safe space for both student teachers and their university tutors, and created an opportunity for reconceptualisations of practices, concepts, and values contributing to developing teacher agency. this was captured in pat’s reflection when she said, it wasn’t about saying you’re doing this or that wrong, but rather let’s sit down and talk about it and work it out. it helped them try things that are different, without fear of failure … and that contributed to their development. what is important about the space is that it is supportive in encouraging the development of self-efficacy rather than dependency. pennefather: student teacher learning in rural contexts 105 conclusion in this study, i set out to understand particular aspects of the student teacher learning in the wcrspp, with a focus on understanding what they learned and how they learned. reflecting on the voices of both student teachers and university tutors affords us an insight into the complexity of learning how to teach in a rural south african context, thus countering the suggestion of something defined and predictable about what teachers need to know. this approach to the acquisition of well-defined knowledge and skills, also conceptualises the “competent teacher” as one who knows what knowledge and skills need to be learned. in supporting his criticism of this approach, engeström (2009, p. 58) explained, “in important transformations of our personal lives and organisational practices, we must learn new forms of activity which are not yet there. they are literally learned as they are being created. there is no competent teacher.” here, by highlighting the instability of contexts and the potential for deep learning that can emerge in unexpected ways, he is challenging the notion of learning being clearly defined and stable and the belief that competent teachers can predict what skills and knowledge are needed. this point is echoed in the voices of the student teachers and their university tutors in the wcrspp as they wrestle with both the challenges and the opportunities of the context, frequently struggling to make sense of a teaching context that defies any notion of learning being clearly defined, stable, and easily transferable from their university context. competence and learning in this context take on very different meanings since the student teachers have to learn new transformative forms of activity in the moment of engagement through drawing on the resources offered by the context. i suggest that it is supported experiences like these in challenging contexts where deep, searching questions need to be asked about the relationship between and among context, teaching, and identity, that can offer opportunities for the development of expansive learning in student teachers, enabling them not only to contain the challenges in the context but to use them in ways that result in approaches that are flexible, creative, and responsive to context. given the diversity and complexity of the south african context, this raises questions about what knowledge for teachers means in south africa and what the implications are for teacher education. emerging from the study is a suggestion that teacher education should engage more purposively with the complexity of learning to teach, and provide opportunities for the disruption of existing knowledge, challenge existing narrow preconceptions of context and what it might mean to be a teacher and, in this way, generate opportunities for the construction of alternatives. references amin, n. 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(2015). the contribution of educational research to teachers’ professional learning: philosophical understandings. oxford review of education, 41(2), 202–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2015.1017406 journal of education, 2017 issue 70, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za the relationship between school-leaving examinations and university entrance assessments: the case of the south african system robert prince u niversity of cape town robert.prince@ uct.c.za (received 8 january 2016; accepted 4 december 2017) abstract m any higher education systems across the globe struggle with the challenges of low throughput rates and high dropout rates. it is estimated that more than half of south african h igher education students drop out before completing their degree studies and only one in four students complete their undergraduate programmes in regulation time. access, success and completion rates continue to be racially skewed. t he challenges of these low throughput and high dropout rates along racial lines means that effective teaching and learning has to be a major focus for the higher education sector. in addition, extended degree programmes, where degrees are formally done over a longer period of time, have to be considered as part of the future higher education landscape in south africa. one difficulty is determining which students will benefit from an extended programme. in south africa there are two assessments of school-leavers that are pertinent to this difficulty. t he first is the national school leaving examination, the national senior certificate (nsc ), which is a statutory requirement for entry into h igher education. t he results of the n sc are norm-referenced (they yield an estimate of the position of the tested individual learner in relation to her peers) and are often difficult to interpret for the purposes of admission, placement and curriculum development. t he second assessment is the n ational b enchmark t ests (nb t s). t he n b t s are criterion-referenced (they generate a statement about the behaviour that can be expected of a person with a given score) and test students in three domains: academic literacy, quantitative literacy and m athematics. t his paper investigates the empirical relationship between the two assessments and argues that they should be seen as complementary in order to address the challenges of placing students in appropriate programmes and creating effective teaching and learning environments. introduction many higher education systems across the globe struggle with the challenges of low throughput rates and high dropout rates (prince, 2016). in south african higher education, only 27% of entering students graduate in minimum time and 55% of those entering students never graduate. it is estimated that 40% of graduates take up to two years more than the minimum time for their degree studies (scott, yeld and hendry, 2007; council on higher education, 2013). the poor retention rates, in the order of 45%, exacerbate the problem of students taking longer than the minimum time. typically, extended degree programmes structure the curriculum in such a manner that students can do their degree studies over the minimum time plus one year. a challenge is how best to identify students that would benefit most from either an extended, or a regular, degree programme. in south 134 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 africa, there are two assessments that contribute information for this purpose. the first is the national senior certificate (nsc) which is a statutory requirement for entry into higher education. the results of the nsc are often difficult to interpret for the purposes of higher education. the second is the national benchmark tests (nbts) project (griesel, 2006). one of the nbts project objectives is to assess the relationship between entry level proficiencies and school-level exit outcomes (griesel, 2006, p. 4). the nbts’ conceptualisation, design and implementation make it well placed to provide information for the purpose of placement and curriculum development (prince, 2016). not only the content that is taught at school is essential for performing well in south african higher education. the cognitive abilities and skills underlying the school curriculum content that are learned in one context and are believed to be transferable to another are also important. the nbts are thus designed to provide information about these abilities and skills which the south african higher education sector requires, in order to make decisions about the most appropriate curriculum structures for students. in prince (2016) it is argued that ranking applicants for selection is important, but placing students in appropriate curriculum structures which take into account what students can and cannot do is more important; and that the criterion-referenced information gained through the nbts complements the nsc norm-referenced assessments to be used as a credible and valid mechanism for placing students in the two different curricular routes. in this paper, the nsc subject scores and nbt domain scores achieved by prospective 2016 higher education entrants are used to investigate the relationship between entry level proficiencies (nbt) and school level outcomes (nsc). the criterion-referenced and the norm-referenced assessments the two sets of assessments written by prospective students in higher education in south africa are fundamentally different in terms of purpose, intentions, design and manner of delivery. the national benchmark tests are criterion-referenced, which means that they are “constructed to provide information about the level of a test-taker’s performance in relation to clearly defined domains of content and/or behaviours (e.g. reading, writing, mathematics) that require mastery” (foxcroft 2006, p. 9) while the national senior certificate examinations are norm-referenced, which means that performance in a particular year is normed to a ‘norm group’. norm-referenced tests are designed to sort and rank students, usually ‘on a curve’. the national senior certificate determines the extent to which scholars are ready to exit the school system while the national benchmark tests determines the extent to which prospective higher education students are ready for the demands of higher education. norm-referenced and criterion-referenced approaches to assessment should not be seen as a binary choice fraught with tension; rather, the two should be seen as compatible and complementary (lok, mcnaught and young, 2016). prince: the relationship betw een school-leaving exam inations . . . 135 the norm-referenced national senior certificate the nsc assessments are norm referenced and therefore cannot easily be used to assess the extent to which candidates meet a certain standard in a subject or domain. for the nsc, the raw examination scores are ‘standardised’ or ‘normed’ to the 3 to 5 year rolling average score for each subject. after this the school based assessment is statistically moderated by comparing the means of the school based assessment to that of the examination scores and the final score combines the standardised examination mark to the statistically moderated school based assessment in the ratio of 75:25. so, while a candidate may perform well overall, it may be difficult to understand the actual competence in the subject being tested. the department of basic education (dbe) approved the achievement scale for nsc subjects (dbe, 2009, p.5) given in table 1 below, and the descriptions against the rating codes are not benchmarks or standards that are set through a standard setting exercise, but rather descriptive labels of percentage score ranges. table 1: nsc scale of achievem ent g rades 10–12 rating code description score 7 outstanding achievement 80–100 6 meritorious achievement 70–79 5 substantial achievement 60–69 4 adequate achievement 50–59 3 moderate achievement 40–49 2 elementary achievement 30–39 1 not achieved 0–29 on completing the nsc, a candidate can qualify for higher certificate, diploma or degree study. table 2 describes the criteria, from the dbe (2009, p. 5), for entry into higher certificate, diploma or degree study that are used in south africa. 136 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 table 2: criteria for higher certificate, diplom a and degree study qualification minimum entry requirement higher certificate pass nsc with at least rating of 2 (30–39%) for the language of learning and teaching of higher education institution diploma pass nsc with an achievement rating of 3 (40–49%) or better in four subjects. at least rating of 2 (30–39%) for the language of learning and teaching of the higher education institution. bachelor degree pass nsc with an achievement rating of 4 (50–59%) or better in four subjects from the designated list. at least rating of 2 (30–39%) for the language of learning and teaching of the higher education institution. language learning in grades 10–12 of the nsc includes the eleven official languages in south africa, namely, afrikaans, english, isindebele, isixhosa, isizulu, sepedi (sesotho sa leboa), sesotho, setswana, siswati, tshivenda, xitsonga, as well as non-official languages. these languages can be offered at different levels. however, many south african schools do not offer the home languages of some or all of the enrolled learners but rather have one or two languages offered at ‘home language’ level. as a result, the labels ‘home language’ and ‘first additional language’ refer to the proficiency levels at which the language is offered and not the native (home) or acquired (as in the additional languages) language of the learner. currently only english and afrikaans are used as languages of learning and teaching in south african higher education. the home language level provides for language proficiency that reflects the mastery of basic interpersonal communication skills required in social situations and the cognitive academic skills essential for learning across the curriculum. emphasis is placed on the teaching of listening, speaking, reading and writing skills at this language level. the first additional language level assumes that learners do not necessarily have any knowledge of the language when they arrive at school. by the time learners enter grade 10, they should be reasonably proficient in their first additional language with regard to both interpersonal and cognitive academic skills. however, the reality is that many learners still cannot communicate well in their additional language at this stage. the challenge in grades 10–12, therefore, is to provide support for these learners at the same time as providing a curriculum that enables learners to meet the standards required in grade 12. these standards must be such that learners can use their additional language at a high level of proficiency to prepare them for further or higher education or the world of work. all nsc candidates must also write the examinations for either mathematics or mathematical literacy, which are both cognate with, but not the same as, the nbt mathematics and quantitative literacy, as can be seen from the descriptions of them in the national curriculum statement (ncs) curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) documents. prince: the relationship betw een school-leaving exam inations . . . 137 the ncs caps document for the mathematics subject defines mathematics as a language that makes use of symbols and notations for describing numerical, geometric and graphical relationships. it is a human activity that involves observing, representing and investigating patterns and qualitative relationships in physical and social phenomena and between mathematical objects themselves. it helps to develop mental processes that enhance logical and critical thinking, accuracy and problem solving that will contribute in decision-making. m athematical problem solving enables us to understand the world (physical, social and economic) around us, and, most of all, to teach us to think creatively (db e, 2011a, p.8). the focus on problem-solving and critical thinking in order to understand real-world phenomena, has strong similarities with the definition of quantitative literacy, but the main focus of the subject is in fact on learning the discipline of mathematics itself in order to ensure “access to an extended study of the mathematical sciences and a variety of career paths” (dbe, 2011a, p.10). on the other hand, the ncs caps for mathematical literacy states that the competencies developed through it should allow individuals to make sense of, participate in and contribute to the twenty-first century world – a world characterised by numbers, numerically based arguments and data represented and misrepresented in a number of different ways (d b e, 2011b, p.8). it further suggests that these competencies, which include the ability to reason, solve problems, interpret information and use technology, should be developed by exposing learners to both elementary mathematical content and authentic real-life contexts. this exposure is intended to enable the learner to be a “self-managing person, a contributing worker and a participating citizen in a developing democracy” and an “astute consumer of the mathematics reflected in the media (dbe 2011b, p.8)”. the emphasis on using mathematical knowledge and skills in context is what makes this subject similar to quantitative literacy, but for higher education the contexts are academic disciplinary contexts, not necessarily everyday life-related contexts, as emphasised in the nsc caps document for mathematical literacy. the school-leaving assessment, the national senior certificate, has been described as a set of norm-referenced assessments which aim to deliver statutory information for higher education admission. the criterion-referenced national benchmark tests with its benchmarked categories of performance for formal study at institutions of higher learning will now be described. the criterion-referenced national benchmark tests the nbts are based on academically researched test specifications and use modern test theories (yen and fitzpatrick, 2006) to determine test scores. they use criterion-referenced benchmarks set through the modified angoff standard setting method to place candidate 138 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 scores in proficiency bands which describe both their preparedness for the demands of higher education and the extent to which the curricula should be responsive to the preparedness of the candidates they do admit. the nbts assess students and prospective students in the three domains of academic literacy; quantitative literacy and mathematics in the languages of instruction, namely english and afrikaans. the academic literacy test assesses a students’ capacity to engage successfully with the language demands of academic study. the test is an assessment of the generic academic reading and reasoning ability of prospective applicants. the construct of academic literacy (cliff and yeld, 2006) on which the test is based has a well-theorised history (bachman and palmer, 1996; cummins, 2000; yeld, 2001; cliff, yeld and hanslo, 2003) and empirical studies have been reported exploring associations between performance on this construct and academic performance in a wide range of south african higher education contexts (cliff, ramaboa and pearce, 2007; cliff and hanslo, 2009). the quantitative literacy test assesses a students’ ability to manage situations or solve problems of a quantitative (mathematical and statistical) nature in real contexts relevant to quantitative disciplines in higher education (prince and archer, 2008; prince and simpson, 2016). the definition of quantitative literacy and the construct which underpins the nbts quantitative literacy test (frith and prince, 2006; frith and prince, 2009) is strongly influenced by the definition of numerate behaviour underlying the assessment of numeracy in the adult literacy and lifeskills (all) survey (gal, van groenestijn, manly, schmitt & tout, 2005, p.152) and the new literacies studies’ view of literacy as social practice (street, 2005; street & baker, 2006; kelly, johnston & baynham, 2007). while the academic literacy and quantitative literacy assessments are generic in nature the mathematics test assesses a students’ ability related to mathematical concepts formally part of the school mathematics curriculum relevant to the subject mathematics itself and disciplines such as physics and chemistry which require mathematics. the mathematics assessment therefore assesses the degree to which learners have achieved the ability to do manipulations, synthesise a number of different mathematical concepts, and draw strictly logical conclusions in abstract symbolic contexts (bohlmann and braun, 2006). these higher-order skills underlie success in higher education mathematics. the academic literacy, quantitative literacy and mathematics assessments make use of multiple choice items that are mapped onto the respective test specification tables. responses are scored using the unidimensional three-parameter (a, b, c) item response theory (irt) model, where a = discrimination, b = difficulty, and c = guessing/pseudo-chance (yen and fitzpatrick, 2006). academic literacy, quantitative literacy and mathematics items are scored dichotomously, that is either as right or wrong. each different form of the three assessments contains common items for equating purposes (holland and dorans, 2006) to ensure that performance on different versions of the test is comparable. the standard-setting method that is employed to determine the benchmarks is the modified angoff method (hambleton and pitoniak, 2006). in the modified angoff method panellists of experts are asked to prince: the relationship betw een school-leaving exam inations . . . 139 estimate independently the probability that the borderline candidate (a candidate believed to be located at a performance standard of interest) will answer each item correctly; those probabilities are summed over items for each panellist to arrive at a panellist performance standard, and then these panellist performance standards are averaged to obtain a performance standard for the panel on the test. the process is repeated for all performance standards of interest. basically, the panellists are estimating the expected standard or cut-score or benchmark of the borderline candidate on each item and then these expected item scores are summed to obtain an estimated true score for the borderline candidate on the collection of test items. the panelist’s estimated true score on the test for the borderline examinee is taken as the panelist’s estimate of the performance standard. table 3 provides a description of the academic literacy (al), quantitative literacy (ql) and mathematics (mat) benchmark levels defining proficiency levels for degree, diploma and higher certificate study, the score ranges and suggested institutional responses to candidates performing at these levels. 140 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 table 3: national benchm ark test perform ance standards and their interpretations for bachelors study (be) and for diplom a and higher certificate study (de & ce) performance band score range description proficient be al: 64%-100% ql: 70%-100% mat: 68%-100% de & ce al: 64%-100% ql: 63%-100% mat: 65%-100% test performance suggests that future academic performance will not be adversely affected (students may pass or fail at university, but this is highly unlikely to be attributable to strengths or weaknesses in the domains tested). if admitted, students may be placed into regular programmes of study. intermediate be al: 38%-63% ql: 38%-69% mat: 35%-67% de & ce al: 31%-62% ql: 34%-62% mat: 35%-64% t he challenges identified are such that it is predicted that academic progress will be adversely affected. if admitted, students’ educational needs should be met as deemed appropriate by the institution (e.g. extended or augmented programmes, special skills provision). basic be al: 0%-37% ql: 0%-37% mat: 0%-34% de & ce al: 0%-30% ql: 0%-33% mat: 0%-34% test performance reveals serious learning challenges. it is predicted that students will not cope with higher education study without extensive and long-term support, perhaps best provided through bridging programmes (i.e. non-credit preparatory courses, special skills provision) or further education and training (fet) provision. since the majority of the south african higher education cohort scores place students in the intermediate band, it has been found productive to divide the intermediate performance band into two, the intermediate upper and lower bands. it is important to note that this division was not done through the standard-setting exercise but rather through taking the mean value of the top and bottom of the ‘intermediate’ interval values. prince: the relationship betw een school-leaving exam inations . . . 141 this brief overview of differences between the two assessment systems explicates the complementary nature of norm-referenced tests such as the nsc and criterion-referenced tests such as the nbts. the case of the prospective candidates for higher education in south africa in 2016 data from 72 517 candidates who wrote both the nsc and nbts in 2015 for entry into higher education in 2016 will be used to explore the empirical relationship, including complementarity, between the two assessments. after providing the background characteristics of the entire sample, the overall distribution of scores for prospective higher education candidates who wrote the nsc and nbts assessments is presented. firstly, to investigate the relationships between the two assessments correlation analysis is used to look at the concordant and divergent relationships. secondly, linear regression is used to explore the linear relationships between the three nbt domains and the nsc subjects cognate to them. lastly, bland altmann plots are used to further explore the relationships between the three nbts and their four cognate nsc counterparts. the bland altman method and the associated plots make the differences between two measurements visually apparent. demographic information of the candidates was obtained through questionnaires and relied on self-reporting. some of these self-reported demographic characteristics of this sample are shown in table 4. there were more female than male candidates (59.15%) in this sample. the majority of candidates were african (59.78%) and candidates for whom english was reported as the home language amounted to just under a third (30.81%). 142 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 table 4: dem ographic characteristics of the 72 517 prospective 2016 higher education candidates number % g ender m ale female n ot specified 29 596 42 895 26 40.81% 59.15% 0.04% population group african coloured indian w hite n ot specified 43 353 8 881 4 841 15 182 260 59.78% 12.25% 6.68% 20.94% 0.36% h ome language afrikaans english isindebele isix hosa isizulu sesotho sesotho sa leboa setswana siswati t shivenda x itsonga o ther 9 187 22 239 619 9 222 8 722 5 424 5 060 3 962 1 596 2 597 2 805 984 12.67% 30.81% 0.85% 12.72% 12.03% 7.48% 6.98% 5.46% 2.20% 3.58% 3.87% 1.36% total 72 517 100.00% from table 5 it can be seen that the vast majority (83.38%) of candidates achieved the nsc with a bachelors pass. just above half (54.74%) wrote the nsc english home language assessment. above three quarters of the candidates (77.61%) wrote the nsc mathematics assessment. prince: the relationship betw een school-leaving exam inations . . . 143 table 5: national senior certificate characteristics of the 72 517 prospective 2016 higher education candidates number % o ther 984 1.36% n ational senior certificate achieved with b achelor (b e) 60 468 83.38% d iploma & certificate (d e & ce) 12 049 16.62% n ational certificate english subjects english home language (en h n ) 39 698 54.74% english first additional language (en fn ) 32 819 45.26% n ational senior + certificate m athematical subjects* m athematics (m t h n) 56 662 77.61% m athematical literacy (m t ln) 16 350 22.39% total 72 517 100.00% table 6 shows how the students performed on the four nsc assessments cognate with the three nbts and table 7 shows how the scores of the sample of candidates were distributed among the nsc rating codes. table 6: descriptive statistics for the prospective higher education entrants on the nsc assessm ents that are cognate to the nb ts a ssessment n m ean sd m inimum 25th percentile m edian 75th percentile m aximum e nh n 39 698 67.3 10.3 43 60 67 75 100 en fn 32 819 66.4 10.1 30 59 66 74 96 m t h n 56 662 57.8 18.6 3 44 58 72 100 m t ln 16 350 65.4 14.5 0 55 66 76 99 table 7: frequencies of perform ance for the prospective higher education entrants on the n sc assessm ents. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 n % n % n % n % n % n % n % enhn 167 0.4 53 0.1 1 610 4.0 7 647 19.2 13 808 34.6 11 507 28.9 5 073 12.7 enfn 89 0.3 1 407 4.3 6 889 21.0 11 898 36.3 9 186 28.0 3 350 10.2 mthn 3572 6.3 6774 12.0 9 200 16.2 10 572 18.7 9 961 17.6 8 622 15.2 7 961 14.0 mtln 98 0.6 603 3.7 1 743 10.7 3 148 19.25 4 016 24.6 3 712 22.7 3 030 18.5 144 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 it is clear that nearly three-quarters of prospective entrants achieved the nsc at level five and above in english, while nearly two-thirds (65.5%) achieved the nsc at level 5 and above in mathematics. these results would suggest that the majority of these candidates would be able to cope with the language and mathematics demands of higher education. it is clear that nearly three-quarters of prospective entrants achieved the nsc at level five and above in english, while nearly two-thirds (65.5%) achieved the nsc at level 5 and above in mathematics. these results would suggest that the majority of these candidates would be able to cope with the language and mathematics demands of higher education. table 8 shows how the prospective students performed on the nbts. table 8: descriptive statistics for the prospective 2016 higher education entrants on the n bt s d omain n m ean sd m inimum 25th percentile m edian 75th percentile m aximum al 72 462 54.75 14.2 14 43 54 66 95 q l 72 510 46.22 15.3 5 34 42 55 98 m a t 53 039 40.60 16.4 2 28 35 50 97 table 9 shows the distribution of scores of the sample of candidates who achieved a bachelors nsc pass. only about a third (34.78%) were classified as proficient in academic literacy, while just above ten percent (11.74%) were classified as proficient in quantitative literacy and only about ten percent (10.49%) were considered proficient in mathematics. most of the candidates had scores in the intermediate band: 56.65% for al, 57.32% for ql and 47.78% for mathematics. these results suggest that the majority of these candidates would have needed some kind of extended support in mathematics, more than half would have needed supplementary support in quantitative literacy and about a third would have required supplementary support in academic literacy. table 9: frequencies of perform ance for the prospective 2016 higher education students w ho w ere eligible for bachelor studies using the nbts bachelor benchm arks. benchmark band al ql mat n % n % n % b asic intermediate lower intermediate upper proficient 5 178 16 304 17 918 21 013 8.57 26.99 29.66 34.78 18 704 22 379 12 280 7 100 30.93 37.01 20.31 11.74 18 801 13 643 7 879 4 724 41.74 30.29 17.49 10.49 total 60 413 100.00 60 463 100.00 45 047 100.00 prince: the relationship betw een school-leaving exam inations . . . 145 table 10 shows the distribution of the scores of the sample of candidates in the diploma and higher certificate proficiency bands for those who achieved a diploma or higher certificate nsc pass. the majority (66.44%) were classified as intermediate lower in academic literacy, while above fifty percent (54.76%) were classified as basic in quantitative literacy and just above ninety percent (90.68%) were considered basic in mathematics. most of the candidates had scores in the intermediate lower and basic bands: 67.45% for al, 90.38% for ql and 99.14% for mathematics. these results suggest that the majority of these candidates would have needed extensive support in all three domains. table 10: frequencies of perform ance for the prospective 2016 higher education students w ho w ere eligible for either diplom a or higher certificate studies using the nb ts diplom a and higher certificate benchm arks benchmark band al ql mat n % n % n % b asic intermediate lower intermediate upper proficient 119 7 855 3 232 617 1.01 66.44 27.34 5.22 6 597 4 291 964 195 54.76 35.62 8.00 1.62 7 247 676 56 13 90.68 8.46 0.70 0.16 total 11 823 100 12 047 100 7 992 100 the relationships between the two sets of assessments will now be examined to ascertain whether they are convergent (provide similar information) or divergent (provide different information). relationships between the two sets of assessments firstly, correlation analysis is used to investigate the convergent and discriminant, also called divergent, validity. secondly, scatter plots and bland altman plots are used to investigate the relationships between scores on the nsc assessments that are cognate to the three nbts. correlation analyses: the convergent and discriminant relationships convergent validity is the degree to which a test is similar to (converges on) other cognate tests to which it should theoretically be similar. discriminant validity on the other hand is the degree to which a test is not similar to (diverges from) other tests to which it should 146 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 theoretically not be similar. the pearson linear correlation coefficient is used to measure the extent of convergent and discriminant validity. the pearson correlation coefficient, , is a scale-free measure that assesses the degree to which two variables x and y are linearly related (wonnacott and wonnacott, 1969). it takes on a value between +1 and !1 inclusive, where 1 is total positive correlation, 0 is no correlation, and !1 is total negative correlation. the correlation coefficient can be interpreted as the extent to which a change in one variable relates to a change in a second variable. the square of r is called the coefficient of determination which indicates the proportion of the variance in the second variable that is predictable from the first variable. cohen (1988) attempted to address the issue of interpreting effect size estimates relative to other effect sizes. he suggested the following guidelines for interpreting correlation coefficients in the social sciences: small (r = 0.1), medium (r = 0.3), and large (r = 0.5). however, cohen chose these quantities to reflect the typical effect sizes encountered in the behavioral sciences as a whole – he warned against using his labels to interpret relationship magnitudes within particular social science disciplines or topic areas. his general labels, however, illustrate how to go about interpreting relative effects. carlson and herdman (2012) on the other hand recommend using r above 0.7 as evidence for convergent validity whereas those below 0.5 should be considered divergent. in this study the largest correlations, all above 0.5, are used to identify those nsc assessments that are convergent to the nbt domains. the correlations between the nbts and nsc assessments are presented for the entire sample (n = 72 517) of first-time prospective students in south african higher education in table 11. from table 11 it can be seen that performance on the academic literacy assessment is most highly correlated with performance on the nsc assessments in english home language r(n=39 649) = .75, p<.01; english first additional language r(n=32 813) = .71, p<.01; afrikaans home language r(n=8 837) = .68, p<.01; mathematical literacy r(n=16 335) = .66, p<.01 and consumer studies r(n=4017) = .66, p<.01. these nsc subjects can be said to be convergent with the nbts academic literacy domain. so that candidates who perform high on these nsc subjects are also likely to perform high on the nbt academic literacy assessment and vice versa. from table 11 it can also be seen that performance on the quantitative literacy assessment is most highly correlated with mathematical literacy r(n=16 334) = .67, p<.01; information technology r(n=2 556) = .63, p<.01; engineering graphics r(n=5 134) = .6, p<.01; english home language r(n=39 696) = .59, p<.01; accounting r(n=20 808) = .59, p<.01; mathematics r(n=56 661) = .58, p<.01; and consumer studies r(n=56 661) = .58, p<.01. these nsc subjects can be said to be convergent with the nbts quantitative literacy domain. so that candidates who perform high on these nsc subjects are also likely to perform high on the nbt quantitative literacy assessment and vice versa. on the other hand performance on the nbts mathematics assessment is most highly correlated (convergent) with mathematics r(n=51 678) = .78, p<.01; physical sciences r(n=42 225) = .73, p<.01; information technology r(n=2 360) = .69, p<.01; accounting prince: the relationship betw een school-leaving exam inations . . . 147 r(n=16 611) = .63, p<.01; life sciences r(n=38 901) = .62, p<.01; and engineering graphics and design r(n=4 311) = .60, p<.01. these nsc subjects can be said to be convergent with the nbts mathematics domain. so that candidates who perform high on these nsc subjects are also likely to perform high on the nbt mathematics assessment and vice versa. for all three nbt domains, the nsc assessments that are highly correlated (convergent) with them are all fairly cognate and hence consistent with expectations. 148 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 table 11: correlation analysis of the scores on the three nbt assessm ents against the scores on the n sc subjects for the prospective 2016 h igher education entrants nsc assessments nbts code and description academic literacy (al) quantative literacy (ql) mathematics (mat) r n r n r n act n : accounting 0.53 20 797 0.59 20 808 0.63 16 611 affn : afrikaans first additional 0.5 32 241 0.39 32 283 0.41 22 577 afh n : afrikaans home language 0.68 8 837 0.5 8 838 0.52 5 912 ag sn : agricultural sciences 0.48 4 207 0.43 4 207 0.49 3 489 b st n : b usiness studies 0.48 20 487 0.41 20 499 0.42 10 546 cn sn : consumer studies 0.66 4 017 0.58 4 027 0.55 1 735 d ran : dramatic arts 0.55 2 444 0.45 2 454 0.46 1 072 ec o n : economics 0.55 9 311 0.51 9 315 0.55 5 616 eg d n : engineering graphics and design 0.49 5 132 0.6 5 134 0.6 4 311 en fn : english first additional 0.71 32 813 0.54 32 814 0.46 25 448 en h n : english home language 0.75 39 649 0.59 39 696 0.56 27 591 g eo n : geography 0.58 26 781 0.56 26 797 0.55 19 330 h isn : history 0.53 11 543 0.44 11 565 0.43 4 892 in fn : information t echnology 0.59 2 556 0.63 2 556 0.69 2 360 lfon : life o rientation 0.4 72 462 0.35 72 510 0.37 53 039 lfsn : life sciences 0.55 49 159 0.56 49 188 0.62 38 901 m t h n : m athematics 0.44 56 622 0.58 56 661 0.78 51 678 m t ln : m athematical literacy 0.66 16 335 0.67 16 344 0.41 1 763 m u sn : m usic 0.59 803 0.6 804 0.59 536 pscn : physical sciences 0.45 45 191 0.54 45 203 0.73 42 225 re ln : religion studies 0.43 537 0.36 4537 0.4 344 v san : visual arts 0.44 2 625 0.39 2 632 0.46 1 423 n ote: all the correlations are significant at the p < 0.01 level prince: the relationship betw een school-leaving exam inations . . . 149 scatter plots and bland altman plots researchers often need to compare two methods of measurement, or a new method with an established one, to determine whether these two methods can be used interchangeably or whether the new method can replace the established one. in most of these situations, the ‘true’ value of the measured quantity is unknown. scatter plots with linear regression and identity lines give an indication of the relationship between the two variables under consideration. the identity line is where the two variables will have equal values and the distribution of the scatter plots in relation to this line gives an indication of the extent to which the two variables deviate from being the same. the linear regression line on the other hand explains the relationship between one dependent variable and an independent variable. the slope of the linear regression line indicates by how much the dependent variable changes for a given change in the independent variable. bland and altman (1986) advocated the use of a graphical method to plot the difference scores of two measurements of a subject against the mean for each subject and argued that if the new method agrees sufficiently well with the old, the old may be replaced. here the idea of agreement plays a crucial role in method comparison studies. the bland-altman method calculates the mean difference between two methods of measurement (the ‘bias’), and 95% limits of agreement as the mean difference ± (1.96 sd). it is expected that the 95% limits include 95% of differences between the two measurement methods. the plot is commonly called a bland-altman plot and the associated method is usually called the bland-altman method. in this part of the paper the bland-altman method and plots are used to investigate the relationship between performances on the nbts and their cognate nsc counterparts. from the correlations in table 14, scatter plot figure 1 and bland-altman plot figure 2 for academic literacy (al) and english home language (enhn) it can be seen that even though al is highly correlated with enhn (r(n=39649) = .75, p<.01) the al scores are on average 6.3 percentage points lower than the enhn scores and that for the mean al and enhn scores between 45% and 85% many of the differences are outside the 95% confidence intervals. this means that scores on the english home language assessment over-estimate the scores on the academic literacy assessment by 6.3 percentage points and that many scores lie outside of the 95% confidence intervals. 150 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 figure 1: nsc english (en h n ) and n b t s al scores. the solid line indicates the linear regression line. figure 2: bland-altman plot for academic literacy (al) and english h ome language (en h n ). prince: the relationship betw een school-leaving exam inations . . . 151 from the correlations in table 14, scatter plot figure 3 and bland-altman plot figure 4 for academic literacy (al) and english first additional language (enfn) it can be seen that even though al is highly correlated with enfn (r(n=32813) = .71, p<.01) the al scores are on average 19.1 percentage points lower than the enfn scores and that for the mean al and enhn scores between 40% and 80% many of the differences are outside the 95% confidence intervals. this means that scores on the english first additional language assessment over-estimate the scores on the academic literacy assessment by 19.1 percentage points and that many scores lie outside of the 95% confidence intervals. figure 3: n sc english first additional language (enfn ) and n b t s al scores. t he solid line indicates the linear regression line. 152 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 figure 4: b land-altman plot for academic literacy (al) and english first additional language (e nfn ) from the correlations in table 14, scatter plot figure 5 and bland-altman plot figure 6 for quantitative literacy (ql) and mathematical literacy (mtln) it can be seen that even though ql is correlated with mtln r(n=16334) = .67, p<.01 the ql scores are on average 27.0 percentage points lower than the mtln scores and that for the mean ql and mtln scores below 40% the difference is closer to zero whereas between 40% and 80% many of the differences are outside the 95% confidence intervals. this means that scores on the mathematical literacy assessment over-estimate the scores on the quantitative literacy assessment by 27.0 percentage points and that many scores lie outside of the 95% confidence intervals. prince: the relationship betw een school-leaving exam inations . . . 153 figure 5: n sc m athematical literacy (m t ln ) and n bt s ql scores. t he solid line indicates the linear regression line. figure 6: b land-altman plot for q uantitative literacy (q l) and m athematical literacy (m t ln ) 154 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 from the correlations in table 4, scatter plot figure 7 and bland-altman plot figure 8 for quantitative literacy (ql) and mathematics (mthn) it can be seen that even though ql is correlated with mthn (r(n=56661) = .58, p<.01) the ql scores are on average 9.3 percentage points lower than the mthn scores and that for the mean ql and mthn scores between 20% and 80% many of the differences are outside the 95% confidence intervals. this means that scores on the mathematics assessment over-estimate the scores on the quantative literacy assessment by 9.3 percentage points and that many scores lie outside of the 95% confidence intervals. figure 7: nsc m athematics (m t h n ) and n b t s ql scores. t he solid line indicates the linear regression line. prince: the relationship betw een school-leaving exam inations . . . 155 figure 8: b land-altman plot for q uantitative literacy (q l) and m athematics (m t h n ) from the correlations in table 14, scatter plot figure 9 and bland-altman plot figure 10 for nbts mathematics (mat) and mathematics (mthn) it can be seen that even though mat is correlated with mthn (r(n=51678) = .78, p<.01) the mat scores are on average 18.1 percentage points lower than the mthn scores and that for the mean mat and mthn scores below 40% the difference is closer to zero whereas between 40% and 75% many of the differences are outside the lower 95% confidence interval. this means that scores on the nsc mathematics assessment over-estimate the scores on the nbts mathematics assessment by 18.1 percentage points and that many scores lie outside of the 95% confidence intervals. 156 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 figure 9: n sc m athematics (m t h n ) and nb t s m at scores. t he solid line indicates the linear regression line. figure 10: b land-altman plot for n b t s m athematics (m a t ) and n sc m athematics (m t h n ) prince: the relationship betw een school-leaving exam inations . . . 157 from the bland-altman analyses it can clearly be seen that there is fair agreement between what the nbts and the cognate nsc assessments assess. however, it is also clear that the mean differences between the two sets of assessments range from -6.3 to -27.0. these differences are particularly large for the mathematical assessments. implications for higher education in prince (2016) it is argued that the need for extended curriculum provision in the higher education landscape is necessary and should continue into the foreseeable future. there is however a strong need to determine which of the extended curriculum or regular programmes are best suited to individual students. while the norm-referenced nsc assessments may be a statutory requirement for higher education study, criterion-referenced assessments such as the national benchmark tests can provide the kind of information which is needed to make decisions about which curricular route best suits students in an attempt to improve the graduation rates and address the drop-out rates. this paper has compared the two national assessments and investigated the empirical relationships between performances on the two. the evidence presented through correlation analysis, linear regression (scatter plots) and bland-altman analyses clearly show that the scores on the nsc subjects that are cognate to the nbt domains are sufficiently different for them to be viewed as complementary sets of assessments. this research suggests that it would be appropriate for south african higher education institutions to consider the use of the criterion-referenced nbts scores and proficiency benchmarks to complement performance on the statutory nsc norm-referenced assessments scores and levels in order to select and place students in extended degree programmes and to ensure that these students are provided with appropriate teaching and learning environments. ethical approval the research reported in this paper has been subjected to ethical review and approved by the research ethics committee of the centre for higher education development at the university of cape town. candidates writing the national benchmark tests (nbts) sign a declaration allowing the use of their scores for research purposes and they are simultaneously assured of anonymity in such use. references bachman, l.f. and palmer, a.s. 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(2006). “item response theory.” in r.l. brennan (ed.), educational measurement (4th ed.), (111–153). westport, ct: greenwood/praeger. journal of education, 2018 issue 71, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe editorial carol bertram bertramc@ukzn.ac.za i often see this quote, attributed to nelson mandela, “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” on school notice boards, on websites of education organisations and in public buildings. it’s a feel good quote that makes us, as educators, feel as though we are doing something worthwhile and important. but as researchers of education, we must ask how does education enable us to change the world, and what kind of education will enable us to change the world? formal education aims to do a wide range of things, such as to teach basic competencies of literacy and numeracy, to teach a range of content knowledge and skills, to enable learners to develop a range of generic skills like problemsolving, effective communicating, and working in teams, as well as to develop people who will participate meaningfully in, and contribute to, their society and possibly even change it. gert biesta (2009) summarises these purposes of education as qualification, socialisation, and subjectification. the qualification of children, young people and adults means that education provides them with the knowledge, skills and understanding and often also with the dispositions and forms of judgement that allow them to “do something” (pg. 39). this could be about training for a particular occupation, or a more general learning about science or history. a second key purpose of education is its socialisation role, which is about learners becoming members of a society that values particular attitudes and behaviours. socialisation is about the continuation of culture and tradition. a third purpose of education, that biesta calls subjectification, is about the individual becoming a subject who is independent and autonomous and who acts with agency. while there is probably some general agreement among educators that these are important purposes of education, we often disagree on which of these is most important—hugo and wedekind (2013) refer to this as conflict over the ordering principles of education—and on exactly how we can best achieve these purposes. these different purposes operate at all levels of the education system. education works at a range of levels with both children and adults and each of these levels operates with different logics. foundation phase schooling has a different purpose and form compared to secondary school, and the same for tvet and higher education. the commonality is that three basic message systems of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment operate at each of these levels but in very different ways. the kind of knowledge selected and the way in which it could be taught and assessed is different at each of the levels of the education system, and also differs according to the purposes of education, and which purpose is considered to be of most worth. 2 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 it is probably true that most education researchers in south africa want their research to contribute to social justice, but the ways in which they think this can be achieved are different. this general issue of the journal of education carries seven articles that focus on the various levels of education including the foundation phase, secondary schooling, higher education, and informal adult education. the articles focus on different subject specialisations within these levels; dixon and janks et al. focus on what the curriculum calls life skills, while stott, jita, and ellery all focus on the subject of science. each article also focuses on a different object of study at the level of education. dixon et al. focus on the official curriculum of the foundation phase, ellery focuses on the kind of knower that can best access science knowledge at university, stott on the pedagogy and resources that may support the learning of science in low-quintile south african schools, and preece on perceptions of young people of what it means to be a citizen. some of these research studies focus more explicitly on the instructional discourse of education—how education creates opportunities for epistemological access—while other studies focus on the regulative discourse of education, which is about socialisation and inclusion. in each of these a different purpose of education is foregrounded. the first article by kerryn dixon and colleagues at wits provides a historical analysis of the foundation phase life skills curriculum. taking a sociological stance, the authors use bernstein’s concepts to engage with the question of how life skills has been historically depicted in the foundation phase curriculum (since 1977), how it is currently sequenced and structured in the caps curriculum, and what this then means for the kind of knowledge that foundation phase teachers need to have. regarding the evolution of the life skills curriculum, it becomes clear that the transvaal education department for white children had a curriculum which was strongly classified (in that that subjects had clear boundaries between them) and which understood children as requiring an adult to mould and supervise them. we know that these strong subject boundaries weakened in c2005, and the ideal child is reimagined as a more active participant in her learning. what happens in the caps curriculum is that everything that is not literacy and numeracy is put into the container called life skills and the authors argue that this curriculum provides “no ordering principles and no logic of progression.” this means that the discipline knowledge that underpins the curriculum is obscured. this then has implications for foundation phase teachers’ knowledge and their education. the authors argue that the path to ensuring what counts as good education is to teach foundation phase teachers “disciplinary ways of seeing and reasoning” so that they are able to understand and progressively teach appropriate scientific concepts. in this study the instructional discourse is the ordering principle that is valued. for karen ellery, working in the field of an access science programme at a university, the purpose of good education is to enable epistemological access to the discipline. she draws on the theoretical work of bernstein and maton to engage with how knower attributes might support or hinder students’ access to the scientific knowledge that the access programme wants them to understand. the access programme is intent on developing knowers with two bertram: editorial 3 specific kinds of disposition. the first is a “generic” disposition towards learning, which leads to becoming an autonomous learner. the second is a disposition that is specific to science, namely to recognise and value the epistemic norms that inform the practice of science. the learners are required to develop the practices of being “rigorous, curious, reliable, and objective, working accurately and precisely, estimating appropriately, observing carefully, seeking simple solutions, and thinking analytically and critically.” clearly, these dispositions or ways of being are intricately entwined with the knowledge of science and are not simply generic. ellery argues that these gazes need to be clearly cultivated if social justice is to be achieved. thus, higher education should focus both on the social and the epistemic relations of learning science, with the end goal being that learners have both the disposition and the knowledge of a scientist. staying with the question of learning science, angela stott presents an argument for the usefulness of a formalistic and instructivist pedagogy for science learning in low-quintile schools in south africa. like ellery, her concern is with how learners gain access to science knowledge. however, her solution is not to focus on the knower or the social relations, but, rather, on creating structured learning environments for school children using drill-andpractice worksheets. she is aware that this is a controversial proposal, given the very strong ideological support for constructivist pedagogies in post-apartheid curriculum reform discourses. she draws on a range of literature and her own experience as a science learner and a science teacher to argue that the context of low-quintile schools is appropriate for a structured approach to teaching science. since there is little evidence that good constructivist teaching has taken root in any sub-saharan countries, she suggests that carefully designed worksheets and software that enable learners to gain mastery through repeated practice and clear feedback will be the best way to enable learners to gain access to science knowledge. in contrast to stott’s call for good instructivist pedagogy, mutekwe starts with the assumption that a socio-cultural approach to teaching is a good thing, particularly in the quest for social justice, and the creation of inclusive classrooms that provide educational opportunities for all. he presents the perspectives of 20 teachers from secondary schools in gauteng who believe that the approach is productive in their classrooms. mutekwe provides a clear explanation of vygotsky’s concepts of the zone of proximal development and scaffolding using materials and artefacts. it becomes clear that in fact stott’s call for structured materials is a very concrete example of how teachers can mediate and scaffold learning experiences, in order to move learners to greater understanding. this seems to support her claim that the instructivist/constructivist divide is often an ideological one that is unproductive. rather, it would be more productive to engage with the question of what kinds of teacher mediation, and learning materials will in fact support learning in particular contexts. neither stott or mutekwe provide rich evidence from classrooms about how a good instructivist or good constructivist pedagogy may actually influence learners’ understanding, motivation and learning. this is not an easy research task, but one that we as south african researchers need to tackle if we are to generate data that will provide insight and understanding of learning in different contexts. 4 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 moving to the field of teacher education, and again in science education, jita’s study focuses on students who are training to become science teachers. she is interested in how these student teachers use icts in their teaching practicum as well as to what extent they are given the opportunity to learn ict skills during their course. most of the surveyed students said that they had developed ict skills during the course, yet there was not a very obvious uptake of using these skills to teach science during their practicum. this is unsurprising since many schools do not have the necessary ict equipment. at the same time, it was not clear that the students had thought very deeply about the purpose of using icts for teaching science. this points to the need for teacher educators to think again about the purpose of using icts to teach science, and how these purposes can be best achieved. stepping back from the specific learning contexts of the previous papers, mathebula’s paper takes a broad, macro perspective of the whole system by engaging with the question of quality education as a basic human right. he argues that the right to basic, quality, and democratic education is being eroded in post-apartheid south africa. one example of this is that under a neo-liberal policy the decentralisation of governance to school governing bodies takes a market-related stance to fees which in fact builds structural inequality into the system. the same system sees learners as both investments and consumers, which leads to a very narrow understanding of the purpose of education. mathebula argues that we need to take the lead from protest scholars and continue to fight for education as a human right for all in south africa and not only the elite. it is also a call to broaden our thinking about the purpose of education beyond simply market measures. the final paper in this issue focuses on the socialising role of education (in this case, of informal education) and engages with how lesotho youth in a range of youth groups understand the concept of citizenship. mantsejoa nthabiseng thakaso and julia preece show how the participants in their study are caught between the global policies of human rights and more immediate traditional community responsibilities. the youth whom they interviewed mostly understood citizenship in terms of a communitarian perspective, which involves volunteering and caring within their immediate community, and less so from a civic or cosmopolitan understanding of citizenship. this reflects the tension of the global and local pulls in the purposes of education, and raises the question of what it means to socialise learners into both local and global contexts. this issue carries articles that point us again to the question of the content, purpose and direction of education in south africa and how we can best reach what we believe good education is. as education researchers, we need to continue to have robust discussions about what we value in education and about how we can generate data and use theory to deepen our understanding of how we can achieve the education that we value. bertram: editorial 5 references biesta, g. (2009). good education in an age of measurement: on the need to reconnect with the question of purpose in education. educational assessment, evaluation and accountability (formerly journal of personnel evaluation in education), 21(1), 33– 46. hugo, w., & wedekind v. (2013). the ordering principles and operating principles of pedagogy: a reply to zipin. southern african review of education, 19(1) 167–176. microsoft word b8400 fullissue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 84, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i84a01 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x crises and disruptions: educational reflections, (re)imaginings, and (re)vitalization yusuf sayed school of education and social work, university of sussex, falmer, united kingdom centre for international teacher education, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa sayed.cite@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0000-0000-4049 adam cooper human sciences research council, south africa chair in youth unemployment, employability and empowerment, nelson mandela university, gqeberha, south africa acooper@hsrc.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0003-3605-2032 vaughn m. john school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, south africa johnv@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0001-5991-5019 (received: 17 september 2021; accepted: 29 october 2021) abstract covid-19 has illuminated and exacerbated inequities, yet, as a crisis, it is not exceptional in its effect on education. we start this critical essay by situating the crisis in its historical, economic, and political contexts, illustrating how crisis and violence intersect as structural conditions of late modernity, capitalism, and their education systems. situating the current crisis contextually lays the foundation to analyse how it has been interpreted through three sets of policy imaginaries, characterised by the notions of learning loss and building back better and by solutions primarily based on techno-education. these concepts reflect and are reflective of the international aid and development paradigm during the pandemic. building on this analysis, we present, in the final section, an alternative radical vision that calls on a sociology of possibilities and pedagogies of hope that we see to be central to a new people-centred education imaginary to disrupt current inequalities and provide a new way of doing rather than a return to a business-as-usual approach in and through education. keywords: covid-19, interlocking crises, violence, education policy, techno-education, inequalities, pedagogies of hope 10 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 introduction covid-19 has illuminated and exacerbated the stark inequities between and within societies. yet, as a crisis, it is not exceptional or unique in its effect on education. refugees and displaced populations, children, and youth in conflict-affected and environmentally precarious contexts have invariably suffered educational interruption and disruption. we begin this critical essay by situating the crisis in its historical, economic, and political contexts, illustrating how crisis and violence intersect as both structural conditions of late modernity and capitalism, interlocking with existing inequities and fragilities. in this context, we point to how such crises (re)shape education systems, purpose, and values. we then consider the many diverse ways in which the covid-19 crisis has been interpreted and narrated, focusing on three sets of images and imaginings that have been repeatedly used in education policy discourse, the media, and everyday life. the first set of images refer to learning loss, learning crises and learning poverty, the second set speak to imagining a way out of the crisis, including building back better, coping with the new normal and reset, while the third set cleave around the solution for the crisis, primarily techno-educational learning alternatives. the three sets of images are reflected in the international aid and development paradigm that we then discuss. in the final section of the essay, we present an alternative vision to the one currently in circulation. this vison advocates for a set of radical policy related provocations that we see as central to a new education imaginary that could make building back better a genuine attempt to disrupt current inequalities, rather than a slogan that heralds the return to business as usual. this alternative vision considers critically what education is for and whose interests it serves. in the global context, the pandemic calls for a hard reset in which the prevailing development paradigm is upended in favour of an alternative southern development and educational epistemology that (re)centres itself on the global south, its interests, and its people. situating the covid-19 crisis as interlocking and intersecting with violence despite covid-19 exacerbating inequities between and within societies, it is not exceptional as a crisis that has effects on education. conflict, natural disasters, and systemic poverty invariably cause educational interruption and disruption. covid-19 has certainly amplified pre-existing inequalities across the global north and south, but it is unclear how this crisis differs from other crises. what is clear is that covid-19 has garnered infinitely more attention and responses from policymakers in comparison to other crises. as a crisis the spread of the coronavirus rapidly became global because, in part, of its effects on the global economy and the fact that its social effects, such as school lockdowns and closures, affected the middle class and upper classes extensively, calling into question how we understand crisis generally and what constitutes effective policy responses. koselleck and richter’s (2006) review of the concept of crisis helps to clarify the conceptual plurality of it across disciplines and time, aiding an analysis of this crisis and how it intersects sayed, cooper & john: crises and disruptions 11 with crises of violence, environmental degradation, conflict, societal divisions, and anomie. the pandemic allows us to see this plurality; early medical use of the notion of crisis referred to opposite and binary outcomes rather than to multiple intersecting factors since a patient either recovered and lived or died (koselleck & richter, 2006). like the medical use of the term, crisis regularly invokes images and discussions of ends and beginnings, birth and death, and apocalypse and portals of renewal. the early medical use of the term crisis resonates with the term crisis as a turning point where “systems face ruptures, radical changes or strengthening” (rikowski, 2020, p. 12) that can result in positive or negative change, since, as we argue in this essay, rather than interpreting crisis as a binary opposition, it is more usefully thought of as a set of intersecting forces. crises certainly create instability, affecting individuals, groups, and societies (gamble, 2010). a marxist reading of crisis, as endemic to capitalism, is founded on particular modes and relations of production structurally prone to negative rupturing events and cyclical instability. yet, from crises synthesis and potential for fundamental social change also emerge. crisis compels a search for alternatives in response to an unstable equilibrium, resulting in possibilities that can be positive and/or negative in their effects. crisis in a capitalist social formation cleaves societal strata through the market-based organisation of public goods, such as health and education services. klein (2007) theorized this as the “shock doctrine” (see the title of her book) in that crises further commodify public goods, drawing attention to diswelfare caused by capitalism (titmuss, 1965) and harming marginal groups excluded from the market-based provision of health, education, and welfare services. socially fragmenting effects of the shock doctrine enable neo-liberal polices to claim that there is no alternative to the market. this sense of crisis is particularly relevant to examinations of covid-19-related government decisions regarding the opening and closing of educational institutions, the procurement of personal protective equipment (ppe), school sanitizing contracts and vaccine programmes, the provision of learning technologies essential for on-line education, and whose knowledges and voices were included and excluded in such crisis decision-making (see sayed & singh, 2020). crises become the vector of, and portal to, particular policy imaginaries that are ideologically driven. in this way, ideological propositions of neo-liberalism are presented as a natural thrust or the only viable emergency response and naturalised as policy common-sense. the coronavirus interlocks with capitalism’s search for growth and excessive individualist consumption that has resulted in an assault on the natural world through deforestation and animal trading, for example. world wildlife fund (wwf) global science (2020) argues that zoonotic diseases, such as sars and mers in which a virus is transferred from animals to humans represent the majority (more than 60%) of emerging infectious disease (eids) worldwide. zoonotic diseases also involve transmission from humans to animals. an economic order that privileges human growth fails to see the human eco-system as part of an overall eco-system that includes the environment, as the notion of anthropocentricism has illuminated (crutzen, 2006; haraway, 2015). in this sense, such diseases are arguably reflective of the violence that a capitalist social order aggrandises by promoting individual consumption and economic growth since more and more of the natural environment is 12 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 destroyed, and humans are encroaching on the habitat of the animal and natural world, making possible these zoonotic diseases. the short-term model of economic growth results in the kind of crises and pandemics that the world is witnessing. the structural violence inherent in capitalism that drives crisis is often also accompanied by physical violence. wars and armed conflict in many different contexts are almost always accompanied by physical violence against the vulnerable, particularly women and girls (akinwotu, 2021). however, crises as systems of violence interlock in situated and conjunctural ways. some crises are felt more intensely in particular contexts, making them appear to be local crises, while others are truly global but experienced differently. systemic violence intersects with and exacerbates inequality and alienation, contributing to localised social disruptions, as is being witnessed during this pandemic. in south africa, a spate of criminality and violence in july 2021 resulted in the death of 130 people and billions of rands’ worth of damage in a period of just eight days. the violence started in the province of kwazulu-natal (kzn) and spread to parts of gauteng but was quickly contained there. many small and large businesses were stripped bare, and a large number of buildings were razed to the ground. over a hundred schools in kzn and gauteng were ransacked, vandalized, or completely destroyed during the mayhem. while several social and political forces coalesced, there are clear indications that this event also involved orchestrated violence and manufactured crisis. at a webinar on the july violence, activist busisiwe diko (2021) used the term “lockdown anger” to describe the way in which pandemic frustrations, particularly for people in informal settlements, have spilled over into most aspects of life, creating conditions for physical violence to erupt. conceptually then, in this instance at least, crisis cannot be decoupled from violence. crises also reflect a violence against the social values and bonds that bind citizens and nation states. crises like the corona crisis and protest movements reveal the weak and fragile social ties that bind citizens to the state in unequal capitalist societies. in the absence of collective forms of solidarity, identity, and vision, responses to the crisis that catalyse social justice are difficult to produce. yet, as the vortex of violence in south africa during july 2021 demonstrated, there were examples of solidarities that transcended race, religion, gender, and sexuality. these collectivist responses of, for example, cleaning up damaged shops and towns, supplying food when the national supply chain broke down, and protecting communities were starker in the absence of state (in)action that was marked by indecision, hesitation, and internal divisions within the ruling party. while some solidarities transcended race, others revealed traditional fault lines of racial division and racialized inequality when some civic responses opened spaces for vigilantism and criminality in the unfolding chaos. crises then, as in the case of the corona crisis, interlock both with existing frailties and coalitions and intersect with existing challenges against colonialism, subjugation, and marginalisation. the corona crisis occurred and overlapped with the black lives matter protest, and the protests against the amendments to the citizenship act in india that sought to disenfranchise millions while selectively enfranchising particular groups in favour of a sayed, cooper & john: crises and disruptions 13 narrow hindutva ideology. 1 the corona crisis reflects not only a notion of change but is reflective of the deep-seated and unequal relations in society, exposing and exacerbating these as many have noted (mccann & matenga, 2020). in this sense, crisis and crisisresponses are inherently political acts in terms of the power to pivot and change. in many instances the interlocking, intersecting, and inter-relational nature of the corona crisis is seen to deepen vulnerabilities. but pivoting and advancing effects are not easy to find in contexts of educational and social inequality. violence is also observed in the way in which covid-19 policy attention displaced and marginalised other pre-existing crises, such as tb programmes, as well as child vaccination programmes and school feeding programmes. an important consequence of the hegemony of the covid-19 pandemic is, therefore, the way in which it has exacerbated other crises. masri (2021) called for attention to be paid to the more than 82 million displaced persons because of a much larger global crisis than the pandemic. likewise, john (2020) employed a metaphorical coupling by associating the invisible enemy against which the sa president was marshalling the nation to fight with another larger and long-term invisible enemy— inequality. in similar vein, smith et al. (2021) penned the double burden of covid-19 to highlight the covid-19-inequality nexus. reference to the triple pandemics of covid-19, poverty, and gender-based violence has emerged (moletsane, 2020). a recent call for papers for the american educational research association (2021) went on to identify four pandemics in its claim that “education faces a myriad of challenges and opportunities. among them are residual effects of the four pandemics . . . the covid-19 pandemic, the pandemic of systemic racism, the economic crisis, and the climate crisis” (para. 1). it is significant that in all these couplings of other so-called pandemics to covid-19, attention is being drawn to different forms of structural violence and long-term struggles for class, race, gender, and climate justice. understanding and situating the corona crisis, therefore, suggests that it has become a signifier of the absences, silences, and marginality of other chronic endemic crises. ignoring its interlocking, inter-relational, and intersectional character may result in poorly conceived policy choices and policy options. in acknowledging the covid-19 pandemic as a polyvalent crisis requires providing voice to multiple actors and civil society organisations in policymaking. instructive in this respect is the legal action taken by the south african ngo, equal education, to ensure that the department of basic education continues with the national school nutrition programme (nsnp) that had been stopped because of covid-19. interlocking and inter-relational crises thus require a policy approach that does not ignore important existing programmes and interventions for the marginalised, nor silence the voices of those most impacted. a stark warning about ignoring crises as interlocking was offered by ahunna eziokonwa, lead author of a major undp report on the effect of the pandemic on africa, as cited by burke (2021, august 13) in the guardian. 1 hindutva ideology refers to the form of nationalism sponsored by the currently ruling bharatiya janata party (bjp) in india. in broad terms it evokes and mobilises on narrow ethnic, social, religious, and cultural lines invoking an ideal of what it means to be a pure hindu in india, thus othering those who fall outside of the reductionist and homogenising tendencies of such a movement. the bjp is the current ruling party in india and its policies, it is argued, reflect a hindutva ideology. 14 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 people have nothing to lose any more. when they are on the edge, they are that much more given to being violent or being instrumentalised by politicians who exploit their anger, and that is a clear and present danger . . . the least acknowledged form of violence during crises may therefore be epistemic violence, that includes the lack of consultation with those in the front line, a narrow reliance on particularist forms of knowledge to justify the response to the pandemic, and the denial of the view of the subaltern, manifest in the ways in which many knowledges were (not) recognised during the pandemic. imaginings and the narration of crisis as systems of disruption, crises are also about policy choices offering possibilities for the emergence of new ideas and critiques of current practices and for finding new ways of innovatively and collectively resolving social problems and forging ahead. disruption, seen this way, is redolent of recognition and progressive potential but also, as argued below, of policy blind spots. these problems and possibilities are evident in the ways in which crises are narrated and the images used to describe them. in the case of the covid-19 pandemic the images that have captured the possible education responses have been driven by three sets of imaginings. the first imagining has been presented as learning loss, learning crises, and learning poverty, thus addressing the accumulating deficits in the time required to complete curriculum coverage and attain benchmarked learning outcomes. these images narrate the crisis as the real loss of learning content since schools are shut or have been partially reopened to offer rotational access for leaners. this imagining of the crisis re-focuses the education enterprise as one of learning content and this crisis has rendered this difficult to implement as intended and designed. equity is woven into these images of a poverty of learning with marginalised and impoverished learners suffering greater learning loss and sinking deeper into a learning crisis. while undeniably true, it is the narrow range of policy prescriptions that are contestable in their focusing on a recovery mode that privileges a narrow idea of cognitive learning, curriculum coverage, and completion as the hallmark of recovery. the second set of images speaks to an alternative imagining of the way out of the crisis. building back better, coping with the new normal, and resetting capture the search for an alternative way of educating and developing education systems. these voluntaristic imaginings suggest a rupture or break from the past and present that is conceived of as failing and riven by weaknesses. yet it is never fully articulated what these exact weaknesses are, what is being reset, what defines the new normal, and what building back better looks like. these aspects remain opaque and elusive, defying definition and shifting shape and form in the discursive ways in which crisis solutions are narrated by the powerful. the third set of images adhere around the solution to the crisis. they are the syntheses that are invoked to resolve the crises as antithesis. these are primarily techno-education images that privilege technology-driven learning alternatives. the techno-education imaginary, as sayed, cooper & john: crises and disruptions 15 critiqued by langthaler (2021), conceives of the pandemic as being aligned to the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) that emphasises greater technologisation and digitalisation of teaching and learning. these imaginings advocate the flipped classroom and hybrid/blended/hy-flex learning as vital modalities of education, in and for the future. herrera (2020) described covid-19 as the “great accelerator” (para. 4) of the digital transformation of education and edtech in egypt. such approaches manifested early in the pandemic and suggested emergency responsive teaching as the imaginary, thus capturing the zeitgeist of the pandemic. in the context of education digitalisation, the door is flung open for large education companies and the growing intensification of educational corporatisation to control the architecture of the education enterprise and take ownership of content. the risk of technoeducation is that [t]hrough the provision of digital tools, private edtech corporations have gained significant influence on curricula, methods and administrative procedures in schools and universities . . . in particular in africa, international education providers use digitalization to marketize their business models . . . the goal is to replace costly professionals by low-skilled operators and to reduce the cost of infrastructure. (langthaler, 2021, para. 2, 4) clearly, we need more research into who benefits from techno educational interventions in times of crisis and beyond. techno-education as a solution to the crisis is evident across all contexts, albeit unevenly so. techno-education as online learning has been firmly embedded in the provision of education as a response to the crisis, as well as a modality for future education provision in many countries. in others, including, for example, india and south africa, techno-education takes the form of online private tutoring and hybrid learning in better-resourced schools and homes, while marginalising important aspects of education provision such as adult education. in south africa specifically, forms of techno-education, located in contrasting parts of the education system, played out differently for a range of learners and their families. the dual structure of south african schooling means that about 67% of schools are no-fee ones that service the impoverished black majority, and the rest are, largely, former model c and elite independent schools (vally, 2019). forms of blended learning were favoured by former model c and independent schools, combining techno-education with face-to-face instruction. more affluent schools followed a path that suited their educators and learners without much interference from authorities. these schools transitioned to blended learning in combining online and face-to-face instruction, using techno-educational resources of home laptops, internet connections, and data to ensure that teaching and learning continued (reddy et al., 2020; taylor, 2020). wealthier schools provided families with printed materials to take home as well as detailed instructions and support through, for example, whatsapp chat groups, explaining tasks to be completed and giving instructions on how to use sites like google classroom or d6 communication platforms (taylor, 2020). this created a structured home learning environment enabled by coordinated efforts between the school and the home. privileged schools, therefore, continued to operate, partially online, through various forms of 16 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 techno-education, drawing on the range of social, cultural, and material capital that well-off parents and their homes provide and blending the resources of the home and school in eclectic ways that were minimally governed. online private tutoring in both school and tertiary education through the shadow education industry (bray, 2021) privatised the public space of education, reinforcing systems of privilege and advantage. poor schools were brought to a virtual standstill since learners attending no-fee schools in south africa generally struggled to find quiet work places, desks, computers, internet connectivity, and parents or other adults with the capacity to supervise learning at home (parker et al., 2020: reddy, 2021). lockdown experiences were therefore radically different for families in the poorer no-fee segment of the education system. the prohibitive costs of data and lack of access to devices like smart phones and computers made it difficult for poor parents to communicate with schools and download documents, not to mention addressing insecurities about drawing up work programmes at home (taylor, 2020). poor parents remain reduced to peripheral supporters of school educators, checking homework, serving on the school governing body, and attending meetings at school, activities that are endorsed by the south african education system (daniels, 2020). affluent parents were able to assist with techno-educational provision, serving as co-educators responsible for the academic socialisation of their children, a role that american research has shown to be most conducive to fostering academic success (hill & tyson, 2009). the three images reveal a particular policy imaginary of effect and response, varied across nations. what is known as a crisis of learning metamorphises into the techno-education policy imaginary, particularly for the poor, that is the building back better and the imagined reset. the past is presented as troubled, broken, and faulty; the so-called new normal is presented as natural and as the only alternative. the policy choices available and the policy imaginary are narrowed to a limited range that present a reduced focus on learning content. the expansive approach of educational doing and being and the privileging of other goals of education, including the affective, are effectively delegitimated. rooted in a circumscribed imaginary of education crises, the future becomes one of education recovery, as captured in the urgent 10-point plan proposed by the world bank (2021). the 10 actions named by the bank that countries can take to recover and accelerate learning include assessing and monitoring learning loss, providing remedial education and socio-emotional support, restructuring the academic calendar, adapting the curriculum, supporting teachers and school management, communicating with stakeholders, encouraging re-enrolment, minimising disease transmission, and supporting learning at home (world bank, 2021). the recovery mode described above circumscribes education as content acquisition, with cognitive learning the ostensible key. even where the affective is acknowledged, this is instrumentalised as support for catch-up, retention, and stress management, rather than as promoting educator well-being and preventing burnout. the image-laden narration of the pandemic reveals an overriding concern with the diminished learning time and content, measured in the number of teaching days lost, leading to decreases in projected cognitive learning outcomes. projected content learning loss (world bank, 2021) invokes a language of sayed, cooper & john: crises and disruptions 17 learning crisis and learning poverty, as noted above. yet, this approach instrumentalises learning and diminishes the focus on the affective and relational, failing to acknowledge a more holistic understanding and approach to education quality. the techno-education approaches are argued as being consistent with the imperatives of 4ir. proponents of technology have seen the crisis as the solution to the preparation of young people for the new industrial revolution marked by block chain technology and technological competencies (see world bank, 2020). yet such advocates rarely speak of the deep-seated inequality that marks the 4ir. in policy deliberations and choices about education, the striking issue that emerges is how the so-called solutions proposed not only reveal but also exacerbate education inequalities and render silent and absent a particular economic order being proposed (chowdury & jomo, 2020). and, in particular, the techno-education approach facilitates the ongoing privatisation creep into education that undermines the idea of education as a common public good. techno-education, as referred to in this paper, is reflective of how neo-colonialism continues to hold the global south in a dependent relationship through the new technologies and new platforms evident during the pandemic, resulting in what some have called digital colonisation (see kwet, 2021) these forms of neo-colonialism are evident in the ownership of software learning packages, learning platforms, and communication tools owned and managed by large corporations such as google, amazon, microsoft (ferreira et al., 2020; kwet, 2021). this digital colonisation is evident in the extraction of raw resources and commodities such as cobalt for new technologies from africa as well as the exploration of cheap advanced technology labour in what kwet (2021) refers to as the silicon valleys of the global south. crisis and international aid: rethinking the education and development paradigm the pandemic reveals not only inequities between and within nation states but also the regressive fault lines of the current international development architecture and aid system, with many countries in the global north cutting back on aid and retreating into chauvinistic nationalism, including through vaccine nationalism, for example (khoo, 2020). the current crisis is not an exceptional event but is part of the system of neoliberalism, marked by the increasing privatisation of social sectors, the growing inequalities between and within nation states, and the emphasis on the individual at the expense of collective and social solidarity. in particular, the pandemic reveals how the international system seems paralysed to act in concert globally as it seeks to work with and mitigate the behaviours of pharmaceutical corporations driven by the profit motive. during the crisis this form of capitalism has revealed how knowledge (about vaccine manufacture, for example) that should be part of a global public good and commons is privatised and nation states in the global south are unable to negotiate with corporations. at the same time, the approach of a country like cuba, for example, demonstrates excellent work towards the benefit of people globally by, for example, sharing the vaccine it has developed and providing health expertise to many 18 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 countries in the global south. yet cuba struggles to gain a foothold in the health system since its vaccine is neither globally recognised nor supported. this inequality in the way in which the global system operates is manifest in the fact that of 4.8bn covid-19 vaccine doses delivered around the world to date, around 75% have gone to just 10 countries (the guardian, 2021, 13 august). in africa, where a third wave of the virus has been on the march since may 2021, less than 2% of the continent’s population has received a first dose. while high-income countries around the globe have administered about 100 doses for every 100 citizens, the equivalent figure for low-income countries is 1.5. britain has played a leading role in opposing calls for intellectual property rights for vaccines to be temporarily waived. the pandemic also reveals what khoo (2020) termed “unknowing” and what he described as “cognitive frames that present development” as a question of “northern knowledge” and competence versus “southern lack of knowledge or incompetence” resulting in “active production of global ignorance, with serious effect” (khoo, 2020, p. 7). khoo’s thesis on the pandemic is significant in its revelation of a developmental paradigm in which the gaze is on the south but that fails to note that there have been previous global pandemics from which the north could have learnt from the south, as in the case of the ebola crisis in sierra leone. more significantly, the pandemic shines a spotlight on the paradigm of development that assumes that the other, namely the south, is unprepared in comparison to the north that is presented as prepared, ready, and able to manage. if anything, the pandemic has revealed that inequality, poor governance, corruption, along with despotic and authoritarian actions, are not the sole preserve of states in the global south (sayed & singh, 2020). the pandemic calls for new ways of understanding development that see the world not only in terms of geographical boundary positions of rich and poor and north and south, but also as riven by systems of production and forms of governance underpinned by relational inequality. in this way it speaks to a notion of development that the sustainable development goals (sdgs) framework sought to articulate, i.e., that poverty remains as titmuss (1965) suggested, the unacceptable stigmatising face of inequality, a global problem that pits the wealthy against the impoverished, the strong against the weak, and is not a specific feature of a particular state or space or time. it is important to recognise that during the first phase of the pandemic (april to june 2020) the top five billionaires saw a 26% increase in their wealth (makau, 2021). the multilateral global system came under sustained attacked as chauvinistic nationalism rapidly displaced the impulse, advocated most prominently by dr tedros adhanom ghebreyesus, head of the world health organisation (who), for a collective, solidaristic global response to the pandemic. the subsequent paranoid attack, in particular by the demagogic populist donald trump, on the who reflected such a chauvinistic trend (makau, 2021). further, with perhaps the rare exception of the scandinavian social democracies such as sweden (larsen, 2021) countries in the global north privileged access to vaccines in favour of their states to the detriment of those most needing them. large pharmaceutical companies sought to delay as long as possible making knowledge about their vaccine available, asserting their intellectual rights to commodify health products and thus preclude sayed, cooper & john: crises and disruptions 19 countries in the global south from developing their own vaccines. these examples reflect the enduring efforts by certain countries and large corporations to continue the neo-colonial dependency of the global south. comfort ero, the african programme director of international crisis group as cited in the guardian by burke (2012, para. 4), stated, it is a story in two parts . . . in the first chapter, the continent appeared more resilient in the face of the pandemic than many more developed parts of the world. there were lots of concerns that it would all go to hell but it didn’t. the next chapter may see all the things that didn’t play out in 2020 beginning to reveal themselves. the things that did not play out in the first chapter include increases in extreme poverty, unemployment, infant mortality, graduate unemployment, food hunger and scarcity, loss of remittances and insecurity, and a reduction in aid budgets, all of which threaten the achievement of the sdgs. a study 2 by united nations development programme (undp) (2021, p. 69) noted that even after the health crisis has been controlled by limiting the spread of the virus and eventually distributing a vaccine, the impacts of the pandemic will be far from over, with long-term increases in disease prevalence and mortality across countries, longterm changes to economic structures, shifts in patterns of international trade, and wide, predominantly negative implications for government investment and human progress in areas such as education, health, poverty eradication and child mortality. yet, the pandemic reveals an alternative progressive imaginary, albeit an inchoate one still in formation: the cuban public health doctors sent to south africa and italy; the cuban abdala vaccine, produced entirely independently of the circuits of global pharmaceutical capital; the crisis recovery facility created by the asian infrastructure investment bank (aiib) to provide $13bn of financing for recovery; and the low cost, progressive pandemic response by resource-constrained contexts like vietnam and india’s kerala state (chowdury & jomo, 2020). in the case of kerala, it is significant that the state used progressive ideas and messaging such as substituting the term social distancing with physical distancing to signify a rupture with the alienating class and caste estrangement suggested by the former term and used the metaphor of breaking the chains to signify overcoming oppression (chowdury & jomo, 2020). in these ways the kerala state suggested an alternative model of development in using progressive and inclusive socialist values and ideas to counter the socially alienating effects of the pandemic and build broad-based class and cast solidarity. these examples speak to alternative forms of development, or what makua (2021) referred to as a paradigm shift that has the potential to facilitate new horizontal and equitable approaches to international development and displace the current outmoded hierarchical international 2 this study was led by eziakonwaa including willem verhagen, david k bohl, jakkie cilliers, barry b, hughes, stellah kwasi, kaylin mcneil, marius oosthuizen, luca picci, mari-lise du preez, yutang xiong, and jonathan d. moyer. 20 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 development architecture that has proven unfit for purpose (organisation for economic cooperation and development [oecd], 2020). the warning of santos (2001, p. 187) is important here. one possible future is therefore the spread of societal fascism. there are many signs that this is a real possibility. if the logic of the market is allowed to spill over from the economy to all fields of social life and to become the sole criterion for successful social and political interaction, society will become ungovernable and ethically repugnant . . . an alternative framing of ways of knowing and doing development, in which development is presented as a linear trajectory and crises are seen as minor to major road bumps to be overcome along the journey, could change the modernity thesis. in contrast, makau (2021) and khoo (2020) have called for an alternative development imaginary rooted in and based on the voices of the marginal, those on the global periphery i.e., people whose lived experiences and priorities are generally not reflected in the mainstream development paradigm. crises and an alternative policy imaginary the writer arundhati roy (2020) suggested in the title of her article that “the pandemic is a portal”, and that the appalling inequalities regarding health and life that have been revealed are simply the newest manifestation of a continual crisis with an accompanying demand for reckoning, opened up by the struggles in the global south. to this end we offer a vision of education that is an alternative to the current proposals in circulation in its outlining of a progressive approach to education innovation in response to the pandemic. this plan is marked by changing the discourse and policy imaginary. many of the current education approaches and much of the messaging unduly and disproportionately speak to a contextual vision predicated on loss and crisis. reponses to such a context are couched in the language of curriculum recovery and remedial catch up in a deficit discourse that presumes that nothing has or can been learnt. while there is some merit in such a concern, we argue, following the agency model of kerala, india, that this should be couched in an equity focused and social justice driven approach that speaks to an alternative pedagogy of affirmation and hope. such a pedagogy of hope should foreground the experiences of the educator and the marginalised learner and illuminate a pathway through the crisis mapped on eradicating educational inequality and overcoming epistemic violence. to this end, we advocate an educational vision that speaks to eradicating learning inequality by affirming and validating the knowledge of the marginalised and impoverished. this should, in other words, constitute a point of pedagogical departure, and not be viewed, condescendingly, as a knowledge deficit to be filled up through either a catch-up or deposit process debunked by paulo freire (1970) more than 50 years ago. achieving this “new pedagogy of the oppressed”, to quote the title of freire’s (1970) work, for the marginalised in the global order requires a humble form of unknowing. much of the sayed, cooper & john: crises and disruptions 21 coronavirus discourse could be seen as a modernist project with the virus perceived as disrupting a linear development trajectory. however, as argued above, the virus calls into question the development paradigm that currently dominates thinking in calling, instead, for alternative southern epistemologies and a development paradigm that is centred on the south. this would turn on development as a humane and empathetic practice focused on people and growth that is respectful of the environment, equitable, and inclusive. this call for what we are calling an unknowing education system and curriculum (re)centres the subaltern and marginal knowledges, displacing the specific northern-centric ways of knowing that have an exclusionary hegemonic dominance. ladson-billings (2021, p. 72) has talked about the need for a “hard re-set”, since “going back” for black students in the us means returning to an oppressive education system. she called for a culturally relevant pedagogy as part of this hard re-set, one that “better reflects students’ lives and cultures” and “the purposes of education in a society that is straining from the problems of anti-black racism, police brutality, mass incarceration, and economic inequality.” a hard re-set, to use her example of new orleans and the devastating effect of hurricane katrina, does not see the crisis as an opportunity to move public education in the direction and favour of market-based, neo-liberal charter school education approaches. a social justice pedagogy underpinned by unknowing supports learning to nurture social consciousness and develop global solidarity, ensuring that learners have the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to understand the natural eco-system and how human action and instrumentalist notions of growth result in the crises and has resulted in the pandemic we witness today. such a pedagogy would include a focus on education for sustainable development, education for human rights and justice, respect for diversity, critical digital literacies, and conflict resolution. more importantly, such a curriculum would provide the understanding that individual action should be accompanied by structural change. for example, we cannot tackle carbon emission only by curricula and individual action but also by recognising that 71% of carbon emission is the result of no more than about 100 companies. we need to empower learners with the competence and agency to rethink the world order and see their individual action as part of a broader set of transformative actions required to change how the world functions, how we want it to function, and whom it should serve. such an approach does not see learning and education as the prerogative of the young, but as an integral task of all human activity through the lifespan. to this end, adult learning and education (ale) has received very little attention in covid-19-related crisis discourses. this is an extension of the usual silence and absence (santos, 2001) related to this sector in many countries where ale has historically been marginal and mostly underfunded. all the teaching and learning activities of this sector would have been affected by covid-19, as have been the lives and livelihoods of educators and the learning opportunities for adults. yet one would be hard pressed to find any media coverage of this phenomenon. the disruptions and learning loss concerns for learners in schools and higher education continue to dominate. and so, too, the monitoring, scholarship, and activism around ale during and because of the pandemic, are invisible. the ongoing absence of ale is telling. why are there no learning 22 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 loss concerns for adults and why a lack of urgency about plans to reopen or build back better? part of the answer to these questions is that ale has long been in compensatory, redress, and second-chance modes in several countries. instead of being fashioned as vibrant, proactive, and developmental, lifelong learning and education as expressed in global frameworks such as the delors report (1996) and the sustainable development goals (united nations, 2015), ale is still firmly cast as provision for the miss-educated and miseducated. in other words, it is for those who missed out on formal education and those who attended school but were failed by this system and thus need a second chance. there is a sense that these learners can wait a little longer and there are seemingly fewer consequences for the economy and society from disruptions and learningloss here. yet the levels of violence and inequality discussed throughout this article call for a revitalisation of this sector to contribute to the urgent projects of recovery, rebuilding, and rehumanisation. to be clear, such calls are nothing new; they were signalled by neglected pillars of the 1996 delors report that called for greater attention to be paid to “[l]earning to live together, by developing an understanding of other people and an appreciation of interdependence” (p. 97). goal 16 of the sustainable development goals to “[p]romote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels” is a more recent endorsement of the direction signalled by the delors framework for a less crisis-prone development model (united nations, 2015, p. 21). besides breaking down age and generational boundaries in reimagining education for all, divisions between homes and schools also need to be reinvented to foster inter-connected educational ecologies that build vibrant democratic participation. home and school are too often perceived as independent spaces, rather than a set of inter-connected relationships that form part of overall educational ecologies. the notion of blended learning, so prominent during the pandemic, has highlighted inter-connections between spaces and the ways in which inequalities are exacerbated through connected educational ecologies. moves to blended learning have resonated with the home-schooling movement that has proliferated in the us and that has effectively cocooned affluent students in a technologically enhanced bubble, exacerbating existing inequalities through home-school intersections. american home-schooling has negatively affected democratic citizenship and common reference points. charter school legislation made provision for what was called independent study. two decades ago, charter schools comprised 50% of california’s schools (apple, 2000) and continue to insulate privileged minorities from the general population, thus engaging in a form of cocooning. home-schooling functions like other semi-segregated sectors of society, such as gated living communities, to provide a physical and ideological security zone to which individuals can retreat, thus avoiding crime, taxes, poor schools, and undesirable ideas (apple, 2000). similarly, the form that blended learning has taken during the pandemic cocoons affluent students and families and keeps them away from the public sphere, insulating them from participating in democratic forms of citizenship and from being exposed sayed, cooper & john: crises and disruptions 23 to a range of reference points. choosing to live in specific cocoons undermines the basis of democracy because common experiences and information form the cornerstone of mutual understanding, empathy, and social cohesion (apple, 2000). rather than cocooning, new forms of educational justice should aspire to redraw educational ecologies by opening the doors of learning in ways that enhance solidarity and invigorate democracy. part of the challenge inherent in reimagining educational ecologies involves creating spaces that promote the transcending of neoliberal understandings of choice in catalysing public spaces that support forms of collective and connective action. globally, in the four decades prior to the crisis, schools and educators were increasingly reigned in and governed through marketised, neoliberal logics based on choice, competition, and managerialism. this produced a form of conservative modernisation in which education, as one component of democracy, was reduced to consumption practices and citizenship to individual choice (apple, 2001, 2003). the effects of this kind of logic were exacerbated during the crisis, including in south africa. for example, after the first covid-19 wave, the south african government emphasised that parents could choose home education or send their children back to school. the terms that needed to be adhered to for curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment meant that no poor parent could realistically choose home education. 3 the supposed choice portrayed through the home education policy was hopelessly out of touch with the lived realities of most south african parents, problematically assuming the home and school to be segregated spaces with independent functions. however, more affluent schools and the learners who attend them were able to transcend this binary choice, creating, instead, a larger spectrum of options, simply by blending resources from the home and school in various forms to create unique learning ecologies. in this and in many other ways, discourses of neoliberal choice have become entrenched in marketised education provision, shaping institutional arrangements, material conditions, and ideological effects that make particular pathways available for different groups, based on their position in society. discourses that emphasise the freedoms of the decision-making individual protecting their family and cultural heritage function to enable privileged groups to use “the market . . . as a class strategy . . . creating a mechanism that can be exploited by the middle classes as a strategy of reproduction in their search for relative advantage, social advancement, and mobility” (ball, 1993, p. 17). racialising effects are bound up in these processes since dominant groups are able to insulate themselves and their children through this sort of choice (apple, 2009; gillborn, 2008; lauder & hughes, 1999). the crisis has therefore highlighted the need for educational institutions to be underpinned by practices that embody alternative logics and ideologies to those associated with this apparent choice, promoting forms of collective and connective action that enhance democratic participation and interactions across class, as well as raced and gendered lines. an alternative to neoliberal choice discourses so integral to current education logics that promote competition and conflict, must foster forms of empathy and care, characterised by forms of affective learning. the corona crisis has revealed a glaring gap in the education system as far as empowering and equipping learners with the non-cognitive or the affective 3 see https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202005/home%20education%20policy%20.pdf 24 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 dimension of learning is concerned. learning to live together, learning to care, learning to be empathetic, learning to be both a critical national and global citizen are important aspects of education that have been neglected and delegitimated in favour of a narrow curriculum focus on the basics with the core reduced to literacy and numeracy. while these are important, they are patently inadequate for supporting learners in a period of crisis requiring socio-emotional learning, citizenship learning, resilience learning, along with conflict resolution, crisis adaptation, and management skills. all these aspects are part of a required focus on the affective and relational that is privileged here as equally important, if not more so, than the cognitive. affective learning needs to create empathy rather than hostility towards teachers, a group too often characterised as lazy, uninterested, and the reason behind low-quality education for the poor. the corona crisis has shown that teachers are front-line agents who need to be protected. too often teachers have been marginalised and placed on the periphery of decision making with their needs largely ignored. yet it is teachers who are ultimately the fundamental policy frontline workers for the tasks of mitigating and responding to crises. their marginal positioning is reinforced by the techno-education discussed earlier that places curriculum change, decision-making, and agency in the hands of scripted online learning and learning tools. breaking the chain of education inequality requires bringing to the fore the agential autonomy of teachers as knowing actors. the notion of teachers as autonomous agents hints at a form of meaningful democratic participation that should extend to policymaking. equitable policy participation and engagement is, especially in times of crisis, too often relegated to the realm of the unimportant in favour of emergency modes of acting. invoking states of emergency and emergency regulations akin to periods of conflict and war, while perhaps understandable in the short term, denies grassroots actors and organisations the space in which to engage in deliberative policymaking. in particular, marginalised actors and organisations, representing the majority, the impoverished, and the voiceless, often find it difficult to secure a place at the policymaking table. the centralised nature of policy formation is often cloaked in, and resorts to, the technocracy of so-called scientific knowledge that underestimates or misrecognises the social nature of crises. this has become patently apparent in education policymaking in many countries. inclusion and valorisation of peoples’ knowledge and what radical educators call really useful knowledge, generated from solidarities from below, can help to mitigate some crises and to humanise crisis responses. inclusive forms of policymaking may help to eradicate the structural violence experienced by the impoverished, by, for example, protecting girls and women from gender-based violence in their homes and communities: many education institutions are not safe spaces for them. one indicator of gender-based violence in schools and communities are the statistics related to learner pregnancy in gauteng province, south africa. over 23,000 learners fell pregnant in the year ending march 2021, while 934 girls between the ages of 10 and 14, gave birth (bhengu, 2021). education institutions need to recognise the imperative to become safe protective spaces and nurturing environments for all and, in particular, the marginalised. sayed, cooper & john: crises and disruptions 25 these measures discussed above are part of a strategy to build, create, and nurture responsive and resilient education systems that are prepared for crises and that support equitable and quality learning and lifelong education for all, particularly the most disadvantaged and marginalised. resilient and responsive systems are able not only to mitigate the shock of future systems but to proactively support and prepare critical citizens able to engage meaningfully in society for their own, familial, community, societal, and global benefits. this requires an education approach that opposes the creeping privatisation of public education and the use of techno-education without reflecting on whom it benefits. such an alternative approach that advocates for a hard new reset (ladson-billings, 2021) will fail if it is not part of an integrated, progressive, socialist set of measures and actions in which we rethink development paradigms and do not promote economic growth at all costs. we need a social order that fundamentally tackles inequality and that deviates from the linear economic growth-at-all-cost model of development. the founding mandate of the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco) points out the importance of the origin and ending of wars. in a similar way, the post pandemic world requires a mindset that imagines a future that is equitable, one in which the human eco-system contributes positively to the wider environment, rather than current models of growth and economic production that are wanting and/or damaging. we need to imagine a way of reading the world (freire, 1970) in which it is possible to see humanist, collectivist, solidaristic, and equitable values that implement a caring and inclusive growth paradigm centred on human development, humanisation, and respect for the natural world. this can build resilient countries with resilient populations, thus contributing to a resilient world order. this would be a more sustainable and hopeful model of building back better, for all. conclusion in this essay, we have highlighted the complex interplay in understanding the effects of the covid-19 pandemic on education at the global, regional, and national level. the crisis, arguably a natural zoonotic phenomenon, has in its social manifestation sharply illuminated and intensified inequities in and through education, revealing frailties and fragilities that have been glossed over. it has intersected and interlocked with existing crises rendering the vulnerable and marginalised more impoverished, pushing millions into extreme poverty, in contrast to the wealthy and the powerful who have often become wealthier and more powerful. yet it has, as santos (2001) has argued, been a powerful narrative of a sociology of silence and absence, a silencing that reveals a very narrow set of educational priorities that neglect adult and community education, for example. it has relegated to the margins a concern with pedagogy as a relational and repackaged neo-liberal education solution of choice, privatisation, and individual aggrandisement. yet as a portal it has pointed to an inchoate, opaque, fleeting-but-powerful narrative of the emergence of an alternative orthodoxy along with projecting possibilities, developing collectivities, and solidaristic thinking. in so doing, it points to a sociology of possibilities and pedagogies of hope that should avoid the glib rhetoric of building back better. instead, it is about a collective conversation and consciousness, an alternative and humanistic educational vision rooted in the idea of global common and public goods. the pandemic is about more than building back 26 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 differently; it is a reminder that mitigating its effects requires sustained, increased, and continued investment in public infrastructure, public delivery systems, and, most 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[unpublished internal science brief]. www.ilrigsa.org.za/webinar-sa-unrest-how-do-we-understand-what-happened/ journal of education, 2017 issue 69, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za struggles for teacher education in the age of the anthropocene marie brennan (received 22 may 2017; accepted 20 july 2017) abstract major shifts in the world ‘order’ – especially the urgency of climate change and biosphere destruction – pose challenges for education which require significant changes of practice in schools and universities, and thus to teacher education. this paper starts from a brief summary of issues at stake in the ‘anthropocene age’, arguing that the converging environmental crises have to be linked to the crises of capitalism. pragmatist philosophy and the practice turn in the human sciences provide directions for rethinking the tasks which teacher education can contribute to an activist-oriented development of education in these difficult times for humans and the planet. === rose reminds of what is at stake in the age of the anthropocene: we are spectators in the unmaking of the world we have known; we are spectators in the mass death of other creatures and the misery of numerous and diverse forms of life, including humans; we may indeed become spectators of our own demise (2013/2014, p.211). introduction: learning to educate in the anthropocene age in cape town, during the last week of august 2016, the international anthropocene working party (awp, 2016) presented its findings and recommendations to the 35 international geological conference. theseth recommendations, supported by a very significant majority of the awp, still need to be endorsed by their parent body, the international stratigraphic 44 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 commission, for the anthropocene to come into force as an official geological term. the anthropocene, they argue, is an ‘epoch’; it marks the enduring changes to the planet and their impact on the biosphere for thousands of years to come. if this terminology is adopted, it would mean that the holocene has finished, but that we remain within the quaternary period and cenozoic era. however, whether or not the awp’s recommendations are accepted, the ‘anthropocene’ is a concept around which action has been mobilised, as well as hard thinking. there are, of course, significant debates in the physical sciences about what counts as a new ‘epoch’, and about when the human-caused changes started – joined by social scientists who point to the inextricable linkage between humans and ‘environment’ co-producing one another in a ‘web of life’ (moore 2015). most recognise that human presence has always altered nature, just as nature has made possible and constrained what humans can do; climate change (including the last ice age, for example) and major events such as earthquakes and volcanos have always been present. wars lead to famine, as we can see in the northern countries of africa at the moment, and colonialism exacerbated effects of droughts and floods (davis 2000). yet the acceleration of planetary changes, particularly since the end of wwii, emerging as a result of radiation from the atom bomb and the massive growth of use of fossil fuels, has constituted a major threat to species, including our own, and to eco-systems, to the future of the planet. in this paper, i argue that it is imperative that we in education explore more systematically some of the multiple debates about the crises arising in the intertwining of the anthropocene and capitalism, crises that are difficult to face, to understand, to explain – let alone work out what to do. we put our heads in the sand; we peek like children at the scary world, and look away fast. we depress our knowledge of the significance of the converging crises and then act surprised when there are uprisings, demands, movements which try to address elements and consequences of these crises. or we try to explain them away, as relatively self-contained issues rather than connected to major shifts in economics, politics, democracy, sociality, the planet – even modernity itself. in education we tend to relegate such issues to a brief topic coverage within social studies or to a single subject subject, environmental education, which is often not on either school or university syllabi (pace the talloires declaration, 1990). or we say it belongs to another discipline area – to politics, to economics, not education. we do not follow up injunctions from environmental educators or critical pedagogy activists that what is needed is fundamental and radical: to reconstruct our curricula and pedagogies, and repurpose our institutions. brennan: struggles for teacher education. . . 45 it is, of course, much easier to say the planet is past its tipping point, that capitalism is unstoppable, and there’s nothing we can do, to allow ourselves to become paralysed with uncertainty or despair. environmental groups, including environmental educators, have been warning us to attend to these matters for a considerable time (carson, 1961; stevenson, brody, dillon & wals, 2013), as have critical theorists (apple, 1982; freire, 1970; ladsonbillings & tate, 1995). it is too easy to be suspicious of these warnings as ‘catastrophising’ but we should not ignore the ‘sudden and massive shift in earth history’ (semal, 2015, p.92): tipping points can lead to fast and unpredictable shifts, even in economics. there is indeed reason to fear – and, as naomi klein suggests, fear is “a survival response” (2014, p.28). educators are invested in ‘survival’ of the human species so we need to take notice; however, educational institutions have not been good at dealing with emotions (bozelak, carolissen, leibowitz & boler, 2013 ; zembylas, 2008), particularly the ‘darker’ ones (zipin, 2009) such as fear. what happens when the prevailing stories no longer make sense of the world? the serious, interwoven challenges of the crises of capitalism with ecological and climate change pose key questions that are unable to be addressed within the frames of the dominant stories of our day, requiring significant new analyses and even structures of knowledge. this has major implications for the work of education, in all its sectors – building new knowledge and knowledge structures in conjunction with new practices that are necessary to produce these knowledges. schools are responsible, usually with families/communities, for passing on the ‘grand narratives’ of the society, the frameworks for thinking and being – those practices which produce ways of organising thinking, saying and doing (schatzki, 2002; kemmis, 2009). however, education is not only about passing on past knowledges and practices but importantly about entrusting the future to the next generations, equipping them with capacities to survive, to organise, to think and plan and act. it has long been debated how we balance these two dimensions of education; the current dominant curriculum policy trend focusses mostly on passing on past knowledges. we are thus illequipped to deal with disruptions, to work with young people on the present and future, to connect knowledge and action. to do our job responsibly in education, we need to come to grips with a complex reading of the world, as global citizens and members of multiple communities, including those of world-wide education workers in the 21st 46 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 century. we cannot afford to be illiterate about the changing world and this means becoming much more familiar with a wider range of physical and social science findings and with local spaces/places. in particular, we need to see ourselves as part of ‘nature’, avoiding treating humans and nature as a binary – the same binary that underpins the development of capitalism and colonialism and that continues to underpin many assumptions of human lives. importantly, we have to ask how changing our narratives of the world might also challenge curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, the purposes of schooling, training, higher education – and the work of teachers, academics, and our students. learning to educate in these times means paying attention both to our own learning and that of our students. our imaginations cannot afford to be stuck in forms of stupid optimism, nor paralysed nihilism. the needed stories and actions will be diverse and situation-specific. i am situated in melbourne, australia. my ponderings come out of continuing histories of british colonialism, genocidal relations with indigenous peoples, immigration policies that aim for assimilation into an ‘australian’ imaginary of the dominant anglo-establishment, heavy reliance on international capital, and systematic skewing of access to the ‘goods’ of education away from students who are indigenous, poor, rural and with disabilities, in favour of those from already privileged backgrounds. this is not identical to the south african experience; and the differences between our countries matter in terms of analysis of the present and in what it is possible to imagine and act upon. in this paper, i first outline the two dominant stories of the day, those that underpin most of the world’s practices of life: the ‘grand’ stories of capitalism and of ecological change, drawing on jason moore’s analysis of ‘capitalism in the web of life’ (2015). my stories here can only be at a ‘101’ level, trying to bring together for non-specialists issues drawn from environmental, capitalist, political, philosophical and change theories as starters for sharpening our educational analysis. i do not claim expertise in all these sciences, but write as an educator who urges the importance, for educational work, of appreciating the complexity of the issues and what is at stake, and the need to keep learning, sharing ideas and moving towards action. this overview suggests not only domains where our own and local schools and universities might need to concentrate attention but also provides directions for exploring links between local and global which might be fruitful for inter-disciplinary work across physical and social sciences. i am not naïve enough to suggest that we already have pedagogical strategies ready to address the learning that is needed to navigate our way as a species in concert with nature. nor do i brennan: struggles for teacher education. . . 47 believe it is possible to grasp the full complexity of things. we can only work towards narratives that make fuller and better sense in the urgency of working on issue/s. i thus move towards a framework for connecting knowledge-work with action, drawing on stengers’ critical pragmatist philosophical arguments (2015; pignarre & stengers 2011) about the need to act on events in the world, as a means to produce new knowledges about events. the challenge is how we might proceed with teacher education that does not attempt to ‘save the world’, yet does further educational thinking and acting that contributes towards local-global pro-action. the final sections of the paper give some indications of directions for such work. the ‘anthropocene’ and capitalism: co-produced crises ‘anthropocene’ is a contested term in part because it suggests that all humans were equally responsible for the massive acceleration in the effects of humannature relations and their mutually constitutive effects, rather than sub-sets of humans, particularly in the advanced capitalist world. the term does not recognise that the planet has set up conditions for human possibility as well, treating the world as a separate ‘object’ to be acted upon. nevertheless, ‘anthropocene’ has good international recognition and does acknowledge that human interactions with the planet have altered the planet irreversibly. i use the term here as a political marker of the importance of the debates, signalling the need for human beings to come to terms with what has occurred on planet earth and the ways in which we, and planet, are intertwined. since only a minority of teacher educators come from physical sciences background, i here summarise some of the physical science discussion of environmental changes. the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc), in their 5th major report – the 6th is due in 2022 – summarised evidence to date of human-induced shifts in climate. the level of agreement about humans’ impact on the planet across many areas of physical sciences has only gained strength since the ipcc’s first assessment report in 1990. their most recent online summary for policy-makers puts it strongly: human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems. (ipcc 2014-pm) 48 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 the ippc report points to the warming of the global climate system, including both atmosphere and ocean, with diminished amounts of snow and ice, and rising sea levels. as a result, extreme weather and climate events are more common and more devastating. into the future, climate change, the report argues, will amplify existing risks and create new risks for natural (including human) systems; but risks are unevenly distributed, having greater impacts on less advantaged communities and countries. even a few findings which have medium to high confidence among scientists are enough to suggest the magnitude of the problems policy makers and ordinary people in every region are already facing. in the last two decades sea levels rose almost double the eight inches of the previous century. ocean acidification, largely as a result of absorbing excess co levels in the atmosphere, has grown over 30% since the2 beginning of the industrial revolution, about half of that amount in the past 40 years. the panel notes the resultant mass extinction of many species, accompanied by food insecurity and need for migration of humans and many other species. they conclude that: many aspects of climate change and associated impacts will continue for centuries, even if anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are stopped. the risks of abrupt or irreversible changes increase as the magnitude of the warming increases. (ipcc (pm), 2014). the physical science evidence is clear: the planet is altering significantly through the interaction of the human species with other species and biosystems. the awp nominates the start of the anthropocene as 1945, pointing to the increasing impact of technologies in shaping what has become known as the ‘great acceleration’ since atom bombs in 1945 spread radiation around the atmosphere, followed by massive expansion of the use of fossil fuels and their emissions of carbon into the atmosphere in the second half of c20 and up to the present. th the ‘date’ of locating the anthropocene’s ‘beginning’ has been subject to dispute because interaction between humans and planet has always occurred. early forms of agriculture, technological development and the spread of humans altered biospheres, which in turn framed possibilities for the spread of and activities of humankind. good overviews of the debates on the anthropocene, including starting dates and terminology, can be found in an edited collection edited by hamilton, bonneuille and gemenne (2015). such debates include arguments that point to the role of machines, particularly the brennan: struggles for teacher education. . . 49 steam engine invented by watt in 1784, and the ways technology developed for the industrial revolution and the interplay of old and new worlds in making possible the modern world and its emphasis on fossil fuels. should this ‘new’ era perhaps be called the technocene? others see the most recent periods of acceleration of consequences of human activity as continuing a logic of capitalist accumulation of wealth, and associated forms of colonialism, suggesting that the anthropocene commenced around 500 years ago with capitalism’s emergence into formation as a world system (wallerstein, 1983). indeed, some suggest that referring to this period as ‘capitalocene’ would be more appropriate (moore, 2016, see also haraway, 2015). such a term recognises the central capitalist ideology of ‘cheap nature’, as merely a resource to be used for the benefit of the concentration of powerful accumulators in geographic ‘metropoles’, typically through exploitation and expropriation of resources from colonies or trade agreements. indeed, moore suggests that capitalism itself is a world ecological regime, a “way of organizing nature” by the “co-production of earth-moving, idea-making, and power-creating across the geographical layers of human experience” (2015, p. 2, 3). these debates point up the need for more comprehensive interor transdisciplinary explanations. we have to be able to understand how human action was involved and how the world acts back on such action. yet many activists around poverty and inequality have signally failed to address environmental issues whilst many environmental activists have stopped short of including the role of capitalism in their analyses and suggestions for action. for humans to alter course on planet earth, we have to understand how capitalism is inextricably bound up with changes to climate, ecosystems, biodiversity, atmosphere and associated living systems. yet, as jameson (2003) so rightly quipped, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. capitalism is a system that is not only economic but also social and environmental, a roughly 500-year-old world system (wallerstein, 1983). its underlying logic is accumulation, which requires continual growth and expansion – a capitalism that can sustain itself, most economists agree, works on at least a 3% compound growth of profit annually. if such growth slows or stops, then accumulated profits decline or are destroyed (harvey, 2011), so capitalising entities are always in search of new innovations to expand reach and capacity to profit in competition with others. capitalism has to evolve in order to continue to expand. as wallerstein’s history of capitalism argues, the 50 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 dominant forms have altered, from agrarian enclosure capitalism, to mercantilism, to industrialisation, through to the contemporary forms of globalisation and financialisation (see braudel, 1979; harvey, 2011). european colonialism has been an essential means of spreading capitalist practices, expanding geographic space, and giving access to resources and new labour frontiers, such that capitalism had spread across the globe, as a networked ‘world system’ with a power to limit alternatives to its logic, by the late c19 (wallerstein, 1983). th the recent crises of capitalism (e.g. the global financial crisis of 2008) have not led to widespread reform of neoliberal capitalism, and its emphasis on financialisation rather than production as the ‘engine’ of expansion. rather, those crises have largely been subsumed in the old stories: the banks are now ‘safer’, we are told; emphases on increased productivity – perhaps in the global south – will strengthen the global economy; austerity measures will bring back fiscal responsibility; and new technologies will resolve the problems experienced by the planet, including humans. of course, there are still many groups of people for whom these stories can no longer be taken seriously, but few people, seeing the crises of their governments, really believe there is anything they can do. larger-scale demonstrations – seattle, the occupy movement, the middle eastern countries’ search for democratic governance – have been contained in their effects; and capitalism appears to have prevailed (but precariously so), muting address to environmental challenges, which get put on backburner while capitalism is returned to ‘business-as-usual’. historically, capitalism has exploited periods of cyclical crises by evolving its mechanisms, while also accelerating the effects of contradictions that inhere in its logic of continually expansive accumulation growth, including impacts of social and environmental shift. yet the effects of contradictions are accelerating; and it is highly questionable whether ongoing growth through a capitalising logic can continue sustainably. moore (2015, p.17) argues that capitalist expansion has relied on what he calls the “four cheaps: labor-power, food, energy, and raw materials”. now we are at the end of sustainability of these ‘cheaps’. there are few new ‘frontiers’ for capitalism to exploit and colonise to continue expanding. moore argues that capitalism and environment co-produce one another through what he calls a ‘double internality’, so capitalism is in nature. like wallerstein, he points to the continuity of capitalism in the past 500 or so years, and the interaction of humans with other parts of nature over this time, as constituting “new brennan: struggles for teacher education. . . 51 conditions for successive eras of capitalist restructuring across the longue durée” (p. 176). during this period, argues moore, there have been three main ‘revolutions’: landscape (e.g. the medieval enclosures, c17 colonial clearingth of forests in brazil or the vistula basin); labour productivity (e.g. the crisis of feudalism after the black death in europe, the african slave trade and sugarslave nexus); and the techniques of global appropriation, especially of ‘natural’ resources. a number of major macro-historians/sociologists of capitalism recently explored the question: “does capitalism have a future?” (wallerstein, collins, mann, derlugian & calhoun, 2013), presenting divergent and convergent perspectives. they agree that the ‘western great recession’ of 2007–8 has shifted the global economy and its instantiation in nation states, marking the end of the ‘old left’ currents: the liberal reformism of the first world states, the communist revolutionary dictatorships of the industrialising ‘second world’, and the national populist movements of the ‘third world’. accumulation, and un-equal redistribution of wealth to the benefit of those ‘above’, continue apace, creating greater stratification within and across nations; and power seems to have shifted from the euro-american axis towards asia. wallerstein and collins each suggest that capitalism is now reaching a structural limit-point: a dangerous juncture with major exacerbation of internal contradictions, profit squeeze, and, collins adds, the replacement of much middle class work by automation, making consumption levels necessary for at least 3% growth in profit-accumulation impossible to sustain. mann and calhoun both suggest that capitalism remains flexibly adaptive, and so may persevere – however, with major alterations necessary, and facing precarities due to crises that capitalism is significant in creating. mann sees environmental disasters, possible use of nuclear weapons, and weakly responsive political mobilisation, as major threats which capitalism in its current form is unlikely to tame; while calhoun argues that the institutions which neoliberalism has eroded would need (perhaps impossible) rejuvenations if capitalism is to have any chance of continuing. it has only been through social movements, points out naomi klein, that governments are forced to pay attention to major threats. she notes that climate change “has never received the crisis treatment from our leaders [compared to terrorism or bailing out banks], despite the fact that it carries the risk of destroying lives on a vastly greater scale than collapsed banks or collapsed buildings” (2014, p. 6). governments started negotiating on action to alter carbon emissions in 1990; yet by 2013, carbon dioxide emissions had 52 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 increased by 61% on 1990 levels. perhaps the paris agreement in 2015 might have more chance of both recognition and action, but the precedent of governments’ previous avoidances of keeping to agreements do not hold out much hope – despite ever more severe scientific warnings about the level of warming and irreversibility of current effects on the planet. james (2013/14, p. 2) suggests that the “constant deferral of fundamental action on basic questions has slipped between the modern dialectical struts of hope and despair”. it takes “real effort”, he suggests, to go along with the idea of business as usual: that “life on our planet can go on much as before, so long as it is supported by a ‘digital revolution’ and enhanced technological platforms” (ibid). it is indeed hard for many of those in advanced capitalist countries even to imagine how their ‘lifestyles’ are supported by exploitation of other humans, species and biosystems. in the same volume, hinkson (2013–2014) points to massive development of techno-sciences since world war ii through global markets, such that “western culture has become locked into technological solutions as a deep form of cultural response to complex change” (p.60). such faith in the techno-sciences as our saviour induces us to defer the need to rethink fundamentally the form of the hyper-mobile, consumption-heavy and growth-based social freedom that presents itself as the raison d’etre of “sustainable development” (james, 2013–2014, p.2–3). continued capitalist investment in climate change denial, through think tanks and research sponsorships, has warded off attention to groups who raise environmental issues. it is in capital’s interest to promote accommodation with ‘green lite’: simplistic techno-‘fixes’ to environmental problems that suggest individual responsibility, rather than structural change, as what is needed. beck noted that global risk is produced largely by wealthy decisionmakers (including those hired or co-opted to serve them), whose lives are not as directly harmed by consequences of their decisions: those who are taking the decisions are not accountable from the perspective of those who are affected by the risks, and those who are affected have no real way of participating in the decision-making process. this is what i call organized irresponsibility. (2014, p.76). such irresponsibility on the part of capital, with nation-states in thrall, helps to create conditions of fear without much capacity to imagine what to do about the situation, as we transition from one era to the next. brennan: struggles for teacher education. . . 53 if we consider only physical science definitions of the problem, then we are more likely to restrict ourselves to technical and market-oriented answers – a tendency to concentrate on ‘nature’ but not how social assumptions structure our relations within it (hinkson, 2013–2014). and while environmental movements have fostered some inter-disciplinary work, the continuing separation of social-only and physical-sciences-only explanations leads to ‘science as usual’ (stengers, 2015), rather than reinventing sciences appropriate to the complexity of the issues under investigation. moreover, there may not be effective physical science ‘solutions’ since good explanations of the problem do not necessarily translate to good ‘answers’ or recommendations for action – especially if the ‘solution’ required that action be taken before the current degree of crisis was reached. capitalist expansion since world war ii, reliant on fossil fuels and growth of consumerism, accompanied by movement of the majority of the world’s population into cities, has left unmistakeable signals in geological strata (awp, 2016). other sciences, including human sciences, provide more indication on the outcomes for humans and other living species and the planet overall. it is now most likely that we will have to learn to live within conditions that are less than optimal for human survival and flourishing. i note here the ipcc’s assertion that the consequences of global warming, climate change and destruction of species and habitats have most impact on those who are poorest and most marginal in the world capitalist system. learning how to focus on reinventing practice in crisisridden times what might these crises mean for education as a field and teacher education in particular? i argue that there are huge implications for those of us in education, at a time when – internationally – education is being pushed backwards by narrowing curriculum, standardised testing and competition, and lack of adequate investment in high quality public education for all. all modern institutions are under strain from the converging and interwoven crises of capitalism and the environment. in australia, for example, a group schools in a poor rural region where i have done research were, within a fouryear period, thrice affected by serious floods which had ramifications for the lives of students’ and their families, some living in large groups in shared housing and garages two and three years later. school staff also lost housing, not to mention loss of library stock in schools, and shift in school functions 54 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 when they served as emergency shelters. as researchers we had to cancel visits, and to alter our plans, including our data instruments. but the floods did make us rethink our curriculum work with schools and their communities, and what educators’ ‘accountability’ might mean in such contexts. pragmatist approaches to knowledge in action seem most appropriate here. isabelle stengers, an activist philosopher of science, reminds us that pragmatism is the ‘care of the possible’ (stengers, 2015; stengers & bordeleau, 2011), rather than working out a replacement macro vision. pragmatism gives ethical emphasises to uses of knowledge in connection with pro-action in the world – to forms of praxis – which has been elaborated in a range of educational traditions. as reckwitz (2002, p. 259) proposes, practice theory decentres “mind, texts and conversation” while “[s]imultaneously, it shifts bodily movements, things, practical knowledge and routine to the centre of its vocabulary” – paying attention, adds schatzki (2002, p. 12), to practices as “embodied, materially interwoven”. such attention to educational practices may enable us to build on strengths in ways that exceed the institutions within which those practices have been developed, creating new configurations of practice: of ‘doings, sayings and relatings’ (kemmis, 2009). practices and knowledge develop in association, emerging through concrete action by social beings in particular places and times. we cannot wait for ‘full evidence’ to come before acting: life on this planet is too precarious for that. part of the problem of ‘evidence-based’ approaches is that the cited ‘evidence’ is from what is past, while present and future continue to emerge in changing contexts that may require attention to what was not ‘evident’ before. what is applicable can only be tested in action, which in turn changes what emerges. large-scale dynamics of environment, capitalism and their interwoven crises are experienced by us in our locals as ‘glitches’ in the infrastructure of our lives, as lauren berlant (2016, p.393) observes: . . . at some crisis times like this one, politics is defined by a collectively held sense that a glitch has appeared in the reproduction of life. a glitch is an interruption within a transition, a troubled transmission. a glitch is also the revelation of an infrastructural failure…. infrastructure is not identical to system or structure, as we currently see them, because infrastructure is defined by the movement or patterning of social form. it is the living mediation of what organizes life: the lifeworld of structure. roads, bridges, schools, food chains, finance systems, prisons, families, districts, norms all the systems that link ongoing proximity to being in a world-sustaining relation. brennan: struggles for teacher education. . . 55 glitches tend to be site-specific, place-based, and so to be understood not only as generalisable effects of widespread structural phenomena, but also as expressing particular histories and conditions in the local. in this sense, the ‘glocal’ is a helpful term pointing to the inter-relationships of people and places, institutions and biosystems. glitches in the local – always relational to other locales, i.e. to ‘the global’ – are phenomena that offer sites to start investigating possibilities for new educational praxis, with a view to collective pro-actions – including the diverse range of actors who are affected in the situation – that can generate situated knowledge. i suggest that pursuing action around glitches in our regions offers us a focus for reinventing education and teacher education. struggling to reinvent teacher education teacher education has been tied to global policy shifts, with particular effects in different countries. as green, reid and brennan (2017, p.39) have recently argued, this creates a “churn” of reform that keeps attention away from our own practice and focussed on policy and compliance with its speedy shifts: the ongoing and escalating struggle for control of teacher education in countries around the world reflects the difficult and contested position of teacher education within what is experienced as a chaotic churn of reform … government has sought to constrain and ‘improve’ teacher education in the interests of competitive (inter)national struggles for economic power. within the terms of this struggle between teacher education and the global state, we argue here that there is an urgent need for attention to the everyday work of teacher educators, their students and the school systems they serve – the practice of teacher education, which is to say, the ‘soul’ or animus that makes teacher education what it is. stengers’ version of pragmatism provides an important corrective here. she asks to think from where we are, and act on the issues which are problematic in that site, rather than focussing on policy. we do have resources on which to build, despite being caught up and implicated in ‘business-as-usual’, to address glitches in the infrastructure of our lives and the reinvention of our educational institutions. for a start, much of our work is invested in intergenerational activity. whilst some of this is far too bound up with modernist ideas of ‘progress’, working with the next generation brings particular responsibilities in helping them navigate their ways in changing conditions. this is not to replace silly forms of optimism that ignore the current crises but rather to keep ‘grounded’ in renewal of practice thereby avoiding the paralysis of despair and cynicism. working alongside our students (and in 56 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 turn their students), we can help to problematise the old grand narratives with stronger analysis of why those dominant narratives may have come into being, and why they are inaccurate. new generations can be part of building new and multiple narratives that are connected to place, and linked to other places. these narratives can help rebuild some new discourses, that draw on multiple disciplines and on local expertise, weaving together the ‘web of life’ that jason moore points out, seeing the human endeavour as part of the ‘natural’ world, working against capitalist appropriations and assumptions, and towards a renewed connection among humans and with the planet and its biosystems. in building new narratives, we have to work with the local/regional glitches, bringing together old and emerging knowledges and practices to understand more of how the local is linked to other locals. this is necessary to build new complex narratives that specify the big issues challenging local lives and open up spaces of action. teacher education is fortunately placed for such work. many countries’ teacher education programmes share a number of features, although realised in different historical circumstances. they generally work within government policies, operate within universities, with a few remnant ‘teachers’ colleges’, and are usually linked to regional or national school authorities, which specify school curriculum to be addressed and/or employment requirements for teachers. programs often include broad education studies (such as educational history, sociology, philosophy, psychology), subject teaching methods, specialist disciplinary study and some form of placement. countries differ in whether pre-service teachers come in as graduates or as undergraduates, opportunities for placement and levels of specialisation, in whether educationspecific studies are included and in the kinds of relationships with schools. placement, and the necessary relationships with schools in a region, which underpin successful learning through professional experience, opens up many opportunities for teacher educators and pre-service teachers to work with local communities to delineate the big issues challenging their lives. through expanding relationships beyond the school into communities, teacher educators can also source local knowledge action workers who have the potential to contribute to examining, defining and acting upon issues, providing access to networks and joining local expertise with academic expertise to address those issues. teacher education could thus act as a clearinghouse point to establish, sponsor or join transdisciplinary teams working on these key issues, with a particular brief to take an educative stance. this may require drawing on understanding the translation and brennan: struggles for teacher education. . . 57 selection of content, suggesting communication and pedagogical strategies, and supporting students as researchers of these issues. teacher educators are helpfully placed in universities as sites of multiple disciplinary resources which can be brought to bear on key problematics experienced locally/regionally, and more widely. among ourselves, we are less a ‘discipline’ than a field, already multi-disciplinary, so potentially better equipped to bring together multi-disciplinary teams to work on local ‘big issues’. teacher education could become a fulcrum point for linking university academics and knowledge workers (staff and students) to spheres of research and action, using the school as an entry point to local communities and their issues – a focus for inter-disciplinary research linked to action. the work of the global alliance for community-based research (http://www.guninetwork.org/articles/knowledge-world-we-want-emergenceglobal-alliance-community-engaged-research-gacer) has a good track record in this regard. in the process of such engagement, schools, teacher education and university-based research are all reinvented. as teacher educators we cannot be expert in all issues – nobody can. however, what we do have is a repertoire of ‘signature pedagogies’ (hooley, 2017) and experience in pedagogising knowledge, ‘delocating a discourse, for relocating it, for refocusing it’ (bernstein, 1996, p.47) for use in teaching. these strategies can be drawn upon for the reinvention of teacher education, curriculum and pedagogies. we can also draw on histories of critical pedagogy and praxis traditions, e.g. developing and sharing new knowledges and practices as a form of freire’s (1970) ‘conscientisation’ for/in/with the society. among us, we also have environmental educators, citizenship educators, social educators and science educators with histories of problemoriented project work. despite being very much tied into national framings and policies, we also have significant international networks, which can be put into service for linking up our students and school students in constructing ‘globalisation from below’. supporting mobilisation around local problematics to help map and deepen their readings of issues, practices and relationships, teacher educators can also build linkages across local sites to build new knowledges and learning from one another’s actions. pre-service teachers (psts) form a large cadre of potential knowledge workers who can be put to diverse uses in supporting students and teachers in schools, as well as bringing to bear their own knowledge and experiential backgrounds. rather than being positioned only as incompetent novices to be http://www.guninetwork.or g/articles/knowledge-world-we-want-emergence-global-alliance-community-engaged-research-gacer http://www.guninetwork.or g/articles/knowledge-world-we-want-emergence-global-alliance-community-engaged-research-gacer 58 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 inducted into current practices, psts can assist schools in supporting students to become researchers, building their own capacities as researchers, as part of their work in becoming teachers, while learning to understand their students, and their communities and the place in which they are located. in the process, they too contribute to reinventing schools in a future-action-oriented way, through the collaborative invention of new practices that link schools, communities and action on big issues. it is an important part of their education as teachers to be oriented to community and to redefine teachers’ work as including knowledge developed through action and research, the invention of new practices of and for school communities and teaching. researching big issues for/in/with communities is also a way for building new paradigms of research and reinventing research away from the capitalising logic of the ‘knowledge economy’-driven university in the current times. it may well be that teacher educators can find ways of ‘double dipping’ in ‘counting’ and measuring community-oriented research in the climate of measurement, using ‘impact’ measures but this ought not drive such efforts wherever possible. traditions of place-based curriculum (gruenewald & smith, 2003), funds of knowledge (moll & gonzalez, 1997) can be added to environmental education research (stevenson et al., 2013) that position teacher education well to work on situated knowledge work on ‘glitches’. building such research as core to our practice (green, 2009) has important spin-offs for developing agency for students, pre-service teachers, community and ourselves as teacher educators. we have to take ourselves seriously as coproducers of knowledge through new forms of action, including teaching, and helps to de-pathologise young people (both school and university students), giving them respect as co-agents in knowledge-in-action (bottrell 2015; brunila, 2014). working on big issues together may also help to address programmatic design in teacher education, often left as a collection of individual subject areas rather than coherent design. ‘web of life’ principles and use-value rather than exchange-value orientations to teacher education can thus contribute to sustainability of humans with the planet in curriculum terms (barab & roth, 2006; hicks, 2014; paige, lloyd & smith, 2016). the curriculum of teacher education, and the curriculum of schooling seem to have become narrower and narrower in parallel over the neoliberal policy ascendancy. opening beyond this set of constraints (reddy & schreuder, 2004) does require new kinds of politics for the field but can be developed through attention to building new practices that satisfy a wide range of practitioners and brennan: struggles for teacher education. . . 59 communities who can support such politics. unless programmatic design and relationships with school communities alter, then such projects will remain tethered to individual university classrooms, with little scope for changing the basic framing of universities or teacher education, as has too often been the case with activist innovations. … some tentative steps towards further action the ongoing struggles to change teacher education will make such suggested community-oriented, big-issue-oriented research and action quite difficult to achieve. like school education – to which it is connected by origin, governmental policy, historical practice and shared concerns – teacher education has been inextricably bound up with the project of modernity and the formation of the nation state. the ideal-typical focus has been on universal provision of education on the premise that each individual will achieve academically according to ‘merit’ (supposed ‘inborn ability’ and hard work), learn to be good citizens, and gain appropriate credentials for further education and/or work. unesco on world teachers’ day (october 5, 2016) suggested the world will need close to 69 million more teachers by 2030 – 17 million in sub-saharan africa alone – if the world is to reach the goal to provide universal primary and secondary schooling. so education academics are not likely to run out of work, presuming that universities continue to be funded and that states require teachers to have credentials. still, education in various forms, including the non-institutional forms, will need resourcing for the ongoing survival of the human species. however, if we are to contribute to the survival of the next generation, then we need to change our game quite significantly. in the contemporary global settlement around higher education, neoliberal assumptions predominate; as with other sub-sectors, there have been moves into standardisation, credentialism, and economism, through focus on entrepreneurship, performativity, vocationalism and knowledge for sale. this has been accompanied by a tendency to blame teacher education for the breakdown in the promise of credentialism leading to employment (furlong, cochran-smith & brennan, 2008). thus there are political, social and intellectual challenges for teachers and teacher education – challenges that are both shared with other occupational groupings and specific to our field. 60 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 specific to our field, we will have to unpack our modernist our concepts of education and their institutional practices, replete with binaries, including the mind/body dualism, the academic/manual split and the binary of the split between humans and nature – all being highly anthropo-centric. we will need to alter the balance of knowledge to value prospective/future orientations, as well as bringing the most appropriate past knowledge to address current and emerging issues. this requires knowledge to be recontextualised in the frame of local communities, reconnected to place, relationships and action. our ‘performance management’ will need significant redefining in audit cultures that have been eviscerated of meaningful connection to students, communities and schools. in this paper, i have tried to outline a positionality for teacher education and teachers without falling into the trap of nominating ourselves as responsible for ‘hope’ and ‘salvation’ of the world, or even education. in uncertain times without large-scale convincing narratives of problems or solutions, claims to have ‘the’ answer can easily fall into hubris, without actually acknowledging, humbly, that we cannot possibly have an answer. education cannot ‘save’ society but we do need to contribute to more civility, more civic spaces, more informed dialogue – with teachers who see this as core to their work. we can contribute to focus on local action and to joining up local praxis – action with knowledge – to make it possible to do otherwise and to produce knowledges through this further action. as i suggested, within the university and in our communities, we are well placed to link diverse resources, including pulling together diverse disciplinary expertise, to add to local knowledges of students and communities so the action on issues can be as informed as possible – and as future-oriented as possible. such an orientation relies on us to build our own capacities to ‘read the world’ and deal with uncertainty. the darkness of the views of the intertwined crises of capitalism and environmental changes challenges us all, whilst removing more traditional institutional responses. imagining new options into existence is indeed a tough ask. we have a desperate need for other stories, not fairy tales in which everything is possible for the pure of heart, courageous souls, or the reuniting of goodwill, but stories recounting how situations can be transformed when thinking they can be, achieved together by those who undergo them. not stories about morals but “technical” stories about this kind of achievement, about the kinds of traps that each had to escape, constraints the importance of which had to be recognized. in short, histories that bear on thinking together as a work to be done. and we need these histories to affirm their plurality, because it is not a matter of brennan: struggles for teacher education. . . 61 constructing a model but of a practical experiment. because it is not a matter of converting us but of repopulating the devastated desert of our imaginations. 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(2009). dark funds of knowledge, deep funds of pedagogy: exploring boundaries between lifeworlds and schools. discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 30(3), 317– 331. marie brennan extraordinary professor stellenbosch university south africa mtbocbrennan@gmail.com http://ulsf.org/talloires-declaration/ mailto:mtbocbrennan@gmail.com 66 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 microsoft word c88 full issue 5oct.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 88, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i88a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x counting the costs: exploring the effects of the covid-19 pandemic in rural schools in lesotho walter sengai languages and social education department (lased), faculty of education, national university of lesotho, maseru, lesotho waltersengai@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4817-5649 matseliso lineo mokhele research and engaged scholarship, faculty of education, university of the free state, south africa mokheleml@ufs.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0003-9530 makhulu a. makumane languages and social education department (lased), faculty of education, national university of lesotho, maseru, lesotho makhulum@yahoo.co.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7904-4177 (received: 15 february 2022; accepted: 6 july 2022) abstract pandemics leave long-term consequences in their wake. the covid-19 pandemic reached catastrophic levels in africa, similar to what it did in the rest of the world. rural schools in developing countries, already reeling from extreme poverty and economic vulnerability, have borne the most severe brunt of the pandemic. in this study, we explore the effects of covid-19 on rural schools in lesotho using data from semi-structured online interviews with 10 rural-based teachers. we address two questions: “what are the effects of covid-19 on rural schools in lesotho?” and “what steps have been taken to mitigate the effects of covid-19-induced school closures in lesotho?” findings show that enforced school closures meant to contain the spread of covid-19 disrupted rural learners’ lives. innovations to mitigate the effects of the pandemic bridged the gap between the classroom and totally remote settings by introducing online education that, however, remains elusive for most rural learners. keywords: covid-19, coronavirus, pandemic, school closures, rural schools, online learning 36 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 introduction and background disasters induced by protracted crises in the form of armed conflicts, forced displacement, and climate change have disrupted the education of over 75 million children and youth globally (the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco), 2020a). the covid-19 epidemic forced over 1.53 billion learners out of school and enforced country-wide school closures are impacting 87.6% of the world’s total enrolled learners in at least 184 countries (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization, 2020a). coronaviruses range from the common cold to severe acute respiratory syndrome (sars) (jain & barhate, 2020). covid-19, the most recent coronavirus, was first detected in wuhan, china, in december 2019. since then, alarmingly, it has spread around the world, becoming a truly global phenomenon (murphy, 2020). as has happened globally, lesotho’s education system has been dealt a severe blow by covid-19 that has worsened the condition of the affected learners, hence the need to examine its impact on education in rural schools in this country. the pile-on effect of the global covid-19 pandemic includes disruptions of education that can have long term implications especially for the most vulnerable children such as learners in rural areas (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization, 2020b). millions of children, particularly girls and orphans, who have already been struggling to access education, are being further exposed to other social crises by the outbreaks of covid19. therefore, the most pressing need is making learning possible and available to learners while keeping them away from their classrooms to minimize their risk of infection. although many different approaches have been devised to facilitate the transition from face-to-face to online learning, teachers who are technologically limited require proper professional development and in-service training to allow them to be properly oriented towards what has become the new normal (pokhrel & chhetri, 2021). the challenge of responding in this particular way to the covid-19 pandemic is therefore particularly immense for developing countries such as lesotho. compared to other developing countries afflicted by covid-19, lesotho has a very poor economy and schools are less developed in terms of modern standards because of their over-reliance on the traditional face-to-face mode of learning (makiba, 2020). literature review in this section, we discuss the effects of covid-19 on education, the use of school closures to reduce the spread of the pandemic, and the steps taken to mitigate the effects of these school closures. effects of covid-19 on education the covid-19 pandemic is largely responsible for indiscriminately crippling the education sector in most developing countries such as lesotho. it led to the disruption of education programmes when the country faced a total shutdown of schooling activities and teachers sengai et al.: counting the costs 37 and learners were forced to stay in their homes (makiba, 2020). it also exacerbated primary and secondary student drop-out rates (wodon, 2020). education has been affected at all levels as institutions cope with closure, social distancing, and challenging decisions about how to continue teaching. schools were forced to close to abide by world health organization (who) lockdown regulations. in lesotho, the lockdown and subsequent school closures marked the end of effective teaching and learning in rural schools. only 20% of children who were previously attending school, were able to maintain access to some form of education (united nations international children’s fund, 2020). the gains made five years after the adoption of the thrust towards universal education for all will be lost if the threats presented by the covid-19 pandemic are not dealt with in a timely manner (bakibingagaswaga et al. 2020). this explains why parents and policymakers are worried about the impact of the covid-19 related school closures on learners’ education (goudeau et al., 2021). despite the threat of covid-19, education has to continue albeit under strict social distancing regulations. use of school closures to reduce the spread of pandemics around the globe, the spread of covid-19 has led to profound changes in social interaction and organisation, and the education sector has not been immune (murphy, 2020). there were widespread closures of primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions throughout the world as efforts to stem the spread of covid-19 through social-distancing and self-isolation gathered momentum (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization, 2020). previous outbreaks of infectious diseases set the precedent when they prompted widespread school closures around the world, with varying levels of effectiveness. mathematical modelling has shown that transmission of an outbreak may be delayed by closing schools (barnum, 2020). however, although covid-19 exhibits fewer severe symptoms in young people, the continuation of normal schooling practices introduces a great deal of uncertainty. it is in this context of risk mitigation, social distancing, and the particular uncertainty of transmission risk among the school-going age population that the securitisation of face-toface schooling must be understood (murphy, 2020). school closures may be effective when enacted promptly. if school closures occur late relative to an outbreak, they are less effective and may not have any impact at all. in some cases, the reopening of schools after a period of closure has resulted in increased infection rates (barnum, 2020). during the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic in the united states of america, school closures coupled with the banning of public gatherings were associated with lower mortality rates (saunders-hastings & krewski, 2016). the implementation of such interventions earlier in some cities led to greater delays in the attainment of peak mortality rates. school closures were shown to reduce morbidity from the asian flu by 90% during the 1957–1958 outbreak, and up to 50% in controlling influenza in the us between 2004 and 2008 (barnum, 2020). during the 2009 h1n1 flu pandemic, several countries succeeded in slowing the spread of infection through school closures (mustafa, 2020). mandatory school closures and other social distancing measures were associated with a reduction in influenza transmission rates. in the united states, early school closures successfully delayed the peak of the 38 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 2009 h1n1 flu pandemic (allen & seaman, 2010). during the swine flu outbreak in 2009 in the uk, a group of epidemiologists recommended the closure of schools to interrupt the course of the infection, delay further spread, buy time for research, and produce a vaccine. however, in france, during the same period, cases of flu dropped when schools closed and re-emerged when they re-opened (mustafa, 2020). research studies therefore demonstrate the effectiveness of school closures in helping to contain the spread of epidemics and pandemics. steps taken to mitigate the effects of covid-19-induced school closures different countries introduced various solutions during the pandemic to continue the education process. ghana’s government used funding from the world bank to put in place a $15 million, one-year remote learning system as part of the covid-19 response to ensure continued learning, recovery, and resilience of basic education (okertchiri, 2021). online libraries, guidelines, resources, and video lectures and channels were introduced along with television broadcasts in some developing countries such as south africa, ghana, eswatini, and lesotho. online learning can be supported by technologies such as the internet, radio, television, phone messaging, and email communication such as was done during the previous flu crises (basilaia & kvavadze, 2020). in eswatini, the government teamed up with the country’s two major mobile service providers to make study bundles available for students at reasonable rates as an initiative to facilitate learning during lockdown (pitikoe et al., 2021). in south africa, the department of basic education (dbe) appeared more vigilant in addressing the impact of covid-19 on the school system through contingency plans to facilitate the continuation of the school year (christie, 2021). efforts were mobilised to provide resources to learners across all grades, including educational broadcasts on television and radio, online learning through platforms such as microsoft teams and zoom, as well as the provision of worksheets and exemplar examination papers. the dbe also trimmed the curriculum to accommodate the revised number of teaching days available (christie, 2021). the positive effect of elearning is that it can improve efficiency both in learning and teaching (pitikoe et al., 2021). in lesotho, covid-19 indicated the level of unpreparedness in the ministry of education and training (moet) on the integration of technology across the curriculum (makiba, 2020). after the school closures, moet, in collaboration with the ministry of communications science and technology resorted to radio and television lessons to enable the teaching and learning process to keep rolling. this intervention proved highly ineffective because the lessons were entirely teacher-centred, and they also benefitted only urban learners (makiba, 2020). teachers were found to be unready to teach learners through online media because they are technophobic. furthermore, the high data costs made it hard for learners to afford the costs of online learning. virtual learning has been applauded for being the panacea to the current lockdown crisis and has proven advantages (bozkurt et. al., 2020). virtual learning refers to distance learning conducted in a simulated environment with electronic study content designed for self-paced (asynchronous) or live web-conferencing (synchronous) online teaching and tutoring (kumar, 2020). through virtual learning the learners engage in asynchronous discussions with their sengai et al.: counting the costs 39 classmates, and this promotes high cognitive development, confidence, and improved digital skills (bozkurt et al., 2020). teachers are increasingly realising that their learners are fascinated by the individual use of technology and are free to express themselves as compared to their unwillingness to do so when they are in class (kumar, 2020). the closing of learning institutions as a response to the covid-19 pandemic resulted in uncertainty about how long the closure of educational institutions would last and in the need to rely on the online learning platforms that were availed by public and private sector stakeholders such as the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (2020). school closures accelerated the development of the online learning environments in institutions in order to minimise the disruption of learning. however, digital interventions failed to take into account limitations such as the scarcity of gadgets, erratic power supply, the lack of basic ict skills by users, and low network coverage (bakibinga-gaswaga et al., 2020) in the case of rural schools in lesotho. this is not the first time that emergency elearning programs have been considered an appropriate crisis-response measure. a similar strategy was implemented in 2009, when 67% of h1n1 contingency plans involved the substitution of online classes for face-to-face ones (allen & seaman, 2010). face-to-face schooling continues to be regarded as a specific threat from which the communities must be protected, and emergency elearning is seen to be the security measure proposed to protect the community (murphy, 2020). e-learning can revolutionise education since it provides, in this case, new opportunities for learning during the covid-19 pandemic (singh, 2020). it is becoming the new hope in relation to presenting knowledge to learners and is changing their overall educational experience. conceptual framework: online education in this study, we used online education as a conceptual framework to inform and guide the discussion of the continuation of education during the covid-19-induced school closures. the closure of schools following lockdown and the social distancing measures resulting from the covid-19 pandemic affected education and necessitated a paradigm shift in the way teachers deliver quality education, thereby making them resort to the use of various online platforms (pokhrel & chhetri, 2021). despite the challenges faced by both teachers and learners, online learning has become a panacea for this unprecedented global pandemic in spite of the oftencited digital divide and the lack of access by other sectors of society (bozkurt et al., 2020). the lack of alternative approaches to ensuring the continuation of education during this ravaging pandemic left teachers with no option but to adopt a system for which they may not have been prepared. the transition from traditional face-to-face learning to online learning can, of course, be an entirely different experience for learners and teachers (adnan & anwar, 2020). online learning tools have played a crucial role in ensuring the resumption and continuation of education during this pandemic, helping schools and other educational institutions to facilitate the continuation of learning during the resultant closures (adnan & anwar, 2020). 40 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 adapting to the changes calls for effective assessment and support for staff and learners to ensure their readiness to embrace the new dispensation. some teething challenges can be anticipated since there is no one-size-fits-all pedagogy for online learning (pokhrel & chhetri, 2021); different subjects and age groups require different approaches to this. online education relies heavily on the suitability and relevance of the pedagogy as well as the exposure and expertise of both the teachers and learners to information and communication technology (ict). the commonly used platforms include whatsapp, google classroom, zoom, microsoft teams, blackboard, and canvas with which teachers create educational modules and training and skills development programs. such platforms include the options of workplace chat, video meeting, and file storage that keep classes organised and easy to manage and they normally facilitate the exchange of a variety of content in formats like portable document format (pdf), excel file, and word, thus facilitating the exchange of audio and video learning materials between and among teachers and learners. these platforms also allow the tracking of student learning and assessment by the use of quizzes and the rubric-based assessment of submitted assignments (pokhrel & chhetri, 2021). the platforms can, however, present several challenges for rural-based learners given the lack of computing devices, poor internet connectivity, unreliable power supply, the prohibitive cost of data bundles, and their lack of expertise in using technology. methodology in this qualitative phenomenological study, we explored the effects of the covid-19 scourge in rural schools in lesotho with participants who were teachers in lesotho’s districts of maseru, mohale’s hoek, quthing, mokhotlong, berea, botha-bothe, leribe, mafeteng, qacha’s nek, and thaba-tseka. ten teachers, five each from primary and secondary schools, one each from the country’s ten districts, were purposively sampled. a link to access google forms was then sent to participants for them to respond to the semi-structured interview questions online to share their experiences of teaching in lesotho’s rural schools during the covid-19 pandemic. thus, one of the limitations of this study is that the urban schools, more amenable to the online interventions put in place to mitigate the effects of covid-19 induced school closures, were not included in the sample. whatsapp was then used for follow-up questions to the initial responses. the idea that informed the methodology was that “greater insight into a research topic” can be gained “by studying multiple cases” (johnson & christensen 2019, p. 436). purposive sampling of the cases was used because it “illustrates some feature or process in which we are interested” (creswell & poth 2018, p. 148). the study specifically targeted teachers at rural schools in order to obtain relevant data in response to the research questions. the relevant ethical procedures were followed. all participants consented to take part. no one was forced to do so, and they were at liberty to withdraw from the study at any time (see creswell & poth, 2018). all participants were advised not to include personal details on the online google form in order to protect their identity. pseudonyms were used during data presentation to maintain the anonymity of the participants. numbers for the teacher participants, ranging from teacher 1 (t1) to teacher 10 (t10), were assigned. trustworthiness of the data was ensured through the gathering of thick, sengai et al.: counting the costs 41 rich data via open ended questions in the questionnaire. the online questionnaire contained 10 semi-structured questions. data was thematically analysed in line with the approach recommended by vaismoradi et al. (2016), that consists of the four distinct phases of initialisation, construction, rectification, and finalisation. the results that were generated from this analysis are presented in the next section and illustrated through the use of extracts from the participants’ responses. findings and discussion in order to explore the effects of covid-19 on rural schools in lesotho, data from the online interviews is presented and discussed. the findings are discussed under the three broad themes of awareness of covid-19 among participants, challenges faced by rural learners in lesotho because of the covid-19 disruptions, and interventions used to mitigate the effects of covid-19-induced school closures in lesotho. awareness of covid-19 among participants the participants were first asked about their understanding of the covid-19 pandemic. all 10 teachers showed that they were aware of the covid-19 pandemic. their definitions highlighted that covid-19 is a virus that affects the respiratory system of human beings, that this is a pandemic that is killing many people, and is a disease that attacks human lungs and causes difficulty in breathing, and is a disaster that has affected educational systems negatively throughout the world. t2 offered this elaborate definition: covid -19 is a pandemic disease brutally killing millions of people around the world. covid -19 is transmitted through droplets from sneezing and coughing. currently there is no cure only preventive measures such as washing hands frequently, wearing masks, observing social distancing and sanitising. this was reinforced by t3, who said, it is a new disease that is normally characterised by difficulty in breathing. it multiplies as people come in contact with each other hence some measures like social distancing and washing hands regularly may prevent its spread. some definitions also included the symptoms of the disease thereby making it clearer, as t7 pointed out. covid-19 pandemic is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered corona virus which causes serious respiratory problems. its symptoms include high fever, cough, sore throat, and difficulties in breathing. the responses from the teachers show that they are fully aware of what covid-19 is and some even gave very elaborate descriptions of the pandemic. they showed awareness that it is a deadly virus causing the death of many people worldwide and can be easily transmitted. this 42 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 shows that the research sample was made up of the ideal participants as shown by their knowledge and understanding of the disease under discussion. challenges faced by rural learners in lesotho because of covid-19 disruptions the researcher also asked the participants about the general challenges faced by rural learners as a result of staying at home because of covid-19. the responses showed a variety of problems as conveyed in the excerpts offered below from the participants. the most common problems identified by the teachers included the disturbance of schooling, the increase in school drop-outs, hunger, learners engaging in bad behaviour, limited access to the internet, child abuse, poverty, early marriage, and unwanted pregnancy as well as the lack of enough knowledge about covid-19 that led to their risking infection. according to t4, learners living in the rural areas are faced with a challenge of not being able to study online like other privileged learners because most areas in the rural places have no electricity. t6 observed, in rural areas, use of technology is a serious problem as those learners don’t have even the simple cell phones to use in order to continue with their studies while they are still at their homes, so they are not learning now due to this covid-19. the participants further revealed that the parents face the burden of feeding their children, a responsibility normally shouldered by schools since most rural schools receive supplementary food handouts from the government and donor agencies to feed their learners. parents now had to find food to feed their children, and this created problems because many rural parents are poor (see pitikoe et al., 2021). t4 observed, learners face extreme hunger while at home since they no longer have access to food at school. most of them depend on food provided at school, therefore closing schools means they can no longer get that food and they suffer from hunger and starvation. this shows that rural learners also faced the challenge of food shortages at home during the school closures as confirmed by gupta and goplani’s (2020) study in india where such a challenge was also noted after the closure of schools in order to arrest the spread of covid-19 in 2020. evidence from the responses shows that most rural schools were not able to adopt online teaching methods, and, as a result, they had to shut down completely because they had no access to elearning solutions. most rural parents do not have television or radio, so learners had only the lesson notes that they were given before schools closed (see basilaia & kvavadze, 2020). the participants unanimously agreed on the need for teaching and sengai et al.: counting the costs 43 learning to proceed through the internet via online media (where accessible) along with observing staggered attendance, practising social distancing, and using protective clothing. increased workload for teachers and learners we were also keen to establish from the teachers how the closure of schools because of covid-19 had affected them as well as the learners in lesotho’s rural schools. the participants were asked to state the changes in teaching and learning that would result from the closure of schools. quite interesting perspectives were offered by the teachers. the responses showed that they missed their learners and feared the subsequent workload, while some were equally anxious about their job security. additionally, t1 noted, critically, that [t]eachers may prioritize certain content or concepts over others which may result in shallow learning. learners may be drilled to pass examinations and may be forced to memorise content. it was noted that teachers and learners would have to work extra hours to make up for the lost academic school days. t10 observed, many teachers are not happy as they point out that it will not be easy to recover the time that they have lost whilst parents are depressed by the fact that their children may have to repeat grades. t3 added, contribution made by teachers is determined by good results at the end of the term. so, teachers are psychologically disturbed because they are handicapped by closure of schools and their failure to teach, and the implication is that students are going to fail as they are expected to write their final examinations at the expected time regardless of the covid-19. we also asked the participants about the challenges that are likely to confront them and their learners when schools finally re-open fully. the insights from participants confirmed their earlier concerns about an increased workload. they pointed out that teachers and learners would have much pressure to cover the syllabuses with very little time at hand. some learners would find it very difficult to catch up, resulting in their dropping out of school in some cases, while others would not be able to pay fees as a result of their parents having lost jobs and this would result in increased drop-out. according to t8, there will be content overload. teachers will have a lot to teach with little time to make up for lost time. learners would have forgotten the learning habits. teaching and learning would be hard. t2 added, 44 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 most learners will be left behind so teachers would have to work hard. again, the dropout rate is going to increase. t7 further elaborated, lack of resources and infrastructure that needs to be used at schools such as masks, sanitizers, even the classrooms in order to allow social distancing. apart from these resources and infrastructure, learners are going to struggle a lot to recover the time they have wasted at home. the responses show that teachers were empathising with their learners since they were fully aware of the amount of time lost to the covid-19-induced school closures. teachers also highlighted their failure to complete the syllabuses, particularly for examination classes as confirmed by edtech hub (2020). respondents also agreed on the need for parents to help in the education of their children despite the apparent challenges this could cause since most rural parents were not educated. t6 said, most of the schools are closed and that forces parents to be teachers of their children while they are still at their homes and some parents are not educated and this is a very serious problem. the participants also reported that the parents were concerned that their children were missing out, as t7 pointed out, as for parents, they are concerned that their children are missing out. parents are divided into two groups in the society. some believe that schools should reopen while others say it is good for schools to remain closed and the situation contributes to social disunity. the responses from the teachers all show convergence on the increased workload for both the teachers and their learners when schooling resumes in earnest. the concerns of the parents also appeared to worsen the teachers’ anxiety. it is difficult to predict what the educational landscape in rural schools will look like after the covid-19 pandemic, in part because of the magnitude of the community transmission threat posed by interactions among learners (weeden & cornwell, 2020). effect on vulnerable learners we then went on to ask about the extent to which the plight of vulnerable learners like girls and orphans could have been further worsened by the covid-19 pandemic particularly in view of the problems that these underprivileged rural learners were facing given the closure of schools. t1 pointed out, sengai et al.: counting the costs 45 rural girls are at risk of early marriages as well as sexual abuse. going to school protects these girls against such things. t7 further elaborated, girls end up being raped and abducted while in the villages increasing their chances of contracting hiv/ aids and other sexually transmitted diseases. the different views of the respondents show that the underprivileged learners are more acutely affected by disruptions in education, poverty, hunger, early marriage, and abuse. evidence from the responses shows that prolonged school closure can result in increased sexual abuse, early marriage, and teenage pregnancy for girls. the same scenario was experienced by girls during the ebola epidemic in liberia (risso-gill & finnegan, 2020). without urgent action to remove barriers to girls’ education, this health crisis could become a children’s rights crisis by denying learners their right to learn (unesco, 2020). ensuring that girls can access learning materials online and offline during school closures, and that families remain committed to girls’ education, is key (risso-gill, & finnegan, 2020). in guatemala, the united nations international children’s fund (unicef) is working with the government to support communities in remote areas with poor connectivity and lack of electricity by providing printed material, television, and radio messaging via mobile phones that depict both boys and girls helping with domestic chores (united nations international children’s fund, 2020). evidence from a study in nepal shows that violence against women and girls has increased during covid-19 lockdowns (dahal et al., 2020). governments need to prioritise measures to protect girls from gender-based violence, early marriage, and pregnancy to facilitate their return to school. other vulnerable learners such as orphans were also hit hard by covid-19 since it added more challenges to the ones they already had, as observed by t7, who said, the orphans on the other hand have no one to feed them, putting them at a very high risk of malnutrition. t9 concurred, orphans do not have money to buy the resources to protect themselves against this disease like masks and sanitisers. this shows that the pandemic has worsened the plight of orphans since it added more woes to their already pathetic lives. the pandemic’s adverse impacts on children’s access and quality of education were most severely felt through the subsequent closure of schools without adequate alternative education services being made accessible to all school-going children in the country. this exacerbated existing inequities in education and worsened existing barriers to access as the urban/rural disparities became more glaring, with children in rural areas, especially the remotest regions, faring the worst. 46 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 interventions to mitigate the effects of covid-19-induced school closures in lesotho equally important was the question of the interventions put in place by lesotho’s moet to ensure that teaching and learning continued after the forced closure of schools as a result of covid-19. the observations by participants showed that the government, through the responsible ministry, demonstrated commendable commitment to addressing the plight of learners during the pandemic. efforts were made to broadcast lessons over the radio and television, allow the children in the grades writing public examinations to resume classes, encourage alternate attendance by classes, and provide sanitisers and food hampers. some respondents observed crucially that learners have no access to the internet, or even radio and television sets to enable them to attend lessons in the comfort of their homes. t8 noted, ministry of education advised schools to use technology to help learners to continue with their studies while they are still at home due to this covid-19. those technologies may be cellphones whereby teachers may form some whatsapp groups and teach learners while they are still at their different homes. t10 also noted, lessons for different grades were introduced on tv and radio though they are not effective. there was unanimity among the responses that the lesotho government was working out ways to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. the responses show that the teachers are aware that online education is the best way forward in dealing with the covid-19-induced school closures but that it is rather inaccessible for rural learners in lesotho. nonetheless, in situations of school closures, the alternative is to move from traditional to online education (basilaia & kvavadze, 2020). in this case, the key enablers of teaching and learning are the internet coverage, availability of computers or smartphones in the population, and a reliable power supply (gardiner, 2017). the software for online teaching and learning is practically inaccessible to most teachers and learners in lesotho’s rural schools. the question related to the interventions put in place by individual schools to ensure that teaching and learning continued was also posed to the participants. nothing much came from the teachers on this question since most pointed out that their schools were not pursuing any interventions thereby confirming that individual rural schools lack the capacity to effectively confront the covid-19 pandemic on their own as confirmed by gourinchas (2020). t6 observed that [t]he ministry has arranged for learners to be taught on the national radio and television. sengai et al.: counting the costs 47 t8 revealed that their school was more proactive before they encountered insurmountable setbacks, in saying, we sat down as staff first and decided what we will do in order to help learners while they are still at their homes and we agreed to form whatsapp groups but the problem was that most of our learners do not have cell phones and because of that we did not go on with our plan and we are not teaching those learners now since the government decided to shut the schools because of this covid-19. t9 confirmed this and said, they tried whatsapp group learning but it did not succeed. seemingly, some teachers and schools tried to make use of whatsapp, but this was unsuccessful because of the challenge of most learners not having cellphones. nonetheless, the use of digital media in education can provide learners with the capability to get additional useful knowledge and to attach themselves to learning groups and other educational systems that make education possible (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization, 2020). when asked about the effectiveness of steps taken to mitigate the effects of covid-19 on rural schools in lesotho, the participants painted a bleak picture of the prevailing situation since there was unanimity in the ineffectiveness of the ministry’s interventions. according to t3, to a very less extent and those radio lessons are inconsistent. again, the radio stations reach only urban areas and leave out those in remote areas. this means that students in remote areas are not part of online learning. in some areas there is no electricity at all. some students do not have smartphones or laptops and they are left out. t4 made a crucial observation in saying, i am not sure that these interventions (broadcasting lessons) are effective. there is no guarantee that learners are listening. how do you expect a learner to concentrate on an audio for 40 minutes yet they fail to do so in a contact class? they are highly teacher centred! with the current situation of lesotho, the rural areas are highly disadvantaged development wise so much that many communities still have no access to electricity. this makes it very hard for people living there to buy even an old style television. so, learners over there are highly disadvantaged when it comes to television lessons. all they get is a radio lesson! imagine doing mathematics on radio! t10 wrapped up by confirming the established rhetoric. in my view, those interventions did not improve teaching and learning as they were not effective. the method of approach used was teacher-centred for example in the case of subjects like science, i think they should have carried out some experiments 48 journal of education, no. 88, 2022 instead of just telling learners the results of what they did not see or have proof of. so, the learners were confused as they were told the results without having observed the process. t7 was however quite positive on the issue of the government’s use of radio and television lessons, and said, learners have the chance to learn from different teachers from different schools, allowing them to get clarity where their teachers might have failed to teach them. the responses appear to confirm the view that interventions to mitigate the effects of covid19 failed to yield the anticipated outcomes because of the tendency by governments to treat rural schools in the same way as their urban counterparts. gardiner (2017) critically lamented the one-size-fits-all approach by governments when it comes to policy implementation which makes it possible to overlook and disregard important aspects of the lives and needs of particular contexts like rural areas. however, this is beyond the scope of this study. the unique situation of rural communities needs to be acknowledged as a starting point. despite the remote learning platforms introduced to provide online education, some learners in remote rural communities still faced a lot of challenges in ensuring equitable access to these services because they did not have access to online learning devices such as television sets, computers, smart phones, and other devices, as well as stable internet connectivity in their homes or close by. the effectiveness of radio and television lessons was therefore thrown into serious doubt since the method was entirely teacher-centred in being the old style of teaching and learning that does not cater for student assessment and caters only for urban learners (makiba, 2020). many schools are beginning to rely more and more on remote learning that has been riddled with challenges, especially for rural schools in developing counties such as lesotho. the countries with limited technologies such as lesotho have problems in that schools are not ready for the complete implementation of the countrywide online education. we further asked the participants to put forward suggestions to reduce the effects of covid19 in lesotho’s rural schools. their voices resonated with their unenviable circumstances as they resoundingly called for improvements of their inadequate school environments. they recommended that the government should be more practical in helping rural schools to deal with the covid-19 pandemic by following proper health care precautions like giving advice about preventing the spread of the pandemic, providing personal protective equipment (ppe) to both teachers and learners, allowing only examination classes to resume learning, prioritizing who recommendations in dealing with this pandemic, and teaching learners about it and the preventive measures in line with united nations international children’s fund (2020). t3 set the ball rolling by saying, the government should devise practical ways of making sure that education does not suffer. for instance, distribution of radio sets for learners to access lessons that are broadcasted. sengai et al.: counting the costs 49 t6 was quite practical in saying, i would suggest that the government ensure that learners in the villages are given school work manually, at least once a week to keep them busy since they have no electricity to use for social media learning. t9 added, schools should be opened, and learners should be given resources used to fight this disease like sanitisers and masks. in the case where there is high enrolment, the government should hire more teachers so as to maintain social distancing and supply the schools with tents so that the school with large number of learners in one classroom may use those tents. the participants showed that they want to see education back on its rails once again, especially rural education that, as they all concurred, is lagging behind. the whole ecosystem of education has not only transformed the perception of learners towards learning but has also helped the teachers to enhance delivery in a big way (singh, 2020). conclusion based on the participants’ views on the effects of the covid-19 pandemic on rural schools in lesotho, it can be concluded that the covid-19-induced school closures caused massive disruption of learning in rural schools in the country. this, in turn, led to other problems for the learners such as hunger, engaging in bad behaviour, child abuse, poverty, early marriage, and unwanted pregnancy as well as the lack of enough knowledge about covid19 that led them to risk being infected with the disease. the attempts to mitigate the disruptions by resorting to online education were thwarted by glaring challenges including, but not limited to, rural learners’ poor access to online learning devices such as television sets, computers, smart phones, and others, the unstable internet connectivity in their homes or close by, and the unreliable power supply. this study is important for the future because it shows the case of a country that has attempted to change the traditional school lessons to the online mode during the pandemic despite the glaring inequalities that exposed the inadequacies of rural schools. when considering a fusion of traditional and online education, lesotho needs to assess the full spectrum of challenges and opportunities posed by covid-19 and determine the gaps that can be addressed with the aim of placing rural schools on a firmer footing to cope with teaching and learning in a 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(2020). covid-19 crisis, impacts on catholic schools, and potential responses| part ii: developing countries with focus on sub-saharan africa. journal of catholic education, 23(1), 51–86. journal of education, 2017 issue 67, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za inclusive education in initial teacher education in south africa: practical or professional knowledge? elizabeth walton (received 25 may 2016; accepted 22 february 2017) abstract inclusive education is embedded in south african policy with the expectation that teacher education will equip pre-service teachers to teach inclusively. as a result, courses in inclusive education are offered in most initial teacher education (ite) programmes and research interest in teacher education for inclusion has grown. this paper contributes to this body of knowledge by using legitimation code theory to engage critically with concepts and assessment tasks from three inclusive education courses. this meant identifying where theoretical, context independent knowledge is privileged (semantic density), and where the knowledge is derived from practice or experience and designed to be implemented within specific contexts (semantic gravity). using examples as reference points, i discuss how inclusive education comes to emphasise practical knowledge, to be enacted in particular contexts, or with particular groups of learners. an alternative is to position inclusive education as professional knowledge where theoretically informed judgments are made in response to the complexity of learner diversity. this will require strengthening the disciplinary foundation of concepts presented in ite courses in inclusive education. introduction inclusive education is now a compulsory component in initial teacher education (ite) programmes in south africa (republic of south africa, (rsa) 2015). the origins of inclusive education can be found in human and disability rights initiatives championed by the united nations (unesco, 1994) and the field has had various influences, including special needs education, medicine and psychology, critical sociology and curriculum, pedagogy and assessment (slee, 2011). while the meaning of ‘inclusive education’ has been a matter for debate (walton, 2016), in south africa it has come to be understood as a system-wide response to “those groups of learners who have been, or continue to be disadvantaged in terms of educational provision” 102 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 data collected for the study reported in walton, e. and rusznyak, l. (2013). pre-service1 teachers’ pedagogical learning during practicum placements in special schools. teaching and teacher education, 36, 112–120. (department of basic education (dbe), 2010, p.1). these groups of learners are deemed to have ‘additional support needs’ which are said to, “arise from any factor which causes a barrier to learning, whether that factor relates to social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic, disability, or family and care circumstances” (dbe, 2014, p.7). this approach to inclusive education is a broad approach (ainscow, booth, dyson et al., 2006) which acknowledges that there are a number of reasons why some learners do not access, participate and succeed in school, and that these reasons need to be addressed by the education system. in response to the legislative expectation that newly qualified teachers will be able to “understand diversity in the south african context in order to teach in a manner that includes all learners” (rsa 2015, p.62) ite programmes across the country offer courses in inclusive education. not all pre-service teachers are satisfied with their ite courses in inclusive education, with indications that they want courses to have a practical, rather than a theoretical orientation. pre-service teachers in one research project1 reflected on their course in inclusive education saying, “[i would prefer] not just learning the theories but the more practical . . . what are the methodologies you could perhaps employ?” and “i think what we’ve learnt is very theory based and theoretical and the perfect situation. and i don’t think we’ve learnt like practically what to do”. beginner teachers concur, saying, “i think the inclusion course needed to be more practical, (showing) you how to implement it in the classroom” and “it is all well and good saying here is the theory and apply it, but sometimes you are not sure how to apply it, or what applies in different situations” (harrup, 2015, p.34). despite these assertions, i argue in this article that inclusive education is generally presented to preservice teachers as practical knowledge in a number of ite programmes in south africa. and, contrary to what the pre-service teachers say, there is very little theory in what they are taught. i wish to problematise this orientation and suggest that inclusive education would be better served by being positioned as a professional, rather than a practical knowledge in ite. to achieve this, i argue for strengthening the disciplinary and theoretical foundations in the presentation of concepts commonly taught in inclusive education courses. walton: inclusive education in initial teacher education. . . 103 i note my dis-ease with the term ‘training’ as it is used in connection with inclusive 2 education. as i show in this article, inclusive education is not well served by being presented as a series of technical interventions implemented in response to a bounded problem, for which teachers can be ‘trained’. many sources to which i refer do use the word training and i use it when referring to this work. my preference is for the terms teacher education or professional development. setting the scene: teacher education for inclusive education teacher education is identified as one of the key components for the successful realisation of an inclusive education system. research from countries who pioneered inclusive education in the 1980s and 1990s points to the importance of teacher professional development for the achievement of more inclusive and equitable education systems (ainscow, 1999). the salamanca statement and framework for action (unesco, 1994, p.27) confirms this, saying “appropriate preparation of all educational personnel stands out as a key factor in promoting progress towards inclusive schools”. just before the introduction of inclusive education to south africa in 2001, scholars here also alerted us to the need for teacher training in knowledge,2 skills and attitudes for the implementation of inclusive education (bothma, gravett and swart, 2000; hall and engelbrecht, 1999). white paper six: special needs education (department of education, 2001) in outlining the framework for building an inclusive education and training system in south africa, identified classroom teachers as the “. . . primary resource for achieving our goal of an inclusive education and training system”, noting that these teachers will “. . . need to improve their skills and knowledge, and develop new ones” (p.18). despite these policy directives and research findings, a lack of teacher training in inclusive education is often identified as one of the impediments to the achievement of inclusive education, both internationally and in south africa. inclusive education has been critiqued in the international literature on the grounds that teachers are insufficiently trained (kavale and forness, 2000; lloyd, wilton and townsend, 2000). echoing this, various south african scholars attribute the non-implementation of inclusive education to insufficient professional development opportunities (eloff and kgwete, 2007; engelbrecht, nel, smit and van deventer, 2015). this is despite evidence that many universities offer modules, courses and programmes in inclusive education at undergraduate and post-graduate level, and some offer 104 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 workshops or short courses (pooe, 2012). national and provincial departments of education have provided workshops and other in-service learning opportunities for teachers, as have various ngos in the field (walton, 2011). it is clear that much more research is needed to understand what it is that teacher education should offer to enable more inclusive education, and why it is that current offerings are not translating into the realisation of greater inclusivity in schools. my focus in this article is on pre-service teacher education. this is not to deny the importance of in-service teacher education. in fact, the integrated strategic planning framework for teacher education and development in south africa (dbe, 2011a) prioritises inclusive teaching as it has been identified as a “key lever for improving quality across the system” (p.10). it seems important that teacher education for inclusive education must clearly distinguish what it is that pre-service teachers should be learning, and what is relevant and appropriate for in-service teachers with different years of classroom experience, and with different roles and responsibilities within the education system. pre-service teacher education for inclusive education has attracted relatively less attention from south african scholars, whose work has tended to focus on the content and effects of various in-service professional development opportunities (see, for example, lessing and de witt (2007); swart and oswald (2008); dalton, mckenzie and kahonde (2012)). internationally, there has been considerable interest in pre-service teacher education for inclusive education. the focus of this body of literature has been on decisions about whether inclusive education should be taught as stand-alone courses or infused into the general teacher education programme (loreman, 2010a); what the content of inclusive education courses needs to be (loreman, 2010b); the impact of courses (lancaster and bain, 2007; sharma, forlin and loreman, 2008); and the role of different types of field experiences (lambe and bones, 2008; waitoller and kozleski, 2010). this article focuses on the content of ite inclusive education courses as currently taught in some south african higher education institutions and offers an analysis of this content using some the conceptual tools of legitimation code theory. walton: inclusive education in initial teacher education. . . 105 the conceptual tools of the analysis the dimension of semantics within legitimation code theory (maton, 2014) forms the basis for my analysis of inclusive education content in ite. this is then developed with reference to shay’s (2013) work on the semantic field of recontextualised knowledge. legitimation code theory (lct) lct emerged in the 1990s and is seen to be an evolving theory, with its development driven by the studies that use it. it is styled as a “practical theory rather than a paradigm” and “a conceptual toolkit and analytic methodology” (maton, 2014, p.15). it has its roots in the work of both pierre bourdieu and basil bernstein and sees fields as knower-knowledge structures. bourdieu’s influence on lct is primarily in terms of ‘gazes’, which encompass knowerstructures and knower-grammars, and which are conceptualised in terms of the varying strength of social relations in a field (maton, 2014). bernstein’s code theory is developed in lct in terms of the structuring of knowledge practices. to use the conceptual toolkit afforded by lct is not to suggest that the critiques of lct should not be considered. singh (2015) maintains that lct, particularly as reflected in maton’s (2014) book knowledge and knowers, has a “restricted interpretation of knowledge, ways of knowing, and knowledge growth” (p.493). in a more extensive critique, tyler (2014) suggests that lct represents “a return to earlier and abandoned phases of bernstein’s project” (n.p.) and neglects recontextualisation as a “crucial feature of pedagogic discourse and knowledge acquisition” (n.p.). having noted these critiques, i do agree that the different dimensions of lct offer a useful and accessible framework (clarence, 2015; case, 2014) that “enables knowledge practices to be seen, their organising principles to be conceptualised and their effects to be explored” (maton, 2014, p.3). five dimensions currently comprise the lct toolkit. each has associated concepts or modalities which might be relatively stronger or weaker (+/-) and which can be used to study the principles that organise various practices. the five dimensions are autonomy, density, specialisation, temporality and semantics. i have little doubt that all five dimensions would yield insights into the broad field of inclusive education, but given space constraints, i have chosen to focus on semantics. in this regard, maton (2014) reassures that, 106 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 “you only need as much theory as space will allow” (p.19). semantics has been identified as the “newest and fastest growing” (maton, 2014, p.19) dimension in lct research and it has been productively used in various south african studies. these include shay and steyn’s (2016) work with vocational curricula; clarence’s (2015) case study of academic development practitioners working with political science educators; arbee, hugo and thomson’s (2014) analysis of a marketing course in higher education; and rusznyak’s (2015) categorisation of teacher learning envisaged by policy. semantics has two concepts or modalities. the first is gravity, which relates to the extent to which meaning is dependent on the context in which it is produced. relatively strong semantic gravity indicates that context is vital in meaning making, such that a particular knowledge cannot be abstracted beyond the context. maton (2014, p.110) puts it as “meaning is more closely related to its social or symbolic context of acquisition or use”. to illustrate this, in south africa, knowledge of which hand signals to use to hail a taxi going in a desired direction is very context specific – johannesburg knowledge doesn’t help in cape town (woolf, 2013). this hand-signal knowledge is characterised by very strong semantic gravity, abbreviated as sg++. weaker semantic gravity (sg-/--) is evident as context becomes less important for meaning and knowledge is more abstract and generalisable across contexts. the second modality of semantics is density. density refers to the extent to which meanings are condensed in symbols, concepts and practices. stronger semantic density (sd+/++) is evident as more meanings are condensed within any particular symbol, concept or practice. maton (2014, p.130) calls this a “semantic tardis” after the doctor who television series in which a police box opens to reveal an entire space craft – in other words, “it’s bigger on the inside than the outside” (the doctor who site, n.d.). other literary analogies might be the wardrobe in the narnia series, or mary poppins’s carpet bag. all of these serve as a metaphor for strong semantic density as “more resides within than may first appear” (maton, 2014, p.130). weaker semantic density refers to simple ideas or concepts with fewer meanings. semantic gravity and semantic density are evident in all knowledge practices and their strengths can vary independently. as a result, knowledge practices can be constructed with the intersecting axes of each of the continua of semantic gravity and semantic density, generating a semantic plane (maton, 2014) with four quadrants. these are characterised as sd-/sg+; sg+/sd+; sd+/sg-; and sg-/sd-. from these four quadrants shay (2013) has walton: inclusive education in initial teacher education. . . 107 developed a semantic field of recontextualised knowledge, with a focus on the types of curriculum that each quadrant offers. this is important for my analysis of the content of inclusive education courses as i am not concerned here with the field of knowledge production in inclusive education itself, but in the pedagogic recontextualising field (prf) where inclusive education becomes curricula, courses and texts (bernstein, 2000). the semantic field of recontextualised knowledge from maton’s semantic plane, shay (2013, p.572) offers a “semantic plane for curricula” in which she demarcates the quadrants as generic curricula (sg/sd-); theoretical curricula (sd+/sg-); practical curricula (sd-/sg+); and professional/ vocational curricula (sd+/sg+). this is reproduced in figure one. figure 1: shay’s (2013) semantic weld of recontextualised knowledge. 108 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 without empirical evidence, shay is cautious about defining generic curricula, suggesting that these may be manifested in some of the generic, cross-field learning outcomes that are intended to be concept empty (sd-) and transferable across contexts (sg-). theoretical curricula derive their logic from the discipline and reflect the “world of theory” (shay, 2013, p.574). while there may be some range in semantic density and semantic gravity within theoretical curricula, there will always be a “ceiling” on semantic gravity as no direct application to the problems of practice are expected. here shay draws examples from the disciplines of mathematics, physics and political philosophy. the quadrants of practical and professional curricula are my concern in this article as they relate directly to possible conceptions of curriculum in teacher education. practical curricula, shay (2013) argues, reflect recontextualised practical knowledge. context or workplace practices are translated into principles or concepts for these practices, resulting in slight strengthening of semantic density and weakening of semantic gravity. however, the principles and concepts in these curricula are “derived from practice not theory”, which means there will always be a “ceiling” on semantic density (p.573). semantic gravity will always be relatively strong in these curricula because they are bound to the context of practice. professional/vocational curricula recontextualise both theoretical and practical knowledge. shay distinguishes these curricula from theoretical curricula by saying that the logic of professional curricula is the “demands of the practice” (p.575). they are different from practical curricula because “the principles informing the practice are derived from theory” (p.575). in professional curricula, theory is not taught for its own sake, but for its potential to inform and understand practice. thus both semantic density and semantic gravity have to be strong in professional curricula. guile (2014) makes a similar point, but without reference to semantics: . . . the challenge for aspiring professionals is to develop the capability to use disciplinary knowledge, in conjunction with professional experience, as a resource in a specific context to pick out the salient features of that situation or event, and then infer what follows and how to act (p.82). shay’s contribution of a semantic plane of curricula is to show the different logics that give rise to different curricula, and to indicate what knowledge progression is possible through the strengthening of either semantic density or semantic gravity, or both. she also indicates boundaries between different walton: inclusive education in initial teacher education. . . 109 curricula, suggesting how articulation between curricula is unlikely to be straightforward, given the different criteria that legitimise knowledge in each. rusznyak (2015) brings this discussion more directly to teacher education as she considers various recontextualising principles that might be used to inform initial teacher education curricula. in particular, rusznyak shows the “trade-offs” (p.8) that must be made in the selection and sequencing of knowledge. she argues that foregrounding practical and situational knowledge in teacher education, while possibly compromising theoretical knowledge, is more likely to enable beginner teachers to cope with the realities of south african classrooms. foregrounding the systematic acquisition of theoretical knowledge, by contrast, would more likely enable prospective teachers to use the insights from theory to inform pedagogical choices in practice. while rusznyak’s concern is with the broad design of ite programmes, i wish to focus on a particular component, that of inclusive education. one part of a wider, multi-institutional research project entailed the collection and cataloguing of courses in inclusive education to understand how teacher education for inclusive education is currently conceptualised and realised in south africa. the data that informs this discussion with ethical clearance from my university ethics committee, and with permission from lecturers in other heis, i was able to access course outlines of inclusive education courses or modules from three university courses in inclusive education in the bachelor of education programme. these heis included one university constituted by a merger, one historically advantaged urban university and one historically disadvantaged university in a rural area. i use the term ‘course outline’ broadly to refer to the document given to preservice teachers which includes, as a minimum, expected outcomes of the course, topics to be covered and at least one assessment task. as different heis have different requirements for course outlines, direct comparisons were not possible, but it was possible to use the material supplied to identify the key concepts that were included in the courses. these were indicated in the course material as lecture topics, section headings or learning outcomes. i set out to map the relative semantic gravity and density of the concepts offered in the course outlines. this involved identifying the extent to which concepts were presented as being dependent on context and derived from practice (i.e. semantic gravity), and the extent to which concepts were 110 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 presented as complex with meanings condensed or simplified and rarefied (i.e. semantic density). a significant part of this analytical work was to focus on what teacher educators presented to pre-service teachers as the source from which the concepts are derived. it became clear that concepts in inclusive education courses cannot be evaluated in terms of relative semantic gravity and density independently of the sources from which they are generated or with which they are associated. as will be argued in the discussion below, it is possible for the same concept to be presented with different semantic profiles, depending on its given source. in addition to a focus on concepts, assessment tasks from the course outlines were considered in terms of their orientation towards semantic gravity and density. these were then mapped onto shay’s semantic plane for curricula to enable a discussion about the different logics and bases of legitimation used as inclusive education is recontextualised in ite. there are acknowledged limitations in this research process. with only three sets of course outlines available with consent for use in research, conclusions are not necessarily applicable across the sector. courses may well deviate from the outlines, with more or less content actually delivered to pre-service teachers. aspects seen as lacking in the course outlines may well be provided to students in class or through supplemental readings. as mentioned above, the format of the materials differed, with some course outlines providing more substance in terms of content than others. considerations of the anonymity of the participating heis further limit the dissemination of the findings of this research. the presentation of an overview of all topics and assessments that are presented in each outline would be useful, but would also potentially lead to the identification of the participating heis. another limitation of the analysis presented in this paper relates to the critique of lct mentioned above in that there is no reference to the process of recontextualisation and the work of pedagogising knowledge. singh (2002, p.575) maintains that pedagogising knowledge has implications for, “‘what’ knowledge is available to be converted into pedagogic communication, ‘who’ . . . will undertake the work of pedagogising knowledge, and ‘how’ this knowledge is transformed into pedagogic forms”. this analysis of inclusive education course content has some relation to the knowledge that has been ‘converted into pedagogic communication’, but it does not go further to examine who undertakes this work and how the knowledge is transformed. in other words, the analysis takes the course outlines as pedagogical artefacts, walton: inclusive education in initial teacher education. . . 111 with no interrogation of the people and processes involved in their creation or use. the purpose of this work is not to offer a comparative evaluation of courses, but to develop a conceptual argument derived from the data. the limitations discussed are thus deemed acceptable. like clarence (2015), i present the discussion that follows as a beginning, rather than a conclusion, hoping that it will open a conversation about what is taught to pre-service teachers in the name of ‘inclusive education’. inclusive education as practical knowledge within practical curricula many of the concepts presented in inclusive education courses are characterised by relatively strong semantic gravity, and relatively weak semantic density. assignments too, show context dependence (sg+), with relatively little conceptual depth (sd-). using selected examples, i will show how this potentially and problematically locates inclusive education as practical knowledge within a practical curriculum. the semantic profile of concepts the following four concepts have been selected from the three course outlines. this selection is not comprehensive, but at least one concept from each course is presented for discussion. with the detail given about the source of the concepts, they can be seen as illustrative of a successive strengthening of semantic gravity and weakening of semantic density. differentiation or differentiated instruction is offered as a classroom strategy that enables teachers to be more responsive to diverse learner needs. the given source of the concept is the codified principles of good practice with reference made to articles (e.g subban (2006)) and websites (e.g http://www.help4teachers.com). these sources describe the rationale for differentiation in terms of assumptions of differences in readiness to learn, learning profile and interest and offer processes and techniques that have been found to be useful in enacting differentiation. this strengthens the semantic gravity of the concept by grounding its source in classroom practices. the classroom from which the principles are derived is generic, so no classroom at 112 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 any particular time or place is required for the meaning of differentiation. this prevents the concept from reaching extreme semantic gravity on the continuum. because the principles of practice have been codified, and there is a significant body of literature on differentiation (although less empirical work (subban, 2006)), there is a slight strengthening of semantic density. this indicates to pre-service teachers that differentiation is not a simple concept, but one with a number of constituent components. there is, however, no theory associated with differentiation in this course, so it must be positioned as sg+/sd-. learner support is a concept presented in one of the courses with the south african policy on screening, identification, assessment and support (sias) (dbe, 2008, 2014) as its source. the semantic gravity of the concept of learner support is significantly strengthened by grounding it in one specific south african policy. thus the meaning of learning support for pre-service teachers in this particular course is inextricably bound up with the south african context and current policy provision. because the policy itself is complex, and “constellates” (maton and doran, 2017) a number of other concepts like ‘barriers to learning’, ‘accommodations’ and ‘collaboration’, learner support as a concept in this course retains some strength in terms of semantic density, but there is no associated theory. learning support can thus be mapped as sg+/sd-. contextual disadvantage is a concept foregrounded in one of the courses, where it constitutes a discrete unit of study. here pre-service teachers are presented with a number of ‘case studies’ of particular learners, from which pre-service teachers are invited to derive an understanding of contextual disadvantage. as a result, contextual disadvantage is conveyed in this course as a concept with extremely strong semantic gravity (sg++), as it is completely grounded in very specific and described contexts. the semantic density of the concept is retained to some extent through reference to a framework of child friendly schools (http://www.unicef.org/cfs/), which in itself relies on a constellation of concepts. also, pre-service teachers are required to consider orphan and vulnerable children and discuss the development of their self-concept and self-identity. self-concept and selfidentity are not explicitly framed by any theory in the course material, but they do point pre-service teachers to some conceptual complexity in the idea of contextual disadvantage. the concept can be mapped as sg++/sd-. walton: inclusive education in initial teacher education. . . 113 social problems is a final concept and is presented with two sources in one of the courses analysed. newspaper reports and clippings are the one source, and their effect on the semantic profile of the concept is similar to that of the case studies, i.e., grounding the meaning in a particular time and place. it is noteworthy that pre-service teachers’ own perceptions of social problems are validated as a second source of the concept. this represents the most extreme strength of semantic gravity evidenced across all the concepts, as the meaning of ‘social problems’ becomes each individual’s personal experience. here, incidentally, is where the lct dimension of specialisation would be relevant, as this is evidence of very strong social relations with the object of knowledge, as personal opinion and experience are regarded as legitimate forms of educational knowledge (a knower code). with this extremely strong semantic gravity comes particularly weak semantic density, as no other concepts or theories are shown to constitute the meaning of social problems (sg++/sd--). assessment assessment plays an important role in a course by indicating to students what is salient and where they should direct their focus. as such, assessment tasks can be considered as a reliable indicator of what teacher educators consider as important in their inclusive education courses. two of the course assignments have been selected to illustrate particularly strong semantic gravity and relatively weak semantic density (sg+/sd-). these tasks are slightly abbreviated as follows: a. go to two of your home schools . . ., collect information about ovcs [orphans and vulnerable children] and learners experiencing barriers to learning and development. discuss the types of barriers experienced and show how the schools tackle these challenges. b. identify a real learner in a real classroom who experiences a barrier to learning. observe the learner in class and decide on the accommodations necessary for the learner. discuss with the class teacher how you would implement the accommodations as prescribed in the sias process. then write a report . . . 114 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 in neither of these assessment tasks is there a strongly demarcated “conceptual object of study” (shalem and rusznyak, 2013, p.1125) which would convey to pre-service teachers that their practice could be informed by theory or a context-independent body of knowledge. the semantic density of these tasks is thus weak (sd-), with pre-service teachers’ own decisions (task b) indicated as a legitimate form of knowledge of inclusive education. in task a, pre-service teachers’ attention is drawn to the school’s actions in “tackling” the challenges, and in task b, the teacher’s knowledge of implementing accommodations is indirectly recognised. the specific “practice-based context” (shalem and rusznyak, 2013, p.1125) is strongly demarcated in each task, indicative of very strong semantic gravity (sg++). the message to these pre-service teachers is that meaning is made in context, and enacted in practice. moreover, the knowledge of inclusive education as reflected in these tasks is taken to be highly individual and contingent, depending on the contexts that the pre-service teacher encounters. taken together, the four concepts and the two assignment tasks can be mapped onto a semantic plane of recontextualised knowledge (maton, 2014; shay, 2013) and are seen to be located in the quadrant of stronger semantic gravity, and weaker semantic density (sg+/sd-). this suggests that many of the concepts and tasks in inclusive education courses reflect the logic of a practical curriculum (shay, 2013). before problematising this orientation, i would like to suggest possible reasons for inclusive education being recontextualised into a pedagogic discourse characterised by such strong semantic gravity and relatively weak semantic density. accounting for the practical orientation of inclusive education courses the field of knowledge production from which teacher educators select inclusive education knowledge is characterised by relatively strong semantic gravity (walton, 2016). there is an often repeated mantra in the field that the meaning of inclusive education itself is context dependent, and will be conceptualised and implemented differently in different contexts (florian, 2012; kozleski, artiles and waitoller, 2011). as far back as 1998, booth and ainscow (1998) noted that different contexts influenced the ways in which inclusive education was practiced, and that comparisons across contexts were not helpful. this emphasis on contextual peculiarity has resulted in the field of knowledge production focusing on describing iterations of inclusive walton: inclusive education in initial teacher education. . . 115 education in a wide variety of geographical locations and socio-cultural and historical contexts. with this emphasis on the contextual dependence of the meaning of inclusive education, it is unsurprising that teacher educators reflect this in the knowledge that they select. the field of knowledge production in inclusive education has also been criticised for being theoretically flimsy, and hence could be said to be characterised by relatively weak semantic density. armstrong, armstrong and spandagou, (2010, p.37) note the “theoretical vacuum” in which inclusive education sits and slee (2011, p.65) says that is important to “build a theory of inclusive education”. this is not to say that there is no theoretical work in inclusive education. south african scholarship in inclusive education has had a strong disciplinary basis in psychology, with many influential academics in the field being psychologists (walton, 2016). this work has brought ecosystemic theory and the ideas of bronfenbrenner to the foreground in inclusive education research (geldenhuys and wevers, 2013), policy (dbe, 2010, 2014) and teacher education (swart and pettipher, 2011). there are also south african sociologists (sayed, subrahmanian, soudien et al., 2007) and philosophers (horsthemke, 2017) engaging with issues of educational inclusion and exclusion, reflecting dyson’s comment, quoted in allan and slee (2008, p.35) as, . . .[y]ou get a kind of wing of the inclusion movement which is very much about conceptualization, critical thinking. if it has a home in academic disciplines it’s probably within philosophy of education, sociology of education, where people do not feel it is necessary to do empirical work out there in the field because it doesn’t actually tell you very much. this suggests that there is the potential to locate inclusive education in initial teacher education within broader disciplinary and theoretical traditions. the influence of policy must also be considered in accounting for the dearth of theory in inclusive education courses. policies are in what bernstein (2000, p.33) calls the “official recontextualising field” (orf) which is “created and dominated by the state”. bernstein is clear that the independence of the prf from the orf is “a matter of some importance” (p.115). he argues that through the orf the state tries to weaken the prf and reduce its relative autonomy over the construction of pedagogic discourses. the orf exerts some influence over pedagogic discourses of inclusive education in south africa. as noted above, one course in this data set frames learner support within current policy, and some authors of textbooks for preand in-service teachers (like ntombela and raymond (2013)) look directly to policy to 116 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 define and rationalise inclusive education. what is less clear is the relationship between the field of inclusive education knowledge production and the orf in this country. policy makers selectively appropriate research to inform and justify their policies, and in accordance with their objectives (sarakinioti, tsatsaroni, and stamelos, 2011; vithal and volmink, 2005). south african policies make scant reference to the research bases that inform them, with key policies like white paper six (doe, 2001) and sias (2008/2014) offering no reference lists. policies that do compile reference lists (like guidelines for full-service/inclusive schools (dbe, 2010) and guidelines for responding to learner diversity (dbe, 2011b) cite very little south african research. close readings of these documents do suggest the strong but tacit influence of ecosystemic theory on policy formulation, and some attempts to replace a medical deficit approach to difference and disability with the social model. clearly, this is an area that requires further research in the development of the field of inclusive education in this country. another possible reason for the practical orientation of inclusive education coursework in ite is that textbooks in south africa that might be prescribed for courses foregrounds inclusive education as a practical knowledge. in their preface to the book making inclusive education work in classrooms, pienaar and raymond (2013, p.viii) say that this book “will help teachers and teachers-in-training see how inclusive education can work to benefit all children” (emphasis mine). the back-cover blurb of the often-prescribed addressing barriers to learning (landsberg, kruger and swart (eds), 2011) says that the book contains, “case studies [which] offer practical examples and activities [which] provide hands-on experience regarding classroom practice and management . . .”. finally, believe that all can achieve (bornman and rose, 2010) is punted on the back cover as paying “specific attention to practical implementation”. these examples are presented not to suggest that attending to inclusive practice is not important, but to show that teacher educators do not have to look far to find inclusive education recontextualised as practical knowledge. a final reason for inclusive education being presented with the logic of a practical curriculum is the “ideological screens” (bernstein, 2000, p.115) through which an original discourse must pass as it becomes a pedagogic discourse. there may be any number of ideological screens that could be identified in the contested space of inclusive education. here i would like to draw attention to two closely related screens in relation to my discussion about semantics and curricula within an ite programme. the first would be walton: inclusive education in initial teacher education. . . 117 the extent to which the recontextualising agents (in this case, teacher educators), subscribe to a theory-dependent or theory-independent approach to initial teacher education as espoused by shalem and rusznyak (2013). the theory-dependent approach privileges theory in initial teacher education on the basis that “it is necessary to develop propositional understanding about concepts and modes of justification amongst student teachers, with the view to equipping them with an epistemic foundation that will guide their professional judgement” (shalem and rusznyak, 2013, p.1121). a theoryindependent view, by contrast, eschews theory in favour of reflection and apprenticeship. the assessment tasks described above seem to reflect the latter approach, as there is no reference to theory in the tasks, but reflection and observation/apprenticeship are valorised. the second ideological screen is similar to the first and refers to the extent to which teacher educators promote conceptual or contextual coherence in knowledge selection (rusznyak, 2015). it seems that in much of what is offered in inclusive education courses to pre-service teachers is “. . . situational and practical knowledge . . . [and] contextually relevant insights” (rusznyak, 2015, p.24). this suggests that contextual coherence is privileged by teacher educators in the design of inclusive education courses. there may be good reason for this. inclusive teaching is currently not a reality in many south african schools (see, for example, engelbrecht, nel, smit, and van deventer, 2015) and engelbrecht, nel, nel, and tlale (2015)) and teacher educators cannot rely on practicum experiences or early career school environments to model inclusive practices. as a result, teacher educators may be concerned to offer as much practical knowledge about teaching inclusively as possible in the ite programmes. while there may be good reasons why inclusive education is taught with the logic of a practical curriculum, with minimal theory and weak semantic density, and contextual exigencies foregrounded with strong semantic gravity, i argue that this is problematic. the problem with the practical orientation of inclusive education in ite i do not wish to rehearse the critique that shalem and rusznyak (2013) have made about theory-independent ite, nor rusznyak’s (2015) indication of the limitations of knowledge selection based on contextual rather than conceptual 118 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 coherence in the preparation of teachers. instead, i wish to focus specifically on inclusive education and argue that the current positioning of inclusive education in ite is problematic. the problem with the strong semantic gravity is that the specificities of context may be over-emphasised to preservice teachers. this means that they may not see the knowledge as applicable beyond particular contexts, and may not imagine themselves able to transfer the knowledge to different contexts. furthermore, at the extremes of strong semantic gravity, personal, experiential and idiosyncratic understandings of inclusive education are legitimated. this easily becomes mere everyday knowledge, which potentially reproduces the status-quo. this works against the disruption of existing inequitable practices in education and thwarts the achievement of more inclusive ways of schooling. the relatively weak semantic density in courses, revealed in the scant reference to theory means that pre-service teachers may not access nonintuitive ways of thinking of learner difference in relation to pedagogy. theory deepens and broadens everyday interpretations and experiences and provides different and alternative descriptions of educational processes and practices (biesta, allan and edwards, 2014). in the case of inclusive education, theory potentially offers abstract knowledge and concepts, which can then be applied in complex situations. inclusive classrooms are indeed complex contexts (engelbrecht, nel, nel and tlale, 2015). but when inclusive education concepts are pared down in ite and abstraction is minimised, the problem it addresses becomes simple, merely requiring a technical or instrumental response. in other words, the relatively weak semantic density of inclusive education in ite programmes in south africa means that it is not positioned within the logic of a professional curriculum. an argument for a professional orientation to inclusive education to develop inclusive education as a professional knowledge in professional curricula requires “knowledge progression” (shay, 2013, p.576) through strengthening semantic density, while not losing its semantic gravity. this means moving inclusive education in ite from sg+ and sdto sg+ and sd+. i would suggest that semantic density can be strengthened by forging constellations with other concepts and expanding the meanings of the concepts presented. it would also mean deriving concepts from theory rather than policy, practice or experience. an example from the data is illustrative. walton: inclusive education in initial teacher education. . . 119 unlike other concepts, co-operative learning is presented in one of the courses as a concept where the source is explicitly shown to be located in theories from the discipline of psychology. the theories given as the foundation from which co-operative learning can be practised are vygotsky’s socio-cultural learning theory, bandura’s work on observational learning and johnson and johnson’s theory of social interdependence (putnam, 2009). this foregrounding of theory weakens the semantic gravity of co-operative learning, in that context is rendered less significant for meaning—in the case of social interdependence theory, the field of education is not even required. context is not absent, though, as the theory is expected to be applied in practice. this means that the concept cannot cross shay’s “ceiling” into the quadrant of theoretical knowledge. the theory strengthens semantic density by packing the concept of co-operative learning with a constellation of other concepts (mediation and zones of proximal development from vgotsky, observational learning from bandura and positive and negative interdependence from johnson and johnson’s theory), each of which has strong semantic density in its own right. given these sources, the concept in this course can be mapped as sg+/sd+. it is clear, though, that co-operative learning could have been presented as a concept with much weaker semantic density. there is a significant body of accessible knowledge about co-operative learning that is based on codified principles of good practice. this literature describes classroom arrangements that support optimal co-operative learning, like role allocation, group accountability and skills instruction (see, for example, jolliffe (2007)). these could form the basis for teaching the concept in a way that position it, like the four concepts discussed above, as practical knowledge in a practical curriculum. by omitting reference to theory, and simply drawing pre-service teachers’ attention to the codified principles of co-operative learning in practice, the semantic density of this concept could be significantly weakened. this is significant, because it illustrates the point that concepts in inclusive education do not necessarily have to have weak semantic gravity, but that there is the possibility for situating them within broader disciplinary and theoretical traditions. the example of co-operative learning demonstrates the possibility of both strengthening or weakening the semantic density with which a concept is presented to pre-service teachers. in a quest for “knowledge progression” (shay, 2013, p.576) in inclusive education, i return to the four concepts characterised by weak semantic density discussed above (in section 5.1). 120 journal of education, no. 67, 2017 whether inclusive education should be seen as an issue of learners and their diversity,3 teachers and their competence or schools and society is explored in more detail in walton and rusznyak (2016). there are possibilities to strengthen their semantic density by forging constellations with other concepts and explicitly situating the concepts within the disciplines of psychology and/or sociology, and the scholarship of teaching. differentiated instruction and learner support could be derived more specifically from the reading and learning that pre-service teachers do in psychology of education, with particular reference to theories of learning and development (kern and fritz, 2017). these concepts could also be located in the wider studies of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment undertaken by preservice teachers. contextual disadvantage and social problems could be strengthened with reference to theories in sociology of education, and concepts like cultural reproduction, race and class, which are likely components of pre-service teachers’ studies in education (soudien, 2017). by mooring concepts taught in inclusive education courses within a disciplinary framework (either psychology, or sociology, or a well-informed combination of the two) it becomes possible to bring the concepts into relationship with3 each other, and builds coherence in relation to other relevant concepts. this has the potential to move the position of inclusive education towards professional knowledge within ite. conclusion: looking forward in this argument i am not discounting practical knowledge, nor attempting to invalidate pre-service teachers’ voices that clamour for less theory. instead, it is to recognise the limitations of a practical orientation to inclusive education in developing professional teachers who have access to relevant theory and research that could inform their professional judgment. it is also a call for the recognition of both the possibilities and limitations of ite in developing inclusive teachers and teaching. the undergraduate qualification may be the only time and space that teachers have in their careers to be systematically introduced to theories, and ite should not easily relinquish this in favour of a more ‘practical’ curriculum in inclusive education. there is also a limit to what can be accomplished in a four-year pre-service qualification, and it would be useful for teacher educators to consider what should be learned about teaching inclusively in the induction year and in continuous professional development. there may be value in south africa considering walton: inclusive education in initial teacher education. . . 121 the development of a framework that describes inclusive teaching in a way that differentiates the competencies that could be expected by teachers at different stages of their careers. this has been done in scotland (scottish teacher education committee, 2014) and might offer south african initial teacher educators a clearer sense of what needs to be developed in the preservice qualification, and what could be left for site-based learning through mentoring and professional learning communities, and other professional development activities. released from the demand to provide all the 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(2011). getting inclusion right in south africa. intervention in school and clinic 46(4), 240–245. walton, e. & rusznyak, l. (2016). choices in the design of inclusive education courses for pre-service teachers: the case of a south african university. international journal of disability, development and education, 1–18. doi: 10.1080/1034912x.2016.1195489 woolf, s. (2013). south african taxi hand signs documenting the history and significance of taxi hand signs through anthropology and art, including the invention of a tactile shape-language for blind people. unpublished phd thesis, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg. elizabeth walton school of education university of the witwatersrand elizabeth.walton@wits.ac.za mailto:elizabeth.walton@wits.ac.za microsoft word b90 full issue.docx journal of education, 2023 issue 90, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i90a04 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x using critical pedagogy in english education: disjunctures between pre-service teachers’ preparation and opportunities for implementation naomi nkealah school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa naomi.nkealah@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7953-9663 john simango school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa jk.simango@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4433-1680 (received: 16 august 2022; accepted: 10 march 2023) abstract in many universities offering qualifications in education, paulo freire’s critical pedagogy features prominently in curricula for pre-service teachers of english. student teachers are prepared with the knowledge and skills that enable them to use approaches from critical pedagogy to teach english effectively in their classrooms upon graduation. critical pedagogy affords pre-service teachers of english training in teaching critical literacy, a pedagogy of self-empowerment, and tools for teaching critical thinking. however, student teachers may not easily exploit these affordances when they start to teach since many constraints in the school system may impede the effective implementation of critical pedagogy in the english classroom. these constraints include the inflexible annual teaching plan, the practice of teaching for assessment, and contradictions in the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps). as a result, there is a disparity between the vision of teaching english in critical ways on the one hand and opportunities to realise this vision within the structures of south african policy on the other. in this article, we explore this disparity and its implications for learning to teach english within a critical pedagogy framework. keywords: critical pedagogy, english education, learning to teach, teacher preparation, teacher opportunity introduction critical pedagogy, as a philosophy, informs, in part, teacher education in the global south. this educational approach is steered by the need to help students develop a profound awareness of the injustices around them based, for example, on class, race, and gender, and to 70 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 become conscientious of their role as critical subjects (aliakbari & faraji, 2011; giroux, 1988; mclaren, 2007; nelson & chen, 2022). by relating english content to their own contextual realities, students learn to think critically about how power relations work to include some people and marginalise others and are invited to interrogate these practices of exclusion and marginalisation. in the field of english education, critical pedagogy informs curriculum design and delivery of courses aimed at training pre-service teachers of english to be reflective about their practice and to be critical about the texts they teach because texts are not neutral (behari, 1997; janks, 2010). south african studies by mendelowitz (2017), mendelowitz et al. (2023), motlhaka (2016), and pillay (2014, 2021) provide evidence that curriculum design informed by critical pedagogy has been instrumental in capacitating pre-service teachers of english and preparing them for the classroom. these success stories point to the agency of university teacher educators in mitigating various challenges in their contexts of practice in preparing student teachers for the field of work. mendelowitz et al. (2023, p. 8) stated that “as language teacher educators, we are constrained by school language policies. . . [but] we still need to prepare our students to teach in schools that are subject to these policies.” through various critical pedagogy approaches, teacher educators can overcome constraints to develop critical literacy in their pre-service teachers, motivate them to teach for social transformation, and empower them to reflect on their own practice so as to make needed improvements as they progress. however, once students graduate, they enter a school context that is different from the university one of teaching and learning. while english curricula at university are flexible and allow teacher educators to have some level of academic freedom in choosing their own topics and methodologies of teaching (le grange, 2011; monchinski, 2008), the school system in south africa is less so since teaching is regulated by the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps). in this article, we explore the tensions between teacher preparation and teacher opportunity to teach english using critical pedagogy approaches and the complexities of learning to teach that arise out of this situation. the rigidity of the school system raises the fundamental issue of whether student teachers are given the opportunity to implement in their classroom what they learned at university. it is one thing to study critical pedagogy and know how to design english lessons informed by its approaches, but it is quite another to have the opportunity to teach english in ways that allow the implementation of such knowledge and skills in practice. the constraints to english teaching in schools are: (1) the inflexibility of the annual teaching plan provided by the department of basic education; (2) the dominant practice of teaching for assessment; and (3) the contradictions in caps. while the annual teaching plan pushes english teachers to adopt a textbook-centred approach to teaching that neglects learners’ own contextual experiences, the dominant practice of teaching for assessment as well as the contradictions in caps often leave teachers unmotivated to be creative in designing their lessons (mavhiza & prozesky, 2020). these constraints make it vital to consider teacher opportunity as an important issue in any discussion of critical pedagogy in the english classroom. the problems related to opportunity—its absence, shortage, ephemeral nature, and links to power nkealah & simango: using critical pedagogy in english education 71 and control—create an uneasy relationship between pre-service teacher preparation and the opportunity to teach english. this incompatibility prompted us to develop a deep analysis of the complexity of learning to teach from the perspective of critical pedagogy in south africa. critical pedagogy: toward an understanding critical pedagogy arose from the educational philosophy of paulo freire whose two books, teaching community: a pedagogy of hope (1970) and pedagogy of the oppressed (1972), set out approaches and a rationale for this way of teaching. context is important here because, as monchinski (2008, p. 123) noted, “[a]ll forms of critical pedagogy respect the context in which knowledge creation and transmission occurs.” both giroux (1988) and mclaren (1989) explored the theory and practice of critical pedagogy in the north american context in relation to schooling and democracy, citizenship, and social problems. borg and mayo (2006) theorised critical pedagogy based on the maltese context with its subaltern communities of colonised indigenous people and othered immigrant populations. engagements with critical pedagogy based on the south african context have also taken into consideration the country’s history of colonial domination and apartheid-based discrimination against black, indian and coloured people, and have emphasized the important roles of emancipatory education, critical literacy, and multilingualism in transforming post-apartheid south africa (see dixon & mendelowitz, 2016; isaacs & waghid, 2015; mayaba et al., 2018; thomas, 2009). in this country, critical pedagogy is projected as teaching for social justice. it positions the school as a site in which inequalities can be challenged or maintained (giroux, 1989; mclaren 1989, 2007). freire (1972, p. 9) believed that “critical pedagogy is the technique that can provide teachers, learners and researchers with a better means of understanding the role that schools play within a race, class, and gender-divided society.” understanding the role played by schools in society can help eradicate the tendency of learners and parents to view schools as islands detached from their reality and see, instead, the integration between home and school as essential to the development of a holistic knowledge economy (edwards, 2018) and as bridging the gap between home literacies and public philosophies. critical pedagogy is more than just theory and philosophy; it is also a practice and a praxis (see monchinski, 2008) enacted in learning spaces. fobes and kaufman (2008, p. 27) noted that critical pedagogy “is both a form of practice and a form of action [because] it beseeches us to use our teaching and learning to work towards a more equitable society.” for siqueira (2021, p. 4), critical pedagogy “is not a theory or a method, but a way of life, it is a form of doing teaching and learning, it is teaching with an attitude.” there is general agreement that the goal of critical pedagogy is to offer an approach to teaching that empowers learners to become thinkers on their own, not just recipients of information. burbules and berk (1999, p. 46) explained that “to be ‘critical’ basically means to be more discerning in recognizing faulty arguments, hasty generalizations, assertions lacking evidence, truth claims based on unreliable authority, ambiguous or obscure concepts, and so forth.” critical pedagogy helps students become critical thinkers, in its promoting education for social change and intellectual liberation. we go on to look at some empirical research that shows how different 72 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 approaches to critical pedagogy have been deployed in university courses to prepare preservice english teachers for the classroom. the affordances of critical pedagogy in teacher preparation critical pedagogy has much to offer towards the preparation of pre-service teachers to teach english across grades in south african schools, in both english home language (hl) and english first additional language (fal) subjects. while there are different bodies of knowledge that inform the south african higher education curriculum for b.ed. programmes at universities, teacher educators in the field of english education have used critical pedagogy approaches to effectively prepare pre-service teachers of english for the teaching of literature, language, media texts, and creative writing in south african schools. critical pedagogy affords pre-service teachers of english: (1) training in teaching critical literacy; (2) a pedagogy of self-empowerment; and (3) a tool for teaching critical thinking. training in teaching critical literacy in b.ed. programmes based on critical literacy, teacher educators teach student teachers about the relationship between language and power and show them how to explore the intricacies of this relationship in literary texts, language textbooks, media texts, and screen narratives. janks (2010) explained that critical literacy is the process of reading the word (language) and the world (society) critically. to do so is to uncover what is hidden in textual and social practices, to ask questions about who benefits from these practices and who is disadvantaged by them, and to challenge, ultimately, the power ideologies at play in these practices. because teachers of english work mainly with texts as tools of teaching, critical literacy enables them to see how language choices in texts “are designed to convey particular meanings in particular ways and to have particular effects” (janks, 2010, p. 61). the relationship between language and identity is also important in critical literacy. for mendelowitz et al. (2023), it is important to train pre-service english teachers to understand the different ways in which language impacts on identity. in their effort to help students develop an awareness of the relationship between language and identity, they adopted a critical social justice approach that shifted the focus from language as grammar to language as social discourse. as they put it, “[w]e began by explicitly rejecting the usual language-asgrammar-and-lexis approach found in schools and encouraging students to think deeply and critically about what language really is, what it does and how it works” (p. 26, emphasis in original). what transpires then in the critical literacy classroom is “the introduction of students to sophisticated linguistic and aesthetic metalanguages for talking about, critiquing, and reconstructing texts and discourses” (luke, 2004, p. 21). by exposing pre-service teachers of english to the practice of critical literacy, teacher educators equip them with skills to use different texts effectively in the classroom for addressing questions of social injustice, exclusion, and marginalisation while also empowering them to voice concerns about personal issues. nkealah & simango: using critical pedagogy in english education 73 a pedagogy of self-empowerment critical pedagogy offers pre-service teachers of english a pedagogy of self-empowerment, thereby preparing them to deal with the challenges of the classroom. evidence of this claim can be found in a study in which pillay (2014) applied critical pedagogy in teaching english in a b.ed. programme at a university in kwazulu-natal. she noted that critical pedagogy enabled her students to reflect on and debate issues of transformation in south african society (e.g. gender, race and linguistic transformation) and to share ideas for using literary texts in their classrooms to promote emancipatory education. in addition, students were empowered to overcome their fears about lesson preparation and take charge of their learning. in another article in which she reflects on teaching shakespeare’s the tempest to her students, pillay (2021, p. 287) reported that she “used a critical pedagogy to help students talk back to, question and challenge the beliefs and practices that emanate from the play.” the result was that students could draw on their knowledge of the text, their indigenous knowledge and languages, and their profound knowledge of many types and levels of oppression in the world around them to talk back to shakespeare as the messenger of colonisation and to do so in intellectual, emotional and critical ways. pillay’s work illustrates that critical pedagogy can empower pre-service english teachers to take charge of their learning, gain self-confidence in lesson design, develop critical consciousness, and talk back to colonial knowledge systems in postcolonial south africa. critical pedagogy, therefore, offered students a means to self-empowerment. tool for teaching critical thinking critical pedagogy assists pre-service teachers of english to become teachers who possess critical thinking skills, creative skills, and problem-solving skills. this is the same skills set teachers are expected to develop in english learners. the caps document for english fal (grades 10–12) states that the additional language must be taught in ways that give learners opportunities to speak the additional language for interpersonal reasons (e.g. a conversation), to develop their creativity (e.g. performing a poem, role playing, etc.), to develop cognitive academic skills (e.g. taking part in a debate) and to prepare for the workplace (e.g. taking part in an interview). (department of basic education, 2011, p. 11). such critical skills can be acquired through dialogic teaching methods that encourage learners to participate actively in the lessons since dialogic education is fundamental to a critical pedagogy approach (freire, 1972). moreover, critical pedagogy is all about education that produces critical thinking in learners. the relationship between critical pedagogy and critical thinking is that both are concerned with identifying and explaining inaccuracies, distortions, and falsehoods in society that limit freedom and create unequal power relations (burbules & berk, 1999). critical pedagogy then affords pre-service english teachers critical thinking skills that they can impart to their learners. burbules and berk (1999, p. 46) observed that “the prime critical thinking tools are 74 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 the skills of formal and informal logic, conceptual analysis, and epistemology.” in a study involving language education students at a university in the free state, motlhaka (2016) aimed to find out how the practice of critical pedagogy in the training of english fal preservice teachers helped them to develop critical thinking skills. he found that critical pedagogy enabled the student teachers to gain critical thinking skills such as organising and synthesising information, explaining a point of view, evaluating evidence, understanding alternative perspectives, and justifying a particular reasoning. these findings illustrate that the use of critical pedagogy in the training of pre-service english teachers may capacitate them to improve the quality of english education in schools. these student teachers become able to teach literature and language in ways that foster critical thinking about problems that plague contemporary society (crookes, 2010; mendelowitz, 2017). critical thinking goes hand-in-hand with critical writing and critical pedagogy affords preservice english teachers imaginative writing skills. in such writings, they can question hegemonic and misogynistic practices in their families, schools, communities, and the state. in a first-year sociolinguistics course for pre-service teachers of english at a university in johannesburg, mendelowitz (2017) implemented a critical writing pedagogy that centred on critical imagination and its value in english teacher education. she found that enhancing students’ imaginative thinking and dialogic engagements through creative writing generated opportunities for students to counter misogynistic discourses in everyday life. students’ creative and reflective writing used dialogue between characters to problematise cultural notions of masculinity, sexist and patriarchal discourses, and sexual labelling. these are gender concerns that are often part of the hidden curriculum. students may miss interrogating them if teachers do not create opportunities for incidental learning and for conversations about gender (vu & pham, 2022). mendelowitz’s (2017) critical writing pedagogy helped pre-service teachers of english to put gender on the agenda when they were writing about self and fictionalised others. critical pedagogy and constraints in implementation the empirical studies discussed in the previous section point to significant efforts by teacher educators to prepare pre-service english teachers for the classroom. however, as noted in the introduction, there is no guarantee that pre-service english teachers will have the autonomy and opportunity to use critical pedagogy approaches in their classroom teaching once they enter the workforce. as monchinski (2008, p. 123) noted, university teachers “may have opportunities of negotiating syllabi and curricul[a] with their students that high school and primary teachers may lack.” in south african schools, there are several constraints to implementing critical pedagogy in the english classroom that gesture towards understanding teacher opportunity as volatile. these constraints are structural, systemic, policy-based, and operational and it is hard to isolate one from the other since they are necessarily intertwined. teaching according to the annual teaching plan, teaching for assessment, and contradictions in caps are three major constraints that significantly impact teacher opportunity to put critical pedagogy into practice in the english classroom. while these challenges are not nkealah & simango: using critical pedagogy in english education 75 peculiar to english, they do provide insight into the ephemeral, evasive, and unstable nature of teacher opportunity in enacting critical pedagogy. teaching according to the annual teaching plan provided by the department of basic education and enforced by its officials, the annual teaching plan prescribes for teachers what subject content needs to be taught when and for how long. it specifies the topics, skills, requisite pre-knowledge, resources, and assessments for each week of teaching. to illustrate, the 2021 plan for english fal grade 12 specifies 10 weeks of teaching for term 1 and the caps topics for these weeks are (1) listening and speaking for weeks 1 and 2; (2) reading and viewing for weeks 3 and 4; (3) writing and presenting for weeks 5 and 6; (4) language structure and conventions for weeks 8 and 9; and (5) revision for weeks 9 and 10. topics are further broken down into smaller topics, concepts, skills, or values. for example, in week 5 that focuses on writing and presenting, teachers are expected to teach reading comprehension, listening comprehension, vocabulary, literary texts, process writing, direct and indirect speech, and cartoons (department of basic education, 2021). on the one hand, the annual teaching plan ensures that all curriculum content is covered within a desired timeframe and provides a helpful structure for new teachers who may find it useful to know what they need to teach when (bower, 2019; letshwene & du plessis, 2021). on the other hand, it has been found by teachers to be inflexible since it leaves little room for teacher manoeuvres such as bringing in creative activities (bower, 2019). furthermore, it is too fast paced and therefore does not allow teachers the time to diagnose learners’ knowledge and skills gaps and then design teaching to meet these needs (bower, 2019; letshwene & du plessis, 2021). ultimately, it does not promote equal education because it adopts a one-sizefits-all approach whereas learners have different cognitive abilities. as bower (2019, para. 8) observed, “[m]any experienced teachers feel that it undermines their professional judgement because it allows no room for responsiveness or creativity.” for new english teachers who have been trained to use critical pedagogy in teaching english, the inflexible and fast-paced nature of the annual teaching plan means that they have little opportunity to experiment with the diverse critical pedagogy approaches they encountered at university. in pillay’s critical pedagogy work (2014), she used dialogic and reflective activities to get her students to talk about how they felt about literary texts and to think about why they felt that way, and through these learning strategies she was able to empower her students to be agents of their own self-transformation. similarly, mendelowitz (2017), in her critical writing pedagogy for her first-year sociolinguistics course, employed embodied activities involving role play and reflective narratives to get students to engage with linguistic and social practices that affected them personally. while these teacher educators had the autonomy to use these critical pedagogies in their university courses, a grade 11 english teacher in a school, for example, has neither the latitude nor the time to do similar critical pedagogy work because this may hinder them from completing their weekly teaching tasks and may incur reprisals from school authorities, as well as department of basic education 76 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 officials, for not sticking to the annual teaching plan. mavhiza and prozesky (2020, p. 5) highlighted the extent to which english teachers are handicapped when they stated that as much as caps stipulates that there should be creativity in the literature classroom, the structure of the annual teaching plan (atp) makes such creativity almost impossible; the teacher is compelled to emphasise assessment, as this is the tool used by school management and subject facilitators to determine the work done in the classroom. effectively, to stay safe, new english teachers strive to adhere strictly to the plan and, in time, teaching to the plan becomes their standard practice. the limitation placed on their opportunity to practise what they learned at university supports our argument that there is no one-to-one relationship between teacher preparation and teacher opportunity. teaching for assessment the second constraint to implementation, as noted earlier, is the school culture of teaching for assessment that poses a significant barrier to critical pedagogy in the english classroom. in english language teaching, caps distinguishes between questioning that happens every day during lessons (assessment for learning) and questioning that occurs at the end of a learning unit or term (assessment of learning) (department of basic education, 2011). while both forms of evaluation are essential and should be used integratively, several studies have shown that assessment of learning is practised more than assessment for learning in the teaching of the english language in south african schools (see chavalala, 2015; kanjee, 2020; reyneke, 2016). the underlying problem, according to reyneke (2016), is that south africa sees learners’ performance in the national senior certificate (nsc) examinations as a yardstick for measuring the success of the public schooling system. thus, caps and the annual teaching plan are designed to promote high-stakes assessment and to align all formative assessments with the summative assessments offered at the end of the year at all levels of the fet phase and, ultimately, with the final nsc examinations at the end of grade 12. as reyneke (2016, p. 5) stated, [t]he result is that teachers, who are held accountable for learner performance in national examinations, mechanically adhere to stipulations regarding [school-based assessment] in the caps instead of creating worthwhile learning experiences or generating assessment tasks aimed at the promotion of deep learning. this means that teachers teach to assessment because they need to achieve high pass rates for their schools, thereby giving the department of basic education a positive public image. perhaps, inadvertently, they do this to defend their jobs. this kind of teaching does not encourage critical analysis of content for critical thinking and transformation of learners’ ways of thinking, because it focuses on transmitting information rather than making learners co-creators of knowledge as freirean critical pedagogy demands. nkealah & simango: using critical pedagogy in english education 77 with regard to teaching literature specifically, even though caps suggests that both formative and summative assessments are meant to help learners develop creative thinking (department of basic education, 2011), the irony is that the assessment questions used during lessons, as presented in study editions of literary texts, are context-based short questions that require merely the remembering of information. learners then read literary texts only to regurgitate content knowledge during assessments. mavhiza and prozesky (2020, p. 5) observed that “many teachers keep to a teacher-centred drilling of learners so that they fare well in the examinations.” assessments that empower learners to apply creative imagination in connecting the experiences of characters in literary texts to real-life experiences in their communities are inhibited by the annual teaching plan that comes with fixed types of assessment. consequently, english teachers are constrained in using formative assessment that requires the application of critical pedagogy approaches. contradictions in caps inconsistencies within caps present challenges to applying critical pedagogy in the english classroom. in their study on the challenges of implementing caps in accounting, letshwene and du plessis (2021) found several problems with caps, one of which is the integration of subjects (economics, accounting, and business studies) at grades 8 and 9, that forces some teachers to teach outside their fields of knowledge and expertise. similarly, our close analysis of the caps document for english fal reveals contradictions in terms of implementation in the classroom. according to caps, learning english as fal should enable learners to “express and justify, orally and in writing, their own ideas, views and emotions confidently in order to become independent and analytical thinkers” (department of basic education, 2011, p. 9). however, the approach prescribed for the teaching of literary texts cannot help english fal learners to become the independent and analytical thinkers envisaged. caps requires teachers to “make every attempt to read as much of the text in class as possible without breaking for any other activity” (department of basic education, 2011, p. 17). as a result of this policy injunction, teachers tend to read english literary texts aloud with their learners in class, and the reading aims solely to help learners acquire the most basic knowledge of the texts (mavhiza & prozesky, 2020; simango, 2020). the activities that accompany the reading seldom stimulate learners to think independently and analytically; learners are made to answer questions that require them to merely identify figures of speech in a text, recall plot details, and know characters’ names. the reading aloud, explanation, and narration of content strategies that teachers tend to use in the english fal classroom because of caps are not in sync with critical pedagogy approaches that promote critical thinking. two critical pedagogy approaches that would be useful in an english fal classroom to get learners to think critically about literary texts are cooperative learning and the problemposing method (monchinski, 2008; motlhaka, 2016; nelson & chen, 2022). motlhaka (2016, p. 68–69) explained that “cooperative learning calls for reflection, many responses, as well as change in responses, and allows for group participation to elicit responses which provide a source of information and learning for further discussion.” this approach not only counters the boredom induced by having the teacher read the text aloud and explain the content, it also 78 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 allows learners to work with each other to consider meaning from the text. as motlhaka (2016, p. 69) argued, “[c]ooperative learning enhances students’ critical thinking skills, as they tend to have a deeper understanding of the material and remember it by using the language of the discipline, explaining, providing feedback, understanding alternative perspectives, and organising and synthesising information.” an alternative approach is the problem-posing model. according to nelson and chen (2022) who applied this model in their grade 4 english as a foreign language (efl) class in the united arab emirates, the model is sensitive to learners’ unique realities and promotes critical thinking while enhancing their language productions. this assertion echoes that of monchinski (2008, p. 123) that “a problem-posing education encourages critical learning.” the application of this approach in the english fal classroom, therefore, gives learners a voice, making them agents of learning, in contrast to the teacher-centred approach that makes the teacher the custodian of knowledge. that caps prescribes teaching approaches that are in direct opposition to critical pedagogy approaches makes teacher opportunity in the school system an elusive possibility. another contradiction in caps is that it encourages the concept of critical reading that promotes the idea of critical engagement with textual content, while simultaneously discouraging literary interpretation of texts in its stating that “literary interpretation is essentially a university level activity, and learners in this [fet] phase do not have to learn this advanced level of interpretation” (department of basic education, 2011, p. 17). effectively, caps promotes a superficial explanation of content by teachers because, in its view, literary interpretation is reserved for higher education. an artificial dichotomy is forced between critical reading and literary interpretation as if one is independent of the other. the challenge for new english teachers with critical pedagogy training will be how to work around this contradiction in order to engage learners in interpretations of texts that challenge hegemonic knowledge, especially about race, class, gender, sexuality, and language practices in everyday life. while teacher opportunity is severely limited by this contradiction, english teachers need to find ways to enhance teaching based on using critical pedagogy strategies. in the case of teaching drama texts, teachers can use the talk-back approach that pillay (2021, p. 289) said she used as a high school teacher “and [that] worked very well in interrogating issues on both an intellectual and emotional basis.” according to pillay (p. 289), “[t]alkingback involves speaking as an equal to an authority figure and daring to disagree and/or have an opinion.” she further explained that “within the process, students pose questions, offer alternatives, take liberties, fill in gaps, and challenge assumptions, among others, related to the subject matter and text” (p. 289). talking back in the drama class gives learners voice and agency in making meaning out of texts. by creating the opportunity to use such critical pedagogy approaches in the english classroom, teachers could possibly collapse the capsenforced binary between critical reading and literary interpretation. nkealah & simango: using critical pedagogy in english education 79 preparation vs opportunity: critical pedagogy and learning to teach we established earlier that teacher preparation to practise critical pedagogy is ensured by the work of teacher educators whose curriculum design is underpinned by critical pedagogy principles. as shown earlier, critical pedagogy empowers pre-service teachers to carry out transformative teaching when they graduate and become practitioners. however, as illustrated in the preceding section, these pre-service teachers may need help finding opportunities to practise what they have learned at university since the school system is riddled with constraints on critical education. there is an evident mismatch between teacher preparation initiatives and opportunities for pedagogical enactment regarding critical pedagogy in the classroom. this incongruity has implications for pre-service teachers as they learn to teach english. we go on to discuss some of the complexities in learning to teach that have significance for english education. learning to teach as learning to maximise preparation and optimise opportunity for implementation bringing teacher preparation in conversation with implementation opportunities, we argue that for pre-service english teachers, learning to teach using critical pedagogy means maximising the affordances of their preparation and circumventing the constraints within the school system by creating opportunities for critical pedagogy practice. since providing a fixed blueprint for doing critical pedagogy goes against its fundamental principle of liberatory education (freire, 1972; mclaren, 2007; monchinski, 2008), student teachers need to recognise that what critical pedagogy offers them are possibilities for praxis, not protocols for adoption. it will be up to them to experiment with critical pedagogy approaches in their future classrooms to see what works, how it works, and what the benefits are for their learners. to do this, they will need to create opportunities for critical pedagogy practice in the classroom and capitalise on small windows of opportunity in the curriculum. robinson and rusznyak (2020) noted that learning to teach involves student teachers learning to engage with unpredictability and complexity. it involves finding pragmatic ways of being resilient in the face of the tensions and challenges that are likely to erupt as student teachers move from being students to teachers. for steadman (2021), managing this transition and resolving internal conflicts of commitment and fear are key indicators of teachers’ agency in their professional identity formation. part of teacher preparation should, therefore, aim at preparing pre-service teachers for the complexities, tensions, and challenges they might encounter as novice teachers in schools. learning to teach as learning to navigate contradictions in critical pedagogy praxis for pre-service teachers of english, learning to teach is learning to manage the contradictions and conflicts in critical pedagogy praxis itself. critical pedagogy constructs teachers as “social actors who engage individually and collectively in the process of opening up greater 80 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 democratic spaces and dismantling oppressive structures” (borg & mayo, 2006, p. 130). however, this assumes that teachers are committed to fighting systems of oppression that subjugate subaltern groups. teachers’ own positionality in relation to these groups is often left unquestioned. jeyaraj and harland (2016, p. 13) noted that “one of the greatest dangers of critical pedagogy is that it can be used as a very subtle trojan horse, one which appears to be a gift to the poor but can all too easily contain a hidden agenda.” ellsworth (1992) has warned against the repressive myths of critical pedagogy that has teachers silence diversity or exploit it for their paternalistic agendas under the guise of promoting liberatory education. vandrick (2014, p. 89) cautioned teachers involved in english second language education to reflect constantly on their social class because it has concrete consequences for pedagogy: “social class status can cause great disadvantage or grant a great privilege.” therefore, it is important for pre-service teachers of english to see that the terrain of critical pedagogy is not as neatly mapped out for navigation as some of the theoretical literature suggests it might be. as they learn to go out and teach in various contexts, they need to figure out the pedagogical compasses with which they will navigate the complex environment of critical pedagogy praxis. since critical pedagogy is not a one-size-fits-all pedagogy, they will need to make critical judgments in choosing their critical methods and this requires them to understand their context, and be sensitive to learner diversity, the dynamics of the learning environment, school culture, and community influence. this is where giroux’s (1992) concept of border crossing comes in. border crossing in this context would entail teachers stepping into the universes of their learners to actually understand their worlds and the challenges therein, rather than trying to assimilate them into a dominant world order (see, too, borg and mayo, 2006). only through possessing accurate knowledge about their learners’ socio-cultural contexts would teachers be able to engage learners in meaningful learning activities. thus, learning to teach means learning to work with and through the contradictions in critical pedagogy praxis. learning to teach as learning to reflect on everyday social problems while managing traumatic emotions english teachers work with texts that are set in various contexts, both local and international. in this regard, learning to teach using critical pedagogy means learning to reflect on everyday social problems from local and international spaces and finding ways to initiate conversations in the classroom where the local speaks with the global and vice versa. according to mclaren (2007), critical pedagogy rejects the teaching of narrow thinking skills and, instead, encourages a pedagogy that brings contentious debates in learners’ contexts into the classroom and links these to international dialogue. however, a reflective practice means that english teachers will not just bring into the classroom international news, such as the murder of african american george floyd by a white police officer in the us in may 2020, and get students to talk about it since such discussions might end up as mere political propaganda. reflecting on the story first and meditating on all the details will allow the teacher to identify fundamental transgressions of human dignity and social justice that surfaced from the incident (see pabon, 2018, for example). then the teacher can design english lessons that nkealah & simango: using critical pedagogy in english education 81 draw on the incident to create talking points for learners and also develop their reflective writing skills. learning to teach in this case means learning to reflect on the various possibilities surrounding cases of social injustice and asking critical questions such as what happened, what could have happened, and what should have happened. such critical reflections, however, may also cause trauma for english teachers since their emotions are part of who they are (steadman, 2021; zembylas, 2013). having theoretical knowledge of incidents of social injustice does not spare the teacher from emotional pain, so the teacher will also have to find ways of dealing with such knowledge without being scarred. this situation illustrates what zembylas (2013, p. 182) referred to as “the complexity of difficult emotional knowledge.” for pre-service teachers of english, therefore, learning to teach means learning to develop coping mechanisms for traumatic situations in teaching. since “learning to teach is emotional” (steadman, 2021, p. 3), no degree of teacher preparation can eliminate the possibility of emotional trauma. in addition, learning to teach is about learning to accept that critical pedagogy will not always result in positive, exciting feelings in learners. the result will sometimes be a mixture of pleasure and pain (mclaren, 1989; perumal, 2014). yet, critical teachers will always need to have difficult conversations with learners in the english classroom. that there is no easy way out of this messy situation points to the complexity of learning to teach english using approaches based on critical pedagogy. learning to teach as learning to reconcile empowerment and disempowerment although critical pedagogy does not constitute a homogenous set of ideas, critical theorists are united in their objective to promote education that empowers the powerless, challenges existing social inequalities, and promotes social justice for all (aliakbari & faraji, 2011; mclaren, 2007). the empowerment discourse, however, needs to be subjected to scrutiny if it is to answer the important question of whether this empowerment is to be achieved with the learners or merely intended for them. gore (1992, p. 63) argued that in attempts to empower others we need to acknowledge that our agency has limits, that we might ‘get it wrong’ in assuming we know what would be empowering for others, and no matter what our aims or how we go about ‘empowering’, our efforts will be partial and inconsistent. so, in learning to teach english using critical pedagogy, pre-service teachers must also learn to be critical of their ideologies of empowerment (breuing, 2011; gore, 1993). the disparity between teacher preparation and opportunity must compel pre-service teachers to be humble and reflexive about their claims to empower learners (gore, 1992). equally, they must be ready to accept that learner empowerment may lead to learner resistance. while teachers may be pushing learners towards taking action to end social injustice, “some students may voice reservations, even resistance, about being required to work for social change” (fobes & kaufman, 2008, p. 27). this poses a conundrum where learner empowerment—a fundamental objective of critical pedagogy—becomes the cause of learners’ disruptive behaviour in class. 82 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 the reverse side of the empowerment discourse in critical pedagogy that further highlights the complexity of learning to teach, is the teacher’s own disempowerment. several south african studies have demonstrated the affordances of critical pedagogy in the empowerment of the youth (cooper, 2016; mayaba et al., 2018). but what is often missed is the pervasive sense of disempowerment teachers may experience as they encounter a school curriculum that leaves little opportunity for independent intellectual work with learners. so, while the rhetoric in critical pedagogy is largely attuned to teachers empowering learners, current teaching conditions in schools enforce teacher disempowerment. it is, therefore, hard to see how disempowered learners can be empowered by equally disempowered teachers. this points to a complexity in learning to teach with which pre-service english teachers must contend. they need to understand that as teachers they will be working constantly to empower themselves through training programmes for teacher development, thereby enhancing their capacity to empower learners. conclusion while preparing prospective teachers for the english classroom is being done in laudable, pragmatic ways in many universities in south africa, the responsibility for creating opportunities to implement critical pedagogy, in whatever context of teaching they find themselves, will remain that of the teacher graduates. they must start by defining themselves as critical teachers and building on this identity. for pre-service english teachers, this requires a strong sense of self to push forward despite the limitations posed by caps. for a critical english teacher, learning to teach ultimately means exploiting limitations to create opportunities. acknowledgements this work is based on research supported wholly by the national institute for the humanities and social sciences (nihss). references aliakbari, m., & faraji, e. 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(2013). critical pedagogy and emotion: working through ‘troubled knowledge’ in posttraumatic contexts. critical studies in education, 54(2), 176–189. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2012.743468 microsoft word bissue72 final.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 72, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i72a01 epistemic justice through ontological reclamation in pedagogy: detailing mutual (in)fallibility using inseparable categories siseko h. kumalo philosophy department, university of pretoria jdd@up.ac.za (received: 1 march 2018; accepted: 24 august 2018) abstract impulsive uses of collective memory to rally support for decolonised education, establishing clear divisions through binary oppositional thinking, have been characteristic of the student movement. analysing the binaries that constitute the decolonial turn, i highlight misconceptions of decoloniality that facilitate the erasure of oppositional voices in decolonisation. misconceptions of decoloniality manifest as the dismissal of all so-called non-african knowledge as colonial. i subsequently caution against the perverted inversions of power in knowledge production in higher education in south africa and interrogate positions that i perceive to be recreating fundamentalisms in the quest for decolonised education. using a decolonial critique that frames education as emancipatory, i argue for the impossibility of separable categories. i conclude by raising two questions, both of which require further investigation: what is the role of higher education in south africa today? does decolonial thinking in praxis displace assumptions that continue to perpetuate and maintain coloniality in the south african academy? keywords: decolonisation, curriculum reform, higher education and the decontextualised learner introduction higher education in our context has been framed by the white paper 3 of 1997 and subsequent legislation such as the higher education act of 1997 as a social institution that ought to function to redress historical injustices. contemporarily, these aspirations have been articulated as a form of epistemic justice through the scholarship of philosophers working in the field of philosophy of higher education (see almeida & kumalo, 2018; metz, 2018; morreira, 2017). these scholars have articulated the role of higher education in repelling historical injustices, using african communal values (metz, 2018) and have revealed continued injustice through ontological reframing and the co-optation of indigeneity into (de)colonial strategies (almeida & kumalo, 2018). my aim in this paper is twofold: first i reveal how hegemonic voices in the #fallist movement silenced dissident voices, through adopting, by way of mimicry, the hegemony established by colonial masculinities; second, i kumalo: epistemic justice through ontological reclamation in pedagogy . . . 5 evaluate the extent to which higher education delivers on the aims of redressing historical injustices. in working through the second evaluative move i use a theory of mutual (in)fallibility that fosters epistemic justice, as demanded by students through the #fallist movement. the concept of mutual (in)fallibility is altered from the work of keet, zinn, and porteus (2009) who argue for a pedagogy of mutual vulnerability in post-conflictual societies such as ours. the infraction here serves to re-articulate the pedagogical responsibility of the intellectual/pedagogue/professor, in that through her or his praxis, there are ethical and moral boundaries which should not be blurred and allowed to interrupt the pedagogical journey of the student. it is on the basis of these ethical and moral boundaries that the concept is infracted from vulnerability to (in)fallibility. 1 framing higher education as an institution that delivers on social justice is a move that comes from brighouse’s (2003) reading of john rawls’s theory of justice which maintains that justice is the primary virtue of all social institutions. framing higher education as an institution that should uphold the virtue of justice comes from an engagement with the work of welsh and savage (1977) who have problematised how the university in south africa has deepened racial and ethnic divides. i anticipate an objection from those who maintain that there has been a significant amount of change in the higher education system of south africa. i grant this, although, since they were writing at the height of segregation and apartheid in south africa, the concerns raised by welsh and savage (1977) continue to have currency today because of the aspirations of the governing legislation in the sector. in line with the vision of a new south africa, legislation has sought to ensure that higher education functions as a means of bridging the gaps and cleavages that were instituted by apartheid. this aspiration of closing social fissures, derived from years of colonial domination that culminated in the apartheid regime, is witnessed in the foreword to white paper 3 of 1997 wherein professor bengu, then minister of education, wrote that “[t]he higher education system must be transformed to redress past inequalities, to serve a new social order, to meet pressing national needs and to respond to new realities and opportunities” (p. 1). in articulating how higher education ought to function as a social institution that is geared towards redressing historical injustice in the first section of the paper, i trace how the difference principle, which is developed in the work of rawls and which undergirds a liberal constitutionalism, can be understood as synonymous with coloniality which is premised on modernity. this appraisal foregrounds a critique of the liberal constitutionalism that was contested by the #fallist movement. the move that equates modernity with coloniality is rooted in a decolonial analysis and substantiated by the scholarship of grosfoguel (2007, 2013) and tlostanova and mignolo (2009). in revealing the politics of recognition and denial, i argue that the progression of the #fallist movement, in silencing dissenting voices, recreated the same essentialising modes of oppression that it sought to oppose. in the second section i deal with the question of how the #fallist movement pressed the contemporary academy to re-imagine a curriculum from the locale of the indigenous being. i do this using 1 mutual (in)fallibility denotes the presuppositions that the intellectual and the student both bring to the pedagogical journey. the parenthesis denotes how these beliefs may be perceived as infallible at first glance, but when interrogated further, prove to be socially constructed biases which influence how we interact with the world around us, either holding views that limit our social position or broaden said position. 6 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 the concept of the decontextualized learner developed by boughey and mckenna (2015; 2016). to resolve this tension, in the third section, i use the impossibility of separable categories as developed by ndebele (1994). my aim here is to nuance the decolonisation debate through centring the role of education and its emancipatory potential. rawlsian justice for education in historically unequal societies in order to situate my discussion on social and epistemic justice through education, i begin by detailing the rawlsian theory of justice, which is framed in rawls’s (1958) scholarship as “justice as fairness” (p. 164). this analysis is undertaken with the intention of deciphering whether the principles of justice as fairness can be applied in the south african context. my appraisal of rawlsian justice is done to markedly situate the contributions of the #fallist movement that contested (neo)liberal conceptions of justice. rawls’s theory of justice is premised on the original position and the difference principle. the original position is constituted by the veil of ignorance which, when used effectively, allows men 2 to structure society to afford equality of opportunity to all. the veil of ignorance assumes that those who enter behind the veil are ignorant of who they might be outside of the veil and subsequently structure society to ensure the equality of all (daniels, 2000). the difference principle, which is the second move that rawls makes in his theory, maintains that by structuring society through fairness in the distribution of resources, such as wealth, status, and other social goods—the concept of justice as desert—we can begin to posit a theory of justice that is both universal and abstract. justice as desert bridges social inequality by asserting that people ought to get what they deserve rather than unfairly benefiting from filial ties or talents for which they have not worked (slote, 2017). justice as desert thus aims to resolve inherent social inequalities by appealing to the deeds of a person and encouraging a spirit of conscientiously working towards the betterment of society instead of merely selfish interests. subsequently, social inequalities, as dictated by the difference principle, should be structured to benefit the least well-off in society. a liberal 3 conception of society and its attendant structures and social institutions is derived from rawls’s theory of justice, which posits justice as fairness. to frame justice as fairness is, according to rawls, premised on the assumption that we agree (there is consensus) on matters concerning individual freedoms and how social institutions attend to the dysfunction of these through liberal constitutionalism, what rawls (1987) later called an overlapping consensus of our society. however, before moving on to conduct the appraisal of rawls’s theory, i wish to sketch in summative form the workings of an overlapping consensus. rawls (1987) maintained that an 2 i use the term men deliberately since the politics of the #fallist movement manifested through men taking the lead in conversations that were organised and initiated by women and gender-non-conforming peoples. the masculinist logic and gendered language of the times of rawls permeated the #fallist movements (see http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/unheard-voices-lgbtq-people-student-movements/). my use of this phraseology is done in an attempt to subvert the role of, and reveal how, men in the #fallist movement acted as the centre of enunciation. 3 here liberal is used as it has developed and influenced political paradigms and systems of governance. kumalo: epistemic justice through ontological reclamation in pedagogy . . . 7 overlapping consensus should be achieved through the structuring of social institutions using democratic constitutionalism, which treats all men with fairness. to treat all men with fairness assumes that everyone is equal before the law 4 and that all men are able to judge what is good, through the use of practical reason (daniels, 2000). an objection which may be levelled against an overlapping consensus can be found, through interpretation, in the work of macintyre (1988) who addressed in detail the question of whose rationality is used in defining individuals as possessing practical rationality/reason. macintyre raises this question after foregrounding how we live in highly complex societies that shape and influence our thoughts and perceptions of the world we inhabit. the aim here, however, is not to exhaust the debate of rational reason since i deal with this contention later in the paper, but, rather, to showcase the shortcomings of the premise which supposes that we act from a universally accepted and dominant conception of reason and rationality. this shortcoming foregrounds the decolonial critique which has been levelled against western coloniality/modernity. daniels’s (2000) assessment of an overlapping consensus suggested that this consensus should distinguish between private and public (otherwise defined as political) domains. this distinction allows for a pluralism that coalesces differences on non-political positions as they manifest from person to person as a result of their personal reflective equilibrium. pluralism thus defined is necessary since it secures the maintenance of the liberalist order which is embedded in a democratic constitutionalism developed by rawls (1987). what we miss, however, in the pursuit of a liberal society is the notion of divergent and contradictory views of what society ought to look like. i contend, therefore, that it was these divergent views that were being expressed by the #fallist movement, which took issue with the nature and form of the contemporary university in south africa. these divergent views have been addressed by standish (2003) who has emphasised that education is a personalised, historically, and politically constructed concept. this position was substantiated by ramose (2014), who considered socratic notions of truth and justice and argued that this contradiction arises from two competing external truth positions that then require a politico-juridical adjudicator. these externally competing truth positions that birth differences are constitutive of the cultural, political, and social situatedness that make the social institution of education a contentious institution as standish (2003) has argued. social positionalities, which are premised on culture, political and social situatedness, inform how we interact with, make meaning of, and understand our worlds. cultural specificities inform how knowledge is constituted in different contexts, a point that has been emphasised in the work of minh-ha (1989) and has received credible uptake in the scholarship of thinkers in the social epistemological circles. at this juncture we can begin to question whether the rawlsian conception of justice truly works for the south african context, but definitive conclusions to this end would be premature at this point. the distinction between private and public domains emphasised by an overlapping consensus obscures the work of social epistemologists, specifically in relation to education. social 4 another qualification which cannot go unmentioned comes from mills (2009) who details the place of race in a rawlsian conception of justice. it is crucial for my reader to bear in mind that the subject, for whom equality before the law was sacrosanct, is the white male, in accordance with the rawlsian conception of justice. 8 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 epistemologists have argued for the use of experiential knowledge in curriculation strategies (see popkewitz & brennan, 1997) and the development of theoretical tools that assist in articulating the challenges of specific locales. mohanty (1993), who wrote on the epistemic status of cultural identity, is instructive in this case. she maintained that cultural identity can be harnessed to speak back and build new conceptions of knowledge which have been neglected because of systems of power, domination, and oppression and the imposition of colonial modes of knowing and being. if we are to take seriously the distinction made in daniels’s (2000) work, we would lose sight of the potentialities that lie in using experiential knowledge for the purposes of curriculating from a position that seeks to redress historical traumas and violences in the south african context. locating our curriculum in the contextual specificities of cultural identities responds meaningfully to the charge made by nyoka (2013), who critiqued south africa social theory for its continued importation of theoretical frameworks from the north. these concerns have been echoed in the work of decolonial writers tlostanova and mignolo (2009) as well as grosfoguel (2013) who argued that the structure of knowledge in westernised universities is premised on privileging knowledge produced in the west. 5 this reality is based on the colonial legacy that established educational models that reflect mimetic pedagogical praxes that continue to be the bastions of coloniality even in a post-colonial condition such as south africa’s. through the continued importation of theory, we bear witness to the cultural erasures which have been vehemently contested through the actions of students in 2015, through the #fallist movement. what is revealed through the actions of the #fallist movement are the tensions maintained through social structures, therefore necessitating the contestation of the overlapping consensus developed by rawls. this contestation is premised on the rejection of liberal constitutionalism, which maintains social structures of domination and the systematic exclusion of blackness from institutions of higher learning in the country. the #fallist movement has pressed the south african university and academic to conceptualise anew how they teach and what they teach. i subsequently develop the argument below that the actions of the #fallist movement should be understood as challenging conceptual schemas of justice such as rawls developed in a theory of justice (1971) since students seem to understand these conceptions of justice to be perpetuating domination. modernity/coloniality: the role of liberal constitutionalism i wish to highlight that in detailing the critiques of liberal constitutionalism my aim is neither to contest nor challenge the constitutional framework that has facilitated democracy in south africa. rather, i wish to reveal the salient discourses in the student movement that frame the contemporary constitutional framework as a mode of selling out. selling out, as it has been used by contemporary discourses of the #fallist movement, connotes collusion between the new ruling black elite and the former oppressors, the white supremacists who sought to maintain their position of power even after the demise of apartheid. this discourse is 5 i do not use a capital letter here since i am writing from a decolonial perspective. kumalo: epistemic justice through ontological reclamation in pedagogy . . . 9 predicated on the demand that the land be returned to ensure the economic emancipation of the majority in the country. this demand is in direct correlation with the demands of the decolonial/indigeneity studies movement in canada which demands the restitution of land as a means of fostering epistemic justice and thus substantive constitutional justice. furthermore, we cannot evade the reality that many black south africans remain in poverty, in under-resourced schools, landless and disenfranchised from economic participation, rendering them unable to substantively participate in the democratic processes of the country. this brief contextual analysis nuances the critique of the difference principle as levelled by a student movement that contests a (neo)liberal ordering of society. in the process of dispossession, invasion, and colonialism what became of indigenous/black subjectivities, was later to be framed through the lens of apartheid, a logical progression in the continuum of oppression. apartheid cannot, however, be understood outside of the dialogical nature in which blackness and whiteness exist in colonial societies. rutherford (1990) has pointed out that homi bhabha, who uses a hegelian dialect to analyse oppression, makes the claim of culture mutating and re-formulating thus creating a synthesis that bhabha termed third space hybridity. arriving at third space hybridity requires the thesis, understood as southern african precolonial societies, with the antithesis marked by the colonial moment of settler arrival. hegelian dialectics inform us that from the thesis and the antithetical tension we arrive at the final position which is synthesis, which can here be interpreted as bhabha’s third space hybridity which is constituted by the amalgamation of both the cultures of the oppressed and the oppressor, creating a cosmopolitan reality located in modernity. the cosmopolitan reality of modernity in the scholarship of the decolonial movement of south america (grosfoguel, 2007; tlostanova & mignolo, 2009; maldonadotorres, 2006; mignolo, 2011; nakata, nakata, keech, & bolt, 2012), which in recent times has been adopted by the decolonial turn in south africa evinced through the scholarship of vorster and quinn (2017) has been framed as synonymous with coloniality. framing modernity as synonymous with coloniality reveals the chronology of modernity as emanating from the histories of the exploitation of black cotton-farm slaves of the southern states of america, the indentured labourers of the sugar cane plantations of the south coast and the migrant labour in the gold and diamond mines of the witwatersrand and kimberly respectively, of south africa. 6 grosfoguel (2007) argued that it is through the narrative of enlightenment that european powers are led to the colonialist project. this claim is premised on the link that grosfoguel made between descartes’s cogito ergo sum, and what later becomes “i conquer therefore i am” (grosfoguel, 2011, p. 6) which presses whiteness and coloniality to dispossess, enslave, and oppress subaltern 7 bodies. further, modernity as synonymous with coloniality highlights the intersectionality in the (neo)liberal, patriarchal, capitalist global economy which was birthed by systems of exploitation, domination, and oppression. dispossession, exploitation, and violent masculinities are linked to liberalism through the rights to private property which 6 given the focus and aims of this paper, i am cautious about mapping out this historical progression. 7 the term subaltern is used in this paper, as developed by spivak (1988) who asks, in the title of her seminal contribution, can the subaltern speak? 10 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 are vehemently defended by capitalist society. using capitalism, and numerous political structures, practices, and attitudes that prop up liberal democracy remain unquestioned and intact, as has been argued by dahl (1970). this brief summative sketch brings into full view the project of questioning an uncritical adherence to liberal ideology, which was contested by the #fallist movement. however, my aim here is not to detail the decolonial turn, which has currently mesmerised the south african academe. rather, it is to demonstrate how the cosmopolitan reality of modernity which is synonymous with coloniality gave rise to the displacement, erasure, and silencing of voices interpreted as dissenting from the formal consensus that governed the decolonial project among the #fallists. understanding modernity as synonymous with coloniality allowed the #fallists to make the move that contests the legitimacy of liberalism in our context and foregrounds the premises that contest liberal constitutionalism in a post-colonial society. in challenging liberalism in the south african context, it is critical to note that the principles of liberalism assume ontological homogeneity, represented in the rawlsian formulation that all those who enter behind the veil of ignorance are equal before the law. a further assumption contends that all persons are capable of rational reason, as determined by western conceptions of rationality and reason—an assumption which, when pressed from a decolonial perspective, begins to wither. our context interpreted through a decolonial lens suggests that what we are dealing with, rather, are hierarchies of being, constituted through a heteronormative patriarchy, which defines the white cis-gendered male knower as the legitimate knowledge-producer, capable even of speaking on behalf of all subaltern bodies. as a result, the legitimate knower is the patron of these violent masculinities derived from colonialism which become imbued in subaltern masculinities as they attempt to define their personhood using resistance strategies that mimic the colonial masters. the act of mimicry among the #fallists culminated in the creation of violent masculinities as they became the spokespeople of all in the #mustfall movement. through the imposition of violent black masculinities we witnessed the relegation of all other knowers, who may have been perceived as threatening these gendered power systems, to the periphery in a fashion that silences and displaces voices of dissent. this was witnessed in the #mustfall movement, with queer bodies, women, and disabled bodies contesting the violence with which these masculinities manifested in the movement. 8 these hierarchies of being substantiate the claim that we are not dealing with equal persons who enjoy the same liberties enshrined in the constitution. hierarchies of being that place priority on violent masculinities, given the co-option of violence by patriarchy, have been challenged in critical african feminist thought by gqola (2007), who has suggested that for us to claim to be truly living in a democratic society, women along with men ought to be accorded the equality that enables each person to truly realise her or his agency without having to live in fear of violence that aims to regulate the autonomy of each. 8 in a panel discussion an activist from rhodes university contended, according to henderson (2017), that “it’s painful for us to come here and be spoken about. erased‚ and then spoken about” (n.p.). kumalo: epistemic justice through ontological reclamation in pedagogy . . . 11 in tracing how dispossession through the colonial encounter facilitated modernity in our context, i aim to reveal the historical imbrications that facilitated the birthing of violent contemporary masculinities. in the context of the #fallist movement, these violent masculinities asserted themselves as the spokespeople of the movement, thus silencing alternative voices through the active work of dismissing queer, feminised, and dissident voices in the movement. my aim thus, is to reveal the modalities in which the rawlsian difference principle undermines the objectives of attaining substantive justice through tracing how inequality in our context is not to the benefit of the least well-off. undermining substantive justice is envisaged in how masculinities in the #fallist movement silenced, erased, and marginalised dissenting voices underscoring the contentiousness of applying an overlapping consensus in our context. liberal constitutionalism, premised on modernity, that i have shown to be synonymous with coloniality, operates through displacements that silence and continue to oppress feminised bodies. having revealed the intersectionalities between patriarchy, violent masculinities, and capitalism, all of which function to undermine a genuine commitment to decoloniality in our context, i now consider the questions posed by macintyre (1988) in the title of his book, whose justice? which rationality? in what follows i clarify how these questions centre the importance of the propositions made by wiredu (1998) who, in pointing to the need to decolonise african philosophy and religion, reveals the angst of adopting western forms of knowledge, and substantiates the need to challenge the notion of an overlapping consensus through the case-study of the decontextualized learner. the decontextualized learner/native of nowhere in detailing the notion of the decontextualized learner, i must qualify the ways in which macintyre’s (1988) question can be instrumentalised by radical voices in the curriculum reform debate, essentially recreating the same modes of oppression that decolonisation and decoloniality claim to be working against. he makes the argument that we can understand the thinking of a philosopher only once we have considered her or his social and cultural context. understanding the cultural and social context from which a writer speaks requires that we understand that no knowledge framework is universal, but, rather, that each knowledge framework is provincial (grosfoguel, 2007). to frame knowledge as provincial does not disqualify the legitimacy of that episteme, but connotes an understanding of the functions of ahistoricising, and apoliticising knowledge. a tradition that was adopted by colonialism and continues to the modern day, frames (and has framed) knowledge as ahistorical and apolitical while divorcing it from its social and cultural context, therefore substantiating the claim of universality. this tradition substantiated the actions of colonial settlers, masters and thinkers alike, in rendering indigenous knowledges obsolete, doing what mudimbe (1988) called the anthropologising of indigenous epistemes through their classification as “gradual, retarded and backward” (p. 3). classifying subaltern epistemes thus allowed for the erasure of these knowledges and this resulted in epistemic violences that began at the inception of the european colonialist project. 12 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 some decolonialists subsequently use this historical instrumentalisation of anthropology as a way of classifying all knowledge that emanates from the west as imperial, colonial, and of no use in the context of decolonisation. envisaged through this strand of the decoloniality discourse is a move which aims to raze colonial knowledges and institutions to the ground, without systematically attempting to understand the contextual specificities from which the contemporary university functions. i should not be misunderstood as being an apologist of colonialism and white domination; what i am attempting here is an historical reading that shapes contemporary knowledge frameworks and subsequently complicates the position of radical decolonialists. fundamentally, i wish to reveal the banality and trite intellectual laziness of those who claim to be radically decolonising the university without a contextual understanding that refutes separable categories. a critique that can be levelled against grosfoguel (2013) when he wrote about the structure of knowledge in westernised universities rests on how his contribution here does little to complicate the decolonial debate. nuancing the decolonising project entails an awareness of how these knowledges, while provincial in their nature, are useful in the project of refashioning and reconceptualising subaltern knowledges which were, in part, erased by the colonial project. what i aim to stress through a nuanced understanding of the decolonial project is how we can begin to create ecologies of knowledges that transcend and meaningfully decolonise the canon. my aim here then is to press grosfoguel (2011) on his claim of transcending the canon as an act of decolonising that challenges the binary thinking that claims that any and every knowledge framework developed in the west is colonial. while it is necessary to acknowledge that these knowledges were used in the past to colonise and control subaltern bodies, it is also equally important to remind ourselves of bhabha’s third space hybridity (see rutherford, 1990). through conceptually understanding the post-colony using third space hybridity, i wish to complicate the essentialist moves made by radical proponents of decolonisation, through revealing that both the subaltern and their oppressors work together in defining and re-defining their identities. 9 the process of defining and re-defining identities brings me to the consideration of the decontextualized learner. boughey and mckenna (2015) have problematised how the university discourse propagates a conception of knowledge-making as apolitical, ahistorical, and devoid of social and cultural practices. through problematising this culture of knowledge-production in the university, these scholars highlight how colonial discourses continue to permeate the university since the contemporary south african university is organised along the structure of the westernised one. second, these scholars point to how this mode of framing places the problem solely at the doorstep of the learner, resulting in the deficiency discourse that frames subaltern bodies in the contemporary university as lacking and in need of capacitation. what is implicit in the deficiency discourse is the assumption that knowledge is apolitical, which, in turn, leaves contemporary modes of teaching and learning unchallenged. it is this ardent adherence to the classification of knowledge as an apolitical, 9 i should not be misunderstood here as simply glossing over a number of complications and realities that strain at the existence of the post-colonial subject. however, i wish to stress how the colonial condition, while defined by violence—epistemic, political, ontological and social—is a space that forces cross-cultural contamination from both the colonised and the coloniser. kumalo: epistemic justice through ontological reclamation in pedagogy . . . 13 ahistorical, and socially and culturally devoid project that has been challenged by the student movements in recent times. however, the challenge brought to the academy against academics by student movements has not come without its own problematics. to charge the student movements with being riddled with problematics is premised on how the student movement has classified any dissent from the radically defined notion of decolonisation as fundamentally in contradiction to the emancipatory aims pursed by the #fallists. these clearly defined strategies of decolonisation, which classify the historically white university as a bastion of coloniality in its entirety, give rise to the logic that anyone who deviates from these definitions is a clear enemy. defining dissenting voices as enemies poses numerous dangers, with some of these dangers witnessed in the #mustfall protests of 2016. through a discourse that framed dissenting voices as enemies, 10 south africa witnessed students pitted against each other, all in the name of a call to radically decolonise the university. essentially, through a radical outlook that defined oppositional voices as the enemy, a strategy that led to the social death of dissenting voices, the student movement in its decolonising agenda recreated the same fundamentalisms that it sought to uproot. while some components of the decolonial movement are indeed legitimate, it is necessary that in the process, the academe remain critical and open to the wisdom of thinking. this requires that we reveal the provinciality of each knowledge system, while being receptive to lessons from history and acknowledging where provincial knowledges may be useful in developing and refashioning contemporary epistemes. this process reiterates the questions posed by macintyre (1988) to define the rationally reasonable person. implicit in macintyre’s (1988) questions, for the purposes of this analysis, is that we analyse the possibility of delivering on a just education system that is decolonised and transformed through the use of strategies that aim to decentre knowledge that continues to masquerade unquestioned as hegemonic imperialism. i believe that wiredu’s (1980) contention that we decolonise african philosophy and religion might shed some light on the question of a just and decolonised education system that decentres eurocentric modalities. the politics of knowledge and emancipation through education in whose justice? which rationality? macintyre (1988) highlights the political nature of knowledge through revealing that knowledge is constituted through a tradition. the term tradition as used here denotes the cultural mores and social values that an individual inherits from her or his social context that frames the ways in which the individual interacts with the world. macintyre’s (1988) work is necessary to revealing how the contradictions which are inherent in the student movement manifest themselves through the use of historical memory used in the decolonial movement as a rallying call. eyerman (2001) has maintained that after twenty to thirty years, a generation draws from historical memory as a mode of recounting what socio-political liberties remain unachieved in contemporary society. 10 see samanga’s (2016) analysis of how the #mustfall movement split into two camps. 14 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 using historical memory, the #fallist movement sought to fashion a struggle that fought against what students felt had not been attained in a democratic south africa. however, the challenge with this historical lens, that then inspires the new generation, is that it fails to consider that the contemporary dispensation is one that is rooted in a democracy and not in an oppressive regime governed by laws of segregation and exploitation. thus, the contradictions within the movement are premised on an attempt to recreate, in a democratic state, a regime that is repressive. subsequently, we see the notion of a clear enemy identified by mazwai (2016) in the essentialised spaces of oppression (that invoke colonial tropes that continue to exist in the university) in order to imagine state machinery as oppressive. in mazwai’s rendition of “jikijela” the voice-over in the song makes the claim that “we understand and we know clearly who the enemy is.” the binary mode of thinking that we witnessed in the 2016 academic year fed into the classification of a liberal constitutionalism as a system which undermines the place of blackness in south africa. wiredu (1998) has pointed out that the role of philosophy should be understood as a consistent questioning and critical examination of the conceptual frameworks upon which the thought of a culture is premised. in keeping with this definition of what philosophy ought to do, i wish to examine the culture upon which the south african black experience rests. blackness in south africa has had a history of resistance against domination since the inception of colonialism. while there exists a multiplicity of identities in south africa, evinced through the numerous ethnicities, there is a shared history of resistance against white minority rule and the oppression of all black peoples of the country. this history and memory were used in the decolonial calls to rally all students behind the incentive of decolonising the university. ndebele (1994), in his south african literature and culture, notes the impossibility of separable categories that deny all south africans positions of absolute innocence. this claim can be substantiated through bhabha’s third space hybridity, which claims that the cultures of the oppressed and the oppressor work interchangeably and in consort to create new identities, which, as discussed above, form a cosmopolitan identity. i must insist here that the inherited cosmopolitan identity does not take away from the legitimacy and reality of the historical violence that necessitated resistance in the first instance. gqola (2001) has made the argument that the new dispensation created a sense of tokenistic inclusion, as black south africans were continually reminded of their historically subjugated role. this history was used by the student movement as a rallying call for decolonisation of higher education, but subsequently ended up recreating the same modes of oppression that it sought to dismantle, as detailed in the discussion above. these differences that gqola (2001) noted inspire further articulation and introspection in order to understand how decolonisation ought to function in south africa. i wish to posit that these differences present the contemporary academic with a generative space for curriculum reform in a pedagogy of what i call mutual (in)fallibility that could flourish in parallel with the “mutual vulnerability” of keet, zinn, and porteus’s (2009) article title. differences premised on history allow us to confront historical traumas which ought not to be repeated. this articulation of education unearths the emancipatory capacity of education. framing a pedagogy of mutual vulnerability as a humanising tool, rests on the assertion made by kumalo: epistemic justice through ontological reclamation in pedagogy . . . 15 wiredu (1998) who has argued that decolonisation must refer to due reflection and durable deference if it is to attain the objectives that it sets out to achieve. prior to making this claim, wiredu (1998) maintained that decolonisation in african philosophy does not mean forced unanimity among africans. this assertion substantiates the claim i made earlier in this paper that the project of a uniform conception of decolonisation, with dissenting voices framed as enemies, heralds the dangerous slippage which, momentarily, disrupts essentialisms and fundamentalist positions without dismantling the power structures that create subaltern and hegemonic beings. a just education system, which is both decolonised and transformed, requires that the university return to its traditional definition as a space teeming with ideas and contradictory views. this framework allows us to harness the traumas of history while confronting these traumas with a durable deference. if decolonisation is understood properly it signifies the creation of an ecology of knowledges as central to the ethos and culture of the university. durable deference along with a collegial institutional framework undergirded by the principle of an ecology of knowledges harnesses rather than contests ndebele’s (1994) claim that in a context like south africa the possibility of separable categories is not only fallible but is also unobtainable. an education system that is decolonised and just, undertakes to reveal the provincialities of knowledges while embracing those elements that can be used in advancing the objective of teaching with the aim of humanising—an objective that is central to a pedagogy of mutual (in)fallibility. conclusion decolonialists in south africa have been at pains to define how and what the act of decolonisation looks like. this has been, in part, given the fact that decolonisation in the country has been led by a student movement that sought to challenge colonial modes of being that continue to define subaltern bodies as the perpetual other, in constant need of the masters of coloniality to come to their aid. as a result, academics (specifically radical decolonialists across the academy) relinquished their pedagogical responsibility, first and foremost, in order to be regarded as being in solidarity with the calls for decolonisation as demanded by students. this relinquishing of responsibility, what i interpret to be a dereliction of duty, created narratives and conceptual understandings of decolonisation which are not only dangerous but play further into the discourse of banal binaries. in essence, what i witnessed in the academy was and continues to be an intellectual community that dances to the tune of power while neglecting the honourable duty that calls upon academics to be critical thinkers who inculcate a culture of critical thinking in students. this reality presents us with a critical question that requires further attention and investigation in decolonial scholarship: what is the function/role of higher education in contemporary south african society? while the move that describes the actions of radical decolonialists as a dereliction of duty might seem egregious to some, it is in fact precisely what academics continue to do through a blind commitment to student calls for decolonisation without a critical examination of the 16 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 context in which we are located. student calls for decolonisation are indeed worthy and substantiated, as showcased by boughey and mckenna (2015, 2016) through their discussion of the decontextualized learner. the concept of the decontextualized learner reveals how the contemporary university continues to perpetuate coloniality through the apoliticisation and ahistoricisation of knowledge, stripping it of its social and cultural contextualities that frame and create systems of power. challenging these systems of power, which the decolonial turn in south africa has set out to achieve, is indeed a legitimate and substantiated cause. however, it is the duty of the academic to guide students in a responsible way by empowering them with the tools with which to dismantle these systems of power. this duty arises from the fact that the academics are responsible for these skewed imbalances of power since they benefit from the status quo subsequently maintaining and perpetuating these systems. this schema of duty gives birth to a second deeper question that demands further philosophical considerations in education: does decoloniality in praxis shift contemporary imbalances of power in the knowledge production project of higher education in south africa? if we are truly to acknowledge the concept of a pedagogy of mutual (in)fallibility derived from the work of keet et al. (2009), it becomes the responsibility of academics to reveal their role within the broader social structure so as to establish mutuality in a pedagogical schema prefaced by (in)fallibility as a humanising tool. resigning from this responsibility, which i interpret to be a dereliction of duty, is indicative of an intellectual community that aims to merely tinker with the system while leaving the overarching structure unchanged, unquestioned, and unchallenged. what is required of academics in an historical moment such as ours is a merging of disciplinary expertise with an ethical pedagogical obligation that defines education as a humanising process. it is only through the realisation of the emancipatory potential of education that we can truly begin decolonising and transforming higher education in south africa. references almeida, s., & kumalo, s. h. (2018). 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(1998). toward decolonizing african philosophy and religion. african studies quarterly, 1(4), 17–46. journal of education, 2017 issue 69, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za principals’ perspectives and experiences of their instructional leadership functions to enhance learner achievement in public schools raj mestry (received 21 february 2017; accepted 3 july 2017) abstract school principals are faced with new demands, more complex decisions and additional responsibilities than ever before. their day is usually filled with diverse administrative and management functions such as procuring resources, managing learner discipline, resolving conflicts with parents and dealing with unexpected teacher and learner crises. however, it is imperative for school principals to accentuate their role as instructional leaders by emphasising best teaching practices and keeping their schools focused on curriculum, teaching, and assessment to meet learner needs and enhance learner achievement. using open-ended questionnaires and personal interviews with eight school principals, this study investigated how the principals perceived and experienced their functions as instructional leaders to improve learner performance. findings revealed that many school principals repudiated claims that their primary function was to manage teaching and learning. however, those school principals that place high priority on curricular matters undoubtedly influence teacher and learner performance positively. introduction kellerman (2015) asserts that school leadership has become a high wire act that only the most skilled are able to perform successfully. the school principal’s day is usually filled with diverse activities of administration and management – scheduling, reporting, handling relations with parents and the broader community, dealing with unexpected multiple learner and teacher crises, and extraordinary situations (early, 2013; bottery, 2016; tucker & codding, 2002; oumer, 2014). one of the primary tasks of principals is increasing learner achievement and maintaining teacher satisfaction (rigby, 2014). 258 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 there is a strong belief among educationists that principals can improve the teaching and learning environment by creating conditions conducive to improved curriculum management (kiat, tan, heng, & lim-ratnam, 2017; early, 2013; yu, 2009). they are responsible for creating positive school climates, motivating teachers and learners; and effectively managing resources to enhance best instructional practices. thus, principals play a key role in the development and maintenance of academic standards which include the knowledge and skills that learners are expected to learn in a subject and in each grade (shelton, 2011). they cannot achieve this without a clear and deep understanding of teaching, learning and assessment. they should also actively promote positive behaviours and interactions among teachers and learners (hoy & hoy, 2009). according to bush and glover (2009), principals are required to undertake the following activities: oversee the curriculum across the school, evaluate learner performance through analysing internal continuous assessments and examination results, monitor the work of heads of departments (hods) through scrutiny of their work schedules and portfolios, ensure that hods monitor the work of teachers employed in their subjects/learning areas; and arrange a programme of class visits followed by meaningful feedback to teachers; and ensure the availability of appropriate learning and teaching support materials (ltsm). principals are faced with new demands, more complex decisions and additional responsibilities than ever before. their day is usually filled with diverse administrative and management functions such as procuring resources, managing learner discipline, resolving conflicts with parents and dealing with unexpected teacher and learner crises. hallinger (2005) and hoy and hoy (2009) assert that many school principals experience great difficulty in balancing their diverse administrative duties with their curriculum leadership functions. they question whether one person has the capacity to do all the tasks of a principal, and suggested distributive leadership and the need to empower subordinates to exercise leadership as a possible solution. this would undoubtedly alleviate the burden of principals and enable them to focus on instructional matters (bush, 2011; hallinger, 2005; van deventer, 2016; van deventer & kruger, 2008). according to kruger (2003), many school principals lack the time for and an understanding of their instructional leadership functions. most of them spend relatively little time in classrooms and even less time analysing curriculum delivery with teachers. while they may arrange time for teachers’ meetings and professional development programmes, they rarely provide intellectual leadership for growth on mestry: principals’ perspectives and experiences. . . 259 instructional issues. instructional leadership should emerge freely from the combined efforts of the principal; the school management team (smt) and teachers (hoy & hoy, 2009). kallaway (2009) found that instructional leadership of school principals has been completely disregarded. goslin (2009) argues that many school principals overlook their main responsibility of instructional leadership because they are far too busy attending to day-today critical issues, including learner discipline and parent complaints. both, hallinger (2005) and bush (2011) concur that principal effectiveness can be attained when they find the correct balance among their various functions for a given school context. in south africa, scholars (see fleisch, 2008) agree that the instructional leadership function of school principals has to be intensified. prospective or aspiring leaders are considered for principalship positions if they merely complete a teacher’s qualification and have at least seven years of teaching experience. there is no overarching principal preparation or certification programme (bush & odura, 2006) and there is rarely any formal leadership training. school principals are appointed on the basis of their teaching record rather than their leadership potential (mestry & singh, 2007). induction, mentoring and other tangible support are usually limited and principals have to adopt a pragmatic approach to managing the day-to-day operations of schools. the lack of stringent criteria and the absence of explicit leadership and management qualifications for the appointment of principals have resulted in many of them under-performing and making schools dysfunctional (fleisch, 2008; kallaway, 2009; mestry & singh, 2007). evidence suggests that there is a positive link between high-quality leadership and successful schools (bush & jackson, 2002; huber, 2004; leithwood, louis, anderson & wahlstrom, 2004). it can thus be inferred that the lack of effective leadership in curricular issues results in poor academic standards of learners. this is clearly reflected in the annual national senior certificate examinations (grade 12), and the more recent annual national assessments (ana) for grades 3, 6 and 9 learners (joseph, 2011). south african learners perform poorly in international tests such as the trends in mathematics and science study (timss), progress in international reading literacy study (pirls) and southern and east africa consortium for monitoring educational quality (sacmeq). spaull (2013, p.3) claims that south africa has the “worst education system of all middle-income countries that participate in cross national assessments” and the country performs “worse than many low-income african countries. among the reasons cited for these 260 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 dismal performances is the ineffective leadership of school principals (dobbie & fryer, 2011). there is growing evidence in south african literature that supports the view that effective leadership is crucial if schools are to significantly improve learner performances (bush, joubert, kiggundu & van rooyen, 2010; christie, 2010). most principals leading south african public schools lack a comprehensive understanding of their instructional leadership role, and this impacts negatively on learner performance and consequently, the institution’s academic standards (hoadley cited in bush & glover, 2009). several studies on instructional leadership emphasise the importance of principals being effective instructional leaders. they should have confidence and the necessary skills to engage in productive and respectful conversations with teachers about the quality of teaching and learning (le fevre & robinson, 2015; robinson, 2010). sinnema, robinson, le fevre & pope. (2013) aver that effective instructional leaders address important concerns related to teacher and learner performances such as teaching approaches, learner assessments, and remedial programmes for weak learners, enrichment programmes for gifted learners, and effective use of available resources. this continues to remain unaddressed and unresolved. challenges facing instructional leaders about ineffective teacher performance concerns behavioural issues, attitudes, relationships, effectiveness, and capability. south african principals should be made to understand that instructional leadership is one of their pivotal functions, and that their administrative or managerial functions are subordinate (zepeda, 2004). according to shoho, barnett and tooms (2012), school principals should share and divide their energy, ideas, and time within the school day. aim and objectives the general aim of the study was to determine the perceptions and experiences of principals of their instructional leadership functions to improve learner performance. the following were the objectives: 1. to understand the nature and essence of instructional leadership; 2. to provide recommendations on how principals can strengthen their instructional functions with the view of improving learner academic achievements. mestry: principals’ perspectives and experiences. . . 261 instructional leadership defined instructional leadership is described as those actions that school principals take, or delegate to others, to promote growth in learners’ learning. aligmielcarek (2003) defines instructional leadership in terms of the school principal’s behaviour that leads a school to educate all learners to a level of high achievement. this behaviour defines and communicates shared goals, monitor and provide feedback on the teaching and learning process, and promotes schoolwide professional development. yu (2009) explains that instructional leadership consists of direct and indirect behaviours that significantly affect teacher instruction and, as a result, learner learning. spillane, hallett and diamond (2003) asserts that instructional leadership is an influence relationship that motivates, enables, and supports teachers’ efforts to learn and change their instructional practices. likewise, fullan (1991) considers instructional leadership to be an active, collaborative form of leadership where the principal works with teachers to shape the school as a workplace in relation to shared goals, teacher collaboration, teacher learning opportunities, teacher commitment, and learner learning. it can be argued that instructional leadership helps principals identify a school vision, empower and inspire teachers, and innovate school classroom-based strategies in order to improve teaching and learning for teachers and learners (mestry, koopasammy-moonsammy & schmidt, 2013). in each of the definitions provided, the consequences of learner learning is irrefutable (hoy & hoy, 2009). according to speck (cited in glanz, 2006), school principals must consider curricular matters, instruction and assessment central to their work if they expect to make a difference in learner learning. it cannot be overemphasised that principals play a significant role in the teaching and learning environment. their role should be evolved from manager to instructional leader to facilitator-leader of the school learning community. due to curriculum development, instructional and assessment practices are continually changing to conform to the needs of all learners, and collaboration among principals and teachers is encouraged. the central role of the principal is to take charge of issues focusing on curriculum, instruction and assessment so that learner performance and learner achievement is improved. it thus becomes imperative for principals to possess the requisite instructional skills, capacities, and commitment to lead effective schools and promote learner achievement (rigby, 2014). however, principals face serious challenges to 262 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 focus on learning and instruction, establish relationships with teachers, and guide teachers to improve instruction resulting in enhanced learner achievement. shatzer, caldarella, hallam & brown (2013) advocated four leadership dimensions that had an impact on learner achievement: monitoring learner progress, protecting instructional time, providing incentives for learning, and providing incentives for teachers, and make rewards contingent on good performance. these dimensions address the following principal capabilities: meeting with teachers to discuss earners needs; discussing performance results with teachers and learners limiting possible interruptions of classroom instruction; encouraging teachers to use classroom time effectively; recognising learners who exhibit academic excellence or improvement; provide clear expectations and appropriate rewards for teachers; and provide recognition at assemblies, office visits, and in communications to parents.research conducted by waters et al. (cited in glanz, 2006) found that effective instructional leadership comprises many key areas of principal behaviour, which include good and open communication; trusting relationships, motivating teachers and learners, creative, entrepreneurial and resilient. hese leadership practices seem to align effectively with teachers and earners ability to perform intellectually. it was therefore deemed essential to examine several instructional leadership models espoused by various scholars. hallinger and murphy’s model (1985) examined the instructional leadership behaviours of school principals and developed a framework of instructional management with three dimensions: defining the mission; managing instructional program; and promoting the school climate. murphy’s model (1990) augmented hallinger and murphy’s model. he noted that principals in effective schools (schools where the quality of teaching and learning were strong) demonstrated instructional leadership, both directly and indirectly. using this review, he built an instructional leadership framework which emphasised four sets of activities with implications for instruction: developing the school mission and goals; co-ordinating, monitoring and evaluating curriculum, instruction and assessment; promoting a climate for learning; and creating a supportive working environment. weber’s model (1996) of instructional leadership incorporated research about shared leadership and empowerment of informal leaders. he identified five essential domains of instructional leadership: defining the school’s mission; managing curriculum and instruction; promoting a positive learning climate; observing and improving instruction, and assessing the instructional programme. in this mestry: principals’ perspectives and experiences. . . 263 regard weber (1996) avers that effective instructional leadership would depend to a large extent on two important factors, that is, ‘the flexibility a school principal exhibits in sharing leadership duties’ and ‘the clarity with which a principal matches leadership duties with individuals who can perform them collaboratively’. alig-mielcarek’s instructional leadership model (2003) found three distinct similarities that emerged from a study of the three models discussed (hallinger & murphy, 1985; murphy, 1990; weber, 1996). all three indicated the importance of instructional leaders defining and communicating goals, monitoring and providing feedback on the teaching and learning process, and promoting and emphasising the importance of professional development. leithwood and louis (2011) emphasise that learner achievement is influenced by core leadership practices such as setting direction; developing staff; developing the organisational culture; and managing the instructional programme. the model proposed by hallinger (2009) was selected as an appropriate theoretical framework for this study. he suggests the following dimensions (very similar to the above models) as prerequisites for effective instructional leadership: ! defining the school’s mission: this dimension concerns the principal’s role in determining the central purposes of the school. the dimension focuses on the principal’s role in working with staff to ensure that the school has clear, measurable, time-based goals focused on the academic progress of learners. it is also the principal’s responsibility to communicate these goals so that these are widely known and supported throughout the school community. ! managing the instructional programme focuses on the coordination and control of instruction and curriculum. the school principal has to be deeply engaged in stimulating, supervising and monitoring teaching and learning. these functions demand that the principal have expertise in teaching and learning, as well as a commitment to school’s improvement and school effectiveness. it is this dimension that requires the principal to be involved ‘hip-deep’ in the school’s instructional programme. ! promoting a positive school learning climate: this dimension conforms to the notion that effective schools create an ‘academic press’ through the development of high standards and expectations for learners and teachers. instructionally, effective schools develop a culture of continuous improvement in which rewards for learner and staff are aligned with purposes and practices. the principal is highly visible on the school 264 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 premises and even in classrooms. the principal models values and practices that create a climate to support the continuous improvement of teaching and learning. in closing, it can be inferred that principals as instructional leaders are goaloriented. they take the lead in defining a clear direction for their schools and personally coordinate efforts to increase learner achievement. they are required to manage the curriculum, and monitor and evaluate the quality of teaching and learning (bush, 2007; copeland, 2003; yu, 2009; hallinger, 2009). principals should at all times strive for an excellent teaching and learning environment that emphasises high learner achievement. they are required to provide the necessary resources for learning, and create new learning opportunities for learners and teachers. instructional leaders should forge partnerships with teachers as colleagues by spending more time in classrooms and engaging teachers in conversations about learning and teaching. professional conversations and professional development should revolve around the improvement of instruction, how learners learn, and appropriate teaching strategies for different contexts (hoy & hoy, 2009). it is not expected that principals have proficiency in each subject content but that they become knowledgeable about the latest trends in education, innovative teaching methods, state-of-the-art resources, and cutting-edge assessment methods. they should be familiar with innovative theories and practices and motivate teachers to model these classrooms. research methodology the empirical investigation used a generic qualitative research methodology to determine the perceptions and experiences of school principals of their functions as instructional leaders to enhance learner achievement. qualitative research is concerned with understanding rather than explaining; experiencing naturalistic observations rather than controlled measurement; and undertaking a subjective exploration of reality from an insiders’ perspective as opposed to the predominant outside perspective in a quantitative paradigm (henning, van rensburg & smit, 2004; caelli, ray & mill, 2003). to gain better insight into the participants’ realities and experiences of instructional leadership, this study was located within the interpretivist paradigm (hatch & cunliff, 2006). mestry: principals’ perspectives and experiences. . . 265 principals of eight public schools situated in the ekurhuleni district of gauteng were purposefully selected (marshall, 1996). the selected principals were well-qualified, most holding post-graduate qualifications. the selected schools had an average enrolment exceeding 1 000 learners and medium of instruction was english. the sample included four primary schools and four secondary schools selected from a range of affluent schools (quintile 4 and 5), so-called middle schools (quintile 3), and poor schools located in previously disadvantaged communities (quintile 1 and 2) for comparative purposes. although there are more females employed in the teaching profession, senior posts in schools are usually held by their male counterparts, and this accounts for the all-male participants. they have numerous years of experience as principals and long standing service in education. their age group ranged from 45 years to 56 years and their years of experience as principals varied from 9 to 19 years. the principals were initially asked to complete an open-ended questionnaire, and this was followed by semi-structured, in-depth individual interviews with each of them. the researcher studied each participant’s questionnaire and then interviewed them to probe further and supplement responses reflected on the completed questionnaires. the interviews for each participant were conducted using the same format and sequence of words and questions to ensure the trustworthiness of the study (cohen, manion & morrison, 2011). the researcher safeguarded being biased or prejudiced by the way questions were framed and asked during the interviews. the interviews were conducted at a mutually agreed time in the participants’ offices (lichtman, 2009). due to technical challenges the researcher was unable to audio-tape the interviews and thus elected to take copious notes during the interviews. after the interviews, participants were required to validate whether the notes taken had in fact represented a true account of their views and experiences expressed. using tesch’s (1990) method of coding (creswell, 2009), the data generated from interviews and open-ended questionnaires were reviewed to establish value, depth and richness and then analysed. attention was given to patterns and commonalities in search for themes and categories that uncovered the meaning of particular perceptions and experiences focusing on the aim of the study. ethical considerations such as confidentiality to conduct the study were observed. reassurances were given to the participants that the aim of the research was not to judge or evaluate their leadership and management skills but rather to determine their perceptions and experiences in respect of instructional leadership. consent was obtained from both, the gauteng 266 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 department of education and the principals of selected schools. principals were made aware that they could withdraw from the study at any time. to preserve anonymity and confidentiality, pseudonyms (where applicable) for participants and symbols (e.g. a, b, etc.) for schools were used. the following section examines the nature and essence of instructional leadership and define the principal’s role as instructional leader. findings the themes that were identified from the data are discussed below and supported with relevant quotations from the interviews. theme 1: principals’ understanding of the concept ‘instructional leadership’ it was discouraging to note that although many participants provided partial explanations to what they understood to be instructional leadership, very few provided a comprehensive interpretation of the concept. principal a was uncertain as to what instructional leadership meant and responded as follows: not sure what it is but as a guess, it would be one that is a role model for other people. someone that takes the educators and/or learners to be as successful as they can be, each in his own field of expertise. if the track record of the school is anything to go by, probably many of the learners have done very well in tertiary studies and in commerce. we accept learners from all walks of life – 80 percent from previously disadvantaged sector. principal c felt that instructional leadership allows one to be supportive of teachers and to be a role model to them, especially during a lesson delivery in class. principal b emphasised that he did not see his role as instructional leader but explained that instructional leadership is “the ability to give guidance to less experienced teachers”. he was of the opinion that he “must take the lead in developing new teaching strategies and ensure effective classroom management." mestry: principals’ perspectives and experiences. . . 267 principal d had a much clearer understanding: instructional leadership is about providing guidance to the smt members and teachers with regard to teaching and learning”. an instructional leader “should monitor the lesson delivery using the curriculum management model and ensure that resources are provided to teachers. also, the leader should organise workshops where pertinent issues regarding teaching and learning should be discussed: topics such as assessments, reporting and subject policies. the leader should monitor content coverage, compare with results and implement improvement plans. principal f provided a more meaningful understanding than principal a of what the functions of instructional leaders are: principals should take the lead in teaching and learning; provide solutions to demanding challenges encountered in teaching and learning; ensure that the necessary human resources are available, and that ltsm and facilities for each subject is provided; guide teachers on assessment policies and drafting subject policies; monitor the delivery of teaching and analysis of learner performance; teacher at least one subject; make time to do class visits; and become familiar with different teaching methods and strategies. from the above responses, it is evident that some participants have not assimilated instructional leadership role in their functions. they were unable to provide a succinct definition of the concept. participants that considered instructional leadership as one of their main functions provided a better understanding of the concept ‘instructional leadership’. what i found interesting was that the results in the senior certificate examinations in principal d and f’s schools were way above the national average (principal h) theme 2: the instructional leadership role of principals it was evident from views expressed by most participants that instructional leadership did not fall within their ambit. they emphasised that this was the responsibility of hods and deputy principals. principal b claimed: 268 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 i am responsible for the day-to-day operations of the school, and that curriculum matters were the responsibility of the school management team (deputy principal and hods). the school had appointed additional hods than those allocated by the department’s post provisioning norms. although most principals refuted that instructional leadership or curriculum management was their main responsibility, they inadvertently undertook some aspects of instructional matters. all the participants emphasised that monitoring and control of academic standards was their primary concern. for example, principal d remarked: i monitor the teachers as well as hods and ensure that procedures are in place for effective teaching and learning. i improve on available resources, and construct and implement intervention programmes for learners. on a regular basis, i monitor the progress of learners and report to the parents the progress of specific learners. i analyse the results of the continuous assessment programmes for each grade and every subject and devise plans and ensure its implementation for school and learner improvement. principal e also saw his role as one of monitoring and control of teachers’ activities: “i monitor teaching and learning activities ensuring that teachers go to class and learners attend school. i control educators’ work programme, pace and assessment techniques.” principal f explained how remediation programmes were designed and implemented. the hods and the deputy principal (curriculum) will identify learners that require additional tuition and i will facilitate the remediation programme. i also provide extra classes based on the ssip (secondary school improvement plan). i ensure that the ltsm is available and used effectively principal h had a different perspective of his role as leader in teaching and learning and provided a more comprehensive response: i share new and creative ideas of teaching and encouraging teachers to try these ideas out. i am an experienced foundation phase (grade 1 to grade 3) teacher and therefore able to impart my knowledge to both mestry: principals’ perspectives and experiences. . . 269 learners and teachers in all aspects such as lesson preparation and presentation. i give demonstration lessons and encourage teamwork. we allow for teachers to visit other teachers’ classes to observe lessons. i ensure that educational resources are purchased and shared equally amongst teachers. i request that the ltsm committee explain how teachers should use the educational aids effectively. i also undertake a needs analysis of teachers and develop programmes. whenever teachers attend workshops, i ensure that these teachers provide feedback to other teachers at a staff meeting. principal g talked about his role as mentor and leader and made very little reference to his role as instructional leader. he emphasised that “i spend much time mentoring the hods and teachers by sharing good practices in teaching. i have an invitational approach and encourage my staff to discuss problems experienced in the classroom. i share with them good practices of teaching and i make time to address their concerns”. mentoring and coaching are also often used as a means of sharing good practices with initiates (middlewood, 2003). according to bush, kiggundu and moorosi (2011), mentoring is designed to facilitate the transfer of learning to principals’ and school practice. effective mentoring provides strong potential for deep learning. there is substantial international evidence supporting the efficacy of mentoring and coaching for leadership development theme 3: professional development programmes for principals according to bush, kiggundu and moorosi. (2011), there are two main options available for the preparation of school principals. these are to identify and prepare potential principals before they are appointed or to provide development for practising principals after their appointment. the responses from the participants concerning their own professional development were alarming. it is evident that most of them had not attended any structured professional development programmes on curricular matters arranged by the provincial department of education or the ekurhuleni district. they were critical that the chief education specialists (cess) in education districts had very little knowledge of curricular matters, and had very limited 270 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 skills or the necessary experience to manage instruction. this was a barrier to principals being provided effective professional development programmes. they argued that there were far too many changes in curricular over a short period of time and in-depth training and proper guidance was not proffered to principals and smts. when asked how they would improve professional development opportunities for principals, principal a suggested “communal meetings where principals could get together to discuss problems affecting them”. the principals should take the initiative of arranging professional development for themselves by, for example, rotating the presentations or inviting external specialists to address them on pertinent issues regarding curriculum delivery and other key functions. the principal added that “a successful school needs a good principal and deputies to provide the necessary leadership”. principal b felt that the department should allow them to “study courses that were relevant to them” while principal e suggested a “well organized and well-planned programmes catering for their needs should be scheduled with aim of improving teaching and learning in schools”. principal f was of the opinion that though he has not attended “well-structured development programmes, principals should be resourceful in arranging professional development programmes for all principals located in a particular area”. he was critical of the workshop arranged by the department. he indicated that the programme was not rolled out properly, the district officials “were not specialists and the district does not have any capacity”. two principals, d and f attended one professional development training event on the new curriculum referred to as caps (curriculum and assessment policy statement) arranged by the district but were disillusioned by the workshop presented: district officials were unprepared and did not have the necessary knowledge and skills of caps and also their presentations ranged from weak to mediocrity”. principal f suggested that “there should be compulsory training for incumbent principals, for example, the ace course offered by higher education institutions”. mathibe (2007), blasé and blasé (2000), and bush et al. (2011) explain that the model for development may incorporate a selection of programmes such as training and networking. training embraces workshops or direct instruction provided by education specialists and experts from district offices who have thorough understanding of curricula issues. training can take the form of one-day conferences; single-session activities; short courses over a mestry: principals’ perspectives and experiences. . . 271 period of time, formal meetings by subject specialists; and membership of working groups. the creation of local or district networks, to promote mutual learning, is also a distinctive feature of a professional development programme. bush, glover and harris (2007) review of the leadership development literature concludes that networking is the most favoured mode of leadership learning. its main advantage is that it is ‘live learning’ and provides strong potential for ideas transfer. visiting other schools, particularly those in similar contexts, appears to enhance leadership learning. brundrett (2006) adds that inter-school networks are powerful tools for school development. discussion three interrelated themes emanating from the study formed the principals’ overarching perceptions and experiences of their role as instructional leaders. since very few principals had a comprehensive understanding of the concept ‘instructional leadership’ and more specifically their role as instructional leaders, they acknowledged that their core functions included teaching and learning. using hallinger’s model on instructional leadership, many of the selected principals set direction for their staff and created a conducive learning environment. their instructional leadership role includes developing a shared vision, providing appropriate resources, creating a conducive learning environment, undertaking classroom visits, setting high expectations for staff and learners, coaching and mentoring teachers. however, other principals merely devoted most of their time to monitoring and controlling the work of staff and learners. it is expected from the provincial department of education that principals, as instructional leaders, work collaboratively with smts and teachers to undertake essential leadership functions such as coordinating the curriculum, supervising instruction, evaluating the academic programme, and monitoring learner progress. however, most of the principals interviewed preferred to hone their strengths on administrative and management issues. those who did spend time engaging with smts and teachers on curriculum matters, experienced difficulty in balancing their administrative and management functions with their instructional duties (hallinger, 2005; hoy & hoy, 2009). by way of self-reflection, most principals emphasised the importance of attending professional development programmes. this is in keeping with 272 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 hallinger’s instructional leadership model. several principals lacked the necessary instructional leadership expertise and skills and found difficulty in developing strategies of coordination and control to align their school’s academic mission with strategy and action. in retrospect, they realised that instructional leadership is one of their core functions and indicated that they require training on how to balance their administrative and managerial functions with their leadership duties, neglect of either could seriously disadvantage the culture of teaching and learning (blasé, blasé & philips, 2010; bush, 2007; gupton, 2003). principals realised that they should take the initiative to identify their own professional needs and arrange for reputable service providers to conduct the professional development programmes. they should not depend on the education district office to conduct workshops or execute ‘one-size-fits-all’ professional development programmes, research shows that effective principals are lifelong learners who should engage continuously in professional development opportunities, both inside and outside the organisation. principals have serious reservations about the role of the education districts in making professional development programmes available to principals. however, they should not wait for education districts to invite them to participate in professional development programmes, instead they should take the initiative of professionally developing themselves. they should encourage peer collaboration and make every effort to encourage principals in the area and teachers to engage in educational opportunities within and outside the school (blasé et al., 2010; fink & resnick, 2001; gupton, 2003). although clear directives are provided by the department of education pertaining to the principal’s curricular functions, the selected principals considered the control of academic matters as one of their primary concerns. they thus used the distributed style of leadership, delegating most of their instructional responsibilities to deputy principals and hods. those principals who applied the distributive leadership style expect deputy principals and hods to ensure that ltsm is procured and effectively managed; guide teachers on assessment policies; monitor the delivery of teaching, and analyse learner performance. while distributed or participative leadership reduces the workload of principals (sergiovanni, 1984 cited in bush, 2007), it also empowers subordinates to take on leadership positions and facilitate healthy staff relations. however, principals are expected to play a more pronounced role in all aspects of teaching and learning (van deventer, 2003; ibtesam, 2005). mestry: principals’ perspectives and experiences. . . 273 conclusion and recommendations one of the primary reasons for the poor academic standards of learners in south african public schools is the ineffective instructional leadership role of principals. this study has shown that many principals place more emphasis on their managerial and administrative duties rather than focussing on teaching and learning. although principals are accountable for the plethora of administrative and managerial tasks, there is a dire need for them to take an active role on instructional leadership role, which is pivotal to enhance learner performance. principals should be conversant with innovative teaching theories and practices, and encourage teachers to model them in classrooms. the principal has the power to influence learner-learning outcomes by setting the school’s goals and promoting effective instructional practices. the core of instructional leadership is to transform schools into conducive environments where teachers and learners reach their full potential. to advance a culture of teaching and learning in schools where learner achievement features strongly, principals are duty-bound to balance their administrative and managerial duties with instructional leadership functions. although principals could apply a distributive leadership style of school management, they should not abdicate their responsibility of driving the teaching and learning agenda. the principal may apply the distributive style of leadership by delegating the varied administrative and management duties to subordinates. in this way, they will empower their subordinates to take on leadership positions while they devote more time to instructional matters. thus, a paradigm shift is required where principals devote more serious attention to instructional leadership. principals should be empowered to generate new knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to manage curricula matters effectively and efficiently. this is achievable through wellconstructed professional development programmes. professional development activities can be undertaken through the active participation of university faculties, practising principals and prospective principals engaging in study groups, curriculum development, peer observation, and through collaborative school-based research. principals should be innovative by creating more professional development and training opportunities instead of waiting for the department to arrange professional development programmes. these programmes should be custom made rather than having a ‘one size fits all’ training. themes could include curriculum planning, effective provision and utilisation of resources, procuring physical assets, teaching and learning support materials, instructional leadership, and learner discipline should form the nucleus 274 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 of the continuing professional development programme that can be offered to them. perhaps, it should be made mandatory for newly-appointed principals to take a structured leadership course offered by higher education institutions. this course should emphasise the role of principals as instructional leaders. for example, as part of their continuing professional development, principals and aspiring school managers should complete the advanced certificate in education (ace) – leadership and management course offered at different tertiary institutions. this course provides practising as well as aspiring principals with important leadership and management knowledge and skills embracing teaching and learning, managing people, managing school finances and physical resources, and engaging with education law and policy matters references alig-mielcarek, j.a. 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(2004). instructional leadership for school improvement. new york: eye on education. raj mestry faculty of education university of johannesburg rajm@uj.ac.za mailto:rajm@uj.ac.za microsoft word bissue72 final.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 72, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i72a02 dialects matter: the influence of dialects and codeswitching on the literacy and numeracy achievements of isixhosa grade 1 learners in the western cape nangamso mtsatse department of linguistics and modern languages, university of south africa nmtsatse@gmail.com orcid: 0000-0002-3432-3567 celeste combrinck centre for evaluation and assessment, faculty of education at the university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa celeste.combrinck@up.ac.za orcid: 0000-0002-8067-5299 (received: 30 april 2018; accepted: 24 august 2018) abstract historically, african languages have been in a disadvantaged position and issues related to dialect are not fully understood and acknowledged. in this study, we examined the influence of dialects and code-switching on the literacy and numeracy achievements of isixhosa grade 1 learners with multilevel modeling (mlm), when controlling for other factors, such as between-school variance, socio-economic status, and sex. the project used stratified random sampling to select afrikaans, english, and isixhosa schools in three districts in the western cape. a total of 2 497 learners were assessed, of whom 768 were in isixhosa schools. dialects and codeswitching had a significantly negative influence on both literacy and numeracy scores of isixhosa learners. the findings highlight the importance of investigating dialectic issues in isixhosa and the implications that dialects have for decolonisation. african language decolonisation requires the development of classroom resources for these languages, increased african educational research, and finding ways to address the complexities of dialects in pedagogical frameworks. keywords: isixhosa dialects; code-switching; assessment; decolonisation of african languages; grade 1 literacy achievement; grade 1 numeracy achievement; multilevel modeling (mlm); hierarchical linear modelling (hlm); rasch measurement theory introduction isixhosa has had the longest lexicographical development of the african languages in southern africa. the earliest written isixhosa lexicography dates back to 1776 (nkomo & wababa, 2013). about 16 isixhosa lexicographical works were published between 1776 and 2008. given the number of isixhosa dicti lexicography, one would expect but many mistranslations and dialectic issues persist (moropa & kruger, 2000). there are several isixhosa-speaking commun many as 12 groupings, which are also associated with specific dialects of isixhosa (nyamende, 1994). to better understand isixhosa as a language, it is important to address the historical events that led to what we know today as standardised isixhosa. theodorus van der kemp was the first missionary to live with an isixhosa tribe people in 1799 while they were ruled by chief ngqika (nyamende, 1994). van der kemp learned the ngqika dialect with the ndlambe and thembu dialects into the ngqika dialect. the missionaries who succeeded van der kemp also began to t the ngqika dialect in schools. these pioneering processes led to this dialect becoming what is known today as the standardised isixhosa language. with the further development of the written isixhosa language, the ndlambe and thembu dialects were also 1994). the ngqika, thembu, and ndlambe dialects are recognised as the official written and taught isixhosa and enjoy a higher status among isixhosa speakers (gxilishe, 1996; mtsatse, 2018). mtsatse (2018) has reflected on lodge’s (1995) framework language is a sum of its dialects as the official isixhosa. this is in contrast to other dialects not proper isixhosa. a diagram of the standardisation of specific isixhosa dialects is presented in figure 1. figure 1: a reconstructed figure illustrating dialect issues in isixhosa figure 1 shows that the standard isixhosa ngqika and thembu. although not illustrated in the figure, the ndl to be closely related to these two dialects. taught in schools and used in government documents and communications in eastern and western cape. on the right side are spoken in different parts of eastern cape by communities from different tribes. despite the fact that there are several isixhosa dialects, the official isixhosa is spoken in a smaller geographical area (between the great kei and idutywa dialects. the choice of one dialect to be the standardised isixhosa is a product of colonialism mtsatse and combrinck: dialects matter the number of isixhosa dictionaries published and its long history of one would expect that isixhosa as a language would be relatively standardised, but many mistranslations and dialectic issues persist (moropa & kruger, 2000). there are speaking communities in south africa, grouped according to tribes, with as many as 12 groupings, which are also associated with specific dialects of isixhosa to better understand isixhosa as a language, it is important to address the hat led to what we know today as standardised isixhosa. theodorus van der kemp was the first missionary to live with an isixhosa tribe; he lived with the isixhosa people in 1799 while they were ruled by chief ngqika and lived along the tyume river e, 1994). van der kemp learned the ngqika dialect that shares many similarities with the ndlambe and thembu dialects, wrote it for the first time, and translated into the ngqika dialect. the missionaries who succeeded van der kemp also began to t the ngqika dialect in schools. these pioneering processes led to this dialect becoming what is known today as the standardised isixhosa language. with the further development of the written isixhosa language, the ndlambe and thembu dialects were also included (nyamende, and ndlambe dialects are recognised as the official written and taught isixhosa and enjoy a higher status among isixhosa speakers (gxilishe, 1996; mtsatse, on lodge’s (1995) framework for standardising language is a sum of its dialects. however, in isixhosa three dialects are recognised mostly as the official isixhosa. this is in contrast to other dialects that are seen to be a diagram of the standardisation of specific isixhosa dialects is a reconstructed figure illustrating dialect issues in isixhosa (mtsatse, 2018, adapted from lodge shows that the standard isixhosa is comprised of mainly two dialects, namely ngqika and thembu. although not illustrated in the figure, the ndlambe dialect is also seen closely related to these two dialects. together, these dialects form the official isixhosa taught in schools and used in government documents and communications in eastern and side are dialects that have not been standardised; these dialects are spoken in different parts of eastern cape by communities from different tribes. despite the fact that there are several isixhosa dialects, the official isixhosa is spoken in a smaller een the great kei and idutywa-bashee rivers) compared to the other one dialect to be the standardised isixhosa is a product of colonialism and combrinck: dialects matter 21 onaries published and its long history of that isixhosa as a language would be relatively standardised, but many mistranslations and dialectic issues persist (moropa & kruger, 2000). there are grouped according to tribes, with as many as 12 groupings, which are also associated with specific dialects of isixhosa to better understand isixhosa as a language, it is important to address the hat led to what we know today as standardised isixhosa. theodorus van der lived with the isixhosa and lived along the tyume river shares many similarities and translated the bible into the ngqika dialect. the missionaries who succeeded van der kemp also began to teach the ngqika dialect in schools. these pioneering processes led to this dialect becoming what is known today as the standardised isixhosa language. with the further development of the included (nyamende, and ndlambe dialects are recognised as the official written and taught isixhosa and enjoy a higher status among isixhosa speakers (gxilishe, 1996; mtsatse, ing a language. owever, in isixhosa three dialects are recognised mostly to be non-standard or a diagram of the standardisation of specific isixhosa dialects is adapted from lodge, 1995) mainly two dialects, namely ambe dialect is also seen these dialects form the official isixhosa taught in schools and used in government documents and communications in eastern and t have not been standardised; these dialects are spoken in different parts of eastern cape by communities from different tribes. despite the fact that there are several isixhosa dialects, the official isixhosa is spoken in a smaller compared to the other one dialect to be the standardised isixhosa is a product of colonialism 22 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 that persists, perhaps to the disadvantage of those who do not speak the officially recognised dialect. in this paper we explore how being taught in an unfamiliar dialect influences literacy and numeracy skills in grade 1. considering that dialectic changes and code-switching are significant indicators of scholastic performance, it is essential to discuss the implications of this as well as how the issue of dialects is linked to decolonisation. language planning in south africa language planning in south africa was one of the critical obligations undertaken after 1994 to rebuild national pride and to restore the values of integrity, respect to cultures and races, and to recognise the importance of diversity. to implement this mandate, practical measures to grow the status of african languages were sought and language policies were developed (department of basic education (dbe), 2010; yu & dumisa, 2015). agencies, policies, and bodies, for example the pan south african language board (pansalb), were also established to develop and promote african languages. pansalb was set up as a statutory body to monitor and implement the use and status of all official languages in south africa. this body has structured lexicography units for each official language to ensure terminology standardisation and to promote multilingualism (edwards & ngwaru, 2011). although language planning was high on the reconciliation agenda, alidou et al., (2006) have noted that most of the terminology work in african languages was in fact done during the apartheid era and remains in use today. additionally, webb (2013) has emphasised that nothing of real substance has changed since 1996 with regard to the state of the african languages. there seems to be very little evidence from government that the country’s language policy has actively developed the african languages in terms of codification and graphisation. other than in formal schooling structures, african languages are not used meaningfully in parliament, courts of law, universities, schools, and the printed media (webb, 2013). the fact that african languages are not used in formal societal structures creates the impression that afrikaans and english continue to enjoy a higher linguistic status. to a disproportionate degree, the status of african languages remains the same as it was during apartheid. cele (2004), foley (2004), tshotsho (2013), and webb (2013) have further criticised the language policies as being too politicised, which has resulted in their poor implementation. the implementation challenges are attributed to two factors—the difficulties of balancing the interests of all 11 official languages and the slow linguistic development of african languages, which includes standardisation and making these languages relevant to advance literature, science, and technology. the standardisation of african languages remains problematic and the complexities of dialects make the commonalities in nguni and sotho clusters, as well as their differences, difficult to navigate (edwards & ngwaru, 2011). from the translator’s perspective, it is the differences in orthography that makes it challenging to standardise african languages. mtsatse and combrinck: dialects matter 23 prinsloo (2011) has proposed that it should be the right of the language speakers, rather than the right of the language, that guides the true essence of the debate around african languages in south africa. there are also linguistically diverse societies within cultures, and, because of migration african languages and their dialects are no longer limited to specific geographical regions, cultures, or tribes. in the new democratic south african classrooms there are often learners with multiple home languages (dbe. needu, 2013). languages spoken at home could be based on the standardised form of the language, or could use dialects, and/or mixtures of dialect and/or additional languages. through social change, african languages have evolved, developed, and become different orthographies within one language, leading to different dialects (prinsloo, 2011). the dialectisation of african languages is a complicating factor when one is deciding on which dialect can be used or classified as the standardised language in which learners can be taught. national and international studies of literacy and numeracy achievement large-scale assessments in south africa include the annual national assessments (anas), the progress in international reading literacy study (pirls), and the western cape systemic testing. in 2010, dbe introduced a systemic evaluation, the anas. some of these results showed that the participating learners were inadequately equipped in their home languages (dbe, 2012, 2014). learners in the foundation phase were assessed in their home language and the results revealed that achievement was lower for african language speakers (with the exception of afrikaans). pirls is one of the few comparative studies of african languages in south africa (howie et al., 2017). although the assessment is administered in grades 4 and 5, the learners are assessed in their language of learning and teaching (lolt) in the foundation phase (howie, van staden, tshele, dowse, & zimmerman, 2012; howie et al., 2017). as seen with the anas, learners who wrote the test in afrikaans and english achieved the highest average scores in south africa and outperformed those writing in the african languages. the pirls 2016 results revealed that most grade 4 learners writing in an african language (80% and more) were not able to read for meaning (howie et al., 2017). the trends in international mathematics and science study (timss, 2015) reported that south african grade 5 learners ranked as the second lowest when compared to the other 48 countries that participated in the most recent timss cycle (isdale, reddy, juan, & arends, 2017). in timss 2015, grade 5 learners who spoke the language of the test at home performed better, once again highlighting the importance of literacy and how strongly it is related to numeracy achievement (isdale et al., 2017). in both pirls and timss, south africa was one of the lowest performing countries and significantly below the international average. the findings of national and international studies show that problems are experienced in the south african school system, especially for learners who are taught in african languages in the foundation phase. the increase in cross-language assessments has posed dynamic challenges in the complex south african context and has raised the issue of how literacy is defined in african languages. for this reason, it is essential that crosslanguage assessments ensure that the content and scope of items are equitable for all participants across regions, cultures, and languages. 24 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 we must consider strict methodological guidelines that also cater for the complexities of african languages and find ways to decolonise african languages. decolonisation in this context refers to researching and understanding how african languages are taught and assessed. this includes studying the limitations of current pedagogical practices and finding methods for teaching and assessing the african languages in ways that reflect their complexities, and then developing these languages for academic use. dialects and classroom practice literature on the influence of dialectic use in the classroom and learner performance in the south african context is limited to mostly postgraduate studies. the earliest study by nomlomo (1993) explored the attitudes of teachers and learners towards isixhosa and its different dialects. the study was qualitative and used a small, non-generalisable sample. one of the main findings was that teachers believed dialects should not be used in the classroom and that learners who were in schools further away from the area where the standardised isixhosa was spoken, had lower class averages. a study by spofana (2011) found that teachers used a dialectic vocabulary for instruction and learning purposes. in his study learners also responded in the classroom using their own dialect and used a dialectic vocabulary when completing classroom writing tasks. a recent study by maqam (2015) found that grade 8 learners were penalised for using their dialects in answering assessments, even though the teachers used dialects during lessons. teachers, parents, and learners in spofana’s study also had negative attitudes towards the standardised isixhosa and felt that it was culturally and politically inappropriate for a standardised version to be imposed on them. the limitation of spofana’s study was that only one dialect was explored in three schools. while the studies mentioned here add to our knowledge, more research is needed to understand the role of dialects in the classroom. following de beaugrande (1999) and richter (2010), in this study we aimed to explore the influence of dialects using theoretical underpinnings in language planning theory in which inclusive dialectic practices, social justice, and decolonisation of languages are emphasised. our use of the term decolonisation refers to an examination, deconstruction, and redress of the pedagogical application of isixhosa. research objective and questions the main objective of the study was to quantify the influence of code-switching (dialects and different languages) on the literacy and numeracy achievements of grade 1 learners in western cape. there are three research questions related to the main objective. • do isixhosa grade 1 learners require more code-switching to understand the assessment questions? • when controlling for other factors, what influence does the necessity of changing dialects and languages have on the literacy and numeracy achievements of isixhosa grade 1 learners? mtsatse and combrinck: dialects matter 25 • which variables are significant predictors of literacy and numeracy achievements of grade 1 learners in western cape? method assessors experienced in working with young children who spoke the language of the test as a home language, were recruited and trained to administer the assessments. these were done face-to-face, with the assessor asking a question up to three times. computer adaptive testing (cat) algorithms, based on rasch models, were programmed into the application. the application was used on a tablet and the assessors tested each child with a booklet, asking the child a question and pointing to the booklet while recording the answer on the tablet. when a child answered a pre-set number of questions incorrectly, the application automatically skipped to the next section. at the end of the year, the children continued answering sections at the point they had reached at the beginning of the year. children were not asked questions they would find too difficult but had another opportunity at the end of the year to answer question that were previously skipped. the standardisation of test administration is pivotal to the validity of any study or intervention since unstandardised processes can cause confounding results. however, during the piloting of the international performance indicators in primary schools (ipips) instruments in western cape during 2015, it was found that, for the isixhosa learners, the verbatim reading of the questions was not always feasible. some isixhosa learners came from homes where dialects other than the standardised version were spoken, while other learners came from multilingual environments. therefore, so as not to disadvantage learners and to gain more accurate assessment results, assessors were trained to first read the standardised isixhosa version of the question. if the assessor learned, by speaking with the child, that the child struggled with the standardised dialect or formal isixhosa, the assessor was allowed to rephrase the question to accommodate dialectic complexities. at the end of the assessment assessors noted how often this was done so that the influence of changing dialects could be controlled when we were analysing the results. the aim was to gauge the proficiency of the learners in literacy and numeracy and therefore dialectic issues should not be the reason the child could not answer a question. for example, measuring a learner’s ability to count from one to ten is part of the numeracy construct, and not whether they count in standardised or dialectic isixhosa. the experience in this study highlighted the challenges of implementing cross-cultural assessments in the south african context, as well as the often-ignored complexities of dialects in the classroom environment. instruments the questions used in the assessments were based on the ipips instruments, originally developed at the centre for evaluation and monitoring (cem) at durham university in 1999. the assessments were adapted to the south african context and translated into three south african languages (archer, scherman, coe, & howie, 2010; tymms, howie, merrell, combrinck, & copping, 2017). both afrikaans and isixhosa translators used the standardised 26 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 form of the languages at the level a grade 1 learner would understand. the vocabulary and terminology were aligned to the curriculum assessment policy statements (caps) (dbe, 2011). since caps specifies the use of standardised isixhosa, other dialects were not used in translations. it was expected that learners in grade 1 would have been taught according to caps and would therefore have learned standardised isixhosa from grade 0 or grade 1. evidence of the reliability and predictive validity of the ipips instruments has been shown in previous studies (tymms, 1999; tymms, merrell, henderson, albone, & jones, 2012). during this study, the reliability and validity of the instruments were again investigated, especially considering the potential complications of translations that tymms et al., (2017) have pointed out. applying rasch measurement theory (linacre, 2016) showed differential item functioning (dif) between languages for a third of the items in the reading and numeracy sections. items exhibiting dif between languages were excluded from the analysis. certain sections, such as vocabulary and rhyming, could not be equated between the languages and were not directly compared (see tymms et al., 2017). overall, the numeracy items for the total sample had a reliability of .78 for learners and .96 for items (42 items when excluding dif items). the 63 literacy items had a learner reliability of .73 and an item reliability of .97. parents and/or guardians completed a home questionnaire that included questions about household assets and basic necessities, such as running water, as well as luxury items such as satellite television. the home questionnaire was answered by 72% of parents. sample in total, 2 497 learners in 112 schools participated at the beginning and end of 2016, of which 31% were in isixhosa schools (772 learners in 37 schools), as shown in table 1. table 1: sample of learners spread across language of test and school districts in western cape language metro central metro south metro north total learners schools learners schools learners schools learners schools isixhosa 193 9 385 10 194 18 772 37 afrikaans 178 8 292 19 397 13 867 40 english 336 14 354 7 168 14 858 35 total 707 31 1031 36 759 45 2497 112 a stratified, random sample of schools in three districts in western cape participated in the study. for each district, the sample was stratified in terms of language, classroom, and sex. from each school a random sample of 25 grade 1 learners was selected. an equal number of isixhosa, english, and afrikaans schools was randomly selected in the districts, followed by an equal number of learners selected per class. since schools were randomly selected in districts, the schools represent a broad range of socio-economic learning environments. the sample included both public and independent schools. according to data provided by the western cape department of education (wced), 98% of the learners in the isixhosa mtsatse and combrinck: dialects matter 27 schools came from homes where isixhosa was the main language spoken. parents indicated similar answers on the study’s home questionnaire, where 96% of parents of learners in isixhosa schools indicated that this was also their home language. based on the answers of the parents whose children attended the isixhosa schools, 56% of households were in a lower socio-economic grouping, having only the basic necessities, or in some cases not even these (running water, electricity, and flush toilets.). this is in comparison to the learners from the afrikaans schools (52%) and the english schools (13%), where fewer households were classified as being in the lower socio-economic group. figure 2 shows the percentage of parents in each language group who reported not having electricity, running tap water, and flush toilets. the graph shows that a lack of basic resources was reported at higher frequencies in the isixhosa group when compared to the other language groups. figure 2: percentage of households per language group who reported a lack of resources data analysis the analysis was conducted using the statistical package for the social sciences (spss) version 24 (ibm corporation, 2016) for descriptive statistics and the hierarchical linear program (hlm) (raudenbush, bryk, & congdon, 2013) for mlm. the overall achievement per language group (isixhosa, afrikaans, and english) is reported in terms of means and standard deviations. predictor variables were related to research and policy and had moderate to high correlations with achievement (see enders, 2010; dong & peng, 2013). the predictor variables at learner level were sex (male and female), socio-economic status (ses) (low, middle, and high), having attended grade r, code-switching between dialects and codeswitching between languages. at school level, district (ordered from lowest performing to highest) and language of the test (ordered from lowest achievement to highest) were used. the outcome variables were literacy and numeracy scores at the end of the year. literacy and numeracy were viewed as two distinct constructs, and separate models were built for each. a 15% 11% 4% 23% 15% 6% 28% 23% 8% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% isixhosa afrikaans english p e r c e n ta g e w h o r e p o r te d a l a c k o f r e so u r c e s language of school no electricity no running tap water no water-flushed toilet(s) 28 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 scale was created for socio-economic status (ses), using 15 items from the home questionnaire. the 15 ses items had a cronbach’s alpha of .86 and three groups were created from the 15 items, namely low ses, middle ses and high ses. the ses index had moderate and significant correlations with literacy achievement (r = .41, p = .000) and numeracy (r = .36, p = .000). results the overall achievement and code-switching are reported in terms of descriptive statistics. the main achievement results are reported for all three language groups who participated in the study. the mlm models were applied to quantify the influence of code-switching on literacy and numeracy achievements for the grade 1 participants when for controlling other variables. achievement results for ipips in figure 2 and figure 3 the mean achievement for the grade 1 participants per language group for literacy and numeracy is shown for the beginning and end of the year. in literacy achievement, the isixhosa group started with the lowest mean at the beginning of the grade 1 year (m = 18%, sd = 9) and also had the lowest mean at the end of the year (m = 35%, sd = 16) but made progress similar to that of the afrikaans group (17–18% increase). the english group had the highest mean achievement for literacy at both the beginning of the year (m = 29%, sd = 15) and the end of the year (m = 54%, sd = 21). the afrikaans group scored significantly higher at the beginning and end of the year in literacy when compared to the isixhosa group, and the learners who wrote in english scored significantly higher than both the isixhosa and afrikaans groups (p = .000). regarding literacy, the isixhosa group started at a disadvantage in grade 1, when compared to the other two groups (figure 3). figure 3:literacy mean performance figure 4:numeracy mean performance in numeracy achievement (figure 4), the isixhosa learners started with the lowest mean (m = 38%, sd = 13) but achieved the same mean (m = 55%, sd = 13) as the afrikaans group (m = 55%, sd = 11) at the end of the year. the learners in english schools achieved better results (m = 49%, sd = 13) at the beginning of grade 1 and at the end of the school year (m = 62%, 18% 22% 29% 35% 40% 54% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% isixhosa afrikaans english literacy beginning year literacy end year 38% 42% 49% 55% 55% 63% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% isixhosa afrikaans english numeracy beginning year numeracy end year mtsatse and combrinck: dialects matter 29 sd = 11) than the learners who wrote in isixhosa and afrikaans. the isixhosa and afrikaans groups were not statistically different from one another in their end-of-year numeracy achievement (p = .78) but the learners who wrote in english achieved significantly (p = .000) higher marks than the other two groups. code-switching and influence on achievement assessors completed two questions related to code-switching at the conclusion of each assessment session and rated their answers on a scale of never, sometimes, or most of the time. the first question asked was: how often did you change to another dialect or speak informal language? and the second question was phrased as: how often did you repeat the question by using a word or phrase from another language? (different from the language of the assessment). in figure 5 and figure 6 the frequency of changing dialects, as well as using phrases and words from other languages, are shown per language of the test. figure 5: change dialect or use informal language figure 6: repeat using a word/phrase in another language assessors reported that, for 57% of learners assessed in isixhosa, they sometimes (31%) or most of the time (26%) had to switch to other dialects or informal isixhosa to facilitate the assessment. in contrast, code-switching was rarely reported for learners assessed in afrikaans (79% never or rarely) and english (86% never or rarely). in 69% of the isixhosa assessments, the assessor had to rephrase the question sometimes or most of the time, using a word or phrase from another language. rephrasing does not necessarily mean another dialect, but the formal standardised isixhosa may have been too difficult for the grade 1 learners to understand. both dialect and phrasing influence the way in which learners interpret the assessment question. the study had a multi-stage cluster sampling design with hierarchical groups that were interdependent. mlm was chosen as the best method for considering the cluster effects and data dependence. two-level modelling was used, with learners at level 1 and schools at level 2. the proportion of explained variance (pev) showed that between-school differences accounted for 21.04% of the variance in literacy achievement and 30.68% in numeracy 26% 5% 3% 31% 16% 10% 43% 79% 86% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% isixhosa afrikaans english p e rc e n ta g e language group most of the time sometimes never or rarely 32% 6% 2% 36% 12% 8% 33% 82% 90% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% isixhosa afrikaans english p e rc e n ta g e language group most of the time sometimes never or rarely 30 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 achievement (intraclass correlation coefficient). considering the large between-school variance, mlm was applied, as recommended (see hox, 2010; raudenbush & bryk, 2002; wang, xie, & fischer, 2012). level 1 predictors were grand-mean centred and a restricted maximum likelihood model was applied, first to calculate a null model and thereafter with the predictors added. in table 2, the mlm results are presented with literacy end-of-year achievement as the outcome variable. the results are shown for the total sample (n = 2 497) as well as the isixhosa sample (n = 772). table 2: literacy multilevel model results for total sample and isixhosa sample total sample coefficients isixhosa coefficients fixed effects pev* β se p pev* β se p null model 21.04% 44.66 0.92 0.00 15.08% 36.32 1.20 0.00 school level 18.50% 16.38% language of test 5.26 1.22 0.00 district 2.77 1.23 0.03 0.98 1.85 0.60 learner level sex 3.57 0.84 0.00 5.44 1.27 0.00 grade r 5.10 1.81 0.01 1.46 2.39 0.54 ses 4.78 0.65 0.00 3.74 1.01 0.00 dialect change -2.93 1.15 0.01 -4.15 1.29 0.00 switched language -1.27 0.86 0.14 -3.28 1.32 0.01 *proportion of explained variance β = unstandardised regression coefficients on scale of 0–100 for the total sample, which included all three languages of the test, all the coefficients were statistically significant (p < 0.05), except for switching language (using words or phrases from another language). at school level, the language of the test had a predictive coefficient of 5.26% (se = 1.22), with isixhosa being the lowest scoring test language (reference group). the result indicates that being tested in afrikaans or english could increase achievement by as much as 5%. the district of testing had an effect of 2.77% (se = 1.23) at school level, so being in a higher performing district could increase literacy achievement by as much as 3%. at the learner level, sex was a significant indicator with girls achieving 3.57% (se = 0.84) more in literacy than boys, when controlling for other variables. having attended grade r also indicated a potential gain of 5.10% (se = 1.81) and ses was another strong indicator of increased literacy achievement (a potential 5% increase when being in a higher ses group). in all three language groups, when a learner needed the dialect changed or informal language to be used to understand the question, there was a potential loss of 2.93% (se = 1.15). using words or phrases from another language was not significant for the total sample (p = 0.14). when the pev of the estimated literacy model is subtracted from the null model, a percentage of 2.54% remains. mtsatse and combrinck: dialects matter 31 the model was thereafter applied to the isixhosa group separately (right-hand side of table 2), and differences emerged. district was not significant at the school level for the isixhosa group, whereas sex had a large predictive influence for the isixhosa learners; girls could score as much as 5.44% (se = 1.27) more than boys. grade r attendance was not significant for the isixhosa group, indicating that it is potentially not as effective in the isixhosa schools as in schools of the other language categories. socio-economic status (ses) was a significant predictor (3.74%), but not as large as it had been for the total group. when learners did not understand the assessment question and the assessor had to change to a different dialect, a large negative impact was observed for the isixhosa group, with a potential reduction of 4.15% (se = 1.29) in literacy achievement scores. switching languages (using phrases or words from another language) could indicate a lower literacy achievement score for isixhosa learners by as much as 3.29% (se = 1.32). in table 3, the model as applied to the end-of-year numeracy results for all three language groups are shown in the first column. the language of the test and the district were not significant at school level for the total sample. sex was not significant, nor was switching languages in the numeracy model, applied to all three languages. a learner having attended grade r could indicate a potential gain of 3.40% (se = 1.02) and ses was again significant (2.60%), but not as large as was found in the literacy model. changing dialects was significant but using a different language was not. the proportion of explained variance is 17.55% when the estimated model percentage is deducted from the null model (p = .000). between-school variance explained 16.40% of the variance in isixhosa grade 1 numeracy achievement in the null model, as shown in table 3. there was less variance (differences) between isixhosa schools than for all the languages combined (pev = 30.68%), which is to be expected since a single language group should be more homogenous. table 3: numeracy multilevel model results for total sample and isixhosa sample total sample coefficients isixhosa coefficients fixed effects pev* β se p pev* β se p null model 30.68% 58.13 0.49 0.00 16.40% 55.70 0.83 0.00 school level 13.13% 8.32% language of test 0.99 0.67 0.14 district 0.20 0.66 0.77 0.47 1.31 0.72 learner level sex -0.31 0.57 0.59 1.80 1.11 0.11 grade r 3.40 1.02 0.00 0.76 2.56 0.77 ses 2.60 0.39 0.00 2.02 1.04 0.05 dialect change -2.25 0.71 0.00 -3.90 0.87 0.00 switched language -1.23 0.63 0.05 -2.39 0.75 0.00 *proportion of explained variance β = unstandardised regression coefficients on scale of 0–100 the isixhosa numeracy model showed that only ses, changing dialects, and using words or phrases from another language were significant predictors. the district, sex, or even having attended grade r were not significant predictors of isixhosa grade 1 numeracy achievement 32 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 (see table 3). the numeracy model, when applied to the isixhosa group, showed that changing dialects and using informal language had the largest negative impact on scores. the model indicates that linguistic complexities and dialects could play a more significant role in numeracy achievement for the isixhosa group. discussion the overall achievement among the three groups shows the potential disadvantage faced by the isixhosa learners when compared to the other language groups included in this study. the isixhosa learners start at a lower achievement level in grade 1 and do not reach the same achievement as the other groups by the end of the year (with the exception of numeracy, in which their achievement is similar to the afrikaans group). this achievement gap is probably the result of a host of differences among the groups, including socio-economic circumstances and linguistic complexities. the isixhosa learners were more likely to come from homes that do not have basic living necessities such as running tap water and electricity. dialectic issues further complicate the teaching and learning in isixhosa schools. as concluded by mtsatse (2018), some isixhosa foundation phase teachers have little to no knowledge about how to teach early reading in isixhosa and use dialects as an aid in teaching practice. this study examined specifically how code-switching to dialects and other languages influenced literacy and numeracy achievements of grade 1 learners, using an international assessment. the more frequently the assessor had to change dialects or use other languages for the learner to understand a question, the lower was the overall achievement in both literacy and numeracy. the isixhosa learners required significantly more code-switching than other language groups, which means they are more disadvantaged by language complexities. when the assessor had to change dialects or use informal language for the isixhosa learner to understand assessment questions, a potential reduction of 4% in achievement could occur. a similar result was found when it was necessary to use words or phrases from other languages (2–3% potential reduction in achievement). while going to school in a higher performing district and attending grade r could increase literacy achievement for the total sample, the same was not found for the isixhosa group. the isixhosa group’s models did not indicate any advantage to being in a school in a different district or having attended grade r. the findings may indicate that learners who speak a dialect different from the standardised isixhosa, or who do not have adequate isixhosa language skills in grade 1, start their schooling career at a significant disadvantage. a further implication is that learners who have lower linguistic abilities may be more likely to underachieve because they cannot compensate for the complexity of the classroom language environment. learners raised in multilingual homes may lack orderly and adequate exposure for linguistic development (flores, 2017; mclachlan, nicholson, fielding-barnsley, mercer, & ohi, 2013; skutnabb-kangas, phillipson, mohanty, & panda, 2009). languages develop in specific social and environmental contexts (o’connor & geiger, 2009). therefore, the linguistic profiles of learners from diverse backgrounds may not be as comparable as was once assumed (see brooks, 2018) and the comparability of african languages with other languages has not been mtsatse and combrinck: dialects matter 33 fully investigated. african languages are underdeveloped for modern demands because of colonisation, socio-economic disadvantages, and the long-term consequences of apartheid (higgs & van wyk, 2011; phatudi & moletsane, 2013; skutnabb-kangas et al., 2009). acknowledging dialects, investigating their role, and working towards the decolonisation of african languages are social justice issues that affect the lives and futures of learners who speak african languages. the research presented here aims to raise awareness of these critical issues. the isixhosa language was written up by missionaries, using european syntax and enshrining a few dialects as the officially accepted and standardised version of the language. other researchers have found that teachers speak their own dialect in the classroom and do not necessarily use the standardised isixhosa (mtsatse, 2018). isixhosa dialects not included in the standardised form of the language continue to be marginalised and unacknowledged, and this may further lower literacy and numeracy achievements of those who do not speak the standardised isixhosa, or learners with lower linguistic abilities. decolonisation of isixhosa and other african languages would require the empowerment of the languages through the standardisation of african languages, teacher training and development, as well as resource allocation. currently, african language teaching and learning is highly influenced by english and afrikaans reading research. calling for decolonisation of african languages will have to include more research to understand how early reading literacy develops in isixhosa. furthermore, there is a need to explore teaching practices that are designed specifically for the orthography and morphology of african languages, so that a structured pedagogy can be developed (dbe, 2017). conclusions and implications the pedagogy of isixhosa should be decolonised by developing the writing and lexicon of the language and all the dialects in an african context and by involving home language speakers. teachers should be trained to be sensitive to the dialectic complexity and the potential multilingualism of their classroom environment. cross-cultural assessments have some validity in african languages, but their limitations should also be examined and acknowledged. books and passages should be developed by home language speakers in these languages and in the various dialects. the text should be contextualised not only for the language but also for the dialects and the environment in which the learners find themselves. researchers also have an important role to play in devising methodologies that will advance the decolonisation of isixhosa. african researchers should be supported and trained so that they can develop methodologies suited to the unique african environment. awareness of the pervasive influence of western ideologies and the importance of decolonisation should also be promoted. south africa has a desperate need of educational researchers from diverse african communities who have both the educational experience and pedagogical knowledge, coupled with deep insights into research methodology and its application in africa. african languages such as isixhosa need individuals to champion the cause of the language, a role that educators and researchers should undertake. researchers and funders need to acknowledge the role of dialects and consider this in their methodologies and instrument 34 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 design. there are no easy answers when it comes to dealing with dialectic issues but the necessity of investigating them and finding ways of addressing them is supported by the research presented here. this study tested only grade 1 learners in three districts in western cape, and the results can be generalised only to those three districts. more 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(2015). community support: the missing link in indigenous language promotion in south africa? per linguam: a journal of language learning, 31(1), 60–73. microsoft word c8900 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 89, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i89a10 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x the place of teaching, learning and student development in a framework of academic freedom: attending to the negative freedoms of our students yunus ballim school of civil & environmental engineering, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa yunus.ballim@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5764-7428 (received: 7 december 2021; accepted: 2 november 2022) abstract in this paper, i argue for approaches to teaching, learning, and student development to be considered as important facets of the way in which the principles of academic freedom are conceptualised at university. the idea of academic freedom has been significantly expanded and better nuanced, particularly in its meaning at south african universities in the post-apartheid years, than the earlier t. b. davie formulation that is more strongly focused on institutional autonomy aspects of academic freedom. considerations of institutional autonomy relate to the positive freedoms that universities are to enjoy. however, i argue that consideration of student development in an academic freedom context requires that universities give thought to the negative freedoms that students are to enjoy such as the freedom from harm, or prejudice, or cycloptic approaches to ways of knowing. this requires careful attention to all the interactions that students will have with the university, particularly with the ways in which patterns of exclusion and prejudice are woven into institutional culture in ways that hamper their learning development. keywords: teaching and learning; university; academic freedom; negative freedoms; institutional culture this is an expanded and revised version of my t. b. davie academic freedom lecture, presented on 25 august 2021 and hosted by the academic freedom committee at the university of cape town. introduction throughout the world, the concept of academic freedom holds central place in the idea of what a university is meant to be. there is a heightened sense of the place of academic freedom in higher education in south africa, where the impact of the effects of its curtailment in the apartheid years are still manifest and the memories still intact. the importance of this matter was well considered in the higher education, institutional autonomy and academic freedom (heiaaf) project report commissioned by the council ballim: the place of teaching, learning and student development . . . 187 on higher education (2008) in that it sought to better understand academic freedom in a postapartheid south africa and to expand the concept beyond the t. b. davie (1953) formulation that, appropriate for its time, was more focused on matters of institutional autonomy. notwithstanding these important recent developments in our conception of academic freedom, it is necessary to pause briefly at the shrine. there are times of human madness when those with their hands on the levers of power become unhinged, become convinced that the gods speak directly into their ears, and that they alone are the custodians of the truth. decisions about right and wrong are made by the trigger-finger and unspeakable hurt and horror are visited on the innocent and the powerless. in times like these, when the alternatives include going out to stop bullets or suffer serious personal injury and deprivation, universitybased intellectuals serve best by rising above the pollution, breathing clearer air, thinking again about the first principles, and speaking honestly to their publics. the era of totalitarianism and fascism in europe and asia during the early 20th century was a frightening experience for many. but perhaps more frightening for us was the number of academics and intellectuals who went out in support of that brutishness. julien benda (1928) and hanna arendt (1973) have both written eloquently on this matter and academics would do well to visit such texts. apartheid was one such time in recent history and professor thomas benjamin davie, then vice-chancellor at the university of cape town, chose to speak out when many of his academic and administrative colleagues in south african universities were either silent or actively supportive of state policy at the time. davie loudly pronounced that there is a corner in society called the university where the shadow of unreason cannot be allowed to fall. given the conditions at the time, it was correct that davie should focus more strongly on the institutional autonomy aspect of academic freedom. thanks to this and similar efforts, we rest more comfortably today because we live in a country where the principle of academic freedom is captured in our constitution, and we are granted the opportunity to think more broadly about the ways in which the principles of academic freedom may guide practices at a university. as a contribution to broadening the understanding of academic freedom and its expression at a university, in this paper, i consider the place of teaching, learning, and general student development and what it may mean for a university that declares a commitment to the principles of academic freedom. importantly, i argue for consideration of the so-called negative freedoms that students are to enjoy in their learning experiences at a university. in this context, negative freedoms refer to the right that students should have to enjoy freedom from harm, prejudice, narrow-mindedness, or dogma in the ways in which their educational development takes place, but also as an objective of their learning. the custodial responsibility for these negative freedoms lies with the university and particularly with those who, in being charged with the academic leadership of the institution, are to ensure that appropriate policies and procedures are in place and that the institutional culture is directed towards ensuring that students find these freedoms to be in place. much of the post-apartheid discussion on academic freedom in south africa has focused on the distinction and overlap between academic freedom and institutional autonomy (see 188 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 bentley et al., 2006 and council on higher education, 2013). the issue is complex, and readers will find that discussions are carefully nuanced because of the many contending interests in the ways in which academic freedom is understood (see also jansen, 2005). global developments concerning the fragile nature of our environment, our healthcare, and our economic systems have added many layers of complexity to academic freedom and the ways in which universities are to operate in relation to their publics. however, while this complexity has bearing, the main concern in my argument here is with the nature and characteristics of a university that acknowledges and accepts the principle of academic freedom as one of the foundational values that will guide its processes, operations, and internal relationships. in particular, i reflect on the obligations that the principles of academic freedom place on a university regarding the ways in which it will approach the educational development of its students and the reasonable expectations that students may hold in regard to the educational experience they will have when they choose to attend such a university. of course, it is unlikely that one will find many universities in the world where an institutional antagonism to the principles of academic freedom is openly and officially professed. indeed, the apartheid government argued that racially segregated universities were not in conflict with principles of academic freedom (centlivres & feetham, 1957). but this is not what i mean here by an institutional commitment to academic freedom. the reference is, rather, to an institution that consciously and purposefully wishes to go beyond policy statements and committee structures in trying to ensure that academic freedom finds expression, as value, in the ways in which different sectors of the university community relate to each other in the teaching and learning process or, stated differently, that these values will find expression in the institutional culture of the university in how it relates to student development and how it understands what i refer to as the graduateness of students, by which i mean the attributes and generic competencies of a graduate that amount to more than merely an ability to pass examinations. students and the idea of negative freedoms at a university for the purposes of this argument, the academy, its administrators, and its academics, as distinct from its students, are clustered together into what is meant by the term university. also, the notion of values is used to refer to the things that direct our decisions and behaviour in the absence of rules, such as the impetus that makes us choose to help a stranger carry their heavy groceries across the road, for example. importantly, it is easy to see that this notion of what we think of as values includes what we commonly think of as undesirable or harmful motivators of behaviour, such as selfishness or racism. in this argument, such negative values must also be considered, particularly in the ways in which they are sometimes threaded into the large tapestry of the institutional cultures of our universities to manifest as shared values within particular institutions. the conventional understanding of academic freedom, in its formulation according to davie, confers on the university the freedom to choose what shall be taught, who shall teach, who shall be taught, and how they shall be taught, thus capturing freedom over curriculum ballim: the place of teaching, learning and student development . . . 189 (including research) and pedagogy. relying on berlin’s (2001) conceptualisation of two forms of freedoms or liberties—he uses these terms interchangeably—the davie formulation confers positive freedoms on the university in terms of the freedom to make choices and do certain things, as tabensky (2013) has correctly argued. it is in this sense that the davie formulation can be seen to be focussed primarily on institutional autonomy, in that it calls for the freedom to make choices about the form of the academic project. it is not difficult to see the limitations of this formulation, primarily because it also allows the university to exclude particular students and ideas based on institutionally normalised prejudice. however, thinking about the place of students in a framework of academic freedom—my primary concern in this paper—requires a greater focus on the negative freedoms that students can reasonably expect to find in their learning experience at the university. this is the freedom from harm, from prejudice, and from unwanted exclusion based on identity. berlin (2001) draws a distinction between positive and negative freedoms that provides a helpful reference for understanding the imperatives for university leadership in the context of teaching and student development. he notes on the one hand that [t]he ‘positive’ sense of the word ‘liberty’ derives from the wish on the part of the individual to be his own master. i wish my life and decisions to depend on myself, not on external forces of whatever kind. i wish to be the instrument of my own, not of other men’s acts of will. (p. 178) negatives freedoms, on the other, take for granted the need for the freedoms of some to be limited to ensure the freedom of others or that some coercion is necessary through general agreements such as legislation, rules, or what is known as the social contract, to ensure that conditions in the community or institution are suitable for the best expression of positive freedoms. the importance of this distinction between positive and negative freedoms is that positive freedoms belong in the domain of the individual or the entity. having positive freedoms takes autonomous and reasoned decision-making for granted and allows individual agency to choose the path that the person or the institution deems best to achieve the ends that they have willingly chosen to serve. negative freedoms belong in the domain of the authority of communities, societies, or nations. we grant the custodianship of these freedoms to those in authority, and we expect that our freedoms from harm or from unjustified exclusion or discrimination will be properly attended to. it is in defence of such negative freedoms that citizens are willing to grant to their state authorities the legitimate right to exercise violence. of course, the delicate nature of this relationship between citizens and their state can be recognised in the ways in which negative freedoms become the subject of abuse by bad governments or institutional authorities. personal surveillance or persecution of people who hold dissenting views is often justified by the need to defend the negative freedoms of a community. some of the negative freedoms are quite obvious when we think of the needs of students at a university such as, for example, the need for security systems to provide freedom from physical harm or the need for policies to prevent prejudice in the ways in which learning opportunities are accessed. however, it is necessary to stretch this argument a little further 190 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 and say that the principles of academic freedom also oblige a university to give expression to the liberating value of education by being proactive about ensuring that students have the opportunity to develop the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind that allow them to maintain a sceptical attitude towards received wisdom and be able to reflect critically on prejudice, dogma, and misconception of their own making as well as that of others in their living and working lives as graduates. the duty to free students from forms of unreason lies with the university and it is in this sense that i argue for the liberating value of education as a negative freedom in the learning needs of our students. together with competent classroom teaching and functional learning facilities, students should also find a university that is responsive to the liberating value of education. such responsiveness is best expressed by a university that is open to different ways of knowing and universal in its approach to the world of ideas and one that is purposeful in ensuring that these values are to be found in the general operation of the university as well as in the individual academics who will teach the students. the university, its public, and its institutional culture during the development of its higher education institutional autonomy and academic freedom project, the council on higher education (che) hosted a consultative discussion in 2006 during which one of the participants asked a question that can be paraphrased as “can society trust academics with academic freedom at the modern university?” this is an important question in relation to academic freedom, not because it requires a yes-or-no answer but because it is a warning about how fragile academic freedom is and how easily public confidence in our higher education institutions can be lost when we neglect the first principles of our purpose in the ways in which we live and work at a university. it seems that one of the important reasons for the increased social violence and mayhem that we have been witnessing around the world over the past decade or so is the loss of confidence by communities in their social institutions that, in many ways, have not delivered on the promise of a dignified life for all. we have to ask why angry protesters run past a church or a mosque or a temple to burn a school, or a clinic, or a library. as social institutions, universities must always act to sustain the confidence of their public—to whom they speak and those on whose behalf they speak as academics and intellectuals—in the value of what universities do, so that what universities actually do is worthy of their support and of their defence. in many ways, this need to attend to the confidence of the university’s public frames my argument in this paper. in thinking about the institutional culture of a university and the ways in which it is constructed, intentionally or otherwise, to attend to the negative freedoms of its students, it may be helpful to describe this in three layers of experience of the people who engage with the university. the first layer relates to the experience of a casual visitor who spends a short time at the university such as the parent of a student, say, or a possible donor, or a likely research collaborator from another university. such a visitor will consciously or unconsciously acknowledge the state of the buildings, the neatness of the gardens, and the posters on the walls that make statements about institutional values or carry invitations to lectures, art events, or protest meetings. they may even get a glimpse of the teaching spaces, ballim: the place of teaching, learning and student development . . . 191 student residences, and research facilities. those who have visited under-resourced or otherwise troubled universities will recognise how important this first-layer view is in formulating judgements about the general operational and academic culture of such an institution. the second layer of the experience of institutional culture relates to the formal regulation of the relationships between different sectors of the internal university community such as the academic, human resources and operational rules, the policy statements of the university, and the ways in which these are meant to regulate the power and authority relationships across the institution including, for instance, the role of the vice-chancellor to approve the content of individual courses. these rules are also meant to provide the requirements and processes for accountability by staff and students such as, for example, whether a student will be called out for smoking in the hallway, or playing music too loudly in the residence, or how academics are to account for the study performance of students in their classes. the third and perhaps most important layer on which i focus in particular, is the thick and complex network of unwritten rules that direct individuals and committees into making choices while creating the illusion that these choices were rationally or freely made. these are what zizek (2008) referred to as the meta-rules that make up the habits of a society or a community, including things like the rules for what is to be taken as polite behaviour or the subjects that we are not to speak about in open discussion and that may only be mentioned in low tones in private conversations. to quote zizek more directly, every legal order or every order of explicit normativeness has to rely on a complex network of informal rules which tells us how we are to relate to explicit norms: how we are to apply them; to what extent we are to take them literally; and how and when we are allowed, even solicited, to disregard them. (p. 158) trying to pin down these meta-rules is much like the proverbial attempt at nailing our porridge to the wall. we feel their effects, positive or negative, without being able to point exactly to the thing or the behaviour that stimulated the feeling. the importance of my characterisation of three layers of institutional culture is that, in different ways, they each hold the opportunity to promote or to restrict the negative freedoms of students. it should also be noted that the nature and character of each layer of institutional culture lies in the directing hands of university leadership, including its senate on matters of academic arrangements and regulations. however, it is relatively easier to rewrite rules and policies or to make positive change to the architectural arrangements and use of buildings and spaces than it is to make changes to the ways in which the meta-rules influence negative freedoms of students, mainly because their roots go so deeply into the very fabric of the institution. let me illustrate my point. many academics and senior administrators will have had the experience of proposing a new operational approach or floating an idea at their universities and of then being met with a fellow academic, more senior in years and status or a senior 192 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 faculty administrator who, after momentary reflection, might say something along the lines of “that’s not how we do things at this university.” aside from the question of how “the way we do things at this university” became the way that things are done at the university, it is more interesting to consider how the unwritten ways in which things are done at this particular university became so deeply infused into the psyche of mid-level academic and administrative staff as to almost automate their choices on matters of practice and strategy. all institutions can speak of the unique ways in which they do things to arrive at the same outcomes as their neighbouring institutions and this, in itself, is not a bad thing. it is good that students graduate with a distinctive flavour, if you will, or a particular characteristic of what it means to be a graduate of a particular university and that this characteristic will include the habits of mind and values that the university wishes to develop in its graduates. but ensuring that the impact of this characteristic is always positive demands an acute awareness, particularly on the part of institutional leadership at all levels, of the complex internal network of informal rules and the need to act, consciously and continually, to direct and shape their form and nature. it is not difficult to recognise that the preceding characterisation of the layers of institutional culture locates the habits and patterns of exclusion based on identity in the third layer, where the network of unwritten rules for normative behaviour will have been constructed over time. this seems to be the way to explain the complicit behaviour of staff and students at white universities in apartheid south africa that actively prevented the participation of black academics and students in their institutions. prior socialisation was obviously an important contributor, but it seems that this explanation does not go far enough to explain how such universities that are meant to acknowledge the universality of ideas as a core value were able to sustain the general compliance of almost the entire university community over such a long time. most people in social institutions will learn quickly to genuflect before the rules of behaviour that count for affirmation and that turn each of us into one of us. while institutional culture is important in reinforcing and defending the negative freedoms of students, it is also important in developing in students the idea of the negative freedoms of others, to which they are to attend both as students and as graduates. a university that neglects this aspect of its institutional culture can serve to reinforce patterns of prejudice and social exclusion that students acquire from prior socialisation, which must then be seen as a failure of student development. as we acknowledge the importance of ensuring that the process of learning is also aimed at dispelling superstitious belief or irrational argument from the minds of our students, so, too, must we acknowledge the importance of dispelling their acquired habits of social exclusion based on identity, both in how they learn and in what they learn. it is in this sense that attention to negative freedoms in institutional culture is essential to student development. institutional culture and the 2008 “reitz incident” even upon casual reflection, most people did not expect that the positive and progressive changes to regulations and policies in south africa after 1994 would see the end of the ballim: the place of teaching, learning and student development . . . 193 racism that was so strongly woven into this third level of many institutional cultures in south africa. its persistence was well-illustrated with the infamous reitz incident at the university of the free state (ufs) in 20081 that led to what is referred to as the soudien report on transformation in south african higher education (department of education, 2008). the primary offensiveness of the incident did not lie in its illustration of racism in our country. rather, it was offensive because the students involved were close to completing their studies and graduating. a student who is academically successful and graduates from the university with such social attitudes may have been well trained but was certainly under-educated and it may be argued that, beyond the purely technical matter of passing their examinations, such students have forfeited the right to call themselves graduates. but more importantly, the institution had failed in its duty to properly educate its students and it is for this reason that the vice-chancellor’s decision at the time to forgive the students was supportable. this was an appropriate acknowledgement that the real accountability lay with the university and that it needed to bring directed effort into mending the error of its ways of engagement. there are a few further points to be made from my reference to this ufs incident and the many other such instances at universities that did not make the media headlines. it is important and correct that a university takes for granted that its students will arrive with a wide range of prejudices about all sorts of other identities that were constructed in their lived experiences with family, friends, and community. it is the task of the university to ensure that its students find sufficient opportunity to test and reflect on these prejudices and to leave the university as successful graduates having had an opportunity to see the world through the eyes of the other. we cannot expect that the catholic students will leave as protestants or that the supporters of the palestinian people’s cause will leave our university as champions of zionism, but we must expect our students to leave with an intellectual attitude that guides them on the path of the reasoned and sensitive search for the truth in all that they will encounter as university graduates in the world of ideas. events like the reitz incident also alert universities to the fact that all the engagements that students experience during their studies are part of their learning experience. universities must be more consciously aware of all informal contributions to learning and, as with formal classroom learning, must try to ensure that all student experiences and interactions are positively directed. a badly cleaned lecture room or an ill-spoken word from a lecturer or an administrator all contribute to negative learning opportunities for students. the negative attitudes and approaches that staff at the university may hold about their students, about students’ learning abilities, or about their academic achievements derive from what is referred to as the pathologies of institutional culture. these pathologies are the attitudes and behaviours that operate at the level of the meta-rules and act to marginalise, exclude, or hurt particular groups of the university community. left unchecked, such pathologies act to corrupt the primary purpose of the university that is to bring meaning to complexity in the process of developing the next generation of graduates and intellectuals who will go out to engage with the critical questions of the human condition in more positive and more 1 four white students were video recorded while belittling a group of black university residence cleaners, including apparently urinating in the food that they then fed to the workers. 194 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 developmental ways than their teachers did. universities can rise to this task only if students learn in, and about, an environment that is free from harm, threat, prejudice, or unyielding dogma. developing such an environment in which negative freedoms are taken as important, should be purposefully directed by university leadership rather than being left to happen by chance. exploring the pathologies of institutional culture to return to the matter of institutional pathologies, i use the word pathology in its medical sense to indicate a disease or an abnormality that requires specialist attention, time, and remedial treatment if it is to be healed. like the metaphorical vampire, these pathologies are ideas and habits that skulk around in the dark, feeding on and infecting those who are nearby. however, their hollowness is exposed, and they crumble as soon as they are faced with the light of open and reasoned argument. sometimes, these habits may be well-intentioned but have seriously hurtful consequences such as, for example, that most corrosive form of racism that expects less from people considered as other and is at pains to apologise for poor behaviour or performance on the basis of their blackness or brownness or their poorness. in a country like south africa where policy and regulation are aimed strongly at removing the hurtful habits of othering that were acquired during apartheid, negative discrimination based on identity can operate only in the umbra at the level of the informal network of meta-rules that directs the behaviour of those who work and learn in the institution. the fact that our staff and students arrive with prior socialisation that includes these pathologies of behaviour is not a reason for their continued existence in our institutional cultures. universities must resist the paralysing argument that it is no more than a microcosm of its society. they should aim, rather, for the university to be a microcosm of what society could be like. to illustrate the point, imagine that an academic accepts a post at a university and upon arriving at work, realises that fellow academics commonly accept bribes from students to inflate their assessment grades. if our newly appointed academic further finds that the university leaders are unwilling to hear protestations against such practice, he or she will have to conclude that this is part of the institutional culture and, if clear minded, would find such values so offensive that they would choose to leave the institution. equally, if someone joins our university and holds firmly to their sense of their own racial or gender superiority, they should find the university so affirming of all in its community that they would either be convinced to change their views or choose to resign. the values that are embedded in the institutional culture of the university and that are meant to direct its choices and behaviour, even in the absence of rules, must permeate the walls of the institution so that all can recognise its presence and feel its effects. at this point, a particular comment is necessary on that most pernicious form of informally institutionalised harm—gender-based violence in all its manifestations that is directed mostly by men against women. it touches on a sensitive part of our souls where we do not like to be touched because it reminds us of all forms of brute human power and their relationship with powerlessness. i am attracted to pumla gqola’s (2015) argument that ballim: the place of teaching, learning and student development . . . 195 [r]ape has survived as long as it has because it works to keep patriarchy intact. it communicates clearly who matters and who is disposable. (p. 21) while it is factually correct to say that most men will not rape a woman, this is not a useful starting point for understanding the place and meaning of gender-based violence in society. we need to remember that each time a man goes out to rape or purposefully hurt a woman, all men become beneficiaries. what the rapist does is reinforce the patterns of masculinity and patriarchy that are part of the meta-rules of society and that form the habits of our social institutions. the rapist is part of the mechanism that ensures that the patterns of patriarchy are continually reproduced. thanks to the rapist, men are much more likely than women to have their hands on the levers of power in society. a similar argument can be made in consideration of racism. not all white people did terrible things to black people in apartheid south africa nor did all germans in germany persecute jewish people during world war ii. but all white south africans and all german people were beneficiaries of the exclusion of blacks or jews respectively from a social justice system that was meant to protect their freedom to pursue a happy and meaningful life in their society. in these examples, it is not possible to make an argument for collective guilt, but it is possible to make an argument for collective responsibility. similarly, in relation to gender-based violence, all men have to acknowledge their responsibility and must work actively to develop an institutional culture that will not accommodate such brutish behaviour, much less make excuses for it. returning to the role and development of institutional culture, these and similar structural forms of exclusion based on identity should be the subject of regular institution-wide scrutiny with the aim of recognising and responding to harm caused by such behaviour. even as it is about defending the negative freedoms of students, this reflective process should also influence the learning development of students in the classroom and in the so-called second or hidden curriculum that enables students to learn through their interactions with the university and their fellow students. to emphasise the point, the values that the university wishes to develop in its graduates should also be the foundation stones of its institutional culture. academic freedom and the liberating value of teaching institutional values and the institutional culture are meant to and do find expression in the structure of the curriculum and the ways in which we teach our students. in its formal sense, teaching is the front end of our task in engaging with the process of education as a liberating experience for the next generations of intellectuals who, as mentioned earlier, will do better, and will see differently and much further than the generation of their teachers managed to do. there is a defensible belief and i do not care to dispute with those who disagree on this matter, that the teaching space and the relationship between those who wish to teach and those wish to learn, is sacred. such a relationship cannot be described in purely pecuniary or resource-related terms. it is here that teachers are to make good on the promise that a university gives to society, to the parents, and to the families of their students that they will be provided with a good quality and proper education and that, to the best of its institutional 196 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 ability, the university will try to ensure that students leave as positively engaged graduates. there may be times when it is necessary to interfere in the learning space but, like national declarations of war, such choices must always be made with great circumspection and reluctance. apartheid’s interference in this space in the education of both black and white south africans perpetuated one of its greatest harms from which we certainly have yet to recover. political movements around the world that are driven by one or another crackpot dogma and that turn children into soldiers or keep girl children out of school, will visit equal harm on the heads of all their citizens. in reflecting on the form and process of teaching and learning at the university that has chosen to actively express the principles of academic freedom in all its functions, it is important to keep in mind max weber’s (1917/2020) caveat about the limits of a university education. a university education is not meant to answer the big questions to which all human beings have to respond: who am i? how should i live? what choices should i make? these are questions that our students must answer for themselves, and, at the broader level, our task is to give context to such questions and to develop in our students the reasoning ability to arrive at defensible answers in a world that is complex and frighteningly ambiguous. it is in this sense that we understand the often-repeated maxim ours is to educate and not to captivate as meaning that we are not to make our students captive to particular world views, particular social or political views, or particular forms of knowledge about the empirically observable world. of course, this does not mean that those who teach should pretend to be completely neutral on all matters of debate or dispute. nor does it mean that teachers should be accommodating of bad science and flawed reasoning in their classrooms. such an approach may well cause great harm to the learning experience of their students. teaching in the context of the liberating value of education means to enable our students to engage positively with the unfamiliar while also helping them see the familiar in unfamiliar ways and encourage in them a sceptical attitude towards all received knowledge, including the theories and hypotheses that they receive from their lecturers. this requires that we develop in our students the habits of mind and reasoning characteristics of intellectuals: a sense of the value of knowledge for its own sake; a capacity for critical reasoning outside of one’s discipline; an ability to keep two diametrically opposing ideas in one’s mind and still be fully functional; celebrating, rather than merely tolerating, diversity of opinion as a core value; recognising respectful criticism as the finest gift that one can give or receive and, at the end of a hard day of argument, of analysis, or in defence of a strongly-held view, being willing to say quietly, “i may have been wrong today.” it is our capacity to develop our students in this way that leads people like o’hear (1989) to refer to the university as a “civilizing force” (p. 17) and scott (1989) to speak of the university as contributing to “a political world more sensitive to reason and more civilised in its search for truth” (p. 16). our students should experience this approach to learning development in both the first curriculum, the formal engagements that students have with course material, as well as the second or hidden curriculum from which our students learn about being at and engaging with a university that sees its values as being commendable. this second curriculum is also about ballim: the place of teaching, learning and student development . . . 197 the architectural approach that we take to organising the university campus and particularly the teaching and learning spaces. this was one of the most valuable lessons put to use in the development of sol plaatje university in kimberley where careful attention having been paid to beautiful and functional learning spaces encourages better and deeper learning in students. to return to the casual visitor to the campus, it is important that universities ask themselves questions such as: “what is it about the architectural arrangements of the physical spaces that will tell a casual visitor that this is a university that is seriously positive about, say, women’s rights?” and “is this a university where no one should feel pressure to apologise for their identity?” here is an important part of the university’s expression of commitment to defending the negative freedoms of its students. as mentioned earlier, the values embedded in an institutional culture must be so strongly expressed that they permeate its very walls. it is fair to say that the university that valorises one cultural view or one way of knowing above all others cannot help but under-educate its students. those students who enrol at a university that commits to the principles of academic freedom can reasonably expect that their lecturers will be open to the possibility of other ways of knowing and that there are types of problems that are insoluble unless one is willing to be led by the hand to stand in an unfamiliar or sometimes uncomfortable place from which to view them, as is often expected of students, particularly at a university. this is not an unusual approach in many knowledge disciplines and the area of complex number theory makes a useful illustration. this is a branch of mathematics that relies on the starting argument that the equation x2 + 1 = 0 has a solution. to all that is known and all one has been taught about the counting number system, this looks like a ridiculous proposition because it requires acceptance of the idea that the square-root of -1 exists. yet, there is a wide range of problems in disciplines from electrical supply to quantum mechanics that cannot be solved unless we accept complex number analysis as another way of knowing numbers. similarly, the teacher who acknowledges only a european worldview and speaks only english, say, will lack both the words and the conceptual understanding of family or community connectedness in much of asia, africa, or south america. such a teacher would find it strange that these are peoples who have more than one word for uncle or for grandmother. in an anthropology, politics, or public health class, faced with african, chinese, or indian students, such a teacher would be the educationally disadvantaged one in the classroom and may have to attend a bridging course to improve their capacity to teach. there are some aspects in which the university and its teaching staff are under-prepared for the learning needs of the students who attend their classes. the educational development of students is best served when those who teach them are sensitive to the complexities and ways of reasoning in disciplines outside of their own. of course, a lecturer cannot simultaneously be a specialist in many disciplines but all who lecture should at least aim to be reasonably enlightened amateurs in as wide a range of disciplines as possible, through the habit of broad intellectual engagement. too often do we meet academics who believe that the only subject worthy of intelligent intellectual discussion is their own research area and that all other knowledge areas are obvious to an average mind. this is most unbecoming of anyone who wishes to claim the title of academic or intellectual 198 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 and a sectarian approach to disciplinary knowledge can only be harmful to the learning development of our students. while students in the pure and applied sciences certainly need greater engagement with issues and arguments in the humanities and liberal arts, there is an equally concerning threat to society in the poverty of scientific understanding of our humanities graduates and the ease with which they hand their futures over to technocrats on important matters of the relationship between technology and society. if knowledge is truly to be about challenging power, then developing a foundational understanding and a respectful approach to ways of knowing in other disciplines is essential for our graduates and these are the habits of mind that our students should also find in those who teach them. closure i have argued that, beyond a mechanism for defence against outside interference with intellectual work, an institutional commitment to the principles of academic freedom also obliges a university to find expression of such principles in all its internal relations and operations, particularly in relation to the intellectual development of its students. knowledge development is the only real social good of a university, precisely because of the liberating value of knowledge. proper attention to all forms of student learning in the ways we teach and the ways in which students experience the university, and its institutional culture is essential to give expression to the principles of academic freedom and this demands awareness of what has been referred to as the negative freedoms that students should not only enjoy but also develop in relation to themselves and others in their learning at a university. shoddy approaches to teaching and learning and a neglectful attitude to developing the critical intellectual engagement of students leaves the university hollowed of its core purpose. i offer a final word on the liberating value of education and its relationship with the decolonising project. concerns have been expressed elsewhere (ballim, 2018) about the wooliness of recent discussions on decolonising the curriculum at south african universities. the primary concern is that the discussion confuses the curriculum with the content of the curriculum. there is a level of silliness in the idea of removing shakespeare or western science, whatever that might mean, from the teaching activities at a university. it is worth taking a mirror-reflection from aimé césaire’s caution (cited in mbembe, 2017, p. 158) to european intellectuals against their self-satisfying reductionism which, he said, has the potential to “. . . amputate man from the human and isolate him, permanently, in a suicidal pride if not in a rational and scientific form of barbarism.” we should further note césaire’s point that rationalism and the scientific method can also be instruments of barbarism and are often harnessed in the service of unspeakable purpose. the decolonising project is better framed around the task, as wa thiong’o (1981) describes it, of decolonising minds. it is here that a university can make its most significant contribution to its public, through the educational development of graduates who will stretch the front ends of human endeavour with warm hearts and fine minds and who are awake to the big questions of human suffering, environmental sustainability, and the relationships between power and powerlessness. but this requires that university lecturers develop their ballim: the place of teaching, learning and student development . . . 199 understanding and commitment to the idea of a university that holds academic freedom principles, including the negative freedoms, at the core of its values. to be fair, our students deserve no less. references arendt, h. (1973). the origins of totalitarianism. harcourt brace & co. ballim, y. (2018). ways of knowing and the possible contributions of curriculum to the decolonising project. scholarship of teaching and learning in the south, 2(1), 136– 144. benda, j. (1928). the treason of the intellectuals. william morrow & co. bentley, k., habib, a., and morrow, s. (2006). academic freedom, institutional autonomy and the corporatised university in contemporary south africa (higher education, institutional autonomy and academic freedom no. 3). council on higher education. berlin, i. (2001). two concepts of liberty. in h. hardy (ed.), liberty: incorporating four essays on liberty (pp. 118–172). oxford university press. centlivres, a van der sandt, & feetham, r. (1957). the open universities in south africa. a statement of a conference of senior scholars from the universities of witwatersrand and cape town. witwatersrand university press. council on higher education (2008). institutional autonomy and public accountability in south african higher education: report of the independent task team on higher education, institutional autonomy and academic freedom (heiaaf). www.che.ac.za › che_heiaaf_report_aug2000 council on higher education (2013). kagisano no. 8 academic freedom. https://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.che.ac.za/sites/default/files/pu blications/kagisano_no_8_march_2013.pdf davie, t. b. (1953, february 28). address to new students. cape times. department of education. (2008). report of the ministerial committee on transformation and social cohesion and the elimination of discrimination in public higher education institutions. https://www.gov.za/report-ministerial-committee-transformation-andsocial-cohesion-and-elimination-discrimination gqola, p. d. (2015). rape. a south african nightmare. mfbooks joburg. jansen, j. d. (2005). accounting for autonomy. south african journal of higher education, 19(2), 214–228. mbembe, a. (2017). a critique of black reason. wits university press. 200 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 o’hear, a. (1989). the university as a civilising force. in c. ball & h. eggins (eds.), higher education into the 1990s – new dimensions (pp. 17–28). society for research into higher education and open university press. scott, p. (1989). the power of ideas. in c. ball & h. eggins (eds.), higher education into the 1990s – new dimensions (pp. 7–16). society for research into higher education and open university press. tabensky, p. a. (2013). against the discourse of academic freedom. kagisano no. 8 academic freedom (pp. 76–87). council on higher education. wa thiong’o, n. (1981). decolonising the mind. the politics of language in african literature. zimbabwe publishing house. weber, m. (2020). charisma and disenchantment: the vocation lectures (d. searls, trans.). (p. reitter & c. wellmon (eds.). new york review books. (original work published 2017) žižek, s. (2008). violence. profile books. microsoft word b91 full issue.docx journal of education, 2023 issue 91, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i91a06 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x decolonisation, knowledge construction, and legitimation at african universities in the 21st century: relevance of françois lyotard sunday paul c. onwuegbuchulam centre for gender and africa studies, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa sage1_ugoh@yahoo.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3170-8266 (received: 9 june 2022; accepted: 9 june 2023) abstract the fallist movement in south africa, among other points, called into question the relevance of maintaining aspects of colonial heritage, especially as they relate to knowledge construction at south african higher education institutions. the issues of transformation and knowledge decolonisation also came into the limelight with some students calling for the decolonisation/africanisation of science as a system of knowledge, hence #sciencemustfall. these issues can be placed in the wider context of the argument that african centres of learning are founded on colonial epistemologies and forms of education. it is notably a reality that impedes the project of proper transformation and decolonisation at african centres of learning. utilising desktop methods, this article engages the debate on knowledge decolonisation at african universities in the 21st century. based on françois lyotard’s postmodern views, the article theorises a possible philosophical grounding for knowledge decolonisation. it argues for openness to subjectivity in the enterprise of knowledge construction, and for the integration and mainstreaming of african knowledge systems at african universities. keywords: decolonisation, knowledge construction, knowledge legitimation, indigenous knowledge systems, education transformation introduction today just as in the past, doesn’t everything happen as if most of the countries in africa were irremediably extrovert, the quest for knowledge being organised mainly so as to be able to claim some sort of extracontinental legitimacy? (ambrose kom, 2000, para. 1) political change in africa since the era of colonialism has precipitated discussions centring on the themes of decolonisation and postcolonialism. thinkers like fanon, nkrumah, mamdani, appiah, ngũgĩ wa thiong’o, serequeberhan, among others, have debated several onwuegbuchulam: decolonisation, knowledge construction, and legitimation . . . 95 subjects concerning postcolonial african states including neocolonialism, race, nationalism and nation-building, justice, and decolonisation. these debates and discussions have been aimed at generating theories, and informing policy and praxis towards addressing those elements of colonialism that affect the existence and life of africans in the postcolonial era. notably, although some progress has been made in certain postcolonial african states as regards achieving proper decolonisation (which recognises african indigenous knowledge systems and epistemologies), some african countries are still bogged down in the quagmire of the legacy of colonisation. in post-apartheid south africa, some alienating circumstances consequent on colonialism and its legacies are still present and remain problematics that need to be discussed and addressed. the events surrounding the fallist movement in south africa revealed the reality of the various forms of alienation experienced by african students at higher education institutions (schutte, 2019). the fallist movement did not only call for the physical removal of the reminders of colonial subjugation, but they also called into question the relevance of continually maintaining and perpetuating some aspects of colonial heritage, especially as they relate to knowledge construction at south african higher education institutions. notably, in 2016 a video that went viral on the internet shows some university of cape town (uct) students arguing a case for the decolonisation/africanisation of science as a system of knowledge (van jaarsveldt, et al., 2018). their argument can be summarised thus, that colonialism/neocolonialism is experienced in the reality that forms of knowledge based on african worldviews are disregarded at south african schools. according to the students, science is, however, given due prominence as an exalted system of knowledge, thus presenting a good case of knowledge imperialism and the perpetuation of colonial heritage at south african schools. consequently, the students proposed that #sciencemustfall or that science needs to be “scratched off,” especially in africa (henderson, 2016). this call generated lots of debate, with some arguing that it is illogical and ridiculous to call for the dethronement of science which globally, is seen as a body of knowledge deemed to be pervasive, objective, and of great utility. the above events and demands of uct students can be placed in the wider argument that african centres of learning are founded on colonial epistemologies and constantly find themselves trying to measure up to and meet the standards of extracontinental (western modernity) knowledge legitimation (gwaravanda, 2020; heleta, 2016; horsthemke, 2020; schutte, 2019). they are also inserted into the general local and global debate about what is taught at universities and the relevance of existing curricula to students’ milieu (sayed et al., 2017). it is argued that maintaining and perpetuating content and curricula based on extracontinental epistemologies (western modernity and its colonising knowledge systems) hampers any effort by these centres of learning to achieve proper transformation and decolonisation in the form of producing knowledge that is both based on african epistemologies and relevant to the african people. kom (2000) affirmed this and further, was of the view that “this broadly explains the marginalisation in which any african initiative in the field of knowledge would remain stuck” (para. 11). considering this problematic, the current study builds on extant literature on these issues and contributes to the debate on 96 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 knowledge decolonisation at african universities in the 21st century. specifically, based on françois lyotard’s views on the postmodern condition, the essay primarily theorises on the philosophical basis for knowledge decolonisation and legitimation at african higher education institutions. theoretical perspectives: whose knowledge is it anyway? formal education as it exists in african universities is arguably a consequence of colonialism and the history of the enlightenment construction of knowledge (bolt & bezemer, 2009; horsthemke, 2020). 1 in this, it is taken for granted that knowledge systems, as exemplified in the division of the university space into faculties representing diverse areas of knowledge, is legitimate and the way knowledge should be categorised. what needs to be interrogated is, “how did these divisions come to be?” and, perhaps, the deeper questions should be “whose knowledge is it anyway?” and “how did we come to have a body of knowledge at african universities taken to be the acceptable body of knowledge?” this essay, in answering these questions, takes as its point of departure the acknowledgement that knowledge construction as it exists in african universities currently, is a brainchild of the european and western educational systems (gwaravanda, 2020; heleta, 2016; horsthemke, 2020). this argument is not new and can be garnered from the views of many scholars including emmanuel wallerstein (1996, 1999) who have explored knowledge construction at world universities. a narrative that is nuanced needs to be presented here, which will serve as a conceptual framework to understand knowledge construction and divisions existing at universities globally. secondly, as sequel to the views expressed by emmanuel wallerstein, there is a further exploration of a theoretical basis that could ground transformation and knowledge decolonisation at african universities in the 21st century. emmanuel wallerstein: the divorce of the two cultures in social sciences in the twenty-first century, wallerstein (1999) traced the history of the construction of knowledge and the emergence of the social sciences. he noted that social science is “not a bounded, autonomous arena of social action” but “a segment of a larger reality, the structures of knowledge of the modern world” (wallerstein, 1999, p. 42). hence, to understand and make projections about the social sciences as an area of knowledge in the 21st century, wallerstein addressed issues within three time frames: “the historical construction, the present challenges, and the plausible future alternatives” (1999, p. 42). and within each time framework, he focused on three aspects: “the structures of knowledge as a whole; the evolution of the university system; and the particular character of the social sciences” (wallerstein, 1999, p. 42). 1 it is acknowledged that this assertion is debatable considering some evidence to the contrary. on this, walters et al. (2021, p. 1) have argued that the “present-day education outcomes in africa cannot be independently attributed to colonial or pre-colonial ethnic institutions; instead, it is the complementarity or contention between colonial and precolonial institutions that result in education outcomes in africa today.” onwuegbuchulam: decolonisation, knowledge construction, and legitimation . . . 97 the historical construction of the social sciences as a body of knowledge is noted to have occurred against the background of a tense framework. this tense framework is the 18th to 19th century epistemological divide between science and philosophy. the epistemological divide resulted in the restructuring of university faculties, establishing science and philosophy as disparate areas of knowledge. left on its own, social science differentiated itself from the other two cultures by assuming a middle stance and, “having developed no epistemological stance of its own, social science was torn apart by the struggle between the two colossi that were the natural sciences and the humanities, neither of which tolerated a neutral stance” (wallerstein, 1999, p. 43). but the lease of life for social science came with the late 19th century attacks on the claim of the natural sciences to be a superior form of knowledge because it was able to know the “truth” and the “static” determinate laws that govern the universe. according to wallerstein (1999, p. 44) “since the late nineteenth century . . . a large group of natural scientists have been challenging the premises of newtonian science; they see the future as intrinsically indeterminate.” notably, the attack on newtonian science for the first time in the then known history of human thought enabled serious consideration of the argument that the social world is inherently uncertain. against this backdrop, wallerstein argued: we shall enter the twenty-first century with considerable uncertainty about the validity of the disciplinary boundaries within social science, and a real questioning for the first time in two centuries about the legitimacy of the epistemological divide between the “two cultures,” and hence the de facto threefold partitioning of knowledge into the three super categories of the natural sciences, the humanities, and the “in-between” social sciences. (1999, p. 45) wallerstein further noted that there is one major problem with the issue of divorce between philosophy and science. this resulted in the distinction between the “true” and the “good” with empirical science asserting that it has no “tools to discern what was good; only what was true” (wallerstein, 1999, p. 45). as a result of this, wallerstein was of the view that we are not sure “how far we will go in the next twenty-five to fifty years in the project of ‘overcoming the two cultures’” (1999, p. 45) and that “the relative lack of contact between the two movements is not only an organizational problem; it also reflects an intellectual difference” (1999, p. 47). for him, it is here that social scientists may perhaps be called upon to play a special role’ since they are professionally concerned with and attuned to the problem of establishing normative frameworks, and they have been studying such processes throughout their institutional history. (wallerstein, 1999, p. 47) having situated the emergence of the social sciences in the context of the cultural wars that influenced the construction of knowledge in history, wallerstein (1999) then focused on how that played out in the universities and how the disciplines created from the two cultures’ distinctions recreated themselves in the universities. on this, he noted: 98 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 there are two major forces at play that are undermining the capacity of the existing disciplines to reproduce themselves. the first is the practice of the most active scholars. the second lies in the needs of the controllers of financial resources: university administrators, national governments, interstate agencies, public and private foundations. (wallerstein, 1999, p. 48) considering the above factors, and having explored them focusing on how they affect the construction of knowledge and the social sciences at universities, wallerstein asked, what is the way forward towards a reconsideration of the university as the “virtually singular locus of the production and reproduction of knowledge” (1999, pp. 48–49)? for the author, this question remains open and it also mirrors the continuing epistemological debate on the divorce between the two cultures. another interesting question that centres on this debate is how to understand the role that the social sciences will play in the 21st century in light of the possibility of an epistemologically reunified faculty of knowledge. for wallerstein (1999, p. 49) the role will be a central role “since the reunification . . . involves the acceptance by both the natural sciences and the humanities of some of the long-standing premises of the social sciences, especially the social-rootedness of all knowledge.” he however noted that this would be dependent on what happens in the world system as social reality because, given that social science attempts to talk about what is going on, “it constitutes an interpretation of social reality that at once reflects this social reality and affects it, that is at once a tool of the powerful and a tool of the oppressed” (wallerstein, 1999, p. 49). françois lyotard: knowledge and the postmodern condition from wallerstein’s description of the story of the two culture wars, science’s hegemonic claim of knowing the truth of reality is apparent. the claim also presupposes that science has the “appropriate” methods to reach such truth about reality. but the question should be: “what reality?” and again, “is there only one truth to reality?” answering these questions credibly is important for theorising on the issues of knowledge and knowledge construction and legitimation as they concern the project of decolonising african knowledge. perhaps, to help us engage in this debate further and to present a base for the project of decolonising african knowledge systems against the backdrop of imperialist forms of knowledge inherited from colonialism, it is pertinent to look at françois lyotard’s thesis on the postmodern condition. in the postmodern condition: a report on knowledge, lyotard (1984) engaged in debate on the conceptualisation of knowledge in the context of a post-industrial society faced with new inventions in communication technology and the new media. for lyotard, the problematic was “the condition of knowledge in the most highly developed societies” (1984, p. xxiii). a central question that emerged from the discourse concerns the issue of knowledge legitimation and, specifically, how so-called scientific knowledge can be legitimated. lyotard (1984) firstly noted that the area of knowledge in computerised societies was evolving from being an end in itself to a product to be packaged for distribution. this has necessitated the reality that in these computerised societies, to be valuable, knowledge construction and legitimation must toe the line of being able to be formatted into packs of information onwuegbuchulam: decolonisation, knowledge construction, and legitimation . . . 99 adaptable to modern communication systems. this development has brought with it the struggle among developed nations to control this process because knowledge is power and the 21st century understanding of power and who controls it is based on who controls computerised information. consequently, for lyotard, the conceptualisation of knowledge in postmodern computerised societies was undergirded by the interlocking forces of power, authority, and government. in this, lyotard presented a clear link between knowledge and power systems in postmodern societies. an important aspect of lyotard’s thesis that concerns this essay is the description of the nexus between science, knowledge legitimation, and politics. the issue of science’s claim of superiority as a form of knowledge was made analogous to a political claim of authority. notably, the process of legitimation of science as a body of knowledge was presented as being parallel to political power legitimation—both, for lyotard, demand an authority figure to determine acceptability and due consideration. this was problematic for lyotard because the question remained as to who is authorising the authority figure itself. furthermore, lyotard wanted us to understand that science is not synonymous with knowledge. the distinction between the two is seen in the fact that while science comprises denotative statements and positivists methodology (observe, repeat, verify), knowledge itself is not limited but comprises uncertainty and flexibility in the process of identifying relationships across subject matters towards presenting some form of good assertions. hence, narratives become the measure of knowledge competence, in which a narrator is legitimated by the fact of just being the narrator. furthermore, in postmodern societies, two forms of knowledge exist and they include narrative and scientific. for lyotard (1984) none of these forms of knowledge can be adjudged to be right, true, or better because of incommensurability—the criteria to measure their aptitude are different. but it is the case that narrative knowledge has been looked down on by the proponents of scientific knowledge based on an apparent inability of narrative knowledge to consider knowledge legitimation as a priority. this is however ironical considering that “scientific knowledge must resort to narratives in order to legitimate itself, as arguments and proofs are merely dialectics” (lyotard, 1984 as cited in miemis, 2012, p. 8; see also woodward, 2020). consequently, lyotard proposed that the task of knowledge legitimation and validation should be with the people/humanity. this is so because “knowledge is valuable insofar as it serves to meet the goals of the collective” [also] “in the post-industrial society the grand narrative is dead” (lyotard 1984, as cited in miemis, 2012, pp. 9–10). science, seen as grand narrative, is also dead since it is the case that “a process of delegitimation was inherent in terms of positive science, as its version of ‘knowledge’ was legitimated by itself ‘by citing its own statements in a second-level discourse,’ and is therefore not true knowledge at all” (lyotard, 1984 as cited in miemis, 2012, p. 10). the death of grand narratives in the postmodern world necessitates the rise of other contesting forms of knowledge (little narratives). this supports lyotard’s definition of postmodernism as “incredulity towards metanarratives” (1984, p. xxiii). in this, knowledge construction should concern itself with change, adapting to change, and generating new ideas not based on scientific/positivist rigid 100 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 approaches but approaches that help in meeting the goals of the collective within a context (lyotard, 1984; miemis, 2012; woodward, 2020). decolonisation, knowledge construction, and legitimation in african universities in the 21st century why should “science fall”? the issue of knowledge imperialism the above description by wallerstein allows us to begin to understand that the divisions and categorisations of faculties at universities stem from the conflict between the two cultures. in this, it is easy to understand that knowledge as we have it today, even in african universities, stems from this conflict between the two cultures. african universities seem to have swallowed the end product of the knowledge wars during the enlightenment era, hook, line, and sinker. the western trapping of education is notably taken for granted as the real and central form of education, and knowledge construction at african universities has been viewed from the perspective of the disparity between the two cultures. this was established during the colonial era when so-called formal education was introduced to africa. suffice to say, the current african university as it stands is a product of the globalising western education system brought about by the missionaries (freedman, 2013; meier zu selhausen, 2019). universities in africa are structured in such a way as to align with the enlightenment/western education system and construction of knowledge characterised by the dispute of the two cultures and the subject/object dichotomy (saayman, 1991). notably, hegel has stated that africa does not have movement or development to show since it is not regarded as a historical part of the world, hence colonialism should be regarded as basically an era of enlightenment (as cited in mosweunyane, 2013; wilks, 1971). the enlightenment event has thus informed the construction of knowledge in the schools that the african continent inherited as a legacy from the west through colonialism. in the gulbenkian commission’s report entitled, open the social sciences, wallerstein (1996) also looked at the historical issue of the divorce between the two cultures that resulted in the emergence of social science. as a way of improving social science, the report asked that social science be restructured and opened to focus on more areas, and to serve as a unit of reconciliation between the humanities and the natural sciences. reflecting on this call, burawoy (2007, p. 137) noted that the gulbenkian commission’s report disavowed anachronistic disciplinary divisions, western universalism and methodological positivism, and instead proposed the unification of all scientific knowledge under what it called “pluralistic universalism.” it exposed its own scholasticism, however, in failing to address for whom and for what is scientific knowledge produced. against the backdrop of this assertion, we can begin to understand the call for the dethronement of science. onwuegbuchulam: decolonisation, knowledge construction, and legitimation . . . 101 the emergence of science and the claims of science are central to wallerstein’s thesis on the conflict between the two knowledge cultures. the interesting aspect emerging from that discourse is how the natural sciences have claimed superiority in the project of construction of knowledge. the natural sciences claim to have the tool of determining the truth of the universe, which the humanities and social sciences do not have. science’s claim of hegemony as the true form of knowledge is central to the argument of the existence of knowledge imperialism and the subsequent call for its dethronement. this is crucial to understanding the view that knowledge systems inherited from the colonialist are synonymous to imperialist forms of power. the nexus between knowledge and power comes to the fore—here knowledge and power are intertwined and drive home the argument that forms of knowledge existing in african universities are reminiscent of, and perpetuate, colonial and neocolonial forms of knowledge construction. science, as that body of knowledge, is seen as part of the colonial power system. here, there is no disparity between the coloniser and the inherited western tools of knowledge construction. hence, since science is the brainchild of the enlightenment era and enlightenment being a western historical event, people feel that subscribing to the notion of science’s superiority is tantamount to subscribing to and upholding colonial power and knowledge structures. against the above backdrop, we can understand the call, #sciencemustfall, by the uct student activists in south africa. it is argued that the claim of science as the “know it all” form of knowledge is analogous to the view that western knowledge systems currently obtainable at african universities are, and should be seen as, the best form of knowledge. it is understood that the claims of science represent knowledge imperialism that can no longer be allowed to be perpetuated at african universities. moreover, in this, science is understood as a colonial form of knowledge and its exalted position is seen as imperialistic; hence, science needs to be dethroned. this call is perhaps informed and exacerbated by the perception that african indigenous knowledge systems are looked down on by some scholars as not being legitimate forms of knowledge (murove, 2018; owusu-ansah & mji, 2013). synonymous with science’s positivist claim that knowledge construction needs to be empirical and verifiable (juma’h, 2006; turner, 2001), the argument by some anti-african knowledge system thinkers is that african indigenous knowledge systems are sometimes made up of superstitions, are not empirical, and their methods of verification and legitimation not rigorous enough and hence, cannot be regarded as a credible form of knowledge (horsthemke, 2004, 2017). the case for african knowledge systems: the relevance of françois lyotard a central question on the issue of knowledge construction and legitimation arises: “whose knowledge is it anyway?” this question is related to françois lyotard’s questions: “how do you prove the proof?” or, more generally, “who decides the conditions of truth?” (1984, p. 29). the question also links to the question: “if science and colonial knowledge systems should claim hegemony of legitimation, who is legitimising the system itself?” to answer these questions, it is clear from foregoing descriptions that knowledge systems as existing in african universities are inherited from colonial structures. mamdani (2011, para. 102 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 7) affirmed that “the organization of knowledge production in the contemporary african university is everywhere based on a disciplinary mode developed in western universities over the 19th and 20th centuries.” there are thus forms of neocolonialism existing in the african university system specifically on the issue of knowledge construction, which apparently must work towards external (extracontinental) legitimation in the name of globalisation and knowledge consensus. african universities have adopted the systems of education and knowledge construction that emerged from the enlightenment cultural wars. science emerged from that dispute claiming to be the only body of knowledge with an objective (consensus) methodology, a claim that presents the issue of knowledge imperialism. in this, it is seen that as science claims hegemony of being the true form of knowledge, western and european forms of education have claimed superiority to other knowledge systems. this knowledge imperialist stance is at the crux of the matter and it is then not surprising that the uct students presented rhetoric that might be termed disparaging to science as a body of knowledge. the call that #sciencemustfall is arguably an expression of deep-seated revolt against perceived imperialist tendencies of colonial and neocolonial knowledge systems at african universities, which have alienated the african student from being relevant to the african milieu. the desire among the students perhaps, is to posit african knowledge systems as being on equal footing with knowledge systems from elsewhere in the global arena of knowledge construction. lyotard’s (1984) argument on the postmodern condition provides a basis for negotiating african knowledge systems. this article argues that, if we agree with lyotard on the concept of little narratives, we have a basis on which african indigenous epistemology can have a footing on the global enterprise of knowledge construction. in lyotard’s view, the method of legitimation used by the sciences becomes obsolete in a postmodern society; instead, what is obtained is paralogy as a new canon for knowledge legitimation. in this, against habermas’s (1987) understanding that conversational questions should lead to consensus, lyotard was of the contrary view that they should rather lead to paralogy—a process in which the creation of meaning is ongoing (as cited in shawver, 1998). this is important because it allows knowledge systems like indigenous african knowledge systems to not force themselves to fit into the parameters of knowledge legitimation as obtained in the so-called unified global knowledge system supposedly grounded on habermas’s consensus. paralogy, as proposed by lyotard, posits a process of ongoing creation of meaning in which there is no claim of any knowledge system to have the hegemony of truth of understanding. for lyotard, consensus (exemplified by science and enlightenment rhetoric) was just another stage in the conversation and not the end. the conversation is still open and is a dialogical process that requires allowing the views of all stakeholders in the conversation towards the awakening of minds to new ideas and other forms of knowledge (shawver, 1998). arguably, african knowledge systems could find a foundation on lyotard’s proposal of narratives. notably, for lyotard, no form of knowledge can be taken to be right, true, or better because of incommensurability—the difference in criteria to measure their aptitude. based on this, it can be argued that the suppression of certain african knowledge systems as not able to make the standard of the global knowledge system becomes redundant. this onwuegbuchulam: decolonisation, knowledge construction, and legitimation . . . 103 scenario was represented in lyotard’s assertion that narratives as a form of knowledge are looked down on by proponents of scientific knowledge based on apparent inability of narrative knowledge to consider legitimation as a priority. this is flawed considering that there is no way of positing knowledge legitimation that must be one-size-fits-all. incommensurability is a real issue. knowledge imperialism based on the understanding that there is such a thing as global knowledge system legitimation is not sustainable. such a conception could be regarded as a grand narrative—a narrative based on the idea of consensus, which tends to negate any other form of knowledge system tending to be outside the stated consensus. for lyotard (1984), grand narrative was dead and little narrative was of utmost importance. this view perhaps grounds the exultation and positioning of african knowledge systems at african universities. the effort to make certain knowledge systems outside the known global knowledge system (grand narrative) fit in, may result in the alienation of the people from whom such systems originate. this is unfortunate because it is the case that knowledge can only be valuable insofar as it can help people to meet certain goals in their society (miemis, 2012). consequently, there is a need that african universities, in their effort to fit into the standards of global university knowledge construction/legitimation rhetoric, should not forget to focus on indigenous african knowledge systems. these indigenous knowledge systems in their various forms should constitute the basis for true decolonised curricula at african universities. decolonising knowledge in african universities in the 21st century: some considerations it will seem that, like every other area of human life in which africans participate, the continent has subscribed to the notion of conversational consensus in the arena of knowledge construction and legitimation. 2 ironically, in doing this, the continent has inadvertently been relegated to being consumers not producers of the so-called consensus knowledge (sawyerr, 1999). mamdani (2011, para. 31) affirmed this and further asserted that the assumption that there is a single model derived from the dominant western experience reduces research to no more than a demonstration that societies around the world either conform to that model or deviate from it. the tendency is to dehistoricise and decontextualise discordant experiences, whether western or non-western. the effect is to devalue original research or intellectual production in africa. the global market tends to relegate africa to providing raw material (“data”) to outside academics who process it and then re-export their theories back to africa. furthermore, sawyerr (1999, p. 3) noted that “it takes a considerable leap of imagination to locate much of sub-saharan africa within the global village.” this also relates to the issue of the place of africa in so-called global knowledge construction; it would seem that africa and 2 it would seem the african continent has agreed with habermas’s (1987) understanding that conversation questions should lead to consensus, which is close ended. it is noted that lyotard argued against this and proposed the concept of paralogy, which indicates that the process of creation of meaning is ongoing. 104 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 african universities have been relegated to the periphery of global knowledge construction. african universities have hence failed to be relevant to the communities around them. mamdani (1993, p. 11) decried the reality that, “the new post-interdependence african university was triumphantly universalistic and uncompromisingly foreign . . . made no concession to local culture . . . stood as custodians of standard in outpost of civilization.” this reality has arguably produced students who are continually alienated and dissatisfied with the status quo of maintaining colonial knowledge systems at african universities—hence the call to decolonise african universities exemplified in #sciencemustfall. knowledge imperialism and the notion of global knowledge legitimation (as a grand narrative) cannot be continually sustained in the present era. the call to decolonise knowledge at african universities is a valid one. african universities need to go beyond the era of trying to fit into global standards and consensus, forgetting their context in that process. this is not to argue that construction of knowledge and the effort to decolonise knowledge at african universities should take the stance of “throwing away the baby with the bathwater.” rather, the argument is that, sometimes, trying to fit into the methodology and paradigm used in global knowledge legitimation in the name of consensus may lead to a situation in which the effort to create knowledge relevant to african contexts becomes redundant. as lyotard saw it, incommensurability is and will always remain the problem. notably, on this issue, ashcroft (2000, p. 2) cautioned against accepting “the binary between europe and africa. . . . forms of knowledge generated in the two continents may be different from each other, but they are not incommensurable and they include radical differences of assumption and experience within them.” this argument is valid and, in fact, grounds the need to engage the question of possible integration of the different assumptions and experiences of african knowledge systems with those found in other contexts, including europe. however, the position that the forms of knowledge are different and include radical differences of assumption and experience undergirds the argument that it may be problematic to try to legitimise african knowledge systems using extracontinental standards. it must be argued that there is no way we can credibly divorce forms of knowledge from their origins— knowledge systems are as such identity based and socially constructed (vindevoghel, 2016). hence, despite the belief that knowledge is one, and that science is universal, it is the case that the notion of science itself originated from a context (lloyd, 2000; wallerstein, 1999). and, as mamdani (2011, para. 30) validly asked: if the enlightenment is said to be an exclusively european phenomenon, then the story of the enlightenment is one that excludes africa as it does most of the world. can it then be the foundation on which we can build university education in africa? knowledge decolonisation in deference of indigenous knowledge systems is necessary in light of the need to make african universities relevant to the african contexts. the call for knowledge decolonisation (as underscored by the science must fall movement) should not be seen as a call to reduce the quality of education but, rather, a call for relevance. on this, mamdani (1993) rightly argued that quality and relevance are not mutually exclusive—which is to say that african universities can be made to be relevant to the african context while onwuegbuchulam: decolonisation, knowledge construction, and legitimation . . . 105 maintaining quality of education at these african centres of learning. knowledge construction at african universities then needs to be dynamic, representing the thoughts of various african indigenous people, and not perpetuating knowledge colonisation through the exultation of extracontinental knowledge systems. to be practical, decolonising knowledge at african universities could take the form of a drastic transformation of methods and pedagogy, and engaging in proper curriculum content reform, taking into consideration african forms of knowledge and worldviews. it should consider a curriculum which, according to lebeloane (2017, pp. 7–8), addresses and demystifies the ideologies of class, gender, ethnicity, ethnocide, inequality and race that dominate colonialism to young students in schools. the western view of interpreting and implementing economics, education, law and science will be addressed by interpreting and implemented from an african perspective. also, the african worldview of the oneness of creation, for example, could be considered as a point of departure towards reconstructing knowledge that would be useful to understanding african cultures and issues affecting african communities. lebeloane (2017, p. 8) agreed that “botho/ubuntu will be retained and sustained. that includes the retention and advancement of culture, dignity and language. the people will not lose their being which includes their norms and values.” it is here that social sciences can become relevant to the african situation as mamdani (1993) proposed. this area of study should focus on producing knowledge based on various african indigenous knowledge systems. the task of decolonisation of knowledge at african universities in the 21st century would further demand putting in the conditions, and creating autonomous frameworks, for the validation and appropriation of local bodies of knowledge (kom, 2000). a shift from the euroand western-centric focus of research at african universities to a focus on afrocentric research is germane to the project of decolonisation of knowledge and african knowledge legitimation. on this, it is important to reiterate kom’s views on the issue of knowledge and legitimation as they concern research. kom (2000, para. 9) noted that “it remains nonetheless true that applied research of the afrocentric type could have set out marker pegs for an african modernity of the sort that can be seen in a good number of asian countries.” this is an important view considering that a focus on afrocentric applied research would have encouraged the production of knowledge based on african knowledge systems, as proposed by mamdani (1993). as alluded to in that assertion, this has helped asian countries’ progress in establishing indigenous knowledge systems seen, for example, in the success of chinese medicine. this could be replicated in the african context if african researchers took the step of not trying so hard to fit into extracontinental standards, and/or engaging in research that seeks extracontinental legitimation. as already posited, decolonising knowledge at african universities does not have to entail throwing the baby out with the bathwater or creating a knowledge system isolated from the rest of the world. kom (2000, p. 1) agreed that “the autonomy that is being claimed has nothing to do with a type of intellectual nationalism, confinement or entrenchment in a suicidal isolation.” the challenge one would guess is on the possibility of finding room for 106 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 decolonising knowledge at african universities founded on colonial epistemologies and pedagogies. ashcroft (2000) echoed this challenge in the assertion: the most intransigent problem to face post-colonial states today is . . . the challenge of re-constructing inherited institutions and practices in a way that adheres to the demands of local knowledges, makes use of the benefits of local practices, and maintains an integrity of self-representation. (para. 1) ashcroft (2000) found the solution in two strategies: appropriation and interpolation. in appropriation, the suggestion is that knowledge systems and methods (even extracontinental) could be adapted to local use. in this, dominant technologies of knowledge are adopted and used in ways appropriate to local conditions and aspirations. an example of this is found in the use of literary writing; “literature, the repository of universal values, the revelation of the deepest aspects of the human condition, should be required to have some relevance to local societies” (ashcroft, 2000, para. 2). for example, authors like ngũgĩ wa thiong’o have appropriated and maintained the known forms of literature writing but have proposed the use of local languages, which is the vehicle of cultural dissemination. furthermore, appropriation leads to interpolation. through appropriation of extracontinental knowledge systems and methods, postcolonial african societies “are able . . . to intervene more readily in the dominant discourse, to interpolate their own cultural realities, or use that dominant language to describe those realities to a wide audience of readers” (ashcroft, 2000, para. 22). summarily, the proposal to decolonise knowledge and to establish legitimate knowledge at african universities is valid, however, it is important also to consider that in the face of growing globalism, africa cannot isolate itself from the rest of the world in trying to realise this vision. hence, ashcroft (2000) further proposed that truly decolonised legitimate african knowledge should be envisaged as knowledge that considers local needs and purposes as important but need not relegate the skills of knowing. conclusion the words of ambrose kom, in the epigraph on the issue of african knowledge legitimation, summarise the main issue being tackled in this article. kom (2000) further asked: can legitimation, even scientific, be built up outside the social framework that inspires the research? more fundamentally: are we condemned to stagnate on the periphery, always determining ourselves in relation to other people, unable to picture ourselves in an independent way? (para. 2) this article tries to answer these questions, placing them in the light of recent developments in south africa’s higher education sector, which saw students calling for the dethronement of science as a body of knowledge. this article placed the issue in the context of the call to decolonise knowledge in african universities and, indeed, the call to dethrone all forms of colonial imperialism in africa’s varied arena. onwuegbuchulam: decolonisation, knowledge construction, and legitimation . . . 107 grounding the argument on the postmodern view in which there is scepticism for grand narratives, and the call to allow little narratives, the article posited that it is time to give space to african knowledge systems. drawing from lyotard, it is argued that there should be some openness to a kind of subjectivity in the whole enterprise of studying phenomena and construction of knowledge. on this, wallerstein rightly asked: how is it possible to perceive any more general reality than someone’s irreproducible photographic snapshot of some momentary part of it . . . how can we measure the impact of the perceiver on the perception. (1999, p. 47) these questions, if looked at properly, will open one’s eyes to the reality that ultimately, there is always subjectivity in the observation of phenomena and the construction of knowledge that results from such observation. considering this, it is important to assert that understanding phenomena cannot be said to be as according to one area of knowledge, as the natural sciences have claimed. on this, kom (2000) noted: of course, science’s calling is the universal. but we now know how closely the universal is linked to ethnocentrism and how much those who have sold us the values of the universal at a very high price have most often set up their own values, not to say their own fantasies, as a universal system. (para. 3) this echoes lyotard on the issue of the claim of science in the knowledge production and legitimation discourse. that discourse validates the assertion that there should be space created to allow the interpretation of phenomena from other perspectives, which also means being open to insights from other areas of knowledge. consequently, in response to kom (2000), it must be said that african research does not have to stick to the pathways mapped out by colonial or neocolonial experts, and satisfying extracontinental knowledge needs. african knowledge production cannot be allowed to stagnate on the periphery but should be positioned at the centre and be able to picture itself in an independent way. it cannot be that african universities should keep maintaining the status quo of knowledge production and legitimation as inherited from colonial education systems prevalent at african universities. there should be a move to a focus on observation and description of phenomena as they relate to african contexts. in so doing, debates and academic voices at african universities will no longer be muted around the major problems that face the african society as decried by blade nzimande, former south african minister of higher education (pillay, 2011). hence, the case for decolonising knowledge and striving for knowledge systems and research with an afrocentric focus is valid. the views posited by thinkers like mamdani, kom, ashcroft, among others, provide insights on how to realise these at african universities. references ashcroft, b. 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(2020). jean-françois lyotard (1924–1998). internet encyclopedia of philosophy. https://iep.utm.edu/lyotard/ microsoft word c8900 full issue 12dec.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 89, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i89a09 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x sink or swim: exploring resilience of academics at an education faculty during covid-19 naseema shaik foundation phase studies, education faculty, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa shaikn@cput.ac.za http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7195-9038 anna dippenaar education faculty, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa dippenaarh@cput.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6876-9826 chiwimbiso kwenda intermediate phase studies, education faculty, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa kwendac@cput.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5775-3818 karen petersen foundation phase studies, education faculty, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa petersenk@cput.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5817-0406 dorothy esau fet and senior phase studies, education faculty, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa esaud@cput.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9870-891x henry stephanus oliver fet and senior phase studies, education faculty, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa oliverh@cput.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000 000-267-749-855 (received: 19 november 2021; accepted: 4 november 2022) 170 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 abstract there is a proliferation of local and international research focusing on covid-19 and its impact on teaching and learning practices in higher education. however, there is considerably less focus on the resilience of academics in higher education during the pandemic in south africa. to consider this gap, a group of curriculum officers at an education faculty based at a university of technology in the western cape set out to explore how resilient academics were during covid-19. thirteen academics who teach in and across the foundation, intermediate, and further education and training phases participated in a focus group interview. data was analysed thematically using content analysis and three themes were identified: creativity through complexity; embracing challenge through resilience; and connecting with self. the implications reveal that universities as a contextual environment for promoting resilience need to engage with the social and physical ecology of staff by providing support and resources to facilitate resilience during times of crisis. the dominant nature of the hierarchical dynamics of the university’s management also needs to be considered as part of a social-ecological perspective in valuing academics’ wellbeing during emergencies. keywords: resilience, academics, higher education, covid-19, teaching and learning introduction in recent years, teaching and learning in higher education in south africa has been a rough road to traverse. this was evident during the #feesmustfall protest actions that forced academics to stop face-to-face teaching since disruptions were rife and students’ academic performance was negatively impacted (gon, 2016). in 2020, the global race for technological advancement was unexpectedly accelerated by the covid-19 pandemic. this resulted in higher education institutions all over the world making major adaptations related to teaching and learning. one of these was the transition from face-to-face teaching to online teaching. academics had to familiarise themselves with up-to-date online technologies and evaluate their success to align with students’ demands in the arena of teaching online. in south africa, academics were allowed to resume classes only from june 2020. by this time, they were highly stressed because of uncertainty regarding new ways of teaching and assessing online. innovative and creative online teaching tools had to be used. although most academics were trained on blackboard, it was not effectively used as the sole medium for teaching and learning as was gleaned from the data in this study. along with the need to familiarise themselves with online technologies, academics also had to keep up with the increased need to bridge time and space for educational purposes and goals (garrison, 2011). the relentless and fast-paced advancement of information and communication technology had an intense impact on academic discourse by affecting the daily practices of teaching, research, and scholarship (peimani & kamalipour, 2021). while there is a proliferation of local and international research focusing on teaching online during covid-19 and its impacts on teaching practices, there is a dearth of research that focuses on the resilience of academics. considering this gap, curriculum officers, who represent all curriculum matters and are responsible for strengthening curriculum through shaik et al.: sink or swim 171 weekly seminars and workshops in the education faculty, set out to explore the resilience of academics during the covid-19 lockdowns. it is necessary to explore the resilience of academics since they face rising stress levels and declining levels of mental health and wellbeing, both of which have a huge impact on their work performance. this study is pivotal since it showcases the complexities of online teaching compounded by the lack of institutional support to facilitate resilience. despite these complexities, academics used their personal resources to develop resilience as is highlighted in the data. the literature review is presented below and is followed by a discussion of the theoretical framework and the methodology. we conclude the paper with some discussion and offer the implications for further research as well as addressing its limitations. literature review understanding resilience resilience emphasises the strengths and abilities of organisations and individuals to cope during challenging times. resilience is a pivotal element of an individual’s life. however, the term resilience is a complex one, and there are many different definitions associated with it. some concise definitions offer an understanding of resilience as a process that enables an individual to adapt to any situation despite the challenging and threatening circumstances they may have faced (pratiwi, 2011). according to hendriani (2018), resilience is the capacity of an individual to implement stress-coping behaviours and the ability to adapt after negative emotional experiences. some researchers refer to resilience as self-esteem and selfefficacy, while others refer to resilience as being related to internal and external risk and protective processes (wagnild, 2009). resilience is also understood to be a personality trait that controls the negative impact of stress and that promotes adaptation (jacelon, 1997). similarly, khanlou and wray (2014) have agreed that protective factors that influence resilience can emerge on a personal and contextual level. we deepen this discussion on resilience in the following sections by considering what resilience entails during a crisis and considering resilience as a contributor to wellbeing. developing resilience during a crisis liu et al. (2019), found that stress in the workplace can lead to either trauma and the destabilising of individuals or to growth and resilience. resilience used to be seen in relation to heavy workloads and stressors such as role overload or conflict in terms of impacts on personal, social, and organisational resources (kuntz, 2020). she pointed out that distinct trajectories can be distinguished during a time of crisis. these include a survival trajectory that may develop into an upward recovery one or slip into a declining one. the recovery trajectory can be enhanced through the necessary support from different sources, such as personal context, workplace, governments, or even global support. this point resonates with that of holmes (2005), who identified a positive working environment with a strong communal identity, respectful and professional treatment, participation in decision-making, 172 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 regular interactions with colleagues, and recognition for efforts as factors that contribute to resilience. even before the covid-19 pandemic, morrish (2019) found rising stress levels, occupational health referrals, and declining mental health and wellbeing among university lecturers. an example is clearly illustrated in a study carried out by van niekerk and van gent (2022) in the eastern cape who showed that male staff members with comorbidities were more likely to exhibit signs of psychological distress along with female staff and administrative and service staff in general. female staff members with comorbidities were at least twice as prone to being at risk for psychological distress and mental ill-health. covid-19, a pandemic and major disaster, affected the entire planet and changed drastically what was thought of as the normal way of life in unanticipated ways (li et al., 2020). li et al. (p. 203) described the precovid concept of resilience as “germane” compared to the current situation. kuntz (2020) pointed out that the covid-19 pandemic will have long-term consequences that will “test individuals, organisations and communities in unprecedented ways” (p. 188). resilience as a contributor to wellbeing in the field of education, teachers’ wellbeing affects the learning environment and students’ wellbeing. wellbeing is experienced when an individual feels valued and cared for, is not overloaded, and experiences job stimulation and enjoyment (roffey, 2012). collie and martin (2017) found that the ability to adjust under stressful circumstances positively influences the wellbeing of pre-tertiary teachers. this was tested in context by holliman et al. (2020), who examined the influence of personal autonomy support (pas) and adaptability on organisational commitment and psychological wellbeing of university lecturers. they found that pas positively linked lecturers’ adaptability, organisational commitment, and wellbeing. pas was found to prevent burnout and act as a positive influence in the workplace, thereby pointing to the important role of the individual-supporting competencies of employees. when institutions closed as a result of lockdowns, lecturers had to adapt to emergency online teaching and learning and had to invent ways to support students who were struggling because of their circumstances at home, such as lacking devices and support. it became clear that lecturers could support students adequately only once they had ensured their own strength and resilience. many lecturers experienced alienation from their institutions, felt isolated, and could not cope with the new demands. this resonates with the findings of much earlier research by bourdieu (1993) and putnam (2000), who stressed the importance of social capital and belonging. wike and fraser (2009) pointed out that inclusive belonging promotes wellbeing in a teaching and learning context. from our own experience as academics and from the experience of our colleagues, in addition to the sense of loss and isolation we all struggled to balance work and personal lives; the boundaries between these two worlds had now been blurred. lecturers suddenly had to balance their personal lives with the changing demands of students. many students had access only to inexpensive night-time data and began contacting lecturers after hours, which was previously uncommon. there were no longer consultation hours at institutions and lecturers shaik et al.: sink or swim 173 were overloaded with workshops and meetings that were meant to provide the necessary support and simultaneously ensure quality (li et al., 2020). an additional burden was the call for no student to be left behind; this demanded many assessment opportunities, flexibility, and constant support for all students. apart from the logistical and technical support lecturers suddenly needed, many had to seek professional psychological support to cope because of their sense of being overwhelmed (wright, 2020). since wellbeing involves the psyche of a human being and could affect their overall survival in an alien world, it speaks to the core of being human and should therefore be treated with great care and consideration. first, no employee will be open to support or to any discussion of wellbeing if the context is not regarded as being a safe space. therefore, mutual trust is the first requirement if quality is not to be compromised (berinato, 2014). second, it is important to understand the context of employees, who they are, and how their diverse individual contexts and circumstances differ. resilience cannot be limited to how individuals cope in one specific circumstance; it needs to be flexible to include different contexts (kiesler & cummins, 2002). ojo et al. (2021), used the conservation of resources theory to outline how employees are likely to be impacted by stressful circumstances, what those circumstances could be, and how they could protect those resources. resource loss (psychological stress and anxiety) is seen to be a critical component of stress compared to resource gain (family and friends’ support, selfefficacy, and facilitating conditions). these influence resilience during stressful situations. the research of oje et al. showed that employees cope better when resource loss, in this case that caused by the covid-19 pandemic, is lower than resource gain. similarly, gibbs (2011) found that self-efficacy is very important in resilience but is subject to social and cultural influences that impact self-belief, attribution, and motivation. staff members bind an institution together. lecturers are the backbone of the academic process, and they are only as strong as their weakest link. if staff members are not well, this filters through the students and permeates the institutional culture. research in the field has shown that resilience is a skill that can be nurtured and enhanced through careful planning, collaborative efforts, and visible commitment from the institution (li & zehr, 2020). if adequate and appropriate support is not available, the institutional context becomes toxic and this filters through to colleagues, influencing their wellbeing and, consequently, their resilience, thus impacting the institutional culture and students’ success. theoretical framework the theoretical framework that underpins this study is the theory of resilience theorised by ungar (2005, 2008) who, in 2005, defined resilience in terms of the services and structures individuals receive to help them overcome adversities and help them plan their way towards resilient wellbeing. this definition was expanded in 2008 in ungar’s claim that in the context of significant adversity whether psychological, environmental or both, resilience refers also to the capacity of individuals to pave their way towards health-sustaining resources. these 174 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 include the opportunities to experience feelings of wellbeing and the capacity of the individual’s family, community, and culture to provide these health resources and experiences in culturally meaningful ways (ungar, 2008). ungar (2013) emphasised that the features of both individuals and the environment lead to resilience. research carried out by ungar et al. (2007), identified seven tensions of resilience: access to material resources; relationships; identity; power; control; cultural adherence; and social justice and cohesion. they indicated that these tensions are prevalent in all societies, but individuals will resolve these tensions in culturally relevant ways. they suggest that each tension be treated independently and caution researchers to be aware that there is an interaction between and among the tensions and an interplay between context, culture, and each individual’s strength as people pave their way through the tensions. ungar (2011) identified the four main principles of decentrality, complexity, atypicality, and cultural relativity. decentrality is the ability of individuals to move the focus from themselves and to place a stronger focus on the environment. by decentring the individual, it becomes clear that, when someone is faced with adversity, the locus of change does not reside with the individual or environment alone but is, rather, the process by which environments provide resources for the individual. one needs to understand that ungar is not suggesting that the individual has no role to play in resilience. instead, the focus should first be on the nature of the social and physical ecology rather than on the interaction between environment and individual. the second principle is complexity that emanates from prior efforts to identify simple relationships that result in resilience. ungar (2011) indicated that the effort to simplify the notion of resilience has failed to take into account an individual’s capacity to use opportunities, the capacity of the environment to stimulate growth, and the interactional patterns between the environment and the individual or changes across physical and social worlds; all this is necessary if we are to hold a holistic picture of resilience. atypicality, the third principle of ungar’s (2011) resilience theory refers to the openness to processes that work for individuals but that are not usually identified as resilience. he argues that context can change the usefulness of different protective processes. therefore, there needs to be less emphasis on predetermined outcomes in judging the success of growth trajectories and more focus on understanding the functionality of behaviour. cultural relativity is the fourth principle. ungar (2011) postulated that positive growth is embedded culturally and temporally (historically). culture is defined as the everyday practices through which individuals clarify their shared values, beliefs, languages, and customs. individuals need to negotiate programmes to ensure that they fit each culture’s needs. additionally, culture and contextual features change over time and interventions by institutions for their employees should account for these changes and consider how each environment supports growth. we use ungar’s (2011) principles of resilience to explain the data for this study. we were interested in exploring how academics were resilient during covid-19, considering that they shaik et al.: sink or swim 175 had to transition from a face-to-face work environment to an online one. furthermore, there is a conceptual connection between ungar’s theory of resilience and the notion of wellbeing since experiencing a sense of wellbeing is a result of being resilient. research design this study took place at the education faculty of the cape peninsula university of technology. a qualitative approach located within an interpretivist paradigm was most suitable for a study of this nature since we sought to explore what academics’ perceptions of online teaching were, the challenges they faced, and how resilient they were while teaching online during covid-19 as aligned with ungar’s (2008) theory of resilience. qualitative researchers choose research sites that provide diverse, interrelated data (holliday, 2016), so this study was located in the education faculty’s campuses in mowbray and wellington. thirteen academics from these campuses participated in this study. sampling and participants purposive sampling was considered to be most appropriate, and the criterion was that participating academics had to be teaching in departments of the faculty of education. ethical clearance was secured by the ethics committee of the faculty. 1 each participant agreed to participate by signing a consent letter that ensured confidentiality and their anonymity and assured them that they could withdraw at any time. while thirteen participants participated in this study, data is drawn from only six since their responses were most appropriate to the research questions explored in this study. the academics lectured in foundation phase, intermediate phase, and further education and training. while we invited academics who teach in the post graduate certificate in education phase, none of them forwarded an intention to participate. below is a table that outlines the demographics of the participants. participants’ demographics table 1 the table below describes the participants, the phase they taught in and their gender participant phase teaching in gender participant 1 foundation phase female participant 2 intermediate phase female participant 3 intermediate phase female participant 4 further education and training phase female participant 5 intermediate phase male participant 6 foundation phase female 1 certificate number efec 4-4/2021 176 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 a focus group interview took place via microsoft teams, lasted for approximately 90 minutes, was recorded via microsoft teams, and was later transcribed. using microsoft teams proved necessary since the health and wellness cluster of the institution advised that all data collection that required individuals making contact during covid-19 should be done online. this study was limited because it was based at only one higher education institution and involved a small number of participants so its findings should not be generalised across all higher education institutions in south africa. such limitations could guide future work on academics’ resilience during a crisis. conducting larger cross-context surveys to validate the findings of smaller studies such as this one would be useful. data analysis content analysis was used to analyse the data (see creswell, 2012). the first author and three of the other authors analysed the data manually; they first organised and then categorised it into different codes and categories. the codes were later collapsed into three main themes. the themes are discussed in detail below. data was analysed using thematic analysis following braun and clarke’s (2012) six-step recursive process. this included transcribing, reading and re-reading to become familiar with the data, generating initial codes, identifying, reviewing, and naming of themes, and writing up the research findings. presentation and analysis of findings the interviews held with the participants revealed that they experienced many challenges in relation to teaching online during covid-19. while these findings were important, they are not discussed in this paper since the focus here is on the resilience of participants during covid-19. thus, a discussion of the three themes of creativity through complexity, embracing challenge through resilience, and connecting with self follows. 2 creativity through complexity p1 said, what was valuable to me was the fact that i found my lectures to be much more creative because i did a blackboard presentation. i usually started my lectures with some kind of, i don’t want to say, like meditation, but something different, something that [was] not related to the content so much [like] a nice quote, and then i would talk to them about that a little bit and ask them how they were. so, i was more creative. i was able to think a little bit more out of the box. i learned a new way to [begin] a lecture that brought in some fun things that i don’t know i would have done if i were on campus. 2 these transcripts have been lightly edited. shaik et al.: sink or swim 177 p2 said, and then from there on, i just learnt a lot from the webinars that we had. i could still use the powerpoints that were given to me and . . . we started getting more creative, and [made] new powerpoints and what i did, which was nice, . . . [was] place my youtube videos on for them, and they could watch [these] in their time and when they had data, and i would place the notes on for them and then also afterwards the powerpoints. and ja, . . . the impact on the teaching was positive because not a lot [had] changed. and now i have the first-years back on campus [and] i started doing [what i had done] during the lockdown . . . a little five-minute mindfulness exercise which i did [on] tuesday with the first years. it’s something that i learned while . . . i was online. p3 explained, but then, somewhere along the line, when i had to bring in a new kind of assessment, i taught the third-year students the basic things about the theme that i was doing. [i gave them] some more interesting articles that they could look up. and so i divided them into small groups and . . . i gave them . . . titles that they had to go and do research on. they had to report back, and then i sent out . . . a form of communication [like a] google forms sort of rubric, where they had to assess each other on their basic report back and [on] the powerpoint voiceovers that they did, and what they’ve learnt, and what the new things were that they [had] learnt about the subject. and . . . they enjoyed [this]. so, this new way of doing it [brought] in new ways of assessment, new ways of learning for the students, and i start[ed] thinking about how . . . i [could] do it differently so that i [could] involve them more and that was . . . very successful . . . for me. the above excerpts reveal how these academics enhanced their creativity through what they learned from the e-teaching support webinars offered by the university. in addition to using different types of technologies in order to engage with students during the learning process, they also had to think of creative ideas to strengthen assessment techniques during online teaching. the initiative to involve students more actively and afford them new ways of learning was also important, as p3 indicated. her acknowledgement, “i had to start thinking about how i could do it differently” shows us that she was willing to be creative and innovative. while trying to be creative, she also ensured that she found new learning methods for her functional students. runco and jaeger (2012) have reminded us that creativity involves outcomes that are at the same time functional and innovative. the participants also showed how resilient they were in being creative during a complex situation. ungar (2011) highlighted that resilience is the capacity of the individual to use opportunities while the capacity of the environment is to stimulate growth and stressed the importance of the interactional patterns between the environment and the individual. waghid (2021) argued that teaching and learning is an active process during which students are encouraged to engage meaningfully with the presented content. when students are thus 178 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 encouraged as were p3’s students when she encouraged them to read, engage, and report back on journal articles related to the subject matter. this highlights how she views her students as active participants in the teaching and learning process rather than as passive recipients waghid warned that if teaching and learning are perceived in terms of teachers holding all the power and transmitting information to students, both have to perform in particular ways, with students being passive recipients. this brings us to ungar’s (2011) defining resilience as the need of individuals to exercise agency to navigate as many accessible resources as they can. these may be psychological resources like feelings of self-esteem as well as opportunities to display their talents to others. embracing challenge through resilience the data revealed that academics demonstrated concern in relation to students’ success and how they learnt. the following excerpt from p4 illustrates this. i found that also that it’s not so much the teaching approach that i use but also the learning styles of the students of course, if they have connectivity and [are] online, they can form a group [of] three [or] five and then there were some [for whom] i also allowed individual work. and then one . . . student touched me because she performed poorly in this particular assessment. when i asked her about it, she admitted that she could not work, she misses the classroom [and] the dynamics of being in a classroom with the other students. and . . . i talked to her . . . and it made me realise that ja, we can do what we can from our side of the screen but how the students receive it and perceive it on their side of the screen, is something different. p4 went on to say, i want to mention . . . that one of the challenges i had was not to alienate students . . . when i caught on two occasions, i caught out students copying from each other. so, i had to come down very hard on them, penalise them . . . and make them understand that even though tests are online, it doesn’t mean that you need to share answers. it’s not a group activity as such. so that was another challenge, and then. . . i got through to them, and they admitted that they’d done it, [and] they accepted the penalisation. p2 added, so, you cannot just ask them to name or list or compare. now you give them a scenario, and they have to apply that knowledge in front of them. so, they find it difficult, and then the response in the chat from the centre for innovative educational technology was then we have to teach them differently, and we have to think about those things to teach them [and] how to apply their knowledge because they don’t know [how]. and so, in the end, we will have students who think more critically, have more critical thinking, and apply their knowledge better, and . . . in the end, it would be better as we are learning. still, i felt that i prepared them better because of this year. shaik et al.: sink or swim 179 p4 was more concerned about students’ learning styles than her teaching approach. she allowed for flexibility for both group and individual work. ungar (2011) highlighted how complexity arises from previous efforts to recognise simple relationships that lead to resilience. he also indicated that positive growth is culturally embedded, and that culture is understood as the everyday practices individuals make visible through shared values, beliefs, language, and customs. p4 also showed us how she negotiates the programme to ensure that this fits the student culture’s needs. waghid (2019) drew our attention to the fact that teaching and learning calls for teachers to provoke students to make sense of teaching and learning materials and entice students’ potential for a credible teaching and learning experience in higher education. while p1 was interested in how students learn and adapted her teaching accordingly, p2 and p4 both showed a genuine concern to not alienate students during teaching and learning. additionally, p4 expressed concern for why students were not performing well in the assessment that she discussed. her determination to connect with the students and to seek the reasons behind why they did not perform well shows us how much she values relationships. this also reveals how her interactions with the students helped her to realise the learning predicament with which they are faced in terms of how she as a lecturer is teaching and how the student perceives it. waghid et al. (2021) postulated that critical moments can arise during teaching and learning. it is often misunderstood that online discussions fail to engage students and teachers compared to face-to-face engagements during teaching and learning. waghid (2021) aptly stated that online teaching and learning platforms create opportunities for teachers and students to engage meaningfully in a deliberative manner. connecting with self the academics in this study reported on how connecting with the self ensured their wellbeing and contributed to their resilience, as the following excerpts reveal. p1 said, i would make [myself] a lovely bubble bath, for instance, and light candles and lie in the bath at the end of the day, but that’s one example. or i would take a break and go outside with my cup of tea and just sit there and leave my phone in the house and just gather myself and become more aware of my presence . . . where i was sitting. p5 explained, i think being resilient, you know, bouncing back better than before, [means that you try to find ways within yourself to cope and to say you know what, you’re a human being, you’re a lecturer, you work here [and] there are so many issues that you are not able to fix. you can only do so much, and i think you look for ways to relax mentally and physically. so, it was a case of exercising like my colleague said and doing affirmations, listening to music, and just doing things that boost you or work you up again to [be able to] say, now i’m ready to look at emails again. for p6, 180 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 i always like to empower myself when facing difficulties in life. so, i found that empowering myself to become blackboard-savvy was a very big boost for my selfconfidence on the one hand, so i enjoyed that, and i learnt more [about] it on google and so on. and then on the [other] soft side . . . my granddaughter was born [at] the end of june, so i still have the privilege of coming to visit them once a week and just playing with the baby, and that’s very good for my soul. p4 added, i draw deep from my faith as a christian, and that helped me last year and at any given time when i find myself in a situation or a period where my resilience is tested. p5 said, so, i also made it my duty that you switch your laptop on at the end of the day at a certain time. you switch it off at a certain time, and you now stop looking at whatsapp messages and then [you] do some physical work to take care of your own personal, social wellbeing, so you do not go crazy. p1 advised, take small breaks, otherwise, it [gets] boring in a way for me. there was the sense of boredom even though [i was] busy preparing interesting lectures or making it interesting [but] to sit and not interact with other people [was hard] because i had to like work with that and ja [deal] also [with] that sense of loneliness. it’s a funny feeling; i can’t really describe it, but it was ja, just a disassociation in a way from everyone, and so i had to practice a lot of self-care, really radical self-care to get there every day. connecting with self is an important contributor to an individual’s wellbeing. when teachers and academics feel physically and emotionally well, this contributes to their wellbeing and impacts students’ wellbeing. roffey (2021) warned us that when individuals feel valued and cared for, this determines their wellbeing. a key finding in this study showed how the participants connected with themselves to optimise their wellbeing. this was done through exercising, having a bubble bath, taking small breaks, and listening to music. p4 also related how she spent time with her granddaughter, which was good for her soul. the pivotal need to connect with the self was highlighted by a participant when she indicated how she had to practice “radical self-care to get there every day.” this was indicative of self-care’s role in determining their functionality through the day. participants needed to access their resources to stimulate their wellbeing (ojo, et al., 2021). participants found ways to be resilient and adapt to adverse conditions (see caniëls & baaten, 2018). while the above findings reveal how participants used their resources to be resilient, the study also found that the university did not provide enough resources for the academics to be resilient, as the following excerpt from p3 highlights. shaik et al.: sink or swim 181 i don’t think that the university made enough effort to have a ‘no lecturer will be left behind’ approach. i don’t think that they worked very much on our support. maybe that, as we’ve said before, blackboard and the e-learning centre did provide as much support as they could, and they were great, but i don’t think in terms of resilience the university assisted very much. i think we were all sort of left to be resilient by ourselves, and like i’ve said earlier, sink or swim. we all decided that we were going to swim, and we made it through regardless of [receiving] support from the university or not. when covid-19 struck, the university placed a huge emphasis on ensuring that no student should be left behind. this was ensured through making free data and laptops available to students who did not have them. each faculty also had a student counsellor for students to contact should they require psychological support. while the university aimed to support students during covid-19, the university did not offer academics adequate support in relation to resilience and wellness as illustrated in the above extract. academics faced heightened anxiety during the lockdown that resulted from several factors. for example, some academics with young children had to juggle childcare with work responsibilities. the psychological effects of enforced solitude were extremely important, and this may have been detrimental to academics’ emotional and mental wellbeing, especially for those living alone without a partner or family. it is also important to note that while academics might be able to use resources such as family, friends, and self-efficacy (ojo et al. (2021), the question of what facilitating conditions could have been provided to support the academics in this study emotionally and mentally during covid-19 was not well considered. ungar (2011) confirmed the importance of the environment and proposed a social-ecological understanding of resilience (2013). he stated that resilience is a function of the environment’s capacity to facilitate growth rather than a result of individual genetic differences during childhood and adolescence. considering that academics were not supported to be resilient, it is therefore imperative that institutions engage with understandings of resilience and its vital importance during times of crisis. discussion and conclusion this study aimed to explore the resilience of academics at a higher education institution during covid-19. online teaching and learning can be conceived of as a creative and engaging enterprise, as the findings of this study reveal. universities can, however, play a bigger role in ensuring that academics can teach more creatively with online support, ideas, and tools to ignite academics’ resilience and creativity further. teaching creatively during complex situations and teaching creatively online can be promoted on shared platforms during staff development programmes. this will provide staff with ideas about how to teach creatively and give them the confidence and motivation to use such creative ideas in online teaching. 182 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 our study revealed how academics were very determined to connect with students and strongly considered their learning styles rather than focusing on their previous teaching approaches. as a result, they allowed for flexible student engagements, ranging from individual to group work. the pivotal issue is that academics did not want to alienate students even though they found students cheating at times. there was a strong need from academics to ensure that they teach students critically by encouraging them to apply their knowledge and steer away from simplistic ways of answering such as naming, listing, and comparing. although some simplistic ways of answering are required, more complex questioning calls for critical thinking, as the academics in this study highlighted. these findings call for universities to support academics in adopting a positive approach to teaching online and viewing online teaching and learning as an opportunity rather than a risk. additionally, universities should further support academics to engage deeply with students. this deeper engagement will strengthen academics’ approaches to working more closely with students and encourage them to enjoy the online teaching experience. it is also important that academics share their teaching experiences with other academics since this will allow for opportunities to learn from one another. finally, an important finding from the study is that academics used their personal resources such as family, friends, and partaking in activities that strengthen wellbeing and promote resilience, such as having a bubble bath, taking small breaks, and listening to music. resilience can also be considered an important resource, and the findings revealed that academics used resilience in this way. the study also showed that the institution did not provide adequate resources for academics to acquire resilience or strengthen ways of being more resilient. universities need to engage with the social and physical ecology by providing support and resources for academics to be resilient. this type of support is essential to academics and all other staff, especially during crises. while the university in this study emphasised the “no student left behind” mantra to ensure that each student completed the academic year successfully, it also needed to consider placing equal importance on the wellbeing of staff members and could have developed a “no lecturer left behind” slogan and programme as well. the dominant nature of the hierarchical university management structures must also be seen as part of a social-ecological environment that needs to be changed if the institution means to value academics’ wellbeing during crises. top management must move towards closer engagement with staff members. close and strong interactional leadership from top management is vital during crises. this kind of leadership can promote a sense of self-worth and the recognition of being valued in the workplace. finally, the recommendations from this study will also lead us, as curriculum officers, to design an e-teaching support programme that can be developed together with the participants in this study. this e-teaching support programme will be highly informative for academics during crises and will enhance their resilience in relation to online teaching. shaik et al.: sink or swim 183 references bourdieu, p. 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(2020). finding connections and resilience during the coronavirus pandemic. https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/coping-camaraderieand-human-evolution-amid-the-coronavirus-crisis microsoft word b91 full issue.docx journal of education, 2023 issue 91, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i91a07 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x “in the trenches”: south african vice-chancellors leading transformation in times of change imraan buccus gender justice, health and human development, office of the dvc research, innovation and engagement, durban university of technology, south africa imraan.buccus@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3455-5998 cheryl potgieter gender justice, health and human development, office of the dvc research, innovation and engagement, durban university of technology, south africa cherylp1@dut.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6404-9968 (received: 30 august 2022; accepted: 28 february 2023) abstract this paper examined the transformational goals and strategies of nine black university vice-chancellors in south africa in order to understand how they direct transformation of higher education in the country. the paper draws from narrative inquiry underlined by transformational leadership theory, and focuses on in-depth interviews with university vice-chancellors. the study focused on the key themes that direct vice-chancellors’ transformational leadership strategies. these are devolution of power, the needs to transform the institutional culture and attain social equity through putting students first, and addressing the next generation of academic scholars. finally, the paper draws attention to the enduring imperative to transform universities through a social equity lens and the significance of vice-chancellors’ transformational agendas and strategies in this regard. the local context of the university plays an important role in transformational leadership goals and strategies keywords: higher education, transformation, leadership, social equity 112 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 introduction: an overview of leadership in complex contexts this article examines the transformational goals of university vice-chancellors (vcs) in south africa given competing demands and desires for change. we sought to examine how black vcs understood their roles as vc, and their goals to transform their universities. in this regard, all these vcs were in themselves transforming higher education through being black and thus changing the apartheid profile of south african leadership in higher education. in the context of transformation, leadership issues are particularly controversial because leaders vacillate between competing agendas. over the past two decades, universities and other higher education institutions in south africa have been placed under the spotlight (council on higher education, 2004; department of education, 1997) as concerns were raised about the sector’s success in widening access and participation, and its impact on economic development and social change (department of higher education and training, 2021). several scholars articulated some of the competing demands and pressures on universities including the urgency to be globally competitive; ensuring research productivity; decolonising the curriculum; attracting, developing, and retaining talent; and addressing student needs (cherrington et al., 2018; habib, 2016; le grange et al., 2020; leibowitz, 2012; walters, 2018). the role of leadership from the perspectives of vcs is multifaceted and complex (croucher & lacy, 2022; heffernan et al., 2021). vcs need to be fully aware of the critical role of universities in creating social and economic change and providing strategic direction for the benefit of the whole institution and for broader social impact (shepherd, 2018). to investigate how vcs think of and signal transformational goals as being valuable and important, this article drew from nine south african vcs’ own stories about leadership strategies in their contexts. theoretically informed by a transformational approach to leadership, the study used narratives from the nine vcs to elucidate four key themes that signalled their visions and the challenges underlined by the goal of transformation. these areas of transformation were central to all the vcs’ understanding: consultative and open leading of institutions, changing the institutional culture, addressing social equity, and building the core business of the university in relation to its research culture. the idea of transformation as a core operating activity in the work of vcs is not unique to south africa. as noted by several international scholars, transformation serves as a central organising principle for the ways in which vcs conceptualise their visions and challenges (badillo-vega & buendía-espinosa, 2022; heffernan et al., 2021). however, to understand how vcs make sense of transformative goals requires an understanding of what they prioritise as goals and strategies necessary for transformation. this article aims to fill this gap by focusing on the key goals of nine south african university vcs in the context of transformation and the university’s deeper goal of social justice and democratisation in the country. a key objective is to examine the buccus & potgieter: “in the trenches” 113 transformational goals of university vcs in south africa given the plethora of competing demands and needs for change. articulating leadership and strategic direction at higher education institutions in south africa, “public universities are internally striving to achieve multiple, sometimes competing, imperatives, while externally presenting a unified and coherent message about what the public university’s ‘core business’ entails” (swartz et al., 2019, p. 568). a major issue in the postapartheid context is the need to alleviate historical inequalities brought about by colonialism and apartheid. several scholars have situated the complexity of higher education in the country in relation to addressing past inequalities and transforming the institutional culture of universities (council on higher education, 2016; habib 2016; jansen & walters, 2019). swartz et al. (2019, p. 568) added that “social justice is a core concern in higher education in south africa, and that requires redistribution towards parts of the country and social groups that remain economically marginal and marginalised in terms of access to education.” under apartheid, university education was stratified by race, and postapartheid south africa continues to grapple with transformative goals around social redress, equity, and democratic participation (habib, 2016; van schalkwyk et al., 2021). thus, given these historical inequalities, habib (2016) stated that two important agendas for universities in south africa should be to address historical inequalities, and for universities to be nationally responsive to the issues and problems surrounding them. in light of the grave sociohistorical and economic challenges that face the country, the associated university context is highly fragile and unstable. it is in this context that the core agenda and ability of vcs to strategically direct social change remains vital (shepherd, 2018). but this is not an easy task and scholars agree that vcs across the globe face challenges in articulating leadership and strategic direction for their institutions as well as implementing them; reasons here range from the pressures of market forces to the dynamics of the impact of race and class on leadership (dewan & myatt, 2008; heffernan et al., 2021; shen et al., 2020; shepherd, 2018). at the heart of leadership in times of change and crisis is how to transform institutional cultures to fulfil key goals for ensuring a better society. in this regard, university leadership around its core goals and challenges remains an important area of research. what are the core goals and agendas that define vcs’ leadership strategies? this question has important policy implications for how transformation is being understood and deserves further study in south africa where the empirical gap in researching and working with vcs remains, with few exceptions (habib, 2016; jansen, 2017; manamela, 1997; saunders, 2000). in the literature on leadership, a focus on vcs in south africa is scarce, and knowledge of their goals and strategic visions in the context of transformation remains a critical gap. in light of this, jansen (2017) called for further research to increase knowledge in contemporary times about university management. although transformation can be seen as a rhetorical device mobilised without evidence of what it entails (van schalkwyk et al., 2021), the question of how vcs 114 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 (from their own perspectives) situate their goals and agendas within this context deserves attention. this article focuses on transformational leadership (tfl) in south africa by situating the study within a narrative approach before addressing the key themes that frame the core goals of vcs and understanding the contextual basis of tfl in vcs’ experiences of leadership. situating tfl in south africa leadership is critical for organisational performance and thus, the particular directions and goals of leaders and leadership are important (dewan & myatt, 2008). although the focus in this article is on vcs who occupy a position at the apex of the university, leadership is diffused and not simply located in the hands of the vc. the particular focus in this article is on how strategic leadership is defined in relation to transformation goals in south africa. leadership scholars have drawn on different debates about leadership, for example, transformation leadership (bass, 1985), distributed leadership (spillane, 2006), or collective leadership (denis et al., 2001). even though there is significant critique and disagreement about what constitutes best leadership practice, there is agreement that vc leadership can be beneficial to universities (bosetti & walker, 2010). however, leadership is not a uniform practice and different vcs may have different conceptualisations of leadership. this article began with a vc who suggested that some vcs develop networks and “have tea” but for vcs in south africa, leadership involves being “in the trenches.” leadership is considered to benefit the entire institution. the leadership of vcs in directing their university towards social and economic prosperity, as scholars have attested, involves a myriad of strategies and includes the need to strategically position the university to compete within a context of diversity (bosetti & walker, 2010). it also includes developing strategic alliances, creating local and international networks (pilbeam & jamieson, 2010), financial oversight, and strengthening the institutional culture (jansen, 2017) while ensuring that the university is responsive to regional and national issues (swartz et al., 2019). in this article, the ideal of transformation and its impact on the organisation and broader south african society was central to all vcs’ understanding of their leadership vision and goals. vally (2007) argued that corporate models of managing higher education will demand new moral foregrounding because social justice imperatives may be pushed to the periphery as universities are forced to abide by the expectations of capitalism. importantly too, maistry (2021) made the point that higher education’s yielding to the logic of capital has resulted in universities becoming subservient to the economy. even though the overriding context is that university leadership is undertaken in a neo-liberal context, this paper looks at how leaders of universities make sense of their experience in leading for change and transformation and what their actual experiences, as articulated by them, have been. transformative leadership as proposed by swartz et al. (2022), referred to leadership that engaged with others in ways that are positive and focused on lasting change. there are different types of leadership including but not limited to transactional, transformational, and buccus & potgieter: “in the trenches” 115 transformative leadership. transactional leadership is based on power relationships where leaders direct others. in contrast, the vcs in this study were invested in bringing about change in higher education and, as leibowitz (2012) has suggested, the vcs were directed by the social justice agenda and supportive of the role of the university for public good. although tfl varies in how it is instituted, and can also refer to the ways in which leaders maximise profit, in this study of vcs, the focus is on change embedded in transforming the inequalities of the past and guided by the social justice agenda. as swartz et al. (2022) noted, this focus on social justice stands in stark contrast to other kinds of leadership. in the literature on leadership, several studies have emphasised the tfl style (badillo-vega & buendía-espinosa, 2022; manamela, 1997). this is especially valuable in a context that requires substantial reform; transformational leaders are needed to strengthen the broader goal of social and economic prosperity. leithwood and sun (2012) suggested that tfl builds on common goals, creates positive work environments, shares decision making, and distributes leadership while strengthening the institutional climate of an institution. for bass (1985), tfl involved developing shared goals and commitments that move people to a common vision. this vision, as bass highlighted, involves altering the ideas and values of an organisation based on a moral purpose. in other words, tfl seeks to create change and revise existing values by articulating visions and goals that work for the benefit of the organisation and surrounding community. put simply, tfl tries to transform the organisational culture of universities (heffernan et al., 2021). bass (1985) noted that tfl involves inspiring a vision to challenge the status quo and to alter the environment. this vision is vital in setting a common frame through which to mobilise the university towards a common good. as noted by many tfl scholars, decisive leadership patterns, cooperation, and clear vision are some of the key elements of transformational leaders (badillo-vega & buendía-espinosa, 2022; leithwood & sun, 2012). although there are many elements to tfl, this article focuses on what vcs themselves suggest are key to their goals and visions in line with south africa’s historical processes and in line with transformation goals in the country. in other words, how do the vcs’ goals and vision address the challenges and the transformation of their surroundings? what this means for tfl is that understandings are contextual, and that any understanding of tfl requires situational specificity. vcs emerge from their contexts, which shape tfl goals. transformation leadership is vital in understanding vcs’ goals of change, but these goals and visions are shaped by their contextual realities including historical processes, large-scale inequalities, poor research culture, and an inherited institutional culture that is embedded within colonial occupation (cherrington et al., 2018). in other words, tfl is not a uniform hegemonic account of leadership. the underlying assumptions of vcs and their transformational goals are constituted by, and emerge from, the contexts within which they are located (heffernan et al., 2021). understanding tfl in this way requires serious consideration of the contextual relations that create specific challenges and directs attention towards particular goals. 116 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 as outlined earlier, south african higher education institutions are highly contested arenas in which the need to redress past inequalities remains (habib, 2016: jansen & walters, 2019). the need for tfl is also critical for leaders to be responsive to the need for change and transformation (habib, 2016). thus, what kind of transformational goals are being led by vcs and what does this say about leadership? there remains a marginal consideration of university vcs’ perspectives on the issues of effective leadership and how they arise— especially in the context of south africa’s turbulent higher education environment. existing studies in south africa have paid sufficient attention to vcs’ understanding of transformation goals. yet, on the whole, there are gaps in research on university vcs’ leadership strategies. even though some studies have focused on the functions and core business of university vcs (swartz et al., 2019), less attention has been given to how they demarcate their goals in relation to transformation. moreover, excepting a few studies that focused on qualitative methods based on the personal narratives of vcs themselves (habib, 2016; jansen & walters, 2019; saunders, 2000), few studies have addressed a range of vcs through narrative methods. to fill this gap, this article presents interview data arising from a narrative inquiry that focused on vcs’ goals. it is not possible to focus on all elements of tfl and consequently, the paper is particularly interested in how vcs contextualise transformation agendas. methodology given the complex task of leading a south african university, this research aimed to understand university vcs’ leadership goals and the challenges of ensuring transformation of higher education in the country. the main scope of the study was to understand how vcs made sense of their experience in leading for change and transformation. the research questions guiding this article were: • what are vcs’ experiences in leading universities for transformation in south africa? • how do their goals and visions shape their experience of leading for transformation? this section of the article describes the research methodology. it explains the basis for adopting a narrative inquiry, and further provides a description of the research participants and overview of the research design, methods used to collect data, and analysis and findings of data and ethical considerations. qualitative research guided the methodological approach in this article because, counter to a positivistic notion of knowledge, it views all reality as socially produced (creswell & poth, 2018). knowledge is open to multiple interpretations and is always changing. knowledge is also never value free, but is based on particular notions of power. in this article, we draw on the critical paradigm as a methodological framework. this approach is based on power, inequality, and social change (fraser, 1989). contrary to the positivist paradigm, the critical paradigm suggests that knowledge is always subjective. it is concerned with institutional culture and social equity. in relation to this article based on black vcs and their transformational goals, the critical paradigm is useful in that it begins with the premise that knowledge systems are oppressive and, in the case of buccus & potgieter: “in the trenches” 117 black vcs, race was an important axis of difference under apartheid and in their roles in transforming higher education in the country. as such, the intention of the critical paradigm was not only to see these power inequalities in vcs’ experiences, but also how they are working towards transformational agendas and change (creswell & poth, 2018). cresswell (2013) suggested that people experience the world subjectively and that these experiences are situational and embedded in material, social, and historical processes. this article draws on qualitative narrative inquiry as a methodology within the critical paradigm to understand the leadership experiences of black vcs in the context of transformation. narrative inquiry clandinin (2013) stated that narratives provide the basis upon which we can interpret our experiences. in other words, this type of methodology is a means of understanding and inquiring into both the experiences of others and the researcher, who are all part of the social world where knowledge is produced. narrative inquiry is both a phenomenon that can be studied and a method that informs the inquiry (clandinin & connelly, 1990). narratives are not simply personal renditions of one’s experience; they are socially located and bound to the surrounding social world. in this article, the narratives of vcs and their experiences are vital but within a social context that is open to multiple realities and interpretations. in other words, vcs like all other people are both individually and socially located and their narratives provide thick data on their experiences. polkinghorne (1988) indicated that narrative inquiry also views events and actions that can create and organise particular narratives. similarly, in this article, the focus is on vcs’ experiences of leadership strategies and goals in order to understand how their narratives and actions contribute to tfl. numerous studies using narrative enquiry have been conducted with university vcs in other contexts (badillo-vega & buendía-espinosa, 2022; juntrasook, 2014; wei & xing, 2022). this article contributes to this body of work in that it addresses black south african vcs’ narratives around leadership and in leading universities for transformation in south africa. participants this article employed a purposeful sampling technique by selecting black vcs at south african higher education institutions. the participants were solicited through email invitation and nine vcs agreed to participate in the study. of the nine vcs, only one was female and this is reflective of the higher education leadership landscape and its gendered manifestations where men continue to be in leadership positions. the sample size was thus limited to the nine vcs who were purposefully selected to obtain in-depth narratives of their experiences in leadership. all the vcs were born and raised in south africa and had studied under apartheid schooling. at the time of the study, pre-covid-19, there were 17 black vcs in south africa. of these 17 black vcs, nine agreed to participate in the study. these vcs comprised one black female, two indian males, two coloured males and four black males with phd degrees in various fields. in order to ensure anonymity and protect confidentiality of the participants, a number 118 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 was assigned to each vc in order of the interviews, and these numbers were used when quoting from the data. 1 data collection all interviews were held at the university campuses and were conducted face-to-face after securing interview appointments with the vcs. before commencing the interviews, signed consent forms were collected and a brief description of the study was provided. interviews lasted between 90 to 120 minutes. the initial interview questions focused on demographics, age, and years of experience including factors that had led them to apply for the position as vc. all interviews were recorded and transcribed. to learn about their leadership experiences and goals, the interviews were based on a broad thematic guide. the initial questions focused on their roles as vcs and, within a broad set of questions, vcs were given the opportunity to provide their own narratives of their experiences. these questions included describing family backgrounds and the ways in which childhood experiences had shaped academic choices and career aspirations. questions included: “how does your background inform your leadership style?” “how does race, gender, class impact on your leadership style?” “what do you think are the key attributes of a vc?” “what are the challenges of leadership?” “how does your context (and who you are) influence you being successful at your university?” in this article, attention is given to the vcs’ visions and goals in relation to tfl. data analysis, findings, and ethical considerations data were analysed using thematic analysis (braun & clarke, 2019). thematic analysis refers to the process of assessing and identifying patterns and themes from qualitative data. this process followed three stages. in the first stage, all data were read and re-read to gain deep insight into the vcs’ own accounts of transformational goals and strategies. this process was carried out alongside a review of field notes. in the next stage, data were coded based on specific patterns. similar themes and patterns were grouped together so that key issues were highlighted. in the final stage, the data in different patterns were further examined to ensure that these patterns were correctly assigned. when patterns were inconsistent, new labels were formed. in this way, major themes arose from the identified patterns following an inductive approach (braun & clarke, 2019). their narratives demonstrate that navigating their vc position was complex and that there is a distinction between “shared” and “common” experiences. as the participants described their pathways to their current positions, it became evident that many of them were headhunted and there was no evidence to suggest that any of them purposefully pursued the trajectory to become the vc of a university. nor did all come through the trajectory of being head of department, dean, or deputy vc; rather, academics and political activism, the need for transformation, affiliation to activist and political organisations, enlightenment through 1 vc 1: black female vc 2: black male vc 3: indian male vc 4: indian male vc 5: coloured male vc 6: coloured male vc 7: coloured male vc 8: black male vc 9: black male buccus & potgieter: “in the trenches” 119 the freedom struggle, and even “a series of accidents” had contributed to them becoming vcs. hence, not all of the black vcs are captured in each of the themes. the range of themes and subthemes provided a scope to illuminate and understand the complex nature of becoming and being a black vc of a public university where transformation was fundamental to their experience. common themes that emerged with respect to critical influences that had shaped their career paths included family background, experiences in the university environment, mentoring relationships, navigating leadership positions in postapartheid south africa, overcoming race challenges and white elitist ideologies, the importance of scholarship, and leading predominantly white higher education institutions. an examination of these themes points to particular patterns that may provide the basis for an understanding of how we could work towards further developing a cohort of primarily black academics for leadership positions in universities or, at the very least, begin to generate ideas and debate or discussion about black academic leadership. each of the participants’ stories illuminated the challenges along their career paths in coping with the inherent difficulties of the role of a university vc, and with one woman vc navigating her position as a black woman in an enduring white maledominated profession. in this paper, attention is given to the transformational goals of vcs as they referred to their experience of becoming and being a vc. there are four major goals in this regard including tfl based on consultative processes, institutional culture and social equity, centring transformation around student needs, and developing the next generation programme to enhance black academic research output and career trajectories. trustworthiness in this article was generated through open-ended questions that allowed the vcs freedom to express themselves in ways they found relevant. another means through which trustworthiness was achieved was the use of field notes that were used to consolidate the major themes discussed in this article. in terms of credibility, each vc was given their transcript to verify the content. ethical clearance was provided by the university of kwazulu-natal and participants signed informed consent letters detailing the project, and were informed of their right to withdraw from the study at any time. confidentiality and anonymity were guaranteed to participants. discussion although the vcs varied in how they understood leadership, they did agree on some of the key issues described in this analysis as being critical for effective leadership. in what follows is an analysis of how tfl was perceived in relation to leadership and consultation, social equity, taking heed of students first, and transforming research cultures to advance black academic scholarship. devolving leadership: consultation and openness in the first section of the analysis, we gave attention to vcs’ understanding of leadership as defined by principles of openness and transformation. this notion of devolving leadership 120 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 ideals set the scene for understanding the ways in which leadership is directed towards supporting social equity, putting students first, and developing black scholarship. vc 8: the big issue . . . is the fact that we are going through a period of very deep and broad transformations in the country. . . . so the university has been going through change. . . . if you are leading through a period of change, you have to give that transformation and leadership that is required in the institution. . . . issues of consultation are really built in any organisation that i lead. i do have to make sure that there is as much consultation as possible. which is required in this day and age in south africa. . . . you can’t have a stage where a vice-chancellor is seen to be a despot. the vcs understood transformational goals as being embedded in democratic leadership. as a starting point, vc 8 pointed to the critical period of transformation in the country and being responsive to national principles tied to social justice and democracy. emphasis was placed on the critical period of “deep and broad transformations” in south africa. these transformative goals, as noted in the introduction, relate to complex social and economic problems in the country and the challenges related to these. but they also signify new strategies and responsiveness to a political climate based on consultation and change. consultation was seen to be part of leadership strategies that collaboratively address problems and devolve traditional understandings of leadership. in rejecting the role of the vc as “despot,” the focus on consultation and participatory forms of leadership revealed that vcs are key strategists who understand their role within the organisation as democratic leaders. in this position, they understand that to lead effectively, consultative processes are key. vc 5: it is a very complicated environment because there is so much that is not within your control because of the committee systems, you know, and they do things there and they make decisions there, and it is really trying to develop a strong sense of vision, mission. in this excerpt, vc 5 pointed out that the participatory process through a committee system makes it difficult for vcs to take power. as he noted, “it is not within your control.” organisational hierarchy was de-emphasised, which contributed to collaborative decision making. according to northouse (2016), democratic leadership is a dispersed form of power where leaders permit the devolution of power. what is evident is the useful way in which tfl seeks to increase benefit for all in the organisation and on democratic leadership, based on positively engaging with all stakeholders. tfl thus relies on the recognition of the vcs to engage with a broader understanding of power, against traditional hierarchies that are of historical making, thereby stimulating the organisational environment and entrenching democratic participation. tfl is thus tied to consultative participatory organisational patterns, changing systems, and includes deep consideration of followers’ needs to engage with the institution at all levels. moreover, leadership is not a contained experience and not specific to a vc but, instead, a collective process (northouse, 2016). tfl does not see leadership as despotic and in the hands of the vc. tfl flows through the organisation where different stakeholders and structures like committee systems are engaged in the collective buccus & potgieter: “in the trenches” 121 enterprise of doing leadership. in other words, tfl is a collaborative approach and involves a plurality of events within the organisation (heffernan et al., 2021). of importance to the vcs was the need to structure the organisation through their roles as visionaries and to articulate the mission of the university. as hanaway (2019) has indicated, followers in institutions are inspired by the vision of transformational leaders. evident here in the operation of tfl is the focus on participatory democracy actively challenging apartheid formations of power, responsiveness to the national political climate, and respect for inclusion—and also the power vcs attach to their intellectual role as visionaries. as noted by leithwood and sun (2012), transformational leaders are visionaries and effect organisational change. vc 8: you have got various stakeholders . . . students . . . staff members . . . academics . . . non-academics. . . . people are very well informed about what needs to happen in the country and therefore you have to lead a very democratic process. however, you also need to make sure that you can lead in your particular direction in terms of your vision. you have to be a visionary when it comes to issues of higher education so that you don’t get pulled in one way or the other, but be able to lead towards a particular vision of the institution. everybody needs to be brought in, in that sort of higher vision of the institution. . . . the openness that is required, the free debate that is required in institutions of higher learning. the narrative by vc 8 is evidence of intricate connection with democratic processes in line with the postapartheid context: being responsive to various stakeholders, expectation of and support for consultative processes, and the role of the vc in directing the vision of the institution. tfl values cross-sector collaboration, inclusivity, openness, and free debate. analysis of the vcs’ perspectives on participatory consultative leadership and the value of different voices in establishing the vision and mission of the university remains important. vc 8 made clear the important role of being a visionary, which is deeply embedded in collaboration and representation from different stakeholders, and which maximises the benefit to the institution. as lange (2014) noted, for transformation to be effective, a devolved sense of leadership is vital. these ideas of transformation, a distributed sense of power, and focus on vcs’ goals as visionaries, build on the mission of the institution. according to bass (1985), tfl creates a climate that enhances follower performance beyond individual goals. visionary leadership, tfl, and democratic process all meld together to increase the capacity of the organisation. “a home for all”: institutional culture and social equity given the sociopolitical and historical contexts of black vcs, they embody transformation, social equity, and institutional culture in a way that white vcs cannot—and this is significant. it sends a powerful message to the university community and to broader society in transition. 122 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 when vcs addressed their transformation goals and visions and the challenges in which these are embedded, the historical setting, apartheid, and contemporary patterns of inequalities were deeply connected to their own experiences. even though it has been almost three decades since the end of apartheid, institutional culture and social equity remain key concerns. institutional culture and transformation are inextricably connected (luvalo, 2019). institutional culture is a slippery concept and difficult to define but, as some scholars have suggested, it can refer to cultural patterns, values, beliefs, and ideologies through which an organisation is constructed (suransky & van der merwe, 2016). tierney and lanford (2016) explained that institutional culture is never static and involves a number of issues including the mission of the institution, the environment, leadership, and strategy, amongst others. historically, the staple that bound values, beliefs, and ideologies including leadership was based on apartheid inequalities. as suransky and van der merwe (2016) stated, although there are other systemic problems in higher education that need to be addressed, challenging the apartheid-imbued institutional cultures can play an important role in the process of change. in alignment with the transformational agenda around institutional culture, the vcs positioned social change as a priority to benefit all or, as the vc below stated, to create a “home for all.” vc 4: two of the fundamental issues . . . institutional culture and social equity. institutional culture at two levels. one is at the level of the, the historical legacy in connection with racial colonisation . . . how do you de-masculinise, how do you declassify, how do you decolonise intellectuals, and their projects ok. uhm, how we come to grips with that, you know there is a difference between being an african university and being just a university in africa. you know oxford is a european university, not just a university in europe. yet we take our models, we take our governance structures . . . and all that from european universities. so what does it mean to be an african university? second is to get an institution like this to see and accept the diversity and to see that this is the diversity and be respectful of that, and grateful for that it will actually lead to a higher institution. . . . so question is, how to promote, er, respect for difference and diversity whether that is class, or race or . . . or gender or linguistics or national or cultural or geological or sociological or sexual orientation and so on. how do you make a home for all? transforming institutional culture is in direct response to legacies of the past, decolonising the university, and ensuring social justice. there was recognition that the institutional culture as defined by vc 4 above—racial european colonisation—and the need for respect for difference are key to his goals for transformation. indeed, the historical bases of inequality shaped contemporary inequalities, and provide the context through which transformational goals are articulated in relation to institutional culture. objecting to eurocentric norms and the historical hierarchal systems of knowledge and culture that continue to occupy south african higher education, this vc made clear that the effects of history shape tfl and are central to his vision for change. buccus & potgieter: “in the trenches” 123 the goal is to dismantle the colonisation of the university (and its unequal manifestations in knowledge production, race, class, language, regionality, culture, and sexual orientation). recognition of these areas of social inequity and the need for transformation reflect the mobilisation of vcs’ visionary leadership based on social justice imperatives that serve to better respond to the internal and external needs of the organisation, the community, and the country. vc 7: because the institution was far more untransformed than it is right now and there were some epic challenges facing the university then, a radical, racist past. it still carries many of the traces and the residues of that in the culture and the demographics of the institution and so on. but then it was basically right at the beginning of transition to democracy. so, i would have adopted, you know, i guess different tactics and strategies to shock the system into the changes that we need to induce in it and to grapple with. vc 7 connected the institutional culture with the heightening awareness to decolonise the organisation—situating the challenge firmly in the historically privileged western constructs of knowledge, culture, and intellectual norms that have shaped south african higher education institutions (cherrington et al., 2018; walters, 2018). changing the institutional culture, although not easy to do, is key to the vision and mission of the vc. it is precisely the complexity and high levels of inequality that drive the transformative agenda and new forms of governance and leadership, which prioritise these issues. the transformation intentions and goals, although embedded within competing forces including finance, serve to illustrate how social equity goals are prioritised in transforming the institutional culture of the university. this focus on institutional culture highlights the ongoing significance of examining how vcs are framing leadership in relation to social justice. this leads to specific issues around race and class inequalities and the imperative of addressing and supporting students and staff. put students at the centre of the university historically, the institutional culture of universities has not taken into account the needs of black students. the historical and contextual milieu of black vcs in terms of how this is connected to their own experiences means that they understand the necessity to centre the needs of students in a context of transformation. tierney and lanford (2018) identified environment, mission, socialisation, information, strategy, and leadership as key to understanding institutional culture. however, as shown in this section, what institutional culture means and how it is constituted is deeply embedded in the context of the history of the setting, and inextricably bound to transformational goals and leadership. these social, economic, and political processes affected the ways in which the vcs referred to the challenge and strategies for student support. vc 5: what apartheid did was absolutely wasteful, and it located its geniuses in 10% of the people and robbed this nation of the intellectual gifts of those 90%. and so, our job in this nation essentially is to find that 90% so that we can bring to the university 124 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 level the very best minds that this country has available to it. so, i believe now that that is what our university now has to focus on. . . . how do we find them and nurture them. transforming the institutional culture, as noted earlier, is bound up with the legacies of apartheid and transformational goals that seek to emphasise social equity and support for black students. these goals are also set against the contemporary education system, which, like university organisations, continues to suffer the effects of inequalities, limited access to quality resources and schooling, and poor quality education (spaull, 2013). thus, challenges remain in attracting black students to university environments. however, vcs are navigating the space of broader structural inequalities. as vc 3 noted, the changing institutional culture of the university means doing “what it takes to put the students at the centre of the university. and for me that would be a determining factor.” on the one hand, transformational goals, strategies, and agendas have permitted a particular kind of leadership that supports social equity to improve student access to higher education but, on the other hand, the imperative to put students first is constrained by the surrounding social and economic malaise in the country. vc 3: so the fact that our students are so impoverished, i mean just so many of them have only their financial aid backing to kind of survive . . . to really set people up to study . . . you have to find some organic way to do this and attract good people with phds and so on . . . and . . . it is going to be a university that is deeply embedded in this context, that it is going to work closely with the needs of the local development challenges. but then understanding that, actually, you may not have the right kinds of capacity to do that in an effective way, and trying to understand how to build that capacity. changing the institutional culture and transforming student lives is deeply embedded in the current context of major inequalities. recognising these large-scale inequalities and their effects on student lives, vc 3 pointed to poverty and supporting students and attracting quality academic staff with doctoral qualifications while understanding that these visions are hindered by maldistribution within the economic, social, and education systems. putting students first is also related to building capacity within the university in relation to academic staff. it is amid these tensions that tfl is enacted, based on social equity and support for new ways of envisioning a university culture. next generation programme: black academics and research cultures in the context of centring the needs of students, it also makes sense to think about nurturing the next generation of academics for transformation. in this regard, the department of higher education and training initiated the next generation programme, which recruits and supports the academic growth of black academics. changing institutional culture, it is argued, could lead to the successful transformation of higher education (luvalo, 2019; suransky & van der merwe, 2016). in this regard, vcs buccus & potgieter: “in the trenches” 125 deemed the development of a research culture as a non-negotiable vision and one that allowed the university to be distinguished from other public entities. vc 6: i am a hardworking, ambitious academic . . . i need to know that i am going to one day stand up and this university will be taken seriously as an academic institution. vc 3: i would say that the accelerated research output is, well i don’t know about accelerated research output, but i would say that building the research system, for me, you know is—let me put it this way. the key project of the university is the knowledge process and there are two aspects to this. the one is trying to understand how to create an environment and a learning environment that is good for the students. and the other side is really building the research system. . . . you know, the challenge i have is to understand how to build the research system from the bottom up. in the first instance, vc 6 asserted the vision of the institution as being academic, tying this vision with his own stature as a “hardworking and ambitious academic.” the emphasis on building the research system and accelerating teaching and research was deemed a key aspect of the transformational agenda. in fact, the centrality of research informed all vcs’ roles as a leader (goodall, 2006). vc 6 noted further that he understood the “pulse of the scholar” and had a deep appreciation of the value attached to research within the changing form of institutional culture. by deeply embedding transformational goals within the research project of the university, and by situating these goals and projects in a historical setting, the vcs were able to understand and interrogate the challenges associated with research development and social equity. vc 2: our social equity, we are doing that through the next generation programme, to bring black students, bringing outstanding black students who are eligible for the next generation programme, which is costing us a lot, costing us a million rand out of budget . . . we are seeing the fruits of that already with some outstanding black african academics. she came to us because she wants to be a serious academic . . . i’ve been with her for three years, she’s going to produce a wonderful phd. . . . as soon as she finishes . . . then we need to think about a 5-year plan, about how we will be able to help her, support her . . . in 15 or 20 years, she will be a vc at some university in south africa, that’s for certain. by consciously understanding social equity and the development of research culture, vc 2 appraised the context and charted a course of action through the next generation programme for black academics’ research growth and support. as morrell et al. (2022) reported, beyond a technical exercise of supporting transformation and redress, the programme fosters and nurtures relationships amongst academics. in this regard, leibowitz’s (2012) claim about social justice and its alignment with an ethic of care is key to how transformation is guided. vcs are navigating a complex terrain where, on the one hand, they pursue transformational agendas that seek to redress, encourage, and increase opportunities based on social equity as 126 journal of education, no. 91, 2023 well as an ethic of care and, on the other hand, they are also embedded within local settings where large scale inequalities and the remnants of apartheid continue to have effects on what it is possible to achieve. thus, while their goals and aims are transformational, whether these goals are realisable remains to be seen. vc 2, however, did testify to the fruits of the next generation programme. conclusion since the end of apartheid, south african higher education has been in a state of transformation. universities are embroiled in a range of social, political, and economic changes that reflect the highly unequal legacies of the past. in this context, transforming higher education continues to be a vital part of the leadership of universities (van schalkwyk et al., 2021). with that in mind, this article examined the ways in which nine black vcs conceptualised their roles in the transformation of the university. south african university vcs’ tfl strategies and goals showed acute knowledge of their organisation, the surrounding social contexts, and the need for university agendas to benefit all including staff, students, and the broader society. the analysis of the narratives suggests that south african vcs are not alone in their visions, strategies, and enactment of the transformational goals that are embedded within the goals of social justice (heffernan et al., 2021; shen et al., 2020). in approaching vcs’ thinking, agendas, and visions around transformation, tfl theory was put to work to demonstrate how vcs enacted goals of prosperity for all. devolution of power, participatory democratic processes, transforming institutional culture, addressing social equity, and research development are key tfl strategies through which vcs’ skills became apparent. devolving power and implementing democratic processes illustrates contemporary university leaders in south africa rejecting past inequalities and hierarchies. secondly, transformation of the institutional culture of the organisation and the need for social equity were premised on objection to the western epistemologies and intellectual norms that were the effects of colonisation. revising the institutional culture was a key goal and was deeply connected to social justice. these strategies have helped to address historically derived forms of inequalities. the work of vcs to transform institutional culture was driven by the ethic of justice. related to this goal is the attention given to student support and research development that are underpinned by social equity and racial and gender justice. tfl theory is therefore valuable in understanding the role of vcs as strategists aiming to create new possibilities to address past inequalities. the particular demands placed on the university to transform white hegemonic structures, expand access for black students, and develop the next generation of scholars (black and female) were seen in the ways in which vcs conceptualised their visions and strategies. tfl was useful in expanding understanding of vcs leadership skills, and this paper shows how visionary leadership and democratic participatory forms of leadership are connected to transformation. as such, tfl should be seen in conjunction with other forms of leadership as presented by the vcs. buccus & potgieter: “in the trenches” 127 significantly, tfl cannot be understood without contextualisation or unpacking the contexts within which vcs are situated. vcs’ transformational agendas and strategies are demarcated by the legacies of apartheid and social inequities that drive particular visions and agendas for transformation. broader social, political, and economic spheres shape vcs’ agendas for change. tfl strategies are therefore inextricably caught up in the networks of politics, history, and economics. the particular areas requiring transformation are underlined by the local settings in the country. as the narratives in this article suggest, efforts at transformation are premised on social equity and addressing the vast inequalities that still exist in the country and in higher education. these issues, and the conditions that constrain transformation, highlight the ongoing significance of examining how vcs frame their agendas and visions in relation to social equity and change. references badillo-vega, r., & buendía-espinosa, a. 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(2022). betwixt and between: a narrative inquiry into chinese university leaders’ intercultural competence in leadership. educational management administration & leadership, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/17411432221105980 microsoft word b90 full issue.docx journal of education, 2023 issue 90, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i90a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x towards an integrative philosophy of education: the contemplative case of economic education suriamurthee moonsamy maistry college of humanities, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa maistrys@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9623-0078 (received: 19 july 2022; accepted: 22 february 2023) abstract acquiring a basic knowledge of philosophy is usually a deprioritised choice for students in undergraduate programmes. even a basic philosophy course is seldom mandatory in the hard sciences, although it may be an option in the social sciences. while many undergraduate teacher education programmes have stand-alone courses in the philosophy of education in general educational studies courses, philosophical inspiration is largely drawn from continental philosophy. the extent to which preservice teachers see the wider relevance and application of philosophy of education to the school subjects they teach is uncertain. also, contemporary philosophy of education courses in the (south) african context may still be paying homage to western, eurocentric philosophical canons, despite calls by the student collective in south africa for african contextual relevance. i present an account of a curriculum initiative in a teacher education course that attempts a disruption of traditional western canons that underpin economics and economic education. i argue that disciplines such as economics are fertile spaces for engaging teacher trainees in a philosophical exposé, with a view to contesting the universality of the philosophies of (economic) sciences to explain contemporary societal crises. i present insights into how the philosophy of education might be conceptualised as an across curriculum competence as opposed to an insular, stand-alone offering. keywords: philosophy of education, economics, economics education, undergraduate teacher education, preservice teachers, south africa introduction in this article i consider the potential that philosophy of education might have for me as teacher educator, as i engage with preservice teachers while they contemplate the nature of their future work in schools. how can student teachers provoke the macro question of the broader purpose of education and micro questions of knowledge and teaching methodology choices with which they constantly engage? there is limited knowledge on the extent to which education students find the philosophy of education relevant, or their ability to connect such learning to other elements of their studies. 50 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 there is anecdotal evidence of a transfer blockage that teacher education students encounter in extending or applying basic philosophy from general educational courses to the teaching methodology courses in their programmes. there is also limited knowledge of the extent to which pedagogy teachers (myself included) undertake to collaborate with philosophy of education teachers. again, anecdotal evidence suggests that a fair level of insularity is prevalent even within the same teacher education programme, such as the postgraduate certificate in education (pgce). my purpose in this article is to explore the integrative possibilities of philosophy in a pedagogy course and the potentialities and implications thereof, using the deleuze and guattarian philosophical concept of assemblage (deleuze & guattari, 1987). i reflect on my attempt to invoke philosophical thinking in a teaching methodology course for teachers of economic and business sciences (ebs). interweaving philosophy into nonphilosophy courses is not unusual (see olivier, 2016, for example). i appropriate key conceptual insights from deleuze and guattari (1987), not merely as (a)priory frameworks for analysis but as post-priory heuristics for ruminating on the ideological work i do as teacher educator. i also attempt to assist my student teachers to use theory and concepts that philosophy offers as they consider the ideological project they have chosen as their vocation. i argue that the teacher educator’s (course designer’s) selection of knowledge and pedagogical approach is intrinsic to the theoretical/philosophical tenets to which they subscribe as they undertake to prepare potential teachers to work in schools. i contend that while the philosophy of education as taught in general education courses might be useful, teaching specialisation pedagogies might well supplement this with discipline-specific philosophical knowledge or, in other words, the invocation of philosophical inspiration directly related to the aims and objectives of the teaching methodology course. in the teaching specialisation course that i design and offer in the field of ebs, i set the need for student teachers to critique the nature of the subject knowledge they will teach to school learners as a key aim. the course is also fashioned to help students to develop an understanding and critique of tenets underpinning what they perceive to be the purpose of school education and of ebs as a school subject. students need have to have a theoretical/conceptual repertoire to effect such critique (biesta, 2014). this means moving the focus of the pedagogy course beyond the mechanics of how to plan and deliver a lesson in the field, to exposing students to advanced thinking on what and how they choose to teach. the pedagogy course in ebs starts from the premise that subject knowledge in the field is not sacrosanct or unchallengeable. as such, it warrants philosophical analysis of what presents as universal canons in the discipline, and how this serves particular ideological ends. as deleuze and guattari (1994, p. 7) assert, “the first principle of philosophy is that universals explain nothing but must themselves be explained.” ebs as a field grounded in the tenets of neoclassical economics and neoliberal economic principles (maistry & david, 2018) warrants the invocation of critical philosophy. the latter argues for critique and criticism, a constant judging of what counts as knowledge, who is served by particular knowledge selections, and who is subjugated by the process. a key maistry: towards an integrative philosophy of education 51 purpose of the pedagogy course is to help student teachers move beyond technical preoccupation with lesson planning towards developing their own philosophies of teaching that might be informed by relevant theory. invoking deleuzian assemblage in deleuze and guattari’s (1994) provocative book what is philosophy?, they argue that philosophy is essentially a discipline that constantly offers new concepts that may allow us to observe and analyse hidden, unobvious, and subversive knowledges that parade in the world. it is a “pedagogy of the concept” (deleuze & guattari, 1994, p. 12) in that learning is constructed as problematic as opposed to being envisaged in relation to pre-existing knowledge. in his assessment of the thrust of this book, bell (2016, p. 23) notes that it might be considered a meditation upon what constitutes a life well lived . . . how the creation of concepts, or how a thoughtful, engaged life of learning, can lead to a rethinking of our lives as lived in all their social, political and historical variety . . . to set philosophy to work. the profundity of this aspiration has appeal, especially as it relates to envisioning teaching and learning as multiplicity, as the “condition of possibility of thought itself” (deleuze & guattari, 1994, p. 3), as we encounter “the problem of life (as) a problem of learning, and philosophy . . . (as) inseparable from this problem . . . and the importance of asking the right questions” (bell, 2016, p. 61). as a teacher educator, these insights present as a powerful heuristic with which to contemplate the pedagogy courses i teach. deleuzian philosophy, more especially the concept of assemblage, has been widely appropriated by the social sciences to describe and understand the interconnectedness of elements in social systems or in social constructions. deleuzian philosophy has had limited application in education, especially in the south african context, save for the work of le grange (2014). invoking deleuze for educational research and theorising might well be considered a deterritorialisation of deleuze “while simultaneously reterritorializing him in a new (education) context” (semetsky & masny, 2013, p. 1). the pgce programme as composite qualification can be analysed as a deleuzian assemblage, one of many embedded in a broader assemblage, namely the teacher education programme of a faculty of education. the pgce programme as machinic assemblage of desire can be viewed as the “coming together of forces into a relatively stable configurations with particular capacities to affect and be affected . . . (and may) include heterogenous processes of material practices” (lorraine, 2011, p. 38). it follows that assemblage (as translated from the french word agencement) is associated with the concept of agency (due, 2007), a heuristic to analyse dynamic systems of heterogenous forces that produce a power formation. deleuze and guattari (1987, pp. 22–23) remind us that “(a)n assemblage, in its multiplicity, necessarily acts on semiotic flows, material flows, and social flows simultaneously”, thus pointing to a non-essentialist interconnectedness of individuals and elements within assemblages—a non-fixity of identity. 52 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 lorraine (2011, p. 12), drawing on deleuze and guattri’s inspiration, argued that “[t]he question is not how to connect with the world around us; it is rather the kinds of connections we want to foster and sustain . . . (in) becoming a working part of a whole that makes something happen.” these insights are particularly useful for understanding my location and that of my pedagogy course in relation to the broader pgce programme with its history in south africa of wide variation across universities, despite the revised policy on the minimum requirements for teacher education qualifications (mrteq) (2015), issued by the department of higher education and training, that attempts to streamline it. this might be related to the fairly recent acceptance of education into the university arena as a bona fide discipline (furlong, 2013), as i discuss below. philosophy of education: struggle for a meaningful stake in the teacher education assemblage unlike established, traditional disciplines like mathematics or biological sciences, education has struggled to establish its authenticity in the modern university, largely because it is viewed as “epistemologically weak” (furlong, 2013, p. 13), and “lacking consensus and . . . coherence of some of the more established disciplines” (p. 4). it is criticised for its preoccupation with developing professional practice and its inability to demarcate a coherent epistemology. despite this, education schools and faculties have expanded and grown in terms of academic personnel and student enrolment, given south africa’s strategic decision to recognise teacher education in particular as a higher education competence to be serviced by the university sector. the epistemological looseness described above manifests in what might be described as a smorgasbord of course offerings within a single programme (like the pgce), with competition for time and substantive positioning by subdisciplines. philosophy of education as an element of many teacher education programmes also struggles and competes with other education subdisciplines (like sociology of education and psychology of education). unlike psychology of education, that has successfully developed and advanced the field because of its professional status and immediate vocational/employment potential, aspiring philosophers of education have limited occupational prospects. philosophy of education as a subfield of education is not usually offered as a major subject in undergraduate teacher education programmes in south africa, especially since it does not exist as an official school subject in the national school curriculum (curriculum and assessment policy statements (caps), department of basic education, 2011). philosophy of education thus suffers from a lack of status. while it may exist as a mandatory inclusion in general education studies courses, a prescript of mrteq, the jury is out as to whether preservice teachers would choose philosophy of education if it were an optional/elective course in their undergraduate teacher preparation programmes. maistry: towards an integrative philosophy of education 53 invoking self-study methodology: aspiring to be the deleuzian teacher “the deleuzian teacher . . . is both master and apprentice, a master apprentice engaged with the apprentice in their mutual apprenticeship . . .” (bogue, 2016, p. 22). this pedagogical stance may appear confounding, but it speaks aptly to how i perceive and enact my role as teacher educator, especially as it relates to the appropriation of philosophy in an economics pedagogy course. as apprentice in, and co-learner about, my practice, over the years as teacher educator i have engaged in the systematic study of various aspects of my practice (see maistry, 2012) by drawing on key principles of self-study research, a methodology that has its genesis in teacher education (laboskey, 2004). ritter (2020) contended that the construction of the educational self through educational experience opens possibilities for the study of one’s own teacher education practice. similarly, kitchen (2020) alluded to the amenability of self-study to the development of introspective self-knowledge, a selfinterrogative position to which i particularly subscribe. this entails problematising one’s practice in a public fashion along with a self-scrutiny of learned, taken-for-granted perspectives, with a view to thinking anew and finding ways to advance both teaching and learning (berry, 2015). while self-study focuses on self-improvement of practice, it should also offer insights for research and teaching to fellow members of the teacher education fraternity (loughran, 2007). i attempt to offer tentative insights here. in their review of the extant literature on self-study research from 1990 to 2012, vannasche and kelchtermans (2015) observed that teacher education researchers in the study of their own practice have practised improvement as a point of departure as they attempt to validate the nature of the work they do. given the evolving, qualitative nature of this methodology (and methods), the field continues to struggle with the tension between demonstrating relevance and sustaining rigour; this is an expected tension given the contextual peculiarity of each self-study case. whitehead (2004) has reminded us that acceptable evidence is a matter of personal perspective. of importance is the need for self-study research to contribute to educational knowledge, an objective that i hope to achieve since it relates to pedagogy in the field of ebs. narrative inquiry as self-study method has appeal; it draws on the contingent nature of experience (kitchen, 2009) as historic, contemporary, and aspirational, and in which the selfstudy researcher immerses self (and practice) as object of study. as a self-study researcher intent on constant reflection and improvement of my practice, many aspects of my work as teacher educator present for analysis. i present a narrative account with specific emphasis on how i borrow from philosophy to better understand my practice and help my student teachers consider their aspirational practice as school teachers. 54 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 invoking philosophy to deterritorialise and reterritorialise a pedagogy course the field of ebs is comprised of accounting, economics, business studies, and economic and management sciences, all teaching specialisations offered in the pgce programme at the university of kwazulu-natal. these teaching specialisations articulate with the specialist school subjects in the south african school curriculum as prescribed by the national caps. as mentioned earlier, caps takes neoclassical economic principles and the subject knowledge on which these are based as an uncontested given. in other words, established canonical knowledge in the field of ebs is considered valuable, authentic knowledge, despite the fact that traditional economic modelling has manifested in economic failings on a global scale (raghuram, 2010). i extracted the excerpts below from the caps for economics (department of basic education, 2011, pp. 8–38). economic growth: meaning and importance methods constraints on growth south africa’s recent growth experience economic development. • methods of development • common characteristics of developing countries: low standard of living low levels of productivity high population growth and dependency burdens high levels of unemployment dependence on the primary sector deficient infrastructure • developing strategies the methods of economics: positive and normative statements the scientific method difficulties faced by the social sciences the use of models the basic processes: production exchange – consumption these excerpts from the economics curriculum for school learners reflect what might be considered as taken-for-granted economic knowledge (concepts and principles) that have their basis in neoclassical economics. such principles have become hegemonic in a sense and are used to explain economic phenomena like economic growth and its importance for development. yet neoclassic economic growth models are largely responsible for uneven global economic growth and inequitable distribution in cases where countries do experience economic growth. south africa, with the worst gini coefficient in the world, is a case in point. invoking kantian philosophy would suggest a consideration thereof as a criticism of knowledge, as opposed to justifying or merely accepting knowledge as uncontested. this is an approach i attempt as i engage my students in questioning the assumptions upon which current economic knowledge is based. typical teaching specialisation courses (pedagogy) have focused traditionally on developing pedagogical content knowledge (pck), a shulman-inspired construct that represents a synthesis of subject matter knowledge and teaching skills that teachers develop to teach disciplinary content knowledge (shulman, 1986). in certain fields research into successful pck has evolved into what is termed signature pedagogies, an example of which is problemmaistry: towards an integrative philosophy of education 55 based learning, that has been adopted by many medical schools around the world (charlin et al., 1988). the assumption on which signature pedagogies is based is that the body of subject matter knowledge is generally accepted and uncontested, as in the hard sciences. certain social sciences like economics have also acquired a rigidity and universality, as can be seen in the distinctly common content taught in level one macroeconomics and microeconomics courses around the world, based exclusively on neoclassical principles (petkus et al., 2014). as a student of the discipline of economics, i was taught by economists who accepted the tenets of the discipline as sacrosanct and unquestionable. my own economics pedagogy lecturer never once provoked the idea that perhaps the subject matter that we teach might be contestable. in my first few years as a high school teacher of economics i simply followed the tradition of teaching subject matter as prescribed in school economics textbooks using approaches vetted by the economic education fraternity. research into the teaching and learning of economics seldom questions disciplinary knowledge, evidenced by research over the last half century as contained in arguably the world’s foremost journal in this field, the journal of economic education (hoyt & mcgoldrick, 2019). this tightly framed field might be described as highly territorialised (see deleuze & guattari, 1987), laden with scholarship and knowledge reified over an extended period of time. it can be expected that disrupting this territorialised space is likely to be formidable; it requires thoughtful intervention and a processual experimentation with many deleuzian lines of flight. as a teacher educator working with student teachers, an important point of departure in the pedagogy course that i develop is to help my students become familiar with the official curriculum policy for economics. this outlines key subject matter knowledge and skills that school teachers of economics should be teaching their learners. below is an extract of typical course objectives for my module titled economics teaching 601. by the end of the module students should be able to: • evaluate theories of teaching and learning in the context of economics teaching • apply theories of teaching and learning to basic lesson planning for economics teaching. • apply critical curriculum theory (philosophy) to develop learning programmes in economics • develop appropriate teaching and learning resources to teach economics • demonstrate knowledge and skills for economics classroom teaching/practice • demonstrate skills of reflection and self-critique as they relate to economics teaching • demonstrate context-specific and context-responsive teaching practices along with these course objectives is the need to equip my student teachers with a repertoire of strategies for teaching that may be comprised of techniques and skills informed by relevant theory. in setting up the pedagogy course, i continue to be guided by the lucid account of education philosophy offered by nursing education scholar nomthandazo gwele (2005). she suggested that the curriculum we design is usually shaped by questions related to, first, the 56 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 purpose of education; second, the role of the student in the teaching and learning process; and third, the role of the teacher in this process. gwele’s first curriculum provocation is powerful since this overarching, profound question elicits wide-ranging responses from novice student teachers. in fact, this kind of question is likely to trigger diverse reactions, even from seasoned educational scholars since they are usually informed by their personal paradigm. the point is that while educators (experienced and novice) have some notion of what their answers to this question might be, they struggle with its precise articulation. i am certainly not suggesting that there might be only one correct answer. what i suggest is that the question of the purpose of education is a philosophical one that marks the point of departure as to how i might use philosophical insights to help me and my students develop intelligible answers to it. below is an excerpt from an in-class activity for student teachers of economics that i devised. individual activity 1 read the questions below and write down your responses (on your own at first): there are several varying reasons why parents send their children to school, why children feel they need to be in school and why teachers believe they need to teach school learners. 1. why do you think children should attend school or get an education for 12–13 years of their lives? is it really worth the effort? 2. given the many subjects that are available to learners in the fet phase, why should learners choose economics as a subject? 3. given the gini coefficient data you studied (showing ongoing severe world inequality), why should ordinary and especially poor people still have faith in economics as a discipline? in groups of 5 to 6 discuss your answers. these questions are disruptive and they trigger much debate that serves the purpose of developing deep thinking on issues often taken for granted by novice teachers. i remain acutely aware of the post-structuralist critique (to which i subscribe), that if educators approach education in a deterministic fashion by attempting to precisely plot the coordinates of the outcome (purpose) of education as social intervention, such determinism carries the seeds of its own unravelling. to avoid falling foul of such critique, deleuzian thought has useful appeal, especially as it relates to the kind of connections we seek and hope to nurture or, as they put it, lines of flight that extend and breach conventional thought. the construct assemblage, in particular, is a powerful heuristic for me to make sense of my location as teacher educator in context. location and context are more than physical; as a teacher educator of a pedagogy course in economics, i enter into an assemblage as a working part of the pgce, that is tightly framed by the prescriptions of mrteq, the school caps curriculum, the university’s curriculum rules, the programme development stipulations, and the physical conditions under which the programme is to be delivered. this can be described maistry: towards an integrative philosophy of education 57 as a heterogenous set of interacting components that come together to make the whole work—a collective assemblage of enunciation, of discursive practices in a foucauldian sense (lorraine, 2011), a process of enacting rules, and laid-down practices. assemblages interface with or may be subsumed within other assemblages. as this extract from mrteq (department of higher education and training, 2015, pp. 3–8) on teacher education indicates, the approach adopted pays close attention to the various types of knowledge that underpin teachers' practice, while encapsulating all of these in the notion of integrated and applied knowledge . . . competent learning is always a mixture of the theoretical and the practical; the pure and the applied; the extrinsic and the intrinsic; and the potential and the actual. in effect, competent learning in effect, represents the acquisition, integration and application of different types of knowledge. each type of knowledge, in tum, implies the mastering of specific related skills. the types of learning associated with the acquisition, integration and application of knowledge for teaching purposes are: • disciplinary learning • pedagogical learning • practical learning • fundamental learning • situational learning. of significance for this discussion is that while the notion of theory, practice, and different kinds of knowledge is alluded to by mrteq, there is a distinct absence of any reference to deeper theoretical and philosophical tenets that might ground teacher education programmes. the following is an extract from the programme template for the pgce programme at the university of kwazulu-natal. the pgce (fet) programme aims to contribute to the development of beginning teachers . . . on completion of the programme the successful student will be able to demonstrate the roles and competences of a novice teacher at the fet phase levels (grades 10 to 12). table 1 the overall programme structure would consist of: core modules electives two teaching specialisations core education studies 701: 16 credits core education studies 702: 16 credits teaching specialisation 1: fet subject 701 and 702 (2 x 16 credits) school experience 701: 16 credits school experience 702: 16 credits teaching specialisation 2: fet subject 701 and 702 (2 x 16 credits) it might be argued that university programme templates ought not to include high degrees of specificity relating to content. this might be considered a strength since it affords individual academics the potential to introduce module content that speaks to the outcomes of individual courses. when programmes are viewed as assemblages as opposed to tightly circumscribed 58 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 prescriptive frameworks, they become amenable to vectors of flight from within that might well include appropriation of philosophy for teaching and learning of pedagogy, as in this case. the university might be considered as an assemblage within the broader south african higher education assemblage, itself an element of an international (academic) assemblage. similarly, the pgce programme is an assemblage within the university programme. my pedagogy course, an assemblage in its own right, is subsumed under the discursive rules of the pgce programme. understanding these intersecting articulations is important since it allows for analysis of these assemblages as dynamic spaces of interaction, fluidity, and flux. in recent years, the south african higher education assemblage has been called to account for how it has attempted to embody the notion of transformation, an imperative of the post-apartheid state. decolonising the university and the curriculum has (re)emerged as part of institutional goals, with impetus given to this agenda by segments of the student body. the rhodes must fall movement that evolved into the fees must fall campaign is a salient macro phenomenon that filters down to the work of rank and file university academics. that such university academics understand and give effect to the nation’s transformation agenda in many different ways, and have different proclivities for the project, is without contention. that south african academics (myself included) and students have the conceptual, theoretical, and philosophical acumen to consider substantive curriculum transformation and decolonisation beyond technical tinkering is a moot point (maistry, 2021). there is no doubt that expectations of the higher education assemblage have changed, as dynamic systems do, in relation to rekindled stimuli for change that now demand attention. two problematics become evident from the above discussion and apply to both me and my students: the first is how to connect the philosophical question about the purpose of education to the macro transformation imperatives that south african higher education now has to engage with; and the second is harnessing appropriate theoretical/philosophical apparatus to give effect to this. in dealing with the first, i attempt to use my own biography as a key resource to help deepen my understanding of the purpose of education. as a non-white south african who grew up under apartheid, i am clear that education should serve a transformative purpose. i am also aware that a narrow understanding of transformation is unhelpful, especially if the purpose of education is conceived of as merely developing knowledge and skills for vocational purposes. contemporary philosopher martha nussbaum (2003, 2006, 2010, 2011) has pointed out the danger of restricting the purpose of education to that of servicing the economy, and has suggested that education ought to serve a broader humanitarian goal, especially as it relates to addressing the needs of the most destitute in society. the following is an extract of a class activity for pgce economics students that is intended to initiate deep, complicated discussions about the nature of education. maistry: towards an integrative philosophy of education 59 class group discussion activity discuss the concept ‘neoliberalism.’ how is it related to the teaching of commercial subjects given that such subjects have their basis in capitalism? how would you integrate issues of neoliberalism in your economics lessons? select specific topics from the caps curriculum to illustrate how this integration might occur. while nussbaum has not written about classroom pedagogy in particular, her insights are powerful in helping me and my students to develop a disposition towards teaching that moves beyond an instrumentalist preoccupation. this means that the pedagogy project one undertakes as teacher and as teacher educator ought to create the conditions for the learners to empower themselves. this might entail developing and applying teaching strategies that affirm, that humanise (freire, 1970; keet et al., 2009; khene, 2014), and that recognise that gender and sexuality issues are implicated in the assemblage one enters as teacher. contemporary american gender theorist and philosopher judith butler’s (2004) notion of gender is that it is learned behaviour performed on a stage where the script is prewritten and the props are well positioned for the actor to learn to perform socially constructed gender roles and to vilify non-conformers. this philosophical heuristic is powerful since it offers me and my student teachers a conceptual base from which to make sense of how we attempt to do the so-called normal work that teachers do. in fact, it helps the potential teacher to consider how their thoughts and actions as teacher might be further reinforcing the normal, and what alterations they might make to the script, props, and stage. butler’s insights are particularly powerful as students engage with in-class discussions, an excerpt of which appears below. class group discussion activity what does it mean to be a man? what does it mean to be a good man? how does the world of economics, commerce and industry construct the role of women? what are the dominant ideas about women that generally prevail in the workplace, and where have they come from? my teaching strategies and those for which i advocate through my pedagogy courses have been wholly western-eurocentric, shaped by liberal left thinkers, upon whose wisdom i was reared in both my undergraduate and postgraduate training. i appropriated from the work of foucault (1977, 1978, 2001, 2006), and deleuze and guattari (1997, 1984), whose work is central to the theoretical framing of this article, as well as zizek (2008a, 2008b, 2017). at the heart of the intellectual projects of these critical scholars can be found the analysis and critique of human subjectivity formation in the context of rampant capitalism. harnessing their critique of neoliberal capitalism alongside making use of insights from the critical pedagogy theorists giroux (2004, 2011) and mclaren (2003) was particularly useful in 60 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 helping me to understand a broader social justice project for education—an understanding that i wished to inculcate in my student teachers. in the excerpt below from caps for economics, topics like poverty—its definition, causes, and consequences—are prescribed. an analysis and investigation of poverty. • poverty: absolute and relative poverty measuring poverty causes of poverty the effects of poverty • the south african government’s measures to alleviate poverty while caps provides a skeletal outline of topics to be taught, schoolteachers rely on textbooks for actual content knowledge. the department of education recommends a set of vetted textbooks that schools should use for detailed content knowledge. content knowledge in subjects like economics, geography, business studies and history, for example, is not neutral; it carries value-laden notions that serve to sustain the hegemony of the powerful (ramdhani & maistry, 2020). when the decolonisation debates began to regain traction in south africa, i realised that my own scholarship had been entirely influenced by continental philosophers and contemporary liberal left scholars from the west. i recognised that to understand decoloniality meant moving into southern literature. while many of the decolonial theorists whose work i currently draw from (grosfoguel, 2007, 2013; maldanado-torres, 2007; mignolo, 2007, 2011; quijano, 2000) might be regarded as sociologists rather than philosophers, the rich conceptual repertoire they offer is useful to help me consider what and how i choose to teach. similarly, the work of the influential philosopher, frantz fanon (1963, 1967) and that of the african theorist, ndlovu-gatsheni (2018), constantly inspire my work as teacher educator. below is an extract of a task with which novice pgce economics teacher trainees are invited to engage. write an essay in which you • discuss the concept colonization and how it has contributed to the unevenness of sa school education system. what might be your role as (commerce) teacher in this kind of system? • explain the concept ‘coloniality’ and its effects on what and how you teach in the economics curriculum. • eve tuck asserts that decolonization is simply a metaphor. write a response to this assertion. make specific reference to contemporary issues of land expropriation/appropriation and its economic and political implications. how would you use these ideas in your economics class? as previously explained, the economics graduates who come to this pedagogy course have limited or no exposure to social theory or philosophy; their expectations of having to learn value-neutral teaching competences is disrupted. they are also urged to be critical of the economic knowledge that they are expected to teach in schools. students find this quite maistry: towards an integrative philosophy of education 61 disruptive. they find themselves in a dissonant space in which they recognise the need for contestation and activism but are often overwhelmed by the sheer size of the social justice project and their ability to impact the system. there is a distinct risk, especially for novice teachers who might question the status quo; balancing activism with compliance to structural rigidities, like a prescriptive schooling system and curriculum, is indeed a challenge. we draw on the scholarship of gloria anzaldua (1987), in particular her conception of the border, borderland, and border thinking, and the habituation thereof both physically and metaphorically. this has proved invaluable in helping me and my students ground our personal philosophies of teaching and scholarship, locating ourselves at the proverbial border, at the interface of western eurocentrism, latin-american wisdom, and african theorising. this has proven to be a powerful space from which to proceed with my perennial contemplation of, and reflection on, the improvement of my practice as teacher educator. discussion and concluding comments the above description of attempts to invoke theory and philosophy into fashioning a pedagogy course for economics student teachers is not meant to be a praise song. i have not attempted to measure the impact of my experimentation on student course outcomes and am reluctant to do so, given the unpalatability of the notion of formally assessing students according to the neoliberal performative that has become the culture of universities. even self-study, the methodological approach to which i have subscribed, often hankers after what is believed to be the standard of evidence presentation and the rigour demanded by postpositivists. however, through lucid description and tentative claims to any degree of success, i attempt to breathe a level of trustworthiness (craig, 2009) into this account. while a deleuzian deterritorialisation of economics education is the long-term goal, this depends on the ability to develop and harness a critical mass of scholarship. as teacher educator i am nourished by the multiplicities of novel and unpredictable understandings of the economic world and associated pedagogy that lines of flight create and lead towards a “process of becoming” (due, 2007, p. 141) and a state of constant renewal (of thought) that i and my student teachers have the privilege of enjoying. while i am loathe to offer recommendations as in traditional papers, in the discussion that follows i reflect on issues that are worth considering when one is attempting a project of this nature. novice teacher education students (entering teacher education for the first time, such as my pgce group), have different proclivities for theory and philosophy. in fact, economics graduates, whose training has been with graphs, statistics, formulae, and numbers generally do not enjoy dense philosophy. however, they find reinterpreted philosophy like, for example, extracts from living fanon: global perspectives (gibson, 2011), much more accessible. fanon’s original texts are in a genre of writing that contemporary economics graduates do not find appealing, but the inspiration he still offers, more than 50 years since his passing, is powerful. of significance for contemporary students is the realisation that 62 journal of education, no. 90, 2023 decolonial initiatives and theorising and philosophising have a longstanding tradition on the african continent. while some students develop an instant thirst for more, many economics student teachers remain consumed with trying to survive the extensive demands of the pgce programme. thus, engaging with readings and literature relating to the purpose of education in the context of the south african societal landscape is likely to happen at a somewhat superficial level. another mitigating factor is that many pgce students in the field of ebs might initially have enrolled for an undergraduate degree in commerce with the aim of joining the corporate world or high-level public sector. for many commerce graduates, teaching as a job option is a last resort after unsuccessful attempts to secure their first-choice careers. such students are usually visibly unhappy to be in an education faculty pursuing a profession in which remuneration is not comparable to that of the private sector. hence, deep philosophical questions as to the purpose of education are not likely to be foremost in their mind. a similar scenario might play out with mathematics and science graduates. it follows, then, that the enthusiasm for philosophy that the teacher educator might have, may not be shared by all novice student teachers. this might also explain why there is minimal transfer of even the rudimentary philosophy offered in philosophy of education courses to other elements of the pgce assemblage. it becomes clear that novice pgce student teachers enter the assemblage of the pedagogy course with many varied lived experiences including once having been school learners themselves, and now as students in their undergraduate degrees. they would have been active learners of particular socially constructed notions of the meaning and purpose of education. they engage in participation in the assemblage with different levels of intensity and different inclinations for embracing the purpose of education as a philosophical question. however, of importance is that teacher educators and teachers consider “what . . . learning actually is, what educational learning is supposed to be about and supposed to be for, and who should have a say in answering these questions” (biesta, 2020, p. 1023). how might we (as teacher educators) create the conditions for students to recognise a/their truth as opposed to fostering conditions for serving out predetermined truths as biesta (2014) asked? while teacher educators and student teachers will not be bona fide philosophers, they can aspire to a selfarticulated philosophy of teaching through even rudimentary philosophising. for students who are inspired by decolonial theory and its open contestation of ongoing coloniality, this kind of exposure enables them to undertake a critical gaze on the values embedded in the western-centred curriculum that continues to have a hegemonic hold in the schooling sector. the school curriculum, its content and generally accepted ways of teaching and learning become open to critique and alteration. the notion of understanding curriculum as complicated conversation (pinar, 2014; pinar et al., 1995) is salient since it enables the development of dispositions towards curriculum that see it as non-deterministic, tensionfilled, and inherently messy—a vehicle for activism. this kind of disposition is in stark contrast to the tightly framed tylerian orientation (tyler, 1949) that characterises the current maistry: towards an integrative philosophy of education 63 south african curriculum. trainee teachers exposed to philosophy and decolonial theory enter the field to practice (as teachers of economics in this instance), and sow the seeds of societal critique and decolonial thinking among their learners. importantly for the south african and african contexts, through exposure to decolonial theory students come to realise that philosophy is not the preserve of continental europe. they come to recognise that philosophy has a long history in africa, despite attempts at its subversion by colonial masters, and that a body of contemporary decolonial literature is now accessible. weaving philosophy in any meaningful way into a pedagogy course that competes for time in the broader pgce programme presents a practical challenge. running a pedagogy course that is heavily infused with philosophy runs the risk of critique that it remains theoretical and abstract, even when deliberations might be cognitively and conceptually profound. the pedagogy course has to give due cognisance to the machinic assemblage—learning the planning, administrative and assessment aspects—not that these elements of teachers’ responsibilities are not also shaped by the broader philosophical question as to the purpose of education. i conclude with bell’s (2016, p. 123) reading of deleuze and guattari’s notion that “becoming a philosopher entails a thoughtful, questioning and problematising attitude towards the given such that new forms of thinking or rethinking can emerge by way of a concept.” while it may not be possible for my students (or me) to proliferate new concepts in a short capstone pedagogy course, as aspirant deleuzian teachers we do prompt, trigger, anticipate, and attempt some lines of flight as these relate to constantly embracing the need to 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(2004). what counts as evidence in self-studies of teacher education practices. in j. j. loughran, m. l. hamilton, v. k. laboskey, & t. russell (eds.), international handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 871–903). springer netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6545-3_22 zizek, s. (2008a). the plague of fantasies. verso. zizek, s. (2008b). the sublime object of ideology. verso. zizek, s. (2017). trouble in paradise: from the end of history to the end of capitalism. melville house. microsoft word c73 full issue 17dec2018.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 73, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i73a04 “if i choose history it is likely that i won’t be able to leave for the cities to get a job”: rural learners and the choosing of history as a subject johan wassermann honorary professor, social sciences education cluster, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa johanwassermann@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9173-0372 marshall maposa social sciences education cluster, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa maposam2@ukzn.ac.za https://orchid.org/0000-0001-9264-2569 daniel mhlongo1 social sciences education cluster, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa (received: 17 may 2018; accepted: 9 october 2018) abstract in this paper we aim to understand and explain why rural learners in a south african school did not choose history as a school subject in grade 10. using a pen-and-paper test and focus group interviews we probed the views of 15-year-old rural learners who did not choose history. what the data revealed was that mathematics, physical science, and commercial subjects, rather than history were favoured. the reasons for this centred on taking subjects that were viewed as leading potentially to decent jobs or funding to study and therefore being advantageous to the future prospects of the learners in an urban setting. this mind-set was reinforced by teachers, parents, older siblings, the state, and the formal economy. in the process, history was seen to be the preserve of learners who could not cope with mathematics, physical science, and commercial subjects and were therefore not worthy of urbanisation and upward mobility. in short, studying history was equated with negative notions of rurality and choosing to study it was seen as likely to result in not making it to the better life that cities offered. however, with some irony, studying history was seen to be an urban endeavour which implied that at some time in the future, once the learners were urbanised and economically better off, the subject could possibly be studied again. keywords: rurality, history, democracy, city, urban, sustainable education 1 much of this article draws on the fieldwork done by daniel mhlongo for his med dissertation. sadly, he passed away shortly after completing his studies. 56 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 introduction all three of us are history teachers and we are all products of diverse rural learning ecologies straddling two african countries. one of the shared educational aspects of our rural education was the omnipresence of history as a school subject. the impact of history on us was such that we made a living out of it. however, in post-apartheid south africa, history as a school subject has seemingly fallen on hard times and pessimism seems to have enveloped the discipline. much of this related to the decline in the number of learners taking history as a subject up to grade 12. many reasons have been proposed for this, ranging from the introduction of outcomes based education which seemingly rendered history impractical (dube, 2018), to the subject being viewed as merely about memorising contentious content (meyer, blignaut, braz, & bunt, 2008). in the process it seems that former white and rural schools, especially, were shedding the subject. the available statistics from 2004 to 2010, although somewhat dated, seem to support the idea of history being a subject in decline. accordingly, in seven of the nine provinces the number of learners taking history in grade 10 declined. the sharpest decline for the period 2004 to 2010 was in mpumalanga where an estimated 82% fewer learners took history in grade 10 in 2010 when compared to 2004. in both the eastern cape and kwazulu-natal, the number of history learners declined by an estimated 31% during the same period (van eeden, 2012). the statistics, as well as the range of views related to the decline of history as a school subject, pricked our curiosity and we started to wonder how this relates to the general status of history as part of schooling, especially in rural areas similar to those where we studied the subject as learners. in light of the above, we embarked on a research project to come to some understanding of how learners in a rural context end up not choosing history as a subject at the end of their grade 9 year. a constant key point of departure was that we wanted to hear the voices of the learners on the factors and processes involved in not choosing history as a subject. to us that was the gap in the existing knowledge—a lack of understanding of how learners in a rural context went about choosing or not choosing history as a subject to study beyond grade 9. in the process we set about tapping into the relationship between experiences of rurality and the personal future ambitions of learners roughly 15 years of age in relation to history as a subject. in so doing we hoped to provide a snapshot of the competing agendas when subjects in general, and history specifically, are considered for future study. finally, we also hoped that the study would reveal some insights from the perspective of learners about history and its relation to schooling. literature review much has been written about the nature of history at school level in relation to its intellectual and disciplinary functions. one of the clearest articulations in this regard is by kukard (2017) who argued that, in terms of history at school, three broad orientations are possible. the first of these is memory history which promotes an academic identity that emphasises the chronology of historical events since it relates generally to politics, the formation of the nation-state, and the role of leaders and so-called big historical personalities in this formation. wassermann et al.: “if i choose history . . .” 57 much emphasis is placed, as part of a national narrative, on the memorisation and logical organisation of facts. in terms of a civil identity learners are expected to know the national story and to develop a nationalist sense of patriotism and pride. the second orientation is analytical history. in terms of an academic identity accent is placed on procedural historical thinking concepts such as change and continuity, cause and consequence, and multi-perspectivity. in analytical history emphasis is placed on the disciplinary nature of the subject and, based on the available historical evidence, that more than one interpretation is possible. an overarching national narrative is shunned in favour of historical themes, turning points, and the fact that some interpretations are more likely than others. in terms of a civil identity analytical history focuses on historical and critical thinking skills, the fact that different perspectives exist, and that the accuracy of historical narratives should be challenged (kukard, 2017). the third orientation identified by kukard (2017) is critical history. as far as an academic identity is concerned, the emphasis falls on substantive knowledge that relates to ordinary people and marginalised groups in society. in critical history leaders feature only insofar as their actions have impacted on society as a whole. ideas that are foregrounded in this kind of history include social justice, human rights, and freedom. these are foregrounded with the aim of preparing learners to understand and engage with contemporary local and global issues. in the process, historical evidence is studied by focusing on prejudice and control. in terms of a civil identity learners are educated to understand personal values and how they relate to contemporary society. the overall aim of critical history is for learners to grasp the relationship between the past and the present and to engage, as active citizens, in a democratic manner with social, political, and economic issues. kukard’s (2017) orientations related to the intellectual and disciplinary functions of history at school level must not be seen to be watertight compartments since fluidity permeates the three orientations. for example, as argued by kukard, the current curriculum assessment policy standard (caps) for history is located in analytical history while embracing elements of critical history. the disciplinary orientations and how they speak to historical thinking, as theorised by kukard, must be understood in the context of values and uses attributed to history at school level. it has been purported that the societal and civic functions of history include developing in learners a historical consciousness to enable understanding of the relationship between the past, the present, and the future (southgate, 2000); helping in the creation of national identities (carrier, 2002); making for good citizenship (stearns, 1998); promoting human values and moral understanding (van der leeuw-roord, 1997); aiding learners in becoming socially literate (mackie, 2004; meyer et al., 2008); and helping develop generic skills related to interpretation, judgement, and critical thinking (vansledright (2011). it is also useful in the place of work (stearns, 1998). however, peter lee (1998) pours cold water on the idea that the teaching of history at school level promises everlasting societal and civic outcomes. in his view teaching history “cannot guarantee democrats, patriots, or even anti-racists, because the past is complex and does not sanctify any particular or personal position above another” (pp. 52–54). 58 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 the sparse literature dealing with why learners view choosing history negatively provides a nuanced look at the subject. first and foremost, history is viewed as irrelevant, boring, and unimportant. history, unlike certain other subjects, is also seen as adding limited benefit to learners’ lives and is unable to provide them with employment opportunities (bycina, 2012; hannon, 2012; joseph, 2011; steen, 2012). additionally, learners argued that understanding history as a body of knowledge is difficult so they chose to avoid it (haydn, 2011; joseph, 2011). learners also reasoned that studying history brought about painful memories and ideas of revenge. since this is not what they want in their lives the subject is not chosen (joseph, 2011; mackie, 2004). finally, haydn (2011) argued that the personality and temperament of the history teacher, and his/her general interaction with learners in relation to history as an abstract body of knowledge, also has the potential to turn learners against the subject. research methodology rural contexts and settings cannot, in a reductionist manner, be viewed as being uniformly similar and it is therefore necessary to contextualise the rural area in which our research took place. the study was conducted in three schools in the mtubatuba district of kwazulu-natal, south africa. colloquially, the area in which mtubatuba is situated is still referred to as zululand. much of this area formed part of the kwazulu bantustan during the apartheid era. currently the area falls under the umkhanyakude educational district. according to the available data only 64% of the learners in this district passed matric in 2018 (mngadi, 2018). the learners who participated in the study were educated in schools categorised as quintiles 1, 2, and 3, namely poor no-fee-paying schools. in total 97% of the schools in this area fell into these categories (department of basic education, 2016. the area has also had its fair share of political tension between the african national congress (anc) and the inkatha freedom party (ifp) in the past. in short, politics and poverty (see mbokazi & bhengu, 2008) are a key part of the social context of the rural area in which the research took place. we conducted our research in school a, situated in the predominantly ifp stronghold of emanzamnandi, school b, situated in the largely anc dominated enkundusi area, and school c, located in the endombeni area, where residents had allegiance to both the anc and ifp. 2 following patton (1990), who referred to the selection of purposively selected research sites as “criterion based purposive sampling (p. 69) we purposively selected three schools as sites for our study because they are located in the same rural context, and all offered history as a subject up to grade 12. making a sampling choice in this manner is supported by rule and john (2011) who posited that research sites and participants can be deliberately selected if their suitability will advance the aims of the study. in our case, we deemed that such purposive sampling would do exactly that. in addition to these reasons, one of the researchers was familiar with the schools. 2 following the ethical clearance policy of the university of kwazulu-natal, pseudonyms are used throughout to ensure the confidentiality of both institutions and individuals. the ethical clearance number allocated by our institution to this study is hss/0670/011m. wassermann et al.: “if i choose history . . .” 59 access to the three schools as research sites was anything but straightforward and took some negotiating with the principals, management teams, and parents. one of the fears harboured was that we were outsiders with political agendas who came to disrupt learning or educational inspectors from head office. consequently, deputy principals at each of the three schools were tasked with producing a group of grade 10 learners who chose not to study history, an equal number of boys and girls, to participate in the first part of our research. given the context in which the research took place, all the learners were black. the initial data for this study was generated by means of a pen-and-paper test open-ended survey that consisted of a single open question printed at the top of an a4 page to allow ample room for the learners to respond. the question read: “why did you not choose history as a subject in grade 10?” to assist the learners an isizulu translation of the question appeared directly beneath the english one. the participants were given 45 minutes during class time, kindly set aside by the schools involved, to complete the survey in a written format and language with which they were comfortable. allocating enough time to complete the survey and allowing the learners to answer in the language of their choice served to enhance the trustworthiness of the data. the rationale for using a pen-and-paper test was to allow the learners the opportunity to share the reasons behind their choices in an uninhibited, unconstrained, and reflective manner. at the same time, we hoped that the anonymity of an open-ended survey would serve to yield rich data. in the view of delport and roestenburg (2010), “open questions permit adequate answers to complex issues; allow participants to answer in detail and to qualify and clarify responses; make space for unanticipated findings to be discovered and permit creativity, selfexpression and richness of detail” (p. 174). the data generated by the open-ended survey was translated into a single english language document and then analysed by means of open coding. following delport and roestenburg (2010), the data was broken down line-by-line, examined, compared, conceptualised, and categorised. once the data was turned into manageable chunks, codes that served to anchor the key points of the data were allocated. next, codes of similar content were grouped together to form themes. this process was repeated until a point of saturation was reached. the pen-and-paper test was followed by focus group interviews. compared to how the openended survey had to be conducted, we were allowed greater liberty by the schools in selecting the focus groups. at each school a focus group of roughly ten learners each, generally five boys and five girls, based on their willingness to participate in such an exercise, was created. post-survey focus groups were deemed useful for they helped the learners to suggest dimensions and nuances not originally thought of, some of which were sparked by the group interaction, and enabled us to verify and probe the responses gleaned from the survey (see taylor-powell & renner, 2003). the focus group interviews were conducted in isizulu, audiotaped, transcribed verbatim, translated into english, and then analysed by the same open coding means as was the pen-and-paper test. the sets of data obtained from the open-ended survey and the focus group interviews were then brought into conversation and the themes that emerged allowed for a nuanced 60 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 understanding of the relationship between rurality, personal aspirations, and not choosing history as a subject in grade 10. data analysis we have chosen to present the findings of the research process in a narrative fashion so as to give voice to the rural learners who participated in this study on why they did not choose history as a subject for grade 10. what emerged as the major post-school priority of the research participants was to secure employment in the city. in their view choosing to study history in grade 10 would not aid them in this regard. support for this was overwhelming and two learner voices in this regard will suffice: “i did not choose history because it cannot provide me with a suitable job” and “if you choose history there is scarcity of jobs like being a lawyer, policemen and a nurse.” this was then linked to the geographical context of the learners and it was argued that if you choose history as a subject you “won’t be able to leave for the cities to get a job.” the vast majority of learners who participated in this study had a clear vision of what would happen in the future if history were to be chosen; they would be tied to their rural area forever and with little prospect of decent employment. instead, they argued, they would end up as “ordinary clerks” or do gardening, work as labourers on sugarcane plantations, or do babysitting as nannies and maids. one learner captured this future clearly: “i feel if i choose history, i will be adding numbers on the unemployed south africans as a result i chose commerce.” in light of the above the learners claimed that most former learners they knew who had completed grade 12 with history as a subject, were not working, at least not in “decent jobs.” the reason proposed for this was that the knowledge history offered was irrelevant in securing employment in a technologically oriented commercial world. to the participants the answer was simple: the context in which they found themselves required people with knowledge of mathematics, physical science, and commercial subjects because “technology and science are the cornerstones of life.” as a result, learners linked their future career prospects to the study of these subjects at school. this choice was, in turn, linked to youthful ambitions: “i feel if i choose commercial subjects, i am likely to be exposed to business ventures which might help me to start my own business.” what became abundantly clear was that the participants saw a correlation between choosing history as a subject and being economically trapped in a rural setting doing mundane or dangerous jobs. support for such thinking came in the form of statements such as the following: “if i choose history, i’m likely to be a politician a job that might endanger my safety during political parties’ inter-wars” and “i did not choose history because i was afraid of contested nature of rural politics.” these comments must be seen against the backdrop of the research context as outlined above. what this points to is that history, although not commercially viable in a rural context, is viewed as being powerful enough to get learners involved in politics. however, an alternative but related perspective on politics and historical knowledge was also revealed by the data. one learner argued that “history has lost its value wassermann et al.: “if i choose history . . .” 61 because we now have freedom and we are all united, black and white and above all our main aim now is to secure a job to feed our family as there is poverty in rural areas.” in sum, the political value the subject had has run its course and seeking economic well-being is now paramount. what the analysis of the data also revealed was that the poverty and deprivation experienced in their rural area pushed learners away from history as a subject. one respondent explained, “poverty in rural areas makes us choose science and commerce because we are looking for bursaries that will help us in our future careers.” the choice not to take history was also motivated by what learners experienced economically at home. as one respondent said, “the financial standings of my family is appalling as a result i cannot choose history because it won’t change my family financial standing.” what the learners made clear was that, in their deprived rural context, they need money for their daily necessities and choosing history would not lead to this. a comment of one of the learners captured this sentiment cuttingly, “i’m coming from poor family therefore i chose subjects that will draw me closer to money.” one of the ways in which the learners could fulfil their economic needs was by securing money to study after leaving school. choosing history was viewed as being detrimental to such ambitions. the logic of the arguments offered in this regard generally ran like this: “if i do commerce i feel after completing matric i can get a casual employment until i can secure money to go to the university.” history was thus viewed as a stumbling block to securing financial aid or bursaries. as one learner said, “we choose subjects that are known to be financed by companies and institutions of higher education.” a groundswell of support for this kind of thinking emerged from the data: “if you do history you do not get sponsors to further your studies” and “i did not choose history because there are no bursaries.” in contrast, the view was expressed that similar constraints did not exist when learners chose physical science, mathematics, and commercial subjects since financial institutions were seen to be willing to aid university studies in these fields. this was presented as a major attraction to participants whose families could not fund their tertiary studies. the media and television played a key role in shaping such thinking; a learner explained, “in all media adverts they advertise about sponsors for science and commerce.” additionally, the history learners also pointed out that in their view ngos offer help only to science learners which left history learners feeling demotivated. what was thus clear in the minds of the research participants was that choosing history as a subject will hinder them from securing funding for any tertiary studies at institutions invariably located in urban areas. their thinking also revealed a powerful but erroneous belief that no funding at all exists for studying history. in summary, the view held by the participants was that choosing to do history in grade 10 was not suitable for rural learners since they must choose subjects that might bring in funding to study and/or that might lead to prospects. in contrast, it was argued, that “urban parents are not desperate for money like rural parents.” this utopian thinking about cities was supported by views such as: “learners’ parents in cities are not poor maybe they can choose history because they do not need money from sponsors as we do in rural areas.” furthermore, the thought was expressed that history was irrelevant to rural learners because “history is for 62 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 learners who stay in cities where there are research opportunities.” not only was history dismissed by some of the rural learners as a subject for urban learners and not for them since their parents are unemployed and poor but it was also given a racial tint by the claims such as: “whites, coloureds and indians can study history because they do not need bursaries after matric” because their parents have money and they reside in cities. it is thus clear that a sentiment existed among the rural learners that history has value but this value was only for those in more advantaged settings. consequently, participants stated time and again, “history means nothing to us in rural areas and our future plans to assist us to move out of rurality” and “i did not choose history because it was going to trap me in rurality and not help me escape rural life to the cities.” in the view of these learners getting to the city all depended on which subject they selected, therefore, as one learner explained, “i chose science with the hope that i will be able to go to better places like durban.” what the data further revealed was that in their views towards choosing history the learners were influenced not only by the socioeconomic conditions in which they found themselves but also by teachers, peers, and family members. teachers, as powerful and influential figures close to the learners, emerged as significant role players in discouraging learners from studying history after grade 9. as one learner explained, “most of us in our school were not given the opportunity to choose but we were told what to choose.” consequently, learners were put into difficult situations; one of them claimed, “i did not choose history because i was afraid to oppose my class teacher who told me not to choose history.” other teachers were more subtle in this regard and played on the emotions of the learners, as one of them revealed, “in my school teachers always say if we want bright future we should not choose history.” the learners admitted that they did not question the truth of such claims and accepted them as statements made by figures of authority. in the process of actively discouraging certain learners from choosing history, teachers also directed other learners towards the subject. a learner explained, “teachers in my school themselves channel all poor performers to history.” it is thus not surprising that one learner explained that “in my school failures choose history.” learners who were deemed as having no hope of success in mathematics, physical science, and commercial subjects were thus purposefully guided towards taking history. unsurprisingly, these gave credence to the perception among the research participants that learners who did not choose history were better and bound for a successful life in the city when compared to those routed towards history who are doomed to remain trapped in a deficient rural context. the power of teachers as socialising agents and figures of authority in furthering the negative stereotypes attributed to learners doing history seems to have been part of the culture of all three schools. unsurprisingly, then, a learner from school a admitted, “in my school history learners are looked down upon by other learners” while another commented that “if you study history you are always a laughing stock.” in school c it was no different. a learner said, “i did not choose history because in my school history class is known as underachievers’ class.” the resulting peer pressure proved to be telling and learners who had considered choosing wassermann et al.: “if i choose history . . .” 63 history acknowledged avoiding it. as one participant said, “i do not want to be undermined by other learners that is why i cannot choose history.” the labels attached to learners who chose history, by teachers and non-history-taking learners alike, became an important factor in discouraging learners from pursuing the subject. evidence for this can be found in a learner’s words: “people were always telling me that a learner doing history is stupid.” as a result, only certain alternatives remained as of the participants explained, “at a younger age i wanted to study history, but my friends advised me not to choose it then i chose science.” teachers and those learners who chose not to take history therefore combined in an uncoordinated manner to create a negative mind-set about history as a subject. this had a serious impact on impressionable teenagers who, in many cases, wanted to please and conform; they could achieve both by not choosing history. however, when pressed during the focus group interviews the learners failed to provide convincing reasons about their believing in the stereotype they held of history learners. instead, they explained that they were told so by their friends, parents, and teachers. parents and other family members also influenced learners not to choose history in grade 9. this was openly admitted by some of the respondents during the focus group sessions. one said, “i chose science because my parents did not want me to choose history” and another explained, “i did not choose history because i felt my parents were going to be hurt.” these choices were again linked to their rural economic context. for one participant, “in my home my parents rely on my education that, when i work, i will get a decent job as a result i chose science.” other family members also exercised an influence on the rural learners. a learner explained, “i was influenced by my elder brother not to choose history if i wanted to have a decent job in the future.” scant wonder, then, that one participating learner exclaimed, “i would like to see teachers and parents not interfering with learner’s right of choosing.” discussion a complex and ambiguous narrative emerged from the data on the factors and processes at play when 15-year-old grade 9 learners in a rural setting had to decide whether they wanted to continue studying history. foremost was the powerfully constructed idea that choosing history would mean being trapped in a backward and inhibiting rural setting. additionally, choosing history would mean being bound to undesirable occupations in the self-same rural context, except if one wanted to dabble in the dangerous world of politics as a career. on top of this it was argued that it would be very difficult to secure funding for further studies. choosing history in grade 9 would, in the view of the research participants, mean binding themselves to a rural lifestyle already being lived by many of their families and from which they wanted to escape by moving to the city. and escaping to the city seems to be worth it. visagie and turok (2017) argued that in south africa, between 2008 and 2014, close on 400,000 people were lifted out of poverty after moving from rural areas to cities. not only were their poverty levels halved but their unemployment levels fell. the above narratives were powerfully propagated by many of the adults involved in the lives of the learners who participated in this study. teachers, parents, and older siblings, possibly 64 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 based on their own lived experiences, strongly encouraged learners not to do history beyond grade 9. the broad reasoning was that it would not allow them to get ahead in life, a metaphor for finding a job or a funded study opportunity in the city. support for this thinking comes from the emerging work of langa (2018) on african parents’ attitude to their children taking history; they strongly discourage their offspring to take the subject because it is viewed as inhibiting in a post-apartheid world that offers many opportunities. the discouragement by adults went hand-in-hand with the streaming of learners by schools in grade 10. those who were viewed as able found themselves taking mathematics, physical science, and commercial subjects, and those who were not were channelled towards taking history. seemingly, this meant that it was fine for learners streamed into history and labelled and othered in the process, to remain trapped in a rural setting. however, the affinity for mathematics, physical science, and commercial subjects must also be understood against the very authoritative message constructed around the importance of these subjects by the state, the media, the formal economy, and other role players. messages like this become even more influential when we consider the context of dire poverty in which the learners who participated in this study find themselves. taking mathematics and science was seen consequently as the route to follow to achieve success, as reported elsewhere (see hsrc & epc, 2005). what is clear is that mathematics, physical science, and commercial subjects were elevated to a special status by the rural community in which this study took place. in the process, studying these subjects took on a mythical truth of its own that learners will gain not only status by studying these subjects (hsrc & epc, 2005) but get jobs and opportunities to study and, in so doing, escape their oppressive rural context (langa, 2018). this powerful construction is but partially true since studying mathematics, physical science, and commercial subjects offers no guarantee of jobs, funding, or bursaries and no miracle cure for the woes experienced by the learners in their rural setting. securing jobs and especially student funding are in reality part of a far more challenging and complex business (motala, 2017) than merely not studying history up to grade 12. however, choosing history was seen as “selecting a stumbling block” and therefore, generally speaking, history was viewed as a subject of limited value and little use. as a result, in a district close to our research area most high schools have phased history out (dube, 2018). the above speaks to the fact that parents, learners, and teachers have a limited understanding of the intellectual, disciplinary, societal, or civic functions of history as a subject (subbiah, 2018). much of this is probably rooted in the persistence of teaching memory history in the area in which the research took place (dube, 2018) even though caps has framed the subject as a discipline that expects learners to engage analytically with the subject (kukard, 2017). equally, history, clearly, is not taught as a relationship between the past and the present and is not presented as having to do with how active citizens can, in a democratic manner, engage with social, political, and economic issues (kukard, 2017). such a conceptualisation of history would have allowed learners to bring some understanding to their context. by adopting such a strong stance against choosing history in grade 10 learners are denied the wassermann et al.: “if i choose history . . .” 65 opportunity to engage with a body of knowledge as valuable as that offered by mathematics, physical science, and commercial subjects to make sense of the world they inhabit. but it is not as if the learners who did not choose history viewed the subject as completely without use. however, the research participants regarded the value of the subject to be located elsewhere—in the past when the liberation struggle took place or in an affluent urban context where parents are believed to have money. it was argued that where no real economic needs existed, learners could indulge in the study of the subject, but in the rural context in which these learners found themselves, history would be a luxury. what also became clear was that limited interest existed among the participating learners in engaging with or resolving the issues their rural area faced. to them the positives attributed to rurality such as innovation and resilience (moletsane, 2012) were not visible. as a result, a conscious decision was made not to engage with history from grades 10 to12 and, in so doing, they avoided developing an understanding of why, historically speaking, certain rural areas, including the one in which the research population resided, are the way they are. instead, history was equated with rurality and vice versa and this meant stagnation and backwardness, and therefore everything that mathematics, physical science, and commercial subjects and cities were not. overall, it can be concluded that the learners who participated in this study longed for a schooling that was utilitarian in nature. such schooling should serve to alleviate the challenging economic conditions they and their families face. it must also be an education that can bring economic advancement by preparing learners for “decent jobs” and opportunities to study further in the city. in this view of schooling, history would not have a place, except if it could, in a utilitarian manner, improve the economic plight of rural learners. conclusion why do teenagers, roughly 15 years of age, in the rural setting in which they find themselves view the choosing of history in grade 10 as being detrimental to their future prospects? proposing possible answers to this question is filled with both complexity and ambiguity. what is clear is that mathematics, physical science, and commercial subjects were powerfully linked by the learners to economic prosperity, study opportunities, and migration to the city. this mind-set is supported by powerful role-players on both the macro level of the state and the formal economy and on the micro level of teachers, peers, and family members of the learners who participated in this study. taking history as a subject was frowned upon and the intellectual, disciplinary, societal, and civic value it offers was seen to be being linked to the negative aspects of rurality which will serve merely to chain learners to their rural setting. consequently, history was reserved for those deemed not good enough to do mathematics, physical science, and commercial subjects and therefore not worthy of economic prosperity and migration to the city. 66 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 what is thus clear is that history is no longer the omnipresent subject in rural areas as it was when we, the authors, were learners. furthermore, against the backdrop as outlined above, history will in all probability continue to lose ground in rural areas and the numbers of learners taking it will continue to decline. the reasons for this revolve around experiences of rurality, the personal future ambitions of learners, and the envisaged kind of schooling that speaks to their ambitions. in sum, taking history was viewed as reinforcing negative ideas of rurality and did not speak to the utilitarian schooling the learners, and the adults in their lives, valued. considering how such a mind-set has been internalised we are unsure if the status of history in rural areas can be turned around. making history compulsory up to grade 12, as proposed by the ministerial task team (2018) would therefore be a challenging undertaking in rural areas such as the one in which our research took place. however, if there is a ray of hope it is in the fact that once they are urbanised, as alluded to by the research participants, things might change. evidence for this is the fact that learners taking history in gauteng, south africa’s only urban province, increased by 21 per cent between 2004 and 2010 (van eeden, 2012). this could mean possibly that the self-same learners who shunned the subject in their rural context might end up studying it under better economic conditions in the city. references bycina, a. 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(2017). rural–urban migration as a means of getting ahead. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321159397_ruralurban_migration_as_a_means_of_getting_ahead microsoft word c73 full issue 17dec2018.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 73, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i73a01 on the hegemony of international knowledge in tier 1 high-impact literature: a meta-study of citations in indilinga (2008–2017) petro du preez school of professional studies in education, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa petro.dupreez@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9100-6461 labby ramrathan school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa ramrathanp@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9963-0675 lesley le grange department of curriculum studies, faculty of education, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa llg@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7096-3609 (received: 6 june 2018; accepted: 11 november 2018) abstract in this article we problematize the hegemony of what we are choosing to call international knowledge, as opposed to (south) african knowledge, as it appears in articles and essays by international 1 authors in highimpact journals. we eschew the term global north in the light of rising debates about decolonisation and forms of cognitive colonisation. knowledge is foregrounded in our focus on academic publishing and curriculum. we seek to explore the extent to which articles published in indilinga: african journal of indigenous knowledge systems have referenced (south) african scholars. we go on to provide some explanation of why there is still a dominant reliance on international knowledge for the scholarship published in this journal. we employed a realist interpretivist meta-study design and we selected a sample of 246 articles published in indilinga between 2008 and 2017. we analysed the reference lists of these articles to determine the ratio between south african, african, 2 and international authors cited, and we determined the institutional affiliation of the authors as part of this study. we also analysed keywords that featured predominantly and that were aligned to the title of the journal. it was clear that international authors were cited most frequently in indilinga. keywords: academic publishing, africa, decolonisation, indigenous knowledge systems, meta-study 1 our use of capital letters for these terms here and throughout this article is intentional. we seek to create terms that reflect our attempt to decolonise the knowledges that have long held sway in (south) africa. 2 african, in this context, refers to african countries apart from south africa. du preez et al.: on the hegemony of international knowledge . . . 5 introduction the complexity of the production of knowledge, its value and currency, and who determines what knowledge is worth most is part of the historically ingrained contestations about the notion of knowledge around the globe. in south africa and, indeed, in africa, the issue of decoloniality simmers under the surface with several attempts having been made to decentre international knowledge systems in favour of indigenous ones. we ask why indigenous knowledge systems 3 have not taken a firm hold yet despite the substantive efforts that have been made to promote, sustain, and centralise such ways of knowing. in this article we explore why indigenous knowledge remains at the margins despite the opportunities that are in place to promote and sustain such knowledge systems. through a meta-analysis of a journal, indilinga, that has the specific aim of promoting indigenous knowledge, we attempt to explore why it has not yet been able to uphold its aim despite being in existence for more than a decade and a half. this meta-analysis seeks to answer the following research question: to what extent are (south) african scholars referenced in articles published in indilinga, a journal focused on indigenous knowledge, and which topics feature most prominently in the references? in responding to this central research question, we explore, through the metastudy, who has published in indilinga and who is referenced in the articles published in this journal since its inception. through this exploration we examine possible reasons why (south) african authors continue to rely on international knowledge for their scholarship. coloniality and decoloniality: where are we in the debates in (south) africa? decolonisation is not the subject of a uniquely south african conversation and is not a new one. decolonisation has several meanings; generally, the term refers to the undoing of colonisation through the removal of colonial governance at the point when colonised peoples attain independence. however, this does not mean that coloniality disappears. quijano (2007) has pointed out that after nations achieve independence, the colonial matrix of power remains. this matrix relates to the regulation of the economy, authority (who controls institutions), knowledge, and identity. a critical awareness of, and resistance to, coloniality is what decoloniality is all about. in other words, decoloniality is an analytic of coloniality. much earlier, others had a similar sense to that of quijano’s (2007) notion of coloniality such as nkrumah (1965) who coined the term neo-colonialism. yet others, such as smith (1999) and chilisa (2012) do not see decolonisation as circumscribed by the removal of colonial governance but as a broader process whereby colonised peoples correct the deficit ways in which they have come to be defined, seek self-determination, discover and recover their indigenous knowledges and sense of self, mourn the pain inflicted upon them by colonisation, and so forth. fanon (1967) made the important point that there can be no decolonisation without individual liberation. in other words, decolonisation requires both the removal of the colonial state and the (self-)liberation of the individual. 3 in the same spirit of decolonisation, we use capital letters for this term throughout. 6 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 however, the modern nation state (including newly independent states) came under threat in the latter part of the 21st century because of the ascendency of neoliberalism that resulted in the erosion of the welfare state. as le grange (2006) has noted, the neoliberal state’s role was no longer that of provider but that of regulator and monitor. moreover, capitalism has morphed into what guattari (2001) has termed “integrated world capitalism” (p. 3) to which we commonly refer as globalisation. twentiethand twenty-first-century globalisation has further weakened the nation state and has witnessed new forms of governance through supranational organisations of all kinds such as the world bank, international monetary fund, rating agencies, group of seven countries (g7), group of eight countries (g8), group of twenty countries (g20), and so on. the compression of time and space through the mass media and new technologies such as the internet have resulted in the relatively free flow of information around the globe at a rapid pace. we are also seeing the world economy being controlled by a small group of people—the super-rich—and the growth of economic inequalities in the world (see piketty, 2014). these developments, associated with modern globalisation, are important because they add complexity to the colonial matrix of power— they result in further domestication, homogenisation, and normalisation of the self—and to the regulation of the production of knowledge through processes of research and publication. we suggest that globalisation has brought about new forms of colonisation. for the purposes of this article we foreground knowledge while acknowledging that knowledge cannot be separated from being and ethics and that knowledge is always imbricated with politics, economy, and identity. given our privileging of knowledge our emphasis in this article is on cognitive colonisation, a subset of the colonial matrix of power and one that relates to the regulation of knowledge by western powers in nation states (former colonies) after independence and to new forms of regulating knowledge in a contemporary globalised world in an era of academic capitalism. following first generation colonisation (the colonisation of the land and bodies of the colonised), the colonisation of the minds of colonised peoples took place through schooling that was introduced in colonies by the colonisers. when universities were first established in south africa, they were the preserve, largely, of descendants of the colonisers and were based on european models of academic organisation. even when university education was extended to oppressed peoples in the second half of the twentieth century, the academic organisation of all south african universities remained modelled on that of european ones. this resulted in what has become known and revered as western knowledge being privileged in south african universities and indigenous knowledges denigrated and relegated to the margins. furthermore, the european bias in the post-apartheid university curriculum has been laid bare by the student protests of 2015 and 2016; in the wake of these protests universities across the country are examining critically their curriculum offerings. cognitive colonisation has had several effects but here we discuss just two. first, colonised school and university education resulted in dependence (on the part of south africans) on scholarly work produced mostly in europe. currently, south african academics continue to rely largely on international scholarly work produced outside of africa, for the most part, as du preez et al.: on the hegemony of international knowledge . . . 7 evidenced by, for example, citations found in publications produced by south african authors. we have no quarrel with international knowledge per se, but with its dominance; we take issue with the eurocentrism entrenched in it. our position is that international knowledge should not be destroyed but decentred so that it becomes one way of knowing, not the way of knowing. second, new forms of cognitive colonisation associated with globalisation are thwarting the agency of academics in the sense that their academic freedom is being curtailed. academic publishing is no longer simply regulated by academics (although editors and peers might be academics) but remotely controlled by private companies who generate huge profits in what has become known as a global academic publishing industry forming part of the knowledge economy. for example, publication databases such as the web of science is owned by thompson reuters, a multi-billion us dollar private company, and scopus by elsevier reeds that has a turn-over of billions of rands (for more detail, see le grange, 2009). journals listed in these international databases are privileged by the department of higher education and training (dhet) and the national research foundation (nrf) in south africa and viewed as being of better quality than local south african journals. as a consequence, there is very little incentive for south african academics to establish, and publish in, local journals, particularly those promoting indigenous knowledge systems, despite the importance of doing so. western knowledge can and should be positioned as only one way of knowing so that the dignity and identities of indigenous peoples can be restored. moreover, what is published in peer-viewed academic journals has a profound influence on the public’s understanding of science 4 and what therefore gets included and/or excluded in school and university curricula. this is so because the knowledge that gets privileged in society will also get privileged in these curricula. one south african journal that has taken up the challenge of promoting indigenous knowledge is idilinga: african journal of indigenous knowledge systems. the journal was established in 2002 when there was much hype about an african renaissance in south africa, inspired by the famous speech of former president, thabo mbeki, “i am an african.” although a south african journal, it was established to serve as an international forum for sharing research on indigenous knowledge systems. through the journal, “a forum is created for african scholars, analysts and activists in iks to participate on an equal footing with their contemporaries world-wide in debates, exchange of ideas and the creation and documentation of knowledge.” 5 in this article we explore the extent to which indilinga has been successful in producing research that breaks with the dependence on international knowledge and scholarship. we report on only one aspect of a meta-study that analyses different aspects of the articles published in the journal, including the methodologies and theories used. here, we focus on the literature on which the journal’s authors drew, and, more specifically, whom they cited so that we can ascertain the extent to which there is still a reliance of international knowledge. it would, of course, be expected of authors to draw on some of this literature but we were 4 we use science here in a broad sense so that it is not restricted to the natural sciences. 5 http://www.indilinga.org.za/ 8 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 interested in seeing whether indilinga has been able to break with the strong dependence of south african journals on such literature. the analysis we report in this article is significant, potentially, in informing scholarship in the current decolonial moment given that the journal’s establishment was inspired by an earlier decolonial moment—the birth of the african renaissance movement. we point to the success and shortcomings of the journal in terms of its mission and our findings could provide indilinga and other south african journals with useful insights. the focus on a survey of citations produced by authors in this article has one limitation in that citing an international author does not necessarily mean dependence on that author’s work. it could mean that the african scholar, for example, is critiquing the work of this scholar. however, this detailed level of analysis is not part of this article. the realist interpretivist meta-study design following du preez & simmonds (2014) the research methodology that we employed in this study is a quantitative meta-study framed by the realist interpretivist paradigm (see schnelker, 2006) that begins with the assumption that social reality exists independent of perceptions about it and, in this sense, is seen as a refinement of postpositivism. ontologically realist interpretivism differs from postpositivism based on “assumptions regarding the extent to which phenomena of interest can be fragmented into parts” (schnelker, 2006, p. 44). realist interpretivists maintain that social reality is complex and needs to be studied in its natural setting (context). they argue further that theory is best created when complex data sets are viewed in a particular context. instead of theory being derived from propositions and hypotheses, as is the case with postpositivism, theory according to realist interpretivists is made by theory itself. methodologically, this paradigm requires flexibility of researchers in their being able to respond to phenomena as they emerge from a natural setting. data generation and analysis should, therefore, be holistically and interactively approached. in accordance with the realist interpretivist paradigm’s assumptions, a meta-study enables researchers to tailor methods of sampling, data generation, and analysis that are based on the review questions posed (see pope, mays, & popay, 2007). the review questions emanate from the theory and not from predetermined propositions and hypotheses. each meta-study will therefore differ from the next. important starting points for designing and conducting a meta-study include questions such as those raised by paterson, thorne, canam, and jillings, (2001), and by pope et al., (2007). • what is the purpose of the meta-study? is it to contribute to knowledge development in the field, or for policy decision-making processes? is it to synthesise findings, or to determine trends in a particular cluster of studies? • what needs to be analysed and synthesised through the meta-study, and why? is it the theories, methods and/or findings? what is anticipated through the meta-study? du preez et al.: on the hegemony of international knowledge . . . 9 the purpose of this meta-study was to determine trends in a particular cluster of studies as the latter occurs in its natural setting. more specifically, the reference lists of 246 articles (n₀) in the journal indilinga between 2008 and 2017 were analysed to determine certain trends in terms of which authors are referenced and which keywords authors use most frequently in their reference lists. of the 7,251 (n₁) references in the 246 articles, a sample of 30% (n₂ = 2,211) was randomly selected (every third reference was selected) to be analysed. of the 246 articles (n0), a sample of 217 (n3) were analysed to determine the frequency with which african, south african, and international authors wrote in the journal during the years under consideration. this sample was deemed sufficient to ensure data saturation and external validity since it is representative of all the articles published in the defined period and allows for generalisation based on the research aims (see bless, higson-smith, & sithole, 2013; fox, hunn, & mathers, 2009). the data was analysed using descriptive statistical methods. the journal indilinga: african journal of indigenous knowledge systems is the context (natural setting and population) in which this meta-study was conducted. indilinga stands for the “circular orientation” 6 of indigenous african communities that is exhibited in their material culture and behaviour. the journal arose because of the need for a dependable expression of critical and analytical writing on issues related to the recognition of indigenous knowledge systems and their production and dissemination. it is a cross-disciplinary journal, specifically interested in qualitative research designs, that aims to unite scholars and thinkers to promote, analyse, critique, and preserve indigenous knowledge systems. disciplines often covered in this journal are agriculture and environmental studies, education, tourism, medicine, psychology, archaeology, and language studies. figure 1 below provides a schematic representation of this meta-study. hitherto, this is how the context (level 1) was sketched regarding the theoretical background and methodological positioning. 6 http://www.indilinga.org.za/ 10 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 level 1: context level 2: design & organisation level 3: quantitative analysis level 4: synthesis and critical perspectives figure 1: a schematic representation of the meta-study process what does a metastudy of the reference lists in indilinga from 20082017 reveal about the ratio between african and international authors being referenced? synthesis what are the institutional affiliations of the authors who wrote in indilinga? which keywords relating to the topics of indilinga feature predominantly in the reference lists? review questions based on theory (explanation of the population) refine working procedures: inclusion/exclusion criteria (establishing the sample) theoretical background & methodological positioning critical perspectives keywords: n₁ = 7251 references: n₁ = 2211 authors: n₈ = 217 du preez et al.: on the hegemony of international knowledge . . . 11 level 2: design & organisation based on the theory and the selection of the population (indilinga authors), three review questions were formulated: (i) what does a meta-study of the reference lists in indilinga from 2008 to 2017 reveal about the ratio between african, south african, and international authors being referenced? (ii) what are the institutional affiliations of the authors who wrote in indilinga? and (iii) which keywords related to the main topic of indilinga (indigenous knowledge systems) feature predominantly in the reference lists? regarding the first question a distinction was made between african authors, both local and international (n₂); south african authors, all races, except for africans (n₃); and international authors, excluding africans (n₄). these represented the inclusion criteria. these criteria were arrived at to determine the ratio between african, south african, and international authors being referenced. the second question was posed to determine the institutional affiliation of the authors who wrote in indilinga in order to establish whether they are south african, african, or international. only the first authors were included. the citizenship of the authors was not taken into account; what was important was to establish from whence the new knowledge published in the journal emanated. the third review question entailed an analysis of all terminology emanating from the reference lists that related to the journal’s mission. the following keywords were identified: • african(s): africa, africanist, africaine(s), africana, africanus, pan-africanising • south african(s): south africa, southern africa(n), sub-saharan african, s. africa and s_africa • africanisation: (re)-africanizing, africanising • indigenous knowledge system(s): aiks, indigenous african knowledge system(s) • indigenous: indigenise(d), indigenising, indigenisation, indigenist, indigeneity • colonialisation: colonial era, coloniser, colonial rule, colonialists, coloniality • decolonisation: decolonising, decolonization, de-colonising, decoloniality, postcolonial, anti-colonial • global south level 3: quantitative analysis in the third phase of the analysis, the initial inclusion criteria were further refined to arrive at specific exclusion criteria. the initial inclusion and exclusion criteria are important since they direct a researcher in terms of which sample to select and which corpus of documents (reference lists) to work from (du preez & simmonds, 2014). as pope et al. (2007) have made clear, this is extremely important for the reliability and trustworthiness of inferences made toward the end of a meta-study. as the study progressed, the following exclusion criteria were identified: no forewords, websites without authors, holy scriptures, national and international policy documents, book reviews, formal interview references, acts, and court 12 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 cases were taken into account during the analysis of the reference lists. with regard to the authors who wrote in indilinga, it was deemed important not only to establish whether they were south african, african, or international, but also to determine from which institutions they came. the latter inclusion criterion gave a clearer perspective on who these authors were. an analysis of 30% (n₁ = 2,211) of all the references (n₁ = 7,251) indicated that international authors are most frequently referenced (n₅ = 1,219), i.e. 55%. this is followed by african authors who are referenced 31% (n₆ = 687) and south africans who are referenced 14% (n₇ = 305) of the time. an interesting observation is that of the 305 south africans who have been referenced, 86 (28%) articles were by the same south african author, s. d. edwards from the university of zululand (department of psychology). the percentage of african and south african authors who are referenced is 45%. so, it is clear that international authors are predominantly referenced in indilinga. the pie chart below provides a schematic breakdown of these statistics. when the data about institutions represented by the authors who wrote in indilinga was produced, the following was found. chart 1: ratio between african, south african and international authors referenced african (n₆ = 687) south african (n₇ = 305) international (n₅ = 1219) du preez et al.: on the hegemony of international knowledge . . . 13 of the 246 (n₀) articles that were published a sample of 217 (n₈) was selected. again, no book reviews and forewords were included in the sample. from chart 2 it is evident that most south african authors were affiliated with the university of south africa (18%), followed by the university of kwazulu-natal (12%), and the university of zululand (12%). from the 217 (n₈) articles, 190 were written by south africans (87.5%), 19 from other african countries (9%), and 1 by an international author (0.5%). the african authors came from nigeria, uganda, kenya, tanzania, mozambique, cameroon, malawi, namibia, ghana, ethiopia, and zimbabwe. seven articles were written by representatives of various organisations outside the university (3%) such as the development bank of southern africa (1), the world conservation union (1), freedom park (2), south african wildlife college (1), a schoolteacher (1), and one by an independent curriculum consultant and researcher. 2 2 2 7 2 6 3 8 1 2 8 3 2 1 4 3 1 5 1 7 1 5 1 1 2 8 3 c h a rt 2 : s o u t h a f r i c a n au t h o rs w h o w rot e i n i n d i l i n g a p e r a f f i l i at i o n 190 19 1 7 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 south african authors african authors international authors other organisations chart 3: ratio of south african, african and international authors 14 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 before we discuss the keywords that featured most often in the reference lists, it is worth noting that although most of the authors in indilinga are south africans, the reference lists indicate that the majority of the authors referenced are international. in addition, indilinga aims to provide an international platform for authors with an interest in indigenous knowledge systems to engage with each other, but only 9% of the authors are affiliated with other african countries and 0.5% with international institutions. the keywords identified featured 4,611 (n9) times in the entire set of reference lists. the bar chart below provides a percentage breakdown of the keywords in the reference lists. based on the above it is clear that the keyword south african features most often, followed by the keywords african and indigenous. it is interesting to note that indigenous knowledge systems feature in only 6% of the references given that the name of the journal is indilinga: african journal of indigenous knowledge systems. also, decolonisation appears only 1% of the time even though this term has received a lot of attention recently in academia. level 4: synthesis and critical perspectives taking cognisance of our theoretical framing of this paper based on our belief that dominant international knowledge should be decentred, the findings are quite revealing and suggest that much more needs to be done to decolonise knowledge production and to advance indigenous knowledge production. noting that indilinga was conceptualised as a medium through which african scholars could reveal their indigenous scholarship and contribute to the emancipation of indigenous knowledge, the finding suggests that while the vast majority of authors of articles in this journal are south african, there is still a major reliance on international scholars to inform their scholarly works and we need to investigate some of the reasons for this. since this is a meta-study of published materials and since articles published in indilinga provided the source of empirical data, our explanation of these revealing findings is located in the broader discourses influencing higher education and in the on-going narratives that are informing the decolonisation and curriculum transformation debates. drawing from those influencing higher education we explore how macro issues of institutional rankings and performativity, and institutional issues of recognition and 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 chart 4: keywords in the reference lists du preez et al.: on the hegemony of international knowledge . . . 15 promotion have contributed to the continued reliance on international scholars despite the drive for more indigenous ways of knowing and indigenous knowledge. with respect to the narratives of decolonisation and curriculum transformation, we explore issues related to politics, capacity, and availability of exemplars, research, and critical literature centring these narratives in south africa and, indeed, in the whole of africa. in trying to make sense of this finding we are reminded of how and why this journal, indilinga, was established and therefore consider the shifts in the discourses of africanisation and indigenisation as a further reflection on our findings. noting that one of the specific aims of the journal was to provide a platform for african scholars to publish their work and that this journal was initially inspired, in part, by thabo mbeki with his focus on an african renaissance, this establishment of the journal could, perhaps, be seen to have constituted the first wave of the discourse on decolonisation in south africa. currently, a new wave has emerged—the student protest actions calling for the decolonisation of higher education that swept the country. this new wave has brought about renewed emphasis on decolonisation with a focus on the perennial curriculum-based question of what knowledge is worth most in the south african context. drawing from this historical trajectory of the journal, a possible explanation of why international authors are cited predominantly in the published articles in indilinga may have to do with the lead-in time necessary to integrate african scholars predominantly into the scholarship across the disciplines. in other words, more time is needed for a critical mass of african scholars who could be cited in articles published in this journal to emerge if the dominance of cited international authors is to shift materially. there are, however, other imperatives that influence the publishing of scholarly works by african, and indeed, south african authors as noted in this meta-analysis. we go on engage with some of these imperatives to show the complexity associated with reducing the dominance of international knowledge and decentring it. related to the lead-in time to integrate the knowledge base of african (and south african) scholarship into the process of decentring international knowledge and reducing its dominance is the notion of dependency. this dependency could be located in the globalisation of published works and the academic capitalisation of knowledge production and utility because people are pressured into publishing in international spaces either because of personal promotional aspirations and the desire for global recognition or the institutional imperatives of internationalisation, both of which we have already engaged with briefly as contributing to the explanation of the complexities surrounding the decentring of international knowledge systems. personal aspirations and global recognition feature in the promotion criteria of most institutions; these include a demand for academics to publish in international high ranking and high impact journals, thereby contributing to the capitalisation of the knowledge economy. to get their papers accepted in such journals, therefore, scholars are required to keep abreast of the international knowledge systems and ways of knowing that embody, to a great extent, their knowledge of, and fluency in, the use of such literature related to their scholarship; these international knowledges have become the benchmark of quality work. hence, to move away from this notion of quality work is both a personal challenge and a conundrum for african (and south african) academics in relation to 16 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 recognition. the imperatives for the continued dependency on international scholarship are very strong and have personal aspirational implications regarding promotion and recognition. in addition to these, there are structural processes for personal rating grades, framed by the nrf’s rating system that brings substantial funding and opportunity benefits to academics. for an academic to be rated on the nrf’s rating scale, international recognition through publications in international spheres is required and the more global presence one’s scholarship has, the higher one’s nrf rating. to be recognised as an international scholar necessitates that an academic locates her or his work in global discourses; this suggests that reference to international scholars is a necessity and therefore becomes a dependency for academics in their aspirational trajectory and for buying into the neoliberal discourse of global academic capitalism. the institutional imperatives are located in the discourse on global benchmarking of higher education institutions and have gained strong momentum in the last decade. this neoliberal discourse on higher education that subjects institutions to global ranking assessments has been fuelled by the benefits of competition, branding, and influence in the knowledge economy. hence, being globally ranked means that that institutions of higher learning are known throughout the world and receive global recognition, both in and outside their countries. having been ranked on the various global ranking systems, institutions of higher learning aspire to ascend such rankings or strive to maintain their high-ranking levels. some of the criteria for influencing their ranking status is related to the level of internationalisation that informs their curriculum, the research outputs of their academic staff, and their established international relationships. hence, institutions demand that their academic units and staff increase their international presence through their work as teachers, scholars, and researchers. such demands, therefore, inform their scope of scholarship and exposure to knowledge domains. hence, through this exposure and use of international knowledge and international literature in their daily work, their fluency in such scholarship almost naturalises their use in their writings. it is therefore inevitable that the articles published in this journal, and perhaps on other publication platforms, will have a dominance of references from international publications. opportunities and abilities to build a mainstream african and south african knowledge base through publications is very limited in south africa. indilinga is perhaps one of the platforms to harness and on which to build opportunities to grow the african scholarship grounded in african epistemology. but the ability to mainstream african scholarship grounded in african epistemology requires more than indilinga as a publishing space and may include other spheres of influence and recognition that can sustain and expand this knowledge base into a formidable space of knowledge influence with an engulfing force that could drive the decolonisation agenda now. in returning to the findings on the keywords used in the reference list of articles published in indilinga, we note that the most common keywords used, viz. african, south african, and indigenous, are largely contextual descriptors rather than knowledge epistemes. the term indigenous knowledge systems, for example, features as 6% of the keywords, suggesting du preez et al.: on the hegemony of international knowledge . . . 17 that the focus on an african episteme is very limited and perhaps can be attributed to the former engagements related to the dominance and over reliance on international knowledge for knowledge epistemes. the dominant reference to the terms africa (and south africa) and indigenous, together with the dominance of international authors in the references of the articles in indilinga suggest an imposition on, or adaptive perspective to, geographic contextualisation rather than to knowing and ways of knowing in africa (and south africa). the implications of this observation for curriculum transformation in the context of decolonisation, therefore, is that the international knowledge epistemes continue to be the lens through which africa (including south africa) is observed, understood, and theorised and this implication negates the perspective of decolonisation on the necessity of decentring international knowledge. the implications for curriculum transformation are that the drive to remove international authors from informing teaching and learning, and indeed, the curriculum, may lead to a superficial decentring of international knowledge with african (and south african) authors who are continuing to ground their scholarship in it. so, a technical replacement of curriculum content with content material written by african scholars does very little to decentre the influence of international knowledge on knowledge production in africa, and, indeed, in south africa. the reconceptualization of curriculum for higher education is not an easy task and not an easy choice to make and neither it is easy to deal with the challenges involved. the destabilising and decentring of international knowledge and influence requires an enculturation process of re-embodiment to shift our notion of quality which, naggingly, seems to reside in international knowledge. the measures of quality to which we refer were engaged with in this synthesis and discussion of the findings; they include recognition, national ratings, global bench-markings, and global rankings. conclusion in this meta-study we have shown, through the analysis of articles published in indilinga, that there is still a dominant reliance on international knowledge systems to inform (south) african scholarship despite the on-going emphasis on decolonisation and the promotion of indigenous knowledge systems. through the analysis of the data produced we have shown the complexity associated with the decentring of international knowledge, with all its dominance, and have argued that regimes of accountability and recognition need to be changed to facilitate the recognition, promotion, and sustainability of indigenous knowledge systems. the establishing of indilinga in 2002 was a positive step towards advancing african scholarship on indigenous knowledge systems. such efforts are laudable and need to be supported and encouraged. however, if a journal whose mission it is to advance the production of indigenous knowledge enjoys limited success, the challenge of decolonising research and how (and by whom) it is represented is daunting. perhaps the problem lies, too, with the way in which we represent research given that such representation of research through publication in journals and scholarly books is itself western. we do not question the fact that information can be called knowledge only if it has been subjected to intellectual and 18 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 ethical judgement. but whether there are other ways of representing and legitimating knowledge in africa and elsewhere is an open question—an urgent one that needs answering. references bless, c. higson-smith, c., & sithole, s. l. (2013). fundamentals of social research methods: an african perspective. cape town, rsa: juta. chilisa, b. (2012). indigenous research methodologies. los angeles, ca: sage. du preez, p., & s. simmonds. (2014). curriculum, curriculum development, curriculum studies? problematising theoretical ambiguities in doctoral theses in the education field. south african journal of education, 34(2), 1–14. fanon, f. (1967). towards the african revolution (h. chevalier, trans.). new york, ny: grove press. fox, n., hunn, a., & mathers, n. (2009). sampling and sample size calculation. leeds, uk: the nihr research design service for the east midlands/yorkshire & the humber. guattari, f. (2001). the three ecologies (i. pindar & p. sutton, trans.). london, uk: the athlone press. le grange, l. (2006). quality assurance in south africa: a reply to john mammen. south african journal of higher education, 20(6), 903–909. le grange, l. (2009). how would ludwig wittgenstein have performed in the current south african higher education system? south african journal of higher education, 23(4), 629–634. nkrumah, k. (1965). neo-colonialism: the last stage of imperialism. london, uk: nelson. paterson, b., thorne, s., canam, c., & jillings, c. (2001). meta-study of qualitative health research: a practical guide to meta-analysis and meta-synthesis. london, uk: sage. piketty, t. (2012). capital in the twenty-first century (a. goldhammer, trans.). cambridge, ma: the belknap press of harvard university press. pope, c., mays, n., & popay, j. (2007). synthesizing qualitative and quantitative health evidence: a guide to methods. buckingham, uk: open university press. quijano, a. (2007). coloniality and modernity/rationality. cultural studies, 21(2–3), 168– 178. schnelker, d. l. (2006). the student-as-bricoleur: making sense of research paradigms. teaching and teacher education, 22, 42–57. du preez et al.: on the hegemony of international knowledge . . . 19 smith, l. (1999). decolonising methodologies: research and indigenous peoples. london, uk: zed books. microsoft word c74 full issue 17dec.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 74, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i74a04 towards decolonising a module in the pre-service science teacher education curriculum: the role of indigenous knowledge systems in creating spaces for transforming the curriculum ronicka mudaly science education, science and technology cluster, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa mudalyr@ukzn.ac.za http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7347-2098 (received: 5 may 2018; accepted: 6 november 2018) abstract post-apartheid south africa has witnessed many changes in its quest for social justice. however, these changes have not affected south african higher education institutions (heis) that continue to privilege epistemic traditions that are embedded in western frameworks. the science curriculum has been instrumental in promoting western worldviews as being universal. this has resulted in normalising the subordination of nonwestern people and their knowledge systems. in seeking a change in the tenor of science education, i report on a qualitative study that explored the intersecting influence of the pre-service science teacher curriculum and indigenous knowledge systems (iks). in my reconceptualising of a part of one science module, a departure from the revised curriculum and from the western epistemic canon was effected by reframing who teaches, what is taught and how it is taught. a purposively selected sample of 224 pre-service teachers engaged in a field trip and a gardening project that was facilitated, in part, by an indigenous knowledge expert. pre-service teachers planted a vegetable garden using indigenous methods and cultivated indigenous and non-indigenous plants. they captured the processes of planting and growing the plants in their portfolios and reflected on their learning by responding to questionnaires. i analysed the data drawn from the portfolios and replies to the questionnaires thematically. my findings revealed that consciousness-raising had occurred in these pre-service teachers about the value of indigenous knowledge (ik) and they endorsed the ik expert as a legitimate teacher in higher education. insights into using iks to transform and decolonise the curriculum by engaging an ik expert to teach brought previously marginalised ik to the centre. teaching and learning in this context maximised interaction between the pre-service teachers and the materials being studied in their natural setting. keywords: decolonising, curriculum transformation, indigenous knowledge holder, pre-service science teachers, iks introduction and background the intellectual reliance of south african heis on knowledge systems of the us and europe is undeniable. western research methods and theories have become the gold standard in most 48 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 countries (connell, 2016). curriculum ideologies, design, models, and textbooks from the global north have dominated the intellectual culture and practices of most heis in the world and have reinscribed the valuing of “a single [western] episteme” (connell, 2016, p. 8). the epistemological traditions of south african heis whose curricula reflect the perpetuation of western worldviews and privilege, reveals the complicity of these institutions in neglecting non-western knowledge systems (heleta, 2016a; le grange, 2016). since 2015, the call to decolonise south african heis by incorporating other african and non-western global epistemologies has become more insistent (shay, 2016). the remaking of an intellectual culture and the greater democratisation of the university, in keeping with the society in which it finds itself, are required as precursors to major curriculum reform. i begin this article by discussing the national rationale for decolonising the university curriculum. next, i discuss how iks policy in south africa applies to the school curriculum, and how some researchers have infused iks into teacher education. a description of theoretical constructs drawn from african and other philosophers, and linked to curriculum theory, follows. i then provide a description of the qualitative case study methodology, explain the suitability of questionnaires and portfolios for the generation of data, and describe the sequence of activities in which these pre-service science teachers engaged to establish the gardens and grow the plants. my conclusion points to the need for pre-service teachers to rediscover and recover their cultural ik. decolonising the curriculum at the macro-political level, debates about the curriculum are occurring nationally and heis are being strained in many ways. amid physical and metaphorical fires, debates about who has access to education, educational justice, the whiteness of the university curriculum, universities as bastions of colonialism, and decolonising university curricula, among others, ensue. le grange (2016), in exploring what decolonising the university curriculum might entail, drew on chilisa’s (2012) five phases of the process of decolonisation. these include “rediscovery and recovery; mourning; dreaming; commitment and action” (cited in le grange, 2016, p. 3). rediscovery and recovery involve colonised people exploring and reclaiming their culture and identity. colonised people mourn their continued oppression, in this case through the university curriculum. dreaming, in this instance, involves colonised people re-imagining an alternative university curriculum that is imbued with their ik. commitment refers to the process of raising awareness of the muting of colonised people, here, in relation to the university curriculum, by politicians, academics, and students. action refers to the implementation of strategies for change, which could, as far as this debate is concerned, take the form of university curricula that reflect a valuing of ik. in an effort to conceptualise the notion of curriculum, le grange (2014) referred to pinar’s (2011) and wallin’s (2010) understanding of curriculum as currere and encouraged us to “think of the curriculum as an active conceptual force” (p. 1287). in the dominant western education system, the active force of the notion of currere has become restricted by mudaly: towards decolonising a module in the pre-service science teacher education curriculum . . . 49 ubiquitous western ways of knowing and doing. this territorialisation of currere’s active force (le grange, 2014) has stifled its productive capacity and inhibited its potential for creativity. an “ubuntu-currere”, suggested by le grange (2016, p. 9), can enable the transcendence of boundaries by our experimenting with creative pathways for living in the world where a unity of oneself with the human and non-human environment is promoted. several possibilities have been presented to decolonise and africanise the university curriculum (see le grange, 2014, 2016). these include a rethinking of western disciplines and examining their underlying philosophical and methodological paradigms. the possibility of incorporating iks through the “deterritorialisation” of disciplines such as botany, for example, and its “reterritorialisation” (le grange, 2014, p. 1288) into a sub-discipline such as ethnobotany, could be explored. this is linked to le grange’s vision for a decolonised curriculum based on an “emergent indigenous paradigm” that includes, among other constructs, “relational accountability” (curriculum is accountable to other humans and the wider environment), and “respectful representation” (curriculum creates spaces for “voices and knowledges of indigenous peoples”) (le grange, 2016, p. 9). decentring western epistemology in university curricula and designing them to involve socially distributed knowledge systems which are relevant (but not limited) to local and regional contexts, is crucial (le grange, 2014, 2016). other african intellectual analysts have added their insights on decolonising the curriculum. letsekha (2013) proposed a “fundamental overhaul of the whole epistemological model underlying the current education system” (p. 9), and molefe (2016) has argued for “ending the domination of western traditions, histories and figures” (p. 32). adopting a practical approach, jansen (2017) contended that the presence of more black african curriculum theorists, who are research productive and intellectually imaginative, is crucial to the process of decolonising the curriculum. alluding to decolonising teacher education curricula in particular, sayed, motala, and hoffman (2017) have underscored the importance of an african-centered approach. connell (2016) argued that colonised people’s knowledge formations have been devalued and disrupted, and it is this that helped create inequalities that are currently manifesting. universities that seek to democratise themselves should address the challenge of the “reproduction of epistemological blindness that silences other knowledges and ways of creating knowledge” (motta, 2013, p. 97), through curriculum. ways of combating the continued erasure of the knowledge of the subaltern involve troubling the notion that “their only option is to blindly follow the ‘enlightened’ colonisers, learn from them, adopt their worldviews and fit into the periphery of their world as second-class citizens” (spivak, 1994, cited in heleta, 2016a, p. 4). examining the interface between iks and education has the potential to give visibility, voice, and agency to culturally marginalised people. iks and education historically, the south african socio-political landscape has been characterised by a violation of human rights based on people’s cultural affiliations and racial classification. while 50 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 inequity was entrenched across social, economic, and cultural spheres, and impacted the geographical circumstances of non-white south africans in general, indigenous communities, the holders of ik, and women were more severely affected. practitioners and knowledge holders of iks were oppressed, ridiculed, and devalued. a decade after the transition from a separatist to a democratic political order, the south african government adopted the iks policy (department of science and technology (dst), 2004) that sought to redress the inequity of marginalised people so as to “integrate and celebrate african perspectives in south africa’s knowledge systems” (dst, p. 10), and to affirm those cultural identities that had existed through observance of ik practices. education has been used as a vehicle to attain the goal of engaging in an “autonomous, selfreliant process of knowledge production [that] meets both the intellectual and material needs of african societies” (hountonji, 2009, p. 9). one way of reclaiming cultural identity is to transform the curriculum into a culturally inclusive one. in south africa, the post-apartheid school curriculum is developed within a social justice framework that underscores education for empowerment, self-sufficiency, and democratic participation. the attempts to recentre african knowledge are evidenced in colossal shifts in the school curriculum. in 1997, the call for teachers to include iks in the school science curriculum was made, and this call has persisted in the relatively new curriculum assessment and policy statement (caps) (department of basic education, 2011). the rationale for this, according to caps in the science subjects, is to enable learners to use ik in society and the environment. however, the successful enactment of this policy has been hindered by inadequate teacher education, among other things, and this has implications for teacher education programmes at universities (de beer & petersen, 2016; jautse, thambe, & de beer, 2016). some studies of in-service teacher education that are linked to iks are emerging. for example, jautse et al. (2016) reported on how the north-west university leveraged human and material ik resources from the mphebatho museum located in pilanesberg to address the need to enhance teacher knowledge about iks. the museum offered a “conceptual and immersive space that stimulate[d] creative thinking and critical thinking” (p. 442) about the bakgatla-ba-kgafela culture. findings revealed a heightened interest among teachers to learn about diverse cultures, and an increasing awareness among them about the need to infuse iks into the science education curriculum. the study by jautse et al. (2016) referred to “epistemological border-crossing” (p. 442) and so did that by de beer and petersen (2016, p. 449) to link western science to iks. the latter advocated a socially distributed knowledge; teachers consider their own culture and ik and that of their learners to create a lived, relevant curriculum. they argued for a departure from “cookbook practicals” (de beer and petersen, 2016, p. 442) or, what millar (2004) referred to as recipe type practicals that do not require the learner to think about what is being done. in their study, de beer and petersen (2016) described how teachers worked cooperatively to infuse ik into science curricula and concluded that this resulted in “demystifying iks and decreas[ing] the marginalisation of iks” (p. 458). mudaly: towards decolonising a module in the pre-service science teacher education curriculum . . . 51 engagement with literature, which is becoming increasingly replete with diverse views of african philosophers about the ways in which the knowledges of africans can bring african identity back to the centre of the curriculum, is crucial. theoretical constructs a key focus of postcolonial african philosophy has been the “relationship between tradition and modernity” (ciaffa, 2008, p. 121) and has triggered questions about the value of african indigenous knowledge (aik) in addressing contemporary social challenges. several african philosophers have aligned themselves to opposing perspectives in this regard. one perspective according to gyekye (1997), as ciaffa (2008) has reminded us, is cultural revivalism that aims to restore reverence for a traditional african heritage by revitalising african indigenous teachings. this perspective focuses on the disruptive and denigrating effects of colonialism on african cultural practices and colonised people. an opposing perspective criticises cultural revivalism as quixotic and contends that returning to traditional african teachings and practices does not meet the socio-political and economic challenges of contemporary africa. african philosophers, such as kiti (2013), believe that african people have been enfeebled “socially, politically, religiously, technologically, economically and intellectually” (p. 1) because of their interaction with people of euro-western descent, and this has driven african people to the margins of society. kiti provides critical insight into the role of postcolonial africa in global knowledge production. he concludes that africa serves as the provider of “raw material” (p. 2) for intellectual production on a world-wide scale. for example, participants in clinical trials are often from africa. what type of knowledge is produced, how it is produced, and who will benefit from this knowledge production are all controlled by nations in the global north who are at the centre of knowledge production. other african philosophers such as hountonji (1983, 2009) call for africans to reclaim their cultural identity by developing new modalities of producing knowledge, and for africans to “re-learn how to think” (hountonji, 1983, p. 53). in his later work, hountonji (2009) advocates a reappropriation of african knowledge and calls for for a revival of “épistémologies du sud” (p. 1). a review of curriculum theories reveals how these liberatory philosophical insights influence the philosophy, direction, content, and pedagogy that underpin education systems. the insights of these african philosophers are linked to the tenets of the social reconstruction ideology informing curriculum studies that is based on social perspectives. this theory focuses on developing curricula by addressing problems of inequality that originate from oppressive policies and practices related to race, gender, and economic privilege or the lack thereof, among others. social reconstructionists look to education in general, and the curriculum in particular, to facilitate consciousness-raising about social inequality, with a view to building a better society for all people. more specifically, social reconstructionists “consider human experience to be shaped most powerfully by cultural factors and assume that meaning in people’s lives is determined by their social experiences” (schiro, 2008, p. 6). 52 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 advocates of this ideology endeavor to stimulate re-thinking by curriculum practitioners and curriculum evaluators about the ways in which instruction is planned, the instructional methodologies employed, and the selection of textbooks and other curriculum resources linked to the content of the curriculum (see schiro, 2008). as a university curriculum practitioner, i decided to rethink the curriculum that informed a module that i had been teaching. i did this by focusing at a micro-level on critically redesigning a unit of work in a science education module. the structure of the module, and its location in my institutional culture, mirrored that of connell’s (2016) in ways that heightened my discomfort. connell (2016) drew on hountonji’s views when she described her module in sociology as having a global centre in the usa, secondarily in western europe, almost all influential theory coming from the metropole; all prestigious journals published in the metropole; sociology in the periphery supplying data but intellectually dependent on the metropole; and careers in the periphery strongly affected by training and recognition in the metropole. (p. 9) before embarking on this study, i reflected on the curriculum related to the module i taught, and found that the content, pedagogy, and underlying philosophy was in keeping with a colonial education framework. in order to address the epistemic violence that the colonial education canon inflicts on students, i sought a new orientation to teaching and learning. this was achieved by re-appropriating ik and requesting support from an ik expert to teach part of the module. this university science education content module, which is studied by preservice science teachers, was changed to incorporate the teaching of iks. in this paper, therefore, i provide insight into these pre-service teachers’ perspectives about iks education. i do so by focusing on the role of an ik holder as a teacher educator in higher education, and on the value the pre-service teachers attributed to her and to ik. i focus on re-imagining this south african science curriculum in socially just ways that can contribute to hountonji’s “épistémologies du sud.” the new curriculum draws selectively on philosophical constructs of cultural revivalism and the intellectual independence espoused by african thinkers, as well as on the social reconstruction curriculum ideology of other theorists, in order to answer the question: “how can the incorporation of iks into a unit of work transform and decolonise a science module in the higher education curriculum?” teaching is not a neutral activity and the source of knowledge, as well as the people for whom it is intended, should be critically interrogated, as part of the process of decolonising the curriculum (ruddock, 2018). i think that how one teaches, what one teaches, and why one teaches depends on the intended learner, among other things. in an autocratic political order, the learner is expected to passively accept received dogma. in a more liberal setting, it is expected that the learner will be sceptical and more critical. what one teaches and how one teaches depends on one’s view of reality and that of one’s students. bearing this in mind, i formulated two sub-questions. “what are pre-service teachers’ views about being taught a unit of work in the science curriculum by an ik holder mudaly: towards decolonising a module in the pre-service science teacher education curriculum . . . 53 and how can this create spaces for transformation?” and “what indigenous knowledge can be learnt from an ik holder, and how can this be used to transform a unit of work in the curriculum?” i analysed these by examining ways in which the who, what, and how of incorporating ik into the curriculum created spaces for transformation and decolonisation. methodology this was a phenomenological study that explored how some pre-service science teachers experienced a science education module that was infused with ik and taught by an ik expert. the ik expert was introduced to me by the principal of an eco-school, which was the site of field trips that i had arranged for several cohorts of students over a period of time. having been raised in a deeply rural setting, where knowledge of community elders was respected, the ik expert shared in the knowledge and practices of the community. she became an educator, continued to grow indigenous plants for food and medicine, and learned about the value of these plants from indigenous knowledge holders and from written texts. a qualitative methodological approach underpinned this phenomenological study. central to phenomenology are conscious human beings and their lived experiences (groenewald, 2004). in this study the pre-service teachers’ experience of being taught by an ik expert, and their experience of incorporating ik into science content knowledge, to understand how this way of doing things differently can work towards decolonising the curriculum, was explored. this involved designing activities to enable these pre-service teachers to rupture boundaries of familiar ways of knowing and doing—to take flight in different directions (see le grange, 2014, 2016). pre-service teachers were encouraged to enter a transdisciplinary space by including ik in their mainstream science content knowledge, and in this way, contribute to transforming and decolonising the science teacher education module, a part of the university curriculum. the data generation instruments were questionnaires that were based on a field trip, and portfolios of evidence for vegetable and medicinal plant gardens. these instruments were designed to elicit how these pre-service teachers “[thought] and [felt] in most direct ways” (bentz & shapiro, 1998, p. 96). they were encouraged to describe their lived experience, unconstrained by the conventional science content knowledge and by a conventional higher education teacher. in social science research, questionnaires are useful tools to generate information about people’s perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours (bertram & christiansen, 2014; strange, forest, oakley, & the ripple team, 2003). questionnaires were distributed to pre-service teachers who were asked to reflect on the field trip and provide their views about learning iks, and about learning from an ik holder. the pre-service teachers were also required to cultivate gardens and document this process in a portfolio of evidence. according to singh and samad (2015) portfolios of evidence are suitable for capturing evidence of process-oriented tasks and are useful in assessing how students construct meaning through reflection. therefore, these tools for generating data were well suited to this study. 54 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 i invited the cohort of 224 pre-service teachers, who were registered to study the biological science for educators 310 module, to participate in this study. this purposive sample was selected based on the following criteria: they were registered to study the biological science for educators 310 module, attended the field trip, and cultivated gardens. however, only 50 pre-service teachers completed the questionnaires. normally, i taught this course along with a tutor but during the field trip an ik holder taught the pre-service teachers. she focused on ethnobotany to underscore the nutritional and medicinal value of african indigenous plants. the participants were then requested to complete a questionnaire about their views and experiences related to the ethnobotany activities and the ik holder as a teacher educator. when they returned to the university campus, they cultivated vegetable and medicinal plant gardens for health, either on the campus or at schools in the communities where they resided. they worked in groups and engaged in the following activities. • made enquiries from health providers in community clinics about general health challenges that could be addressed through nutrition. • read about plants that they could cultivate in order to manage a community health condition. this knowledge was obtained from diverse sources, including notes from the ethnobotany activity, and published works (from western and indigenous sources) on the value of indigenous plants. • selected a plot. drew a plan of the garden. indicated how the soil would be nourished and the pest control measures to be used (based on indigenous knowledge and permaculture education). • prepared the soil. sowed the seeds and seedlings. documented the growth using pictures. • reflected on the learning that occurred and the potential usefulness of this project to life sciences teachers. data analysis and findings following gray (2013) i used thematic analysis for recognising and analysing patterns of meaning in the data. i coded data that had features related to decolonising the curriculum. the codes were then organised into themes (see maree, 2016). i used symbols to indicate the data source. for example, qp1 contained data from the questionnaire completed by participant 1. data from three portfolios was admitted, where gp1, for example, represents the garden portfolio from group 1. the first set of findings relates to the theme, the who and how of incorporating iks into the curriculum, and how this enabled transformation. first, pre-service teachers’ views on the pedagogy in general were elicited, and second, they compared my pedagogy as a higher education lecturer along with that of the tutor with how the ik holder taught. i analysed the next set of findings according to the what of incorporating iks into the curriculum, and how this allowed for the possibility of transformation. in this section the pre-service teachers provided evidence of which plants they had cultivated, and the reasons for their choices. this infusion of iks into the mudaly: towards decolonising a module in the pre-service science teacher education curriculum . . . 55 curriculum mirrored le grange’s (2016) vision of a decolonised curriculum based on an “emergent indigenous paradigm” (p. 9). theme 1: the who and how of incorporating iks and creating spaces for transforming the curriculum pre-service teachers were impressed by the pedagogy of the indigenous knowledge holder, and they enjoyed the learning experience, as is evident in the following excerpts. qp1: she explained clearly . . . had a loud voice. she was knowledgeable because she answered questions that were asked. qp2: the traditional knowledge holder as a teacher in higher education is of paramount importance to the teaching and learning profession. she brings in new insights into the (previously) unknown traditional knowledge system. she has provided us with traditional knowledge that has benefited our health. a reflection in gp3 resonated with these views in the replies to the questionnaires. gp3: we absolutely enjoyed her because firstly woman power is amazing. it was also very fun and interesting learning from her because there was an open platform to ask anything. she was knowledgeable and loved what she was doing. pre-service teachers were asked whether learning from the ik holder was different when compared to learning from me and the tutor. the following responses were received, among others. qp2: learning from her was different from the lecturer because it was not educator centered and it promoted the spirit of communication and interaction. qp5: unlike here (at university) (the ik holder) did not passively teach . . . [she] used plants themselves . . . we were able to touch them when [she was] teaching. qp7: [she] showed us everything . . . [we were] not just imagining things like in lectures [when] things are not shown to us. qp38: we were allowed to feel texture, smell [plants] etcetera as compared to lectures where most of the work is theory based. similar views were expressed by the groups who reflected on the knowledge they had gained from the ik holder in their portfolios. gp1: we enjoyed learning from her. she was very knowledgeable and the things she spoke about are not just things she has read or learned about but she literally has these trees and plants in her garden at home and she uses them on herself and her family as well. 56 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 gp3: the ik holder was calmer in comparison to my lecturer. we felt we could ask her anything. we learnt that a lot of plants are easy for us to access and within our reach and have value that [we] did not know they had. gp2: learning from her was very interesting and exciting because she was talking from her experience. everything she said were based on things she had tried, unlike from the lecturer where knowledge is [taken] from the textbook and then [given] to us. exploring the who and how of incorporating iks into the curriculum raises a mirror to teachers in higher education. the pre-service teachers saw a marked difference in pedagogical approaches of the ik holder, as compared to the tutor and me as higher education teachers. they found the ik holder, as a pedagogue in higher education, to be superior to us because she adopted a practical, hands-on approach to knowledge construction. she provided them with specimens of plants and medicinal products derived from them. the ik holder encouraged pre-service science teachers to use their senses maximally in order to examine and interact with the plant materials. these creative ways of teaching that are underpinned by the oneness of self with the environment is an example of le grange’s “ubuntu-currere” (2016, p. 9). the indigenous knowledge holder encouraged discussions among the pre-service teachers and facilitated peer learning. the pre-service teachers had greater confidence in her subject matter knowledge which they believed to have been constructed through lived experience and not simply acquired through transmission from a textbook. her knowledge of instructional strategies, which involved an inquiry approach using concrete materials, was useful to these pre-service teachers. this created opportunities for thinking differently and transformatively about what constitutes useful pedagogical knowledge, and about some aspects of the identity of an authentic teacher in higher education. kincheloe (2011) described the cartesian-newtonian way of thinking, which shapes higher education science teacher curricula, as being characterised by a disconnect between that which is central to an inquiry and its context. in their lectures, pre-service teachers had to “imagine . . . things that are not shown to us” when we privileged abstract content and “show[ed] [them] pictures.” the methods employed by us as lecturer and tutor reminded me of le grange’s (2016) citation of odora-hopper and richard’s criticism of western disciplinary knowledge as being “distant” (p. 9) and removed from lived experience. the ik holder’s epistemology transcended simply knowing about medicinal plants. she adopted a pedagogical approach that privileged pre-service teachers’ interaction with the physical environment and the plant specimens and encouraged their construction of knowledge in their being a part of the natural world, and not separate from it, and this represented a pathway toward curriculum transformation. the ik holder had deep synergy with what she taught, how she taught, and why she taught, and this probably stemmed from what zinyeka (2013) refers to as a more comprehensive, holistic view of the world. therefore, it was impossible to separate the who from the how of incorporating iks into the curriculum, because the learning and teaching by the ik holder was embedded in her lived experience—in how she perceived her reality. this route towards the “becoming of a pedagogic life” where the ik holder immersed herself in the “more-than-human world” resonates with tenets of “ubuntu-currere” mudaly: towards decolonising a module in the pre-service science teacher education curriculum . . . 57 as a consideration for transforming and decolonising the curriculum (le grange, 2016, p. 9). the difference between her production of knowledge and her being a teacher was blurred (see kincheloe, 2011). engaging the ik holder as a teacher in higher education revealed the power of difference, the power of multiple ways of interpreting reality and multiple perspectives, which kincheloe (2008) referred to as multilogicality. the transformative potential of multilogicality became evident in this study because it enabled these pre-service teachers to develop a heightened consciousness of the type of life sciences teachers they can become. theme 2: the what of incorporating iks into a module in the curriculum and how this can create spaces for transformation the what of creating a culturally inclusive curriculum was inextricably linked to human needs, especially in the context of the pre-service teachers’ communities where health challenges are exacerbated by economic deprivation. the following excerpts from field trip questionnaires and garden portfolios provide details of what the pre-service teachers chose to plant, and how this could be used by their communities and themselves. qp10: indigenous knowledge makes our lives easier . . . [we] do not [need to] consume [spend] a lot of money. for example, use indigenous plants to heal a flu. qp24: traditional knowledge helps people heal themselves without the need for money. it encourages agricultural practices and ignites business potential. qp26: [we learned] several methods of planting and the plants are healthier since no chemicals are used. the personal value of ik also underpinned the pre-service teachers’ choice of plants to cultivate. they saw the link between iks and their lived experiences, and the advantage of engaging with what heleta (2016b) refers to as african-centered epistemic perspectives. qp5: scientific knowledge from its foundation is different from indigenous knowledge. not all of us want medicines which are scientifically prepared, some of us prefer the old method of medication to treat diseases. qp46: i would use these plants for my own health and suggest them to others because it is easy to grow them, they do not need much water as they are indigenous plants . . . we will not get side effects. this marked the possibility of decolonisation and transformation of the curriculum, because they refused to consume western medicinal remedies blindly, and instead, turned their attention to the benefits of african medicinal plants. these views expressed in the questionnaires matched the work that was documented in portfolios of evidence. group 3 developed the garden shown in figure 1, to manage colds and influenza. 58 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 figure 1: medicinal garden cultivated by group 3 group 3 presented their choices of plants in a table. table 1: uses of african indigenous medicinal plants plant nutrients usefulness iboza antimicrobial agents malaria, cough, sore throat, bronchitis iziphephetho (african ginger) vitamin b3 vitamin b5 antiseptic agents influenza, nausea gp3: this plant in the middle is iboza and is used to cure bronchitis. there is also african ginger which we call iziphephetho which helps with nausea and flu. these plants are easily accessible in comparison to processed products, for example, pills. the plants are safe to use because they have no added chemicals. the traditional lady showed us how to make the medicine for iboza. infuse the leaves in hot water for 10 minutes and drink that water like a tea. she showed us the roots of iziphephetho can be dried and ground and put in water to drink. group 2 planted, among other crops, amadumbe and imifino, shown in figure 2. other plants in this mixed garden were carrots, beetroot, and tomatoes. the target population of this group was people in their communities who had poor vision. mudaly: towards decolonising a module in the pre-service science teacher education curriculum . . . 59 figure 2: food garden for health cultivated by group 2 group 2 presented a table to show the usefulness of each plant for eye health. table 2: indigenous and non-indigenous plants for promoting eye health plant nutrients usefulness carrots vitamin a vitamin e keeps the eyes healthy. improves vision. reduces risk of age-related macular degeneration. tomatoes vitamin a promotes good functioning of retina amadumbe anti-oxidants beta carotene maintain good eye health beetroot lutein phytochemicals good eyesight imifino/ morogo vitamin a vitamin e iron prevents free radicle damage and is good for eye health this group focused on indigenous and non-indigenous crops that promote eye health. preservice teachers indicated that these plants were particularly useful to poor communities because the clinics and hospitals are always full [of people]. sometimes people do not get medication or glasses because it has run out and they do not have money to see a private eye doctor. teaching them about these plants will be highly beneficial. (gp2). 60 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 this marked a decentring of western knowledge and the production of that “third space” (le grange, 2016, p. 10) in which different knowledges can function together to create an accountable curriculum. these pre-service teachers valued indigenous plants for the addressing of health conditions, to consume as nutrient-dense food, and for coping to some extent with the poverty that makes health care inaccessible. this is significant because self-reliance through appropriating african knowledge (kiti, 2013) was clearly articulated by participant 24 who asserted that “traditional knowledge helps people heal themselves.” onwu and mosimege (2004) have emphasised that the benefits of ik lie in its localised, community-responsive nature, and, in this study, these advantages became evident. the pre-service teachers’ explanations for selecting specific plants were embedded in a deep understanding of the contexts of people and their lived experiences, and a respect for african heritage. this marked a divergence from the parochial cause-effect explanations that characterise western epistemology and recalled le grange’s (2014) conceptualization of currere as an active force in unleashing expressions of africanisation, and signaled a space for curriculum transformation. learning about the value of these indigenous plants prompted me to search for more information. i found that research into the value of african indigenous plants is taking place internationally on a large scale. its reach beyond the association with cultural heritage towards pharmaceutical innovations which marks the interfacing of iks with other knowledge systems, is increasing (dst, 2004). the importance of leafy green indigenous african vegetables, such as imifino, has been underscored in several research studies (jansen van rensburg et al., 2007; maseko et al., 2018; nkobole-mhlongo, 2016). roots of plants such as iziphephetho (african ginger) is a prized herbal medicine used to treat a multitude of conditions given its antiseptic properties (herbal africa, 2016). amadumbe, a root vegetable, is well known for its role in regulating blood glucose levels, among its other health promoting properties (mawoyo, 2017). the antimicrobial activity of iboza (tetradenia riparia) has also been studied extensively and its effectiveness proven through laboratory testing (njau, alcorn, buza, chirino-trejo, & ndakidemi, 2014). having been taught the ik-infused module by an ik holder who used different pedagogical approaches, what they learned about what they could choose to plant along with the contexts in which these plants could be used, created a change in these pre-service teachers at a deeper level. through decolonising the curriculum by repositioning the pedagogy and the pedagogue in higher education, these pre-service teachers were galvanised into “rediscovering and recovering” (chilisa, cited in le grange, 2016, p. 3) their culture. the importance they attached to reclaiming indigenous knowledge was evident. qp18: as teachers we should fight for traditional knowledge to be taught at schools. traditional knowledge plays a significant role in the lives of many. qp22: having a traditional knowledge holder in education is highly beneficial and . . . provides us with a wide range of knowledge that cannot be found in books. mudaly: towards decolonising a module in the pre-service science teacher education curriculum . . . 61 qp24: traditional knowledge helps africans and other people to heal themselves . . . seeing people further their studies in traditional medicine is really wonderful. it shows that not all of us are lost and that not all things that help heal us when we are sick is western. qp45: the traditional knowledge holder allows you to learn and grasp hidden knowledge. a few pre-service teachers adopted an almost activist role in reclaiming ik into the main system of knowledge production. they called for this hidden knowledge that, according to heleta (2016b) and kruger and fataar (2017) has been excluded from the curriculum and denigrated during centuries of exploitation and subjugation, to be reappropriated, and taught formally in the school curriculum. the role of indigenous knowledge in enabling “africans and other people to heal themselves” as articulated by qp24, echoes hountonji’s (2009) advocacy for a focus on knowledge that addresses problems of africans and develops selfreliance. the assertion that “it shows that not all of us are lost and that not all things that help heal us when we are sick is western” is powerful. it reveals an unveiling by this pre-service teacher of what kincheloe (2008) thinks of as ideological and epistemological inscriptions of mainstream knowledge frameworks, and the epistemic violence that occurs when people become lost, as it were, because their knowledge systems are subjugated (heleta, 2016b). several possibilities for the transformation and decolonisation of the module in the teacher education curriculum that was infused with ik, became visible. first, there should be deep reflection and analysis of what constitutes the professional identity of an authentic teacher in higher education (he). a teacher whose knowledge is embedded in lived experience could be better suited to become an he pedagogue, but then so could those of us who are taking this lesson to heart. second, using instructional strategies that favour an inquiry approach and concrete materials, with which students can interact using their senses, is recommended. third, selecting settings and curriculum content, using pedagogical strategies that point to teachers’ and students’ lived experiences, is valuable. finally developing curriculum activities that depart from the goal of mastering sterile facts, and favouring knowledge that is responsive to social needs, is vital. concluding remarks i have argued for the recentering of african voices and philosophies in the remaking of an intellectual culture, but i do not favour the reproduction of the notion of a single hegemonic episteme to be mastered. therefore, following kruger and fataar (2017) i have drawn on a plurality of voices in order to re-imagine how the university curriculum can be democratised. using insights from le grange’s concept of ubuntu-currere and an emergent indigenous paradigm (2016), kincheloe’s transformative multilogicality (2008), and hountonji’s (2009) call for an “african-based tradition of knowledge” (p. 9), i found an ik holder and positioned her as a legitimate teacher in a, he education course. in keeping with hountonji’s (2009) reminder of knowledge production that enables us to meet the natural needs of african societies, and kruger and fataar’s (2017) advocacy for a 62 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 human-centric orientation to knowledge, these pre-service teachers selected plants that helped to alleviate specific health conditions among people in their communities. by tapping into locally based and locally produced indigenous knowledge that, as mentioned above, several pre-service teachers described as hidden knowledge and by interweaving this with other forms of knowledge, they blurred the lines between indigenous and colonial, and between non-western and western knowledge. this interweaving of knowledge in its use of the power of diverse perspectives created a platform for the university curriculum as a “trading zone for intercultural exchange” (kincheloe, 2008, p. 7). kincheloe (2008) described the digression from the monocultural perspectives of who is the legitimate knower, what is legitimate knowledge, and how it is produced in higher education, as “crawling through a new curriculum wormhole” (p. 8). in this study, i created a new curriculum wormhole by drawing on previously marginalised ik and on an ik holder’s expertise and ability to re-imagine who can teach, how they can teach, and what they can teach. the status quo was disrupted by my finding and using a teacher who incorporated unconventional pedagogical strategies that did not mirror the so-called normal learning spaces in he. in addition, this led to the pre-service teachers’ understanding of how this can alleviate the suffering of people in their communities. the pre-service teachers identified “what knowledge is [of] most worth” (le grange, 2014, p. 1285) in their local contexts. this disruption of the epistemological status quo has the potential to shape their teacher identity in ways that enable them to develop their curricula and pedagogy by drawing from and contributing to a home-grown african epistemology. with reference to chilisa’s (2012) five phases of decolonisation (cited in le grange, 2016), i mourned the insidious ways in which the original module, as part of the university curriculum, had perpetuated epistemic violence by silencing alternative knowledge systems. the pre-service teachers, the ik holder, and i entered the dreaming, commitment, and 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(2013). onwu and mosimege on “indigenous knowledge systems and science and technology education: a dialogue” some remaining issues. greener journal of educational research, 3(9), 432–437. microsoft word c8900 full issue 12dec.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 89, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i89a06 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x influence of selected social factors on career decisionmaking of grade 12 learners in township secondary schools in south africa oluwakemi b. ajayi wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa kemiajayia@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1446-2906 moeniera moosa wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa moeniera.moosa@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6231-9370 peter jo aloka wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa peter.aloka@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4298-9211 (received: 18 october 2021; accepted: 7 june 2022) abstract career decision-making is a challenge to most learners in secondary schools in south africa. in this study, we examined the influence of selected social factors (influence of older siblings, peer influence, teachers’ influence, and career information services) on career decision-making of grade 12 learners in township secondary schools in south africa. we adopted a correlational survey research design. the sample size of 260 learners was obtained using the stratified random sampling technique. the questionnaire that included reference to peer influence, teachers’ influence, career information service, influence of older siblings, and career decisionmaking was used to collect data. we used cronbach’s alpha coefficient analysis to measure the internal consistency of the questionnaire; all sub-scales had excellent internal consistent reliability. we used the kaisermeyer-oklin measure of sample adequacy (kmo index) and the bartlett’s test of sphericity to confirm internal validity. we analysed quantitative data using inferential statistics such as pearson product moment correlation, linear, and multiple regression analysis. according to the findings, the strongest correlation was between teacher influence and career decision-making (r=.643, n=204, p.01), followed by the relationship between career information services and career decision-making (r =.607, n=204, p.01) while peer influence had the least relationship to career decision-making (r (204) =.514, p.01. the influence of older siblings also had a significant direct relationship with career decision-making among the grade 12 learners (r=.566, n=204, p<.01). we recommend that teacher counsellors adopt a multifaceted approach in developing career decision making programmes for learners in secondary schools. keywords: social factors, decision making, career, grade 12, secondary school, township schools 106 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 introduction secondary school learners confront a significant barrier in making career decisions throughout their lives. career development is an important component of psychological and social development and is an important element of human growth (baglama & uzunboylu, 2017). a career is a set of work functions that a person encounters throughout the course of their life (super, 1980). career development is any activity made in the career decisionmaking process, whereas career choice is the start of a certain occupation or vocation (baruch et al., 2015). a person’s lifestyle, as well as personal and professional fulfilment, have an impact on career choices (betz & taylor, 2006). a process-oriented approach that explores how people decide is defined as career decision-making along with the events that lead to professional choices (levin et al., 2020). gati (1996) pointed out that the career decisionmaking process has some distinct characteristics, such as the fact that an individual can choose from a wide range of career options and that there is a wealth of information available for each career option. furthermore, various aspects of the profession should be considered. the south african education system is in the process of modernising and correcting the educational disparities created by the apartheid era. during this transitional time, all learners in south african secondary schools are expected to obtain a quality and equitable education that will serve as a basis for future career development. township learners in south african secondary schools are currently choosing careers in a shrinking economy in which unemployment is rising and affirmative action initiatives aimed at reversing prior inequities in employment prospects to allow for systemic equity are shaky (karlsson & moberg, 2013). personal desires, rather than the needs of the people, drive south african society and this is at odds with african traditions (maree & van der westhuizen, 2011). a suggestion from the third international mathematics and science study, in which south africa came in last, underlined the need to improve the subject choices of south african students (reddy et al., 2016). the south african department of higher education encourages school and parent engagement in secondary school students’ subject choices and suggests that more research be done on the factors that influence these choices and, eventually, career decisions (department of higher education, 2012). enache and matei (2017) emphasised the importance of organised activities between and among the government, parents, and schools to provide learners with the necessary resources and an environment that supports and motivates learners to make the right career decisions. theoretical framework john krumboltz’s social learning theory of career choice influenced this research. this theory explains how social elements such as the environment, learning experiences, and task approach abilities influence children’s career choices (krumboltz et al., 1976; schofield, 2017). environmental factors include education, culture, economic standing, and political inclination, all of which may be associated with decision-making (schofield, 2017). while task approach skills are learned, learning experiences are the role models that are crucial to forming the individual’s perspectives about careers and their own professional path ajayi et al.: influence of selected social factors on career decision-making . . . 107 (schofield, 2017). according to this theory, the goal of career counsellors should be to assist individuals in identifying their career views and understanding how social factors influence them (krumboltz et al., 1976). this theory fills the void left by holland’s career choice theory that focused solely on personality traits and influenced the current study because it considers factors like environment, learning experiences, and task approach skills to be significant when one is making career decisions, whereas social factors like parental influence, peer influence, teacher influence, and the influence of older siblings are included in the three broad factors of social learning theory. literature review literature on teachers’ influence on career choices exists but with varied points of view. in pakistan, for example, khan et al. (2012) found that students regard their instructors as role models and place a high value on their career advice and counselling. in a study conducted in south africa by shumba and naong (2012), educators were found to be major influences on learners’ job choices and goals. in kenya, njeri (2013) found that teachers as role models had the greatest influence on career aspirations. in contrast, mungahu (2013) reported that students were of the opinion that teachers’ influence did not affect their career choices at university. in nigeria, akinjide and sehinde (2011) found that teachers play a major role in influencing learners towards attaining career choice preparedness. moreover, georgiana (2015) added that teachers need to carry the responsibility of guiding learners towards career choice preparedness. according to knefelkamp and slepitza (1976), a teacher educator might find it advantageous to require students to engage in the investigation of alternative vocations that still have a teaching component, such as coaching, tutoring, administrating, or counselling. in south africa, abe and chikoko (2020) discovered that educators may help students make decisions that reflect students’ values and experiences by understanding students’ perspectives on career decision-making. furthermore, learners’ career choices and aspirations are influenced by the support of their families and teachers. literature indicates that parents influence the career decisions of learners. bojuwoye and mbanjwa (2006) discovered that factors like high parental expectations of children and appropriate family communication, as well as factors like the prestige status of some occupations, school curricular subjects, academic performance, teacher influences, and peer pressure all had sturdy positive influences on career choices. tillman (2015) found that children of educators had slightly more parental influence on their profession choices than children of non-educators. according to akosah-twumasi et al. (2021), students had a significant need to acquire parental approval, and regardless of whether this approval was obtained early or later, prioritising family responsibilities and commitments was the main focus for all participants. allowing students to negotiate or even override their parents’ preferences in choosing a career path may exacerbate the already difficult career decision-making process of young people, particularly if their parents are adamant about maintaining their heritage cultural practices (akosah-twumasi et al., 2018). similarly, kumar (2016) discovered that parents have a considerable influence on their children’s choices of a profession. the impact of a father’s influence on a student’s decision 108 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 about a profession choice was found to be greater than that of the mother. whiston and keller (2004), however, found that the influence was indirect, owing to factors such as student occupational expectations that influenced career choice. according to some scholars, learners’ career decisions are influenced by their peers. in zimbabwe, for example, mtemeri (2020) found that students are impacted by their peers in a variety of ways while they are selecting careers. peer advice, encouragement, and education were the most important predictors. students, however, disputed that they seek peer approval for their career choices. in china, yi-hui (2006) discovered that student contacts with peers having various interests, and being of different races and origins can promote reflection, knowledge, and beliefs that lead to new ways of thinking about the world, other peers, and eventually, about themselves. similarly, in finland, kiuru (2008) highlighted the significance of peer contact when he noted that the academic direction of the individual teenager’s career path may be influenced in the long run by the peer group to which they belong. in kenya, okiror and otabong (2015) stated that students seek mentorship, information, and guidance on professional concerns from peers who have had comparable experiences, especially when traditional routes such as school career guidance are not functioning well. peer interactions were shown to be a crucial component in helping students choose jobs in a nigerian study by bankole and ogunsakin (2015). peers and friends influence career choice making regarding professional careers, job selection, employment prospects, and earning tendencies (naz et al., 2014). in the social sciences, however, alika (2011) found no significant association between peer group influence and career choice. conger and little (2010) found that older siblings serve as role models for younger siblings in terms of how to navigate these transitions successfully, and that younger siblings gain from their older siblings’ positive and negative experiences, as well as information about the nature of these transitions. according to mileksky (2005), those who have sibling back-up have higher life contentment and sense of worth as well as lower rates of depression and loneliness. sibling social support is also a powerful compensation for low peer and parental support. peer attachments also influence learners’ self-efficacy in making career decisions, according to wolfe and betz (2004). furthermore, according to spudich (2014), the quality of the relationship between twins who chose the same job path reflected affection and intimacy. the comfortable and reassuring aspect of their relationship was similarly beneficial in leading them to the same occupation, according to participants. for schultheiss et al. (2002), social support, comprised of emotional support, social integration, esteem support, and information support, is heavily influenced by the most important sibling, i.e., the one who is considered closest. literature also indicates that career information in schools influences the career decisions of learners. for example, datar and ahmad (2019) showed that career information services can help students better comprehend their options. this suggests that, if the career information service is introduced, learners’ understanding of careers will improve. moreover, muttaqin et al. (2017) concluded that one of the benefits of career information services is to improve students’ career understanding. similarly, oats and rukewe (2020) revealed that the dynamic ajayi et al.: influence of selected social factors on career decision-making . . . 109 nature of the job choosing and planning process influences students’ career decisions, and that, as a result, students want career counselling and information in order to make educated and prudent decisions. witko et al. (2005) revealed that students in all grades acknowledged the presence and importance of career counselling services but desired more information about available courses, post-secondary education, and other support for career planning. similarly, bloxom et al. (2008) confirmed the availability of career development programs that did not meet students’ needs and called for effective career and life planning educational programs. in contrast, mesa (2013) found that students, to a large extent, do not have access to career information to make realistic plans for their future, while some are unaware of career and guidance training opportunities at various levels of post-secondary school education. mekgwe (2010) concluded that limited time, lack of trained personnel, lack of key career exploration activities and resource materials in schools hindered effective career service delivery. amoah et al. (2015) reported that students strongly agreed that all forms of career guidance and counselling provided by their school influenced their decisions. dabula and makura (2013), in south africa, revealed that such a programme helped students overcome their fears, confusion, and lack of confidence in the process of making career choices in their respective schools. in kenya, getange and sagwe (2016) reported that students received little or no career guidance because of the inadequate training of the teachers, too few career guidance sessions, and, in some schools, none at all. moreover, ojiah et al. (2015) found that guidance and counselling services are not available in all schools and recommended that stakeholders in education should make efforts to extend the services to all schools and ensure, through regular monitoring, that counsellors are doing their jobs. many learners in township schools in south africa are assumed to lack adequate information about career options, so their choices are deeply rooted in their perception of the ideal vocation, the subjects they choose in grade 10 in secondary school, and the factors that may be related to social ones, that influence them. furthermore, there is very little literature in south africa relating to studies on learner career decision-making. as a result, the purpose of this study was to look into the social elements that influence grade 12 learners’ career decisions in township secondary schools in gauteng, south africa. the present study this study examined the influence of selected social factors on the career decision-making of grade 12 learners in township secondary schools in south africa. research hypotheses the following research hypotheses were proposed and tested: ho1: there is no significant peer influence on career decision-making among the grade 12 learners. ho2: there is no significant teachers’ influence on career decision-making among the grade 12 learners. 110 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 ho3: there is no significant influence of career information service on career decision-making among the grade 12 learners. ho4: there is no significant influence of older siblings on career decision-making among the grade 12 learners. methods research design we collected and analysed data using a correlational survey study approach. the statistical test used to detect the tendency or trend for two (or more) variables or sets of data to fluctuate consistently is known as correlation (creswell, 2012). for this study, a correlational design was best since it allowed two variables to indicate whether they had a positive or negative association. this design aids in the prediction of scores and the explanation of the link between factors. study participants the study’s target demographic was 720 male and female learner responders, 120 from each of the six schools chosen. the participants were chosen using a stratified random selection procedure. as a result, 260 learners were chosen as the sample size for this study, based on the population (720) proposed by krejcie and morgan (1970). furthermore, by taking into account criteria such as the sex of the grade 12 learners, stratification contributed to obtaining a suitable and equitable number of participants. as a result, this sampling approach was employed to ensure that each school in the sample size for this study was appropriately represented. research tools we used questionnaires to collect data on the social factors and career decision-making among learners. the social factors contained in the questionnaire as constructs included peer influence, teachers’ influence, career information service, and influence of older siblings. the two items on the peer influence questionnaire were “i take important decisions without being influenced by my friends’ suggestions” and “i like to choose a career of my own, irrespective of my friends’ advice.” two items on the teachers’ influence questionnaire were “information i got from my teacher helped me to choose a career” and “my teacher informs me about different opportunities.” two items on the career information service questionnaire were “school career days influenced my career choice” and “i spoke to a career counsellor at my school about a career.” two items on the influence of older siblings’ questionnaire were “i often go to my older sibling(s) for support and advice” and “my older sibling(s)’ career choice(s) influence my career direction.” the responses on social factors are indicated in a 5point likert scale, strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), neutral (3), agree (4), and strongly agree (5). the dependent variable, career decision-making, was also measured using 18 items on the career decision-making scale of which some were “i have decided on a career ajayi et al.: influence of selected social factors on career decision-making . . . 111 and feel comfortable with it”, “several careers have equal appeal to me. i’m having a difficult time deciding among them” and “if i had the skills or the opportunity, i know what i would be but this choice is really not possible for me. i haven’t given much consideration to any other alternatives.” the responses on social factors are indicated in a 4-point likert scale, exactly like me (1), very much like me (2), only slightly like me (3), and not at all like me (4). the internal consistency of the questionnaire was measured using cronbach’s alpha coefficient analysis that is the most consistent test of inter-item consistency reliability for likert scaled or rating scaled questionnaires. table 1 internal consistency: cronbach’s alpha results for the questionnaires scale no. items cronbach’s alpha item (s) deleted conclusion (reliable/unreliable) • peer influence 3 .737 none good • teacher influence 3 .701 none good • career information service 3 .736 none good • influence of older siblings 6 .792 none good career decision-making 5 .842 none excellent furthermore, while the cronbach’s alpha values for the social factor sub-scales varied, all the values showed sufficient internal consistent reliability, with the teachers’ influence sub-scale having the lowest coefficient value of .701 and the influence of older siblings’ sub-scale having the highest coefficient value of .792. similarly, the internal consistent reliability of the career decision-making sub-scale and the problems in career decision sub-scale was excellent, as evidenced by cronbach’s alpha values of .842 and .911, respectively. the survey data was suitably checked using the kaiser-meyer-oklin measure of sampling adequacy (kmo index) and the bartlett’s test of sphericity, as shown in table 2. table 2: kmo and bartlett’s test of social factors sub-scale kaiser-meyer-oklin (kmo index) bartlett’s test for sphericity approx. chi-square df sig. social factors .761 581.404 45 .000 • peer influence .522 76.543 10 .000 • teacher influence .714 176.671 10 .000 • career information service .570 97.254 10 .000 112 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 sub-scale kaiser-meyer-oklin (kmo index) bartlett’s test for sphericity approx. chi-square df sig. • influence of older siblings .657 146.511 10 .000 career decision-making .848 1327.956 153 .000 table 2 shows that the bartlett’s test for sphericity is significant (p0.001, p=0.000) and the kaiser-meyer-hold olkin indices are all >.6 for all the questionnaire’s subscales. as a result of the findings, it was reasonable to assume that the data had enough internal validity and hence could be used for further analysis. procedure this work was first given ethical approval by the university of the witwatersrand’s human research ethics committee. we then got ethical permission from the gauteng department of education in order to gain access to the secondary schools that were sampled. after gaining authorisation from the gauteng department of education, the researchers told the principals of the six secondary schools of their intention to conduct the study. this research was conducted in accordance with ethical standards. because some of the grade 12 students were minors, they were asked to sign a consent form agreeing to engage in the study, and only those who returned the consent form were eligible to participate. learners were advised that their participation in the study was completely optional and that they could drop out at any time. furthermore, given our use of pseudonyms for participants and schools, participant anonymity and confidentiality were preserved at all times. the questionnaires were given out in person in the classroom with the help of the teacher in charge to ensure that the completed questionnaires were returned; they took 30 to 45 minutes to complete. data analysis quantitative data analysis was conducted using the statistical package for the social sciences (spss) computer program version 23. pearson product moment is an example of an inferential statistic. the relationship between the research variables was investigated using correlation, linear, and multiple regression analysis, for example career decision-making and self-efficacy. the hypotheses were tested at the 0.05 level of significance. results the study examined the influence of selected social factors on career decision-making of grade 12 learners in township secondary schools in south africa. we present the results for both descriptive and inferential analysis using tables to indicate correlations among tested variables. the hypothesis that stated that “there is no significant relationship between social factors and career decision-making of grade 12 learners in township secondary schools” was tested. the social factors investigated include the influence of older siblings, peer influence, teachers’ influence, and career information services. the career decision-making was the ajayi et al.: influence of selected social factors on career decision-making . . . 113 response variable while social factors constituted the predictor variable. first, the correlation between the aspects of social factors and career decision making was calculated to determine the direction and magnitude of the linear relationships, as shown in table 3. table 3 correlations between social factors and career decision-making correlations 1 2 3 4 5 career decision-making (1) 1 .514** .643** .607** .566** peer influence (2) 1 .287** .265** .179* teacher influence (3) 1 .342** .327** career information service (4) .346** influence of older siblings (5) 1 ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). * correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). the correlation analysis results in table 3 show, on the one hand, that there is a general association between social characteristics and career decision-making among grade 12 learners. the amplitude of the correlations, on the other hand, differs among social factors, while the changes are minor. for example, the strongest correlation was found between teacher influence and career decision-making (r=.643, n=204, p.01), followed by the relationship between career information services and career decision-making (r =.607, n=204, p.01), but peer influence had the least relationship with career decision-making, r (204) =.514, p.01. in grade 12, the effect of older siblings had a substantial direct link with occupational decision-making (r=.566, n=204, p.01). this implies that there is a general positive relationship between social variables and career choice decision-making, meaning that a stronger tendency to social elements is linked to a speedier career choice decision, and vice versa, among grade 12 learners. in addition, model summaries and regression equations were created, with the predictor variables being different features of job interest and the dependent variable being career decision-making. the findings of the regression analysis are summarised in table 4. table 4 multiple regression results on social factors and career decision-making variable b std. error beta t sig. part corr. (constant) 1.34 0.063 21.131 0.001 peer influence 0.115 0.016 0.276 7.021 0.006 .260 teacher influence 0.108 0.012 0.363 8.767 0.005 .324 114 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 variable b std. error beta t sig. part corr. career information service 0.094 0.013 0.309 7.467 0.002 .276 influence of older siblings 0.084 0.012 0.291 7.152 0.004 .265 adjusted r 2 .722 f-ratio 132.756** df1=4 df2=199 * p-value<.05 ** p-value < .01 and *** p-value < .001 using the multiple regression entry method, we discovered that social factors explained 72.2 % (adjusted r square =.722) of the variation in grade 12 learners’ career decision-making. this has a significant impact on career decision-making. the model’s significance was determined using a multiple regression analysis of variance (anova). as a result, the results were analysed using the null hypothesis that multiple r in the population equals 0, and the study’s findings revealed that the model was statistically significant, f (4, 199) = 132.756, p.01. this implies that among learners in grade 12, social factors are a strong predictor of job choice. further investigation of beta values reveals that the extent of the influence of individual aspects of social variables on vocational decision-making varies. for example, out of the four variables, teacher influence had the highest unique contribution of beta =.363, implying that increasing teacher influence by one standard deviation increases learners’ capacity to make career decisions by.363 standard deviations, and vice versa. similarly, a one-standarddeviation improvement in career information services to learners would result in a.309 (beta =.309) standard-deviation improvement in career decision-making among learners. similarly, when peer and older sibling influence increases by one standard deviation, career decisionmaking increases by .276 and .291 standard deviations, respectively. in addition, our research looked into the contribution of each social element to the total r squared. the results suggest that peer influence has a part correlation coefficient of .260, teacher influence has a part correlation coefficient of .324, job information service has a part correlation coefficient of .276, and older siblings’ impact has a part correlation coefficient of .265. squaring these numbers shows how much of the total variance in professional decisionmaking is explained by the variable and how much r squared would drop if it were not in the model. for example, teacher influence that contributes the most to the model, explains 10.5 percent of the variance in career decision-making, while peer influence that has the least effect, explains only 6.8 percent. similarly, job information services and older siblings’ impact account for 7.6 per cent and 7.0 percent of the variation in career decision-making among grade 12 learners, respectively. when teacher influence, career information service, older sibling influence, and peer influence are not included in the model, r squared drops by 10.5 percent, 7.6 percent, 7.0 percent, and 6.8 percent, respectively. ajayi et al.: influence of selected social factors on career decision finally, the regression equations from table 4 were used to factors on career decision-making among learners in following generic regression prediction model: career decision-making = β where x1 denotes peer influence, x2 denotes teacher influence, x3 denotes career information service, and x4 denotes older sibling influence. as a result, the predicted optimum degree of career decision learners, given social influences and other variables held constant, was represented by career decision-making + .084 x4 units + the coefficients’ values in the model show how much career decision one of the social factors changes while the others remain constant. however, when all the social elements were increased by one unit, the study a significant impact on career decision teacher influence (b=.108; t =8.767; p =.005), career information services (b=.094, t=7.467; p=.002), and older sibling influence (b =.084; t =7.152, p=.004) are all significant. this suggests that a one considerable rise in career decision statistically significant in general, with f (4, 199) = 132.7 this further supports the model finally, the null hypothesis was chosen: social influences have no statistically significant effect on career decision-making amon examined null hypothesis, with h1: at least one i0 being the matching alternative hypothesis. the null hypothesis was rejected since all were equal to zero. as a result, the alternative hypothesis that asserts that social effects have a substantial impact on career decisions chosen. as a result, it was determined that social pressures have a considerable impact on career decision-making among secondary school learners in discussion the impact of certain social elements on grade 12 learners in this study. according to the data, the strongest link between teacher influence and career decision-making was found, followed by the link between career information services career decision-making, but peer influence had the weakest link with career decision the influence of older siblings on students in with professional decision-making. this research supports the soc explains how social elements such as the environment, learning experiences approach skills influence children et al. (2012) found that students regard their lecturers as role models and place a high value on their career advice and counselling. similarly, shumba and naong (2012) discovered that ajayi et al.: influence of selected social factors on career decision finally, the regression equations from table 4 were used to estimate the influence of social making among learners in grade 12. the goal was guided by the following generic regression prediction model: making = β0+β1x1+β2x2 + β3x3+ β4x4 + ε where x1 denotes peer influence, x2 denotes teacher influence, x3 denotes career information service, and x4 denotes older sibling influence. as a result, the predicted optimum degree of career decision-making among grade 12 secondary school n social influences and other variables held constant, was represented by making=1.340 units + .115 x1 + .108 x2 units + error values in the model show how much career decision-making varies when one of the social factors changes while the others remain constant. however, when all the social elements were increased by one unit, the study’s findings revealed that all of them had significant impact on career decision-making. peer influence (b =.115; t=7.021; p=.006), teacher influence (b=.108; t =8.767; p =.005), career information services (b=.094, t=7.467; p=.002), and older sibling influence (b =.084; t =7.152, p=.004) are all statistically significant. this suggests that a one-unit adjustment in each of the social effects leads to a considerable rise in career decision-making among learners in grade 12. the model was statistically significant in general, with f (4, 199) = 132.756, p.01, and adjusted r2 = .722. this further supports the model’s role as a predictor of grade 12 learners’ career choices. finally, the null hypothesis was chosen: social influences have no statistically significant making among learners in grade 12. h0: 1=2=3=4=0 was the examined null hypothesis, with h1: at least one i0 being the matching alternative hypothesis. the null hypothesis was rejected since all were equal to zero. as a result, the alternative that social effects have a substantial impact on career decisions . as a result, it was determined that social pressures have a considerable impact on making among secondary school learners in grade 12. rtain social elements on grade 12 learners’ career decisions was investigated in this study. according to the data, the strongest link between teacher influence and career making was found, followed by the link between career information services making, but peer influence had the weakest link with career decision lder siblings on students in grade 12 had a considerable direct association making. this research supports the social learning theory explains how social elements such as the environment, learning experiences approach skills influence children’s career choices (krumboltz et al., 1976). similarly, et al. (2012) found that students regard their lecturers as role models and place a high value on their career advice and counselling. similarly, shumba and naong (2012) discovered that ajayi et al.: influence of selected social factors on career decision-making . . . 115 estimate the influence of social . the goal was guided by the where x1 denotes peer influence, x2 denotes teacher influence, x3 denotes career information service, and x4 denotes older sibling influence. as a result, the predicted secondary school n social influences and other variables held constant, was represented by + .094 x3 making varies when one of the social factors changes while the others remain constant. however, when all the s findings revealed that all of them had making. peer influence (b =.115; t=7.021; p=.006), teacher influence (b=.108; t =8.767; p =.005), career information services (b=.094, t=7.467; statistically unit adjustment in each of the social effects leads to a . the model was 56, p.01, and adjusted r2 = .722. career choices. finally, the null hypothesis was chosen: social influences have no statistically significant . h0: 1=2=3=4=0 was the examined null hypothesis, with h1: at least one i0 being the matching alternative hypothesis. the null hypothesis was rejected since all were equal to zero. as a result, the alternative that social effects have a substantial impact on career decisions was . as a result, it was determined that social pressures have a considerable impact on career decisions was investigated in this study. according to the data, the strongest link between teacher influence and career making was found, followed by the link between career information services and making, but peer influence had the weakest link with career decision-making. had a considerable direct association ial learning theory that explains how social elements such as the environment, learning experiences, and task 1976). similarly, khan et al. (2012) found that students regard their lecturers as role models and place a high value on their career advice and counselling. similarly, shumba and naong (2012) discovered that 116 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 teachers had a significant impact on learners’ career choices and goals. the findings are also in line with those of bojuwoye and mbanjwa (2006), who found that family characteristics such as parental high expectations of children and adequate family communication are important. furthermore, according to tillman (2015), children of educators have a slightly stronger parental influence on their profession choices than is experienced by children of non-educators. furthermore, akosah-twumasi et al. (2021) revealed that students had a significant need to acquire parental approval, and that, regardless of whether this permission was obtained early or later, prioritising family demands and commitments was the main focus for all participants. furthermore, mtemeri (2020) stated that students are impacted by their friends in a variety of ways when they are making professional decisions. students’ contacts with peers of other interests, races, and backgrounds, according to yi-hui (2006), have the ability to promote introspection, knowledge, and beliefs that can lead to new ways of thinking about the world, other peers, and, eventually, oneself. peer interactions were identified as a crucial influence in helping students choose vocations, according to bankole and ogunsakin (2015). datar and ahmad (2019) also agreed that career information services can help students better comprehend their options. in addition, muttaqin et al. (2017) found that career information services have an impact, one of which is to improve students’ professional comprehension. similarly, oats and rukewe (2020) found that because of the dynamic nature of the job choice and planning process, learners’ career decisions are influenced by a variety of circumstances, and that, as a result, learners want career counselling and information to make educated and prudent decisions. mesa (2013), however, discovered that many students lack access to the career information needed to create realistic plans for their futures and that others are ignorant of career and guidance training possibilities available at various levels of post-secondary education. bloxom et al. (2008) validated the availability of career development programmes that did not satisfy their demands and advocated for the development of effective career and life planning educational programmes. despite the efforts of the south african department of basic education, the life orientation course fails to accomplish its objectives in disadvantaged communities when it comes to work and career learning (kweyama, 2016). conclusion the findings of this study show that the selected social factors (impact of older siblings, peer influence, teacher influence, and career information services) are a significant predictor of career decision-making among learners in grade 12. according to the data, the strongest link was found between teacher influence and career decision-making, followed by the link between career information services and career decision-making and peer influence had the weakest link with career decision-making. the study’s only flaw is that personal variables were not taken into account as potential determinants of learners’ career choices. however, the study’s regression model revealed that, in addition to social influences, there may be additional variables that influence learners’ career decisions. because social variables account for just 72.2 percent of career decision-making, other factors, such as personal ones, could account for the remaining 27.8 percent of career decision making among learners. ajayi et al.: influence of selected social factors on career decision-making . . . 117 consequently, this study revealed that the selected social factors all had a significant influence on career decision-making process of grade 12 learners. recommendation the study’s findings have ramifications for teachers, school principals, and teacher counsellors in helping learners make career decisions. according to the findings, teacher counsellors should take a diverse approach to establishing vocational decision-making programmes for secondary school learners. in south africa, where the unemployment rate is so high, designing programs to prepare high-risk youth for the future is critical. personal aspects impacting secondary school learners’ career decisions should be investigated in future studies. references abe, n. e., & chikoko, v (2020). exploring the factors that influence the career decision of stem students at a university in south africa. international journal of stem education, 7(60), 1–14. akinjide, a., & sehinde, o. 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(2006). the impact of interaction with peers on college students’ development. the journal of human resources and development and adult learning, 81–87. microsoft word c74 full issue 17dec.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 74, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i74a05 decolonising the mind: mathematics teachers explore possibilities for indigenising the school curriculum vimolan mudaly mathematics and computer science cluster, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa mudalyv@ukzn.ac.za http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3570-1256 (received: 10 may 2018; accepted: 31 october 2018) abstract more than twenty years after the ushering in of a democratic order, south african universities remain complicit in driving colonial ideals through curricula (de beer & petersen, 2016; fataar, 2018). these curricula position western people as superior individuals who seek to help disadvantaged non-westerners who are weak, helpless, and dependent, and who cannot survive without aid from western philanthropists. in this paper, i heed the call to re-orient curricula away from knowledge systems that have been used to devalue indigenous african people by othering them in the country of their birth. i do this by creating an opportunity for practising teachers of different races, all of whom were part of a postgraduate module, to reconceptualise the current school curriculum by placing african learners and their contexts at the centre of teaching. in this qualitative study, 20 practising teachers were purposively selected to draw on their own visions and talents and those of their multiracial learners to develop possibilities for indigenising the teaching and learning of mathematics. this was aimed at decolonising their minds by transforming their understanding of themselves and encouraging them to tap into their critical thinking and analytical skills when they were examining the current school curricula. to accomplish this, teachers studied the curriculum assessment policy statements (caps) in mathematics, and developed units of work aimed at valuing indigenous knowledge. data was drawn from teachers’ portfolios of evidence that included photo-narratives and reflections on the unit of work they created. through thematic analysis the findings revealed that teachers and their learners tapped into resources in and outside the school and engaged in work that was responsive to their own needs. however, the exercise demonstrated that these teachers found it difficult to depart from the comfort of the factual mathematics they taught to include indigenous links from contexts around them. this was clear in their attempt to produce contrived associations with the knowledge from caps. keywords: decolonisation, indigenisation, curriculum, mathematics education introduction in the global knowledge economy, dominant forms of knowledge are attributed to western sources (kaya & seleti, 2013; mbembe, 2015; studley, 1998). a closer look at the ubiquitous knowledge frameworks that are credited to western societies reveals that this knowledge has not been formed independently of the rest of the world (connell, 2016). postcolonial and 68 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 other non-western societies have been the source of data for many disciplines. the scientific analysis of this knowledge to which connell (2016) refers as the “theory part of the production of knowledge” (p. 2) occurs mainly in research institutions in the us and in western european countries. she refers to these societies as the metropole of knowledge production that is positioned as epistemologically superior to knowledge produced by other societies. higher education institutions (heis) are complicit in perpetuating the myth that the only episteme that is worth mastering is that which is framed within the theories of the metropole (connell, 2016; heleta, 2016). in south africa, the institutional culture and structure of heis are largely eurocentric (heleta, 2016) and these are the institutions that produce the teachers who are employed to teach at the schools. despite visions of a just and equitable life for all at the dawn of the era of political freedom, south african heis have continued to perpetuate inequality by valuing colonial ideals (badat, 2008; department of higher education and training, 2015). while transformation, equality, and equity are professed through the vision, mission, and policies that govern south african heis, the enacted epistemological traditions remain firmly rooted in eurocentric curricula, teaching, and research (heleta, 2016; mbembe, 2016). in order to decolonise the current south african school curriculum, the processes of rethinking, reframing, and reconstructing existing colonial curricula need to be initiated. before these processes can be advanced, however, increasing awareness about the epistemic violence that lies in the wake of colonial curricula is crucial. epistemic violence manifests in the form of western knowledge being seen to be superior and universal and the erasure of intellectual and cultural contributions of non-western societies to the world at large (heleta, 2016). the consequent denigration of non-western people is of crucial concern and this should underpin any decolonising discourse. one way of addressing this epistemic violence is to foreground the indigenous voices and practices of previously marginalised groups. in this paper, i refer to indigenisation as the act of adapting and transforming the educational landscape to incorporate indigenous knowledge into lessons on mathematics as a way of teaching relevant concepts and ideas. indigenisation encourages a culturally responsive curriculum that addresses the needs, knowledge, and cultures of local communities. this does not imply the creation of completely new knowledge systems but the inclusion of culturally relevant practices, materials, and knowledge into the teaching process that would enhance the understanding of particular concepts. in my consideration of indigenisation from the point of view of a teacher of mathematics, i draw on bernstein’s (1996) belief that recontextualisation is concerned with the “principle for appropriating other discourses and bringing them into a special relation with each other for the purpose of their selective transmission and acquisition” (p. 47). i do not argue for appropriation since that would indicate a kind of annexation of someone else’s knowledge. however, i believe that the re-appropriation of indigenous knowledge that has been relegated to the realms of irrelevancy through the process of recognising that only western and european knowledge is both useful and germane, is essential to the decolonising process. mudaly: decolonising the mind . . . 69 teaching mathematics when one is teaching mathematical knowledge, there are important issues that must be considered (see figure 1). the colonial/westernised knowledge is necessary for learners to develop into productive human beings. this is needed so that they can function in society, the workplace, or at educational institutions. all the factual knowledge becomes necessary for progress in today’s society. dependent on the learner’s trajectory at work or in her or his studies, certain aspects of the curriculum are very important. but, to a large extent, most mathematics is taught in unfamiliar contexts; i suggest that colonial mathematics cannot be isolated from indigenous knowledge that allows for a better understanding of colonial mathematics by providing contexts that are familiar to the learners. often, indigenous knowledge is necessary for living but, because of modernisation, there is a gradually increasing sense that indigenous knowledge in academic contexts is becoming unnecessary. mathematical knowledge (pure, conceptual, scientific) teaching mathematics figure 1: summary of the recontextualising process the need for engagement with indigenous knowledge the impetus in south africa after 1994 has been towards preserving indigenous knowledge and finding ways of relating the current content to that found in traditional and cultural contexts. the department of science and technology (dst) (2004) stated that “the affirmation of african cultural values in the face of globalisation [is] a clear imperative given the need to promote a positive african identity” (p. 9). the dst further motivated for this notion of indigenous knowledge systems by stating that colonial knowledge • factual • necessary • important • unfamiliar contexts indigenous knowledge • practical • necessary for living • not essential • local familiar contexts necessary for understanding necessary for development 70 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 the indigenous knowledge systems (iks) developed and maintained by south africa’s indigenous peoples pervades the lives and the belief systems of a large proportion of the country’s population. such indigenous knowledge manifests itself in areas ranging from cultural and religious ceremonies to agricultural practices and health interventions. (p. 10) the significance of iks was further emphasised in caps (department of basic education, 2011). here we read that one of the important principles of the curriculum is “valuing indigenous knowledge systems: acknowledging the rich history and heritage of this country as important contributors to nurturing the values contained in the constitution” (p. 6). these are important principles, but there is not much clarity provided as to how a teacher or teacher educator can include such knowledge in the mathematics curricula. in fact, despite this principle of valuing iks, no other reference is made to this in the mathematics caps documents although a number of references are made to iks in the physical science and life sciences caps documents. the silence in the document relating to iks is a form of subtle exclusion and does not convey the importance of learners developing their own knowledge using the social and cultural artefacts, ceremonies, and beliefs of their indigenous communities. clearly, the absence of the iks bricolage in the mathematics curriculum may indicate a perverse belief that mathematics is pure and is immune to extraneous influences, including cultural and social factors. as kincheloe (2007) has said, “pushing to a new conceptual terrain, such an eclectic process raises numerous issues that researchers must deal with in order to maintain theoretical coherence and epistemological innovation” (p. 945). mathematics education must also show such epistemological innovation through a creative search for, and inclusion of, diverse mathematics that incorporate the multilogicality, to use kincheloe’s word from the title of his chapter, of the discipline. there has been a lack of cultural mathematics in the south african education system where knowledge is harvested from outside the national context. this is evidenced through a scrutiny of caps (doe, 2011) documents in which the absence of mention of authentic indigenous mathematics is easily observable. the caps mathematics curriculum relies heavily on the knowledge that emanates from eurocentric contexts. this is in keeping, still, with joseph’s (1987) statement, made three decades ago, that “there exists a widespread eurocentric bias in the production, dissemination and evaluation of scientific knowledge” (p. 13). much of the south african school mathematics curriculum is based on this knowledge and is located in specific topics such as euclidean geometry, calculus, probability, and so on. vithal and volmink (2005) have also recognised that “curriculum approaches that have shaped curriculum development in western countries have also left their mark on mathematics curricula in south africa, albeit in the form of curriculum changes that have often followed uncritically the loudest fad from the west” (p. 3). there are few arguments that can be cast against the value of our current mathematical knowledge given that it is appropriate and useful for the purposes of the south african learner who endeavours to pursue mathematics into universities, nationally and internationally. however, mathematics should not be available exclusively to a small group of learners. most south african learners mudaly: decolonising the mind . . . 71 do not actualise the dream of a university degree and they exit school without recognising the value of a recontextualised, imported mathematics. furthermore, the argument for a recontextualised curriculum does not negate the value of western and european mathematics but it does explore the possibility of reconceptualising mathematics in local contexts. it would be impossible to discover all mathematics knowledge in local contexts because mathematics developed through the interactions of global endeavours. no single nation can claim the rights to all mathematical knowledge and neither can anyone deny that all mathematics is dependent on the axiomatic findings of earlier or contemporary mathematicians. so, in arguing for indigenisation and a recontextualised curriculum, we cannot ignore global demands and global advances. despite the strong link to cultural practices, south african society has experienced tremendous change (technological, political, economic, and educational). these changes necessitate that we adapt and transform our goals constantly for the future. this does not mean that in keeping our eye on global advancements we have to eradicate local knowledge. this may seem to be paradoxical but global advancement does not have to eliminate local factors that promote understanding and identification of concepts. the most important point here is that recontextualising mathematics should offer opportunities for learners to identify different ways of understanding the same concept. modernity does not destroy antiquity; it offers, quite simply, new possibilities. bernstein’s idea of the “pedagogization of society” that alludes to the fact that all knowledge is “fluid, changeable and changing” (as cited in young, 1993, p. 132) is pertinent here. knowledge may change but the way it is understood can easily be indigenised and recontextualised. the vehicle through which knowledge is conveyed or comprehended can be grounded in contexts that are familiar to the learner. my empirical research attempts to mitigate the effects of the silence in caps about the value of indigenous knowledge in the teaching and learning of mathematics. i attempted to determine mathematics teachers’ views about a colonised curriculum and the effects of it on their learners and i sought to establish whether mathematics teachers could find relevant knowledge and strategies to deliver a decolonised curriculum. methodology the sample was purposively selected because only mathematics students who were registered for the curriculum development in science and mathematics education module as part of the bachelor of education honours programme were chosen. all 20 participants who volunteered were teachers of mathematics. it was expected that they would have a good knowledge of the caps document. selecting these participants was ideal because they were engaged in a curriculum module, they were teaching at different schools, and they came from a wide variety of demographic contexts. the participants were exposed to various topics in their module related to the curriculum and its development, including decolonisation. before they began with the project, they were asked to work in pairs and read all the articles 72 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 provided in their course pack. thereafter, the respondents had to produce an individual portfolio that included two lesson plans based on decolonised mathematics, their reflections on their lessons, and a report using photo-narratives as a methodology. they were given eight weeks to identify specific topics that they thought ideal to demonstrate how mathematics could be decolonised and to produce the portfolio. the pairing of the participants was simply a convenient strategy to afford them different experiences, values, and knowledge in an opportunity to come together and agree on a joint presentation. once the participants had developed their lesson plans, they were expected to deliver the lessons in their mathematics classrooms and generate a report that had to include photo-narratives. their reflections on the lessons were an important part of the portfolio. this study was framed within the interpretivist paradigm because there was a need to understand how these participants (all practising teachers, as mentioned above) could become sensitised to colonial elements in the south african school curriculum. furthermore, this research prompted them to design lessons to decolonise these elements (see appendix a). in creating a response for this assessment task, the participants had to interrogate the existing caps curriculum, materials in the form of textbooks and other resources, and any other policy documents available to them in order to identify colonial influences. after recognising these influences, they had to design lessons and activities that showed that they could negate the effects of these oppressive influences. their portfolios were a useful research tool because it allowed me to acquire information from the participants that may not have been easily accessible via an interview, observation, or questionnaire. portfolios allow for the gathering of evidence from personal and other sources specifically to address a given problem or task. the portfolios were extensive and were comprised of relevant literature, the personal reflections of the respondents, photonarratives, and lesson plans. they also afforded the participants sufficient time to engage with the topics they chose and were designed to encourage the participants to engage with material that is current and controversial. as herman and winters (1994) have reminded us, “well-designed portfolios represent important, contextualized learning that requires complex thinking and expressive skills” (as cited in barrett, 2007, p. 2). findings, data analysis, and discussion in general, these practicing teachers, including some from african and indian communities, could not identify aspects of a colonised curriculum, so they did not know how they could easily decolonise it. many of their responses were superficial and they provided examples and solutions that appeared to be coerced and contrived. the themes emerged from the data during the analysis and were not predetermined. all the names of the participants are pseudonyms in order to protect their identities. mudaly: decolonising the mind . . . 73 decolonisation through a constructivist approach zuma, a participant from a school in a black african township, felt that black africans used to be socialised and educated in african cultural contexts. colonial rule destroyed this process and gradually the indigenous systems began to erode. the extent to which this is true is demonstrated in the examples chosen by these participants. whenever they attempted to illustrate the use of indigenous knowledge in mathematics, the only example they chose was the cylindrical hut with a conical thatched roof. only one other participant located the cattle kraal as another appropriate example. the response of gese, another participant from a similar township school as zuma’s, to decolonising the curriculum was simply to change the names of the characters or the context in the way the problem was worded. he referred specifically to a problem that he chose to demonstrate his argument. he claimed that using an afrikaner name in the problem indicated a colonial mentality. he felt that the white learners could easily identify with the name while the black learners would become demotivated. this the example that he quoted. siyabonga works for a fencing company. a customer called this morning, wanting to fence in his 1320 square-metre garden. he ordered 148 metres of fencing, but siyabonga forgot to ask him for the width and length of the garden. but siyabonga doesn’t want the customer to think that he is an idiot, so he asks mr botha to complete the calculation for him. what are the dimensions? this is a simplistic argument because the changes suggested do not promote understanding; they serve only to create greater identification with the context and characters. he further argued that the language used in the problem represented the colonial intruders when he claimed that “the words that they use are known mainly by those trespassers who ensure that their children will benefit.” when asked to explain his claim he could provide no justification. these respondents felt that we need to change something to allow for the learners’ identification with the concept. in a constructive sense, for the learner to make new conceptual connections, old schema must be tapped. these learners have to identify with that which they know so that they can move towards what is unknown. this has implications for curriculum developers and pedagogy. first, curriculum developers must note that by recontextualising the school curriculum, by associating the current mathematics with local contexts there is then the possibility for greater understanding. second, the pedagogical implications are evident. there is a need for teachers to become acutely aware of vast possibilities for the teaching of mathematics by connecting to indigenous knowledge from local communities. 74 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 decolonising through using indigenous resources, practices, and settings/contexts some participants felt that indigenous resources, practices, and contexts provide the ideal platform for decolonising the current curriculum. proteas, another respondent, claimed that learners working individually is a colonial practice because group work is an african tradition. this may be true when viewed from the perspective of ubuntu. however, group work has long been a practice of western societies and much research has been done in this respect. proteas did acknowledge, though, that currently in south africa “the curriculum fails to relate mathematics to the learners’ social and cultural practices.” as a teacher, he recognised the need to indigenise the curriculum by “locating mathematics into a wide range of traditional practices that learners can identify with.” this is exactly what kincheloe (2011) appears to have had in mind when he said that “the tendency in cartesian-newtonian thinking is to erase mutualism’s bonus of insight in the abstraction of the object of inquiry from the processes and contexts of which it is a part” (p. 341). nombu, a participant from an urban township, used the example of a kraal (see figures 2 and 3). she did so because a kraal is arranged in a circular formation. again, this is based on an example from a rural community and there is a possibility that urban youth who have not had the experience of visiting an african farm may not easily identify with this example. figure 2: a model of a zulu kraal (retrieved from http://www.warrioronline.demon.co.uk/gallery/jpg/15/15_zulu/kraal3.jpg) mudaly: decolonising the mind . . . 75 figure 3: a cattle kraal (retrieved from: https://encryptedtbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:and9gcsjvtehurjmhxbqifnof30liaoktouirjqs8yvcxvwwgz7uz1zi) shivanie felt that by excluding african contexts we impose western ideologies on learners. this, she claimed, may be the reason for learner demotivation. they cannot see the relevance of the work and struggle to see how a westernised mathematics will be beneficial to them. shivanie then tried to link the parabola to the indigenous game called kgati (which involves two players swinging a skipping rope and the third attempting to skip without falling). at many points during the swinging motion, the rope resembled a parabola. this was a rather tenuous relationship and because the motion of the rope cannot be frozen, it would have been difficult for the learners to make the connection between the game action and the concept of a parabola. besides the indigenous game, kgati, shivanie provided the example of the traditional south african meal called potjiekos 1 (figure 4). although not an african meal it is still a traditional delicacy cooked in a three-legged pot. the quantities of the ingredients could easily be related to linear and quadratic functions. she also used traditional basket weaving as a means of depicting the shape of the parabola (figure 5). this was used only to illustrate the shape of the graph. 1 this translates as food cooked in an iron pot. 76 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 figure 4: the use of the potjiekos example figure 5: the use of the handle of a woven basket to illustrate the parabola graph impossibility of decolonising the math curriculum another participant, dube, claimed that “mathematical knowledge is fixed, and cannot be changed because problems give rise to a single solution.” dube’s claim is challenged by cobb (1986), who questioned the claim that mathematics is a superior science that exists entirely on its own when he stated that “beliefs are an essential aspect of meaning making in general and of mathematical meaning making in particular” (p. 2). he contended that “cognition is necessarily contextually bounded” and presented an argument that there is an “intimate relationship between contexts, goals, and beliefs” (p. 2). also, the idea of a single solution can be debated but it is not the solution that is indigenised; it is the context used to increase understanding of the mathematical concept itself that is significant. dube further argued that mathematics and its language is already difficult and including local contexts may confuse the learners. when asked for clarification it was clear that he felt that “it was too much work” to try to relate the mathematics to social and cultural practices. however, he did mudaly: decolonising the mind . . . 77 acknowledge that the pictures used in mathematics texts could be used to indigenise the subject. creating possibilities for decolonising the math curriculum dube’s lesson plan included the aspect of calculating volume and he used a hypothetical example of a rectangular prism. when asked whether local communities possessed containers to store water, he was quick to see how he could have related his exercise to those experiences of water containers, like buckets, that learners already have. it was evident that these respondents were resistant to change, despite the fact that they were themselves subservient to colonial ways in their study of mathematics. this resonates with the view that when the colonisers left, they walked out of our country but not out of our minds. they knew about african traditions and the effects of colonial education. thuma, a respondent, showed evidence of this. initially she said, the practice of being one with nature amongst africans has been the only method that indigenous people learn. the environment serves as their place of learning and discovery, it fed them, it sheltered them, and provided spaces for spiritual refuge. indigenous people therefore were more attuned to nature for their survival. this is in contrast to what is advocated by the western or eurocentric model of education. however, after attempting to plan and teach her lessons, she concluded that the act of decolonising could not be accomplished in just a few lessons. this is a revolutionary concept requiring a paradigm shift in how curriculum planners, subject advisors, teachers and learners interact with and consume this knowledge from the african continent. phatha demonstrated a better understanding of this idea of a decontextualized indigenised curriculum when he said, building on indigenous knowledge systems and on what students are already familiar with, moving from the known to the unknown, is one of the strategies that can be used to decolonise a mathematical concept. he cited barwell (2005) who claimed that indigenous knowledge can be included when the educator makes connections to a wide range of differing contexts (daily activities, traditional practices, and activities in the workplace) and integrates learning related to mathematics and other subject areas into projects and assignments. he used the example of the shape of some african homes—the rondavel. essentially, this is comprised of a cylindrical building with a conical roof. patha claimed that even the paintings on the walls offer useful teaching points. he said that taking a two-dimensional picture of the rondavel can present the teacher with genuine contextual material for teaching. first, the learners identify with the rondavel since many have stayed in one of these structures. also, this shape is used in a number of tourist places so most south africans are familiar with it. the second important point to note that in 78 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 a two-dimensional picture the roof looks like a triangle and many properties of a triangle can be discussed. third, the base of the wall would form a circle and many concepts related to the circle could be introduced. thereafter, the volume and area of the structure could be calculated. the mathematics remains unchanged, but the context becomes real and tangible. this example illustrates the possible transformation of part of an ordinary colonial curriculum into a recontextualised indigenised discussion of the same mathematics but from a different lens familiar to african students. decolonising math curriculum through language a common response was that language was the way to decolonise the curriculum; most participants listed this as one possibility. but zuma provided an alternative view. he felt that the community viewed african learners who could speak english as being more intelligent. he claimed that some african learners cannot identify simple idioms from their indigenous language. he further found that many teachers who spoke isizulu had to turn to using english for the learners to understand what they were saying. this, he felt, was moving our children away from indigenous systems and society was becoming more modernised. gese also felt that language was a problem and to overcome this, code switching in mathematics classrooms was essential. participant reflections on a decolonisation task this research did not provide tangible empirical evidence of ways in which decolonisation could be implemented in schools in south africa, but it did produce a collective consciousness that something has to be done. all participants showed a positive inclination towards incorporating tasks that indigenised the content. sebastian recognised the significance of a recontextualised indigenised curriculum. phatha admitted that more time must be spent on planning these activities and he made the significant point that decolonising the curriculum was not about eradicating western and european mathematics and their influence but was about incorporating local knowledge systems and contexts into the teaching and learning events. he found that while he was struggling with identifying with a recontextualised mathematics curriculum, the learners were having greater fun as they worked in the garden or did tasks that involved events and items from their own surroundings. here he included ideas about measuring the height of trees without climbing them. the learners used the distance between a given point and the foot of the tree, established the angle to the top of the tree using a clinometer which they constructed themselves and then calculated the height of the tree. phatha also showed that creating sequences when planting in rows got the learners to think more than they normally would. he used a common problem to illustrate. he asked his learners to imagine that they had a square piece of land and that they wanted to plant 10 trees on all four sides. he asked them to determine how many trees they would need altogether. the learners first hypothesised what the solution was and then used stones to test their hypotheses. in general, he found that his learners said 40 but changed their minds when actually using the stones. but phatha did reiterate that decolonising the curriculum did not mean that western and european mathematics must be removed, and this is why he had them make a clinometer. nombu mudaly: decolonising the mind . . . 79 supported these views by claiming that decolonising the curriculum does not have to shut out western and european mathematics. shivanie felt that the decolonised curriculum activity used in her lesson led to an enthusiastic and excited class. she could not tell whether it was because of the novelty of the methods she used or whether the learners genuinely felt that this helped them understand the mathematics. in reflecting on the work that he did, musa eventually conceded that the current mathematics curriculum “does not relate to the real-life situations and experiences of the learners.” he acknowledged that teachers can try to move from indigenous knowledge (what learners already know) to concrete knowledge (that which they experience) to more abstract knowledge (such as mathematical concepts). musa felt that although he did not completely see the links between the different knowledges, “the activity changed him as a teacher.” gese presented a useful argument in his conclusion in stating that “our ability to decolonise mathematics depends on our willingness to do it.” despite the resistance that some participants expressed, gese did acknowledge that decolonisation would have to come with a personal desire to see change. thula clearly enunciated that position. in her reflection, she voiced an opinion shared by all participants. she indicated that this exercise changed her perspective of education and her practice. her engagement in this project and the act of reflecting on what she was doing in class made her aware of the kinds of knowledge she presented and the methodologies she used. she became convinced that the current curriculum in schools pays little or no attention to indigenous knowledge. thula wanted a clear delineation to be made between western and european mathematics and that of indigenous knowledge. significantly, she accepted the role of an activist when she declared, “i would now have to become the agent of change.” discussion and conclusion the responses from the participants showed an initial reluctance to change the way they currently teach. many viewed mathematics as unchanging, producing standard single solutions. in engaging with the activity in this research, they found it difficult to find suitable examples of recontextualised indigenised ways of teaching the common mathematics prescribed in the caps curriculum. some participants provided a few contexts that described particular shapes, but these could not be used very effectively in the teaching of higher order mathematics. although the circular structures (kraals and cattle kraals) were proposed, participants could not show how they could be used to engage in the teaching of mathematical concepts. the fact that participants chose to download pictures also indicated that these kraals were not easily found or readily available to them. this, in itself, meant that they had different layers of indigenous knowledge as determined by their age and location. many of the participants admitted that they had never seen a kraal so, while these may well be associated with african culture and living, these structures are not necessarily being used so such an example may be unfamiliar to our learners in schools. learners may, in fact, more easily identify a wheel from 80 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 a bus which they see daily. however, a wheel, as used in transport, is not an african invention. although earlier in this paper, i said that phatha was convinced that including indigenous knowledge would confuse the learners, of great importance is the fact that the participants found the exercise useful and it changed their way of looking at the teaching of mathematics and raised their consciousness about the cultural inscription embedded in what they teach. their inability to recontextualise and indigenise mathematics does not mean that decolonisation is futile. what it does do, though, is alert us to the idea that decolonising without sufficient training and awareness may reduce the effort to a futile exercise. if these postgraduate students with knowledge of curriculum and its development struggled, then we can be sure that other teachers may also struggle. the effort to recontextualise and indigenise the curriculum must be started and expounded by curriculum developers at the highest level. the simplistic views of these respondents contributed only to the argument that cultural and indigenous deficiencies can become a huge hurdle. in conclusion, the evidence showed that the respondents felt that there was indeed a dire need for us to decolonise the curriculum and they felt that the current westernised and eurocentric curriculum does affect learners. the participants tried hard to find strategies that could help to decolonise the curriculum. since this was a first attempt, they did not produce sufficiently useful ways, but their examples showed that they tried. they researched and presented ideas in their classrooms and their feedback showed a positive response from their learners at school. this research raised the level of curricula consciousness of these teachers that had not previously existed. i recommend that the department of basic education consider creating curriculum materials that guide teachers through this process of indigenising and decolonising the curriculum. teachers need to see and understand how the process could unfold in the classroom. additionally, the department of basic education must revise the caps document in order to address the scarcity of ideas of indigenising the curriculum present in the document. i further recommend that teacher training institutions begin to incorporate the ideas of decolonising into all modules so that preservice teachers understand how this process works. references barrett, h. c. (2007). researching electronic portfolios and learner engagement: the reflect initiative. journal of adolescent & adult literacy, 50(6), 436–449 badat, s. (2008, march). redressing the colonial/apartheid legacy: social equity, redress and higher education admissions in democratic south africa. paper presented at the conference on affirmative action in higher education in india, the united states and south africa. retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/49241219.pdf barwell, r. (2005) ambiguity in the language classroom. language and education, 19(2), 118–126 mudaly: decolonising the mind . . . 81 bernstein, b. (1996). pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: theory, research, critique. london, uk: taylor & francis. cobb, p. (1986). contexts, goals, beliefs, and learning mathematics. for the learning of mathematics, 6(2), 2–9 connell, r. (2016). decolonising knowledge, democratising curriculum. retrieved from https://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/humanities/sociology/publishingimages/pages/seminar s/raewyn%20connell's%20paper%20on%20decolonisation%20of%20knowledge.p df de beer, j., & petersen, n. (2016). decolonisation of the science curriculum: a different perspective (#cookbook-labs-must-fall). proceedings from iste international conference on mathematics, science and technology education. towards effective teaching and meaningful learning in mathematics, science and technology, unisa, pretoria, rsa. retrieved from http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/22869/josef%20de%20beer%2c%20ne al%20petersen.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y department of basic education. (2011). curriculum and assessments policy statements. department of basic education. retrieved from https://www.education.gov.za/portals/0/cd/national%20curriculum%20statements %20and%20vocational/caps%20fet%20_%20mathematics%20_%20gr%2 010-12%20_%20web_1133.pdf?ver=2015-01-27-154314-253 department of higher education and training. (2015). reflections on higher education transformation. (2015). discussion paper presented at the second national higher education transformation summit, universities south africa, international conference centre, durban, kwazulu-natal. retrieved from http://www.justice.gov.za/commissions/feeshet/docs/2015-hesummitannexure05.pdf department of science and technology. (2004). indigenous knowledge systems. retrieved from https://www.dst.gov.za/images/pdfs/iks_policy%20pdf.pdf fataar, a. (2018). decolonising education in south africa: perspectives and debates. educational research for social change, 7, vi–ix heleta, s. 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(2011). critical ontology and indigenous ways of being: forging a postcolonial curriculum. in j. l. kincheloe, k. hayes, s. r. steinberg & k. tobin (eds.), key works in critical pedagogy (pp. 333–348). rotterdam, nl: sense. mbembe, a. j. (2015). decolonising knowledge and the question of the archive [lecture]. wits institute for social and economic research, johannesburg, rsa. retrieved from https://wiser.wits.ac.za/sites/default/files/private/achille%20mbembe%20%20decolonizing%20knowledge%20and%20the%20question%20of%20the%20arc hive.pdf mbembe, a. j. (2016). decolonizing the university: new directions. arts & humanities in higher education, 15(1) 29–45. studley, j. (1998). dominant knowledge systems and local knowledge. community-based mountain tourism: practices for linking conservation with enterprise. [electronic conference, april 13 – may 18, 1998] the mountain forum. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263657323_dominant_knowledge_system s_local_knowledge?enrichid=rgreq-a2116342cdef5137dcb749f4a876d17bxxx&enrichsource=y292zxjqywdlozi2mzy1nzmymztbuzo2ntgwmduxmjk 0nduznzhamtuzmzg5mja1njg1oq%3d%3d&el=1_x_2&_esc=publicationcov erpdf vithal, r., & volmink, j. (2005). mathematics curriculum research: roots, reforms, reconciliation and relevance. in r. vithal, j. adler & c. keitel (eds), researching mathematics education in south africa perspectives, practices and possibilities (pp. 3–27). cape town, rsa: human sciences research council. young, m. (2011). curriculum policies for a knowledge society? in l. yates & m. grumet (eds.), curriculum in today’s world: configuring knowledge, identities, work and politics (pp. 125–138). new york, ny: routledge. mudaly: decolonising the mind . . . 83 appendix a curriculum studies in science and mathematics education bed honours programme assessment south african teachers have experienced numerous planned educational changes during the past two decades. these changes have been embedded in a social justice framework. one of the aims of the constitution is “to improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person.” the curriculum is viewed as a vehicle through which to achieve this, and, to this effect, the curriculum assessments policy statement (caps) includes the flowing principles: “social transformation: ensuring that the educational imbalances of the past are redressed, and that equal educational opportunities are provided for all sections of the population” and “human rights, inclusivity, environmental and social justice: infusing the principles and practices of social and environmental justice and human rights as defined in the constitution of the republic of south africa. the national curriculum statement grades r–12 is sensitive to issues of diversity such as poverty, inequality, race, gender, language, age, disability and other factors.” however, analysts argue that the curriculum continues to be embedded in colonial, apartheid-based, and western worldviews. in this assessment task, you are required to interrogate policy documents and subject materials and develop a unit of work that clearly illustrates how you can take steps towards decolonising the curriculum. begin by reading the articles in your course pack. develop a portfolio of evidence based on the information below. 1. discuss what you understand by a “colonised” education system. (do not write this in your portfolio.) 2. discuss the concept of “epistemic violence.” (do not write this in your portfolio.) 3. work in pairs. select a unit of work from the science or mathematics curriculum or textbooks or other documents. analyse it carefully and describe how this unit of work promotes colonial ways of thinking. you might want to show whether interests of a particular race group are promoted, whether inequality is perpetuated, whether specific knowledge systems are valued above all other forms of knowledge, what picture of africa the curriculum paints, and whether certain people continue to be subjugated. 4. re-design the unit of work to show how you could decolonise the curriculum. 5. present your work. your presentation should include: 5.1. two key elements of the unit you selected which show that the unit reflects a colonised curriculum 5.2. possible effects of these colonising elements on the learner/ community/ society/ country 84 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 5.3. a description of how you would redesign the unit of work to align it to a decolonised curriculum. 6. develop a lesson plan which incorporates one or two of the elements of the decolonised curriculum (mentioned in 6.3). 7. teach the lesson according to your plan. 8. develop four photo narratives to show how this decolonised unit of work was implemented. 9. reflect on this task. has is changed you as a teacher? how and why? do you think it is valuable from the perspective of a researcher? what was the most important learning point for you? microsoft word b8500 full issue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 85, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i85a06 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x early adolescent bystanders’ experiences of school bullying in a south african school segun emmanuel adewoye department of educational psychology, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa adewoyesegunemmanuel@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8323-0933 annelize du plessis department of humanities education, faculty of education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa annelize.duplessis@up.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7134-5028 (received: 14 march 2021; accepted: 23 september 2021) abstract bystanders of school bullying are relatively under-researched in the literature on bullying because most studies in this area focus primarily on bullies or on the direct victims of bullying. in this study, we aimed to explore the lived experience of early adolescent bystanders who witnessed bullying in a south african school. we followed a qualitative research approach and adopted a phenomenological research design. we purposefully selected 10 early adolescent bystanders to participate in the study. we recorded the interviews that were then transcribed. we used inductive thematic analysis to analyse the qualitative data. the findings of this study revealed the various emotional and behavioural reactions of bystanders to witnessing school bullying. we recommend that anti-bullying programs be included in the curriculum so that teachers and school psychologists can emphasise the negative impacts of bullying that include psychological, educational, and emotional consequences on everyone who is exposed to it. keywords: early adolescent, bystanders, emotional and behavioural consequences, school bullying, south african school context introduction bullying at school, an aggressive behaviour considered to be destructive, can be interpreted as a symptom of an unhealthy school climate (ttofi & farrington, 2011). several definitions of bullying are prominent in the literature. for instance, gaffney et al., (2021) defined bullying as a ubiquitous form of aggression directed towards the victim that is intended to cause fear or inflict pain. in similar vein, the south african human rights commission 112 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 (2008, p. 6) defined bullying as an aggressive behaviour consisting of repeated physical, verbal and non-verbal acts displayed repeatedly over a period of time by one person against another that are intended to inflict injury or discomfort and occur in a relationship marked by a real or perceived imbalance of power. south african school learners have reported the prevalence of bullying in schools (adewoye & du plessis 2021; tustin et al., 2014). the youth research unit at the university of south africa reported that in 2012, 34.4% of learners in schools sampled in gauteng confirmed that they had been victims of bullying and 67.7% of participants reported that bullying had increased in the past two years preceding the report (lass & boezaart, 2014). the increasing rate of bullying in south african schools could be explained as being in response to the many violent acts in south african communities with which the in-school adolescents are conversant and that are mimicked in school contexts (timm & eskell-blokland, 2011). the prevalence of school bullying is not a concern unique to south africa; it is, rather, considered a worldwide phenomenon (valdebenito et al., 2018). for instance, in a recent meta‐analysis of 80 international studies, it was revealed that the prevalence rate of bullying perpetrations is 34.5% while bullying victimization is 36% (modecki et al., 2014). similarly, another survey revealed that worldwide, nearly 50% of school learners were involved in school bullying either as bystanders, perpetrators, or direct victims (zych et al., 2017). bullying victimisation has been linked to a number of negative consequences that include drug use, self-harm, criminal behaviour, sleeping problems, violence, suicidal ideation, and poor academic performance (bakken & gunter, 2012; bender & losel, 2011; esala, 2013; geel et al., 2016; holt et al., 2015). for instance, victims of bullying in schools in south africa were said to be more likely to experience negative behavioural and emotional responses (barhight, et al., 2013; knauf, et al., 2018). boyes et al., (2014) reported that 70% of learners in grades 4 to 7 in south african schools, who experienced bullying at school, exhibit symptoms of trauma. the research findings of gini & pozzoli (2013) revealed that victims of bullying experience low social and emotional wellbeing and also engage in riskier health behaviours. van dam et al. (2012) found from their studies that victims of bullying experience poor social adjustment and a higher level of loneliness than do children not involved in bullying. research has indicated that bullies are likely to become accustomed to the use of violence and aggression to solve problems. learners who engage in bullying behaviour tend to gain and maintain dominance in an aggressive way and often lack any sense of empathy (rivers et al., 2009). ttofi et al. (2012) established that the consequence of bullying behaviour for the bully is that they try to extend their bullying behaviour into the wider world including cyberspace and also into the workplace where bullying may not be tolerated and this might make them end up committing criminal offences and, consequently, facing or experiencing imprisonment. a preliminary observation revealed that bullying has continually been described as a collective process involving not just the bully and the victims, but also a group of passers-by or observers who are classified as bystanders (salmivalli, 2014). in a study by polanin et al. adewoye & du plessis: early adolescents bystanders experiences of school bullying . . . 113 (2012), bystanders were found to be present at 85% of bullying episodes. bystanders are an important but often overlooked group beyond the bully-victim dyad who might also be affected by bullying incidents that they witness (rivers et al., 2009; salmivalli 2014). midgett and doumas (2019) noted that there is a likelihood that witnessing a traumatic event might make a bystander think differently about themselves and the world. such negative thoughts and feelings might stem from three probable causes: psychological re-victimisation; acquiring indirect co-victim status because of deep feelings of empathy for the direct victims; and being fearful of becoming the next victim (rivers et al., 2009). hutchinson (2012) further asserted that the fear of subsequent direct victimisation, psychological revictimization, and experiencing cognitive dissonance may lead to higher levels of trauma, sensitivity, distress, and depression for bystanders. since cognitive dissonance occurs when one’s beliefs and attitudes clash with one’s behaviour, a bystander to bullying may experience this in a scenario in which they believe that bullying is not good, and they want to intervene on behalf of the victim but cannot do so because they are afraid of becoming the next target (midgett & doumas, 2019). in like manner, ttofi & farington (2011) indicated that as a result of learners witnessing bullying as bystanders, they may feel insecure at school and this may result in their having divided attention in class, suffering low self‐esteem and loneliness, having low academic achievement, engaging in truancy from school, and using drugs. despite indications that witnesses of bullying behaviour can also be negatively affected and might be even more likely to report symptoms of psychological stress like depression, anxiety, and insecurity than the direct victims of bullying themselves (deng et al., 2021; ttofi et al., 2016), research on bystanders is yet to receive full attention (carrera et al., 2011). according to salmivali (2014), the bystander is relatively under-researched in bullying literature because most studies on bullying focus primarily on bullies or on the direct victims of bullying. this is because direct victims of bullying are thought to bear the larger brunt of the impacts of bullying because physical harm perpetrated against direct victims is apparent in the visible signs of injury (englander 2013). consequently, direct victims of bullying get immediate attention often because of such visible signs of injury (rigby & johnson 2006) while bystanders who might sustain emotional scars from the experience of witnessing peer victimisation in schools are probably the most overlooked when attention is given to problems related to bullying (rigby & johnson, 2006; darney et al., 2013). since bullying has been described as a group phenomenon (salmivalli, 2014), and bully, victim, and bystander co-exist in the school setting and in the wider community, bystander experiences of school bullying also warrant more attention (gini & pozzoli 2013; tsang et al., 2011). this is particularly pertinent since bystanders form the majority of the participants in school bullying events and studies have shown, as mentioned above, that bullying can have devastating negative effects on all parties involved (baldry, 2017; lambe et al., 2017). it is clear that further research is required to fully comprehend bystanders’ experiences of bullying as howard et al. (2014) have pointed out. we know of only a few qualitative research studies (juan et al., 2018; mncube & chinyama, 2020; moosa, 2020) that have focused on the bystander experience of school bullying in the 114 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 context of south african schools. this led us to initiate this study to give voice to early adolescent bystanders, better understand their lived experiences of bullying, and add to the professional literature on this subject. almost all existing bystander research was conducted with adult participants using quantitative methods and little is known about the experience of early adolescent bystanders who witness bullying at school (howard et al., 2014). this study is intended to be a starting point in the genesis of conceptualising and understanding how witnessing bullying might affect the emotional and psychological wellbeing of early adolescent bystanders with a view to informing proactive and reactive approaches that south african schools could adopt to buffer these effects. in particular, the research question addressed in this study was • what is early adolescent bystanders’ experience of school bullying in the context of a south african school? methods research approach, paradigmatic perspective, and design following creswell (2014) we used a qualitative research method for this research study. for basit (2010), using a qualitative approach to research studies is appropriate for one that intends to draw its findings from participants’ perspectives. we adopted this approach because we wanted to uncover many different perspectives, provide complete accounts, and thus offer detailed views of early adolescent bystanders’ experiences of school bullying. the philosophical assumption that underpins our study led us to choose an interpretivism paradigm—one that is aimed, necessarily, at comprehending the world through the perspective of people’s lived experiences (morgan & pretorius, 2013; sefotho, 2015; silverman, 2011). we adopted a phenomenological research design for this study because its objective was to analyse the phenomenon of bystander bullying along with its social and contextual significance. this phenomenon is difficult to quantify, and new insights are required, so, in agreement with creswell (2014) that a phenomenological design should be used to analyse a phenomenon as the participants narrate it, we saw the purpose of our study being to listen, comprehend, and interpret the meaning bystanders ascribed to their experience of school bullying. procedure we adopted a convenience sampling technique to select the research site, a school located in mamelodi, gauteng, south africa, at which we planned to select our participants. we assumed that the proximity of the school to participants’ homes would further motivate them to attend the interview sessions. adewoye & du plessis: early adolescents bystanders experiences of school bullying . . . 115 we visited the school we had identified, and the principal confirmed that learner to learner bullying was not only rampant in the school, but learner to teacher bullying was also on the increase and expressed his willingness to allow us to conduct the research study here. we scheduled a meeting with the prospective participants after obtaining the required ethical clearance, to explain the project and obtain the requisite written assent from them and consent from their parents/guardians. we explained the objectives of the research as well as the potential gains of participating in it. we presented a detailed document prior to starting the interviews to inform the participants of the aim of the research, the nature of the interviews we planned to hold, and the types of questions they could expect. we established a good rapport with the participants as a result of this. in addition, we assured them that their personal information would not be revealed to anyone and that we would use pseudonyms to ensure this confidentiality. we ensured that the participants had a proper understanding of their involvement in the research before they agreed to participate in it. participants and sampling strategies learners who had not been a direct victim of bullying but had witnessed bullying in school were identified through their responses to an invitation letter to participate in a research project. to be included according to our criteria, the learner had to be attending the school that was the research site, had to be an early adolescent ranging in age from 11 to 13 years, had to have been a bystander to bullying, and had to be in grade 6 or 7. as a result, all learners in grades 6 and 7 who were believed to match all the inclusion requirements were included in the first phase of the sampling process. the interviews took place after school to prevent the disruption of school activities. participants were interviewed in a classroom setting because we believed that this would allow them to respond in a natural and honest manner. during the first phase, 60 learners, spread between two groups, were instructed to write about the bullying situations they had witnessed at school. both groups were given the same set of instructions. of the 60 stories collected, 25 did not fit one of the inclusion requirements that stated that participants should not have been a direct victim or perpetrator of bullying but should have witnessed bullying in school. consequently, learners who indicated in their stories that they were direct victims or that they had bullied others were excluded. the final 10 participants were chosen purposefully for interviews based on the level of information and self-reflection evident in their written accounts of the episodes of bullying they had witnessed. of the 10 participants, eight were girls and two were boys. data collection instrument an interview is a key source of data collection in a qualitative phenomenological study as yin (2016) has pointed out. consequently, we held a face-to-face individual semi-structured interview to investigate and describe each participant’s experiences as a bystander of school bullying. we recorded the individual interviews with the permission of the participants and 116 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 the consent of their parents. as a back-up, we wrote notes as well. we used field notes and a reflective research diary to record our observations while we were interacting with the participants during the interviews. each interview session lasted for about 45 minutes. we asked all the participants the same set of open-ended questions. in line with burton & jones (2008) we had prepared these using information from our literature review and from the purpose and objectives of this study along with its research question. ethical considerations in conducting this study, we made certain that all ethical procedures were followed. we received ethical approval from the university of pretoria's faculty of education's ethics committee, as well as authorization from the gauteng department of education to work and conduct research in the school. informed assent from participants in written form were collected, as well as a consent letter of permission from the parents or legal guardians of the learners who took part in the study. the letter covered issues such as confidentiality, voluntary participation, research location, and purpose of the study. in addition to observing the above ethical principles, we engaged the service of an independent registered educational psychologist to assist with a debriefing session at the end of the data collecting session since some participants may have been traumatized by the memory and/or narration of the bullying episodes they had witnessed. the parents of participants were adequately informed and granted access to the educational psychologist for further engagement when necessary. data analysis and interpretation we used inductive thematic analysis to analyse the qualitative data that included the transcriptions of the audio recordings of the interviews and our notes. according to braun and clarke (2006), inductive thematic analysis is a frequently used type of qualitative research analysis the goal of which is to identify, investigate, and record patterns in data. in order to establish and create meaningful patterns, we coded the data. this included a) becoming familiar with the data, b) generating initial codes, c) searching for themes, d) reviewing the themes, e) defining and naming the themes, and f) writing up the results. trustworthiness of the study we ensured the trustworthiness of the study by member checking that meant getting feedback on the data, on our interpretation of it, and the conclusions from the participants themselves (see creswell, 2014). we provided opportunities for the participants to clear any doubts they had about the research process by allowing them to ask questions. findings we presented the findings according to the themes and subthemes generated from the data. adewoye & du plessis: early adolescents bystanders experiences of school bullying . . . 117 theme 1: willingness to intervene the data revealed the reactions of participants to witnessing bullying at school. participants in this study demonstrated a willingness to intervene as part of their reaction to such witnessing. the participants were asked to describe the bullying incidents they witnessed and to state if they had intervened or not to help the victims when they witnessed bullying. participant 1 responded by saying, “i did feel like helping her and telling the bully not to hit her.” most of the participants showed an intention to defend the victims in a bullying situation if they had the power. for instance, participant 2 said, “yes, i do feel like i can intervene when i witness bullying. when it happens in front of my eyes, i do wish i can intervene.” participant 5 expressed a similar intention in her response by saying, “i feel like that to go and help the victim but if i can’t, i go to tell the teacher to intervene.” participants felt sympathetic concern for the victims. they did understand that bullying is wrong and wished they could intervene on behalf of the victims. participant 9 explained, “i feel like i can tell the principal or my mother, but i am afraid because if i tell them, the bully is going to beat me.” participant 6 noted that although he felt pain for the victim, the fear of being bullied overshadowed his intention to intervene. he said, “yes, i want to, but i am afraid because myself too they can bully me i am scared because they might beat me or bully me just like they are doing to the victim.” from all indications, it appeared that bystanders were trapped in the dilemma of being willing to defend victims in a bullying situation but also conscious of their own safety and vulnerability. theme 2: self-blame and feeling guilt for not being able to intervene. almost all the participants in this study apportioned self-blame and reported feelings of guilt and disappointment for not being able to intervene to help the victims of bullying. participant 2 said, yes, i do feel guilty very much guilty when i witness bullying. sometimes i even wish i could go and tell the principal but when i think that the bully can even come back to me, i don’t go, and i feel guilty. participant 7 expressed disappointment at herself when she was asked to describe how she felt about not being able to intervene when she witnessed bullying. she said, “i don’t feel good at all because if i couldn’t help the victim and she get injured, to me is like i failed her.” participant 5 believed that she betrayed the trust her friend, who was bullied, had in her for not being able to intervene on her behalf when she witnessed this. consequently, she blamed herself and thought she was the cause of the victimisation her friend suffered. she declared, “yaa i do blame myself. i wish i could have helped or called somebody, but i couldn’t, so i blame myself.” we noted that most of the participants felt indebted to the victims for not having defended them when they witnessed the bullying. following our observation, we remarked in our 118 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 research journal, “following the individual semi-structured interviews conducted with participants, we observed that most participants engaged in personalisation which led to attribution of self-blame and trauma related guilt in their reactions to witnessing bullying.” (reflective journal 4/9/2019) the response of participant 6, while narrating how he felt about himself for not being able to defend victims whom he witnessed being bullied confirmed our observation when he said, “yes, i feel bad and guilty, and i do blame myself.” it would appear that bystanders experience self-blame and feelings of guilt if they take personal responsibility or think that they are the sole cause of the bullying they witnessed because they were unable to do anything to stop it. theme 3: difficulties in concentration because of psychological re-victimisation most participants in this study reported that they experienced difficulties in paying attention in class because of co-victimisation or psychological re-victimisation. at several points throughout the interview, some participants mentioned their challenges. participant 2 said, “it affects me a lot when i am in class. sometimes even when i am writing a test instead of thinking about the test that i am writing, i start thinking about the bullying that i witnessed.” participant 9 added, “i can’t concentrate because every time when the teacher is teaching, my mind is thinking that they will bully me. i can’t concentrate.” participant 4 explained, “i can’t concentrate when mam is teaching. i can’t even hear when the other kids are answering the mam because i am thinking about the bullying that i witnessed.” participant 6 said, my concentration is not in the class because i feel like those people are there. they want to come and take my pen. yes, i get carried away when i think about the bullying because i feel like it is me that is being bullied. participant 10 confirmed that sometimes she would forget that she was in class even when the teacher was teaching because she is absent minded. she said, it does affect me even when my teacher is teaching me my mind goes off sometimes even if she asks me a question, i will just be looking at her because i am not concentrating because i am thinking about the bullying that i witnessed. it would appear that the anxiety caused by the fear of subsequent direct victimisation contributes to bystanders’ emotional insecurity and uncertainty and this makes concentration on academic tasks and learning at school difficult. theme 4: negative emotions and behaviours participants generally expressed negative emotions and behaviours in reaction to witnessing bullying. participant 4 described her experience when she said, adewoye & du plessis: early adolescents bystanders experiences of school bullying . . . 119 i feel very sad when i witnessed bullying because it is not the first time that this boy bully learners. even last year he did the same thing, and they give him warning but he is still bullying learners even now. so, i am scared. rivers et al. (2009) reported that the fear of subsequent direct victimisation has the potential to contribute to bystanders’ negative behavioural and emotional responses to witnessing bullying. participant 8 confirmed this assertion by saying, i feel scared because those bullies might come to me or might go and beat another person. i feel bad because sometimes i have bad dreams. i dream like it is me that they are bullying. it disturbs me a lot in my sleep. thinking about and fearing becoming the next victim might also produce feelings of anger, sadness, sleeplessness, restlessness, mistrust, frustration, and moodiness. this is confirmed in the reactions of participant 7 when she said, “i feel so restless because witnessing bullying make me to feel so sad because bullying is not good at all. it makes me feel down because i can’t do anything at school.” when asked how witnessing bullying in school generally affects her mood, participant 3 said, “i don’t trust anyone because i feel like they, too, are part of those who are busy bullying learners.” theme 5: insecure feelings this theme reflected bystanders’ concern about their vulnerability to bullying victimisation in terms of fear that led to insecure feelings. thinking about and fearing being the next target of bullying, with its accompanying negative emotions such as anger, sadness, and restlessness diminished participants’ ability to engage in learning activities even in a non-threatening school environment. we asked the participants to describe how they feel about their safety in school after they witnessed bullying. they stated clearly that they feel insecure at school because they always think that they will be bullied as well. participant 7 remarked, “i don’t feel safe at all because i am scared that what if the bully come to me and challenge me that, ‘ehh you saw us.’ so, i am not safe. that is why i don’t feel safe.” participant 4 attested to feeling insecure in school as a result of fear that the bullies may target him next. he explained, “i am not sure if i can tell the teacher or principal because i feel scared that they can come and bully me.” it appeared that nearly all the participants in this study reported feelings of insecurity that stemmed, in part, from thinking about and fearing becoming the next victim after witnessing bullying. the school environment is expected to be a safe place where effective teaching and learning can take place. however, this is not the case for bystanders who constantly indulge in thoughts and fears of subsequent direct victimisation. theme 6: school phobia during the individual semi-structured interviews conducted with the participants, we asked them if witnessing bullying affected their interest in going to school. participant 1 disclosed, 120 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 “bullying make me to be afraid of school. sometimes when my mother wakes me for school i am like ‘no don’t wake me up i don’t want to go to school.’” most participants stated that fear and anxiety became a daily part of their lives. almost all the participants remarked that they dislike going to school for fear of being the next victim of bullying. participant 2 made this assertion apparent when she said, “it does affect my likeness for school. sometimes when i wake up i doubt if i should go to school or not because of this bullying.” participant 7 demonstrated her unwillingness to go to school as a result of fearing an attack and being harmed when she explained, “yes, i do think about it the following day when i am supposed to go school. i get scared and say to myself that ‘what if bullying happens to me?’” the school plays a meaningful role in the socialisation of learners. however, if the school environment is hostile, learners may lose interest in going to school. some participants claimed they like to be at home rather than in school. participant 9 said, yes, i am afraid of school and i feel like i can go home but if i go home my mama will ask me why i come back. my mother will tell me that i must go back and report to the principal so that the principal can discipline that child but i am scared that after school, the bully can call me and said he want to talk to me only to find out that he wants to beat me. participant 5 confirmed her fear of going to school by saying, “when i wake up in the morning and think of going to school, i said ‘no, i feel like not going to school every morning.’” it is evident that fear of being bullied negatively affected bystanders’ response to going to school since most participants expressed a loss of interest in doing so. in addition, it seemed that the emotional distress caused by thinking about and fearing becoming the next victim of bullying created discomfort and unhappiness for participants even while they were at school. participant 10 said, i don’t have happiness in school because i always feel like crying and i feel sad. i feel bad because sometimes i don’t wish to come to school because of the bullying things and sometimes i am scared to come to school. discussion the findings of this study reveal the various emotional and behavioural reactions of bystanders to witnessing school bullying. first, bystanders experienced cognitive dissonance because they believed that bullying was wrong, and they intended to intervene on behalf of the victim but their intention to do so did not translate into action because of the fear of becoming the next victim. salmivalli (2014) explained that while most bystanders feel uncomfortable about not intervening and feel sympathetic towards victims, the fear of becoming the next target of bullying overshadows the feelings of willingness to intervene and defend the victims. in opposition to the findings of two previous studies (padgett & notar, 2013; polani et al., 2012) that point to bystanders’ moral disengagement and lack of empathy, adewoye & du plessis: early adolescents bystanders experiences of school bullying . . . 121 bystanders in this study did not reinforce bullying behaviour by laughing, cheering, or hailing the bullies. instead, they demonstrated their disapproval of bullying behaviour even though they could not intervene. second, bystanders reacted by apportioning blame to themselves and felt guilty for not defending the victim. this finding echoes that of hutchinson (2012) who noted that bystanders might experience an increased level of stress and guilt for not standing up to the bully on behalf of the victim. third, bystanders experienced difficulties in concentrating on academic tasks because of psychological re-victimisation. it follows that feeling emotionally and physically troubled as a result of fear of subsequent direct victimisation could impede learners’ concentration on their studies. this finding confirmed the report of midgett and doumas (2019) that bystanders may be fearful and become distracted in school and that this makes concentrating on school activities difficult. after the bullying incidents were over, intrusive thoughts and images filled the minds of the bystanders and this caused them to identify with the pain and suffering of the victim. consequently, the flashback of the bullying incidents they watched led to co-victimisation that, in turn, evoked negative emotions and behaviour such as anger, restlessness, worry, sadness, and shock. this finding resonated with hutchinson’s (2012) point of view that bystanders of school bullying are more likely to react to witnessing bullying with symptoms of secondary trauma stress like depression, anxiety, and insecurity than the bullied victims are. furthermore, concerns about vulnerability in relation to being the next victim of bullying produced feelings of insecurity at school that negatively influenced bystanders’ perception of school safety and their readiness to learn. this finding coincides with that of strom et al. (2013) that learners in a negative school climate might lack the feeling of safety necessary for effective teaching and learning. last, fear of the unknown became a daily experience for bystanders in this study and this fear affected their interest in going to school. this finding indicated that if learners think the school environment is unfriendly, they may feel scared to go to school and consequently develop a phobic attitude towards school which could, in turn, impede school attendance. berkowitz and benbenishty (2012), as well as bradshaw et al., (2013) noted that bystanders of school bullying may lose interest in going to school and are most likely to miss school as a result of feeling afraid or of anticipating direct bullying victimisation. implications this research study that focused attention on how early adolescents experience school bullying as bystanders is particularly significant because most studies on bullying have emphasised and reported on only the experience of learners as bullies or as direct victims of bullying. the findings of this study confirmed that bullying can be described as a group phenomenon that involves the bystanders in addition to the bullies and the victims identified earlier in the literature. 122 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 the findings of this study also revealed that witnesses of bullying behaviour can also be negatively affected emotionally, psychologically, and academically. all this might be helpful to teachers, school counsellors, and educational psychologists to help them comprehend fully the impacts and consequences of bullying on bystanders’ emotions, cognition, and social adjustment when they are designing strategies to help victims of bullying and bystanders in school. as for the learner who bullies, the findings of this study might make them aware of the negative effect of bullying on the mental and physical health and on the emotional wellbeing of victims and bystanders with a view to foster a sense of empathy in them. the rudiments of social emotional training should be incorporated into the life orientation curriculum for learners in school. this will enable them to develop elementary collective empathy that might stop them from trivialising bullying incidents. conclusion and recommendations the study contributes to the literature on bystanders of bullying. the bystander is relatively under-researched in the literature (salmivali, 2014). one of the reasons why this is so may be because of the limited attempts at creating more collaborative engagements and this, of course, makes data on bystander experiences scarce. this study afforded some bystanders the opportunity to voice their experiences and reactions to witnessing bullying in school. the qualitative research approach used in this study gave bystanders the chance to give in-depth descriptions of their experiences of school bullying that might have been limited if the quantitative approach had been used. based on the findings of this study we recommend that future research studies should expand their scope by increasing the sample size and geographical coverage. we also recommend that teachers should teach potential bystanders to identify and practise positive behavioural techniques to mitigate the effect of witnessing bullying. anti-bullying programs should be included in the curriculum so that teachers, school psychologists, and counsellors (if there are any in schools) would have the opportunity to highlight the emotional, psychological, and educational impact of bullying and emphasise to the learners that the consequences of bullying extend to all who are exposed to it. acknowledgment we thank all the participants and the principal of the school where the study took place for cooperating with us before, during, and after data collection. disclosure there is no conflict of interest. adewoye & du plessis: early adolescents bystanders experiences of school bullying . . . 123 references adewoye, s. e., & du plessis, a. 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(2017). protecting children against bullying and its consequences. springer international publishing. microsoft word bissue75-fulljun22.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 75, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i75a06 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x compliance with legislative framework in implementing recognition of prior learning (rpl) by south african library and information science (lis) schools ike hlongwane department of information science, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa http://orcid.org/0000 0003-2224-1238 (received: 11 september 2018; accepted: 24 april 2019) abstract rpl is defined broadly as the principles and processes through which prior experiences, knowledge, skills, and attitudes acquired outside the formal learning programme are recognised and assessed for purposes of certification, alternative access and admission, and further learning and development (south african qualifications authority (saqa) 2013). in this paper, i highlight the importance of an enabling environment in the development and implementation of rpl in library and information science (lis) in south africa. the saqa rpl policy (2002) makes it explicit that “an enabling environment” (p. 18) demonstrating commitment to rpl is essential. it is evident from the document that unless proper policies, structures, and resources are allocated to a credible assessment process, it can easily become an area of contestation and conflict. in my study, i adopted a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods which involved the use of questionnaires and document analysis to collect data. i found that there are islands of good practice in terms of compliance with the legislative framework in implementing rpl in south african lis schools. i recommend, among other things, that the department of higher education (dhe) together with the council on higher education (che) and saqa conduct regular monitoring and evaluation processes of rpl implementation in lis schools to encourage compliance with prevailing legislative frameworks. further, periodic rpl accreditation processes could also be used to great effect to ensure that lis schools comply, failing which, their accreditation to offer rpl services could be reviewed. this will help create an enabling environment, which is a prerequisite for an effective and credible recognition of the rpl process. keywords: recognition of prior learning (rpl), legislative framework for rpl, library and information science (lis) schools, south africa, south african qualifications authority (saqa) rpl policy. introduction rpl is defined broadly as the principles and processes through which prior experiences, knowledge, skills, and attitudes acquired outside the formal learning programme are recognised and assessed for purposes of certification, alternative access and admission, and further learning and development (saqa, 2002, 2013). rpl is a globally lauded phenomenon that provides access to learning programmes in the higher education and 78 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 training sector on a continuum that quantifies informal education by apportioning credit value as applicable in the academic or formal education realm. in south africa, saqa’s rpl policy (2013) advocates commitment to the principles of equity and redress and it identifies two rpl target groups. the first one is the access group that is made up of • under-qualified adult learners wanting to up-skill and improve their qualifications; and • candidates lacking minimum requirements for entry into a formal learning programme. the second one is the redress group that is made up of • workers on the shop floor or in the workplace who may be semi-skilled and even unemployed and who may have worked for many years but were prevented from developing because of restrictive past policies; and • candidates who exit formal education prematurely and who have, over a number of years, built up learning through short learning programmes. the significance of rpl as a catalyst for career and professional development is underscored in the literature. for instance, it has emerged that rpl can be used as a mechanism to offer non-traditional learners such as workers, adult learners, and community workers access to learning opportunities (bowman et al., 2003; wheelahan et al., 2003). in the lis sector in south africa, rpl can be used for up-skilling. the benefit of this is that it promotes professional development but at the same time enhances promotional opportunities for lis staff by enabling them to migrate from paraprofessional to professional roles. owing to past injustices, the south african higher education and training sector is characterised by inequalities of resource allocation and of learning opportunities. recognition of rpl was established through the national qualification framework (nqf), to address the previous inequalities in this sector. lis schools could use this approach to offer experienced but unqualified library workers opportunities for progressive professional development and career growth. south africa is recuperating from the disparities of apartheid and rpl is one of the tools that can be used to address past inequalities. however, although the intention behind rpl is good, there is evidence that its success can be compromised if it is not properly implemented (saqa, 2013). this is why i support the thesis that the implementation of rpl has to be preceded by, or juxtaposed with, the establishment of an enabling environment characterised by context specific rpl provision that takes into account policies, structures, and available resources to ensure successful implementation. based on saqa’s criteria and guidelines for assessment of nqf registered unit standards and qualifications (2001), several questions must be answered in order to determine the extent to which lis in south africa complies with legislative and regulatory frameworks relating to rpl that will ensure successful implementation. these include whether hlongwane: compliance to legislative framework . . . 79 • institutional rpl policies are based on the saqa policy (2013); • there is an institutional will to open up access to diverse learners; • lis schools are committed to nqf principles of equity/redress and inclusion; • information about rpl services is widely available to potential candidates; • admission procedures in lis schools are inclusive of non-matriculated learners; and • there are formal articulation agreements within the broader lis sector. post-1994, the lis profession has been dramatically affected by the restructuring of the south african higher education and training sector because of changes to national policy regarding primary, secondary, and higher education (ocholla & bothma, 2007; dac, 2010). in particular, the drop in student numbers resulted in a reduction in the number of institutions offering programmes in lis from 18 schools in 2000 to the current 10 (ocholla & bothma, 2007; department of arts and culture (dac), 2010). the university of johannesburg (uj) and stellenbosch university (su) refocused and rationalised their qualifications by moving away from traditional library-oriented education into information technology (it) and information and knowledge management fields (dac, 2010). there are currently 10 lis schools in south africa. • durban university of technology (dut),department of information and corporate management (library and information studies & office management and technology) • university of cape town (uct), library and information studies centre (lisc) • university of fort hare (ufh), department of library and information science • university of kwazulu-natal (ukzn), department of information studies • university of limpopo (ul), department of information studies • university of pretoria (up), department of library and information science • university of south africa (unisa), department of information science • university of zululand (uz), department of information studies • walter sisulu university (wsu), department of library and information science • university of western cape (uwc), department of library and information science. different institutions offer different entry routes to the lis profession (ocholla & bothma, 2007; nassimbeni & underwood, 2007). institutions such as unisa, ufh, up, uwc, and uz offer an undergraduate qualification at entry level. other institutions such as uct and ukzn offer a postgraduate diploma towards a professional career in the lis sector. uz, ul, unisa, uwc, and wsu also offer both an undergraduate degree and a postgraduate diploma. lis schools in south africa are struggling to survive as a result of declining numbers in student enrolment because of less interest in librarianship as a career and the impending retirement of incumbent scholars (ocholla & bothma, 2007; stilwell, 2009; dac, 2010). in their struggle for survival, south african lis schools are making changes to their courses and positioning themselves in various schools, departments, and faculties (ocholla & bothma 2007). 80 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 using rpl, lis schools can tap into a large pool of many library practitioners who are either unqualified or under-qualified (davids, 2006, cited in hlongwane, 2014, p. 2). when these people achieve recognised status “at a level of assistant, paraprofessional or professional” (underwood, 2003, p. 53), the shortage of qualified staff in the lis sector, as noted by stilwell (2009), can be alleviated and this will also increase, in part, opportunities for the survival and viability of lis schools in the south african higher education and training sector. problem and purpose of the study one of the key drivers for rpl is its capacity to act as a mechanism for social inclusion by improving opportunities for people to use their informal learning to gain recognised qualifications (young, 2001). to effectively implement the rpl mechanism in higher education and training, an enabling environment demonstrating commitment to relevant legislative and regulatory frameworks with regard to admission policies, structures and resources including willingness to open up access, commitment to nqf principles of equity/redress and inclusion, availability of rpl services and formal articulation agreements within the broader lis sector, needs to be created (saqa, 2002; 2013). several studies have been conducted on rpl in the lis field in south africa. however, no study appears to have been conducted to determine compliance with the legislative framework in implementing rpl in the lis sector. this is, therefore, what i sought to determine in this study. the main objectives of the study were • to examine the use of saqa policy (2013) in the development of institutional rpl policies; • to find out whether there was an institutional will to open up access to diverse learners; • to establish the commitment of lis schools to nqf principles of equity/redress and inclusion; • to determine the availability of information of rpl services to prospective candidates; • to examine admission procedures in lis schools; and • to determine the existence of formal articulation agreements in the broader lis sector. literature review the fundamental prerequisite for an effective and credible implementation of an rpl programme is the establishment of an enabling environment (saqa policies, 2013). as in other countries such as australia and new zealand, the development of a national qualifications systems has been a driver of rpl (australian qualifications framework, aqf, advisory board, 2002; new zealand qualification authority, nzqa, 2003). however, despite widespread interest and activity in rpl in higher and further education sectors in the us, there is no national rpl policy in their national education system or framework (international labour organisation, ilo, 2005). in addition, in the uk, there is no national hlongwane: compliance to legislative framework . . . 81 rpl policy as such but the quality code (quality assurance agency for higher education, qaa, 2013) covers the assessment of rpl. furthermore, the implementation of rpl or prior learning assessment and recognition (plar), as it is known in canada, is within existing educational, professional, and employment systems (van kleef, 2011). in south africa, and, as mentioned earlier, in australia and new zealand, various laws and regulations have been promulgated in order to support the establishment of an enabling environment for the development of a comprehensive rpl policy. the south african qualifications authority act 58 of 1995 was the key driver in assisting individuals who were previously denied access to higher education and training because of the apartheid system. in the main, this act was established with a view to develop and implement the nqf, which inherently includes rpl. the rpl principle is fundamental to the development of new education and training systems based on the nqf (saqa, 2002) so that, following harris (1997), national qualifications and outcome-based unit standards can be registered. through rpl, the nqf is intended to give previously disadvantaged individuals much needed opportunities for lifelong learning. according to du pré (2004), these individuals are increasingly gaining access to higher education and training through this rpl mechanism. the skills development act of 1998 was intended to provide an “institutional framework to develop and improve the skills of the south african workforce” (department of labour, 1998b, p. 2). the importance of improving the employment prospects of people who were previously disadvantaged by unfair discrimination and to redress those disadvantages through training and education is explicitly stated in this act. this act also formed the foundation for the establishment of sector education and training authorities (setas). among their other functions, the setas facilitate the development and implementation of rpl policies in all economic sectors. as education, training and quality assurance (etqa) mechanisms, the setas are also responsible for ensuring quality rpl outcomes in these sectors. the employment equity (ee) act 55 of 1998 (department of labour, 1998a) stated that employers have a duty to eliminate unfair discrimination. the act also provides a framework through which the employer can attract, develop, advance, and retain his or her human resource talent. this act recognises that • as a result of apartheid and other discriminatory laws and practices, there are disparities in employment, occupation, and income within the national labour market; and • these disparities create pronounced disadvantages for certain categories of people and these disadvantages cannot be redressed simply by repeating discriminatory laws. the purpose of the ee act (1998) is to achieve equity in the workplace by • promoting the constitutional right of equality, and the exercise of true democracy; • eliminating unfair discrimination in employment; 82 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 • ensuring that employment equity is implemented to redress the effects of discrimination; • achieving a diverse workforce that is broadly representative of the south african population; • promoting economic development and efficiency in the workforce; and • meeting the republic of south africa’s obligations as a member of the international labour organisation (ilo). in the further education and training (fet) act of 1998, rpl is seen as a mechanism to gain access to programmes in the fet band. this act is underpinned by principles of redress and access in education. however, the 2009 report by the organisation for economic cooperation and development (oecd) raised cautious optimism about the implementation of rpl in the fet sector. among other things, the report asserted that rpl was practised only on a limited scale, and that there was no formal policy governing rpl in this sector. the department of education white paper (1997) was promulgated with the aim of transforming the education landscape in south africa. it was hoped that by eliminating social imbalances through higher education, south africans would be empowered to engage effectively in globalisation (kistan, 2002). the council on higher education (che) report (2001) emphasised the importance of this white paper by stating that it created a system in which “higher education could provide greater access to learning opportunities at various levels, across a range of programmes and entry points” (p. 9). as a basis for social justice, this will lead to the creation of opportunities for individuals who have been educationally and/or academically disenfranchised by the previous apartheid dispensation. to standardise the implementation of rpl in the higher education and training sector saqa, in consultation with che and the department of higher education, developed an rpl national policy. this national policy underscores the need for universities to establish discipline specific rpl policies for various academic departments or schools. given that the development of rpl in south africa is sector specific to allow for institutional autonomy and contextual practices, the establishment of an enabling policy environment in lis schools will not only improve efficiency in rpl provision but will also enhance the credibility of the rpl assessment process. research methodology in this study, following creswell (2014), i used a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to collect data from all the 10 lis schools in south african higher education. the data was collected from the respondents through a survey questionnaire based on the list of statements (themes) taken from the saqa rpl policy document (2013), and content analysis (bryman, 2011) of the institutional rpl policies. i triangulated the results from the survey questionnaire with content analysis results in order to supplement the survey results and thus provide greater richness and depth to the findings of the study. the respondents included the head/chair of departments/schools, senior lecturers, lecturers, junior lecturers, and rpl hlongwane: compliance to legislative framework . . . 83 officials because of their knowledge and experience of rpl practices. the documents that were analysed included policy documents from the higher education and training national department as well as related institutional documents. a total of 76 respondents were targeted; these consisted of 10 rpl officials and 66 academic staff recommended by the heads/chairs of the schools/departments. of the rpl officials, five did not respond along with three academic staff. as a result, there were 68 respondents: five professors; one associate professor; 44 senior lecturers; 13 lecturers; and five rpl officials. findings this section presents in a thematic mode integrated findings yielded by questionnaires and the content analysis of institutional rpl policies. the variables measured by the study are key constructs for facilitating or enabling an rpl policy environment. table 1 below indicates the percentages of respondents who agreed with each statement and the number of institutions that had policies that reflected these statements. table 1: rpl policy environment statement institutional policies respondents use of saqa rpl policy (2013) in the development of institutional rpl policies 100.0% (10) 94.1% (64) institutional will to open up access to diverse learners 100.0% (10) 88.1% (59) commitment of lis schools to nqf principles of equity/redress and inclusion 100.0% (10) 70.6% (48) availability of information of rpl services to prospective candidates 100.0% (10) 60.3% (41) admission procedures in lis schools that included rpl 70.0% (7) 55.9% (38) formal articulation agreements regarding rpl within the broader lis sector 13.2% (9) discussion use of saqa rpl policy (2013) in the development of institutional rpl policies there was an indication in this study that rpl policies in the different universities where the lis schools are located were based on the saqa policy (2013) as required by the saqa act of 1995. the analysis of the institutional rpl policy documents further indicated that, in 84 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 addition to the saqa act of 1995 and related acts, six out of ten institutional policy frameworks make reference to several regulations and acts that capture the importance of rpl in the south african higher education and training sector. these acts and regulations include the employment equity act (act 55 of 1998), skills development act (act 97 of 1998), higher education act of 1997, and the national plan for higher education (2001). using saqa policy (2013) guidelines in the formulation of institutional rpl policies and the inclusion of related acts and regulations not only aims to help standardise rpl practice in the lis sector but also creates an enabling environment for effective and efficient rpl practice in lis schools in south africa. standardisation of rpl practices is essential if we are to avoid ad hoc procedures that will compromise academic standards, articulation opportunities, academic ethos, throughput, and pass rates. institutional will to open up access to diverse learners as indicated earlier, one of the main purposes of rpl in south africa is to open up access to education and training and to effect the redress of past injustices. in the legislation, regulations, and criteria and guidelines documents (saqa, 2013), rpl is put forward as one of the key strategies to ensure equitable access to higher education and training. in addition, rpl is seen as one of the mechanisms with the potential to ensure redress of past unjust educational practices in south africa. the findings of the study indicate that 88.1% of the respondents acknowledged that there was institutional understanding, leadership, and will to support lis schools to open up access to diverse learners who display diverse needs and capabilities. the commitment of institutions was reflected in all the institutional rpl policy documents and this was also confirmed by most respondents (88.1%) from the different lis schools. there seemed to be greater acknowledgement (88.1%) in the lis schools of rpl as a tool of access to learning in higher education. however, a few respondents (11.9%) indicated that the institutional standpoint on rpl was not very positive. commitment to the principles of equity/redress and inclusion the content analysis of the institutional rpl documents found that, in principle, there was reference to equity, redress, and inclusion in all the documents. however, when asked about commitment to the principles of equity, redress, and inclusion, approximately 70.6% of the respondents indicated that rpl procedures, processes, and practices complied with saqa rpl policy (2013) requirements. this show of commitment to the principles of equity/redress will benefit potential rpl candidates in terms of access to higher education and training. availability of information of rpl services to prospective candidates rpl providers such as universities and/or academic departments are required to provide potential rpl candidates with information relating to the general overview of rpl services, details of costs, guidelines for collecting evidence, and particulars about the application process (saqa, 2013). in addition, the would-be implementers, as required by the policy, are supposed to inform clients about rpl prior to, and on enrolment. the results of the study hlongwane: compliance to legislative framework . . . 85 indicated that only 60.3% of the respondents agreed that information about rpl services was widely available to potential candidates. however, only half (50%) of the institutional rpl policy documents analysed contained promotional information about rpl assessment. overall, there seemed to be low levels of awareness about rpl services and their benefits in lis schools in south africa. rpl service providers or training organisations have different views on rpl applicability and implications. • there is a lack of clarity between the institution and the various departments on the responsibility to market rpl; • there is fear that rpl is a political prescript that is likely to compromise academic standards; • rpl outcomes are not valued as equal to formal training outcomes; • confidence to undertake the process is lacking, and knowledge and understanding of the merits of rpl are lacking; and • there is a lack of institutional leadership and commitment. the downside to ineffective publicising of rpl is that the uptake will be low since the intended beneficiaries may not know about the possibilities and opportunities available to them. this means that rpl service providers may be perpetuating social exclusion and defeating their own mandate of upholding social justice. it has emerged in the literature that there is low rpl uptake in the higher education and training sector. the rpl phenomenon still needs to be publicised vigorously to create awareness and understanding especially in developing countries like south africa where there is a dire need for social transformation. admission procedures in lis schools which included rpl the results of the survey indicated, on the one hand, that the admission procedures of 6 out of 10 lis schools (55.9%) were not inclusive of non-matriculated learners. on the other, the institutional rpl document analysis revealed that seven out of 10 (70%) rpl policies used by lis schools made reference to this aspect. what these results show is that commitment to the principles of equity/redress (70%) as reflected in the institutional rpl policy documents does not, in practice, translate into the implementation of admission procedures that are inclusive of non-matriculated learners. formal articulation agreements regarding rpl in the broader lis sector in this study, the survey results indicated that only 13.2% of the respondents acknowledged that formal articulation agreements among lis schools exist while none of the institutional rpl policy document (0.0%) reflected any formal articulation agreements among them. the significance of formal articulation agreements among lis schools lies in ensuring that there is recognition of rpl results/outcomes in the lis sector to enhance student mobility. despite 13.2% of the respondents indicating that there were formal articulation agreements among lis schools, the results are a clear indication of deviation from the saqa rpl policy (2013) which requires lis schools to establish formal articulation agreements among themselves in relation to the chosen field of learning and qualifications. 86 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 conclusions in my study, i found out that there are islands of good practice in terms of compliance with all the legislative framework themes discussed above regarding the implementation of rpl in south african lis schools but there are very few formal articulation agreements regarding rpl in the broader lis sector. i recommend that the department of higher education, together with che and saqa, conduct regular monitoring and evaluation processes of rpl implementation in lis schools to encourage compliance with prevailing legislative frameworks. further, periodic rpl accreditation processes could also be used to great effect to ensure that lis schools comply, failing which their accreditation to offer rpl services could be reviewed. this will help create an enabling environment, which is a prerequisite for an effective and credible recognition of the rpl process in lis schools. this will take greater cooperation among all stakeholders if we are to create an enabling environment for the implementation of rpl in the south african higher education and training sector, including lis schools. references australian qualifications authority (aqf) advisory board. 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(2002). criteria and guidelines for the implementation of the recognition of prior learning. pretoria, rsa: government printer. south african qualifications authority (saqa). (2013). revised rpl policy. pretoria, rsa: government printer. stilwell, c. (2009). mapping the fit: library and information services and national transformation agenda in south africa. part ii. south african journal of library and information science, 75(1), 1–11. underwood, p. g. (2003). recognition of prior learning (rpl) and the development of library and information science profession in south africa. south african journal of library and information science, 69(1), 49–54. van kleef, j. (2011). canada: a typology of prior learning assessment and recognition (plar) research in context. in j. harris, m. breier, & c.wihak (eds.), researching recognition of prior learning: international perspectives. leicester, uk: national institute of adult continuing education (niace). young, m. (2001). the role of national qualifications frameworks in promoting lifelong learning: discussion paper. paris: organisation of economic co-operation and development (oecd). wheelahan, l., dennis, n., firth, j., miller, p., newton, d., pascoe, s., & brightman, r. (eds.). (2003). a report on recognition of prior learning (rpl) policy and practice in australia. australian qualifications framework advisory board (aqfab), lismore, au: southern cross university. microsoft word b8500 full issue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 85, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i85a07 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x “they would not like it if men taught in the foundation phase”: sgbs’ perceptions of the employment of male fp teachers obakeng kagola faculty of education, nelson mandela university, gqeberha, south africa obakeng.kagola@mandela.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9841-8696 mathabo khau faculty of education,nelson mandela university, gqeberha, south africa mathabo.khau@mandela.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8933-0553 (received: 18 march 2021; accepted: 23 september 2021) abstract efforts to recruit and retain men in the foundation phase (fp) teaching and learning have been made all over the world. in south africa, school governing bodies (sgbs) are tasked with the responsibility of diversifying schooling by recommending to the department of basic education (dbe) the employment of teachers in all educational phases. two and a half decades after the dawn of democracy in south africa, the teaching of children in the early years is still dominated by women. this study explores how sgbs in the eastern cape province of south africa approach the employment of male teachers in fp. using a qualitative research approach, we used a semi-structured focus group discussion to generate data with five sgb parent-component members. we analysed the data thematically and found that sgbs’ employment of male fp teachers is based on societal constructions of gender over employment policy guidelines. the sgb members showed a lack of policy understanding and at times misinterpreted the policies. these findings have implications for education policymakers and teacher training institutions in facilitating the smooth incorporation of males into fp teaching. keywords: foundation phase (fp), male teachers, school governing bodies (sgbs), equitable employment kagola & khau: “they would not like it if men taught in the foundation phase” 129 introduction and background school governing bodies (sgbs) in south africa are tasked with providing recommendations to the department of education (doe) regarding the employment of teaching and administrative staff in the public schools they govern. this responsibility, among others, is premised on the south african government's objective of decentralising school governance, creating inclusive schooling communities, and promoting democratic values in schools (xaba & nhlapo, 2014; department of basic education 2011a). however, two and a half decades after the adoption and implementation of the guiding policies that govern schools, including the south african schools act of 1996 (department of basic education 2011b), the composition of foundation phase teachers remains highly dominated by females. in this educational phase, 78% of teachers are female (snap, 2015; bhana, 2016). the dominance of females in fp teaching is a global phenomenon, with countries like ireland, australia, and new zealand, to name three, having come up with strategies and policies such as bursaries and awareness campaigns to motivate the inclusion of males in early childhood education (mccormack & brownhill, 2014). however, there has not been a significant increase in males joining this teaching phase because of institutionalised resistance towards men in early childhood education (brownhill, 2015). researchers in gender and early childhood education have argued that the high number of female teachers in the fp is premised on the narrative that associates nurturing and care work with women (mashiya et al., 2015; moosa & bhana, 2018; msiza, 2019; warin, 2019; xu & waniganayake, 2017). bhana and moosa (2016) posited that pre-service male teachers registered for other teacher training programmes in one south african university did not regard fp teaching as suitable for themselves given its perceived low status. bhana (2016) and ratele (2015) argued that the apartheid and colonial history of south africa contributed to the gendered division of labour in assigning important status to the work done by males and devaluing that done by females. this practice categorised work such as the teaching of young children, nursing, and hairdressing, to mention only three, as being suitable for females, not males (morrell, 2019). throughout south african history, privilege, dominance, and leadership roles have always characterised men in general, and, have led, in particular, to the construction of hegemonic masculinities in this country (bhana, 2016; ratele et al., 2012). under the current democratic regime, the tables have turned, and females are gradually crossing the gender border in taking up employment in previously male-dominated fields (moorosi, 2010; moosa & bhana, 2018). mashiya et al., (2015) and moosa and bhana (2017) have argued that this is progress towards gender equality in south africa. the opposite, however, in relation to men seeking work in previously female-dominated fields, is not the case. in support of this msiza (2019) indicated that males seeking employment in such professions like fp teaching is not easy since they are often policed and perceived to have ulterior motives such as wanting to engage in paedophiliac behaviour (mashiya et al., 2015; 130 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 moosa & bhana, 2018; msiza, 2019). the male teachers’ masculinity is also questioned and at times they are belittled (kagola & khau, 2020; msiza, 2020). these studies capture something of the potential creation of an inclusive schooling system that involves men in early childhood education. however, these studies do not entirely account for the low recruitment of males in fp, considering that the mandate of sgbs is to employ teachers and to promote diversity, gender equality, and equal opportunities for all. in south africa, there is insufficient research on how sgbs handle the employment of male teachers in fp. the phenomenon of male fp teachers and how gatekeepers such as sgbs handle their employment in the eastern cape province is under-researched. the eastern cape is a province dominated by the amaxhosa ethnic group that has specific cultural values and norms that have an impact on the construction and performance of masculinities (mfecane, 2016; tenge, 2006). some of the dominant cultural practices include ulwaluko, the taking of the boy child through the rite of passage into manhood (ntombana, 2011). morrell et al. (2012) have argued that cultural norms influence the gender norms in society by associating hegemonic masculinities with oppressive attitudes and practices. in similar vein, jewkes et al. (2015) have argued that while men benefit from society’s “patriarchal dividend” (connell, 2009, p. 142), they have a choice regarding whether to take up or resist their oppressive positions against women and other men. thus, men who choose to teach in fp are exercising their agency in challenging such constructions of hegemonic masculinity. sgbs, as members of a specific culture and of a gendered society, are socialised into a particular patriarchal gender order so it is reasonable that they may approach their governance role based on this patriarchal socialisation. this might well have an impact on the recruitment and retainment of male teachers in fp in the eastern cape. to counter such socialisation, jewkes et al. (2015) have explained that masculinity is not inherently oppressive so gender interventions must focus on changing the patriarchal gender order that positions men as oppressive and in this way, reconfigure masculine ideals. in this paper, therefore, we explore how sgbs in the eastern cape province exercise their responsibility of recommending employment of male fp teachers in a bid to reconfigure masculine ideals and practise social justice and diversity in fp teaching. school governance: a south african perspective the south african schools act (sasa) of 1996 (department of basic education, 2011b) is a guiding tool for school governors and their legitimisation (mncube et al., 2011). sasa is a tool that guides school management and governance in the processes of redressing the injustices of the past (mncube, 2007; xaba & nhlapo, 2014). sasa requires that parents form the majority on sgbs in primary schools to enable parental agency in addressing issues of social justice in a country fraught with racism, oppression, and gender discrimination (bush & glover, 2016; mncube, 2007). consequently, parents occupy strategic positions kagola & khau: “they would not like it if men taught in the foundation phase” 131 such as chairperson, secretary, and treasurer in the school governance committee (department of basic education, 2011; mncube, 2007). the primary task of sgbs is the equitable appointment of staff to redress the injustices of the past (mncube et al., 2011; department of basic education, 2011b). despite the good intentions of sasa (mncube et al., 2011), many challenges hamper its successful implementation. these challenges include the low educational levels of most of the parentcomponent members of sgbs, power relations in general, and nepotism in particular when the school is employing staff throughout the different educational bands (bush & glover, 2016; smit & oosthuizen, 2011). furthermore, contextual factors surrounding the schools such as poverty and poor health services, along with, as mentioned above, the cultural norms and values held by communities in which sgb members are located, play a huge role in decision making regarding school governance (moorosi, 2010; xaba & nhlapo, 2014). in spite of these challenges, sgbs have been successful in other areas such as changing the language policy and including differently abled learners in primary schools (basson & mestry, 2019; bush and glover, 2016; mutekwe, 2020) so we see that change is possible. moorosi (2010) found that lack of support from school governors was a significant challenge for women in the area of male-dominated principalship. she argued for a stronger research focus on leadership, gender, and social change to deconstruct patriarchal norms in societies. to address these challenges and achieve equality in education, moorosi (2010) and van wyk (2004) highlighted the need for courageous conversations with community members aimed at dismantling traditional stereotypes. this could assist sgbs to operate within the constitutional framework of south africa (mncube & du plessis, 2011) and thus bring about change in fp teaching. in this paper we contribute to the ongoing conversation and conscientisation of sgbs about their role in the diversification of schools in general and fp teaching in particular through the employment of teachers without prejudice based on their sex or gender. a feminist poststructural perspective put briefly, poststructural feminism centres on the notion of socially created realities that form linkages between oppression on the one hand, and individual and societal practices on the other (lather, 1991). st. pierre (2000) noted that post-structural feminism is based on the belief that people can be active agents in creating their own realities instead of being passive victims of social reproduction. this theory is based on the situatedness of individual experiences, hence the importance of acknowledging that individual experiences are shaped through language, power, and social structures that can produce opposing ways of meaningmaking (jackson, 2001). when people interact with different discursive fields, they may create deep seated values and meanings that bind them to the norms existing in their particular society. poststructural feminist theorists explore the production, function, regulation, and place of discourse in society (weedon, 1997). they employ radical deconstruction to disrupt 132 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 normative discourses surrounding patriarchy and gender roles (crawley & broad, 2008; davies & gannon, 2005; osgood, 2012). discourses, being concepts that work towards producing realities in different contexts, can create an environment that is both oppressive and emancipatory to the marginalised (blaise, 2005; foucault, 1980). feminist poststructural researchers believe that we can move beyond what is documented, known, and understood about dominant discourses in a specific context, such as feminised fp teaching (blaise, 2005; osgood, 2012; weedon, 1997). all feminists aim to multiply the possibilities and demystify methods of thinking that lead to positioning females or males in societies or in particular careers (davies & gannon, 2005; osgood, 2012). the employment of feminist ideals could raise awareness in sgbs on the gendered discourse that surrounds fp teaching. in this study, participants explored how their role as governors can contribute to the feminisation of fp teaching. participants also examined how, given the power of existing dominant discourses in their societies (see barrett, 2005), their subjectivity influenced their decision-making. mayeza (2018) has explained that people navigate their subjectivity through aligning with dominant discourses in their individual context. and this might well be the case of the participants in this study because they come from communities that have a patriarchal gender order that regulates the constructions of femininity and masculinity. butler (1990) noted that the performance of gender roles and people's subjectivity (re)produces certain discourses that normalise and regulate the gendered binaries of being female and male, such as, in this case, the assumption that fp teaching is women's work. bhana (2016) suggested that such discourses are perpetuated by those in power to sustain the particular gender order that dissociates men from care professions such as fp teaching. feminism, particularly from a poststructuralist perspective, helps us to understand the dynamics of gender socialisation as implicated in the sgb’s recommendations regarding the employment of teachers in fp. methodology this paper is based on a bigger qualitative study in line with creswell and creswell (2017). we used participatory visual methodologies such as the creation of collages (see kagola & khau, 2020), and participatory methods such as semi-structured focus group conversations to enable sgb parent-component members to share their understandings and experiences in the employment of male fp teachers. in this article, we discuss only the semi-structured focus group conversations. qualitative researchers have explained that this approach assists participants to share their lived experiences and personal interpretations of a phenomenon and reflect on their opinions regarding this in a particular context (de vos et al., 2014). the critical paradigm we used to anchor the study aims to disrupt the unjust norms in this particular society and work towards the conscientisation of the sgb communities regarding this particular phenomenon (see taylor & medina, 2011). in this paper, we focus on the data generated during focus group conversations between the participants and the facilitator. kagola & khau: “they would not like it if men taught in the foundation phase” 133 this study was conducted in the nelson mandela bay metropolitan (nmbm) district of the eastern cape province in south africa 1 because of the “low statistics on the appointment and retainment of male fp teachers” (bhana, 2016, p. 49), and because the field is relatively under-studied. it was therefore imperative to explore how male fp teachers are perceived when they are being considered for teaching positions in a province with deep-seated cultural practices related to masculinity. five primary schools in the area of zwide and missionvale in the nelson mandela metropole were invited to participate in the study. however, only two schools responded to the invitation. parent-component members were purposively selected because they comprise the majority and hold influential positions in the sgbs of primary schools (department of basic education 2011a). consent forms were read and explained to the participants who then agreed to participate in the study, and permission to record the focus group conversation was obtained in writing. pseudonyms were used throughout the study to ensure participants’ anonymity. the participants from luvoyo primary were ngezile, a 59-year-old male, serving his second term as the chairperson and nomi, a 45-year-old female, serving her first term as treasurer of the sgb. from siviwe primary the participants were nyembezi, 59, who was serving his second term as chairperson, yolisa, 37, and nozuko, 49, two women who were serving the sgb as deputy chairperson and deputy secretary respectively. participants were encouraged to communicate in their language of choice to help generate rich data, and they therefore code-switched between isixhosa and english. the following anchoring question was asked during the focus group session: what are your views on the employment of males to teach in foundation phase? recordings of the focus group conversations were transcribed and translated. we then thematically analysed the data to identify broad themes that surfaced in the focus group conversations (see de vos et al., 2014). we then coded the themes and identified the most descriptive categories, with related themes merged into these categories (see creswell, 2005; de vos et al., 2014). to produce quality data and to ensure the accuracy of the findings, we went back to the data generated in isixhosa and regularly checked consistency in data and themes. member checking was done with participants in instances where clarity and confirmation of details were required to maintain the integrity and trustworthiness of the study. in the next section, we discuss the major themes that emerged from the data. findings and discussions two themes emerged from the focus group conversation. • societal perceptions take precedence in school governance. 1 the study was approved by the nelson mandela university ethics committee (h18-edu-ere-015), and the eastern cape provincial department of education granted us permission to do this research in the province. 134 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 • teacher employment policy is not clearly understood. societal perceptions take precedence in school governance in this section, we present the views of the sgb participants regarding the employment of male teachers in schools, based on societal constructions of gender roles, their lived experiences of serving in the sgb, and interactions with the communities that entrusted them with the power to govern their schools. sgb members were encouraged to talk about their experiences regarding the employment of male teachers in fp. ngezile said, my brother, i don't think parents in the school where i am the chairman will approve having a man in the foundation phase . . . even the principal and myself i am not comfortable with it . . . as a man and the chairman of the sgb, i have seen these men . . . on mondays, they are babalazed [hungover], they take advantage of these children. ngezile’s comment indicates that he would not recommend the employment of males in fp based on what he recalls as his experience. similarly, another man, nyembezi, had a negative view of male employment in the area of fp teaching. he said, no . . . before we do anything at our school, we think about the people who voted for us, the other parents . . . would they like it if men taught in foundation phase? i don’t think so . . . men used to work for their families my brother, and women take care of children. i don't think our community is ready for such change in our primary school. ngezile’s and nyembezi’s comments highlight and uphold the power of dominant social discourses in their communities that devalue care work and consider it to be a low status option for men (see bhana, 2016; msiza, 2020). socio-cultural norms maintain the belief that fp teaching is feminine work (moosa & bhana, 2020; msiza, 2019) and sgbs thus sustain the feminised discourse of fp as pitsoe and letseka (2013) have pointed out. they rationalise their decision because they believe that jobs related to authority and power are reserved for males while caring jobs are for fitting for females (cameron et al., 1999; cruickshank et al., 2018). msibi (2009) has pointed out that african men have been constructed as violent through colonial machinery and are viewed as having the proclivity to be readily rapist. ngezile and nyembezi align their arguments with this belief despite the requirements of education policies and constitutional guidelines. this perpetuates the exclusion of men from the caring professions like fp teaching. ratele (2016) has argued that gender roles are socially constructed and cannot be divorced from the context in which they operate, so it is hardly surprising that ngezile and nyembezi see masculinity as being associated with violence and abuse and not with caregiving. researchers (see bhana & moosa, 2016; msiza, 2020; ratele, 2016) have pointed out that this hegemonic construction of masculinity characterised by violence may contribute to toxic masculinities and the increasing rate of gender-based violence in south africa. interestingly, one could also interpret ngezile’s and nyembezi’s comments as deriving from their kagola & khau: “they would not like it if men taught in the foundation phase” 135 investment in that patriarchal dividend” (connell, 2009, p. 142) discussed above. nyembezi refers to men working and women taking care of children as if that which is done by females is not work. this, of course, undervalues the work done by women and constructs fp teaching as a profession that is not suitable for men (moosa & bhana, 2017; skelton, 2003). that nyembezi and ngezile are both chairpersons in sgbs makes evident the predominance of men in decision-making positions. it is essential to note how ngezile uses his position of authority to dissociate men with fp teaching by referring to only the negative facets of men as teachers in fp. nozuko, the deputy secretary at siviwe primary, had similar views to ngezile but was more open to possibilities of granting access to male teachers in fp teaching. she said, for me it will be a difficult one . . . how would that man look like? because in that phase we need people that will care and raise our children well . . . our children have high levels of respect for their fathers and uncles at home. they can’t just approach them . . . children are scared of men they don’t know. . . however, times have changed . . . i think if they are qualified, we can give them a chance . . . it is difficult for nozuko to imagine men teaching in fp. her socialisation has taught her that men are ranked higher than women, and are not easily approachable, and this, in essence, normalises the fear of men felt by women and children. she has preconceived notions of how a man should be, and, to her, nurturing does not resonate with what she thinks of men. bhana (2016) suggested that part of the issue that dissociates males from fp teaching is the perceived idea that children in fp are vulnerable and innocent. it is assumed that men cannot work with children in this educational phase because of the children's vulnerability. bhana (2016) and ratele (2016), however, have pointed out that masculinities based on being aggressive and non-caring are social constructs and, therefore, can be reconstructed to see men as suitable mentors and teachers of children in fp learning. men should be liberated from the toxic ideals of what a man is or should be (ratele, 2016). nozuko’s view is aligned with weedon’s (1997) theorisation regarding the existence of hegemonic discourses that lead, in this case, to the perception of teaching fp as a feminine profession. however, she noted that qualified men should be given a chance and her acknowledgement of at least potential change is a starting point towards reconstructing the discourses that influence sgb members. nomi’s view is similar to nozuko's. she was, however, more critical in her thinking regarding their responsibility as sgb members. she explained, yes, i hear you all. but i think we have a responsibility to be fair and give everyone the opportunity to prove themselves . . . i think in our school we as the sgb can recommend the man teacher if he has the right qualification and experience. we have the responsibility to represent the community. yes bhuti nyembezi, but we also have the policies to implement . . . yolisa shared the same standpoint as nomi and said, 136 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 nomi has a point. my father was good with children and me for that matter . . . i used to play with him and all that. i think it's a good idea to have a man teach in foundation phase . . . women have been good at working with children . . . but i think it’s time we give men a chance to be fathers to fatherless children in schools especially boys. i see women working at epwp (expanded public works programme) doing hard work installing pipes . . . i don’t see a problem with a man teaching foundation phase. pitsoe and letseka (2013, p. 7) asserted that “once a discourse becomes ‘normal’ and ‘natural,’ it is difficult to think and act outside it . . .” but foucault (1980) argued that shifts in debunking historical thought do occur when people think of different ways to act and communicate. the advocacy of the three female participants for the inclusion of males in fp teaching makes this apparent. additionally, nomi and yolisa reminded the other members of the employment policy and their responsibility to remain fair and promote social justice in schools, thus challenging xaba and nhlapo’s (2014) assertion that most of the parentcomponent members have limited policy knowledge and hence get overruled in recommending staff for employment. nomi’s acknowledgement of the policy and how it should be adhered to in the interests of promoting democratic values and fairness in the employment of staff highlighted a shift in discourse. she said, “the sasa is a very clear policy that speaks about being fair and we must not discriminate.” nomi, nozuko, and yolisa, being fair in their role of governance, advocate for granting opportunities to qualified and experienced fp male teachers. yolisa, however, rationalises her approach to the employment of male fp teachers from an essentialist perspective that assumes that employing males in early childhood education could help with their being fathers to boys raised in female-headed families (warin & adriany, 2017; skelton, 2012; xu & waniganayake, 2018). warin and adriany (2017) argued that the involvement of men in fp teaching should not be premised on a role of being substitute fathers to children raised in single parent families. this is because men are capable of teaching and caring for children without necessarily fathering them or acting as their fathers. further, in support of the above researchers, xu and waniganayake (2018) stated that not all men who choose to be fp teachers may want to perform the fathering role. they suggest that children should experience the presence of both female and male teachers in their early years of learning. teacher employment policy not clearly understood another explanation of why sgb members in this study perceived fp teaching in gendered terms could be their possible lack of understanding of the policy. one of the primary responsibilities of the sgbs, as outlined in sasa (1996) is to ensure that all schools conform to the democratic values as stipulated in the constitution of the country. despite this, nyembezi, nozuko, and ngezile presented different explanations of how teachers are employed and how policy is interpreted and implemented in their schools. nyembezi said, kagola & khau: “they would not like it if men taught in the foundation phase” 137 education policy on sasa, they don't put male teachers, even when they advertised the post on the bulletin, they write there; but they make it there as a policy, we are looking for a female teacher for the foundation phase. nozuko said, bhuti nyembezi we are the ones who should approve those bulletins. . . who are they? i think but i am not sure. . . you are right ipolicy must change to include males. ngezile added, bhuti let me tell you this is my second time being in sgb. i have never seen or heard that the advertisement of foundation phase teacher is looking for a man, we always look for a woman . . . i think it is somewhere in those policies. nyembezi and ngezile stated that the policy is not clear on who should be employed in fp teaching, despite nozuko’s arguing for the inclusion of males in fp. they were unaware that the policy to which they referred advocated for a non-sexist approach in appointing teachers, and hence endorsed the criteria for the type of teacher the school management team wanted to fill a position in a primary school. what the participants are expressing is similar to what xaba and nhlapo (2014) found in their study, namely, that in the majority of sgbs, parent members are not adequately trained on their roles in the committee. the first time they hear about a position for a teacher in their school is when the position is being advertised without their approval. nyembezi explained, because when they advertise these posts they say, they are looking for a female teacher . . . but now if we can look at this and change that, they can open up now, even the male teachers can do what? they can apply when the jobs appear . . . yolisa added, we are never involved in the advertisement process we just come for shortlisting and interviews . . . ngezile went on to say, my brother principals want only mamas there in the schools, and i tell you, they can change our decision . . . they do not favour men because they cannot control them. . . ngezile’s argument shows that male principals in schools are not keen to employ males because they are seen as a threat to the principals’ power and the patriarchal system in general given the gendered belief that women can be controlled while men cannot. this problematic notion is, of course, a result of the patriarchal gender order in these communities (see ratele, 2015). in their respective studies of school leadership and governance, bush and glover (2016), mncube and mafora (2013) and prinsloo (2016) all found that because of the power given to principals, they tend to overrule sgbs' decisions about the appointment of 138 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 staff, and in ngezile’s case, the appointment of males in fp teaching. principals and teachers in sgb committees tend to take advantage of parent-members’ low level of policy understanding (prinsloo, 2016), and this leads to corruption, nepotism, and to their personal preferences being employed. in the school context, principals are regarded as upstanding members of their respective communities and as possessing superior knowledge. the knowledge and wisdom principals are perceived to possess allows them to override decisions of ordinary sgb members who are believed to have limited knowledge. van wyk's (2004) study of sgbs and experiences of south african educators recommends that sgb members should be intensively trained in the application of the educators employment act of 1998 (department of basic education, 2011a) and other relevant legislation. bush and glover (2016) agreed and suggested that empowering sgb members requires intense literacy and policy training. after recognising the sgb members’ unawareness of their roles in the employment of teachers, we conducted a workshop with all participants to familiarise them with the sasa and educator employment act. we also discussed how social justice practices might look in their context. this was motivated by moorosi’s (2010) comment on how researchers should work towards social change and conscientisation of people at grassroots level regarding patriarchal practices that may obstruct the diversification of educational institutions. engaging with communities requires patience since the patriarchal norms and values are deeply embedded in their everyday lives (ratele, 2015). our participants indicated that a transition process would be challenging because of their deeply embedded beliefs regarding gender roles but also acknowledged the necessity of diversifying fp teaching through a fair and non-discriminatory process of employment. in their reflections of the entire process of data generation and workshopping, the sgb members said, possibilities of transformation for me and my community will not be easy . . . to trust a man with our children is not simple. . . seeing that it's my responsibility to diversify the school we will try to rethink our approach of employment in foundation phase . . . (ngezile) it is funny how we think we are protecting the communities we serve only to find we are the ones killing them. . . there should be changes in foundation phase mr . . . but i tell you it will not be simple . . . (nyembezi) i still say given that they (males) have all relevant qualification. . . they have my vote. (nomi) i support nomi . . . change is good even if it's painful sometimes . . . (nozuko) we need to focus on fair policy implementation; men are human too hey. . . we need to think of an easy approach to bring men in our school even if only a few. . . (yolisa) kagola & khau: “they would not like it if men taught in the foundation phase” 139 from these discussions, the sgb participants began the process of re-imagining how they could correctly interpret and implement policies that govern their schools. these sgb participants need to deconstruct their understanding of fp teaching not just as care work but as a respectable profession for all interested in it (bhana, 2016; mashiya et al., 2015; warin, 2019) to promote diversity in early childhood education. one of the measures to prevent the (re)production of hegemonic cultural stereotypes of gender roles is for communities to continue to facilitate and engage in difficult and courageous conversations that dismantle deep-seated social realities (ratele, 2015). the work to deconstruct problematic notions of fp teaching is broad and requires multi-dimensional and multisectoral interventions. discussions and conclusion ratele (2015) and bhana (2016) recommended that for men to transform and develop various acceptable forms of masculinity that are pro-feminine and caring, deconstructive conversations at grassroots level are essential. this research engaged sgb members in the eastern cape province of south africa concerning their role in the employment of male fp teachers in their primary schools. in this paper, we have shown that the sgb members in this study lean on the dominant and powerful discourses in their communities that are produced through a patriarchal gender order that dissociates men from early childhood education. the study further demonstrated how these parent-component members of sgbs had limited understanding of governing policies that could enable them to disrupt the normative practices. the sgbs interactions and socialisation in hetero-patriarchal contexts that hold hegemonic masculinities as powerful justified their acceptance of unfair employment practices against men wishing to join fp teaching staff. however, their engagement in conversations and workshops in this study created conducive conditions for them to alter their gendered rationalisations regarding the employment of male teachers in early childhood education. even though not all the participants agreed on the inclusion of men in fp teaching, it is important to note that ongoing conversations to disrupt the normative perception of fp teaching as a feminine sphere have commenced. this study has produced encouraging results showing that possibilities for a changed education landscape exist in early childhood education, as well changed views on masculinities. hooks (2004) and msiza (2020) have proposed that for communities to challenge patriarchy, they need to deconstruct normative constructions of masculinities. in working with communities to help alleviate inequality and discrimination in south africa and prevent unequal distribution of labour based on gender, it is vital to debunk the notion of care work as feminine and construct it as a respectable profession for all interested in it. sgb members also need to diversify fp teaching through the employment of male teachers (bhana, 2015, 2016; ratele, 2015). to make this a possibility, in-depth comprehension of how hegemonic patriarchal discourses operate and are sustained should be created, so as to deconstruct problematic perceptions of femininity and masculinity (ratele, 2016). 140 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 this study, therefore, recommends that conversations on men and fp teaching with multistakeholder participants should continue. research on other gatekeepers and parents is missing in the literature on the south african context. thus, further research involving all educational stakeholders could provide an understanding of what a re-imagined and diverse fp teaching landscape could look like (mills, 2004; msiza, 2020). such research could be useful in understanding teacher identity constructions in different educational bands and how they are perceived by different educational stakeholders. it could also lead to positive policy interpretation and implementation such that south african schools redress the injustices of their apartheid and colonial past and forge a path towards the achievement of the global sustainable development goals. references barrett, m. j. 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(1997). feminist practice and poststructuralist theory. blackwell. xaba, m. i., & nhlapo, v. a. (2014). principals' views on challenges of their school governance roles. africa education review, 11(3), 424−444. xu, y., & waniganayake, m. (2018). an exploratory study of gender and male teachers in early childhood education and care centres in china. compare. a journal of comparative and international education, 48(4), 518−534. journal of education, 2020 issue 80, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x editorial cynthia carol nonhlanhla mthiyane school of education, durban university of technology, durban, south africa. cynthiam@dut.ac.za mogale maeko school of education, durban university of technology, durban, south africa maekos@dut.ac.za anita hiralaal school of education, durban university of technology, durban, south africa anitah@dut.ac.za when the seventh annual south african research association saera 2019 conference took place in the lush city of durban, south africa, little did the delegates know that, a year later, the world would have changed drastically. the global covid-19 pandemic has, in unprecedented ways, transformed the way we do education and brought into sharp focus, the inequalities that have long existed in many spheres of our social lives. the conference theme, “beyond boundaries and accountability: exploring possibilities through research and innovation,” couldn’t have been more fitting to attempt to address the current crises in education. by april 2020, more than 188 countries worldwide had closed all their schools due to covid-19, with an estimated 1.6 billion children and youth affected (gouëdard et al., 2020). these countries have responded by looking beyond the boundaries of their physical educational spaces and have turned to technology in their attempts to save the academic year. the saera 2019 conference drew on michael apple (2010), arguing for the need to transcend the binding contextual hegemonic forces and accountability regimes that frame education in south africa and globally. to do this, conference presentations, in different forms, explored creative and innovative teaching, assessment, and research strategies to transcend existing educational boundaries. the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) came under the spotlight as critical discussions of its educational affordances and constraints were deliberated. the conference also drew serious attention to the problematic relationship between education and the world of work, and interrogated how institutions of higher learning were responding to the problem. this discussion was timely considering the persistently high unemployment rate among post-school graduates in south africa and questions about the role of higher education in that regard. the conference deliberated how collaborative and innovative educational practices could be used to disrupt and transcend 2 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 accountability regimes that seek to marginalise teaching, learning, assessment, and research. this special edition presents nine carefully selected papers that reflect diverse ideas and critiques of current practices in an attempt to develop implementable, imaginative, and creative alternatives. the first article, by fataar, interrogates the discourse and impact of 4ir on educational thinking and practice in south africa. fataar traces the discursive construction of 4ir educational governance from the international to the national, and discusses the role of powerful actors within and outside government. he suggests that, in south africa, the 4ir discourse has created a socio-technical imaginary that ignores the existing educational inequalities in society. he draws attention to how 4ir has come to settle on the educational discursive terrain and has established its prominence, based on a human capital view of education. he further demonstrates how the dominant 4ir discourse has been appropriated at policy and governance levels, including educational policy. the result, fataar argues, is the formation of what he calls a “4ir governance dispositif” that has entered the south african micro-governance terrain. he concludes by discussing the emerging curriculum and pedagogical dimensions of 4ir, and cautions against curriculum restructuring that prioritises the acquisition of generic skills at the expense of knowledge and concepts. in line with the conference theme, fataar invites educational researchers to recognise and interrogate the binding policies and frameworks around 4ir. he highlights the need for those involved in education and research to harness the positive aspects of 4ir whilst fiercely resisting its worst consequences in which students are denied equitable epistemic access. this, he argues, can be achieved through research-based understanding of the impact of 4ir processes on education. le grange, du preez, ramrathan, and blignaut’s paper is in response to calls to decolonise the curriculum that have dominated public discussions on higher education in south africa since the #feesmustfall campaign in 2015. using an exploratory case study of four south african universities, they document how these higher education institutions are grappling with the demands to decolonise their curricula. their findings reveal an uneven understanding of the decolonisation of the curriculum that differs across the four institutions, leading to varied responses to the calls to decolonise. they caution that the decolonisation project has a potential to be co-opted by universities, which may lead to it losing its revolutionary impulse. this calls for ways to address decolonisation that resist the regimes of accountability prevalent in many universities. mhlongo draws our focus away from the broader debates addressed by the first two articles to a specific higher education curriculum issue—that of accounting university graduates’ unemployability. through content analysis of online advertised accounting vacancies, she sought to investigate whether employers do actually call for pervasive skills when recruiting accounting graduates and, if so, which of these skills are most sought after. her findings indicate that oral and written communication and critical thinking are the most sought-after pervasive skills for accounting-related employment in south africa. sotsaka and singh-pillay focus on how students in higher education learn. adopting a qualitative approach, they explored challenges first-year engineering graphics and design mthiyane et al.: editorial 3 (egd) pre-service teachers encounter when reading and interpreting assembly drawings. using an innovative “think-aloud” task, followed by individual semistructured interviews, they sought to understand the thinking behind students’ struggles in learning egd. findings revealed that the challenges encountered by these students were inextricably linked to their lack of visualisation skills, which compounds their inability to grasp how mental images are defined, produced, or transformed. the authors identify a lack of sufficient content background knowledge as the key problem, and recommend innovative teaching strategies informed by vygotsky’s notion of teaching and learning as a social process. geduld, sathorar, and moeng used “world café conversations” to generate data on the transformational potential of school-based learning (sbl). adopting a critical pedagogy stance, they exposed final-year bed student teachers to schooling contexts different from those they were familiar with. student teachers were given opportunity to describe their experiences of operating in unfamiliar schooling contexts to elicit their input. findings suggest that changing the sbl context did indeed enable transformative learning experiences. the student teachers reported that, in addition to developing relevant knowledge and skills, they also gained a new understanding of what teacher transformative learning involves. childs uses the metaphor of a journey to describe the process of learning to teach in a bachelor of education (bed) program at a south african university. she uses visual participatory methodologies including photo-voice, collages, and drawings to explore dialogic between staff and student teachers. the aim of childs’ study was to consider ways that student teachers could move beyond the boundaries of their school-based learning experiences to learn from and with other beginner teachers, prompted by various visual activities. findings show that visual approaches enable non-linear thinking and can shift the power balance of knowledge creation. through a range of creative visual participatory activities, both students and staff in this study emerged as knowers regarding teacherness and learning to teach. childs argues for the use of visual and creative approaches as a means of collaboratively bridging complicated and difficult territory, moving beyond boundaries to spaces of creative action. with the uptake of visual, creative, and multimodal methods as tools for data collection to communicate and disseminate research findings, naicker, pillay, and blose show how boundaries can be transcended when they used storyboard as a creative space to stimulate scholarly discourse and thinking in narrative analysis. they make visible their learnings as social science researchers when they explored storyboarding as an imaginative, tangible, and reflexive space for narrative inquirers to work with the complexity of restorying their lived lives in educational research. drawing on their doctoral students’ reflections on using the storyboard for restorying lived lives and their ensuing discourses on these reflections as data for this article, they conclude that storyboarding not only opens up researcher subjectivity in the restorying process but it also serves as a space for the mediation of multiple perspectives and meanings of participants’ lived lives—thus, creating an inspiring and creative space to work with a multitude of field texts. through their research and innovation, they have come to believe that storyboarding reinforces the authenticity of the restorying process 4 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 rawlinson highlights how the power of poetic enquiry enabled her to delve into her personal and professional lived experiences that shaped her into the lecturer self she had become in her communication practice, and how these experiences negatively influenced her practice. because of its ability to convey poignancy, musicality, rhythm, mystery, and ambiguity, poetic enquiry appealed to her senses and opened up her heart and ears to different ways of seeing her white race and class privilege because, in poetry, so much can be said and revealed in compelling and contracted forms. through the process of reflexive writing of poems, her thinking about her identity formation became much clearer, and she found new possibilities for how a coming together of her personal and professional identities could influence her practice as a communications lecturer positively. pushing the boundaries by combining poetic enquiry with educational research, rawlinson highlights innovatively how her deeply entrenched ways of thinking were disrupted, enabling her to reimagine and re-envision her communication practice. single-motherhood has become so common that, today, 80 percent of single-parent families are headed by single mothers. despite this, single mothers are often marginalised and misunderstood as the system focuses on protecting their children. in this article, jacobs and daniels elaborate on the ideology that children in single-mother families do receive the required involvement and care from their single mothers. they demonstrate how community cultural wealth helps to identify the cultural resources that learners develop in their families and communities and bring to the classroom. they highlight the negative connotations associated with single-mother families, where research has revealed that these mothers are seen as being distant from involvement in their children’s school education. using yosso’s (2005) model of community cultural wealth, the article proffers that despite severe societal adversity, the participating mothers invested in their children’s educational and emotional wellbeing by accumulating alternative forms of embedded community cultural wealth. the findings have important implications for how schools engage with, and collaborate with, such parent communities to advance positive school–family relationships. references apple, m.w. (2010, june 14 –18). keynote address. xiv world congress for comparative education society, istanbul, turkey. gouëdard, p., pont, b., viennet, r., (2020). education responses to covid-19: implementing a way forward. oecd working paper no. 224. http://www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf/?cote=edu/edpc /rd(2020)9&doclanguage=en yosso, t. j. (2005). whose culture has capital? a critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. race ethnicity and education, 8(1), 69–91. analysis and monitoring of equitable access and full participation in education in south africa: the challenge of data quality jean baxen, yvonne nsubuga, lori diane hill and anne craig abstract indicators to measure educational access serve the useful purpose of facilitating the evaluation and analysis of progress made towards achieving stated educational access objectives. in south africa, data from the gross enrolment ratio (ger) and net enrolment ratio (ner) are commonly used to report on progress made towards universal educational access. the critique in the use of these data is threefold; first, that they are computed from inaccurate school data and second, that their conceptual basis stems from a structural approach to educational access that gives primacy to the onset or final phases of the schooling process (primary or secondary) rather than also to what not only happens during school but also in classrooms. subsumed and arising from the first two, the third critique relates to the nature of indicators used to measure educational access. put differently, conceptualisations premised on a structural approach have not only had consequences for the source of data and indicators used to measure educational access but also for its analysis and interpretation.established therefore, is that conceptions of educational access not only influence the choice of indicators that are regarded to be effective and suitable to describe educational access (fataar, 1997; lewin, 2007; hill, baxen, craig and namakula, 2012) but they also impact the nature of data generated for this purpose. through a review of conceptualisations of educational access and through the use of data drawn from a study of two eastern cape secondary schools, this paper argues that a shift in discourses on education access is necessary for this country to fully understand and respond to the discontinuities that persist to characterise the education system. it calls for a shift from a structural discourse to one that intersects equity and full participation concerns. the paper highlights how such a shift in conceptualisation not only has implications for the nature of data gathered but importantly for indicators produced and applied to describe and measure educational access. 66 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 data for monitoring educational access in south africa prior to 1994, the nine racially desegregated education departments that existed in south africa at that time each had their own ways of collecting information on education provision and delivery (parliamentary monitoring group, 2007). the national education policy information act of 2004 established a unified education management information system (emis) intended to oversee the collection, storage, processing, analysis and dissemination of information as a strategy towards encouraging evidencebased decision-making in the education sector. serious doubts have been expressed over the reliability and validity of emis data (van wyk, 2006; the ministerial committee on learner retention, 2007). limited information on education access in south africa can also be gleaned from the analysis of census and general household survey data. apart from these two databases and what can be gleaned from the grade 12 national examination results, south africa has no other major sources of data to monitor and evaluate educational access. as we show in the section that follows, these data are underpinned by a notion of access that emphasises a structural and systemic analysis using quantitative measures as the primary source. initial use of such an approach was important, and indeed crucial, given the inequitable education system inherited by the democratic government of 1994. but as conceptualisations of access to education evolve to become more complex, so should data sources and indicators. yet the link between the two has received little attention in research. equally, little to no attention is paid to the type of indicators arising from various conceptualisations; concerns at the heart of this paper. conceptualisations of educational access and indicators to measure educational access objectives since the end of apartheid, south africa has made a concerted effort towards not only improving structural or physical access to education but also to quality education for all her citizens, especially previously disadvantaged population groups. the country’s new constitution (rsa, 1996a) guarantees all children the right to basic education (grade 1 to 9), and further stipulates that “[e]veryone has the right to further education, which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible” (rsa, 1996a, p.1257). the south african schools act (rsa, 1996b) makes it baxen, nsubuga, hill and craig: analysis and monitoring. . . 67 mandatory for all children to attend school until the end of grade 9 or age 15. one of the essential elements in determining whether south africa has achieved its goals of access to education for all is the development of good indicators and the collection of high quality data that includes both qualitative and quantitative measures. results with respect to structural access have been impressive with enrolment in school in south africa widely acknowledged as being among the highest in sub-saharan africa (ssa), middle income countries. for example, the 2010 mdg report concluded that south africa has accomplished the goal of universal primary education before the targeted date of 2015. the 2010 gross enrolment ratio (ger) for ordinary secondary education in south africa stood at 86%, up from 81% in 2002, while the sector’s gender parity index (gpi) estimate of 1.07 (department of basic education (dbe), 2012, p.6) indicates that south africa’s female learners have a slight edge over their male counterparts in participating in secondary education. the above notwithstanding and while structural access to school is guaranteed for all children, the mainly quantitative indicators, easily translatable into percentages as in above, mask the inequities attendant in a schooling system beleaguered with low completion rates, slow progression through the system, high dropout rates especially after grade 10 and poor performance in the key subjects of mathematics, physical sciences and accounts (dbe, 2010b; 2011a). put differently, and to make a broader point, the quantitative measures drawn from the use of particular indicators, premised on structural conceptions of educational access, foreground what occurs at the onset or end of schooling (primary or secondary) and thus do not also account for what happens during the process of schooling. despite various initiatives introduced by the post-apartheid government that include improved school infrastructure and management, professional development of teachers, the introduction of no-fee schools, a school feeding scheme, and the revision of curriculum frameworks aimed at improving the quality of teaching and learning (motala, dieltiens, carrim, kgobe, moyo and rembe, 2007; dbe, 2010a)to enhance access to education at all levels of the education system, equitable access and full participation remain a challenge. indeed, even though government action indicates a shift toward a more complex conceptualisation of access to education that reflects a combination of structural, social and economic factors, the dominance of a structural 68 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 approach persists in reporting gains made in access to education. overreliance on quantitative indicators, therefore, does not reflect the discontinuities inherent in the process of education in a country where high numbers of children who enter the system do not complete. recent conceptualisations of access to education focus on the intersections of a complex array of issues that mediate and militate against learners’ participation in the schooling experience (motala et al., 2007; hill, baxen, craig and namakula, 2012) and thus already encapsulate forms of access that move beyond a structural notion of the term. for example, sayed’s (2002) analysis of access to education stems from an inclusion and exclusion perspective. he acknowledges that despite having physical access to schools, there are factors both inside and outside school that contribute to the educational exclusion of learners. he identifies four features that need to be considered in measuring access to education beyond the physical. these include points of access (e.g. access policies and geographical location of schools); institutional setting and ethos (e.g. school culture and practices); curriculum (e.g. content and world views); and the interplay of multiple forms of injustice (sayed, 2002, p.29). instructive in such a conceptualisation is attention paid to structural forces that press upon schools in ways that negatively impact experiences of equitable access to education. such a discourse though under plays factors outside school as well as what happens in classrooms that precludes full participation in school. sayed (2002) also stops short in operationalising the concept by not specifying indicators to measure the four points of access. he is also silent on the nature, form and analysis of data. the implication is that while there is a notable conceptual shift, the practice of data generation, analysis and interpretation remains unchanged, in part, due to the structural roots inherent in such a discourse. the consortium for research on educational access transitions and equity (create), through a conceptualisation of meaningful access, extends sayed’s (2002) framework by identifying five key dimensions not already taken into account. these include high and regular school attendance rates among learners, little or no grade repetition, and learners’ ages that are appropriate for their grades, achievement of expected learning outcomes including learners’ mastery of basic knowledge, skills and competences as stipulated by curriculum requirements, high transition rates to higher grades or phases by the majority of learners and the provision of equitable learning opportunities to all learners including those from marginalised population baxen, nsubuga, hill and craig: analysis and monitoring. . . 69 groups (lewin, 2007, p.21).the create framework represents an advance in conceptualisation of the term in that it not only focuses on the physical and structural mechanisms, but also on participation in the process of schooling. it considers the current and historical instances of marginalisation that may impact individual students’ ability to meaningfully access educational opportunities. participation in this instance thus includes structural as well as processual aspects of schooling and is accounted for in three ways. the first coincides with physical access and is subsumed in sayed’s (2002) concept of inclusion and the identification of mechanisms that militate against children entering the education system. the second, partially captured by rates of retention and completion, describes the state of staying in school. the third incorporates aspects of classroom life that allow students to become successful constructors of their own knowledge (lewin, 2011). this notwithstanding and like sayed (2002), the create framework does not make explicit the implication such a framework has for the nature of data and the kind of indicators governments, policy makers, and researchers require to measure the attainment of education access. we propose a conceptualisation of educational access as full participation. while taking account of and subsuming structural and processual elements that sayed (2002) and lewin (2011) propose, full participation shifts the gaze towards the classroom and on learners. the basic premise is that factors impacting learners’ access to education as well as those shaping teaching and learning are integral to any conceptualisation of educational access. learning is understood to be situated and produced and reproduced within broader social and historical practices, which come together in complex ways to produce what is valued in the field (bourdieu, 1990) or community of practice (lave and wenger, 1991). fully participation not only requires time for immersion in the practice but importantly, also access to the rules attendant with the practice. learner positionality and legitimacy as contributors to the learning process are fundamental to such a conception. initially, learners might be marginal to the learning process, but with time, experience and the attendant social, material and cultural resources made available, should come to not only embody the values of the practice but also embody concomitant social and individual identities (o'donnell and tobbell, 2007). central to such a conceptualisation is the need to take account of the reciprocal and semiotic relationship between actors, context, and process of interaction and as such acknowledgment of the intersection between structural, processual, cultural, and agential (archer, 2007) factors in producing educational access 70 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 there are nine provinces in south africa, each sub-divided into local municipalities.1 and outcomes. full participation, therefore, necessitates simultaneously paying attention to structural, cultural and agential elements because it is their intersectionality that produces particular forms of educational access and success. a conception of educational access premised on full participation, therefore, would require data resulting from indicators that focus on structural, processual, and agential elements at the level of the school and classroom. we use data derived from two secondary schools in the eastern cape to highlight limitations in current discourses and in so doing, propose the type of data and indicators that would arise from conceptualisations of full participation. research context the paper draws on a study that focused on two secondary schools and that took place in the grahamstown education district of makana in the eastern cape. on average, secondary schools serving predominantly black learners in1 this education district perform better in the national school certificate (nsc) examinations (administered at the end of grade 12) than the provincial average. however, given that the pass rate in eastern cape in general is extremely low, there is great concern over the low numbers participating in the examination in the first instance and poor quality of these passes (grocott’s mail, january 6, 2012). lack of ncs success at the level that allows access to tertiary education opportunities is a major obstacle to achieving admission to grahamstown’s prestigious rhodes university and other higher education institutions in the country. it also flies in the face of post-apartheid government efforts to address the social injustices of the past through improvement in education, skills and income levels among the country’s previously disadvantaged population groups. the two schools in the study were relatively representative of peri-urban secondary schools. with respect to matric pass rates, they are neither the best nor the worst in the area. they are relatively well-resourced with poverty index ratings of 4 and 5 respectively, indicating that, based on provincial department of education calculations; they are in the top 40% of schools baxen, nsubuga, hill and craig: analysis and monitoring. . . 71 documents used by all public schools in eastern cape to capture summaries of learner profiles2 and academic performance at the end of each school semester. economically. an initial inspection of their emis data revealed high enrolment rates, especially in the lower grades of 8 and 9. the higher grades of 10 to 12 showed a worrying trend that raised questions about learner throughput, repetition, and retention rates in school. methodology our approach to examining the data requirements for effective analysis and monitoring of full participation comprised three stages. first, and to frame the data requirement analysis, we used the five key dimensions of the meaningful access create framework as the basis to analyze data from the two participating schools, which included mark schedules, snap survey forms,2 and school annual survey forms. for purposes of this analysis though, two of the create framework dimensions, (‘little or no grade repetition’ and ‘high transition rates to higher grades or phases by the majority of learners’) were collapsed into ‘grade progression’. the aim of this component of the analysis was to highlight the gaps that exist between the kind of learner data that is currently collected in south africa to monitor educational access and the kind that is required to assess meaningful access to education. the next step was to (a) generate a list of indicators deemed important to monitor meaningful access, given that the framework provided a conceptual tool and categories of analysis but not specific indicators, and (b) highlight the gap in data sources. this, with the view to highlighting the gaps that exist in the type of data and indicators in the use of meaningful access and to make the argument that conceptions of full participation have potential to generate data and indicators that better reflect school and classroom factors that militate against educational outcomes and success beyond merely a structural analysis. results using the dimensions employed in the create’s meaningful access framework, table 1 below shows the results of the analysis of the available 72 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 data in the two schools. the data required to effectively analyse and monitor progress in educational access attainment in each of the four aspects about learners are outlined in column 2 of the table. the table also displays the available data on learners regarding educational access that were collected in the schools’ mark schedules, and snap and annual surveys. baxen, nsubuga, hill and craig: analysis and monitoring. . . 73 table 1: a comparison between the data on learners that are required to effectively monitor meaningful access to education, and the actual data that are collected by the two secondary schools dimension required data on learners mark schedule data snap survey data annual survey data school attendance identity of all learners in each grade names and identity number of learners in each grade no data no data learner enrollment figures number of learners in each grade by gender and population group number of learners in each grade by gender number of classes per grade number learners in each grade by population group & gender number of days each learner in each grade was present/absent from school in a particular school year. no data no data no data average number of days in a particular school year learners in each grade were present/absent from school by gender, population group and home language no data no data no data main reasons for learner absenteeism in each grade by gender, population group and home language no data no data no data identity of learners in each grade who left the school in a particular year names, identity numbers, gender, population group and home language of learners who did not write the end of semester examination no data no data number and % of learners in each grade who left the school during a particular year by gender, population group and home language no data no data number of deceased learners in each grade by gender and cause of death number of learner pregnancies in each grade number of learner transfers to and from the school in each grade by gender 74 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 grade progression number and % of overage and under-age learners in each grade by gender, population group and home language no data no data number of learners in each grade by date of birth number and % of repeaters in each grade in a particular school year by gender, population group and home language number of years each learner has spent in the grade in a particular school year no data number of repeaters in each grade, gender and population group learning achievement identity of learners who passed/failed their grade in a particular school year names and identity numbers of learners who passed/failed their grade at the end of each school semester no data no data number and % of learners who passed/failed their grade in a particular school year by gender, population group and home language number of learners who passed/failed their grade at the end of each school semester by gender no data number of failures in each grade by gender and population group individual learners’ endofyear marks in maths, english, accounts and physical sciences for each grade individual learners’ end of semester marks in all subjects for each grade no data no data average marks for each grade for maths, english, home-language, accounts and physical science no data no data no data individual learner’s participation and achievement in nonacademic school activities no data no data no data access to learning opportunities individual profiles of learners in each grade including their physical, mental, health, nutrition status, and home background gender of learners in each grade no data no data baxen, nsubuga, hill and craig: analysis and monitoring. . . 75 access to learning opportunities (continued) number and % of learners in each grade by type of disability no data no data number of disabled learners in each grade by gender, population group and disability type number and % of learners in each grade by gender, population group and home language no data number of learners in each grade by gender number learners in each grade by gender and population group number of learners in each grade by preferred language of instruction and gender number of learners in each grade by content subject, gender and population group number of learners from outside the eastern cape by province or country number and % of orphaned learners in each grade by gender, population group and home language no data no data number and type of orphaned learners in each grade by gender number of learners in each grade who are on social grants by gender, population group and home language no data no data number of learners in each grade registered but not receiving/ social grants number of learners in each grade receiving/ social grants number and % of learners in each grade taking maths, accounting, physical sciences by gender, population group, home language and disability individual learner’s performance in all subjects for each grade no data number of learners in each grade by content subject, gender and population group. number of learners taking subjects outside the ncs in each grade 76 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 comparisons across the columns in table 1 indicate that none of the three school data sets that were examined during the study contained the full complement of data on learners that are at a minimum, required for more effective monitoring of meaningful access to education. of the three school data sets that were examined, the annual school survey forms provided the most comprehensive data on learners regarding educational access, while the snap survey forms provided the least data. even if the data on learners from all three sources were combined, there were still gaps in the information on learners that would be required to effectively monitor meaningful access to education. it should be noted that, given the lack of a uniform learner identification system, combining data from different sources is neither straightforward nor feasible on a large scale. school attendance none of the three school data sets that were examined contained detailed data on learners’ school attendance levels. of the three forms, the annual school survey provided the most data on learners’ school attendance, although this was mainly by way of numbers of learners in each grade who, for example, were deceased or transferred from/to the school. although, all three forms provided data on learner enrolment figures, they all lacked data on individual learners’ school attendance. none of the forms asked for data on reasons for learners’ absenteeism, although the annual survey form collected data in each grade on learner deaths and their causes by gender. grade progression information on learners’ progression was inadequate in all the three data sets. the mark schedules only provided the number of years a particular student had spent in current grade. the annual survey form requested information on numbers of learners repeating the grade by gender, and was not specific to individual learners. the snap survey form collected no information on learners’ progression. baxen, nsubuga, hill and craig: analysis and monitoring. . . 77 learning achievement of the three forms, only mark schedules provided data on learners’ level of educational achievement. this included the overall academic performance of each learner, and individual scores in each subject examination, by grade. none of the three forms supplied data on learners’ non-academic performance. no data was available regarding students’ transition rates to higher grades or phases of education. access to learning opportunities mark schedules provided the most in-depth personal data on learners, which in addition to their population group and gender, also included their names and identity numbers. however, data on learners’ backgrounds in the annual survey covered a wider scope and included for example learners’ home language, preferred language of teaching and learning, pregnancy levels, and home province/country. only the annual survey form provided data on learners’ social circumstances. however, this information was not linked to individual learners, and was limited to number and type of orphans in each grade by gender, learners who are receiving/not receiving social grants and causes of learner mortality. results from the first stage above showed the limitations in the available data, when dimensions of meaningful access were applied to monitor meaningful access to education. to advance full participation as a conceptualisation of education access, table 2 below elaborates on the type of data as well as proposed indicators for its operationalisation. we draw attention to differences in indicators and data necessary to assess education access objectives in each case. 78 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 table 2: indicators and data to measure full participation dimension full participation meaningful participation learner profiles • learners’ name, gender, identity number, population group, home language and grade • number and % of special needs learners in each grade and nature of disability • learners’ name, gender, identity number, population group/home language and grade • number and % of marginalised learners in each grade learner background • descriptions of individual learner’s life history, health, nutritional status, learning needs, distance travelled to school, means of transport to school etc. • number and % of learners receiving social grants by grade, gender and population group • number of learners living in child-headed households by grade, gender and population group • descriptions of individual learners’ home circumstances including cultural back-ground, socioeconomic status, parents’ educational levels, etc. x x x x school profile • type (rural/urban), quintile distance from nearest town, etc • school accessibility by phone and road x x school enrolment • number of learners in each grade by gender, population group and disability • number of learners in each grade by gender, and marginalised group schooling costs • number and % of learners receiving school uniform aid x • number and % of learners unable to pay school levies, contributions, etc. x school attendance • number of days each learner attended/was absent from school • number of days a particular learner is present/absent from school by grade, gender, age and marginalised group • number of learners per reason for absenteeism x • number of regular late comers in each grade by gender and reason for late coming x baxen, nsubuga, hill and craig: analysis and monitoring. . . 79 • number and % of learners who left the school the previous year by grade, gender and population group, and reasons for leaving • number and % of learners who left the school the previous year by grade, gender and population group, and reasons for leaving • number of days schooling was disrupted by cause of disruption, e.g. strike sports, etc.) x • number and % of learners who left the school the previous year by grade, gender and population group, and reasons for leaving grade • number and % of learners who left the school the previous year by grade, gender and marginalised population group, and reasons for leaving grade school infrastructure • types of school infrastructure available (water, electricity, classroom, staff room, labs, library, toilets, etc.) and their condition x facilities for special needs learners • types and condition of facilities for disabled learners x school sanitation • types and condition of school toilets x school furniture • types and condition of school furniture x provision of school lunch • total number of days in the semester school lunch was provided x safety at school • number of cases of bullying, harassment, drugs physical punishment and other forms of abuse in the year x teacher absenteeism • total number of days teachers absent from school per semester x teacher quantity and quality • teacher: learner ratio for each grade • teacher: key subject ratio • teachers’ qualifications and teaching experience • teacher’s competency in the lolt • teacher’s subject knowledge expertise • teachers pedagogical knowledge • teachers’ professional development x x x x x x x 80 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 teaching and learning resources • learner: essential school textbook ratio in each classroom • learner: computers ratio • learner: chair/desk ratio in each classroom • condition of school furniture, blackboard, etc. in each class • correct workbooks, textbooks, etc delivered on time • types of facilities in the classroom for special needs learners • types of additional educational resources available in each classroom x x x x x x x school’s language policy • number and % of learners in each grade whose home language is the lolt • home languages of learners school’s curriculum policy • subjects offered by the school • number and % of learners enrolled in key subjects in each grade by gender and population group • subjects offered by the school • number and % of learners enrolled in key subjects in each grade by gender and population group teachers’ practice • teachers’ coverage of prescribed curriculum requirements in each grade x learners’ progression • number and % of under-aged / over-aged learners in each grade by gender and population group • number and % of repeaters in the grade by gender and population group • number of learners who left school in each grade by gender, population group and reason for leaving • number and % of under-aged/ over-aged learners in each grade by population group • number and % of repeaters in the grade by population group • number of learners who left school in each grade by population group and reason for leaving learners’ transition rates to higher phases • number and % of learners who passed each phase by gender and population group • number and % of matrics from the school who joined heis by gender and population group • number and % of learners who passed each phase by population group • number and % of matrics from the school who joined heis by population group baxen, nsubuga, hill and craig: analysis and monitoring. . . 81 learner performance • number and % of learners who passed /failed the grade in the previous year by gender and population group • performance of individual learners in the yearend, mid-year and other standardised test marks • number and % of learners who passed /failed the nsc and anas by gender, population group and quality of pass • number and % of learners who passed / failed key subjects in each grade by gender and population group each semester • pass rate and average marks in key subjects in the anas and the nsc by gender and population group • number and % of learners who passed/failed the grade in the previous year by population group • performance of individual learners in the yearend, mid-year and other standardised test marks • number and % of learners who passed/failed the nsc and anas by population group and quality of pass • number and % of learners who passed / failed key subjects in each grade by population group each semester • pass rate and average marks in key subjects in the anas and the nsc by gender and population group discussion two challenges to effective monitoring of access to secondary education in south africa are the inadequate availability of indicators of educational access (mainly due to incomplete conceptualisation of educational access), and inaccurate and incomplete data on educational access that are generated by schools. while, with the introduction of electronic tools, the department of education is to be commended for taking steps to improve the quality of data on educational access, for the majority of under-resourced schools in the country, mark schedules, snap surveys and annual schools surveys remain the main means by which data on educational access are generated. the create framework of meaningful access to education was a useful starting point in that it provided an analytical tool to guide the identification of indicators and some data types for a more effective analysis and monitoring of educational access. by demonstrating the disparity that exists between the data on learners that are generated by these three data forms and the data that should be in place for effective reporting on meaningful educational access to secondary education in south africa, the study highlighted the need for broader conceptualisations of educational access and that of more research into indicators of educational access that best capture the secondary education 82 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 experience of the majority of south african learners. the paper proposed a conceptualisation of full participation, which, we put forward as having promise for contextualised and nuanced descriptions of education access. such an orientation shifts the gaze towards the classroom and onto learners; necessitating data with indicators that focus on learners and teaching and learning which have not been taken account of in the five create dimensions. the range of data on learners that are needed to effectively report on progress towards meeting educational access objectives require frameworks that draw on large data sources, usually quantitative in nature, some data are necessary to understand the conditions of learners and teaching and learning not always captured quantitatively. put differently, although most of the required data are quantitative, for example number of learners in each grade, number of days an individual learner is absent, and number of repeaters in the grade, some are qualitative, for example learners’ physical condition, socio-economic status and performance in non-academic school activities. the need for data on educational access to be disaggregated stands out in our study, not only to grade, gender and population group (for example, learners in a grade, repeaters in a particular year), but also to individual learners (for example, learner absenteeism and learning achievement). analysis of the required data on learners and teaching and learning strengthens the argument for profiling and identification of all learners in the secondary school system as an initial step towards effective monitoring of their access to education. a step which has been planned for and approved by the department of education (lurtis), but whose implementation has been stalled for various reasons. as table 1 showed, none of the three data sets currently used to gather school data contained the full complement of minimum data on learners that are needed for effective analysis and monitoring of meaningful access to education. nor did the three data sets, taken together, provide all the data needed. all three forms that were examined during the study mainly focused on the collection of quantitative data on learners, reflecting a structural approach to educational access. while numbers (for example of learners by grade and of orphans by gender) and percentages (for example of repeaters and over-age repeaters in the grade) were commonly recorded, qualitative data on learners were rare. examples of such data include reasons for learners dropping out of school, and descriptions of learners’ social circumstances. the latter data are especially important as it has been shown in numerous baxen, nsubuga, hill and craig: analysis and monitoring. . . 83 studies that learners’ socio-economic circumstances are a key determinant of learner achievement in south africa (van der berg, 2007; howie, 2003). the data on learners’ grade progression was another example of the incompleteness in data sources. in the annual survey form, this was expressed as the ‘number of repeaters by grade and gender,’ and in the mark schedules as ‘number of years spent in grade.’ age distribution of learners by grade, gender, population group and social circumstances would give a more comprehensive and nuanced picture of learners’ progression. lastly, the data from the three forms were mostly disaggregated to grade, gender and population group. only mark schedules disaggregated data on individual learners, and this was limited to learners’ academic performance. disaggregation of key data on educational access to minority groups and individual learners is especially important in identifying and addressing their specific educational access needs. table 2 showed that a conception of full participation provides an extension in data source and indicators to measure educational access outcomes in ways not possible when ‘meaningful access’ lewin, 2011) is applied. additional data sources were necessary to not only understand learners and aspects of their lives that impact their experience of access, but also factors in the classroom that mediate their learning experience. while some of the measures to access experience are quantifiable, as was the argument earlier on, some would require data only obtainable through qualitative forms of data generation. conclusions and recommendations full participation as a conceptualisation of access not only provides the impetus to focus on the actions and interactions of learners at the classroom level but also on elements impacting teaching and learning. laying this framework of participation against previous conceptualisations of access gives a useful tool for thinking about what it means to fully participate in education. the most basic aspects of access, structural access also form the most basic form of participation but that is not the whole story. it offers a way of generating data and indicators that extend the current development of lewin’s (2011) ‘meaningful access’. it requires a deeper examination of the schooling context and the actual experiences of learners in the classroom and 84 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 in so doing might enable education decision makers to ask questions about why in the face of meeting the structural access imperatives, many children still stop short of completing school. the recent initiatives such as south african school administration management system (sa-sams) and the national learner unit record information and tracking system (lurits) would go a long way toward making high quality, usable data on learner progression and achievement available were it to also consider conceptions of full participation as a conceptual framework to monitor educational access outcomes. references akyeampong, k., djangmah, j. seidu, a., oduro, a. and hunt, f. 2007. access to basic education in ghana: the evidence and issues. retrieved 14 january, 2012, from www.create-rpc.org archer, m.s. 2007. realism and the problem of agency. journal of critical realism, 5(1). bourdieu, p. 1990. the logic of practice. translated from the french by nice, r. stanford: stanford university press. department of basic education, 2010a. education for all report. south africa 2010. retrieved 9 march 2011, from http://www.education.gov.za department of basic education, 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(re)framing inclusion and exclusion discourses: limits and possibilities. ids bulletin, 34(1): pp.9–19. strassburg, s., meny-gibert, s. and russell, b. 2010. barriers to participating in schooling: findings from the access to education study volume 3. retrieved 7 march 2012 from http://pari.academia.edu/sarahmenygibert/papers/772142/ the ministerial committee on learner retention in south african schooling system 2007. retrieved 23 june 2011 from http://www.info.gov.za/view/downloadfileaction?id=79404 van der berg, s. 2007. apartheid’s enduring legacy: inequalities in education. journal of african economies, 16(5): pp.849–880. http://www.create-rpc-org http://www.create-rpc-org http://www.pmg.org.za/minutes http://pari.academia.edu/sarahmenygibert/papers/772142/ http://www.info.gov.za/view/downloadfileaction?id=79404 baxen, nsubuga, hill and craig: analysis and monitoring. . . 87 van wyk, c. 2006. the development of an education management information system from a sense making perspective and the application of quantitative methods to analyse education data sets. unpublished doctoral thesis. stellenbosch: stellenbosch university. jean baxen school of education university of the witwatersrand jean.baxen@wits.ac.za yvonne nsubuga faculty of education university of fort hare (alice) ynsbga@yahoo.com lori hill american educational research association and university of michigan lohill@umich.edu anne t. craig the university of michigan atcraig@umich.edu mailto:jean.baxen@wits.ac.za mailto:ynsbga@yahoo.com mailto:lohill@umich.edu mailto:atcraig@umich.edu investigating student memories of cross racial mixing in a postgraduate sociology class in a south african university rob pattman abstract the paper reports on a pedagogic and research initiative which i introduced in a postgraduate sociology course on youth, childhood and gendered identities which i taught at the university of kwazulu-natal. this involved students participating in collective memory work: choosing, writing and telling a story in class relating to their youth or childhoods (from their early to very recent years) about themes which were selected by the class, and then collectively and critically reflecting on these. the aim of this initiative was to explore and compare constructions and experiences of youth and childhood of different members of the group. the paper focuses on stories students told on one of the selected themes: cross racial mixing. four stories are selected for closer thematic and narrative analysis. the paper reports on the collective discussions which were held after all the stories had been read, and the kinds of questions raised in these about the shape, form and content of the different stories and the nature and status of memories. introduction the paper reports on a pedagogic and research initiative which i introduced in a postgraduate sociology course on youth, childhood and gendered identities which i taught at the university of kwazulu-natal. the course drew on contemporary research in southern africa and the west on young people’s understandings and constructions of their social worlds, and the significance of gender and its intersections with sexuality, age, race and class as sources of identification and dimensions of power. the first part of the course addressed this research and its findings, as well as the ‘young person centred’ (frosh, phoenix and pattman, 2002) methods these researchers developed in order to engage in empathetic and critical ways with young people, in various contexts. in the second part of the course the students explored their own childhoods through collective memory work, (haug, andresen, brunzelfferding, hauser, lang, laudan, et al., 1999; crawford, kippax, onyx, 8 journal of education, no. 54, 20118 gault and benton, 1992). it is this initiative and the students’ engagement with this which is the subject of this paper. collective memory work, as the name implies, takes place in a group, and involves individuals choosing, writing and then telling a story about their past in relation to an agreed theme and then discussing these collectively. in the postgraduate course the class constituted the group, and the students chose to tell stories from early to very recent years on the following themes – toys and games, cross racial mixing, family conflict and first boyfriends/girlfriends. the aim was to explore and compare, through engaging in collective memory work, constructions and experiences of youth and childhood of different members of the group with a particular focus on how variables such as gender, race, age and class influence and shape this. the article examines stories students told on one of the selected themes: cross racial mixing. most of the stories students choose to tell on this theme were set when they were at high school or were memories from their more recent past. this, as elaborated later, reflected their increasing participation in multiracial institutions and communities. opportunities for mixing with people of other races only occurred, for some students, notably lower class black students who went to the more poorly resourced schools, in their later school years or when they got to university. in stories of cross racial mixing in multiracial schools and university frequent references were made to ‘culture’ and the pursuit of shared cultural interests which were seen to cut across race. so closely tied were ‘race’ and ‘culture’ that in some of the stories cultural differences seemed to signify presumed race differences. for these students, as for many young people growing up in the postapartheid era race was a familiar marker of identity, which tended to inhibit engagement with others constructed as racially or culturally different. drawing on these stories and the collective discussions which they provoked, i argue that collective memory work, as practised in this course, opened up opportunities for students from different social and cultural backgrounds (mediated in complex ways by race and class) to engage with and learn about each other, and encouraged critical thinking about race, gender, sexuality, power and processes of identity construction. pattman: investigating student memories. . . 99 theoretical influences on the nature of the course, student research and the analysis in the first part of the course students were introduced to forms of research influenced by poststructuralist versions of feminism which, in line with what james and prout (1997) refer to as the new sociology of childhood, seek to engage with people as active agents, and to explore processes of identity construction and negotiation in relation to gender and other variables such as race (thorne, 1993; frosh et al., 2002; macnaughton, 2000; davies, 2011; pattman and bhana, 2009). collective memory work was presented on the course as an approach to investigating youth and childhood which was ‘young person centred’ and countered the tendency for adults to construct their identities by forgetting childhood and projecting innocence and ignorance on children (kehily and montgomery, 2003; pattman and chege, 2003; bhana, 2008). the course was strongly influenced by what some writers have referred to as the ‘biographical turn’ in the social sciences (see thomson, 2007), based on the view that language is not simply descriptive but constitutive of realities (foucault, 1979), that experiences are never raw but always mediated and shaped by people’s narrative accounts of these (riessman, 1993). in line with these perspectives, we paid close attention, in the first part of the course, to the narrative accounts of young people in the interview and ethnographic research we discussed, treating these not simply as windows on a real world ‘out there’ but as important resources through which they forged and fashioned particular kinds of identities and relations. though collective memory work was used on the course as a way of researching experiences of youth and childhood, the assumption that story tellers could simply step into their shoes in the recent or more distant past and recount (raw) experiences was problematised. when analysing stories produced through collective memory work, students were encouraged not to see these narratives merely as photographic reflections of the past but as reconstructions of the past which in some ways tell us as much about how they present themselves now as about their past (rosenwald and ocheberg, 1992; personal narratives group, 1989). we were interested in how memories were influenced by contemporary concerns, and, following nuttall and coetzee (2005, p.1) on the construction 10 journal of education, no. 54, 201110 these were the racial categories which the students themselves used in their stories. the term1 african which is sometimes used synonymously with black in contemporary south africa and was used to construct this group under apartheid was not mentioned by students either in their stories or in the discussions. coloureds and indians were not subsumed under the category of black as in ‘black consciousness’ but treated by the students as separate categories. of memories in the post-apartheid era, how “certain versions of the past get to be remembered”. however, whereas nuttall and coetzee were concerned with people’s memories of apartheid, our focus was particular university students with no living memories of apartheid, and their memories as young people growing up in the post-apartheid context. this raises questions, we addressed in collective discussions following the reading of the stories, about how they frame these, how they present themselves (and others) and invite certain kinds of interpretations in their stories. i shall reflect on some of these questions when reviewing discussions about stories of cross racial mixing. the thematic analyses of the stories draw on poststructuralist theories of gender and race, mentioned briefly above, which conceptualise these as relational, imbued with power, and always negotiated and enacted in relation to identities constructed as other. such theories, as glenda macnaughton (2000) argues, imply forms of ‘binary analysis’ which seek to ‘reveal’ implicit constructions of the other in relation to which certain kinds of identifications are made. in the stories i shall be discussing, race and gender were central features of processes of identification. method the postgraduate class comprised 18 students, all of whom participated in collective memory work. twelve were female and six male. seven identified as black, one as coloured, six as indian and four as white. 1 the students were asked to write stories relating to the selected theme in which they featured prominently, and to try to tell these from their points of view, as they recalled these. in order to encourage this identification they were asked to write about themselves in the first person. the usual procedure however in collective memory work is to write about oneself in the third person as a way of recognising and highlighting differences between oneself pattman: investigating student memories. . . 1111 now and then. while writing about oneself in the first person may have encouraged a spurious sense of homogeneity across different moments in their lives, the intention of asking students to do this was to encourage empathy with the people they once were in their stories and to present them as active agents. after writing their stories each student read them aloud in class. opportunities were provided after the reading of each story for brief discussion mainly on points of clarification. after all the stories had been read, classes were set aside for more substantial discussions where themes emerging from the stories were identified and discussed and comparisons were drawn between the stories in terms of the emerging themes and story constructions. race was chosen as one of the themes for story telling because it had emerged as an important biographical marker when students initially introduced themselves to each other, and also because of the interest generated in one of the classes in the first part of the course which engaged with literature on young people, race, gender and schooling. this literature (which included nadine dolby’s ethnography of a formerly white school in durban: dolby, 2001, and my interview research with deevia bhana with grade 11 learners in township, formerly white and formerly indian schools; pattman and bhana, 2009, 2010) raised questions about the significance of race for different students in different schools in south africa, and precipitated animated discussion in the group about experiencing race in and outside school. the discussion, led by students, was dominated by accounts of not mixing, or not mixing very well, with people from other races. in response to this, i suggested we make race mixing a specific topic for collective memory work, and to write stories about mixing with people of other races in and outside school. ethical permission was obtained from the university to conduct research on the course using collective memory work, and, before enrolling on the course, students were notified that they would have to engage in this research and that this would entail writing, telling and discussing stories about themselves on selected themes. 12 journal of education, no. 54, 201112 students’ stories of cross racial mixing all the stories of cross racial mixing were about contexts and events which were presented as unusual, strange or surprising, though the implied norm, namely mono-racial mixing, was rarely mentioned or made explicit. most of the stories were about cross racial mixing through shared interests and heterosexual attraction. four of these are selected for analysis. i provide brief descriptive and analytic accounts of these. i then report on the collective discussions which were held after all the stories had been read, and the kinds of critical questions raised in these about the shape, form and content of these particular stories and the nature and status of memories. 1. stories of cross racial mixing through shared interests in six of the stories (three told by girls and three by boys) cultural and sporting activities and interests were presented as powerful catalysts for promoting cross racial mixing. these were stories about how, for example, shared interests in particular kinds of sport, music, dance or fashion could provide common points of identification and pull people together physically and symbolically from different races. in the stories below cross racial mixing through shared interests figured most prominently: ramesh’s story ramesh writes about how playing football enabled him and other indian boys to mix and interact with black boys in a formerly indian high school in which, generally, ‘interaction between black and indian boys was non-existent’. he describes how playing football not only provided an opportunity to engage with black boys albeit in opposing teams, but also how it led, with time, to the formation of cross racial friendships between boys: these boys together with my friends and i met once a week to play a game of football. initially the environment was that of hostility and filled with high testosterone levels. . .our meetings were based solely on competition. . . .as the year went on we began to look past the differences of skin colour. . . we began to enjoy the company of each other as well as the sportsmanship which every boy showed. . .from our meetings which were based solely on sport followed friendships and understanding but this did not mean that the competitiveness in every boy died. we began to mix our teams and include boys from the previously other teams. pattman: investigating student memories. . . 1313 when ramesh refers to his ‘friends’ we know he means not only other indians but indian boys; so taken for granted is this that he does not need to specify it. but intersections of race and gender are made very clear as the story progresses. for the story is about how football, constructed as a highly masculine ‘testosterone’ fuelled affair, impacted on black and indian boys’ racial identifications and relations. it is about how football which had initially seemed to reproduce racial oppositions and tensions in the form of hostile and conflicting assertions of masculinities became a site of racial transformation which produced points of identification between indian and black boys and promoted all male cross racial friendships. reflecting at the end of his story on his participation in racially mixed football at his school, ramesh makes a bold claim about the ‘amazing’ positive and ‘lifelong’ impact of this on him and his views about and relations with black people: it has taught me a great deal of respect for different people, it has taught me to be more tolerant and understanding and it has even assisted me in learning a bit of zulu. it is truly amazing how a simple inter-action through an activity eliminates boundaries of society and unites people forever leaving a lifelong quality in a person’s life simon’s story football was also mentioned in the same light by a black boy, simon. simon had been to a township school comprising only black learners and like sultan indicated that his first experiences of social interaction with people from other races was at university: during my first year there was this indian guy who i would always sit next to. we both liked football and we would chat about it especially after our favourite, manchester united, had played. outside the lecture theatre there was also a bit of mixing between the different race groups. . . for example a white guy would borrow a cigarette lighter from an indian student. i remember one day sitting in this space and this coloured student, a girl, was playing a very nice song of house music and my friend approached her asking if she could send the song through to him via bluetooth. cross racial socialising at university, as simon spoke about this, did not seem very common or very deep; the examples he gave of these were very specific, one off, instrumental activities which went on outside the lecture theatre. however football talk did seem to provide an opportunity for developing a more longstanding relationship with an indian boy even if this did not go beyond football talk and was confined to the lecture theatre. 14 journal of education, no. 54, 201114 jenny’s story jenny spoke about her interests in the music of a group called ‘skwatta kamp’ to which her older brother had just introduced her. she said she ‘listened to it and loved it’ and mentioned telling other children at school about it: i started telling some of the white kids in my class, they hadn’t heard of them, because to them if it isn’t on mtv it’s not real music. even with their lack of interest i decided to bring the cd. . . a white friend of mine took it to his car to play at break. the implication was that white kids were her friends, though the reason presumably why she specifies their race (rather than take this for granted) was that the story was about the very contrasting reactions of black girls to her interest as a white girl in this music: as the cd started a group of black girls walked past, stopped and shouted to the boys’ car asking where he got the cd. he told them it was mine. next thing they start dancing, yelling, screaming, smiling, laughing and rattling off in zulu. then they ran to me and asked me who i got the cd from. i told them it was my brother and they said ‘your white brother???’ i said ‘yes he’s white, well according to my parents. . .’. they hugged me and smiled. . . they told me to join them for the rest of break. i did, we talked and then they said i’m one of them now and they all started to agree that skwatta kamp was the best new group out in contrast to ramesh’s story there were no reflective moments in jenny’s story about engaging with people from different races and there were no allusions to ideas of learning and progression. we do not hear about her experiences (or lack of these) of cross racial mixing, her story is about the moment, but this suggests perhaps that this was an unusual and short-lived example of cross racial mixing. indeed the unstated implication is that not mixing socially across lines of race was the norm. for why would the black girls show such surprise (and joy) when encountering jenny listening to music which they constructed as black. in the story the black girls appeared warm but irrational, and the laughter the story provoked, when it was read in class, tended to reinforce this view. even though this story is about a white person enjoying music normally listened to by black people, it serves to emphasise just how powerful (musical) tastes can be as markers of race, with the black girls claiming her as ‘one of them’ because of their common tastes in music. clearly the music was seen by the black girls as appealing to blacks, and, more than that, as a source of black identification. they were shocked then to find a white girl listening pattman: investigating student memories. . . 1515 to this music and also euphoric that she ‘was one of them now’, as if through the music she was identifying with them. 2. stories of cross racial heterosexual mixing six of the stories told about cross racial mixing were with people of the opposite sex. all of these were told by women, and four featured conflicts, problems and tensions. these four stories focused on the negative reactions of others to people who were, or were assumed to be, in racially mixed, heterosexual relationships. one of these was about the story teller, a white girl, being treated, mistakenly, as if she was in a mixed relationship when her shocked mother discovered that one of her friends who had stayed over after a party was a black man. another was about a rumour, started by a white girl in an afrikaans high school that another white girl had slept with a black man, and intended to sully her ‘reputation’. the other two stories were about actually being in mixed relationships, and were told by a black and an indian woman. i have selected reesha’s (the indian woman’s) story for more detailed presentation and analysis below. reesha’s story reesha’s story about her relationship with a fellow coloured boyfriend, elton comprises three interlocking parts which read like, what william labov (1972. p.354) refers to in his analysis of narrative structures, as “orientations, complicating actions, and resolutions/evaluations”. she begins by providing an orientation to the relationship which seems to anticipate the negative reactions of her friends, describing elton, when she first saw him, as coloured but adding that this was not something she noticed, ‘i thought he was extremely cute and sexy. he was coloured but i did not see that. all i saw was someone i liked’. she describes her relationship as one in which she made the first move asking him out and also asking him for a kiss and him responding with some reticence. this sets the scene for the complicating action or narrative core: her friends’ negative reactions to her and especially her boyfriend. most of my friends thought it was wrong and weird to ask him out, and they saw this as being forward and not indian like. . . this was further exacerbated by the fact that elton was 16 journal of education, no. 54, 201116 coloured. they went on to tell me that coloured boys only want sex from girls. . .and are big players and that he will cheat on me and that i should watch out for him taking drugs and drinking all the time. all this loving advice came from my indian friends both male and female. in stark contrast to the way he was presented in the orientation, elton was constructed as a ‘player’, an exploitative sexual predator who would use her and cheat on her and get drunk, simply by virtue of being coloured. significantly she refers to this advice coming from her ‘indian friends, both male and female’, with the implication, perhaps, that advice about relationships normally comes from one sex, presumably girl friends, and that her relationship with a coloured man was seen as constituting a relationship problem of a different order to the ones for which she normally sought and got advice from her (girl) friends. the complicating action is followed by a resolution and an evaluation which reads like a ‘happy ending.’ she not only proves her ‘indian friends’ wrong, representing her boyfriend as the very antithesis of the man they made him out to be, but also as hypocritical, as practising the very vices which they projected on to coloured people, and suffering in the ways they imagined reesha would: elton has never. . .cheated on me or forced me into sex, he was a perfect gentleman, so sweet and so shy that he would even ask my permission to hold my hand. the so called perfect indian boyfriends and girlfriends turned out to be the regrets and nightmares of partners, while my so called hyper sexualised cheating boyfriend turned out to be the loving, patient and respectful man who gives me the world and treats me like a queen. this story does not just describe the racist reactions of her indian friends to her relationship; it is also a way of responding to and dealing with these, full of emotion and irony, which turns the tables and transforms and re-defines her boyfriend from the racist construction of him as ‘a big player’ to a gentlemanly man, sweet, shy and chivalrous. racism takes a gendered and sexual form, in this story – stereotyping her boyfriend as a hypersexual male – and is confronted through romantic idealisation. towards the end she writes in the language of romantic fiction, speaking as the female subject of, what wendy hollway (1984, p.??), refers to as, the “have-hold discourse” and describing her boyfriend, still in highly gender polarised ways, but not as a man who dominates sexually, rather a “man who gives me the world and treats me like a queen”. pattman: investigating student memories. . . 1717 drawing on memories to promote critical thinking one of the main challenges in our collective memory work was to encourage students to move beyond seeing the stories as descriptive accounts of past realities, and to focus instead on the selectivity and work of memories, what memories do, what identities they construct and affirm and how, and our current investments in particular memories. i tried to facilitate the collective discussions we had about the stories, after they had all been read, in ways which sought to promote this kind of critical thinking, (for example working with students to formulate appropriate questions on how the stories were socially constructed and what cultural assumptions and material conditions make the stories possible). comparisons were drawn in the discussions between the shape, form and content of the different stories and how the story tellers were positioning themselves in these, notably in terms of race and gender. discussing ramesh and simon’s stories ramesh’s story carried very explicit and ‘optimistic’ messages, which read like ‘concluding’ remarks, about his contemporary self and his attitudes to and relations with people of other races. these served to contextualise the story as part of a more general narrative of progression and self development. they were reflections on the past, which drew on this as a reference point to construct a much better version of the present. in the conclusion in ramesh’s story, playing racially mixed football at school was presented as a watershed moment in a narrative of progression from racial segregation to integration. ‘happy endings’ constructing narratives of progression featured in four other stories on race mixing. questions were raised about the popularity of these stories and the immediate and broader social contexts which might encourage the telling of these, the multi racial group in which people were participating as researchers and researched and the wider circulation of rainbow nation discourses of ‘race and progression’ in post-apartheid cultures. these led to further questions about the absences of current conflicts and tensions in stories of race mixing, framed by narratives of progression. comparisons were drawn, for example, between stories on race mixing in which conflicts and tensions, (if they featured very much) were often ironed out by the end, and stories on family conflicts (which were told in other 18 journal of education, no. 54, 201118 collective memory work sessions) which rarely had happy resolutions. contemporary literature on ‘race talk’ in south africa has suggested that alluding to race (in racially mixed company) is ‘troubling’ and therefore tends not to be done, even if it is relevant to do so (durrheim, mtose and brown, 2011). elsewhere i have argued that anxieties produced by asking questions about race limits possibilities of doing research on race and cross racial mixing at university of kwazulu-natal (pattman, 2010). drawing on this literature, questions were posed about whether narratives of progression in stories of cross racial mixing glossed over racial divisions or tensions in the university and whether telling these stories was influenced by anxieties about talking about self and race in a multi racial group. in simon’s story there was no narrative of progression, no moments of evaluation of the ‘progress’ he had made; he simply identified specific occasions where he or others he observed mixed across lines of race. opportunities for cross racial mixing were associated with coming to university, but are presented not as a defining period in his life’s trajectory, but as features of a university, which, in contrast to his school, had a multi racial student population. simon’s story invited very different readings in the discussion, on whether it represented the university positively as a place where ‘races’ mixed, or negatively as a place where race mixing was rare, formal and superficial. contemporary critical literature on masculinities and football has suggested that football is not simply a game played mainly by males, but in many cultural contexts may operate, too, as a powerful signifier of masculinity. engaging with this literature, we discussed how playing or even (as in simon’s story) talking about football might come to be seen as male activities and involve various kinds of gendered negotiations and identifications. (see, for example, frosh et al., 2002 and pattman and bhana, 2010). the idealisation of football, in ramesh’s story, as a vehicle for promoting cross racial friendships, was tied to celebrations of versions of masculinity (indeed ramesh’s story only made sense precisely because of the way football operates as cultural signifier of (hegemonic) versions of masculinity, and questions were raised about the significance of this memory for ramesh in terms of how it was constructing him and his investments in these identities: a tough and physical male, an anti racist indian, a child of the rainbow nation. pattman: investigating student memories. . . 1919 while ramesh praised football for its inclusive practices with regard to race, (for ‘uniting people for ever’) no mention was made of its exclusionary practices with regard to gender (girls or even boys who did not participate in the ‘testosterone’ (ramesh) fuelled games). was there an assumption that gendered forms of segregation in relation to tastes and interests in football were natural whereas racial forms of segregation could be broached through activities like football which appealed to ‘natural’ gendered inclinations which cut across race? these questions opened up critical discussions about how people interpreted racism and sexism, and what they understood by forms of racial and gendered integration. discussing jenny’s story though it is a story about racial integration (at least in that moment) and presents black girls as the instigators of this, it also pokes fun at them. when the story was read in class it elicited much laughter, which turned on the black girls and their constructions of and reactions to jenny, as if these were absurd and over the top, even if warm and friendly. descriptions of them as ‘yelling screaming’ and ‘rattling off in zulu’ (as if zulu was a language for ‘rattling off’) fed into the humour, and the laughter in class was loudest at the moment in the story when the rationality of the black girls’ response was most clearly questioned, that is when they asked if this was jenny’s ‘white brother’ who had introduced her to the music. (even in the written version of the story, the surreal nature of this moment is marked with three question marks.) their shock and surprise reflects the continued racialisation of cultural interests in the post-apartheid context, even in racially mixed schools, and also, perhaps, implicit associations of whiteness with privilege and superiority complex. whether a similar story could have been told about white girls expressing joy and surprise and embracing black girls for doing things which they (the white girls) constructed as black was asked in the discussion. this was inconceivable, according to all the students, and their reflections on why this was so led them to question the view that cross racial social mixing necessarily challenged race–power relations, and to explore the nature and direction of particular forms of cross racial mixing among young people in south africa. typical forms of cross racial socialising on and off campus and in racially mixed schools which were discussed were ones which seemed to take place on ‘white terms’ in the sense that they involved a minority of 20 journal of education, no. 54, 201120 blacks or indians mixing with a majority of whites, in ‘white institutions’ such as particular nightclubs which played ‘white music’, such as rock, or participating in ‘white’ sports activities like rugby. (a study of racial mixing among 8-year-old coloured, black and white children in the western cape makes a similar point; in this the sites for cross racial mixing were formerly white schools and churches in ‘white’ towns: bray, gooskens, kahn and seekings, 2010). in the light of these discussions the black girls in jenny’s story seemed much less irrational, and jenny’s story more partial and less descriptive. if cross racial relations are typically established on white terms, the surprise and joy the black girls expressed when they saw jenny listening to ‘black’ music, and their attempts to claim her as ‘one of them’, made more sense. discussing reesha’s story as in the discussions relating to jenny’s story, questions were also asked about what made reesha’s story possible. in the case of reesha’s story the questions asked concerned why certain kinds of mixed race boyfriend/ girlfriend relations become problematised, and why opposition to her relationship took the form of sexual vilification of her boyfriend by her same race friends. could a similar story have been told if the race of the story teller or boyfriend had been different, if for example the story teller had been black and her boyfriend coloured, or if the boyfriend had been white and she indian, or if their gender had been reversed, an indian male telling a story about his relationship with a coloured female? such questions provoked critical thinking about gender, race and sexuality and their intersections and the complex dynamics of power associated with these. one of the features of this story was the absence of a clearly defined chronological ending (in contrast to its beginning several years ago when she met her boyfriend at university and started pursuing the relationship). though the story ends on a ‘happy note’ it is not clear what her relationship is with her indian friends and whether she and her boyfriend are still experiencing racist abuse, and if so, how this is expressed. this raised questions in our discussions about her current investments in the story as a way of dealing with and responding to racism. we discussed too how the ways she reconstructed her boyfriend and the particular romanticised forms her pattman: investigating student memories. . . 2121 idealisation of him took, were shaped by the forms of gendered and sexual vilification through which the racist abuse was expressed. conclusion: memories of cross racial mixing, research and pedagogy precisely because the collective memory work exercise offered the students such a wide time span from which to choose to tell their story, it provided scope for individuality, and one of the features of the stories was how different they were, in contrast for example to the stories people may tell in group interviews. but what was also interesting about these personalised stories was how much they had in common in terms of themes as well as form and structure. two thirds of the stories were either about cross racial mixing through shared interests or heterosexual desire. furthermore these stories were highly gendered with similar gendered concerns and issues emerging, for example engagements with ‘football’ in some of the men’s stories, and stigmatisation, sexual vilification and misrecognition in the women’s stories on cross racial heterosexual relations. the implication was that these were both significant and common gendered constructions and experiences of forms of cross racial mixing. the stories, and notably those which turned everyday activities into very specific examples of cross racial mixing as well as those about the problematisation of mixed race relations, implied, too, that cross racial mixing was not the norm though this was not made explicit (perhaps because this was so taken for granted). of course it could be argued that by being asked to tell a story about cross racial mixing the suggestion was being made that this was unusual, but cross racial mixing was chosen for memory work precisely because the students themselves showed so much interest in a class earlier in the course, on race, gender and schooling. ramesh’s and simon’s stories, with their focus on shared interests as presenting possibilities for forms of cross racial mixing, are supported by nadine dolby’s ethnographic study, dolby, 2001, of a formerly white school in durban. she found that though identities and group affiliations of students, 22 journal of education, no. 54, 201122 to some extent, followed the old apartheid divisions, cross ‘racial’ friendships were common based on criteria other than ‘race’ such as shared ‘tastes’ in music, sport or fashion. but such friendships, as implied in some of the postgraduate students’ stories, were often limited and were not necessarily sustained on a more general level (e.g. outside school) or across a range of different contexts in school. furthermore tastes, themselves, dolby found, might be racialised, as illustrated in jenny’s story. though there were commonalities between the stories, there were also marked differences. the kind of stories different students told and the possibilities of telling them, were crucially affected by their particular and very different cultural and material circumstances, such as the kinds of schools they went to, where they lived, and, as it emerged when comparing the stories, whether they were male, female, black, white, indian or coloured. what emerged, also, in the stories was how connected gender and race were with power, from jenny’s story about the excitement of the black girls that she, a white girl, was listening to ‘black’ music, to reesha’s story about the sexual vilification of her boyfriend and criticisms of her by her indian friends, to ramesh’s celebratory story about cross racial engagements through gender exclusionary (football) practices. these stories, after they had all been read, provoked discussion about different students from different backgrounds (marked by race, gender and class) and their very different experiences, and their constructions of these, of cross racial mixing. the discussion worked both as a research and pedagogic strategy, with the students having to locate their own stories in relation to others and reflect on how their memories and the content and presentation of their stories were shaped by and also served to shape different cultural and material experiences. in these discussions students were encouraged to see each other’s stories not simply as descriptive (if faded) accounts of past events, but as socially constructed and mediated by processes of selection and interpretation. in this sense the stories produced through collective memory work were as much about the present as the past. this was a view implied in some of the questions which were raised when the stories were discussed, about people’s investments in the stories. pattman: investigating student memories. . . 2323 it may be that the interest and engagement shown by students in my postgraduate group in these stories of race and schooling was influenced, in part, by the multi-cultural composition of the group. here was an occasion when students were reflecting, in such a group, on their relations with others from different racialised backgrounds with whom, as implied by the stories, they may rarely have socialised in the past and perhaps even the present. references bhana, d. 2008. discourses of childhood innocence in primary school hiv/aids education in south africa. african journal of aids research, 7(1): pp.149–158. bray, r., gooskens, i., kahn, l. and seekings, j. 2010. growing up in the new south africa: childhood and adolescence in post apartheid cape town. cape town: hsrc press. crawford, j., kippax, s., onyx, j., gault, v. and benton, p. 1992. emotion and gender: constructing meaning from memory. london: sage. davies, b. 2011. frogs and snails and feminist tales. hampton press. dolby, n. 2001. constructing race. new york, ny: state university of new 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(eds), the prize and the price. cape town, south africa: hsrc press, pp.21–38. pattman, r. and bhana, d. 2010. sport, girls, trouble and humour: black and indian boys speaking about life in a formerly white single sex school near durban. special edition on masculinities, shefer, t., stevens, g. and clowes, l. (eds). journal of psychology in africa, 20(4): pp.547–556. personal narratives group, 1989. interpreting women’s lives. bloomington: indianna press. pattman: investigating student memories. . . 2525 riessman, c. 1993. narrative analysis, london: sage. rosenwald, g. and ocheberg, r. 1992. stories lives: the cultural practices of self understanding. new haven, ct: yale university press. thomson, r. 2007. a biographical perspective. in kehily, m. (ed.), understanding youth: perspectives, identities and practices. milton keynes: open university press, pp. 73–108. thorne, b. 1993. gender play. buckingham: open university press. rob pattman department of sociology and social anthropology university of stellenbosch rpattman@sun.ac.za mailto:rpattman@sun.ac.za 26 journal of education, no. 54, 201126 journal of education, 2017 issue 69, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za using memory work as a decolonising pedagogy in a study on district six’s forced removal history: a case for epistemic justice mogamat noor davids (received 18 january 2017; accepted 6 july 2017) abstract post-apartheid south africa created pedagogical spaces to redress apartheid injustices and suppressed ontologies as a necessary path towards epistemic justice. the post-apartheid history curriculum states that the ‘study of history enables people to understand and evaluate how past human action has an impact on the present and how it influences the future’. ‘forced removals’ is a common but under-utilised historical resource employable in the history classroom to connect the present with the past. the spatial, temporal, and psychological architecture of forced removals conceal intangible memory which has potential to become tangible, ‘post-abyssal historical knowledge’. this article argues that epistemic marginalisation of historically oppressed communities can be ameliorated by employing <emancipatory memory work’. dominant epistemologies have privileged empiricism and rationalism over memory and introspection. to advance a fuller historiography of district six, this article applies a critical memory work approach based on schatzki’s notion of memory as practice, wenger’s notion of ‘community of practice’ and santo’s ‘post-abyssal knowledge’. two separate focus group discussions were conducted with first-generation survivors of forced removals and third-generation grade 11 learners with ancestral origins in district six. the study is informed by the question: what are the outcomes of a memory work approach when employed as pedagogy to decolonise the history curriculum? based on a synthesis of memory themes, findings are co-constructed as ‘post-abyssal historical knowledge’. in conclusion, suggestions are made to integrate memory work and forced removals as pedagogy towards decolonising the history curriculum. introduction the year 2016 marked the commemoration of the 50 anniversary of theth declaration of district six as a ‘whites-only’ area, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the 1996 post-apartheid constitution. an unresolved colonial-apartheid legacy that creates uncertainty for south africans is the lack of social cohesion, which is manifested in contemporary 94 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 ‘spatial and racial apartheid’. after twenty years of democracy, cape town, for example, remains one of the most racially segregated cities. spatial and racial apartheid is the outcome of land dispossession and economic segregation intensified through the implementation of the native land act (1913) and the group areas act (1950). the native land act 27 of 1913 provided the cornerstone to promulgate legislation that allowed for the dispossession of land while the population registration act and group areas act classified people racially and forced them to settle in segregated townships. consequently, the black population was forced to live in ‘reserves’ or ‘townships’. only 13 per cent of the total area of south africa was reserved for blacks while 87 per cent of the remaining land was allocated for white ownership (rugege, 2004). during the colonial-apartheid period, black south africans were not only victims of land dispossession, they were also denied democratic citizenship and became invisible in the historiography of the country: an epistemic injustice. their marginalisation was epitomised in decades of eurocentric biased scholarship and evisceration in the academic curricula and textbooks (fataar & subreenduth, 2015). the 2015/16 #rhodesmustfall movement emphasised the continuity of this epistemic alienation when students linked their petition for free and quality education with the demand for a ‘decolonised curriculum’ (the salon, 2015, p. 6). epistemic justice refers to the need to include marginal knowledges such as indigenous and community knowledges, which give meaning to their lives, as epistemologically valid (fataar & subreenduth, 2015). the purpose of this article is to demonstrate how memory work can be employed as a counterhegemonic approach towards constructing a fuller historiographic archive to correct the epistemic injustice in the curriculum. to this end, district six, a symbol of forced removals in south africa, is appropriated as site ontology (schatzki, cetina & van savigny, 2001) and knowledge-creating community (wenger, 1998), to restore the dignity and epistemicide committed against the historically oppressed. considering that the post-apartheid history curriculum states that the “study of history enables people to understand and evaluate how past human action has an impact on the present and how it influences the future” (department of basic education (dobe), 2011), this article is based on memory work conducted with forced removals survivors and a cohort of third-generation learners who shared district six as ancestral home. as a historically oppressed community, former district six residents often lack a sense of history and social cohesion due to subjugation and domination during the colonial-apartheid period. odora hoppers (2009) asserts that an act of davids: using memory work. . . 95 cognitive injustice is committed against historically oppressed communities when their knowledgeability as humans, is denied. consequently, argues fataar and subreenduth (2015), for social justice to be advanced, cognitive injustice needs to be addressed. a further argument is made that modern western knowledge is abyssal thinking: an assertion of a hegemonic notion of knowledge through an exclusion and erasure of indigenous knowledge as ‘knowledge on the other side of the line’ (santos, 2007; fataar & subreenduth, 2015). this article argues that memory work acknowledges that culture and memory have the potential to contribute towards the epistemological archive in a decolonised curriculum. according to bernecker (2010), memory can be declarative or nondeclarative. memory becomes declarative as ‘episodic’ when it is stored as spatial and temporal landmarks in the context of a particular event in the past. the experience of remembering involves a re-experiencing of events back in time. the subject ‘locks’ in his or her mind ‘memory’ as potential tangible knowledge, similar to an archive (velthuizen, 2012). however, memory work with an emancipatory interest is not an uncritical and arbitrary acceptance of one person’s subjective declaration of an event. emancipatory memory work is rather a collective act of conscious ordering and arrangement of common meaningful experiences (irwin-zarecka, 1994). this study adopts a critical view of memory so that the outcome of memory-based knowledge is a cocreation of something new (hating, 2016). tucker (2017) claims that epistemology has distinguished at most, five basic sources of knowledge: empirical, from perception; a-priori, from reason; testimonial, from what other people say; self-knowledge, from introspection; and memorial, from remembering. the kind of knowledge retrieved from memory in this study is based on criteria such as coherence, independent memories, collaboration and colligation, which means the binding together of concepts (tucker, 2017). given the historically marginalised status of the participants and the relative absence of their voice in contemporary discourse, this memory-based study raises their suppressed knowledge to the level of memorialised knowledge, as an act of social justice. in this study, former residents of district six (over the age of 70) and a cohort of third-generation grade 11 learners form a ‘memory community’. learners reflected on intergenerational memories and became co-constructors of new knowledge transmitted to them by their parents and grandparents. 96 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 for the purpose of this article ‘memory work’ is understood to be “a labour of active and consciously giving order and meaning to the past” (irwin-zarecka, 1994, p.7). this article argues that historically oppressed communities possess tacit historical memory, which, through emancipated memory work can generate valid knowledge. the dominance of a eurocentric perspective of knowledge and the arrogation of the marginalised as epistemologically insignificant prevented the development of a fuller and inclusive historiography to inform the school curriculum. given the post-1994 shift in political power that restores the human dignity of all south africans, new epistemological spaces have been created to remediate the cognitive injustice of the past. the research plan for this study is informed to answer the question: what knowledge claims can be constructed by adopting a memory work approach? based on a synthesis of memory themes, findings are coconstructed as ‘post-abyssal historical knowledge’ which is embedded in the ontological experiences and subjectivities of the historically marginalised of district six. after this introductory section, the article unfolds as follows: a methodological note; district six forced removals as site ontology; towards a conceptual model for emancipatory memory work; findings of the study: ‘post-abyssal historical knowledge’; and in conclusion, some suggestions are presented on curriculum integration of forced removals and memory work with reference to the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps). methodological note, data collection, and analysis a small scale qualitative study investigates intergenerational memory construction of former residents and a group of high school learners. two focus group discussions provided data for this study. a focus group discussion was conducted with eight former residents of district six, all whom have experienced forced removals. the second focus group discussion was with eight grade 11 learners with their ancestral ties in district six. the learners are all ‘born frees’, from lentegeur mitchell’s plain, cape town. the ‘snow-ball’ sampling technique was used to select former residents. this sampling technique is used in cases where the population is difficult to find or where the research interest is in an interconnected group of people (maree, 2016, p. 198). the adult participants in this study shared the common experiences as ex-residents of district six, and forced removal victims. davids: using memory work. . . 97 learners were recruited by purposive sampling at a local high school. a special meeting was arranged with the school’s history teacher to explain the purpose of the project and its relevance to the school curriculum. the teacher was requested to select learners based on specific criteria. the criteria for participation were that their family roots had to be from district six and their parents or grandparents had to be victims of force removals. both focus group data were transcribed and separately analysed by using the colour-code system to identify common phrases, expressions, and words to develop patterns in their responses (gee, 2005, p. 115). as a memory-based study, the analysis of data was informed by giving attention to individual memories and the identification of similarities, before making a connection between them (tucker, 2017). these emerging patterns were then framed into themes, which are presented as knowledge claims based on memories of force removals and life in district six. memory practices are ‘time-place bound’ and schatzki et al.’s (2001) notion of ‘bundle arrangements’ bridging ‘time’ and ‘space’ is useful to understand ‘memory’ as dynamic social practices. two sets of themes were compared and synthesised to construct a common set of intergenerational memories organised as ‘memory bundles’ arranged across the district six ‘memory landscape’. connecting memories of participants across the focus group discussions were of particular importance to identify authentic knowledge claims. data were interpreted to arrive at findings, which were constructed as memorialised narratives: knowledge claims. district six forced removals as site ontology ‘forced removals’ is a common black south african experience which is rich in pedagogical material that is relevant to caps and in particular to the contemporary history curriculum. of particular interest of this study is a historical understanding of the perpetuation of spatial and racial apartheid in democratic south africa, which is incompatible with the new 1996 constitution’s vision of an equalitarian, non-racial society (republic of south africa, 1996). the phenomenon of forced removals is not a 1948 apartheid aberration of the national party government; it has a long history going back to the genesis of colonial land dispossession. in modern times, the more recent legislation during the colonial-apartheid period comes to mind (mesthrie, 1994, p. 61). the 1913 land act and the urban areas act of 1923 98 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 gave legislative sanction to uproot and forcibly remove people with impunity. after 1948, the nationalist government intensified social and economic segregation with legislation such as the group areas act of 1950, the natives resettlement act of 1954, the native trust and land administration act of 1952, 1963, 1965 and 1970 (baldwin, 1975). between 1960 and 1983, three and a half million black people had been affected by removals – a figure that does not incorporate influx control removals or those due to betterment schemes. one in five south africans was a likely victim of forced removals (abel, 2015, p.26). due to the slow progress with regards to land restitution and compensation for victims of the group areas act, the consequences of forced removals will remain a topical issue given people’s frustration with the current ‘market-led’ approach to land reform (abel, 2015). it seems that spatial and racial apartheid on the ground poses major challenges for social justice, political, and social cohesion. unlike in the rest of the world where forced removals took place for the establishment of military sites, border clearance or infrastructural schemes, most of removals in south africa took place as a result of the policy of separate development. the surplus people project has established that group areas removals constitute the second largest single category of displacement, the largest being farm evictions (platzky & walker, 1985). for example, by the end of 1983, 2 331 white families, 82 859 coloured families and 39 892 indian families had been victims of the group areas act (south african institute of race relations (sairr), 1985, p. 468). as a historical frame of reference, forced removals converge with past and present timelines. it integrates racial segregation and homeland policies, economic development, resistance to apartheid and the struggle for justice and human rights such as housing, education, health care and human dignity (freund, 2007). in the light of enforced legislation that affected racial and spatially segregated population contours, forced removals have become a common south african experience to engage issues of space and time that are relevant in explaining the continuities between the democratic present and the apartheid-colonial past. as a proposed curriculum theme, forced removals have been widely experienced by most of the senior population. to provide context to this study, a brief history of district six follows below. about 200 years ago, castle bridge provided access over several canals into the legendary hanover street, which was the bottom entrance to district six. hence the district’s unofficial name, ‘kanaaldorp’(canal village). the area davids: using memory work. . . 99 officially came into existence in the 19th century. originally a settlement for ‘free blacks’ and emancipated slaves, the area was home to a vibrant community with the majority being ‘coloured’: descendants of the khoi-khoi, ‘free blacks’, and settlers. over time, the area became known as ‘kanaladorp’ which is derived from a malay (the language spoken in malaysia)word ‘kanala’ meaning ‘please’ (davids, 2015). in local parlance, if someone asks for a favour and uses the word ‘kanala’, it invariably signals an appeal for help without compensation (soudien, 2001). ‘kanala’ has a social justice dimension to it, similar to ubuntu, meaning – i am because you are! a response to ‘kanala’ cannot be negative, as it will deny your human dignity. a person in need must be shown compassion and care, which is an essential aspect of modern day living so much eroded during times of economic hardship. in kanaladorp, nobody went hungry at meal times –‘etenstyd’ (davids, 2015). such was the ‘spirit’ of district six: as an ethical and caring community. according to nasson (1990), district six was known as an area with an identity and imagery rooted in a sense of socio-cultural community and communality. by the 20th century, the area was a cosmopolitan space where immigrant jews, britons and italians lived ‘cheek-by-jowl’ with the majority of ‘coloureds’ and a trickle of africans. the area was strewn with churches, mosques, schools, tenements, communal halls, cinemas and a library. hanover street was the main artery and business hub of district six. these institutions became the defining markers of district six’s cosmopolitan culture. all this came to an end in the 1970s with the destruction of homes and institutions. bulldozers razed district six to the ground. the only remaining buildings were habitable houses, cottages and flats that were renovated for ‘white’ foreign immigrants, two churches (moravian and st marks) and three mosques (gallilol ragman, zinatul islam and al-azar) (davids, 2015). district six was situated within walking distance of the cape town central business district. it was proclaimed a ‘whites-only’ area in 1966 when the majority of its 60 000 mixed-race residents were forcibly removed. over a period of 20 years, its residents were forcibly resettled in cape flats townships such as bridgetown, hanover park, lavender hill, lotus river, gatesville and langa. in the late 1970s, mitchell’s plain was unilaterally and unethically ‘developed’. some of the last residents were moved to lentegeur, which is one of its many sections. during forced removals, memories of uncountable talented cultural enthusiasts were dislodged from their acquainted surroundings and removed to unfamiliar and often hostile 100 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 environments to ‘start over again’ (davids, 2015). the epistemicide committed against district six slowly receded subliminally, except for the dedication of a few activist initiatives such as the ‘hands of district six’ and later the district six museum that aimed to keep alive the memories of the injustices and to restore the dignity of the people. the 50 anniversary of the district six forced removals in 2016 castedth attention back to the memories of the 1960s, a period known as the height of apartheid social engineering. as a political system, apartheid was basically a continuation of colonialism with a more vigorous ideological agenda to institutionalise segregation and racial inequality. since 1994, the government began a process of reversing the legacy of the land act of 1913 in order to bring about a more equitable distribution of land through land reform (rsa, 2013, p. 1). for the entire history under colonial-apartheid rule, blacks never enjoyed equal citizenship in south africa. official history was mainly the triumphant narrative of white supremacy. twenty years after democracy, the history taught at school is still largely taken from previous history texts and very little of the material is based on new sources. the reconstruction of an alternative historical narrative requires recognition of timeless themes such as citizenship denial and forced removals, which speak to and explain contemporary conditions. forced removals and migrations provide the psychological and material ontological sites of memory to reconstruct content for a new national history. needless to say, the physical, social and psychological landscape of south africa conceals the scattered memories of the past in need of excavation. the integration of a pedagogical approach based on memory work and forced removals as historical frame of reference offers a way that connects the present with the past as part of a decolonised curriculum. today district six is largely remembered by a diminishing number of senior citizens, who are now in their ’70s and ’80s. many of these former residents can describe every nook and cranny that was once district six. to them, district six represents their history. i agree with the view of nasson (1990, p.46) that the crucial material for the history of district six are the perceptions and experiences of those who once lived there, not its past architecture or its bare landscape. therefore, i will now argue how memory work can be employed as an authentic epistemological methodology to correct the cognitive injustice and epistemicide committed against this historically oppressed community. by using forced removals as historical frame of reference and district six as historical ontological site, i suggest an davids: using memory work. . . 101 emancipatory memory work model as a theoretical approach towards a decolonised history curriculum and epistemic justice. emancipatory memory work: a conceptual model emancipatory memory work has at least three main characteristics, that justify its epistemic authority as a valid knowledge-creating approach. memory work involves (1) ‘a conscious process of ordering and meaning-making of the past’ (irwin-zarecka, 1994), based on (2) a ‘site ontology’ (schatzki, i, 2001) that provides the context for a ‘community of practice’ and collaborative action (wenger, 1998; mittendorff, geijsel, de laat 2006; tucker, 2017) where collective exchanges of memory generate 3-) ‘post-abyssal historical knowledge’ (fataar & subreeduth, 2015) as culturally embedded knowledge (odora hoppers, 2009). this study will illustrate how an emancipated memory work approach integrates meaningful learning with the everyday cultural knowledge of learners as an empowering pedagogical experience. i agree with jansen (2009) that all knowledge is socially constructed and therefore never smooth, often interrupted, but always connecting generations. however, jansen leaves unexplained the question around the concept of knowledge according to his ‘knowledge in the blood’. according to thomson (2010), although jansen identifies pedagogical concepts such as transmission, relationality, mediation, and paradox , his explanation falls short of giving a theoretical basis to argue, for instance, why some memory/knowledge is transmitted while others are not. for this study, an emancipatory memory work approach employs a systematic theoretical and methodological framework as an active and conscious process that gives order and meaning to the past (irwin-zarecka, 1994). in this regard, emancipatory memory work can be distinguished from everyday popular memory that has not been subjected to vigorous processes of knowledge verification. in arranging meaningful events as memory, one focuses on the underlaying norms and cultural sensibilities that form the basis of both the structure and texture of remembrances (irwin-zarecka, 1994). a cautionary note to bear in mind is that memory ownership is both partly real and illusionary; however, it may also be a necessary myth for individuals and groups to sustain identity (field, 2003, p. 7). therefore, emancipatory memory work is neither mythical nor illusionary. it is a ‘cogno-affective’ activity that expounds the past in the materiality of a site ontology that provides context in which memories are 102 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 being made. meaningful explanations are generated via the interaction between the subject and the site of memory in terms of the subject’s ‘sayings, doings and relationships’ (schatzki, et al., 2001). emancipatory memory work is place-bound to a particular ‘site ontology’ which gives meaning to places and things through human activity arranged as social practices. memory practices are those routine “doings and sayings” that produce collective memories in the sense of “collective shared representations of the past” (schatzki, et al., 2001, p.3). in the context of this study, district six is remembered in a different time (present) as a historical narrative with reference to a shared ‘site ontology’ in the past. memory architectures across spatial and temporal contexts are representations of the past expressed as ‘bundles of memory arrangements’ across a ‘memory landscape’. in this study, memories from independent minds that show coherence and connections across time and space, become sources of new knowledge in the construction of a memorialised historical narrative of district six. encompassing the concept ‘site ontology’ is the participants’ sharing in an economy of relationships and experiences in a ‘community of practice’ (cop) (wenger, 1998). members of a community are informally bound by what they do together and by what they have learnt through participation. the shared activities are embedded in a historical and social context that gives structure and meaning to what they do. with this, cops develop their own mini-culture consisting of their own practices, routines, rituals, artefacts, symbols, stories and histories (mittendorff et al., 2006). wenger (1998) argues that a cop can be viewed as a unique combination of three fundamental elements: a domain of knowledge, that defines a set of issues, and creates a common ground and a sense of common identity; a community of people who fosters interactions and relationships based on mutual respect and trust; and a shared practice the community is developing with a set of frameworks, ideas, tools, information, styles, language, stories, and documents. in this study, the participants involved in the research are representatives of a community of practice based on the particular knowledge domain of the historical construction of district six; a set of social relations that cement a sense of shared identity and community, and a shared sense of stories, making district six as cop an ideal social structure to share knowledge (mittendorff et al, 2006). in this study adults and learners share a common interest and identity connected to the memory of a place (district six) and time (forced removals) involved in a ‘knowledge creating community’ (velthuizen, 2012). davids: using memory work. . . 103 emancipatory memory work generates ‘post-abyssal knowledge’ because it recognises processes of epistemicide and cognitive injustice which rendered indigenous knowledge as ‘outside’ the hegemonic modern western concept of knowledge (fataar & subreeduth, 2015). while abyssal knowledge separates the “knower” and academic knowledge, emancipatory memory work produces knowledge that recognises the ‘author’s role’ in knowledge production. it rejects the ‘null’ epistemology – the idea that african teachers and students possess limited cognitive capacity (fataar & subreenduth, 2015). according to field (2003), citing foucault’s discipline and punishment (1977), as emancipatory memory work is practiced in the context of post-apartheid south africa’s struggle for epistemological justice, it recognises that power produces knowledge, that power and knowledge directly imply one another; that there is no power relation without the correlative construction of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute power relations at the same time. as a decolonising conceptual framework, schatzki’s (2001) site ontology intersects with time and space, which recognises the ex-residents as a cop that possesses memories and experiences as potential sources of new knowledge. to sum up, emancipatory memory work involves a conscious ordering of meaning making of the past, situated in a site ontology as cop generating post-abyssal historical knowledge as a visible presence of the subaltern. the main findings of the study follow in the next section. forced-removal memory architectures: post-abyssal historical knowledge an over-arching finding of this study is that an emancipated memory work approach generates ‘post-abyssal historical knowledge’ that enhances the existing historiographical archive of district six. this approach is an ethical affirmation of the knowledge embodiment of participants. post-abyssal historical knowledge is knowledge that is counter-hegemonic, inter-subjective and incorporates knowledge of the subjugated, the repressed and knowledge that has been discursively marginalised (fataar & subreenduth, 2015). in this study, the memory architectures of a historically oppressed community evolved into what odora hoppers (2009) recognises as “culturally embedded community knowledge”. post-abyssal historical knowledge recognises the cognitive justice in what community members know to be part of their culture 104 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 and lifestyles (fataar & subreeduth, 2015). intergenerational memories are not only stored and retrieved experiences: they are also knowledge sources that are transmitted and become influential when young learners become the embodiment of the past in the present (thomson, 2010). in this study, at least five ‘memory bundles’ emerged from the memory architectures of district six. they are: the socio-cultural ecology of district six; trauma and pain; apartheid as unwanted inheritance; social cohesion and fractured communities; and breaking the cycle of poverty. these themes reflect a segment of the cultural and political episteme as new knowledge. a brief description of each theme is presented below. the socio-cultural ecology of district six former residents recall their childhood memories embedded in the ontology of district six as a site of memory. they experienced a feeling of “absence from home”, “a scarred memory” (adult focus-group transcription), their lives had been interrupted and suspended by forced removals. residents remembered the schools that they attended and the teachers that made indelible impressions on their youthful lives. they expressed anger because they were separated from neighbours, family and friends. participants were mainly from working class families and therefore their schooling was limited to the lower secondary grades. they had to enter the world of work to augment the income of the family. participants’ occupations were mainly menial: tailors, a bus driver, dress maker, seaman, and meter reader. former residents’ knowledge about the geographical location of their homes, schools, mosques and churches were transmitted to the younger generations via their interaction and shared residence with grandparents. learners remembered with excitement how their grandparents described where they lived, for example “close to town”; and “near the trafalgar high school” (learner focus-group transcription). learners remember the popular cultural food which their grandparents were used to, such as samosas, pies and koeksisters. these were not just delicacies they consumed, but they had interesting stories about who made the best and where these people lived. the producers of these snacks were ‘home industries’ in modern terms, as those people plied their trade to earn a living. many of them were successful in their businesses. some could afford to go on the pilgrimage to mecca in saudi davids: using memory work. . . 105 arabia after a long period of saving (adult focus-group transcription). some of the local bakers had big contracts for weddings and community functions. a resident remembered the uniqueness of two such bakers who were sisters selling their products from the same house and the same kitchen but each had their own customers who preferred to support only one vendor and not the other. this is an example of the functional and respectful relations in the community. residents remembered the different cultural and sporting activities in which they participated. rugby, soccer, cricket and netball were popular sports in district six. they went swimming and mountain hiking because they were living near the mountain and the sea. a very common sport was flying racing pigeons. “almost every second house had a pigeon loft built on a roof in the back yard” (adult-focus group transcription). one of the participants spoke about participating in national competitions and having had the most expensive racing pigeons. the popularity of racing pigeons is chronicled in the memoirs of a resident whose pigeons went back to their vacant place in district six after a period of three months incubation in their new loft: symbolic of the cruelty and disruption of forced removals (ebrahim, 2009). learners remembered with enthusiasm their grandparents’ stories of the new years’ celebration and the minstrel street parades.they remember stories of the love for music and the christmas and malay choirs that paraded through the streets. “my grandfather still takes the family to see the coons on new year’s day” (learner focus-group transcription). the iconic cinemas were popular leisure activities that exposed them to the american hollywood culture and film stars. “many a local star was born in district six”, (adult focus-group transcription). learners learnt how crime and gangsterism differed historically. crime and gangs were common observations in the discussion. only one participant described how he was almost robbed. “i was walking alone at night when someone apprehended me. but when he recognised my face and i recognised his face, he changed his mind and walked passed me. he was embarrassed because then i knew he was a skollie (gangster)” (adult focus-group transcription). learners spoke comparatively about their experiences of gangsterism and crime. today, gangsterism and drug abuse are rampant in most townships while in district six a sense of social cohesion was a living reality despite conditions of material deprivation, crime and gangsterism. learners juxtaposed their sense of fear and insecurity with the sense of social cohesion and neighbourliness that the older generation remembers so fondly. 106 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 learners grasped a cultural life of the older generation that was full of excitement and enjoyment. their parents had exciting childhood experiences and as youth were involved in cultural and sporting activities: playing for clubs and attending church and mosque. the learners consider the cost of doing sport and the risk of becoming a victim of crime, given the distances they have to travel and the lack of facilities in townships. despite living in a free and democratic society, learners seem to be experiencing a more restricted socio-cultural life than older generations. trauma and pain: “i can see the pain in their eyes when they speak about that time” the victims of forced removals endured unimaginable psychological pain mostly unspoken of because of its traumatic effects: “it’s like uprooting a tree, you cut off its roots which give food and remove the soil which gives anchor and support. the tree may die”, commented a learner (learner focusgroup transcription). when residents received their eviction letters, they experienced shock and disbelieve. mesthrie 1994, p. 66) recorded the suffering of tramway street residents, many who had lost weight, suffered from insomnia and developed troubled dispositions. at least one member of this small community committed suicide (mesthrie, 1994). the newspaper reported on the suicide committed by a resident of tiervlei, john joseph bougaard whose body was brought down from a tree. a piece of brown paper was found in his coat pocket on which was written in red ink: “group areas is the cause of doing away with my life” (mesthrie, 1994, p. 66). trotter refers to suicide cases related to forced removals in sea point and rondebosch: residents preferred death to dispossession (trotter, 2009, p. 51). he also related the story of a blind red hill resident who was forcibly removed to settle in ocean view. he suffered a stroke a year later and died (trotter, 2009, p. 51). cecil mclean remembers returning from work one day in 1969 only to find that his family had been relocated to mannenberg, a distant township he had never heard of before (trotter, 2009, p. 51). similarly, former district six residents spoke of old people who refused to move and vowed rather to die in their homes, which ironically happened to many. former residents related their personal experiences and trauma that they vividly remember. when district six was declared a ‘whites-only’ area, residents were traumatised: “we could not accept it and were very davids: using memory work. . . 107 disappointed”; “we didn’t want to leave”; “it was horrible and inconvenient. travelling to work was costly and an economic burden”. “we moved from place to place as the bulldozer demolished our homes”; “i didn’t have money for a deposit (on a house) or money to move”; “we moved seven times before we settled”. “our family was split and scattered from each other”; “my father-in-law lent me r200 as deposit” (adult focus-group discussion). “when we moved to hanover park, i kept returning to stay with family in district six until i had no place to stay and was forced back to hanover park”. all had sad stories to tell. unfortunately, the learners were not saved from these traumatic tales. they shared the sad memories of their grandparents’ stories with others. “you can see if the old people talk about it, they feel terrible and humiliated for the things they went through” (learner focus-group transcript). learners recall how they experienced the “fear” and “humiliation” that their grandparents related to them. a learner commented, “i can see the pain in the eyes of my parents when they speak about those times”; “the pain is still alive”; “they experienced humiliation“ (learner focus-group transcription). these statements are similar to the “knowledge in the blood” to which jansen (2009) referred: the transfer of direct memories that became indirect knowledge that influenced the perceptions and behaviour of learners despite them not having had those experiences. “the pain reverberates in their voices when they speak about that time”, a learner commented (learner focus-group transcription). in a time of democracy, learners found it difficult to imagine how their grandparents had to live under such oppressive conditions. some of the learners (learner focus-group transcript) commented as follows: “they were forced out. no negotiations took place, there was no option”; “it is not a nice thing to be forcefully removed from where you were born and grew up”; “families were split and thrown into a big hole”. former residents recall the physical, emotional and social destruction that they experienced. grandparents experienced the arrival of the bulldozers, the demolition of their homes and the destruction of the environment that was deeply embedded in their sense of being. they spoke about the split in their families and of being “on the move”, in search of a home. parents remembered their friends and neighbours from whom they were separated and the discomfort in resettlement in an alien and often hostile township. some remembered old people committing suicide and others who would go back over weekends to “just look at their demolished houses”. one resident related 108 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 the story of a neighbour who was crying everyday on his way to the train station and back from work because he could not adapt to the changes. “being uprooted and resettled in an unknown environment destabilised him psychologically” (adult focus-group transcription). while learners did not experience forced removals, the influence of images of violence and negative emotions were visible on their identities. forced removals were violent: both physically and psychologically. physically the violence was shown in the destruction of the environment, while psychologically the scars had been inscribed in their memories. trauma stories of forced removals epitomise the fear, indignity and disrespect suffered at the hands of colonial-apartheid rule. while images of the truth and reconciliation commission that was conducted after 1994 displayed the brutality suffered by victims of apartheid, it seems that there is still much room for more grassroots healing to deal with the trauma and pain of forced removals. unlike the pain of the victims of the holocaust suffered during the second world war at the hands of nazi germany, the pain caused by forced removals remains largely unattended, suppressed, and ignored. apartheid: an unwanted inheritance forced removals left behind the most concrete effects of apartheid as people found themselves living in racially segregated and economically impoverished areas across south africa. although apartheid has been legally abolished, the effects of its ideology and racial segregation are still a reality for the vast majority of the historically oppressed population. petty apartheid such as separate public amenities, beaches, entrances, trains and busses all seems absurd to the younger generation because they “enjoy the freedom of movement” which apartheid restricted. learners saw the denial of these freedoms as injustices perpetrated against their parents and as having been committed against themselves. while learners did not experience ‘petty apartheid’, they realised that the unfairness and inequality of the paradoxical past of their grandparents have been transferred to the present. “we are suffering today”, lamented one learner (learner focus-group transcription). hence, discourse of injustices as an outcome of the past come to mind as learners grasped how apartheid robbed them of equal opportunities and a brighter future. they comprehended davids: using memory work. . . 109 that they became the ultimate inheritors of injustice that were perpetrated against their parents and that they are the ultimate victims. learners are more politically aware of their rights, having been born in a post-1994 south africa, but they experience the material deprivation of oppression. “we have inherited the injustices against our grandparents”, commented a learner (learner focus-group transcription). through intergenerational memory work learners tried to understand the reasons for apartheid’s forced removals. they saw the reason for segregation as the greediness of whites. “europeans wanted everything for themselves”. “they wanted to be close to town”. “they wanted district six’s view of the sea and mountain”; “they were greedy” (learner focus-group transcription). learners realised that they would have been privileged if their grandparents had remained in district six, “near the city and under the mountains” (learner focus-group transcription). while intergenerational memory kept alive knowledge of the past, it also transfers the emotions and pain of forced removals from generation to generation. as a means to overcome the unfair inheritance of the apartheid legacy, emancipatory memory work assists in understanding the injustices of the past by confronting it and prompting learners to strive for a better future. social cohesion and fractured communities former residents pride themselves in the sense of “community” they enjoyed in district six. responding to the question:”what do you tell your children about district six?” they replied that they spoke about togetherness, good neighbourliness and respect towards others. “we tell them about how to be respectful towards everyone, even if you don’t know them”. “there was great tolerance between muslims and christians and we used to help each other”. “muslims celebrated christmas and christians celebrated eid with the muslims”. “there was no religious discrimination and the district was known as ‘kanaladorp’ – the place where you cannot say no when asked for help, assistance or food”. “we tell them that not everyone was poor and there were educated people living in district six. they mentioned the principal (sammy frans), dr abrahams, a medical practitioner, outstanding sports people like the abed brothers who went to play international cricket. our neighbours’ children all became professionals”, noted one of the residents. “the former vice-chancellor of the university of the western cape was our neighbour in 110 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 district six and some of them immigrated to canada” (adult focus-group transcription). although the participants were mainly working class, the notion of different classes emerged in the discussion. the overwhelming discourse was that of a community with a shared network of social relations that gave meaning to their existence. it appears as if social class was not necessarily referred to in discriminatory ways. the younger generation expressed a different sense of ‘community’. the insecurity caused by crime, gangsterism and drugs today are major concerns to them and they do not share the same togetherness with their neighbours as their parents had in district six. the cosmopolitanism that they heard about, for example, living with whites, indians and africans was not part of their upbringing. their grandparents experienced the transition period when enforced racial segregation was institutionalised. learners found themselves living in ‘racially’ homogenous communities that were legislated by the group areas act (1950). although learners are living in a non-racial democratic south africa, their experiences of living with other ‘races’ remains a future imagination. participating learners had a shared identity with regards to group origin and place, but comprehended the political influences of the past which entrap them as ‘free’ citizens in a different historical period. while the theory of nationhood and citizenship remain part of learners’ vocabulary, they are restricted by the boundaries of living in separate communities that militates against the experience of what it means to be living in a non-racial society. spatial and racial apartheid remain major stumbling blocks in the way of experiencing a sense of social cohesion both locally and nationally. while learners share a common class position, their spatial and racial schooling experiences deprive them of social interaction beyond their local boundaries. their notion of community and social cohesion remain largely fractured by social segregation. the cycle of poverty: past continuities in the present a stated objective of history teaching is to develop a critical sense of history and to introduce interpretive skills so that learners may appreciate the law of cause and effect in relation to space and time (dobe, 2011). engaging the complexities of the present provides the cultural and pedagogical material for the immediate and future development of the learner. vygotsky (1978, p.32) uses the concepts “scaffolding” and “zone of proximal development” which davids: using memory work. . . 111 allude to the socio-cultural context of the learner as the first steps towards deeper learning. without engaging the background that gave rise to their conditions of oppression, learners will be at a deficit to transcend the imminent obstacles that stifle future growth and development. memory work is not linear in its logic but forces the learner to see knowledge from different vantage positions and therefore to recognise multiple perspectives of reality. forced removals in district six exposes the learners to diverse pathways to life against which they can interpret personal life circumstances, successes and failures. given the negative experiences that forced removals produced, learners see their present working-class position as an outcome of their parents’ past and a consequence of their deprived history and seconand third-generation victimhood of apartheid. learners lamented the overwhelming state of poverty and hardship experienced in their daily lives. “we are poor and still struggling. the pain is there because we could have been in a better position”. “our parents and grandparents went through hardship and had no privileges”. ”it was like taking away their future and traditions” (learner focus-group transcription). learners saw their present struggle as a continuation of their grandparents’ deprivation under apartheid’s forced removals. learners remember the ‘community spirit’ in the memory of parents. their grandparents were poor, but forced removals destroyed their future and their parents are still struggling to break the cycle of poverty. an emancipatory memory work approach became a useful pedagogy to demystify the cycle of poverty and assist learners to define their own futures. conclusion in response to the research question: ‘what are the outcomes of a memory work approach when employed as pedagogy to decolonise the history curriculum?’, the findings support memory work as emancipatory and a good practice for knowledge production. the production of ‘post-abyssal historical knowledge’ is an overwhelming outcome of an emancipatory memory work approach. as stated previously, post-abyssal historical knowledge enhances the existing historiographical archive of district six, because it brings to light previously silent voices. this approach is an ethical affirmation of the knowledge embodiment of participants. post-abyssal historical knowledge is 112 journal of education, no. 69, 2017 counter-hegemonic and incorporates knowledge of the subjugated that have been discursively marginalised (fataar & subreenduth, 2015). notwithstanding the contested nature of memory as knowledge, this article argues that not all memory produces knowledge. emancipatory memory work is grounded in an argument that all knowledge is socially constructed but that not all memory equals knowledge. this study demonstrates the emancipatory value of memory-based inquiry as a valid and reliable source of new knowledge, that was previously hidden and entangled in the consciousness of historically oppressed communities. a clear set of verification criteria for authentic knowledge production determined the differentiation between memory as arbitrary knowledge and memory as valid epistemology. during the data analysis process and the synthesis of epistemic claims, caution was taken to ground memory work in a critical tradition by subjecting memory to stringent knowledge verification criteria. unlike some sceptics of memory work who claim that a memory proposition is not verifiable (bernecker, 2010) this article argues that emancipatory memory work can be employed as a knowledge generating source by excavating memories as tacit knowledge, as explained in the methodological and theoretical sections earlier. this study illustrates that the conceptual elements of an emancipatory memory work approach are based on a conscious process of ordering and meaning-making (irwin-zarecka, 1994) of the past in the context of a community of practice (wenger, 1998) while generating culturally embedded post-abyssal historical knowledge (odora hoppers, 2009; santos, 2007). in the context of this study, as a valid epistemological source, memory-based investigations produced memorialised knowledge from remembrances that were subjected to stringent methodological and epistemological criteria of validation (tucker, 2017), as explained in the conceptual model that provided the interpretive lens employed to generate “post –abyssal historical knowledge (fataar & subreenduth, 2015). caps states that history is the study of change and development in society over time (dobe, 2011). the study of history enables people to understand and evaluate how past human action influences both the present and the future. this article makes a case for the integration of forced removal experiences as a frame of reference to understand historical knowledge as required by the school history curriculum. this study shows that learners are rich in historical knowledge transmitted to them in informal living spaces: davids: using memory work. . . 113 through intergenerational communication. the research illustrates how a combination of local history and forced removals can benefit history not only as an academic discipline, but also as a source of relevant and authentic knowledge production and epistemic justice. the incorporation of forced removals into the history classroom provides learning materials that promote the aims of history teaching (dobe, 2011). forced removals is particularly relevant to fulfil the requirement that learners should be able to understand the importance of heritage and conservation (dobe, 2011). the current caps creates space in grade 9 for learners to do a compulsory research oral history component. given the common experiences of forced removal across the country, learners can be encouraged to interview an elder in their family or in the community to relate their experiences. history teachers need to become creative and pay more attention to this part of the curriculum which intersects with so many of the prescribed content and competencies. a proliferation of projects that integrate forced removals and local history will place the subject and the learner where they belong: leading the decolonisation of the curriculum in a new pedagogical space. as a positive step towards epistemic justice, history educators need to pay urgent attention to the neglected forced removal memory archive that has a significant role to play in the revision of south african history. acknowledgment the author acknowledges that funding for the research conducted to produce this article comes from a national research foundation (nrf) grant. this article is part of a nrf project on district six. references abel, m. 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(2012). community sites of knowledge: knowledge creation and application for sustainable peace in africa. african sociological review, 16 (2), 2–21. vygotsky, l (1978). interaction between learning and development. from: mind and society (pp. 79-91). cambridge, ma: harvard university press. wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity. cambridge university press. mogamat noor davids college of education unisa davidmn@unisa.ac.za mailto:davidmn@unisa.ac.za journeys to self-knowledge: methodological reflections on using memory-work in a participatory study of teachers as sexuality educators lungile masinga abstract this article draws on aspects of my participatory phd research study, journeys to selfknowledge of teachers as sexuality educators. in the article, i share and reflect on the methodological experiences of the study, with particular focus on working with memory related data generation activities. i explain how story-telling, audio-recording of sessions and keeping a reflective journal were used as methods to reach the stories that would best assist us come to some understanding of who we are as sexual beings. i also reflect on some dilemmas and discoveries i experienced when using memory work to generate data for the research. the article highlights that memories and stories are an integral part of our existence as they give meaning to our past and influence our future actions. it also shows how, through collective examination of our stories, new perspectives and meanings can be given to the stories to allow learning and reflection to take place. introduction “memory-work enables people to make explicit the ways in which experiences and identities are constructed within particular socio-cultural settings” (hamerton, 2001, p.414). it is within this context that the phd research study, journeys to self-knowledge: a participatory study of teachers as sexuality educators (masinga, in process) i draw from was conceptualised. for the purposes of this article, i draw on aspects of the research that has been done, to share and reflect on the methodological experiences of the study, with particular focus on working with memory related data generation activities. i first outline the purpose of the study and describe the participants. i next discuss how story-telling, audio-recording of sessions and keeping a reflective journal were used as methods to reach the stories that would best assist us come to some understanding of who we are as sexual beings. i then reflect on some dilemmas and discoveries i experienced when using memory work to generate data for my research. 122 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 the ‘journeys to self-knowledge’ study in the study, i was a co-participant as well as a researcher. i worked with eight other life orientation teachers within the intermediate phase (grades 4 to 6) and foundation phase (grades 1 to 3) in black south african schools. life orientation is one of the eight learning areas that were introduced to schools as curriculum 2005, with sexuality matters being part of the content taught (see department of education, 2002). the participants are all black female teachers ranging between 30 and 39 years of age and are all working within the townships around the durban area. the intentions of the study were to engage in a process of collaborative inquiry (see, among others, bray, 2002; kasl and yorks, 2002; zelman, 2002) and self-study (see, among others, loughran, 2007; mitchell, weber and o’reilly-scanlon, 2005) with the teachers to explore how we saw ourselves as sexual beings and how that selfknowledge might translate into how we interpreted and taught sexuality education and related to the learners. we aimed to explore how our personal histories affect the kind of teachers we become as we engage with the curriculum of the day, in particular, with sexuality education within life orientation. as suggested by kehily (2002, p. 215), “teachers’ biographies and personal experiences play a significant part in shaping and giving meaning to the pedagogic styles they adopt”. thus, we wanted to also engage in a journey of increased self-knowledge within the context of sexuality, thus leading to beginning a process of changing what needs to be changed to become effective teachers of sexuality education. to achieve these aims, the method of memory work (see ovens and tinning, 2009; balli, 2011) was employed through various activities that saw us engaging with our past ‘selves’ to reach those memories that are part of our existence and history and have contributed to shaping the present self that we know ourselves to be within the context of sexuality. methods for memory-work story-telling as a tool for memory-work in attempting to answer a critical question in the study, ‘how can teachers better understand their own sexual identity?’ we employed storytelling as means of memory-work to re-experience and reflect together on our masinga: journeys to self-knowledge. . . 123 experiences. we started with the notion that “subjectively significant events, events which are remembered, and the way they are subsequently constructed play an important part in the construction of self” (onyx and small, 2001, p.774). as means to introduce stories and explain how they would be used within the study, i started us on a walk down memory lane, to reminisce on the time when we were little girls. we talked about how stories have played a part in our lives as black people and also as women, growing up within a black culture that is rich in folk-stories that have been passed on from generation to generation. together we reminisced about what happened when we received our first periods (menstruation). what did our parents (particularly our mothers) do? we spoke about how most of us were sent to our grandmothers for the ‘talk’. we all told of the stories that some of our grannies related to us, to teach and make us understand what was happening to our bodies and what it meant to how we related to the opposite sex. we had some great moments of laughter and coming to a common understanding that, although some of the stories may have sounded ridiculous, the way they were told made us understand what message they were intended to convey. however, we were not saying that we remembered any of those teachings when we had to. we discussed how stories actually played a role in the passing of educational messages in our black culture and have been a part of our lives and history. we talked about how we learned to understand the world, respect and people through stories that were told. we spoke of what role stories might play in today’s world in educating young people and coming to understand life as we live it. this process was intended to bring the participants to understanding what role stories can play when one intends to relearn and try to understand the past and its meaning and also understand the world we live in. however, for the purposes of the research, it was our own life histories that become the source of information for the stories we were about to tell. this was crucial to the process, to make us understand that as we live life through experiences, we are creating our own stories, which have some valuable lessons to be learned for us and those around us. i felt it was important to discuss as participants how we felt about putting our own lives into stories to be told. in my view, it is sometimes easier to talk and relate to the story that is not your own as you can be objective. while, when it is your own story, subjectivity may become a problem. to give participants a chance to come to some understanding of the implications of the story to be told, we first wrote the stories in our journals and engaged with our own inner selves 124 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 and judges that we knew ourselves to be when it came to our own actions. it was important to allow us the opportunity to reconnect with the emotions that may go with the story and be able to come to terms with them. a common feeling, as related by one of participants in one of our reflection discussion was: it took me longer to complete . . . in fact, i completed the story the day before . . . not that i have not been trying to write my story . . . it just felt . . . i don’t know guys . . . wrong. revisiting the past . . . looking at my past experiences . . . felt like i was writing my own movie . . . me being the bad character. i have done things that were stupid in my life . . .going to those stories now . . . just . . . it’s uncomfortable. (azande, discussion, 10 september 2010) (all names of the participants have been changed for anonymity) this feeling of discomfort had to be discussed and we related and reemphasised that only those stories we wanted to share would be told and those that we did not want to talk about, but were willing to write about, would remain in our journals for only the researcher (me) to read. that seemed to work for the participants, however, in the end all the stories were told due to what i believe was the positive atmosphere that was created every time we met. i believe that it was also due to the genuine feeling of caring and understanding that appeared to be always present in the sessions. something that became interesting about the teacher stories was that the issue of discomfort never materialised when they were asked to relate their classroom experiences as teachers of life orientation. there was a sense of disassociation from the causes of the problems. there was a lot of outside blame that went with the stories that they told. this included learner behaviour in the classroom when specific topics were discussed which rendered the teachers to lose control of the class or feel so embarrassed that they never touched on the topic again. as one of the participants recounted in some parts of her story: i stood in front of that class frozen …. you know i have never wanted to smack somebody so badly in my life. . . mantombazane (girls)!. . . you know that boy looked at me and asked how many times do i remember to use a condom?. . . or . . . do i even use one. . . of course there was laughing in the class as he asked . . . remember these are grade 9s and some are way older in their age to be in a grade 9 class. . . you know lezizingane (these children) that were not taught by their parents not to talk anyhow about such things… (lihle, discussion, 10 september 2010). masinga: journeys to self-knowledge. . . 125 we asked ourselves questions such as what had been significant events in our lives that in one way or the other may have influenced us. we needed to look deep into what underpins our beliefs pertaining to sexuality. on what or on whom do we model our lives and beliefs resulting in our actions towards certain issues we have to deal with in our lives and as teachers of lo? through talking and discussion we came to some realisations about the impact those events had in our lives. we realised that we had blissfully glided on with life, not admitting we have issues that may one day need to come out to allow us to continue living in awakened state. thus, we are now conscious of what was then hidden. to start us off on writing these stories i would, while we were home, send each participant triggering reminders through sms (short message service), such as: thought for the day: how did i come to know my sexuality? hey girls, what is that one thing that we will never forget that changed the way we look at ourselves as sexual beings? think harder girls! night. these messages gave us an idea as to what we needed to think and write about. we wanted to use the privacy of the home and the duration of the time that was within the sessions that we held to write the stories. during that period each participant would battle with her own thoughts and memory while she went into her past life to look for that story that would best relate to the set task for that period. the session that followed would see each participant that was willing to share her story retelling the story in an oral form while others listened and made interjections through questions to get more understanding of the story that was being told. this rendered an opportunity for a “collective examination of the memories in which the memories are theorised and new meanings result” (onyx and small, 2001, p.775). to illustrate the type of stories that were told, i will use zama’s story, which was taken from the recorded storytelling: the big incident happened one day i got home, i had bought some veggies which i forgot to take out from the car. when i needed to cook . . . i remembered the veggies. i said to him, “i am going to the car to get something.” he looked at me and said “you are going nowhere” i said, “ok go and get it then.” he said “no . . . we are all staying in the house today, nobody is going anywhere” . . . i just said “fine . . . i will cook something else . . . later i asked him if he will eat . . . that day he said yes. i had started a habit of asking him . . . as every time food was dished out for him . . . he would not eat. 126 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 that day he said “yes . . . i will eat ‘cause i’m eating for the last time today.” as he said it, it did not record in my mind what it meant . . . oh . . . i sat down to watch tv and generations [a local soap opera] highlights came on and i laughed. he said, “what are you laughing at? i said i am laughing at what i saw on tv. he said “you are laughing with your men . . .” i was amazed. . . i would have understood if i was speaking on the phone with somebody . . . i asked, “what men?” he said, “you are thinking about them . . . you are making a fool out of me! . . .you start by giving me food . . . let the idiot eat while you are busy laughing” that went on for a while. . . then he started other things . . .such as, ”why did you use my phone yesterday . . . why didn’t you ask for it?”. . . i just said, “what is wrong?!”. . .do you want to pack?!”. . .“i will help you this time!” i went to the wardrobe and started pulling down his clothes. at that time i was also very angry . . . and shouting . . . pulling down clothes . . . at that time he is pushing me and trying to throw me down . . . you know . . . that day i got a punch in the face that i have never received in my life . . . we lived on the 6 floor . . . he dragged me to the window trying to throw me out . . . i fought him andth held on the frame of the window . . . he is a small built man, so i was able to struggle him to the floor. both my kids were in the other room. . . he said, “i am finishing everything today”. . . he said, ”i will start with you”. . .meaning me . . . then he pointed at the direction of my eldest daughter . . . “then end with you”. . . he said pointing at the baby, “then kill myself . . . i will finish all today.” when he said that, he pulled the footstool to reach to those top shelves . . . i knew there was a gun on top as there was a safe. he pulled the stool and started climbing up. i started trying to push the stool as he climbed to stop him getting the gun . . . and reaching for it . . . until he managed to get his gun. i jumped on him and there was a struggle . . . we fought pushing and pulling . . . during that time my eldest daughter . . . was busy trying to open the door by breaking it with an iron . . . the keys to the flat and the car . . . he had already thrown them outside the window to the streets . . .by that time . . . the door was already open . . . i could not see that . . . she managed to open it . . . and . . . she ran out with her baby sister . . . him and i were still at it. i was trying to get hold of the gun, it went off three . . . four times hitting the ceiling . . .we both were shocked . . . the gun flew to the floor and went under the sofa . . . as we had made our way to the opening leading to the sitting room. he dived trying to get it out . . .it was one of those low ones . . . and it was heavy . . . as he was trying to reach for the gun . . . i saw the open door and i ran outside . . . my clothes were all tore out . . . outside people were all over the place . . . people were shouting . . . some went inside the house . . . they grabbed him . . . i ran to the nearest police station, with my clothes all tore up . . . it was important that we listened as the story was being told so we could assist in the telling of the story. as we asked questions, the memory of the story was assisted and that allowed coherence of the story for the listeners to take place. for example, with the above story, questions and interjections were made such as: participant 1: “it never occurred to you that he was a little bit disturbed?” participant 2: “what did his family think of this whole thing?” participant 3: “but what does it have to do with you changing boyfriends as you say you now do?” masinga: journeys to self-knowledge. . . 127 as we listened, questioned and related some reasoning as to how we understood the story, the teller of the story gained the opportunity to see the other side of the story and meaning. as lapadat, black, clark, gremm, karaja, mieke and quinlan (2010, p.78) explain, “the telling of one’s story is both a construction of self and a performance of self, in which the listener/reader/ viewer is implicated as witness, audience, collaborator, and co-constructor”. hence, as we reconstructed our own history, we became the actors while the other participants became the listeners with views and opinions on what they are listening to. in memory work, personal experiences “are theorised as a crosssection or example of common (social) experience” (crawford, kippax, onyx, gault, and benton, 1992, p.49). as crawford et al. explain: what is of interest is not why person x’s father did such and such but why fathers do such things. the aim is to uncover the social meanings embodied by the actions described in the [individual accounts of personal experience] and to uncover the processes whereby the meanings – both then and now – are arrived at (p.49). hence, another crucial reason for using stories was to find a tool that would allow the generation of common themes for the study that would have evidence embedded within them, as they were stories that were written by us, the people who had lived through the experience (steiner, 2007). audio recording of sessions all sessions were recorded for the purpose of data storing and reflection purposes. there were times when we replayed what had been said, which played a crucial role in the discussions and clarification of what individuals intended to say. recording the sessions also became my third ear, which became crucial for me. being a participant in my own research left me wondering at some points about how much i was missing as i too became involved in the process of finding my own self in self-study within the research. i was able to replay the recording of the sessions after each meeting; in this way i gained more insight into what was happening and further analysed the responses and the discussions that took place. i learned that voice changes as participants spoke also gave clarity as to the emotions that were involved that i may have missed in the process. 128 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 as a participant who is also the researcher, i wanted all the voices to be heard and believed that mine did not have to lead all the time. through listening to the recordings, i could keep myself in check and realise when my opinions might change the flow of the session as the participants seemed to think my opinion mattered more, which should not be the case in a collaborative study. i was also able to gain further insight into the entire process as i went back and listened to how we engaged with each other and the manner in which we responded to the situations that arose within the process of the sessions. reflective journal writing “how often in humanness, do persons replay situations or events in their minds? thinking back on what occurred; reviewing relational aspects of encounters, maybe even second guessing what was said or done”(epp, 2008, p.1380). it is within this premise that keeping a reflective journal was employed as a methodological tool. each participant kept a reflective journal. this provided moments of reflection and interpretations of all aspects of the experience gained from each session. since the aim was for us to learn from the experience, keeping of the journal assisted us in making each session more educative (taggart and wilson, 2005). it rang true to us as participants that “learning is derived more from reflecting on an experience than from the experience itself” (taggart and wilson, 2005, p.77). this can be seen through such stories as zama’s story of spousal verbal and physical abuse (zama, recorded conversation, 29 september, 2010). in this instance zama came to the realisation of how her current actions and relationship with men has been changed. her ‘private hell’ as she called it in her story was instrumental in her new self. it has contributed to the ‘revised’ self-identity she has created for herself and chooses to represent herself for all to see. it was truly in that private moment of remembering through journaling that she was able to learn about herself as she reflected on the past through the story. through journaling, we learned that the process of reflecting is a difficult one, as it required us to bare our soul for all to see if we were to learn and deal with the implications of what had been reflected on. it prompted moments of true thinking on the part of the participants as we battled with what we needed to write about and how much of our souls we were willing to share and face in the presence of others who may not understand. as one participant reflected during the discussion phase: masinga: journeys to self-knowledge. . . 129 i first wrote it until i said to myself . . . you know what, this is not true. . . all what i have written is not true. i am only reflecting the positive as if my life and experiences have been great. i had to do it all over again . . . until i realised that now i was hurting as i had to bring my past back. the one i have told myself i am past it. as a result i could not finish, i will have to go back to do it again although it is not easy. (zama,10 september 2010) through journaling, participants gained the opportunity to be true to themselves and how they chose to remember their past as we were forced through writing to ‘keep it real’. through journaling, we got an opportunity to ‘get hold of’ the experiences that we had inside, be they positive or negative. through collaboration as a group, we were able to express those experiences in ways that allowed the other participants to share in the feelings, the experiences and maybe the understanding of the implications of that which we had shared (beveridge, 1997). through journal writing, we came to understand how some of our memories were linked to and interdependent with the emotions experienced during the time of the event. for some of us the pain we had felt during that time was easier to remember and relate than the event itself. hence the question asked by onyx and small, “does the method [of memory-work] always have the potential to liberate?” (2001, p.781). the answer for us had to be no, as we realised through listening to buhle’s story, as she related how she is not yet able to allow herself to remember her early years as they were too painful to remember. as she related in our reflection time: i wrote nothing about my early years. i could not do it . . . i started allowing myself to remember when i was a teenager. . . .everything early is too painful . . . maybe i will go back there later . . . for now . . . now that i am older i am realising who i am . . . this is the real me. i must stop pretending to be what i am not. that is when trouble started for me. . . . again . . . over my choices with my sexuality. i had family members calling meetings. . . .i realised that was when i needed to be strong . . . (buhle, recorded conversation, 10 september 2010) we started to get a feel of how we had lived and acted as sexual beings and how we were maybe oblivious of those consequences in our present self. we were able to find means through writing a journal to ultimately find “a way of getting feedback from ourselves, in so doing, it enabled us to experience in a full and open-ended way, the movement of our lives as a whole and the meaning that follows from reflecting on that movement” (janesick, 1999, p.509). 130 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 dilemmas and discoveries experienced in memory-work which hat am i wearing now? for the purposes of this study, i worked with two methodologies, collaborative inquiry and self-study. when i conceptualised this in my head it all seemed feasible. both methodologies aimed at finding some solution to a specific problem in collaboration with others. and there were many other attributes that made them compatible. however, there were many times when i was not sure which hat i was wearing or expected to be wearing throughout the sessions. at what moments was i to wear the researcher hat and that of a full participant who was on equal footing with the rest of the other participants? these are some of the reflections that i entered in my journal as i engaged in the process: today i don’t know how many times i had to halt and explain to the participants that my opinion was not that important! it’s what we all agreed should happen that matters. my opinion should be considered in the same manner as that of the other participants. however, i am not sure what i should do when the researcher in me feels we are going way off track. when i try to bring the session on track through a statement or question am i manipulating the flow of the process to meet the needs of the researcher or is it the participant in me that is talking? (lungi, journal, 10 august, 2010) wow! i just listened to the tape of yesterday’s session. boy did i talk a lot in this session. i think for most part of the session i forgot that i was the researcher. i really had strong opinions over a lot of things today. i wonder what damage that made to the process. i need to listen to the tape later and work out how my talking a lot influenced things. i am a participant; i know that, i also know that i’m a very opinionated person in general. (lungi, journal, 7 september, 2010 as a participant, i needed to stay true to my own journey of my memories, my experiences as both a sexual woman and a teacher. when journaling, i needed to reflect on both my journey and also what i observed and thought of the process and other participants’ journeys. it was not an easy task. at some point i realised i would never achieve the perfect balance. hence, i spent most of the day after the session reflecting on the process and later on my journey. this was crucial because, as a participant the writing of field notes was not always possible, due to my own participation. it also did not escape my attention that i too experienced my own emotional roller-coaster together with my fellow participants. i had not envisaged my masinga: journeys to self-knowledge. . . 131 own emotional attachment to the stories related by other participants. i had not anticipated that as a researcher i too would experience emotional attachments and empathy for the stories i would hear. thus ‘self-care’ became an imperative tool for me (rager, 2005). i used various methods to put my experiences into perspective for me. the immediate act of journaling after each session was very therapeutic. whose turn is it to talk? when does one say a person is talking too much? i wondered that often in the sessions. i knew from the beginning that i had one participant who spoke a lot. she always seemed to find difficulty in listening to others or letting an opportunity for her views to pass by. this was a fact that i mulled over a lot in the planning phase when i decided to ask her to be part of the session. i worried for the other participants who were not familiar with her, that they might find her frankness and talkativeness unbecoming. i was also aware of the kind of input she would bring into the sessions and that with her attitude she was bound to provoke responses from the participants which would make for interesting conversation. in a collaborative environment, equal opportunity for participation is crucial, and all opinions are to be valued and considered. in an environment that had a particular participant that seemed to do the opposite was not easy. in the first session, i really worried when my worst nightmare seemed to be realised as from the start she seemed to set the pace and the tone of the session. however as the session progressed, i realised it was in a good way for me and the type of data that i managed to collect for that day. her almost ‘out of line’ use of language (as the other participants seemed eager to let her know) lead to interesting debates. i also under estimated the ability of the other participants to hold their own. my observation on the issue for that first session as written in the journal was: oh my! i knew jaz has the ability to say anything. i was also shocked when she volunteered to read her definition and the explicit use of words. i saw zama’s eyes almost ready to pop out! i’m glad that she did, it seemed to get all talking except for one. that was expected, i know there is a lot that will be discussed that she will not take very well with her strong religious views. this is going to be interesting. (lungi, journal, 10 august 2010) 132 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 who decides when an issue is deemed sensitive? another area that i found interesting in the process of the study was the issue of sensitive topics. in research literature that i had read, issues of sexuality had been identified as sensitive, thus needing extra care of the participants. this was even more so when dealing with memory, where participants will have to revisit certain parts of their past that may have been painful. as the process progressed, i started to wonder, what do sensitive issues mean and for whom is the issue sensitive? is it for the person talking about the issue or the one listening and imagining that if it were them then it would be sensitive? what does it mean to some participants when i say, “i will provide you with the necessary assistance when the need arises that you as a participant may find wanting of such assistance.” in my understanding of what could make an issue sensitive, is when one speaks of death, abuse, violence in relationships and so on you cannot help thinking of the traumatic nature of those issues. my assumption was that when a participant was retelling that kind of story she would experience a certain level of negative flashbacks that might be harmful to her current mental stability. however, that has proved to not be the case for all participants in my study. i found myself in the predicament that sometimes it is difficult to understand the complexities when trying to identify issues deemed sensitive. however, i found, that “what is sensitive to one person might not be the same for another” (hyden, 2008, p.122). hyden makes the claim that “what is a sensitive topic and what is not is due mainly to rational circumstances, that is, the relationships between the teller and the listener” (p.122). in our case the nature of the environment that had been provided by collaborative participation, and the development of trust and care for all may have lessened the impact of the story. there is also the nature of the “cultural and contextual circumstances and the personal views held by the people involved” (p.122). some of the stories shared by the participants seemed to fall within the ‘sensitive category’ such as when malindi related her story of how her boyfriend shot her and her mother. the intensity and the details of the story, including the responses and questioning by other participants would have made some break down. however, she could not understand why we would think it would be difficult for her to relate the story. what we failed to realise was that for her, talking was what she saw as a beginning to healing. as masinga: journeys to self-knowledge. . . 133 expressed by hyden (2008, p.123), “talk about a traumatic experience, has the potential to pose a threat and even has the potential to re-traumatise the traumatised, but such talk can just as well have the potential to heal”. for me, much depends on the environment in which the conversation is being conducted. the sessions were a safe haven for us all. what could have been the re-traumatisation of the narrator or the listeners became instead a healing tool for all. laughter and humour: are we serious? “are these people for real!?” i mean really! can we for once focus on what we came here to do and maybe be able to get what needs to be done on time” (lungi, journal, 6 september 2010). during the sessions we laughed so hard that the researcher in me stated to panic because each time we laughed time was consumed and getting back to the point was difficult. there were times when we laughed at a story that should have been making us cry or feel sad. the tellers of these stories always seemed to lead in finding humour in the horrific stories they were relating. it was in my own private moments as i wrote in my journal: it worries me that we laugh so hard. when zama related her story of how her husband tried to kill her and her two daughters, she found humour in some of the things that took place. her laughter, although i was grateful that it relaxed the atmosphere that was already beginning to take place as the other participants realised where her story was going, was of concern to me. (lungi, journal, 02 september 2010). it was in that moment again as i wrote that entry in my journal that this realisation came to me: people deal with issues differently. laughter was the healing tool that was working its magic in all of us. zama laughed at her story, not that there was real humour to what had happened to her. she however used it to make herself better able to get through the story. in telling the story she was reliving it, she found a way that will make the memory less painful for her and also gave her the ability to have control over how the story will affect her. that’s what therapy does for the person, it helps us heal, and that she found in her laughter. (lungi journal, 2 september 2010). during the session, i had typically offered her the use of the available resources such as a private session with the woman counsellor working in the trauma centre as had been offered to them, to assist her. however, she flatly refused saying: 134 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 i am getting it now . . . you know i have not really told the full story to anybody before . . . i have always thought i would break down and cry when i did . . . but i’m fine . . . this is good . . . for me . . . i needed to do this . . . what we are doing here is good . . . besides . . .therapy . . . not my thing. (zama, recorded conversation 2 september 2010) it is then that i realised the important role that collaborative memory-work as a tool of inquiry has the ability to give back to the participants. little did i realise the importance of those moments when the session seems to be chaotic and not starting well. it was then that the participants’ bond was reemphasised as they caught up with each other and laughter seemed to be the order of the day. it was then true in our circumstance that humour had the means of reducing the levels of effect that any form of anxiety we would have experienced. as humour and laughter could be understood in different forms and relevance to our situation as we got down to the issues (mallett, 1995). conclusion in this article, i have shared and reflected on the methodological experiences of working with memory related activities to elicit data for my phd study on teachers as sexuality educators. i have discussed the use of story-telling, audio recording of sessions and reflective journal writing as tools for memory-work. this was followed by a discussion on the dilemmas and discoveries i experienced in working with memory. this article highlights that what is in the past cannot always stay in the past. our present actions are sometimes linked to our past actions and experiences. working with memory has potential to evoke reflection for us to be continuous learners within our own different roles and fields. important issues to be highlighted in this article are how past stories can be an integral part of our lives as they influence how we are at present-self. that participant can give direction as to how they want to relate their past. for the participants in this research it was the oral form of telling that found favour amongst them. the collective examination of the memories gave new meaning to the memories that rendered some learning opportunities for all. another issue is that journaling as a research tool, proved not to be an easy journey for all. it offered a battle of emotions as we tried to reflect on our thoughts. masinga: journeys to self-knowledge. . . 135 the process again offered some dilemmas and discoveries for the process. such as being a researcher–participant is not an easy task. it requires constant reconnection with yourself, through reflections. as you ask yourself ‘am i keeping a balance between the two?’ although staying true to your own journey of memories it important; it should be noted that one may have to make peace with the fact that you may never find the perfect balance. again the issue of what renders an issue sensitive? i have realised that sensitive issues are subjective. people sometimes choose how and what they would allow to affect them. also what they want to do with the issues, something that we as researchers; can never be fully be prepared for. i have found it true that not all find comfort in tears. laughter has found a way to have the ability and strength to see us through a lot in life. the trick, i have found, is allowing the owner of the memory to choose how it will play out in the telling of the story. references balli, s.j. 2011. pre-service teachers’ episodic memories of classroom management. teaching and teacher education, 27: pp.245–251. beveridge, i. 1997. teaching your students to think reflectively: the case for reflective journals. teaching in higher education, 2(1): pp.33–43. bray, n.j. 2002. uniting teacher learning: collaborative inquiry for professional development. new directions for adult and continuing education, 94: wiley periodical inc. crawford, j., kippax, s., onyx, j., gault, u. and benton, p. 1992. emotion and gender: constructing meaning from memory. london, newbury park: sage publications. department of education. 2002. revised national curriculum statement grade r–9 (schools): life orientation. pretoria: government press. epp, s. 2008. the value of reflective journaling in undergraduate nursing education: a literature review. international journal of nursing studies, 45: pp.1379–1388. 136 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 hamerton, h. 2001. pakeha women investigate adolescence: doing memorywork with friends. feminism and psychology, 11(3): pp.414–420. hyden, m. 2008. narrating sensitive topics. in endrews, m., squire, c and tamboukou, m. (eds), doing narrative research. london: sage publications, pp.121–136. janesick, v. 1999. a journal about journal writing as a qualitative research technique: history, issues, and reflections. qualitative enquiry, 5(4): pp.505–524. kasl, e. and yorks, l. 2002. collaborative inquiry for adult learning. new directions for adults continuing education, 94: pp. 3–11. kehily, m. 2002. sexing the subject: teachers, pedagogies and sex education. sex education, 2(3): pp.215–231. lapadat, j., black, n.e., clark, p.g., gremm, r.m., karanja, l.w., mieke and quinlan l. 2010. life changing memory work: using collaborative autobiography to understand ourselves. international journal of qualitative methods, 9(1): pp.77–104. downloaded at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 loughran, j. 2007. researching teacher education practices: responding to the challenges, demands, and expectations of self-study. journal of teacher education, 58(1): pp.12–20. downloaded at http://jte.sagepub.com mallett, j. 1995. humour and laughter therapy. complementary therapies in nursing and midwifery, 1: pp.73–76. masinga, l.r. (in process). journeys to self-knowledge: a participatory study of teachers as sexuality educators. mitchell, c., weber, s. and o’reilly-scanlon, k. (eds). 2005. just who do we think we are? methodologies for autobiography and self-study in teaching. new york: routledge falmer. onyx, j. and small, j. 2001. memory-work: the method. qualitative inquiry, 17(6): pp.773–786. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b/hich/af37/dbch/af37/loch/f37%20y/2.0 http://jte.sagepub.com masinga: journeys to self-knowledge. . . 137 ovens, a and tinning, r. 2009. reflection as situated practice in teacher education. teaching and teacher education, 25: pp.1125–1131. rager, k.b. 2005. compassion stress and the qualitative researcher. qualitative health research, 15(3): pp.423–430. steiner, j. f. 2007. using stories to disseminate research: the attributes of representative stories. society of general international medicine, 22(11): pp.1603–1607. taggart, g.l. and wilson, a.p. 2005. promoting reflective thinking in teachers. california: corwin press. zelman, a.v. 2002. nurturing institution through group learning, new directions for adult and continuing education, 94: wiley periodical inc. lungile masinga university of kwazulu-natal relungile@yahoo.com mailto:relungile@yahoo.com 138 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 editorial kathleen pithouse-morgan, claudia mitchell and daisy pillay this special edition of the journal of education draws on a contemporary concern with memory and pedagogy in south africa – as we see, for example, in a themed issue of perspectives in education that examines how different “post-conflict societies”, including south africa, engage with “the past as a pedagogical problem” (jansen and weldon, 2009, pp.107–108). at the same time, this edition builds on recent international work done in an invitational workshop on productive memory & social action held in 2008 (see http://iirc.mcgill.ca/workshop/) and in an edited book titled memory and pedagogy (mitchell, strong-wilson, pithouse and allnutt, 2011b), to consider how working with memory – as phenomenon and method – might contribute to pedagogic practice and research in the south african context. memory-work has its roots in a process of collaborative inquiry on female sexualisation undertaken by a group of feminist women in germany (see haug, 1987) and then further developed and elaborated by researchers such as crawford, kippax, onyx, gault, and benton (1992), onyx and small (2001), and lapadat, black, clark, gremm, karanja, mieke and quinlan (2010). memory-work is underpinned by the premise that memories play a fundamental role in current individual and collective patterns of thought and action and that we can consciously work with memory to become aware of and intervene creatively in these patterns (pithouse, 2007). in particular, memory-work is aimed at revealing and gaining insight into the social meanings of and influences on memory. as crawford et al. (1992, p.49), explain: what is of interest is not why person x’ s father did such and such but why fathers do such things. the aim is to uncover the social meanings embodied by the [memories] and to uncover the processes whereby the meanings – both then and now – are arrived at. hence, the fundamental purpose of memory-work is to facilitate a heightened consciousness of how social forces and practices, such as gender, race and class, affect human experiences and understandings and of how individuals http://iirc.mcgill.ca/workshop/ journal of education, no. 54, 20122 and groups can take action in response to these social forces and practices in ways that can make a qualitative difference to the present and the future. memory-work has been taken up in relation to pedagogy by mitchell and weber (1998,1999), who conducted pioneering research on the role of memory-work in teacher development in the 1990s. they worked with canadian schoolteachers to examine how their memories of childhood and schooling had influenced their own teaching and how they might engage critically and creatively with these memories as “[tools] for change” (mitchell, strong-wilson, pithouse and allnutt, 2011a, p.2). subsequently, samaras, hicks, and berger (2004) drew on a range of largely north american studies to explore how schoolteachers’ and teacher educators’ memory-work – conceptualised as ‘personal history self-study’ – could facilitate personal and professional development. and, in australia, austin and hickey’s (2007) use of autoethnographic memory-work with student teachers and practising teachers highlighted its potential “for the development of critically reflexive and genuinely emancipatory professional practice, particularly, in education” (p.377). memory-work is also emerging as a significant pedagogic and research method in the south african education field. shortly after the first democratic elections in south africa, mitchell (2004) conducted a series of workshops with beginning teachers, in which drawings produced by school children in response to the prompt ‘let every child learn’ invoked the teachers’ memories of schooling. and samuel (2003) conducted participatory autobiographical research with pre-service english teachers to explore the how their memories of the learning and teaching of english might influence their future development as english teachers. then, pithouse’s doctoral study (2007, 2011) demonstrated how memory-work with practising teachers in honours and masters courses facilitated their intellectual and emotional engagement with the learning process. moving beyond the domain of teacher education, de beer (2009), a lecturer in the arts and design field, explored how her own autoethnographic memory-work had transformed her pedagogic practice with students. what this growing body of scholarship in educational memory-work points to are significant interconnections between memory-work and educators’ reflexive study of their own pedagogic selves and practices. mitchell and weber have conceptualised this as “a pedagogy of reinvention” – “a process of going back over something in different ways and with new perspectives, of editorial 3 studying one’s own experience with insight and awareness of the present for purposed of acting on the future” (1999, p.8). this work also speaks to the idea of what they term “beyond nostalgia”, and they call for ways to work with memory that go beyond what bell hooks refers to as “useless longing” (cited in mitchell and weber, 1999, p.5), turning practices of working with memory into what might be described as “future oriented remembering” (mitchell and reid-walsh, 2002, p.54). in this themed issue, we see a range of ways that scholars are currently taking up a ‘pedagogy of reinvention’ in diverse south african contexts. in so doing, they respond to what hampl writes about memory in relation to the self: there may be no more pressing intellectual need in our culture than for people to become sophisticated about the function of memory. the political implications of the loss of memory are obvious. the authority of memory is a personal confirmation of self-hood. (hampl, 1996, p.211) the articles in the issue call attention to both the educational significance and challenges of working with memory and self in relation to pedagogy in south africa. they also illustrate a variety of innovative and creative approaches to educational memory-work. pattman’s article describes and examines an experience of involving postgraduate sociology students in a process of collective memory-work through choosing, writing and telling a story in class relating to their youth or childhoods. hemson’s article problematises a process of young student leaders ‘speaking’ their early memories of violence in a group context. hobden, a mathematics teacher educator, explores the pedagogic value of asking future teachers to remember their experiences with mathematics. maistry, working in the field of business studies teacher education, focuses not only on the pedagogic significance of triggering his students’ memories, but also on the pedagogic value of bringing his own memories into play. this move towards the remembered self of the author/researcher/educator takes us to singh’s article, where she uses the method of a self-interview to explore the evolution of her own identity and practice as a drama education lecturer. tobias, a schoolteacher, also employs memory-work to inquire into his past learning experiences, with the aim of deepening his understanding of his current teaching and of potential for future change. finally, masinga offers an account of the methodological possibilities and challenges of using memory journal of education, no. 54, 20124 work in a participatory study of teachers as sexuality educators – in which she is both researcher and participant. the articles in this issue offer a sense of ‘future oriented remembering’ in relation to how memory can be used productively in diverse educational contexts in south africa, and, as such, these articles contribute to raising new questions about memory-work and self-reflexive study of pedagogic practice. how, for example, might ‘a pedagogy of reinvention’ be integrated across disciplines in higher education institutions in south africa? transformative education/al studies (tes) – an nrf-funded inter-institutional, transdisciplinary project involving researchers from the durban university of technology, walter sisulu university and the university of kwazulu-natal – is currently addressing some of the complexities of carrying out this work (see pithouse-morgan, rawlinson, pillay, chisanga and timm, 2012). taken as a whole, what the articles in this special issue draw attention to is the pedagogic significance of bringing forward the past, as painful as it might be. this is aptly expressed by a south african teacher, reflecting on his experience of memory-work (in pithouse, 2007, p.118): there is a saying that a nation without history is a lost nation. so, as much as there may be certain things that we might not want to remember, those things could be important to remedy the situation we are in at the present moment and to lead us to the future. references austin, j. and hickey, a. 2007. autoethnography and teacher development. the international journal of interdisciplinary social sciences, 2(2): pp.369–378. crawford, j., kippax, s., onyx, j., gault, u. and benton, p. 1992. emotion and gender: constructing meaning from memory. london, newbury park: sage publications. de beer, m. 2009. memory-based expressions of the self: demonstration/ expression of memory through the art of making. in pithouse, k., mitchell, c. and moletsane, r. (eds), making connections: self-study and social action. new york: peter lang, pp.77–96. editorial 5 hampl, p. 1996. memory and imagination. in mcconkey, j. (ed.), the anatomy of memory: an anthology. new york and oxford: oxford university press, pp.201–11. haug, f. 1987. female sexualization: a collective work of memory. (carter, e. trans.). london: verso. jansen, j.d. and weldon, g. 2009. the pedagogical transaction in postconflict societies. perspectives in education, 27(2): pp.107–108. lapadat, j.c., black, n.e., clark, p.g., gremm, r.m., karanja, l.w., mieke, m. and quinlan, l. 2010. life challenge memory-work: using collaborative autobiography to understand ourselves. international journal of qualitative methods, 9(1): pp.77–104. mitchell, c. 2004. just who do we think we are? memory-work and self study with beginning teachers. in balfour, r., buthelezi, t. and mitchell, c. (eds), teacher development at the centre of change. durban: kzn doe, pp.45–54). mitchell, c. and weber, s. 1998. the usable past: teachers (re)playing school. changing english, 5(1): pp.45–56. mitchell, c. and weber, s. 1999. reinventing ourselves as teachers: beyond nostalgia. london: philadelphia, pa: falmer press. mitchell, c. and reid-walsh, j. 2002. researching children’s popular culture: the cultural spaces of childhood. london: routledge taylor francis. mitchell, c., strong-wilson, t., pithouse, k. and allnutt, s. 2011a. introducing memory and pedagogy. in mitchell, c., strong-wilson, t., pithouse, k. and allnutt, s. (eds), memory and pedagogy. new york: routledge, pp.1–13. mitchell, c., strong-wilson, t., pithouse, k. and allnutt, s. (eds). 2011b. memory and pedagogy. new york: routledge. onyx, j. and small, j. 2001. memory-work: the method. qualitative inquiry, 7(6): pp.773–786. pithouse, k. 2007. learning through teaching: a narrative self-study of a novice teacher educator. phd thesis, university of kwazulu-natal, durban. journal of education, no. 54, 20126 pithouse, k. 2011. ‘the future of our young children lies in our hands’: reenvisaging teacher authority through narrative self-study. in mitchell c., strong-wilson, t., pithouse, k. and allnutt, s. (eds), memory and pedagogy. new york: routledge, pp.177–190. pithouse-morgan, k., rawlinson, w., pillay, d., chisanga, t. and timm, d. 2012. ‘starting with ourselves’: perspectives from the transformative education/al studies project. symposium presented at american educational research association 2012 annual meeting, april 14, vancouver, canada. samaras, a.p., hicks, m.a. and berger, j.g. 2004. self-study through personal history. in loughran, j.j., hamilton, m.l., laboskey, v. k. and russell, t. (eds), international handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices. dordrecht; boston; london: kluwer academic publishers, vol. 2, pp.905–942. samuel, m. 2003. autobiographical research in teacher education: memories as method and model. in lewin, k., samuel, m. and sayed, y. (eds), changing patterns of teacher education in south africa: policy, practice and prospects. sandown: heinemann, pp.253–272. kathleen pithouse-morgan school of education university of kwazulu-natal claudia mitchell james mcgill professor of visual arts-based methodologies, hiv&aids and social change mcgill university daisy pillay school of education university of kwazulu-natal pithousemorgan@ukzn.ac.za profclaudiamitchell@gmail.com pillaygv@ukzn.ac.za mailto:pithousemorgan@ukzn.ac.za mailto:profclaudiamitchell@gmail.com mailto:pillaygv@ukzn.ac.za neoliberalism, education and ‘the neglect of knowledge’ a review essay of selling out education: national qualifications frameworks and the neglect of knowledge – stephanie allais. rotterdam: sense 2014 paula ensor any opportunity for us to examine an issue of global educational significance through the lens of south african experience is one to be celebrated. allais’ book is an excellent and timely example of this as she grapples with an issue of south african complexity and offers lessons to educationalists tackling similar issues here and in other parts of the world. she has written a stimulating, insightful and provocative book, part scholarly monograph, part polemic, which will be of interest to educationalists across the spectrum of educational studies, both inside and outside of south africa. in her introduction allais indicates that her primary aim in writing the book “is to convince educationalists about the value of organized bodies of knowledge, and that a primary role of education is assisting learners to acquire this knowledge; consequently, bodies of knowledge should be the starting point of curriculum design” (allais, 2014, p.xv). she advances this position against those who privilege the ‘everyday’ within the curriculum, or competence and skills, or who in other ways promote instrumentalism or ‘relevance’ in educational offerings. in doing so, she draws on a substantial amount of work that has, in one way or another, addressed this issue (see for example contributions by muller, taylor, moore, young and young and muller in the bibliography of this book). allais sets out the three main arguments that span the book as follows: firstly, that the economy (by which she means neoclassical frameworks) has subjected education to the logic of the market and profoundly shaped the ways in which education is now understood and delivered; secondly, that education is presented as the solution to major social and economic problems which it is unable to address; and thirdly, that it is necessary to explain the “curious agreement” that has emerged between those on the “left” who have 116 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 promoted education reform, and those on the “right” who have advanced educational policies “that derive from neoliberalism” (p.xxii). at the heart of the book lies the south african national qualifications framework, the local and international context within which it has emerged, its social logic, and its failure to deliver on any of the major promises made by its advocates at its inception. the sanqf rests on two central planks – learning outcomes and learner centredness – which together shape the way in which curricula are constructed. both regard knowledge as ‘flat’, segmental and arbitrary. allais returns at various points in the book to the issue of learning outcomes, the impact they have on curriculum design, and the importance of constructing curricula that take knowledge, the “heritage of humanity” (p.215), as a starting point. allais understands the nqf as an outcome of neoliberal insistence on the market, which has permeated state policy and reshaped the function of the state from provider of services to regulator of service providers. market thinking in her view has also penetrated significant sections of the academy. she argues that educational policy internationally is shifting increasingly towards the rhetoric of ‘relevance’ and the making of curricula that are germane to work and everyday life, thereby purportedly addressing many of the social problems that emerge as a result of the rolling back of the welfare state and the introduction of new forms of regulation. education is regarded as the solution to these deep-seated problems, and thereby set up as a scapegoat in that it cannot deliver on what is unreasonably expected of it. the emergence of neoliberalism and the development of national qualifications frameworks in scotland, uk, australia, new zealand and south africa has resulted in the ‘export’ of qualifications frameworks to other parts of the world, especially poor and middle income countries, and allais provides a graphic account of pitiful and expensive failure. allais explores the relationships between qualifications frameworks, educational provision and labour markets, suggesting that the emergence of such frameworks is symptomatic of the weakness of such relationships rather than a mechanism to strengthen them. a critique of neoliberalism courses through the book, and drawing on the work of fine and milonakis (p.175), allais argues that “neoclassical economics imperialism” has penetrated educational policy, research and practice as well as the social sciences more broadly. this penetration has not, ensor: neoliberalism , education and ‘the neglect of knowledge’. . . 117 in her terms, found adequate opposition, and this she attributes largely to the influence of postmodernism. the discussion of neoclassical economics imperialism and postmodernism is set up to provide a context for allais to advance an explanation for why the ‘left-wing’ have either actively supported qualifications frameworks, or failed to adequately critique them. postmodernist and constructionist approaches (which she regards as “epistemologically weak”) (p.200) have either overlapped in their support of neoliberal educational policies, or failed to provide adequate opposition to them. this very compressed summary of the book provides a glimpse of allais’ breadth of interest. the strength of the book lies in this wide scope, and the ways in which it uses the experience of the south african qualifications framework to engage with educational issues across a broad spectrum, to illustrate how educational policy is shaped by economic and social pressures, and to problematise the relationship between education and labour markets. one does not have to agree with the moves she makes, or the positions she adopts, to recognise the importance of the book in painting this broad canvas. i expect that it will serve as grist for discussions in education for some time to come. while i am critical of aspects of the book, which i discuss further below, i regard it as a significant and refreshing contribution to the field. refreshing particularly because of its polemical aspects, by which means allais pins her colours to the mast and sets out her own educational commitments regarding the nqf and education more generally. adopting a polemical style, as allais does in parts of the book, has recognisable strengths in that it shaves off ambiguity and targets issues directly by setting them up in particularly sharp relief. in a field such as education where the stakes are high, and the intellectual and material resources for dealing with them are not always as robust as they should be, establishing clarity about the issues and naming those agents who promote and hinder change is understandable. the downside is that at times the polarities are perhaps too sharply drawn, too little evidence is provided to make the case, and the claims made are too sweeping. for example, many sociologists will be surprised at the following suggestion made in the book: referring to any kind of resource as capital cedes conceptual ground to neoclassical economics, and digs us deeper and deeper into a conceptual morass (allais, 2014, p.184) [. . .] including bourdieu’s more nuanced notion of cultural capital (bourdieu, 1973, 1984). by using the term to refer to social resources, trust, knowledge, networks, or any of the other 118 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 aspects of society which have been labelled as a kind of ‘capital’, we are accepting an economistic re-writing of society as a whole (allais, 2014, p.185). the trenchant critique made by allais of postmodernism and its political cul-de-sac is apt but ignores the contribution of scholarship (which she might describe as ‘postmodernist’) to our understanding of the workings of power and inequality, consumerism and the commodification of culture, and of identity formation. notwithstanding this and other criticisms i have about lack of precision in some of the arguments, the book is a welcome contribution to educational debate in south africa and one that all students of education should be encouraged to read. allais has made a sharp critique of the potential effects of neoliberalism on education which is timely and important, especially given the proliferation of qualifications frameworks internationally. in raising my concerns i do not wish to diminish the contribution of her work but to contribute to meaningful discussion of the issues she raises. my first concern relates to what allais means by a ‘national qualifications framework’. as she concedes, there are many frameworks in existence globally, which are built according to different logics and which consequently have different effects. while she makes the concession that there is variability in type, she does not always make clear what form of framework draws her ire. it seems to me that there are at least three fundamental dimensions of variation in relation to national qualifications frameworks: firstly, whether they are based on whole qualifications or unit standards; secondly, whether they are compulsory or voluntary; and thirdly, whether they are intended to span all educational sectors, or only vocational education. i felt that the book needed to clarify this variation explicitly from the outset. it makes a fundamental difference whether an nqf is based on unit standards or on whole qualifications. the scottish qf and the australian qf, for example, appear to have started life as mechanisms for positioning whole qualifications comparatively, and were not intended to span formal education and training. the new zealand qf was born as a unit-standards based framework, but was not compulsory, and higher education for example withdrew very early on. what distinguishes the south african experiment is that it was compulsory, based on unit standards, and was intended to embrace all facets of education and training. at its heart lay the logic of credit accumulation and transfer (cat), which allais does not refer to in these terms. in its original conception, ensor: neoliberalism , education and ‘the neglect of knowledge’. . . 119 cat framed the logic of the sanqf, and was intended to penetrate the school system to include the fet level as well. the difference between an nqf built on unit standards and one built on whole qualifications is crucial, and the impact (and potential damage to the system) of each follows on from this. whole qualifications frameworks are not necessarily framed by outcomes, as allais concedes. they are able to generate outcomes on the basis of existing qualifications and arrange these in some kind of hierarchy in order to make judgements about commonality and difference. a units-standards based qualification framework based on credit accumulation and transfer is a different kettle of fish altogether, and it is this type that draws the heat of allais’ rejection of nqfs in general. such an nqf rests on a fundamental assumption: that knowledge can be broken up into what allais describes as ‘bits’, and that different ‘bits’, generated within different contexts, can be rendered equivalent. the nqf assumes that there is an invariant quality to all forms of knowledge that allows the ‘different bits’ to be compared on a common framework. level descriptors provide the rungs upon which unit standards are to be arranged. as allais shows in her critique, this framework has failed, either to achieve equivalence, or to improve qualifications, or to promote recognition of prior learning, or to strengthen vocational training, and has failed at huge cost. because the different kinds of possible nqfs are not consistently and visibly demarcated in the book it is not always clear which forms have been exported. chapters 4 and 8 describe a large number of countries, particularly poor and middle-income countries, which have been persuaded to implement nqfs. however it is not always apparent whether the frameworks have been implemented at all, and where they have been, whether they are based on whole qualifications or unit standards, or whether they are voluntary or compulsory. it seems that the export process has entailed for the most part the take up of qualifications frameworks for vocational training only. it would have been helpful to summarise this crucially important research in, for example, tabular form so as to gain a clearer picture of which frameworks are being implemented, and how. a further concern is the way in which allais takes up the notion of ‘learner centredness’ and curriculum construction. the cat approach to building a nqf is used by allais to launch a criticism of ‘learner centredness’ in general, which she takes to mean the design of curricula based on the needs and interests of learners rather than on organised bodies of knowledge. while 120 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 i am sympathetic to allais’ general point about the problematic notion of ‘relevance’ and to her criticism of the fragmentation entailed by the unit standards approach, the use of ‘learner centredness’ to describe the pathology she wishes to identify is perhaps unhelpful. its reach is too broad, the polarities too stark, and it risks targeting also those who might share her concerns. as allais concedes, ‘learner centredness’ can apply to curricula (shaping the way these are structured) and to pedagogy (taking the needs, interests and experience of learners as a starting point in teaching from these ‘bodies of knowledge’). she is in favour of the latter, but not the former. but i would argue that ‘learner centredness’ enters into curriculum construction as part of the mechanism whereby knowledge becomes curriculum. bernstein (1990) makes the point that the physics (or mathematics, or history) that learners encounter in school is not the same as that encountered by university students, or by mathematics or physics researchers. school physics is formed by drawing selectively from physics as an academic discipline. “the rules of relation, selection, sequencing, and pacing [. . .] cannot themselves be derived from some logic internal to physics nor from the practices of those who produce physics. the rules of the production of physics are social, not logical, facts.” (bernstein 1990, p.185 my emphasis). putting this differently, it is the moral order of society and of education which shapes what knowledge is selected, how it is distributed and how it is configured. the ‘bodies of knowledge’ of physics and other disciplines are recontextualised to form the curriculum of schools, universities and colleges, on the basis of what are determined to be the purposes of education and the needs, capacities and interests of learners at any point in time. number theory is a highly complex domain of mathematical enquiry, but it is not taught in the foundation phase. rather, children learn to count and to calculate using their fingers or other tokens, and then progressively learn to abstract from this concrete apparatus to manipulate numbers as concepts. number theory cannot guide teachers and curriculum planners on how to construct a curriculum but offers an important resource for this to happen. the hierarchy at play in the foundation phase is not the hierarchy of mathematics, but a constructed cognitive hierarchy of learning that has come to be accepted as a natural trajectory for all children. throughout the book allais returns many times to the importance of internally organised bodies of knowledge that need to be acquired, and cites mathematics as a particular example of a subject exhibiting a “clear hierarchical structure” (allais, 2014, p.158). but it is arguable whether a ensor: neoliberalism , education and ‘the neglect of knowledge’. . . 121 single unique hierarchy organises mathematical knowledge, either within the discipline or within formal education. the bourbakists attempted from the 1930s to develop such a disciplinary hierarchy on a set-theoretic basis, and efforts were made to replicate this in schools as ‘new maths’ in the 1960s. this was a failure on two counts. set theory failed to provide the axiomatic foundations for the organisation of mathematics, and teaching set theory to school learners did not significantly advance their mathematical thinking. similarly it is questionable whether unique hierarchies organise history, literature, biology, geography et cetera. the challenge for teachers and curriculum planners is to construct vertically robust and coherent pathways from disciplinary knowledge in order to induct students into conceptual understanding. this understanding is configured differently at different levels of the education system, and the age of learners, for example, is an important consideration in developing curricula that offer worthwhile and powerful forms of knowledge in a coherent way. it is hard to see how any curriculum can be constructed without considering the needs, capabilities and interests of learners, so in this sense every worthwhile curriculum is ‘learner-centred’. allais concedes that consideration of learners’ needs is an important dimension in curriculum construction, but the concession is at times obscured by the valid criticism of a version of ‘learner-centredness’ which promotes the experience of the child rather than the acquisition of knowledge (a position which, parenthetically, i do not consider dewey to be guilty of). perhaps the difficulty is in part because of the use of the terminology, and using ‘progressivism’ rather than ‘learner centredness’ to target very specific forms of curriculum construction may have served the argument better. my third concern relates to allais’ use of the term ‘education’. it is not always clear what stands at the forefront of her attention when she discusses the needs of education, and especially the need to concentrate efforts on the acquisition of powerful forms of knowledge. at times it becomes clear that she is discussing the education system as a whole, at other times she is in fact discussing vocational education, and at other times she is discussing a specific variant of qualifications framework. this becomes problematic when the cat-type qualifications frameworks that she uses to exemplify neoliberal education, with their emphasis on outcomes, on market relevance, on knowledge as “little bits of information” (p.172), are made to stand for the education system as a whole. ambiguity about what constitutes ‘education’ also seems to imply that all domains of education are of a piece, with the same interests and requirements, 122 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 and subject to the same threats. one of the difficulties of a national qualifications framework of the south african type as originally conceived is that it rests upon sectors that are different in their symbolic structures and modes of social organisation. if allais is making the claim that the needs and requirements of education and training are the same, then we need to understand the commonality of their social base. the sanqf sought to integrate education and training without considering the specificity of each. formal education institutions (universities, colleges and schools) for the most part negotiate discursively elaborated knowledge in specialised sites set aside exclusively for learning. the institutional boundary between formal education, work and everyday life is usually a strong one. vocational education entails discursively elaborated as well as tacit knowledge, and requires direct teaching as well as modelling in the site of practice. allais cites gamble in relation to vocational education as follows: “evaluative criteria reside not only with the master, they reside in the master as the carrier of the collective knowledge tradition” (gamble, cited in allais, p.161). this is not the case with formal education, where the ‘collective knowledge tradition’ stands independently of those who transmit and evaluate it. the idea that students in vocational education should have access to powerful forms of knowledge is a compelling one, but we need to go further to spell out what the specificities of vocational education are, and how the links between vocational education and occupations might be meaningfully made. unless we outline the specificities of vocational education and schooling we end up with yet another proposal to integrate education and training, this time on the terms of formal education rather than of training. this difficulty is particularly starkly framed in the last chapter of the book where allais’ attention is focussed almost entirely on schooling. given the challenges she points to throughout the book that face vocational education in so many parts of the world i hoped to find more discussion of how we might move forward to improve matters in this area. i accept that there is no ‘magic bullet’ to resolve the many challenges relating to education and the labour market, and strongly endorse her call to build strong institutions to provide high quality education. but given our experience in vocational education since 1994 it would have been useful to find at least a review of the main lines of debate to date, and the policy implications of these. a more pressing challenge facing schooling at the present time is not the framing of curricula in terms of unit standards, but the very strong emphasis placed on assessment targets and testing which is a fragmenting strategy of another kind. the threat of ensor: neoliberalism , education and ‘the neglect of knowledge’. . . 123 competence-based approaches and the fragmentation associated with them is named as a threat to vocational and adult education, but these are not discussed in much detail at all. at many points in the book allais advances the argument that we must prioritise knowledge in the making of curriculum but there is little detail of how this should be achieved in relation to vocational or adult education, except to argue strongly for the need to promote verticality and coherence in vocational education. my fourth concern with the book is the attempt to explain how the ‘left’ (which incidentally is never defined in the book) have come to support nqfs and other educational policies emerging from the neoliberal right. she suggests there are three possible reasons for this: that the ‘left’ believes these qualifications frameworks are “potentially liberatory” in spite of the risk of co-option by the right-wing (p.189); that the “centre left has conceded so much conceptual ground to the right that there are few fundamental differences between them” (p.189) or thirdly, “that the epistemological ideas traditionally favoured by many left-wing educationalists in fact weakens education, by leaving it with no intrinsic criteria or sense of specificity, which has opened it up to being redescribed in economic language” (p.189) the discussion on these three points is extended, and at the risk of oversimplification in reducing this to a nutshell, it appears that allais, drawing on the work of fine and milonakis, is suggesting that weak epistemology in the social sciences, attributed largely to the influence of postmodernism, has enabled neoclassical economics to colonise the social sciences and reduce scholarly enquiry to the categories and imperatives of the market. this has eroded the capacity of the social sciences in general, and education in particular, to mount an effective critique of neoliberal policies in education. at a rhetorical level the arguments are thought provoking and interesting and it would be productive to explore how far they work empirically, both in form and extent. it is not explained why neoclassical economics (which has been around for over a century) has now come to decisively frame the social sciences (and education) globally, nor are we given illustrations of how this colonisation has worked itself out methodologically and theoretically across the social sciences and education, and in policy and practice. the focus here is almost entirely at the level of contesting ideas, rather than on social groups, 124 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 their material interests and how these play out in the field of education and elsewhere. the surfacing of group interests (and not simply the complex contestation of ideas, and who is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’) would assist in explaining why elements of the ‘left’ in south africa supported the nqf, and why so many employers and workers have now lost faith in it. the proposal promised the improvement of educational standards and a massive expansion of access to education. it promised accreditation of workers on the shop floor who had for decades performed jobs for which job reservation had denied them certification. it promised to adults who had been forced through poverty to leave formal schooling at an early age the opportunity to learn again, become qualified, and alter their conditions of life. the sanqf was supported by many of those who had committed themselves to the struggle against apartheid because it was believed to advance the conditions of poor people. neoliberalism and postmodernism had little traction in the minds of those who took seriously the promise of a better life for all. if the epistemological resources for critique have been so badly compromised, how do we explain that formal education freed itself so early on from the cat logic, and that the nqf has shrunk to a shadow of its former self? bodies of knowledge, our ‘human heritage’ as allais puts it so well, stand as a powerful resource for the constructing of curricula, but i question whether they are able to form the ‘starting point’. bodies of knowledge have no agency. as bernstein (2000) points out, political interests (via the pedagogic device) contest the rules for the selection and distribution of knowledge in the making of curricula in any historical conjuncture. it is not simply neoliberalism as an ideology that configures our moral order today, but globalisation, a radical form of social restructuring that enables global capital to transform production, capital flows, trade, labour markets and the nation state internationally, concentrating massive wealth in the hands of the few and creating unemployment and poverty for the multitude. how do we envision a new moral order which redeems all sectors of education from the threats which allais so sharply identifies, and which at the same time acknowledges our position in a globalised world? access to powerful bodies of knowledge and strong educational institutions to offer them is necessary but not sufficient. a new social and moral order is required to establish new grounds for making curricula. there is a substantial body of literature which spells out the implications of what bernstein (2001) calls the “totally pedagogised society” (p.365); the eroding of solidarity and commitment, the hollowing out ensor: neoliberalism , education and ‘the neglect of knowledge’. . . 125 of identity and the installation of what stephen ball refers to as a form of “economic darwinism”: “adapt, evolve or become irrelevant” (ball 2009, p.203). the challenge is to develop a vision for education that takes us beyond this, a vision which can provide a ‘starting point’ for making powerful curricula in our time. references allais, s. 2014. selling out education: national qualifications frameworks and the neglect of knowledge. sense publishers. ball, s. 2009. lifelong learning, subjectivity and the totally pedagogised society. in peters m.a. (ed.), governmentality studies in education. rotterdam: sense, pp.201–216. bernstein, b. 1990. the structuring of pedagogic discourse vol 1v class codes and control. london: routledge. bernstein, b. 2000. pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: theory, research and critique (revised edition). oxford: rowman & littlefield. bernstein, b. 2001 from pedagogies to knowledges. in morais, a., neves, i., davies, b. and daniels, h. (eds), towards a sociology of pedagogy: the contribution of basil bernstein to research. new york: peter lang, pp.363–368. fine, b. and milonakis, d. 2009. from economics imperialism to freakonomics. the shifting boundaries beween economics and other social sciences. london: routledge. paula ensor school of education university of cape town paula.ensor@uct.ac.za mailto:paula.ensor@uct.ac.za microsoft word b8400 fullissue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 84, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i84a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x education lecturers’ perceptions of organising systematic online teaching and learning during covid-19 pandemic conditions in 2020 at two selected universities in south africa tanya bekker school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa tanya.bekker@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6052-4186 nazir carrim school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa nazir.carrim@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7104-8704 (received: 13 april 2021; accepted: 5 august 2021) abstract in this article, we view epistemological access as organising systematic teaching and learning, and we focus on teaching and learning online during covid-19 pandemic conditions in 2020. we used a survey monkey questionnaire with two universities in south africa that moved their teaching and learning online to survey whether lecturers thought that the extent of epistemological access was affected when this happened. our findings indicate that lecturers feel that the emergency teaching and learning did compromise their teaching, and, while most used existing face-to-face materials online, and some changed the content when they went online, they changed the assessment formats. we argue that these changes, although understandable given pandemic conditions, did not necessarily constitute the kind of carefully designed, paced, sequenced, and assessed online teaching and learning that also enhances epistemological access. we indicate that if one is to accept that the so-called new normal in education will largely be online, then the quality assurance of online teaching and learning will become unavoidable. keywords: epistemological access, online teaching and learning, emergency remote teaching bekker & carrim: education lecturers’ perceptions of organizing systematic online teaching . . . 49 introduction in this article, we focus on teaching, learning, and assessment adaptations that were rapidly used to make the curriculum available online, and the extent to which these were organised systematically to allow for epistemological access. we seek to draw attention to content transmitted online and to scrutinise the experience of educators, in this case university education lecturers. this focus was motivated by three concerns: 1) emerging scholarly work and reports on the educational experiences during the pandemic tend to focus on access to data, connectivity, and devices (jansen, 2020; sayed & singh, 2020); 2) they also focus more on the social, cultural, and economic dimensions of educational experiences during the pandemic (black et al., 2020) and; 3) very little attention seems to be have been given to the quality of online teaching and learning and to what has happened to the content of courses in the transition to online teaching and learning. our purpose is to focus on the quality of online teaching and learning through the notion of organising systematic teaching and learning (morrow, 2007b) that is necessary for epistemological access. in the first part of this article, we outline the experiences that we have had that motivated us to conduct the small-scale research project on which this article is based. in doing so, we also discuss some of the scholarly work about, and reports on, educational experiences during the pandemic. we discuss these because such contributions have assisted in shaping our research. we then discuss the notion of epistemological access, foregrounding organising systematic teaching and learning. we go on to outline the methodology and discuss the findings. finally, we analyse the data and conclude that quality and quality assurance of online teaching and learning is crucial. we use bernstein’s (1971) conceptualisation of curriculum, pedagogy, and evaluation that he viewed as message systems in educational provision. we also use the notion of epistemological access, drawing on morrow’s (2007a) work that covers many dimensions, and is best explored by looking at the internal experiences of teachers and learners. in order to do this, morrow indicated that it would require going through the course materials, observing interactions between teachers and learners, and looking at learners’ participation in course tasks, activities, and assessments. however, given pandemic conditions, all this has not been possible, and we have, therefore, circumscribed our use of the notion of epistemological access to refer only to organising systematic teaching and learning online. we recognise that this does not deal entirely with epistemological access as indicated by morrow (2007b) but this limitation has emerged largely because of the conditions under which we conducted the research upon which this article is based. we discuss this in more detail in the methodology section of this article, and we discuss more about how we used bernstein and morrow in this article in the section on our theoretical framework. using our own experiences, the existing literature, and reports on the effects of the pandemic on education, in this article we focus on epistemological access in relation to the content and assessment of courses offered online, and whether lecturers at two universities involved in these courses believe that there was a change in epistemological access once their courses 50 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 were put online. we are interested only in ascertaining whether lecturers thought that their courses and assessments affected epistemological access by being presented online, and in exploring the implications these have for the educational quality of online teaching and learning. theoretical framework the covid-19 pandemic still continues to have profound effects on several levels of life and society throughout the world. the education sector has been severely affected by the pandemic through the closure of schools, colleges, and universities. in almost all instances educational provisioning has moved online, and teaching and learning has been conducted on online platforms. familiarity with, and competency in, learning and/or teaching online as well as access to online learning has been uneven at best and lacking in most instances in south africa. chisango and marongwe (2021) found that the inadequacy of information communications technology (ict) and familiarity with ict modes of teaching and learning in south african schools has created “digital, information and knowledge divides” (p. 149). the pandemic has loudly amplified such divides, not only in south africa, but globally as silva (2020) has reminded us. in the higher education sector, nationally and globally, online learning in the wake of and during the pandemic is an emergency remote learning strategy (iglesias-pradas et al., 2021). hodges et al. (2020) described emergency remote learning as a temporary shift to alternative delivery modes that would return to face-to-face instructional delivery once the emergency had passed: it is meant only to be an emergency response to an emergency situation. however, there has been little attention paid to the quality of what is taught or learnt online. the focus, rightly so given the pandemic conditions, has tended to be on ensuring that teaching and learning happens, no matter what. hodges et al. (2020, p. 3), however, have cautioned that “the rapid approach necessary for ert (emergency remote teaching) may diminish the quality of the courses delivered.” drawing on our own and other colleagues’ experiences, we noted that although programmes are running online and tests are being written, the content of what has been put online has been streamlined to make it more manageable for online learning and engagement. our experience also indicates that assessments have likewise been streamlined (centre for learning, teaching and development (cltd), 2020a, 2020b). where streamlining occurs after careful consideration and planning, courses may in fact be improved. however, streamlining as an emergency response may, at least potentially, reduce course content in ways that might compromise the overall organisation of systematic learning. these responses have occurred out of necessity, and they have been unavoidable but the issue of content and assessments being streamlined for online learning raises the question about whether the quality of the content and assessment is the same as they would have been under normal circumstances. indeed, as hodges et al. (2020) have indicated, the rush and urgency to move online could “diminish the quality of courses delivered” (p. 3). bekker & carrim: education lecturers’ perceptions of organizing systematic online teaching . . . 51 we have had only one experience of a course/intervention that was subjected to quality assurance processes before the materials were put online. this was the teachers choices in action, edited by rusznyak (2020) that was put into place to ensure that final year bachelor of education (b. ed.) students and post graduate certificate in education (pgce) students would be able to complete a version of teaching experience, given that they were unable to go into schools to complete their teaching experience because of the pandemic restrictions. this was also to ensure that as final year students, they would be able to graduate with the requisite teaching experience. we do not know of another course that went through such quality assurance processes. what should be noted about the materials in the teachers choices in action (rusznyak, 2020) is that although they went through quality assurance processes, they were materials that supplemented micro-teaching sessions that students had to come onto campus to complete and that were evaluated by members of staff who also had to come to campus. this means that these materials, despite going through quality assurance processes, were a support for contact sessions, and, thus, were not the same as online materials that work entirely online. it needs to be noted, however, that these materials were used by universities nationally and that not every university may have used the materials in the same way as we experienced and used them. our experiences, however, did make us question whether others were having similar ones. we wondered to what extent online teaching and learning had impacted epistemological access. did the change in course content, the change in the format of delivery, and the change in assessment criteria and format have an impact on it? this made us decide to conduct a research project to ask colleagues in other education faculties if they felt that online teaching and learning impacted epistemological access. emerging scholarly work and reports we also noted that in emerging scholarly work and in reports about educational experiences during the pandemic that we go on to discuss, there was a tendency to be quantitative and to focus on access to data, connectivity, and devices (sayed & singh, 2020; jansen, 2020). such contributions reinforced our questions and we noted that epistemological access, content, and quality of online teaching and learning had not been given attention. more research has been focussed on the experience of learning in isolation and the disruptive intrusion of home or community influences on learners who are trying to learn and work online at home (isaacs, 2020; taylor, 2020). others have also pointed to the ways in which existing inequalities, including the lack of facilities, have been exacerbated and made more visible during the pandemic (black et al., 2020). others have pointed to the difficulties of managing time and developing a regular routine when learners have to work online at home (taylor, 2020). others, like jansen (2020) and daniels (2020) who contributed to a special issue of the south african review of education on this topic, have pointed to the difficulties many parents, across different social classes, have experienced in trying to provide home schooling for their children. using both qualitative and quantitative approaches, these contributions have tended 52 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 to focus more on the socio-cultural and economic dimensions of online teaching and learning, and they have also tended to focus more on the experiences of learners and households than on the experiences of educators. indeed, there has been a lot of research and many scholarly publications on infusing technology in teaching and learning that have increased since the beginning of the 21st century. this literature has looked at using icts in education, e-learning, and e-teaching, at infusing technologies into teaching and learning, or simply at the technologies of teaching and learning in various educational contexts and at different levels (carrim & taruvinga, 2011; jaffer et al., 2007; osman & hornsby, 2017). our focus in this article, however, is different in that it looks at how technology has been used to move teaching and learning online during the covid-19 pandemic, and the effects of this. although the contributions on using technology in teaching and learning is of relevance to this article, these contributions do not speak to the use of teaching and learning during pandemic conditions nor to this as an emergency remote strategy, so discussion of such research and publications is thus limited to the type of scholarly work discussed above. reports on the effects of the pandemic on education in south africa have tended to be quantitative. the information provided usually covers the rates of infection and death, how many have access to materials online and how many online submissions have been made, pass and failure rates in assessments done online, and how many have dropped out (wits senior executive team (set), 2020a, 2020b). van der berg and spaull (2020) reported on the impact of covid-19 school closures and the effect on children in terms of days of school lost and the social, economic, and health costs associated with lockdown. the minister of higher education, blade nzimande, released regular statements (nzimande, 2020, may 23; 2020, june 09; 2020, july 21) on the progress made in implementing covid-19 measures in higher education. he reported on such measures as the number of zero-rated sites available across institutions, how many devices were made available to students, and education budget revisions. such information may be of vital importance, but it remains quantitative. all such contributions have been useful, and the fact that all this work was done under lockdown pandemic conditions needs to be applauded. given these current developments the theoretical framework and literature that this paper can draw upon directly is necessarily limited. whichever way one chooses to look at reports and studies of the effects of the pandemic on education, one cannot assume that the quality of what is offered, done, and submitted online is of the same quality as what was offered, done, and submitted during contact teaching and learning. we believe that this simply cannot be the case. in fact, the unesco covid-19 education response notes indicate that within the context of the covid-19 pandemic, there is a tendency to rush towards the use of icts to ensure continuity of learning. however, more consideration is needed around the qualitative approach if the objective is for students to be engaged, motivated, and supported to learn during this period. (unesco, 2020, p. 2) bekker & carrim: education lecturers’ perceptions of organizing systematic online teaching . . . 53 we need to explore critically the difference/s between online and contact learning and teaching in terms of quality. moreover, if one is to accept that the new normal in education in the future is one that will largely be online, then the quality assurance of online teaching and learning will not only become necessary and more critical, it will also be unavoidable. for us, the important point is that online access does not necessarily mean epistemological access. even if learners are able to access materials online, it does not follow that they will necessarily develop a deep understanding of the knowledge, concepts, and theories assumed in the information they are given online, nor is it guaranteed that they will acquire the concomitant skills. epistemological access morrow (2007b) identified two dimensions of access to education—that of access related to institutional policy and that related to teaching practice. the former, including enrolment and admission, is referred to as formal access while the latter refers to pedagogical approaches that enable all learners to learn and engage substantively with concepts, theories, and knowledge in order to develop deep understanding or, in other words have epistemological access (morrow, 2007b). this notion of epistemological access (morrow, 1992) has generally been used in south african education research and publications to point to the difference between having formal access including access to material resources and facilities in educational institutions, as opposed to having access to knowledge. it is now aptly important to ask the same question in relation to online learning and teaching. does access to online teaching and learning necessarily mean epistemological access? the notion of epistemological access has been discussed in terms of considerations of 1) the type of knowledge to which students should have access; 2) ways in which students are supported in their engagement with that knowledge; and 3) the systematic organisation of that knowledge with regard to curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment decisions to ensure systematic teaching and learning. the theoretical framework we draw upon connects this notion of epistemological access (morrow, 2007b) to bernstein’s (2000) notion of theoretical knowledge and the three message systems of education provision. bernstein (1971) considered curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment to be the three interrelated common message systems through which formal education is realised. curriculum in this case refers to selected knowledge that is considered valid, pedagogy refers to the ways in which that knowledge is transmitted, and assessment refers to the evaluation of the acquisition of that knowledge. valid knowledge in curriculum should be theoretical knowledge that, according to bernstein (2000), is a form of vertical discourse through which principled knowledge is acquired systematically, and he distinguishes this from everyday knowledge that he viewed as a form of horizontal discourse during which knowledge is acquired through accumulation. freidson (2001, p. 31) called “everyday knowledge” a type of practical knowledge that is “largely free 54 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 of formal concepts and theories.” he described theoretical knowledge as “formal knowledge” that is, “abstract, conceptual and not context dependent” (p. 29). shalem and slominsky (2010) referred to everyday knowledge as being comprised largely of spontaneous concepts that, “merely describe what is already present” (p. 758) and they contrasted this with theoretical knowledge that is comprised of scientific concepts. wheelahan (2010) argued that social access without epistemic access, in relation to theoretical and disciplinary based knowledge, reproduces social inequality. it is the type of theoretical knowledge or disciplinary based knowledge that comprises curriculum that enables epistemological access for students. in light of these distinctions, theoretical knowledge provides access to principles and theories that support epistemic access to disciplines and fields of study and the message system of pedagogy considers how this is transmitted. for epistemological access students need to be given ways of thinking about and working with knowledge within disciplines. rambe and mawere (2011) considered epistemological access as a means of inducting students into a specialist discourse and giving them access to shared disciplinary practice. struyven et al. (2006) have argued that students need to be engaged in acts of knowledge construction rather than of knowledge acquisition and that knowing core conceptual knowledge and being able to apply this knowledge is what determines access to useful knowledge. this aligns with morrow’s (2007a) argument that epistemological access is gained by what the student does rather than what is transmitted to them. this extends to assessment and the ways in which students are given opportunities to demonstrate their understanding and apply transmitted knowledge that determines if epistemological access has been realised as evidenced by the evaluation. in a study that focused on american chemistry students and their engagement with online learning, perets et al. (2020, p. 2439) found that after moving to emergency remote learning, “student engagement was likely negatively impacted by the emergency transition. [they] also found that lecturers engaged students less after the transition.” this is concerning since morrow (2007a) suggested that it is access to teaching practice, learning strategies and discourses, and the provisioning of opportunities for students to construct knowledge and engage with conceptual knowledge that enables them to learn. it is this provision, morrow (2007a) has argued, that sees teaching as “the practice of organising systematic learning.” he has made the case that teaching demands the design of learning programmes intended to provide conditions for the “gradual development of competences that cannot be learnt in an instant” (p. 15). the role of the lecturer, then, in negotiating the epistemic domains of a particular subject and making knowledge accessible, would be to organize systematic learning for students in terms of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment choices. this is significant since it moves the conceptualisation of teaching beyond teaching methodologies and resources to the organisation of systematic learning that relies on the teacher as professional practitioner exercising professional agency in responding to the fundamental question posed by morrow (2007a, p. 18), “how can i organize systematic learning in this context and these conditions, whatever the context and conditions bekker & carrim: education lecturers’ perceptions of organizing systematic online teaching . . . 55 are?” it is this aspect that has posed significant challenges in the move to online emergency remote learning since logistical and practical considerations of access to content has undermined considerations of epistemological access. it is also for this reason that we sought lecturers’ opinions as a focus for this study in order to ascertain how they managed to provide systematic learning opportunities for their students when they moved their courses online. the outbreak of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns meant that universities had to scramble to put plans in place to offer emergency remote learning on learning platforms that many had not used extensively if at all (inglesias-pradas et al., 2021). course plans and outlines needed to be significantly adjusted to suit the new mode of delivery and assessment alternatives were hastily constructed. another aspect of online learning that did not feature significantly was the consideration of the students’ ability to manage their learning in the online space. online learning requires higher levels of student autonomy and agency given its reduced contact with lecturers. the ability to manage learning, both in practical terms with such things as navigating online systems, managing time, and mastering technology as well as in terms of epistemological engagement with understanding course concepts and ideas successfully in the virtual space requires some measure of cultural capital and cannot be assumed to be equal for all students. silva (2020, p. 1) argued, “distance learning brought by the pandemic has exacerbated the cultural capital abysm in higher education.” the academic cultural capital needed to navigate the institutional demands also varies among individuals with some possessing more institutional knowledge, including academic and digital literacy, thus allowing them easier navigation of the requirements to obtain the institutionalised state of cultural capital. acknowledging the uneven cultural capital with which individual students come to higher education spaces assumes a response from those teaching these learners that addresses rather than widening the cultural capital divide. [t]hese concerns are addressed with curriculum and pedagogical strategies—not simply by expanding online offerings uncritically. now that remote learning is required for the sake of public health, it is crucial that higher education institutions and educators are attentive to the inequalities underlying and strengthened by the online format. (silva, 2020, p. 1) it is therefore imperative that we consider the nature of epistemological access afforded to students in terms of organising systematic teaching and learning online during covid-19 emergency remote teaching and learning. it is crucial to look at the quality of what is being done online and to explore what shifts are happening, if any, to the content and organisation of courses when lecturers and learners transition to online teaching and learning. we have indicated in the introduction that we recognise that we have not been able to obtain in-depth detailed data about the way teaching and learning was done in practice. neither have we been able to ask more qualitative questions that would answer why the education lecturers in this study chose to do what they did. what we were able to do was gain, from the education lecturers who participated in this study, data about their perceptions of what they were able to do online and what students were able to do and submit online. we discuss these points in more detail in the methodology section that follows. 56 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 methodology and ethics we selected two universities in different provinces in south africa offering undergraduate and postgraduate education degrees for this study. both universities had, prior to covid-19, offered their education courses in traditional contact mode, on campus, and neither had offered courses online. the rationale for this selection was that the two selected universities moved their programmes online during the initial covid-19 lockdown in march 2020, and their students have since been doing work online. only academic staff in the education faculty/department teaching both postgraduate and undergraduate students at these universities were asked to respond to the survey. education faculties/departments were selected because we are located at the wits school of education and are, therefore, in the same field, and we have shared a similar experience in moving teaching and learning online. these education faculty/department university lecturers were reached using a survey monkey questionnaire. of the 45 who completed the survey at the end of the 2020 academic year, 20 were from university a and 25 from university b. although we attempted to reach more universities, we were granted permission to administer the questionnaire by these two. we acknowledge the limitations of the small-scale nature of our research including the limited number of responses we received but, despite these limitations, the data we were able to gather still provides useful insights into the perceptions of lecturers at these two universities of their experience of moving their courses online during pandemic conditions. we used a survey approach to ask respondents how they experienced the quality of online learning and teaching. the emphasis in this research design is on collecting data on the opinions, perceptions, and views of the respondents as a way of identifying common views and experiences. the benefit of this approach for data collection is that it allows for standardisation of measurement since the same questions are asked of each respondent. we then analysed the data using statistical techniques in order to “discover relationships that are common . . . and hence to provide generalizable statements about the object of study” (gable, 1994, p. 2). we do not seek to answer the question of why lecturers feel the way they do and are able only to report on their perceptions. a further qualitative investigation would be required to engage with the question of why these perceptions were held. in addition, there was limited opportunity to use other research methods because of pandemic conditions. despite using only an online questionnaire as our research instrument, we encountered serious problems with response rates and delays. as already mentioned, we reached two universities and it took between two and five months for them to process our research requests. responses to the questionnaire were also delayed and affected by whether people had online access and were receiving work emails. the pandemic and lockdown conditions also impacted which research instruments we could use and what kind of data would be most feasible to collect under such conditions. the methodological limitations of the research upon which this article is based are therefore also a result of the conditions under which the research was conducted. bekker & carrim: education lecturers’ perceptions of organizing systematic online teaching . . . 57 the survey questions focused only on how respondents felt about the quality of teaching and learning during online learning and teaching, and whether they felt that they compromised their own expectations regarding the kind of work they could expect from students and what they could offer to them under pandemic conditions. the questions did not focus specifically on pedagogical adjustments but, rather, on changes to form, content, and assessment of courses when they were moved online in an effort to ascertain general perceptions of changes affecting the systematic organisation of teaching and learning online and lecturers’ opinions of the effect of these changes on the performance of students and on the quality of courses. the questions posed in the survey monkey, with the responses we received to each question in it, are discussed in the section on our findings. permission to conduct research in the above-mentioned institutions was sought from the registrar/dean of faculty/head of department or school at each one. research ethical clearance for the study on which this article is based was granted by the university of witwatersrand’s research ethics committee (non-medical) prior to our approaching the selected institutions. the anonymity of participants and institutions discussed here is protected as is the confidentiality of all results. there was no harm done to participants and they were not exposed to any risks in completing the survey. findings the ten questions in the survey explored epistemological access by asking lecturers if they felt that course content had been reduced. the questions, related to changes in form, types of activities and assessments, and perceived performance, aimed to explore lecturers’ opinions of student performance and their engagement with knowledge. these questions allowed for some general insight into lecturers’ perceptions of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment choices in organising systematic teaching and learning online and whether they felt that their teaching had been compromised. table 1 indicates the responses that were received to each of the questions asked. table 1 survey monkey responses 93% 7% yes no question one: i have read the project information that explains the nature and processes involved in this study, and i understand what my participation will involve. i agree to participate in this project, knowing my responses will be kept anonymous. 53% 47% yes no question two: did the content of the course you teach remain the same when you put it online? 58 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 38% 46% 0% 23% 23% 38% 15% understanding concepts engagement with readings engagement in discussions developmental tasks academic writing formal assessments none question five: indicate in which areas you think students' performance improved: of these lecturers, 53% indicated that the content of their courses remained the same when put online while 47% indicated that it changed. this is notable in that it appears that there were two distinct approaches to moving courses online: 1) changing content and 2) keeping courses as they were during face-to-face contact delivery. despite the two distinct approaches it is significant that the majority of lecturers (87%) felt that their teaching was compromised with the move to online teaching and learning. 21% 36% 29% 64% 79% 7% course concepts and … course readings developmental tasks extended writing discussion/debates/tutorials assessments question three: if you reduced content, please indicate which of the following you cut down on: 21% 36% 43% improved declined stayed the same question four: do you think the performance of students in your course improved, declined, or remained the same when the course went online? 43% 29% 64% 29% 36% 29% 7% understanding concepts engagement with readings engagement in discussions developmental tasks academic writing formal assessments none question six: indicate in which areas you think students' performance declined: 87% 13% compromised improved question seven: do you think that your teaching was compromised or improved when your course went online? 67% 73% 7% 0% yes content changed no content stayed the same question eight: did your assessment tasks change in terms of content and/or form when you went online? 87% 40% 53% 7% 27% multiple choice questions essay short questions presentations student audio recordings question nine: please indicate the format of assessments used in your course: 50% 50% remained the same reduced question ten: did your marking criteria remain the same or did you reduce marking criteria when your course went online? bekker & carrim: education lecturers’ perceptions of organizing systematic online teaching . . . 59 where course content was reduced, 79% of lecturers identified discussions, debates, and tutorials as being key areas in which they felt content was reduced. additionally, they identified extended writing opportunities (64%), course readings (36%), developmental tasks (29%), and course concepts and theories (21%) as having been reduced. it is notable that only 7% of lecturers felt that assessments had been reduced. some lecturers did, however, indicate that while assessments may not have been reduced, they were changed. for 73% of them the form of their assessments had changed and for 67% the content had changed. this is in contrast to the 7% of lecturers who said that the content of their assessments had stayed the same. no lecturer indicated that the form of their assessments had not changed. relating this to the finding regarding course content changing overall it is interesting to note that while 53% of lecturers indicated that their courses had remained the same when put online this was not the case in terms of their assessments. when asked about the format of assessment used online, 87% of lecturers indicated that multiple choice questions were used while 53% indicated that they used short questions and 40% indicated that they used essay type questions. this supports the indication from lecturers that they felt that extended writing opportunities had been reduced. student audio recordings were identified as a format of assessment used online (27%) but only 7% indicated that presentations were used. half of the lecturers felt that they reduced marking criteria while the remainder indicated that marking criteria remained the same. in terms of student performance, results were mixed with 43% of lecturers indicating that they felt student performance had stayed the same, 36% feeling that student performance had declined and 21% feeling that student performance had improved. this is important because 64% indicated that students’ performance either remained the same or improved. where lecturers felt students’ performance had improved, this improvement was noted with regard to improved engagement with readings (46%), understanding concepts (38%), and formal assessments (38%). academic writing (23%) and developmental task improvement (23%) was also noted by lecturers. where lecturers felt that students’ performance had declined, the most notable area of decline was indicated as engagement in discussions (64%) followed by understanding concepts (43%), and academic writing (36%). student performance decline in the areas of formal assessments, developmental tasks, and engagement with readings was identified by 29% of lecturers. the data indicates that while most lecturers felt that student performance improved or remained the same, there were also feelings that student performance had declined. in summary, it appears that two broad approaches to moving courses online were adopted— keeping content the same or changing it. where content was changed reductions were noted in the areas of discussions, extended writing, course readings, developmental tasks, course concepts, and assessments. despite the indication that in many cases course content remained the same there was overall consensus across both approaches that assessment had been changed both in terms of form and content. multiple choice questions were indicated as being the most prevalent format of assessment used online followed by short questions and then 60 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 essays. there were mixed responses to the question of student performance. where lecturers felt that this had declined, the areas identified were engagement in discussions, understanding of concepts, and academic writing. in contrast, where lecturers felt student performance had improved, the relevant areas identified were engagement with readings, understanding concepts, and formal assessments. there were, however, no mixed responses when it came to lecturers’ feelings about whether or not their teaching had been compromised in being moved online since an overwhelming majority indicated that they did indeed feel that this had happened. this indicates that the move to online teaching cannot be considered just a transposing of what was done traditionally in face-to-face contact; there are significant shifts in what lecturers feel they are able and unable to do online and, most significantly, this indicates that lecturers did not feel that their teaching online was the same as that done in person. this challenges the assumption that things continue to work as normal during emergency remote teaching and learning conditions. analysis and discussion this article is based on empirical data obtained in a small-scale research project, using responses to a questionnaire that were gathered from education lecturers at two universities in south africa. we acknowledge that the survey monkey that was used to administer a questionnaire to colleagues in the education faculties/departments at these universities is limited and that the data is also limited. however, we maintain that this small-scale project with its limited data is useful because it offers insights into the perceptions of lecturers at these institutions about what happened to content and assessments when courses were put online line as an emergency learning response under covid-19 pandemic conditions in 2020. it also helped us to bring into focus epistemological access in online teaching and learning by considering lecturers’ perceptions of what it meant to organise systematic teaching and learning online. epistemological access is related to teaching practice that enables all students to engage substantively with concepts, theories, and knowledge in order to develop deep understanding through the organisation of systematic learning. epistemological access is concerned with both the form and content of knowledge structures central to a particular course. we have argued that access to principled, theoretical, formal knowledge as opposed to everyday, spontaneous knowledge (bernstein, 2000; freidson, 2001; shalem et al., 2010) is key to enabling epistemological access. while this study did not explore the knowledge structures of particular courses, we have noted that some changes to both form and content of courses were made when courses were moved online. it is noteworthy that 53% of lectures indicated that there had been no changes to the content of their course when it was moved online, but for the 47% of lectures who indicated that there had been changes in content these were related primarily to reduction in content. they affected opportunities for engagement through discussions, extended writing opportunities bekker & carrim: education lecturers’ perceptions of organizing systematic online teaching . . . 61 and developmental tasks, and actual course concepts, theories, and readings that call into question the epistemological loss in terms of epistemic access to disciplinary knowledge (rambe & mawere, 2011). there is a clear indication that limiting the knowledge to which students had access in addition to the constrained access to ways of thinking about and working with that knowledge had an impact on epistemological access. in contrast, lecturers noted improved engagement with readings (46%), understanding concepts (38%), formal assessments (38%), academic writing (23%), and developmental task improvement (23%) which is an encouraging finding that suggests that where disciplinary knowledge is not limited, epistemic access continues to be supported. what enabled such improvements to occur requires more detailed investigation of the course content and form in which the content was delivered and, more importantly, who these students were and what it was about them that allowed them to perform better learning online under pandemic conditions. our limited project did not explore these aspects. however, they point to important issues related to students’ own dispositions, contexts, and enablements that could be explored in future further research. although frequency of assessment did not appear to have been reduced, the formats clearly shifted when courses moved online. our findings indicate that the most prevalent format of assessment used was that of multiple-choice questions that limit alternative forms of extended engagement with assessment formats that require skills such as structuring an academic essay with arguments. the questionnaire used in this study covered curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment, following morrow (2007a), we viewed curriculum as course content, concepts, and theories covered in a particular course and the way in which content is structured to organise systematic learning. it is in the organisation of curriculum that the distinction is made between mere inclusion of random, isolated facts, concepts, and theories and the networked organisation of these concepts and theories that enables epistemological access to the underlying knowledge logic. we viewed pedagogy as instruction, pacing, sequencing, scaffolding, and explaining course content, concepts, and theories as well as the pedagogical decisions taken in terms of learning tasks, activities, and assessments. drawing on bernstein’s (1971) description of assessment as evaluation, we viewed assessment in terms of the evaluation of students’ understanding of content covered. given that we used only a questionnaire in this study we were not able to investigate the specific methods of instruction used by lecturers for their courses and we did not look at the types of activities and assessments they included. however, the lecturers’ responses to the questionnaire indicated that the types of learning activities and tasks offered were changed even if the content of the courses remained the same. the data indicates that developmental tasks like discussions and debates along with tutorials were reduced as pedagogical choices by lecturers as they moved courses online. this is significant given wheelahan’s (2010) assertion that student/lecturer interaction through activities such as theoretical discussions and developmental tasks is important in giving students access to shared disciplinary practice. in addition, reducing such activities also confirms the points made by perets et al. (2020, p. 2439) who noted that 62 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 “student engagement was likely negatively impacted by the emergency transition. we also found that lecturers engaged students less after the transition.” although this study did not investigate the ways in which courses were presented, scaffolded, taught, and delivered, or why lecturers made the choices they did, the fact that they felt that their teaching was compromised and that reductions in content and assessment occurred, suggests that they felt that some pedagogical choices that had been available to them previously were no longer viable as part of emergency remote learning. we have already noted that our findings indicated that the form of assessment changed during the move to online learning. it is important to consider in which ways epistemological access may have been compromised by the change in assessment format. typically, assessment serves a dual function in relation to epistemological access in providing information about the process as well as the product of learning during a course. hodges et al. (2020) cautioned that emergency remote learning tends to focus more on the product of learning even though the focus should also be on the process of learning. during emergency remote learning the dominant form of assessment used, as indicated by our findings, was that of multiple-choice questions that, in general offer answers that are correct or incorrect. this is most associated with summative forms of assessment that tend to be product focused, although we acknowledge that multiple-choice assessments can serve the formative (process focused) function of indicating areas in which students are coping and those in which they need additional support. in contrast, formative assessment provides students with substantive feedback indicating areas of strength and making concrete suggestions for improvement. providing feedback on student writing, for example, provides an additional engagement opportunity between lecturer and student in which the process of learning, rather than the product, is the focus. from the data, it seems that formative assessments have been affected and summative assessments that use multiple choice questions have increased. these findings do not suggest that online learning will always constrain epistemological access, particularly given the findings that student performance improved or remained the same. it merely suggests that the findings of this study indicate that epistemological access was constrained during emergency remote teaching and learning where content was reduced and where engagement opportunities were limited. despite this, we are of the view that online learning can maintain epistemological access when lecturers focus attention on the ways in which courses are structured, presented, and delivered online or, in other words, the ways in which they organise systematic teaching and learning online. careful structuring of courses will be needed on the understanding that they will be taught and learnt online, and that they cannot be designed in the same ways as face-to-face courses are. the scaffolding of content and the readings used in the course are also crucial in this regard. in addition, key to maintaining epistemological access online is maintaining the standard and level of content included, considering ways of enhancing student engagement including forms of extended writing and formative assessment opportunities. if epistemological access is not to be compromised by an online mode of delivery, shifts in practice from traditional pedagogy used in face-to-face teaching need to occur to ensure that bekker & carrim: education lecturers’ perceptions of organizing systematic online teaching . . . 63 even within the online space, curriculum, pedagogical, and assessment choices can be made to encourage substantive engagement to ensure epistemological access. conclusion our focus in this article is on online teaching and learning in relation to the notion of epistemological access. the small-scale study upon which this article is based explored epistemological access in relation to the content and assessment of courses offered online and considered whether lecturers at two universities believe that there was a change in epistemological access once their courses were put online. the purpose was to ascertain whether emergency remote teaching and learning has affected epistemological access from the perspective of lecturers, and to explore the implications of this for the educational quality of online teaching and learning. given the limitations of the study and conditions under which it was done, we could not explore epistemological access in the detail that is needed. such an exploration would have required an exploration of how teaching and learning actually happens and this we could not do. therefore, we used the notion of epistemological access more in terms of the importance of systematic organising of teaching and learning, and we covered only how lecturers at two universities felt if such systematic organising was affected during the covid-19 pandemic in 2020. based on the findings, we argue that online access to learning does not necessarily mean epistemological access. we found that whether lecturers chose to keep their courses as they originally were or made changes to them when they moved them online, they overwhelmingly indicated that they felt that their teaching had been compromised during emergency remote learning conditions. this indicates that while lecturers were able to move their courses online and ensure that students were given access to some form of content, they felt compromised in their teaching of that content. lecturers indicated that where changes were made to courses put online, content and engagement opportunities were reduced and assessment opportunities that allowed for formative feedback were limited. this suggests that shifts in practice from traditional curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment practices need to occur to encourage the substantive engagement necessary for epistemological access in online teaching and learning. if education in the future is to move increasingly online, then considering teaching practice shifts for the online space becomes critical if epistemological access is to be foregrounded and the quality of courses maintained. we acknowledge the limitations of this study that worked with a small data base and focused primarily on lecturers’ views. suggestions for future research would be to expand the data base and include students’ views and lessons learnt during emergency remote learning conditions. additionally, exploring views of how lecturers and students would prefer to proceed in the future would provide valuable insight into how to structure courses online in relation to course content and how that content is scaffolded, presented, and assessed. to ensure that educational offerings online maintain their quality we must open the area of epistemological access in online teaching and learning to consideration, discussion, and debate. we argue that bringing epistemological access into focus supports discussion and 64 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 debate on what would ensure the quality of teaching and learning online, and which teaching practices, structures, mechanisms, indicators, and systems need to be put into place to ensure epistemological access and thus maintain the quality of teaching and learning online. references bernstein, b. 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(2020b, july 17). covid-19 update 37 – let’s do our bit. vco news. corporal punishment and the achievement of educational success: perceptions of learners in the south african school context patti silbert abstract this article examines students’ responses to corporal punishment and their perceptions of corporal punishment as a necessary form of discipline that brings benefit to individuals in their pursuit of success. by focussing on the notion of ‘success’ as a dominant market discourse, i describe how this rhetoric is reinforced through the disciplinary practice of corporal punishment – and how learners on the whole regard this form of punishment as beneficial in achieving their educational aspirations. foucault’s notion of discipline offers a useful conceptual framework in understanding how corporal punishment operates to regulate conduct and codify behaviour according to what is regarded as acceptable and desirable. research findings suggest that most students who are recipients of corporal punishment display limited capacity for resistance and that students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of corporal punishment, function to reinforce their construction as disciplined, hard-working and ‘docile’ subjects. introduction prior to 1994, the heavy reliance on corporal punishment in south african schools to maintain discipline (maphosa and shumba, 2010) resulted in this becoming an accepted and integral part of schooling for many teachers (morrell, 2001). with the ending of apartheid, a human rights culture was heralded, laying the legal foundation for the ending of physical forms of punishment in schools. despite corporal punishment being prohibited in terms of south african law, its practice in many disadvantaged, working class schools is not uncommon. the change of law in corporal punishment has been taken up differently in working class and middle class schools. while in formally white, middle class schools corporal punishment has effectively disappeared (morrell, 2001) it continues to be enforced in a number of poor, working class schools across the country. 24 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 this article presents a description of learners’ responses to corporal punishment, and discusses perceptions of corporal punishment as a necessary form of punishment in the achievement of educational success. this study emerged as part of a doctoral thesis (silbert, 2012) which examines how the learner is imagined in neoliberal times in education policy discourse and school practice, and describes ways in which learners are able to enlist other discourses to resist interpolation. drawing from this broader study, the article focuses on discourses of success as an effect of education marketisation, and describes how learners’ perceptions of corporal punishment are linked to the accomplishment of their educational aspirations. theoretical considerations: the notion of success in education discourse there is broad consensus in the literature on education marketisation that education has been fundamentally affected by market influences: angus (2004); ball (2004, 2003, 1990); blackmore (2004, 1997); bottery (2006); comber (1997); fleisch and christie (2004); gewirtz and ball (2000); jansen (2004); masschelein and simons (2002); mcinerney (2003); rasmussen and harwood (2003); sachs (2001); simons and masschelein (2006) and whitty and power (2003) address the impact of school restructuring and marketisation for school principals and teachers. biesta (2004); gewirtz and ball (2000); masschelein and simons (2002) are interested in the impact of marketisation on social relations and subjectivities within the school and barnett, clarke, cloke and malpass (2008); hamann (2009); masschelein and simons (2002); olssen (2003); read (2009); schmidt and wartenberg (1994) and steiner (2008) examine the production of new subjectivities associated with neoliberalism. in much of this scholarship, market discourses are viewed as representing particular ideas of success and productivity that are absorbed into, and deployed through the school’s discursive formations and practices. the notion of success has come to dominate what bernstein (1975) refers to as the ‘expressive order’ of the school. this relates to the school’s disciplinary mechanisms that are configured to produce learners whose conduct and behaviour comply with a normative set of constructs. the school’s expressive order represents a range of discursive formations that infiltrate the school from the public domain. in addition to national policy discourse, the media is a key mechanism through which market discourses silbert: corporal punishment. . . 25 infuse the school. after the release of the 2009 matriculation results in south africa, the headline of an article published in the business report of the cape times stated the following: “matric result is economic failure” (enslin-payne, 2010, p.15). in this article the director-general of the department of labour and president of the black management forum was quoted: “the learners of today are the economic managers of tomorrow. if they are not well-equipped we are signing our death warrant”. such messages overtly construct the learner as ‘product’ and attribute to this construction particular actions and behaviour that are enscripted in economic discourses. as jansen (2002, p.42) suggests, post-1994 education reforms were “lodged clearly and consistently within powerful economistic rationales as the overriding motivation for ‘transforming’ apartheid education”. the economist rationales of south african education are rooted in the 1981 de lange commission report, which focused its attention on the private sector’s role in schooling and the need to train young people for the economy (jacklin, 2011). although the commission was not immediately implemented, its significance was two-fold: first, its principles reflected a similar economic-based logic to those articulated in international education reforms during that time; and second, the report provided an economic-based rationale for education policy post-1994. as argued in the larger study on which this article is based, it is these economistic rationales that circumscribe the way in which the south african learning subject is imagined and it is this imaginary that permeates the school’s discursive terrain. the ‘ideal’ student, as suggested in the original thesis, is the future economic participant, the individual who is primed to take his/her place in the labour market. in this article i am interested in the ways in which corporal punishment functions as a disciplinary instrument in schools in the production of learning subjects, and in perceptions of corporal punishment by learners as a necessary form of discipline. the intention of the article is to problematise students’ responses to corporal punishment, which as will be shown, is mostly regarded by them as beneficial in their pursuit of success. foucault’s (1977) notion of discipline offers a useful conceptual lens through which to view corporal punishment as a regulatory mechanism in the shaping of the subject. this is explored in more detail in the section that follows. 26 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 foucault: discipline, discourse and the subject discipline in the foucauldian sense refers to a type of regulatory power that codifies behaviour according to what is regarded as acceptable and desirable. rather than operating as a top-down imposition of power, disciplinary procedures serve to normalise and regulate conduct, as stated by foucault (1977, p.24): . . . punitive measures are not simply ‘negative’ mechanisms that make it possible to repress, to prevent, to exclude, to eliminate; but . . . they are linked to a whole series of positive and useful effects which it is their task to support. . . as an institution emerging within the modern nation state, the school is a critical structure in which power is exercised through discipline in order to produce a particular type of subject. the term ‘subjectivity’ as used in this article refers to the ways in which the individual is constituted within a particular social and political context through the discourses that are made available, and through the disciplinary and regulatory mechanisms employed within that context. discourse is regarded as a form of sense making, through which the social production of meaning takes place, through which power relations are maintained and through which the subject is constituted (kenway, 1990). it represents a complex set of practices and is the medium through which power operates, regulating expectations and actions, and defining behavior accordingly. the subject is constituted therefore through discursive and institutional interactions. significant in the foucauldian notion of the subject, are the constitutive practices he refers to as ‘technologies of the self’: the processes by which individuals act upon themselves, and form themselves as subjects. these strategies constitute ways in which individuals’ understanding of themselves in terms of what is expected of them is internalised. the capacity of subjects to act upon themselves or engage in self-government is contingent on the subject’s capacity to act or perform actions (foucault cited in rabinow, 1994). foucault described this self-fashioning as “. . .the government of the self by oneself in its articulation with relations with others. . .” (1994, p.88). as a result the subject engages in constituting him/herself in a particular space in relation to the discourses and power relations encountered. as prinsloo (2007) suggests: silbert: corporal punishment. . . 27 it is from the available repertoire of systems of ideas that people can constitute themselves and be constituted in the process. possible ‘imaginings’ are enabled through the available discourse in circulation at a particular time in a particular space (2007, p.192). it is through the self-fashioning process that subjects come to internalise values and norms through accepting, desiring and aspiring to achieve congruence between personal internal objectives and objectives that are external to themselves (edwards, 2008). subjectivation therefore requires that the individual be invested with capacity, freedom, utility and productivity. in order for the body to be acted upon it must be subjected or made submissive. the term ‘docile’ is derived from the latin ‘docilis’ meaning teachable (hoskin, 1990), signalling the exercising of discipline to regulate behaviour. goodson and dowbiggin (1990, p.105) suggest that in order for relations of power between ‘professional and client’ to be legitimised, there must exist “both a ‘discipline’ and a mode of disciplining self, body, emotions, intellect, and behaviour” (1990, p.105). they quote foucault, who asserts, “ ‘the disciplines’ become ‘general forms of domination’ which create subjected and practised bodies, ‘docile bodies’ ” (1990, p.106). viewed within a foucauldian framework, corporal punishment may therefore be understood as a regulatory mechanism, oriented towards the production of learners as docile, useful and productive. this suggests an important way in which disciplinary mechanisms operate through the school and how they are embedded in dominant discourses, which are taken up, reinterpreted and re-contextualised in school practices. such discourses privilege certain values and produce particular subjectivities. research methodology and approach the study was designed as a qualitative discourse analysis. texts were constructed from interviews, and foucauldian discourse analysis was used to interpret the themes that emerged from the interview texts. this type of discourse analysis made it possible to explore the formation of subject positions in discourse and to examine discourse patterns that have become normalised. moreover foucauldian discourse analysis offered a tool through which to describe the school’s dominant discourses; the ways in which these discourses have been transmitted through disciplinary mechanisms or ‘rituals of power’ (jabal and rivière, 2007) and how through these discursive processes, subjects are constituted. 28 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 research methods, data collection and analysis interviews were conducted with fifteen randomly selected grade 12 learners and ten educators (including the principal). the student participants comprised eight girls and seven boys. all the pupils were isixhosa first language speakers and lived in local townships. all travelled to school using public transport. pseudonyms were used at all times, both in referring to the participants and to the school itself. the school selection was purposeful rather than random: ubuntu high was one of the two schools selected for the doctoral research on which this study is based. both schools used in the original study were specifically chosen because of their fundamental differences with regard to their socio-economic status and their standards of performance, my objective being to show through the data, that social processes and the effects of discourse are contingent upon the social context. secondary schools were chosen as the interview questions focused on ways in which participants had been shaped and influenced by their schooling. the choice of grade 12 learners as interviewees was based on the understanding that young people in their final years of schooling have greater capacity to reflect on their secondary school years, while simultaneously having begun, in many cases to look forward toward their future. for the analysis of interview texts, an interpretive, thematic approach was used. overlaying the analysis of texts, i was concerned with dominant themes and patterns. important to state is that the doctoral study did not set out to explore corporal punishment, or the effects thereof. as mentioned earlier, the purpose of the study was to describe the imagined learner in neoliberal times and the ways in which the learning subject is constructed in education policy and school practice. what emerged unsolicited from the interview process at ubuntu high, was learners’ accounts of instances of corporal punishment. this was then developed as a dominant theme from the data. the responses that were elicited from the interviews generated the data for analysis. all references to coproral punishment from the larger study comprise the data used in this study, and are represented in the sections that follow. silbert: corporal punishment. . . 29 validity and reliability the construction and interpretation of interview texts exposes the study to particular threats to validity, including in particular, descriptive validity, interpretive validity and generalisability (maxwell, 1992). ‘descriptive validity’ (1992) firstly was achieved by ensuring that the recordings accurately reflected the participants’ responses. interviews were professionally transcribed and transcripts were checked by participants for accuracy. this process sought to address, to some degree, a second possible threat, namely ‘interpretive validity’, which pertains to interpretations of meaning and is based on the language of the participants. because discourse analysis was the chosen methodology, value was placed on the particular words and sentences used by participants. however, as maxwell (1992, p.290) suggests, “accounts of participants’ meanings are never a matter of directed access, but are always constructed by the researcher(s) on the basis of participants’ accounts and other evidence”. this is significant within a foucauldian context as the meaning that is constructed and communicated by subjects is based on individual perceptions which are socially and historically constructed. all views expressed were regarded as subjective responses and were thus considered valid and ‘truthful’. a related threat to validity with regard to the interview texts, was the interpersonal dynamic between the interviewer and the respondent. an understanding of that dynamic, “how it affects what goes on in the interview, and how the informant’s actions and views could differ in other situations” is, according to maxwell (1992, p.295) “crucial to the validity of accounts based on interviews”. similarly, the language in which interviews were conducted was regarded as a potential threat to the reliability of the data. because english was not the mother tongue of the speakers (albeit the medium of instruction at the school), i considered using a translator in the interview process. once the interviews began however, it was apparent that this was not necessary as pupils were comfortable to be interviewed in english and were able to express themselves easily. although participants responded with confidence and ease of expression, throughout the interviews i was aware of the potential limitation of language. a final validity threat relates to generalisability – the degree to which the study can be generalised to other contexts, both empirically and theoretically. i do not make the claim that what happens in the instances described in this 30 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 study may be applied generically to other instances, either empirically or theoretically. however in similar socio-economic school contexts in which discourses of success are dominant, and where corporal punishment is enforced, students’ capacity to speak out against physical punishment may be compromised on account of corporal punishment being regarded as necessary in the achievement of educational success. this suggests that regulatory processes and the effects of discourse are contingent upon the social context in that discourses are taken up and interpreted differently in different contexts. ethical considerations the ethical concerns in this study pertained to issues of confidentiality with respect to the participants and the school. as mentioned, pseudonyms were chosen for the respondents, and for the school. interviews were only conducted if pupils had agreed to being interviewed and written consent had been given by parents. in an effort to uphold the anonymity of the school, salient details which may have resulted in the school being recognisable, were removed from the data. having outlined the methodological approach; data collection; validity and ethical considerations, the discussion shifts to the school as the research site. in the next section the case of ubuntu high is introduced, after which the findings are discussed. ubuntu high ubuntu high is a disadvantaged, underprivileged school located in a mixed residential and business area. although functional, ubuntu would be1 described as a relatively poor performing school. functionality here refers to schools in which systems have been implemented to ensure that 1 teaching and learning takes place. teachers mostly arrive for their classes on time and most students are motivated to perform well. silbert: corporal punishment. . . 31 more than one thousand learners attend this school, most of whom are xhosa speaking with a small percentage of foreign national students. the students who attend ubuntu live in the townships located on the outskirts of the city and rely on public transport, many travelling far distances across the city to get to and from school. the appeal of this school for many township youth is because of its perceived functionality as compared with the majority of schools in the local township communities. perceptions of success are associated with its location: a seemingly far distance from the scourges of township life, and a stone’s throw away from some well-known tertiary institutions. despite the school’s location, ubuntu is an under-resourced school. there is no school hall and many of the fifty classrooms are constructed out of basic pre-fabricated material, resulting in extreme temperatures throughout the year. this, coupled with an average of forty-five to fifty students in each class makes for difficult learning conditions. despite poor facilities and overcrowded classrooms, messages of hard work and success were prolific. newspaper articles mounted on the walls of the school foyer conveyed different stories of success. one article was entitled ‘celebrating success after all the hard work’, while a second title stated, ‘hard work earns matric boy hard cash’. this article described how one pupil received a cheque of r1 500.00 from the western cape education department for five distinctions for his 2009 final matriculation examination results. cash incentives for the top achiever, was a recently introduced practice at ubuntu as some of the teachers pledged to contribute towards this monetary award. messages of hard work and success were frequently reinforced during the school assemblies, as suggested for example by the principal who explained to the student body during one assembly that hard work meant being ‘present’, ‘prepared’ and ‘punctual’. these habits, if achieved, would generate success: you must be present, prepared, punctual in order to be successful. time is marks, and marks is money. . . in spite of promises of a brighter future and dreams of success, ubuntu high is a disadvantaged school confronted with similar challenges as those experienced in townships schools. as will be shown in the discussion that follows, dominant discourses of hard work and success permeated the school’s discursive framework – and were reinforced daily by the school’s close proximity to a number of tertiary institutions. 32 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 findings school location the physical and psychological effects of travelling out of the townships into a mixed residential, inner-city location influenced learners’ self-perceptions.2 the impact of the daily movement from poor, challenged communities across the city into an area populated with businesses, schools, tertiary institutions, and student residential establishments enabled ubuntu students to re-imagine themselves as aspirant, upwardly mobile young people. the physical location of the school positioned ubuntu inside the margins of a middle class ‘virtual community’, which as dowling (2009) explains, represented the students’ ‘aspired destination’ as opposed to students’ ‘origins and intended destinations’. in the opinion of lizo (a teacher), the school was no different to other township schools – except for its location: fortunately for us, we have . . . an unfair advantage . . . of the position of our school . . . as the school . . . is not different from the schools in the township, but it’s just that where we are . . . we give them that sense of pride. they are proud to say that (they) are studying at ubuntu. you can tell from how they dress, they wear their uniform, you can see that there is a difference between them and a learner in the township schools, as much as the set up of the school is more or less the same as the township schools. because of the school’s close proximity to tertiary institutions, pupils were exposed to opportunities that would otherwise not have been available to them. as tina (student) says: there are many, many opportunities and they push us to the limit . . . for example, in our school, the main focus is for us to go to uhl ’cause they think that is the greatest3 university available for us as. . . aspirations of success were linked to admission to a tertiary institution – and in particular to uhl. in this sense the rhetoric relating to uhl functions as an ‘affiliation strategy’ (dowling, 2009): entry into the ‘virtual community’, as mentioned earlier, becomes possible through admission to one of the most reputable institutions of higher learning. this refers to an area which is both residential and business. in the case of ubuntu high the2 location comprised a mix of classes and cultures. uhl is an abbreviation for the university of higher learning. this is a pseudonym.3 silbert: corporal punishment. . . 33 the physical location of the school, together with its perceived quality of education, resulted in frequent comparisons by teachers and students of ubuntu with top achieving schools in the suburbs. such comparisons, which functioned to set ubuntu apart from, and ‘above’ township schools, were integrated into the school’s vernacular, serving to position the ubuntu student as special and different. as illustrated by a teacher during a ceremony in honour of the top matriculants from the previous year: whatever happens in private schools, it does happen here. we are a township school in (the suburbs). we are producing quality at its best. . . the claim above that ubuntu was comparable with private schools validates mcleod’s (2000, 507) notion that “mimicry is mistaken for the ‘real thing’”. according to kenway and bullen (2001, p.147) the process of emulation involves a double movement: “an imitation of those richer as well as differentiation from those poorer or less refined”. these authors maintain that discourses of desire and success become part of the school’s lingua franca as the school models itself on those schools perceived as superior. the subjectivation of the ubuntu students as ‘different’ on account of the school’s location is linked with attributes of being hard working and aspirant. measures of success were closely related to normative constructs of ‘being good’ which meant providing material support to the family and community. these sentiments are reiterated by vusi (a student) who expressed the desire to study engineering and thereby to become a ‘better person’: so like, after i’ve passed like matric, i’ve done a tertiary institution, i want to be a better person. that’s why i thought engineering . . . it’s a serious place for me to be. when asked what he meant by wanting to be a ‘better person’, vusi said that he would help “those who could not help themselves”. ‘being good’ or ‘better’ defined students’ conceptions of success which related to providing support to their families, and service to their communities. throughout the interviews, students made the connection between education and the achievement of future dreams and goals, recognising their school as a morally empowering key to future success. hard work meant access to university which was regarded as the springboard to upward mobility. admission to university was considered the ultimate success, the prerequisite being hard work which meant being ‘present’, ‘prepared’ and ‘punctual’. 34 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 it is against this discursive background of the aspirant ubuntu high student that the discussion now shifts to corporal punishment and the extent to which this disciplinary practice served to reinforce normative constructs of success. corporal punishment at ubuntu high in this section corporal punishment is examined in relation to foucault’s notion of discipline: a mechanism that regulates behaviour according to that which is regarded as desirable within the school’s discursive framework. the biggest problem at ubuntu, as explained by most of the respondents, was that of late coming. because the school was located ‘out of community’, many of the students travelled daily for between one and two hours to get to school, and to return home. at ubuntu, the practice of corporal punishment for late coming may be regarded as a visible disciplinary mechanism representing external displays of power, through which attempts were made, as foucault suggests to transform and improve subjects (foucault, 1977). referring to disciplinary procedures in general, foucault stipulates that “[t]hese methods, which made possible the meticulous control of the operations of the body. . . assured the constant subjection of its forces and imposed upon them a relation of docility-utility. . .” (1977, p.137). the docility-utility synthesis signals the relationship between discipline and success, suggesting that corporal punishment at ubuntu converged around normative discourses of success: the objective being to improve behaviour and increase performance – and the result, the construction of a disciplined, obedient and compliant subject. learners perceptions of the purpose of corporal punishment were based on the idea that teachers were doing “their best” in trying to make students “more disciplined” (sandiswa, a student). in the opinion of sakhiwo (a student), in order to have respect they needed to be taught when they were young. with regard to the effects of corporal punishment, all except one student agreed that the outcome was positive. while elias (a student) felt that students were now “taking things seriously” and passing their exams, amanda (a student) maintained that “smacking [put] you in the right direction”, motivating students to work harder. these incentives were coupled with the opinion expressed by zoe (a student), that because of the physical pain of corporal punishment, it was considered an effective deterrent. kwezi (a student), similarly, condoned efforts by the school to discipline learners: silbert: corporal punishment. . . 35 . . .it works for me, because there are no other ways that i can see, that can make students be what the school wants them to be. so, the, the disciplinary actions that take place are perfect. according to sakhiwo corporal punishment was regarded as a necessary form of punishment for a ‘black child’: yeah, they, they’re doing their best. they’re beating us when we are late, and they, i, i see that as, that’s a good thing, because we, um, we as black child, they always tell us that, um, in order for you to. . . have respect, we must like, we must teach you when you’re young, like and here, they, they beat us, which is a good thing. . . sakhiwo’ defence of corporal punishment on account of being black draws attention to the effects of particular positionings and the place of schooling in reproducing subject positions. kwanda, a teacher, shed light on the subject position of working class children within what he referred to as ‘a culture of submission’: we serve children from the working class and the way in which children from the working class grow up . . . dispositions them in one way to be . . . less vocal . . . if a parent gives an instruction, it is the nature of working class (children) to follow that instruction as it is coming from an adult . . . although more critical of corporal punishment, sandiswa believed it would never end, because it made the students more obedient. i think they are trying to like, make us more disciplined. but, to some of us, it’s not, it doesn’t feel right, because, maybe some of us are not used to being punished in that way at home . . . i don’t think corporal punishment will ever really end at school. because they, the kids are mostly obedient when it’s reinforced. . . sandiswa’s reference to obedience aligns with the foucauldian notion of docility and utility. through being disciplined the body becomes more obedient and concomitantly, more useful. the association of docility and utility is contingent on diminished power as the subject is primed, in a particular way for economic participation. in this sense, according to foucault (1977): [d]iscipline . . . dissociates power from the body; on the one hand it turns it into an ‘aptitude’, a ‘capacity’, which it seeks to increase; on the other hand, it reverses the course of the energy, the power that might result from it, and turns it into a relation of strict subjection (1977, p.138). 36 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 at ubuntu high, the compliance resulting (in general) from being ‘beaten’ was equated with students’ need for discipline and respect. this, students agreed would impact positively on academic performance, equipping them with the prerequisites for admission to university, and ultimately supplying them with the required currency for economic participation. tina was the only student interviewed who was resolute about the futility and injustice of corporal punishment: at the back of your mind you say, they will beat me at 8 o’clock, by 9 o’clock that pain will be gone, so what the hell, maybe i should be late . . . no it’s not good for us to be beaten up. i don’t want to be beaten up. when i’m late, i’m late for a good reason . . . they don’t ask me why i’m late, they just come around and beat me up. so it’s not a good punishment. they should do something else, like, if you’re late, you should, i don’t know, clean the school or something. while others felt it was a deterrent because of the physical pain, in tina’s view, corporal punishment by its very nature was ineffective: because the physical pain was short-lived, the transgression would invariably be repeated. corporal punishment therefore had the opposite effect for tina: instead of rendering her obedient, it provoked resistance: the discipline has made me resilient. i’m not a resilient person. i’m a quiet and shy person, but when somebody’s keep on beating me up, the same with, like, not asking you why you’re late and stuff like that. that makes me want to speak my voice and, and, and speak out. tina’s response offers important insights regarding processes of power and subjectivation. she described herself as being ‘quiet and shy’ yet had become ‘resilient’ and wanted to ‘speak out’. this invokes the foucauldian notion of power, which is not unidirectional but circulates at multi-levels, positioning subjects in particular ways in relation to its manifestation (foucault, 1977). as foucault suggests, power is not exercised simply as an obligation or a prohibition on those who ‘do not have it’; it invests them; is transmitted by them and through them; it exerts pressure upon them, just as they themselves, as in their struggle against it, resist the grip it has on them (1977, p.27). in becoming subjectivated, tina became empowered attempts to render her compliant resulted in her resistance. yet paradoxically tina regarded her behaviour at ubuntu as having improved: “i’m punctual toward things. i understand things. i discipline myself towards situations. i don’t react (fast)”. silbert: corporal punishment. . . 37 this apparent paradox aligns with foucault’s notion of power: although relations of power imply certain possibilities of resistance, this, according to foucault never takes the form of a total rejection of power or changes in power relations (schmidt and wartenberg, 1994). although tina resisted commonly shared perceptions about the benefits of corporal punishment, she attributes her improved behaviour to the school’s approach to discipline. tina’s subjectivation demonstrates the effective operation of disciplinary practices at ubuntu high. significantly however, although she is subjectivated by broader disciplinary processes, she is able to disrupt dominant discourses by exercising her freedom as a subject. this she does by working within discursive formations to destabilise them. conclusion at ubuntu high the successful student was the student who passed his/her final matriculation exams and obtained admission to study at university. corporal punishment in this context represents a disciplinary practice through which education aspirations are reinforced. the lack of resistance to corporal punishment in most cases, signals the construction of the ‘obedient subject’. in referring to disciplinary procedures in general, foucault (1977, p.128) speaks about the ‘apparatus of corrective penalty’, which acts through the body and the soul. disciplinary instruments comprise “. . .forms of coercion, schemata of constraint, applied and repeated”. ultimately, as suggested, through these normative corrective techniques, an obedient and utilitarian subject is constructed. the construction of the obedient subject at ubuntu high illustrates the effects of corporal punishment in reproducing subject positions and relations of power. because power implies a free subject – and concerns relationships between free subjects – obedience negates possibilities of resistance and therefore undermines freedom. the project of the self according to foucault is not to escape relations of power, but to exercise resistance by working within dominant discursive formations: i do not think that a society can exist without power relations, if by that one means the strategies by which individuals try to direct and control the conduct of others. the problem, then, is not to try to dissolve them in the utopia of completely transparent transaction but to acquire the rules of law, the management of techniques, and also the morality, the ethos, the practice of the self, that will allow us to play these games of power with as little domination as possible (foucault, 2000, p.298, cited in christie, 2006, p.449). 38 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 foucault stresses the point that power relations are possible “only insofar as the subjects are free” (foucault, 1984, p.292) and that this means that within power relations there is “necessarily the possibility of resistance because if there were no possibility of resistance . . . there would be no power relations at all” (1984, p.292). the point that needs to be emphasised is that resistance is intrinsic in every relation of power, since power implies a free subject. although the subject is constituted through discourse, it is perpetually open to the possibility of critique. according to gunzenhauser (2006): the practice of freedom . . . is a stance in relation to certainty, an incredulity toward foundations and essences, a radical appreciation for ‘persistent critique’ st. pierre 2002, not for the sake of critique but for the possibilities that arise (2006, p.254). the task of the subject therefore is not to find ways to escape the discourses but to “acquire the rules of law” (foucault, cited in christie, 2006, p.449) and to work within discursive formations to shift them. the exercise of freedom is to wedge cracks within the discourses; to expose and destabilise them so as to render them “permanently open, permanently contested, permanently contingent” (butler, 1995, cited in christie, 2010, p.4). the capacity to expose and rupture discursive practices and to assume alternative positionings marks the point of resistance – the moment at which the self becomes actively engaged in subjectivation processes. recognising that obedience regulates behaviour according to what is considered desirable, the task of the subject is to work within discursive formations to shift and disrupt them, as demonstrated by tina. in this article i have argued that young people who have been subjugated through unequal relations of power have limited capacity to resist dominant discourses. in the post-apartheid south african context where practices of violence have become normalised, it is particularly difficult for young people to express their agency and speak out against corporal punishment. moreover, students are even less inclined to demonstrate resistance if physical disciplining is perceived as generating success or benefit to the individual. at ubuntu high, support by students of corporal punishment was based on perceptions that this form of punishment would lead to improved discipline and performance, which would result in them fulfilling idealised constructs of success. over and above perpetuating physical acts of violence and subjugation, corporal punishment operated at ubuntu high as a regulatory mechanism which reinforced and reproduced normative constructs of success in the shaping of the ubuntu high student. silbert: corporal punishment. . . 39 references angus, l. 2004. globalisation and educational change: bringing about the reshaping and renorming of practice. journal of education policy, 19(1): pp.23–41. ball, s.j. 2004. performativities and fabrications in the education economy. in ball, s.j. 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(eds), the international handbook on the sociology of education. lanham: rowman and littlefield publishers, inc. pp.305–324. patti silbert schools development unit university of cape town patti.silbert@uct.ac.za mailto:patti.silbert@uct.ac.za 44 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 using memory as a resource for pedagogy: fashioning a ‘bridging pedagogical moment’ murthee maistry abstract in post-conflict societies teaching and learning happens in contexts that are heavily influenced by incidents and atrocities of the past. in higher education, such pedagogical contexts are fraught with tensions and contradictions. these tensions and contradictions are in a sense unavoidable as they reflect what happens when multiple memories are brought to bear in a pedagogical space. in this article, i problematise my practice as a teacher educator as i work with pre-service teachers of business education. in my attempt to trouble my pedagogic practice, i reflect critically on how i use memory as a pedagogic trigger in preparing my students for the world of teaching. in particular, i reflect on how multiple memories (mine included) intersect in a sensitive, dynamic and scaffold pedagogic space, a ‘bridging pedagogical moment’. drawing on elements of self-study methodology, i attempt to interrogate my practice with a view to refining and exploring new possibilities for engaging with painful memories of the past that threaten to disrupt our future. drawing on hooks’ (1994) “engaged pedagogy” i explore how memory can be harnessed as a pedagogical resource in the teaching of business education pedagogy. i explore how students, dehumanised and objectified by hegemonic race, class and gender regimes, can use memory to decentre powerful social constructions and reposition themselves as ethical subjects in the social realm. as with any pedagogical strategy, there will be several tensions that are likely to emerge that the teacher education pedagogue has to manage. introduction after a mere seventeen years into its young democracy, one can expect that memories of the past remain fresh in the cognitive frames of south africans, especially those who personally experienced various traumas under the apartheid order. new post-apartheid memories have also been created. perpetrators and ‘bystanders’ (murphy and gallagher, 2009) who had to forego privileges have also had to deal with a different kind of trauma, namely that of having to inhabit a world where the fundamentals have altered radically. it is clear that there are distinctively different memories simultaneously at play in south african society. how then can these different memories be brought into productive dialogue? how does a society in a post66 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 trauma era heal itself? as the national euphoria of the new rainbow nation dissipates, the hope of any immediate, automatic and harmonious co-existence dangles precariously at the precipice of a south african society that is competing aggressively for the continuation and restoration of particular memories. anderson cautions that, in a quest for a new nationalism, societies undergo a process of selective memory and forgetting (anderson, 1991). essentialised notions of nationalism and sameness have inherent fractures and have potential to rupture and reveal the fragility of a false nationalism, especially in contexts emerging from decades of relentless trauma. post-apartheid south africa continues to be plagued by a deeply entrenched patriarchal value system that finds misguided rationale in religion, tradition and culture. in nations like south africa where the tapestry of poverty, violence and oppression are indelible design features that have fashioned the fabric of society in last century, it can be expected that memories of this tapestry are deep in the sub-conscious and affect the way we currently act. rothenberg reminds us that, as much as we have tried to change the world in which we live, poverty, violence and oppression continue to plague humanity – if anything we have been woeful at making any kind of impression on altering the condition of those marginalised by society (rothenberg, 2010). this is particularly true in a young democracy like south africa, where evidence of our failed attempts is starkly overt. how then does the ordinary citizen deal with such issues and how does schooling equip individuals with tools for dealing with such issues? given that individual views on an issue are immanently linked to their historicities and memories in particular, how then can such memory data bases be utilised and exploited as a pedagogic resource? how can teacher education harness such contrasting and contradictory memories? how do we move beyond the rhetoric of nationalism, towards theoretically informed pedagogic practice in a south african context; towards a ‘pedagogy of discomfort’, one that troubles learned beliefs and habits and emotionally charged nationalism and blind patriotism (zembylas and boler, 2002). these are indeed weighty questions, the answers to which have remained largely elusive. in this article, i present an account of how i attempt to trouble my intellectual project as teacher educator. i reflect on how i use memory as a powerful resource in the pedagogy programme i design for teacher trainees in business education. in the last decade of my teaching of pedagogy as it relates to business education, i have engaged elements of memory work in my practice. however, these efforts were driven by my personal intuition and as such were maistry: using memory as a resource for pedagogy. . . 67 not substantively theoretically informed. in recent years, however, i have drawn on a body of critical scholarship (bourdieu, 1986; freire, 1998; giroux, 2004; hooks, 1994, 2009; lebaron, 2003; mclaren, 2003; peterson, 2009) and on what is emerging as a powerful and influential field namely that of reconciliation pedagogies and pedagogies in post-trauma contexts (elbazluwisch, 2009; jansen, 2009; jansen and weldon, 2009; waghid, 2005). from an economics disciplinary perspective, i draw inspiration from theory that disrupts canonical neoclassical and neoliberal economic thinking and explanations of the economic world (bauman and rovirosa-madrazo, 2010; harvey, 2006, 2007, 2010a, 2010b; leander, 2001; pogge, 2010). methodological orientation: a brief note. . . in an attempt to trouble and reflect on my own practice in a rigorous and systematic way, i engage the tenets of ‘self-study’ as i research my enterprise as a teacher educator (kosnick, freese, samaras, and beck, 2006; laboskey, 2004; lassonde, galman, and kosnick, 2009). my objective is to improve on my practice. in this article, i reflect on how particular kinds of improvements are likely to manifest as i engage the critical curriculum spaces that present themselves in the pedagogy courses i teach in a teacher education programme. self-study as field of study and methodological approach is at an embryonic stage in its development and as such needs to be embraced with circumspection and caution. while i am mindful of this, i also view this as an immensely liberating opportunity to indulge in this creative enterprise of problematising myself in practice “. . .with the goal of reframing . . .” my practice (lassonde, galman and kosnik 2009, p.5) for the advancement of student learning. i firmly subscribe to the self-study tenet that the self is implicated and complexly connected to the research process and educational practice, allowing me to examine myself from the perspectives of ‘the self in teaching’, ‘the self as teacher’ and ‘the self as researcher of my teaching’ (ibid.). drawing on feldman’s work, i value the position that self-study posits, namely, that of making the“. . .experience of the teacher educators a resource for research. . .” (feldman, 2009, p.37). data for self-study research can be generated from diverse sources, including curriculum documents, student reflections, interview transcripts and personal reflections. for this article, i draw on thoughts captured in my reflective journal in which i document my experiences with my pedagogy classes; critical incidents in my 68 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 teaching and learning experiences with my students as we engage a social justice agenda. arguably, the most endearing feature of self-study research is the potential it offers for developing a constantly evolving personal living pedagogical theory (whitehead, 1998). i am of the view that self-study has enormous potential to constantly produce new theory and as such is consonant with the work of deleuze and guattari’s rhizomatic theorising – a kind of production of the new that disrupts, and discourages thinking and theorising that defaults to existing pedagogical canons (deleuze and guattari, 1987). using memory as a resource in a pedagogy class while there is some value in working intuitively with memory as a resource in teaching, it is imperative that a pedagogue understands the theoretical foundations that inform the pedagogical strategy that she applies. theoretically informed pedagogy has potential for offering conceptual tools for making sense of particularly fraught and complex teaching and learning contexts and content. to this end, i draw on the principles of critical pedagogy (darder, baltodano, and torres, 2009), reconciliation pedagogies (jansen, 2009; jansen and weldon, 2009) and hooks (hooks, 1994, 2009) and the philosophical influences of martha nussbaum (nussbaum, 2006, 2010, 2011) and hannah arendt (arendt, 1998, 2006). these perspectives have particular resonance with the objective of my teacher education pedagogy programme that is to create spaces for business education teacher trainees to critically explore the contested nature of the disciplines they have consciously selected to teach and the pedagogical approaches that may apply. these perspectives also offer rich theoretical insights into memory as a phenomenon and its potential for creative and imaginative use. while arendt and nussbaum do not allude directly to pedagogy per se, insights from their sophisticated expositions on human capacity for action, human plurality and capabilities, faith and hope have immense potential for pedagogy. in the discussion that follows, i present instances where i have attempted to use memory as a resource in my pedagogy classes. historically class sizes in these programmes have averaged between 15 and 20 students and comprise a racial and gender mix of graduate students whose ages range from 25 to 50 and older. in introductory lectures, i apply activities that require students to reflect on memories of personal school and life experience, including teaching maistry: using memory as a resource for pedagogy. . . 69 and learning and resource contexts. while this first exercise may appear as a strategy to simply reflect on memories of being taught in schools with the view to reflecting on such practices, this somewhat innocuous delving into the past (retrieval from memory) has enormous potential for flagging a wideranging social justice issues, which are then infused into the teaching programme. given the diversity of the student sample signalled above, one can expect that recollections of school experiences were textured by histories as they unfolded in the decades or eras within which each student personally experienced schooling. as students tell their stories, differences in memory accounts as they relate to school and life experiences become stark. these have been fashioned into two narrative vignettes presented below. while the vignettes below may appear to essentialise the affluent class and poor and indolent class, and may represent a polarised dichotomy of the context of student experiences, i acknowledge that several blends of experience are real on the advantage-disadvantage continuum. in a country like south africa where the gini coefficient is 0,67, it is not unreasonable to infer that in the main student experiences are likely to be closer to that portrayed in the latter vignette, namely, one of disadvantage. the vignettes do, however, attempt to capture powerful contrasts in schooling that past and present day south african schoolchildren experience. it provides a useful resource from which to launch the pedagogy programme as it starts with an acknowledgement of difference. below are two narrative vignettes constructed from students’ descriptions of their personal schooling experiences over the last decade that i have taught pedagogy courses in business education. the storied accounts of students have been classified into two main broad descriptive categories, namely, memories of advantage and memories of disadvantage. vignette 1: memories of advantage business education students from affluent, middle class contexts describe, for example, being taught by competent, qualified teachers, class sizes of under thirty learners, having access to four to five different textbooks, reams of worksheets, model answers, a data bank of past examination articles from their school as well as from other high performing schools, structured assessment and feedback regimes, extra tuition after school, the ability to purchase study guides, three to four-day excursions to the business capital of country (the johannesburg securities exchange and the chamber of commerce and industry) and importantly, socioeconomic security provided by stable family and community structures. in the main, these students would have been taught in their mother-tongue in racially homogenous classes where their home languages and cultures would have been affirmed. 70 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 vignette 2: memories of disadvantage in contrast, poor and working class students describe a different picture. i describe the experiences of african students in particular as the indian and coloured communities, while politically disenfranchised under apartheid, did in fact enjoy significantly better educational resource contexts (both physical and human) than their african counterparts but not quite at the level of lavishness of the white community. business education students typically recall being taught by under and unqualified teachers who were frequently absent, class sizes that exceeded sixty, limited access to textbooks (often just a single textbook kept by the teacher), limited print materials like worksheets and other study materials, school developed assessment protocols that did not prepare learners for the high stakes matric examination, reliance on peer study groups to master requisite disciplinary knowledge and skills without the certainty of the accuracy of peer generated understandings, limited external stimuli like excursions or guest speakers, being taught in mother tongue indigenous language but assessed in english, having to live with the instability and vulnerability that poverty brings. a striking feature across the memory accounts presented above is the way patriarchy is tightly woven into the fabric of education in both contexts. the memories presented are rich with potential and possibility for creative and imaginative use in a pedagogy classroom. for many students, especially those who have completed their undergraduate degrees at racially homogenous tertiary institutions or who reside in racially homogenous areas (still a significant feature of south african society as reflected in the monoracial populations particularly of poor townships in south africa), this is often their first close interpersonal encounter with the other. the challenge then for me as teacher education pedagogue is to harness these memories in particular ways to achieve the objectives of the pedagogy programme i teach. an important starting point is the development of relational empathy through the facilitation of shared meanings through interpersonal engagements. this entails reconceptualising how students see each other, how they communicate and how they feel. the reconceived vision must be different to what it was in the past and requires an understanding that trauma has been experienced on both sides and that all are in search of security and basic rights in the new framework. empathetic communication that encourages dissent is a necessary precondition. (broome, 2004). in an attempt to infuse memory accounts into my teaching, basic principles of critical pedagogy and engaged pedagogy have particular appeal. historicity of maistry: using memory as a resource for pedagogy. . . 71 knowledge as a principle alludes to the notion that the creation of knowledge happens within a particular historical context (darder et al., 2009). the knowledge that students own and their being at a particular point in time is product of historical events that were shaped by past human action. in the very same vein, such knowledge and personal self conceptions have potential for change. this principle speaks strongly to the power of human agency to disrupt historical continuities, and foregrounds historical contradictions and tensions. dialectical theory as a principle foregrounds human activity and human knowledge as powerful determinants of the social order. from a critical pedagogy perspective, human activity is dynamic and fluid and as such, it is necessarily uncertain, contradictory. it therefore implies a scrutiny of how traditional theories of knowledge are presented especially since knowledge is associated with a diversity of human conditions that is culture, norms and values and as such cannot be objective. yet, historically particular forms of knowledge have been packaged and served as objective and neutral. in the discussions that follow, i illustrate the troubling of disciplinary knowledge in business education. critical pedagogy argues for the use of ideology as a pedagogical tool to trouble what looks normal and commonsense, to identify the dislocation of dominant ideology in education and the lived experiences and knowledge of those exposed to this contradiction. ideology can therefore be used as a tool for critical self reflection by pedagogues with regard to how personal ideological positions play themselves out in pedagogic practices and how such practices are likely to reinforce dominant race and class ideologies (darder et al., 2009). hooks’ re-conceptualisation of knowledge has particular resonance with my work as teacher education pedagogue working in disciplines that have been shaped by a canonical neo-classical world view (florence, 1998). hooks’ engaged pedagogy urges us to question the legitimacy of the knowledge that is prescribed. this prescribed knowledge is predominantly middle class knowledge and privileges certain memories. as such, we must contest the notion of knowledge as established facts to be mastered and not to give authority to the knowledge but to the nature of the teaching and learning relationship as a process. this kind of orientation opens the door to sharing of experience and of memory on the phenomenon being studied. although hooks theorises in an american context, her insights have profound resonance with the south african context. in the discussion that follows, i present an account of how capitalist ideology through decades has been reified into the psyche of human beings and how such ideology has come to 72 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 shape economic knowledge (harvey, 2007). of importance is the manner in which the memories we create as human beings are shaped by the market, by economic rationality, self-interest, profit maximisation and the survival of the fittest. as bauman aptly reminds us, the capitalist system has created what he terms ‘a race of debtors’ (bauman and rovirosa-madrazo, 2010). with regard to the disciplines within business education (economics, accounting and business management), there is little debate that neo-classical thinking has strongly influenced the nature of knowledge that has accumulated over time in these disciplines. neo-classical economics is so deeply entrenched and institutionalised that society has come to accept it as the norm. a capitalist, market oriented social order is a given, something that we have to live with, something that governments of the world encourage, support and perpetuate in active ways (bauman and rovirosa-madrazo, 2010; harvey, 2006, 2007, 2010b; pogge, 2010). the mantra in the neo-liberal world is, how do we create the climate or the conditions for business to thrive, prosper and grow? in other words, what should we do to ensure that the capitalist class is able to accumulate more profits and become stronger? the discourse and neo-liberal ideological stance is unambiguous (harvey, 2007). with regard to the poor and working class, it is hoped that some of this capitalist income and wealth will trickle down to these marginalised classes. from a south african perspective, evidence from the last decade indicates that the proportion of the nation’s national income that accrues to the capital has in fact increased. in other words, the poor and working class now earn or enjoy a smaller percentage of the country’s income. wealth accumulation by the capitalist class has made little impact on poverty and employment levels in south africa, with current unemployment in excess of 30% in the last decade. we also have to remember that, while apartheid had a dehumanising racial element to it, it also created conditions for the advancement of capital. in particular, apartheid manipulated the south african economic context for the advancement of capital. capital was allowed to grow and flourish. a reflection of who really owns the wealth of a nation is not to be found in the number of small street traders and corner shops; it is to be found on its stock market. in south africa, this would be the johannesburg securities exchange. while media makes a meal of newly listed black companies that make it onto the jse, it does not draw attention to the miniscule fraction that black capital represents on the jse. more importantly, there is a silence and acceptance of the disproportionate ownership of wealth by a small capital class. what then are the implications for the economics pedagogy classes i teach and what does this have to do with memory? postgraduate students that enroll maistry: using memory as a resource for pedagogy. . . 73 for the business education pedagogy modules, join the programme having completed an undergraduate commerce degree. these students would have been subjected to a particular economic knowledge. in the main students would have been presented with this knowledge as uncontested and would have internalised it as such. they may also have had mentors who were disciples of neo-classical economics. in a cohort of mixed race, class and gender, it is clear that students would have experienced the social order differently. some would have fond memories of how their families, friends and communities may have thrived under such an order, others have memories and current lived experiences that tell the stories of deprivation, inhumanity, and suffering. poverty remains a huge challenge for many south african higher education students; a recent study reminds us about the vulnerability of our students and the strategies they employ to as they attempt to mask their poverty (firfirey and carolissen, 2010). these are heartwrenching experiences – experiences which i know my own students endure on a daily basis. these very same students will become specialist commerce teachers expected to teach a given body of economic knowledge that is likely to perpetuate and reinforce the existing economic order. in order to disrupt this cycle, i turn to political economy as a principle of critical pedagogy which contends that we need to contest the manner in which education serves the economic imperatives of the market. vulnerability caused by economic and political disenfranchisement is perpetuated in subtle ways by the schooling system and the knowledge domains schools advance (darder et al., 2009). the challenge then in my pedagogy class is to create spaces to examine how the values and aspirations of dominant classes are upheld and how dominant groups continue to enjoy the privileges that come with asymmetrical power relations. the enormity of the social justice project in my economics education pedagogy programme is daunting and often overwhelming and i sometimes doubt whether my efforts in a year-long pedagogy programme will make any significant impact on the unflinching canons that can go unnoticed. arguably, the most challenging aspect of my work as teacher education pedagogue is helping student teachers deconstruct the normalcy of the social order that the canon has created, to interrogate dominant knowledge and the memories that they have created. again i draw inspiration from hooks (1994, p.202) who urges that we have to “choose between a memory that justifies and privileges domination, oppression, and exploitation and one that exalts and affirms reciprocity, community, and mutuality” university academics have to take necessary risks in order to transgress and contest the canonicity of existing 74 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 knowledge and approaches to curriculum. knowledge transfer through transmission stifles creativity and the ability to challenge existing power relations in society (florence, 1998), especially as it relates to a dominant curriculum that foregrounds patriarchy and capitalism. hooks implores us to challenge middle class male experiences and cultural histories that remain unnoticed in the school curriculum. it is not unusual to find that masculine traits, for example, are portrayed as the norm in economics texts and curricula. school knowledge is likely to favour a bourgeois value system and perpetuate a western women’s value system. in a south african context, school knowledge as it relates to economics is not neutral or objective; if anything it is value laden (maistry and david, 2011). troubling the epistemological foundations of the discipline and how this facilitates a particular social order that manifests in rampant capitalism, asymmetrical power relations in society, poverty and unemployment, necessarily requires that we challenge institutionalised memories that signal what the world should look like. hooks suggests that a problem-solving methodology that encourages dialogue and a healthy balance between content and process is a useful way to proceed with this kind of troubling. the economics pedagogy course provides a rich and dynamic space where attempts at such reconceptualisations are possible. as teacher education pedagogue involved in preparing teachers of economics i recognise the importance of modelling pedagogical strategies that i would want my students to become competent at. complex processes are simultaneously at work in my pedagogy courses. students learn pedagogic skills related to the teaching of the discipline of economics, that is, to develop pedagogic content knowledge in economics. at the same time, they undertake a complex process of deconstructing canonical economic thinking that they have acquired in their undergraduate degrees and demonstrating evidence of this competence in the development of learning programmes for high school economics. such evidence is reflected in the way lessons plans and teaching resources reflect a social justice orientated agenda. the challenge i encounter as a teacher education pedagogue is to provide spaces for students to develop dispositions towards social justice as it applies to race, gender and class oppression. what kinds of tools can they be equipped with? is there a vocabulary or a language that they could use as they plan and prepare for their enterprise as teachers? as self-study researcher, i am acutely aware of the central role i play in both the pedagogic spaces i develop and the research into my practice i undertake. this necessarily requires pedagogical processes that diminish my positional maistry: using memory as a resource for pedagogy. . . 75 authority as academic and lecturer. in as much as i wish to draw on my students’ memories to help make meaning of our social world, i have to share and expose my own memories and how these have come to shape my thinking. just as students share memories (painful and pleasant), i too engage the sharing process. i find dealing with issues of racial prejudice and economic oppression in a cohort of diverse students as described earlier extremely traumatic and emotionally taxing. several sensitivities are at play. i need to create safe spaces for students to articulate memories, as well as to develop the conditions for what i term ‘compassionate listening’. compassionate listening here is a special kind of listening, a kind that necessarily requires the delaying of judgment and hasty formation of opinions and views on others’ perspectives. it is a high-level meta-cognitive competence that demands restraint and temporary suspension of opinion formation. this is an inherently difficult skill to learn, believe in and to practice, because it entails standing outside of oneself to be able to ‘see’ and ‘remind’ oneself of the act of undertaking compassionate listening. once teacher educators and student teachers begin to understand and practice this skill, it explodes the possibilities for unrestrained memory sharing. how then can we harness the memories described in the vignettes above in ways that contribute to the objectives of this special economics pedagogy course and at the same time bring to the fore, in constructive ways, issues of social justice. pertinent issues of race, class and gender oppression are complexly connected to economics and are implicated in almost every facet of neo-classical economic theory. in my early days of teaching economics pedagogy, i learnt that a head-long plunge into these sensitive social issues created much discomfort and at times a genuine reluctance by students to engage constructively. in recent years, i have been guided by writers like murphy and gallagher (2009), who argue that the use of cases outside of the students’ lived experience (the experience of another country or community for example) can be a useful way to approach the teaching of these issues. the idea then is to use material that is real, but not south african – material that is historically and psychologically removed from the immediate cognitive frames of students. this strategy may eliminate defensiveness and allow for communication in a fairly safe space. it allows for and facilitates confident participation. examples of materials i employ include case studies that bring to the fore tensions and contradictions as they apply to women in business, values and beliefs about gender equality in other countries, globalisation and its effects on marginalised communities of the world, dehumanising labelling of people who cannot find jobs as ‘unemployed ‘ and ‘human waste’ (bauman and rovirosa-madrazo, 2010; pogge, 2010), child labour, the exploitation of 76 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 migrant workers, xenophobic attacks on refugees across the world, natural resource exploitation by multi-national corporations and its effects on indigenous populations of less-developed countries and affirmative action policies in countries like singapore, malaysia, the united states and zimbabwe. it is not possible to provide an analysis of how i engage all these stimulus materials in this current article. however, in the discussion that follows, i illustrate how i have used and reflected on the concept ‘affirmative action’ in my pedagogy classes over the years. affirmative action as policy is a germane subject and has particular currency in a south african context. it is a highly contested policy and has potential to generate heated debate. as such, it presents with enormous possibilities as a ‘site’ for dialogue. in the cases of malaysia and singapore, affirmative action policies were adopted to address economic imbalances that were created by prejudicial policies that disadvantaged certain ethnic communities. the histories of such prejudice are varied and often related to the policies of the regimes that occupied these countries. capitalist classes came into being as a result of privilege and artificially construed enabling economic mechanisms. as can be expected, this kind of ‘neutral’, non-threatening context is easier to discuss than the current south african context. it is however necessary that the stark and painful realities of the south african context has to be dealt with at some point. as teacher education pedagogue, i attempt to use the material to develop what i refer to as a set of consensus principles that a typical teacher of economics may have to consider when teaching such a topic. these would be basic pedagogic principles that are likely to guide the teaching of controversial subject matter. such a set of principles have to come about through a deductive process that entails student engagement and dialogue. the challenge then is to move the debate closer to home. the ‘ideal type’ vignettes (weber, 1949) that capture the contrasting memories that prevail in south africa are lucid representations of the effects of race gender and class prejudice that continue to strangle south african society. over the last decade that i have worked with the topic of affirmative action in my pedagogy programme, i have had varying experiences with different cohorts of students. the extremely contentious nature of the topic and the changing cohort of students make each encounter with this topic a unique one. i have found that sharing of my memories (personal and family experiences) as they relate to this topic is what i coin as a powerful ‘bridging pedagogical moment’ as i move students from the ‘abstract’ and somewhat ‘distant’ cases on affirmative action to south african cases. this imagined maistry: using memory as a resource for pedagogy. . . 77 ‘bridging pedagogical moment’ is what i describe as a sensitive, scaffolded teaching and learning space in which the pedagogue infuses her personal memories as a resource for making meaning. this bridging pedagogical moment has a twofold effect. firstly, it serves as a vanguard to access and surpass the threshold phenomenon being addressed. secondly, it reorientates and reinterprets power relations between pedagogues and their students, a principle advocated by hooks’ engaged pedagogy; a breaking down of the power relations between pedagogues and their students. this kind of dissolving of power can only happen if pedagogues create spaces for their students to empower themselves in a classroom context and if pedagogues themselves adopt approaches that require the exposure of personal experiences and vulnerabilities (keet, zinn, and porteus, 2009). as teacher education pedagogue, i draw on a wide range of memories and experiences, which i selectively bring into my class as i attempt to strengthen the meaning making of particular aspects of the course. in my early days of working with pedagogy courses, i did in fact make use of several personal experiences (anecdotal reflections) in my teaching. however, in recent years, i consciously select particular personal memories in planning for teaching. i present below an account of the personal memories i share with my students to scaffold a bridging pedagogical moment when dealing with affirmative action as a content topic in my pedagogy class. as a self-study scholar, i start from the premise that the self is complicit in educational practice, that is it is not possible to separate the self from one’s practice. as such, the nature of the (my) self, my value system, aspirations, memory and theoretical orientation infuse and permeate every aspect of my practice. having been schooled in resistance politics as a youth activist and as a teacher activist, issues of equity, redress and transformation are central to the work i now do as a teacher educator. vignette 3: sharing personal memories as a non-white male growing up under apartheid, i attended school in a homogenous indian only school, and attended an indian university. i was aware that the resource context of my school was different to that of other races, that indian schools were better resourced than african schools, but not as well resourced as white schools. i hail from a working class family that was displaced by the notorious group areas act. my father worked as a garbage sorter on a municipal dump site in pietermaritzburg. he later sold ice cream on a bicycle and in the last 15 years of his working life, he held the job of driver of a light delivery vehicle for a local manufacturing business. he often related incidents of abuse and racial discrimination at his place of 78 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 work, incidents which riled me and developed in me over the years a deep sense of resentment and antagonism towards white people. my mom worked as a ‘tea girl’ (making tea for staff) for a large department store and in the last 15 or so years of her working life, she remained a low-level sales assistant in the same department store. her rank was not related to her lack of competence, but to the fact that she was not ‘allowed’ to apply for senior positions. these were exclusively reserved for whites. as with my dad, my mom also experienced similar experiences of prejudice; in her case, both race and gender. in recent years, i have become more aware of my own prejudices and the extent of my distorted socialisation. i also struggle to understand and not judge the raced memories that several other close relatives articulate. ironically though, these relatives yearn for the times when we were ruled by a white minority government and are simultaneously vehemently critical of current affirmative action policies. for inspiration on how to deal with the demons i carry, i draw on the work of hannah arendt. arendt rejects both revenge and forgiveness as proper responses to crimes of the past. revenge is premised on natural law, that is, the natural equality of pain and suffering. it assumes that a person is able to feel the same degree of pain and suffering if revenge is meted out based on animal-like tendencies and therefore has no currency in human society arendt, 1998). similarly forgiveness, also rooted in human equality ‘destroys the relationship between the forgiver and the forgiven and therefore is based on a negative solidarity (lavi, 2010). arendt suggests reconciliation as a response to wrongful deeds. “reconciliation entails a willingness on the part of the wronged to carry the burden together with the wrongdoer” (lavi, 2010, p.231). “to become reconciled with a wrong does not unburden the wrongdoer. instead of attempting to undo the past , reconciliation encourages the acceptance of the past as given . . . harbours an element of renewal and spontaneity . . . reconciliation is an active gesture of acceptance that must be regenerated anew each time” (ibid.). reconciliation as a phenomenon is powerful when dealing with memory because it assumes the premise that the past is exactly that, an era that has in fact passed by and beyond the powers of present human control. a pedagogy of reconciliation opens up spaces for multiple memories to be acknowledged and validated. it is about imagining spaces where healing is infused as a productive outcome in the pedagogy programme i fashion for my students. again, i turn hooks’ insights. drawing on the teachings of vietnamese monk thich nhat hanh, hooks suggests that pedagogues (like me) have to look to themselves first and focus on personal well-being and personal peace and contentment before they can effectively maistry: using memory as a resource for pedagogy. . . 79 present as healers and or create classroom conditions that are likely to therapeutic for their students. this is a profound insight as it suggests deep inner peace as a pre-requisite for a healing pedagogy (hooks, 1994). teacher educators have to exercise self-reflexivity. teaching for self-actualisation requires sharing one’s own stories with students. it is about creating classroom environments where this might happen. it has to be more than simply searching for bland commonalities. the challenge is to harness diverse memories with a productive intent. the outcomes are that students get to explore their own memories and how they are likely to influence their understandings and practice of teaching economics. they also engage with the memory accounts of their fellow students and that of their mentor (me). importantly, they get to experience firsthand a pedagogic encounter in economics pedagogy where memory is used as a resource for teaching. this kind of pedagogic modelling is particularly useful to apprentice teachers. equipped with this experience and a discourse of reconciliation, students are then encouraged to explore how such strategies could be applied to school contexts. i am acutely aware of not falling into the trap of romanticizing and celebrating my own practice. such precocious self-aggrandising is furthest from the social justice enterprise i infuse into my teacher education programme. i am also loath to attempt to measure and quantify the impact of my attempts at improving my practice. i can, however, reflect on how self-study as a methodology has heightened my awareness of my pedagogic interventions. it has propelled me to search for a theoretical and philosophical rationale for my actions and to refine my social justice agenda with greater care and sensitivity. more importantly, i am beginning to understand in profound ways how my personal reflective writing activity can be therapeutic in helping me deal with my own distorted socialisation as i continue my journey as a developing teacher education pedagogue. conclusion in this article, i shared the experiences of my work as a teacher education pedagogue as i attempted to harness memory as a resource for teaching and learning in my pedagogy courses. i argued for how students and societies, previously dehumanised and objectified by hegemonic race, class and gender regimes, can use memory to decentre powerful social constructions and 80 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 reposition themselves as society’s subjects. i drew attention to the contested nature of the knowledge that presides with clandestine neutrality in business education subjects in schools and how such knowledge is a source rich with pedagogical potential. teacher education pedagogy courses present as opportune spaces for the troubling of administered knowledges and the creation of alternate ways of thinking about the economic world. i outlined the theoretical influences that shape my classroom interventions and how these particular appropriations have potential to unearth the subtext of the normal and taken for granted. i make no claim to grand accomplishments of my pedagogic interventions and am mindful that i have limited control over the effects of my actions. i do however introduce two exploratory constructs (‘bridging pedagogical moment’ and ‘compassionate listening’) as exploratory tools for pedagogy that have potential for further research and development. given that each new pedagogical encounter is different and that i cannot foresee the effects of my actions, i reflected on how theory has helped me learn to become more comfortable with plurality and my own personal troubled disposition. finally, i signaled the enormous potential of self-study as research methodology for the continuous theorisation of personal pedagogical theories and the production of the ‘new’. references anderson, b. 1991. imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. london: verso. arendt, h. 1998. the human condition. chicago: university of chicago press. arendt, h. 2006. on revolution. new york: penguin books. bauman, z. and rovirosa-madrazo, c. 2010. living on borrowed time. cambridge: polity press. bourdieu, p. 1986. the forms of capital. in richardson, j. 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accepted: 30 october 2019) abstract after the national transition in 1994, south africa was welcomed back into the international political and economic arena. becoming part of the global community, including emerging economies, has had major implications for the country, including its school system. the previously relatively stable and predictable, if unjust, school system needed radical change. in this paper, we report on how organisation development (od) as an action research school change strategy was introduced to a school staff. the outcome has been a gradual change in the organisation culture of the school. this includes more collaborative decision-making, open communication, teacher leadership, increased enthusiasm among teachers, and an on-going process of incremental school change. we suggest that od is a feasible change strategy for schools and school systems in emerging contexts of rapid and ongoing change in which schools are expected to take increasing responsibility for themselves. keywords: developing context, organisation change, organisation development, school culture, school improvement, survey-data-feedback introduction after the national transition in 1994, south africa was welcomed back into the international political and economic arena. becoming part of the global community, including emerging economies, has had major implications for the country, including its school system. schooling, more so in an emerging context, is regarded traditionally as the gateway to economic access and success (maclean, 2001). policy and structural change have been the 116 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 name of the game. the previously relatively stable and predictable, if unjust, school system needed radical change. an inherited racially lopsided school system needed major restructuring organisationally and in terms of its financial allocations, resourcing, and peopling. however, as bayeni (2014, p. 54) has concluded, “contrary to policy-makers’ espoused policy intentions, policies seem not to have made any significant changes in school practice.” international benchmarking tests (mullis, martin, foy, & arora (2012a, 2012b) as well as local research (south african government, 2013) reveal a school system in disarray; 80% percent of all schools in south africa have been described as dysfunctional (bloch, 2009). the vision of a socially just school system that would grant pathways to realising the benefits of south africa’s emerging economy and its international networks has become blurred. for example, a national census has revealed that skill levels among the youth are declining (stats sa, cited in merten, 2016). in addition, following international trends, south africa adopted a relatively self-managed school system according to the department of education (1996). decision makers assumed that the capacity existed in schools to direct their own organisation destiny. however, being accustomed to depending on a top-down school bureaucracy, most south african school managers had little knowledge or experience of initiating school change. the situation was no different in school districts (mckinney, 2009). this is a challenge experienced across the board in developing and, in some cases, even developed contexts, as glewwe and kremer (2006) have reminded us. in 1994, davidoff, kaplan, and lazarus presented a paper at the kenton 21 conference entitled “organisation development: an argument for south african schools.” the paper was subsequently published in the conference proceedings (davidoff, kaplan, & lazarus, 1995). it recounted an organisation development (od) intervention in a cape town township school. in 1994, clive smith introduced a hands-on “introduction to od” module in both his bachelor of education honours and master’s courses. students in both courses took to od like ducks to water. a number of former students have reported on facilitated od interventions for their master’s degrees. as part of the post-1994 developing-a-democracy agenda, the new south african government’s task team report, “changing management to manage change” (department of education, 1996) put forward a vision for school transformation in the public school system. the report noted that “education . . . transformation requires . . . organisational development” (p.16). teachers were to be change agents, embracing leadership and management responsibilities (msila, 2008). ironically, the missing ingredient was a process, such as od, that could translate the task team’s vision into reality. this paper is an account of an ongoing od intervention facilitated by marion mackinnon, one of smith’s former honours students. the intervention is a continuation of what began as an od assignment. the argument for od in south african schools still stands. after an introduction to od, including its theoretical underpinning, and the research design, the story of the intervention is recounted, in keeping with wolcott’s (1994) recommendation smith & mackinnon: organisation development 117 that in a descriptively oriented account the researcher “‘tell the story” (p. 16). we conclude with learnings from this intervention. organisation development while mcgregor is credited with having coined the term “organisation development” in the 1950s (weisbord, 2012), it was lewin (1946) who had earlier conceived of a process—a portent of his classic dictum that “there is nothing so good as a practical theory” (lewin 1951, p. 169)—of organisation participants looking at themselves in the mirror with a view to improving the way things are done, thereby enhancing their work satisfaction. od emerged as part of what came to be called the human relations movement (likert, 1967) in business and industry that was a reaction to the worker-as-machine view of organisations (schmuck, bell, & bell, 2012). lewin’s od work also marked the origin of the idea of a learning organisation (weisbord, 2012) resurrected more recently by senge (1990). it was also the origin of participatory action research (cummings & worley, 2009). indeed, the terms organisation development and action research are often used interchangeably (gallant & rios, 2014; senior, 2002). or, as french and bell (1999) viewed it, od, as an approach to organisation change, adopts the action research methodology. during the 60-odd years since od was birthed it has morphed into its present form. numerous theories and concepts from a range of disciplines, such as social-psychology, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and organisation and leadership (see burnes & cooke (2012) for a succinct history of od), have informed its theory and practice. od has a rich heritage in the worlds of both business and schooling. od is a normative-re-educative (chin & benne, 1976) or participative-cultural (smith, 2003), approach to planned change, development, and transformation that focuses on the individual, group, and organisation. at its core, it entails participatory democratic practices in groups and organisations with a view to developing sustained spirals of learning and change (smith & mackinnon, 2011). according to chin and benne (1976), cultural change strategies have assumptions about human motivation different from those underlying traditional change strategies. a cultural change approach maintains that patterns of action and practice are supported by sociocultural norms and by commitments on the part of the individual to these norms. . . . change in a pattern of practice or action, according to this view, will occur only as the persons involved are brought to change their normative orientations to old patterns and develop commitments to new ones. and changes in normative orientations involve changes in attitudes, values, skills, and significant relationships, not just changes in knowledge, information, or intellectual rationales for action and practice. (p. 23) 118 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 schmuck and runkel (1994) describe od as a planned and sustained effort at system self-study and improvement, focusing on change in norms, structures, and procedures, using behavioral science concepts and methods. organization development engages system members themselves in the active assessment, diagnosis, and transformation of their own organization. (p. 67) core values that inform the od process include participative democracy, egalitarianism, a people orientation based on human need satisfaction (mcclelland, 1961), an optimism that things can be better, the belief that individuals and groups can make a difference (see mcgregor’s theory y view of organisation participants, cited in weisbord, 2012), and transparency (schmuck et al., 2012). od has distinguishing features and principles that are derived mostly from the behavioural sciences (french & bell, 1999). these include change readiness at individual (weisbord, 2012), organisation (schmuck et al., 2012) and system levels (calkins, guenther, belfiore, & lash, 2007); participation of all those likely to be affected by the outcome of a process (lewin, 1947b cited in weisbord 2012); a future orientation (weisbord, 2012); a systemic (french & bell, 1999) and cultural (chin & benne, 1976) perspective that embraces both width and depth of change; and sustained change that becomes part of the organisation’s culture or “what is going on here” (wolcott, 1990, p. 32). lewin’s work, according to schein (1985), provides a change theory especially as it relates to the assumptions, principles, values, processes, and approaches to change set out above, that remains the benchmark for distinguishing authentic od from other approaches to change, such as change management and training and human resource management (burnes & cooke, 2012; woodman, 2014). the core assumptions of lewin’s change theory are that effective and sustained change occurs through dialogue in groups that include all those likely to be affected by any change. such dialogue facilitates a shared understanding of present conditions and agreement about desired changes. for lewin (1946), the understanding and learning generated by this dialogical process was more important for the participants than any resultant change. however, during the 1970s and 1980s, with the onset of modern globalisation, economic troubles, and rapid technological change, od lost favour and alternative more businessresults rather than people-oriented change approaches, such as strategic change and change management, were proposed. pettigrew (1985), for example, claimed that lewin’s modernistrational change thinking was outmoded and theoretically inadequate to account for a different cultural and historical context to his own. he argued that change approaches needed to take account of constructivist and post-modern ontologies and epistemologies. pfeffer (1992, cited in burnes, 2004a) believed that organisation change is more likely to be the outcome of competing power struggles where those with more power hold sway over those with less. in his view, change is unlikely to be the outcome of participative group processes. collectively, these alternative change approaches were labelled as “emergent change” (weick, 2000, p. 227). smith & mackinnon: organisation development 119 nevertheless, these alternatives were, in turn, criticised for being helpful only for understanding but not changing organisations (andriopolous & dawson, 2009). despite bradford and burke’s (2004, p. 370) suggestion that od “lacks a central, agreed-upon theory of change—or even approach to change,” bullock and batten (1985), in their review of over 30 planned change models along with hendry (1996), found that lewin’s change theory remained as influential as ever. hendry (1996, p. 624) commented, scratch any account of creating and managing change and the idea that change is a three-stage process which necessarily begins with a process of unfreezing will not be far below the surface. indeed, it has been said that the whole theory of change is reducible to this one idea of kurt lewin’s. burnes (2004b, p. 992) went so far as to suggest that critics of lewin’s planned change appear to have misread, “or perhaps even not read” his work. others (for example, lambrechts, grieten, bouwen, & corthouts, 2009) have argued that lewin’s change process in which multiple perspectives are generated in dialogue, as reflected in schein’s (1988) process consultation for example, is an inherently social-constructionist approach. similarly, burnes (2011) has highlighted the connection between lewin’s gestaltbased field theory and social constructionism. wooten and white (1999) have shown that lewin’s change thinking aligns with post-modern organisation values, such as egalitarianism. indeed, social constructionism can be seen as the ontological and epistemological foundation of lewinian od (cummings & worley, 2009; van nistelrooij & sminia, 2010). finally, current influential change approaches, such as those of appreciative inquiry (cooperrider & srivastva, 1987) and complexity theory (macintosh & maclean, 2001), are claimed by some to be new approaches to change, even incompatible with od (see burnes, 2004a). others (for example, oswick, 2009) argue that these are fresh manifestations of lewin’s original change thinking. in burnes and cook’s (2012) view, since the 1990s the revival of od’s lewinian heritage has promoted the development of theoretically convincing and practically sound change approaches. although the efficacy of any change approach, including od, is unconvincing, robertson, roberts and porras’s (1993) meta-analysis of od interventions concluded that od is a valid change approach. as an aside, a substantial piece of detective work by cummings, bridgman, and brown (2016) has found in lewin’s writing (lewin, 1947a) evidence of his use of only the term “unfreezing.” subsequent scholars, lippitt, watson, westley, and spalding (1958) and schein (1961) in particular, added or invented the “moving” and “refreezing” phases neither of which appears anywhere in lewin’s writing. in fact, “refreezing” stands in stark contrast to his view of life as being dynamic and a sphere in which groups constantly adapt to changing conditions and contexts (cummings et al., 2016). in this study, we refer to sustained change, rather than to “refreezing.” 120 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 how does od work? we follow burke’s (1994) stages of an od process. these stages, which can be divided into two broad phases, will become evident in the following account of the intervention. the first phase is the “start up” that consists of the initiation and diagnosis. the second phase, problem-solving, that consists of change interventions, typically follows the diagnosis. an od process is ideally initiated by prospective participants, whether an organisation or group in an organisation, who recognise an opportunity, challenge, or need. in the intervention, which is the subject of this article, mackinnon, a staff member on the management committee of the school involved, initiated the process. during the start-up phase, the facilitators offer a “what is od and how does it work?” workshop. the purpose of the workshop is to ensure that the prospective participants become familiar with od values and principles and that they know what od entails, so that they can take an informed decision as to whether to participate or not, thereby meeting the ethical criterion of informed consent (busher & james, 2007). most important is that participants understand that they are the experts and that they will drive the process. the facilitators are there to serve by way of offering a process. the workshop is also intended to raise levels of readiness by helping the prospective participants develop some trust and confidence in the process and by engendering a belief that they can make a difference in their own organisation should they wish to do so. a diagnosis will typically begin with participants, supported by the facilitators, identifying the issues and/or possibilities that they think need attention or that they want to do something about. after prioritising these issues and possibilities, they will be diagnosed, normally using a gap analysis approach (french & bell, 1999; schmuck et al., 2012). the data upon which the diagnosis is based may be generated by interviews, questionnaires, observation, workshopping, journaling etc. the facilitation team will then analyse and feed the data back to the participants. the feedback offers the participants an opportunity to verify the accuracy of the data and its interpretation and helps participants to “unfreeze” (lewin, 1947a, p. 36) by releasing them to speak about what has often hitherto been unspeakable. the feedback also provides a potential agenda for future action and energises participants as they develop a sense of hope in future possibilities. the diagnosis is typically referred to as a survey-datafeedback (sdf) intervention and is the most common and successful initial intervention in an ongoing od intervention (cummings & worley, 2009; roodt, 2008; schmuck et al., 2012). in woodman’s (2014, p. 470) view, “diagnosis might be considered as the starting point to all organizational change.” this second or change phase in the od process may consist of individual, group, and organisation-wide activities that can go on for months, or even years, in the case of fundamental and complex change interventions. in the case of the intervention that is the subject of this study, the intervention has entered this second phase and, at the time of writing, was in its 16th month. these phases are best illustrated in figure 1. “identification of a need for change to exploration of the data by client group” is the start group to reflection and evaluation by client group” and potential further spirals of diagnosis and action constitute the second or action phase of an ongoing od intervention. figure 1: the organisation development cycle research design od adopts a participatory action researc lewin, 1947b; schmuck et al., 2012). indeed, the par process is the method (kidd & kral, 2005). besides being located in the social constructionist paradigm, as noted in the review of the literature above, par often shares the ontological and epistemological assumptions of the critical research paradigm (baum, macdougall, & smith, 2006; concern in od is to provide a process that enables organisation participants to become aware of oppressive and/or dysfunctional organisation cultures, structures, processes, and power relations with a view to transforming them into more just, equitable (kemmis & mctaggart, 2008), dignified, meaningful (weisbord, 2012) and humanly satisfying arrangeme the intervention site is an independent boys’ school. it follows the structure of traditional boys’ schools offering a holistic education that includes academics, religion, sport, and culture in the programme. the school caters for over 1,200 boys in primary, and elementary. each section has its own head who is an executive committee smith & mackinnon: organisation development these phases are best illustrated in figure 1. “identification of a need for change to exploration of the data by client group” is the start-up phase. “action planning by client d evaluation by client group” and potential further spirals of diagnosis and action constitute the second or action phase of an ongoing od intervention. : the organisation development cycle od adopts a participatory action research (par) design as its method (french & bell, 1999; lewin, 1947b; schmuck et al., 2012). indeed, the par process is the method (kidd & kral, 2005). besides being located in the social constructionist paradigm, as noted in the review of par often shares the ontological and epistemological assumptions of the baum, macdougall, & smith, 2006; guba & lincoln 1994). its concern in od is to provide a process that enables organisation participants to become aware oppressive and/or dysfunctional organisation cultures, structures, processes, and power relations with a view to transforming them into more just, equitable (kemmis & mctaggart, 2008), dignified, meaningful (weisbord, 2012) and humanly satisfying arrangeme the intervention site is an independent boys’ school. it follows the structure of traditional boys’ schools offering a holistic education that includes academics, religion, sport, and culture in the programme. the school caters for over 1,200 boys in three sections: college, primary, and elementary. each section has its own head who is an executive committee mackinnon: organisation development 121 these phases are best illustrated in figure 1. “identification of a need for change to up phase. “action planning by client d evaluation by client group” and potential further spirals of diagnosis and action constitute the second or action phase of an ongoing od intervention. h (par) design as its method (french & bell, 1999; lewin, 1947b; schmuck et al., 2012). indeed, the par process is the method (kidd & kral, 2005). besides being located in the social constructionist paradigm, as noted in the review of par often shares the ontological and epistemological assumptions of the guba & lincoln 1994). its concern in od is to provide a process that enables organisation participants to become aware oppressive and/or dysfunctional organisation cultures, structures, processes, and power relations with a view to transforming them into more just, equitable (kemmis & mctaggart, 2008), dignified, meaningful (weisbord, 2012) and humanly satisfying arrangements. the intervention site is an independent boys’ school. it follows the structure of traditional boys’ schools offering a holistic education that includes academics, religion, sport, and three sections: college, primary, and elementary. each section has its own head who is an executive committee 122 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 member. an executive head leads the executive committee. the elementary section, where the intervention was carried out, caters for 400 boys with a staff complement of 30 including a 7-member management committee, of which mackinnon at the time of writing was the member responsible for leading the school’s academic programme. the school attracts middleto upper-class families. having approached the elementary school principal for approval to conduct her honours od assignment in the foundation phase of the elementary school, mackinnon was given the goahead. she followed the initiation process in the start-up phase, as described above. the “what is od?” workshop generated a good deal of animated discussion, the outcome of which was an agreement to participate in a sdf diagnosis. following wolcott’s (1994) guidance on the writing of a descriptive qualitative account, the story of the process unfolds in the next section. besides the formal data gathering by way of interviews and questionnaires for the diagnosis itself, mackinnon generated data about the diagnosis through participating in group discussions, activity debriefs that took the form of group reflections at the end of an activity or session, and informal conversations with participants during the process, including during sessions and breaks, and between sessions; informal observation of participant behaviour during and between sessions; and documents, such as newsprint and records of decisions about new ways of doing things, generated by the process. participants, both those who volunteered to be part of the facilitating team and as a group in plenary sessions, analysed and interpreted the data. this process provided a springboard for each succeeding step in the unfolding intervention. action research used in organisation development is based mostly on collaboration between an od researcher and a client during which they collaborate in diagnosing client-identified organisation issues and then cogenerate actionable interventions in terms of quality criteria of rigour, reflectivity, and relevance (coghlan & shani, 2014). employing lather’s (1986, p. 78) notion of “catalytic validity,” research quality was assured as participants generated and validated their own data and processes as the intervention took its course and as they became excited about the changes they were bringing about through their own agency. evidence of these changes follows in the account of the intervention below, in table 2, in particular. through its lewinian roots in the scholarship of practice, od has the capacity to bridge the rigour-relevance, theory-practice debates that beset contemporary organisation studies. accordingly, action research is not only a methodology and a set of tools but is also a theory of social science. the honours assignment has ethical clearance from the relevant university ethics committee and was approved by the school’s management. following o’leary (2004), pseudonyms are used for the names of people and places in order to preserve confidentiality and protect the identity of those concerned. smith & mackinnon: organisation development 123 the intervention the “what is od?” workshop junior school regards itself as a good elementary school. the parents and general community regard it as a good school. however, early in the od intervention, during the “what is od?” workshop debrief at the end of the workshop, the principal reflected, understanding organisation development has opened my eyes to so many aspects within the school which had reached a level of complacency, where the assumption was that things were running smoothly and there was no need to introduce organisational change or explore the opinions of its staff. this could be described therefore, as a “cruising” school (stoll & fink, cited in stoll, 2003, p. 100). after explaining briefly to the principal what od is and how it works, and the principal having given the go-ahead and his support, mackinnon then requested that she facilitate a “what is od and how does it work?” workshop with all the likely participants in the intervention, in this case the school’s 16 grade r, 1, 2, and 3 (foundation phase) teachers. academic support teachers and the librarian along with subject teachers in religious education, music, and computers from other grades who were involved with the foundation phase were also invited to participate and were distributed among the teachers of the four grades. they agreed that the traditional staff day held the day before the start of a new term be devoted to the workshop. two key od principles, gatekeeper support (french & bell, 1999), in this case the principal, and the invitation of all those likely to be affected by the outcome of an od process to participate in that process (lewin, 1947b), were adhered to. after a brief introduction concerning its purpose, the three-hour workshop began with a crossword puzzle ice-breaker which was followed by a group activity during which groups identified scenarios at school that, similar to those revealed in the ice-breaker, reflected unequal opportunities for influence, achievement, and recognition, all of which triggered negative feelings of tension, stress, and demoralisation. a lot of open and honest discussion followed. many teachers admitted that they related to those feelings but thought they were the only ones experiencing them. this is a form of ignorance that results from a lack of open communication (schmuck et al., 2012). the discussion proved to be ground breaking in initiating what has become a new culture of open communication that was consolidated as the od intervention proper unfolded. this was an important development since effective communication that includes openness and honesty, is the foundation of effective organisation life (schmuck et al., 2012). od was then introduced. this included a brief history, an outline of the core values, assumptions, and principles, and an account of how it works in relation to the participatory action research methodology and typical designs, including sdf. 124 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 the workshop included an activity on the concept of “change” during which a variety of quotations was used to generate a discussion about organisation change. the purpose was to illustrate that change is not just about new knowledge and approaches, but also about changed attitudes, values, and relationships (fullan, 2007) and, most of all, improvement. in another activity, the staff were shown a number of abstract graphics to demonstrate how people have different perceptions of the same reality to underscore the importance of validating one another’s experiences and perceptions of the respective organisation realities of others. the staff were then invited to consider what aspects of their school they thought might benefit from an od intervention. because the workshop had created an atmosphere of trust as insisted upon by schmuck et al. (2012) and the readiness for change advised by zayim and kondakci (2015), teachers felt sufficiently bold to write down their suggestions on the post-it notes provided. these were placed on a white board. the staff then grouped these into themes, and they were subsequently colour coded for ease of identification. the three key themes identified based on the number of responses were: a. how can teachers be best supported with the introduction of new teaching methodologies? b. a need for class assistants to optimise group-work activities and the reading programme. c. a need to review the policy and approach to discipline and school rules to ensure that there is consistency among all staff on how these are implemented. the workshop concluded with teachers being asked to complete an anonymous evaluation of the workshop that included having them indicate whether they would like to participate in a sdf intervention. the results of the survey indicated that the staff was unanimously in favour of such an intervention. typical feedback comments included • refreshing, feels like we are on the same team • promotes interaction • thought provoking and fun to chat together • very interesting and positive to exchange views • enlightening and non-threatening • novel to discuss our solutions to problems • working towards a common goal • being able to express how i feel • learning about the views of others [and] realising i’m not the only person with certain issues the workshop had raised the staff’s level of readiness to engage in the od intervention. it was now important not to lose the momentum and to commence with the intervention. this was done at an informal feedback meeting at break the day after the workshop. smith & mackinnon: organisation development 125 the sdf intervention at the feedback meeting, all staff members were given a list of the intervention suggestions that had been clustered and colour coded according to the themes. the most pressing issue identified was the introduction of new teaching approaches. when the teachers saw this, there was virtually immediate consensus demonstrated by a spontaneous nodding of heads and a chorus of verbal affirmation as individual teachers realised that they were not alone in the area they had identified as a source of stress and as needing change. the school had embarked on a professional development programme that was clearly overwhelming the staff. teachers felt that they were not adequately equipped, trained, or supported to implement the new programme effectively. during the “what is od?” workshop, mackinnon had explained that a process of datagathering would follow the identification of an issue or issues for diagnosis, in order to more fully understand the nature of the issue and what changes were desired. this would be handled by a facilitation team comprised of staff volunteers and herself, thereby making the process collaborative, as well as developing od facilitation capacity in others. this “empowering” (kolb & kolb, 2005, p. 208) of participants is another od principle. three staff members, with from three to thirty years’ teaching experience, offered to join the team. this added credibility to the process. the facilitation team agreed on how data would be generated, and participated in the focus group sessions, including the agreement of group norms, listing the questions to be discussed, and determining the group processes such as having a scribe record discussions and observations on flipcharts. the analysis and coding of diagnostic data was done collaboratively by the facilitation team. the strategies were agreed upon by all the participants following the data analysis. the facilitating team then designed the cumulative data generation process set out below. again, in order to maintain momentum, the data generation process commenced the following week. survey the participants decided to make the initial survey anonymous so that they could express their opinions freely. this data would then be explored further in the focus groups to follow. the outcome of the survey was that the teachers were generally open to change and welcomed the new teaching approaches in particular but felt quite overwhelmed by the new demands placed on them. they had many suggestions for improvement. what they wanted most was a forum in which to express their ideas, where they knew they were being heard, and where they could make a significant direct contribution, rather than through representatives. focus groups to follow up the survey data, the staff formed, for the first time, two cross-grade focus groups that met simultaneously in the week following the survey. participants in both groups agreed that it was an effective forum in which to express ideas, and common ground was 126 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 established. rich and comprehensive data was gathered, and, for the first time, teachers expressed their frustrations openly and offered valuable ideas for resolving problems and challenging the way things were being done. they also realised that, collectively, the staff has a wealth of teaching expertise that should be shared. individual interviews during the week following the focus group interviews, each of the four members of the facilitating team adopted one of the four grades and interviewed each teacher in that grade to further explore the focus group data. there was strong confirmation for the prioritisation of teaching and learning since staff meetings focus generally on operational and policy matters and the full staff group was too large for collaborative interaction. there was also unanimity that teachers wanted to meet regularly across grades to share ideas and best teaching practices that could be implemented by all. feedback the next step in the sdf process was the feedback of the data generated from the survey, focus groups, and individual interviews to the full staff. the data was analysed by the facilitating team and fed back two weeks after the data generation process had been completed. the data was fed back in the format reflected on the chart below. table 1: data fed back to participants want and have we work well together as a team and have support within the grade innovations and new methodologies are encouraged good communication structure and open door policy want but don’t have more support with new teaching approaches time management more resources and sharing of existing presentations, games, ideas opportunity for individuals to have more of a voice and influence in teaching matters don’t want but have feelings of inadequacy and overwhelmed with new teaching approaches teachers have mixed perceptions of their colleagues’ response toward changing teaching approaches staff meetings not conducive to developing teaching and learning don’t want and don’t have smith & mackinnon: organisation development 127 having verified and explored the data, the staff decided to proceed with the second phase of the intervention—change. the staff agreed on a change agenda derived from the above feedback and that the action planning, implementation, and review would be facilitated and led by the two focus groups. the feedback had gone some way toward effecting the “unfreezing” stage of lewin’s (1958) change model. the staff’s realisation that they had shared feelings of inadequacy and of feeling overwhelmed by the new teaching approaches, that they were anxious about not being able to meet the expectations (that they supported) of the new teaching approaches, and the psychological safety they enjoyed in their work environment provided sufficient motivation for them to engage in a change process—see schein’s (1992) elaboration of lewin’s “unfreezing.” second phase: change and learning process related changes teachers verbalised concerns during the sdf that they did not know how to implement change. because od is a planned change approach, it provided an opportunity to address this gap (french & bell, 1999) between the desire for change and actual change, with a structured change process. after they had experienced the focus groups during the data generation, the teachers suggested focus groups as a vehicle for this. all commented on how productive the group discussions had been. the staff agreed, on the basis of their focus group experience, that smaller groups were more conducive to productive discussion. they retained their two cross-grade groups and meet at a scheduled time on wednesdays every two to three weeks. leadership roles within the focus groups, such as agenda builder, recorder, time keeper, process observer, follow-upper, etc (schmuck et al., 2012) were agreed upon. a workshop was held on running effective meetings to maximise the benefits of leadership roles in meetings. these roles were rotated, and a staff member drew up a grid to manage this. staff agreed that all meetings would conclude with a specific way forward and the followupper role was to ensure that these were actioned. the reporters gave feedback on the respective focus groups’ work at the general staff meeting, for communication and ratification. where appropriate, school-wide decisions were taken at the staff meeting. in a survey conducted at the end of the intervention reported on here, a participant observed, “focus groups have become part of the culture of the school. structures are in place to ensure the continuity of the change process we have embarked upon. it’s now ‘the way we do things around here.’” teaching and learning related changes the following are the main changes that have been introduced and sustained. 128 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 table 2: changes introduced and sustained by the od intervention participants teaching activities are less paper based and more experiential and collaborative. staff exposed to strategies to add to their toolbox that enable pupils to demonstrate their learning in a variety of practical ways rather than being worksheet bound. 21st century learning skills (creativity, collaboration, communication, critical thinking); harvard thinking routines; visible thinking; technology; inquiry-based learning; learning through play etc. introduced. a dramatic reduction in printing costs. teachers frequently invite the principal to view lessons that use these new strategies and equipment. bought new desks with a whiteboard surface (write on/wipe off) so that the boys can make their thinking visible in a variety of ways. the new desks have enabled a flexible classroom layout and also lend themselves to collaborative work. a lot more game-based and inquiry-based learning has been introduced. investment in educational equipment to support all this. budget allocations are now transparent. all staff have a say in identifying resource needs. there are now coordinated work, including assessment, schemes that ensure a smooth progression from one grade to the next. a detailed work scheme that encompasses all grades was created collaboratively and is easily accessible on the shared drive. the staff meeting format has changed from sitting around a boardroom table with a chairperson leading to sitting in groups in the library. even though teachers are seated in little chairs the culture has changed to collaborative discussions and the sharing of ideas and strategies. grouping is fluid with a blend of different grades rather than teachers from individual grades sticking together. there have been presentations by teachers who have developed areas of expertise, such as co-operative learning, collaborate learning encounter (cle) and using a data projector. the school has a generous professional development budget. teachers are able to attend courses and then share their learning with their colleagues. professional development sessions are held every second wednesday afternoon. these workshops are increasingly being led by staff who have successfully implemented new strategies. a big cultural change is acknowledging the expertise of teachers. teachers teaching teachers has been well-received and has become a norm. reduction in routine administrative staff meeting time. more time devoted to professional development. teamtime is held each week at break. the agenda is placed on a shared google document so that it can be populated by any member of staff. this informal staffroom format allows open discussion and staff to contribute their ideas. this collaborative approach has resulted in richer decisions and opportunities for staff to be heard and to have their ideas adopted. as an aside, this has resulted in fewer and shorter general staff meetings and more time for professional development. operational issues are communicated using email via a daily message and, where necessary, discussed at teamtime. the changes have enhanced teaching and learning. the boys participate more actively in their learning and are able to apply a wider range of thinking strategies to solve problems. teachers have had to step back from doing all the talking and allow more inquiry from the smith & mackinnon: organisation development 129 learners. a simple technique like think pair share “creates the platform for all to think and express opinions rather than only those eager kids who put up their hands just to be heard, but who have not necessarily thought deeply about the topic.” the outcomes of the cross-grade focus group meetings have been beneficial since teachers have become aware of the wealth of expertise among themselves (see weisbord, 2012). they have been able to learn from the experiences and best practices of their colleagues and have adopted an attitude and intention of being continual learners. in addition, the staff have become more unified through the process of collaboration, and the culture of support and interdependence between grades. leadership and management reconceptualised as facilitation the head of the elementary school commented, i adopted an attitude of working with the group as a co-learner. i also acknowledge the achievements made both on an individual and group basis. i have become open to accepting ideas that have emerged from group consensus by acknowledging that teachers are best placed to make decisions that affect them and that they are the experts and have the capacity to make a difference. this process has achieved buy-in and empowered the teachers as they have committed to the plans they helped create. transformation is impossible if it is the sole responsibility of the principal. the principal also actively supports the process and the shared vision. she participates in focus group sessions and presentations and, where possible, approves the purchase of materials that could further enhance the strategies teachers want to implement. the human factor: people first putting people first now informs all decisions, policies, and interventions. because od is grounded in human need theory (mcclelland, 1961), the school’s formal leadership is becoming increasingly mindful of these needs and how they can be satisfied. according to the principal, “i have been guided by mcclelland’s human need satisfaction theory.” she went on to explain, in our school context, these needs can be characterised by the wish to work collectively and take responsibility for innovations and solutions. od recognises that people are best placed to solve their own problems. this has been demonstrated in the way that teachers put systems in place to address the areas they identified as needing change and have put practical strategies in place. this forum (focus groups) for sharing expertise has satisfied the need for achievement and recognition and enhanced their teaching experience. the fact that teachers were able to influence others and see their suggestions being used in classrooms, or turned into action plans that have been implemented, has become a strong 130 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 motivating factor. there has also been an increased sense of collaboration and belonging as a culture of mutual support for one another has emerged, and this confirms weisbord’s observation that “people benefit most from talking with one another and deciding what to do” (2012, p. 236). the principal also noted, i have observed how teachers have flourished when they know their insight is valued and when they are entrusted with areas of responsibility. i have become profoundly aware of how much teachers want to be able to express their views openly and have influence in decisions that affect them and the running of the school. i have found that by addressing those human needs, the task of teaching can stretch individual’s potential and raise the level of job satisfaction making it rich and rewarding. what also emerged was that there were teachers who had been feeling inadequate and who thought they were alone in their inadequacies. the openness in the focus groups has enabled teachers to confess, as it were, their feelings and anxieties, and to support one another in their learning and growth. the principal concluded by saying, our school has entered into a phase of becoming a learning organisation with structures to enable ongoing development. these shifts in focus have initiated transformational change resulting in a more empowered staff as well as school improvement. systems are in place for the continuous improvement of teaching as well as more alignment between goals and principles. conclusion over the past 25 years, almost without fail, when students have introduced od in their workplace there has been a great deal of excitement and optimism at how different the od approach to change is, as well as the power and possibilities of the process. for many, it has been the first time ordinary organisation members have been able to initiate, participate in, and even lead school change. however, the converse of this has been that formal leaders and managers often feel threatened by having to share and suspend their power, thereby proving to be ineffective facilitators of change (msila, 2011). this has been a widespread finding in od research in developing contexts (golembiewski, 1991; smith, 1995). hofstede (1991) has found that cultural dimensions, such as power-distance and uncertainty avoidance, influence organisations’ perception of and approach to organisation change. this has often derailed what has been an otherwise promising process. a second typical outcome my students have experienced in their od sdf assignment interventions is that participants grow weary of the time and effort required to take responsibility for their own organisation destiny and revert to a default position of dependence on the education system hierarchy to tell them what to do. participants seem to have a weak sense of agency. mjoli (1987) ascribed this kind of thinking to one with an external locus of control where one believes that one’s fate is determined by smith & mackinnon: organisation development 131 outside forces over which one has no control. these are issues requiring further research in sa. the principal concluded, this od intervention has forced me to look closely at my own style of management as well as the roles, culture and needs of the people within the organisation. it has meant acknowledging that the climate was not as content as it appeared, nor as democratic as it espoused to be. most of all, i realised that we have a talented staff who have an enormous amount to contribute, and their need to have some influence was not being met, and there was no forum for them to express their ideas and frustrations, or to promote their innovativeness. the jury is still out on much of what the literature considers to be barriers to successful od practice, in developing contexts in particular. this account may be considered a contribution to the od literature in south africa that offers a pointer to further possibilities for od practice and research in this country. emerging economies, that are mostly moving in the direction of entrepreneurialism, selfmanagement, and personal agency, as well as increasingly democratic decision-making structures and processes, require leaders with change process competence (hoskisson, eden, lau, & wright, 2000). the department of education (1999) identified a lack of leadership and management capacity in the south african school system as the most pressing issue facing our schools. if there is to be significant and meaningful change in our schools, systemwide leadership and management needs urgent attention. education leadership and management development “is the key to transformation in education” (welton, 2001, p. 175) and “a key need is to understand how to manage change” (p. 182). od offers such a process. lewin’s (1992) approach to problem solving and change was one of doing by learning and learning by doing. in other words, for him we need to understand “theory in practice” and we need to “practise theory” (lewin, 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(2015). an exploration of the relationship between readiness for change and organizational trust in turkish public schools. educational management administration leadership, 43(4), 610–625. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/1741143214523009 journal of education, 2018 issue 73, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe editorial carol bertram school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pietermaritzburg, south africa bertramc@ukzn.ac.za over the last two months i have been acutely aware of the issues and challenges involved in editing an academic journal from the inside, as well as from national and international perspectives. from a global point of view, the academic publishing endeavour is essentially a huge profit-making business in which five very large publishing houses hold 50% of the published scientific work. these publishing houses are in a unique and enviable position of not paying for the research that academics do—academics’ salaries are paid by universities or research institutions—and nor do they pay for the reviewing work that academics do voluntarily. this means that the publishing houses bear the small overheads of administration and the copy-editing of articles, but then sell these journal articles back to academics who can access the research only if their universities pay subscriptions for these data bases. this system works well for publishers who, unsurprisingly, make huge profits, and for wellresourced countries in which all, or most, universities can afford to buy the data bases. what this system does, of course, is emphasise knowledge as a commodity that can be bought and sold by those who can afford it. it creates the illusion that the research is freely accessible while it excludes and marginalises those who cannot afford it and exploits the unpaid labour of academics. this is why there is a growing trend towards publishing open-access (free to access and free to publish) scholarly journals. these journals charge page fees to cover administration and copy-editing costs and then make all the articles accessible to anyone with an internet connection. in south africa, the academy of science south africa (assaf) is a very strong supporter of open-access journals and provides substantial support to those that are engaging in this process. the journal of education is indexed by the scientific electronic library online (scielo) sa, which is south africa’s premier open-access searchable fulltext journal database in service of the south african research community. there are 76 journals in the collection and it is growing in strength as more journals apply to become members. there are strict quality criteria to be met for being indexed by scielo such as meeting publication dates, assigning digital object identifiers to articles, and adhering to the guidelines of ethical best practice. the quality of journals in south africa is an issue taken seriously by assaf; it is currently undertaking reviews of journals in various disciplines. assaf also recently commissioned a report on scholarly publishing in south africa from 2004 to 2018. susan veldsman (director of the scholarly publications unit) shared some findings from this report at the recent south african education research association (saera) conference in centurion. there has been a 2 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 huge increase in the number of journal articles published by south african authors from approximately 7,000 in 2005 to 13,000 in 2014, which is, clearly, a result of strategy of the department of higher education and training (dhet) that involved its putting more money into paying universities subsidies for articles published. however, does this increase in quantity also reflect quality? assaf notes that there are still many questionable practices such as an “unacceptable intensity” of editors publishing their own work, and of individuals (with co-authors) who have more than two papers per issue or who publish repeatedly in the same journal. this practice led to dhet’s rule that over a year, only 25% of authors may come from one institution. reviewing the 2018 issues of the journal of education, i see that we have just 25% of authors from the university of kwazulu-natal, which fits with the guidelines. but it points obviously to questions about who gets published in which journals and means that we must keep a close eye on this. another questionable publishing practice is publication in socalled predatory journals that exist only for profit and that promise academics a quick publishing time turnover, along with no peer review. the assaf data shows that the number of articles published by south african authors in predatory journals rose from fewer than 10 in 2005 to 850 in 2014. this is clearly a response to the huge pressure on academics to publish, and to publish quickly, in order to meet performance and promotion targets. as long as universities judge academics primarily on their journal publications, the issue of whose work gets published and by which publishers, will remain contested. in the first article of this issue, du preez, ramrathran, and le grange show that it is not only who is published but who is cited that matters. in their meta-analysis of the citations of articles published in the journal indilinga: african journal of indigenous knowledge systems from 2008 to 2017 they show that while most of the authors are south african, most of the citations are of scholars of what they call international knowledge in their eschewing of the term global north. they surmise that it will take time for the work of (south) african scholars to permeate the field sufficiently to be cited. i would argue that this process could happen more quickly if (south) african scholars publish in high quality open-access journals, so that their work becomes more accessible to all and is not hidden behind pay-walls. however, the challenge is that prestigious journals in particular fields of scholarship are often not open-access. debates about decolonisation and the hegemony of international knowledge have been a strong focus in the journal of education this year. the saera special conference issue (no. 72) has decolonisation as its theme, and the curriculum studies special interest group has edited a special issue (no. 74) in the same vein. the next article in this issue also focuses on indigenous knowledge but from a curriculum perspective. botha puts forward a conceptual argument that the majority of learners in south africa will not achieve success in schooling as long as the curriculum continues to be based on western epistemological and ontological assumptions. he argues that we need to diversify the epistemological foundations of educational systems in south africa and in africa in general. in his paper, he expands on his suggestion that the notion of an historical epistemology together with expansive learning and cultural-historical activity theory (chat) may offer useful conceptual and methodological bertram: editorial 3 tools in this regard. he suggests a networked-relational model of learning which has relationships as a key component of its epistemology. the importance of relationships and real engagement in pedagogy is not new; john dewey argued that education is a social and interactive process in which learners should be able to engage with and experience the curriculum. the current obsession with the measurement of learner achievement and bureaucratic box-ticking for teachers, not to mention large classes, are barriers to these interactive and engaged learning processes. the following two articles also focus on schools, but in more empirical ways. both present the perspectives of people whose voices are not often heard in schools. bayat and fataar provide detailed insight into the working lives of three administrative clerks in three primary schools in western cape. while administrators are essential to the smooth running of any school, their account indicates that their voices are often not taken seriously by teachers nor by the principal. drawing on both observation and interviews in a rich and substantive way, the authors show how the three administrators use their agency to make choices that insert them into more agentic, and, therefore, more powerful positions. the final article shifts to a setting of three secondary schools in rural kwazulu-natal, where wassermann, maposa, and mahlongo asked grade 10 learners why they did not choose history as a subject for the senior certificate. do the learners say that they chose science and commerce subjects because the history that is taught is too eurocentric? no! the reason they do not choose history is because they believe that it has no economic power to get them bursaries for further study. their major concern is getting out of their rural area and finding work in a city, and the subject of history has no role to play in their realising this vision. schooling is understood as providing a utilitarian step to work and an income, and there is little engagement with the civic or intellectual purposes that history serves. as the authors note, the proposal of the ministerial task team (2018) to make history compulsory in the further education and training phase will not be accepted happily by these learners. there is a disjuncture between the task teams’ understanding of the civic and nation-building role that history should play and the way in which the learners, and the significant adults in their lives, understand the purpose of learning history at school. to end the issue on an historical note, we are pleased to have a review by peter kallaway of linda chisholm’s book, between worlds: german missionaries and the transition to bantu education in south africa. references academy of science south africa. (2018). twelve years later: second assaf report on research publishing in and from south africa. journal of education, 2020 issue 81, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x editorial wayne hugo hugow@ukzn.ac.za teacher education is a generative mechanism that has produced, and is currently producing, “designated consequences for designated parts of the social structure” (merton, 1968, p. 43). a key function of research in education is to establish how this mechanism of teacher education came into being, came to have certain powers and failures, and is currently operating. the collection of articles in this issue helps us, to some extent, to picture teacher education as a generative mechanism. the key historical work that provides a background to this endeavour is teacher preparation in south africa: history, policy, and future direction (chisholm, 2019). in this book, the exceptional linda chisholm provides a detailed analysis of how the institutionalisation of teacher education, working within a framework of systemic oppression, produced colonised racialised teachers who, in turn, subjected their learners to colonial race-, class-, and genderbased dynamics. johannes seroto’s “the othering of teacher training in lebowa buntustan: a historical perspective” adds to this growing area of research and shows how african teachers were othered from economic, educational, political, and technological power through the bantustan policy and that this othering was interconnected. for african teachers to be inferior, subjugated, and marginalised, they needed to be spatially isolated; they had to receive a segregated, racialised, gendered, and inferior curriculum. seroto uses the archives to build a picture of how the teacher training colleges of lebowa (like dr c. n. phatudi, kwena moloto, mamokgalake chuene, modjadji, mokopane, and sekhukhune) functioned, and i would like to frame his paper visually for you. here is the sekhukhune teachers college in 2020 as shown on google earth. 2 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 it is now the nchabeleng campus of the sekhukhune tvet college. we can see at once that it is in a desolate area without much cover or protection from the elements, and little surrounding infrastructure. here is a wide angle shot that shows the college in the context of the surrounding community. it is separated from the community whose members live in dispersed settlements that track the mohlaletsi river, caught in the rain shadow of the leolo mountains. mr legodi, head of the practical subjects department, was interviewed about the history of the college by the south african institute for distance education (saide) in 2000. sekhukhune college of education is where it is today because the two local chiefs were at loggerheads. they both demanded that the boarding school, which was hugo:editorial 3 converted into a college of education, be erected on their lands. the mediator offered his farm, which was some kilometres away from both chiefs’ land. the farm was a distance away from the villages of ga-nchabeleng. the road to the college is not in good condition, and there is a huge transport problem. many students prefer to walk long distance to the college to minimise costs. this has very strong limitations because they often miss classes when it is raining. during the rain, the road conditions are in a poor state and are dangerous (p. 6). massive opportunity costs are incurred and great inefficiency results when key infrastructural projects are built on such a basis. and sekhukhune college is not one isolated example; most of the colleges were built in open fields without proper infrastructure or a reasonable degree of accessibility. mr legodi explained why there were so many teacher education colleges. he said, the northern province had too many primary and secondary schools, but not enough teaching staff. each region thought that having a college would solve the problem. at first, teaching as a profession guaranteed many people with professional jobs. but unfortunately, the colleges did not limit the number of teachers, so currently there is an enormous over supply of teachers in the province. this situation leaves approximately 8,000 teachers unemployed (saide, 2000, p. 5). the college was closed down, abandoned, and left to rot for over a decade before the community was finally able to convince local government to convert it into a tvet college campus with residences. a wider angle shot gives even more context. 4 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 in this picture we can see the old sekhukhune college of education on the top left, and, on the middle right, the cn phatudi campus (also an old college of education). 1 the dirty grey line running through the middle is the eastern limb of the bushveld igneous complex, which is one of the richest resources of minerals in the world, currently being mined out by huge consortiums of historically white and currently international mining operations, operating in an area of stark actually lived poverty. seroto’s paper speaks powerfully about this context in which the resources of south africa are unequally distributed with white, well-resourced, beautiful colleges of education progressively churning out wellqualified and trained teachers and black colleges of education struggling in a world of pain, exploitation, and built-in inefficiencies. one response of the post-apartheid state has been to use the taxes generated from extractive industries to fund access to higher education for students from areas such as the old sekhukhuneland though initiatives such as the national student financial aid scheme (nsfas). unlike during the apartheid era, when one of the only access points to higher education was teacher colleges, nsfas enables deserving students from poor and workingclass backgrounds to access the full range of further and higher education possibilities. angelique wildschut, ebenezer megbowon, and amanda miselo provide a statistical analysis of the relationship between student funding and academic performance at wits university and at rhodes with a dataset of 29,619 students registered in the 2018 academic year. it is a vital relationship, given that over a 100 billion rand is allocated to assist almost 3 million students obtain their qualifications from universities and tvet colleges, and not just any kind of student, but students from disadvantaged backgrounds. we all have built-in statistical inference capabilities; we live in a world in which we make predictions and then adjust our beliefs and actions based on the results thereof, so i want to start with some of the intuitive predictions i made about the nsfas students as i began to read the paper, and then update my understanding according to what wildschut, megbowon, and miselo found. regarding the role played in academic performance by the age of the student, especially a nsfas student, i predicted, given my own experience, that older students respond more maturely and have better self-regulation skills than younger students. i guessed that the older students in a class would do better on average than younger students. wildschut et al.’s analysis shows that, at least at wits and rhodes for the 2018 cohort, younger students are performing better than older ones. 1 i have taken this snapshot with a precise centre at dsjate, the site of the capital of sekhukhuneland with the fighting hill of thaba mosega, where sekhukhune successfully defended against boer and british invasions, until his final defeat in 1879. hugo:editorial 5 i predicted that the gender of a student would play a role in academic performance and that female students, given my experience, perform much better than male students, and this was confirmed by the statistical analysis. wildschut et al. go on to discuss how male students tend to enter higher education later than female students and how this could be one of the reasons behind younger students performing better than older ones. i predicted that fulltime students would do better than part time students given my own experience of both; this informed prediction proved correct. i predicted that science, engineering, and technology (s, e & t) students would perform less well than business and commerce (b & c) students. i based my prediction on the notion that s, e & t involves mathematics and hierarchical learning. which requires a sound knowledge of some basics while b & c subjects are easier to understand and often involve more rote learning. my prediction was hopelessly incorrect. students doing b & c modules had the lowest marks and s, e & t the highest. it threw me into confusion, especially as i had thought there were far more men doing s, e & t modules. i predicted that the year of study would affect academic performance and that by third year students would be managing better than they did in first year. wildschut et al. bear out this assumption. i predicted that nsfas students would not perform as well as self-funded and other funded students. in my experience the stereotyped young white middle-class student with lots of family support, a long history of privileged schooling, being home speakers of the language of instruction, and having enough time and space to engage with the rigours of higher learning would do far better. given the stereotype of a nsfas-funded student being young and black from a rural or peri urban township area, being often the first person in the family to break through into higher education, having a home language that is not the language of instruction at the university, and having had a long experience of disadvantaged schooling, i predicted much less success. however, the issue is not whether nsfas students are performing less well than self-funded students, but the extent to which nsfas has helped bridge the gap between historically disadvantaged and advantaged students. the statistical analysis by wildschut et al. helps us to start answering this question these are both fairly crude stereotypes; they are dangerous and useful at the same time, so it was with great pleasure that i read sarita ramsaroop and nadine petersen’s paper in which they use portraiture research. they developed six personas in their first-year cohort of primary school teacher education students at the university of johannesburg who shared some basic similarities based on two qualitative questionnaires. content analysis combined with information about the students’ demographic classification, their socio-economic situation, their geographic home background/origins, any financial support for university studies and current living 6 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 conditions, home language, whether or not they were first-generation students, family expectations, their first experiences of social integration at the institution, and current challenges helped these researchers to create these personas. nkososana is a young female student from an impoverished rural area; lerumo is a male student from a rural background; zunaid is a male student from a middle-class urban background; thabo is an urban male from a low socio-economic background; laura is an urban female from a middle-class background; and lydia is an impoverished urbanite. the crux of the article is a discussion of how these different personas dealt with first-year issues like being scared at first about making friends, having poverty and hunger intersect with academic success, and struggling with english and academic discourse at university level. creating these personas from their insights based on the racial, gendered, and classed background of their students helped these lecturers to examine their own practices in relation to these personalised and individualised details. each of these personas necessarily had very different experiences of schooling in the 12 or more years they spent as learners, and these experiences will have structured deeply how they view themselves as teachers. lortie (1975) calls this the “apprenticeship of observation” since student teachers at university have already observed teachers for most of their lives. unlike doctors who have to familiarise themselves with a hospital, and lawyers with a court room, student teachers have grown up, to a large extent, in their future place of work. if you ask a first-year student teacher if she or he can go out and teach immediately, many of them think they could. we know from work done on the brain that we have mirror neurons that fire continuously when we watch other people do things, and this lays down neuronal pathways that enable us, as observers, to copy an action far more quickly and easily than someone who has not observed the action. our young teacher education students come to university with years and years of observation that lay down well-established neuronal paths that should make teaching much easier, but what happens if the kind of pedagogy expected by the university is all about learner-centred, constructivist, open-ended, creative exploration and all the student has experienced is teacher-centred, positivist teaching along with rote learning and copying down notes from the textbook? carolina botha not only asks this and related questions in her fascinating article, “the impact of the apprenticeship of observation on pre-service teachers’ perceptions of teaching” but also suggests using schlossberg’s transition theory as an analytical tool to help us think through how to acknowledge, challenge, and disrupt the deeply rooted experiences of teaching already embodied in our young students when they enter a higher education teacher education programme. one way to disrupt unsuitable teaching models built up through years of inadequate schooling is to get the students in their first year to actively participate in, and enact, more suitable pedagogies. moeniera moosa and laura dison tried this form of disruption at wits university with their first-year students, using bandura’s social learning theory. students were put into groups and tasked with producing a physical artefact that materially symbolised their conceptions of teacher identity in south africa. they had to interact, discuss, argue, construct, write individual reflections, and generally participate in a type of learning that might have been very foreign to them at school. the examples of what the student groups came up with, ranging from fledglin enabling learners to graduate into the world of professions. the issue of our education students arriving at university with huge gaps and wounds based on racial, class, and gendered forms of discrimination, and embodied understandings of what teaching is observation, makes it vital that we ask what our students and teachers are able to do and be (their functioning), and what opportunities they have to realise and achiev possibilities (capabilities). edwin darrell de klerk and emma pricilla barnett from sol plaatje university in kimberley provide a sustained meditation on what current spaces there are for teachers to enhance their own autonomy self. their opening epigram catches knowledge is like a garden: if it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested this is a coming-of-age story many of the insights in the paper when i was head of department at a school, the principal usually approached all staff members to attend development courses offered by the south african department of education (sadoe) in a location far from our school. teachers wo and my hand would frequently rise to indicate my willingness to attend staff development courses such as curriculum changes and planning, assessment methods, and remedial work, among others. on return from such workshops, i committed myself to train the teachers at school so that they could obtain the knowledge i acquired during these staff development sessions. i would then convince our principal construct, write individual reflections, and generally participate in a type of learning that might have been very foreign to them at school. these researchers provides charming examples of what the student groups came up with, ranging from fledgling owls to teachers enabling learners to graduate into the world of professions. the issue of our education students arriving at university with huge gaps and wounds based on racial, class, and gendered forms of discrimination, and also having very diffe embodied understandings of what teaching is, based on their own apprenticeships of observation, makes it vital that we ask what our students and teachers are able to do and be (their functioning), and what opportunities they have to realise and achieve their own possibilities (capabilities). edwin darrell de klerk and emma pricilla barnett from sol plaatje university in kimberley provide a sustained meditation on what current spaces there are for teachers to enhance their own autonomy actively through self-attention and care of the self. their opening epigram catches this well. is like a garden: if it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested in part, with de klerk giving his own account that e insights in the paper. when i was head of department at a school, the principal usually approached all staff members to attend development courses offered by the south african department of education (sadoe) in a location far from our school. teachers would not be willing and my hand would frequently rise to indicate my willingness to attend staff development courses such as curriculum changes and planning, assessment methods, and remedial work, among others. on return from such workshops, i committed elf to train the teachers at school so that they could obtain the knowledge i acquired during these staff development sessions. i would then convince our principal hugo:editorial 7 construct, write individual reflections, and generally participate in a type of learning that provides charming g owls to teachers the issue of our education students arriving at university with huge gaps and wounds based very different based on their own apprenticeships of observation, makes it vital that we ask what our students and teachers are able to do and be e their own possibilities (capabilities). edwin darrell de klerk and emma pricilla barnett from sol plaatje university in kimberley provide a sustained meditation on what current spaces there attention and care of the is like a garden: if it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested giving his own account that refers to when i was head of department at a school, the principal usually approached all staff members to attend development courses offered by the south african department of uld not be willing and my hand would frequently rise to indicate my willingness to attend staff development courses such as curriculum changes and planning, assessment methods, and remedial work, among others. on return from such workshops, i committed elf to train the teachers at school so that they could obtain the knowledge i acquired during these staff development sessions. i would then convince our principal 8 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 to invite teachers from the surrounding schools for training sessions and would afford my colleagues opportunities to take charge of presentations and skills development. upon reflecting, i regarded my commitment to my work as valuable to me and i realised how independently i acted and how i contributed to the capacitation of colleagues so that they could also act in an autonomous way. what is commendable about this account is how these researchers demonstrate the ways in which they exercise agency, how they show what self-attention means and what it can lead to, and how this contributes to teachers’ self-constitution and self-empowerment as they learn to become worthwhile school leaders and academics. how academics come of age, and how our learners come of age, are, of course, two very different trajectories. our learners have to negotiate exceptionally complex sexual dynamics in south africa, and to help them stand up in this space, the department of basic education (dbe) has issued a set of detailed comprehensive sexuality education (cse) scripted lesson plans. the dbe (2019) maintains that cse is a holistic value-driven strategy meant to prepare learners to make conscious, healthy decisions about their relationships and sexuality, rather than sexualise them and encourage them into enacting inappropriate behaviour. lindokuhle ubisi, from the university of pretoria, investigates how south african media made sense of cse. his article makes for captivating reading. defendants of cse argued that parents were not doing enough at home, that youth and principals were demanding such interventions, and that cse has been a part of the life orientation curriculum for years anyway. those against worried that the quality of cse would be marred in being taught by teachers who are often ill-equipped and embarrassed. (guidance counsellors are often not attached to schools.) some teachers push for complete abstinence from any kind of sexual practice until marriage while others argue that cse is a neo-colonial western plot to corrupt and poison the minds of children by introducing them to non-african values. but of great interest is a third category that ubisi found in the more neutral and ambivalent responses of news article readers who tried to be either balanced or who were simply trying to assist in the crisis. two extracts here will serve to illustrate this response to cse. sapphire primary school principal bruce damons said he has “ambivalent feelings” as he is afraid that learners in his school are sexually active from a very age in his community. . . to save a life on the one hand [making condoms and cse available to learners] makes sense. on the other side, will it encourage promiscuity? (van rooyen, the herald, may 16, 2015, p. 5). and the principal has tried everything to deter pupils from engaging in early sex: sex education lessons—part of life orientation classes—help from adults like female police officers and nurses; talks and assistance from ngos, religious groups, parents and even officials from the department of education (sokutu, citizen, october 23, 2019, p. 3). hugo:editorial 9 i have left for last the answer that devika naidoo and mbali mabaso give to the question: “what opportunities for deep conceptual learning and cognitive advance are provided in business studies classrooms?” the short answer is that in some schools this is not much, but it is how naidoo and mabaso go about giving the long answer that the value in this paper becomes apparent. there is recent alignment of educational theorising about the importance of knowing how to use the concepts and content of a subject learning area to make inferences and judgements to enable deep learning to take place. philosophers like robert brandom (1994, 2000, 2008) point to the importance of inference, while educational sociologists like barrett and rata (2014) in their edited collection, hoadley (2018), and muller (2000) all point to the importance of understanding the specific conceptual structure and content of different subjects while winch (2017) looks at the key role of inference in teacher education. there is a huge and growing amount of literature on this issue so it is useful to have someone produce a simple model with three or four steps. graham mcphail (2020) from the university of auckland has produced such a model, called the curriculum design coherence model, and naidoo and mabaso have used it to analyse business studies pedagogic practices in four schools. (you can watch mcphail set out his model here: https://www.bera.ac.uk/media/curriculum-design-for-deeplearning) i leave you to read and make sense of naidoo and mabaso’s superb paper, but here is a little encouragement from what is currently being aligned in relation to this area. cognitive psychology is aflame right now with work on predictive processing and the embodied mind that looks at how our mind/brains are “prediction-driven, uncertainty sensitive, machinery” (clark, 2016, p. xiv). i tried to enact a little of this in this editorial where i spoke about my own inferences and predictions about the nsfas students. the whole world of probability-driven inference is being used in artificial intelligence, new forms of coding, big data, and deep learning. all of this is feeding into new innovations and exploitations in the education space. covid-19 has taken these trends and put them on supercharge, and at the centre of all these drives is the functioning heart of inference, with naidoo and mabaso providing us with a simple introduction to how it plays out in curriculum design and pedagogy. references brandom, r. (1994). making it explicit. harvard university press. brandom, r. (2000). articulating reasons. harvard university press. brandom, r. (2008). between saying and doing: towards an analytic pragmatism. cambridge university press. 10 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 clark, a. (2016). surfing uncertainty: prediction, action, and the embodied mind. oxford university press. barrett, b., & rata, e. (eds.). (2014). knowledge and the future of the curriculum. palgrave macmillan. chisholm, l. (2019) teacher preparation in south africa: history, policy, and future direction. emerald publishing limited. hoadley, u. (2017). pedagogy in poverty: lessons from the twenty years of curriculum reform in south africa. routledge. lortie, c. d. (1975). schoolteacher: a sociological study. university of chicago press. mcphail, g. (2020). the search for deep learning: a curriculum coherence model. journal of curriculum studies. https://doi.org/: 10.1080/00220272.2020.1748231 merton, r. k. (1968). social theory and social structure. the free press. muller, j. (2000). reclaiming knowledge: social theory, curriculum and education policy. routledge falmer. saide (2000). investigation into further education and training and higher education opportunities in three districts in the northern province. available at https://www.saide.org.za/resources/kellogg%20rural%20development/fet%20and %20he%20investigation%202.pdf winch, c. (2017). teachers’ know-how: a philosophical investigation. wiley blackwell. journal of education, 2017 issue 70, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe/index attributes for the field of practice of the administrator and office manager shairn hollis-turner cape peninsula u niversity of t echnology hollis-turners@ cput.ac.za (received 30 august 2016; accepted 28 november 2017) abstract t he arrangements for the curriculum for administration studies are based mainly on the work of the administrator in support of people in different professions, industries, and contexts. t he research objectives on which this study focused, aimed to identify those attributes which are considered legitimate for carrying out office management work, and to establish the attributes required by graduates of the national diploma in o ffice m anagement to enter the field of practice. t he utilisation of the specialisation dimension of legitimation code t heory (m aton, 2014) enabled the identification of the attributes required for graduates to function effectively in the workplace. a delphi approach comprising three rounds of surveys was utilised and distributed to employers, academics and graduates. a survey was also distributed to third year and alumni students. t he findings show that the employers and practitioners have strong consensus on the generic qualities such as self-management, participating in team work, having honesty and integrity and applicable attitudes and conduct for graduates entering the field of practice. t his is significant as these attributes are considered legitimate for the expected identity of administrators and office managers in future professional practices. introduction different names are attributed to administrators such as ‘secretaries’, ‘office managers’, ‘data processors’, ‘typists’ or ‘personal assistants’, which are dependent on the kind of work they are expected to do. curricular arrangements for office administration studies are largely founded on the work of administrators in support of individuals in a range of different contexts, industries and professions. training programmes for secretarial and office workers have been strongly swayed by prevailing thinking about administration, namely, that such work is repetitive and unskilled. there is a significant lack of attention paid to the work and training of secretaries and administrators (truss, alfes, shantz & rosewarne, 2013). during world war i, the need for secretarial training arose when young women entered the workplace as typists. the general practice for young women interested in a career in administration was to complete their schooling and then to enrol in specialist secretarial training colleges. many secretaries and clerical workers also received on-the-job training in the workplace (waymark, 1997). since administrative work was deemed routine, training colleges developed arbitrary programmes of single subjects and only equipped individuals for basic office work (waymark, 1997). training usually focused on the shorthand and typing skills essential for secretarial work. hollis-turner: attributes for the field of practice. . . 89 in the early twentieth century, many clerical workers favoured being called ‘secretaries’, as the term was distinct from the role of the stenographer, considered to be more mechanical work, and the term had connotations of a higher status (solberg, 2014). however, many employers considered administrative work to be ‘mechanical’, and their attention was on the secretaries’ abilities to convey or record communication by means of shorthand and typing. russon (1983) argued that the work of secretaries and administrators necessitated a high level of competence in language and in some instances, several languages, implicit and explicit communication, interpretations of communication, technical and business communication, and knowledge of the management of organisations. administrators and office managers are in charge of the administration of external and internal information flow and safeguarding the confidentiality of corporation information (biebuyck, 2006). thus, the innately social nature of the positions of office administrator and office manager are obvious; however, these attributes have not been widely recognised. it is evident that there are wide differences regarding the roles and attributes expected of secretaries and administrators. views range from kanter’s (1977, p.89) disparaging “office wife” to holten-møller and vikkelsø’s (2012) report of the role played by medical secretaries. it has been established that secretaries and administrators, while executing routine tasks, also need to have loyalty, the ability to work in a team and personal attributes of calmness, reliability, discretion and tact (waymark, 1997). research undertaken on business administration graduates who had completed an internship of six months in the workplace found that in addition to the disciplinary knowledge requirements of information and business administration, personal attributes of enthusiasm, adaptability, good listening and human relations skills, problem-solving and assertiveness skills are highly valued. interns should be able to work independently, have perseverance and be able to make decisions (hollis-turner, 2008). however, while these attributes are significant, they would fit practically any professional context as they are generic. stemming from the above, the research on which this article is based aimed to investigate what are considered legitimate attributes, values, knowledge and skills for the role of administrator to function effectively in the workplace. the principle of specialisation investigates what makes something or someone special, different and worthy of distinction (howard & maton, 2011). drawing on the principle of specialisation enables an investigation of what attributes, values, knowledge and skills should comprise the national diploma in office management (nd:om) curriculum. the research on which this paper is based found that the knowledge bases of the curriculum were information technology, communication, business administration and interpersonal skills in support of the efficient management of the administration of corporations (hollis-turner, 2015a). however, for the purpose of this paper the focus will be on those social attributes considered legitimate for administrators to function effectively in the dynamic workplace. the research on which this paper is based had the following objectives: 1)to determine what attributes are considered legitimate for the role of administrator to 90 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 function effectively in the workplace, and 2) to establish the attributes required by graduates of the national diploma in office management to enter future professional practices. literature review universities have for many centuries been known as sites for the promotion of academic engagement and for the development of rational and ethical reasoning. however, nel & neale-schutte (2013) point out that governments worldwide have become increasingly concerned about the role of higher education institutions to enhance the employability of graduates. this has resulted in increased pressure on higher education to improve the employability of graduates by ensuring that students’ learning experiences contribute to inculcating the knowledge, attributes and skills that will enable graduates to “perform successfully as citizens in the knowledge economy” (nel & neale-schutte, 2013, p.437). badat (2010) cautions that graduate attributes should be targeted at the holistic advancement of students and not only at training students for occupations in the knowledge economy. teichler (2009) describes the worldwide views of industry and employers as the focus on skills and disciplinary knowledge in higher education. he contends that this is imperative but insufficient for graduates to acquire employment. higher education should therefore focus more on the nurturing of “competences beyond systematic cognitive knowledge” (teichler, 2009, p.197). in this context, wheelahan and moodie (2011) assert that this assumed mismatch between the workplace and higher education, the fast pace of technological, economic and social changes and the pressures of the knowledge economy have promoted an emphasis on graduate attributes or generic competencies in higher education policy. for example, graduate attributes or generic competencies are referred to in various forms: key competencies (mayer committee, 1992), cross-field outcomes or critical skills (south african qualifications authority (saqa), 2000), capabilities (stephenson, 1998) or professional capabilities (walker, 2012) or generic graduate attributes (barrie, 2007). it also supports the question arising from the debate regarding the intent of higher education and the development of educated people who are employable and who can contribute to society (hager & holland, 2006). bosanquet, winchester-seeto and rowe (2010) reviewed the literature on the development of graduate attributes in higher education and contend that these appear to focus on four key arguments. these are the perception of education as a process of learning which is lifelong; graduate employability; the promotion of outcome measures to affirm the value of higher education, and the need for the preparation of students for a future which is uncertain and working for the social benefit of society (barnett, 2004; pitman & broomhall, 2009). this is a future which is highly complex comprising changeability, contestations and uncertainty (bosanquet et al., 2010). barnett (2006, p.50) contends that this uncertainty requires graduates to acquire “new knowledges, new adaptations and new skills”. the consequences of this uncertainty in the world is an immense challenge to education institutions (jackson, 2011b, p.11) as “change is exponential and we are currently helping to prepare students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that have not yet been invented in order to solve hollis-turner: attributes for the field of practice. . . 91 problems that we don’t know are problems yet”. higher education therefore has the task of preparing “the ground for forms of human being that are going to be able to withstand profound and incessant change” – graduates that are fit for a future life (barnett, 2006, p.51). the problem facing higher education is determining its role in preparing students for a changing world and whether higher education is about preparing students to acquire employment, inducting students into knowledge-based practices or whether learning should not merely be understood as the acquisition of skills and knowledge but instead as developing “human qualities and dispositions” (barnett, 2004, p.247). barnett (2004) further contends that the role of higher education is to prepare students for a future which is unknown. higher education is confronted by the challenge of how to ensure that graduates attain the understanding, knowledge, soft skills and personal attributes essential in the dynamic workplace (act inc., 2013). numerous reports investigating the role of higher education, such as the robbins report (1963), the dearing report (1997) in the uk, the report on employability skills for australian industry (curtis & mckenzie, 2002); and confederation of british industry (cbi) universities uk report (2009) all accentuate the task of higher education to prepare graduates for the challenges of a worldwide knowledge-based economy. slonimsky and shalem (2006, p.38) are of the opinion that academic practices include “both disciplined and disciplinary activities, involving specialised actions and operations, which promote the development of knowledge”. regardless of a student’s potential “if they do not have opportunities to participate in activities that develop specialised forms of knowledge and functioning and/or are not afforded sufficient opportunities of mediation by others experienced in those activities, they are unlikely to develop such forms of functioning” (slonimsky & shalem, 2006, p.49). their analysis of a course which builds epistemic access effectively includes taking students through four aspects of activity in various ways and at various stages of engagement, thereby inducting them into knowledge-based practices (slonimsky and shalem, 2006) and building academic depth. the research on which this article is based contends that the role of higher education is rather about the growth of professionals with specialised expertise in a field of knowledge, and the personal attributes and skills necessary for the field of practice (hollis-turner, 2015b). dall’ alba and barnacle (2007, p.683) argue that “knowledge remains important” but the focus on the education of students should be “not what they know, but also who they are becoming”. jackson (2011a) argues that higher education needs to broaden its focus on cognitive development to assume a life-wide concept for education that may be described as contributing to the holistic development of a person. graduate attributes in this sense comprise a graduate’s totality of experiences, namely, cognitive, personal and social. the focus of higher education should rather support the self-actualisation of the student and not just the preparation of graduates for employability (jackson, 2011b). the south african council on higher education contends that one of the prerequisites for the enhancement of the curriculum is the advancement of graduate attributes not related to fundamental disciplinary learning, but to life skills and the foundation for critical citizenship. the report 92 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 notes that “there is strong interest in the concept of social responsiveness and how experience with it can be included in educational programmes, to foster cultural sensitivity and civic engagement” (council on higher education (che), 2013, p.96). the national diploma in office management falls within the area of the new professions as described by muller (2009). these comprise fields such as tourism, business studies, and information science. as a professionally oriented curriculum the diploma draws on applied disciplinary knowledge which comprises knowledge that has been “recontextualised for application in the field of practice, and then again recontextualised for curriculum” (wheelahan, 2010, p.157). wheelahan (2009, p.240) contends that professional curricula must include “learning in the workplace but that learning cannot be limited to the workplace”. she further asserts that it is imperative to provide students with opportunities to attain systematic disciplinary knowledge to allow them to advance the kind of thinking that arises from such engagement (wheelahan, 2010). this is the objective of the office management curriculum offered at a university of technology as it focuses on the training of graduates with critical office management knowledge and skills to take up positions of administrative and office management positions in the workplace and the future workplace. while similar programmes are offered at a further education and training college (fet) these focus on the training of graduates to take charge of all aspects of any administrative or secretarial position (hollis-turner, 2015b). theoretical framework the theoretical framework that underpins this article is that of legitimation code theory (lct), particularly the specialisation dimension since professional curricula are overtly about the establishment of a specific kind of knower or “projected identity” (bernstein 2000, p.55). lct extends principle concepts of bernstein and bourdieu. lct is a framework for investigating the structuring of practices and knowledge within intellectual and pedagogical fields (maton, 2000; moore & maton, 2001; maton & muller, 2007). lct offers insight into the “recontextualization of theoretical knowledge for vocational purposes” (shay, 2013, p.577), which comprise significant pedagogical and curriculum challenges. the specialisation dimension may be defined as “what makes someone or something different, special and worthy of distinction” (howard & maton, 2011, p.196). specialisation codes can differentiate the “epistemic relations (er) between practices and their object or focus; and social relations (sr) between practices and their subject, author or actor” (howard & maton, 2011, p.196). epistemic and social relations may be more strongly or weakly stressed in beliefs and practices and envisaged on x and y axes of a cartesian plane. specialisation codes focus on the questions of: “what can be legitimately described as knowledge (epistemic relations); and who can claim to be a legitimate knower (social relations)” (maton, 2014, p.29). maton (2014, p.75) contends that for “every educational knowledge structure there is also an educational knower structure” and lct aims to establish which of these is highlighted in practices and knowledge assertions. hollis-turner: attributes for the field of practice. . . 93 specialisation codes are defined as follows: knowledge codes (er+, sr-) where possession of specialised knowledge of specific objects of study is emphasised as the basis of achievement; and knower codes (er-, sr+), where specialised knowledge and objects are less significant and instead the attributes of actors are emphasised as measures of achievement. there are also élite codes (er+, sr+), where legitimacy is based on both possessing specialist knowledge and being the right kind of knower; and relativist codes (er-, sr-), where legitimacy is determined by neither specialist knowledge nor knower attributes (maton, 2014). refer to figure 1 below for the specialisation codes. figure 1: specialisation codes (m aton, 2014, p.30) a second level of analysis is utilised in the identification of different kinds of knower codes (maton, 2014). two kinds of social relations are distinquished, namely, subjective relations (subr) and interactional relations (ir). subjective relations is “between knowledge practices and ‘kinds of knowers’ ” (luckett & hunma, 2014, p.186) such as the gender, race, social class which are probable categories for describing knowers. interactional relations (ir) “between knowledge practices and ‘ways of knowing’ ” (luckett & hunma, 2014, p. 186) comprise relations with significant others such as interactions between mentor and mentee. both relations may be stronger or weaker, the variations of which generates four “gazes” (maton, 2014, p. 85). the concept of gazes builds on bernstein’s premise of the “acquired gaze” where a gaze was described as “a particular mode of recognising and realising what counts as an ‘authentic’. . .reality” (2000, p. 164). the four gazes comprise: ! the trained gaze which has weaker social and interactional relations and is acquired through training in “specialized principles or procedures” (maton, 2014, p. 95); 94 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 ! the cultivated gaze which has weaker social relations but stronger interactional relations where legitimacy arises of the knower’s dispositions that can be taught through prolonged exposure, such as an apprentice to that of a master; ! the social gaze which has stronger social relations and weaker interactional relations where the legitimate knower possesses a social gaze determined by their social category of race, gender etc., and ! the born gaze which has stronger social and interactional relations and illustrated by the legitimate knower possessing a “natural talent” (maton, 2014, p. 95). refer to figure 2 below for the social plane and gazes. figure 2. t he social plane – gazes ( m aton, 2014, p.186) this paper will focus on the social relations of the knower code which are evidence that the work of administrators and office managers involves the support of the work of others in the workplace. overview of the office management curriculum the national diploma in office management curriculum occupies a position within the field of business and management sciences. as a field of study office management can be defined as a type of vertical discourse with a horizontal knowledge structure (bernstein, 2000) which has soft or weak boundaries which differs from the more strongly classified disciplines such as law and the natural sciences. as a result, the field absorbs most of its concepts and practices from disciplines, such as the wider sphere of management practice (oswick, fleming & hanlon, 2011). hollis-turner: attributes for the field of practice. . . 95 the purpose of the diploma is the training of administrators and office managers who will provide the corporate sector with graduates proficient in administration, management and technology. this field of study aims to be responsive to the rapidly changing world of business and is driven by new technologies, new regions of work and the demands of globalisation (miller, 2010). it is a three year programme comprising 360 saqa credits including the major fields of study of information administration and business administration which is offered during the 1st, 2nd and 3rd years of study. communication is presented during the 1st and 2nd years of study, and each of the subjects of financial accounting, legal practice, mercantile law and personnel management are offered at 1st year level. a six-month internship period is offered during the 3rd year of study where graduates enter the workplace in the legal, tourism, medical, retail, education, financial, government, and local government fields (hollis-turner, 2015b). research methodology a multi-method approach included the views of graduates, employers and academics, and provided an opportunity for them to convey their own experiences, expectations, concerns and viewpoints in the research process. delphi is a recognised method used to gain the opinions of a diverse group of experts (powell, 2003) and to generate opportunities for the analysis of knowledge and learning from the experts as they honed their opinions and attained consensus. this allowed for the experts to refine their opinions over three rounds of surveys over a period of three years. the critical cross-field outcomes of the south african qualifications authority, nsb regulations (nkomo, 2000) and 13 personal attributes from the employability skills framework of the australian qualifications framework (bowman, 2010) were utilised. in response to feedback from the participants of the pilot study, the 13 personal attributes were modified to include additional personal attributes considered legitimate to the role of the administrator for the round three survey. the delphi panel comprised three types of experts, all of whom have workplace experience, namely, graduates, employers as business experts, and academics. the responses of the panel to each question on the survey were compared and analysed to determine the consensus scores of each individual group in addition to the average consensus ratings of the responses of the three expert groups. delphi participants were requested to include other attributes they considered legitimate to the role of the administrator and which were included in the next round of surveys. this allowed for the identification of what the delphi panel considered as the legitimate attributes required for the role of administrators and office managers. both quantitative and qualitative data were obtained from the delphi surveys, the reliability of which was attained through continuous verification throughout the process. the research project on which this paper is based extended the traditional opinion of the delphi method of ‘expert’ as the delphi panel included not only employers, but also graduates of the nd:om (hollis-turner, 2015b). purposive sampling was used for the 96 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 selection of the delphi panel experts which allowed for in-depth information to be acquired for a specific intention from a concerned group of participants (maree, 2007). fifteen graduates, twenty-three employers and fifteen academics consented to respond to three rounds of delphi surveys. the main performance areas assigned to graduates are determined by the culture and size of the organisation at which graduates are employed. therefore, strict selection criteria were followed to ensure that graduates and business experts were not all chosen from large organisations. graduates and employers had to be occupied in the major areas of education, tourism, government and local government, production, service and retail industries and medical fields and speak diverse south african first languages such as english, isixhosa, isizulu and afrikaans (hollis-turner, 2015b). the selection criteria for the delphi panel required that they were situated in the western cape. graduates had to have been employed for at least three years and be occupying office management practitioner and/or managerial positions. employers had to be operating in medium to high technological milieus locally and internationally. as co-operative partners of the higher education institution they had to be currently employing, or to have had employed office management graduates and/or third-year students as interns. academics had to have occupied a position in the workplace within the preceding two to four years and have participated in regular meetings with the business sector to remain up-to-date with the field of office administration and office management practices (hollis-turner, 2015b). in addition, a survey was disseminated to full-time and part-time third year om students and to alumni of the national diploma: om who were employed, and studying part-time for their baccalaureus technologiae (btech) degree. the survey intended to establish the attributes that graduates required to be effective in the workplace. the respondents included 113 students of whom 43% had completed the nd:om, were studying part-time for the btech degree, and were employed as administrative assistants, administrative supervisors, administrative managers, and store managers employed in wholesale, manufacturing, financial, hospitality, public administration, printing, marketing, education, and medical fields. the adherence to the selection criteria and the relevant ethical considerations for undertaking a research project, enabled participants to consider objectively current office management work practices to establish the attributes considered legitimate for the role of administrators and office managers. findings all the subjects offered in the curriculum include components of the knowledge code. those knower code subjects with stronger epistemic relations (er+) are the financial accounting, information administration, legal practice and mercantile law syllabi (hollis-turner, 2015b). however, for the purpose of this paper the responses of the delphi panel to the round three delphi survey as well as the feedback from the third year students and alumni on the hollis-turner: attributes for the field of practice. . . 97 stronger social attributes (sr+) of the knower code considered legitimate for the role of administrators are discussed. the findings comprising the average consensus ratings of the responses of the delphi panel to the critical cross-field outcomes and personal attributes of 50% and more are presented and analysed. a fourth column comprising a key of analysis is included to show those consensus ratings of the delphi panel which are aligned or non-aligned on the basis of a variance of 10% or more. in addition, the findings will be discussed to include the extent to which the students’ ways of knowing or doing, in other words, their gaze, correlates to a particular base. critical cross-field outcomes the delphi panel were asked to rate the critical cross-field outcomes which they considered legitimate to the role of administrators and office managers. the consensus ratings are as follows: the critical cross-field outcome which received the highest consensus rating was the ability to organise and manage oneself and one’s activities effectively (91%), comprising employer 90%, graduate 91% and academic 92% consensus. this was followed by the outcome to work effectively with others as a member of a team, group, organisation or community (75%) including employer 79%, graduate 75% and academic 71% consensus. these ratings of the delphi panel show alignment in value placed on these critical cross-field outcomes. this was supported by the the third year and alumni student surveys (71%) which rated team work as essential to success in their current workplace positions. research undertaken by lowden, hall, elliot and lewin (2011) regarding employers’ opinions of the employability skills of new graduates recognised team work as particularly relevant to workplace success. the critical outcome of multi-tasking was added to the round one survey by the delphi panel and received a consensus rating of 68%, comprising employer 63%, graduate 83% and academic 57% consensus. these were followed by the consensus ratings for self-motivation (68%), including employer 63%, graduate 75% and academic 65% consensus; and being able to work under stress (67%) comprising employer 53%, graduate 92% and academic 57% consensus. these findings show that the consensus ratings of the graduates were not aligned and were considerably higher than the ratings of the employers and academics. it is evident that the graduates’ considerations are linked to the physical activities in the workplace while those of the employers and academics, many of whom are managers and in senior positions, would be planning and scheduling workplace activities in order to avoid excessive multi-tasking and stressful situations. the delphi panel rated ccommunicating effectively using visual, mathematical and/or language skills in the modes of oral and/or written presentation (66%) comprising employer 68%, graduate 51% and academics 78% consensus. the third-year students and alumni (72%) rated communicating with colleagues at all levels essential to their roles as administrators in the workplace. one of the graduates commented that “it is important to be able to communicate with top-level executives”. however, the findings show significant non-alignment in that the academics had a considerably higher rate of consensus as opposed to the employers and graduates in this category. there is alignment for the significance of communicating effectively with the third-year students and alumni, and the academics 98 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 which suggests that within the diploma programme these areas are considered vital to the success of graduates. archer and davison (2008) researched employers’ opinions of the attributes of new graduates, at small, medium and large corporations with both uk and international distributions. the findings showed that regardless of the size of the corporation, employers judged attributes such as communication and team-working abilities to be the more important attributes, rather than a good degree qualification. to collect, analyse, organise and critically evaluate information (56%) with employers 53%, graduates 50% and academics 64% consensus. the attributes of life skills, behaviour and attitudes (56%) comprising employers 52%, graduates 51% and academics 64% consensus. these findings show non-alignment in that the academics have a higher consideration for the legitimacy of these attributes as opposed to the consensus ratings of the employers and graduates. this is evidence of the academics attempt to inculcate these attributes throughout the curriculum in preparation of graduates for the workplace which will be discussed in detail at a later stage. the data displayed in table 1 show that the employers in the workplace value team work more highly than communication, while the academics in higher education have an opposing view as they value communication more highly than team work. this is evidence of the varying prerequisites for success in higher education and the workplace and that the experts value different kinds of knowers. being able to embrace diversity in the workplace (53%) with employers 42%, graduates 75% and academics 42% consensus and shows the non-alignment of the consensus ratings of the graduates with those of the employers and academics. this suggests that the graduates, the majority of whom are younger than the academics and employers, regard this attribute as highly significant to their success and to their physical activities in the workplace. the consensus ratings of the ability to be compatible with company ethics (51%) comprised employers 52%, graduates 58% and academics 42%. this shows that the academics consensus ratings are non-aligned with those of the employers and graduates. since diversity in the workplace and ethics is included in the content of the subject, diversity management in the new diploma, this may account for the academics low rating since it was covered in the subject specific ratings by the delphi panel. it does appear though that ethics and issues of professionalism bring stronger social relations into the programme because of the spotlight on the knower, however these attributes are considered specialist knowledge required for the field of practice of office management and administration. the high ratings of the academics for attributes described above may be explained in that the diploma programme structure aims to cultivate knowers, alongside the disciplinary learning, with life skills such as organisational abilities and team work skills by incorporating team and group work projects requiring students to organise events, such as seminars, workshops and market days. students are required to collect, analyse, organise and critically evaluate information for presentation at these events and are required to display the behaviour and attitudes of office management practitioners. the diploma programme structure makes it possible for students to experience an immersion in and prolonged engagement in the field of communication theory and practice. oral hollis-turner: attributes for the field of practice. . . 99 presentations, group and peer feedback and reflective practices are some of the activities of the programme which aim for students to cultivate the gaze of reflexive office management and administrative practitioners. the weaker social relations but stronger interactional relations of the cultivated gaze is where the legitimacy arises of the knower’s dispositions that can be learned through prolonged exposure to interactions with academics, as well as with employers who visit as guest speakers and during job-shadowing and internship projects. the rest of the items received less than 50% consensus from the delphi panel. refer to table 1 for the consensus ratings of the critical cross-field outcomes. table 1: critical cross-field outcom es c ritical cross-field outcomes employer graduate a cademic c onsensus a lignment o rganise and manage oneself and one’s activities responsibly and effectively 90% 91% 92% 91% alignment w ork effectively with others as a member of a team, group, organisation, or community 79% 75% 71% 75% alignment m ulti-tasking 63% 83% 57% 68% n onalignment self-motivation 63% 75% 65% 68% n onalignment b eing able to work under stress 53% 92% 57% 67% n onalignment communicate effectively using visual, mathematical and/or language skills in the modes of oral and/or written presentation 68% 51% 78% 66% n onalignment collect, analyse, organise and critically evaluate information 53% 50% 64% 56% n onalignment life skills, behaviour and attitudes 52% 51% 64% 56% n onalignment b eing able to embrace diversity in the workplace 42% 75% 42% 53% n onalignment person to be compatible with company ethics 52% 58% 42% 51% n onalignment personal attributes the delphi panel rated the personal attributes which they considered legitimate to the role of administrators and office managers. the consensus ratings are as follows: having honesty and integrity (88%), including employer 79%, graduate 100% and academic 86% consensus. the attribute of being reliable (82%), comprising employer 74%, graduate 100% and academic 72% consensus. there is non-alignment of the consensus rating of the graduates as opposed to those of employers and academics with regard to the significance of these attributes. while both the employers and academics have high consensus ratings for these attributes, the findings show that the graduates consider honesty and reliability as highly significant to carrying out their administrative and management roles in the workplace. 100 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 the consensus rating for the attribute of being loyal and committed (74%), comprising employer 74%, graduate 92% and academic 57% consensus. the vast non-alignment of consensus ratings of the graduates opposed to the employers and academics is evidence that the graduates rated this attribute as essential to their success in the field of practice of office management and administration. the university of glasgow undertook research on employers’ opinions of the employability skills of new graduates which disclosed that in addition to transferable skills recognised by employers, the need for significant attitudes such as commitment, motivation and tenacity was also considered valuable for graduates entering the world of work (lowden et al., 2011). using one’s own intuition to think and work on one’s own (74%) was an attribute added to the round one survey by the delphi panel comprising employer 68%, graduate 67% and academic 86% consensus. graduates commented that ‘using your own intuition’ and ‘having self-confidence’ are important in the workplace. the ability to work independently was rated by 66% of the third-year students and alumni as essential requirements for positions in the workplace. the panel members added punctuality (68%) to the first list of personal attributes with employer 68%, graduate 58% and academic 79% consensus. the significance of these attributes to the academics is evident which will be further discussed at a later stage. there is non-alignment of the graduates’ consensus ratings with those of the employers and academics concerning the impact of punctuality on the role of administrator and office manager. the majority of the graduates on the panel did not hold senior or management positions and this may account for the non-alignment of the findings. the ratings for being motivated (63%) included employer 57%, graduate 59% and academic 72% consensus. the academics’ rating of this attribute shows non-alignment with the opinions of the employers and graduates. the consensus ratings for the attribute of being adaptable (61%) shows alignment of the delphi panel. the consensus ratings of the attributes of possessing common sense (59%) comprising employers 47%, graduates 66% and academics 64%, having self-confidence (58%) with employers 36%, graduates 66% and academics 71%, and dealing with pressure (57%) receiving employers 47%, graduates 66% and academics 57% are non-aligned. the employer consensus ratings for these attributes are significantly lower than those of the graduates and academics. this may be evidence of the employers’ expectations of graduates gaining these attributes with experience and exposure in the workplace while the graduates view these attributes as essential to their physical administrative roles in the workplace. this is supported by the consensus ratings of the graduates for the attributes of going the extra mile and doing more than what is expected (57%) with employers 52%, graduates 75% and academics 43%, and having a positive attitude (56%) comprising employers 52%, graduates 66% and academics 50%, which show higher ratings than those of the employers and academics. the consensus rating for the attribute of possessing a positive self-esteem (56%) is highly rated by the academics 71% and non-aligned with the employers 47% and the graduates 50%. the consensus ratings for the attribute of applying knowledge to new situations (53%) showing employers 51%, graduates 58% and academics 50% are aligned. the academics high consensus ratings included attributes such as using one’s own intuition, punctuality, having honesty and integrity, being reliable, motivated, having self-confidence, hollis-turner: attributes for the field of practice. . . 101 and a positive self-esteem`. this suggests that the academics see their role as growing professionals by preparing the graduate as a ‘whole person’ to take up positions in society and to empower graduates with attributes beyond core disciplinary learning. this higher consensus rating is evidence of attempts by academics to enhance the curriculum by promoting students’ critical thinking abilities and to work independently. the diploma programme structure encourages debate and critical thinking which aims to promote over a prolonged period confidence in what the students’ know and how they express themselves through opportunities for practice and interactions with academics, employers and peers. this immersion in the field of office management theory and practice aims to develop a “community of experience” and the “shared sensibilities or dispositions of knowers” (maton, 2014, p. 100). this emphasises the interactional relations (ir) over the subjective ones (subr) as a cultivated gaze. however, while the students as knowers are from different cultural backgrounds, have different genders or dispositions and so on, they are all involved in the field of office management and administrative practice. entry to this field of practice is therefore not restricted on the basis of students having specific attributes. the rest of the items received less than 50% consensus from the delphi panel. refer to table 2 for the consensus ratings for the personal attributes. table 2: personal attributes personal attributes employer g raduate a cademic c onsensus a lignment h aving honesty and integrity 79% 100% 86% 88% n on-alignment b eing reliable 74% 100% 72% 82% n on-alignment b eing loyal and committed 74% 92% 57% 74% n on-alignment u sing one’s own intuition: to think and work on one’s own 68% 67% 86% 74% n on-alignment punctuality 68% 58% 79% 68% n on-alignment b eing motivated 57% 59% 72% 63% n on-alignment b eing adaptable 57% 66% 59% 61% alignment possessing common-sense 47% 66% 64% 59% n on-alignment h aving self-confidence 36% 66% 71% 58% n on-alignment d ealing with pressure 47% 66% 57% 57% n on-alignment g o the extra mile and do more than what’s expected 52% 75% 43% 57% n on-alignment a positive attitude 52% 66% 50% 56% n on-alignment possessing a positive self-esteem 47% 50% 71% 56% n on-alignment applying knowledge to new situations 51% 58% 50% 53% alignment 102 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 conclusions while it is evident that the employers, graduates and academics value different kinds of knowers, the findings show some consensus about the legitimate attributes for the role of administrator and office manager in the workplace. the graduate of the diploma curriculum should acquire the attributes of honesty, integrity, reliability, loyalty, independence, punctuality, self-motivation, adaptability, common sense, self-confidence, going the extra mile, a positive attitude, self-esteem and the ability to apply knowledge to new situations. graduates should develop organisational and self-management attributes and should be able to work effectively with others in a team, be able to multi-task, work under pressure, communicate effectively, and collect, analyse, organise and critically evaluate information, acquire life skills, embrace diversity in the workplace, and be compatible with company ethics. the high consensus ratings of the delphi participants on the importance of critical cross-field outcomes and personal attributes emphasised the need for specific kinds of knowers for the role of administrators and office managers. this is significant as those attributes are considered legitimate for the expected identity of administrators and office managers in future professional practices. these findings support the notion of an ideal knower for the field of practice of office management and administration with a cultivated gaze. the stronger social qualities of the knower code identified by the experts are all general attributes that would be required in almost any profession. however, it is imperative for the office management and administrative graduate to be able to work across a wide range of areas in supportive administrative and management positions and such a person should therefore be a generalist. in the south african 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(2011). rethinking skills in vocational education and training: from competencies to capabilities. new south wales government: department of education & communities. http://www.bvet.nsw.gov.au/pdf/rethinking_skills.pdf [accessed: 17 march 2014]. understanding the contextual resources necessary for engaging in mathematical literacy assessment tasks sarah bansilal abstract mathematical literacy (ml) was introduced in south africa as a compulsory school subject for all learners who are not studying mathematics in grades 10 to 12. in an ml classroom, mathematical skills are used to explore the meaning and implications of information in context. in this article, the notion of context in ml is interrogated by identifying particular constructs that can be used to illuminate the focal events in a contextual setting. it is argued that each context constitutes a particular domain with specific contextual resources which set out the parameters of engagement with the focal event of the context. it is shown that the contextual resources often differ from the corresponding constructs in the mathematics domain. it is then argued that in order to fulfil the life-preparedness mandate of ml, the differential purposes of the mathematics and contextual domains needs to be acknowledged and the corresponding implications with respect to the nature of ml assessments needs to be considered by ml practitioners. introduction in south africa authorities have been concerned with the low rates of participation in mathematics in the further education and training band. for example in the period 2000 to 2005, as much as 40% of all learners writing the matric examination did not take mathematics as a subject (brombacher, 2010). in addition to the concern of learners not being exposed to mathematics past grade 9 level, there is also the issue of learners not developing mathematics literacy skills such as those described by the programme for international student assessment (pisa): an individual’s capacity to identify and understand the role that mathematics plays in the world, to make well-founded judgements and use and engage with mathematics in ways that meet the needs of that individual’s life as a constructive, concerned and reflective citizen (organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd), 2003, p.15). 46 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 the school subject mathematical literacy (ml) was introduced in an attempt to inculcate in learners a mathematical gaze on life-related issues (department of education (doe), 2003; 2007). the aim of ml is to provide learners with an awareness and understanding of the role that mathematics plays in the modern world [and to enable] learners to develop the ability and confidence to think numerically and spatially in order to interpret and critically analyse everyday situations and to solve problems (doe, 2003, p.9). there have been different interpretations of the subject ml in south africa, with many seeing it as a ‘watered down’ version of the real mathematics for those learners who cannot cope with studying the subject mathematics (child, 2012; jansen, 2011). these interpretations stem from a view that the purpose of ml is to learn more mathematics, which is not the intention. the curriculum documents clearly state: the competencies developed through mathematical literacy are those that are needed by individuals to make sense of, participate in and contribute to the twenty-first century world – a world characterised by numbers, numerically based arguments and data represented and misrepresented in a number of different ways. such competencies include the ability to reason, make decisions, solve problems, manage resources, interpret information [. . .] to name but a few (doe 2007, p.7). the subject ml is not about learning more mathematics but about developing skills that will enable them to participate in (and not be excluded from) situations that use numerically based arguments. thus ml demands a greater ‘real life’ authenticity than the usual mathematics classroom activities. in a mathematics classroom, contexts are used mainly to mediate the understanding of an abstract concept by using a concrete setting or to illustrate the applicability of mathematics in other settings. in an ml classroom, the contexts that are used are more authentic; for example, contexts in real life are selected (like billing systems of different cell phone providers) and it is intended that mathematical skills be used to explore the meaning and implications of the information in the context. by studying liferelated applications, there is an expectation that learners will not be intimidated by a world “drenched with data” and “awash with numbers” (orrill, 2001, p.xiv) and instead will seek to be more informed before they make decisions across various contexts. the context is the focus because the intention is that when learners encounter these contexts in their current or future lives, they will be able to make more informed decisions. venkat (2010, p.55) refers to this focus as a “life-preparation” option. bansilal: understanding to contextual resources. . . 47 one of the constraints to meeting this life-preparedness mandate in ml has been the form and structure of the assessment of learners’ competencies in the subject. the highest contribution to the assessment in ml is via examinations and tests. for example, the summative assessment in grade 12 for ml consists of two examination papers. learners’ performance in summative assessments may not necessarily imply a greater ability to critically analyse everyday situations using a mathematical gaze. in order to understand the various contexts, learners need more time and guidance in decoding and understanding the contextual settings. an examination setting cannot offer the space and time for this kind of engagement with the contexts. in this article i am concerned primarily with identifying some of the challenges involved in recognising and using information, language and reasoning that is specific to the contexts in which the assessment is set. the design of assessment tasks for ml (with its emphasis on real-life contexts) has created a new set of demands, previously not encountered in the usual mathematics tasks. my argument is success at these contextualised tasks, requires more than just the application of mathematics rules and skills to problems based on the context. i argue that ml tasks that promote a lifepreparedness orientation of ml require participation within two domains: the mathematics domain with its clearly articulated demands, rules and areas of application, and the contextual domains where these demands may sometimes not be so clearly articulated. in this article i first set out constructs that can be seen as characteristic of the mathematics domain using sfard’s (2008) commognition theory. i then draw on duranti and goodwin’s (1992) elaboration of a context to show that the contextual domain also consists of attributes particular to the context. by referring to previous ml assessment tasks i identify some of these contextual rules, visual mediators, and language and show how these are often different from the corresponding constructs in the mathematics domain. i then argue that in order to fulfil the life-preparedness mandate of ml, this differential nature of the two domains needs to be acknowledged, which has implications for the kinds of assessments that are prioritised in ml. 48 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 conceptual domains in mathematics it is useful to draw upon greeno’s notion of conceptual domains in order to provide a link between discourses in mathematics and discourses in ml. greeno (1991) describes a conceptual domain in mathematics as an environment with resources at various places in the domain (instead of the usual view of a subject matter domain as a structure of facts, concepts, principles, procedures, and phenomena that support the cognitive activities of knowing, understanding, and reasoning). knowing the domain means knowing one’s way around the environment and also includes the ability to recognise, find and use those resources productively (greeno, 1991). a conceptual domain in mathematics would be an environment within which discourses of mathematics operate. here i will draw upon sfard’s descriptions of signifiers, visual mediators, routines and narratives that can be seen as the tools and resources available in the mathematics domain. tools and resources of mathematics conceptual domains sfard (2008: p.xvii) introduces the term ‘commognition’, which is a combination of communication and cognition and emphasises “that interpersonal communication and individual thinking are two facets of the same phenomenon”. by communicating with other learners, an individual’s cognitive understanding is enhanced. brodie and berger (2010) explain that in sfard’s theory, mathematics as a discourse is characterised by the use of objects and signifiers, visual mediators, routines and narratives (sfard, 2007; brodie and berger, 2010). these constructs are the elemental structures of the mathematics discourse and can be seen as tools and resources available to participants. as newcomers communicate with more experienced participants, they begin to use the tools and resources of the domains more appropriately, and this enhances their participation as their practices become endorsed by the community. these constructs are explained in the paragraphs that follow. sfard (2008, p.302) describes a signifier as a primary object used in communication. routines entail the use of signifiers and narratives are often created around signifiers. a narrative is any “text, spoken or written that is framed as a description of objects or of relations between objects or activities with or by objects and that is subject to endorsement or rejection, that is, to being labelled true or false” (sfard, 2007, p.572). bansilal: understanding to contextual resources. . . 49 according to sfard (2007, p.177) “visual mediators are means with which participants of discourses identify the object of their talk and coordinate their communication”. an example of a visual mediator is a graph. sfard (2008, p.147) sees visual mediators as providing the image with which discursants identify the subject of their talk and coordinate their communication. routines are “well defined repetitive patterns in interlocuters’ actions, characteristic of a given discourse” (sfard, 2007, p.572). routines are not merely mathematical procedures, but include these. participation in the discourse is facilitated when interlocutors are able to consider both how and when routines are used. here i consider routines as including rules, formulae and procedures. the process of participating in a mathematics discourse involves creating narratives about objects, visual mediators and routines in a new discourse. brodie and berger (2010) explain that in sfard’s theory, mathematics as a discourse consists of sub-discourses which relate to each other in various ways. some are isomorphic; some subsume others while some are incommensurable. for example, the euclidean geometry discourse is incommensurable with the spherical geometry discourse because in euclidean geometry, for example, given a line and a point, it is always possible to draw a second line through the point which is parallel to the first line. however in spherical geometry the equivalent of a line is a great circle (or arc of a great circle), and any pair of great circles intersect at two points , so it is not possible to find a second line parallel to the first line as is the case with euclidean geometry. within the whole number discourse, the multiplication of two numbers will result in a larger number while this does not always hold in the discourse of rational numbers even though the rational number discourse subsumes the whole number discourse. flexible movement between sub-discourses is key to mathematical expertise. a conceptual domain can be seen as one in which a sub-discourse of mathematics operates e.g. circle geometry, or quadratic functions, or probability. contextual domains in mathematical literacy (ml) duranti and goodwin’s (1992) work on the meanings and role of educational contexts is of relevance here. the authors (duranti and goodwin, 1992, p.3) use the term focal event to identify the phenomenon being contextualised: when the issue of context is raised it is typically argued that the focal event cannot be properly understood, interpreted appropriately, or described in a relevant fashion, unless 50 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 one looks beyond the event itself to other phenomena (for example cultural setting, speech situation, shared background assumptions) within which the event is embedded, or alternatively that features of the talk itself invoke particular background assumptions relevant to the organisation of subsequent interaction. the context is thus a frame for the event being examined and provides resources for its appropriate interpretation. it involves two entities: a focal event and a field of action within which the event is being embedded (duranti and goodwin,1992). an important point is that because of its clearer structure the focal event often receives “the lion’s share of analytic attention” while methods for analysing “the more amorphous background of the context” are not given as much emphasis (p.10). the authors contend that the danger of such an approach is that the focal event may be viewed “as a self-contained entity that can be cut out from its surrounding context” effectively rendering the “context as irrelevant to the organisation of the focal event” (p.10). duranti and goodwin (1992, pp.6–8) identify four ‘attributes’ of educational contexts which are elaborated below in terms of how they relate to this study. (see also bansilal and debba, 2012). 1. contextual setting: this refers to the social and spatial setting within which the interactions take place (p.6). the contextual setting in ml refers to the particular context that is under discussion. 2. behavioural environment: this refers to the framing that establishes “the preconditions for coordinated social action by enabling participants” (p.7) to project what is about to happen. in other words, it sets the scene for the focal event. in this case, the behavioural environment refers to the pedagogic setting which could be examinations, projects, investigations or other assessment or classroom activities within which the contextual task is presented. 3. use of language: this refers to the ways “in which talk itself invokes context and provides context for other talk” (p.7). in this study we use the phrase ‘contextual language’ to refer to words or phrases that hold a particular meaning within the context. 4. extra-situational background knowledge: this refers to the background knowledge that extends beyond the immediate setting, which is necessary for an appropriate understanding of the focal event. in this bansilal: understanding to contextual resources. . . 51 based on this discussion, one may argue that a mathematics conceptual domain also has a1 focal event around which the narratives are created, depending upon the task at hand. hence a mathematics conceptual domain could be also be considered as one of the contextual domains of ml, where different contextual domains have different contextual resources. study we define four aspects of this contextual background knowledge that is pertinent to the study. these are contextual signifiers, contextual rules, contextual graphs and contextual reasoning. the elaboration of these attributes (or elements, or constructs) illustrates that the contextual language, signifiers, visual mediators and rules, are contextual resources and tools) that must be used in order to cast light on the focal event. assessment tasks are set around particular focal events of a context, and there could be different focal events arising from a common context, but these cannot be seen as self-contained entities. in order to cast light upon the focal event and understand the background of the surrounding context, it is essential to have access to these contextual attributes. similarly (to the notion of conceptual domain) we can describe a contextual domain in ml as the contextual setting which has its own tools and resources, including contextual language, contextual rules, contextual objects/signifiers and contextual visual mediators.the intention in a contextual domain is to use the contextual resources to cast light upon the focal event which cannot be interpreted without drawing upon the contextual resources embedded within the contextual setting, whereas in mathematics domains, the intention is to create new (or re-create existing) narratives using mathematics tools and resources. however contextual narratives are also created as part of the process of participating in the discourse operating in the contextual setting. in order to generate these narratives, a discursant needs to be able to understand and use the contextual rules, signifiers and contextual language, as well as engage in contextual reasoning which is the reasoning, arguments, assumptions, and justifications about issues arising in the context. 1 tools and resources of the contextual domain in this section i present examples of the contextual tools or resources drawn from studies and educational documents. i will show that these constructs frequently differ in meaning, form and function from those in a mathematics discourse. the resources that are considered are the contextual signifiers/ objects; contextual rules/procedures, contextual graphs and contextual 52 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 language. these are tools which are used to participate in the discourse but also act as resources for understanding the focal event under consideration. contextual signifiers and objects contextual signifiers and objects are the signifiers or objects used in the context to convey specific information, and which have a meaning that is bounded by the parameters of the context. i present two examples, inflation rate and infant mortality rate, taken from ml assessment tasks. inflation rate signifier in the context of inflation, the figures reported in the media each month as the ‘monthly inflation rate’ figures for the consumer price index (cpi) need to be examined in detail before they can be understood. for example, in order to understand the reported monthly inflation rate figure of 6.15% (march 2012), one needs to recognise that a percentage actually represents a comparison. it is essential to understand what is being compared and to differentiate the figure (percentage) from a whole number. the cpi is the average (weighted mean) cost of the ‘shopping basket’ of goods and services for a typical south african household. price movements on the goods comprising the basket are measured and the cpi is compiled using the price movements per product and their relative weight in the basket (bansilal, 2011). inflation rate figures are usually reported on a monthly basis. note that the monthly inflation rate refers to the year-on-year rate calculated on a monthly basis and is different from the month-on-month rate. 1the process can be represented simplistically as follows: if p represents the 0current average price level and p the price level a year ago, the rate of inflation during the past year is measured by 1(i ) = …………………………………… (1) 1taking 5.60 % as i , the monthly inflation rate for may 2013, this means that 0 1p and p represent the price levels in may 2012 and may 2013 respectively. a misunderstanding of what the inflation signifier represents may lead to students using the signifier as a whole number. however, in this situation the percentage denotes a relationship between the difference in the price levels bansilal: understanding to contextual resources. . . 53 1 0 0(p – p ) and the price level p . the specific quantity associated with a percentage depends on its base value, thus two percentages associated with different base values cannot be directly combined by addition or subtraction. infant mortality rate a second example of a contextual signifier is provided by a task on infant mortality rates used in the 2009 grade 12 kwazulu-natal ml trial examination paper (kwazulu-natal department of education (kzndoe), 2009). in the task, table 1 (reproduced below) with the statistics of infant mortality between 2004 and 2008 due to different illness was presented. table 1: statistics of infant mortality rates taken from kzndoe (2009) year polio measles hiv-aids hep.b 2004 2006 2008 2 1,8 1 1 1,2 1,1 5 3 3 0,8 0,9 1 the information identifying the meaning of infant mortality rate appeared in a block at the beginning of a question, amongst other details, and is reproduced in figure 1 below: figure 1: meaning of infant mortality rate between 2004 and 2008 research was conducted to assist the government in identifying causes of high infant mortality rate (i.e. the number of infant deaths during the first year of life per thousand live births). [other details included.] this meaning of infant mortality rate is complex. in order to answer the questions, learners needed to understand that, for example, the numeral 2 (2004, polio) from table 1 refers to the fact that two children out of every 1 000 children that were born (excluding stillborn) died of polio within their first year. these numerals have a specific meaning that is bound to the context, and is different from the way it is used in a whole number discourse for mathematics. these figures are not percentages or whole numbers and cannot be used as such. 54 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 contextual graphs the term contextual visual mediators refer to visual information presented in diagrammatic, graphical, pictorial or other non-textual representation. here i will just discuss contextual graphs. an example of a contextual graph is the widely used weight for age graphs. one example of this is the boys weightfor-age percentiles which is presented in figure 2 below. figure 2: boys’ weight-for-age chart (department of basic education (dobe), 2011, p.119) note that the way in which the percentile graphs are used here (fig. 2) is different from the way in which they are usually used in the mathematics classroom. here there are seven curves, showing a 95 , 90 , 75 , 50 , 25 ,th th th th th 10 and 5 centile plot, representing the fact that as a boy grows from 2 yearsth th to 8 years, 95% (5%) of the boys will have weight below the first (last) curve respectively. usually a percentile graph in a mathematics context is a snapshot at a particular time, for example consider the example in figure 3, taken from a textbook: bansilal: understanding to contextual resources. . . 55 figure 3: percentile plot of score obtained in a test (watkins, scheaffer and cobb, 2004, p.63) in this percentile graph (fig. 3) the point marked with a cross shows that 25% of the group got a mark less than 450 while 60% of the group got a mark below 550. a typical question that could be posed in a mathematics class is to compare the two cumulative percentile plots for different subjects and ask why the values on these graphs differed. another typical question could be to find the percentage of students who got a score below 350. however, in the contextual domain these charts serve a somewhat different purpose and the interpretations and use of them depend on the purpose. another example of the percentile plot is the weight for age chart (see fig. 4) that is used commonly in south african clinics, different from the one used in figure 2. a health worker may be concerned if the pattern of the weight of a particular child fell above the 97 or below the 3rd percentile curves, showingth that the child’s weight was very high or very low when compared to other children. the guidelines on the use of the charts specify the following: [if] the weights plotted of a 100 healthy children, the weight of 3 healthy children will fall above the 97 centile and the weight of 3 healthy children will fall below the 3 centile. if ath rd child’s weight does fall above the 97 or below the 3 centile it does not necessarily meanth rd that the child is overweight/underweight or sick, but rather the direction of the child’s growth that is important. however, if a child’s weight is near or below the 4 line or 60% ofth average weight, the child is likely to be seriously malnourished (department of health (doh), 2010, p.3). 56 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 figure 4: a typical weight for age chart, used in clinic in south africa in this context, the question that concerns the nurse would be whether the child’s weight for age graph lies out of the normal limits, the direction of the growth (whether the weight was changing too fast or too slowly) and whether hospitalisation was to be advised if it fell below the curve representing 60% of average weight. thus, in this situation, it is the spaces between the curves that are used to make interpretations, unlike the typical situation in mathematics where the points on the graph receive most attention. another example of a contextual graph appears below in figure 5 showing viral loads and cd4 counts over a period of 11 years. bansilal: understanding to contextual resources. . . 57 figure 5: graph showing the relationship between hiv copies (viral load) and cd4 counts over the average course of untreated hiv infected infections source: http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/a/aids.html the graph in figure 5 was used to show the relationship between hiv copies (viral load) and cd4 counts over the average course of untreated hiv infection. this graph uses measurements on three variables represented on three axes (cd count, viral load and time) – a situation that would not normally occur in a mathematics class. in a mathematics discourse at school level, graphs of functions are used to represent relationships between two variables, one of which is independent and one which is dependent. it is often the case that the formula depicting the relationship between the variables is provided and learners are asked to sketch a graph. sometimes the graph is given and learners may be asked to derive a formula to represent the relationship symbolically. the questions focus on identifying properties or using the properties of generic curves to solve problems. in the contextual domain, however, it is the visual information provided by the graph that is important. 58 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 contextual rules contextual rules are rules or procedures that are bound to the context and need to be interpreted by the learner. these rules are used for calculations in the context. below are two examples: the first is taken from bansilal, mkhwanazi and mahlabela (2012) while the second is taken from kzndoe (2009). figure 6: calculation of transfer duty of a house the formula that is used to calculate the transfer duty, payable by a new home owner, is as follows: ! for a purchase price of r0 to r500 000, the transfer duty is 0%. ! for a purchase price of r500 001 to r1 000 000, the transfer duty is 5% on the value above r500 000. ! for a purchase price of r1 000 001 and above, the transfer duty is r25 000 + 8% of the value above r1 000 000. this is a rule that must be followed in order to calculate how much transfer duty is payable by a new house owner. other examples of situations which utilise similar calculations are income tax, water bills and electricity bills. the costs that are payable are described in different levels and can be described as an example of a piecewise function, where each piece is defined by a separate rule or formula over a specified domain. the next example of contextual rules (fig. 7) is provided by a task that appeared in a provincial examination paper (kzndoe, 2009). bansilal: understanding to contextual resources. . . 59 figure 7: calculation of points for teams playing in the fifa world cup (kzndoe, 2009) 60 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 in the task, two contextual rules can be identified. the first is the fifa calculation formula and the second is the proposed fanatics formula, both of which are being used to calculate the number of points achieved by the different soccer teams. it is often the case that the contextual rule is given in verbal form, like the fifa points system. however, some contextual rules may require learners to translate the rules into mathematical language before solving the problems; for example the second rule in figure 7 may require one to write the subtraction and the percentage calculation using mathematical symbols. contextual language contextual language refers to specific terminology or phrases that carry a meaning in the context. for example, ‘200 free kilometres per day’ in car hire scenarios may refer to the situation where the contract allows one to drive up to 200km a day without incurring additional charges; ‘base occupancy’ in accommodation bookings refers to the number of people that can stay in the room/chalet without incurring additional fees; and ‘win by a margin of 2 or more’ in the context of soccer goals refers to the situation where the difference between the goals scored by the winning and the losing teams is 2 or more than 2. underlined phrases used in the contextual rule telephone billing such as “calls are charged per minute for the first 60 seconds and thereafter in increments of 30 seconds” are further examples of the use of contextual language. another example of contextual language is the use of the word ‘pizza’ as used in the problem in figure 8 figure 8: pizza problem pizza task at a restaurant at the waterfront in cape town, tourists have a choice of different pizzas: base toppings thick pineapple regular salami tuna mushroom if a tourist buys a pizza with three toppings, how many combinations are possible? (use any systematic counting method that you have learnt.) bansilal: understanding to contextual resources. . . 61 the question above requires the knowledge that a pizza is a meal that consists of a base which could be thick or regular, with toppings which are placed on the base. this would help them understand that they first needed to choose between the bases and then make a second choice of three toppings from the four that were available. if learners do not understand what a pizza is, they would be unable to move on to working out the number of possible combinations (using mathematical rules) (bansilal, 2008) discussion and concluding remarks in this paper i have argued that the ability to participate in contextual domains requires access to the contextual resources (signifiers, rules, graphs, language). these contextual resources are necessary in order to understand the focal event around which the assessment task is set. the stance that i take is that the identification and use of these resources are often different from the mathematics-specific resources. this description of the relationship between the context and content suggests two different possibilities for the design of contextualised tasks in ml. the first possibility is one in which the dominant discourse is that of mathematics. tasks that take this line pose questions that require the creation of narratives that are endorsed in the discourse of mathematics. such an approach would involve identifying the significant elements located in the discourse of the context, and using them in the discourse of mathematics. the contextual resources must now be used with objects, visual mediators and routines and narratives located in the mathematics domain in order to create a narrative that is endorsed in the discourse of mathematics. if that happens, then the elements of the two existing discourses together have been used to create a new discourse, which is commensurate with, recognised and endorsed in the mathematics domain. thus learners who are successful at such tasks will extend their understanding of mathematics. a second type of task is one that foregrounds the life-preparedness purpose of ml (venkat, 2010). a life-preparedness perspective of ml implies that learners must be able to engage with issues arising from these contexts, that is the contextual resources must be used to throw light upon the focal events under consideration so that if necessary informed decisions can be made. such an engagement could take on more serious issues such as whether a particular billing system is more affordable than another, or a more leisure62 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 oriented issue such as figuring out how soccer league tables work. if ml seeks to develop learners who are able to make informed decisions, then it implies that learners should firstly understand that there are different discourses associated with the different contexts. secondly, they need to access, use, interpret, and communicate with, the appropriate contextual resources that constitute the contextual discourse. the level of authentic engagement prescribed by a life-preparedness perspective requires that learners are able to participate fully in the contextual discourse, that is, they should be able to create narratives that can be endorsed by people who work with or understand the context in real life. learners should be able to choose between different options when deciding on purchases, recognise unfair advertising and make decisions about saving. they should be undaunted about entering and increasing their participation levels in these contextual domains. they should actively seek to ‘read the fine print’ in contracts, in order to understand and use the contextual recourses for their benefit. how can learners develop skills in recognising and using these contextual resources? should the ml teacher just present learners with a variety of contexts and hope by working with them they will gain such skills, or can such learning be scaffolded? one possibility may be to organise focal events of certain contexts according to commonalities in their contextual rules, visual mediators, language and signifiers. for example, the rule for transfer duties is similar to the one for income tax, since both are based on the notion of a piecewise function, with the income tax being more complicated with more ‘pieces’. perhaps by first working on calculations based on the transfer duty context learners may better understand the use of piecewise functions, thereby making the more complicated rule used in tax tables easier to understand. in such cases, the consistency in patterns of the contexts (greeno, 1998; peressini, borko, romagnano, knuth andwillis, 2004) may enable learners to use their experiences gained in one context, to work in another with a similar contextual resource. similar organisation may be possible in terms of graphs. many researchers (including myself) call for a greater use of real, authentic contexts in the ml classroom. does this mean that cleaned and simplified context should not be used in an ml classroom? on the contrary, cleaned contexts have an important role to play, as a starting point for a focus on particular contextual resources. the use of cleaned contexts can allow the teacher to shift the attention of the learner to a particular contextual resource, without having to deal with the noise from the authentic, uncleaned context. a teacher can design specific tasks set around the rules or visual mediators or bansilal: understanding to contextual resources. . . 63 signifiers of particular contexts and thereafter present the more complicated, uncleaned real-life context. it is hoped that this article has brought into focus the important role of task design in ml, since much of the learning of ml is dependant on the classroom tasks that the learners engage with. another issue arising from this study is the role of the mathematics domain when participating in the contextual domain. i have argued earlier that a mathematics conceptual domain can be seen as one of many ml contextual domains, within which learners need to increase their participation levels. curriculum developers should guard against making the mathematics domain the more dominant one, as this is contrary to the life-preparation perspective. another issue to consider is whether learners who are more skilled participants in the mathematics domain fare better in ml assessment tasks. certainly a person with a higher level of mathematical proficiency will have access to more mathematics resources than one who is not. for example, a person who is able to work with algebraic rules in an object-driven manner may be able to encode certain contextual rules by using algebra and thereby work more easily with the rule. some studies (bansilal et al., 2012; bansilal, 2011) suggest that for some contextual rules, learners who are able to use the rules in the more sophisticated object-driven manner, rather than the usual routine-driven manner, can solve more complex problems based on the focal event. in such cases the more sophisticated use of the routine may help learners to deal with more nuanced issues arising from the contextual domain. a further implication of this perspective is that assessments via examination setting do not necessarily encourage learners’ participation in contextual domains, and may in fact render these aims meaningless. research about learners’ engagement with assessment tasks based on contextual domains has provided examples of learners who are disadvantaged when they do not recognise the crucial information about the contextual resources (bansilal and wallace, 2008. a survey of some school examinations (debba, 2012; north, 2010) has indicated that many of the tasks require mathematically endorsed narratives. in order to create narratives that are endorsed in and appropriate to the contextual domain requires sustained engagement with the contextual resources. for learners to be able to use them productively, a more appropriate setting would be tasks that need extended periods of time, such as projects, assignments, presentations and debates, unlike the restricted setting of the 2or 3-hour examinations. 64 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 it is likely that the purposes of ml are compromised by the country’s fixation with assessment by examinations. i hope that i have demonstrated that, in order to make informed decisions, one needs space and time to engage with the context. this is limited in an examination setting. thus curriculum designers need to identify enabling conditions for an ml curriculum and assessment plan that can fulfil a life-preparedness orientation, rather than presenting ml as a watered down version of the real mathematics, by using pseudo-contexts to ask easy mathematics questions. references bansilal, s. 2008. assessing the validity of the grade 9 mathematics common tasks for assessment (cta). paper presented at the 5 conference of theth association of commonwealth examinations and accreditation bodies, pretoria. bansilal, s. 2011. unpacking mathematical literacy teachers’ understanding of the concept of inflation. african journal for research in science, mathematics and technology education, 15(2): pp.179–190. bansilal, s. and wallace, j. 2008. national performance assessment in a south african context: issues of classroom implementation and task design. african journal for research in science, mathematics and technology education,12: pp.77–92. bansilal, s. and debba, r. 2012. exploring the role of contextual attributes in a mathematical literacy assessment task, african journal for research in science, mathematics and technology education, 16(3): pp.302–316. bansilal, s., mkhwanazi, t.w. and mahlabela, p. 2012. mathematical literacy teachers’ engagement with contextual tasks based on personal finance. perspectives in education, 31(3): pp.100–111. brodie, k. and berger, m. 2010. towards a discursive framework for learner errors in mathematics, in mudaly, v. (ed.), proceedings of the eighteenth annual southern african association for research in mathematics, science and technology education (saarmste) conference. durban: saarmste, pp.169–181. bansilal: understanding to contextual resources. . . 65 brombacher, a. 2010. national senior certificate mathematics and mathematical literacy: a balance between dreams and realities. report presented at the national science and technology forum (nstf), proceedings of workshop on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem) education, april 2010, kwazulu-natal. child, k. 2012. we need to heal wounds to move forward. the times,7 june: p.15. debba, r. 2012. an exploration of the strategies used by grade 12 mathematical literacy learners when answering mathematical literacy examination questions based on a variety of real-life contexts. unpublished m.ed. dissertation. university of kwazulu-natal. department of basic education 2011. curriculum and assessment policy statement. further education and training phase. mathematical literacy. pretoria, south africa: dobe. department of education, 2003. national curriculum statement, grades 10–12 (general): mathematical literacy. pretoria, south africa: doe. department of education, 2007. national curriculum statement grades 10–12 (general). subject assessment guidelines. mathematical literacy. pretoria, south africa: government printers, doe. department of health, 2010. the road to health chart. retrieved november 11, 2010, from http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/factsheets/guidelines/health/healthchart.html duranti, a. and goodwin, c. 1992. rethinking contexts: language as an interactive phenomenon. cambridge: cambridge university press. greeno, j.g. 1991. number sense as situated knowing in a conceptual domain. journal for research in mathematics education, 22(3): pp.170–218. greeno, j.g. 1998. the situativity of knowing, learning and research. american psychologist, 53(1): pp.5–26. jansen, j. 2011.sinking deeper into mediocrity. the times, 23 february: p.15. http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/factsheets/guidelines/health/healthchart.html 66 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 kwazulu-natal department of education. 2009. grade 12 kzn mathematical literacy grade 12 trial examination paper 2. unpublished. north, m. 2010. how mathematically literate are the matriculants of 2008? a critical analysis of the 2008 grade 12 mathematical literacy examinations. conference paper: amesa 2010. organisation for economic co-operation and development, 2003. the pisa 2003 assessment framework: mathematics, reading, science and problem solving knowledge and skills, paris: oecd. retrieved september 5, 2010 from https://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/38/51/33707192.pdf. orrill, r. 2001. mathematics, numeracy and democracy. in steen, l.a. (ed.), mathematics and democracy. the case for quantitative literacy. usa: the woodrow wilson national fellowship foundation, pp.xiii-xx. peressini, d., borko, h., romagnano, l., knuth, e. and willis, c. 2004. a conceptual framework for learning to teach secondary mathematics: a situative perspective. educational studies in mathematics, 56: pp.67–96. sfard, a. 2007. when the rules of discourse change but nobody tells you: making sense of mathematics learning from a commognitive standpoint. journal for learning sciences,16(4): pp.567–615. sfard, a. 2008. thinking as communication: human development, the growth of discourses and mathematizing. new york: cambridge university press. venkat, h. 2010: exploring the nature and coherence of mathematical work in south african mathematical literacy classrooms, research in mathematics education, 12(1): pp.53–68. watkins, a.e., scheaffer, r.l. and cobb, g.w. 2004. statistics in action. understanding a world of data. emeryville, ca: key curriculum press. sarah bansilal school of education university of kwazulu-natal bansilals@ukzn.ac.za https://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/38/51/33707192.pdf microsoft word joe-issue71jun30.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 71, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i71a07 youth understanding of citizenship rights and responsibilities in lesotho: implications for civic education mantsejoa nthabiseng thakaso and julia preece mahlonithakaso@gmail.com julia preece (corresponding author) preecej@ukzn.ac.za http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3209-5935 university of kwazulu-natal (received 27 july 2017; accepted: 01 may 2018) abstract this paper reports on findings from a recent phd study that explored how young adults in lesotho understood and applied their citizenship rights and responsibilities. it aims to inform proposed revisions to the 1995 lesotho national youth policy that highlighted concerns that young adults are caught between the tensions of traditional values and their expectations of human rights that are internationally recognised and to which lesotho is a signatory. the focus in this paper is on exploring the extent to which basotho youth understood and behaved in relation to communitarian, civic republican, and cosmopolitan style citizenships. it also explores how and where youth learned their citizenship values with a view to recommending curriculum reform in the country’s nonformal youth programmes. in this qualitative study youth from three different groups were interviewed and invited to provide and discuss photos of their citizenship activities. recommendations included the need to develop a broader understanding of cosmopolitan and civic republican civic values and to include in a youth curriculum an opportunity to discuss intergenerational tensions that challenge how youth reconcile their human rights entitlements with traditional community responsibilities. keywords: citizenship curriculum; civic education; youth; lesotho introduction young people in all countries are regarded as both a major human resource for development and key agents for social change, economic development, and technological innovation (united nations, 2010). the united nation’s commitment to youth empowerment and participation has been reinforced by the commonwealth (commonwealth, 2013) and the united nations development programme (undp, 2014). since africa is reported to be the youngest continent in the world (united nations, 2010), this commitment is especially pertinent and is supported by the african union commission through its african youth charter (african union commission, 2006) which advocates that all african countries should 108 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 generate a national youth policy and programme. it is further supported by the new partnership for africa’s development (nepad) that launched a youth desk that provided youth with a platform for dialogue that enabled them to contribute to policy debates (united nations, 2010). this paper compares, briefly, youth policies in selected african countries with the lesotho policy before discussing the literature on learning citizenship, three core traditions or practices for citizenship, current civic education practices in lesotho, and citizenship curriculum content that is advocated in international civic education programmes. the empirical findings are then discussed in relation to the three citizenship practices, concluding with recommendations for a civic education curriculum for youth in lesotho. youth policies in africa in line with the auc recommendations there is evidence of youth policies across the continent. for example kenya’s policy was formulated in 2007, south africa’s in 2009, and uganda’s in 2004. the policies of these three countries, kenya, south africa, and uganda, clearly tabulate the rights of young people and also emphasise that these rights go hand in hand with responsibilities. for example, “the right to meaningful education” (government of kenya, gok, 2007, pp. 5–6), and the “right to participation in making decisions that affect their lives” (government of uganda, gou, 2004, p. 15), are aligned with responsibilities “to strengthen a culture of patriotic citizenship among young people and help them to become responsible adults who care for their families and others” (republic of south africa, rsa, 2009, p. 7). both the ugandan and kenyan documents make reference to patriotism, loyalty, and the promotion of the well-being of their countries. south africa, in particular, gives youth a right to partake fully in citizenship duties, including voting, decision-making processes and governance, and responsibility to “promote and advance their rights as they relate to themselves, other young people and fellow south africans in general” (rsa, 2009, p. 19). these three policies share some similarities with the lesotho national youth policy, which is discussed below. lesotho lesotho is classified as a low human developed country and ranks 161 out of 188 countries on the undp human development index (undp, 2014a). children and youth make up 63% of the population and more than half of the population is under the age of 18. compared with kenya, south africa, and uganda, lesotho’s policy documents are old and pre-date many of the international new millennium statements. national youth policy of lesotho (nypl) the ministry of youth gender, sports and recreation (mygsr) produced a national youth policy in 1995 (government of lesotho, gol, 1995). it includes the following statement. thakaso and preece: youth understanding of citizenship rights . . . 109 the youth should be perceived and serve as an instrument of social development. to this end, it should be aspired to having youth as good citizens, moulded by dynamic cultural and religious values, so that they can take their rightful place in society and fully participate in economic and socio-political development of peaceful lesotho through individual and coherent group self-motivation. (gol, 1995, p. 11) this emphasises the nation’s concern for good citizenship that is embedded in lesotho’s culture that advocates harmony and social cohesion. the policy recognises that young people experience problems that cause a conflict of expectations in lesotho society since there is a generation gap between young people and adults. it states that “as a result young people are caught up in a struggle for power and authority as they strive to be independent in a society which treats them as dependents” (gol, 1995, p. 7). the issue of youth being treated as dependents is not highlighted in the policies of the other three countries; this reflects a particular concern in lesotho regarding its relationship to the principles of a modern democracy. the lesotho youth policy also has as one of its objectives a commitment to education, ensuring that the type of education and training provided in the country is compatible with and responsive to the needs of the youth and, hence, of the nation as a whole. (gol, 1995, p. 12) the nypl was intended to be a guiding document to define a course of action for young adults to bring about changes in society. young adults are expected not only to adjust to these changes, but to meet, at the same time, their societal family expectations (gol, 1995). the nypl does not emphasise issues of rights and responsibilities in the same way as other national policies on the continent do. however, there are statements that implicitly refer to rights and responsibilities. the policy focus is on the issue of shifting values and traditions leading to cultural discontinuity (gol, 1995). for instance, the document refers to a shift from the culture of disciplining a child through physical punishment to recognising that this form of discipline is now regarded as child abuse. while the lesotho policy document stresses the need to build on traditional cultural values, all three countries mentioned above have the common vision of empowering youth socially, politically, and economically to be productive and active citizens. this concurs with the agenda of international organisations. in the context of those policies the issue of rights and responsibilities and participation in public decision-making are highlighted. for example, in the lesotho, ugandan, and kenyan policies, it is clearly elaborated that youth have a right to participate in making decisions that affect their lives. the lesotho youth policy articulates this concern as “encouraging free and safe participation of all youth irrespective of gender in the conduct of public affairs and protection of law and order to motivate them and make them feel independent” (gol, 1995, p. 14). the nypl stipulates that “youth organisations play an important role in the development of the young people to meet the demands made by society” (gol,1995, p. 10). youth in 110 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 lesotho become members of different clubs or organisations that are intended to help them address issues of concern to them. in this study, although one participant cohort was not selected on the basis of their membership of a specific organisation, it emerged that they all identified themselves as members of at least one organisation. it is currently unclear whether youth are fully aware that their rights are also associated with responsibilities, duties, and/or obligations. therefore, a deeper awareness of their understanding has a bearing on how civic education might be developed. although the nypl is very dated, it is only now that revisions are being considered. in view of these current initiatives, the findings of this well-timed study could be used to inform a more up-to-date policy document and a strategic plan. the following section focuses on how youth may learn about citizenship issues. learning about citizenship may take place formally, informally, or in non-formal settings. learning citizenship in a formal setting formal education, according to dib (1988), corresponds to a “systematic, organised model which is structured and administered according to a given set of laws and norms presenting a rather rigid curriculum” (p. 1). the lesotho schools do provide a non-examinable life skills education curriculum from primary to secondary level that currently reflects potential content that would be relevant to citizenship education. the life skills education programme (gol, 2007) general curriculum includes, among other things, • enhancing good relations with one another and with communities; • instilling good citizenship skills in learners; and • enhancing learners’ awareness of their rights and responsibilities as human beings. (p. vi) the programme also addresses some core life skills which are intended to equip youth with skills in decision making and problem solving, creative thinking, empathy, assertiveness, and self-esteem (gol, 2007). however, this curriculum is addressed minimally because schools concentrate on examinable subjects (thakaso, 2010). learning citizenship in an informal setting delanty (2003) attests that learning about citizenship occurs mostly in the informal context of people’s everyday lives and that it is also heavily influenced by critical and formative events in their lives. in other words, the process of citizenship learning is ongoing throughout one’s life. jarvis (2008) also points out that the european commission acknowledged that “citizenship could not be taught [formally] since it had cognitive, affective and practical dimensions” (p. 203). this statement concurs with delanty’s point in implying that it is a process that arises thakaso and preece: youth understanding of citizenship rights . . . 111 from daily experience. this suggests that citizenship education programmes must provide practical opportunities for learning through doing. the family has been identified as the key institution for young people to learn about their own citizenship status and this is referred to as a source of informal learning. in lesotho, young people first learn about their cultural morals, values, and norms in the family setting. learning citizenship in a non-formal setting coombs and ahmed (1974) define non-formal education as “any organised educational activity carried on outside the framework of the formal system to provide selected types of learning to particular sub groups in the population, adults as well as children” (p. 8). youth organisations are a potential source of non-formal education and learning. the potential for youth organisations in lesotho to address these issues needs further exploration. curriculum for civic education programmes according to the lesotho’s independent electoral commission manual (2006), civic education is the means by which the public is equipped with skills to participate actively in public decision-making and influence this process. however, ngozwana (2014) reveals that public civic education programmes in the country tend to concentrate on the technical aspects of registering and how to vote in general elections. a brief review of selected literature on civic education programmes is therefore necessary to provide a basis for understanding what may be required in the lesotho context. there is a very fine distinguishing line, if at all, between civic and citizenship education, so the two terms are used interchangeably. although sigauke (2012) argues that citizenship “is subjected to a diversity of meanings and interpretations” (p. 215), fitzpatrick (2006) contends that civic education has no specific definition, so he chooses to understand it purely as “that which helps to make a man [sic] a useful citizen” (p. 278). piattoeva (2005) explains that the aim of citizenship education is to connect citizens to their states and nations and make them aware of their roles, rights, and duties in their countries. etzioni (1996), as cited by dahal (2002), claims that civic education’s primary concern is to create a civic culture which is committed to broadening and deepening democracy in both the public and private lives of citizens. civic education should, therefore, be planned and structured in a way that promotes democracy, enhances human skills, and promotes opportunities to question the status quo (ngozwana, 2014). in recognition of the importance of education for citizenship, oxfam (2006) developed a curriculum for global citizenship that has key elements for developing the kind of ideal envisioned citizen. these are identified as knowledge and understanding that includes “globalisation and interdependence” (p. 8), skills encompassing critical thinking, and the ability to argue effectively. citing crick (1998, pp. 11–13) at some length, biesta and lawy (2006) suggest three key elements for citizen education. 112 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 firstly, social and moral responsibility: ‘children learning from the very beginning self-confidence and socially and morally responsible behaviour both in and beyond the classroom, both towards those in authority and towards each other.’ . . . secondly, community involvement: ‘learning about and becoming helpfully involved in the life and concerns of their communities, including learning through community involvement and service to the community.’ . . . thirdly, political literacy: ‘pupils learning about and how to make themselves effective in public life through knowledge, skills and values.’ (p. 71) these key elements are intended to mould youth to become responsible citizens. through this education process they are expected to become politically literate and effective citizens. it should be noted that, apart from oxfam’s, the emphasis in these programmes is on nurturing responsibility rather than challenging the status quo. against the fixed rule-learning model outlined above, delanty (2003) encourages moving to a dynamic view of citizenship that addresses the development processes of learning in different contexts. this conception of learning may be more relevant to the lesotho context because youth are most likely to be learning about citizenship through participation in their youth groups. this study explored the extent to which basotho youth learned about citizenship in terms of their rights and responsibilities, but before turning to the empirical study it is necessary to explore briefly some core concepts that help to define the nature of citizenship and its enactment. citizenship as a theoretical concept citizenship is widely recognised as a complex idea which has historical roots and which has evolved over time (see, for example, bachmann and staerkle, 2000). it has legal and social status but also reflects behavior in terms of participation in and contribution to public life (yuval-davis, 2006). in this paper the focus is on how young basotho youth interpret their rights and responsibilities as contributions to public life. in respect of responsibilities delanty (2000), among others, discusses three theoretical traditions of citizenship: the communitarian, the civic republican, and the cosmopolitan. although there are overlaps between and among these three concepts, they can be distinguished. • communitarianism is associated with volunteering and caring within a local community; it functions generally within a defined geographical space. volunteering as an element of communitarianism is considered to be the heart of community building (international federation of red cross & red crescent societies (ifrc), 2011). hall and coffey (2007) see volunteering and community development as the bread and butter of communitarian citizenship. it satisfies the person doing the act as well as the receiver, thereby promoting harmonious relations in communities. thakaso and preece: youth understanding of citizenship rights . . . 113 communitarian citizenship in african contexts is associated with the south african word ubuntu, a concept that embraces the communitarian values of trust, unity, and sharing, core features that manifest the philosophy of the co-existence of africans (waghid, 2014). communitarianism can perhaps be summed up in the lesotho concept of being a good citizen; it is unlikely to challenge the status quo. • civic republicanism is associated with working collectively in an organisation of shared interests to address a particular issue. according to harber and mncube (2012), this usually involves people who form themselves into civic groups for the common purpose of raising awareness about issues of concern. people engage collectively and actively in dialogue and debates to allow constructive and fair decision making. this form of citizenship often can be interpreted as active citizenship and has the potential to challenge the status quo or disrupt social harmony in the name of social justice or conscientisation. • cosmopolitanism is concerned with working with others on an international or global scale to address issues of international concern. cosmopolitan citizens see themselves generally as part of a global network and therefore often extend civic republican citizenship goals and values into global movements. their view of citizenship is to encourage the recognition of our common humanity and solidarity with others but also often to address injustices. cosmopolitanism, when achieved, allows people an opportunity to affect the lives of others everywhere and to learn from each other, thus increasing the exchange of ideas among the nations of the world. gauntlet (2011) argues that this increases engagement and connection with social and physical environments. since the concepts of rights and responsibilities in lesotho are a source of tension, it is worth analysing briefly how the literature reflects on these terms. citizenship rights rights are defined by kelly (1995) as a legal term that allows people to perform certain acts supported by the legal system within a specific society. isin and turner (2007) define human rights as “rights enjoyed by individuals by virtue of being human and as a consequence of their shared vulnerability” (p. 12). these two definitions highlight the notion of freedom afforded to individuals within a society and the need for this to be respected. unicef ca. (2009) suggests that “as global citizens children and young people must learn to exercise their rights responsibly as part of their duties of citizenship” (p. 1). bosl and diescho (2009) indicate that despite its importance, the concept of human rights arrived late in africa. indeed, culturally, basotho still see their offspring as children irrespective of age or marital status (ngozwana, 2014). in contemporary lesotho, this causes tensions between parents and children because parents believe children misbehave as a result of claiming that they have rights (ngozwana, 2014). this stereotyped perception of young people by their parents as being immature is noted not only in lesotho but is also acknowledged in the report by innovations in civic participation (icp) and pravah (2009) 114 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 that states that “parental attitudes work against young people taking leadership or pursuing ideas in which they are interested” (p. 23). nevertheless, the human rights resource centre (hrrc, 1999) in minnesota, among others, reiterates the importance of educating youth about their rights since this ensures human dignity for all and is a step towards curbing social ills. it is therefore imperative that a civic education curriculum address the concept of rights with responsibilities. citizenship responsibility responsibility is defined by the concise oxford dictionary (2004) as “an opportunity or ability to act independently and take decisions without authorization.” waghid (2014) interprets being responsible in terms of an individual’s possessing the capacity to respond or to do something about a situation, or the ability or power to change that situation. the human rights resource centre (hrrc, 1999) suggests that young people can exercise their responsibilities as citizens to create awareness and conscientise those with whom they interact. this suggests that a sense of responsibility empowers them to bring change to their communities, and is in accordance with article 27 of the african charter on human and people’s rights that states that, “every individual shall have duties towards his family and society, the state and other legally recognised communities and the international community” (organisation of african unity, oau, 1981, p. 8). preece and mosweunyane (2004) suggest that responsibility is an attitude that people learn according to the environment in which they live, thus indicating that a person becomes aware of his or her own responsibility in context. in view of the age of the young people in the study it is most likely that there were some responsibilities that they were expected to carry out which they had learned as they were growing up. methodology this study adopted an interpretivist paradigm that, following blanche and durrheim (2006) allowed for the interpretation of young people’s perceptions and their understandings of citizenship in terms of subjective reasons and meaning making. the data that informs this paper was generated in the roma valley of lesotho during 2016. in line with rule and john (2011), the study employed a qualitative case study approach, using focus group discussions (fgd) followed by photovoice to collect data from youth in three case studies. the participants were members of a religious youth group, lesotho youth christian movement (lycm); members of a political youth group of students at university, lesotho students convention (lesco); and a mixed social group (msg) who were members of different groups, mostly completing their high school and not employed. all these groups were from the roma valley and the rationale for choosing them was based on three key contexts for youth participation and sharing. first, religion plays a vital role in the lives of basotho (morojele, 2009) and therefore the notion of god has a strong influence on basotho lives. second, politics is a key domain for citizenship activity and it was important to thakaso and preece: youth understanding of citizenship rights . . . 115 include a politically oriented social group. third, youth meet because of a shared interest in a particular activity or skill such as music or drama. the selection of participants for lycm and lesco was based on convenience sampling and ensured an equal participation of males and females. after a meeting during which the study was explained to each organization, the leaders of each group were invited to provide ten volunteers for the study. the snowball method was used for the third group—two individuals known to the researcher (the first author of this paper) were asked to supply volunteers whom she knew personally. the fgd method, (see kelly, 2006) was chosen so that young people would be enabled to share and bounce ideas off each other. photovoice was a follow-up strategy that enabled the young people to explain through photos events in which they took part, and how and why they engaged in citizenship activities. one of the key precepts of photovoice is that participants’ “messages—both explicit and hidden—help to shape our concepts of what is real and what is normal” (wang, 1999, p. 186). this method allowed the young people to take pictures that they felt reflected their citizenship behaviour and gave them the opportunity to talk about the pictures in a follow-up group discussion. they were also asked to explain what they saw as significant in the pictures in relation to their citizenship behaviour, rights, and responsibilities. although the initial intention was to obtain groups of 10 for the fgds and follow-up photovoice sessions a total of 25 youth participated in the study, 7 from lesco and 8 from the msg. they were between the ages of 18 and 30 and are referred to as youth according to the lesotho youth policy. the pseudonyms of speakers are coded m (male) or f (female). data was first analysed inductively by identifying relevant themes emerging from the data. this entailed reading and re-reading the data to look for response patterns. those themes were later deductively analysed to relate them to the theories of the study and, following blanche and durrhiem (2006), this provided a means for illustrating the participants’ subjective understanding of their world. findings although citizenship has many meanings and aspects such as identity, and legal status, the findings in this paper focus on how young adults understood and learned about their citizenship rights and responsibilities in contemporary lesotho because these issues are the most relevant for a non-formal civic education programme that would contribute to a revised youth policy. understanding citizenship as responsibility the most common way that youth demonstrated their understanding of citizenship behaviour could be illustrated as communitarianism. most of the participants felt they had a responsibility, as citizens, to give something back to their country. for instance matsieng (m) 116 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 from lesco had the confidence that as a mosotho, he belonged to the whole country and its laws, and had a responsibility to effect change in lesotho. i feel like being a citizen means a lot . . . i am a part of the whole system and i feel like i matter in everything, i have the ability to make change and i love my country and i believe that things can change any time if i work harder for my country. communitarianism according to nyamnjoh (2002), african people are expected to invest in their home village (and country) as the best insurance policy and the ultimate sign of success. when young people leave their home villages it is important that they continue to invest in these communities through activities that maintain their home links, so that if/when they rejoin their communities they will be accepted and acknowledged for having done good deeds. during the discussions participants identified commitments that reflected a sense of citizenship responsibility towards their community’s development. they used their photographs to illustrate how they had invested in their communities. these actions are an indication that the youth group members had retained a communitarian sense of responsibility towards their rural societies. for example, the lcym group discussed their visit to a bereaved family in one of the remote villages of the roma valley. in the photovoice session, big mama (f) said, one of us had lost her mother so we had gone there to help and when we arrived there, we found only the elderly and we felt we had to prepare some food for them before we left. there was evidence of similar acts of responsibility in the form of communitarianism in the other groups. some msg members made it their responsibility to provide clothing for the vulnerable children and others in the roma valley. mapsy (f) explained this exercise. we also wanted to show other people [in the church] that if you have something that you don’t like anymore there are some people who are needy, so that they could see how others could benefit from such things. this exercise was carried out with the assistance of the village committees, whose members were requested to provide lists of orphaned and vulnerable children in the communities. the nature of these activities reflects similar examples and attitudes to those articulated by, for example, preece and mosweunyane (2004). they share ngozwana’s (2014) argument that “a citizen earns a right of citizenship through their participation in society, by attending to duties and responsibilities” (p. 62). waghid (2014) stipulates that such communal sharing with one’s community is determined by the individual’s sense of responsibility or ubuntu towards the group and the group’s responsibility towards the individual. for example, the elderly, destitute, and helpless are expected to be prime recipients of ubuntu. the youth considered caring for the elderly an thakaso and preece: youth understanding of citizenship rights . . . 117 important aspect and feature of good citizenship. president (m) from lesco, during the fgd, elaborated on this. we had a function at the netherlands hall where we [were] advocating for the rights of the old people . . . if you look at countries like britain and the u.s. there are social security facilities, free transport . . . but in our country we have nothing . . . so that means we as young people we owe these people, we felt we have to pay . . . [give back to community]. communitarianism as volunteering could also, however, be motivated by a desire to promote change. this was particularly evident in the more politically motivated and aware lesco group from the university. during a visit to mafeteng in the south of the country, lesco members worked together to assist the people who were hoeing the fields. these young people stated that they wanted to promote self reliance within their communities. as topino (f) explained, we encouraged the farmers we interacted with to become more self reliant. as basotho create your own jobs so that you can be assisted to reach your dreams. the lesco group discouraged the community members who were working in their fields from depending solely on handouts from the government, encouraging them, rather, to seek solutions to their own identified needs. they encouraged them to continue working so that they would reap better produce. ralichelete (m) explained, as they do [did] this they were creating better lives for themselves so that in future they don’t starve. there was a sense, therefore, that the lesco members had moved from seeing citizenship responsibility as purely benevolent care or charity work, to one that would impact on people’s thinking. giving back to the community now also meant educating the community to think differently about their situation. waghid (2014) reminds us that ubuntu not only involves being empathetic, but “one actually responds to the person by evoking his or her potentialities in order that he or she does something about altering and modifying his or her condition of vulnerability” (p. 61). this can be interpreted to mean that the responsible citizen not only provides for others but builds capacity in them to develop their own self sufficiency. this aspect of communitarianism was also evident in other participants. dan (m) from the msg group said that his theatre club hosted plays for the small children at local primary schools or in the communities, providing both a fun-filled and educative role for the audience. we entertain small children through drama because we know they get clothes and food [from other groups] so we just visit them to do things differently and have fun with them. most of our messages are on hiv/aids, teenage pregnancy, alcohol and drug abuse because we feel they are most appropriate to the youth. 118 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 these findings showed that in spite of the intergenerational concerns articulated in ngozwana’s (2014) study, youth who were members of specific organisations did indeed contribute to their community’s needs as volunteers, thus following the communitarian tradition of their culture. communitarianism, however, is only one form of citizenship. this study also sought out other forms of contribution that the youth chose to make to address the wider political or social needs of their society such as injustices or inequalities. lesco members, to a greater extent than the other two groups, showed a combination of communitarianism and civic republicanism. in other words, they employed their own afrocentric notion of civic republicanism, which combined communitarian values of bonding and building links with communities with the political aim of educating them about their rights. put another way, civic republicanism takes on a communitarian role because the notion of collectiveness is the way that african communities engage with each other. this combined role has implications for how civic education should be taught and enables youth to see how to merge the traditional value system with a more proactive, educative stand. the concept of ubuntu serves to bridge these two notions of citizenship. civic republicanism civic republicanism puts emphasis on the role of civil society as an organised group of people who interact with state and society or community. here, citizenship participation is often more political, but it still includes collective action towards common goals (harber & mncube, 2012). although there were few examples of this kind of citizenship across the three youth groups, the lesco group provided one example of how they saw themselves as having a political sensitisation role towards their communities. they joined community members working on road construction with a view to engaging in conversation to educate them about their civic rights as electors as they worked. comrade (m) explained that these people were not aware of their political right to vote for someone who would bring about infrastructural development in the communities. during the discussions villagers indicated that they did not have roads because they had not previously voted for the current member of parliament who was punishing them for not voting for him because he belonged to a different party. the lesco group’s mission was to lobby for political party representation of reliable people who would be accountable to their communities since the current representatives were uncooperative when they knew that people had not voted for them. comrade reiterated, but because we are now here let us change and give someone your votes who cares. stop giving them to someone who had made himself a mortal god in that area, knowing that everything is for himself. this implies that civic republicanism is potentially threatening to traditional communitarian societies because it allows for an element of confrontation towards the government by the people. nevertheless, the ideology of the civic republican intervention could develop the thakaso and preece: youth understanding of citizenship rights . . . 119 required level of critical thinking that the village communities require to make government address their needs. there is the potential for developing a civic republican citizenship by building on people’s knowledge and frustration about their government and this could be a platform from which to encourage civic responsibility in the form of political awareness raising. citizenship as cosmopolitanism cosmopolitan citizens have been referred to as global citizens or citizens of the world. as an enclave within south africa, lesotho is distanced from other national border relations and there are indications that many parts of lesotho are marginalised from the global world (preece, 2009). nevertheless, in the context of wider global relations, it is important to see to what extent the youth in this study saw themselves as part of global citizenship movements. although the concept of citizenship as an active role within the wider world was not clearly understood by all participants in this study, the findings revealed that some youth articulated values that reflected the concept of cosmopolitanism. for example, comrade from lesco explained he would regularly attempt to use different media sources to keep up to date with news around the world. first thing i do is to turn on my radio and listen [to] what is happening around the world and take my phone to get to the social networks. i also read newspapers. unesco (2015) indicates that globally more than 90% of young people between 18 and 24 are on some form of social media. this suggests that there is a growing trend for youth to engage globally to become part of what is going on. delanty (2000), among others, contends that cosmopolitan citizens do not belong to one particular nation; cosmopolitan citizenship is an opportunity to connect through globalization networks and other means which go beyond the nation state’s boundaries. according to president (m) from lesco group, consciousness about what is happening globally can have a positive or negative impact on the country of lesotho. he argued, as a nation we have the world [which] is now [a global] village so if we can know what is happening outside your own state . . . they may come and help you in your state so you have to be aware . . . we have to be alert to the good or bad that is happening around the world. there were few examples of cosmopolitan citizenship values from the other youth groups. however, they did demonstrate participation in international competitions. the above examples of interest in world affairs and in engaging internationally are tentative indicators of this transition from civic republicanism to cosmopolitan citizenship. endresen (2009) stipulates that citizenship is inclusive of a set of rights which people as citizens can employ in society. the youth’s understandings of those rights are discussed in the next section. 120 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 learning and understanding citizenship rights elechi (2004) stipulates that human rights are a cultural and value laden concept to which a person is entitled for no special reason other than being human. it was evident that because of cultural tradition and beliefs parents were not comfortable talking about rights to their children. the young people’s responses, supported by previous studies (ngozwana, 2014), indicate that parents felt that the international position on rights as a concept meant that children were given too much freedom; at the same time, children felt that their parents were denying them their rights. these observations suggest the youths’ awareness of a generational issue regarding understanding this concept. they were keen to bridge that gap and were also keen to address these differences in a less confrontational way with their own children. tempest (m) explained, our parents grew up not being taught about them [rights], they brought us up without talking about them, so for us they are only coming up now and maybe we will also be able to pass them on/educate our children about them. youth in lesotho seemed to haphazardly learn about their rights from school and different organisations that they join. tempest (m) from lcym indicated, if you are a mosotho there is nowhere parents sit you down and educate you about your rights. princess (f) from lcym highlighted that she learned about human rights only from outside the family. at tertiary level, there was a programme on human rights and that is where i learned about them. the msg, during their meeting, seemed to be confused regarding interpretations of rights and responsibilities. this confusion may have been a result of exposure to different schooling and to an individual’s background. mapsy (f) perceived a right as someone’s responsibility towards her. a right is a responsibility due to me . . . it is someone’s responsibility . . . after you have been given a right then you have a responsibility over it. your parent has a responsibility to take you to school; you have a right and responsibility to study. views from all three groups indicated that youth were not being allowed to use their rights. according to princess (f), they had not been given a chance to exercise their rights and responsibilities. ha rea tloaetsoa ho nka boikarabello ba rona (we have not been made used to taking our responsibilities) . . . as most of the time we are referred to as children. if you want to do something they will always say go away, you are still a child you don’t know anything and that discourages us. thakaso and preece: youth understanding of citizenship rights . . . 121 princess (f) made a further point. they [parents] will not tabulate your rights [but] one will say i will buy you a dress. this implies that parents know it is the child’s right to receive clothes from them, but it is not necessarily a shared decision. a lack of understanding about rights between parents and children in lesotho can be deduced from princess’s statement and this is further alluded to by dan from msg. i do not think we understand each other about rights. like now i am a president of mankabelane in the campus theatre group and am expected to ensure that group . . . but i do not know my rights to ensure that it grows. therefore, it is not easy for youth in lesotho to even claim their rights from their parents. the common understanding is that rights are a generational and not a cultural phenomenon because the older generation does not recognise the concept of rights in the same way as the younger one does. since the inception of these rights, there is even a common saying in the sesotho culture that modern children are bana ba litokelo (children of rights), that refers to them as no longer controllable by their elders and a sign that the basotho culture is being ignored. it was noted that the new generation seemed to have a different view and was bringing in a new discourse about children; they were children of rights who by implication did not belong to their parents in the same way as their parents did to theirs. there was a sense that parents could not teach children about something they themselves did not know about or understand. the concept of rights was mostly learned at school or at tertiary institutions through interaction with peers and from their youth organisations. this lack of awareness was evident in a number of discussions. although the nypl (1995) highlighted this issue more than 20 years ago, the challenge of understanding is still that the notion of rights needs further exploration at an educational level and should also be related to responsibilities. conclusions and recommendations the findings in this study suggest that membership of youth groups enabled the participants to undertake a range of communitarian citizenship responsibilities. but their limited involvement in civic republican or cosmopolitan citizenship activities may, at least partially, reflect their less conscious understanding of the importance of rights as a lever for social justice and change in society. although a formal curriculum is available it is taught sparingly, if at all. furthermore, as the literature has pointed out (see delanty, 2000; jarvis, 2007) learning about citizenship is a lifelong process and better learned through practical action. in this respect, those participants who had been exposed at university to learning about citizenship rights were better placed to articulate and promote those rights in their communities. 122 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 there is also evidence that while recognising international programmes such as those promoted by oxfam that encourage critical thinking and the ability to change, and the british programme advocated by crick (1998) as cited by biesta & lawy (2006), which emphasises the role of responsible citizenship to be effective in public life, the context-specific situation of lesotho requires a context-specific programme that directly addresses the intergenerational issues of rights and culture. the suggestion by waghid (2014) that the concept of ubuntu has potential to provide an african perspective on the notion of our common commitment to each other and to promote change may be offered as a contribution to this challenge. it might be further noted that the more recent youth policies of other 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(2006). belonging and the politics of belonging. patterns of prejudice, 40(3), 197–214. a pedagogy of supervision: ‘knowledgeability’ through relational engagement aslam fataar abstract this article is a response to a debate on the nature of postgraduate thesis supervision. i was an initial participant in this debate, having published an article on the topic in 2005. in this response article i offer an exposition of what i term a ‘pedagogy of supervision’ (pos), which i suggest as a way of addressing the debate’s silence about the link between the personal or subjective dynamics of students’ thesis work and their knowledgeability acquisition processes during the supervision process. based on my personal supervision experiences, i present three engagement moments – habitus engagement, knowledgeability engagement and data-analysis engagement – as a way of substantiating a productive pos approach. the article is an argument for understanding supervision work as leveraging students’ intellectual knowledgeability through active relational mediation, which i suggest is more likely to secure the student’s ability to produce a thesis that makes a knowledge contribution to the chosen field of study. this article is a response to a debate about the nature of postgraduate thesis supervision that crystallised in the pages of the journal of education and south african journal of higher education. this debate was picked up in an edited book published by my department entitled debating thesis supervision: perspectives from a university education department (fataar, 2012a), which consolidated the articles and provided space for the various authors to respond to criticisms and emerging themes on this hitherto underresearched area of postgraduate work. the debate was sparked by university of kwazulu-natal academic, wayne hugo, who wrote his 2009 article in response to two unconnected articles on postgraduate supervision by myself and my departmental colleague, yusef waghid. fataar (2005) focused on the relational dynamics between supervisor and supervised, while waghid provided an exposition of supervision as critical friendship (2005). hugo’s (2009) article was a response to what he perceived as a silence in both our arguments, i.e. the epistemic dimension, by which he refers to “the very 112 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 real need for students to submit to the rules, processes and realities of academic communities as a precondition to finding their academic voice within it” (pp.705–706). hugo’s article is a welcome addition to fataar’s and waghid’s contributions, turning as it does to the intellectual insertion of students into existing communities of scholarship and their theoretical or conceptual entailments. nelleke bak (2011), then a member of our department at stellenbosch university, now director of postgraduate studies at the university of cape town, wrote a critique of our three positions, suggesting that each of our arguments has inherent risks, an appreciation of which would bring the supervision process into sharper definition. following on these articles, each of our responses in the debating thesis supervision book, in turn, provided an additional platform for explanation and elaboration of our earlier positions. this debate has brought a number of constitutive properties of supervision to academic notice. it lays the basis for deeper theoretical and empirical work, especially in the context of demand for an increase in doctoral thesis output, which is currently trumped by the stringent performative requirements by which academic work now gains legitimacy and recognition. the focus on the complex formative dynamics involved in the production of academics, in this case through a consideration of thesis supervision, is informed by the need to reinsert a more progressive development orientation into academic work. more specifically, this debate has highlighted the interplay between subjective or relational dimensions in the authority relations that govern the process, the importance and necessity of the epistemic induction dimension, and the intricacies of developing a student’s informed voice, while avoiding captivity by one set of theoretical tools or academic gurus (bak, 2011, p.1058). in my response to the debate (see fataar, 2012b) i argued that a productive next step for this debate would lie in what has emerged in recent literature as a ‘pedagogy of supervision’ (see green, 2005) with reference to the pedagogical transfer dynamics involved between supervisors and thesis students. this, i believe, takes the debate to the pedagogical heart of the supervision issue, i.e. a conceptual focus on the constitutive dynamics that inform the nature and extent of ‘student learning’ in the thesis-writing process. the emphasis on ‘critical friendship’ by waghid, the ‘supervision relationality’ focus of fataar, and hugo’s epistemic induction turn get to student learning but i would suggest shadows the pedagogical or learning dimension. they never get directly to a consideration of the pedagogical fataar: a pedagogy of supervision. . . 113 conversational and transfer mechanics of what i will argue is a key constitutive locus of successful supervision. it is here that the epistemological veracity of thesis work is established, risks taken, the authority of the supervisor asserted, the informed voice of the student cultivated and established, and where s/he learns to ‘speak back’ with growing autonomy in order to establish the degree of academic independence necessary for making a creative academic contribution to the chosen field. towards a pedagogy of supervision (pos) in my response in the 2012 book i suggested that although “relationality, dialogicality and epistemic induction” (fataar 2012b, p.102) are constitutive dimensions of supervision, they are not sufficient or exhaustive. the focus has to shift to an explanation of the pedagogical engine of supervision, that is, the nature and complexity of the pedagogical or knowledge transfer practices involved in supervision, which i will develop here around the relationship between knowledgeability and relationality as key to supervision pedagogy. as i explained, a ‘pedagogy of supervision’ involves working with scholarly identity processes, based on an acute awareness of, and sensitivity to, the ontological dimension of doing research, involving being and becoming, alertness to the student’s conceptual capacities, learning styles and modes of intellectual processing. i suggested that, productive thesis pedagogy leverages these as assets worthy of working through and building on, as opposed to a deficit view of students in need of unidirectional advice and instruction. it is to a conceptual elaboration and empirical exemplification of such a pedagogy of supervision that i think the debate on the modalities of effective supervision should now turn (2012b, p.103). one key assumption is that a pos proceeds on the basis of a recognition that teaching and learning in education generally are based on an attempt to close the pedagogical gap between students and their intellectual and cultural capitals (in bourdieu’s sense), on the one hand, and their acquisition of the educational or intellectual capital or knowledge of the school or university, on the other. pedagogy therefore always involves a capital alignment process between home or community and school or university, and in the case of this article the alignment practices between supervisors and thesis students. this is particularly pertinent in contexts such as south africa, where the expansion of university education over the last two decades has meant that many 114 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 students are black and first generation whose cultural capital backgrounds are largely unor mis-aligned with university knowledge-acquisition expectations. this is typically expressed in my department, where most of our postgraduate thesis candidates are first-generation, black and part-time students who have chosen to study at a former afrikaner institution that has historically catered for afrikaner students, based on afrikaans as medium of instruction and whose institutional arrangements have been attuned to this cultural orientation. currently, alignment adaptation processes are mediating sites and spaces in the university unevenly and in staccato fashion. my department, for example, has been reasonably successful in its attempts to establish a responsive intellectual infrastructure attuned to student needs that bridges the gap between the university’s adapting institutional culture and the specific requirements of students (see departmental review report, 2012). this is an on-going challenge and preoccupation. such an orienting intellectual platform is meant to underpin our efforts to provide a supporting and enriching academic environment and culture necessary for our students’ thesis work. the argument for a pos in a south african context such as our university and department is based on making educational, cultural and infrastructural alignments that provide genuine and inclusive access to a changing student profile. this involves not only wayne hugo’s call for awareness of epistemic induction into knowledge networks, but also simultaneous engagement with the personal subjective dimensions of thesis students as they engage in their thesis work. referring to hugo’s exemplifying case, yes, we see brenda’s insertion into a specific network or reference community and her exposure to a set of analytical tools. but we do not get to understand her intellectual and personal engagements that would explain how brenda takes to her learning in the supervision context as she mounts her network entry and take-up of the analytical tools on offer. in other words, an explanation of the engine of the supervision relationship process, the constitutive dynamics between brenda the student and hugo as her supervisor, is missing. the question i am interested in is who brenda is and how she mounts her research learning as she subjectively engages and mediates her thesis learning processes, and how she personally encounters and mediates the supervision process that gets her into a position to acquire the knowledgeability that is required to accomplish her thesis work. nelleke bak’s prescient warning about the implied relativism of a constructivist position notwithstanding, a pos is based on subjective fataar: a pedagogy of supervision. . . 115 engagement and mediation of the knowledge dimension of thesis work. this is not to encourage the student to develop a doctoral voice outside the “accepted practices and rules that constitute disciplinary communities” (bak 2011, p.1055), nor is it to ignore their induction into what bak highlights as “two distinct but equally necessary processes – socialization and individuation” (p.1055). bak’s call for doctoral supervision to be organised around developing the student’s ‘informed disciplinary voice’ is precisely enabled through the supervisor’s ability to facilitate the acquisition of such thesis expertise at the intersection of the student’s subjective mediations, on the one hand, and the knowledgeability dimension, on the other. a pos therefore locates itself at the leveraging point of this interaction, getting students to develop their knowledgeability through an active mediation by the supervisor of the student’s personal approaches to thesis work. lingard explains that the quality of pedagogical alignment is an important social justice issue in education (2005). he favours a view of pedagogy as involving in the broadest sense “an implicit human characteristic in relationships between the mature and neophyte members of a culture, as something which was social and collective in character, and something which was as much about social learning as cognitive gains” (lingard 2005, p.166). the emphasis here is on learning as both social and cognitive, or as wortham (2005, p.715) explains, “when students and teachers [supervisors] discuss subject matter, at least two processes generally occur: students become socially identified as recognizable types of people, and students learn subject matter”. the combined focus is on the imbrication of the social or subjective and the knowledge immersion dimension of the supervision process. the focus is thus on the ways in which supervisors work at the intersection of the student’s personal approaches and the impact of these on her learning adaptation to the knowledgeability necessary for thesis work. given this intersecting locus, a pos is based on the view that supervisory pedagogical activity involves an authoritative relationship between the supervisor and supervised, on the one hand, and knowledge transfer practices central to thesis work, on the other. relationality and knowledge are both accommodated. a pos, therefore, focuses on the formative interaction between the two aspects, involving a dynamic and iterative process captured by the notion ‘knowledgeability’, in reference to the academic or scholarly comportment and know-how that a thesis student comes to acquire during the thesis-writing process. knowledgeability is thus a referent for the intellectual capability to do a thesis. the supervision process, i argue, ought to be based 116 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 on an active facilitation and acquisition of such a knowledgeability that would place the student in a position to mount the thesis process successfully. this pos focus is situated in a growing body of international literature on doctoral supervision (see, for example, manathunga, 2005, lee and green 2009, hopwood, 2010). green (2005, p.151) views postgraduate research supervision as a “problematic issue, practically and theoretically”, and therefore in need of on-going research. green presents supervision as a distinctive kind of pedagogic practice, what he explains as a practice implicated in the production of identity as much as in the production of knowledge. consonant with my concern for a pos focus on the imbrication of knowledge and relational subjectivity, green places the analytical spotlight of research supervision on “the psycho-social dynamics of struggle, submission and subjectification, including the role and significance of fantasy” (p.151). he explains that supervision has to be understood as a “[pedagogical] practice producing subjects, as directly and indirectly implicated in the socio-symbolic work of subject formation, or the discursive construction of subjectivity: the constitution of the academic subject” (p.151). a pos focus is precisely intended to capture a productive view of supervision pedagogy as a discursive practice where, subjects are formed as an ensemble of knowledges, capacities, identities and dispositions through the interplay of specific social relations and social practices, mediated by language. this is always a fragile ensemble, a provisional settlement, with various degrees of durability. moreover, this must be understood as necessarily a relational subjectivity. academics, graduate students and their discourse / disciplinary communities are implicated in social/symbolic networks and circuits of identification and citation, repetition and renewal, learning and forgetting. . . .doctoral pedagogy is as much about the production of identity, then, as it is the production of knowledge. at issue is the (re)production of specific research identities (green, p.162). elaborating on the centrality of subject formation in the supervision process, johnson, lee and green (2000, p.136) discuss the form of personhood assumed by the pedagogical practices of supervision. they identify gender problematics as intricately connected to this enterprise. they are particularly concerned with the “seemingly unproblematic status of autonomy or independence as the goal of a postgraduate pedagogy” (p.145). instead of viewing the student as already possessing innate capacity and skills to accomplish the thesis work and therefore requiring only a light supervisory touch, they signpost a view of the goal of autonomy as that of research learning and skills development. in other words, “the autonomy sought of the fataar: a pedagogy of supervision. . . 117 student can be recognised as a set of capacities, a mode of conducting oneself, that can be learnt – and taught [during the supervision process] – rather than a capacity which already exists in the individual” (p.145). johnson, lee and green go on to suggest that the supervisor no longer needs to be a ‘master’ but a teacher of particular skills, ways of thinking and writing. i would suggest that a pos resides precisely in the types of pedagogical processes and relationships between supervisor and student that optimise the student’s opportunity to learn, where she is able to acquire conceptual skills and intellectual capacity, i.e. the necessary knowledgeability or intellectual capability that will enable her to mount the thesis process with productive intent and creative capacity. in this respect, franke and arvindson argue that “research supervision can be regarded as a knowledge and relational process which takes place in the encounter between student and supervised” (2011, p.8). in this process the doctoral student is given the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to be able to work as an independent researcher. this is carefully crafted within a mediating set of dialogical processes, in terms of which the supervisor leads the student to an engagement with her unfolding academic subjectivity, unlocking the student’s required knowledgeability for productive thesis work. three supervision pedagogy moments i now go on to discuss elements of what i think a developing pos approach should entail. i draw briefly on three key pedagogical moments based on emerging themes in my own supervision work. each of these moments is meant to exemplify a key element of a pos approach. viewing these as (nonlinear) ‘moments’ is meant to bring attention to the dialogicality of the supervision process. this involves a view of learning as conversation, surreptitiousness and art. but it is neither without deliberative knowledge transfer intent nor authoritative mediation by the supervisor. as i argued in my 2005 article, the authority of the supervisor is key to the conversation and learning process. this authority is established and continually negotiated during the supervision process. as i suggested, establishing one’s role as a supervisor has to be based on the supervisor’s “willingness to understand the specific ways in which they (students) come to the process, displaying awareness of their personal and intellectual requirements, and facilitating their immersion into the necessary repertoires” (fataar, 2005, p.57) of thesis work. in the discussion below i throw the spotlight on a pos as authoritative 118 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 mediation, based on some of my approaches to ‘align’ the students’ subjective orientations with the knowledge dimension of their thesis work. i will show how a pos, by engaging the students’ personal stances and approaches with regard to various intellectual dimensions of their work, is able to establish the necessary knowledgeability or ‘know how’ for productive thesis work. the habitus engagement moment this moment involves active mediation of students’ intellectual approaches early in their thesis work, often while doing their proposals, but even later on. based on a shift similar to the ones made by the two students described in my 2005 article, this moment involves shedding a normative orientation to thesis work for an analytical one. as i explained, this shift allowed them to take on a scholarly comportment which enabled them to ask appropriate research questions (2005). the focus was on how the supervision process, through dialogue, reading, intellectual mapping and active mediation by myself as supervisor, enabled the students to bring their intellectual projects into view. building on this focus, the habitus negotiation moment is a referent for the intellectual immersion processes that students are inducted into which facilitate the acquisition of a thesis or scholarly comportment. relational engagement, i argue, is paramount in the student’s entry into thesis work. such engagement has a collective group socialising dimension and a personal individualising dimension, the latter encompassing one-on-one dialogue between the supervisor and student. the socialising dimension involves the student’s entry into a postgraduate student community where they are inducted into the academic conversations of their student peers and academics. this forms the students’ community of practice within which they initially participate peripherally but later become fully immersed in the community’s academic discoursing. facilitating entry into this community has to contend with the students’ personal approaches to academic study. these communities have recently emerged in universities as one important vehicle for facilitating thesis throughput. in the case of my department our students are practising teachers, district officials or educational workers. most of them are registered for part-time study. they are invariably committed to processes of educational improvement. fataar: a pedagogy of supervision. . . 119 thesis supervision has to contend with the ‘field’ effects of their practicebased professional identities. their educational practices at schools or district offices represent complex interactions with their own structures, rules, preferences and discourses (see bourdieu and wacquant, 1992). fields, according to bourdieu, have their own rules, modus operandi and sense of autonomy. the students bring the field effects from their professional sites into the academic field of doctoral study at the university, where they now have to negotiate the structures and discourses of the academic field of the university. nonetheless, their practice-based professional field effects never disappear. a pos supports the student’s navigation between the practiceorientated discourses of their professional practice and induction into the academic discoursing of the thesis research community at the university. our students choose to do academic study as an expression of their commitment to change and improvement at their educational sites. this choice is often made in the context of their having become somewhat disillusioned and distanced from the trajectories of change at their schools and educational places of work. they express exasperation at being ensnared by a crisis management culture at their workplaces and an accountability regime that stifles their creativity. the move to becoming a doctoral student is simultaneously redemptive and a search for understandings that can improve practice. both are in play in their emerging scholarly habituses. the supervision process has to engage both by working from within the possibilities and constraints of their habitus positions. their scholarly identity has to emerge out of their professional habitus, not alongside it or removed from their everyday educational concerns. the moment of habitus engagement recognises the impact of their professional field effects on their approaches to the thesis work, which is invariably characterised by their commitment to social improvement based on a desire to contribute to practical improvement at their educational sites. examples of these commitments are students’ desire for leadership improvement, effective curriculum implementation, or improving student discipline. an effective pos mobilises a conversation that leverages ‘readerly’ understandings of these issues. in other words, it is through encouraging focused reading and mediated conversation on these issues that an interpretive language or a language of description begins to emerge. acquiring academic perspective facilitates the shift from a practice improvement orientation to an academic orientation towards their practice. supervision as habitus negotiation is therefore not intended to alienate students from their practical concerns. rather, rooted in these concerns, it aims to insert an academic language that connects directly 120 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 with the student’s interests, turning them into an academic enquiry orientation to thesis work. this view draws on reay’s explanation of habitus as the “sedimentation of history, structure and culture in individual dispositions to practice” (2004, p.333). as individual disposition, the habitus develops a ‘feel for the game’ – in this case the feel for becoming a doctoral student during the thesis process. this disposition emerges in relation to the complex interaction of habitus and field over time. reay points out that it is important to recognise that while a field, such as the practice-based professional contexts of these students, does not dictate behaviour in a preordained manner, each individual is “open to infiltration and influence by a number of (disparate) forces of various influences and power” (p.333). supervision mediation ought to proceed on the basis that thesis students are able to undergo an adjustment in their habitus centred on their immersion in the context of an academic field at university. my department facilitates this habitus engagement by, for example, leveraging the university to become more responsive to the specific demands of part-time students, especially in making its support services available to these students after hours and on weekends. our deliberate organisation of what we call ‘soft academic infrastructure’ to support thesis work entails, among other things, organising research days and weekends throughout the year in which we provide a combination of workshop-type opportunities for the acquisition of research skills, academic literacy, and exposure to theoretical and methodological conversations led by academics or students who are at an advanced stage of their thesis work. these research days are held every eight to ten weeks. they generate enormous enthusiasm and camaraderie, exposing students to a range of intellectual orientations, student peer work, and the personal struggles and delights associated with immersion into novel explanations and complex theoretical frameworks. this type of academic community runs on what collins refers to as a strong affective dimension that gets generated while the students are exposed to the academic discoursing of the group. collins argues that such academic communities are made up of “formal ritual chains which bind members in a moral community, and which create symbols that act as lenses through which members view the world, and as codes by which they communicate” (2000, p.22). he suggests that these chains are defined by two elements, namely ‘emotional energy’, which refers to the interactive relational processes inside the ritual chains that imbue participants with the energy to focus on their fataar: a pedagogy of supervision. . . 121 academic immersion, and ‘cultural capital’, which is the academic ‘know how’ of the specific community. the quality of these two elements determines successful academic immersion. both have to be present. their presence would more likely lead to an enhanced academic environment with positive consequences for thesis work, while conversely low levels of either would have a negative impact. the platform for engaging the student’s academic habitus is provided by our department’s academic socialising activities. this provides the students with emotional energy, support networks and exposure to academic discoursing necessary for them to navigate the habitus shift required to adopt an analytical or academic comportment. an engaging supervision process facilitates this shift. but, operating in tandem, and intersecting with the collective socialising dimension of periodic departmental programmes and its soft academic infrastructural support, is the individualising intellectual-becoming dimension aimed at cultivating the knowledgeability by which thesis work proceeds (rorty’s ‘individuation’ as pointed out by nelleke bak 2011, p.1055). emotional energy and intellectual excitement are not enough. the supervision relationship must turn on the intellectual capacitation necessary for thesis work. it is to a discussion of this element of a pos that i move to in the next section of this article. the knowledgeability engagement moment while habitus engagement is intended to shift students’ approaches to their thesis work from a normative to an analytical orientation, the knowledgeability moment refers to their scholarly or know-how acquisition. the intellectual capacity to accomplish the various dimensions of thesis work is the central focus of the authoritative interactions between supervisor and students. a productive pos leverages such capacitation through dialogical interaction throughout the process. the supervisor’s leveraging is centred on the students’ emerging and evolving knowledge orientations and research questions. mediating dialogue is intended to get students to do a range of strategic activities in the context of dialogue with the supervisor. what is central to this leveraging is the supervisor’s sensitivity to the students’ subjective or personal connectedness to the process, i.e. the personal basis on which they approach the knowledge dimension. a pos is alert to personal or conceptual blockages that emerge during thesis work, and how, for example, 122 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 the personal dimension is implicated in choosing a particular knowledge focus, methodological approach or theoretical framework. understanding the personal motivation for, and approaches to, the particular study she chooses provides the supervisor grounds for effective engagement. working relationally through the personal dimension requires attentiveness to the peculiar nature of the student’s conceptual, methodological and other challenges that emerge over time. it also involves understanding that knowledgeability capacitation runs through the personal investments students are prepared and willing to make while they work on their theses. the student’s intellectual capacity is leveraged by working through the personal approaches at play in her thesis work. the knowledgeability moment is a referent for engaging with the students’ intellectual processes throughout the thesis process. such engagement shifts and turns during the process, moderating at some points as students acquire their informed voice, and picking up in intensity at key moments of difficulty and challenge. conceptual challenges or blockages are present throughout the process. supervisors have to develop an ability to recognise and work with the specificity of these challenges as they emerge. at the initial stages the knowledgeability dimension is based on strategic academic reading by the student, facilitated by constant dialogue between the supervisor and the student. the nature, focus and extent of the student’s reading and conceptual engagement change during the thesis process. i initially advise students to do some orientating reading that connects with their expressed areas of research. these might include reading newspaper articles or novels that connect with and highlight the conceptual and contingent complexities associated with their intended focus of study. reading such popular texts provides the student and supervisor with talking points around the social nuances and complexity of such a focus, which in turn informs the way the student comes to understand the knowledge question that she might pursue. it also immediately gives them an idea of my own proclivity for working with students who are prepared to do research based on conceptually mapping such social complexity as it pertains to education. my subjectivity comes strongly to the fore as i seek to indicate the type of work i am prepared to supervise and the expected intellectual rigour of the ensuing process. giving them my own scholarly work to read, which i also do early on, is meant to indicate the nature of the research that i am prepared to supervise as much as it is an indication of the expected qualitative engagement that they can expect during the supervision process. this is not a supervision straightjacket. it is based on setting the rules of the relational engagement about the knowledge fataar: a pedagogy of supervision. . . 123 dimensions of the thesis work. the mediating authority of the supervisor is crucial to the student’s knowledgeability enhancement. the students’ informed voice comes into focus during the development of the knowledge puzzle. growth in the students’ knowledgeability emerges with greater independence as they pursue the knowledge focus throughout the thesis process. it is deliberative engagement over the nature of the study and its analytical pursuit throughout that instantiates the student’s autonomy and ownership of the knowledge contribution of the thesis. the primary concern of the supervision process is therefore to keep the student focused on the pursuit of the analytical thread that runs through the thesis work. supervision dialogue centres on the links between the various components of the thesis, including the research questions, literature coverage, conceptual approaches, methodological preferences and data-processing modalities. keeping the thesis work primarily focused on this thread requires deliberative and supportive engagement. supplying advice that unblocks conceptual cul-desacs, suggesting further readings, advising students to get on with the dataprocessing work or writing are important supervisory activities that move the thesis work forward productively. keeping the dialogue trained on the research focus means supervisors have to be aware of the student’s personal investments in this focus. my experiences with my doctoral students suggest that students invariably choose a focus that emerges from their practical concerns as educators which are filtered through their personal biographies. one of my students was motivated by the links between home, neighbourhood and school in explaining grade 6 students’ learning practices. her interest was driven by her own schooling in impoverished circumstances. as a teacher she always made learning connections between her students’ home circumstances and their classroom learning. this is where her interest in student learning as a thesis topic emerged from. my role as supervisor was to point her in the direction of literature that brought these school-home linkages to the fore. my own work on the ‘spatialisation of education’ was also at play in cultivating this student’s focus. but it was her own pursuit of key conceptual literature focusing on students’ learning connections across multiple spaces that brought her intellectual focus into view. the consequent multidimensionality and depth that she gave to the focus translated into her choice of ethnography based on deep immersion as her methodological orientation. her emerging knowledgeability cultivated in mediated and supportive supervisory dialogue was driven by her personal investment in understanding the learning practices 124 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 of students as much as it was informed by her vigorous reading, mapping and intellectual processing of the intellectual dimensions that made her study possible and gave her the necessary intellectual capital to pursue her thesis to completion. my supervisory task was to keep the student on task throughout her research immersion, the data-mining process and analytical work. i helped her identify and resolve conceptual challenges, keeping the study modest and focused, and suggesting ways of working with her conceptual tools. what motivated the student during this three-year process and kept her on track was a tenacious personal commitment to the study, initially driven by her own concerns for children who, like her, mounted their school learning in difficult circumstances. she became enthralled by the lives of the children she was studying, struggling at some points to establish the necessary distance to ‘see’ and enable the analysis. this was achieved through vigorous interaction during the supervision consultations. this enabled her to bring the analytical task into view. after she worked through the ‘symbolic violence’ that involved turning people’s storied lives into data fragments, the student was able to get stuck into the data processing and emerging analysis. most of this type of thesis activity was entirely new to the student. she had never before engaged in ethnography or used theory in such as novel and unorthodox manner. she encountered many frustrations along the way, but her commitment never wavered even when at one stage i had expressed, via email, displeasure at her progress. she described receiving this email as a low point, but instead of sulking for too long she recommitted to the task at hand. her thesis work had clearly unleashed a level of personal commitment that enabled her to stay focused on the myriad intellectual and other tasks required to accomplish her work. my task was to develop a dialogical approach based on understanding the personal and conceptual blockages that emerged from time to time, leveraging ‘know-how’ by providing insight into their potential resolution, and suggest new conceptual angles to resolves dilemmas. this type of relational engagement secures the supervision process. it is based on awareness of the personal investments that students make in their thesis work, their commitments to particular orientations to the study, and the blockages and challenges experienced at various stages of their thesis work. the supervisor leverages a mediating dialogue that enables the student to develop the ability to work productively on the various elements of the thesis. as suggested, a pos is trained on intellectual capacity leveraging that runs fataar: a pedagogy of supervision. . . 125 through these personal investments. this is further illustrated in the discussion below on supervisory dynamics that emerge at critical points during the process. the data-analysis engagement moment the previous section focused on thesis knowledgeability dynamics during supervisory interaction. it advanced a view of the nature of relational engagement throughout the thesis process. this section is a discussion of one challenging occasion that arose during my supervision which played out during one of my student’s struggle with data-analysis. other examples of such challenging occasions have to do with identifying the knowledge puzzle, methodological problems that emerge during the research, the development and application of theoretical tools, and data processing. what makes these moments crucial in my experience is that they provide intellectual and knowledgeability transfer challenges that the supervisor has to confront. these are important dialogical moments that must be met with intellectual fortitude. the supervision process has to work productively through them to get the student’s work back on track. addressing them requires focused dialogical leveraging during the supervision process. it is my argument that intense subjectivity-orientated guidance by the supervisor provides the student with the platform to acquire the know-how to address such challenges. during my own doctoral supervision experiences the data-analysis chapter invariably produces an impasse. i puzzle about my own role at play in this situation. it might be that the entire supervision process, especially from the start, has to be trained directly on developing conceptual reflexivity and intellectual capacity transfer about this important aspect, standing as it does at the heart of the knowledge contribution of the thesis. it is the ability of the student to write a successful data-analysis chapter that determines the intellectual veracity of the thesis. every other dimension culminates in this aspect. it might be that the socialising dimension of thesis work and its intellectual individualising aspects need to focus more purposively on this thesis orientating and culminating skill. i have come to understand that data-analysis is necessarily complex and daunting. it brings together the various elements of thesis work. the data126 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 analysis chapter answers the main research question of the study. it is based on the theoretical framework developed earlier on during the thesis-writing process and requires the student’s know-how to be applied directly to a ‘reading’ of the data. it also has to stand in conversation with the essential literature and conceptual strands that are related to the study. the analysis cannot stand outside of these strands. but it has to aim for an intellectual distance that guarantees the thesis its independent knowledge contribution to the existing literature on a chosen topic. the research data play a different role in the analyses process. whereas during the data-presentation chapters the data are presented in themes and sub-themes in response to research questions, in the data-analysis chapter the analytical argument is primary. on the one hand, the data are meant to exemplify the argument, providing the empirical basis for the presentation of the argument. on the other hand, the argument cannot be unfolded if the data don’t support it. in other words, the student cannot make an argument without data support, although the unfolding of an argument is primary. the data have a ‘secondary’ exemplifying role in the analysis. the data-analysis moment can be regarded as the culmination of the student’s display of his acquired knowledgeability capacity. thesis supervision engagement is organised around the building of this capacity. the learning engagement throughout has to be trained on developing the student’s capacity to do the required analytical work for the data-analysis chapter. in addition, it is arguably at this point that the supervision relationship is at its most intense and engaging. in my experience this is where knowledgeability engagement has to leverage the conceptual skills necessary for unlocking students’ analytical skills and writing ability. what is required is an understanding of complex personal dynamics at play for students during this stage. having worked on their theses for two to three years or more, they begin to see the finishing line but are often frustrated by the enormity of the analytical task in front of them. it is often here that family and other personal dynamics begin to have an impact. families are expected to make enormous sacrifices to support the student’s doctoral work. my students often talk at this stage about the difficulty of having to manage their family’s desire for them to finish the thesis. this is in addition to work-related pressures and the threat of additional financial challenges that extending their study might entail. fatigue also plays a role in their attitude and mind-set at this crucial stage. it seems to me that the students’ attitude to accomplishing fataar: a pedagogy of supervision. . . 127 the analysis chapter in the light of these personal constraints plays a major role in their personal approaches to the complex task of writing the chapter. one crucial difficulty that characterises their struggles with the data-analysis is their apparent inability to differentiate the analytical task from the datapresentation task. some students end up writing another data-presentationtype chapter. they also struggle to operationalise their theoretical lenses to inform the analysis, often introducing additional theoretical work that destabilises the analytical pursuit entirely. answering the research question is another difficulty and so is the over-use of data in the writing. they struggle to proceed with a light empirical touch. in other words, they are confused about the purpose and focus of the data-analysis moment, which translates into inchoate attempts at writing this chapter. this is notwithstanding the supervision dialogue that accompanies their initial attempts at writing this chapter. in my experience the inefficacy of their attempts is always brought to the fore in the first drafts of this chapter. this is when i encounter the specificity of the challenge for each student, which provides me with a basis for the ensuing counteracting deliberation. what is required at this stage is an acute awareness of the nature and extent of the challenge that the analytical moment throws up. the initial draft is the mediating text for this deliberative engagement. the supervision dialogue is trained on clarifying the purposes of the analytical work. it develops an understanding of the form and intent of the analysis chapter. getting students to see that answering the study’s research question is the main aim of the chapter. establishing the conceptual distinctiveness of the data-presentation and data-analysis chapters is crucial. i explained this distinctiveness to one of my students in an email thus: chapter 5 [data presentation] was a presentation of the data guided by your conceptual categories. what you successfully accomplished here was to present the data in response to these categories. this gave us a very powerful picture of the principals’ positioning in their leadership field, their location in relation to their various capitals and their specific habitus formations in interaction with their school contexts [this student used bourdieu’s analytical categories]. their practices and strategies were presented as an outflow of their field, habitus and capitals. this data was powerfully presented. it gave us rich and keen insights into how ‘neoliberalism as discourse’ impacted the leadership practices of these teachers, both the similarities and the differences. this chapter was comprehensive and complex. however, chapter 6 [data-analysis] is a different chapter. it’s different in form and substance. here the key is to provide an analysis of the data presented in chapter 5, now explicitly informed by bourdieu’s categories – but fundamentally in response to the main 128 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 questions and sub-questions. in your current chapter 6 draft, this disappears almost entirely as a conceptual consideration. i wrote this email after i received a data-analysis draft that resembled the data-presentation type work that he provided in the previous two chapters. what the draft chapter clearly demonstrated was the student’s misunderstanding of the purpose, form and focus of an analysis chapter. it also alerted me to the probable lack of knowledgeability that prevented the student from accomplishing this chapter in an acceptable fashion. providing insight into the nature of the work required at this stage and leveraging the requisite intellectual know-how became decisive at this stage of the thesis process. vigorous interaction between myself as the supervisor and jan heystek, former member of our department as co-supervisor, and the student, ensured such a process. coming to understand the nature of the student’s approach to the writing as it was displayed in the first chapter draft and using this as the platform for engagement became the site of learning for the student. this particular student had until his doctoral work been immersed in his role as a successful school principal of a high school in a rural town. he did the entire thesis part-time in a very short time. it seems that his normative or practice-based professional orientation had crept back into his thesis thinking towards the end of the thesis process. he had not placed himself in a position to develop the analytical capacity to accomplish the intellectual tasks required for this decisive chapter. it is also likely that because of the speed at which he did the thesis work he had not retained or perhaps internalised the academic comportment that was necessary for him to accomplish the analytical chapter. i would argue that his was a case of doing a thesis on the basis of quick immersion grounded in enthusiasm, adaptability and a lively intelligence. the quick pace at which he was working counted against him acquiring the necessary depth of academic immersion that would have enabled him to do the data-analysis effectively. the supervision process revealed this ‘lack’ and proceeded vigorously to provide a knowledgeability platform to augment his intellectual capacity required for this leg of the work. i went on in the email to explain some of the elements that he needed to concentrate on to get the chapter on track: get to understand what this chapter is meant to do. it is here where you set up the argument, where you frame and position the focus and tenor of the analysis, and where you inform your reader about the nature of the argument, i.e. the primary claim that the chapter (and hence the entire study) makes. this is where the hard work on your part will have to fataar: a pedagogy of supervision. . . 129 happen. you have to work differently here with your data. given your data presentation in chapter 5, what are the main lines of interpretation you will make? this is where the main challenge for you resides. currently this chapter does not quite get to this. you must move beyond the descriptive to the interpretive/analytical. for this you have to bring your theoretical lenses into a careful consideration of your data. given your use of bourdieu’s lenses (field, habitus, capitals, practices, strategies), what are the lines of interpretation that you can throw on your data? how will the argumentative line flow through the thesis and how will you use your data to exemplify your argument? what this email imperfectly illustrates is the tone and content of the knowledgeability engagement during the supervision dialogue. it illustrates the basis on which the intellectual capacity transfer proceeded. the dialogue was meant to intervene in a particular orientation to analytical work. it was aimed at getting the student to step back, gain some distance from the data and the rest of the thesis work and come to understand what academic task is required for him to accomplish the data-analysis. we facilitated this shift by recommending books, articles and theses which we felt contained good examples of data-analysis. vigorous discussion of some of these texts provided the student with conceptual clues about the required task. we also had energetic discussions about the argument that he then began to develop, the analytical lines he identified, and the logical flow of the chapter. the form of the analysis chapter emerged out of deliberative dialogue during the supervision process. we choose an engaged and active leveraging approach that attempted to build recognition and capacity for the task at hand. the student worked extremely hard on turning this knowledgeability engagement into intellectual capacity to write the chapter. he spent time to read voraciously, mapped the chapter exhaustively, engaged in in-depth dialogue with us as his supervisors, and conversed with other academics and peers to understand how he needed to proceed. in the process he came to escape the limitations associated with his quick academic immersion, taking the necessary steps to capacitate himself to accomplish the analytical task. the supervision process succeeded in laying a deliberative relational basis for his evolving knowledgeability, which secured his thesis work. the section illustrates a pos at work in providing an understanding of the supervisor’s relational engagement with specific conceptual impasses that emerge during the thesis process. i suggested that working through the personal or subjective dimensions of such an impasse is an important element in breaking through. deliberative and directed supervision is based on understanding the personal and intellectual dimensions of these blockages. 130 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 the example of one student illustrates how personal engagement with a student’s particular personal orientations can lead to overcoming these periodic impasses. supervision is focused on providing the intellectual grounds whereby students come to understand the conceptual tasks needed to complete the thesis. conclusion this article is a response to a debate about the nature of thesis supervision that emerged from my department at stellenbosch university. i wrote this article as a response to the current preponderance in the university sector for increased thesis output, which i believe obscures the complexity involved in academic work at this level. each participant in this debate highlighted a number of constitutive elements in conversation with each other. this has led to a sustained critical conversation, rare in south african education scholarship, that staked out the complexity and multidimensionality of the issues at play. in response, i developed a perspective in this article that i call a ‘pedagogy of supervision’ that attempts to throw the spotlight on the productive engine of thesis work. i argued that the nature of students’ scholarly becoming has to be brought into conversation with their intellectual acquisition capacity for thesis work. this, i suggested, points to the mediating heart of the supervision process. a pos ought to focus on the socialising and individualising processes by which students come into their thesis work. a pos is trained on the students’ knowledgeability acquisition during these processes by specifically focusing on leveraging the subjective dimensions by which they engage with their thesis work. in making an argument for understanding supervision as a acquisition through relational engagement, i developed three moments of engagement to exemplify one view of a pos approach. i argued that socialising and individualising dimensions are equally important for inducting students’ into their work. it is through these processes that the required emotional energy and intellectual capital are generated which keep students on track throughout the process. the individualising dimension of supervision is aimed at shifting the students’ habitus orientation to their research from a practical or normative approach to an analytical orientation which would most likely secure the study’s knowledge contribution. with regard to the second moment, i argued that supervision as knowledgeability engagement refers to fataar: a pedagogy of supervision. . . 131 students’ scholarly or know-how acquisition. i contended that students’ intellectual capacity acquisition is a central focus of the supervision process. the supervisor’s authoritative mediation of their personal approaches to the thesis is central to this acquisition. the final pos moment is a focus on supervision dynamics at play in addressing periodic impasses that arise during the thesis process. the example i discussed illustrates the heightened supervisory engagement that is necessary for getting students to ‘see’ what the knowledgeability requirements are that would enable them to work through these difficult issues. working with students’ subjective orientations with regard to these difficulties would provide clues for robust interactive supervision work that would get students to engage more effectively with the task at hand. this article has laid out the conceptual terrain for a pedagogy of supervision that connects students’ knowledgeability acquisition to a relational mediation of their emerging scholarly subjectivity. such an approach has a chance of generating a perspective on how supervision can enable students to produce theses that make a knowledge contribution, thereby securing the university as a site for quality academic work. references bak, n. 2011. professionalising the supervision relationship. a reply to waghid, fataar and hugo, south african journal of higher education, 25(6): pp.1047–1061. bourdieu, p. and wacquant, l. 1992. an invitation to reflexive sociology. cambridge: polity press. collins, r. 2000. the sociology of philosophies: a global theory of intellectual change. cambridge, massachusetts: harvard university press. department of education policy studies. 2012. department review self evaluation report, stellenbosch. fataar, a. (ed.) 2012a. debating thesis supervision: perspectives for a university education department. stellenbosch: sun press. 132 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 fataar, a. 2012b. towards a ‘pedagogy of supervision’. in fataar, a. (ed.), debating thesis supervision: perspectives for a university education department. stellenbosch: sun press. fataar, a. 2005. negotiating student identity in the doctoral proposal development process: a personal reflective account. journal of education, 36: pp.37–58. franke, a. and arvindson, b. 2011. research supervisors’ different ways of experiencing supervision of doctoral students. studies in higher education, 36(1): pp.7–19. green, w. 2005. unfinished business: subjectivity and supervision. higher education research and development, 24(2): pp.151–163. hopwood, n. 2010. a sociocultural view of doctoral students’ relationship and agency. studies in continuing education. 32(2): pp.103–117. hugo, w. 2009. spiralling reference. a case study of apprenticeship into an academic community of practice. south african journal of higher education, 23(4): pp.703 –721. johnson, l., lee, a. and green, b. 2000. the phd and the autonomous self: gender, rationality and postgraduate pedagogy. studies in higher education, 25(2): pp.135–147. lee, a. and green, b. 2009. supervision as metaphor. studies in higher education, 34(6): pp.615–630. lingard, b. 2005. socially just pedagogies in changing times. international studies in sociology of education, 15(2): pp.165–184. manathunga, c. 2005. the development of research supervision: ‘turning the light on a private space’. international journal for academic development, 10(1): pp.17–30. reay, d. 2004. it’s all becoming a habitus: beyond the habitual use of habitus in educational research. british journal of sociology of education, 25(4): pp.431–444. fataar: a pedagogy of supervision. . . 133 waghid, y. 2005. education, imagination and forgiveness. journal of education, 37: pp.225–241. worthan, s, 2005. learning identity: the joint emergence of social identity and academic learning. cambridge: cambridge university press. aslam fataar department of education policy studies stellenbosch university afataar@sun.ac.za mailto:afataar@sun.ac.za 134 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 journal of education, 2021 issue 82, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x editorial carol bertram bertramc@ukzn.ac.za there are nine papers in this first general issue of 2021, of which six focus on higher education and three on schooling. we start with maistry’s autoethnographic reflection on his teaching practice that he aligns with a profeminist stance. he reflects on how to engage with and challenge the entrenched chauvinistic and patriarchal beliefs and their related practices that many boys in south africa take as their birthright. he posits that his classroom encounters that draw on his own personal reflections of becoming feminist may bring about pedagogic disruption and challenge the deep-seated beliefs of his students. he calls this selfdisclosure testimonio. in his personal story of becoming a feminist, it is not classroom encounters that feature as factors in shifting his beliefs, but are, rather, factors linked to personal relationships. moving away from a critical stance, but staying with personal narratives, blose, msiza, and chiororo grapple with the question of how novice academics learn to become supervisors. the neoliberal higher education system places huge store on the graduation of post graduate students, and there is, thus, pressure on all academics to learn to supervise more effectively. while their university does offer a formal short course on supervision, the authors were interested in other sources of learning that support the novice supervisor. they use a narrative methodology that included having each interrogate the other’s stories of learning to supervise in the same school of education. the four sources that emerged from their narratives are: drawing lessons from research supervisors; learning from senior colleagues; taking part in informal dialogues in learning supervision; and recognising reflexivity as a learning avenue. obviously, this kind of situated and experiential learning depends on the novice having had a supervisor who employed good supervision practices on which the novice can model their own practice, and on having experienced senior academics as mentors. in many south african universities, this is not the case. since informal learning requires embedded expertise and a supportive culture, formal courses become more important in the absence of these. in their examination of the issue of decolonial curricula, hlatshwayo and alexander interviewed eight academics in a school of education in order to explore the academics’ understandings of what it means to decolonise curricula in the south african academy. recognising the irony of drawing on the ideas of a “dead white man”, they use bourdieu’s theory of social fields to understand the field of higher education as a space in which there is competition for resources. the academics whom they interviewed presented the views with which we are familiar: participants equate decolonising the curriculum with the student 2 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 protests; with introducing african theories into course; and with using local examples to explain concepts. the data shows that there are a number of disagreements and much confusion about the ambiguities of what it actually means to decolonise the curriculum. this is where the debate seems to have become mired, and the authors call for more research to “explore all these nuances, complexities, and potential contradictions.” the assumption seems to be that if researchers had a better understanding of academics’ perceptions, this could lead to changing practice in the field of curriculum development and pedagogy. many south african universities have used extended curricula as a way of supporting students to succeed in higher education by giving them more time to complete their qualification. makgobole and omwubu’s paper explores the perceptions of students who graduated from a national diploma in somatology after having been enrolled in the extended curriculum programme. these authors were interested in how these students had experienced a four-year extended curriculum, with a particular focus on their social and academic integration. while most interviewees appreciated the extra time afforded to them in their first year, others found that they had too much spare time on their hands and that this caused them to lose the motivation to study. moving to the field of teacher education, van der westhuizen and woest explore the question of how different kinds of teacher education programmes affect beginning teacher identities. they interviewed three graduates from a full-time teacher education programme and three who had studied part-time while teaching or working in an educational environment. this meant that the part-time teachers had had more practical classroom experience, which was, the authors argue, more influential in their learning to be a teacher, while the full-time students had a greater focus on learning about teaching as part of their qualification. all agreed that it was practical experience that formed their teaching identity, so the part-time students had the advantage when they started teaching full-time. robinson’s paper also focuses on teacher education, but from the perspective of doing research to inform policy. the policy under discussion is the proposal to develop professional practice schools in south africa. these schools speak directly to the issue raised in the previous paper about the kind of support and opportunities that student teachers get to engage in teaching practice in real classrooms. robinson used a case study approach to explore how researchers, policy-makers, and teacher educators experienced a research project aimed at exploring the conditions for the establishment of professional practice schools. she argues that policymaking should take the experiences of those directly involved in the policy into consideration, and, indeed, this was the purpose of her research project. while all participants were enthusiastic about the research process and agreed with the findings, there has been no systemic movement at a national level to make this policy a reality. using the language of practice architecture, robinson concludes that “the research had significantly advanced the discursive and social arrangements of the policy intervention but had not strengthened its material and economic arrangements.” the final three papers in this issue focus on schooling, and particularly on the topic of the language of learning and teaching (lolt) and on the use of technology in classrooms. bertram:editorial 3 research on the challenge of english as lolt has been carried out for decades, while the growing interest in educational technology use reached fever-pitch during the covid-19 pandemic over the past twelve months. sheokarah and pillay report on an action research study that involved a co-curricular english language club that aimed to support learners to develop their english communication skills. they argue that fun activities outside the classroom can lower the learners’ affective filter, increase motivation, and thus support their learning. mhlambi and mawela also engaged with english as lolt, but in the specific context of grade 6 mathematics classrooms. they interviewed and observed nine grade 6 teachers in three schools in alexandra township, gauteng, to establish their perceptions of the use of lolt for formative assessment. the teachers agreed that since learners do have challenges with understanding english, they needed to use code-switching. also, they often had to read the learning activities out loud and this hampered learners’ development of independence. the explanations of what was required were often lengthy and this took up the learning time during which learners were meant to do the tasks. chisanga and marongwe explore the extent of the digital divide with reference to three quintile 1 secondary schools in sedibeng west, gauteng. these schools had been part of the “gauteng online” initiative which aimed to roll out internet access and provide ict hardware such as smartboards to schools and tablets to learners. however, the researchers found (unsurprisingly), that only a few of the smartboards were actually functioning and that internet access was restricted to the administration blocks. this meant that learners’ tablets could not be used since they did not have internet access at school or at home. the authors used van dijk’s (2008) access model, which explains that effective access to technology requires much more than material access; what is needed, too, is motivational access, skills access, and usage access. this study adds more evidence to what we already know: teaching successfully with technology is hugely complex and requires technical expertise, and teacher support, along with more resources. simply putting up some smartboards in some classrooms is not enough. however, there is little evidence that policy-makers read this body of research given that they still seem intent on rolling out technical devices to schools. my term as the editor of the journal of education ends in october, so this issue is the last one to have been completed under my editorship. since 2016, the journal has developed into a fully-fledged journal of saera, publishing four issues every year. in 2017, we adopted the open journal systems platform, which is free, open-source software. this means that we can keep our article publishing fees reasonable (r4,500 per article) and that authors retain copyright of their intellectual property, instead of giving it away to large publishing companies. (it is important to note that these companies may not charge you to publish, but they retain copyright of your work, which means that you have to pay them in the region of $3,000 if you want to make your article open access.) the journal of education is indexed on scielo sa, the scientific electronic library online, which is south africa’s premier open-access (free to access and free to publish) searchable full-text journal database in service of the south african research community. as 4 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 of october 2020, the 87 articles published since 2017 have received 141 citations, so we can see that the internet presence of this journal is growing, making it easier for people to find the research that we publish. we are also uploading back issues onto the ojs to make this published research more accessible. this is a good time to extend thanks to all the reviewers who give their time and expertise, sometimes more than once, to reviewing the articles that we publish. this peer review work is hidden from the performance management surveillance system, so it is not easily measured but, since it is absolutely vital to ensure the quality and integrity of the academic publishing endeavour, we are very grateful to the community of academic colleagues who support the work of the journal of education in this way. journal of education, 2017 issue 70, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za exploring perceived sources of conflict among educators in three eastern cape schools andre du plessis and gerard cain n elson m andela university and ibri college of applied sciences, sultanate of oman andre.duplessis@ mandela.ac.za, gerardcain1@ gmail.com (received 5 m arch 2017; accepted 29 september 2017) abstract conflict is part of organisations and manifests between people in various contexts, including in schools. t he purpose of this exploratory intrinsic qualitative interpretive case study was to explore the causes of conflict among teachers in three primary schools residing in previously disadvantaged social contexts, as previous studies have not explored these perceived causes among primary school teachers and neither have these studies been able to frame the causes by means of a conceptual nor b ourdieuan lens. exploring conflict as tensions are important as it has the potential to result in dysfunctional conflict that negatively impact on the teachers, learners and learning. purposive sampling was used and fifty-nine educators participated from three primary schools in port elizabeth, south africa. qualitative data was gathered using semi-structured individual interviews, focus group interviews and an open-ended questionnaire. t he six categories of the conflict cube of b radshaw were used to indicate the six main themes, namely relationship conflicts, value conflicts, data conflicts, structural conflicts, interest conflicts and needs-based conflict. t he categories associated with each of the main themes are presented as sub-sets by utilising the categorisation properties of a conflict cube. a b ourdieuan lens has also been utilised to interpret the data. t he findings suggest that principals, school m anagement teams (sm t s) and educators have to be made aware what causes conflict within the field to enable all role players to be more cognisant of these issues in order to become more proactive in their day-to-day interactions within the school context. it is proposed the visual participatory methodologies are explored as tools to assist with the drafting of policies. introduction conflict is part of our social fabric and appears to be unavoidable (ajam, 2015; haraway & haraway, 2005). organisations form an inherent part of society, and hence there is potential for conflict in various ways within every organisation (ikeda, veludo-de-oliveira & campomar, 2005). conflict as a phenomenon is not always directly observable, and human beings might be even unaware of it at certain points in time, but yet it exists (roth, 2007). it appears that conflict has the potential to be dysfunctional or destructive (parker & stone, 2003; plocharczyk, 2007). nevertheless, it also offers possible positive outcomes in the form of functional or constructive conflict (deutsch, 1969). also, it seems that conflict resolution could lead to enhanced understanding and provide clarity among those involved related to the issues that are causing conflict (nelson & quick, 2008; robbins & judge, 2009). schools as organisations are part of society in which teachers and learners interact on a daily basis, and as such, there is thus the potential for conflict as alluded to above. the 2 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 t his study is based on a post-graduate study.1 recent outburst in the northern areas in port elizabeth in august 2015 (areff, 2015; sesant, 2015) appears to testify to the above, as parents and teachers engaged in violent protests that included the lockdown of the whole area owing to vacant substantive teacher posts that had not been filled. hence, the south african school system is not excluded from conflict. at the same time, it is important to note that higher education institutions are also susceptible to the conflict which was evident during the #feesmustfall protests from september to october 2016 in south africa. the purpose of this research paper that formed part of a larger postgraduate case study is threefold: firstly, it is to ascertain what the perceived causes or sources of conflict are, as1 perceived by educators in three primary schools to sensitise and inform principals, school management teams (smts), teachers and school governing bodies (sgbs) about these perceptions. secondly, the purpose is to utilise the conceptualisation of bradshaw (2008) and moore (2003), more specifically bradshaw’s (2008) causes or sources multi-faceted conflict cube, to ascertain whether this cube is an appropriate tool to categorise these apparent causes within the education sector among educators. thirdly, the discussion and implications of the findings were reviewed by using theoretical perspectives recontextualised from the literature to interpret the findings in the discussion section in a manner that has not been done in the previous larger study of cain (2013). in addition, a bourdieuan lens (bourdieu, 1977, 1984, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994; maton, 2008; reay, 2004) is used to discuss the findings. in this paper, we therefore argue that conflict has the potential to impact on the teachers, learners and learning and as such, it is important to ascertain what the causes are in order to sensitise principals, school management teams (smts) and educators about these causes with a view that they can be proactive to minimise it where possible. theoretical perspectives on conflict conflict is a “dynamic process” that influences relations (pondy, 1969, p.299). it arises due to differences in attitude (a in figure 1) and behaviour (b in figure 1), leading to contradictions (c in figure 1) experienced as a result of incompatible goals (galtung, 2000). based on the position of galtung (2000), this could imply the following in practice: three persons are applying for the same position at the same school, and thus they have the same goal, i.e. to be appointed. however, only one person can be appointed. the implication is then that the goals of the other two have not materialised which then may result in a certain attitude which leads to some form of behaviour or action, even nonbehaviour or inaction (figure 1). a contradiction (c in figure 1) thus results and ‘an issue is born’ as the other persons become frustrated, because their needs and interests have not been achieved. the cyclical nature of the process then may manifest again as not being appointed may result in developing a negative attitude, as depicted by a in figure 1. this then leads to a certain kind of behaviour that could result in conflict as a result of the contradiction, i.e. not being appointed, denoted by b in figure 1. based on the above, it is du plessis and cain: exploring perceived sources of conflict. . . 3 argued that conflict emerges due to personal attitudes that result in behaviour due to contradictions over incompatible goals (galtung, 2000). figure 1: ab c conflict theory (g altung, 2000, p.1) from the above, it is thus evident that when individuals or groups seem to experience that their goals, needs, and interests are not valued or addressed, the possibility of conflict is high, as contradictions or mismatches appears to form between what is experienced and expected (galtung, 2000). this position above seems to be in line with the frustration-aggression hypothesis of dollard, miller, doob, mowrer and sears (cited in berkowitz, 1993) which posits that there is a link between aggression and frustration. their theoretical position is that barriers to achieving one’s goals have the potential to result in aggression, which could result in a disposition to hurt or offend someone as a response (berkowitz, 1993). galtung’s (2000) position pertaining to attitudes which result in behaviour as actions and conflict due to contradictions, therefore seems to resonate with intrapersonal theories such as psychodynamic theory and attribution theory. the psychodynamic theory posits that human beings experience conflict that exists in the mind due to intrapersonal states which influence our actions (lulofs & cahn, 2000). similarly, a form of ‘othering’ may emanate which result in attributing the outcome to someone else’s action. the above then links to attribution theory (lulofs & cahn, 2000). conflict can be categorised in several ways. speakman and ryals (2010) and lewicki, saunders and barry (2011) classify the causes of conflict into four levels, namely intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup and intergroup. another perspective for the categorisation of the causes or bases of social conflict is the conflict cube of bradshaw (2008) which relates to moore’s (2003) perspective. moore (2003) argues that the causes or sources of conflict are relationship-based, value-based, data-based, structural-based and interest-based. bradshaw (2008) concurs, but adds needs-based conflict as an additional base or source and presents a six face cube (see figure 2). bradshaw (2008) also suggests 4 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 that the sources or causes of conflict can be on multiple levels at the same time. for the purpose of this study, the bradshaw’s multi-faceted conceptualisation of conflict has been used to indicate how to apply it in an educational-organisational perspective and is further elaborated upon below. figure 2: b radshaw’s (2008, p.3) multi-faceted conflict cube our values refer to what we as individuals or a group believe as being important, worthy and correct from our perspective (bradshaw, 2008; mayer, 2000) and as such values include and appear to be shaped by religious, political and ideological beliefs that influence what we value (bradshaw, 2008). our values are thus assessed employing criteria or norms that people develop to assess the conduct or behaviour of individuals or groups around us in society (carpenter & kennedy, 2001). this implies then that people carefully assess what is happening in their surroundings, however, these values as behaviour and attitudes are not always necessarily obvious (bush & anderson, 2003). the above becomes apparent in the words of mayer and louw (2009, p.3) who postulate that “values are often un-reflected and unconscious until conflict occur”. interest-based conflict results due to competition over resources, or for example, when individuals or groups cannot come to an agreement related to how resources should be distributed and shared (hitt, miller & colella, 2006; rahim, 2001). the shortage of resources creates an impression that personal and professional objectives will not be achieved based on the impression that others who have received resources will succeed instead (landau, landau & landau, 2001) and as such this scarcity could lead to intensified competition in the workplace (zide, 2005). it is therefore important that the sharing of limited resources is done in such a manner that staff at school (and in other organisations) understand and accept that the manner in which it is distributed is to achieve shared common objectives to the interest of all role players (prinsloo, 2003). according to bradshaw (2008) needs can be physical and psychological and based his position on the human-based needs perspective of maslow, as it appears that needs fulfilment drives us as human beings (bradshaw, 2008). these needs refer to safety, job security, self-esteem and self-actualisation (du preez, campher, grobler, loock & shaba, du plessis and cain: exploring perceived sources of conflict. . . 5 2003). the needs-based dimension also appears to include issues of power; power being “the ability to get others to behave in ways that they ordinarily would not” (corbett, 1991, p.74). power as a need also becomes apparent when wilmot and hocker (2001) state that individuals are driven by needs that matter to them, hence to influence to their own benefit. moore (2003) posits that data-based conflict arises as a result of the absence or lack of information, distortion or misinformation and/or the manner in which data is interpreted and assessed. bradshaw (2008) concurs as he states that the individual’s perception or understanding of what is communicated influences the interpretation and as such interpretation could result in conflict due to communication issues, or as he states, “seeing only one side of the picture” (bradshaw, 2008, p.19). bradshaw (2008, p.19) posits that structural conflict has a “social, political and economic” dimension. although bradshaw does not refer to the school as an institution in his conflict perspective, the authors of this paper are of the opinion that the above-mentioned aspects could also be manifesting at school among staff. it appears that structural conflict can also be linked to how work is organised (aquinas, 2006), implying thus that there are certain rules that have to be adhered to when one engages with certain aspects and hence, not adhering to these rules could lead to conflict. in addition, increased specialisation (hitt et al., 2006; nelson & quick, 2008), interdependence on one another (aquinas, 2006; nelson & quick, 2008) and physical layout within the workplace can thus also be classified as structural, as it is argued that structural-based aspects have the potential to lead to conflict on a social level and within the ‘politics’ within the organisation. according to moore (2003, p.64) relationship-base conflict is conflict that results due to “strong emotions, misperceptions or stereotypes, poor communication or miscommunication and repetitive negative behavior”. the above highlights bradshaw’s multi-facet perspective as the relationship-base appears to have a data-base dimension as well, and as such it shows the interrelatedness. relationship conflict refers thus to engagement or interaction among people, and this includes current and previous engagement or interaction (bradshaw, 2008). from bradshaw’s perspective, it seems thus that previous interactions could influence the manner in which people engage with one another and hence this could impact on relationships. bourdieuan theoretical lens in order to make sense of the perceived causes of conflict, we argue that bourdieu’s (1977; 1984, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994) theory of habitus seems to be useful to make sense of conflict as the concepts habitus, field, capital and doxa appear to assist with sense-making of conflict as a phenomenon. bourdieu posits that habitus constitutes a set of dispositions which could result that a person acts or reacts in a certain manner, i.e. some kind of inclination (thompson, 1991). the individual’s dispositions influence action, or as thompson (1991, p.12 with reference to bourdieu) states “dispositions generate practices, perceptions and attitudes which are ‘regular’ without being consciously co-ordinated”. furthermore, our dispositions are shaped by our perceptions, feelings, thinking, actions and 6 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 behaviour (maton, 2008) which imply that our historical experiences seem to create schema (belland, 2009; bourdieu, 1993) which is embedded in a person (reay, 2004). as such, our past shapes our current experiences without an individual even being aware of the influence of the historical past (bourdieu, 1990) and hence habitus becomes a structure that structures structure (bourdieu, 1994) unknowingly or as bourdieu (1977, p.72) states a “structured structure” and “structuring structure” in the form of rules, roles and behaviour with the inclination or tendency to reproduce or preserve the current structure or system (morrison, 2005). habitus thus has the potential to serve as a ‘doxa’ which an individual or group take for granted as common sense, i.e. a lens through which not only reality is interpreted, but also the cognitive reality (bourdieu, 1984). habitus does not exist in isolation, as capital and field play an integral part with habitus that results in certain possible actions or practices (bourdieu, 1984). capital as a concept refers to “economic capital (money and property); cultural capital (cultural goods and services, also including educational credentials); social capital (networks and acquaintances) and symbolic capital (which refers to legitimacy)” (navarro, 2006, p.17). according to bourdieu & wacquant (1992) each person finds himself/herself within a field at a certain position determined by capital and as such the standing or power within the field is based upon the individual’s capital, or as they eloquently state “they are, rather, bearers of capitals and, depending on their trajectory and on the position they occupy in the field by virtue of their endowment (volume and sructure) in capital, they have a propensity to orient themselves actively either towards the preservation of th distribution of capital or toward the subversion of this distribution” (bourdieu & wacquant,, 1992) and hence the field becomes a structure that structures habitus (morrison 2005). experience within the field provides thus greater leverage for the individual, as the field according to bourdieu (1977, 1990, 1994) is analogous to a game in which individuals participate. methodology ontologically this exploratory intrinsic qualitative case study is positioned within the interpretive paradigm with the epistemological stance that meaning is constructed by means of social interaction, or as creswell (2009) posits, our life world or reality is socially constructed and hence there are multiple realities that individuals or groups socially coconstruct (mertens, 2005). qualitative data was gathered from three primary schools. five individual semi-structured interviews were conducted, four focus groups interviews with three to four participants per focus group, as well as an open-ended questionnaire completed by forty-three participants from the three schools. these tools were chosen as it provided participants with an opportunity to construct their perceptions and understanding related to the causes of conflict by means of social engagement between the researcher and the participants. purposive sampling was used as there was an educational association between the researcher and the three schools situated in the northern area suburbs of port elizabeth, south africa. these three schools were nearby from one another. participants included post du plessis and cain: exploring perceived sources of conflict. . . 7 level one educators in the foundation phase and intermediate phase as well as principals, deputy principals and heads of department to collect data from multiple perspectives. the rationale for focusing on the three primary schools was that previous interaction with the educators residing in these three schools suggested that conflict manifested on a regular basis, hence the intrinsic nature to conduct the research in these three schools. the case study approach has been criticised by various researchers based on the argument that generalisation of findings appears to be problematic (yin, 2009). however, punch (2009) and blaikie (2010) are of the opinion that one does not have to generalise from every case. this is supported by stake (1995) who states that readers of research tend to generalise to their specific context, and hence readers seem to decide whether findings seem to be credible. in order to strengthen credibility, multiple data collection sources have been used for triangulation purposes (creswell, 2009; merriam, 2009). the data was analysed by using the suggestions of creswell (2009) and tesch (1990, as cited by creswell, 2009). the multi-faceted sources of conflict cube (bradshaw, 2008) was used to group the six main themes. categories associated with each of these a-priori themes were identified using the analysis procedure mentioned above. trustworthiness was ensured by accurately reporting the findings without bias nor manipulation (ary jacobs, razavieh & sorensen, 2009). in addition, participants were also presented with transcriptions of the recorded data in order that they could verify what they have stated (ary et al., 2009). in addition, various data generation tools were implemented in order to triangulate the findings (creswell, 2009). in addition, participants were not only from one specific group as post level one educators, head of departments, deputy principals and principals participated. ethical clearance was obtained from the university’s ethical approval committee. participants were informed using a letter what the research entailed and was asked to indicate whether they wanted to participate by completing an informed consent letter. findings from the data the findings from the data are presented below categorised according to the six a-priori themes based on bradshaw (2008) and moore (2003). each of the six main categories is presented as a theme in bold with sub-categories presented in italics. theme 1: interest-based conflict limited possibilities for promotion it appeared that the lack of availability of promotion posts was a source of tension. the department of basic education in the eastern cape province has not published vacancy lists regularly. as such, teachers were concerned about the above and this leads them to experience emotions of despair. this was highlighted when a teacher said: in the school set-up, you only have that limited possibility for promotion. and people improve their qualifications. they grow themselves, and yet they remain on post level 8 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 1 for 20 years, 25 years, and i believe that’s cause for frustration, because you have developed yourself in the meantime. but now you don’t get the opportunity to exercise management, to exercise your leadership on a higher level. you remain a class teacher . . . and there’s the financial implication that goes with it, plus the personal frustration and that pride that comes with it (personal interview, school 3, participant g). another teacher concurred when stating, “promotion post. promotion comes up, err, so rarely and then there’s a lot of competition . . .” (focus group d, school 3, participant 2). teachers thus felt that they were overlooked for promotion. it appears that this resulted in frustration, as their personal interests were not achieved. limited resources the lack of financial resources had serious implications for teachers at school. often, basic duties could not be performed due to unaffordability of telephone accounts, unrepaired telephone connections, non-availability of fax machines and lack of paper. this became evident when a participant noted: . . . educators became frustrated, and that caused more conflict, because if they need to receive a fax or send a fax or get information, there’s no fax machine, no telephone line, the telephone line was cut, there was no paper to roll off the machines, they were all broken, machines were not working . . . and that caused more conflict (focus group interview c, school 1, participant 1). although fax lines are in many contexts a thing of the past due to information and communication technologies (icts) in the form of email has taken over, the vast majority of south african schools are not online on the world wide web. in addition to the above, the absence or scarcity of basic educational resources related to the classroom context also resulted in conflict, “resources, sometimes when you ask for certain resources, then it’s ‘no, there’s no money available’ . . . [then there is the] desk problem. some teachers have not desks in their classrooms . . . the conflict is about resources” (personal interview, school 1, participant r). theme 2: needs-based conflict self-esteem needs teachers felt that they were also losing self-worth, as indicated below, because their human interests and needs were not being met, not even to be promoted, an aspect that was also alluded to in the interest based theme. the interest and self-esteem needs became apparent during a personal interview in school 3 by participant g when stating: i’ve now been promoted [after many years] and that you find in the, err, outside world, the opportunities are more . . . available, cause if you speak to youngsters that you taught . . . how they have progressed, within 10 years. and after 20 years, 25 du plessis and cain: exploring perceived sources of conflict. . . 9 years, here i am. i’m still driving my jalopy. i’m still struggling. so that also brings inner conflict . . . (personal interview, school 3, participant g). the above also suggests that teachers have a need to be recognised, as non-recognition impacts on their self-esteem. the self-esteem aspect as a possible cause for conflict was also highlighted in the open-ended questionnaires when a participant stated, “a low self-esteem can also be a breeding ground for conflict” (questionnaire, school 3, participant 2). need for power the data also highlighted the fact that the principals could cause conflict when trying to exert authority and power over teachers. one teacher commented on principals being ‘power hungry’ with their external mannerisms: power, . . . they’re hungry for power, i don’t know, when you, when you look at that man, his walk, his whole body language says, i’m in control, i’ve got the power. i am the boss. when you look, the way he speaks to you, everything man, it says that they’re hungry. he just, he just wants to be, like uh somebody that says something then you must do this and no, it’s fine, no it’s not. . . (focus group b, school 2, participant 3). the importance of exerting power was also evident when another participant mentioned that the principal wants to show that he is in charge by winning at all cost, “the only thing for him is, he just wants to win, you see, he just see himself. i am big; i am the principal and, and power, hunger for power” (focus group b, school 2, participant 2). the data also indicated that there were certain post-level one teachers that tried to play power games by trying to show that they have some authority, as one teacher explained “also, i think there’s a power struggle, you know. some people [post level one educators] always wanting to be in a powerful position” (focus group d, school 3, participant 2). manipulation and abuse of power were also evident when a teacher stated, “. . . some people just want to manipulate, even if they are post level one educators, they want to still manipulate or dictate to their seniors and so on” (focus group c, school 1, participant 1). it appears that the need for power as needs-based cause and value-related aspects as the cause were both interrelated. different viewpoints seemed to be both power related, as well as value related. theme 3: relationship-based conflict favouritism the data indicated that favouritism was a very contentious issue that caused conflict among educators, especially in the ways that principals and the smts dealt with the staff. it appears that management was more open to certain staff members or staff groupings’ viewpoints. this became evident when a staff member stated: . . . it’s caused by, uhm, favouritism. now that, that it usually comes from the management where you will see they prefer certain individuals over others and then 10 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 as such, you kind of feel that certain people’s values or views are valued more than the others, that usually starts conflict (focus group c, school 1, participant 3). favouritism pertaining to promotion posts as well as favouritism of individuals in general also seemed to be causing conflict, as a participant stated in the questionnaire “the biggest problem is favouritism . . . if the principal favours certain individuals over others, it’s bound to create conflict . . . also when it comes to promotion posts, this is even more prevalent if the principal influences the sgb” (questionnaire, school 1, participant 16). lack of respect and tolerance for different opinions the data revealed that lack of respect and tolerance appeared to be a common concern that appeared to be causing conflict among educators. one participant put it as follows: a lack of respect, people do not respect the other one, lack of understanding, uh, lack of tolerance, uh, people do not tolerate somebody else’s ideas . . . so you have that lack of respect, a lack of understanding, lack of tolerance for somebody else’s ideas and that normally causes problems when this person feels he can make a valuable contribution, but from the other side, you feel no, you can’t (focus group a, school 2, participant 3). lack of respect for the opinions of others was also causing conflict. a staff member eloquently stated that it is important not to be influenced by previous differences and that one should always be open to show respect when someone contributes, even if there had been disagreements before: . . . it could even be a case of underestimating input from certain, from certain members . . . because of stereotyping or past impressions that have been created, and yet i have come to realise that those very role-players can make valuable contributions . . . (personal interview, school 3, participant g). the importance of tolerance and respect also became evident when a teacher noted, “inability to exercise tolerance. . .” (questionnaire, school 3, participant 2) was attributing to conflict. it was also noted that teachers in senior positions were perceived as not always open to the opinions of post level one teachers and as such it appears that not valuing these teachers’ perspectives were causing conflict. theme 4: value-based conflict different beliefs and viewpoints as a result of different contexts it became evident from the data that respect for diversity related to having different values and viewpoints related to religion, race, culture and beliefs were also being viewed as potential causes of conflict, as staff members come from diverse contexts. this was alluded to when a staff member stated, “prejudice can also contribute to conflict. beliefs and worldview, e.g. all muslims are terrorists. diversity, race, religion, culture” (questionnaire, school 3, participant 2) and another one affirmed this when stating du plessis and cain: exploring perceived sources of conflict. . . 11 “religious conflict – not respecting the next educator’s beliefs” (questionnaire, school 3, participant 1) were potential conflict zones. the above was affirmed by another educator when stating, “. . . we are different people, so we all have different points of view (regarding how we see and do things). . .” (focus group d, school 3, participant 2) which again highlights that lack of respect for diverse opinions and having different values have the potential for the manifestation of conflict. not valuing guidance it was also noted that certain teachers felt that what they believe and value are more important to what younger educators valued. more senior teachers made it clear that their guidance should be valued as they perceived that their beliefs and experience appear to be more valuable. at the same time, this also implied a power related conflict dimension, linking with the needs-based aspect alluded to previously. this became apparent when a teacher expressed it as follows, “ . . . they can’t just willy-nilly walk in and think they know it all from university and have very little respect for a teacher that is teaching for plus minus 20 years and they don’t want to learn from you. because that i have experienced first-hand with someone in my grade . . .” (personal interview, school 3, participant i). it appears then from the above that the younger and less experienced teachers who were fresh from the university were not always agreeable to the guidance of the more experienced teachers. it appears thus that younger and more experienced educators have different beliefs and as such this brought about tension, as more experienced teachers had the perception that their input should be valued more. theme 5: data-based conflict lack of communication the data revealed that a lack of communication contributed to conflict. this became apparent when a teacher stated: “. . . i would say in that sense that boiling of feeling is caused by lack of communication” (personal interview, school 1, participant 1). another participant alluded to the fact that sometimes information has been communicated, but that the manner in which it was done caused confusion “. . . people don’t, err, see things in the same way, you know, and whoever is bringing the message across is maybe not clear enough and that brings a lot of confusion . . .” (focus group d, school 3, participant 2) or in some instances there was absence of communication, “information not being passed on to all” (questionnaire, school 2, participant 2). lack of transparency and consultation it became evident from the data that lack of transparency and communication from the school management team was causing conflict. this was alluded to when a participant stated that “they always, they never open, when they are, when they are dealing with issues, and that becomes the biggest cause of conflict in schools” (focus group interview c, school 1, participant 3). this was supported by another participant who said, “. . . a lack of transparency . . . and just the fact that educators are not brought into the whole picture (by 12 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 the school management) . . . leads people to doubt one another and that causes conflict” (focus group a, school 2, participant 1). another participant stated that non-consultation was sometimes being perceived as intentional when stating, “. . . not consulting with all role-players and in most cases, it’s not done deliberately” (personal interview, school 3, participant g). gossip and spreading untruths it was also noted that gossip and spreading untruths were causing conflict among staff. this was noted when a staff member indicated that backstabbing and the spreading of news were causing conflict, “backstabbing by spreading news” (questionnaire, school 1, participant 8) and another two participants concurred when stating “gossips” (questionnaire, school 3, participant 7) and “gossiping” (questionnaire, school 2, participant 8) were causing conflict. theme 6: structural-based conflict management and leadership issues participants were of the opinion that management was not always prepared to listen to what staff had to say, as one participant indicated, “when educators are not listened to by the principal and smt and tension arises” (questionnaire, school 3, participant 12). another staff member also highlighted the fact that management was in many instances indecisive to take a stance on a particular matter: and what i also find out what can cause conflict, it is when, when, management do not take a stance on an issue. they throw it open; sometimes everything cannot be opened up to the staff. the staff cannot make decisions for decisions that management must take sometimes . . . and if sometimes people believe they must be involved in every decision that the school makes. that can lead to conflict . . . (focus group d, school 3, participant 1). it appears moreover that poor leadership was also perceived as causing conflict. one participant indicated that it appeared that some leaders seemed not being able to lead as expected, as it seemed that leadership skills were not apparent. this became evident when he stated, “. . . especially if the person hasn’t got the ability or qualities a leader should have and he, uhm, is not in a position to deliver himself or to perform, . . .” (focus group c, school 1, participant 1). this was also affirmed when another teacher stated that what was a constant issue was that there was “not always clear leadership” (questionnaire, school 3, participant 9). the data thus suggest that what is required is strong and exemplary leadership from those in management to limit conflict. workload allocation and time tabling another aspect that caused a great deal of friction was workload related concerning duties and responsibilities. the workload relates to the number of school subjects or learning areas that are allocated to an educator, including extra-curricular activities. some teachers were du plessis and cain: exploring perceived sources of conflict. . . 13 unhappy since subjects were assigned to them in which they were not feeling confident, as they felt that they did not have the necessary content knowledge or subjects that appear to require less preparation time. this was highlighted when a participant stated: . . .when an educator has been given certain learning areas he/she is not really acquainted with . . . then you can feel the tension and conflict. and now instead of dealing with the conflict with the person who allocates these duties especially the learning areas . . . (focus group c, school 1, participant 1). another participant concurred when stating that it appears that the inequitable allocation of learning areas was a cause of conflict when he wrote “. . . workload allocated, allocation, learning area allocation . . .” (questionnaire, school 1, participant 9), highlighting the allocation of workload as a source of conflict. in addition to the above, time tabling, an aspect closely related to workload, appeared to be another cause of concern, when a participant mentioned “. . . especially first term . . . your workload allocations, the timetabling. everybody wants a comfortable ride on the timetable, wants an easy workload. and we all out watching who has more than the other, when it comes to admin time . . .” (personal interview, school 3, participant g). it appears thus that some teachers felt concerned as time tabling was perceived to be set in such a manner that favoured certain individuals and as such the perception of favouritism was highlighted again. punctuality and time-related issues sticking to deadlines also appeared to be causing conflict as staff perceived that the lack of full cooperation to complete administrative tasks and handing it in on time. this became evident when a participant stated, “a typical example of this is where some educators hand in exam schedules on time for reports, while others take their time to complete. this is a potential situation for conflict to arise” (questionnaire, school 2, participant 4). another participant indicated “. . . if you’re the grade head and you have to do a final analysis on anything, you have to wait for the other two teachers to bring their information . . .” (personal interview, school 3, participant i), implying that some educators did not adhere to deadlines. another teacher alluded to the above too when stating that not adhering to time frames caused conflict when stating: you have to wait for analysis and i would say hopefully, with some young teachers coming in, you have to wait for everything that the management team wants to be filed and put away. you’re always waiting for this one person and after a while, it becomes too much, because now, you want your things to be right and you’re used to having your things on time. but you always find there’s one (educator) amongst the three that does not do their part, and i’m telling you, it’s stressful at the end of the year (personal interview, school 3, participant i). the above was also referred to in the open-ended questionnaire when a participant noted, “teachers (are) not doing or handing in work [books, doe mark sheets and schedules] on time or by due dates” (questionnaire, school 2, participant 6). linked to the above, participants stated that punctuality appears to be an issue, especially about staff arriving late at school, being late for class and reporting late for playground duty. this was indicated 14 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 when participants wrote, “coming late of teachers to school. not arriving at their classes in time” (questionnaire, school 1, participant 2) and “late coming and playground duty when educators do not do their duty” (questionnaire, school 1, participant 11). roles and responsibilities: lack of consultation and uncertainty from the data, it was noted that roles and responsibilities assigned to teachers were also perceived as a cause of conflict. it appeared that staff was of the opinion that in many instances they were not consulted about expectations related to rules and responsibilities, “allocations of certain err certain roles and responsibilities and err staff err, what you call it err . . . school organisation. you’re supposed to do that, you are there, nutrition is your baby (the school feeding scheme is your responsibility), that is your baby, and there’s sometimes a conflict around that issue” (personal interview, school 1, participant r), implying that duties and responsibilities appear to be unfairly allocated by the school management. it also appeared that the duties and responsibilities were not made clear enough, “i’m not sure they [the educators] supposed to do certain things and now they think somebody else must do those things. for example, there’s one about the staff playground duties that we have. when staff feels that they not sure if it is compulsory to do staff duty or whatever . . .” (personal interview, school 1, participant r). this then highlights the importance of clearly outlined procedures in order to circumvent unnecessary conflict. discussion and implications the findings suggest from an interest-based related perspective, that the perceived unfair promotion of teacher appointments and limited promotional opportunities were of great concern. recent unhappiness pertaining to promotion posts has been pointed out, however it appears that the minister of basic education has exonerated those implicated (joubert, 2017a, 2017b) and union officials have denied that they can all be painted with the same brush (gqirana, 2016). it is thus evident that promotion positions is a very sensitive aspect which require serious re-thinking of not only shortlisting procedures, but also the application process and final appointment in order to serve social transformation and social justice by having the learners’, community’s and school’s best interest at heart. hence, appointments should have the future of the learners at heart and not those of any particular individual to the extent that there is a win-win outcome for the school and learners. the plight for taking the community’s interest at heart was also highlighted by the recent klipspruit unrest due to community dissatisfaction to the principal appointed (macupe, 2017). similarly, the absence of resources or limited availability of resources (hitt et al., 2006; rahim, 2001) as needs also appeared to be causing conflict and hence from an equity theory perspective (abigail & cahn, 2011), teachers became despondent. in addition, needs-based causes with special reference to self-esteem needs, also appears to impact on conflict (see galtung, 2000), as post level one teachers felt unappreciated by their younger peers, by student-teachers and by peers in senior positions, hence, alluding to the psychodynamic du plessis and cain: exploring perceived sources of conflict. . . 15 theory (abigail & cahn, 2011) perspective that our inner emotional states are influenced as a result of our intrapersonal states. from a relationship-based conflict perspective, it appears that favouritism and lack of respect and tolerance of different opinions seemed to be problematic, as certain staff members’ opinions appeared to be more appreciated than others, again highlighting that this probably impacted on the self-esteem of staff members. in addition, not valuing and acknowledging different beliefs and viewpoints from educators was also perceived as causing conflict, hence highlighting that it is important to acknowledge that not all individuals hold the same value system (bradshaw, 2008) and as such it is important to be aware that diverse values and beliefs may often lead to disagreements (cowan, 2003). it also appears that certain senior teachers insisted that younger teachers should value their guidance and experience, however, in many instances, it seemed that younger teachers were not inclined to accept this guidance as a given, an aspect that was alluded to before, as values and beliefs of individuals appeared to be different. with reference to the data-based dimension, it seemed that lack of communication was also a concern. moore (2003) and littlejohn and domenici (2007) have both argued that lack of information, interpretation and misinformation appear to be causing conflict, hence, linking to the uncertainty theory dimension (abigail & cahn, 2011). in addition, the spreading of untruths and gossiping also appeared to be causing conflict, an aspect to which scott (2010) has referred to as an escalating aspect. with reference to the structural-based dimension, it appeared that poor and indecisive leadership and management might lead to conflict (bradshaw, 2008), hence the importance of enabling the leadership of institutions to deal with structural issues (snodgrass & blunt, 2009). the findings also highlight the importance of clear defined roles and duties expected, as uncertainty regarding this could lead to conflict, aspects to which aquinas (2006) and steyn and van niekerk (2002) also referred. the above hence also foregrounds the important role of school governing bodies and the various role players during both the short listingand interview process in such a manner that the learners’ and their future education is at the centre. the findings also affirm that the categorisation of the causes of conflict appears to be interrelated (bradshaw, 2008; moore, 2003), as one type of conflict could permeate on more than one level. this became evident from interest-based conflict and relationship-based conflict, as the interest related to promotion recognition appears to also influence relationships. the same seems to apply for interest-based related power issues and its influence on relationship-based aspects, where the interest of promotion appears to also influence relations due to favouritism. the above is also applicable to data-based conflict and relationship-based conflict, as different values and viewpoints seem to be also influencing relations. similarly, structural conflict and data-based conflict also appear to influence relations. it becomes evident from the above that the conflict which emanated, functioned in the three particular primary schools on a social plane and an economical plane, hence alluding also to the inter-relatedness of status and monetary rewards. relations among staff are socially mediated and it appears that the need for equity and financial gain through promotion; influence relationships, attitudes and behaviour, concurring with galtung’s (2000) abc conflict model, i.e. attitude and behaviour has the potential to lead to conflict as a result of economic goals that were not reached as a result of interference. 16 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 the interference alluded to above refers to the six faces of the conflict cube that has individually or as a combination the potential to impact on the economical plane when individuals are not recognised for promotion as an example. the reaction from the economical plane could thus result in attitudes and behaviour that influence one or more dimensions in the conflict cube through behaviour on the social plane. in addition, the data seem to suggest that the causes of conflict functioned predominately on the dysfunctional level rather than at a functional level in the three schools, especially with reference to the relationship-based and need-based dimensions already highlighted previously. this was evident from the defiant attitudes and intolerance, poor cooperation and teamwork, poor relationships, division and group forming, poor morale, lack of motivation and work ethic to which participants alluded. hence, from a psychodynamic theory perspective it appears that the participants experienced conflict as a phenomenon that has negative consequences, as their inner perceptions or sub-conscious states (abigail & cahn, 2011; lulofs & cahn, 2000) have been triggered to respond in a negative manner within the school context, for example absenteeism as evident from the data, hence concurring with galtung’s (2000) abc positon. however, conflict is not necessarily negative (deutsch, 1969; nelson & quick, 2008; robbins & judge, 2009), as it could result in positive outcomes or win-win situations (see hitt, miller & colella, 2006; schermerhorn, hunt & osborn 2000). the challenge would be to limit its lingering nature to ensure that it does not result in disunity, disempowerment, injustice in promotion and perceptions of not appreciating every educator as part of the value chain. it is thus imperative that conflict should not become a poisonous toxic mix that asphyxiates and eventually strangles educators and the community and learners that it serves. as such, it is thus vital that both the department of basic education and educators (including principals) deliberately reimagine processes or procedures to limit the possible causes of conflict. interpreting the data from a bourdeuian (bourdieu, 1977, 1984, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994; maton, 2008; reay, 2004) perspective suggests that habitus as embedded dispositions encompassing historical inculcated beliefs, behaviours, actions and inclinations impinge on the causes of conflict among educators. the habitus of each person is unique, yet there could be certain similarities among a certain group of educators. as such, each person’s values are not identical due to their habitus, position within the field and their culture capital. with reference to value-based conflict, the finding about ‘different beliefs and viewpoints as a result of different contexts’ appears to support the notion that this could be as a result not only due to different positions of individuals within the field, but also ascribable to different capital. similarly, the senior teachers’ comments that young student teachers are not valuing guidance, can also be linked to the above, as the different positions within the field among senior teachers and student teachers could be causing this tension probably due to being at different positions within the field. it seems thus that senior teachers perceive their capital and field position as more significant, thus subscribing to a doxa, i.e. how young teachers should value their position within the field as one of being more experienced teachers and thus student teachers or new teachers should not challenge their experience as a form of common sense due to their seniority. equally important, the senior teachers perceive that their beliefs and values are of greater significance as the student teachers’, probably as a result of their embedded habitus that their historical embedded knowledge and experience is the structure to adhere to. as such, ‘structuraldu plessis and cain: exploring perceived sources of conflict. . . 17 based’ conflict appears to be as a result of the organisational structured habitus that the teachers hold dear to them. the participants held certain structural aspects such as management, leadership, punctuality, work allocation and roles and responsibilities as potential aspects that lead to conflict, probably as a result of their personal habitus and the organisational habitus that they have experienced for years; i.e. it has been inculcated and as a result history has been embedded in how they perceive structure and action. the above clearly suggests that there are certain values and beliefs that are not only important within the organisational habitus, but also within themselves. data-based-conflict regarding lack of communication again highlights that the participants valued information as a form of capital, as information as capital has the potential to position the participants at different locations within the field which again could result in different actions or even inactions. with reference to the findings related to the categories ‘interest-based conflict’, ‘needs-based conflict’ and ‘relationship-conflict’, it appears that several social based aspects are valued by the participants as these aspects provide or impinge on the mobility within the field, i.e. how for example peers and society view the participants. this can probably be ascribed to aspects mentioned such as limited promotion opportunities, needs for self-esteem, a need for power and their infelicitous position towards favouritism as these aspects influence field mobility and field positioning. field position appears to influence capital acquisition not only on the economical plane, but also symbolic capital as a form of promotion which suggests a form of justice, i.e. climbing the ladder of promotion. mobility within the field to higher positions might then also result in different practices as action, hence also alluding to structuring as a force that shifts power and conduct. conclusion and practical significance the findings suggest that conflict was very much present in the three primary schools. however, as this study was limited to three schools only, the findings cannot be generalised, but at the same time stake (1995) has argued that readers can ascertain whether what has been presented appears to be plausible. in addition, the framework used to categorise the perceived causes (bradshaw, 2008) also appears to be validating that educator conflict can be framed within the framework’s parameters, as well as whether the bourdieuan perspective provides a plausible interpretational lens. our position is that the causes of conflict as action(s) that result at a dysfunctional level or destructive mode should be explored by embracing habitus as a lens. it is important to take note that habitus does not act in isolation, rather the elements field and capital assist with the shaping of habitus (maton, 2008). as such, the equation, “[(habitus) times (capital)] + field = practice” (bourdieu, 1984, p.101) suggests that there is an internal relationship between habitus, capital and field which constitutes practice or differently put; the intertwined relationship affords mobility and action(s) within the field. within the field individuals may use or abuse their power as a result of their capital, capital that becomes a tool of positioning and mobility (see navarro, 2006). maton (2008, p.51) succinctly summarises the intertwinement as follows, “the field, part of the ongoing contexts in which we live, structures the habitus [as a result of capital – our insertion], while at the same time the habitus is the basis for actors’ understanding of their lives, including the field.” 18 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 it is therefore important to not only understand the habitus of the individual educators as actors, but also the habitus of the leadership of the school which includes the school governing body. conflict is ever present within the field of the individual and organisation and as such, it cannot be wished away, as it is evident that conflict within these schools is of a serious nature. hence, one cannot have an ‘ostrich head in the sand ignorance perspective’, as this would probably lead to more conflict within the field. it is clear that educators (principals, deputy principals, heads of departments, school management teams, post level one teachers), school governing bodies and departmental education officials have to acknowledge that conflict is part of life in the field. as such, it is recommended that educators at the participating schools and surrounding schools are not only made aware of the perceived sources or causes of conflict among educators by means of presentations by departmental officials from the department of basic education, but that they are enabled to become proactive to identify and deal with conflict. hence, educators and principals have to be enabled, by for example the department of basic education, in such a manner that they have the knowledge capital and skills capital to handle this phenomenon in the field. although habitus (including a person’s conflict habitus) seems to be fixed, a person’s habitus could be altered. this is due to its evolving and dynamic nature, as it may be transformed due to training, education and new experiences (stahl, 2014). as such, one’s habitus has the potential to change, despite being embedded within us as a result of our past historical experiences that shaped who we are. however, training, education and new experiences do not predict that there will be change in the habitussen of people, but offer a possibility that it could. this thus implies that opportunities as enabling capital have to be regularly provided to principals and educators, as these opportunities as enabling ongoing capital development events within the field has the possibility to impact on individuals’ existing habitus, with reference to conflict management in this paper. we argue that in order to possibly influence an individual’s habitus, the focus should be on embracing different methodologies during training as enablement. hence, we propose the utilisation of visual participatory methodologies such as drawing, photovoice, photo collages and digital storytelling; methodologies that require deep inner reflection and the sharing of thinking in larger groups. these alternative methodologies require transcending the traditional once-off training sessions and workshops. in addition, we propose that these alternative methodologies might result in extremely rewarding outcomes when re-drafting existing policies and procedures pertaining to educator conduct, guidelines pertaining to administrative responsibilities, workload allocation, filling of vacancies and promotion posts, allocation of resources and policies and procedures related to conflict management, i.e. to co-create a common habitus which educators and leadership value in order to promote optimal teaching action(s) within the field. we posit that it is through the relinquishing of existing ways of ‘doing’ and through embracing different methodologies alluded to above, that all stakeholders could become wiser within the field. these shared suggestions are not silver bullets, but at least it is a starting point to sensitise all. engaging educators in the above could set the scene for greater intrapersonal understanding within the field in which they operate and assist with the development of their capital. further research that utilises participatory visual du plessis and cain: exploring perceived sources of conflict. . . 19 methodologies pertaining to how educators, principals and departmental officials suggest 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(2005). managing and resolving conflict in the workplace. management today, 21(9), 52–55. microsoft word c74 full issue 17dec.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 74,http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i74a07 towards decolonising teaching strategies: how to domesticate and infuse western science with indigenous knowledge oscar koopman senior phase further education and training department, faculty of education, cape peninsula university of technology, mowbray, south africa koopmano@cput.ac.za http://orchid.org/ 0000-0002-1508-3967 (received: 26 april 2018; accepted: 8 november 2018) abstract through recent violent protests, university students across south africa have demanded a decolonised curriculum that includes incorporating indigenous knowledge into it. in response to that demand i pursue three aims in this article. first, i examine why it is important to infuse both indigenous knowledge and western science into the school science curriculum. second, i discuss jegede’s collateral learning theory and piaget’s theories relating to cognitive development in order to explain not only how african learners learn science but, more specifically, the cognitive challenges they might face when the focus is only on western knowledge. third, i recommend some teaching approaches on how to domesticate and infuse western science with indigenous knowledge in the science classroom. accordingly, i present practical examples of the ways in which teachers can teach both bodies of knowledge to make science more meaningful and appropriate to most african learners. i want to stimulate thinking about the importance of indigenous knowledge in school science today, as well as consider the implications for a shift in teacher pedagogy that a decolonial curriculum requires. keywords: decolonisation, western science, indigenous knowledge; science; teaching strategies introduction what started out as a war against statues in universities and across south africa in 2015 coalesced into a demand for free higher education and the decolonisation of the university in 2016. subsequently, the nationwide student protests towards the end of 2015 and in 2016 led to the president of south africa, in 2016, publicly announcing free education for the poor, while the minster of higher education made the announcement that the university curriculum must be decolonised. these developments in universities served as an urgent wake-up call for the department of basic education to decolonise school curricula, especially the school science curriculum. african scholars had argued for decades that african children, in their illfated relationship with school science, continued to be caught up in western frameworks of thinking that caused serious cognitive conflicts (aikenhead, 1996; jegede, 1999; le grange, koopman: towards decolonising teaching strategies . . . 103 2007, 2008, 2017; ogunniyi, 2007; ogunniyi & ogawa, 2008).the question that now arises is: what does the phrase decolonising the curriculum mean? to le grange (2016), decolonisation meant africanising the curriculum. simply put, this entails the inclusion of a body of knowledge that is underpinned by african philosophical thinking and social practices that have evolved over thousands of years. he emphasised the point that western science should not be discounted or completely removed from the curriculum but infused with indigenous knowledge. ethieyibo (2016) viewed decolonisation as the “adoption, appropriation and incorporation of salient features or characteristics, experiences, practices, beliefs, values and modes of the african way of life that are representative and distinctive of sub-saharan black people” (p. 405). this means that the decolonisation project should rupture and challenge the western ideas and knowledge that dominate school science. ethieyibo was in agreement with le grange when he pointed out that instead of following a radical approach to decolonisation—the total exclusion of western knowledge from the curriculum—a more moderate approach should be adopted; western and indigenous knowledge should be taught as complementary bodies of knowledge. according to ogunniyi (2007), if we continue to ignore these african insights, ideas, and values in our school science curricula, we become complicit in epistemic injustice. given that the overwhelming majority of south african learners are african, it is essential that school science be presented as a bicultural engagement in which both western science and indigenous knowledge are fused in order to create equivalences and connections between the two knowledge systems so that learners can negotiate new personal meanings. this raises the question that is also my main focus in this paper: how can the suggestions for the inclusion of indigenous knowledge into the school science curriculum be realised at the classroom interface? if the aim is to adopt a moderate approach to decolonisation, another equally important question arises: how can science teachers domesticate western science in their classrooms? the term domesticate, as wiredu (2005) noted, means to present knowledge that is foreign to a person in ways that take into account the lived realities of that person. he has argued for the harmonisation of western individualism with african traditional communalism. according to waghid (2014), domestication here refers to using african thinking and ways of life as a basis from which to introduce western knowledge. in the context of this paper, domestication of western science means that teachers should deconstruct western ideas and present them to their learners in ways that are directly linked to their everyday lived realities in order to make science more meaningful, appropriate, and relevant in every way to school children. why are both western science and indigenous knowledge important to school science? here i point out, first, why it is important to incorporate both indigenous knowledge and western science into the school science curriculum. second, drawing on jegede’s (1999) collateral learning theory and piaget’s (1954) cognitive learning theory, i discuss how african learners learn science, and consider the cognitive challenges they face when the focus 104 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 is only on western knowledge. third, i suggest effective teaching approaches that will give due recognition to both western and indigenous knowledge and will fuse these knowledges. to do this, i present practical examples of how teachers can teach both bodies of knowledge to make science more meaningful and appropriate to most african learners. before i do this, though, i must shift the discussion to a consideration of why both western and indigenous knowledges are important in the science classroom. niezen (2003) explained how indigeneity emerged as such a salient feature in the aftermath of colonialism and genocide when he wrote that “indigeneity is an identity, like that which unifies survivors of the holocaust, grounded in evidence, testimony and collective evidence” (p.15). simon (2010) noted that each indigenous community has its own history of colonialism, resistance, and agency. in africa the term indigenous people is seldom used and is more often replaced with terms such as tribes or ethnic groups (eversole, 2005). shizha (2008) described indigenous people in africa as all african citizens who are african not through being the offspring of settlers or colonisers. his view is that these indigenous people have a long history of african ancestry and identify with many rural communities. it is in these cultural lifestyles embedded in authentic spiritual, ecological, and holistic economic and political experiences that indigenous knowledge has its roots. gratton (2003) echoed the notion that a unique philosophy drives indigenous communities and provides an indigenous intellectual matrix to the respective groups. according to oruka (1990), in each indigenous community sages (wise men and women) play a critical role in establishing these intellectual matrices as they critically evaluate what might be considered acceptable ways of understanding the world. these acceptable ways are what give rise to indigenous knowledge among local communities. battiste, thus, defined indigenous knowledge as the “vibrant relationships between the people, their ecosystems, and the other living beings and spirits that share their lands” (as cited in battiste & henderson, 2000, p. 42). ogunniyi and ogawa (2008) explained the term in much more detail. the term indigenous knowledge stands for an idea or system of thought peculiar to the so-called natives of a particular geographical location or socio-cultural environment. this implies that the knowledge has not been borrowed from another locality or culture or, if borrowed, it has become so assimilated into the new culture that it is difficult if not impossible to identify its original character or foreignness. (p. 177) dei, hall, and rosenberg (2000), in agreement with the above view, stated that the focus of this knowledge is on traditional norms and social values as well as on the mental constructs that guide, organise, and regulate people’s lifeworld. ellen, parkes, and bicker (2000) noted three elements in indigenous knowledge: (i) the outcome of a dynamic system, which they refer to as the innovative talents of each indigenous person; (ii) an indispensable part of the physical and social environment of the community; and (iii) collective well-being. all these elements form a system of thought and ideas that are anthropomorphic, monistic, and metaphysical in nature. furthermore, they are local or specific to a particular place. this koopman: towards decolonising teaching strategies . . . 105 knowledge is informed by a latent worldview that drives the everyday actions and behaviour of many african people. what separates indigenous knowledge from knowledge in the western tradition is that the former excludes colonial and imperial impositions. as i have argued elsewhere (koopman, 2017), in order for knowledge to be classified as valid western knowledge, it must be (i) empirically verifiable, (ii) conform to ontological principles, theories, and laws, and (iii) be experientially consistent. therefore, based on the fact that science is driven by the principles of empiricism, quantification, reductionism, and anthropocentricism (ogunniyi & ogawa, 2008), it shares common features with indigenous knowledge such as logic, common sense, creativity, place, and, in some cases, serendipity. ogunniyi and ogawa (2008) have explained the connectedness of the two knowledge types by looking at how modern medicine and indigenous knowledge have complemented each other for decades. they explained how hundreds of medicinal plant species have been studied for their use as therapeutic agents and/or their dietary properties. furthermore, there is consensus in the literature that both western science and indigenous knowledge are in search of arriving at an understanding of human experiences in relation to nature and of the knowledge necessary to live a normal life. aikenhead (1996) pointed out that both these knowledge types are governed by borders that are very porous given that people often find themselves in between the two systems, the borders of which can be crossed with relative ease, depending on how embedded a person is in a particular worldview. however, when it comes to formal spaces of learning, indigenous knowledge is often globally viewed as inadequate and inferior to western traditions and, therefore, it is argued in the literature that it should not form part of school science curricula. many science education scholars, such as aikenhead (1996), jegede (1999), kapoor and shizha (2010), as well as ogunniyi and ogawa (2008) have disagreed with this view and argued that a solution to the main challenges—such as poverty, economic marginalisation, hazardous health conditions, and poor education—facing the african continent lie in the design and development of programmes that recognise that indigenous knowledge is the bedrock of the african psyche and way of life. while these scholars have argued for an indigenised curriculum, le grange (2008) and waghid (2014) have advocated for a marriage between the two knowledge traditions as a way of domesticating knowledge. le grange (2008), on his part, has argued that the fusion of western science and indigenous knowledge could take us to new knowledge spaces that could have transformative effects for south africa’s science programmes. he supported this argument by explaining how the aborigines in northern australia domesticated western knowledge and ideas by mapping every tree and significant terrain using digital satellite technology and made this available through geographical information systems to the west. waghid (2014), in agreement with le grange (2008), has cautioned us that education in south africa should not be only about invoking the african voice, values, and identity because this would create the idea that there is a single, homogenous, and monolithic african culture and identity. instead of polarising western and indigenous ideas, he argued, western knowledge should be considered as a complementary body of knowledge. he explained this idea by pointing out that a medical cure for hiv and aids should not rely solely on traditional herbal remedies prescribed by local traditional 106 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 healers. so, instead of rejecting western solutions to the hiv and aids pandemic, people can use both antiretroviral and herbal remedies to treat sufferers. marginalising western knowledge and ideas means discounting rich contributions from knowledge developed elsewhere. another reason why both bodies of knowledge are important in the science classroom is that most teachers in south africa—unlike those who lived in rural villages and who have their roots and cultural experiences in indigenous communities—received their training at school and university level in the tradition of western science and, therefore, most teachers need first to be trained in the traditions of indigenous knowledge. how african learners learn science according to piaget (1954), the cognitive development of a child is centred on the child’s mental processes such as perceiving, remembering, believing, and reasoning. these mental computations are directly dependent on the child’s experiences in the real world through doing and acting in it. in other words, the world is not just observed and imitated by the child, but also interpreted. while piaget’s theory looked at cognitive development among children in general, jegede’s (1999) collateral theory is specific to science and explained how a child copes cognitively when introduced to hostile learning environments—such as african learners being introduced to western science. because of the resilience of african learners’ cultural frameworks, it is important to understand their cognitive development (from the perspective of both piaget’s and jegede’s frameworks of learning) in order to become aware of their different ways of coping when they are introduced to school science, and how a duality of thought in their memory and schemata arises. jegede (1999) identified four different types of collateral learning—parallel, simultaneous, dependent, and secure—that take place in the science classroom when an african learner is confronted with western science. according to piaget (1954), each of these different types of learning can lead to different ways of understanding and cognitive assimilation, depending on the child’s continuous organisation and reorganisation of information through experience. in the light of this, le grange (2007) has stated that these four different types of collateral learning should not be viewed as discrete or existing in isolation from one another but must be viewed as occurring on a continuum over time because one type can lead to the next. according to jegede (1999), parallel collateral learning takes place when the learner holds two conflicting or opposing ideas side by side at the same time. this means the learner stores both the scientific knowledge and the indigenous or cultural knowledge in his or her longterm memory at the same time with minimal interference and interaction. this is evident in learners who are introduced to school science for the first time. according to piaget (1954), the mental structures of children at an early age are still underdeveloped. these mental structures, which are made up of the motor and sensory modalities, limit very young children’s mental functioning. as they become older, they learn how to (re)construct these sensory modalities to deal with their environments or, in this case, with the learning material. in other words, the learning of new ideas grows out of a child’s processing and understanding of prior ideas (piaget, 1954). according to singer and revenson (1996), the child in the koopman: towards decolonising teaching strategies . . . 107 science classroom, during parallel collateral learning, experiences what piaget referred to as adaptation, which he described as the most basic principle of human functioning. these authors aver that adaptation takes place when the child processes information by using his or her environment or experiences as a primer to adjust his or her cognitive processes. further cognitive dissonance arises for a child when the learning material with which the child is confronted is not domesticated in order to make science more meaningful and appropriate to the lived realities of the child. instead, the science presented to the child is beyond the child’s indigenous outlook on the world. the second type of collateral learning is simultaneous collateral learning. this process takes place over a longer period of time than does parallel collateral learning. this is because by the time learners are introduced to the new scientific information, they might still be processing a concept they learned at home or in their cultural setting. this means the learner has to resolve the tension between the two concepts at the same time because both are new to his or her cosmos (jegede, 1999). this process within which a child is confronted with two opposing worldviews, piaget (1954) called assimilation. he described assimilation as the process in which the child takes in new information and fits it into a preconceived notion or idea about the world (singer & revenson, 1996). during this process, the child incorporates the new western idea into his or her cognitive framework and remembers it for future use. the way the learner resolves this tension between the two different worldviews (western and indigenous) depends on the fruitfulness and plausibility of the knowledge for the child; this leads to the third type of collateral learning. the third type is dependent collateral learning. this takes place when the schema from the western scientific worldview challenges the child’s cultural or indigenous worldview, enabling the learner to restructure or modify his or her existing schemata. the shift to the new schemata is triggered by what the learner already knows. this means the learner can make a shift in favour of, or against, the cultural worldview—depending on what already exists in his or her mind. piaget (1954) referred to this process as accommodation. during this (accommodation) process, the child attempts to understand western science by applying the prevailing cultural framework or an old experience (assimilation). if this does not work, the child is forced to change his or her existing conception in order to interpret the new knowledge or idea. this stage of cognitive development can also be described as a dual process, namely the assimilation–accommodation process. the fourth and last type of collateral learning is secured collateral learning. jegede (1999) argued that this type of collateral learning takes place over a long period of time in which the learner must resolve the tension between the two opposing knowledge frameworks. this means that the learner must resolve what he, jegede, terms cognitive dissonance in the knowledge base of the embedded long-term memory. this cognitive dissonance represents the conflicting worldviews implicit in the western science with which the learner is confronted in the science classroom, and in the cultural knowledge he or she brings to the classroom. to resolve the conflict, jegede (1999) argued, the learner draws from a “convergence towards commonality” (p. 135) that secures the newly acculturated conception. 108 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 this acculturated conception is what piaget (1954) referred to as the construction or formation of the schema through a process of adaptation. he explained that a schema is a simple mental image or “pattern of action, a form of organizing information that a person uses to interpret the things she sees, hears, smells and touches” (cited in singer & revenson, 1996, p. 17). a schema organises perceptions, ideas, and understanding of the world the way a computer organises its files and documents. when necessary, the child can retrieve the information stored in his or her memory to solve a scientific problem. this process of cognitive accommodation can take place more smoothly if the teacher can domesticate the western ideas by linking them to the child’s lived experience. while jegede’s (1999) collateral learning theory explains how the learner copes with different experiences in the science classroom, piaget’s (1954) view of cognitive development explains the intellectual processes that takes place in the mind of the child when introduced to western science. these theories remind science teachers of the importance of domesticating western knowledge and ideas when introducing them to african learners. during transitional periods, the child might be in one of the four stages regarding his or her understanding of school science. these stages are not directly related to specific age groups and can vary widely. what is of greatest significance is that before teachers introduce their learners to abstract scientific concepts, it is important that they first help learners understand the concrete scientific terms and ideas. personal–cultural–localised learning (pcll) given the overwhelming evidence in the literature that points to poor science teaching, and the cry for decolonisation in south african classrooms and lecture theatres, there appears to be a paucity of effective pedagogical strategies to facilitate curriculum change. according to ogunniyi (2007), despite concerted efforts by the new government in south africa to encourage teachers to incorporate indigenous knowledge in their science classrooms, teachers continue to dismiss indigenous ways of knowing because (i) they were trained in the tradition of western science and are not familiar with the precepts of indigenous science and (ii) teachers resist changes to their pedagogical strategies in terms of contextualisation and indigenisation. therefore, instead of complementing western modern science with indigenous, as prescribed in caps and all its predecessor curricula such as obe, ncs, and so forth (see dbe, 2011), science teachers place more emphasis on western science because of the pressure to achieve high test scores and good examination results. one approach that i want to introduce here has been adapted from schmidt, rosenberg, and beymer’s (2018) person-oriented approach to learner engagement, in which western and indigenous knowledge can be fused in what i refer to as personal, cultural and localised learning (pcll). personal, in pcll, refers to the teacher and his or her role in becoming cognisant of the context in which he or she teaches. more specifically, personal lived experiences are part of the experiential knowledge of nature that the child brings into the classroom. according to fitts and posner (1967), all knowledge and skills have their roots in people’s interactions with the real world. they argued that our minds operate like computers koopman: towards decolonising teaching strategies . . . 109 processing information from the environment through a series of learnt rules. as a child experiences phenomena and, in the process, learns and develops a skill, he or she learns to refine the rules in order to master the skill. for example, young children might not have a full understanding of gravity, but they are aware that objects in free fall are pulled downwards by some inexplicable force. another example is the observation that a brick sinks and a ball floats when they are dropped into water. although children might not have a holistic understanding of density and buoyancy, they do have real experiences of such events. cultural and localised knowledge refers to the cultural knowledge acquired in the localised community within which the child resides. according to aikenhead (1996), in most cases the knowledge the learner holds, from the traditional perspective, comes from the meaning and identity acquired by him or her through the local community’s indigenous cultural identity. according to wallace (2004), when a teacher becomes aware of the cultural understandings of the learners, he or she moves away from the privileged authoritative discourse and dominance of school science and provides indigenous learners with improved access to westernised science. this allows the teacher to domesticate and fuse the knowledge systems by first embracing and validating local people’s own ways of understanding, while also allowing the teacher space to negotiate new meanings that can possibly resolve the dichotomy of dual thought. one of the drawbacks of this approach is that gathering such alternative views embedded in a cultural discourse is time consuming and limits the teacher’s contact time with the learners. however, a plethora of alternative approaches may be found in the literature. for example, by networking with the research community and experts in indigenous knowledge, teachers can gather (or survey) and become aware of many localised ideas and knowledge. these ideas and worldviews can be shared in their respective clusters from district offices. this raises the question: how can teachers apply pcll in their classrooms? once the teacher has gathered or collected personalised experiences and cultural understandings from the learners, when introducing a topic or concept, for example, such as lightning as a form of static electricity, it is important that the teacher has a good understanding of the african concept of umbane. this concept of umbane illustrates the destructive capacity of a sangoma who is believed to have supernatural powers. this means that a sangoma has the power to generate and direct lightning to a particular house, which can have serious destructive consequences. hence, lightning in african traditions is not a natural phenomenon but a form of witchcraft that indicates that a person has angered the ancestors. in the western tradition, lightning has a completely different meaning; it is explained scientifically as occurring or taking place when lighter subatomic particles in a cloud move towards the upper part of the cloud, which becomes positively charged in the process. heavier subatomic particles in the clouds move towards the bottom and become negatively charged. when the positive and negative charges become large enough, lightning is released between these regions. most of the lightning takes place between the clouds, but some is discharged and strikes the earth in bright flashes. these bright flashes are the discharge of electrons, which have the potential to kill or injure animals or humans on the ground because they contain thousands of volts that are released in a fraction of a second. 110 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 in other words, the role of the teacher in this instance is to adopt that of what le grange (2008) called a cultural broker before invoking a westernised explanation. if a teacher ignores the cultural profile of the child, this creates what jegede (1999) referred to as collateral learning (as explained above) and, to bypass this dual conceptual notion, it is important to invite epistemological dialogue about such phenomena. this interepistemological dialogue allows the learner to negotiate meaning between the indigenous and western knowledges in order to create new knowledge spaces in which alternative views and ideas are shared among learners coming from different cultures. once teachers develop a robust understanding of personalised or cultural data on various concepts, they can document them in order to design teaching approaches and strategies that they can use to domesticate complex and abstract scientific concepts and fuse the two knowledge traditions. by doing so, learning science becomes a two-way flow and no longer a unidirectional pathway of science teaching focusing only on western ideas and explanations. therefore, instead of just going through the motions of teaching science through hands-on activities and what we might call talking science, learners see the wonder and beauty of both indigenous knowledge and western science as an integrated body of knowledge. discounting indigenous knowledge is one of the main challenges that can make learners unresponsive to the learning of western science (aikenhead, 1996), with its abstract, complex language and terminology with which learners struggle to connect. acknowledging and merging the personal knowledge and cultural worldviews of learners with western terminology and ideas could result in better understandings of science. another outcome that could result from the inter-epistemological dialogue of fusing the two knowledge types is the development of a more learner-friendly language through which science can be presented. this means that science teachers and local communities will have to collaborate in order to develop an indigenous vocabulary for science in the local languages; this is one way of resolving the tension between indigenous knowledge and western knowledge. translating western scientific precepts into local languages creates multiple discourses and forms of dialogue that will promote greater interest in the scientific description of nature. when teachers have documented personalised ideas and cultural data, they can shift the focus to group work, which can then be made more interesting not only by focusing on the theoretical dimension, but also in providing learners with activities that involve data analysis and representation that they can discuss in their groups. i turn, now, to focus on process-oriented guided inquiry learning (pogil) as an extension of pcll to suggest a method for the delivery of scientific knowledge through group work. process-oriented guided inquiry learning (pogil) according to treagust et al. (2018), process-oriented guided inquiry learning (pogil) is one way to address the superficial engagement of learners with science in bridging the western and indigenous cultural divide. this strategy has its roots in the western tradition and has been used in schools in the middle east to bridge the cultural–theory divide. while pcll koopman: towards decolonising teaching strategies . . . 111 focuses on the subjective epistemological experiences of individual learners in their respective communities, pogil promotes group work as a learner-centred pedagogical approach in which both the practical and theoretical aspects of science are considered. teaching within a pogil paradigm, as spencer and moog (2008) have noted, requires the teacher to take on the role of a facilitator in which learning becomes a guided experience through group work. what is important in pogil is that learners are introduced to both the theoretical as well as the empirical aspects of science. this is done by allowing them to explore concepts by examining data or information that is provided by the teacher, and which is set up in such a way that the learner experiences cognitive dissonance. learners in the groups have different roles to play—leader, recorder, presenter, reflector, or strategy analyst—as well as other roles such as those of technician, encourager, and significant figure checker. all these roles and their respective activities allow them to be introduced to the cultural context of their peers, while at the same time allowing them to get to know the world of the other and how it relates to science. the following scenario serves as an example of a classroom activity aimed at fostering pogil. traditional medicine remains an important option in south africa. the challenge remains that, as africans become more educated, they seem to feel that herbal remedies are more primitive and have lost their place or function in society. this is partly because traditional practices are not documented in books and journals but are passed on to a family member through observation, engaging participation, and active listening. aphiwe was admitted to hospital and diagnosed with malaria. the following herbal remedies were prescribed or advised to treat the disease: caesalpina volkensii, strychnoshenningsii, ajuga remota, and so forth. all these herbs can be described as antimalarial herbal remedies. however, the chief doctor at hospital x, where aphiwe has been admitted, dr sibya, feels that aphiwe should be treated with broad spectrum antibiotics. he also feels that it is irresponsible to entrust the life of a person to a traditional healer who did not formally study medicine. doing so, he feels, means we are moving back to ancient times. (i) suppose aphiwe is your son. critically discuss in your groups what you think of dr sibya’s comment that it is irresponsible to trust a traditional healer. (ii) in your groups, prepare a 10-minute presentation on who you think should treat aphiwe. your presentation must include research evidence on these herbal remedies and anti-malaria antibiotics in support of their success rate or failure in the treatment of malaria. according to schmidt et al. (2018), deep engagement with science depends on context, which influences a learner’s momentary state while doing an activity. therefore, it is important that teachers use proximal processes that motivate learners to engage with a particular topic. in other words, some learners might have a deep interest in discovering, by themselves, whether indigenous knowledge or western science is credible, which will motivate them to a deeper 112 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 engagement that involves not only the cognitive or empirical aspects, but also the behavioural, cultural, and affective aspects. when indigenous knowledge is infused with western science in group work, it has the potential to spark a sense of belonging and to influence a learner’s willingness to participate in a particular lesson. although he or she might experience negative feelings such as boredom and anxiety (about some topics), peers might introduce ideas that will encourage a response, which could then relate to a specific topic. scaffolding the learners in their respective groups would, at times, require the teacher to take on the role of what le grange (2008) called a tour guide. this means that in cases where the learners espouse strong traditional values, it is recommended that the teacher carefully guide the learners away from creating further cognitive conflict and be mindful of the way he or she sets up the group work in relation to the scientific concept being investigated. in cases where the learners are less deeply entrenched in traditional beliefs and values, the teacher is expected to assume the role of a travel agent. while there will always be individual differences among learners within a particular group, learner contribution is important because it adds value to the learning process. the focus of the group should not be on right or wrong answers because some comments and responses might be interesting and enjoyable and could even serve as a form of entertainment to make the lesson more fun. in all these situations, it is imperative for the teacher to give learners the choice to select their own groups given that some might share common personal experiences while others might have cultural values in common. thus, choice can help them relate to the content they are taught in a tangible and meaningful way by helping to shape knowledge construction and scientific reasoning. this will also create a more engaging classroom environment in which both the teacher and the learners in their respective groups are actively involved in the sensemaking process. in such a paradigm, teaching and learning will make more sense to learners because the teacher draws from learners’ lived world and cultural experiences; this will make it more probable that they will be able to accommodate the new knowledge as a preamble to understanding western traditions. freudenthal (1991) pointed out that we should see science as a human activity and that, consequently, science teachers should guide students to scientificalise their world instead of trying to transfer scientific knowledge as a ready-made product. he alluded to the important role of teachers in guiding their learners in a pedagogy of engagement and nurturing them to participate in the knowledge-construction process. conclusion understanding a learner’s personalised and cultural worldviews can help teachers to identify the various barriers to learning with respect to understanding certain scientific concepts and definitions. both personalised and cultural knowledge can be extremely valuable for teachers in the planning and sequencing of events when they deliver their lessons. therefore, when teachers document personalised and cultural knowledge and ideas that are inconsistent with western notions of scientific understanding, they should develop and design learning activities that, first, domesticate complex and abstract western ideas and fuse both bodies of koopman: towards decolonising teaching strategies . . . 113 knowledge. i argue that an attempt to fuse indigenous knowledge and western science will, most likely, encourage learner participation either through individualised instruction as discussed in pccl, or in groups as discussed in pogil. these two teaching strategies encourage rational engagement and meaning-making in which the learners are introduced to instruction by being offered the chance to uphold traditional beliefs and cross the border to the modern westernised scientific worldview. these two strategies are consistent with the work of various science education scholars such as jegede (1999), le grange (2008, 2017), ogunniyi (2007), and various others who have proposed that learning activities in the science classroom should be framed in such a way that they develop deep scientific engagement in the learners. providing learners with the opportunity to solve problems by using their past experiences and cultural knowledge is a step in the direction of decolonising the science curriculum. (i do not address the issue of curriculum content because my main objective is to suggest teaching strategies that can be used to implement both western science and indigenous knowledge as complementary bodies of knowledge.) the strategies presented in this paper can be used as a basis to generate personalised and local cultural knowledge that teachers can document. these personalised and culturally local ideas and notions generated in pccl and pogil could serve as the basis for developing an indigenised or localised cultural perspective on scientific phenomena. these phenomena can then be exchanged in the respective clusters to develop a formal school science curriculum that values the various alternative conceptions that can, in turn, be used as a basis to introduce new concepts and topics in science. it is important to update such knowledge regularly given that knowledge is not stationary but always shifting to incorporate new ways of understanding the world. acknowledgements i would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback in strengthening the academic quality of this article. i would also like to thank the national research foundation, grant number ttk160504163990, for their financial support. references aikenhead, g. 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(2018). process-oriented guided inquiry learning as a culturally relevant pedagogy in qatar: a perspective from grade 10 chemistry classes. research in science education 1–19. retrieved from res sci educ https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-0189712-0 waghid, y. (2014). towards an african philosophy of education. new york, ny: routledge. wallace, c. s. (2004). framing new research in science literacy and language use: authenticity, multiple discourses and the ‘third space’. science education, 88, 901– 914. wiredu, k. (2005). philosophical considerations on the africanisation of higher education. in y. waghid, b. van wyk, f. adams, & i. november (eds.), african(a) philosophy of education: reconstructions and deconstructions (pp. 6–18). stellenbosch, rsa: stellenbosch university press. journal of education, 2018 issue 72, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe editorial shervani k. pillay shervani.pillay@mandela.ac.za sylvan blignaut sylvan.blignaut@mandela.ac.za decolonisation remains one of the most controversial social justice issues in the global south, including africa, with its unique challenges, and beyond. however, the concept of decolonisation is contested in relation to what it means in general and, for our purposes, what it means in education specifically. while many educators recognise the validity of the decolonisation imperative and are committed to engaging with it at various levels, some struggle with how it can be applied in research, in engagement with learners, and in teaching and learning practices in general. we believe that decolonisation must be accorded priority as a social justice issue on the education agenda. the aim of the saera 2017 conference was to encourage dialogue about teaching, learning, and research experiences in decolonising education and the furthering of engagement with, and work towards, the task of bringing theory and practice together in courageous and imaginative ways. this conference enabled educators and researchers to share what we are currently engaging in, struggling with, experiencing, and questioning in our various education and research practices and contexts. in so doing key note addresses, papers, posters, and panel discussions focused on one or more of the following themes. • teaching, learning, research, and engagement in educational contexts • education for all • voice of the voiceless • resistance, re-envisioning, and renewal • pathways to decolonisation • decolonising research in education there are six articles in this issue that engage with decolonisation, how the concept is contested, and that consider its applications in various disciplines. 2 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 the first article is a philosophical piece by siseko h. kumalo who uses a decolonial approach to interrogate the emancipatory role of higher education in south africa today. using rawls’s theory of justice and the theory of mutual (in)fallibility he provides a nuanced critique of the extent to which south african higher education curricula have historically reinforced colonial epistemologies and continue to do so. these theories are also used to interrogate the legitimacy of the fallist movement’s protest against the erasure and silencing of black voices in higher education institutions. kumalo concludes that the fallist movement mimics the very colonial and masculine epistemological and ontological frameworks that it critiques by silencing and marginalising the voices of dissent in the movement. it is in this context that he is critical of the complete abandonment of historical ways of knowing and doing and argues for a more humanising approach which does not force unanimity but allows, rather, for critical reflection and the generation of ecologies of knowledge. in their article, namgamso mtsatse and celeste combrinck make a noteworthy contribution to the decolonisation of language debate. they explain how the dialects of isixhosa were reduced through colonisation into a single standardised language. this created the perception that isixhosa is a single, homogenous language. the artificial standardisation of isixhosa has had, and continues to have, dire consequences for learners who do not speak the officially recognised dialect. this article examines the influence of dialects and code-switching on the numeracy achievements of isixhosa grade 1 learners. mtsatse and combrinck provide a history of the lexicographical development of african languages in south africa and foreground the role of language in the decolonisation of education. the findings of this study address the need to research the complexities of african languages and their dialects in the light of what this implies for policy and practice in providing access to education. patrick mweli foregrounds the imperative to decolonize the use of english as the language of teaching and learning (lolt). he argues that language is inherently social and is therefore inextricably connected not just to epistemic access but, in this case, to the development of african identity, dignity, and culture. he challenges the hegemony of english in education and other contexts and is critical of how the continued use of english as lolt limits epistemic access and african ways of knowing and calls for an “epistemic decolonial lolt” or edlolt. mweli examines the lived experiences of grade four teachers and their attitudes about the use of english and isixhosa in their classrooms. his findings indicate that both the teachers and learners struggle with accessing knowledge in general given the prevalence of english as lolt. logamurthie athiemoolam discusses his use of an arts-based pedagogical approach—dramain-education—to teach a module to third year university students using teaching strategies aligned to the goal of decolonisation in a higher education classroom. he discusses how using a critical performative pedagogy that includes the use of tableaux, improvisation, and role plays fosters counter hegemonic practices that could not only subvert traditional notions of teaching and learning but could also contribute to alternative ways of knowing. such an approach is also more congruent with constructivist notions of learning, teaching, and knowledge construction in that this particular pedagogical intervention, used here in order to pillay and blignaut: editorial 3 narrow the theory/practice divide, draws on the imagination, creativity, and spontaneity of students to embrace learning as an embodied experience. athiemoolam points out that only one class participated and hence he is reluctant to make grand claims about this exploratory study, but his findings indicate that the students’ understanding was deepened and enhanced by this drama-in-education pedagogical approach during which they gained a much better understanding of concepts such as hegemony, a humanising pedagogy, social justice, and diversity. callie grant, lynn quinn, and jo-anne vorster provide an interesting account of how heads of department (hods) from one historically white university responded to the 2015–2016 student protests that called for the decolonisation of higher education. their article highlights the imperative to decolonise education and discusses conflicting conceptions of decolonisation. while some conceptualise decolonisation in terms of reconceptualising the academy as an institution, others see it more in terms of epistemic reform. some hods recognise that decolonisation is necessary but whether this recognition will translate into changing the status quo remains to be seen. although some were amenable to the call to decolonise the university others rejected it. grant, quinn, and vorster provide a clear synopsis of the way in which the student protests influenced and affected how hods at this institution saw decolonisation and its imperatives for change. marguerite müller veers away from traditional research methods in her use of a critical artsbased narrative approach based on her having researched the lived experiences of five educators teaching in a higher education institution during the time of intense transformational and decolonising debates. she argues that it is relatively easy to change the policies and the curricula in higher education institutions but if this effort is not accompanied by a similar thrust to include the teachers who are responsible for implementing the curriculum and pedagogy, change will be slow in coming. critiquing traditional notions of positivist research that relies heavily on data and analysis, she opts instead for an arts-based methodology that counters the limitations of the rational approach; müller provides us with a novel research method. the visual/textual portraits she uses explore the connections between educator identity and the demands on teachers in higher educational institutions to contribute to social justice imperatives. although the article does not definitively spell out how educators’ diverse backgrounds and histories, which are often in tension with the present demands of transformation and decolonisation, are to be resolved, müller does indicate that this article and her use of portraits should be regarded as an entry point into a much larger and imperfect discourse that pays heed to the fact that educators’ identities are complex and that these are uncertain times. coactiv was a collaborative project, running 2002–2008, based at the mpi berlin (max-1 planck institute for human development; project director: jürgen baumert, project staff: stefan krauss, mareike kunter et al.), with the universities of kassel (director: werner blum) and oldenburg (director: michael neubrand) as partner institutions. the coactiv study was funded by the german research foundation (dfg) as a component of its biqua priority program on the quality of schools; see kunter, baumert, blum, klusmann, krauss and neubrand (forthcoming) for more details. the conceptualisation and measurement of pedagogical content knowledge and content knowledge in the coactiv study and their impact on student learning stefan krauss and werner blum abstract an ongoing question is the extent to which teachers' professional knowledge has an impact on their teaching and, in particular, on their students' achievement. the coactiv study1 surveyed and tested the mathematics teachers of the classes sampled for pisa 2003/04 in germany. the study’s key components were newly developed tests of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and content knowledge. this article gives a report of the conceptualisation and operationalisation of both domains of knowledge and describes the construction of the coactiv tests. findings from the tests show that there are differences with respect to both knowledge domains regarding teachers’ school types, but that pedagogical content knowledge and content knowledge astoundingly both do not depend on teaching experience. furthermore we show that the two domains of knowledge correlate positively with constructivist teachers’ subjective beliefs, on the one hand, and with some crucial aspects of their instruction, on the other hand. finally, we show that pedagogical content knowledge – but not pure content knowledge per se – significantly contributes to students’ learning gains. the coactiv study 2003/2004 although the essential influence of teachers on students’ learning is obvious, empirical studies which assess aspects of the teachers’ professional knowledge systematically, and link them with the students’ achievement, are 46 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 the oecd programme for international student assessment, see 2 http://www.oecd.org/pisa/ very rare. the main goal of the german coactiv study (cognitive activation in the classroom: professional competence of teachers, cognitively activating instruction, and development of students´ mathematical literacy) was the investigation and testing of mathematics teachers of german pisa classes. the international pisa study 2003, whose2 main focus lay in the subject of mathematics, has been extended in germany both to a study based on whole classes (220 altogether) and to a longitudinal study, which means that the students of the grade 9 classes which were tested in pisa 2003 were examined again in grade 10 in the following year. following this pattern, the coactiv study investigated the mathematics teachers who taught these pisa classes in grade 9 and grade 10 at both pisa study dates (april 2003 and april 2004; therefore “coactiv 03/04”). the coactiv study 03/04, together with pisa, offered a unique opportunity to collect a broad range of data about both the students and their teachers, and to analyse them mutually. due to the data of the coactiv study it is not only possible to get an idea of the competencies and experiences of german secondary mathematics teachers, but it is possible to identify characteristics of a teacher empirically as well, which are relevant for the learning progress of students (or for different target criteria of mathematics lessons). in the context of the coactiv study, numerous instruments for the investigation of mathematics teachers were newly developed or adapted (they include the measurement of professional knowledge, of motivational orientations, beliefs and values, aspects of work-life experiences etc.; a more detailed overview on that study is available in the book: “teachers' professional competence: findings of the coactiv research program” (kunter, baumert, blum, klusmann, krauss and neubrand, forthcoming). figure 1 illustrates various aspects in which coactiv collected data together with pisa. together with the instruments which were used in pisa to examine the students, the teachers were presented with both questionnaires (regarding biography, interests, beliefs and more) and tests (e.g., regarding professional knowledge) in coactiv. but what should a ‘test’ for teachers look like? with which knowledge should mathematics teachers be equipped? from the point of view of mathematics, the pedagogical content knowledge (pck) and the content knowledge (ck) are of special interest as central parts http://www.oecd.org/pisa/ krauss and blum: the conceptualisation and measurement. . . 47 of the professional knowledge base (see figure 1, left column). in the context of the coactiv study, tests for mathematics teachers were developed for both knowledge categories which form the core of this study and which will be presented in the present paper in more detail. in the above-mentioned book (kunter et al., forthcoming) the interested reader can learn more about results of other aspects which have been examined in the coactiv study, for example, about the teachers’ experience of stress and ‘burn out’, about enthusiasm or about beliefs (see also left column in figure 1), about aspects of mathematics lessons in pisa classes from the point of view of teachers and students, and about the mathematics tasks used by teachers (middle column in figure 1). interesting results about students (right column in figure 1) can be taken from the respective pisa book (oecd, 2004). 48 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 figure 1: conceptual connection of the coactiv 03/04 study and the pisa 03/04 study and sample aspects of three columns examined: mathematics teachers, mathematics lessons and students º º coactiv 03/04 (teacher questionnaires and tests) mathematics teachers e.g. professional knowledge content knowledge (ck) ped. cont. knowledge (pck) diagnostic skills e.g. biography beliefs motivation work-related experiences coactiv 03/04 (teacher questionnaires) pisa 03/04 (student questionnaires) lessons lesson attributes, e.g.: classroom management learning support homework (some items formulated parallel for teachers and students) mathematical tasks collected from the lessons of the coactiv teachers pisa 03/04 (student questionnaires and tests) students pisa tests, e.g. mathematics, science, reading e.g. biography interests motivation self concept krauss and blum: the conceptualisation and measurement. . . 49 professional knowledge of mathematics teachers at the outset of studies about teachers in the first half of the last century, the notion of personality was in the foreground. from the 1950s onwards, it was the teachers’ behaviour in particular which was the object of research. today it is the general opinion that above all the professional knowledge of teachers plays a crucial role in the regulation of behaviour and therefore in the control of the teaching and learning processes (a famous quote from elbaz, 1983, says: “the single factor which seems to have the greatest power to carry forward our understanding of the teachers’ role is the phenomenon teachers’ knowledge.”). note that ‘knowledge’ here cannot be identified with declarative knowledge, in fact it must, in large parts, be regarded as procedural knowledge as well (routines, skills, abilities, competence) (cf. weinert, schrader and helmke, 1990). however, with which knowledge should teachers be equipped? the theoretical structuring of the teachers’ knowledge into distinguishable categories is traced via so-called taxonomical approaches. one of the most influential knowledge taxonomies for teachers is the one of lee shulman (1986). shulman introduced, among other categories, the domains of pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. these three categories form, seen from a contemporary point of view, the generally accepted core categories of the teachers’ professional knowledge (e.g., kunter et al., forthcoming). considering the teachers’ professional knowledge, lots of questions have remained unanswered over a long time: when is this knowledge acquired? how can it be measured? how does this knowledge influence lesson planning and the learning progress of students? an empirically valid answer to these questions requires that the relevant knowledge categories are made measurable. coactiv sought to fill the gap in research concerning the two special knowledge categories, the pedagogical content knowledge and the content knowledge of mathematics teachers. pedagogical knowledge (including the knowledge for the optimisation of the teaching-learning situation in general, e.g., classroom management, lesson structure, time management, discipline and the like), which should be essentially the same for teachers of different subjects, is not addressed in the present paper. a corresponding test construction for pedagogical knowledge has been 50 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 developed (see kunter et al., forthcoming) in the context of the follow-up study coactiv-r (in which trainee teachers have been assessed). how can pedagogical content knowledge and content knowledge of mathematics teachers be conceptualised? in the following, we introduce shulman’s (1986) characterisation, which forms the base of the test construction in the coactiv-study. pedagogical content knowledge (pck) of mathematics teachers in simple terms, shulman (1986) defines pedagogical content knowledge as knowledge about “making content accessible”. the core meaning of pedagogical content knowledge can best be taken from shulman’s original quote: within the category of pedagogical content knowledge i include, for the most regularly taught topics in one’s subject area, the most useful forms of representation of those ideas, the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations, and demonstrations – in a word, the ways of representing and formulating the subject that make it comprehensible to others. since there are no single most powerful forms of representation, the teacher must have at hand a veritable armamentarium of alternative forms of representation, some of which derive from research whereas others originate in the wisdom of practice. pedagogical content knowledge also includes an understanding of what makes the learning of specific topics easy or difficult: the conceptions and preconceptions that students of different ages and backgrounds bring with them to the learning of those most frequently taught topics and lessons. if those preconceptions are misconceptions, which they so often are, teachers need knowledge of the strategies most likely to be fruitful in reorganising the understanding of learners, because those learners are unlikely to appear before them as blank slates (p. 9–10). simply, shulman describes two aspects of pedagogical content knowledge: on the one hand he emphasises the knowledge about explaining and representing (‘the ways of representing and formulating the subject’), and on the other hand he underlines the importance of knowledge on subject-related student cognitions (‘conceptions’, ‘preconceptions’, ‘misconceptions’). attention should be paid to the fact that shulman’s description is true for every subject: teachers of all subjects should be able to represent content of their subject appropriately and should be conscious of typical misconceptions of students. it is well known that in mathematics lessons mathematical tasks play a decisive role (e.g. christiansen and walther, 1986; neubrand, jordan, krauss, blum and löwen, forthcoming). mathematical tasks offer efficient krauss and blum: the conceptualisation and measurement. . . 51 learning opportunities, and the majority of time in mathematics lessons is spent solving mathematical tasks. a substantial knowledge base on the characteristics of tasks is therefore of particular importance in mathematics lessons. it has to be taken into account that by ‘knowledge about tasks’ we do not mean the ability to solve mathematical tasks, but we mean the pedagogical knowledge about the potential of tasks for the learning of students (i.e. the knowledge about what a task can contribute to the students’ successful knowledge construction). pedagogical content knowledge of the subject of mathematics was therefore conceptualised in coactiv with three key components of knowledge: ! knowledge about explaining and representing mathematical contents (‘e&r’) ! knowledge about mathematics related student cognitions (‘stcog’) ! knowledge about the potential of mathematical tasks (‘task’) in figure 2, test items can be found illustrating these three sub-facets of pedagogical content knowledge. in addition, a sample item of the test on content knowledge (see under content knowledge (ck) of mathematics teachers) can be found there. the conceptualisation of the three sub-facets of pedagogical content knowledge was defined more precisely for the purpose of the operationalisation of test items in the following way: explaining and representing (‘e&r’): operationalisation based on lesson scenarios the student’s knowledge construction can quite often only be successful because of instructional guidance (e.g. mayer, 2004). mathematics teachers should be able to explain and represent mathematical issues in an appropriate way. when operationalising this aspect of pedagogical content knowledge, 11 situations in mathematical lessons were constructed in which direct support for local processes of understanding was necessary (see sample item ‘minus 1 times minus 1’ in figure 2). as profound knowledge on mathematical representations means the availability of a broad range of explanations for mathematical problems, the knowledge on representations was thereby brought into focus. 52 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 mathematics related student cognitions (‘stcog’): operationalisation as knowledge about typical errors and difficulties of students in order to be able to teach adaptively, a teacher has to be equipped with knowledge about typical content-related student cognitions. difficulties and errors, especially, reveal the implicit knowledge of the problem solver and therefore make cognitive processes noticeable (e.g. matz, 1982). in order to utilise the students’ errors and typical difficulties as a pedagogical opportunity, mathematics teachers must be able to identify, classify conceptually and analyse the students’ errors. for operationalising pedagogical content knowledge about the students’ cognitions, seven situations in mathematics lessons were constructed in which the students’ errors and difficulties had to be identified and/or analysed (see sample task ‘parallelogram’ in figure 2). the potential of mathematical tasks (‘task’): operationalisation as knowledge about the multiple potential to solve mathematical tasks it has been pointed out repeatedly that mathematical understanding can be developed by comparing different solutions of mathematical tasks (e.g., rittle-johnson and star, 2007). in order to make this issue accessible in lessons, mathematics teachers have to be able to recognise the potential of tasks for multiple solutions and they have to know what kind of structural differences are featured by these different solutions of a mathematical task. for operationalising pedagogical content knowledge about the potential of mathematical tasks, four mathematical tasks were chosen, each including an instruction for the teacher to explicate as many substantially different solutions as possible (see sample item ‘square’ in figure 2). the pedagogical content knowledge test in coactiv therefore consists of three subtests, namely on knowledge on explaining and representing (11 items), knowledge on the students’ errors and difficulties (seven items), and knowledge on multiple solutions of tasks (four items). altogether, pedagogical content knowledge was assessed by 22 items. note that this conceptualisation (including the respective operationalisations) can easily be embedded into a simple model of mathematics lesson: mathematics lessons can – using the briefest phrasing – be taken as making mathematical contents accessible to students. because of the sub-facets of the krauss and blum: the conceptualisation and measurement. . . 53 coactiv test for pedagogical content knowledge it is assured that each of the three pillars of mathematics lessons (contents, students, making accessible) is covered by one component of knowledge: the ‘content’ aspect is covered by knowledge of the potential of tasks (multiple solutions of tasks), the ‘students’ aspect is covered by knowledge of subject-related student cognitions (errors and difficulties of students), and the ‘making accessible’ aspect is covered by knowledge of ‘making contents comprehensible’ (explaining and representing). of course, the present conceptualisation cannot cover the pedagogical content knowledge completely; it can rather be seen as an attempt to assess relevant facets of pedagogical content knowledge related to crucial aspects of teaching mathematics. other conceptualisations of pck have been developed, in particular, by grossman (1990), ball, hill and bass (2005), hill, rowan and ball (2005) or tatto, schwille, senk, ingvarson, peck and rowley (2008). while tatto et al. (2008) investigated, in the teacher education and development study – mathematics (teds-m), teacher trainees and pre-service teachers, ball et al. (2005) examined the mathematical knowledge needed for teaching (mkt) of practicing elementary teachers. it is interesting to note that all projects regard knowledge on explanations and knowledge on student errors as crucial aspects of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge. all projects use the format of lesson scenarios, but whereas most of the teds-m items and of the items of the michigan group (e.g., ball et al., 2005; hill et al., 2005) have multiple choice format, all pck and ck items in the coactiv study have an open-ended format, thus avoiding the problems typically associated with multiple choice items. the different approaches are compared in detail in krauss, baumert and blum (2008) (also see the article by adler and patahuddin in the present volume, where the authors explicate the approach of ball and colleagues). content knowledge (ck) of mathematics teachers content knowledge is generally seen as a necessary but not sufficient requirement for pedagogical content knowledge (e.g. see kunter et al., forthcoming). although nobody queries that profound content knowledge is an unalienable basic requirement for successful lessons, this category of knowledge is treated a lot less extensively in literature – in comparison to pedagogical content knowledge. shulman’s conceptualisation of content knowledge says: 54 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 to think properly about content knowledge requires going beyond knowledge of the facts or concepts of a domain. it requires understanding the structures of the subject matter [. . .]. for schwab (1978) the structures of a subject include both the substantive and syntactic structure. the substantive structures are the variety of ways in which the basic concepts and principles of the discipline are organized to incorporate its facts. the syntactic structure of a discipline is the set of ways in which truth or falsehood, validity or invalidity, are established. [. . .]. the teacher need not only to understand that something is so, the teacher must further understand why it is so, on what grounds its warrant can be asserted, and under what circumstances our belief in its justification can be weakened and even denied (p. 9). according to shulman (1986), a teacher should be equipped – besides knowledge of mathematical facts – with the competence of argumentation and justification, e.g. for proofs or connections, within the discipline. however, shulman’s description leaves the question open, with which level of content knowledge a teacher should be equipped in particular. does he only mean the subject matter of the school curriculum, or is it crucial to have a broad basis of university-related knowledge available? the term ‘mathematical content knowledge’, in principle, can refer to the following different levels: 1. mathematical everyday knowledge 2. knowledge of the subject matter of the mathematical curriculum (contents which have to be learned by students) 3. advanced background knowledge of the subject matter of the mathematical curriculum 4. mathematical knowledge which is exclusively taught at university ‘mathematical content knowledge’ was conceptualised in coactiv on the third level, i.e. as advanced background knowledge about the subject matter of the mathematical school curriculum. in order to be able to cope with mathematically challenging situations in a lesson in a competent way, teachers are expected to conceive the subject matter that they teach on an appropriate level which is obviously above the common work-level in the lessons. altogether, 13 items with mathematics on an advanced school knowledge level were presented to teachers in the coactiv test of content knowledge. for content knowledge, no sub-facets were postulated theoretically (but see, e.g. blömeke, lehmann, seeber, schwarz, kaiser, felbrich and müller, 2008, for such sub-facets). a sample item of this coactiv test can be found in figure 2. krauss and blum: the conceptualisation and measurement. . . 55 figure 2: sample items (and respective sample solutions) from the coactiv tests of mathematics teachers’ pck and ck 56 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 administration of the tests altogether, 198 mathematics teachers were examined with both the pedagogical content knowledge test and the content knowledge test. as the tests were administered at the second measurement date of coactiv in 2004, the participating teachers were recruited from the mathematics teachers of the grade 10 classes which were examined for the german longitudinal pisa 03/04 component. thus, this sample can be regarded as representative. in germany, all candidates entering a teacher training program must have graduated from the highest track in the school system, the so-called ‘gymnasium’ (gy), and received the so-called ‘abitur’ qualification (corresponding to the grade point average in the usa). at university, those aspiring to teach at the secondary level must choose between separate degree programs qualifying them to teach either at gy or in the other secondary tracks (e.g., ‘realschule’ or ‘sekundarschule’). gy and non-gymnasium (ngy) teacher education students are usually strictly separated during their university training. one of the main differences in their degree programs is the subject matter covered: students trained to teach at gy cover an in-depth curriculum almost comparable to that of a master’s degree in mathematics. relative to their colleagues who receive less subject-matter training (and usually spend less time at university), gy teachers may therefore be considered mathematical experts. ngy teachers, in contrast, study less subject matter but they are trained with more pedagogical content in university. 85 of the 198 teachers who were working on the tests were teaching at gy (55% of them were male), and 113 of those were teaching at ngy (43% of these were male). the average age of the participating teachers was 47.2 years (with a standard deviation of 8.4); the teachers received an expense allowance of 60 euro for their participation. the tests were administered in a single session with attendance of a trained test guide, normally in the afternoons of the pisa test day in a separate room of the school. for completing the tests, there was no time limit. on average teachers spent two hours to complete both tests (about 65 min for dealing with the 22 items of the pedagogical content knowledge test and about 55 min for dealing with the 13 items of the content knowledge test). the use of hand-held calculators was not allowed for the completion of the tests. all of the 35 items were open questions. an instruction for coding was developed, and eight of the best mathematics teacher students of the university of kassel were instructed carefully in coding teachers’ answers. each answer of the teachers was then coded by two of those trained students krauss and blum: the conceptualisation and measurement. . . 57 independently (whereby sufficient results of agreement have been achieved). the procedure of test construction (including the scoring scheme of the item ‘square’ as an example) and resulting psychometric test properties can be found in detail in krauss, blum, brunner, neubrand, baumert, kunter, besser and elsner (forthcoming). results figure 3 gives an overview of the test results, divided into the two different german school types. note that all results refer to our specific conceptualisations and operationalisations of mathematics teachers’ pck and ck figure 3: ck and pck: means m (standard deviations sd) and empirical maxima by teacher group m (sd) gy (n=85) m (sd) ngy (n=113) effect size d (gy vs ngy) emp. max. gy emp. max. ngy ck (13 items) pck (22 items) e&r (11 items) stcog (7 items) tasks (4 items) 8.5 (2.3) 22.6 (5.9) 9.3 (3.4) 5.8 (2.3) 7.5 (1.8) 4.0 (2.8) 18.0 (5.6) 7.1 (3.2) 4.3 (1.9) 6.6 (2.0) 1.73 0.80 0.67 0.71 0.47 1.3e+09 1.2e+08 gy academic track teachers, ngy non-academic track teachers. according to cohen (1992), d=0.20 is a small effect, d=0.50 a medium effect, and d=0.80 a large effect. all differences are significant at p<0.01 one specific feature of the pedagogical content knowledge test has to be mentioned: while in every item of the test for content knowledge one point could be scored with each correct answer (the maximum score which could be achieved was therefore 13), in the pedagogical content knowledge test in 9 of the 22 items multiple answers were allowed (and even asked for, see figure 2). considering the sub-facet ‘e&r’, this was the case in 3 out of 11 items, considering ‘stcog’, in 2 out of 7 items and referring to ‘task’, in all the 4 58 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 items. therefore a theoretical maximum for pedagogical content knowledge does not exist, but an empirical one: 37 points, which were achieved by one teacher; that means she was able to solve all items correctly and therefore got one point for each, and that she provided, on average, 2–3 correct alternatives in the multiple tasks. as expected, due to the quite intensive training in subject matter of gy teachers, a major difference could be recognised between gy teachers and ngy teachers in their content knowledge. considering the pedagogical content knowledge, gy teachers also achieved more points on average, especially due to their higher competence level considering students’ errors and explaining and representing (see figure 3). however, it should be noted that brunner, kunter, krauss, baumert, blum and neubrand et al. (2006) showed that, when ck is statistically controlled for (i.e., when only teachers with the same ck level are compared), the ngy teachers slightly outperform the gy teachers with respect to pck. the following results are worth mentioning as well (see krauss et al., forthcoming, for more detailed results): 1. basically, the development of professional knowledge in our conceptualisation seems to be completed at the end of teacher training: surprisingly no positive correlations between both knowledge categories, on the one hand, and teaching experience or age, on the other hand, could be found. of course, this does not mean that there are no other aspects of teachers’ competence that increase with age and experience, for instance certain routines of classroom management. it only means that this kind of knowledge assessed by the coactiv tests is obviously acquired during the time of the teacher training already. indeed, from an additional construct validation study an intense increase of both knowledge categories could be found from the beginning of university studies to the end of teacher education. however, in this construct validation study only cross-sectional data were gathered (the examined samples were, among others, students at the end of gymnasium and teacher training students at the end of university; for details of this construct validation study see krauss, baumert and blum, 2008). 2. a strong relation between pedagogical content knowledge and content knowledge exists. such a correlation is in line with the theoretical assumption of shulman (1987) and other authors that pedagogical content knowledge is a certain ‘amalgam’ of content knowledge and krauss and blum: the conceptualisation and measurement. . . 59 pedagogical knowledge. the relationship between the two knowledge categories can be examined directly by calculating the correlation between pck and ck, which in the coactiv data was r = 0.60 indicating that pck seems actually to be built upon a reliable base of ck. note that this connection was much stronger in the gy group; indeed, modelling pck and ck as latent constructs led to a latent correlation in the gy group that was no longer statistically distinguishable from 1 (see krauss, brunner, kunter, baumert, blum, neubrand and jordan, 2008). why was this correlation less strong in the ngy group? closer inspection of the teacher data revealed that about 15% of ngy teachers who performed very poorly on ck (e.g., scoring only 1–2 points) nevertheless showed above-average performance on pck (note that all teachers worked on all items and that the content areas of the pck items differs from the content areas of the ck items). in other words, although our data support the claim that pck profits substantially from a solid base of ck, ck is only one possible route to pck. the greater emphasis on didactics in the initial training provided for ngy teacher candidates in germany seems to be another route. 3. voss, kunter and baumert (forthcoming) theoretically and empirically analysed the structure of subjective beliefs of the coactiv teachers by using a 2x2 table with the first dimension nature of mathematical knowledge opposed to teaching and learning of mathematics and the second dimension transmissive vs. constructivist orientation toward learning. they found that only constructivist orientation but not a transmissive orientation contributes positively to the quality of lessons. krauss et al. (forthcoming) found, for example, that teachers with high pck and ck scores tended to disagree with the view that mathematics is ‘just’ a toolbox of facts and rules that ‘simply’ have to be recalled and applied. rather, these teachers tended to think of mathematics as a process permanently leading to new discoveries. at the same time, the knowledgeable teachers rejected a receptive view of learning (“mathematics can best be learned by careful listening”), but tended to think that mathematics should be learned by self-determined, independent activities that foster real insight (for the development of beliefs see voss et al., submitted; or schmeisser et al., forthcoming). 4. because coactiv was ‘docked’ onto the pisa study, it was possible to relate teachers’ pck to their students’ mathematics achievement 60 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 gains over the year under investigation. possibly the most important result of the coactiv study is that pedagogical content knowledge – but not content knowledge itself – contributes to the quality of lessons and to the students’ learning decisively. very briefly, when their mathematics achievement in grade 9 was kept constant, students taught by teachers with higher pck scores performed significantly better in mathematics in grade 10. by means of structural equation modelling, baumert, kunter, blum, brunner, voss, jordan, klusmann, krauss, neubrand and tsai (2010) or baumert and kunter (forthcoming) could show that pck can explain students’ achievement gains in a substantial way. to be more precise, if the pedagogical content knowledge of the teachers differed by one standard deviation (which means about 6 points in the pck test according to figure 3), the mathematical achievement of their students differed by nearly two thirds of a standard deviation after one year of schooling (which is really a lot taking into account that the average learning progress in grade 10 in pisa was a third of a standard deviation). because student learning can be considered the ultimate aim of teaching, the discriminant predictive validity of both knowledge constructs can be considered a main result of the coactiv study, especially in the light of the high correlation between both knowledge constructs (for more details see baumert et al., 2010; or baumert and kunter, forthcoming). summary and discussion the construction of knowledge tests for teachers has been demanded emphatically (e.g., lanahan, scotchmer, mclaughlin, 2004). coactiv focused on specifying pedagogical content knowledge and content knowledge for the subject of mathematics, constructing appropriate tests, and utilising them for a representative sample of german mathematics teachers of secondary schools. referring to the understanding of mathematics lessons as making mathematical contents accessible to the students, pedagogical content knowledge was conceptualised and operationalised in coactiv as knowledge on explaining and representing (‘making accessible’ aspect), on errors and difficulties of students (‘students’ aspect) and on multiple solutions of mathematical tasks (‘contents’ aspect). considering the content knowledge krauss and blum: the conceptualisation and measurement. . . 61 test, it has to be emphasised that due to the chosen curriculum-focused conceptualisation (advanced background knowledge of school mathematics) no empirically verified statements about the importance of high-level content knowledge that in germany is gained at university could be deduced. in order to be able to investigate the relevance of this high-level content knowledge for student learning, a new test construction would be necessary. essential results, considering pedagogical content knowledge and content knowledge of coactiv teachers, are the following: teaching experience does not seem to make a relevant contribution to the development of the two knowledge domains, which suggests that pedagogical content knowledge and content knowledge (as conceptualised in coactiv) obviously are primarily acquired during teacher training. in order to examine the exact time and process of the acquisition in both knowledge domains, more studies with the coactiv tests are necessary (e.g. with teacher trainees or student teachers; see coactiv-r). gy teachers show higher scores on content knowledge. the fact that gy teachers are equipped with significantly more pck (even if the difference is less noticeable in this case than in the case of ck) can be taken as an indication of the importance of content knowledge for the development of pedagogical content knowledge. however, a small group of ngy teachers (about 15%) shows that it is possible to possess outstanding pedagogical content knowledge with less content knowledge. a result of great significance is the fact that pedagogical content knowledge of a teacher – but not content knowledge per se – contributes substantially to the learning development of the students. therefore it is worth investing in teacher training of mathematics teachers, especially with respect to pedagogical content knowledge, with a sound basis of content knowledge. 62 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 references adler, j. and patahuddin, s.m. 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(submitted). transmissive and constructivist beliefs of pre-service and in-service teachers. voss, t., kleickmann, t., kunter, m. and hachfeld, a. (forthcoming). mathematics teachers’ beliefs. in kunter, m., baumert, j., blum, w., klusmann, u., krauss, s. and neubrand, m. (eds), teachers’ professional competence. findings of the coactiv research program. new york: springer. weinert, f.e., schrader, f.-w. and helmke, a. 1990. unterrichtsexpertise – ein konzept zur verringerung der kluft zwischen zwei theoretischen paradigmen. in alisch, l.-m., baumert, j. and beck, k. (eds), professionswissen und professionalisierung: 28. braunschweig: copycenter-colmsee, pp.173–206. stefan krauss university of regensburg germany stefan1.krauss@mathematik.uni-regensburg.de werner blum university of kassel germany blum@mathematik.uni-kassel.de mailto:stefan1.krauss@mathematik.uni-regensburg.de mailto:blum@mathematik.uni-kassel.de microsoft word c74 full issue 17dec.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 74, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i74a06 working toward a socially just curriculum in south africa: a collaborative autobiographical narrative inquiry marguerite müller school of education studies, faculty of education, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa mullerm@ufs.ac.za collins motai lecturer, national certificate vocational (ncv) programme, higher education & training, motheo tvet college, bloemfontein, south africa motaid@motheotvet.co.za matshepo nkopane lecturer, national certificate vocational (ncv) programme, higher education & training, motheo tvet college, bloemfontein, south africa nkopanee@motheotvet.co.za tiisetso mofokeng english and sesotho teacher, jimmie roos school, dewetsdorp, south africa tiisetsomofokeng32@gmail.com nthatuoa lephatsoe english language and literature teacher, st. stephens high school, mohale’s hoek, lesotho nthalephatsoe@gmail.com ryno mouton deputy principal, north primary school, sasolburg, south africa rynom@ymail.com (received: 14 may 2018; accepted: 25 october 2018) abstract in this article, we foreground the lived experiences of a group of post-graduate education students at the university of the free state who explored issues of social justice in the curriculum. our contextual and local experiences are situated as part of a call for the decolonisation of the curriculum. in this context, we view 86 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 curriculum as an autobiographical, lived, and storied practice (pinar, 2012). through our creative collaborative narrative, we focus on teacher identity and experience since this has been shown to have a major impact on the curriculum (clandinin & connelly, 2000). furthermore, we use kumashiro’s (2002) conceptualisation of antioppressive education to highlight the messiness and discomfort of our experiences as we relearn, unlearn, and trouble oppressive knowledge in order to imagine alternatives. we posit anti-oppressive education as part of the social justice project as a useful theoretical stance in thinking around the decolonisation of the curriculum. in this article, we use a critical qualitative inquiry (denzin, 2017) to explore what a process of decolonisation might look like; we offer an entangled view of how a collaborative narrative research methodology, identity, experience, and theory form part of the process of working towards a socially just and decolonised curriculum. our article contributes to an existing body of work that uses collaborative and narrative methods to research issues of social justice. however, since much of the international literature on social justice education and curriculum is written in contexts far removed from our everyday experiences, we wish to make a unique contribution that is rooted in our local context and that highlights the unique experiences of south african teachers in relation to issues of social justice and the decolonisation of the curriculum. keywords: collaborative research; autobiographical narrative; decolonisation; social-justice; anti-oppressive education. a call for change the call for decolonised higher education has intensified in recent years. this is evident from the student protest movements that, as jansen (2017) noted, placed great emphasis on a decolonised university curriculum. as south african educators, we need to think about how we can respond to the call for a decolonised curriculum. furthermore, we need to think about how our research practices can inform and be informed by this response so our thinking, about curriculum change, transformation, and decolonisation should be informed by research practices that make such change possible. our engagement with decolonisation must thus be twofold—first, in our experimentation with a different way of doing research, and second, in the theoretical sphere of anti-oppressive education where we locate our experiences of change and social justice. in this article, we use a critical qualitative inquiry (denzin, 2017) to explore what a process of decolonisation might look like. we are interested in how our identity and experiences can guide our understanding of curriculum as entangled with transformation, decolonisation, and social justice. in this exploration we use anti-oppressive education as a theoretical stance to help us think through issues of social justice, decolonisation and curriculum. furthermore, our critical inquiry is located in a collaborative, autobiographical, and narrative methodology that enables us to address issues of power relationships with research contexts as well as foreground the contextual and local experiences of south african educators. we offer an entangled view of how a collaborative narrative research methodology, experience, and literature all form part of the process of working towards a socially just and decolonised curriculum. in the next section, we discuss some of the literature and theories on decolonisation and social justice. we highlight specifically the theory of anti-oppressive education to explore the ways in which it might help us move towards a decolonised curriculum. following that, we discuss our method of collaborative narrative research as it becomes entangled with our theoretical understanding of decolonisation and social justice. müller et al.: working toward a socially just curriculum in south africa . . . 87 a discussion of some literature and theories on decolonisation and social justice here we unpack some of the literature and theories on decolonisation and social justice as it relates to our understanding and context. mackinlay and barney (2014) have pointed out that “[d]ecolonisation is a concept that takes on different meanings across different contexts” (p. 55. nonetheless, it can be understood roughly to encompass a project that resists eurocentrism, works to address the harm caused by colonial domination, and moves towards more socially just practices in the field of education. it should be noted, however, that there are many contradictions and controversies surrounding the issue of decolonisation in education. scholars like jansen (2017) and keet, sattarzadeh, and munene (2017) have warned that it might be part of a new academic fad that might just disappear with time as it goes out of fashion, without having had any real or transformative impact on our curriculum or practices. they argue that educators should not simply get caught up in this latest buzz word but should, rather, work with students to “contribute to the self-clarification of the struggles within our universities” (p. 5). in this article, we hope to contribute to this selfclarification by using collaborative, autobiographical narratives to create a reflexive and honest engagement with ourselves and our experiences as we move towards a socially just, decolonised, and transformed curriculum. jansen (2017) has stated that “[t]eachers interpret the curriculum to students on the basis of their own experiences, backgrounds, politics, and preferences” (p. 169). from this, we understand that the experiences of educators—our own experiences—should play a pivotal role in working towards a decolonised curriculum. the manner in which we engage with these experiences is also significant in the context of decolonisation. mbembe (2016) has reminded us that western epistemic traditions are traditions that claim detachment of the known from the knower. they rest on a division between mind and world, or between reason and nature as an ontological a priori. they are traditions in which the knowing subject is enclosed in itself and peeks out at a world of objects and produces supposedly objective knowledge of those objects. the knowing subject is thus able to know the world without being part of that world and he or she is by all accounts able to produce knowledge that is supposed to be universal and independent of context. (pp. 32–33). by calling attention to the problematics of western traditions of knowledge as something that resides outside of the subject, and as something that can be objectively investigated and found, mbembe (2016) has helped us to trouble existing and prevailing research traditions in which researchers are often positioned as knowers who make knowledge claims about the known. he went on to say that “there is a consensus that our institutions must undergo a process of decolonization both of knowledge and of the university as an institution” (p. 33). in this article, we look specifically at how we can create an alternative approach to what counts as knowledge in terms of social justice and decolonisation of the curriculum. we do this by foregrounding the voice, identity, and knowledge of educators who engage with 88 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 curricula in terms of what aoki (1993, 2005) described as a lived experience and what le grange has thought of as an autobiographical one in their everyday world. in moving towards a decolonised approach to research practice and methodology, we need, therefore, to come to a new understanding of subjectivity, one in which the knower and the known become conflated. in moving towards this new understanding, we need to think of new ways of knowing because, as mbembe (2016) has pointed out, “[w]e might be fighting battles of the present and the future with outdated tools [and] [w]e need more profound understanding of the situation we find ourselves in today if we are to better rethink the university of tomorrow” (p. 37). we try to come to a more profound understanding of the situation in which we find ourselves today by looking at the shared experiences that brought us to this point of collaboration. we, as the educators who participated in this study, form an assemblage of histories and experiences in coming from different places but ones that move us in the same direction towards what zembylas (2017) referred to as a shared responsibility. the way we understand and use decolonisation in our work is as a compelling and productive force that necessitates our working towards new ways of being, researching, and teaching in the southern african context. linking decolonisation to social justice in this section, we extend the discussion of how our work relates to decolonisation to issues of social justice and we zoom in specifically on the theory of anti-oppressive education. the critical theorist paulo freire (1985) stressed the importance of recognising the educator and the student as historical beings. as south african educators, we do not come into the classroom with clean slates. in fact, most of us come from a divided and unequal society in which we function inside oppressive structures and systems. yet, we have an official commitment to a socially just curriculum as is enshrined in almost all the curriculum assessment policy statements (caps) (2012), documents that currently serve as curriculum and policy guidelines for south african educators. with this in mind, we set out to understand how our identities and experiences can influence curriculum transformation for a more socially just and decolonised educational system. in our research, our teacher identities and experiences are foregrounded in line with our view of curriculum as an autobiographical, lived, and storied practice (pinar, 2012). in this project, we approach social justice as more than just a theoretical concept that we need to embrace in our teaching. rather, it is an active process in which our identities and experiences shape and influence what we teach and how we teach it. bell (2007) described social justice as both a process and a goal. the process for attaining the goal of social justice, we believe, should be democratic and participatory, inclusive and affirming of human agency and human capacities for working collaboratively to create change . . . the goal for social justice education is to enable people to develop the critical analytical tools necessary to understand oppression and their own socialization within oppressive systems, and to develop a müller et al.: working toward a socially just curriculum in south africa . . . 89 sense of agency and capacity to interrupt and change oppressive patterns and behaviours in themselves and in the institutions and communities of which they are part. (p. 2) our research project embraces both the process and the goal of social justice. our process is highlighted through our methodological approach, which, because it is participatory, inclusive, and affirming of human agency, makes it possible for us to work collaboratively to create change. furthermore, our project has the goal of helping us locate and recognise our experiences with oppression and oppressive systems through an engagement with our autobiographical narratives. this is in line with bell and desai’s (2011) view that “[s]ocial justice practices at their best should also awaken our senses and the ability to imagine alternatives that can sustain the collective work necessary to challenge entrenched patterns and institutions and build a different world” (p. 287). we approach this imagining of alternatives collaboratively as we explore how to interrupt and change our own behaviour and, by extension, the educational institutions and communities of which we are part. teaching for social justice is a pedagogical method that enables teachers to implement and deliver a curriculum that is fair and equal and does not discriminate against learners because of their differences. our study maintains that for social justice to be possible, teachers need to collaborate with other teachers to become activists of social transformation. however, this might be easier said than done. francis and hemson (2007) explored the actions of m.ed. students in a course on pedagogy in social justice education and how these clashed with an anti-oppressive approach. they show how problematic it is to think that educators can simply change from practising oppression to offering liberation, since, in reality, the move towards social justice in education is difficult, imperfect, and challenging. keeping this in mind, our study highlights the need to engage collaboratively with our experiences as we critically reflect and seek new knowledge for building relations and developing a culture of integrity, respect, and care for others. the collaborative aspect of our study is thus an important expression of our understanding of social justice. it links to our view of decolonisation as necessitating a new way of doing research in order to foreground the local realities and experiences of educators. these experiences are framed within a larger project of social justice and transformation. a theory of anti-oppressive education here we discuss the theory of anti-oppressive education and how we used it to make sense of our past and present experiences in south african education. we locate our study in the antioppressive theory of kevin kumashiro (2002), who emphasized the importance of troubling our existing knowledge in a process of unlearning, relearning, and looking beyond what we know. he described four ways to conceptualise anti-oppressive education. the first way is “education for the other” (p. 28), in which the educators strive to improve the experience of students who are othered. this approach views the school essentially as a harmful space in which othered students are treated in harmful ways. the goal for educators working towards anti-oppressive practice should then be to teach to all and embrace the diversity of students as 90 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 raced, gendered, sexually diverse, and classed individuals. the second approach is “education about the other” (p. 33). the aim here is to create awareness and knowledge about the other. such knowledge often relies on normative values—the so-called right and authentic truth— but this can be misleading and distorted, and based on stereotypes, and is therefore partial and biased knowledge. kumashiro’s third approach to conceptualising anti-oppressive education is “education that is critical of privileging and othering” (p. 37). here, the focus is shifted from otherness and emphasises how some groups are favoured, normalised, and privileged. schools are seen to be spaces that transmit ruling ideologies and reproduce existing social orders; we have to recognise, critique, and understand such social inequality. this involves unlearning what was previously learned as normal and normative as kumashiro has made clear. the fourth and final approach is “education that changes the self and society” (p. 39). this implies that we must constantly look beyond what is being said for the silences and contradictions in our knowledge. following this framework means that we have to revisit our desire to ignore certain things in our narratives. kumashiro (2002) argued that anti-oppressive theory is influenced by poststructuralism and therefore allows us to deconstruct the self/other binary that can be viewed as rooted in colonial discourse, so a move towards decolonisation must also be a move beyond the self/other distinction. anti-oppressive theory helps us to trouble the self/other binary through our theoretical understanding and to extend it to our methodological approach as we try to move beyond binaries like knower/known, researcher/participant, subject/object, and so on. furthermore, anti-oppressive theory is rooted in critical theory, which helps us examine the connection between social identity, unequal power relationships, and oppression. critical theory has been influential in helping education researchers develop a reflexive stance towards their teaching. in exposing the limitations of critical theory in a post-conflict society, jansen (2009) has called for a post-conflict pedagogy. he has argued that although critical theory shows us the systematic and institutionalised character of oppression, it is limited in “making sense of troubled knowledge and for transforming those who carry the burden of such knowledge . . . critical theory receives and constructs the world as divided between black and white, working and privileged classes, citizens and illegal immigrants, men and women, straight and queer, oppressors and oppressed; its dialogical pretences notwithstanding, the world is torn among rival groups” (p. 256). we find the anti-oppressive theory of kumashiro (2002) useful because it enables us to acknowledge the limits of what we know and encourages us to move beyond our current knowledge. given this understanding of anti-oppressive education, we are able to peruse a plurality of knowledge rooted in local and small micro-narratives that honour the past and present experiences of south african teachers. the multiplicity of understanding that comes from collaborative work of this nature serves to trouble the colonial ideals of universal knowledge and grand overarching narratives. we hope that our study can contribute to the plurality of knowledge through contextual and local responses as we work towards an understanding of a decolonised curriculum. müller et al.: working toward a socially just curriculum in south africa . . . 91 a research methodology that responds to the call for change in this section, we discuss our methodological approach and link it to our theoretical understanding of decolonisation, social justice, and anti-oppressive education. in line with our view of knowledge as a plurality, we used a collaborative narrative method to engage critically with our experiential knowledge of social justice in the curriculum. we chose a narrative method for our project because “narrative researchers continue to be compelled by the relationship between their work and possibilities for change and social justice” (chase, 2011, p. 427). a narrative approach is well suited to address issues of complexity and cultural and human centeredness because of its capacity to record and retell events that have had the most influence on us. we locate narrative in the broader area of critical qualitative methodologies that are well suited to research using critical perspectives and theories. ulmer (2017) stated that critical qualitative methodology has transformative aims by attending to race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, culture, spirituality, ability, language, and other aspects of identity. critical methodologies welcome all of humanity to contribute knowledge. because critical inquiry strives to be inclusive, anyone can offer insights based on their own socio-cultural experiences. as a result, robust bodies of literature have developed around critical race theory, as well as feminist, lgbtq, indigenous, and dis/ability studies. these methodologies have been applied most often within interpretivist frames that underscore the importance of honouring marginalized people’s experiences, perspectives, voices, and participation in research. (p. 834) the autobiographical aspect of the research is thus necessary since it offers all participants the chance to contribute insights into their own socio-cultural experiences in relation to education and social justice. denzin (2017) emphasised the role of the researcher in an historical present where the need for social justice is becoming more and more evident. he stated that “[t]he pursuit of social justice within a transformative paradigm challenges prevailing forms of inequality, poverty, human oppression, and injustice. this paradigm is firmly rooted in a human rights agenda” (p. 8). the local lives of the researcher and participant are thus important since “[t]he focus will be on human beings as universal singulars, individuals, and groups universalizing in their singularity the transformative life experiences of their historical moment” (p. 9). denzin (2008) described interpretative biography or autoethnography as a method of inquiry in which we re-tell or re-perform our lived experiences. this method does not necessarily concern itself with giving what might be called a true or accurate representation of what was or is, but, rather, with the possibilities of knowing what our biographies make possible. as leavy (2009) pointed out, “[a]utobiographic work is suited to identity research that seeks to confront stereotypes that keep some groups disenfranchised while other groups are limited by their own biased ‘common-sense’ ideas” (p. 24). in seeking for a local and contextual understanding of how educator identity responds to and shapes ideas of social justice and 92 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 decolonisation, we embarked on a form of collaborative narrative inquiry that is autobiographical in nature. furthermore, the collective biographical (see davies & gannon, 2012) aspect of our project is important because of its “potentially radical, political, disruptive, and creative approach to inquiry, one that offers multiple possibilities and openings for researchers” (wyatt, gale, gannon, & davies, 2018, p. 738). by abandoning the idea of an individualised author, we seek to open up the multiplicity of the assembled subjectivities that stand in contrast to the colonial desire of categorisation and order and the subsequent neoliberal demand for competitive individualism (see wyatt et al., 2018). as critical qualitative researchers, we used a collaborative autobiographical narrative methodology to explore the entanglement of our day-to-day experiences and our identities in relation to issues of social justice in the curriculum. collaborative writing responds to the aims of an inquiry that seeks to explore the not yet known, or the space beyond what we know. by doing this, we hope to respond to the call for change in our context by disrupting overarching and dominant understandings of social justice in the curriculum and by highlighting the nuances of our local and contextual experiences. our collaborative autobiographical narrative to sum up briefly, in the previous two sections we explained how our theoretical understandings and methodological approach underscore a research project in which we explore issues of educator identity, social justice and decolonisation through a collaborative autobiographical method. in this section, we explain the project in more detail and present the combined narrative in which we explore some of our diverse experiences in preand postapartheid south africa. through this, we hope to explore our understanding of bias, equity, diversity, access, and power in the curriculum. generating the narratives this article is the culmination of a collaborative study on social justice in the curriculum that we conducted as a group during a pgdip (postgraduate diploma) module at the university of the free state in 2017. as part of the pgdip course students are required to submit a research project (capstone project) in which they complete a mini dissertation based on a theme that relates to the coursework they have done. students typically work on similar themes in groups of five to eight under the supervision of a lecturer who leads the project. our group consisted of five students doing their capstone research project and one principal investigator. the students on the project worked in diverse educational settings, ranging from primary school and high school to technical and vocational education and training (tvet) colleges. our group consisted of people who identify with different and diverse categories of gender, race, sexuality, language, class, ability, and other social categories. coming from diverse educational and social backgrounds and working for various educational institutions, we were in the privileged position of being able to take a broad view of our experiences with social justice in a variety of educational settings. müller et al.: working toward a socially just curriculum in south africa . . . 93 in this project, we used our own autobiographical narratives of experience and memory of social justice in relation to the curriculum to generate data. we created a written data set by writing our autobiographical narratives in response to a set of question prompts adapted from cochran-smith et al. (1999) that served to shape our research protocol. the following questions were used by all of us to write our initial autobiographical narrative. • what does social justice mean to you? • narrate your life-story (brief but focus on key areas of growth/change/awareness you have undergone in terms of social justice). • what are your experiences as educators in relation to the cycles of oppression (race, gender, culture, language, ability, sexuality, etc.) that operate in our society and schooling institutions? • describe a critical event in your own schooling during which you perceived an absence of social justice. • describe a critical event in your teaching experience during which you perceived an absence of social justice. • if our classrooms were socially just, what would they look like? • what are the implications of social-justice issues in our curriculum? • how do our own experiences and identities influence the experiences and identities of our students? • how do our own experiences and identities help/hinder us in working towards social justice? after we generated the individual written narratives, we shared them with each other and then got together as a group to discuss our narrative responses and collaboratively interpret our various stories. the combined collaborative narrative was created from five individual narratives. each participant chose a pseudonym for her or his individual character. the different narratives are brought together in a conversation about past and present experiences with oppression and social justice in educational contexts. the language used in the narrative is purposefully presented in informal conversational south african english, with no language editing having been done so as to honour the authentic contributions of the authors (all of whom use english as their second or third language). in the next section we will offer a brief explanation of how the narratives were interpreted and, thereafter, an exploration of the narratives. interpreting the narratives our aim in this research project was to shape a collaborative autobiographical narrative about issues of social justice in education. chase (2011) stated that narrative researchers “turn the analytic lens fully and specifically on themselves as they write, interpret, or perform narratives about their own culturally significant experiences” (pp. 422–423). our interpretation or analysis of our narrative responses is thus informed by a narrative tradition in which interpretation happens throughout the research process, and in which the researcher uses “themes either within or across an individual’s experience and in the social setting” 94 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 (clandinin & connelly, 2000, p. 123) in order to create stories in a process of “storying and restorying” (polkinghorne, 1995, p.11). furthermore, our interpretation is guided by a collaborative approach to analysis. collaborative analysis becomes useful when the interest of a research project seems not to be served by a single perspective but requires the engagement of multiple perspectives (cornish, gillespie, & zittoun, 2013). in our interpretation, we thus collaboratively re-storied our individual autobiographical narratives in order to formulate a combined narrative that responds to the theory of antioppressive education (kumashiro, 2000) as outlined above. from this theory, we were able to identify certain themes that helped us engage with our narrative experiences in order to foreground issues of social justice. some of the themes that we identified were messiness, discomfort, harmful spaces, othering and being othered, relearning and unlearning, and change of the self and society. in the following section, we show how our collaborative narratives helped us locate some of the themes of social justice and anti-oppressive education as identified in our experiences. we acknowledge that our narrative is partial and incomplete. it is not meant to be a comprehensive or generalisable narrative of experiences of social justice in education; it is meant to be an intimate engagement with some of the issues that arose from our micro-social milieus in order to make connections to other educators who work in similar contexts. we aimed to highlight the connections, similarities, and differences in our experiences as we collectively aim to understand the significance of our current moment and envision a way forward in which we do not replicate and repeat the oppression or injustices of the past. drawing understanding from each other’s narratives after we had each written our own individual narrative, 1 we shared these with each other to see how we could collaboratively identify themes of social justice and anti-oppressive education. using our written narrative responses to the questions mentioned earlier we traced how our memories and histories from early childhood and our socialisation might have influenced our current understandings. we found that many of the narratives we shared keep the us/them understanding intact. in camilla’s narrative, she locates her early understanding of the binaries of gender, race, and class: my dad was a police man and my mom worked as a potter in the local hospital. they went on a strike, stayed in jail for a night and they lost their jobs. mom became a domestic worker; come christmas i would always get a present from the white lady my mom worked for – an envelope with cash in it. later, as a learner in an afrikaans/english school, there was a lot of race division as i still see today. we had these boys in our school that would not sing the national anthem in the parts that was not in their language, but when getting to their language they would sing it out very loudly. 1 all names used here are pseudonyms. müller et al.: working toward a socially just curriculum in south africa . . . 95 craven also speaks of his experience with racial binaries and racial geographies when he started teaching as a white teacher in a school where the majority of the learners were black. i started my education career in a (ex) model c school where 90% of our children came out of the townships 2 of the town. the children came with taxis to school and we had little to no parent involvement. i was like a father to a lot of the children, especially next to the sports field – parents seldom to never come to support their children. i really saw a different picture about life in my five years teaching at this school and also saw how independent grade 1 children could be, as i did not experience it like that growing up. mary also highlights her experiences with racial binaries at her institution. in the staffroom there were two big tables with chairs. as you enter the staffroom, the first table you will find only white people members of the staff seated there and then on the second table only black people members of the staff. on my first day, i arrived early and sat on nearest seat available to avoid unnecessary interruptions or to show some good manners. there was a white educator who was seated on the very same table and he kept on giving a strange look. it was only later when all members arrived i realized that i am seated on the wrong table. even today, if you visit our staffrooms in the morning meeting you find the similar set up; it is like there is silent agreement between the both racial groups (black and white educators) not to cross over the other race’s territory. paterson focused on his experiences with binaries of gender. when i was in primary, i was not comfortable with the agricultural session where we had to go to the garden. girls will just put in seed in a hole and the boys had to dig the holes. i always felt isolated because all the other learners, mostly boys, will mock me for being a ‘sissy'. the teacher also labelled me as ‘a special child who does not want to do anything.’ from the narratives we shared, it became evident that we have all experienced racial, gender, cultural, language, and sexual inequality in educational spaces in some form or another and to some extent. not surprisingly, there is a particular focus on racial binaries, racial geographies, and racial territorialisation in educational spaces. kumashiro (2000) stated that the school can be a harmful place where learners are othered based on their sexuality, gender, race, language, socio-economic background, abilities and/or disabilities. educators also function in these harmful spaces and are not immune to the kinds 2 under apartheid legislation all south africans were classified in racial categories as white, black, coloured or indian. different racial groups were designated to occupy different living spaces by law. townships or locations were the spaces designated as being for ‘black, coloured or indian’ south africans. townships or locations were commonly found on the outskirts of towns or cities. suburban spaces that were closer to the city center were designated as ‘white’ spaces. after the fall of apartheid these segregated living arrangements, although no longer legally enforced, continue to categorize the south african landscape and many south africans still use the terms township and location. 96 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 of inequalities they produce. from the narratives we shared, it became clear that many of us focused on negative experiences and memories of being othered in educational contexts. camilla speaks of her experience of feeling othered. in grade 6, i was taken to a multiracial school. here i am, a girl from kasi 3 , in a school where it was white dominated. adapting was a bit difficult. i went from being an a student to an underachiever. when i was in primary, where a white teacher . . . called all the black learners stupid because we couldn’t swim and we would make our parents write us letters that we won’t swim. but the most racism or discrimination i got was from my own kind. in most instances, i was told i think i’m better because i can speak afrikaans – and that actually made me hate speaking it. in camilla’s narrative, we see the intersections of race, class, culture, and language in educational contexts. mary also speaks of how other learners at school called her names because of her socio-economic background. most of us resided in mud houses, did not have any running water or electricity. i was at the age of six years when i went to school, where i realised that there was something wrong with my family. i saw my family through the eyes of my classmates, who will regularly scold me about my dysfunctional family. those who lived in brick houses with electricity and a telephone line called the likes of me by names. paterson speaks of how teachers made him feel othered based on his stutter and sexual orientation. when i was in primary, i used to prefer wearing the grey school short pants, unlike the long pants that all boys used to wear. one of my primary school teachers made a remark about how i wear trousers like girls and i am always around girls as if i want to be a girl: ‘ke hore ke qala ho bona moshemane a aparang borikgwe bo motisang chena, ebile a dula a le ka hara banana, kapa ke tharasi’ (i have never seen a boy who wears tied pants like this and he is always around girls. is he gay?). she used the words ‘is he gay?’ as a rhetorical question. i felt unsafe and shameful by what she said, especially when all the other learners started laughing and labelling me as gay. in high school, most of my teachers would not allow me to express myself because i was a stutterer. this was a barrier for me as a learner, especially when i had to do an oral presentation using a language that is not my mother tongue because i would become nervous yet trying to avoid any english errors. agnes points further to the gender and sexual roles to which learners are expected to subscribe by pointing to her current experience as a teacher. my school offers subjects like fashion and textiles and woodwork, but learners seem to believe that certain subjects like woodwork should only be taken by boys, and 3 the term ‘kasi’ as used here is derived from the word lokasie, an afrikaans word meaning location or township. müller et al.: working toward a socially just curriculum in south africa . . . 97 fashion and textiles be taken by girls. this has led to some learners discriminating and harassing others for the choice of subjects. boys would be referred to as ladies for they study subjects ‘supposedly meant’ for girls, and vice versa. they would also be pushed out of the toilets to be told to join ‘other girls.’ the negative experiences we share are from our memories of schooling as well as from our current experiences as educators. some of us went on to extend our negative experiences into our current understanding to show how reflection on this connection helped us undergo a process of unlearning and relearning. for example, agnes describes her experiences of discrimination by indian classmates when she was in school and how she developed hatred towards them. the school i went to was a private school with more indian learners than basotho. the problem there was when our fellow indian students spoke a harassing and hurtful language which we basotho could not understand. i say ‘hurtful’ because we later learned what those words they would say meant. what was most hurtful was that we did not receive any help from the principal because the matter would disappear just like that. we then decided to retaliate by using our own language against our harassers, but to our surprise, we would be punished and promised suspension. ‘who is better than whom in this school?’ we always wondered. however, she goes on to describe how her growing understanding of social justice has helped her to appreciate her current indian learners and to love them as their teacher. i must say, all these scarred me for a very long time. since then, i lost trust in myself. i never thought i could excel in anything. i could not voice my opinion for fear of how people would receive it. i developed hatred for indians: strong hatred that led me into taking it out on my indian students at my current school. this had always been my plan of avenging for my past experiences with indians as a scholar back then. i had now found what i had long awaited. but through my current studying, i have learned about social justice and have realised it is really wrong of me to inflict injustice to anybody. i should be an example. furthermore, craven says that his experiences in an under-resourced school helped him to see how students from poor backgrounds could think critically and solve problems without having all the facilities he had growing up. he realised that learners with far fewer resources could achieve good results if they had support. the children had lots of potential and were very clever, but going home they did not get support on homework or assignments to be done, so it was only the learners with a lot of self-discipline that achieved good marks. i picked up here while teaching technology that the children are very good problem solvers and can make, literally make something out of nothing; these learners could think for themselves as there was no one to go home to and help them. 98 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 paterson was also able to see how his negative experiences in education help him in his teaching now. i believe that as teachers sharing our life experiences will empower our students to pursue their dreams as much as we did. moreover, as i have students from lgbti community in my class, most of them identify with me and they feel empowered because someone who is like ‘them’ is able to become something. in addition, i also cover curriculum content that address homosexuality and as a lecturer who is homosexual i feel very confident when teaching that part, which allows my students to engage more on the issues and express their feelings, which is social justice. it becomes clear therefore that an engagement with the lived experiences of the past, whether hurtful or negative, has helped these educators think about how they currently act in their various settings. discussion and conclusion in this project, we set out to engage with decolonisation in two ways. first, we decided to experiment with a different way of doing research that addresses issues of power and privilege in traditional approaches to research and also foregrounds the local experiences of south african teachers. first, in the methodology we chose we found that the autobiographical aspect helped us to engage honestly with our own understandings and that the collaborative aspect helped us to relate that understanding to others. some of the readings and understandings could have emerged only from our collaborative work and would never have been possible had we done this as individual narratives. second, we wanted to explore how a theory of anti-oppressive education could be useful when we were making meaning of our narratives in relation to decolonisation and social justice. the theory helped us identify the ways in which our narratives kept an us/them understanding intact to a large extent. in thinking of a way forward, we recognised that as educators we needed to move beyond these binaries into a new understanding of ourselves as assembled subjectivities so that we do not stay stuck in narrow and essentialised definitions of who we are. the theory also helped us to recognise the influence of othering and how our focus on negative experiences underscores the idea that educational spaces can be harmful to learners and educators alike. it became evident that we felt a need to share the harm we had suffered and that in working towards social justice we need to engage with each other’s negative memories and experiences of the past in order to reflect on our current moment and move towards a shared responsibility. we conclude that it is valuable to teachers to reflect on their past experiences in terms of social injustices in order to break the cycle of learners experiencing school as harmful. the importance of foregrounding our micro-social experiences in relation to issues of social justice might work towards change and transformation in the curriculum. educator identity and experience have been shown to have a major impact on the curriculum (clandinin, 2000; clandinin & connelly, 2000; jansen, 2017; pinar, 2012). it is necessary for the experiential narratives of south african educators to emerge in relation to issues of social justice and müller et al.: working toward a socially just curriculum in south africa . . . 99 decolonisation of the curriculum. with this in mind, we find the theory of anti-oppressive education useful to help us share our narratives and at the same time acknowledge the limits of what we know. it makes our everyday actions and interactions relevant in terms of curriculum change and transformation. this became evident in the way in which we were able to recognise how our past experiences with othering, oppression, and hurt could become the core around which we started to think of new ways to be, teach, and learn. in our project, we worked collaboratively to find the connections between teacher identity, experience, decolonisation, social justice, and anti-oppressive education. our narratives highlight the messiness and discomfort of our experiences as we relearn, unlearn, and trouble oppressive knowledge in order to imagine alternatives. in the challenging space in which we work, we found the theory of anti-oppressive education useful in our thinking about decolonisation of the curriculum. our work shows how theory and method can become entangled in working towards a decolonised curriculum. in this article we highlight the unique experiences of five south african teachers in relation to issues of social justice at a time when the call for decolonisation is intensifying. in closing, we would like to frame our contribution as incomplete and partial. its value does not lie in giving definite answers of what a decolonised curriculum should be, but, rather, in highlighting the everyday experiences and emotions of those who are working towards transformation and change. a move towards a decolonised curriculum cannot focus on curriculum content alone. our past experiences shape our present responses to curriculum. therefore, educator experiences need to be foregrounded as a crucial and important curriculum resource. troubling the binary thinking and easy categorisation that colonial patterns of thought has entrenched in schooling systems will require us to interrogate our own identities that are still very much shaped by the systems we aim to dismantle. the collaborative theorising of our experiences serves to explore the nuanced complexity of identity and also to highlight the complexity of specific local realities. therefore, the recognition of the educator as an embodied being with complex emotional responses is crucial in moving towards a decolonised curriculum. our concluding thought is that a transformed and decolonised curriculum cannot come from outside and be imposed on us as educators in a hierarchical fashion; it should emerge from within us and be with us as we move towards a shared future. references aoki, t. (2005). signs of vitality in curriculum scholarship. in w. pinar & r. irwin (eds.), curriculum in a new key: the collected works of ted aoki (pp. 229–234). hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates, inc. repr. from aoki, t. (ed.), 1991. inspiriting curriculum and pedagogy: talks to teachers (pp. 23–28). edmonton, ca: university of alberta. aoki, t. (1993). legitimating a lived curriculum: towards a curricular landscape of multiplicity. journal of curriculum and supervision, 8(3), 255–268. 100 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 bell, l. a. (2007). theoretical foundations for social justice in education. in m. adams, l. a. bell, & p. griffen (eds.), teaching for diversity and social justice (2nd ed., pp. 1–16). london, uk: routledge. bell, l. a. & desai, d. (2011). imagining otherwise: connecting the arts and social justice to envision and act for change: special issue introduction. equity & excellence in education, 44(3), 287–295. chase, s. e. (2011). narrative inquiry: still a field in the making. in n. k. denzin & y. s. lincoln (eds.), the sage handbook of qualitative research (pp. 421–434). thousand oaks, ca: sage. clandinin, d. j., & connelly, f. m. (2000). narrative inquiry. experience and story in qualitative research. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. cochran-smith, m., albert, l., dimattia, p., freedman, s., jackson, r., mooney, j., . . . zollers, n. (1999). seeking social justice: a teacher education faculty's self-study. international journal of leadership in education, 2(3), 229–253. doi: 10.1080/13603124.1999.11509466 cornish, f., gillespie, a., & zittoun, t. (2013). collaborative analysis of qualitative data. in u. flick (ed.), the sage handbook of qualitative data analysis (pp. 79–93). london, uk: sage. davies, b., & gannon, s. (2012). collective biography and the entangled enlivening of being. international review of qualitative research, 5(4), 357–376. denzin, n. k. (2008). interpretive biography. in j. g. knowles & a. l. cole (eds.), handbook of the arts in qualitative research: perspectives, methodologies, and issues (pp. 117–125). los angeles, ca: sage. denzin, n. k. (2017). critical qualitative inquiry. qualitative inquiry, 23(1), 8–16. francis, d., & hemson, c. (2007). rainbow’s end: consciousness and enactment in social justice education. perspectives in education, 25(1), 99–112. freire, p. (1985). pedagogy of the oppressed. new york, ny: continuum. jansen, j. d. (2009). knowledge in the blood. confronting race and the apartheid past. stanford, ca: stanford university press. jansen, j. (2017). sense and non-sense in the decolonization of curriculum. in j. jansen (ed.), as by fire. the end of the south african university (pp. 153–171). cape town, rsa: tafelberg. keet, a., sattarzadeh, s. d., & munene, a. (2017). higher education and knowledge otherwise. education as change, 21(1), 1–12. müller et al.: working toward a socially just curriculum in south africa . . . 101 kumashiro, k. k. (2000). toward a theory of anti-oppressive education. review of educational research, 70(1), 25–53. kumashiro, k. (2002). troubling education: queer activism and anti-oppressive pedagogy. new york, ny: routledgefalmer. le grange, l. (2010). south african curriculum studies: a historical perspective and autobiographical account. in w. pinar (ed.), curriculum studies in south africa: intellectual histories and present circumstances (pp. 177–200). new york, ny: palgrave macmillan. mackinlay, e., & barney, k. (2014). unknown and unknowing possibilities: transformative learning, social justice, and decolonising pedagogy in indigenous australian studies. journal of transformative education, 12(1), 54–73. mbembe, a. j. (2016). decolonising the university: new perspectives. arts & humanities in higher education, 15(1), 29–45. pinar, w. f. (2012). what is curriculum theory? new york, ny: routledge. polkinghorne, d. e. (1995). narrative configuration in qualitative analysis. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 8(1), 5–23. ulmer, j. b. (2017). posthumanism as research methodology: inquiry in the anthropocene. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 30(9), 832–848. doi: 10.1080/09518398.2017.1336806 wyatt, j., gale, k., gannon, s., & davies, b. (2018). creating a space in between: collaborative inquiries. in n. k. denzin, & y. s. lincoln (eds.), the sage handbook of qualitative research (pp. 738–756). los angeles, ca: sage. zembylas, m. (2017). encouraging shared responsibility without invoking collective guilt: exploring pedagogical responses to portrayals of suffering and injustice in the classroom. pedagogy, culture & society. doi: 10.1080/14681366.2018.1502206 microsoft word c73 full issue 17dec2018.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 73, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe book review between worlds: german missionaries and the transition to bantu education in south africa by linda chisholm johannesburg, rsa: wits university press, 2018. peter kallaway school of education, faculty of humanities, university of cape town, cape town, south africa peter.kallaway@uct.ac.za (received: 28 april 2018; accepted: 17 august 2018) linda chisholm, one of the most talented educational researchers in south africa, has published on a great variety of topics over the past thirty years and has been one of the most prolific commentators on educational policy and practice. her most recent endeavour relating to the history of the hermannsberg mission society and its educational involvement in south africa over a period of a century and a half is therefore to be applauded as a unique endeavour to engage with the complexities and ambiguities of educational policy and practice in a colonial context. it focuses on the continuities and ruptures that were presented to south african black education from the 1950s by bantu education. this is therefore an important contribution to the literature on the south african history of education to set in the context of the impressive relatively recent collections edited by hanns lessing et al. (2012, 2015 on german protestant missions in southern africa and richard elphick’s definitive work on protestant missions (2012). as chisholm demonstrates through a careful use of previously neglected sources in germany and south africa, this is a complex story that challenges many of our easy preconceptions about colonial education and it defies any simple categorization of missionaries as agents of colonialism. one of the key points here is that these missionaries were not agents of the dominant colonial power; the early hermannsberg missionaries were much more comfortable with the zar government than they were with the british authorities after 1902. these pietist lutherans from rural germany, like their colleague bruno gutman in east africa, placed great emphasis on culture and volkstum (national ethos) in transplanting their version of christianity to africa, placing a strong emphasis on indigenous culture and language and promoting the use of indigenous languages in schools as part of the overall project of the mission. this policy often made lutheran missions more attractive to traditional authorities in african communities since it held out the promise of continued rural community coherence in the context of a radically changing political environment after world war i. yet the very same policies gradually provided an easy environment for collaboration with apartheid education in 70 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 the 1950s with the national party’s emphasis on ethnic identity and political segregation. the major focus of this study is chisholm’s mapping of the complex terrain navigated by the hermannsbergers during this century of change up to the point where their own position as missionaries and educators is challenged by complex streams of resistance from african communities and students and a gradual collapse of amicable relations with the secular government in the form of the bantu education department, resulting from student resistance, community dissent, and internal dissension among the missionaries. chisholm’s engagement with this field highlights the complexity and messiness of history that defies a neat and coherent narrative with a simple story line. the hermannsberger missionaries were one of a number of lutheran missions, including the influential berlin mission society, operating in south africa; the two geographical spaces occupied by the hermannsbergers were in many senses radically different so it is not easy to chart common education policies developed over time both within their own contexts and in relation to government policy in the time of apartheid and bantu education. in both the sites of mission that chisholm selected for consideration (the western transvaal and natal/zululand) the missionaries operated in an area that was also occupied by german settlers who seldom shared their goals and objectives. the book begins with an overview of the history of german lutheran missions in south africa and their relationship to the german political context of the pre-world war i german colonial era through weimar to the times of national socialism when the lutheran church faced severe challenges. in south africa the tension that arose in that context often kept german missionaries away from confrontation with segregationist politics and meant that they were not at the forefront of the opposition to apartheid education after world war ii. most of the book refers to the period between the introduction of bantu education in 1953 to the 1980s and the end of formal apartheid. there is a focus on the history of the two key educational institutions, bethel training institute (near ventersdorp) and umpumulo teacher training college/theological college (near mapumulo), and their gradual shift from prestigious centres of learning to sites of revolt and opposition to apartheid. but as chisholm is at pains to demonstrate, the conflicts were seldom simply between secular and mission authorities, with a complex mix of community, tribal interests, and apartheid homeland politics (bophutswana and kwazulu) demanding to be taken into account. informing all these tensions are the educational issues involved relating to curriculum choice, the language used in schools, the production and distribution of textbooks, and the training of teachers. the challenge to future scholars is to relate this story to the wider history of black education in what was then natal and the transvaal, which has still to be written. a full study of the origins of so-called “native education” in the then western transvaal and natal would surely demonstrate the significance of these initiatives and the extent to which they supported or opposed state policy. the little that we know about native education in natal at the time of the policy making initiatives of c.t. loram in the 1920s would seem to indicate that the kallaway: book review 71 hermannsbergers would have been very comfortable with his form of adapted education for rural life which was in keeping with the recommendations of the phelps stokes commissions on education in colonial africa (1922–1924). that policy was to be challenged at the time and by the 1950s, when it became the foundation of apartheid education, it had lost all credibility in the world of educational policy debate. it is to be hoped that this important contribution to the history of south african education stimulates other researchers to expand on this work in order to provide a sound historical platform for policy debate in the future. references lessing, h., besten, j., dedering,t., hohmann, c., & kriel, l. (eds.). (2012). the german protestant church in colonial southern africa: the impact of overseas work from the beginnings until the 1920s. wiesbaden, deu: harrassowitz verlag. lessing, h., dedering,t., kampmann, j., & smit, d. j. (eds.). (2015). contested relations: protestantism between south africa and germany from 1930 to the apartheid era. pietermaritzburg, rsa: cluster publications. elphick, r. (2012). the equality of believers: protestant missionaries and the racial politics of south africa. scottsville, rsa: university of kwazulu-natal press. microsoft word b86 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 86, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i86a08 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x a social psychological perspective on schooling for migrant children: a case within a public secondary school in south africa sarah blessed-sayah wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa sblessedsayah@yahoo.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6882-2260 dominic griffiths wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa dominic.griffiths@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6773-7184 ian moll wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa ian.moll@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2891-7163 (received: 8 june 2021; accepted: 8 december 2021) abstract the conceptualisation of schooling is often based on “ideal children” in “ideal situations.” however, in determining the level of participation for children who are considered vulnerable in schooling, it is important to understand the lived experiences of these children. in this study, migrant children (particularly undocumented ones) in south africa are the focus, and their lived experiences were considered through reflections from their parents and teachers. data were collected using semi-structured interviews, and analysed using a constant comparative method of qualitative analysis within a grounded theory approach. the study found that challenges affecting migrant children’s schooling include the lack of documentation, language barriers, issues of transition and adaptation (discrimination), and the inability to access further education. strategies were identified to address the challenges, including schools liaising with the department of home affairs, implementing cultural diversity programmes within the school, and through deliberate inclusive programmes. keywords: schooling, school participation, migrant children, south africa, language barriers, cultural diversity 144 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 introduction a narrow, traditional conceptualisation of the word “schooling” is commonplace. parents, teachers, schools, and governments are concerned about ensuring that all children fully participate in formal schooling, and different formal measures are used to determine this participation (see unicef & unesco institute for statistics, 2016). schooling is typically associated with “ideal children” in an “ideal world” and, according to giroux (1984), traditionally, schooling is embedded in the narrow concerns for effectiveness, behavioural objectives, and principles of learning that treat knowledge as something to be consumed and schools as merely instructional sites designed to pass onto students a “common” culture set of skills that will enable them to operate effectively in the wider society. (p. 36) that view was endorsed by kivelä in 2018. however, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to participating in formal education at a particular age, and not all children are situated within the same environment. rajan (2021) has argued that migrant children may be at risk of not being able to participate in the schooling process as a result of this traditional view. there is, therefore, a need to develop a broader definition of schooling because the opportunity to participate in schooling and learn is dependent on the situatedness of the child in a given context. little attention is paid to the social life, lived experiences, and school participation of the particular, often vulnerable, group of children (and their parents) who are migrants. in south africa, migrant children’s schooling goes beyond the conceptions that focus on traditional understanding, and extends to their surrounding circumstances, which may, in fact, impede opportunities for participating in school (see buckland, 2011). to gain an understanding of this challenging, underlying context, participants in our study were teachers and parents of migrant children. a limitation of this small-scale study is that it did not include migrant children themselves. however, they will be included in future studies. in keeping with the more expansive meaning of schooling in this study, the social context of the child must be considered in explaining their levels of participation in school. this social context varies significantly for different children and includes the “situational, historical, geographical [and] social or cultural environment” (van dijk, 2007, p. 285). in south africa, migrant children’s lived experiences need to be considered more often when determining their level of participation in school. hemson (2011) argued that migrant children in south africa are “a hopeful resource within [the] education [system]” (p. 82). this draws attention to the importance of gaining an understanding of their context and experiences to create a platform for ensuring that they are able to fully participate in schooling while they remain in the country. for the purpose of this study, the definition of “migrants” refers specifically to individuals who have moved across international borders to another country (international organization for migration, 2004). it does not include “internal migrants,” that is, people who have migrated to a particular place from another area blessed-sayah et al.: a social psychological perspective on schooling for migrant children 145 inside south africa. as the number of migrants increases (akanle et al., 2016; crush & williams, 2002; crush & williams, 2018; mobius, 2017), so the number of children who move with migrant parents, or even on their own, into south africa also increases (united nations children’s fund, 2020). these children need to receive an education and, even though they are migrants (illegal or not), section 29 of the south african bill of rights (republic of south africa [rsa], 1996b) warrants everyone in the country the right to basic education. furthermore, the south african schools act (rsa, 1996a) made it mandatory for every child to attend school from age seven years until age 15 or grade 9, whichever occurs first. however, in contradiction to these two policies, the south african immigration act (rsa, 2002) stated that instruction by a learning institution to an “illegal foreigner” is an offence. this legal contradiction between the schools act and immigration act (rsa, 1996a; rsa, 2002) has been explored extensively in a study that focused on the barriers for a group of migrant children in south africa (crush & tawodzera, 2011). the legal contradiction imposes a particular burden on parents and educators. when parents are unsure of their legal entitlement to access to schooling for their children, this may result in adverse psychological consequences for those children. although ultimately, it may be a matter for the courts (perhaps the south african supreme court because two legal statutes contradict one another), it seems clear that schools should provide access to migrant children, based on the primary education legislation. if parents get the wrong messaging from the school (see crush & tawodzera, 2011), they are likely to pass their ambivalence on to their children—and that is likely to affect the participation of those children at school. it is difficult to measure how effectively migrant children and their parents can exercise their right to education, and this has significant implications for how schooling for these children is affected and understood. to evaluate the determinants of participation in schooling for migrant children, it is important to identify the challenges they face in that regard. however, in the south african context, there are few recent studies that have focused on the challenges faced by migrant children in relation to their experiences of schooling. in the south african context, one study that highlighted the challenges faced by migrant children, and which have an impact on their schooling, was conducted by hlatshwayo and vally (2014). in their research, the authors found that xenophobia and discrimination against migrant children at schools hindered their full participation in schooling. another challenge noted by buckland (2011) is the language barrier, which prevents migrant children from participating in the schooling process in south africa. crush and tawodzera (2014), in a related study, noted that the key challenge migrants face in accessing public healthcare facilities arises from being unable to produce proper documentation and consequently being denied treatment. however, various policy documents, including section 27 of the south african bill of rights, stated that everyone has the right to access healthcare facilities (rsa, 1996b). this contradiction between policy and reality further aggravates the challenges faced by migrant children as related to their schooling in addition to their ability to access healthcare. 146 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 as indicated, there remains ongoing need to consider and investigate the challenges faced by migrant children in relation to schooling in south africa. thus, this study investigated the meaning and conceptualisation of schooling for migrant children in krugersdorp, south africa with the aim of understanding the situated, lived experiences of migrant children and the barriers they face in schooling through reflections from their parents and teachers. the study was informed, on one hand, by the sociocultural theory (also understood as neovygotskian social constructivism) developed by bruner (1996) and, on the other hand, by the phenomenological tradition dating back to martin heidegger (1927/2006) and developed by jackson (1996). the former theory illuminated the social and cultural situatedness of meaning systems, and in that regard, bruner wrote: meaning making involves situating encounters with the world in their cultural context to know “what they are about” . . . however much the individual may seem to operate on his or her own in carrying out the quest for meanings, nobody can do it unaided [without his or her] culture’s symbolic systems. (1996, p. 3) the latter theory provided an account of the lived experience of that situatedness, the beingin-the-world of the subject. here, heidegger, in being and time (1927/2006), developed the notion of being-in-the-world (p. 78) and the concept of worldhood (p. 91). both these concepts argued that our existence is always already embedded in a world, and our being-in that world is experienced as a unitary, situated whole. we can take up relationships with the world and engage with the objects around us because of this state of already being-in-theworld and being shaped by its circumstances. together, the two theories provide the theoretical framework of our study and are purposefully used to gain an in-depth understanding of the challenges faced by migrant children—and which serve as barriers to their full participation in schooling. socioculturalism can develop an account of the participation of a child in schooling based on their situatedness in a community context. this psychological theory attempts to link culturally based experiences with cognitive development. phenomenology, according to jackson (1996, p. 3), refers to the “study of experience. it is an attempt to describe human consciousness in its lived immediacy.” this theory allows the lived experiences of migrant children, their worldhood, to be fully acknowledged and considered given that they find themselves in a world with preexisting expectations and challenges that can be detrimental to them in terms of schooling. the theories are used together to integrate cognitive expectances and the specific lived, social context of the migrant child to explain their participation in schooling (figure 1). the relevance of these theories to our study emerged from the need to understand the underlying contextual factors that have an impact on the level of participation in schooling for migrant children. a starting point we considered was the importance of the diverse contextual experiences the identified group of children face in alignment with a clear, indepth understanding of their specific lived experiences in south africa. as illustrated in figure 1, a one-size-fits-all approach would not be sufficient in explaining and developing a well-rounded approach to explain schooling. in the south african context, the various blessed-sayah et al.: a social psychological perspective on schooling for migrant children challenges that migrant children face in relation to their participation in schooling need to closely considered in order to better understand the psychological and social factors that affect them. figure 1 the theoretical framework for the study adapted from the neo of phenomenology research methodology our study used a qualitative research design, employing a case study approach with teachers and parents of migrant children at a africa. this design is suited to understanding the contextual conditions that are relevant to schooling (yin, 2014). according to the 2001 south african population census, 83% of the migrant residents in the krugersdorp area were from countries outside south africa and only 17% from other parts of the country (mogale city local municipality, 2016). krugersdorp falls under the mogale city municipality on the west of johannesburg, roughly 34 kilometres from the city centre and has a good number of public schools, of which the research school is sayah et al.: a social psychological perspective on schooling for migrant children challenges that migrant children face in relation to their participation in schooling need to closely considered in order to better understand the psychological and social factors that study adapted from the neo-vygotskian theory of socioculturalism and heidegger’s theory research methodology our study used a qualitative research design, employing a case study approach with teachers and parents of migrant children at a particular public secondary school in krugersdorp, south africa. this design is suited to understanding the contextual conditions that are relevant to schooling (yin, 2014). according to the 2001 south african population census, 83% of the s in the krugersdorp area were from countries outside south africa and only 17% from other parts of the country (mogale city local municipality, 2016). krugersdorp falls under the mogale city municipality on the west of johannesburg, roughly 34 kilometres from the city centre and has a good number of public schools, of which the research school is sayah et al.: a social psychological perspective on schooling for migrant children 147 challenges that migrant children face in relation to their participation in schooling need to be closely considered in order to better understand the psychological and social factors that vygotskian theory of socioculturalism and heidegger’s theory our study used a qualitative research design, employing a case study approach with teachers particular public secondary school in krugersdorp, south africa. this design is suited to understanding the contextual conditions that are relevant to schooling (yin, 2014). according to the 2001 south african population census, 83% of the s in the krugersdorp area were from countries outside south africa and only 17% from other parts of the country (mogale city local municipality, 2016). krugersdorp falls under the mogale city municipality on the west of johannesburg, roughly 34 kilometres from the city centre and has a good number of public schools, of which the research school is 148 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 one. according to the department of basic education (2019), the school is a quintile 2 (nofee paying) institution, and has about 1,327 students. this school was purposefully selected (etikan et al., 2016) because it is located directly opposite a small community of shack houses that are occupied by migrants from neighbouring countries. a sample size of 13 participants (seven teachers and six parents of migrant children) from the school was selected using a convenience sampling strategy (etikan et al., 2016). migrant children were not directly included in the study, but will be in future studies. nonetheless, a reflection of their lived experiences through their parents and teachers served as an eye-opener and provided some depth of understanding of their experiences. data were collected using a semistructured interview technique. the interviews took place on the premises of the school, in a private room for confidentiality. sociodemographic characteristics of study participants the study participants comprised two groups: teachers (n = 7) working with migrant children in the school, and parents (n = 6) of migrant children in school. the teachers’ age range was 25 to 50 years; almost half of them had been teaching for between one to 10 years and some had taught for more than 21 years. all the teachers who participated indicated that they had consistently taught migrant children every school year. table 1 provides a summary of the sociodemographic characteristics of teacher participants. table 1 sociodemographic characteristics of teachers frequency (n = 7) gender male 3 female 4 age group 25–34 years 3 35–44 years 2 45–50 years 2 teaching experience 1–10 years 3 11–20 years 1 21–30 years 2 > 30 years 1 experience of teaching migrant children 1–3 years 1 4–6 years 5 7–9 years 1 blessed-sayah et al.: a social psychological perspective on schooling for migrant children 149 six (n = 6) parents of migrant children in the school participated in the study. they were aged between 35 to 50 years, and half were women (see table 2). although most of the parents admitted that they had been in south africa for over 10 years, some avoided talking about the topic. this subtle avoidance may have been because of the presumed stigma that accompanies being labelled a foreigner, and fear of being found out by the immigration authority. their countries of origin included lesotho, the democratic republic of congo, and botswana. table 2 sociodemographic characteristics of parents frequency (n = 6) gender male 3 female 3 age group 35–44 years 3 45–50 years 3 country of origin lesotho 2 botswana 1 democratic republic of congo 1 other 1 2 number of years lived in south africa 12–15 years 6 number of children in the school 1–2 children 4 3–4 children 2 data analysis qualitative data were transcribed verbatim to retain meanings expressed by the participants. standard coding procedures as developed within the grounded theory approach to social research (corbin & strauss, 2007; glaser, 1965) were then applied to establish the beliefs and attitudes and, ultimately, the meaning systems of the participants. this is the constant comparative method of qualitative analysis and involves the iterative processes of open and axial coding. firstly, in an open coding process, the raw data are grouped into categories in an inductive process. the rule guiding the development, populating, or discarding of categories is whether or not the data could offer possible insights into the research question (geertz, 1973). the process moves between the raw data and the emerging categories until 1 “other” refers to parents who were not willing to disclose their countries of origin. 150 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 the latter are refined and the data are saturated. secondly, in an axial coding process, the categories are embodied in more abstract theoretical principles. they must form “a stratified hierarchy of meaningful structures in terms of which . . . [the relevant behaviours] . . . are produced, perceived, and interpreted” (geertz, 1973, p. 312). thus, in this study, the transcripts were read and reread to provide a clear understanding of the data and identify code patterns as well as initial theme classification. key emerging themes were identified and all the transcripts were revisited until saturation of data was reached (birks & mills, 2015; given, 2016). the constant comparative method was important for a consistent and progressive building up of facts (glaser & strauss, 1967). findings the study identified challenges affecting migrant children’s schooling as well as strategies to address these challenges. challenges migrant children face in relation to schooling this study reveals the key challenges, as reported by both groups of participants, which have an impact on migrant children’s schooling. these include the lack of proper documentation, inability to access further education, language barriers, and issues of transition and adaptation (discrimination). lack of proper documentation both teachers and parents revealed that the lack of proper documentation is an underlying challenge, which compounds the other identified challenges that affect the schooling of migrant children. one parent stated: if you don’t have your permit, then you are not ready to study here. (parent 5) although some participants were hesitant to admit that migrant children who attend the school have no proper documentation, others spoke openly about the challenge this presents and how it affects schooling: i can tell you now that over 90% of the learners that do come, especially in the township schools like this, they don’t have the whole paperwork . . . there’s no documentation, which makes it even more difficult for us in the school. (teacher 1) this challenge is even more complex and evident when children have to register for external examinations such as the grade 12 final examinations. at this point, most of the children are forced to remain in school or just quit: the biggest problem that we are seeing with migrant children is that they do not have enough paperwork. so, when it comes to registering them [for the matric exam] it becomes an issue. (teacher 4) blessed-sayah et al.: a social psychological perspective on schooling for migrant children 151 these migrant children are thus constantly faced with the reality of having incomplete legal documentation. a parent expressed this view by stating: especially when they have to write their finals, they don’t have ids—that’s the problem for them. (parent 2) furthermore, the teachers stated that there seems to be no clear way of overcoming this challenge because the laws that guide the country on immigration must be adhered to. one teacher explained despondently: but then there’s nothing that we can do, you know, it is policy . . . the schools are open for everyone . . . but now they want those papers to be present there and there’s nothing we can do in terms of that. (teacher 7) significantly, the inability to “do anything” relates here to structural constraints that prevent migrant children from being able to formally complete their schooling. the parents and teachers expressed a sense of powerlessness to help their children and learners progress through, and fully complete, schooling because of these structural, legal barriers. crush and tawodzera (2011) described the barriers as “gatekeeping” (p. 21) strategies to ensure migrant children are unable to access schools in south africa. thus, the initial challenge of access to any public south african school poses significant challenges to undocumented learners in terms of schooling. inability to access further education the challenge of migrant children knowing that they will be unable to further their education to a higher level is another key factor that affects their full participation in schooling. one teacher noted: it’s useless for a child to come to a school . . . as a child who is a foreigner . . . they don’t have the necessary documents; they do grade 8, 9, 10, 11. when they get to grade 11, they need to register for the matric exams. now there’s no [point] . . . i [migrant child] don’t even have an id. (teacher 2) this challenge, according to the teachers, is one that increases migrant children’s lack of school preparedness. a teacher explained, using the example of a grade 12 migrant child: so, this grade 12 learner is writing at the moment but there are no papers . . . there’s no permit . . . there’s nothing. what’s going to happen to that girl next year? (teacher 7) the uncertainty, and often inability, to continue with and complete their schooling was highlighted as a reality for migrant children who lack the proper documentation to legally be in south africa. hence, although these children might attend schools in south africa, knowing that they will be unable to formally complete their education is an ongoing challenge for their schooling. 152 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 language barriers another major challenge faced by migrant children, which affects their schooling, is the language barrier. many of the teachers interviewed raised this as a significant impediment to being prepared to participate in school, even at the high school level. the difficulty of this challenge is the sociological implication of lacking the “language” of a society and concomitantly, the accepted form of social, communicative behaviour (fishman, 2012). this language barrier includes a lack of understanding of english as well as other widely spoken local languages in the area where the school is located. one teacher strongly stated: especially in english, because they don’t know english . . . i think they know portuguese or something like that which is difficult. at least, for maths, there’s less english and they know maths but i think on other subjects where they have to elaborate in english, that’s where it becomes a problem. (teacher 5) another teacher reiterated: some of them cannot really encode english or speak english, okay, some of them are unable to even write in english. so, they come from maybe in a different country . . . and they don’t know other languages, or they don’t know english. (teacher 3) as is evident, a grasp of english is vital to being able to understand and participate in south african life. it is the lingua franca that allows someone to negotiate other kinds of social and cultural barriers. if a child is not able to understand even basic english, we must ask whether they can ever be adequately prepared for schooling in south africa—particularly when it comes to reading and writing skills. this challenge is further compounded in that south africa has 11 official languages, namely, sepedi, sesotho, setswana, siswati, tshivenda, xitsonga, isindebele, isixhosa, isizulu, english, and afrikaans. locals speak whichever language they identify with, and the migrant child must choose one of these “home” languages to learn at school (broeder et al., 2002; desai, 2016). as one teacher noted: so, they will try to fit in and change their home language. either they do tswana, or they do zulu; at the end of the day, they will fail that subject, because they will try to fit in with everyone else maybe in their class. (teacher 3) another teacher mentioned: the problem comes out when the child . . . is supposed to now choose the home language he or she is supposed to do . . . it becomes a problem now in reading and writing, constructing a sentence and such. (teacher 7) parents also viewed this as a significant challenge. one parent said: if your child is from outside the country, he cannot understand or speak the local language and that’s a big problem because in school you have to read and write. how can you write a language that you don’t know? (parent 5) blessed-sayah et al.: a social psychological perspective on schooling for migrant children 153 these findings affirm how central language is to identity, learning, and belonging. a shared language is vital for cultural communication and the transfer of cultural values (bonvillain, 2020). thus, migrant children live within an already established cultural identity and must constantly negotiate the requirements of a foreign classroom space and language. furthermore, given the importance of cultural integration, these children are disadvantaged because they are unable to fully interact with their social environment and community. this idea of being left out as a result of language has been explored by cunningham and king (2018). issues of transition and adaptation (discrimination) another challenge expressed by the teachers and parents of migrant children is the issue of migrant children transitioning and adapting to the environment and schooling system. this challenge was explained as the children having difficulty in finding and having a sense of belonging. one parent said, i think it’s a problem of them trying to fit in with the other learners . . . i think somehow, they feel bad because they are not expressing themselves fully according to who they are. (parent 3) this inability to fully express oneself is part of a continual “negotiation of belonging” for migrant children (devine, 2013, p. 290). this is further compounded by the xenophobic and derogatory name-calling that they are often subjected to. one teacher reported: i think they have to constantly deal with other learners calling them foreigners or, calling them names. (teacher 3) another parent stated: i think one of the challenges they are facing most is discrimination. (parent 3) this abuse has serious psychological implications for these children. a teacher noted: some might commit suicide to end their lives. that is the fact! . . . i am worried. (teacher 7) aside from what may be an unwelcoming, even hostile school environment, some of these children come from countries that are war-torn and politically unstable. as one parent said: some of them or many are coming from a trauma zone . . . they don’t have any support . . . unfortunately, they came here to start the school like that . . . without counselling. (parent 1) this, sometimes dual, trauma profoundly affects these children, creating a stigmatised identity (krzyżanowski & wodak, 2008) characterised by a sense of shame that comes with being a foreigner in south africa who is constantly reminded that they do not belong here. this sense of ongoing shame and, to use the heideggerian term of homelessness, 154 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 unheimlichkeit, continues to influence migrants’ experience in south africa (vandeyar, 2013). thus, these phenomenological dimensions must also be considered when determining migrant children’s participation in schooling. existing and suggested strategies to address the challenges despite the numerous challenges cited by parents and teachers that have an impact on schooling for these children, both teachers and parents highlighted only one strategy that is already in place to address some of the social and legal challenges they face. this strategy involves the school liaising with the south african department of home affairs in order to assist migrant children who have incomplete, or no, legal documentation. the assistance is however, limited by what the law permits in relation to immigration. from the way some of the participants responded, this strategy seems much more perfunctory than anything else. in explaining what transpires, one teacher said: schools go to an extent of where we invite home affairs yearly. they come to school twice to assist the learners without documentation. . . . so, yes, the best that we can do is invite home affairs and invite parents to come and be there . . . see if they can find any amicable solution to whatever that is the challenge. (teacher 1) although inviting the department of home affairs seems to be the only existing strategy identified by the participants, teachers and parents were quick to make suggestions about what could be done to assist migrant children in participating in school, given their difficult context. one of the recommendations made by teachers and parents was that the school should incorporate and implement cultural diversity programmes within the school through the teaching of different cultures. one teacher proposed: diversity needs to be incorporated in schools, they need to teach learners about different cultures, race, languages, so that even the other learners, they understand that it’s not just about me. it’s not just about the language i speak, it’s not just about how i do things, i also need to understand that there’s other people that might be different from me, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that! (teacher 3) similarly, a parent suggested: during the heritage month, what we could do when we have those is that each and every culture will come and perform their culture so that if they are more exposed to those activities, i think they will express themselves and maybe by seeing how the other learners receive it, it will also give them confidence. (parent 3) another recommendation made by teachers was that the gauteng department of education (gde) should employ social workers and psychologists to be on school premises for the migrant children who are facing both social and psychological challenges. one teacher incessantly spoke about this need to employ professionals, saying: blessed-sayah et al.: a social psychological perspective on schooling for migrant children 155 i think we need social workers in school . . . i think it’s very simple . . . we need social workers in school. so, we need psychologists, we need social workers who could deal with these kids because, honestly, in as much as teachers are trying, we are not trained to deal with the psych of a child honestly. so, you can only do so much, but they need professionals that they can speak. (teacher 2) in a bid to dispel the excuse of employing professionals being a costly exercise for the gde, the teacher insisted: it’s very easy . . . i don’t think it will cost them anything. if anything, it would try to fix the problems teachers are facing. i think they need help from the district and everyone else because, eish . . . there’s a lot . . . because it’s . . . it’s not only about . . . with the teachers, their role is not only teaching . . . there’s also admin so the school can only do so much. (teacher 2) the recommendation that parents should teach their children how to read and write in order to be able to participate fully in school was also put forward by the parent participants. explaining this point, one parent said: you can help them with reading. . . . you can teach them at home how to read, how to write. (parent 2) another parent in agreement said: we as parents we have to teach them, and we should have to monitor them all the time. (parent 4) supporting this, yet another parent said that to teach migrant children how to read and write (especially in english), parents need to encourage and ensure that their children speak english at home. in the words of the parent: parents who are foreigners to speak english, if they’ve known how to speak english, at home and they allow the children to read english books and not speak local language at home because it can be like stopping them to improve the small that they are learning at school. (parent 1) discussion our study investigated schooling for migrant children attending a public secondary school in krugersdorp, south africa. the aim was to discover what participation in schooling means to teachers and parents (in both the psychological and social development contexts) for these migrant children, and the associated challenges. the major challenges that emerged were lack of proper documentation, language barriers, inability to continue schooling, and issues of transition and adaptation (discrimination). a second set of key findings considered existing and suggested strategies to address the challenges faced by migrant children in relation to their participation in school. the themes that emerged interrogated the traditional explanation 156 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 of what schooling is, and strongly support the importance of considering the specific context in which migrant children are situated. these points are discussed in turn. firstly, findings from this study show that the lack of proper documentation for migrant children was a key impediment to full participation in schooling. both groups of participants spoke incessantly about this challenge as the one that amplified most of the other challenges that migrant children in this public school face. this finding has been corroborated by crush and tawodzera (2014) in the south african context, and also by mitchell (2015). crush and tawodzera (2014) reported that all the migrants who participated in their study pointed out that enrolling children in school without paperwork was an arduous task in south africa. our study has thus confirmed the centrality of legal status in determining the participation of a migrant child in school in south africa. it follows that, to explain schooling and the level of participation, the worldhood of the child and the already existing conditions that shape their circumstances must be considered. evidently, in the south african context, an individual’s state of being a learner is significantly dependent on their legal status. determining participation in schooling, or explaining the concept, must therefore draw on the sociocultural conditions. secondly, the language barrier also emerged as a challenge that affects migrant children’s schooling. some participants said that children had the ability to grasp new languages faster than adult migrants in south africa. however, most of the participants revealed that a lack of understanding of english (for migrants from non-english speaking countries) and local south african languages was an obstacle between migrants and their full participation in the schooling process. the fact that south africa presents multilingual challenges compounds the barrier. this finding was also noted by şeker and sirkeci (2015), mitchell (2015), and crush and tawodzera (2014a). the challenge is further compounded by the need to speak and understand the language of learning and instruction, which may not be their first, second, or even third known language. the identified challenge of language is corroborated by the findings of rodríguez-izquierdo (2011). according to (rodríguez-izquierdo, 2011), the language barrier is a major challenge for migrant children, especially in terms of social integration and schooling. a more recent study (rodríguez-izquierdo & darmody, 2019) found that the limitation of not fluently understanding the language of instruction can result in social exclusion. this relates to the theory of socioculturalism because, inasmuch as migrant children may want to hold onto their already learned languages because they are fluent and comfortable in them, they would be unable to integrate into the south african education system without learning the accepted cultural symbolic system, which in this case, is the language of instruction. thus, a lack of language proficiency is a serious hindrance to schooling for migrant children. a further challenge highlighted is the inability of migrant children to further their education, especially after high school. many teachers reported that this challenge resulted in the unwillingness of migrant children to learn what is expected of them because it seemed there was no future in continuing with school in the current south african context. related to, and supporting, these findings is work by hernandez and napierala (2012) who found that, blessed-sayah et al.: a social psychological perspective on schooling for migrant children 157 despite the fact that migrant children in the usa may be resilient, about 25% of them were unable to complete high school. also, the challenges of transition and adaptation, which include discrimination against migrant children by others, emerged from this study. a lack of a sense of belonging was identified by the participants. this challenge is one that is further compounded by issues of discrimination and xenophobia in south africa and is supported by other studies on migration (crush & tawodzera, 2011, 2014; landau et al., 2005; spreen & vally, 2012). the question remains whether, and to what extent, the migrant child’s lived experience in the south african context in terms of limited opportunity for further education and discriminatory acts, limits and impedes their schooling. the challenge of discrimination against migrants is supported by koehler and schneider (2019) who noted that there is an urgent need to include these children in the education system and ensure they are not discriminated against or excluded. in describing the theoretical implication of this study’s findings, it is worth noting that experiences of schooling are constantly shaped by specific contextual factors (new et al., 2015). in our study, the context-based factors included, but were not limited to, the lack of proper documentation and language barriers for migrant children. hence, in line with the theory of socioculturalism and phenomenology, the migrant children in the study cannot be expected to have the predetermined requirements of being able to participate in schooling without first considering their lived experiences. while socioculturalism permitted an understanding of the likelihood for cultural and educational experiences to significantly influence a child’s participation in school, phenomenology allowed for an in-depth explanation of the specific experiences. phenomenology provided the platform for the study to move beyond the formal criteria for determining the participation of migrant children in school to a more in-depth understanding of their lived experience (bolton, 1979). the specific and context-based challenges that migrant children face are not separable from the environment in which they find themselves, and this difficult social reality deeply affects their schooling. evidently, participation in the schooling process extends beyond the boundaries of psychological measurements into sociocultural contexts as well as the lived experience for migrant children in the south african context. our study also reports on existing and suggested strategies to address the challenges faced by migrant children in relation to their schooling. most teachers noted that the only strategy currently in place is the school liaising with the department of home affairs (dha) to assist migrant children without complete documentation. liaising with the dha can create solutions that, in the long run, will allow migrant children to have reduced gaps in their education, access to, and the possibility of, formally completing schooling (see dooley, 2017). teachers and parents made other recommendations for addressing some of the identified challenges, which included the school governing body and management organising cultural programmes that promote greater cultural inclusion. this idea of cultural inclusion relates to the integration of migrant children into the education system. in support of this, koehler and schneider (2019) have argued that integrating migrant children into the education system as soon as possible is vital to ensure their integration into society. 158 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 conclusion our study found that, to explain participation in the schooling process in the context of migrant children, it is necessary to consider context-specific challenges, which in this instance, are compounded by the lack of proper documentation. both parents and teachers suggested that strategies including the introduction of cultural diversity within schools would aid the shift from the “ideal child with ideal competencies” explanation of schooling and expectations of participation to one that carefully considers the lived experiences of the migrant child. although the south african government, through some of its policies, seems to allow for migrant children to access basic education, there is also a need to consider the other facets of the migrant child’s life that consistently affect their schooling. these other facets are represented by embodied, lived experiences that are the realities of migrant children in south africa. acknowledging that migrant children’s lived experiences, as reflected through their parents and teachers, has a significant impact on their schooling and level of participation in the schooling process in the south african context is important for thinking critically about the meaning of schooling for them. the highlighted factors from this study show that the complexity of schooling cannot be tied to psychological measurements or ideal situations for ideal children. it is evident that the social world and embodied lived experiences play major roles in determining the nature of schooling for migrant children. if these other facets are not considered, gaps in the south african educational system will continue to exist, particularly hindering achievement of the united nations sustainable development goal 4—quality education, which highlights the basic right to education as well as the need for all children to attend and participate in school (https://en.unesco.org/gem-report/sdg-goal-4). moreover, the contradictions that exist in the south african policies need to be addressed as a starting point for attending to the significant underlying factor impeding migrant children’s schooling. a major limitation of our study was that it only considered reflections from the parents and teachers of migrant children in order to highlight the challenges facing the children. the findings do not completely reflect migrant children’s lived experiences from a participatory perspective. excluding these children as participants ignores their perceptions of schooling in their lived context. future research would need to focus on migrant children themselves (considering the ethical implications) as key participants to get a deeper understanding of the underlying factors that impede their participation in schooling. acknowledgements the authors acknowledge and thank the school and the 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(2014). case study research: design methods (5th ed.). sage publishers. teacher learning through teaching and researching: the case of four teacherresearchers in a masters programme sarah bansilal abstract there is a large body of research and on-going discussions about mathematics teachers’ poor content knowledge in south africa, with many suggesting that teachers need more opportunities to increase their content knowledge. in this article i consider one important opportunity that does not seem to be exploited – that of teachers’ learning in the classroom. by considering the learning experiences of four teacher-researchers who were enrolled for a masters degree, i explore how these teachers’ mathematics teacher knowledge developed as a result of their research inquiry. the findings indicate that all four teachers have deepened their mathematical knowledge for teaching in the various domains. however, learning in the classroom is enabled by the presence of supportive and knowledgeable colleagues. if authorities want to encourage such forms of learning, then attention needs to be directed to providing intensive classroom support in order to maximise the opportunity for classroom learning. introduction there are many studies that point out the importance of teachers’ knowledge in developing students’ understanding (adler, pournara, taylor, thorne and moletsane, 2009; ball, thames and phelps, 2008; kriek and grayson, 2009; thompson and thompson, 1994; 1996). in south africa numerous studies have reported that mathematics teachers struggle with understanding even school level mathematics content. however there seems to be a widespread view that the only way for teachers to improve their knowledge is for them to attend classes or workshops and be taught this knowledge that they need. an important dimension that is sometimes not recognised is that of teachers building up mathematical knowledge by observing and reflecting on the teaching and learning experiences in their classrooms. a constructivist perspective suggests that knowledge is constructed. in the case of mathematical knowledge for teaching, how, where and under what conditions can this construction occur? recently, zazkis and leiken (2010) have focused 118 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 on how and what teachers learn through the process of teaching itself. in this article i look at one particular setting – that of teachers who are engaged in research in their classroom as part of their masters degree studies and i consider how the classroom has acted as a powerful learning site for this group of teachers. in this case, the research process has contributed to the construction of their mathematical knowledge for teaching by providing opportunities for the teachers to engage in detailed observations and critical reflections. in addition, the teachers’ engagement with theories and studies related to their own inquiries would have provided additional sources for the reflection, while the supervisors’ support and advice would also have facilitated their growth. the purpose of this study is to explore how aspects of their mathematics teacher knowledge developed as an outcome of their research inquiry. this study draws on ball et al.’s (2008) notion of mathematical knowledge for teaching (mkt) which comprises two domains of subject matter for teaching and pedagogical content knowledge. although the participants in this study are a special case, insights gained from this study can help us understand how teacher-learner interactions help develop teachers’ knowledge for teaching. specifically the paper unpacks particular instances of learning that have been prompted by the participants’ in-depth observations and reflections around what their learners are saying and doing. mason (2010) contends that learning through teaching is more likely when teachers observe and reflect on surprising phenomena, and this study provides examples of some of these unexpected phenomena that have prompted the teachers’ reflections. literature review one can characterise conceptions of the knowledge required for teaching mathematics as being informed primarily by an internal or external perspective ernest (1989). an external perspective suggests that mathematics knowledge is acquired from others, while an internal perspective suggests that a person can create their own knowledge. although it is undisputed that teachers need extensive experience in learning mathematics and learning how to participate in mathematical domains, an internal perspective suggests that valuable teacher learning can occur in the classroom, during teachers’ interactions with their learners. shulman’s notion of pck also makes reference to the fact that much of pck can originate in the classrooms, when bansilal: teacher learning through teaching and researching. . . 119 he writes “since there are no single most powerful forms of representation, the teacher must have at hand a veritable armamentarium of alternative forms of representation, some of which derive from research whereas others originate in the wisdom of practice.” (shulman, 1986, p.9, italics author). the literature on teachers and teaching has identified the need for teachers to be researchers (roth, 2007). thompson and thompson (1996, p.19) recommend that teacher education should focus on building up teachers as researchers, although they concede that “the level of support teachers need to do this far exceeds what most teacher enhancement and teacher education programme provides”. roth (2007) has no doubt about the fact that teachers who research their own practice become better practitioners. for some teachers “the interest in research may begin with the interest of becoming a better teacher” (p.1). in describing his first research study undertaken as a teacher, he explains that the topic arose from observing the difficulties his students experienced and from his interest in devising strategies that could improve their understanding. similarly in this article the teacher-researchers’ inquiries began with a motivation to learn more about their learners’ struggles. in the process these teacher-researchers were able to “learn at quite different levels and about different phenomena” contributing to a strengthening of their mathematics knowledge for teaching (roth, 2007, p.261). roth found that as a teacherresearcher, the primary beneficiaries were his school and his learners. another benefit experienced was that there was no gap between theory and practice – there was no outside researcher telling him what to do or how to change what he was doing. thompson and thompson (1994) in their study of a teacher who struggled to mediate his learners’ understanding of the concept of rates found that the teacher had encapsulated the notion of rate within a language of numbers and operations. the teacher’s own encapsulation of the concept undermined his effort to help the child develop a conceptual understanding of rate. they suggest that in order for teachers to teach for understanding, they must be sensitive to children’s thinking during instruction and to frame their instructional activities accordingly. thompson and thompson (1996, p.2), write of the “critical influence of teachers’ mathematical understanding on their pedagogical orientations and decisions – on their capacity to pose questions, select tasks, assess students’ understanding and make curricular choices”. 120 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 based on the abovementioned study thompson and thompson (1994; 1996) distinguish between a conceptual and a calculational orientation to teaching mathematics where the second is characterised by “expressing oneself in the language of procedures, numbers and operations” (1996, p.17). they argue further that: a teacher with a conceptual orientation is one whose actions are driven by: an image of a system of ideas and ways of thinking that she intends the students to develop; an image of how these ideas and ways of thinking can develop; ideas about features of materials, activities, expositions and students’ engagement with them that can orient students’ attention in productive ways. . . (p.17) an initial calculational orientation can be shifted and refined into a conceptual orientation by engaging in sustained and reflective work with students and with mathematical ideas (thompson and thompson, 1996). maoto and wallace (2006) described how gerty, a teacher from the limpopo province was able to move towards teaching for understanding, by learning how to listen. as their study progressed they found that gerty spent more time trying to make sense of her learners learning. as gerty tried to examine the ideas underlying her learners’ confusion, she strengthened her own understanding of the mathematics she was teaching. by trying to design or adapt activities that met her learners’ needs she further developed this understanding. in trying to identify the basis for some of her learners’ misconceptions she had to grapple with many of the underlying mathematical ideas. in this way, her observations of, and reflections on her learners’ struggles helped her improve her own understanding of what it meant to teach for her learners’ understanding. it is important to note that gerty’s understanding was enhanced because of the presence of a supportive colleague with whom she could discuss her concerns, doubts and her growing awareness of teaching for learners’ understanding. similarly davis (1997) found that the key site for the teachers’ learning was the classroom itself, and the learning was facilitated by the presence of a supportive colleague. thompson and thompson (1994, p.280) argue that the relationship between a teachers’ and a student’s ways of knowing is a reflexive one. this suggests that the teachers’ way of knowing contributes to the students’ development of understanding. in response, as students develop their understanding, their interactions with the teacher influences the way in which the teacher understands a concept. somewhat related to this reflexive process is the model of steinbring (1998, p.159) which describes how learning by both bansilal: teacher learning through teaching and researching. . . 121 pupils and teachers can be enhanced during a mathematics lesson. the learning of pupils and teachers, although autonomous, are linked to each other and build on each other. steinbring emphasises the role of reflection in the learning of both pupil and teacher. zaslavsky (2009) offers a modification of steinbring’s model which is reproduced here. figure 1: steinbring’s model of teaching and learning as modified by zaslavsky (2009, p.107) this figure illustrates that the teacher’s (facilitator’s) learning is “an outcome of their observations of learners’ engagements in tasks” and their reflections on learners’ work (zaslavsky, 2009, p.107). learners learn by engaging in a task, and also by trying to reflect on, and generalise the solutions. the teacher in turn, observes the process learners are engaged in, tries to vary the learning offers, and also reflects, which leads to his/her own learning. there are two loops of learning that are represented in this adapted model, one showing the learning by reflection of the learners and a second loop showing the learning of the teacher by reflection and observation of the process encountered by the learners. steinbring (1998) notes: students’ mathematical knowledge is more personal, is bound to special exemplary contexts, and is in the process of an open development ... the mathematics teacher has to become aware of the specific epistemological status of the students’ mathematical knowledge. the teacher has to be able to diagnose and analyse students’ construction of mathematical knowledge . . . to vary the learning offers accordingly (p.159). 122 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 central to this construction of knowledge by the teacher, is the process of reflection which facilitates the process. thompson and thompson (1996) suggest that teachers can come to understand a mathematical idea, in a way that enables them to teach it conceptually through sustained and reflective work with students and with mathematical ideas – comparing their attempts to influence students’ thinking with disinterested analyses of what those students actually learn – and reflecting on both what they intended and what (they understand) they achieved (p.19). kraft (2002) asserts that good teacher research must centrally involve selfcritical examination of those belief systems that inform and guide practice in the first place. rosenberg (2008) has usefully summarised hatton and smith’s (1995) description of four levels of reflective writing as a means of thinking about teachers reflections: 1. descriptive writing (writer reports on events with no reflection on them at all); 2. descriptive reflection (writer provides reasons for pedagogical decisions based on personal judgement); 3. dialogic reflection (writer explores the reasons for one’s pedagogical choices in the light of educational theory); and 4. critical reflection (involving reasons given for decisions or events that take into account broader historical, social and political contexts). for brookfield (1995), critical reflection involves ‘hunting’ the assumptions that underpin our teaching practices. this process involves questioning what we take for granted and what we do in order to make our teaching lives easier, but which may not be working in the way that we assume. paradigmatic assumptions are the hardest of all assumptions to uncover, because, as brookfield explains, [t]hey are the basic structuring axioms we use to order the world into fundamental categories’ and we seldom recognise them as assumptions, even after they have been pointed out to us. instead, ‘we insist that they’re objectively valid renderings of reality, the facts as we know them to be true’ (1995, p.2). bansilal: teacher learning through teaching and researching. . . 123 having looked at some research about teachers’ learning in their classrooms, i will now briefly discuss the framework of teacher knowledge that underpins this study. framework the field of teacher knowledge is a vast one with many researchers generating descriptions and definitions which try to capture exactly the kind of knowledge that is needed to mediate learning in the classroom. ball et al., (2008, p.395) use the term “mathematical knowledge for teaching” to refer to “the mathematical knowledge needed to carry out the work of teaching mathematics”. their perspective is that mathematical knowledge for teaching (mkt) comprises two domains which are subject matter for teaching and pedagogical content knowledge. subject matter for teaching has been further divided into two subdomains of common content knowledge which is “mathematical knowledge and skill used in settings other than teaching” and specialised content knowledge ie., “mathematics knowledge and skill unique to teaching” (ball et al., pp. 399–400). they provide examples of common content knowledge as when teachers know the work that they assign to their learners, or using terms and notation correctly, being able to recognise learners’ wrong answers. specialised content knowledge is beyond the knowledge taught to learners and includes “understanding different interpretations of the operations in ways which students need not explicitly distinguish” (p.400). ball et al. also postulate a provisional third subdomain called horizon knowledge which “is an awareness of how mathematical topics are related over the span of mathematics included in the curriculum” (p.403). in ball et al.’s model pedagogical content knowledge is divided into two further subdomains. the first is knowledge of content and students ie., knowledge that permits an “interaction between specific mathematical understanding and familiarity with students and their mathematical thinking” (p.401). the second subdomain is knowledge of content and teaching i.e. knowledge that allows “an interaction between specific mathematical understanding and an understanding of pedagogical issues that affect student learning” (p.401). the authors have provisionally identified a third subdomain knowledge of content and curriculum which roughly coincides with shulman’s (1986, p.10) category of curricular knowledge which 124 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 is represented by the full range of programs designed for the teaching of particular subjects and topics at, a given level, the variety of instructional materials available in relation to those programs, and the set of characteristics that serve as both the indications and contraindications for the use of particular curriculum or program materials in particular circumstances. now that the framework used to illustrate the concept of mathematical knowledge for teaching has been elucidated, the details of the methodology of the study will be discussed. methodology this is a qualitative study, utilising a case study approach in order to capture part of the storied lives of the four participant teachers, who were researching a problem they identified as part of their master’s degree studies. the participants will be referred to as teacher-researchers or as teachers, depending on which of these roles is under discussion. data was generated from the thesis reports of the teacher-researchers, and my own field notes (as their research supervisor) drawn up during the approximately 150 hours that i spent with each of the participants during their research. the process followed in constructing the vignettes is what polkinghorne (1995) described as narrative analysis. during the process of analysis, outcomes were roughly identified, from the data. thereafter i went back and forth from the data to the emerging descriptions building up and identifying “thematic threads” relating to those outcomes (polkinghorne, 1995, p.12). the happenings were then configured or ‘emplotted’ to take on a narrative meaning – they are understood from the perspective of their contribution and influence on the teacher-researchers’ construction of mathematics knowledge for teaching. that is, each vignette is a reconstruction of events and actions that produced the particular outcomes. the second stage was to then use an “analysis of narratives” (polkinghorne, 1995, p.12) technique to find best fit categories that were consistent with ball et al.’s (2008) mathematics knowledge for teaching framework. the purpose of the analysis was to provide answers to the central research question: how does the research inquiry process contribute to the construction of mathematics teacher knowledge by the teacherresearcher? bansilal: teacher learning through teaching and researching. . . 125 results in this section i present vignettes of each of the four teacherresearchers drawn from the data. learning about learners’ assessment feedback expectations naidoo, a grade 9 mathematics teacher, was concerned by the poor performance and the high failure rates of learners in mathematics (naidoo, 2007) and raised questions about the effectiveness of her feedback in her mathematics classroom. she was concerned about whether feedback was communicated in a way that was useful to learners. she also wanted to find out whether certain forms of feedback information were more useful than others. naidoo’s concern about the effectiveness of feedback arose from her observations of learners who often repeated the mistakes even after receiving feedback on how their mistakes could be corrected (naidoo, 2007). naidoo used journals and interviews to probe the learners in her class about their opinions of assessment feedback. she found that some answers she received were sometimes supported and at other times contradicted by findings reported in the literature. naidoo was surprised by the depth of the learners’ understanding of assessment. she found that her learners’ understanding of teacher feedback “provided insights into the value and purposes of feedback” as identified by researchers and educationists (naidoo, 2007, p.87). she found in the interviews that learners wanted guidance on how they could improve, and comments such as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’, were not seen as particularly helpful to them. the learners also spoke about the negative effect that some comments had on them. this view is supported by young (2000, p.4) who wrote that verbal comments that are derogatory are viewed as “absolutely annihilating” (young, 2000, p.414) for the learner in the learning experience. other findings about the conceptions held by learners about the role of feedback in providing directions on how to proceed with a calculation, improving understanding of a mathematics concept and filling in gaps in understanding were supported by research findings from other countries. a finding not reported in literature, was the value of written feedback because they could “read and make sense of what is written at a later stage”, thereby 126 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 constituting a resource for further learning (naidoo, 2007, p.94). there were other findings that were different from what was expected. the study identified a learner who did not welcome her teachers’ unsolicited feedback, especially if she was busy concentrating on her work. she wrote that she was irritated if the teacher disturbed her concentration just to mark her work. the answers that naidoo received were not always expected but this enabled her to develop a personal knowledge of her learners’ expectations of the teacher’s role in helping them develop their mathematical understanding. unpacking learners’ calculations khan, a grade 9 mathematics teacher was concerned that her learners often performed badly in the common tasks for assessment (cta), yet she noticed that their performance in the classroom based continuous assessment (ca) component was reasonable. the means of the class for the average of the ca and the cta were 58 and 34 respectively, a 24 percentage point difference, showing that on average learners only achieved 58% of their ca marks in the cta. her concern over the discrepancies in performance between the two assessments led her to investigate why her learners performed more poorly in the cta than in the ca (khan, 2009). she found that the task design of setting each sub-task within one extended context, was problematic for the learners. the learners struggled with resultant language load used to portray the context. the learners struggled to identify the crucial information from all the extraneous details associated with the contextualisation. the readability levels of certain instructions were beyond the average grade 9 level (when measured using an easily available readability index). khan also did analyses of errors similar to that described by ball et al., (2008, pp. 397, 400) as being characteristic of the distinctive work done by mathematic teachers and which forms part of what they term specialised content knowledge. the figure below consists of a task followed by a learner’s (cleo) written response. bansilal: teacher learning through teaching and researching. . . 127 figure 2: a learners’ response to a contextualised task (doe, 2005, p.6) 128 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 in trying to understand the learners’ response to question 1.4.4, khan inferred: for question 1.4.4, cleo extracted the numbers 350 and 60 (representing the length and width of the park) from question1.4.3. she proceeded to add the length and width obtaining the number 410, which she then squared to obtain a value of 168100. it is evident that cleo was struggling to make sense of question 1.4.4. the instruction “convert your answer from 1.4.3” seems to have cued her to extract the numbers 350 and 60 from 1.4.3. furthermore her comment “the actual answer was 410 and i converted it” reveals that she interpreted the instruction “convert your answer” to mean, “square the result”. for question 1.4.5. cleo responded by writing 21497/462,121009. it is a fascinating exercise to trace how she arrived at these figures. firstly, cleo extracted the 2149700 (representing the original area in hectares) and divided it by 100 to arrive at the 21497 in the numerator. to get the number in the denominator, she extracted the only two figures of 2149700 and 10 000 (representing the original area in ha. and new area in km ), which appeared2 within the maze of instructions. she then divided the first number by the second and squared the result, to obtain the number 462,121009 in the denominator. this provides an indication to us, of cleo’s struggles to provide answers to questions that she did not understand (khan and bansilal, 2010, p.290). khan’s error analysis was done to take her beyond seeing “answers as simply wrong” but it is an attempt to gain a “detailed mathematical understanding required for a skilful treatment of the problems students face” (ball et al., 2008, p.397). in this case the problem was the misinterpretation of the instructions and therefore the role of the language in hampering the learner’s attempt at the problem. thus khan’s (2009) study challenged her views about the use of contextualised tasks in controlled settings. when she began the study, she did not question that a national assessment protocol could be unreliable. her experiences led to a broadening of her understanding of the need for validity, consistency and reliability of assessments, especially in a diverse context as south africa. her findings led her to take a critical stance, and she concluded that the cta programme of assessment was not a fair means of assessment. she further recommended that the design should be urgently revised. bansilal: teacher learning through teaching and researching. . . 129 reasoning about the rules of differentiation a third case is that of pillay, a grade 12 mathematics teacher, who was concerned over the years about her learners’ lack of conceptual understanding. this concern led her to design a study to explore her grade 12 learners’ understanding of the concept of the derivative. she analysed the written responses of her class to two assessments, and interviewed four learners in a bid to understand the ways in which they responded to the tasks. by turning her attention to the notation errors made by her learners, she was able to deepen her own understanding of many of the conventions used to denote derivatives and functions. in the process of studying her learners’ misuse of rules, she deepened her grasp of the relationship between the various rules of differentiation. she also observed that the presentation of a question could cue learners to produce certain responses. the learners’ tendency to draw on formulae from quadratic theory, compelled her to investigate links between and within the cubic and quadratic functions. these reflections shifted and transformed her own <big ideas’ of the purpose and value of certain algorithms. pillay’s understanding of learning theories such as mathematical proficiency (kilpatrick, swafford and findell, 2001) deepened. she was able to find evidence, for example, of students’ lack of procedural fluency when carrying out certain rules, while also identifying instances of learners who demonstrated conceptual understanding. she found evidence that many learners knew how to perform a procedure but did not know when to use it, such as when they used the turning point formula for finding the turning point of a quadratic function, to find the turning point of a cubic function. many learners, when asked to find the value of the derivative of function at a certain point, found the value of the function at that point. her study led to a deeper understanding of links between concepts such as gradient and derivative. her understanding of the rationale behind the sequencing and approach to certain topics was also strengthened. she was able to see the reasoning behind the introduction of calculations of the average gradient between two points on a graph a year before the introduction of the concept of the derivative. one of the assessment standards at grade eleven requires learners to investigate numerically the average gradient between two points and thereby develop an intuitive understanding of the concept of the gradient of a curve at a point. in the grade twelve year learners are required to investigate and use instantaneous rate of change. they are required to 130 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 accomplish this by first developing an intuitive understanding of the limit concept in the context of approximating the gradient of a function. this sets the stage for establishing the derivatives of various functions from first principles. with the emphasis now being on the concept of average gradient, leading to the concept of the derivative it is hoped that learners will develop a better understanding of the concept of the derivative (pillay, 2009, p.108). the findings of her study led her to recognise that curriculum change alone may not produce the desired conceptual understanding. her recommendation was that curriculum change should be accompanied with a change in the type of assessment tasks that are given to learners, in order to foster conceptual understanding of the derivative. she also highlighted the role of sequencing in influencing learners’ understanding. the phrases ‘met-before’ and ‘met-after’ were coined by tall, cited in de lima and tall (2008), in order to describe the effect that prior learning can have on newly introduced concepts. pillay’s study revealed to her that the algorithms linked to the quadratic functions (such as calculations of the roots of a quadratic equation, turning point of a quadratic function) sometimes impacted negatively as a met-before for the algorithms linked to cubic functions. this recognition of the links between the two topics, led her to extend and revise her own big ideas of graphs of quadratic and cubic functions. re-thinking the purpose and form of assessments in mathematical literacy a fourth case is that of debba (2012) whose concern about his learners’ disengagement with contexts used in mathematical literacy (ml) assessment tasks, led him to try to identify reasons behind the disengagement. some of his findings were unexpected and contradicted previous research showing that if students understood certain contexts they were more likely to perform better. in certain cases, learners’ previous experiences of the context influenced their responses differently from what was expected from them. he also found that many of his learners were not interested in making sense of the contexts but were more interested in picking out formulae to generate answers but did not necessarily use the formula productively. for example, the excerpt below shows a learner’s response to a question which asked for the circumference of a tool whose dimensions were represented in a diagram. bansilal: teacher learning through teaching and researching. . . 131 his response when scrutinised shows that the learner did not substitute any values into the formula that was provided, but simplified the expression by ignoring the variables. he responded similarly to a second question which asked for the surface area of a figure: here too, it is clear that the learner did not substitute any value but just wrote an answer, showing again that he did not know what to do with the variables. this tendency to ignore variables in simplification of algebraic expressions is a common misconception which often manifests itself in early algebraic experiences. debba progressed from believing that it was unfair on learners to use contexts which were unfamiliar to them in the ml classroom, towards distinguishing between the purposes of the different contexts. his observations and reflections allowed him to distinguish between the use of contexts for developing understanding in mathematics as opposed to preparing learners to make informed decisions. his study led him to see the importance of using authentic life related contexts with learners in order to fulfil the mandate of ml, irrespective of whether they were familiar or not. this progression in the understanding of the important role played by authentic contexts changed debba’s views of ml assessments, convincing him that examinations actually detract from the fulfilment of ml aims. he argued that the learners need opportunities to engage in authentic contexts so that when they encounter these, they can make informed decisions as is the mandate of ml. however setting examination tasks around contexts which they have not encountered before, disadvantages many learners if they miss crucial information or are unable to understand certain conventions about the context. he wrote: hence if we want learners to engage with life related issues, we need to find alternate means of assessment rather than using examinations only. the examination setting creates pressure on learners to pass, and not to bother about making sense of what is being asked. the examination setting also restricts the kinds of authentic engagement that could help learners get to grips with real life issues (debba, 2012, p.117). thus his ‘big ideas’ about the role of contexts in an ml classroom shifted in conjunction with his shift in understanding of the purpose and rationale behind ml. 132 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 discussion and concluding remarks in this article i have presented a case of four teachers who by doing a systematic inquiry into a learning issue that they were concerned with, strengthened their own mathematics knowledge for teaching. we found that the teachers’ knowledge of their learners, knowledge of the effect of sequencing, knowledge of the content, and knowledge of the curriculum were deepened. in the case of naidoo, by finding about her learners’ understanding and preference for certain types of assessment feedback in her mathematics class (which was sometimes different from what she expected), she increased her knowledge about her learners. her insights into the value of feedback has influenced her understanding of assessment which has allowed growth in pedagogical knowledge, which is however not a focus of the framework of ball et al. (2008) but is an important knowledge area for a teacher. a significant point is that the domain of her personal knowledge of teaching has also been enlarged, by the insights she has received. her future offerings of feedback to her learners will never be the same as it was before the study. a further point from the case of naidoo, is that her findings were sometimes different from that reported in the literature, and her knowledge of learners originated in <the wisdom of practice’ (shulman, 1986), and was further enhanced by the activities she engaged in as part of her research. in the case of khan, by engaging in the error analyses of her learners, she has enlarged her domain of specialised content knowledge. khan by her in-depth analysis of learners’ responses had also increased her knowledge of content and students by hearing and interpreting her learners’ emerging thinking and their opinions and frustrations of the language overload in the tasks. furthermore she was able to engage in critical reflections by hunting her paradigmatic assumptions (brookfield, 1995) that national assessments are valid and reliable instruments that can indicate whether learners know and understand their work. she has learnt that the use of the extended context in the cta programme, actually led to the instruments being unreliable and unfair. she has been able to take a critical stance about validity issues in assessment. in the case of pillay, by looking at the learner’s misconceptions in using inappropriate algorithms in calculating turning points she has been able to bansilal: teacher learning through teaching and researching. . . 133 develop her common content knowledge in graphs of quadratic and cubic functions by looking at similarities and differences between the two. she has also articulated her understandings in the domain of horizon content knowledge by engaging in discussion of how the rules of differentiation are related to other techniques of differentiation and by seeing how the approach to the teaching of calculus has been developed in earlier years. this understanding of the linkages and sequencing of concepts in the curriculum is also part of knowledge of content and curriculum and can be described as vertical curriculum knowledge (shulman, 1986, p.10). debba’s study helped him develop an understanding of the curriculum of ml, that is he has deepened his understanding of knowledge of content and curriculum by re-examining his big ideas about the purpose of ml. he too, has improved his knowledge of content and student, because he has learnt about his learners’ misconceptions as well as their approach to providing answers to the assessment tasks. debba has also hunted his paradigmatic assumptions that familiarity of contexts is necessary for learners in order to help them develop ml skills, and has instead realised that teaching in the subject ml should provide opportunities for learners to engage in the unfamiliar contexts. this critical reflection has enabled him to take a critical stance on the issue of the form of assessments used in ml, and he recommends that assessment should not be done by examinations because the limited time frames mean that learners do not engage with the context, thereby actually constraining the vision of ml. thus in all four cases, we have seen that these teacher-researchers have deepened their mathematical knowledge for teaching in different domains, by engaging in inquiry in their own classrooms. in all these cases, a precondition for this learning was the critical reflection that they engaged in, which was facilitated by their research inquiry process. however, these teachers did not simply start to reflect on their teaching, but did so in a formal systematic way while being guided by their supervisor. although the teachers’ learning was an outcome of the research process, their detailed observations and willingness to hunt their framing assumptions enabled their learning. the teachers, as part of the research process also engaged with theory and critically assessed other research studies related to their own inquiries, and these activities would also have enhanced their learning. 134 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 the question then arises whether teachers can only learn if they are enrolled for postgraduate studies, as in the case of this sample. are there other teachers who find that the classroom can be a powerful site for their own mathematical knowledge for teaching? can learning occur outside of a research setting? clearly the answer to this question is yes ¯ like in the case of gerty (maoto and wallace, 2006) where learning occurred in a research setting although she was not the researcher. a further enabling factor seems to be the presence of a concerned <other’ who is able to listen to the teachers articulate their learning while providing a non-judgemental ear. in the four cases presented in this article, the research supervisor would have played that role. in the case of gerty it was the researcher, while in the case of thompson and thompson (1994; 1996), the researcher also supported the teacher in his struggles to cross the gap between his own understanding and that of his learner. a study by peressini and knuth (1998) described how a teacher struggled to understand a different solution method offered by a group of students. it took the intervention of a pre-service teacher to convince the teacher of the equivalence between the solutions. thus in this case, the support to the experienced teacher was provided by a novice teacher. in south africa, little attention has been paid to implementing classroom teacher support. instead there has been a focus of external interventions, which aim to ‘increase’ teachers’ knowledge. current discourses in south africa seem to ignore the classroom dimension of teacher learning. ministers, journalists, as well as non-governmental organisations often speak about teachers’ poor content knowledge but ask for interventions in the form of formal courses to improve the knowledge. teachers themselves ask for more knowledge interventions, showing that they believe that they can only learn when others teach. however this article has demonstrated that the classroom can be a powerful site for teachers to improve their own knowledge. it has shown that for teachers who set out on a disciplined inquiry centred around teaching and learning issues in their classroom, one of the benefits is a deepening and shifting of their own mathematics knowledge for teaching. perhaps teachers themselves need to be convinced about this. there is a whole generation of teachers who have lost faith in their ability to learn by themselves and will need sustained support in order to start taking steps in their own professional growth. bansilal and rosenberg (2011) in their study of 41 teachers’ reflective reports found little evidence of teachers reflecting on learners’ learning. many of the teachers engaged in descriptive writing and not critical reflections, suggesting that teachers will need much support in bansilal: teacher learning through teaching and researching. . . 135 order to encourage them to take on their own learning by observing, reflecting, sharing and learning. research (davis, 1997; clark and linder, 2006; maoto and wallace, 2006) emphasises that a collegial and supportive environment is crucial to teachers’ growth, comfort and well-being. thompson and thompson (1996, p.19) have also cautioned that the level of support teachers need in order to develop such a conceptual orientation to teacher knowledge “far exceeds what most teacher enhancement and teacher education programme provides”. however such a model that helps teachers take responsibility for their own learning should be prioritised by education authorities because of the immense benefits it offers. references adler, j., pournara, c., taylor, d., thorne, b. and moletsane, g 2009. mathematics and science teacher education in south africa: a review of research, policy and practice in times of change. african journal of research in mst education, special issue 2009: pp.28–46. ball, d.l., thames, m.h. and phelps, g. 2008. content knowledge for teaching. what makes it special? journal of teacher education, 59(5): pp.389–407. bansilal, s. and rosenberg, t. 2011. south african rural teachers’ reflections on their problems of practice: taking modest steps in professional development. mathematics education research journal, 23(2): pp.107–127. brookfield, s.d. 1995. becoming a critically reflective teacher. san francisco: jossey-bass. clark, j. and linder, c. 2006. changing teaching, changing times: lessons from a south african township science classroom. rotterdam: sense publishers. 136 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 davis, b. 1997. listening for differences: an evolving conception of mathematics teaching. journal for research in mathematics education,28(3): pp.355–376. debba, r. 2012. an exploration of the strategies used by grade 12 mathematical literacy learners when answering mathematical literacy examination questions based on a variety of real-life contexts. unpublished m.ed dissertation. university of kwazulu-natal. de lima, r.n. and tall, d. 2008. procedural embodiment and magic in linear equations. educational studies in mathematics, 67: pp.3–18. department of education. 2005. mathematics, mathematical literacy and mathematical sciences: common tasks for assessment. grade 9. ernest, p. 1989. the knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of the mathematics teacher: a model. journal of education for teaching,15(1): pp.13–33 hatton, n. and d. smith. 1995. reflection in teacher education: towards definition and implementation. teaching and teacher education 11(1): pp.33–49. khan, m.b. 2009. grade 9 learners experiences of the common tasks for assessment in mathematical literacy, mathematics and mathematical sciences. unpublished m.ed dissertation. university of kwazulu-natal. khan, m.b. and bansilal, s. 2010. don’t give us the passage, just the equations: the case of cleo. in de villiers, m.d. (ed.), proceedings of the 16th annual congress of association for mathematics education of south africa. johannesburg: amesa, pp.285–297. kilpatrick, j.j., swafford, j. and findell, b. 2001. adding it up: helping children learn mathematics.washington dc: national academy press. kraft, n.p. 2002. teacher research as a way to engage in critical reflection: a case study. reflective practice, 3(2): pp.175–189. bansilal: teacher learning through teaching and researching. . . 137 kriek, j. and grayson, d. 2009. a holistic professional development model for south african physical science teachers. south african journal of education, 29: pp.185–203. maoto, s. and wallace, j. 2006. what does it mean to teach mathematics for understanding? when to tell and when to listen. african journal of research in smt education, 10(1): pp.59–70. mason, j. 2010. attention and intention in learning about teaching through teaching. in zazkis, r. and leiken, r. (eds), learning through teaching mathematics: development of teachers’ knowledge and expertise in practice. dordrecht: springer, pp.23–47. naidoo, m. 2007. learners’ voices on assessment feedback: case studies based at a kwazulu-natal school. unpublished masters dissertation: university of kwazulu-natal. peressini, d.d. and knuth, e.j. 1998. why are you talking when you could be listening? the role of discourse and reflection in the professional development of a secondary mathematics teacher. teaching and teacher education, 14(1): pp.107–125. pillay, e. 2009. grade 12 learners’ understanding of the concept of derivative. unpublished m. ed dissertation. university of kwazulu-natal. polkinghorne, d.e. 1995. narrative configuration in qualitative analysis. in hatch, j.a. and wisniewski, r. (eds), life history as narrative. london: falmer, pp.5–23. rosenberg, t. 2008. learning guide for professional practice in mathematical literacy (edma 108). unpublished lecture notes. roth, w.-m. 2007. doing teacher-research. a handbook for the perplexed practitioner. the netherlands: sense publishers. shulman, l.s. 1986. those who understand: knowledge growth in teaching. educational researcher, 15(2): pp.4–14. 138 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 steinbring, h. 1998. elements of epistemological knowledge for mathematics teachers. journal of mathematics teacher education, 1(2): pp.157–189. thompson, p.w., and thompson, a.g. 1994. talking about rates conceptually, part i: a teacher’s struggle. journal for research in mathematics education, 25(3): pp. 279–303. thompson, p.w., and thompson, a.g. 1996. talking about rates conceptually, part ii: a mathematical knowledge for teaching. journal for research in mathematics education, 27(1): pp.2–24. young, p. 2000. <i might as well give up’. journal of further higher education, 24: pp.409–418. zaslavsky, o. 2009. mathematics educators’ knowledge and development. in even, r. and ball, d.l. (eds), the professional education and development of teacher of mathematics. new york: springer science +business media, pp.105–111. zazkis, r. and leikin, r. 2010. learning through teaching mathematics: development of teachers’ knowledge and expertise in practice. dordrecht: springer. sarah bansilal school of education university of kwazulu-natal bansilals@ukzn.ac.za microsoft word b8500 full issue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 85, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i85a04 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x specific learning disabilities: challenges for meaningful access and participation at higher education institutions lorna m dreyer department educational psychology, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa lornadreyer@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7908-298x (received: 7 november 2020; accepted: 26 may 2021) abstract the worldview on the rights of people with disabilities has changed in pursuit of social justice, resulting in an international increase in students with disabilities enrolling at higher education institutions (heis). this supports the need to meet the challenge to transform and attain education for all (efa) as a global imperative. in this research, i focussed on the experiences of students with specific learning disabilities (slds) at a south african university. my findings suggest that although heis have policies that promote inclusive education, many students with slds still experience exclusion from full access and participation in teaching and learning. i conclude that authentic inclusion of students with slds requires improved awareness of institutional support structures as well as an inclusive pedagogical stance from lecturers. keywords: higher education, student learning, transformation, specific learning disabilities, inclusive education, social cultural theory introduction according to prosser and trigwell (1999) teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of their present teaching and learning situations are fundamental since they can evoke prior experiences and impact on the teaching and learning adopted in their situations as well as on the outcomes of activities in these situations. on the one hand, there is a strong link between learning experiences of students, contextual factors (such as policies and institutional support structures), and pedagogy applied by teachers. loughran (2013) has contended that the construct of pedagogy has been “defined, interpreted and used in many ways in the educational literature” (p. 118). on the other hand, teaching practices are closely correlated to a teacher’s own worldview or paradigm that inevitably has a direct impact on the pedagogy to which they ascribe. the concept of pedagogy is often used loosely to refer to teaching but it should rather be viewed as the complex inter-relationship between teaching and learning (flores, 2019; loughran, 2013). it is thus important for academics at heis to understand how 76 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 their own worldview impacts on their pedagogical stance and how this, in turn, affects the students’ learning. equally significant to teaching and learning experiences of students are contextual factors that promote inclusion. with the international move towards inclusive education, many countries have adopted relevant policies. south africa is no exception since inclusive education has been embraced since 1994 as part of the broader democratisation process (dreyer, 2017). currently south african heis are in a period of transformation that sprouted from this wider social awakening with the dawn of a democratic political dispensation in which social justice is embedded. with various policy documents such as the strategic policy framework on disability for the post-school education and training system (department of higher education (dohe), 2018), south africa’s higher education system is guided to reflect social diversity and to acknowledge the need to transform. social inclusion forms the foundation for the creation of a democratic and socially just society in which the promotion of equality, “access and fair chances of success to all who are seeking to realise their potential through higher education, while eradicating all forms of unfair discrimination and advancing redress for past inequalities” are pursued (department of education (doe), 1997, section 1.14). given the legacy of apartheid in south africa, it is justifiable that social inclusion is focussed primarily on increasing racial access and equality particularly at former whites-only institutions (doe, 1997). against this backdrop it must be acknowledged that education systems around the globe have been characterised historically by a medical model that excluded people from mainstream educational institutions based on their (dis-)abilities and special needs (dreyer, 2017). according to the medical perspective, what was thought of as the problem with learning and development was seen primarily to be located in the individual and therefore this needed to be diagnosed to enable categorisation in order to prescribe treatment and placement into a special education setting (department of basic education (dobe), 2014). however, since the universal declaration of human rights (united nations (un), 1948), the momentum has grown in the process of recognising that the inclusion and participation of people with disabilities is essential to human dignity and to the enjoyment and exercise of human rights (unesco, 1994). several major events and declarations have highlighted the notion that special needs should be viewed as a social construct that reproduces the organisational inequalities that exist in society (mitchell, 2005). this socio-ecological perspective acknowledges the “relationship between individuals and interactions between groups of people . . . (such as families, classroom and schools), and has a significant impact on diagnostic findings as well as the support process” (nel & grosser, 2016, p. 80). more recently, the emphasis has shifted to inclusive education that endorses education for all (efa) being viewed as a fundamental human right in pursuit of social justice (un, 2015). although operational guidelines for the implementation of inclusion and transformation of higher education (he) are available in south africa (doe, 1997), it appears that educational institutions and academics still struggle to implement essential policy in pursuit of educational transformation. this phenomenon is not limited to south africa; this finding is corroborated by international research (ebo, 2016). dreyer: specific learning disabilities 77 the imperative to offer equal opportunities and access for all and the efforts to do so are of leading concern in education today. this is evident in the international focus on the sustainable development goals (sdgs) (un, 2020) and education for all (efa) (unesco, 2005). the central theme of numerous policy-shaping declarations is that inclusion and participation is crucial to human dignity and to the exercising of human rights (dreyer, 2017). while this movement has evolved to include all forms of discrimination and marginalisation (doe, 2001), the inclusion debate started with a focus on disability that culminated in the adoption of the united nations convention on the rights of persons with disability (uncrpd) that states that “persons with disabilities should be guaranteed the right to inclusive education at all levels, regardless of age, without discrimination and on the basis of equal opportunity” (un, 2008, p. 16). the university in this study, along with other south african universities, prides itself on being an inclusive institution. according to the university’s disability access policy, “people with disabilities form part of the inclusion and diversity which su embraces” (stellenbosch university (su), 2018, p. 5). however, as centres of learning and research, heis require more than policy and physical adaptations to buildings to effect transformation. it is clear that the implementation of institutional policies on inclusion depends on a twopronged approach. first, it is the responsibility of the disability unit to support, enable, and coordinate the “functioning of students with disabilities on campus” (stellenbosch university, 2018, p. 13). second, it is imperative that academics be cognisant and reflective as schön (983) has reminded us, of the presentation of modules as well as assessment procedures (stellenbosch university, 2018) in pursuit of equal access and participation. at the same time, heis must take into account students’ experiences of inclusion/exclusion to inform policy. in this small-scale research project, i investigated, from a human rights and social justice perspective, how education students with slds experience university. disability as barrier to learning and participation the education white paper 6 (doe, 2001) focuses mainly on the basic education system but for the purpose of this paper i use it to inform views on disabilities at heis. it must be noted that the transformation of the education system in south africa acknowledges the “intricate interplay between intrinsic [medical] and extrinsic factors in the manifestation of learning disabilities” (nel & grosser, 2016, p. 81). according to education white paper 6 (doe, 2001, p. 12), the all-embracing term “barriers to learning and development” refers to a diverse range of factors and this may lead to the inability of the education system to address diverse needs that, in turn, may impact negatively on learning and prevent access to the provision of educational support. according to dreyer (2015), these barriers to learning and development can be clustered into four broad categories: 1) systemic; 2) societal; 3) pedagogic and curriculum; and 4) intrinsic. intrinsic barriers are further classified as neurological, physical, sensory, and cognitive. since specific learning disabilities are neurological by nature this term is the umbrella one for various neurological conditions that can impact on learning and development. these include conditions such as epilepsy, cerebral 78 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 palsy, learning disabilities, communication disorders, perceptual disorders, motor disorders, socio-emotional problems, memory problems, and attention problems. it is important to note that the terms specific learning disability or learning disability are primarily used in educational and legal systems to ensure that appropriate support is provided in school contexts. the medical term used for diagnosis and treatment is “learning disorder” (american psychiatric association, n.d., para. 5). with the growing awareness of inclusive education and the move away from a medical model in education, the terms learning difference and learning barriers are increasingly used in an attempt to move away from labelling learners as disordered or disabled. therefore, from a social model and social justice perspective, it must be acknowledged that students who experience a neurological barrier might also experience pedagogic, systemic, and societal barriers (dreyer, 2015). however, for the purpose of this paper i use the term specific learning disabilities that is acceptable in south africa in accordance with the american psychological association (apa). currently, the debates on inclusive education as well as identification and support for learners with barriers to learning are dominated by the schooling sector. while the policy for screening, identification, assessment and support (sias) (dobe, 2014) provides a tool to address the needs of school children in basic education, at heis it is expected of students to self-declare what is called their disability in order to access support (kendall, 2016). sld: the invisible disability according to the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (dsm-5) (american psychiatric association (apa), 2013), an sld is a neurodevelopmental condition that is “diagnosed when there are specific deficits in an individual’s ability to perceive or process information efficiently and accurately” (p. 32). this means that an sld will affect the basic cognitive processes that are essential for comprehension and/or the use of spoken or printed language. evidence of this condition may manifest as an inadequate ability to “listen, think, speak, read, write, and spell or to do mathematical calculations” (p. 32). the learning disabilities association of america (lda) (2018) states that people with learning disabilities are commonly of average or above average intelligence. this is corroborated by research; gow et al., (2020) concluded that it seems as if there is a gap between the individual’s potential and her or his actual achievement. an sld does not present with any physical or visible indications such as a physical or sensory disability so slds are often referred to as “hidden” disabilities (couzensa et al., 2015, p. 24). thus, in order to diagnose a specific learning disability, the dsm-v (apa, 2013) requires clinical assessment. however, in the move away from traditional standardised testing that is representative of the medical perspective on disability, the sias policy (doe, 2014), proposes an array of strategies to perform diagnostic and curriculum-based assessment with the aim of providing appropriate support. from a socio-ecological perspective, it is recognised that the experiences of students with slds is compounded in the presence of negative societal, systemic, and pedagogical barriers. dreyer: specific learning disabilities 79 since heis are in a process of transforming to provide equal access to all students, it is important to be aware of these barriers among which are policy and curriculum issues, lack of basic and appropriate learning support materials, lack of assistive devices, inaccessible environment, inadequate facilities, management and classroom organisation, and inappropriate and inadequate support services (doe, 2001). teachers are obligated to work within the confines of the national and institutional policies and support structures of educational institutions. however, teachers have more control over the following possible pedagogical barriers: inappropriate teaching methodologies and strategies; inappropriate and unfair assessment procedures; and insufficient support available to students. for the purposes of this paper, it is, therefore, significant to recognise that the experiences of students with slds are complex. an hei as a space for all research has shown that internationally there is an increase in the number of students with disabilities who enrol in universities (ebo, 2016). with this move towards inclusive education, universities are consequently challenged to create spaces of excellence for all (including students with disabilities) in a democratic and socially just system. internationally, heis have taken up this challenge but have focussed primarily on making buildings accessible for wheelchairs and ease of access for other more visible disabilities. more recently, universities have also realised the need to develop policies to support students with special learning needs such as slds that are not physically visible. while systemic barriers to equal access and participation at universities are addressed through policy development and physical structures, practical implementation in learning spaces tends to be neglected (kendall, 2016; ryan, 2007). if the construct of pedagogy is seen to be the complex interplay between teaching and learning in inclusive education (flores, 2019; loughran, 2013), it requires universities to reflect on how barriers to learning and participation of students with slds in higher education impact on their experiences. according to couzensa et al. (2015), certain adjustments need to be made to the traditional ways in which these students are expected to navigate the teaching and learning environment. the adjustments they suggest include “1) extended time to complete the programme, 2) course substitution, 3) modification or waiver of a foreign language requirement, 4) part-time study, and 5) extended time for tests” (p. 25). however, such adjustments tend to be generic and put most of the onus on the individuals who must declare their disability to the university (kendall, 2016). since slds are invisible such declarations are required to be supported by psychological assessments (couzensa et al., 2015). experiences of students with slds in higher education research indicates that although there are policies to encourage and enable inclusion in heis and funding is provided, this does not necessarily achieve the desired results for students 80 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 (ryan, 2007). it is thus imperative that the voices of this population group are heard. understanding the experiences of students with slds can contribute to addressing the barriers they experience (gibson, 2012). while research in inclusive education indicates positive learning experience and academic outcomes generally, it is also reported that “beyond the surface of institutional policy, the reality of university life for students with disabilities is one of continued exclusion and barriers to learning” (gibson, 2012, p. 354). according to vickerman and blundell (2010, p. 22) this gap is a result of heis that do not sufficiently adopt “positive strategies to consult disabled students when implementing policies and practices to break down barriers to study.” in pursuit of inclusive education, it is important to note the impact of learning experiences for students with slds. in a study conducted by ryan (2007) all the students who were interviewed reported various difficulties with their learning. these included difficulty with reading written material, essay writing, understanding lectures as well as participating in tutorial or seminar discussions. similar findings emanated from research conducted by kendall (2016) in the north of england and strnadová et al. (2015) at czech universities. this negative impact on learning is indicative of the barriers caused by sld as a neurological condition. because slds are not visible in the same way that sensory and physical disabilities are (couzensa et al., 2015), they may go unidentified if not disclosed and, consequently, will not be addressed. the aim of this study, therefore, was to listen to the voices of those who are labelled with a learning disability and who “have been largely discounted and marginalized, unheard by the rest of us” (smith, 1996, p. 118). in this paper, therefore, i make a case for illuminating the experiences of students with slds at university. with this emphasis on the students’ voices, policy that will result in the development and the provision of student support services at heis can be informed. materials and method i designed this case study research and conducted it within a basic qualitative research methodology, embedded in an interpretive paradigm following patton (2015). an interpretive approach allowed me to study the participants’ subjective experiences (their ontology) of the external world. the rationale for choosing an interpretive paradigm for this research was that it focusses on describing how individuals make sense of their lives in natural settings as merriam and tisdell (2016) have pointed out. i followed patton’s (2015) suggestion that the researcher may adopt an intersubjective epistemological stance toward reality and use methodologies that rely on a subjective relationship between her or him and the subject. this led to my data collection and analysis methods being qualitative in nature. this research was further guided by schunk’s (2012) work on vygotsky’s social cultural theory (sct) that embraces the notion that social, cultural-historical, and individual factors are key factors in human development and learning. unlike theories such as behaviourist (stimulus-response that leads to changed behaviour) and cognitive (information processing in order to learn) that are favoured in higher education, sct is aligned with the constructivist dreyer: specific learning disabilities 81 paradigm. it recognises that individual biological factors play an important role in the learning process (schunk, 2012, vygotsky, 1978). the significance of the sct for this paper is that one of its key proponents is that learning and development take place on two levels (schunk, 2012). learning happens first at a social level between or among other people (for example in a classroom situation or other similar contexts) and knowledge is co-constructed during shared activities. these shared activities could be a class discussion, tutorial, or any learning activity that involves more than one person. learning then happens at a second level as knowledge is internalised and consolidated at an individual level. new knowledge and skills are internalised through conscious efforts by the individual to remember and understand these. the newly constructed and internalised knowledge then becomes part of the individual’s cognitive repertoire (vygotsky, 1978). it is clear, therefore, that socio-cultural theory and a social constructivist paradigm pose significant implications for the pedagogical approaches that lecturers use during lectures and other academic activities. however, sct also postulates that the complex interaction between and among socio-cultural factors, such as disability, identity, and history, is significant in understanding human development. since sct has been associated with contemporary work on inclusive education theory, practice, and policy, gibson (2012) argued that it offers a critical lens that can provide insight into applications of inclusion. this is supported by valenzuela (2007, p. 286) who argued that sct can provide a “rich and strong theoretical backbone when addressing complex aspects of educational exclusion.” the research question that guided this research was: what are the university experiences of undergraduate students with specific learning disabilities (slds)? selection of participants i purposefully selected the participants from the b.ed. program in the faculty of education at a south african university. the criteria for participation were that they had to be full-time registered students currently studying education in the faculty of education and must have been • diagnosed with a specific learning disability while at school and • have received educational and assessment support up to and including grade 12. only first and second year students were invited to take part voluntarily in this research project. the rational for this is that the specific university has implemented a new b.ed. program as required by the minimum requirements for teacher education programs (mrteq) (dohe, 2019). the new programme was in its second year of implementation during the undertaking of this research, so it was limited to students in the new b.ed. programme. an invitation to participate was sent to students via the university’s moodle platform, sunlearn. with the initial invitation, students had to indicate their willingness to take part in the project. nine second-year students and five first-year students responded 82 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 positively to the invitation. i acknowledge that this is a very small sample from only two year-groups from only one faculty. therefore, i do not intend generalising the findings from this small-scale research project. since i was also the lecturer for some of the participants, it was important that they understood the rationale for the research. therefore, i followed up the positive responses from students willing to participate with an explanation of the purpose of the research and what would be required from them. informed consent was explained to them to which they agreed online. this was done to circumvent the power relationship that exists between lecturer and student. ethical clearance from the university’s research committee and institutional permission to do the research was obtained before i began this small scale interpretive qualitative research project. data collection i collected data through an online qualitative background survey. at the end of the survey participants were asked if they would be willing to be interviewed. those who voluntarily engaged in a semi-structured interview provided me with deeper insight into the experiences of undergraduate students with slds studying at the university. following patton (2015) i developed an interview guide that helped me to formulate a list of questions to explore during the interviews. the following are examples of questions that guided these semi-structured interviews: how did you become aware of support services for students with disabilities at the university? did you inform your lecturers about your support needs? if no why not? these methods (background survey and semi-structured interviews) are some of those preferred by researchers like merriam and tisdell (2016) who work in an interpretivist paradigm data analysis in line with qualitative research, i used thematic qualitative content analysis to analyse collected data systematically. i transcribed the data collected from the survey and coded it using a descriptive approach in line with patton (2015). through data analysis i identified regularities and patterns and coded them to represent the topics covered. following merriam and tisdell (2016), i used coding to identify patterns and extrapolate themes that emerged from the collected data. i used an interview guide, with a list of prompts and themes that emerged from the survey to guide the semi-structured interviews. i audio-recorded the interviews with permission from the participants. results and discussion as mentioned above, nine second-year students and five first-year students were willing to participate in the online survey. they were not required to identify their race or gender. the only requirement was that they, through accepting the invitation, consciously self-declared that they had been identified as having an sld. dreyer: specific learning disabilities 83 the following themes emerged from the collected data: 1. concessions received at school 2. knowledge of support structures at university 3. experiences of inclusion 4. request for support 5. factors contributing to academic success i use these themes to present and discuss the findings in the following section. 1. concessions received at school from the questionnaire it was clear that most of the participants’ slds were identified by teachers during primary school. while some were identified quite early in primary school, others, like this second-year student were identified in grade 6: respondent 1 (second year) wrote, in junior school in grade 6, i went for learner testing where i got 5 mins extra per exam. in grade 9,10,11,12 i had a reader at school as listening to content is easier for me and i struggle with reading. data, in table 1 below, reveals that support provided at school level was focussed on giving this during assessment opportunities in the form of concessions. from the given list of the most common assessment concessions participants received at school, most participants (6) indicated that they got extra writing time for examinations. only 1 specified that a scribe was allocated. as noted above, respondent 1 indicated that a reader (not in the list provided) was provided in high school. those participants who indicated none on the list, explained during the interviews that they had received various forms of informal support from their teachers in primary school. with the mainstream classroom as the first level of support, this is mandatory as set out by the requirements of the department of education as stated in the education white paper 6 (doe, 2001). however, while the white paper specifies that “teaching methodologies, curricula and the environment [need] to meet the needs of all learners” (p. 16), it seems as if most of the support provided by teachers is aimed generally at providing assessment concessions. this finding confirms ryan’s (2007, p. 437) assertion that support is generally more focussed on the provision of add-on “remediation programs, such as extra tutorial assistance, assignment extensions, or transition and outreach programs.” table 1 participants receiving support at school common concessions provided for at school number of respondents extra writing time 6 spelling concessions 0 84 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 enlarged print 0 scribe 1 separate venue 0 recordings 0 computer 0 none 6 knowledge of support structures at university as new students who were diagnosed with sld, they need to be aware of the support structures that the university has to offer. at heis, support structures generally refer to assessment concessions (including extra time, spelling concessions, and braille facilities and sign language interpretation during lectures and assessment) and physical adaptations (such as wheelchair friendly buildings). for students with slds, assessment concessions are important to ensure continuation and/or improvement on the kinds of support provided at school level. this is consistent with prosser and trigwell’s (1999) assertion that there is a link between prior experiences and current teaching and learning situations. however, from the responses of participants to the online questionnaire it became apparent that new undergraduate students generally did not know about support that is provided at university level before they started the academic program. initially, some of the students did not even know that they could apply for academic support (such as extra writing time, spelling concessions, enlarged print, etc.) because of the diagnosis they have been given while some found out about possible support only in the first week on campus during the orientation sessions. in other cases, parents played an instrumental role when they enquired about and secured support for their children as seen in this response: “my mom emailed the university to find out who she should contact.” then there was another group who realised that there was academic support provided by the university only when they “met with tutors”, while other participant mentioned that they saw “in classes when people [got] extra time” for examinations. one other participant reported, “i asked someone who i knew had gotten support [extra writing time] before.” from the above findings it is clear that new undergraduate students generally are not aware initially of any support structures available at university, of which assessment concessions are the most common. it is quite concerning that some realised that support is possible only when they saw classmates receive support in the form of extra time during assessments. as the traditional student profile of universities changes (biggs, 2012) it becomes imperative that heis acknowledge and ensure that all students have equal access that does not refer only to social access but also to knowledge of various support structures that will enable equal and full participation in the academic program. it is, therefore, important that information regarding available support be made more readily available on many platforms. prospective students should be made aware of any possible academic and other support structures dreyer: specific learning disabilities 85 available without fearing that they need first to self-declare their need for support or only become aware of possible support after having enrolled and started the academic program. in my pursuit of this theme, it became apparent that not all students felt comfortable about self-declaring their sld and are thus reluctant to request any form of academic support. from the semi-structured interviews, it was clear that most students did not feel comfortable requesting support at university level or from individual lecturers for various reasons. some students have learned to cope with their condition. in general, they expressed the opinion that, although they received support in school, they do not need it any longer because they can control the condition with medication. they further expressed the need to function independently without additional support as indicated in the following statements. i did not ask for support, because i want to grow as a student, and i feel that i don’t need it anymore. although i’m using concerta [an extended-release form of methylphenidate, a drug used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and narcolepsy] still. the extra time helped me more in high school than in university, especially in math, sciences and egd. additionally, there were those who were reluctant to ask for help since they did not want to be seen to contribute to extra work for tutors or lecturers as voiced by this second-year student, “i felt like i needed it but in the classes i really needed it. it was not very helpful as the tutors felt they didn’t have to do extra work.” some students were reluctant to request support since they seemed to have had negative experiences in the past or were seen to be getting special treatment, as these students explained. i am on medication and i’m trying to work independently and also not receive special treatment. i felt like i would do it myself because of the bad experiences [i] didn’t feel comfortable. this response again correlates with prosser and trigwell’s (1999) assertion that aspects of prior experiences may be evoked and will have an impact on what and how students learn. these students clearly do not want to be labelled or stigmatised and would rather refrain from letting lecturers know that they have specific learning needs that require additional support. from a pedagogical standpoint, lecturers need to be aware of the limitations that labelling place on learning. hart et al. (2004) referred to learning without limits as learning that is free from the needless constraints imposed by ability-focused practices, free from the indignity of being labelled . . . free from the wounding consciousness of being treated as someone who can aspire at best to only limited achievements. 86 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 it requires conscious efforts on the part of teaching staff to create a welcoming and inclusive space for learning. furthermore, in the light of possible previous experiences, students commenting that they do not want to be treated like someone who gets “special treatment” may suggest their need to justify their presence at university. this can be seen as a form of defence since some lecturers who believe it to be an elitist institution, reserved for a few (biggs, 2012) might be of the opinion that these students should not be at university in the first place. these findings point to the obligation for university lecturers to reflect on their own pedagogical practices. lecturers should plan to include all students and their being reflective practitioners should be an integral part of their teaching and learning process (schön, 1983). this is particularly relevant in a faculty of education that prepares students for the teaching profession (department of higher education, 2019). there was one student, however, who had excelled at school, could attend university despite the sld diagnosis, and had a very positive outlook. this participant welcomed the support provided and said, “i am not embarrassed . . . that i had to request academic support. i am more proud that i am able to be at university despite having a learning disability.” another, who took on an alternative stance towards informing lecturers about support needs, said, “i only needed the support during exams and test, i didn’t think it was the lecturers’ business as it didn’t affect me in class.” experiences of inclusion to the interview question about whether they feel included in class during lectures, most of the first-year students reacted positively since they experienced a general feeling of being included in academic activities. there was only one exception; a participant indicated not feeling included and explained, “no, because i did not made them aware of my issue.” it seems that this participant was experiencing difficulties in class but was reluctant to seek help. this finding correlates with that of kendall (2016) that students are reluctant to declare their disability or seek help because of the perceived stigma associated with disability. this reaction could be a function of various reasons as mentioned earlier, such as possible prior negative experiences and fear of stigmatisation, or that they were not aware of possible support from the university. in contrast, most second-year students were ambivalent since they experienced varied forms of inclusion (or exclusion) from class to class. some experiences were related to lecturers who do not give timely feedback or respond to students’ enquiries as seen in the following response. no. i usually feel like i am bound to do things on my own and lecturers take their time to respond to my emails. it is annoying and caused me to fail some modules. one student who felt excluded from the class, specifically mentioned the difficulty experienced in trying to keep up. no. it is difficult for me to keep up in class and make notes. it would help so much if the notes on sunlearn [the online portal] were more detailed. dreyer: specific learning disabilities 87 as articulated earlier, the socio-constructivist view of vygotsky (see schunk, 2012) is that learning first occurs at a social level. at an educational institution this refers to educational interactions between people in and beyond the classroom. in pursuit of equity and equal access to quality education and support, it is imperative that lecturers are conscious of this requirement of learning. this is particularly relevant in diverse classroom contexts that increasingly include students with slds. given their specific needs, these students may be in greater need of those lecturers who engage in student-focused teaching. with a studentfocused approach, lecturers can address the needs of all students and create a welcoming class atmosphere in which students can feel free to ask for support. according to biggs (2012), strategies that are student-focused can bring about the desired conceptual change in how students understand and subsequently have a positive impact on how they approach their studies as part of the process of internalisation as the second level of learning in order to succeed academically. however, lecturers also need to be aware that some students need to be independent and do not want to be perceived as a burden. the need to feel included is expressed in the need to be inconspicuous in class. one participant said that “it is better not be made to feel like an exception in the class.” students want to feel included naturally: “yes [i feel included since] they [lecturers] don’t do anything different which keeps me comfortable and included normally.” this reaction, too, may be to the result of prior experiences of stigmatisation. this inference is made because the student used the word “normally” as if it would not be normal to be included by lecturers who consciously think and apply their pedagogy to include everybody in class. this finding too correlates with a similar finding by kendall (2016) who attributes this reaction of students with disabilities partially to the negative attitudes of society towards people with disabilities. this is quite concerning since, in being pre-service teachers, it is important that these participants, too, should learn to differentiate and support a diversity of learners within an inclusive education system. request for support most participants, 4 of the 1st year cohort and 6 of the 2nd year class, indicated that they would rather ask a classmate or friend for help when necessary. in the 1st year group only 1 indicated that the lecturer would be asked for help while in the 2nd year group none indicated that they would ask a lecturer for help. however, 3 indicated that they would rather ask a family member for help. requesting support implies disclosure and risks possible stigmatisation (kendall, 2016). these findings further correlate with results of a study by ebo (2016) who suggested that students “feared that the professor would think they were incapable of handling the course work” (p. 83) and therefore did not seek their help. factors contributing to academic success when asked what factors they felt contributed to their academic success, most (4 out of the 5) participants in the 1st year group mentioned support from their friends while only 1 regarded support from lecturers as contributing to their academic success thus far. it was interesting that in the 2nd year group, 7 out of 9 indicated that family and friends were the main 88 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 contributors to their academic success. only 1 attributed success to concessions received and 1 to student support services at university. it is clear that support from lecturers and university support structures played a secondary role in these students’ perceptions of their success. the lack of support experienced by most students in this small-scale study clearly indicates a need for lecturers to reflect on their pedagogical practices if authentic inclusion is to be realised. however, this is not limited to this specific university since similar findings were reported by couzensa et al. (2015) in which student support services were not indicated as a resource that contributed to students’ success. furthermore, the findings correlate with other findings from the literature (kendall, 2016; ryan, 2007) on student experiences of support from lecturers. it is concerning that none of the participants in the 2nd year group attributed their current experiences of success to their lecturers. according to this study students valued the support of family and friends more than that of lecturers. the transformation of the south african education system requires a strong emphasis on inclusive education in pursuit of social justice as enshrined in the south african constitution (republic of south africa (rsa), 1996). it is therefore clear that changes in higher education are inevitable. it is, however, imperative that these changes transcend beyond policy development towards social inclusion and implementation. however, according to buller (2015), while much attention is being paid to change in higher education, there seems to be a resistance to change in general. i acknowledge that the university has developed policies to include students with disabilities as part of the national transformation aimed at creating an inclusive society, free from all forms of discrimination (stellenbosch university, 2018). the issue here is that slds are often referred to as invisible disabilities since there is no physical indication of them as couzensa et al. (2015) have reminded us. however, since basic education systems are increasingly supporting students who have been identified with an sld, they, too, are increasingly entering higher education (couzensa et al., 2015; kendall, 2016; ryan, 2007). tertiary educational institutions are thus challenged to admit students with slds and, at the same time, provide them with opportunities for equal participation. sct proposes that the first level of learning is determined by the quality of social interactions. with this in mind, university lecturers should be aware of the impact of their pedagogy and take into account the individual physical and biological factors that impede the learning of students with slds. conclusion the responses of the participants in this small-scale study epitomise the effect of sld as an invisible disability on their lived experiences of university. from a human rights and social justice perspective, there are several factors that impede equal education and “promot[e] universal access for people with disabilities” such as slds at university. it can be concluded that although the university has policies to promote inclusion, some students with slds still do not experience “fundamental rights and freedoms . . . on campus, as required by the constitution and related legislation” (stellenbosch university, p. 6) being met. dreyer: specific learning disabilities 89 in pursuit of being an “inclusive, innovative and future-focused” (stellenbosch university, p. 5) university we need to create learning spaces that embrace diversity beyond physical and sensory disability on two levels. the first is the institutional level where policies are developed and the information on available support to students with slds at the institution is disseminated. the second is the classroom level where lecturers need to ensure that policy is implemented through their pedagogy. given that pedagogy is considered to refer to the complex inter-relationship between teaching and learning (loughran, 2013), teachers in hei need to take heed of factors that affect the learning of students with slds. while this research focused on overall university experiences, i suggest that research be conducted into the actual pedagogical practices (methodologies, strategies, and techniques) of lecturers in relation to students’ experiences of being included. this will enhance the understanding of student experiences at classroom level. the findings from this study indicate the need for lecturers to be cognisant and reflective practitioners in pursuit of authentic inclusion. no student should say, “i don’t want to be seen to be getting special treatment” but should, rather, be able to claim equal access and participation as a basic human right. funding this research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. references american psychiatric association. 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(1978). mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. harvard university press. microsoft word c74 full issue 17dec.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 74, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i74a01 decolonising, africanising, indigenising, and internationalising curriculum studies: opportunities to (re)imagine the field lesley le grange department of curriculum studies, faculty of education, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa llg@sun.ac.za http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7096-3609 (received: 2 may 2018; accepted: 6 november 2018) abstract in recent years the terms internationalisation, indigenising, decolonising, and africanising have circulated in discourses on curriculum both internationally and in south africa. recent student protests in south africa have precipitated a particular interest in the decolonising of the university curriculum. as a consequence, we are witnessing contestations on the topic in scholarly journals and books, and in the popular media. the concept, decolonisation of the curriculum, has also been bandied around loosely by some students, eliciting criticism on the lack of clarity about this. the field of curriculum studies in south africa has been characterised by a focus on banal matters related to the national curriculum: the merits and demerits of outcomes-based education; findings of standardised tests; assessment; continuity and progression; classroom pedagogy; and so forth. the upshot of this is that the field has become hackneyed, unimaginative, and unable to address bigger questions such as the ones raised in the call for papers of this special issue. i argue in this article that the concepts internationalising, indigenising, decolonising, and africanising could be the impetus for the renewal of the field of curriculum studies in south africa. in the article i clarify what is meant by the internationalising, indigenising, decolonising, and africanising of the curriculum. i discuss the ways in which the concepts are disparate and explore the conceptual connections between and among them. my exploration opens up alternative ways of thinking curriculum through viewing it as a “complicated conversation” (pinar, 2004a, p. xiv) that could have potentially transformative effects on the field of curriculum studies in south africa. my main aim here is to register the possibility of such complicated conversations happening in south african curriculum studies. keywords: africanisation, decolonisation, indigenisation, internationalisation, curriculum as conversation introduction the academic study of curriculum in south africa, as is the case in many countries, has focused on matters of national interest. both editions of the international handbook of curriculum research (pinar 2003, 2014) attested to the fact that the academic field of le grange: decolonising, africanising, indigenising and internationalising curriculum studies . . . 5 curriculum studies 1 is embedded in national culture. as pinar (2006) made clear, what is studied in the field includes the political present (which is different for each nation) and the cultural questions represented in different curricula and in public debates and policies on curriculum. the first attempt to document the intellectual history of the field and its present circumstances in south africa was as recent as eight years ago (pinar, 2010). this 2010 edited collection of south african contributors (with comments from an international panel) along with the chapter on south african curriculum studies (le grange, 2014a) published in the most recent edition of the international handbook of curriculum research (pinar, 2014), show that the field in post-apartheid south africa is fragmented and still in its infancy; it remains divided along colonial and apartheid lines characterised by what hoadley (2010) termed different “tribes and territories” (p. 128). as i have pointed out elsewhere (le grange, 2014), “complicated conversations on curriculum matters between south africans rarely occur (at home) . . . i have observed some of the more difficult and heated conversations between south african education scholars occurring on foreign soil” (p. 466). this means that the current state of the field is actually thwarting its advancement despite the fact that much has been (and continues to be) written on matters relating to curriculum by south african academics in scholarly books and in local and international journals. the south african education research association (saera), which was established in 2013, promises to be a forum in which all south africans scholars can engage in conversations about research, including curriculum research. in its short history, saera has been successful in provided a platform for south african scholars to engage with one another but much needs still to be done to make complicated conversations happen so as to advance education as a field of study generally and curriculum studies more specifically. a curriculum studies special interest group (sig) was established at the saera conference in 2014, and this might be one important space in which to have complicated conversations and provide an impetus for advancing the field. this special issue on internationalising, indigenising, decolonising, and africanising curriculum is an outcome of conversations that occurred in meetings of the curriculum studies sig of saera. decolonisation has become a buzzword in south african higher education in the wake of the student protests of 2015 and 2016. it is a topic of conversations in universities, at national conferences, and in a burgeoning body of literature, both popular and academic. in such conversations, terms such as internationalisation, indigenisation and africanising are sometimes invoked. in the many contributions to the decolonisation debate that i have made as a speaker and panelist across the country, i have often been asked how these terms relate to decolonisation. in order to respond to this perennial question, i explore in this article the points of intersection between and among these terms and the senses in which they are disparate. furthermore, i explore how points of intersection among and between the concepts serve as a basis for advancing the field of curriculum studies in south africa through engagement in complicated conversations. 1 curriculum studies “is a distinctive field of study, with a unique history, a complex present, an uncertain future” (pinar, 2004a, p. 2). it is the only field in education that is authentically interdisciplinary because it draws on a range of disciplines compared to other fields in education such as educational psychology, philosophy of education, and sociology of education that draw primarily on one discipline. 6 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 in this article, i discuss first what the notion of curriculum as complicated conversation entails. then i explore the points of intersection between internationalising, indigenising, decolonizing, and africanising. third, i synthesise these ideas and use the synthesis to explore how the field of curriculum studies might be (re)imagined in south africa. i end the article with a call to scholars to commit to the complicated conversations that are essential if we are to advance the field of curriculum studies in south africa. curriculum as complicated conversation the concept of curriculum as “complicated conversation” was proposed by curriculum scholar william pinar, following his engagement with richard rorty’s theorisation of conversation and michael oakeshott’s (1959) book on conversation (pinar, 2004a, p. xiv). the context of pinar’s notion of complicated conversation is the academic field of education in the us that was under attack by politicians, and this meant that there was a need for scholars of curriculum to maintain their professional dignity by reasserting their commitment to the intellectual life of the field (pinar, 2004). the relevance of complicated conversation to south africa is twofold: first, as mentioned above, the field remains divided and in its infancy; second, the marriage between the field and the school curriculum has made the field unimaginative. much of the curriculum work done by scholars in post-apartheid south africa is (and has been) aligned to the school curriculum, policy formulation in relation to it, and implementation thereof, whether through critique or in support of the curriculum. the fragmented state of the field (see le grange, 2010, 2014) has curtailed its advancement and the field’s submergence in present circumstances (school curriculum reform) has resulted in amnesia about the past (colonialism and its delinquent cousin apartheid), and to date no one seems able to imagine a different future for the field. but, what is meant by a conversation? aoki (2004) has averred that conversation is not “chitchat,” nor is it a simple exchange of information because none of these requires “true human presence” (p. 180), moreover, in conversations, language is not the only tool through which thoughts are recoded into words. curriculum as conversation is therefore not an exchange of “representational knowledge,” but “a matter of attunement, an auditory rather than visual conception, in which the sound of music . . . being improvised is an apt example” (pinar, 2004, p. 189). conversations, therefore, do not conform to predetermined outcomes, but, as in the case of improvisational jazz, produce something new and transform those engaged in the conversation. for oakeshott (1959) difference structures and stimulates complicated conversation. he wrote that “[conversation] is impossible in the absence of a diversity of voices: in it different universes of discourse meet, acknowledge each other and enjoy an oblique relationship which neither requires nor forecasts their being assimilated into one another” (p. 11). curriculum becomes a complicated conversation when, as pedagogues, we complicate students’ understanding of the subject they are studying (particularly postgraduate students working in the field). pinar (2004) suggested that such complicated conversations occur when we do not devise “airtight” arguments but provide spaces for students to find their own voices le grange: decolonising, africanising, indigenising and internationalising curriculum studies . . . 7 so that they “construct their own understanding of what it means to teach, to study, to become educated” (p. 2). conversations also become complicated when scholars of curriculum engage with their peers (particularly with those with different histories, beliefs, and ideas), and listen respectfully to them so as to interrogate their own understandings of self and of the field. pinar (2004) suggested that complicated conversations are premised on a commitment of scholars of curriculum to engage in such conversations with their peers, their students and with themselves, and that such a commitment is accompanied by “frank and ongoing selfcriticism” (p. 9). frank and ongoing self-criticism is an important dimension of complicated conversations because it mitigates against hierarchical power relations that could impede productive conversations from happening. power relations are always present when humans engage in educational exchanges. however, complicated conversations are constructed to lessen hierarchical power relations and their colonising effects. when this potestas (negative power) is moderated through self-criticism and respect, the positive power of the potentia can flourish and productive curriculum work can be performed in new knowledge spaces. potentia is not a power that is external, hierarchical, or imposed, but is an immanent power that connects to life’s creative force (see le grange, 2018). when potentia is released in exchanges between scholars of seemingly disparate knowledge systems all knowledges are decentred so that different knowledges are equitably compared and can coexist and unlikely fidelities can be formed. potentia can, of course, become postestas (and vice versa), and so, to prevent this, scholars engaged in complicated conversations are committed to the act of self-criticism, to respectful engagement with the other, and to a sense of belonging to something bigger than self, i.e. the field of curriculum studies. moreover, complicated conversations are learning spaces in which power can be negotiated and actualised in productive ways. decolonisation, africanisation, indigenisation, and internationalisation volumes of work have been produced on each of these terms over many decades. i cannot do justice to the body of scholarship produced on each of these terms in this article. what i can do is to give a brief description of each term and show some of the ways in which these terms could be linked to one another conceptually. it is important to note that the concepts decolonisation, africanisation, indigenisation, and internationalisation are vital concepts; they could be subjected to philosophical speculation and are not concepts of recognition such as table, flower, dog, and so forth. vital concepts are contested, have different meanings in different discourses, and do not have fixity (they are in-becoming). for deleuze and guattari (1994) central to philosophy is the creation of vital concepts and not the analysis of concepts that suggest fixity. moreover, there are no limits to the lines of connection that can be invigorated among and between different concepts. i say this so that the connections that i make among and between the concepts are understood to be only a few of many possible ones. 8 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 the key reason for the brief elucidation of these concepts is that they are of interest in current discourses on decolonisation in south africa and so, too, are the conceptual connections among and between them. these concepts could therefore be central themes in complicated curriculum conversations and could also be subjected to revision in and through such conversations. put simply, decolonisation is the undoing of colonisation. first generation colonialism was the conquering of the physical spaces and bodies of the colonised, and second generation colonialism was the colonisation of peoples’ minds through disciplines such as education, science, economics, and law. the term neo-colonialism was coined by the first president of independent ghana, kwame nkrumah (1965). it relates to the achievement of technical independence by a country that is still under the influence of ex-colonial or newly developed superpowers. such superpowers could be international monetary bodies, multinational corporations, or cartels as well as education and cultural institutions (ashcroft, griffiths, & triffin, 2003). as these scholars have pointed out, nkrumah argued that neo-colonialism is a more insidious form of colonialism because it is more difficult to detect. consequently, it is more difficult to undo. chilisa (2012) outlined five phases in the process of decolonisation: rediscovery and recovery; mourning; dreaming; commitment and action. rediscovery and recovery is the process whereby colonised peoples rediscover and recover their own history, culture, language, and identity. mourning refers to the process of lamenting the continued assault on the world’s colonised and oppressed peoples’ identities and social realities. it is an important part of healing that leads to dreaming. in the process of dreaming colonised peoples invoke their histories, worldviews, and indigenous knowledge systems to theorise and imagine alternative possibilities, in this instance, a reimagined academic field. smith (1999) identified the following elements of decolonisation: deconstruction and reconstruction; selfdetermination and social justice; ethics; language; internationalisation of indigenous experiences; history; and critique. deconstruction and reconstruction concerns discarding what has been wrongly written, and “interrogating distortions of people’s life experiences, negative labelling, deficit theorizing, genetically deficient or culturally deficient models that pathologized the colonised . . . and retelling the stories of the past and envisioning the future” (chilisa, 2012, p. 17). the element of self-determination and social justice relates to the struggle by those who have been marginalised by the western academy and is about seeking legitimacy for knowledge that is embedded in their own histories, experiences, and ways of viewing reality. ethics has to do with the formulation, legislation, and dissemination of ethical issues related to the protection of indigenous knowledge systems. language concerns the importance of teaching and learning in indigenous languages as part of the antiimperialist struggle. internationalization of indigenous experiences relates to international scholars sharing the common experiences, issues, and struggles of colonised peoples in global and local spaces. history, in this instance, involves a study of the past to recover the history, culture, and languages of colonised people and to use it to inform the present. critique concerns a critical appraisal of the imperial model of the academy that “continues to deny the colonised and historically marginalised other space to communicate from their own frames of le grange: decolonising, africanising, indigenising and internationalising curriculum studies . . . 9 reference” (chilisa, 2012, p.19). some of the dimensions of decolonisation mentioned are relevant to curriculum studies to which i will return, but it would be apposite at this juncture first to discuss briefly what is meant by decoloniality. decoloniality is a construct that has been produced by a group of latin american scholars and is a critique or an analytic of coloniality. the work of these scholars mainly focuses on the “coloniality of knowledge” and the “coloniality of being” (mignolo, 2007, pp. 156–157). these scholarly deliberations are complex, and i shall not explore them in detail here but will provide a broad understanding of coloniality and decoloniality so that we can apply it to our discussion of the academic field of curriculum studies. decolonial scholars argue that although former european colonies attained independence and although, in this sense, we live in postcolonial times, the logic of coloniality remains with us. in other words, the systems of power that classify (also known as othering), denigrate, and subjugate remain prevalent, and, in a contemporary globalising world, are more insidious than previous more naked forms of colonisation were. quijano (2007) describes the colonial matrix of power as having four interlocking domains: control of economy (land appropriation, exploitation of labour, and control of natural resources); control of authority (institutions, and the army); control of gender and sexuality (family and education) and control of subjectivity and knowledge (epistemology, education, and identity formation). in relation to curriculum studies, decoloniality could involve asking critical questions such as: who controls the field internationally and in south africa? who controls the institutions and organisations of the field? who produces knowledge in and of the field (including its histories)? how are identities (per)formed or constructed through and in discourses on curriculum studies? decoloniality, therefore, concerns a critical awareness of the logic of coloniality (the colonial matrix of power); it is a critique of coloniality, it resists expressions of coloniality, and takes actions to overcome coloniality. applied to south africa, the coloniality/decoloniality lens enables one to understand that apartheid was a particular manifestation of coloniality rather than a period distinct from colonialism, as jansen (2017) has suggested. how might we understand africanisation? at the end of the algerian war fanon was disillusioned and claimed that no meaningful liberation had taken place because there had been no decolonisation. he lamented that independence was simply the africanisation of colonialism (see hansen, 1977; pinar, 2011; sekyi-otu, 1996). fanon’s claim suggests that decolonisation and africanisation are not synonymous and that africanisation could in fact be an impediment to decolonisation. to appreciate what fanon was getting at it is useful to distinguish between africanisation and africanism. for prah (2004) africanisation involves the systematic and deliberate deployment of africans in positions that enable them to gain control of society; african majorities need to be demographically represented in all areas of social life. although africanisation may serve as the basis for africanism, the latter concerns more than just demographic representation and, in addition, is concerned with making african culture the centre of africa's development or, as prah (2004) succinctly put it, “african culture should occupy a central position in the overall social activity of africans” (p. 105). fanon’s point was that africanisation had taken place in algeria, but not africanism. however, i use the term africanising to incorporate both prah’s notion of 10 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 africanisation and africanism (le grange, 2014b). likewise, in this article i use the term africanising to incorporate both of prah’s (2004) notions and propose that africanisation is a necessary condition for africanising but not a sufficient one. africanising requires both prah’s notions of africanisation and africanism. the project of africanising is, therefore, a decolonising/decolonial one because it involves the undoing of colonialism (in all its forms) in africa 2 so that matters concerning the african condition are discussed, debated, and (re)solved by africans (and those who work in the interest of africa) and on terms set by africans. moreover, the very invocation of africanising deconstructs and decentres colonial and imperial knowledge in the sense that europe is no longer the centre of knowledge. put differently, africanising could be viewed as synonymous with decolonising processes taking place on the african continent, but decolonisation and decoloniality have much wider application around the globe. indigenising concerns the inclusion of indigenous ways of knowing and being in social and education processes. it also involves the (re)discovery of indigenous cultures, including indigenous ways of knowing, and is about seeking social and cognitive justice for indigenous peoples (see le grange, 2016). but what is indigenous knowledge? sillitoe, dixon, & barr (2005) suggest that indigenous knowledge is unique, local, traditional knowledge developed around specific conditions of people in a particular geographical area. they point out that it is also knowledge that has been developed over time and continues to be developed, and is knowledge based on experiences that have been tested over centuries. however, recently some indigenous scholars have challenged the idea of indigenous being only that which is home-grown and argue for inserting the capital “i” in the term indigenous so that the term has political implications. as wilson (2008) has written, the first peoples of the world have gained greater understanding of the similarities that we share. terms such as indian, metis, aborigine or torres strait islander do nothing to reflect either the distinctiveness of our cultures or the commonalities of our underlying worldviews. indigenous is inclusive of all first peoples unique in our own cultures but common in our experiences of colonialism and our understanding of the world. when using the term indigenous research, i am referring specifically to research done by or for indigenous peoples. (pp. 15–16) the brief discussion on indigenising manifests several links to the discussion on decolonisation and decoloniality. i shall mention just a few. indigenising relates to that discovery and rediscovery that chilisa mentions as the first phase of decolonisation. the uniqueness of the culture, languages, and knowledges of peoples who have inhabited certain geographical areas (and that inhabits them) over long periods of time, as mentioned by sillitoe et al. (2005), relate to the discussion on decolonisation in the sense that indigenous peoples have a right to self-determination, to preserve their languages and their knowledges, etc. wilson (2008) also hints at the importance of the internationalisation of indigenous 2 i acknowledge that africa is a continent comprised of more than 50 countries, is culturally diverse and not monolithic. however, given that most of africa was colonised over the past 300 years, africanising is a unifying concept that involves the undoing of colonialism on the continent, but manifests in nuanced ways in different countries or regions. le grange: decolonising, africanising, indigenising and internationalising curriculum studies . . . 11 knowledge that smith (1999) views as an important element of decolonisation. internationalisation in this context relates to indigenous scholars using the spaces that globalisation affords for building solidarities among indigenous peoples across the globe. wilson’s (2008) expression is also a critique of coloniality in the sense that the invocation of indigenous has political implications transnationally. indigenising intersects with the idea of africanising in the sense that africanising could and should involve the inclusion of african indigenous knowledge in social and education processes. but, here again, indigenous knowledge is not a concept confined to africa. as with the other concepts discussed, there are different understandings of what the internationalising of education means. however, what has become evident is the ubiquity of strategies of internationalising administration, curricula, and student demographics in universities around the globe. many universities (including those on the african continent) have international offices and/or centres for international or global studies. as rizvi and walsh (1998) have noted, the internationalisation of higher education aims to broaden the university’s international footprint, to provide students with vocational skills needed in a globalising world, and to promote diversity among staff and students but these scholars are suspicious of the liberal idea of celebrating diversity, arguing that it masks the illusion of pluralistic harmony because diversity is tolerated only as long as it does not challenge the dominant cultural norms and social order. they argue, instead, that an ethic of difference is attentive to the fact that difference is dynamic, and the product of history, culture, power, and ideology. for them, attentiveness to the politics of difference makes possible the “creation of new learning spaces in which the politics of difference in relation to histories of knowledge and power can be explored, in which the dominant values and other competing values can be interrogated and in which new patterns of identity formation, meaning and representation can be negotiated” (1998, p. 10). i wish to suggest two ways of understanding internationalising. the first is solidarity among those who share common experiences of colonisation and oppression around the world. i have already referred to the internationalisation of indigenous knowledge and have mentioned that in smith’s (1999) view, it is a key dimension of decolonisation. the second view involves recognising different knowledge traditions and reframing one’s own view in the light of the views of others. as gough (2003) has said, internationalising curriculum inquiry might best be understood as a process of creating transnational ‘spaces’ in which scholars from different localities collaborate in reframing and decentring their own knowledge traditions and negotiate trust in each other’s contributions to their collective work. for those of us who work in western knowledge traditions, a first step must be to represent and perform our distinctive approaches to curriculum inquiry in ways that authentically demonstrate their localness. this may include drawing attention to the characteristic ways in which western genres of academic textual production invite readers to interpret local knowledge as universal discourse. (p. 68) transnational spaces in which the localness of all knowledge is recognised, where all knowledges are reframed and decentred, and where the social organisation of trust is 12 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 negotiated, are necessarily decolonising spaces. complicated conversations create such new knowledge spaces and therefore could be the impetus for the advancement of the field of curriculum studies in south africa. in summary, i have highlighted some of the points of intersection between the concepts of decolonising, africanising, indigenising, and internationalising. i now explore briefly how points of intersection between and among the concepts can be enhanced to reimagine the field of curriculum studies through the lens of curriculum as complicated conversation. reimagining curriculum studies in south africa as mentioned above, the fragmented nature of the field and the submergence of curriculum research in present circumstances is thwarting its advancement in south africa. pinar (2011) refers to the close alignment between the work curriculum scholars do and their own national interests (such as in a national school curriculum) as the problem of proximity. proximity also results from a failure to distance oneself from the work of the tribe (to use hoadley’s (2010) term) to which one belongs. advancing the field of curriculum studies in south africa requires complicated conversations on at least three levels; complicated conversations with students we teach; complicated conversations among south african curriculum scholars; and complicated conversations among south african scholars and international scholars of the field. i have suggested that the time might now be ripe for such complicated conversations in the wake of recent student protests, and some of these conversations are taking place already. there now is a space in south african universities to have public conversations about issues (un)intentionally silenced in post-apartheid south africa, which the #rhodesmustfall and the #feesmustfall campaigns have laid bare. conversations on decolonisation, africanisation, indigenisation, and internationalisation are not new and not new in south africa. presently, we are witnessing conversations occurring in university classrooms across the country, in departmental meetings, in institutions, and at conferences on decolonisation and decoloniality. moreover, we are seeing a burgeoning literature on decolonisation and decoloniality and related concepts. put differently, we are witnessing blank spots shifting to mainstream conversations and blind spots shifting to become blank spots. 3 however, for such conversations to produce decolonising, africanising, indigenising effects, they must necessarily be complicated conversations. my specific interest lies in exploring the idea of complicated conversations in the context of the field of curriculum studies, although the thoughts generated might be more widely appropriated. as i have suggested, clarion calls by students for the decolonisation of the university (curriculum) have been the impetus for what we might call new conversations in south african higher education. however, even if we reach as far as to claim that students’ calls have been a catalyst for new conversations, such a catalyst would not be a sufficient condition for these conversations to be complicated. complicated conversations require 3 wagner (1993) distinguishes between the constructs blank spots and blind spots. for him, blank spots are what scientists know enough about to question but do not answer, and blind spots are what they do not know enough about or care about. le grange: decolonising, africanising, indigenising and internationalising curriculum studies . . . 13 commitment and labour. an academic field such as curriculum studies is a “form of collective belonging” (eribon, 2004, p. 123), whose members are loyal even in disagreement (pinar 2006). complicated conversations require a commitment to the intellectual life of the field of curriculum studies. it is a commitment that needs to be cultivated among students and embraced by scholars of the field in south africa, irrespective of the tribe to which they belong (or whether they are tribeless) and embraced by scholars internationally so as to advance the internationalisation of the field. complicated conversations also require scholars of the field (in the presence of others) to distance themselves from their own understandings of curriculum, distance themselves from their tribes (in south africa’s case) and distance themselves from national and regional settings, akin to said’s (2000) depiction of the intellectual in exile (pinar, 2006). it requires the teacher of curriculum to pause, slow down pedagogy, suspend his or her own understanding(s) of the field and understanding(s) of self (particularly academics socialised in western traditions) and listen respectfully to the voices of students, particularly those of marginalised students (african students, women students, students of the lgbtq community, etc.). slowing pedagogy engenders pedagogical moments that are decolonising (and in the south african context, also africanising) because it decentres western knowledge by placing it on an immanent plane, alongside other knowledges. in the context of south african curriculum studies, members of each tribe should separate themselves from their tribes and through relations of reciprocity respectfully listen to the other who engenders selfcriticism 4 and criticism of their views on curriculum (studies). the recognition of difference is central here, and not the celebration of diversity. similarly, in transnational spaces, scholars of the field should distance themselves from their own national cultures and politics and listen respectfully to others, thus creating “a global public space for dissension, debate, and on occasion solidarity” pinar (2006, p. 178). the notion of complicated as described here aligns with gough’s (2003) perspective on internationalising curriculum inquiry where all knowledge traditions are decentred and collective work is performed through negotiating trust. by decentring western knowledge traditions in such global public spaces, collective work performed becomes decolonising/indigenising and in instances where african scholars are engaged in such spaces, africanising (since africans are given voice). complicated conversations, therefore, as pinar (2004b) has reminded us, are spaces in which both separation and belonging exist in creative tension. he observed that aoki (1990) privileged the gerund “belonging” over the adverb “together”, and elaborated, “‘belonging’ takes precedence over ‘together,’ he [aoki] explains, thereby revealing the ‘being’ of ‘belonging.’ in his subtle and sophisticated conceptualization, ‘being’ vibrates like a violin string, and in its sound, honours the complexity and integrity of individual identity and social relationality.” (p. 84). curriculum studies becomes decolonising in the sense that no knowledge tradition dominates the other. moreover, the sense of belonging that is characteristic of complicated 4 self-criticism also involves the reconstruction of subjectivity that fanon (1967) argued is central to decolonisation. in fact, goldie (1999) goes as far as to say that for fanon, “true liberation is the achievement of subjectivity” (p. 79). reconstruction of self involves remembering the past, one’s interpellation into colonial/imperial discourses that links to chilisa’s (2012) first phase of decolonisation, discovery and recovery, leading to her second phase of decolonisation, mourning. the reconstruction of subjectivity becomes the basis for collective action to make possible a different future, in this instance a reimagined field of curriculum studies. 14 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 conversations makes possible the celebration of the values and traditions of indigenous peoples and, in the context of africa, african values and beliefs. in other words, curriculum studies becomes indigenising/africanising. the creative tension between separation and belonging is the source of newness that complicated conversations could produce. inspired by the philosophy of gilles deleuze, aoki (1990) argued that conversations produce improvised lines of movement that tell a new language, in his case, a poststructural language. in the context of this article i would add a decolonised, indigenised, africanised, and/or internationalised language or, perhaps, a radically new language that is a cacophony of different languages—indigenous, western, african, decolonial—an assemblage of languages that, as in the case of improvisational jazz, is a meshwork of interactions that do not enable us to identify any distinctive language. in the context of our discussion, the upshot is a reimagined field of curriculum studies in south africa and internationally. when all knowledge traditions are placed on an immanent plane then lines of connection and movement could be galvanised to produce something new or unforeseen. in the world of music, blues and well as jazz emerged from the intersection of the struggles of marginalised communities in the usa and the use of western musical instruments to create new musical genres (le grange, 2019, in press). in relation to knowledge production, aborigines in australia’s northern territory have for many years through their own performative modes mapped their country by identifying every tree and every significant feature of their territory. today some aborigines are doing the same using the latest in satellites, remote sensing, and geographical information systems. by representing their local knowledge on digital maps, they are able to make their ways of knowing visible in western terms, thus creating “a new knowledge space which will have transformative effects for all australians” (turnbull, 1997, p. 560). similarly, in south africa san trackers are being equipped with digital devices (as part of the cybertracker programme) to record animal sightings, a local example of traditional african ways of knowing working together with sophisticated western technologies (see le grange, 2001, 2007). in the context of south african curriculum studies where the field remains fragmented, the saera conference provides a new space for complicated conversations to occur among those working with and in different knowledge traditions. internationally, the conference of the international association for the advancement of curriculum studies (iaacs) is a transnational space in which south africans of different epistemological orientations can engage in complicated conversations with fellow south african and international scholars. through self-criticism, respectful listening, and the negotiation of trust in such knowledge spaces, dominant knowledges can be decentred, and all knowledges can be equitably compared and be performed together. the upshot of this is transformed knowledge spaces and the production of new knowledge that becomes a child of disparate knowledge traditions. recognising the potential of such knowledge spaces might be an important step in advancing the academic field of curriculum studies in south africa. furthermore, in such knowledge spaces, and when academics engage in intellectual exchanges with students, western pedagogies could be suspended and alternative pedagogies such as african talking circles could be introduced. talking circles are known to many indigenous peoples around the globe. in such talking circles, a talking symbol such as a le grange: decolonising, africanising, indigenising and internationalising curriculum studies . . . 15 talking stick is passed in a clockwise direction and whoever holds the stick has the right to speak uninterrupted. in this way respectful listening is ensured. and, as mentioned earlier, complicated conversations are not chit-chats. complicated conversations within nations and in transnational spaces involve contestation and negotiation to the extent that the very knowledge produced in such conversations could be troubled. as pinar (2006) wrote, what is at stake here is the democratic negotiation of internationalization and globalization. to contest cultural imperialism and neo-colonialism, the very concepts and occasions structuring the study can themselves become objects of critique, even contestation; curricular language itself becomes negotiable in the complicated conversation that is the internationalization of curriculum studies. (p. 167) some parting thoughts i have suggested in this article that as an academic field, curriculum studies in south africa is fragmented because of the legacies of colonialism and apartheid that produced different “tribes and territories” (hoadley, 2010, p. 128). this, together with the problem of proximity, is thwarting the advancement of curriculum studies in the country. i have argued that a renewed interest in decolonisation, africanisation, indigenisation, and internationalisation in the country creates opportunities to reimagine the field. i have explored points of resonance between and among decolonising, africanising, indigenizing, and internationalising and how lines of movement along these notions and lines of connection between and among them can be invigorated through complicated conversations. moreover, i have registered the possibility of complicated conversations producing new languages, including a radical new language/sound that is a cacophony and assemblage of different knowledge traditions; the upshot is an outcome in which individual traditions become imperceptible so that no tradition dominates any other; the plane is an immanent one where western knowledge is stripped of its onto-epistemological privilege. in knowledge spaces where such complicated conversations occur transnationally, the field of curriculum studies can, potentially, become internationalised, decolonised and in some instances indigenised (if indigenous peoples are engaged in such conversations). in south african knowledge spaces in which complicated conversations occur, the field can, potentially, become decolonised, indigenized, and africanised. i do not wish to sum up by dumping an airtight argument in a nutshell for the reader. i have added to an ongoing conversation on decolonisation, indigenisation, africanisation, and internationalisation, and hope that i have in some way complicated the conversation. my exploration was done so as to register the possibility of reimagining the field of curriculum studies both internationally and in south africa. to move from the possible to the probable, it is incumbent on curriculum scholars to reassert their commitment to the intellectual life of the field; the advancement of the field is dependent on the commitment of scholars to engage in complicated conversations. 16 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 references aoki, t. t. 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(2008) research is ceremony: indigenous research methods. halifax, ca: fernwood. editorial wayne hugo what is the relationship between tacit/explicit and possible/actual and why does it matter for those of us who take education seriously as an object of research and thought? it helps that we have a lucid account of the importance of getting the tacit/explicit relationship right in this issue of joe. yael shalem and lynne slonimsky make two key moves. firstly they point to the need to get the emphasis on what is tacit correct. tacit means both ‘we know more than we tell’ and ‘we know more than we can tell’, and in the auxiliary verb ‘can’ lies the rub. both senses of tacit are valid. as teachers we know far more than we actually say and do; and as teachers there are processes that we carry deep down but cannot articulate clearly. the danger lies in confusing what is being held in the background but can be articulated if needs be with what is in the deep dark recesses that never comes out and can only be heard moaning in the cellar, or glimpsed through the cracks. if the ‘locked in the basement’ emphasis of tacit is held as its predominant pedagogic meaning, then all a student can hope for is to go live in the ‘house’ of the teacher and experience, but never explicitly see, the dark, hidden knowledge. learning becomes something gothic, learnt by mysterious contact in some dark corridor. to bring this ‘tacit knowledge’ out into the light would destroy it, make it wither, so best leave it tacit and learn by being there. but if the major emphasis on tacit falls towards ‘we know more than we tell’, then there are not so many dark and difficult secrets of knowledge, more light is cast on what is said, and the task of making the tacit explicit becomes a key component of teacher education. it’s not that there are not dark secrets in the basement, it’s that these secrets are not the main focus or rationale behind teacher education. shalem and slonimsky want to get away from the over-inflated, gothic view of tacit knowledge and push towards an enlightenment view. they feel such a move is crucial because it affects how we professionalise teachers: either we buy into the gothic view and send our student teachers off to learn in the ‘house’ where they will learn by being in the place where things happen, much of which cannot be clearly articulated but needs to be experienced to be learnt; or we hold that what is tacit in our profession can mostly be made journal of education, no. 58, 2013ii explicit and clearly shown to the student in an ordered way that teaches students the key principles guiding judgement and action within the profession. if our argument is correct, then our conclusion is that the common view of socialisation into professional practice is wrong. the view that we know much more than we can represent by telling, and therefore practical understanding of professional knowledge must be acquired in experience is false. it is time that the over inflated view of the role of tacit knowledge is challenged and we hope that we began to address it. the central claim that we want readers to take from this paper is that the heart of practical understanding is in discrimination and evaluation, which must be premised on disciplinary knowledge and cannot be obtained from emulating the activities of other practitioners. practical knowledge develops, primarily, from learning to order ideas – to distinguish and relate between ideas, know what procedures to take to validate them and how to recognise what interpretation is most appropriate for the instance at hand. acquisition of professional knowledge lies in access to criteria about what is permissible, right or wrong, true or false, appropriate or inappropriate, and what is better and why. in the second paragraph of the above quote, you can see a summary of the second key move, which is to argue that development of professional practice involves enabling students to work at a level of abstraction and generality that both holds grounded practice within but also allows classification of the practice. the student needs both the practice and the rules generating the practice. this is a significant move – the student needs both an experience of practice, and the beginnings of an understanding of what the field of possibility generating the practices are. when an actual move is made, it holds within itself many possibilities, only a few of which realise themselves in action, much of the rest hangs about, unrealised, but in the air. a professional teacher is not caught in the spectre of the actual lesson, she knows the lesson could have gone many different ways depending on how the lesson developed, and what counts are the underlying rules that enable choice between possibilities, not the manifestation of the choices. this field of possibility is not only the fertile ground from which the actual manifests, it also is the field of possibility each action enables going forward. implications spill out of every move, pushing forwards into many possibilities and even more impossibilities, and the task of a professional is to be able to recognise what the implications are and work intelligently forward within and between them. shalem and slonimsky work with collins, winch, abbott, and muller to make this point, but for me, the person who articulated this most clearly and thoroughly within an education context is alfred north editorial iii whitehead, and he uses the possible/actual distinction to make the point. once you get a taste for what he (and other process philosophers mean) a beautiful, strangely obvious world opens out to view. it’s a world in which a given process has behind it a seething set of possibilities it sprung from, and spilling in front of it a series of implications it can move into. to develop a position where you not only see the actual event but also the possibilities it sprang from and possibilities it can move towards is to have a godlike view, and this is what we find in shalem and slonimsky’s paper, an articulation of a secularised god view for the professions. what they do not provide is an empirical example of their argument, mainly because their paper exists as a part of a series on professional judgement and the paper in this edition focuses in on argument, not exemplification. but if you read devika naidoo’s paper in this edition, you will find a thorough description of what it means to make disciplinary knowledge explicit through ordering ideas in a principled manner. naidoo analyses four grade 10 geography textbooks in a way that reveals how clearly the textbooks provide access to the organising criteria of geography as a discipline. here is her analytical framework, and you will immediately see that it gets to the heart of the matter, unlike many textbook analyses out in the ether. attribute of geography intellectual process analytical criteria make meaning of experiential world. observation, identifying, describing, naming the extent to which each textbook requires students to observe and make sense of the experiential world? a technical lexis naming the extent to which the technical lexis is represented. ordering the experiential world ordering/taxonomising/classifying: classification based on super-ordination and compositional principles the extent to which the geographic taxonomy is represented. explaining experiential phenomena implication sequences – network diagrams that represent the taxonomic relationship the extent to which phenomena are explained it’s a sweet framework. notice that it moves from a meaning making relationship between the everyday and specialised into a more formalised journal of education, no. 58, 2013iv technical naming, and then an ordering of the lexis into a taxonomy, and then an explanation of the taxonomy in a way that gets into the processes involved. i would like to focus on the difference between the third and fourth aspects and ask it as a question: what is the difference between a taxonomy on the one hand and implication sequences on the other? here is an answer naidoo uses from a systemic functional grammarian: where taxonomising tends to focus on things. . .explaining tends to focus on processes. the emphasis shifts from things in place to things in action. to explain how things are, or came to be the way they are, it is necessary to use processes, participants and circumstances. these tend to be arranged in clause complexes which will be called implication sequences (martin, 2006, p.157). a taxonomy gives you the skeleton of a discipline, an implication sequence breathes life into it and makes it move. you need both to be made explicit in textbooks, and you need both to be made explicit to professionals in training, for how else are they to make a judgement in a specialised discipline if they do not have the structures and processes clear. making things and processes explicit, however, is not a cure-all. it has its own vices, like when you explain things so much that the actual topic in focus gets lost. everything gets made clear, but to do this you take up precious time and resources and land up with a student who has all the rules and no idea what the point is. another issue is that the sub discourses of a discipline do not neatly align with each other, even with a discipline like mathematics. the process of one sub discourse tangles with the process of other, causing confusion. if you multiply two natural numbers you get a larger number, right? well, what is a half multiplied by a quarter? it’s an eighth. damn. that’s smaller, because rational numbers don’t work in quite the same way as natural numbers. as brodie and berger (2010) point out, mathematics has sub-discourses that relate to each other in strange ways – sometimes you can apply rules across, other times it gets you into trouble. the key point is to be able to move between these sub discourses in ways that understand their different ordering patterns, and seeing the higher principles that hold these differences together. but what happens in mathematical literacy, where you need some grasp of the contextual example as well as the mathematics? this is what sarah bansilal explores in her article ‘understanding the contextual resources necessary for engaging in mathematical literacy tasks’. like the other papers discussed so far, she is concerned with making explicit what the tacit demands of mathematical literacy are, and she provides a useful framework, taken from greeno, sfard, editorial v duranti and goodwin, to make both the conceptual and contextual demands of a discipline explicit. here is one of her examples: pizza task at a restaurant at the waterfront in cape town, tourists have a choice of different pizzas: base toppings thick pineapple regular salami tuna mushroom if a tourist buys a pizza with three toppings, how many combinations are possible? (use any systematic counting method that you have learnt.) there are a number of issues with this example. firstly, if you don’t understand the contextual background of pizzas, you cannot get to the conceptual root of the problem. secondly, most of us would not have a clue how to answer this question even though we decry the terrible results in maths and ml. and thirdly, the example is preposterous: a restaurant at the waterfront with the above choice range simply could not exist – where is the thin and crispy base? everyone knows that it should be either a thin base (roman style) or a thick base (neapolitan style). and what about gluten free? at least, with mathematics and ml, you have the virtue of each action containing a formal base, but what happens when you enter a warmer, fuzzier space of human interaction in its own terms? doctoral supervision is enormously complex and subtle, but it is vital for us to get a thorough grasp on its processes and dynamics, for it is through the doctorate that we both reproduce and regulate our academy. fataar picks up on, and extends, an existing body of research and debate on supervision in south africa. he pushes the debate into the elusive relationship between supervisor and student that holds both a knowledge dimension and a knower dimension. fataar focuses on how deeply the subjective, personal engagement between supervisor and student informs the process of knowledge acquisition. for those who enjoy legitimation code theory (lct), read fataar’s paper in terms of the knowledge-knower structures (or epistemic relations and social relations) and see how it talks back to you. supervision is as much about producing a certain kind of knower as a specific kind of knowledge. fataar quotes green to make the point clear journal of education, no. 58, 2013vi subjects are formed as an ensemble of knowledges, capacities, identities and dispositions through the interplay of specific social relations and social practices, mediated by language. this is always a fragile ensemble, a provisional settlement, with various degrees of durability. moreover, this must be understood as necessarily a relational subjectivity. academics, graduate students and their discourse/disciplinary communities are implicated in social/symbolic networks and circuits of identification and citation, repetition and renewal, learning and forgetting. . . . doctoral pedagogy is as much about the production of identity, then, as it is the production of knowledge. at issue is the (re)production of specific research identities (green, p.162). put in shalem and slonimsky’s terms, fataar is working hard at making what is tacit in the supervision process explicit by refusing to leave the difficult and darker parts of the process unarticulated and left to some kind of osmosis to be learnt. there are elements of the supervision process that experts in the field find hard to articulate clearly, but this should not stop the process of making it explicit. this is not to say that there are elements of the process existing beyond overt expression, and that we need to learn how to talk about these elements in similar ways to how the mystics (like dionysius the areopagite) learnt to talk about god. we need a language of mysticism within our profession that tries to say the unsaid, not by making it explicit but by naming the impossibility of explicitness. the post moderns have shown us how to do it in a secular way. but this kind of unnameable is not the dominant focus, or the most important part of the supervision process. there is much to the dynamic that exists in the realm of the ‘we know more than we tell’ rather than ‘we know more than we can tell’. it is incumbent on all of us engaged in the process of supervision to continue the process of opening our unexpressed practices out to the light, and not stopping when the energies become subtle. let’s test our own ability to work out implications of subtle forces by using shelly wilburn’s article ‘how the ‘outside’ becomes ‘inside’. it’s a deceptively simple paper but the message it carries is profound. she tells the story of two schools in the western cape that are both from poor communities and performing well. the issue she opens out is how the different social contexts these two schools find themselves in make them respond in very different ways to produce similar decent academic results. the first school (school 1) is 15kms outside cape town at the edge of a black township. it has 1 500 learners and 42 teachers, with almost all learners living in shacks. there is support for the school that comes from ngos active in the area, and strong transport links to cape town that provide access and mobility. editorial vii the second school (school 2) is also around 15 kms outside of town, only the town is lutzville and the community is isolated and homogenous, purely afrikaans speaking and coloured, with very strong traditional roots. there are massive issues with fetal alcohol syndrome resulting in a number of students with cognitive and physical disability. if i told you that one of the schools has a more open and connected orientation to the community, and the other a more internal orientation that closes itself off from the community, which school do you think goes with what orientation and why? school 1 open orientation school 2 closed orientation if i told you that one of the schools has a more pragmatic orientation where it accepts that some of the kids can do the work and others will never get there, and the other had an optimistic orientation that pushes for all children having the ability to succeed, which school do you think goes with what orientation and why? school 1 optimistic orientation school 2 pragmatic orientation if i told you one of the schools had a communalising orientation which emphasises that everyone must do the work and perform, and the other school has an individualising orientation that focuses on learners who have what it takes to succeed, which school do you think goes with what orientation and why? school 1 individualising orientation school 2 communalising orientation if you got the following correlations, then go have another whiskey. school 1 (open, optimistic, communalising) school 2 (closed, pragmatic, individualising) if you didn’t, then have a double. if you don’t drink, then carry on reading the rest of the editorial. journal of education, no. 58, 2013viii so we have two schools in poor communities, both of which are producing good results but with very different orientations to their communities. and it has to be like this, because different contextual conditions demand different responses to produce the same results. what could be more foolish than to take what works in school 1 and use it as a model for school 2? both schools are responding to their communities in intelligent ways; that’s what you want to encourage, not one set list of how all schools should respond to the community. you want a school response to the community, not a set list on what school/community relations should be. this is what wilburn brings out for us – what shalem and slonimsky call, on a different level, professional judgement – and what whitehead theorises in its full glory as process. what happens when the ‘outside community’ gets control of the ‘inside school’ and runs it on community principles? what do you do when a deeply religious-based school insists that its religious mores and customs hold priority and then excludes a pregnant school girl from entering class because it has a particularly literalist or fundamentalist interpretation of islamic law that the community around the school strongly support? what do you do when the very democracy that attempts to recognise diverse beliefs finds itself rejected by those beliefs? the south african schools act and our constitution ensure that pregnant school girls have a right to education. davids and waghid explore this tension in terms of independent muslim-based schools that exclude pregnant school girls from class. they come out strongly for an inclusive cosmopolitan view. on the one hand, then, these schools exist because of a pluralist and cosmopolitan understanding of citizenship – that individuals have the right and protection of the state to exercise their beliefs. and on the other hand, these schools use the same right to practise a form of discrimination. surely, the right of these schools to exist, as constituted in the sa schools act, is constitutive of a conception of inclusive cosmopolitanism, which all religious-based schools, for the sake of their own existence, ought to protect and promote. to discriminate against learners on religious grounds undermines the spirit of inclusive cosmopolitanism that initially contributed to their existence. thus, building a democratic school with an inclusive and cosmopolitan ethos does not necessarily restrict religion but does countenance the exclusive ways in which religions are and can be used to demoralise difference, in this instance, instigated by teenage pregnancy. it’s an attractive argument, but i am not sure how much weight it carries. a minority community has a certain ‘way of life’ that is far more deeply entrenched than any religion, and it will have sanctions that enable and protect the community as a whole, not the individual member. editorial ix cosmopolitanism downgrades their way of life by treating it as a belief that needs to be held lightly in the face of others, and does not offer much in return, except happy diversity snacks. i do not have an answer here, but i certainly feel that the issue is not so much religious fundamentalism as different ways of life. both wilburn and davids and waghid show that the relationship between the outside and inside is a complex affair. peter pausigere and mellony graven add to the complexity by discussing how teachers inside schools are responding to the strong national drive to improve standards with annual national assessments (anas). teacher responses range from outright rejection (a teacher at a montessori school) to slavish following, where anas have completely reoriented what they teach and how they teach. the main mode of response was one that recognised and accepted the reality of anas whilst at the same time still insisting on teaching for meaning and covering areas not tested by ana. i take a similar message home from this paper as from wilburn – there is no one response to the outside that is correct and definitional. we need to develop an understanding of process that accommodates different responses. but here is the rider – this accommodation still has to have principled judgement attached, where the adequacy of the response is investigated and measured, not by a list, but by a set of principles that recognise contextual relevance but does not defer to it. the articles discussed above help us to think through what this would mean. so let’s do a final test case, using beating children as our example. patti silbert explores the issue of school learners often supporting a beating, rather than resisting. it could be that all resistance has simply been thrashed out of them, but listening to their own reasoning, it’s more complex than that. silbert firstly describes the setting – ubuntu high, a school of over one thousand, mostly xhosa speaking learners. the students who attend ubuntu live in the townships located on the outskirts of the city and rely on public transport, many travelling far distances across the city to get to and from school. the appeal of this school for many township youth is because of its perceived functionality as compared with the majority of schools in the local township communities. perceptions of success are associated with its location: a seemingly far distance from the scourges of township life, and a stone’s throw away from some well-known tertiary institutions. . . despite poor facilities and overcrowded classrooms, messages of hard work and success were prolific. newspaper articles mounted on the walls of the school foyer conveyed different stories of success. in this school, most of the students support corporal punishment. journal of education, no. 58, 2013x yeah, they, they’re doing their best. they’re beating us when we are late, and they, i, i see that as, that’s a good thing, because we, um, we as black child, they always tell us that, um, in order for you to. . . have respect, we must like, we must teach you when you’re young, like and here, they, they beat us, which is a good thing. . . and . . .it works for me, because there are no other ways that i can see, that can make students be what the school wants them to be. so, the, the disciplinary actions that take place are perfect. by their account, the school uses corporal punishment because it works. physical pain acts as an effective deterrent. more than this, the students felt it impacted positively on academic performance, enabled university entrance and access to a better life. is this a barbarous throwback or is it students insightfully pointing to the necessity of quick and effective discipline that is short, sharp, and to the point? don’t we all know, from ‘research’, that beating a child results in higher incidents of criminality, lower cognitive development, divorce, delinquency, alcoholism, sado masochism, and everything else bad in adult existence? surely not? do we not need to discriminate between beating and spanking, and within spanking – when it’s done, how it’s done and why it’s done – and maybe then, the results will not be as clear? it’s the nature of the response, not the act itself, that we need to pay more careful attention to. but then, i was spanked as a child at home and at school, and maybe i got a taste for it. wayne hugo school of education university of kwazulu-natal hugow@ukzn.ac.za mailto:hugow@ukzn.ac.za microsoft word bissue75-fulljun22.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 75, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i75a01 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x (re)counting the high cost of predatory publishing and the effect of a neoliberal performativity culture suriamurthee moonsamy maistry school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa maistrys@ukzn.ac.za http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9623-0078 (received: 8 june 2018; accepted 12 february 2019) abstract in this self-critical account, i engage the concepts of critique and judgement and why they are crucial for protecting and maintaining the integrity of academia and scholarship. i argue that a naive or ignorant academic is a somewhat paradoxical position to assume given that academia is necessarily a critical space that demands astuteness and constant vigilance. i contend that blissful ignorance is a fragile justification for the neglect of due diligence as it relates to the selection of locales for knowledge dissemination. i engage the tenets of self-study and critical autoethnography to reflect on my practice as an academic and the consequences of my own poor judgement, not as an act of arrogant disclosure, but with a view to embracing this “elephant in the national academic room” and also bringing to the fore, other “frail” current knowledge vetting processes. the article draws on a žižekian notion of perverse analysis with the view to evoke a primal confrontation of a particularly sensitive issue. i draw attention to the gravity of the act of predatory publishing and its almost irrevocable consequences. i also reflect on my grief, trauma, guilt, and shame of this self-inflicted academic reputational mutilation, and the arduous task ahead of rebuilding my academic integrity. i hope that this paper might serve to intensify our alertness to the potential new perils that present in the neoliberal research productivity-driven higher education space where online publishing and open access have become common place, and where “opportunities” to transgress and expose oneself to risk present themselves on a daily basis, often with welldisguised “authenticity.” finally, i reflect on my public exposé of personal flaw and its restorative effect of a necessary humility in the academic space. key words: predatory publishing, knowledge vetting, judgement introduction as a point of entry into scripting this exposé, i want to declare upfront and without condition, my assumption of full responsibility for the choices i made in the period 2012 to 2014, a period in which i published five articles with kamla-raj enterprises (kre)—a publisher that has been identified as a predatory publisher. while the ensuing discussion illuminates the circumstances under which this occurred, i do not for one moment exonerate myself from blame or responsibility. i am acutely aware of the ludicrousness of claiming, as academic, blissful oblivion or naivety. i contend that a naive and ignorant academic sounds, and is, 6 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 oxymoronic to say the least. academics are expected to be astute intellectuals, inherently critical and constantly suspicious, possessing robust scientific publishing literacy (see beall, 2013), competences i had clearly not developed adequately at the time. it follows that pleading naivety and ignorance is a fragile argument, given my own critique of how the neoliberal performativity agenda might alter the behaviour of university academics (maistry, 2012, 2015). i must admit that i blindly fell into this neoliberal trap, the consequences of which have been dire indeed. a sexually perverse, profanity-infused expression that captures lasting reputational damage reads as follows: “you f*ck one goat.” the expression has its origins in the ancient practice of bestiality where some men exercised their proclivity for inserting their “junk” into farm animals. žižek’s (2004, 2011) notion of shared obscene solidarity has resonance here. he suggested that instead of invoking a postmodern political correctness in dealing with awkward, uncomfortable, highly sensitive issues that present in our social lives, we might well consider subpoenaing our natural, primal instincts through explicit and authentic engagement as opposed to false congenialities. this kind of engagement might have a diffusing effect, a full explanation of which is presented in later discussion in this paper. in returning to the goat analogy, the morbidity and horror of this act overshadows all previous or subsequent good deeds that one may do. it is a lifelong burden that the offender has to carry. this is a compelling analogy because it speaks powerfully to the full gravity and intensity of the subsequent repercussions for me, as well as for the various other subjects (including my research students and coauthors) who might have become collateral damage as a result of their association with me. in this article, i explore key learning points for my own practice as higher education pedagogue, as researcher and writer, and as postgraduate research supervisor tasked with overseeing the knowledge creation process of advanced research degree (master’s and doctoral) students. in attempting to fulfil this brief, i initially focus on the issue of judgement in academia, in particular, the academic peer-review or peer-evaluation system (lamont, 2009). i deal with the notion of judgement on two levels. firstly, i engage a discussion of how critique and judgement is an under discussed yet fundamental aspect that governs one’s work in the academic space, and why a deliberative teaching (and profound learning) thereof is necessary—especially at the master’s and doctoral levels, and in the mentorship of novice academics. i then proceed to reflect on a personal account of poor judgement and the profound consequences that have arisen from this. i also offer an analysis of how a systemic neoliberal performativity culture in the south african higher education context has contributed to a misguided rationale for knowledge production and dubious dissemination locales. a brief methodological note methodologically, i invoke the tenets of self-study and critical autoethnography (ellis, adams, & bochner, 2011) to reflect on my practice as an academic and the consequences of my own poor judgement. i reflect on how a “seemingly mundane” occurrence became life changing (boylorn & orbe, 2014, p. 21); the usual, normal act of writing up and despatching an article, in this instance, has left me and my associates exposed and vulnerable. i invoke maistry: (re)counting the high cost of predatory publishing . . . 7 boylorn & orbe’s notion of “verisimilitude of experience” that might render as authentic, my narrative exposition of personal crisis (2014, p. 20). it offers space for what i describe as a rich yet sober introspective—a rekindling of receptiveness and humility that had become somewhat benign. anguish, distress, and excruciating discomfort that accompany a process of self-exposure and self-induced vulnerability are natural psychological reactions. allowing myself to experience and work through this emotionally unsettling, self-effacing milieu was necessary given that it served as premise towards an emerging transcendental growth. self-study as methodological strategy has particular appeal and, while this methodological approach has initially struggled to gain traction and has been unfairly benchmarked against the pure sciences in terms of validity and reliability regimes, it has in recent years witnessed exponential growth, both in terms of the raw numbers of pedagogues who have seen and applied its tenets, as well as the nuanced, creative rigorous protocols that have emerged from the field itself (lassonde, galman, & kosnick, 2009). the ontological recognition of the implicated nature of the self in practice affords self-study researchers the space to construct themselves and their practice as abundant oasis, as rich epistemological resource (lassonde et al., 2009). this methodological wellspring invites an eclectic dialectic between theory, practice, and self—fertile ground for rampant rhizomatics, a spontaneous eruption of ideas and questions that trigger other ideas and questions (deleuze & guattari, 1987) as they relate to development and advancement in all three of these critical dimensions. in an attempt to invoke the scholarly principle of trustworthiness, i have drawn on colleagues in my school (of education) to offer critical comment on my analysis of this aspect of my practice as academic at in-house seminar platforms, generative spaces where my analyses have been interrogated, challenged, and refined. a watershed moment in setting a brief but necessary context, i draw attention to what might be deemed a watershed moment in the history of international and local scholarship and academic publishing—the first public exposé in 2010 by jeffrey beall, academic librarian at the university of colorado denver, of a blacklist of predatory journals and publishers. in fact, beall noted that his initial 2010 release, comprising 18 publishers, attracted “almost no attention” from the scholarly world, but it was his more comprehensive 2011 (23 publishers) and 2013 lists, which had grown to 225 publishers (2013, p. 87), that rocked the international academic world. predatory publishers can be described as unscrupulous, expedient, and opportunistic publishing houses that are driven by a profit motive. while profit in itself might be argued as a legitimate objective of any business, it becomes somewhat problematic when the traditional, accepted services of a business (predatory publishing houses, in this instance) are not provided to the buyers of such services. editorial and publishing services and the subjection of submitted articles to rigorous peer review, standard best practice in the world of knowledge production and dissemination, are ignored or neglected. in fact, upfront payment to such journals is an unconditional guarantee of acceptance of submitted articles. the publishing house benefits from generating easy 8 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 money by offering limited or no peer review, while authors “benefit” from quick and easy publication. internationally, beall’s revelations have generated widespread reaction, including advice pieces for authors (see, amongst others, bowman, 2014; miller & deberg, 2017; seigel, 2018). in the south african higher education context, this unsavoury publication practice had started to gain traction but, once this was exposed, it created much heated, although somewhat delayed consternation in the south african higher education research community and, one might argue, a rather lethargic response from the department of higher education and training (dhet). to its credit, though, the community did eventually respond, commissioning a study, led by johan mouton, into the prevalence of predatory publishing in south africa. the resulting report estimated the existence of 23,400+ journals at that point (mouton & valentine, 2017). while it is not the focus of this article to unpack the details of the report, the evidence therein is quite damning and will certainly have telling effects on south african higher education institutions and individuals implicated. the dhet also responded by revising its old policy for measurement of research outputs of public higher education institutions (2003) with a new research outputs policy, 2015. the new policy specified: research output is defined as textual output where research is understood as original, systematic investigation undertaken in order to gain new knowledge and understanding. peer review of the research is a fundamental prerequisite of all recognised outputs and is the mechanism of ensuring and thus enhancing quality. and peer review is understood to be the pre-publication refereeing or evaluation of complete manuscripts by independent experts in the field in order to ensure quality and determine whether manuscripts are publishable or not. (dhet 2015, p. 4) the policy now expressly indicates the funding formula and research subsidy protocol to be applied. it offers clarity on, amongst other issues, the distribution of research subsidy to public higher education institutions, journal and book vetting criteria, the audit criteria to be applied to institutional submissions for subsidy claims, and that the accredited list of journals shall be subject to annual review. of particular note though is that, in financially rewarding research production through this incentive scheme, it inadvertently continues to nourish a competitive, neoliberal culture in which research production is quantified, measured, and rewarded. the effect of this seemingly innocent funding framework is discussed later. in the discussion that follows, i provide an account of the issue of judgement as a taken-forgranted phenomenon, my neglect of this crucial phenomenon as a taught (and learned) holistic competence as i undertake my work as supervisor of advanced research students, and my own casual and uncritical engagement with the issue. maistry: (re)counting the high cost of predatory publishing . . . 9 public judgement as necessary precondition in the scholarly space in this section i draw attention to the often neglected fact that, when one embarks on master’s or doctoral study or when one engages in scholarly research and publication, one should see oneself as deliberately and consciously stepping into a very public arena in which there, literally, is no place to hide. any claim one makes is fair game for public scrutiny and judgement. kamler and thomson reminded us that disciplinary knowledge fields are “occupied” territories that are “patrolled” by vigilant guardians (2006, p. 29) who rigorously apply the peer-review process. this process of judgement is in some instances confined and occurs in closed quarters in research proposal defences, for example, where just the professoriate engage the evaluation exercise (lamont, 2009). the process of judgement, then, refers to the evaluation of evidence to make a decision. in the academic space, judgement is often used synonymously with the term critique. critique usually comes before judgement. so critique would be a detailed analysis of something (in academia it’s usually written pieces) with a view to arriving at a judgement of its standard and quality. in undergraduate programmes, students’ work (tests and assignments and examinations) are usually privy to just a few individuals—normally, the lecturer who is also the marker and possibly an external examiner—so, this can be described as a relatively private matter between the student and the lecturer. students’ work at this level is seldom subject to public display and scrutiny. in contrast, at master’s and doctoral level, and in the world of the academic researcher, the terms of reference as related to assessment and examination of scholarly artefacts are dramatically different. at this level, students have to work, in many instances, exclusively as individuals, however, the assessment protocols at these levels are significantly more public. knowledge production at this level is subject to validation by established peers in the academic community who decide whether or not to admit the novice researcher as a member of the disciplinary community. academic peers decide whether a student should pass or fail or whether your article or book gets published or not. this gatekeeper work and boundary protection is very necessary because it safeguards the academic integrity of new knowledge proposals by enforcing minimum standards of academic rigour. what is expected is that one learns the rules of the academic game (kamler & thomson, 2006). of note, is that the primary overarching principle is that it has to necessarily be a space shaped by critique and judgement. that this has played itself out in sometimes unhealthy ways, historically, is a moot point. that millions of feelings have been hurt and egos shattered, and self-esteem questioned, is a lived reality that many academics and students will attest to. the learning point here is that academics (me, included) do not do enough of the necessary preparatory work for receiving critique and dealing with judgement. supervisors, for example, in offering critique might well pay attention to helping students develop emotional competence to embrace this world of critique. this also applies to preparing students for the various outcomes (pass, resubmit, or fail) of their thesis examination. this even extends to 10 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 supervisors preparing themselves for different kinds of outcomes. when the outcome or result is positive, there is no problem, but when the thesis is returned and the report from the higher degrees committee is negative, requiring major review of the thesis, for example, this kind of public critique can be quite disconcerting both to the student and the supervisor. opinions might quickly be formulated on the competence of the supervisor and the quality of supervision. the question of who is being judged arises—is it the student or is it the supervisor? (note that this is not meant to over-simplify what might be a more complex answer). the key point is that learning how to manage oneself in a world where judgement is the norm is a competence we should be giving considered attention to. the post-panoptic, ocular archetype, that of postgraduate research super-vision (lee & green, 2009), has resonance as it speaks to the constant scrutinising gaze of the world of scholarship. living in the gaze is a competence tool that one has to keep constantly sharp and that one has to engage in deliberative teaching of, even to advanced research students. from my experience of working with research students for more than a decade, i have come to realise that when students sign up (officially register) for an advanced research degree, very few have given thought to the fact that they have unwittingly or unknowingly chosen to enter a very public space. many may also not have constructed themselves as scholars and thinkers in the disciplinary fields they have chosen to be experts or authoritative in. more importantly, many may also not have conceived of themselves as knowledge producers. this is a crucial point that is worthy of deeper elaboration. in many academic spaces (workshops, seminars, etc.) where the question as to why people choose to do a master’s or doctoral study is posed, the reasons offered are often varied and can range from simply wanting the certificate for status enhancement. others, especially some in academia, feel forced or under pressure from their institutions to undertake and complete doctoral studies. this latter reason is usually linked to the institution’s goal of increasing their phd-qualified staff—to get its ratios right and, some might argue, improve its profile in the university rankings circus. very seldom does one hear from the institution a more sophisticated rationale for conducting high-level master’s and doctoral study, a rationale where the individual constructs herself or himself as inquisitive, potential producer of new knowledge. i want to emphasise how important this kind of nuanced understanding is because it is precisely a lack of this kind of understanding that may lead one to placing one’s work in the wrong (dubious) places. in extending this more sophisticated understanding, namely, that one’s research ought to contribute to the body of knowledge (a phrase that is sometimes used loosely), it becomes important to unpack what this really means. well, it firstly means that one has to have a solid and intimate knowledge of the field one is working in or the phenomenon one has chosen— not just a documentation of the state of knowledge, but an intimate knowledge thereof (see jansen, 2011) with the view to arguing for how one’s research and new knowledge produced adds to the lineage, to the heritage. unfortunately, what happens in the contemporary higher education space is that we have, through the multiple performance measurement mechanisms (maistry, 2015), deviated from maistry: (re)counting the high cost of predatory publishing . . . 11 the fundamental reason why one should decide to write up an article. very often, our rationale is wrongly located in the surveillance machinery that monitors our performance, our research production, and usually in somewhat problematic calendar year intervals. so we might do it for this reason, for fear of being judged as performing below the expected norm (ukzn, for example, is notorious for annually circulating research productivity “league tables” of its academic staff). in reflecting on my own practice and my local institutional context, it is evident that we neglect the more sophisticated conversations amongst ourselves as academics and with our students as to why we do research and why we publish. this has been a particularly steep learning curve for me, namely, disrupting my preoccupation with producing outputs as opposed to constructing myself as organic knowledge producer. tracing the events that led to my unravelling: the cost of blissful ignorance as mentioned earlier, from 2012–2014, i published five articles with kre, a publisher that has now been identified by beall and others as a predatory publisher. this was a mistake of huge proportion, which has resulted in serious personal reputational damage. the faux pas overshadows the 30+ articles i have in reputable spaces, my 16 successfully graduated doctoral students, and 11 master’s students. at the time, kre was on the international bibliography of social sciences list—one of the lists recognised by the dhet, and it is evident that the dhet also had no knowledge of the practices of this publisher. the same can be said for my institution, the university of kwazulu-natal. having served in a middlemanagement leadership position for five years (as head of school and as cluster leader) from 2010–2014, and having sat through numerous executive committee meetings, and at ukzn senate for three years, while i was aware that some journals were more prestigious than others, i can say with a fair degree of certainty that the concept predatory journal was not an issue that featured in the discourse at this institution during this period. in fact, an active scholar in the school had secured a special edition of an international journal managed by this publisher—an “accomplishment” we were quite proud of at the time. a public call for papers went out. this colleague sits on the board of other journals and followed a due peerreview protocol. in hindsight, i realise that we failed to do our due diligence on this publisher, and had not recognised the profit motive enterprise of this publishing house. the oblivion of my institution was evident in the fact that ukzn’s research office willingly paid the publishing costs of this special edition. another telling example of the level of blissful ignorance at play was the public exhibition of research publications on the notice board of the foyer of the school of education. this is common practice across many universities. it is a public, tangible showcasing of the knowledge production of staff. i personally have not engaged in this kind of advertising but, at any point in time, there would certainly have been a good number of publications (of other colleagues) that have now been declared predatory. over the years, large numbers of different people including students, academics, international researchers, deans, and vice-chancellors have stopped and admired these accomplishments. the school even hosted national and 12 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 international conferences in the space. this might well be described as the proverbial lull before the storm. note though, that the ultimate responsibility lies with the academic to do the necessary background check on a publishing house. two of those pieces i published were with colleagues at ukzn, a collaboration that i now sincerely regret, given the negative exposure i have inadvertently subjected them to. i was rewarded by the university as per its research outputs reward system, which currently stands at r18,000 per article or book chapter. the benefit amounted to r72,000—the quantum that the university transferred into my research cost centre. i have been in communication with my dean to have these funds transferred back to the university or to utilise them in ways that the school deems fit (capacity development, etc.). that was the easy part. dealing with the stress and anxiety of losing one’s academic reputation is the more painful price i am having to pay. it has become evident that my institution has not figured out how to manage my proposal for “paying back the money” in lieu of my transgression. the idea of deploying these funds to support developing researchers has received support. the political precedent might, however, have ramifications for how the institution applies (or does not apply) the measure to other “complicit” colleagues. so, what have been the real consequences? the first immediate material consequence that shook my foundations was observing in writing (a tangible artefact), the negative outcome of my re-rating application to the national research foundation (nrf). i was not re-rated. while i knew that these tainted publications existed in my oeuvre, i was yet to be publicly judged for this. in fact, i felt it prudent not to include these condemned pieces in my application to the nrf. i later learned that it may have been perceived as deliberate concealment, and served as compelling reason to deal with this in the public domain. for me though, not being rated was the least of my concerns (even though it now excludes me from competing for specially earmarked funds for rated researchers). the loss of credibility and standing in the academic community is by far the higher cost to bear. the notion of deliberate concealment certainly touched a raw nerve with me. i might well describe it as an encounter with the lacanian real (žižek, 2011), an inexplicable sensation, beyond the possibilities of language. it is when a human subject experiences a life altering moment, a realisation of one’s inescapability from a raw and potentially violent vulnerability—a succumbing to a force that is beyond comprehension. it startled me as i started to comprehend the visceral facticity of how my world was going to change. i started to realise that there was an element of truth in this. it was what i had in fact been doing—a concealing from my various other associates in academia. here i include my research students, colleagues who co-supervise with me, colleagues who coauthor with me, the editors of the journals on whose boards i serve as adviser, other higher institutions i am associated with (for example, rhodes university for whom i undertake research capacity development programmes across various institutions in south africa, and umalusi for whom i have undertaken research in their name), and even people who use me as a referee for job maistry: (re)counting the high cost of predatory publishing . . . 13 applications and other scholarly reviews. there are likely to be more people who might be affected or compromised, all of whom i will accord the respect they deserve, that is, having complete knowledge of my research profile and deciding how they wish to approach our future relationship. i have started the process of doing this. and what can we learn from this? that it is really important to give due attention to where we choose to publish, seems to be the obvious learning point. but it goes well beyond that, it raises several other pertinent issues. in the first instance, it might be useful to examine the structural push factors that drive particular behaviours of academics in the south african higher education context. one distinct factor is the encroachment of neoliberal performativity regimes in the higher education space. university academic (and non-academic) personnel in south african higher education institutions are increasingly being subjected to performance management regimes. these regimes have been borrowed from industry and foisted upon the academic sector. academic personnel have had limited power to resist this onslaught. the rich qualitative work of university academics has been reduced to measurable “quantifiables.” at the university of kwazulu-natal for example, the work of academics is measured annually through a “sophisticated” performance management scheme and workload formula that can measure the four generally “accepted” aspects of a typical academic’s workload, namely, teaching, research, community service, and administration in a 45:40:10:5 general proportional distribution. the research dimension of an academic’s work is measured according to productivity units that the academic generates. such productivity units are earned through graduating master’s and doctoral students and through research publication (and other recognised scholarly outputs such as patents, etc.) in dhet-accredited or approved journals and books. academics at lecturer level have to produce the equivalent of one journal article per annum, senior lecturers, one and a half articles, associate professors, two articles and full professors two and a half articles. these research output yardsticks are strictly applied in determining an academic’s performance score on a scale of one to four. the consistent attainment of these rank-related yardsticks also determines an academic’s eligibility for promotion. the financial incentive scheme for research production works on two levels. high-performing academics who obtain a high score (3 or 4), receive a 14th cheque, a monetary reward distributed from a pool designated for this. the second more lucrative level, is receipt of r18,000 per published article that is paid into the academic’s research cost centre to be used to defray research-related expenditure (conference fees, etc.). research productivity league tables are circulated publicly on the university internal communication system. high-performing academics are commended and rewarded (promoted). those who do not meet their research productivity target performance are named and shamed, referred to as under-performers, threatened with higher teaching workloads, and cajoled into developing a research publication ethic (see maistry, 2015 for a full analysis of how the accountability and surveillance mechanism works at ukzn). 14 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 in essence, two push factors are at play when it comes to explaining the drive to publish. one, a lucrative reward for research publication system and, the second, a surveillance and accountability system set up in a way that is punitive. both these factors, however, detract from the more profound and academically sound arguments for why academics should engage in research, a discussion of which follows later. it is beyond the scope of this article to analyse in any detail the nature of the south african national research productivity incentive scheme. of note though is that universities depend on research productivity funding for their sustainability, and actively compete for their share of this funding pie. in fact, the same neoliberal performativity principle is at play at the national level. similar research production league tables are on public display. high research productivity universities use this kind of positioning strategically as public relations and marketing levers to attract personnel, students, even more funding, and to strengthen their profiles and positions on the multiple international rankings machinery. it follows that a financially expedient, instrumental rationale for research is at work at a macro level, with different universities employing varying local incentive distributional mechanisms, some rewarding individual academics with cash-in-the-pocket schemes, some (like ukzn) reward individually but retain control of funds at an institutional level, and others work on a department or faculty communal pool model to which individual academics may lodge a claim. the south african higher education research productivity incentive scheme thus presents as an area ripe for critical research as the current system of reward and punishment at both the macro and micro levels has triggered certain behaviours, one of which was the lure of easily accessible research publication in predatory journals. it is clear that some academics seized the opportunities that presented at the time, used certain locales for research dissemination (predatory publishing houses) for a significant period of time, and that during this time universities were content with harvesting state funds even though the sites of dissemination had tarnished profiles. as stated earlier, the argument of blissful ignorance at an institutional level (university senates and research committees, astute custodians and moral gatekeepers of university knowledge production) is unacceptable. a degree of complicity lies at the door of dhet for what might be regarded as negligence related to periodically reviewing their accredited journal lists and researching international publishing practices with the view to remaining alert to the global, competitive, profit-driven game that publishing houses are engaged in. south african academia and intelligentsia (organisations such as academy of science south africa, etc.) might also be deemed culpable for not being sufficiently attuned to how the neoliberal, corporate machinery is at work both nationally and internationally. there has, however, been a rude awakening of late and attempts at damage control at various levels. arguably, the more compelling reasons for why universities and academics should engage with research gets over-shadowed by this neoliberal performativity agenda. extraneous factors appear to have superseded the core argument for doing research, which is to advance knowledge in a discipline. so, academics who are immune to the extraneous neoliberal factors at play may posit more profound reasons for wanting to publish. when academics maistry: (re)counting the high cost of predatory publishing . . . 15 construct their identities as researchers and producers of new knowledge with a view to responding to disciplinary lacunas, they seek out avenues for knowledge dissemination that are credible (and where authentic research resides). such academics value the rigour of the peer-review process (whether blind, double-blind, single-blind, or open) and understand that an important conduit for knowledge dissemination is through publication. that this profundity has eluded the average south african academic is indeed a moot point. predatory publishing has taken on different guises and remains a growing concern for the international academic community. at a local practical level, it ought to focus our attention on, for example, how much attention is paid to the sources of knowledge we cite. as supervisors, are we doing enough with our students to alert them to this, an issue i am now making standard practice. so for master’s and doctoral students, it becomes crucial to become very familiar with this world of knowledge creation and dissemination, especially open access and online; crucial, that one ought not to blindly believe the claims by certain journals as to their impact factor and indexing credentials and about the composition of their editorial boards, and so forth. this caution applies equally to colleagues who are crafting their articles and book chapters. i learned very recently about the traumatic experience of a young colleague who inadvertently cited in her article, work published in a space that has now been declared an unsavoury source. the reviewers were quite critical in their review reports, almost bordering on ridicule as they signalled this discovery. they believed that this colleague was offering validation and giving undue credence to work in these grey spaces. this caution also applies to master’s and doctoral studies that go out for examination. one should expect that the work will be subject to intense scrutiny with respect to the literature one cites, and it follows that poor choices would unwittingly invite critique that would be really difficult to defend. it may well serve to dilute the academic value of research endeavour. research supervisors might have to reconsider nominating examiners whose curriculum vitae contain discrediting evidence. higher degrees committees also have to give due consideration to a more scrupulous examination of this aspect of their important quality assurance work. the composition of the research and higher degrees committees now necessitates some considered discussion given that their membership may well comprise individuals whose credentials have now come into question. the ripple effect of this is profound because it has implications for the appointment of new colleagues to the university, promotion applications, the holding of senior management and leadership positions, and academic decisions as to who might be deemed credible supervisor. these are indeed very disconcerting issues to deal with, but issues that the higher education community cannot shy away from any longer. in fact, a distinct area begging robust scholarly investigation and more scrupulous examination is the other knowledge vetting processes and procedures at play in the south african academic environment. it has been easier to pinpoint the more overt unhealthy practice of predatory publishing, but it is a lot more difficult to lead firm evidence about the less overt and unethical practices that have been pervasive in the south african research context, and that render the space fractious 16 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 and fragile (teferra, 2015). that unethical practices exist in academia is a moot point. some of the less overt (covert) knowledge vetting protocols have been around for decades. the inside-track phenomenon, for example, has been widely and unashamedly employed for many years, where local academics have frequently used in-house journals to ramp up their research productivity. there is also the trend of journal editors regularly publishing in their own journals. it is only recently that dhet has instituted the maximum 25% internal author limitation on in-house journals to counteract this practice. the inside-track phenomenon still applies. there is also much anecdotal information on how and who gets nominated and selected as external examiners for master’s and doctoral studies—that the foremost experts are not always selected, but amenable “pals” instead. the nomination of friends who write up generous review reports is not an uncommon practice in these knowledge vetting instances. these are the less overt hard truths that are seldom discussed in any critical fashion. i want to extend the analysis to a further micro layer of knowledge production, one where supervisors are sometimes complicit in fractious practices. consider the simple issue of giving feedback to master’s and especially doctoral students. the nature and type of feedback on the draft chapters of research students is a significant determinant of who created the knowledge that appears in the thesis. constructive, dialectical feedback allows students to take ownership of the knowledge creation process. however, if feedback is largely instructive, where the supervisor tells, prescribes or instructs, and corrects students’ writing, then the ownership of that new knowledge might well be located with the supervisor and not the student (carter & kumar, 2017). in some instances, supervisors take over the writing— actually rewrite students’ paragraphs. they take over and control the thoughts and ideas of the student; in other words, the supervisor is the key knowledge producer. instructive feedback then, has certain implications for how learning happens as well as autonomy and ownership of the knowledge creation process. if feedback is entirely instructive and directive, a telling, the candidate is likely to follow due instruction and write up the thesis as directed (carter & kumar, 2017). the location of authority and ownership of the new knowledge in, this instance, resides with the supervisor. yet, this knowledge gets vetted by peers in the community as the student’s work. while this argument might seem far removed from the primary focus of this article, it does speak to the need for a consistent application of principle to knowledge vetting in all of the knowledge production domains—and not just the overt and tangible. some concluding thoughts . . . for colleagues like myself who find themselves in the line of fire as it relates to predatory publishing, there is no easy way to deal with this. academia is a space inhabited by different kinds of beings, some who might be understanding, empathetic, and supportive, while others not so. some, in their rightful quest to protect the integrity of their disciplines and academia in general might be quite unforgiving and very critical. one can react, get upset and angry, and offer a retort, or one can choose to maintain one’s composure and respond. the position i maistry: (re)counting the high cost of predatory publishing . . . 17 have taken is not to defend my poor judgement. i realise that it is impossible for me to control the various opinions that are forming about me or the corridor talk—these are natural human reactions. i am also aware that the position i have taken on this might not find favour with other affected colleagues. as an academic, my integrity and credibility in the academic community is paramount. in essence, it comes back to a deeper understanding and acceptance that in the academia one derives credibility and integrity not from self-promotion, or posturing, or going around telling the world how good one is. in academia, credibility and integrity are earned via the peerreview process (kamler & thomson, 2006; lamont, 2009). it is one’s peers who determine whether one’s work is credible or not—not one’s spouse, children, or one’s parents. i am hoping that this self-critical exposé might be the first step in my demonstrable show of remorse. this is certainly not meant to be an arrogant disclosure. i am hoping that young academics might learn from my experience of having made poor choices. opportunities to transgress and expose oneself to risk present themselves on a daily basis, and they often present with well-disguised authenticity. while transgression, even from a position of ignorance is inexcusable, my experience does make a convincing case for south african higher education institutions to take up, more seriously, the issue of mentorship of young academics, especially as it relates to the potential new perils that might present. i want to now draw inspiration from contemporary slovenian philosopher and cultural critic, slavoj žižek, and his advocacy for a shared obscene solidarity, a situation where one tells a dirty joke about oneself (žižek, 2004, 2011). he argued that this exchange of tiny obscenities allows us to make a real human connection. so if someone came up to me after reading this article and said something like: “so you goat f*cker, which species are you going to f*ck next?” i would not be offended. if anything, i would welcome it as an endearing, empathetic recognition of the emotional dung that i am currently experiencing. following my move to deal with this in the public space, there has been a flood of responses from colleagues across the country, with colleagues being quite clear about the fact that this was certainly a lapse in judgement and a poor choice, but also offering reassuring support. some colleagues described it as brave but, for me, it was not about bravery—it was about doing what my instincts were telling me was the right thing to do, to assume full responsibility. i certainly do not feel brave. if anything, i feel much angst and grief, as if i have lost a part of me. one colleague commended me on coming out of the closet. this was an interesting comment given that this reference is usually reserved for people who publicly declare their non-normative sexual preference, which in reality they ought not to be apologising for. mine, on the other hand, is a public confessional as a first demonstration of remorse for poor judgement. references beall, j. 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(2015). research outputs policy, 2015. pretoria, rsa: dhet. retrieved from https://archive.opengazettes.org.za/archive/za/2015/government-gazette-za-vol597-no-38552-dated-2015-03-11.pdf ellis, c., adams, t., & bochner, a. (2011). autoethnography: an overview. forum: qualitative social research, 12(1), art. 10. jansen, j. (2011). the quality of doctoral education in south africa. perspectives in education, 29(3), 139–146. kamler, b., & thomson, p. (2006). helping doctoral students write: pedagogies for supervision. london, uk: routledge. lamont, m. (2009). how professors think: inside the curious world of academic judgement. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. lassonde, c., galman, s., & kosnick, c. (eds.). (2009). self-study research methodologies for teacher educators. rotterdam, netherlands: sense. lee, a., & green, b. (2009). supervisor as metaphor. studies in higher education, 34(6), 615–630. maistry, s. m. (2012). confronting the neoliberal brute: reflections of a higher education middle-level manager. south african journal of higher education, 26(3), 515–528. maistry, s. m. (2015). accountability and surveillance: new mechanisms of control in higher education. transformation: critial perspectives on southern africa, 88, 25–35. miller, e., & deberg, j. (2017). the perils of predatory publishing: views and advice from an editor and a health sciences librarian. american society for pain management nursing, 18(6), 351–352. mouton, j., & valentine, a. (2017). the extent of south african authored articles in predatory journals. south african journal of science, 113(7/8), 1–9. maistry: (re)counting the high cost of predatory publishing . . . 19 seigel, t. j. (2018). predatory publishing: what authors need to know. teaching and learning in nursing, 13(3), 156. teferra, d. (2015). manufacturing and exporting excellence and “mediocrity”: doctoral education in south africa. south african journal of higher education, 29(5), 8–19. žižek, s. (ed.). (2004). revolution at the gates: a selection of writings from february to october 1917, v. i. lenin. london, uk: verso. žižek, s. (2011). living in the end times. london, uk: verso. journal of education, 2017 issue 70, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za book review peter kallaway and rebecca swartz (eds) empire and education in africa: the shaping of a comparative perspective new york, peter lange, 2016 isbn-13: 978-1433133473 isbn-10: 1433133474 u niversity of pretoria johan.wassermann@ up.ac.za johan wassermann i was fortunate enough to be one of the 25 scholars who attended the workshop on colonial education in africa held at the school of education at the university of cape town from 4–5 july 2013 on which this book is based. it is therefore with joyful reminisces that i have agreed to review the publication that stemmed from the workshop. at the outset it is necessary to look at how the book was constructed. empire and education in africa consists of 11 chapters written by authors from across the globe. ironically enough none of these authors, other than those from south africa, are from africa. this in itself speaks to part of the rationale behind the publication namely paucity in research on colonial education in africa. however, in an era of debates on decolonisation and postcolonialism this is an indictment of the state of history of education in africa. this uncomfortable silence emanating from africa in all probability also speaks to a demise of the physical colonial archive as it relates to education on the continent. the 11 chapters of empire and education in africa are divided into four sections. these sections are conceptually organised by means of a temporal framing (nineteenth century and inter-war years) and by that of three colonial empires as geopolitical constructions: britain, france and germany. chapter 1 by tim allender falls outside of the four sections adopted and serves to provide the bigger picture of how colonial education transcended the british empire. consequently this chapter described “ . . .british colonial power in east and south africa whose administrative advocates already had firmly shaped views coming out of india as to how education ought to be conducted for non-white populations across its empire”. section 1 of the book deals exclusively with education in british south africa during the 19th century and section 2 with aspects of colonial education in the inter-war era in british territories. again the focus is almost exclusively on south africa. section three consists of a single chapter on colonial education in the areas under german influence. lastly, section 4 deals with french colonial education in africa. chapters on the education in portuguese, belgium and spanish colonises are absent in a publication that has a heavy ‘british south african’ slant. the shortcomings as outlined are superseded by the value of empire and education in africa as a contribution to the historiography of education in colonial africa. as such the book is an introduction to german, french and british colonial education in africa and addresses numerous http://joe.ukzn.ac.za 162 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 themes that, not only cut across the various chapters, but also imperial boundaries. some of the most prominent of these include: gender, language, race, voluntary societies, religion, the evolution of the idea of ‘adapted’ education, culture, ideology, curriculum, management, policy, economics, development, colonial needs, africanness, and educational material. these themes, when braided together, provide an insight into the nuanced complexity of and major influences on colonial education as a project. and this is where the strength of this collection as a scholarly contribution resides as it provides a porthole and explanation into some of the major trends in colonial education in africa. hopefully, this volume will spawn further research into education as a neglected aspect of colonial history. microsoft word b8400 fullissue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 84, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i84a05 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x planning for freedom: from human capital to human capabilities lesley powell chair youth unemployment, employability and empowerment, nelson mandela university, gqerbeha, south africa lesleyjpowell@gmail.com https://orcid.org/ 0000-0003-3886-2872 (received: 13 july 2021; accepted: 12 october 2020) abstract in this article, i build on critiques of the dominant skills orthodoxies that underpin national skills planning systems (nsps). i respond to calls for a broader conceptualisation of skills planning by discussing the contribution that the capability approach brings to the reconceptualisation of the role, purpose, and orientation of nsps. applying the capability approach as a thinking tool for building a broader approach to skills planning led to the identification of seven dimensions that frame an emancipatory approach to skills planning. my core argument is that covid-19 has laid bare the urgent need for new approaches to skills planning that are informed by a different set of assumptions, driven by a different set of indicators, inclusive of different voices, undertaken through different processes, and, importantly, driven by a different set of goals. responding to the call for a broader approach to skills planning and taking seriously the seven dimensions of an emancipatory skills planning system will require an alternative vision not only of skills and of work, but of society as a whole. keywords: skills planning, capability approach, human development, supply and demand introduction there can be little disagreement that “a fundamental shift is taking place in the way we think about the future of work and its relationship to education, training and the labour market” (brown, 2020, p. 491). national skills planning systems (nsps) is a central and enormously expensive public instrument that aims to monitor and respond to shifts in the supply and demand of skills. framed within what brown et al. (2020, p. 227) aptly termed “orthodox human capital and its links to neoliberal economics”, nsps attempts to identify what might be called the right education that aligns with the needs of employers and that increases production, profits, and economic growth. although structures like nsps differ across countries, what is common is the desire to “strengthen the diagnostic capacity of the state to 86 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 identify skills imbalances” in the formal labour market (rasool, 2016, p. 2) so that education and training can be aligned to better respond (brown, 2020). there is a large and growing body of literature that critiques the underpinning logics of nsps (see, for example, allais et al., 2021; balwanz & ngcwangu, 2016; cooper et al., 2019; fataar, 2010; mcgrath, 2012; mcgrath et al., 2020; powell & mcgrath, 2019a; vally & motala, 2014; wedekind, 2014 and many others). critical of the human capital underpinnings of nsps (vally & motala, 2014) and sympathetic to the call for the “death of human capital” (brown et al., 2020, p. 2), this literature acknowledges the realities of the job-scarce labour market (brown et al., 2020; thurow, 1972;), recognises the limitations of narrow notions of employability (powell & mcgrath, 2019a), contests the instrumentality of supply and demand (allais, et al., 2021; balwanz & ngcwangu, 2016) and rejects the narrow ontology of the human that underpins the dominant skills orthodoxy (bonvin, 2019; mcgrath et al., 2020; powell & mcgrath, 2014). in this article, i build on these critiques by responding to recent calls for a “broader conceptualization” of skills planning (balwanz & ngcwangu, 2016, p. 42) that gives “weight to a broader range of capabilities and human motivations” (brown et al., 2020, p. 143). i do this by discussing the contribution that the capability approach brings to the reconceptualization of the role, purpose, and orientation of nsps. in opposition to the dominant skills orthodoxy, the capability approach emphasises a broader role for skills development that includes the role that skills might play in employability but expands on this to include the importance of skills serving the public good through expanding human development and addressing complex social challenges (powell & mcgrath, 2019a). the capability approach does this by insisting that the flourishing and wellbeing of people—rather than economic growth, firm productivity, or profits—be the central concern of development. in contrast to instrumental framings, skills in the capability approach are understood as valuable not only for accessing and participating in work, but also for cultivating the agency required for individuals and groups to “rethink their reality in and out of work, modify it, and make it more suitable to their desired development scenario” (szekely, 2019, p. 413). covid-19 further highlighted the urgency of engaging with nsps by exacerbating complex social problems and “la[ying] bare the deep inequalities” (stiglitz, 2020, para. 1) that exist. this has led to arguments that any chance of building back better will need a “comprehensive rewriting of the rules of the economy” (stiglitz, 2020, para. 6). there are four aspects that covid-19 has laid bare that insist on this “comprehensive rewriting” (stiglitz, 2020, para. 6) of the rules of the economy and, with that, the rewriting of the purposes of skills development and skills planning. the first is that it has highlighted the need to strengthen community medical services and the local production and distribution of essential products such as medical supplies and food. the shutting down of national borders emphasised the fragility of global distribution chains and the social injustice of monopolistic pharmaceutical companies limiting the distribution of vaccines served to further reinforce this. new areas of productive activity have (potentially) opened up and, with that, the need for new knowledges and skills. powell: planning for freedom 87 the second is that it brought to the forefront a broader notion of work by highlighting the importance of the social economy and the fragility of the informal sector. the pandemic shifted the definition of who carries out valuable work from those who earn the greatest individual wealth to essential workers who deliver essential social services. while business relief was provided to support companies during lockdown levels five and four, no support was provided to the informal sector or to small and micro enterprises (smes). this is despite survivalist entrepreneurship and micro businesses being responsible for the majority of new jobs in south africa. as far back as the early 2000s, altman (2003) and bhorat and ooshuizen (2009) agreed that the net gains in employment arose mainly in the informal sector and particularly for low-skilled and semi-skilled jobs. this trend has continued to the present with 3 million people (approximately 20% of total employment) working in the informal sector (statssa, 2019). notwithstanding the ongoing debate on whether the totals for employment in the informal sector provided by statssa are undercounted or an actual reflection, there can be little argument that the informal sector accounts for a large share of total employment in south africa. the third is that it severely increased retrenchments and, with it, unemployment. the national income dynamics coronavirus rapid mobile survey (cram) found that approximately 3 million people who were employed in february 2020 were either temporarily or permanently unemployed by june 2020 (kean & armstrong, 2020). the workers with the lowest income and with the most fragile links to the labour market were the worst affected (kean & armstrong, 2020). what accentuates this concern is that the impact on training has been severe. the technical vocational education and training (tvet) colleges lost two rounds of student intake in 2020. work integrated learning (wil), historically constrained by limited employer buy-in, was brought to a halt in 2020. recovery has been constrained by covid-19 restrictions on the number of workers allowed on the shopfloor and employer hesitancies to allow trainees into the workplace. stark job losses in the formal sector because of covid-19 (kean & armstrong, 2020), a steady increase in survivalist entrepreneurship, and a critical need for skills oriented towards the needs of the social economy is now common cause everywhere, other than in the framing of nsps that wilfully continues to draw its information set from large enterprises in the formal sector and doggedly stumbles forward in an orthodoxy that has proven itself unfit for addressing the socio-economic challenges facing south africa and the rapid changes taking place in the world of work. i go on to discuss the contribution that the capability approach brings to our thinking about skills planning. i begin with a broad introduction to the central tenets of the capabilities approach. thereafter i discuss the contribution that the capability approach brings by focusing on five dimensions inherent in the capability approach. these five dimensions are: (i) “conversion rates” (drèze and sen, 1992, p. 3), (ii) “informational basis of judgement” (sen, 1990, p. 111), (iii) “the capability for voice” (bonvin & michael, 2009, p. 572), (iv) “the capability for education” (bonvin, 2019, p. 279) and (v) relational capabilities (longshore smith & seward, 2005). this is followed by the penultimate section in which i 88 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 discuss the contribution that the capability approach brings to our framing of a broader approach to skills planning. it shifts the focus from expanding human capital to a focus on expanding human capabilities by providing seven dimensions that form a framework for an emancipatory approach to skills planning. the final section is the conclusion in which i synthesise the key arguments of this article. the capabilities (human development) approach the capabilities approach, while not developed as an approach for skills development, brings a promising perspective to our thinking about nsps. known best as an approach for measuring human wellbeing, the approach distinguishes between capabilities (a person’s or group’s meaningful opportunities and the freedom to choose therefrom) and functionings (achievements). the distinction between capabilities and functionings concentrates attention on what people are able to choose to be and to do with the resources that they have and in the contexts in which they live (sen, 2009). so, what does the capabilities approach bring to our thinking about nsps? i explore the contribution that it brings by focusing on the five tenets of the capability approach listed above. conversion rates the capability approach distinguishes between capabilities and functionings but also between resources and capabilities. the distinction between resources and capabilities, and between capabilities and functionings, brings to the forefront the social justice imperative of focusing on capabilities and the extent to which institutional and socio-economic arrangements serve to either expand or constrict capabilities. the distinction recognises that people differ in their ability to convert resources into valued functionings (sen, 1992). a focus on conversion factors allows a distinction to be made between the marginal productivity of an individual and the social and cultural factors such as race, class, gender, and location that affect the ability to convert skills and qualifications into meaningful livelihoods. shining a light on the distinction between resources and capabilities demands a focus on the areas requiring conversion rate correction (chiappero-martinetti & sabadash, 2014). by focusing directly on interventions that improve the wellbeing of people’s lives and their ability to live and work in ways that they have reason to value, rather than on productivity, profits, or economic growth, the capability approach focuses attention on inequalities in accessing knowledge and skills but also on differences in people’s ability to capitalise on their skills in the labour market and in their lives. the argument that is made is that nsps contributes to unemployment and poverty by identifying the right education that allows the unemployed to be trained in targeted areas that increase the labour market competitiveness of their qualification. this argument has proven ineffective for a host of reasons, one of which is that it ignores the conversion rate corrections required for people to utilise their knowledge and skills and to convert them into a meaningful livelihood. powell: planning for freedom 89 informational basis of judgement for justice (ibjj) bonvin and farvaque (2005) distinguished between the substantive level and the procedural level of information sets. the substantive level involves the actual information on which nsps is built and distinguishes between the categories of information that are regarded as important and included, and those that are excluded as unimportant. the procedural level focuses on the processes of inclusion or exclusion that take place during the compilation of the information set that underpins nsps. at both the substantive and procedural levels the information set for south africa’s nsps privileges employers. the information set is aggregated upwards from work place skills plans of enterprises (mostly large enterprises of 150+ employees). these are aggregated into sector skills plans that are then further aggregated to form national skills plans that identify occupations in high demand (oihd). the list of oihd is used to support the planning of the department of higher education and training with respect to enrolment totals and resource allocations. the list also informs the allocation of work visas by the department of home affairs and is expected to inform the strategic plans of post school education and training (pset) institutions (reddy et al., 2018). at both the substantive and procedural levels, nsps is neglectful of the knowledges and skills needed for the informal economy, the social economy, the green economy, and other essential work such as care work and community work. ironically, nsps has also proven ineffective at meeting the needs of formal sector enterprises since it ignores sectoral and company-based needs (allais et al., 2021). the capability for voice the capability for voice or “the ability to voice one’s concerns and make them count” (bonvin and michael, 2009, p. 569) expands participation at the procedural level. sen (1999) warned that the failure to take seriously democratic participation and the need to expand the capability for voice (dif-pradalier, et al., 2012) risks “targeting achievements [being] quite different from targeting-attempts” (sen, 1999, p. 137). in this view, democratic participation puts the accuracy of the information set and the reasons for which it is being developed to public scrutiny. the difference is on what crocker (2008, p. 320) terms “deeper democracies” in which citizens are engaged in decision making as opposed to “shallow democracies” in which democratic participation is limited to voting. dean et al. (2005, p. 11) suggested that the capability for voice functions best in an environment in which the state is transformed into what they call a “capability state.” the capability state differs from the neoliberal state in that decisions are made through public deliberation at the local level rather than centrally through statistical information and managerially defined targets. “co-ordinating conventions” (dean et al., 2005, p. 11) are established to provide opportunities for citizens to deliberate on policies and practices and the extent to which they believe that these would expand meaningful opportunities and human flourishing (dean et al., 2005). the capability state would “mediate rather than prescribe 90 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 [and] jobseekers [would have the opportunity to] . . . argue for . . . their life plans.” in this model, the focus shifts from the development of datasets to the establishment of “mechanisms for negotiation” and the “procurement of rights in negotiation” (dean et al., 2005, p. 11). despite almost a quarter century of national skills development strategies and huge financial investments into improving the reliability of skills information, nsps as currently constructed is fraught with challenges including “putative skills mismatches” such as increasing the number of artisans despite artisans remaining unemployed (allais et al., 2021, p. 650). expanding the capability for voice would improve the relevance of training and the likelihood that implementation processes will achieve the set-out goals. it would shift from providing training opportunities to youth as if they are “motionless patients” (sen, 1999, p. 137) to an approach that builds deep democracies in which youth are active participants in shaping the knowledge and skills required for their futures. the capability for voice represents an ontological shift away from the homo economicus that underpins nsps to an approach that recognises the diversity and agency of youth. broader conceptualisations of work powell & mcgrath (2019b) drew on the three aspects of work outlined by sen (1975): the production aspect; the recognition aspect; and the income aspect. the production aspect speaks to the contribution of labour to the production of things that are needed. the recognition aspect to the self-identity and self-worth that comes from being engaged in something worthwhile, and the income aspect to the livelihoods earned through productive labour. nsps separates the spheres of working (production) and living (consumption). in this view, enterprises produce goods and services, and individuals provide their productive labour (leßmann, 2012). sen’s notion of three dimensions challenges this separation between production and consumption by including labour that is unpaid and undertaken in the household (the production aspect) and labour that increases dignity, recognition, and respect (the recognition aspect) (leßmann, 2012). sen’s (1975) argument is that work is intrinsically valuable for human flourishing across these multiple dimensions and is not reducible to earning an income. in contrast to this broader account of work presented by the capability approach, work in nsps is understood monolithically as wage labour undertaken in the formal sector and mainly in large enterprises in this sector. bonvin (2012) emphasised that the focus has to be on the “‘capability for work’ or the real freedom to choose the job one has reason to value” (p. 10). here the quality of the work matters as does the dignity and respect of the worker. in powell and mcgrath, 2019b, mcgrath and i reported on the work experiences of a small cohort of young people who live in an urban township in gqeberha. the analysis showed that all the young people who had some work experience had gained that experience by working in conditions that were damaging to their wellbeing. we also found that almost all the young people who participated in the study earned below the legal minimum wage with some earning nothing at all. the worst case was that of a young woman who worked for almost two years as an intern without any earnings or stipend support. these findings align with those of bhorat et al. (2012, p. 284) who found a “disturbingly high” rate of minimum wage violation in south africa with powell: planning for freedom 91 44% of workers paid wages below the legislated minimum [and an] average shortfall of 35% of the minimum wage. while nsps focuses on the skills needed for formal employment, in my work with young people in gqeberha, i found that they were concerned with the recognition aspect almost as much as they were with the income aspect since they aspired to contribute to the development of their community and to being recognised and respected for that contribution (powell, 2020). dejaeghere’s (2020) work, undertaken with youth in east africa, similarly found youth emphasising the importance of dignity and recognition in their community. in contrast to the capability for work, nsps focuses on only the production aspect of work as it affects large formal sector enterprises, ignores the recognition aspect of work, and turns a blind eye to gross human rights and wage violations that severely affect the income aspect of work. the capability for education nsps views skills instrumentally (allais, 2012) as a means of meeting the goals of productivity and economic growth. in opposition to human capital theory that focuses on the economic merits of education, robeyns (2006) modified the typology developed by drèze and sen (2002) to identify three roles for education and training: (i) the instrumental role; (ii) the intrinsic role; and (iii) the empowerment role. cutting across all three of these roles is a commitment to expanding social justice since education has a central role in expanding capabilities that make other meaningful opportunities possible (unterhalter, 2013). the instrumental role prepares a person to better function in their family and society by providing the skills and qualifications required to participate in work and in society. this could be what sen (1975) described as productive work, or it could be socially useful work, or it could be wage labour within the formal or informal economy. the instrumental role goes beyond the knowledge and skills needed for productivity and for protection from unemployment to include that needed for living in the world in relationship to oneself, to others, and to the environment. the instrumental role includes developing the communication skills needed for dialogues and public deliberation. expanding the ability to engage in public dialogues provides individuals and groups with the skills needed to act collectively towards transforming oppressive social and economic structures. the capability for voice should be contained in education in ways that encourage learners to participate in public deliberations and in policy decision making and thus practice the capability for voice. central to the instrumental role is the tension that exists between human capital and human capabilities. sen (1999) contended that human capital and human capability are intimately connected but that human capital relates to only those aspects utilised in production and is therefore a narrower concept than human capabilities, which term relates to all aspects necessary for human flourishing. brown et al. (2020) critiqued sen’s (1999) understanding of 92 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 human capital as existing as a subset of human capability since they believe that this risks “bracket[ing] off economic aspects of life as human capital as opposed to human capabilities” (p. 146). in their contention, “[s]upply needs to be redefined as building individual and social capabilities that give people permission to think and act in order to take control of their lives” (p. 153) rather than in the bankruptcy model of labour supply that underpins supply and demand skills planning approaches. the empowerment and distributive roles of education come closer to brown et al.’s (2020) conception of supply that locates in what sen (1993, 519) described as the “process aspect of freedom” that is concerned with the freedom that an individual has to choose from a range of opportunities. leßmann (2009) argued that social policy tends to focus on the “opportunity aspect” (sen, 1993, p. 519) of freedom by expanding opportunities available to a person but that it is hugely neglectful of the process aspect of freedom that is critical for expanding the capability to choose in the poor. as a learnt capability, or what nussbaum (2011, p.21) calls an “internal capability”, a critical role for education in poverty alleviation and in redressing unemployment is to expand the capability to choose (leßmann, 2009) and the capability to aspire (hart, 2012; powell, 2012). the “capability to aspire” (powell, 2012, p. 11) helps individuals and groups to correct for adaptive preferences. these exist when people living in dire circumstances adapt their preferences to allow themselves to become content with their challenging situation in order to better cope with their lives (sen, 1984). here education has an important role to play through empowering individuals and communities to expand their aspirations in a manner that allows them to aspire towards and collectively create meaningful capabilities that are not currently available to them (watts et al., 2008). as fataar (2010) has reminded us, “[a]s a navigational capacity, the more the capacity to aspire is exercised, the more its potential for changing the terms of recognition under which the poor must operate” (p. 35). in the capabilities approach, education has a transformative role to play through identifying, evaluating, and redressing social injustices. in this view learners are actively engaged in learning how to learn, and in learning about themselves as creative beings in and of the world (bonvin, 2019). education and training understood in this sense is transformative rather than reproductive and contributes to the creation of active citizens able to act for a more capability enhancing economy. narrow instrumental and mechanistic understandings of skills that underpin nsps risks education responses that are framed within deficit banking models and that produce human ill-being. instead, the capability approach emphasises, through the intrinsic role of education, the human right to learn for the sheer joy, personal development, and self-fulfilment that learning provides. the intrinsic role recognises that the freedom and the ability to choose from a range of learning opportunities directed towards the different role(s) of education is of intrinsic importance to a person’s wellbeing since “acting freely” and “being able to choose are . . . directly conducive to wellbeing” (sen, 1992, p. 50). powell: planning for freedom 93 relational capabilities and social ecosystem thinking early accounts of the capability approach were critiqued for neglecting power and the social and structural contexts that serve to maintain inequalities in capabilities and functionings (see, for example, gore, 1997; ibrahim, 2011; stewart, 2005). more recent understandings have accepted that “while the individual is seen as the person to whom relational deprivation occurs . . . the focus of the capability analysis . . . cannot but be unescapably social” (sen, 2000, p. 8). capabilities, then, are not possessed by an individual but are socially relational and exist as an interaction between the individual and the social and economic structures of a society (longshore smith & seward, 2005). dejaeghere (2020) took this further by arguing that “the question of power in the capabilities approach mitigates against individualized and decontextualized notions of agency and wellbeing” (p. 20). she suggested a set of questions that can be used in the capability approach to illuminate the role that education and training might play in reproducing or addressing inequalities. her questions draw from intersectional approaches in that they include consideration of race, gender, and decoloniality and acknowledge the historical conditions that result in oppression and inequality. in both cases relationships to power and marginality are brought into focus. the three questions framed by dejaeghere (2020, p. 24) are provided in partially edited form below. • what are the historical conditions, or pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial relations that have excluded some young people? how do these economic, political, social, and discursive forms of power continue to exclude? • who is being “othered” by whom, in relation to education? what are the changing politics of belonging in relation to education? • how are patriarchal, race, or class regimes perpetuated through education? these three questions provide a useful framework for thinking about skills planning since they form the basis for responding to low skills formations and for responding to social injustice by expanding access to meaningful opportunities. if skills development is to achieve its stated goal of disrupting inequalities and addressing poverty and unemployment, it has to be located in a relational account that demands a focus on unequal “power and oppression [as] constituent components of [the] capability set” longshore smith & seward (2009, p. 230). such a relational account would recognise the economic as well as the socially transformative role of skills, while, at the same time, acknowledging the power relations that maintain and reproduce existing inequalities. the relationality of capabilities is evident in understandings held of conversion factors which can be personal (such as gender, physical barriers/enablements, or aspirations), social (such as socio-economic, institutional, cultural, or the demands of the labour market), or environmental (such as water shortages) (robeyns, 2006). conversion factors can also be intersectional. bringing an intersectional analysis into a relational account of capabilities allows “race, gender, and class … and relations of power manifested in social, economic, and political injustices in societies” to be made visible (dejaeghere, 2020, p. 23). in this 94 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 understanding, the conversion of capabilities into meaningful functionings will occur only in institutional and structural circumstances that allow for and enable that conversion. this, in turn, demands the inclusion of a political economy approach for better understanding the institutions and structures that enable or constrain capabilities and that advance or inhibit conversion rate correction. one approach to skills development that aligns well with the principles of the capability approach is the social ecosystem model (sem). sem locates itself in a political economy approach and enables conversion rate correction by proposing a model for the collective coconstruction of social ecosystems that “nurture inclusive, sustainable educational, economic and social development” (spours, 2019a, p. 11). essentially, it is a commitment to understanding and developing skills as they are lived in context and as they are lived in relationship to others and to the planet (grainger & spours, 2018). sem expands capabilities in “place based” (spours, 2019a, p. 3) social formations that work towards inclusive economic growth and sustainable living by connecting the three dimensions of working, living, and learning. in spours’s (2019a) explanation of these, the working dimension talks to social formations who work towards better and more sustainable jobs. this could include the development of new social ecosystems that focus on critical local, and community needs such as healthcare, food sovereignty, and the development and maintenance of public infrastructure. the living dimension talks to the dimensions needed by communities such as affordable housing, accessible healthcare, the development of adequate childcare facilities, care of the elderly, and the development of township economies. the aim is to build sustainable approaches to living that reinforce local identity and create attractive living environments that are close to work (spours, 2019b). the learning dimension cuts across the working and living dimensions in that it supports the participation of people in the economy while at the same allows access to lifelong learning that enhances flourishing lives along well-defined learning and citizen pathways. alike to the capability approach, work in sem is understood in its broadest sense to include care work, community work, and wage labour. central to sem is the use of the biological metaphor of ecosystems to reflect the combined emphasis on interand intra-dependent relationships through “regional place-based social formations” (spours, 2019a, p. 3). these social formations include education and training, communities, government, and employers who form “horizontal network[s]” (spours, 2019b, p. 24 to connect and bring about transformations in working, living, and learning so that regional economies and living environments can be sustainably transformed. spours (2019b, p. 15) termed these horizontal networks “collaborative horizontalities” but in 2021 he expanded the term to refer to “the radical horizontal” (2021, para. 11). the idea of the radical horizontal highlights the importance of progressive activism to respond to the oppressions of neoliberalism and to shape “vibrant sites of political participation” (2021, para. 12) that celebrate human capacities to re-engineer, through co-operative, mutually constructed, and participatory approaches, their social relationships and their relationship with the planet. powell: planning for freedom 95 universities and tvet colleges are central as engaged civic actors (hodgson & spours, 2016) that serve as “anchor institutions” (spours, 2019b, p. 15) supporting the participatory engagements of the social ecosystem. in sem, qualifications reform and the development of learning pathways and citizen pathways is co-constructed through co-operative democratic participation in networks that work together to develop new meaningful jobs oriented towards sustainable living (lotz-sisitka, 2019). “facilitating verticalities” (spours, 2019b, p. 15) are hierarchical structures governed by institutions, systems, and policies that are regulated by state. these verticalities can exist as enablers or disenablers of the social ecosystem with spours (2021) having suggested that “the effects of national or governmental state on local civil society . . . have been broadly negative (2021, para. 14). the south african tvet colleges, for example, are managed as national competencies. outside of small pockets of innovation in occupational programmes, the tvet colleges are locked into providing nationally designed programmes and are funded according to their enrolments in these programmes. “mediation”, or “45 degree mediation” (spours, 2019b, p. 17), recognises that the vertical and horizontal components connect in a dynamic interaction (spours, 2021) which might include the leadership of ecosystems and technological connectivity (spour, 2019b). lotz-sisitka (2019) addressed the possibilities that exist in this mediation space for “experimental platforms” such as joined-up skills programmes and socialised digital platforms (2019, p. 119). locating knowledge and skills in the contexts in which they are needed and orienting skills towards meaningful livelihoods and sustainable living and working environments is radically different to the supply and demand orthodoxy that underpins nsps. in the current approach, skills planning is aggregated nationally and disbursed as lists of oihd from the centre to the periphery with pset institutions at the receiving end of these lists. in contrast to nsps, sem opposes the idea of centralised and hierarchical leadership, aiming, instead, for collective ownership of the social ecosystem and for co-construction of skill needs. in this sense, sem aims to expand the capability for voice by putting power back into the hands of marginalised pset institutions such as our tvet and community colleges and by insisting that communities are in the driving seat. sem could be understood as an agential space that aligns with the aims of the capability approach by expanding opportunities for capability expansion through expanding the capability for voice, the capability for education, and the capability for work. simultaneously through its focus on relations and relationality it potentially addresses conversion factors that constrain individuals and groups from accessing knowledge and skills and then converting these into meaningful livelihoods and sustainable living. sem does this by changing the information base at the substantive and procedural levels. at the substantive level the information that is valued is that which is co-constructed and that contributes to sustainable and inclusive regional development. at the procedural level the shift is away from the deductivist approach applied in nsps and towards an inductivist logic that takes seriously the capability for voice through the establishment of participatory approaches. the participatory approach adopted by sem expands the capability to aspire by enabling individuals and 96 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 groups to collectively imagine and create future opportunities that do not currently exist for them. towards a broader approach for skills planning table 1 synthesizes the contribution that the capability approach, informed by a relational approach and supplemented by sem, brings to a broader approach to skills planning. it organises this synthesis into seven dimensions required for an emancipatory approach to skills planning. the first and most important of these dimensions focuses on the goal and purposes of skills planning. in opposition to nsps, in which skills are targeted towards expanding productivity, profits, and economic growth, the capability approach focuses on expanding human capabilities and a capability enhancing society. economic growth in the capability approach represents the means rather than the end of developmental goals (sen, 1999). the focus in the capability approach is on expanding the freedoms that human beings have to be and to do and the agency to choose between these beings and doings. embedded in this paradigmatic shift, knowledge and skills are oriented towards the public good and towards addressing complex social challenges that inhibit human development. the second and third of these dimensions focus on the economy and education and, cutting across these two dimensions, is the relationship between the economy and education. in terms of dimension 3, the economy, the capability approach insists on a broader view of the economy that includes the formal sector but that also includes the informal and social economy. here workers, and the knowledge and skills with which they are endowed, are not understood as being supplied to the economy but as being active participants with the potential of shaping, through public deliberation and social movements, the work that is available and their access to it. sem deepens the capability approach by emphasizing the importance of interand intra-dependent relationships at the local level that collectively coconstruct the skills needed for working, living, and learning. the capability approach includes a focus on removing the substantive unfreedoms that hinder people from living a fulfilled life and acknowledges that access to the labour market does not serve to protect people from exploitative labour market practices (bonvin, 2019). here the sem model provides valuable insights into the ways in which participatory co-construction of skill needs and the development of learning pathways and citizen pathways could serve as conversion rate correction and as protection from exploitative labour market practices. the role of education and training (captured in dimension 4: education and training) in skills planning is not simply to be responsive to the needs of the labour market as recipients of the list of oihd. in the capability approach, education and training are central players with the roles of education including the instrumental, the intrinsic, and the empowerment aspects. in the empowerment aspects, the role that education plays in expanding the capability for voice and the capability to aspire are critical for enabling civic engagement. in this view, knowledge and skills are not simply reproductive or responsive, but potentially powell: planning for freedom 97 transformative at the level of the individual and the society. sem takes this further by framing education institutions as key “anchor institutions” (spours, 2019b, p. 15) in the establishment of social ecosystems and by providing a model for experimentation towards the development of inclusive and sustainable regional development. dimension 5 addresses the methodological approach adopted by nsps and the approach that a capability approach brings to our thinking about skills planning. the information set that the capability approach compiles is different to that compiled by nsps at both the substantive and the procedural levels. at the substantive dimension, nsps focuses on the skill needs of the formal sector (mainly large employers in the formal sector). the capability approach, however, adopts a broad notion of work that includes work in the social economy, the green economy, the informal economy, as well as the formal economy. at the procedural level the capability approach insists that the recipients of development be democratically included in deciding on the knowledge and skills programmes that are to be provided and the reasons for which they are provided. this is radically different from current approaches in which skills programmes are offered and youth are invited to apply to participate. contrary to nsps which is based on a deductivist logic that aggregates from wsp to national oihd lists, the capability approach, particularly when framed within relational capabilities, applies an inductivist approach. knowledge is co-constructed in regionally developed partnerships that include communities, education, employers, and government. the capability approach insists that skills planning takes place at a local or regional level and that differences in identities and regions are not only recognised but celebrated. expanding the procedural level would mean shifting the focus of skills planning from the skills needed for profit to the skills needed for social and economic transformation. it would mean shifting from current nsps approaches that rely on historic data to identify oihd to one that allows skills needs to be co-constructed through public reason. this, in turn, opens the possibility for rapid and contextually defined responses to education and training needs. dimension 6: the anthropological dimension (adapted from bonvin, 2019) shows that the capability approach brings a shift to our understanding of the human. in direct opposition to nsps that disregards as irrelevant the aspiration of citizens to contribute to their local communities, the agency and aspirations of youth are given centre stage. while nsps ignores the skills that already exist in communities, opting instead for a deficit model oriented towards the needs of large employers, the capability approach celebrates people as having value in and of themselves. nsps sees as irrelevant what matters to youth and the communities in which they live and ignores the agency that people have to transform their environments and their communities. the capability approach, in direct opposition to this, recognises that understanding the capabilities that people have reason to value is critical for skills planning. sem provides a concrete model by which the capabilities that matter can be discerned, co-constructed, and responded to. dimension 7 is concerned with the development or transformation logic that the capability approach brings to our thinking of skills planning as compared to nsps that locates in a productivist logic that assumes that improving knowledge and skills will improve economic 98 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 productivity that will then, in turn, address unemployment and alleviate poverty (anderson, 2009). this logic, grounded in neoliberalism, has held firm despite the strongest evidence being that economic growth not only does not trickle down to the poor (bourguignon, 2003; fosu, 2010) but instead of raising all boats has, because of the monopolisation of capital in the hands of a few, served to increase inequality (piketty, 2018). in this logic, skills planning focuses on identifying the right education and expanding access to it in the hope that this will address inequalities, poverty, and unemployment. in direct opposition to the dominant skills orthodoxy, the capability approach focuses on expanding access to meaningful opportunities, addressing conversion rate corrections, and removing substantive unfreedoms (powell & mcgrath, 2019a). table 1 comparing the underpinning logic of the nsps to the capability approach (source: own elaboration that modifies bonvin, 2019) approaches current nsps capability approach dimension 1: goal goal expand economic growth and firm productivity and at the same time address unemployment. advance a capability enhancing society by expanding the capability for education and the capabilities for work. dimension 2: the economy economy formal economy (mainly large enterprises) formal, informal labour, and social economy link to labour market reproductive (produces workers) transformative: creates agential citizens able to choose and work. understanding of work employment in the formal sector (mainly in large enterprises of 150+ employees) understands work in its broadest sense to include socially valuable work such as care work and community work. dimension 3: education and training understanding of skills neutral, mechanistic, and instrumental embedded in socio-cultural and economic contexts. education and training instrumental function instrumental, intrinsic, and empowerment function relationship of education to skills planning education and training institutions are to be responsive to identified scarce and critical skills and the oihd. education and training are central players in expanding the capability for voice, the capability to aspire and for redressing adaptive preferences. redress approaches expand access education and training. expand access to capabilities (meaningful opportunities) and address conversion rate corrections. powell: planning for freedom 99 dimension 4: methodology information set predictive based on past knowledge and skills needs. co-constructed and flexible methodology deductivist and causal co-constructed and inductivist logic dimension 5: anthropological (adapted from bonvin, 2019) understanding of the individual rational individualist ethical individualism relationship between human beings and the economy human beings as a means to economic growth human beings as the ends of economic growth dimension 6: transformation redress approaches expand access to education and training. expand access to capabilities (meaningful opportunities) and address conversion rate corrections. conclusion in outcome, if not by design, the introduction of south africa’s skills planning approach in the mid-1990s has contributed to maintaining, if not deepening, the entrenched social and economic divisions that existed in apartheid. a skills planning mechanism that ignores the reality of the labour market and that hopes, based on wishful thinking and a basket of neoliberal policies, that responding to the skills needs of large employers will somehow address unemployment will, as it has done, face increasing numbers of learners excluded from the benefits of such planning. ultimately, a skills planning mechanism that does not squarely address the onerous task of including the skills needs of the millions who work in the informal sector, in small and micro enterprises, in care work, and those who are permanently excluded from wage labour, is destined to further reproduce inequality along the current lines of marginalisation, i.e., with young black people, particularly young rural women, being the most affected. this article makes four cross cutting contributions. first, and at its most simplistic, it insists that we bring nsps into the spotlight and that we consider again the role, function, and purpose of skills planning as a central and extremely costly aspect of south africa’s skills development approach. second, it argues in support of balwanz and ngcwangu (2016) that “south africa needs a broader skills development vision” (p. 31). third, it argues that any renewed framework for skills planning must be underpinned by the goal of expanding human flourishing, rather than economic growth, production, or profits. fourth, and finally, it draws on the capabilities approach to suggest seven dimensions as the underpinning logics of an emancipatory approach to skills planning. while all seven of the dimensions matter, central to these is the need to take seriously the following aspects. first 100 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 would be the need for a broader understanding of what constitutes work that includes work that takes place in the informal sector and the social economy. second is the need to build democratic systems (such as social skills ecosystems) in which skills needs can be coconstructed in a participatory manner. third is the need to move away from instrumental understandings of skills and to recognise the multiple roles that education and training could potentially play in expanding human flourishing through expanding the capability for work, the capability for voice, and the capability for education. fourth is the need to address the conversion factors that constrain individuals and groups from converting knowledge and skills into flourishing lives. this includes acknowledging the power and oppressions that have served to reproduce the current system. here sem is suggested as an innovative approach for establishing at regional levels social ecosystems that bring employers, communities, education institutions, and government together to identify the knowledges and skills needed for sustainable inclusive regional economies. the core argument is that there is now an urgent need for new approaches to skills planning that are informed by a different set of assumptions, driven by a different set of indicators, inclusive of different voices, undertaken through different processes and, importantly, driven by a different set of goals. responding to the call for a broader approach to skills planning and taking seriously the seven dimensions of an emancipatory skills planning system will require an alternative vision not only of skills and of work, but of the economy as a whole. as stiglitz (2020), mentioned earlier in this paper, argued, any chance of building back better would require nothing less than a “comprehensive rewriting of the rules of the economy” (stiglitz, 2020, para. 6) and with 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(2014). going around in circles: employability, responsiveness and the reform of the college sector. in s. vally & i. motala (eds.), education, economy and society (pp. 57–81) unisa. microsoft word bissue72 final.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 72, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i72a04 the value of drama-in-education as a decolonising pedagogy through embodied drama strategies in a higher education classroom logamurthie athiemoolam faculty of education, nelson mandela university logamurthie.athiemoolam@mandela.ac.za (received: 10 may 2018; accepted: 24 august 2018) abstract in this paper i provide a detailed account of how drama-in-education was used to engage third-year university students in an education module entitled issues and challenges in education. the aim of the research was to introduce aspects of decolonisation in south africa through the module and to implement drama-in-education strategies, such as the use of tableaux, improvisation, and role plays to enhance the understanding of these issues. the data collection method i implemented was based on students’ written reflections on their experiences of drama-in-education as pedagogy in this module. the findings indicated that although students were initially resistant to engaging with the drama-in-education process, through their embodied participation they became more involved in their learning. they felt that, since the strategies provided a context for learning, the issues that led to enhanced learning, engagement, and reflection could be interrogated more critically. i argue that as a decolonising pedagogy in the university lecture room, drama-in-education contributes significantly to an enhanced understanding of teaching and learning and the development of students’ critical and creative skills. keywords: creative learning, embodied learning, decolonising pedagogy, drama-in-education, teaching strategies introduction and background teaching and learning in the context of higher education prescribes particular curriculum content and design, instructional strategies and techniques, and forms of evaluation. according to mclaren (1998) these prescriptions specify which version of knowledge is more important, what it means to know something, and how we might construct a representation of our world and our place in it. in recent literature (see canaan & shumar, 2008; shahjahan, 2014) questions relating to traditional higher education pedagogical practices, curricular focus, and the commodification of knowledge have come under scrutiny. according to wagner and shahjahan (2015) such thinking tends to focus exclusively on “intellectualizing the world, thereby precluding deeper engagement with topics under investigation” (p. 244). hence there is a need to focus on pedagogical strategies that foster 56 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 embodied ways of knowing, that are “attentive to our bodies and its experiences as a way of knowing” (freiler, 2008, p. 40) in anti-oppressive pedagogy. since teacher education programmes tend to be predominantly monocultural and conservative in terms of ideology (beyer, 2001), rarely is there an attempt to include counter hegemonic teaching practices. it is in this traditional pedagogical framework of higher education that i sought to implement drama-in-education in a third-year education module to examine how it could subvert traditional ways of teaching and learning so as to embrace new ways of knowing. although wagner and shajahan (2015) have pointed out that such an approach to teaching and learning across the curriculum in higher education is less common since it is confined mostly to specific fields such as language teaching and the dramatic arts, in the context of this study the use of the body through drama-in-education practices became central to the learning process. it is with this background in mind that i aimed to explore how intermediate phase (ip) 1 preservice teachers experienced the implementation of drama-in-education as a decolonising pedagogy in this third-year education module. i deemed critical performative pedagogy an appropriate theoretical framework for the purposes of this study since it is associated with embodied learning on both literal and figurative levels. critical performative pedagogy (cpp) as a theoretical framework in decolonising discourse linked to critical pedagogy the emphasis is on the ways in which education operates as a site of colonial power so that classrooms, curricula, and educational communities are “deeply implicated in the reproduction of colonial hegemonies” (gatimu, 2009, p. 67). according to giroux, central to any critical pedagogy is the need to “actively transform knowledge rather than consume it” (2011, p. 7). critical pedagogy becomes performative when critical reflection is embodied and when teachers engage students in feeling and enfleshing theory in action (giroux, 2011; mclaren, 1989; pineau, 1994). in cpp, by crossing borders continually between and among their multiple identities and roles, students and teachers no longer remain fixed behind one theoretical mask, but negotiate instead among many (goffman, 1959). as mclaren (1995) has pointed out, it is pivotal that we undo the myth of a fixed self if we hope to teach all students effectively in our multicultural classes. this is achieved through reframing teaching as a continually unfolding “ensemble of narratives and performances, rather than a linear accumulation of isolated, discipline-specific competencies” (pineau, 1994, p. 10). the contextualisation of factual information in this way ensures that students are able to gain a deeper understanding of the human condition even as they are “consciously setting up and experiencing fictitious social situations” (szauder, 2002, p. 6). hence cpp probes the performative through reenactments 1 the schooling system in south africa is divided into four phases: foundation phase (fp) (grades 1–3), intermediate phase (ip) (grades 4–6); senior phase (sp) (grades 7–9); and further education and training (fet) (grades 10–12). athiemoolam: the value of drama-in-education as a decolonising pedagogy . . . 57 in the improvised scenes of our everyday practices (butler, 1988) and is, furthermore, also dialogic and participatory in nature (harman & french, 2004). for me, too, cpp is a “kinesthetic and multi-dimensional process that incorporates questions of systemic inequity, cultural hegemony and unequal access into teacher education” (harman & french, 2004, p. 14) and the critically performative educator is one who “understands teaching to be an essentially improvised drama that takes place within a curricular narrative” (mclaren, 1988, p.174). hence, i see drama-in-education as a mechanism through which cpp can be actualised. it can be construed as counter hegemonic in that it resists remaining within one particular discipline, insists always on being collaborative and contextualised, and acknowledges the body as a pivotal player in the classroom (harman & french, 2004). literature review drama-in-education as a decolonising pedagogy according to kovacs (2014) drama-in-education is process-centred and considered to be reform pedagogy. central to the methodology is a focus on learning by activity, problemsolving, action-reflection interplay, and discovery by experience (bolton, 1999). the focus on the social construction of knowledge in drama enables students to realise that knowledge is both a product and a means of social contact (szauder, 2002). this implies that in the as if world of drama, students need to use their existing knowledge, and, by interacting and collaborating with others, they gain additional information and make meaning that enables them to resolve certain challenges and issues. in this way the authenticity of the activity is emphasised in that learning is contextualised in both a fictitious context and as it applies to the real world. the manner in which the students represent their views through performancerole plays, tableaus and/or improvisation is influenced by their previous experience and knowledge. this focus on the real problems of life comes about in a protected environment that aims to facilitate learning through experience (heathcote & bolton, 1995). according to tejeda and espinoza (2002) a decolonising pedagogy encompasses both an anti-colonial and decolonising notion of pedagogy as well as a decolonising pedagogical praxis. it is this anticolonial and decolonising theory and praxis that is vocal in its criticism that colonial domination and its ideological frameworks operate and are reproduced “in and through curricular content and design, the instructional practices, the social organisation of learning and the forms of evaluation that sort and label students into categories of failure and success at school” (p. 6). in the context of this study an anti-colonial and pedagogical praxis is seen to work to transform these dimensions of learning so that the university lecture room becomes a site for the development of a critical decolonising consciousness through the implementation of drama-in-education strategies. a decolonising pedagogical praxis challenges not only the forms, content, and intent of other pedagogies as these scholars have highlighted, but also requires “a complete reconceptualisation of the social organisation of learning” (p. 8) in the context of higher education. such a reconceptualisation requires a 58 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 transformation in the social and intellectual relationships among the participants both in the university and in the particular communities in which the university is located. the advantages of using drama-in-education in the classroom are manifold since it has the potential to promote learners’ “imagination, creativity, critical thinking, flexibility and expressivity” (nicholsan, 2009, p. 14) without restricting their own abilities and talents and without limiting their personalities (kalogirou, 2016). as a personality-centred method, often associated with reform pedagogy, drama-in-education aims to develop creativity, spontaneity, and communicative competence, preparing students to face real-life situations with less difficulty (kovacs, 2014). the focus on learners’ lived experiences through drama-ineducation leads to embodied learning since the content is more meaningful and this gives learning real purpose. embodied learning in recent decades, as has been pointed out by harman and french (2004), a number of educational scholars have written about the need for an enfleshed and embodied pedagogy (giroux, 2011; hooks, 1994; mclaren, 1995; pineau, 1998) but few seem to have gone beyond a theoretical and metaphorical exploration of the notion of what counts as performative. the use of the imagination, as highlighted by freire (1998), is a significant feature of the performative process because the participants collaboratively reflect on how to create scenarios through performance that best reflect their lived experiences. through the reconstruction of their ideological bodies, teachers can gain new ways of being for themselves, their students, and their colleagues (pineau, 2002). this “ideological body” (p. 44) to which she refers is a metaphor for how schools maintain gender, economic, and ethnic injustice. the classroom provides a site where “teachers’ and students’ bodies bring competing ideologies into confrontation” (elliot, 2007, p. 10). this has been further discussed by mclaren (1989) who has contended that “students’ bodies become sites of struggle in which resistance is a way of gaining power, celebrating pleasure and fighting oppression in the lived historicity of the moment and the concrete materiality of the classroom” (p. 170). drama-in-education affords pre-service teachers the opportunity to project their interpretations of educational issues and challenges for deeper interrogation as they experience them through embodied learning. in this sense teaching and learning are not perceived as flat and finished but as multi-dimensional and multi-faceted. pineau’s (2002) notion of the “performing body” provides insights into how curricular and instructional models could be developed to enable students to be active and critical participants inside and outside the classroom. “performing” in the context of critical performative pedagogy is radical since it involves a shift from the “body on display” to the “systematic exploration through enactment of real and imagined experience” (p. 50). in this study the students enacted scenarios, based on their lived experiences, during their school-based learning. athiemoolam: the value of drama-in-education as a decolonising pedagogy . . . 59 research methodology and design in keeping with the principles of qualitative research the purpose of my study was to construct detailed descriptions of social reality by “using the participants’ natural language in order to come to a genuine understanding of their world” (de vos, strydom, fouche & delport, 2011, p. 66). in this case the language used to describe pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the value of drama-in-education as a strategy to teach a third-year education module was elicited from the summative written reflections based on their drama-ineducation activities during classes. the phenomenological research design used for this study focused on a description of the “lived experiences of a phenomenon for several individuals” (cresswell, 2007, p. 57). the sample was comprised of all 70 third-year b.ed ip language students from diverse linguistic, ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds who attended the third-year education module (issues and challenges in education–pged (programme generic education) 302) that was presented through drama-in-education. data collected for the purposes of this study was based on summative written reflections at the end of the module in which students shared their views on drama-in-education as pedagogy used in teaching this third-year education module. the prompt that served to guide their writing was: write a reflection on how you experienced drama-in-education as pedagogy in the delivery of the third year education module (issues and challenges in education–pged 302). the students’ anonymity was safeguarded since they were not required to write their names on their written reflections, but just whether they identified as male or female for the purposes of reporting the findings. the written reflections were coded and analysed according to common themes arising from them. my own position in the research process was to serve as facilitator of the module and not as an instructor, so i tried to share power by enabling students to contribute to the themes through their own creative pieces based on their experiences. nevertheless, i am fully aware of the fact that in my capacity as lecturer/facilitator i still had more power than the students and that this represents an ethical challenge that could have had a bearing on the research. the findings of the study are limited in that the sample included only one group of pged 302 ip language students. hence the findings, emerging from the study, cannot be generalised to all groups. overview of the module and drama-in-education strategies implemented the pged 302 module entitled issues and challenges in education is a compulsory third year education module worth 15 credits for which all bachelor of education (fp, ip, sp, fet, and post graduate certificate in education (pgce) students have to register. the module consists of the following ten themes which are covered over a period of two semesters (about 28 weeks) with a time allocation of one double period (70 minutes) per week: 60 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 • unit 1: theory and practice in shaping democratic schooling • unit 2: paulo freire and the humanising pedagogy • unit 3: social justice in education • unit 4: emancipation and empowerment in the context of schooling • unit 5: social constructivism • unit 6: teaching diverse learners • unit 7: discipline in a diverse classroom • unit 8: teaching in a linguistically diverse classroom • unit 9: curriculum development to cater for diverse learners • unit 10: collaborative action and schooling given the structured time allocation of the university programme each unit was covered in two to three double periods. students were required to read prescribed articles and articles which they sourced independently, from a range of texts that were applicable to the theme, before each contact session. a typical session involved a short small-group discussion based on the theme, presentation of the drama-in-education activity according to the group’s own interpretation, and questioning and reflecting based on the students’ interpretation of the theme. one of the challenges was trying to fit these kinds of activities, all of which require more time than does the ordinary transmission lecture approach, into the university timetable and structure. for each of the above-mentioned themes i designed a drama-in-education activity linked to the theme and i tried to ensure that students were afforded opportunities to experience a range of drama-in-education techniques including tableaus, improvisation, role plays, and combinations of these techniques as grounded in the work of boal (1979) and wagner (1979). the next section provides a brief outline of the drama-in-education strategies implemented for each of the units to demonstrate how the approach was implemented in this third-year education module. the activity for unit 1 required that students create tableaus (frozen scenes) on concepts of gramscian and freirean theory related to notions such as hegemony, intellectuals, the war of position, and the language of critique, dialogue and praxis. for unit 2 students had to use tableaus to demonstrate their understanding, based on their readings, of what is meant by a humanising pedagogy. unit 3, based on social justice, saw students, who had read an article on the marginalisation of lower socio-economic learners, presenting role plays based on the narrative. for unit 4 they had to present protest improvisations, based on issues that were of concern to them in the university context. unit 5 required that students demonstrate social constructivist principles through drama and for unit 6 they had to stage short play sets on diversity based on various readings and their own experiences. for the unit on discipline in the diverse classroom (unit 7) students had to read articles based on disciplinary challenges in classroom contexts and create a short improvised scene in which they highlighted their issues of concern. for the unit on linguistic diversity (unit 8) students had to showcase issues and challenges relating to the implementation of linguistic diversity in school contexts through role plays. the activity for unit 9 involved the design and presentation of a athiemoolam: the value of drama-in-education as a decolonising pedagogy . . . 61 curriculum that groups were required present, in role-play, to the department of basic education. the activity for unit 10 on parental involvement led to the creation of a simulated conference on parental involvement during which students, in-role as speakers from various higher education institutions, presented academic papers on the theme. students were given the freedom to interpret the issues and challenges from multiple perspectives, based on their own experiences, that showcased their embodied learning in creative ways. findings the findings, arising from the study, indicate that although students were initially apathetic towards the implementation of drama-in-education as an approach to teaching and learning, they became aware of its value after continual exposure and came to feel that they benefitted immensely. some of their initial fears included “not being comfortable to perform in front of the class due to a lack of confidence” (s#15) and that it was a “waste of time as the lecturer was not presenting a lecture per se but expected them to take the lead in the lecture” (s#11). some also felt that this approach unsettled them because they “did not receive the material and powerpoints to prepare for tests and exams” (s#18). s#41 and s#56 also reported that time constraints tended to pose a challenge since “we were not always able to complete all the plays in one session” (s#41) “and sometimes discussion time was limited” (s#56). in spite of their initial scepticism and the issues with time constraints, however, the students indicated that they found the experiences overwhelmingly positive. the randomly chosen extracts below are reminiscent of the general viewpoints of the students and were not selected to skew the findings in favour of drama pedagogy. promotes multiple ways of viewing and learning the students felt that drama-in-education created ample opportunities for a great number of ways of viewing since the groups showcased a range of issues on a particular theme. this served to enhance their insights especially since the class was very diverse in terms of ethnicity, gender, race, and religion. s#10 summarised this view, i realised that while watching my classmates’ performance that everyone interprets the same information in a different way. with that said, it made me realise that my future learners will also interpret knowledge differently. quite clearly, this student was aware that she was being prepared for a role beyond the confines of the lecture room. the many perspectives of reality showcased through the various dramatic strategies broadened the students’ perspectives even as they gained new insights. this viewpoint was expressed by s#8, the drama in education strategies also helped me to view other students’ perspectives on the content which made my thinking broader and more complex. 62 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 the fact that students were motivated to portray the themes in their own creative manner gave them, as highlighted by s#13, an enhanced understanding of difference. [we had] the opportunity to enhance our understanding of each concept and theme, since people understand things differently and as such they [were] given the opportunity to portray how they understand something and implement different strategies. since the participants were encouraged to pose questions and reflect on each dramatic performance they could clarify what they intended portraying, why they portrayed it in a particular manner, and what message they aimed to convey through the performance. s#30 pointed out, we [students] learnt a lot about others and how they interpreted different information and how they put it to use in different forms. the students’ viewpoints indicated that drama pedagogy enabled them to examine issues and challenges in education from various vantage points that lead to enhanced learning and understanding. enhances understanding of the humanising pedagogy, hegemony, and diversity a major advantage of this approach was that it served to enhance students’ understanding of the humanising pedagogy (unit 2), hegemony (unit 1), and diversity (units 6 and 8) in the context of south african schooling. in her reflection on the learning that emerged from the drama-in-education process, s#20 explained that, in the group’s presentation of freirean theory (unit 2), in which they critiqued the banking model, they were always presented with two opposing scenes. first scene would show how the model is used currently at schools where the teacher[s] perceive themselves as always right and the learners as empty vessels; the scene would then change to scene 2 where we [were] shown as students how to not encourage the banking model but see ourselves as mediators in a learner’s education and not as the power source. a number of students also felt that their understanding of the humanising pedagogy, as espoused by freire (unit 2), was enhanced by the drama-in-education activities. as s#40 said, you as a teacher need to remember that the children you teach are human beings and need to be treated with dignity. we had a teacher in the front of a class sitting and teaching. she didn’t care about the students and she didn’t care to adapt the work to make the children understand. s#55 explained that through the performances she realised that athiemoolam: the value of drama-in-education as a decolonising pedagogy . . . 63 teaching is not always about standing in front of your learners and teaching. humanising pedagogy involves including all learners through learning, using different ways of teaching. s#63, in reflecting on her group’s role play on the humanising pedagogy, (unit 2) felt that the manner in which the sessions were devised mirrored the humanising approach to teaching and learning. this served to provide her with a better sense of the crux of the humanising pedagogy. the topic i enjoyed most was humanising pedagogy and how we acted as if we were robots being taught and all we could do was regurgitate—this was definitely the opposite of what i have experienced in the pged 302 class. a number of students commented on how they became more aware of diversity-related issues in multicultural classes. one of them, in reflecting on how the theme of diversity (unit 6) was developed among the various groups through their play sets, described the pieces as “fun, interesting and educational” which enabled her to “become more open to the concept” (s#43). in reflecting on how diversity related issues (unit 6) were enhanced through the plays s#50 explained, i loved it when we used drama to see what our class’s perspective on diversity was. it was great to see that they understood that diversity is much more than the colour of our skin and that diversity can also be among the same racial, religious, political and cultural group. this account indicates that the plays highlighted a range of diversity-related issues and served to expand students’ narrow understanding of the concept beyond race and colour. in his reflection on his group’s interpretation of linguistic diversity s#36 reflected that in my group we highlighted the diverse cultures through language and the fact that english is regarded as a superior language by us, even if maybe one race [of] children are together they speak english rather than to speak their own language. we raise the issue that why can’t we be given the opportunity to express ourselves in our own language (isixhosa). through focusing on the issue of language (unit 8) in this way the group demonstrated that as future teachers it is imperative for them to be aware of linguistic diversity in their classes. this portrayal enabled other students in the class to become more aware of the value of mother-tongue teaching. s#23 described her own learning on the issue. one group showed how the issue of diversity (the teaching in the dominant languages) affects the majority and how it should/can be addressed. i felt that my knowledge was overall enhanced in a way that as a future teacher i will know how to deal with certain issues that arise in school context and in society especially relating to mother tongues. 64 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 students engaged in positive ways with diversity (unit 6) as described by s#31. being a diverse group, drama equipped us to embrace our diversity individually and as a group and each contact session became a learning to learn experience. most students indicated that they struggled initially to comprehend gramscian theory (unit 1) from the readings, but when the groups demonstrated concepts such as hegemony and the war of position through tableaus (unit 1), they were able to understand the concepts more readily. this viewpoint was summed up by s#26, who said, i feel that the drama helped me to remember and understand things better especially gramscian theory. so, when groups did their tableaus and explained it i understood and found myself forming my own ideas and even adding to the thoughts i already had. through the tableaus, students were able to examine how hegemony (unit 1) is related to social justice issues and how power relations in society determine who the beneficiaries and who the victims are. in reflecting on their representation of hegemony s#18 highlighted his learning. for example, i will always remember the hegemony that is the inequality of the system which we portrayed in our tableau. we acted out the social justice aspect of children not having food for lunch vs those students that do have lunch. we also approached and changed the scene to be positive. the above extracts illustrate that through embodied learning students’ understanding of social justice issues was enhanced. focusing on lived experiences leads to embodied learning students found the incorporation of their lived experiences into the dramatic portrayals in all the units presented productive since it enabled them to examine various issues and challenges in education from informed positions. this gaining a better understanding of the issues through lived experiences was summed up by s#6. i also feel like using everyday situations in our presentations/plays gives us an opportunity to link the work that we are doing with real life situations which betters our understanding. students felt that since content was integrated into lived experiences this made learning more meaningful and relevant to their lives. as s#28 put it, i also think that learning should not only be based on content but content itself need to be integrated to our everyday lives in order for us to understand and learn, for example the theme of diversity that was acted by one of the group’s helped us to understand diversity within context. athiemoolam: the value of drama-in-education as a decolonising pedagogy . . . 65 in some instances, the opportunity for reflective practice in all the units based on lived experiences through enactment led to shifts in viewpoints and consciousness as participants became more aware of insights and experiences to which they had not been exposed in the past. s#60 described this effect. drama-in-education helped me to understand each topic/theme in the pged 302 module and has changed some of my perspectives (consciousness/reflecting/adapting) over time. it emerged from students’ feedback that the focus on their lived experiences, as part of the drama-in-education process, created opportunities for more engaged learning that led to the development of enhanced critical reflective skills. drama-in-education enhances understanding of abstract concepts a number of students commented on the ability of drama-in-education to enhance learning, which enabled them to remember concepts, apply them to real experiences, and embody knowledge. as summed up by s#38, the subject matter of the module as well as the way in which it was presented helped me build a framework in which i learn[ed] how to learn as well as how people think and learn. the drama-in-education exercises enabled the students to gain a better understanding of abstract concepts since it encouraged the application of theory to practice. s#46 described his growth. my knowledge was enhanced tremendously because sometimes the text in the study guides we are given can be difficult for a person like me, who has english as an additional language. the drama-in-education has broken down the content for me, not necessarily in words, but i could understand the gist of the topic through scenes displayed in class. this was discussed further by s#42, who said, the use of dramatisation, enactment and re-enactment clarified all topics covered, which to some extent were abstract concepts. given the different and unique schooling backgrounds we came through and experienced, many times personalising abstract concepts enhanced understanding. embodied learning through drama-in-education led to a narrowing of the theory/practice divide. as s#15 articulated, the use of drama-in-education expanded my knowledge on themes, because rather than having a theory-based approach, we were learning by doing/acting. it required us 66 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 to do extra research and have a more practical approach, which assisted us in remembering the themes. students indicated that drama-in-education has the potential to contribute significantly to clarifying difficult theoretical constructs, to enhancing meaning and understanding, and to supporting learning in the university lecture room. promotes collaborative learning and builds relationships a number of students identified the promotion of collaborative learning and the focus on building relationships as positive features of drama-in-education. collaborative learning led to the development of interpersonal, intercultural, and social competence. s#12 described the advantages of collaborative learning. the drama allowed us as students to know each other by names and learn to work as a team whereby each member has a role to play. since the process was inclusive, it encouraged mastery of learning which heightened understanding. for s#9, drama in the classroom gave me the power to master my own thinking as an individual and together with others—learning from others and others learning from me. it brought the realities of life alive. the opportunity to work collaboratively in diverse groups promoted understanding of diversity because students were able to share ideas and learn from each other. for s#6, being a diverse group, drama equipped us to embrace our diversity individually and as a group and each contact session became a learning to learn experience. students felt that the collaborative learning that stemmed from the drama-in-education processes contributed to their own learning and understanding of issues and challenges. discussion the findings emerging from the study indicate that although students were initially sceptical about the implementation of drama-in-education as pedagogy, on-going exposure made them aware of its inherent value in promoting more engaged teaching and learning. their initial negativity could be ascribed to the significance they accorded to knowledge as an instrumental commodity that has value only if it can be applied to one’s workplace, one’s professional development, or graduate study socialisation (wagner & shahjahan, 2015). in the context of the pre-service teacher education programme, the implementation of novel strategies such as drama-in-education, which can lead to ambiguity, could be interpreted as ineffective teaching, or as the teacher not doing his or her job in bridging theory and practice. this kind of thinking tends to view the construction of knowledge in reductionist ways. in the context of this study the implementation of an unfamiliar pedagogical practice such as dramaathiemoolam: the value of drama-in-education as a decolonising pedagogy . . . 67 in-education to teach a third-year education module challenges students to engage beyond the traditional boundaries of academic practices and explore issues beyond a solely intellectual frame of reference. the most significant finding arising from this study is that students’ understanding of concepts such as humanising pedagogy, social justice, diversity, and hegemony was enhanced through their drama-in-education experiences. in their roles as both participants and viewers, through the embodied learning, the students acquired a depth of understanding of abstract concepts. there was a realisation that the humanising pedagogy involved “different ways of teaching” (s#55), sharing power with learners and not being the “power source” (s#20); that hegemony leads to “inequality in the system based on power”(s#18), and that diversity is not only limited to race and class so we should make provision for linguistic diversity, too (s#36 and s#23). in the context of this study the students were able to disrupt, transform, and play with meanings that may be more difficult to access and convey through dialogue only (wagner & shahjahan, 2015). the mere act of embodying particular forms of privilege or oppression in their roles as either humanising or dehumanising teachers, for example, enhanced their understanding of what it means to be a humanising teacher and to reflect on the kind of teachers they would like to be (s#63, s#55, and s#40). embodied learning through drama-in-education enabled students to explore “the shifting and contextual ways that they experience privilege and, more precisely, how privileges are afforded based on race, gender, class or sexuality and are made manifest in relation to, and in conjunction with, other aspects of identity within context-specific ways” (zingsheim & goltz, 2011, p. 230). according to these scholars, when students are able to explore multiple entry points from a variety of embodied and lived experiences they gain deeper insights into pressing educational challenges and this was certainly true for my students. a prominent theme that emerged from my findings relates to the value of drama-in-education as pedagogy that promotes multiple ways of seeing and learning. the collaborative meaning-making enabled students to become “open-minded” (s#10), “[think] broader and [in] more complex [ways]” (s#8), and be accepting of “different interpretations” (s#30). the drama-in-education process also promoted collaboration which led to active meaningmaking and enhanced learning. this is borne out by excerpts from students’ written accounts such as the one that mentioned “mastering my own thinking in collaboration with others” (s#9) and the one that explained, “we helped each other to understand the [themes]” (s#12). according to adomat (2009) the social negotiation aspect of drama-in-education provides ample opportunities for embodied performance, enhanced meaning-making, and deepening insights, thereby facilitating the critical engagement so important to freire (1983). the findings also indicated that the incorporation of students’ lived experiences through “using everyday situations” (s#6) and integrating content into “[their] everyday lives” (s#28) led to embodied learning. the opportunities for embodied learning opened up perceptual possibilities that enabled the students “to feel more, sense more and be more consciously in the world” (green, 2001, p. 10). in this way students felt more empowered to use their own 68 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 language and to share their own cultural practices, both of which led to collaborative meaning-making. in exploring possibilities and choices relating to the creation of their drama-in-education presentations students were afforded opportunities to reflect on this “make believe” world themselves within the “real world” (o’neill & lambert, 1990, p. 11). in this way according to van der berg, coetzee, & munro (2014) participants could fluctuate between “empathetic involvement” and “objective detachment” (p. 224) which produces two modes of learning— the “participant-in-role looking from the inside out and that of the spectator participant looking from the outside in” (munro & coetzee, 2007, p. 100) that allow for embodied understanding, critical thought, and layered reflection. by working with our bodies in the classroom we can “open up experiential enquiry among our students and ourselves about how our everyday practices are linked to discursive mechanisms of power” (harman & french, 2004, p. 4). in this way, according to hooks, (1994) we challenge how power is established and entrenched in institutions of learning. until the body in play is afforded an important space in educational institutions (hooks, 1994; warren, 1999), we continue to support the status quo characterised by disembodied and hierarchical teaching practices. the findings of my study indicate that the use of decolonising thought, through the medium of drama-in-education, challenges traditional colonial forms of knowledge production that privilege rationality and disembodiment consistent with eurocentric systems of thought (dei, 2000; shahjahan, 2014). as pedagogy, drama-in-education subverts the traditional notion of education in that it affords students the opportunity to create their own contexts for learning, use their bodies to co-create their lived experiences through enactment, and critically reflect on these experiences. this correlates with freire’s (1983) conceptualisation of action and reflection and his critique of the banking system of learning. conclusion the findings arising from this small-scale study indicate that drama-in-education, as a decolonising pedagogy, has a constructive contribution to make in enhancing pre-service student teachers’ understanding of critical reflective teaching and learning. furthermore, in the context of this study, as highlighted by students, it has the potential to promote multiple perspectives of reality, collaborative and embodied learning, and critical engagement with abstract concepts. the embodied strategies such as tableaus, improvisations, and role plays have a significant contribution to make in education since they have the potential to stimulate critical engagement with key issues confronting education such as social justice, power, and privilege. as a field, drama pedagogy has a rich tradition of seminal works by boal (1979), wagner (1979), heathcote & bolton (1995) and others that have their origin in the 1960s. any current desire among educators to transform their practice with a view to implementing more critical reflective pedagogies to decolonise their teaching will place drama-in-education athiemoolam: the value of drama-in-education as a decolonising pedagogy . . . 69 at the forefront because of its potential to stimulate embodied learning through critical engagement. as a decolonising pedagogy drama-in-education creates ample opportunities for the lecturer to share power with his or her students so that their voices can be heard; the roles of the lecturers and students need to be adapted and transformed if constructive meaning-making is to be realised. this implies that lecturers need to accept their liberatory and constructivist roles and not perceive themselves as giving up their power; they need to be, as described by stylslinger (2000), “humble, flexible, co-operative and receptive” (p. 192). implementing drama-in-education as an anti-oppressive pedagogy enables one to move beyond traditional eurocentric paradigms, unsettling dominant tropes and work towards incorporating a more holistic decolonised approach that acknowledges multiple worldviews. building on theorising established by freire (1998) and dewey (1934) drama-in-education challenges the artificial construction of the mind-body split and has the potential to deconstruct thinking steeped in eurocentric paradigms and unexamined systems of privilege (wagner & shahjahan, 2015). this approach encompasses an acknowledgement that diverse systems of knowledge exist and holistic learning requires us to redefine power relations in the university lecture room so that the interconnected relationship between students, their peers, the lecturer, and their broader social and cultural environments can be foregrounded. the achievement of this ideal requires a pedagogy that moves beyond psychologically informed approaches that privilege the individualistic learner and his or her mind. it is in this context that drama-in-education offers the possibility for the promotion of embodied, collaborative learning through artsbased strategies such as tableaus, improvisations, and role plays. references adomat, d. s. 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(2011). the intersectional workings of whiteness: a representative anecdote. review of education, pedagogy and cultural studies, 33(3), 215–241. microsoft word b8400 fullissue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 84, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i84a11 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x early childhood teachers’ and managers’ lived experiences of the covid-19 pandemic in south africa hasina banu ebrahim department of early childhood education, college of education, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa ebrahhb@unisa.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7896-2598 colwyn martin foundation studies division, wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa colwyn.martin@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1338-9217 lorayne excell foundation studies division, wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa lorayne.excell@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6798-5930 (received: 7 march 2021; accepted: 26 june 2021) abstract the declaration of covid-19 as a global pandemic by the world health organisation in march 2020 brought many changes to the early childhood sector internationally. the south african response is best understood in the context of an under-developed sector with pre-existing vulnerabilities. in this article, we present a contextual understanding of the lived experiences of early childhood development (ecd) teachers and managers during the lockdown and the opening phases of a risk-adjusted approach. our use of a phenomenological lens together with systems theory provides a reality check through a focus on lived experiences. data were produced through an online survey with 28 ecd teachers and managers. we conducted semi-structured interviews with a subset of 8 of these participants. findings show that disruptions of covid-19 led to entrenching inequities in service provision and early learning opportunities. these intersecting dimensions have implications for building effective ecd systems. keywords: covid-19, south africa, early childhood education, teachers, lived experiences, early childhood systems, equity ebrahim et al.: early childhood teachers’ and managers’ lived experiences . . . 205 introduction the early childhood development (ecd) sector inclusive of early care and learning has experienced the pervasive repercussions of covid-19. vulnerable families experienced the discontinuity of early childhood centre-based programmes. in south africa it is reported that an estimated 1 million children were out of ecd programmes (wills et al., 2020). this meant compromises in health, nutrition, safety, security, and early learning opportunities in ecd especially for the most marginalised children. also of concern was the plight of the teachers and managers responsible for offering ecd services and supporting early learning. taking into account that ecd is a complex sector, in this article we explore teachers’ and managers’ lived experiences for a more nuanced understanding of experiences in the sector. internationally, the perspective of ecd personnel on the impact of covid-19 has come to the fore through rapid surveys. of significance to the context of this study, is the asia-pacific (ap) and sub-saharan african (ssa) rapid survey on the situational realities of teachers and managers. (rothman et al., 2020). a total of 2,040 responses from 34 countries in ap and 1,480 responses from 31 countries in ssa showed that both teachers and managers experienced fundamental shifts in their teaching responsibilities amid concerns related to job security. only 9% in ap and 22% in ssa of teachers in the study were trained in distance learning before the pandemic. approximately 3% and 18% of managers in ap and ssa respectively had training in crisis management. in order to keep learning and communication going, respondents used mobile messengers, social media, and other apps to keep in touch with parents. this was problematic especially for ssa where over 60% of the respondents did not have effective strategies for continuity of learning. this was attributed to challenges related to data, equipment, training, and geographical isolation of early childhood centres. in south africa, it is imperative to understand the plight of the ecd personnel in the light of under-developed systems, under-qualification, and the inequities that implicate mostly black african women. the lack of targeted relief packages, specifically considering the realities of ecd personnel, led to mobilisations from the non-government sector. two rapid surveys were conducted as baselines for action during the hard lockdown and opening phases. both surveys contributed to understanding the sustainability of services and learning continuity through distance modes. the first survey (bridge et al., 2020a) of 3,952 ecd operators in april 2020 showed that 99% were concerned about the lack of parent fees, while 83% highlighted their inability to pay full salaries. the re-opening of the centres was also problematic. in august 2020, 4,500 providers participated in a second survey (bridge et al., 2020b). these findings showed that 68% found it difficult to re-open their centres. they could not afford the new health and hygiene equipment because of the lack of financial reserves and parent fees especially in the context of disadvantage. conversely, the ecd teachers and managers in wealthier communities were able to bounce back and provide early learning continuity through digital learning that included parental participation and monitoring (martin et al., forthcoming). this state of affairs highlights the inequities that are detrimental to those on the margins. 206 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 in this article, we focus on the lived experiences of ecd teachers and managers in order to unpack the impact of the pandemic during the closure and opening phases of the risk-adjusted approach. we were particularly interested in how the new demands, brought on by the pandemic, were negotiated during this time. this study is part of a larger project on ecd capacity building and access. its particular contribution lies in providing contextual understandings of ecd to inform teacher education. snapshots of both the advantaged and disadvantaged contexts are presented to show contrasts, synergies, dilemmas, and struggles. the notions of advantaged and disadvantaged are conceptualised in terms of quality programmes and services that include both human and material resources and support (britto et al., 2011). we believe that tapping into the micro-realities of ecd teachers and managers is imperative if we are to highlight the under-investment in ecd and to advocate for systemsbuilding to better serve the needs of those in this sector. covid-19: a compounded crisis for ecd in south africa since the study is about lived experiences, to gain contextual understandings we present the historical, political, economic, and human resource dimensions to show the overall crisis in ecd. this then flows into a discussion of the compounded crises in the sector in pandemic times. a historical perspective on ecd in south africa shows the crisis elements that have impacted negatively on the sector. ebrahim (2010), in her analysis of three shifts in the early years, showed how the racial divisions created a two-tier system prior to 1994. stimulating early learning opportunities based on western models of play and school readiness were more available for white children in government-funded pre-primary centres that targeted 3to 5year-olds. there was limited provision for all other race groups, of which black african children were the most disadvantaged. the practice of custodial care was rampant for children of colour. the government viewed early education as the responsibility of parents. hence, minimal investments were made for children and their families (webber, 1978). the best teacher training to support ecd was on offer to white teachers in training colleges while the non-government organisations (ngos) took responsibility for early childhood teacher training through donor funding (department of education, 2001). the democratic political turn in 1994 resulted in greater efforts towards equity, access, and redress. the concept of preschool education gave way to ecd that focuses on holistic child development (department of education, 1995) including early learning for children from birth to 9 years of age. the pre-grade r early childhood sector catering for children from birth to 4 years of age continues to pose challenges. the national integrated ecd (niecd) policy (department of social development and unicef 2015) has the ambitious aim of transforming ecd service delivery to address the gap in universally available equitable services. from an economic perspective, there is a mismatch between the funding strategies and infrastructure to support the aim of the niecd. the ngos sometimes partner with government and continue to deliver ecd programmes with limited funding. in the absence of adequate subsidies to community-based early learning sites, most rely on parent fees. while ebrahim et al.: early childhood teachers’ and managers’ lived experiences . . . 207 this is affordable for those in well-resourced households, it is problematic for families living in poverty. the mushrooming of private providers with business orientations and unregistered sites continues to be a feature. the latter are difficult to trace since they operate outside of the regulatory framework of the children’s act 38 (republic of south africa, 2005) and the service guidelines (department of social development – city of cape town, 2015). from a human resource perspective, ecd fails to attract high quality personnel although many are attracted to the foundation phase. this is because of the lack of status and the under-development of a robust system to professionalise the field. also of concern is the under-qualification of both teachers and managers in the sector. the ecd audit (department of social development and economic policy research unit, 2014) showed that the majority of teachers (90%) were black women. personnel qualifications were lacking. in registered ecd sites, approximately 35% of the managers and 40% of the teachers had not completed grade 12. only 43% of managers and 30% of teachers had ecd certificates at any level. specialisation in ecd is problematic: 37% of managers had no ecd specialisation and 55% of the teachers did not hold formal qualifications. the discussion on the historical, political, economic, and human resource dimensions shows vulnerabilities that led to a compounded crisis during the pandemic. research continues to highlight the challenges that implicate teachers and managers such as those involved in digital learning, the plight of at-risk children, and the need for urgent government action. for learning continuity through digital modes, a variety of resources was developed for young children. ebrahim (2020) noted that the effectiveness of these resources as pedagogical support must be viewed through the lens of teacher capacity for offering psychosocial support, digital skills, assessment of learning loss, as well as the ability to work with at-risk children at a distance and engage caregivers as partners. martin et al., (forthcoming) have contended that there are struggles at the frontline as teachers and managers battle with the problems of digital learning, contestations regarding parent participation, and stress. their findings show that those in the disadvantaged context continue to be more vulnerable than their advantaged peers who had better infrastructure for learning continuity prior to the pandemic. the study conducted by koen et al. (2021) revealed the impact of the pandemic on the holistic development of children at-risk in rural ecd centres. their findings showed the need for resources, psychosocial support, and guidelines to address the needs of at-risk children. in addition, there is an urgent need to build teacher resilience and pay attention to building resilient systems that will support them (martin et al., forthcoming). willis et al., (2020) have rightfully pointed out the need for urgent government action to ensure equity, sector survival, and sustainability and, we would add, human resource development. advocacy campaigns by organisations such as real reform have drawn attention to different avenues for action and continue to contest government responsiveness to realities facing the sector. this small-scale study offers insights into issues that add to the call to action for ecd. 208 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 theoretical framework this study is informed by phenomenology and systems thinking. lived experience is understood in the context of the philosophy and methodology of phenomenology. streubert and carpenter (1995) viewed phenomenology as a science. vagle (2014, pp. 11–12) expanded its definition to include “an encounter, a way of living and a craft” and we found this definition more appropriate to this article since it allowed for a stronger interpretive dimension of human experience to come to the fore. the concept of being-in-the-world as foundational to human existence is relevant to this study. heidegger (1927/2011) explained that being-in is more about the formal side of an existential expression. for him, dasein refers to the ways in which being is peculiar to human beings in that while we are ultimately alone our being alive is related to the existence of others. dasein, or being-in-the-world, is considered to be an essential state. in this article, being-in-the-world is viewed as connectedness in that the practice of the ecd personnel is seen to be interconnected to the broader conditions that make certain things possible. the lived experiences of the ecd personnel illuminate realities in pandemic times during which inequities and systemic under-development have shown their negative impacts. the frontline actions presented to us through the teachers’ and managers’ experiences are linked to macro-realities at systems level. what the teachers and managers reported is not just about what was happening to them in a narrow sense. rather, in line with the notion of dasein, we view these as partial results of a variety of complex elements at play within an ecd system. systems theory views all phenomena (including ecd) as having relationships among many parts that together make up a system (lazlo, 1996). the parts do not have meaning on their own, but they interact with other parts, and this makes it possible to identify patterns that provide insights into complexities and help to unravel the nuances. in the case of ecd, the science, policies, and practice can be viewed as parts of a system that should work together when programmes in education, social development, and health are integrated for service provision to support holistic child development. comprehensive programmes together with supportive institutional elements (governance, funding, human resources, quality controls, and family engagements) are crucial to shaping the conditions for quality ecd. kagan et al. (2016), in their exploration of systems theory and thinking in specifically early childhood education (ece), contended that in order to achieve successful child and family outcomes it is critical to focus on equity, quality, and sustainability as dimensions of effective ece systems. equity is about resource allocation spanning a period of time to allow for different sectors, different geographical locations, and populations of different age groups to access opportunities to address the deprivations experienced (world bank, 2006). the poor and the disadvantaged require more targeted resources to address their unmet needs. as noted previously, quality refers to attributes of ecd programmes, the service provider, and the staff (kagan et al., 2016). the main concern is about how the human resources support families and their children. sustainability refers to the financial, political, and contextual aspects that ebrahim et al.: early childhood teachers’ and managers’ lived experiences . . . 209 assist systems to function well over a period of time and adapt to changes taking place in the political, economic, and environmental arenas of influence (kagan et al., 2016). in this article, systems theory and the three-pronged concerns for effective ecd systems allows us to use the teachers’ and managers' lived experiences in their micro-realities to broaden discussion on the conditions that have shaped ecd during pandemic times. methodology following yin (2014), the phenomenological lens made the qualitative approach an obvious choice. purposive sampling was suitable for the study. participants were drawn from the greater johannesburg metropolitan area that included advantaged as well as disadvantaged contexts situated in suburban, township, and informal settlements. selection criteria included centre-based teachers and managers who facilitated care and early learning for children between the ages of 1 and 5 years. participants had to have a recognised ecd qualification that ranged from the minimum level 4 ecd qualification to a bachelor of education degree. 1 it was assumed that these participants had the basic competence to engage with early learning and care issues. data collection proved to be challenging since the traditional face-to-face interview could not be implemented because of covid-19 restrictions. distance-oriented approaches (tuttas, 2015) enabled us to address some of these limitations. woodyatt et al. (2016) noted that online platforms allow for participants to generate shorter substantive responses in a safe and less threatening environment. we used an online survey through google forms and video conferencing through zoom and whatsapp interviews. the online survey was conducted first. a structured questionnaire was sent to 28 participants who had previously given their written consent. the surveys provided rich data on how ecd teachers and managers made meaning of their experiences and material practices (see braun et al., 2020). we made a methodological choice to “treat, and work with the data as one cohesive dataset, coding and developing analytic patterns across the entire dataset” (braun et al., 2020, p. 10). this initial interpretive analysis allowed for preliminary analytical interests and thoughts to come to the fore. thereafter, we purposively selected eight participants for individual online semi-structured interviews. three participants opted for a zoom interview and five chose a whatsapp voice call. the choice of eight participants was based on their responses to the survey that gave initial insights into their challenges along with their responsiveness to these. the semi-structured interviews enabled further clarification and a deepening and extension of their responses in the survey. the semi-structured interview schedule was comprised of broad themes that had questions about teaching and learning, service provision support, parental engagement, their 1 a level 4 ecd qualification is recognised as an entry level qualification into the ecd field (south african qualifications authority, 2007). 210 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 feelings during the covid-19 pandemic, along with a request for suggestions on the way forward for handling uncertain and complex situations. we adapted braun and clarke’s (2006) six phases of thematic analysis. phase 1 required that we familiarise ourselves with the different data sets. in order to become more familiar with the data, we embarked on preliminary acts for “rich interpretation” (lapadat & lindsay, 1999, p. 69). we transcribed participants’ responses verbatim to ensure that actual utterances informed our thinking. in phase 2, we identified initial codes and organised data into meaningful groups informed by the interview questions. phase 3 was comprised of searching for codes across both data sets and identifying probable themes. in phase 4, we revised the themes (see patton, 1990) and in phase 5 we consolidated these into five themes. in this article we report on two of these. our reasons for this choice were two-fold: first, we were informed by the aim of this article which was to tap into the lived experiences of ecd teachers and managers; and second, we were constrained by the space limits of this article. in phase 6, we made particular choices about the arrangement of the themes to support our arguments. we recognised that many ecd teachers struggle with online communication. we thus made additional efforts to ensure that all participants understood what we were asking and also made sure that they felt comfortable enough to clarify any uncertainties. we were fortunate that all our participants were comfortable with responding in english. the ethics application was obtained for a larger project on capacity building and access programme support at unisa. 2 the study contributes to contextual understandings that will assist in capacity building efforts for teacher education (see martin et al., forthcoming). the online survey included consent forms and consent was renegotiated for the semi-structured interviews. participants were also assured of confidentiality and that their participation was voluntary. findings we discuss the findings in two themes related to service provision support and early learning. service provision support: continuities and discontinuities service provision support must be understood within the broader context of covid-19 in an emerging public sector riddled with inequities. researchers have noted that the pandemic has highlighted structural inequalities and “numerous fault lines” in the ecd sector (haffajee & levine, 2020 p. 1). despite the minister of social development (dosd) having praised “sector-wide co-ordination and collaboration” support from dosd in pandemic times, in many of the provinces, this has been “invisible at best and obstructive at worst” (vorster, 2020, p. 1). 2 unisa stands for the university of south africa, a distance higher education institution. ebrahim et al.: early childhood teachers’ and managers’ lived experiences . . . 211 the above can be understood in terms of weak systems, inadequate policy implementation, and a lack of adequate investment in a field experiencing existing inequities. for example, participants 1, 3, 6, 9, and 13 said that they had not received a salary because centres had shut down and no monies had been received from parents. participant 10 supported these claims and added that “there was no support at all from any ngos or government.” this lack of support was echoed by participants 19, 23, and 25. participants 21 and 22 commented that “everything stopped.” only participants 8 and 23 mentioned that they had received some form of relief such as an unemployment insurance fund (uif) pay-out. giese (2020) noted that the registration of the ecd workforce with the uif is rare, and this makes it difficult for them to access any financial support when job losses occur. however, participants who worked in advantaged contexts continued to receive their full salary. participant 5 said, “no salaries were cut as we continued to work online” while for participant 18, “funds were still received from families and i was able to draw my salary and pay my employee.” covid-19 also exposed vulnerabilities in the social, digital, and economic ecd systems that, in turn, impacted on the kinds of provision that were offered to children and parents. advantaged ecd centres had multiple levels of support. these included financial and digital resources and strong leadership to support the shift to online teaching and learning. the teachers and children in the advantaged contexts were well equipped with the necessary digital infrastructure, digital devices, and human resources to cope with online learning. furthermore, strong leadership at the centres revealed a sustainable approach to change in that focused attention was brought to people, systems, and processes that opened possibilities and continuities for learning (see douglass, 2017). participant 5 said, we received support from the academic team at head office and the principal . . . they organised training for online teaching, and we were provided with learning guidelines so that we were all teaching the same things, across the board. additionally, the strong leadership ensured that teachers were supported in adjusting to what became known as the new normal. as participant 5 commented, “she [the principal] organised online learning training sessions for us and made sure that we had all the resources that we needed to plan and implement our online programme.” at the centre where participant 2 taught, the principal was responsive to issues at both the microand macro-level, hence service provisioning was made possible. as she explained, she set up a covid team who explained all the protocols that had to be followed . . . the team helped us to set up our online learning lessons . . . helped with our planning for online teaching . . . they helped us to continue with our teaching. for participant 18, support came from “an ecd group that we formed with teachers from other centres because we couldn’t really rely on government.” this statement highlights the non-responsiveness of government and shows how this participant had to build trusting and reciprocal relationships with peers in the community. this participant went on to say, “because we couldn’t really rely on government, we looked for an approach that would work 212 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 best for us . . . this local community communication and networking became an important source of support.” the lack of support from government had a greater impact on ecd centres in vulnerable communities. while the advantaged sector was able to absorb the shocks created by the pandemic, many of the participants in disadvantaged contexts struggled to respond to the new demands brought about by it. they had to access outside support to ensure continuity of service provisioning. for example, participant 24 received support from the training centre where she was studying towards an improved ecd qualification. she said, “they trained me on the different covid protocols that we had to put in place, and they also gave me data to update my principal with the covid protocols.” her principal also “got support from a nonprofit organisation . . . [that] gave us sanitisers [and] learning materials and trained us on how to follow the protocols.” she talked further about the support they received from “a nurse from the community who organised sanitisers for us and told of us about the meetings about covid-19 that [were] held in the community.” participant 1 received support from a social worker in the community who “checked if we were compliant; they advised us about some changes we had to make. we were issued with a compliance certificate.” however, participant 24 commented that she and others experienced difficulties in having support take effect. she said, but it was hard because we had to wait . . . wait for the donations, wait for the information, we had to wait for parents to pay fees, we had to wait for everything, and this was very bad. we wanted to open in september, but we had to wait for social development to come and check the centre to see if were following protocols. unlike some healthcare services and education in schooling, ecd services are poorly financed by the government. they rely largely on parent fees and, for some, a small government subsidy to cover daily running costs and salaries of staff. participant 24 said, “because most of the children were not coming to school, parents didn’t pay fees, the principal had to let some of the teachers go.” for participant 10 (the principal), the lockdown not only removed the small government subsidy that she received from dosd, but it also increased expenses. she explained, i had to use my own money to buy [personal protective equipment] ppe and covid19 learning materials for children and [their] parents. i had to buy masks, charts, sanitisers, and plastic to cover the children’s tables . . . it was very hard. according to the south african childcare association (2020), subsidy distributions are problematic in covid-19 times; they have been withheld. because of a lack of consistent government support, some of the ecd centres procured support from the ngo sector. participant 25 said that they received support from the south african childcare forum in the form of “workshops with not only covid related [material] but also in other fields of teaching and learning. our principal also organised training for online teaching.” participant 1 attended “online covid-19 training by x t early care ebrahim et al.: early childhood teachers’ and managers’ lived experiences . . . 213 foundation . . . we were given more knowledge and better understanding about the virus and how to prepare our centre for re-opening, e.g., fumigation [and] social distancing.” participant 25 mentioned that the kind of support they received from the ngo centred around “covid-19 protocols, how to get the centre covid compliant and knowledge around preparing for re-opening of the centre.” participants in more advantaged contexts mentioned that while they did not receive adequate support from government, parents stepped in to effect the changes that had to be made for the continuity of service provision. ecd centres in advantaged contexts already had basic channels of communication and support in place. the teachers procured support from parents via whatsapp group chats, email, and newsletters. participant 2 commented, “parents were grateful for the help with their children’s learning during lockdown and they were always willing to help . . . but then we have had their support.” participant 18 said that “parents continued to pay normal school fees, and this allowed for the running of the centre.” participant 25 also formed a “whatsapp group chat with parents and this made it easier to communicate with them and get their support.” equally, in disadvantaged contexts, teachers made attempts to garner support from parents via whatsapp and messaging. in participant 24’s context, parents wanted continuity of learning. as she indicated, they contributed financial and physical support. most of the support was from the parents especially financially because they wanted to make sure that their children were safe. they bought health and safety equipment like face shields for the children and equipment like ppe, cleaning materials, and table dividers for the children . . . they also came to check that we had everything in place before we opened the centre. they made sure that we were social distancing and doing the correct procedures at the entrance of the centre. early learning: continuities, discontinuities, and adaptations it was evident in the study that early learning was an arena of many uncertainties. even though 80% of centres have partially re-opened since the easing of the hard lockdown, children attending these centres appeared to have access to limited early learning opportunities. only 15% of the centres were able to adapt their programmes effectively to offer meaningful learning opportunities to children through varied modes of delivery. centres that were unable to access sufficient resources to re-open constituted 5%. meaningful interactions with parents and their children ceased during the initial phase of hard lockdown when centres closed. of the participants, 68% felt powerless and helpless. participant 24 said, “i have found this lockdown very hard. it changed my life in so many ways because i had to worry about my home life and my teaching job . . . i felt helpless.” participant 10 commented, “i felt overwhelmed and helpless thinking that no one cares about ecd in south africa.” others, once the initial paralysis had worn off, began to make attempts to contact parents to promote some continuity of ecd provision and 76% of participants were able to keep in contact with their colleagues and parents via whatsapp 214 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 groups but they were not able to adapt their programme to offer some alternative mode of learning to the children. the communication channels that they established proved to be invaluable when their centres re-opened. in centres where staff had minimal or no contact with parents during the hard lockdown it became difficult to plan for re-opening. only 15% of participants (predominantly those from the more advantaged contexts) were able to access additional support and implement alternative possibilities for learning continuity; they replaced contact teaching with some form of online teaching either through zoom, microsoft teams meetings, or whatsapp. participant 18 sent voice messages that parents could replay to their children. this enabled her to connect with the children and it enhanced the learning relationship. she said, “i think it really helped.” participant 25 made use of online video lessons so that children could connect with her visually and both parents and children found this stimulating. this relational connectedness helped to further the early learning of children then and later supported both the planning to re-open as well as the actual re-opening of the centre. in this way participants were able to build a sense of stability and relational connectedness and enhance learning, all of which facilitated the planning for and re-opening of their centres. adapting to an online mode of delivery proved challenging. participants 2, 5, 18, and 25 maintained that parental participation was identified as an essential element to ensure the successful continuity of early learning, especially with the younger children. participants found it difficult to decide which content to share online and the type of activities to do with the children to keep them focused and attentive during screen time. participants 2 and 5 were given outcomes by the academic head of their institution and were then required to “develop lessons around these outcomes.” a supportive resource for these participants was a choice box that was shared with parents. this was comprised of extension activities that they could do with their children. participant 18 said that she supplemented the online teaching with activity packs that were sent to all children. where parents were not able to fetch these packs, she dropped them off at the children’s homes. these strategies also enabled parents to work with their children at times convenient for the family and so promoted the extension of the learning programme. where there was continuity of teaching and learning all participants acknowledged that the learning space changed in that they had to adapt their homes into classrooms. as participant 25 noted, “it’s not easy to turn your house into a classroom by night but we tried.” participant 18 mentioned that through online teaching she and the parents “[had] become closer.” parents, for example, witnessed teaching in real-time and the shift that happened from teachers and children interacting to teachers, children, and parents doing so. however, for participant 5, “parent participation became a barrier rather than an enabler of children’s learning as often the parents did the work for their children.” participants 5 and 18 noted that not all parents were willing or able to support their children’s learning. some had time constraints and for others the learning needs of older siblings were seen as the priority. a further challenge to the successful implementation of online learning included connectivity ebrahim et al.: early childhood teachers’ and managers’ lived experiences . . . 215 issues and ensuring the availability of sufficient data for both teachers and parents to engage online. as already mentioned, most of the teachers were not able to make a successful shift from face-to-face to online learning. even when centres re-opened, participants found it very challenging. participant 24 acknowledged that it was very difficult, learning became slow, and children were not coming every day. i couldn’t do the same things that i did before because i was not teaching my same group. i found that learning was not fun like before because i had other groups that i was teaching. she found it harder to communicate with both parents and children and, as a result, there was a discontinuity of conventional learning especially in relation to the delivery of the daily programme. however, some participants (1,12, and 21) made attempts to continue with the daily programme. they sang songs, recited rhymes, and read stories. even in difficult circumstances there was a realisation from some teachers that interactive, concrete-based learning was an important early learning approach to ensure learning continuity. but for the majority the emphasis was on teaching and implementing health protocols and ensuring that children and parents were compliant with the protocols. the daily programme revolved around teaching and reinforcing health protocols to the exclusion of any other learning goals. participant 10 mentioned, i am teaching my kids to wash their hands more often and regularly, for example after using the toilet, before eating and after eating. they must always cover their mouth and nose with their elbows while coughing instead of using their hands. i have taught them social distancing between each other and not to share anything with others before it is sanitised by the teacher. this transcript highlights how changes in the daily routines became the focus of alterations made to the learning programme. participants 1, 10, 15, 21, and 23 ensured that there was an increase in hand washing and sanitizing to prevent the spread of the virus among the children. the content change was to educate the children about covid-19 protocols. this included explanations to children of why they could not play in groups. participants appeared to show a blind acceptance of these health protocols with an overemphasis on the teaching and/or sharing of them with both the children and the parents. peer and collaborative learning were also inhibited because of the strict adherence to social distancing. participant 1 also mentioned the reluctance of staff to let children play either outdoors or with their toys. this strict adherence to implementing covid-19 protocols was driven by concerns about the children’s safety as well as the realisation that if teachers were not cautious there would be a lack of demand for the ecd service as well as the threat of closure if the centres were noncompliant. these challenges were fuelled by a lack of adequate learning materials and limited financial support to buy data and ppe. 216 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 participants found it difficult to adapt to the covid-19 requirements and offer a successful and stimulating early learning programme at the same time. consequently, the demand for a quality programme decreased. this was further exacerbated by parents being scared to send their children to the ecd centres along with massive job losses which meant that out-of home childcare became unaffordable. some parents, according to participants 1,10, and 24 also contracted covid-19 and were therefore unable to attend to childcare. in addition, parents acknowledged that they had competing priorities. for example, participant 25 recalled a parent saying, “older children need more attention than the younger children.” participant 18 noted that a parent said, “i don’t have the time to work with my youngest child.” discussion the lived experiences of the teachers and managers in the context of the pandemic show how the pre-existing crisis, related to the lack of a government led ecd system, precipitated vulnerabilities. this raises concerns for equity, quality, and sustainability in ecd. kirby (2020), in her discussion of the disruptions of the pandemic at the frontline in education, showed how affluent settings were able to migrate to online options with support from parents where possible. she argued that poor countries and communities that were fragile from the beginning, had vastly different experiences. their struggles related to survival that exposed the deficiencies in weak systems. yoshikawa et al. (2020) have called for equity and sustainability to be high on the agenda of governments and ngo partners not just for the current generation but for future ones, too. shared responsibilities and co-ordinated actions are viewed as central to buffer the current crisis and future ones. it is important to read the findings of this study in the context described above. it shows the relative ease with which personnel working in the advantaged contexts were able to migrate to the online environment, earn normal salaries, enable professional support, encourage parental participation, and mobilise leadership. these actions are hallmarks of an assertive community that uses its resources and infrastructure to secure advantage. for them, government support would be a nice-to-have but is not essential since they are able to hold their own in functional market-based models. however, in the disadvantaged contexts the picture is far from promising. ecd centres are staffed by an overwhelming majority of black african women, and some were using their own money to keep their centres open. for these centres, parent fees and a government subsidy are a must-have for sustaining their services. this study further highlights the widening of the gap between the haves and the have-nots which was, of course, a major issue before the pandemic. cooper (2021) in her analysis of provision across income quintiles, showed that children from affluent families are more likely to be enrolled in an early childhood programme. using statistics sa data for 2015 she noted that only 58% of 3to 5year-olds in the poorest quintile, in contrast to 80% in the wealthiest quintile, had access to early childhood programmes. white children still continue to have more access than any other race group. this means that children growing up in vulnerable circumstances are less ebrahim et al.: early childhood teachers’ and managers’ lived experiences . . . 217 likely to enter early childhood programmes while their privileged counterparts flourish with their basic needs already in place. the concerns for quality intersect with concerns for equitable access. the study shows that the pandemic put in place make-shift measures that favoured those in advantaged contexts to keep early learning going. in both contexts, the teachers were responding to parental demands or the lack thereof. there were strategies to encourage parental participation through a variety of means. the lack of strong government support to enable quality was largely absent. hickman and matlhape (2021) stated that where providers position themselves as entrepreneurs with or without limited subsidy support, the government has to assert its role in implementing ecd as a public good with attention to quality. kagan et al., (2016) argue that attaining quality is difficult and we would argue that this is even more so in compounded crisis times. to obviate an ad-hoc approach, attention should be given to seven intersecting production variables: governance; finance; programme quality standards with attention to transitions, assessment data and accountability; human capacity development; family and community engagement; and linkages with external influencers. these variables have received uneven attention. silo functioning has disabled advancement for developing effective systems for sustainable ecd. despite systemic weakness and the absence of a robust government response in times of compounded crisis, this study shows resilience amid the fragile circumstances in which the ecd teachers and managers operate. they were able to access support from online resources, ngos, parents, and members of the community to keep early learning going. they were forced to position themselves as thinking teachers who had to re-organise their daily programmes to accommodate new requirements for health and safety. the challenges experienced caused stress and anxiety and this does indeed draw attention to the kind of teacher who is needed for supporting ecd in uncertain times. the quest to find strategies to address the challenges of the pandemic and to find new ways of doing and thinking is promising for building resilience in the ecd personnel. the way in which the teachers accessed support also showed how social capital can circulate to offer support. this is a promising starting point for sustainable ecd. blom (2021) argues that forums in which a hub of ecd centres represent a community are valuable in forging connections. communities, governments, ngos, and training organisations must come together to support the scaling up of ecd services for sustainability. concluding remarks through an analysis of the lived experiences of ecd teachers and managers in pandemic times, we have shown the struggles, tensions, and affordances of practices that characterised the ecd sector in the closing and re-opening of the centres. through a bottom-up exploration of the state of play in ecd in compounded crisis times, our findings show the repercussions of a weak systems response to ecd. of major concern are the inequities related to early learning and development opportunities for young children and the basic conditions of service support for their teachers and managers in the disadvantaged contexts. these are 218 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 important arenas for consideration in a government led ecd context that connects with capital from civil society as we head towards universal access in the early years. therefore, it is imperative that a whole society and whole government approach as twala (2021) has pointed out, is set in motion. this must begin with a clear understanding of the landscape of ecd with its interventions and its implications for effective systems building in the new normal. the collective effort among partners has the potential to work from a shared vision and reduce polarisations that are counter-productive to achieving sustainable ecd within a rights-based framework. the study is limited to a small sample in gauteng. future research on ecd systems building in pandemic and post-pandemic times could include large-scale studies directed towards producing evidence to harmonise systems in a fragmented sector. references blom, j. 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(2020). effects of the global coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic on early childhood development: shortand long-term risks and mitigating program and policy actions. the journal of pediatrics, 22(3), 189–193. journal of education, 2018 issue 74, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe editorial labby ramrathan school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa ramrathanp@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9963-0675 petro du preez school of professional studies in education, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa petro.dupreez@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9100-6461 lesley le grange department of curriculum studies, faculty of education, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa llg@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7096-3609 as an intellectual field, curriculum studies in south africa is fragmented and in its infancy (see pinar, 2010). there are no journals or conferences dedicated to curriculum studies and much of the scholarly work that has been produced on matters related to curriculum in postapartheid south africa has focused on policy making and implementation, giving rise to what pinar (2011) calls “the problem of proximity” (p. 106). the upshot of all this is a field that is under-developed with practitioners not always able to address the curriculum issues that need to be discussed. this special issue on curriculum studies is the first one to be produced by the special interest group (sig) of the south african education research association (saera). the sig was established in 2014 so as to advance the field in south africa. in line with the saera 2017 conference theme of decolonisation, the focus of the sig meeting was on the decolonising of the curriculum. what emerged from these deliberations was the need to explore the points of dissonance and resonance between and among constructs such as africanisation, indigenisation, and internationalisation that are often bandied around loosely in conversations on decolonisation. we believe that exploring the nexus between and among these constructs could contribute to reimagining the field of curriculum studies in south africa. for this special issue we were looking for papers whose authors might advance the discipline of curriculum studies while taking cognisance of the current discourses and debates relating to binaries, contestations, illuminations, and possibilities. internationalisation, indigenisation, decolonisation, and africanisation are shaping debates in education globally and locally. contributors were invited to complexify, demystify, and disrupt discourses such as those 2 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 surrounding internationalisation, indigenisation, decolonisation, africanisation, and other related concepts as they relate to curriculum studies. twenty-four authors submitted abstracts in response to the call for papers and fourteen were invited to submit full papers. we considered philosophical and empirical articles that employed a variety of methodologies in the focal areas of higher and teacher education, science and mathematics education, and schooling. following the process of double-blind review, six of these papers were accepted for publication. an additional paper that was submitted to the journal of education’s special conference issue (no. 72) was included here because of its strong alignment with the theme of the special issue. in the first article le grange explores the conceptual connections between and among the constructs of africanisation, decolonisation, indigenisation, and internationalisation and how this conceptual work might open up ways for re-imagining the field of curriculum studies in south africa through the notion of curriculum as complicated conversation. he points out that the advancement of the field in south africa is dependent on curriculum scholars engaging in such complicated conversations. for le grange, scholars should be committed to exploring and participating in the intellectual life of the field, even if such commitment is done in disagreement with others. du preez’s article deals with the complicated relationship between the decolonisation and internationalisation of university curricula. she argues that decolonisation and internationalisation are not opposites and that there are constructive contentions between the two once we think about the transformative potential of university curricula. to further her argument, she draws on rosi braidotti’s the posthuman (2013). she argues that the ontology, epistemology, and ethics of undergraduate university curricula should be considered carefully if we are to bring about meaningful transformation in higher education institutions. maistry and david, in their article, review extracts from four grade 12 economics textbooks used in schools. they suggest that the screening of textbooks by the state for use in schools focuses largely on ensuring that no overt prejudices relating to race and gender, for example, are apparent while their covert ideological hegemony goes unchallenged. in an examination of the discourses of globalisation in these economics text books, maistry and david discuss how such discourses perpetuate neoliberalism and its practice as normal and acceptable. ronicka mudaly explores how western epistemic frameworks normalise the current preservice science education curriculum. in her process of disrupting this normalising discourse, she called on an indigenous knowledge expert to teach her pre-service teachers who then also created and maintained a garden of useful medicinal plants. this initiative demonstrated how indigenous knowledge can be integrated into the formal curriculum. the responses of these pre-service teachers to mudaly’s questionnaire showed that by consciously endorsing indigenous knowledge systems in having them taught by an expert in this area she had shown them the value of integrating these systems into the curriculum. ramrathan, du preez and le grange: editorial 3 writing in relation to the higher education curriculum, vimolan mudaly argues for a reorientation away from western knowledge systems that devalue indigenous african people. he argues against the heavy reliance on colonial ideals that has come to dominate the higher education curriculum. in his attempt to have his postgraduate education students indigenise the teaching and learning of mathematics, he had 20 practising teachers create, implement, and reflect on a teaching unit on mathematics that valued indigenous knowledge. while acknowledging that some gains were made, he reports that these teachers found it difficult to shift from the comfort of teaching factual mathematics. in their article, müller, motai, nkopane, mofokeng, lephatsoe, and mouton argue that antioppressive education, integral to the social justice project, could be a useful theoretical departure-point when one is moving towards the decolonisation of the curriculum. they employed a collaborative narrative research methodology to foreground the lived experiences of a group of postgraduate education students at the university of the free states as they explored issues of social justice in the curriculum. they conclude that a decolonised curriculum cannot come from the top down or be imposed on educators but should emerge from the educators themselves based on their past experiences of injustice. in the last article, koopman focuses on the concept of infusing both indigenous knowledge and western science into the school science curriculum and explores how teaching strategies can be decolonised in the context of science education. he argues that the advancement of indigenous knowledge in science education programmes is possible only if western science is domesticated. he provides very useful practical examples of how this can be achieved in the science classroom. he argues that personal-cultural-localised learning (pcll) and process-oriented guided-inquiry learning (pogil) are productive strategies that could be used to bridge the cultural divide between western science and indigenous knowledge in these classrooms. references pinar, w. f. (ed.). (2010). curriculum studies in south africa: intellectual histories, present circumstances. new york, ny: palgrave macmillan. pinar, w. f. (2011) the character of curriculum studies: bildung, currere and the recurring question of the subject. new york, ny: palgrave macmillan. microsoft word b8400 fullissue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 84, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i84a06 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x exploring how the national covid-19 pandemic policy and its application exposed the fault lines of educational inequality ronicka mudaly school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa mudalyr@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7347-2098 vimolan mudaly school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa mudalyv@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3570-1256 (received: 14 march 2021; accepted: 23 september 2021) abstract during the covid-19 pandemic, many surveys in education were conducted. these revealed alarming statistics about learners losing half of the academic year, parents’ anxiety about sending children to school, and a minority of education institutions being able to offer online teaching. in response to a cacophony from teachers’ and students’ unions, school governing body representatives, scientists and education experts, the government decided to close education institutions as part of what was known as the hard lockdown. against this background, we used critical policy analysis (cpa) to explore decision-making by education departments and the enactment of these decisions at schools. this qualitative study revealed iniquity and inequity as departments of education made decisions to close and reopen institutions. the findings revealed a tension between expectations of producers of policy and enactors of policy within unequal school settings. we recommend a repositioning from the perspective of the dispossessed to inform future policy. keywords: critical policy analysis, educational inequality, educational policy, policy enactment introduction under so-called normal circumstances, education is a complex undertaking, especially in the context of deepening neoliberal agendas. performance pay, financial austerity, and the tension between raised standards and diminished resources (apple, 2019) make good teaching and learning nearly impossible. this provides the impetus for reform-based agendas mudaly & mudaly: exploring how the national covid-19 pandemic policy . . . 107 and provokes critical questions. for example: “what constitutes what we might call a good curriculum?”; “whose interests does it serve?”; “what is powerful knowledge (apple, 2019)?”; and “who claims and controls the authoritative knowledge mantle?” these questions are linked to reforms in education that are underpinned by ideological versions of what a good education is. in south africa, many critical educators work towards teaching and learning that is embedded in a social justice framework in order to address social and educational inequalities that sustain class and racial supremacy. however, the outbreak of covid-19 exposed the declivity of education for the masses, a situation born of social injustice in south africa. this forced policy analysts to take a critical retrospective gaze at the education landscape, and inside this temporal space to underscore the real impact of educational inequality on people’s lives. our research focussed on two aspects of policy. first, we explored the production of policy by analysing policy documents and data from a key informant interview. second, we considered the views of recipients and enactors of policies who were educators. in this way we sought to research the intersection between policy production and policy implementation and the power relations that underpin this, within a context of severe inequality, during a global pandemic. we aim to answer the following questions: • what politics informed the creation of education policies during covid-19? • what were the experiences of educators at schools who received and enacted these policies? in attempting to answer these questions, we begin with a brief discussion on inequality in the education sector in south africa. we present the effects of the covid-19 pandemic on the education sector and follow this with theoretical insights from critical policy analysis and rhetorical analysis. next, we present and analyse data, and, finally, we offer concluding remarks. inequality in the basic education sector apartheid era legislation in south africa resulted in black africans being legislatively disenfranchised and geographically dispossessed. the politics of race severely marginalised and excluded the majority of black learners (de kadt, 2020). divisive apartheid machinery entrenched its separatist oppressive ideology by making educational institutions “a legal entity” and a “creature of the state” (bunting, 2006, p. 37). the resultant inequality rendered schools in south africa “very different places” and these differences continue to be reflective of the profoundly unequal societies in which they are located (christie, 2020, p. 2). according to the curriculum assessment and policy statement (caps), produced by the department of basic education (dbe) (2011), the social mandate of schools is to prepare young people to become responsible citizens who can participate meaningfully in society, irrespective of their race, gender, class, culture, physical, or intellectual ability. this noble goal has not been realised, given that where a learner is born and the race and socio-economic class of their family determine the type of school they will attend as amnesty international 108 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 (2020) has pointed out. socio-economic inequality has resulted in an education system in which 75% of mainly poor black learners attend under-resourced schools with poor infrastructure and overcrowded classrooms (parker et al., 2020; van der bergh & spaull, 2020). in 2018, the government conducted a survey of 23,471 schools, and found that 86% had no laboratories, 77% had no libraries, 72% had no internet facilities, and 19% relied on illegal pit latrines for sanitation (amnesty international, 2020). large learner to teacher ratios, scant resources (black, 2020; vorster, 2020) and ill-educated teachers (vally, 2019), deepen the crises in education. in these settings, chronic underperformance of learners is the norm (amnesty international, 2020). thousands of learners are suspended in a liminal space that is influenced by the effects of a lack of institutional accountability within a democratic government, as well as the legacy of apartheid, both of which have sustained socio-economic disadvantage among the majority of learners. effects of covid-19 on education emerging and re-emerging diseases can create havoc in public health systems, the national economy, and in education; this is not a new phenomenon. the influenza outbreaks of 1918 and 2009, middle east respiratory syndrome in 2012, and the ebola epidemic in 2014 are some such examples. in anticipation of a pandemic, the world health organization (who) declared the novel coronavirus sars-cov-2 a public health emergency of international concern on 30 january, 2020. according to coulibaly and madden (2020, p. 1), the declaration of covid-19 as a global pandemic by who on 11 march, 2020 “removed any doubt about the threat that the virus poses to every country in the world.” although covid-19 is a global pandemic, socio-economically constrained countries, especially those in sub-saharan africa, will be more severely affected (world bank group, 2020). the global shutdown has affected all aspects of life, and the effects on education have been unprecedented. in south africa, the ministries of basic education and of higher education and training made the decision to declare an early recess in school and post school education and training sectors. ministers then announced a shift to an online mode of learning. endowed with the privilege of coloniality, middle-class learners apparently adapted well to this technocratic intervention, and forged ahead with their academic endeavours, while working-class learners, often in densely populated wretched spaces, struggled to obtain data and devices (parker et al., 2020). the shameful legacy of educational inequality, while present all the time, became highly visible after the onset of covid-19. the most vulnerable, especially girls and children, became more peripheralised since they bore the brunt of multiple forms of violence (african child policy forum, 2020). the impossibility of home schooling for most children, as well as other impacts on their lives, resulted in the decision to embark on a phased-in reopening of schools and higher education institutions. the national income dynamics study—coronavirus rapid mobile survey (nidscram)—revealed that most learners lost 40 to 43% of the school year in 2020 (mohohlwane et al., 2020). children from wealthier households were three times more likely to have returned to school than those from poorer ones. therefore, recovery of learning is crucial if social and economic fractures are not going to worsen. the early childhood development mudaly & mudaly: exploring how the national covid-19 pandemic policy . . . 109 (ecd) sector was severely affected by the pandemic with only 13% of children in the 0to 6year range having returned to ecd programs between july and august 2020. this attendance figure of 13% was the lowest recorded in 18 years (mohohlwane et al., 2020). education policy decisions were initially informed by members of the scientific community, who were deemed a monolithic authority, and they prescribed the way forward (sayed & singh, 2020). contextual inequalities in learners’ domestic and school or higher education institutions were not adequately considered, and learners were (and continue to be) buffeted by policy decisions that warrant further scholarly inquiry. theoretical orientation traditional policy analysis (tpa), an intentional, research-based process by a selected group of actors, has been popular in educational research for some time. it includes “planning, adoption, implementation, examination and/or evaluating . . .” (young & diem, 2018, p. 1). costs and benefits of the strategy are evaluated and this is expected to contribute to a deeper understanding of policy planning and implementation, with a view to solving problems in education. the linearity of thought and processes in this approach render the positivist underpinnings that frame it more visible. we depart from the tpa approach because it offers a parochial perspective on human behaviour and socio-cultural issues by privileging an inputoutput model (young & diem, 2018). the need to move away from tpa is rendered more urgent by the covid-19 pandemic that has presented dynamic complexities in uncertain times. to examine educational policy, we gaze through the alternative lens of critical policy analysis (cpa), since critical policy researchers problematise the power, ideology, and control at the core of educational policy, and, in doing so, illuminate inequality (lugg & murphy, 2014). we borrow the following critical practices selectively from young and diem (2018, p. 3) to examine how educational policy contributes to the subversion or the support of rights and values within a democratic south africa. • cpa explores the distribution of power, resources, and knowledge and the creation of ‘winners’ and ‘losers.’ • cpa is concerned with social stratification and the impact of policy on relationships of privilege and inequality. we explore how these policies reflect on the state of the basic education sector in south africa in terms of inequality and crisis management during the covid-19 pandemic. we also borrow the additional theoretical tools of rhetorical analysis, espoused by nicoll and edwards (2004), to examine policy statements. these tools include crisis narrative, a shared immersion in education, narrative organisation, and corroboration and consultation. 110 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 methodology following levitt et al. (2017), the qualitative approach of this study, within the critical paradigm, was useful for exploring insights related to the educational policy of the different actors during a public health emergency. many different methods were used to understand what informed education policy decisions, and how these were received and enacted (see mohajan, 2018). we generated data by analysing policy documents, conducting one key informant interview (kii), and conducting a survey with school personnel. the key informant was a senior education official in the national department of education who was deemed to be a repository of “first-hand information and knowledge” (mumtaz et al., 2014, p. 133) about policy decisions. the kii was used to understand the “how” and “why” of policy decisions (see mohajan, 2018, p. 24). seventy-three survey questionnaires were sent to teachers, principals, and teachers’ union representatives at schools using a google form and, of these, 30 were completed and returned. we designed survey questionnaires to understand how policies were received and enacted. we analysed policy documents and media release statements that were in the public domain to elicit meaning, and to understand why policies and media release statements were formulated in particular ways (see bowen, 2009). we used convenience and purposive sampling methods. purposive sampling (see maxwell & chmiel, 2014) involved the selection of participants based on defining characteristics that identified them as holders of the rich information we needed for this study. using convenience sampling, we selected 73 recipients/enactors of policy. we refer to these enactors of policy as educators, and they included teachers, union representatives, and principals. these educators had participated in postgraduate seminars and were opportunistically available (see lopez & whitehead, 2013). the prospective participants experienced the effects of pandemic policy because they were practising teachers during 2020, and were well suited to respond to the survey. the 30 educators who responded came from 30 different schools. four teachers were from independent or private schools that were classified as advantaged while another four teachers worked at well-resourced public schools that were also advantaged. following amnesty international (2020), these eight schools were deemed to be advantaged because they had running water, sanitation, laboratories, libraries, spacious classrooms and grounds for sports and leisure, adequate infrastructure, information and computer technology resources, and low learner to teacher ratios. three principals, one union representative, and eighteen teachers were from less advantaged public schools that served poor communities. the 22 schools that were deemed disadvantaged, did not enjoy these affordances and most of the learners they served were from low socio-economic households. data presentation and analysis we used thematic analysis (see maxwell et al., 2014) to interpret the data. the themes and sub-themes that emerged were: • pandemic policy mudaly & mudaly: exploring how the national covid-19 pandemic policy . . . 111 • lived experiences of policy o enacting covid-19 protocols o information and communications technology (ict) and enacting the curriculum during covid-19 o enacting practical work while observing covid-19 policy we go on to examine some of the policies that were formulated to manage education during the pandemic and the lived experience of the educators who enacted these policies. pandemic policy the profound impact of the pandemic was unexpected and the department of basic education initially referred all enquiries to the department of health since they believed it was better qualified to clarify uncertainties. as the covid-19 infection numbers swelled, schools were closed despite objections from many people, institutions, and researchers all of whom raised concerns about worsening the pre-existing social disadvantages of poor learners and parents. they also argued that covid-19 infection rates should not be the sole determinant of school closures since schools provided children with better food security and personal safety. under mounting pressure, schools were re-opened based on persuasive policies that were presented in a hierarchically ordered narrative. this revealed a fragmented policy environment that was complicated by multiple actors and discordant institutions. at a media briefing on 9 march, 2020, that was captured in a policy brief, the minister of basic education cautioned everyone involved in the schooling sector about the perils of covid-19. the dbe had received enquiries about how they intended to deal with the pandemic in schools and had released a statement saying “[w]e have received many enquiries regarding our plans to deal with the coronavirus in schools. we have redirected all the enquiries to the department of health that is leading the interventions regarding the management of cases” (dbe media release statement, 9 march, 2020d). the dbe had elected to absolve itself from decisions about how the education sector would manage the pandemic because of sparse information about the effects of the virus on children. a “crisis narrative” (nicoll & edwards, 2004, p. 49) is evident here, as well as corroboration by another government department, as an attempt to persuade the acceptance of the standpoint of the dbe at the beginning of the pandemic and during subsequent months. circular 1 of 2020 (dbe, 2020a) that was sent to schools before 15 march, 2020, provided covid-19 guidance for childcare facilities and schools. it provided guidance on monitoring absenteeism and on establishing procedures for personnel and learners who are ill at school. in addition, it provided guidelines related to learners who had travelled recently to areas that had reported community spread of covid-19, or learners who had been exposed to cases of covid-19. another directive contained in circular 3 of 2020 (dbe, 2020b) stated that while at home, learners should engage in the “read to lead programme, maths buddies, constructive holiday assignments, etc. through the supervision and guidance of parents. . .” when we read this statement, we wondered whether the dbe was unaware that most south 112 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 african parents do not have the capacity or training to guide and supervise children’s work. in saying this we do not construct financially deprived parents as intellectually or morally deficient, or uncaring about their children’s education, but we do acknowledge that their material existence does not allow them to scaffold concepts, mediate, monitor, and evaluate their children’s learning. this policy directive, then, was formulated for a minority of privileged, middle-class households, and excluded the majority of learners who are financially and socially deprived. lines of division of educational opportunity between wealthy and poor households became more entrenched in this way. the decision to close schools was vigorously contested. the adverse effects seemed to far outweigh the effects of the virus and yet schools were closed for a prolonged period as taylor (2020) noted. van der berg’s (2020) call for schools to remain open was based on schools addressing food insecurity and other challenges that stemmed from being absent from schools such as the greater risk of substance abuse and child abuse, and mental health challenges. it was also argued that school closures would create curriculum gaps, the effects of which would be felt for many years to come. in south africa, school nutrition programmes are particularly important in sustaining more than nine million learners with a daily meal (black et al., 2020). while the social welfare of learners was underscored by researchers like these, the dbe relied on decisions of health scientists who viewed schools as places in which the risk of transmissibility is high, and therefore recommended the school closures. in a combined advisory, the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco), the united nations children’s fund (unicef), the world bank, the world food programme and the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) (2020) all noted that the “the adverse effects of school closures on children’s safety, wellbeing and learning are well documented” (p. 1). they argued for evaluating the benefits and risks in individual contexts to inform reopening schools in saying, disruptions to . . . time in the classroom can have a severe impact on a child’s ability to learn. the longer marginalized children are out of school, the less likely they are to return. children from the poorest households are already almost five times more likely to be out of primary school than those from the richest. being out of school also increases the risk of teenage pregnancy, sexual exploitation, child marriage, violence and other threats. further, prolonged closures disrupt essential school-based services such as immunization, school feeding, and mental health and psychosocial support, and can cause stress and anxiety due to the loss of peer interaction and disrupted routines. (p. 2) however, unesco et al. added that decisions about reopening schools should be based on considering transition points (for example, between primary and secondary schooling), the capacity to sustain remote learning, and the capacity to maintain safety protocols, among others. the following excerpt captures the essence of the unesco position: “school reopenings must be safe and consistent with each country’s overall covid-19 health response, with all reasonable measures taken to protect students, staff, teachers and their families” (p. 2). mudaly & mudaly: exploring how the national covid-19 pandemic policy . . . 113 pressure mounted from different quarters for the re-opening of schools. eventually, the dbe re-opened them, and this was motivated by advice from the ministerial advisory committee on covid-19 as well as the dbe’s annual performance plan 2020/21 that states that the overall goal of the various actors in the basic education sector must remain to improve the quality of learning outcomes and reduce educational inequalities. we should not lose sight of this. south africa has been on an upward trajectory in terms of the skills acquired by learners for around two decades . . . the momentum of this improvement cannot be lost as a result of the pandemic. (dbe, 2020c, p. 20) there was deepening fear that if schools did not remain open learners would lose the benefits of the progress they had made. the dbe acknowledged that the pandemic would have a lasting but as yet indeterminate impact on the education system. it identified covid-19 as a key risk to the completion of the curriculum and assessments and a barrier to ensuring quality, inclusive, safe, and healthy basic education. the allusion to advice from the ministerial advisory committee on covid-19 reflects the reification of policy that is effected by presenting what nicoll and edwards (2004) referred to as authoritative groups being supportive of the dbe policy. it shows that policy emerged as a result of consultation processes, and this renders policy more persuasive. the “narrative organisation” (nicoll & edwards, 2004, p. 49) of the policy brief is important. it begins with a social justice imperative to “reduce educational inequalities” and emphasises the gains of the past decades. then the importance of not losing these gains by keeping schools closed is alluded to as a final convincing argument. the use of “we” (dbe, 2020c, p. 20) creates a connection between the author and the audience. this implied relationship, a shared “immersion” in education, is a strategy of persuasion (nicoll & edwards, 2004, p. 48). on 29 may, 2020 the dbe issued the following directive related to the re-opening of schools. sanitizers, disinfectants and masks. . . should be easily accessible, sufficient quantities of hand sanitizer (minimum 70% alcohol) based on the number of learners . . . facilities for washing of hands with soap and clean water . . . school must (a) provide each official and educator, with a minimum of two cloth face masks; and (b) require learners and any other person entering the office or school premises to wear a cloth face mask . . . (government gazette notice 302, 2020a, p. 12). instructions that included socio-behavioural measures to stem the spread of the pandemic and daily cleaning of work surfaces along with more regular cleaning of toilets and shared equipment, were also issued. the politics that governed decisions on educational policy regarding opening and re-opening of schools were based on advice from the ministerial advisory committee on covid-19 that was led by virologists and other biomedical scientists. the government was criticised for its over-dependence on scientific experts to inform policy-related decisions, with limited input from experts in the humanities (sayed & singh, 2020). 114 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 these policy decisions resonated with the kii data we sourced from the senior education official who described extensive planning having preceded the reopening of schools when he said, in order to prepare and regulate the school environment, the department published a series of directions under the national state of disaster regulations. the departments immediately set up different structures to respond to the pandemic and the anticipated effect it would have on education. these were responsible for various tasks which included, but were not limited to, the development of standard operating procedures (sops); development and translation of information booklets on covid19; evaluation, aggregation and development of educational content to support remote learning; facilitating the zero-rating platforms for educational content; the revision of annual teaching plans (atps) etc. extensive plans were put in place around the strengthening of support on the availability of water and sanitation. the key informant interviewee emphasised critical factors that needed to be considered before any policy for re-opening of schools was established. the narrative structuring of the kii statement is significant. it begins with the national state of disaster regulations that are laden with authority, and in this way, reification is effected (see nicoll & edwards 2004). the hierarchical ordering of the narrative, from the national state of disaster regulations, to various (provincial education) departments, to the development of standard operating procedures, adjusting education content, making remote learning more affordable, and providing basic needs such as water and sanitation, is clear in this plan. against this brief background of the production and distribution of policy (see apple, 2019), we examine how this was received and enacted by educators given the second theme. lived experiences of policy our attempt at understanding the lived experiences of policy revealed three sub-themes, namely, enacting covid-19 protocols, ict and enacting the curriculum during covid-19, and conducting practical work while observing covid-19 policy. because of inequalities, the implementation of policy evolved differently based on school infrastructure and basic services, the agency of the teachers’ unions, the capacity for using and leveraging technology, and the availability of resources for practical work. we explored the experiences of educators who were recipients of policy and enactors of policy directives at schools. the purpose was to explore the resonance between the production and the enactment of policy. respondents were assigned codes according to whether they were teachers (t) or principals (p), and whether they worked in advantaged (a) or disadvantaged (d) schools. union representatives were assigned an additional code (u). mudaly & mudaly: exploring how the national covid-19 pandemic policy . . . 115 table 1 explanation of respondent codes code participant school type advantaged disadvantaged pa principal � pd principal � ta teacher � td teacher � tua teachers’ union rep � tud teachers’ union rep � enacting covid-19 protocols respondents were asked about their views on whether the dbe had had plans for schools related to observing covid-19 protocols. some of the responses were as follows. pd: yes, done by us as principals. no support from dbe td: yes, plans were made but not adequate. td: at the beginning there were no plans, but eventually after lockdown the department of education decided to come with plans such as social distancing and phasing in of learners after approximately five months. even though there were plans after lockdown, but it did not benefit all schools, especially rural schools. although detailed plans were provided in circulars, media release statements, and policies, and were also mentioned by the senior official in the kii, some recipients of policy believed that no organised planning had been done. a persistent feature of responses from school personnel was one of abandonment—the sense of having to manage their schools creatively with limited resources. the following responses solidified the notion of schools having to cope with covid-19 challenges almost alone. pd: there were actions that applied to the different institutions but as for schools, no action was taken by the dbe but principals had to do the required protocols. except for giving each school a cleaner and a screener. these too (in some cases) were problematic because the number employed could not cope with the number of students at schools. pd: there was no monitoring of how or what was going to be a way forward. some teachers, however, reported a more positive experience. ta: circuit managers visited schools when problems arose and addressed issues. in the main, schools had to resolve their own problems. 116 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 ta: we were provided with standard operating procedures for educators. educators were trained and instructed to implement procedures. the guidance obtained from the standard operating procedures, and the training of teachers to use these, was valued by some respondents. on distribution of policy, one teacher asserted that “the president’s announcement was enforced by people in authority.” this reveals how policies suffused with authority and power (apple, 2019) were distributed. inadequate or a complete lack of support from the dbe for schools to implement covid-19 protocols was reported by some educators. the senior official, however, indicated that there was weekly monitoring, evaluation, and reporting on the state of readiness of schools. in the main, school principals were tasked with ensuring that regulations were adhered to, regardless of the inadequate personal protection equipment (ppe) or personnel required. having received and experienced these policies, educators were asked about the successes of the measures taken by the dbe to stem the spread of the pandemic when schools re-opened. tud: we pressurized for the correct quality and quantity of ppe. the supply of water, which had been neglected for 26 years was addressed and most schools received some form of water supply. teachers with co-morbidities were given leave. schools with poor infrastructure, especially ablutions, were improved. at first [policy was] highly effective in certain areas. in others, because of socio-economic conditions such as overcrowding, persons (learners) could not remain indoors and spilled into streets. schooling was at a standstill. this reveals that in some instances teachers’ unions had to intervene in order to secure adequate ppe and that the shameful neglect of basic infrastructure in schools for poor learners was addressed to some extent with the provision of ablution facilities and water supplies. several schools needed the covid-19 emergency water supply (water tanks) and sanitation in the form of chemical toilets (government gazette, 2020b). this confirms that what ndlovu-gatsheni (2020) referred to as a systemic civilizational crisis continues to plague many schools. teachers’ unions seem to have seized the covid-19 moment to ensure that the dbe’s plans for the provision of water and sanitation to schools were realised, and this was viewed as a success. however, spatial constraints did not allow for social distancing. the pandemic illuminated the effects of decades of neglect that did not allow some public schools to resume, even when certain infrastructure was provided. ict and enacting the curriculum during covid-19 educators were asked about their experiences related to implementing the curriculum during covid-19. an educator (ta) who taught information technology at a private school, where learners paid an annual fee of r120,000, reported that mudaly & mudaly: exploring how the national covid-19 pandemic policy . . . 117 all resources (worksheets/past papers) were available electronically. resources were posted/uploaded to the online portal (google classroom). a physical sciences teacher (ta) at a fee-paying public school explained, worksheets were printed and distributed using the d6 app. the d6 app is an app that is zero rated that students and parents download from google play store. the school publishes worksheets and memos for students. however, most of the respondents said that they did not have access to adequate resources for remote teaching. the following excerpts were from educators in disadvantaged public schools. td: my school has no facilities for online teaching and learning therefore any kind of online format would help. however, not all students have the means for online teaching. td: giving all learners data to access online lessons would have prevented them sitting at home being idle. it could have assisted me to give them work on a continuous basis and engage with their queries. an acting principal (pd) at a public school that served a poor community explained, e-learning seems so far-fetched in a semi-rural area, like my school. however, it needs to be seriously looked at as a tool to assist with teaching/learning. it would have obviated the mindset of ‘holiday’ being entrenched in the minds of learners. there were teachers in public schools who had partial access to online resources, as is evidenced by the following excerpt. td: learners were given tablets by the dbe for remote learning. that process somehow was not adequately enacted as some of them did not receive the gadgets. moreover, they were not orientated on using them fruitfully for educational purposes, as most of them could not access the internet on weekends. that alone is a barrier to teach remotely as we prepare online classes via microsoft teams mostly in our free time on weekends. it becomes extremely hard without the internet. executing practical work while observing covid-19 policy educators were asked about how they executed practical work in subjects such as life sciences, information technology, physical sciences, and natural sciences while maintaining social distancing and sanitising shared equipment and spaces. a teacher (ta) from a private school that catered to wealthy learners, responded, our practical work includes programming, yes this was done using the relevant program. i shared my screen on our online meeting to explain concepts and 118 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 implement them in coding. our it labs have sufficient computers. therefore, no sharing. computers were sanitised before every use. computers between learners were spaced sufficiently [far] apart. in addition, boards were used to separate each learner to avoid direct contact between learners. another teacher (ta) at an advantaged public school described a strategy for practical work. after covid, no practical [was] performed by students. all practical work was performed by me as a demonstration and a practical test was administered. two teachers (td and td) at a no-fee paying school, where 90% of learners come from poor, rural areas, explained, there is no laboratory at our school so no sharing as there is no equipment. i did not do practical work. i showed them videos on youtube. based on the survey data, we wonder whether the dbe ever considered the capacity of all schools to enact the standard operating procedures as per dbe requirements. did all schools have running water to maintain the hygiene requirements? did all schools have adequate space for maintaining social distancing among learners? did all schools have adequate screeners and cleaners, to cope with the learner population density? we argue that the dbe could have done things differently by considering these questions, based on diverse experiences of enacting the curriculum, that were inextricably linked to compliance with policy. in some schools, there was no change in the teaching of practical work because this was impossible before the pandemic since these schools lacked essential facilities and equipment. other schools adhered to the policy by relying on teacher demonstrations instead of arranging learners in groups for hands-on practical work for which they would have had shared equipment. some skills for practical work, for example designing investigations, handling equipment, measuring and counting using specialised equipment, conducting investigations, recording, interpreting and presenting results, would not have been achieved, so certain outcomes in the caps curriculum would have been unattainable. wealthier schools were able to conduct practical work individually because they had the advantage of small class sizes, adequate space, and resources for disinfecting equipment. ict-enabled schools had different levels of success in achieving curriculum outcomes based on, among other resources, the provision of devices, availability of internet access, and proficiency in using devices. schools without ict infrastructure had to contend with learners being what was thought of as idle and having a holiday mindset as teaching and learning became increasingly difficult. discussion while there was a flurry of activity to provide life-saving resources such as water and sanitation to under-resourced schools, the more advantaged schools could expend their energies on training staff to move to online platforms such as google classroom and mudaly & mudaly: exploring how the national covid-19 pandemic policy . . . 119 microsoft teams. the “pandemic pedagogy accomplished through the modality of the machine and accompanying online learning platforms” (fataar & badroodien, 2020, p. 2) allowed wealthier learners, privileged with abundant resources at home and at school, to transition between contact and online modes of delivery, whether schools opened fully or partially or shut down during the year. we intentionally position different experiences of policy by educators in schools with minimum infrastructure and resources, alongside those in more advantaged schools whose preoccupation was with teaching and learning using technology. this revealed the effects of socio-economic inequality on the stratification of schools, based on uneven distribution of resources, learning opportunities, human dignity and ontological density within a fractured basic education sector. the positions of “winners” and “losers” (young & diem, p. 3) were more deeply entrenched by the covid-19 moment. this study revealed that policy was difficult to implement in some schools because contextual factors that were compounded by the perceived lack of support from the dbe, simply did not allow for this. in 2020, the national income dynamics study coronavirus rapid mobile survey (mohohlwane et al., 2020) revealed that many independent and private schools received exemption and remained open during the lockdown, and that learners from wealthy households were three times more likely to attend school than those from poor households. poorer schools could not afford or did not receive ppe, were spatially restricted, and struggled to comply with the regulations. the digital divide among south african learners, most of whom lack devices, cannot afford data, or do not have access to stable connectivity, made the transition to online learning impossible. in addition, many learners lack digital literacy skills and physical spaces that are conducive to working from home using online technology (parker et al., 2020). so, this invites several questions: were policy decisions premised on a homogenous view of capacity and resources of schools to cope with the pandemic? was the likelihood that a technology-based education solution would be successful mainly in institutions that enjoyed historically and socio-economically endowed cultural privilege, overlooked by the basic education sector? was the imperative to stabilize education and save the school year so intense that it resulted in a blinkeredness to race and class deprivation? conclusion the covid-19 moment has rendered the fault lines of educational inequality highly visible. an analysis of some of the covid-19 policies, related to socio-behavioural rules, school closures and openings, trimming of curricula, and online learning, were initiated by directives from the office of the president. subsequent policies, although well-intentioned by the dbe, were not enacted by recipients according to how policy was formulated. for example, the phased return of learners was fraught with problems because of the unavailability of ppe and poor communication. there was dissonance between the expectations of policy makers and the expectations of school personnel of policy makers. the inability of policies in education to address the provision of basic infrastructure during the pre-covid-19 era reveals the power of those in authority to perpetuate the subordination 120 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 and indignity of poor learners during almost three decades of democracy. faced with many challenges, the best efforts of school personnel in disadvantaged schools, as enactors of policies, were futile in many instances. many difficulties may be attributed to the rhetoric that surrounds policy and the experienced reality (see apple, 2019). the policy appeared to promise safe spaces for teachers and learners but some of the respondents claimed that ppe was not available or was of substandard quality. the enactors of policy then felt isolated, abandoned, exhausted, and overwhelmed by many different responsibilities. compromises related to policy formulation included online/blended learning, curriculum trimming, and reorganising timetables. while ict resources were leveraged in some instances, poor connectivity and low proficiency in the use of the devices hampered teaching and learning. the absence of ict resources in other disadvantaged schools severely interrupted teaching and learning, and without schooling, learners were propelled into an idle, holiday mindset. the inability of enactors of policy in disadvantaged schools to engage learners in hands-on practical work because these were spaceand resource-constrained sites, is in stark contrast to wealthier schools at which lessons progressed relatively uninterruptedly, and curriculum outcomes were likely to have been achieved. what is required is a “repositioning” (apple, 2019, p. 280) for policy makers to view the education sector through the eyes of the masses who are dispossessed. this could facilitate some understanding of the lived educational experiences of principals, teachers, learners, and parents. the covid-19 pandemic can refocus the political implications of policies, that are, in reality, often only suitable for a small minority of the elite, and should be deeply reflected upon by those in power. the covid-19 moment should stimulate a critical look at the precovid-19 educational landscape, and a deconstruction of what counts as good education, who this benefits, and how the unequal “distribution of power, resources, and knowledge” creates “winners” and “losers” (young & diem, p. 3). this consciousness-raising can give birth to a re-imagining of an education that strives to achieve social justice goals. acknowledgement this research was made possible with the cooperation of the national 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(2018). doing critical policy analysis in education research: an emerging paradigm. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325908605_doing_critical_policy_analysi s_in_education_research_an_emerging_paradigm editorial carol bertram and iben maj christiansen abstract there has been a huge growth in research on how to describe the kind of knowledge that teachers need since the mid-1980s when shulman (shulman, 1986, 1987) published his first research in this field. there is a range of ways in which to describe the field of teacher knowledge. in this editorial we aim to describe one way of mapping the field, and then place the papers in this special issue as well as other recent work onto this map. we do so by proposing that the propositional, the practical and the personal are different aspects of teacher learning, and that the relations between these demand more attention. we then discuss how the common categorisation of teacher knowledge can be viewed within each of these aspects, and how the key may lie in the relations as well as in the categories themselves. finally, we reflect on the ‘field’ of teacher education research on the basis of the range of submissions we received. an outstanding feature of the field is its weak grammaticality, meaning that there are a range of concepts in use which do not seem to have very precise empirical descriptions (bernstein, 1999), but this appears to vary from discipline to discipline suggesting directions for further work. three aspects of teacher learning: knowing, doing, being in their attempt to map the field, cochran-smith and lytle (1999) argue that there are three broad approaches to teacher learning, which they then describe (somewhat confusingly) as ‘knowledges’. they refer to the first conception of teacher learning as knowledge-for-practice where the assumption is that researchers generate a formal body of knowledge which teachers can learn and use to improve their practice. they describe a second conception of teacher learning as knowledge-in-practice which is essentially practical knowledge generated by expert teachers through their own experience and practice. the third conception of teacher learning involves knowledge-ofpractice which is the knowledge produced when teachers treat their classrooms and schools as sites of intentional investigation. it implies a critical stance to one’s own practice, and thus more strongly than the other 2 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 conceptions relate to subjective theories of teaching and learning, as well as to beliefs about oneself, purposes of teaching, etc. the two latter orientations honour the idea that teachers often learn in and from practice, and not exclusively from a formally generated, codified body of knowledge. another way of describing the kinds of knowledge that are foregrounded in these different conceptions of teacher learning is to say that knowledge-forpractice privileges propositional knowledge, codified knowledge, or knowing ‘that’, whereas knowledge-in-practice privileges practical knowledge or knowing ‘how’ (cf. tamir, 1988). the ‘knowledge-of-practice’ conception seems to foreground the inquiry stance that a teacher takes, and is interested in how teacher inquiry generates knowledge, how inquiry relates to practice, and what teachers learn through inquiry. using maton, we could say that this orientation foregrounds a knower code or the social relation, but as maton always says, this does not mean that the knowledge code or the epistemic relation is non-existent, since for every knowledge structure, there is also a knower structure (maton, 2007). in line with this, we will not include perspectives on teacher learning which claims that the epistemic relation is of no relevance. we believe that the three orientations should be seen not as mutually exclusive but rather as foregrounding different aspects of teacher knowing: the propositional, the practical and the personal. all three of these aspects are necessary in professional practice. fischer (2011) has a different third aspect, namely conditional knowledge or ‘knowing why’, engaging in the project of interrogating instructional quality. we see this contained more in the concept of inference and professional judgement, which we will return to later. editorial 3 figure 1: the three aspects of teacher knowledge a key area of engagement is the question of how the aspects relate to one another. in south africa, the post-1994 curriculum reform and qualification frameworks foregrounded practice and what people could do (their competence) while knowledge was backgrounded. although the norms and standards for educators described foundational competence as demonstrating an understanding of the knowledge and thinking that underpins a particular action, this was often reduced to simply a ‘skill’. unfortunately, an unintended consequence of the implementation of the policy was that many teacher educators fixated on the ‘seven roles of educators’, and designed their teacher education curricula around the seven roles, and not around the competences which incorporate both principled knowledge and thoughtful practical knowledge (department of higher education and training, 2011). however we know that action is underpinned by thought, and that some action is more knowledgeable and thoughtful than other action (muller, 2012). since teaching is a professional practice, it is informed by both ‘knowing what’ and ‘knowing how’, but also by the motives, beliefs, disciplinary philosophies of the teacher (langford and huntley, 1999; lloyd, 1999; thompson, 1984). it is through engaging with the ‘knowing what’ and ‘knowing how’ of the disciplines that beliefs and disciplinary philosophies may be become more nuanced, consistent and informed – or at least conscious. 4 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 they relate, and it is in this relation that we see teacher knowledge positioned. the paper in this issue by venkat and askew discuss the case of teachers who were given new mathematics resources (such as an abacus) to use, but who failed to do so in a way which foregrounded key mathematical notions (in this case, the importance of focusing on the grouping into tens reflected in our number system). we could view this as the teachers lacking either the propositional mathematical or pedagogical content knowledge which could have guided their professional judgement. that is certainly a possibility, though one that venkat and askew reject. they propose instead that it is a consequence of absence in the sociocultural setting – the teachers have not previously encountered such uses of these resources. this illustrates how, in order to use the abacus to teach the key mathematical notions, the teachers have to have the propositional mathematical and pedagogical content knowledge, the practical knowledge of how to use resources constructively, the ability to infer from the one to the other to be able to recognise and realise the use of the new resources, and an orientation to teaching which directs them to bring this into play. in south africa we have perhaps – particularly in recent times – shunned the ‘knowing what’ because we have tended to equate it with lists of unconnected information, and have not focused sufficiently on the conceptual relations between all these facts. so we teach ‘lists’ rather than principles, but lists do not support the development of professional judgement. and as ensor’s work on student teachers’ recontextualisation from teacher education to practice in school indicates, neither does propositional knowledge which is not linked to practice (ensor, 2001). thus we propose to focus on this gap that opens between the ‘knowing what’ and the ‘knowing how’ both in teacher education and as the space where research work needs to happen. this link between the propositional and the practical, however, also draws on the particular gaze that the teacher has developed in creating an identity as a teacher, as developed in a sociocultural setting. similarly, the link between the propositional and the practical is what helps to construct the particular trained teacher gaze that allows for recognition in practice of instances from theory, and informs professional judgement. it is this gaze which allows a teacher to recognise what counts as valid inferences in practice, drawing on knowledge for and about practice (cf. muller, 2012). and it is this gaze which informs the teacher educator’s choice of the propositional and the practical to include in teacher education. editorial 5 five domains of teacher knowledge we move one level down from these broad perspectives to engage the five domains of teacher knowledge widely used: content knowledge, general pedagogic knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, curriculum knowledge and knowledge of context (3 c’s, gpk, and pck!). the assumption that these are separate knowledge domains has been challenged, most recently in an australian study of mathematics teachers’ knowledge and beliefs (beswick, callingham and watson, 2011), which claims that their results indicate one underlying knowledge dimension only. nonetheless, we find the distinctions analytically useful. shulman has been critiqued that his categories are propositional and do not account for practical knowledge (jones and straker, 2006). however, in our view, all of these domains of knowledge have both propositional and procedural, as well as personal, elements. content knowledge embraces both the propositional knowledge/‘knowing what’ and the procedural knowledge/‘knowing how’ of a discipline. teachers need to know more than just the ‘facts’ of their discipline, they need to know the deep underlying principles and structure of the discipline, and they need to know what procedures are used to generate knowledge in the field. muller (2012) argues that ‘knowing what’ comes down to knowing why something is accepted as knowledge in the relevant field, but this implies knowing how to substantiate the knowledge, knowing how to make such arguments, so that all ‘knowing what’ also comes down to the particular ‘knowing-how’ of drawing inferences within the field. coming together in a learned gaze. . . the historian does not separate looking at a particular event with an awareness of the time in which it happens and how it relates to what went before, from critically looking at the sources which provide information about the event. a mathematician does not separate knowing what the boundaries of a concept are from knowing how to use this in constructing a proof. in the german coactiv-study (baumert, blum and neubrand, 2004; krauss and blum, this issue), pck in mathematics is divided into two facets: declarative and procedural pck. the declarative encompasses knowledge of learners’ common misconceptions, knowledge of the curriculum, and predicted difficulties. the procedural includes selection of tasks, reacting to students, and assignment of homework (olszewski, neumann and fischer, 6 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 2010). in some studies, the procedural pck is explored through ‘situational judgement tests’ or ‘teaching vignettes’ (cf. riese and reinhold, 2010 for physics education) while others consider using it in video analysis (olszewski, neumann and fischer, 2010 for physics education; ramdhany, 2010 for mathematics education). fischer (2011) found a correlation between declarative and procedural pedagogical knowledge of 0.20 (p<0.01) and thus see them as independent constructs, while riese and reinhold (2010) found correlations between 0.64 and 0.84 (p<0.001), stronger than the correlations they found between pck and content knowledge, pck and pedagogical knowledge, and between content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. all these studies confirmed that content knowledge is however a prerequisite for pck, as also suggested by the study by beswick, callingham and watson (2011). an outstanding feature of the field of teacher education is its weak grammaticality, meaning that there are a range of concepts in use which do not seem to have very precise empirical descriptions (bernstein, 1999). as a clear example of this, every study on pck has to operationalise the concept, and often does so in slightly different ways. this issue is critically engaged in adler and patahuddin’s paper in this issue. working with the notion of ‘mathematics for teaching,’ which positions itself in relation to pck and content knowledge, they explore how carefully designed test items can facilitate teachers’ talk and mathematical reasoning, leading to an exploration of knowledge connected around the teaching of specific content. thus, their work engages both relations between knowledge domains, connections of aspects, and issues of how to address weak grammaticality in the field. this distinction between declarative and procedural pck becomes highly relevant when wanting to see if teachers who are able to respond well to pck questions (which often assess what in the above distinction would be propositional pck such as identifying learner misconceptions or levels of learner thinking) are also able to apply this knowledge in the classroom in ways which enhance learning. the paper by krauss and blum in this issue summarise their findings from the coactiv project. utilising new instruments which are open-ended rather than the oft used multiple choice approach, they explored teachers’ content knowledge and pck with practicerelated vignettes, and the impact of teachers’ knowledge on learners’ achievements. their findings show that content knowledge and pck are linked to beliefs as well as practice, for us highlighting the relation between the three knowledge aspects. their study found pck but not content editorial 7 knowledge linked to learner achievement. this does not mean that content knowledge does not matter – but it is possibly doing so only indirectly, as content knowledge is correlated with pck (riese and reinhold, 2010), and appears to be a prerequisite for pck but not implying it (riese and reinhold, 2010). the latter also appears to hold in south africa, though no clear link between pck and learner achievement was found here (ramdhany, 2010). finally, they found no link between number of years of experience and demonstrated pck, but this must be seen in light of the fact that there were no novice teachers in their study. there is, as in all professions, a very real discursive gap between the theoretical and the practical (muller, 2012), between knowing what errors learners often make and being able to use that knowledge to make professional judgements in the classroom, between having the academic knowledge and having what shalem (forthcoming) using abbott’s work refers to as the diagnostic knowledge (cf. ashlock, 2002; cooper, 2009) two processes are involved in diagnostic knowledge. first, the practitioner collects information about a particular case . . . and assembles it into a complex picture, according to certain epistemic rules and criteria specific to the subject matter. second, the practitioner takes the complex picture and refers it to diagnostic classifications that are already know to the profession and deduces the type of case in particular (shalem, forthcoming, p.7). in that sense, the gap muller sees between the theoretical and the practical refers to what must be bridged in the relation between the propositional and the practical if teachers are to be able to identify real events as instances of theoretical events, and make informed strategic decisions on how to act in the situation. it means that the teachers needs a reservoir of academic knowledge – the propositional or ‘knowing what’ – to draw on, and it means that the link to the practical is made through inferences, which for both muller and shalem means that the teacher needs to ‘know how’ to make such inferences. within teacher education, this becomes very real in trying to develop assessment criteria for student teachers in their practice teaching, and the need to award a final mark to this teaching practice. as rusznyak discusses, to base the assessment entirely on what the students do is not sufficient; if student teachers are not able to explain why they make the decisions they do and reflect on them in substantial ways, they are not empowered professionals who can make inferences on which to base professional judgements. thus, teacher educators also need to engage with the extent to which student teachers draw on the established body of knowledge in diagnosing and 8 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 ‘treating’ problems in the classroom – in other words, to what extent they have the propositional knowledge and can close the discursive gap to practice sufficiently well. rusznyak draws on shulman’s important distinction between pedagogical reasoning and pedagogical practice, and describes the development of an assessment rubric that maps both the cognitive dimension of teaching, and the observable classroom performance. it is not enough that student teachers reflect on their teaching, that reflection must be informed – it must relate back to knowledge for, in and of teaching. these issues obviously also apply to pedagogical, context and curriculum knowledge. knowing that learners from less privileged backgrounds have problems decoding invisible pedagogies does not make it easy to adjust one’s teaching accordingly. having a sense of the possibility of a particular disciplinary domain in relation to the educational task (including the development of citizenry), and understanding the different paradigms or philosophies of the discipline as it has evolved in history, may mean reading the curriculum differently, but it still needs to be recontextualised and operationalised to be related to the learners’ prerequisites and implemented in 45 minute lessons. the links between the knowledge domains will also play out differently in different contexts. a recent study in denmark (lindenskov, 2012) developed materials for supplementary mathematics teaching. the materials were inspired by materials from elsewhere but had to be adopted to the danish situation, where learners’ motivation and interest are considered central, where teachers must know how to involve parents in the learning work, where the learners are not told but guided through exploring, and where the material was more about directing the teachers to what to explore in order to respond to the learners better, than about how to present. this is clearly a knowledgeof-practice perspective, but again we want to point to how this is informed reflection; that is why a set of materials developed by specialists is used to direct the teachers’ attention to the relevant elements of the teaching-learning situation. this direction of their attention is aiming at developing a trained gaze which is strongly anchored in specialist knowledge about how children learn mathematics (see also schifter, 1998). a danish teacher trained in this tradition would battle to adapt to the south african classroom, and vice versa. yet we need to be able to describe the knowledge, practices and gazes/stances of teachers in both contexts using the same concepts. in our view, we can only do so through focusing on the editorial 9 relations between the knowledge domains and the three aspects of teacher learning. this is supported by studies such as one by ainley and luntley, where they found that experienced teachers draw on what the authors call ‘attention-dependent knowledge’, paying attention not only to the content of learners’ statements but also to the intentions of these statements (ainley and luntley, 2007). teacher education and teacher learning there are three papers in this issue which engage the content of teacher education programmes and teacher learning specifically. it seems only logical that teacher education must have strong relations to the different aspects and domains of teacher learning. and if we are right, the relations between the aspects would also need to be engaged. for instance, the substantive or propositional within curricular knowledge can address the current curriculum as well as the principled curriculum, but linking it to the practical knowledge aspect would be where issues of how to select and sequence content comes into play (something many mathematics teachers in the western cape were seen to struggle with (reeves and mcauliffe, 2012). this also shows that there are also two dimensions to the practical dimension of curricular knowledge, namely how to implement the curriculum and how to critically engage it. taking a more general and macro view of knowledge domains, sosibo focuses on the kinds of knowledge domains that are prioritised in a commerce stream of a b.ed programme. the minimum requirements for teacher education qualifications framework stipulates five teacher knowledge domains, namely, disciplinary, general pedagogical, practical, fundamental and situational knowledge, and sosibo uses these to cluster the data that emerged from interviews with students and teacher educators on this programme. it emerges that the programme places greatest emphasis on general pedagogical and practical knowledge, and the least emphasis on fundamental and situational knowledge. this was of concern for students who felt that they were not prepared to teach in under-resourced schools, again pointing to the gap between propositional and procedural knowledge in the various domains. 10 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 christiansen also engages a formal teacher education programme, and considers the extent to which a pgce programme prepares mathematics teachers to teach effectively in the local context. a key question underpinning the paper is to what extent teacher knowledge and competence have an impact on learner achievement, given the overwhelming influence of the socioeconomic and home background. the paper presents an analysis of the assessment tasks of the pgce for maths teachers, using three criteria: what knowledge domain do the tasks assess; do the tasks emphasise a knowledge code (that is, what you know, is important) or a knower code (who you are, is important); and to what extent the tasks focus on contextualised or decontextualised knowledge. she found that the programme tended to focus on the application of decontextualised content. the latter links to our concerns about being able to infer from academic knowledge to diagnostic knowledge; perhaps what is necessary is to have what maton refers to as a semantic wave maton (in press), moving between contextualised and decontextualised, and in the process demonstrating ways of bridging the discursive gap between theory and practice? interestingly, only one paper in the issue addresses the specifics of teachers developing their knowledge, practices and gazes. bansilal’s paper foregrounds the knowledge that is acquired and generated by teachers when they take an inquiry stance. she uses the narratives of four mathematics teachers who enrolled for a master’s degree to show that these teacherresearchers were able to develop their knowledge for mathematics teaching as a result of their classroom inquiry. the teachers develop both propositional and practical knowledge, and the process of engaging with a systematic classroom-based inquiry seems to help them to bridge the discursive gap described earlier. this is the only paper in the volume that points to a possible process of how teachers may do this, and we see parallels to another south african study of how mathematics teachers learn through challenges in a context of solidarity (brodie and shalem, 2011). specialised knowledge in teacher education above, we have discussed what we consider different aspects and domains of teacher knowledge, and claimed that it is the relations between these that teacher knowledge comes to life, so to speak, in terms of making informed professional judgments or inferences through drawing on specialised editorial 11 knowledge. the question is, does such specialised knowledge exist? it does, as also highlighted by shalem, who convincingly argues that both condensing a case and characterising it, both diagnosing a problem and treating it, should draw on specialised knowledge. but the extent and coherence of this body of knowledge appears to vary from discipline to discipline. concepts are not clearly defined in relation to the empirical (weak grammaticality), making it necessary to reiterate concepts in every study, and concepts are often not clearly related, making it difficult to determine when theories are redundant or what new a concept adds to the field. variations in the extent to which bodies of specialised knowledge were reflected in the submissions to this special edition on teacher knowledge illustrate this. there were twenty-one submissions, which seems to indicate a healthy interest in the field. eight of these were in the field of mathematics education, and one in science education, while the others were more generally in the field of teacher education. this may be an indication that in south africa at present, as worldwide, the field of mathematics and science education is more strongly focusing their research in the area of teacher knowledge, and is developing a more precise language of description to do this research. there were no submissions on teacher knowledge in the field of literacy and teaching reading, or within the social science and humanity subjects. yet the work by christie analysed by shalem indicates that it is not only possible but constructive to develop specialised knowledge for the teaching of english, for instance (christie and macken-horarik, 2011). and some of maton’s work may have the potential to provide concepts which can be given specialised interpretations – for instance, the work by adler and colleagues distinguishing teacher education lectures on the basis of the legitimising appeals to specialised mathematics education knowledge or the lecturers’ personal experience (parker and adler, 2012), could be seen as distinguishing between stressing the epistemic relation versus stressing the social relation (maton, 2007). this distinction was also reflected in a meta-level study, comparing teacher education programmes across four countries (rasmussen and bayer, 2011). rasmussen and bayer found no major differences in the programmes between countries with high versus low performing learners, but they did find some differences in what types of knowledge is foregrounded. interesting to us is the distinction they made between knowledge with a scientific versus an empirical basis. perhaps we can now think of teacher knowledge as a double storey house with an attic – teacher knowledge on one level, teacher 12 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 education on another but matching the rooms underneath, and the attic a space where issues of how to measure teacher knowledge and learning and their relations to learners’ achievements and attitudes are engaged. in that sense, many of the papers in this issue span several levels; for instance, the papers by rusznyak, adler and patahuddin, and krauss and blum all engage issues of measurement which have to relate to types of teacher knowledge in order to achieve their purpose. or perhaps teacher knowledge is like a fairy tale house with secret passageways and mysterious staircases, which is there as a physical entity (propositional), in which people do things (procedural) and which is also a lived-in space with emotional associations (personal). our different aspects and domains are windows into the house, yet to describe the house better, we have to be aware of how the rooms relate and how best to get from one place to the other. teacher education may then be seen as the blue print or the plumbing and wiring of the house . . . the metaphor is there to be played with. a couple of recent works have shown the limitations of using one language of description only to try to distinguish practices, and have promoted combining descriptions of pedagogy with descriptions of relations to knowledge. parker and adler (2012) shows that when looking at the type of activity in the classroom, two lessons may appear similar, but their legitimation codes reveal just how different they are in their relation to knowledge. naidoo (2012) shows that distinguishing between visible and invisible pedagogies does not capture the conceptual depth of the lesson, for which she instead draws on the systemic functional linguistic concept of co-extensions of meaning. we welcome this increased focus on relations to knowledge combined with other aspects and domains. however, they do not yet form a more coherent perspective on teacher knowledge, practice and learning. for the languages of description in teacher education to gain stronger grammaticality and verticality, we have to find ways to describe teacher education which can span a range of contexts, and which adds to our understanding of the ways of bridging the gaps between ‘knowing what,’ ‘knowing how,’ and having the gaze of ‘being’ a teacher. editorial 13 references ainley, j. and luntley, m. 2007. the role of attention in expert classroom practice. journal of mathematics teacher education, 10: pp.3–22. ashlock, r. 2002. error patterns in computation: using error patterns to improve instruction. upper saddle river, nj: merrill prentice hall. baumert, j., blum, w. and neubrand, m. 2004. drawing the lessons from pisa 2000 – long-term research implications: gaining a better understanding of the relationship between system inputs and learning outcomes by assessing instructional and learning processes as mediating factors. zeitschrift für erziehungswissenschaft, 7(3): pp.143–157. bernstein, b. 1999. vertical and horizontal discourse: an essay. british journal of sociology of education, 20(2): pp.157–173. beswick, k., callingham, r. and watson, j. 2011. the nature and development of middle school mathematics teachers’ knowledge. journal of mathematics teacher education. retrieved from http://www.springerlink.com/content/th22781265818125/fulltext.pdf brodie, k. and shalem, y. 2011. acountability conversations: mathematics teachers’ learning through challenge and solidarity. journal of mathematics teacher education, 14: pp.419–439. christie, f. and macken-horarik, m. 2011. disciplinarity and school english. in christie, f. and maton, k. 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(eds), contemporary science education research: teaching. ankara, turkey: pegem akademi, pp. 87–94. parker, d. and adler, j. 2012. sociological tools in the study of knowledge and practice in mathematics teacher education. educational studies in mathematics. retrieved from http://www.springerlink.com/content/lm48381k1r576w11/ ramdhany, v. 2010. tracing the use of pedagogical content knowledge in grade 6 mathematics classrooms in kwazulu-natal. university of kwazulunatal, pietermaritzburg. rasmussen, j. and bayer, m. 2011. comparative study of teaching content in teacher education programmes in canada, denmark, finland and singapore. in eisenschmidt, e. and löfström, e. (eds), developing quality cultures in teacher education: expanding horizons in relation to quality assurance. tallinn, estonia: tallin university, pp.133–155. reeves, c. and mcauliffe, s. 2012. is curricular coherence slowing down the pace of school mathematics in south africa? a methodology for assessing coherence in the implemented curriculum and some implications for teacher education. journal of education, 53: pp.9–36. riese, j. and reinhold, p. 2010. measuring physics student teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge as an indicator of their professional action competence. in taºar, m.f. and çakmakci, g. (eds), contemporary science education research: teaching. ankara, turkey: pegem akademi, pp.79–85. schifter, d. 1998. learning mathematics for teaching: from a teachers’ seminar to the classroom. journal of mathematics teacher education, 1: pp.55–87. http://www.springerlink.com/content/lm48381k1r576w11/ 16 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 shalem, y. (forthcoming). professional judgement and criteria for professional knowledge in teaching. in young, m. and muller, j. (eds), knowledge and the professions. london: routledge/taylor and francis. shulman, l.s. 1986. those who understand: knowledge growth in teaching. educational researcher, 15(2): pp.4–14. shulman, l.s. 1987. knowledge and teaching: foundations of the new reform. in hartley, d. and whitehead, m. (eds), teacher education. major themes in education. volume iii curriculum and change. london and new york: routledge, pp.119–145. tamir, p. 1988. subject matter and related pedagogical knowledge in teacher education. teaching and teacher education, 4: pp.99–110. thompson, a.g. 1984. the relationship of teachers’ conceptions of mathematics and mathematics teaching to instructional practice. educational studies in mathematics, 15: pp.105–127. carol bertram iben maj christiansen school of education university of kwazulu-natal bertramc@ukzn.ac.za christianseni@ukzn.ac.za mailto:bertramc@ukzn.ac.za mailto:hristianseni@ukzn.ac.za crossing from violence to nonviolence: pedagogy and memory crispin hemson abstract this qualitative case study addresses the use of memories of violence in a workshop with ten young student leaders in durban. the pedagogy included the use of guidelines and gender-based groups as ways of enabling safety. a particularly direct discussion of gender and its relationship to violence followed, though violence in relation to other social identities was also explored. walkerdine’s work (2006) on border crossing is used to analyse the data from the records of discussion and evaluation comments. the argument is that such a pedagogy enabled participants to address some of the sedimented connections that held them to relationships based on violence. generally, if we understand violence as caught up in social identities, work on memories of violence will require attention to dynamics related to the identities present. while gender’s relation to violence is central in this context, further cases in which the pedagogy is structured around other social identities would extend our understanding. the education of young people in a violent society needs to enhance equity and inclusion rather than violence and relations of domination. how best then do we deal with their memories of violence? can our pedagogy in fact draw on such memories as a resource which can be transmuted into a conviction for nonviolence? if it can, what pedagogy is then appropriate? this article poses such questions in relation to young people in south african society. it argues that violence is caught up in the specific social identities and histories of people, and that through these histories violence has become ingrained. transition to nonviolence may draw on memories of violence. such transition requires creating conditions of sufficient safety to enable students to recognise and challenge the relationships which foster violence. this article reports on a qualitative case study of the use of a particular pedagogy in a three-day workshop held with ten student leaders from three 28 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 schools in durban. it used their memories of violence as a resource for their learning about violence and nonviolence. in addressing the memories of violence, the pedagogy had these elements: ways of creating conditions of safety to enable participants to speak freely, and a deliberate addressing of social identities (primarily gender) in the educational process. it drew on the assumption that it is more effective to speak even of bad memories than to silence them (stone, coman, brown, koppel and hirst, 2012). the purpose of the article is to provide insight into the use of that pedagogy through its mapping of the dynamics of this specific case, and to consider the broader implications for work on violence. violence is here understood as systemic; its use is consistent with the notion of ‘structural violence’ (galtung,1996), in which physical violence, even implicit, is caught up in relations of power and subordination (waterston and kujac, 2007), or with the notion of ‘social suffering’ (kleinman, 2000). this reading assumes continuity from structural inequality to the personal experience of everyday violence: interrogating structural violence – the subtleties and complexities of power relations and the microeconomics of difference – historically and locally gives attention to the multiple ways in which this violence is reworked through the routines of daily life as well as enacted through social relations and social institutions (green, 2004, p.220). use of this conceptual framework has implications both for the pedagogy used in this case and for the research strategy. for a pedagogy that promotes nonviolence, it requires a vision of society in which relations are based on equity and not on domination or subordination. it requires also an awareness of how violence has constrained the lives of students and teachers. nonviolence is not restricted to situations of conflict, but informs thinking and actions more generally. it extends beyond the narrow choice of nonviolence as a means to an end (sharp, 2005). harris (2010) makes a distinction between non-violence (the replacement of violence by other ways of defeating an enemy) and nonviolence (built on love and respect for opponents). it is further seen in gandhian terms as a principle that informs human relations and the aims and processes of development (gandhi, 1939); it also sees it not so much as pacifism as a process of struggle for justice (terchek, 1998). hemson: crossing from violence to non-violence. . . 29 the implication of this framework for the strategy of the case study is that there is a need to situate participants in the context of structural relationships, as is done below. research design and trustworthiness this article reports on a qualitative case study; the particular case is the use of memories of violence in a three-day workshop. the rationale for using a qualitative approach is the need to engage in depth with language and the meanings given in a particular interaction – for example, to the use in this data of such words as ‘violence’. in this study participants start to use the term ‘violence’ to describe ways in which men speak about themselves, which is not the everyday use of the term. conceptual complexity favours an approach in which the researcher and reader can see how such concepts are embedded in language; the ability of a qualitative approach to clarify and distinguish concepts is a particular strength (mahoney, 2010). williams and morrow (2009) argue that to achieve trustworthiness the qualitative researcher needs to give particular attention to the integrity of data, balance between reflexivity and subjectivity, and clear communication of findings. integrity of data is here addressed by the verbatim use of discussion, as well as checking to ensure that what is used is consistent with the discussion that was not selected. this is enhanced by the consistency of data from various sources – data sources were the researcher’s notes, verbatim recordings, images and writing on newsprint and evaluation forms. in addition, the researcher checked with participants how they understood the interactions before asserting his own interpretation. the balance between reflexivity and subjectivity is dealt with through making visible to himself and the reader the researcher’s own handling of his memories of violence and by identifying some of the limits to his knowledge of participants’ subjectivity (for example, his not being present in groupwork). clear communication is addressed in part by the fullness of the description of the context and the history leading up to the study, to enable the reader to 30 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 judge the credibility of the findings. this brings into sharper relief what is different in the case study from the previous history. a reference to a subsequent case makes the comparison stronger. analysis of the data focused in particular on those moments characterised by contestation over attachment to or letting go of attitudes and ways of relating, in accordance with the theoretical framework (see below). for further development of theory on this pedagogy, comparisons could usefully be made across cases (mahoney, 2010), most effectively where a similar pedagogy is used either with a slightly different context or structured around other social identities. violence in the regional context memories of violence are here linked to the history related to social identities in south africa. in part this is to challenge stereotyping of violence in relation to race (valji, harris and simpson, 2004). in part it connects memory work to the social, political and economic forces that generate violence in the lives of people: “the method aims at exploring and theorizing how individuals construct themselves into existing social and power relations” (jansson, wendt and ase, 2008, p.231). this case study was undertaken in kwazulu-natal, an area deeply affected by violence in colonial and apartheid times. the military conflicts at the time of shaka’s rule, the conditions of the indenture of indian labour, the imposition of the patterns of racial control under the british and subsequently the union governments, and the specific racial initiatives of the apartheid regime, all involved populations in violence (maylam, 1986). this was not simply the ‘founding violence’, the imposition of rule by the conqueror (mbembe, 2001). for example, british rule over zulu people worked through indirect rule with indigenous patriarchy (mcclendon, 2010); there is evidence that gender relations amongst zulu people became more unequal with time (hunter, 2005). the violence associated with racial domination reached far. for example, if one listens to african people speaking of family life, the family divisions and gender violence described often relate to the dislocation of family life that hemson: crossing from violence to non-violence. . . 31 followed from forced labour migration. this reading of historical violence thus is not a simple account of repression of a people; race, gender, age and ethnicity were all caught up within complex relations of inequality. however, the context is also replete with traditions of resistance, many of which involved physical force as well. there was both violent and nonviolent opposition to government. this area was the crucible for the development of gandhian satyagraha, or passive resistance, for the development of black consciousness from the late 1960s, the mass strikes of 1973, and resistance to apartheid that culminated in the late 1980s. this was also a period of extreme repression by the state and its agents, leading to the deaths of thousands of people. it is hard to categorise resistance to apartheid in terms of its being violent or nonviolent (seidman, 2000); resistance also drew for its themes on what unterhalter (2000) refers to as both ‘heroic’ and ‘violent’ masculinities. this history does not comfortably pit nonviolence on one side and violence on the other. the implications of these histories of violence for the present are first its ready availability. south africa is a very violent society, with, as one example, unusually high rates of homicide (united nations office on drugs and crime, 2011) and of domestic violence (vetten, 2005). violence in schools includes corporal punishment, sexual harassment, and attacks on scholars and teachers (burnett, 1998; vally, 2002). secondly, it is vital to note that individuals’ experiences of violence are very different depending on their social identities. violence in schools, for example, may take very different forms depending on one’s race, gender and class. pedagogies to address violence writing on pedagogy seldom assumes that the experience of violence will be addressed within education. for example, arnot (2006, p.83) notes that “the mass violation of women’s human rights through. . . gender-based violence is . . . not generally considered an appropriate topic for citizenship education in schools”. two approaches foreground within their theory the need to address learning in relation to societal violence. gandhian education treats violence as a 32 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 central problem that education must address. the development of young people as just and nonviolent citizens is a central aim. however, there is little account of how the experience of violence is addressed; rather the emphasis is on overcoming violence through such methods as “the teaching of world religions, service learning, and setting an example” (damm, 2011, p.3). within schools, an emphasis on craft work and engagement with the physical world is also important in such pedagogy. similar approaches deal with the problem through the use of contemplative approaches (zajonc, 2006). missing in descriptions of gandhian education (pillai, n.d.) is the gandhian sense of nonviolence as struggle (terchek, 1998). within critical pedagogy, violence is acknowledged as an integral part of the problem of domination. “critical pedagogy keeps at its center the need to problematize both the overt and covert exercise of domination–subordination in social structures. . . ” (nagda, gurin and lopez, 2003, p.167). accounts though of how such pedagogy addresses the specific experience of violence are limited. pepinsky (2005) gives an account of a university course that focused specifically on memories of child abuse with the aim of advancing healing and peace-making. he acknowledges the difficulty of doing this, not least the uncertainties around accuracy and honesty. central to this was the creation of a teaching environment that acknowledges emotional struggle. a similar approach was adopted by hollander (2000), who invited students to keep a journal of experiences of fear, violence and safety and to discuss these within class. her approach enabled students to move beyond a view of violence as individual experience to understanding it as a form of social control. skumsnes (2007) analyses her teaching of a course for social professionals which brought into group discussion students’ anonymous narratives of experiencing or witnessing violence. the effect was to enable students to make explicit the links between theory and their practice as professionals. waterston and kujac (2007) describe the teaching of a studentcentred and critical ‘co-investigation’ course that addressed a range of violence from genocide to ‘everyday violence’, including the writing by students of ‘intimate autoethnographies’. these are diverse accounts, but have in common the pedagogical use of memories of violence, the measures that need to be taken within such hemson: crossing from violence to non-violence. . . 33 education to ensure safety, and the links that emerge between violence and social identities. such accounts also make a point that while including such work within education requires ethical care and may provoke difficult reactions, its exclusion has serious ethical implications. “. . .we must question the ethics of ignoring the emotional and psychological (while privileging the intellectual and abstract), even as we consider the challenges of bringing wounds to the surface”. (waterston and kujac, 2007, p.514) theoretical framework this article takes as a framework for exploring and reflecting on the data the work of valerie walkerdine (2006, 2011) on border crossing. her specific account of border crossings as transformations in the world of class of work (walkerdine, 2006) deals also with the broader issues of how subjects are expected to make transitions smoothly, but are always constrained by the burden of emotions and practices of the past. in reality, such transitions are fraught with pain and grief (hey, 2006) because they require the leaving behind of memories, of connections, of embodied responses. in relation to her own experience, walkerdine states of the working class, “they lived it [class] all the time, they understood exactly what class meant. they experienced it in the body, they experienced it socially, they experienced it emotionally. . .” (walkerdine, 2007, p.189). such a theory extends its reach to a range of identities (walkerdine, 2007). it addresses the capacity of people to make changes that they desire and hope for, including for social change. such change needs to engage with the kinds of knowledge that are most difficult to work with – the affects, practices and habits that are built up over time, that become ingrained in social identities. in a south african context, for example, social change requires that white people leave behind the expectation that their needs will be prioritised over those of others. potentially, in such transitions subjects can mourn what needs to be left behind and move on, developing new capacities. potentially, also, the new learning is limited and caught by unresolved attachments to the past. how would this apply to transitions related to violence? i take as an example my own memories in which violence is implicated. as a youngster growing 34 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 up in apartheid south africa, the child of middle-class parents from the uk, english heritage was constructed through images of the british national anthem, and the smells and sounds on a visit to england. it became evocative of peace, in contrast to my gathering awareness of violence in south africa – and despite my knowledge of british imperialism. however, later i visited winchester cathedral, the ancient seat of english heritage. as i walked through it i began to read the memorials to british soldiers who died fighting for empire in wars designed to subjugate local populations. i could not but recognise how my own sense of self had been caught up in memories, of sensory impressions, which silently drew me back to colonial relationships. violence had been mediated by social identity, and social identity by violence, for myself as much as for the young people in this study whose experiences were so very different. unless such memories are addressed afresh, and there is grieving over what needs to be left behind, tradition and culture are invoked in ways that do fresh violence (moletsane, 2011). walkerdine’s framework was drawn on for the analysis of data in this study. transcripts of the actual discussion, notes made by the researcher, newsprint written and presented by participants, and written evaluation comments were the data sources for the discussion. the data was scrutinised to identify in particular those points where there was reference to transitions, to comparisons between past and present understandings, for points of conflict where the generally unsaid was raised into specific focus. background to the case study this study focuses on the use of the pedagogy outlined above within a workshop held in december 2010 with ten participants. to understand the context and the ethical implications of this work, it is necessary to describe the preceding events. a student leader had approached the researcher in 2009 with a request that the international centre of nonviolence (icon) teach nonviolence to members of learner representative councils (lrcs) from three schools, two from a working class township near central durban, and one closer to the city centre. all students in these schools were african. as a result of this approach, i and five co-facilitators, mainly student teachers, led a three-day residential course hemson: crossing from violence to non-violence. . . 35 with 30 student leaders, selected to represent a range from grades 9 to 11, and to provide a balanced gender representation. the fact that all participants were african reflected how this developed and was not a purposeful choice. the initial session of the course developed through prolonged discussion a set of guidelines for the work, such as confidentiality and respect. immediately participants wanted to speak about their experience of violence, some of which had been traumatic. i introduced the participants to peer counselling as a way for them to speak about violence within a supportive environment. as part of the workshop, groups also developed and presented short dramas of school situations, in which both violence and the resistance to violence were depicted. a specific problem in the process emerged when the researcher required that the choice of a partner for counselling be made first by the youngest girls and last by the oldest boys. many of the girls selected girls, leaving older boys with little choice but to work with other boys of their age. this revealed that some older boys had wanted to select as their counsellors girls in whom they were interested; they then protested that “if i listen to another boy carefully people will think i am gay”, and “he will not be serious, he will want to make fun of me”. in this case i insisted that the boys not give in to these assumptions, and that they could work effectively with boys. after that session of counselling some volunteered their perception that their fears were shown to be incorrect. there was other evidence that some boys handled the peer counselling supportively with both boys and girls as partners – a girl revealed an incident of serious abuse to a boy in the counselling and he asked if she wished to report it formally, which she did with his assistance. i was left with a sense that tensions around gender were left unresolved. a disquiet heightened by a girl’s comment on an evaluation form that she had been subject to harassment despite the aims of the course. in the period after the 2009 course, there was further engagement – a one day workshop, and about ten short meetings at one of the schools in the township with those who chose to attend. these events focused mainly on the use of peer counselling around current issues facing them. in mid-2010 there was a development involving one male participant, whom i refer to as dumisani. my godson was at the one school that had sent leaders to the workshop, and i had been elected a member of the school governing body 36 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 (sgb). a group of girls had written to the sgb accusing the principal of sexual harassment, an issue that was referred to the provincial authorities and the police. their response varied from inaction to outright blame of the girls. according to evidence presented later to the sgb, dumisani had found a girl crying. she said that her hand was bleeding as the principal was hitting latecomers at the gate with a stick. dumisani asked the principal to stop. there was no response, so he stood in front of the principal and told the latecomers to go past him. the reaction by the principal was to summon the chairperson of the sgb to interrogate dumisani as to what he had done. under pressure, he repeated the allegation by girls about sexual harassment. the principal and chairperson then brought the matter to the sgb and insisted that the boy be expelled, a move successfully blocked by other members of the sgb, including myself. the events led to further pressure on the provincial authorities, and the principal resigned. this account serves to indicate why gender became a particular focus. it indicates also the diversity of boys’ handling of gender issues – the public assertion of a stereotyped homophobic, ‘hegemonic’ masculinity, as well as a direct challenge to patriarchy and sympathetic listening. the case study focuses on a three-day workshop which was intended to provide more understanding of how young people from the same group would develop if work on the memory of violence was more intensive. selection of participants was undertaken on the basis of who had shown leadership in the earlier workshops (such as dumisani). the age range was from 15 to 19 years. those invited readily agreed to participate; the period was just after the end of their examinations. ethical clearance, which included the possibility of referral to expert counsellors, was granted by durban university of technology. in the event such counselling was not needed. findings this section presents an account of the workshop, focusing primarily on those aspects where there was contestation over issues of gender. it organises the findings by the stages of that process. hemson: crossing from violence to non-violence. . . 37 introduction: the workshop began with an explanation of the purpose: icon wished participants to become leaders of nonviolence, and to think of themselves as leaders in an international context. time was spent on formulating guidelines for the interactions within the class; this was a familiar issue with those present. a particular debate was explored about publication of their images; they were emphatic that they wished to appear on the icon website. i explained that, as before, much of the work would be undertaken in groups and pairs; one advantage would be that this would give ample opportunity to address the issues in their first language, isizulu (though most spoke english with facility). division: i then referred back to the earlier workshop and the issue of gender in relation to violence, and asked them to move into a boys’ group and a girls’ group. this was an intervention drawn from the use of caucus groups in social justice education, where it has been used as a way of enabling freer discussion (adams, 1997). the task was first for each person to speak about an early memory of violence, secondly for the group to prepare a report on what it was like doing this work in a gender-based group and on what needed to be communicated to the other group. the youngsters complied readily. i posed the question to the boys about whether i should join as a male or not join as an adult, and they indicated the latter. thus the separation was not only on the basis of gender, but also age – and perhaps also on the basis of my professional status. assertion: it was immediately evident that the girls were very happy in the group, with animated and responsive speech. in contrast, the boys seemed to be uncertain and to lack direction. at the conclusion of the group work, i asked the girls and then the boys to talk first about what that experience had been like. the girls commented thus: ‘it was nice and helpful chatting with the girls: we got straight answers that we would not have got if boys had been there.’ ‘some of things that we were going through, other girls had also been going through.’ the boys’ views the separation was more equivocal: 38 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 ‘boys are confident with boys, we are scared when with girls.’ ‘the disadvantage was that we need to focus on what girls’ experience has been. we need to combine.’ the girls then presented what they had written on newsprint [spoken comments in brackets]. it expressed assertiveness, an understanding of violence as caught up in the sense of self and of others, and references to painful emotions: men use their power to take advantage of women’s vulnerability [our experiences were similar, where men used their physical power to make women be afraid of them, and fear them] secrets do contribute towards violence starting point for men to be violent is the anger they carry inside them, because they say men don’t cry, so by them distressing they cause violence to women. . . never trust people who are close to you cause they can frame you to violence what i have realised is that women are the ones who are the number 1 victims... how does it feel like when you are causing violence? contestation: this portrayed men very much as the source of violence, and drew a defensive reaction from the boys, who swung into a defence of their socialisation: boy 1: men don’t cry – we are too secretive, it is not easy for us to show our feelings to a woman, or to our friends. girl 1: what is the reason as to you not expressing what is eating you up inside? boy 1: it is the way we are built. . . dumisani can’t talk to me and tell me has a problem, and start crying, whereas for a female it is easier to do this, because we are built like this. boy 2: it is for pride, you are showing weakness. girl 2: what feature says i am built to cry and you not? boy 1: you are soft. girl 2: we are also proud. we are all built to cry. girl 3: it all goes back to the old stereotyped thing, we as africans especially, men are supposed to be stronger than women. . . i don’t understand the material, ‘we are hemson: crossing from violence to non-violence. . . 39 built like that’. men are supposed to be in rehabilitation centres? when men are angry, they are meant to sit alone? you are shutting me out, isn’t that related to violence? . . . girl 4: i don’t think it is the way you are built; it is from that culture thing. in this tussle boys initially present masculinity as essentialised – “it is the way we are built” – while the girls insist that masculinity is a cultural formation, one caught up in racial history: “the old stereotyped thing, we as africans especially”. it is subject to criticism and change; girls use the term ‘violence’ here as cultural violence (kent, 1993). the stance over the nature of masculinity taken here by the girls parallels that taken by scholars of masculinity since connell’s seminal work (connell 1987, 1995). what they are faced with is a particular kind of masculinity that was formed under specific historical conditions and is failing both them and boys. however, the boys’ response can be seen not just as assertion of traditional superiority; the socialisation makes things ‘not easy’ for them; there is vulnerability and implicit loss. walkerdine describes how “particular constellations of feelings and ways of being become quite sedimented within our bodymind” (2006, p.34). the sense here is of girls’ using the workshop structure to claim new ways of relating, while the boys demonstrate an attachment to the old. they might also, in terms of the sequence of the workshop, be preparing a defence of the image that they knew they would next be presenting. their newsprint presented a drawing of the face of a young woman, rather european in features, with long eyelashes and jewellery. next to an arrow to the eyes was ‘inner attraction’; ‘outer attraction’ referred to the lips. elsewhere on the sheet were statements like ‘in order for communication to happen between the genders, both must be able to reach a common understanding/ interest.’ boy 1: this is the lady we came up with, her name is bridget, she says, hi! boy 4: when a man and women are sitting together, the common thing is love between them. this is how communication happens. the second is money, girls love money and guys have money [outraged laughter from women]. girl 2: you are insulting us. boy 4: . . .after the conversation between them, what is meant to happen next? the 40 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 guy will not be saying what he meant, he will be speaking just to impress. . . that one is not so good, she can be my friend and she can bear my secrets. girl 3: . . .it all goes back, it is easy for you to communicate with a lady friend if she is not attractive... here the boys become tied up in a dilemma: on one hand, they articulate the need for ‘a common understanding’, on the other they present relationships with women as driven by physical appearance and men’s money. that these boys are unlikely to have money may be one reason for the laughter from the girls. at the same time there is an expectation that girls will be emotionally supportive, but that can be realised only when she is ‘not so good’, i.e. in appearance. the form of masculinity being expressed here is that of the isoka, the ‘player’ who pursues sexual relationships with women. this is the ‘sedimented’ masculinity that reappears, and the boys seems constrained to articulate it despite an implied ambivalence – their acknowledgement of the need for partners to provide emotional support to each other; there is a need for someone to ‘bear secrets’. hunter, in his study of zulu masculinity in a nearby township (2005, p.220) writes: “gender is more than simply the one dimensional expression of male power but, as historical analysis of the isoka masculinity demonstrates, embodied in male vulnerabilities and weaknesses.” resolution: the tussle continued in the discussion, until the boys began to shift their ground: boy 4: what we know in a relationship is that the guy should be a stronger partner in the relationship. girl 2: how does this ‘stronger part’ go? you are meant to carry all the burden? . . . sengidiniwe [i am angry] now. boy 3: the frustration we get from our inner part is part of the violence you see. this thing refers to our pride, that we need to be respected by a woman, to be [his own name]. . . we need self-introspection before communicating with women. we don’t know what we want and what we have. . . i don’t know myself and i don’t know how to solve my problems. here this situation tells us, we need to clear our minds and clear ourselves before communicating with women. girl 1: bravo, bravo! boy 3: it’s educating both genders. we cannot educate women about what we need until we have done some introspection. hemson: crossing from violence to non-violence. . . 41 what started as an assertion of masculine power turns to a recognition of confusion and acknowledgement of weakness. yet this is not simply retreat; the boys end with a reference to reflection; they are humans with needs, and the lack of understanding across genders may be mutual. what seemed at one point the assertion of an entrenched notion of masculinity now seems to be part of the process of what might be read as ‘grieving’ for it. it is as if the boys needed to demonstrate just how difficult it is to abandon an attachment to what had cast you as being in command. walkerdine (2006, p.25) discusses the task of mourning as “to gradually adapt to the reality of the situation and to move on.” here the boys start to cut adrift from an old way of relating and in the process open up new possibilities for moving on. this contestation thus involved conflict, but it was conflict of a kind that served to clarify, rather than a conflict that fed into violence. kent (1993) refers to conflict as the ‘incompatibility of preferences’; here the point expressed by a boy about the need for communication opens up nonviolent ways of handling conflicting preferences, or possibly even reframing them to find areas of mutuality with girls. the claim i make here is not that the boys went through some permanent conversion to a more sensitive masculinity. there was though some specific evidence of realisations that they saw as significant. in the evaluation comments, one wrote: . . .there were things that we didn’t know about ourselves as boys that we realised. . . another: i definitely had a different mindset about the girls/women, and learnt more about them and also about how us boys/men think and feel about our emotions. further application: after this interaction, the workshop moved into further work in memories of violence, using drawings, undertaken first in pairs and then in the full group. there was at this point a marked shift to a more balanced and easy process in the group, in which gender was no longer a point of tension. there was an atmosphere of mutual support and a sense of shared pain that crossed genders. finally the group developed a statement about their work to go onto the icon website. some elements of this statement addressed issues of tradition in relation to social identities, others more current concerns: it was fun for us to work in separate gender groups. . . stereotypes that classify men as powerful and women as weak are wrong and contribute to violence. we 42 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 challenge the idea that women must stay in the kitchen and do chores. if we could swop jobs, it would be fun and cool. there are attitudes that certain crimes done by men are ‘cool’, such as hijacking, or that it is ok for women to do things like shoplifting. this is completely wrong. unemployment is the cause of insecure citizens with no respect for others, resulting in xenophobia and discrimination. it is hard for some young people to have self-acceptance given their backgrounds and the ways they are living. some of us pretend to be rich when we are poor. . . we have a cultural value of respect, and the way we do things should reflect the respect we feel for others. sometimes this idea has been misused by older people to justify abuse. younger people and older people should respect each other. the domination of english excludes our language. . . this discussion criticises existing practices related to gender, class, nationality and age. however it reframes instead of discarding older values and associations. respect (ukuhlonipha) is a traditional value, but is here extended to addresses inequality of age; the domination of english is challenged. instead of the attachment to established practices and attitudes, here is a freshness as sedimented practices are brought into scrutiny and new relationships formed. shortly after this i and a co-teacher used a similar strategy of gender-based groups in a class on violence – again with african students, but all adults. this led to quite emphatic statements that those present would not have been able to speak freely in the presence of the other gender. however, in this class there was much greater difficulty in continuing the discussion outside the gender groupings. the younger group had demonstrated greater facility and flexibility in making shifts in their way of handling gender, an indication perhaps of the advantage of youth in addressing social identities. the comparison points also to the value of further studies that draw on multiple cases. discussion walkerdine (2006, 2011) accounts for the difficulties people have in breaking away from established ways of being. developing young people as leaders who can work for nonviolence within a violent society requires a difficult hemson: crossing from violence to non-violence. . . 43 transition. she argues that we need to create sufficient safety in education to enable such transitions; here i maintain that the pedagogy described in the case study is one way of doing that. the pedagogy in use in this study had these central elements: it focused on the memories of violence as a way of developing a commitment to nonviolence, it involved measures to build the safety necessary for open discussion about painful memories, and it used gender-based discussions as a specific measure to enable greater safety. use of this strategy of division led into a period of assertion, followed by contestation and finally a resolution. in turn there was further application of the development to other areas of social identity. it is argued that such a pedagogical approach can provide the safety and opportunity necessary to support the complex and difficult transitions needed if we are to address the violence caught up in social identities and in our attachment to associated practices and ways of thinking and feeling (lucey, melody and walkerdine, 2003, p.293). the point is not that work with young people and memories should always be based on a gender division, but rather that the strategic use of separate groups at one stage enabled a discussion that would otherwise probably not have occurred. the implications of this approach are thus that any work on the memories of violence should take into account the specific social dynamics that constrain free discussion. for example, if this group had included disabled youth as well as able-bodied, or not only african youth, the specific dynamics around ability and race would need to be addressed. to assume that discussion on violence can take place freely across the divisions that are connected to the violence is naïve. conclusion when we work with ourselves and others for nonviolence, we confront the many ways in which our social relations have been caught in violence. a pedagogy for nonviolence needs to work with awareness of the attachments that we carry, and the difficulties of simply moving on from them. using memories of violence can, it is argued, provide the possibility of freeing oneself from those attachments. 44 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 the act of speaking one’s memory of violence though presents both opportunities and constraints. it takes place in the present social context, and can be shaped or silenced by the dynamics of that context. it is this challenge that a pedagogy for nonviolence must address. references adams, m. 1997. pedagogical frameworks for social justice education. in adams, m., bell, l.a. and griffin, p. 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research, 19(4): pp.576–582. zajonc, a. 2002 love and knowledge: recovering the heart of learning through contemplation. teachers college record, 108(9), pp.1742–1759. crispin hemson director international centre for non-violence durban university of technology icon@dut.ac.za mailto:icon@dut.ac.za 48 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 ideological illusions, human rights and the right to education: the in(ex)clusion of the poor in post-apartheid education anne becker and petro du preez abstract against the background of global concern about the political and social consequences of human rights, this article uses an ideological lens to explore the (non)existence of the right to education in south africa. we argue that post-apartheid education actively (re)normalises the in(ex)clusions of the poor in education within neo-liberal capitalist human rights frameworks. data from the nrf funded project human rights literacy: a quest for meaning (roux, 2012) indicate that student-teachers are aware of the ideological illusion presented in the real and contrasting educational realities. we conclude by arguing for the need to assume common responsibility for the in(ex)clusions of the poor in education. the importance of human rights literacies cannot be underestimated in this regard. human rights literacies open spaces in which student-teachers in common responsibility can engage with issues such as poverty and in(ex)clusions in education. introduction the preamble to the south african constitution (rsa, 1996a hereafter constitution) describes south africa as “a democratic and open society” and states that the constitution (rsa, 1996a) aims to improve “the quality of life of all citizens” and free “the potential of each person”. globally, inclusive education as a basic human right is entrenched in various international declarations and conventions (christie, 2010). in line with global and local declarations and conventions, the department of basic education (doe), had since 1994, promulgated several south african laws and policies in this regard. these include: the south african schools act, no 84 (rsa, 1996c), the national education policy act 1996, act no. 27 of 1996 (rsa, 1996b), white paper 6 on inclusive education (doe, 2001a), the manifesto on values, education and democracy (doe, 2001b), the guidelines for inclusive learning programmes (doe, rsa, 2005), the strategy for racial integration (doe, rsa, 2006), the bill of responsibilities 56 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 for the youth of south africa (doe, rsa, 2008) and implementation guidelines to rights-based education (doe and unicef south africa, 2008) (becker, de wet and van vollenhoven, 2015). however, despite specific provisions in the south african bill of rights (1996) as to the right to education and numerous education laws and policies, scholars such as nkonyane (2014) and soudien (2010) pose that post-apartheid education perpetuates historic patterns of marginalisation in south africa resulting in south africa remaining one of the most unequal societies in the world. this article aims to explore the ideological illusion of full inclusion in education, expressed by student-teachers and the influence thereof on their understanding of the (non)realisation of the right to education and resulting marginalisation and in(ex)clusions. in this article, the ‘who and what’ of in(ex)clusion are the poor. recent critique on human rights can be traced back to the inception of human rights during the enlightenment. the declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen (1789, hereafter drmc) grounded in a quest to protect and preserve individual choice, autonomy, identity and subjectivity, resulted in liberal individualism still dominating understandings of human rights today (becker, 2013). arendt (1966) argued that the atrocities of the holocaust had been easy to perpetrate because the drmc (1789) had never been philosophically questioned. in the aftermath of world war ii, in a renewed quest to protect individual freedom, dignity and equality, the universal declaration of human rights (1948, hereafter udhr) was drafted. the twenty-seven articles of the udhr (1948) were divided between the three human rights values that crystalised after the french revolution, namely dignity, liberty and equality which also advanced the notion of the three generation of rights (becker 2012; weston, 1984). the right to education forms part of second generation social, cultural and economic rights grounded in the socialist tradition. it serves as a counterpoint to first generation civil and political rights. second generation rights speak to violations resulting from capitalism and conceptions of liberty used to rationalise and validate such violations (weston, 1984). second generation rights are claims to social justice and equity and demand intervention from the state for their realisation (weston, 1984). after 1994 and in order to redress previous educational inequality and a growing demand for education, the new anc government focussed education policies on open access to education for all children. this commitment, however is circumscribed by neoliberal macroeconomics and statements of the need for fiscal discipline in education becker and du preez: ideological illusions. . . 57 finance. at present, the south african government provides 12 years of free education for all children. in practice, however, parents contribute, indirectly and directly, for the education of their children (weber, 2002). despite numerous policies aimed at full inclusion, access to education remain largely dependant on financial means (christie, 2010). in light of the above, this article uses an ideological lens to explore the processes inherent to the (non)realisation of the right to education, with specific reference to post-apartheid south africa. the lack of substantive rights to education in south africa illustrates the ideological underpinnings of human rights as well as the paradox of (non)existing human rights. this article does not speak to the effects of neo-liberalism and capitalism on the nature and processes of education and teaching-learning. it does not aim to speak of the poor or for the poor. it speaks to both the possession paradox of human rights and the capitalist illusion (as narrated by student-teachers) of full inclusion in the abstract universal right to education, masking this paradox. the possession paradox of human rights holds that although one might have the abstract right to education, one might, at the same time, not have the right to education (donnelly, 2007). the poor may be theoretically fully included in the right to state provision of basic education (constitution 1996), but in south africa this has been normalised as a limited right. conceding that there are many systemic and structural socio-economic, political and historical reasons for in(ex)clusions in education, we argue that post-apartheid education actively constructs, normalises and masks in(ex)clusions within neo-liberal human rights frameworks and capitalist illusions. to do so, we draw on zizek’s (2008) conceptualisation of ideology as manifesting in the real and social reality. the ideological illusion, presented in the real, of full inclusion by abstract written rights and of neoliberal capitalist education as eradicating poverty is in stark contrast to social and educational realities of in(ex)clusions. in conclusion we argue that all south africans, as the subjects of rights, should assume common responsibility for the in(ex)clusions of the poor in education and stress the importance of teaching-learning towards human rights literacies in this regard. we pose the following research questions: how do the dynamics of the real and social and educational reality manifest in post-apartheid education? and what are their influences on the in(ex)clusion of the poor in post-apartheid education? 58 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 methodological considerations and contextualisation the nrf funded project, human rights literacy: a quest for meaning (roux and du preez, 2013) was concerned with human rights literacy in teacher education. poverty and in(ex)clusions in education was not the focus of the research. the research focused on understandings and literacies in regard to the following: gender/sexuality, culture, religion, social justice, values and the implications thereof for curriculum. this article explores the possession paradox of human rights (specifically socio-economic rights), the ideological illusion masking the paradox and the narration of the ideological illusion of full inclusion in the right to education, narrated by student-teachers. three strategies were used to collect qualitative and quantitative data: a ‘walk-about’, a survey and small focus group discussions (becker, de wet and parker, 2014; roux and du preez, 2013). first, in order to probe understandings of human rights and develop questions for the survey, a ‘walk-about’ was conducted on three university campuses in two provinces. convenience sampling was used to select n80 participants (gillham, 2008; flick, 2009). during the ‘walk-about’ students were stopped on campus and asked four questions: do you agree with the concept of human rights; what do you regard as the most important human right? what are human rights? and how do you ‘live out’ human rights? (becker et al., 2014) purposive sampling (cresswell, 2013; pidgeon and henwood, 2004) was used for the survey phase of the data collection process. three levels of sampling were employed during this phase. first, three institutions were selected. secondly, six campuses (sites) in four provinces were chosen by means of stratified purposive sampling (becker et al., 2014). the aim was to identify subgroups and facilitate comparisons (ritchie, lewis and elam, 2009). site 1 is a metropolitan campus where the majority of students are zulu-speakers. site 2 is a metropolitan campus with students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. site 3 is a rural campus where most of the students are afrikaans. site 4 is in a semi-rural area and most students are afrikaans. site 5 is situated in a metropolitan area so the student population is linguistically, ethnically and culturally diverse. at site 6, a rural campus, most students are setswana speakers (becker et al., 2014). the final decision was to focus on first and final year pre-service teachers in teacher education programmes at the six sites. a total of n1086/4953 student-teachers completed the survey. becker and du preez: ideological illusions. . . 59 after the survey, small focus-group discussions were conducted on the six sites to validate the data that had been collected and to review the literature, ontologies and epistemologies (roux and du preez, 2013). a total of n68/1086 students were selected by means of snow-ball sampling (cresswell, 2013; gillham, 2008). during the first meeting discussions were initiated by asking one question: do you think human rights exist? during the second meeting scenarios drafted by the researchers regarding human rights violations in terms of gender, religion, culture and first generation rights were discussed. at site 1 – n18 student-teachers participated, at site 2 only n2, at site 3 – n13, at site 4 –n14, at site 5 – n11 and at site 6 – n9. student-teachers participating in the focus groups discussions were between 18 and 28 years old and spoke six of the 11 official languages (becker et al., 2014). focus group discussions were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim by the researchers. this article uses a neo-marxist lens to explore the effect of neo-liberal capitalism on human rights and post-apartheid education, particularly the in(ex)clusion of the poor in education. neo-marxism is part of a wide range of critical theories viewing globalisation as premised on power and hegemony and marketised education as serving capitalist interests (shields, 2013). for the purpose of this article, only question 30 from the survey is used. selected excerpts from the data generated by the ‘walk-about’ and the first focus group discussions are analysed using discourse analysis (potter, 2004). data are referenced in terms of the data source: ‘walk-about’ refers to responses obtained by this strategy. focus-group references indicate the site, year group and meeting: s1y4m2 refers to data from site 1(s1), fourth year (y4), second meeting (m2). before presenting the data, we briefly explore the manifestation and dynamics of neoliberal capitalism in the real, social and educational reality. the real, social reality and the right to education at the inception of human rights, it was believed that the human rights values of freedom, dignity and equality were self-evident and inalienable and that the legalisation of abstract universal human rights will guarantee these values (becker, 2012). during the last decade, comments such as “the concept of 60 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 human rights fits with the life of the well-off much more accurately (and conveniently) than those of the badly off” (chi, 2005) and “by accepting ‘human’ rights we have agreed to alienate our right to the state to decide for us what and who is human” (neocosmos, 2006), indicate that human rights have become a morality of power (becker, 2012). the criticism of the hollowness of abstract written universal rights centres on exclusions, the failure to acknowledge the other, identity politics, the moral and political core of universal rights and the ideological premise of such rights (zembylas and bozalek, 2014; cistelecan, 2011; žižek, 2005; rancière, 2004). scholars such as žižek (2005) and ranciere (2004) contend that the politics of human rights serve imperialist and colonialist economic interests in the guise of tolerance or humanitarian intervention or aid. schweickart (2011, p.3) describes the spectre of globalised capitalism as follows: “infinitely alluring, mysteriously powerful, savagely unequal and profoundly irrational.” the notion that capitalism works, is challenged by scholars such as žižek (2014; 2011; 2009a; 2009b, 2008), piketty (2014) and schweickart (2011). social divisions, inequality and in(ex)clusions are historic and ongoing. marx and engels (2008, p.3) contend that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” and piketty (2014) argues that there is little evidence that the share of labour in the national income in the twenty-first century has increased since the eighteen and nineteenth centuries. this is partly because “if there was ever a system which enchanted its subjects with dreams (of freedom, of how your success depends on yourself, of the run of luck which is just around the corner, of unconstrained pleasures…), then it is capitalism” (žižek, 2009a, p.26). the hegemony of neo-liberal capitalism extends the logic of marketisation to all spheres of social life such as politics, health and education (see žižek, 2014). there are various and contested notions of the real. both sayer (2000) and baxter (1987) critique and depart from habermas’ ‘two-level’ theory of modern societies integrating action-theoretical and systems-theoretical sociological perspectives. the distinction between system/life-world has largely been identified with habermas (sayer, 2000). this model of system / life-world interchange, grounds habermas’ account of modern capitalist societies. baxter (1987) argues that habermas’ model of system/life-world does not adequately account for the interchange between the two and that the distinction between the two leads to misconceptions regarding economic, political and administrative systems. for sayer (2000) systems and life-worlds are dimensions of the modern society and do not correspond to particular becker and du preez: ideological illusions. . . 61 physical spaces. systems, however, are always culturally embedded in and dependent on life-worlds. žižek’s (2008) contribution to this debate lies within his conceptualisation of the real and social reality and how ideologies are shaped and reproduced in the movement between the real and social reality. although žižek is described as a marxist, there are great differences between his marxism and that of anglo-american academics. žižek (2008) finds in the manifesto the recognition of the destruction which capitalism produces. he however argues that the theoretical error made by marx does not lie in the analysis of capitalism’s destruction but in the faith that the contradictions of capitalism could be overcome. the dream of a spiral of productivity unchecked by contradictions is one of capitalism’s own ideological fantasies, žižek contends (harpham, 2003). žižek (2008) borrows the term the real from lacan. he focusses on lacan’s link between the real and the construction of fantasies. while symptoms (in psychoanalyses) are interpreted as unconscious formations, fantasies are constructed as responses to the real (samuels, 2008). for both žižek and lacan, the real does not have a positive-substantial consistency; it describes a socio-symbolic process (noys, 2010). in the sublime object of ideology (2008), žižek’s notion of ideology as an objectified fantasy-structure correlates with the real as the unpresentable and unknowable traumatic kernel; it is what we desire but can never know or grasp (noys, 2010; de kesel, 2004). the initial clear opposition between the real and the symbolic order (the order of language and law) in žižek’s earlier conceptualisation of the real, shifted towards a conceptualisation of the real, not as the external hard kernel, but a permutation of the symbolic (the domain of language and law) in his later works (noys, 2010). within a globalised real, meaning is de-totalised and emptied. meaning-less truths such as that everyone has equal access to education, are continually normalised and presented as if they were social reality (žižek, 2009a; 2014). in social reality, according to žižek (2008), humans are actively involved in the production processes of capitalism: they act, re-act and inter-act on the real and the ‘truths’ presented in the real. the ideological illusion of capitalism is thus social reality (not a representation or abstraction of social reality). the marxist definition of ideology: “they do not know it, but they are doing it” does not apply to capitalism, so žižek (2008, pp.27,30) rephrases it to “they know very well what they are doing but still keep on doing it”. although we know that the ‘truths’ presented as social reality are meaningless, and we know the interests they serve, we choose not to renounce them 62 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 (žižek, 2008). in south africa, we structure social and educational realities on the ideological illusion that everyone has equal access to education. the illusionary power of a neoliberal capitalist utopia, of democracy, human rights and dreams of success thus continually (re)normalises educational in(ex)clusions, class struggles, and the loss of freedom and equality (žižek, 2009a). the abstract written rights in the constitution (1996) fully include the formerly excluded in economic and educational progress and development. furthermore, the right to education is globally presented as the ‘solution’ to poverty, inequality, marginalisation and social exclusions (christie, 2008). educational policies based on the abstract written right to education assume that policies can ensure that every child is fully included in education and in the ‘solution’ to poverty. inclusion in and exclusion from education are, however, not bipolar concepts (sayed, 2003). in(ex)clusion is the process of defining and constituting the included as the ‘ideal’ and the excluded as needing special measures to be fully included (sayed, 2003). paradoxically, the very measures which are intended to include the poor (the other) differentiate, divide and cast the poor out (popkewitz, 2009). such measures furthermore reflect a “pathology of individual and group failure” (sayed, 2003, p.4), which implies that poor people have only themselves to blame for their situation (christie, 2008). capitalism’s global reach “is grounded in the way it introduces a radical class division across the entire globe, separating those protected by the sphere of capitalism from those outside the sphere of capitalism” (žižek, 2014, p.63). in risk societies the utopian illusion sells fears and insecurities and presents dreams of equality, free choice and full democracy as the solution (see žižek, 2005). the ethical illusion which tolerance and capitalist charity and pity afford, protects us from social reality but simultaneously deny us the possibility of being responsible for the poor. capitalist charity keeps the poor fully in(ex)cluded in the capitalist illusion. their full in(ex)clusion remains crucial to capitalist reproduction, because as žižek (2009b, p.20) poses: “the thing itself [capitalism] is the remedy against the threat it poses.” within a neoliberal capitalist human rights framework, the poor are the subjects of humanitarian aid and in education, the subjects of interventions and special measures, rather than the subjects of human rights or the right to education. arendt (1966, p.299) argues that the conception of universal human rights, “based on the assumed existence of a human being as such”, broke down becker and du preez: ideological illusions. . . 63 when the right-less in their “abstract nakedness of being human,” were excluded from being the subjects of human rights in the concentration camps. in revisiting the question of human rights and the subjects of human rights, rancière (2004) concludes that there are two forms of rights: written rights implying the possession paradox of human rights (the [non]existence of rights) and the rights of those who decide to use their rights and structure moments of dissensus in political spaces. both žižek (2005) and rancière (2004) suggest that the possibilities of human rights (and the right to education) lie in the gap between (non)existing rights when humans structure dissensus. dissensus is premised on humanity’s own universality as political agents of social reality and as the subjects of human rights (cistelecan, 2011). this, we argue becomes possible when human solidarity is enacted by assuming common responsibility. for arendt (2003), assigning moral or legal responsibility to individuals for human rights violations such as in(ex)clusions is not a solution. for her the answer lies in common responsibility. this rests on two criteria: i am responsible for something i have not done and i am a member of a collective from which i cannot disengage myself (arendt, 2003). as a member of humanity, i am responsible for all the misery that every other member(s) of humanity causes. i am fully and collectively responsible for, and a possible victim of, the (non)existence of human rights. this kind of responsibility is only possible in political spaces (arendt, 2003). when the ideal of human solidarity is purged of pity, guilt and tolerance, it demands that all humans assume global political responsibility for humanity’s right to have rights. although this is an almost unbearable burden, the price for non-responsibility is “considerably higher” (birmingham, 2006, arendt, 2003, p.150). the price of non-responsibility in this context is the continual normalisation of the in(ex)clusions of the poor from the capitalist sphere and the right to education. the poor remain invisible, without the right to be seen and recognised as equals by equals. they are not part of the ‘we’ of humanity (birmingham, 2006). they can therefore not be the subjects of human rights or, in the context of this article, the subjects of the right to equal educational opportunities. assigning or shifting moral or legal responsibility for the in(ex)clusion of the poor to government or humanitarian agencies results in everyone being guilty and nobody being guilty (see arendt, 2003). within common responsibility the poor are fully included in the ‘we’ of humanity. it becomes possible to renounce the ideological illusion and, in solidarity, to structure dissensus in political spaces. in the next section, data is presented 64 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 regarding the (non)realisation of the right to education resulting in the in(ex)clusion of the poor. the right to education and the in(ex)clusion of the poor the 1994 promise of a better life for all, reinforced by the abstract written right to education in the constitution (1996) featured in the answers of student-teachers. during the ‘walk-about’ participants were asked what they regarded as the most important human right. the right to education featured prominently in their responses. of the n71 participants who answered this question, n24 chose the right to education, n21 the right to equality, n13 the right to freedom, n9 the right to life and n4 the right to dignity, as the most important human rights. of the n24 students who chose education n17 assumed a link between neoliberal capitalist education, the alleviation of poverty and the possibilities of employment and success (inclusion in a marketised society). the following excerpts provide examples: education. so we can succeed in life (walk-about) the right to education. . .because education fights poverty (walk-about) the right to basic education. education opens opportunities, doors and minds. if exercised adequately it can combat poverty (walk-about) . . .why to be educated, because everything is about money and education (walk-about) the survey dealt with perceptions of human rights, human rights and gender/sexuality, human rights and society, human rights constructs, human rights and religion/culture and human rights and education (mostly curriculum issues). the only question concerning human rights/poverty and education was question 30: when poverty influences the ability of children to access education, are you of the opinion that they are denied the right to education? becker and du preez: ideological illusions. . . 65 n750 answer choices responses i agree somewhat 18.80% 141 i disagree somewhat 8.80% 66 neither agree nor disagree 6.13% 46 totally disagree 19.87% 149 fully agree 46.40% 348 total 750 of the student-teachers who answered this question n348 fully agreed, and n141 agreed somewhat, that poverty influences access to education and the right to education. this question only concerns access to education (not quality of education and/or access to quality education) and indicates that 34.8% of participants did not regard poverty as a barrier to the realisation of the right to education. forty-six point four percent of student-teachers, however, indicated that poverty definitely influences substantive rights to education. during the first meeting with the small focus groups, student-teachers were only asked one question: do you think human rights exist? thirty-four of 68 student-teachers (50%) at all six sites qualified their yes answer to this question by pointing to the non-realisation of socio-economic rights. examples include: participant 1f: . . . let’s say my grandmother in qwa-qwa, she is so poor they don’t even have water they have to walk miles to get water. (s5y1m1) participant 2f: . . .i think people who do not have a job, a month’s . . .and the other thing is grandmothers take taxis to get their grant and i think they should get some free transport to get their grants. . . (s1y1m1b) participant 4f: . . . like i mean how many people in south africa don’t have proper sanitation, and don’t have running water, and don’t have, . . . i mean how many homeless people are there. . . (s6y4m1) 66 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 participant 1m: . . . that women – she may give birth in the floor of the clinic, but the poster may be there – telling her that everyone has the right to what, what, what. . . (s6y1m1) participant 5f: . . .sometimes the rights of children do not exist in our country, because they don’t get what they have. (s4y4m1a) seventeen student-teachers from sites 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 described the right to education as a manifestation of the existence of human rights: participant 1f: . . . i think that human rights exist because the government says that every child, every learner are supposed to be at school and get a free education. (s1y1m1b) participant 2f: . . . yes because you have the right to education. (s3y4m1) participant 3f: . . . i think it does exist, because we see people exercising their rights on a daily basis. for example, at schools and the right to education. (s4y4m1a) participant 2f: . . . i would say like. . . let me take my right to education. i see that it resolves around my rights because i have a right to education. . . (s5y4m1) participant 2m: . . .well i do think that human rights exist. . . because there is a law that says that everyone has rights to basic education, even if you are in rural areas – so you must study, so, that is proof. (s6y1m1) however, 16 student-teachers on sites 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6, voiced their concern about the (non)existence of the right to education, arguing that the right to education depend on having money to pay for education: participant 3f: . . .some children do not have the right to go to school. at some schools like in rural areas children do not have the right to go to school or they do not have money to help them to go to school. (s1y1m1b) becker and du preez: ideological illusions. . . 67 participant 4f: . . .but then we look at the right to education, everyone has a right to education, but then there are people who cannot pay financially for it and then it is only that, that right is taken away from you. (s3y4m1) participant 3f: . . .if you look at the right to education, what about those poor kids that don’t have textbooks or anything, where is their right to be educated?. . . their right to education is not actually there. . . (s4y1m1) participant 5f: . . . for instance, education, there are schools but the level of education it is so low, it’s so low. we were doing practical recently, god it’s a mess. everything, everything is not in its place, the teachers are lazy the principal himself is not responsible for the school. . . why have i the right to education if i am not given the education that i deserve. why? (s5y1m1) participant 4f: . . . because there are people who still are, who are there in places where they don’t have access to education. (s6y1m1) at site 3 two student-teachers saw the in(ex)clusion of the poor from education because of class differences as inevitable or a given: participant 2f: yes, because you have a right to education, but everyone is in different classes. (s3y4m1) participant 2m: i think it [human rights] is applied correctly [within educational systems]. i think if you look at private schools. all are not on the same level. so the education system is designed in such a way that everyone could be accommodated. so you can’t be here [showing with his/her hand a lower level] and then you are in a private school, because then you can’t afford it, and if you can’t afford it, then your child should be in a state school. so, everyone has equal rights, but it is about status as well. (s3y1m1) student-teachers’definition of who and what the poor are, influenced the lens through which they ‘saw’poverty and the resultant in(ex)clusions. it also influenced how they understood and made sense of poverty and pathologies of failure regarding the poor (see sayed, 2003). according to studentteachers from site 1, the poor were those people who live in shacks (s1y1m1a 68 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 and s1y1m1b), not even tin houses, houses built with mud (s1y1m1a). they live in rural areas (s1y4m1a). children of the poor have no food, no clothes to wear and the only time when they get something to eat is when someone brings them a meal to eat. other than that they are starving (s1y4m1a). at site 5, one student-teacher described the poor as living in underdeveloped areas (s5y1m1). failure was to be expected, because obviously [the poor] are less educated (s5y1m1). student-teachers at sites 1, 3 and 5 argued that the poor did not know about rights (s5y1m1; s1y4m1; s3y4m1), do not believe in human rights (s1y4m1) and did not have the means to bring to book those who violate their rights (s1y4m1; s2y1m1; s3y4m1). at site 4 and 6 studentteachers posed that the poor had to resort to stealing to support themselves and their families (s4y1m1; s6y4m1). at sites 1, 5 and 6 student-teachers situated the poor in distant geographical place and space; in rural areas (s1y1m1a; s1y4m1a; s5y1m1), in underdeveloped areas (s5y1m1) and in shacks (s1y1m1a) and houses built with mud (s1y1m1a). they also seemed to actively construct an emotional distance from the poor in the use of phrases such as those people and poor people (s1y1m1; s6y4m1; s5y1m1). seven student-teachers from sites 5, 3 and 6 argued that claiming rights was the responsibility of every individual and the poor could/should claim their rights: participant 4f: i think for me it’s like i can have a voice to speak because if i know what the constitution says, human rights say, then i can go this is my right to get educated, then i know how to use it and how it protects me . . . (s5y1m1) participant 1f: . . . then you will surely say but i want to attend school, no matter what happens. . . . then someone will reach out and say we are here, especially the state police department or so. so it actually depends on person to person if you will. . . activate. . .your human rights. (s3y1m1) while student-teachers from sites 3, 5 and 6 posed that the poor should claim their rights six student-teachers from sites 4 and 6 expressed frustration and resentment towards the poor and the effects of poverty on south african society. becker and du preez: ideological illusions. . . 69 participant 3f: . . . they [are] just make[ing] babies there, ja, we can’t afford them but they get r350 [social grants] per child per month so lekker. . . . (s6y4m1) participant 2f: . . .most of our [south africa’s] problems are due to the reason of poverty (s6y4m1) participant 3f: . . .we pay, we pay for their [the poor] electricity, for their food and their houses (s6y4m1) participant 5f: . . . and sometimes their parents, the government gives them a grant for their children, but the parents take the money for booze or something (s4y4m1a) in response to a question from one of the researchers regarding responsibility for the poor, eight student-teachers from sites 1 and 6 argued that they/we should/could be responsible but then qualified their answers by arguing that they were not solely responsible or not responsible as such. they held government and business responsible: participant 3f: not responsible as such, but we should also help and contribute to the poor. (s1y4m1b) participant 1f: we are not solely responsible but we should also contribute and help. (s1y4m1b) participant 5m: we should all help and local businessmen they should help. (s1y4m1b) participant 2f: . . . and learners must get someone to support them to go to school and further education. government should support them. (s1y1m1a) participant 1f: . . . it starts with the government. they do all the policies and everything. . . they should be enforcing it. (s6y4m1) participant 4f: . . . but then once again look where we are, apartheid happened how many years ago and they [government] still haven’t got those basic rights in. (s6y4m1) 70 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 ideological illusions, educational realities, the poor and the right to education: discussion during the first focus group meeting fifty percent of student-teachers described the possession paradox of human rights with specific reference to the (non)realisation of socio-economic rights. rancière (2004, p.302) explains that human rights are held by all humans (the subjects of rights) “who have not the rights that they have and have the rights that they have not”. written rights, such as the right to education, express the abstract ideal of education for everyone but simultaneously imply the (non)existence of the right to education and the in(ex)clusion of everyone in education. student-teachers regard the right to education as an important manifestation of human rights and socio-economic rights (n24: walk-about; n17: first small focus-group discussion) the underlying assumption of the illusionary narrative of post-apartheid education is that neo-liberal capitalist education results in the eradication of poverty, supported by the abstract written right to education for everyone in the constitution (1996), were evident in the answers of students during the walk-about. of the n71 who answered the question as to what they regard as the most important human right, n17 linked neo-liberalist education to the illusion of eradicating poverty and possibilities of success. the ideological illusion, links the abstract ideal of full inclusion in education and the eradication of poverty as the social reality. however, this is a meaning-less truth within the frame of globalised capitalism and the saturation of human rights and education by neo-liberal capitalism. although the poor are fully included in the abstract written right to education, they are simultaneously separated and excluded from those protected and included in the sphere of capitalism (see žižek, 2014). the neo-liberal capitalist policies and measures which purportedly include the poor in education, differentiate, divide and cast them out (see popkewitz, 2009). žižek (2008) argues that capitalism is social reality in which we know the real is an illusion but we remain involved in the production processes of capitalism. student-teachers (n16/68) who participated in the small focus group discussions expressed concern with the (non)realisation of the right to education due to financial constraints. in answer to q30 in the survey 65.20% of student-teachers (fully agree or agree somewhat) indicated that they regard becker and du preez: ideological illusions. . . 71 poverty as a possible barrier to substantive rights to education. studentteachers (n17/68) on the other hand, also explained the realisation of the right to education as the manifestation of the existence of human rights. they furthermore argued that it is the responsibility of every individual to claim their rights (n7) and that the poor are the responsibility of government and business (n8). six student-teachers expressed feelings of frustration, dissonance and resentment towards the poor. in trying to make sense of their resentment, frustration, conflict and dissonance, student-teachers assigned responsibility for the poor to government, the business sector and others with power, illustrating arendt’s notion that in such contexts, everyone is guilty and nobody is guilty (see arendt, 2003.) there is an irony in the assumption that government and those in power are responsible: within neo-liberal capitalist societies, local businesses and those in power rely on capitalist principles to stay in power and maintain or increase their wealth. capitalism relies on this assumption to re-produce itself: “the thing itself [capitalism] is the remedy against the threat it poses” (žižek, 2009b, p20). the poor are not included in the sphere of neo-liberal capitalist education. they are referred to as those people. they are from distant emotional spaces and geographical places: rural areas and in underdeveloped areas. they are obviously less educated. they are the responsibility of someone who might bring them food and clothes. they are the responsibility of those (government, the business sector and others with power) who rely on capitalist principles, structures and systems to enrich themselves and stay in power. the in(ex)clusion of the poor from education illustrate the possession paradox of human rights, and the neo-liberal capitalist illusion masking this. conclusion and recommendations within neo-liberal capitalist human rights frameworks the poor are positioned as the subjects of interventions, aid and special measures. they are not the subjects of the right to education. children whose parents can pay for education are included and presented as the ‘ideal’ and those without financial means are excluded and are the objects of special measures. the processes through which poor children are in(ex)cluded from the capitalist sphere and education are advanced within educational and social reality by children, 72 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 teachers, parents and administrators acting and re-acting on the ideological illusion. the illusionary ‘good story’ of full inclusion in post-apartheid education is continually fed, engendering the hope that the right to education will translate into prosperity and equality (van zyl, 2014). this often ends in great despair (ibid.). it is within the intersection of (non)existing rights that all south africans should assume common responsibility, dissolve the illusion and structure political spaces and moments of dissensus by insisting on the full realisation of the right to education. within such spaces, humans as political agents become the subjects of universal human rights. the paradox of the (non)existence of universal abstract written rights runs parallel to the paradox of humans in solidarity, acting on the premise of their own universality as political agents of social and educational reality and not on the premise of universal abstract written rights (see žižek, 2005). faculties of education should direct teaching-learning towards common responsibility and sensitise student-teachers to the processes at work in neoliberal capitalist human rights frameworks that continually in(ex)clude the poor from education. the saturation of both education and human rights by neo-liberalism and liberal individualism however, present some obstacles. we pose that the importance of teaching-learning towards human rights literacies cannot be underestimated in this regard. literacy as a cognitive skill include knowledge of human rights documents, the remedies available and the values inherent to human rights (and the right to education). literacy as a social practice alludes to how humans in common responsibility act, re-act and inter-act on abstract human rights within educational contexts. (cf. simmonds, 2014). finally, human rights literacies enable students and teachers to engage with issues such as poverty, gender, religion and social justice within human rights frameworks (roux and becker, 2015; simmonds, 2014). acknowledgement this work is based on a research project supported by the national research foundation (nrf) of south africa. the grant holder acknowledges that opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in any publication generated by the nrf-supported research are those of the author(s), and that the nrf accepts no liability whatsoever in this regard. becker and du preez: ideological illusions. . . 73 references arendt, h. 1966. the origins of totalitarianism. cleveland: the world publishing company. arendt, h. 2003. responsibility and judgment. new york: schocken books. baxter, h. 1987. system and life-world in habermas’s “theory of communicative action”. theory and society, 16(1): pp.39–86. becker, a. 2012. identity premised on equality of difference as a fundamental human right. in roux, c. 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rights. new left review, 34: pp.115–131. žižek, s. 2008. the sublime object of ideology. london: verso. žižek, s. 2009a. first as tragedy, then as farce. london: verso. žižek, s. 2009b. violence. london: profile books limited. žižek, s. 2011. living in the end times. london: verso. žižek, s. 2014. trouble in paradise. from the end of history to the end of capitalism. london: penguin. anne becker petro du preez faculty of educational sciences north west university anne.becker@nwu.ac.za petro.dupreez@nwu.ac.za mailto:anne.becker@nwu.ac.za mailto:petroduepreez@nwu.ac.za practical knowledge of teaching practice – what counts? yael shalem and lynne slonimsky i am not arguing for not having pedagogical training – that is the last thing i want. but i claim that the facts mentioned prove that scholarship per se may itself be the most effective tool for training effective and good teachers (dewey, 1964, p.327). abstract the role of formal and systematic knowledge in socialisation into teaching is in question. there is a rising tendency towards anti-intellectualism in different quarters of the field of educational studies coupled with an ever increasing emphasis on tacit understanding and immersion in practice. socialisation into professional practice is purported to depend predominantly on ‘doing’ in situ, and on learning what experienced teachers do and far less on ‘concept building’. in this paper we argue that the emphasis on immersion in the site of practice as the gateway to an understanding of the practice of teaching rests on an overstated conception of tacit knowledge which misses the crux of professional knowledge. the crux of professional knowledge, we argue, lies in specialised practice languages (collins, 2011) which constitute criteria of professional practice and enable articulation between different reservoirs of knowledge. emulating what expert practitioners do in practice is not central to the development of professional knowledge of teaching. in the domain of professional education, the relationship between theory and practice and the nature of and role of disciplinary knowledge in ordering the acquirer’s understanding of the practice has occupied research for many decades. the return to this question now has a specific context. broadly speaking, this context is characterised by a proliferation of policy evaluation research at the expense of disciplinary-based research, an attack on professional knowledge, and a turn away from a discipline-based curriculum to an inter-disciplinary practice-based one. specific to teacher education, there are increasing calls for pre-service curricula to increase the amount of time spent in schools and to focus students’ learning on authentic assessment tasks and personal accounts from the outset of the degree. a common rationale behind these calls is the idea that it is by actually being in the school – in the presence of ‘old timers’ – planning, teaching and revising 68 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 one’s lessons, by iteratively being involved in aspects of practice, that student teachers acquire practical knowledge or the know-how of professional knowledge, and that this is key for learning professional expertise. in other words there is an increasing tendency to downplay the systematised conceptual reservoir of teaching and to emphasise tools for practice. in south africa, this view is expressed in claims such as “experience is the most important bridge to practice” (henning and gravett, 2011, p.21) or “the enterprise of teacher education must venture further and further from the university and engage ever more closely with school” (darling-hammond in osman and casella, 2007, p.35) or that in order to bridge the gap between theory and practice, teacher educators need to develop curriculum artefacts to personalise theoretical work (peterson and henning, 2010). it is also expressed in policy work which advocates informal avenues for teacher development (e.g. professional learning communities) and the establishment of ‘teaching schools (tss) and professional practice schools (ppss)’ in order to “ensure meaningful work integrated learning (wil)” (department of basic education/department of higher education and training, 2011, p.15). assumed here is the belief that by having to face different modes of school organisations and cope with novel situations, in particular those that are marked by ‘uncertainty and indeterminacy’ (schön, 2001) student teachers get access to the ‘real stuff’ to “the tacit form of personal knowledge” (eraut, 2000, p.114). on this view, learning to be a teacher is about cultivation of practical wisdom by means of action research, personal observations, field work and continuous experience in the site of practice. with these kinds of tools, it is argued, educational theory can be demystified and amalgamated with tacit theories held by experts in the practice (henning and gravett, 2011, s24). our concern is that more and more personal reflection in and on practice and not the acquisition of theoretical knowledge, per se, is seen to be central to the acquisition of professional knowledge. this privileging of personal experience is very often justified by post-modernist anti-intellectualism in, for example, the position that all theories are underpinned by tacit ideological assumptions and therefore there is no privileged position outside of practice (carr, 2006) and/or by an overemphasis on tacit knowledge in claims that much of professional knowledge consists of modes of operations that cannot be made explicit by discursive means (dreyfus, in selinger, dreyfus and collins, 2007). this overemphasis on tacit knowledge is also contributing to shalem and slonimsky: practical knowledge of teaching practice. . . 69 the growing anti-intellectualism in the approach to professional education. in different but equivalent ways the post-modernist project and the embodiment thesis call into question the educational project of formal education. in winch’s words (2010, p.123), the educational project of “instruction, explanation, training and exemplification” is made secondary or in a worst case scenario, redundant. a systematic interrogation of tacit knowledge is, therefore, justified. our primary aim in this paper is to develop a conceptual clarification of the notion of tacit knowledge, what it is and what precisely the tacit knowledge argument buys us. the flip side of this interrogation is an attempt to address the question of what it is that enables the acquirer of a professional practice to see distinctions and relations in and about the practice, and why this condition of possibility rather than the amorphous idea of tacit knowledge, is key to the development of professional expertise. the paper is divided into four parts. we begin with a brief discussion of the debate between paul hirst and wilfred carr (2005), on the role of disciplinary knowledge in ordering the practice of teaching, conceptually. in this discussion we foreground the growth of anti-intellectualism in the field of professional education, evident in carr’s post-modernist attack on the idea that educational theory has a privileged position in relation to practice. in the second section, ‘the embodiment thesis’, we show that in the turn to ideas such as ‘intuitive cognition’ (eraut, 2000), ‘reflection in action’ (schon, 2001) and ‘embodiment’ (dreyfus in selinger, dreyfus and collins, 2007), a different form of anti-intellectualism is developing, promoted by claims that undervalue or discount the role of deductive reasoning in making professional judgement. in this thesis, tacit knowledge is propagated as a strong obstacle to formal instruction. tacit refers to embodied rules of practice that experienced practitioners use to recognise connections between different elements of their practice, about which they “cannot give a complete or even a reasonably accurate description” (schon, 2001, p.7). in the third section, ‘how is tacit knowledge classified?’ we turn to collin’s work on tacit knowledge (2010 and 2011). collins’s argument is central to the view of tacit knowledge we develop in this paper and to the overall argument of the paper. collins distinguishes between ‘what is not, but could be made explicit’ and ‘what is not and cannot be made explicit’ (our paraphrase). this distinction narrows down the realm of tacit knowledge, questions the idea that tacit knowledge cannot be made explicit, and also helps to shed light on the role of collective representations (rather than individual experience and 70 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 a version for this section was first written in shalem and rusznyak, 2013.1 different terms are used by different theorists to refer to theoretical knowledge and in our2 discussion we try to keep to the original use. hirst and carr (2005) refer ‘theoretical knowledge’, winch (2010) refers to ‘propositional knowledge’ and collins (2010) refers to ‘scientific knowledge’. different terms are used by different theorists to refer to practical knowledge and in our3 discussion we try to keep to the original use. hirst and carr (2005) refer to ‘practical wisdom’, winch (2010) refers to ‘practical knowledge’ and collins (2011) refers to ‘practical understanding’. personal embodiment) in the acquisition of professional knowledge. in the last section of the paper, ‘where to from here?’ we extend collins’ argument and by looking at social realist positions of professional knowledge (winch, 2010, 2012, abbott, 1988 and others), we show that the crux of professional knowledge lies in specialised ‘practice language’ (collins, 2011) which constitutes criteria for seeing distinctions and relations in the particulars of practice. collins’ and winch’s analyses of tacit knowledge show that this form of discrimination, evaluation and therefore judgement cannot be obtained from emulating the activities of other professionals, in situ. intellectualism and anti-intellectualism in teacher education1 in his debate with carr (hirst and carr, 2005), hirst foregrounds the difference and relation between theoretical reasoning and practical wisdom.2 3 theoretical reasoning, he argues, is primarily concerned with establishing the truth of theoretical knowledge (such as relations between ideas, inferences from ideas, mastery of concepts within a subject and procedures for testing knowledge claims), and concept clarification (systemisation of ideas). practical wisdom, on the other hand, is concerned with the pursuit of practical action and relies on the ability of human beings for discernment in particular circumstances or on contextual wisdom. hirst argues that with the help of “structures of justified propositional beliefs” (hirst and carr 2005, p.616), teachers are able to find rational justification for their practices, and discard presuppositions that have been proved to be false. in hirst’s view, practical wisdom depends on theoretical reason, “if it is to begin to be reflectively adequate to all the complexities of educational situations and their shalem and slonimsky: practical knowledge of teaching practice. . . 71 possibilities” (hirst and carr 2005, p.618). hirst insists that a study of educational theory is a distinctive enterprise external to what teachers do in their day-to-day practice. getting to grips with the internal coherence of concepts (and understanding of their exact meaning) is a prerequisite for developing rational judgement for practice. the disciplines of education, philosophy in particular, are paramount for prospective teachers because they provide them with conceptual clarity on the nature of knowledge, with ways of systematising concepts and with methods of justification that can be used to examine deep-seated beliefs, ideas from other disciplines and instances of practice. in his debate with hirst, carr argues against the idea that theoretical knowledge can provide standards for rationality and truth: along post-modernist lines, he claims that the knowledge developed by educational theory cannot escape “particularity and contingency” (2006, p.147) and thus cannot be said to attain a higher form of rationality that “competent members of the community of educational practitioners” cannot access themselves (p.150). educational theory is itself a social practice that is imbued with cultural norms and criteria. it is nothing more than a personal theory that practitioners develop through, a process of ‘self-rexective inquiry’ (p.141). in a subsequent article, carr goes even further and calls for the abandonment of the pursuit of generalisable educational theory: educational theory is nothing other than the name we give to the various futile attempts that have been made over the last hundred years to stand outside our educational practices in order to explain and justify them. and what i am going to propose on the basis of this argument is that the time has now come to admit that we cannot occupy a position outside practice and that we should now bring the whole educational theory enterprise to a digniwed end (2006, p.137, our emphasis). in carr’s position, the epistemic activity of formulating “propositions on which we can agree in our judgements of truth” (hirst, in hirst and carr 2005, p.617) is replaced with reflecting on what is unacknowledged by educational theorists – the particular, contingent and the culturally specific, the unacknowledged bias. the embodiment thesis the anti-intellectual sentiments entailed in carr’s post-modernist position are growing in other quarters of the field of professional education. 72 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 see winch’s analysis of oakeshott’s treatment of practical knowledge.4 anti-intellectualism is growing through the work of practice theorists (e.g. lave and wenger, 1991 and followers) who turn to the embodiment thesis to explain why professional knowledge relies primarily on one’s bodily access to tacit knowledge. the main precept of the embodiment thesis is that a large element of professional knowledge is ineffable, acquired in a ‘mode of experience’, and when using this knowledge, every individual adds her signature to it (winch, 2010, p.121). practice-based theorists promote the4 idea that “first-hand encounter with the actors in their own settings, in the midst of doing whatever it is that they do every day, with whatever is required to do it” (miettinen, samra-fredericks and yanow, 2009, p.1315) is the best way to capture “the seen-but-unnoticed” (p.1316). tacit knowledge is the intuitive aspects of professional knowledge, which cannot be codified. these aspects can only be accumulated through practical experience, by being directly involved with objects, products and services in the workplace (nonaka and takeuchi in guile, 2010, p.34, see also sellman, 2012). by spending enough time with an old timer, criteria of good practice get transmitted, and tacitly acquired, through the process of ‘indwelling’ (polanyi, 1966 in guile 2010, p.49). the practice turn view returns to two foundational claims about tacit knowledge: ryle’s (1949) – that no amount of accumulative knowledge (knowledge that) will prepare one for practice (knowledge how) and polanyi’s (1966) – that ‘we can know much more than we can tell.’ the following claim by dreyfus (in selinger, dreyfus and collins, 2007, p.737) points to the heart of the embodiment thesis: you may have mastered the way surgeons talk to each other but you don’t understand surgery unless you can tell thousands of different cuts from each other and judge which is appropriate. in the domain of surgery no matter how well we can pass the word along we are just dumb. this take on professional knowledge is that embodied realisation precedes recognition – practicing a thousand possible permutations of surgical cuts and doing experiments with an expert is necessary for gaining discernment of the idea (of surgery), for accessing criteria of practice. for dreyfus then, explicit knowledge is made to depend on tacit knowledge. shalem and slonimsky: practical knowledge of teaching practice. . . 73 what emerges from these points is that professional knowledge has an ineffable element to it, an interpretive set of criteria that cannot be formalised (and therefore cannot be generalised), and cannot be transmitted but can be experienced, in working with others who are more experienced. somehow, day to day inductions are transformed over time into professional knowledge. the post-modernist attack on knowledge and the embodiment thesis are disconcerting developments for the transmission and acquisition of professional knowledge. first, the former discounts the possibility of de-contextualised knowledge and the latter discounts the framing role of deductive reasoning. second, by reducing theory to another social practice, by insisting that embodiment and personal experience are necessary for the acquisition of professional knowledge, both views overstate the case for tacit knowledge. thirdly, without a theory of transmission (which the embodiment theory precludes), it is not clear what criteria one should follow in order to evaluate the practical knowledge of professionals. in view of these issues, the following question requires an answer: how strong is this tacit aspect of professional knowledge? is all of it occult, can some of it be explicated? can it be evaluated? how is tacit knowledge classified? in several publications, collins (2010 and 2011) addresses the challenge of explaining tacit knowledge and its role in the acquisition of ‘practical understanding’ (2011) of professional knowledge. his fundamental aim is to take the mystery out of the idea of tacit knowledge (2010, p.7). collins argues that many explanations of tacit knowledge fail to interrogate what can and cannot be transmitted discursively; they fail to exclude those instances in which polanyi’s claim that “we can know more than we can tell” does not fit (2010, p.4 and 2011, p.272). according to him the idea of the tacit is overstated and muddled. his analysis shows that many of the instances considered by proponents of the embodiment thesis to be tacit and ineffable are weak forms of tacit knowledge; they do not touch on “deep principles that have to do with either the nature and the location of knowledge or the way humans are made” (2010, p.86) and they could be transmitted discursively (2010, pp.91-97 and 2011, p.284). since these instances arise in person to person interactions (formal or informal situations), he categorises them as “relational tacit knowledge”. 74 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 in this he refers to computer intelligence that, theoretically, can be used to make explicit5 every procedure of scientific experiment. over time, the human mind could develop “symbolic resources with convenient6 affordances” (2010, p.154), he says, and so this is not the ‘irreducible tacit’. in such instances not all the knowledge needed for acquisition is spoken about. these include situations in which: neither the bearer of the practice (the transmitter) nor the novice thinks that the information requires communication because the expert is so familiar with what she knows that she does not notice it anymore (‘unrecognised knowledge’); information is withheld because the bearer of the practice does not know that the novice does not know it, and the novice does not know that she does not know it and yet it is salient for what the expert is doing (‘mismatched saliences’); information is withheld because the bearer of the practice does not want to disclose it (‘professional secrets’). in other words, the reasons for why knowledge remains unspoken are sociological or psychological and not epistemic. as he puts it “principles to do with the nature of knowledge are not at stake” in any of these instances (2010, p.98). the appropriate description of these situations is therefore different: ‘we know more than we tell’ and not ‘we know more than we can tell’ (our paraphrasing). given the necessary will and/or contingences, more of the unspoken knowledge could be made explicit by . . .telling secrets, by using longer strings, by finding out more about what is in other5 people’s minds, and by doing more science so that what is not known to anyone becomes known (2010, p.160). as such, instances of relational tacit knowledge do not form a real threat to discursive transmission of professional knowledge and do not justify the claim that embodiment is central to the acquisition of professional knowledge. the second type of tacit knowledge is “somatic tacit knowledge” and is a stronger form than the relational type. it refers primarily to the practical understanding used in instances such as bicycle-balancing or typing. it points to constraints and affordances of the ways our bodies and brains work. in education we would include automatised reinforcement of responses to stimuli. this form of know-how is, indeed, attained through embodied experience. nevertheless, practical understanding of that kind is not central to the understanding of professional practice (collins, 2010, p.117) and does6 not prove the claim that the practical understanding of professional shalem and slonimsky: practical knowledge of teaching practice. . . 75 knowledge is tacit and can only be attained by being immersed in the site of practice. so far we have seen that the tacit knowledge argument is insufficiently differentiated and buys us very little. what then is the irreducible tacit and where is it found? collins argues that the strongest form of tacit knowledge lies in what makes human beings distinctive. this he argues, is ‘socialness’, the ability of human beings “to feast on the cultural blood of the collectivity” (2010, p.131) and thereby to successfully instantiate actions and activities appropriate to sociocultural and socio-historical contexts. what is actually tacit is the ‘mechanism’ (2010) by which individuals draw on collective knowledge and make fine distinctions, evaluate and bring ideas and context into a relation. collins proposes that the epistemological aspect of the tacit knowledge problem is to be found in the human ability to make meaning, to produce and act in accordance with ‘socially located knowledge’. human beings can, in principle, interpret intelligently, that is, in concert with what other humans are doing because they participate in the larger organism of society (2010, p.165, emphasis in the original). what enables this socialness is language – our ability to symbolise experience and knowledge across time and space – which not only manifests this tacit ability but also affords it. we participate in the language of others and make meanings of our surrounding by using their symbols. collins does not explicate the meaning of socialness sufficiently. the nearest to a sociologically familiar concept is a footnote on p.131, where collins refers to durkheim’s notion of ‘collective consciousness’ or the idea that by definition knowledge is found at the collective, the individual is the bearer of collective representations. in this, collins brings us back to basics by arguing that the tacit is not a constraint of professional knowledge. if human beings did not have the ability to make knowledge explicit, the idea of tacit would not exist. the mechanism of doing this is tacit (in the strongest sense of the word) but the ability to make knowledge explicit is what defines us as humans. the challenge posited by collins is to unpack the ways symbolisation through language facilitates the process of making the practical understanding of professional knowledge explicit. in a more recent paper (2011) collins attempts to explain the constitutive power of language in ordering and binding a specialist’s understanding of scientific practices, and to defend the claim that discursive interaction in the language of the practice rather than joint activity in close physical proximity 76 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 is a necessary condition for its acquisition. his defence draws on his analysis of linguistic fluency that can be found between experts within a domain of expertise across institutional settings, division of labour, geographical space and time. the collective contributions made by different specialists in a field form a collective representation of the practice as a whole or what he calls ‘practice language’ which articulates, ordinates and co-ordinates their situated practices across time and space. it is the practice language which enables continuity and development and deepening of the collective understanding of the practice. put differently, if situations in professional life were predominantly reflected in, or reduced to local situated personal knowledge, and if their understanding was a matter of inductive accumulation of bodily experiences, then communication across a diverse range of expert practitioners and spatio-temporal social contexts, intergenerational transmission of specialised knowledge would be impossible, and professional judgement would not be possible. the professional domain would be reduced to a collection of silos. collins is clear that the ‘practice language’ is anchored in physical reality – if the physical activities of the diverse range of professional specialists and the respective activities constitutive of the practice ceased to exist, then the practice language itself would also cease to exist (2011). however, practice language must entail a sufficient level of abstraction and generality to both represent and transcend developing grounded practices, if it is to enable informed judgement and the development of knowledge in practice. the crux of practice language lies in its regulatory role – it classifies what can be said in and about the practice, “what does and does not exist and what can and cannot be done” (2011, p.282) and what would count as outside of the collective enterprise of the profession. the power of practice language lies in its ability to classify and conceptually order situations, foreground and structure their salient features and place them in order of significance. the ground for practical understanding, the know-how of professional knowledge lies, then, in the collective ordering of the individual action. the new default position, collins argues should be “that a practice can never be learned from someone else in the absence of shared language” (2011, p.279). if these ideas of abstraction, generality and shared language are accepted then it must be agreed too that practice language is not a set of arbitrary conventions or discourses that can be manipulated to distribute different truths as the post-modernist carr would have it. shalem and slonimsky: practical knowledge of teaching practice. . . 77 where to from here? collins invites the development of “a full theory of how language contains practical understanding” (2011, p.282). we agree with this and below we note others who make a similar call. nevertheless, we argue that collins’ notion of a practice language being a regulatory and constitutive feature of the practice could advance the debate much further if it is shown that the activities of specialists in a domain of practice are ordered by the conceptual structure of the subject matter at hand. in the absence of disciplinarity, the inferential power of practice language, its regulatory role, is not sufficiently explained. winch’s idea of ‘inferential comprehension’ (2012, p.130) is germane here. to know and communicate that something is the case (in collins’ terms “what does and does not exist and what can and cannot be done” see above) is to understand, work with and develop inferential relationship between propositions. in his recent work on expertise (2010, p.104), winch draws a distinction between “contingent” and “discrete propositional knowledge” that are gained through experience, and “organised propositional knowledge” that is acquired systematically. with this idea, he explains that true understanding of a proposition commits one to also know what can and cannot be inferred from that proposition, albeit, in different degrees of breadth and depth. winch develops the idea of inferential comprehension to defend the view that the core understanding of professional knowledge is about grasping of its conceptual structure (knowledge that) and knowing how to select methods of investigation which are appropriate for the subject matter at hand (knowledge how). at minimum, professionals are acquainted with “subject-dependent warrants”, at best they also master “the appropriate procedures for knowledge generation within the relevant subject” (2010, p.110). winch’s ‘knowledge how’ is a very different form of practical knowledge, one that is formal and is grounded in propositional knowledge and not in everyday experience, ideological underpinnings or tacit knowledge. winch acknowledges carr’s point that there is a proliferation of social science explanations and the ensuing contestation between theoretical perspectives. he also concedes the embodiment thesis’ claim that reflection on action in specific situations cannot be seen to be directly dependent on thinking about the truth of ideas about action, at least not in any simple way. nevertheless, he argues that the critics would still have to explain how “propositional knowledge might have a bearing on practice” precisely because it has a systematic structure (winch 2010, p.102). 78 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 winch’s reformulation of practical knowledge as an integral aspect of propositional knowledge is consistent with recent calls within the educational field to identify and develop the knowledge-base of teaching. there are arguments that this can be done inductively (hiebert, gallimore and stigler, 2002) but muller (2012) believes that it should be done deductively. he calls it “syntactic tracing” or constructing a chain of inferences, “as firm and accountable” as possible “between the ‘invariants’ of the conceptual pile and the variabilities of the empirical instance” (p.12). lawn and furlong (2009) remind us of the crucial role of disciplinary-based work in “breaking down problems into its own logics and mediating between public information and problems” and between these and public action (pp.549–550). klette and carlstern (2012) call researchers to move away from a restrictive view of professional knowledge that centres it on embodied practical knowledge and instead, advance the important work of knowledge codification. encoded knowledge, they argue, is essential for framing decisions in practical setting; it foregrounds knowledge sources, instruments and theory-mediated objects (“object-centred relationship”) rather than informal day-to-day individual teachers’ strategies and choices (“person-centred relationship”) (p.79). there is a key idea here about ordering principles, which lies at the very heart of these calls: concepts regulate existing forms of understanding and transform them into new possible forms, if they represent existing ideas and transcend their meaning in time and space. if a concept is isomorphic with ideas that are deemed insufficiently developed, it would merely describe what is already present and would lose its regulatory function (shalem and slonimsky, 2010). this is why the regulatory role of practice language depends on concept building. in developing this idea shalem (forthcoming) draws on abbott’s knowledge classification to explain the binding power of specialised professional knowledge. professions, abbott argues (1988), enjoy two reservoirs of knowledge classifications – academic and diagnostic. both are formal bodies of knowledge but each is organised differently and constrains professional judgement differently. academic knowledge classifications pull together propositions, formally, along consistent rational dimensions, thus producing relations and boundaries between ideas. they are stronger when they refer to subject-matter specific concepts that can only be explained by a singular shalem and slonimsky: practical knowledge of teaching practice. . . 79 two interesting examples given by abbott are ‘particle interactions’ or ‘underwriting’ that7 can only be explained by a singular discipline (physics and actuarial theory, respectively). discipline. concepts in educational theory such as schemata, working7 memory, epistemological rather than formal access; the pedagogic device, criteria of education etcetera may provide this kind of classification. having these kinds of conceptual classifications (abbott refers to them as “positive formalism”, p.102) secures the jurisdiction of judgement within the profession. the second reservoir of professional knowledge is ‘diagnostic classifications’ (1988). these classifications form a far more direct resource for the working knowledge of professionals, yet do not lend themselves to a “standard sequence of questions” (p.42). they are not tips, routine skills or direct commands. criterion reference assessment and taxonomies of learning attempt to provide such classifications to teachers. abbott explains the way in which professionals draw on the two reservoirs of knowledge. first, they collect information about a particular case (be it a specific disease, legal case, a building design in architecture or learners’ errors in an exam) and assemble it into a complex picture, according to certain epistemic rules and criteria specific to the subject matter. second, the practitioner takes the complex picture and refers it to classifications that are already known to the profession (for example, a concept in the field of law, a formal theory in architecture or a set of conceptions in a particular area of science or mathematics), and deduces the type of the case in particular. in order for a practitioner to align a specific case with “the dictionary of professionally legitimated problems” (i.e. its diagnostic classifications, p.41), the practitioner needs to know “what kinds of evidence are relevant and irrelevant, valid and invalid, as well as rules specifying the admissible level of ambiguity” (p.42). abbott’s work on classifications and winch’s reformulation of practical knowledge are important developments which locate practical knowledge in a formal process and not in every day experience. they point to the vertical relation between propositions, whereby the more general concept frames the relations between the subordinate concepts and in that way binds discrimination, evaluation and therefore professional judgement of the particular. this kind of work (see also wheelahan, 2010, young and muller, 2010 and rata, 2012) can be understood by reference to vygotsky’s ‘scientific concepts’ (1987) – conceptual classifications of systematic propositional knowledge pull existing concepts into new relations of abstraction and generality and in doing so impose new orders of meaning on existing concepts. in different ways all of the above conceptual work comes 80 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 to a similar conclusion that the process of building a case from different information relies primarily on having access to a reservoir of deductive propositions and on disciplinary-based knowledge of procedure – securing and validating evidence about the particular. only in this way, we believe, the relation between theoretical and practical knowledge can be reunited. conclusion this paper raises a critique of the anti-intellectualist stance promoted by post-modernists, by practice theorists and specifically by advocates of the embodiment thesis. our analysis shows that each contributed to the current impoverished view of the role of educational theory in socialisation into practice. other than carr’s explicit denouncement of educational theory, the more common view accepts that educational theory is important, but by arguing that student teachers cannot acquire the tacit logic of the practice without being immersed in the site of practice, doing what experienced teachers are doing, and by organising the curriculum around aspects of practice, the role of disciplinary knowledge has indeed been short-circuited (lawn and furlong, 2009) and the relation between theoretical and practical knowledge, has been severed (guile, 2010). we do not deny that the ability to execute practice requires physical and iterative practice. of course, one needs to experience teaching to learn to teach, but practical knowledge is primarily about learning to analyse, discriminate and relate. doing teaching or reflecting on it in practice will not help student teachers find the nuance of practice, its significance or to learn to recognise important situations. furthermore it is overly romantic to think that mentor teachers, in situ, do not withhold information or that they offer a systematic account of what they do and why, or able to know what the novice needs to know. if our argument is correct, then our conclusion is that the common view of socialisation into professional practice is wrong. the view that we know much more than we can represent by telling, and therefore practical understanding of professional knowledge must be acquired in experience is false. it is time that the over inflated view of the role of tacit knowledge is challenged and we hope that we began to address it. shalem and slonimsky: practical knowledge of teaching practice. . . 81 the central claim that we want readers to take from this paper is that the heart of practical understanding is in discrimination and evaluation, which must be premised on disciplinary knowledge and cannot be obtained from emulating the activities of other practitioners. practical knowledge develops, primarily, from learning to order ideas – to distinguish and relate between ideas, know what procedures to take to validate them and how to recognise what interpretation is most appropriate for the instance at hand. acquisition of professional knowledge lies in access to criteria about what is permissible, right or wrong, true or false, appropriate or inappropriate, and what is better and why, in short, what counts in the practice. is this ‘knowledge how’ tacit? is this what collins means by ‘socialness’? winch (2010), it seems to us, has got it right. for him any type of knowledge (propositional, practical knowledge and knowledge by acquaintance) has elements that are tacit, and in certain circumstances it would be more difficult to recover those. but, he argues, this argument buys us very little. and so he concludes: although being tacit is an important property of all three kinds of knowledge, it is neither mysterious nor does it make all practical knowledge, let alone expert practical knowledge, ineffable, nor is its acquisition beyond the reach of formal or semi-formal educational process (2010, pp.118-119). at the end of the day, the strongest scaffold of the tacit is ‘epistemic ascent’ (winch, 2012). what hirst and winch (and vygotsky) elucidate is that the ability to order, which is at the heart of professional expertise, comes primarily from systematic work with an organised body of knowledge at different levels of abstractions, at different degrees of complexity, in and outside of specific contexts. if one had to ask what the implications of our argument are for initial teacher education, we would direct them back to dewey’s exploration of the relation between theory and practice in learning how to teach: 82 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 dewey distinguishes between ‘apprentice type practice work’ and ‘laboratory type practice8 work’. in the former, “the aim is immediately and ultimately practical” oriented to equipping the teacher with skills, nothing i have said heretofore is to be understood as ruling out practice teaching which is designed to give an individual mastery of the actual technique of teaching and management, provided school conditions permit it in reality and not merely in external form – provided, that is, the student has gone through a training in educational theory and history, in subject-matter, in observation, and in practice work of the laboratory type, before entering8 upon the latter (john dewey, 1964, p.336 our emphasis). shalem and slonimsky: practical knowledge of teaching practice. . . 83 references abbott, a. 1988. the system of professions: an essay on the division of expert labour. chicago: university of chicago press. carr, w. 2006. education without theory. british journal of educational studies, 54(2): pp.136–159. collins, h. 2010. tacit and explicit knowledge. chicago: university of chicago press. collins, h. 2011. language and practice. social studies of science, 41(2): pp.271–300. dewey, j. 1964. the relation of theory to practice in education. in archimbault, r. 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scenarios for the future: lessons from the sociology of knowledge. european journal of education, 45(1): pp.11–27. 86 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 yael shalem lynne slonimsky school of education university of the witwatersrand yael.shalem@wits.ac.za lynne.slonimsky@wits.ac.za mailto:yael.shalem@wits.ac.za mailto:lynne.slonimsky@wits.ac.za humour to facilitate meaningful learning in nursing education as experienced by learner nurses mary chabeli, jackie malesela and monica rasepae abstract this study explored the experiences of learner nurses regarding the use of humour in facilitating learning in order to formulate guidelines to facilitate the integration of humour in nursing education. a qualitative phenomenological research design was employed. a non probability sampling method was used to select 70 participants in three higher education institutions. six focus group interviews were conducted. the qualitative method of data analysis was used. trustworthiness was ensured and ethical standards were observed. three main themes emerged: positive effects, negative effects and the absence of humour. the sub-themes of positive effects of humour indicated a psycho-physiological effect, social effect and cognitive effect. the sub-themes of the negative effect of humour indicated that inappropriate humour distracts learners from learning, and racist jokes result in a loss of interest in learning while the absence of humour creates a tense learning environment. recommendations are given. introduction humour, as defined by billings and halstead (2009), is the ability to perceive, enjoy, or express what is comical or funny; the quality of being laughable or comical; funniness. humour can be expressed in various ways. it can be anything that amuses or creates a positive feeling. a person expresses humour with the intention that it will be appreciated by the receiver. however, the receiver’s perception of humour may not accord with that of the person expressing the humour or vice versa (quinn and hughes, 2013). 90 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 background to the need for humour as an educational strategy to promote learning from the inception of formal nursing education during the florence nightingale period (1861 to 1914), the nature of nursing education is reputed to have been purely religious (attewell, 1999). training at the nightingale school of nursing at st thomas hospital was subject to strict discipline. character training and moral standards were emphasised, and nursing students lived in nurses’ homes under strict supervision. this serious approach to learning terrified learner nurses and made them scared to practice the skills that needed to be mastered, thus negatively affecting their learning (mellish, brink and paton, 1998). taking into consideration the historically stringent background of nursing education and the seriousness of nursing as a profession, facilitation of teaching and learning need to be revisited in order to make learning enjoyable. humour can be used to provide welcome relief in a tense class. humour can also be used to emphasise and clarify important points, thus increasing understanding and retention (billings and halstead, 2009). a humourous stimulus is perceived or recognised differently by people and not all learner nurses are therefore able to recognise a humourous stimulus as presented by the nurse educator. learners may get distracted or offended by the use of humour owing to their understanding of the language (wagner and uriosaparisi, 2011). on the other hand, nurse educators should use humour effectively in facilitating learning so as to develop the learners’ sense of humour, which is also expected in clinical practice, where a climate of acceptance, support, trust and freedom of expression should be created (quinn and hughes, 2013). humour will be effective only if learner nurses, as the people at whom the humour is directed, can recognise it as a facilitative instructional approach. however, its didactic validity to promote learning needs continued exploration, and guidelines need to be laid down for the teacher who has to utilise the method (fraser, loubser and van rooy 1993). the aim of the study the aim of this study was to explore and describe the experiences of learner nurses regarding the effects of humour in facilitating learning in three higher education institutions in gauteng. chabeli, malesela and rasepae: humour to facilitate. . . 91 research design a qualitative phenomenological research design was used (burns and grove, 2009). this approach enabled the researcher to explore and describe the meaning of the experiences of learner nurses regarding the effects of humour in facilitating learning at a nursing education institution in gauteng. methodology study population and sampling the population consisted of 638 final-year learner nurses registered for a diploma in nursing during 2011 in all three nursing education institutions (neis) in gauteng. a non probability purposive sampling method (burns and grove, 2009) was used. of these learners 232 were from nei (a), where 26 learners volunteered to participate. nei (b) had 205 learner nurses and 20 of them volunteered to participate, while nei (c) had 201 learners, 24 of whom volunteered to participate in the study, leading to a total of 70 learners taking part. ethical considerations were observed using the ethical standards of the democratic nurses organization of south africa’s (denosa, 2005). ethical procedure informed consent was obtained from all participants for data collection and for the use of a tape recorder after an explanation of the purpose and method of the study (denosa, 2005). participants used pseudonyms to ensure anonymity. confidentiality was ensured through the safe-keeping of audiotaped interviews and transcriptions. participation was voluntary, and ethical clearance was granted by the university of johannesburg’s higher degrees and ethics committee. permission was also granted by the management of the participating nursing colleges before the commencement of the data collection. 92 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 data collection six phenomenological focus group interviews were conducted krueger and casey (2009) in the three neis from a total sample of 70 final-year learner nurses on theory block within three days. two focus group interviews consisting of 10 and 16 participants were conducted in nei (a), while two focus group interviews of 10 participants in each group were conducted in nei (b). the last two focus group interviews consisting of 14 and 10 participants were conducted in nei (c). the interviews were conducted in english which is understood by both the interviewer and interviewees. the researcher asked open-ended research questions burns and grove (2009) to direct the study, namely, “how did you experience the use of humour as a method to facilitate learning”. facilitative interview skills were used to elicit in-depth information about the experiences of learner nurses regarding the use of humour to facilitate learning. responses were tape-recorded to ensure that the data-collection and data-transcription processes were accurate (plano, clark and creswell, 2010). field notes were taken during the interviews to enrich the data collected. the researcher continued questioning until data saturation was reached (brink, 2001). data analysis data was analysed using tesch’s qualitative open-coding method of data analysis (in creswell, 2012). open-coding refers to the labelling of words and phrases found in the transcripts or text (creswell, 2012). it is about using the data to generate conceptual labels and categories for use in theory building (punch, 2009). the researcher engaged a co-coder to analyse data independently in order to ensure the trustworthiness of the study. field notes were taken into consideration during data analysis. a list of emerging themes and sub-themes were then developed. significant statements were extracted and categorised into thematic clusters to be used as citations in the description of findings. findings were integrated into a thick, exhaustive description to cover all possibilities of the experiences. a consensus discussion meeting was held between the researcher and the co-coder to reach an agreement on the independently identified categories. follow-up individual interviews with five purposely selected participants in the three neis were conducted to verify the accuracy of the identified categories in order to ensure trustworthiness through member checking. chabeli, malesela and rasepae: humour to facilitate. . . 93 trustworthiness rigor was attained by attending to credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability (lincoln and guba, 1985). in order to ensure the credibility and confirmability of the study the strategies applied were prolonged engagement, triangulation and member-checking. to augment the study’s transferability, that is, the degree to which the results of the study can be generalised to settings other than the ones studied (brink, 2001), the researcher incorporated a comprehensive description of vivid quotes into the study’s findings. the study's dependability was enhanced by thorough description of the methodology used by the researcher in the study. findings and discussion the findings revealed positive effects, negative effects, effects of absence of humour. sub-themes of positive effect of humour indicated: a psychophysiological effect, social effect and cognitive effect. sub-themes of negative effects of humour indicated that inappropriate use of humour hinders learning. too much humour distracts learning, and racist jokes result in a loss of interest in learning. the absence of humour, on the other hand, creates a tense learning environment resulting in decreased learner participation (table 1). 94 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 table 1: experiences of learner nurses with regard to the effect of humour in facilitating learning main themes sub-themes related categories positive effects of humour psych-physiological effect • help cope with stress, tension and anxiety • stimulates the release of endorphins • alleviates depression and enhances the well-being of learners social effects • establish professional relationships • as an ice breaker • create a relaxed nonthreatening learning environment cognitive effect • facilitates comprehension • assist in prolem-solving • facilitate processing of new information • simplify difficult concepts • make meaningful association • promote creative and divergent thinking • promote theory and practice integration negative effects of humour • too much humour distracts learners from learning • racist jokes result in a loss of interest in learning effects of an absence of humour • creates a tense learning environment resulting in decreased learner participation chabeli, malesela and rasepae: humour to facilitate. . . 95 positive effects psycho-physiological effects participants identified the following benefits of humour in facilitating learning: humour helps people to cope with stress, tension and anxiety, stimulate the release of endorphins; alleviates depression and enhances the well-being of learners. humour helps cope w ith stress, tension and anxiety irrespective of the cause of stress, tension and anxiety, learning becomes inhibited. participants indicated that, when used appropriately, humour assists learners to cope with problems as evidenced by the citation. one participant remarked: “we come to class with huge family or personal problems, but the use of humour enables us to cope despite all these (hmm and nodding – others agree)”. according to the participants, a break in the form of humour provides an opportunity to relax and take in new information. participants acknowledged that the nursing curriculum is very packed and that could contribute to the anxiety they are experiencing, as they fear failure. a participant highlighted: “it is easier to study or learn more if you are happy than when you are sad and stressed. . . and when happy you enjoy what you are doing hence you do not feel the workload”. humour is a major psychological tool (check, 1997) that helps students cope with stress. it enhances their sense of well-being, and boosts their self-image, self-esteem, and self-confidence, as well as alleviating anxiety and depression. check (1997) states that sometimes laughter is the best medicine. humour stimulates the release of endorphins research in humour physiology has been conducted and reveals that when positive emotions are elicited through humour, the sympathetic nervous system is stimulated, resulting in increased heartbeat and deep respiration, allowing for strong blood flow to the brain. as one’s brain receives more oxygenated blood, an increased sense of arousal and alertness occurs (tortora and derrickson, 2010). it is this pleasant emotional response evoked by the perception of humour that leads to an increased positive effect (martin, 2007). 96 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 pleasure causes the release of endorphins which influence feelings and thinking, creating a state of alertness and increased memory (fry, 2002). endorphins are a group of substances in the nervous system that forms part of a larger group of morphine-like compounds called opioids. opioids help relieve pain and stress, thus promoting a feeling of well-being (the world book encyclopedia, 1995, volume 6). the release of dopamine within the limbic system of the brain explains the pleasure felt when a learner gets a joke. research studies on the benefits of laughter show that humour enhances students’ health by alleviating pain and psychological discomfort (check, 1997). laughter stimulates the cerebral cortex of the brain that improves mental and physical health. laughing causes the diaphragm to massage the right side of the heart, which releases endorphins, a natural painkiller (check, 1997). in support of this view, garner (2006) believes that, physiologically, humour and laughter can aid learning through improved respiration, lower pulse rate and blood pressure, exercise of the chest muscle, greater oxygenation of blood and the release of endorphins into the blood stream. the implication is that it is imperative that learners find meaning in the humour which makes them laugh so that their mental alertness is kept high. this enables them to connect the humour to their existing conception for meaningful learning to take place. humour alleviates depression and enhances the w ell-being of learners the nurse educator is responsible for creating a physical and psychological learning environment that is stimulating and enjoyable. learners are sensitive to embarrassing and depressive situations, especially when these situations are carried out in front of other learners in class as indicated by the following remark by a participant: “lecturer x likes making racist jokes which are directed at certain racial groups. i don’t get the humour in the joke, it depresses and demotivates me, i check the timetable and if i realise that it is that particular lecturer’s period, i feel like not going to class at all”. stress and anxiety interfere with the ability to learn, but depression is a state of feeling sad, a serious medical condition in which a person experiences a feeling of despondency, dejection, and desolation. a person feels hopeless and unimportant and is unable to live in a normal way (online merriam webster dictionary). the implication of reaching a state of depression is that the learner may be demotivated to the point of terminating the programme or losing interest and becoming an at-risk learner. the worst scenario is when chabeli, malesela and rasepae: humour to facilitate. . . 97 the learner moves from mild to severe depression that warrants hospitalisation. penson, partridge, rudd, seiden, nelson, chabner and lynch (2005) are of the opinion that laughter is the best medicine in stressful situations. humour should never be used in a way that belittles a learner or creates negativity to the class atmosphere. this confirms the value of building humour capacity in nursing learners to use in their practice so as to improve the psychological well-being of patients. social effect of humour the following social aspects of humour emerged from participants: (a) humour establishes professional relationships, (b) humour as an ice breaker and lastly (c) humour creates a relaxed non-threatening learning environment. humour establishes professional relationships socialisation is a fundamental didactic principle to promote learning (fraser, loubster and van rooyen, 1993). socialisation is defined as the individual’s adaptation to his physical, psychological and social environment through interaction with other people. one participant stated: “humour builds a joyous relationship between the lecturer and the learner. a lecturer who uses humour is respected, whereas those who do not, are feared. when you think of an authoritarian teacher, you end up not wanting to attend or to consult, but when you think of a teacher who will make teaching fun, you anticipate attending the lecture”. scanlan and chernomas (1997) contend that lecturers cannot engage in a reflective humourous relationship with learners unless they give up their positions as authoritative knowers. the authors suggest that the lecturer work together with learners to uncover each other’s tacit meanings of the experiences. in this relationship, learners and teachers interact to discover the meaning of learning situations together. this paradigm shift of teachers giving up control in the relationship with learners should be modelled so that learners can model the same relationship with peers and beyond the classroom environment to the clinical settings (scanlan and chernomas, 1997). the affective-social climate pertains to, among other things, how the educator and the learners relate to and interact with each other. this climate is further explained as a climate in which learners experience safety, trust, acceptance, 98 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 respect, support, connectedness and satisfaction (gravett, 2005). a safe humourous environment allows learners to air their views without any constraints or feeling threatened. sharing humour and laughter is indicative of togetherness and creates a positive emotional social atmosphere conducive to the feeling of safety. several studies support the findings that humour improves the relationship between learners and their teacher (ulloth, 2003) and (aylor and opplinger, 2003). according to chauvet and hofmeyer (2007), a professional relationship between the teacher and the learners is characterised by being safe, open, relaxed, humourous, flexible, exciting, informal, professional and respectful. this implies that the lecturer and learners should uphold these values in order to facilitate and make learning enjoyable rather than the lecturer being feared and unapproachable. humour is an ice breaker humour has a positive effect on learning, as it draws the learners’ attention and makes them want to listen. participants stated: “if i have to listen to a lecturer talking endlessly without breaking the ice, i get bored and fall asleep when the lecturer just give a bunch of facts in a monotonous voice, but when jokes are integrated i want to listen more”. participants indicated that ice breakers enable them to relate content to what they already know. they agree that ice breaking strategies are funny and can be utilised to facilitate understanding. the following was stated: “when you start your lecture, do not start with what you are going to teach, start with whatever is happening in the community or in the news that is interesting. others reiterated: “ice breaking humour must be done at the beginning of the lesson and in-between especially during double periods where we get tired”. according to restiano (2011) and bowman (2009), the attention span of adult learners ranges between eight to ten minutes after which the brain begins to lose focus. this is reiterated by reardon (in gravett 2005), who remarks that learning is enhanced when one interrupts it for two to five minutes in order to process information. learners mentioned strategies such as ice breakers, cartoons and verbal jokes as strategies which give them a break from all the work. this implies that the brain needs time to process the information and therefore making a verbal joke may provide such time. chabeli, malesela and rasepae: humour to facilitate. . . 99 humour creates a relaxed non-threatening learning environment the lecturer is responsible for creating an enabling learning environment that embraces democratic values such as freedom to express once feelings and thoughts (birbeck and andre, 2009). humour sets the tone for a more relaxed atmosphere which in turn creates a positive climate conducive to learning (pollak and freda, 1997). the environment should make the learners want to learn and the use of humour is perceived as a psychological tool that can help learners cope with stress and anxiety (check, 1997). participants acknowledged the fact that the nursing curriculum is packed and difficult to understand due to the difficult medical jargon used, and this creates a lot of anxiety and uncertainty as to whether they will successfully learn the content therefore explanation of difficult concepts in the form of humour provides an opportunity to relax and understand the difficult content. ulloth (2002) contends that some nursing subjects are difficult and threatening to the learners sometimes, and if teachers present the content in a rigid manner with a serious disposition, learners become intimidated. the solution to this problem is to integrate humour when teaching to lower stress levels of learners and hopefully make the learning content less threatening, more palatable and more memorable. a participant highlighted: “it is easier to study or learn more if you are happy than when sad. . . and when you are happy you enjoy what you are doing hence you do not feel the workload ”. where there is anxiety, the brain does not accept information (check, 1997). this perspective is supported by story and butts (2010), and jensen (2008), who argue that humour reduces learning anxiety and learners learn more when not feeling threatened. a positive non-threatening environment has a positive influence on learners’ emotions, which in turn impacts positively on the cognitive stimulation. this means that learners feel free to deliberately engage each other and seek clarity where necessary (birbeck and andre, 2009). such engagement is facilitated by a non-threatening environment as mentioned by gravett (2005, p.44): “a non-threatening learning climate is consequently crucial in promoting meaningful learning”. cognisance must be taken that it is not only the use of humour that can create a conducive learning environment, many factors and approaches such as cooperative and reflective learning can produce such an environment (carver, 2013). 100 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 cognitive effects the development of the learner’s intellectual ability entails not only his ability to memorise information and to recall it again at a later stage, but also to capture the learner’s attention and to execute a variety of complicated cognitive tasks such as understanding, reasoning, processing of new information, simplifying difficult concepts, integrating theory and practice, making correct association, using divergent thinking and creativity. the following cognitive effects of humour were identified by participants: (a) humour facilitates comprehension, (b) and humour assists in problemsolving situations. humour facilitates comprehension comprehension is a cognitive activity whereby the learner is not only able to recall but is able to grasp the meaning of information or situations. the use of humour in facilitating learning helps the learner better understand the content as it becomes simpler for them. the related sub-themes that emerged included: humour facilitates the processing of new information, simplifying difficult concepts, and making meaningful associations. processing of new information learners’ receptivity to information alone does not necessarily demonstrate understanding. it merely demonstrates an acceptance of and preference for learning as part of the learner’s value system. as learning becomes part of the learner’s value system, the learner wants not only to be in a fun class, but also to be able to successfully process the content. participants remarked: “humour gives us a chance to digest what had just been taught and we laugh and it is easier for us to remember or formulate new information ”. this is because learning does not refer to receiving and recording pre-packaged information and storing it for later retrieval; it is an active process through which one constructs meaning and transforms understandings (gravett, 2005). meaning-making is a process in which one actively constructs one’s own knowledge using a pre-existing cognitive structure as a frame of reference. this means that one has to actively process the information to allow meaningful learning to occur. according to chabeli (2008) and carver (2013), when an educator tells a joke related to the content, learners must first recognise and interpret the joke being told by using their own pre-existing chabeli, malesela and rasepae: humour to facilitate. . . 101 conception of the world as a frame. once this incongruity is resolved, construction of new meaning and own understanding results. understanding is one of the processes involved in effective and meaningful learning. this process transforms, either by enriching or revising one’s conceptions (gravett, 2005). according to dormann and biddle (2006), humour helps learners construct their own understanding. simplifying difficult concepts difficult concepts become meaningless to the learner, thus making it even more difficult to master complicated or secondary concepts. participants indicated: “nursing uses difficult words, but if the tutor explain or act them out in the form of a joke, it makes sense and we then understand ”. they further acknowledged that through comic role play, learner participation is enhanced: “encourage learners to humorously play the role of how substances such as histamine interact with receptors to produce an allergic response in the body. the learners must continue to demonstrate how a histamine antagonist reverses the effects of histamine”. in order for the learning content to be meaningful, not only is the use of humour of the essence (wanzer, frymier and irwin, 2010) but meaningful organisation of the content to be role played becomes necessary (fraser, loubser and van rooy, 1993; carl, 2002). the educator must incorporate humourous activities when an understanding of difficult concepts is needed, for example, allowing learners to role-play the mechanism of action or the side effects of drugs in a funny way. however, the educator must ensure that all medical terms and their translations and transcriptions are well understood beforehand. once all role players have learnt their roles, they could be asked to creatively decide on how to act their roles. animated, humourous role-playing by the learners themselves will enable them to construct their own understanding, which may make it possible for them to simplify difficult concepts. making meaningful associations the ability to form correct associations leads to learning. one participant recalled: “a lecturer who used a funny puppet film to demonstrate the effect of obesity on the functioning of the heart made the content easier by this meaningful association.” the participant further stated that “even though we laughed loudly; we could make meaningful association of the effect of obesity on the heart”. according to the theory of association (fraser, loubser and van rooy 1993), meaningful association can be achieved by selecting the humourous stimuli most suited to the content and conveyed to the learners in the form of films or cartoon pictures. information-processing theory, 102 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 postulates that, both visual (funny picture) and auditory (scenario) stimuli are coded by sensory register as images and sound patterns respectively (woolfolk, 2010). once the information is coded in the sensory register, the brain forms perceptions in which the information is categorised and regrouped through pattern discrimination using existing knowledge as a frame of reference. the ability to retrieve prior learning or experiences when feeling positive is higher than when not, because strategies that trigger positive emotions in learners allow the brain to tag the learning experience as important and thus it is able to make connections and better perceptual maps for better understanding (jensen, 2008). humour assists in problem-solving situations problem solving can be defined as any situation in which some information is known and other information is needed. it can engage learners in seeking knowledge, processing information, and applying ideas to real world situations, and it has the potential to motivate learners and show them practical reasons for learning. the lecturer can use humourous teaching strategies in order to develop the learners thinking and reasoning skills that is: their ability to analyse situations, to apply their existing knowledge to new situations, to recognise the difference between facts and opinions, and to make objective judgments (van der horst and mcdonald, 1997). according to the participants problem-solving requires; divergent and creative thinking, and promote theory and practice integration. promote creative and divergent thinking creativity is a fundamental ingredient in finding alternatives by problemsolving and generates originality. typical characteristics of creativity are: fluency of ideas, elaboration on ideas by going beyond the obvious and including new dimensions (van der horst and mcdonald, 1997). one participant suggested, “humour help us to generate ideas and be creative and imaginative.” divergent thinking is an important element in creativity which involves scientific discovery and artistic creation as its defining characteristics (koestler, in martin, 2007). these terms are seen as a switch in perspective, or a new way of looking at things which enhances problem solving of a situation (martin, 2007). it is the positive emotions stimulated by one’s funny personal experience recounted in the form of a story that facilitates the chabeli, malesela and rasepae: humour to facilitate. . . 103 generation of new information by transforming external information to fit what one already knows (fiedler, 2001). funny stories help the learner to move beyond the classroom and look at the problem in a broader perspective. this means that humour in this instance makes the learners reconstruct their own understanding of a funny story being told by someone else. these are believable stories that make learners conscious of the reality of what to expect in the clinical setting. learners develop divergent thinking because humour goes beyond the obvious to seek new ways of looking at things (de bono, 1973). when learners are able to resolve the incongruity of humourous stimuli, it indicates flexibility in thinking, thus enabling them to relate to and integrate divergent learning material or course content (isen, daubman and nowicki, in martin 2007). it is important to integrate positive emotions, as they foster a learner’s ability to think creatively and derive personal meaning (prigge, 2002). promote theory and practice integration the primary purpose of facilitation of teaching and learning in nursing education is to enable learners to apply what they have learnt in clinical situations. when in the clinical area, learners are afforded the opportunity to transfer knowledge to practical situations that they encounter. the purpose of educational programmes is to produce a learner with applied competence. within the south african national qualification framework model, applied competence refers to the learner’s ability to integrate concepts, ideas and actions in an authentic real-life context. applied competence constitutes practical, foundational and reflexive competencies. according to the south african qualifications authority (saqa act no 58 of 1995) foundational competence refers to the learner’s ability to demonstrate the knowledge and thinking that underpin the action taken. this implies that the facilitation of learning using strategies such as acting out in a humourous way as described above can assist the learner to acquire foundational competence which forms the basis for practical competence. if learners know what they are doing and why they are doing it, they are more likely to acquire the ability to perform certain tasks or actions in real-life situations. the educator’s role in this instance is to assess the learner’s performance and give feedback to enable integration of performance with understanding, thus serving as a connection between the cognitive and psycho-motor domains in order to adapt to a situation at any point in time, referred to as reflexive competence. this integration can be facilitated by use of humour as noted by one participant: “the process of third stage of labour is quite complicated but 104 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 when we were taught how to help the woman in labour to ease pain, the lecturer did the rocking from side to side, singing funny rhymes, . . . it was quite fun. now we remember what to do when a woman is in labour.” according to de young (2009), meaningful transfer of learning is therefore not complete without the ability to use knowledge. new knowledge should bring about change in behaviour that makes the difference in the patient’s condition. barnett and ceci (in de young 2009), are of the opinion that successful transfer depends on, among other things, the way in which the material was taught and learned. one participant stated: “i recall how participating in a humorous role play in which i acted the role of a democratic sister, with my peers acting out other leadership styles, enabled me to demonstrate what i had learnt into practice regarding types of leadership in real life situations”. humourous play-acting of leadership styles by learners should be made as close to reality as possible. when learners are able to see the similarity between what they are learning in class and what they practically do in a clinical setting, learning becomes possible, thus reducing the gap between theory and practice (barnett and ceci, in de young, 2009). educators must therefore think deeply about humourous approaches that best address learners’ learning concerns. negative effects of humour it was found that learners experienced not only the positive effects of humour, but its negative effects as well. the negative effect mentioned by participants was that humour used inappropriately hinders learning. two sub-themes emerged concerning negative effects, namely: too much humour detracts learners from learning, and racist jokes result in a loss of interest in learning. too much humour distracts learners from learning the use of too much unrelated humour detracts learners from learning in particular for achievement-orientated learners who concentrate on what counts and avoids acts that waste time (quinn and hughes, 2013). participants referred to the fact that when humour is used inappropriately, for example using too much humour as in engaging in a relentless string of jokes not related to the content, learning is negatively affected. in other words, chabeli, malesela and rasepae: humour to facilitate. . . 105 learners lose focus on the course objectives because, the teacher concentrates more on the jokes. participants indicated: “incompetent lecturers like to buy time by using a series of jokes until the period ends. such lecturers cannot be taken seriously. this is attributed to the fact that the lecturer tends to talk about humorous things rather than concentrating on teaching the content”. participants went on to say that humour is a good thing: “unless the lecturer is hiding incompetency, however when a test is to be set, the same lecturer asks complicated questions which were not taught. lecturers should not replace the content with a series of jokes and hide behind jokes”. the implication is that learners may see class attendance as a waste of time (lei, cohen and russler, 2010). this means that the use of too much humour affects the educator’s credibility and may lead to a lack of trust. learners’ perception of an educator as incompetent destroys the trust and respect, which in turn negatively impacts on the affective social climate necessary for educator credibility. due to lack of respect for an educator, there may be increased noise levels in the class, which gets out of control, wasting time that could have been used effectively. this atmosphere hinders learning and is destructive as the humour is not fulfilling its intended purpose (carver, 2013). appropriate moderate humour is recommended, as too much diminishes its effect (story and butts, 2010). racist jokes result in a loss of interest in learning racism is a form of prejudice. educators who use racist jokes create distrust in learners. when differences are obvious, distrust becomes greater (the world book encyclopedia international, 1995, vol. 16, p.52). participants remarked: “lecturer x likes making racist jokes which are directed at certain racial groups and therefore creates lots of mistrust in the learning environment. another stated: “if you keep getting those nasty comments especially made in a language not understood by all learners, we feel very disrespected and demotivated with a very low self-esteem”. the results showed that participants experienced racist jokes that were directed at certain racial groups. these jokes made learners lose interest in the subject and in learning. learners then distance themselves from learning activities. humour that is targeted at individuals or groups is said to be disparaging, for example, targeting a particular racist or ethnic group. this type of humour is classified as inappropriate, as it offends others (wanzer, wojtaszczyk and smith, 2006) 106 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 a racist joke that is offensive and threatening to the learner’s core sense of identity results in anger and social distancing (refaie, 2011). this finding is supported by englert (2010) who argues that if the humour is not suitable or offends learners’ racial standing, the result may be social distancing and isolation from their counterparts. if humour is used inappropriately, it can cause divisiveness (hall 2001, in wagner and urios-aparisi, 2011). these learners feel side-lined, and therefore develop decreased motivation to process course content. according to wanzer, frymier and irwin, (2010), the negative effect generated by inappropriate humour, creates a negative emotion which in turn hinders learning. the negative emotion that learners claim to experience when racist jokes or belittling remarks are passed includes feeling bad and, offended and having low self-esteem. any humourous attempt that leaves one feeling belittled does not conform to the expected classroom norms and standards, especially if stated by an authoritative figure like an educator (wanzer, wojtaszczyk and smith, 2006). the results of this study indicated that learners experienced an attack on their personal worth and self-esteem when the educator jokingly uttered nasty remarks and comments under the false pretence of being funny. it is recommended that educators should conform to the accepted classroom norms and to role-model the type of communication required of the learners. educators must re-examine their own communication skills and reflect on their own teaching by ensuring a periodic feedback from learners about their inclusion of humour in the classroom. they must revisit the purpose of using humour as an educational strategy and refrain from using humour that targets learners. the use of humour must facilitate the connection between the educator and the learner and not divide them (chiasson, in mantooth, 2010). this can only be achieved if the humour is used appropriately with no belittling remarks and racist jokes targeting other learners. appropriate humour builds sound relationships between the lecturer and learner, and can be used as an educational vehicle to identify where support is needed. the ideal way would be to integrate humour that fosters a sense of openness and respect between learners and the educator (shibinski and martin, 2010). chabeli, malesela and rasepae: humour to facilitate. . . 107 the effects of absence of humour this study focuses on the experiences of learner nurses on the effects of humour in facilitating learning, but the absence of humour also emerged as having an influence on learning. an absence of humour creates a tense learning environment, resulting in decreased learner participation. absence of humour creates a tense learning environment educators who are known by learners to be humourless, serious and rigid, create uncertainty and confusion when they attempt to use humour to draw the learners’ attention. one participant remarked: “learners do not know whether to laugh or not and even get scared to do so because the educator has never joked with them before. one may not know the motive of sudden use of humour”. kelly (2005) indicated that some educators consider their jobs too serious. integrating humour into their teaching would appear inappropriate or unprofessional, and they therefore resort to not using humour in their teaching. participants remarked: “we get bored in a classroom without humour and end up sleeping due to boredom as the mind begin to wander. in other words, one’s attention is directed at something else”. according to bowman (2009), when one listens to uninteresting information, the brain starts to create its own internal world, due to lack of stimulation. absence of stimulation refers to lack of emotional involvement: for example, listening to the same monotonous voice with no element of surprise or interest. as wolfe (in bowman, 2009, p.30) puts it, “the brain normally becomes so accustomed to the stimulus that it ignores it”. this means that the attention is no longer focused on learning, but is elsewhere, which is not conducive to learning. according to participants, a lesson without humour is not only boring but the atmosphere becomes tense and does not automatically permit learners to ask questions. the fear arises from not knowing how the lecturer will react due to his or her serious nature and disposition. participants verbalised: “those who are so serious and do not incorporate humour in teaching demonstrates their authoritative position”. story and butts (2010) noted that this type of educational experience is oppressive and places students in spectator roles instead of them becoming inspired by an interactive process of co-learning. seemingly, in this instance, learners are not inspired. the approach that focuses on rigid presentation of the subject within 108 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 an allocated time is a teacher-centred traditional approach to teaching and learning and contributes to learner passiveness. once the purpose of incorporating humour to content has been identified, one does not have to try too hard to make the content interesting, since one can use the kind of humour that suits one’s personality (narula, chaudhary, agarwal and narula, 2011; shibinski and martin, 2010). recommendations the following recommendations were adapted from wanzer, wojtaszczyk and smith (2006): an educator who is not comfortable with being a source of humour will benefit from using other types of humourous content, e.g. cartoons, animations and funny videos. those who are not comfortable with any type of humour should consider using verbal and non-verbal immediacy behaviours such as smiling, laughing, vocal variety and amusing gestures. educators that are novices in using humour must observe those who actively use humour to share in best practices. it is advisable to have a collection of humourous jokes from the internet or any other source. staff development departments must include regular development sessions to train educators on using electronic media to find and extract humour-related material. it is therefore recommended that educators be introduced to the benefits of the use of humour in the class, and the effects of its absence. this instruction must include the consequences of the use of inappropriate humour. it is also recommended that research-based guidelines for the integration of humour to facilitate learning be developed. implications the realisation that the facilitation of learning through humour is another fun way to educate, is not to be misused, as time lost cannot be regained. too much humour wastes time and distracts learners from focusing on course objectives. using humour does not mean that an educator lacks discipline and cannot exercise proper classroom management or control. the responsibility and power to ensure class control and discipline is vested in the educator irrespective of the teaching approach used. therefore, nurse educators need to be made aware of the negative effects as well as the effect of the absence of humour. it is necessary to adhere to a time schedule when incorporating chabeli, malesela and rasepae: humour to facilitate. . . 109 humourous strategies, in order to ensure effective time management. this can be done by planning the use of humour in advance, during the preparation of a lesson, so as to effectively incorporate it into the content. conclusion educators who fear using humour in their teaching might not be aware of the benefits of humour to learning and thus deny learners and themselves an opportunity of creating an enjoyable learning environment that facilitates understanding and retention through humour. there is a need for such educators to emulate those that are humour-oriented, and to get the feel of the use of humour. this will help them realise that their job does not have to be too serious and that they too can use humour and still be appropriate and professional. it is understood that not all educators are humour-oriented and that it is not only through humour that a conducive learning environment can be created. educators who are not humour-oriented must first be made aware of the benefits of humour to learning. secondly, 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during the covid-19 pandemic ansurie pillay school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa pillaya3@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9174-0543 martha khosa school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa khosam1@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7294-2182 bridget campbell school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa campbell@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4305-3391 nicholus nyika school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa nyikan@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1464-9444 ayub sheik school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa sheika@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8633-3740 (received: 24 february 2021; accepted: 13 august 2021) abstract the purpose of the study on which this paper is based was to explore how self-identified female african university students understand the influence of their home environments on their experiences of online education. the study took place during the covid-19 pandemic when universities in south africa and elsewhere introduced online teaching and learning. using a qualitative approach to a single case study design within a critical feminist paradigm, we carried out an inductive thematic analysis of the data from seven indepth, open-ended questionnaires and metaphors. we found that home environments play an important role in 32 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 the education of female african students, particularly in a context characterised by gender inequalities exacerbated by inequities in material resources. however, a sense of agency, displayed by some participants, indicated their determination to rise above the many forms of marginalisation and discrimination they experienced. keywords: gender inequalities, online teaching and learning, material inequities, home environments, covid19 pandemic introduction on 23 march 2020, south africa went into a national lockdown in an attempt to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus that was sweeping the globe. university students living in oncampus residences in south africa were forced to return to their homes to commence online teaching and learning. students in south africa come from diverse social and economic backgrounds as mdepa and tshiwula (2012) have reminded us, and large numbers of them hail from overcrowded, poverty-stricken homes in areas characterised by social ills such as hunger, crime, and violence (bhorat et al., 2017). for many female african students, leaving campus residences and returning home meant taking on a number of traditional and cultural gender-based responsibilities, including household chores and caring for family members as awung and dorasamy (2015) have noted. this study, conducted well before the start of the covid-19 pandemic, found that many more household activities are assigned to females than to males and this serves as an enormous obstacle to academic progress. a 2020 study by fura and negash showed that the pandemic exacerbated the existing marginalisation of female students, who constitute a vulnerable group in society globally and locally, affected their psychological health, and decreased their motivation to pursue their studies. in this study, we focus on self-identified female african university students since they constitute the majority student population with whom we work at our university. universities in south africa require that students self-identify their race and gender, among other demographics, and we drew on such information when sampling participants. the female african participants were studying towards a postgraduate certificate in education (pgce) in a school of education at a higher education institution in kwazulu-natal, south africa. we used the following research question to guide the study: how do female african university students understand the influence of their home environments on their experiences of online education in the context of a pandemic? our study, located within a critical paradigm, employed a qualitative approach within a single case study design. mama’s (2004) theory of african feminism that challenges the subordination of women, underpinned the study. in this paper, we discuss our use of african feminism as a theoretical framework, review the relevant literature on the topic, outline the methodology we used, discuss the findings, and provide concluding thoughts. pillay et al.: african female university students’ experiences of online education . . . 33 theoretical framework we found african feminism as a theoretical framework to be most compatible with an analysis of female african university students’ experiences of online education at home during the covid-19 pandemic. african feminism derives from a rich array of political, cultural, and ideological histories and is “informed by the many diverse and creative ways in which african women contest power in their private and public lives” (ahikire, 2014, p. 8). it is particularly focussed on identifying the traditionally established ways along with new ones in which women in africa defeat oppression (arndt, 2002). as salo and mama (2001, p. 60) have noted, “african feminism evolves a politics that challenges the status quo implicit in the way contemporary patriarchies in africa constrain women and prevent them from realising their potential beyond their traditional roles as industrious income-generating wives and mothers.” lewis (2001) further noted that, in the interests of efficiency, women are burdened with increasing their productivity to uphold both patriarchy and capitalism. on the african continent, many women experience conditions of economic marginalisation and extreme poverty (techane, 2017). they enact gender roles in the context of other oppressions such as racism, socio-economic exclusion, and cultural imperialism (arndt, 2002). over the years, feminist scholarship has explored the varied nature of women’s experiences across the african continent as well as their marginalisation in the development agendas of their countries (mama & barnes, 2007). similarly, there has been a realisation that african women’s experiences of marginalisation and patriarchy differ from those experienced by women in the west (lewis, 2001) and differ across the continent, giving rise to calls for differentiated agendas and interventionist activism (nnaemeka, 1998; steady, 1987; wane, 2011). in higher education, although a notable change has been observed with the attainment of a gender balance of undergraduate students, concerns have been raised about the lack of gender equality given the existence of what david (2015, p. 10) has called “patriarchy or hegemonic masculinity.” in this study we recognise that with students being forced to leave campus during the pandemic, higher education learning has moved into their homes. we explore how female african students understand the influence of their home environment on their experiences of online education. we do this by reading and sharing their stories that function to subvert male-dominated canons, pre-existing histories, and assumptions of gender. the need to give students a voice is set against amaefula’s (2021) recognition that african women’s stories need to be understood against an historic background of male privilege that has led to gender inequality. as lecturers and researchers working in this theoretical paradigm, we recognise nkealah’s (2006) contention that to understand students’ stories requires modulating our own subjectivity, manifest in our multiple positionings as political, institutional, ethicised, gendered, sexualised, and classed subjects from particular locations. 34 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 literature review in the ongoing covid-19 pandemic with its subsequent physical distancing measures, many students, irrespective of gender, are uncertain of their academic futures because of campus closures, isolation, and the pivot to online learning (hellemans et al., 2020). mandatory physical distancing measures and restrictions on social gatherings have left many students feeling disconnected from their campuses where support and services are typically available (dumas et al., 2020). as coping mechanisms, some students have resorted to increased use of substances such as alcohol and cannabis (dumas et al., 2020). in a study that focused on the psychological health of university students during the covid19 pandemic, fura and negash (2020) noted that hopelessness, fear, anxiety, worthlessness, emotional detachment, powerlessness, loss, depression, isolation, and loneliness were prevalent among students. similarly, a study by tasso et al. in 2021 reported that, with the pandemic, students were adversely affected by a sudden disruption in their daily routines, experienced isolation, and anxiety, and were worried that those close to them would contract the virus. the psychosocial effects of the pandemic must also be understood in conjunction with the multiple stressors unique to this developmental period of students (beiter et al., 2015). the unique challenges that students are facing during the pandemic could lead to a decline in academic performance and higher attrition rates (hellemans et al., 2020). while physical distancing and isolation lead to their own challenges, the turn to online teaching and learning gives rise to further demands. hofmeyr (2020) stated that material conditions decide students’ learning experiences and czerniewicz et al. (2020) have contended that the implementation of remote online teaching and learning in south africa has revealed inadequacies previously invisible since many of the students reside in university residences and thus have access to required academic services and support. challenges related to inadequate resources are compounded by additional responsibilities at home that are not conducive to learning. turning the focus specifically to female african students, bissoonauth (2020) cites ouedraogo, who in an african union webinar entitled, “addressing the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on girls’ and women’s education”, cautioned that with closed schools and university campuses, african females are at greater risk of abuse, sexual violence, trafficking, social exclusion, and forced labour. additionally, bissoonauth (2020) posited that many female students have had to return to the agricultural fields to help their families, have become unpaid domestic workers, and have been exposed to transactional sex. in addition, the health crisis has forced many female students to drop out of schools and universities and enter the labour market or acquiesce to early marriage. young women are also at increased risk of loneliness, depression, and anxiety, especially as covid-19 fatigue sets in (hellemans et al., 2020). as bissoonauth (2020) noted, the covid-19 related death of men has meant that many women have become the main incomeearners in their households. additionally, women have become primary caregivers for sick pillay et al.: african female university students’ experiences of online education . . . 35 family members and for younger siblings. as plan international (2020) has found in relation to past epidemics, resources are diverted from routine health services, and this has further exacerbated the plight of women. methodology following decarlo (2018), we located this qualitative single case study within a critical paradigm that is concerned with societal inequities. simons (2009) maintained that a “case study can document multiple cases” so we used this approach to document the seven participants’ experiences explored in the study. case studies are also “useful for exploring and understanding the process and dynamics of change” (p. 14) and this spoke to our research intention to explore participants’ experiences in a context of the pandemic. in addition, case study design seeks to gain “an intensive, holistic description and analysis of a single phenomenon” (stake, 1995, p. 27) that, in this study, was female african university students’ experiences of online education at home during the covid-19 pandemic. using a critical paradigm implies that the research study questions the status quo and focuses on the dynamics of power within a society, including the interaction of race, class, gender, education, and socio-economic factors, among others (kincheloe & mclaren, 1994), so we sought to explore female african students’ experiences of online education at home during the covid-19 pandemic. we considered the power dynamics in their homes and explored how gender, specifically, played a role in the learning process. the seven participating pgce students were studying to become english home language teachers. besides self-identifying as african and female, they also self-identified as single and their ages ranged from 21 to 28. we drew the seven participants from two campuses where this qualification is offered. we decided to use convenience sampling which allows for choosing participants who are attainable (cohen et al., 2011) since one of us in the research team had taught these students and thus had access to them. all potential participants were invited via whatsapp to participate, and we worked with the seven participants who were willing to become involved. a limitation was recognised early since the invitation went out at the conclusion of the module when students did not necessarily have access to data and/or network connectivity, and some had moved to places where they would start new jobs. the pandemic dictated that we could not physically meet with the participants and being interviewed online was problematic for some students. it was thus decided to send out open-ended questionnaires. once all ethical procedures were in place, the questionnaires were emailed to the participating students who were reminded that participation was voluntary, reassured that their anonymity and that of the university was assured, that their input would be kept confidential, and that withdrawal from the study without penalty was an option. of the seven participants, four lived in under-resourced rural areas and did not have reliable access to the internet nor funds to purchase data, two lived in peri-urban communities, and 36 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 one was situated in the greater urban area of durban. the last-mentioned participant was the only self-funded one. four participants were classified as what is known as a missing-middle student, whom samuel (2020) identified as students who are too poor to pay for university but not poor enough to warrant government funding. the remaining two students had government funding. the participants could respond to the open-ended questionnaires in their own time without any of us being present and this increased the likelihood of objective and honest responses as ganga and maphalala (2018) have observed. the open-ended questions meant that participants were free to include as much information in their own words as they wanted to offer (see mcleod, 2014). in addition to open-ended questionnaires, we asked the seven participants to each include a metaphor that expanded on what they expressed in their questionnaires. asking for these metaphors enabled the generation of creative data so that the phenomenon under study (students’ experiences of online learning at home) could be explored from a unique and alternative perspective (carpenter, 2008). in line with carpenter’s suggestion, metaphors were used to clarify participants’ words, and served to express their feelings and sentiments about online learning in their home environments during a pandemic. in addition to asking the participants to offer a metaphor to comment on the phenomenon under study, we asked them to explain their metaphors and this, too, served as data. once data from the questionnaires and metaphors was generated, we started an inductive thematic analysis. we generated the themes from the data rather than fitting the data into preexisting codes and themes (see braun & clarke, 2006). we analysed the data in phases, as suggested by these scholars. in the first phase, we worked independently with the data by reading and familiarising ourselves with it, and in the second phase, each of us independently generated preliminary codes. still working independently in the third phase, we all searched for themes in relation to data extracts. in the fourth phase, we each chose specific themes of relevance to the study and research question, found extracts from the data to support such themes, and identified the links to the research question. in phase five, we independently named and defined our chosen themes. these independent analysis phases afforded each of us the opportunity to become familiar with the data so as to “trigger deeper reflection on the data’s meaning” (kalpokaite & radivojevic, 2019, p. 47). in the sixth phase, we met, motivated for the themes we had individually identified, and, as a group, made our thematic choices, identified important extracts to use as evidence, and reached consensus about the theory and literature. we ensured investigator triangulation that involves many researchers in an empirical study (see denzin & lincoln, 2005), through the individual and collaborative discussions of our coding and our agreement on the final themes. we aimed to enable trustworthiness by providing “a[s] rich [a] description of the context and research process” (samaras, 2011, p. 221), as was possible, as well as through the inclusion of verbatim responses from the questionnaires, metaphors, and metaphor explanations. a limitation of the study was the pillay et al.: african female university students’ experiences of online education . . . 37 relatively small sample, but a large number of questionnaire-prompts and the use of two data methods generated rich data from which we drew our findings. findings in responding to the research question about how female african university students understand the influence of their home environments on their experiences of online education in the context of a pandemic, the following four themes were identified: inequities in material resources; inequities in gender roles; the role of the family; and agency. the participants are indicated as participant 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 and data is presented from participants’ questionnaire responses, their choices of metaphor, and their explanations thereof. inequities in material resources the participants indicated varying access to material resources including access to networks, electricity, and data. this was confirmed by participants1, 2, and 7 when they indicated “constant network issues” (participant 1), “bad network” (participant 2), and said that “poor network coverage made it very difficult to attend zoom classes” (participant 7). as the lockdown, brought on by the pandemic, resulted in remote online teaching, the availability of network coverage determined students’ experiences of online education. thus, participants with poor network coverage “ended up not attending classes” (participant 2), “submitted work late due to the poor internet connection” (participant 7), and “could not get emails on time” (participant 2). three participants (1, 2, and 7) highlighted how poor material resources in their homes excluded them from participating in the zoom contact sessions and resulted in a negative teaching and learning experience. participants 1 and 4 lived and studied in homes with regular electricity outages which compromised the learning experience. as participant 1 explained, i live in a rural area. electricity is supplied by the municipality, not eskom [the national electricity supplier]. we have constant power issues. we usually live without electricity for three days. this has a negative impact on my work because my laptop is old and only functions when connected to electricity. similarly, participant 4 noted “regular electricity outages” caused by “regular cable theft in the area.” if, as participant 1 noted, she could not work for three days at a time, she experienced anxiety about being marginalised and excluded from the teaching and learning process and felt that this diminished her future prospects in the educational endeavour. her possessing only an old laptop also reflects the realities of the inequities in students’ material resources. the two participants needed to engage with online education via resources that were not fit for the purpose (old laptops) or not available (electricity). kehler (2001) pointed out that a critical indicator of a person’s standard of living and poverty level is access to basic services such as electricity, together with water and sanitation. participants 1 and 4 were expected to succeed academically without access to these basic services. 38 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 other participants (3 and 6) pointed to data, provided by the university, “running out” because of the need to engage with many modules online. other material disadvantages included lack equipment or “poor learning equipment” (participants 1 and 4), student funding being “revoked” and not having funds to “buy stationery” or “travel to public libraries or internet cafes” (participant 4) that could support online learning. the metaphors from participants1, 6, and 7 also corroborate their challenges. participant 1 noted that “online learning is as hard as a gravel road”, participant 6 said that “online learning is a gigantic sore, a constant pain”, and participant 7 commented that “online learning is hard as a rock”, and explained, “my metaphor shows so many difficulties and hardness i encountered in my online learning experience.” participant 6 likened her experiences of online learning to a medical symptom that causes discomfort and pain. however, she was clear that the symptom is huge and recurrent, thus pointing to her extremely negative experience of online learning. similarly, participant 1 reflected that the difficulties that were encountered were like a rutted road that is not smooth and that leads to a bumpy ride while participant 7 reflected on just how arduous the online learning experience has been. the findings above point to participants working in contexts of lack over which they have no control. they recognise the frustrations and anxieties that they face given the lack of material resources available to them. these findings above resonate with those of abrams and szefler (2020) who noted that approximately 5.5 million south africans live in areas without electricity and internet connectivity and that only 10.4% of south africans have internet connectivity at home. similarly, czerniewicz et al. (2020) found that many south african university students either lack or have inadequate devices and connectivity to engage in remote online learning. when we look at these findings from the perspective of african feminism, it becomes clear that the participants cited above are marginalised and socioeconomically excluded. such exclusion places them at risk academically (see arndt, 2002), through no fault of their own. while some participants experienced many challenges because of not having material resources, other participants’ experiences were different. while participants 3 and 6 noted having intermittent problems with online learning, participant 3 said that her online “experiences were good”, and participant 6 said that the “network in my area is good”, despite her metaphor indicating that “online learning is a gigantic sore, a constant pain.” both participants were able to complete work, engage with learning, and had generally positive experiences of online education, despite some challenges. it becomes clear that having material resources on the site in which learning happens enables more effective educational experiences and being without such resources seriously hampers educational progress. these findings resonate with those of hofmeyr (2020) who found that the material conditions within which students find themselves determine their learning experiences. inequities in gender roles kehler (2001) indicated that gender involves social and cultural roles and beliefs, attitudes, and expectations, including those relating to the interactions between women and men. the distinct gender roles, and their acceptance of them, is reflected in participant 3’s assertion pillay et al.: african female university students’ experiences of online education . . . 39 that household chores are gender-based and “that’s how our household prefers things to be done. the women balance everything very well.” she and her household have internalised a mode of existence, underpinned by patriarchy and cultural expectations, and reinforced by the women in the house, that appears to “work for them.” participant 3’s statements betray a false rationality and ideological assumption that exploitative gender relations are normative and should be accepted without question. from an african feminist perspective, we can see that she and the women in her household have imbibed the idea that in the interests of the efficiency of the household, women need to increase their productivity as lewis (2001) has pointed out. while branches of african feminism speak of complementarity with men (arndt, 2002), participant 3 and the women of her home do not want to contest legacies of male dominance and choose to uphold patriarchy. participant 1 lives with her mother and noted that “we work together to fulfil home responsibilities, including those that are usually perceived as male duties such as yard cleaning and painting.” she pointed out that her home responsibilities cannot be described as being gender-based since the two women in the home manage chores collaboratively. all seven female participants reflected the entrenched gender roles and six of them highlighted the gender role inequities present in their homes. participant 2 said, “all cooking and cleaning is done by me.” participant 5 explained, “as a female i am expected to handle all the house chores, like cooking, cleaning and looking after younger siblings”, and participant 7 said, “i do not know how it came about but my brothers do not help with the house chores.” the comments of participants 2, 5, and 7 reflect the entrenched, and now accepted and expected ways of being and acting. they recognise the ways in which gendered roles have been carved into various practices but did not identify how to challenge such assigned roles and chores. such chores were allocated to them despite the expectations and requirements of the learning process. participant 6 noted that “house chores are only done by females, and i do them before i start with my studies”, and participant 7 reflected that “as a girl i have to do all the work around the house and that makes me lose time to do my studies.” participants 6 and 7 identified how being solely responsible for house chores, despite having brothers who could help, impacted negatively on their studies. even in homes where there was an expectation of brothers getting involved, they are “able to run away from chores more easily than i would ever be able to,” said participant 4. the experiences of participants 6 and 7 highlight an important focus of african feminism that challenges the supposition that women need to question and change their gendered experiences when in fact, the importance lies with men’s examination of masculinity (lewis, 2001). participant 4 summed up the sentiments of most of the participants when she said, “black women are expected to be super women and multi-task even when we are genuinely unable to. your parents will ask you why you haven’t washed the dishes, yet there are other children who don’t have studying to do.” these findings echo kolawole’s (2002) assertion that the struggles women face in africa and around the world reside in entrenched male privilege and exploitative gender expectations. 40 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 the role of the family when online education becomes based at home during a pandemic, the role of family and friends proves important to the learning endeavour. on a positive note, participant 3 explained, “my parents understood that they needed to give me some time with my studies.” participant 6 said, “i have an understanding family who accepted that at certain times i would not be available to do anything in the home”, and participant 1 said that her mother “was willing to compromise and do more home responsibilities if [she] had too much university work.” such familial support was recognised by participants 3 and 6 as a positive contributor to successful online education. on a negative note, participant 6 noted “missing zoom lectures” and added, “i have to look after my grandmother and babysit cousins while i have studies to do.” this finding reinforces those of stats sa (2020) that african women conduct 2,5 times more unpaid care work than do men in south africa. this, however, is not peculiar to south africa and is similar in most countries around the world (may & hamdulay, 2019). participant 5 said, “it was difficult convincing my elders that the time spent on my device was really university work and not me trying to escape chores.” she reflected on having her mother “calling [her] to do something during a zoom class.” both participants reflected on the tensions between the university’s expectations that they attend and engage with remote online lectures and the family’s expectations of support. participants also recognised the need to provide support to families in a pandemic. participant 4 expressed her concern for her cousin who is a nurse and “the stress she is under at work.” she also expressed anxiety for “elderly family who face the risk of infection from grandchildren who go out and come home with the disease.” participant 4 pointed to the problem of grandchildren who might not be socially distancing and following other pandemic protocols. while understanding such a concern, ramparsad (2020) noted that social distancing might not be achievable in many rural and township areas anyway because of the logistics and realities within which people live and work. participant 1 pointed to family members who “battle with a chronic disease and the anxiety of being infected by covid19.” such anxieties about vulnerable members of the family must play a role when students are working with the imperative to engage with their remote online education. it also calls to mind a branch of african feminism that locates women in cooperation with, and in affirmation of, family (arndt, 2002). however, the concerns and anxieties of participants 1 and 4 call to mind the findings by hellemans et al. (2020) that the covid-19 pandemic has resulted in increased levels of anxiety and stress in canadian female university students. participant 5 unpacked a further aspect of how a person’s age, gender, and status in the family determines how one acts and how this impacts on learning. she noted, there is an ongoing availability necessary in an african home. if my father calls me to run an errand (often an hour) whilst i am studying, i will have to leave my room to go to him. i can’t say i am studying because, for him, the fact that i am able to leave pillay et al.: african female university students’ experiences of online education . . . 41 my room means i have time. not going and calling from the room is disrespectful. shouting from a room and shouting at an elder—that’s a no no in any context. here she comments, however implicitly, on the tacit rules regulating behaviour in the acquiescence to the imperative to be available and drop everything should a male elder require something. the educational engagement will need to wait since the educational endeavour is seen to be less important. it is clear that the need to be respectful to a male elder takes precedence over engagement with education. participant 4’s explanation is that “fathers don’t understand online learning, so they don’t know when and how they are disturbing you. they see you sitting on your phone and don’t realise you might be doing something serious.” overall, the combination of elders’ ignorance of what these women are doing and the tacit rules in a home make for a difficult learning experience. the sentiments expressed are reflected in ogunyemi’s (1985) findings that an african woman’s experiences have to be located within an understanding of her culture and within the various forms of domination and subjugation with which she lives. it appears as if little has changed in the last 35 years. participant 4, perhaps, captures the experiences of online learning given the complexities surrounding family and home. her metaphor is “i am an anchor.” she explains, i am pulled down by my own weight while i try to keep my family steady, to prevent my family from drifting. i am sinking and pulled down by the weight on my shoulders. the academics, financial strains and overthinking pull me down as an anchor would, trying to keep the ship steady, avoiding winds that may drift it away. i am pulled underwater. i hope i do not drown. her words reflect her desperation as she balances the burdens of academic requirements, family obligations, and financial concerns, and her sentiments echo the findings of tasso et al. (2021) that female students are faced with a multitude of challenges of managing and balancing domestic duties and academic imperatives. agency however, along with the many difficulties of online learning in the home context, the participants reflected a sense of agency and, from an african feminist perspective, found various means to challenge power, or the lack of it, in their personal and public lives (see ahikire, 2014). when participant 1 had problems with her laptop, she chose not to despair but “travelled to town” to do her work at the city library. she also chose to “listen to the recordings of the lectures as many times as needed” to facilitate her understanding. she found that the “flexibility of location and time improved [her] understanding and [her] digital literacy.” participant 6 ensured that her lecturers were informed if she was “falling behind.” participant 2 worked with “recorded lectures” when she could not attend zoom classes and “checked for information on the class whatsapp group.” she said, “i need to study and work at my own pace and at times suitable for me.” 42 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 three participants had worked out a schedule for themselves to enable their completion of all tasks. participant 1 shared a “daily schedule” involving studies, home chores, exercise, family time, television, and meals. she chose to use her “early mornings” for her studies. she also found that exercising and eating healthily had helped to “ease . . . anxiety and depression.” she was able to identify ways of overcoming challenges to her psychological health despite conditions of marginalisation, in contrast to the findings of fura and negash (2020) and helleman et al. (2020) that students’ psychological health suffered because of the pandemic. participants 2 and 4 chose to engage in home chores during the day and in their studies at night. the latter said, “i made sure to stay up at night when everyone was asleep as i couldn’t concentrate or do much during the day when everyone was awake.” participant 4’s response to studying online at home is reflected in the tenet of african feminism that recognises the need for women’s affirmation of their families (arndt, 2002). while not on a schedule, participant 5 noted that she would do her chores “as quickly as possible, have a break, and start studying.” while such home environments and domestic arrangements were not optimal for online learning, the participants cited realised the need to find solutions for themselves. three participants drew strength and determination from other women. participant 1 recounted that her mother encouraged her to “always put education first because, like me, she believes that education is power.” despite her depiction in her metaphor of online learning from home during covid-19 being like “a car on a gravel road experiencing difficulties”, she was determined to keep powering forward. her metaphor reflects her setbacks and the hurdles she had to overcome, but she does not claim that her car has stalled. like her, participant 6 gained her power from a female relative. she drew on her aunt’s example and saw an advantage to having her aunt “doing her masters.” she noted that it helped that her aunt “was going through the same thing” as she was. likewise, participant 4 was inspired by her cousin, a nurse, who had “the strength to wake up every day and go to work.” as she said, “it takes a lot of resilience.” participants i, 4, and 6 drew power from females whom they admired. in line with an african feminist perspective, they found their connectedness to real-life examples and were influenced by their role-models’ historical experiences (see lewis, 2001). participant 5 learned about herself during this time and identified her metaphor of online learning from home during the pandemic as a “rollercoaster [that] was nervewracking.” she added that “the support was overwhelming and much-needed” and noted, “i did the best i could. i did learn a lot about myself and how i deal with new circumstances.” participant 6’s metaphor reflects the anxiety and fear related to online learning, but, equally, she recognises the care and assistance she received from others. while the study by helleman et al. (2020) found that female university students in canada suffered the effects of social isolation, participant 6 had the opportunity to turn to others for support and care. participant 1, 4, 5, and 6 realised that they have the option to be strong, intelligent, african women and, as future teachers, it is hoped that they, too, will serve as role models for future generations of african women (see orakwue, 2018). participant 2 presented her metaphor of online learning as a “mountain climb experience with rusty nails along the way” that, despite her burden of carrying her studies, chores, and family, pillay et al.: african female university students’ experiences of online education . . . 43 all of which “demanded her attention” she was not hindered from continuing to negotiate that terrain. she has a sense of agency and is determined to succeed. all the female african participants cited above have recognised the challenges and oppressions facing them and have identified ways to overcome them (see arndt, 2002). concluding thoughts this study, with its seven female african university students engaging with online education in a pandemic, found that material inequities in students’ homes shaped the education each student experienced. those with material means could continue with their online education and those that did not have these, could not. material inequities worked together with gender inequities to entrench patriarchal expectations and privileges. if families bought into such expectations and privileges, learning, whether online or not, proved challenging. however, supportive family structures provided the safety for some of these participants to carry on with their education. despite challenges, whether from material lack, patriarchy, or entrenched family expectations, some participants were able to effect agency in their decisions to do (and be) better. as can be seen, the experiences of the seven female african students, gleaned through their stories in the open-ended questionnaires and through their metaphors, were appraised from the perspective of african feminism. many burdens promoted by patriarchy fell to the participants, but they appeared to understand the various identities and roles ascribed to them. they inhabited lives shaped by historical, social, and cultural marginalisation, and many challenged male dominance to varying degrees. those who chose to flex their agency demonstrated their determination to overcome the oppressions imposed on them. this study illustrates that while most participants faced marginalisation and discrimination in various forms in their homes, and while some felt particularly vulnerable at many times during the pandemic, most of them emerged as strong resilient african women in simultaneously negotiating the demands of home and tradition on the one hand and education on the other. they chose to redefine their roles and futures in specific and different contexts and traditions. ultimately, the african female students’ experience of studying at home via remote online methods during the covid-19 pandemic must be recognised for its complexities that could lead to success or failure. planning for teaching and learning in higher education, whether online or otherwise, needs to acknowledge female african students’ realities and provide opportunities for the higher education community to learn about and critique the socially imposed gender (and other) roles that affect in fundamental ways how they live and study references abrams, e. m., & szefler, s. j. 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(2011). african indigenous feminist thought. in n. wane, a. kempf & m. simmons (eds.), the politics of cultural knowledge (pp. 7–21). https:/doi.org:10.1007/978-94-6091-481-2_2 strutting and fretting, a retrospective look at my drama pedagogy strutting and fretting, a drama education retrospective lorraine singh abstract this article views through memory work my own practice as a drama education lecturer and how it has come into being and evolved through the impact of influential teachers, events and processes. the theoretical basis is an existential one as i interrogate what it means to be – to be who i am, to be a teacher educator and to be a teacher educator in drama. i use a narrative inquiry approach, drawing on constructs of narratology in my methodology. a narrative approach recognises that identity is not constructed autonomously, but in relation to others (nicholson, 2005). now on the brink of retirement, i look back at my career and bring memory forward to try to arrive at an understanding of the forces that shaped my work and how the critical emancipatory pedagogy that i now espouse was an unforeseen yet logical outcome of my life’s influences and my constant yearning towards self-improvement and self-awareness. i make use of a self-interview as a means of shaping memories into a story that captures significant periods and people in my education. elements of critical events theory are employed to ask what i did, why i did it and what the implications of those actions are for my current and future practice and for drama pedagogy in general. we shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. (t s eliot) introduction using the metaphor of photography, the novelist isabel allende says of memory, “. . .memory prints in stark black and white, the grays get lost along the way” (allende, 2002, p.227). if this is the case, i believe that it is those shadings of gray that sometimes stir the mind to begin to focus and look more closely at what is remembered in black and white. i suppose this is what leads to focalisation in a story – the ‘prism’ or perspective through which the events are presented (rimmon-kenan, 1983). a choice is made from the various points of view from which the elements of a story can be presented. this 86 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 focalisation can be seen as the relationship between who perceives and what is perceived and colours the story with subjectivity (bal, 1997). my focalisation in this article is that of remembering in story form why i do what i do as a drama educator and what i care about (doing). this narrative is an explanation and a sharing of my educational influence in my own learning (whitehead, 2009, p.103), the kind of teaching i do and the field i contribute to and learn from. the narrative approach in this narrative inquiry, i have used the method of a self-interview to tell my story. i did this because, i needed to organise and structure the memories that flowed once i began to question why i do what i do. a self-interview can be used as a tool at different moments in an inquiry process – as preparation, documentation or as a reflection tool once the work has been completed (everybody’s toolbox, 2007). the self or auto-interview as it is sometimes called, is used by artists as a self investigatory tool to explain various influences and movements in their artistic development. i have used it as reflective tool to look back on my learning experiences in drama. it served as a technique to keep me focused on “critical events” (webster and mertova, 2007, p.71), selecting people, events and places that i believe have shaped my teaching style and my educational persona. “specific events (and i would add specific people) are key determinants in how we recall our life experiences” say webster and mertova (2007, p.71). my evolution of self as educator is the aspect that i have focused on and tried to excavate. my intention is not just to tell my story, but also to show how educators can play a crucial role in what we choose to become. i anticipate critique that will help strengthen, challenge and develop my drama pedagogy even further as i see myself on an unending quest to “improve what i am doing” (whitehead, 2009, p.106 ). in the story below, the sense of place and time emphasised by narrative researchers such as connelly and clandinin (2006) is evident. i focus on south africa in the 1960s and 70s to paint the landscape for the story. this provides a situated-ness to my experience. the trustworthiness of my story must lie in the ‘fabula’ – the actual events and real people used in the story (bal, 1997). since i am the researcher as well as the ‘researched’, the self-interview strategy helped with the question of trustworthiness or validity. feldman says that issues of validity are important because when we engage in reflective processes that focus on ourselves (as in the construction of autobiographical singh: strutting and fretting. . . 87 narratives), we cannot be sure of the accuracy of what we see. that is because when we reflect, we do not know if what we see in the mirror is accurate or the distorted view provided by a funhouse mirror. our new knowledge, understanding, or insight may be flawed because it is based on a distortion of the world (feldman, 2003). in novels, says carolyn ellis, “you have the freedom to construct your own plot and character rather than the responsibility to connect your writing to your memory of actual people and events” (ellis, 2004, p.333). since this is not a novel, i had to be responsible by trying to recall events and people as accurately as i could, given that i am relying on my memory. i tried moving ‘beyond nostalgia’ (mitchell and weber, 1999) or self-indulgence and stayed within an academic parameter, hence the interview format. i have used my memory of poetry in the interview as it expresses better than i could the feelings and emotions that my memories of the past evoked. the academic quotations in the interview highlight the ‘then’ (experience) and ‘now’ (reflection) aspects. the stylistic narrative decision to move between first and third person in the self-interview (being both interviewer and interviewee) helped me find what ellis describes as a demonstration of “both strength and vulnerability” (ellis, 2004, p.53). writing about one’s own memories exposes one and leaves one feeling extremely vulnerable, particularly when writing for an unknown audience. the device of the interview provided the security of academic structure and the opportunity for reflection. writing this article has helped me make my tacit knowledge explicit and therefore accessible for future use. as perselli (2005, p.29) explains, “in autobiography. . . where the protagonist and author are the same person, it would seem as though the opportunity to stabilize these elements and make them knowable is maximized, so that the act of writing becomes the opportunity eventually for greater self-knowledge.” reflecting on my practice i am at a personal crossroads now since i am on the brink of retirement. i find myself asking questions about who i am or who i am still becoming. palmer (1998, p.7) asks, “who is the self that teaches?” this introspection has led me to ask what it means to be – in my case, to be a teacher educator involved in drama education. why did i choose drama and why did i want to teach it? so, i draw from my memories to find answers. at the same time, i examine 88 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 the kind of teacher educator i have become. what prompts me to support students in the way i do, why is it important to me to ensure that my students feel secure and affirmed and free to say whatever is on their minds? i also ask why i have moved away in my teaching from a rather colonially inspired approach to drama in education (die) to a more fluid, constantly evolving, contextually based methodology. my recent publications in the field of drama education have made reference to an applied theatre (nicholson, 2005) approach and the emergence of a critical emancipatory pedagogy. i refer also to the need to make space in my drama work for the voices of my students to emerge more constructively than i have before. like bell hooks, i want to teach in a manner that “respects and cares for the souls” of my students so that i can “provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin” (hooks, 1994, p.13). i try to open young minds to the infinite possibilities of the world and their own ability to achieve so much. the content and theory of my teaching is of necessity discipline and curriculum driven, but the topics for drama exploration allow for much student input. i should feel ideally placed, and most times i do, but i came to realise that, although my students are very well prepared for their teaching careers (this is corroborated by reports from schools), there is often a lack of independent thinking and a poor commitment to social action. i saw that being compassionate and caring, allowing students to speak their minds and to have fun in my classes was not enough. they needed to be freed in other ways. it was when the topics i chose to explore through drama making lay outside of my experience (risky sexual behaviour in young people, xenophobia amongst students, teenage pregnancy, etc.) that i found that i had to reverse the roles in my classroom in a way that i had not experienced previously. heathcote’s (1995) ‘mantle of the expert’ belonged to the students in a totally different way. i had to trust my students implicitly when it came to selecting the content and the message of the plays on hiv and aids for example. it was the only way to arrive at knowledge that was situated, relevant and real (nicholson, 2005). at the end of an article i wrote (singh, 2011a), i confessed how difficult it was for me to let go the reins but how well the students picked them up and how glad i was that i stepped back from the playmaking process when i did. abandoning my missionary zeal to help students meant i learned more about students’ attitudes towards hiv and aids than i would have in my own research endeavours as a middle-aged indian woman lecturer. by resisting the impulse to censor or moralise about their main character’s sexual singh: strutting and fretting. . . 89 permissiveness, i allowed the play to be truly their work and represent their take on the topic. looking at a book chapter i wrote earlier (singh, 2011b, p.44), i noticed that i had used “we” quite frequently – as in “reflecting critically on the stories we encountered helped us understand how to use them creatively and responsibly”. but i was writing on my own about my own use of narrative inquiry. as i read further, i realised that the words ‘we’ and ‘our’ featured quite prominently. i saw that i had located myself in the midst of the young people with whom i was working and writing about. i could not separate myself from my students. recently, while working on a short arts-based project with a group of mature in-service teachers with little arts experience, i found that i had to forego the usual developmental approach to building confidence about performing. this is contrary to my usual (die) step by step process of play-building. instead, i provided some clear cut performance techniques without too much ‘process’ input. i said to the class “you are all experienced and competent teachers with a wealth of knowledge. just use the drama techniques i have introduced to help you tell the story.” they were very nervous about working on their own, but i quite literally walked away. when i returned, the piece had taken shape and was ready for refining. why did this work? i had trusted in my own drama teaching and in my students’ ability to make the connections themselves. this trust freed me and the students to produce creative and thought-provoking drama. i moved my focus from perfecting the piece for the examination to allowing these adult learners a chance to ‘play’, to experiment and find a new way of expressing themselves. i believe that contextual conditions must be factored into outcomes. i had to allow adult learners the space to learn at their own pace and in their own way – not imposing my ‘standards’ of performance work at the cost of dignity and self-fulfillment. the ‘a’ or ‘b’ assessment was not as important as the freedom to make choices (and mistakes) and to take responsibility for their own learning. had i insisted on polishing the piece, the joy of performing would have gone and the resulting stress would probably have reduced the good assessment they did finally achieve. to sum up my practice, i would say that i have developed over the years a personal set of values or a “living theory” if you will (whitehead, 2009, p.107) that informs and guides my teaching and social interactions. i espouse what i call my ‘acts’ as my personal pedagogic philosophy. this means i affirm my students in every way possible; i care about my discipline; i trust in my own ability and that of my students; i see education as a service to all. 90 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 focalising these reflections on my pedagogy – the ability to ‘let go’ at the right moment, the curbing of my insistence on top marks for assessment and the location of myself in the midst of my students’ work made me think about what i do and why. in taking an existentialist stance towards this retrospective of a career in drama education, i am guided by feldman’s three characteristics of personhood, viz. situatedness, the emergence of the self and freedom (feldman, 2009). these three strands of enquiry flow through my story as i examine how i have constructed myself, the choices i have made, the beliefs that have sustained me and the values that underpin my teaching. i understand in this examination that it becomes necessary to know yourself and to make that knowing visible. i do this through the self-interviews that follow. palmer says that this knowing of self is neither selfish nor narcissistic, and is as crucial to good teaching as knowing one’s students and subject (palmer, 1998). indeed, as hamilton, smith and worthington (2008, p.17), highlight, “addressing the self can contribute to our understanding of teaching and teacher education”. further, “removing the self from teaching makes it difficult if not impossible to theorize or understand teaching in any meaningful way” (pithouse, mitchell, and weber, 2009, p.47). so, i embark on this “intentional reflective process” or narrative inquiry into self, as a way of “gathering up knowledge of practice, a way of knowing”, and of knowing that i know (lyons and laboskey, 2002, p.3). the story interview 1 i remember, i remember the house where i was born. . . (robert hood) so tell me lorraine, when did you first become interested in drama? my interest in drama was born in the so-called elocution lessons that were given at primary school by a visiting specialist speech and drama teacher. i was fortunate i suppose that the colonialist mind set of the time made it important to the nuns who ran the school i attended that little ‘indian’ children learn to speak ‘proper’ english. middle class indian parents were also anxious that their children had every opportunity to improve their chances in a world where race, ethnicity, class, academic prowess and language, especially singh: strutting and fretting. . . 91 pronunciation, defined success. cultural assimilation was not contested or even understood by my parents’ generation. were we conforming to a colonial mindset or trying to change our indian identity by learning to speak standard english? or was this an attempt at a kind of resistance by showing that we could speak the language of the ‘oppressors’ as well as they could? i am not sure but i do not regret my ‘english’ colonial-style school education. because it was here in the elocution class as a shy ten-year-old that i first found (almost literally) my voice. zimbabwean poet, fungai machirori (2011), writes of her remorse as she looks back at her early schooling which excluded african literature, philosophy, politics and history. but she says she does not regret her private school privileged education because in later years it helped her appreciate her african identity even more. what was the teaching of elocution like? that one class was the highlight of the week, a space where we made lots of noise and learned through laughter and games – an unheard of concept in the 1950s in an indian catholic primary school in south africa. furthermore, the visiting teacher was someone who seemed happy to be there, who encouraged you to talk and who actually listened to what you said. this was even stranger and set her apart from the everyday reality of school. what was most strange was the fact that although she was a ‘white lady’ – a figure associated with fear and power, these were never evident in those classes. it was for her sake that i worked hard at my oral examination pieces. my first attempt earned me a b+ instead of the a the teacher expected. i felt her disappointment, although she said nothing. but to disappoint her was to reduce the joy we experienced in her lessons, so i had to succeed. it was because she believed i could get an a and not because i believed i could, that i made sure i had an a the next time – and all the times after that. teachers, says palmer, “possess the power to create conditions that can help students learn a great deal – or keep them from learning much at all” (palmer, 1998, p.6). you mention the issue of race difference. how significant was this for you as a child? it had a tremendous effect on our lives in terms of identity and how we saw ourselves. the subliminal message of our ‘inferiority’ was pervasive. it came 92 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 through to us in our education via our teachers and the curriculum content as it did in the laws and regulations of segregation. whiteness meant superiority, knowledge and power. anything else was second rate. yet, in ourselves, privately, in our families and communities we knew we had knowledge and ability. so as children we began to develop that two-ness of being, the double consciousness that du bois (1903) wrote of. the danger remained of becoming what others perceived you to be. what was the lasting effect of the elocution teacher on you? it was in the last class at the end of grade 10, when she asked what some of us who were moving on to senior high school what we intended to do in the future that i found myself blurting out – much to my friends’ surprise and my own consternation – that this was what i wanted to become – “a speech and drama teacher like you”. and i did. did you continue with drama at high school? there was no formal drama at senior high school, but there were two strong influences that made an impact on the values i espouse as a teacher today and also helped me on the way to achieving my immediate goals. one was my teacher of english who inspired by her deep knowledge, her poise, elegance and confidence. her english literature class introduced play readings to me – we went through our shakespeare texts by reading aloud so that metre and rhythm and meaning became one. i can still quote lines from the plays and poems we studied – the written word and the spoken word came alive. the second influence was the teacher who prepared the debating team and helped me through my public speaking events. yes, ‘my public speaking’! – what a long way from the 10-year-old who froze on stage in her first oral exam. gently, effectively and with great compassion she coached and tutored, all the while opening our minds to new thoughts and different perspectives. our education at that time was still of the ‘banking’ (freire, 1970) or transmission variety. we were empty vessels to be filled with the ‘right’ knowledge and the right forms of behaviour. but these two teachers opened a tiny window onto another world where our abilities and thoughts were sought after, valued and respected. “the power of our mentors is not necessarily in the models of good teaching they give us, . . .their power is in their capacity to awaken a truth singh: strutting and fretting. . . 93 within us, a truth we can reclaim years later by recalling their impact on our lives” (palmer, 1998, p.21). but the battle was far from over and the butterflies in the tummy before a speaking event were more like clawing dragons that i had to slay. i remember being physically sick many times before an important inter-school debate or speech contest, but there was always this compulsion to go on because people expected me to succeed – the teacher who gave up her time to help me, the friends on the debating team and my family who supported all my endeavours. “as we live our situated existences and construct ourselves, we have an existential freedom to make choices about what we do, even when our ability to act is constrained” (feldman, 2009, p.39). there were many constraints to overcome, personal and political, yet the greatest was my own fear – of failure, of inadequacy or public exposure. interview 2 it seemed that out of battle i escaped. . . (wilfred owen) how well did your university training equip you for a career in drama? emerging from the confines of high school to university did not automatically bring the kind of freedom enjoyed by varsity students today. in apartheid south africa, every aspect of life was prescribed and proscribed. so, i was forced to attend the university for indians, located at that time on salisbury island in the middle of durban bay. . . i thought i wanted to become a speech therapist but the university did not offer it at the time. i enrolled for a ba degree majoring in english and speech and drama with a teaching diploma to follow. the drama department on salisbury island was headed by the renowned durban actor, david horner, who was as humane and urbane a man as one could hope to meet in that drab and desolate setting. the island could only be accessed via a ferry across the harbour or a long car trip through insalubrious docklands. very few students owned cars. as the ferries did not run all day, one could easily be marooned on the island if one (literally) missed the boat. 94 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 speech and drama was one of my major subjects, it was also one of my teaching methods and it was the subject i chose to take an honours degree in. i say i chose this subject but i think i must agree with palmer (1998) that we don’t find a subject to teach – the subject also finds us. i knew very little about drama, about the world of theatre and performance, yet it drew me and i responded on an instinctual level – it seemed to fill a gap in my life somehow. “we were drawn to a body of knowledge because it shed light on our identity as well as on the world” (palmer, 1998, p.25). what did you enjoy most at varsity? whilst i enjoyed many of my lectures and the new awakenings that came with academic learning and socialising with other young minds, it was the speech and drama department that became again the ‘safe space’ for me. i was in a place where creative engagement was encouraged, where fun and enjoyment accompanied learning and where the body, mind and soul were involved. a spirit of camaraderie developed amongst the students in that class which was not possible in other subjects. it was no wonder that i met my life’s partner in that drama department. love was a natural consequence in that atmosphere. students in the class were accepted as individuals and their uniqueness was recognised and affirmed. in this period i discovered that apart from my public speaking voice, i also had an actor’s voice. the more roles and characters i played, the better i became at controlling the fear of performance. the more stage fright i experienced, the more exhilaration i felt when i overcame it. i discovered the value of good acting technique and preparation which hold a performance together whatever else may be going on. what motivated you during this oppressive era? our hunger for knowledge, for a glimpse of the world outside our own confinement, made us accept many indignities that today we would question. all public entertainment, transport, education, places of worship – everything in fact, was organised along racially separate lines. the university staff controlled how we dressed, what we studied and who we associated with. any deviation targeted one as a troublemaker – a candidate for expulsion or worse – investigation by the police special branch. the motivation for a good education included the idea that one’s qualification could provide a ‘ticket’ out of this cycle of oppression. singh: strutting and fretting. . . 95 were there other lecturers who influenced you? my other major and teaching specialisation was english. it was the professor of the english method class, popularly known by his initials ptp (always in lower case), that contributed much to my style of teaching in the classroom and made me persevere as a novice teacher to challenge and stimulate my pupils’ writing skills. he wrote poetry and very soon we were all writing haikus, his favourite form. all our experiences as students, and as people, became the content of the creative writing class. and he shared his own experiences with us, wrote about himself as well and taught that we should never ask of our students what we ourselves are not prepared to do. every class became an adventure – we could never predict what would happen in his lectures. how lucky i was to have such a mentor. he said of marking our pupils’ work that ‘remarks’ were more helpful than marks. it is something i still practice to this day. like bell hooks, “i have been most inspired by those teachers who have had the courage to transgress those boundaries that would confine each pupil to a rote, assembly-line approach to learning” (hooks, 1994, p.13). interview 3 new york, new york, it’s a wonderful town. . . why did you go to new york? in 1978, after a year of teaching and four years as a junior lecturer, i won a fulbright scholarship to study for my masters at new york university. having the opportunity to take a bite of the ‘big apple’ for almost two years remains one of the most rewarding events of my career. i could write volumes on my experiences there and what it was like to be in a class with an author like nellie mccaslin whose work i had used in my own teaching. drama teachers would be very envious to know that i saw people like richard schechner and jersy grotowski. the ‘big names’ in drama were all at nyu in the late 1970s. it was the right place at the right time. what did you study? doing a course work masters gave me an opportunity to attend a range of classes with a number of experts. i soaked up every elective i thought would help fill the gaps in my training. i took courses in puppetry, creative drama, 96 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 special needs drama and a wonderful course on indian theatre and dance with a visiting professor from india that made me reflect on my ‘indianness’ in a new way. all of this enriched and illuminated my drama knowledge immeasurably. and i saw every play i could afford. so it was a wonderful experience? it would be wrong to present my new york experience as all smooth sailing without any “narrative wreckage” (whitehead, 2009, p.116). i did experience isolation and difficulties with the new ways of learning. culture shock permeated every aspect of life and the rudeness and indifference of the people would have sent me back home within a month if i was not there with my husband. we expected a warm reprieve from apartheid, but often found unfriendliness and arrogance. together, we struggled to find our way and so supported each other. being naturally shy and reticent was not helpful in that environment – even in educational drama, there was a competitiveness that i found disturbing and destructive. “everyone has encountered difficulties that have required spiritual resilience and a connection with a loving energy to move beyond the difficulties” (whitehead, 2009, p.116). did you have any particularly difficult moments in your study? my worst moments came when i went in as a student drama teacher once a week to a school in greenwich village. this was an ‘alternative’ school where there was no set timetable; children as young as six could choose what they wished to do and when. the learners in my class were not accustomed to being told what to do and they just wander away if they were bored or could not do a task. i soon became adept at not just having a plan b, but a plan c and d as well. i had to be on my toes to interest, entertain and extend these children whose ages ranged from six to nine in the same class. i told myself that if i survived that one semester in that school, i would be able to teach anywhere in the world. i re-thought all my idealistic notions of education. i began to see the merit of a structured curriculum and thought about how i could marry the chaotic ‘freedom’ of this open school with the stifling rigidity of the ‘normal’ schools i was used to. do you have any regrets about new york? i wish now that i was more assertive and took more advantage of my foreign student status to network. but, i had a degree to achieve and a baby to care for, so my life was pretty full. singh: strutting and fretting. . . 97 did you want to remain in new york or come back to south africa? i wonder now how my life would have turned out had i accepted the offer from the university to complete my doctorate. it was tempting – we had grown to love new york – the heat, the cold, the glamour, the dirt, the constant noise and throngs of people. i am so grateful for that experience and the assurance it gave me. i began to feel that at last i knew my field well and could lecture from a secure basis. i had learned so much. but for all that, new york was not home and so we returned to start our careers all over again – where it really mattered. interview 4 and that’s why i have to go back to so many places in the future there to find myself. . . (pablo neruda) was it difficult to adjust when you returned? yes, i missed the freedom of new york and the countless number of things to do and see. but, i saw also when i returned how connected to life and each other people here are. i felt a tremendous pride in my heritage both as a south african and as an indian, which i had not felt before. i realised how my double consciousness was strength to be used as resistance. i need no longer judge myself by others’ standards and be found wanting. i cannot describe how liberating this near epiphany was for me. it certainly inspired a more critical approach to my work and my interactions with others. you must have been eager to return to lecturing then. since i had to resign my position at the university (married women were appointed on a temporary basis only) when i left for the us, i had no job to come back to. i found temporary lecturing posts, and then finally i was appointed as a subject adviser for speech and drama in schools. i worked for almost twenty years amongst in-service teachers bringing this new subject into schools and seeing its many incarnations through new curricula, some of which i helped design. my stint abroad had given me a new confidence and belief in myself. i became friends with many of the teachers with whom i worked, in spite of difficult relations between the department of education officials and teaching corps. i tried to establish the bona fides of drama as a school subject in the province. 98 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 why did you leave this post? there were a number of reasons i left the department of education, the main one being that i often felt an internal conflict between the policy i was forced to represent and what i actually believed in. then i began to feel a little redundant as the drama exam results were good and i could see the development and growth at all levels. only very new teachers really needed me. the rest of the time, i was merely repeating the same work every year. i needed to grow. finally, i saw an opportunity to lecture again in drama education – my first love – and prepare teachers to teach the new further education and training (fet) drama curriculum for schools. i thought i could offer something worthwhile based on my experience in the schools system. in addition, i had embarked on a phd and felt i would like to test myself in an academic context. i am constantly driven by a need to learn something new. footfalls echo in the memory down the passage which we did not take (t s eliot) thank you lorraine, for sharing your story. analysis of the story why did i write this story? why did i choose certain people and periods? as i said at the start, i needed to come to understand how my current pedagogy evolved. i asked, “who is the self that teaches”? to answer this question, i used memory to explore my early formative experiences. telling the story through the device of an interview helped me step away from a purely subjective recounting. i was obliged to cast myself as an interviewer/ researcher and think about the questions that i would ask a person with my background. the self-interview method “[facilitates] a stepping back, a reading of our situated selves as if it were a text to be critically interrogated and interpreted within the broader social, political, and historical contexts that shape our thoughts and actions and constitute our world” (pithouse et al., 2009, p.45). the interviews brought forward the “shifting aspects of self” and showed how the “othering” i experienced in the apartheid situation and my sojourn away developed my resistance and self knowledge (hamilton et al., 2008, p.22). in many ways, the title of this article indicates the contradictions in my personal and public life. whilst i have to ‘strut’, that is, perform as an singh: strutting and fretting. . . 99 actor, a teacher, an academic; i am constantly ‘fretting’, that is, consumed by insecurities. it also refers to my introspection about what i have achieved in my career. the choice of questions for the interview is linked to feldman’s (2009) notions of personhood – situatedness, emergence of self, and freedom. the situatedness or context comes through references to race and the dickensian style of teaching in the 1950s and 60s, negated by the ‘elocution’ class. it also arises in the repressive atmosphere at university, again countered by experiences in drama. the emergence of self comes from my account of the people whose personalities and practices had a profound influence – either on my self-esteem or on my teaching style. lastly, the notion of freedom is found in the questions that allude to choices i made. i chose to teach drama and not english, i chose not to continue as a school teacher (which then led to the masters at nyu) and i chose not to remain in new york but to return to south africa. i exercised the freedom to give up a career as an education official in my fifties and begin (again) as an academic. webster and mertova (2007, p.73) note that “a critical event as told in a story reveals a change of understanding or worldview by the storyteller”. the only clearly delineated change experience for me was the effect of my stay in the usa. all my experiences there crystallised within a few days of my return into a newfound confidence and sense of worth. the other episodes in my story are not single events as such. the childhood influences were gradual and related to extrinsic events which refer to historical and political events (webster and mertova, 2007). if i question why i chose these early memories it becomes clear to me now that it was the larger context of the apartheid era oppression exacerbated by the strict indian christian cultural setting that made the contradictory experiences the more significant. everything that occurs in the educational situation is “affected by the educator’s past and present. . . and of course the students with which they are engaged” (feldman, 2009, p.39). i believe all of these factors, the repressions of apartheid included, have converged to form my pedagogic identity. conclusion embarking on this retrospective narrative inquiry has led me to a better understanding of my practice and how i can still develop it. i have come to understand the effects of the repressive age i grew up in and use this as a means of connection with my students. i understand the tremendous influence 100 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 certain people had on shaping my self-image and my choice of career. the compassion, friendliness and difference they represented helped me develop these qualities in my own teaching. these qualities formed the basis of my own living theory. “knowing more about ourselves as teachers and teacher educators changes us, provokes growth, jolts us out of complacency – and sometimes radically, in ways that can seem transformative” (pithouse et al., 2009, p.48). self-knowledge gives me the ability to empathise more with my students and feel their uncertainties and so i constantly adjust the curriculum to be more inclusive. what does it mean to me to be a drama teacher educator? it means that one applies the techniques of drama in education in a way that releases the students and motivates them rather than reifying the theory. it means i push students to look “beyond my traditional notions about the learning-to-teach process” (hamilton, 2006, p.113). it means that i have arrived at a way to help students “discover and explore educational issues that they genuinely care about and identify some practicable ways in which they might translate this concern into action within their own school and community settings” (pithouse et al., 2009, p.56). it means i know that i can find a balance between the ideas of world-renowned theorists like heathcote, bolton and o’toole and the south african context. moving constantly between content and context, my greatest satisfaction comes when i see the excitement and enthusiasm in my new students after a drama session. i am re-affirmed by their awakening and joy in their own achievement. more importantly, it also means i understand how the teachers who helped me ‘find my voice’, the lecturers who became the role models for my teaching style and my ‘exile’ away from south africa, which helped me see so clearly who i really was, helped shaped the person i am now. but, i am able to resist being a composite or clone of others as much as i was able to resist what apartheid would have made me. in telling my story, i become more aware that i am responsible ultimately for who i am and what i have become (feldman, 2009). looking back on my career, i feel a sense of self-worth, a pride in my pedagogy which takes the sting out of my concluding quotation: ……………………………a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; (macbeth act v sc v). singh: strutting and fretting. . . 101 epilogue “memory is fiction. we select the brightest and the darkest, ignoring what we are ashamed of, and so embroider the tapestry of our lives” (allende, 2002, p.303). references allende, i. 2002. portrait in sepia. london: flamingo. bal, m. 1997. introduction to the theory of narrative. (2 edition). toronto:nd university of toronto press. connelly, f.m. and clandinin, d.j. 2006. narrative inquiry. in green, j.l., camili, g. and elmore, p. (eds), handbook of complementary methods in education research. (3 edition). mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum.rd pp.477–487. dubois, w.e.b. 1903. the souls of black folks. new york: bantam classics. ellis, c. 2004. the ethnographic i: a methodological novel about auto ethnography. oxford: rowman and littlefield. everybody’s toolbox open source in the performing arts. 12/17/2007. retrieved 03/19/2012 from http//: www.everybodystoolbox.net/?q=node/43 feldman, a. 2003. validity and quality in self-study. educational researcher, 32(3): pp.26–28. feldman, a. 2009. making the self problematic. in lassonde, c.a., galman, s. and kosnik, c. (eds), self-study research methodologies for teacher educators. rotterdam: sense, pp.35–49. freire, p. 1970. pedagogy of the oppressed. new york: herder and herder. http://www.everybodystoolbox.net/q=node/43 102 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 hamilton, m.l. 2006. test driving the auto-: which offers a better fit – autobiography, auto-ethnography, and auto-logy? in fitzgerald, l.m., heston, m.l. and tidwell, d.l. (eds), collaboration and community: pushing the boundaries through self-study. proceedings of the sixth international conference on self-study of teacher education practices, herstmonceux castle, east sussex, england, july 30 – august 3 cedar falls, ia: university of northern iowa, pp.113–117. hamilton, m.l., smith, l. and worthington, k. 2008. fitting the methodology with the research: an exploration of narrative, self-study and autoethnography. studying teacher education, 4(1): pp.17–28. heathcote, d. and bolton, g. 1995. drama for learning: dorothy heathcote’s mantle of the expert approach to education. portsmouth: heinemann. hooks, b. 1994. teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. new york: routledge. lyons, n. and la boskey v.k.( eds). 2002. narrative inquiry in practice advancing the knowledge of teaching. new york and london: teachers college press. machirori, f. 2011. incompletely me. comment in mail and guardian (sa) march 18, 2011. retrieved from http://mg.co.za/article/2011-03-18incompletely-me mitchell, c. and weber, s. 1999. reinventing ourselves as teachers: beyond nostalgia. london; philadelphia, pa: falmer press. nicholson, h. 2005. applied drama the gift of theatre. new york: palgrave macmillan. palmer, p.j. 1998. the courage to teach: exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life. san fransisco: jossey-bass. perselli, v. 2005. heavy fuel: memoire, autobiography and narrative. in mitchell, c., weber, s. and o’reilly-scanlon, k. (eds), just who do we think we are? methodologies for autobiography and self-study in teaching. london and new york: routledgefalmer, pp.22–33. http://mg.co.za/article/2011-03-18-incompletely-me http://mg.co.za/article/2011-03-18-incompletely-me singh: strutting and fretting. . . 103 pithouse, k., mitchell, c., weber, s. 2009. self-study in teaching and teacher development: a call to action. educational action research, 17(1): pp.43–62. rimmon-kenan, s. 1983. narrative fiction: contemporary poetics. london: methuen. singh, l.p. 2011a. drama education in the age of aids. perspectives in education (in publication). singh.l.p. 2011b. stories gogo never told. in francis, d.a. (ed.), acting on hiv: using drama to create possibilities for change. rotterdam: sense, pp.43–53. webster, l. and mertova, p. 2007. using narrative inquiry as a research method: an introduction to using critical event narrative analysis in research on learning and teaching. london: routledge. whitehead, j. 2009. using a living theory methodology in improving practice and generating educational knowledge in living theories. educational journal of living theories 1(1): pp.103–126. retrieved from http://ejolts.net/node/80 lorraine singh school of social science education university of kwazulu-natal singhl4@ukzn.ac.za http://ejolts.net/node/80 mailto:singhl4@ukzn.ac.za 104 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 microsoft word bissue72 final.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 72, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i72a06 a critical arts-based narrative of five educators working in higher education during an era of transformation in south africa marguerite müller university of the free state mullerm@ufs.ac.za (received: 12 may 2018; accepted: 20 september 2018) abstract in this paper i explore creative ways to engage critically with educator identity and experience during an era of transformation and decolonisation. i have written it as an illustrated arts-based narrative that revolves around the experiences of five educators working at the university of the free state between 2014 and 2016. the narrative was created as part of a collaborative research project in which participants shared their experiential knowledge of anti-oppressive practice. in working with these portraits of five south african educators, i explore the connections between educator identity and social justice in the broader south african higher educational landscape as the call for transformation and decolonisation intensifies. the narrative is intended to trouble the identities and experiences of educators as they make their way through this messy terrain in an attempt to learn from uncertainty and crisis. keywords: social justice, arts-based research, performative text, educator identity, anti-oppressive education sketching the background in recent years south african universities have come under the spotlight during student protest movements, such as #rhodesmustfall and #feesmustfall. the fallist movements highlighted an intensifying call for transformation and decolonisation in south african institutions of higher education (jansen, 2017). the call for transformation is not new; in the post-apartheid context there has been a strong focus on transforming the curriculum to make it more socially just. this focus is underpinned by the 1996 bill of rights that promotes equity and protects all citizens against discrimination based on “race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.” 1 it can thus be argued that all south african educators have a constitutional commitment to teach in anti-oppressive ways and to work towards socially just practices. however, a 2008 ministerial report on transformation in 1 section 9 (3) of the constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996. available from: http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf 90 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 higher education found racism and sexism to be pervasive, not in the institutional policies, but, rather, in the lived experiences of students and staff (soudien et al., 2008). their experiences therefore become an important area of investigation in relation to social justice. furthermore, jansen (2017) reminds us that “[t]eachers interpret the curriculum to students on the basis of their own experiences, backgrounds, politics, and preferences” (p. 169), so both the identity and experience of south african educators emerge as key factors to consider in relation to curriculum transformation and decolonisation. in this paper i use portraiture to explore the lived experiences of five educators working towards transformation at the university of the free state. the portraits are used to highlight the complexity and multiplicity of educator identity through a collaborative narrative exploration of social justice in this context. through a creative engagement with the entanglement of identity, experience, curriculum, and pedagogy, i hope to move away from theoretical discussions on why we need change, to a more action-oriented emphasis on how we need to change. davies (2010) posits that agency, rather than being the product of individual will, resides in “the conditions of possibility that provoke new thought” (p. 55). through the visual/textual narratives i hope to create conditions of possibility that provoke new thought as we work towards transformed, socially just, and decolonised educational research and practice. setting the stage as educators currently working in the south african higher education context, as outlined above, we are caught up in the demand for socially just, transformed, and decolonised approaches to education. however, the contextual realities and lived experiences of educators are sometimes left out or lost in discussions that focus on grand narratives of social change, transformation, and decolonisation. keet, sattarzadeh, and munene (2017), point out that we need to move beyond the theoretical knowledge of what social justice and decolonisation mean to more collaborative, active, and creative approaches. here, i purposefully extend the theoretical research on anti-oppressive education into a narrative that stretches beyond the classroom space into the lives, childhood memories, personal anxieties, spiritual beliefs, and embodied experiences of five educators at the university of the free state. in other words, it is not simply about how we teach or what we teach but about who we are inside and outside the classroom, and about how our being is entangled with those around us to form multiple and assembled subjectivities (deleuze & guattari, 1988). if we think of identity as fluid and not fixed, it becomes possible for us to engage with antioppressive theories that allow us to work towards different ways of being and understanding. anti-oppressive theories are not prescriptive about how we should be, but, rather, encourage exploration of who we are and how we can become different. this notion is based on the work of kumashiro (2002) who has argued for an anti-oppressive pedagogy. in this framework oppression is seen as “a situation or dynamic in which certain ways of being (e.g., having certain identities) are privileged in society while others are marginalized.” furthermore, oppression is viewed as intersectional, multiple, and situational. while critical theory is useful for naming oppression and becoming critically conscious, kumashiro has argued that we “need to make more use of poststructural perspectives in order to address the müller: a critical arts-based narrative of five educators . . . 91 multiplicity and situatedness of oppression and the complexities of teaching and learning” (p. 25). through the portraits referred to in this article, i aim to create a collaborative way of engaging with the multiplicity and situated nature of oppression. the participants and i used the visual/textual work to engage with some of our complex, messy, and uncomfortable experiences as educators at the university of the free state. in this multiplicity, experience is foregrounded not as a form of narcissism or inwardness, but as a way of situating experiences as micro expressions of narratives of change, transformation, social justice, and decolonisation in higher education. hooks (2003) reminds me that “whenever we love justice and stand on the side of justice we refuse simplistic binaries. we refuse to allow either/or thinking to cloud our judgement. we embrace the logic of both/and. we acknowledge the limits of what we know” (p. 10). by using a theory that foregrounds subjectivity as complex, multiple, and assembled, i hope to make a contribution to how transformation, social justice, and decolonisation can be understood as a micro-project that (partially) emerges and unfolds in the lives, experiences, identities, memories, interactions, and becoming of educators working in higher education. by focusing on the becoming of educators though engagement with creative self-reflexive practices i hope to centre the change-of-self as part of the decolonisation process as a way to move beyond fixed and essentialised identities as we explore the entanglements with others and search for new ways of being. creating the portraits in creating these visual/textual portraits i use a multi-method approach with its roots in critical forms of inquiry such as narrative, collaborative, arts-based research. the use of the ontology of multiplicity seems to fit well with a multi-method approach. it is critical, but also aims to move beyond the critical into an affective analysis where meaning is sought in action and interaction, rather than in representation (zembylas, 2017). the subject is thus viewed through a critical lens so that we can see, as it were, the intersections of various social identities, such as race, sex, gender, class, and sexuality, but she or he is also read as an emerging subjectivity, not fixed, but always in a state of flux and change—becoming. the narrative component is used to sketch the identity as complex and multiple because in the storied world. . . things do not exist, they occur. where things meet, occurrences intertwine, as each becomes bound up in the other’s story. each such binding is in a place or a topic. it is in this binding that knowledge is generated. to know someone or something is to know their story, and to be able to join that to one’s own. yet, of course people grow in knowledge not only through direct encounters with others, but also through hearing their stories told. (ingold, 2011, pp. 160–161) using these portraits i engaged in a visually driven process of storying in which the aim was to make the “mundane, taken-for-granted, everyday world visible” and to “seek performative interventions and representations that heighten crucial reflective awareness leading to concrete forms of praxis” (denzin, 2013, p. 2). the text functions in the storied world and the characters occur and intertwine to generate new knowledge and heighten crucial reflective awareness. the visual/textual portraits are creative expressions rather than factual 92 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 representations of stories and occurrences. working in a postmodern paradigm i cannot possibly claim any objective truth, but, rather, i purposefully fictionalise, narrate, and sketch (see leavy, 2009). in so doing i also rely on visual methods of expression (drawing and collage) that function with the text to create visual/textual portraits. the arts-based approach i followed was useful for creating what finley (2011) has referred to as “new visions” that might lead to concrete forms of praxis. from within the liminal openings that are created by the performance/practice of artsbased inquiry, ordinary people, researchers as participants and as audiences can imagine new visions of dignity, care, democracy and other decolonizing ways of being in the world. once it has been imagined, it can be acted upon, or performed. (p. 443) through these visual/textual portraits i hope to create academic work that is “socially responsible, locally useful, engaged in public criticism, and resistant to neoconservative discourses that threaten social justice and close down efforts toward a performative research ethics that facilitates critical race, indigenous, queer, feminist and border studies” (finley, 2011, p. 437). the portraits were created as part of my phd research project for which i invited participants, working as educators at the university of the free state, to share some of their personal narratives and experiences of working and being in this space. the research project received ethical clearance from the university of the free state and the participants chose their own pseudonyms. i hoped that a collaborative method of creating and sharing narratives would help me to understand some of the complexities that i felt in my own attempts to work towards anti-oppressive practice. at the start of the project, i asked each of the participants to create a character and make a visual/textual portrait of their character as a fictional self. the participants were supplied with some basic art materials which they could use (or not), but how they created or presented the character visual/textual portraits was entirely up to them. the only guideline was that the character they created had to be an educator working in higher education and had to be inspired by their own experiences. in the second round of individual conversations (which were recorded), we discussed the participants’ artwork and they each introduced the character-self into the emerging story. using the recordings of these conversations i produced written sketches of each character, which i then shared with the participants via email. following this i arranged another round of individual conversations (also recorded) during which we reflected on the portraits and the way in which they could help us engage with some questions that stem from kumashiroʼs (2002) theory of anti-oppressive education. during the second interview, the participants were also asked to share a photograph to help me build their visual character portrait. after these conversations, i re-created the portrait collages by incorporating the initial artwork alongside the newly emerging stories, and the photographs. the portraits i created were then shared with the participants. finally, i invited the participants to help me interpret, read, and facilitate meanings that emerged from this layered process. müller: a critical arts-based narrative of five educators . . . 93 art and narrative help us communicate that which is unquantifiable (often deemed unscientific), but which is at the foundation of our human experience. it offers “knowledge as a process, a temporary state, [which] is scary to many” (eisner, 1997, p. 7). the implication is that, as educators, we cannot learn or be told how to work towards anti-oppressive practice but have to build such knowledge through our experiences, and the process of creative engagement with those experiences. this is important in the context of social justice, transformation, and decolonisation since changing the curriculum or policies will not be effective if the teachers who implement curriculum and pedagogy are left out of the conversation. through an engagement with creative self-reflexive practices i hope to focus on the change-of-self as part of the process of becoming. creative engagement with our experiences and memories becomes a way to move beyond fixed and essentialised identities as we explore our entanglements with others and search for new ways of being. five portraits of educators at ufs daisy figure 1: daisy, 2014, drawing, marguerite müller she is playing with a red balloon in a lush green suburban garden. the air smells of jasmine, sunshine, watermelon, birthday cake, washing powder, ironed clothes, mowed lawns . . . she goes to a good afrikaans school and gets a good education. she is part of a close-knit community in which similar views on religion, politics, history, and a shared language serve as the glue that binds them as white afrikaners. the only people of colour she knows work as cleaners or gardeners. she listens to them speak languages she cannot understand. although they are grown-ups she does not call them oom or tannie, 2 as she would call white grown-ups, but addresses them by their names. she knows that they have children, because unused toys or outgrown clothes are often sent home with them, but she never sees their families or their homes. they seem to exist only in her world, with their own world somewhere beyond hers, 2 the honorary terms oom [uncle] and tannie [aunt] are used as a respectful way to address adults in traditional afrikaans speaking communities in which children would rarely address an adult by name. 94 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 out of her sight. she goes to high school in 1996 and for the first time she sits in classrooms with people who had been classified as coloured 3 under apartheid. her coloured classmates do not live in the white neighbourhoods, but in the township that was designated for coloured people under apartheid legislation, and which is far away from school. these classmates arrive in buses in the morning and leave in buses in the afternoon. in class she gets to converse with some of the coloured students and exchange ideas on topics from music to religion. when the bell has rung for break the coloured learners sit in one group and she sits with the other white learners. the teachers are all white and the cleaners are all black. the principal is male and the secretaries are female. daisy is made to sit silently through countless ceremonies to celebrate the school’s mediocre rugby team and watch boys with inflated muscles parade across the stage while she applauds in what is thought of as a civilised manner. no whistling or shouting! on early winter mornings she is secretly envious of the boys who get to wear pants to school when she must wear short skirts (five fingers above the knee) with stockings. even if pants were allowed she wouldn’t wear them anyway; that would make her seem unfeminine and therefore unpopular. she would love to take woodwork and metalwork as a subject because of her interest in sculpting, but she doesn’t dare do such a thing. one girl in the school did have the guts to take the boy subject once and everyone talked about it saying she must be a lesbian… at this point in the narrative i have to point out that daisy’s memories as recounted above are probably not very different from the memories of many other white middle-class south african females who grew up in the 1980s. her memories are a part of me, of my memory and childhood, but it is also part of something more collective. i see it as a micro-expression of a larger social narrative that weaves in and out of my identity. what does remembering make possible? when i stand in front of diverse classes and teach social-justice lessons i have to allow myself to be there, present and fully present, with all the history, memory, and experience that comes with being me. but i do not exist in isolation; i belong to a bigger assemblage into which my experiences are woven. thus, i leave daisy’s partial and incomplete story here on this page and i go on to speak to alice. “tell me about what it was like growing up and going to school?” i ask her. 3 under apartheid legislation all south africans were classified into a racially demarcated group. the groups were white, coloured, black, and indian. many south africans still use these racially demarcated categories to refer to their racial identity. müller: a critical arts-based narrative of five educators . . . 95 alice figure 2: alice, 2014, watercolour and pencil, marguerite müller i remember when i was in grade 7, i had such curly hair! i didn’t look typical . . . like a typical indian you know? and i had this kind of accent that was not indian, and i felt different and i was made to feel different, because i came from this different kind of school . . . because before that i had been in a catholic school; it was a private school so we were all mixed—white, black, coloured, and indian. i remember it as a strict and rigid kind of schooling with rote learning and questioning, and obedience, discipline, and respect for elders. there was this distance between the teachers and us and the majority of the teachers were catholic nuns, so anyway there was this otherworldly kind of [discipline], you know, so they always threatened you with jesus and god when you did anything wrong, and they were a bit abusive, yes they were physically abusive . . . they used to give us [what we called] german knocks, like knuckles on the forehead . . . but i learnt discipline there, and to work hard . . . and i learnt to be independent . . . but anyway, then that school closed down and on my first day at this new school, this indian school, in the afternoon the principal wanted to see me and she asked, “what are you? what is your race?” and i was not sure . . . so she said, “are you coloured?” and i was like so uncertain about what i was. and so she called my mother that day and she asked for my birth certificate. on the birth certificate it said indian and i, uhm, you know then she told my mother, that you know she said she’s coloured. uhm, but schooling ja, was . . . after a while . . . you know, apartheid was so deeply entrenched that we never really questioned its effects on us. so like i feel all this sense of uncertainty and i’m like looking at myself and i’m wondering, am i doing the right thing, even in my teaching? . . . you know like . . . even you know like, like i constantly feel like i’m in this space where i’m like asking . . . if this works. why didn’t it work, or did it work? so there is this constant state of flux that i’m in. so like i’m constantly feeling like i’m . . . i don’t know . . . like i’m not doing the right thing? 96 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 celine figure 3: celine, 2014, drawing and collage, marguerite müller i grew up in the dusty streets, in that small little house you know, it was just, myself, my mother, and my sister, just three ladies in the house, so that was . . . i think it had pros and cons, for me as a child you know, because uh, in my house we never used to wear towels when you come out of the bath . . . we didn’t even have a bathtub, we used those small basins, plastic basins, you know. i remember just bits and pieces of my parents staying together, and [they were] not good memories where my father was abus . . . physically abusive, also cheating and then just that’s when my mother decided to leave, and you know when she left we’ve never seen a male in our house, you know. that also affected how i take my decisions now—it’s ok to have kids; it’s also ok not to have a husband. i think that’s just how it shaped me as a person. i think one of the other things which she has also said . . . not out in so many words, but she would articulate that you become your own person; you don’t need to . . . you don’t need a man to get to where you want to go. so that’s how i started becoming this miss independent. and you know coming to think of it back then, if you didn’t have father, you were stereotyped in some way . . . like they would want to know, why don’t you have a father . . . and i just felt like they would look at you differently, even though some of the teachers were being abused themselves. we would see one coming with a black eye on a monday, you understand? and for me that would say . . . because i remember my own mother being abused and she walked out of the marriage. if a marriage does not work just walk out . . . but the biggest lesson i learnt was [that] money will not even get you where you want to go, your brains will, you know, so it sort of motivated me to see all those students that were from the very well-off backgrounds, repeating the same modules with me and some of them i was even passing more than they were, you know, and i just set my deadline that you know in three years’ time i’m getting my degree, which i worked very hard for, you know. there [were] a lot of sleepless nights, and what motivated me was always seeing my mother when i sent the results home that i did well, the pride that she would have and my sister as well. müller: a critical arts-based narrative of five educators . . . 97 now when i see this student sitting in front of me in my office, i see myself at that time and you know, knowing very well that this is a once-in-a-life-time-opportunity, that’s why i preach it to them that it’s your one chance and you cannot afford to mess it up. chubby figure 4: chubby, 2014, collage and drawing, marguerite müller we moved around quite a lot; i think i went to seven different schools. my father worked for the municipality, but he was always looking for a better life for us, and better work often meant moving . . . i remember as a small child of around five, i wondered why there were separate entrances at the shop and the post office. we went through one entrance and black people through another. i was small, but i remember wondering about that. my father worked on the roads and i think it was a rough life . . . a guy didn’t do his work they would punish him . . . so i think there was sort of racism in the background of my youth, but i think in our home it was different. racism wasn’t an issue there. but i remember wondering about the separate entrances . . . i never became an activist or anything; i suppose we were comfortable in our own lives. i grew up in a very protected environment; i had a happy childhood. but you know i cannot be perfect; i make so many mistakes, we all do . . . on friday there was a group of students who had to write an exam and when they got to the venue the question paper was only in english, and some of the afrikaans students walked out . . . and that is their right, but when the secretary phoned them to make arrangements for another 98 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 opportunity, i asked her to request that they do not make a language political issue out of this . . . it was just an administrative mistake—one of the lecturers made an error when getting the paper copied, that’s all . . . i think it’s all about awareness . . . there are things i don’t know about and i might be stepping on people’s toes, but then i do i think there should be a space to talk about those things. we are all on a journey in this new south africa . . . i make mistakes, or say naïve things, but don’t run to the rector . . . come talk to me and make me aware. uhm, one has so many things you want to do perfectly, but you cannot do everything perfectly. you really . . . one really makes mistakes and sometimes you say something and feel yourself go cold . . . i am a calm person, uhm, i do not lose my head easily; in a crisis i can actually keep my head above water and rise above the challenge. so losing my head is not part of who i am. mick figure 5: mick, 2014, drawing, marguerite müller i am busy with a juggling act. i am trying to make the world better, but i have to juggle all these things: relationships, friendships, work, studies . . . trying to make people happy. . . where students are comfortable, everything is normal and they know everything and nobody is rocking the boat and i think when we started to talk about the issue of race and we didn’t move away from it, it was like now i made them to be in that space, that dangerous space müller: a critical arts-based narrative of five educators . . . 99 where there is nothing and i actually pushed them to a foreign place . . . my work being about moving the students, to that, to the other side, but actually a lot of this work is about moving myself onto that cliff, so it’s like i’m moving with my students. i think it is both ways, the cliff, and not just students but constantly also me, of always having to be on that side all the time, so it’s like going to another planet and someone just drops you off there. i always want the students to make that leap to the other side of the cliff, to the foreign space. but i think in this picture it represents me also, constantly having to make that leap, because this for me, it was also a foreign space where i was othered, and i had to force myself to stay in that space in order for my own learning to occur . . . emphasis on my students, my work being about moving the students to that other side, but actually a lot of this work is about moving myself over that cliff, so it’s like i’m moving with my students. an affective reading as explained above, the portraits were created in response to narrative interviews and were collaboratively discussed and interpreted by me, the researcher, and the participants. the analysis or interpretation happened throughout, as we sketched, talked, and created. it should therefore be seen as a continual and collaborative process, as well as an affective one. our responses were often more about how the portraits and narratives made us feel and react, than about what they meant. i consciously distance myself from the terms data and analysis because of their associations with a positivist and empirical paradigm. by contrast, the artsbased approach is used to help us move beyond the theoretical knowledge of what social justice and decolonisation mean to more collaborative, active, and affective approaches. st. pierre (2013) criticises the logical positivist empirical unconsciousness that also heavily influences qualitative studies for what counts as scientifically based or evidence-based research in the social sciences. “once the empirical is transformed into real, visible words on a page—brute, sense data—these researchers strip the words from context, manipulate them, order them in binaries and hierarchies and categories, label some words with other words (code data), and even count the words. words become quasi-numbers” (p. 224). st pierre has advocated for a post-qualitative kind of research in which the aim is to explore different research practices. this kind of creative and affective collaborative interpretation is a move away from what traditionally counts as empirical data and analysis to interrogate the traditional power hierarchies that exist in research. a move towards decolonised ways of doing research is also a move towards research practices that do not rely on binaries, hierarchies, categories, and labels to make sense of experiences. for example, in daisy’s story it is easy to list all the social and essentialised categories that constitute her memories of childhood—categories of race, sex, gender, class, and sexuality. her story is one that is located in the world of binaries, but her story is not one that can exist in isolation. i know that because her story is also mine. when i commenced research on antioppressive education i realised that before i could move forward i had to go back, as far back as childhood, in order to make sense of my present self. as i started this process i realised the limits of my experiences and it became evident that i had to go beyond my story, to look for 100 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 the stories of those around me. listening to the participants tell stories that are different from mine became a valuable way of reaching beyond my story into other stories. i think that this process of understanding and venturing beyond the known is an important part of recognising the self as entangled with others. the self is thus seen not essentialised, but, rather, as multiple and assembled. alice also speaks of how the category of race emerged so strongly during her childhood. she makes the statement, “you know apartheid was so deeply entrenched that we never really questioned its effects on us.” by bringing her past experience into the present she made me aware that we cannot move towards anti-oppressive education if we do not reflect on the effects of the past. most of us, as south african educators, come from a past in which we were affected by apartheid significantly in ways that have shaped who we are now, and we need to look at the ways in which we stay stuck, but also recognise how those experiences can help us to become different through this crucial reflective awareness. creating the portraits is a way to interpret and re-tell stories that make the “mundane, taken-for-granted, everyday world visible” and to “seek performative interventions and representations that heighten crucial reflective awareness leading to concrete forms of praxis” (denzin, 2013, p. 2). furthermore, the portraits function to make the educator’s experiences in relation to social justice visible in local and contextual realities. after reading her portrait celine responded, when i read the story it just connected very well and i was actually surprised—wow! my story is part of this! and you know when you talk you just don’t realise how somebody is listening to what you are saying. and to be actually . . . because you know we are so used to reading other people’s stories, but when you are part of the story you just . . . ok, ok that’s interesting. celine expressed her surprise at seeing that her story “is part of this.” so often we fail to recognise ourselves in academic discourses on social justice that are written in contexts far removed from where we are. thus, the process of collaborative narrative creation makes it possible to situate ourselves in the research story where we understand oppression to be “the citing of harmful discourses and the repetition of harmful histories” (kumashiro, 2000, p. 40). the visual/textual portraits highlight the fact that anti-oppressive education is not simply about how we teach or what we teach, but about who we are in terms of being, becoming, and belonging. if we bring our bodies, emotions, and histories into the research space we move towards a more vulnerable and honest engagement with issues of social justice. for example, mick mentioned how he was fuelled by a desire to make society a better place and to heal, and also spoke about how this type of work could be emotionally draining. and my work is social justice; my work is to work towards a society which is equal, fair and . . . uhm, so transformation is part of that huge agenda. so the clown makes people happy. i’m trying to make society a place where people . . . there’s equality and there’s less pain and there’s less hurt and there’s less discrimination. but i think possibly, ja . . . so it is a mask . . . because in this process of trying to make people happy, it’s heavily taxing, taxing on me the individual who is doing this. there is a lot of uhm [pause] hurt and um [pause] it’s emotionally draining . . . müller: a critical arts-based narrative of five educators . . . 101 later, he talks about a specific episode in the classroom. so i walked out of that classroom feeling extremely confused, frustrated and i was questioning: did i do hurt more than i tried to do anything about healing in that classroom? according to zembylas, charalambous, and charalambous (2012) the value of discomforting emotions is that these might lead educators to examine their constructed self-images critically, as well as how they have learnt to perceive others. when we grapple with issues of oppression we often feel disorientated, like aliens in a foreign place, because we are different, and because we have allowed ourselves to lose control partially and to move away from doing things correctly and perfectly to asking, “am i doing the right thing? what just happened here? am i causing more hurt than healing?” this means we will need to embrace uncertainty, imperfection, confusion, and discomfort. we also need to acknowledge our limitations in terms of anti-oppressive and social justice work. kumashiro’s (2000) antioppression theory oscillates between critical theory and post-structuralism because he uses critical theory to explore unequal power relationships and oppression while at the same time uses a post-structuralist approach to highlight the fluidity and situated nature of identity. in doing so, he highlights the necessity to understand always that all theoretical approaches are limited and incomplete. it is necessary to acknowledge the limits of what we know and not attempt to sell grand narratives and complete packages of what social justice might look like in different contexts to various people. partiality, as expressed in the visual/textual portraits, is purposeful and necessary. chubby makes the connection between theological work and education in that they both involve caring. yet he backgrounds his own feelings of vulnerability and emotional involvement by saying that he is someone who does not “lose [his] head” easily in a crisis and that he can “handle” difficult situations. when i commenced my postgraduate studies i encountered a similar approach to what researchers are expected to do. they are supposed to stay rational and not allow their emotions to cloud their vision. it was only as an artist that i felt encouraged to be in touch continually with my emotions and to bring these into my work. using arts-based methodologies is useful for bridging the rational/emotional binary. in order to move beyond the binaries of self/other we need to engage other binaries as well. a decolonised form of research needs to probe binaries that have kept categories and classifications in place. for example, the distinction between theory and methodology could also come under scrutiny in research practices in which we seek to engage with the entanglement and embodiment of theoretical perspectives. through our artworks, memories, and narratives we begin to embody the theory, but also trouble it, which then brings about an understanding of social justice as both a process and a goal (adams, blumenfeld, castaneda, hackman, & peters, 2000). francis and hemson (2007) found that teacher education in social justice should be seen “less as a triumphant charge from oppression to liberation, and more as a scaffolding of a difficult entry into a new and still imperfect discourse” (p. 100). in this article i argue that the portraits function as an entry point into an imperfect discourse in which educators emerge as complex individuals in an uncertain and messy space. 102 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 conclusion this article is my exploration of creative ways to engage critically with educator identity and experience during an era of transformation and decolonisation in higher education. the aim of this exploration is to find new ways to think about who educators are, and about how the complexity, multiplicity, and assembled expression of identities can help us think differently about the context of higher education. in this way educator identity emerges as an integral part of our thinking about anti-oppressive education, social justice, and decolonisation. in a south african context the goals of anti-oppressive education and social justice overlap and are woven into the decolonisation and transformation project. in an attempt to move beyond the theoretical knowledge of the need for change, the portraits are examples of how, through our practices, we can work with self-reflexive expressions to engage in micro transformation. the use of visual/textual portraits shows how educators can explore the self as a critical site of micro transformation. furthermore, the visual/textual portraits of five educators at the university of the free state are used to foreground the emotional and experiential knowledge that underscores work on transformation and decolonisation. the connections between educator identity and transformation are made visible within a messy, uncertain, and volatile space since they highlight the disconnect between what we want, who we want to be, and what really happens inside and outside our classrooms. at the same time, they serve to turn our lens, as researchers, away from grand narratives of transformation and decolonisation and focus on the micro narratives that play out in the everyday lives, memories, and experiences of educators in higher education. as educators working towards social justice in the higher education space we need constantly to relearn and unlearn prior knowledge. this is an ongoing process in which we trouble existing knowledge and so-called normal ways of being. we need continually to look beyond the limits of what we know and who we are, in order to become different. in addition, we need to move beyond binary ways of thinking about ourselves, the world and our research practices. in the creation of the visual/textual portraits of educators, i do not attempt to paint a complete or comprehensive picture of educators working in the higher education space in south africa because our stories are always partial. i hope to foreground an affective engagement with new possibilities, rather than a descriptive or representational analysis of what they might mean. this account of a creative exploration of the action and interaction of a group of educators working in the higher education landscape in south africa foregrounds the complexities and contradictions in our lived experiences as we make our way through an uncertain and messy terrain to trouble and unlearn oppressive knowledge as we look for new ways of being, becoming, and belonging. müller: a critical arts-based narrative of five educators . . . 103 references adams, m., blumenfeld, w. j., castaneda, c., hackman, h. w., & peters, m. l. (eds.). (2000). readings for diversity and social justice (3rd ed.). new york, ny: routledge. davies, b. (2010). the struggle between the individualised subject of phenomenology and the multiplicities of the poststructuralist: the problem of agency. reconceptualizing educational research methodology, 1(1), 54–68. deleuze, g., & guattari, f. (1988). a thousand plateaus. london, uk: athlone. denzin, n. k. (2013). the death of data? cultural studies critical methodologies, xx(x), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.117/1532708613487882 eisner, e. w. (1997). the promise and perils of alternative forms of data representation. educational researcher, 26(6), 4–10. finley, s. (2011). critical arts-based inquiry. in norman k denzin & y. s. lincoln (eds.), the sage handbook of qualitative research (pp. 435–450). thousand oakes, ca: sage. francis, d., & hemson, c. (2007). rainbow’s end: consciousness and enactment in social justice education. perspectives in education, 25(1), 99–109. hooks, b. (2003). teaching community: a pedagogy of hope. new york, ny: routledge. ingold, t. (2011). being alive: essays on movement, knowledge and description. new york, ny: routledge. jansen, j. 2017. sense and non-sense in the decolonization of curriculum. in j. jansen, as by fire: the end of the south african university (pp. 153–171). cape town, rsa: tafelberg. keet, a., sattarzadeh, s. d., & munene, a. (2017). higher education and knowledge otherwise. education as change, 21(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/1947-9417/2017/2741 kumashiro, k. k. (2000). toward a theory of anti-oppressive education. review of educational research, 70(1), 25–53. kumashiro, k. (2002). troubling education: queer activism and anti-oppressive pedagogy. new york, ny: routledgefalmer. leavy, p. (2009). method meets art: arts-based research practice. new york, ny: guilford press. 104 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 soudien, c., micheals, w., mthembi-mahanyele, s., nkomo, m., nyanda, g., nyoka, n., & villa-vicencio, c. (2008). report of the ministerial commitee on transformation and social cohesion and the elimination of discrimination in public higher education institutions. pretoria, rsa: department of education. st. pierre, e. (2013). the appearance of data. cultural studies critical methodologies, 13(4), 223–227. https://doi.org/10.117/1532708613487862 zembylas, m. (2017). the contribution of non-representational theories in education: some affective, ethical and political implications. studies in philosophy and education, 36(4), 393–407. zembylas, m., charalambous, p., & charalambous, c. (2012). manifestations of greekcypriot teachers’ discomfort toward a peace education initiative: engaging with discomfort pedagogically. teaching and teacher education, 28, 1071–1082. art education: a case of mistaken identity? alka sehgal-cuthbert abstract this paper begins by identifying two fundamental problems in contemporary british and american secondary art curriculum: epistemological confusion and the absence of any aesthetic component. this paper proposes a reformulation of art as an aesthetic cultural accomplishment drawing on kant’s theory of the aesthetic and symbolic representation as discussed by cassirer and langer. this is followed by a comparative epistemological analysis of art with social realist models of scientific knowledge. a case is made for art as a unique form of knowledge, possessing both a subjective aesthetic basis and an objective basis in its expressive form. the final section of this paper discusses the implications of the proposed conceptualisation of art for the art curriculum, and proposes a model for art education in schools that has the potential to solve the problems identified at the beginning. description of current confusion in his analysis of the 2004 general certificate of secondary education (gcse) art syllabus, cunliffe finds several examples in the assessment objectives (aos) and supporting documentation, where pupils are required to show evidence of contextual understanding in their artwork. cunliffe rightly argues that this requirement confuses practical or procedural knowledge with 16 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 cunliffe’s use of these terms derive from gilbert ryle’s the concept of mind (1949) which1 proposes a concept of knowledge whereby its different forms arise from the different rules required in their manifestation. this means that the main distinction between practical and intellctual knowledge does not lie in their different sources (i.e. the empirical world and the inner world of reasoning) as suggested in traditional epistemology, which ryle criticises for its dualism. in curriculum design and epistemic ascent in journal of philosophy of education, vol. 47(1), (2013), winch makes a helpful distinction between propositonal knowledge, skills, techniques and inferential capability. in a practical subject such as art, skill is developed through a combination of techniques, propositional knowledge (both teachable) and experience of practice (not teachable). the first two are governed by different rules and criteria which mean that understanding of, for example, the social context of american abstract art, requires expression in linguistic form and its concomitant rules and procedures. this understanding, which is by definition conceptual, cannot be expressed through the rules and procedures required by the craft of painting where imagination and intuitive feeling play a larger role: these can be made manifest more clearly in artistic rather than linguistic forms (this is discussed more fully in the third section of this paper, art and knowledge). declarative or propositional knowledge. both cannot be assessed according1 to the same criteria in a single work (cunliffe, 2005b). the assessment criteria in the syllabus and supporting documentation, such as teachers’ guidance notes lack the consistent linguistic clarity and logical coherence appropriate to their status as official statements of curricular aims and evaluative criteria. the aos from aqa’s 2004 specifications for the gcse art syllabus are present in current specifications of the assessment and qualifications alliance (aqa) and other british exam boards including the older cambridge and royal society of arts (ocr) 2012. thus the aos analysed in this paper can be taken as general, rather than atypical, features of british examinations in art for pupils at the end of secondary schooling. the aqa’s introduction to the assessment objectives states that evidence for their attainment should be either demonstrable or measurable, which implies that there should be a close correspondence between course content, evaluative criteria and form of assessment. such correspondence is not evident in the aos in pages 1–4 of the teachers’ resource bank, interpreting assessment objectives: ao1 develop their ideas through investigations informed by contextual and other sources demonstrating analytical and cultural understanding. ao2 refine their ideas through experimenting and selecting appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes. cuthbert: art education: a case of mistaken identity?. . . 17 http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/aqa-4200-w-trb-iao.pdf 2 ao3 record ideas, observations and insights relevant to their intentions in visual and/or other forms. ao4 present a personal, informed and meaningful response demonstrating analytical and critical understanding, realising intentions and where appropriate, making connections between visual, written, oral or other elements. 2 whilst ao3 is reasonably clear, other significant confusions support cunliffe’s central criticism that the gcse art syllabus and exam contains a fundamental confusion between different forms of knowledge. for example, ao1 implies a considerable study of art history alongside experience of looking at, and studying, a purposive selection of paintings. the term ‘investigations’ is left unspecified; it could refer to verbal or written commentary or essay; the logically appropriate forms of assessing such knowledge and understanding. but it is equally possible for ‘investigations’ to be understood as visual, in which case it is not clear how analytical and cultural understanding could be explicitly demonstrated or measured. this latter interpretation is made explicit on page 4 where teachers are advised that candidates’ critical understanding could be embedded in the progress of their work as it develops. it might be evidenced visually in the relationship between preparatory studies and resolved outcomes. it could be evident in a completed piece of work. the vague wording of ao1 risks encouraging the erroneous idea that producing pastiches of particular styles of art is the same as developing cultural understanding; and often this is done at the expense of pupils developing more autographic works based on a thorough grounding in appropriate skills (cunliffe, 2005a, 2005b). ao1 and ao4 suggest that the examination and course content supports a predominantly socio-cultural approach to art but without requiring “assessment evidence that would logically flow from the socio-cultural emphasis”. (cunliffe, 2005a, p.201). ao2’s claim that ideas can be refined through experimental practice and selection of materials conflates mental process of thought with its physical manifestation; this misses the intellectual character of refining ideas. thinking and doing need to be distinguished theoretically if each is to retain its specific characteristics, even if they are almost inseparable in practice. artistic articulation, or expression, of ideas may be refined through the practical process of making art (hickman and kiss, 2013; reid, [1929]), but http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/aqa-4200-w-trb-iao.pdf 18 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/aqa-4200-w-sp-14.pdf3 , p.8 ideas per se can only be refined by the activity of purposeful thinking in some form of internal or external dialogue based on concepts, reasoning, evaluation and judgement. the content of artistic practice is not explicated; the only further guidance is, “consideration might be given to the formal elements of art, craft and design such as line, shape, tone, texture, colour and form and how these might be most effectively used and explored”. the words “consideration might be given” (my emphasis) indicate that these essential components of art practice are understood as more or less optional extras. ao4 requires analytical and critical understanding, which would be assessable in the form of either a written or verbal account based upon a combination of art appreciation, and the sociology and history of art. but ao4 only stipulates “a personal, informed and meaningful response”, which could apply to most assessment pieces and is thereby unhelpful guidance for assessors. in short, neither the conceptual nor the practical aspects of art are clearly understood or explained in these aos. similar confusion exists in other places of aqa’s art and design documentation. for example, the section outlining course content of the aqa 2014 specification, states that pupils’ portfolio could include: critical and contextual work that could include visual and annotated journals, reviews, reflections and evaluations, documentation of a visit to a museum/gallery or experience of working with an artist in residence or in other work-related contexts. 3 this suggests that an account of a gallery visit constitutes critical and contextual understanding. whilst such work could provide contextual information relating to pupils’ artistic influences, it is hard to see how such documentation could be considered ‘critical’. furthermore, educationally, this is a highly contestable idea as it assumes that deeper levels of knowledge and understanding will spontaneously emerge from everyday, experiential based knowledge. significantly missing from the gcse examination and syllabus is “the development of critical discrimination and aesthetic judgment-making, especially the capacity to locate these in their social, artistic and cultural contexts” (harland quoted in cunliffe, 2006, p.67). http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/aqa-4200-w-sp-14.pdf cuthbert: art education: a case of mistaken identity?. . . 19 grayson perry’s reith lectures: who decided what makes art good? in 4 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c37b1b6a-3017-11e3-9eec-00144feab7de.html#axzz2hhtn3alz such problems in the british secondary level art curriculum are similar to those in the corresponding american art curriculum (barkan, 1962). the absence of aesthetics in the sociology of art is discussed by de la fuente (2007), and in contemporary culture it is noted by the artist grayson perry who cites marcel duchamp’s warning, “aesthetic delectation is the danger to be avoided.” ruefully he remarks that making an aesthetic judgment today is often regarded as “ buying into something politically incorrect, into sexism, into racism, colonialism, class privilege. it almost feels it’s loaded, because where does our idea of beauty come from?” the next section discusses this4 question in reference to kant’s critique of judgement ([1790]). the intrinsic worth of art and kant’s aesthetics in critique of judgement, kant ([1790]) insists that aesthetic feeling is utterly disinterested; that is to say that the feeling of delight is prompted by the apprehension of beauty alone. there is no invocation of morality, reason or sensual pleasure; in this way the beautiful is different to both the agreeable (that provides sensory gratification) and the good (which has an objective worth set upon it). aesthetic feeling may invoke thoughts as well as feelings, but there is no causal chain of reasoning required. aesthetic feeling is characterised by a lack of conceptual thinking because concepts are necessarily ‘interested’; that is to say that they are the link between external aspects of phenomena and the internal experience of it (kant, [1790]). aesthetic feeling or the apprehension of beauty arises from the free play of all our cognitive faculties ‘at rest’. our intellectual reasoning, our emotional feelings and moral sentiments are not being consciously directed towards some external empirical or logical object or purpose. rather than the outcome of using a process of logic or reasoning where mental faculties are focused or directed towards a particular purpose, object or wider goal, our recognition of beauty prompts imagination; and releasing perceptual and mental faculties from everyday focuses and contingencies (cassirer, [1944] eiser, 2002; tallis, 2012). 20 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 applied to art, kant’s explication of the aesthetic does not mean there is no place for conceptual thinking. it is, for example, required in recognising the representational content of paintings, e.g. landscapes, a female figure, fruit in a bowl and so on. and to a greater or lesser degree, conceptual knowledge is required in recognising the genre of the work, its chronological and evaluative place in art history or where it stands in relation to an artist’s development. but in experiencing an object as beautiful, it is the imagination rather than logical or propositional thought that is appealed to in order “to refer the presentation to the subject and his feeling of pleasure or displeasure” (kant, 1790, §1 p.44). the imagination is free to spontaneously suggest undeveloped material (intuitions, feelings, moods), which is discarded by reason’s use of concepts. such material, when encountered imaginatively cannot add to scientific knowledge or knowledge in the humanities. but the aesthetic response in both the creation and appreciation of art can become the basis of a deeper recognition or understanding of subjuctivity as the site of all experience and cognition (cassirer, [1944]; eisner, 2002). the epistemological ambiguity of kant’s idea of the aesthetic has left it open to criticism. its autonomy or disinterestedness is mistaken for a rejection of human characteristics; and its subjective basis mistakenly understood as synonymous with being unreal and therefore amounting to little more than “an expression of the common subjectivist-metaphysical assumption” that separates the arts from “the whole complexity of life” (best, 1992, p.34). it is true that kant’s account of the aesthetic is based upon individual subjectivity; as is his account of morality in critique of practical reason ([1788]); but both arise from his attempt to uphold a sphere of autonomy to subjectivity rather than uphold a subjectivist-metaphysical assumption per se (michaelson, 1990). his theory of aesthetics (and morality) could be described as teleological in that an apriori faculty to recognise beauty is implied; but this is located within human powers rather than those of religion or nature. the profound humanism in kant’s critique of judgment is evident in his following summary of the aesthetic: only by what man does heedless of enjoyment, in complete freedom, and independently of what he can passively procure from the hand of nature, does he give to his existence, as the real existence of a person, an absolute worth. happiness, with all its plethora of pleasure, is far from being an unconditioned good (kant, 1790, §4, p.5). it is a clear affirmation of the intrinsic worth of being human resting in our ability to do things ‘in complete freedom’, irrespective of whatever external cuthbert: art education: a case of mistaken identity?. . . 21 kant’s use of the term ‘interest’ is different to current meaning. he uses it to refer to the way5 a determinate concept connects external phenomena and inner will, direction of thought. goods may be achieved. in insisting on the disinterestedness of aesthetic feeling, and in debarring it from knowledge, it could be argued his aim was not to reduce the complexity of the human mind to reason alone but to argue for the capacity for aesthetic feeling as an intrinsic, human faculty. kant conceded that the autonomy of aesthetic feeling is reduced at the moment of judgement. an aesthetic judgment implies a demand for the assent of others, irrespective of whether a specific judgement achieves a complete consensus. the idea of judgement in aesthetics is regulative rather than stipulative, and involves practical acts of judgement making that in turn, require propositional knowledge, and hence places necessary limitations on the autonomy of aesthetic feeling. another criticism implied in best’s intepretation of kant’s aesthetic disinterestedness is that it is too focused on the isolated individual; as if there was no social context. however, it is precisely the ‘disinterestedness’ of aesthetic feeling – its independence of any individual’s particular interest – that renders it imputable to everyone and thus it acquires subjective universality. unlike objective universality in science, art’s subjective5 univerality is not generalisable: it does not require a single judgement to be held by everyone, but presupposes common assent to the existence of a standard of beauty. kant’s idea of aesthetic judgement rests upon an implied community of judging persons whose acts uphold a common standard; rather than isolated individuals whose judgements have no purchase beyond their immediate circle. his relocation of the source of validation of art to human faculties instead of religious or cultural institutions introduced a new freedom for artists as well as a new element of uncertainty. questions of artistic truth, how to achieve it in art and who was to legitimise its worth, had to be asked anew, and in this way kant’s critique of judgment influenced subsequent artistic endeavour (doorly, 2013). kant’s work was directed more towards developing his philosophy of mind rather than of art or education per se but his theory of the aesthetic has been influential on later philosophers, including cassirer and langer, who are discussed later. the next section considers art’s place in the curriculum. 22 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 although polanyi claims the triumph of science due primarily to its role in industrialisation has6 also resulted in its instrumental valuation and one-sided development as it has became increasingly divorced from a broader humanistic endeavour (polanyi, [1958]). art’s place in the curriculum since the 19 century school knowledge has been primarily, although notth exclusively, selected on the basis of its capacity to foster intellectual development. the intrinsic worth of a liberal subject based education has coexisted with other extrinsic values. for example, the application of scientific knowledge increases human control over the natural world, the humanities contribute to more accurate and nuanced understanding of societies in different places and times, and the arts contribute to a richer, more complex culture. the extrinsic values of education, have until recently, been understood as arising indirectly, through its primary roles of intellectual development and introduction to a public culture (arendt, [1954]; hirst, 1965; oakeshott, 1971; peters, 1965). due largely to its powers of generalisation and application, scientific knowledge in britain and america during late 19th century/early 20 century, became the most valued form of public knowledge.th in this process the arts have been marginalised in education not least because they lack the epistemological characteristics that make science, and to a lesser extent, the humanities, more immediately useful and valuable (cassirer, [1929]: eisner, 2002.).6 there is an older philosophically distinction, going back to plato ([420bc]), between knowledge and imagination. where knowledge derived from reason has been closely associated with striving for truth, imagination’s expressive power to evoke images and feeling immediately has aroused suspicion because of its potential to distract from, or corrupt, reason’s search for truth. consequently the visual arts in particular have lacked the status of other subjects nauta, 2004). however, some philosophers have questioned this understanding and lowly status of the imagination. vico, for example, regarded science as less certain knowledge than the humanities because the basis of science is the natural world, which vico wanted to uphold as god given and therefore essentially unknowable to man. his phrase ‘verum factum’ expressed the idea that knowledge in history and mathematics could be more reliable or truthful as they are based on human societies and institutions, or logical rules; they are derived from human and not god’s design and therefore more knowable (iheoma, 1993; pompa, 1982). more cuthbert: art education: a case of mistaken identity?. . . 23 recent anthropological philosophy and sociology has argued that visual imagery of primitive societies had an important mythic function in creating meaning and order; functions which later were adopted by language, without which scientific knowledge could not have developed (durkheim, [1915]; cassirer, 1929): and in these accounts imagination is not so much defeated by reason as marginalised. however it remains important as a complement to the abstraction of scientific thought and in modern societies it has its fullest expression in the arts (cassirer, 1929). the application of scientific criteria and models within education has been criticised for undermining a humanistic conception of education where all forms of knowledge are valued for their intrinsic worth as well as their indirect contribution to the wider common good as discussed at the beginning of this section (davis, 1999, 2013; doddington and hilton, 2007; eisner, 2002; scheffler, 1965; standish, 2011). this is often attributed to enlightenment rationality, but kant clearly states the need for limits, “we do not enlarge but disfigure the sciences when we lose sight of their respective limits” (1787, p.11). extrapolated to education, his caveat suggests two things: that epistemological boundaries are respected, and that the intrinsic character and worth of different forms of knowledge are respected. the earlier discussion of problems in the british and american art curriculum suggests that this is not the case. without a robust, and widely accepted, model of art education, which does justice to art’s intrinsic character and worth, attempts to promote art and in the curriculum have to find external, often instrumental, justifications. recent examples of powers imputed to art education are: improving mental health, self-confidence and life-skills (roege and kim, 2013); or providing “students with the freedoms, abilities and agency to choose lives they have reason to value after graduation” (maguire, donovan, mishook, de gaillande and garcia, 2012, p.369). these arguments are often used in relation to education for socio-economically disadvantaged groups in america and britain. they are also used in contexts of countries where education systems are being developed to incorporate new economic and/or political imperatives. in south africa and india, for example, a romantic, dewey inspired idea of art as individual expression, but located within a capabilities approach is being promoted. this is presented as oppositional to both explicit economic instrumentalism, and an unbridled individualism (cabe report, 2005; maguire et al., 2012). art’s main role in this conceptualisation is the promotion of personality attributes considered valuable for establishing a 24 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 see gail edwards standpoint theory, realism and the search for objectivity in the sociology7 of education in the british journal of sociology of education, (2014), for a critical appraisal of social realism’s account of procedural objectivity, which she claims ignores the requirement for diversity in process of reasoning to attain objective knowledge. this criticism is based upon an idea of knowledge as the property and product of isolated individuals, which is the opposite of a social realist concpetion of knowledge. sense of collective responsibility and social unity. consequently such arguments could be understood as being socially, rather than economically, instrumental. as previously noted, it is possible for intrinsic and extrinsic values to coexist, but a necessary prerequisite is a prior existence of a clear appreciation, and strong affirmation, of art’s intrinsic character and worth. if this were the case today, art’s intrinsic aesthetic character would not be a source of embarrassment or regarded as something to be disavowed, as noted by grayson perry (see p.3). art as a form of knowledge the social realist account of knowledge is premised on durkheim’s, and bernstein’s fundamental classification of profane/everyday and sacred/academic knowledge (durkheim, [1915]; bernstein, 1975, 2000). the main distinction between the two forms of knowledge lies in the greater formal and conceptual abstraction of the latter. concepts arising from everyday experience are ‘worked upon’ by scholars; they are shaped into a condensed language, and classified according to their inter relatedness; and thus form distinct areas of study or subjects. such knowledge is derived from experience in the first instance (oakeshott, [1933] 1966; tallis, 1989), but through collective endeavour over time, and public scrutiny, it acquires a greater degree of precision, semantic stability and logical coherence than the more contingent, context based knowledge used in everyday life (moore, 2000, 2009; moore and young, 2001; muller, 2000, 2012; muller and young, 2007; rata, 2012; wheelahan, 2010; young, 2008). school subjects derived from such knowledge becomes the basis from which teachers can help pupils think “beyond the present and particular” (bailey, 2009). in the social realist account, objectivity of knowledge arises from the sociality of its production in academic communities and wider public scrutiny. procedural objectivity creates knowledge characterised by the7 following: cuthbert: art education: a case of mistaken identity?. . . 25 (a) abstract form comprising of codified language (b) conceptual complexity (c) powers of generalisation (d) progression (e) criteria for evaluation if art is to be considered a valid form of knowledge, it should have analogous characteristics. by drawing on theories of symbolic representation and aesthetic form, as explicated by cassirer ([1929], [1944]) and langer (1957) it is possible to construct such an account without reducing art’s subjective and objective bases. abstract form and language in art symbolic artistic forms arise in the artist’s ability to create relations of opposing abstract nouns: light/dark; heavy/weightless; opacity/transparency or symmetry/asymmetry (gombrich, 1984; langer, 1957). in his discussion of problems of representation, cassirer explains that although in reality the expressive and logical factors of signification are inseparable, their functions remain distinct and the one cannot be the causal source of the other (cassirer, 1929). the almost inexhaustible range of possible responses evoked in the relationship between ostentive content and its expressive or aesthetic form mirrors our experience of our internal life. the fluctuating and ephemeral character of the structure of our subjectivity is given objective expression through art’s aesthetic form (cassirer, ([1929], [1944]); langer, 1957), which comprises of: a composition of tensions and resolutions, balance and unbalance, a precarious yet continuous unity. life is a natural process of such tensions, balances, rhythms; it is these that we feel in quietness or emotion. as the pulse of our own living (langer, 1957, p.8). these expressive effects have often been imputed to the psychological states of either the artist or the beholder, which misses the vital mediation of artistic form embodied in the work itself. it is this mediation that allows the individual’s feelings and epiphanies to be apprehended within a universal perspective whereby there is recognition of a world of feeling that we experience as intensely private, but which all are able to experience. the relational character of aesthetic form in a work of art creates a complexity that makes a single, simplistic response difficult. instead there is the possibility for 26 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 reinterpretation, and the simultaneous presentation of contradictions that defy everyday reality or logical thought. caravaggio’s the beheading of st. john the baptist (1608), for example, evokes both horror and intimacy through obscuring a dramatic event in masses of dark space and shadow; the strength of the executioner is balanced by the vulnerable body of st. john; and both figures form a unity in their positioning even though logically, executioner and prisoner stand as opposites. the painting’s composition evokes stillness but this is offset by a visual rhythm created by the figures in the foreground. it is the formal qualities of a work’s visual ‘grammar’ that simultaneously evokes contradictory feelings of lived experience whilst inviting deeper and continued contemplation and interpretation. great art, by virtue of its aesthetic form denies an overwhelmingly emotive reaction; this distinguishes caravaggio’s masterpiece from lesser works of the same biblical event. instead of catharsis we are invited to ‘feel at a distance’ (cassirer, 1944). aesthetic form, then, is not wholly a fixed, rule-determinable phenomenon. it arises in the relation between representational content and the extent to which the composition achieves a formal unity. in both its creation and appreciation aesthetic form cannot be apprehended independently of the representational content (which includes the content of abstract paintings), but in neither moment is it reducible to representational significance. perhaps in relation to art, kant’s (1790) use of ‘beauty’ is best understood as an expression of the truth, or reality, of our subjectivity as opposed to truth and objectivity of the external world. complexity and generalisation the existence of aesthetic forms “presupposes an autonomous activity, carried out over time, which consists in the building up, in the modifying, in the decomposing, of things which we may think of as unities or structures” (wollheim, 1968, p.140). in a similar vein, cunliffe (2013), following steiner (2001) describes the process of accretion as a combination of the artist’s procedural and propositional knowledge from which an artist can develop organisational depth in creating art. this allows an artist to know what to do in the midst of creating and by implication to be open to possibilities suggested in the manipulation of materials. the term ‘materials’ in this context is not only the physical substratum of paint and canvas. it includes cuthbert: art education: a case of mistaken identity?. . . 27 in the method of the social sciences (1903-1917) weber stresses that the fact-value distinction in 8 social sciences does not mean that beliefs and values are non-existant. he explains that they operate at the initial stages of selecting, and defining the nature of, the initial problem to be investigated. subsequent work is then more fully subject to processes and rules which limit these subjective elements. polanyi’s account in personal knowledge: towards a post critical philosophy (1973) suggests a similar distinction exists in the natural sciences. aesthetic forms and grammar comprising of mass and volumes, shapes, colour and tones. accretion also includes a supporting armature, which includes: cultural paradigms, moral purpose, types of practices, duration and methods of training, the breadth and depth of the creative repertoire, the materials and methods available and used, and the preparation, revision, experimentation that shape the final product (cunliffe in addison and burgess, 2012, p.180). the starting point for this iterative process of artistic creation is the artist’s initial aesthetic response to something seen, heard, touched, remembered or felt. without such a generative catalyst the artist may achieve a high level of technical proficiency in his/her work, but it is likely to lack expressive power (reid, [1928]). the objective basis of art qua art is in the unique instantiation of artistic form created by the artist. this uniqueness limits art’s powers of generalisation compared to science. the variable, secondary qualities of physical phenomena and the beliefs, values and feelings of scientists are reduced in scientific methods but play a necessary role in art (cassirer, [1944]: gombrich, 1984).8 but this does not mean there is no capacity to generalise at all. the difference is that science is concerned with generalisation in the external world, and art in the internal world. for example, the complex and contradictory emotions evoked by goya’s painting of the third of may 1808 (1814) include terror, cruelty, pity, awe, and fascinated curiosity. these are feelings most of us will have experienced at some point as unique individuals in unique situations and relationships whether the terror of a child or morbid fascination of a bystander looking on upon a tragedy. goya’s painting, because of its expressive form, can draw the beholder’s consciousness out from inner feelings – his/her particular emotional state – and into a wider world of universal emotions; here we can subject our aspects of our inner life to thought if we wish; and can gain a certain degree of ‘mastery’ over our interior world. so art can generalise but in a necessarily less stable and certain manner to other subjects. the extent to which this capability of art is made manifest in a particular work is one criterion by which we judge its quality and worth. 28 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 progression knowledge in science increases breadth and depth of understanding of natural phenomena as developed through time. simultaneously theoretical underpinnings of knowledge in science, and to a lesser extent the humanities, also develop through the subsumation of particular phenomena to general rules. for example, early astrology comprised of ordered symbolic systems involving codified beliefs and mathematical calculations yet it remained more akin to a systematised mythology in its personification of planets with powers to influence human life. as it developed theoretically, astrology became astronomy, and lost its mythical aspects. (cassirer, 1956; krois, 2009). development in art follows the principle of extension rather than subsumation. for example, manet’s artistic innovation was not only in extending the range of material suitable for artistic representation, but also in breaking some parts of established conventional artistic schema. through this he managed to create fresh aesthetic forms that perfectly express his unique sensibility towards greater individual freedom offered by modern french society at that time (nochlin, 1971). such developments occur at particular historical moments when various social and cultural influences coalesce; and particular artists, through accretion, have been able to cultivate and create an artistic response to something new in society. criteria for evaluation in addition to judging the complexity of aesthetic form in art, as discussed in the previous section, socio-aesthetic knowledge is also helpful in making judgements of new artistic developments. for example, the preoccupation in 20 century avant-garde painting with depicting flat spaces has been bothth valued as expressing artistic liberation (greenberg, 1961) and criticised for abandoning representation, historically an important function of art as part of broader humanistic culture (steinberg 1953). witkin (2009) argues that the concern with flat space in painting since the mid 20 century expresses newth aspects of social formation whereby the individual is denuded of subjective depth by an increasingly bureaucratic culture. the ensuing existential alienation is given powerful aesthetic expression in rothko’s colour field paintings for example. cuthbert: art education: a case of mistaken identity?. . . 29 in hierarchical knowledge structure and the canon: a preference for judgements, in f. christie9 and j. martin (eds), language, knowledge and pedagogy, functional linguistic and sociological perspectives (2007), moore makes a helpful distinction between private opinion, which is more contingent on the inidividual’s preference, mood alone, and judgement which may have the same starting point, but is then subject to reasoning using public forms of knowledge, and stakes a public claim. however it could be argued that subsequent trends in art show an increasing concern either with technical innovation, or in extending range of representation alone. in this search for continual radically new expression in art, the artist, cut adrift from all artistic tradition becomes preoccupied with trying to be innovative for its own sake (bell,1972). the aesthetic component of art is forgotten and becomes an easy target for politically motivated criticism. the ensuing disregard for aesthetics form involves a loss of interpretative potential. (steinberg, 1953). this is problematic because interpretation has an important role in making artistic meanings manifest and in judging. the widest possible range of public interpretation and judgement is required to ascertain the intrinsic worth of any artistic breakthrough precisely because it has the largest subjective based component of all the disciplines. interpretation in art is the main means of ascertaining its intrinsic9 worth and status – it is analogous to processes of verification in science and without it the intrinsic worth of art becomes less discernible. arguably this describes the contemporary cultural landscape. it has been argued that art complements scientific abstraction through its emphasis on that which is particular and unique through the creation of artistic forms, which have expressive potency. in this way art achieves a formal rather than procedural objectivity (cassirer, [1944]); and in place of procedures of verification, art requires interpretation and judgement from the public, and artistic accretion from artists. art’s development occurs with shifts in understanding, extending the range of representation, interpretation and artistic symbolic language. in this respect art is an example a subject with a horisontal knowledge structure (bernstein, 2000). the final section discusses the implications of this model of art for the curriculum. implications for the curriculum this paper began by highlighting epistemic problems within the secondary art curriculum in britain, and by locating these challenges within a wider cultural 30 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 and historical context. i argue that these problems require a revisiting of first principles of art to establish its intrinsic worth; and a consideration of art as a form of knowledge, and that it is complementary to science and humanities in education. art as symbolic representation, created through artistic accretion is distinguishable from a prevalent understanding of art (and by implication art education) as the direct, unmediated expression on the artist’s inner psychological state alone capable of being directly understood by individuals with the appropriate sensibility. this concept of art affords little objectivity for art and reduces subjectivity to direct interpersonal relationships. a model of art as an aesthetic object with subjective and objective basis is proposed which is capable of being introduced to pupils in a systematic and logically coherent way. the overall educational aim of art in schools is not to create future artists directly, but to encourage a culture where art is understood as having intrinsic worth. its contribution to knowledge is that it can provide the basis for a deeper, more nuanced understanding of subjectivity, and strengthen faculties for imagination and interpretation. it is from such a model of art that a more coherent art curriculum could be derived. it would comprise of three main elements: explicit introduction to procedures, techniques of drawing, painting and sculpture; art history; and an introduction to contemplating, and articulating verbal and written responses to, a wide range of works of art. the introduction to techniques and materials of art practice would require explicit practical instruction, propositional knowledge relating to the physical properties of materials and how they act in combination, and plenty of time for practice is required if pupils are to have an meaningful experience of the craft component of artistic accretion. the component of art history contributes to widening and deepening pupils’ knowledge of art as a valued cultural form; and also introduces the idea of culture as a public phenomena, susceptible to change and development. in conjunction with the third component, purposive contemplation of exemplary works of art, it can help pupils make synoptic comparisons and articulate critical aesthetic judgments. as discussed in the first section, this is something lacking in most british and american art education. the selection, sequencing and pacing of the third component could, i think, allow for a high level of individual teacher choice, as long as the selection included examples from established artistic canon as well as more recent examples where judgment may be less settled. cunliffe’s work suggests it is cuthbert: art education: a case of mistaken identity?. . . 31 see previous section for discussion of language and grammar in art.10 this arises from the distinction between aesthetic feeling and judgement discussed in the11 second section. quite possible to do this even at primary school level by drawing upon what he terms ‘semantic differentials’ to guide pupils attention, and develop percipience, when looking at art (cunliffe, 1999). for this to be introduced meaningfully requires teachers whose own familiarity and knowledge of art is developed enough to be able to re-contextualise what they know at a level appropriate for their pupils. by using a carefully devised set of questions that elicit guided and graduated responses rather than directly asking pupils what they think about a work, it is possible to encourage them to use their inferential abilities through which all knowledge and experience is cognised internally (winch, 2013). questions could be constructed that require pupils to award a numerical grade on a scale (e.g. is this painting very realistic – 9, or not realistic at all – 0) in order to direct discussion and implicitly introduce appropriate vocabulary for discussing art. specialised vocabulary could be more explicitly rehearsed through commentary/essay type work where pupils practice articulating their responses in verbal or written language. there are implications for assessment criteria in this model of art education. current gcse criteria stress personal development. it has been argued that children, and teenagers, are capable of having a personal response to art, and it is important they have the opportunity to do so. but a personal response or development in art will be very difficult to ascertain, especially in younger pupils, because their ability to externalise responses artistically is likely to be limited by their level of technical mastery, their necessarily limited experience of life, linguistic ability as well as having limited exposure to opportunities for discussion in these areas. it is more important to ensure pupils are being systematically introduced to examples of great art, and its language and grammar in order to externalise their responses as fully as possible. whilst10 individual personal response, which arises from the subjective basis of art, cannot be directly taught, the criteria, vocabulary and procedures for judging art belong to art’s objective basis, and therefore these can be taught. the11 task of the teacher is to introduce pupils to works of sufficient objective, formal depth and complexity that even if pupils have negative, or very weak, personal responses, there is enough interpretative scope in the work to justify its study to make informed, discriminating judgements and to give reasons for their responses in reference to the work itself. by refocusing on the objective 32 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 two recent examples that exemplify this trend are: the introduction of a joint fine art and 12 history of art degree at the prestigious goldsmith’s art college, where the ‘history’ begins at 1945; and the recent uk initiative art everywhere, which received support from the art fund to put up over 15,000 billboards with enlarged copies of artworks for two weeks. see alka sehgal cuthbert, in defence of the public’s judgement at http://www.spiked-13 online.com/newsite/article/13722#.umvhcisezfy and aesthetic forms of art, the pre-existing cultural capital of pupils has less influence on pupils’ ability to progress in art at school, as implied in bolton’s empirical study (bolton, 2009). conclusion contemporary cultural trends, which strive for perpetual radical innovation and dismantling of classificatory boundaries between art and everyday life, are highly problematic for art. social realist critiques of knowledge in the12 curriculum identify a similar trend: an inability or unwillingness to recognise and affirm classificatory distinctions between academic and everyday knowledge. wider effects can be seen in the increasing esoteric nature of contemporary art, the elision of art and entertainment, and in an increasing gulf between contemporary art and the public. a mutually fruitful relationship between art and the public requires public aesthetic judgement by critics, art lovers, art educators and students of art, artists and curators rather than the more privatised agreements between cliques of the cultural elites that seems to determine what constitutes good art today; and who often sneer when the public fails to rally round their calls to ‘defend the arts’. without a defence of art’s intrinsic characteristics13 arguments for its inclusion in the curriculum can only be extrinsic (discussed in section 3) which in turn can only mean its instrumentalisation with the possible loss of the real value of art. cuthbert: art education: a case of mistaken identity?. . . 33 references arendt, h. 1993. between past and future: eight exercises in political thought. london: penguin. bailey, c.h. 2009. beyond the present and the particular. london: routledge. barkan, m. 1962. transition in art education: changing conceptions of curriculum content and teaching. art education, 15(7): pp.12–28. bell, d. 1972. the cultural contradictions of capitalism. journal of aesthetic education, 6(1/2): pp.11–38. bernstein, b. 1975. towards a theory of educational transmissions, class, codes and control (vol. 3). london, henley, boston: routledge and kegan paul. 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(in langer, 1961). steiner, g. 2001. grammars of creation. london/newyork: yale university press. tallis, r. 1989. tye on “the subjective qualities of experience”: a critique. philosophical investigations, 12(3): pp.217–222. tallis, r. 2012. in defence of wonder and other philosophical reflections. durham: acumen. 38 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 vico, g. 1982. selected writings, (ed. and trans.) l. leon pompa. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1982, pp.178–79. weber, m. 1949. max weber on the methodology of the social sciences. new jersey: transaction publishers. wheelahan, l. 2010. why knowledge matters in curriculum. oxon, new york: routledge. winch, c. 2013. curriculum design and epistemic ascent. journal of philosophy of education, 47(1): pp.128–146. salisbury: philosophy of education society of great britain. witkin, r. 2009. why does modernity look flat? modern art, organization and the design of artifacts. symposium of socio-aesthetics. university of copenhagen, 23–25 august 2009. wollheim, r. 1968. art and its objects. middlesex, new york: penguin books ltd young, m. 2008. bringing knowledge back in: from social constructivism to social realism in the sociology of education. oxon, new york: routledge. alka sehgal-cuthbert cambridge university alkasehgalcuthbert@googlemail.com mailto:alkasehgalcuthbert@googlemail.com opening address at the 2014 saera conference angels in the wind: future directions for educational research michael samuel (chair of the local organizing committee) stanmeyer, john 2013. ‘sign’, national geographic an annual prestigious event in the calendar of professional press photographers, photojournalists and documentary photographers is the world press photo award. this event in 2013 was co-ordinated by the world press photo office in amsterdam and attracted 98 671 submitted images by 5 754 photographers from 132 countries (http://www.worldpressphoto.org/awards/2014). the independent jury of judges for the 57th annual event selected this photograph above by john stanmeyer, a usa journalist of the national geographic as the wining photographic image in the category ‘contemporary issues’. stanmeyer had http://(http://www.worldpressphoto.org/awards/2014 http://(http://www.worldpressphoto.org/awards/2014 148 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 simply titled his image ‘sign’. it was accompanied by the explanation of his attempt to capture the challenges facing the would-be migrants alongside the coast of djibouti (north east africa). these haunting ‘army of shadows’ (radar worldwide, 2014) reflects groups of prospective migrants who are aiming to make the journey to better life opportunities by crossing over the oceans into the middle east or beginning the journey into europe. coming from the surrounding countries of somalia, ethiopia and eritrea, this image depicts a new kind of exodus facing the participants who stand alongside the shores searching for signals on the cellphones, aiming to connect a last call to family and friends back home, aiming to connect with the traffickers who had promised a safe passage (legal or not) into the lands of prospects. their sense of hopeless desperation is not the focus of the image itself. the picture captures instead glimmers of light as cellphone screens dot the darkness. the photograph is one of hope, the search for international connection, the need for making connections with others. an awarding judge, jillian edelstein (uk/south africa) commented on the photo: it’s a photo that is connected to so many other stories—it opens up discussions about technology, globalisation, migration, poverty, desperation, alienation, humanity. it’s a very sophisticated, powerfully nuanced image. it is so subtly done, so poetic, yet instilled with meaning, conveying issues of great gravity and concern in the world today. (my emphasis added) http://www.worldpressphoto.org/awards/2014 we all know that the journey of migration for some has been repeated several times over in many parts of the world, some with fatal consequences, when migrants are shipwrecked, stranded, abandoned or exploited by those who promise a better life opportunity. we know too that some migrants end up in the degradation of barricaded immigrant camps, sometimes tortured and humiliated by the authorities that police the borders of national geographies. many are simply deported back to the countries of origin. even when they enter the foreign lands, we know they become victims of xenophobia as nationalistic overtures interpret their conduct and agendas. we know also the resilience of many who repeat their previous failed journey several times over, searching, searching for means to escape their poverty, searching for economic or health security, searching for better qualitative education systems; escaping the ravages of natural, economic and political disorders. migration is as old as history, and border crossings have always been points of contestation. in his classical novel ‘waiting for the barbarians’, j.m. coetzee heightened our awareness of how border control camps become symbolic of our internal rather than external constructions of threat. borders http://www.worldpressphoto.org/awards/2014 samuel: angels in the wind. . . 149 become the very spaces where our constructed certainties become questioned, become possibilities for thinking anew. susan linfield, the usa judge commented on the selection process of finding the award winning image as follows: what we’re looking for in the winning image is the same quality you would look for in a great film or in literature – the impression that it exists on more than one level, that it makes you think about things you haven’t thought about. you begin to explore the layers not only of what’s there, but of what isn’t there. so many pictures of migrants show them as bedraggled and pathetic. . .but this photo is not so much romantic, as dignified. (my emphasis added). i believe that today as we begin this historical agenda of the second south african education research association (saera) 2014 conference we are also on a journey of pilgrimage, a search for new directions, new beginnings. in this search we are connected into the debates and contestations around our pasts, our heritages, technology, globalisation, migration, poverty, desperation, alienation, and humanity. we know that there are many images to be presented and debated in this conference and that each image is capable of being interpreted on more than one level. like the image of john stanmeyer’s ‘sign’, the conference is a space to engage things that we have not yet thought about; to rethink how we police the boundaries of our own thoughts, habits, rituals and routines. this is a conference about layers: layers of people, positionalities, personalities, paradigms, organisations, spaces and methodologies. we must always be conscious not only of what people say to us, but also what are the silences: what is not being said. i encourage us all to focus on what or who is not heard in our debates, our deliberations. i ask you to pay attention to which participants and their foci are given supremacy over others. are we creating sufficient spaces for a confluence of voices in the wind? my belief is that south african education research has to move beyond simply the ‘bedraggled and pathetic’. instead we should be searching for a ‘dignified form’ of educational research activity that will harness the wonderful potential we already possess. perhaps this is a time to put aside our obsession with the policy euphoria we noted in our early days of liberation in a new south africa? have we seen enough of the celebration of oppression and deficiency which dominate our fixations? will dwelling on the failures of the system be adequate to move towards new directions? one is permitted to question whether a focus on success could elevate us out of the morass of 150 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 deficiency, failure or toxicity? what are complimentary spaces within which we can activate an alternative society, an alternative quality education system? i wonder whether this is quest for a dignified pedagogy which will challenge those who wallow in their complaints of systemic failure of education. can we move away from a ‘pedagogy of disillusion’ to ‘pedagogy of hope, possibility, creativity, meaningfulness’? the many papers activated in this conference aim to share with you the possibilities and limitations for such opportunities. for example, some of the papers in this conference ask the following questions: ! are there alternative models of delivery, modes of recognition of self and others, recognition of the small glimmers of possibilities? ! how do we work beyond romantic protection of our small enclaves of excellence? how do we expand to become more than simply the consequences of the past? are we slaves to our biographical (racialised) (contextualised) (esssentialised) histories? the papers in this conference should be exploring some of the major international challenges of alternative forms of education delivery using new technologies (for example: massive online open communication-mooc's) as networks of teaching and learning which constitute a major possibility for thinking anew the classroom as a learning/teaching space. can these new technologies usher in new possibilities or will they further divide the haves and the have-nots? are these new technologies indeed new forms of equitable access to education? what possibilities can “flipping our classroom” pedagogy bring (tucker, 2012)? can the classroom/lecture halls become spaces for consolidating and negotiating learning that happens outside of the classroom, in the home, through the media and the internet/electronic highways? some may argue that the essence of education has always being on mediating the “outside world” with the “world of school”? so what is new? how do we move the central focus of the debate around pedagogy not to be about teacheror learnercentered interaction, but instead on creating opportunities for learningcentred engagement? samuel: angels in the wind. . . 151 saera 2014: a feast of inputs this saera 2014 conference offers a range of opportunities in activating an extension of ourselves. these include challenges from the keynote speakers such as prof. elizabeth henning (centre for education practice research, university of johannesburg) who asks ‘whereto with the science and the social justice of child assessment in south african schools?’ in this presentation we will engage with the effects of assessment regimes within the new performativity cultures characterising our ‘modern education terrain’. our visitor from the world education research association, dr. felice levine (president-elect of the world education research association (wera) poses for us as south africans questions on ‘the international footprint of education research – a 21st century work in progress’. the future links between saera and wera are part of this discussion. our plenary panel members (day three) pose their interpretations of critical issues in south african education research: searching for a relationship between educational research and sustainable learning environment (prof. sechaba mahlomaholo (ufs); for systemic evidence in the choices for our south african classrooms (prof. servaas van den berg [su]). we are further challenged that boundaries of education research should not be confined within the classrooms of school (general or further education). instead, we should look towards the relationship between post-school and the labour market (prof. peliwe lolwana: director of the centre for research in education and labour markets (real). the shape, form and direction of post-school education and new planned legislation are repeated mantras across some papers of this conference. other highlights of the conference include +/-175 papers to be presented, the launch of the conference proceedings (oup), 4 book launches and a pre-conference training for postgraduate supervisors and students. the conference is an opportunity to generate new forms of engagement in educational conferences such as the commencement of ‘conversation circles’. another innovation is the presentation of photographic/artistic exhibits (alongside poster presentations) as a representational form of delivery at a conference. the conference will also be an opportunity to start dialogue about the formation of special interest groups. we will be engaging in an opportunity to question what implications there are for exploring the mandela legacy in our educational research. there are approximately 5 editors of educational journals present in the conference and there will be an 152 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 opportunity for you to meet them. all these innovations are listed in detail in the programme and abstract booklet. the closing annual general meeting (agm) of the kenton conference will occur during the course of this conference; the second agm meeting of the new saera organisation will also take place. we have created opportunities for various associations/organisations to set up bilateral discussions with the new saera organisation, the world body (wera) representatives about the current and future identity of their present organisations. there will be opportunities for social activities: browsing in bookstores, cocktail evenings, a conference dinner and closing with a bus tour of durban, its cultural heritages and spaces. these are all opportunities for imagining ourselves anew – a look into the future. re-search association so what are some of the questions which are an emergent new research association could be asking? i list my personal preferences which, i am sure, resonate with many others: ! what are some of the stumbling blocks to the realisation of the goals of educational research? ! if we argue that the trajectory to new forms of education research is not necessarily about the lack of finances to do the research, what is driving the nature, shape, form, type of education research in sa currently: – increasing commodification of the research agenda process? – increasing push to deliver simultaneously training, support, development, education, critique and research (‘work intensification’) within schools, faculties of education or organisations of education research inside, alongside or outside governmental structures? – fundamental shifts to manage the university/ research systems to be ‘business orientated’ producers of research? samuel: angels in the wind. . . 153 increasingly reports of the dissatisfaction of new performativity identities being foisted onto the notion (‘identity’) of the university as a system dominates the critique of education research. we seem to be ushering new fashionable fads to provide semblances of ‘better quality education’ whilst not deeply attending to matters of what are the essences of relevant, adequate and meaningful teaching and learning. some would argue that the very identities of institutions of teaching and learning are being derailed. for example, the notion of the university as a deliberative space of ‘organised anarchy’ (teferra, 2014) is being mutated to reflect corporate-like structures. models imported from the business world are imposed on a university structure which thrives precisely because of its ‘systemic chaos’. these ‘traditional’ models of universities are increasingly being jettisoned to make way for an insidious accountability regime which demands tangible ‘return on investment’ (a logic from the market) (torres, 2011). more attention to university teachers as siloed units of productivity are the flavour of managers of higher education who have embraced the ‘market’ logic. this has a tendency to subvert intellectuals into disciplinary enclaves, thus potentially thwarting the possibility of blurred boundaries thinking across the disciplines (maistry, 2014). output rather than innovation tends to dominate in such ‘regimes of truth’ (foucault, 1979). education as a social discipline in this section i would like to emphasise frederico matos’ (2013) commentary on the status of education research within the broader terrain of university research. he argues that we do not sufficiently acknowledge the differences between how research is produced at the level of phds amongst the social sciences and within the natural sciences. given the dominance of the natural sciences as an income generator from outside financers (‘third stream income’), the elevation of its models is positioned as the target towards which all higher education should aspire. he presents the following table outlining the major differences between the social sciences and natural sciences. if we locate education and education research within the social sciences we can see how there are some emergent threats to the future of education research when we adopt too boldly/ blindly the natural science paradigms. 154 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 table 1: diferences between phds in social science and in the natural sciences (matos, 2013, p.631) phd in the social sciences phd in naural sciences scope of the thesis student responsible for whole research project student responsible for a part of a wider research project topic of the thesis student’s own part of a wider research project and selected/assigned by the supervisor/principal investigator results only positive results accepted negative results accepted proximity to supervisor meeting by arrangement constant presence of supervisor location student rarely has own space provided by department/university. many sudents work from home. in the lab proximity to other researchers lonely endeavour close to other researchers in same lab funding student has to apply individually for funding attributed to student as part of the overall funding for supervisor’s project possible threats to education research matos (2013) predicts what would happen if we too categorically accept the natural sciences models and adopt the business model within (social science) education research. we are likely to see: ! a shift in the kinds of students we (social science supervisors) select to support in phd studies: (we would tend to choose only those we know will succeed in minimum time); ! a restriction of the choice of the topics we choose that can be completed in ‘allotted time’: (simple rather than complex studies will be preferred); ! the possible replication of research studies that maintain quantity outputs, offering little but an ‘expansionist’ contribution to the body of knowledge or the field of study: (convenient research would aim to push back boundaries only of a contextual nature. this would entail merely samuel: angels in the wind. . . 155 filling in a ‘blank spot‘ of research within contexts not yet not investigated. this may have the effect of fostering an importation of models which may homgenise insight in education research. this challenges the possibility for deep theoretical or conceptual explorations in research. the latter gough calls “blind spot” research: research asking what kinds of questions we need to ask about our research agendas or the field) (gough, 1998). ! a potential dumbing down of the phd to generate the ‘credentialed output’ in minimum time: (fostering a product chasing mentality); unfortunately these choices will then become the hallmarks of what will be regarded as ‘productive academics’. conference as dialogue therefore i believe that this saera 2014 conference and in its future iterations are an ideal opportunity to confer, to ask the following questions: ! how do we borrow; exchange; redirect our heritages from the past education research practices? ! how are we making selections of the kinds of paradigmatic positions in our research? what types of questions will we be asking in our research agenda: expedient, convenient or troublesome questions? ! how do we borrow our models (theoretically/methodologically) in term of what is considered valuable or not for educational research here in our situated contexts? ! whose models do we inherit? what could we discard or reformulate? ! can we dream ourselves anew? 156 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 closing/opening thoughts i close with the feminist researchers’ reminder: ‘history is an angel being blown backwards into the future’ (lather and smithies, 1997, p.54). (http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium/angel-in-the-wind-claude-marshall.jpg) are we prepared to be blown backwards into the future? are we making choices that will avoid being buffeted in the wind? are we the angels of the wind? we wish all a productive thought-provoking saera 2014 conference. welcome to durban. samuel: angels in the wind. . . 157 references foucault, m. 1979. discipline and punish: birth of prisons. new york, vintage. gough, n. 1998. narrative and educational inquiry. in mousley, j., gough, n., robson, m.and colquhoun, d. (eds), horizons, images and experiences: the research stories collection. geelong: deakin university, pp.118–127. lather, p.a. and smithies, c.s. 1997. troubling the angels. women living with hiv/aids. boulder, co: westview press. marshall, c. 2014. http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium/angel-in-the-wind-claude-m arshall.jpg maistry, s. 2014. education for economic growth: a neoliberal fallacy in south africa. alternations (in press). matos, f. 2013. phd and the manager’s dream: professionalising the students, the degree and the supervisors? journal of higher education policy and management, 35(6): pp.626–638. teferra, d. 2014. organised anarchy – the enduring university paradigm. university world news – the global edition. 20 july 2014. torres, c. 2011. ‘public universities and neoliberal common sense: seven iconoclastic theses.’ international studies in sociology of education, 21(3): pp.177–197. tucker, b, 2012. ‘the flipped classroom’. online instruction at home frees classtime for learning. education next. winter 2012.volume 12/no.1. http://educationnext.org/the-flipped-classroom/ retrieved 11 august 2014. radar worldwide magazine 2014. the rainbow nation: an unfulfilled dream. worldwide, april–may 2014, p.6. world press photo awards. http://www.worldpressphoto.org/awards/2014 retrieved 20 july 2014. http://educationnext.org/the-flipped-classroom/ http://www.worldpressphoto.org/awards/2014 158 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 flipping the classroom images. http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=flipping+the+classroom&id=6ac099 ecd39cf293ba0c24cfde4d1b8c23c9a4e4&form=iqfrba#view=d etail&id=6ac099ecd39cf293ba0c24cfde4d1b8c23c9a4e4&selected index=0 michael samuel school of education university of kwazulu-natal samuelm@ukzn.ac.za mailto:samuelm@ukzn.ac.za microsoft word bissue75-fulljun22.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 75, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i75a05 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x context matters: heads of department’s leadership practices in monitoring and supporting teachers in schools participating in jika imfundo c.c. nonhlanhla mthiyane school of education, durban university of technology, pietermaritzburg, south africa cynthiam@dut.ac.za (corresponding author) https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0547-3221. jaqueline naidoo school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pietermaritzburg, south africa naidooj@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9084-3818 carol bertram school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pietermaritzburg, south africa bertramc@ukzn.ac.za http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2961-5645 (received: 11 september 2018; accepted: 10 april 2019) abstract jika imfundo, with its particular focus on curriculum coverage, is an intervention for systemic education change. in this paper we focus on the extent to which heads of departments (hods) are able to play an adaptive leadership role in supporting the teachers in their departments. we report on data generated from interviews with hods in fifteen kwazulu-natal schools that had been part of the jika imfundo intervention from 2015 to 2017. while jika imfundo’s aim is to shift hods’ leadership practices from being based on technical compliance to the achievement of a more developmental and supportive role, our findings show that the majority of hods were not able to do this because of their heavy workloads and overwhelming administrative responsibilities. we argue that the theory of change based on the programme for improving learning outcomes (pilo) has unrealistic expectations of hods as key levers of change for curriculum coverage and, furthermore, that this theory does not take into account the realities and variations of resourcing in different school contexts. keywords: curriculum coverage, jika imfundo, adaptive leadership, heads of departments, curriculum tracking, programme for improving learning outcomes mthiyane et al.: context matters: . . . 57 introduction jika imfundo, an intervention for systemic education change, has a particular focus on teachers’ improvement in curriculum coverage. it was developed by pilo working in partnership with the kwazulu-natal department of education. it was implemented as a pilot project from 2015 to 2017 in two education districts, one largely rural (king cetshwayo) and one more urban (pinetown). one aspect of the jika imfundo project is the training of school management teams (smts) which consist of principals, deputy principals, and hods. all members of the smts are required to attend workshops on management and leadership (module 1); effective curriculum supervision—building relationships to improve learning (module 2); and leading instruction in schools (module 3). jika imfundo adopts an “adaptive leadership framework” which requires that smt members to “enter an adaptive change space” (leadership and management module 1, p. 3), taking the stance of problem solving, rather than that of a technical approach to change where this is driven by external factors and involves simply following a series of steps. the findings show that many hods found that jika imfundo tools and workshops were helpful in clarifying their roles. however, they also reported that administrative requirements are burdensome, and that jika imfundo adopts a one-size-fits-all approach that overlooks the variations in learners’ readiness to learn at the level expected by the curriculum, as well as contextual factors which have an impact on hods’ ability to perform their supervisory and supportive roles. our main argument is that the schools’ former administrative department (department of education and training, house of assembly or house of delegates) is a key variable in determining the hods’ ability to support teachers in their department in a flexible way, rather than approaching support and monitoring in a technical way. the role of hods in south african schools the personnel administrative measures (pam) document issued by south africa’s national department of basic education (dbe) stipulates that the official aim of an hod is “to engage in class teaching, be responsible for effective functioning of the department, and to organise relevant/related extra-curricular activities so as to ensure that the subject, learning area or phase, and the education of the learner is promoted in a proper manner” (department of basic education, 2016, p. 27). while the document specifies that hods are expected to participate in general management of the school, their supervisory role is very closely linked to teaching and learning, which is the key function of schools. thus, the dbe policy understands the hod as a teacher, a subject specialist and expert, a mentor of colleagues, and a person who plays a staff development and monitoring role. jika imfundo’s intervention with hods is based on the premise that enhancing hods’ ability to perform their professional role and their ability to relate to teachers will build teachers’ strengths, and, in turn, improve teaching and learning. the intervention sees hods as being critical to building teachers’ capacity to improve learning outcomes. jika imfundo identifies good practice behaviours for hods as the following: 58 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 • regularly checking teachers’ coverage of the curriculum (curriculum tracking) and checking learners’ work; • working with teachers to improve curriculum coverage; and • assisting teachers with problems related to curriculum coverage. (metcalfe, 2018, p. 43) for every teacher, the hod has to monitor and document the following: • curriculum tracking, by checking whether the teacher uses the tracker (which is a document that details exactly what content and assessment teachers need to cover every day), is on track with coverage of the curriculum, and has lesson plans; • assessment, by checking the teacher’s planned and conducted assessments; • supervision, by documenting each teacher’s attendance at phase or departmental meetings, class visits conducted, workbooks checked as to whether or not workbooks match what is in the teacher’s tracker, and number of lessons the teacher missed. (jika imfundo, 2015) hods have tools to document the above dimensions for each teacher as evidence of each of these practices. the jika imfundo programme is based on the belief that entrenching routine behaviours by hods like planning, curriculum tracking of teachers and learners’ work, assessment, reflection, departmental and one-on-one meetings, and working collaboratively with teachers to find solutions to problems in their department is key to improving learner outcomes. the activities listed above reflect only some of the hod roles that are listed in the dbe’s pam (2016) document. they do not take into account the fact that hods are also class teachers, are responsible for the allocation of teaching loads, and undertake general school administrative tasks such as monitoring book stocks, collecting monies, and managing staff welfare as well as secretarial, and timetabling duties (pam 2016). in short, the hod roles gazetted by the dbe are much more comprehensive than those on which jika imfundo focuses. teacher leadership the dbe understands hods as teacher leaders who assume the responsibility of facilitating professional learning for their colleagues (nicholson, capitelli, richert, bauer, & bonetti, 2016). contemporary views of teacher leadership no longer see it as a preserve of school principals and administrators only. instead, teachers at different levels in a school are viewed as having the potential to be leaders. katzenmeyer and moller (2009) maintain that teacher leadership is about influencing other teachers to improve their practice and adopting an attitude of lifelong learning. york-barr and duke (2004) define teacher leadership as a “process by which teachers, individually or collectively, influence their colleagues, principals, and other members of school communities to improve teaching and learning practices with the aim of increased student learning and achievement” (p. 287). both these mthiyane et al.: context matters: . . . 59 views point to teacher leadership as involving learning and participating in continued inquiry into practice and using student data to improve practice (nicholson et al., 2016). hods are key members of school management teams and have an important role to play in providing instructional leadership and being agents of change in their departments (dinham, 2007; leithwood, 2016). however, there is limited research on their role in curriculum support and monitoring in south africa. ghavifekr and ibrahim (2014) argue that the role of hods includes mobilising teachers under their supervision and creating school-based communities of practice. this is line with jika imfundo’s view on the role of hods to provide school-based curriculum support by working with teachers, regularly checking their curriculum tracking, and assisting them with problems related to curriculum coverage through professional supportive conversations. irvine and price (2014) argue that professional conversations play a crucial role in professional learning communities (plcs) to promote critical and collaborative reflection, and in transformational learning that leads to changes in practice. dialogue and reflection also involve conversations. senge (1990) describes “learning conversations as exposing people’s thinking and making their thinking open to the influence of others” (p. 9). salleh (2016) argues that conversations hold practice, pedagogy, and student learning under scrutiny and enable teachers to negotiate their understanding of teaching. it is therefore crucial that teacher leaders (namely, hods) participate in professional development activities that equip them with the knowledge and skills necessary for substantive professional conversations with their colleagues. adaptive leadership framework the adaptive leadership framework (heifetz, grashow, & linsky, 2009) was adopted as the analytical framework in this study. these scholars contend that adaptive leadership “is the practice of mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and thrive” (p. 2). they distinguish between authority and leadership and argue that leadership is a practice that draws on authority, power, and influence as tools that are critical, yet do not define leadership. authority, they argue, is about meeting the expectations of those in power, while adaptive leadership is about challenging some of these expectations and being able to manage successfully the resistance to which this leads. this framework distinguishes between technical and adaptive changes. technical changes are described as simple or complex changes, often driven by external forces, which can be learned by following a series of steps. for example, learning how to use new tools such as the curriculum tracker, lesson plans, and other resources may be regarded as technical change. technical challenges can be resolved by applying authoritative expertise and drawing on known solutions, while adaptive changes are addressed only when individuals change their beliefs, habits, and priorities, move beyond authoritative expertise, shed entrenched ways, and generate a new capacity to succeed. however, adaptive change involves creating new knowledge that will be different in different contexts. heifetz et al. (2009) caution that 60 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 adaptive change is time consuming, and that an adaptive leader values diversity of views and adopts an “experimental mind-set” (p. 3) to problem-solving. adaptive leadership focuses on change that enhances an individual’s capacity to succeed and draws on previous wisdom and values. in order to practice adaptive leadership, hods need to assist teachers in their departments to navigate through a period of disequilibrium as they distinguish between essential and expendable knowledge and solutions. this disequilibrium space is characterised by panic, confusion, frustration, and conflict, so hods require distinct insights and skills to practice adaptive leadership and assist teachers to tolerate the discomfort. heifetz et al. (2009) describe this space as the “productive zone of disequilibrium” (p. 18). therefore, hods need to address the discomfort felt by teachers and encourage them to engage with the intervention. methodology this study seeks to address the following questions: • in what ways do hods think that jika imfundo training and tools enable them to better support their teachers to improve curriculum coverage or not? • what challenges do hods participating in jika imfundo face when supporting their teachers to improve curriculum coverage? the study draws on two sources of data gathered in the pinetown district of kzn, which has approximately 499 schools. first, a secondary analysis was conducted on existing survey data that was gathered and administered by pilo coaches, using a targeted selection of 35 schools. a total of 53 hods completed this survey, which included questions on changes in teaching, learning outcomes, the functioning of the department, and whether curriculum coverage improved as a result of the use of jika imfundo tools. the second source of data was semi-structured interviews conducted by the authors with hods from a purposive sample of 15 schools. schools were selected using three different criteria, namely 1) the jika imfundo colour classification (explained below), 2) primary or secondary schools, 3) fee-paying or no-fee schools. the selection was comprised of three primary, two combined schools (offering both primary and secondary education), and 10 secondary schools. four of the schools are fee paying and 11 are no-fee schools. fee-paying schools are suburban, well-resourced schools, historically administered by the house of assembly and house of delegates. no-fee schools are generally located in rural areas or townships and are still poorly resourced. pilo uses the following classification to code participating schools: • green schools were able to demonstrate key practices without support. • orange schools tried to institutionalise key practices but required further direct coaching support to do so. mthiyane et al.: context matters: . . . 61 • red schools were unable to implement and/or were not trying to do so. red schools were further categorised as schools that were stuck either because of broad functionality issues or because their staff had not undergone training. it was believed that with a catch-up process they would rapidly become orange or even green. of the 15 schools in this study, eight were coded orange, four were coded green, and three were coded red. all schools that were coded green are fee-paying schools, previously known as “ex-model c” schools. schools were selected first, and then a convenience sample of 29 hods were interviewed, depending on who was available at the time of the research visit. the participants consisted of five primary school hods, five combined school hods, and 19 secondary school hods. ten of these hods were novices; they had been in the position of hod from between three and 24 months. table 1: summary of schools and hods in the sample (organised according to pilo classification) no name of school number and type of hods interviewed pilo colourcode fee-paying or not* 1 school a (primary) a1– foundation phase orange no-fee 2 school b (primary) b1 – foundation phase b2 – grade 2 head b3 – grade 1 head orange no-fee 3 school c (secondary) c1 – maths and science c2 – accounting c3 – humanities (languages) c4 – technology orange no-fee 4 school d (secondary) d1 – maths and science d2 – language orange no-fee 5 school e (secondary) e1 – maths and science e2 – languages orange no-fee 6 school f (secondary) f1 – deputy principal orange fee-paying r1,500 p.a. 7 school g (secondary) g1 – maths orange no-fee 8 school h (secondary) h1 – maths and science h2 – languages orange no-fee 9 school i (combined) i1 – foundation i2 – intermediate green no-fee 10 school j (secondary) j1 – science j2 – maths green fee-paying r33,000 p.a. 11 school k (combined) k1 – senior primary maths k2 – maths and science k3 – english fal green fee-paying r19,300 p.a. 12 school l (secondary) l1 – maths l2 – science green fee-paying r30,000 p.a. 13 school m (secondary) m1 – maths and science red no-fee 62 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 14 school n (secondary) n1 – maths and science n2 – languages red no-fee 15 school o (primary) o1 – foundation and intermediate phase red no-fee *fee paying schools are quintile 4 and 5 schools (previously administered by the house of assembly or house of delegates), and no fee schools are quintile 1–3 (previously administered by the department of education and training or the kzn department of education and culture). ** further education and training findings we present the findings according to the two research questions. the first research question was: • in what ways do hods think that jika imfundo training and tools enable them to better support their teachers to improve curriculum coverage or not? there were four main themes that the hods talked about regarding jika imfundo training and tools. jika imfundo is useful in clarifying hod roles the majority of hods in orange and red schools across both primary, secondary, and combined reported finding jika imfundo training very useful in clarifying the role of an hod. of the 29 hods interviewed, 21 of them, all but 1 in orange and red schools, said they were not so sure of what they were expected to do as hods before jika imfundo. this was particularly the case for novice hods who had just been appointed to these positions. of the 21 participants, 10 were new hods, whose experience ranged from two months to three years. one of the novice hods taught in a green school while the rest were in red and orange schools. a novice hod had this to say: so being a young hod coming into management, you know . . . i didn’t have much experience. so, i was very fortunate that when i arrived, and, wow, here is jika imfundo! before, i was not clear in understanding really what my role of function is . . . you know not having the confidence you know. . . so, when jika imfundo started, it gave me the proper training. so now i really understand my role of function as the departmental head and i have confidence in performing my duties as an hod. i now have a plan. (interviewee l2, intermediate phase hod, green combined school) however, even some experienced hods reported that the supervision tool gave structure to what they had been doing. yes, it has equipped [me] with skills of managing my department. there is no training from the dbe when you become an hod. we should get a mentor to help us, but that is not happening. but jika imfundo gave me insight into how to do the monitoring, mthiyane et al.: context matters: . . . 63 how to ask the teachers questions in the one-on-one. (interviewee d1, maths and science hod, orange secondary school) experienced hods also noted that the kzn department of education did not provide any induction programmes to newly appointed hods, and this was seen as a serious weakness. one thing to complement from jika is emphasising the role of an hod, and the role of the deputy, etc. one of our big problems we have in our black schools is that we are promoted but we don’t know actually what our role is. but no one comes to induct you and say ‘listen, this is what is happening, and this is what is expected, how you go about [it].’ there is no support, [so] you don’t know, no one comes and tells you. you are just promoted, and you are happy that there is money coming and you are gonna learn by the way. so, i appreciate ujika imfundo because they have come with their modules for hods, module 1 and module 6, and i appreciate that. (interviewee n1, maths and science hod, red secondary school) it appeared that while the department has paid a lot of attention to school principals and smts together, not enough effort has been put into equipping hods with appropriate knowledge and skills relating to their roles as curriculum managers in their departments, and jika imfundo seemed to be beginning to fill this gap. almost all hods from green schools (ex-model c schools) reported that they did not find jika imfundo training and tools on supervision helpful, as reflected in the comment below. it was compulsory for hods to go [to jika imfundo training], so i attended them all. to be honest, almost nothing was useful. the format of the training was we were given the booklets and the facilitator just read through these. (interviewee l1, science hod, green secondary school) however, there is some evidence that a few teachers in these schools did find aspects of the monitoring tool useful in their supervisory and monitoring roles. the science hod from a different green school commented, monitoring tool was useful—i have a table to show how often i’ve checked books etc. (interviewee j1, science hod, green secondary school) when asked how they learnt what their roles were, hods from green schools indicated that they worked very closely with experienced hods and that they engaged more in informal discussions than they did in formal meetings. two of the more experienced hods in school k, a green school, said they attended training organised by their unions many years ago when they started as hods. the collaborative, supportive ways of working in green schools created a conducive environment for novice hods to learn about their roles. this kind of support was lacking in red and orange schools, and hods in these schools relied more on jika imfundo to fill this gap. 64 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 planning departmental activities one key tool that the majority of hods in red and orange schools reported finding useful was the supervision planner and tracker tool (tool 1). they mentioned that this tool allowed them to do their planning and to share their year plans with teachers. the most useful tool is the one for supervision, and for class visits. (n1 maths hod, red secondary school) these hods reported that although they did planning before, jika imfundo’s planning calendar, which is part of tool 1, brought structure to how they worked. in terms of planning this is new, although some of it we were doing. it was not as structured and organised. (c1 maths hod, orange secondary school) the key advantage of the supervision planner and tracker tool appeared to be the transparency it brought to the hod’s supervision practices. where this was working, all teachers knew when each class visit and when the one-on-one visits would take place. because it makes you able to see teachers in different times, so it helps you to zoom in on certain teacher. so, it is planning for the year, so you are able to see the teacher . . . the teacher can see that this date is [a] departmental meeting and in this one i was monitoring all of their files, the departmental meetings. then if i am zooming in on curriculum coverage, it would tell [an] individual teacher that on this day we would have a one-on-one. (interviewee e1, hod science and maths, red secondary school) hods in green schools reported not finding this particular tool useful, and that jika imfundo was not meant for schools such as these, as captured by this comment. they [jika imfundo] recently ‘dropped’ j high. i went to the first few trainings. mr x [principal] was worried about the time it was taking. it became clear that j high was not the target school; the coach said that and doesn’t come any more. (interviewee j2, science hod, green secondary school) there was consensus among hods from green schools that they already had entrenched successful planning practices and processes and did not need jika imfundo’s planning tools. monitoring/tracking curriculum coverage besides assisting with planning, hods in orange and red schools found tool 1 useful because it assisted them to monitor curriculum coverage so that they were always aware whether or not teachers were on track. jika has assisted us to see whether the teachers are on par with the curriculum to see how far, for assistance. (interviewee m1, maths and science hod, red secondary school) mthiyane et al.: context matters: . . . 65 the monitoring tool also assisted hods to compare what they had planned with what had been done and to adapt their plans if necessary. they looked at the lessons planned against lessons conducted, as well as assessments planned against those conducted. trackers help us to know which work we have not done [and] are we up to date with our planning so that we [can] modify the planning accordingly. [m]aybe there are things that are disturbing the planning. (interviewee e1, maths and science hod, orange secondary school) hods also reported that tool 1 also helped them identify teachers’ weaknesses and where they needed to provide support. it’s based on curriculum tracking, that’s why i appreciate this tool. once you do curriculum tracking, you can see using the annual teaching plan, and you look at the assessments. that tool helps us [to] identify if there is a loophole because that tool has . . . green, yellow and red parts, to say if the teacher is on the path to finish the syllabus or not. you ask questions and use your professional assessment to see how things go. (interviewee n1, maths and science hod, red secondary school) the task of reflection was also another important aspect of the tracker that this hod found useful. there’s reflection where teachers reflect which learners have passed or failed. some teachers write reflections. this [is] good because it assists hods to identify where the teacher managed or found [it] difficult to teach the topic. and as such you as an hod get to know where to give assistance. (interviewee n1, maths and science hod, red secondary school) however, hods from the fee-paying (green) schools reported that they did not find trackers useful and therefore did not use them. we don’t use the trackers. we have our own work schedule which is more flexible. the tracker is too rigid and provides no leeway [because] it only focuses on particular textbooks. it’s not suitable for our school. (interviewee l1, maths hod, green secondary school) these hods reported that they designed their own notes to use and felt that trackers were not meant for schools like theirs with well-qualified teachers. this is reflected in the statements below. they [trackers] are very good for schools operating at a very different level. we have qualified teachers who don’t need a support like that. (interviewee j2, maths hod, green secondary school) 66 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 as far as curriculum coverage, i have my own structure in place which is more explicit. the tracker does not help me at all. (interviewee k1, hod senior primary, green combined school) some felt strongly that supplying trackers to schools like theirs and expecting them to track curriculum coverage was a waste of resources. stop wasting money on trackers. we do not need them. you should take that money and use it for workshops. improve education to teach in the classroom. workshops should be based on subject knowledge on how to teach a particular topic. (interviewee k2, maths and science hod, green combined school) it was clear that the jika imfundo training and tools had a more positive impact in orange and red schools, while hods in green schools felt that they did not need support, and that jika imfundo should focus on schools that needed more support. conducting professional supportive conversations another tool that hods in orange and red schools found useful was the structuring a supervision conversation tool (2). they mentioned that they found training on collegial relationships and how to engage teachers in conversation about their work assisted them in improving relationships in their departments, as reflected in these statements. we also have this kind of a form [structuring a supervision conversation tool] which is for the meetings. it’s a guide on the one-on-one meeting. this helps . . . [so] the teacher doesn’t become defensive. it’s just an instrument to help teachers . . . because they were saying hods end up not having one-on-one meetings because in those meetings, it becomes difficult . . . so, for us to be able to hold those meetings they gave us a guide in terms of how to approach the curriculum coverage, [to see] if the teacher is lagging behind. (interviewee e2, hod languages, orange secondary school) the one-on-one meetings improved relationship with teachers, and we work with them as a team. (interviewee b3, foundation phase hod, orange primary school) when asked how the teachers found these conversations, the majority of hods responded that their discussions were fruitful. this was confirmed by the survey data where hods reported that the one-on-one sessions “allow teachers to open up when they need help”, assisted them to “conduct non-judgemental meetings . . . this removes feelings of shame and discomfort”, “eliminates fear and tensions, encourages co-operation and openness”, and “improved conversations about what happens in the classroom.” this seems to indicate that the conversations enabled hods to address the personal dimension of their supervisory role and recognise the importance of acknowledging teacher’s emotions in their practice. however, one of the hods in an orange school reported finding one-on-one conversations difficult when dealing with a teacher who teaches a subject different from his. mthiyane et al.: context matters: . . . 67 i’m not the expert in all the subjects, [so] i have to bring in a subject head, and sometimes the subject head will collude with the teacher. so, the subject head comes to observe the lesson, and then we have the plc with the subject head. sometimes it can be difficult [being] the one [who is] not the expert in the subject. (interviewee d1, science and maths hod, orange secondary school) this highlights the power dynamics and consequent complexities in conducting one-on-one professional supportive conversations. in line with their views on the other tools, hods in green schools, said they did not conduct one-on-one meetings, but engaged in regular informal departmental discussions, as reflected here: we don’t have formal one-on-one meetings. i’m the youngest in the department, so i prefer to keep them informal. we have whatsapp groups and an informal ethos, where we can discuss issues regularly. (interviewee l1 maths hod, green secondary school) again, the data shows the difference between no-fee and fee-paying schools in that the collegial support envisaged by official policy is already evident in the fee-paying schools. the second research question was: • what challenges do hods face when supporting their teachers to improve curriculum coverage? this section describes the three key challenges that hods said they encounter when supporting their teachers to improve curriculum coverage; these are, essentially, all related to time. too much paperwork: “paperwork ahead, child is behind” it is very clear from all the interview data as well as from the survey data, that the hods feel that there are simply too many monitoring tools that need to be used. this is particularly true for hods who supervise many teachers, sometimes across a range of subjects. at school d (a high school with 1481 learners and 49 teachers), the maths and science hod (d1) has 15 teachers in his department. he said: “it’s too much with iqms, moderation of assessment, pre-moderation, post-moderation. i have 13 papers that i must moderate for these exams.” he is also the grade 12 maths teacher. he noted that to complete the jika imfundo monitoring tasks was simply too burdensome. he felt that jika imfundo assumes that all departments are the same size, with an hod to teacher ratio of about 1 to 4 or 5. however, this is not true of big schools. at school b, an orange primary school, there is only one hod for the foundation phase with five teachers per grade, so the principal appointed a senior teacher in grades 1 and 3 to help 68 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 with the administrative monitoring work of jika imfundo. all three teachers whom we interviewed at this school said that there is simply too much paperwork and hod b2 said there were too many files that needed to be kept (management file, supervision file, assessment file, staff development files). participant b1 noted that when “paperwork is ahead, child is behind.” in school i, the intermediate phase hod was supervising 16 teachers without any help. since the hod is also teaching a class, this administrative task is simply too onerous for a single person. the maths hod at school j (a high school with 1,100 learners) notes, similarly: “the volume was unrealistic. they [jika imfundo] wanted me to meet with each teacher twice a term, take minutes, keep a file, talk about their strengths and weaknesses. i have 14 teachers who teach maths. it’s just impossible.” some hods also noted that there were tensions between the requirements of the department and jika imfundo, which also led to more administrative work. an hod at school c (orange secondary school) noted “we end up having more work and we end up being under pressure, having to use two tools, because we have the jika tools, but the other is the real one, the one for work [that is, for the department] . . . although jika wants it this way, sometimes the subject advisors want it in a different way.” challenges with sequencing and pacing of the curriculum trackers: “it is only for high fliers” another challenge raised by all the hods in the interviews and corroborated by the survey data was the concern that the trackers take a one-size-fits-all approach to curriculum coverage. participants raised two issues regarding the trackers; the first is that the pace is too fast and thus does not cater for differences among learners; and the second has to do with the sequencing of the topics (particularly in maths). sequencing refers to the order in which the topics and tasks are set. pacing refers to how quickly or slowly the topics in the curriculum need to be covered. in the curriculum assessment policy statements (caps), pacing is strongly framed, which means that the teachers do not have much leeway to change it (pausigere, 2016). since the jika imfundo trackers are based on caps, the prescribed pacing of lessons is also fast. the jika imfundo planner and trackers make it clear that teachers need to follow the prescribed sequencing and pacing. the following excerpt is from the grade 12 maths planner and tracker, but this is mentioned in all the trackers. the content in each tracker has been carefully sequenced and it is therefore important that lessons are not skipped. should you miss a mathematics lesson for any reason, or should you be going at a slower pace, you should continue the next day from where you last left off. do not leave a lesson out to get back on track. you may need to mthiyane et al.: context matters: . . . 69 speed up the pace of delivery to catch up to the lesson schedule – by covering the lesson concept content of two consecutive days in one day (pilo, 2017, p. 3). hods have the task of supporting their teachers to achieve curriculum coverage. however, the fast pace of the curriculum means that meaningful coverage is not possible. in order to achieve curriculum coverage, the trackers require teachers to move on despite some learners not understanding the concepts, and it becomes the teachers’ responsibility to help learners catch up after school. in order to support the learners who “do not get it” in class, the teachers at many schools (schools b, c, d, f, j, and l) noted that they run remedial classes before or after school a few times a week. the maths hod at school d (orange secondary school) said, “if they don’t finish, you must catch up with extra classes every week. in the senior grades, you may have three extra lessons per week in the morning or afternoon. some of the learners are slow to grasp the content. we are told to move with the annual teaching plan (atp). in maths, only 30% [of learners] are at the pace of the atp; it is only for high fliers.” participant b2 noted a concern with both the pacing and the sequencing. . . . especially in maths, you sometimes find that there are so many concepts in one lesson, such as addition, subtraction, sharing . . . (division). so, the slow learners cannot catch up easily, they are always left behind. furthermore, on each and every day the teacher has to start a new lesson. for the slow learners they find it difficult to catch up. ya. it tends to show that jika imfundo is only for the high fliers, not for slow learners. it’s no longer learner paced. (interviewee b2, grade 2 hod, orange primary school) the foundation phase participants in school i and b were concerned that the lesson plans covered too many different maths concepts in one lesson and did not allow enough time for the consolidation of learning. many other participants also noted that there are too many activities in one lesson. these hods seemed to be unaware that they did not have to use all the listed activities. the trackers note that teachers should make “the final professional choice about which examples and explanations to give, which activities to set for [their] class and how to manage [their] class on a daily basis.” (grade 12 mathematics tracker, p. 4) teachers at some schools interrogate the tools and adjust them to fit their context. all the hods from the green schools in our sample (schools j, k, and l) engaged with the tools in a very flexible way, changing them when necessary to suit the school context, or they did not use them at all, finding them too rigid and undermining of teachers’ creativity according to the science hod from school l. he finds that the caps document and assessment guidelines provide enough detail about what needs to be covered, and they make their own notes for learners. 70 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 many hods in the orange and red schools said that this pacing challenge is compounded by the departmental progression policy which stipulates that no learner can spend more than four years in one phase. thus, if a child has failed one grade in a phase, she or he cannot fail again, and will be progressed automatically to the next grade. the maths hod in school c (orange secondary school) was clear that simply covering the curriculum did not lead to quality learning. this focus on the curriculum coverage does not portray the actual situation or quality. just covering the work only does not portray the quality of the work. at the end of the day, the “progressed” learner moves to another class . . . the teachers follow the tracker and leave a lot of students behind. (interviewee c1, maths hod, orange secondary school) contextual challenges: “the tracker is designed for perfect schools” conditions in schools that are beyond the hod’s control also have an impact on curriculum coverage. many hods noted that the jika imfundo trackers do not take these contextual factors into account. these contextual challenges relate to material resources in a school, such as a lack of textbooks or a lack of water; organisational use of time and teacher absenteeism; departmental policies (such as the progression policy and the post provisioning norm); learners’ readiness and motivation to learn; and the heavy administrative requirements of the hod role. an hod from a secondary school noted, “there are no textbooks in the get phase, as the principal seems to buy only for the fet phase. so, the teacher must spend considerable time photocopying pages for the 70 learners in the grade 8 and 9 classes.” (survey data). at school m, a red secondary school, the material resource that was absent was water; this causes huge disruptions to the learning and teaching time because the school day inevitably ends early. an english first additional language hod from a red secondary school noted that “the tracker is designed for perfect schools with no disruptions” (survey data). a number of participants in the survey and the interviews expressed the same opinion, noting that the trackers assume that teaching and learning is happening on every day of the school year, with no teacher absenteeism or other disruptions. this is obviously the goal of jika imfundo, since the issue of lost teaching time and minimal opportunity to learn has been raised by a number of studies (hoadley, 2013; taylor, 2009). however, it appears that the trackers hope to solve the problem by assuming that it does not exist; the trackers do not allow for flexibility or any kind of catch-up time. this puts huge pressure on teachers to make up teaching time lost because of disruptions. some of these disruptions, such as teacher absenteeism and attendance at south african democratic teachers union (sadtu) meetings, implicate teachers, but are still outside the control of the hod. for example, on the day of our research visit to school n (red secondary school), teachers were all leaving early to attend a heritage day cultural celebration organised by sadtu. mthiyane et al.: context matters: . . . 71 another challenge outside of hods’ control relates to the departmental policies of post provisioning norms (ppn) and of the progression of learners. an hod in school c noted that “learners are now leaving our black schools” which means that the number of teachers decreases since the ppn allocates teachers to schools according to the number of enrolled learners. the progression policy means, as mentioned above, that learners who have failed one grade in a phase will automatically progress. one hod noted that “some of these progressed kids are not interested [in learning] . . . they tell us that we cannot fail them.” (interviewee c1, maths hod, orange secondary school) this links to a further challenge raised by hods—the learners’ capacity and motivation to learn. one hod noted in the survey that “the tracker has an assumption that when you teach a learner s/he understands the content without challenges.” the reality is that 60% of south african children have not learnt to read for meaning by the end of grade 3 (van den berg, 2015) and thus “never fully access the curriculum despite being promoted to higher grades” (van den berg, spaull, wills, gustafsson, & kotze, 2016, p. 6). similarly, maths achievement is low, as shown in the trends in international mathematics and science study (timms) and annual national assessments (ana) results (van den berg, 2015). the hods point out that the pacing of the trackers does not take this huge challenge into account, but seems to assume that all the learners are “high fliers,” however, for many learners “the fundamentals are not in place” (interviewee k3, english first additional language hod, green combined school), making it impossible to cover the curriculum at the required pace, and still ensure that every learner has understood the concepts. many hods in the red and orange schools reported that they have to fulfil a huge range of administrative tasks that are not directly related to teaching and learning. for example, hods have to monitor attendance of both teachers and learners, attend to learner discipline issues, enter learner marks on the schools administration and management system (sams) data base, sit on a range of school committees such as the bereavement committee, cultural committee, and so on. the fee-paying ex-model c schools employ additional staff to fulfil some of these tasks. for example, school j (green secondary school) employs a person whose sole job is to monitor learner attendance and attend to discipline issues, as well as employing additional administrators who capture marks. again, the data points to the differences between historically white and black schools which has an impact on the hods’ capacity to fulfil their roles and support the staff in their departments. discussion this section summarises the main findings related to the research questions and then uses the concept of adaptive leadership to explain and interrogate these findings. there are three main findings that support our argument that the history and context of schools influence the way in which hods can fulfill their tasks. 72 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 the first main finding is that many hods in the orange schools noted that their participation in jika imfundo has resulted in more regular (routine) meetings with the staff in their departments, improved curriculum coverage, improved relationships within the department and enhanced confidence regarding their own role as an hod. hods said that they did engage in professional conversations with their staff and they reflected to a greater extent on curriculum coverage and, to a lesser extent, on student learning and their own practice. many hods in the orange schools found the training and the tools very helpful in understanding what their task as an hod entails and helping them to plan for the year ahead. in particular, novice hods grew in confidence and appreciated the new knowledge and skills acquired on how to manage and lead their departments. they had not received this knowledge or these skills from their school or the dbe previously. in contrast, the hods in green schools all said that they did not need the training or the tools since they already felt confident in performing their hod roles, had the support of their colleagues and school management team, and already had a range of functional planning tools and practices in place. these schools have greater organisational capacity and human and physical resources than many of the no-fee schools. the second finding is that time and school context are major constraints in hods’ ability to track and support curriculum coverage in their departments. hods from all schools are unanimous that the monitoring tools and trackers are simply too burdensome to complete as jika imfundo envisages. the workload carried by hods is either heavy or very heavy, depending on the administrative challenges resulting from their school context and the numbers of teachers in their departments. many hods mentioned that it was not possible to hold one-on-one conversations as frequently as jika imfundo recommends because they have too many teachers in their departments. hods in green schools responded to this challenge by simply not using the jika imfundo tools and engaging instead in supportive collegial departmental meetings. other contextual factors in red and orange schools like the lack of textbooks, lack of water, teacher absenteeism, the (mis)use of time, learners’ readiness (or the lack of it) to learn, and the progression policy hinder the hods’ ability to play the supportive developmental role envisaged in the pam document and by jika imfundo. the third finding is that hods in orange and red schools tend to take a more technical approach to their hod role; this favours the monitoring rather than the support aspect of it. hods have an understanding of their three roles as outlined by jika imfundo—monitoring teachers’ curriculum coverage and learners’ work, supporting teachers to improve curriculum coverage, and assisting teachers with problems related to curriculum coverage. however, findings suggest that they focus predominantly on the first role of regularly checking teachers’ curriculum trackers and to a lesser extent on the other two roles. using the adaptive leadership framework (heifetz et al., 2009), we suggest that hods in the orange and red schools are leading their departments from a technical position of authority rather than an adaptive one. at a technical level, it appears that hods are following the requirements of the curriculum trackers, learner monitoring tools, and supervision tools, all of which are externally regulated by the dbe subject advisors and by the jika imfundo mthiyane et al.: context matters: . . . 73 coaches. the hods were aware that some teachers simply completed the forms to “cover their heads” but felt that there was not much that they could do about it, given the contextual constraints and huge administrative burden. jika imfundo hopes that hods will move to a level of adaptive change, which means that they should want to move from a compliance approach to a more developmental approach to supervision which is “characterized by reflection, learning, behavioural change and improved teaching practice” (module 2, p. 11). however, the hods in the orange and red schools were simply trying to “keep their heads above water” and manage all the competing demands on their time. taking a technical approach is the best they can do under very trying circumstances. it is unlikely that hods will move to a more adaptive level of leadership unless the heavy administrative workloads required of them, the strong pacing of the curriculum, and the heterogenous nature of learners’ cognitive competences is addressed (schollar, 2018) the hods in the green ex-model c schools seemed more likely to practice adaptive leadership. this practice reflects their professional confidence supported by their school context that has a flatter organisational model evidenced by greater collaboration and support among teachers. these schools also have more human resources and a more complex division of labour (harley, mattson, bertram, barasa, & pillay, 2000), such as grade controllers who focus on discipline issues, and administrative staff who capture marks. this allows hods to focus more on academic issues of teaching and learning and provide more support to novice hods. the resources in these schools enable the hods to exercise more personal agency and provide greater support to their teachers. there is more evidence of reciprocal accountability (elmore, 1996) in green schools since hods are playing a more developmental role rather than merely a compliant supervisory one. green schools already have the organisational and planning capacity and collegial supportive practices that jika imfundo is aiming to develop. conclusion this study shows that the training and tools provided by jika imfundo are helpful for many hods in the orange and red schools. however, their ability to play a supportive and developmental role is constrained by the lack of time and contextual challenges in their schools. hods occupy a fluid space that locates them at the interface of teaching, management, and leadership, and are expected to juggle all responsibilities associated with these roles. this explains, possibly, some of the challenges regarding the hods’ abilities to play an adaptive transformative leadership role in improving curriculum coverage successfully as envisaged by jika imfundo. this tension is more evident in red and orange schools with weak organisational capacity characterised by, among other things, limited administrative support. the jika imfundo programme seems to over-estimate the power that hods have as agents of change. they are middle managers who are held responsible and accountable to implement policy and ensure curriculum coverage but have minimal resources 74 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 and decision-making power to assist them in these roles. these findings demonstrate the need for ongoing middle management research in south african schools. acknowledgement data collection for this study was funded by the south african institute of distance education (saide). an earlier version of this article appears in christie and monyokolo (2018). references christie, p., & monyokolo, m. 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(2004). what do we know about teacher leadership? findings from two decades of scholarship. review of educational research, 74(3), 255–316. teenage pregnancy and the south african schools act: is religion a justifiable reason for exclusion? nuraan davids and yusef waghid abstract post-apartheid schooling has seen a proliferation in private, and specifically, religious-based schools. these schools, while constituted within the south african schools act of 1996, can present a challenging demand, in that the customary religious practices of certain private religious schools might be seen as incompatible with the procedural ramifications of the aforementioned act. as an instance of this incompatibility, we commence this article by examining one of south african schools’ greatest challenges – teenage pregnancy. firstly, by specifically looking at how muslim-based schools respond to teenage pregnancies, we raise the concern that the exclusion of teenage pregnant girls might not only bring the representatives of two different constituencies – namely muslim-based schools and the sa schools act – into conflict with one another, but that it might also engender the possibility of exclusion of others. secondly, by examining whether learners of a particular religious faith can be excluded from schooling on religious grounds, we argue that a plausible understanding of cosmopolitanism propels the expectation that all diverse learners should be recognised as legitimate participants in a school republic irrespective of their violation of religious sanctity. this claim is corroborated by the argument that internal inclusion can most appropriately be realised through an emphasis on the equalisation of voice that affords even the most vulnerable in schools (that is learners) an opportunity to stake their claim to inclusion based on invoking their legitimate voices in matters that affect them. the south african schools act and independent schools the sa schools act (no. 84 of 1996) makes provision for the establishment of independent schools, which generally includes privately-run and religiousbased schools. subject to the act, additional conditions attached to the registration of these schools, include: a head of department (hod) must register an independent school if he or she is satisfied that: 136 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 (a) the standards to be maintained by such a school will not be inferior to the standards in comparable public schools. (b) the admission policy of the school does not discriminate on the grounds of race. (c) the school complies with the grounds for registration contemplated in subsection (2), which states that “the member of the executive council must, by notice in the provincial gazette, determine the grounds on which the registration of an independent school may be granted or withdrawn by the head of department” (chapter 5, no.46) statistics released by the south african institute of race relations (sairr), show that the number of independent schools is growing at a relatively rapid rate – to the extent that the number of learners attending independent schools between 2000 and 2010 increased in every province with the exception of the free state. according to hofmeyr and lee (2004, p.143), while the dominant public perception of independent schools in 1990 was that of “white, affluent and exclusive”, the current reality is that the majority of learners at independent schools are black (to use the racial categories still employed by government), are religious and community-based, and charge average to low fees. the reasons for the establishment of these schools are as diverse as their religious and philosophical underpinnings. central to the stated mission of many of these schools, however, is the contention that public schools cannot be trusted to cultivate and transmit the values and traditions at the core of respective religious beliefs. while the south african constitution recognises the importance of religion and religious symbols to the life of south african citizens, and therefore recognise that citizens have the right to believe in whatever religion they wish to, the department of basic education’s (dobe) policy on religion, as stipulated in the sa schools act, stipulates that state schools will provide only one type of education with respect to religion, and that is religion education: “public educational institutions have a responsibility to provide religion education in a way that shows a ‘profound appreciation of spirituality’ but does not focus on any particular religion and does not aim to provide religious instruction” (department of education (doe), 2003, p.459). schools, therefore, explains jeenah (2005), are expected to teach learners what religions are all about and, by doing so, increase understanding among citizens, build respect for diversity and value spirituality. chidester (2002) davids and waghid: teenage pregnancy. . . 137 describes the approach by the department of education as one based on a principled distinction between the many religious interests, which are best served by the home, family, and religious community, and the national public interest in education about religion, religions, and religious diversity in south africa. while the objective of the south african board of jewish education (sabje), for instance, is to promote and advance jewish education in south africa (sabje, 1984), the mission of the catholic institute of education is to enable catholic schools to offer values-based, quality education to learners in an environment that nurtures moral, intellectual and spiritual development. the establishment of religious-based schools, however, has not been without criticism, with fataar (2005) contending that while the south african constitution allowed communities to establish independent institutions on condition that they did not explicitly exclude people on the basis of religion, race, or disability, the community-specific character of muslim and other such schools, however, seemingly blocked access to groups outside of that community. voicing a similar concern, specifically regarding muslim-based schools, tayob (2011) maintains that these schools appeared to propagate and preserve racial identities of apartheid south africa, since they were overwhelmingly attended by coloured and indian learners. although these criticisms against independent schools seem valid one cannot deny that such schools conceived of their establishment as contributing to the enhancement of quality education in a democratic dispensation. inasmuch as the sa schools act has put in place directives to ensure that schools are free from discrimination, post-apartheid south africa has witnessed numerous incidents of discrimination and exclusion on the basis of race, religion, language, ethnicity, teenage pregnancy, as well as the inability to pay school fees. the most recent example of religious-based discrimination involves the case of sikhokele diniso, a grade 10 learner from siphamandla high school in khayelitsha (western cape) who, in march 2013, was instructed to leave school and not to return until he had cut his hair. diniso is a rastafarian and growing his hair is considered by him as being a part of his faith. only after the intervention of the ngo, equal education, was the learner allowed to return to school. in january 2013 siblings, sakeenah and bilal dramat at eben dönges high in kraaifontein, were instructed to remove their hijâb (head-scarf for females) and fez (head cover for males), respectively. while bilal complied, sakeenah refused, causing the school to contact their parents to fetch the children from school. another example is that of sunali pillay, who, in 2010, was a learner at durban girls’ high 138 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 school. as a hindu, and as a religious and cultural expression of her physical maturity, she had her nose pierced and a gold stud inserted. in contravention of the school’s regulation on the wearing of jewellery, her mother was requested to write a letter to the school explaining why sunali had to wear a nose stud. after the school management refused to grant sunali an exemption to wear the nose stud, her mother took the case to an equality court, which found in favour of the school, because sunali’s parent had signed an undertaking that their daughter would adhere to the school’s code of conduct, which had clear stipulations about the wearing of jewellery. after the equality court found in favour of the school, the pillays successfully appealed to the durban high court (du plessis, 2009). the first point we are trying to make is that while policies to prevent unfair discrimination are in place in the sa schools act, they do not preclude acts of exclusion from happening, as is perhaps, most evident in the acts of exclusion practised against pregnant school girls. these acts of exclusion are rapidly increasing for the disconcerting reason that teenage pregnancies appear to be on the increase. our second point concerns the relationship between citizenship, religion and cosmopolitanism. while the sa schools act maintains clear guidelines that learners may not be excluded from schools on the basis of religious and cultural beliefs and practices, the authors of the act, perhaps, did not foresee that the same beliefs which are protected under the constitution and the act would be used to exclude some learners from both public and religious-based schools. the existence of several private religious schools, which are constituted on the basis of very specific customary religious practices, presents a particular challenge to the sa schools act. certainly, in the context of salient decisions pertaining to teenage pregnant girls, these schools might be seen as contravening the procedural stipulations of the act. we shall now attend to a discussion of the latter. teenage pregnancy and religious responses statistics south africa’s ‘general household survey 2010: focus on schooling report’ estimated that up to 89 390 school girls were pregnant or had fallen pregnant between july 2009 and july 2010. stated differently and perhaps to highlight the severity of the problem, particularly in a country where hiv prevalence is 18.8%, one in three girls has a baby by the age of twenty and 124 school girls fall pregnant every day. there are many and davids and waghid: teenage pregnancy. . . 139 diverse reasons south african classrooms are filled with pregnant girls and young mothers – while some are as a consequence of rape, coercion, prostitution, and drug abuse, others are consensual and undoubtedly related to teenage sexuality, and ill-informed decisions. in addressing the unacceptably high rate of teenage pregnancy, and sensitive to the impending marginalisation of the pregnant mother-to-be, the sa schools act makes provision for compulsory attendance of all children “until the last school day of the year in which such a learner reaches the age of fifteen years or the ninth grade, whichever occurs first” (no. 84 of 1996, chapter 2, 3(1)) and dramatically curtails a school’s rights to expel learners. the only provision that exists to ‘permit’ pregnant learners or young parents (if they are under 16) to be away from school is if they get exemption from the relevant provincial hod. while the legal directive of the sa schools act is clear in terms of the rights of access to schooling of the pregnant girl, what the act did not adequately address was the rights of the school. consequently, and in direct response to the growing number of pregnant school girls being turned away from schools, and perhaps even in recognising the glaring gap between policy and practice, the dobe, in accordance with the constitution, the sa schools act, and the promotion of equality and prevention of unfair discrimination act (no. 4 of 2000) developed the ‘measures for the prevention and management of learner pregnancy’ (2007), which states that the pregnant school girl shall not be unfairly discriminated against. the ‘measures for the prevention and management of learner pregnancy’ document aims to clarify the position of the dobe regarding learner pregnancies, and “to provide an environment in which learners are fully informed about reproductive matters and have the information that assists them in making responsible decisions” (2007, p.1). in recognition of the responsibility of education, the document points out that the national curriculum statement (ncs) provides for comprehensive life skills programmes in the learning area life orientation, which is compulsory from grades r to 12. the life skills programme deals with topics that affect each and every learner and educator – ranging from human sexuality, decision-making skills, to prevention of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (2007). as morrell, bhana and shefer (2012) note, until the publication of ‘measures for the prevention and management of learner pregnancy’, schools had been expected to interpret the law as best they could. the 2007 document was designed to make explicit the rights and obligations of schools, teachers, and 140 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 the ‘re-imagining citizenship’ project is currently being conducted at five high schools in 1 the western cape. through working with life orientation educators, and specifically developing a manual on the teaching of citizenship, the primary objectives of the project are: (1) to explore democratic citizenship education in consonance with local practices; (2) to explore how the concept of ubuntu (human interdependence) can be intertwined with deliberative and compassionate engagement; and (3) to explore possible suggestions to deal with societal conflicts. learners, “by balancing the best interests of the individuals against those of other learners, educators, the school, and its community” (2007, p.4). however, the original policy regarding teenage pregnancy, as well as the ‘measures’ document do not seem to take into account that pregnancy is essentially a gendered process, which means that any response to it is couched in gender. to this end, when a girl becomes pregnant, she is not only confronted with the responses (and judgements) of her peers but also by the rest of her community. on the one hand, state morrell, et al. (2012), the ways in which pregnancy and parenting are responded to at schools generally reflect some of the dominant discourses about gender in the broader society. that is, patriarchy and male chauvinism continue to be considered as reasons why pregnant girls or unmarried mothers are subjected to more prejudice and even condemnation than unmarried fathers. on the other hand, because of the multiple ways that policy can be interpreted, and open to exclusion rather than inclusion, it has a limited capacity to change the experiences of learners who happen to be pregnant. for instance, the two-year time constraint for pregnant school girls does not necessarily inhibit or control teenage pregnancy other than limiting the girl’s return to school. morrell, et al. (2012) contend that apart from policies and measures to manage teenage pregnancies, school managers, parents and other community members bring with them gendered identities and moralities (prejudices, inclinations) and practices (both at school and beyond). through our own project work on ‘re-imagining citizenship’, we are aware1 that many educators either do not feel comfortable in teaching about sexuality, sexual abuse, and abortion, or they refuse to do so on the basis that they cannot be expected to teach on topics, which perhaps compromises their own religious or moral beliefs. we are also aware of two pregnancies at two public high schools in the western cape, where the principals, upon being informed about the pregnancies, informed the girls to leave immediately and not to return until further notice. this decision, according to both principals, was based on preserving the ‘morality’ of the school. the principals contend that allowing pregnant girls to remain at the school would send a message that davids and waghid: teenage pregnancy. . . 141 the school condoned their behaviour. whether the behaviour being referred to was that of premarital sex, or getting pregnant, remains unclear. at one of the schools the principal reported that another girl, who had been instructed to leave the previous year due to her pregnancy, had attempted to return at the beginning of the new school year. while the school generally accepted the return of teenage mothers, the principal, in this instance refused the admission of the girl because she had been married by religious rites. a married woman, he maintained, should not be at school, as she no longer had anything in common with her peers. in two other recent cases, which started in 2010, involving two free state school governing bodies, the principals were accused by the provincial education hod of acting unlawfully when they temporarily expelled girls from school, instructing them to return after their pregnancies (constitutional court of south africa, 2013: cct 103/12). the sgbs in both instances, it would seem, were merely enforcing the school’s pregnancy policy in terms of its code of conduct and were, according to them, not acting unlawfully, since the contents of the actual policy had been communicated to the relevant provincial department of education, and had not been brought into contention. faced with appeals for assistance from the parents of both pregnant girls, the provincial education hod, in his capacity as the employer of the principals in terms of the employment of educators (act 76 of 1998), issued instructions to the principals of both schools to immediately re-admit the girls on the basis that the two sgbs had not followed proper procedure, and that the fundamental rights of the girls to access to schooling was being prevented. both sgbs objected on the basis that the department did not have the power to instruct principals to act against the adopted school policy, and, in making a successful application to the high court, contended that the instruction of the provincial education hod infringed on the powers of the sgb. it is important, however, to consider the majority judgement of justice khampepe in contrast to the more radical judgement of justice zondo. justice khampepe found that the schools’ governing bodies were empowered to adopt pregnancy policies and that in addressing his concerns regarding the policies, the hod was obliged to act in accordance with the schools act, which he did not. the hod had acted unlawfully in issuing instructions to the principals that they readmit the pregnant students, contrary to their schools’ pregnancy policies. in considering the unconstitutionality of the pregnancy policies, justice khampepe found that the pregnancy policies were discriminatory as they differentiate between students on the basis of pregnancy, which is disallowed under section 9(3) of the constitution. the policies also limit pregnant 142 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 students’ fundamental right to education, as protected by section 29 of the constitution, by requiring students to repeat up to a year of schooling. in light of these findings, justice khampepe ordered that the appeal be dismissed and that the schools’ governing bodies review their pregnancy policies in light of the judgment and furnish the court with a copy of the revised policies. in contrast to the majority’s findings on the exercise of public power, justice zondo found that the governing bodies did not have the power to make the pregnancy polices as they were inconsistent with provisions of the schools act and the constitution. as such, he found that the hod not only had the power to act as he did in instructing the principals not to carry out or implement the pregnancy policies which were in breach of the schools act and the constitution, he was obliged to do so (human rights law centre). emerging clearly from the majority and the minority judgements, is that the exclusion of the pregnant girls was inconsistent with the provisions of the sa schools act and the constitution. so, how are religious-based schools responding to the prevalence of teenage pregnancies, which, no doubt, is as much of a challenge at independent schools as it is at public schools? data or reports on the exclusion of pregnant girls are not readily available, since they only come to light if the parents exercise their rights to report the matter to the relevant education department, or the human rights commission. however, we are aware that within the western cape, it is not uncommon for muslim-based schools to expel pregnant girls, as well as the boys, if they are the fathers, on the grounds that they have contravened the shari’ah (islamic law), which prohibits sexual intercourse outside of marriage. since a muslim-based school is constituted on a particular interpretation of the laws of islam, acts and behaviour which run contrary to these laws are considered to be in violation of the faith and, so it seems, should not be tolerated. parents in this regard would be reluctant to challenge the school on the basis of two reasons: firstly, they had enrolled their children at a religious-based school with the intention of exposing their children to a specific religious ethos and environment, which, we are sure, they had hoped would have assisted their children in not indulging in premarital sexual activities. to therefore take the school to task for merely enforcing not only its policy on teenage pregnancy, but for also respecting the moral norms of its religious doctrine would seemingly for them be untenable; secondly, as stated earlier, when a girl becomes pregnant, she is not only confronted with the responses (and judgements) of her peers, and the rest of the school community, she is also brought into reckoning by the community of her ‘situatedness’. her parents, if they were to hold the school to account in davids and waghid: teenage pregnancy. . . 143 terms of the sa schools act or the constitution, would face a precarious predicament within the ‘situatedness’ of their community. in other words, in disagreeing with the school for expelling their daughter or son on the grounds of a premarital pregnancy, they are bringing into disrepute their own connection and agreement with a community, who might stand in agreement not necessarily with the policy of a school, but certainly with a particular interpretation of islamic law, which states that an unmarried pregnant girl has committed an adulterous act deserved of being punished. what emerges here is that the decision of a muslim-based school to expel a pregnant girl might be seen as incompatible with the procedures of the sa schools act that not only brings the representatives of two different constituencies (muslim community and democratic government) into conflict with one another but also engenders the possibility of exclusion of others – that is, pregnant learners. of course, we have to consider the school’s argument of a moral basis, as well as the rights of the school as opposed to the rights of the pregnant girl. but, does the preservation of morality necessarily have to translate into a notion of exclusion? can the act of excluding pregnant girls from school be considered as an act of morality? and should schools be allowed to impose religious doctrines on learners simply because these schools enjoy the privilege of being private? the challenge that emerges is that the decision of a muslimbased school to expel a pregnant girl might be seen as incompatible with the procedures of the sa schools act. and this incompatibility not only brings the representatives of two different constituencies (muslim community and democratic government) into conflict with one another but also engenders the possibility of exclusion of others – that is, pregnant learners. we are aware of a precedent for ‘acceptable discrimination’ in the case of wittman v deutscher schulverein, pretoria (1998(4) sa 423(t)), which recognised the right of private schools to determine admissions based on religion. in this matter the court had to decide, inter alia, whether the freedom of religion clause in the constitution of south africa, 200 of 1993 (the interim constitution) afforded parents a right to exclude a scholar from attendance at religious instruction classes and observances at school. the court held that section 14(2) of the interim constitution did not apply to the relationship between the parent and the school, as the latter is not a state aided institution or an organ. du plessis (2006) explains that the court argued that religious observance is an act of religious character, for example, the daily opening of a school by prayer, whilst religious education is not. moreover, even if 144 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 religious instruction were a religious observance, the 1993 constitution granted the rights to conduct religious observances at state and state-aided institutions and that right could not be nullified by those who had the right to abstain from them but chose not to. the religious instruction classes at the school were therefore not unconstitutional. however, the right to freedom of religion, thought, belief and opinion entailed that attendance of the religious instruction classes be voluntary. also of particular interest in this case is that while the school is a private one, and received state funding, the court held that this did not mean that the state was in control of the school. the wittman v deutscher schulverein is a key judgement that legitimised religious freedom in private schools in south africa, and by so doing, endorsed the right to discriminate. but, can religious-based schools legitimately exclude learners from school on the basis of an alleged contravention of a religious code of ethics? towards internal inclusion in this section, we argue that the expulsion of learners under the aegis of conforming to religious doctrine together with imposing a community’s desired forms of morality are incommensurable with the notion of internal inclusion. firstly, to expel learners from school on the grounds that they have contravened a religious code of ethics is to be oblivious of the fact that all mainstream religious practices are very favourable to giving ‘sinners’ a second chance, that is, religions’ advocacy for forgiveness and compassion. in fact, to act morally means that one has developed compassion and care for the other who has experienced a vulnerability and which he and she might even already regret. and to punish learners further by denying them access to schooling on the grounds of having dishonoured a rule is tantamount to acting immorally without being intrinsically connected to the norms and practices of internal inclusion. regarding inclusion, young (2000) avers that any human being has a legitimate right to engage with others about important decisions that affect them – that is, every person has a right to decision making because they are affected by the decision-making processes and thus have a right to influence the outcome. however, learners who are expelled from school – in this instance for contravening a religious law, and the code of ethics of a school, do not engage in the formulation of the rule which excludes them. that is, davids and waghid: teenage pregnancy. . . 145 learners have simply been excluded on the basis of not having been considered matured enough by those in authority to deliberate the rule’s implications. moreover, if one considers that inclusion involves bringing into the sphere of deliberative activity those individuals who previously were not included (biesta, 1999), it follows that denying learners access to schooling on the grounds that they have violated a rule is to exclude them from a fundamental requirement for inclusion, that is, to be unconditionally included. unconditional inclusion means that a person cannot face stereotypical judgement on the grounds of having contravened a religious law but rather that every person deserves to be heard, and at least considered equally in deliberation. biesta (1999) makes the distinction between two assumptions with regard to inclusion, namely internal inclusion, which refers to how we can make our practices even more inclusive, and external inclusion, which looks at bringing more people into a deliberative sphere of engagement. whereas the first assumption is focused on making individuals even more attentive to dissimilarity, the second assumption demands of those who are in a deliberative space to bring more individuals into that sphere so that they may engage with reason and tolerance. in our view, by denying learners access to school on the grounds that they have contravened a rule is not only to deny them the possibility of redemption by engaging with fellow learners and educators possibly on what can be done to build communities of trust and recognition of the other (irrespective of their acts of supposedly wrong doing). in fact, by internally including learners we might engender greater opportunities for learners and educators to become persuaded by the norms and practices of their religions rather than dismissing them prematurely from the sphere of engagement that schooling can and might offer. the educational potential for internal inclusion is to cultivate more opportunities for inclusivity that can possibly prevent contravening religious rules. the point about internal inclusion is that dissimilarity or to have acted out of consonance with the prescribed norms of the school and religion might just be the catalyst to rally a school community around the issue of morality they so deeply cherish and endeavour to uphold. and, following the art of deliberation, it does help to talk over and over again about matters of public, more specifically religious communities’ concern. it does not make sense to exclude learners who merely become more vulnerable in society because of having already been victimised. internal inclusion requires that we continue to engage them (and allow them access to schools) as to nurture relationships that can be informed by their voices in the deliberative sphere of an inclusive school. it is in this regard that the sa schools act 146 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 remains a tenable framework in terms of which internally included spheres of pedagogy and morality can be harnessed. so, it does not help to expel learners who are pregnant and married. this brings us to a discussion of cosmopolitanism and inclusion. on cosmopolitanism and inclusion to benhabib (2011), a conception of cosmopolitanism cannot be realised without contextualisation and articulation through self-governing entities. based on this understanding, benhabib contends that individuals are rightsbearing not only in virtue of their citizenship within states, but by virtue of their humanity in a global world. consequently, posits benhabib, “cosmopolitanism involves the recognition that human beings are moral persons equally entitled to legal protection in virtue of rights that accrue to them not as nationals, or members of an ethnic group, but as human beings as such” (2011, p.9). in their explanation of whether there are individuals or groups with whom cosmopolitanism is incommensurate, merry and de ruyter (2009) make two assertions. firstly, that cosmopolitanism is not tantamount to secularism, and hence that it would be incorrect to assume that religious beliefs and cosmopolitanism are in discord. secondly, they differentiate between what they term ‘religious people in general’ or ‘spiritual believers,’ and ‘deeply religious’ or ‘literalists’, which includes fundamentalist and orthodox individuals. the ‘deeply religious’ are defined as individuals who are strongly committed to a belief in a transcendent being or ultimate reality, and who draw a clear division between those who are right and therefore on the inside, and those who are wrong and are therefore on the outside. the ‘religious people in general’ are also motivated by their beliefs, but rather than focusing on what is right and wrong, emphasis is placed on what is good. according to merry and de ruyter, the pragmatic approach of the latter group follows from a different moral obligation to that of the former. while the ‘religious people in general’ are often motivated by religious convictions as they aspire to realise cosmopolitan ideals, the ‘deeply religious’ do not generally demonstrate an empathic openness to learn or to respect others, and act on questionable motives, which leads merry and de ruyter (2009) to conclude that the ‘deeply religious’ fall short of being cosmopolitan. clearly, in any school environment – public or private – we will encounter educators, school managers, learners and community members who are either davids and waghid: teenage pregnancy. . . 147 ‘religious people in general’ or ‘deeply religious’ – as was found during our project work when certain educators showed a reluctance to teach about sexuality, homosexuality, and abortion, on the basis that they cannot be expected to teach on topics, which perhaps compromises their own religious or moral beliefs. while any individual, in terms of the constitution, has the right to practise his religious and cultural beliefs, these same beliefs cannot, however, infringe on the rights of others – and this includes the rights of learners to be taught about difference, and topics, which might not resonate with the beliefs or values of the educator. similarly, while public schools have an obligation to teach about different religions, so that diversity is both recognised and respected, private religious-based schools have the right to promulgate a particular religious tradition, but within a clearly defined balance between the individual as a religious being, and the individual as a citizen – that is, without encroaching a person’s right to be human. this balance ought not to be seen as a separatist construction of identity, but rather as an acknowledgement and recognition of a multiplicity of identity. schools, even when constituted on private principles of religion, or any other philosophical belief, have the responsibility that they are preparing learners for a public, heterogeneous and democratic space. religion, therefore, cannot be used to preclude the learner from enacting his or her right of access as a public citizen. given the prevalence of discrimination and exclusion at public and private schools, schools would seriously need to consider the promotion of inclusion in their schools – both via the curriculum, and policies, such as the code of conduct. teaching about different religious beliefs, and cultural practices, or about homosexuality, or teenage pregnancy cannot be addressed in the absence of a clear articulation and understanding of inclusion. we are not arguing that educators need to accept, and therefore need to teach their learners to accept all forms of difference. but, learners, if they are to participate in a pluralist and democratic society do need to know how not to exclude those who are different to them. critical to our argument for an inclusive form of citizenship is that the same expectation that religious-based schools have in exercising their autonomy as privately run institutions, needs to be extended to learners as autonomous beings, and as autonomous citizens. cosmopolitanism along the lines of hospitality to strangers will work as this will ensure the non-marginalisation of teenage pregnant girls. likewise cosmopolitanism as hostility will also work as teenage girls can disrupt their exclusion. meting out a system of judgement, which says that a pregnant school girl does not have the right to attend school, leads to exclusion not just of an individual, but places 148 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 religious-based schools on a trajectory, which runs contrary to the democratic agenda of a society of which these same schools are a part. this argument has been confirmed by the constitutional case: head of department, department of education free state province v welkom high school and another (2013), in which it was found that the exclusion of the pregnant girls was inconsistent with the provisions of the sa schools act and the constitution. on the one hand, then, these schools exist because of a pluralist and cosmopolitan understanding of citizenship – that individuals have the right and protection of the state to exercise their beliefs. and on the other hand, these schools use the same right to practise a form of discrimination. surely, the right of these schools to exist, as constituted in the sa schools act, is constitutive of a conception of inclusive cosmopolitanism, which all religious-based schools, for the sake of their own existence, ought to protect and promote. to discriminate against learners on religious grounds undermines the spirit of inclusive cosmopolitanism that initially contributed to their existence. thus, building a democratic school with an inclusive and cosmopolitan ethos does not necessarily restrict religion but does countenance the exclusive ways in which religions are and can be used to demoralise difference, in this instance, instigated by teenage pregnancy. in this article, we have shown how the sa schools act has attempted to ensure that learners at schools are free from any form of discrimination, and in recognition of diverse beliefs – religious or otherwise – has also made provision for the existence of independent and religious-based schools. we have shown, through citing various examples, that regardless of the various policies, some learners have been and continue to be on the receiving end of various forms of exclusion. in turning to the central concern of this article, we highlighted the exclusion of pregnant school girls at muslim-based schools, where the implementation of a particular interpretation of islamic law has meant the barring and marginalisation of girls, who are pregnant outside of marriage. we have argued that this type of exclusion not only brings the representatives of two different constituencies (the sa schools act and religious-based schools) into conflict with one another but also engenders the possibility of exclusion of others. moreover, we have argued that if one considers that inclusion involves bringing into the sphere of deliberative activity those individuals who previously were not included (biesta, 1999), it follows that denying learners access to schooling on the grounds that they have violated a rule is to exclude them from a fundamental requirement for inclusion, that is, to be unconditionally included. internal inclusion, we have argued, requires that we continue to engage them (and allow them access to davids and waghid: teenage pregnancy. . . 149 schools) as to nurture relationships that can be informed by their voices in the deliberative sphere of an inclusive school. finally, the deliberative and constitutive value of the sa schools act is not only dependent on how well its current policies against discrimination are implemented, but how well they recognise and respect difference, and the extent to which all forms of being and beliefs are included, whether in public or independent schools, because, ultimately, what we teach and learn in schools, is what we become in society. references benhabib, s. 2011. dignity in adversity: human rights in troubled times. cambridge: polity press. biesta, g. 2009. sporadic democracy: education, democracy, and the question of inclusion. in katz, m., verducci, s. and biesta, s. (eds), education, democracy, and the moral life. washington: springer, pp.101–112. catholic institute of education http://www.cie.org.za accessed 4 april 2013. chidester, d. 2002. religion education in south africa: teaching and learning about religion, religions, and religious diversity. report: teaching for tolerance and freedom of religion or belief. preparatory seminar, oslo, 7–9th december. constitutional court of south africa. 2013. head of department, department of education, free state province and governing body of welkom high school, and harmony high school, case: cct 103/12. www.saflii.org/za/cases/zacc/2013/2 pdf. accessed on 14 march 2013. department of education of south africa. 2003. national policy on religion and education. pretoria. government gazette, vol. 459, no. 25459. department of basic education. 2007. measures for the prevention and management of learner pregnancy. pretoria: government printers. http://www.cie.org.za http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/zacc/2013/2 150 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 department of basic education. 2012. general household survey (ghs) 2010: focus on schooling. pretoria: government printers. du plessis, a. 2006. the fulfillment of human rights related to religion: some current challenges in south africa. paper prepared for the ics workshop on secular and religious sources of human rights law, berlin. 17–20 may 2006. du plessis, l. 2009. religious freedom and equality as celebration of difference: a significant development in recent south african constitutional case-law (per 17). potchefstroom electronic law journal. www.saflii.org.za accessed 4 april 2013. fataar, a. 2005. discourse, differentiation, and agency: muslim community schools in postapartheid cape town. comparative education review, 49(1): 23–44. hofmeyr, j. and lee. s. 2004. the new face of private schooling. in chisholm, l. 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(eds), books and babies: pregnancy and young parents in schools. pretoria: hsrc press, pp.1–27. south african board of jewish education: constitution. 1984. www.sabje.co.za accessed 4 april 2013. south african institute of race relations: south african survey 2010/2011: education. pretoria: sairr. http://www.saflii.org.za http://www.sabje.co.za davids and waghid: teenage pregnancy. . . 151 tayob, a. 2011. islamization for south african muslim independent schools. in tayob, a, niehaus, i. and weisse, w. (eds), muslim schools and education in europe and south africa, religionen im dialog. berlin: waxmann, pp.39–54. young, i.m. 2000. inclusion and democracy. oxford: oxford university press. nuraan davids yusef waghid educational policy studies stellenbosch university nur@sun.ac.za yw@sun.ac.za mailto:nur@sun.ac.za mailto:yw@sun.ac.za 152 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 microsoft word bissue72 final.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 72, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i72a05 an exploratory study of heads of departments’ responses to student calls for decolonised higher education callie grant education department, rhodes university c.grant@ru.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4188-7408 lynn quinn centre for higher education research, teaching and learning, rhodes university l.quinn@ru.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2922-1312 jo-anne vorster centre for higher education research, teaching and learning, rhodes university j.vorster@ru.ac.za (received: 28 april 2018; accepted: 17 august 2018) abstract central to the tumultuous student protests of 2015 and 2016 was an urgent call for the decolonisation of south african universities. existing curricula, including teaching and assessment practices, as well as institutional cultures and structures were challenged. against this backdrop, in this article we focus on the academic leadership role of heads of departments (hods) at rhodes university. in this small-scale project we interrogate how hods conceptualised their roles in this uncertain and complex context. from the data analysis a number of tensions emerged in the ways in which they articulated and enacted their roles. the findings indicate that the protests have contributed to the increasing complexity of the role of an hod. issues raised during the protests catalysed hods at rhodes university, some for the first time, into considering the implications of the decolonising call from students and into exercising stronger transformative leadership roles. keywords: decolonisation, academic leadership, heads of department, cultural historical activity theory contextual framing the impetus for research reported on here was the student protests experienced at many south african universities in 2015 and 2016. student protests of one kind or another have been a feature of the education landscape since the soweto riots in 1976. at the heart of student protests in south africa have been calls to eradicate the pernicious effects of colonial 74 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 rule and apartheid policies on education. the reasons for these protests are complex and varied. becker (2017), has argued that a full analysis can be undertaken only once all the economic, political, psychosocial, and historical influences have been analysed. it is not our intention in this article to undertake such an analysis of student protests across the sector. although student protests have been common at historically black institutions for decades, of interest to us was the response to the protests at historically white institutions (hwis) such as rhodes university. rhodes was established in 1904, to “bolster the british imperial connection” (maylam, 2005, p.14) and many still regard it as a colonial institution. despite the work of individuals and groups who have fought against the effects of colonialism and apartheid at rhodes for decades, the events of 2015 and 2016 showed that although rhodes university prides itself on being a liberal, diverse, universal and accepting space, for many students rhodes is not. it is rather a home for those who are white and middle class, or those who are prepared to assimilate into whiteness and the middle class. (alasow, 2015, n.p.) for meth (2017), “it is arguable whether there has been any significant opening up of spaces at rhodes for the flowering of epistemologies, ontologies, theories and questions other than those that have long been hegemonic and that have exercised dominance” (p. 105). rhodes ranks regularly as the university with the best undergraduate pass rates in the country. however, on closer scrutiny it is clear that pass rates are still skewed along racial lines with proportionately many more black than white students failing and dropping out. the recent protests at rhodes were fuelled largely by black students calling for the decolonisation of an institution that they experienced as alienating, partly because it is modeled on traditional british universities that valorise western forms of knowledge and pedagogy. students critiqued the hidden middle-class values that characterise rhodes. rhodes experienced three sets of student protests, one related to sexual violence, another that focused on the untransformed institutional culture of the institution, and the more widespread ones calling for free higher education. each of these protests has prompted some academics and academic leaders to think much more critically about the ways in which ideas, beliefs, values, and academic histories influence curricula and pedagogic choices. in this article we report on the findings of a small slice of the data from a case study in which we probed whether and how the protests conscientised hods at rhodes to think differently about their roles as academic leaders. we argue that at rhodes, and perhaps at other hwis, it was as a result of these protests, experienced by some as sudden and unexpected, that many academics and academic leaders began, for the first time, to understand how their taken-forgranted curricula, choices of knowledge, teaching and assessment methods were affecting the majority of black students. in the first part of the article we provide a brief overview of the causes and implications of the student protests, predominantly at hwis. next, we explore the changing roles of hods grant et al.: an exploratory study of hods’ responses . . . 75 brought about by increased pressure as a consequence of the growing demands from within and beyond the universities themselves. we argue that hods play a crucial role in how academics engage with one another and with students about the academic projects in their disciplines. following that we outline the methodology of the study. we conclude with a discussion on what our study uncovered about how hods at rhodes understood their roles and their responses to the students’ calls for the decolonisation of higher education (he). student protests: 2015 and 2016 in south africa, after 1994, there was an awareness of the strong imperative to transform all aspects of the he sector to eradicate the negative effects of colonialism and apartheid. although there have been some changes, the sector has remained largely untransformed. in 2009, saleem badat, then vice-chancellor of rhodes, wrote that the troublesome stasis and continuities in conditions and institutions include: limited access to students from working-class and rural poor social origins, the social composition of academic staff which remains largely white, limited decolonisation, de-racialisation and de-gendering of knowledge production, and institutional cultures dominated by historical tradition. (p. 455) by early 2015, the bubbling discontent with the status quo among many students erupted in the form of widespread student protests at south african (sa) universities. at hwis particularly, students expressed anger at the slow pace of change in relation to institutional cultures, the predominantly white academic staff complement, and the fact that curricula, teaching, and assessment had not been adapted to respond to the more diverse student body. it is an indictment of these institutions that it took increasingly violent protests for academics to begin to understand the extent to which many students felt alienated from the institutions and their ways of working. these protests were sparked largely by a university of cape town (uct) postgraduate student who poured human waste on the statue of cecil john rhodes because students saw the statue as a symbol of an institutional culture of alienation, racism, and exclusion (mamdani, 2016). these protests quickly spread to other institutions, disrupting academic activities and, in some instances, led to violence, injury, and the destruction of property. at rhodes, the rhodes so white movement raised similar issues related to calls for the decolonisation of universities. the slogan “we can’t breathe” was used to epitomise the nature of the suffocating institutional culture. the open stellenbosch movement tackled issues of racism more generally, and students at both stellenbosch university and the university of pretoria protested against institutional language policies (see badat, 2016). early in 2015, the office of institutional culture and equity at rhodes organised a conference on curriculum. at this event a small group of black students and staff, with support from a group of postgraduate students from the university of the witwatersrand, made very clear their anger at the slow pace of change in relation to curriculum at rhodes. soon after that, in solidarity with the uct protesters, rhodes students established the black students 76 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 movement. naicker (2016) said of this movement, “they too were troubled by the institutional culture at rhodes, the composition of academic staff, and the curriculum, which did not reflect the locality of the university or its place within the african continent” (p. 54). by late 2015 and early 2016 at many institutions, including rhodes, the student protests moved their focus to tuition fee increases, student debt, financial aid, and the desire for free higher education. these issues are strongly linked to the calls for decolonising education since they point to the continued racialised inequalities between the rich and the poor in south africa (cmoloi, makgoba, & miruka, 2017). naicker (2016) argues that embedded in the student protests are deep concerns for the ways in which “race and class privilege have been reified in south african universities” (p. 53). in the literature, authors offer a range of ideas regarding what is meant by decolonisation and they highlight different aspects of this complex process (de oliveira andreotti, stein, ahenakew, & hunt, 2015; maldonado-torres, 2011). for the purposes of our analysis we chose to use the concepts of epistemic inclusion/exclusion and social inclusion/exclusion to explore hods’ understandings of the calls to decolonise he. epistemic and social inclusion/exclusion at the heart of curriculum is the selection of knowledge to which students are introduced— the disciplinary canons that are drawn from. given the history of colonialism and apartheid, the selection of knowledge has been strongly biased towards a eurocentric canon that universalises knowledge, thus attributing truth only to a western way of knowledge production. the reason for this bias towards a eurocentric canon is that most academic staff members in sa universities are white and many black academics have themselves been schooled in western/ eurocentric traditions and find it difficult to think beyond their firmly entrenched disciplinary identities and canons (heleta, 2016). the curriculum content in most disciplines gives students the message that western knowledge is all powerful and that it excludes the possibility of their seeing the value of other kinds of knowledge. as leibowitz (2017) has pointed out, such curricula are "inadequate to solve the problems of social injustice and inequality of our times" (p. 101). the almost universal use of western knowledge traditions in curricula has contributed significantly to the epistemic and social exclusion experienced by many students. it has resulted in “a hierarchy of superior and inferior knowledge and, thus, of superior and inferior people” (grosfoguel, 2007, p. 214). mbembe (2015) and ngugi (1981) argue that universities need to completely re-vision and restructure their curricula to ensure that the knowledge introduced to students includes a range of different knowledges and that africa should be at the centre of all curriculum decisions. visvanathan (2016) has talked about the need for bringing a “democracy of knowledges” together in dialogue. however, before this can happen academics need to be aware of the systems that have been, and still are, in place that have enabled epistemic/cognitive injustice. “cognitive justice recognises the right of different forms of grant et al.: an exploratory study of hods’ responses . . . 77 knowledge to co-exist but adds that this plurality needs to go beyond tolerance or liberalism to an active recognition of the need for diversity” (n.p.). according to the department of education (doe) (2008), after 1994 there was to be a “reorientation away from the apartheid knowledge system, in which curriculum was used as a tool of exclusion, to a democratic curriculum that is inclusive of all human thought” (p. 89). the student protests made it abundantly clear that there had been little progress in this regard. as the doe report states, the curriculum “is inextricably intertwined with the institutional culture and, given that the latter remains white and eurocentric at the historically white institutions, the institutional environment is not conducive to curriculum reform” (p. 91). particularly at hwis, approaches to curriculum, teaching, learning, and assessment are still based on assimilationist models that position black students as deficient. it is therefore unsurprising that most black students in these institutions feel both epistemically and socially excluded and that this was highlighted during the student protests. black students, particularly those from working class backgrounds, felt that the culture rendered their presence on campuses invisible (mbembe 2015). increasing numbers of black students in elite institutions (such as rhodes) described experiencing these cultures as white. the protests made it clear that many students were highly critical of and questioned “the very foundations and practices of the liberal institution” (naicker 2016, p. 57). institutional cultures at hwis made them feel separate from the socio-cultural life of the university and the academic project. leibowitz (2017) has stressed that learning is not only cognitive, it is “active, affective and experiential” (p. 97); knowledge cannot be separated from coming to know. according to the current vice-chancellor of rhodes university, sizwe mabizela, decolonising means more than rethinking what and whose knowledge is selected for curricula. the student protests made it clear that black students at institutions such as rhodes do not feel at home and that there is little “recognition and appreciation of different lived experiences that students bring with them into the classroom” (mabizela, 2015, n.p.). some of the pedagogic, and especially assessment practices employed are not aligned with who students are as people; students are arguing for “greater recognition that teaching and learning is not only an epistemological project, but, in essence, also an ontological one” (vorster & quinn, 2017, p. 9). from the preceding sections it is clear that the changes students called for were complex and required hods to interrogate their understandings of and responses to the students’ calls and the implications of these for their roles as academic leaders. the roles of hods in higher education nguyen’s (2013) review of forty years of literature on the roles of hods in universities in the west recognises that while some roles are shared, others differ markedly across contexts. hods are usually responsible for managing staff, students, curricula, resources, and budgets; communication with senior management and others within and beyond the institution; and for 78 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 the professional development of staff (sewerin & holmberg, 2017). globally, the roles of hods have become much more complex as a result of the influences of, among other things, the massification of universities and the concomitant increase in student diversity, the emergence of the knowledge economy, and the ubiquitousness of information and communications technologies. these changes have led to fiscal constraints and to increasing managerialism and the bureaucratisation of universities and probably represent the most serious challenges with which hods have to contend. these changes have led to the erosion of the traditional collegial leadership and decision-making roles of hods (bryman, 2007). jansen (2005) has argued that leaders who focus on “narrow administrative tasks” (p. 205) do so at the expense of much needed strategic approaches required to rethink and reposition institutions and their activities in response to contextual imperatives. in south africa, hods have also had to respond to the national policy agenda aimed at transforming he by, inter alia, concentrating their efforts on changing the demographic profiles of their staff and students. although there has been some focus on transforming curricula, pedagogy, and assessment to facilitate epistemological access for students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, the changes that have taken place have been woefully inadequate. shields (2006) has warned that it is “[a]t our peril, [that] we ignore some of the increasingly strong critiques of educational organisations themselves and of their role in perpetuating inequalities in democratic societies” (p. 64). she has argued that what is needed to address these issues is transformative leadership. when hods focus only on management and administration they are more likely to pursue forms of leadership, such as transactional and transformational leadership, that focus inwards on the organisation rather than outwards on the society in which the organisation is located. transactional leadership is about exchanges to achieve mutual benefit while transformational leadership is directed at improving the effectiveness of organisations (shields, 2009). these modes of leadership are increasingly inadequate in a country such as south africa because they ignore the influence of social inequality on the practices of educational institutions, including universities. in the sa context where the effects of long-term racial segregation and discrimination are ongoing, what is needed is transformative leadership. transformative leadership can be understood as “an exercise of power and authority that begins with questions of justice, democracy, and the dialectic between individual accountability and social responsibility” (weiner, 2003, p. 89). it is essentially value-based leadership in a given social context that “can open up new possibilities for transformation and change” (astin & astin, 2001, p. 2). the aim of transformative leadership is thus to contribute to creating a socially just and democratic society that recognises diversity and offers equal opportunity to all (shields, 2009). hods with a transformative agenda will therefore recognise the need to engage in dialogue with staff and students about difficult issues of equity, and equality, and inclusion as an integral part of their role. grant et al.: an exploratory study of hods’ responses . . . 79 methodology the main research question for the study was: how do hods at rhodes university conceptualise their roles in the context of the calls to decolonise higher education in south africa? the data generation was undertaken in two phases. in the first phase, a questionnaire was designed for hods that was piloted and revised before it was administered electronically through google forms. the questionnaire was made available to all rhodes hods, a total of 42. there were 20 responses (a 48% return rate). completed questionnaires were labelled q1 to q20 and responses analysed to identify major themes. the data for this phase of the research was limited and did not allow for in-depth probing of hods’ perceptions. it was intended to give us a broad sense of whether and how hods responded to the students’ calls for decolonised higher education. although not reported on in this article, the second phase of the data generation process involved in-depth semi-structured interviews with hods as well as document analysis. however, for this article we drew only on the questionnaire data to present a largely descriptive account of how the hods at rhodes responded to the decolonisation calls, focusing specifically on the following questions. • how do hods understand the calls to decolonise he? • how would you describe your role as an hod at rhodes? • in what ways have the recent changes in the he context influenced your role as an hod at rhodes? • in what ways have hods’ leadership practices changed in response to the calls for decolonisation? ethical approval was obtained for the project from the centre for higher education research, teaching and learning ethics committee and the director of human resources. although we undertook to try not to reveal individual participants’ identities, we also acknowledged to participants (in writing) that, given the small size of rhodes, they may be identifiable. in a bid to protect participants’ identities we chose not to disclose the departments they head. we also made it clear that a study of this nature was bound to result in critiques of the university and even of the stances of individuals who participated in the study. however, we believe that critique is important in universities and that in this case we will ensure that the critique is constructive and does not result in any reputational risk for the university or individual hods. in the following section we provide an analysis of the questionnaire data using some of the concepts from the literature on decolonisation and leadership in he as discussed above to better understand how hods conceptualised their roles in a changing context and their initial responses to the students’ calls for decolonisation. 80 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 analysis and discussion understanding the need to decolonise higher education the responses to our first research question showed that the protests were a stimulus for hods to confront the reasons for the protest and to begin to grapple with what decolonisation might mean for the institution and for their role. from the data it is evident that tensions existed in the hod collective since not all hods understood the need to decolonise at all or in the same way. a number of hods expressed the opinion that the institution needed to “reconceptualise”, “reshape”, and “rethink” many of its existing ways of being and its practices. for some this entailed an imperative to take into account the african context “and what that means for institutional practices” (q3). some suggested a need to change approaches to teaching and research; for q8, they need to “cater for the unique challenges we face in south africa and africa, while still remaining a world class university.” for q14, rethinking the university is about questioning “white western ways of relating, doing, and engaging; to resist arrogance and patronising knowledge-bearing, to embrace and explore diversity in the many dimensions of academia.” although these excerpts do not make explicit the complexity and diversity of different knowledge systems, they show that hods are beginning to grapple with what decolonising means. this suggests a need for more spaces of engagement in which university leaders and academics can share their understandings of how universities might be transformed. for q5, “it would be useful to have forums where one can talk about and discuss [role reconceptualisation] but then again the results of this research could be a start.” in expressing their emerging understanding of decolonisation, some hods recognised the importance of challenging the relevance of the rules and symbols of universities in africa such as rhodes. for some, rhodes’ institutional culture and many of its traditions, policies, and practices needed to change if rhodes is to become a truly african university. for example, q15 expressed the opinion that if rhodes were to be regarded as a “home for all” this could “only be achieved if current attitudes and values are challenged.” likewise, q3 described how “reshaping universities would include reviewing institutional practices, rituals and symbols, amongst other things.” in addition, critiquing taken-for-granted curricula and teaching and learning practices was viewed as crucial for decolonising the academic project. q3 challenged colleagues to examine “whether our curricula can reflect the (south) african and global south contexts more appropriately” and q2 underscored the need to “introduce worldviews that have hitherto been marginalized, and sometimes even labelled in very problematic and stereotypical ways.” some hods have begun to understand, in theory at least, that “real transformation will entail the radical process of including the methods, people and ideas that have been systematically excluded from our society” (alasow, 2015, n.p.). however, it remains to be seen how this theoretical understanding has been or will be translated into transformed practices. grant et al.: an exploratory study of hods’ responses . . . 81 although, while the majority of hods (approximately 80%) seemed prepared to engage at some level with the calls of the protesting students, others were either not persuaded by the decolonisation call or thought it had little bearing on their disciplines: for q7, “the idea applies little to us” and q10 said, “i have no understanding of what it means. the term decolonise is so general.” q17 referred to the call as “poorly defined populism.” understanding these responses, particularly in relation to the differences between the humanities and the sciences, requires further investigation and will be taken up in the second phase of this research. hod role conceptualisation the roles of the hods at rhodes were understood generally in relation to the traditional pillars of he: teaching, research, and community engagement. for example, q13 spoke of his/her role as providing “academic leadership in terms of [all aspects of] the academic project.” because not all hods understood decolonisation in the same way, tensions emerged in how they conceptualised their roles. the tensions were caused by the struggle to navigate the messiness of balancing the transformative leadership and bureaucratic management aspects of their role. the data suggests that while some hods wished to exercise transformative leadership which would contribute to enhancing social justice and democratic values, changes in the he landscape globally, and at rhodes, have made this difficult. this has led to many of them seeing their roles as predominantly managerial and administrative. as q18, put it, “hods have less time to concentrate on leadership as they are required to be administrators instead” while q20 said, “i don’t see myself as a ‘leader’ [but] more as an administrator.” historically, policies and practices at universities like rhodes have privileged academic freedom, a heterarchical division of labour and what bush (1995) refers to as a collegial leadership model. however, recent changes resulting from neoliberal influences have resulted in bureaucratic, top-down forms of management, which are perceived by the hods as undermining their ability to exercise meaningful transformative leadership. q20 said, “there’s a huge amount of bureaucracy to get on top of; and endless, endless meetings!” for q12, instead of values-based leadership, the role “has somehow become about ensuring safety of buildings and building layers of bureaucracy, and less about the ‘academic project.’” these excerpts suggest a growing sense of frustration on the part of hods in response to the shifting institutional norms. thwarted by these institutional constraints, a few hods argued that what was needed were more enabling conditions for exercising transformative leadership in more meaningful ways: “let hods ‘read’ the situation for themselves and give them space to ‘lead the way out’ as partners with departmental staff, not bureaucrats expected to ‘toe the line, or else’ type of thing” (q2). q17 called for a climate in which hods have more influence “to shape the academic project and push back on the considerable administrative bureaucracy.” however, q4 observed that some hods “have a tendency to operate under a ‘deficit mentality’” and suggested that they make excuses for “why things cannot be done rather than what can be 82 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 done.” in addition, this respondent commented that at rhodes “we take a long time to make decisions, indicating a lack of decisiveness.” despite the tensions highlighted in this section, the discussion that follows provides examples of individual hods beginning to respond in concrete ways to the issues arising from the student protests. actions in response to the decolonisation calls while a few hods were perplexed and resistant to calls to decolonise he, for the majority, the calls were a stimulus to rethink their academic leadership role. predominantly schooled in western ways of thinking, some hods admitted that until the protests, they were oblivious to, or underestimated the extent of, dissatisfaction in the broader student community. the disruption of the status quo catalysed hods into seeing, listening, and acting in different ways. it opened up new possibilities for transformation and change and the opportunity to lead in more transformative ways. actions in response to the protests varied. for q11, a starting point entailed “[taking] a good hard look at our university culture, staff and curriculum and [making] ourselves more representative of, and relevant to, the african context and the majority of our students.” the imperative for hods was now to listen more carefully and, following engeström (2015), hear the students, in a spirit of multivoicedness. this call to action is captured here. my colleagues and i are aware that the student protests are in a sense an indictment of the fact that we have not sufficiently understood the extent to which many students have felt alienated from the institution and its ways of working, including in relation to curricula and pedagogic practices. as hod [my] role is to influence academic practices, it is important that i understand the substance and implications of the students’ calls for changing the institution and to consider how best to respond to the calls. (q3) hods reported on a number of new practices that were introduced (or that they were planning to introduce with colleagues in the departments) that aimed to mitigate the effects on students of epistemic and/or social exclusion. epistemic inclusion in the data it was evident that many hods believe that western forms of knowledge, traditionally privileged in most departments at rhodes, should be open to critique. q11 explained the importance of “recognising different perspectives, values, worldviews, indigenous knowledge, african scholars and scholarly work, locally applicable examples and case studies, social justice and economic issues especially in relation to living in the global south.” this growing awareness of the importance of knowledges from the global south is also illustrated in q4’s response. we always stress locality (global/local) in our context. our focus is on leadership for sustainability. we apply our 4 e model: economy, ethics, ecology and equity. we grant et al.: an exploratory study of hods’ responses . . . 83 actively teach african leadership. our qualification is internationally accredited. so, for us it is a constant interrogation. we are looking at initiatives to introduce the other official languages into our teaching. the protesting student voice alerted hods to the need for critical curriculum engagement and revision; for q7, “[we need] to make the curriculum more african.” extending this idea, q3 described how “we have been made more aware of what we include and exclude from our curricula and are thinking about how we can make it possible for [students] from a broader range of contexts and academic experiences and practices to complete our courses successfully.” from the questionnaire data it would seem that although some progress has been made in terms of understanding the need for challenging traditional disciplinary knowledge, not all hods are fully aware of how current knowledge traditions have contributed to epistemic injustice. not all academics at rhodes seem ready to move beyond tolerance of differences to an understanding of what an active recognition of drawing on a plurality of knowledges may mean for their curricula (see visvanathan, 2016). the data points to differences among hods from different disciplinary backgrounds, with those from the sciences particularly finding it more difficult to envisage thinking beyond traditional scientific knowledge. social inclusion in addition to acknowledging the importance of epistemic justice, most of the respondents also recognised the importance of social inclusion for student learning. in the face of the disruptions, a number of the hods spoke about their understanding that it was important for them to create a culture of inclusivity in their departments so that all students and staff felt that they belonged. diversity in the staff and student population and the need for different kinds of relationships were both acknowledged. as q9 observed, “relationships are changing, at least for a few members of staff, to move away from a ‘colonial’ model.” regarding the increasing diversity of the student population and efforts towards social inclusion, q4 said, “different views must be respected. there isn’t a one size fits all. i certainly don’t want to suggest that this is a threat, it is a great opportunity.” the protests, it seems, triggered an awareness of the need for continued efforts towards more inclusive ways of being, for students and staff alike. what is not clear from the data and needs to be probed further is whether hods (and their colleagues) have really understood how alienating the culture of an institution like rhodes can be for some black students and staff and whether they have moved beyond seeing their role as facilitating the assimilation of black students and staff into the existing middle-class, white culture at rhodes. from the data it emerged that tensions were experienced within some departments in relation to how academics and hods responded to the protests. “certainly, hods had to deal with crisis issues, unhappy staff and students . . . coping with stressful situations” (q4). q16 described how “some colleagues are impatient with the rate of change; others are threatened and uncomfortable. dealing with people’s heightened emotions has become the workplace norm, under these circumstances.” q6 was of the view that “it’s hard to convince people that 84 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 change is good. there is a lot of reticence out there, a strong aversion to risk.” given the increasingly volatile situation during the protests, it is unsurprising that hods were concerned about the risks attached to their actions: as q16 said, “it seems that the margin for error has increased, and any misstep is incredibly costly, personally and professionally.” these findings echo heleta’s (2016) view that the calls for decolonisation have unsettled many sa academics, but in different ways and for different reasons. this is another aspect that needs dedicated attention in future research projects. emerging from the data was a strong understanding that as student cohorts have become increasingly diverse, academics need to pay attention not only to what is taught, but also to issues of teaching, learning, and assessment. for example, as q11 put it, “so changes in the content we teach are important, but also the way we teach. we need to think about new and different ways for students to learn and develop knowledge.” q5 spoke of a renewed sensitivity to “content, teaching methods, text books prescribed and guest speakers used. there is more open questioning as to what is appropriate and relevant.” q16 said that s/he had “motivated for a change from sat exams to continuous assessment as being more fair, just, inclusive and appropriate to the subject.” a number of respondents expressed their awareness of the pedagogic implications of english as the language of learning and teaching at rhodes: “i also often wonder about the issue of language and whether we should give this more consideration” (q11). q19 noted that there was a need to change assessment practices that favoured students with good english writing skills, while q13 reported that in his/her department “the language of teaching and learning has become flexible, as it has become easier to switch codes . . . and our tutors helped a lot in this regard.” q1 described the need to challenge the linguistic status quo at universities in order to ensure that “students achieve academic literacy in english in order to make epistemic access possible, while at the same time affirming students’ linguistic (and also class, gender, regional and cultural) diversity.” these insights are significant and show that some hods and academics are thinking deeply about the role of language as an instrument of oppression and exclusion in colonial universities. they are beginning to understand the importance of using indigenous languages as resources for teaching and learning. in summary, we argue that the data indicates that the majority of hods who responded to our questionnaire have begun to engage with issues of epistemic and social inclusion and have considered how important both are for ensuring that all students are given equal opportunities to learn and flourish. conclusion the tumultuous protests of 2015 and 2016 were an urgent call for the decolonisation of south african universities. rhodes university, an historically white institution, was not exempt from this call. with its colonial history and its entrenched culture of whiteness, the university has struggled, since the official end of apartheid, to eradicate its racist, patriarchal discourses grant et al.: an exploratory study of hods’ responses . . . 85 and practices and bring about radical transformation which affirms and respects difference and the creation of an inclusive culture (meth, 2017). despite the prevalence of a strong transformation discourse in the he sector nationally, few academics at rhodes had engaged deeply with it, perhaps because of a discourse of excellence prevalent in the institution. it was thus only when the stronger decolonisation discourse was overtly foregrounded during the curriculum conference and the protests of 2015 and 2016 that many more academics and hods at rhodes began to engage more seriously with what decolonisation could mean for them, their colleagues, and their students. against this background, our research sought to understand how hods conceptualised their roles in response to the calls to decolonise. from our analysis of the data it is clear that the student calls had disrupted the taken-for-granted culture and practices in many departments at rhodes, more so in the humanities than in some science departments. for the most part, hods acknowledged that, prior to the protests, they had not paid sufficient attention to the increasing student diversity in their departments and had not adequately considered student feelings of exclusion and othering as a consequence of this rapidly changing student body. the protests therefore prompted many hods into action; collectively, with willing colleagues, they began to reflect on and critique the social and epistemic practices in their departments. epistemically, this has led to many beginning to question the knowledges privileged in curricula. socially, this has led to an increased awareness of, and value attributed to, social differences in the student body, particularly in relation to race, gender, language, and socio-economic backgrounds, and, most significantly, what these differences mean for teaching, learning, and assessment. a closer reading of the data, however, revealed that an incremental approach to change is preferred by many hods. as custodians of the academic project, they are open to tackling discourses of colonisation, patriarchy, racism, sexism, and the culture of whiteness at rhodes, but they are cautious, rather than radical, in this endeavour. this stands in stark contrast to the protesting students who called for radical transformation and the immediate inclusion of “methods, people and ideas where they have been systematically excluded” (alasow 2015, n.p). this complex and fraught array of challenges faced by hods during the protests, propelled many of them into rethinking their academic leadership roles. the protests highlighted that traditional forms of leadership that focus only inwards on the organisation currently have little purchase in heis because they carry with them the legacies of “patriarchy, ‘governmentality,’ hierarchical administrative practices, authoritarianism, and domination” (weiner, 2003, p. 89). some hods began to realise the need for an alternative form of leadership that could focus outwards on society, one that would embrace dialogue with staff and students about difficult issues of equity, equality, and inclusion as an integral part of their role. transformative leadership, as such an alternative, recognises that higher education is not only about individual achievement but also about public good; it is about democratic citizenship and participation of all in civil society (shields, 2009). hods, in their role as transformative leaders, are therefore called on to engage with students, listen genuinely to 86 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 them, take cognisance of what they say, and create opportunities for them to participate in decision-making practices in order to develop as democratic citizens. there is still much work to be done at rhodes before it can be called a home for all. to date, and despite the attempts of many hods to bring about changes in their departments, the institution “has yet to succeed in uprooting inherited cultures and practices and bringing about the far-reaching transformations that are necessary and long overdue” (meth, 2017, p. 105). references alasow, j. 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(2003). secretary paulo freiré and the democratization of power: toward a theory of transformative leadership. educational philosophy and theory, 35(1), 89– 106. journal of education, 2017 issue 70, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za tinder or flint: igniting grade 2 teachers’ understanding of learning, teaching and assessment nicoleen schuld, anil kanjee and toy white t shwane u niversity of t echnology schuldn @ tut.ac.za, kanjeea@ tut.ac.za, w hitecj@ tut.ac.za (received 27 m arch 2017; accepted 11 decem ber 2017) abstract t his article reports on a study conducted to determine grade 2 teachers’ knowledge and understanding of learning, teaching and assessment for use in the planning and implementation of a large-scale professional development programme on assessment for learning. a baseline survey was used to collect data from teachers in 86 schools, randomly selected across fee paying and no-fee schools in two gauteng districts. t eacher responses across both school types indicate a predominant emphasis on teacher-centred approaches, despite acknowledging the importance of effective learner engagement in their lessons. an overwhelming majority displayed limited knowledge of formative assessment, often conflating formative with formal assessment. m ore concerning however, was the absence of a deeper understanding regarding the use of assessment for enhancing learner participation and for identifying specific learning needs of learners. t he implications of these findings for supporting teachers to develop and implement formative assessment approaches are explored further. t he paper concludes by noting areas for further research to determine whether professional development programmes, implemented within the context of learning and teaching in south african schools, can succeed in enhancing teachers’ knowledge and skills for the effective use of formative assessment approaches to improve learning for all. introduction assessment is one of the core responsibilities of any teacher, and a critical requirement for ensuring enhanced learning and teaching in the classroom. according to the revised policy on the minimum requirements for teacher education qualifications (mrteq) (department of higher education and training, 2015), all newly qualified teachers should (amongst other competences): . . . know who their learners are and how they learn; understand their individual needs and tailor their teaching accordingly; be able to assess learners in reliable and varied ways, as well as being able to use the results of assessment to improve teaching and learning; be able to reflect critically on their own practice, in theoretically informed ways and in conjunction with their professional community of colleagues in order to constantly improve and adapt to evolving circumstances. http://joe.ukzn.ac.za 110 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 the competences imply that teachers’ assessment practices will be based on their knowledge of learning theories, their interpretations of assessment results, their ability to reflect on the results and their own teaching with the aim of improving their teaching and learning practices. furthermore, the national protocol for assessment grades r–12 (department of basic education (dbe), 2012, p.34) defines assessment as “a process of collecting, analysing and interpreting information to assist teachers, parents and other stakeholders in making decisions about the progress of learners”. the purpose of classroom assessment (both formal and informal) is to obtain ample evidence of learner achievement by means of various forms of assessment (dbe, 2012). formative assessment, also known as assessment for learning (afl), is an integral part of the learning and teaching process that requires active teacher-learner interaction as well as specific descriptive feedback to enhance learning and to move learners forward (black and wiliam, 1998; clark, 2001; saqa, 2014). heritage (2007) regards formative assessment as the systematic process of continuously gathering evidence about learning. hargreaves (2005, p.218) views teachers’ conception of formative assessment as “measurement” of the learners’ learning or “inquiry” as “reflecting (on), diagnosing . . .engaging with, understanding (of)” learners’ learning. the saqa (2014) policy notes that formative assessment includes both non-formal and informal assessments that are used primarily for improving teaching and learning activities. summative assessment or assessment of learning (aol) are employed by teachers to evaluate the achievement and progress of learners in a subject and in a grade (dbe, 2012). various researchers (brown, 2003; hill, 2000) note that summative assessment is conducted to attest learner achievement and progress, to promote learners and to establish teacher, school, and system effectiveness. the learners’ performance is recorded and reported to learners, parents, schools and other stakeholders to enable the planning of teaching and learning activities by teachers (dbe, 2012). the saqa (2014) policy also notes that summative assessment is usually formal and aims to evaluate and/or certify learning that has taken place. despite the central role of formative assessment or assessment for learning advocated in the policy documents (kanjee & sayed, 2013), teachers have limited knowledge and experience in the effective use of assessment for improving learning and teaching (kanjee & mthembu, 2015; kuze & shumba; 2011; van laren & james, 2008). moreover, there is a dearth of information on how teachers understand assessment, and in particular teachers’ views and beliefs on assessment, teaching and learning and how this impact on the enhancement of learning and teaching in all schools in south africa, across the socio-economic quintile categories. to address this challenge, the school of education at the tshwane university of technology (tut) embarked on a comprehensive research programme to develop relevant strategies, systems and policies to enhance the use of classroom assessment, both formative and summative, for improving learning and teaching in south african schools. specifically, the research programme sought to: (i) critically review current policies for schools and its impact on teacher assessment practices; (ii) implement a district-wide professional development programme in assessment for teachers; (iii) establish an integrated classroom assessment programme for pre-service teachers; and (iv) produce relevant assessment schuld, kanjee and w hite: tinder or flint. . . 111 learning and teaching materials and tools for use in schools and universities to support teachers in enhancing their classroom practice. this paper, however, only focuses on one aspect of this research programme, that is teachers’ assessment practices and beliefs about learning and teaching. to ensure effective implementation of the professional development programme for improving teacher knowledge, skills and practice regarding assessment, baseline information was obtained from teachers to be used in planning the programme as well as for the development of materials. information was obtained on teacher beliefs and understanding of teaching, learning and assessment as these are reflected in how they conceptualise their roles in the classroom, their choice of classroom activities, and the strategies they use (opre, 2015; mui so & hoi lee, 2011). as noted by opre (2015, p.229) “examining teachers’ beliefs provides a means for understanding the relationship between beliefs and student outcomes, and it also provides insight into teachers’ classroom practices and pedagogy”. this paper reports on a study conducted by the authors as part of the larger district-wide professional development programme in assessment. the study reports on the results of a baseline survey conducted to determine teachers’ knowledge and understanding of learners’ learning, their teaching approach, the role of teachers and learners in the assessment process, and the implications of these on the implementation of the assessment for learning professional development programme. in addition, the study also sought to determine differences among teachers’ approaches to learning and teaching in no-fee and fee-paying schools. in the next section, the theoretical framework underlying the study is presented followed by the key research questions. next, the methodology applied to address these questions is presented, followed by a discussion of the results, highlighting implications for classroom practice regarding the application of formative assessment approaches. the paper concludes by noting areas for further research pertaining to teacher professional development, and for improving classroom practice across schools in the different poverty quintile categories. teacher pedagogy and classroom practice individual classroom environments, according to schuh (2004), comprise complex interactions between teachers and learners that are prompted by several factors that include instructional practices, prescribed curricula, available resources and facilities, teacher and learner perceptions and beliefs as well as available support systems and accountability regimes that impact on schools. similarly, schweisfurth (2011) notes that the teaching and learning process in any classroom are deeply embedded in the cultural, resource, institutional and policy contexts in which they take place, and further argues that classroom interactions comprise the heart of pedagogy. given the contested definitions and different understanding of the term pedagogy, in this paper, the following definition proposed by alexander (2008, p.59) is used: “pedagogy is the observable act of teaching together with its attendant discourse of educational theories, values, evidence and justifications. it is what 112 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 one needs to know, and the skills one needs to command, in order to make and justify the many different kinds of decisions of which teaching is constituted”. for westbrook, durrani, brown, orr, pryor, boddy and salivi (2013) teachers’ thinking and ideas are manifested in their overall pedagogic approaches and varies between teacher-centred and learner-centred approaches depending on the teachers’ teaching and learning experiences, training and the theories of learning that inform their practice. schuh (2004), however, cautions against interpreting teacher-centred and learner-centred approaches as a dichotomy, arguing that teachers may find value in both these approaches as they develop and improve their understanding of the teaching and learning process. similarly, barrett (2007) argues that within the context of low-income countries, the polarisation between teacher-centred and learner-centred approaches is unhelpful as this simplification does not adequately recognise teachers’ values and ideas as well as their efforts to address their challenging contexts within which teaching and learning takes place. barrett (2007, p.290) also notes that “it is possible to recognise and build on learners’ prior knowledge; to recognise and cater for different learning styles; to value individuals’ contributions and celebrate individuals’ achievements within a whole-class ‘teacher-centred’ practice”. william (2013) states that teachers, learners and peers play a critical role in the learning and teaching process. teachers are responsible for creating learning opportunities for learners to learn. the teacher-centred approach implies that teachers teach well and those learners who can, will learn, whereas a learner-centred approach entails engaging all learners and supporting all learners to master the learning objectives (allen, 2004). a comparison between teacher-centred and learner-centred instruction are given in table 1 (adapted from allen, 2004). schuld, kanjee and w hite: tinder or flint. . . 113 table 1: a comparison between teacher-centred and learner-centred instruction concept teacher-centred learner-centred how learners learn • listening • reading • independent learning, often in competition for grades • learners construct knowledge by integrating new learning into what they already know • learning is viewed as a cognitive and social act pedagogy based on delivery of information based on engagement of learners course delivery • lecture • assignments and exams for summative purposes • active learning • assignments for formative purposes • collaborative learning • community service learning • cooperative learning • online, asynchronous, self-directed learning • problem-based learning effective teaching • teach (present information) well and those who can will learn • engage learners in their learning • help all learners master learning objectives • use classroom assessment to improve courses • use programme assessment to improve programmes westbrook et al. (2013, p.17) regard learner-centeredness as a situation where “teachers accept a more democratic and less authoritative role, know how to set up effective group work and tasks and to offer skilful supported instruction at the point it is needed”. various studies regard learner-centredness as problem solving and higher order thinking skills (megahed, ginsburg, abdellah & zohry, 2008) where questions are asked to determine learners’ experience and pre-knowledge (epstein & yuthas, 2012) and to promote interactions between teachers and learners (blum, 2009). but tabulawa (2009) and schweisfurth (2011) argue that teacher-centred practices do not automatically depict the learner as powerless. in a learner-centred paradigm, teaching and assessing is interwoven and assessment is used to promote and diagnose learning (huba & freed, 2000). atjonen (2014, p.19) found that there was an increase in interactions between teachers and learners and “reciprocal discussions” was a platform for learners to become assessors of their own learning. cook-sather (2002, p.5) concurs and state that “learners need to be the authors of their own understanding and assessors of their own learning”. however, to promote active learner participation in classroom discussions, grossman, hamerness and mcdonald (2009) highlight three essential requirements: teachers’ question design, teachers’ monitoring of 114 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 learner participation and teachers’ response to learner ideas. it is argued that a focus on a learner-centred approach and active participation of learners are key components to support learners’ learning and to enhance learner achievement. active learning to elicit evidence of learning according to carr, palner and hagel (2015) active learning indicates learners’ efforts to actively construct their knowledge. it accentuates higher order thinking, participation in activities, construction of new knowledge and building of scientific skills (freeman, eddy, , mcdonough, smith, okoroafar et al., 2014; handelsman, miller & pfund, 2007). song and koh (2010, p.4) found that teachers who believe that learners are active participants of learning, require learners to monitor and assess their own understanding and “learn by knowledge construction”. these authors also found that teachers who are interested in developing learners’ understanding, employ dialogue and “rich questioning for student thinking” which was made noticeable through “student task and student talk” (2010, p.6). the teacher’s ability to guide the learning process depends on his or her creativity in asking learners questions that are rich, relevant and thought-provoking (wiliam, 2011). similarly, grossman et al. (2009) regards the core practice of teaching as teachers’ learning about learners’ understanding. this implies that teachers should elicit “student thinking during interactive teaching”, anticipate student responses and “elicit further thinking” (grossman et al., 2009, p.9). learner-centred teaching approaches result in increased learner satisfaction (kemm & dantas, 2007) and motivation (chung & chow, 2004; triantafyllakos, palaigeorgiou & tsoukalas, 2008). in the teaching-learning process, teachers and learners share knowledge through classroom discussion, higher order questioning, reciprocal teaching and scaffolding. mayer (2004, p.14) views learning as an “active process in which learners are active sense makers who seek to build coherent and organised knowledge”. we maintain that learners co-construct knowledge through the teaching of the teacher and teaching each other under the guidance of the teacher with the purpose to bridge the gap between where the learners are and where the teacher wants them to be. it implies that learners are active participants in their own learning. theories of learning a key factor impacting on teachers’ pedagogic approaches applied in the classroom pertains to the specific theories of learning that inform their practice. in their review curriculum, pedagogy and teaching practices in developing countries, westbook et al. (2013) found four theories of learning that underpin different pedagogic approaches: behaviourism, constructivism, social construction, and critical pedagogies. in the behaviourist perspective learning is viewed as organised stimulus-response associations (national research council, 2001). james, mccormick, black, carmichael, drummond and fox et al. (2007) note that the implications for classroom practice means that rewards or the withholding of rewards schuld, kanjee and w hite: tinder or flint. . . 115 are used to establish desired behaviours among learners, that complex skills can be taught by breaking it up and teaching and testing the pieces separately and that the focus is on learning facts and basic skills first before understanding new concepts or content. in the constructivist approach, the focus is on the mental models that learners employ to develop concepts and acquire language. learning is seen as the process that involves analysing and transforming any new information (james et al., 2007). in this approach, classroom practices are intended to support learners to build on current knowledge that matches their developmental stage, and to challenge learners to create new knowledge and reflect on their learning and understanding (westbook et al., 2013). social constructivists view knowledge as a social process that is meditated through cultural tools, especially language. learning thus involves collaborative problem solving and participating in communities of practice. for social constructivists, classroom practice requires teachers to provide guided support or scaffold learning using a range of techniques that includes teacher modelling, direct instruction, enhanced teacher and learner-learner engagement as well as higher order questioning and reciprocal teaching (westbook et al., 2013). critical pedagogies aim to transform existing relations of power which are regarded oppressive through developing learners’ consciousness about their own oppression, and to act on the world as they learn in order to change it. in this approach, classroom practice is marked by the idea of teaching for change and involves a dialogic and reflective approach where the teacher is no longer an authoritative figure, but one that supports learners effect socio-political changes through social critique and political action (westbook et al., 2013). formative assessment strategies in supporting teachers to improve their pedagogical practices, wiliam and thompson (2007) proposed the use of specific formative assessment strategies and techniques to learning and teaching within the classroom. the authors based their work on ramaprasad’s (1983, cited in wiliam, 2011) three key processes in learning and teaching: establishing where learners are in their learning, establishing where they are going, and establishing what needs to be done to get them there. wiliam and thompson (2007) conceptualised effective formative assessment practices comprising five key strategies for improving learning and teaching: (i) clarifying and sharing learning intentions and success criteria for assessment with learners; (ii) engineering effective classroom discussions, activities and tasks that elicit evidence of learning; (iii) providing feedback that moves learners forward; (iv) supporting learners to serve as learning resources for each other; and (v) supporting learners to take greater ownership of their own learning. the key research questions of the study underlying this study, was to determine teachers’ views and understanding of teaching, learning and assessment. the sub-questions were: (i) what are teachers’ views on how children learn and the role of the learner in the teaching and learning process? (ii) what are teachers’ approach to teaching and what strengths do they identify in their teaching approaches? (iii) what are teachers’ understanding of their role, and the learner’s role in the assessment process? 116 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 methodology this section provides an overview of the sample from which the data were obtained, the instruments used and the process followed to collect the data, and the analysis conducted to report results. sample data presented and discussed in this paper was obtained from a sample of 227 grade 2 teachers from 86 primary schools randomly selected from two districts in gauteng province. the sample was selected for conducting the evaluation of the programme as a randomised-control trial involving 50 treatment and 50 control schools, stratified by school poverty quintile category, in order to determine the impact of the intervention on teachers’ assessment knowledge and practices. however, for this study, questionnaire data were unavailable from fourteen schools. the realised sample thus included 53 respondents with one to five years’ experience, 30 respondents had six to ten years’ experience, 55 had between 11 to 20 years’ experience, 62 had between twenty-one to thirty years’ experience while 27 respondents reported having between 31 and 40 years’ experience. all respondents were female. the number of respondents and schools per quintile category is given in table 2. table 2: teacher sample by school category school category number of schools number of respondents n o fee 43 107 fee paying 43 120 total 86 227 instrument data were obtained using a teacher assessment for learning questionnaire. the questionnaire was developed based on the key assessment knowledge and skills postulated by kanjee and mthembu (2015), and comprised a series of open and close-ended questions pertaining to: (i) respondents’ views and understanding of learning, teaching and assessment, the role of learners and teachers in the assessment process, and the annual national assessments; (ii) respondents’ understanding of formative, summative, peer and self-assessment as well as the current assessment policy; and (iii) types of written feedback respondents provide to learners. additional background information was also obtained on respondents’ qualifications, experience, position in the school, age and home language. for this paper, the following questions were used: (i) what are your views on how children learn?; (ii) what role does the learner have in the teaching and learning process?; (iii) what is your approach to teaching?; (iii) list two strengths regarding your teaching approach; (iv) what do you see as the teacher’s role in the assessment process? (v) what do you see as the learner’s role in the assessment process? schuld, kanjee and w hite: tinder or flint. . . 117 the questionnaire was administered to all participants in both treatment and control groups. all respondents selected to participate in the programme completed the questionnaire during the preliminary workshop held to introduce the professional development programme. this workshop was conducted before the programme intervention was implemented by staff of the school of education at the tshwane university of technology analysis content analysis was used to analyse the data. nieuwenhuis (2016) regards content analysis as a “systematic, replicable technique” that is used to categorise content according to themes. for each set of questions, the researchers ordered and analysed the data according to patterns and then coded them. nieuwenhuis (2016, p.116) views coding as “marking the segments of data with symbols, descriptive words or unique identifying names”. the researchers read through the captured data and identified codes or key words. the responses were coded and divided in categories to determine patterns of similarities and differences. for example, the following codes regarding teacher views on how children learn “children learn what is taught. they learn from the known to unknown” was categorised as ‘known to unknown’. similarly, the following response “they learn through play. through repetition. through games” was categorised as ‘through play’. given the nature of open-ended questions, many respondents provided information that could be coded into separate categories. for example, the following response “through play, through all his/her senses, through exploring” was categorised as ‘through play’ as well as ‘through their senses’. for each question, responses that were irrelevant to the question were excluded from the analysis. for example, the following response “some are learning fast some are slowly” was regarded as irrelevant and excluded from the coding. the data were reported in tables listing the percentage of responses found in each coded category. in addition, data were also disaggregated by school poverty status: no-fee and fee paying schools to ascertain if the poverty status of the schools in which teachers taught had any effect on their views and understanding of teaching, learning and assessment. results and discussion the results reported in this section are based on data obtained from the teacher baseline questionnaire. given the size of the sample, there are no claims that findings can be generalised to the population of south african primary schools and teachers. the study was exploratory and makes recommendations for the professional development programme that will be conducted by the authors based on its findings. it is also the authors’ intention that the findings contribute to further debate and research about assessment policy and practice in south african schools. respondents’ understanding of how learners learn in analysing responses to the question “what are your views on how children learn?”, the following four key themes emerged: from the known to the unknown; through play; through 118 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 their senses and by active participation (see table 3). the most common response was ‘learning from play/roleplay/games and active participation’ (47%) while learning from the ‘known to unknown/ concrete to abstract’ (29%) was next, followed by ‘through their senses’ (24%). typical responses provided by grade 2 teachers include: “children learn by doing” and “they learn through practical activities and games”. as noted in table 3, 50% of the responses from no-fee schools and 43% of responses from fee schools indicated that active participation plays a crucial role in the learning of learners. this finding correlates with a study by hargreaves (2005) who found that teachers described learning as a “process of development” where learners pick up ideas, think, comprehend and are “empowered.” the focus is on the learning process (vygotsky, 1978; watkins, carnell, lodge, wagner & whalley, 2001) where learners become co-constructors of knowledge in the classroom. table 3: respondents’ understanding of how learners learn (missing = 9) total no-fee schools fee paying schools n % n % n % children learn: t hrough active participation/ play/games/role play 228 47 127 50 101 43 from known to unknown; concrete to abstract 142 29 77 30 65 28 t hrough their senses 116 24 49 19 67 29 total 486 100 253 100 233 100 respondents’ understanding of the role of learners in the teaching and learning process in answering the question “what is your understanding of the role of learners in the teaching and learning process?”, the majority of respondents (54%) indicated ‘active participation’. for example, one respondent noted that the learner “has an active role in the teaching and learning process”, while another stated that learners “must participate and engage in the learning process”. this finding is aligned to teachers’ understanding of how learners learn, and signifies teachers’ acknowledgement that learners should be actively involved in the learning process, and their awareness of its importance in the classroom. a review of responses from fee and no-fee schools indicate no significant differences. other responses listed include: ‘listen attentively’ (22%) and ‘ask questions’ (12%), ‘acquire knowledge’ (8%) and ‘voice their thoughts’ (5%). these responses highlight the contradictions among respondents with some supporting views of active participation (i.e. ‘ask questions’, ‘voice their thoughts’) and others listing the role of learners as being passive receivers of knowledge (‘listen attentively’ and ‘acquire knowledge’). here too, a review of responses from fee paying and no-fee paying schools indicate no differences. however, it is significant that very few responses (10% from no-fee schools and 13% from fee paying schools) viewed learners’ questioning as a significant activity in the learning process. moreover, even fewer respondents (3% from no-fee schools and 6% from fee paying schools) acknowledged the importance of learners’ voices in the learning process. schuld, kanjee and w hite: tinder or flint. . . 119 table 4: responses regarding learners’ role in the learning and teaching process (missing = 16) total no-fee schools fee paying schools n % n % n % active participation 131 54 62 52 69 57 listen attentively 52 22 31 26 21 17 ask questions 28 12 12 10 16 13 acquire knowledge 19 8 11 9 8 7 v oice their thoughts 11 5 4 3 7 6 total 241 100 120 100 121 100 respondents’ understanding of their approach to teaching respondents were also asked to indicate their approach to teaching. as noted in table 5, most respondents listed ‘teaching from the known to the unknown’ (39%). the responses of teachers from no-fee schools (45%) were slightly less than double that of teachers from fee paying schools (27%). typical responses listed include: “starting from what children know to what they don’t know” and “teach from the known to the unknown”. other responses that were perceived as central to the teaching and learning process included teaching approaches that are ‘learner-centred’ (30%); that ‘involve learners actively’ (18%), and that show a ‘positive attitude’ (14%). for example, one respondent remarked: “i use a learner-centred approach” while another noted “i encourage all learners to participate actively”. thirty-one percent of respondents from no-fee schools and 26% from fee paying schools indicated their teaching approach as learner-centred (table 5), while actively involving learners in the classroom was noted in 9% of the responses from no-fee schools and 33% of the responses from fee paying schools, highlighting large differences in approaches between school poverty status regarding learner involvement in class. a learner-centred teaching approach implies the creation of many opportunities for learners’ active engagement in the teaching and learning process, but the findings indicated minimal engagement of learners. respondents from both no-fee and fee paying schools should enhance their use of activities and techniques that actively involve learners in their own learning. the findings for this section are in contrast with a study by song and koh (2010). these authors found three factors related to learner-centeredness that are imperative in the change of teachers’ practice towards formative assessment: (i) teachers’ beliefs of learners as active participants in learning, (ii) their beliefs about learners’ need to monitor and assess their own understanding and (iii) their beliefs about learners learning by knowledge construction. 120 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 table 5: respondents’ understanding of their own approaches to teaching (missing = 23) total no-fee schools fee paying schools n % n % n % t eaching from the known to the unknown 121 39 89 45 32 27 learner-centredness 93 30 62 31 31 26 involve learners actively 56 18 17 9 39 33 positive attitude 44 14 29 15 15 13 total 314 100 197 100 117 100 respondents’ understanding of the strengths of their teaching approach when asked to indicate their strengths regarding their teaching approach, the majority of respondents listed ‘planning and preparation’ (38%), and ‘involvement of learners’ in the lesson (36%). typical responses provided by respondents included: “my preparation”; “well prepared for the lesson”; “teaching skills” and “marking my work at all times”. however, a large percentage of responses provided by teachers to this question could not be readily allocated into any relevant category and were regarded as not applicable. for example, one respondent noted “agreeing on ground rules”, another specified “doing research” and yet another listed “hand out stars for good work”. for all three categories listed, differences between the fee paying and no-fee schools were minimal. the importance of learner involvement/participation is highlighted once more in the teacher responses, albeit with similar percentages focussing on operational rather than pedagogical issues as their key strengths. this finding is concerning given results reported by trigwell, prosser, and waterhouse (1999) who found that where teachers who describe their approach to teaching as having a focus on what they do and on transmitting knowledge, learners were more likely to report that they adopt a surface approach to the learning of that subject. in addition, 21% of the respondents also listed ‘make teaching interesting’ as one of their strengths, with similar percentages noted between no-fee (22%) and fee paying schools (20%). however, specific meaning of to ‘make teaching interesting’ and its implication on classroom practice requires further investigation. more concerning, however, is the percentage of responses that noted ‘questioning’ (2%) and ‘assessment’ (3%) as strengths. only four and seven percent of respondents from fee-paying schools listed ‘questioning’ and ‘assessment’ respectively as key to learning, with no respondents from no-fee schools indicating these options. the limited focus on assessment and questioning, considered a key strategy in the use of formative assessment approaches (wiliam & thompson, 2007), is aligned to findings by kanjee and mthembu (2015) who reported the low levels of formative assessment literacy among teachers in their study. vavrus, thomas and bartlett (2011) contend that these practices are typical of a teacher-centred approach, and argue that learner-centred pedagogy demands a different way of assessing learners as learning is equated with far more than acquiring facts and figures, schuld, kanjee and w hite: tinder or flint. . . 121 and learners should be able to demonstrate their ability to understand concepts and not only restate them. proposing possible reasons for this, according to tongpoon-patanasorn (2011) could be attributed to teachers’ partial knowledge and misconceptions regarding learner-centeredness, which impacts negatively on the performance of learners. we argue that a change in teachers’ knowledge and practice of formative assessment is possible if they are made aware of the advantages of active learning, the role of learners as co-constructors of knowledge (vygotsky, 1978) and practical ways to create opportunities for learners to take responsibility for their own learning. table 6: respondents’ understanding of the strengths of their teaching approach (missing = 16) total no-fee schools fee paying schools n % n % n % planning and preparation 56 38 31 42 25 34 involvement of learners 53 36 27 36 26 35 m ake teaching interesting 31 21 16 22 15 20 q uestioning 3 2 0 0 3 4 assessment 5 3 0 0 5 7 total responses 148 100 74 100 74 100 respondents’ understanding of the purpose of formative assessment respondents were also asked to provide a definition of formative assessment. a high percentage (59%) across both school categories listed ‘formal assessment or testing’, representing 61% responses from no-fee schools and 56% from fee paying schools. it appears that these teachers conflated formative assessment with summative assessment. for example, responses included “assessment after learning”; “assess what has been learnt” and “testing related to learning purposes”. very few responses (6% from no-fee schools and 10% of fee paying schools) indicated that formative assessment is used to improve teaching and learning, while 7% of respondents indicated ‘assess for understanding’. similar findings were reported by crichton and mcdaid (2016) as well as boyle and charles (2010) who found that teachers’ understanding of the concepts and principles of formative assessment were inadequate. furthermore, crichton and mcdaid (2016) note that teachers are unaware of the impact of the key strategies on learners’ learning. similarly, song and koh (2010) note that even though teachers believe that learners need to assess and monitor own understanding, they may not possess the knowledge and skills to effectively use formative assessment in the classroom. in south africa, le cordeur (2014) found that teachers spent too much time on standardised tests and that this has contributed to their inability to effectively use assessment to support learners’ creativity, innovation and independent thinking. in this context, relevant professional development programmes are critical to equip teachers with the key assessment competences that will enable them to apply relevant formative assessment strategies to improve learning. 122 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 table 7: respondents’ understand of the purpose of formative assessmnt (missing = 70) total no-fee schools fee paying schools n % n % n % formal assessment or testing 115 59 62 61 53 56 assess what learners learn 51 26 26 26 25 26 assess to improve teaching and learning 16 8 6 6 10 10 assess for understanding 14 7 7 7 7 7 total 196 100 101 100 95 100 respondents’ understanding of the key strategies of formative assessment when asked if they knew the key formative assessment strategies (wiliam & thompson, 2007), and to list these, 62% of responses indicated ‘do not know’, while a significant number of respondents (78 of the 227 participating teachers), left this question blank (see table 8). while this finding was not unexpected, given the lack of exposure and/or use of formative assessment strategies in south african schools (kanjee & croft, 2012; kanjee & mthembu, 2015), it is concerning as research indicates that teachers’ limited knowledge and understanding may impact negatively on learning and teaching in the classroom (black & wiliam, 1998). ‘questioning’ was listed in 22% of responses with only a small percentage (16%) noting any of the other strategies (‘feedback’, peer and self-assessment’ and ‘learning objectives’). responses from teachers in fee and no-fee schools were very similar. more concerning was that the value of learner dialogue and engagement within the classroom did not feature in any of the responses provided. poor knowledge regarding these key issues may impact on the teachers’ ability to identify and/or address specific learning gaps among their learners. brodie (2007) as well as leahy, lyon, thompson and wiliam (2005) regard the question-and-answer method as an integral part of the teaching and learning process, since learners are provided with opportunities to engage with the teacher. leahy et al. (2005) also note that the traditional model of classroom questioning allows learners to disengage from the classroom by keeping their hands down. table 8: respondents’ understanding of the key strategies of formative assessment (missing = 78) total no-fee schools fee paying schools n % n % n % d o not know 80 62 32 52 48 70 q uestioning 29 22 13 21 16 23 feedback 12 9 10 16 2 3 peer and self-assessment 7 5 4 7 3 4 learning objectives 2 2 2 3 0 0 total 130 100 61 100 69 100 schuld, kanjee and w hite: tinder or flint. . . 123 for al-zu'be (2013), these practices are evident of a teacher-centred approach with the emphasis on monitoring learning, rather than on diagnosing and improving learning. to enhance learner engagement during lessons, these authors propose the use of ‘no-hands-up, except-to-ask-a-question’ approach, where the teacher decides whom to call upon to answer a question. leahy et al. (2005) also argue that this approach has the potential to increase learner participation significantly as learners know that they need to stay engaged because they may be called upon at any time during the lesson. these findings correspond with kuze and shumba (2011), kanjee and croft (2012) as well as kanjee and mthembu (2015) who indicate a lack of assessment knowledge and practice amongst teachers across all different school categories. moreover, valencia, valenzuela, sloan and foley (2001) point out that teacher quality is a highly significant factor that determines the equity of schooling that children receive. noguera and pierce (2016) agree that not all learners “are served equally well”. we maintain that teachers’ competence in eliciting evidence of learning and creating opportunities for active participation in the classroom may enhance their academic achievement. respondents’ views regarding their role in the assessment process in response to the questions, ‘what is the teacher’s role in the assessment process?’, the majority of the responses (37%) listed ‘determining learners’ understanding’, followed by ‘marking, analysing and recording of the marks’ (35%) and ‘providing feedback to learners and parents’ (29%). one respondent remarked, “. . . to assist the teacher if there is a need to change the teaching and learning method”; another noted, “. . . to provide guidance and assistance” and one respondent noted, “to assess learners continuously and give report to the parents about learners’ progress”. none of the respondents listed their role as assisting or supporting learners to improve learning or to enhance learners’ understanding of the content. the predominant theme across these responses indicated a greater emphasis on summative rather than formative assessment, supporting the findings of kanjee and mthembu (2015) who found that while all teachers in their study demonstrated limited knowledge and understanding of formative assessment, their understanding of summative assessment was more advanced. the authors echo the call for capacity development programmes that support teachers to make a meaningful connection between summative and formative assessment to enhance their knowledge and skills in the effective use of assessment for improving learning and teaching (kanjee & mthembu, 2015; yan & cheng, 2015). table 9: teacher responses regarding their role in the assessment process (missing = 17) total no-fee schools fee paying schools n % n % n % d etermining learners’ understanding 55 37 35 41 20 31 m arking, analysing/recording marks 52 35 27 32 25 38 feedback to learners/parents 3 29 23 27 20 31 total 150 100 85 100 65 100 124 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 respondents’ views regarding the role of the learner in the assessment process in reviewing the response to the question, ‘what is the learner’s role in the assessment process?’ an overwhelming majority of responses (71%), across both school poverty categories listed ‘to learn, understand, ask and/or answer questions’. interestingly, a small percentage (13%) also suggested that learners’ role is to ‘identify learning barriers’, as noted in the following response “learners must find out their errors and need to improve”. a very low percentage, 8% respectively, indicated that the learner’s role is ‘to apply the knowledge gained’ and ‘to reflect on the knowledge gained’. for example, one respondent noted, “the learner must listen and concentrate and if he/she does not understand they must ask questions,” while another indicated, “. . . to read instructions and follow them, to understand what is being asked, to apply knowledge”. while these findings further reinforce the predominant beliefs and understanding among the respondents who regard learners as passive receivers of knowledge with little or no role in the teaching and learning process, it is encouraging that a small percentage of respondents also focussed on specific roles that place greater responsibility on learners for their learning. table 10: respondents’ views regarding the role of learners in the assessment process (missing = 24) total no-fee schools fee paying schools n % n % n % t o learn/understand/ask/ answer questions 91 71 46 72 45 70 identify learning barriers 17 13 8 13 9 14 apply knowledge gained 10 8 5 8 5 8 reflect on knowledge gained 10 8 5 8 5 8 total 128 100 64 100 64 100 conclusion and implications the purpose of this paper was to explore grade 2 teachers’ knowledge and understanding of learners’ learning, their teaching approach and the role of teachers and learners in the assessment process. the current curriculum and assessment policies served as the basis for analysing teachers’ understanding and beliefs regarding learning, teaching and assessment. this study was exploratory in nature and was not intended to provide a comprehensive review of assessment practices in south african schools. given the centrality of assessment in teachers’ pedagogical practices, and growing realisation of its impact on improving learning and teaching in south africa (kanjee & mthembu, 2015; kuze & shumba, 2011; reyneke, meyer & nel, 2010), findings from the study are intended to add to continuing debates, and to emphasise areas for further research that are noteworthy for policy makers and researchers, for improving the use of assessment to enhance learning and teaching in schools. schuld, kanjee and w hite: tinder or flint. . . 125 the overall conclusion from all the collected data combined, is that this sample of respondents demonstrated a predominantly teacher-centred approach, with minimal opportunities created for learners to actively participate in the teaching and learning process. while most respondents believe that learners learn through active participation, it is questionable whether these beliefs would be translated into practice. respondents in this study also displayed a superficial understanding of the notion that learners should be active participants in their own learning, nor did they demonstrate any evidence regarding the need for teachers to create opportunities to elicit evidence of learning through questioning. these findings correspond with studies by kuze and shumba (2011), kanjee and croft (2012) as well as kanjee and mthembu (2015) who reported limited assessment knowledge as well as poor practice amongst teachers across all quintile schools. furthermore, ackay and yager (2010) found that a learner-centred approach resulted in learners scoring higher in the understanding and use of science process skills. learners in their study also demonstrated a more positive attitude towards science and they applied basic science concepts to new situations with significantly more confidence than the learners in a teacher-centred situation. another aspect that emerged from this study pertains to the limited value ascribed to questioning and assessment as key to their pedagogical practice. none of the respondents from no-fee schools and very few respondents from fee paying schools indicated these as a strength of their teaching approach. questioning and assessment are crucial in establishing where learners are in their learning, where teachers want them to be and determining what needs to be done to get them there (wiliam, 2011). a key concern is that most respondents mentioned types of questions related to summative assessment rather than formative assessment. a possible reason for this can be attributed to the limited knowledge about formative assessment. in their study with foundation phase teachers, kanjee and mthembu (2015) found low levels of assessment literacy among teachers, and reported that while teacher understanding of summative assessment was noticeably higher, the majority of teachers demonstrated very poor understanding of formative assessment. respondents across all quintiles displayed inadequate knowledge and understanding of formative assessment and how to effectively use relevant assessment strategies to improve learning. given the significant disparities between schools, and teachers, across fee paying and no-fee schools (chutgar & kanjee, 2009), it was assumed that the better-resourced schools with highly qualified and experienced teachers would engage in classroom practices that are more in line with the formative assessment approaches. however, the poor knowledge of teachers is not surprising, given the limited guidelines provided on formative assessment in national policy documents (kanjee & sayed, 2013), as well as the limited training and professional development programmes available to teachers for improving teacher assessment knowledge and skills (kanjee & mthembu, 2015; popham, 2008). while this finding warrants additional research, it does question the nature, content and effectiveness of teacher assessment practices in identifying and addressing specific learning gaps of learners, especially those in the well-resourced ‘fee’ schools. an important point to consider is whether the national policies for assessment themselves have been instrumental in helping to fashion classrooms as summative assessment driven environments or whether the current state of classroom resources and established traditions 126 journal of education, no. 70, 2017 of south african pedagogy have been a predominant influence on the formation of current assessment policies. traditions of pedagogy within south african schools, the availability of resources within the classrooms, the goals of outcomes-based curricula and increasing levels of accountability have all been instrumental in forming the assessment policies, and have impacted significantly on teaching, learning, and assessment within the classrooms. this seems consistent with the expectable outcomes of current national policies for assessment, where the accrual of marks from frequent formal teacher-made tests was privileged over effective feedback policies which kanjee and sayed (2013, p.444) refer to as “assessment focused but measurement driven”. while this study was based on a sample of 86 schools, the findings correlate highly with those of other studies conducted in south africa (kanjee & mthembu, 2015; kuze & shumba, 2010; vandeyar and killen, 2007). these findings are important as they highlight the need to improve teachers’ understanding of assessment for improving learning in all schools across the different quintile categories, if the requirements specified in the assessment policies (dbe, 2012) are to be effectively implemented. however, there is a need for further research to determine the extent to which these findings are generalisable to the larger population of schools. as argued by mui so and hoi lee (2011), teachers need to be made aware of their understanding of teaching and learning and their existing assessment practices. similarly, bolton (2009) argues that teachers need to be exposed to a wider range of classroom assessment strategies and techniques, especially those relating to formative assessment. to empower teachers to recognise the need to change their teaching approach and assessment practices, bolton (2009) calls for teachers to be made aware of their own agency and power in using assessment to further develop their pedagogical practices. the implications of this study for professional development programmes calls for the findings to be effectively applied to: (i) enhance teachers’ knowledge and understanding of both teacher and learner-centred approaches, its value for, and implications on, classroom practices; (ii) review current understanding on the roles of teachers and learners in the assessment process, and as well as to encourage teachers to recognise own power and agency to adapt their teaching practices for supporting improvement in learner's learning; (iii) highlight the value and use of learner-centred approaches and its centrality in being able to use formative assessment for improving learning and teaching; (iv) apply approaches and techniques during the professional development programme to support teachers obtain evidence from their own learners on the value of learner participation, and the impact of formative assessment strategies on their classroom practices. a key approach to further investigate pertains to supporting teachers to obtain their own evidence, which may result in “cognitive dissonance, to highlight discrepancies between what teachers already know or believe, and new evidence which will allow them to accommodate and adopt new ideas” (atherton, 2013, p.2). ultimately, findings from this study call for further research to conclusively determine whether the ideas discussed will work in practice, within the context of learning and teaching in south african schools, and whether any professional capacity development programmes can succeed in supporting teachers to enhance their knowledge and skills to effectively use formative assessment approaches to improve learning for all. schuld, kanjee and w hite: tinder or flint. . . 127 acknowledgement the work reported in here was supported by zenex foundation, and the national research foundation. references ackay, h. & yager, r.e. 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(2015). primary teachers’ attitudes, intentions and practices regarding formative assessment. teaching and teacher education, 45,128–136. microsoft word b86 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 86, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i86a01 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x 4ir in south africa and some of its educational implications nazir carrim wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa nazir.carrim@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7104-8704 (received: 6 april 2021; accepted: 10 february 2022) abstract this article focuses on the attempts to construct the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) in south africa, and some of its educational implications. using foucault’s (1972) notion of enunciative modalities, and drawing empirically on statements made by the world economic forum, the south african government, and some south african universities, the article shows that it is people in governments, the economy, and academia who are positioned as the authorities of delimitation who define what the 4ir is, and who bring it into visibility. the article then shows that, inevitability, stem matter, instrumentalism, and benevolence are the coordinates around which the 4ir is being articulated. in discussing these coordinates, some of the educational implications of such articulations are explored. these include the technicist way in which education is viewed, the lack of adequate recognition of the inequalities in the educational system, and the problems with customised curricula that 4ir assumes, and which erode the possibilities of developing deep learning. keywords: 4ir, south african education, stem, skill sets, instrumentalism introduction the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) is an important emerging sociological phenomenon that has the potential to reconfigure societies and people throughout the world in ways that have not been experienced before. it is being described as constituted by artificial intelligence (ai), quantum or big data, the internet of things, robotics, and bringing in interfaces between physical and cyber systems, inter alia (gleason, 2018). such physical and cyber system interfaces would surpass what was experienced in the digital age or the third industrial revolution (3ir). as schwab pointed out: the possibilities of billions of people connected by mobile devices, with unprecedented processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge, are unlimited. and these possibilities will be multiplied by emerging technology breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the internet of things, 4 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 autonomous vehicles, 3-d printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing. (2016, p. 1) this article focuses on the 4ir in south africa currently. it also looks at some of the educational implications. it looks at who articulates, and from where the 4ir is articulated, and some of the implications—particularly educational implications—that arise from such articulations. this article is, however, exploratory. part of the reason why the article is exploratory is because the construction of the 4ir is underway and, although some of its points of emphasis are already discernible, not all of it is fully consolidated or in place. in this article, foucault’s (1972) notion of enunciative modalities is used to show what the 4ir surface of emergence and the authorities of delimitation are, and the sites in which it sees itself being enunciated and applied. it is through such mechanisms that the dispositive (foucault, 1980) of the 4ir is constructed. these notions are explained later in this article and are used to indicate that the 4ir currently revolves around four coordinates. these are inevitability, stem matter, instrumentalism, and benevolence. the coordinates are also discussed with respect to the educational implications of such a construction. the teaching and learning assumptions implied in the 4ir are discussed in relation to bloom’s taxonomy and the skill sets for the 4ir, as identified by the world economic forum (wef, 2019). the contradictions and inconsistencies that seem to be at work in these point to the serious educational problems and challenges that may be facing us in the 4ir. in this regard, three points are made: • the instrumentalism assumed in the skills sets for 4ir are behaviourist and technicist. • the benevolence projected by 4ir ignores the educational levels of performance in south african schools and the inequalities that exist within the system. • the customised curricula of 4ir reduces the possibilities of developing deep learning. one of the points made in the argument in this article, and which is discussed later but needs to be clarified at the outset, is that a sense of inevitability of the 4ir is one of the coordinates in the construction of the 4ir. given that various and varying online interactions have increased during the pandemic the inevitability of 4ir may be said to be confirmed. it is not just inevitable anymore. it is already happening. although, this inevitability may be viewed as confirmed, it is important to note that going online does not equal the 4ir. at this point, it is also important to indicate that assuming that what has been done in the 3ir and the infusion of digitalising and technology in education— which include blended learning, e-learning, and on-line learning—are not quite the same as what would be expected in the 4ir. the 4ir may be unique and distinct, and to assume that it will be continuous with what exists may be mistaken. the 4ir will bring cyber-physical systems into play that will entail an interface between human and machines in ways that we have not even imagined. it is therefore important to note that 4ir will be new and will require new approaches. carrim: 4ir in south africa and some of its educational implications 5 online interactions are an important part of the 4ir—but the 4ir is more than going online. being online is more continuous with the 3ir given that going online digitalises interactions and predates the pandemic. the pandemic may have increased its presence globally but going online existed before the pandemic. given this, it could be said that the pandemic may have consolidated the digital age and brought it closer into the 4ir. this point about 3ir and 4ir is picked up later in the article in the discussion of viewing constructions of the 4ir as dispersed and not necessarily continuous with a single point of origin and with a sort of implied historical determinism. in this regard, it is shown later that it is important to view the 4ir specifically and as distinct. foucault and enunciative modalities foucault’s work is extensive and complex. there is no pretence in this article that the use and coverage of foucault in this article is comprehensive or goes into the detail and depth a foucauldian perspective offers. i do not provide a full and comprehensive archaeology (foucault, 1972) or genealogy (foucault, 1980) as foucault does. nor do i use a discursive analysis. instead, my use of foucault in this article is purposive and selective. i only focus briefly on foucault’s (1972) account of the formation of objects of discourse and discuss what he refers to as enunciative modalities. in the archaeology of knowledge, foucault (1972) indicated that objects of discourse do not emerge from single points but in systems of dispersion. objects of discourse do not have a single point of origin and they are not necessarily linked to “traditions” or “oeuvres” (foucault, 1972, p. 38). foucault pointed out that objects of discourse are constituted in systems of dispersion and have multiple points of origin. in these systems of dispersion, a regularity of discursive formations is established, and foucault described such discursive formations as: whenever one can describe, between a number of statements, such a system of dispersion, whenever between objects, types of statement, concepts, or thematic choices, one can define a regularity (an order, correlations, positions and functionings, transformations), we will say for the sake of convenience, that we are dealing with a discursive formation. (1972, p. 38) the discursive formation is also part of what foucault (1980) regarded as the dispositive. a dispositive is an assemblage of the power and governance mechanisms that function as strategic components of societal arrangement. it is a heterogeneous ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral, and philanthropic propositions—in short, the said as much as the unsaid. such are the elements of the apparatus [dispositive]. the apparatus itself is a system of relations that can be established between these elements. (foucault, 1980, p. 194) 6 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 therefore, the construction of discursive objects in discursive formations happen in “a system of dispersion” (foucault, 1972, p. 38). this suggests that objects of discourse are not necessarily historically continuous or linked to, as foucault (1972, p. 38) indicated, “oeuvres” or single points of origin. it is for this reason that i indicated earlier that it is important to view the construction of the 4ir specifically, and not automatically assume that it is merely a sequential development of the 3ir into the 4ir in a linear and somewhat historically continuous manner. recognising how the 4ir is articulated and constructed needs to be viewed specifically. later, though, i also indicate that, currently, the construction of the 4ir is projected as continuous with the 3ir and, in so doing, suggests that the 4ir is inevitable. it is also important to note that for foucault, discursive formations are part of a dispositive. this means that they are not just discourses, words, or statements but imply “architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures” (1980, p. 194). as such, they are material and not only discursive. this is the reason why this article does not engage in a discursive analysis but, instead, shows the people who are constructed as authorities who enunciate the 4ir and the sites from which they are enabled and allowed to do so. thus, while the argument in this article is that 4ir in south africa is largely enunciation, this does not mean that it is without a material base that allows such ideological enunciations to be possible. foucault (1972, pp. 50–55) pointed out that when a discursive formation is established, enunciative modalities are put also into place. such enunciative modalities include “who is speaking” (p. 50) and the “sites” (p. 51) from which they speak or where they view it should be applied; and they position subjects in specific ways for its enactment (foucault, 1972). those who articulate, enunciate, or speak the discourse tend to be what foucault described as “authorities of delimitation” (1972, p. 52). in being authorities, they prescribe and proscribe what it includes and excludes. in the process, “grids of specification” (foucault, 1972, p. 53) are also established, and such grids of specification indicate how objects in the discursive formation are classified, how they are distinguished from each other, and how they are ordered. as can be seen from the above, enunciative modalities are mechanisms that are used to establish a dispositive (foucault, 1980) and, whilst they put into place authorities of delimitation, enable, and position them to enunciate in particular sites and apparatuses, they are more ideological and discursive rather than actually being in place materially. in this regard, foucault’s notion of enunciative modalities is similar to the ideological state apparatuses (isas) that was elaborated by althusser (1971). the reason why foucault’s notion of enunciative modalities was chosen in this article instead of althusser’s isas is two-fold. first, as part of marxist thinking, althusser’s notion of isas runs the risk of (economic) reductionism because, for althusser (1971), state apparatuses were in the first and final instance determined by the economic base. such an approach tends to view isas in general terms and does not always specifically address how and by whom such isas get to do what they do. carrim: 4ir in south africa and some of its educational implications 7 this leads to the second reason why foucault’s notion of enunciative modalities was chosen. enunciative modalities allow one to look specifically at how the 4ir ideology is framed, who enunciates it, from where they enunciate it, and the networks in which they intersect. this is linked to foucault’s (1972, p.18) idea that discursive formations are dispersed, do not come from only one point, and are more “capillarized.” nonetheless, the enunciative modalities and the authorities of delimitation that articulate them are not reflective of what pertains materially. they are statements, articulations, and, as such, largely ideological—albeit being enunciated in particular sites that are material. the following uses the notion of enunciative modalities, and focuses specifically on who speaks and from which sites they speak to construct the 4ir. enunciating the 4ir the “surface of emergence” (foucault, 1972, p. 51) of the 4ir discourse, that is, when it was first spoken about, can be traced to klaus schwab’s address to the world economic forum in 2015. the address was subsequently published in early 2016. schwab indicated the growing development of the fourth industrial revolution, and said: we stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. in its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. we do not yet know just how it will unfold, but one thing is clear: the response to it must be integrated and comprehensive, involving all stakeholders of the global polity, from the public and private sectors to academia and civil society. (2016, para. 1) schwab further indicated: there are three reasons why today’s transformations represent not merely a prolongation of the third industrial revolution but rather the arrival of a fourth and distinct one: velocity, scope, and systems impact. the speed of current breakthroughs has no historical precedent. when compared with previous industrial revolutions, the fourth is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace. moreover, it is disrupting almost every industry in every country. and the breadth and depth of these changes herald the transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance. (2016, para. 3) the above statements by schwab indicate that the 4ir is all encompassing in its breadth and depth; it covers the private and public sectors. it involves academia and civil society. it affects production, management and governance. for schwab, then, the 4ir is coming from and affecting various sites in society and does not have a single point of origin. in foucauldian terms, this means that the 4ir surface of emergence, whilst first articulated by schwab in the wef, has its construction in systems of dispersion. this also suggests that although one can discern a regularity in and about 4ir, it is not a single thing, but is comprised of different dimensions, operates in different ways, and in different sites. thus, 8 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 while one can see the 4ir as a discursive formation with a discursive regularity, it is not one thing and does not emerge from one site. when cyril ramaphosa, the current president of south africa, established the presidential commission on the fourth industrial revolution in april 2019, the terms of reference of the commission similarly indicated a dispersed reach and emergence of the 4ir. the following indicates this: the 4ir manifests itself through technological innovations its impact cuts across all levels of society hence the need for a broader perspective and approach. (republic of south africa, 2019, p. 5) later in the same document, the following was indicated: viewed collectively, the commission will comprise representatives of a cross section of stakeholders including government, business, labour and civil society, including youth, women, people living with disability, academia and research institutions, and other non-governmental organisations. (republic of south africa, 2019, p. 8) later, in february 2020, in his state of the nation address, ramaphosa said: the presidential commission on the fourth industrial revolution has made farreaching recommendations that impact on nearly every aspect of the economy and in many areas of our lives. (republic of south africa, 2020, p. 26) the surface of emergence of the 4ir, then, as well as its reach, is dispersed and widespread. it is not with a single point of origin, nor are its anticipated applications in one site—they are dispersed over multiple sites, cutting across all societies of the global polity. the above also indicates who enunciates or speaks about 4ir. two things arise from the above in this regard. first, people who are in government and the economy are positioned as the authorities of delimitation. second, the 4ir discourse is enunciated concurrently on global and local levels. this not only indicates further degrees of dispersion in the surface of emergence and enunciation of the 4ir discourse, but it also indicates that from its inception, the 4ir discourse is global and local in its reach. the 4irsa partnership (the partners at time of writing are telkom, wits university, university of johannesburg, university of fort hare, dtps, deloitte, huawei, vodacom) is another instance that indicates this broad reach of the 4ir in its surface of emergence and in its intended sites of application: 4irsa is a platform to bring together key stakeholders, decision makers, and pioneers to define the principles, visions, and outcomes of industry 4.0 and its future effects on south africa and to engage in constructive discussions, explore best practices, and propose solutions to address the challenges. (n.d. last para.) carrim: 4ir in south africa and some of its educational implications 9 as the above indicates, the authorities of delimitation are those who are in the economy and government, and academia. the 4irsa is a local instance of a simultaneous global development. as also indicated above, academia is also a site from which the 4ir is enunciated. not only are members of academia positioned and expected to contribute to the development of the 4ir, but they are also constituted as authorities of delimitation of the 4ir. it is not coincidental, then, that the chair of the presidential commission on the fourth industrial revolution in south africa is the vice-chancellor of the university of johannesburg, and an academic. international economic organisations like the wef, and governments like the south african government, mention members of academia directly in their enunciations about 4ir, as indicated in the quotations cited above. academia, then, is viewed both as a site for the development and application of the 4ir, as well as the authorities of delimitation that contribute to defining 4ir. in so doing, they also construct the relations between objects of discourse and grids of specification. this is captured most clearly in the following: universities in africa, as with their counterparts globally, are required to contribute to the advancement and development of their societies. this needs to be underpinned by teaching and learning strategies that create well educated, socially conscious citizens who are equipped with skills for their era, in this case the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) the 4ir is creating overarching conditions that have important implications for our universities: what we teach, what we research and our contribution to the economy, employment, and society. this requires a deliberate leveraging and repositioning of our universities to optimise our role in reconstructing south africa’s future and the associated development and employment landscape. (kupe, 2019, paras 1&2) in the quotations above, kupe, as vice chancellor of university of pretoria, not only (re)positioned academia as a site of application and authorities of delimitation of the 4ir, but also indicated that the developments about the 4ir in academic institutions is happening both locally and globally. kupe (2019) also suggested grids of specification above, by pointing to the implications of the 4ir for our universities, which include teaching, research, and employment. the following discusses these developments about the 4ir in academia in relation to some courses that are being put into place, the conferences that are increasingly beginning to focus on the 4ir, and publications that are being produced. these indicate how academia contributes to the construction of the 4ir, and also indicates how grids of specification are put into place to define and proscribe what the 4ir includes. the international council for educating teachers (icet) held a conference in july 2019 on the theme, “reconceptualising teacher education for the 4th industrial revolution and knowledge democracy: teaching beyond the 3rs” (icet, 2019). although this conference was held in south africa, the delegates at the conference were from many countries and their 10 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 presence at the conference indicated that the 4ir was a development that was affecting academics around the world. despite the variations in presentations and positions adopted, the theme of the conference is what is most significant. it clearly placed 4ir centrally on the agenda not only for education but for teacher education, in particular. at this icet conference, many presenters spoke about how the 4ir afforded new possibilities for teaching and learning, not only in universities but in schools too. for example, penn and ramnarain (2019) pointed out that virtual learning could benefit the learning of science. armah and westhuisen (2019) argued that, in ghana, although students complained about not having access to data, devices, and connectivity, they would want more virtual learning environments to be used in the teaching and learning of their courses, which they viewed as beneficial to their learning. also at the icet conference, were presentations including a response to the keynote address that attempted to view the 4ir discourse in more critical ways (carrim, 2019). some also pointed to the enormous inequalities and lack of infrastructure in schools and generally in south african society, which suggested that issues such as the lack of access to electricity meant that devices such as computers would not allow for the development of the 4ir as suggested and could easily lead to exacerbating existing inequalities in society between the rich and poor (icet, 2019). at the south african education research association conference held in october 2019, a panel discussion was put into place and focused on “critical educational responses to the “fourth industrial revolution: meanings, appropriations, and critiques” (osman et al., 2019, p. 6). this discussion picked up on the impetus started at the icet conference and indicated, not only the growing focus within academia on the 4ir, but also the speed at which this is happening. in a space of three months two big conferences on 4ir and education occurred in south africa: one with global participants, and one with mainly local, south african participants. together, both of these conferences pointed to the amount of work that is already being done in universities to promote and develop the enunciation of the 4ir. in addition, tawana kupe, the vice-chancellor of university of pretoria, indicated that: the university of pretoria (up) is cognisant of this and is proactively positioning itself as a 4ir leader in several sought-after fields. one of these is engineering and we launched a hub called engineering 4.0 in august 2018. engineering 4.0 focuses on smart cities and transport for economic development in a disruptive 4ir society, with the associated development of civil engineering skills and technology and data sciences, which are also offered to all our other faculties. (2019, para. 9) the most sought-after 4ir skills with high employment prospects are in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. qualifications such as data science and geoinformatics are increasingly in demand as new technologies and digital platforms are making it possible to generate huge amounts of data and are changing the ways that knowledge is produced, accessed, and used. (2019, para. 6) carrim: 4ir in south africa and some of its educational implications 11 as can be seen from these quotations from kupe (2019), courses offered by universities are now also beginning to actively develop competences in the 4ir related areas such as data science, geoinformatics—and an emphasis is placed on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem). what should also be noted is that courses like data science and geoinformatics are new to university curricula and, although some form of these courses may have existed before, they are not quite the same as what is now contained in and expected from these courses. thus, it can be said that the enunciative modalities of the 4ir currently constitute people in the economy, government, and academia as authorities of delimitation, and the economy, government, and academia are the sites of enunciation and also its points of development and application. in addition, platforms like 4irsa bring wider society into the enunciative modality, also as a point for its development and application. in addition, academic conferences and publications that focus on 4ir contribute to the enunciation of 4ir and indications of introducing curricula that include subjects like data sciences not only relate directly to 4ir but also begin to provide grids of specification. in the following section, the coordinates that seem to arise from these enunciations are discussed and their educational implications are also addressed. 4ir and some of its coordinates since the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) was signalled and framed as such when klaus schwab of the world economic forum (wef) enunciated it in 2016, it has spread across the globe to the extent that the “4ir-speak” is now in popular conversations. this is not coincidental given the focus placed on the 4ir by people within the economy, government, and academia who have contributed to bringing into the public. in this section, i look at what some of the coordinates in the 4ir enunciations are. i focus on four such coordinates: inevitability, stem matter, instrumentalism, and benevolence. these coordinates arise because they appear repeatedly in government, economic, and academic enunciations of the 4ir. inevitability 4ir, as it stands, tends to project the 4ir as if it is inevitable. 4ir is here, it is happening, it will increase exponentially, and it is inevitable. this was alluded to at the beginning of this article as well. it was indicated that the increasing presence of online interactions during the pandemic can be viewed as bringing the 3ir closer into the 4ir, given that an online presence is one of the key features of the 4ir. however, what is generally done to indicate the inevitability of the 4ir is the tracing of industrial revolutions of the past and to indicate that technology is growing from where it began to where it is going. as schwab put it: “when compared with previous industrial revolutions, the fourth industrial revolution is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace” (2016, p. 1). 12 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd industrial revolutions are described in various ways to show that the 1st was steam engine led, the 2nd was electricity based, and the 3rd is digitally based. the 4ir follows these previous industrial revolutions bringing in big data, ai, and robots, inter alia. what is the phenomenon we are now experiencing? the first industrial revolution emerged in the 1780s with steam power, making humans more productive. then in the 1870s the second industrial revolution emerged with the development of mass production and electrical energy. the third industrial revolution emerged with the development of it and electronics, which enabled more efficient production. we are now in a new phase where the fusion of several technologies is not only automating production, but also knowledge. (gleason, 2018, p. 2) for some like xing et al. (2018), the new and critical resource of the 4ir is data. others like gleason (2018) viewed such resources of the 4ir as cyber-physical systems. such differences aside, the inevitability of the 4ir is still assumed. it is as if there is no human intervention that is creating such conditions. it is as if there is no agency among people and the 4ir will happen, nonetheless. such assumptions of the inevitability of the 4ir, thus, remove human agency in the development of the 4ir and accords the 4ir with a power—as if it is a force on its own. in the process, in whose interests 4ir is constructed to serve, where and how 4ir is being made into what it is, and which forces are being configured to propel it get ignored. 4ir is, instead, projected as if it is force on its own with an historical determinism that cannot be stopped. it is in relation to this that foucault’s (1972) point about discursive formations not necessarily emerging from single points of origin and with historical continuity in deterministic ways become important. as discussed earlier, foucault’s (1972) view that discursive formations are dispersed helps to show, as indicated above too, that discursive formations come from various sites (the wef, government, and academia), and on different levels (local and global), and get to be enunciated by particular people in specific spaces who, in fact, bring the discursive formation into existence and visibility. they do not happen inevitably, nor do they happen in historically deterministic ways, but are actively constructed by people in specific spaces and who enunciate it, define, and bring it into visibility. this claim about the inevitability of the 4ir has been responded to in a debate about whether the 4ir is a “revolution” or merely a continuation of the 3ir. moll (2021), who used rifkin’s (2016) argument on this point, indicated that the features that are enunciated as characterising 4ir, such as the internet of things, ai, big data, 3d printing, and machine learning exist within 3ir and were indicated by castells’ (1999, 2000, 2004, as cited in moll, 2021) seminal work on information communications technologies and network societies, and are present in 3ir. on this basis, then, for moll (2021), 4ir is a myth. neither rifkin (2016) nor moll (2021) noted the absence of agency in the enunciation of 4ir as inevitable. they did not look at who articulate 4ir (apart from schwab) and the sites from which they enunciate the 4ir. they also did not engage with the dispersed nature of the enunciation and construction of the 4ir and its historical specificity but instead, lapsed into carrim: 4ir in south africa and some of its educational implications 13 historical continuity and regarded the 1ir as a revolution—and not the 4ir; for 4ir to be seen as a revolution, it needed to meet the characteristics of the 1ir (moll, 2021). 4ir was also viewed as more continuous with 3ir. as indicated in the introduction of this article, it is questionable whether the 4ir can simply be read as being the same as 3ir because the ways in which the 4ir may develop could indeed be exponentially different than the 3ir, and we have not yet even imagined what those possibilities may entail. it may be, therefore, premature to dismiss the 4ir as a myth. stem matter the 4ir also consistently foregrounds stem learning areas. on the one hand, this is understandable due to the emphasis on robots, data, and the use of sophisticated computer based approaches. this was indicated in the quotation from kupe discussed earlier, in which he indicated that: “the most sought-after 4ir skills with high employment prospects are in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics” (2019, para. 6). this not only privileges stem but also does not indicate what would happen to other areas such as the humanities and liberal arts. this allows the historical marginalisation of non-stem related areas to be perpetuated, and does not consider that education does much more than only teach stem subjects. at the same time, the emphasis on stem also reinforces and consolidates a distinctly positivist paradigm that assumes that only scientific approaches are valid and worthwhile for the 4ir future. theoretical perspectives that have, historically, significantly critiqued the positivist and scientific paradigm are, almost conveniently, ignored. there is no recognition of paradigms such as interpretivism, critical theory, postmodernism, critical realism, and postcolonialism, to name a few (see usher, 1996, for example). this positivist and behaviourist emphasis in enunciations of the 4ir was also noted by rifkin (2016) and moll (2021) who viewed this as technocratic. however, at moments the arts are mentioned—as the quotation from kupe (2019) above also indicates. law and philosophy of ethics are also mentioned at other moments (see university of the witwatersrand, 2019, for example). arts, here, however, need to be seen as those arts that can be produced digitally and with ais. with regard to the latter, the legal and moral implications of the 4ir with all its attendant features such as ai, robotics, and autonomous cars are viewed as raising serious legal questions and moral implications about machines taking over what humans would otherwise have done—to the point where ais are also seen as outperforming what human can do. consider the following: from the first to third industrial revolutions, machines outperformed humans in terms of mechanical tasks. this led to a shift in the duties associated with human labour, from mechanical tasks to cognitive tasks in the service industry. 4ir technologies, with the advent of ai, are poised to outperform humans in cognitive tasks. (xing et al., 2018, p. 176) 14 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 for elon musk, this was precisely what potentially poses the most serious threat to humanity given that he too, noted that ai could outperform humans in cognitive tasks. as musk put it, “ai is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilisation” (2017, para. 5). thus, areas such as law and moral philosophy are positioned into handmaiden roles in relation to the booming developments with stem subjects. they are not viewed as significant in themselves but, rather, as how they can further inform the development of the 4ir in ways that would not block its progress. law will help clear the legislative framework to allow for the 4ir, and moral philosophy would aid in showing that the 4ir is ethically defensible—irrespective of the potential risk it could pose to humanity. instrumentalism the emphasis on stem, however, is also linked to the assumption of instrumentalism. the 4ir assumes that education should lead to actual practice, where practice is usually assumed to be the new demands that would arise in the wake of the 4ir. constant upgrading, through lifelong learning in order to become highly skilled to function in the 4ir global economy are consistently emphasised (see marr, 2019). from an economic perspective, such instrumentalism that is aimed at meeting and fulfilling the demands of the 4ir global economy is probably anticipated. for marr this entailed: during the 4th industrial revolution, college qualifications will become shorter and more focused, and colleges will provide more life-long education with modular postgrad qualifications throughout the working lives of individuals. (2019, para. 10) however, from an educational point of view this is seriously myopic and problematic. this is the case because not all of education is meant to lead to practice or action in a one-to-one correspondence way. education also attempts to develop deep learning and engagement with knowledge, which do not necessarily lead directly to any action or practice—a point made by moll (2021) as well. such deep learning and engagement with knowledge develop among people a deeper appreciation of knowledge. deep, disciplinary knowledge that education develops, and the learning of such deep disciplinary based knowledge, does not occur by proliferating short courses and offering a “bits and pieces” curriculum, as marr (2019, p. 2) seemed to assume. the 4ir assumes that high-level skills and knowledge will be required in the 4ir economy, and that schools and teacher education need to reconfigure themselves to ensure that such high knowledge and skills will be developed through education. in this regard, the infusion of technology into teaching and learning is taken as given. in addition, new knowledge areas such as data science and coding are also proposed. “this year, we will be introducing coding and robotics in grades r to 3 in 200 schools, with a plan to implement it fully by 2022” (republic of south africa, 2020, p. 15). the question, however, is where is education now—and, would such changes in education in fact be viable, is important to look at, too. using south african education as a lens, where carrim: 4ir in south africa and some of its educational implications 15 south africans sit at the bottom 5% in international literacy and numeracy tests, and where almost 80% of learners in grade 4 cannot read for comprehension (see fleisch, 2018, for example), it is questionable whether the high skills and high knowledge of the 4ir are achievable. what seems to be more the case is that developed country contexts that have adequate baseline numeracy and literacy (including computer literacy) levels may be able to develop such high skills and knowledge but in developing country contexts, where these do not exist, it will be more difficult to develop. some have indicated that the 4ir will require and lead people to develop the higher order of learning in terms of bloom’s taxonomy (see, for example, gleason, 2018 and xing et al., 2018). bloom’s taxonomy (1956) outlined the kind of learning that operates on different levels and includes comprehension (remembering), understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating, and creating. the argument is that the 4ir will require the higher orders of learning: analysis, evaluation, and creation. consequently, the 4ir will develop higher order thinking skills among humans. if about 80% of grade 4 learners in south african cannot read for comprehension (fleisch, 2018), then for them to attain higher order thinking skills is going to be rather difficult. gleason (2018) also noted that higher education institutions across the globe have not been particularly good at ensuring higher order thinking skills either. if higher education has not been good at developing higher order thinking skills, then it is likely to be more the case with schools. added to this is the wef’s skill sets for the future 4ir, which indicates that what will be crucial are: complex problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, people’s management, coordinating with others, emotional intelligence, judgement and decision making, service orientation, negotiation and cognitive flexibility. (2019, p. 1) in this regard, it will suffice to point to three of these skills to indicate the difficulties associated with them. given the persistence of inequality and polarisation increasing globally, intolerance rather than negotiation dominate. intolerance and polarisation also do not enable emotional intelligence to develop because, rather than identifying with and relating to how the other feels, the other is pushed further away and bordered with surrounding walls. it is also not clear what exactly is meant by cognitive flexibility. are people expected to simply switch on and switch off their cognitions at will? can this be done? can people actually change their cognitive structures? what does cognitive flexibility actually mean? exposure to computer technology in schools in the global south is also lacking. in south africa, the majority of schools do not have computers, internet access, or adequate infrastructure. although wealthier schools in south africa do have such access, this is not the case for the many. computer literacy is also, as a result, not quite as developed in most south african schools as one would hope. however, this points to the persistence of inequality both 16 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 within south africa and globally. this reality was made more visible during the pandemic (see fataar & badroodien, 2020). benevolence the 4ir is also projected as benevolent. it is will free people from dangerous jobs, it will make people’s lives easier, it will do away with jobs people do not want to do and, overall, it will free people to pursue higher levels of being and to evolve (see xing et al., 2018). the 4ir, thus, is a good thing and will be good for people. but, in this regard, it is not indicated who these people would be. would everybody globally be able to grow and develop in these ways? would this be the case for only a few and, if so, who might they be? such framing of the 4ir as a benevolent force also does not sufficiently address the impact the 4ir would have on deskilling, reskilling, and rendering some people and jobs obsolete. to this, xing et al. (2019, p. 175) simply stated: “future professionals will have to shift to new areas and types of work.” the benevolence projected does not adequately deal with the high levels of industrial unrest that are likely to result from people being rendered unemployed due to changes in the economy. this is the case despite clear indications from the wef (see schwab, 2016) that such economic instability and social unrest are likely with the advent of the 4ir. can one then simply assume that the 4ir is something one needs to adapt to quickly and adopt fast (xing et al., 2018)? it seems that we need to be more critical in our engagement with the 4ir than to adapt to it and adopt it because the consequences could be dire on a global scale. given the points made earlier, if such inequalities increase, and if economic and social instability increase, it seems that it will be the poor in developing country contexts who will be hardest hit. gleason (2018) also noted that women, especially in developing country contexts, would be equally hit hard. south africans on the african continent are also included in this group that will probably be affected. the point, though, is that it cannot simply be assumed that 4ir will reduce such inequalities on its own. these inequalities impact schools in direct ways. poor schools in developing country contexts do not have the resources and facilities available to them to enable the kind of learning the 4ir will require. given the lack of basic facilities, they also lack basic skills to be able to manage with the demands of the current economy. dealing with the level of polarisation in schools and societies needs to also be addressed, and to assume that technology will erode such polarisations is a problematic assumption to make. the inequalities and polarisations that persist globally raise the question about whether the conditions materially exist for the 4ir in education. the 4ir also raises inconsistencies and contradictions. on the one hand, educationally, the 4ir promotes individualised, customised, and learner active, and learner-centred approaches. getting learners to work autonomously needs to be understood as being in competition with robots that can work autonomously in the 4ir. on the other hand, given the wef’s skill sets, carrim: 4ir in south africa and some of its educational implications 17 learners are also expected to work collaboratively, coordinating with others. how these are to be balanced with each other is unclear and contradict each other in practice. finally, what the 4ir will require for teacher education is unclear. deep thinking, which is seen to be linked to higher order thinking skills, is not what is acquired in pieces and the short courses, bits curriculum (marr, 2019) that is suggested does not develop such deep thinking. existing teacher education programmes have noted that deep thinking and deep knowledge happens after a considerable amount of time, and cumulatively develops through a structured immersion in discipline-based knowledge. the 4ir emphasises deep thinking and knowledge yet it suggests bits-and-pieces and customised forms of curriculum. if not viewed critically, such 4ir curricula will not only erode disciplinary knowledge bases and thereby reduce possibilities for deep thinking to develop, but they will also potentially take away the disciplinary bases of teachers’ knowledge. the instrumentalism assumed by 4ir education indicates changes in the curriculum that put into place new subject areas like coding and robotics, and suggest an increase in short course offerings that are customised, and which raise questions about the extent to which deep learning will be possible. in addition, with the emphasis on stem subjects, humanities and liberal arts subjects get to be marginalised. the benevolence that is projected in 4ir ignores the increasing polarisation and inequalities in schools and society and, in south africa, does not acknowledge the level of educational performance and lack of facilities and basic resources in schools. the contradictions in the wef skill set such as those about deep learning and higher order thinking skills and promoting a bits-and-pieces curriculum point to further educational implications of the 4ir. conclusion in conclusion, it needs to be stated that this article is not anti-4ir or anti-technology. technology is a tool in the hands of humans, and how we use it will determine its outcome. this article used foucault’s (1972) notion of enunciative modalities. it did so to show how people in government, the economy, and academia are positioned as authorities of delimitation of the 4ir discourse, and the sites from which they speak. it has also shown that the 4ir may be viewed as a discursive regularity, but it is not a single thing, and operates in various sites and is simultaneously global and local. the article also argued that inevitability, stem matter, instrumentalism, and benevolence may be viewed as some of the coordinates around which the current 4ir may be said to revolve. in relation to inevitability, it was noted that such enunciations of 4ir as inevitable remove human agency from the picture and project 4ir as a force on its own. the instrumentalism in 4ir enunciations, it was indicated, imply a behaviourist and technocratic approach to education that ignores the criticisms of this approach to education, which have historically shown that such approaches to education do not recognise the complexity of teaching and learning and that human beings in education are not like machines. 18 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 the benevolence that is claimed by 4ir enunciations were also been shown to seriously ignore the social instability that may come into play with the 4ir and also does not treat seriously enough the ways such developments could exacerbate inequalities and polarisations in the global political economy and in specific country contexts. this article also indicated that by privileging stem related subjects and areas, other subjects and fields of knowledge either get to be positioned in handmaiden sort of ways or get marginalised. the skill sets that are viewed as crucial for 4ir were also been shown to be contradictory in themselves and fail to recognise current educational levels of competencies and realities, especially in south african schools. the bits-and-pieces and short course assumptions of 4ir in education were also been argued to not recognise the deep learning that education attempts to develop in students and, instead, reinforces the instrumentalist approach to education in 4ir enunciations. this article aimed to show and highlight the need to engage with the 4ir critically and what it would mean in relation to where we are and what will be required of us educationally to ensure that it is we, as human beings, who direct the ways the 4ir will unfold, rather than technology directing the way we need to think and be. 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(2018). adopt fast, adapt quick: adaptive approaches in the south african context. in n. gleason (ed.), higher education in the era of the 4th industrial revolution (pp. 171–206). palgrave macmillan. microsoft word c74 full issue 17dec.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 74, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i74a02 on decolonisation and internationalisation of university curricula: what can we learn from rosi braidotti? petro du preez school of professional studies in education, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa petro.dupreez@nwu.ac.za http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9100-6461 (received: 7 july 2018; accepted: 6 november 2018) abstract in this article i explore the (non)constructive contestations between decolonisation and internationalisation and the extent to which this might inform the construction of undergraduate university curricula. to augment this exploration, i consider rosi braidotti’s the posthuman (2013) to ask what we can learn from braidotti when it comes to the decolonisation and internationalisation of undergraduate university curricula. first, i discuss decolonisation and internationalisation and then argue that decolonisation and internationalisation are not opposites and that there are constructive contentions between the two once we think about the transformative potential of university curricula. in conclusion, i argue that in the light of debates about decolonisation and internationalisation, the ontology, epistemology and the ethics of undergraduate university curricula should be placed under the magnifying glass since such an endeavour has the potential to bring about deep transformation in higher education institutions. keywords: decolonisation, internationalisation, university curricula, rosi braidotti, posthumanism introduction the #fallism movements and protests that currently permeate the south african higher education landscape are a reflection of how students and academics are using their agency to think, reflect, and act on controversial matters and contradictory spaces encountered in higher education (du preez, simmonds, & chetty, 2017). one common way in which the protesters have challenged the structure of higher education during the various #fallism movements, as they have pointed out, is by asserting that nothing in higher education has changed since apartheid. the protesters questioned the eurocentric nature of the curriculum and demanded free higher education for all. despite interventions to decolonise curricula and thus provide greater epistemological access (che, 2016) and the response of government to the demands for free education in its announcement that there would be no fee increases for the 2016 academic year as butler-adam (2015) noted, it seems that there is a revolutionary regrouping in preparation for more sustained disruption by protesters (seale, 2016). for the purpose of this article, i focus on the decolonisation debate since decolonisation would mean, quite 20 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 literally, the end of the colony in africa. this debate is coupled with a global drive to strengthen the internationalisation of higher education to provide international access for students and academics to different institutions and to various ways of knowing (see botha, 2009; kehm & teichler, 2007). as altbach and knight (2007) have made clear, this drive is, for the most part, propelled by the knowledge economy, increased mobility, and an integrated world economy and this is reflected in university policies. my underlying assumption in this article is that decolonisation and internationalisation enable curriculum scholars to rethink curriculum studies and what it might mean for undergraduate university curricula; this assumption assists scholars to engage with the ever-changing nature of the discipline. li (2009) has stated that such engagement, in paying heed to the movements and divergent forces that influence the discipline, moves scholars beyond simplistic dualities and as carson (2009) has pointed out, allows for new ways of conceptualising the discipline—one that is forever in becoming. as le grange (2016) put it, “a focus on the performative side of knowledge decentres (not destroys) dominant knowledge systems and produces third spaces (spaces in between) where seemingly disparate knowledges can be equitably compared and function to work together” (p. 10). scholars hold different views on what curriculum entails but for me curriculum is not limited to what is written on paper (the official or planned curriculum) but extends to what we teach and do not teach for whatever reason, how we teach, and why we teach in particular ways. for jansen (2017) those in power select what to learn and how to teach and therefore curriculum is inherently a political act with symbolic value. i concur, too, with le grange’s (2016) description of curriculum that it is about the stories we tell students about the past, present, and future, about the lived experiences (and autobiographies) of students and teachers, about an understanding of curriculum as currere,1 and an inquiry into what the curriculum does in its manifestation of being forever becoming. in addition, i see the curriculum as way of bringing policy imperatives (whether local or global) to life (jansen, 2001) and as facilitating epistemic access that provides academic ways of knowing that sustain strategic imperatives on different levels (morrow, 2007). it is also helpful to consider pinar’s (2007) theory of the horizontality and verticality of curriculum studies. for him, horizontality concerns researching curriculum studies from a global to a local level while verticality entails researching the past, present, and future of curriculum studies. as mentioned above, here i look at what we can learn from rosi braidotti (2013) when it comes to the decolonisation and internationalisation of undergraduate university curricula. my aim is not to provide a simple answer to this complex question, but to open new ways of thinking about university curricula in relation to braidotti’s notion of posthuman subjectivity, posthuman ethics, and affirmative politics. 1 currere for pinar (2010a, p. 177) is not simplistically defined as “to run a course” but signifies “a complicated conversation among teachers and students focused on texts and the concepts they communicate in specific places at particular historical moments”. du preez: on decolonisation and internationalisation of university curricula . . . 21 on decolonisation decolonisation, literally understood as signifying the end of the colony, has transformed in such a way that multiple meanings are attached to it (jansen, 2017). decolonisation is not a new phenomenon, but, arguably, as le grange (2016) has made clear, did not receive adequate attention in south africa until the student protests of 2015. it involves a process in which colonial ways of knowing and doing are deconstructed and then reconstructed to include the history, culture, language, and identity of colonised peoples. decolonisation enables the colonised to explore alternative possibilities of conjuring up indigenous knowledge systems and becoming committed activists to give voice to the colonised and, in so doing, translate decolonial ideals into strategies for social transformation (le grange, 2016). decolonisation is thus a strategic response of higher education institutions to redress past inequalities and injustices, to challenge the dominance of western knowledge, pedagogy, and research, as well as to question the colonial roots of university practices and curricula. drawing on the work of odora-hoppers and richards (2011), le grange (2016) differentiates between firstand second-generation colonialism in that the former refers to the physical colonisation and actual presence of the coloniser in the colonised community, and the latter to the colonisation of the mind through, for example, various disciplines, that happens without the actual presence of the coloniser. these generations of colonialism lead to the “denigration and decimation of indigenous knowledges” which gave rise to epistemic injustice. another factor at play in colonisation for le grange (2016) is neoliberalism and how it gives rise to a neocolonial reality that is “a more insidious form of colonialism because it is more difficult to detect [and that] also involves new-elites . . . trained by colonialists [who] take on the roles of colonialists in countries, post-independence” (p. 4). nyerere (1967) was acutely apprehensive of recolonisation (neocolonisation through neoliberalism), in his argument that international gifts, loans, and investments cannot be refused, but might simultaneously endanger independence. nkrumah (1974) described this endangerment as a pseudo-independence that opens the door for ex-colonial or newly developed superpowers to retain their power. jansen (2017) has identified six conceptions of decolonisation in relation to curriculum knowledge. these conceptions, for the most part, intersect with those of le grange (2016) and other national and international scholars. one conception of the decolonisation of the university curriculum entails the process of decentring hegemonic western knowledge and recentring african knowledge systems. asante (1998) refers to this as afrocentricity that “literally means placing african ideas at the centre of any analysis that involves african culture and behaviour” (p. 2). this appears to be the position for which le grange (2016) argued as being most important vis-à-vis debates about the decolonisation of the university curriculum when he suggested that “it involves a process of change that does not necessarily involve destroying western knowledge but in decentring it or perhaps deterritorialising it (making it something other than what it is)” (p. 6). heleta (2016) agreed when he noted that decolonisation is not about removing both the foreign and local from the curriculum but is, rather, about decentring the hegemonic western canon upon which human knowledge rests. 22 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 jansen (2017) has reminded us that decolonisation of the curriculum is perceived of by some as the displacement of colonial knowledge with african knowledge. for le grange (2016), too, this position is problematic insofar as it suggests that indigenous knowledges are not influenced by other knowledges. jansen (2017) has made it clear that for the pan-africanist, the call for africanisation in the curriculum is a nationalist imperative that asserts african identity and rejects the imitation of europe in the quest for african knowledge, culture, and aspiration in the substance of what we teach and learn. (p. 159) he has argued that in some instances decolonisation is either perceived of as an additive or add-on module to existing curricula, or as an infused aspect of existing curricula, i.e. inclusive knowledge. an additive approach is problematic insofar as it artificially separates african knowledges from other knowledges. as an add-on module the infusion of different knowledges is not possible and might reinforce epistemic injustices that were central to colonial curricula. this position is often adopted by those who wish to maintain the hegemonic western status quo (heleta, 2016). when it is seen as inclusive knowledge, the decentring of dominant knowledge becomes possible and could enable students to see the relationships between different knowledge systems. this is what le grange (2016) has described as relational accountability in that all parts of the curriculum should be connected. garuba (2015) has argued that meaningful integration of different knowledge systems in curricula might bring about fundamental transformation. jansen (2017) has described a decolonised curriculum as a critical engagement of settled knowledge in which process new theories, perspectives, and methods are employed so as to see the same set of colonial problems differently. he stated that “this conception of decolonisation is less concerned with either repositioning or replacing the existing curriculum than with empowering students to engage that knowledge by asking critical questions” (p. 161). this empowerment could allow students to engage critically with the voices and knowledges of indigenous people to facilitate respectful representation in the curriculum (le grange, 2016). should this not be done, as mbembe (2016) has reminded us, the western way of knowing will remain hegemonic and the skills students need to move the african content forward will continue to be absent (heleta, 2016). jansen (2017) has argued that claims about decolonising the curriculum too often neglect the question of what knowledge is of most worth. in this regard, heleta (2016) has claimed that universities have for the most part neglected to open themselves up to different knowledges in new and exploratory ways. decolonisation of the curriculum is about africans seeing themselves in relationship with other selves (ngugi, 1981). such a curriculum encompasses complex encounters with entangled knowledges that are not separated superficially between us and them but are based on interwoven knowledges embedded in the entangled lives of all earth-dwellers (jansen, 2017). le grange (2016) agreed with this approach when he stated that “a decolonised curriculum is evidenced by a shift in subjectivity from the arrogant ‘i’ . . . to the humble ‘i’, to the ‘i’ that is embedded, embodied, extended and enacted” (p. 9). in some circles the decolonisation of the curriculum is seen as a vehicle for the repatriation of occupied du preez: on decolonisation and internationalisation of university curricula . . . 23 knowledge and society. in this instance the power of the curriculum lies in its potential to disrupt settled knowledge that might, for example, lead to repatriating land to the colonised (jansen, 2017). jansen (2017) has posed several critiques of how both students and scholars in south africa have responded to these debates. he criticised some of those participating in this debate for their rhetorical engagement with the topic that distanced them from sincerely committing to transform the curriculum. he has expressed concern that there is a lack of focus in exactly what is meant by decolonisation of the curriculum; it appears to be everything. he has been troubled by those who argue that no efforts towards decolonisation have been launched since the end of apartheid. indeed, universities have made some efforts (che, 2016), but, as heleta (2016) has found, these have been directed mostly toward the development of new policies and not towards transforming institutional cultures and curricula. on internationalisation south african universities are faced not only with debates about decolonisation but also with debates about internationalisation. the steep increase of research into the internationalisation of higher education since the mid-1990s, as kehm and teichler (2007) have noted, is a direct result of the rising interest in international security, the maintenance of economic competitiveness, and the fostering of human understanding across nations (qiang, 2003). internationalisation of higher education refers to what might be called the border-crossing of universities to attain certain academic, economic, political, and cultural aims (botha, 2009). as qiang (2003) has said, it entails the process of integrating an international and intercultural dimension into the core activities of higher education—teaching-learning, research, and community engagement. the reasoning behind the internationalisation of higher education is, for the most part, guided by neoliberal ideals such as the knowledge economy, increased mobility, and an integrated world economy (altbach & knight, 2007). one could explain internationalisation as a strategic response of higher education institutions to address the reality of globalisation. in their overview of research on the internationalisation of higher education, kehm and teichler (2007) listed the main topics that researchers engage with in this field as “mobility, mutual influence of higher education systems, and internationalisation of the substance of teaching and learning [and] institutional strategies, knowledge transfer, cooperation and competition, and national and supranational policies” (p. 260). cooperation and competition are the corollaries of the performativity culture. this culture is not unique to south africa but is part of a global phenomenon and stems from neoliberal discourses that have steadily infiltrated the higher education context. the rise of performativity discourses and elaborate mechanisms to monitor and appraise the work of academics, as well as the proliferation of university ranking protocols are clear signals that the work of the academic and the nature of the contemporary university are in a state of flux. university rankings in particular are evident in the manner in which universities brand themselves in their quest for international prestige. the internationalisation of higher 24 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 education in a neoliberal context is often used merely as a means to an end. such instrumentalist ways of dealing with the internationalisation of higher education through, for example, its categorising of universities in relation to national and international rankings, undermines the transformatory potential of internationalisation (teichler, 1996). in addition, fundamental assumptions underpinning the broader discourses (capitalism, neoliberalism, globalisation, knowledge economy, etc.) of the internationalisation of higher education are often made and, all too often, accepted uncritically. the internationalisation of higher education directly influences how university curricula are shaped. it holds the promise of promoting global citizenship, fostering an increased understanding between and among cultures, and cultivating intellectual stewardship across borders to work collectively towards addressing shared societal issues. in this sense, the internationalisation of higher education and its manifestation in the curriculum have a potentially transformative agenda. for deep transformation to come about, however, more attention should be placed on the core business of higher education that includes knowledge exchange through research, teaching-learning and community engagement among other things. there are several similarities between the internationalisation of higher education and the internationalisation of curriculum studies. the movement toward the internationalisation of curriculum studies is partly the result of globalisation and points directly to new developments in the discipline (carson, 2009). internationalisation of the curriculum does not refer only to comparative studies in curriculum but entails an inquiry into the value that cultural and cross-cultural perspectives could contribute to curriculum discourses (lee, 2010). pinar (2010b) has observed that the internationalisation of curriculum studies is not new, but that its institutionalisation and theorisation are a recent development. in its more recent form, internationalisation promises a critical, dialogic encounter among curriculum scholars who are not confined by national contexts but engage eagerly with international developments in the interest of advancing the discipline. for pinar (2010b) the dilemma is about how to engage with international discourses while remaining aware of world history and injustices without re-enacting them. schubert (2010) argued that internationalization promises deepened understanding of the local through encounter with the global and collective. unlike globalization, internationalization promises to intensify the intellectual sophistication of . . . curriculum theory, especially that theory committed to multicultural, gendered, and political activism towards social justice. (p. 270) schubert also stated that “internationalization denotes the possibility of nationally distinctive fields in complicated conversation with each other” (as cited in pinar 2010b, p. 3). du preez: on decolonisation and internationalisation of university curricula . . . 25 the (non)constructive contentions between decolonisation and internationalisation there might well be tensions between decolonisation and internationalisation given that the former is perceived of as a local concern and the latter as a global one. internationalisation is sometimes perceived as a threat to decolonisation since it might lead to recolonisation by cunning international forces. this is evident when it is argued that decolonisation is either a process of displacement or one of repatriation. in other instances, the tension between decolonisation and internationalisation lies in its underlying intentions. it might be argued that the purpose of decolonisation is to redress past inequalities and injustices and to challenge the hegemony of western knowledge and pedagogy while internationalisation is concerned with participation in a global village (a village that might, at least potentially, overshadow national imperatives and localised knowledge). these lines of reasoning are inherently dualistic. in this regard, le grange (2016) has argued that “decolonisation of the curriculum must involve liberating thought from the fetters of cartesian duality” (p. 8). underpinning the different approaches taken to conceptualise decolonisation (i.e. decentring, displacement, additive/inclusive, critical engagement with knowledge, entangled knowledges, and repatriation) is the desire for the colonised to resuscitate their lost citizenship and construct a renewed understanding of their histories, cultures, languages, and identities. this is not a once-off event, but a process of forever becoming (le grange, 2016). the question some might ask is how the colonised, who are in the process of reconstructing their histories, cultures, languages, and identities, could position themselves simultaneously as global citizens if they have not begun the process of repositioning themselves locally. here the dilemma is that an engagement with the global without re-enacting the local might again lead to injustice done to the colonised (pinar, 2010b). the above two positions are to be seen as (non)constructive contentions since they have been steered by superficial dualisms and fear of engaging with and participating in the international realm. as braidotti (2013) has made clear, the danger is that by channelling energy toward negativity, vulnerability, and fear we might fail to notice the unique opportunity to reinvent ourselves affirmatively, through creativity and empowering ethical relations. there are constructive contentions between decolonisation and internationalisation and i argue here that an engagement between the local and global could benefit debates about the decolonisation and internationalisation of university curricula. the internationalisation of the university curriculum necessitates an increased understanding between and among cultures to address shared societal issues. this leads to a deepened understanding of the local through an engagement with the international. decolonisation is not limited to the south african context but has been of social concern in countries like australia, canada, and new zealand for example. through an engagement with the international, the possibility exists that south africans might gain a deeper understanding of their local concerns and struggles in the process of reconstructing their identities. both decolonisation and internationalisation require 26 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 a critical, dialogical engagement with entangled knowledges (jansen, 2017; le grange, 2016) and, in this sense, could be mutually beneficial. although different in nature, both decolonisation and internationalisation have a transformative agenda. decolonisation aims to transform the university curriculum to redress injustices and inequalities done to the colonised, whereas internationalisation aims to transform and promote peaceful global relations through cross-cultural engagements. i consider this transformative intent as constructive for both decolonisation and internationalisation. posthuman subjectivity, posthuman ethics, and affirmative politics as i have made clear, the decentring of hegemonic western knowledges, the development of an inclusive curriculum, and a critical engagement with entangled knowledges are pivotal in the pursuit of rethinking curriculum studies that informs how university curricula are constructed. i argue that principles such as posthuman subjectivity, posthuman ethics, and affirmative politics ought to be considered when we are thinking about the construction of university curricula. to guide this discussion, i have chosen to base my questions on rosi braidotti’s the posthuman (2013) because she concurs with the embedded, embodied, extended, and enacted nature of knowledge and believes in the potential of humanity to reinvent itself in relation to the world. for her, posthumanism is important because it leads to the production of socially relevant knowledge that is based on principles such as social justice, respect for human diversity, anti-racism, openness to others, and conviviality, all of which indicate the affirmation of the positivity of difference. in addition, she argues that should we aim to address epistemic injustices, we should think of the epistemic and the ethical as two sides of the same coin. braidotti (2013) has postulated that we need to rethink the status of humans and their inherent subjectivity to arrive at new forms of ethical relations, norms, and values that are worthy of the complexity of our times. i want to introduce braidotti’s work to frame the argument that her work could expand our thinking about the construction of undergraduate university curricula that pays heed to both decolonisation and internationalisation. she has argued that older conceptions of the university are currently destabilised as a result of the global economy and the decline of the nation-state. this, for her, necessitates that we think global and act local. i would rather start from the empirical imperative to think global, but act local, to develop an institutional frame that actualized a posthuman practice that is ‘worthy of our times’ . . . while resisting the violence, the injustice and the vulgarity of the times. (pp. 177–178) her vision is that of a university that is cognisant of localised knowledge and the global transmission of cognitive data. she has said that universities should represent, reflect, and du preez: on decolonisation and internationalisation of university curricula . . . 27 serve the globalised, technologically mediated, ethnically and linguistically diverse society based on the principles of social justice, respect for diversity, hospitality, and conviviality. therefore, societal transformation and university transformation should happen concurrently and, in the light of this, academics need to be embedded in the urban and global environments. she has argued that a university worthy of its times should face up to permanent, on-going transformation. for her, universities are currently experiencing an identity crisis as a result of the displacement of eurocentric curricula. to attend to this crisis the curriculum should become more representative. curriculum developers should take note of epistemology and ethics and realise that new constructive pedagogy and critical thinking is required. such a curriculum should take posthuman subjectivity, posthuman ethics, and affirmative politics into account. subjectivity is the process of self-styling and “involves complex and continuous negotiations with dominant norms and values and hence multiple forms of accountability” (braidotti, 2013, p. 35). it aims to seek alternative ways to understand the human subject. addressing the vision of what braidotti thinks of as multi-versity calls for posthuman subjects who cherish and promote the radical ethics of transformation. the posthuman subject is nomadic and transversal, and acknowledges her or his multifaceted, embodied, and embedded nature. this subject is immersed in and immanent in a local and global network2 that requires critical dialogic engagement on all its levels. she describes such engagement as intersubjective relationality. subjectivity, therefore, needs to be understood as all-encompassing and requires a new understandable language and/or vocabulary to describe the embodied and embedded subject. a new posthuman ethics cannot be characterised by individualism that privileges the self and disdains multiple others. what is needed is a break up of “the fantasy of unity, totality and one-ness, but also the master narratives of primordial loss, incommensurable lack and irreparable separation” (braidotti, 2013, p. 100). it [a new posthuman ethics] expresses the affirmative, ethical dimension of becomingposthuman as a gesture of collective self-styling. it actualizes a community that is not bound negatively by shared vulnerability, the guilt of unpayable ontological debts, but rather by the compassionate acknowledgment of their interdependence with multiple others. (pp. 100–101) for braidotti (2013), a posthuman subject’s intersubjective relationality signifies an ethics based on interconnectivity between the self and others that is based on a collaborative morality. posthuman ethics is characterised by its drive to transcend negativity and it aims to combine ethical values and the well-being of the larger community. affirmative and innovative creativity is required to develop a radical epistemology that goes hand in hand with her understanding of ethics. 2 braidotti (2013) does not see the local and global as two separate entities, i.e. in a dualistic manner, or as a powerrelated issue. for her, these power-relations are temporary and should be challenged through social action and interaction. 28 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 hope, inspired by creativity, is one way in which visionary prophetic minds can dream and imagine alternative futures and invent new figurations of complex situations based on affectivity, memory, and imagination. hope is both grounded in responsibility and intergenerational accountability. the affirmation of hope enables sustainable transformation. it is about an ethics of joy and affirmation that functions as a way of transforming negativity into positivity. this necessitates affirmative politics so that subjects become part of the world (national, regional and international), make a difference, and make sense of complex situations (braidotti, 2013). undergraduate university curricula brann (cited in dillon, 2009) states that in the process of curriculum development, we need to consider who should learn what so as to become what and do what, and how and by whom and with whom is it to be taught? – which question comprehends the learner, the object of learning, the transformation worked, the practical purpose, the plan of study, the teacher, and the community of learning. (p. 348) with this in mind, i provide several suggestions to be considered when we are developing an undergraduate curriculum that is inclusive of decolonisation and internationalisation. these suggestions are by no means exhaustive but could be useful as we begin to think about university curricula that ought to be forever in becoming. as a starting point, it is important that we construct a curriculum that pays heed to the porous nature of ontology, epistemology, and ethics since these three elements are in constant intra-action with one another. those who develop undergraduate university curricula should be clear, at least theoretically, about how they define curricula. this is challenging since many academics are disciplinary experts who do not necessarily possess the knowledge and skills related to curriculum development. a distinction between a technical approach to curriculum development and a praxis approach is significant here. the former is procedural and might lead to an artificial add-on subject to attend to decolonisation and internationalisation. the latter approach is, among other things, committed to be inclusive. this approach acknowledges the entangled and embedded nature of different knowledge systems and aims to connect these as well as possible. academics ought to tailor curricula to enable this embeddedness to emerge by bringing the local in meaningful intra-action with the global. this approach is relational and based on the ethics of epistemic justice and access, strong community bonds, and a critical disposition. a curriculum as lived (and not just a document on paper) requires clarity concerning the nature of students and lecturers and their connectivity with one another and the broader community. students and lecturers have the responsibility to participate in the complicated conversations about what they learn, why they learn, and what value this learning will have for the world of work and beyond. in this sense, being, knowing, and ethics cannot be separated. complicated conversations necessitate an open-minded, creative, critical, and du preez: on decolonisation and internationalisation of university curricula . . . 29 dialogical disposition, on the part of both the student and the lecturer. engaging in conversations facilitates the process of students and lecturers learning from one another’s autobiographies and lived experiences, as well as from the past, present, and future. it is a collective self-styling activity that could empower both parties insofar as they negotiate and challenge dominant knowledges and values, seek alternative ways to understand themselves and others (all earth-dwellers), and position themselves locally and globally (think global, act local). as subjects who are part of this world, students and lecturers should aim toward making a difference locally, regionally, and globally and should be held accountable for doing so. curriculum development is not only about selecting knowledge but should take account of the learning milieu. for example, the 21st century and the fourth industrial revolution pose new challenges to all earth-dwellers and require that we are in tune with the local context while paying heed to global developments since we are indeed world citizens, too. at the same time, we need to reconsider the ethical spaces of learning since these spaces might enable or discourage creativity and critical dialogue and might lead or not lead us into third spaces in which knowledges can be reconfigured continually. the milieu is important since it represents the ethical spaces in which we are embedded and that we eventually embody. these spaces, however diverse they might be, should be hospitable and just so as to ensure the well-being of all educational stakeholders. by way of concluding how we perceive decolonisation and internationalisation calls for deep transformation in terms of the why, what, and how of university curricula. here i agree with jansen (2017) who stated that “curriculum transformation strikes at the very identity of a higher education institution by asking troubling questions about how a university sees itself in relation to the nation and the world” (p. 154). how a university positions itself in the current era requires a new language based on a vocabulary that unites who we are, what we learn, and what we value collectively. žižek (2012) has suggested that “it is the people who have the answers, they just do not know the questions to which they have (or, rather are) the answer” (p. 89), because they do not yet possess the language to express themselves in an alternative way. a new language based on the core principles of posthumanism could assist us in expressing ourselves in relation to the nation and the world through a critical, dialogic questioning of hegemonic and troubling values and knowledges. this language and process of positionality are not once-off events, but on-going and forever in becoming. references 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(2012). the year of dreaming dangerously. london, uk: verso. microsoft word b8500 full issue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 85, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i85a09 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x measuring preservice teachers’ ethnocentrism: a south african case study joyce west department of early childhood education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa joyce.west@up.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3916-9754 rinelle evans department of humanities education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa rinelle.evans@up.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3892-3479 joyce jordaan department of statistics, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa joyce.jordaan@up.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5678-5853 (received: 12 january 2021; accepted: 24 may 2021) abstract high degrees of ethnocentrism indicate intolerance towards that which is not one’s own. when displayed by teachers towards learners, such attitudes may have detrimental effects on learner performance and hinder transformation in south african classrooms. using vygotskian sociocultural theory of human learning as a theoretical framework, this quantitative case study reports on the outcome of the electronically administered generalised ethnocentrism survey that measured 1,164 preservice teachers’ ethnocentrism at a private higher education institution. apart from providing biographical data, respondents answered 22 statements on a 5-point likert-type scale about their beliefs pertaining to their own and others’ culture, customs, and values. results showed that preservice teachers manifest varying degrees of ethnocentrism but that those who attended multicultural schools scored significantly lower on the ethnocentrism scale than those who attended monoethnic schools. respondents in the last stretch of their studies also obtained lower scores on the gene scale than first and second years. this would suggest that greater exposure to social diversity and interaction across cultures plays a fundamental role in shaping ethnocentric beliefs and attitudes. an unexpected finding was that the instrument did not provide similar results as found in several studies, thus creating misgivings about its applicability in a context in which a minority ethnic grouping no longer held power. policy makers and teacher educators should consider interventions to create more explicit and purposeful opportunities for preservice teachers to gain multicultural exposure and develop cultural competence. assisting prospective teachers to identify their own ethnocentrism and knowing how to counter the many prevailing ideologies that promote, however inadvertently, ethnocentrism would prepare them for the realities of their future classroom and equip them to act as agents of change. keywords: ethnicity, ethnocentrism, mono-ethnic, pre-service teacher, teacher education 164 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 introduction given south africa’s apartheid history of segregation at all levels, discussions about issues of ethnicity in education remain uncomfortable yet pertinent. after the first democratic elections in 1994, followed the drafting of a just national constitution, key educational policies such as the south african schools act 108 of 1996, the language-in-education policy of 1997, and the language policy for higher education of 2002, as well as the development of new school curricula, the time was ripe for transforming education by implementing social justice, encouraging tolerance, accepting diversity, and promoting multiculturalism and multilingualism. however, bringing about change to the apartheid-fractured education system implied not only challenging inequities related to ethnicity in policies and curricula, but also endeavouring to equip teachers with adequate cultural competence in order to teach well in ethnically diverse classrooms. however, achieving this requires more than just introducing new ideologies that manifest in new policies, adopting a culturally relevant pedagogy, or designing new modules on multiculturalism. as jansen (2011, p. vii) claimed, “[e]ducation must move beyond ‘face equity’ as an account of change and take on the hard knowledge questions.” we wondered whether a decade later the next generation of prospective white south african teachers had moved beyond “face equity.” as part of a larger study, we thus asked to what degree are pre-service teachers studying at a mono-ethnic institution ethnocentric? it was of interest since after graduating, they would most likely not be appointed in similar monoethnic teaching contexts but would work, rather, in multicultural schools with a diverse learner profile. although we measured only the degree of ethnocentrism and not its possible effect, our premise was that high degrees of ethnocentrism could possibly affect their attitude towards learners whose identity frameworks did not mirror theirs. if apparent, such prejudicial behaviour might impact negatively on the teaching and learning experience. in this article, we report on a key outcome of our study conducted with a mono-ethnic preservice teacher population (n = 1,164) enrolled at a private higher education institution (phei) in south africa. by mono-ethnic we mean preservice teachers who share a commonality in terms of race, language, culture, and religion. it is within this broad monoethnic context that we sought to establish to what degree these preservice teachers manifest ethnocentrism. literature review the 21st century has been characterised by globalisation (kamwangamalu, 2010; marshall & moore, 2018; yiakoumetti, 2003), high mobility, fluid borders, seamless migration, and rapidly expanding human interconnectedness (dewey, 2007; hammack, 2015). this has not necessarily brought about an appreciation of cultural and linguistic pluralism but had led, rather, to an increase in ethnocentrism (see ager, 2001; eatwell, 2000, van der westhuizen, 2018). however, it is important to note that the construct of ethnocentrism carries both west et al.: measuring preservice teachers’ ethnocentrism 165 positive and negative connotations (neuliep, 2002; neuliep & mccroskey, 1997; wrench et al., 2006). while ethnocentrism can be associated with national pride and even patriotism (neuliep, 2002) as positive attitudinal indicators, it is generally associated with individuals who are “lacking acceptance of cultural diversity” (hooghe, 2008, p. 11) based on the belief that their own ethnic group or culture is superior to others and that their own world view and values should be applied universally (tajfel & turner, 1982). in its extreme form, it manifests as racism and xenophobia. an increase in this type of ethnocentrism is exemplified in the anti-immigrant movements such as brexit, the termination of the deferred action for childhood arrivals (daca) policy in the united states along with the brutal racism that led to the black lives matter (blm) protests, the xenophobic attacks reported in africa (especially in south africa), the advocacy for ethnic nationalism, and the tendency to vote for extreme-right-wing political parties like vlaams belang in belgium and, earlier this decade, ukip in the united kingdom. the most recent manifestation was the storming of the capitol in january 2021 after trump lost the us presidential election. to understand the complexities of identifying and measuring ethnocentrism we now go on to clarify the related concepts of ethnicity and ethnocentrism. defining ethnicity and ethnocentrism late 20th-century sociolinguistic definitions described ethnicity as “a group identity” that is derived from social constructs such as language, culture, race, and religion (edwards, 1985, p. 6). ager’s description (2001) included physical attributes such as skin and hair colour as well as the shape of one’s nose. more appropriate for the 21st century since individuals claim various identities and affiliations, ethnicity should instead be defined as “a lived and experienced sense of groupness that is more fluid, flexible and subjective than the biological and genetic considerations inherent in the concept of race” (mesthrie, 2017, p. 102). brekhus (2008) and mesthrie (2017) have argued that ethnic identity should not be viewed as fixed but, rather, as complex and multidimensional. crump (2014) also stated that individuals enact and negate hybrid fluid identities making it hard to view ethnicity or ethnic identity as fixed. the neo-simmelian position also criticises fixed notions of identity since, as this antipositivist researcher argued over half a century ago, identity is a result of multiple overlapping affiliations such as religious, political, cultural, social, familial, and geographical intersections (simmel, 1955). fixed notions of identity are often also associated with national political agendas that lead to in-group and out-group distinctions based on ethnicity (crump, 2014). however, viewing ethnic identity singularly as fluid belies the fact that ethnic differences and similarities can still be grouped into political, stable, and countable social constructs. fluid notions of identity could also result in invisible heterogeneity, i.e., the failure to acknowledge diversity explicitly (crump, 2014) and is associated with a colourblind ideology that promotes sameness and suppresses diversity by not acknowledging socially constructed (ethnic) differences (thomas, 2018). 166 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 when the term ethnicity is associated with social constructs that categorise and distinguish individuals from one another, it can also be used to establish inand out-groups based on a hierarchical categorisation related to notions of ethnocentrism. the term ethnocentrism was coined by the polish sociologist, ludwig gumplowicz, in 1883, and in 1906, according to bizumic (2014), it was appropriated by william graham sumner. ethnocentrism, with its roots in the greek word for nation or people, is a sociological and psychological construct that influences the attitudes and beliefs of individuals about ethnicity (gumplowicz, 1883; mangnale et al., 2011); the two constructs are thus inseparable. sumner (1906, p. 8) defined ethnocentrism as “self-centred scaling” or the tendency of individuals to identify strongly with their own culture by viewing it as central and by rejecting or reducing other cultures, languages, and/or religious traditions to a less prominent role (mangnale et al., 2011; sumner, 1906; tajfel & turner, 1982). ethnocentrism is often associated with ethnic nationalism (ager, 2001) and what de luca et al., (2018, p. 15) called “ethnic favouritism” that often manifests in the domination of, or preference for, a specific language or religion by a particular group. the foundation of nationalism lies in the sense of a collective or social identity and, in many cases, in the presence of an outsider, the “other” or “them”, against whom the struggle takes place and “whose domination or potential threat stresses the necessity of a collective endeavour” (ager, 2001, p. 14). more recently, ethnocentrism has been found to correlate strongly with a lack of cultural intelligence (harrison, 2012; young et al., 2017), having intercultural communication apprehension (wrench & mccroskey, 2003; wrench et al., 2006), displaying religious fundamentalism (altemeyer & hunsberger, 2004; wrench, et al., 2006), homonegativity (wrench et al., 2006) and homophobia (wrench & mccroskey, 2003). furthermore, ethnocentrism is evident in various societal conditions such as sectionalism, religious prejudice, racism, and even nationalism (neuliep, 2002). it is generally also connected to distrust and authoritarian ideologies such as conservatism (hooghe, 2008). levinson (1950, p. 150) has argued that ethnocentrism is based on a pervasive and rigid in-group out-group distinction; it involves stereotyped, negative imagery and hostile attitudes regarding out-groups, stereotyped positive imagery and submissive attitudes regarding in-groups, and a hierarchical, authoritarian view of group interaction in which in-groups are rightly dominant, outgroups subordinate. an argument has also been made that ethnocentrism is a universal natural phenomenon that is subconscious (see neuliep, 2002; neuliep and mccroskey, 1997, shimp and sharma,1987; sumner, 1906, wrench et al., 2006). however, describing ethnocentrism as universal might well overlook the fact that although it is a widespread phenomenon, it has various localised manifestations (tajfel & turner,1982). west et al.: measuring preservice teachers’ ethnocentrism 167 louw et al. (2014), explained that human development is a cultural process based on the impact that cultural values, norms, and lifestyles can have on a person’s attitudes, beliefs, and personal development. yusof et al., (2014) suggested that prolonged exposure to an exclusive, mono-ethnic environment may be one of the reasons why some individuals manifest a high degree of ethnocentrism, and whether one could argue that exposure to other ethnicities (races, cultures, and languages) could decrease one’s degrees of ethnocentrism while no such exposure could inflate them. we thus chose vygotsky’s sociocultural theory (1978) as the theoretical framework for this study. since human development can be viewed as a cultural process, it is possible that individuals’ ethnocentrism can increase or decrease based on their social experiences with other cultures, the interaction between their biological and sociocultural changes, and their environmental exposure, such as, for example, their schooling context and home environment (louw et al., 2014; vygotsky, 1978.) the latter also argued that human development is a social occurrence, not an individual one and this notion aligns with the general premises of ethnocentrism (see gibbon 2015). ager’s (2001) research resonates with the tenets of vygotsky’s social cultural theory and strengthens the argument of yusof et al. (2014) by claiming that individual attitudes and beliefs are socially conditioned and therefore usually shared within a particular community. therefore, in a mono-ethnic community, individuals’ attitudes and beliefs about others’ language, culture, and race may well be influenced. tajfel and turner’s (1982) argument that the reasons leading to an increase or decrease in ethnocentrism or even perhaps its disappearance should be considered. we were thus interested in measuring a sample of pre-service teachers’ degree of ethnocentrism since we surmised that their earlier and current education environments were largely mono-ethnic. teachers and ethnocentrism the damaging effects of ethnocentrism are, however, not limited to politics; they are also evident in education. various national and international studies (e.g., cain, 2012; fittel, 2008; incecay, 2011; johnson, 1992, 1994; karabenick & noda, 2004; kazempour & sadler, 2015; knudson, 1998; lombard, 2017; nespor, 1987; vibulphol, 2004; xu, 2012) found that teachers’ beliefs about ethnicity have a significant impact on their classroom practices and learner performance yet, as kazempour and sadler (2015) argued, studies that focus on preservice teachers’ convictions related to ethnicity and their ethnocentrism remain largely unaddressed. it thus becomes imperative to investigate ethnocentrism in teacher education if preservice programmes are to deliver teachers who appreciate cultural and linguistic pluralism in their classrooms. however, exhibiting high degrees of ethnocentrism publicly is viewed most often as socially unacceptable (roy, 2006) so, ethnocentrism is, therefore, complex to investigate and difficult to measure. as promulgated in the national qualifications framework (nqf) act 67 (republic of south africa (rsa), 2008, teacher education in south africa is guided by the minimum requirements of teacher education qualifications (mrteq) policy (department of higher education and training (dhet), 2015). according to the mrteq policy, all teacher education programmes are required to prepare preservice teachers to become socially just 168 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 teachers by including “situational and contextual elements that assist teachers in developing competencies that enable them to deal with diversity and transformation” (dhet, 2015, pp. 8–9). however, even though policies may advocate for such attributes in teachers, anderson (2014, n.p.) asked, “how many teachers walk into their classrooms on their first day of teaching with the necessary skills in their toolbox to navigate diversity and aspects of ethnicity?” the challenges awaiting novice teachers are exacerbated when they are not equipped to recognise ethnic diversity and further complicated when their ethnic profile differs from that of their learners (anderson, 2014). if preservice teachers lack “acceptance of cultural diversity” (hooghe, 2008, p. 11) and consider their own ethnic group superior to others (see mangnale et al., 2011; sumner, 1906) such attitudes and beliefs may drive classroom practices (johnson, 1992, 1994; lombard, 2017; nespor, 1987; pajares, 1992; richardson, 1996; vibulphol, 2004), and become detrimental to learners’ performance and academic achievement (le roux, 2016; marx, 2004; xu, 2012). it is thus pertinent that preservice teachers understand how their beliefs about so-called others and their own ethnocentrism might manifest in their classroom practices (le roux, 2016) and create dissonance in an environment that ought to be conducive to learning. as le roux (2016, p. 7) and marx (2004, p. 40) have stated, the most “loving teachers” can be racist and ethnocentric and have detrimental effects on the learners they teach. in a south african study by vandeyar (2008), the participants failed to recognise the opportunities that a multicultural and multilingual class offers in relation to cultivating a generation of learners committed to the values of democracy and social justice. another study, conducted in the united kingdom, found that preservice teachers are ill-prepared for the multilingual and multicultural classroom since their undergraduate programme prepared them only for a “monoculture, a mythical, culturally homogeneous aggregation of students’’ (bullock, 1998, p. 1025). various studies (see khunou et al., 2019; le roux, 2016; reygan, 2019; roux and becker, 2016; vandeyar, 2008) have also reported on teachers’ and preservice teachers’ prejudices, their ignorance about diversity, and their ineptitude or unwillingness to address issues of diversity in the south african education system. in another study by vandeyar and vandeyar (2017) south african preservice teachers were quick to make distinctions between them and us when they were working with immigrant students. from their study, ethnocentrism in teacher education was evident since the preservice teachers clearly attempted to exclude immigrant students on an academic and social level, based on aspects of ethnicity. one can therefore understand why jansen (2011, p. vii) stressed the need for researching the “epistemological and ideological character” of south african preservice teachers to counter this reluctance to change and, instead, embrace diversity. if preservice teachers are to become active role players in addressing the detrimental effects of ethnocentrism in education, they need to be taught to interrogate their own worldviews and to reflect critically on their degree of ethnocentrism in order to appreciate the diverse worldviews of their learners and make informed decisions about their own classroom practices (boutte et al., 2011; le roux, 2016). west et al.: measuring preservice teachers’ ethnocentrism 169 contextualising the study higher education remains central to the project of transformation in south africa (council of higher education, (che), 2016). currently persons wishing to become teachers have the option of enrolling at either public universities or private higher education institutions (pheis), a favoured choice because students most often gain their qualifications through distance mode. legislation exists to ensure that higher education in south african operates within the constitution (act no. 108 of 1996). (see, for example, the registration and accreditation requirements of the dhet, the higher education quality council (heqc), che, a statutory body responsible for promoting and overseeing quality assurance in higher education, the south african qualifications authority (saqa) and the nqf. the registration of pheis takes place in accordance with the requirements of the higher education act (no. 101 of 1997) and the regulations for the registration of pheis, 2016. pheis have to adhere to section 9(3 and 4) in the regulations for the registration of private heis (2016) in the higher education act (act no. 101 of 1997) and section 29(3) of the constitution (rsa, 1996, p. 12), giving everyone “the right to establish and maintain, at their own expense, independent educational institutions that do not discriminate on the basis of race; are registered with the state; and maintain standards that are not inferior to standards at comparable public educational institutions.” section 9(3) furthermore provides more detail by stating clearly that “the state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth” (rsa, 1996, p. 6). once registered, pheis must offer equitable quality education to ensure that students obtain nqf-aligned qualifications. the che regulations with regard to phei’s accreditation of qualifications further curb existing mistrust surrounding pheis and perceptions that such institutions deliver programmes of “questionable quality” (che, 2016). although various studies have been done on teachers’ beliefs such as learner expectations and best teaching practices, fittel (2008), incecay (2011), and kazempour and sadler (2015) have all indicated that studies focusing on preservice teachers’ beliefs about diversity in the classroom remain largely unaddressed especially in south africa. since various national and international studies (e.g., cain, 2012; johnson, 1992, 1994; karabenick & noda, 2004; kazempour & sadler, 2015; knudson, 1998; lombard, 2017; nespor, 1987; vibulphol, 2004; xu, 2012) have found that teachers’ beliefs about teaching practices have a significant impact on their classroom practices and on learner performance, it has become imperative to investigate their beliefs about ethnicity in the classroom since, if left unchecked, ethnocentrism may become a threat to future teachers’ good classroom practice. methodology we conducted the research at a phei in south africa that offers various bachelor of education (b.ed) degrees through a mostly distance mode of delivery. at the time of the 170 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 study, this phei was considered mono-ethnic in terms of its student composition since 99% of the preservice teachers were white and shared the same mother-tongue. the pertinent administrative records also show homogeneity in terms of gender since 89% of them identified as female. upon enrolment, a student has to endorse the institutional christian vision and mission statements. the mono-ethnic nature of the phei is permitted by a law that allows pheis to establish their own policies as long as no form of unfair discrimination takes place. for example, section 29(2) of the bill of rights (rsa, 1997) protects south africans’ right to receive education in the language of their choice, section 6 of the constitution (act 108 of 1996) prioritises the right of all languages to be treated equitably, and section 30 states that “[e]veryone has the right to use the language and to participate in the cultural life of their choice” (rsa, 1997, p. 13). furthermore, section 31 states that every person has the right and freedom to belong to and enjoy the cultural, religious, or linguistic community of his or her choice. with careful consideration of the interwoven aspects of ethnicity and in recognition of the fluidity of ethnic identities in the 21st century, we measured the degree of ethnocentrism using the generalised ethnocentrism (gene) scale of preservice teachers studying in a monoethnic environment. method this case study drew on a single data set of 1,164 preservice teachers studying at a purposefully chosen phei in south africa making it an institutional case study i.e., a singular study within a particular setting (see trochim et al., 2016). a positivist paradigm and a quantitative research design served this study best since empirical as well as biographical data was collected deductively through an objective measurement—a fixed likert-scale survey that measures ethnocentrism (see grosser, 2016; lombard and klopper, 2015). this was a non-experimental study since it was descriptive in nature and investigated preservice teachers’ degree of ethnocentrism. sample along with the research site being purposefully chosen, the homogenous sample of preservice teachers was conveniently selected through a non-random selection process since all the preservice teachers enrolled in 2019 were invited to participate in the study. the homogeneous sample was “typical” (babbie et al., 2014, p. 281; trochim et al. 2016, p. 87) of the phei population strengthening the case study design (see babbie et al., 2014) since the results were largely representative of the enrolled student population of the phei at the time. however, in line with the points made by trochim et al. (2016), the non-probability sampling technique did affect the external validity of the study. students were informed of the purpose of the study via the phei’s online learning platform. they were told that their participation would be anonymous and voluntary, and that they were required to complete an online google forms questionnaire. no incentives were west et al.: measuring preservice teachers’ ethnocentrism 171 offered. institutional ethical clearance for this study was received (hu 18 08 01) and it was also consented to by the research board of the phei. the population consisted of 1,200 students of whom 1,164 participated in the online questionnaire. more than half (58%) of the sample was made up of first-year students. second-year students accounted for 25%, third year, 13%, and students enrolled for the fourth, fifth, or sixth year constituted 4% of the sample. although a regular b.ed. degree is generally completed in four years, students at this phei are studying through a blended mode that allows them a longer completion time. the third-year preservice teachers who participated were collapsed with the other senior students to create a set accounting for 17% of the data set. the majority of the sample self-identified as female (86%) and 14% as male. the average age of the respondents was 21 years and 6 months with a standard deviation of 5.2 years. the minimum age was 18 and the maximum age was 56. the sample consisted of 99% white and 92.5% of afrikaans mother-tongue speakers with 94% having english as their second strongest language. of the sample, 96% received primary education in afrikaans, and 94% high school education in this language. many of these students were appointed as teaching assistants and would have been responsible for a fair amount of instruction each week yet only 63% used afrikaans as the medium of instruction. a test for equal proportions indicated a statistically significant difference (p <.001) between the respondents who used afrikaans as the medium of instruction and those who did not. however, although the equal proportions test result was statistically significant, an effect size of 0.3 showed only moderate practical significance (see field, 2018). the heterogeneity evident could therefore have occurred by chance. biographical data showed that 61% attended multicultural primary schools and 56% attended multicultural high schools. an equal proportions test indicated a statistically significant difference (p <.001 level, an effect size of 0.23) between the respondents who attended multicultural primary schools and those who attended mono-ethnic primary schools. another statistically significant difference (p-value, 0.001 level, an effect size of 0.11) existed between the respondents who attended multicultural high schools and those who had been in mono-ethnic high schools. from the descriptive demographical statistics, it was evident that the sample was homogenous with regard to race, gender, and language. given the interrelated nature of the demographics, the sample is representative of a minority ethnic group in south africa. data collection instruments two instruments were used—an online questionnaire consisting of 13 biographical questions and the gene survey of 22 items. the gene survey, also known as the 2002 generalised ethnocentrism scale, is a self-reporting instrument that was developed by neuliep and mccroskey in 1997 and revised by neuliep in 2002. the original gene scale consisted of 24 items, but after extensive factor analysis, these were reduced to 22 (neuliep, 2002). the gene scale is supposedly unidimensional; neuliep (2002) reported that the 15 items 172 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 consistently form one factor when subjected to factor analysis. the revised gene scale uses a 5-point likert-type scale ranging from (1) “strongly disagree” to (5) “strongly agree.” only 15 items are used in the scoring of ethnocentrism; the remaining seven items are used as distractors and three items should be reverse-scored before the calculation takes place (see neuliep, 2002; neuliep & mccroskey, 1997). the items of the gene scale measure the respondent’s beliefs about the validity of others’ ethnicity, culture, customs, values, and lifestyles as well as their own. the gene scale has been used to predict various attitudes and behaviours. for example, high degrees of ethnocentrism correlated with negative attitudes and expectations (amos & mccroskey, 1999), poor cultural intelligence (harrison, 2012; young et al., 2017), intercultural communication apprehension (wrench & mccroskey, 2003; wrench et al., 2006), religious fundamentalism (altemeyer & hunsberger, 2004; wrench et al., 2006), homonegativity (wrench et al., 2006) and homophobia (wrench & mccroskey, 2003). neuliep (2002) also claimed that this scale possesses construct validity since it can be associated with positive attributes such as loyalty and patriotism. furthermore, despite a careful search, we could find no definitive norms on the gene scale although a mean score of around 30 has been found in earlier studies (amos & mccroskey, 1999; neuliep, 2002; neuliep & mccroskey, 1997; wrench & mccroskey, 2003). in a study by mccroskey (2003), women scored significantly lower (mean score of 30.6) than men (mean of 35.5), indicating that a score between 30 and 35.5 seems to be the norm. the reason why men scored higher than women was unclear and was not discussed. these studies therefore provide a frame of reference that was used to interpret the respondents’ results. reliability and validity of the instrument the gene scale items (see addendum a) were not translated into afrikaans since this could have affected the reliability and validity of the instrument. all the respondents were believed to be bilingual and would therefore have been able to complete the survey in english. this assumption was based on the bilingual enrolment requirements of the phei as well as english being the additional language school-leavers are compelled to take as an exit subject. however, synonyms were added in brackets for low-frequency words. for example, item 14 read, “lifestyles in other cultures are not as valid (correct) as those in my culture.” similarly, in item 17, “i see people who are similar to me as virtuous, the final word was glossed as “good.” according to neuliep (2002, p. 205), the gene survey “can be administered to any person regardless of his or her cultural background.” the survey has been used and tested internationally numerous times by researchers such as dong et al. (2008), neuliep et al. (2001) and wrench et al. (2006), with all their studies reporting a reliability coefficient above 0.88. studies conducted over 20 years ago reported the reliability of the gene scale to be between 0.72 and 0.92, thus indicating its reliability. see table 1 for 14 studies in chronological order and their reported cronbach’s alphas on the gene scale that demonstrate its reliability. west et al.: measuring preservice teachers’ ethnocentrism 173 table 1 reliability scores of the gene scale reported cronbach alpha researchers (previous studies) and year of study 0.90 amos & mccroskey (1999) 0.88 neuliep et al. (2001) 0.82 neuliep & mccroskey (2001) 0.92 star (2000) 0.88 neuliep (2002) 0.90 wrench & mccroskey (2003) 0.88 mccroskey (2003) 0.88 wrench et al. (2006) 0.79 dean & veenstra (2006) 0.89 dong et al. (2008) 0.93 neuliep & speten-hansen (2013) 0.72 edwin et al. (2016) 0.90 young et al. (2017) 0.94 benmamoun et al. (2019) data analysis the data collected from the survey was first exported from google forms and then analysed using ibm spss statistics software. there was no missing data. however, an anomaly appeared in the response rate of 97% and in similarities in the biographical section. therefore, it is possible that there were duplicates in the data set, but because of the anonymous nature of the data, this was impossible to confirm. the high response rate is, therefore, a limitation of the study’s findings. we did several descriptive and inferential statistical analyses and performed exploratory factor analyses (efa). furthermore, we performed a test of normality and, since the sample size was larger than 50, we also conducted the kolmogorov-smirnov test that indicated that the data did not come from a normal distribution (p-value < 0.001). however, the central limit theorem holds, implying that the means have an approximately normal distribution. results the average gene score (degree of ethnocentrism) was 31.53 (sd = 8.62), with a minimum score of 15 and a maximum of 65. see figure 1 for the equal and symmetrical distribution of the gene scores with an interquartile range of 12 (25, 31, 37). 174 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 figure 1 box plot: ethnocentrism mean distribution reliability analysis was carried out on the gene scale that showed that the gene survey reached good reliability (α = 0.86) (see field, 2018) that increases the trustworthiness of the study’s findings. after extraction, all 15 items appeared to be worthy of retention, resulting in a decrease in the alpha if deleted. see table 2 for the descriptive statistics of each of the 15 items as well as the reliability estimates. table 2 gene scale item statistics and reliability estimates item statistics reliability estimates section b mean sd scale mean if item deleted cronbach’s alpha if item deleted b1: most other cultures are backward compared to my culture. 2.35 .989 29.18 .851 b2: my culture should be the role model for other cultures. 2.68 1.216 28.85 .846 b4: lifestyles in other cultures are just as valid as those in my culture. (a) 1.74 .969 29.79 .855 b5: other cultures should try to be more like my culture. 2.12 1.028 29.42 .840 west et al.: measuring preservice teachers’ ethnocentrism 175 b7: people in my culture could learn a lot from people in other cultures. (a) 2.20 1.003 29.33 .862 b8: most people from other cultures just don’t know what’s good for them. 1.96 .942 29.57 .844 b9: i respect the values and customs of other cultures. (a) 1.48 .747 30.06 .854 b10: it is smart of other cultures to look up to my culture. 2.83 1.118 28.70 .849 b11: most people would be happier if they lived like people in my culture. 2.31 1.055 29.22 .841 b13: people in my culture have just about the best lifestyles of anywhere. 2.20 .956 29.33 .846 b14: lifestyles in other cultures are not as valid as those in my culture. 1.95 .974 29.58 .843 b18: i do not cooperate with people who are different. 1.70 .906 29.83 .853 b20: i do not trust people who are different from me. 2.58 1.050 28.95 .857 b21: i dislike interacting with people from different cultures. 1.84 .917 29.69 .851 b22: i have little respect for the values and customs of other cultures. 1.60 .955 29.93 .854 the reliability and validity of the gene survey were further investigated by efa using principal axis factoring and oblimin with kaiser normalisation rotation with eigenvalues greater than one. the kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy yielded a value of 0.893 (105 df) with a significant bartlett’s test of sphericity (p < 0. 001), indicating that the sample size (1164) was large enough to assess the factor structure and that the data was sufficient for the factor analysis (see hair et al., 2010; pallant, 2007; tabachnick and fidell, 2007). from the efa, 15 factors were identifiable before extraction; after extraction, three factors with an eigenvalue greater than 1 remained with an overall cumulative percentage of 43.219. the low cumulative percentage may be ascribed to the gene survey having been designed for and in the context of north america and that contextual factors in south africa may have affected the degree of variance. the eigenvalues show that the first factor explains 32% of the variance, with an eigenvalue of 5.332. the second factor shows 8% and the third factor shows 3.19% of the variance. a further investigation into the factors was therefore important. see table 3 for the three different factors through a pattern matrix and figure 2 that depicts the gene survey’s factor loadings on a scree plot. 176 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 table 3 pattern matrix of the gene factors items factor 1 ethnocentrism 2 unknown 3 unknown b10: it is smart of other cultures to look up to my culture. .832 -.140 -.105 b2: my culture should be the role model for other cultures. .771 -.031 -.026 b11: most people would be happier if they lived like people in my culture. .754 .039 .033 b5: other cultures should try to be more like my culture. .698 .135 .041 b13: people in my culture have just about the best lifestyles of anywhere. .571 .032 .060 b1: most other cultures are backward compared to my culture. .466 .059 .111 b14: lifestyles in other cultures are not as valid as those in my culture. .459 .260 .085 b8: most people from other cultures just don’t know what’s good for them. .445 .104 .259 b9: i respect the values and customs of other cultures. (a) -.031 .728 .017 b4: lifestyles in other cultures are just as valid as those in my culture. (a) .169 .513 -.068 b7: people in my culture could learn a lot from people in other cultures. (a) -.030 .476 .010 b22: i have little respect for the values and customs of other cultures. .033 .448 .209 b18: i do not cooperate with people who are different. -.049 .081 .666 b20: i do not trust people who are different from me. .114 -.118 .516 b21: i dislike interacting with people from different cultures. .016 .212 .488 a. rotation converged in 6 iterations. west et al.: measuring preservice teachers’ ethnocentrism 177 figure 2 scree plot of the gene the pattern matrix in table 3 and the scree plot in figure 2 suggest that the gene survey is not unidimensional and that there are three factor loadings involved. further data analysis included tests for equality and one-way anovas. the levene’s test for equality of variances and the t-test for equality of means reported a statistically significant difference (p-value = 0.001) between the mean gene score of those respondents who attended multicultural primary schools and those who attended mono-ethnic primary schools (t-value = 3.028; df = 1162). the mean gene score of the respondents in multicultural primary schools was lower than those who did not attend multicultural primary schools (30.5 vs 32.2). therefore, it can be inferred that the preservice teachers who attended multicultural primary schools had lower degrees of ethnocentrism. however, an effect size of 0.09 shows that the effect is small (see field, 2018). the levene’s test for equality of variances and the t-test for equality of means also reported a statistically significant difference (p-value = 0.001) between the mean gene score of the respondents who attended multicultural high schools and those who attended mono-ethnic high schools (t-value = 3.236; df = 1162). the mean gene score of the respondents who were in multicultural high schools was lower than those who did not attend multicultural high schools (30.8 vs 32.4). we therefore inferred that the respondents who attended multicultural high schools had lower degrees of ethnocentrism. however, an effect size of 0.09, following field (2018) shows that the effect is small. from the findings of the levene’s test for equality of variances and the t-test for equality of means, it is possible to infer that the preservice teachers who lacked social and environmental exposure to multicultural schooling environments (i.e., at primary and high school) could be associated with higher degrees of ethnocentrism. 178 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 a one-way anova was also performed to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference between the gene score (degrees of ethnocentrism) of the respondents and their year of registration. the one-way anova shows moderate evidence of a difference across the respondents’ years of registration (p-value = 0.067) (see field, 2018). even though the evidence is not strong, further testing was done to investigate where possible differences might have occurred. a statistically significant difference was found between the second-year group and the thirdto sixth-year group (p <0.001). the thirdto sixth-year respondents (m = 31.22; sd = 8.92) had lower degrees of ethnocentrism than the second-year respondents (mean gene score = 32.54). however, in line with field (2018), an effect size of 0.06 shows that this is small. a one-way anova showed no evidence of a difference across the respondents’ different age groups (p-value = 0.665) and different medium of instruction groups (p-value = 0.621). discussion of results we endeavoured to measure preservice teachers’ degree of ethnocentrism and its association with other variables in a mono-ethnic environment. the variables included the nature (multicultural vs mono ethnic) of the preservice teachers’ schooling environment, their year of registration, and their age. the first finding indicated varying degrees of ethnocentrism. the lowest gene score was 15 and the highest was 65 (a range of 50). the average score of 31.53 aligns with the average gene scores reported in the literature that averages between 30 and 50 (neuliep, 2002). although there are no established norms with regard to ethnocentrism, neuliep (2002) argued that a score above 50 indicates a high degree of ethnocentrism and any score below 50 is regarded as indicative of a lower degree of ethnocentrism. however, while the preservice teachers had an average gene score of 31.53, the wide range of 50 shows that the sample had varying degrees of ethnocentrism. preservice teachers with high degrees of ethnocentrism may struggle to teach effectively in multicultural classrooms resulting in instructional and affective dissonance. it was evident that item b2, “my culture should be the role model for other cultures”, scored the highest (2.68) and item b9 “i respect the values and customs of other cultures”, scored the lowest (1.48). strongly agreeing with these statements could be viewed as having high degrees of ethnocentrism since it indicates how strongly one’s identity is embedded within one’s own culture. it also suggests a belief that cultural standards can be applied universally (see hooghe, 2008; tajfel and turner, 1982) thus suggesting cultural superiority. item b9, with which the preservice teachers mostly disagreed, is about respecting other cultures and their customs. participants’ disagreement with such a statement suggests the likelihood of high degrees of ethnocentrism since this could be perceived as being intolerant and disrespectful towards cultures other than their own. second, a statistically significant difference between the preservice teachers’ gene score (degree of ethnocentrism) and the nature of their primary and high school environment west et al.: measuring preservice teachers’ ethnocentrism 179 (mono-ethnic vs multicultural) was evident. this finding aligns with vygotsky’s sociocultural theory (1978) that proposes that one’s environment plays an influential role in one’s development of attitudes and beliefs about others. it is with caution that we suggest that preservice teachers’ schooling environments have influenced their degree of ethnocentrism and that this section of the sample’s lack of exposure to socially and culturally diverse contexts may be the reason for higher degrees of ethnocentrism. a third finding based on the one-way anovas showing a statistically significant difference between the second-year group (m = 32.54) and the thirdto sixth-year group (m= 31.22; pvalue = 0.001), indicated that this age cohort manifested lower degrees of ethnocentrism, possibly as a result of their having received more schooling and having had lengthier exposure to multicultural classrooms during the course of their studies in comparison to the firstand second-year groups. however, since this was not investigated, there is no way of drawing credible conclusions. the significance of the study lies primarily in finding a correlation between higher degrees of ethnocentrism in respondents who had less exposure to diversity in their own schooling career. an unexpected fourth finding was the reliability and validity of the instrument (i.e., gene survey) in the context of a diverse, developing country. the gene survey, as a measure of ethnocentrism, was, to our knowledge, used for the first time in south africa. from the data, a cronbach alpha above 0.8 showed that the survey had high reliability and internal consistency (see field, 2018) that aligns with the findings reported in previous studies (see table 1). however, the variation (43.219%) explained through the efa is not ideal since it accounts for less than half of the variance within the gene survey. the eigenvalues also showed that the first factor is much larger than the other factors, making it evident that the gene survey was not unidimensional in the south african context and therefore needs further investigation and possible revision. it is not known whether the respondents were reluctant to answer truthfully since they may have desired to be socially acceptable. this possibility is unaccounted for in the gene and could therefore be a methodological limitation of the study. using a measure like the balanced inventory of desirable responding test as an independent variable could help eliminate the possible effect that social desirability has on the validity and reliability of the findings. in the same vein, future research needs to be conducted on a wider and more comprehensive scale. it should go beyond establishing superficial and stereotypical characteristics of ethnocentrism since the use of a single, quantitative, fixed likert scale measuring instrument may have provided a reductionist view. using a mixed-method design may provide a more comprehensive understanding of the concept when we are measuring ethnocentrism in similar contexts. future studies should view ethnocentrism as a multidimensional construct that exists on a continuum and that requires synergy between quantitative and qualitative research designs for us to be able to draw valid and reliable conclusions. 180 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 conclusion from the findings of this study, we conclude that high degrees of ethnocentrism could indicate intolerance towards diversity in the classroom that, if left unaddressed, could affect learner performance and further hinder transformation in south african classrooms. if teachers are to be considered agents of change (le roux, 2016; reygan, 2019), it is imperative that teacher education programmes help preservice teachers reflect on their own beliefs regarding the interwoven nature of social diversity and how holding strong ethnocentric beliefs could perpetuate distance, prejudice, and continued segregation. based on vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, heis, especially those with a mono-ethnic profile, may need to consider curriculum transformation by creating more explicit and purposeful opportunities for their students to gain multicultural exposure and cultural competence thus preparing them for the future realities of teaching. they should also learn to identify classroom practices that could, at least potentially, be detrimental. such interventions can hardly be considered without attention being paid to this issue by policymakers like the che and dhet who may even need to revise the mrteq and adjust the nqf accreditation standards. more research on preservice teachers’ beliefs about issues of ethnicity-in-education will provide invaluable information regarding “our understanding of how and why teaching looks and works like it does” (clark & peterson, 1986, p. 256). for the classroom to become a place in which diversity is valued, teacher education programmes ought to include means of assisting preservice teachers to identify their own ethnocentrism and how to counter the many prevailing ideologies that, however inadvertently, promote ethnocentrism (boutte, 2008) as well as those that do so explicitly. declaration of conflicting interest the authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. references ager, d. 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(2014). multicultural education practices in malaysian preschools with multi-ethnic or monoethnic environment. international journal of multicultural and multireligious understanding, 1(1), 12–23. west et al.: measuring preservice teachers’ ethnocentrism 187 addendum a generalised ethnocentrism (gene) survey work quickly and record your first reaction to each item. there are no right or wrong answers. please indicate the degree to which you agree or disagree with each item using the following five-point scale: strongly disagree = 1; disagree = 2; neutral = 3; agree = 4; strongly agree = 5 no. item 1 2 3 4 5 1 most other cultures are backward compared to my culture. 1 2 3 4 5 2 my culture should be the role model for other cultures. 1 2 3 4 5 3 people from other cultures act strange when they come into contact with my culture. 1 2 3 4 5 4 lifestyles in other cultures are just as valid as those in my culture. 1 2 3 4 5 5 other cultures should try to be more like my culture. 1 2 3 4 5 6 i am not interested in the values and customs of other cultures. 1 2 3 4 5 7 people in my culture could learn a lot from people in other cultures. 1 2 3 4 5 8 most people from other cultures just don’t know what’s good for them. 1 2 3 4 5 9 i respect the values and customs of other cultures. 1 2 3 4 5 10 it is smart of other cultures to look up to my culture. 1 2 3 4 5 11 most people would be happier if they lived like people in my culture. 1 2 3 4 5 12 i have many friends from different cultures. 1 2 3 4 5 13 people in my culture have just about the best lifestyles of anywhere. 1 2 3 4 5 14 lifestyles in other cultures are not as valid (correct) as those in my culture. 1 2 3 4 5 15 i am very interested in the values and customs of other cultures. 1 2 3 4 5 16 i apply my values when judging people who are different. 1 2 3 4 5 17 i see people who are similar to me as virtuous (good). 1 2 3 4 5 18 i do not cooperate with people who are different from me. 1 2 3 4 5 19 most people in my culture just don’t know what is good for them. 1 2 3 4 5 20 i do not trust people who are different from me. 1 2 3 4 5 21 i dislike interacting with people from different cultures. 1 2 3 4 5 22 i have little respect for the values and customs of other cultures. 1 2 3 4 5 researcher’s note: how to calculate the ethnocentrism score 1. recode questions 4, 7 and 9 with the following format: 1 = 5; 2 = 4; 3 = 3; 4 = 2; 5 = 1 2. drop the following questions: 3, 6, 12, 15, 16, 17 and 19 3. add up the 15 remaining questions. microsoft word c73 full issue 17dec2018.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 73, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i73a03 countering testimonial injustice: the spatial practices of school administrative clerks abdullah bayat school of business and finance, university of the western cape abbayat@uwc.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1796-9526 aslam fataar department of education policy studies, stellenbosch university afataar@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6880-9223 (received: 4 may 2018; accepted: 9 october 2018) abstract in this article we discuss the phenomenon of how people’s voices or opinions are taken up in relation to their professional status. we focus on administrative clerks in school contexts, people who occupy a professional category that is regarded as one of voicelessness and therefore easily ignored. their low occupational role and status mean that their testimonies are deemed less credible than the testimonies of school principals and teachers. we refer to this situation as a form of testimonial injustice that is visited daily on these clerks. we illustrate how selected administrative clerks go about exercising their agency in the light of their experiences of such testimonial injustice and go on to establish a range of spatial practices that confer on them a credible professional status. this article is based on a qualitative study of three administrative clerks in selected south african public schools undertaken over a 12-week period, followed up by further interviews and site observations. combining the theoretical constructs of testimonial injustice and rhetorical space, we argue that the administrative clerks we studied engendered transformed rhetorical spaces, which are negotiated social spaces that allowed for their voices and opinions to challenge the testimonial injustice they experience. we suggest that they achieved these rhetorical spaces through their continual and active presence in their work environments. they engender rhetorical spaces in which their voices are deemed legitimate by forming close relationships with others in their work environments, enhancing their professional capacity by furthering their educational qualifications, and the successful accomplishment of additional role tasks. our main argument is that these clerks, despite occupying a marginalised occupational status and suffering testimonial injustice, are able to exercise their reflexive agency to improve their credibility and thereby resist the testimonial injustice visited upon them. this article contributes to nascent scholarship on school administrative clerks’ contributions to their professional environments at their schools. we argue that their contribution is undergirded by spatial practices that can be understood partly as a type of resistance to their negative status and position at their respective schools. we suggest that while they are discursively projected as peripheral figures in their school environments, they nonetheless make valuable, yet under-valued, contributions to the functioning of their school. keywords: epistemic injustice, testimonial injustice, spatial practice, social justice, rhetorical spaces, school administrative clerks bayat and fataar: countering testimonial injustice. . . 39 introduction testimony is the exchange of information and knowledge between people who, by virtue of their interaction, establish a relationship. testimony is given in a social space that is characterised by particular material and social dimensions. this social space has norms, which include rhetorical ones that govern who can speak and who listens to whom (code, 1995). it is a familiar scenario in schools that when junior teachers, female staff members, or employees from minority groups voice an opinion or make a suggestion, not much attention is paid to them. yet when a senior staff member or one with a higher position makes a similar suggestion, it is considered a good idea, and everybody listens. in this context the testimony of those occupying lower-ranking positions or belonging to marginalised social groups is dealt with by being rebuffed, doubted, and silenced. (fricker, 2007). wherever there is such an unequal normative social framework regulating the giving of testimony that of those who are disadvantaged by this system suffer what we call a type of testimonial injustice. this refers to the discrimination visited on the voices, opinions, and testimonies of members of marginal groups (fricker, 2007). in this article, we explore the everyday spatial practices of three school administrative clerks who, we aver, suffer testimonial injustice in their professional contexts. we aim to reveal how they exercise their agency through specific spatial practices that are enacted in their workplaces as a means of countering the testimonial injustice meted out to them by virtue of their subordinate positions. research indicates that marginalised individuals suffer significant testimonial injustice (fricker, 2007) and that those who occupy secretarial and clerical positions routinely suffer this fate (bayat, & fataar, 2018, conley, gould, & levine, 2010; fearfull, carter, sy, & tinker, 2008; thomson , ellison , byrom, & bulman, 2007) . the marginalisation of administrative clerks is a result of the fact that public schools are largely bureaucratic organisations that place clerks at the bottom of the hierarchical order and regard clerical work as women’s work (fearfull et al., 2008). this hierarchy impacts negatively on the credibility of lower-ranked employees. bureaucracy endows the holders of powerful positions such as those in management with greater credibility, while undervaluing the testimonies of those in lower marginalised positions. wong (2003) explains that “marginalised groups typically tend not to be thought of as possessing much credibility” (p. 110). we discuss, in this article, how school administrative clerks counter their marginal status. we argue that the qualitative findings from the study of three school administrative clerks in three public schools in cape town show that administrative clerks work actively to enhance their credibility and engender rhetorical spaces that afford them a voice in their schools; this, in turn, assists them significantly in setting up their professional practices in the school. we based this article on a qualitative study of three administrative clerks, one male and two female, whom we purposively selected from a broader project on the identities and practices of school administrative clerks in public schools. they were chosen because of their lengthy 40 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 tenure as administrative clerks at the primary schools where they are currently employed. they each completed a certificate in school business administration. we refer to them in this article as pete, meg, and fay. 1 the fieldwork included site visits to each school over a period of one school term (12 weeks), where we observed, interacted with, and interviewed the three administrative clerks. this was followed up by regular interviews over a period of a school year. we kept a fieldwork journal to gather observations. we also interviewed their principals, members of the teaching and non-teaching staff, parents on the school governing body (sgb), and educational district officials. one of the authors visited the schools once a week during the research period, spending a total of up to three hours per week at the three sites over the 12-week period. he observed and interacted with these clerks in their office spaces. we formally interviewed each of the three principals, and, in one case, one of the participant’s previous principals, as well as at least one senior teacher and an sgb member per school. informal conversations with teachers also took place during the research period. the data was gathered in semi-structured interviews and through participant observation. we did not originally set out to investigate the voicing practices of these clerks or how their testimony was being received. instead, we were interested in their identities and work practices. we were drawn to researching administrative clerks because of experiences and insights gained from a previous monitoring and evaluation (m&e) project, in which one of us was involved, that investigated the training provided for administrative clerks. through reflecting on the m&e project, we realised that the clerks were making a huge contribution to the school while remaining invisible. fearfull et al. (2008) called this the “clerical conundrum” (p. 177), which refers to how the dominant discourse in organisations, at least in part, renders administrative clerks’ contributions invisible. our research focus was initially broadly aimed at understanding the administrative clerks’ professional practices in support of the administrative functioning of the school. we soon realised, as they were telling us their stories, that they were surreptitiously intent on getting us as researchers to delve beyond the surface appearances. we had to be virtuous listeners paying careful attention to the stories that were being related. as the interviews and observations progressed in their social spaces, our attempt to be virtuous listeners paid off. we began to notice that the administrative clerks were conveying to us how they were engaged in a complicated two-way interaction with the people, discourses, structures, and strictures of their schools. these interactions tended to render them invisible, but they nonetheless went about establishing practices to gain visibility and recognition. we struggled to make sense of this tussle. we employed an iterative research approach of moving between data and theory to illuminate the constitutive processes at play. drawing on lefebvre’s (1991) work on social space, we suggest that their resistance to the testimonial injustice, enacted through a form of spatial practice enabled them to create a rhetorical space for themselves. 1 these are, of course, pseudonyms. bayat and fataar: countering testimonial injustice. . . 41 theoretical considerations our theoretical approach here is based on a consideration of testimony as a spatial practice combined with the notion of rhetorical space, which allows for understanding how testimony, as an act of agency, has consequences for how social space is shaped and reshaped. testimony is the core vehicle through which people communicate. testimony is broadly defined as “any kind of telling in and through which the expression and transmission of knowledge becomes possible” (medina, 2012, p. 28). such testimony or telling, if expressed in a manner unencumbered by social position or status constraints, enables the expression of agency. in contrast, as fricker (2007) has explained, testimonial injustice refers to a situation in which a person’s testimony is ignored because of her or his marginalised social location, occupation, or identity. the testimony of a person is dismissed because of prejudice on the part of the hearer. she has argued that “testimonial injustice is a normal part of discursive life” (p. 39) for those who have their testimonies routinely dismissed and devalued as a consequence of their marginalised status. testimonial injustices take place “when speakers suffer credibility deficits due to identity prejudices on the part of their hearers” (maitra, 2010, p. 196, emphases in original). persons who are identified as socially marginal, such as the administrative clerks discussed below, experience plummeting credibility irrespective of the veracity of their testimony. testimonial injustice occurs when the listener does not make sure that his or her judgment about credibility takes into account the veracity of the evidence and not only the social position of the speaker. when this occurs, the testimony of those with less social prestige enjoys less credibility. fricker (2007) suggested that otherwise credible informants may end up being ignored because they have been identified with a subjugated social group. thus, worthy informants are denied an opportunity to participate in the transmission of knowledge and the hearer misses out on an opportunity to benefit from their testimony. for example, the worthwhile testimony of an administrative clerk might be overlooked because of her or his low occupational role and the social status associated with this position, while a school’s principal and senior teachers are granted credibility by virtue of their higher occupational status. based on the view that space is thoroughly social (lefebvre, 1991), we contend that giving testimony is entangled in space and is constitutive of space. space is not an empty background, but a constitutive part of an administrative clerk’s social world and workplace. social space shapes the manner in which testimonial injustice occurs as well as the way in which it can be resisted. lefebvre (1991) argued that social space is produced through three dialectically interconnected processes. he calls this a spatial triad which includes spatial practices, representations of space, and spaces of representation. lefebvre (1991) from a phenomenological perspective, also labelled this spatial triad perceived, conceived, and lived space, respectively. schmid, (2008) explained that perceived space is what the body materially encounters, conceived space is how those in power ideologically and institutionally frame space, and lived space is how individuals’ experiences space 42 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 symbolically. the spatial triad is constitutive of all spaces. all three processes of spatial production occur simultaneously in everyday interaction. in other words, it is the particular interaction between and among these three spaces that produces social practices. an analysis of social space depends on a relational reading of the specific articulation of the spatial triad, in our case, the social practices of giving testimony, institutional norms concerning testimony and knowledge, and the symbolic and imaginative dimension of administrative clerks’ testimonies in their work sites. in the context of the article the representations of space or conceived space structure administrative clerks’ decisions about how to operate in and make sense of their space. conceived space provides the rules that govern the office space. these rules are embedded in the school’s discourses and include the occupational role that administrative clerks are supposed to play at school, as well as the requirement that administrative clerks comply with the directives of their principals and the teachers. emphasising the rules of dominant actors, conceived space refers to the rhetorical rules and restrictions placed on the clerks’ testimony and practices, while also providing them with certain rhetorical allowances. the rules and restrictions circumscribe the clerks’ communicative influence in their workplace. perceived space refers to what the administrative clerks grasp through their senses, including seeing, feeling, and hearing. spatial practices refer to the activities and interactions as they occur in a particular space. both perceived space and spatial practices thus describe the social-material dimension of space. giving testimony is a spatial practice so testimonial communicative events are spatial practices of school administrative clerks. administrative clerks understand their perceived space as the way in which their principals and teachers, students, parents, and district officials interact and communicate with them every day in their office space. the identity prejudices and credibility deficits that some school staff have toward administrative clerks are woven into the fabric of school spaces. the clerks sense the responses of the principal and teachers to their testimony sometimes as an affirmation but at most times a repudiation of their testimony and worthiness. the administrative clerks’ perception of how their testimony is dealt with by the school staff forms and fashions their notion of their perceived space and what spatial practices are acceptable. normative spatial practices are maintained, both through the organisational systems and through the informal aspects of the school’s culture and context. the third element in the triad, spaces of representation or lived space, refers to the administrative clerks’ desire, affective experiences, and imagined potentiality, all of which they may incorporate into their spatial practices. this is the space of enablement or lived agency, where, in interaction with perceived and conceived space, the agent establishes viable social practices through a range of tactics, positionings, and testimonial deployments (de certeau, 1984). this is an active space of agency acquisition and assertion. linking the giving of testimony to social space, we draw on the concept of rhetorical space; it emphasises the ways in which space limits and shapes all that can and will be “heard, understood, [and] taken seriously” (code, 1995, p. ix–x) within that space. testimonies are given in rhetorical spaces that are constructed through a specific articulation of the spatial bayat and fataar: countering testimonial injustice. . . 43 triad. when an administrative clerk gives testimony, this takes place within a particular social space, i.e. a particular rhetorical space. rhetorical spaces are social spaces in which there are particular forms of structuring that determine who may speak and how, and which language regime or discursive register is in use. code (1995) explains rhetorical spaces as fictive but not fanciful locations whose (tacit, rarely spoken) territorial imperatives structure . . . and limit the kinds of utterances that can be voiced within them . . . an expectation of being heard, understood, taken seriously. (p. 12) each rhetorical space in the school has its own imperatives and constraints that arise from how the space has been conceived, perceived, and lived by the administrative clerks. although all three spatial dimensions influence the nature of the rhetorical space open to the school administrative clerks, it is their lived space that we wish to explore. notwithstanding our focus on lived space, the dialectical nature of the spatial triad means that we need to engage with all its dimensions. an emphasis on the lived dimension of rhetorical space allows us to observe the agency of administrative clerks as they deal with the attitudes of school staff, whether stereotypical and prejudicial or accepting, toward their testimony. agency is entangled in lived space and becomes manifest in the reshaping of rhetorical spaces in the school context. by positing that space is produced in everyday interaction, we are suggesting that through their spatial practices school administrative clerks rework and adjust the school’s existent rhetorical space. the clerks are in part able to transform their subordinate spatial positions and work with the materiality of their work spaces to establish themselves as empowered agents. this theoretical frame provides a lens through which to view administrative clerks’ testimonies. regarding the giving of testimony as a spatial practice can inform us about how administrative clerks’ testimonies are received in their schools. if administrative clerks are suffering testimonial injustice, their spatial practices, as instances of agency, can show us how they carefully craft and carve out transformed rhetorical spaces in order to give testimony. their spatial practices assist us to see how structured school social spaces can simultaneously also be sites of administrative clerks’ agency and resistance. in their lived space administrative clerks imagine the school as a space where their testimonies are heard, and social practices established. contextualising the testimonial practices of the three school administrative clerks the discussion here provides a contextual backdrop against which the administrative clerks’ testimonial practices can be viewed and understood. administrative clerks in the western cape tend, in general, to have lower educational qualifications compared to the teachers and principals at their schools (see naicker, combrinck, & bayat, 2012). the typical administrative clerk has a matric certificate (grade 12) and administrative experience (see naicker, combrinck, & bayat, 2011) and, even if they have a post-matric qualification, it is 44 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 not likely to be in education-related areas. school administrative clerks are designated as nonteaching staff and this, combined with their low occupational status, leads to an identity deficit that confers on them a subordinate occupational status at their school. introducing the participants in the study meg has worked at her school since 1999. the school is in a poor, previously white area that has experienced a dwindling white population. meg grew up and lived in the area, attended this school as a student, and worked previously as a secretary for a local medical doctor. she is currently the school’s only administrative clerk and has a formal yet close relationship with the principal. he runs the school in a top-down manner in a strict and controlling leadership style. meg is a member of the school governing body (sgb) but is not part of the school management team (smt). she is engaged actively in the affairs of the sgb, where her opinions do have some resonance. meg has a certificate in school business administration. she graduated as the top student in her certificate course and was honoured as such at her college graduation. meg is supportive in her interaction with students and parents. she keeps abreast of developments and changes in the students’ families. she knows whose parents have divorced and who is looking after the children when the parents are at work. having grown up in the area, the length of her service has given her insight into the social dynamics of the students and their families. thus, she has a nuanced understanding of what is happening in the lives of many of the students. if, for example, a student is acting up in class, she might have information that could help the teacher deal with that student. she uses the sgb as a rhetorical space in which she voices her opinions. pete is employed at a primary school that is situated in a black township. the students who attend the school are impoverished. pete lives in this township and his son attends the school. as a male, he is atypical of administrative clerks in the western cape. he is an active community member and leader. he started working at the school soon after it was established in 2001. pete is the more senior of the two school administrative clerks at his school and is currently a member of the smt and the sgb in which he serves as the financial officer. pete has an honours degree and is currently doing his master’s degree in public administration at a local university. pete also holds a certificate in school business administration. his involvement in local community issues gives him a deep contextual understanding of the students and teachers from the area. fay has been an administrative clerk since 1997. she has been at her current school, which is situated in a working-class coloured area, since 2002. fay grew up in a similar community. she is one of two school administrative clerks. she handles the finances and heads the fundraising committee. fay completed an adult basic education and training diploma course and has been teaching adults at a local school. she is currently registered for a teaching degree through a distance-learning university. she is a member of the sgb and had previously attended smt meetings. her knowledge of finances and fundraising raises her bayat and fataar: countering testimonial injustice. . . 45 testimonial profile at school and makes her testimony credible in this domain. this extends to the sgb and to the time during which she participated in meetings of the smt. the office space of an administrative clerk is designed to accommodate a support and nonteaching staff member. it is not conceived of as a management, teaching, or learning space. these limitations affect the rhetorical situation of the administrative clerks. however, the administrative clerks’ experiences have provided them with insight and understanding of teaching and learning matters, school management, and community affairs. valuable testimony: the contextual knowledge of administrative clerks administrative clerks have unique perspectives, insights, and situated knowledge, all of which are the result of their spatial practices at school (harding, 2004; nonaka & toyama, 2003). the creation and dissemination of testimony involves situated human beings whose experiences and understanding are shaped by the social interactions and relationships that permeate their social positioning in particular spaces. the three administrative clerks have had many years of building relationships in their respective schools. their spatial position in the school office gives them insight into the daily social functioning and activities of the school that might not be available to those in more elevated positions, such as the teachers and principals. we observed that the administrative clerks interact with students and parents in ways that the teachers do not. for example, a learner or parent will provide administrative clerk with details of their personal lives. this often happens in cases where they do not feel comfortable communicating with the teacher(s) so the clerks often have access to personal information to which teachers do not, so they gain the trust of the students. they interact with parents and students when the parents enrol their children, when they come to pay fees, and purchase uniforms, and they interact with students when they deliver messages from their teachers. students also interact with the administrative clerk when they are given messages from parents who have phoned the clerk, or when students need medical attention, or the clerks provide mediation when students are involved in an altercation. the administrative clerks’ situated knowledge and perspectives are an important resource for teachers and principals. for example, administrative clerks would know which students have not paid fees and in some cases the reasons for non-payment and, at times, they are privy to the private troubles students suffer at school or at home. administrative clerks have experience and training in school administration and management from which the teachers and the principals benefit (rimer, 1984). from our observations and interviews it became evident to us that, even without formal teacher training, they used their accumulated contextual knowledge to engage in practices that enhance students’ social and moral development. a particular example we witnessed was meg’s being called on to arbitrate between two students who had been fighting in the playground. she listened to each of the students as they explained their actions and then proceeded to guide them toward resolving their differences. 46 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 the administrative clerks acquire anecdotal information from various sources, such as students, parents, social workers, and educational officials. the school administrative clerks in this study could therefore be regarded as situated knowers whose testimonies hold value for their schools’ administrative functioning in addition to their educational effectiveness. yet, as we go on to show, in spite of all this, their testimonies are listened to selectively and often simply ignored or overlooked. experiencing testimonial injustice in rhetorical spaces in this section we lay out a synopsis of the administrative clerks’ rhetorical space. we then go on to draw attention to nuanced incidents of testimonial injustice that the school administrative clerks experienced that reflect the different spatial contexts within which they work. the conceived space of the administrative clerks is constrained by the regulative discourses in their institution. they have to obey and defer to the principal, they have to know their place. they are expected to transact their spatial practices in accordance with the hierarchical order of administrative clerks’ conceived space. we provide evidence of this below. this dimension of space has an impact on how the principal and teachers listen to, hear, and mishear the administrative clerk. this spatial articulation carries within it limited potential for administrative clerks’ voicing practices. the clerks often perceive this limitation as frustrating and a negation of their potential to make a multidimensional contribution to the school. venting his frustration at not being heard by the principal, pete explains that “it seems. . . whatever we [referring to himself] say doesn’t make sense to him [the principal].” here pete seems to be offering an excuse for the principal who refuses to listen to, and engage with, the implications of pete’s testimony. in other comments pete noted that his suggestions were for the most part not acted upon by the principal. it seems to us that his diminished status renders his opinions less believable in the rhetorical space of the principal’s office. meg explains how the teachers and the principal do not acknowledge her testimony. she said, “but i’d say to them . . . but it does not register.” she attempted to converse with them about “certain kids” (who are problematic for teachers) but her cries were ignored. meg said, . . . teachers and with the principals, they’re very hard on certain kids and i know what their circumstances are so i tend to be soft with them, and they will come to me, they’ll actually come into my office . . . but i’d say to them [the teachers], ‘but you know what, what’s going on at home?’ but it doesn’t register [with the teachers], i suppose they have to be the disciplinarian. fay commented on her frustration about being asked for her opinion, but then having her testimony ignored. she told us that her testimony was solicited on a particular occasion but when the principal spoke to someone else (a teacher), he set her testimony aside. he had allowed her to expand her rhetorical lived space to advise him, but then retracted and bayat and fataar: countering testimonial injustice. . . 47 restricted it and further devalued her testimony in relation to the teacher’s testimony. fay said, sometimes he [the principal] will come to me for advice, then i will tell him, ‘okay this’, then he will go, then he talks to that person, then he rather . . . my thing is this, why did you come to me in the first place? . . . i want to put in my input and it’s not . . . welcomed. her comments indicate that the principal occasionally gave her an opportunity to voice her opinion, but that he considered it of lower value compared to the opinions of the teachers. it would thus seem that the principal wants to solicit her testimony, but when it conflicts with, or differs from, the views of more highly placed individuals, such as teachers, it is disregarded. furthermore, fay found that when she presented the budget at the sgb meeting at the beginning of the school year, she received negative comments from some of the senior teachers. she felt that they were questioning her credibility in terms of being qualified to discuss the budget. she felt that those teachers did not consider her testimony credible because she was an administrative clerk. according to her, “they did not question the worth of my work, but rather they questioned my worth.” she seemed to imply in one of her interviews that teachers might be jealous of her because of her knowledge of the school’s financial matters. fay commented that the teachers think that she is beneath them, that they think that (she) is only a secretary: “jy is maar net ‘n secretary” [you are only a secretary]. from the above discussion we can infer that administrative clerks are subjected to testimonial injustice. the conceived space for administrative clerks’ testimony is restrictive. they interact every day in a constricted rhetorical space, speaking even though they are not heard. their affective experience of providing testimony is one of rejection, being belittled, and having their testimony ignored. however, as we will show below, their lived encounters in their workspaces are not closed off to meaningful social practices informed by agency. their lived space is where they imagine themselves being accepted, respected, and credible. testimonial injustice is a part of their schools’ conceived and perceived space, but in their lived space they envisage and imagine a greater testimonial role for themselves. their lived space is framed by the hope of being heard. in the following sections we discuss some of the administrative clerks’ spatial practices undertaken in their struggle to be heard. striving for credibility: engendering reworked rhetorical spaces in the previous section we demonstrated the testimonial injustice that these administrative clerks suffered and the limited rhetorical space they enjoyed at their schools. in this section, we discuss the spatial practices through which they found gaps in their school spaces in 48 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 which to counter this epistemic injustice. four spatial practices are considered: their presence in their work spaces, forming close relationships, credibility enhancement through further study, and taking on extra-role work. we argue that it is through these spatial practices that the administrative clerks succeeded in enhancing their testimonial credibility. spatial participation the issue of their continuity of spatial presence refers to the administrative clerks being physically present and actively participating in the rhetorical spaces that their school spaces offered. their physical presence in the front office of the school is a job requirement. however, it requires the administrative clerks’ agency to activate their physical presence and turn it into a spatial practice to build credibility. it was their desire to play a meaningful role and be recognised as more than just administrative clerks that motivated them. in terms of their strategy of spatial participation, the selected administrative clerks strove to remain rhetorically involved in many forums and spaces within their schools. this included being part of the smt (pete and fay at particular times), the sgb (all three administrative clerks) and sub-committees of the sgb, particularly the finance and the fundraising committees. attending smt meetings was not an expected requirement for the clerks, but they all requested access to this social space from time to time. they did not restrict themselves to the behavioural limits placed on them by the regulative discourses of the sgb and smts. as they cautiously exercised their agency, they found that gradually their testimonies were being noted. the three administrative clerks indicated that it was a steady but fraught and inconsistent process, with advances and retreats that gradually led to the production of a more just and inclusive rhetorical space at school. once they had negotiated a more inclusive space, the administrative clerks found fertile ground for their testimonial contribution. one of the teachers interviewed acknowledged pete’s credibility when she said, “even . . . when there’s [a] parents’ meeting, he [is] the one who is able to convince and talk about the problems . . . and bring good suggestions.” in addition, the deputy principal commented on how pete had enhanced his credibility with school governors by explaining that pete was the one who is always on the school premises, he knows what is happening and he would be the one who tells the governing body what is really happening. if the governing body sometimes is resisting, he will then intervene . . . because he is always at [school], he knows what is going on inside the school, you know. the clerks’ spatial participation is facilitated by their being in their offices to answer the phone, welcome guests, and deal with queries from the education department officials, teachers, parents, etc. this allows them to acquire an in-depth perspective on events and issues that involve the school. their spatial participation also means they are the first at school and probably the last to leave. whenever teachers had an administrative query, they tended to turn to the administrative clerks for assistance. bayat and fataar: countering testimonial injustice. . . 49 meg’s principal has come to rely on her testimony to reflect on his decision-making and to aid him in making further decisions. meg illustrated the dynamics of the morning conversations between her and the principal. so we got about ten minutes between 5 past 7 and quarter past 7 that we’ll chat about the day ahead or yesterday. . . but we do have that informal meeting. . . he either comes to chat to me here or i go to his office. he’ll tell me what he’s worried about, this is going to happen today, he’ll tell me if he is going to be out for a while. . . meg said that the principal used these informal chats to solicit her opinion on some of the issues that needed to be addressed. their regular conversations (they had been working together since 1999) based on her presence at school meant that she had opportunities to slowly chip away at the principal’s dismissive attitude toward her testimony. she indicated that she had over time manged to build up her credibility with the principal. the clerks’ spatial participation afforded them situated knowledge which they used to enhance their credibility. fay recounted many occasions in which one of her previous principals would step into her office and ask her about the background and request advice concerning an issue before making a decision. this action by the principal underscored the testimonial credibility that she had gained with him because of her presence at school. forming close relationships cultivating and maintaining relationships is a key spatial practice through which the clerks improved their credibility. the dialogical nature of school social spaces means that these spaces are sites of contestation and negotiation. administrative clerks courted relationships with school staff to enhance their credibility. pete cultivated a close relationship with the principal, deputy principal, and some of the heads of departments. he recounted many conversations that he had with the principal about how to improve the school. for example, he addressed the principal at the end of the school year about implementing strategies to improve the school’s low annual national assessment scores. the principal agreed that he would launch a plan the following year to improve the implementation of the curriculum, which, according to the principal, was informed by some of pete’s “sensible practical advice.” describing his interaction and communication with the principal, pete explained, i approached mr s [the principal] and tell him about my concerns . . . because normally when i talk to him, i wouldn’t say ‘mr s, can i have a minute because i have a concern.’ i normally would communicate, maybe hijacking the conversations that we made and then comment about a certain thing. in this way pete injected his testimony into the existing conversation. we suggest that this was possible because he had built a close relationship with the principal. 50 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 pete said that he developed a relationship with a former principal, who is now a local educational district official, and that this man had come to respect pete’s opinion. he said that this official came to him recently and said, “pete, you are the person, i trust your opinion.” pete explained that this official also said he had trusted him (pete) to ‘“always have a neutral opinion.” pete pointed out that “he asked me . . . he used to give me a scenario and then . . . ask my opinion around that and i normally give my opinion.” such trust, we posit, was built through friendship and a close bond. meg formed close relationships with certain teachers and the principal. thus, the principal felt he could in some instances trust her voice and testimony and ask her for advice. the principal said about meg, that “if i ask her for . . . advice, she will give it.” this, we suggest, indicates that her testimony had become more credible. fay also established a close relationship with one of her previous principals with whom she enjoyed an enhanced testimonial credibility. she said, he could see where i’m coming from, we were talking out of each other’s hand . . . if i say ‘mr v what do think of this? juffrou, ons maak dit soos jy sê (miss, we will do it as you say). by building an affable and gracious relationship, she persuaded the principal to give greater credence to her testimony. at the same time, she remarked that this principal signalled to her the extent to which he was extending her credibility by commenting in playful language, “jy sê nie iets vir my nie, hoor” (you don’t tell me anything, you hear me.). this shows that although her testimony had enhanced credibility, he was alerting her to be mindful of the diminished testimonial status of the clerical role. during an interview with this previous principal, he acknowledged that he had had a close working relationship with fay. there is a spatial dimension that underpins close relationships. the proximity in which the principal and the administrative clerks work promotes mutual understanding and respect. all three of the administrative clerks in this study developed close relationships with their principals and certain teachers through working closely with them over many years and gaining their trust. they also developed working relationships with many service providers, community nurses, parents, and educational authority officials across the educational environment with whom they enjoyed testimonial credibility. through these relationships administrative clerks enhanced their credibility with the staff at the school level and with the educational authorities at the district level. it is therefore clear that their circumscribed agency notwithstanding, the administrative clerks re-positioned their testimonies, knowledge sharing, and other practices to meaningfully contribute to their schools’ daily operations. bayat and fataar: countering testimonial injustice. . . 51 enhancing their credibility through academic credentialing the testimonial injustice that administrative clerks experienced is related to their lack of social power. thus, in order to increase their credibility, the administrative clerks increased their human and social capital. all three administrative clerks embarked on improving their academic credentials, which involved completing the specialised certificate in school business administration (csba) training course. all three administrative clerks commented that this had enhanced their understanding of school governance and school management, which enhanced, in turn, their capacity for acquiring agency in these domains. they did further training and two of them are currently pursuing academic degrees at local universities. pete explained that “if people [the teachers and principal] are aware that you are a master’s student they will tend to listen to what you are saying.” meg said, “it [my credibility after doing the csba] has [improved] a lot with mr k [the principal] . . . and the . . . new governing body as well.” she also said that the principal now introduces her to a new parent with words such as, “this is the school business manager.” through increasing their educational credentials, the administrative clerks enhanced their credibility, which enhanced their authority and gained some newfound respect for their opinions. academic credentialing therefore played a key role in enhancing their testimonial credibility. fostering credibility through additional role tasks another spatial practice through which the administrative clerks fostered their credibility was by constantly doing additional role tasks and doing them successfully. even though they were sometimes subtly coerced into doing these extra role tasks, they used the successful execution of these tasks to build credibility in the school. this included doing some of the principal’s and the teachers’ work, attending after-school functions and events and being part of the various sub-committees of the sgb. commenting on how she goes along with the subordinate position assigned to her to do extra role tasks, meg said, “you do your daily tasks, things that mr k would ask me to do that i would fit in, things that the teachers ask me to do, i would fit in then.” she explained that the more successful she became at these extra-role tasks, the more her credibility increased: “as i got more responsibility, i got more respect as everything went smoothly.” pete also commented that he was successfully doing some of the principal’s work. we consider this an important reason why he was able to gain credibility with his current principal. he said, “i’m doing the administration that is supposed to be done by the principal.” the deputy principal at pete’s school commented on pete’s commitment to the school when she said, pete is really doing a good job. he’s sometimes assisting the principal writing the minutes for the sgb you know. pete is good in keeping the finances and when you ask pete to do something for you, he’s willing to do that, he’s always willing. 52 journal of education, no. 73, 2018 these and similar statements bear testimony to pete’s enhanced status and credibility at school. in sum, the administrative clerks exercised their agency to counter the stigma of their subordinate social position. they engaged in novel spatial practices, imagined new lived spaces, and tried to influence the conceived space notions of those around them to get their voices heard. being on the sgb and smt were important spatial practices during which the administrative clerks strove to make their voices heard. even though there is recognition of the administrative clerks’ contribution, it remains a struggle for them to challenge their placement in the school’s hierarchy. notwithstanding the praise lavished on them by teachers and principals, this does not change the marginality of their occupational position. the three administrative clerks were able to imagine a different lived space and engaged in spatial practices that reflected their agency. they established spatial practices that enhanced their credibility. they reflexively employed their agency to change the perceptions of their testimonial competency among their principals and teachers. they engaged in sustained spatial practices—actually, acts of resistance—that enhanced their credibility. the clerks’ spatial practices of active spatial participation, cultivating close relationships, doing praiseworthy additional role tasks, and increasing their human capital through further study were deployed to engender an expanded rhetorical school space. we have argued that the administrative clerks engendered spatial practices through which they were able not only to express their opinions, but also to have these opinions regarded as credible and worthy. by countering the testimonial injustices to which they were subjected, the administrative clerks were able to counter the prejudiced stereotypes held by their hearers. conclusion our task in this article is aligned with fricker’s (2007) contention that the testimonies of marginalised individuals, such as administrative clerks, are ignored and overlooked. the bureaucracy and hierarchical structure of public schools tend to limit the testimonial credibility of administrative clerks. prevailing educational management discourses confer limited testimonial credibility on their professional status. their office spaces, where they are based, have limited rhetorical prospects. thus, administrative clerks are restricted from having their testimony heard, understood, and believed, even when it contributes meaningfully to their schools’ operations. given these restrictions, we show that the three school administrative clerks exercised their agency through establishing alternative spatial practices. they engendered rhetorical spaces in which their testimonies enjoyed enhanced credibility. through their spatial practices they provided their testimonies in selected rhetorical spaces, despite being subjected to testimonial injustice. these practices show them to be impactful contributors to their school’s daily functioning. through these spatial practices they resist the epistemic injustices of their occupational position. bayat and fataar: countering testimonial injustice. . . 53 we have demonstrated not only how testimonial injustices are perpetuated, but also how they are resisted. we have shown that, despite the spatial constrictions that confront the clerks in their school work spaces, they have strategically and deliberatively fashioned rhetorical spaces that conferred on them the testimonial credibility that allows them to play a meaningful role in their work environments. the three administrative clerks wanted to be heard and recognised for their contribution to their schools, and to this end they reflexively went about building credibility, which emerged as a result of prudently engaging in sustained micro-spatial practices. these spatial practices included their spatial participation, close relationships with significant others at the school, furthering their academic qualifications, and performing additional role tasks successfully and competently. we have argued that subordinate groups, such as the school administrative clerks discussed here, engage in credibility-bolstering exercises by which they enhance their standing and integrity within their specific local contexts and, in doing so, change the lived nature of their work spaces. their practices are ideologically and discursively invisible, yet they contribute immensely to the institutional practices of the school by countering the testimonial injustice visited upon them as a consequence of their occupational position. they are nevertheless caught in the duality of being discursively invisible while being practically impactful. acknowledgements the authors wish to thank the national research foundation (thuthuka) for providing funding for the research which was conducted as part of the first author’s phd research. this article draws on a seminar presentation on the topic of this article by the first author at manchester metropolitan university, united kingdom. the authors would like to thank the seminar participants and the two blind reviewers of this article for their comments. references bayat, a., & fataar, a. 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(2003). can power produce knowledge? reconsidering the relationship of power to knowledge. the southern journal of philosophy, 41(1): 105–123. microsoft word bissue72 final.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 72, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i72a03 voices of grade four teachers in response to mazibuye izilimi zomdabu! (bring back african languages!): a decolonising approach patrick mweli university of kwazulu-natal, school of education mwelip@ukzn.ac.za (received: 8 may 2018; accepted: 4 october 2018) abstract the language of learning and teaching (lolt) poses a threat to the quality of teaching and learning of most learners who speak african languages in africa and particularly in south africa. in this study, i explore language attitudes and the lived experiences of 400 grade four teachers in pinetown and umgungundlovu districts teaching african learners using english as lolt. the study challenges anglonormative language ideologies (mckinney, carrim, layton, & marshall, 2015) and the coloniality of dominant discourses about lolt in south africa. calling on the voices of the teachers, i argue for the use of african languages to teach african learners as a powerful measure to regain african identity and to delink education from eurocentric knowledge and cultures. i compared results from quantitative and qualitative data to arrive at the overall finding that most grade four teacher participants prefer the use of african languages to teach african learners and that these teachers are experiencing difficulty in using english as lolt to teach most of them. drawing from teachers’ responses, i conclude that the use of african languages in education connects learners’ worldviews and ways of knowing to the curriculum and provides access to knowledge. keywords: language of learning and teaching (lolt), african languages, african worldview, african ways of knowing, culture, colonial lolt, epistemic decoloniality lolt (edlolt) introduction language and literature were taking us further from ourselves, from our world to the other world. (ngu ᷉gi ᷉ wa thiong’o, 1986, p. 12) linguistic mismatch between the language of education and the language known and understood by learners has been a matter of global concern since the mid-twentieth century (mohanty, 2012; wigglesworth, simpson, & loakes, 2011). language in education has been a controversial issue in south africa in spite of the constitutional right that all children should receive education in a language of their choice and that all eleven official languages should enjoy equal status. the language in education policy, drafted along language rights as enshrined in the constitution, aimed at ensuring the continued use of mother tongue as lolt mweli: bring back african languages! 39 and enabling learners to gain access to additional languages through additive bi/multilingualism. however, research (madiba & mabiletja, 2008; makoni & pennycook, 2012; pluddemann, 2013; prinsloo, 2007) indicates a disjuncture between the additive bi/multilingual and its implementation in classroom discourse. for example, banda (2000) has pointed out that the chances of success of the south african language in education policy are very slim if african languages are not made part of classroom discourse. the use of african languages in education could ensure the cultural identity of learners and provide access to knowledge through the alignment between lolt, worldviews, and ways of knowing. most african cultures that learners bring into the classroom are not used to support quality learning and teaching. therefore, in a situation in which english is privileged over african languages as lolt, it could be argued that the use of english, which is embedded in anglo-centric culture, denies epistemological access to knowledge to the majority of learners who speak african languages. i recognise the argument made by most researchers that language ideologies, language theorisation, and historical context have played a crucial role in shaping the character of languages (banda, 2000; makalela, 2015; makoni & pennycook, 2005; mckinney et al., 2015; spear, 2003). this literature also indicates the role played by missionaries in the development of african languages through the introduction of written languages using latin script (alphabets). however, my argument in this article centres on the idea that there is a necessity for scholars of linguistics and psycholinguists as well as educationalists to move beyond the current language theorisation and ideologies and recognise the role of cultures in shaping human cognition through worldviews and languages as the carriers of culture. ngu ᷉gi῀ (1986) regarded language as “both the means of communication and a carrier of culture” (p.13). 1 south africa as an anglophone country inherited english as lolt as did other anglophone and francophone african countries that inherited the coloniser’s language during dependence and continued to use it after independence. the hegemony of the english and french languages in africa has been ignored by the international community for a long time (brockutne & mercer, 2014). researchers in this regard (alexander, 2009; alidou et al., 2006; cabansag, 2016; skutnabb-kangas, 2017) have argued against the use of english and french as dominant language in african education systems since this has resulted in african languages being shifted to the background; this is likely to affect the delivery of quality education for all speakers of african languages. quality teaching and learning is understood in terms of the assumption that learning is a social activity and both learners and teachers construct knowledge through active participation. in other words, quality teaching refers to effective mediation during which the teacher as the knowledgeable other interacts with the learner in the process of knowledge and skills acquisition using language that is understandable to the learner as the tool of communication. researchers have indicated the inherent difficulty of using english as lolt 1 the focus in this article is on language as a tool to navigate learning and teaching in the classroom. 40 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 to teach african learners (hugo & lenyai, 2013; sibanda & baxen, 2016) with low english language proficiency. to illustrate, in the study by kirui, osman, and naisujaki (2017) conducted with teachers in arusha district, tanzania, in community secondary schools, it was found that that both teachers and learners struggled to express themselves in english so it is likely that no effective mediated teaching process occurred. moreover, “teachers agree[d] that they face[d] challenges in the use of english as the language of instruction” (kirui et al., 2017, p. 113). this complicated the learning and teaching process and resulted in low learner academic achievement. cummins, mirza, and stille (2012) concurred with this in stating that learner and teacher proficiency in the medium of instruction largely determines academic success. in south africa, a similar situation exists in the education system since the majority of african learners receive education through the medium of english in contravention of the ideal of additive bi/multilingualism that is promoted by the south african language in education policy (department of education, 1997). in this article, i challenge the hegemony of the use of the english language in education as one of the remnants of coloniality that promotes the imperialistic agenda by instilling eurocentric worldviews and cultures in the minds of african learners. the argument is framed within the understanding that “coloniality is the fundamental problem of the modern age” (ndlovu-gatsheni, 2013, p. 13). it is crucial to note that language and cognition are intertwined, and language contains knowledge codes that are crucial to learning (vandeyar & killen, 2006). most importantly, languages are cultural symbols that exist in the human mind, represent abstract ideas or concepts, and shared cultural knowledge in a particular society. these symbols are meaningless outside the culture in which members of the societies who use them attach shared meanings to them (mweli, 2018). in this regard, african languages contain african worldviews and ways of knowing that are in line with african cultures. using african languages to educate the african child is likely to have more benefits than using english. for example, adesemowo (2017) has pointed out that there are benefits in using the language that is familiar to learners because learners are able to relate to concepts in their own language and culture. unesco (2014, p. 283) concurred by noting that if we are “to ensure that children from ethnic and linguistic minorities acquire strong foundation skills, schools need to teach the curriculum in a language that children understand” (p. 283). the bilingual approach needs further exploration to ensure the alignment between the worldviews and the ways of knowing of learners and teachers that is made possible by the use of mother tongue languages that incorporate shared african cultures. it is likely that under these circumstances, the teachers will teach better and learners will understand more. problem statement the performance of the south african grade four children in the international literacy test, the progress in international reading and literacy study (pirls), shocked most stakeholders in the south african education system. the pirls 2016 report revealed that 78% of grade four children could not read for meaning in any language. this means that they cannot retrieve basic information from a text to answer simple questions. furthermore, the annual national assessment (ana) report of 2013 and 2014 (department of basic mweli: bring back african languages! 41 education, 2013, 2014) indicated that most grade four learners have difficulty in interpreting meaning and analysing information from a text. the greatest difficulty was in responding to questions on writing and presenting as well as on the language structure and conventions. most learners at this level could not provide valid reasons for their answers and demonstrated limited vocabulary in their first additional language. these results suggest that there is a severe problem with language and with pedagogic content knowledge in the south african education system. this problem deepens with african learners who use the second language of english as lolt. it is apparent that most african learners at grade four level have not reached the required level of english proficiency. for example, sibanda (2017, p. 4) has pointed out that “there is no basis to suggest that african language-speaking learners would have developed basic interpersonal communication skills (bics) in english by the time they get to grade four” (p. 4). in addition to the problem, as mentioned earlier, teaching african learners through a language that is unfamiliar to them could result in their access to knowledge being denied, and could lead to low academic achievement, minimal learner-participation in classroom activities, and memorization of information and concepts that would result in shallow learning and misunderstanding of the concepts. conceptual framing: decoloniality i conceptualised what i call epistemic decolonial lolt (edlolt) in this study within the definition of decoloniality provided by ndlovu-gatsheni (2015) that “decoloniality centres around the notion of remaking the world to emancipate the enslaved, exploited and colonised people to regain their dignity as human beings, land, their knowledge systems and power” (p. 23). the use of languages inherited from the colonisers is regarded as part of the propagation of the coloniality of knowledge in which the imperialist agendas are spread with the aim of promoting eurocentric modernity in the african continent (ngu ᷉gi ᷉ , 1986). hence, edlolt in schools should strive towards emancipating the exploited and colonised people by providing access to knowledge that will enable them to regain their dignity, land and power. after all, as ngu ᷉gi ᷉ has said, “english was the official vehicle and magic formula to colonial elitedom” (p. 12). grounding my thinking in the above, i position my argument in terms edlolt. by this, i mean a language of learning and teaching that delves into the epistemologies of the oppressed, colonised people, and captures the essence, depth, and goodness of african indigenous knowledges. edlolt should affirm the dignity of african people and recognise their identities, knowledge systems, and cultures (ndlovu-gatsheni, 2013); this would allow for multi-african languages to be used in education to teach the african child. put differently, edlolt is rooted in the idea that african education systems need to use multi-african languages that do not “exercise racial and colonial power/knowledge” (adams & estrdavillalta, 2017, p. 37) to suppress the exploited and enslaved african learners but should, instead, sustain the african identity and dignity that was obliterated by colonialism. 42 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 decoloniality is a reaction against coloniality in an attempt to redefine and find a new world order (grosfoguel, 2011). the term coloniality was first coined by quijano (2000) and was further elaborated on in the work of mignolo (2011) who referred to coloniality as the name for the dark side of modernity. this must be unmasked and shown to be rooted in the logic that enforces control, domination, and exploitation disguised in the name of modernization and said to be good for everyone. it is important to note that the forms of coloniality persist because of “knowledge formation and [the] modern ways of being that the colonial powers imposed on the world as a hegemonic standard” (adams & estrda-villalta, 2017, p. 39). however, edlolt in the african context would affirm indigenous epistemologies and worldviews that are aligned with african cultures because, as already noted, languages are tied up with cultural values and worldviews (batibo, 2015). in this regard, african education systems should sever themselves from eurocentric knowledge, languages, and cultures to acknowledge education that affirms african identity (ndlovu-gatsheni, 2013) and indigenous knowledge systems. english as lolt to teach african learners is one of the elements of colonial knowledge—the “constructions of reality that both reflect and reproduce forms of racial domination and inequality” (adams & estrda-villalta, 2017, p. 37) and ways of knowing that do not align with the african worldviews that most african learners bring into classrooms. therefore, edlolt can be seen to be rooted in the idea that african languages should be regarded as enabling tools for quality teaching and for the learning of african learners in a way that aligns their worldviews and ways of knowing (marrow, 1994) with the curriculum content. haraway (1988) has concurred with this in stating that “our knowledges are always situated” (p. 8) in that they are embedded in a culture and transmitted through a language. collins (1990) has referred to haraway’s statement as “afro-centric epistemology” (p. 508). this could promote the use of indigenous knowledge systems and enable most african learners to approach the learning of new concepts from the position of strength provided by african languages as lolt in education. theoretical framing: a sociocultural approach according to sociocultural theory, language is central to learning (wertsch, 2007). learning is a social process through which human intelligence develops (wertsch, 1985). through language, the learner acquires knowledge and skills that originate in society and culture (lantolf & thorne, 2000). knowledge and skills, according to the sociocultural approach, are mediated through interactions between the learners and their social environment or culture. learning becomes a social collaborative activity (swain, kinnear, & steinman, 2010) given the interaction occurring between the capable others (teachers, peers, and parents) and the learner in the educational social context. language is central to the learning process; it is understood to be one of the cultural artefacts used for communication during interaction where knowledgeable others give instruction and learners respond to instructions in learning activities. these instructions play a vital role in facilitating the smooth and effective acquisition of skills and knowledge. the learner actively mweli: bring back african languages! 43 engages with verbal instructions through communication and task performance. for example, teaching a child how to ride a bicycle follows a number of sequenced procedures. first, the capable other could model how to ride and verbally explain the procedure. then the learner performs the modelled behaviour and follows instructions to acquire the skill necessary to riding a bicycle. during this process, the capable other scaffolds the skills and knowledge by allowing the learner to perform tasks that are manageable at the time until the acquisition of more complex skills and knowledge is achieved. a similar situation occurs during the performance of learning tasks in the classroom. drawing on sociocultural theory, we see the learning process following an outward-in approach; knowledge that was an external entity in the learner’s environment becomes an internal entity residing in the mind of the learner. learning first occurs between people and then in the individual (liang, 2013). we can see that language plays a crucial role in the acquisition of skills and knowledge during the learning process. methods following creswell and plano clark (2010), my study consists of two parts, the survey and the focus group discussions used in a parallel convergent mixed method approach. i have compared the findings from both sections to reach the overall findings of the study. part 1 (quantitative) investigated the attitudes that grade four teachers have towards english as lolt. random sampling was used to select the survey respondents. the sample consisted of 400 grade four teachers from semi-rural and urban schools. following cohen, manion, and morrison (2011), the qualitative second section interrogated the lived teaching experiences of grade four teachers in using english as lolt to teach african learners. twenty grade four teachers participated in five focus group discussions. all grade four teachers teaching different subjects were eligible to participate in the study since the main purpose was to investigate their lived experiences regarding the use of english as lolt to teach the african learners. i used purposive sampling to select the participants for the focus group discussion. a convergence parallel mixed method research design was used to interrogate the research phenomenon. quantitative data (survey) was analyzed using inferential and descriptive data analyses. qualitative data (focus group interviews) was analyzed through thematic data analysis. ethical considerations to ensure the safety, privacy, and confidentiality of the participants and to secure permissions from gatekeepers were taken into account. after i had applied for ethical clearance from the university and had received permission from the department of basic education and the school principals to use the research sites, i visited each and held a meeting with potential participants. i assured them of the confidentiality of the information obtained, their anonymity, and their right to withdraw. i also had the participants sign a consent form. 44 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 findings african language preference as lolt to teach african learners of 400 grade four teachers, most reported a positive attitude towards the use of african languages to teach african learners. in line with the items loaded on the african language preference factor, teachers’ responses indicated that using african languages to teach african learners enables them to express themselves better, improves understanding, and allows them to show their intelligence. table 1 displays the results of descriptive analysis for factors of language attitudes. table: 1 descriptive statistics for factors of language attitude table 1 indicates that african language preference has the highest mean (n=397, m=39.30) and is thus deemed to be the most important factor. teachers were responding to the statement that teaching in african languages at grade four level would show the intelligence of african learners. the latter was followed by english language preference (n=394, m=34.3); teachers responded to questions about whether one needs english to understand academic ideas and whether using english for teaching is a way of remaining competitive and keeping standards high. then followed african languages challenges (n=396, m=25.3). in this section teachers answered questions on whether learners can or cannot use the standard version of african languages and whether it is difficult for most african learners to read and write in their own languages. the factor with the smallest mean was african identity language and development. see figure 1. n range minimum maximum mean std. deviation variance african language preference 397 63 1 64 39.30 9.822 96.475 english language preference 394 59 1 60 34.27 9.312 86.720 african languages challenges 396 42 1 43 25.29 5.779 33.399 african language identity and development 392 29 1 30 20.66 4.581 20.983 valid n (listwise) 391 figure: 1 means of factors african learner difficulty with english as lolt participant teachers reported that most learners who are speakers of african languages at grade four level in south african schools do not understand english as their lolt and are unable to access the curriculum content knowledge. participating teacher pseudonym data gathered vivo firstly, since learners are isizulu speaking, they can’t even think in english. they think in isizulu. if you go to the isizulu class [and] if you walk in there they are speaking isizulu to one another. they want to communicat maya right now, the second language (english) is becoming a massive obstacle to english second language learners. they are failing it. it is just not just grade four learners but across all the grades. all the grades are battling with the ndokwe they lack confidence. they lack confidence in the language. therefore, if they do not have confidence in the language of teaching and learning that means they will not even participate. mweli: bring back african languages african learner difficulty with english as lolt participant teachers reported that most learners who are speakers of african languages at grade four level in south african schools do not understand english as their lolt and are unable to access the curriculum content knowledge. data gathered firstly, since learners are isizulu speaking, they can’t even think in english. they think in isizulu. if you go to the isizulu class [and] if you walk in there they are speaking isizulu to one another. they want to communicate in isizulu. right now, the second language (english) is becoming a massive obstacle to english second language learners. they are failing it. it is just not just grade four learners but across all the grades. all the grades are battling with the second language (english). they lack confidence. they lack confidence in the language. therefore, if they do not have confidence in the language of teaching and learning that means they will not even participate. ack african languages! 45 participant teachers reported that most learners who are speakers of african languages at grade four level in south african schools do not understand english as their lolt and are firstly, since learners are isizulu speaking, they can’t even think in english. they think in isizulu. if you go to the isizulu class [and] if you walk in there they are speaking isizulu to one right now, the second language (english) is becoming a massive obstacle to english second language learners. they are failing it. it is just not just grade four learners but across all the grades. all second language (english). they lack confidence. they lack confidence in the language. therefore, if they do not have confidence in the language of teaching and learning that means they will not even participate. 46 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 choc they (learners) do not have the vocabulary; they do not have the understanding. they do not have that background knowledge of how to communicate. vezi we also find that with the reading, specifically some learners might be able to read fairly well but they do not understand what they are reading. they seem to battle with comprehension. others, (learners) do not read. they do not go to libraries. they are not interested. the excerpts above show that most african learners are not coping with english. when these learners reach grade four the language they know and identify with is no longer being used. these learners bring into the classroom a wealth of language skills in their mother tongue, which is not used during the learning process. most learners think and understand their worlds in isizulu, which is the known and familiar language that contains blueprints of their cultural knowledge, cultural values. and epistemologies. it is important to note that if the mother tongue language that these learners bring to school is not used such learners will not have access to knowledge that is presented in english and they will be capable of only minimal participation in the learning process. the result is most likely to be shallow learning and misunderstanding of the concepts. teacher-difficulty in teaching african learners using english as lolt grade four teachers reported that they have trouble teaching most african learners using english as the medium of instruction. participating teacher pseudonym data gathered ndoo they (the learners) are struggling with the language of learning and teaching and this affects everything else. if we had to give them a question in another subject like natural sciences, they will not understand that question and they will not know how to answer that question because the problem goes back to the language. without the language, learners cannot even construct a sentence. they will not be able to answer on another subject the way they [are] supposed to answer. they battle with that. ntee i teach science and every time i come across a word that is not in everyday use i will ask them for the isizulu word. unfortunately, sometimes you get like three or four words in isizulu and isixhosa and then they have an argument. however, they are battling with the english language. zoo sometimes they (learners) say, “explain it in isizulu so that we can understand.” if you do not they just look at you. mweli: bring back african languages! 47 the teachers’ responses above indicate the difficulty they experience in teaching african learners using english as lolt. primarily, teachers agreed that learners are struggling with english and this affects everything; it was implied that no effective learning and teaching could happen under these conditions. teachers struggle to give instructions to african learners in english. learners do not understand english and sometimes demand that teachers explain in isizulu. this situation forces the teachers to codeswitch to the learners’ mother tongue to resolve the problem. however, what happens if the teacher does not understand the home language of the learners? teachers indicated that they ask learners for the meaning of the english word in isizulu or isixhosa. in this case, because the learners do not know the meaning of the english word they might give the teacher any word that comes to mind to make him or her happy. we can see, quite clearly, that if lolt is not the learners’ or the teacher’s mother tongue or if both the learners and the teachers are not highly proficient in lolt, effective learning and teaching is hindered in the classroom, and the two-way interaction of learning through interaction as outlined earlier is destroyed. discussion drawing from the south african context of the language in education policy formulation, the introduction of the incremental implementation of african languages (iial) in south african schools was welcomed as the greatest move towards strengthening the use of african languages as subjects at school. however, “the dropping of the lolt issue [african languages as lolt] represents a missed opportunity to address the learning crisis in the majority of schools” (pluddemann, 2015, p. 191). the implication of the latter statement for south african education is clearly articulated in the survey and focus group responses of grade four teachers presented above. the following discussion on the coloniality of lolt points to the opportunity missed by the south african department of education and calls for the reinstatement of african languages as edlolt to teach african learners. colonial lolt vs edlolt the dominance of the english language and its use in most african education systems is indicative of its colonial oppressive nature that continues to haunt most african education systems and has resulted in african languages shifting to the background and becoming underdeveloped (brock-utne & mercer, 2014; mohr & ochieng, 2017; olajide, 2010; prah, 2010). the english language carries eurocentric culture, worldviews, and knowledges that coco well the language is not boxed in each subject. language is language. whether you teach in history or geography. it is difficult to teach them using english, because they do not have the vocabulary. unfortunately, it is the language of everything. the language of society. it is the global language. overseas you will need to speak english and you will have to be more fluent and express yourself. 48 journal of education, no. 72, 2018 align themselves with eurocentric modernity, although some literature in post-colonial and sociolinguistic studies of world englishes shows how english has been appropriated and localized in different parts of the world (bamgbose, 1998; saraceni, 2017). its colonial nature is evident when it is used in an african context as the dominant language in education. this means that when an african learner enters formal schooling and brings along his or her mother tongue language to navigate learning, he or she is confronted with the schooling system that enforces english as lolt. in this way, african learners are denied the privilege of using and upholding their cultural ways of knowing and their knowledge systems and are prevented from using their mother tongue languages to navigate learning in favor of eurocentric modernity. in this manner, african learners are socialized to think epistemically like euro-american individuals (grosfoguel, 2011). english becomes a factor of coloniality or a colonial lolt. as noted above, the concept of coloniality refers to the aftermath of colonisation and its practices that have remained in place after the colonial rule had been “displaced” (ndlovu-gatsheni, 2013, p. 13). using english to teach african learners indicates the use of a colonial lolt, the language that does not affirm african identity and does not ensure the regaining of african dignity that was destroyed by the colonial powers. most research has suggested that the use of english as lolt to teach the african learner does not have any educational benefits and secures, instead, the alienation of the african learner from his or her own reality and creates a barrier to access to knowledge (chivhanga & chimhenga, 2013; sibanda, 2014; webb, lafon, & philips 2010). language is not neutral; it is a carrier of beliefs, cultural values, and worldviews. in the process of using english as lolt, the idea of western civilization and culture, with its life styles that are seen to be perfect becomes something to pursue and aspire to in order to achieve success and this is injected into the minds of african learners. most importantly, the social context and cultural aspect of the child’s learning is disturbed. socially, the african learner in this situation is unable to interact meaningfully with capable others, characterized by meaning-making, during the learning process. not only do these learners not understand english, this language as lolt blocks the communication process between peer learners and teachers and hinders the process of mediation (liang, 2013; wertsch, 1990) and the effective internalization of knowledge by the mind from the social context. if the learners’ language is the prism through which they see the world, then language becomes more than just the symbols that they use to communicate in that it also shapes how they think, and thoughts control behavior. when a learner learns a home language, it gives her or him a worldview that is based on a particular culture. this worldview becomes the reference point from which this human being interprets the world around her or him through the language. african learners, when they learn their mother tongue language at home, develop an african culture-based worldview. this is a powerful cultural tool the african child brings into the classroom to navigate the acquisition of new knowledge and skills. the teachers said that when learners do not understand them they codeswitch to the learners’ mother tongue to explain difficult concepts. teachers then explain better and the learners are mweli: bring back african languages! 49 better able to understand concepts. it is likely that most teachers’ preference for african languages as lolt, as reflected in the survey responses, implies the perfect match between their worldviews, ways of knowing, cultures, and languages with that of the learners. it also indicates the meeting of minds among learners themselves, their worldviews, and their language. it is vital to note that it is when a language plays an emancipatory role, in the sense that it facilitates the perfect alignment of the oppressed or exploited group’s worldviews with their cultural knowledges we can regard it as an edlolt. if this concept is applied in south african schools, we would use african languages to teach african learners, thereby aligning their worldview, cultures. and language for the purpose of ensuring quality learning and teaching. in other words, edlolt connects the african epistemologies with african culture to navigate the acquisition of new knowledge that will determine the new order of the world and accommodate multiple epistemologies and knowledge systems to emancipate the groups of people that are located on the oppressed side of the world (mignolo, 2011). conclusion the findings in this study reveal that most grade four teachers prefer to use an african language as lolt to teach african learners and that many grade four learners are struggling with english. the mother tongue is, clearly, a perfect link between the subject content knowledge and the learner’s worldview and ways of knowing. teachers in these classrooms identified the language problem and tried to solve it by codeswitching (creese & blackledge, 2010) to the home language of the learners but their resolution was effective for a short time only. i call for the full implementation of the south african language in education policy and for the reinstatement of african languages as lolt at least through the primary phase given the structural challenges of affordances that could accompany the use of african languages in south africa. some teachers in their responses indicated the power of english. it also reminds us of the power of colonialism especially in the case of the teacher who sees english as the world language. finally, while acknowledging the work done by researchers on bilingualism/multilingualism (hornberger & link, 2012; wei, 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(2011). naplan language assessments for indigenous children in remote communities: issues and problems. australian review of applied linguistics, 34(3), 320 ̶ 343. microsoft word bissue76full21oct.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 76, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i76a02 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x pedagogical strategies to support economics students’ learning at an open distance learning university micheal m. van wyk department of curriculum and instructional studies, school for teacher education, college of education, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa vwykmm@unisa.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5536-1362 (received: 3 january 2019; accepted: 18 june 2019) abstract in this article, i investigate the use of pedagogical strategies employed to support students’ learning in an online teaching methodology of economics course. to this end, i conducted a systematic review of the extant literature on student support in an open distance learning context. furthermore, i employed a pragmatic approach, along with an explanatory mixed methods design to conduct the research. i collected data via an online questionnaire, and from e-discussion forum entries and blog postings. convenient and purposive sampling was done with postgraduate students (n = 179) in economics education, after which the respondents voluntarily completed an online survey. the findings and practical implications of the study, on which this article is based, have been formulated to advance online pedagogical strategies. the aim is to support students’ learning, and to promote essential competencies as necessary outcomes to master the content of the course in the college of education at an open distance learning university. keywords: teaching methodology of economics, pedagogical strategies, systematic review, exploratory mixed methods design, open distance learning introduction globally, the higher education sector faces immense opportunities and challenges, but it appears that the opportunities outweigh the challenges of providing quality education to all students (federici, caspersen, & wendelborg, 2016; warschauer & matuchiak, 2010). most institutions of higher learning are confronted with relevance of curricula, lack of infrastructure, insufficient student accommodation (federici et al., 2016), and insufficient student funding and student support (tait, 2000), all of which affect their throughput and success rates (bates, 2010). in view of the latter, south african universities are facing the same dilemma and are not immune to these challenges. they have also begun debating the relevance of their existing curricula in terms of whether or not they equip students for the requirements and challenges of the job market. several public lectures, debates, and scholarly 24 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 publications have focused on the relevance, appropriateness, feasibility, and fit-for-purpose of the existing curricula. to compound these issues, student leaders have also used issues such as the #rhodesmustfall, #feesmustfall and freeeducationforall movements as leverage, which culminated ultimately in the demand for a decolonised curricula. it emerged from these public lectures and movements for a decolonised curricula that universities must engage in a process of transforming their existing curricula to reflect a decolonised approach; they do so with the aim of making their institutions sustainable and providing quality education. several scholars argue that contemporary debates on quality education at universities, which foster critical thinking, revolve around transforming future learning programmes so that students are appropriately prepared for the demands of the 21st century (nichols, 2010; wangenge-ouma, 2012; warschauer & matuchiak, 2010). it is not my intention in this paper to argue for decolonised curricula, but to discuss how universities support students. student support was one of the crucial issues that emerged from demands during the various protest marches on south african university campuses. other issues emerging from the students’ demands included academic support (simpson, 2008) and financial and wellness support (federici et al., 2016). according to wangenge-ouma (2012), research has shown that specific and carefully considered technological interventions can provide answers to students’ (and lecturers’) identified teaching and learning concerns. in the online e-news staff letter of the university of south africa (unisa), farrell (2018) reported that student support is an important function of the institution as an open distance learning (odl) university. furthermore, farrell is of the view that practice-based research is supported by the social constructivist pedagogical paradigm because it supports students’ studies in an online context. to execute this social constructivist pedagogical approach as a means of supporting students to achieve the course outcomes is of vital importance. farrell posits that this (social constructivist e-pedagogical) approach to success, is a “socially situated, dynamic, active online connection using a learning management system (lms) between the lecturer, and the student, using various resources to support the student. furthermore, the lecturer provided administrative and professional support to students” (2018, p. 1) to achieve the learning objectives of a particular course. tait (2000) has also noted that while planning support for students is crucial, it offers no guarantee that a common design existing for such support will bear fruit. therefore, tait (2000) actually appears to have meant that there is no common design that fits all programmes. student support that works for one programme may not be equally effective in another, so one support design may not fit all programmes. therefore, support design should be tailor-made for a specific programme. lecturers have the responsibility to guide, support, and encourage students to complete their course, no matter the circumstances and challenges of the latter. some scholars (beldarrain, 2006; simpson, 2008; tait, 2000) are of the view that motivation and support systems play an important role in the success of distance learners at odl universities. one aspect that a lecturer could apply, for instance, is to write motivational or encouraging texts on a student whatsapp group or blogging space (manca & ranieri, 2016; simpson, 2012). anderson (2019) extends these views on the adoption of social media since teaching support tools have van wyk: pedagogical strategies . . . 25 changed how lecturers create engaged daily online environments. finally, lecturers can increase the number of positive moments they use to motivate and advise their students so that the latter become determined to complete the course. most research published on student support emerged in the areas of traditional face-to-face (f2f) contact (graf, kinshuk, & liu, 2009) and blended distance learning environments (troiano, liefeld, & trachtenberg, 2010; rodriguez et al., 2019), and, to a lesser extent, the odl context (simpson, 2004; tomas, lasen, field, & skamp, 2015). the outcome of the scoping review prompted me to investigate this phenomenon as it manifests itself in the aforementioned course. several research projects on student support have been conducted, but few (see, for example, graf et al., 2009) have focused on pedagogical strategies specifically in an odl context. in addition, very few recent studies on student support have been done in the field of odl (simpson, 2008; rodriguez et al., 2019), but were done on distance learning because it became a popular mode of delivery (blaess & grant, 2010; tait, 2000; upko, 2006). until recently, there were only a few studies that explored the pedagogical strategies specifically used to support students enrolled in an economics programme delivered in an odl context (simpson, 2008; upko, 2006). if it is the case that only a few studies were conducted on student support, in particular using pedagogical strategies in an odl environment, what specific research protocol was designed, and with which criteria, to retrieve scholarly works on student support, asked arksey and o’malley (2005)? furthermore, why were specific indices/databases selected for the purpose of conducting searches for appropriate scholarly publications (articles, theses, dissertations and book chapters) employing pedagogical strategies to support students? in the context of the study on which this article is built, bachelor of education (bed) and postgraduate certificate in education (pgce) students registered for the teaching methodology of economics module regularly requested support for assignments, projects, examinations, as well as financial and wellness support. these forms of pedagogical support were requested through e-mails, telephone calls, on social media platforms, in e-discussion forums, in blogs, and in instant short messages (smss). therefore, what motivated me to investigate the use of pedagogical strategies in supporting bed and pgce students’ learning in the teaching methodology of economics module delivered via odl? to achieve the main research aims on which this article is based, i formulated the following sub questions. • what specific research protocol was purposively employed to conduct a student support scoping review on pedagogical strategies in an odl context and what were the criteria? • which pedagogical strategies offer students optimal support in acquiring competencies in the teaching methodology of economics module in an online environment? • how best can the lecturer support bed and pgce students academically and nonacademically, in the teaching methodology of economics course? 26 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 • are there any statistically significant differences between bed and pgce students related to pedagogical support strategies in the teaching methodology of economics module? employing a pragmatic approach, i used an explanatory mixed methods design to conduct the research. i collected data via an online questionnaire and consulted only e-discussion forum entries. the e-discussion forum is one of the interactive online tools on an online myunisa lms platform located on the university webpage for lecturers and students to communicate, announce, and share and upload information relevant to a specific course. i used convenient and purposive sampling of only bed and pgce students who were registered for the teaching methodology of economics module. they voluntarily completed the online survey and posted e-discussion forum entries. the findings and practical implications put forward here aim to improve student teachers’ online pedagogical strategies in supporting students’ learning as part of the requirement to pass the course. i present this under the auspices of the college of education at the university of south africa as an african odl university. literature review an integrative theoretical framework for this study i made use of an integrative, theoretical framework consisting of the self-determined learning, connectivity, social cognitive, and self-regulated learning theories. these theories provide an integrative framework for the study as a whole, as well as for this paper. this was deemed necessary because of the online odl context used to enable online student teachers to become future self-regulated teachers and lifelong learners. in this case, bed and pgce students enrolled in the teaching methodology of economics module as an exit level course are using daily social media networks for personal means and are tech-savvy. these student teachers are, of course, digitally literate and use online tools through an lms, myunisa, as the platform. these bed/pgce student teachers are expected to study independently by regulating and taking ownership of their learning, which is a necessity for online learners. for me, this integrative theoretical framework with each specific theory having been considered thoroughly before being selected, is most appropriate for this paper. each theory, which was purposively selected has specific characteristics and educational value and has been employed previously in several empirical investigations that showed specific findings aligned to a particular context. self-determination theory (vansteenkiste, lens, & deci, 2006) focuses on students’ learning through blended approaches in distance education environments. according to this theory, students are motivated intrinsically to become self-determining in assuming their roles and responsibilities as autonomous learners. student autonomy is a vital ingredient in support of clear sets of goals in determining intended learning outcomes in order to become selfregulated learners (nilson, 2013; simpson, 2012). to achieve this objective, students participate by choosing to take responsibility for their own learning. van wyk: pedagogical strategies . . . 27 connectivity theory, which is the brainchild of siemens (2004), is based on there being a connection between students and lecturers on, for example, an online networked platform where they can share, communicate, and collaborate (van wyk, 2018). in this study, the student teachers logged into an online lms (myunisa portal) to upload their final eportfolios for summative assessment. from time to time they were also expected to collaborate, share, and submit evidence online. social cognitive theory, part of constructivism, suggests that students learn socially via an online platform by sharing and collaborating with others in a networked community. the students logged into the myunisa lms, and then uploaded evidence to their e-portfolios. they had to design and create evidence for the portfolio for formative and summative assessment purposes (see van wyk, 2018) self-regulated learning theory (sgl) (zimmerman, 2000) focuses on how students regulate their own learning to achieve outcomes. according to zimmerman, students use creative means and analyse ways, selecting and appraising them to accelerate the regulation of personalised learning. furthermore, zimmerman posits that sgl enhances students’ metacognition competencies as they acquire new knowledge and learn skills and values throughout the course. in this teaching methodology of economics module in the bed and pgce course, the students acquired new (subject content) knowledge, applied and practised pedagogical content knowledge learned throughout the module in planning specific lessons, and were empowered with regard to specific values (social, communitive, and negotiated). a systematic scoping review on student support for this paper i performed a systematic scoping review of scholarly works on student support for an odl context. as stated earlier, research studies have reported on student support in general, but only a few reported on pedagogical strategies in blended and odl contexts (graf et al., 2009). in addition, simpson (2008) reported on student support in a distance learning environment. many scholarly texts have indeed been published on student support in odl contexts, in particular, simpson’s (2012) seminal work, supporting students for success in online and distance education that prompted my scoping review of student support in general, and in an odl context in particular. what is a systematic scoping review? aromataris & pearson (2014) posit that this is a predetermined process focused on the scope, nature, benefits, and context of literature. the systemic scoping review is a step-by-step process searching for relevant and appropriate scholarly works. the following criteria for all scholarly publications were employed: identification; screening; appropriateness; and inclusion of relevant citations (arksey & o’malley, 2005; aromataris & pearson, 2014). these criteria were used as the parameters for the systematic scoping review of this paper. after studying several sources, i chose a scoping review as the research protocol for this study because a systematic scoping review of the extant literature is an important component of scholarly investigation and publication in that it helps to substantiate and support the research findings. in the context of this paper, i did a brief literature review on student support and motivation. a scoping review is an emerging 28 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 process, employed in the scholarly arena to identify suitable texts for inclusion in a literature study (arksey & o’malley, 2005). i employed a rigorous and transparent methodology in searching for suitable and valid scholarly works. search databases such as scopus (biographical databases /index of citations of scholarly publications), web of science (scientific index with scholarly publications), ebscohost (online reference system with index of scholarly works), academic primer (multidisciplinary research database with scholarly publications), google scholar (largest google.com search engine for scholarly publications either in journal articles, academic books, dissertations, or theses) and eric (education resources information centre) were used. specific inclusive criteria were employed in the process, such as identifying scholarly publications, screening specific downloaded scholarly works, deciding on the appropriateness of each, and including relevant scholarly works. at first, i identified indices for scholarly works on student support in online contexts. for the purpose of this study (particularly in respect of distance education and odl), i used several reputable indices (databases) and search engines. i purposively selected scopus, web of science (isi), the international bibliography of social sciences (ibss), the norwegian scientific index, the scientific electronic library online (scielo) and the south african department of higher education and training’s (dhet) list of approved journals (dhet, 2015, section 5 journals), as well as google scholar, for this investigation. the dhet (2015) has gazetted the research output policy framework and guidelines for inclusion of all scholarly publications. a synopsis of academic student support i employed specific criteria, as stated earlier, in the systematic scoping review on academic and non-academic support to students, in particular in an odl context. the findings of systematic scoping reviews of scholarly works emerged on academic and non-academic support to students for conducting the online literature review for this paper. furthermore, findings from these publications revealed that in a distance education context, online support is vital for student success. for the purposes of this study, the benefits of student support strategies (academic and non-academic support and assessment) as reported in the literature are explained. it emerged from several studies that student support strategies in an odl context are important since students study at a distance, so the support they receive needs to be adequate and effective enough to bridge the distance between the lecturer and the student. this implies that distance education students are physically removed from the lecturer/teacher educator and therefore require different support strategies to those of fulltime students. in this case, student support includes, for instance, a telephone call, or the delivery of a parcel containing learning material. in an effort to pre-empt the types of triggers that generate the need for online student support at unisa, various student support strategies are available and employed, including myunisa lms, to support students online with regard to mylife e-mail account, e-tutors, student counselling, the unisa library services desks, and regional (teacher) centres. in teaching the course under study here, i also used an ediscussion forum, blogs, announcements, and sms to support students. i recognise that students need assistance and guidance in preparing to learn, and they need to be actively involved in their learning journey. van wyk: pedagogical strategies . . . 29 i employed various strategies at different stages when the students required help or asked for a consultation. according to federici et al., (2016), the support that teachers give to their learners is an important strategy to bring out the best in them to help them succeed in numeracy and assessment for learning in the course. in the context of this paper, i used, for example, official online announcements and tutorial letters as supportive tools in preparing students for assignments, examinations, or the completion of tasks. additional support structures (pedagogical strategies) must be implemented to support students’ learning in a distance learning context. studying through an odl context requires specific student support strategies compared to a blended or f2f context. in studying through an odl context, students and lecturers need to become more innovative by employing specific teaching and learning strategies. with reference to this paper, many students at unisa are from the socioeconomic context of a developing country. many of these students who live in either urban or rural areas, and in different socioeconomic contexts are faced with expensive data prices to access the internet (because south african data bundles are expensive in comparison with those of other developing countries), poor internet connectivity, and lack of digital literacy skills all of which may pose specific challenges to odl students. in the past decade, more students have enrolled at higher education institutions (hei) such as unisa as an odl university and face the abovementioned challenges, but some of them show immense resilience and determination to succeed in their studies (nilson, 2013; vansteenkiste et al., 2006). rumble (2000) conducted a study on an in-service management course and distance education university and found that it is possible to overcome the challenges facing students studying at a distance and concluded that student support services are thus a vital part of the success of any overall online lms at a distance education institution. contextualisation of the study unisa as an odl university in service of humanity, implemented the scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl) strategy (2017–2025) as a university initiative to promote scholarship of teaching and learning among academics. further, its objective is to support academics through this initiative and increase the student throughput rate for all colleges’ learning programmes. sotl identified specific areas for research such as teaching and learning odl pedagogy, assessment and quality assurance, student support, and material development including open educational resources (see figure 1). 30 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 figure 1: diagrammatical overview of sotl note: *open educational resources (oer); **mass online open courses (moocs); ***ereserves is a text of scholarly publications that allows multiple usage; ****etools are interactive digital tools use online for example ediscussion forums, bl from the four sub sotl projects, this project, on which this article is based, forms part of a larger research project scholarship of teaching and learning (sot funded and motivated for under the auspices of the college of education at a odl university, an entity that views and measures student support as one of the pillars of student success on the path to graduation. the aim of the sotl project for the college was to design a strategic framework to enhance s of teaching for success in an odl context. odl student support as one of the research areas of the sotl strategy. bed/pgce course students registered for the teaching methodology of economics module webpage, myunisa (lms), as a connecting space. commencement of the yearly course. before the course began, the course tutorial letter (tut 101/0/2018), the study guide ( odl teaching and learning pedagogies pedagogical content knowledge teaching practice strategies modalities ****etools odl student unisa scholarship of teaching and le odel publications and research outputs journal of education, no. 76, 2019 diagrammatical overview of sotl project (magano, 2018) : *open educational resources (oer); **mass online open courses (moocs); of scholarly publications that allows multiple usage; ****etools are interactive digital tools use online for example ediscussion forums, blogs. teaching lab etc. from the four sub sotl projects, i decided on and selected the odl student support project. on which this article is based, forms part of a larger research project scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl) initiative (see figure 1). this initiative was funded and motivated for under the auspices of the college of education at a an entity that views and measures student support as one of the pillars of ath to graduation. the aim of the sotl project for the college was to design a strategic framework to enhance student support strategies as an integral component of teaching for success in an odl context. with reference to this paper, i decided to focus on odl student support as one of the research areas of the sotl strategy. bed/pgce course students registered for the teaching methodology of economics module used webpage, myunisa (lms), as a connecting space. i planned the activities before commencement of the yearly course. before the course began, i uploaded to myunisa (lms) the course tutorial letter (tut 101/0/2018), the study guide (teaching methodology of odl student support student centred approach online tutoring and mentoring registration library services wellness odl assessment and quality assurance pass rates throughput rates graduateness assignments examination processes review process module and programme scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl) project l publications and research outputs ogs. teaching lab etc. decided on and selected the odl student support project. on which this article is based, forms part of a larger research project called the igure 1). this initiative was funded and motivated for under the auspices of the college of education at a south african an entity that views and measures student support as one of the pillars of ath to graduation. the aim of the sotl project for the college was to tudent support strategies as an integral component decided to focus on odl student support as one of the research areas of the sotl strategy. bed/pgce course used the university planned the activities before the uploaded to myunisa (lms) teaching methodology of odl material development and oer programme development study guides tutorial letters writing *oer **moocs ***ereserves rning (sotl) project van wyk: pedagogical strategies . . . 31 economics), module information, and other related learning materials (van wyk, 2018). to access the myunisa platform, students are required to login with username and password for security reasons to participate in the different pedagogical strategies for the course. specific e-tools for pedagogical support strategies at online odl platform the literature indicated several types of pedagogical strategies that can be used during the course to support students. in the context of this paper, when students decide to register for a degree course at the university, they log onto the website. the university website, myunisa, has specific e-tools such as e-discussion forums, blogs, announcements, teacher centres, eportfolio, webinars, surveys etc. and the purpose and functionality of each e-tool is described for clarity on the myunisa platform. the myunisa lms measures how many times students log into the lms to access module information. the first e-tool, the e-discussion forum, is an e-tool for creating online discussions. this e-tool can be used as a dialogical or conversational tool to create a space for lecturers and students to engage with, share, and reflect on topics posted. it is an e-tool to create conversations about a topic among students to which they can respond regarding the module. as the primary lecturer for the teaching methodology of economics module, i posted specific topics, for example, material on a contemporary economic issue like poverty. i introduced the topic of youth unemployment for students to respond to on the blog. the purpose was to create a conversation thread among the students doing the teaching methodology of economics module to determine how they would respond to this phenomenon. a blog is a social networking tool on which to post entries to which others can respond. on myunisa, a blog is another space in which lecturers can create learning opportunities for students to respond to questions, or suggestions, or information posted on it. anderson (2019) has opined that social media creates specific educational advantages for students to us to enhance their learning. on the blog, for example, i, as the lecturer for the module, posted a question for students to answer: “how does an increase in the petrol price affect the family budget?” other e-tools such as module tutorial letters, online announcements, and smss are used to make specific announcements to students registered for the course or module. the e-mail account (@mylife.unisa.ac.za) is another e-tool for students to send emails related to module queries such as feedback on assignments, examinations, and other module-related queries to the lecturers. additionally, consultations, telephone calls, visiting regional teacher centres, and personal administrative whatsapp groups play an important role in the support of students. methodology before commencing this research, i adhered to ethical principles with a letter confirming that unisa’s research permission subcommittee (certificate ref #2018 rpsc_017) had granted authorisation for the study. the bed and pgce in senior and fet phase course students (n=179) who were registered for the teaching methodology of economics module were purposively selected for this study. all these students do the same module as part of the different programmes (bed /pgce senior and fet phase). furthermore, i employed a pragmatic paradigm as the research approach. as mentioned above, data was collected via an 32 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 online questionnaire, and from e-discussion forum entries, and blog postings. the purpose of using an explanatory mixed methods design was to triangulate both data sets from quantitative data and then later compare the qualitative data. first, to execute this approach, quantitative data was collected using an online self-designed closed structured questionnaire. this questionnaire was designed on an agreement four-point likert scale (strongly agree to strongly disagree). the data was collected, computed, analysed, and interpreted to identify trends. however, for the qualitative data, two tools, the ediscussion forums entries and blog postings were used to collect it. my intention was to triangulate both data sets (quantitative data and qualitative data) and the literature review to answer the main research question of this paper. qualitative data was collected by downloaded ediscussion forums entries and blog entries from the myunisa lms. these data sets were then further analysed and interpreted. to ensure trustworthiness, the downloaded ediscussion forums entries and blog entries were given to one of the senior professors (an academic staff member) to validate whether data sets were reliable and trustworthy. after two weeks, the professor was satisfied with the protocol followed for the two data sets. he was granted limited access to the module by the ict unit at the university. both the ediscussion forum and blog entries were validated and verified as reliable data. the sample for this study (n = 179) was selected from a cohort of bed and pgce students registered for specialisation in the senior and fet phase course in the subject teaching module, teaching methodology of economics. the participants were required to complete an online survey (appendix 1) entitled the e-pedagogical supportive strategies value questionnaire (epssvq). a reliability test was computed for the online survey (α < 0.835) and a descriptive statistical data analysis was presented. both data sets were computed, presented, and interpreted to triangulate deductions aimed at answering the research questions identified earlier. for the qualitative data, thematic content analysis was used to identify themes and subthemes from the data sets. the purpose of having two data sets (quantitative and qualitative) was to triangulate the findings with information from the literature review. following creswell (2012), i followed scientific protocol in cross-member checking of the data sets and the extracts used under each theme to ensure credibility, reliability, and validity. i did member checking by using extracted data from the e-discussion forums entries and compared emerging themes to ensure trustworthiness. the data sets from the epssvq were reliable and extracts from students’ e-discussion posting were directly downloaded from myunisa. results of the bed pgce students in the senior and fet phase, 62 per cent (n =112/179) participated in the study. the biographical data showed that pgce students (56%) were in the majority (n=102) among the participants since they were the majority enrolled in the teaching methodology of economics module. below, the results of the study are considered against the identified research questions. van wyk: pedagogical strategies . . . 33 • what specific research protocol was purposively employed to conduct a student support scoping review on pedagogical strategies in an odl context and what were the criteria? the first research question required identification of the most relevant literature in which to ground the theoretical framework for the investigation. only scopus, web of science (isi), ibss, norwegian scientific index, scielo, and dhet-listed approved academic journals were consulted. for the purpose of conducting the systematic scoping review, i selected only scholarly outputs as stipulated by dhet (2015), which were gazetted in the research outputs policy (dhet, 2015). in this gazetted policy by dhet on research outputs, specific criteria are provided to measure and evaluate scholarly publications so as to calculate the allocated subsidies for south african heis. currently, the dhet recognises only the six selected accredited indices. it was therefore my intention to include only it for this paper. specific key words such “systematic scoping review”, “pedagogical strategies”, “student support” “scoping studies”, “open distance learning” and “academic support in teacher education” were used for the systematic review. the six indices referenced in figure 1 have been recognised, approved, and accredited by dhet but google scholar as search engine was also included for the purpose of this paper. only published scholarly works for the period, 2013–2018, were used for the systematic scoping review process. this period was decided on because journals are included in the approved dhet accredited journals’ listing for only five years prior to being re-assessed for accreditation. excluded from the indices were predatory journals and publishers, as identified by the dhet. to search for publications in academic journals, google scholar (as a search engine) was used to identify chapters in scholarly books, dissertations, and theses. figure 2: indices used in searching for scholarly works on student support as shown in figure 2, the majority of identified articles, chapters in books, theses, and other related scholarly works were found in journals hosted by scopus (30%), which proved to be the most valuable index for a scoping review on student support since it pertains to distance education. 30% 17% 4% 7% 21% 7% 14% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% scopus web of science norwegian scielo sa google scholar ibss dhet 34 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 in the literature review, i employed a systematic approach covering the period 2013–2018, using only the six purposively selected indices employed for the scoping review (see table 1). table 1: systematic process of searching for scholarly works (2013-2018) in d e x /s e a rc h e n g in e # p u b li c a ti o n s type of publication criteria employed to classify scholarly works on student support a rt ic le s b o o k s/ c h a p te rs i n b o o k d is se rt a ti o n /t h e se s identified scholarly publicatio ns screening of specific download ed scholarly works decision on appropriat eness included in final scoping view scopus 33 (26%) 23 (31%) 7 (35%) 3 (37.5%) 33 (26%) 21 (25.6%) 19 (31.6%) 12 (24%) web of science (isi) 19 (15%) 16 (21%) 3 (15%) 0 (0%) 19 (15%) 13 (15.8%) 11 (18.3%) 10 (20%) norwegian scientific index 4 (3%) 3 (4%) 1 (5%) 0 (0%) 4 (3%) 3 (3.6%) 2 (3.3%) 1 (2%) google scholar 40 (37%) 35 (47%) 4 (20%) 1 (12.5%) 40 (37%) 33 (40.2%) 20 (33.3%) 18 (38%) scielo 7 (5%) 5 (6%) 1 (5%) 1 (12.5%) 7 (5%) 3 (3.6%) 3 (5%) 3 (6%) ibss 7 (5%) 5 (6%) 2 (10%) 0 (0%) 7 (5%) 3 (3.6%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) dhet 13 (11%) 8 (11%) 2 10%) 3 (37.5%) 13 (11%) 6 (7.3%) 5 (8.3%) 5 (10%) total 123 75 (60.9%) 20 (16.2%) 8 (6.5%) 123 82 (66.7%) 60 (48.7%) 49 (39.8%) from the data in table 1, it is clear that search engine google scholar produced the greatest number of types of publications (37%) and scholarly works (38%). the articles (n = 40) that were downloaded from google scholar had been included in scopus and isi indices as appearing in accredited journals. it is apparent that articles (60.9%) were the main type of publication used. screening of specific downloaded publications (66.7%) and inclusion in the final scoping review (39.8%) emerged as appropriate criteria for the scoping review. a systematic approach, following arksey and o’malley (2005) was used to decide on the most reliable, valid, and appropriate scholarly publications to meet the purposes of this undertaking (see figure 2). only full-text articles were downloaded from the six indices. other related sources (google scholar) that were deemed valid and reliable were included in the literature review of this main study. this systematic scoping literature review was used to identify literature to triangulate the data collected through the empirical study with findings in the literature. originally, 123 scholarly works were downloaded, but only 49 (39.8%) were validated and finally used for the purposes of this article. van wyk: pedagogical strategies . . . 35 • which pedagogical strategies offer students optimal support in acquiring competencies in the teaching methodology of economics course in an online environment? table 2 presents students’ experiences and ranking of the pedagogical support strategies employed in the module. in the table, descriptive data of students’ views related to agreement and ranking of pedagogical support strategies employed in the module is presented. : id e n ti fi c a ti o n o f sc h o la r ly w o r k s s c r e e n in g a p p r o p r ia te n e ss 123 scholarly works of blogging from databases such as scopus, isi, norwegian, ibss, dhet, scielo sa, and google scholar, were downloaded and analy sed identified a total of n=1 23 minus n= 41 duplicates of student support articles, chapters in academic books, theses, and dissertations 60 (48.7%) full -text scholarly articles and other related sources of student support were deemed appropriate for the scoping review. further elimination based on 11 scholarly works were excluded 82 (66.7%) scholarly works of blogs were screened for inclusion. e xcluded were 2 2 sources deemed irrelevant or un suitable for the scope of the study in c lu si o n only 49 (39.8%) scholarly works on student support were finally deemed valid and reliable for this paper figure 2: systematic process of searching for student support publications 36 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 table 2: students’ views of pedagogical support strategies used and ranking in the module (n=179) the e-pedagogical support strategies employed in the course descriptive analysis four-point scale of agreement/disagreement ranking of support strategies mean st dev sa a d sd e-discussion forums 3.833 1.666 73% 26% 0% 0% 2 blogging 3.789 1.789 29% 69% 3% 0% 3 online announcements 3.113 1.561 37% 60% 3% 0% 8 instant short messages (sms) 3.333 1.706 59% 41% 0% 0% 7 online tutorial letters 3.920 1.819 89% 9% 2% 0% 1 whatsapp messages 3.110 1.566 37% 60% 3% 0% 9 myunisa online portal 3.806 1.665 43% 57% 0% 0% 4 mylife e-mail account 3.778 1.543 40% 57% 3% 0% 5 regional teaching centres 2.786 1.223 12% 75% 13% 0% 10 telephone calls 3.701 1.498 29% 71% 0% 0% 6 consultations 2.872 1.007 16% 54% 23% 7% 11 simple statistical analysis was computed to measure agreement and to rank the types of pedagogical support strategies employed by lecturers in the module. the bed and pgce students’ views were statistically computed and ranked regarding the effect of pedagogical support strategies used to enhance their learning in the module. table 2 shows the results obtained from bed and pgce students’ views relating to the types of e-pedagogical support strategies used during the course. of the students, 73% strongly agreed that the online tutorial letters (mean = 3.920; sd = 1.819) were supportive. the results show that there is general agreement that e-pedagogical support strategies help students to achieve their learning goals. thus, overall, in response to this question, the participants had very positive attitudes towards the listed pedagogical tools. they ranked their support preferences from online tutorial letters (top ranking) to regional teaching centres (lowest ranking). • how best can lecturers support bed and pgce students academically and nonacademically, in the course, teaching methodology of economics? van wyk: pedagogical strategies . . . 37 table 3: academic/non-academic support in the course (n = 179) to what extent do you agree or disagree regarding these statements on learning support in teaching methodology descriptive statistical analysis four-point scale of agreement /disagreement ranking of support mean st dev sa a d sd the lecturer is available during office hours when i need my lecturer to support me in my assignment, task or project 3.789 1.089 69% 26% 5% 3 the lecturer provides responses in handling my academic enquiries on assignments, tasks, projects or examination-related issues 3.810 1.561 17% 80% 3% 8 the lecturer is approachable during office hours and gives support regarding my queries related to the module 3.422 1.340 22% 69% 9% 7 the lecturer extends support by giving me further information on the module, and on other related academic issues 3.322 1.021 33% 59% 8% 5 the lecturer shows sympathy for my circumstances regarding outstanding work or the late submission of tasks, and also in answering my queries on other related issues 3.833 1.014 75% 20% 5% 3% 2 the lecturer provides extra learning material, is active on discussion forums, and created a blog to support me in this module 3.411 1.398 25% 69% 6% 6 in my tutorial letter, the information provided should be clear with regard to due dates for tasks and the submission of other related assessments 3.221 1.544 65% 35% 4 the lecturer provides constructive feedback to support me in my assessment tasks, projects, and assignments 3.431 1.431 83% 22% 1 in table 3, the participants’ responses are, in order of preference, lecturer availability (69%), handling of academic enquiries (80%), being approachable (69%), providing extra learning support (69%), showing sympathy (75%), suggesting extra learning materials (59%), giving clear instructions for the module (65%) and providing constructive feedback (73%). the participants awarded the item, “the lecturer for my module provides constructive feedback to support me in my assessment tasks, projects and assignments,” top ranking (83%), making it apparent that they viewed the academic support they received from me as the module lecturer in a positive light. vahed and cruickshank (2018) report similar results to those outlined in table 3, confirming that providing support to undergraduate students is important for the latter’s academic success. furthermore, these findings revealed that academic support allowed students to become self-directed and successful in their studies. as blaess and grant (2010) have noted, psychosocial support must form part of any academic support offered to students if they are to be successful on the academic front. • are there any significant statistical differences of support between bed and pgce students related to pedagogical support strategies in the teaching methodology of economics module? 38 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 table 4: comparing bed and pgce students’ ranking of pedagogical support strategies used in the course (n=179) the e-pedagogical support strategies employed in the course bachelor of education postgraduate certificate in education significance mean st dev mean st dev t-test p-value e-discussion forums 3.903 1.666 3.911 1.876 .000** .899* blogging 3.889 1.789 3.809 1.7001 .000** .872* online announcements 3.113 1.561 3.403 1.601 .000** .791* instant short messages (sms) 3.633 1.706 3.322 1.576 .002** .817* online tutorial letters 3.980 1.919 3.900 1.890 .000** .833* whatsapp messages 2.210 1.066 2.090 1.034 .012 .632 myunisa online portal 3.806 1.665 3.777 1.711 .002* .787* mylife e-mail account 3.778 1.543 3.848 1.742 .000** .766* regional teaching centres 2.986 1.323 2.516 1.113 .000** .701* telephone calls 3.801 1.698 3.451 1.598 .000** .771* consultations 2.311 1.079 2.877 1.657 016* .685 sign: **p < .001 *α <.7 simple statistical analysis was undertaken to compare groups and to rank the types of pedagogical support strategies lecturers used to enhance students’ learning. table 2 shows that results obtained from students’ views were statistically significant (p < 000) in nine of the pedagogical support strategies. only whatsapp (.012 >.001; α <.632) and consultations (.016 >.001; α <.685) are not statistically significant as viewed by students as types of e-tools for pedagogical support strategies used during the course. both groups agreed that the three most preferred pedagogical support strategies in the module were online tutorial letters (p <.000**; α>.833), e-discussion forums (p <.000**; α >.899) and blogging (p <.000**; α>.872). students agreed that they preferred e-discussion forums (bed, mean = 3.903; sd = 1.666; pgce, mean 3.911; sd=1.876). the results show that pedagogical support strategies have statistical significance in supporting student teachers to achieve learning goals in the module. the purpose of using an explanatory mixed methods design was to triangulate the quantitative and qualitative results. in the next section, i focus on the qualitative data, and the process of triangulating the findings with quantitative data. for the qualitative data, thematic content analysis was used to identify themes from the e-discussion forum entries and blog postings. from these data sets, four themes emerged, along with specific extracts from the data analysis process. • using pedagogical strategies to support students throughout the course • lecturer support to students to achieve learning goals • providing constructive feedback and academic support • ongoing motivational support in the course van wyk: pedagogical strategies . . . 39 using pedagogical strategies that support student learning throughout the course student teachers wrote on the e-discussion forum that the pedagogical strategies they made use of were supportive of their learning. from the entries, it was clear that the students were generally positive and satisfied with the support strategies on offer during the course. they were positive and in favour of strategies that represented extra effort and additional means, on my part as their lecturer, of providing clarity on both the module and its contents. as one student wrote, most of the pedagogical strategies, like the flipped classroom pedagogy and economic games, were well planned and motivated me. i like the responses to issues posted on discussion forums and regular announcements. these means direct us what [is]to be expected in the course. (participant 3, e-discussion forum, 16 october 2018) another entry commented on “the communication in the tut letters and regular announcements on myunisa.” the participant said, “what i like was the interaction in the e-discussion forum amongst students and our lecturer” (participant 12, e-discussion forum, 16 september 2018). lecturer support to achieve learning goals the students posted the fact that the module lecturer provided them with support as they worked on their tasks. on the e-discussion forum, the respondents listed several ways in which such support was provided, but the guidelines (in tutorial letter 101) were deemed especially invaluable for completing their assessment tasks. as one participant wrote, “student support is crucial, especially when in the tutorial letter of the module showed clear guidelines for us which is huge plus.” furthermore, this student went on to say that “our lecturer gave us clear guidelines on how i must perform the task or lesson plan activities” (participant 5, blog posting, 25 may 2018). next, key support was offered via feedback to the students. as one participants confirmed, “[t]hrough feedback that takes place in dialogues, group discussions, and written comments. it shows students where they stand, where one could go and how to continue” (participant 1, e-discussion forum posting, 24 april 2018). for another participant, “[o]ur lecturer was often available for f2f consultations” (participant 9, e-discussion forum, 10 october 2018). another student wrote, “we often booked either by sending an email or telephonically, appointments (date and time for visits) to discuss our performances in assessment tasks” (participant 7, e-discussion forum, 19 october 2018). the participants indicated in the blog entries that the lecturer was available for academic inquiries. providing constructive feedback and academic support in the case of this paper, i, as the lecturer for the module, used different types of pedagogical strategies, such as ediscussion forums, blogs, sms messages, telephone calls, emails, and whatsapp messages. pedagogical strategies are powerful teaching instruments to advance 40 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 student learning. according to downloaded responses, several students wrote about the different strategies used in the course to support them academically. one said, “i was exposed to several types of pedagogical strategies but ediscussion forums and online tutorial letters. but for me the ediscussion forums engagements were of great help when you struggle with specific topics like inflation and business cycles” (participant 109, e-discussion forum, 12 october 2018). moreover, constructed feedback is an important way to guide students in how they measured up against tasks completed. it guides them to the extent to which they achieve specific knowledge and skills for a specific objective. lecturers may design specific tools to measure student achievements levels. another student wrote on the blog space, “i received excellent constructive feedback on my assignments, lessons presented and self-created podcasts” (participant 34, blog, 02 november 2018). these responses from students showed much appreciation of the lecturer’s efforts to provide support throughout the course. ongoing motivational support to students during the course motivation is an important tool to use to support students’ learning. it is both enabler and enhancer, especially to those students who may struggle with a section of the course, or those who experience personal challenges related to financial constraints. writing motivational texts using online tools like whatsapp messages, sms, blog texts, or ediscussion forums entries elevates struggling students. students engaged actively in the ediscussion forums and blog space. it showed that they enjoyed the course and actively participated in it. in conclusion, they were motivated to do well. motivational support plays a crucial part in student learning. it helps a student do better and also restores a sense of self-worth. on several occasions students reflected on my contributions in a blog entry. one said, “i like the positive comments written on my assignments. it is much appreciated. it creates a sense that what i do, is worth” (participant 4, blog, 07 november 2018). another student said, “very often we got a message to say you are doing good, which is heart-warming. i really appreciated it” (participant 56, ediscussion forums comment, 07 september 2018). discussion of findings in this paper, i set out to investigate the use of pedagogical strategies, on the part of lecturers, to support their students’ learning in the online teaching methodology of economics course. first, i explored the research protocol followed for conducting a scoping review on student support in an odl context. numerous studies have conducted such reviews, which have become a popular methodology to employ in literature reviews. see, for example, davis, drey, and gould (2009) and levac, colquhoun, and o’brien (2010). the study extended those views to teacher education by building on arksey and o’malley’s (2005) methodological design for using a systematic process as a research protocol. this study advanced arksey and o’malley’s seminal framework by including only the dhet list of reputable indices as part of the research protocol for identifying appropriate, accredited scholarly works. to answer the first research question, only six indices (see table 1 and figure 1) and google scholar were selected purposively to conduct the scoping review. these research indices are regarded as highly reputable, identifying published, peer-reviewed van wyk: pedagogical strategies . . . 41 scholarly works in highly rated repositories. to conduct the scoping review on student support in an odl context, i reviewed several scholarly articles, chapters in academic books, dissertations and theses. it emerged that google scholar, as a reputable search engine, produced the greatest number of types of publications (37%) and scholarly works (38%). understandably, google scholar as a search engine revealed most of the scholarly works because it is driven by google.com as the top internet search engine. surprisingly, the data in table 1 shows that most of the articles published on student support in odl contexts were hosted by scopus (31%). of those articles classified in quintile 2, (of all quintiles, 1–4), 70% belong to the “open access” category, which made them easily and freely accessible. table 1 also reveals that most of the publications were articles (60.9%). screening of specific scholarly publications (66.7%) and inclusion in final scoping reviews (39.8%) emerged as appropriate criteria. as mentioned in the literature review, student support is crucial to students’ academic achievement, whether f2f or by following a blended approach to distance education. vahed and cruickshank (2018) are of the view that students who struggle or fall behind in their course must be supported via regular, online academic support, learning materials, and extended assessment opportunities (see, too, rodriguez et al., 2019) as well as emotional support, lest they become statistics related to dropouts who fail to complete their studies. therefore, it is encouraging to report that student teachers perceive the pedagogical support offered by me, as the lecturer for the module, as positive and important in the teaching methodology of economics course. my study found that the student teachers agreed largely that continuous support is vital for academic progress because nine of the pedagogical support strategies statistically enhanced their learning significantly (p < 000). three of the nine pedagogical support strategies in the module were online tutorial letters (p <.000**; α>.833), e-discussion forums (p <.000**; α >.899) and blogging (p <.000**; α>.872). as nichols (2010) has argued, universities must increase support to students through specific interventions, including wellness support, by empowering them with regard to study skills, offering free internet access (wi-fi hotspots when they visit unisa regional offices) and extending the hours of library services. all these factors may help distance education learners to complete their courses. the participants indicated that online tutorial letters (p <.000**; α>.833) were their preferred means of academic support, while, surprisingly, 56% viewed smss as an important means of receiving information, communicating, or updating them on issues. in summary, the overall response to this question showed that the participants held positive views regarding the use of pedagogical tools employed during the course. finally, the last research question was formulated to explore what measures i employed to support students in the course. i was found to be available for academic enquiries by students, via either e-mail or telephone. as captured in entries on the e-discussion forum, i was often available for f2f consultations. furthermore, students booked appointments either by sending me an e-mail or telephoning me to discuss their performance in assessment tasks. students reported that “[t]he lecturer provided constructive feedback to support me in my assessment tasks, projects and assignments,” thus constructive feedback was the highestranked item (83%). further, constructive feedback was given timeously on submitted tasks 42 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 and assignments. an unexpected finding was that “[t]he lecturer shows sympathy to circumstances regarding the outstanding or late submission of tasks, and answering my queries and other related issues,” a finding supported by 75% of participants. a number of scholars have reported on studies using online instructional support, which greatly influenced the planning of student learning (rodriguez et al., 2019; tait, 2000); constructive feedback (watson, bishop, & ferdinand-james, 2017); and the provision of online technological support (simpson, 2012; clauss-ehlers & pasquerella, 2017). the study focused on students’ views of support provided by me in teaching the teaching methodology of economics module and i was found to sympathise with the students’ struggles, challenges, and expectations around studying in an odl environment. i believe academic support commences with providing relevant information regarding the processes to follow for the successful completion of any course. the students’ responses mostly approved of the support received from me. as captured in the e-discussion forum entries, “the lecturer telephonically contacted students whose tasks or assignments had been incorrectly uploaded and responded mostly immediately to e-mail queries regarding assessment tasks.” the results showed the following in respect of the students’ responses regarding the support they received throughout the course: constructive feedback (83%), academic enquiries (80%), sympathy (75%), approachability (69%), availability (69%), extra learning support (69%), extra learning materials (59%), and clear instructions regarding the module (65%). they thus clearly agreed that the academic support they received from me as their lecturer was both constructive and positive. it is vital that students regularly receive academic (and non-academic) support as a means of tracking their academic progress. it is imperative that lecturers plan specific academic support initiatives for slow learners (retention) or those who fall behind (beldarrain, 2006; clauss-ehlers & pasquerella, 2017; simpson, 2004). furthermore, vahed and cruickshank (2018) report similar results, emphasising how important support is for undergraduate students. it is vital to the success of any intervention with struggling students that they be provided with, in particular, non-academic assistance that focuses on wellness, emotional, and study-related support. conclusion and implications the purpose of using an explanatory mixed methods design was to triangulate the descriptive quantitative data and qualitative thematic data to confirm the findings in answer to the research questions. i have argued that the pedagogical strategies that i employed indeed supported students’ learning in the online module teaching methodology of economics. the method of the systematic review was explained as a meaningful way in which to identify the most relevant literature for this study, and to broaden our knowledge of the popularity of scoping studies being applied to teacher education research. the study confirmed the findings of previous studies that student support in an odl context is vital, but more studies must be undertaken to advance online student support comparing blended, distributed, and open distance learning platforms. therefore, it is encouraging that the participating student teachers’ views were positive with regard to the online pedagogical strategies i applied in the aforementioned course. the participants concurred that continuous support from their lecturer is vital for their academic success. surprisingly, it emerged that non-academic support van wyk: pedagogical strategies . . . 43 (wellness, emotional skills, and study skills) is equally imperative for struggling students. in the current study, i examined only a small sample of students’ views on the pedagogical strategies i employed during an online teacher education course. further research needs to be done on a bigger sample in order to compare similar courses in the teacher education programme at a distance education university. acknowledgments i am grateful to the peer reviewers and the editor of this journal for constructive suggestions to how to strengthen this article and the research professor in the department who validated the trustworthiness and authenticity of my data. acknowledgment is given to the national research foundation for grant funding (grant id # 113615). furthermore, i extend thanks to the economics student teachers who voluntarily participated in this research study. the quality of language revision work done by the university’s language services is highly appreciated. any opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this paper are mine and do not reflect the views of the department. appendix 1 e-pedagogical strategies supportive value questionnaire (epssvq) you are invited to participate in a survey. the survey you have received has been designed to study the use of e-pedagogical support strategies, which could be used to enhance student selfdirected learning to support student learning in an odl context. you were selected to participate in this survey because you are registered in the module. by completing this survey, you agree that the information you provide may be used for research purposes, including dissemination through peer-reviewed publications and conference proceedings. it is anticipated that the information we gain from this survey will help us to generate new knowledge on student support towards students’ self-directed learning in an odel context, effecting changes to the e-learning and e-assessment through assessment policy practices of unisa. you are, however, under no obligation to complete the survey and you can withdraw from the study prior to submitting the survey. the survey is developed to be anonymous, meaning that we will have no way of connecting the information that you provide to you personally. unisa research permission subcommittee (certificate ref #2018 rpsc_017) was granted. section a: biographical data male female pgce (postgraduate certificate in education) bed (bachelor of education) section b: e-pedagogical support strategies to what extent do you agree or disagree regarding the inclusion of the following learning support methods in the teaching methodology used? a four-point scale of agreement or disagreement strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree e-discussion forums 4 3 2 1 blogging 4 3 2 1 online announcements 4 3 2 1 instant short messages (sms) 4 3 2 1 online tutorial letters 4 3 2 1 whatsapp messages 4 3 2 1 myunisa online portal 4 3 2 1 44 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 mylife e-mail account 4 3 2 1 regional teaching centres 4 3 2 1 telephonic calls 4 3 2 1 section c: academic and non-academic support to what extent do you agree or disagree regarding the statements of academic and non-academic support in the teaching methodology? strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree the lecturer is available during office hours when i need him to support me in my assignment, tasks or project 4 3 2 1 the lecturer provided responses in handling my academic enquiries on my assignments, tasks, project or examination related issues 4 3 2 1 the lecturer is approachable during office hours and gives support on my queries related to the module 4 3 2 1 the lecturer extended support by giving me further information in the module and other related academic related issues 4 3 2 1 the lecturer shows sympathy to circumstances regarding outstanding or late submission of tasks and answered my queries and other related issues 4 3 2 1 the lecturer provides extra learning material, is active on discussion forums and sets a blog as support in my module 4 3 2 1 in my tutorial letter, the information provided was clear regarding due dates for tasks and other related assessment activities submission 4 3 2 1 the lecturer provided constructive feedback to support me in my assessment tasks, projects, and assignments 4 3 2 1 © van wyk mm. 2019 references anderson, t. 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(2000). attaining self-regulation: a social cognitive perspective. in m. boekaerts, p. r. pintrich, & m. zeidner (eds.), handbook of self-regulation (pp. 13– 39). san diego, ca: academic press. summative assessment of student teaching: a proposed approach for quantifying practice lee rusznyak abstract a pass mark in a teaching practice module is a convenient way for universities to signal confidence in students’ beginning teaching competence. however, assigning marks for teaching competence is a fraught undertaking if marks are to be standardised across different assessors and reflect teaching as a complex, coherent practice. this paper analyses reports written by university tutors justifying the marks awarded to a cohort of final-year student teachers for their teaching practice. the analysis shows that marks reflect an interplay between the students’ pedagogical thinking (evident in the rationale for their lesson design and written and verbal reflections on their teaching), and their ability to deliver lessons effectively (from direct observation of their teaching). this finding prompted the development of a summative teaching practice assessment rubric which considers both the cognitive and performance dimensions of student teaching. it potentially enables a more coherent, holistic summative assessment of student teaching than had been possible using lists of isolated criteria or general impressions of competence. introduction higher education institutions are responsible for ensuring that newly-qualified teachers are able to assume responsibility for classroom teaching at the start of their careers. a credit or ‘pass’ mark in a teaching practice course is a convenient way for institutions to signify their confidence in qualifying students’ readiness to begin teaching. observations of student teaching together with other sources of supporting evidence (such as students’ rationale for their lesson design, reflections, devised learning and assessment tasks and their contributions during post-observation discussions) contribute to a holistic profile of student teaching on which assessment can be based (fraser, killen and nieman, 2005; darling-hammond and snyder, 2000). summative assessment instruments are supposed to guide large numbers of university tutors and supervising teachers as they undertake these observations and make high-stakes judgments about students’ teaching 92 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 competence or incompetence. this study was prompted by dissatisfaction with a particular guideline for the summative assessment of student teaching previously used by staff at the wits school of education (see appendix a). that guideline provided university tutors with a list of twelve criteria for assessment, some of which were inherited from documents used before the merger between the johannesburg college of education and the wits faculty of education, while others were derived from the exit level outcomes stipulated by the norms and standards for educators (department of education, 2000). the guideline provided no indication of how to translate students’ teaching competence into a single mark. some university tutors wrote an open-ended report in which they commented on observed teaching and supporting evidence to justify the impression mark that they had awarded. this approach enabled university tutors to consider different forms of evidence related to students’ teaching in a coherent and integrated way, but negated the possibility of a reliable approach that could be easily standardised across the various teaching subjects and phases. other university tutors determined a final mark by assigning a numerical rating to each criterion and obtaining a cumulative total. the use of marks against checklists provided clearly visible criteria, but also assumed that every criterion had equal value and could be considered as an isolated competence. this approach might indeed be suited to technical training (which applies facts, rules and procedures to a range of predictable situations), but it is far from an ideal way to assess practices that involve professional judgment (martin and cloke, 2000; coll, taylor and grainger, 2002). dissatisfaction with the limitations of both these approaches prompted an investigation into what university tutors recognise as distinctive student teaching, and a qualitative analysis of the reports written to justify marks awarded. the findings informed the construction of a different kind of summative teaching practice assessment rubric (appendix c). it prompts university tutors and mentor teachers to consider various forms of evidence to assess both the performance and the cognitive dimensions of a student’s teaching and suggests a standardised mark range that takes both these dimensions into account. the structure of this rubric potentially offers teacher educators a more principled and coherent approach for the summative assessment of student teaching than is possible through approaches using lists of criteria or overall impressions of competence. rusznyak: summative assessment of student teaching. . . 93 summative assessment of student teaching whereas some higher education institutions offering teacher education in south africa allocate a ‘credit’ for students’ final session of practical teaching, others assign a mark (reddy, menkveld and bitzer, 2008). where a non-quantitative ‘credit’ is awarded for student teaching, teacher educators need only establish that the student teacher is not incompetent during their final session of teaching practice. the allocation of a mark for teaching competence has some merit, as the wide range of marks on the percentage scale can be used to acknowledge excellence in student teaching by awarding a distinctive mark, or signalling a minimal level of competence by a pass mark of 50%. the assigning of marks for student teaching provides for the comparative profiling of results for the purpose of issuing awards, especially when considering students teaching over different subjects and/or phases. however, the multifaceted nature of the evidence used to determine the quality of student teaching, and the complexities of teaching itself makes it difficult to represent teaching competence in a single numerical value (uhlenbeck, verloop and beijaard, 2002; darling-hammond and snyder, 2000). the summative assessment of student teaching has been described as “contentious and complex” (reddy, menkveld and bitzer, 2008, p.155). the minimum requirements for teacher education qualifications stipulates that teaching practice should be both supervised and assessed (department of higher education and training, 2011). however, a recent review of south african initial teacher education programmes raised concern about the “design, monitoring and assessment of teaching practice”, noting particularly a pervasive “lack of common understanding of . . . assessment rubrics” (council of higher education, 2010, p.94). summative assessment instruments should ideally make explicit the principled grounds upon which marks are awarded to different stakeholders: university tutors (who need to be accountable for the judgments they make); student teachers (who could benefit from understanding how excellence within a practice is recognised); the wider teaching profession (who participate in mentoring and assessment of student teachers); the state (as accreditors, policy-makers and future employers of student teachers). it is not surprising then that the summative assessment of student teaching has been identified as “one of the major challenges facing practicum supervisors and teacher educators in general” (reddy et al., 2008, p.146). 94 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 competence in teaching nationally and internationally there is a well-documented tendency for school-based mentors and university tutors to focus their attention on the performance of teaching without due consideration of the cognitive thinking underlying it (e.g. zanting, verloop and vermunt, 2001; roelofs and sanders, 2007; reddy et al., 2008). shulman’s (1987) model of pedagogical reasoning and action provides a potentially useful framework for understanding teaching with consideration of the “intellectual basis for teaching performance, rather than on behaviour alone” (p.107). he insists that teachers need first to comprehend the content knowledge or text to be taught before a lesson takes place. teachers’ understanding of key concepts enables them to transform their understanding into appropriate representations understandable to classes of diverse learners. transforming the content into an accessible form thus culminates in a pedagogically-reasoned “plan, or set of strategies, to present a lesson, unit or course” in which teachers take pedagogical decisions based on a simultaneous consideration of the demands of the content to be taught, the needs of their learners and the possibilities within their teaching contexts (p.104). during the interactive stage of teaching, which shulman calls instruction, teachers and learners are simultaneously involved with the concept, text or topic to be learnt. he refers to “observable forms of classroom teaching”, in which the prospective plan is enacted and adjusted in response to the learning environment created during a lesson (p.101). it includes classroom management as well as presentation of content, interaction with learners, and assigning of learning and assessment tasks. in order for a teacher to act flexibly and responsively to the everchanging dynamics within a lesson, the teacher must be continually thinking about what is happening and how learners are engaging with the concepts. shulman defines reflection as “the set of processes through which a professional learns from experience” by reviewing the lesson in relation to the purpose that the teaching intended to achieve ( p.106). it often takes place in the post-active phase following a lesson when a teacher “looks back at the teaching and learning that has occurred, and reconstructs, re-enacts, and/or recaptures the events, the emotions and the accomplishments” (p.106). as a result of ‘reasoned’ teaching, the teacher comes to a “new comprehension” of the “purposes and of the subjects to be taught, and also of the [learners] and of processes of pedagogy themselves” (p.106). in all these processes shulman shows how the visible actions of classroom teaching are underpinned by a knowledge base that supports the making of considered pedagogical choices. rusznyak: summative assessment of student teaching. . . 95 while there are many calls for student teaching to be assessed with due consideration of cognitive and performance dimensions of the practice, there is little in the literature on how this call might be enacted in practice. initial teacher education programmes should enable students to develop a beginning repertoire of teaching knowledge and skills that lay a basis from which they can continue to learn from their practice and eventually develop expertise (feiman-nemser, 2001). studies on the practices of expert teachers have identified attributes of excellence in teaching that enable powerful learning (e.g. berliner, 1994; hattie, 2003; hayes, mills, christie and lingard, 2006). findings in these studies suggest that expert teachers (as compared to those that are accomplished or merely experienced) have efficient automated routines; engage learners in learning activities that build deep knowledge and understanding; provide relevant feedback, use appropriate representations of concepts, are responsive to learners needs, and create safe learning environments. some attributes refer to the thinking that teachers do before and after the lessons they teach (such as their capacity to devise appropriate representations of the content they teach) and others refer to how they manage the learning process during the course of the contact time with the learners (such as how they use routines to maximise teaching time). these studies are exceptionally valuable in guiding teacher educators attention to those aspects of students’ developing practice that make the most impact on learning (both in coursework and in their formative feedback on students’ attempts at teaching). while students should be developing these vital aspects of their practice, the attributes of expert teaching should not be used as a checklist for rating the competence of teachers (hattie, 2003). furthermore, it is unrealistic to expect that students will have a fully developed expert practice by the time they qualify (feiman-nemser, 2001). it is therefore important to identify the attributes of competent student teaching and incompetence that characterises student teaching. reynolds (1992, p.1) produces a list that describes “what beginning teachers should know and be able to do” by the time they qualify. some criteria she lists refer to the cognitive dimension of teaching (e.g. students’ knowledge of the subjects they teach; their consideration of the needs of learners; their ability to make appropriate pedagogical choices, their capacity to plan coherent lessons and their ability to reflect on their teaching). other criteria propose what beginning teachers should be able to do during the lessons they teach (such as relate well to learners; establish and maintain routines; construct a conducive learning environment and assess learning). these capacities can be observed and could be seen to constitute the performance dimension of competent 96 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 student teaching. while the findings and criteria from these studies are valuable in designing descriptors for formative assessment rubrics that prioritise the kinds of knowledge, skills and dispositions that student teachers should develop during their initial teacher education programmes, they do not offer a way of using the criteria to translate students’ practice into a numerical mark in a standardised and coherent way. in contrast, raths and lyman (2003) describe incompetence in student teaching as “acts of commission or omission on the part of the [student] teacher that interfere with the learning processes of learners, or that fail to advance them” (p.211). they propose that these acts of commission/omission could include a lack of understanding of the subject matter content; inability to incorporate feedback from previous lessons into subsequent planning; inability to relate to learners, and/or not engaging learners in high-quality active learning. while their comprehensive list is potentially useful for exploring the grounds on which student teaching can be deemed ‘not yet competent’ for qualification, their guidelines do nothing to distinguish between different levels of developing but nonetheless competent student teaching. little is known about the attributes of the teaching observed from the most accomplished of student teachers at the end of their initial teacher education programmes. methodology student teachers at the wits school of education undertake periodic sessions of practical teaching, mentored by a supervising teacher and a university tutor. university tutors undertake several lesson observations of each student allocated to them and examine other evidence of thinking and planning (such as the student’s lesson preparation and reflective journal). after each observed lesson, they meet the student teacher to reflect on issues of the teaching and learning arising during the lesson. in the first three years of their bed degree students are thus mentored, and their ongoing progress is formatively assessed with the intention of providing feedback that promotes their professional development (rusznyak, 2011). a different approach needs to be used for final year student teachers who are summatively assessed by university tutors to verify their teaching competence prior to qualifying. the search for a more systematic, principled approach to summatively assessing student teaching holistically required a two-phase qualitative investigation. first it was necessary to understand the grounds on which rusznyak: summative assessment of student teaching. . . 97 experienced university tutors award distinctive marks for teaching practice, and how these grounds related to the 12 criteria contained in the guideline that was used at the time. sixteen university tutors accepted an invitation to participate in a focus group discussion. all had experience in observing and mentoring student teachers, and assessing their teaching within their particular phase and/or subject specialisation. the group was asked to ‘describe student teaching that you consider to be worthy of a distinctive mark (above 75%)’. detailed notes were made during the discussion, and consensus emerged around thirteen attributes of distinctive teaching that were suggested (see appendix b). the empirical data for the second phase of this investigation were the reports written to justify the marks awarded for a cohort of 46 final-year bed students who specialised in intermediate/senior phase teaching. the reports were written by fourteen university tutors appointed to assess the cohort of student teachers. all of these tutors had prior experience in the summative assessment of student teaching and in previous years, they had all participated in annual internal moderation meetings in which the grounds on which they had awarded marks had been discussed and adjusted where necessary. five of these tutors had also participated in the focus group discussion about the attributes of distinctive teaching. shulman’s distinction between pedagogical reasoning and pedagogical action was useful in analysing the reports written by university tutors to justify their marks. comments in each report were coded according to those that referred to the cognitive dimension of students’ teaching (their knowledge and understanding of the concepts taught, rationales for pedagogical choices and reflections on their teaching) and those concerned with observable classroom performance (such as their classroom management, interactions with learners, use of resources, execution of teaching strategies and pacing). the reports could then be clustered into four categories according to the nature of the comments university tutors made regarding the students’ pedagogical thinking and their pedagogical action. the four categories were defined as follows: 1. reports that commended thinking and lesson delivery 2. reports that commended student thinking but noted challenges with lesson delivery 98 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 3. reports that commended performance but expressed concerns about conceptualisation of and/or reflection on lessons 4. reports that expressed concern about the students’ ability to think about their teaching and deliver lessons effectively the mark profile of each category was analysed, and patterns were identified. the findings of this analysis and the literature around cognition in teaching enabled the construction of an alternative rubric for the summative assessment of student teaching. i describe the structure of the rubric and then use the report of one student, fatima, to illustrate how the rubric suggests a mark range for her teaching given the particular strengths and weaknesses identified in her tutor’s report written on his observations of her teaching and his examination of her lesson preparation. limitations of this study the data relies on the observations and interpretations of student teaching by university tutors who were appointed to assess this cohort of students. the analysis assumes that each report written is a complete account of each student’s teaching. the study also assumes that the fourteen university tutors who wrote the reports possess the capacity to make appropriate professional judgments about the teaching competence of student teachers. cochran-smith and lytle (1999, p.263) conceive of teacher knowledge in practice as “embedded in experience and in the wise action of very competent professionals”. such professional knowledge enables an “appropriate perception of what is salient in particular situations” (morrow, 2007, p.80). despite the limitations, the reliability of this study is significantly enhanced by the experience of the 14 university tutors and the internal moderation processes that fostered the development of shared standards for assessing students. rusznyak: summative assessment of student teaching. . . 99 findings: the attributes university tutors recognise in distinctive student teaching the focus group discussion yielded consensus on 13 such attributes (appendix b). the 13 attributes of distinctive student teaching generated included both cognitive and performance aspects of student teaching. these were then compared with the criteria competence of the guidelines (appendix a). it was immediately apparent that the official criteria emphasised the performance dimensions of student teaching, whereas the attributes of distinctive student teaching focused more on the underpinning understanding and thinking that went into making appropriate pedagogical choices, as evident in table 1. this finding suggests that a much higher level of cognition characterises student teaching that is recognised as being distinctive. 100 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 table 1: comparison of cognitive and performance dimensions of the criteria for assessing student teaching competence and with attributes of distinctive student teaching pedagogical reasoning and action given criteria for assessing competence (from appendix a) attributes of distinctive teaching (from appendix b) cognitive dimension comprehension · degree of knowledge & insight into relevant subjects · thorough knowledge of topics taught and how they relate to rest of curriculum · ability to distil key concepts from the detail · making learning relevant and current transformation · planning, preparation and integration of units of work · development of support materials · design of learning tasks and assessment tasks for assessment of learner development · variety and appropriateness of teaching strategies lessons that develop a systematic learning process · sense how this learning links with previous and future lessons · choice of innovative teaching strategies conceptually appropriate to lesson content. · catering for diverse needs of learners instruction not applicable · flexible and responsive during the lesson · meaningful engagement with learners reflection not applicable · rigorous & insightful reflection performancedimension instruction · effective use of support materials · ability to motivate, arouse and maintain interest of learners · ability to communicate · assessment of learner development · effectiveness of class discipline strategies · classroom management · quality of relationship with learners · choice of innovative teaching strategies conceptually appropriate tolesson content. · meaningful, responsive engagement with learners · flexible and responsive during the lesson · creating a safe learning environment rusznyak: summative assessment of student teaching. . . 101 both the criteria for competence and the attributes of distinctive teaching were organised as lists. by their very nature lists do not necessarily show any conceptual hierarchy between items on the list or how the items listed interact with one another. to understand the grounds on which assessment decisions are made as aspects of a coherent practice rather than discrete elements on a list, it was necessary to analyse the university tutors’ reports that justified the marks they awarded for student teaching. analysis of reports justifying marks awarded for student teaching the open-ended reports that justified marks could be classified into four broad categories. in the first category are reports that commended both students’ knowledge and ability to think pedagogically, and their effective execution of lessons. reports in the second category commended students’ competence in interaction with learners, but expressed concerns about their ability to conceptualise lessons and/or reflect on their lessons. in the third category, reports contained comments that commended students for their ability to think about their teaching but noted concerns about their ability to deliver their lessons effectively. fourthly are those where concern was noted regarding both students’ ability to think about their teaching and to deliver lessons competently. i will now briefly describe each of the four categories. category 1: reports that commended thinking and lesson delivery reports in this category commended students for their subject knowledge, thoughtful pedagogical choices in the planning stages and their ability to deliver their planned lessons effectively. a tutor, for example, describes how a student maintains a sound working environment in that her learners were always busy and productive. although not a criterion on the guidelines, the ability of students to reflect on and understand their teaching was noteworthy in reports in this category. hence, for example, comments like, reflective notes at the end of lessons were insightful with regard to the effectiveness of her teaching in relation to the development of her learners. the ability of the student to be responsive to learners’ needs during their lessons was also frequently emphasised. thus, a tutor commends the way a student was able to notice, adjust and refocus her lesson: once [the student] realized that the 102 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 material contained too much information for some learners, she revised and shortened the texts and tasks. having the flexibility to respond to unpredictable classroom dynamics in a manner that maximises learning opportunities was commended in these reports. in several reports, university tutors had commended students’ thinking and lesson delivery but had included qualifiers, such as ‘mostly’, ‘sometimes’ and ‘often’ which suggests that although their teaching had been found to be competent overall, this level of competence was not consistently maintained. category 2: reports that commended student thinking but noted challenges with lesson delivery commendation here was for thorough and thoughtful lesson planning, such as she showed excellent insight and knowledge in different subjects, and she was well prepared in advance. however, reports contained expressions of concern about the students’ ability effectively to convert their lesson plans into effective lessons. one such read: at times, very well prepared lessons with sound educational intentions came to little because effective discipline could not be maintained. in some cases, such ‘challenges’ were exacerbated by contextual factors, such as: having to move from classroom to classroom contributed to the difficulties she experienced with the class. in other cases students’ difficulties were attributed to their developing teaching skills, such as: she still needs to develop the way she gives instructions, and limit the interventions in the lesson after she has given her instructions. while it is important to give deadlines and deal with common queries, it was often at the expense of the flow of the lesson. category 3: reports that commended performance but expressed concerns about conceptualisation of and/or reflection on lessons these reports describe students’ strong classroom personalities with effective interaction with learners. for example, a tutor describes a student who seems to relish the role of teacher and works with calm confidence in the classroom, also with real empathy for learners; yet, despite this positive attribute, the student needed to demonstrate the ability to do more than act as a good babysitter for the teacher. reports expressed concern about the conceptual rusznyak: summative assessment of student teaching. . . 103 depth of lessons, the quality of thought reflected in the lesson planning, and occasionally their ability to reflect on the teaching and learning in their lessons. several tutors commented on lessons that had been enjoyable for learners, but lamented busyness rather than purpose. thus, a tutor acknowledges that the student is competent enough to keep learners quiet and busy but challenges the student to demonstrate well thought out, conceptually strong teaching. several of these reports suggested that the student relied more on their personalities than on an intentional intervention to enable new learning. with pressure from the tutor to attend to their planning, many students in this category improved dramatically in the quality of their teaching over the practicum. one report describes how a student discovered that preparation not clearly thought out results in disastrous, inconclusive lessons. these problems have now led to more methodological, systematic (and successful) lesson planning. this category includes potentially capable students who either underestimate (or try to avoid) the amount of thinking required for coherent lesson planning. category 4: reports that expressed concern about the students’ ability to think about their teaching and deliver lessons effectively here, reports suggested that students’ understanding of content knowledge caused great concern. one tutor was concerned about a particular student’s ability to understand and organise content knowledge, noting that the student kept straying off the topic and often explanations were not coherent. another expressed concern about a student’s teaching competence despite her caring disposition: without thorough planning and preparation, she is insecure in the classroom, for she is struggling to think of what to say and what to do next. in future, she needs to ensure that all this is in place well before she starts her lessons. furthermore, she must do more in-depth research: what is provided in the textbook is insufficient. she clearly cares for learners and learners respond to her, but at times this interaction is not directed to learning. the report suggests the challenges in lesson delivery are sometimes attributable to weaknesses in the student’s understanding of the content and planning. 104 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 table 2: the mark distribution within each category of reports < 50% 50% – 54% 55% – 59% 60% – 64% 65% – 69% 70% – 74% 75%+ number of reports in each category 1. number of reports that commended thinking and lesson delivery 0 0 0 2 7 4 18 31 2. number of reports that commended student thinking but noted challenges with lesson delivery 0 0 0 2 1 3 0 6 3. number of reports\ that commended performance but expressed concerns about conceptualisation of and/or reflection on lessons 0 0 0 1 2 3 0 6 4. number of reports that expressed concern about the students’ ability to think about their teaching and deliver lessons effectively 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 3 number of students whose mark fell in the mark range 1 2 0 5 10 10 18 46 the reports of all students awarded distinctive marks fell within in category 1 (although not all students in this category obtained distinctions). reports in category 1 who obtained marks of below 70% were those in which university tutors used qualifiers to denote some reservations about consistency. students deemed minimally competent or who failed their teaching practice were all located in the category 4. the grounds for awarding distinctions and marks of less than 60% were fairly consistent. by contrast, reports for students ranging from 60% to 74% fell variously within categories 1, 2 and 3. in all the rusznyak: summative assessment of student teaching. . . 105 categories justifications for marks awarded were made on the grounds of how the students’ thinking about and understanding of their teaching related to their ability to realise their intentions for learning in the lessons they delivered. contrary to claims in the literature that cognitive dimensions of teaching were frequently ignored, the analysis of the open-ended reports justifying marks showed that, in assigning a mark, tutors in this study considered both the students’ thinking and also their ability effectively to create productive learning experiences during their lessons. furthermore, analysis of the range of marks awarded to the four categories of reports suggested that strengths and weaknesses in students’ teaching thinking and classroom action combine in ways that reflect in patterns of marks awarded across the cohort of students. this finding provided a way for the design of a rubric in the form of a twodimensional grid rather than a linear list (see appendix c). design of a different kind of summative teaching practice assessment rubric the revised rubric for the summative assessment of student teaching describes a continuum consisting of five levels of teacher understanding and thinking (across the top row) and a continuum consisting of five levels of teaching performance (along the far left column). assessment then takes the form of identifying the appropriate level of students’ teacher understanding and thinking, and an appropriate level of their teaching performance. plotting the horizontal to the vertical, identifies a cell that suggests a range of appropriate marks. perhaps the chief merit is that the suggested range for different combinations of strengths and weaknesses is consistently accessible for all university tutors and supervising teachers assessing final year student teachers’ teaching competence. assessing teacher thinking the dimension of teacher thinking refers to those aspects of a teaching practice that are not directly observable during classroom action, but which nonetheless require subject and pedagogical knowledge and reasoning prior to and after the lesson itself. in accessing and assessing this, university tutors 106 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 draw on several forms of evidence. firstly, students’ lesson plans are not merely a record of their intended actions, but are structured to provide a rationale for their lesson design (rusznyak and walton, 2011). the tutor can thus assess the degree of thoughtfulness in the planning. secondly, the students’ reflective journals, which should be kept up-to-date throughout the practicum provide evidence of how the students reflect upon the teaching and learning during lessons they teach. thirdly, after every lesson observed, students are expected to meet with the university tutor/mentor teacher to discuss their lesson. the assessor has opportunities during these postobservation discussions to probe the student’s perception about their teaching and the learning that took place. the kinds of teacher thinking that are evident from the above sources includes the students’ understanding of content knowledge, thoughtfulness of their lesson preparation, their ability to reflect on their practice, and the degree of insight and innovation they bring to the design of their lessons. the separation of ‘teacher thinking’ from ‘teacher action’ in the rubric does not imply that no teacher thinking takes place during the lesson itself, but in order to assess this dimension, the university tutor looks for evidence in sources other than the direct observation of student teaching. assessing teacher action the dimension of teacher action refers to those aspects of teaching that are directly observable during the time in which students are in contact with a class of learners during the lessons they teach. the kinds of observable aspects of students’ performance includes the way in which they interact with learners, their ability to communicate, their classroom management and their responsiveness to learners and the learning dynamics during the lesson. it includes students’ ability to work productively with learner responses and managing the learning processes. in order to identify an appropriate range for a student’s mark, the assessor is required to undertake several classroom observations. while this represents only a fraction of the total teaching time, a joint assessment by a university tutor and a diligent mentor teacher would be able to build a more complete picture. rusznyak: summative assessment of student teaching. . . 107 using the rubric the rubric suggests a mark range in a cell where the two dimensions of a students’ teaching practice intersect. it still reduces practice to a single mark, but this mark represents an assessment of teaching as a practice that relies on both competent pedagogical thinking and competent pedagogical action. by describing a continuum of five levels each of teacher thinking and teacher action, the rubric is able to accommodate the large variations observed in the student teaching in the analysis of the reports and suggest an appropriate range of marks. the rubric also indicates the grounds for an assessment of student teaching that is not yet competent for certification. students who persistently misunderstand the content they teach; put little thought into their preparation; behave unprofessionally, or are unable to execute their lessons effectively are not yet ready to assume independent responsibility for a class of learners. in these cases, the rubric recommends a mark of below 50%. in order to obtain a distinctive mark, students would need to demonstrate both the capacity to think insightfully about their teaching, and to create productive learning opportunities in the lessons they teach. using the summative teaching practice assessment rubric to assign marks for student teaching the following open-ended report was written by a university tutor to justify the mark awarded to a student teacher in her final year of study. there is evidence that the university tutor referred to the list of criteria (appendix a) when writing the report to justify the awarded mark of 68%. the report includes references to the student’s lesson planning (criterion 2); support materials (criterion 3); her ability to motivate, capture and sustain the interests of learners (criterion 5); class discipline (criterion 7); ability to communicate (criterion 9) and her relationship with learners (criterion 10). fatima has a well-organised preparation file and her lesson planning is very good and this is her strength. she is respectful towards her supervisors and attempts to implement suggestions and guidance provided by them. she usually saw to it that she had all the support materials on hand to ensure the success of her lessons. she displayed satisfactory knowledge of the underpinning concepts of her lessons. good written planning and preparation are not always guarantees of success in teaching. the effective management of the learning experience is important, including pacing, discipline and enough by the way of content and activity to maintain the interest of learners. good intentions were destroyed when she let the pacing of the lesson to slip, because with that the discipline slipped too. she 108 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 must work at maintaining the interest of her class by avoiding lengthy explanations and then start an activity before learners become fidgety. fatima obviously enjoys being in the classroom, but must pay attention to her lesson delivery and her relationship with learners. fatima’s strength lies in her thoughtful and careful planning but the report suggests that she experiences difficulty in translating her planning into effective learning opportunities. the report written about her teaching is typical of those in category 2. the report that fatima demonstrated teacher thinking at level 4 and teacher action at level 2. the rubric suggests that a mark of between 60–64% would be appropriate for fatima (see appendix c). the rubric suggests a slightly lower than the mark than that of the tutor awarded for an overall impression of fatima’s teaching competence. limitations and implications several refinements to the rubric have been over the past two years as we first piloted its use and then adopted it as the institution’s formal instrument for summative teaching practice assessment. as we continue to deliberate what characterises excellence in student teaching, various adjustments have been made to the level descriptors in both the teacher thinking and teacher action dimensions. it is possible that the teaching of a particular student cannot be reliably placed along the continua of either (or both) of the dimensions of teacher thinking and teacher action. for example, one might come across a student whose planning demonstrates thoughtfulness, but whose reflections on teaching and learning are not at the same depth. in such cases, it might not be possible to pinpoint just one cell in the grid to determine an appropriate mark range. in such cases, the university tutors would need to consider a mark within the wider mark range indicated over two cells. despite these limitations, we find there are now more transparent and accessible grounds upon which we can quantify the competence of student teaching at the end of their initial teacher education. conclusion any summative assessment rubric that assigns a mark to teaching carries the hazards of reducing a complex practice to a single mark. we continue to debate whether a mark against a teaching practice course is an appropriate way to reflect the university’s confidence in students’ teaching competence. rusznyak: summative assessment of student teaching. . . 109 however, as no satisfactory alternative exists at present, then summative assessment rubrics used should reflect aspects of the complexity inherent in teaching. the revised summative teaching practice rubric prompts university teachers and supervising teachers to consider a wide range of evidence when making decisions about student teaching competence at the end of their initial teacher education. it offers teacher educators an approach that gives due attention to both the cognitive and performance dimensions of student teaching in more principled and coherent way than has been possible with the use of lists of criteria or resorting to awarding marks based on a general impression of competence. the simultaneous consideration of these two dimensions offers possibilities for making summative assessment of students’ teaching competence more reliable and more explicit to university tutors assessing the students, student teachers and the wider teaching profession. acknowledgement i acknowledge the contribution of staff from the wits school of education who worked with me in investigating our assessment practices and refining the summative teaching practice assessment rubric. my thanks to dr. elizabeth walton for her generative comments on earlier drafts of this paper. references berliner, d. 1994. the wonder of exemplary performances. in mangieri, j.n. and block, 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(eds), teaching as community property: essays on higher education. san francisco: josseybass. uhlenbeck, a.m., verloop, n. and beijaard, d. 2002. requirements for an assessment procedure for beginning teachers: implications from recent theories on teaching and assessment. teachers college record, 104(2): pp.242 –272. zanting, a., verloop, n. and vermunt, j.d. 2001. student teachers’ beliefs about mentoring and learning to teach during teaching practice. british journal of education, 71: pp.57–80. lee rusznyak academic head of teaching experience and bed coordinator wits school of education forum member of unesco chair in teacher education for diversity and development leanne.rusznyak@wits.ac.za mailto:lee.rusznyak@wits.ac.za 112 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 appendix a: criteria to guide the summative assessment of student teaching 1. knowledge and understanding of subject/s. 2. planning, preparation and integration of units of work 3. development and use of support materials 4. variety and appropriateness of teaching strategies 5. ability to motivate, arouse and maintain interest 6. assessment of learner development 7. class discipline 8. classroom management 9. ability to communicate: instructions; explanations, descriptions, questions 10. quality of relationship with learners 11. professionalism 12. relationship with teachers and school organization (taken from: guidelines for summative assessment of teaching practice, abandoned in 2008) rusznyak: summative assessment of student teaching. . . 113 appendix b: thirteen attributes of ‘distinctive’ student teaching ! thorough knowledge of topics taught – and how they relate to other areas of the syllabus/learners’ lives ! ability to distil key concepts/key issues from the detail ! makes learning relevant and current ! well-conceptualized lessons that systematically develop a learning process ! innovative/creative use of teaching strategies conceptually appropriate to the lesson’s content ! sense of larger picture – forward planning and also how this learning links with previous and future material ! rigorous, insightful reflection – shows deep understanding of their own teaching ! pre-empts possible misconceptions; designs tasks to expose how learners think/understand a concept ! creates a safe learning environment for learners ! caters for different needs/ability levels of learners ! flexible and responsive to the dynamics within the lesson ! meaningful, responsive engagement with learners ! works well within the school environment (generated during a teaching practice committee focus group discussion, wits school of education) 114 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 appendix c: summative teaching practice assessment rubric rusznyak: summative assessment of student teaching. . . 115 microsoft word b86 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 86, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i86a07 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x how the teaching development grant was used (and the problem of common-sense understandings of teaching and learning) temwa moyo centre for postgraduate studies, rhodes university, makhanda, south africa mtheto@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4942-232x sioux mckenna centre for postgraduate studies, rhodes university, makhanda, south africa s.mckenna@ru.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1202-5999 clever ndebele directorate of learning and teaching, walter sisulu university, mthatha, south africa cndebele@wsu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4258-4812 (received: 17 june 2021; accepted: 28 february 2022) abstract teachers at primary and secondary education levels are required to hold a professional qualification but, at the higher education level, all that is required is content expertise. this may well contribute to south africa’s low university throughput and retention rates, in response to which, since 2004, the state has provided zar5.5 billion in the form of the teaching development grant (now the university capacity development grant) to address poor completion rates. we present an analysis of the use of the grant across the sector using a social realist framework. every academic and student has themselves been taught and so have developed untheorised assumptions about curriculum and pedagogy. such common-sense assumptions about teaching and learning often serve to reinforce the status quo, which is particularly problematic in a sector with poor and racially differentiated throughput and success rates. many initiatives funded through the grant evidenced a reliance on common-sense assumptions rather than on theorised accounts. in particular, student development often took the form of remedial, add-on initiatives that left the mainstream curriculum untouched—and staff development was often generic and short term. we also found that expertise in academic development, which could potentially challenge common-sense assumptions, was unevenly distributed. keywords: funding, academic development, teaching development grant, university capacity development grant moyo et al.: how the teaching development grant was used . . . 127 introduction the higher education sector of south africa is beset with throughput and retention problems (department of higher education & training [dhet], 2020a). the earliest cohort studies of first-time entering students conducted by the then department of education (doe, 2008), and an in-depth analysis of the cohort data undertaken by scott et al. (2007), showed serious inefficiencies in the teaching outputs of the higher education system. the studies showed that only 32% of students studying in 3-year programmes were able to successfully complete their programmes within 4 years. furthermore, student performance was racially skewed. while african students have enjoyed the highest increases in enrolment since the new democratic dispensation, they were the poorest performers, with only 21.6% graduating within a period of 4 years; greater percentages of mixed-race (27.5%), indian (32.1%), and white (46.2%) students completed in that same 4-year period (doe, 2008). recent studies (such as dhet, 2020a) have shown improvements in these teaching output indicators but low and racially skewed completion figures persist. these inefficiencies point to an injustice that is exacerbated by the uneven participation rates 1 —only 14.5% of mixed-race and 16.5% of african youth attend higher education, while participation rates for indian and white youth stand at 48.9% and 54.7%, respectively (dhet, 2020a). the persistence of poor teaching outputs and the urgent need for the higher education system to meet the policy goals of equity of access and success (doe, 1997, 2008; national planning commission, 2010) led to development of the teaching development grant (tdg) to enhance teaching outputs. the tdg was included in the block grant 2 in 2004 and then, from 2006, as an earmarked grant to improve student retention and throughput by means of systematic improvements in teaching and learning (t&l). earmarked funds are targeted interventions to address identified systemic problems with specific policy goals and for which reporting on the use of the funds is required. a 2008 review of the implementation of the tdg called for more focused use of the funds, and recommended strengthened oversight by government and greater accountability by universities (doe, 2008). despite this call, up until 2012, reporting on the use of funds was through unaudited progress reports; and accountability and monitoring structures were weak, allowing for sometimes problematic usage of funds (council on higher education, 2016; dhet, 2013). as we have discussed elsewhere (moyo & mckenna, 2021), such funds were often used for infrastructure and physical maintenance rather than for teaching development, and there were examples of unaccounted funds and funds used on extraneous issues such as the purchasing of vehicles and garden maintenance. from 2012 onwards, the processes of proposal review and reporting on spending were significantly tightened. in 2017 the tdg was reconfigured with the research development grant to form the combined university capacity development grant (ucdg). 1 the gross participation rate refers to the proportion of a population enrolled in universities as a percentage of the total population in the 20–24-year age group, the official university-going age group (dhet, 2013). 2 government funding to universities in south africa is made up of the block grant, which are funds that can be used at the discretion of each institution’s council, and earmarked grant funding, the use of which is determined by the minister of higher education and training. 128 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 the larger desktop study on the tdg (moyo, 2018) from which this article comes, does not allow for an evaluation of the actual initiatives; it offers an analysis of institutions’ plans, budgets, and reported expenditure. this article homes in on the findings related to student and staff development. with zar5.5 billion spent on the tdg (dhet, 2016), and funds of zar5 billion paid through the ucdg to date (dhet, 2020b), it is imperative that we identify constraints on the potential of earmarked funds to bring about improvements in teaching across the sector. concerns about common-sense approaches to teaching we all have common-sense understandings of the world that help us to navigate our daily lives. while common sense is not in itself problematic, we acquire it within a preexisting system and it often serves to reinforce rather than challenge the injustices of that system (archer, 1996). common sense thus often comprises normalised, dominant understandings of the world (fairclough, 2010). every academic and student has themselves been taught and so have developed untheorised, common-sense assumptions about curriculum and pedagogy. there is no teaching qualification required to work as an academic and not even much by way of incentive for academics to engage with the wealth of research on t&l, much of which troubles dominant assumptions. niven (2012) showed there has been little uptake of theorised accounts of t&l in practice in the south african higher education system and hlengwa et al. (2018) showed that where research on t&l is referred to, it is often misappropriated to support commonsense understandings. deaker et al. (2016) argued that teaching methods cannot be developed in isolation from theorised understandings of t&l, and scott (2019) cautioned against simplistic approaches to multilayered t&l problems, which he argued, require expertise to identify complex underlying constraints on student success. the call for teaching development interventions to be well theorised has been made both locally (for example, boughey & mckenna, 2021; shay, 2012; vorster & quinn, 2015) and internationally (for example, clegg, 2009; rowland, 2009; tight, 2017). trowler (2020) suggested that the most common understandings of student learning are psychologised accounts that explain success or failure in terms of the skills of the individual student. boughey and mckenna (2021) called this the discourse of the decontextualised learner, which assumes that student success is due to attributes inherent in the individual such as their levels of motivation and intelligence, or to their having certain seemingly generic and neutral skills such as study skills or language skills. the student is decontextualised from their experiences, norms, values, and practices and seen to be simply an individual with (or without) specific sets of attributes and skills. in these kinds of accounts of teaching and learning, the university is almost entirely absented and thus what is offered in the university, and the practices expected in the university, are rarely considered at all—and where they are, they are seen to be neutral. moyo et al.: how the teaching development grant was used . . . 129 this common-sense assumption allows the flourishing of the notion that the university is a meritocracy (sobuwa & mckenna, 2019), whereby student success and failure is understood to emerge entirely from their inherent attributes and skills. while such accounts are repeatedly troubled by the research on t&l, which calls for a far more nuanced appreciation of the student as a social being and the university as a social space, they remain pervasive in our everyday, common-sense understandings. our analysis of the use of the tdg considered what kinds of understandings underpinned the many initiatives for which these funds were used and, as we will show, found such common-sense assumptions to be pervasive. methodological approach in order to make sense of the use of tdg funding, this paper draws from a larger study (moyo, 2018), which included data from all public universities from 2004 to 2015. 3 the data included tdg budget plans that detailed how each university planned to use their allocated tdg funds (2-year plans were submitted from 2007 to 2013 and, from 2013 onwards, universities were required to submit 3-year plans). the data also included annual tdg progress reports that contained university narratives of the grant’s utilisation and their financials, which from 2013 also included an external audit report. other tdg-related documents such as policy documents and the 2008 review report were also included as data. the data was thus all secondary and, although we reviewed numeric data in the budgets and expenditure reports, the study was largely qualitative in nature. ethical clearance was granted for the study on the condition that no data was identifiably attached to a specific institution. making sense of a complex social phenomenon such as the tdg required an analytical framework that would allow for a nuanced investigation. we drew on archer’s (1995, 1996, 2016) work, which argued that social phenomena do not have simple sets of factors that cause them to occur but, rather, they emerge from the interplay of various cultural, structural, and agential mechanisms. archer (1995, 1996, 2016) described structures as resources as well as institutional and national arrangements. culture refers to accepted, engrained, and adopted approaches to doing things. within this domain can be found all that might be considered to be common sense, that is, the shared perceptions and judgements of events—with such shared perceptions and judgements enabling or constraining the emergence of other events. agency refers to the human ability to pursue goals and interests, with such agency being enabled or constrained by the structural and cultural mechanisms at play in that particular context (archer, 2016). although the data do not allow for an analysis of the effectiveness of specific tdg-funded projects, we were able to identify the kinds of interventions that each institution planned and implemented, using analytical dualism. analytical dualism entails understanding any social phenomenon, such as the tdg-funded activities, as emerging from an interplay of structures and cultures with the agency of people (archer, 1996). the researcher is tasked with 3 the tdg was implemented from 2004 to 2017. however, the analysis of the progress reports and plans was from when it was first allocated as an earmarked grant in 2006. the last 3-year tdg plans were submitted in 2013 and the last tdg progress reports were submitted in 2015. between 2015/16 to 2016/17, the tdg was migrated into the ucdg. 130 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 identifying the enabling and constraining effects of mechanisms within each domain separately. in this article, we share three findings. the first two are the deficit approaches to student development and the generic approaches to staff development. we argue that these emerge from common-sense understandings of teaching and learning in the domain of culture. the third finding discussed in this article can be categorised as being within archer’s structural domain, which is concerned with access to resources. this is the shortage of academic development expertise and the uneven distribution of the same, which institutions stated constrained what they were able to implement. we begin by looking at deficit approaches to student development and the common-sense understandings that enabled these approaches. deficit approaches to student development the greatest portion of the tdg was allocated to student-focused activities. this was evidenced in the budget allocations, in which more than 50% of the grant was consistently allocated to such activities, and in the narrative portions of the plans: by far the largest proportion of any funding would be allocated to tutors and supplementary teaching support. (hai 8) 4 given the country’s poor schooling system and the rapid massification of the system, it would be difficult to argue that using the bulk of the funds on student development is problematic. however, the consistent use of such funds for interventions aimed at the student separately from the mainstream classes left key t&l areas such as curriculum development and institutional culture untouched. examples of student development initiatives funded by the tdg included a wide range of add-on courses, additional tutorials, and supplementary teaching: workshops, report writing assistance, english courses for non-english speakers. (merged hai 8) tutoring learners in mathematics, science, accounting . . . affording the learners access to additional workshops that will provide them with further academic and social support. . . . these will include: a) writing centre for reading and writing workshops and b) life skills workshops. (hai 22) across most of the data was the idea that students could be supported separately from the curriculum to attain missing “generic skills” and then transfer these back to their mainstream 4 data quotes come from the range of documentation listed in this article and in more detail in the methods section of moyo (2018). in order to ensure institutional anonymity, we have numbered the institutions from 1 to 23 and also included a general indication of institutional type in the form of hdi for historically disadvantaged institution, hai for historically advantaged institution, and merged institution in cases where the particular merger process meant that the institution now straddles the previous two identification categories. there are 8 hdis and, arguably, 10 hais. these hais include institutions that had hdi campuses incorporated into them. quotes are amended using square brackets where identifying issues needed to be redacted in the interests of anonymity. apart from such amendments, data quotes are inserted verbatim. moyo et al.: how the teaching development grant was used . . . 131 studies as needed. ashwin indicated that the “myth of generic skills” is dominant across higher education internationally; he stated that “just because we can describe any process generically does not mean that what is at stake is meaningfully generic” (2020, p. 19). for example, the term “argumentative essay” is often used within the humanities but this does not mean that the nature of an argumentative essay is generic across fields. following a template for constructing an argumentative essay in an academic literacy course has not been shown to have helped a first-year student make sense of a series of readings to construct a philosophy essay or to understand how arguments are constructed in political studies. the concept of generic skills is alluring because it oversimplifies the educational experience (ashwin, 2020). this oversimplification allows the response to students’ challenges to take the form of add-on generic initiatives that leave the status quo unchanged. alongside initiatives aimed at developing generic skills were those focused on developing language, where “language” pertained to the grammatically correct use of english rather than the discipline-specific literacy practices valued in different fields of study: the academic literacy unit will provide remedial interventions by concentrating on the development of critical skills in reading, writing, listening and oral communication with a view to facilitating the academic success of students. (hdi 10) the university plans to establish a 60 to 120-seater language laboratory equipped with the latest technology and materials to assist those who have difficulty in communicating in english as well as other languages. (hdi 23) such above-mentioned initiatives generally assume that reading and writing in the academy is “simply a matter of acquiring a set of neutral, a-social, a-cultural, and a-political ‘skills’” (boughey & mckenna, 2016, p. 5). although many of these courses were called “academic literacy” courses, they were at odds with academic literacy theory, which stipulates that the practices of the academy emerge from the norms and values of different fields of study (bailey, 2018; lea & street, 1999). that the majority of tdg funds were spent on student development may well be appropriate, but the student development was primarily in the form of add-on, generic interventions. this suggests an understanding in the domain of culture that (a) the problem of poor throughput and retention lies in the attributes of individual students and that (b) learning in the academy is generic across programmes, and that (c) learning gaps can thus be attended to outside of the curriculum by people who are themselves not disciplinary experts. as long ago as 1978, wilson cautioned that the deficit approach underpinning much student development in the usa categorises certain students as lacking in various skills or capabilities, and positions t&l challenges as pertaining to a certain population group. this is divorced from engagement with the living and learning environments of the students, and divorced from engagement with the deeply political and sociocultural nature of the university. in south africa, back in 1985, vilakazi and tema suggested that the deficit focus 132 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 on the student as “the problem” served the agenda of leaving university cultures and curriculum structures unchallenged. literature has shown that similarly poorly constructed conceptions of t&l were a common part of the early years of academic development work in south africa (boughey & mckenna, 2021; shay, 2012), and our data show they have continued since then. as boughey indicated (2010, p. 5): widely held conceptions of disadvantage or “under preparedness” tended to rely on common sense assumptions in constructing students as (i) lacking skills; (ii) experiencing gaps in conceptual knowledge areas; (iii) in need of language development and (iv) lacking the ability to think critically. the common-sense discourse of the decontextualised student needing remedial support, evident in our data, is thus well-established elsewhere as being problematic—particularly because it allows the curriculum to avoid critique. this is what archer termed a situational logic of protection (archer, 1995, 1996, 2016). situational logics suggest that structural, cultural, and agential mechanisms intersect in complementary or contradictory ways resulting in opportunities or constraints for change (archer, 1995, 1996, 2016). here, understanding of the “student problem” in the cultural domain, coupled with the notion that the curriculum is a neutral construction of knowledge, worked in complementarity resulting in the tdg being used for add-on interventions that did not disturb mainstream teaching, learning and assessment. while most tdg money was spent on student development, a significant portion was spent on interventions aimed at academics. generic staff development interventions staff development initiatives took many forms but most were short-term and arguably failed to engage with deliberations about institutional structures and cultures. the most common staff development programmes funded by the tdg focused on the development of generic skills such as how to write outcomes and assessment criteria, separate from the academic’s identity, the target discipline, or the institution itself. behari-leak (2017) argued that generic one-size-fits-all approaches to professional development are ineffective in contexts characterised by great disparity because they do not engage with differing and contested perspectives across the university spectrum. institutions need to consider, as deaker et al. (2016) argued, how the messages they send about teaching through policies, processes, and practices, shape staff perceptions and academic identities. the data however suggest that most staff development took the form of add-on workshops and seminars: r2 544 000—seminars and workshops for the improvement of teaching and learning. (hai 6) moyo et al.: how the teaching development grant was used . . . 133 vorster and quinn’s (2017) work showed the need for systematic, longer term, and contextualised staff development initiatives. in a south african study undertaken by quinn (2012, p. 79), some lecturers, for example, expressed a fear that skills-type workshops would result in a “dangerous and ultimately enfeebling tendency towards ‘dumbing down’ by a focus on educational procedure at the expense of intellectual content.” the literature has repeatedly called for ongoing interventions that move away from weakly theorised staff development (clegg, 2009; shay, 2012). although there was indeed some evidence in the data of courses that were fairly extensive, many of them took the form of once-off, 1-day, or 2-day workshops to equip academics with generic teaching skills: conduct a series of workshops for all the teaching staff as part of implementing the strategy. (merged hdi 9) the reliance on once-off workshops can partly be attributed to the grant structure, which dictated that unspent funds be withdrawn (moyo, 2018; moyo & mckenna, 2021). this encouraged rushed expenditures on ad hoc type interventions that did not address contextual issues (moyo, 2018). because the funding was short-term and often seen to be unreliable (because funding was often withheld if previous funding had not been spent), it was challenging for many universities to invest in more long-term systematic approaches. boud and brew (2013) called for an end to generic skills approaches to teaching development and insisted that academic work should be understood as a social practice: a complex entity comprising interrelated sayings, doings, relationships, meanings, artefacts, and emotions that cannot be broken down into packages of decontextualised skills. it makes little sense to manufacture development activities that separate staff from their workplaces, colleagues, and contexts since professional practice is located, mediated, and relational (boud & brew, 2013). boud and brew (2013) urged academic developers to instead, focus on academic practice as a whole, and to identify development opportunities that arise in the course of the work itself. enabling students to identify, take on, and challenge the specific practices of their field can only be done within the field itself. the academic development literature (for example, boughey & mckenna, 2021) has suggested the need to question whether millions of rand spent on consultants, sometimes external to the higher education sector, is likely to ensure sustained improvement. furthermore, even where such ad hoc short-term interventions provided individual participants with improved skills, these individuals will not necessarily have the agency within their universities to implement changes if such changes contradict the institutional structural or cultural conditions. as archer (2016) explained, the extent of agency available to an individual is often limited by their position in the institution as a primary agent, as opposed to a social actor who enjoys more ability to act by virtue of the powers accorded to the institutional role they inhabit. furthermore, agency is always enacted within preexisting structures and cultures and so there may well be a situational logic that constrains the individual’s ability to change practices within their department (boughey & mckenna, 2021). behari-leak (2017), for example, showed that new staff who were introduced to ideas for change were not always able to implement them. motshoane and mckenna (2014) argued 134 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 that the focus on the development of individual academics can also prevent a closer look at institutional structures and cultures. thus far, we have argued that both student development and staff development initiatives funded by the tdg were largely external to the mainstream curriculum and failed to raise awareness of how institutional and disciplinary structures and cultures play out, and what this means for teaching in ways that make knowledge accessible to all students. while most of the data suggest that this decontextualised approach to both student and staff development emerged from common-sense understandings within institutions, there was also an indication that the shortage of academic development expertise was a key constraint. shortage and uneven distribution of experts the impact of historical injustices on expertise distribution is a major constraint (bozalek & boughey, 2012; quinn, 2012). capacity constraints as a result of apartheid-generated inequities manifested in a wide range of areas such as financial management, institutional planning, and human resource management expertise (bunting, 2002; leibowitz, et al., 2017). the gosling (2009) report on academic development centres in south africa showed great differences in how academic development staff were appointed. in some universities, academic development staff are appointed on contract and in others, they are permanent; in some institutions, they are hired as academics and in others, they are designated as administrators or support staff. this has significant implications for the qualifications and expertise of those appointed and the credibility they enjoy. there were also great variations in the job descriptions of academic development staff across the sector (gosling, 2009). the tdg budget plans and reports also evidenced such differences. in some universities, academic development positions are funded through the ongoing block grant and, in others, they are funded through the project-based tdg funds. in the data below, for example, the possibilities of being able to appoint such as senior person on a project-basis is not discussed: the respective grants prioritised the appointment of senior faculty co‐ordinators appointed at the level of deputy dean . . . who would coordinate teaching development and academic monitoring. (hai 8) academic development can take many forms and serve many different agendas; it can serve to reinforce the status quo or to disrupt it (mckenna, 2012). the different academic development contexts affected the kinds of teaching development initiatives institutions could offer through the tdg (luckett, 2012; quinn, 2012). the inability to attract and retain academic development staff with specialised teaching development capacity was mentioned in many of the documents. in particular, hdis noted that they were almost entirely dependent on tdg funding to implement their teaching development initiatives and appointed short-term contract staff to do so. they indicated that delays in obtaining these funds and bureaucratic complexities confounding speedy moyo et al.: how the teaching development grant was used . . . 135 appointments had significant effects on the implementation of planned initiatives (moyo & mckenna, 2021): the writing centre project . . . has been rather slow in taking off due to the unavailability of suitable staff and it is planned that earlier advertising in the next year of the project will be more successful. (hdi 10) even where staff could be recruited for the centre, highly-skilled staff were a challenge to employ. (hdi 23) this inability to attract and retain staff with teaching development capacity can be seen to emerge from multiple structural constraints such as geographical location, the short-term contract nature of employment, and inefficient human resource systems: there were two resignations during the year, people going for permanent appointments in other universities. . . . there are delays in filling the current vacant positions due to very slow administration processes at our human resource department. . . . staff retention becomes a problem for staff who have master & phds qualifications. (hdi 20) typically, academic development units are staffed by temporary personnel and the initiatives are often hampered by a lack of stability and continuity in staffing. (hai 8) often, the thin distribution and stalled development of t&l expertise in the country (boughey, 2012) resulted in the appointment of individuals without much by way of expertise and few institutional structures to draw on in the implementation of teaching development activities. a lack of capacity would undoubtedly constrain academic development staff from conceptualising activities that challenged the status quo. this problem could then be exacerbated by their having little social agency in the institution given their lack of credibility amongst academics and their lack of institutional power. according to archer (1995, 2016), social actors can be understood as occupants of influential positions who can shape practices and goals. the shortage of experts with social agency also constrained the possibilities for drawing knowledge from experts in the application of theorised practices, resulting in a number of misunderstandings and problematic initiatives as evidenced in the data. for example, in some cases, the tdg was expressed as: a source of income for (financially challenged) students. in another example, the scholarship of teaching and learning was referred to as a means to increase funding through publication (coetzee, 2017) rather than as a means of ensuring the implementation of theorised approaches to student and staff development. and in another, tutorials were not framed as a pedagogical initiative but rather as: 136 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 tutorials: provide employment for senior students as tutors. in the process assist academic staff with reducing workload and allow for more time to study. major relief is required for 18 members of staff that are studying. (hdi 10) the challenges that some universities faced in acquiring and retaining academic development staff often meant that funds could not be spent. in some cases, posts could not be filled due to the general shortage of expertise in the system: the pool of available candidates with elearning skills is small, so there may be difficulty attracting suitable candidates. (hai 2) at least four universities indicated that they had failed to utilise their tdg due to high staff turnover and inability to fill budgeted posts: [hdi 23] does not have academic staff members who are experienced in, and understand fully, the nature of vocationally-orientated programmes. consequently, it has struggled to develop more vocationally-oriented . . . programmes. the university needs a curriculum specialist with suitable experience. (hdi 23) the projects started only in the second term which created difficulties for their operationalisation especially when appointment of staff was required for successful implementation of the projects. projects that did not have very clear project plans and designated project leaders in the faculties did not have much success. (merged institution 4) in addition to the difficulty in filling academic development posts, there was uneven access to grant management expertise. the uneven expertise in broader administration, financial management, institutional planning, and human resource professions had implications for the establishment of systems and thus the implementation of the tdg. the sourcing and retention of staffing is a system-wide problem. the dhet (2017) national review on the use of the clinical training grant, for example, which is a grant that subsidises the training of health sciences professionals, pointed to large under spending in the staffing category for all universities for similar reasons. a story of continued improvement we have highlighted here, issues of how the tdg has been used in ways complementary to dominant common-sense understandings of teaching and learning as generic and decontextualised, however, there were also a number of other constraining mechanisms at play in the use of the tdg such as basic infrastructure needs at some institutions. an understanding of the complexity of implementing such an enormous endeavour as the tdg requires an engagement with these and other mechanisms as we have detailed elsewhere (moyo, 2018; moyo & mckenna, 2021). moyo et al.: how the teaching development grant was used . . . 137 despite the persisting constraints that have been identified in the implementation of the tdg (now ucdg), the enormous efforts that have been put in place to strengthen t&l development in south african higher education should be applauded. there have been bold strides at both national and institutional levels. many problems that beset the early years of tdg have been addressed through enabling structures such as the strengthened ucdg implementation guidelines, standard operating procedures, and a dedicated office to administer the grant. the implementation of some of the tdg report recommendations after 2013 greatly enhanced the use of the funding, albeit leaving most of the problems highlighted in this article untouched. the tdg (now ucdg) provides an opportunity for institutions to develop more coherent strategic approaches to the development of both teaching and research, although the extent to which universities are able to maximise this opportunity needs to be further investigated. conclusion using an archerian framework that understands events as emerging from an interplay of structural, cultural, and agential mechanisms, we have reflected on a wealth of documentation pertaining to the use of the tdg. we have argued that the tdg funding structure has the potential to enable significant changes in higher education to address poor and racially differentiated throughput and retention rates. however, this structure is implemented within a cultural context in which the common-sense understanding of t&l is decontextualised and generic. this has led to initiatives for student development focused on remedial skills development outside of the mainstream classroom and many add-on, short term interventions for academic staff. while such initiatives were not the only ways in which the funding has been used, they were dominant. the constraints on tdg use emerging from this cultural context were exacerbated by constraints in the realm of structure. the study showed how the inability to attract, secure, and retain appropriate academic development expertise at some universities was a major structural contributor to the reproduction of common-sense practices. this meant that, in many cases, fairly ad hoc interventions for both student and staffing programmes were the main focus of tdg spending. there remains significant work to be done to ensure better theorised and more institutionally focused interventions. the suite of dhet development programmes acknowledges the immense capacity challenges in the system, and aims to address them through the complex ucdg structure. however, the problem remains that the system is dominated by atheoretical initiatives— exacerbated by lack of staffing, the temporary nature of employment, and the allure of common-sense “fix-it” approaches. a shift away from these practices would require elaboration in the cultural domain. although dhet funding is a major enablement, such shifts cannot be entirely left to state legislation. cultural changes require the agency of key people in universities—social actors who participate in nuanced theorisations of teaching and learning to drive sophisticated challenges to the dominant common-sense practices. 138 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 systemic cultural shifts could be enhanced voluntarily through a body such as universities south africa (usaf), which is well placed to nurture such agency. such a structure would have to be equipped with the appropriate capacity, underpinned by a culture of sector-level collaboration that takes institutional and disciplinary differentiation seriously into account. to ensure that systematic shifts are achieved, interventions would also have to be extended at the level of academics as key primary agents at universities. this could be in the form of support for quality postgraduate diplomas in higher education and other extended courses. in addressing the unequal distribution of expertise, our study suggests a need for a national structure to house the growing body of knowledge and research. this structure could be led by a community of academics providing expertise in a collaborative manner. the proposed structure would serve as a resource for informing and promoting policy development and for supporting professional leadership for all universities, particularly those that have extreme capacity constraints. such a structure would have to be funded by a state lever such as the ucdg through, for example, its collaborative grants. references archer, m. 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(1978). the developmental psychology of the black child. united brothers communications systems. exploring the views of educators and students on privileged knowledge domains in a teacher education programme: a case study lungi sosibo abstract the reported case study solicited the views of teacher educators and students on the teacher knowledge taught and the way it was imparted in a teacher education programme that offered commercial subjects at the bachelor of education degree level. the objective was to establish the extent to which the knowledge domains were interconnected or whether some were prioritised. data was collected from twenty students and seven educators using semistructured interviews, and analysed using deductive qualitative analysis method. the minimum requirements for teacher education qualifications policy framework was used as a source of codes and the five domains of the framework were used as a priori codes under which analysed data was placed. the findings confirmed that some knowledge domains were prioritised. a disjuncture was discerned between teacher knowledge and practical experiences of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. the study concludes with a discussion which has implications for teacher education programmes. introduction different conceptions of teacher knowledge abound. verloop, van driel and meijer (2001, p.443) provide an all-encompassing definition of teacher knowledge base as “all profession-related insights that are potentially relevant to the teacher’s activities”. grossman and richert (1988, p.54, in ben-peretz, 2011, p.8) extend this definition by breaking it down to “knowledge of general pedagogical principles and skills and knowledge of the subject matter to be taught”. in other definitions, teacher knowledge is classified into elaborate categories that include a variety of domains such as subject matter/content, curriculum, pedagogy, contexts, learners, formal and material elements of teaching, etc. (see, for instance, feiman-nemser, 2001; cochransmith and lytle, 1999; shulman, 1987). 140 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 in south africa, the department of higher education and training (dhet) (2011) has developed a policy framework on the minimum requirement for teacher education qualifications (mrteq). this framework serves as a blueprint for the knowledge that every prospective teacher has to acquire before they become certified professionally. the framework stipulates five teacher domains, namely, disciplinary, general pedagogical, practical, fundamental and situational knowledge. these will be described in more depth in the literature review. of the five, the fundamental and situational domains could be viewed as an attempt to redress the imbalances of the past that were created by the apartheid system. during the apartheid era, indigenous languages were denigrated and only english and afrikaans were given priority and status in the south african education system. similarly, contexts played a significant role in dividing the south african education system socio-economically into haves and have-nots. currently, not much has changed as the quintile system still divides south african public schools into fee-paying and non-fee-paying, depending on the socio-economic status of the community in which the school is situated. in such school contexts, information and communication technology (ict) creates a great digital divide, with impoverished schools struggling to acquire and have access to technology while affluent schools are well-equipped (gudmundsdottir, 2010; prince, 2007; department of education, 2003). as the mrteq policy framework was gazetted only in 2011, research which investigates whether the domains as stipulated therein are currently taught in teacher education programmes (teps) is scarce. yet such research may provide information on whether the thinking by teacher educators and policymakers is similar or not regarding teacher knowledge, itself so vital for teacher education. the purpose of this study was to investigate teacher knowledge domains that were taught in a tep. in particular, this research sought answers to these questions: (1) what domains of teacher knowledge are offered in the teacher education programme? (2) how are they taught? (3) to what extent are they interconnected? (4) are there knowledge domains that are prioritised? south african teacher education is still in the process of redefining itself in the midst of new policy frameworks, as well as benchmarking itself against the standards set out by the international world. against this background, research such as undertaken in the current study is significant as it sheds light on how teacher knowledge is handled in one tep. sosibo: exploring the views of educators. . . 141 this paper is organised into five parts. the first part presents the literature review, followed by research design and methodology, and findings. lastly, the discussion is presented and conclusions are drawn. literature review this section discusses pertinent literature on teacher knowledge and includes the views of shulman (1987); feiman-nemser (2001); cochran-smith and lytle (1999); morrow (2007a,b) and the mrteq policy framework (dhet, 2011). shulman classifies teacher knowledge into seven domains. emphasising the importance of a deeper understanding of content knowledge or subject matter knowledge (smk), shulman (p.xiii) states that teachers must “be well educated, especially in the subject matter content they teach, and their career-long professional educational experiences must continue to be grounded in the centrality of that content”. he further identifies general pedagogical knowledge (gpk) which is a combination of classroom management and organisational principles and strategies. curriculum knowledge (ck) involves an understanding of materials and programs that, according to shulman, serve as ‘tools of the trade’ for teachers. pedagogical content knowledge (pck) combines content and pedagogical domains. shulman also proposes knowledge of learners and their cultures, characteristics and needs, which is crucial as learners’ backgrounds are heterogeneous. gorski (2009) refers to this domain as multiculturalism knowledge. knowledge of varying educational contexts is equally significant as learners’ schooling backgrounds are considerably different. the challenge is for teachers to find ways of adapting their teaching approaches to suit learners who come from and learn in these varying contexts. the last domain is knowledge of educational ends, purposes, and values, and their philosophical and historical grounds. unlike shulman whose focus is on the classification of teacher knowledge, feiman-nemser (2001) is more concerned with the developmental aspects of these domains in students. she thus proposes ‘central tasks’ aimed at developing teacher knowledge at each stage in the continuum of teacher preparation learning. this is important as existing research reveals that neophytes deal with anxiety and developmental concerns at each stage of teacher preparation. 142 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 according to feiman-nemser, the central tasks of learning to teach should include the development of: i. knowledge which allows pre-service teachers to examine and critically analyse their existing and taken-for-granted beliefs and assumptions about teaching and learning, students and content so that they could unlearn existing conceptions and develop new visions of good teaching; ii. subject-matter knowledge which she divides into three domains: (i) “central facts, concepts, theories, and procedures within a given field; (ii) explanatory frameworks that organize and connect ideas; (iii) rules of evidence and proof” (p.1017). iii. an understanding of learners, human development and diversity which helps the neophytes to question their own taken-for-granted assumptions and stereotypes about their learners so that they could adjust teaching and learning accordingly; iv. a beginning repertoire which enables students to master issues related to curriculum; approaches to effective teaching, learning and assessment; and to make sound judgements; v. the tools and disposition to study teaching, for which feiman-nemser suggests the skills of observation, interpretation and analysis. evidently, lack of these skills results in teachers who can neither think nor reflect critically. although her focus is on the development of teacher knowledge, it is obvious that feiman-nemser’s domains (ii), (iii) and (iv) correspond closely with shulman’s smk, ck and gpk classifications. what sets her domains (i) and (v) apart from shulman’s are the inherent developmental aspects in them. cochran-smith and lytle (1999) distinguish between knowledge-for-practice, knowledge-in-practice and knowledge-of-practice. knowledge-for-practice assumes that there is a unique teacher knowledge that distinguishes professional educators from laypersons or people practising other professions. this view is not far removed from shulman’s and feiman-nemser’s. fenstermacher (1994, in verloop et al., 2001) calls this domain knowledge for teachers as it is prescribed for teachers. knowledge-for-practice is traditional as it portrays teachers as consumers of knowledge that has been sosibo: exploring the views of educators. . . 143 generated for them by mostly university-based researchers and scholars. this view justifies the preponderance of teaching guides and handbooks that are used in teacher-preparation and teacher-professional development programmes. knowledge-in-practice conceives of teacher knowledge as grounded in the practice of teaching and learning and as such, cannot be divorced from that practice. cochran-smith and lytle conceive of teachers as acquiring teaching knowledge and skills from the profession itself “through experience and through considered and deliberative reflection about or inquiry into experience” (p.262). this view of knowledge is similar to schön’s (1983) perceptions of teachers as practitioners who reflect in-, fromand on-action. on the other hand, knowledge-of-practice or knowledge of teachers (fenstermacher, 1994, in verloop et al., 2001) assumes that teachers are central in generating their personal teacher knowledge. this domain is consistent with the principles of constructivism and acknowledges teachers as critical and reflective actors, researchers, investigators and creators of knowledge they use in the classrooms. referring to this domain, cochransmith and lytle (1999, p.272) contend that “knowledge making is understood as a pedagogic actconstructed in the context of use, [and] intimately connected to the knower”. morrow (2007a,b) distinguishes between formal and material elements of teaching, the former which he defines as non-context bound and the latter as context bound. morrow (2007a) conceives of teacher education as preparing teachers for the professional functions of organising learning systematically so that learners can order, understand and grasp the information they learn. for this to be possible, morrow (ibid, p.72) suggests that teachers should possess professional competences such as programme design and assessment strategies, including providing constructive feedback to learners. in his view, the function of teacher education is to enable and nourish teachers to accomplish this task. morrow (ibid, p.100), however, contends that in our teacher education programmes “we repeatedly define the work of teachers in terms of its material elements” which involve contexts, facilities, resources, conditions, etc. by so doing, we prepare teachers to teach specific learning areas in a specific phase using certain approaches, thus limiting them to specific contexts and precluding them from functioning effectively in any teaching and learning environments. 144 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 the policy on the mrteq (dhet, 2011) stipulates the knowledge base for pre-service teachers which resembles shulman’s categorisation and includes: i. disciplinary knowledge or subject matter knowledge, which includes education and its foundations; ii. general pedagogical knowledge which involves knowledge of learners, teaching, learning, curriculum, assessment strategies, as well as specialised pedagogical content knowledge which includes methods, strategies, rules and principles of a discipline; iii. practical knowledge or “learning in and from practice” (p.8); iv. fundamental knowledge or knowledge of languages, information communication technologies (icts) and academic literacies; v. situational knowledge or knowledge about contexts, situations, settings or environments for the purpose of meeting the diverse needs of learners. the review of literature presented different perspectives on what counts as teacher knowledge base. the dominant view is that there exists a body of teacher knowledge out there that makes teachers or the teaching profession unique from other professions. be that as it may, there seems to be another perception of teacher knowledge as developing the neophytes’ critical and reflective practice skills. furthermore, there is a view of teacher knowledge as tools of the trade that facilitate the process of becoming a teacher. a further perception is that of material elements of teaching as confining teachers in certain specific conditions. what is not clear in the literature is whether all teacher knowledge is or should be acquired in university classrooms or whether it can be learnt on-the-job. if it is the latter, how can it be taught and learnt systematically by all students in such environments? the mrteq framework guided this research because in the near future it will undergird all teps in the south african higher education and training (het) landscape. using this framework will help to determine how far the domains of teaching offered in one tep are from the norm as required by the policy (mrteq). this will ascertain the amount of work that needs to be done in reconceptualising and redesigning a new curriculum for this tep in accordance with the stipulations of this policy framework. sosibo: exploring the views of educators. . . 145 research design and methodology design and sampling the design was a case study of a single tep. data was collected from a purposive sample of twenty students selected from first, second, third and fourth years, with five students from each of the tep levels and seven educators who taught in the tep. because of the small number of academic staff in this tep, the sample size of seven out of nine educators was justified. factors of race, culture and gender were considered in the selection of students in order to provide diversity as it was believed that the knowledge being taught to them might have impacted on their growth and development in various ways. this study was undertaken in the department of further education and training (fet) tep which offers commercial subjects at the level of a bachelor of education (b.ed.) degree. the tep is located within a faculty of education (foe) at a higher education institution (hei) situated in the western province. the subject offerings in the tep are classified according to knowledge domains that pre-service teachers are expected to master before they become credentialed (appendix 1). appendix 1 is self-explanatory. it illustrates teacher knowledge offerings at each level as well as subject choices that students have to make. as can be seen, some teacher knowledge domains are compulsory and others are optional. educators of subject matter knowledge (smk) also teach subject didactics or specific pedagogical knowledge (spk) related to that subject. for example, mathematics educators teach mathematics specific pedagogical knowledge. thus, students learn specific teaching skills (or pck) relevant to their majors in spk. in general pedagogical knowledge (gpk) students learn general teaching skills such as classroom management, and teaching and learning theories and strategies. practical knowledge (pk) or professional studies mainly prepares students for practice teaching (tp). they mainly learn to develop tp portfolios. students are placed in schools for tp for a period ranging from four weeks to six months. 146 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 data collection views regarding the knowledge domains taught and how they were taught were collected using in-depth, semi-structured interviews. boyce and neale (2006) contend that in-depth semi-structured interviews are useful when you want detailed information about a person’s thoughts and behaviour or to explore new issues in depth. during the interviews, probing was done in order to clarify any ambiguities. a sample of interview questions appears in appendix 2. each interview lasted for a period of approximately 60 minutes. interviews were tape-recorded with the permission of the participants and transcribed verbatim. data coding and analysis data was analysed using deductive qualitative analysis (dqa) (gilgun, 2011; acock, van dulmen, allen and piercy, 2005 in bengson, anderson, allen, acock and klein, 2005). in dqa, researchers use a theory or theoretical framework to guide their research. the mrteq framework guided this research and became the source of codes that i used to analyse data. the five domains of the mrteq framework were a priori codes under which analysed data was placed. axial coding helped me to identify common emergent themes. these themes were colour-coded, categorised, grouped together and placed under mrteq codes. gilgun describes negative case analysis (nca) as a procedure which helps researchers to look for data that does not fit with the theory. during data collection and analysis i conducted nca to check for data that did not fit with the mrteq codes. no such data was found. using dqa helped me to focus my research question and to benchmark the knowledge domains against the mrteq framework. member checking was used to enhance the validity and credibility of analysis. ethical issues ethical clearance was obtained from the ethics committee of the faculty of education from which the research participants were drawn. participants were informed about the confidentiality of information gathered and the voluntary nature of their participation. throughout the study, pseudonyms were used in order to protect the participants’ identities. sosibo: exploring the views of educators. . . 147 findings emergent themes which were categorised under five teacher knowledge domains of the mrteq framework are discussed in the findings. they include these domains: disciplinary; fundamental; practical; situational and knowledge about learners; as well as pedagogy. disciplinary knowledge interviews with educators revealed that disciplinary knowledge was supported in the tep, as shown by the six major subjects in appendix 1. evidently, educators paid particular attention to the extent to which content knowledge taught at university was relevant to that in schools. they mentioned that their collaborations and networks with the western cape department of education (wced) helped them to accomplish this. they hinted that they discussed curriculum-related issues and policy frameworks in the advisory committee meetings where wced subject advisors and teacher educators met. these educators perceived collaborations as instrumental in strengthening the knowledge base imparted to the students. marie, the accounting educator described the importance of this collaboration as follows: i work closely with the accounting subject advisor to ensure that i stay abreast of the content which is required of accounting teachers to teach in a particular academic year. the objective of the aforementioned is to ensure that our students are prepared well to teach the topics during teaching practice according to the pacesetter for that specific academic year. jacques, the cat educator who claimed that he regularly attended advisory committee meetings and provided in-service training to high school teachers, reiterated the importance of these collaborations. he conceptualised the role of subject advisors as critical in keeping teacher educators abreast of disciplinary and theoretical developments in their respective subjects. in his view, teachers are mentors who provide emotional support and conceptual knowledge to the students. he described the motive for his involvement in these collaborations as key in helping him ascertain if the content he taught was relevant or not. educators mentioned that the subject advisors perused their subject guides to ascertain whether disciplinary knowledge imparted in teps was compatible with that in schools. bennie confirmed and resoundingly agreed that: 148 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 by involving subject advisors, we are sure that the content we teach corresponds with that taught in schools. by working together, we avoid a situation which could potentially frustrate students, learners, mentors and the doe, especially if the content is different from that taught in schools. the importance of matching disciplinary teacher knowledge with schoolbased knowledge was reiterated by marie, the accounting educator who explained that: students studying accounting levels 1 and 2 focus on the content which they are required to teach from grade 10 to 12. in the third year they focus on content that delves deeper into the aspects of accounting which are not necessarily required at school level. john, a mathematics educator mentioned that teacher knowledge taught in this subject transcended that taught in school and that it continuously aimed at clarifying learner misconceptions. in his view, mathematics teachers should teach the content in a way that learners would understand rather than present problematic algebraic and geometrical topics in a rote fashion, as often happens in school. he further suggested that mathematics teachers should sequence mathematics activities, taking into consideration the learners’ prior knowledge. additionally, he argued that many mathematics teachers do not know how to assess this subject and recommended the use of bloom’s taxonomy. students highlighted the emphasis that educators placed on teacher knowledge domains in their tep. nonetheless, some of them expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that their major subject content ended at third year of study whereas specific and general pedagogical knowledge (spk and gpk) continued up to final year. the concern they raised was that they would not have enough content knowledge when they graduate. perhaps this explains the imbalance in the emphasis placed on different knowledge domains in the tep, and the fact that pedagogical knowledge is prioritised over content knowledge. none of the educators mentioned this discrepancy although the accounting educator had insinuated it by being silent about what happened to accounting content knowledge at fourth year level. however, since no direct question had been asked about why content was offered only up to third year, it might be possible that the educators did not perceive it as a source of concern to the students. sosibo: exploring the views of educators. . . 149 fundamental knowledge with regard to fundamental knowledge, educators did not give much input. however, students expressed sentiments that pointed to the fact that this knowledge was not prioritised in the tep. they felt that educators paid lip service to the fundamental knowledge as languages and information communication technologies (icts) or computer literacy were offered as nonmajor subjects and did not incorporate pedagogical knowledge. this implies that students cannot teach these subjects as they do other commercial subjects; as languages are taught solely for communication and learning and teaching (lolt) purposes, and icts only for skills development. students further raised concern that these subjects were taught only up to second and third year levels, respectively, which they said meant they did not acquire adequate skills in them. it is possible that the programme planners do not perceive fundamental knowledge as central to the development of future teachers. alternatively, students might be regarding them as more important than mere fundamentals. practical knowledge this domain seemed to receive the highest priority, judging by the efforts made by educators to improve it. these efforts included the use of a debriefing form and initiatives such as tp funded projects, and the use of micro lessons, as discussed below. several educators mentioned the debriefing forms which they said were developed in order to provide students with coaching or scaffolding after they had presented tp lessons. this form consisted of two sections. the first required students to reflect on their performance by giving input on the lesson aspects in which, according to their judgment and based on the criteria on the debriefing form, they had done well or not well during lesson presentations. the second required educators to give students feedback on the same items. the reflection was guided by a conceptual framework or criteria against which a student’s performance was benchmarked. one educator explained that this form was developed in reaction to students’ dissatisfaction with evaluators who allegedly failed to provide them with detailed feedback after tp evaluations. educators also indicated that the 150 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 instrument was used to facilitate students’ reflection on their performance in order to enhance their professional growth and development as reflective practitioners. educators had different perceptions about the debriefing forms as developmental tools. according to bennie, a gpk and professional studies (practical knowledge) educator, the debriefing forms facilitated interactions between students and tp evaluators which he said was vital for students’ professional growth as future teachers. this view resonates with that of brady, segal, bamford and deer (1998) who perceive dynamic interaction between tertiary advisor and student facilitating growth. another teacher educator, jacques, described the debriefing form as, an analytical tool that affords students with an opportunity to reflect theoretically upon their teaching performance in terms of handling content, methods, theory and practice and learner differentiation, with the sole purpose of enhancing their personal, academic and professional development. riana, the gpk educator who initiated the debriefing form had this to say: its basic tenet is to allow the students to practice reflection on their overall tp performance in terms of handling the teaching and learning process. it helps them to think about what they do, how they do it and why they do it the way they do. the form basically teaches them the main ingredients of teaching and learning. the perspectives of students on this instrument were not much different, as shown by jabu’s utterances below: the debriefing form makes both lecturers and us accountable for our learning. we learn to answer for what we taught, how we taught it and why we taught it that way. it also makes the lecturers take care of our learning and not leave us in the dark. i think it should be made compulsory in all teacher education programmes. another effort included the tp funded projects. educators make videos of demonstration lessons which they said they converted into dvds and webbased materials for use during professional studies periods or at students’ leisure. educators expressed a belief that students learn practical teaching skills such as reflection, handling of content, dealing with learners and pedagogical skills from these materials. students also articulated satisfaction and admitted that the reflective reports they wrote based on the lessons added new knowledge to their tp repertoire. sosibo: exploring the views of educators. . . 151 the tp award is a new initiative that aims to promote students’ practical knowledge. riana reported that a student who presents a lesson that demonstrates exemplary tp based on a set of criteria such as evidence of disciplinary, pedagogical, fundamental and situational knowledge, as included in the mrteq, receives this award. the product of this initiative is dvds which students, especially those at lower levels of the tep unanimously agreed provided them with skills that promoted their professional development. the other initiative is intended to provide assistance and guidance to the struggling students who are at risk of failing tp due to inadequate practical knowledge and skills. students who need this assistance are either identified by tp evaluators or volunteer themselves. before tp evaluations take place, they receive guidance and assistance on developing lesson plans and teaching techniques from fellow students whom the evaluators identify as excelling in tp. interviews with some of these students revealed that the intervention enhanced their practical knowledge and boosted their confidence tremendously. micro lessons are perceived by educators and students alike as one of the best strategies for enhancing the students’ practical knowledge base. describing her gains from micro lessons, one of the students, zama, stated: micro lessons help me to practise and internalise the skills and content i have learnt in class. i learn to sort, sequence and organise the content. the critical feedback i receive or give to my peers helps me to grow intellectually as a teacher. this view supports the fact that strategies such as micro lessons should be encouraged in the tep. situational knowledge and knowledge about learners with regard to situational knowledge and knowledge about learners, very little was mentioned by educators. this might point to the low priority given to this knowledge in the tep. this view is supported by the fact that this knowledge is excluded from the domains that are offered in this tep. in contrast, some black and coloured students gave tremendous input on this domain. 152 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 to be precise, only two educators, john the mathematics educator and sarah the foundations educator highlighted this domain. according to john, it was critical to address classroom realities, such as poor content knowledge of teachers in impoverished classrooms and rote learning or ‘rules without reason’, which he claimed are prevalent in such contexts. however, he declared that he did not know how to address classroom diversity in mathematics teaching. sarah reported that in her foundations of education class she taught these domains by giving her students assignments that required them to scaffold slow learners as she realised that learners do not learn the same way. she noted that differentiation should occur and that teachers should understand how to handle content when teaching slow learners as those may come from disadvantaged backgrounds. some black and coloured students articulated situational barriers or impediments that they believed impacted on their acquisition of teacher knowledge. at the heart of their concerns were philosophical and cultural ideologies that they believed were embedded in some teacher knowledge, and failure of educators to contextualise teacher knowledge to suit their backgrounds. the following utterance made by sello expressed his concern regarding cultural impediments: what our lecturers teach us shows that they don’t understand us, our backgrounds and our school contexts. for instance, some of the theories taught to us are too american and fail to reflect our african identities and those of the african learners. as a result, african student teachers are subjected to a ‘sink or swim’ approach as they find that some of these theories were not meant to be used within their cultures. for example, a theory that stresses the laissez faire approach contradicts our strict disciplinary approach in raising the african child. students believed that knowledge about contexts was not emphasised in university classrooms. they mentioned that this knowledge was very important since they were placed in schools with varying contexts. during the interviews, marlin suggested that classroom context was key to pre-service teachers’ growth and development. he proposed that this knowledge should be contextualised rather than treated ‘one-size-fits-all’ as, in his view, there was a vast difference between how one taught in better versus poorlyequipped schools. he contested as follows: i have to stress this though that at university what we are taught and the way it’s taught is as if we are all going to teach in better equipped schools, neglecting the sad reality that some of us have to teach where there is not even enough learning facilities for learners. surely, the way one has to teach in these schools can’t be the same even though the content is the same. sosibo: exploring the views of educators. . . 153 similar sentiments were shared by kayla who asserted that teacher knowledge was not in sync with the realities in impoverished schools as it prepared them only for ‘functional’ schools. she contended that the ability to apply teacher knowledge was inextricably linked to availability or lack of resources. while calling for students to be placed only in ‘functional’ schools where they would be able to apply this knowledge, she questioned whether such placements would reflect and represent south african school realities. students also identified tp placements as an example of how situational knowledge was ignored in their tep. in this tep, students select schools in which they prefer to be placed. more often than not they choose schools that are similar to their own backgrounds. consequently, they miss exposure to diversity. it was precisely for this reason that damon, a coloured student expressed this sentiment: it’s as if white students in this new south africa are going to remain in white schools and black students are going to remain in black schools. what will happen if the only available job for me was in an impoverished black township school? i won’t have the vaguest idea of what to do because i’ve never been placed there and i’ve never been taught to function effectively there. clearly, this student’s concern raises issues that call for diverse placements that may allow students to learn to function in varying contexts. it is also worth noting that the students’ focus was more on dealing with asymmetrical school contexts than with learners in these environments. in reality, their statements might pave a way for a more inclusive teacher knowledge curriculum that focuses on situational knowledge. as shown in appendix 1, the tep does not offer this knowledge base. pedagogical knowledge although specific, general and curriculum knowledge domains are not similar, educators tended to discuss them simultaneously. it was apparent that some educators expected educators of specific pedagogical knowledge to cover general pedagogical, practical and foundational knowledge domains as well. yet in the tep offerings, these domains, except curriculum knowledge which is not included, are clearly demarcated. be that as it may, it is easy to make this assumption as these domains all do, to a certain extent, fall under the realm of pedagogy or pedagogical knowledge which includes teaching and learning approaches and strategies, classroom organisation and management, 154 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 curriculum development, assessment and any other skills that help teachers organise learning systematically. according to the educators, one of the ways in which they promoted pedagogical knowledge was through active participation in the workshops where discussions of the dhet’s national curriculum policy frameworks such as mrteq and department of basic education and training’s (dbet) curriculum and assessment policy assessment (caps) took place. they hinted that these workshops occurred at national, regional, inter-varsity, institutional, faculty and departmental levels. pieter, the economics educator reiterated the significance of their participation in these discourses: the doe frameworks serve as a theory which guides the content and methods of imparting knowledge to our future teachers. any deviations from these frameworks might have serious implications for the information we impart to our students, how they receive it, as well as how they interpret and transfer it to the schools. this explains why it is crucial for all of us to understand the contents of these frameworks so that we could transfer them to our students. other educators cited classroom activities as viable strategies of imparting specific pedagogical knowledge among students. marie, the accounting educator explained the way in which she handled specific pedagogical knowledge in her subject and how students applied it: in my accounting didactics class, i mainly focus on one particular teaching methodology in a particular academic year. year 1: direct instruction, year 2: simulation, year 3: inquiry and year 4: co-operative. each student gets an opportunity to apply this methodology by introducing a topic required to teach at school level. in didactics first year i focus on grade 8 and 9 ems, second year the grade 10 accounting syllabus, third year grade 11 and fourth year grade 12. the mathematics educator emphasised the importance of teaching specific pedagogical knowledge to his mathematics students. he cited different concepts related to the pedagogy of his subject which he said were essential in mathematics teaching. these included learner motivation and enjoyment; understanding of conceptual and procedural knowledge; modelling; discussion and reflection; relationship between practising of newly learnt mathematics content and progress; and lesson planning, sequencing, integration and assessment. surprisingly, he admitted that he did not include theories in mathematics pedagogy as he believed these were taught in other related domains such as general pedagogy, foundations and professional sosibo: exploring the views of educators. . . 155 studies. instead, he indicated that he made theories practical without naming them, something he called ‘theory in practice’ or ‘making theory practical’. discussion and conclusions this study investigated the knowledge base taught in a tep, how it was taught with a view to establishing whether it was taught coherently or whether some knowledge domains were prioritised. data from interviews was categorised under the domains of the mrteq framework. findings confirmed that some knowledge domains were prioritised and others were compromised. for instance, the importance of situational knowledge runs through the thread of the literature conducted for this study. however, it receives low priority in this tep, judging by the preponderance of students’ concerns about the absence of this knowledge in the curriculum and by educators’ silence on this domain. morrow (2007a) argues that teacher knowledge should be responsive to the changing needs. as can be seen in the students’ statements, this tep needs to respond to the current conditions and expressed needs by prioritising situational knowledge. of further and serious concern is the low priority given to icts and lolt as these are offered only up to second year and l2 up to third year, respectively, and no pedagogical knowledge related to them is offered. as shown earlier, even though these knowledge domains fall under fundamentals, students’ comments seemed to suggest that they view them in a more serious light than sheer basic knowledge. granted, no tep can cover all the knowledge domains but the curriculum needs to be altered as circumstances demand it. south african classrooms are inclusive and need teachers who are equipped with skills of dealing with different contexts and learners. thus, inclusion of this knowledge base is inevitable in the context of south african teacher education, as can be deduced from the specifications of the mrteq which is a blueprint for teps in this country. unfortunately, it would be too risky to assume that students would acquire this knowledge and skills of applying it on the job as mentors and teachers may themselves not possess these skills to model them to the neophytes. as a bandage solution, life orientation and inclusive education teacher educators could incorporate situational knowledge in their curriculum. more importantly, however, is that curriculum developers 156 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 realise the extent of biases inherent in the knowledge base offered in this tep. data analysis revealed a preponderance of support for practical teacher knowledge, judging by the number of initiatives educators engage in to promote this knowledge. this domain, together with general pedagogical and specific pedagogical knowledge domains are taught up to final year. as was described earlier, these domains provide students with know-how of teaching. yet subject matter knowledge is taught up to third year of study. this situation could reflect that the theoretical knowledge is seen as surpassing the practice that draws on it. morrow (2007a) has this to say about this practice “there is a fashion of emphasising ‘process’ to the detriment of ‘content’…process without content is vacuous” (p.66). morrow (2007a, p.82) further contends that, in teacher education there is a strong tendency to pay insufficient attention to what is to be taught, to construe teaching and learning as generic activities, with scant reference to the content of what is being taught or, learned. in our situation, an underemphasis on the content of teaching is a prevalent and serious problem in schools and other institutions… in the case of teaching, the teacher must know the content being taught. content knowledge is a precondition for any teaching. students might have held the same view, judging by their utterances regarding content subjects ending at third year of study. they might have seen the danger of not being able to master it within such limited period of time. without adequate content skills, they are likely not to “enable [learners] access to it” (morrow, 2007a, p.82). in hayes, capel and katene’s study (2008), student teachers and mentors also perceived content knowledge as being the most important of all teacher knowledge. the other question is whether teacher knowledge taught in the tep is interconnected. feiman-nemser mentions the connective tissue which she claims is missing in teacher education. findings in this study did not confirm the presence of a connecting thread or a set of organising concepts/framework in the tep offerings. the only thread that seemed to bind the tep into a coherent entity was the strong and consistent focus on practical knowledge by the majority of teacher educators. from the interviews it was apparent that each educator does her own thing without knowing what and how others do it. only john seemed to suggest that interconnections might exist in this tep’s knowledge offerings. sosibo: exploring the views of educators. . . 157 granted, a tep cannot cover all the domains discussed in the literature of this study. thus, it is unlikely for south african students to grasp everything within the four-year teacher preparation period. this situation points to the significance of professional development programmes for when the students enter teaching. unlike the current programmes, teachers need well-structured and well-organised programmes to facilitate knowledge-in-practice (cochransmith and lytle, 1999). should teacher education provide students with only school-based knowledge? only two educators concurred that the content they teach transcends school-based content. morrow (2007a,b) highlights the problem of teacher education’s emphasis on material elements of teaching, which he says emphasises conditions, circumstances, contexts and resources that confine teachers to specific subjects, phases and teaching methods. the same applies in this tep. students are confined in specific subjects and phases. by doing this, educators limit and bind students to specific contexts rather than prepare them to function under any conditions. as educators, we should provide students with non-context bound formal elements of teaching such as skills of designing a curriculum, planning and presenting a lesson, managing classrooms, etc. as these will enable them to organise learning systematically in any learning situation. the limitation of this study is the limited sample size drawn from a small tep. consequently, the results cannot be generalised to other teps. future studies should use a bigger sample to investigate the same variables. nevertheless, the study revealed aspects that need to be given more priority in teps. 158 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 references acock, a., van dulmen, m., allen, k. and piercy, f. 2005. contemporary and emerging research methods in studying families. in bengson, v., anderson, p.d., allen, k., acock, a. and klein, d. 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journal of education, 41: pp.3–20. prince, g.l. 2007. implementation of computers in schools: a case study of five schools in the makana and somerset districts. a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of masters in education, rhodes university. schön, d. 1983. the reflective practitioner. new york: basic books. shulman, l.s. 1987. knowledge and teaching: foundations of the new reform. harvard education review, 57(1): pp.1–22. verloop, n., van driel, j. and meijer, p. 2001. teacher knowledge and the knowledge base of teaching. international journal of educational research, 35: pp.441–461. lungi sosibo cape peninsula university of technology sosibol@cput.ac.za 160 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 appendix 1: teacher knowledge domain offerings in the tep under study knowledge domain study level 1 2 3 4 subject matter knowledge • mathematics • mathematical literacy • economics • accounting • business studies • computer applications technology (cat) select 3 majors continue with 2 from 1st year continue with 2 from 2nd year ————— specific pedagogical • ems (for accounting, economics and business studies) • cat • mathematics • mathematical literacy select 3 matching majors chosen c take 2 matching your major subjects c continue with 2 matching your major subjects c continue with 2 matching your major subjects fundamental knowledge • computer literacy • language of teaching and learning (lolt) • communication language – l2 c c take communication language – l2 only ————— general pedagogical knowledge c c c c foundational knowledge c c c c practical knowledge c c c c key: c – compulsory sosibo: exploring the views of educators. . . 161 appendix 2: interview questions sample questions for educators 1. what teacher knowledge domain/s do you teach? 2. what approach/strategies do you generally employ in teaching it/them? 3. which knowledge domains does your tep support? why do you think so? 4. which knowledge domains does your tep not support? why do you think so? 5. which knowledge domain/s do you feel should be taught in your tep but it’s not taught? 6. why do you think it should be taught? 7. to which domain/s do you pay the most attention in your subject? why? 8. to which domain do you pay the least attention? why? 9. do you perceive any connections among the different knowledge domains? 10. do you connect the domain you teach with other domains? if yes, how? 11. why is it important for educators to make these connections? sample questions for students 1. what knowledge domains are taught in your program? 2. which domains do you think your program supports? 3. do you think the focus of educators on the knowledge domains is balanced? 4. if not, on which domains do your lecturers focus more? 5. on which domains do your lecturers focus less? 6. why do you think is the reason for the situation in 3? 7. on which knowledge domains would you like your educators to focus the most? why? 8. do your educators make connections among the different knowledge domains? if yes, how? 9. why do you think it’s important for educators to make these connections? using bernstein to analyse primary maths teachers’ positions and identities in the context of national standardised assessment: the case of the anas peter pausigere and mellony graven abstract this paper is informed by bernstein’s notion of pedagogic identity and morgan’s (morgan, 1998, morgan, tsatsaroni and lerman , 2002) study of mathematics teachers’ orientations in assessment practice. these are used to identify primary maths teachers’ positions and identities in the current south african education context characterised by an emphasis on monitoring through standardised national learner tests. the paper draws on data obtained from interactive interviews with nine sampled primary maths teachers who were participants in a numeracy in-service education community of practice. using bernstein’s four pedagogic identity classes and relating these to morgan’s maths teachers’ orientations we identify primary maths positions being taken up by the sampled teachers in relation to the annual national assessment (ana) tests. the research indicates that most of the primary maths teachers’ say that their practices are being influenced by the anas, although in different ways. we finally propose that primary maths teachers need to develop ways to ‘critically align’ their practices to national policies so as to maintain some agency while aligning with policy. introduction this paper brings to the fore the notion of primary maths teachers’ practicing identities within the current south african education context characterised by the national testing of learners in primary school. we take particular interest in how educators respond to and align their teaching practices in relation to the annual national assessment maths tests (commonly referred to as anas). “ana is a testing programme that requires all schools in the country to conduct the same grade-specific language and mathematics tests for grades 1 to 6 and grade 9” (department of basic education (dbe), 2012, p.2). employing bernstein’s notion of pedagogic identities supplemented with morgan’s model on positions taken by united kingdom (uk) maths teachers 2 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 2 (when they assess students’ coursework) (morgan, 1998, morgan et al., 2002) as analytical tools we explain positions and identities being taken up by the teachers sampled in this study. in this paper we analyse the teacher participants’ responses to questions related to the anas as part of longer interactive teacher interviews. we categorise the primary maths teacher positions and identities as either being; neo-conservative, therapeutic, instrumental-examiner or teacher-adviser (bernstein, 2000, morgan, 1998, morgan et al., 2002). the interactive interviews with the teachers were part of a broader doctoral research study of the first author. we sampled nine teachers out of 53 teachers who were participants in a maths in-service professional learning community conceptualised by the south african numeracy chair (the second author) at rhodes university in grahamstown. the nine selected teachers actively participated in and frequently attended the numeracy inquiry community of leader educators (nicle) sessions throughout 2011. additionally these teachers were willing to be part of the first author’s longitudinal research study. this paper focuses and presents data gleaned from two interview questions which read, ‘what is your opinion on the annual national assessment tests? have they influenced your teaching at all? the responses from these questions indicate that most of the sampled teachers are influenced by the ana tests, however the degree and extent of the influence differs. the ana tests were introduced by the minister of education in 2008 when she launched the foundations for learning campaign which aimed at improving the average learner performance in literacy and numeracy to 60% by 2014 (department of education (doe), 2008). furthermore the campaign was motivated by south african learners’ poor performance in regional and international tests. under the new national monitoring measures put in place by the department of education all south african primary learners undergo annual national assessments in numeracy and literacy using standardised tests to monitor their literacy and numeracy levels. the first ana national results made public in the second half of 2011, have revealed that the grade 3 and the grade 6 maths national mean score stands at 28% and 30% respectively (doe, 2011). the 2012 report shows 41% and 27% respectively (dbe, 2012). south africa has also introduced a repackaged curriculum, caps (curriculum and assessment policy statement), which was introduced in the foundation phase last year (2012) and is to be fully implemented in the pausigere and graven: using bernstein to analyse. . . 3 3 senior phase by 2014. this new curriculum took heed of the criticisms levelled against the national curriculum statement, thus the caps curriculum is time-paced, specifies content, knowledge and skills to be taught, and provides explicit sequencing and pacing (doe, 2011). locally parker (2006) and graven (2002), drawing on bernstein have argued that curriculum policies and educational reforms provide south african mathematics teachers with new official pedagogic identities. bernstein used the concept of pedagogic identity to analyse contemporary curriculum reforms in britain, from the mid-1980s (bernstein, 2000). the uk curriculum changes, initiated under the 1988 education reform act saw from 1991 the administration of compulsory testing (national curriculum assessment) of 7, 11, 14 and 16year-old learners using standard assessment tasks (sats) in mathematics, english and science subjects (whetton, 2009). south africa has and continues to experience major post-apartheid education change which is more recently becoming driven by national learner assessments similar to the national standardised testing, experienced in the uk in the 1990s (bernstein, 2000). in this regard bernstein’s work becomes relevant for this study which investigates the sampled primary maths teaching identities and positions in relation to the onslaught of the recently introduced national assessment regime in the form of the rollout of the ana tests. literature review and theoretical framing many studies employ the concept of identity to explain secondary school maths teacher identities within education reform contexts (lasky, 2005, parker, 2006, graven, 2002, morgan et al., 2002). particularly relevant to this paper is morgan’s study of positions adopted by uk maths teachers as they assessed students’ coursework although their study did not specifically focus on primary maths teachers (morgan, 1998, morgan, tsatsaroni and lerman, 2002). some studies have investigated primary maths teacher identity formation in teacher education (davis, adler and parker, 2007, jaworski, 2003, hodgen and askew, 2007, graven, 2002 and 2003, walls, 2008). of the cited examples davis et al., (2007), graven (2002), morgan et al. (2002) and parker’s (2006) work on maths teacher identity have been informed by bernstein’s theory. closely related to our study but from a foucauldian theoretical perspective is walls’ (2008) paper which discusses how australian primary maths teacher identities are ‘produced’ within standardised test 4 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 4 processes. our study contributes to this field of exploring the relationship between teacher identity and national testing regimes informed by bernstein’s construct of pedagogic identity and specifically investigates south african primary maths teacher identities in relation to national testing. in the uk the revision of the national curriculum, which began in 1988, resulted in the growing significance of course-work assessment, national mass testing, the implementation of cross-curricular themes and a shift from collection (visible/explicit pedagogy) to integrated curriculum codes (invisible/implicit pedagogy) with weak classification and weak framing (bernstein, 2000, 1995, bernstein and solomon, 1999, sadovnik, 1995, morgan et al., 2002). britain’s education reforms influenced the classification, framing, sequencing, pacing and evaluation of educational knowledge and shaped and distributed teacher and learner consciousness and identity (bernstein, 1975, bernstein and solomon, 1999, sadovnik, 1995). secondly britain’s curricular reforms were marked by tight quality control, monitoring and public evaluation over both inputs and outputs/outcomes of education (bernstein, 2000). from this perspective, bernstein (1999, p.259) argues that the “centralised setting of criteria and the central assessment of outputs” are the state’s “new forms of centralised regulation”. thus, from a political viewpoint, national mass standardised testing regulates education making the schooling system accountable, transparent and efficient (tyler, 1999, whetton, 2009). whilst mass learner assessment is one practical and feasible way of monitoring education outcomes and the efficiency of the education system it also simultaneously projects a particular national teacher identity and the effects of the take-up or rejection of this promoted identity may or may not support the efficiency of education in the classroom. central to bernstein’s pedagogic identity model (bernstein, 2000, bernstein and solomon, 1999) is the argument that the official knowledge or different pedagogic modalities of curriculum reforms initiated by the state and distributed in educational institutions construct, embed and project different official pedagogic identities. bernstein defines pedagogic identity as composing of “a social and a career base”, with the social base being controlled and regulated by the state through the “official pedagogic modalities” (official regulation and practices) and giving rise to “official projected pedagogic identities” (bernstein and solomon, 1999, p.269 and bernstein, 2000, p.62). in contrast a “career” base is ”moral, knowledged and locational” and gives emergence to “local identities” (bernstein and solomon, pausigere and graven: using bernstein to analyse. . . 5 5 1999, p.269 and bernstein, 2000). this aspect of identity and its construction is external to the official arena (bernstein, 2000). however an interesting feature of bernstein’s pedagogic identity concept is that he uses the same model with similar positions for both the official pedagogic identities (social base) and the emerging local identity field (career base), the latter involves the teacher’s own individual and personal beliefs and practices. this gives us the space to investigate and thus explore the inter connectedness of primary maths teachers’ pedagogic identities and positions. bernstein (2000, p.204) also emphasised that the “form and modality of pedagogic identity are an outcome of the classificatory relations and . . .the strength of the framing”. in this regard official pedagogic identities are the outcomes of classification and framing properties, thus a function of the principles of social order aligned with the state. bernstein (2000, p.66) identified “an official arena of four positions for projecting of pedagogic identities”, namely conservative, neo-conservative, therapeutic and market. the conservative and neo-conservative positions bernstein (2000, p.66) calls centred pedagogic identities and these “are generated by resources/discourses managed by the state” and “focus upon the past”. on the other hand the therapeutic and market categories are generated “from local contexts or local discourses. . . where the institutions concerned have some autonomy over their resources” and “focus upon the present”. in our study bernstein’s model of pedagogic identities becomes important in analysing local primary maths teacher identities within educational reform contexts marked by standardised ana tests. thus we draw on bernstein to investigate the official primary maths teacher identities constructed in the official arena as projected by the macro structures and then explore local takeup. for purposes of clarity in teaching orientations we also refer to morgan’s maths teacher positions which relate specifically to assessment (morgan, 1998, morgan et al., 2002). morgan et al.’s, (2002) study examined bernstein’s description of the performance and competence models and their modes. they recontextualised these to explain positions taken up by britain’s secondary school teachers when assessing learners’ mathematical coursework tasks. the idea of ‘positioning’ (morgan, 1998) is important for this study as it takes into account the individual teacher practices and their beliefs or feelings about primary maths teaching and standardised testing. morgan et al.’s (2002) work becomes particularly relevant for our study as it provides us with a framework for understanding mathematics teacher assessment practices 6 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 6 drawing on the work of bernstein. both bernstein (2000) and morgan et al.’s (2002) studies show how pedagogic identity is produced through pedagogic discourses and pedagogic models. this paper discusses four of the initial eight teacher positions identified by morgan (1998) namely: examiner-using externally determined criteria, examiner-using own criteria, teacher-advocate, teacher-adviser, teacherpedagogue, imaginary naive reader, interested mathematician and interviewee. the four positions of relevance to this paper are: examiner-using externally determined criteria, interested mathematician, teacher-pedagogue, and teacher-advocate (morgan, 1998, morgan et al., 2002), and we relate these to bernstein’s (2000) four pedagogic identity classes. it is this close relationship and link between bernstein’s pedagogic identity categories and morgan’s maths teacher positions that allows us to investigate both the primary maths teacher’s pedagogic identities and their positions in the context of the newly introduced national ana testing. in the discussion section we elaborate on the teacher-adviser position (morgan et al., 2002) which combines and contains features of bernstein’s (2000) neo-conservative and therapeutic pedagogic identities and is illustrated by one of the sampled teacher participants. table 1 below indicates the interconnectedness of bernstein’s pedagogic identity categories and morgan’s maths teacher positions which we have identified as useful for exploration of primary maths teacher identities in relation to the anas. table 1: the inter-connectedness of bernstein’s pedagogic identity classes and morgan’s maths teacher positions bernstein’s pedagogic identity classes morgan maths teachers’ positions conservative interested mathematician neo-conservative teacher-pedagogue therapeutic teacher-advocate instrumental/market examiner – using externally determined criteria pausigere and graven: using bernstein to analyse. . . 7 7 bernstein (1995, 2000) classified conservative pedagogic identities as those teacher positions generated and shaped by national resources or discourses (the collective social base) and ‘grand narratives of the past’ which provide exemplars, criteria, belonging and coherence. conservative teacher identities are “formed by hierarchically ordered, strongly bounded, explicitly stratified and sequenced discourse and practices” (bernstein, 2000, p.67). in this category of identity there is tight control over the content of education but not over its outputs. this teacher identity category relates to what morgan (1998) calls an interested mathematician position which emphasises the understanding of the mathematical content subject matter. this teacher position makes sense of and is curious about mathematics (morgan, 1998). neo-conservative pedagogic identities are “formed by recontextualising selected (and appropriate) features from the past to stabilise and facilitate engaging with contemporary change” (bernstein, 2000, p.68, bernstein, 1995, p.410). this ‘new fusion’ of identity, according to bernstein foregrounds the career base (individualised construction) with an emphasis upon performance and takes heed of social relations. implicit in this emerging identity is “the beginning of a change in the moral imagination” of the teacher (bernstein, 2000, p.77). this teacher identity category corresponds with morgan’s (1998, p.135) teacher-pedagogue maths teacher position which mainly suggests “ways in which a student might improve her perceived level of mathematical competence”. teachers in this position are both in a pedagogical relationship with their learners so as to further their mathematical learning and also ensure that each student achieves as highly as possible on external examinations (morgan, 1998). in this paper we discuss how four of the nine teachers sampled in this study had taken this position in relation to the introduction of the anas. therapeutic pedagogic identities are “produced by complex theories of personal, cognitive and social development, often labelled progressive” (bernstein, 2000, p.68). the therapeutic position projects autonomous, sensemaking, integrated modes of knowing and adaptable co-operative social practices that create internal coherence. however such a pedagogic identity according to bernstein (2000, p.69) “is very costly to produce and the output is not easily measurable”, furthermore “it is projected weakly, if at all” in “contemporary arenas”. the transmission which produces this identity goes against specialised categories of discourse and prefers weak knowledge 8 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 8 boundaries (bernstein, 2000). the therapeutic pedagogic identity closely relates to the teacher-advocate position which is characterised by educators orientated towards students, who draw on what is present with reference to the student, speak the alternative discourse and explicitly reject the official criteria. this paper will exemplify how one of the sampled participants, belinda, positioned herself in this category. lastly bernstein (2000) identified the ‘neo-liberal, market or instrumental pedagogic identities’ teacher category which is characterised by autonomy, with a focus on producing competitive output-products that have an exchange value in a market and constructing an outwardly responsive identity driven by external contingencies rather than one driven by dedication. bernstein’s instrumental pedagogic identity is similar to the, examiner: using externally determined criteria teacher position identified by morgan, thus we have chosen to call this teacher pedagogic orientation ‘instrumental-examiner’. because this teacher position speaks the voice of the legitimate discourse, it is orientated towards the text and draws on what is absent from the student’s text (morgan et al., 2002). one key and outstanding feature of this teacher position highlighted by bernstein (2000) and reported by morgan et al. (2002, p.456) is that this category “explicitly refers to the official criteria”. three of the teacher participants in this study exemplify this teacher identity and position category. research methodology in carrying out this research we are using what merriam (2001) calls educational ethnography. whilst the broader phd study of the first author, uses participant observation, interactive interviews and reflective journals to gather data, this paper only draws on the data obtained from interactive interviews carried out in november and december 2011. the data presented here was gleaned from two sub-questions from the interactive interview question 11, which read, ‘what is your opinion on the annual national assessment tests? have they influenced your teaching at all? to provide a rich thick description of the primary maths teachers’ practising identities we also present data from the teachers’ utterances in relation to their maths teaching identities in the context of the anas across a range of other interview questions. these interviews were conducted by the first author with pausigere and graven: using bernstein to analyse. . . 9 9 nine selected primary maths teachers participating in nicle. a semistructured interview schedule with open-ended questions was used with the average time for each interview being about an hour. all interviews were conducted at the respondent’s school and were audio-recorded and fully transcribed. the nine teachers drawn from nicle were selected through a combination of purposive and stratified sampling strategies. we intentionally selected teachers who frequently attended nicle sessions and those teachers who were willing to be part of this longitudinal research journey. teachers in the sample are from four different types of schools in the south african education system. three are from a farm school, two are from a township school, two are from historically coloured schools in a historically coloured area and two are from an ex model c preparatory school in a formerly white area. in this sample of teachers three are intermediate phase teachers, two are multi-grade teachers of grades 2–3 and grades 4–5, and the other four are foundation phase teachers. notably all foundation phase teachers in the sample are female. (this is also the case for the larger group of nicle teachers – that is, all foundation phase teachers in nicle are female while there are several male teachers in the intermediate phase). for this reason the sample has more female than male teachers. 10 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 10 table 2: sample teachers background information school type teacher’s pseudonym gender phase and grade(s) taught teaching years experience highest qualification attained farm school with some multigrade classes belinda f fp – 1 6 montessori diploma swallow f fp – 2/3 14 b.ed. (primary) evelyn f ip – 4/5 20 b.ed. (secondary) ex model c school in a historically white area melania f fp – 3 11 higher diploma in education ruth f fp – 3 27 b.ed. (honours) african township school pamela f fp – 3 17 further diploma in education calvin m ip – 6 25 b.ed. (primary maths) historically coloured combined primary and secondary school in a historically coloured area edna f fp – 0 6 matric final year – national primary diploma in education historically coloured primary school in a historically coloured area robert m ip – 4–7 19 b.ed. honours in maths education currently studying for a masters in maths education a deductive data analysis approach that is theory-driven was used to analyse our data. thus the coding and exploration of data was theoretically guided by bernstein’s model of pedagogic identity and morgan’s maths teacher pausigere and graven: using bernstein to analyse. . . 11 11 positions in discourses of assessment. bernstein’s concept of pedagogic identity and morgan’s maths teacher positions provides analytic tools that enable us to position the sampled participants according to their interview responses and also provides a language to describe and explain the local primary maths teachers’ identities and positions in the midst of the newly introduced national testing. discussion: primary maths teacher practicing identities in relation to ana tests in this part of the paper we present one part of our research findings interpreted through the lens of bernstein’s pedagogic identity theoretical framework, supplemented with insights from morgan’s maths teacher positions as discussed above. we interpret the teachers’ responses and positions on the anas and how according to teachers’ these have influenced their teaching. we discuss how the sampled teacher participants’ articulations resonated with the neo-conservative, instrumental-examiner and therapeutic teacher identity positions. we did not find any teacher whose position and identity resonated with the conservative teacher identity category. in our analysis we grappled with identifying a pedagogic category that related to pamela, however her position relates well to morgan’s teacher-adviser position which combines features of both neo-conservative and therapeutic pedagogic identity categories. neo-conservatives (teacher-pedagogue): calvin, robert, ruth and melania four of the nine teachers indicated experiencing some tension in relation to the dual need to be test-focused and at the same time teach for ‘maths learning’. the teachers in this identity category felt that the ana tests influenced the manner in which they taught maths, however they gave different reasons for this influence. for both melania and calvin the ana tests had influenced their teaching, linguistically and evaluatively, and made melania ‘realise how they are asking the questions and i try to use the same type of language when i am working with numbers’. similarly calvin was 12 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 12 now ‘concentrat(ing) on exam papers and how they are asking the questions and i try, when i do my tests i try to ask my questions in the anas way’. yet for ruth ana maths tests had made her recognise the need to refocus her teaching and to get the learners to: ‘understand the system, because they are being assessed in a certain system and they need to be familiar with it. . .they need a lot of revision and exposure to the format of the tests. . .they need all those things that formal assessment require’. robert felt the need in his maths teaching ‘to keep in mind’ the anas as to him these tests were a ‘good way of setting a benchmark. . .of setting external papers’. whilst these teachers all felt the need to ‘keep an eye’ on the ana tests to inform their practice they had some reservations and critique on the administrative technicalities, standards and the validity of the ana tests. for example melania was of the opinion that school results could be ‘inflated’ as the test ‘papers are marked by the teachers themselves’. this point was also raised by robert when he argued that the ana papers ‘should be marked externally’. robert, melania and ruth felt that some of the instructions and language used in the exam papers were not easily accessible to learners (as written language is hard for some learners) – ruth suggested the need for some of the tests to be administered through ‘an oral test’. both robert and calvin felt that anas exerted unnecessary pressure on the teachers to finish the syllabus. this is succinctly captured by calvin when he says, ‘so you are pressurised as a teacher to make sure that you finish the syllabus’. the inadequacy of ana, in terms of the range of content assessed, raised later in the paper by pamela was also noted by robert, who argued that ‘ana doesn’t cover all different things’. because of the stated limitations of the anas this category of teachers felt morally obliged to additionally teach the learners ‘to understand the topic’ (ruth). similarly melania, a colleague whom ruth taught with at the same school, felt the need to teach learners to understand the maths and not merely to do well in the tests. she said, ‘children are not used to doing tests. . .because that’s not the way it is in the normal classroom routine’. calvin’s response to whether the anas influenced his teaching, highlighted the need for maths teachers to ensure that learners understand the basic mathematical concepts and not to rush through the syllabus. he said, the ana pausigere and graven: using bernstein to analyse. . . 13 13 influences the way you try to make sure that a learner understands. you can say i don’t care if i don’t finish with my syllabus. the kid understands what he learnt so that in the next year he will be able, he has the basic knowledge for those things. whilst robert took a similar stance to that of calvin he felt the need to be ‘critical’ in his maths teaching practices as he elaborated that: i have realised you can’t just be. . .blindly lead. . ., sometimes you take leadership within mathematics and manage your teaching and know when to scale down and when to give an overview, and let learners see and do it and perhaps focus on those concepts that are seen as difficult to teach and learners to learn like, eh, volume, area, circumference’. the neo-conservative teachers in this category thus express the need to both improve the learners ‘performance’ in the anas thus ‘engaging with the contemporary change’ in the local education policy yet on the other hand taking heed of their traditional ‘moral’ obligation of ensuring primary learners additionally understand the ‘maths’ and the full range of work. these teachers’ practices in relation to the anas resonate with morgan’s (1998) teacher-pedagogue position under which teachers acknowledge the dual responsibility of furthering the student’s mathematical thinking as well as ensuring that students achieve as high as possible on external examinations. instrumental – examiner: swallow, edna and evelyn three of the nine teachers, swallow, edna and evelyn shared a common teaching and learning orientation in relation to anas. they all felt that the anas were ‘good’ and influenced their teaching practices positively. these teachers explained how their maths teaching practices had been tailored to suit the ana tests. for example evelyn would ‘expose’ the learners to ‘(ana) problems put in a different way. . .’. swallow showed how in her maths classes she would ‘revise’ and ‘reinforce’ a ‘particular concept’ if the learners were ‘battling’ with it in the tests. yet for edna it was a matter of constantly checking how her maths teaching aligned with the ana tests as she said, ‘seeing that the ana will come in, you can always go back to the anas and see if i am on the right track and if i give my learners proper opportunities’. in a way these teachers’ practices were being adapted to align to the anas and their practices can be seen as incorporating ‘teaching to the test’. additionally there is an implied uncritical acceptance of the validity of 14 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 14 the anas in relation to assessing the work teachers are doing against an external notion of the right track. this examiners category of teachers explicitly involves reference to the official criteria (morgan et al, 2002). through their allegiance to the anas the three teachers can be considered, according to bernstein (2000), to be constructing an outwardly responsive identity driven by external contingencies (anas) rather than one driven by inner dedication towards making learners understand maths. bernstein (2000, p.71, 68) ironically calls this new orientation in education “the pedagogic schizoid position” because of its “emphasis upon performance” rather than focusing upon learners’ understanding of disciplinary knowledge. looking now towards the reasons why the teachers in this category felt that it was good to be influenced by the ana tests in their maths teaching practices, swallow explained that they: are quite a good benchmark for me. . . a good indication of how much my children have done, and how much they need to know, and if they have achieved the goals that they need to achieve. similarly for edna the tests served as an indication for learners on ‘whether they are ready to go forward’. in this regard the national tests served as a yardstick of the learners’ mathematical understanding and progress. both edna and evelyn agreed that the ana tests gave them the space to reflect on their learners’ maths performance and take the appropriate corrective measures. thus for edna the anas ‘. . .will give you time to do reflection, how can i do better, how can i go about to increase or improve the current results’. in the same vein for evelyn these tests encouraged her to conduct a ‘reflection on how well our children had done or how badly’. for swallow the ana tests directly informed her maths teaching strategies especially on questioning techniques, thus to her the ana allowed her: to check if i am going about in the correct way, am i asking my questions in the correct way, or if they ask it in a different way is that not another way i should be looking at asking questions. for evelyn the ana tests and the mathematical content that the learners are supposed to be taught are the same. thus for her the ana tests are good for the ‘children to be exposed to them because they actually learn that this is nothing different to what they have learnt it is just put in a different way’. pausigere and graven: using bernstein to analyse. . . 15 15 lastly, and for edna, the ana tests were important because they were externally set national tests, ‘. . .it’s something coming from somebody else. . .it’s a national thing. . .it’s something that you didn’t set up for the kids’. due to the acceptance of the value and validity of the anas the teachers in this category allowed their maths teaching practices to be influenced by the ana tests. it is also interesting to note that the first three reasons given by the teachers for their alignment with the anas in their teaching are congruent with the national goals and purposes of ana tests as set in the national policy (doe, 2011). therapeutic (teacher-advocate) – belinda of all the nine teachers belinda seemed the only one to be unaffected by the ‘official pedagogic modalities’. she rarely aligned herself with the national curriculum policy views of the recently introduced (caps) or the previous one (ncs) or the anas and maintained firm rooting in the montessori holistic child approach which she had experience of. during the interview belinda defines montessori as ‘a methodology of working with children…very practical and hands on’. belinda repeatedly emphasises the practical aspect of the montessori approach which she experienced during her teacher training: . . .there was quite a lot of practical training where you actually had to work with the children a lot more practical than i think in most of the training that gets presented we had a lot of practical stuff. her montessori training also focused on other key yet unique teaching foundations such as the need to do ‘a lot of (learner) observations’, ‘dual teaching’, and the ‘psychological perspectives on children’ and their learning. the montessori approach is foreign to the local curriculum discourse contained in the ncs and the new caps curriculum statements. according to morgan et al. (2002) teachers within the teacher-advocate position speak the alternative discourse and explicitly reject the official criteria. according to bernstein (2000, p.64) this is typical of de-centred identities which draw resources “from local contexts or local discourses”. thus according to belinda her maths teaching approach is not exam oriented neither did the ana tests affect her teaching. she says ‘so it didn’t really (influence), my approach is not really from that side’ (test-focused). belinda’s ‘holistic child 16 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 16 approach’ arouses in her the interest to, ‘look(s) at why something has happened…there are always a thousand reasons sometimes when you are working with children why things don’t always works out the way they seem’. this statement illuminates distinct aspects of this teacher identity category in the sense that this position is dependent upon internal sense-making procedures, with the teacher having to think flexibly at the numerous reasons when things do not work out when teaching learners. it also illuminates the humanistic orientation towards students and the integrated approach to teaching and learning of teachers in this category. with regard to the teaching and learning of primary mathematics belinda had been heavily influenced by her montessori pre-service teacher training, which had inculcated in her the core value and need ‘…to teach the mathematical concepts from a very concrete base’. during the interview belinda mentioned ‘wooden blocks’, ‘towers of blocks’ and ‘various pieces of equipment’ as examples of concrete things that enable learners to ‘work with the senses’ and in the process ‘get a tactile sensual impression’ of numbers. belinda was driven by the need to develop number-sense amongst her learners using concrete objects for learners to understand mathematical concepts and numbers. belinda’s autonomous orientation to the montessori, holistic child approach that emphasises practicality and the concretisation of mathematical concepts, her discourse and primary maths teaching practices are distinctively non-aligned to local teaching or national assessment practices. teacher-adviser (neo-conservative-therapeutic) – pamela of all the participants in the sample, pamela is the only teacher to position herself in relation to morgan et al’s (2002) teacher-adviser position. the teacher-adviser position features are found in both bernstein’s neoconservative and therapeutic pedagogic identity categories. this primary maths teacher position and identity is articulated by pamela, who in the midst of the anas remained steadfast to the earlier curricula and was concerned with teaching her learners ‘the five learning outcomes’. in explaining her teaching identity position which aligned with previous national curricula requirements, pamela insisted that ‘i should be teaching everything those los (learning outcomes) with their assessment standards so that i know my pausigere and graven: using bernstein to analyse. . . 17 17 learners at the end of the year’. learning outcomes and assessment standards were amongst the key curriculum features of curriculum 2005 which was the first curriculum policy in the post-apartheid education. besides an outcomes based approach this curriculum policy was also underpinned by integration and socio-constructivism and explicitly emphasised a learner-centred approach (doe, 2000). the teacher-adviser position is also “orientated towards the student” (morgan et al., 2002, p.456) and on this aspect relates with the therapeutic pedagogic identity which is “produced by complex theories of personal, cognitive and social development, often labelled progressive” (bernstein, 2000, p.68). in primary maths education, curriculum 2005 features closely relate with bernstein’s therapeutic pedagogic identity category (pausigere and graven in press). it is on these bases that we link pamela with the therapeutic identity position. under curriculum 2005 the primary maths learning outcomes, included the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that learners displayed at the end of the educational experience and these were assessed through an on-going participative informal and formative assessment means (standards) (doe, 2000). under this curriculum the five main primary maths learning outcomes were numbers, number patterns, shape, space, time and motion, measurement and data handling. these ‘five learning outcomes’ contained the key fundamental tenets that enabled learners to understand the rudiments of elementary mathematics. the five learning outcomes provided ‘exemplars and criteria’ of foundational and fundamental concepts in primary mathematics. through teaching her learners the basic primary maths concepts which were embedded in the los, through integration and learner-centred approaches, pamela speaks the “voice of the legitimate discourse” (morgan et al., 2002, p.456) as contained in the then local national curricula’s – official pedagogic modalities – c2005 and the ncs. furthermore according to bernstein (2000, p.68) the neo-conservative like the conservative pedagogic identity emphasises the importance of specialised categories of discourses which under the former position are recontextualised to enable “engaging with contemporary change”. pamela’s concern with teaching the ‘five learning outcomes’ is an attempt to engage learners in the basic primary maths concepts which have been recontextualised into learning outcomes under c2005. such a view resonates with the neo-conservative pedagogic identity. besides being deeply immersed and concerned with the five learning 18 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 18 outcomes, the influence of the anas on her teaching is somehow minimal, or in her own words, ‘not that much’. she argued that she hoped to see in the near future a change in the manner in which ana test items are set up as ‘sometimes you see that they didn’t cover all the learning outcomes’ and she wanted ‘each and every ana question’ to ‘have at least one of the learning outcomes in it’. her take on ana aligns with the teacher-adviser position which ‘implicitly refers to the official criteria’. thus pamela did not completely reject the importance of the standardised tests for she held that these were important especially if the ‘five learning outcomes will be covered in the (ana) paper’. she also suggested that assessment standards enabled her to know her ‘learners at the end of the year’ implicitly suggesting the importance of assessment for benchmarking purposes. pamela’s latter position on the anas reflects on yet another feature of the neo-conservative pedagogic identity as it puts emphasis ‘upon performance’. pamela thus fits into the teacher-adviser position which combines features of the neoconservative and the therapeutic pedagogic identities which were influenced by c2005’s informing principles, whilst taking a relatively neutral position on the anas. concluding remarks in this paper we have illuminated the way in which a sample of nine primary maths teachers participating in an in-service community of practice took up four different positions and pedagogic identities in relation to the recent introduction of anas. we have drawn on both bernstein (2000) and morgan’s (morgan, 1998, morgan et al., 2002) study. in this analysis we have revealed overlaps between pedagogic identity categories and maths teacher positions. in the light of our theoretical framework and the empirical data we argue that the different pedagogic identities and positions taken by the teachers are influenced by the state’s education reforms as well as the primary maths teachers’ own beliefs and practices. generally our findings indicate that most of the primary maths teacher practices are to a certain degree being influenced by the anas but however differently. in concluding this paper we caveat that this study only reports on the participants’ responses from two interactive interview questions about their views on the anas. the study could have been strengthened by observing some of the teacher’s maths lessons prior to the writing of anas. however in this limitation lies the pausigere and graven: using bernstein to analyse. . . 19 19 strength of this study as morgan et al., (2002, p.453) argue that in the “context of interviewing” it “is easier to trace” the teachers’ positions in relation to the official discourse. the sample is also small to allow for generalisations but even with a large participant sample one might come with some of the teacher position categories identified in this study. the analysis is confined to local primary maths teachers and thus is context and primary level specific. it would be interesting therefore to read results of similar studies that use the same theoretical framework in different countries or for maths secondary school teachers. in contexts of national testing hill, blunk, charalambos, lewis, phelps, sleep and ball (2008) suggests that primary teachers must guide learners to understand maths and raise standards. this position is captured in bernstein’s ‘neo-conservative pedagogic identities’ and is articulated by ruth who ensures in her primary maths teaching practices that learners, ‘do both’ – ‘understand the topic’ and ‘do well in the test’. we also share in the notion that teachers are professionals who should exercise their autonomy and be ‘critical’ in their approach to policy and external assessment in relation to their maths teaching practices – a stance taken by robert when he refuses in his practices to be ‘blindly lead’. in national testing regime contexts primary maths teachers as autonomous professional need to ‘critically align’ (jaworski, 2003) with education policy, and so ‘keep in mind’ their mathematical moral obligation whilst at the same time being concerned with their learners’ performances and the repercussions of their performance. the notion of ‘critical alignment’ is a key aspect of the projected professional numeracy teacher identity promoted within nicle. references bernstein, b. 1975. class, codes and control volume 3. london: routledge & kegan paul. bernstein, b. 1995. a response. in sadovnik, a.r. (ed.), knowledge and pedagogy: the sociology of basil bernstein. london: ablex publishing, 20 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 20 pp.385–424. bernstein, b. 1999. official knowledge and pedagogic identities. in christie, f. 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(eds.), proceedings of the 5 international mathematicsth education and society conference. albufeira, portugal, pp.485–494. whetton, c. 2009. a brief history of a testing time: national curriculum assessment in england 1989–2008. educational researcher 51(2): pp.137–159. pausigere and graven: using bernstein to analyse. . . 23 23 peter pausigere mellony graven south african numeracy chair project rhodes university peterpausigere@yahoo.com m.graven@ru.ac.za mailto:peterpausigere@yahoo.com mailto:m.graven@ru.ac.za microsoft word b8400 fullissue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 84, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i84a07 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x teacher support, preparedness and resilience during times of crises and uncertainty: covid-19 and education in the global south yusuf sayed school of education and social work, university of sussex, falmer, united kingdom centre for international teacher education, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa sayed.cite@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0000-0000-4049 marcina singh centre for international teacher education, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa marcinasingh@hotmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2721-7555 eva bulgrin centre for international teacher education, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa eva.bulgrin@gmx.ch https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2177-6719 martin henry research policy and advocacy, education international, brussels, belgium martin.henry@ei-ie.org dierdre williams education program, open society foundations, new york, usa dierdre.williams@opensocietyfoundations.org mary metcalfe faculty of education, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa metcalfe.mary11@gmail.com joseph pesambili centre for international teacher education, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa pesambilij@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8734-7266 george mindano centre for international teacher education, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa gmindanoh@yahoo.co.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0740-9899 (received: 12 may 2021; accepted: 7 september 2021) 126 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 abstract the covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing education inequities, further marginalising those with poor and limited education opportunities, particularly in conflict, fragile, and insecure contexts. in the global south, the covid-19 pandemic compounds existing crises, frailties, and inequities as the impoverished suffer food insecurity, physical conflict, and crises of health and water. existing research suggests that the pandemic has further disadvantaged marginalised communities, weakened learner performance, increased learning losses, and stretched already strained education budgets. however, little is known about the role of teachers in the policymaking process relating to matters that have a direct impact on their work. it is this gap that we address in this paper. drawing on research, commissioned by the open society foundation and education international, based on a detailed desk-based review and interviews with purposefully selected teachers’ union and government officials in eight african countries, we examine the role of teachers in education policy-making processes and the kinds of support made available to them, or the lack thereof, during the covid-19 pandemic. using the conceptual framing of de sousa santos’s sociology of absences and cognitive injustice, we demonstrate that teachers have been absent from policymaking processes and have not been adequately provided with the necessary professional development (pd) and psychosocial support to navigate the uncertainties and pedagogical requirements imposed by the covid-19 pandemic. keywords: covid-19, equity and inequality, teachers, teacher professional development (pd), (teacher) psycho-social support, sub-saharan africa introduction education policy responses to the covid-19 pandemic reveal a sense of surprise and shock that, while understandable, fail to recognise that crisis and uncertainty have always beset the education system and, as sayed et al. (2021) have argued, made the experience of the marginalised, disadvantaged, impoverished, displaced, and exploited a reality for all. in many instances, the covid-19 pandemic has revealed and exacerbated existing education inequities, further marginalising those with poor and limited education opportunities, particularly in conflict, fragile, and insecure contexts (sayed & singh, 2020). in this paper, we consider the effects of the covid-19 pandemic on the education systems, teachers, and students in africa. with a specific focus on teachers, we argue that they and their representatives are key to educational reforms. drawing on de sousa santos’s (2001, 2014) idea of a sociology of absences and the notion of cognitive injustice, we then develop an empirically grounded account that deconstructs how choices reveal a narrow and reductionist conception of education, on the one hand, while illuminating a silencing about the role, status, support, and wellbeing of teachers, on the other. for de sousa santos (2001), the sociology of absences “unveils whatever social and political conditions, experiments, initiatives or conceptions have been suppressed by hegemonic forms of globalisation; or, rather than suppressed, have not been allowed to exist, to become pronounceable as a need or an aspiration” (p. 191). de sousa santos (2014) further argued that “there is no global social justice without global cognitive justice” and that acknowledging alternative voices and alternative forms of knowledge is key to realising this imperative (p. 237). we then conclude with a discussion of what an sayed, singh et al.: teacher support, preparedness and resilience during times of crises and uncertainty 127 alternative policy imaginary that mitigates the worst of the shock doctrine of crises and that gives prominence to the centrality of teachers as invisible actors in moments of crisis and disruption might be. in the context of this paper, the views of teachers are reflected through their representative associations and unions affiliated to education international (ei) and, as noted in the ilo/unesco 1966 recommendation concerning the status of teachers, that states, in one of its guiding principles, that “teacher organisations should be recognised as a force which can contribute greatly to educational advancement and which therefore, should be associated with the determination of educational policy” (unesco, 1966, p. 30). since the onset of the current pandemic, much research has documented the context and effect of covid-19 on the provision and delivery of education. some research studies, for instance, have specifically noted the double disadvantage of the pandemic in relation to existing marginalised and vulnerable populations (sayed & singh, 2020), others have emphasised the effects of changing teaching and learning modalities from traditional to technological (e-learning) approaches (murgatrotd, 2020; subedi et al., 2020), a few have noted the effects on learners’ outcome and performance like, for example, sintema (2020), and some, like schleicher (2020) have noted the effects of the pandemic on already strained education budgets. furthermore, some multilateral organisations, such as the organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd), have documented the effects of the covid-19 pandemic on school closures, school reopening, and student learning loss, as well as its effects on mobility for international students (oecd, 2020a; schleicher, 2020). likewise, much research has been dedicated to discussing the importance of continual professional development (cpd), including psychosocial support, for teachers to ensure that quality teaching and learning continues during the covid-19 pandemic (béteille et al., 2020; cipriano & brackett, 2020; international task force on teachers for education, 2020; reimers et al., 2020; sokal et al., 2020). despite this, there is a paucity of research that focuses on the role of teachers in policy-making processes during the covid-19 pandemic. little is known, for example, about how, as frontline workers, teachers’ input into education policy responses and choices during the pandemic have been undermined and about the failure to consult them on key educational issues that directly impact their work. coupled with the limited pd and psychosocial support teachers receive during times of crisis, the effects of the lack of teachers’ voices in policymaking processes during the pandemic have been exacerbated in contexts where existing crises have been interlocked with covid-19. we aim to address this gap by presenting a comparative analysis of the role of teachers’ voices in education policymaking processes in eight countries in sub-saharan africa, as well as an analysis of the nature and type of professional and psychosocial support teachers have received during the covid-19 pandemic. based on a research project, commissioned by the open society foundation and education international, concerning the covid-19 pandemic and its impact on education in eight african countries (see section 2), we consider specifically how education policies and choices were made during covid-19, how teachers were supported and capacitated to teach during the pandemic, and what curriculum adjustments reveal about what is considered valuable in the work of teachers. we begin with a broad contextualisation of the crisis as we develop the framework of the pandemic as inter128 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 relational and interlocking with existing crises, particularly in the context of the global south. we recognise that the pandemic intensified and exacerbated existing fragilities and vulnerabilities in the global south (sayed et al., 2021). interlocking crises and covid-19 impacting all countries and all citizens, the covid-19 pandemic has been a global crisis. but its effects are diverse and differentiated in reflecting inequities between and within nationstates. crises, understood as fundamental ruptures in social, political, and economic relations that redefine the relationship between states and citizens, are typically brought about by events or circumstances related to human actions and/or natural conditions (world health organization, 2007). as de sousa santos (2001) argued, crises are about hegemony, legitimacy, and autonomy. in a sense, the pandemic is a result of human actions and, in particular, of what mitchell (2020) called “humanity’s assault on the natural world” (para. 1) that has enabled zoonotic infection from diseases and viruses. by its effect and response, both human action and government policy including decades of austerity programmes and cuts to public services have aggravated the effect of the crisis on poor and marginalised citizens. the covid-19 pandemic, particularly in the global south, does not exist in a vacuum, but intensifies and interlocks with existing environmental, political, social, and health crises. the environmental crisis, for example, manifests in increasing temperatures and extreme weather conditions (world meteorological organization, 2019). also, the pandemic and its effects are intensified in (political) conflict contexts as witnessed during the resurgence of the 2020 conflicts in mali and in mozambique’s cabe delgado region. similarly, as a global pandemic, covid-19 is not the first recent health crisis since it follows severe acute respiratory syndrome (sars) and the middle east respiratory syndrome (mers). existing systems and deep-seated structural vulnerabilities in national and global eco-systems intensify and exacerbate the effect, consequences, and management of the pandemic. in conflict-affected countries, such as mali, where this research was undertaken, for instance, respondents pointed out how the ability of the health and education system to respond effectively to the pandemic was curtailed and restricted because of political instability; learners in mali’s conflict-affected areas, for example, struggled to access even the emergency remote teaching (ert) opportunities that were made available. managing the egregious effects of the pandemic is severely impacted by existing crises and the lack of access to basic public services particularly in countries in the global south and in contexts in which public sector provision has faced significant austerity-driven cuts and measures (chowdhury & jomo, 2020). un-water (2020), for example, noted that 2.2 billion people globally do not have access to clean and safe drinking water that mostly affects developing nations in tropical regions. covid-19 has reinforced the need for access to reliable water sources since clean water is a key determinant for limiting the spread of the virus as the international finance corporation (2020) has reminded us. furthermore, in subsaharan africa, 602 million people are living without stable access to electricity (international energy agency, 2020). food insecurity has become an increasingly concerning sayed, singh et al.: teacher support, preparedness and resilience during times of crises and uncertainty 129 crisis with more than 690 million people going hungry in 2019 “up by 10 million from 2018, and by nearly 60 million in five years” (world health organization, 2020, para. 2). given all this, it is difficult to respond adequately to the pandemic, particularly in the global south. in early 2020, the covid-19 pandemic, interlocking with these existing crises, revealed the weaknesses of public systems in countries. it is in this context that choices about, and education policy responses towards, teacher pd need to be located and understood. for the purpose of this article, we understand education policy to be about questions of text and discourse (ball, 2015), and authority, power, and values (rizvi & lingard, 2010). this study drew on ideas from ball (1993, 2015) concerning its formulation, from rizvi and lingard (2010) about implementation, and from taylor (1997) regarding the consequences. in particular, we are interested in the policy-making responses towards questions of education governance, and the delivery of education, as well as responses relating to educational curriculum and assessment, and teacher pd in sub-saharan africa. pd, in its broadest sense, refers to activities that increase the knowledge and skills base of teachers. this may involve both externally provided and job-embedded activities as a means of helping them change their teaching practices to support student learning (darlinghammond et al., 2017). in this review, the pd of teachers is understood to involve three interrelated moments: initial teacher education (ite); continual professional development (cpd); and the induction period (sayed & bulgrin, 2020). while this definition is helpful, it is important to recognise that the moments are not as distinct as they appear to be here. one way of understanding teacher pd is to see it as a continuum of activities geared to support those who chose a teaching career, but that take on different forms and characteristics depending on the career stage of the teacher concerned (sayed & bulgrin, 2020). while most countries have a solid pre-service system, they lack programmes of ongoing support of teachers through in-service training. we argue that the already weak in-service support of teachers is even weaker during a pandemic. this is in stark contrast with the increased need for teachers to be capacitated to provide distance teaching and psychosocial support to students. methodology this paper is based on research, commissioned by education international in collaboration with the open society foundation, on the effects of crises and disruptions to the provision of education, using covid-19 as an exemplar. the study drew on data from two main sources. the paper and report (see sayed et al., forthcoming) draw, first, on a desk-based review of policy documents, academic journals, news media, and reputable covid-19 online statistical dashboards. second, they are informed by semi-structured interviews conducted with at least one government and one union official in each of the eight african states. the government officials who were interviewed play an important role in the education policymaking processes in their respective countries. all the necessary and relevant ethical clearance was obtained through affiliated institutions and informed consent was obtained from all respondents involved in this research. it is important to note that, because of covid 130 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 restrictions, access to respondents, particularly government officials, was a challenge and, thus, the empirical data provided limited insights in each country. instead, the focus in this study is a comparative study of teacher development on the african continent. where access to respondents was limited, we conducted an extensive desk-based review. data was collected between august and october 2020 and may therefore not necessarily reflect current policy choices and realities since information, statistics, and other pieces of evidence relating to covid-19 are constantly changing. at all times, we consulted many different sources and checked facts in order to report on the most accurate and most recent information but we cannot exclude omissions and we acknowledge the risk of reporting imprecise information (see sayed et al., forthcoming). the case countries were burkina faso, cape verde, ethiopia, ivory coast, mali, mozambique, south africa, and uganda, all of which reflect geographical and linguistic diversity and present many interlocking crises intensified by covid-19. burkina faso is plagued by high levels of inequality, poverty, unemployment, and a high cost of living. the country has suffered attacks linked to al-qaeda and groups affiliated with the islamic state since 2015/16, with teachers having been at the forefront of many of these (the fund for peace, 2020). human rights watch (2020a) noted that teachers have been victims of conflict. the first case of covid-19 in burkina faso was confirmed in march 2020, followed by the closure of all educational institutions that did not reopen until october 2020 (gouvernement du burkina faso, 2020). cape verde faces freshwater shortages and droughts. coupled with this, one of the biggest problems facing education institutions and teachers is the high level of gender-based violence (education international, 2021). cape verde confirmed its first case of covid-19 in march 2020 and immediately halted teaching and learning at all educational institutions in the country. however, education institutions began to reopen a month later, in april 2020 (unocha, 2020). ethiopia is marked by a health crisis that includes high maternal mortality rates, and a high incidence of tuberculosis, hiv and aids, and malaria. the country is also home to one of the largest refugee populations in africa and this has implications for teachers teaching in refugee camps (international institute for educational planning, 2020). gender inequality in the teaching profession, with males far outnumbering females, particularly in primary schools, is also problematic. in ethiopia, the first confirmed case of covid-19 in the country was recorded in march 2020, and, in the same month, all schools were closed; this affected 26 million students from over 47, 000 schools. schools reopened slowly in september 2020 (ethiopia. ministry of education, 2020). ivory coast, having survived two civil conflicts, was again characterised by political instability as a consequence of the presidential elections in 2020 (höije, 2020). career progression for female teachers remains problematic (international institute for educational planning, 2021). the first confirmed case of covid-19 was in march 2020, and, by the end sayed, singh et al.: teacher support, preparedness and resilience during times of crises and uncertainty 131 of that month, all educational institutions had been closed and were not reopened until october 2021 (république de côte d’ivoire, 2020). mali experienced a coup d’état on august 18, 2020, following mass protests over corruption, electoral probity, and a jihadist insurgency. a report released by education cannot wait (2021a) noted that “indiscriminate attacks by armed groups against civilians, violence against girls and women, and attacks on state institutions, including schools and health facilities, are common” (para. 11). as with most countries in the region, “[f]emale students and educators are specifically affected by attacks” (human rights watch, 2020b, para. 5). the first case of covid-19 was confirmed in march 2020, resulting in the immediate closure of schools that reopened in september 2020 (république du mali, 2020). mozambique has experienced much violence and frequent civil wars that have caused a massive loss of life. a combination of natural disasters, ongoing insurgent attacks, and frequent political conflict has made mozambique the world’s sixth-most worsening country over the past decade on the 2020 fragile states index. between 2017 and 2020, 171 schools were affected by school attacks that destroyed 45 schools and affected 75,000 students and 1,500 teachers (education cannot wait, 2021b). mozambique had its first confirmed covid-19 case in march 2020 which led to the closure of schools (relief web, 2020). schools in the region reopened gradually in october 2020. south africa has been classified as one of the most unequal countries in the world in its experience of health and socio-political challenges such as chronic unemployment. one of the biggest problems facing education is the country’s teacher shortage that has reached a “crisis point” (mthethwa, 2020, para. 1). by september 2020, the country was listed as having one of the highest covid-19 infection rates in the world, with 644,438 confirmed cases and 15,265 deaths according to johns hopkins coronavirus resource center (2020). schools were closed at the onset of the national lockdown in march 2020 and gradually reopened in june 2020. however, following a protracted and contested school closure, education institutions were fully reopened only in january 2021 as noted by amnesty international (2021). uganda is marked by internal conflict, particularly political conflict. the most concerning challenges for teachers in the region are overcrowded classrooms along with the lack of teaching and learning resources, accommodation for teachers working far from schools, and training to help learners cope with trauma from prevailing conflict (inter-agency network for education in emergencies, 2019). following the first confirmed case of covid-19 in the country in march 2020, educational institutions were closed immediately and this affected over 15 million learners, 600,000 refugee children, and 548,000 teachers (uganda. ministry of education and sports, 2020). schools in uganda followed a staggered reopening that favoured students sitting their final exams in april 2020 (sawahel, 2021). as previously noted, all eight countries reflect a geographical and linguistic diversity and present multiple and interlocking crises intensified by covid-19. in all cases, covid-19 emerged in march 2020 with immediate school closure, but the responses to managing the 132 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 education systems in these countries in the context of the pandemic were diverse, as the following discussion will highlight. findings and discussion here we discuss the findings of education policy responses and choices from these eight african states. we discuss the findings, as reported by union and government officials, in relation to three themes: first, the education policy responses in these countries and who was involved or not involved; second, how teachers were supported and capacitated during the pandemic to realise these policy objectives; and third, the kind of support teachers, particularly those with inherent health vulnerabilities, were given to manage their wellbeing during this global pandemic. we present the data using selected quotes from various union and government officials (policymakers). in this paper, teacher unions represent teachers as a constituency because teachers form one of the largest professional bodies and thus require representatives to act on their behalf. teacher unions are instituted to represent the voices, concerns, and views of teachers and serve as liaisons between the teaching force and governments (amoako, 2014; govender, 1996; mafisa, 2017). policymaking during times of crises and disruptions: teachers’ voices as an omitted constituency policymaking during times of crisis and disruption requires many different perspectives and a deep understanding of the local context. moore and mackenzie (2020, p. 1) have argued that “expert advice should draw on diverse disciplinary specialisms and diverse social perspectives.” as they have pointed out, diversity of voice in the policymaking process is important because it can improve the quality of collective judgements, it can legitimise political decisions and therefore encourage public compliance, and it identifies who may become marginalised in the process and mitigates this effectively. similarly, sherif et al. (2020) argued that, particularly in crisis contexts, it is important to prioritise, enable, support, and respect teachers and listen to their opinions and their accounts of their experiences. teachers can provide valuable insights into the financing and development of standards, tools, and support for education in emergency and crisis contexts (sherif et al., 2020). carvalho et al. (2020, p. 1) argued that engaging teachers and teacher unions in a meaningful way can “increase the relevance of plans and compliance with government interventions.” more specifically, input from teachers in policies relating directly to teaching and learning in times of crisis is critical since they are at the frontline of providing this public good. education policies would be more effective during times of crisis if they were based on existing practices and teacher beliefs. pierce et al. (2003) noted that if this were so, it would foster ownership and ultimately determine the willingness of teachers and school principals to assume responsibilities and risks and make personal sacrifices. in contrast, the nonparticipation of teachers in policies relating directly to their work undermines their agency sayed, singh et al.: teacher support, preparedness and resilience during times of crises and uncertainty 133 and hinders democratic policymaking; when their opinions are elicited and valued, teachers become drivers of education policy reform. the initial responses by many states around the globe, exemplified by south africa, to consult only scientists to determine how best to mitigate the spread of the virus was limiting and revealed a narrow and simplistic understanding of policymaking and the use of scientific evidence. first, this assumes that scientists are infallible and that their findings are what we understand to be truths or facts. however, this neglects to take into account that, as with any research, there are limitations, and that research is always contextualised, and its effects cannot always be generalised. second, limiting public participation and including input from diverse constituencies are fundamental elements of the democratic policymaking that was essentially disabled during the covid-19 pandemic (sayed & singh, 2020). except for two of the eight countries studied (uganda and mozambique),1 the data suggests a lack of meaningful teacher involvement in policymaking during the pandemic that, to a large extent, resonates with the global trend. in five of the eight countries, no teachers or teacher unions participated in the initial education policy responses in their countries according to a selected small pool of interviewee respondents. the responses from ethiopia, south africa, burkina faso, mali, and cape verde, particularly from the teacher unions, demonstrated a lack of participation in policymaking at two levels: teachers were not consulted on how to manage the delivery of education in general in relation to school closures and openings; and teachers were not consulted on matters relating to teaching and learning such as appropriate alternatives to traditional modes and advice on trimming the curriculum during the pandemic. in south africa, a union official reported on how the government invoked emergency legislation to curtail the participation of teachers and teacher unions. there is a very limited role that we play[ed in the beginning] because the government was using the disaster management act to close areas of consultation. we had to force to be consulted . . . it is a mandatory issue but the government was not doing that and we had to force the government to ensure that on any other policy we are consulted. (teachers’ union official, south africa, september 2020) a similar response was received from a teacher union official in mali. it should be noted that the unions in the education sector were not involved in any awareness campaign [an example of involvement in policy-making] against the pandemic. the departments closed the schools without consultation. (teachers’ union official, mali, september 2020) 1 data originated from a desk-based review and feedback from respondents who participated in the study. the governments of uganda and mozambique consulted teachers and teacher unions in their education policy responses process. in ivory coast, different views emerged between and among the teacher union and government officials. we acknowledge that the data collected may not be fully representative of the situation in a specific country. 134 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 also, in burkina faso, a union official noted that the lack of participation of teachers and teacher unions in the education policy response process brought implementation challenges. we could not [resume classes] simply because the government sat alone to take these decisions. unions have not been involved in shaping the policy for the response plan to the pandemic. suddenly, they had difficulty moving forward. (teachers’ union, burkina faso, october 2020) with regard to teacher participation in education policy responses relating to teaching and learning, the verbatim transcript below from a teacher union official in cape verde suggested that the government made unilateral decisions about moving to online platforms without consulting teachers, teacher unions, or other education stakeholders. initially, when the covid-19 broke out in our country, the government had no communication with teachers’ unions and other local partners on how to run education in cape verde. the government just announced that they [had] decided to have classes online, on tvs and radios. after this announcement, the unions put together an open letter informing the government that they did not agree with that decision and the way things were moving forward. and they proved that online courses usually don’t work for everyone for many reasons. (teachers’ union official, cape verde, october 2020) in south africa, the government’s process of curriculum trimming was not welcomed by teachers and their representatives. the government started saying look you can also cut the number of subjects okay . . . then we [the unions] had to come in and say no, no, but that means another debate, because what about the career of this particular learner? . . . so that is not curriculum trimming. it is something else because you are changing the policy altogether so we [the unions] said to be careful, please tread very careful[ly] because it has got unintended consequences for our economy and our social concern. (union official, south africa, september 2020) the effects of the initial education policy responses to the pandemic reveal a lack of understanding by the government of the daily realities experienced by teachers and learners in these respective countries. as pointed out elsewhere (see sherif et al., 2020, and carvalho et al., 2020), the involvement of teachers in policymaking processes is vital since they may have an in-depth understanding of the learners at their schools and of the community context. more importantly, a successful implementation of any policy relies heavily on having robust consultations with key stakeholders at the micro school level such as teachers, teachers’ representatives, and parents as viennet and pont (2017) have pointed out. in this way, encouraging conditions that not only promote the consultation of teachers and teacher unions in the policymaking process but also give frontline educators autonomy and flexibility to act collaboratively (united nations educational, scientific and cultural sayed, singh et al.: teacher support, preparedness and resilience during times of crises and uncertainty 135 organization [unesco], 2020) is critical in mitigating many of the adverse effects of the covid-19 pandemic on education. in contrast, teachers and teacher unions in uganda and mozambique were consulted as part of the initial education policymaking process and asked for input on initial pandemic response plans. in mozambique, teacher unions were invited to participate in the plans to reopen schools. the national teachers union of mozambique (onp/snpm) was invited to participate in meetings led by the minister of education and human development (minedh) in order to outline the strategies for the reopening of schools. onp/snpm has also been informed of minedh’s plans on the matter. (teachers’ union official, mozambique, march 2021) in uganda, a government official noted that although teachers were invited to participate in education policymaking, the anxieties relating to contracting covid-19 limited teacher and teacher union participation. we tried to engage a few teachers. unfortunately, most people were already panicking with covid-19. already the social distancing issues of contacts had been discouraged. so, it was difficult to get them on board but for the few that we talked to and those that could come around that time, we involved them in the preparation of this preparedness and response plan. in uganda, we have a national teachers union that has a very strong network. actually, they reach out to the very last teacher with their networks. so, we also used their networks to distribute the learning material so that was another way through which we included those teachers. now as we begin preparation for reopening, we have consulted them throughout this development process of the standard operating procedures for reopening of the guidelines for reopening of schools. they have been part and parcel of the process, and they are actively involved now in mobilising the teachers and children to get back to school in about two weeks’ time. (government official, uganda, september 2020) the findings here suggest that in some regions the views of teachers and teacher unions are valued and acknowledged. as barron et al. (2021) have argued, “in order to build back stronger education systems . . . it is critical to empower teachers” (para. 10). of the eight countries, only feedback from the ivory coast on teacher participation in the education policymaking process was unclear. [on the question of the involvement of teachers’ unions], there are unions in the task force. they usually call the unions for the reception. they typically call unions—they are teachers. and i must tell you when it is submitted to the central management, e.g. the training direction, all those who supervise the teachers, e.g. the disciplinary officials, they also participated in the development. . . . yes, for the final elaboration, it is [the task force] who was in charge, together with the general management, so 136 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 that we can consider them as technicians. (government official, ivory coast, september 2020) on the issue of policy development [the education and training sector response plan against covid], no, i am not familiar with this plan, no, we [the union] were not associated. (teachers’ union official, ivory coast, september 2020) the findings from the government and teacher union officials suggest divergent views of what constitutes meaningful collaboration and participation. what was not clear from the interview data was the extent to which teachers were allowed to be involved and the extent to which their suggestions may have been incorporated into response plans. while we did not observe the convergence of policymaking patterns according to linguistic and cultural characteristics, there seem to be variations in terms of emergency decision-making responses across all eight countries because of the different contexts and parameters of stakeholders’ engagements in the process. as noted above, uganda, mozambique and, to some extent, ivory coast reported some form of teacher engagement and involvement in the policy formulation process, whereas this was not reported for the other countries. overall, the data suggests that, in most cases, teachers unions were informed but not actively engaged in the development of the programmes (sayed et al., 2021). however, we acknowledge the methodological limitations of the claims made, since the data is comparative by nature, without being able to provide in-depth knowledge for each country. we acknowledge that some teachers in case study countries may have been consulted in the policy-making process, but that respondents were not aware of this involvement. absent, as noted through the work of de sousa santos (2001), is the voice and presence of teachers in situations where their experience, knowledge, and skills would have been invaluable and would have increased the efficacy of implemented policies. this is echoed by sayed and bulgrin (2020, p. 1) who contended that “overall, it can be stated that teacher engagement is marked by an absence of meaningful involvement and lacks appropriate and robust mechanisms for ensuring sustained involvement in policy formation.” findings relating to teacher involvement in education policy responses to the pandemic reveal that teachers need the opportunity to have their voices heard. they are frontline workers who play an equally important role as health workers and thus should be afforded the same value. supporting teachers through teacher pd during covid-19: teacher requests for relevant and meaningful pd while continual cpd, also referred to as teacher professional development (tpd), is an important mechanism for maintaining the quality of teaching and learning engagements generally (buckler, 2011; sayed & badroodien 2018) cpd during a time of crisis and disruption is important. the world bank (2020) noted that, during a pandemic such as covid-19, teachers need to be supported instructionally, technologically, and affectively to build resilience. yet, research undertaken during the initial stages of the covid-19 pandemic showed that globally about 6 in 10 teachers felt unprepared for emergency online remote teaching because they lacked sufficient training and support (unesco, 2020). sayed, singh et al.: teacher support, preparedness and resilience during times of crises and uncertainty 137 from the declaration of covid-19 as a pandemic, teachers had to adapt their practices and ready themselves for added responsibilities. as reimers et al. (2020, p. 2) astutely noted, the pandemic presented teachers with a “quintessential adaptive and transformative challenge, one for which there is no preconfigured playbook that can guide appropriate responses.” teachers needed to adapt their teaching to incorporate social distancing and other covid-19 regulations while maintaining the delivery of quality teaching and learning. a joint survey conducted by unesco, unicef, and the world bank (2020) noted that, regardless of the context, teachers had to adapt to alternative communication modes of teaching and learning, as noted in figure 1 below. figure 1 alternative modalities requiring teacher adaptation during the pandemic teachers had to make these and other adaptations in the context of insufficient skills to navigate these different modalities effectively. the 2018 teaching and learning international survey (oecd, 2020b) noted that globally, even before covid-19, teachers did not receive sufficient pd to improve their existing pedagogies and practices (see, also, sayed & bulgrin, 2020). the pandemic has further highlighted teachers’ pedagogical limitations, particularly with icts, because even in more stable contexts of the west with adequate infrastructure and connectivity, many teachers lacked even the most basic ict skills for facilitating quality distance learning (unesco, 2020). this absence of pd support is even more critical in subsaharan africa, where “just 64% of primary and 50% of secondary teachers have received minimum training, and this frequently does not include ict skills” (unesco, 2020, para. 6). in these regions, where access to ict infrastructure and data remains problematic, the request to switch to these modalities added extra pressure on education systems, with implications for quality and equitable education. the data presented in this section illuminates the kinds of pd that was made available to teachers across the eight selected countries during the covid-19 pandemic or that was 138 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 lacking. the data suggests2 that, in some countries, attempts were made to provide pd support to teachers often supported by international organisations and dependent on external funds and, in other regions, no pd was provided at all. however, in most cases, the cpd was ineffective (burkina faso, south africa, ivory coast, mali, and mozambique), inappropriate (south africa) or lacked proper implementation (ethiopia and cape verde). only one country, uganda, was identified as providing no cpd for teachers at all; no attempts were made to assist teachers in developing competencies to deal with the requirements of implementing covid-19 teaching and learning protocols. the issue of providing pd to teachers during the pandemic remains controversial, with inconsistencies emerging between and among responses from government officials and from teacher union officials. for example, the extracts below from two government officials in south africa suggest that teachers were trained and given professional support. i think first of all the department kind of provided clear sources of the information for teachers to engage with so that they have the facts. they know what the standard operating procedures are; they know the procedures they need to take when they want to apply for concessions around co-morbidities. . . . the department has really stepped up in developing those kinds of guidelines, to put it on our websites so that it can be accessible to teachers so that they know the facts, the routines, and we know that if you are empowered by knowledge and you know what is the routine, that that brings a sense of security and it works against some of the psychosocial impacts that a pandemic like this will have. (government official 1, south africa, september 2020) [there was] that guideline, and we distributed it. and we were working with our provincial counterparts; we did not really have physical online training on how to use the manual. but the manual was distributed and made available. (government official 2, south africa, september 2020) however, responses from teacher unions contradict these responses from government officials. not at all. that’s the short answer. by the department of education. not at all . . . the dbe, they cannot provide professional development as an employer should. there has been no professional development support for teachers during the pandemic. i’m stating it emphatically. (teacher union official 1, south africa, september 2020) the statements by the south african officials quoted above suggest that teachers were not provided with the support that they find useful or meaningful. further, it suggests that the government is not aware of the pd that teachers need. sayed and bulgrin (2020) argued that successful delivery of the curriculum requires teachers who are committed, motivated, and supported and that teacher pd should form part of a continual development programme that 2 data originated from a desk-based review and feedback from respondents who participated in the study. the data suggests that overall provision was limited (in burkina faso, ivory coast, and mozambique, for example), or planned but not executed (in cape verde, for example). we acknowledge that the data collected may not be fully representative of the situation in a specific country. sayed, singh et al.: teacher support, preparedness and resilience during times of crises and uncertainty 139 carries on after the initial teacher education phase, thereby ensuring that teachers receive relevant pd as the basis for the provision of quality education. also, understanding the contextual realities in which teachers operate is vital for identifying the kinds of pd teachers most need. as maistry (2008) noted, understanding the historical context of education in south africa is crucial if education reform, including the cpd of teachers, is to be effective. a study by central sindical independiente y de funcionarios (csif, 2021) in spain during the initial stages of the pandemic, that surveyed 10,000 teachers, found that a lack of teacher training and the lack of information on how to shift to teaching online were major contributors to stress and burnout. this further suggests that the lack of targeted, relevant, and meaningful cpd is not confined to the global south. the responses from other countries, such as burkina faso, also suggested that the lack of teacher pd was not confined to the covid-19 pandemic. instead, the lack of support predates the current crisis. even before the pandemic, continuing education was not at all sufficient. we are having this debate with the government. we are currently considering what format to give to this continuing training because, you know, teachers are almost half of the officials in our public service. so, for more efficiency, we are in the process of finding ways for continuing training to be effective. (teachers’ union 1, burkina faso, october 2020) as with south africa, ivory coast, ethiopia, mozambique, and cape verde, teachers in burkina faso received very limited access to cpd before and during the pandemic. the data does not reveal the reasons why cpd for teachers seemed even more limited during the pandemic. according to sayed and bulgrin (2020), however, the neglect of cpd may be related to financial and time-resource constraints. moreover, the covid-19 pandemic emerged when many countries were unprepared to confront new changes since it disrupted all educational activities, including initial teacher education and professional teacher development. according to unesco (2020), covid-19 has highlighted the fact that both initial and ongoing teacher education require significant reform to allow teachers to develop more knowledge and skills related to digital literacy and to using icts for pedagogy during pandemic times. espino-díaz et al. (2020, p. 4) astutely noted, faced with such exceptional circumstances caused by the pandemic as a result of covid-19, in a context in which schools have closed their doors in 185 countries and government administrations have ordered the transition to the tele-training of students, it has manifested the need to train teaching staff in the use of different technological tools, in order to adapt the different elements of the curriculum to the new context of a pandemic. we are facing a change in the educational paradigm in which online training through ict has ceased to be an option in the teaching methodology and has become a necessity in these times of pandemic in order to continue with the student learning process. 140 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 in uganda, a teacher union official noted that teachers urgently require cpd to get back to the business of teaching and learning. teachers need that capacity building to handle the new normal. you know, the time they have spent at home has affected them in many ways. i need to see a deliberate effort to prepare the teachers for the teaching [and] learning process. heads of educational institutions should be given capacity building on how to handle the new normal. even with the learners who are coming after all this time, the approach cannot be normal. there is a need for sensitisation and capacity building so that we start to get back to the real teaching [and] learning process. (teachers’ union official, uganda, september 2020) in ivory coast, the government provided limited development to some volunteer teachers on how to teach in front of a camera, with no focus on how to deliver content more effectively using a different platform. regarding the [digital] courses, the state has signalled to volunteer teachers to offer modules, to run lessons. the teachers played a role in facilitating the classes . . . i think the teachers were trained, especially the ones, the government called, were trained to use social media, to speak in front of the cameras—they were more or less prepared . . . their training was to teach in front of the camera; it does not concern the content of the course. (teachers’ union official, ivory coast, september 2020) aside from the selective approach of the ivorian government, benefitting only a few teachers, the responses from the teacher union officials in uganda and ivory coast suggested that teachers require cpd that is relevant to their contexts. practical skills related to content design for online spaces, covid-19 health protocols, new delivery digital tools, and online pedagogies for managing the provision of education during the pandemic would be beneficial. what the transcripts above illuminate is that, despite covid-19 protocols for teachers and learners that compelled teachers to adapt their teaching practices, there was an absence of relevant and pd support to guide teachers through the transition. the transcripts further suggest that the cpd provided to teachers was inefficient, decontextualised, or absent. a study by jeram (2017) in south africa on teachers receiving pd found that even though teachers understood the context of the programme, “they expressed little hope that these theory-laden and decontextualised programmes would improve their efficacy in a classroom setting” (p. 117). while the patterns of teacher development diverge across regions, it can be stated that no specific policies nor adequate preparation for supporting the pd of teachers existed in lusophone countries, whereas limited training for teachers in managing distance-based teaching in times of crisis was available in anglophone ones. for francophone countries, government officials and teachers’ union representatives agreed to revise the curriculum and to integrate ict into ite and continual pd programmes as a response to disasters (see sayed sayed, singh et al.: teacher support, preparedness and resilience during times of crises and uncertainty 141 et al., 2021). even though cpd had already been neglected before the pandemic, the need for contextualised, meaningful, and relevant cpd in the context of crises, such as the covid-19 pandemic, is vital to ensure that teaching practice remains equitable for all learners and that teachers are resilient and prepared to manage their workload effectively. psychosocial support for teachers during covid-19: the silenced need of teachers not only did teachers lack pd support during the pandemic in terms of the cognitive aspects of teaching, but they were also not provided with sufficient psychosocial support to manage their own pandemic-related anxieties. teachers are a vulnerable population requiring support mechanisms to support both the cognitive and non-cognitive elements of their work. barron et al. (2021) argued, as noted elsewhere in this article, that it is essential during the pandemic that teachers should be freed from administrative tasks (as brazil, peru and uruguay did), focus on what is pedagogically effective, and provide socio-emotional support for teachers . . . the pandemic and the extended school closures have changed the role of teachers and most of them were not prepared for such change; a comprehensive strategy is required for socio-emotional monitoring and psychosocial support to ensure teacher wellbeing and avoid burnout. (para. 11) the importance of psychosocial support for learners, parents, and teachers cannot be overstated. however, the responses (including the desk-based synthesis) reveal that psychosocial support for learners and parents are prioritised over the psychosocial needs of teachers if this is even existent. the data suggests3 that in ethiopia, uganda, burkina faso, ivory coast, and mali, teachers were not provided with any kind of psychosocial support to assist them in mitigating their own anxieties about teaching and learning during the pandemic. in south africa, cape verde, and mozambique, teachers received limited and, in some cases such as south africa, ineffective support, as illuminated in the transcripts below. despite teachers’ requests for affective support, this has not been provided by the government, as noted by teacher union officials in burkina faso, ivory coast, and mali. indeed, we are fighting for it [psychosocial support]; otherwise, it doesn’t exist. today we called on the government for these teachers traumatised by the insecurity to have a follow-up. (teachers’ union official, burkina faso, october 2020) 3 data originated from a desk-based review and feedback from respondents who participated in the study. we acknowledge that the data collected may not be fully representative of the situation in a specific country. 142 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 [to the question of psychosocial support], i don’t think so, i don’t think so. there was no psychosocial support . . . neither for the teachers nor for the pupils. (teachers’ union official, ivory coast, september 2020) we are not aware of any psychological support. although i was tested positive myself, unfortunately, i had no psychosocial support. i nearly lost my life and my hospitalisation made me realise that the health system in place was very inadequate. (teachers’ union official, mali, october 2020) the lack of provision suggests a particular framing by the government that tends to ignore the affective dimension of teachers’ work. the education policy responses globally, including the eight countries discussed here, privilege education (or more specifically “schooling”) as the relaying of content thus conveying a narrow understanding of what happens in the school environment. teachers, as demonstrated in the transcripts above, are asking for support that will enable them to be more effective in their role as educators. however, their needs and requests have gone largely unheard. the csif survey found that 92.8% of the 10,000 teachers surveyed suffered emotional exhaustion, stress, anguish, or anxiety because of confinement and having to provide distance education. even in this context, policy responses to education during the pandemic did not mirror the needs of teachers and this was yet another silencing of teachers’ voices. where psychosocial support was provided, as in south africa, it was thin and limited with the allocation of resources being the main obstacle, as noted by a local teacher union official. well, that is where the biggest problem lies. there has been very, very little done. and it will go to resourcing, and you may be shocked to learn that, for example, the free state when we questioned about the psychosocial support, the free state said, ‘yes, we are ready.’ we said, ‘what does that mean?’ so no, no, we have one school psychologist appointed in the province—one—and we have two social workers. that is the free state; that is what they have in the department only. so how do they service the almost 3,000 schools in the free state—that’s near impossible. okay, subtract from that the schools that have councillors which are the smallest minority. then they agree that they will contract people from social development—that i can tell you was a disaster—it never happened. (teachers’ union official, south africa, september 2020) the responses from the teacher union in south africa demonstrate that a lack of resources (financial and human) to provide teachers with the relevant psychosocial support may be a fundamental reason why the service has not been provided. a lack of financial support is also noted as the biggest hindrance to the sufficient provision of support for teachers (oecd, 2017). but this also suggests that education budgets are too rigid and inflexible and require a reassessment, particularly during times of crisis and disruption. while crises bring financial challenges to education systems generally, including the eight countries discussed here, they also generate opportunities to restructure, redesign education programmes, and reassess the sayed, singh et al.: teacher support, preparedness and resilience during times of crises and uncertainty 143 allocation of funding to improve the quality of the education system for teachers and learners, both during the present pandemic and in the period of recovery. it has to be noted that, as with burkina faso and ivory coast, united nations children’s fund (unicef) worked with the south african department of basic education, the department of social development, and the national education collaboration trust (nect) to support back-to-school initiatives for learners, teachers, and parents in south africa. however, these initiatives were mainly targeted at ensuring that the cognitive aspects of schooling, such as distance learning programmes, were supported (unicef, 2020a). as with the responses from teacher unions regarding the lack of teacher pd during the pandemic, the responses from these eight countries demonstrate that psychosocial support is either completely lacking or insufficient. in five countries (ethiopia, uganda, burkina faso, ivory coast, and mali) there was no indication (at the time the research was conducted) that the government intended to provide this kind of support to teachers, despite the prevalence and exacerbation of interlocking crises. moreover, psychosocial support in the francophone region is provided mainly by multilateral agencies to students and, in these regions, is understood as medical rather than psychological support (see sayed et al., 2021). discussion the research on which this paper is based suggests limited involvement of key role players in the education policy responses and choices made in the pandemic in eight african states. in particular, we highlight the limited involvement of teachers and their representatives who are frontline implementers and key agents of education quality in the context of the covid-19 pandemic specifically and more generally. the data does not provide insights into why these patterns of silencing the voices of teachers prevail but the possible explanation for this may be attributed to time, resources, and capacity constraints. according to gouëdard et al. (2020), in times of emergency, evidence of what may work is limited, and constraints on resources and capacity are binding with short consultation processes not informed by evidence on the educational impact. despite this, we believe that teachers’ nonparticipation in policymaking processes cannot be subverted under the rubric of emergency regulations nor displaced in favour of the scientist experts. instead, teachers’ right to social dialogue, as an inherent condition of democratic policymaking (international labour organization [ilo], 1996), is vital to give effect to their agency, and contribute meaningfully to education provision. this is mainly because teachers’ pedagogic expertise and contextual understanding affords them deep knowledge that should be centre stage in education policymaking and implementation strategies at the micro (school) level. we suggest that there are several blind spots and absences in the move toward an emergency teaching mode. it is of concern that the major shift toward such an approach to teaching has ignored or discounted teacher preparedness for it. the data across all eight countries shows a lack of attention to capacitating teachers with the necessary knowledge, skills, and dispositions to teach and support learning during times of crisis. the absence of a robust system of pd to equip teachers to be resilient, prepared, and adaptive is striking. this silence 144 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 speaks volumes about the (in)capacity of education systems to prepare and continually support teachers for flexible and adaptable teaching modalities. again, the data does not reveal why teachers are repeatedly in need of intervention for activating self-directed professional growth in targeted pd. however, their need to be continually supported during the pandemic and thereafter remains an uncontested claim across teacher respondents in all eight countries. unesco (2020) further reiterated the importance of teachers’ access to relevant and quality pd to enable them to continue teaching in crisis contexts while being comfortable with the technology used in online education. the lack of attention to teachers’ pd needs for teaching during the pandemic is coupled with, as the data reveals, an absence of support for teachers to deal with the trauma learners have experienced. this is all the more surprising since learners in the countries involved in this study are, as noted earlier, affected by existing crises and fragilities. the surprise and the level of system under-preparedness for this pandemic cast a long shadow on why education systems in crisis contexts were not more resilient and more prepared; while this crisis might have been unexpected, crises are not unknown phenomena. building system resilience for the pandemic and future crises requires paying particular attention to teachers’ psychosocial and wellbeing needs. the data across all eight countries points to the patchy and partial provision of such support for teachers. it is not surprising that some teacher representative bodies have argued for teachers to be regarded as essential workers but not all, as in, for example, the philippines, where being deemed as essential workers denies teachers the right to strike. notwithstanding this, it is important that teachers are valued since they are at the front line of education delivery and directly and indirectly impacted by the pandemic and other crises. it is of great concern that, in total, 54 countries do not prioritise teachers in their vaccine rollout plans or that plans are still in development. this amounts to about one in four teachers globally. this is the case of a large number of lowincome countries in sub-saharan africa, such as angola, burkina faso, chad, madagascar, mali, niger, and sierra leone (unesco, 2021). as the pandemic and its management unfold, teachers carry on invisibly in the policy choices of governments, particularly teachers in the global south. a narrow focus on curriculum content and pressure on teachers to make up for the loss of learning content during the pandemic (unicef, 2020b) betrays an instrumentalised notion of learning in which the affective dimension is delegitimated and subjugated in favour of basic and more highly valued cognitive learning. the research reported in this paper shines a spotlight on how teachers need to be enabled and provided with the agential space to promote a holistic notion of learning which simultaneously privileges wellbeing and resilience. the research reported in this paper points forcefully to teachers’ experiential knowledge of how the pandemic exacerbates inequities in education, whether this is in terms of their own or their learners’ access to resources. while it is evident that states have put forth efforts to mitigate such inequities, the pandemic and other crises reveal how the marginalised and impoverished are disproportionately impacted by such events and show how teachers struggle to promote meaningful learning when faced with such realities. sayed, singh et al.: teacher support, preparedness and resilience during times of crises and uncertainty 145 concluding remarks the pandemic has undoubtedly challenged the capacities and capabilities of most states to develop equitable and quality education for all, particularly in contexts layered with existing crises and fragilities. based on a purposively selected sample of interviews, we have highlighted the silences about teachers and their work and have shown that the pandemic has revealed an absence that a post-covid education system needs to address. drawing on de sousa santos’s (2001) sociology of absences, we have revealed how teachers, as articulated by teacher representatives, have been absent in the policymaking processes during the covid-19 pandemic. this “monoculture of knowledge” (de sousa santos, 2003, p. 238) that occurs through the privileging of scientific voices, delegitimises the value that teachers can bring to policymaking and shows how teachers could improve the quality of policy formulation and implementation. these absences, as noted in this research, have manifested in two ways. the first of these is the absence of the voice of teachers as those with the deep contextual and experiential knowledge and understanding of how crises, such as covid-19, impact the school, learners, and communities. education policy choices that are insensitive to diverse local contexts and are implemented without the knowledge and input of teachers are not likely to be successfully realised. the second is that the views of teacher representatives speak powerfully to the invisibilisation of teachers as active agents and their ontological reduction to the status of resource inputs. their well-being and pd needs, in time of crises, are marginalised and peripheralised. the education system is presented in a reified way, standing outside teachers as active agents. de sousa santos’s (2001) argument of the sociology of absences narrates powerfully how pandemics and crises such as these tend to re and de-centre teachers in ways that render them less significant, undermining them as professionals, while disregarding the work they do, and their contribution to society that impacts directly on teaching and learning. furthermore, de sousa santos (2014) argued that the notion of “cognitive injustice” or “epistemicide” cannot be remedied unless these hidden voices are recognised, and through this recognition, legitimised (p. 237). the research for this paper suggests, albeit in opaque and fleeting ways, the possibility of an alternative education imaginary beyond the somewhat global and rhetorical claims made about the future of education being online and virtual, and heralding the promise of the fourth industrial revolution. there are three particular ideas which, while inchoate in such crises, warrant further reflection and deliberative dialogue. first, it is necessary to rethink what an emergency teaching mode entails and what pedagogies are desirable in such contexts and in the future. the pandemic has thrown into sharp relief a distant, online, and hybrid/blended learning approach with advocates and critiques supporting and opposing it (espino-diaz et al., 2020). while such modalities speak to the medium through which learning takes place, they remain silent about the pedagogic encounter and the sociality of teacher-learner knowledge engagement. a future education approach that is responsive to such crises needs to engage with what a multi-modal pedagogy entails and how teachers are prepared for such an approach. not least, this requires attention to ensuring that blended learning is not just an attempt to continue teaching in ways of the 146 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 past by simply leveraging technology. the pedagogic forms used in such modalities tend to confuse form for substance and remove the relationality of the teaching and learning encounter. second, the vibrancy of democratic education policymaking and the robustness of policy choice require meaningful teacher involvement. the involvement of teachers is not only an affirmation of their right to social dialogue, but their connection with, and experiences of, the daily school realities that will inform the efficacy of choices made. nowhere is this more apparent than in the attempt to determine centrally which curriculum content should be trimmed or regarded as essential. teachers in the local context know best what learning is occurring and are thus in the best space to inform such choices. third, the research reveals an urgent need to rethink the form, content, and modality of teacher pd. the fact that most systems were underprepared, even in contexts where crises are imminent and perpetual, suggests that support for teachers in such situations is not only lacking but must be integrated into initial and continual pd in future. the pandemic calls attention to the need for resilient pd systems that not only prepare teachers for such events but also provide them with support for their wellbeing as part of a holistic notion of education quality in which the affective dimension of learning is key. crises reveal the fault line of education inequality. in this specific case, the pandemic has exacerbated inequities. the post-pandemic education system, whatever shape it takes, must foreground the sdg-4 goal of equitable and quality learning for all. reshaping education systems to be resilient and responsive requires foregrounding equity and empowering and capacitating teachers as transformative agents. however, education matters cannot be only about pedagogy and curriculum engagement but must also be about how we produce our humanity in schooling contexts. as unesco (2020) has shown, a human-centred approach to the covid-19 response is essential to ensuring that the relationship between teachers and learners is maintained as physical distancing related to lockdown made it more difficult for the former to maintain close relationships with the latter. this resonates with sayed and singh’s (2020) argument that the reviewed education choices suggest a narrow focus on learning and content, resulting in a glaring failure to pay attention to affective learning. amplifying teacher pd needs, teacher wellbeing, and teacher involvement in education policymaking is a critical and necessary condition for building back better. teachers are the first responders and frontline staff engaging directly with learners, their parents, and the community in both crisis and post-crisis contexts. thus, we end this paper by highlighting the need for further research and policy dialogue about how teachers can be better prepared for such crises in the future and how their voices can and should be heard in policy discussions about the vision and direction of a future resilient education system. sayed, singh et al.: teacher support, preparedness and resilience during times of crises and uncertainty 147 disclaimer this paper forms part of a larger project supported by the open society foundations (osf) and education international (ei). however, the views reflected in this paper represent the views of the authors and do not reflect the opinions of the osf or ei. references amnesty international. 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(2019, december 3). 2019 concludes a decade of exceptional global heat and high-impact weather. https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/2019-concludes-decade-of-exceptionalglobal-heat-and-high-impact-weather microsoft word c74 full issue 17dec.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 74, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i74a03 the school economics textbook as programmatic curriculum: an exploited conduit for neoliberal globalisation discourses suriamurthee moonsamy maistry social sciences education, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa maistrys@ukzn.ac.za http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9623-0078 roshnee david social sciences education, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa university of kwazulu-natal (phd student) roshneedavid@yahoo.com (received: 20 august 2018; accepted: 24 october 2018) abstract in south african schools, the textbook serves as an indispensable trustworthy source of disciplinary content knowledge. while the constitution and vetting of such knowledge is subject to the state’s textbook publication protocols as they relate to screening for discrimination and prejudice in relation to race, gender, sexuality etc., there is a dearth of understanding of covert ideological hegemony embedded in the textbook as revered artefact. this programmatic curriculum, the school textbook, has received minimal attention from local curriculum theorists and researchers, so it is likely to masquerade as innocent purveyor of selected (or subversive) ideology. in an attempt to unveil the subtext, we report on a study that set out to examine the discourses of globalisation that manifest in selected contemporary high school economics textbooks. the study draws on the tenets of fairclough’s critical discourse analysis to reveal how particular knowledge selections romanticise globalisation through the discourses of financescapes, presenting and perpetuating a neoliberal discourse as normal and acceptable. we present reflections on how critical curriculum theory might offer insights for classroom pedagogy, especially as it relates to re-embracing the critical pedagogy project in south african schools. keywords: critical discourse analysis, globalisation, neoliberalism, textbooks introduction in this article we report on a study that focused on a commonly used, taken-for-granted artefact in the school curriculum—the school textbook. as an indispensable resource especially in south african schools where both teacher content and pedagogical knowledge have remained stubbornly fragile, the textbook continues to represent the trusted source of content knowledge. the competitive school textbook industry involves many publishing maistry and david: the school textbook as programmatic curriculum . . . 33 houses all vying for a share of this captive market. the overarching criterion for determining whether a textbook gets approved for inclusion on the department of basic education’s preferred list, is its compliance to, and alignment with, the national curriculum statement (ncs) curriculum and assessment policy (caps) requirements. textbook authors then use ncs(caps) as a guiding template to select disciplinary content and flesh out a programmatic curriculum for use in classrooms. while textbooks are subjected to a mandatory technical, tick-box style protocol, of concern is the fact that limited attention is paid to unearthing the subtext of selected content as it relates to the inherent value systems and the worldviews that it presents; this is the focus of our study. as a tentative exploration into this field of textbook research, we sampled a selection of contemporary grade 12 economics textbooks. as can be expected, the study of textbooks presents us with a multitude of foci. for this study we purposively selected content that dealt with the topic of globalisation. it is a phenomenon that is often uncritically punted as an ideal that should be pursued by economists, entrepreneurs, and politicians as necessary and beneficial. this study, therefore, troubles this assumption by engaging a critical discourse analysis (cda) framework to examine the tensions inherent in what masquerades as innocent, neutral economics content knowledge particularly with regard to the representations of the discourses of globalisation in school economics textbooks. as a consequence, in this article we offer a sober assessment of the extent to which africanisation and decolonisation debates have infused school curriculum policy and the extent to which the official ncs(caps) in particular might present as a major obstacle to this agenda. globalisation: a brief overview of the conceptual terrain globalisation as a phenomenon has gained currency and its purported benefits traction in multiple spheres of economic and social life. one might well argue that the process of globalisation began when, for the first time, human beings began to traverse what were for them new geographical spaces. in the past three decades, with the explosion of technology in transport and especially communication, the concept of globalisation has shifted well beyond rudimentary lay understandings to the point that selective appropriations of this concept have been deployed to advance particular agendas. globalisation is a multi-faceted phenomenon (stromquist & monkman, 2014). it may be viewed as a process that entails a restructuring and rearranging of social relationships for the advancement of global capitalism and the functioning of a market economy (castells, 2010; foucault & senellart, 2008). blommaert (2003) has described the phenomenon as a scalar process during which events are either at macro (global) level or at micro (local) level. it also refers to the process of reducing barriers between countries and encouraging closer economic, political, and social interaction (mittelman, 2000). in the economic arena, referred to as financescapes (appadurai, 1990; 1996), prevailing practices feature unencumbered free markets, private enterprise, and increased foreign investment (bazzul, 2012; gruen, o’brien, & lawson, 2010; stromquist & monkman, 34 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 2014). an economic theory held by neoliberal protagonists advocates that free trade and capital flows generate a more efficient distribution of scarce world resources resulting in greater consumption and output than that generated under protectionism (kapstein, 2000). even as people around the world are affected by transnational policies, attempts to restructure and rearrange social relations away from the public sphere to the control of global capitalism and the market economy are seen to be under the pervasive influence of neoliberalism (bourdieu, 1998; foucault & senellart, 2008). furthermore, the expansion of ties between and among countries has resulted in the enrichment of powerful corporations at the expense of ordinary workers and citizens, while increasing inequalities in the economic, political, and social domains between and among nations (aguirre, eick, & reese, 2006). the impacts of globalisation are also more widely geographically dispersed through the activities of such groups as the world bank and the international monetary fund since these groups have often externally imposed a neoliberal model in the south as a condition for obtaining development loans (aguirre, eick, & reese, 2006; davies & bansel, 2007; fioramonti, 2017). some writers are sceptical about the economic benefits of globalisation (see amadi, 2013; kapstein, 2000; lee, 2011; stromquist & monkman, 2014) and see it as increasing dependency because of its creation of social problems in developing countries. as bauman (1998), has pithily put it, globalisation is on everybody’s lips; a fad word fast turning into a shibboleth, a magic incantation, a pass-key meant to unlock the gates to all present and future mysteries. for some, ‘globalisation’ is what we are bound to do if we wish to be happy; for others ‘globalisation’ is the cause of our unhappiness. (p. 1) in south africa more than twenty years into post-apartheid governance, the expectations of prosperity for most south africans remain a pipe dream since poverty, unemployment, and inequality abound (vally & spreen, 2014). with a gini coefficient of 0.63 (oxfam, 2018), south africa shows the highest inequality levels in comparison to countries with comparable data (dessus & hanusch, 2018). according to vally and spreen (2014), globalisation has increased this abysmal inequality with its attendant global capitalist labour markets. in relation to knowledge presented to readers via textbooks, akincioglu (2012), amadi (2013), bazzul (2012) and lee (2011) have argued that critical engagement is needed to counter the legitimisation of the discursive practices of globalisation, especially by educators, teacher educators, and students. in his examination of excerpts from science textbooks, bazzul (2012) found that the ideologies of neoliberalism and globalisation were present in taken-for-granted ways. this was evident, for example, in claims that science was driven by competition and presented as a statement of fact thereby promoting and reinforcing the importance of competition rather than collaboration. bazzul concluded that without critical engagement, the neoliberal agenda can be reinforced. it is of significance that in many parts of south africa, students learn only through a close interaction with textbooks. the authority of these textbooks is accepted uncritically, and this suggests the need for a close examination maistry and david: the school textbook as programmatic curriculum . . . 35 of textbooks to ascertain whether they are what moran and henning (2011) have described as servants of a market economy. studies of business education and accounting literature have also shown an ideological bias (ferguson, collison, power, & stevenson, 2009; mcphail, 1996; zhang, 2012). in his study mcphail (1996) observed that “accounting departments appear to function as ministries of propaganda, subliminally instructing students in the rudiments of neo-classical market economies” (p. 278). likewise, ferguson et al. (2009) said that accounting textbooks lend themselves easily to the criticism that they are tools of neoliberal capitalism. textbooks can become instruments of propaganda when they promote and advance the ideologies of neoliberalism, globalisation, and capitalism and inculcate in students a particular worldview that draws on the values and assumptions of capitalism. zhang (2012) found that accounting discourses and policies in china are ideologically formed to further particular socio-political programmes and that accounting textbooks and related literature are also instruments of neoliberalism. the adoption of globalised accounting practices by the chinese government reveals that it actively entrenches the ideological precepts of neoliberalism. however, recent research (oxfam, 2018) confirms that income inequality in china has increased over the last 30 years. for instance, even though many chinese people are employed because of globalised production, their well-being has not improved given the unequal income distribution (jovanovic, 2010). zhang (2012) has commented that in addition to textbooks and policies that appear to be ideologically unbiased and impartial, the importance of what is left unsaid or what is hidden as a subtext is more powerful than what is overtly stated. it would appear that globalisation discourses take on a particular persuasiveness in the literature. the extent to which this pattern is prevalent in grade 12 economics school textbooks is of significance here. the methodological approach the methodological framework for this study was informed by critical discourse analysis (cda) as envisaged by fairclough (1989; 1992; 2003) and incorporates a conceptual framework based on appadurai’s notion of scapes (1990; 1996), here, financescapes. cda as a multidisciplinary research methodology has become increasingly popular in studies of texts and semiotic data (visual, spoken, or written) in the public sphere (see huckin et al., 2012; wodak & meyer, 2009). for fairclough (2003) cda is a problem-oriented research discipline with an interest in issues of power, injustice, and cultural or political-economic changes in society. revealing ideologies implicitly rooted in texts, cda also examines the implementation of power in the construction and interpretation of texts (widdowson, 2000). blommaert (2005) has maintained that power, especially institutional power, is central to cda and that it analyses the structural relationship of power and control as portrayed by language. this allows for a critical and constructive analysis that exposes “systematic asymmetries of power and resources between speakers and listeners and between readers and 36 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 writers [that] can be linked to the production and reproduction of stratified political and economic interests” (luke, 1996, p.12). also, of interest here is that that dominant discourses in society tend to replicate these anomalies (luke, 1996), in, for example, the bias towards global trade being seen to be natural and essential. cda can be implemented as a tool to challenge these positionings and representations of institutional power. of particular relevance to this article is fairclough’s (2009) identification of five general claims about discourse as a facet of globalisation. 1) discourse can represent globalisation, giving people information about it and contributing to their understanding of it. 2) discourse can misrepresent and mystify globalisation, giving a confusing and misleading impression of it. 3) discourse can be used rhetorically to project a particular view of globalisation that can justify or legitimise the actions, policies, or strategies of particular (usually powerful) social agencies and agents. 4) discourse can contribute to the constitution, dissemination, and reproduction of ideologies, which can also be seen as forms of mystification but have a crucial systemic function in sustaining a particular form of globalisation and the (unequal and unjust) power relations that are built into it. 5) discourse can generate imaginary representations of how the world will be or should be in strategies for change which, if they achieve hegemony, can be operationalised to transform these imaginaries into realities, i.e. particular actual forms of globalisation. (p. 321) the fourth claim is particularly relevant to this article since it focuses more substantially on how discourse constitutes, disseminates, and reproduces a particular view of globalisation. the textual analysis here focuses on the linguistic features of nominalisation, modality, foregrounding and backgrounding, omission, presupposition and assumption, overlexicalisation, and lexical register (fairclough, 1989; 1992; 2003; machin & mayr, 2012). the table below provides an explanation of the analytical framework with the feature in the left column and an explanation in the right. table 1: analytical framework of the study feature explanation 1. topicalization, foregrounding, and backgrounding using keywords to emphasise or foreground certain concepts; giving importance to parts of a text through either their physical placement and/or size 2. embellishments, and overlexicalisations and overwording using diagrams, graphs, brackets, and sketches to imply that content is credible, factual, and scientific to add weight to the claims or to get the reader’s attention; excessive descriptions with the use of an abundance of synonyms; over-persuasion intuiting that something is contentious or ideologically problematic (machin & mayr, 2012) 3. taken-for-granted words and using words or phrases assumed to be a common-sense notion and/or maistry and david: the school textbook as programmatic curriculum . . . 37 assumptions statements implying truth although there is no factual proof; three types of assumptions identified by fairclough (2003) are existential assumptions that assume what exists, propositional assumptions that assume what can be, and value assumptions that assume that something is good or bad. 4. insinuations and connotations using selected words that have double meanings or that can be misleading; using lexical choices that positively or negatively position events into specific discourses or frameworks of reference (machin & mayr, 2012) 5. omissions, suppressions, or lexical absences leaving out or selecting certain things; maintaining silence on pertinent issues 6. nominalisation adapting a verb into a noun and using it to oversimplify an issue, and/or exclude an agent from the represented event 7. modality and hedging using modal verbs (might, should, will, could), modal adverbs (evidently, obviously, certainly, probably, possibly, usually) and modal adjectives (possible, probable) that can also show differing levels of truth to convey the tone of a text (fairclough, 2003); lessening the impact of a statement like being, for example, excessively polite to hide uncomfortable content 8. register using a particular kind of language for a particular purpose; deceiving readers by affecting a phony register that induces misplaced trust so that readers can be influenced or manipulated by certain opinions that appear to be more correct or legitimate (mcgregor, 2003) 9. declared factuality listing factors in an uncritical way 10. technical terms using terms to suggest expertise, precision, and a wide range of knowledge 11. presupposition carrying an implied meaning inferred from the text but not overtly asserted the four grade 12 economics learner textbooks analysed are economics (bantjes, burger, engelbrecht, & ross, 2013), economics (chaplin, serfontein, & van zyl, 2013), economics (levin, pretorius, & viljoen, 2014) and clever economics (eloff, nel, & pretorius, 2013) referred to hereafter as textbooks a, b, c, and d. following ritchie and lewis (2003), the purposively sampled textbooks were handpicked based on their accessibility and relevance. furthermore, these textbooks, all of which were published in south africa, were chosen because they are the primary resource used in the cluster area in which the research site is located. financescapes as dominant discourse the discourse of financescapes (appadurai, 1990; 1996) was evidenced through the use of the words and phrases capital, trade, economies of scale, costs, world markets, economy, price, and business. while it may be argued that these are typical of the discipline of economics, their manipulation to construct particular world views is a cause for concern. the globalized neoliberal discourse of finance and capital was pervasive in the selected grade 12 economics textbooks. narrow interpretations and applications of the concept of efficiency for example, are projected. in textbook c in a section detailing the reasons related to supply in 38 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 the foreign exchange market, the text employs the technique of overlexicalisation and overwording. this excessive description suggests the preoccupation of the text with the notion that foreign trade leads to efficiency. supply also depends on the efficiency with which goods and services are produced. businesses that are efficient in production supply goods at lower prices and this reduces the opportunity cost of acquiring them. factors that impact on efficiency include the quality of the labour force, the availability of capital and natural resources, the use of technology, specialization, physical infrastructure, economic freedom, competitiveness, capital and stable government. (p. 76) the text portrays efficiency as a valuable and splendid phenomenon and aspiration, emphasising the multiple factors that impact efficiency, yet efficiency can lead to the reality of the redundancy of human capital, poverty through job losses, and other kinds of trauma like deprivation and humiliation. there is a pointed silence about, and omission of facts relating to, the negative effects of efficiency including the fact that efficiency warrants the manufacturing of a product at the lowest cost to ensure the maximisation of profit. this suppression of pertinent issues reveals ideology at work since the inclusion of the above implications of efficiency would change the tangent of the discourse. what is left unsaid is notable by its absence. also strengthening the impression of declared factuality, is the uncritical manner in which the factors are listed, a manner unlikely to be challenged by school pupils, especially since textbooks are seen to be an uncontested source of knowledge. the ideological assumptions that underpin the concept of efficiency are thus likely to go unchallenged. the use of technical terms in this list suggests an expertise, precision, and wide range of knowledge. yet these are in fact presuppositions that these factors impact efficiency. furthermore, hedging, the use of verbs in the present tense, and the lack of modality (modality being the expression of the level of commitment to what is said) implies an absolute certainty of facts. also notable is the use of the phrase economic freedom to insinuate something appealing since it is a concept that people desire and for which they would strive, especially in the light of the poverty that many people in south africa face. the phrase also implies the conflation of economic growth with the liberal doctrine of freedom that, in present day south africa, might be seen to be a highly desirable attribute. choice appears good since it is aligned with freedom. herein lies the successful use of a presupposition, carrying an implied meaning inferred from the text but not overtly asserted. thus, this lexical selection legitimates this purported noble value of efficiency. on page 79 of textbook c is a further example of the text’s preoccupation with the concept of efficiency. described as an effect of international trade the elaboration reads, unrestricted international trade increases competition. competition increases efficiency because it demands the elimination of unnecessary costs and all wastage. increases in efficiency result in lower prices. lower prices mean that income can buy more goods and services. the standard of living therefore increases. clearly evident in this extract are the features of foregrounding and topicalisation used to give prominence to the notion that international trade leads to efficiency. because of the maistry and david: the school textbook as programmatic curriculum . . . 39 physical placement of the keywords (unrestricted international trade), the text prominently positions them to emphasise that free and open markets will lead to efficiency and, in the process, insinuates that any other economic system will not result in an increased standard of living. the text also employs the stratagem of nominalisation to further amplify this concept. this is evidenced in the use of the verb increase which is then used as the plural noun, increases. instead of representing competition as a process (to compete) this particular usage represents it as a personified entity (competition). a consequence of this is the resultant exclusion of agents—people who are responsible for the initiation or the pursuit of such a process. not only does this nominalisation obfuscate agency but the use of the modal form (can buy) also presents income and competition as personified entities replacing actual agents. fairclough (2003) notes that these linguistic features are typical of the narrative of the new global economy in which human agency and responsibility are removed. of note is the silence as to the ramifications of unbridled globalisation (see machin & mayr, 2012). an examination of the term competitive reveals that this concept seems to be accepted as a common-sense, generally accepted value. moreover, the inclusion of the word competitive invokes the mantra of neoliberalism (fairclough, 2003) that favours the economically powerful in society. since it is seen as an authoritative source of knowledge and its readers as potential receivers of such knowledge, the power of the textbook as an influential ideological tool should not be under-estimated. in this instance, it serves the purpose of legitimating the competitive nature of international trade as something desirable and necessary for economic survival. furthermore, given the absence of agents the text makes it seem as though increased living standards just happen because of competition and efficiency. added to this is the fact that these nominalisations are in danger of becoming common sense notions that can become part of the discourse of improved living standards. through the suppression and silence of the negative consequences of international trade, the text deliberately misrepresents reality. as such, textual silence does covert ideological work. page 68 of textbook b lists the effects of being/not being competitive in international trade. • international trade is an important stimulant for economic growth of a country. demand for certain products will increase as trade increases, leading to increased production, more job opportunities, increased income and increased expenditure. this will result in a higher economic growth rate. • infrastructure, such as harbour and transport networks, will be developed in order to move the high volumes of goods. industries in countries that do not have the ability to compete in global markets may fail. these industries will not be able to compete with the lower prices of imported goods on local markets. a tone of certainty and factuality is invoked with the use of verbs in the present tense (is, gives) and the use of the high-commitment auxiliary modal will. the writers’ authoritative stance thus presents these effects as inevitable and certain. an implicit juxtaposition is set up 40 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 between countries that are able to compete on global markets and industries in countries that do not have this ability. the benefits of international trade are foregrounded—these countries are winners and the losers are those that do not engage in international trade. the insinuation is that good things will inevitably happen if international trade is encouraged and bad things (industries . . . may fail) will happen if countries do not compete and engage in international trade. moreover, the inclusion of the word compete alludes to the values of neoliberalism as mentioned above (see fairclough, 2003), which advances the interests of the powerful. furthermore, the rationalisation of international trade is legitimated by a clear specification in the form of the grammatically unnecessary connecting phrase in order to. the development of infrastructure is emphasised to show that this is an effect of international trade. thus, the writers’ legitimation of the ideology of international trade is clearly evident in this section. textbook d also elaborates on effective competition and efficiency as an effect of international trade. free trade between countries increases competition. it fuels efficiency, because it eliminates extra costs and wastage. this results in lower prices. (p. 72) both this extract and the example from page 79 of textbook c make use of personification to bestow on competition a sense that it is a living and dynamic entity. the human-like quality is evoked through the use of the phrases it demands, it fuels, and it eliminates. this can have the same effect as does the use of nominalisation since it obscures and conceals the agents who actually are responsible for competition and who might well be held responsible for its negative outcomes. it serves as an effective tool to persuade readers to view competition and efficiency as highly valued concepts. on page 107 of textbook d there also is a portrayal of the policy of free trade as an unquestionably efficient trade policy. under the heading economic efficiency, we read that free trade allows industries to maximise economies of scale, reduce costs, and become competitive in world markets. it benefits the global economy by distributing labour effectively and creating economic efficiency. world production and economic welfare increase and markets grow. producers compete to find the best production methods that cut costs and improve the quality of goods. this boosts innovation. of significance is the fact that there is not a single use of modal verbs, modal adverbs, or modal adjectives here. this signals the apparent belief of the writers that this is the absolute truth and that the positive outcome is a certainty that will result from free trade. in addition, the use of the present tense, authoritatively asserts that economic efficiency benefits the economy globally but suppressed is the actuality that this economic efficiency has resulted in the subordination of economic equality while compromising the quality of the life of the poor. the nominalisation that occurs in the third sentence (world production) represents a process as an entity through the transformation of the possible clause with its significant verb (employees in the world produce) into the noun clause world production . . . [increases]. this results in the exclusion of agency regarding who exactly produces, what is produced, whose welfare increases, and which markets grow. fairclough (2003) notes that nominalisation is maistry and david: the school textbook as programmatic curriculum . . . 41 useful when we are generalising about an event without offering factual evidence to support the argument, a technique deployed in this instance in the representation of free trade. innovation is also portrayed as a valued goal and the processes that boost this concept are presented as highly desirable thus rationalising and legitimating the policy of free trade; the use of the verbs in the present tense and the lack of modalities reinforce this portrayal of free trade as the categorical truth. the effect is that these linguistic devices once again position the textbooks as factual and knowledgeable. efficiency is also an attribute that is alluded to in textbook a on page 93, in the demand and supply reasons for international trade. demand reasons the country may not be able to produce required goods and services as efficiently as another country, meaning that the cost of production would be higher for the country than if these goods and services could be bought from a country that can produce them at a reasonable price supply reasons the country may be able to produce required goods and services very efficiently compared with another country, meaning that the cost of production would be lower for this country and it would be possible to meet both local and foreign demand. the concept of efficiency is raised through the use of the phrases as efficiently as another country and to produce required goods and services very efficiently. these articulations as presented as existential and propositional assumptions—something exists that leads to what can be—that assume that a foreign exchange market is responsible for efficiently produced goods and services. the use of the value assumption assumes that this efficiency is required for the improved economic welfare of a country. what is suppressed and/or omitted is reference to the consequences of this movement away from the local country. of significance is the fact that large international companies that can move and establish themselves around the globe in search of greater profits through lower labour costs are the ones who are the beneficiaries of increased foreign trade. these large corporations move to newer markets to take advantage of that country’s lower costs of production (ar, 2015). discussion and concluding comments a significant meta-observation from the full corpus of data analysed for this study is that the neoclassical economics canon continues to reign supreme in the south african high school curriculum. in fleshing out the official further education and training economics curriculum as contained in the ncs(caps), textbook writers have also invoked a distinct neoliberal discourse, in line with the new democracy’s strategic neoliberal economic direction (harvey 2010). it then raises the pertinent question of the extent to which the aspirational africanising and decolonising agenda might develop any traction in the schooling sector, given that the 42 journal of education, no. 74, 2018 official curriculum policy on which the high-stakes matric examination is based is likely to be tinkered with even in rudimentary ways. while this presents as a pessimistic and defeatist position to assume for this agenda, it brings into sharp focus how entrenched structural arrangements might hinder the attainment of this objective. from the data and analysis, it can be seen that the selection of particular kinds of knowledge, its lexical arrangement, ordering, and emphases project and foreground a very specific world view. in the examples we have used, the concept of efficiency is manipulated to lead the potential reader into an understanding of a somewhat romanticised, biased, and uncritical version of the phenomenon of globalisation. the redressing of historic imbalances and redistribution policies was a major challenge facing the post-apartheid government of south africa in 1994. the new government had to broaden access to social resources for groups that had been and were still marginalized through the policies of apartheid so as to uphold the principles of inclusivity and social justice (fioramonti, 2017; green & naidoo, 2008). initially the government had the newly created equity-oriented reconciliation and development planning (rdp) unit which sought to address the social ills of the poor and to allow them access to basic services. this policy was then abandoned in favour of the neoliberal growth employment and redistributive (gear) programme which advocated economic growth through the freedom of the market, entrepreneurship, decreasing barriers to trade, liberalising capital movement, and global trade integration (fioramonti, 2017). however, the gear strategy was not effective in reducing poverty and creating employment largely because of its neoliberal approach. the present policy, the national development plan (ndp) was adopted in 2013 as a roadmap to reduce inequality and eliminate poverty by 2030. but south africa’s exposure to the international economic world has not delivered on the promised redistributive agenda. if anything, south african society has become even more unequal, amid sustained high levels of unemployment (fioramonti, 2017; oxfam, 2018). so, while efficiency and globalisation appear as positive, more than two decades of trade liberalisation have not made any significant difference to the lives of the poor and destitute (vally & spreen, 2014). this then raises the fundamental question of whether neoliberal values such as unencumbered economic freedom for profit making, free markets, and the marketization of social services (including health) favour or fail the under classes in south african society. there is a distinct absence of a counter-narrative in the textbooks under study. one might expect, therefore, that school teachers and learners are likely to internalise the neoliberal value system presented in them without having been given opportunities to critique its socially unjust consequences. it might be argued that students and teachers have agency and may well be able to read the sub-text. this is a somewhat optimistic position to take, especially in south africa where teacher knowledge is a challenge and where a large percentage of school children learn under severely under-resourced and deprived conditions that may not offer opportunities for alternative thought. maistry and david: the school textbook as programmatic curriculum . . . 43 this study has significant implications for a range of stakeholders in the south african education environment and certainly presents an area that is ripe for curriculum studies research. there is a dire need for critical teacher education (both in-service and pre-service) that might focus on critical approaches to school textbooks, and how they are used. school textbook writers might also benefit from a more profound understanding of how content selections and their construction for use by teachers and learners might, however inadvertently, transmit certain messages about the economic world at the expense of alternative views. in returning to the argument in the opening paragraph of this section, we cautiously urge a revisitation of the critical pedagogy project (with due cognisance of its fissures), and how it might infuse teacher education programmes. it might also signal the need to return to the principles of critical curriculum theory. this proposition opens up many research opportunities that might offer firmer empirically based theorisations as to how to advance the critical pedagogy project. it raises questions as to where and how to access the various points of entry and rupture as they relate to ncs(caps), with a view to exposing pre-selected worldviews that teacher educators, teachers, and school children consume as they ingest programmatic curriculum knowledge via the textbooks they use. it raises powerful research questions especially as it relates to the extent to which there is any invocation of critical curriculum theory in, for example, pre-service teacher education programmes, continuing professional development programmes, or even the textbook writing industry. it follows, then, that rupturing canonical curriculum theory as well as subject disciplinary canons is likely to be a formidable project. accepting the status quo, however, is likely to impede the nation’s decolonisation and transformation project. references akincioglu, m. 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(2009). methods of critical discourse analysis (2nd ed.). london, uk: sage. zhang, w. (2012). fair value accounting as an instrument of neoliberalism in china (unpublished doctoral dissertation). university of wollongong, australia. microsoft word joe-issue71jun30.docx journal of education, 2018 issue 71, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i71a01 a critical analysis of caps for life skills in the foundation phase (grades r–3) kerryn dixon, hilary janks, debbie botha, katarina earle, manono poo, fiona oldacre, kamala pather and kerri-lee schneider1 corresponding author: kerryn.dixon@wits.ac.za wits university, johannesburg, south africa (received 1 august 2016; accepted: 9 may 2018) abstract the curriculum and assessment policy statement foundation phase life skills curriculum (dbe, 2011) is composed of four focus areas: beginning knowledge; personal and social well-being; creative arts; and physical education. these areas draw on a number of disciplines and this makes the curriculum dense. this density is, in turn, a challenge for teachers and teacher education. we perform an historical analysis of life skills curriculum documents from 1977 to the present and a content analysis of the caps document. using bernstein (1971, 1996) we show that this curriculum is weakly classified and that epistemological orientations are blurred, if not rendered invisible. the specificity of different disciplinary lenses that have different objects of enquiry, methods of analysis, and criteria for truth claims is lost in an overemphasis on everyday knowledge. if teachers are not themselves schooled in the languages of the disciplines that underpin life skills they may not be able to give children access to them, nor are they likely to be able to help them understand how different parts of the system relate to one another. keywords: foundation phase; life skills curriculum; teacher knowledge introduction the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps, dbe, 2011) for foundation phase has three subjects: mathematics; literacy; and life skills. the focus of this paper is life skills, which has four focus areas: beginning knowledge; personal and social well-being; creative arts; and physical education. figure 1 gives an overview of the life skills curriculum. because these focus areas cover a great deal of content drawn from a number of disciplines, we argue that the life skills curriculum is too dense and that it presents a challenge for teachers and for teacher education. 1 this is a collaborative paper written by staff of the foundation studies division in the wits school of education. all the authors contributed to the discussions about, and the writing of, this paper. dixon and janks are the first authors. dixon, janks et al.: a critical analysis of caps for life skills . . . 7 none of us, as the authors of this paper, would describe herself as an expert in life skills or in the range of disciplines needed to teach life skills. however, this is undoubtedly also true of teachers in schools who are expected to be generalists capable of teaching across the foundation phase curriculum (beni, stears, & james, 2017). nor are we curriculum specialists with extensive knowledge of bernstein’s areas of expertise. collectively, ours lies predominantly in language and literacy, and mathematics. as members of a foundation phase department, curriculum development is a shared responsibility for us and we have been concerned about how to improve the quality of the life skills component of our teacher preparation programme. while there are staff at the wits school of education with the disciplinary expertise to teach life skills, many lack experience with foundation phase. figure 1 the four focus areas of caps life skills curriculum we begin with a brief explanation of the bernsteinian concepts used for our analysis and a discussion of other relevant literature. this is followed by a description of our research methods. we then explore the antecedents of life skills in order to understand how the density in the caps curriculum arose historically, and to make sense of how knowledge has been constructed in this subject over time. the current caps foundation phase life skills curriculum and the specialist knowledge needed to teach life skills is examined. the article concludes with a discussion of the challenge the life skills curriculum poses for teachers and teacher education. 8 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 key bernsteinian concepts we use five key concepts from bernstein's (1971, 1996) theory as analytic lenses: everyday and specialised knowledge; vertical and horizontal knowledge structures; and classification. 2 bernstein (1996) describes two types of knowledge—everyday knowledge and specialised knowledge. the former is context dependent, based on local events and practices, and is informed by subjective opinions rather than facts or established truths (hugo, 2013). specialised or school knowledge, as it is otherwise called, goes beyond people’s feelings, experiences, and perceptions. it is attained from an accumulation of different discoveries, inventions, experiments, calculations, and creations, [located in different disciplines] not acquired automatically through instinct or everyday living. (hugo, 2013, p. 10) specialised knowledge thus differs from everyday knowledge in the specificity of its language. it is considered to be more powerful than everyday knowledge (bernstein, 1999) because of its greater explanatory power and its ability to work at increasing levels of abstraction that can account for a wide range of phenomena. hugo (2013) recognises that the shift from everyday content to specialised concepts is not straightforward or linear. drawing on dowling’s (1998) theory of specialisation, hugo sees this as a transition from informal learning to more formal education. it is important to recognise that in the foundation phase everyday knowledge is still in formation and it is variable because of children’s diverse backgrounds and pre-school experiences. the distinction between everyday and specialised knowledge is particularly important for the foundation phase because teachers have to ascertain what everyday knowledge is in place. they need to fill the gaps in this everyday knowledge that children have, and they must introduce specialised knowledge. because developmental conceptions of childhood, which question children’s ability to work with abstract concepts, is dominant, it is important for the curriculum to specify what specialised knowledge young children need to develop. without this there is a danger that foundation phase teaching relies on everyday knowledge at the expense of necessary specialised knowledge. when there is too much emphasis on everyday knowledge systematic learning of the discipline is compromised (hoadley & jansen 2009). what counts as specialised knowledge is different in different school subjects that are located in different knowledge structures. bernstein described different disciplines as having either a vertical or horizontal knowledge structure. in vertical knowledge structures, knowledge progresses with layers of increasing complexity, such that each layer is able to account for the layers below. there is a logical progression of ideas ‘building up to a complex conceptual vocabulary that has an internally systematic logic’ (hugo, 2013, p. 10). disciplines with 2 we wish to express our thanks to lynne slonimsky and wayne hugo. they both worked with us to help us understand bernstein. wayne hugo spent two days talking with us about the paper in relation to his book, cracking the code to educational analysis (2013). dixon, janks et al.: a critical analysis of caps for life skills . . . 9 horizontal knowledge structures grow by developing competing accounts of the objects of knowledge that are the focus of the discipline. each of these accounts contributes to the specialised language of the discipline. concepts within each discipline also operate at different levels of abstraction. classification is the strength of the boundaries between objects or categories, in this case between school subjects. classification is strong or weak depending on the “degree of insulation” between them. strong classification has well defined boundaries between the categories and there is strong insulation between them. each category has “its unique identity, its unique voice, its own specialised rules of internal relations.” in the case of weak classification there is less insulation between the categories, which have “less specialised discourses, less specialised identities, less specialised voices” (bernstein, 1996, p. 7). for our purposes, what this means is that if the boundaries between school subjects is broken and they are not insulated from one another they are in danger of “losing their identity” (bernstein, 1996, p. 6). moreover, there is a danger that teachers are not required to know and understand the specialised discourses, rules, and internal relations of the different subjects. literature review there is little research in south africa that focuses specifically on life skills in the foundation phase. sheldon’s (2015) research in two grade 3 classrooms found that teachers did not think that life skills was an important subject in the overall foundation phase programme nor did they take it very seriously. krishna’s (2013) research with grade 1 teachers highlights a lack of training and support, and teachers struggling with content, planning, and assessment. although she does not specifically draw attention to this, the data shows teachers’ lack of specialised knowledge across disciplinary areas. this confirms the findings of mosia (2011) who discovered that teachers find life skills difficult to teach because of inadequate preparation. the research of beni et al. (2017) focused on natural sciences. they show that teachers avoided teaching natural science, lacked specialised content knowledge, and were unable to integrate it into other subject areas. malan (2014) noted that the specialised knowledge required to teach musical understanding is not clearly delineated in the caps curriculum for a generalist foundation phase teacher. only steyn, schuld, and hartell (2012) offer an analysis of the curriculum, but the main focus of their research is understanding how the higher education institutions that educate teachers for the foundation phase, teach life skills. they argued that the “subject life skills makes provision for a non-academic subject within the south african school’s curriculum” (p. 162). they take their definition of life skills from the statement of the world health organisation (1999) that the focus is on the development of “psycho-social skills in a culturally and developmentally appropriate way” (p. 6). this view of life skills puts the emphasis on nonacademic, everyday knowledge and foregrounds only the personal and social well-being 10 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 focus area. the most important finding from this research is that higher education institutions vary in • coverage—which aspects of the life skills curriculum are or are not taught; • time allocation—time given to those aspects of the curriculum covered; and • focus—which aspects are given a separate focus and which are integrated. these point to the difficulty of covering a compressed curriculum during preservice teacher education. there have been several analyses of the recent iterations of the south african curriculum: bertram (2009, 2016) focuses on the history curriculum (see, too, bertram & barath, 2011); johnson, dempster, & hugo (2015) analyse biology in the life sciences curriculum; peden (2015) analyses education for sustainable agriculture in agricultural sciences; and schudel (2014) focuses on environmental learning. with the exception of schudel, none of these mention the foundation phase. these reviews highlight the consequence of integration, the collapse of disciplinary boundaries and everyday and specialised knowledge in curriculum 2005 (c2005, doe, 1997). although c2005 was driven by a social justice agenda, it perpetuated educational inequalities (johnson et al., 2015) that resulted in substantial curriculum revisions (revised national curriculum statement [rncs], doe, 2002), and caps (dbe, 2011)). bertram (2011) and schudel (2014) argue strongly that progressive pedagogies and integrated approaches require teachers to have a deep disciplinary knowledge. their analyses show that caps appears to be a return to a more strongly classified teacher-centred curriculum. for the sciences, a vertical knowledge structure is evident (johnson et al., 2015; peden, 2015; schudel, 2014). in the further education and training caps history curriculum there is an increase in substantive knowledge (understanding space, place, and time) and procedural knowledge (the organizing ideas that shape historical thinking). however, bertram (2016) notes that there is a lack of progression of procedural knowledge across these grades. despite the overall shift back to more strongly classified knowledge systems in caps, life skills remains characterized by integration and weak boundaries where teachers are required to integrate content and skills from subject areas through topics. schudel (2014) gives the telling example of the topic “waste” in grade 3 where learners must understand the following, and teachers require substantive and procedural knowledge to impart this. • what happens to our waste [supporting a natural science understanding of issues of land pollution in informal dumping, air pollution in burning, and issues of space and leaching in burying] • re-using, recycling, reducing and knowing what can’t be recycled [supporting a social science understanding of resource use] • recycling at home and at school [supporting a life orientation interest in citizenship]. (p. 108) dixon, janks et al.: a critical analysis of caps for life skills . . . 11 research questions and research methods this article addresses three inter-related research questions each of which requires a different research method. 1. how did the life skills curriculum come to take the form that it does? we developed a genealogy of the subject life skills, based on creating an archive of curriculum documents from 1977 to 2011, and analysing them. we were able to construct only a partial archive since it is difficult to find all the relevant curriculum documents. 2. how does the caps life skills foundation phase curriculum construct knowledge in this subject? to answer this question, we analysed the caps document using critical content analysis. we analysed the content of each school term and then analysed the whole phase (grade r–3). the school term analysis allowed us to read across all the focus areas to see what content knowledge teachers need to teach the content in each school term. the phase analysis looks across terms so that we could examine sequencing and pacing in each of the focus areas in each grade and across the grades. the analysis was designed to enable us to see how the content of the different focus areas is configured in the curriculum; the relation of parts to the whole; whether the focus was on everyday or specialised knowledge; and whether or not this distinction was clear. the focus on the kind of knowledge—everyday or specialised—enabled us to consider what specialised knowledge teachers need to teach different aspects of a topic. 3. what specialist disciplinary knowledge do learners need to acquire in the foundation phase to prepare them for the demands of the intermediate phase? subject specialists from history, geography, visual arts, music, physical education, and science in the wits school of education were interviewed to establish what specialist knowledge should be developed by foundation phase teachers to prepare children to enter grade 4. the historical formation of life skills from apartheid to today before discussing the content of the caps life skills curriculum, it is important to understand where it comes from. life skills was not always life skills; it has a history. in this section we trace its origins from christian national education apartheid syllabi through c2005 (doe, 1997) and the rncs (doe, 2002), to caps (dbe, 2011), the current curriculum, in order to understand its constitution as a subject (see figure 2). this account traces the continuities and discontinuities that over time have resulted in the current 12 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 compressed life skills curriculum. we then unpack and disaggregate this compression in order to understand the specialised knowledge demands placed on foundation phase teachers. figure 2 ‘life skills’ curriculum from apartheid to caps our analysis of the life skills curriculum under apartheid is based on an archive that was available in the wits school of education library. 3 it is important to note that a range of school subjects taught to children during apartheid now constitute life skills. the subjects we refer to here are drawn from the transvaal education department’s (ted) syllabus for white students. we know that education for different race groups served vastly different educational and political purposes (hartshorne, 1992; hyslop, 1999; kros, 2010) deliberately retarding the development of the black population (nkondo, 1979). in tracing the origins of life skills we see sufficient similarity between the transvaal education department’s curriculum for the first three years of school and caps for us to argue that this is a significant point of origination for life skills. figure 2 shows the subjects that children were taught in their first three years of formal schooling from the period 1977 to 2015. in addition to languages and mathematics, white children in transvaal schools in 1977 were required to do art, music, physical education, 3 transvaal education department syllabi for the study of the environment—grade 1 to standard 1 (1977), for physical education—grades 1–2 and standards 1–10 for girls (1987), for physical education for boys—standards 1–5 (no date), class music—grades 1–2 and standards 1–4 (1978), art education—grades 1 to std 4 (1977) and the manual for the implementation of guidance programme—grade 1 to std 5 (1987). house of assembly schemes of work for bible education (grade 1, grade 2 and standard 1). it is not surprising the school of education’s library, formed while it was the johannesburg college of education responsible for training white teachers, does not have records of department and education and training syllabi designed for bantu education. dixon, janks et al.: a critical analysis of caps for life skills . . . 13 bible education, guidance, and study of the environment. each was constituted as one of six separate subjects with its own syllabus and specialist knowledge (see figure 2, column 1). these separate syllabi indicate specific disciplinary content and sequencing determined by both the requirements of the knowledge domain and the notions of children’s biological and social development held at that time. in physical education, for example, the content and sequencing are differentiated for boys and girls from standard 1 (grade 3). study of the environment by way of contrast, was a composite subject comprised of geography, history, health education, and elementary science (ted, 1977). these subjects have relatively strong boundaries and they divided into discipline-specific lesson units (e.g., historical stories and biographic studies, health habits, natural phenomena). the christian nationalist philosophy underpinning apartheid education is most apparent in the study of the environment syllabus where all themes need to stress that children must 1. be made aware of the majesty, beauty and order in god’s creation and their sense of wonder must be stimulated 2. be led to a thankful and personal appreciation and acceptance of the gifts of god and the responsibilities of man [sic] to these gifts. (ted, 1977a, p. 2) deference to adult authority figures recurs throughout and so-called ethical standards require obedience to the teacher and compliance with the requirements of the group (ted, 1977a, p. 4). these manifest themselves in required child behaviour such as “co-operation, courtesy, personal neatness, helpfulness, consideration, faithfulness, steadfastness and responsibility” (ted, 1977a, p. 2), among others such as “mannerliness”, “cleanliness”, “respect”, “national pride”, “courage and devotion”, and “tolerance for others” that are sprinkled throughout the document. childhood is not seen as a state of being but one of becoming that needs to be actively shaped by adult supervision and moral surveillance. the greatest curriculum shift is evident in the move from the apartheid curriculum to the model of outcomes-based education in c2005 (see figure 2, column 2). disciplinary knowledges are reconstituted into learning areas, thus opening the boundaries between specialisations (hugo, 2013). for example, art and music as apartheid subjects became components of the arts and culture learning area that also includes drama, dance, arts, technology, and media and communication. components of the apartheid physical education syllabus, such as movement, moves to the arts and culture learning area while other components move to life orientation, thus splitting what was formerly a coherent body of knowledge. according to c2005 the purpose of clustering subject knowledge into learning areas was “to encourage an integrated approach to learning” (doe, 1997, section 4.3), but this has serious disadvantages. the arts are a good example; collapsing six disciplinary fields into the arts and culture learning area in the foundation phase is an example of weak classification that results in content overload. this overload remains in the next two curriculum iterations (rncs and caps; columns 3 and 4). the disciplinary integrity of specialised fields of 14 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 knowledge is compromised when they are no longer constituted as subjects but outcomes to be achieved in a limited amount of time, in a phase during which children are being introduced to specialised knowledge. the constitution of physical education has also changed. no longer a separate subject in c2005, it re-emerges in the rncs as physical development and movement (alongside health promotion, social development, personal development, and orientation to the world of work) and remains an outcome to be achieved (doe, 2002). while it does not regain its status as a separate subject, physical education returns as one of four self-standing focus areas in life skills in caps (doe, 2011; column 4). awareness of the importance of physical education and sports in schools has increased. calls have been made to delink physical education from life skills (cleophas, 2014). it is interesting to see how study of the environment is reconstituted across these four curricula. aspects of civics and health from the apartheid curriculum are incorporated into the life orientation learning area in c2005. christian national education is erased and references to religion are minimal. the suggestion is made in c2005 that religious education not be assessed (doe, 1997, section 4.5), thus lowering its status. religion as a field of study is not developed as core to the learning areas in c2005, nor does it feature much in the rncs or caps. it operates more at the level of everyday knowledge rather than specialised knowledge in the relatively superficial references to diversity, religious days, and holidays (doe, 2011). history and geography, as well as elementary science, are uncoupled from study of the environment in the apartheid syllabus and are given their own two learning areas in c2005 —social science and natural science. the disciplinary boundaries of geography are not solid (hugo, 2013), straddling social science and natural science. while the disciplinary knowledge of geography remains in various configurations across the four curricula, history is systematically erased. 4 history as taught through story and biographical studies in the ted curriculum is transformed in c2005 into a focus on indigenous knowledge systems, practices, and beliefs. in the rncs much of this was written out. in caps the only explicit reference to history is a nine-hour unit in grade 3 on how family and community lived long ago and a reference to inviting older members of the community to classrooms (doe, 2011). perhaps one of the most striking aspects of the curriculum change is the construction of the child. the silent, respectful, obedient child of the apartheid curriculum is reconstructed as having far more agency. c2005’s goal is to provide children with opportunities to develop to their full potential as active, responsible and fulfilled citizens who can play a constructive role in a democratic, non-racist, and equitable society. the development of the child in totality should lead to a balanced personality so that he/she may be equipped with the necessary life skills. (dbe, 1997; foundation phase) 4 it is ironic that we are dependent on history in order to trace the origins of life skills in a curriculum that erases history, no doubt because of its use under apartheid to promote apartheid ideology. dixon, janks et al.: a critical analysis of caps for life skills . . . 15 the child of the rncs is not protected from social problems and is expected to know how to protect him/herself from communicable diseases, blood (read: possible hiv infection) and actively make the world a just and fairer place (doe, 2002). although much of this child agency remains in caps, in this more teacher-directed curriculum the actual child is backgrounded. over a period of nearly 40 years what emerges is a range of patterns. the apartheid curriculum’s subjects are strongly classified. even within study of the environment, civics, history, geography, and science are clearly demarcated. this is in stark contrast to c2005 that aimed at integration. in many ways, the collapsing of disciplines into learning areas and the opening of boundaries between them was the start of the erosion of the specificity of disciplinary knowledge. bertram (2009) also notes that in an outcomes-based curriculum knowledge is subsumed by outcomes describing skills and assessment standards. thus, it is not always clear what constitutes specialised knowledge within learning areas. although the rncs was streamlined, some learning areas are more coherent than others. life orientation is the least coherent. here different subjects with their own specialised knowledges are compressed into one learning area. subjects are also compressed into the arts and culture learning area. this continues in the creative arts focus area of life skills in caps, where art (now now called visual arts) is attached to the performing arts—dance, drama, and music. the beginning knowledge focus area is less coherent than creative arts, combining science and social science subjects: geography; history; science; and technology. history, although mentioned, appears as a depleted placeholder. the consequences of combining subjects with vertical and horizontal knowledge structures in one focus area needs further interrogation. despite the explicit moves to change the school curriculum after apartheid ended, despite change across three iterations of curriculum, despite massive shifts in terminology and language, and despite different moves to open or close boundaries between subjects, many of the topics in the apartheid curriculum remain. only religious education and history are more or less discontinued. the general aims in caps stipulate that children will acquire, through explicit teaching outlined by the curriculum, particular yet meaningful knowledge and skills that they will be able to apply (dbe, 2011). life skills has traded subject-specific knowledge for a highly compressed amalgamation of knowledge domains. in addition, life skills, defined as a crosscutting subject, has responsibility for supporting and strengthening the teaching and learning of the languages and mathematics. without an understanding of their history, the organising topics in the life skills curriculum appear to be incoherent and arbitrary. it is clear that over time life skills has become the curriculum container for all subjects (other than maths and language) found in the preceding curricula. these subjects—history and geography, biology and physical science, art, drama, and music, physical education, health education, and personal and social development apparent in the apartheid curriculum, were reconfigured into four learning areas in c2005: social sciences; natural sciences; 16 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 arts and culture; and life orientation. additional learning areas, technology, and economic and management sciences (ems) were also included. in caps all these subjects, except for ems, which was removed, have been compressed into life skills thus blurring the boundaries between them. they have been reconfigured as four sections or focus areas of life skills: beginning knowledge; personal and social well-being; creative arts; and physical education (dbe, 2011). our analysis shows that in losing the specificity of disciplinary knowledge in these different focus areas, particularly beginning knowledge, and in collapsing personal and social wellbeing into one focus area (dbe, 2011), and the creative arts into another, the boundary between everyday and specialised knowledge is weakened. in addition, the compression of all this curriculum content into life skills creates pressures and tensions that affect how teachers and teacher educators work with knowledge and pedagogy. we argue that despite weak classification in the life skills curriculum, teachers still require specialised knowledge of the school subjects that underlie the four knowledge domains in the caps life skills curriculum. the construction of knowledge in the foundation phase life skills curriculum in caps this section describes the four focus areas in the caps life skills curriculum to draw attention to the content overload. the content and concepts of beginning knowledge are taken from the social sciences, namely the disciplines of history and geography and the key concepts for children to understand are conservation, cause and effect, place, adaptation, relationships and interdependence, diversity and individuality, and change. the disciplines of biology and physics underpin beginning knowledge in the natural sciences, which also require conceptual understanding. concepts include life and living, energy and change, matter and materials, and planet earth and beyond. finally, beginning knowledge includes technology. both technology and the natural sciences use methods of enquiry and analysis that range across observation, comparison, classification, measurement, experimentation, and communication. technological process skills involve investigation, evaluation, communication, designing, and making. the second focus area, personal and social well-being, draws from sociology (social health), psychology (emotional health and relationships with people), and natural science and geography (human relationship with the environment) the specified content includes nutrition, diseases, safety, violence, abuse, and environmental health. this part of life skills endeavours to cultivate positive cultural, societal, and patriotic attitudes and values by educating children about their rights and responsibilities based on the constitution. creative arts, the third category in the life skills curriculum, is organised according to two parallel complementary streams—visual and performing arts. while visual art has its own stream, dance, drama, and music share the performing arts stream. four specialised disciplines share this category of life skills with the added responsibility of developing dixon, janks et al.: a critical analysis of caps for life skills . . . 17 children’s fine and gross motor coordination as well as sensory motor skills. this is achieved, for example, in visual art, through manipulating material and mastering many art techniques. the fourth category of life skills is physical education. in caps, physical education is once again separated from other subjects. there is no specification of concepts and the focus is on perceptual and locomotor skills that children must develop, including aspects such as rhythm, balance, and laterality. the separation here is surprising given that this focus is also the responsibility of all the focus areas, particularly the creative arts. what we wish to highlight from this description is how knowledge has been reconfigured in the focus areas, and the nature of the boundaries between specialised knowledges. strong boundaries are boundaries separating the focus areas (depicted as four separate boxes for four separate focus areas in figure 1). weaker boundaries exist between the knowledges in the focus areas, for example between the arts. since the arts share some common features, this makes sense. weak boundaries between the social sciences and the natural sciences make less sense since the sciences have vertical knowledge structures, but the social sciences tend to have horizontal knowledge structures. what is less obvious but open to analysis is the rationale that underlies the division into these focus areas. the disciplines that constitute school subjects in the later phases of the curriculum are gathered together in beginning knowledge. history and geography are the named social sciences that belong to beginning knowledge. personal and social well-being is more concerned with everyday knowledge, which is appropriate in the foundation phase given that everyday knowledge in relation to health, relationships, and the environment still needs to be consolidated. the underlying social science disciplines of psychology and sociology that teachers need in order to work with this category are rendered invisible. the creative arts are constructed as the space for creativity and the development of the physical and perceptual skills needed for engaging in creative activity—making and performance. art, drama, music, and dance are not conceived of as disciplines in this curriculum. finally, physical education concentrates on developing children’s perceptual skills as well as their fine and gross motor skills and their co-ordination. the knowledge of sports science, anatomy, and developmental psychology needed for teaching this focus area is not considered. it is therefore clear that the life skills curriculum concerns itself with what children need to know and it obscures the disciplinary knowledge that teachers need to have in order to teach this curriculum. this has huge implications for teacher education. the density of the life skills curriculum, which depends on specialised knowledge drawn from a range of disciplines, mitigates against effective teaching. without disciplinary knowledge, teachers are likely to focus on arbitrary unconnected facts rather than concepts, to rely on everyday knowledge, and to perpetuate misconceptions (van deventer, 2009). the lack of specialised disciplinary knowledge produces surface knowledge teaching instead of deep knowledge transfer (hoadley & jansen, 2009). the boundaries that define subjects as particular disciplines with a unique set of principles undergirded by certain epistemological orientations are blurred, if not rendered invisible in the subject area life skills. the specificity of different disciplinary lenses that have different objects of enquiry, methods of 18 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 analysis, and criteria for truth claims is lost. so too are the grammars that connect specialised concepts to one another to form a coherent system. if teachers are not themselves schooled in the languages of the disciplines that underpin life skills, they are not able to give children access to them, nor are they able to help them understand how different parts of the system relate to one another. there are no ordering principles and there is no logic of progression. without access to concepts, children are more likely to draw on their common sense everyday knowledge, which, depending on their life experience, could be quite limited. specialist knowledge that underpins life skills in order to understand the specialist disciplinary knowledge learners need to acquire in the foundation phase to prepare them for the demands of the intermediate phase, we interviewed disciplinary specialists in the wits school of education. we asked each specialist to respond to this question: “what skills, knowledge and attitudes do teachers need to teach children in the foundation phase, that will prepare them for learning your subject in the intermediate phase?” interviews were conducted with one lecturer from history, geography, visual arts, music, and physical education, and two from science. these interviews were rich with examples of the necessary discipline specific foundational concepts (e.g., from geography space and scale; from history stereotypes; from science mass and volume), procedures (e.g., observing, measuring, recording), and experiences (e.g., in science of “changing the properties of objects —hot to cold, solid to liquid, fast to slow”; in history thinking about events from different perspectives; in music singing). they also provided examples of the kinds of misconceptions that must be unlearned if teaching is based on everyday knowledge (e.g., that the night sky is static, that north is up, that the sun has to be drawn as a circle with spikes). the themes that emerge from these interviews cut across the different focus areas and specialised knowledge domains. first is that it is more important to teach the basic concepts, skills, and dispositions that underpin a particular discipline than quantities of superficial factual knowledge. factual knowledge can be acquired if and when it is needed. an example of this would be for children to understand that the world is round, and where south africa is situated on the globe, rather than rote-learning the names of the nine provinces. this implies moving beyond everyday knowledge to core concepts, introducing concepts in a logical progression so that they build upon one another and lay a foundation to support work in the intermediate and senior phases. second is the role of pedagogy. the lecturers agree that the young child needs to experience, observe, and experiment in a structured way, often beginning with the children’s lives and their experiences, in order to develop the necessary skills, concepts, and dispositions. an example of this would be to have children make an outline of their bodies on paper and then compare this to a photograph, in order to develop concepts such as 3d/2d representation, scale, and symbolic representation. another example would be to read stories from different dixon, janks et al.: a critical analysis of caps for life skills . . . 19 perspectives such as the traditional tale of the three little pigs versus a wolf’s tale (montanari, 1998), as part of developing historical literacy. finally, the lecturers all believe that developing children’s conceptual understanding is underpinned by the teacher’s own knowledge. without some in-depth understanding of the core skills, knowledge, and attitudes required in a discipline, lessons depend on the rotelearning of facts, sometimes with incorrect concepts being entrenched. in other words, the teacher’s own specialised knowledge in the disciplines of history, geography, science, and/or the arts is crucial. this specialised knowledge gives teachers the ability to focus on core concepts, make good choices regarding methodology, and move between specialised and everyday knowledge when needed (bernstein 1996; hugo, 2013). krishna’s (2013) research indicates that teachers are unable to do this. the life skills curriculum does not provide an outline or suggested sequence of the core concepts, skills, and attitudes required in each of these disciplines (see malan’s 2014 course outline for music), nor any guidance regarding teaching methods (bernstein, 1996), a problem raised by beni et al. (2017). the challenge of teaching life skills there are a number of challenges for teachers of life skills. the first and most important is acquiring the specialist knowledge needed to teach the content and discipline-heavy curriculum. it took us, an experienced group of foundation phase teacher educators and researchers, a long time to make sense of this highly compressed curriculum and this makes us wonder if teachers are able to unpack it in ways that go beyond seeing it as a list of topics to be covered. just because the disciplines are backgrounded in the curriculum this does not mean that teachers do not need disciplinary knowledge. the range of disciplines that inform the life skills focus areas require teachers to have both depth in and breadth of the specialised knowledges that underpin these topics. if they do not have a wide range of specialist knowledges, they are likely to focus on unsystematically organised facts and content, rather than on concepts, languages, and procedures that have a logical progression internal to the disciplines that make up life skills. second, teachers have to understand the difference between everyday and specialised knowledge to support children’s transition from experientially based understanding to a more systematised conceptual understanding (hugo, 2013). one way of working with knowledge in the curriculum is to separate everyday experience and specialised knowledge (hugo, 2013) so as to establish solid boundaries between them. the placement of the foundation phase between the preschool years and the intermediate phase also affects the ways in which everyday and specialised knowledge are conceptualised. the differing ideologies and pedagogies of these phases contribute to the challenge. education in the early years is usually underpinned by an informal approach to teaching and learning but during the foundation phase children need to be comfortable with a more formal and structured approach. ideally, the grade r year serves as a bridge between informal education, which promotes an emergent curriculum that foregrounds developmentally 20 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 appropriate and contextually relevant practices (excell & linington, 2011), and formal education (dbe, 2011) with more scientific context-independent activities and practices (hugo, 2013) teachers have to negotiate the push from below of playful, experiential pedagogies, where incidental learning is firmly located in the everyday, and the pull from above of the intermediate phase where, for the most part, pedagogy is far more teacher directed and instruction orientated, where firm boundaries exist between specialised and everyday knowledge, and where the curriculum is strongly framed (house, 2011). the implications for teacher education that foundation phase teachers are generalists does not mean that when they are taught to work with disciplinary material they should be taught by generalist teacher educators. they need to be taught by disciplinary specialists so that they might become generalists with the expert knowledge they need to teach elementary knowledge across the disciplines. preservice foundation phase life skills teachers should be able to research any topic from the perspective of different disciplines. they need an ability to imagine what would be of interest to a geographer, a historian, a scientist, or a technology expert with regard to topics such as transport or the seasons. put more simply, they need to know what each of the disciplines can teach us about a topic and how to do the necessary research to teach the necessary elementary content. they need sufficient understanding of the grammar and ordering principles of the discipline to be able to work out which concepts, skills, and dispositions children need to develop to work with curriculum content and be able to help children pursue ideas in which they express interest. foundation phase teachers must be able to provide children with the tools, the language, and the procedures they need to develop their ability to reason scientifically, creatively, historically and so forth, to apply their knowledge to a range of topics and problems. where knowledge is presented as random bits of information on seemingly arbitrary topics, without system or logic, and where reasoning is not taught, children are forced to rely on rote learning. education needs to produce students who can reason and think, and who are capable of independent, agentive work. teacher education has the onerous task of preparing foundation phase teachers to teach a wide range of subjects that require specialised knowledge. most university qualifications limit the range of disciplines in which students can specialise to ensure sufficient depth of understanding. foundation phase teachers must have breadth in addition to some depth. it is simply not possible to cover all the content topics included in the foundation phase curriculum in teacher preparation courses. there is just too much, and there is no guarantee that these topics will remain stable. instead, the focus should be on the disciplinary ways of seeing and reasoning, sufficient for teachers to do the research needed to prepare good lessons. teachers have to understand enough of each discipline’s language, tools, and concepts to investigate a topic using a range of disciplinary lenses. dixon, janks et al.: a critical analysis of caps for life skills . . . 21 this is the challenge that confronts teacher educators charged with the responsibility of preparing teachers to work with the life skills curriculum and the challenge that confronts teachers already working in the system. how we all meet this challenge will determine whether or not children have a solid foundation on which to build the skills they need for life. references beni, s., stears, m., & james, a., (2017). foundation phase teachers’ interpretation of the life skills programme with regard to the teaching of natural 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(1971). class, codes and control. london, uk: routledge & megan paul. bernstein, b. (1996). pedagogy, symbolic control, and identity: theory, research. london, uk: roman & littlefield. bernstein, b. (1999). vertical and horizontal discourses: an essay. british journal of sociology education, 20(2), 157–173. bertram, c. (2009). procedural and substantive knowledge: some implications of an outcomes based history curriculum in south africa. southern african review of education, 15(1), 45–62. bertram, c. (2011). what does research say about teacher learning and teacher knowledge? implications for professional development in south africa. journal of education, 52, 3–26. bertram, c. (2016). recontextualising principles for the selection, sequencing and progression of history knowledge in four school curricula. journal of education 64, 27–54. bertram, c., & barath, p. (2011). specialised knowledge and everyday knowledge in old and new grade 6 history textbooks. education as change, 15(1), 63–80. cleophas, f. (2104). let’s get moving on physical education. retrieved from https://www.iol.co.za/news/opinion/lets-get-moving-on-physical-education-1728775 department of education. (1997). curriculum 2005. pretoria, south africa: department of education. department of education. (2002). revised national curriculum statement. pretoria, south afrcia: department of education. department of basic education. (2011). curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps). pretoria, south africa: department of basic education. 22 journal of education, no. 71, 2018 dowling, p. (1998). the sociology of mathematics education. mathematical myths/pedagogic texts. london, uk: falmer. excell, l., & linington, v. (2011). move to literacy: fanning emergent literacy in early childhood education in a pedagogy of play. south african journal for early childhood, 1(1), 1–23. hartshorne, k. (1992). crisis and challenge: black education 1910–1990. oxford, uk: oxford university press. hoadley, u., & jansen, j. (2009). curriculum: organising knowledge for the classroom. cape town, south africa: oxford university press & saide. house, r. (2011). too much too soon? early learning and the erosion of childhood. stroud, uk: hawthorne press. hugo, w. (2013). cracking the code to educational analysis. cape town, south africa: pearson. hyslop, j. (1999). the classroom struggle: policy and resistance in south africa, 1940–1990. durban, south africa: kwazulu-natal press. johnson, k., dempster, e., & hugo, w. (2015). exploring the recontextualisation of biology in the caps for life sciences. journal of education, 60, 101–121. krishna, a. (2013). from obe to caps: educators’ experiences of the new life skills curriculum in the foundation phase (unpublished med report). university of kwazulu-natal, south africa. kros, c. (2010). the seeds of separate development. pretoria, south africa: university of south africa press. malan, m. (2014). musical understanding: an analysis of the creative arts caps outline for the foundation phase (unpublished med report). university of stellenbosch, south africa. mosia, d. (2011). how secondary school teachers understand, respond to and implement life orientation (unpublished doctoral dissertation). university of pretoria, south africa. montanari, e. (1998). a wolf’s tale. albury, uk: albury books. nkondo, c. (1979). comparison of the syllabus of the bantu education department with that of the transvaal education department and other related matters. retrieved from http://www.disa.ukzn.ac.za/webpages/dc/rejul79.8/rejul79.8.pdf dixon, janks et al.: a critical analysis of caps for life skills . . . 23 peden, m. (2015) education for sustainable agriculture: the old and new curricula for agricultural sciences in south african schools. journal of education, 60, 64–99. schudel, i. (2014). exploring a knowledge-focused trajectory for researching environmental learning in the south african curriculum. southern african journal of environmental education, 30, 96–116. sheldon, m. (2015). life skills in the foundation phase: a multiple case study into how life skills is enacted in two grade 3 classrooms in johannesburg (unpublished master’s research report). university of the witwatersrand, south africa. steyn, m., schuld, n., & hartell, c. (2012). a bird’s eye view on the status of the module “life skills’ in the foundation phase at higher education institutions in south africa. south african journal of childhood education, 2(2),158–176. van deventer, k. (2009). perspectives of teachers on the implementation of life orientation in grades r–11 from selected western cape schools. south african journal of education, 29, 127–145. world health organisation. (1999). partners in life skills education: conclusions from a united nations inter-agency meeting. geneva, switzerland: department of mental health. retrieved from http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/en/30.pdf microsoft word b86 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 86, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i86a09 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x effects of armed conflicts on teaching and learning: perspectives of secondary school teachers in cameroon michael ntui agbor department of educational foundations administration, faculty of education, university of buea, buea, cameroon amntui@yahoo.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8228-6433 mercy aki etta department of educational foundations administration, faculty of education, university of buea, buea, cameroon etta.mercy@ubuea.cm https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8509-391x hannah mbua etonde regional delegation, secondary education, cameroon etonmbua@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5129-9856 (received: 16 july 2021; accepted: 8 february 2022) abstract the ongoing armed conflict in cameroon has resulted in thousands of attacks on schools, yet education cannot wait for conflict to stop. this study sought to determine the effects of the ongoing armed conflict on classroom activities in operational schools in affected areas in cameroon. using a mixed method sequential exploratory design, qualitative data were collected from 19 teachers through open-ended questions and analysed using thematic analysis. qualitative findings were used to design a questionnaire, administered to 652 teachers, and analysed using multiple response and the chi-square and equality of proportion test. findings presented indicate that attendance, content delivery, safety, discipline, and assessment have been significantly hampered. however, classroom attendance was most significantly (p = .001) affected, disrupting teaching and evaluation with differing effects found across locations and school types. it was concluded that teaching and learning activities are ineffective and may result in further damaging effects—requiring more practical actions on school sites. keywords: armed conflict, teaching, learning, schools, cameroon agbor et al.: effects of armed conflicts on teaching and learning 165 introduction the importance of education as a key tool to accentuate individual and national development has long been recognised, but rising conflicts in our societies today threaten the roles that educational systems play in this development process. armed conflicts are one of the leading types of conflicts affecting education globally and sub-saharan africa is historically the most affected conflict area in the world. for instance, statistics presented by palik et al. (2020) indicated that between 1946 and 2019, there have been an estimated 290 cases of armed conflicts around the world with africa alone having a share of 101 of these armed conflicts. recently, cameroon joined other sub-saharan countries (such as congo, nigeria, cote d’ivoire) in experiencing ongoing armed conflict. within approximately five years, the armed conflict in cameroon led to about 80% of the schools being closed with more than 300 teachers and children abducted (unicef, 2019). a recent report from global coalition to protect education from attack (2020) indicated that there have been more than 8,300 attacks on students, teachers, and other school personnel between 2015 and 2019. nonetheless, initiatives and advocacy such as education cannot wait (www.educationcannotwait.org) have placed central importance on education even in crisis areas, providing impetus for schooling to persist even during armed conflicts. these constant armed conflicts have engendered increased research interest on the causes and effects of armed conflicts in sub-saharan africa. however, earlier studies concentrated on the effects of armed conflicts on learners and children as articulated by these learners, including what happens outside the classroom. for instance, studies have focused on the educational outcomes of learners (akresh & de walque, 2008; shemyakina, 2011) and children’s wellbeing (winthrop & kirk, 2008). most of these studies focused on basic education (buckland, 2005), but there is need for a balance of priorities across all levels of education because they form part of the global vision and play key roles in realising this vision. effects of armed conflict on teaching and learning conflicts are prolonged or extended frictions or disagreements amongst individuals or groups of individuals and can escalate into armed conflicts. the international committee of the red cross (2008) described armed conflicts as protracted armed confrontations between two or more states (international), or between governmental armed forces and those of one or more organised armed groups with a minimum level of intensity (non-international). the armed conflict in cameroon is between an organised group of “separatist fighters” and government armed forces. research related to armed conflicts has focused on the effects of armed conflicts on children’s educational outcomes (akresh & de walque, 2008; shemyakina, 2011), children’s well-being (winthrop & kirk, 2008), enrolment, and so forth, with the process of teaching only as a secondary indicator—limiting empirical evidence about what happens in the classroom with regard to teaching during armed conflicts. within these discourses, elements related to teachers and teaching activities in the classroom can be found. for instance, buckland (2005) identified common problems associated with post-conflict areas such as chronic shortages of teachers because of the killings during conflicts, and an 166 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 under-supply of qualified teachers and teacher absenteeism—giving impetus for the need to study teaching processes during ongoing conflicts to alleviate the negative effects at post conflict stages. cervantes-duarte and fernandez-cano (2016) provided an underlying reason for teacher absenteeism, citing teachers’ fear of going to work as one of the leading effects of armed conflicts and resulting in reduced staff and increased teacher/pupil ratio. similarly, jones and naylor (2014) indicated fear, displacement, and recruitment of teachers into the armed force as effects of armed conflicts. while these results help us understand teachers’ dispositions, they limit an understanding of what happens in the classrooms of schools that continue to operate in communities of ongoing conflict. empirical evidence from cameroon alludes to some of these effects as well, for instance, akame et al. (2021) reported that between 2017 and 2019, 42 schools were attacked with about 305 students, teachers, and principals being abducted and killed in the affected regions. cameroon endorsed the safe schools declaration (https://ssd.protectingeducation.org) in 2018, showing its commitment to safeguard learning during this period of crisis but many of the guidelines are yet to be put in place. schools remain unsafe, for instance, a world report in 2020 indicated that armed forces in cameroon had occupied school buildings (human rights watch, 2020). this situation has resulted in decreased enrolment, fear, panic, and the propagation of misinformation, which hampers the functioning of the school system (akame et al., 2021). these evidences have been able to chart the events following the crisis in cameroon but there is a gap to be filled about how teachers experience these events daily as those who are central to the teaching and learning process. teachers may be going through serious psychological traumas that could leave them demoralised and unproductive in the classroom; and, in worst cases, they might leave the job. in formal education, learning is inextricably linked to teaching, therefore, teachers are instrumental in the educational process even in conflict areas. understanding what happens in the classroom during ongoing conflicts, and how teachers perceive the effects of armed conflicts on teaching and learning processes in the classroom, can paint a picture of teaching and learning during armed conflicts and indicate key areas where interventions could be introduced to support the continuation of education in conflict-affected areas. to fill that gap, our study used a mixed method approach to analyse the perceived effects of the armed conflict on teaching in the two affected regions in cameroon with the aim of answering two questions: 1. in what ways has the crisis affected teaching in secondary schools as perceived by teachers in the north west and south west regions of cameroon? 2. how prevalent are these effects among teachers in the north west and south west regions of cameroon? understanding the armed conflict in cameroon cameroon is a country in sub-saharan africa with a colonial heritage that is bilingual (english and french). for ease of understanding, there is an english cameroon (anglophone) and a french cameroon (francophone). however, of the 10 regions in cameroon, english cameroon is dominantly made up of two regions, the north west and south west regions of agbor et al.: effects of armed conflicts on teaching and learning 167 cameroon. these two regions are considered the minority group in the country and it is this perception of marginalisation which has led to a full-blown crisis (kouega, 2018) now referred to as the anglophone crisis. the anglophone crisis started with a strike orchestrated by teachers and lawyers in october 2016. with specific emphasis on schooling activities in the area, this strike called for a complete shutdown of schools in these regions. from the teacher/lawyer strike, the demand for separation arose, creating conflicts between those who were demanding separation—the “separatist group”—and government. over the last five years, the situation has gradually escalated into a crisis characterised by an armed conflict with schools as targets. similarly, the initial shutdown has gradually progressed to intimidation and in some places, further complete shutdowns of schooling for primary, secondary, and tertiary learners. it is worth noting that these shutdowns of major schooling activities and incessant attacks on schools are happening only in the english-speaking regions. at present, mondays are permanently without school activities in these regions although, in some urban areas, timorous activity can be seen. schooling has become problematic in this area because many schools have been burnt down, others have become avenues for kidnappers to make money from ransoms, and some are simply inaccessible due to the uncertainties and high degree of insecurity. this is the situation today in the anglophone regions where schools have been closed due to constant shootings, kidnapping, and killing of school children and teachers as well as parents and civilians in the affected areas. to further explain these realities, it is worth noting that wearing a school uniform, identifying one’s self as a teacher, going to school buildings, or attending planning meetings, target one for death. this burden has been felt by the educational community and all stakeholders of the schools. our study aims to provide an understanding of the effects of armed conflict on teaching as perceived by teachers in these affected regions. research methods research design our study employed a mixed method sequential exploratory design consisting of two distinct phases: a qualitative phase followed by a quantitative phase (creswell & plano clark, 2017). in phase 1, qualitative data were collected from 19 teachers through open-ended questions regarding the perceived effects of the conflict (anglophone crisis) on their teaching. in phase 2, recurrent themes from the qualitative findings were used to develop a survey that was administered to 652 teachers across the north west (287) and south west (365) regions of cameroon. this approach was used because of the limited empirical data on the effects of the crisis on teaching in the context of cameroon, which made it difficult for researchers to ascertain what constructs were the most important to study. using mixed method sequential exploratory design therefore allowed us to identify key effects of the crisis that could be generalised to teachers in the affected regions. 168 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 sample the teachers in the study comprised 671 secondary school teachers drawn from an overall population of about 19,000 teachers; they participated in a qualitative phase (19) and in a quantitative phase (652). teachers were selected through a multistage sampling method that employed purposive and snowballing sampling techniques to select them for the qualitative phase. in the quantitative phase, random sampling was employed to select teachers from a list of operational secondary schools obtained from the representatives of secondary education in the affected areas. for both phases, teachers were drawn from the two affected regions in cameroon; all teachers therefore included those who worked in one of these two regions only. all school types (public, confessional, and lay private) were taken into consideration. instruments interviews and questionnaires were the principal instruments used for data collection, respectively, for both phases. questionnaire items were developed from a thematic analysis of the qualitative data and were pilot-tested with 30 teachers who did not participate in the final study. the questionnaire was in the form of a likert scale instrument and measured six themes (emanating from the qualitative data) including teachers’ safety, delivery of content, classroom discipline, assessment, attendance, and professional development. before final administration of the questionnaire, reliability quotient had a cronbach alpha index of 0.806— considered satisfactory given that the internal consistency assumption was not violated. data analysis qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis. responses to the open-ended questions were transcribed into text, and the text was categorised and labelled. each category was further grouped and regrouped into themes and sub-themes along with relevant quotes. this process allowed us to develop themes that became constructs representing the perceived effects of the armed conflict. these themes and sub-themes were used to develop a likert scale quantitative instrument that ascertained the prevalence of these effects across teachers in the north west and south west regions of cameroon. quantitative data were analysed through spss 21.0 software where data were entered, sorted, and missing entries set as missing values. descriptive statistics were acquired through frequencies and multiple response analysis. the chi-square test of independence and equality of proportion was also used to measure the extent to which perceptions depended on demographic characteristics, and to find significant differences across teachers in the north west and south west regions, respectively. findings the study employed an exploratory sequential mixed method approach. data were collected from 671 teachers to explore the perceived effects of the armed conflict and the prevalence of its effects on classroom teaching practices in cameroon. findings are presented for both agbor et al.: effects of armed conflicts on teaching and learning 169 qualitative and quantitative data. demographic information relating to the respondents is shown in figure 1. figure 1 demographic data of respondents figure 1 indicates that teachers’ demographics were representative of school types, age groups, certificate levels, and both affected regions. specifically, the study was dominantly characterised by teachers from public schools (87.48%) with professional certificates (89.3%), and experienced (above 5 years of teaching experience—56.3%). the majority of the teachers were male (59.2%) and aged between 26 and 35 years (52.9%). similarly, schools from both affected regions were represented with proportions of 44.0% of schools in the north west region and 56.0% of schools in the south west region. type of institution public confessional lay private type of certificate non-professional professional certificate level 0-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21 and above years of experience 16-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 55 and above age location of school south west north west gender females males 170 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 in terms of teachers’ regions of origin, findings indicated that most of the teachers came from the affected regions with 61.7% from north west, 28.8% from south other regions in cameroon. table 1 joint display of the effects of the armed conflict on teaching in affected areas main qualitative findings themes codes teachers’ safety tensed work environment fear of identity increased harassment and threats content delivery an incomplete syllabus coverage limited followstudents limited classroom interactions classroom attendance irregularity in student/teacher attendance increase/decrease in class sizes students/teachers are unpunctual classroom discipline increased disruptive behaviour fear of harassment increased student anonymity classroom assessment dominant use of summative assessments poor performances too little content for evaluation professional development decreased professional development activities technical leave lost a permanent job internally displaced journal of education, no. 86, 2022 in terms of teachers’ regions of origin, findings indicated that most of the teachers came from the affected regions with 61.7% from north west, 28.8% from south west and 9.5% from joint display of the effects of the armed conflict on teaching in affected areas main qualitative findings main quantitative findings codes scale = likert scale figure 2 satisfaction of teaching during the crisis fear of identity increased harassment an incomplete syllabus up of limited classroom student/teacher increase/decrease in students/teachers are increased disruptive fear of harassment increased student dominant use of summative assessments poor performances too little content for decreased professional development activities meta-interpretation the effects of the armed conflict on teaching in the affected regions are high and negatively affecting the process of teaching and this view is prevalent amongst teachers across different institutions and locations. technical leave lost a permanent job internally displaced 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 57.4 55.1 37.4 31.1 23.8 p e r c e n t overall satisfaction of teaching activities as a result of the armed conflict in terms of teachers’ regions of origin, findings indicated that most of the teachers came from west and 9.5% from main quantitative findings scale = likert scale the effects of the armed conflict on teaching in the affected regions are high and negatively affecting the process of teaching and this view is prevalent amongst teachers across different institutions and locations. 23.8 23.2 38 overall satisfaction of teaching activities as a result of the armed agbor et al.: effects of armed conflicts on teaching and learning 171 when teachers were asked about how the armed conflict was affecting their roles of teaching in the classroom, qualitative findings revealed six core themes along with sub-categories that were used to develop a likert scale questionnaire. consequently, it was hypothesised that safety, content delivery, classroom attendance, discipline, assessment, and professional development will not be significantly affected by the armed conflict in the affected regions. findings revealed that teaching is indeed negatively and significantly affected as can be seen in the joint display in table 1 (incorporating figure 2). qualitative findings revealed six themes (table 1) that captured teachers’ responses about how the armed conflict has affected their teaching. teachers viewed these effects as negative and these perceived effects were prevalent amongst teachers in both affected regions. of the six themes, classroom attendance, delivery of content, safety, and classroom discipline were dominantly indicated by teachers as aspects of teaching most affected (see figure 2 incorporated into table 1). these qualitative findings were consistent with the quantitative findings. however, teachers’ levels of dissatisfaction were higher on the measurements of classroom attendance, content delivery, safety, discipline, professional development, and assessment as elaborated in the next six sections. classroom attendance qualitative findings revealed that respondents perceived poor classroom attendance as a major effect of the crisis. poor classroom attendance was characterised by learners and teachers’ irregularity, increased or decreased class sizes, and lateness, amongst others that frequently emerged from teachers’ responses. for instance, three of the teachers expressing irregularity in classroom attendance said: no matter how prepared, i am for my lesson, it still does not suffice because those i teach today, i might not meet in class the next day. the uncertainties are too high. neither the teachers nor students have been consistently present, on my part, i do not go to school regularly. frequent ghost towns, killings and kidnappings make students to delay in registering so students start school late, it just makes one weak. these teachers indicated that attendance is irregular, thus, limiting consistency in classroom activities. problems of classroom attendance were also seen from the angle of class sizes. for some teachers, class sizes were increased and for others, there was a decrease because of the crisis. indicating an increase in class sizes, some teachers said: the classes are now so populated making teaching and assessment very tedious. class sizes are increasing and thereby increasing workload for teachers whose schools are operational. 172 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 however, others indicated that their problem was rather one of the limited class sizes as indicated in the following quote: our numbers are quite low and many available are hardly consistent in their attendance in summary, the qualitative findings indicated that classroom attendance is irregular and inconsistent because both teachers and students are variously absent, irregular, or unpunctual. when these effects were further tested to determine the prevalence, quantitative findings revealed that teachers were significantly (p = .001) more dissatisfied with the state of classroom attendance during this crisis period, with a weight of unsatisfactory of 76.8% as against 23.2% for satisfactory. these findings remained the same even when teachers’ demographics were taken into consideration (see figure 3). figure 3 classroom attendance is characterised by teachers and students’ irregularity and inconsistency specifically, when the results were collapsed, findings indicated that majority of the teachers complained of the fact that punctuality had dropped during the crisis 95.1% (620). and they themselves have not been consistently present to teach their lessons through the crisis 91.4% (596). teachers also indicated that majority of the students have been irregular for classes, 87.9% (573), and 80.8% (527) acknowledged that they have equally been irregular. however, when the differences in class sizes were considered, findings rather indicated that class sizes have reduced as 81.7% (533) disagreed with the view that their class sizes have increased during the crisis. 0 100 200 300 400 500 teacher is irregular students are regular consistently taught all lessons punctual to classes increased class sizes what is the situation of classroom attendance during the armed conflict? strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree agbor et al.: effects of armed conflicts on teaching and learning 173 content delivery another component of armed conflict effects captured from the qualitative findings was content delivery, and the teachers indicated incomplete syllabus coverage, limited follow-up, and classroom interactions, amongst others. for instance, a teacher expressing incomplete syllabus coverage indicated the following: since the start of the crisis, every year i don’t succeed to complete my syllabus, i have hardly been able due to the on/off nature of the schooling period. another participant expressing limited follow-up said: one is always in a rush to leave class because of the fear of the unknown so it’s difficult to really follow up students and doing so out of school as before is too risky. others indicated that there was a rush to complete the syllabus as indicated in these quotes: teaching has been less effective because we have to hasten studies due to frequent ghost towns, killings and kidnappings. teaching now is all about rushing to cover as much material as possible in the shortest time. figure 4 content delivery is ineffective in summary, the qualitative findings indicated that content delivery is poor, characterised by uncompleted syllabi associated with irregularity in classroom attendance as well as limited follow-up associated with fear. when these effects were further tested quantitatively, findings revealed that, in aggregate, teachers were significantly dissatisfied (p = .001) with their content delivery during the crisis with a weight of 76.2%. this finding was not dependent on any demographic factor, thus implying that the dissatisfaction was unanimously perceived. 0 100 200 300 400 unable to complete syllabus irregular class activities limited follow-up of students rushing over content more committed in lesson preparation what is the nature of content delivery? strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 174 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 teachers dominantly agreed that since the start of the crisis, they have been unable to complete their syllabus, class activities have been irregular, and there have been limited classroom interactions as shown in figure 4. when the results were collapsed, findings indicated that the majority of teachers agreed that, since the start of the crisis, they have been unable to complete their syllabus 91.0% (593), class activities have been irregular 88.8% (578), there have been limited classroom interactions 79.7% (519), and with little follow-up of students during the crisis 75.6% (493). they have been rushing through their content to ensure completion 68.5% (446) and 53.7% (350) of teachers have been less committed in preparing their lessons. safety teachers also raised issues of safety as effects of the crisis. the most recurring challenges here included increased fear, anxiety, harassment, and threats (see table 1). some of the teachers expressing fear of teacher identity indicated the following: i teach in fear of the unknown and cannot allow myself to be identified as a teacher in my community because it is not safe. i am not proud of being a teacher in [region withheld] region because i work in fear and under tensed teaching environments. the least awkward sound leads to panic amongst us, especially when inside a class because shooting can happen at any time; school grounds are unsafe. expressing fear of harassment and threats, some teachers indicated: i am not motivated to teach because of constant threats i have faced. i am not really focused when teaching because those boys don’t want to catch one in school. quantitative findings revealed that teachers generally felt unsafe teaching, and this finding was significant (p = .001). however, when teachers’ demographics were considered, a slight significant difference (p = .035) was found between locations of schools; teachers from the north west felt more unsafe than those from the south west regions. teachers were less satisfied with safety during this crisis period, with a weight of 68.9% as against 31.1% for satisfied. a more detailed view of these findings is presented in figure 5. specifically, teachers complained of the working environment being too tense 95.5% (611), they were in fear of being identified as a teacher within the community 95.2% (621), they teach in fear 95.1% (620), and have been harassed because they are teaching during the crisis 60.9% (397). many were more anxious due to teaching during the crisis 36.3% (237) and 30.9% (201) experienced increased threats from their students. agbor et al.: effects of armed conflicts on teaching and learning 175 figure 5 teachers do not feel safe while teaching in the crisis classroom discipline the crisis has also affected classroom discipline, and our qualitative findings revealed that there was increased disruptive behaviour, threats, and student anonymity. for instance, expressing low levels of discipline, one of the teachers noted: for fear of the unknown, i have hardly disciplined students despite the rise of deviant behaviours like drug abuse. similarly, expressing the difficulty associated with discipline due to increased anonymity, another said the following: we face problems on daily basis in classroom management as we don’t know who is who and you can risk it by instilling discipline increased threats were also recorded by teachers indicating: i can’t discipline students because they threaten teachers. discipline now is risky for a teacher i don’t know, maybe it is better in private schools but public schools, it is difficult as i cannot adequately discipline a student because students’ threaten teachers i apply a lot of caution because disciplining students leads to confrontations and they say: i will see you in the quarter. 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 work environment is tensed afraid to identify self as teacher teach in fear harassed because of teaching anxious teaching during the crisis experience increased threats how safe do teachers feel? strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 176 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 quantitative findings equally revealed that teachers were not satisfied with the state of discipline in the current situation, and this finding was significant (p = .001). similarly, significant differences were across institutions and school locations. indiscipline was more evident in the north west (p = .019) than in the south west region and in public schools (p = .035) than in confessional and lay private schools. specific findings are presented in figure 6. figure 6 teachers do not ensure adequate discipline teachers agreed that during this crisis, they have been afraid of disciplining students in their classrooms 83.6% (544), and some were unable to ensure discipline in their classroom due to the fear of harassment 73.7% (480). some 77.1% (503) of respondents complained of increased disruptive behaviour and about an increased rate of anonymity distorting discipline 70.2% (458). also, 38.9% (253) teachers had been threatened by students because they were disciplined. compared to classroom attendance, content delivery, safety and discipline, teachers perceived lower negative effects of the armed conflict on professional development and assessment. professional development qualitative findings revealed that teachers’ professional development was affected because some lost their jobs or were placed on a technical leave, while others have been internally displaced, for instance, a teacher said: i had to relocate and find another job because for the past two years, my school has not been functional. 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 afraid of disciplining students unable to ensure discipline due to fear of harassment increased disruptive behaviors increased anonymity threatened by students do teachers ensure discipline adequately in the classroom? strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree agbor et al.: effects of armed conflicts on teaching and learning 177 similarly, teachers reported participating in limited professional activities during this period. some teachers said the following: i have not attended any seminar or workshop during this time. i do not see any growth in my professional development as i have not attended any seminar all through this period. our quantitative findings also revealed the prevalence of these effects of the armed conflict, and indicated that compared to attendance, safety, discipline and content delivery, teachers were significantly (p = .001) more satisfied with their professional development during this crisis period with a weight of satisfactory of 55.1% against 44.9% for unsatisfactory. however, slight differences were found between the location of schools, and teachers in the south west were more satisfied than were those in the north west region. regardless of the situation, teachers confirmed that they have developed professional competencies through online training during this period 57.5% (375), despite many of them having been internally displaced 50.9% (331). contrary to the qualitative findings, the loss of a permanent job or being placed on technical leave were not prevalent effects noted by teachers. these results are presented in figure 7. figure 7 professional development conditions during the crisis classroom assessment qualitative findings indicated that classroom assessment relied predominantly on summative rather than formative assessments because too little content was covered to adequately evaluate students. some of the teachers indicated the following: most at times, i use only summative assessments because of limited time. 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 developed more competencies internally displaced placed on a technical leave lost a permanent job how are teachers experiencing professional development? strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 178 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 i evaluate in consideration of prevailing problems since we don’t cover much and students don’t read much as well. we sometimes join second and third term assessment test to give results and promote students to the next class. assessing students is quite a challenge because little has been taught expressing fear in assessment, another indicated that: when students fail, it’s risky because they can attack you. figure 8 assessment conditions during the crisis however, quantitative findings revealed that teachers were most satisfied with the state of classroom assessment as chi-square analysis revealed that there was a significant (p = .001) level of satisfaction with a weight of satisfactory of 57.4% as against 42.6% for unsatisfactory. this finding was unanimous even when demographic factors were considered. specifically, even though teachers predominantly agreed that students’ performances are poorer 89.7% (584), and very little material is covered to allow for assessment 57.8% (377), most felt that they were able to give constructive feedback 83.9% (547). teachers largely disagreed with the view that they predominantly use summative assessments, and most disagreed that they do not fail students for fear of harassment or that their class sizes have become too large for adequate evaluation (figure 3). discussion of findings the teachers perceived six key indicators (classroom attendance, content delivery, safety, classroom discipline, professional development, and classroom assessment) as being 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 students' performances are poorer teachers provide constructive feedbacks little material is covered to allow for assesment do not fail students for fear of harrassment dominantly use only summative evaluations what is the extent to which assessment is affected? strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree agbor et al.: effects of armed conflicts on teaching and learning 179 significantly hampered in the continuation of schooling during the ongoing armed conflict. while these effects are prevalent and teachers from both regions were dissatisfied with the teaching process in the classroom, teachers from the north west region are more significantly affected by safety issues, problems associated with managing discipline in the classroom, and professional development. this finding can be related to the fact that the north west region has suffered more attacks than the south west region. further and continual attacks on schools therefore have the potential of increasing disruptive behaviour that can become pervasive among students and hinder the goals of education. public schools experience greater problems of indiscipline compared to private schools. it is worth noting that all classroom practices identified are interrelated and critical to the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process, therefore, effects on any will detrimentally affect the others. the most significant effects of the conflict are on classroom attendance in terms of irregularity in attendance of both teachers and students, together with a decrease in punctuality. our findings confirm those of cervantes-duarte and fernandez-cano (2016), which indicated that teacher absenteeism was a leading consequence of armed conflicts. class attendance can foster interactions that could support students’ well-being. the situation of threats and fear is the underlying cause of teachers’ and students’ irregular attendance; if schools must be operational during these periods then everything should be done to ensure that teachers and students can safely reach their classrooms and remain safe therein. it is worth noting that teachers were admitting their own absences, irregularity, and inconsistency in teaching as well as those of students. absenteeism and punctuality issues are common problems in schools but in armed conflict situations, they become more troubling because they may be fertile ground for the recruitment of unidentified armed men. absenteeism also affects the productivity of the teachers and student outcomes, hampering the quality of education during conflict periods. content delivery is at the heart of the teaching and learning process yet findings show that content delivery is grossly ineffective. syllabuses are left uncompleted due to frequent classroom boycotts and some teachers rush through their content. over and above attendance, these teachers struggle to fulfil their duties perfunctorily when they are available. this seriously compromises the quality of education provided and received under armed conflict conditions, and was evident in the responses on assessment; many of these teachers overrate final assessments to cover the lapses in content delivery. this practice becomes the only alternative when one must report to hierarchy and yet also stay safe in a disruptive situation. teachers’ safety is also a key issue of concern and it is dominantly related to fear. these findings are in line with those of jones and naylor (2014), which indicated that fear, displacement, and recruitment of teachers into the armed force are resulting effects of armed conflicts. no one can be at their best when they work in fear and in tense environments. it is therefore, necessary to pay close attention to what happens in the classroom in times of conflict because the way classroom activities are managed can further exacerbate the longterm effects. when teachers do not feel a sense of safety and teach in fear, they unconsciously direct such anxieties towards the learners. even more troubling, is the issue of classroom 180 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 discipline in which fear and teachers’ sense of caution prevents them from ensuring adequate discipline in the classroom. disruptive behaviour further challenges the delivery of lessons and, more importantly, places the teacher at risk of attacks. teachers are at risk from gunmen outside the school building but there are also “silent gunmen” within the classroom who directly or indirectly threaten and harass them, leveraging fertile ground for extensive attacks. as perceived by teachers, this situation is worsened by student anonymity in the classroom, heightened by the fact that students in some of these areas attend school wearing a variety of outfits. teachers are probably stagnated if they are not undergoing any professional development. learning is inextricably linked to teaching, and professional development is an opportunity for teachers to learn and innovate their practices—critical in a time of unprecedented societal changes. when these opportunities are lacking, it is obvious that the training is limited too. overall, our findings show that learning is inadequate because teaching is inadequate and while it is not feasible to stop schooling under conflict conditions, a lot needs to be done to ensure that conditions are improved and the schools are actually achieving the purpose for which they are allowed to be operational. solving the conflict is a lasting solution to this problem, but experiences from other countries such as rwanda, nigeria, congo, and sudan indicate that the effects are long-lasting. conclusion the benefits of secondary education cannot be denied, even in armed conflict areas. however, education goes beyond opening the doors of the classroom and it is important that we pay attention to attendance, content delivery, safety, discipline, and assessment that are largely ineffective and may become damaging to the educational sector and society as a whole. beyond solving the ongoing armed conflict in cameroon, we recommend the following for education to continue in such situations. • online learning can be one of the safest ways of continuing education in these areas because it limits physical interactions. it is important that the government and other stakeholders put facilities in place such as internet access, data, upskilling, and learning management systems to ensure the smooth functioning of online learning. • school providers, including the government and private proprietors, should structure campuses to allow teachers to live on the premises. if teachers live on the school premises, then security (preferably trained civilians and not any of the groups of the armed forces) can be deployed to campuses to curb issues of attendance. when security is provided to campuses that teachers live away from, teachers become targets after leaving the school premises. additionally, school campuses should be fenced to improve security. • irrespective of how much is done at community level, individual safety is key. therefore, teachers should be engaged in formal and short programmes that allow them to gain self-defence and safety skills that would build their confidence to work agbor et al.: effects of armed conflicts on teaching and learning 181 under such conditions. teachers’ confidence will go a long way to enhance that of learners. • teachers must continue with their learning and professional development to curb the loss of skills and, to this end, they must be introduced to many online learning opportunities. schools could implement short certification and training courses that would support teacher development. • stakeholders in the community should encourage and carry off campaigns that maintain schools as being no-go areas for combatants. references akame, g. a., crockett, j., & anoma, r. a. b. (2021). baseline research: education in crisis in the anglophone regions of cameroon. solidarity and development initiative (sodei). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/gilbertakame/publication/349297440_baseline_research_education_in_crisis_in_the_ang lophone_regions_of_cameroon_prepared_by/links/60290253299bf1cc26c42baa/bas eline-research-education-in-crisis-in-the-anglophone-regions-of-cameroonprepared-by.pdf akresh, r., & de walque, d. (2008). armed conflict and schooling: evidence from the 1994 rwandan genocide (policy research working paper, wps4606). world bank. https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-4606 buckland, p. (2005). reshaping the future: education and post-conflict reconstruction. world bank. https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/b739c3b4ce9399e149256ff9 001b6bbc-reshaping_the_future.pdf cervantes-duarte, l., & fernández-cano, a. (2016). impact of armed conflicts on education and educational agents: a multivocal review. revista electrónica educare (educare electronic journal), 20(3), 1–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.15359/ree.20-3.12 creswell, j. w., & plano clark, v. l. (2017). designing and conducting mixed methods research (3rd ed.). sage publications. global coalition to protection education from attack. (2020). education under attack 2020: a global study of attacks on schools, universities, their students and staff, 2017–2019. https://protectingeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/eua_2020_full.pdf. human rights watch. (2020). cameroon: events of 2019. https://www.hrw.org/worldreport/2020/country-chapters/cameroon international committee of the red cross. (2008). how is the term “armed conflict” defined in international humanitarian law? (opinion paper). https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/opinion-paper-armed-conflict.pdf 182 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 jones, a., & naylor, r. (2014). the quantitative impact of armed conflict on education: counting the human and financial costs. cfbt education trust. https://www.educationdevelopmenttrust.com/educationdevelopmenttrust/files/d7/d7 7e9724-b4c7-41a2-b5e1-6a839e871d1f.pdf kouega, j. p. (2018). the anglophone problem in cameroon: focus on education. open access library journal, 5, e4408. https://doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1104408 palik, j., rustad, s. a., & methi, f. (2020). conflict trends in africa, 1989–2019. peace research institute oslo (prio). shemyakina, o. (2011). the effect of armed conflict on accumulation of schooling: results from tajikistan. journal of development economics, 95(2), 186–200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2010.05.002 unicef. (2019, june 21). geneva palais briefing note on the situation for children in the north-west and south-west regions of cameroon. https://www.unicef.org/pressreleases/geneva-palais-briefing-note-situation-children-north-west-and-south-westregions winthrop, r., & kirk, j. (2008). learning for a bright future: schooling, armed conflict and children’s well-being. comparative education review, 52(4), 639–61. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/591301 microsoft word cissue81-full-15dec.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 81, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i81a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x the impact of the apprenticeship of observation on preservice teachers’ perceptions of teaching carolina botha community-based educational research (comber), north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa carolina.botha@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1693-5575 (received: 7 july 2020; accepted: 6 october 2020) abstract first year pre-service teachers’ images of, and beliefs about, teaching are formed over years of prior educational experiences and these images exert a powerful effect on their perceptions of teaching. in this paper, i examine the impact of the apprenticeship of observation on the developing professional identity of two cohorts of firstyear pre-service teachers at a south african tertiary institution. i use schlossberg’s transition theory (1981) to explore the perceptions and expectations with which pre-service teachers enter their initial teacher program. i argue that these deeply rooted ways of thinking about teachers and what they do should be acknowledged, challenged, and disrupted, and pre-service teachers should be supported in efforts to scrutinise their local knowledge and lived experience that constitute their dominant discourses about teaching and being a full-time teacher. the findings indicate that students have a naïve understanding of the teaching profession and confirm that the apprenticeship of observation serves as a measure of their own ability or inability to teach. recommendations highlight the opportunity for tertiary educators to empower pre-service teachers in their journey towards an ethical and caring professional identity. keywords: apprenticeship of observation, pre-service teacher, perceptions, professional identity introduction after twelve years of basic education, pre-service teachers undertake the next step in their education with a lifetime of experiences and opinions regarding teaching. this is understandable considering that the average learner spends more than 14,000 hours in a school observing teachers (good & lavigne, 2018). in addition, pre-service teachers enter teaching programmes with a clear definition of what they think the job of a teacher entails (konig & rothland, 2012; lortie, 1975; mcphail, 2015; palmer et al., 2009). in an attempt to address this phenomenon, lortie (1975) conceptualised the notion of an apprenticeship of observation; he postulated that pre-service teachers have a predetermined set of ideas about botha: the impact of the apprenticeship of observation on pre-service . . . 51 teaching and what it entails. this will directly influence their perceptions of teaching and the development of their own professional identity. should lortie’s apprenticeship of observation be considered as a viable explanation for the perceptions that first-year pre-service teachers bring to university, it can be deduced that the foundation of a teacher’s professional identity is conceptualised long before they enrol for their first class at university or enter a school for teaching practice (bergman et al., 2018; flores & niklasson, 2014; jackson, 2017; vinogradova & haskell ross, 2019). research objective working towards quality initial teacher education in south africa requires a critical view of current practice as well as of the expectations and experiences of both pre-service teachers and teacher educators. in this study, i aim to contribute to the growing body of knowledge geared towards the improvement of initial teacher education. the study, as well as the discussion that follows, is guided by the research question: to what extent can the apprenticeship of observation impact first-year pre-service teachers’ perceptions of teaching? in this phenomenological study, i examine the impact of the apprenticeship of observation on first-year pre-service teachers. i explore the experiences that first year b.ed students bring to their new context during their first week at university and shed light on the impact of the apprenticeship of observation on their perceptions of what their future career of being a teacher entails. the data highlights first-year pre-service teachers’ perceptions about the knowledge, skills, and values of a good teacher, and their definition of best practice in relation to memorable events they experienced in the classroom. this will highlight the reasons why some first-year students feel, before they have had any formal lectures or teaching, that they are capable of immediately accepting a full-time teaching position or why they are willing to explore the reasons why others do not feel instantly ready to be a full-time teacher. i suggest how the awareness of the impact of the apprenticeship of observation can help firstyear pre-service teachers as they transition into tertiary education and can help them to connect critically their experiences as learners at school with their current perception of what teachers do. i recommend that tertiary institutions acknowledge, as part of the process of the professional development of pre-service teachers, the apprenticeship of observation. this will help first-years to deconstruct what have become for them dominant discourses relating to their professional development as teachers. theoretical framework transition theory, initially developed by schlossberg (1981), is described as a model “in which transitions of all kinds . . . can be analysed, and possible interventions formulated” 52 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 (schlossberg, 1981, p. 3). schlossberg et al. (1995, p. 27) have defined a transition as “any event, or non-event, that results in changed relationships, routines, assumptions and roles.” the move from being a learner to being a first-year pre-service teacher can therefore be considered a valid example of a transition. in her theory, schlossberg (1981) refers to three phases of this transition theory. in the first phase, referred to as “approaching transitions”, the perceptions and experiences with which an individual enters the process of transition from one context to the next, are explored. schlossberg et al. (1995) have referred to this as the process of moving in, moving through, and moving out of a transition. the focus during this phase is on defining the specific transition (in this case the decision to become a teacher and enrol for a pre-service teaching program). in the second phase attention is paid to investigating events and identifying strategies that are used to cope with the transition and the results of the transition (in this case considering the role of the apprenticeship of observation on a student’s perception and experiences as a first-year student). in the third phase, not addressed in this study, those who transition can explore options for personal and professional growth. this theory therefore presents an integrated and holistic overview of the process of transition from being a learner, to being a pre-service teacher, and, eventually, to being a full-time teacher. defining the transition in examining first-year students and their expectations of universities, martin (2010) stressed that education systems do not foster collaboration between secondary schools and tertiary studies. however, she identified high school teachers as having the most influence over the development of students’ tertiary expectations. this accentuates the importance of acknowledging this transitional space in which first-year pre-service teachers find themselves. a conscious awareness of transferring what a learner has seen from one context to the other as lunsmann et al. (2019) have noted, is necessary to assist first-year pre-service teachers to define and manage the transition from pre-service to full-time teacher. this space in which first-year pre-service teachers find themselves can be a very challenging since they have been pulled from safety, bringing with them into the unknown expectations and perceptions about tertiary education and teaching (darling-hammond, 2006). this may render these students very vulnerable. the content that first-years bring into the transition will impact the way in which they make meaning of their lived experience and local knowledge (sayed et al., 2018). it will always have an impact on how they perceive and receive the new knowledge conveyed to them and the connections they make between the old and new sets of knowledge and ways of thinking. this socially constructed process with its focus on the ontological rather than the epistemological journey of becoming a student and eventually a teacher, is directly related to the process of forming a professional identity. this is, however, never a generic, linear, and simple one-size-fits-all event, but is, rather, a complex and diverse process in which the idiosyncrasies of unique students should be valued and celebrated. botha: the impact of the apprenticeship of observation on pre-service . . . 53 developing a pre-professional identity pre-service teachers in this transition undergo this period of struggle as a result of inhabiting a betwixt space, based on the notion of liminality. the concept was first applied by van gennep (1909/1960) in social anthropology to describe the in-between status of individuals at threshold points in rituals of transformation. it describes a state in which a student has left behind her/his previous self as a school learner but has not yet become the new self. being a first-year pre-service teacher is a betwixt space between an old identity as a school learner and a new identity as a pre-service teacher and potential full-time teacher. i suggest that this betwixt space in which first-year pre-service teachers find themselves, can also be considered part of a pre-professional identity. jackson (2017), for example, describes such a pre-professional identity as a less mature version of professional identity. here, students are becoming, rather than being professionals. this process of becoming and managing the transition is directly related to, and built upon, the apprenticeship of observation. howell (2012, p. 43) concurred with the essence of this challenge when he stated that “the most persistent dilemma that remains a barrier to students of teaching becoming reflective knowers, thinkers, and doers, is their own narrow view of schools, children, and learning when they begin their teacher education programs.” the apprenticeship of observation various previous studies have documented both the positive and negative effect of the apprenticeship of observation on this transition and pre-professional identity of pre-service teachers (boyd et al., 2013; conner & vary, 2017; grossman, 1991; knapp, 2012; lunsmann et al., 2019; mewborn & tyminski, 2006; vinogradova & haskell ross, 2019). the seminal work of darling-hammond (2006) also identified the apprenticeship of observation as one of the three major challenges encountered in initial teacher education. countering the deeply held beliefs derived from the apprenticeship of observation “may be one of the most powerful challenges in learning to teach” (darling-hammond, 2006, p. 36). mewborn and tyminski (2006) suggested that the autobiographical memories of students could be explored not only to affirm their choice of teaching as a career, but also to reflect critically on what previous knowledge they bring to teaching programs. these memories could also work to help them embrace their ability to reflect and learn. boyd et al. (2013) affirmed these findings in their study that used blogging to facilitate autobiographical reflection. additionally, conner and vary (2017) explored the role of the apprenticeship of observation in student-faculty pedagogical partnerships and lunsmann et al. (2019) did so in mentor-mentee relationships. through this study i contribute to the growing body of knowledge on the value of acknowledging the role of the apprenticeship of observation in a pre-service teacher’s initial teacher education program. the essence of the apprenticeship of observation to which lortie (1975) refers is that all teachers were learners at one time and all have had a plethora of experiences and events and, for the most part, a number of teachers. each pre-service teacher already has extensive 54 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 knowledge of what teachers do in classrooms, but very little understanding of the professional and personal reasoning behind these actions. they do not have a realistic perception of what happens before and after the lesson of which they were part. they do not comprehend how much time is spent on planning, grading, and other tasks related to teaching practice (boyd et al., 2013). in addition, learners are not aware of the pedagogical and methodological considerations teachers make every day, nor are they exposed to the challenge teachers face in terms of teaching, assessment, dealing with curriculum, and coping with learners, parents, etc. learners do not develop analytic orientations toward the tasks of a teacher (bullock, 2011). for the learner, teaching is what happens during the direct contact with the teacher. so, what implications does this view have for becoming a professional teacher and, therefore, for initial teacher education programmes? challenges of the apprenticeship of observation the apprenticeship of observation poses three challenges to pre-service teachers (conner & vary, 2017). first, students enter initial teacher education programs with the dominant experiences and narrative of only one learner, namely themselves. they have a limited understanding of the experiences of other students who might learn in different ways than they do and who have different criteria for good teaching. they might therefore favour teaching styles that suit their individual needs and preferences, rather than think in a more encompassing manner. second, their concept of best and worst practice is limited to what they have seen and experienced during their own schooling. they may lack knowledge of diverse teaching strategies. third, as i go on to discuss in detail, learners do not always have a full understanding of the extent of the work that teachers do. they do not understand the demands of differentiation to include diversity, to deal with sensitive matters, and to cope with personal challenges. it is crucial that teacher educators become aware of the influence of the apprenticeship of observation and the challenges that it poses to pre-service teachers. methodology in this qualitative study, i employed a phenomenological design to explore the perceptions and experiences of a convenience sample of two cohorts of first-year pre-service teachers in 2019 and 2020. these pre-service teachers were part of the first-year enrolment for a program in initial teacher education at a tertiary institution in south africa over two consecutive years. data for each cohort was gathered at the end of the first year orientation program only five days after students had arrived on campus for the start of their tertiary education. this was crucial to ensure that the opinions students expressed had not yet been influenced by lectures they attended. this meant that it was most likely that the perceptions and experiences that participants shared were those with which they entered university. i gathered data on the last day of the orientation program that dealt mostly with logistics and introduction to the program and to the campus. students were assured that participation was not compulsory and that they would not be negatively affected for not taking part. in total, 198 b.ed students took part in the research study across the two years. botha: the impact of the apprenticeship of observation on pre-service . . . 55 students who chose to take part were asked to answer the following question: “should a principal now offer you a permanent teaching position, do you think that you would accept it and be capable of being a full-time teacher?” participants were invited to write down “yes” or “no” followed by a short narrative as motivation for their answer. i then individually and collectively analysed the data in order to code and identify themes related to the research question. during coding and triangulation, following clandinin and connelly (1995), i placed emphasis on understanding and disseminating the data through the lens of the narrative perspective. ethical clearance was obtained, and i adhered to the regulations for ethical conduct during the research. i was also a lecturer to these students, so i remained aware of, and sensitive to, the power differential between the students and me. limitations to ensure academic integrity, it is important to elucidate the limitations of this study. it relied solely on one data source, namely the narratives of two cohorts of first-year pre-service teachers so the findings cannot be generalized. this could be considered a narrow opinion and it could be suggested that triangulation could have been achieved by including other sources of data, like, for instance. reflective journals, the outcome of focus groups and so on. in my opinion, for a research question of limited scope, this one source did indeed provide saturated data since there were many participants. this meant that the design of this study was adequate for the purpose of exploring the role of the apprenticeship of observation at the beginning stages of a pre-service teacher education program. there is, however, room for a follow-up study that could explore the continued role of the apprenticeship in these cohorts of students as they progress through their pre-service teacher training. such a study could then use a greater variety of methods and a larger and more representative sample of participants. findings as mentioned above, two cohorts of first-year teachers in an initial teacher education program at a university in south africa were asked whether they would now, five days into their university experience, be willing to, and capable of, ceasing their studies and assuming a full-time teaching job. in south africa, most first-year teachers enter university directly after completion of their secondary schooling, so most of them were 18or 19-year-olds. approximately 40% of the participants indicated that they did not feel ready to accept a fulltime teaching job. they expressed a strong need for the formal training program for which they were enrolled and their primary motivation for this could be classified as being related to learning about the academic components of teaching. the responses from these pre-service teachers were strongly focused on their academic success as teachers. the remaining 60% who indicated that they did indeed feel ready right then, without any formal training, to 56 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 assume a teaching position, listed caring and passion for teaching as their primary motivation. these responses indicated a strong focus on their emotional success as a teacher. i identified three main categories related to both the positive and negative opinions preservice teachers had about taking on a full-time teaching position in terms of which the data was encoded: 1) participants’ opinions about the learners; 2) their opinions about themselves as teachers; and 3) their opinions about the task of teaching. all these categories were related directly to the concept of the apprenticeship of observation. table 1 presents a summary of the findings that will be discussed in more detail below. table 1: summary of findings yes! i can teach now (60%) no! i cannot teach now (40%) the learner it is dependent on the age of the learners it is passion or calling and pre-service teachers want to start making a difference as soon as possible the love of children is enough to make successful teachers realize that they do not know how to work with children do not have the skills needed to handle sensitive and difficult situations concerned about emotional experience of learners do not want to harm children or cause detriment or negatively influence their future the teacher studies can be finished through a distance learning program instead of a full-time campus-based program the desire to be a role model having parents who are teachers, too consider themselves as fast learners and as being very adaptable a realisation that there still is a lot to learn lacking the necessary level of confidence the task of teaching having seen the tasks of a teacher being done, when they are in the same situation they will know what to do having experience through being a tutor, helping peers, etc. a sense of confidence that they already have the skills they perceive a good teacher needs an awareness of a lack of experience in the process of teaching lack of academic content knowledge needed to teach the phase or subject a need for more formal training lack of skills a good teacher needs do not know the processes and techniques used to teach learners focused on emotional efficacy focused on academic efficacy the dominant narrative shared by participants indicated the strong impact of the apprenticeship of observation in both pre-service teachers who felt ready to take on a botha: the impact of the apprenticeship of observation on pre-service . . . 57 teaching job as well as those students who realized that they might not be ready yet. as depicted in table 1, 60% of the participants indicated a willingness to accept a full-time position right away, while the other 40% expressed very clearly that they were not ready. yes! i can teach now reaffirming the apprenticeship the dominant discourse around these first-year pre-service teachers’ perceptions affirms the apprenticeship of observation that is based on the belief that because they have seen it being done for twelve years, they have the necessary understanding and many of the skills needed to be a teacher themselves. i have seen good and bad teachers during my school career. i am ready to now do it myself. (participant 59) i know exactly what is expected of a teacher. i sat in a school desk for twelve years. i just need to learn to cope with the workload. (participant 98) i am barely out of school for two months. i can still remember how things are done. (participant 142) some participants (including participants 12, 78, and 141) stated that they had paid close attention to their teachers so they now felt that they possessed the basic skills needed to be teachers themselves. the findings are, however, not clear on exactly what they observed. perhaps they indicate a basic observation of lesson presentation rather than a critical reflection on pedagogical principles? in addition, there is another level of influence that the apprentice of observation could have on the perceptions of first-year pre-service teachers. there is clear evidence that pre-service teachers who grew up in a home with a parent or even a grandparent who is or was a teacher, feel that through observing these loved ones, they have a better understanding of what the job of a teacher entails. this is also very often presented as their primary motivation for deciding to become a teacher. this living with a teacher could even be considered another apprenticeship of observation that these students undergo. it could be argued that these particular pre-service teachers may have a better understanding of the behind-the-scenes work of a teacher, but they have also had a very one-dimensional exposure to teaching. other participants listed experience of being a tutor as evidence that they possessed the skills needed to be a good teacher. for the past three years i have helping my former school mates with accounting. (participant 17) 58 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 i had to teach my friends the work we had to do in class because the teacher was too lazy to do it and i believe i did a great job because they all understood the work after i explained it. (participant 117) the question about what these pre-service teachers’ fellow learners did indeed understand and what the measure or criteria for that understanding was, needs to be asked a naïve and limited approach several participants stated that they wanted to become teachers because of their passion for teaching and their love of children. these pre-service teachers either want to recreate the caring environment they experienced at school or create such an environment for their learners because they did not experience this during their own schooling. the participants in this study who indicated a willingness to enter the profession right away clearly offered emotional reasons as the primary motivation behind their answer to the research question. their answers seem almost naïve given what they perceive the tasks of a teacher to be. they simplify the complexity of the task of teaching into merely caring for children and wanting to make a difference in their lives. participant 50 stated that teaching was her calling and therefore she was excited at the prospect of being a teacher as soon as possible. this sentiment was shared by participants who indicated that they felt that having a passionate calling was all you needed to be a successful teacher. “i might not have experience, but i will use my passion” said participant 24. the opinion that “if your heart is in it, it cannot be that difficult” voiced by participant 132, was popular. another level of naivety about the complexity of the job can be seen in these comments that lack insight. this is dependent on the age of the learners. i think i will now already be able to teach grade 1, but i will not be able to teach grade 12. (participant 57) i think i will definitely be able to teach the easy stuff like reading and writing. (participant 3) other comments included “i’m a fast learner and how hard can it really be?” (participant 42). it would appear that some participants believe that if you are passionate about the job and you truly care about children, training is unnecessary. the love of children is what most participants appear to think of as a golden thread and it runs through the answers of most participants who indicated that they were willing to enter full time teaching immediately. i can’t even wait to stand in front of a class full of sweetest souls who are hungry to learn. (participant 14). botha: the impact of the apprenticeship of observation on pre-service . . . 59 the danger is that such perceptions could lead to disillusionment during teaching practice or when these participants are beginner teachers. many of the opinions of pre-service teachers who gave an affirmative answer to the research question seemed to be self-centred. this could be another indication of the effects of the apprenticeship of observation in their lives. they based their responses on their personal experiences and observations rather than on those of the learners they would come to teach. comments like “i know myself well” (participant 92) and “i am very patient” (participant 77) show a very limited view of the requirements of a good teacher. such views are encapsulated well in the following statement by participant 118. you do not specifically need university training to be a good teacher, you need certain characteristics which you can’t learn, you must have it in you already. as shown in the table above, emotional efficacy seemed to be a very important motivator. it is clear that these pre-service teachers viewed themselves as future role models who wanted to change the lives of children in the same way they saw some teachers at their schools doing. they want to be an inspiration and live out what they see to be their calling. we have to question whether this might be at the expense of subject knowledge, teaching methodology, and other pedagogical principles. participants who indicated that they did not see themselves as fit right now to be in a teaching position, seemed, rather, to be focused on the responsibility of academic teaching they would be expected to do as full-time teachers. no! i can’t teach now the disseminated data from pre-service teachers who gave a negative answer to the research question also affirms the role of the apprenticeship of observation on these participants, but it does indicate a more critical analysis of the apprenticeship. the responses from these preservice teachers portrays a greater awareness of the complexity of the job and the responsibilities with which a teacher is entrusted. most participants in this category who expressed the need for much more formal training before they could enter the teaching profession built their opinion on two dominant themes. first, they acknowledged their own lack of academic and subject related knowledge, and, second, they were concerned with their lack of skills for working with children and being able to convey knowledge to them as well as deal with sensitive and complicated situations relating to learners. rather than citing a passion for the career or for caring for children, their focus is on the intellectual and holistic wellbeing of the learner and the great responsibility that teachers have in this regard. content knowledge before i started with my studies my answer would have been yes, i could teach now! but orientation made me realize that teachers have to deal with a lot . . . a lot more challenges . . . i have no idea how to teach my chosen subject. (participant 162) 60 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 after only five days at university i already realise that there are so [many] more elements to teaching a lesson than i initially thought. (participant 39) several participants indicated a lack of subject knowledge. it was interesting to note that many participants were concerned with not having the knowledge to teach their chosen subject, while others focused their concern on not having the knowledge on how to teach the subject. even though i was in a school for 12 years, even though i saw teaching every day, i just have no idea how to teach. (participant 9) first do no harm i would not know where or how to begin. i want to ensure that when i educate children . . . i am doing it the right way, with the right tools. (participant 150). this response hints at the importance of pedagogical content knowledge. the altruistic and caring nature of a teacher seemed, in this case, to be more focused on the wellbeing of the learners than on the teacher validating his or her own calling. i think that it would be irresponsible of me and unfair to the [learners] as i am not yet prepared enough to give them the education they deserve. (participant 111) i don’t want to play around and mess with learners’ futures. i believe that becoming a teacher is a serious thing. (participant 32) this group of participants seemed to have a different view of the experiences they had while they were in school. there was also a greater awareness of the logistical and administrative challenges with which teachers deal. these participants might have a more realistic view of the complexity of teaching. as indicated, the findings from this study show that more than half of the pre-service teachers indicated a willingness to accept a full-time teaching position right away. this is however not indicative of the fact that the apprenticeship of observation plays a larger role in their lives. rather, it indicates that they might be focused on other aspects of the apprenticeship than those participants who indicated that they needed more formal training before they could be employed as a teacher. the findings in this study create a background from which recommendations can be made on how faculty should acknowledge and address the role of the apprenticeship of observation in the perceptions of first-year pre-service teachers. recommendations in this article i ask whether tertiary institutions pay enough attention to the impact of the apprenticeship of observation and whether initial teacher education programs acknowledge botha: the impact of the apprenticeship of observation on pre-service . . . 61 and address these prior experiences and pre-conceptions of teaching. many studies (bergman et al., 2018; boyd et al., 2013; jackson, 2017; sayed et al., 2018) show that should such preconceptions stay unexamined, they are likely to remain unchallenged and will have a great influence on the professional identity and praxis of the pre-service teacher. it is clear from the findings of this study that first-year pre-service teachers find themselves still standing in two worlds. on the one hand, they have a preconceived idea of what full-time teaching entails that is built on their own perceptions and experiences. on the other, after being exposed to an orientation program at their tertiary institution, many begin to question these perceptions and beliefs they might even already have started the process of deconstructing this apprenticeship of observation. it is clear from the data that some students are, however, still lead by their apprenticeship and therefore feel that they possess the necessary skills it takes to be a full-time teacher, even if such self-assessment is based on their caring nature. it can therefore be postulated that, should the apprenticeship not be addressed, these students can find themselves either resistant to change, or conflicted between what they are being taught by lecturers (and inadvertently then the new apprenticeship that is developing) and the old perpetuated by what they experienced at school. as part of acknowledging and addressing the notion of apprenticeship by observation, the task of universities is twofold. first, on an individual level, a safe space should be provided in which pre-service teachers can develop the confidence to examine critically their perceptions and beliefs about teaching, acknowledge the role these play in their lives, and be open to deconstructing the old apprenticeship and constructing new knowledge and ideas that could develop as part of their professional identity. this should be an integrated approach that is modelled in the behaviour of the lecturer and in the new apprenticeship that the pre-service teacher is forming. second, these aspects should be embedded in the curriculum (including the hidden curriculum) of the initial teacher education program, and specifically addressed through teaching practice. in this manner, teaching practice becomes the vehicle for testing progress in the process of deconstructing the apprenticeship of observation and constructing a professional identity. through creating an awareness of situations, including stressful ones, in which pre-service teachers tend to fall back on the notions belonging to their apprenticeship of observation rather than on strategies they are being taught at university, they may be equipped to deal proactively with such situations. it cannot be assumed that some efficient strategies might not already be in place in many institutions that provide initial teacher education programs. many of these practices might be valuable in addressing the issue at hand even if they were implemented originally for other reasons. an acute awareness of the impact of this apprenticeship of observation on the perceptions of pre-service teachers might invite tertiary institutions to reflect critically on these practices and revisit them, or consider additional measures to address this issue. such practical examples could include the curriculum of orientation and the approach to it as well as the subsequent initial training program where pre-service teachers are invited to 62 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 • unpack and explore prior learning experiences that can influence current approaches to teaching; • reflect on and deconstruct their own apprenticeship of observation; • critically reflect on their previous teachers, including their pedagogical actions as well as epistemological stances; • define what they consider to be best practice and examine their reasons for considering certain actions as such; • select characteristics from previous teachers and combine them to conceptualize their own professional identity that focuses on both academic and soft skills; • realise that initial teacher education is also an apprenticeship and be critical of their perceptions in this regard; and • develop a culture of reflective practice. tertiary institutions should also acknowledge the role of teacher educators in disrupting or strengthening the apprenticeship of observation in pre-service teachers, highlighting the fact that these students do not enter tertiary education with only one apprenticeship since they actually live through another apprenticeship throughout their years of teacher training. slekar (1998, p. 494) concluded that prospective teachers “will replicate their apprenticeship of observations if they are not provided with the opportunity to explore their prior beliefs about teaching and learning history, and actually witness and experiment with alternative approaches” conclusion first-year pre-service teachers’ perceptions and expectations are formed over years of educational experiences and images of these experiences exert a powerful impact on their developing professional identity. these perceptions are embedded in an apprenticeship of observation that serves to measure their own ability or inability. acknowledging this impact of the apprenticeship of observation on first-year pre-service teachers not only poses a great challenge to the pre-service teachers themselves, but also constitutes a critical pedagogical challenge for tertiary institutions. these deeply rooted ways of thinking about teaching and what teachers do should be acknowledged, disrupted, and challenged and pre-service teachers should be supported in the effort to create their own local knowledge and lived experience that can constitute their dominant discourses about teaching and being a full-time teacher. references bergman, u., lundström, s., manderstedt, l., & palo, a. 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(2019). fostering volunteer esl teacher identity through reflection on apprenticeship of observation. tesol journal, 10(4), 1–8. editorial wayne hugo given that many teachers in south africa lack content knowledge, pedagogic knowledge, and pedagogic content knowledge, should we not provide scripted lesson plans (slps) that have built in content and pedagogy to supplement the lack? south african education policy makers gave an unequivocal yes answer to this question in 2009 with caps. some school interventions (like the gauteng province language and mathematics strategy) have doubled down on the wager and produced detailed slps along with extra materials and support to assist the teachers with adoption and implementation. the wager is that good slps will not only quickly improve learning in the classroom, but also provide teachers with good examples of effective teaching routines that will improve their practice. a win win or double bonus in gambling terms. yael shalem, carola steinberg, hannchen koornhof, and francine de clercq provide us with a discussion of different types of scripted lesson plans, an instantiation of slps in the gplms, and an illustrative critique of just how wrong these lessons can go. and wrong they do go with teachers unable to deal with misunderstandings of the learners and their own misconstructions. the reasons for this are complex, but one that stands out is the lack of detail in the lesson plans, resulting in oversimplified sequences that quickly go wrong as learners engage. the converse of this problem is that, in order to work properly, the underspecified slps need teachers with strong subject matter knowledge. if slps need teachers with strong subject matter knowledge then what is the point? slps are supposed to address the problem of teachers with weak subject matter knowledge, not rely on the very lack they are addressing. but the more slps try to supplement the content knowledge and pedagogic skills of teachers, the more unwieldy they become, as there are multiple variables and paths that need to be held in the account, making fully specified slps collapse under the weight of its own ambition. this results in a central tension – the more slps are needed by poorly qualified teachers the more content and pedagogy needs to be built into them; but the more content and pedagogy built into a slp the more complex they tend to become, making them difficult for use by a poorly qualified teacher. furthermore, highly specified slps are anathema to professional teachers with high levels of pedagogic content knowledge who want to rely on their own professional judgement. 2 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 to try and negotiate this charged terrain of slps we can use the excellent systems thinking paper by bruce brown in this journal issue to help us. we can do this in an emergent way by taking the title of shalem et.al’s paper, the findings of the analysis in the abstract, and the slp example used on countable and uncountable nouns. here are all three elements: title the what and how in scripted lesson plans:… abstract lesson plans are advocated as useful forms of teacher support because they can expand a repertoire of teaching practices. but what kinds of scripted instruction can effectively guide and improve teachers’ instruction and how can lesson plans achieve that? this article examines the nature and purpose of the scripted lesson plans (slps) used in the gauteng primary education system and then investigates how teachers enacted these routinised slps. through a review of the literature on teaching english language and on slps, the article assesses the opportunities and challenges afforded by the gauteng primary language and mathematics strategy’s (gplms’s) lesson plans for grade 3 english as first additional language (fal). then, through an analysis of an english fal lesson taught differently by two teachers, it points to the many professional judgements made by the teachers as they enact the prescribed teaching routine. our analysis suggests, firstly, that the knowledge resources given to teachers need to be considerably more detailed and, secondly, that teachers need strong subject matter knowledge to transmit the conceptual relations that underlie the teaching routines of the lesson plan. example of slp editorial 3 one key route into understanding slps, the title suggests, has to do with both the way slps work with content (the what) and pedagogy (the how). slps can specify content, specify pedagogy, or specify both. content consists of two broad areas – concepts linked together with reasons. pedagogy does two broad actions – it sequences and paces content. the content and pedagogy should come together into something learnt that should be more than just the concept or the reason but how they hold together in an inference. if a correct inference is consistently made and checked then it is possible to move on and build upwards in understanding. this suggests that it is not only the ‘what’ and ‘how’ that a slp has to work with, but also feedback through assessment. we can put this into a diagram: the gplms lesson plan specifies the content (countable and uncountable nouns); specifies the sequence (in the activity description); and specifies the pace (30 minutes). the activity sequence stipulates what each concept means through examples and reasons (apples can be counted, oranges can be counted, water cannot be counted) that build towards the learner making an inference about how countable and uncountable nouns work. if the learner makes the correct set of inferences then the teacher can continue onwards with the next scripted lesson plan. to make sure we include teacher pedagogic content knowledge and the way a learner makes the inferences into the model, lets put them in. 4 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 read the model from the top. if teacher pck is weak then we can use slps to address the lack. if only content knowledge is weak then we can have a kind of scripted lesson that focuses mainly on content. if only pedagogic knowledge is weak then we can focus on scripted pedagogy, although this will tend to also work with the content. if the learner consistently makes correct inferences after the whole learning process has been gone through, then we can use the scripted lesson plan as a part of a far bigger network of lessons that builds upwards for cumulative learning. it’s a fractal process – what plays out as a 30-minute lesson in this example continues to grow and expand into larger and larger processes. if the learner does not make a correct inference, then we have to go back and work out why this is the case and either work with the teacher’s pck or the slp (or both) until the learner does produce the correct inference. by no means is this a complete model, but it does have the teacher (with pck), the lesson (with content, pedagogy, and assessment), and the learner (making inferences based on concepts and reasons) with a feedback loop that editorial 5 moves forward if the learner makes correct inferences and backwards into the system if the learner makes incorrect inferences. so what happened when teachers with a lack of pck taught the scripted lesson on countable and uncountable nouns? well, they ran into all sorts of unforeseen problems and difficulties that resulted in the learners making incorrect inferences. for example, its hard to count water, but very easy to count bottles of water. in the classroom, there is not simply ‘water’; it’s probably on the desk in a bottle or a cup. the containers are countable even if the water is not. this could cause a mistaken inference, but the slp provides no guidance about what to do in this situation. so the first question we have to ask of slps is whether they were trialed to ensure that mistaken inferences were eliminated? if the slps were simply generated in a hectic onward rush to meet crazy deadlines without care to improve the initial design, then all that has happened is built in inefficiency. but we can see from the above model that when mistaken inferences are made, there is a choice to go back to the scripted lesson or go back to the teacher, or both. but there are real dangers and tensions with all these options. to try and deal with all the possible misunderstandings of the learner and the teacher through an slp means that it will be have to be incredibly tightly specified right down to the individual inference level. this is a highly specialised task, and i don’t personally know anyone in south africa who can do this properly. to try and deal with teacher misunderstanding by coaching and correcting them as they do the underspecified slp is massively expensive, individualised, time consuming, and context/content dependent. to try and provide them with all the extra materials to deal with possible misunderstanding is to overload teachers who actually need things simplified. even worse, to try and provide teachers with all the reasons why various options and choices are taken in the slp, and then giving them flexibility to choose between the options overcomplicates and confuses the teacher even more. but to leave the slp underspecified as the gplms does results in shalem et.al pointing out that the knowledge resources given to teachers needs to be considerably more detailed, and, secondly, that teachers need strong subject matter knowledge to transmit the conceptual relations that underlie the teaching routines of the lesson plan. gplms did provide extra material to supplement the curriculum and it did provide coaches to improve subject matter knowledge. the problem with 6 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 coaches is that the model is simply not sustainable when an intervention goes to scale. the problem with extra material is that teachers with poor content knowledge are going to struggle to combine all the supplementary material bits to the slp as they are in separate documents and not actually a part of the slp. it results in a default mode where all that the teacher has is the underspecified slp as her guide. this can result in all sorts of issues where the teacher uses her own inadequate understanding of the content, inadequate appreciation of the pedagogic difficulties, and inadequate ability to deal in real time with the pedagogic content knowledge issues that arise as the underspecified slp progresses. to see how this plays out, just read shalem et.al’s account of how palesa and sarah struggled to teach this deceptively simple lesson. however, if the slp attempted to specify, in detail, the content, the pedagogy, as well as all the possible difficulties that could arise when teaching the content, then it will present teachers who have poor content knowledge with an impossibly complex slp and doom the lesson to failure. it is very hard to build pck into the slp, because pck works with professional judgement that uses content knowledge, pedagogic knowledge, knowledge of learners, knowledge of context, knowledge of the purpose of the lesson all in one simple move that responds in the moment to the learning issue at hand. it’s the simplest and most elegant response to a massively complex set of issues. how do you build that into a slp? one educator thought he had the answer to this and spent much of his life perfecting how to do it – siegfried engelmann and direct instruction. shalem et.al discuss his innovation in their paper. di is built on two premises. first, if ‘technical problems’ such as “ambiguous communication, the learner’s lack of necessary background knowledge, or inadequate practice to master what is presented” can be controlled “the mind will learn [as] it is wired to do so” (barbash 2011, p.10). second, teachers do not possess the expertise to teach well and they need curricula which are teacher-proof (reeves 2010, p.244). by building a logical sequence required for the concept at hand, precisely specifying the teachers’ examples and prompts, and allowing for only one correct answer from the learners, di intends to minimise learners’ wrong inferences and/or conceptual ambiguity, making sure that the children will receive the rule of the concepts they need to learn. the prescribed style of instruction is brisk, with the teacher constantly monitoring student understanding (kozioff et al., 2001 in kim & axelrod 2005, p.114) through teacher-directed prompts and modelling. editorial 7 the key elementary unit for the education process in di is the inference. learners are wired to do this, all humans are – we can all infer. the teacher proof script works at the level of an individual inference where a minimal set of concepts and reasons combine in a way to make the learner think and decide on an answer, which if properly done, will result in a correct inference. inferences build on inferences resulting in an expanding and deepening web of knowledge. so my first response, when seeing the gplms slps, is that they were not specific and detailed enough. most other responses i heard when fleisch and crew did their assorted roadshows were exactly the opposite. they had to fight against many supposed critiques about how their slps were over specifying and over controlling. but when the gplms is looked at through the lens of di then it appears hopelessly under specified, and hopelessly under tested for possible misunderstanding. di offers a capacity to put pck into slp by insisting that only one script is followed that has tested for where learners will struggle and corrected the script to deal with misunderstandings. di can deal with teachers lacking in content knowledge, pedagogic knowledge, and assessment skills by ensuring that the script does all of this, step by inferential step. but the consequences of adopting di whole scale throughout subjects and schools are dire. it is teacher proof. this means that the profession of teaching lowers its status because the need for specialised judgements are radically reduced. it dumbs down the profession and we know that good teachers are key to good systems of education. as much as di can work at primary school with elementary levels of knowledge, it becomes far harder to do successfully with higher grades and differing subjects like the arts and humanities. good teachers with high levels of pck tend to despise di and cannot stomach being forced into a script and could leave the ‘profession’. whole scale adoption of di within a system is toxic. imagine, for example, the subject of political science done on di principles. sherran clarence shows us how political science tends to operate as a knower code that works on developing a certain kind of sophisticated consciousness and approach to life. in political science, as an example, each course in each year of the undergraduate degree would need to incrementally and cumulatively develop students’ ability to read texts with 8 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 critical and careful comprehension, understand the ways in which the authors are analysing and unpacking political and/or social problems, and further begin to position themselves to make and defend their own arguments. scripted lesson plans in political science would directly go against its ‘spirit’. there is nothing stopping a script working towards a knower code, it can do this, but there are better ways of doing it when the whole person being produced by political science is taken into account that said, new technologies are quickly working out how to embed knowledge and pedagogy into a lesson in context specific ways that effectively get rid of the need for the teacher. uber is the model – first you outdate an organised career (taxi driver) with on demand service (uber driver); then you outdate the uber driver with automated vehicles through improvements in artificial intelligence (ai). this is what pearson wants to do, and is doing, with education right now. pearson is the uber of education and is using artificial intelligence, personalised learning paths, big data, learning eco-systems, anytime anywhere learning, learning is earning, 1:1 device initiatives, future ready schools, to transform education in ways that automate teaching. we are familiar with how youtube provides immediate lessons for almost any subject, resulting in teachers often playing youtube lessons in their class as a default on demand option and then teaching around it, contextualising it, integrating it into the curriculum. the teacher is still needed in the youtube example. but, right now, learner customers can get a diagnostic of where they currently are in a knowledge field, and get a personalised learning path that provides them with what they need to learn and feedback when they go wrong. slps are outdated technology as we move into a world where ai not only provides the lessons but also the assessments that work out what you have done wrong and how to fix it. it’s not only pck our new teachers will need, but also the ability to instructionally design lessons that track learner responses with individualised responses that allow cumulative learning with a thousand paths, not to wisdom, but to a skill needed right now, somewhere on this planet, for a short while. this is what a pgce should be doing with our students right now – teaching them to become producers of content with pedagogy and assessment embedded inside. the nature, function, and possibility space of teaching and learning is transforming more rapidly right now than ever in the history of education, but most education departments in south africa have no idea what editorial 9 is happening here, even though they should be at the cutting edge. frankly, i am embarrassed. a negative consequence of current innovation is the replacement of professional judgement with sophisticated algorithms. this spectre of increasing unemployment for the educated and the specialised is becoming a daily reality. both the amount and quality of jobs are decreasing, resulting in students leaving universities and technikons with high hopes but decreasing chances of finding meaningful work. to configure education towards the workplace, when the workplace is not providing new jobs is a terrible consequence lecturers need to square up to. to pump out graduates into a world of increasing unemployment is a question we have to square up to. one response of governments is to identify in demand skills and professions and then insist that higher education quickly configures itself to meet these demands, or else face defunding or replacement by private providers happier to adapt when money leads the way. the problem with this option is that online educational providers like udemy, udacity, coursera, edx, lynda.com are already providing hundreds of thousands of courses on demand and continuously updated by course designers getting paid per subscription. another response is to start trying to work out what it is students actually need in the world they live in and help provide them with the skills and understanding to intelligently and critically deal with a world of increasing inequality and exploitation. you must understand how you live as a human being, and how the person next to you lives. . . for example you must know that when food is produced, how the systems that are set up in the world operate. it enables you to understand how things work, and how you as a person fit in, and understand how you need to survive as an individual and how your brother/sister next to you survives. that is what i know the importance of education to be. . . education must give you the foundation to understand how the world systems work, or to create new systems of your own if necessary (yila). lucky maluleka and anne harley provide us with an account of what type of education ten rural youth in the limpopo province feel is appropriate for local development needs. rather than education taking the youth away from their local context and divorcing them from their community through abstract and mechanised knowledge and skill; ways of educating are explored that improve local lives and embed students within the communities in productive ways, rather than pretend they will leave because of a glorious job that never comes and then leave them abandoned in the community caught between dream and despair. 10 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 maluleka and harley remind us that, behind the world of high tech dreams (or nightmares), we have to hold onto the lived reality of most south africans and ask how education can serve their best interests. many south africans cannot even read at a basic level, with around 5 million of our citizens still totally illiterate. john aitchison provides a characteristically bracing account of the successes and failures of adult literacy programmes in south africa. the kha ri gude literacy campaign can be counted as a success with around 3 million adults successfully brought into functional literacy, but without any follow up investment, there is a real danger these gains will be quickly lost. writing this editorial, i feel the massiveness of the educational endeavor, spinning from the sophisticated algorithms of artificial intelligence to the old woman learning functional literacy in her hut surrounded by cattle and little children, spun in a web of increasing inequality and global warming. it is the best of times; it is the worst of times. the roles and functions of universities in this space/time catch these issues in a microcosm. what does it mean to be an academic in a world where ‘posttruth’ is the word of the year, where professorships are decided on what funding you pull in, where multi-nationals provide the funding needed for research in the very things they are subverting and destroying, where journal articles are written for the money they earn not the readership they receive, unless readership is a metric earning money. to get an idea how universities engage with communities, take a look at marota aphane, simbao mtapuri, chris burman and naftali mollel’s account of academic interaction with social partners in a case from the university of limpopo. at the heart of this research question is the issue of the boundary between universities and outside interests. in south african education theory we continuously talk about boundaries, but do not directly theorise how boundaries actually work. this takes us into systems theory, into luhmann (1995), into autopoietic theory, into living systems theory (miller, 1978). a boundary has to be able to open to needed inputs but closed to harmful inputs; it has to open when it needs to push outputs out, and has to close when it is losing energy or information through harmful outputs (bailey, 2006). boundaries open and close all the time – it is not open or closed forever – its purpose is to be able to open and close at the right time under the right conditions. just as important is to ask what the type of inflow or outflow across the boundary is. is it helpful or harmful or fatal? do two messages neutralise or cancel each other out? is the message a false signal, is it noise? is it linear or non linear (normal impact or exponential impact)? is it contingent or catalytic to massive editorial 11 change? simple formalisation of boundaries into weak and strong (bernstein) is only the first baby step – we have such a long way to go. one of the most important boundaries in south african education (and education in general) is the boundary between grades, signaled at the end of the year by a pass or fail. paul nwati munje and rouaan maarman provide us with a carefully thought through and researched account of the problems and difficulties we are currently experiencing with this boundary. he shows how the school progression policy, with its automatic promotion effect is having negative consequences and enters into a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of grade retention and automatic promotion. he uses the capability approach to theorise the freedoms and unfreedoms generated by the policy and its effect in high poverty areas. it is a useful theory to gain a grasp on the social justice issues surrounding grade retention, but care should be taken when extrapolating these insights into the complex emotional, developmental, social, political, cultural, administrative systemic issues surrounding grade retention. it’s a multi-level problem with multiple and complex feedback loops. it would have been interesting to use bruce brown’s paper on systems thinking to think through the effects of grade retention. systems thinking should be a first level skill we use in education, a basic skill done as a precursor to theorising, so it is with gratitude that the journal of education publishes bruce brown’s paper. don’t just read his paper – try it out. go onto cmap and download cmaptools at http://cmap.ihmc.us/. theorising is less about taking a french concept and applying it to education, more about developing systemic models about how education works (and most about finding educational mechanisms that explain why some process happened). it is fitting to end off the final issue of 2016 with a paper on the pleasures of writing retreats. jane castle and moyra keane provide a well researched account of how retreats develop writer confidence as well as a sense of community and collegiality. in a busy life in a busy city in a busy university it is vital to find time and focus to retreat from all else and concentrate on writing. doing this in a communal space where others are writing as well produces a double bonus win win scenario where your writing improves at the same time as your relations with colleagues. but please have something worthwhile to write about, and that means becoming part of research communities that have thriving social and intellectual energies. it also means that you have to read the latest research and thinking on a daily basis, it means you have to engage with what it means to educate in this twenty-first century 12 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 with a human species hurtling towards artificial intelligence as it impoverishes most of its own, destroys the rich diversity of our planet, and induces a global catastrophe we are responsible for but cannot stop. references bailey, k.d. (2006). living systems theory and social entropy theory. systems research and behavioral science, 23, pp.291–300. luhmann, n. (1995). social systems. stanford: stanford university press, ca. miller, j. (1978). living systems. new york: mcgraw-hill. wayne hugo hugow@ukzn.ac.za memories of their mathematics teachers: implications for pedagogy sally hobden abstract the future teachers in this study were asked to tell the story of their engagement with mathematics, beginning as far back as they could recall, and ending with the present which was as they were about to begin a module entitled mathematical literacy for educators. the narratives contained accounts of their struggles (many) and successes (few) with learning mathematics. the focus of this paper is on their memories of their mathematics teachers who feature in most of the autobiographies. the purpose of this memory work was twofold: to provide a starting point to overcome mathematics anxiety which had the potential to inhibit their engagement with mathematics, and to inform the selection of pedagogical practices in the module. selected memory narratives are presented and the themes of teacher memories are discussed. finally, four pedagogical purposes for memory narratives are identified and discussed. i've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. m aya angelou (k elly, 2003) background and context of the study teacher education in south africa has been governed by a national policy document that sets out the norms and standards for educators (department of education, 2000). in order to comply with the requirement of ‘being numerically, technologically and media literate’ any future teacher at my institution (intending to teach subjects other than mathematics at the secondary level) without having passed grade 12 school mathematics would be required to pass a foundational module in mathematical literacy. consequently, in 2003 i took charge of a new module, mathematical literacy for educators (mle), introduced with the aim of developing in the students appropriate mathematical literacy skills, and engendering self-confidence in their ability to deal with quantitative situations that might be encountered in daily life, or more specifically, in their future professional lives as teachers. 50 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 the two main reasons for future teachers returning to mathematics in this module were (a) their poor performance in mathematics precluded them from studying it in the senior school years or (b) they had attempted and failed the final grade 12 mathematics examination. both these reasons were expected to have a left a bitter taste in the mouth and so i considered that my first task as the lecturer of the module was to begin to address possible negative views of mathematics. to this end the introductory week of this module was devoted to surfacing memories of school mathematics and trying to encourage the future teachers to overcome their mathematics anxiety and to reconceptualise themselves as people who could deal with mathematics in everyday situations. several activities were planned to encourage the future teachers to talk about their school mathematics experiences. first, the future teachers were given a questionnaire in which they were asked to circle two words, from a list of ten, which best described their experience of school mathematics. these words, which from my previous experience are used by people to describe mathematics, were equally divided into positive words (useful, easy, relevant, fun, rewarding), more negative words (difficult, humiliating, frustrating, irrelevant) and challenging which i considered a neutral word as it can be construed either positively or negatively. in this same question, students were asked to write one or two sentences summing up their school experience of mathematics. the qualitative analysis of the sentences written confirmed the quantitative counts of the words chosen, i.e. the future teachers began the mle module with a school mathematics history that they described as difficult, frustrating and challenging. the ‘positive’ words, (useful, relevant, fun, rewarding, and easy) accounted for only 12% of the choices (hobden, 2007). the second introductory class activity was based on a math anxiety bill of rights, created by sandra davis and described by tobias (1993). this is a list of fourteen rights regarding mathematics learning, such as: i have the right to say i don't understand; i have the right to be treated as a competent adult. the purpose of this activity was to engage the preservice teachers with the rights as a first step towards taking charge of their mathematics learning and ceasing to be intimidated “both by their own lack of confidence and by hallowed traditions in the maths classroom that stop them feeling good about themselves” (tobias, 1993, p.226). the future teachers worked in small groups to select and rank eight of the rights. over the three years of this study, the top two ranked rights were consistently i have the right to learn at my own pace and not feel put down or stupid if i'm slower than someone else and i hobden: memories of their mathematics teachers. . . 51 have the right to feel good about myself regardless of my abilities in maths (hobden, 2007). i felt that this was indicative of a group of hurt and anxious learners used to lagging behind. the third activity, writing mathematics autobiographies, required the future teachers to purposefully remember their school mathematics experiences. these memories, and in particular the memories pertaining to their teachers are discussed in detail in this article. the problem of mathematics anxiety and mathematical avoidance and why it matters folk wisdom tells us that it is not so much what people can do, as what they are willing to do that determines their success. tobias (1993, p.100) claims that “negative attitudes. . .can powerfully inhibit intellect and curiosity and can keep us from learning what is well within our power to understand”. the presence of maths anxiety is thought to interfere with the working memory – as noted by sparks (2011), mathematically anxious people use up the brain power needed to solve mathematics problems on worrying. willoughby (2000) at the end of a list of fifteen mathematical skills he believes all people should possess, cautions us: “none of the skills above will be of any use if the individual who has learned them has also learned to avoid mathematics whenever possible. . . if the student has learned to hate mathematics and the learning of mathematics, then i believe the schooling has done more harm than good” (p.10). ashcraft (2002) found a lack of empirical evidence on the origins and causes of mathematics anxiety but suggests that there are some strong hints. these include exposure to teachers who were impatient with errors and held learners accountable for their lack of understanding and subjected them to public displays of their incompetence. ashcraft (2002) concluded that “it is entirely plausible. . .that such classroom methods are risk factors for math anxiety” (p.184). this view is supported by michael goldenberg who, in response to the online version of sparks (2011), wrote “math anxiety is not something people are born with: they catch it from others. however, there are carriers who are not themselves suffering from the disease. contemptuousness from mathematics teachers can readily drive someone into math anxiety, i strongly suspect”. 52 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 duffin and simpson (2000), suggest that it is important to move adult learners for whom mathematics has been a struggle, to see maths as a goal (i.e. a state learners want to be in, and through their actions try to approach) rather than an anti-goal (i.e. a state learners wish to avoid, and through their actions, try to move away from). they warn that: “the fact of that failure is often, of itself, sufficient to have made mathematical situations anti-goals for the learners involved and this brings with it emotional indicators which can prevent an otherwise intelligent adult from attempting any form of mathematical task. the development of the anti-goal nature of mathematics has come from their learning in school and, perhaps from a mismatch between the learner’s way of thinking and the teacher’s style” (p. 97). the future teachers in this study had a compulsory module mathematical literacy for educators to pass, but the motivation for trying to alleviate some of their mathematics anxiety went beyond the short term goal of module marks. it is evident that mathematics anxiety and mathematics avoidance coupled with poor mathematics ability will impede the development of the mathematical (or quantitative) literacy needed to function as a self-managing person and a productive worker. in the seminal article making the case for quantitative literacy, steen (2001) described in detail how “professionals in virtually every field are now expected to be well versed in quantitative tools” (p.12) and how almost all fields of education now require some quantitative literacy. personal management of health and finances is also increasingly dependent on sophisticated understandings of number and statistics. statisticians have joined in advocating statistical literacy and schield (2002) noted that “anybody lacking this type of literacy is functionally illiterate as a productive worker, an informed consumer or a responsible citizen” (p.41). the latter role suggests a second motivation for a mathematical literacy programme, i.e. to develop the quantitative literacy required for responsible citizenship in a democracy. cohen (2003) contends that dating back to the early 19th century the links between democratic government and political arithmetic have been threefold: (a) the political legitimacy of a representative democracy rests on counts and proportional reasoning; (b) a government needs good aggregate data about its citizens to make policy decisions for the greater good; and (c) the citizens in a democracy need good data in order to judge the decisions made by the government and express this judgement through their vote. citizens who wish to participate fully in a democracy cannot afford to refuse to engage with numbers. hobden: memories of their mathematics teachers. . . 53 memory work as a feature of mathematics autobiographies memory work has been successfully used in teacher education and teacher development (see for example pithouse, 2011; cole, 2011; mitchell and weber, 1999) typically in the context of developing teacher identity and influencing future practice. in contrast, my focus in the context of the mle module was not on teacher development but on personal empowerment through the development of some degree of mathematical literacy. the memory work in this module was an attempt to deal with the legacy of mathematics anxiety – for the future teachers themselves to face their negative memories. it was also an opportunity for me, as the lecturer to adapt my pedagogy to take their remembered experiences into account. at the outset of the module the future teachers were asked to write their personal story of ‘maths and me’ – in other words, to wilfully remember the path their mathematics learning had taken and to pen their mathematical autobiographies or life histories. mitchell and weber (1999) regard memory work and the domain of autobiography and life histories as distinct yet related. memory is a feature of autobiographical writing. [memory texts]. . .are driven by two sets of concerns. the first has to do with the ways memory shapes the stories we tell, in the present and in the past – especially stories about our own lives. the second has to do with what is that makes us remember: the prompts, the pretexts, of memory; the reminders of the past that remain in the present (kuhn, cited in mitchell and weber, 1999, p.220). the study of mathematics life stories has its roots in the larger research methodology of life history research. “life historians examine how individuals talk about and story their experiences and perceptions of the social contexts they inhabit” (goodson and sikes, 2001, p.1). mathematical autobiographies (or mathematical life stories) are the personal recollections of a person about their experiences with mathematics as far back as they can recall. the use of mathematical autobiographies is widely, but not exclusively, cited in the context of mathematics anxiety, (see for example benn, 1997; tobias, 1993). adults are encouraged to focus their attention on their “personal mathematics history and the forces and contexts that have patterned the way [they] see and do mathematics” (benn, 1997, p.107). the hope is that mathematically anxious people will be able to face their demons as it were, and move on. 54 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 goodson and sikes (2001) draw attention to the transient nature of the stories told by informants in life story research projects since “they are telling their story in a particular way for a particular purpose, guided by their understanding or conceptualisation of the particular situation they are involved in, the self/identity/impression/image they want to present, and their assessment of how hearers will respond” (p. 41). it could be argued that when adults construct their mathematics autobiographies, current self view clouds the memory and past events are interpreted from an adult perspective. all life stories, by their very nature, are “already removed from life experiences: they are lives interpreted and made textual. they represent a partial, selective commentary on lived experience” (goodson and sikes, 2001, p.16). furthermore, the process of telling about themselves, allows people to construct an identity and to add meanings and explanations to their actions in their retrospective narratives so that events seem more coherent and rational than may have been the case at the time (convery, cited in walford, 2001, p.91). hauk (2005), however, contends that whether the events described are real and accurately described is not the crucial issue as these personal memories “shape the way a person perceives experience, conceives the world, regulates cognitive and emotional responses, and interacts with others” (p.39). what endures, is the student’s perception and interpretation of past events, and so this is what is reported. gibson and costello (2000), in the context of student autobiographies that seem to indicate either a decision that mathematics is an unattractive subject, or that they had incompetent teachers, warn that the “stories may be a vehicle for external attribution of lack of success in mathematics rather than as a means of self-disclosure” (p.38). furthermore, “dwelling on the past is not always useful in and of itself – indeed it can become obsessive or selfdestructive. it is possible to take refuge in the past, living in memory in order to forget the present” (mitchell and weber, 1999, p.5). despite these caveats, the negative memories of mathematics and mathematics teachers that people retain can influence their lives in ways that matter, and so they are best articulated and dealt with. hobden: memories of their mathematics teachers. . . 55 memories of school mathematics – three narratives memories of their school mathematics experience were collected from 245 future teachers in three successive cohorts of students doing the mle module as part of the introductory module activities. they were given a page to write the story which had to begin as far back as they could recall and end with the phrase “and now i am doing mathematical literacy”. this followed some class discussion around the bill of rights activity described previously but it was emphasised that these were to be their personal stories. permission was obtained for the use of the memory writings for academic research purposes. three of the memories are reproduced in their entirety below in order to provide a sense of the responses. these were selected because they contain clear memories of their mathematics teachers – not all mathematics autobiographies included specific reference to their teachers. thandiwe’s memory when i was young, i went to primary school where i enjoyed calculating and adding numbers. i was getting along with it and also doing well. my trouble started when i was doing grade 8 at high school. . . i was very shy in class and that made me not being able to write and calculate sums on the board. to him [the teacher]i looked stupid and not capable of doing sums. but when it comes to homework i could do my homework correctly without any help. so my teacher thought i cheated. i became very angry every time i attend maths and was also humiliated. there for i decided that maths is not my thing, i started hated everything about maths. now i’m still angry that i have to do maths. something that i told myself that i will never do in my entire life (thandiwe, 2004). thandiwe went onto complete her bachelor of educaton degree and qualify as an english, technology and life orientation teacher. craig’s memory many many moons ago in the valley unknown, a little boy named craig would be going to school for the first time. he was so excited and eager to learn but he did not know that this was the beginning of a thirteen year struggle against a mathematic hell. it was a new mathematical system that would give craig nightmares in the deep dark night. the mathematic system eluded him. he was taught to calculate in a card format and the way of the soldier sum. he never understood the concept of the quantive (sic) value of a number. then came the crippling blow that would forever be a mental scar for him. he sat at a white claustrophobic cubical where he stared blankly at a mathematical test. it laughed at him, it made him feel like a fool. thus it resulted in him shedding tear and think this happened to him in the first two years of his school career. the next five years mathematic hide its ugly face as it did it 56 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 damage in his. mathematics raised its head once again but in two forms. the first was the new mathematics teacher and secondly the class he was in. the new mathematics teacher did not know how to control his students. thus the class took advantage, therefore mathematics got another upperhand on craig. the next year craig would get his own back. as a mathematic wizard known as mr. b would help him conquer his fear. unfortunately the wizard had to retire. craig soon had to leave that school and was moved to a rural school. here would be the final show down between craig and his eternal enemy mathematics. mathematics beat him down and down until craig fell. his body bent and spent he said pantingly “you win, i quit”. but now it is the return of craig and he will be victorious against his mathematic enemy (craig, 2004). craig successfully completed the first year of a bachelor of education degree and then abandoned his studies. maree’s memory when i was young i started school with an open mind, excited, expecting the unexpected and unjaded view of ever of everything, since i had no frame of reference, it was all new and exciting to me. but as the days went by, my grade 1 teacher was so mean and impatient, she started to warp my ideas on how maths was looked at. then year after year, i continued to get a cruel and evil maths teacher slapping of hands, standing in the corner, ripping out pages and of course the ever dreaded public humiliation of “maree, tell us how it's done”– you name it, i’ve experienced it all!! naturally i got a mental block about maths and the two of us, just do not mix. . .nevertheless teaching is what i am passionate about, and this is what i have to do to achieve it. . .just one more hurdle in a long line of hurdles in life. . . to be where i need to be i must do maths and now i’m doing maths literacy (maree, 2004). maree passed the mathematics literacy module with high marks and went onto achieve a bachelor of education degree with merits in her specialisations of english and drama. memories of their teachers the memories recounted by the future teachers provided peepholes into the classrooms of south africa and some indication of how mathematics learning can come to a standstill, often quite abruptly (hobden and mitchell, 2011). the focus of this article is on their memories of their school teachers and the effects of these memories. the future teachers whose stories are presented above had spent at least twelve years at school and their teachers must have said and done so many things. yet they remember most how they were made to feel – thandiwe was hobden: memories of their mathematics teachers. . . 57 angry and humiliated by being thought a cheat, craig was made to feel a fool, and maree felt publicly humiliated. while it has to be understood that these products of deliberate remembering do not necessarily reflect the way it really was, as much as the way it appeared at the time or even now appears to the person in hindsight (mitchell and weber, 1999), they are the memories affecting the person’s life in the present. i was surprised to see many instances in the memories where the students reported the actual words of the teachers. some of these were oft repeated clichés such as practice makes perfect, intended to be positive and encouraging; some were discouragements – words that were meant to dissuade the students from continuing with mathematics; and finally there were dismissals – words that were used to dismiss requests for help from struggling learners. it is the professional duty of teachers to advise learners about their choice of subjects and learners are often unhappy to hear that their marks do not qualify them to continue with mathematics. the examples of discouragement in this context and cited below clearly caused lasting offence to the people involved: come end of the year, my bible education teacher called me into the office and told me that god does not intend for me to be a doctor and that i was not allowed to carry on with maths (myra, mathematics autobiography, 2005); she told us that we had no hope so instead of wasting our time we should quit (zami, mathematics autobiography, 2004). some future teachers retained the memory of disparaging comments made by their mathematics teachers, usually in the context of declining to help them further. some examples are: he used to said that he is here to teach not to change a fool to become smart (phiwe, mathematics autobiography, 2004): if you asked her to explain further and said you don’t understand. she will answer by saying “if you don’t know, it is not my baby to feed, i’ll move with those who wants to go with me.” (vallencia, mathematics autobiography, 2005): my math teacher could actually tell us that he doesn’t care. his usual term was “you snooze you lose”. i tried to cope with the situation until i couldn’t get more than 20% correct. after that i said to hell with maths (gladness, mathematics autobiography, 2004). sometimes, as in the case of maree, it was the actions such as slapping or tearing up their work that was remembered. and finally, as postgraduate lecturers we have to feel a little ashamed of the postgraduate student referred to by zami in her mathematics autobiography: when my teacher taught maths i couldn’t understand her. . . the most thing that she use to say was that she has her ‘honours’ and now she was doing her masters. 58 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 memory narratives for pedagogical purposes the narratives produced by the future teachers reflect their memories of their school teachers. i will argue that written memory narratives can influence mathematics pedagogy in at least four ways, namely (a) laying the memories out for adult consideration and evaluation, (b) by providing specific background information on a cohort of students which can inform the selection of pedagogic practices, (c) by broadening the understanding of the work of mathematics teachers to include the development of positive attitudes to mathematics, and (d) by providing a methodology for use in mathematics education research. these are discussed in the four sections that follow. using memory narratives as a starting point to new beginnings i collected all the mathematics autobiographies and read them immediately. i tried to respond to each future teacher’s story in an encouraging way, typically with a note that now as adults they might find the mathematics made more sense and that this was an opportunity to succeed in a mathematics module. although the personal stories of their mathematical experiences were not explicitly discussed, the future teachers soon realised that they were in a class where many of their peers shared similar backgrounds. so when we were in maths literacy class for the first time and i saw there were lots of white people, i thought that if they had the same problem then why not me. i came to realise that maths is actually everyone's problem. nobody in this class has passed maths in grade 12 (gabi, interview, 2003). the three memory narratives reproduced in a previous section illustrate the different attitudes that the future teachers had towards the compulsory mle module. thandiwe was angry at the requirement, craig felt he could possibly conquer mathematics and maree, although not keen to engage with the module, had the maturity to view it as a step towards her greater goal of becoming a teacher. to emphasise the point that surfacing their memories should be a positive step in their mathematics learning journey i usually engage the future teachers in a follow up activity to the mathematics autobiographies. they are asked to write down, on a small piece of paper, the single best thing they can remember about their school mathematics experience and the single worst thing they can recall. all the slips of paper containing bad memories are then burnt in a container in front of the class. the ashes are preserved and hobden: memories of their mathematics teachers. . . 59 displayed on a poster entitled ‘bad memories of maths r.i.p’. alongside a poster containing all the good memories. i hope this helps to provide a concrete reminder that negative memories need not inhibit their engagement with mathematics and that they can, as adults, begin to develop the mathematical skills that will enable them to become self managing people, productive workers, and responsible citizens. using memory narratives to direct pedagogic practices reading the memories of the future teachers, it is clear than many of them were exposed to several of the risk factors for mathematics anxiety identified by ashcraft (2002) and discussed in a previous section of this article. the memories also alerted me to the sensitivity of the future teachers about their mathematics ability and their low confidence levels. it seemed important to be encouraging and affirming wherever possible. my efforts at motivation towards clear goals seems to have some success as indicated by the strong mean agreement in the final module evaluations with the composite factor statement “the lecturer motivated and encouraged me” (hobden, 2007, p.218). it was a challenge to select pedagogic practices that would not touch raw nerves. i took notice of the comments made regarding the humiliation of public disclosure of assessment results, for example: when i got to high school my teachers just discoursed (sic) me. they would make jokes about my marks instead of helping me and what happened on grade 9 was more humiliating, devastating and shamefully because the teacher puts me under pressure. she always wants to show off what a fool i was in front of the class. in addition to refraining from mentioning marks in any public forum, i altered the usual format of test papers which have the marks recorded on the front page of scripts, to have the mark recorded on one of the inside pages. this way when test papers are handed out or left for collection, the individual marks are not visible. i think as teachers we often fail to understand what students hear when we speak, especially when idiomatic speech is used. for example, the phrase ‘you snooze you lose’ could have been a jocular encouragement to use an opportunity to learn, but seems to have been interpreted by gladness in her memory of her teacher as an indication that the teacher did not care. on a 60 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 personal note, i have reverted to plain speech in my interactions with students after reading in a particular module evaluation that i was regarded as rude and dismissive because i referred to students as being blind and fools. i couldn't imagine when i would have said such things but on further thought i recalled my interactions with students working in groups. i often ask if they are sure about the answer and receive the reply that the other members in the group agree with them so it must be correct. to which i might have replied “i hope it is not a case of the blind leading the blind”, or “indeed great minds think alike, but it could also be that fools never differ.” using memory narratives to inform thinking about the work of mathematics teaching after surveying the field, maass and schloglmann (2009) conclude that “affect has come to be seen as having an important influence on mathematics learning” (p.vii). kilpatrick, swafford and findell (2001) reminded us that “motivation for school mathematics learning depends primarily on the interaction of students with teachers and of students with mathematical tasks” (p.339). the memory narratives clearly indicate that the former interaction is long remembered by the students. there has been recent attention given in the international mathematics education literature to the notion of productive disposition as a feature of mathematical proficiency (kilpatrick, swafford and findell, 2001). this has the implication that in addition to developing conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, adaptive reasoning and strategic competence in mathematical content areas, a significant part of the work of mathematics teaching is the development of a belief in the value and coherence of mathematics, and of a sense of self-efficacy in the learners. following international trends, the south african school curriculum (department of education, 2002) highlights the skills, knowledge and values (skavs) required in each school subject, and specifically in mathematics. the inclusion of the values is an indication that the teachers need to go beyond providing mathematics knowledge and skills to develop positive values and attitudes towards the subject. the newer curriculum and assessment policy statement (2011) commits teachers to a curriculum that is “sensitive to issues of diversity such as poverty, inequality, race, gender, language, age, disability and other factors” (p.6). i would argue that one of the ‘other factors’ would be differences in mathematical aptitude. the teaching work of engendering positive feelings towards mathematics, and of hobden: memories of their mathematics teachers. . . 61 approaching struggling mathematics learners with sensitivity would be informed by the insights gained from the memory narratives of those who had passed through the schooling system. using memory narratives in mathematics education research the written mathematics autobiographies in this study were written mainly for the first pedagogical purpose – to assist students to overcome their personal mathematics anxiety. it was never intended that these stories be shared with the group, partly because they were personal and partly because time within the module did not permit any peer discussion of the narratives. the only interaction was in my written comments on each person’s autobiography. formalising the process along the lines of the steps for memory work advocated by onyx and small (2001), seems a promising way for small groups of particularly mathematically anxious future teachers to explore their feelings in community to and take control of their past. this methodology requires adherence to a series of prescriptive steps such as writing in the third person, using pseudonyms and refraining from interpretations and explanations in the written work (crawford, kippax, onyx, goult and benton, 1992). thereafter the participants meet in a group together with the academic researcher who assumes a peer position within the group to analyse the written work with a view to theorising their memories, and viewing them in the light of the wider academic literature. while i am convinced of the value of the group interaction and collective work in making meaning of the individual memories, i concur with onyx and small that “in practice, it is usually one particular researcher who uses the method for the purposes of gaining a qualification, or in order to publish a paper” (2001, p.780), raising ethical issues with this methodology. i suspect it would be difficult to sustain the participants’ interest past the general discussions and into the academic arena, but i have not as yet attempted to engage the future teachers in this way. conclusions i have provided some examples of the narratives produced by future teachers after a request to specifically remember their experiences with mathematics. the memories provided pointers to pedagogical approaches that might be 62 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 successful with people who had been exposed to negative experiences of mathematics and were very likely to suffer from some degree of mathematical anxiety. i think the process of bringing the memories to the surface was helpful to the students who could sense that their feelings were being acknowledged, and that they were in a safe space to try again to succeed at mathematics. the memory narratives were certainly a reminder to me to tread sensitively in my pedagogy, to be affirming, and above all to avoid public discussion of individual achievements. perhaps as teachers, we should think a little less about exactly what to say and do in the daily lessons, and a little more about how we are making the learners feel – this could well be how we are remembered. references ashcraft, m.h. 2002. math anxiety: personal, educational, and cognitive consequences. current directions in psychological science, 11: pp.181–185. benn, r. 1997. adults count too: mathematics for empowerment. leicester: national institute of adult continuing education. cohen, p.c. 2003. democracy and the numerate citizen: quantitiative literacy in the historical perspective. in steen, l.a. and madison, b.l. (eds), quantitative literacy: why numeracy matters for schools and colleges. princeton, n.j.: national council on education and the disciplines, pp.7–20. cole, a.l. 2011. object-memory, embodiment, and teacher formation: a methodological exploration. in mitchell, c., strong-wilson, t., pithouse, k. and allnutt, s. (eds), memory and pedagogy. new york: routledge, pp.223–238. crawford, j., kippax, s., onyx, j., goult, u. and benton, p. 1992. emotion and gender: constructing meaning from memory. london: sage. department of basic education. 2011. curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps): mathematics grades 10–12. pretoria: dbe. department of education. 2000. norms and standards for educators (government gazette vol. 415, no.20844). pretoria. hobden: memories of their mathematics teachers. . . 63 department of education. 2002. revised national curriculum statement grades r–9: mathematics. pretoria: author. duffin, j. and simpson, a. 2000. understanding their thinking: the tension between the cognitive and the affective. in coben, d., o’donoghue, j. and fitzsimons, g. (eds), perspectives on adults learning mathematics. dordrecht: kluwer academic publishers, pp.83–99. gibson, j. and costello, j. 2000. reinforcing disenchantment – number skills for gnvq art and design students. mathematics teaching, 171: pp.36–40. goodson, i. and sikes, p. 2001. life history research in educational settings: learning from lives. buckingham: open university press. hauk, s. 2005. mathematical autobiography among college learners in the united states. adults learning mathematics international journal, 1(1): pp.36–56. hobden, s. 2007. towards successful mathematical literacy learning – a study of a preservice teacher education module. unpublished phd thesis, university of kwazulu-natal, durban. hobden, s.d. and mitchell, c. 2011. maths and me: using mathematics autobigraphies to gain insight into the breakdown of mathematics learning. education as change, 15(1): pp.33–46. kelly, b. 2003. worth repeating: more than 5,000 classic and contemporary quotes. grand rapids: kregel academic & professional. kilpatrick, j., swafford, j. and findell, b. (eds). 2001. adding it up: helping children learn mathematics. washington, dc: national academy press. maass, j. and schloglmann, w. (eds). 2009. beliefs and attitudes in mathematics education: new research results. rotterdam: sense publishers. mitchell, c. and weber, s. 1999. reinventing ourselves as teachers: beyond nostalgia. london: falmer press. onyx, j. and small, j. 2001. memory-work: the method. qualitative inquiry, 7(6): pp.773–786. 64 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 pithouse, k. 2011. ‘the future of our young children lies in our hands’: reenvisaging teacher authority through narrative self-study. in mitchell c., strong-wilson, t., pithouse, k. and allnutt, s. (eds), memory and pedagogy. new york: routledge, pp.177–190. schield, m. 2002. three kinds of statistical literacy: what should we teach? paper presented at the sixth international conference on teaching statistics, cape town. sparks, s.d. 2011. ‘math anxiety’ explored in studies. education week, 30(31): pp.1,16. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/05/18/31math_ep.h30.html?tkn=xz of6lbkdyaunxm4dwhhkj29zy0ithe4m8hc&intc=es steen, l.a. (ed.). 2001. mathematics and democracy: the case for quantitative literacy. the woodrow wilson national fellowship foundation. tobias, s. 1993. overcoming math anxiety. boston: houghton mifflin. walford, g. 2001. doing qualitative educational research. london: continuum. willoughby, s.s. 2000. perspectives on mathematics education. in burke, m.j. and curcio, f.r. (eds), learning mathematics for a new century. reston va: the national council of teachers of mathematics, pp.1–15. sally hobden school of education university of kwazulu-natal hobdens1@ukzn.ac.za mailto:hobdens1@ukzn.ac.za microsoft word cissue79 full 15june.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 79, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i79a07 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x career development of women principals in lesotho: influences, opportunities and challenges moikabi komiti faculty of education, north-west university, mafikeng, south africa berengmakuena@yahoo.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1402-2051 pontso moorosi education studies, university of warwick, coventry, united kingdom department of education, leadership and management, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa p.c.moorosi@warwick.ac.uk https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4447-4684 (received: 21 january 2019; accepted: 2 january 2020) abstract in this paper, we present findings from a study that explored career development of women principals of high schools in lesotho. the aim of the study was to understand how women principals construct career development experiences by looking specifically into how they choose careers in teaching, how these careers transition from teaching to principalship, and what career advancement opportunities exist in a particular context. through a qualitative narrative inquiry, we conducted in-depth interviews with eight women principals on their personal and professional lives. the findings revealed that family played a significant role in influencing women’s teaching career choices, while transitions from teaching to principalship were influenced by levels of readiness and desire to implement change and to improve student outcomes. opportunities of career advancement included self-initiated study which improved qualifications, taking advantage of chances to perform leadership roles, as well as self-confidence and self-drive to actively seek promotion. keywords: women principals, career choices, career transitions, career opportunities, career development introduction the under-representation of women in educational leadership has been a well-noted problem in many countries on the african continent (chabaya, rembe & wadesango, 2009; kitele, 2013; moorosi, 2010; uwamahoro, 2011) and the rest of the world (coleman, 2001; kaparou & bush, 2007; oplatka, 2004; shakeshaft, 1987). coleman (2001) noted that “women in 96 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 educational management are a minority not only in the uk, but in countries with comparable levels of development and those that constitute the newly emerging economies” (p. 175). while studies of women in educational leadership and management have been carried out mostly in the west and in more developed countries focusing on white women’s experiences (e.g., coleman, 2001; shakeshaft, 1987), the last two decades have seen some significant contributions from the developing world with specific focus on experiences of women principals who are not white and are from non-western contexts (chan, ngai, & choi, 2016; faulkner, 2015; moorosi 2010; sperandio & kagoda, 2008). this research is, however, inadequate since it is still not clear which factors affect the advancement of women’s career development in educational leadership in these contexts. this confirms the need for global research on the career development of female leaders as established by oplatka (2004) and mclay (2008). this study therefore set out to investigate and explore how women principals of high schools in lesotho experienced career development which is, in this case, understood as a life-long process through which, following super (1990), an individual develops a career identity starting from childhood. here we explore influences on career choice, transitions, and opportunities of career development from teaching to principalship. specifically, the study was guided by the following questions: • what inspired female principals to choose a career in teaching? • how do female teaching careers transition into principalships? • what factors have promoted and/or hindered the career advancement of female principals? contextual background while there is considerable research conducted on the african continent on women in educational leadership, not much is known about women in school leadership in lesotho. what we do know is that in lesotho, as in many other african societies, traditionally men have been the main providers of their families. boys were socialised into this role very early in their lives and young men would leave school for work. as a result, while men were focused on work as the breadwinners for their families, women continued with their studies and, in gaining higher qualifications, were enabled to become established in formal employment (matsie, 2009). this placed the country in a unique position in sub-saharan africa in making it the only country in this region in which women are more educated than men (chwarae teg report, 2015; mosetse, 2006). ironically, under traditional law, basotho women were legal minors whose rights of access to property and the courts could be effected only through their family male representatives (matsie, 2009). more recently, however, lesotho has become signatory to many international declarations in relation to gender equality and the protection of women’s rights and has developed correspondingly appropriate legislation (hausmann, tyson, & zahidi, 2012). culturally, however, men are viewed as superior to women, so policies advocating for gender equality take a long time to come into effect (chwarae teg report, 2015). komiti & moorosi: career development of women principals in lesotho 97 the absence of women in decision-making positions in educational institutions fails to reflect their educational advantage. the chwarae reg report (2015) suggested that women in lesotho may be literate but are not empowered to benefit from the policies and international ratifications to which lesotho is signatory. the national university of lesotho (nul) and lesotho college of education (lce), the two teacher training institutions in the country, have both experienced a high enrolment of female students in teacher education, resulting in an overwhelming 80 percent majority representation of women in teaching. the higher concentration of women is, however, in primary school teaching (78%) compared to an average of 54% in secondary schools (kelleher, 2011). women thus dominate the headship of primary schools but are less well represented in secondary schools and even less so in tertiary and university leadership. as kelleher (2011) has made clear, this suggests that leadership is a gendered concept in lesotho, with males often assumed to be the rightful leaders. given the high enrolment of female students in teacher training institutions, and the feminised status of teaching in lesotho, one would expect there to be an equally high number of female teachers who have advanced to principalship positions in high schools. however, posholi (2012) has shown the exact opposite to be true. women are still under-represented in the positions of principalship of high schools in lesotho, despite their training and achievements in education being so much greater in number and degree than men’s and despite their dominance in the teaching profession overall. significantly, and extending beyond the concern with gender parity, it is not known what factors contribute to and affect and/or shape the career development of the women who do make it to school principalship positions. such knowledge would help advance women’s career development and is, furthermore, vital for the development of programmes that would prepare them for principalship. women’s career advancement the literature suggests that women’s advancement to senior positions in education is affected by various factors including culture, socio-political conditions, and gender regimes. one of these contributing ideologies is patriarchy, which informs the world’s social structures and practices that give authority to men and legitimises the oppression of women in all sectors of society (sultana, 2012). patriarchy has thus been a stumbling block to women’s freedom and success for hundreds of years and the subordination of women under patriarchy is deeply rooted in basotho custom and law. gender stereotyping is another factor identified as affecting women’s career progression. linked to notions of patriarchy, the traditional view of women’s roles as home-makers and child-bearers is of great disadvantage to women in gaining leadership positions; it frequently holds them back. posholi’s (2012) study on women in senior positions from different parastatals in lesotho revealed that most participants intended to study further in order to improve their qualifications and take up senior positions. however, these aspirants were held back by being stereotyped as necessarily occupying caring and gentle roles that were not seen 98 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 as befitting of leadership. similarly, chabaya et al (2009), asserted that the perception that looking after children and the home comes “natural[ly]” to women and “takes precedence over their career advancement” (p. 247), is a view driven primarily by conformity to social gendered norms and stereotypes. the third factor is guilt, related to the duality of women’s responsibilities between family and work. this leads to a potential role conflict since women are expected to be good homemakers yet are pressured to perform at high levels in their careers (coleman, 2007; mclellan & uys, 2009). moorosi (2010) found that female principals in south africa were under pressure to perform well in their careers while the pressure from the traditional expectation to be a good wife and mother militates relentlessly against them. while western women tend to delay their career progression while they raise a family (coleman, 2007), a choice that tends to sabotage their progression into leadership that results in their always being behind their male counterparts, women from the developing world tend to balance these roles with the help of family and paid domestic help (mclellan & uys, 2009; moorosi, 2010). furthermore, where women appear to have overcome the adversities of structural oppression, they are often held back by organisational practices that do not support them in failing to provide opportunities for their career progression. these organisational barriers include lack of access to mentoring, networking, and training and development, as well as work cultures that are not supportive of women [and men] who have responsibilities related to caring for others (moorosi, 2012; spurk, meinecke, kauffeld, & volmer, 2015). other studies have shown that women have made progress where this organisational support is available (see bosch, 2015; moorosi, 2010) even though women may not benefit from same sex mentors (moorosi, 2012; spurk, et al, 2015). the opportunities given to women principals played a crucial part in their preparation for principalship and were used to their benefit to advance their careers. career development theory and gender we found super’s (1990) career development theory with its emphasis on self-concept linked to leadership self-identity and gendered stereotypes appropriate and useful in explaining career choice and career development. according to super (1990), career development is a life-long process through which people make vocational choices that express their selfconcept. self-concept in this sense means the extent to which people perceive themselves in relation to certain vocational choices and, in this case, how they perceive themselves in general. super has suggested that self-concept changes over time and develops through different experiences that influence vocational maturity. he further posited that people implement and develop their self-concept during career development throughout which process they make vocational choices that enable them to express their self-concept. these choices may influence certain “image norms” (giannantonio & hurley-hanson, 2006, p. 318) and beliefs about which occupations would be suitable given a particular self-concept. komiti & moorosi: career development of women principals in lesotho 99 super (1990) identified five stages of career development (growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance, and decline) in which a person’s career develops over a life span. in this framing, career development unfolds over time through a sequence of occupational positions and social roles that are assumed in a lifetime. this model acknowledges that career interests ought to be examined alongside other life interests and recognises that women’s career patterns are different to men’s because of the former’s interest in family responsibilities. although it has been criticised for its lack of sophistication and nuance on gender specific issues (bimrose et al., 2014), it is regarded as one of the first career models to pay attention to women. we therefore found super’s conception of selfconcept being used to view career development as a helpful organising framework in which to explain the lived experiences of female principals’ career transitions and development over time. according to super (1990), the first stage is growth, during which a person develops selfconcept, attitudes, and needs that relate to the general world of work. this is followed by exploration during which people explore possibilities through classes, work, and hobbies and also develop tentative choices and skills in order to become well developed. establishment is the third stage, constituting the entry level for skills development and stabilisation through work experience. at this stage, teachers look to develop their skills so as to advance in their careers in preparation for maintenance, which is the fourth stage. this involves maintaining self-concept or self-belief in one’s present job status. finally, the decline stage means reduced output in preparation for retirement. super acknowledged that these stages may or may not occur linearly nor necessarily correspond to chronological age because individuals go through the stages as they experience career transitions. methodology this study is positioned in the interpretive paradigm which, according to nieuwenhuis, “serves as a lens through which reality is interpreted” (2007, p. 48). we used narrative inquiry within a qualitative approach to carry out in-depth semi-structured interviews with eight female principals of high schools. the narratives provided us with rich primary data on how each participant’s career path had unfolded. according to clandinin and connelly (2000), a narrative inquiry focuses on participants’ stories and the sequence of events that have affected their lives. additionally, since, as mentioned above, career development is understood to be a life-long process, we chose an approach that could capture the lives of women in a holistic and culturally specific context as recommended by goodson and sikes (2001). given that our focus was on female principals’ experiences of career development, we made a purposive selection of women who were already in principalship of high schools, a context in which women are not well-represented. the eight participants were purposively selected from one town in lesotho because of its large concentration of high schools. details of high school principals were obtained from the district office and female principals were contacted by telephone. we conducted face-to-face in-depth interviews with those principals who were available and willing to be interviewed. each interview took just over an hour. 100 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 to observe ethical protocol, participants signed informed consent forms with which they were provided, agreeing that they were voluntarily taking part in the study. as an outsider in the field of educational leadership practice, the first author as researcher had to be honest with the participants from the beginning about her own identity so that they could feel free to express themselves knowing to whom they were talking. this “self-disclosure” acted not only as a “gesture of reciprocity” (zinn, 1979, p. 218) but helped to form good relationships and led to a high level of rapport between the researcher and the participants which is, as oakley (1981) has pointed out, essential for effective [feminist] interviewing. the participants’ narratives were transcribed verbatim from the voice recordings of the interviews. each recording was transcribed under the same set of questions so that the similarities and differences would be apparent. the research questions were used to organise the data into the themes that emerged from participants’ narratives of their life stories. a coding system was used to organise raw data in order to make it more meaningful (see glesne, 2011; patton, 2002). we also used renner and taylor-powell’s (2003) five steps in the analysis of narratives in qualitative research data. these five steps involved reading the text thoroughly, identifying consistencies and differences in participants’ responses, categorising information, identifying patterns and connections within and between categories, and developing an outline for the presentation of the results. findings we present the findings on the career development of female principals based on the three themes 1) the influence on career choices, 2) career transitions, and 3) career advancement opportunities and challenges to women principals’ career development. we have used pseudonyms to ensure confidentiality and the anonymity of our participants. the women were all basotho born and bred in lesotho and all had qualified teaching status. other details of the participants are summarised in the table below. table 1: participants’ demographic data name age marital status no. of children time as principal previous role years in teaching influential persons masemi 47 separated 3 8 months deputy* 22 mother malefu 56 divorced 1 9 years hod 31 father manepo 37 married 2 1 year deputy* 12 mother/sister mapita 45 married 3 8 years hod 19 parents malerato 47 married 2 9 years teacher 21 sister maliau 60 married 5 6 years hod 37 father mapalesa 62 married 6 5 years deputy* 41 mother maneo 41 unmarried nun 0 7 years principal 11 sister *deputy principal komiti & moorosi: career development of women principals in lesotho 101 the family as an influence on career choice to begin with, we looked into early childhood influences on the career choices of female principals. the findings suggest that the teaching career choices of female principals were mostly influenced by family. for some female principals, it was easy to choose a career in teaching since the profession was well represented in their families. for example, ‘manepo’s mother and two sisters were teachers. she stated, “i was raised in the environment of teachers” and so it was natural for her to choose teaching. mapita mentioned that both her mother and father were teachers. she explained, i grew up knowing only one profession which was teaching. my mother and father used to teach at the same school and i also went to school there even though they never taught me. ‘mapalesa’s situation was slightly different in that her parents were not educated, yet she was encouraged by her mother to go to a teacher training college. she said, my parents were farmers; they sold animals for my education and were living as low income earners. we are a family of six and i was the first girl in the community to go to the [teacher] training college because my parents wanted me to have a career and guided me towards becoming a teacher. ‘malerato and ‘maneo were both influenced by their older sisters to follow a career in teaching. ‘malerato admits that she did not want to be a teacher but, rather, an accountant. yet her sister encouraged her to further her studies in education. she explained, my sister told me that since i like accounting so much, i should do teaching and specialise with accounting so that i could teach it at high school and suddenly she was making sense to me and i accepted the advice with greater joy. although ‘maneo admired her sister who was a teacher and a nun, she did not want to follow the teaching profession herself but was somehow cajoled into it when she decided to become a nun. she stated that both her parents were not working, and at first she wanted to be a farmer like them. but the closest person with whom she grew up was her sister and she was a teacher. ‘maneo was the only participant who developed a passion and love for teaching at a very late stage in her life. transitioning from teacher to principal career transitions were marked by a move from teaching to principalship. these transitions were not linear since participants progressed via different routes even though they all started their careers as teachers. responses showed that some decided to seek promotion actively 102 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 from being teachers to being principals whereas others did not even think of the move until they were encouraged by other people or were nominated to the position of principalship. moreover, some participants found themselves in principalship positions very early in their teaching career without preparation, while others felt prepared through following the promotion route. five participants did not actively pursue the principalship (unintentional journeys) while three of the participants purposefully sought principalship positions (intentional journeys). unintentional journeys the transition from teaching to principalship for women in this category was not planned. opportunities for promotion presented themselves without much initiative on their part. ‘manepo studied for a master’s degree with the intention of moving to higher education teaching. however, while she waited for opportunities to teach at university she was asked to act as a principal when the current principal’s contract expired. when asked at what stage she decided to become a principal, she said, never. i think it is a very stressful position, i never really wanted the position. i was hoping and planning to go to a higher institution when i came back from school [after doing master’s]. i did not want to come and work at the high school . . . because when you advance your degree you want to advance your career and i wanted to work at tertiary institutions, but it did not happen. it is interesting to note that ‘manepo did not perceive moving to a leadership position in schools as an advancement in her career. as the youngest (37) of the participants, it can be deduced that she was exploring other options besides a career in school teaching. ‘maneo was the only participant who was in her second principalship at the time of the study. her journey was rather different. she said, i started working as a teacher . . . in [august] 2005 and . . . in 2006 january, the principal died and i was asked to act as a principal by the school board. i was scared and felt that i was not ready to take a huge step like that in my life. remember i was just fresh from the university with little teaching experience and none on [an] administrative role. . . . i worked as a principal from 2006 to 2008 december. in 2009, i was given another job to take care of school finances until 2011. later in 2011, management asked me if i could . . . be a principal [in another school] because the nun who was a principal was retiring from the position, but this time around i was a bit confident because of my previous principalship experience. it is perhaps worth mentioning that, as a nun, ‘maneo did not have much control over her career moves since she could respond only to what she was being instructed to do by her superiors in the church. komiti & moorosi: career development of women principals in lesotho 103 ‘maliau said she was comfortable being a teacher until she learned about a new school opening in her area. although she had a great deal of experience, as a teacher and head of department, she had never really thought of becoming a principal, but was persuaded by the education officer’s comment that it would “not be nice at her age” (in her 50s at that time) to be answering to someone else. her husband also encouraged her to apply and convinced her that she had nothing to lose. she said, to my surprise, i was short-listed, and i went for an interview and i got the job. i could not believe it at first; it took time to sink in. the school was established in 2010, so i have been the principal here since then. ‘mapita also did not intend to become a principal even though she was a head of department. she said that when the promotion happened it was a complete shock to her. she was nominated to act in the position when her principal left the school to further his studies. like four other participants, ‘mapalesa did not plan to become a principal, but was unexpectedly promoted into deputy principalship in 2004. she elucidated, i did not know about this promotion. i did not know a lot of things at school. my main focus was my work. i was a marker and i was out marking, then i was called by the school board and i had no idea why they wanted to see me. they asked me if i could be a deputy principal [of the school] and i accepted [and] that is how the promotion came along. i did not apply for it. we noted that at age 62, ‘mapalesa had 41 years of teaching experience in total, which included only 6 years as a principal. although the women in this category did not plan their careers, it is possible that they harboured latent ambitions so none of them objected to the promotion. intentionally sought promotions three participants had intentionally sought promotion in order to become principals. these go-getters—‘masemi, ‘malefu and ‘malerato—actively applied for promotion and did not give up when it did not happen the first time around. ‘masemi had a passion for the position of principalship and said she knew that she was destined for bigger things and therefore worked hard to achieve her goals. she declared, i developed [a] passion for principalship when i was studying part-time while i was also teaching. so, the new knowledge i acquired made me feel that i was ready and full of ideas for [a] principalship position. my honours and postgraduate diploma helped me to see and understand that things should not be running like that and that there was a need for change in that school. 104 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 her teaching career started in 1994 and she had 18 years of teaching experience when she finally decided to apply for promotion. her first application in her own school was not successful since she was rejected because she was a woman. she said, i was told that i was good, but the school board was looking for a male principal. this overt discrimination did not put her off completely, although she later applied for a deputy principal position in another school. however, it turned out that the principal of the school was on suspension and, to her surprise, she was asked to act as the principal until she was offered the job permanently. ‘malefu told us why she sought the principalship position when she explained, i decided to become a principal when i was still at a private school because once i was from the university, i could not see anything standing in my way of becoming a principal, with my degree. i really looked around and wanted to do something different, so immediately after my graduation, i felt that i no longer belonged to the classroom. there is something significant about what triggered the need for change in both ‘masemi and ‘malefu; it was the education they received while upgrading their qualifications that made them dream of doing bigger things as well as boosting their confidence to apply for the principalship. and this is different from ‘malerato’s case in that she just took a leap of faith in actively seeking promotions. she recounted, when i was still teaching at the previous high school between 2004 and 2005, i felt that i was ready to become a principal. i started looking for the vacancies for the position, then in 2006, i heard that this school was being upgraded from primary to high school, so i took a chance and applied. fortunately, i got the job. ‘malerato became a principal in her late 30s, becoming the only principal in our study who transitioned into principalship straight from the classroom. for women like her, it is the selfdrive and personal agency that seems to have made a difference regarding whether to actively pursue the principalship. the women participants’ reasons for transitioning to principalship can be summarised thus: 1. they felt that they were ready for the position after they had improved their studies. 2. they wanted to see their ideas being implemented. 3. they had enough experience with in the classroom. 4. they wanted to see change. informal mentoring and networking in addition to factors that facilitated the transition into principalship presented above, two organisational factors (informal mentoring and networking) emerged as significant factors in komiti & moorosi: career development of women principals in lesotho 105 the women principals’ career advancement. informal mentoring occurred mostly through women being encouraged to apply for promotion as explained above. in addition to that, ‘masemi mentioned that she was supported by her previous principal who “valued my input and ideas so much and i was motivated to always do my best and more.” ‘manepo was grateful for the networking opportunities that were made available for principals. she observed, “i think one of the things that is good about being a principal is that one gets to know a lot of important people; networking is very important in this job.” ‘malefu explained how she had an opportunity to develop herself and her teachers when she said, [you get] the opportunity to develop [your] teachers as much as you develop yourself. sometimes we go to african conferences and international conference in australia to network because it is important to network in this kind of work so as to find out how best can you deal with situations in the position that you are in, so our principals association and ministry of education take care of all that. ‘mapita also had an opportunity to travel overseas through the principals’ association network. ‘maneo described activities that were involved in meetings and workshops when she explained, we are divided into sections and this . . . has made me grow or develop because they used to hold workshops a lot. other principals used to share their experiences with us new principals back then. they even gave me materials about leadership skills, how to keep records . . . both ‘mapalesa and ‘malerato knew about the great work that was done by the principals’ association but had never made use of it, thus suggesting the need for personal initiative as well. opportunities for career development also gave participants a chance not only to develop themselves, but to develop their teachers as well. this shows the significance of mentoring and networking and their possible benefits for the wider organisation. family as a source of support beyond influencing career choice, family also emerged as a strong source of psychosocial support for women’s career development. this was through moral support and help with childcare. ‘maliau, ‘maneo, ‘manepo, ‘malefu, and ‘masemi all expressed their gratitude for the support they had received from their families throughout their career journey. they said that they have always had support from their parents and siblings who were there to listen whenever they faced challenges and that they provided advice and a shoulder to cry on. ‘malefu said that she has always had support from her mother and brother and she even dedicated her achievements to them when she said, 106 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 my mother was my everything. when i went up and down learning and working she used to stay with my son and it became a challenge when she died because i had to pick him up and we were even strangers because he could relate [more] easily to my mother than [to] me. all was not lost, though, since she was left with her brother who would remind her constantly that her mother wanted her to be a principal. for ‘manepo, her mother and father were always there to comfort her and give her advice whenever she needed it. she said, when i was already a deputy principal, my father . . . always talked to me about what i should do, how to deal with people with different characters, especially people who seem to be very troublesome, how to approach people, what is the best way to deal with people. . . [he used to say] ‘always do what is right, do not do your work to satisfy other people but always do what is right for the school.’ ‘maneo and ‘masemi also drew their strength from their respective mothers. in contrast, ‘maliau mentioned that she got support from her husband. she explained, my husband is also a teacher, so he knows and understands when i am under pressure at work and have to bring work home and not be able to cook supper sometimes and he does it. he also has been very supportive throughout the whole journey because he understands the field very well and that one needs to seek opportunities and grow or develop. challenges to women’s career advancement challenges to female principals’ career advancement are summarised in the two themes of gender discrimination at the work place and family responsibilities. gender discrimination participants talked about their capabilities and intelligence being undermined simply because they were women. ‘masemi faced this challenge in the selection process when she applied for a principalship and was directly discriminated against. she exclaimed, i did not get the position because the school board at the time had [an] old mindset that the position was suitable for a strong man not a woman. i think that school has had one female principal so far since it has been established, so the school board looked at me, my stature, my age. and i felt so hurt because i really worked hard and long in that school and even school board members knew that i was capable of doing the principal’s job efficiently and effectively but i was told that i was good but the school board was looking for a male principal! komiti & moorosi: career development of women principals in lesotho 107 ‘malerato expressed how she felt the sexist undertones, which meant that she could not be trusted with certain roles because of her gender when she declared, when you are a woman, people do not think you can do it because you are a female principal and there are males under you and those males undermine you thinking that you lack managerial skills just because you are a woman. female principals face gender discrimination not only from the school board members and teachers but from parents as well, as ‘maliau experienced. she said, i really work well with my staff so the only problem is that of parents when they do not want to pay school fees. they think because i am a woman they can walk all over me. they like passing remarks like, ‘if only this school was led by a man things would be great” and i just ignore them. ‘mapita also had the same problem of being undermined by men just because she is a female principal. she revealed, i have dismissed seven men from this school since i became a principal, including a pastor. they did not appreciate being led by a woman, so they did not hide their feelings and thoughts in the meetings, and they tortured me just for being a female principal. i used to lock myself in my office and cry until i told myself that enough was enough. family responsibilities female principals mentioned that family responsibility was one of the problems that inhibited their career advancement. ‘malerato had this to say, i felt that i was ready to become a principal long before i could actually take a step to apply for it. i used to be worried because i always heard of vacancies in high schools which were far from my home place where i stayed with my family and i did not see how i could stay away from my family until my husband convinced me to apply and try it for some time and see how it goes. while malerato’s husband played a supportive role, ‘malefu went through a different experience in that she found it impossible to leave her husband after getting married, thus delaying her career advancement. she explained, i got married in 1981, which means for . . . ten years i had nothing to do with education because i [only] went back to school to train for teaching in 1991. . . i did not want to think about anything which would take me away from my husband for a long time like going to school because we [had] just got married so with the jobs i did it was better because i came back to him every day after work. if i went back to school earlier, my career could have advanced quicker than it did. but i have learned 108 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 my lesson the hard way because that person i stopped my dreams for is now divorcing me. i guess it is life’s lessons (laughs). most of the participants viewed it as a weakness that women tend to put family ahead of career. they believe having a family should not distract them from reaching their goals because their professional success is their family’s success. discussion influences findings reveal that family was instrumental in influencing the women principals’ career choices in teaching. participants were mostly exposed to teaching, which is a typically feminine career choice at both primary and secondary levels (kelleher, 2011). even someone who aspired to become an accountant is somehow cajoled into a softer version of a career in commercial subjects. a couple of issues are at play here: the strong influence of family that leads women into conforming to social norms (see chabaya et al., 2009; mutekwe & modiba, 2012) and limited autonomy in career choices for women in lesotho. the influence of family in this study is unsurprising, since, as taylor, harris and taylor (2004) have maintained, without parental approval, children are often reluctant to pursue, or even explore certain careers. the findings are also partly consistent with those of inman (2011) and mckillop and moorosi (2017) who established that at the formation stage most participants’ career choices were influenced by parents, extended family, and teachers. we found it surprising that schooling and teachers were not mentioned as key influencing agents at the growth stage, contrary to existing literature (e.g. mckillop & moorosi, 2017; ribbins, 2008). most of these women were in their 40s and above at the time of the study and were of a generation that grew up when teaching and nursing were the main careers available to women in lesotho. additionally, although as professionals the participants lived and worked in the town, they were brought up in rural villages where opportunities for career guidance were less available and where subsistence agriculture and livestock farming were the main occupations for women while men worked in the south african mines. career choice was, in this sense, also shaped by socio-economic conditions given which, financial security is important. super (1990) referred to situational determinants as factors involving individuals’ socio-economic conditions that may affect career choice. since women could not work in the mines in neighbouring south africa, getting an education and a career were ways of ensuring a better socio-economic status. also, giannantonio and hurley-hanson (2006) have posited that normative images of a career formed in the growth stage that arise as a result of family influence may have subtle but long-lasting effects on an individual’s career choices. mutekwe and modiba (2012) have linked the effect of family influence to gendered social norms of socialisation. this means, then, that the visibility of a teaching career arguably makes teaching an obvious choice for most women of the participants’ generation, given that these images were powerful since they were the only images of a visible career choice for women during their childhood and youth. komiti & moorosi: career development of women principals in lesotho 109 transitions and opportunities for women’s career development the second theme refers to opportunities for career development, which can be summarised as the organisational factors of the promotion route, informal mentoring, and networking. career transition from teaching to principalship occurred at different stages of the career development of the women principals in our study. findings suggest that women transitioned intentionally (by design) and accidentally (by default). participants who intentionally sought the principalship all went through the promotion route or had pursued further study which strengthened their self-concept (see super, 1990), preparing them for the principalship. selfinitiated career advancement opportunities in the form of further studying gave women the confidence to actively seek promotion from the classroom. this is similar to faulkner’s (2015) finding that participants felt confident that nothing could stop them from becoming principals after they had had the experience and acquired the necessary qualifications despite the latter not being a requirement. what is also discernible here is the high value placed on the education and higher qualifications that were believed to have facilitated their transition into principalship. these findings concur with those of moorosi (2010) and chan et al. (2016) that women studied continually so that they could get promoted to a principalship. besides their acquiring higher qualifications, there is evidence of high levels of self-drive and personal agency among women who actively sought promotion. in contrast, women who transitioned by default were more reactive to opportunities when they presented themselves. these women were spurred on by encouragement from some trusted people who acted as informal mentors. no further involvement of these informal mentors was observed beyond this transitioning stage, but there is a strong evidence of networking during the principalship tenure. kruse and krumm (2016), bosch (2015), and eckman (2004) found that women who were not overtly ambitious were likely to apply for the principalship when they were encouraged by other people to step out of the classroom and seek such promotion. while this can be seen as a result of lack of confidence and/or lack of career planning (see coleman, 2007), this has been explained by others (faulkner, 2015; moorosi, 2010; sanchez & thornton, 2010) as the lack of exposure to leadership roles and the association of leadership with masculinity, which makes women appear hesitant to apply for principalship positions even when they qualify for them. presenting high school leadership as a male’s territory is a direct result of the patriarchal tendency that assumes that authority and power emanate from masculinity in comparison with women’s femininity and submissiveness (sultana, 2012). principalship was not a visible career move for these women since they all replaced male principals (see chan et al., 2016). considering some of the gendered discrimination experienced by some of the participants, and the reasons given for not transitioning earlier, it is possible that women did not perceive themselves as future principals because of their gender; principalship was not part of their self-concept (super, 1990), arguably because of cultural and structural impediments that disadvantage women despite lesotho’s reported advancement in female education and progress on gender equality policies. 110 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 however, the women in this study do benefit from informal mentoring from their former principals, colleagues, and spouses who happen to be men. spurk et al., (2015) and moorosi (2012) have used similarity attraction theory to show women benefiting from men as sources of mentoring support. spurk et al., (2015) argue that women and men tend to have access to the same organisational factors which include mentoring and networking, yet these have varying effects, arguably because women’s career advancement “values are aligned with their wish to fulfil family responsibilities” (p. 115). mckillop and moorosi (2017) conclude that encouraging women teachers to apply for promotion is something that needs to be institutionalised within organisations. encouraging women into leadership positions boosts their confidence in their ability to lead, as young and mcleod (2001) observed. women who receive professional endorsement are more likely to mentor and support others. challenges to women’s career advancement challenges to the career advancement of women principals included gendered discrimination at the work place and family responsibilities. these findings concur largely with those in the existing literature (see chabaya et al., 2009; chan et al., 2016). some of the participants considered principalship only after teaching for more than twenty years and after being held back by family considerations. we believe that the slow career progression of women in this regard in lesotho is shaped by patriarchal tendencies since the subordination of women is deeply rooted in the basotho culture. women here take longer to develop a leadership selfconcept and identity, and, while previous literature links this to self-esteem and/or selfefficacy (betz, 1994), we see an interplay with culture and gender norms as well. chan et al., (2006) have argued that when gender norms in society prescribe different, and often inferior, roles to women, these shape not only their career orientations but also the way schools are organised and the social perception of leadership. (p. 195) the gendered nature of structural impediments can also be discerned here; women face gendered prejudice in organisations that affects their career development. contrary to super’s (1990) theory that suggests that all individuals have the agency to shape their vocational development, these prejudicial experiences point to women’s limited autonomy in patriarchal societies. it is possible that super’s career maturity, which implies women’s readiness to cope with gendered challenges to career development, improves women’s resilience against discrimination. this would account for their ability to blossom in the later stages of career development when they are approaching the decline stage. engaging further with this notion is beyond the scope of this article but we suggest that it warrants further exploration in future studies of women’s career development in school leadership. conclusion in analysing the career development stories of eight female principals in a context where very little is known about women in school leadership, our contribution is contextual and geographical. our explanation of why women in lesotho are still not able to transform the komiti & moorosi: career development of women principals in lesotho 111 educational leadership landscape, despite their educational advantage over men in higher levels of literacy, higher qualifications, and the feminised teaching profession, we blame the patriarchal ideology that views men as the official holders of authority. despite the advantages listed above, women are not empowered to dismantle the patriarchy and begin to change the landscape of educational leadership. this problem cannot be solved by women alone so we call on men to help improve women’s career development in school leadership. patriarchal thinking that values masculine superiority constrains women’s career advancement despite the presence of policies on gender equality and the agency of individual women. in a significant theoretical contribution we note a strong interplay of personal agency, culture, and economic conditions that shape career choices, career transitions, and overall experiences in the career development of women principals. however, we note that ours was a small sample of eight women, but we suggest that this opens what should be an ongoing dialogue on women’s career development in school leadership. references betz, n. e. 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(1979). field research in minority communities: ethical, methodological and political observations by an insider. social problems, 27(2), 209–219. courtesy of don mattera’s classic book with the full title of:1 minnet är mitt vapen/memory is the weapon an enquiry into the effects of my early learning experiences on my current teaching practice sam tobias abstract as a south african educator, i am haunted, positively or negatively, by my own early learning experiences during apartheid. in this article, i explore my early learning experiences and my current teaching practice through a reflective journey. firstly, i consider the need to be reflective as a teacher. then i weave a narrative of personal learning experiences through my early school days and current teaching practice, using the school context, pedagogy, socialisation and discipline as categories of investigation. lastly, i critically contrast my past learning experiences with my current teaching practice. in exploring my past experiences and reflecting critically on my current teaching pedagogy, i have come to see how i was able to dispel anguish and become an optimistic teacher. in order to realise the change we desire, we as teachers have to embrace change and that can happen. memory is the weapon! 1 introduction south africa has shared a past history of unprecedented violence towards the majority of its citizens. this period of brutality by the state towards the majority of its populace was globally deemed as a crime against humanity. however after being the pariah of the world, south africa underwent a miraculous regime change, which made us the envy of the world. this duality of despair and hope is my memory of a past that has impacted on my learning and influenced my teaching, respectively. in this article, i explore my early learning experiences and my current teaching practice through a reflective journey. in doing so i hope to be the change my country needs to dispel despair and to instil optimism for the future. 106 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 firstly, i deliberate on the need to be reflective as a teacher. then i weave a narrative of personal learning experiences through my early school days and current teaching practice, using the school context, pedagogy, socialisation and discipline as categories of investigation. lastly, i critically contrast my past learning experiences with my current teaching practice. reflection as a meaning making process i am interested in how we make sense of memories. descartes’ proposition: cogito ergo sum “i think, therefore i am” intrigues me (newman, 2010). to me, this suggests that our memories are fashioned by thought. john dewey is an important scholar in the area of thinking. rodgers’ (2002) paper on dewey is testimony to that and delves specifically into reflective thinking. reflection is a meaning-making process that moves a learner from one experience into the next with deeper understanding of its relationship and connections to other experiences and ideas. it is the thread that makes continuity of learning possible, and ensures the progress of the individual, and, ultimately, society. it is the means to essentially moral ends (rodgers, 2002). my first encounter with reflective writing was triggered by my participation in a recent university tutorial based on four self reflective questions from allender and allender’s (2006) paper. i wrote a letter to my son, an undergraduate student teacher in his second year, using the following questions to frame my narrative: “(1) what did [i] like about school as a child? (2) what bothered [me] in school? (3) what aspects of [my] schooling did [i] always say [i] would change if [i] were [a] teacher? and, (4) what influence does the way [i] were taught have on how [i am] teaching now (allender and allender, 2006, p.14)?” this was a sobering experience which put me in touch with deep-rooted memories, which in turn exposed my perpetual optimism about my chosen career. for me, this duality in sense making of memories and reflection is best understood by drawing upon pithouse’s (2011) conception of ‘narrative inquiry’ which pithouse sees as “. . .a mode of thought that understands the self as situated by the storylines and setttings of an unfolding life story. . .” (pithouse, 2011, p.178). a deeper impetus for reflective writing or historical storytelling is encapsulated in what pithouse refers to as ‘self-study’ which tobias: an enquiry into the effects of my early learning experiences. . . 107 points to teachers examining their own teaching and learning through their memories, with the aim of improving their own pedagogy. this view is supported by cole (2011), who draws our attention to memory as much more than mere reflection of one’s past; cole sees it both as a study discipline and a method to construct one’s identity. in the narrative i present in this article, i attempt to make sense of the duality of ‘memory work’ and ‘memory studies’ through remembering of my early ‘childhood’ learning experiences (mitchell, strong-wilson, pithouse and allnutt, 2011). i am however not narrowing the meaning of memory, on the contrary i adhere to the ‘embodiment’ of the broader use of the term ‘memory’ (cole, 2011). my pedagogical narrative is interspersed with the broader meaning of memory work, which is interrelated to the vast themes of remembering spaces as both study and method (mitchell, strong-wilson, pithouse and allnutt, 2011). an example of reflective remembering that has influenced my own meaning making process is kunene’s (2009) exploration of her lived educational experience as she relays and reflects on the south african education reforms post apartheid which are closely linked to her own growth during the tumultuous time of change. kunene’s reflective thinking is intense and poses deep cutting introspective questions on her, and in fact every teacher’s, consciousness by asking whether we are being “educative or miseducative” to others (dewey, 1963, as cited in kunene, 2009, p.140). her story from primary through to high school is reminiscent of my own. makhanya (2010) refers to reflection as a means of recounting a journey through life in order to effect changes in current practice. as a department of education subject advisor researching her own practice, makhanya’s deliberate intent is to encourage her teacher participants to reflect on their experiences and to share these with her and each other. her expectation is to understand what shaped the teachers’ lives and how it has impacted on their practice. furthermore, she is interested in understanding their experiences in the light of possible connections with her own past experiences. both kunene, who states, “. . .i began to teach the child rather than the prescribed curriculum. . .” (kunene, 2009, p.145) and makhanya, who explains, “i found myself moving away from being a researcher and i discussed about how to teach reading, referring the teachers to. . ., which the teachers claimed they had never seen. . .” (makhanya, 2010, p.57) make profound critical decisions to teach, respectively. i draw heavily on both makhanya and kunene’s experiences to make the assumption that good teachers are made and seldom born, because the more i read about lived experiences and self reflection and 108 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 a racial annotation to people of mixed lineage2 in response to white, african or asian 3 how these impact on the present practice, i am convinced that best practice is begotten from remembering what was done right in the past or from making a conscious decision not to repeat what was done wrong. thus, i have come to understand how mitchell and weber (1998) actually use the phrase “recuperating memories of school” (mitchell and weber, 1998, p.46), suggesting that reflective memory accounts of our early experiences of school can lead to a beneficial improvement in our work as teachers. i see this as crucial in any teacher’s awareness of self reflection in order to bring about change in terms of how we ourselves learn and teach, which must in essence radically differ (or rather be positively influenced) from (by) past experiences, this is what i understand by ‘usable past’ (zandy, 1995, as cited in mitchell and weber, 1998). my early learning experiences school itself was a blur, especially the junior grades school has been an integral part of my life. from an early age, i remember waiting for my older friend to return from school and to replay his entire day at school with me, which demonstrates “. . .how children imitate or ‘play out’ [authoritarian roles] where they can impose school work on the less powerful. . .” (mitchell and weber, 1998, p.46). i made his experiences mine. learning from him was “. . .about power and control. . .” (mitchell and weber, 1998, p.50) and the subjection to authority was due to his age and access to knowledge. i was able to read and count before i met teachers! i recall reading everything: magazines such as ‘drum’, and even the photo novel, the craze of the time. it was the time of separate education, of growing up in a coloured community. i was vaguely aware of being ‘mixed’ because2 3 we were a potpourri of different hues in my family, as well as in the greater community. though the country was burdened with undue violence such as forced removals, oppressive laws and police brutality; i experienced corrective guidance at home, in school and in the community. i attribute this deliberate communal shielding from the “. . .restrictive, unresponsive, tobias: an enquiry into the effects of my early learning experiences. . . 109 name shortened for anonymity4 name shortened for anonymity5 tale of two cities6 rom eo and juliet7 oppressive education. . .” to teachers that will “. . .rather than emulate[e] traditions, try to be humanistic. . .” (allender and allender, 2006, p.14). in my opinion it is plausible to be consciously shielded [by teachers] from the absurdity of an abnormal reality [education] of poverty. the senior grades at primary school are indelibly etched in my memory our primary school for coloureds was in an urban setting under the then pennant of separate development. even though the senior grades at primary school are indelibly etched in my memory, i developed an early desire to move to high school from standard 4 (grade 6). the nearest high schools were about a kilometre away. one was in town, where the streets were kept tidy by africans. the other was in the location, where africans’ own front yards never received the same care they showed to the houses in town. neither the high school in town nor the one in the location was an option to attend for me, due to apartheid. i can still hear mr. g. relating the story of harry de strandloper, who4 engaged the dutch on their arrival in table bay in 1652. during these animated story-lessons we were intermittently asked for clarification – and probing questions to construct a deeper understanding of the lesson (kunene, 2009). this is significant because it was my earliest encounter of race tensions in south africa. i vividly recall memories about being taunted and teased about my colour and my short curly mop, and allender and allender (2006, p.16) aptly describe these as “. . .the wounds we experienced as children”. my love for reading was unintentionally fired up by mr. t., the5 choir master and english teacher. an educational deed which i cherish happened when i was quietly denied singing in the school choir, and assigned a school library responsibility that changed my perspective forever. i remember reading dickens and shakespeare in the library while others were6 7 in choir. both teachers were interspersing the realities of the day subtly in 110 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 lessons and depicting the ‘hidden curriculum’ to us (kunene, 2009), which were the unspoken and unintended knowledge, values and beliefs we were taught in school. i lived for the school holidays when older children returned from high school with stories, books and radio plays to listen to! i relished listening to the radio description of the moon landing in 1969 and knew that learning was important. this was the epitome of what pleasant school days were all about. i hardly ever recalled being disciplined for frivolous misdemeanours. specific historical incidents can imprint early memories collectively in groups. in the south african context, a political entrenched social system socialised entire generations collectively with early memories of worthlessness, brutality and poverty, which became the usable past of our recent times (mitchell and weber, 1998). to illustrate my contention in the 2011 teacher education and professional development bed (honours) class that i have recently taken, the racial demographics of kwazulu-natal is represented by the following groups african, asian, coloured and white (the lecturer) (58%, 21%, 14% and 7% respectively). the significance of this is that the african students had horrid recollections of their earlier learning experiences, while the indian, coloured and white (lecturer) had, to some extent, gradually more positive recollections of their earlier learning experiences. this could be because teachers whose “. . .earlier experiences were similar. . .” (makhanya, 2010, p.52) most likely shared the worst atrocities during south africa’s turbulent past, and were thus more inhumane towards their students. incidentally both kunene (2009) and makhanya (2010) depict their early learning experiences, also as negative due to being subjected to harsh corporal punishment. thus, in my experience, the shared insecurities of a community and in particular a teacher’s, could result in teachers being caring and protective, that is ‘humanistic’, as opposed to unresponsive and oppressive (allender and allender, 2006). the four years at high school were demoralising i attended the only high school for coloureds in bloemfontein, the capital city of the orange free state. all my beliefs of race and identity which i had carved carefully for myself at primary school were systematically demolished by the teachers i encountered at high school. tobias: an enquiry into the effects of my early learning experiences. . . 111 the principal was an extremely authoritarian afrikaner nationalist with strict calvinistic educational views. his mannerism was usually mimicked or played out by students to intimidate or bully others. being different, made me a perfect target to be taunted and used as the hapless one in the mimicry where “. . .children imitate or ‘play out’ authority structures where they can. . . on the less powerful. . .” (mitchell and weber, 1998, p.46). the teachers, the majority being white females and only two reticent coloured teachers, feared the headmaster’s authoritative style and were collectively quietly submissive in his wake, but equally mordant towards us. similarly to kunene (2009), i learned no meaningful skills from my high school teachers who were for the most part disinterested in our lives and shared no meaningful experiences as to where we lived or who our parents were – it was so detached and for the same reason, their names have not remained even vaguely in my memory. living in the school’s boarding establishment meant that i was infused with the experiences of peers who hailed from distant places. most of my learning i gained from my peers; i listened to their stories about visits to seaside resorts and mountain lodges, concepts of which i had no idea, but which remained memories that will forever be part of what influenced me later to become a teacher. in addition, my love for reading increased and i gained insight from experiences from the books i read. these processes became important aspects of my own learning. jarvis (2004) refers to this type of learning as experiential learning and defines it as: [a] combination of processes whereby whole persons construct experiences of situations and transform them into knowledge, skills, attitudes, beliefs, values, emotions and the senses, and integrate the outcomes into their own biographies (jarvis, 2004, p.111). in order to gain optimal cooperation from us, excessive punishment was meted out for not regurgitating tasks precisely. high school teachers’ were under tremendous pressure to produce a 100% pass rate in matric and this was normally enforced with brutal subjugation and an abnormally high drop-out rate, especially in standard 9 (grade 11). kunene (2009) described similar experiences of total disregard for critical thinking or original thought at the convent school she attended. the four years at high school were demoralising and were aimed at making us nothing else than ‘yes men’ for the oppressive social system. it is thus not surprising that very few institutions of higher 112 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 learning existed, but also that very few students could attend, and of those the majority lacked critical thinking skills and a propensity for self-discovery, important for university study. bunting (2006) makes a significant analysis of the hamstrung academic output of the ten historically disadvantaged universities and seven historically disadvantaged technikons designated for the use of black (african, coloured and indian) south africans, whose dropout rate was extremely higher than the historically white universities and technikons (bunting, 2006). unprecedented learning at tertiary institutions i attended the only university for coloureds, which was 1600 kilometres away from my home. i spent three years at the university of the western-cape and another four years at rand college of education and obtained no qualification (on hindsight the dismal preparation i received at high school and the political agenda thereto attached was solely to blame) at the former and a higher teacher’s diploma at the latter. despite the political turmoil of the 70s and with no qualification, my learning escalated to unprecedented heights and through the turmoil of the 80s i was able to cope well with college life and study while teaching, thereafter. my current teaching practice teaching at an idyllic school for the first 15 years my teaching career started in idyllic conditions. the school was in close proximity to the sea, had sprawling grounds and no lack of amenities to amuse and inspire primary school children. i was fortunate to know teachers and community leaders that identified the need to intervene in the lives of the inner city children, whose parents were mostly jobless, drug addicts and substance abusers. a school away from home was established to provide regular meals, adult involvement and supervision through caretaker parents and an intensified schooling system based on remediation and improvement of curriculum gaps in the children’s lives. i consciously decided to involve myself in the teaching of underprivileged children. this awareness developed from observing poor children becoming tobias: an enquiry into the effects of my early learning experiences. . . 113 increasingly uninvolved in mainstream education. i learned from the onset, as a newly appointed teacher, that the needs of the children and not the syllabus (kunene, 2009) were at the forefront, in terms of play and learning. these children seldom coped in the school due to malnutrition, overcrowding at home and persistent harassment through the aforementioned factors. the duration of the intervention was for three months only and required a degree of urgency and empathy to bring about a change in the children. some of the redress was easily observable, for instance, children, who were malnourished, regained strength in record time and their concentration improved and they became adept at their school work. the teacher/pupil ratio was very manageable and optimally designed for learner involvement; there was at least one professional teacher and two nonprofessional members available for every twenty children. the need seldom arose for the children to be admonished and if it did occur it was always done with due care that the teacher or caregiver was the substitute parent and that the discipline should be tempered accordingly. later being senior, and the more experienced teacher, i assumed the role of acting principal, and planned various activities, which eliminated idleness amongst learners, and lessened the need for unsolicited discipline even more. however, when the new winds of change swept across south africa our school was deemed too exclusive, especially in view of the total degradation of other schools in the newly formed kwazulu-natal education department. a complicated dysfunctional inner city school during the restructuring of the provincial education system in the 90s, i was moved to a newly formed kzn administered school in the umbilo area. the school was a recently vacated afrikaans medium school, which closed due to dwindling pupil numbers. having taught in a school geared to change the lives of others; i felt suitably capable dealing with children from informal settlements and underprivileged city dwellers. unfortunately the school culture, especially amongst staff, was from the onset a difficulty that i did not anticipate. the racially mixed staff had different views, and being acting deputy head in the school management team, the principal and i found it difficult to get the school to function. we were forever embroiled in energy depleting conflict situations, such as absenteeism, 114 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 unprofessional conduct and sheer neglect of professional duties. for the learners, who were in such need, it was a constant struggle just concentrating in class, as they were presumably hungry and had walked long distances to get to school. the teachers were demoralised; their needs in terms of remuneration were always on the agenda. obviously this impacted heavily on the teachers’ work ethics and manifested in unpreparedness, reluctance in attending after school in-service training and a flagrant disrespect for authority. neither the school nor the teachers were really ready to deal with the newly formed diverse cultural mix. these unresolved differences eventually permeated down to the learners, being abetted by teachers i believe, who demanded that the principal and i leave the school. the school was closed, for an indefinite period due to strike action by the learners, at the end of the second term of 1998. teaching and managing, both learners and teachers respectively, at the school was both challenging and scary. with an unwilling work force it was extremely difficult therefore to have a semblance of decent discipline amongst the learners, and teaching and learning became a challenge. this resulted in flagrant disregard of directives regarding corporal punishment, and when disciplinary action was instituted, further polarisation amongst the staff occurred. fortunately these untenable working conditions came to an abrupt end, albeit with much sacrifice on my part and a severe loss of quality education to the maligned learners, when both the principal and i were seconded to other schools. a well-resourced culture-rich school i was seconded to my current school as a specialist media teacher/librarian, with no ties to the school management team (smt). the multi-ethnic school in durban north provided a space to work with the child. collegiality, a management perspective that emphasises that power and decision-making should be shared (bush, 2007), is the operative description of my current teaching experience. the school operates within a “shared vision” and a “rich culture” (leithwood, 1994, as cited in bush, 2007, p.396). the surroundings are meticulously kept. in the same way, is policy about how the school is run, tobias: an enquiry into the effects of my early learning experiences. . . 115 imbedded in the daily routines, to provide quality teaching and learning to its valued clients. i am experiencing what allender and allender (2006, p.16) suggests as the communal respect for another’s commitment to the common purpose – ‘humanism’ at this school. i am experiencing “learner centered practice rather than theory”, which kunene (2009, p.149) desires to be developed for teachers. the school has an aura of professionalism cloaking it and the intensity of striving for the best is almost tangible. as an educator, my awareness is heightened in being meticulous in delivering the curriculum and to engender a sense of cohesiveness and collaboration. this is comparable to my senior grades at primary school and the current use of my past experience is indeed informing my current practice (mitchell and weber, 1998). the culture of the school values the involvement of parents, teachers, administrators, and even the learners in solving problems, which are seen as social, not individual, challenges. the school allows everyone enormous opportunities to grow and to contribute to its growth. various codes of conduct for teachers, learners and other professionals are in place. learner discipline is based on privileges and penalties – negative behaviour earn demerits and positive deeds are rewarded. this cooperative approach allows each teacher to teach and each learner is provided with an optimal learning experience. comparison of past learning experiences and current teaching practices my experience of an idyllic junior school as a learner and an idyllic school as a teacher my indistinguishable junior school years were in a sense a realisation of who i was. i think i am mostly moulded around these years in terms of my deep-set caring nature and unrivalled sense of optimism. my experience suggests that there is truth in the fact that we can emerge from our uncertain pasts as optimists, even as humanists (allender and allender, 2006). this is juxtaposed with my idyllic first teaching post where i made deliberate changes and planned meticulously what type of teacher i wanted to be. this 116 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 corresponds to makhanya’s (2010) belief that deliberate reflection about our past experiences is bound to make us better teachers. we experience realities differently and i was aware that change, insignificant maybe, but life changing to the children i taught at the idyllic school, is what we should stand for. my experience of a demoralising high school as a learner and a dysfunctional school as teacher memories can be utterly painful and dealing with them can lead to a catharsis which focuses a new direction when encountered again. this ‘usable past’ that mitchell and weber (1998) refer to is in my case pertinently envisioned by my demoralising high school years. during my high school years, power and authority, as well as a sense of helplessness, played a major role in my socialisation. at the dysfunctional school, i was not able to exert power over subordinates and hence could not cope with what is termed ‘playing school’ (mitchell and weber, 1998), which hints at various forms of authoritarian and power struggles in education. my present position deliberately avoids being authoritative or submissive, which is a learned response and is early memory dependent or part of the ‘usable past’ (mitchell and weber, 1998). this knowingly steering clear from leadership is what presently urged me to register for a bachelor of honours education leadership, management and policy programme. i am keen to uncover effective principles that are necessary in creating a coherent balance between leadership, management and policy implementation with the aim of creating sustainable schools for success. i am ultimately motivated to find a lasting solution to eliminate barriers such as inadequate infrastructure, teacher shortages, incongruent teaching spaces as well as unmanageable large class sizes which still exist almost 17 years into reform. i therefore realised that “. . .this deeper understanding of teachers’ past experiences has helped me to understand my own responsibilities and roles. . .” (makhanya, 2010, p.65). my experience of memorable senior grades at primary school as a learner and a well-resourced culture-rich school as a teacher my early recollections of school are about constructing my own learning and delight in learning from others. kunene (2009) points out that constructivism, tobias: an enquiry into the effects of my early learning experiences. . . 117 the development of higher order thinking and problem-based learning, is what we should teach our learners. i happened to read and count before school. in my current teaching practice i actively, and with great encouragement from the environment i teach in, seek that learners learn from their own ideas and make meaning from their own experiences (kunene, 2009). this correlation between my early learning experiences and the teacher i am now is supported by the belief that influences of our past learning experiences impact either positively or negatively on our present teaching practice (allender and allender, 2006). i see neither the learners as entities belonging to a different race, nor do they see me as teacher belonging to a specific race, the racial ‘wound’ (allender and allender, 2006) of my past has healed. i am teaching information communication technology, where the rules are determined by just-in-time learning (taylor and sheehan, 2010), which is the learning of a required skill when needed and at an appropriate ability level. this is what kunene (2009) terms teaching the child and not the curriculum. i find it exhilarating when a learner’s sense of inquiry is triggered to become active learners. this sense of learner involvement in learning experiences is what is yearned for by kunene (2009) in her endeavour to entrench learnercenteredness as a curriculum education specialist (ces) in her sphere. conclusion in exploring my early learning experiences and my current teaching practice through memory work, i have gained a deeper insight into my life. our country is still in a transformational state and the education sector, and by implication teachers, are tasked to change it from hopelessness to optimism. we do need to draw from how it was in the past so as to know how it should or should not be in the present and the future. it is only through undertaking this reflective journey that we will arrive at the point of complete transformation – change for the better. in order to realise the change we desire, we have to change and that can happen. memory is the weapon. 118 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 references allender, j. and allender, d. 2006. how did our early education determine who we are as teachers? in fitzgerald, l., heston, m. and tidwell, d.l. (eds), collaboration and community: pushing boundaries through self-study. proceedings of the sixth international conference on self-study of teacher education practices, herstmonceux castle, east sussex, england july 30 –august. cedar falls, ia: university of north iowa, pp.14–17. bunting, i. 2006. the higher education landscape under apartheid. in cloete, n., maassen, p., fehnel, r., moja, t., gibbon, t. and perold, h. transformation in higher education global pressures and local realities. the netherlands: springer, pp.35–52. bush, t. 2007. educational leadership and management: theory, policy, and practice. south african journal of education, 27(3): pp.391–406. cole, a. 2011. object-memory, embodiment and teacher formation: a methodological exploration. in mitchell c., strong-wilson, t., pithouse, k. and allnutt, s. memory and pedagogy. new york: routledge, pp. 223–238. jarvis, p. 2004. adult education and lifelong learning. london: routledge falmer. kunene, a. 2009. learner-centredness in practice: reflections from a curriculum education specialist. in pithouse, k., mitchell, c. and moletsane, r. (eds), making connections: self-study and social actions. new york: peter lang, pp.139 –152. makhanya, h. 2010. preparing for the implementation of foundations of learning: a self-study of a subject advisor. unpublished med dissertation, university of kwazulu-natal. durban. mitchell, c. and weber, s. 1998. the usable past: teachers (re)playing school. changing english, 5(1): pp.45–56. mitchell, c., strong-wilson, t., pithouse, k. and allnutt, s. 2011. introducing memory and pedagogy. in mitchell, c., strong-wilson, t., pithouse, k. and allnutt, s. memory and pedagogy. new york: routledge, pp.1–13. tobias: an enquiry into the effects of my early learning experiences. . . 119 newman, l. 2010. descartes’epistemology. retrieved march 12, 2011, from stanford encyclopedia of philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/ pithouse, k. 2011. the future of our young children lies in our hands: reevisaging teacher authority through narrative self-study. in mitchell, c., strong-wilson, t., pithouse, k. and allnutt, s. memory and pedagogy. new york: routledge, pp.177–190. rodgers, c. 2002. defining reflection: another look at john dewey and reflective thinking. teachers college record, 104(4): pp.842–866. taylor, e. and sheehan, t. 2010. perpectives on the future of learning. retrieved march 31, 2011, from ashridge business school: http://www.ashridge.org.uk/website/ic.nsf/wfaratt/perspectives%20on% 20the%20future%20of%20learning/$file/perspectivesonthefutureoflearni ng.pdf sam tobias university of kwazulu-natal samj@cdsp.co.za http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/ mailto:samj@cdsp.co.za 120 journal of education, no. 54, 2012 microsoft word b8300 final.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 83, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i83a02 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x conceptualising work-integrated learning to support pre-service teachers’ pedagogic reasoning lee rusznyak school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa lee.rusznyak@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6835-8215 carol bertram school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pietermaritzburg, south africa bertramc@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2961-5645 (received: 11 march 2021; accepted: 13 may 2021) abstract much south african research suggests that work-integrated learning (wil) experiences of pre-service teachers are uneven. their learning depends heavily on the functionality of the school and on the presence and commitment of the mentor teacher. even then, mentor feedback tends to focus on generic comments on classroom routines rather than providing an account of their teaching practices. in this conceptual paper, we draw on a range of literature and studies to argue that the value of wil would be greatly enhanced if pre-service teachers and their mentors discuss both the visible classroom routines and the less visible reasoning that inform the pedagogic choices that teachers make. this focus on pedagogic reasoning could foreground both the principled knowledge base that teachers need, as well as the contextual responsiveness and ethical orientations needed to become a specialised knower within the teaching profession. wil therefore needs to provide preservice teachers with explicit, structured opportunities to consider how the teachers they observe enact their teaching and why. they also need to articulate the pedagogic choices they make in the design and delivery of their own lessons. we argue that structuring wil as a space in which to recognise and engage in forms of pedagogic reasoning addresses some of the challenges of the uneven quality of student learning identified in research on wil in the south african context. keywords: pedagogic reasoning, pre-service teacher, teacher education, teaching practice, work-integrated learning, knower, gaze, legitimation code theory rusznyak & bertram: conceptualising work-integrated learning to support . . . 35 introduction learning to teach should not be left to chance. ideally, work-integrated learning (wil) provides pre-service teachers with opportunities to observe the lessons of practising teachers and discuss them. it should give them opportunities to plan, teach, and reflect on their own lessons and obtain feedback on their own teaching. working alongside experienced teachers is expected to enable students to learn “the process of acting and thinking wisely in the immediacy of classroom life: making split-second decisions; choosing among alternative ways to convey subject matter; interacting appropriately with an array of students and selecting and focusing on particular dimensions of classroom problems” (cochran-smith & lytle, 1999, p. 266, italics added). however, having pre-service teachers spend the required amount of time in classrooms does not necessarily result in relevant and meaningful learning experiences. while some of them report having rich and rewarding learning opportunities during wil, the learning experiences for others fall short of their potential value. while students easily notice teachers’ classroom routines and visible actions, they do not always notice or understand the many decisions and judgement calls teachers make in their daily teaching practices and are often unaware of their knowledge, intentions, and thinking processes (lortie, 1975). pre-service teachers tend to underestimate the complexity of organising learning opportunities in the lessons they observe (hammerness et al., 2005). one reason for this is that practicing teachers tend to “focus more on ‘doing teaching’ rather than on explicating associated pedagogic reasoning” to the student teachers they mentor (berry et al., 2008, p. 1271). since teaching is an embodied practice, wil undoubtedly has value for prospective teachers’ acquisition of different knowledge from that which is available through coursework. however, if pre-service teachers are to understand teaching as a knowledgebased reasoned practice, wil needs to be structured so that pre-service teachers observe more than the performance dimensions of teaching as they did during their own schooling. part of becoming informed responsive practitioners requires that pre-service teachers understand the choices teachers make from a range of options. in this paper, we make a conceptual argument that the quality of learning during wil would be strengthened if both pre-service and mentor teachers recognise that teachers’ decisions about their planning and classroom action are informed by principled knowledge, contextual priorities, material conditions, and ethical orientation of the practice. viewed this way, wil can be constructed as a space in which students can engage in pedagogic reasoning. “pedagogic reasoning”, a term introduced by shulman (1987, p. 13), describes how teaching “begins with an act of comprehension, continues with a process of reasoning, culminates in performances of imparting, eliciting, involving, or enticing, and then is thought about some more.” we argue here that a key challenge for initial teacher education (ite) programmes is to structure wil to value both the thinking work and the performance dimensions of teaching. we develop the argument first, by reviewing briefly how the benefits of wil are constructed in south african policy and in the literature as providing opportunities for knowledge acquisition and embodied learning experiences. we then review south african studies on 36 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 wil that point to the uneven nature of pre-service teachers’ learning experiences. we go on to argue why a pedagogic reasoning approach to wil addresses some of the concerns and challenges raised in research studies about wil. we conclude with three practical ways in which we believe that pedagogic reasoning can be foregrounded in wil along with a consideration of its limitations. the value of wil in ite: a policy perspective the minimum requirements for teacher education qualifications (mrteq) policy (department of higher education and training (dhet), 2015, p. 11) that governs teacher education in south africa regards teaching as “a complex activity that is premised upon the acquisition, integration and application of different types of knowledge practices.” it specifies that ite curricula must ensure that pre-service teachers have access to different types of knowledge. it offers an account of what constitutes disciplinary, foundational, practical, pedagogic, and situational learning. the design of ite curricula must ensure that pre-service teachers have access to a stipulated “knowledge mix” of credits allocated to each of these different types of learning (p. 15). when ite programmes focus on providing opportunities for students to access the different kinds of knowledge needed, wil is conceptualised as giving students opportunities to develop practical and situational knowledge. these knowledge types may be acquired partially through practice-focused activities in coursework but are thought to be enriched through noticing and making sense of the complexity of classroom life in authentic school contexts. mrteq presents three benefits of wil. first, wil enables pre-service teachers to accumulate “concrete” classroom experience. policy declares that “time spent in the actual workplace is very important” (dhet, 2015, p. 18) and specifies how much time prospective teachers need to spend in school-based placements during their ite. second, wil provides pre-service teachers with opportunities to engage in “practical learning”, regarded by policy as “an important condition for the development of tacit knowledge which is an important component of learning to teach” (p. 10). pre-service teachers are said to accumulate this knowledge by observing and reflecting on lessons taught by others, as well as gain in preparing, teaching, and reflecting on their own lessons. third, wil is valued because it contributes to students’ “situational learning.” policy stresses the importance of exposing students to “varied and contrasting contexts of schooling in south africa” (p. 18). when wil is conceptualised primarily as an opportunity for pre-service teachers to accumulate experiential forms of knowledge, the focus of student teaching is on doing and less on making sense of what they observe and why they do what they do. mrteq sets up policy conditions to provide pre-service teachers with such a knowledge base and suggests that the “fusing together of different kinds of knowledge” should happen in the moments of practice (dhet, 2015, p. 9). however, our review of south african research suggests that this “fusing” does not happen spontaneously. developing students’ teaching competence requires something more than curricula that provide opportunities for pre-service teachers to acquire various bodies of knowledge. rusznyak & bertram: conceptualising work-integrated learning to support . . . 37 the quality of student learning during wil in this section we review research that suggests that south african pre-service teachers do not always experience meaningful opportunities for professional growth, even when school-based practicum sessions are well-organised and supervised. we identified and surveyed south african studies on wil from 2002 onwards. many empirical papers on wil analyse stakeholder responses to surveys, questionnaires, individual interviews, or focus group discussions (e.g., bertram et al., 2013; du plessis et al., 2010; matoti & odora, 2013; moodley et al., 2018). together, this large body of substantive research has generated indepth and plentiful description of the beliefs, perceptions, and experiences of pre-service teachers, mentor teachers, and university-based teacher educators about the affordances and limitations of work-based learning. some studies use these insights to suggest ways of improving communication to facilitate better working partnerships between different stakeholders (see moosa, 2018; robinson, 2015; silbert & verbeek, 2016). for the purposes of this paper, we focus on empirical studies that point to the uneven quality of student learning during wil. we then show how concerns raised provide a gap for a different approach to wil that foregrounds the reasoning of pre-service teachers in practice. several comparative studies that focus on the logistical arrangements of wil have shown huge variation in the conceptualisation and organisation of work-integrated learning (see council on higher education, 2010; deacon, 2016; menkveld et al., 2008; robinson, 2015). the national initial teacher education research project that analysed ite curricula offered by five higher education institutions found that work-integrated learning “exhibited substantial variations between universities in terms of duration, organisation, the quality and content of learning experiences and the form and nature of assessment” (deacon, 2016, p. 11). such unevenness poses a “significant challenge to quality” in the sector (council on higher education, 2010, p. 94). the unevenness is encountered not only in terms of different logistical arrangements, but also in what is valued by assessment rubrics, the demands of lesson planning, and the nature of interactions between student teachers and mentor teachers. several studies on wil have raised concern that pre-service teachers gain little access to the reasoning underpinning the decisions mentor teachers make in the design of the lessons they teach, nor do students always receive meaningful feedback on those lessons they teach themselves. studies have reported high levels of teacher absenteeism during wil (gravett & jiyane, 2019; moodley et al., 2018) and this means that students are often left largely to their own devices in classrooms. students are told to figure out their lessons with little guidance or they receive little feedback on their lessons (rusznyak & walton, 2017). although preservice teachers may get ample opportunities to observe and teach lessons when supervising teachers are absent, experience alone does not guarantee that students will or can access the rationale that underpins teaching choices in action (see gravett & ramsaroop, 2015; gravett et al., 2011; reeves & robinson, 2014). even when structured feedback is provided to students, its potential for enabling them to access teachers’ thinking is not always realised. a study on the mentoring of part-time postgraduate certificate in education (pgce) students showed that most of the 19 teachers in the study received either generic feedback from 38 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 mentors or very little feedback at all (mukeredzi et al., 2015). similarly, a study by borello (2019) on mentorship of pre-service teachers in a south africa learnership programme showed how conversations between student teachers and three experienced teachers seldom moved beyond providing encouragement and general classroom tips. the feedback focused on performance dimensions of practice and provided little access to teachers’ reasoning behind that which informs what they do and why. without meaningful conversations with mentor teachers about the lessons they have observed or are to prepare, pre-service teachers do not necessarily learn why some decisions may be appropriate in some contexts but not in others. university-based expectations, embodied in lesson planning guidelines and prompts for reflection, focus students’ attention on particular aspects of teaching practices. these guidelines can convey that teaching is just a routine technical endeavour or they may be designed to create opportunities for articulating principled and contextually responsive reasoning. for example, when lesson planning requires little more than a link to curriculum and written lesson steps, opportunities for students to justify their teaching choices are missed (rusznyak & walton, 2011). similarly, prompts that pre-service teachers use to reflect on their teaching tend to direct their attention to observable and experiential aspects of classroom activity (see evans 2019; rembe et al., 2016). seldom do these prompts ask students to think about logics that inform teacher decision-making for/in their lessons, and how concepts drawn from their university coursework may help them to interpret critical incidents in the classroom. in another small-scale case study, langsford (2020) found that there was a large disparity between the ways in which newly qualified teachers recruited formal concepts to analyse and evaluate the teaching they observed in a recorded lesson. assessment rubrics for observation of teaching practice are another way of transmitting messages to pre-service teachers about what matters in their teaching. these rubrics may hinder the development of their reasoned judgement if teaching is portrayed as a set of routines that pre-service teachers must enact regardless of the demands of the content they teach, the needs of learners, and the possibilities in the context of their classroom. for example, a criterion that always requires group work in a lesson suggests that there are some teaching strategies that always work, rather than suggesting that teaching strategies should be selected because of their value in achieving the aims of a particular lesson. when the assessment rubrics for student teaching are designed as checklists, a technical, normative approach to understanding teaching is advanced (rusznyak & bertram, 2015), rather than emphasising the central role of teacher judgement (biesta, 2015). furthermore, some rubrics tend to use levels of competence that specify vague indicators of achievement (such as ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’). if the assessment of students’ developing teaching competence focuses on personal dispositions and observable classroom action, the assessment of student teaching may easily result in highly subjective judgments. the message transmitted to preservice teachers is that effective teaching is routine, and assessment of its quality is arbitrary. opportunities to consider both the reasoning and performance dimensions of teaching as grounds for achievement are minimised when assessment rubrics are structured in this way. rusznyak & bertram: conceptualising work-integrated learning to support . . . 39 thus, from this body of literature, we conclude that the wil experiences of pre-service teachers are uneven and that mentor teachers are often absent or do not always provide meaningful feedback on students’ practice. assessment rubrics and lesson planning guidelines tend to focus on teacher dispositions and observable action rather than on the reasoning underpinning their judgements in practice. we now move on to examining the concept of pedagogic reasoning and develop our argument for how wil can develop this reasoning more explicitly. developing pedagogic reasoning by the time prospective teachers qualify, they should have learnt to “reason soundly about their teaching as well as to perform skilfully” (shulman, 1987, p. 13, emphasis added). the south african council of educator’s (sace) professional teaching standards reflect this expectation in its requirement that “teachers [should] make thoughtful choices about their teaching that lead to learning gains for all learners” (sace, 2019, p. 10). sound reasoning requires “both a process of thinking about what they are doing and an adequate base of facts, principles and experiences from which to reason” (shulman, 1987, p. 13, emphasis added). shulman (1987) proposed that seven types of teacher knowledge are needed for effective teaching. he identified these as subject knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, knowledge of the curriculum, pedagogical content knowledge, knowledge of learners, knowledge of educational contexts, and knowledge of educational purposes and values. since his initial proposal, these categories have been contested and redefined (see ball et al., 2008; grossman, 1990; verloop et al., 2001). however, having access to these different bodies of knowledge is not enough to be able to enact them in practice. loughran (2019, p. 526) suggested that pedagogic reasoning is the “thinking that underpins informed professional practice.” horn (2010, p. 237) used pedagogic reasoning to analyse conversations between teachers in which episodes of pedagogic reasoning are defined as “moments in teachers’ interaction when they describe issues in, or raise questions about, teaching practice, and [in which] these descriptions are accompanied by some elaboration of reasons, explanations, or justifications.” a pedagogic reasoning approach suggests that the grounds on which teachers make choices are not arbitrary or idiosyncratic. rather, the grounds for their choices and actions are “supported by ethical, empirical, theoretical or practical principles” (shulman, 1987, p. 13). in this paper we draw on the work of duffy (2005) and morrow (2007) to present pedagogic reasoning as a specialised way of thinking in which teachers draw on different kinds of knowledge as well as different types of knowledge within contextual realities to make ethical, appropriate, and responsive choices that organise opportunities for learning. the affordances of a pedagogic reasoning approach to wil in the sections that follow, we argue that a pedagogic reasoning approach to wil addresses some of the concerns and challenges raised in research studies about wil. first, we critique 40 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 approaches to wil that disregard the knowledge base for teaching and disregard approaches that underestimate the role of teachers as knowing, thinking practitioners. we suggest that a pedagogic reasoning approach provides a socialisation into communal aspects of practice as well as enabling students to develop their own patterns of thinking about planning, teaching, and assessing. second, we consider the extent to which the expectations of pre-service teachers during wil bring theoretical knowledge into dialogue with the experiential and contextual knowledge gained during their practical learning. we then consider the extent to which a pedagogic reasoning approach encourages students to be responsive to the demands of the contexts while maintaining the goals of the practice. third, we consider how a pedagogic reasoning approach in the design of wil could build coherence and connection between different parts of ite curricula. a pedagogic reasoning approach to wil embraces both knowledge and knowers in this section we consider the limitations of approaches to wil that leave pre-service teachers to develop their own individualised, personal approaches to their teaching as well approaches to wil that require the indiscriminate and mechanical application of scripts, routines, or strategies. we show how neither of these approaches to wil prepares students to be teachers whose practices are informed by principled knowledge and who develop an ethical and moral commitment to teaching. unevenness in the quality of student learning is exacerbated by approaches to wil that regard students’ dispositions and experiential learning as an entirely sufficient basis for their practice. when ite programmes focus primarily on “the person of the teacher” (korthagen, 2017, p. 398) teaching practices are steered by students’ personal mission and their demonstration of teacher dispositions such as kindness, fairness, and honesty. while acknowledging that these dispositions enhance the capacity of teachers to work productively with children, these dispositions alone do not enable them to make complex concepts accessible to diverse learners. approaches to wil arising from this conception of teacher preparation prioritise “reflectively acquired self-knowledge” (carr, in hirst & carr, 2005, p. 625). approaches to wil in this tradition may encourage pre-service teachers to articulate a personal philosophy of teaching before they have access to scholarly perspectives on teaching and learning (see dorovolomo, 2004). practical knowledge develops through reflection on teaching, argued carr (in hirst & carr, 2005), korthagen (2017) and schön (1987). korthagen, for example, argued that teachers’ behaviour in the classroom is shaped by “a complex mix of cognitive, affective and motivational sources” (2017, p. 390). their position acknowledges the importance of personal attributes but obscures the role of principled knowledge in informing teachers’ thinking, situational judgement, and subsequent action. the onus for self-development requires that pre-service teachers figure out tacit knowledge for themselves. in other words, the criteria for what constitutes effective practice is deemed to be self-evident. even beginner pre-service teachers are expected to select instinctively those aspects of classroom practice worthy of deeper personal reflection. those who figure it out for themselves may do well, but those who cannot access the implicit knowledge and criteria of what matters are left to struggle (österling, 2021). when there seems to be no underlying rusznyak & bertram: conceptualising work-integrated learning to support . . . 41 logic informing practice, students easily and uncritically revert to “delivering education in the same manner in which they were taught” (borg, 2004, p. 274) or adopt prevalent practices irrespective of their effectiveness. because of its highly individualised nature, there are no substantive grounds upon which some teaching practices can be regarded as more appropriate than others. any attempt at justifying choices could be equally valid irrespective of the quality of learning experiences created. learning to teach without access to shared ethical orientation, a knowledge base, or understanding of what constitutes effective practice reduces practice to a collection of arbitrary actions. whereas the individualised approach dismissed the importance of knowledge, teaching conceptualised as a technical activity dismisses teachers as knowing and thinking practitioners who manage learners, learning environments, and the knowledge to be learnt. in a view of teaching as the routine implementation of protocols, teacher thinking is irrelevant, and actions are mechanically invoked irrespective of the needs of learners, the opportunities and limitations of the context, or what the learning situation demands. in this sense, the protocols to be implemented are independent of the discretion of the teacher in context. this approach to wil requires students to apply approved protocols in practice, and effective teaching is judged by the presence of the stipulated strategies, routines, and resources. effectively, the teacher as a knowledgeable, thinking, responsive practitioner is ignored (hoban, 2005). in contrast to the two approaches described above, developing capacity for pedagogic reasoning requires that future teachers come to understand that teachers’ “decisions about what to do are not appropriately rooted in personal preferences or experiences but are instead based on professionally justified knowledge and on the moral imperatives of the role” (ball & forzani, 2009, p. 500). a pedagogic reasoning approach to wil acknowledges that principled knowledge informs judgement in practice (shalem, 2014). in addition, it recognises teachers as knowing, thinking practitioners who shape and enact practices in contextually responsive ways. this position can be further developed by drawing on concepts from legitimation code theory (lct), a sociological approach that is used to research, analyse, and transform practices (maton, 2014). the specialization dimension of lct is based on a premise that all practices are orientated towards a particular part of the world, have a relation to knowledge, and are enacted by social actors. while knowledge has its own structures and powers to shape the identity, dispositions, and consciousness of social actors, they, too, can transform practices. messages about what matters can be transmitted and received through “interactions with significant others” (maton, 2014, p. 185). these "significant others" could be, for example, theoretical concepts, feedback from more expert or experienced practitioners, policy documents, studies on great works, or examples of exemplary works themselves. although students bring diverse educational experiences, dispositions, and social identities into their studies, they become knowers as they acquire a specialised “gaze” through these interactions (bernstein, 2000, p. 165). gaze refers to ways of recognising and realising what matters in how practice is enacted and how achievement is recognised. a gaze enables practitioners to become “knowers” who can distinguish the significant from the arbitrary in their respective fields of practice (maton, 2016, p. 91). 42 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 although knowers construct knowledge, they do so “not under conditions or in ways entirely of their own making, and not entirely alone” (maton, 2014, p. 10). through their ite curricula, pre-service teachers interact extensively with many of these significant others during coursework and during wil. significant interactions that contribute to the formation of a gaze may be interactions with concepts, through opportunities for pre-service teachers to study classroom artefacts and exemplary examples of practice, as well as their participation in learning activities, responses to assessment tasks, and engagement with feedback. criteria about what matters can also take place through socially mediated interactions, such as with mentor teachers during wil. through interactions such as these, pre-service teachers become more specialised knowers as they consolidate and deepen their understanding of salient aspects of practice. interactions with concepts, coursework tasks, practitioners and feedback enable novices to develop more specialised ways of seeing and thinking in practice. unlike an individualised approach, it is not expected that students already know how to teach and can figure it out for themselves. a conceptualisation of wil as part of their socialisation into teaching practices also privileges developing pre-service teachers as thinking knowers whose decisions are shaped by principled positions and subject to professionally established standards (sace, 2019). during wil, they engage extensively with university documentation (such as lesson planning guidelines, prompts for reflection, and assessment rubrics) which potentially transmit criteria about what matters for achievement (rusznyak & bertram, 2015). the quality of student learning during wil is thus dependent on the extent to which the messages about what counts as worthwhile are explicit and accessible to students. when the assessment of competent teaching acknowledges thoughtful consideration of options and a reasoned justification of action, opportunities for students to articulate their reasoning in practice are created. pedagogic reasoning approach in wil enables students to consider principled teaching in contextually responsive ways one of the most challenging questions in relation to conceptualising wil is how to enable students to participate in a “process of ‘dialogue’ with the situation” in authentic teaching contexts (verloop et al., 2001, p. 443). given that teaching is always embodied in a context, some approaches to wil prepare students for the conditions in particular school contexts. others equip them with the conceptual tools to be adaptive across diverse school contexts. morrow’s (2007) distinction between the formal and material elements of teaching is useful here. he argued that teaching is “the practice of organising systematic learning” (p. 101). this formal definition transcends the context in which the teaching happens. if someone is not organising systematic learning, they are not teaching. knowledgeable, skilled, and ethical teachers seek to organise systematic learning within the possibilities of their contexts, using the current curriculum, being aware of the diverse learners, and using the entire range of available resources. the material elements of an object or practice are those components that can change, without it “ceasing to be an action or object of a particular kind” (morrow, 2007, p. 98). morrow further argued that ite programmes need to make it clear to student teachers rusznyak & bertram: conceptualising work-integrated learning to support . . . 43 that teaching is a practice that “centres around the design of learning programmes that foster the gradual development of competences that cannot be learnt in an instant” (p. 14). one approach to wil is to identify current contextual realities and focus the preparation of pre-service teachers on those sets of conditions. this perspective assumes that the realities of different school contexts are so significant that ite programmes should prepare pre-service teachers explicitly for specific conditions or contexts. an example of this is a view that learning to teach in rural schools in south africa is a fundamentally different practice that has nothing in common with how teachers for urban schools should be prepared (de lange et al., 2014). the specificities of the context of rural schools are well documented. schools often have few learning resources such as textbooks or computers, minimal services such as running water and electricity, and are in communities with high poverty households that are often headed by grandmothers or children, and that have high levels of unemployment (nelson mandela foundation, 2005). while pre-service teachers may seem to cope more readily with contexts for which they have been specifically primed, morrow’s ideas illuminate the pitfalls of focusing too acutely on the specificities of the immediate needs of a teaching context so that the material elements of teaching are foregrounded at the expense of the formal elements. when teacher preparation is so focused on the specificities of a current context (or, for that matter, on the current national curriculum iteration), pre-service teachers may not necessarily have access to abstract principles that enable them to imagine and enact quality teaching when those material elements change. in contrast, other research considers the importance of preparing pre-service teachers for diverse contexts (see amin & ramrathan, 2009; nkambule & mukeredzi, 2017; ramsaroop, 2016; rusznyak & walton, 2017) and how to prepare them for such diversity (see mazibuko, 2006; robinson & zinn, 2007; walton & rusznyak, 2014). opportunities for pre-service teachers to articulate their pedagogic reasoning would require that they consider the compelling grounds for choices teachers make about the most appropriate way to teach this content to these learners in this context. drawing on insights from sociological studies of educational knowledge practices, hugo (2013, p. 7) posed a set of key questions that “open out the basic levers of education” and show how they work. he cautioned that although the questions are common across all educational settings, appropriate answers need to be considered in context. questions cover teacher choices about knowledge selection, and sequencing, and pacing, as well as the nature of classroom interactions between teacher and learners. courses in ite curricula may seek to equip teachers with strategies to teach learners who experience barriers to their learning (including special needs, a mismatch between home and learning languages, and poverty). while teachers need to understand the histories, struggles, priorities, learner diversities, and resourcing inequalities that still plague the education system, their obligation includes the provision of quality learning opportunities to all learners in front of them. conceptualising wil as a mechanism for creating coherence in ite curricula since shulman (1987) developed his typology of teacher knowledge, ite curricula have increasingly focused on providing prospective teachers with knowledge bases for teaching 44 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 (bertram & christiansen, 2012; darling-hammond & bransford, 2005). we have shown that the current legislation governing teacher education in south africa also takes this approach. ite curricula are typically designed as a collection of courses that provide students access to different bodies of knowledge. although each course may be internally coherent with conceptual and skill progression over time, the different courses in ite programmes tend to have a “notable absence of links” between them (hoban, 2005, p. 2). pre-service teachers are thus expected to make connections between and among the different components of their ite curriculum. while some do, many do not. to those who are unable to figure out the ways different components may be used as grounds for decision-making, teaching may seem like a fragmented activity without an internal logic. an accumulation of unstructured classroom experiences during wil would be insufficient to enable these students to access the logics that underpin teachers’ practice. much has been written about a theory-practice divide in which concepts learnt in coursework remain separated from understanding and informing the classroom practices of teachers (henning & gravett, 2011; jeram & davids, 2020). when sessions of wil are interspersed with sessions of coursework without attention to the iterative transfer of knowledge and reasoning between the two, this divide is entrenched (walton & rusznyak, 2019). without a mechanism for drawing insights together to inform thinking and judgement in relation to a particular problem-situation (like how best to teach a concept to learners in a specific context), knowledge for practice remains inert and fragmented. as maton (2016, p. 9) explained, “[c]oncepts do nothing by themselves; their potential for knowledge-building is realised by actors.” ite curricula need to do more than provide prospective teachers with access to various bodies of knowledge. they need to provide opportunities for students to articulate their reasoning about what they do and why so that the grounds of that reasoning can be engaged with explicitly. our argument here seeks to retain recognition of the value of theoretical perspectives in coursework but considers how principled knowledge, contextual factors, and the demands of the lessons’ content knowledge can be recruited as grounds for justifying why certain choices in practice are more appropriate than others. a pedagogic reasoning approach in wil can thus be a powerful mechanism that requires students to draw together learning from various parts of their ite curricula. implications for practice: how a pedagogic reasoning approach may be structured into wil for students to become knowers who have both the knowledge and dispositions needed for the professional practice of teaching, organising sessions of wil needs to entail more than a logistical exercise of allocating pre-service teachers to accessible schools with someone appointed to assess them against a checklist. an important purpose of wil is to give preservice teachers ample opportunities to understand the many pedagogic choices teachers make in designing the lessons they teach. developing their processes of thinking in practice does not happen automatically with undirected time in the classroom. school-based activities (including lesson observation and analysis, lesson preparation, and reflection on practice) rusznyak & bertram: conceptualising work-integrated learning to support . . . 45 need to alert student teachers to the less visible reasoning that teachers do in their daily work. to structure wil in a way that not only gives students access to new knowledge but also shapes their gaze as developing knowers, two processes are necessary. first, students need to recognise teachers as knowers and their pedagogic reasoning in context needs to become more visible to students. second, assessment of student competence in wil needs to consider their performance as well as their ability to articulate the reasoning behind their choices. we now consider three practical ways in which a pedagogic reasoning approach can be structured in wil. we then consider some limitations and caveats of such an approach. a study of teachers’ reasoning in recorded lessons as schools closed during the covid-19 pandemic in 2020, organising practice-based learning opportunities for pre-service teachers became a national priority (robinson & rusznyak, 2020). a team of teacher educators developed a nationally available online course, called teacher choices in action to supplement wil requirements. using a “learning-frompractice” approach (dhet, 2015, p. 10), the course draws students’ attention to key decisions all teachers make as they work with subject knowledge and learner diversity in their school contexts (hugo, 2013). the module introduces students to fundamental decisions that all teachers make in every lesson. a series of tasks requires them to work through guided examples of pedagogic reasoning in action and look at these choices in recorded lessons relating to their own phase and subject specialisations. with guided lesson observations and task analysis, a study of practice from different perspectives prompts consideration of why some choices are more appropriate than others in response to the content taught, the needs of learners, and the contextual realities in which the teachers work. the research component of the teacher choices in action project analyses whether, in using these key questions to undertake informed analysis of classroom practice, students’ understanding of practice is more likely to move beyond a superficial description of visible classroom routines. we have argued that courses that make up an ite curriculum often focus on giving students access to different bodies of knowledge. it may be that assessment tasks draw students’ attention to teacher choices, but these will generally be in relation to one aspect of teaching (e.g., choices informed by subject-specific pedagogy, or choices that are inclusive, or choices that are responsive to contextual priorities). an innovative approach offered by this course is the way in which it brings all these conceptual lenses to bear on the same set of lessons. making the less visible parts of teacher thinking available to pre-service teachers is an important part of taking their gaze beyond that developed through their own experiences of schooling. when pre-service teachers view teachers as knowers who make reasoned choices in their teaching practices, this enables them to develop their own gaze as they learn to teach. 46 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 structured opportunities to articulate reasoning in wil through lesson planning requirements guidelines for lesson planning have the potential to require pre-service teachers to draw on various bodies of knowledge as they conceptualise a series of lessons, thereby advancing a pedagogic reasoning approach in wil. the lesson planning requirements are used repeatedly by students in different grades, with different content focus areas and in different school contexts. they serve as a significant framework that potentially guides the way that preservice teachers rationalise the design of their lessons (rusznyak & walton, 2011). the potential for articulation between wil and knowledge from coursework, as well as the development of a specialist gaze, is undermined when pre-service teachers’ lesson planning is regarded as an administrative task without due thought about the demands of content, the needs of learners, and the contextual possibilities that inform pedagogic decision-making. articulating their pedagogic reasoning for the design of the lessons they teach transmits to students that there are compelling grounds for the choices teachers make about the most appropriate way to teach this content to these learners in this context. as part of the mentoring and assessment process, the grounds of their lesson design (not just the execution of its plan) can be probed. valuing the articulation of reasoned practice in wil assessment rubrics the criteria used to assess students’ teaching conveys to them what aspects of their teaching is valued. when wil assessment rubrics contain atomistic criteria in checklists, they advance a fragmented and technicist approach to evaluating teaching (rusznyak & bertram, 2015). student teachers score highly when lessons include desired components regardless of how appropriate that strategy is for the content taught. vaguely defined levels of achievement such as ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’ obscure messages about what students are doing well, what they could be doing better, and how they could improve. in addition to dispositions and performance, the design of wil assessment rubrics could convey to students that their articulation of reasoning for their pedagogic choices is also valued. when level descriptors make it clear that what is valued in teaching moves from normative protocols to informed decision-making and responsiveness to the learning dynamics in the classroom, pre-service teachers get the message that their reasoning matters for achievement and that there are grounds upon which some teaching decisions are better than others. limitations of a pedagogic reasoning approach we have argued strongly for making the pedagogic reasoning which underpins teacher’s pedagogic choices explicit in wil. however, there are three limitations that we acknowledge. one is a conceptual limitation, another is related to curriculum, and the third is a practical consideration. while scholars like biesta (2015), morrow (2007), shalem (2014), and shulman (1987), have noted the centrality of pedagogic reasoning in professional teaching, few have considered rusznyak & bertram: conceptualising work-integrated learning to support . . . 47 how teachers develop capacity for reasoned judgement. one notable attempt is the development of content representation (cores) structures proposed by loughran et al., (2012). the conceptual tools provided by the specialization dimension of legitimation code theory may provide a useful framework to conceptualise pre-service teachers as knowers and pedagogic reasoning as a specialised gaze which is partly shaped by one’s history, experiences, and dispositions and also through knowledge and interactions with “significant others” (maton, 2014, p. 185). we recognise that there is more intellectual work and empirical research to be done in this regard. a curriculum limitation to the development of pre-service teachers’ capacity for pedagogic reasoning lies in their access to the theoretical tools provided through coursework. if an ite curriculum offers practice-focused study only, students are denied access to principled grounds for reasoned judgment. while conceding that perceptions can be wrong, theoretical insights may be misunderstood and misapplied, and pedagogic reasoning may not always lead to good judgements. however, articulating one’s reasoning opens possibilities for scrutiny and discussion about the appropriateness of choices in terms of a variety of considerations such as underpinning ethical stances, content knowledge, responsiveness to learner needs, and context. we maintain that reasoned practice is preferable to unthinking, uncritical assimilation into prevalent practices when these are ineffective and when they perpetuate exclusion or marginalisation. in this way, a pedagogic reasoning approach underpinned by principled knowledge potentially establishes conditions for educational transformation. a practical limitation is that of enabling teachers who act as mentors in school to become aware of their own pedagogic reasoning and how to explicitly articulate it. there is much written on the tacit nature of teacher knowledge within the tradition that understands teaching as a craft that can be passed on through practice with limited explanation (winch, 2017). for teachers who understand their work as a craft that is learned through experience, it will be difficult to articulate their own pedagogic reasoning to pre-service teachers. this limitation may be partially mitigated through guided analysis of recorded lessons and the pedagogic choices teachers make. furthermore, there are ways in which wil expectations and assessment can be structured so that students come to recognise the importance of articulating their own reasoning. conclusion to enable pre-service teachers to develop more specialised teaching practices, wil sessions need to provide them with more than opportunities to accumulate time in school-based placements and mimic prevalent practices. learning to teach can be a hit-or-miss affair when the organisation of wil is regarded primarily as a logistical matter of allocating student teachers to schools and ensuring that they spend sufficient time to meet policy requirements. the value of wil would be greatly enhanced if pre-service teachers and their mentors are aware of both visible routines and the less visible reasoning that inform the pedagogic choices that teachers make. expectations of students during wil therefore needs to provide 48 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 pre-service teachers with explicit, structured opportunities to consider how the teachers they observe enact their teaching and why. they also need to articulate the choices they make in the design and delivery of their own lessons. without such a focus, the quality of learning through wil remains focused on performance and contingent on each student’s individual experiences. furthermore, the opportunities to articulate their reasoning and have this recognised as part of how their teaching competence is assessed would signify its importance. we argue that structuring wil as a space in which to recognise and engage in forms of pedagogic reasoning addresses some of the challenges of uneven quality of student learning identified in research on wil in the south african context. acknowledgements the authors are grateful to dale langsford for valuable input and support. the teacher choices in action module forms a part of the teaching and learning development capacity improvement programme (tldcip) that is implemented through a partnership between the department of higher education and training (dhet) and the european union. lee rusznyak acknowledges the ongoing support from the unesco chair forum in teacher education for diversity and development. references amin, n., & ramrathan, p. 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(2017). teachers’ know-how. a philosophical investigation. wiley blackwell. knowledge and knowers by karl maton a review essay abingdon, oxon: routledge 2014. fiona jackson abstract this article outlines selected aspects of legitimation code theory (lct), as presented in maton’s book knowledge and knowers: towards a realist sociology of education (2014), and considers their usefulness to the field of education research, in particular, for language education. an introduction to key lct concepts is provided highlighting their analytic power for the investigation of the varying forms of educational knowledge structures, knower roles and what forms of pedagogic practices promote or inhibit cumulative learning. the notion of ‘context’, in relation to lcts concept of semantic gravity and decontextualised knowledge forms, is considered alongside cummins’ notions of contextualised and decontextualised language. the importance of further research into what is meant by ‘context’ in relation to pinpointing the nature of contextualised and decontextualised knowledge, and the nature of forms of cumulative learning is raised. knowledge and knowers: towards a realist sociology of education (2014) distils the evolution of legitimation code theory (lct), while emphasising issues of knowers and their practices. the sweep of the book is large, complex and theoretically dense, addressing more issues than can be usefully considered in a single article. areas such as maton’s discussion of lcts foundation in bourdieu’s field theory and bernstein’s code theory, while important to engage within order to understand fully the theoretical lineage of lct, will not be discussed in detail here. i focus on those aspects that seem most immediately provocative and generative for research into pedagogical practice (using issues in relation to language education as exemplars) – the dimensions of specialisation and semantics. however, i begin with brief contextualisation of these dimensions within lct as a whole, sketching its roots in the thinking of bourdieu and bernstein. lct locates itself within a social realist paradigm, drawing particularly upon the sociological theories of pierre bourdieu and basil bernstein, while pursuing the goal of building a sociology of knowledge that addresses the gap of ‘knowledge blindness’ (maton, 2014) in educational research. this gap, 128 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 for more information on legitimation code theory see the lct website:1 www.legitimationcodetheory.com maton argues, is the result of prior intensive research foci on relations to knowledge, for example, as in relations of social power to knowledge. consequently, knowledge itself is under-researched and constructing a sociology of knowledge requires working with an understanding of knowledge as something real, with different types of knowledge varying in structure, properties and effects. however maton also argues that taking knowledge seriously is no license to valorise it at the expense of forms of knowing rooted in knower practices, hence the focus of the book on knowers as well as knowledge. legitimation code theory addresses issues of social practice, aiming to1 identify and articulate the underlying organisational principles of social fields. it sees people as agents operating, both collaboratively and competitively, in fairly independent, yet interlinked social arenas. drawing on bourdieu, it argues the goal of much social practice is to achieve maximum relational gain, in terms of social control, position and prestige. each field works uniquely, with distinctive types of prestige and sets of resources. yet beneath the particularities lie similar generative principles which lct works to excavate and understand. currently lct has identified dimensions of autonomy, density, temporality, specialisation and semantics. knowledge and knowers focuses on the educational field, setting out how the dimensions of specialisation and semantics contribute to the building of a sociology of knowledge and knowers. maton argues that knowledge in itself is underresearched, but cautions that taking it seriously is not to valorise it at the expense of forms of knowing rooted in knower practices. located within a social realist paradigm, lct understands knowledge as neither purely cognitive nor social. maton argues against construing knowing only as inner mental processes, or on focusing attention solely on knowledge as social power. intensive scrutiny of relations to knowledge in educational research has led to the serious gap of ‘knowledge blindness’ (maton, 2014). lct assumes we build knowledge collectively as well as individually, socially as well as cognitively. new knowledge arises out of extant knowledge that has been crafted and evaluated by socially contingent actors engaged in relationally strategic manoeuvres within particular fields. bernstein’s code theory is harnessed to sharpen the analytic focus provided by bourdieu’s field theory. code theory helps unravel how knowledge structures http://www.legitimationcodetheory.com jackson: knowledge and knowers. . . 129 impact upon fields, focusing attention on knowledge as the medium of the educational message; on how knowledge practices themselves are structured. by extending bernstein’s ‘pedagogic device’ into the ‘epistemic-pedagogic device’ maton provides the means to analyse knowledge and knower practices across intellectual, curricular and pedagogic fields. lct thereby extends, enlarges and synthesises selected concepts from both field and code theory, developing rather than displacing them; establishing an explanatory framework for the cumulative theorisation of the underlying organisational principles of knowledge and knowing. while maton’s exposition of lct, via its prior chronological development, illustrated with numerous examples from substantive empirical studies, is a strength i hankered for a clear synoptic overview of the inter-relationship of the components of lct. figure 1, on page 3, shows my initial ‘mapping’ of just one set of legitimation codes – those from the specialisation dimension. the diagram reads most logically from the bottom up. maton posits the legitimation device (ld) as the deep, generative level of organisational principles regulating all social fields, the agents operating within them, and their practices. he uses the metaphor of a currency exchange for its actions, revealing partial roots in bourdieu’s notion of ‘capital’. thus actors enter and operate in social fields with varying forms and quantities of social currency, or ‘value’. the legitimation device controls how people interact and exchange their social currencies. those with maximum power over the legitimation device regulate which legitimation codes have most power, and thus what counts as legitimate within the fields. the operations of the legitimation device thus form social fields as active ‘fields of possibilities’ (2014) in perpetual flux. actors within these fields work both together and against each other in order to leverage the largest gains in attaining the most prestigious relational positions, and in controlling what counts as prestige. the practices of actors, which can be both explicit and tacit, comprise languages of legitimation that count as competing claims for legitimation. 130 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 figure 1: interrelations of legitimation device and epistemic-pedagogic device and specialisation codes (jackson’s ‘mapping’) jackson: knowledge and knowers. . . 131 the ‘epistemic-pedagogic device’, one arm of the ld, pertains to issues of knowledge and education. its revision and extension of bernstein’s ‘pedagogic device’ provides a way of understanding arenas of social struggle across three fields of practice: the fields of production, recontextualisation and reproduction. the field of production is the site of the genesis of new knowledge, of the ‘unthinkable’ – what people such as scientists, academics, poets, artists and inventors generate. the field of recontextualisation is the site for the selection from the knowledge of the field of production, its rearrangement and transformation into forms for pedagogic communication. the field of reproduction is the site where the teaching and learning of recontextualised knowledge happens. each field operates according to its own specific logics, meaning it is problematic to conflate the forms of operation of fields as identical. however, individuals such as university academics may operate across all three fields. for example, an applied linguistics lecturer may conduct original research on how language is deployed differently in corporate meetings and written documents arising from such meetings. this may contribute to the development of theories of corporate communication and the relations between spoken and written discourses (field of production). the lecturer may write a textbook on corporate communication for undergraduate university students (field of recontextualisation), and then may teach in an undergraduate course on corporate communication (field of reproduction), focusing on strategies for effective communication in meetings and written documents. a lecturer setting out to theorise their practices in each field, would need to work with a conscious understanding that each field operates according to its own logics. the shift from bernstein’s conception of field ‘rules’ to maton’s of field ‘logics’ seeks to prevent false claims that they propose practices as deterministically rule governed. the mapping of the epd also highlights that knowledge moves in many paths, with the bi-directional arrows showing recontextualisation happening between fields. the right-to-left arrows indicate that artifacts from recontextualisation fields can be intellectualised or absorbed into production fields as a part of ‘prior’ knowledge that acts as ‘raw material’ for the genesis of fresh knowledge. for example, student essays produced within a corporate communication course may be the subject of research into knowledge building and/or communication processes within the field of communication education. insights from such research may contribute to the building of communication and genre theory. in addition, educational knowledge (from the reproduction field) can be recurricularised (extracted from, re-directed, moved to) as curricular product of recontextualisation 132 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 fields. for example, following analysis essays by corporate communication students may be transformed with theorised annotations and wrap around text relating salient aspects of genre theory to the essays, and included in a book on academic writing for communication students. maton’s other key revision of bernstein’s model is to argue that distributive rules do not control the practices of the field of production. while bernstein’s model asserts that every field has its own distinct practices, the unique practices of the field of production remain unspecified. maton further argues that the rules controlling the field of production are not mainly distributive, but that distributive logics relate to all fields of the epd, reaching across the activities of the whole arena. distributive logics illuminate that “a precondition for playing the game is entering the arena” (2014, p.51). this implies that the epd regulates not only who has access to ‘thinking the unthinkable’ (means to control, as well as generate, the genesis of new knowledge) via participation in production fields, but also who has access to the means of constructing ‘thinkables’ in recontextualisation fields and to an array of different ‘thinkables’ in reproduction fields. thus, if epistemic, recontextualising and evaluative logics regulate the various ‘whats’, then distributive logics regulate “who enjoys access to which ‘whats’ ”(2014, p.51). therefore the epd sets out the key components and deep principles underlying people’s contestations to control which criteria of achievement prevail and the ‘conversion rates’ among them. consequently, the people who control the epd control the ‘ruler of legitimacy’ in key social arenas and secure the greatest reach and impact for their own location in status hierarchies. the idea of ‘languages of legitimation’ illuminates both the sociological nature of knowledge practices and the epistemological nature of potentially legitimate knowledge claims. languages of legitimation underpin the practices of actors and simultaneously count as claims for the legitimacy of their actions, or, “for the organising principles embodied by their actions” (2014, p.24). they constitute the grounds for contesting claims to scarce supplies of prestige and material goods. thereby they are positions strategically adopted with the purpose of maximising the advantage of the locations of agents inside a “relationally structured field” (2014, p.24). they signal the terms and criteria for acting in a field and are specifically located within particular versions moulded by the actors’ positions and perspectives. so languages of legitimation constitute organising principles that have consequences. firstly their innate compositions are neither uniform nor jackson: knowledge and knowers. . . 133 impartial. secondly, the structure of a language moulds the potential of what can be communicated. this conception of languages of legitimation facilitates a focus both on analyses of ‘relations to’ knowledge practices and analyses of ‘relations within’ knowledge practices. in relation to knowledge practices languages of legitimation are realised (in one dimension) as epistemic relations and social relations that constitute specialisation codes. specialisation refers to the reality that all human practices and beliefs are both: (a) about, or positioned towards something, thus involving relations to objects of focus, and (b) by someone, thereby concerned with relations to subjects. in highlighting the co-existence of these elements within all human activity, maton facilitates a conceptually whole focus, signalling the salience of attending both to issues of knowledge in itself, and identity and social formation. maton analytically differentiates between ‘epistemic relations’ (referring to relations between practices and their objects) and ‘social relations’ (referring to relations between practices and their subjects or originators). epistemic relations illuminate issues of what can legitimately be named as knowledge, while social relations focus on who can assert themselves as legitimate knowers. these concepts are deployed using bernstein’s notions of classification and framing. classification refers to the strength of boundary maintenance between situations. framing refers to the location of control inside contexts. stronger framing points to greater control from above. therefore, stronger epistemic relations refer to practices which place firm boundaries and control around what can legitimately constitute objects of study and what procedures may be used. stronger social relations refer to the placement of strong boundaries and control around who may be recognised as legitimate knowers. maton argues against dichotomising typologies in educational research, and so visualises epistemic relations and social relations as intersecting continua that generate a cartesian plane which produces a topological space comprising four specialisation codes – knowledge, elite, knower, relativist as set out in figure 2 below: 134 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 figure 2: cartesian plane – specialisation codes this topological space provides possibilities for separate variations in the strength of epistemic relations and social relations. the mapping of infinite numbers of positions along continua of relative strengths is thus possible, along with the tracing of shifts of position within quadrants. knowledge codes are those which strongly mark off what counts as legitimate objects and/or methods of study, while backgrounding the salience of personal attributes of those who do the studying. this is schematised as er+ sr-. physics is typically an example of such a code, where specialised knowledge of particular objects of study using strongly controlled procedures is stressed. in principle, there is no social restriction on who may claim legitimate physics knowledge, as long as they master the accepted procedures for knowledge building in physics. in contrast, knower codes (sr+ er-) ground assertions of legitimacy in particular kinds of knowers. there is stronger classification and framing of social relations – who makes claims is the most important factor in terms of ideal knower traits. differences between knowers are thus stressed. wide ranging knowledge assertions, methods and procedures are largely a matter of individual choice. social knower codes aim to speak the experiences of knowers with truth being established via the ‘voice’. in the field of reproduction this points to the possibilities of nuanced plotting of variable positions. for example, in relation to english studies, the study of literature in schools can usually be placed as a knower code, where social jackson: knowledge and knowers. . . 135 relations predominate in relation to the importance of knowers’ responses to literature (usually through cultivation, developing the dispositions of knowers into a range of possible literary gazes). however, where the focus of study is linguistic, while the placement is still likely to be within the knower code quadrant, it will be much closer to the knowledge quadrant, since the focus will be far more on the knowledge, understanding and analysis of linguistic structures in a highly systematised way and far less on the traits of the knowers. there may well be other possible placements, such as of the study of literature at an elite university. in such circumstances, what you know about english literature may be as important as who you are as a knower – for example, if to count as a legitimate knower you must arrive with extensive reading of classical as well as english literature as foundational knowledge to the further growth of your already cultivated literary disposition. such an approach would likely be placed within an elite code. figure 3: specialisation codes – placement of literature and linguistics additionally within the field of reproduction, the specialisation plane offers an analytic framework for the nuanced investigation of teaching and learning practices. it allows for tracking of subtle shifts in emphasis of specialisation codes across different aspects of the pedagogic process. it can also facilitate exploration of issues such as the dispositions and practices of teachers and learners, and degrees of code match and code clash between them (see chen, 2010 for an example from professional education). maton further elaborates upon specialisation codes in terms of types of gazes, identifying a continuum from weaker social relations to stronger social relations: 136 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 figure 4: continuum of gazes trained gazes are those with weaker social relations (sr-) and stronger epistemic relations (er+) while born gazes are those with much stronger social relations (sr+) and weaker epistemic relations (er-). cultivated gazes are those with a somewhat weaker social relations acquired by long immersion that cultivates the legitimate dispositions of the knower. social gazes are acquired by virtue of one’s location in society, such as from one’s class position, or one’s social category, such as being black or female. hierarchical growth of knowers can occur through cultivated gazes. that is, an increasing range of knowers can, in principle, be admitted at the base of the hierarchy and can then be socialised into the legitimate cultivated gaze. these ideas therefore potentially provide a shared language through which to explore ongoing contestations surrounding pedagogic issues. for example, suggestive research areas regarding school-based learning of home and additional languages include: ! what is the legitimate gaze of cultivation in particular contexts? what are the languages of legitimation for our different home languages! as school subjects? how do these compare with each other, and what are the implications of any differences? ! what are the implications of aiming to expand the base of knowers in language education? ! who are the guardians of the gaze? what is the nature of their legitimation codes? ! which criteria and pedagogic processes are deployed in the processes of cultivation of legitimate gazes? ! what code clashes are evident in the field (e.g. between policy-makers, curriculum designers, textbook writers, teachers and learners? what are the implications of these clashes? lct specialisation codes can be further analysed into ‘insights’ and ‘lenses’, offering increasingly delicate discriminations within, as well as between jackson: knowledge and knowers. . . 137 codes. space constraints, however, do not permit elaboration of these here – chapter 9 explicates these distinctions. a further key concern for maton is the question of what constitutes, and promotes, cumulative theorising and learning, as opposed to segmented thinking. this is deeply linked to bernstein’s suggestive model of ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ discourses (2000). horizontal discourses are those of everyday, informal knowledge. vertical discourses are those of specialised, systematic, formalised knowledge. within vertical discourses, bernstein then identified two types of knowledge structures. hierarchical knowledge structures comprise hierarchically organised knowledge systems with clearly principled knowledge, coherently structured and systematically integrated. horizontal knowledge structures consist of numerous specialised languages, each with specific criteria for specialised modes of analysis. these operate from different assumptions and are segmented from each other. maton focuses here on developing bernstein’s model to be useful in the field of reproduction. he asks how educational knowledge can facilitate cumulative learning (that is, greater conceptual hierarchisation) as opposed to segmented learning. he argues that segmentalism [comprising] ‘a series of discrete ideas or skills rather than cumulatively building on previously encountered knowledge’. . . ‘can constrain students’ capacities to extend and integrate their past experiences and apply their understandings to new contexts, such as later studies, everyday lives or future work’ (2014, p.107). cumulative learning enables transfer of knowledge between contexts and through time, while segmented learning often restricts transfer, leaving learners with knowledge locked within the ‘semantic gravity well’ of particular contexts. maton proposes the notions of cumulative learning, semantic gravity and semantic density as key tools to articulate the underlying organising principles enabling understanding of what makes discourses horizontal or vertical, or a knowledge structure horizontal or hierarchical. semantic gravity refers to the degree to which the meaning of practices relates to their contexts. maton elaborates: this semantic gravity may be relatively stronger or weaker along a continuum. when semantic gravity is stronger, meaning is more closely related to its social or symbolic context of acquisition or use; when it is weaker, meaning is less dependent on its context. one can also describe processes of strengthening semantic gravity, such as moving from abstract or generalized ideas towards concrete and delimited cases, and weakening semantic gravity; such as moving from the concrete particulars of a specific case towards 138 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 generalizations and abstractions whose meanings are less dependent on that context (2014, p.110). broadly, then, semantic gravity involves degrees of abstraction and concretisation. a key issue is determining exactly what is meant by ‘context’ in order to establish degrees of dependence/independence of context. maton does not directly tease out this issue, but elaborates via two case studies. the first investigated a masters level task where instructional designers of learning resources had to analyse case studies of actual projects, drawing connections to literature in the field and their own design experiences along with identifying ‘major project management issues’ in instructional design. a study specific external language of description of varying levels of abstraction in student responses was developed for the analysis. so, here, contextual independence refers to students detaching themselves from the particulars of their own professional experience, and the specificities of provided case studies. that is they were expected to distance themselves from specific social contexts of experience. greater abstraction from context was also linked with students’ capacity to draw out generalised insights about, and principles for, instructional design. the study showed how few students were able to do this, and posits the absence of scaffolded models of the required weakened semantic gravity to guide students as one reason for the paucity of decontextualisation in student responses to the task. the second case study looks at a thematic unit of study in school english, for the new south wales higher school certificate. students had to study a variety of texts under the theme the journey, and write an integrative answer exploring how much studying the “concept of imaginative journeys expanded your understanding of yourself, of individuals and of the world” (2014, p.117). maton characterises this task as aiming to weaken semantic gravity by pointing students to engagement with broader literary principles applicable to multiple texts. analysis of a high and low achieving essay revealed very different profiles. the high essay moved from relatively weak semantic gravity (generalising with a literary gaze) down to particularities of individual texts, then upwards again to more abstract concepts. this builds a semantic gravity wave through the essay, propelled by a cultivated knower code (2014, p.119). the student presents her insights filtered and altered through a literary gaze. by contrast the low essay shows a ‘flat’ profile of much stronger semantic gravity and narrower range. the essay is segmentally structured with strongly bounded discussion of each text. stronger semantic gravity is expressed through localised discussion of each text along with a personalised jackson: knowledge and knowers. . . 139 gaze where the writer directly links her subjective experiences to discrete items in the texts. ‘context’ here is thus construed both as the life and personal experience of the writer and the particulars of individual written texts encountered. meaning independent of context is implied to be that which is applicable both to those ‘originating’ contexts, and other linked, but putative contexts; thus generalised meaning projected into an idealised literary domain. this involves linguistic realisations of such abstractions in a depersonalised written register. the nature of the links between forms of detachment from social and symbolic contexts, and forms of linguistic realisation of these, remains a key area to be researched. fruitful ongoing collaboration between systemic functional linguistic scholars and lct scholars are opening up this area productively (see, for example maton & doran, forthcoming; maton, martin and matruglio, in press, 2014; martin, 2011, martin, 2014). the concept of semantic gravity invites consideration against cummins’ earlier concepts of basic interpersonal communication skills (bics) and cognitive academic language proficiency (calps) (1991), and his later extension of these into his matrix with two intersecting continua – the first being contextually embedded/decontextualised language, and the second being cognitively demanding/cognitively undemanding tasks (2009, 2013). these were developed for the specific purpose of understanding the situation and educational needs of immigrant children having to learn through the medium of a new language while developing bilingual proficiency. cummins proposed that such learners mastered everyday language (bics) up to three years sooner than they mastered calps in their new language. in lct terms bics could be related to knower structures, while calps could be linked to knowledge structures. however, they are not knower/knowledge discourses in themselves, but communicative resources deployed to effect communication within knower and knowledge structures. cummins’ matrix enables finer, non-dichotomised distinctions than possible just with the bics/calps division. for example, two teenagers conversing casually via smses are engaged in relatively context-reduced (in terms of the channel of communication), but probably cognitively undemanding communication. two academics fiercely debating the merits of code theory versus field theory over a beer in a pub are engaging in relatively communicatively context embedded, but cognitively demanding communication. ‘context’ here comprises mostly the extra-linguistic dimensions of communication. so context-embedded language is that where meaning is carried paraand non-linguistically, as well as linguistically, and interlocutors have recourse to immediate negotiation and 140 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 re-negotiation of the meanings being constructed. context-reduced language is that where the language itself carries most of the communicative meaning, so requiring high levels of linguistic explicitness. ‘cognitive demand’, for cummins, refers to the extent to which the linguistic tools required for a task have been deeply internalised and automatised. cummins is thus not explicitly teasing out variations of conceptual abstraction and demand. however, working with such an understanding of a ‘cognitive demand’ continuum could provide a helpful matrix for educators and materials designers. cummins’ model was strongly critiqued, amongst other reasons, for its inadequate linguistic conceptualisation of calps. in responding to the criticisms, he cited the work of biber (1986), and gibbons and lascar (1998) as providing sound linguistic evidence for the existence of academic registers involving varieties of ‘distanced’ language. gibbons and lascar, drawing upon sfls mode parameter, concluded: “register is a product of the relationship between the linguistic systems and the contexts of their use.” (1998, p.41). this debate points back to the long vexed question of how to understand the inter-relationship between conceptual structures, cognitive processes, their realisations within linguistic structures, and their relationships to situational and social factors. while there is overlap between the concepts of semantic gravity and calps they cannot be conflated, in part because they exist to do different things. semantic gravity, as part of lct, sets out to theorise social practices of people, beyond the needs of bilingual learners and education, and, in principle, beyond education itself. it focuses upon conceptual decontextualisation, that is, processes of knowledge abstraction. cummins focuses primarily upon issues of communicative contextualisation/ decontextualisation. however, consideration of the prior debates around the intricacies of unravelling the linguistic/cognitive/pedagogic interface of register variation illuminates the work still to be done in establishing the precise nature of semantic gravity continua in diverse educational fields and processes of knowledge building, and their linguistic realisations. as part of an ongoing dialogue between lct and systemic functional linguistics (sfl) scholars, martin and matruglio (2013) are re-exploring the sfl concept of mode in the light of maton’s proposals regarding semantic gravity and highlighting the linguistic complexity that must be recognised and worked with. what lct’s semantic plane offers educational researchers is an analytical toolkit providing a pedagogically focussed way into the intricacies jackson: knowledge and knowers. . . 141 of educational practices. the resultant insights may then highlight linguistic aspects of these situations that need additional close research attention, enabling strategic, targeted application of the most salient aspects of dense linguistic theory for pedagogically focused problems. in close juxtaposition with semantic gravity, maton proposes the notion of semantic density which refers to the degree of condensation of meaning within socio-cultural practices (symbols, terms, concepts, phrases, expressions, gestures, actions, clothing, etc.). . .the stronger the semantic density (sd+), the more meanings are condensed within practices; the weaker the semantic density (sd-) the less meanings are condensed. the strength of semantic density of a practice or symbol relates to the semantic structure in which it is located’ (p.129). for example, the word ‘world’ can be more or less semantically dense depending on its semantic location. it is relatively less semantically dense in the question ‘where in the world is waldo?’ in the where’s waldo? children’s books where the reader has to hunt for waldo in complex, crammed double-page pictures. it is relatively more semantically dense in the opening line of wordsworth’s sonnet the world is too much with us: “the world is too much with us; late and soon. . . .” while the former instance indexes geographical (and pictorial location), the latter invokes an associative network of worldliness, materialism and consumerism as societal burdens. ‘world’ in geography could condense many more meanings, and invoke a complex network of conceptual relations, including the whole earth and its: ! peoples, ! surface features (geomorphology) – mountains, ravines, oceans, lakes, volcanoes, caves; (ecosystems) – savannah, alpine, riverine, tropical; ! atmospheric features – gases. again, lct focuses on possibilities of nuanced tracking of shifts in semantic gravity and semantic density, through pedagogic processes and artifacts, as well as in intellectual theories. each principle is presented as a continuum, which, when juxtaposed in intersection with each other, generates a semantic plane, enabling a basis for both ‘typologising practices’ and ‘topologically exploring differences within types and dynamic processes of strengthening and weakening (sg89, sd89) as presented in figure 5. 142 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 figure 5: semantic plane combining semantic density and semantic gravity as analytic tools permits the tracking of shifts in the nature and coherence of pedagogic discourse over time, using notions of semantic waves, and degrees of semantic flow (matruglio, maton and martin, 2013). key issues for ongoing research include establishing to what extent, and in what ways, semantic waves promote cumulative learning in different disciplines. building cumulative knowledge of where, and what forms of, semantic waving are highly valued across, and within, disciplines is important. establishing profiles of teachers/learners in terms of semantic waving and how these relate to learner achievements could also be productive. however, these developments are just alluded to within this book. maton points to lct being deployed in praxis (martin and maton, 2013) and, he says, this is “stimulating new ways of realising lct through what can be termed external languages of enactment ”(2014, p.209) such as a project in secondary schools explicating the notion and pedagogic salience of semantic waves to teachers. clarence recently investigated the presence, absence and nature of semantic waving and its role in cumulative learning in humanities tertiary education (2014). numerous other aspects of the book, merit close attention, most notably maton’s exposition of cosmologies, that is “how belief systems… underlie the ways actors select and arrange clusters and constellations of stances that, in turn, shape what is viewed as possible and legitimate within a field” (2014, p.149), along with his concepts of axiological and epistemological condensation. another key area is his refinement of the ideas of epistemic jackson: knowledge and knowers. . . 143 relations and social relations to account for ‘minor differences’ within each category that he argues have ‘major effects’ (2014). these are well worth engaging with and offer fertile insights and tools that could be productively deployed to explore issues, such as shifts within specific disciplines and how certain concepts, theories and pedagogical approaches gain ascendancy and others do not. knowledge and knowers is lucid, generous and written with elegance and conviction. while lct focuses broadly on social practices, and on the nature and effects of knowledge in particular, the dominant focus of knowledge and knowers is on knower structures. maton deftly fuses insights from bourdieu and bernstein in setting out a cogent theory of knowledge and knowers. a key contribution is the richness and flexibility of the toolset, with demonstrated analytic power in researching educational practices across an array of levels and contexts. while maton’s contribution is substantial and insightful in his capacity to draw together salient aspects of diverse theoretical traditions, and to tilt at the windmills of inadequate educational research, he is also quick to acknowledge and point to the collective contributions of many other scholars to the growth of lct. knowledge and knowers is provocative, thoughtinducing and generative; offering a powerful, multi-faceted array of analytical tools to the project of cumulative knowledge building in the field of educational research. 144 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 references bernstein, b. 2000. pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: theory, research, critique. revised edition. oxford: rowman & littlefield. biber, d. 1986. spoken and written textual dimensions in english: resolving the contradictory findings. language, 62: pp.384–414. chen, r. 2010. knowledge and knowers in online learning: investigating the effects of online flexible learning on student sojourners. unpublished phd thesis. australia: university of wollongong. clarence, s. 2014. enabling cumulative learning through teaching: a legitimation code theory analysis of pedagogic practice in law and political science. unpublished phd thesis. grahamstown, south africa: rhodes university. cummins, j. 1991. ‘language development and academic learning.’ in malave, l.m. and duquette, g. (eds), language, culture and cognition. clevedon-avon: multilingual-matters. cummins, j. 2009. putting language proficiency in its place: responding to critiques of the conversational/academic language distinction. <http://www.tolerance.org/tdsi/sites/tolerance.org.tdsi/files/assets/general/put ting_language_proficiency_in_its_place_jim_cummins.pdf.> accessed 6 december 2013. cummins, j. 2013. bics and calp. in byram, m. and hu, a. (eds), routledge encyclopedia of language teaching and learning. abingdon, oxon: routledge. gibbons, j. and lascar, e. 1998. operationalising academic language proficiency in bilingualism research. journal of multilingual and multicultural development, 19(1): pp.40–50. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01434639808666341> accessed 10 december 2013. http://<http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01434639808666341> jackson: knowledge and knowers. . . 145 martin, j.r. 2011. bridging troubled waters: interdisciplinarity and what makes it stick. in christie, f. and maton, k. (eds), disciplinarity: functional linguistic and sociological perspectives. london: continuum, pp.35–61. martin, j.r. (2014) keynote: hyperlink "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a0nysrbv5q" exploring content: building knowledge in school discourse, free linguistics conference 2014, shanghai, sept. http://www.legitimationcodetheory.com/practice-sfl.html martin, j.r. and maton, k. (eds). 2013. linguistics and education: special issue on cumulative knowledge building in secondary schooling, 24(1): pp.1–74. martin, j.r. and matruglio, e. 2013. revisiting mode: context in/dependency in ancient history classroom discourse. in guowen, h., delu, z. and xinzhang, y. (eds), studies in functional linguistics and discourse analysis, (5). beijing: higher education press, pp.72–95. maton, k. 2013. making semantic waves: a key to cumulative knowledge building. linguistics and education, 24(1): pp.8–22. maton, k. 2014. knowledge and knowers towards a realist sociology of education. london and new york: routledge. maton, k. and doran, y.j. (forthcoming). sfl and code theory, in bartlett, t. and o’grady, g. (eds), routledge systemic functional linguistic handbook. london: routledge. maton, k., martin, j.r. and matruglio, e. 2014. (in press). lct and systemic functional linguistics: enacting complementary theories for explanatory power. in maton, k., hood, s. and shay, s. (eds), knowledge-building: educational studies in legitimation code theory. london, routledge. matruglio, e., maton, k. and martin, j.r. 2013. time travel: the role of temporality in enabling semantic waves in secondary school teaching. linguistics and education, 24(1): pp.38–49. http://www.legitimationcodetheory.com/practice-sfl.html 146 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 fiona jackson school of arts university of kwazulu-natal fjackson@ukzn.ac.za mailto:jacksonf@ukzn.ac.za microsoft word b8400 fullissue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 84, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i84a10 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x community-based learning in higher education: a portal for knowledge production in the time of covid-19 nompumelelo thabethe community development, school of built environment and development studies, university of kwazulunatal, durban, south africa thabethe@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0003-1327-7503 sarasvathie reddy higher education studies, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa reddys15@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0001-9344-7431 (received: 15 march 2021; accepted: 31 august 2021) abstract at the onset of covid-19 in 2020, the world-renowned writer and political activist, arundhati roy, signalled that the pandemic is “a portal, a gateway between one world and the next . . . [and] we can choose to walk through it.” roy’s views highlight how we can imagine our world anew through reflection in the time of covid-19. in this article, we examine the epistemological experiences of students enrolled in a course in community-based learning (cbl) at the university of kwazulu-natal and consider how cbl during covid19 serves as a portal for understanding knowledge that is produced at the nexus between the university and the community. we deemed the community of inquiry framework to be a suitable theoretical lens based on its appreciation of the nexus between social (community), teaching (classroom), and cognitive (critical thinking) elements in an online educational experience. our findings indicate that covid-19 provides an opportunity for cbl to serve as a portal for understanding how the students’ epistemological experiences during the pandemic influenced knowledge production. this is beneficial since university education most often places at the periphery knowledge that students from the surrounding communities bring to the classroom. it is our contention that students bring epistemic value to the university that is not affirmed during the knowledge production process. we conclude that cbl can indeed serve as the gateway for knowledge production between universities and communities during and beyond covid-19. keywords: community-based learning, community engagement, covid-19, knowledge production, community of inquiry, online pedagogy thabethe & reddy: community-based learning in higher education 187 introduction when the first case of covid-19 was discovered in south africa on march 5, 2020, the government imposed a 21-day national shutdown that commenced on march 26. covid-19 continues to wreak havoc globally and in this country by affecting all spheres of social life and disrupting face-to-face teaching and learning in higher education (le grange, 2020). at the onset of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the university of kwazulu-natal (ukzn) quickly transitioned to emergency remote teaching and learning (ertl) and accompanied this with capacity building sessions to prepare both staff and students for virtual classes. for hodges et al. (2020), ertl denotes the type of learning instruction delivered in times of crisis to ensure the quick transition to a new modality of teaching and learning. in this case, it was in response to “the collapse of campus-based teaching” (walwyn, 2020, p. 20). such measures were instrumental in salvaging the 2020 academic year by ensuring that the curriculum was completed, albeit later than usual, and ending semester two in february 2021. covid-19 has exposed and deepened structural inequalities that exist in institutions of higher learning such as gender, race, and class, inequalities, to name a few that result in mental illness (naidoo & cartwright, 2020). such inequalities disproportionately affect african students from previously disadvantaged communities since they often lack access to laptops, internet connectivity, and study spaces (nyambuya et al., 2021). covid-19 exacerbates existing inequalities in higher education, thereby marginalising students from poor communities even further. a survey of 30,383 students from 62 countries revealed that the negative impact of covid-19 on less privileged students is a global phenomenon that is not restricted to developing countries (aristovnik et al., 2020). in light of this reality, we argue that while the level of student responsiveness through ertl is commendable, it is inadequately incommensurate to these systemic challenges especially in relation to the process of knowledge production. in this article, we examine the epistemological experiences of third-year students who enrolled in a course in community-based learning (cbl) in the context of community engagement at ukzn during covid-19 in 2020. the findings interrogate the epistemic value that students from poor communities (non-traditional students) brought to university spaces in the time of covid-19 that is under discussion. we begin by foregrounding the socio-cultural environment of community engagement in south african higher education institutions (saheis) and then present the qualitative research design and methodology that we adopted to produce the data. we go on to provide an explanation of garrison et al.’s (2000) community of inquiry (coi) that we used as our theoretical framework. it fosters a collaborative-constructivist process premised on the three overlapping tenets of cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence. we were able to draw on these elements to make sense of the knowledge that is produced at the intersection between the community and the university. we go on to discuss the study location and the structure of the cbl course. although the impact of covid-19 on saheis is devastating, the key findings foreground the relevance of the cbl module in times of crisis. we conclude with pedagogical 188 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 perspectives on setting an agenda that embeds cbl as a portal for knowledge production in the time of covid-19 and beyond. the socio-cultural context of community engagement while the terms community engagement and service-learning are often used interchangeably (bender, 2008), service learning is generally applicable to the acquisition of professional degrees in, for example, teaching and nursing, where practicing student teachers or nurses provide a service to a community while learning during the process of doing so (preece et al., 2011). this is deemed appropriate as an entry point for community engagement (lazarus et al., 2008). the application of the term engagement rather than service “opens up possibilities for a more collaborative process between universities and their communities” (preece et al., 2011, p. 718). saheis evolve within a specific socio-cultural context that is informed and shaped by national and global realities. in line with the pre-1994 apartheid ideology, higher education institutions were divided “in terms of politics, culture, language, programme mix, research output, postgraduate enrolments, staff, and student profiles” (council on higher education (che), 2015, p. 58). this had a negative impact on teaching and learning, as shown in the white paper on the transformation of higher education (department of education (doe), 1997). this is consistent with the soudien report that observes the impact of racial discrimination on teaching and learning in higher education (doe, 2008). to foster equity, institutional policies embrace, inter alia, academic support and development in research, teaching, and learning for the benefit of non-traditional students (che, 2015) i.e., those who belong to the cohort that was previously underrepresented in higher education (davis, 2010). despite developments to accommodate them, institutional cultures in saheis are transforming at a slow pace (che, 2016). this is clearly articulated in a five-year longitudinal study that sought to analyse black students’ experiences of saheis as a way of assessing the implementation of the soudien report. this study sampled participants from eight south african universities who still feel unwelcome in saheis since they are subjected to institutional racism (swartzet al., 2018). dominant narratives in the literature locate what is wrong at the level of the individual student while overlooking pervasive institutional cultures that are slow to transform (higgs, 2012). part of the challenge is that transforming institutional cultures is “less successful at the individual and intellectual level, [it] needs to be tackled primarily at the level of culture and practice” (che, 2015, p. 73). unless nuanced descriptions of the students’ lived experiences are validated, they will continue to bring with them relevant knowledge and cultural experiences that are not valued in saheis as nieto (2015) has reminded us. these are pertinent epistemic issues that need to be urgently addressed by saheis. epistemology based on the greek word, episteme, for truthful knowledge (mouton, 2001), is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with how knowledge is acquired (bengtsen, 2018). while there are different types of epistemology, we were interested in the socio-political dimensions of knowledge that are concerned with social epistemology (siegel, 2004) to ascertain how individuals gain knowledge through interaction with one another (kusch, 2011). apple’s (2000) perspective on epistemology is concerned thabethe & reddy: community-based learning in higher education 189 not only with the nature of knowledge, but also with the sociocultural context in which knowledge is produced. similarly, in this article we acknowledge that students’ lived experiences influence what they know since knowledge does not “exist in a social and personal vacuum” (boud & miller, 1996, p. 18). rather, it “is continuously derived from and tested out in the experiences of the learner” (p. 27). epistemology and learning, in being interrelated, have implications for how educators develop conducive learning environments (kember, 2001) and this points to the importance of our study given its focus on students’ epistemological experiences in the time of covid-19. following preece (2016), we conceptualise community engagement as a counter-hegemonic tool aimed at mediating power through dialogue and listening. while community engagement has always been about “social justice, civic engagement and community development,” it was originally intended to expose development practitioners from affluent communities to underprivileged communities of the “other” (goulet, 2014, p. 14). this is slowly changing to ensure that saheis are socially responsible in their localities (maistry & ramdhani, 2010). this is illustrated in a review of 16 community engagement units in sahe that showcases university responses to covid-19 in 2020. the review report sahecef—2020 in review: rethinking community engagement amidst covid-19 pandemic, is the initiative of the south african higher education community engagement forum (sahecef). notwithstanding university-based community engagement units that have been severely affected by budget cuts, universities are socially responsible in their communities through service and acts of kindness such as providing food, masks, and other essentials. at a recent university wide seminar on community engagement, ukzn reported on some activities offered by the department of occupational therapy and the centre for creative arts. the former was involved in screening, treatment, and health promotion in schools, while the latter presented virtually two major community events during the lockdowns (sahecef, 2020). further, final year medical students from the school of medicine instituted a communitycentred response to covid-19 awareness campaigns in partnership with the human sciences research council (ukzn, 2020c). other schools across ukzn participated in community engagement activities that can be viewed via the institution’s website. the point that we are raising here is that while the level of responsiveness is significant in emergencies and crises, the main question we ask is related to how cbl can serve as a portal for knowledge production during covid-19 and beyond. research design and theoretical framing this was a qualitative study located in the interpretivist paradigm. we sought to understand the students’ epistemological experiences during the cbl module with a view to determining the epistemic value that non-traditional students brought to university spaces in the time of covid-19. the study participants were the first cohort of cbl students to complete the module under the lockdown regulations in 2020. a purposively chosen sample of 10 cbl students together with their academic coordinator were interviewed telephonically in order to 190 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 adhere to the national and ukzn covid-19 guidelines. 1 we also reviewed a course outline. garrison et al.’s (2000) coi with its three tenets (cognitive, social, and teaching presence) was used as the framework through which the data was generated. cognitive presence there is a strong link between the col’s cognitive presence and critical thinking, “the ultimate goal of higher education” (garrison et al., 2010, p. 6). in making sense of cognitive presence within a reflective process, garrison and arbaugh (2007) operationalised it through what they called the practical inquiry framework, based on john dewey’s (1938) seminal work on reflective thinking (experience, reflection, conceptualisation, and experimentation). dewey believed that a worthwhile educational experience should be based on reflective inquiry that leads to critical thinking. the ability to think critically, according to the col framework, does not happen in a vacuum. rather, it is interdependent on the interaction of all three elements (cognitive, social, and teaching presence) (garrison et al., 2010). this resonates with dewey’s conception of critical thinking; for him, a concrete experience is required to trigger critical reflection for the generation of new knowledge. the ultimate goal of cognitive presence is to develop the ability to connect ideas and apply new knowledge (garrison & arbaugh, 2007). this level of thinking is central to the cbl module under study. social presence proponents of the col framework recognise that social presence is also central in establishing a community of inquiry. however, garrison et al. (2010) critiqued studies that overemphasised the social presence to the exclusion of the teaching and cognitive elements. rather, they encouraged a multi-dimensional perspective that appreciates the interconnectedness of the social (community), teaching (classroom) and cognitive (critical thinking). social cohesion and open communication are key dimensions in building a community of inquiry within social presence. there is an association between social and academic teaching that promotes comprehension of knowledge produced at the nexus between the classroom and the community (garrison, 2009). this observation is critical in assisting us to understand the relevance of the knowledge that was produced by the participants of the study while undertaking the cbl module. teaching presence while the social presence and course content interactions among learners are essential in virtual learning, such interactions by themselves cannot provide students with effective online learning. hence, three dimensions are crucial in facilitating teaching presence in technologymediated education, i.e., design, facilitation, and direction (garrison et al., 2010) that are necessary “for the purpose of realising personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes” (garrison & arbaugh, 2007, p. 163). three additional components are 1 the research protocol was reviewed and approved by the ukzn’s humanities and social sciences ethics committee (ethical clearance number: hssrec/00003079/2021). thabethe & reddy: community-based learning in higher education 191 critical in the attainment of this learning outcome: 1) instructional design and organisation; 2) facilitating discourse; and 3) direct instruction (anderson et al., 2001). studies conducted in the covid-19 era on ertl validated the importance of teaching presence for successful online learning (aristovnik et al., 2020). a strong link exists between cognitive, social, and teaching elements. this is clearly articulated in a study that was conducted by shea and bidjerano (2009) to investigate the causal relationships among these three dimensions. these study findings viewed social presence as a mediating factor between teaching and cognitive presence. moreover, for these scholars, “teaching and social presence represent the processes needed to create paths to epistemic engagement” (p. 551). we deemed the col framework suitable for our study based on its appreciation of the intersection between and among social (community), teaching (classroom) and cognitive (critical thinking) elements while considering the dynamics of an online educational experience. in addition, it acknowledges the importance of setting the climate, selecting appropriate content, and supporting emerging discourses for knowledge generation. we, therefore, argue that all three of these constructs are essential to a cbl course design for learning in times of crisis and beyond. study location and structure of the cbl course the study was conducted in the department of community development in the school of built environment and development studies at ukzn’s howard college campus. ukzn was an appropriate setting for the understanding of students’ epistemological experiences because of the institutional changes that have taken place here in the broader context of transformation in saheis. a growing number of students at ukzn hail from previously disadvantaged backgrounds. in a survey with a sample of 456 respondents, sabi et al. (2020) reported that 53.1% of the students at ukzn are vulnerable to food insecurity, 44% experienced moderate levels of vulnerability while 9.2% were highly vulnerable. it is against this backdrop that ukzn’s internal policies tackle issues of access, equity, development, and academic excellence for the benefit of students from previously excluded communities. for instance, the university instituted a food security programme in 2012 to address food insecurity among students from low-income households. ukzn is also leading the institutionalisation of isizulu and shifting it to the centre of intellectual inquiry in sahe (khumalo, 2016). ndimande-hlongwa et al. (2010) asserted that students enrolled in isizulu courses at ukzn are well-equipped to engage with the communities they serve in the university’s locality. this forms the basis of the design and implementation of the current cbl curriculum that we discuss below. the core modules in the three-year bachelor of community and development studies (bcds) degree foster multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches since they are offered through 10 core modules and 11 electives from cognate disciplines in ukzn’s college of humanities (ukzn, 2020b), i.e., anthropology, psychology, social work, political science, tourism, criminology and forensic studies, international relations, gender studies, philosophy, practical theology, sociology, social policy, etc.). compulsory core modules 192 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 include: 1) introduction to community development; 2) institutions in community development; 3) development theories; 4) local economic development; 5) project planning; 6) community profiling; 7) local government and community development; 8) cbl; 9) contemporary issues in community development; 10) population and community development. the community engagement unit in the department of community development at ukzn has undergone many phases of transformation following the university’s merger that took place in 2004 when the former university of durban westville merged with the then university of natal, resulting in a shift in management structures (o’brien, 2012). cbl is a year-long course offered to final year students who already have a sound understanding of development theories, concepts, and approaches. the course provides them with opportunities for the application of learning, thereby acting as a capstone that brings all the learning together. through experiential learning, students gain hands-on experience in a community setting. this inculcates a culture of reflection and critical thinking as they learn in both the classroom and the community. cbl merges theory and practice and nurtures students to become critical, competent, empathetic, and ethical. the course is coordinated with the assistance of staff from non-profit organisations and government departments who act as student hosts (ukzn, 2020a). the cbl module in 2020 had a total of 42 registered students. the course outline involved weekly community engagement activities and classroom-based learning. the teaching methodology was organised in a manner that promoted collaborative and individual learning through 1) placement sites: students worked in teams of three to five members over a period of six weeks (with eight hours per week in their placement sites). they are accountable to an organisational mentor (supervisor) who guides learning. an agreement is signed between the department of community development’s cbl coordinator and managers of placement sites to ensure mutual understanding; 2) personal learning journals: journaling as a teaching methodology gives students an opportunity to reflect critically on their practical experience; 3) classroom-based learning: a 90-minute session is arranged once a week to enable critical reflection and learning. in addition, problem areas are identified and addressed to equip students to meet the demands of their placements; and 4) reflective writing and oral presentations: students are expected to reflect in writing and prepare for oral presentations. the national shutdown and subsequent lockdowns in march 2020 disrupted the course delivery and this led to the discontinuation of all face-to-face learning and community engagement activities. ertl was instituted between april and august 2020 as an emergency plan and students were encouraged to identify suitable placement sites in their home communities. this was a deviation from the norm since the department of community development is responsible for the placement of students, small group allocations, and the disbursement of travel funds. when president cyril ramaphosa shifted the country to alert level 2 on 10 august 2020, students were able to return to campus for university-led placements in small groups. students spent five days in their host organisations (between 8h00 and 16h00 each day) as opposed to spending an eight-hour day a week for six weeks. thabethe & reddy: community-based learning in higher education 193 these efforts ensured the continuation of the academic programme despite the challenges presented by the covid-19 pandemic. discussion of the findings the community context in which students operate (social presence) the findings revealed that participants from low-income households are hard-hit by the covid-19 pandemic since they struggle to study from home because of the constraints of poor connectivity, and study space as well as data shortages. two of the ten participants were unable to participate in cbl activities. one cited the lack of funds for travelling in a rural community, while the other maintained that no development agencies exist in a remote rural part of ulundi, a small town located approximately 232km north of durban. eight of the ten interview participants live in poverty-stricken rural communities with high rates of unemployment. participant 2, for example, maintained that “all households are affected by unemployment in my community. people depend on social grants for daily survival.” all ten participants reported that working from home was not conducive to learning. the participants were expected to attend to cbl in development agencies located in their localities during a strict lockdown phase (april to august 2020). although eight of the ten participants managed to perform under pressure, with varying degrees of success, it was established that none of them enjoyed the experience. when we probed further, we learned that two of them took a tough decision to stay with friends for the duration of the cbl placement in the inner city of durban. some students found it upsetting to risk their lives at the height of covid-19. all participants indicated that the placements that were undertaken in the second phase (september to november 2020) were the preferred option since the department of community development was involved in planning. as participant 4 lamented, “unfortunately, the first placement happened when everyone in the country was still trying to make sense of covid-19. we were all overwhelmed by fear.” participant 7, echoing similar sentiments, said, it was not a perfect time. some of us were not in a good place mentally, financially, and emotionally. our families and communities were affected by this covid-19 thing. amidst all that, you visit a local organisation that was not active in the community due to covid-19 regulations. days were spent listening to oral presentations [but] there were no communities to work with. these assertions suggest that there was not much happening in community-based organisations during this period (april to august 2020). the covid-19 pandemic invoked restrictions on social distancing and limited face-to-face contact. community gatherings were prohibited, and the participants were not exposed to community workshop facilitation because of social distancing protocols. participant 2 is one of the four students who mentioned the advantages of working with development agencies rooted in their local values, traditions, and cultures. yet, like the rest of 194 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 her peers, she prefers university-led placements. having been in a school in verulam where her mother works as a teacher, she found several development programmes intended for pupils from low-income homes relevant. still, she was among those who assured us that her main interest was to be placed in a university-led learning site. when asked to comment on the reasons, she explained, “the work was tedious. it was boring to be stuck in a school type of work environment even though i found their development programmes relevant.” participant 9 explained, i felt that university-led placements are reputable and reliable. hosts in those organisations respect us as students because they value the university. working in local development agencies is not valued where i come from. i also liked the fact that we worked in groups. walking into the first placement alone, without the support of your peers and academic staff, was a daunting task. participant 10 built on participant 9’s observations in saying, we tend to be ashamed to go and visit our local organisations because of the nature of being a university student. community members expect university students to contribute to the upliftment of their communities once they are done with their studies. to be seen in donor-funded community organisations, instead of working in corporate south africa, is not what many students aspire to. participant 7 also touched on similar sentiments in stating, “universities approach community engagement activities from the point of privilege. when you are poor, all you need is completing your studies and getting a job to assist your family.” in our attempt to make sense of these narratives, we sought to gather the perceptions of the academic cbl coordinator. he was aware of the students’ experiences since this was brought to his attention during the course delivery in 2020. he said, it cannot be denied that the devastation in 2020 was unprecedented, and everyone was affected. while the situation of students who lacked travel funds is understandable, the case of those who spent the entire period (april to august 2020) without any practical involvement is concerning. he continued, our students are not part and parcel of their home communities. the prevailing mentality is that when you have made it, you should distance yourself from your community that is still finding it hard to make ends meet and this needs to change. these observations reiterate participants 9’s and 10’s assertions cited earlier. similar sentiments were shared when one of the participants mentioned that community engagement thabethe & reddy: community-based learning in higher education 195 is attractive to people of a particular class. the student’s epistemological experience is that people in her community prioritise assisting their families and neighbourhoods and going beyond those parameters is associated with privilege. the participants’ social presence was also characterised by pain and suffering because of pandemic-related deaths. among the ten participants who were interviewed, five cases of members of the family who succumbed to covid-19 were reported. while dealing with loss, pain, and suffering in their personal lives, the participants had to deal with the untimely passing of one of the academic cbl coordinators on august 8, 2020. 2 moreover, some participants experienced further loss during their placements in community organisations. the loss that made provincial headlines was that of the founder member of the emseni community project, a christian-based organisation in durban. the organisation works in partnership with ethekwini municipality and the provincial departments of education, health and social development. their main purpose is to provide development in schools and communities through their hiv and aids programmes as well as food security programmes and access initiatives to the basic education sector. the social presence of the participants demonstrates that covid-19 impacted learning and the social ills witnessed in placement sites are not isolated issues but are consistent with their lived experiences. as participant 2 insisted, “all households are affected by unemployment in my community.” moreover, two participants had to stay with friends in order to access education. these findings demonstrate that the epistemologies that the participants promulgate are born out of their identities and contexts. thus, their social presence reveals that while the university has a growing number of non-traditional students from previously disadvantaged communities, the knowledge that is produced lacks relevance and alignment with their epistemological experiences. as goulet (2014) observed, traditionally, universities were home mainly to students from privileged backgrounds who were placed for community engagement activities, not in their privileged communities, but in communities of the other. in such environments, poor communities were not regarded as co-creators of knowledge but as anthropological subjects. this influenced the kind of knowledge that was produced. covid-19 blurred the boundaries between the university and the community since students were studying from home. while the participants concur that both theory and practice are essential for knowledge production, there is currently a mismatch between the two since the university’s teaching presence is unable to integrate the students’ epistemological experiences for the advancement of knowledge. thus, students bring epistemic value to the university that is not affirmed in knowledge production. this reiterates apple’s (2000) perspectives on epistemology relating to the sociocultural context in which knowledge is produced. in cases of students who could not participate in cbl because of socio-economic challenges, the findings portray how social inequalities are reproduced in education, making ertl in such learning environments a non-starter. understanding the interface between the university and the contexts in which students operate becomes critical for the facilitation of learning. 2 as authors of this article, we can attest to the magnitude of grief and sadness that overwhelmed us as a result of this sudden passing of our colleague who was also our friend. the impact of his untimely passing shook the entire ukzn’s college of humanities as it was evident in the tributes shared during his virtual memorial service held on august 28, 2020. 196 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 we turn, now, to the theme of teaching presence. students’ perspectives on merging theory and practice (teaching presence) it was established that the participants valued ertl more after returning to campus in september 2020. like all courses offered in the 2020 academic year at ukzn’s college of humanities, the teaching presence of cbl was instituted fully online. however, placements of students necessitated physical presence in host organisations throughout the year. among the host organisations was the virtual state, a brainchild of the provincial government office situated in pietermaritzburg. it functions primarily to promote participatory youth development in various communities. students who were placed in this programme were eager and excited to have been afforded the opportunity since the government had arranged five-day accommodation for them during the week of placement. some of the students were placed at the gugu dlamini foundation in durban. this organisation tackles gender-based violence and hiv and aids awareness to address discrimination in the community. it is named after gugu dlamini who was stoned to death after publicly declaring her hiv-positive status on december 6, 1998. other students were placed in various offices of the department of social development, and at sheilla house, a shelter for abused women in durban. as indicated earlier, the emseni community project was also one of the placement sites. consequently, weekly online lectures served to facilitate learning and identify problem areas for the attention of the academic coordinator. as indicated under the course description, there is no room for teaching new theories in the cbl course since it acts as a capstone that brings together the learning from preceding modules. the course offers students an opportunity to merge theory and practice in a community environment. to facilitate reflection on their practical experiences, students are asked: what surprised you? what dilemmas did that raise for you? what confirmed what you already knew? what could you or your peers have done differently? what are the most important things you realised from this experience? what were your previous assumptions? has this changed your ideas about community development issues in general? if so, in what way? similar questions informed the interview guide while encouraging students to consider the realities of learning in the time of covid-19. all ten participants indicated that remote learning worked better in the latter part of the second semester following the return to university residences. participant 9 stated, “we quickly had access to data, reliable internet connectivity, study space, library, travel funds, and we could work in peer groups with the support of our lecturers.” while reflecting on what worked and what did not during ertl, participant 6 indicated that “the university should ensure that ertl works optimally on off-campus platforms.” in addition, participant 8 proposed that “the university should switch 10gb (day) and 20gb (evening) data provision to ensure that students do not run out of data in the middle of virtual classes. there is high demand for data usage during the day.” participant 3 is among those who found the virtual private network (vpn) beneficial in reducing data costs. she is happy to have it installed on her computer. it also emerged that some students performed better during ertl in the time of covid-19, while others struggled with stress when working in isolation. eight of the ten students emphasised the importance of working in groups for peer support. they also highlighted the thabethe & reddy: community-based learning in higher education 197 significance of the role played by the academic coordinator. there was also a general sense among the participants that the course is significant in advancing their knowledge. central to this observation was the recognition of the underlying principles in community development that prioritise and foreground collective learning and social justice education. reiterating the value of a group methodology, the academic coordinator maintained that “african people’s way of life is communal. they are always about helping the next person. they embrace and take care of one another.” he added, i benefitted immensely from the online instruction since moodle 3 keeps all relevant student records, including attendance. this afforded me an opportunity to follow-up on students who were not active in online classes. it was further revealed that host organisations were visited during the second semester. he had to bring on board another academic to assist with the assessment of students. this freed him and created room to facilitate learning in the classroom and follow-up sessions with students in development agencies. while the participants had survived a trying time during the first semester, they were all appreciative of the supportive and conducive learning environment that the academic leader created during the second semester. this corroborates the col framework’s assertion that while the social presence and course content interactions among learners are essential in virtual learning, such interactions by themselves cannot provide students with an effective online learning experience. this re-affirms the consensus that teaching presence is a significant determinant of student satisfaction, perceived learning, and sense of community (garrison & arbaugh, 2007). this was clearly demonstrated in the delivery of cbl since students’ frustrations during the first semester were based largely on the lack of a supportive learning environment. during the second semester, the participants were united through the common purpose of achieving the course objectives. this is consistent with garrison’s (2009) argument that the technology-mediated teaching presence in the community of inquiry is not centred around student identities (personal identity). rather, the priority for most students is shared social identity (i.e., the purpose of the course), which is what unites students and gives them a sense of common purpose. this is consistent with the findings and is perceived as a major gap in remote learning since the participants were discussing communities as members of the other. the narratives show that while eight of the ten participants come from poverty-stricken rural communities, they still view their communities as other. it can be deduced that online learning does not create sufficient room for students to reflect critically on their epistemological experiences. as shown earlier, students’ lived experiences are characterised by data shortages and poor connectivity, and this acts as a barrier to critical thinking. the transmission of knowledge is neither neutral nor apolitical. rather, it is embedded in a socio-cultural context characterised by the structural inequalities that organise society (apple, 2000). in that way, we acknowledge that students’ lived experiences influence what they know since knowledge does not “exist in a social and personal vacuum” (boud & miller, 1996, p. 18). this understanding is critical to the cbl course since what students learn in the community influences their critical thinking skills 3 moodle is an e-learning platform for teaching and learning. 198 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 (cognitive presence), thereby compelling them to question taken-for-granted assumptions in the classroom (garrison et al. 2000). these observations are central to learning and, hence, become our point of departure in understanding the students’ epistemological experiences. this reiterates the interconnectedness of the three tenets (social, cognitive, and teaching presence) as a recurring theme in the coi framework as we go on to show in the next section. on becoming a community of inquiry (cognitive presence) our findings indicate that students who demonstrated a strong social presence were equally strong in cognitive presence. this was evident when participant 10 was asked to reflect on his previous assumptions and on how the cbl had influenced his thinking. in his view, the claim that unemployment only affects mainly graduates from the humanities and social sciences is unfounded. we must accept the structural nature of youth unemployment in south africa. there are many unemployed graduates with qualifications in engineering and bcom who are sitting at home doing nothing. in the past, education led to success and opportunities, but not anymore. participant 7, who pointed out the differences between the knowledge produced between the two knowledge spaces, i.e., university and community, was strong in cognitive presence during the interviews. she said, “universities approach community engagement activities from the point of privilege. when you are poor, all you need is completing your studies and getting a job to assist your family.” in such contexts, the participants were questioning the dominant narratives after reflecting on their practical experiences (cognitive presence). it is our contention that university education has not yet developed concepts to frame poverty for african students who are subjected to it. consequently, knowledge produced at the nexus between the university and the community is often not explored and is therefore less understood. this illustrates that students’ lived experiences that influence and reconcile divergent epistemological experiences put them in different places in the knowledge spaces in the university and community. the study participants recognised that university education does not always value what they know, resulting in the slow pace of institutional and curriculum transformation that has been on the agenda for the past two decades. the opportunity to engage in cbl, we argue, triggers critical thinking to generate knowledge that contributes to our understanding of the students’ epistemological experiences. it should also be acknowledged that the content of the course (teaching presence) that promotes critical thinking, influences cognitive presence. conclusion and recommendations in this article, we interrogated students’ epistemological experiences in cbl in the context of community engagement that was undertaken in the covid-19 period in 2020. we adopted garrison et al.’s (2000) col framework as a theoretical and an analytical tool to examine the students’ epistemological experiences. drawing on dewey’s understanding of the community of inquiry, garrison et al. (2000) developed a community of inquiry framework that is thabethe & reddy: community-based learning in higher education 199 relevant for understanding technology-mediated learning and was thus deemed appropriate to underpin this study that focused on ertl of a cbl module at ukzn. we structured the discussion of the findings around the themes that were informed by the three tenets of the col framework (social, teaching, and cognitive presence). cbl in the context of community engagement presents the notion of two worlds, the university and the community, as two powerful knowledge spaces that are in dialectic tension. the students’ epistemological experiences were born out of their lived experiences. they are characterised by an ongoing struggle to balance the tensions and contradictions between the university and the community, thereby illustrating a disconnect between the current university system and their epistemological experiences during the cbl. ultimately, it was conceded that both universities and communities can play a vital role in advancing the objectives of community engagement. based on the findings presented above, we affirm that a coi approach to cbl is one of the tools that can be used to foster a shift in knowledge produced in south african heis. coi facilitates an understanding of the cbl course as a portal since its three elements enable researchers to make connections between the community, the university, and the curriculum in a technology-mediated learning space. we maintain that for the portal between the university and the community to be seamless, cbl curricula during covid-19 and beyond should be used as a platform for knowledge production. if the theory and practice of cbl in community engagement is applied constructively as a pedagogical tool, it will create opportunities for learning and transform teaching practices and methodologies. we argue further that cbl can become a sociocultural antidote to existing inequalities in higher education during the covid-19 pandemic. therefore, it is recommended that academics in community engagement embrace the cbl methodology as a valuable pedagogical tool. this will, in turn, contribute to the theoretical framing of community engagement that is still a work-in-progress. we note that further research is needed to advance the understanding of community engagement in the time of covid-19, with a special focus on how the pandemic is affecting students and the kind of knowledge that this period in history engenders. although there is now a fair amount of research on the impact of covid-19 on higher education, there is a paucity of research on how covid-19 is affecting community engagement initiatives in universities, particularly in academic programmes like the cbl module. understanding the knowledge that is produced at the nexus between the university and the community requires the sahe to invest in research that advances the understanding of this field. references anderson, t., liam, r., garrison, d. r., & archer, w. 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(2020). teaching on the edge of chaos: report on 'the future of universities in a post-covid-19 world'. south african journal of science, 116(7–8), 1–2. journal of education, 2016 issue 66, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za knowledge and knowers in teaching and learning: an enhanced approach to curriculum alignment sherran clarence (received 16 november 2015; accepted 4 june 2016) abstract john biggs’ well-known curriculum design approach, constructive alignment, is widely used in higher education in the united kingdom, australia and south africa. developed with one dominant account of learning through curriculum, this approach has a gap in terms of accounting for other kinds of knowledge building, and associated knower development. this paper proposes a complementary approach that accounts for different kinds of knowledge and knower building. using legitimation code theory’s concept of specialisation, the paper argues that accounting for what makes a discipline ‘special’ in terms of its basis for legitimate achievement can enable curriculum writers to align curricula more effectively with that basis in different disciplines. using a case study approach, this paper shows how this tool can provide lecturers and academic development practitioners with a useful mode of analyzing curriculum alignment to more ably account for differential development of disciplinary knowledges and knowers. introduction since its initial appearance in the late 1990s, john biggs’ concept of constructive alignment as a tool for designing curriculum in higher education has become popular in the united kingdom, south africa, australia and new zealand (kahn, 2015). simply put, this approach to designing curricula requires that they be aligned in service of an end-goal of demonstrable student learning. beginning with learning outcomes, moving through teaching and learning activities and assessment and ending in evaluation, all the steps of this process need to be clearly connected, so that what students are supposed to be learning is taught, assessed and evaluated, creating a clear connection between aims and outcomes (biggs, 1996, 2012). this approach is now widely used, with several authors indicating its usefulness as a tool for curriculum design (edström, 2008; joseph and juwah, 66 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 2012; treleaven and voola, 2008). however, this paper, while acknowledging the need for the aims and outcomes of curriculum to be carefully planned and aligned, acknowledges that there is a gap in this approach that needs to be addressed. according to kahn (2015), the constructive alignment approach, building on biggs’ earlier work on the solo taxonomy, account predominantly for one form of knowledge building in education. this form is aggregative, and similar to bernstein’s account of hierarchical knowledge structures that develop by subsuming and building on prior knowledge (cf. bernstein, 1999; kahn, 2015). this leaves other forms of knowledge-building which are less aggregative and more segmented, like bernstein’s horizontal knowledge structures which grow through the introduction of new speakers, ideas, and theories (bernstein, 1999), underconsidered in the application of such an approach. biggs’ approach is useful in highlighting the need to interrogate closely the appropriateness of learning outcomes and the aligned teaching, learning, assessment and evaluation that will lead students to achieving those outcomes. however, it is focused largely on pedagogy and the enactment of curriculum, rather than on the knowledge that is included in the curriculum itself, or on the different kinds of knowers students need to become. in essence, there are gaps within the design of constructive alignment that merit further consideration, and the need for complementary approaches to strengthen its applicability across the disciplinary map (kahn, 2015). this paper seeks to consider one such complementary approach to enhancing constructive alignment as a useful tool for curriculum design. the paper approaches this consideration from a realist theory of knowledge, particularly that which underpins legitimation code theory (lct) within the sociology of education. it begins by unpacking in more detail biggs’ formulation of constructive alignment, as well as the potential gaps that could be filled by a complementary approach drawn from lct, specifically from the dimension of specialisation. it then moves on to explain what lct has to offer as an invaluable set of additional tools to enhance a process of constructive curriculum design, before moving on to illustrate the tools in action within a defined case study. clarence: knowledge and knowers in teaching and learning. . . 67 constructive alignment and the question of knowledge ‘constructive alignment’ as a tool for curriculum design and renewal is drawn primarily from the work of john biggs (1996, 2012). this approach advocates designing curricula focused on what students are doing in the classroom, with aligned learning outcomes, teaching and learning activities, assessments and evaluation tasks. in essence, biggs’ model for aligning curricula suggests that all teaching and learning activities and assessments must be able to lead learners towards achieving identifiable outcomes, and activities need to focus on giving students opportunities to engage as far as possible in ‘authentic’ (herrington and herrington, 2006) and ‘studentcentred’ (o’neill and mcmahon, 2005) learning. learning and teaching activities should be designed to enable students to construct knowledge and make meaning in ways that connect with and build on their prior learning, and encourage students to be active participants in their own learning. in developing first the solo taxonomy and later constructive alignment (biggs, 1996), biggs accounted primarily for one form of knowledge building or learning, that more closely associated with bernstein’s hierarchical knowledge structures (kahn, 2015) that grow through subsuming and extending established knowledge. this has left a gap where forms of knowledge building or learning that may not be aggregative in the same ways are under-considered (kahn, 2015). what is important about this in the context of this paper is that, in foregrounding only one broad form of knowledge building biggs also under-accounted for different kinds of knowers that are developed through encounters with different forms of knowledge building and meaning-making. in other words, in obscuring a set of relations within curriculum – that associated with horizontal knowledge structures, and their curricula and pedagogic practices – biggs also obscured the development of associated kinds of knowers. thus, following kahn (2015) constructive alignment as a useful tool for curriculum development could be expanded and complemented by approaches that can account more adequately for both knowledge and knowers, and for the different ways in which both are developed in higher education. a significant first step in extending constructive alignment to more adequately account for different forms of knowledge and knower construction is to consider what we mean by knowledge. the argument proposed in this paper is premised on a realist theory of knowledge; that knowledge emerges 68 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 from but cannot be reduced to the contexts in which it is created (maton and moore, 2010). in other words, knowledge is not only subjectively created within the minds of those who make and know it. this theory of knowledge acknowledges that there are always two dimensions of learning that should not be conflated: there is an objective dimension – the knowledge itself, and a subjective dimension – those who come to make and hold that knowledge. if we only see knowledge as that which is created in the minds of knowers, rather than as having its own objective properties, we may risk obscuring important differences between commonsense and theoretical knowledge (wheelahan, 2009) and further make it difficult for students to grasp these as part of a basis for success in university studies. this paper contends that in order to encourage and enable students to make meaning and build knowledge within their disciplines in appropriate and engaged ways, curriculum designers need to acknowledge that different disciplines have different purposes or aims in terms of who they are trying to enable students to become, how they are trying to encourage students to act, and what they are trying to enable students to know (see barnett, 2000; schulman, 2005). in other words, teaching and learning needs to account more fully for different forms of knower and knowledge building across the disciplines. this requires a critical consideration of the underlying organising principles or epistemic and ontological purposes of a discipline, which indicate what counts as legitimate knowledge and legitimate ways of creating and disseminating that knowledge (maton, 2014). using the specialisation dimension of legitimation code theory (lct), this paper selects relevant data from one case study within a wider research project undertaken in a south african university as an illustrative example of how constructive alignment could be enhanced. the data analysis reveals one set of underlying organising principles within a discipline that represents a less aggregative form of learning and knowledge building. thus, it considers a particular set of goals for who the knowers should be and what attributes they should possess to be successful. possible implications of employing this kind of analysis are discussed in relation to how the findings can open up new conversations between academic staff development practitioners and lecturers, or between lecturers and their students, about what counts as knowledge, in what ways it can come to be known in particular disciplinary fields, and what attributes successful students need to develop over time. clarence: knowledge and knowers in teaching and learning. . . 69 conceptual framework legitimation code theory, or lct, is a realist sociological ‘toolkit’ developed by karl maton that subsumes and extends the prior work of mainly basil bernstein and pierre bourdieu, specifically bernstein’s code theory and bourdieu’s field theory (for a fuller account please refer to maton 2014, chapter 2). specialisation is a dimension of lct that reveals one set of organising principles or underpinning logics that shape and inform what academic disciplines do with knowledge and associated ways of knowing. specialisation, in the context of this paper, posits that all disciplines need to stake their claim to status, recognition and position within higher education, and that they do so by using particular discourses that mark them as having attributes worthy of recognition. for example, political science uses, crudely put here for the purposes of brevity, a discourse of critical imagination and analytical thinking that applies theory within the field to understanding and critiquing global or local issues. political science knowers construct particular forms of arguments to accomplish this, and to stake claims to legitimacy and status within higher education. actors within this discourse may and will argue about whether these claims are correct, and whether they should be changed and how. but political science academia globally is marked, broadly speaking, by a discourse of rigorous, empathetic reasoning and argument underpinned by particular methods or ways of engaging with both theory and the application or development of that theory (even if there are contextual differences between universities and national political systems) (see goodin and klingeman, 1998). these claims to status, or legitimacy are based on deeper, often tacit understandings of the principles underlying the knowledge structure within the intellectual field in question (maton, 2007). actors and discourses within these intellectual fields, out of which higher education disciplines are drawn, are “selected and recontextualised on the basis of a principle emanating from the knowledge structure, knower structure or. . .neither or both” (maton, 2007, p. 92). if we can understand the discursive practices of the intellectual fields as structures that select, position and empower actors and discourses in different ways, then we can begin to consider the influence that a particular set of discursive practices may have on what we select in developing a curriculum, and how we recontextualise and enact the curriculum knowledge through aligned pedagogic and assessment practices. different disciplines are 70 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 likely to employ curriculum forms aligned with their aims of, for example, training a particular kind of future professional such as an attorney, or nurturing a particular kind of thinker who could work in a range of professional fields, such as an analyst working for government, an ngo or a private sector company. specialisation is employed here as a tool for analysing the organising principles that form the basis for claims to legitimacy within one academic discipline: political science. specialisation considers two dimensions that comprise these organising principles, arguing that there is always knowledge and there are always knowers that need to be considered. specialisation comprises two sets of relations: epistemic relations (er), or relations to that which is known, and social relations (sr), or relations to those doing the knowing (maton, 2007). considering both relations simultaneously enables curriculum designers and lecturers to think relationally about how they are developing both knowledge and knowers, rather than only seeing one or the other (maton, 2007, 2014). using the analytical distinction between epistemic relations and social relations (er and sr), lct conceptualises four specialisation codes (maton, 2014), which can be used as an analytical tool for ‘seeing’ and describing the principles underlying curriculum design and teaching. these four codes are represented on a cartesian plane as points on a compass within which a great deal of variation can be found. epistemic relations and social relations can be stronger or weaker in relation to one another along two continua, with stronger epistemic relations and social relations signified with er+ and sr+, and weaker epistemic relations and social relations signified with erand sr(see figure 1 below). clarence: knowledge and knowers in teaching and learning. . . 71 figure 1: specialisation codes represented on a cartesian plane (maton, 2007, p 96) the code on the bottom right is the one that will be focused on in this paper, and is termed a knower code (er-, sr+), indicated by the emphasis on what forms the basis of legitimate achievement within knower code disciplines. with a knower code the disposition of the knower is emphasised, and this disposition can be “innate”, learned or “resulting from the knower’s social position” (maton, 2007, p.97). elsewhere this code is defined as being legitimated on the basis of “a distinct subject of study, the ‘knower’ ” (maton 2000, p.87, emphasis in original). thus the underlying principles of this code privilege who is learning the knowledge, and the personal, professional or social attributes and attitudes they need to develop. political science, as we shall see in the next section, represents a knower code. before moving on to the case study and analysis of the data, it is important to note that lct differentiates between the focus of claims to legitimacy and the basis for these claims. the basis of claims to legitimacy is what determines 72 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 the specialisation code of the discipline or field. for example, it can be observed that in political science education learning political theory – concepts such as power, sovereignty, freedom, citizenship and so on – is often a focus of teaching. one could therefore believe that the content of the curriculum is largely theoretical and thus that mastering the theory or procedural knowledge it represents is the basis for success. however, while theory is often the focus, the basis for legitimate achievement is rather the selective use of theory to influence, inform and shape the construction, substantiation and defense of arguments, using particular methods of reasoning and arguing that are recognised as valid. this will become clearer in the analysis of the data. while the focus of any curriculum may shift and change over time, and in relatively short periods of time, the basis of legitimacy tends to be more enduring. while it can indeed change, this process of change tends to take place over longer periods of time, and often as a result of more protracted struggles over control of the field, or discipline (cf. maton, 2014). political science as a knower code this case study puts into practice the conceptual tools explained in the previous section. the data was generated during a larger study conducted in 2013 (clarence, 2014). the larger data set comprised interviews with lecturers, extensive field notes and video data generated over 14 weeks of teaching observations in two undergraduate courses, as well as course outlines and lecture notes. the two courses in the study were a first year course in the undergraduate llb (law) degree, and a first year political science course in the undergraduate ba/badmin degree. the data selected in this paper comes only from political science, and only from the course outlines and notes the lecturers make available to their students, which encapsulate their curricular expectations of learning outcomes for the course, as well as indications of teaching and learning activities and assessment tasks. although these course outlines and guides may give students only a partial view of the kinds of learning that are expected and offered in the whole degree programme, they provide a window into what the discipline regards as important, and thus enable a specialisation analysis to tease out what the specialisation code of the discipline is, and how this can be clarence: knowledge and knowers in teaching and learning. . . 73 used to enhance the alignment of learning outcomes and activities with the underlying purposes and goals of political science as an academic discipline. the course guide data were organised and coded using nvivo10, and the data were analysed for indications of the relative strengths of epistemic relations and social relations indicated in the conveyed learning outcomes and expectations for the course, and lecturers’ design of tutorial and assessment tasks. in other words, the data were read for the organising principles and basis of legitimate achievement in political science. relevant parts of the data have been selected in this paper to show how the specialisation code has been heuristically determined, and what this enables lecturers to consider differently in terms of accounting for knowledge and knowers together in aligning their curricula. the political science case study is a first year, first semester foundational course, pol131, divided into two halves: the first half of the course introduces students to basic core concepts used in political studies generally, and the second half introduces students to core concepts and methods in the study of international relations as a sub-discipline. the 2013 study guide (p.1) informs students that: after completion of pol131 you should be able to: ! identify, define and describe key concepts in political studies, e.g. power, legitimacy and authority. ! identify, define and describe the key concepts in international relations, e.g. sovereignty, world order, international anarchy, international political economy, etc. ! explain galbraith’s theory of power and apply it to south africa. ! compare and contrast the key theories of international relations, e.g. realism, liberalism and marxism. ! differentiate between and explain selected processes in political studies and international relations, e.g. social activism, development or trade. 74 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 in addition, you should: ! be able to take notes in class. ! be able to read with comprehension (understanding), summarise arguments presented in reading and the lectures, and explain these verbally and in writing. ! be able to do basic research tasks (library use, internet use, course reader use etc.). ! have the basic skills to write in an academic style (including referencing). ! present your opinions verbally (in class, tutorials and informal conversations). ! be more aware of how politics influence society and how you can express your political views. indicated as the learning outcomes for the course, these points highlight both knowledge of particular content in the first bulleted list, as well as development of practices, skills and dispositions that the discipline values in the second bulleted list. in terms of practices, the document highlights reading ‘with comprehension’, and being able to ‘summarise arguments’ and ‘explain these’ which is a key precursor to students being able to craft their own arguments. the final two bullet points highlight a disposition that students need to begin developing, that of both having and expressing their own opinions on issues raised in or relevant to the course, and being aware of how ‘politics influence society’. this final point indicates a need for students to become more critically aware of politics at work around them, and not just in their coursework. the separating of these learning outcomes into core knowledge outcomes, as well as more practical and dispositional outcomes is further elaborated on in the departmental policy document (2014) that students, staff and tutors in the department have access to, and which sets out the aims of the department in terms of their curriculum, as well as their expectations of both students and staff. this document (2014, p.1) states that: clarence: knowledge and knowers in teaching and learning. . . 75 in terms of graduates, we want students who are hard-working, disciplined, self-motivated, with a decent knowledge of a broad spectrum of political science, a capacity to research in a variety of ways, and most importantly, to construct a compelling argument. from these two sets of expectations, one can see that reading critically, analysing texts, and articulating and defending ‘compelling arguments’ (department policy document, 2014, p.1) are practices connected to the discipline; they mark out political science graduates as having particular abilities and dispositions towards thinking and ongoing learning. in order to enable students to master these practices, the department notes that teaching political science “concerns [developing students’] capacities for constructing arguments” and creating “the learning culture required to support this – essentially the skills and dispositions to support a good argument” (department policy document, 2014, p.1, emphasis added). an example of a tutorial task students are expected to do, drawn from the course outline/study guide, highlights the creation of the learning culture necessary to develop the skills and dispositions the discipline values, using the knowledge or content that forms part of the first year curriculum: tutorial three: is politics inevitable? how does politics affect our daily lives? imagine south africa in 2030 as you would like it to exist and answer the following questions. ! what will life be like and what would people be doing in an ideal 2030? ! describe the person who could operate successfully in 2030. ! what skills and attributes would they need? ! what needs to be done to achieve the scenario that you’ve sketched? ! what factors could undermine this scenario? ! are there trends present now which point to how south african society will actually develop? (pol131 course outline, 2013, p.5, emphasis added) 76 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 this task highlights an approach used in teaching this discipline, to move students deliberately towards developing a more thoughtful and critical disposition, one that enables them to consider issues from more than only one perspective. it highlights the use of the imagination, encouraging students to imagine a particular scenario and apply their present knowledge to that scenario as they consider this set of questions. this kind of task, coming early in their first year, also begins to scaffold them into the process of thinking through argumentation, particularly points four and five in the list, where they would need to justify or reason their answers, rather than just present the answers as fact. in political science, one can argue that the basis for legitimate achievement emanates from the knower structure and therefore that what is valued is the ability for knowers to develop a critical, thoughtful, engaged and curious disposition, and a certain set of aptitudes related to knowledge, such as being able to read analytically, make and defend coherent arguments, and being able to make relevant links between knowledge in the everyday political sphere with theoretical knowledge. the emphasis in this discipline is therefore on social relations to knowledge (sr). although particular theories or concepts – epistemic relations to knowledge (er) – are often the focus of pedagogy, they are not the basis for claims to legitimacy in political science. political science thus represents a knower code, with stronger social relations and weaker epistemic relations (er-, sr+). this is represented heuristically in figure 2 below. clarence: knowledge and knowers in teaching and learning. . . 77 figure 2: political studies as a knower code represented on a cartesian plane (clarence, 2014, p.138) the paper now returns to constructive alignment to consider what the kind of analysis outlined in this section could offer as a way of complementing and enhancing curriculum alignment in disciplines that represent knower codes, like political science. implications for curriculum: enhancing constructive alignment this paper has thus far argued that, while useful in promoting a thoughtful approach to curriculum design and alignment, bigg’ constructive alignment approach has a gap in terms of considering different, non-aggregative forms of knowledge building or learning. this paper has proposed a complementary approach to analysing curricula, particularly those that fall into this gap, with a view to enhancing constructive alignment and its ability to be useful across the disciplinary map. the analysis presented in the previous section, as a small but illustrative example of a curriculum that represents a knower code, 78 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 offers us two key insights and implications for enhancing a constructive alignment approach to curriculum design and enactment. the first key insight addresses this question: how could specialisation help us to account for a different kind of knowledge building or learning process, as well as a different way of understanding the knowers we seek to cultivate over time? the question that begins an alignment process should be: what do my learning outcomes need to be to achieve the aims of this course? it is implied that we must consider the bigger picture, but given that knowledge is only tacitly included in biggs’ account of curriculum alignment, and that only certain forms of knowledge-building are included in his analysis, we may well end up using such a tool to focus more narrowly on making sure that just the course we are teaching is aligned within itself, without having the tools to use in considering where and how the course fits into the bigger picture, and even what the bigger picture is. thus, specialisation, in helping us to ‘code’ a discipline and characterise in finer detail what the content or form of that code is within our different contexts, enables us to ask and answer an additional question: do these outcomes align with the aims of the degree as well as the overall goals of the discipline, in terms of both the knowledge students must learn, and the kinds of knowers we need them to become? a specialisation analysis of a discipline could offer lecturers writing curricula in ‘siloed’ or separately developed and taught courses a less tacit connection to the discipline they are teaching, and to what it is that the discipline itself requires of graduates who will eventually work within the field the discipline references (for example, law as an academic discipline referencing the wider field of legal practice). i would argue that we need to articulate as clearly as possible exactly what kinds of knowers and knowledge the disciplines aim to nurture and develop over the course of a degree programme in order to select and develop appropriate learning outcomes. for example, political science, as a knower code, wants to develop critical, analytical knowers who are able to work with a range of knowledges in different contexts, and are able to make and defend arguments through learning to judge competing knowledge claims and perspectives against their own perspective on a given issue. we can look again, through a specialisation lens, at the learning outcomes in the course outline, specifically at what they are asking students to do with the knowledge in this course: clarence: knowledge and knowers in teaching and learning. . . 79 – identify, define and describe key concepts in political studies, e.g. power, legitimacy and authority. – identify, define and describe the key concepts in international relations, e.g. sovereignty, world order, international anarchy, international political economy, etc. – explain galbraith’s theory of power and apply it to south africa. – compare and contrast the key theories of international relations, e.g. realism, liberalism and marxism. – differentiate between and explain selected processes in political studies and international relations, e.g. social activism, development or trade. (course outline, introduction to political studies, 2013: 1, emphasis added) if we consider the dominant verbs used here – identify, define, describe, explain – and then consider the most important goal of this discipline – to teach students to construct compelling arguments, we can see these verbs as connected to the knower code, and to the kinds of things students need to do to begin understanding and constructing arguments. students need to have a knowledge base on which to draw in constructing their own arguments, whether verbally or in writing, so that they do not only have their own prior or everyday knowledge to use. hence, the course begins with having students describe and show understanding of key concepts, before moving on to comparing and contrasting opposing theoretical perspectives, differentiating between differing political processes. with a specialisation analysis, we can go one step further in analysing these outcomes, and wonder whether the lecturers for this course can more explicitly include an initial attempt at getting students to evaluate or analyse a particular issue using the key concepts they have been taught in this course. perhaps this is beyond the remit of a first semester, first year course, but this analysis offers lecturers teaching in the second semester and in the subsequent years of study a lens on their learning outcomes, to look for ways in which they can build on this foundation and further cultivate within students the desired dispositions, and also teach them the methods required to produce ‘compelling arguments’ (departmental policy document, 2014, p.1). this 80 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 analysis therefore can connect and align individual courses with the knower code of this discipline, and further align the aims of subsequent or simultaneously offered courses with both this course and with the knower code to enable more overt consideration of how to build or cultivate knowers cumulatively (cf. maton, 2014). the second key insights addresses this question: how do lecturers, once they have aligned a curriculum more consciously with their discipline’s code, help students to see the code, and achieve the outcomes in ways that begin to cultivate them as knowers? here i would like to note that seeing the code of a discipline in the terms enabled by a specialisation analysis can open up different kinds of conversations between lecturers teaching together about how they are designing their curricula, what kinds of outcomes are important, and how they could teach and assess their students. further, being able to see and characterise a discipline as a knower code of a particular kind (or other specialisation code of a particular kind) can help lecturers to make more overt and visible the tacit expectations they have of their students’ classwork, writing and thinking, often communicated through feedback or the kinds of in-class questions and tasks they set (o’donovan, price and rust, 2004). these tacit expectations, if unseen by students, are difficult to meet consistently and successfully, and the result may be a ‘hit and miss’ effect, with some students getting things right at some points and wrong at others without them (or their lecturers and tutors) necessarily knowing why. a specialisation analysis, making clear as it can the underlying organising principles of a discipline, or the basis for legitimate achievement, can mitigate against the misses by showing both lecturers and students what is expected in order for students to achieve success, and also how these expectations can be more ably and consistently met over time. if the curriculum, the enactment of it through teaching and tutoring, and the assessments students complete carefully consider and align with the underpinning basis for achievement, it can be argued that success becomes more possible for a greater number of students, as the ‘rules’ they are being asked to play by become more visible. conclusion this paper has argued that constructive alignment, as a popular approach to curriculum design, leaves a notable gap in terms of its consideration of different forms of knowledge building, as well as different kinds of people, or clarence: knowledge and knowers in teaching and learning. . . 81 knowers, that disciplines aim to cultivate. working from a realist theory of knowledge, that enables an analysis of curriculum focused both on knowledge and knowers without obscuring one or the other, the paper has proposed a complementary tool for curriculum alignment. drawn from legitimation code theory, the dimension of specialisation can enable an analysis of the underlying organising principles of disciplines that indicates what the legitimate basis for achievement and success could be. with this analysis in mind, the basis for achievement can be consciously considered by lecturers writing and teaching curricula, such that different forms of knowledge and knower development can be taken into account more critically. using specialisation codes as an analytical lens enables lecturers to consider not only the specific course or module they are designing, but also the course or module’s place within the degree programme as a whole. most importantly, this analysis highlights the underpinning organising principles of the discipline and how the stated aims of the courses or modules and the degree programme align with these. in other words, it provides a critical lens that looks beneath the surface of the curriculum to ask whether the learning outcomes, teaching activities, and assessment tasks are appropriate, or adequately expressed to students, given the underlying organising principles of the discipline, conceptualised as a specialisation ‘code’. the illustrative case in this paper, political science as a knower code, provided a way of showing how such an analysis offers an additional conceptual tool to use with constructive alignment’s more practical approach to curriculum design. aligning a curriculum, when the underlying code of a discipline has been conceptualised and unpacked, can become less focused on connecting ‘content’ with ‘skills’ in teaching and assessment; rather it can shift to aligning teaching and students’ learning with the code of the discipline itself. in the case of a knower code, what needs to be aligned across and between years of study is the underlying critical, imaginative and analytical dispositions and aptitudes valued by the discipline, as mastery of these is the basis for achievement. in political science, as an example, each course in each year of the undergraduate degree would need to incrementally and cumulatively develop students’ ability to read texts with critical and careful comprehension, understand the ways in which the authors are analysing and unpacking political and/or social problems, and further begin to position themselves to make and defend their own arguments. 82 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 rather than trying to debunk constructive alignment, this paper has taken a cue from kahn’s research (2015), which argues that, given its lack of consideration of horizontal knowledge structures, and the implications for developing students as knowers, this approach to curriculum writing has limited use in higher education as it stands. this paper has picked up that cue and argues that, given that constructive alignment is a popular approach to curriculum writing in higher education in several contexts, what we may benefit from is an additional and complementary conceptual approach to analysing curriculum. underpinned by a realist theory of knowledge, this complementary approach can offer a wider perspective on the kinds of knowledge and knowers that higher education disciplines, and the intellectual and professional fields they connect to, are trying to nurture and educate over time. specialisation provides such a lens, and offers us valuable insights into what the organising principles of disciplines could be, how these may shift over time, and how this view can enhance our ability to write, teach and assess aligned and effective curricula. acknowledgements part of the research this paper is based on was made possible with thanks to an nrf doctoral sabbatical grant in 2013. references barnett, r. (2000). supercomplexity and the curriculum. studies in higher education, 25(3): pp.255–265. bernstein, b. (1999). horizontal and vertical discourse: an essay. british journal of sociology of education, 20(2): pp.157–173. biggs, j. (1996). enhancing teaching through constructive alignment. higher education, 34: pp.347–364. biggs, j. (2012). what the student does: teaching for enhanced learning. higher education, research & development, 31(1): pp.39–55. clarence: knowledge and knowers in teaching and learning. . . 83 clarence, s. (2014). enabling cumulative knowledge-building through teaching: a legitimation code theory analysis of pedagogic practice in law and political science. unpublished phd diss. grahamstown: rhodes university. department of political studies. (2013). introduction to political studies (pol) 131 course outline. belville, south africa: university of the western cape. department of political studies. (2014). departmental policy document. belville, south africa: university of the western cape. edström, k. 2008. doing course evaluation as if learning matters most. higher education research & development, 27(2): pp.95–106. goodin, r.e. & klingemann, h-d. (eds). (1998). a new handbook of political science. oxford: oup. herrington, j., & herrington, t. (2006). authentic learning environments in higher education. pennsylvania: information science publishing. joseph, s., & juwah, c. (2012). using constructive alignment theory to develop nursing skills curricula. nurse education in practice, 12(1): pp.52–59. kahn, p. (2015). critical perspectives on methodology in pedagogic research. teaching in higher education, 20(4): pp.442–454. doi: 10.1080/13562517.2015.1023286. maton, k. (2000). recovering pedagogic discourse: a bernsteinian approach to the sociology of educational knowledge. linguistics and education, 11(1): pp.79–98. maton, k. (2007). knowledge-knower structures in intellectual and educational fields. in f. christie, & j.r. martin (eds), language, knowledge and pedagogy: functional linguistic and sociological perspectives. london: continuum, pp.87–108. maton, k. (2014). knowledge and knowers. towards a realist sociology of education. london: routledge. 84 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 maton, k., & moore, r. (2010). introduction. in k. maton, & r. moore, (eds), social realism, knowledge and the sociology of education. coalitions of the mind. london and new york: continuum, pp.1–13. o’donovan, b., price, m., & rust, c. (2004). know what i mean? enhancing student understanding of assessment standards and criteria. teaching in higher education, 9(3): pp.325–335. o’neill, g., & mcmahon, t. (2005). student centred learning: what does it mean for students and lecturers? in g. o’neill, s. moore, & mcmullin, b. (eds), emerging issues in the practice of university learning and teaching. dublin: aishe, pp.27–36. schulman, l.s. (2005). signature pedagogies in the professions. daedalus, 134(3): pp.52–59. treleaven, l., & voola, r. (2008). integrating the development of graduate attributes through constructive alignment. journal of marketing education, 30(2): pp.160–173. wheelahan, l. (2009).why knowledge matters in curriculum: a social realist argument. london: routledge. sherran clarence centre for higher education research, teaching and learning (chertl) rhodes university sherranclarence@gmail.com journal of education, 2019 issue 77, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe editorial carol bertram bertramc@ukzn.ac.za it would appear that in south africa we are increasingly obsessed with measuring learner performance and thus we run the very real risk of valuing what we can measure, rather than thinking more cogently about what we really value. dutch philosopher gert biesta (2009) has urged us to think carefully about what about what we mean by good education and not be seduced by effective education which is what the culture of measurement tends to validate. we need to keep engaging with the question, “what is the purpose of education?” perhaps a more specific question might be “what are the purposes of education?” since a complex and multi-faceted practice like education cannot have only one purpose. these purposes of education cannot be logically derived from empirical data since they are based on educational judgements of what we find desirable. biesta (2009) argued that there are at least three purposes of education, namely qualification, socialisation, and subjectification. qualification refers to the work of schools in developing learners’ knowledge and understanding of the subjects in the official curriculum, as well as the skills, dispositions, and judgements that enable them to “do something” (p. 39). the function of socialisation encompasses the ways in which learners learn how to participate meaningfully in society and come to understand and practise the norms and values embraced by the society in which they live. this socialisation can happen explicitly through the official curriculum as well as through the hidden one. education also enables learners to become more “autonomous and independent in their thinking and acting” (p. 40) through a process of subjectification. obviously, these purposes overlap in different ways and should not be understood as separate from one another. as i reflect on the articles in this issue, i see that they touch on this question of the underlying purposes of education in different ways. this issue deals as usual with a range of levels in the education system, from micro issues in the classroom (such as learners’ emotional intelligence regarding mathematics tasks, and teachers’ practices in the regime of strong pacing) to macro systemic issues (such as how schools can be places that build democratic citizenship and how the national adult education system can be strengthened). we start at the classroom level as devika naidoo discusses the classroom practices of selected geography teachers in gauteng schools, as well as their perceptions of the current curriculum regime that demands very strong pacing. naidoo traces the history of such pacing, noting that classroom research in south africa has found that the average pace of teaching and learning was slow before the pacing policy of the curriculum and assessment policy 2 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 statements (caps) came into effect and that teaching was often paced at the slowest learners in the class. caps aims to provide much stronger pacing coupled with external monitoring to maintain the accelerated pace of curriculum coverage in classrooms. naidoo argues that her data analysis shows that the “strong pacing of knowledge has unintended consequences: the pedagogic code is lexicalised, and hence impoverished and pedagogic discourse contains far too little elaboration for slower learners to facilitate acquisition.” while her data indeed indicates that the pedagogic code in these geography classrooms is not conceptually elaborate, it is not possible to make a causal link to the strong pacing of the caps curriculum, since we cannot know if the teachers were teaching in the same way before the dictates of caps. nevertheless, this study provides important insight into the qualification function of schooling, and of what kind of knowledge and skills these learners are developing. the story is not a happy one. naidoo uses bernstein’s (2002, 2004) theories to argue that poorer learners are disadvantaged by strong pacing because they do not have sufficient time to engage with concepts, and that, in using strong pacing, teachers present concepts in shallow and truncated ways that do not support the development of deep conceptual understanding. angela stott and paul hobden also address the topic of learning, this time in the subject of physical science. there is continuing strong support for the constructivist notion of learners working in groups, which seems to be underpinned by a naïve faith in the positive value of group work. their study aims to drill deeper into the value of group work by engaging specifically with the question of the strengths and weakness of using inductive or deductive reasoning to teach high school physical science topics. they use collaborative cognitive load theory to engage with the difference between the cognitive load required by inductive and deductive tasks. this study is part of stott’s more extensive action research study which involved the promotion of critical thinking through the design of classroom materials and the use of different instructional strategies. she provides detailed data on how learners grappled with learning inductively and shows that there was much confusion during the group discussions. to teach the topic of mechanics to a grade 10 class using inductive strategies took 30 hours, while to teach this topic using deductive strategies took 24. interestingly, both strategies took longer than the 16 hours allocated by caps. while inductive strategies certainly did lead to engaged learning, it required a greater cognitive load which sometimes led to confusion and decreased learner motivation. the cognitive load was less for deductive reasoning tasks, and these tasks also generated problem-solving thinking and the application of concepts. this study provides detailed insights into these two reasoning strategies which takes us much further towards thinking about pedagogic strategies in nuanced, rather than dogmatic ways. while there is a vast and growing literature on mathematics education in south africa, jeanne-mari frenzel, christine erna lampen, and karin brodie argue that not much of this research focuses on learners’ emotions. they report on a study that gathered data about the learners’ awareness of their emotions and their related engagement and perseverance with mathematics tasks. the context of their study is a mathematics club at a school that aimed to develop learners’ self-confidence in doing mathematics. the grade 8 learners attended the bertram: editorial 3 club on saturdays. the activities were problem-solving tasks that aimed to develop learners’ mathematical thinking. initially they found that many learners became disruptive half way through the sessions, and often said they were hungry and /or tired. hannula’s (2002, 2006, 2012) work on how cognition and engagement can be supported by an understanding of emotions gave rise to discussions about how learners’ emotions were reflected in their behaviours, so they set out to help learners to name their emotions explicitly while they were doing these problem-solving tasks. the researchers found that “helping learners to name and identify the source of their negative emotions helped them to acknowledge those emotions and process them so that they were able to engage with cognitive activities.” this adds to our understanding about how the qualification purpose of schooling cannot focus simply on the cognitive, but must also take into account the motivation, enjoyment, and emotion of the learner. the purpose of subjectification dovetails here with that of qualification. linked to the issue of learners’ emotions is the question of learners’ capacity for selfregulated learning (srl). this phenomenon is not about the cognitive aspect of learning but is, rather, about how teachers are able to develop self-regulated learning strategies so that earners can take responsibility for and control over their own learning. bernadette geduld’s study describes how 10 grade 8 teachers in 2 low quintile high schools in the eastern cape understood the concept of srl and how they develop this, or fail to do so, in their learners. the ability to self-regulate one’s learning and behaviour, illustrating the socialisation aspect of schooling, is vital to becoming a useful member of society. having individuals develop the ability to take the initiative and not simply wait to be told what to do is part of the subjectification process of education. geduld found that the teachers did not have clear pedagogical strategies to develop srl, and that they believed that the strong focus on learner achievement means that srl is not prioritised at school. ironically the focus on measurement of pass rates is thus undermining the development of a vital skill and disposition in learners, namely their ability to be self-starters and take the initiative for their own learning and development. nuraan davids’s article focuses explicitly on the socialization and subjectification functions of schooling. she asks the question, “what is necessary for schools to shift their policies and practices of learner selection, so that they make a foundational contribution to democratic citizenship education, rather than undermining it?” she argues that the work of schools cannot simply deliver the curriculum (the qualification function) but that schools must “be places for the cultivation of self-belief; belonging, recognition; knowing oneself; and knowing how to be with others.” however, many black learners in former white, coloured, and indian schools do not experience their schools in these positive ways. rather, the ethos of these schools often remains such that black learners have to either assimilate to fit in with the school culture or remain on the periphery. in these schools, exclusion is based on race, culture, religion, language, sexuality, disability, gender, class, and ethnicity. in the face of these structural practices, davids, drawing on the work of biesta (2011) and edwards (2007, 2009) engages with how such schools could make choices to contribute to developing democratic citizenship education. 4 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 there are ongoing debates about how best to prepare student teachers for their role as classroom teachers. it goes without saying that teachers are vital to delivering good education, and it is a huge challenge to prepare teachers by imparting to them the propositional and practical knowledge they need, as well as the emotional resilience and reflective capacities. a major challenge is that first year student teachers are already apprenticed by observation from their own 12 years of schooling and come to university with many fixed (and often bad) ideas about what teaching involves. moeniera moosa describes a campus-based teaching practice model that aims to prepare and support first-year students and explores their experiences of this model that does not send students immediately into schools, but first has them engage with a three-week campus-based exploration during which they start to see teaching as a complex cognitive and reflexive activity and evaluate and reflect on their own beliefs about teaching. the model allows student teachers to acquire new knowledge and a deeper understanding about the practice of teaching (which relates, of course, to the qualification aspect) as well as to reflect on and develop their own personal capacities like honing their communication skills, dealing with stress and managing emotions as part of the subjectification aspect of learning to teach. twenty-five years ago, there was a presentation at the kenton education association conference on organisation development (od). it was mooted as a strategy to turn around schools, one by one. clive smith and marion mackinnon argue that this strategy is still relevant, and they provide a description of a boys-only private school that undertook this journey. they provide a detailed description of how this od was introduced to the school and how the teachers engaged with the question of what they wanted to change in the school. teachers decided, among other things, that they wanted to focus on changing teaching methods. the underpinning principle of od is that it requires participants, in this case teachers in a school, to engage with participatory democratic practices since it is the participants who decide what they want to change and how these changes should be effected. it is a practice that starts from the bottom-up in contrast to many policies that are imposed on schools by the department of education and/or the principal. this case study provides insight into how this process can work, but of course the setting here is not that of an average south african school. we have to ask what kind of change model could work in poorly resourced schools in which teachers and management staff may not have the same desire (or the capacity) to engage in this kind of reflective endeavour. john aitchison and sandra jane land address an area that has been largely neglected by researchers—state provision of adult education in south africa. drawing on their experience and expertise in the field, as well as on research and policy documents, they sketch the history of adult education since the 1950s. they draw the saddening conclusion that the provision of public adult learning centres for adults has not improved much in the past 25 years. obtaining accurate figures on these centres and on the number of adult learners was difficult in early post-apartheid years. in 2015, a ministerial committee found that there were very few adult learners enrolled in abet levels 1, 2, and 3, and that most learners enrolled in abet level 4 were young people trying to improve their matric results. in spite of the rhetoric of policy, which was to seek coherence in education and training, there has been little bertram: editorial 5 growth in the area of providing meaningful skills for adults through learning centres. the avowed purposes of adult education have not been met, not because the nation does not have good policies, as the authors argue, but because we have a mindset that “prevents our imagining and creating an effective adult and community education system.” sadi seyama’s article focuses on the ongoing question of how to decolonise the higher education curriculum. she describes the decision taken by a health sciences faculty to focus on the socio-economic determinants of health as a way of decolonising the curriculum. however, she argues that while it is vital to include this content in the curriculum, it is not “a decolonising project since there is no engagement with what ought to be an alternative african paradigm, in this case african healing as an alternative knowledge frame.” this is a clear example of the contesting understandings of what it means to decolonise a (health sciences) curriculum. seyama argues for a humanising pedagogy that will engage with students’ indigenous knowledge systems and allow this knowledge into the classroom. drawing on critical race theory, she argues that the first step in decolonisation is to “reclaim the rightful place of african identities and knowledges” in the classroom. the call is to reclaim the subjectification and socialization purposes of education in a field of study that focuses largely only on the qualification function. finally, wayne hugo and robyn mcqueen present a review of christopher winch’s teachers’ know-how: a philosophical investigation. this is fitting because the various purposes of what is known as good education can be achieved only if teachers in the system have learned to practise self-reflexivity, have deep theoretical and practical knowledge and the skill to use this productively, and the ability to make professional judgements. references biesta, g. (2009). good education in an age of measurement: on the need to reconnect with the question of purpose in education. educational assessment, evaluation and accountability (formerly journal of personnel evaluation in education), 21(1), 33– 46. microsoft word b8500 full issue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 85, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i85a05 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x the quest for ongoing support by parents of learners with intellectual disabilities maximus monaheng sefotho department of educational psychology, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa msefotho@uj.ac.za (corresponding author) https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0704-1983 ronél ferreira department of educational psychology, groenkloof campus, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa ronel.ferreira@up.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2518-7839 bernard bongani lushozi albertina sisulu centre, soweto, south africa bernard@albertinasisulucentre.co.za (received: 5 march 2021; accepted: 1 september 2021) abstract in this article we explore the need for ongoing support for those parents/guardians raising children with intellectual disabilities. the aims of the study on which this article builds were: (i) to explore the experiences of support offered to parents of learners with intellectual disabilities in soweto; and (ii) to evaluate how support services affect parents’ perceptions and expectations of their children’s future. thirty-five parents of learners from four schools diagnosed with an intellectual disability were purposefully selected to participate in this qualitative research, with one focus group discussion conducted at each school. findings highlight parents’ concern about their children’s future when exiting the school system. furthermore, our findings emphasise the need for ongoing support in many aspects throughout the various developmental stages of the child’s life. we propose a framework for coordinated support that may serve to guide parents to support their disabled children. keywords: intellectual disability, diagnosis, inclusive education, support 94 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 background for any parent, the diagnosis of a child with an intellectual disability (id) marks the start of an ongoing journey of seeking support (correia et al., 2017). during this initial phase of awareness and acceptance, parents often engage in what the literature calls shopping behaviour or continuing to seek a second opinion in the hope that a subsequent diagnosis might offer greater hope than the first (daroch et al., 2021). this search for a second opinion often continues throughout the child’s life. in terms of the support typically provided to parents of learners with an id, most parents experience dissatisfaction regarding the level of support they receive in dealing with their children’s various unique developmental stages, especially when their children reach adulthood or exit the school system (masulani‐mwale et al., 2016). concerns about the future of learners who have an id are echoed by a number of researchers. for example, catherall and iphofen (2006), johnson et al. (2006), as well as todd and jones (2005) have asserted that this is a recurring theme in the expression of parents’ hopes and fears about the prospect of their death and what the future may hold for their children with an id when they are no longer alive. the persistent uncertainty and anxiety about what might happen to their children after exiting the school system and when they grow older gives rise to the perception among parents that they face a life-time commitment to support them (barronet al., 2006; chou et al., 2011; maxwell & barr, 2003; sahay et al., 2013; singh et al., 2008). as a result of the dilemma, parents typically seek as much additional support for their children as possible in their mission to pre-empt what can be an unpredictable set of circumstances. this study investigated the support typically provided to parents of learners with an id. although our emphasis is on parents of such learners, we appreciate that these learners often have comorbid disabilities that have further negative impacts (khodeir et al., 2020). gautamet et al. (2014) observed that these comorbidities often place them at higher risk of other health-related issues. it is therefore critical that those who provide support for these learners allow for this. current studies have indicated that the demand for this kind of support far outweighs the available services (chadwick et al., 2002; mcconkey, 2011). for instance, in south africa, people with disabilities receive monthly grants provided by the south african social security agency (sassa). chelechele (2010, p. 24) explained that the south african “social grants programmes were introduced under the department of social development to address the problem of poverty, more especially for the people who cannot afford to fend for themselves due to age or disability.” the disability grant dates back to 1946 as hanass-hancock and mckenzie (2017) have reminded us. the sassa programme does not discriminate among applicants as long as parents can prove every month that they are indeed claiming the benefit to directly support their children. parents who participated in this study on the quest for ongoing support for parents of learners with an id, reported that they have been benefitting from the sassa disability grant in support of their children. when the data was collected, this grant amounted to zar1,690 sefotho et al.: the quest for ongoing support by parents of learners . . . 95 (about us$123), which is not that much when one considers the needs of a child with an id. for instance, medical expenses, the need for extra support, transport to medical facilities, and quality education all cost more than the grant can allow for. adnams (2010) noted that some of the services needed include the implementation of inclusive education that addresses learning needs along with compensation for the major service gaps that prevail for young people who have an id. we need to keep in mind that south africa adopted a policy of inclusive education in 2001, popularly known as the white paper 6 as makoelle and malindi (2015) have noted, and engelbrecht (2006) described inclusive education as a strategy that redresses some of the ills of the legacy of apartheid. learners with ids face challenges in post-school contexts because of their poor school achievements (adnams, 2010). those who experience learning difficulties and do not pass grades are usually progressed into the next phase after two failed attempts. once they reach the level’s terminal point, the system then rejects them. however, south africa has developed a post-school policy to accommodate these learners and others who might not have passed their grades and those who have never been to school, but want to learn (maringe & osman, 2016). based on the outcomes of their research, doody (2012) and sahay et al. (2013) argued that parents, although they meet the basic needs of their intellectually disabled children, find it hard to embrace their independence because of their concerns about their children’s future and the support that will (or will not) be available to them. their transitioning into adulthood is of particular concern to these parents (harwick et al., 2017). the age of majority in south africa is 18 and young people with an id are entitled to access the disability grant themselves once they reach this age, although many experience problems of self-advocacy (capri et al., 2018). the literature is currently silent on what happens to the transfer of rights to access the grants once a disabled person turns 18. the young adult having access to this income may exacerbate the problems caused by the lack of on-going support to the parents. there is the issue, too, of the possible “financial exploitation” of children with an id (capri et al., 2018, p. 4). however, it must be noted that most parents in south africa take care of their children’s interests even after they turn 18. since parents are aware that they will most probably not live long enough to support their children throughout their adulthood, it follows that they require ongoing support from counsellors, formal institutions, and informal sources of support throughout their lives as they prepare for their children’s challenging future (hassal et al., 2005). the aims of this study were: (i) to explore the experiences of the support offered to parents of learners with an id in soweto; and (ii) to evaluate how support services affect parents’ perceptions and expectations of their children’s future. our research site was made up of schools in soweto, gauteng province, that cater to learners who have an id. given that the education of learners with ids is guided by the principles of inclusive education that use special education as their implementation strategy (van staden, 2011), we collected data from four schools that accommodate learners with special educational needs, particularly 96 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 those with what the american psychiatric association has defined as special educational needs, particularly those with an id (american psychiatric association, 2013). method in line with howitt (2010) this study followed an ideographic qualitative approach situated within an interpretivist paradigm, following rodríguez (2011). ideography was chosen because the experiences of participants are important sources of knowledge in a specific cultural milieu (thanh & thanh, 2015) and we wanted to gain insight into the perceptions, views, and experiences of our participants. ideography focuses on data from subjects who directly experience a phenomenon (such as parents of learners with an id) and ideographic approaches look for unique facts (bolbakov et al., 2020). thirty-five parents of learners with an id were purposively selected from four schools and they participated in focus group discussions. data was collected from these discussions and from observations and field notes. we analysed the data thematically and will return presently to a discussion of the three themes that emerged. research design we implemented a multiple case study design (see moffatt et al., 2006). our rationale for more than one case study was to gain “more deeply grounded varied empirical evidence” (eisenhardt & graebner, 2007, p. 27) from parents of learners with an id in soweto. this case study design, following kitzinger (2005 and krueger and casey (2015) allowed us to acquire a modest amount of comparative data (see yin, 2012) from four focus group discussions. sample four schools in soweto, situated within three kilometres from each other, were involved in this study. all four schools cater for learners with special educational needs. thirty-five parents of learners who had been diagnosed with id and who attended one of the four schools at the time participated in our study. below is an overview table of participants. table 1 overview of participants sex of participants’ children average years participants had spent raising a child with id parents/guardians educational level of participants 22 females 15 years mothers 25 post-high school 5 13 males fathers 3 high school 18 foster parents 3 secondary school 5 guardians 4 primary school 7 sefotho et al.: the quest for ongoing support by parents of learners . . . 97 since all participants are parents of learners who have an id, their experiences of support were taken to be similar; this allowed for a common thread to be developed during the focus group discussions (see vaughn et al., 2006). purposive sampling (babbie, 2013; brink et al., 2006) was therefore employed because we knew that the participants would be knowledgeable and could, at least potentially, provide rich information and comprehensive data about the topic we set out to explore. data collection instruments data was collected through focus group discussions, observations, and field notes during september and october 2013. we conducted four focus group discussions (one at each of the participating schools), after school hours, with each lasting between 60 and 90 minutes. furthermore, we relied on observing the dynamics between and among the participants during the focus group discussions, and made field notes (see babbie, 2013; cohen et al., 2005). following hoffman (2009), we thus used multiple data collection and documentation strategies to obtain in-depth insight into the phenomenon we set out to explore, and, following cohen et al. (2005), to enhance the trustworthiness of our study. even though we prepared and were guided by a focus group schedule we remained flexible and allowed the discussions to flow and develop based on the contributions of the participants. participants were asked, mainly, to share their experiences of any support services that had been rendered to them, what these entailed, and the benefits they implied. data analysis we conducted inductive thematic data analysis (cohen et al., 2011; holloway & wheeler, 2002; polit & beck, 2006) for the purposes of our study. krueger (1994) reiterated that qualitative analysis, particularly focus group analysis, should occur concurrently with data collection so we commenced with data analysis once the first data collection session had been completed. as already mentioned, we employed inductive thematic data analysis during data collection and afterwards. in conducting our analysis, we attempted to identify broad recurring ideas when we reviewed the data for the first time, and we coded relationships and patterns. in line with the suggestions made by bradley et al. (2007), after reading and rereading the transcripts and field notes, we categorised related ideas in terms of three themes and related sub-themes; namely: the process of diagnosis and referral; the support received by parents; and their on-going need for additional support. ethics after obtaining permission to conduct our study from the department of basic education and the relevant school principals, we obtained ethical clearance from the ethics committee of the university of pretoria 1 to conduct research. we then obtained informed consent from the participating parents. all ethical protocols were observed, and participants were informed of 1 reference number ep/13/04/01 98 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 our respect for and adherence to the ethical guidelines of confidentiality, privacy, anonymity, risk, and protection from harm as advocated by leedy and ormrod (2005). findings following the thematic analysis we completed, we identified three themes concerning the experiences and ongoing support needs of parents raising learners with an id. theme 1 relates to the process of diagnosis and referral of learners who have an id; theme 2 focuses on support received by parents; and theme 3 concerns the ongoing needs of parents for additional support. for the purposes of this article, and in response to the concern of most of the participants, we focus only on the last theme. participants’ repeated emphasis on the question, “what will happen to him [or her] when i am no longer around?” is indicative of their uncertainty about the future of their children, and their related need for ongoing support in preparation for, and following, the school-leaving phase. we identified three categories that support the theme. need for ongoing medical and related specialised support in terms of medical support and assistance, parents expressed the need for these services to be continual and accompanied by medical certificates that could be used to access other required services. participants reported that the interactional relationships between and among them and the professionals did not provide sufficient support during all developmental stages of their children’s lives. one of the participants pleaded, “the support relationship between the doctors and parents of children who are intellectually disabled must not just end after the diagnosis because we need more information and guidance afterwards.” some parents went so far as to perceive the lack of continued support as a form of neglect. as one said, “i think doctors abandon us too early when we need them the most, since they are the ones who revealed the disability to us.” according to the participants, the support services they received seldom included the provision of specialised services. parents expressed their appreciation for the support they received from schools, teachers, and selected service providers. research by mcconkey et al. (2008) as well as by sahay et al. (2013) support the participants’ experiences, a few examples of which are captured in the following excerpts, taken from the data. i think most of the support i receive comes from the schoolteachers and the school’s occupational therapist. we’re still lacking the services of other specialists like a social worker, speech therapist, and a physiotherapist. the support we get from the school is still not good enough, we still do not have the services of a speech therapist, social workers, and other relevant services for our children. parents’ desire to remain fully informed about the best way to optimally support their children seemed to underlie the need for specialised support. based on their concerns about sefotho et al.: the quest for ongoing support by parents of learners . . . 99 their children’s well-being and day-to-day functioning, parents expressed the ongoing need to acquire additional knowledge and skills that they could apply in practice, as was also found to be the case in a study conducted by catherall and iphofen (2006). to this end, one of the participants provided the following representative view. if we can beef up our schools with other relevant professionals for learners with intellectual disabilities because we have very few professionals at this school, and they cannot cover all the needs required by learners and parents. i would like to see parents improving their knowledge in supporting their children. these findings correlate with the work of chadwick et al. (2002) on respite care for children with a severe id, along with mcconkey’s (2011) evaluation of short breaks and intensive support services to families and disabled young people whose behaviour may be determined to be severely challenging. in highlighting the participants’ experience that ongoing support provision does not meet their existing need for it, the findings of the current study also support research by hassal et al. (2005), who emphasised the fact that formal support provision remains both limited and insufficient to address the existing needs of parents and families supporting learners who have an id. need for support and assistance in accessing governmental grants participating parents were concerned about and frustrated with the criteria for obtaining a government disability grant for their children. parents were of the view that professionals in the medical and social work arenas (specifically those employed by the national social security agency), could, at least potentially, support them with clear guidelines. however, parents experienced these professionals as vague about the grant criteria, and not sufficiently supportive. one of the participants explained, my only concern is about those doctors who work for the south africa social security agency, to assess and determine whether beneficiaries are still entitled to social grants. they would say, ‘if x has two hands and she is able to take herself to the toilet what is the reason for receiving [a] grant?’ this confuses me a lot and makes the process of applying and accessing grant horrible and inhumane. in addition to this, participants reported the processes involved in grant applications and renewals, as being equally horrible and inhumane. the following excerpts capture some of their frustrations with the process, particularly in terms of the financial implications and logistical challenges they experienced. my son is wheelchair bound and this situation makes it difficult to transport him to the grant reviewing counsel, showing up to prove that he is still alive and therefore can continue to access his grant. it is very expensive . . . i have to pay for a special transport to take him there. the sassa administrators should review their policy regarding renewal and reviewing of the beneficiaries of the grant. when they want us to bring our children, 100 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 they must consider all the challenges involved like the long queues, the transport fares. in actual sense i would like them to go to the schools if they need to see if the beneficiary is still alive instead of letting us be absent from work and children from schools just to prove to the sassa people that they are still alive. this aspect of support gaps reflects problems of service delivery in south africa that are predominant in the public sector. for instance, people who use wheelchairs do not have dedicated public transport to cater to their travelling needs. sassa services for the renewal of grants are not accessible to those who, in most cases, have to bring along the disabled people for such renewal and it is generally difficult to accommodate these people in crowded offices. people with disabilities may be the most disadvantaged since they and/or their families often must spend money that is in very short supply to access their monthly grant disbursement. ongoing need for support with the transition from school to work corroborating the research conducted by catherall and iphofen (2006), the participants in our study indicated a high level of uncertainty concerning their children’s transition from school to the work environment. as captured in the following excerpt, they mentioned school leaving programmes and skills training as possible strategies: “we also need programmes for our children when they exit school, we cannot afford to see our children staying home after their school time has expired.” these parents and guardians want their children to progress after leaving school, yet they seemed uncertain about available options. to them, it was important that their children possess the necessary skills to allow them entry into the work environment following their school years. one of the participants foregrounded the need for their children to be empowered enough to subsequently become independent when they said, “i would be happy if our schools could empower our children with skills that they can use to get jobs when they exit their systems so that they can also be able to fend for themselves.” one of the main problems with transition to the world of work and consequent empowerment of youth with an id could be a lack of a formalised and policy-supported transition programmes in south africa. large economies such as those in britain and the u.s. have implemented transition programmes over the years to accommodate the transition needs of people with disabilities. in south africa, more emphasis is placed on achieving the objectives of the curriculum rather than on empowering these youths with skills that are relevant for meaningful participation beyond school. discussion the findings of our study indicate that, even though schools and health departments remain at the forefront in offering support to the parents of learners with an id, many schools are still under-resourced regarding medical and specialised support as tshiredo (2013) observed. the feeling of being abandoned by doctors appears to be strong among parents who expressed the need for on-going medical support that could ensure stability and avoid their hopping sefotho et al.: the quest for ongoing support by parents of learners . . . 101 between doctors and getting a different diagnosis each time. schools are often not positioned to provide the necessary support services to parents, perhaps because of the lack of sufficient occupational therapists, speech therapists, social workers, and related specialists from other support professions (moodley et al., 2017). this results in feelings of frustration, concern, and fear among parents who are generally uncertain about the future of their children following their school years, particularly in the case of their own demise (santacroce, 2001). the suggested framework provides for information provision through which medical practitioners could continually support parents. the need for support and assistance in accessing government grants is experienced by many parents as a significant challenge that compromises all other support systems that they need to support their children (barr et al., 2021). parents require properly packaged information from the agencies responsible for grants so that they know which procedures to follow to access the grants they need for their children. although it may seem a huge challenge for parents to bring children for verification to continue to receive the grant, it is perhaps necessary for sassa to check regularly to avoid people in some cases claiming for children who may not be alive (reddy & sokomani, 2008). however, sassa needs, equally, to devise more effective user-friendly means of verification that will be cost effective to the end-user. in addition to insufficient specialist service provision during the school-going years, both educational and health sectors typically terminate their support services as children progress to advanced developmental stages (luthuli, 2020). our study points to parents’ frustration with the discontinuation of support provision by schools or other professionals the moment that learners who have an id reach the age of 18 and have to leave school. such lack of continued support adds to the challenges that parents face in raising these children. the need for continued support becomes especially important for children near the end of their school careers since parents cannot know what the future will hold for their children as shands and lewis (2020) have noted. even though our study indicates that there is ongoing support to a few parents, this contradicts the findings from the broader literature on the transition from school to work (steyn & vlachos, 2011). transition presents challenges in many areas such as transition between grades, transition between schools, and transition from school to higher education for those who are lucky enough to experience this, and then ultimately transition into the world of work (bell et al., 2017). these findings resonate with and confirm current concerns and critiques of inclusive education, particularly in terms of the level of inclusion and the extent to which this will prepare children with disabilities, such as learners with an id, for their transition to the world of work (mckenzie, 2021). many such learners remain unemployed and continue to be the responsibility of their families who may also not be employed (szumski & karwowski, 2012). although it would seem that special schools ought to fulfil a crucial role in the education, training, and future preparation of learners with an id, these schools are indeed faced with a complex gamut of notable challenges. this once again points to the complexity of disability, 102 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 its broader socio-economic contexts, and the decisions that have to be made about the future of learners who have an id (smith & lowrey, 2017). the need to empower children with an id with job seeking skills could be catered to in a transition program but teachers are often not equipped to assist such children. further research is recommended in order to determine whether similar results as ours would be obtained in other educational settings, including those for white people who have inherited a different socio-economic legacy, and whose lives are characterised by a different structure that includes having access to better resources and, most often, better qualified teachers. in relation to the experiences of the participants in our study, the fears parents have often stem from their real-life experiences. based on the lack of clear guidance or training of teachers to guide parents who need support, it seems important to develop some indicators that may steer such support efforts (majnemer et al. 2012). this can take the form, at least potentially, of a framework for coordinated support to transition from an educational to a post-school environment that schools and teachers may use as a roadmap to guide parents seeking support. such a framework could, in this manner, serve as guideline to learners with an id, their parents and families, as well as to any other stakeholder supporting these children and their families. such a framework could, furthermore, serve the purpose of highlighting the fact that ongoing support to parents of learners with an id does not imply a singular programme or individual to provide all the required services, but calls, rather, for a multidisciplinary approach that, in not being linked to a single setting, may be implemented by schools as a first line of support. the development of a framework for coordinated support could assist education systems to develop and implement support programmes for children, parents, and families in preparation for a child with an id about to leave school. even though several such programmes have been employed elsewhere, this area of support is still under-developed in south africa. if children and their parents were more knowledgeable and better equipped for the world awaiting the school leaver, their feelings of anxiety and concern would be reduced, allowing them to focus optimally on preparation for the future of the child. however, this will require support on a broader scale by sensitising the general society into creating and maintaining an ethos of support and inclusion in south africa. based on the literature reviewed and the findings of the study, the following coordinated framework for parents’ on-going support is proposed. sefotho et al.: the quest for ongoing support by parents of learners . . . figure 1: coordinated and on-going parents’ support identification children with an id need to be identified early in the development parents early enough to enable them to medical evidence (reschly, 1996). identification, assessment and support (sias) diagnosis once children have been identified, the next critical step is proper diagnosis of the type of and drawing up a plan regarding 2012). private health could partner with public health in providing diagnostic servi social responsibility to the less privileged. sassa information to support parents. information provision most parents may not have relevant information about the various types of one their child has. parents require information to make informed and practical decisions about their children (gilson et al., practitioners could share new knowledge with parents on how best to support the referrals referrals may need to be on a case earlier and others who may be relevant to particular cases recommended. awareness creation should point to the partnerships that could benefit the communities through centres in depth understanding of their child’s disability. sefotho et al.: the quest for ongoing support by parents of learners . . . support need to be identified early in the developmental stages to empower the enable them to make informed decisions about their child based on medical evidence (reschly, 1996). parents could be workshopped on the screening, identification, assessment and support (sias) process as it is used in schools. e been identified, the next critical step is proper diagnosis of the type of regarding how the child and the parents could be supported (ke & liu, 2012). private health could partner with public health in providing diagnostic servi social responsibility to the less privileged. sassa-appointed doctors must provide continu information to support parents. most parents may not have relevant information about the various types of . parents require information to make informed and practical decisions et al., 2017; machalicek et al., 2015). at this point, medical practitioners could share new knowledge with parents on how best to support the referrals may need to be on a case-by-case basis, making use of the professionals mentioned earlier and others who may be relevant to particular cases as tsakanikos et al. . awareness creation should point to the partnerships that could benefit the communities through centres in universities where parents could be provided with more in depth understanding of their child’s disability. sefotho et al.: the quest for ongoing support by parents of learners . . . 103 stages to empower the make informed decisions about their child based on parents could be workshopped on the screening, as it is used in schools. e been identified, the next critical step is proper diagnosis of the type of id how the child and the parents could be supported (ke & liu, 2012). private health could partner with public health in providing diagnostic services as a appointed doctors must provide continual most parents may not have relevant information about the various types of ids, let alone the . parents require information to make informed and practical decisions , 2015). at this point, medical practitioners could share new knowledge with parents on how best to support these children. , making use of the professionals mentioned et al., (2007) have . awareness creation should point to the partnerships that could benefit the niversities where parents could be provided with more in104 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 networks parents could be encouraged to form and participate in networks and support groups of people dealing with similar situations. the use of social media and the internet is encouraged to find parents around the world, some of whom may belong to well established networks that may be used as sources of information and support (willingham-storr, 2014). limitations of the study because of the limited number of male participants in the study, the voices of fathers and their experiences of support (or the lack of it) might not be adequately represented in our findings. since this study was based on a case study design and focused only on the experiences of parents associated with four schools in one region, the findings cannot be generalised. the transfer of findings to similar research contexts remains discretionary. conclusion the existing literature indicates that support services for parents of learners with an id requires ongoing research. to this end, we raise some questions here pertaining to the direction that such support services may take, which framework could be followed, and how support systems may be arranged to address the needs of parents. based on our findings we conclude that even though some parents may feel supported, they still need structured and coordinated guidance and support by professionals. although a philosophy of interdependency and mutual support of humanity, known as ubuntu in south africa, informs what may be termed the spirit of hospitality, it does not seem sufficient to address the future of children with an id. in conclusion, we propose a framework of parents’ ongoing support for identification, diagnosis, information provision, referrals, and networking as depicted in figure 1. references adnams, c. m. 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(2012). applications of case study research (3rd ed.). sage. how the ‘outside’ becomes ‘inside’: the social orientation of south african teachers’ expectations for learning shelly wilburn abstract this paper reports on the investigation of teachers’ expectations in two relatively highperforming primary schools in disadvantaged communities in south africa’s western cape province. expectations are conceptualised as multi-dimensional, based upon school effectiveness research, and explored through bernstein’s concepts of regulative discourse and expressive order. interviews with teachers are employed to discern how teachers’ pedagogical beliefs are shaped by their expectations. findings suggest that teachers’ expectations are shaped by the ideals and values of the surrounding community. an interrelation is found between teachers at each school and between expectation dimensions, which suggests that an ‘expectation orientation’ is present at the level of the school. comparative analysis reveals that these relatively high-performing primary schools respond to their external environment in different ways. both schools regulate teaching and learning through forms of high expectation; school 1 relays its community optimism as the school is in open relation to its context, while school 2 remains ‘closed yet within’ its community and fosters pragmatic expectations driven by high teacher accountability. how does the outside become inside, and how does the inside reveal itself and shape the outside? (basil bernstein, 1987, p.563) introduction as the educational system in south africa continues to progress toward an ideal of egalitarianism through changes in curriculum and policy, forms of social reproduction and very slow change in the majority of the country’s schools persist (taylor, 2008). yet, the school has been described as a potential interrupter of social reproduction, which can give students access to other “styles of life” and “modes of social relationships” (bernstein, 1975, p.33). it is based on this goal of providing opportunity to learn through quality schooling that this paper investigates ‘what works’ in schools that are situated in disadvantaged areas of south africa’s western cape. 88 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 although systemic test results are a limited measure of learning, it is the best and only1 measure in this context for selecting schools. one of the most salient aspects related to academic performance is teachers’ expectations, and much of the relevant literature on teachers’ expectations falls within the school effectiveness tradition of research (e.g. see brookover, schweitzer, schneider, beady, flood and wisenbaker, 1978; brophy, 1983; teddlie and stringfield, 1993; barone, 2006). this school of thought tends to suggest effective classroom and/or school-level factors in relation to learner performance, yet does not consider how and why the broader community (or society) shapes the inside workings of a school. the joining of two schools of thought, that is, the sociology of education and school effectiveness, allows for a deeper understanding of how a context or environment may shape a school’s ability to produce effective practices that lead to relatively high learner achievement. expectations are investigated via interviews with teachers in two relatively high-performing primary schools in two, demographically different, disadvantaged contexts in the western cape. each of these relatively highperforming schools is located within a quintile that is demographically similar to the majority of schools in south africa, that is, quintiles 2 and 3 (christie, butler and potterton, 2007; western cape education department (wced), 2011). while this study does not explicitly focus on literacy, the premise of the research assumes that ‘reading to learn’ is one of the most empowering skills a learner can possess in order to beat the odds of social disadvantage. therefore, the concept of ‘relatively high-performing’ is based upon each school’s grade 3 and grade 6 provincial-wide 2010 assessment results in1 literacy, as both schools, on average, scored eight points above their district’s average pass rate (wced, 2011). in what follows, literature from american, british, and south african scholars is adapted for a framework that socially locates expectations and depicts the relation between society, school, teacher, and learner. results of the study are preceded by a description of each school’s community, supported by contextspecific characteristics obtained from the 2001 south african census and teacher interview data. each school’s ‘expectation orientation’ is then developed and substantiated by teachers’ collective espoused beliefs related to their students and to their own instruction. each orientation suggests a distinct relationship between the social condition of the community and the internal ordering of the school. in other words, this paper argues that teachers’ wilburn: how the ‘outside’ becomes ‘inside’. . . 89 expectations of their students are shaped by their communities, translate into collective beliefs about teaching and learning, and regulate academic achievement. teachers’ expectations an overview historically, expectation/school-effectiveness scholars have suggested that intellectual development is a response to what teachers expect and how those expectations are communicated; these expectations are often based on teacher-learner interactions and prior achievement (rosenthal and jacobson, 1968; merton, 1948; cooper and good, 1983; dusek, 1975; cotton, 1989; eccles and wigfield, 1985; babad, inbar, and rosenthal, 1982). more current research conceptualises expectations across multiple dimensions as teachers intrinsically carry beliefs and perceptions about learners as well as selfefficacious beliefs related to effective instruction and curriculum (rubiedavies, 2007, 2010; eccles and wigfield, 1985; brophy, 1982). these dimensions have the power to mediate classroom instruction, ultimately impacting on learner performance (ibid.). rubie-davies’ (2010) study, regarding students’ attributes and their effects on teachers’ expectations (e.g. student participation in class), concludes: “differential teacher perceptions may mediate the effects of teachers’ expectations particularly when also mediated by differential pedagogical beliefs and instructional practices” (p.132). in other words, there may be a link between perceptions, expectations, and pedagogy. in relation to pedagogy, watson (2011) investigates teachers’ perceptions of students and suggests that how teachers measure their students’ abilities is closely aligned with their expectations and beliefs that stem from socio-cultural constructs (e.g. the ‘urban’ student). both studies suggest that teachers’ pedagogy may be influenced by their expectations of learners and that expectations are shaped by cultural constructs or perceptions. in the context of south africa, several empirical studies suggest that expectations are related to school performance, learner performance, and classroom instruction; that is, achievement is either hindered or supported by teachers’ expectations of their students and/or the school’s expectations of 90 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 their teachers (christie, butler and potterton, 2007; fleisch, 2008; howie, 2005). braam’s (2004) study of language policy highlights a western cape school’s stratified social arrangement (i.e. afrikaans/english language streaming) due to the hegemony of english and the afrikaans stigma of under-achievement. with an emphasis on language and its social and political dimensions, braam concludes that the perceptions of the community were reflected in the dominant ideology of the school. if schools have the potential to relay ideals and values of the community, then teachers’ pedagogical beliefs may express these expectations. in relation to school ideology, hoadley (2005) presents a rationale in her phd dissertation for why differences in pedagogy may be reproduced, relayed by the teacher, and aligned with social class. her study demonstrates how social solidarities and ideals may shape teachers’ typification of learners and how each typification is dependent on context. it can be surmised from this study that teachers are inherently oriented to ways of thinking/perceiving based upon their social experiences. put another way, teachers’ social experiences may produce particular expectations. braam (2004) and hoadley (2005) contribute insight into the hierarchical relation between societal power, community ideals, school order, teacher perceptions, and learner performance. in addition, these studies suggest an origin for teachers’ expectations (i.e. society), which produces a collective way that teachers understand the external world (hoadley, 2005). in the next section of this paper, bernstein’s sociological theory of education is reviewed in relation to how these ‘differential perceptions’ may originate. a sociological framework: locating expectations bernstein suggests that as teachers’ outside world is shaped, teachers’ inside (school) world is regulated by this shaping, which may affect the structure and transmission of knowledge (1987). to address this relation between ‘outside’ and ‘inside’, bernstein conceptualises a ‘pedagogic discourse’, or the rules that shape knowledge for the curriculum and its transmission in school, as constituting two discourses: instructional discourse as specialised skills and their relationship to each other, and regulative discourse as moral rules that create order, relations, and identity (1996). regulative discourse carries what knowledge is recontextualised and how knowledge is transmitted, which essentially translates the dominant values of society wilburn: how the ‘outside’ becomes ‘inside’. . . 91 (gamble and hoadley, 2011). according to bernstein’s theory, instructional discourse is embedded in the regulative discourse, which means that teachers’ instructional theory may be embedded in their expectations for learning. therefore, teachers’ regulative discourse is adapted for this study as a carrier of expectations, which relays ‘outside’ or external ideals and values, and shapes pedagogical beliefs. at the level of the school, bernstein conceptualises an expressive order, where the community and school are bound as a distinct moral collectivity, carrying culture, values, and standards (atkinson, 1985). expressive order is a source of social ideologies that orients teachers’ regulative discourse by transmitting valued norms made visible within practices, relationships, activities, procedures, and judgments, such as the school’s notion of acceptable behavior, collective forms of pedagogy, as well as a conceptualisation of an ideal learner (bernstein, 1975). a valued norm, such as the ideal learner, carries expectations for behavior, performance, and achievement. valued norms relay expectations of a broader expressive order. i suggest that agents of this expressive order, classroom teachers, relay the valued norms and ideals of the broader environment through their expectations. based upon the preceding review of empirical research and theoretical concepts, figure 1 below was developed for this study. the model assimilates expectations into bernstein’s concepts of expressive order and regulative discourse. the psychology of expectations and the sociology of education align into a psychosocial model, displaying how expectations originate and infiltrate into the school. the ideals, values, and moral order produced by society shape teachers’ psychological expectations across multiple dimensions and on several levels. the model provides an explanation for school-level effects (e.g. relative high-performance in contexts of poverty) and a more exhaustive explanation for how and why the outside community may shape the inside performance of a school. 92 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 figure 1: psychosocial model for the transmission of expectations sociolog y of education society values, ideals, order, solidarities production/recontextualization of knowledge community condition, beliefs, relations, order, expectations the school expressive order: conduct, character, ideal learner, order, relations, expectations the teacher reproduction of knowledge instructional/regulative discourse what & how knowledge is transmitted the learner orientation to literacy consciousness = < ? psychological expectations origin condition, issues, experiences cultural constructs school-wide expectations learning potential of student body teachers’ expectations dimensions: perceptions of learner intelligence, characteristics, motivation, modification of curriculum, forms of instruction pedagogical beliefs academic outcomes wced results the following section discusses the methodological approach for developing a collective expectation orientation at the level of the school and provides an overview of each school’s ‘outside’ context. interview/census data is then presented to substantiate and explicate each school’s orientation. this paper’s aim is not to suggest one school is more effective than the other; each school is considered independently in order to explore contextual differences in relation to each school’s expectation orientation. based upon a wealth of literature that regards teachers’ expectations as significant to effective teaching practices, this study infers expectations are related to each school’s relative high performance on the wced literacy assessment in context specific ways (barone, 2006; jensen, 2009; rubie-davies, 2007, 2010; eccles and wigfield, 1985; brophy, 1982, 1983; watson, 2011; rosenthal and jacobson, 1968; merton, 1948; cooper and good, 1983; dusek, 1975; cotton, 1989). wilburn: how the ‘outside’ becomes ‘inside’. . . 93 methodology to access the espoused beliefs of teachers, this study takes a qualitative approach and considers each school as a unique case study. because schools were selected upon their grade 3 and grade 6 western cape education department literacy scores, interviews with two grade 3 and two grade 6 teachers were employed at each school. in total, fifteen structured questions were asked of participants, in association with probes to provide more detail. each interview was recorded, transcribed, and lasted approximately thirty minutes. this study works from the premise that the espoused beliefs of teachers, regarding principles of teaching and learning, authorise access to an external social order inherent within the teacher; therefore, classroom observations of teachers’ enacted instructional practices were not necessarily needed to gather data on their expectations. a multi-dimensional concept of expectations was developed to classify teachers’ beliefs regarding their students and their instruction based upon a review of relevant literature. dimensions include teachers’ espoused perceptions related to learner intelligence, the ideal learner, curriculum modifications, the degree of an individualising pedagogy, the degree of intrinsic/extrinsic motivational behaviors, the school-wide learning potential, and the community condition. the full data set of interview questions classifies teachers’ expectations according to each of these dimensions. participants were asked questions such as, ‘do you believe all of your students will pass at the end of the year?’ and ‘how would you describe the best learner in your class?’ teachers’ responses were classified according to a coding scheme, which revealed an interrelation or pattern between teachers at each school and between expectation dimensions. this interrelation suggests the presence of a collective, school-level, expectation orientation (or an expressive order). each school’s orientation expresses forms of identity in relation to how the ‘outside’ community plays a role in each school’s ‘inside’ order. when these orientations are comparatively analysed between schools, each expectation orientation highlights features that are related to context and relevant to academic success, such as a school’s open or closed relation to its community. the following section introduces each school and its social and contextual characteristics with regards to language, population, transportation, and migration. due to the critical significance of each school’s context in this 94 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 the department of education and training (det) was the national centralised system of2 education that controlled the curriculum, funding, and operation of ‘black african’ schools during apartheid (kallaway, 2002; chisholm and sujee, 2006). study, each school’s description is supported by census data from statistics south africa (2001) and interview data. these contextual characteristics are referenced in the discussion of results, particularly when discussing issues that may impact on teaching and learning. below is a map that contrasts the physical location of the schools. map of school 1 and school 2 source: google earth, 2013 school 1 and the ‘outside’ formerly controlled by the department of education and training, and2 located within national quintile 3, school 1 (s1) rests approximately 15 km outside cape town’s urban, metropolitan environment (wced, 2011). s1 also sits on the edge of a ‘black’, majority isixhosa-speaking, working-class township (statistics sa, 2001). according to the principal, s1 comprises 42 wilburn: how the ‘outside’ becomes ‘inside’. . . 95 teachers and 1 500 learners; 80% of learners reside in the township while the other 20% travel from nearby townships. teacher 2 (t2) claims that all learners come from shacks, or commonly referred to by the locals as ‘squatter camps’, and describes the situation as thus: you see, they live in shacks and there’s no space you see? the parents come [home] late; he wants to sleep, so they switch off the lights, and it’s only one room. while the majority of learners live in conditions of poverty, teachers also expressed positive notions of the community in that some parents strongly support their children’s future and desire a better life for them through education. with a population of 49 664, the s1 community utilises numerous forms of transportation: 24% travel by foot, 17% take the city train, and 7% ride in minibus taxis. other forms of transportation are also employed but to a lesser extent, such as cars at 3% and buses at 1.7% (statistics sa, 2001). because public transport is readily available and the travel distance is less than other townships outside the city, cape town is more accessible to the s1 community than it is to other smaller rural communities. these forms of transportation provide the capacity for social movement and generate access to cape town’s employment opportunities. while 97% of the s1 community speaks isixhosa, the neighbouring city of cape town comprises 1 199 049 people speaking afrikaans, 808 446 people speaking english, 831 381 people speaking isixhosa, and the remaining 2% communicate in more than 9 other languages. with regards to social movement, 85% of the s1 community is from the western cape province and 15% migrated from the other eight provinces in south africa. approximately 3 million people reside in the nearby city of cape town, constituting an ethnically diverse population: 48% ‘coloured’, 32% ‘black african’, 19% ‘white’, and 1% ‘indian’ (ibid.). not to mention, teachers of s1 explained that ngos are widely present in the s1 community as its urban metro location is a target environment for social and educational support. this brief description of s1 and its context characterises a peri-urban heterogeneous environment that promotes various ways of understanding the outside world. for example, the community’s access to transportation may expose residents to diverse social opportunities, such as employment, and generate an awareness of different economic conditions or standards of living, therefore, creating visible social diversity. as read through the s1 teachers’ 96 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 the house of representatives (hor) was the national centralised system of education that3 controlled ‘coloured’ schools’ operation, curriculum, and funding during apartheid (kallaway, 2002; chisholm and sujee, 2006) espoused beliefs, the community is optimistic regarding the potential success of the school and its learners: [outside in the community], they’ve got a strong feeling that we are making or trying to produce some better learners. . . i know there’s committees just outside the district of this community, i know they’ve got that trust in us. they believe we can do at least better for their learners. doing ‘better’ and producing ‘better’ learners denotes a broad social expectation of the school and its role in the community, which is to provide a quality education so that learners may one day positively contribute to society. a relation between community optimism and school optimism is expressed, or in other words, how the ‘outside’ may shape the ‘inside’. school 2 and the ‘outside’ located on the west coast of south africa’s western cape province is the rural community of s2, approximately 14 km from the closest town of lutzville, which is relatively small in size. formerly under the jurisdiction of the house of representatives, and located in quintile 2, the school is situated3 in an isolated community that is purely afrikaans-speaking and ‘coloured’ in ethnicity (wced, 2011; statistics sa, 2001). the west coast municipality has a total population of only 282 671, as compared to cape town’s 3 million residents (statistics sa, 2001). many teachers of s2 grew up in the local community and continue to live in the area raising their families. according to the principal, s2, which is the community’s only primary school, is small in size with only 513 learners and 20 teachers; the majority of learners live in the community, but a small percentage travel from other communities such as lutzville and papendorp. it is also important to mention that the current principal of s2 recently replaced the former principal, who was a part of s2 for over 40 years and left a lasting imprint on the ‘culture’ of the school. teachers of s2 carry a collective sentiment regarding the dissociation between the school and its community. according to t1: the parents are illiterate. that is why [only a few learners read and write outside of school], so schooling stops at school. when the bell rings, teaching or schooling stops. . . our wilburn: how the ‘outside’ becomes ‘inside’. . . 97 community, they are very selfish. . .because there’s no work. and those who have money and who have work, they are very selfish. even though there remains a relatively unsupportive connection between the school and its community, the school acts as a buffer against prevalent social issues, such as fetal alcohol syndrome. fas is the result of prolonged prenatal exposure to alcohol, and the effects on children vary across a spectrum of cognitive and physical disabilities (crede, sinanovic, adnams and london, 2010). the west coast winelands of the western cape provide considerable amounts of and access to alcohol, and more specifically, wine. because of the prevalence of fas and illiteracy, the relation between s2 and its community remains closed. however, because of the isolation and ethnic/language homogeneity of the community, s2 nevertheless remains within and a part of the traditional community culture, keeping social and cultural change static and transmitting local beliefs and values throughout the school. these characteristics express a ‘closed yet within’ relation between s2 and its community. learners’ positive attitude toward and valuing of their school is a second socio-cultural characteristic that needs mention. teachers of s2 attribute learners’ respectfulness in school to the community, stemming from a traditional culture, and as a result of the original value system that has been transferred over time from generation to generation within the community: [our learners] are proud of their school. . . if you walk down [the corridor], i don’t think you will see a piece of paper lying around. they are very proud of their school and they love their teachers. i have a place in my class, a corner, full of letters for me. this transmission of values is related to contextual homogeneity, as exposure to other value systems is sealed off (to a certain degree) by the lack of social movement in and out of the community. as original values and morals are passed down and relayed within the school, attitude and behavior are shaped, thus encompassing a context-specific regulative discourse that carries particular expectations for teaching and learning. with regards to statistical characteristics, s2’s immediate surrounding community contains a population of 355, and 342 of the 355 residents have been residing in the western cape since birth (statistics sa, 2001). one could speculate that these permanent residents may have also been residing in the community since birth due to its isolated and rural location. in addition, over 50% of residents claim that transportation is not applicable to their living 98 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 situation, and 28% of the community primarily travels by foot, which leaves the remaining 22% with access to cars, buses, and taxis (ibid.). s2’s community context can be characterised as rural, isolated, depressed, socially immobile, economically stagnant, and under-employed; yet, the community harbors and values respectful character and manner and relays these values in the school. furthermore, the community shapes the ways teachers account for the lack of social support as well as the ways teachers understand learner ability or intelligence. these understandings are a consequence of the high prevalence of social issues, such as fetal alcohol syndrome and illiteracy. in what follows, a collective, school-level, expectation orientation of both s1 and s2 is presented, which pays attention to the ‘outside’ characteristics of each community and their impact on teachers’ beliefs related to teaching and learning ‘inside’ each school. results how the ‘outside’ becomes ‘inside’ three dimensions of expectations and their interrelation are utilised in the following discussion to support each school’s expectation orientation: 1) teachers’ concept of the ideal learner, 2) teachers’ concept of learner intelligence, and 3) the overall school-wide expectations (expressive order) of the student body. school 1 to elicit the expressive order of school 1, teachers were asked, “does your principal expect all of your learners to pass? and “what does your principal expect from you as a teacher?” teachers’ remarks reveal a general optimism and espouse a committed energy with a focus on high marks, learner performance, and intervention committees. for example, t4 explains: [the principal] is expecting me to teach the kids, that they must pass, each and every must progress; we must see progression from the learners. wilburn: how the ‘outside’ becomes ‘inside’. . . 99 t3 elaborates on this optimistic outlook with regards to intervention programs: of course [the principal] expects them to pass. but he knows the problem. that’s why we are coming up [with programs] as a management [team]. . . that we must use to intervene with those struggling learners. s1 is proactive in its effort to remediate struggling learners; this exhibits a school-wide expectation in which all learners do have the potential to achieve, therefore actions and energy are put forth to support this high expectation for all. a link between the school and the community can be realised here as the broad, external, social optimism may be relayed within the school. in addition, teachers’ remarks suggest their instructional theory of learner remediation is embedded in their high expectations for learning (bernstein, 1996). an optimistic expectation orientation can be established here, based upon the high community expectations of the school, the high school-wide expectations of the learners, and the implementation of intervention programs espoused by the teachers. teachers’ concept of an ideal learner was revealed when asked to describe the best learner in their class. s1 teachers’ responses are collective and emphasise what the learner ‘can do’. for example, s1 teachers explain: [my best learner] knows all the work that you do, and you can give them work and within ten minutes she will tell, ‘miss, i’m finished’. . . they can do the work without being helped, and they can achieve those learning outcomes. . . [the best learners] are the kids who are doing very well; if you give them work or homework, they submit on time. to classify s1 teachers’ concept of an ideal learner in relation to this study’s theoretical framework, bernstein (1996) offers a useful distinction between two types of pedagogy: a visible pedagogy, where rules are made explicit and expectations are related to learner performance, and an invisible pedagogy, where rules are implicit and expectations are related to learner competence. according to interview data, s1 teachers’ conceptualisation of an ideal learner can be classified as performance-centred; teachers expect learners to produce outcomes that are recognised by explicit marks or academic achievement. this expectation for and emphasis on high achievement most likely stems from external pressures outside the school, that is, the community, the district office, the provincial education department, as well as the neighboring communities who transport their children a considerable distance by taxi or train in order to attend this particular school. each of these external agents is 100 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 situated in close proximity to s1 due to the urban metropolitan environment. s1’s emphasis on performance is related to an external orientation to schooling; teachers and administration are more concerned with that which can be seen, measured, and demonstrated. furthermore, an external orientation also has implications for teachers’ pedagogy. for example, the implementation of remediation programs and interventions at s1 assumes that if learners are given appropriate support from the teacher(s), then learners’ marks will improve over time toward the desired level of performance. stemming from teachers’ concept of an ideal learner is teachers’ perception of learner intelligence, that is, the extent to which teachers perceive learners’ abilities as ‘fixed’ (they either have ‘it’ or not) or as ‘incrementally changing’ (all learners can achieve, given appropriate instructional support). the majority of s1 teachers espouse an incremental perception of learner intelligence as they discuss passing at the end of the year, future matriculation potential, and the level of cognitive demand for weak learners. this expectation that all learners have the ability to achieve expresses the optimistic orientation of the school and community. for example, t3 explains: i try and motivate them. i ask them, i ask one of them, to come and read, even the one who can’t read. when you see he’s struggling, i’ll tell him you know what? you did well and you need to practice and then read this thing and come back tomorrow and tell me what you have read about. the expectation that all learners can achieve supports the school’s external, performance-centered, optimistic, and communal orientation. teachers’ emphasis on high marks and remediation/intervention programs is shaped by the perception that all learners do have the ability to produce desired results when given appropriate support. this orientation can also be linked to the social characteristics of the surrounding context, that is, an urban, heterogeneous, and socially mobile environment. these findings support bernstein’s theory of the relation between school and society; as teachers’ outside world is shaped by forms of power and control, teachers’ collective values and ideals relay these forms of power, which have the potential to shape their instructional theory in more or less effective ways. this means that teachers’ collective expectations are a relay for these values and ideals, which impact on teachers’ instructional theory. wilburn: how the ‘outside’ becomes ‘inside’. . . 101 in summary, school 1 produces an expectation orientation regulated by an urban, heterogeneous, and socially mobile context, which allows for a visible society. school 1 can be described as connected to its community through the relation between high external expectations and high internal or school-wide expectations. the prevalence of educational ngos within the community of s1 further supports this connection. teachers are orientated to perceive teaching and learning as communal and performance-centered; that is, all learners have the ability to achieve, which can be recognised through high marks or results. school 1’s broad context relays visible diversity and a growing demand for a skilled labour market (city of cape town, 2011). the school’s orientation to its environment regulates teachers’ emphasis on performance and what the learner “can do.” school 1 has an optimistic orientation with regards to learner achievement. in sum, these findings suggest that the communal, external, performance-centered, and optimistic orientation of school 1 produces relatively high-performance. in what follows, school 2 expresses an entirely different orientation to expectations. key differences reveal how school context is related to a school’s expressive order, as well as how a school’s expressive order regulates teachers’ expectations for learning. school 2 s2’s expressive order or school-wide expectations is highly dependent on the social condition of the surrounding community. s2’s small isolated location does not have the same contextual features as that of an urban community school, which provide exposure to diversity and alternative ways of life. because of the lack of public transport, travel time is much longer to the nearest small town, resulting in a smaller amount of social migration. this immobility contributes toward a homogeneous culture. furthermore, lack of access to employment due to minimal transport and isolation is associated with a sense of depression. therefore, the school’s order reflects this condition and compensates for the lack of social support. one of the most significant aspects of s2’s community, as it relates to the school’s expressive order, is the high prevalence of fetal alcohol syndrome. t1 explains why some of her learners will not pass: say a quarter of them, have, what do you call it in english? fas? alcohol syndrome? see? so other [reasons for why some learners will not pass] are circumstances at home, poverty, mother and father are illiterate, and no work at home. and they are drinking, not interested in the children, don’t even come to school. so [those] are the main reasons. 102 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 because of the depressed environment surrounding the school, s2’s expressive order carries reasonable expectations for learner achievement, which constitutes a more pragmatic orientation to teaching and learning. based upon interview data, the teachers and principal are acutely aware of the local issues. according to t1: [the principal] knows the circumstances, he knows the people, he knows the vicinity, he knows that ok, maybe it is his desire for the whole school or the whole class to pass, but in the back of his mind he knows that it isn’t possible. this unanimous espoused perception of school-wide achievement produces high teacher accountability. teachers set and submit quarterly benchmarks and annual goals to the principal for learner improvement in each learning area, along with the instructional strategies associated with each goal. teachers of s2 are motivated to improve their own performance as well as their learners’. teachers are committed to education both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the school: some of the students go to high school and we have much interest in them. we ask the teachers there, how they perform, and they know we watch what they are doing. in relation to the presence of teacher accountability, numerous forms of collective expectations of teachers are present in the school, which stem from the former principal’s management of school activity: teachers must always be on time, be at school every day, emphasise time on task in the classroom, genuinely commit to education inside and outside of school, and instruction must be taken seriously. a particular ‘culture’ of teaching and learning is evidenced by these norms and standards for behavior, which shapes teachers’ theory of instruction and produces relatively higher academic outcomes. in contrast to s1’s performance-centered ideal learner with an emphasis on high marks, s2 teachers espouse an emphasis on the internal characteristics of the learners, therefore exhibiting an ideal related to competence. the primary reasons for this emphasis on internal competencies of learners are the presence of fas, illiterate community residents, and the static culture of the community that inhibits social movement and mobility. teachers collectively espouse a perception that some learners have what it takes and others do not. for example, teachers may attach certain expectations to an ‘fas child’, or in other words, teachers may generate a ‘cultural construct’ that carries expectations for particular learners (watson, 2011). furthermore, the homogenous context instills a competence-centered ideal learner, as the wilburn: how the ‘outside’ becomes ‘inside’. . . 103 external environment appears and remains relatively the same; therefore, if a learner does stand out among the rest, it is due to the possession of some internal characteristic that not all learners have. according to t3: [the best learner in my class] is enthusiastic. also, wants to do more than the others, comes and asks me. . . when he’s finished with his work, he’s also busy reading. and he comes and asks me what does this mean, so enthusiastic. he wants to get the best marks, and he comes and asks me but why is this wrong, what must i do to make it. [he’s] enthusiastic [and] wants to get to the top one day. he tries to do his best. this internal drive to ‘want’ to achieve contrasts with s1 teachers’ performance-centered ideal learner who ‘gets the best marks’. the distinction between ‘gets the best marks’ and ‘wants the best marks’ exhibits the external versus internal orientation to instructional theory and expectations. s2 teachers express a collective value for learners’ internal competencies rather than learners’ external marks or results. in accordance with s2 teachers’ internal orientation, teachers collectively espouse a fixed perception of learners’ intelligence. teachers believe learners either have the ability or not and support this position regarding why some learners will or will not pass matric with the following reasons: learners’ low literacy skill levels, a lack of internal motivation to learn or desire to achieve/excel in life, fetal alcohol syndrome, and grade retainment. these reasons express the competence-centered ideal learner, the pragmatic orientation of the school as a whole, and an internal expectation orientation that positions learners on a spectrum of able or not able: i say you must do [the task] like this and this and this. some of them can do it. but the others, but there is some of them who will never get to that level. in contrast, teachers who perceive learner intelligence as incrementally changing (like those of s2) would most likely believe that learners have the ability to achieve; all they need is remediation/intervention, intrinsic motivation, and/or an alternative environment that addresses the effects of fas. these findings further support bernstein’s relation between teachers’ instructional theory and collective social ideologies that orient teachers’ regulative discourse; or as this paper argues, the school’s expectation orientation, shaped by the outside context, orients teachers’ instructional theory. 104 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 in summary, school 2 is regulated by an invisible society where the community is isolated, rural, and homogenous, lacking social mobility and educational support outside of the school. the community is neither connected nor removed from the school; teachers take responsibility for the lack of outside support, therefore accountability is high. however, s2 remains within a homogenous culture and transmits the shared values and beliefs of the community. an emphasis on internal learner competencies orients teachers’ ideal learner, that is, the learner who ‘wants the best marks’. the extent to which teachers believe learners can overcome social or psychological obstacles in relation to their intelligence or ability to acquire new knowledge and skills is seen as fixed, which further substantiates s2’s internal orientation. this value attached to internal competencies signifies teachers’ attention to those who have what it takes, or in other words, signifies an individualising orientation. teachers differentiate learners at the level of the individual between those who can and cannot achieve. with regards to the social condition of the community, the prevalence of fas is a serious issue that must be addressed from both an educational and political standpoint. although s2’s contextual issues would most likely hinder academic achievement, teachers go the extra mile and take responsibility for their students’ education. in the following section, the relation between ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ is further substantiated through a brief comparative analysis that points to two distinct, context-specific, ideal teachers found in each school. the ideal teacher as teachers carry expectations related to an ideal learner that stem from the expressive order of the community and school, an ideal teacher is similarly formed from the expectations of the community and relayed by the school, e.g. the principal. as suggested throughout this paper, the ‘outside’ has a way of shaping the ‘inside’; because an ideal teacher is produced in contextspecific ways, the school’s surrounding environment aids recognition to what is expected of teachers. firstly, the relationship between the community and the school is significant as it regulates social relations that are relevant to learner achievement. s1 is connected or in open relation to its community through ngo support, optimistic expectations, and visible social mobility/movement. in contrast, s2 is in closed relation to its community yet remains within, due to insufficient secondary sites of academic acquisition. wilburn: how the ‘outside’ becomes ‘inside’. . . 105 the social immobility of the community results in a static community culture. therefore, s2 creates a boundary between itself and the community in order to account for that which has been described as depressed and ridden with unemployment, illiteracy, and alcoholism. these types of community-school relations shape the role of the teacher in a particular way that provides what is necessary to most effectively benefit learner academic achievement in that context. the more closed relation between s2 and its community suggests that the ideal teacher is heavily accountable to the learner and responsible for the academic as well as moral development of the student population. in contrast, s1’s open relation to the community, which is more permeable for outside influences on learning (e.g. ngos), suggests an ideal teacher that holds partial accountability, as teachers believe the community should play a role in the education of its future citizens. in other words, s2 teachers are expected to act as a buffer to society, whereas s1 teachers incorporate society into their instructional theory. these school-community relations exemplify how social context shapes collective expectations that are carried within a school’s expressive order and that these expectations can be realised through particular beliefs related to teaching and learning. conclusion this paper demonstrates the link between expectations and the sociology of education, as these two schools of thought are often considered separate and distinct from one another. bernstein’s concepts of expressive order and regulative discourse frame teachers’ expectations theoretically, while expectations are empirically investigated through the ways teachers think about their students and their instruction. results of the study suggest that teachers’ expectations are context-dependent, socially shaped by the community condition, and collectively shared at the level of the school through an expectation orientation. in addition, results suggest how and why collective expectations may impact on the pedagogical beliefs of teachers. a common thread between s1 and s2 is that both reciprocate their community in ways that parallel the social and cultural condition: s2’s internal, pragmatic, and individualising orientation versus s1’s external, optimistic, and communalising orientation. although both schools produce distinct forms of expectations, this study infers that both schools regulate teaching and learning through forms of high expectation. s1 relays its community optimism as the school is in open relation to its context, while s2’s ‘closed yet within’ relation 106 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 fosters pragmatic expectations under high teacher accountability. both are forms of high expectations but for different reasons. these forms of high expectation are in fact related to high performance in contexts of poverty. the interrelation between expectation dimensions suggests that teachers in both s1 and s2 are collectively oriented to school in society, and that high achievement is related to compatibility between environment and school order. it may be posited further that school ‘culture’ and community ‘culture’ are more inter-related than previously considered with regards to effective teaching practices. acknowledgements this paper is based on work conducted within the 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contested. this article argues that a more explicit understanding of what legitimate participation in a disciplinary discourse involves is facilitated by using an analytical toolkit provided by legitimation code theory (lct) to bring to the surface the discipline’s underlying principles and ‘rules of the game’. to support this argument and demonstrate the efficacy of this toolkit, the article foregrounds one discipline (marketing) at the university of kwazulu-natal (ukzn). using the lct analytical tools to explore the ‘languages of legitimation’ in interview data, documents and the discipline’s scholarly literature, insight is gained into what constitutes legitimate participation and achievement in marketing. introduction epistemological access may be described as the ability to ‘own’ both the knowledge and the characteristic ways of knowing, and ways of being associated with particular academic disciplines (morrow, 2003; gee, 2005). having full epistemological access means, therefore, that students are able to ‘pull off’ the appropriate disciplinary identity and participate effectively in the discipline’s ‘discourse’, that is the “socially accepted associations among ways of using language, of thinking, valuing, acting and interacting, in the ‘right’ places and at the ‘right’ times with the ‘right’ objects (associations that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or social network)” (gee, 2005, p.26). gee (2005) draws a distinction between “discourse” and “discourse”. by “discourse” (with a lower case ‘d’), gee refers to “language-in-use” (2005, p.7) or “stretches of language” (2005, p.26). when this language-in-use is integrated with “non-language stuff” (gee, 2005, p.7) in enacting particular activities and identities, the term 40 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 “discourse” (with an uppercase ‘d’) is used to signal these “ways of being in the world” (gee, 2005, p.7). the ability of lecturers to afford students complete access to the knowledge and ways of knowing and being in a discipline, means that lecturers themselves should enjoy an in-depth understanding of how best to do this. however, acquiring this understanding and putting it into practice is not always easy as much about it is tacit (jacobs, 2007) and contested; unsurprisingly, therefore, such issues are under-researched in south africa (boughey, 2005). this article argues that the use of legitimation code theory (lct) (maton, 2005a, 2005b, 2010, 2011, 2013) as an analytical ‘toolkit’, is a very effective point of departure for acquiring this understanding. drawing on a doctoral study, which had the discipline of marketing as its central concern (arbee, 2012), the article shows how the use of lct facilitates a level of understanding and insight into this discipline that made many of the complexities surrounding the teaching and learning of it in higher education institutions accessible. the article proceeds by providing a brief background to the academic discipline of marketing, highlighting the need for exploring epistemological access in this discipline as well as the challenges inherent in undertaking such exploration. thereafter, the relevance of lct for addressing such challenges and enabling insight into epistemological access in marketing, by making explicit the discipline’s underlying structuring principles and rules, is outlined. drawing on an empirical study of marketing involving students and lecturers at the university of kwazulu-natal (ukzn), the contribution that lct is able to make in this regard is illustrated. the article concludes by considering the implications of the findings for marketing pedagogy and assessing the value of lct in facilitating understandings of epistemological access. the article tries to cover all the major dimensions of lct in a clear and simple manner, necessarily resulting in the findings and implications being brief and illustrative, but we hope readers will get an overall scan of what lct can do. marketing the academic discipline of marketing is just over a century old and in this time, it has gained immense popularity as an area of study at universities arbee, hugo and thomson: epistemological access in marketing. . . 41 across the world. yet, issues relating to epistemological access in marketing and other business and management disciplines are under-researched (pearse and amos, 2000). it is said that marketing is “reflexively impoverished in terms of disciplinary self-understanding” (ferguson, 2008, p.10) and that attention should be given to exploring the practices that bind those in marketing together as a discipline (brownlie, 2007). however, in addition to the often tacit nature of such practices as referred to earlier, there is much about marketing itself that makes such understanding difficult to acquire. marketing amalgamates concepts, theories and methods from various other disciplines such as economics, anthropology and psychology (rust, 2006), each of which may have quite different ideas about what legitimate participation and achievement entails. in addition, the relationship between the academic discipline of marketing and its associated field of practice further complicates understanding of what constitutes legitimacy in the discipline. indeed, the debate as to whether marketing should be an academic or vocational degree (in other words, whether it should be ‘about’ or ‘for’ business) continues in the discipline (tregear, dobson, brennan and kuznesof, 2010). taken together, all of this points to contesting viewpoints on what the legitimate ways of knowing and being in marketing are and lends credence to the assertion that “ ‘discipline’ brings with it tricky questions about access and boundaries. . . about who can be said [to be] practicing the discipline” (parker, 2002, p.374). as noted earlier, the view adopted in this article is that lct has much to offer in attempting to address such questions. legitimation code theory (lct) karl maton’s lct is a social realist approach (maton, 2010) to the study of knowledge and education that provides a framework for conceptualising the underlying principles or ‘rules of the game’ that structure particular fields. in relation to the focus of this article, these principles and rules give insight into what constitutes legitimate participation and achievement in marketing and therefore what students need to aim to achieve in order to gain epistemological access. 42 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 fields lct is a field approach (after bourdieu, 1985, 1994). for bourdieu (1985), society is a field containing a number of other overlapping and dynamic fields and sub-fields. these constitute “relatively autonomous worlds” (bourdieu, 1994, p.73), each operating according to its own logic. accordingly, each field has its own orthodoxy or doxa, its own legitimate ways of doing things, which denotes what is acceptable and valued in the field and which therefore has structuring effects on the dispositions, beliefs and practices of its members (maton, 2005a). this orthodoxy or legitimacy is largely tacit, with “many of the rules and principles of the game [going] on in a way that is not consciously held in the heads of those playing it” (grenfell and james, 1998, p.21). also adding complexity to understanding legitimacy in any field is that members of the field try to maximise their position in the field hierarchy by engaging in contestation over the definition and ownership of types of capital that confer status and authority, thereby impacting on what constitutes legitimate participation and achievement. included among the wide range of things that may be studied as fields are academic disciplines, which may be understood as ‘social fields of practice comprising both relatively formal structures of knowledge and practices, and actors who share interests and norms (whether explicit or tacit) of knowledge production and communication’ (freebody, maton and martin, 2008, p.191). tools maton (2005a) asserts that the viewpoints and practices of participants within a field constitute ‘languages of legitimation’, which embody messages as to what should be considered legitimate in that field. analysing languages of legitimation thus enables insight into the legitimate bases for success, status and achievement in a field, thereby providing its underlying structuring principles and ‘rules of the game’. accordingly, lct is of relevance to a study of what constitutes epistemological access – that is, what constitutes legitimate participation and achievement – in the discipline of marketing. maton (2013, p.11) describes lct as “a multi-dimensional conceptual toolkit; each dimension offers concepts for analysing a particular set of organising principles (or legitimation codes) underlying practice”. the dimensions referred to are autonomy, density, specialisation, temporality arbee, hugo and thomson: epistemological access in marketing. . . 43 and semantics. these dimensions allow for exploration of how fields are differentiated from one another – and this differentiation is what sets a field apart from other fields and contributes to particular understandings of what legitimacy in that field entails. as all five dimensions will be drawn on in the analysis of data, each dimension is explained below. autonomy a basic aspect on which fields vary is their degree of separation or insulation from other fields, which mediates the extent to which external forces impact on legitimacy in the field. disciplines with relatively weak external boundaries are susceptible to outside influence and control, and can be said to have less academic freedom and independence to set their own agendas and ways of working than disciplines with relatively strong external boundaries. for example, accounting curricula in south africa must meet the criteria laid down by the field’s professional practice body in order to gain accreditation. this close relationship with the domain of practice has implications for value systems and performance criteria, and therefore for understandings of legitimacy, in the academic discipline of accounting. the dimension of autonomy addresses a field’s external relations and specifically its capacity for self-rule, with regard to who runs the field (positional autonomy, pa) and how the field is run (relational autonomy, ra). with regard to positional autonomy, an academic discipline may be run primarily by those within the discipline (university academics) or by those external to the discipline (such as the state, business or professional practice bodies). similarly, relational autonomy considers whether the discipline’s ‘ways of working, practices, aims, measures of achievement’ (maton, 2005a, p.87) are derived from within or outside the field. the codes for autonomy are reflected in figure 1 (adopted from maton, 2005a) 44 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 figure 1: autonomy codes source: maton (2005b, 698) for both of these aspects, stronger autonomy (pa+ and ra+) indicates stronger external boundaries and therefore greater control from within the field; weaker autonomy (paand ra-) indicates weaker external boundaries and greater control from outside the field. specialisation fields differ in terms of what they consider to be the legitimate bases for membership, authority, achievement and status. in many academic disciplines, such as those of the natural sciences, legitimacy relates to proficiency in the discipline’s specialist knowledge and techniques (that is, one must be well versed in the distinctive knowledge base of the discipline and its accepted procedures for generating and working with knowledge in order to be considered a legitimate participant in the discipline). personal attributes are not considered important, as long as one is proficient in the discipline’s knowledge and ways of knowing. in other disciplines, however, legitimacy is based quite strongly on the personal attributes and disposition of its members. some social science disciplines consider the possession of a particular perspective or standpoint, from which phenomena of interest to the researcher can be viewed, as giving legitimacy. for example, in cultural studies, ‘the emphasis is on “giving voice to” the primary experience of specific knowers’ (maton, 2010, 44) and legitimacy is accordingly restricted to the specific arbee, hugo and thomson: epistemological access in marketing. . . 45 ‘voice’ which is said to have ‘unique and privileged insight by virtue of who the speaker is’ (maton, 2010, 44). maton (2005a) posits that intellectual fields can be specialised in terms of both knowledge and knowers. the dimension of specialisation relates to the bases for differentiating a field from other fields in terms of what one may legitimately pursue knowledge of and how this may be done (its epistemic relations, er), as well as who may be considered to be a legitimate knower (its social relations, sr). specialisation can therefore be said to describe the legitimate ways of knowing and being that characterise a field, and is accordingly of great relevance to the question of what constitutes epistemological access in marketing. each of these two types of relations may be relatively stronger (+) or weaker (-), giving rise to four possible specialisation codes (see figure 2): a knowledge code (er+, sr-), which emphasises the possession of specialist knowledge and techniques over knower dispositions; a knower code (er-, sr+), which emphasises knower dispositions and attitudes over specialist knowledge and skills; an elite code (er+, sr+), which places equal emphasis on both aspects; and a relativist code (er-, sr-), where legitimacy is based on neither aspect (adapted from maton 2005a). figure 2: specialisation codes source: maton (2010,45) 46 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 these settings (+/-) represent relative strength (stronger/weaker) of each aspect along a continuum, rather than fixed binary positions (strong/weak). this applies to all five dimensions. with regard to specialisation, this means that while “there are always both knowledges and knowers” (carvalho, dong and maton, 2009, p.488), lct considers which of these aspects is emphasised in knowledge claims and practices and is therefore dominant. semantics fields also differ in terms of how they advance knowledge. some disciplines progress vertically by integrating and building on existing knowledge to arrive at increasingly general theory, with greater explanatory power, while others advance laterally by adding new segments of knowledge alongside existing ones, with each segment representing a different perspective (bernstein, 1999). as an example of vertical progression, physicists are working towards “the ultimate law that explains the universe” (bertram, 2008, p.52). lateral progression is evident in sociology, where new theories and perspectives about phenomena are added alongside existing ones. additionally, disciplines differ in terms of the extent to which their concepts and theories can be empirically operationalised, tested and corroborated (bernstein, 1999), indicating whether they tend to be applied (for example, engineering) or theoretical (for example, philosophy) in nature. the above has repercussions in terms of the types of knowledge and knowledge-building that are valued and considered legitimate in particular disciplines. the dimension of semantics allows for more fine-grained exploration of knowledge and meaning in fields, and specifically the capacity of fields to build cumulative knowledge, through two concepts, namely semantic gravity and semantic density. semantic gravity (sg) relates to the degree to which meaning is bound to context, where stronger semantic gravity (sg+) signifies greater context-dependence and weaker semantic gravity (sg-) signifies less context-dependence (that is, greater abstraction). where meaning is strongly tied to context, segmented knowledge-building results; cumulative knowledge-building depends on weaker sematic gravity (maton, 2014). semantic density (sd) relates to the degree to which meaning is condensed within socio-cultural practices (such as symbols, concepts, terms, phrases, expressions, clothing and gestures), with stronger semantic density (sd+) signifying greater condensation of meanings within practices and weaker semantic density (sd-) signifying that practices condense less meaning arbee, hugo and thomson: epistemological access in marketing. . . 47 (maton, 2014). figure 3, adapted from maton (2005a) shows the possible semantic codes. figure 3: semantic codes source: based on maton (2011, 66) maton (2011, p.66) states that “sgis heuristically positioned at the top of the compass (where a ‘+’ sign might be expected) to reflect the tendency to picture such notions as ‘abstract’ or ‘decontextualised’ as higher than ‘concrete’ or ‘contextualised’. positioning here is not a statement of value”. density fields also vary in terms of how differentiated they are internally. where there is internal consensus and coherence as to what constitutes the disciplinary knowledge domain, focus and methods, and a common culture, there is likely to be agreement on what constitute the discipline’s legitimate ‘rules of the game’, thus facilitating epistemological access. the opposite is likely to be true of a fragmented discipline, in which there is contestation about what constitutes legitimacy. as noted earlier, marketing draws on a variety of other disciplines. this is likely to lead to contested understandings 48 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 of legitimacy in marketing. describing another such discipline, nursing, mcnamara (2010, p.255) notes: promiscuous use of theories and methodologies from diverse disciplines . . . results in unrelated, small-scale and short-term research activity engaged in by relatively few academics. this contributes little to the infrastructure necessary to support and sustain a cohesive community of arguers, enquirers, and critics who share a common language, values, norms, thought systems, and knowledge structures. the dimension of density addresses a field’s internal relations and has to do with the degree of diversity within a field, with regard to its contents (material density, mad) and beliefs (moral density, mod). these concepts can be thought of as the number of units and the number of structuring principles respectively within a context (maton, 2005a). in an academic discipline, material density could refer to the size of the disciplinary community and the breadth of its knowledge base while moral density could refer to the number of belief systems or ‘schools of thought’ in the discipline. figure 4 (adopted from maton, 2005a) shows the density codes. figure 4: density codes source: based on maton (2005a, 90) arbee, hugo and thomson: epistemological access in marketing. . . 49 in each case, higher density (mad+ and mod+) signifies relatively high diversity while lower density (madand mod-) signifies relatively low diversity. material and moral density in combination impact on differentiation (the relation between the units in a field). temporality a further point of differentiation between disciplines relates to their temporal profiles. some well-established disciplines are strongly influenced by longstanding disciplinary traditions, the upholding of which is likely to feature strongly in understandings of what constitutes legitimacy in such disciplines. other disciplines, by contrast, place emphasis on ‘keeping up with the times’ and adapting in line with contemporary developments. again, there are implications here for how legitimacy is understood in such disciplines. in the dimension of temporality, the last of maton’s legitimation ‘tools’, a field is considered in terms of whether it is long-established or recently formed (its age or temporal positioning, tp) and whether it is backwardlooking or forward-looking (its temporal orientation, to). there are four possible temporal codes (see figure 5): archeo-retrospective (old and backward-looking; tp+, to+), archeo-prospective (old and forward-looking; tp+, to-), neo-retrospective (young and backward-looking; tp-, to+) and neo-prospective (young and forward-looking; tp-, to-). together, temporal positioning and orientation give the rate of change in the field (adapted from maton, 2005a). figure 5: temporality codes source: based on maton (2005a, 94; www.legitimationcodetheory.com) 50 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 from the above, it should be becoming clearer now how, in providing a framework that can be used to analyse how knowledge and practices are structured in academic disciplines, lct enables conceptualisation of the ‘rules of the game’ of particular disciplines by “making explicit what is already known, at least implicitly, by members of the field” (carvalho, dong and maton, 2009, p.501). this is crucial because, as previously stated, it is often the tacit nature of disciplinary practices, norms, values and knowledge that makes it difficult for lecturers to facilitate students’ participation in the disciplinary discourse, thereby impacting on students’ ability to gain epistemological access. the next section shows how the lct framework was operationalised in an empirical study in order to reveal the ‘rules of the game’ of the marketing discipline. the research the research upon which this article is based was located in the discipline of marketing on the westville and howard college campuses of ukzn and aimed to address the question of what constitutes epistemological access in marketing. methodology to gain insight into the legitimate ways of knowing and being in marketing, an lct analysis of the languages of legitimation of those in the discipline was undertaken. although a field in itself, marketing at ukzn is also a subfield of the wider discipline of marketing. with regard to the discipline in general, the discipline’s scholarly literature was viewed as embodying languages of legitimation. these were analysed using the analytical tools of lct outlined in the previous section. in the specific context of ukzn, viewpoints arising during semi-structured interviews with three marketing lecturers and nine marketing students in their final year of undergraduate studies, as well viewpoints and practices embodied in course documents and assessment tasks were similarly conceptualised and analysed as languages of legitimation. in effect, both a top down analytical framework using existing lct concepts and a bottom up approach using grounded theory were employed together to develop a flexible framework that both had structuring concepts as a guide and an openness to emergent issues. arbee, hugo and thomson: epistemological access in marketing. . . 51 findings for each of the five dimensions of the lct framework, findings are presented, firstly for the discipline in general and then for marketing at ukzn. autonomy positional and relational autonomy are relatively high (pa+, ra+) for marketing, indicating a relatively high degree of insulation from outside control in terms of who runs the discipline and how it is run. marketing graduates do not require certification by a professional body, giving academics complete control over curricula. unsurprisingly, therefore, a recurring theme in marketing education literature is the need for academics to address the gap between marketing education and practice (see, for example, wellman, 2010a). for marketing lecturers, however, achievement and status in the discipline are linked to academic indicators such as research output and teaching evaluations, contributing to the “inward-looking mind-set” of academic marketing (reibstein, day and wind, 2009, p.2). at ukzn too, marketing academics have full control over the discipline. practitioners from the business world had no input as curriculum advisors or guest lecturers. academic principles and practices also drove the ways of working in the discipline. for example, academic genre types (such as essays) were more prevalent and more heavily weighted in assessment tasks compared to business genre types (such as reports and plans). recruitment criteria for academics emphasise teaching experience and research output. only one of the three lecturer participants had any industry experience. many students indicated that the way things happened in the discipline was disconnected from ‘the outside world’, pointing to the insularity of the discipline’s practices. nothando, for example, felt that it all has to do with theory. it’s just everything theory, theory. and then i just wonder, if in the outside world, will they be asking us about the theory? sihle agreed that we do 100% theory. . .there’s no practical. so if you get there [the workplace], they’re not going to ask you ‘discuss for us marketing mix and all those things’. . .but you’ll have to put that into practice. 52 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 the relatively high autonomy of the discipline may make it difficult to achieve some of the aspects linked to legitimate participation and achievement outlined earlier. sihle and nothando’s comments above indicate a perceived lack of application in their marketing courses, even though the findings presented under semantics make a claim for the discipline as being application-based. insulation from the business world (represented by a lack of practitioner involvement in the design and offering of courses) is likely to impact on the extent to which students gain familiarity not only with the contexts in which they are expected to be able to apply marketing knowledge (as highlighted under semantics), but also with the knower attributes and dispositions considered important for legitimate participation and success in the discipline, as embodied in such practitioners (and outlined under specialisation). specialisation analysis reveals that a knower code (er-, sr+) underpins the discipline of marketing, indicating that personal attributes and dispositions are relatively important to legitimate participation and achievement while the possession of specialist knowledge and skills is downplayed. literature points to the “vital role played by personal traits and attitudes” (wellman, 2010a, p.125), as well as the “personal attributes” and “dispositions” (ng, 2006) of students in contributing to their competence and success in marketing. specialist knowledge, by comparison, is downplayed. for example, a marketing qualification is widely considered not to be a prerequisite for employment or success in the field of practice (wellman, 2010b; glenn, 2011). similarly, at ukzn, the importance of marketing students’ personal attitudes and dispositions was stressed by all participants. many students indicated that they had chosen to major in marketing because of the perceived fit with their personalities. by contrast, only two students mentioned that having a good knowledge of marketing concepts was important. according to nothando, what was more important in marketing was the creativity, coming up with concepts, making like a brand. . . you make the brand alive. it was clear that personal dispositions were considered more important than specialist knowledge, with kamini (a lecturer) also asserting that employers don’t look for that technical stuff; they look for people that are different. (indeed, arbee, hugo and thomson: epistemological access in marketing. . . 53 literature – for example, melaia, abratt and bick (2008) – seems to support this assertion). elaborating on the nature of this difference, kamini noted that: the successful marketing students, i’ve normally found . . .they have a . . .well, from the ones i’ve dealt with – a lot of them have a, er . . .they have some endearing quality about them, they. . .they have something, um, which is not the same as the standard person. um, like one guy i know, he’s, um, he’s a bit, you know, he dresses a bit . . . funky and he’s got a . . . he wears funky hats and things like that. but he’s the kind of people that you . . . the kind of person that you . . . you will get attracted to because you wanna listen to what he says. because as much as he looks funky and whatever, he’s got a certain style about him and the way he speaks . . . so when he speaks about marketing, or something about marketing, it’s believable, so . . . he’s engaging. among the many attributes that participants considered important for success in marketing were creativity, resourcefulness, ‘street smarts’ (kamini, lecturer), extroversion, open-mindedness, as well as the abilities to communicate confidently, think logically and intuitively, and quickly identify opportunities and capitalise on them. the implication of a knower code in marketing is that educational practices in the discipline should give greater attention to specialising students’ marketing identities in ways that are appropriate to the disciplinary discourse, rather than to transmitting marketing knowledge. yet traditional pedagogy in marketing is transmission-based (baron and harris, 2006; glenn, 2011). semantics marketing is characterised by stronger semantic gravity (sg+) and weaker semantic density (sd-), a combination that indicates a lack of capacity to build cumulative knowledge because there is greater focus on context-bound meanings rather than on context-independent meanings and also not a great degree of condensation of meaning in concepts. what one finds in the marketing literature is a picture of a context-driven discipline, embodied in a call for “the whole marketing academic community to work on relevant business problems” (reibstein, day and wind, 2009, p.3). the relative lack of attention given to the development of theory is evident in the description of marketing as the “least-theorised” business discipline (burton, 2005, p.16). marketing pedagogy draws heavily on case studies and 54 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 examples, emphasising the application of knowledge in ‘context-relevant’ ways (walker, tsarenko, wagstaff, powel, steel and brace-govan, 2009). the lack of condensation of meaning in marketing concepts is reflected in brown’s (1997) description of the academic content of business disciplines as ‘superficial’ and hunt’s (2002) reference to the ‘dumbing down’ of contemporary marketing textbooks. marketing also has an explicit and unambiguous rhetorical style (crosling, 2005). at ukzn, participants made frequent reference to the importance of application, practicality and the usefulness of marketing knowledge in relation to specific settings. kiara (a student) felt that success as a marketing student comes from being well rounded in what’s going on in the real world . . . as well as knowing theory, er, and knowing how to apply the theory. it’s not just reading to get through the reading; it’s reading to understand, reading to apply and look at it in context of, you know, what’s going on – and that’s what makes you successful. course documents, prescribed textbooks, pedagogic practices (such as a reliance on the use of examples and case studies) and assessment practices (such as the setting of application-based assignments and the expectation that students provide ‘practical examples’ and ‘real-life applications’ in tests and exams) further highlighted this focus. there was also an indication from participants that the degree of condensation of meaning in marketing concepts is not high as this comment from michael (a lecturer) indicates: i don’t think marketing is . . . conceptually challenging, really. similarly, ben (a student) felt that marketing was not that intense in terms of, er, demanding . . . your thinking. the semantics code for marketing (sg+, sd-) signifies that applied, rather than theoretical, knowledge is valued in the discipline. emphasis is placed on generating useful knowledge that practically addresses business problems in specific contexts, rather than on building a body of abstract theoretical knowledge. this implies that students need to gain familiarity with the business contexts that serve as the site of application so as to be able to apply marketing knowledge to such contexts. density the marketing discipline in general reflects a density code of (mad+, mod+), signifying relatively high material and moral density. high student to staff ratios (glenn, 2011) and the breadth of the traditional ‘overloaded’ syllabus (wellman, 2010a) are both indicators of higher material density. arbee, hugo and thomson: epistemological access in marketing. . . 55 relatively high moral density is apparent in references to “a number of debates and contentions” (ferguson, 2008, p.21) and a “plethora of competing academic theories” (wellman, 2010a, p.121), indicating a divergent disciplinary community. methodologically, the discipline is divided into ‘camps’ (bolton, 2005), which “often view one another as irrelevant or even adversarial” (macinnis, 2005, p.15). according to kiara (a student), now you notice everyone’s doing marketing. the ukzn data contained several other references to large class sizes and the large volume of content in the curriculum (both indicative of higher material density). the picture was mixed with regard to moral density. while in practice a managerial perspective and a positivist approach dominated what was taught, the lecturers often expressed quite different ideas about what the curriculum should encompass, as well as what their roles as lecturers should entail. for example, while michael thought that the curriculum needs to be pulled together and condensed, kamini felt that it is a bit sad that . . . our focus is only on, um, quantitative research. so we lack fundamentally in the whole spectrum of what is research methodology. and while michael saw marketing lecturers as subject content experts, and not as ‘educationists’, and thus as having no role to play in helping students to acquire the academic literacies important to participation in the disciplinary discourse (such as writing skills), kamini felt that it was important for those within the discipline to take on this role. relatively high material density (mad+), represented by large classes and a tightly packed syllabus, may contribute to pedagogic practices not best suited to facilitating student participation in the disciplinary discourse. for example, in an effort to manage high student numbers easily, marketing pedagogy typically takes the form of traditional large-group textbook-based lectures in which “students are generally passive recipients of lecture/tutorial materials” (baron and harris, 2006, p.294), whereas quite different pedagogic approaches are likely to be better suited to helping students practice and take on the disciplinary discourse. relatively high moral density (mod+), which indicates a possible lack of consensus over what should be taught in the discipline (and how), also has implications here as there may be lack of agreement among lecturers as to what constitutes the disciplinary discourse, how this discourse is best taken on and who should be responsible for facilitating students’ taking on of the discourse of marketing. indeed, in marketing there is a lack of consensus as to what students should learn and how they should learn it (glenn, 2011). clearly, such lack of consensus has 56 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 repercussions for students’ chances of gaining epistemological access to the discipline of marketing. temporality marketing reflects a neo-prospective code (tp-, to-), denoting a young, forward-looking and rapidly changing discipline. marketing as an academic discipline only emerged in the early twentieth century, and has had a forward-looking orientation since its earliest days (witkowski, 2010). this may be because marketers operate in a fast-changing environment, thus requiring a “visionary strategic thinking orientation” (melaia, abratt and bick, 2008, p.243). accordingly, marketing students need to be able to “critically analyse the position of a firm and envision where future value can be created for customers” (ackerman, gross and perner, 2003, p.46; emphasis in original). marketing is “particularly prone to transitory knowledge” (macfarlane, 1997, p.52) and may be the business discipline “most influenced by changing fads and fashions” (zinkhan and hirschheim, 1992, p.83). at ukzn, a neo-prospective code was evident in the way that participants spoke about the discipline. in terms of temporal positioning, marketing was seen to be a young discipline. nisha (a lecturer in her early thirties) related how, when she was a student at one of the universities that had merged to form ukzn, marketing was not offered as a major in its own right but only as a small sub-section of a business management course. in terms of temporal orientation, a forward-looking orientation was represented in assessment tasks and the way participants spoke about the discipline. for example, nothando (a student) stated, you need to do a whole lot of reading, ‘cos you need to be up to date with everything that’s happening. like trends and stuff. when discussing an assessment task with students, michael said he wanted three things covered in their [assignments] . . . and the third thing is the recommendations going forward – and that’s what i really looked at the most. this, he felt, was appropriate because, in marketing, you’ve got to change things; things have to be different. evidence of the rapid change that characterises marketing was apparent in the offering of modules such as special topics in marketing, designed to allow for the quick inclusion of contemporary issues and developments in the curriculum. arbee, hugo and thomson: epistemological access in marketing. . . 57 a neo-prospective temporality code means that marketing is a young, forward-looking and rapidly changing discipline. accordingly, it is important for students to be able to keep up to date with current issues and developments in the discipline, and to be able to have an appreciation of the significance of these for future marketing practice. discussion and conclusion to understand what constitutes epistemological access in marketing, it is necessary to explore the knowledge and ways of knowing, as well as the ways of being, that are valued in the discipline but that often remain tacit. lct enables tacit knowledge within fields (such as academic disciplines) to be unlocked (carvalho, dong and maton, 2009), making explicit their bases for legitimate participation, success and achievement. an lct analysis of marketing reveals its ‘rules of the game’ and gives insight into what students (and lecturers) need to aim to achieve and ‘own’ in order to be considered legitimate participants in the disciplinary discourse – thereby addressing, as noted earlier, an under-researched area in marketing (brownlie, 2007). lct does this by providing a framework that can be used to analyse viewpoints and practices in a field along five dimensions, which provide the organising principles that underlie practices and their contexts. this allows for a more guided entry into empirical data and for a process of analysis that is less ‘messy’ than more grounded approaches. this is not to say that lct itself has not emerged from messy and grounded processes that seriously engage with data, only that the systematic analytical tools that have emerged from the engagement between theory and data become useful. the ‘toolkit’ and language that lct provides for analysing phenomena, also facilitates comparisons across phenomena and contexts. thus, what lct allows, within its predetermined parameters, is a high-level, internal focus on the educational logics that structure marketing as a discipline, revealing how the discipline works, what it values and what it does not, and the possibilities and constraints associated with it. to summarise, the lct analysis of marketing at ukzn revealed that legitimate participation and achievement in the discipline is based on the possession of appropriate personal attributes and dispositions rather than on the possession of specialist disciplinary knowledge and skills. accordingly, 58 journal of education, no. 59, 2014 marketing pedagogy should give greater attention to specialising students’ identities in appropriate ways instead of focusing on the transmission of knowledge. this raises the question of exactly how this can be achieved, especially in a discipline where traditional pedagogy is transmission-based (baron and harris, 2006) – a possible avenue for future research. the emphasis placed on applied rather than theoretical knowledge in the discipline implies that students need to gain familiarity with the contexts that serve as the sites of application so as to facilitate the application of marketing knowledge to such contexts. because marketing is a young, forward-looking and rapidly changing discipline, it is also important for students to be able to keep up to date with contemporary developments in the discipline and in the marketplace, and to be able to have an appreciation of the significance of such developments for future marketing practice. however, the relatively high autonomy of the discipline, in terms of its insulation from the business world, is unlikely to facilitate students’ becoming familiar with either the business contexts in which they are expected to be able to apply marketing knowledge or the knower attributes and dispositions (as embodied in marketing practitioners) that are considered important for legitimate participation and success in the discipline. the lack of consensus among lecturers over what should be taught in the discipline and how this should be done also has implications for students’ ability to gain epistemological access to the discipline of marketing. the lct analysis therefore gives insight into what is considered legitimate in marketing, and also begins to address the question of why what is espoused in languages of legitimation is not always actualised in practice note 1. a capital letter is used when referring to the academic discipline of marketing; lower case is used when referring to the practice of marketing. 2. pseudonyms have been used for all participants. all quotes from data are presented verbatim and 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accepted: 5 june 2022) abstract the feedback aspects of formative assessment are an indispensable tool for improving teaching and learning. in this study, we report on findings about mathematics teacher educators’ conceptions of feedback and how their conceptions translate into practice when conducting assessments in mathematics modules. in our qualitative study, underpinned by an interpretive paradigm, data were generated through semi-structured interviews, lecture observations, and textual analysis of students’ scripts from six mathematics teacher educators purposely selected across three teacher colleges. findings revealed that the teacher educators’ knowledge and practices of feedback are foregrounded on providing corrective measures to students’ weaknesses. this means when giving feedback, mathematics teacher educators focus on how well students can solve the task at hand—with limited attention to helping students regulate their own learning. we argue for the need to revise current policy to expose teacher educators to best practices and to engage with relevant literature on formative assessment and effective feedback. keywords: effective feedback, knowledge, mathematics teacher educators, practices 72 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 introduction this paper reports on a section of a doctoral study (enu, 2021), which explored ghanaian mathematics teacher educators’ (mte) understanding and practices of formative assessment. ghana, like most other countries, incorporated the principles of formative assessment into its curriculum policies and classroom practices, following good international practices. formative assessment in the ghanaian curriculum aims to improve learning and to shape and direct the teaching and learning process (national council for curriculum and assessment [nacca], 2018). ghanaian policy on assessment values the incorporation of diagnostic assessment based on various information sources (e.g., portfolios, teachers’ observations, conversation, etc.). furthermore, it emphasises giving verbal or written feedback that identifies strengths and challenges and demands instructors to continually evaluate students’ understanding and adjust their instruction to meet the needs of the students. it involves giving no grades or scores, and record keeping that is primarily anecdotal and descriptive—and occurs throughout the learning process (nacca, 2018). with the intention to inform and improve teaching and learning at all levels of education in the country, the ghanaian assessment policy stipulated the following to guide teacher educators, in-service teachers, pre-service teachers, and other stakeholders in the education sector: • observations during in-class activities. • homework and exercises as a review of class discussions and signal for future teaching and learning activities. • reflection journals that are reviewed periodically during the semester or term. • question and answer sessions, both formal (planned) and informal (spontaneous). • progress review meetings between the instructor and student at various points in the semester or term. • in-class activities where students informally present their results. (nacca, 2018, p. 34) when teacher educators in ghana plan their daily instruction, they are required to make effective use of feedback—effective in the way that it indicates the strengths and weaknesses of a piece of work, which is considered central to formative assessment. it is noted that the ghanaian assessment policy does not consider assessment and feedback as two different entities but, rather, considers feedback to be a formative assessment in its nature. the aim, as stipulated in the ghanaian policy, is that assessment should not be considered as only an endof-activity that checks if learning expectations have been met; rather, the prime aim should be about improving learning. as stated by buabeng et al. (2020), the ghanaian policy framework puts more emphasis on formative assessment and effective feedback as a means to support and improve teaching and learning. although assessment policies in ghana emphasise the inclusion of formative assessment to ensure effective feedback, oduro-okyireh et al. (2015) have argued that assessment practices enu & ngcobo: connecting knowledge and practice 73 in ghana have predominantly been examination oriented with the emphasis placed on the student’s grade. mereku (2014) also posited that the curriculum in ghanaian teacher training colleges lacks the flexibility of incorporating challenging school-based assessment tasks. this identified gap between policy and practices in ghanaian education is a cause for concern. in the policy, principles and guidelines for best practices are outlined; however, for effective implementation, it requires that those expected to implement it have sound knowledge of the policy guiding principles. buabeng et al. (2020) argued that conscious efforts are needed to link policy to practice to improve education. noting the gap between policy and practice in ghanaian education and recommendations for improving teacher qualification, we explored mathematics teacher educators’ (mte) knowledge and use of feedback to improve teaching and learning in mathematics classrooms. mathematics globally, is a subject deemed difficult for learners at school as well as for students at the university to understand and therefore, teachers and teacher educators are always encouraged to make use of effective instructional strategies to improve teaching and learning. ghana is among the many countries performing poorly in mathematics (akyeampong & stephens, 2002; butakor et al., 2017). enu et al. (2015) posited that teacher educators’ instructional practices are among the factors influencing student performance in mathematics. yin (2019), on the other hand, argued that to provide pre-service teachers with maximum support to practicalise their knowledge, they should be exposed to best practices that connect policy to practice. our argument is that because the ghanaian assessment policy framework advocates for formative assessment and effective feedback as the means to support and to improve teaching, these practices should be demonstrated in the classroom. we further argue that mtes have the responsibility to model best practices to pre-service mathematics teachers to assist them in developing both the subject matter knowledge and the expertise to identify and address the learning needs of their students. however, for the mte to model best practices in teaching, they should have sound knowledge of these practices and be able to implement them in their own teaching. literature suggests that pre-service teachers tend to replicate how they have been taught because their practice is influenced by the teaching they have been exposed to (erawan, 2011; hine, 2018; merisi & pillay, 2020). this statement implies that pre-service teachers’ experiences of their learning (whether at the school level or at the tertiary level) influence their teaching schema. it is against this backdrop that we deemed it necessary to explore mtes’ knowledge and use of feedback. with this in mind, we asked the following questions: 1. what is ghanaian mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge of formative feedback? 2. how do they use and provide feedback in the classroom? in this study, we explore mtes’ knowledge and use of feedback in three teacher colleges in ghana. given that teacher educators are tasked with the responsibility of modelling best practices for pre-service teachers, we consider their knowledge and practices to be critical towards transforming teacher education in ghana. we begin by reviewing the literature that shaped our argument and then discuss the framework underpinning the study. next, we explain the methodology of the study before discussing the findings and implications of the 74 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 study to teacher education practices. we conclude by summarising the findings and making recommendations based on the findings of the study. literature review formative assessment is currently a widespread term in the education sector and is considered one of the key strategies in enhancing students’ achievement. emerging studies have indicated that the practice of formative assessment is well understood and implemented in countries like the united kingdom, australia, new zealand, and many more (black & wiliam, 1998; cowie & bell, 1999; mcmillan, 2007b). wiliam and thompson (2007) proposed a framework for the implementation of formative assessment in the classroom that comprises the application of five key strategies: (i) clarifying and sharing of learning intentions and criteria for success, (ii) engineering effective classroom discussion, questions, and learning tasks that elicit evidence of learning, (iii) providing feedback that moves learners forward, (iv) activating students as owners of their own learning, and (v) activating students as instructional resources for one another. these five strategies are useful in directing the instructional processes to answer three critical questions: 1) “where am i going?” 2) “where am i now?” and 3) “how can i close the gap?” (chappuis, 2015). regarding the use of feedback as an instructional strategy to improve teaching and learning, heritage (2010) observed that assessment needs to provide actionable information (feedback) for both teachers and students. supovitz (2012) extended the argument and posited that feedback reflects a student’s development towards the goals of learning, and can address thinking processes and misconceptions. as purported by gibbs and simpson (2004), feedback needs to be linked with the assessment task or criteria, and it should be on what needs to be done to encourage students to believe that they can improve. this means that feedback should relate to the learning goals and the success criteria to ensure its effectiveness. whereas teacher educators need to use feedback information to shape and adjust their instruction, students use feedback information to improve their learning. feedback is therefore information that can be used to guide both teaching and learning (halverson, 2010). feedback given as part of formative assessment draws attention to existing gaps in students’ desired goals and current knowledge and thus enables students to engage in a continuous selfassessment loop (fluckiger et al., 2010; trumbull & lash, 2013). alves de lima (2008) opined that feedback is constructive if the information provided emphasises students’ strengths and weaknesses. thus, feedback is crucial in formative assessment, and teacher educators play an essential role in its implementation. review studies on feedback by hattie and timperley (2007) suggested that feedback answers three major questions: • where am i going? (what are the goals?). • how am i going? (what progress is being made towards the goals?). • where to next? (what activities need to be undertaken to make better progress?). enu & ngcobo: connecting knowledge and practice 75 drawing from the above literature it can be argued that giving feedback is part of formative assessment and considered an effective tool to improve teaching and learning. it is therefore within these parameters that we decided to explore teacher educators’ conceptions and practices of feedback in mathematics pedagogy. it is crucial to understand how they effectively use feedback in the teaching and learning of mathematics. teacher education in ghana every country aims to bequeath to her citizenry quality education in which teachers play an important role. adegoke (2003) averred that education is a condition for development, and that the teacher is the ultimate definer of its reality. ghana’s quest to become an industrialised country depends greatly on the quality of its citizens, who are the product of its education system (buabeng et al., 2020). according to the ghanaian ministry of education (moe, 2012), the country’s vision of the tertiary teacher education programme is to train teachers capable of providing quality education. teacher training colleges (now called colleges of education) in ghana offer two streams of teacher education programmes: a 3-year diploma in education and a 4-year bachelor of education (bed) programme. following in the footsteps of countries like south africa, and as part of educational reforms to improve teacher education, the bed programme began to replace the 3-year diploma in education in 2018. examinations for the diploma qualification are conducted and moderated by the university of cape coast’s institute of education (ioe). for the past 50 years, the ioe has had sole responsibility for examining and certifying trainee teachers. however, as part of reforms to boost teacher education, ghana’s 46 public colleges have been affiliated to five of the country’s public universities (the university of cape coast; the university of education, winneba; the university of ghana; kwame nkrumah university of science and technology; and the university for development studies) to facilitate mentorship and to ensure that the teacher colleges offer the quality teacher education that the country desires. unlike other countries such as south africa, which did away with teacher colleges altogether and mandated the universities to train the country’s teachers, ghana still allows its teacher colleges to play a major role in the education and training of pre-service teachers; thus, the assessment policy used in teacher colleges is more or less the same with assessment policy used in schools. although teacher colleges play a major role in the education and training of pre-service teachers, their activities (in particular their examination and certification process) are facilitated and regulated by the affiliate universities. however, asare and nti (2014) have raised concerns about the practices in teacher colleges in ghana as not promoting effective learning and improve teaching and learning. in his study, mereku (2019) noted that assessment practices in ghana are summative driven, which contradicts the principles of assessment policy. formative assessment: knowledge and practices teacher educators play a significant role in the preparation of pre-service teachers in becoming assessment literate and able to practise after their training. however, they themselves need to have a sound understanding of formative assessment to implement it 76 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 effectively. cassim (2010) noted that one’s knowledge of assessment informs one’s classroom practices. in a study conducted with in-service teachers, yao (2015) observed that teachers consider assessment a means to an end. however, kumator (2017) opined that assessment that supports students’ learning should not occur as the end product of instruction; instead, it needs to occur prior to learning, during learning, and after learning—and this is what governs the principles of formative assessment. vandeyar and killen (2007) concluded, based on the findings of their study on instructors’ conceptions and practices of assessment, that there is a need for instructors to be trained in the pedagogy of assessment because they cannot use assessment strategies which they do not understand or lack the skills to implement. extending the argument, bennett (2011) posited that for effective implementation of formative assessment, there should be a theory of action that revolves around one big idea. the big idea that needs to be considered during the implementation is students and thus, the practices should be directed towards meeting students’ needs and enhancing teaching and learning (educational testing service, 2010). mathematics teacher educators’ feedback practices in their study about the characteristics of feedback that mtes provide to pre-service mathematics teachers, kastberg et al. (2020) found that mtes’ feedback practice is characterised by redirecting pre-service teachers to pay attention to procedural aspects of learning mathematics—and does not guide pre-service teachers towards becoming selfregulators of their learning. the authors further argued that mtes should be an instantiation of practice and provide pre-service teachers with information about their learning (kastberg et al., 2020). in other words, in a mathematics classroom setting, feedback should aim to enhance students’ understanding of the taught concepts. extending the debate, shaughnessy et al. (2015) posited that, other than focusing on pre-service teachers’ skills to solve mathematics, feedback given should focus on enactment of practice. this means effective feedback given to pre-service mathematics teachers should go beyond addressing the procedural knowledge gaps and further, pay attention to developing specialised content knowledge. in ghana, although there are limited studies exploring the practices of formative assessment and effective feedback, scholars like oduro-okyireh et al.’s (2015) findings showed that although assessment policy advocates for formative assessment with an emphasis on effective feedback to enhance learning, such practices are not demonstrated in the classroom. buabeng et al. (2020) believed that ghana’s education systems are responding well to issues related to developing an understanding of the teaching; however, challenges still prevail in matters relating to the development of subject matter knowledge. ghana is known for poor performance in mathematics; thus, the improvement of mathematics subject matter knowledge is of utmost importance. a plethora of literature on teachers’ knowledge and feedback practices has focused primarily on pre-service teachers and in-service teachers. for example, lema and maro’s (2016) study of in-service secondary school teachers in tanzania found that the teachers knew little about using feedback in the teaching and learning of mathematics. however, there is a paucity of research on teacher educators who prepare and train pre-service teachers to become enu & ngcobo: connecting knowledge and practice 77 mathematics teachers. secondly, formative assessments are discipline-specific, and specific issues arise concerning the formative assessment of mathematics. havnes et al. (2012) argued that the nature of mathematics as a discipline affects the provision of feedback to students. similarly, bennett (2011) found that teachers’ understanding of the discipline often frames their instructional decisions. despite this discipline specificity concerning formative assessment, there is scant research on the feedback aspect of formative assessment within specific disciplines (coffey et al., 2011). taking into account the identified gap between what the ghanaian assessment policy stipulates about formative feedback, and practices of feedback, as well as the limited research done to understand teacher educators’ knowledge and practices of providing feedback, in this study we paid particular attention to mte’s knowledge and use of feedback in their classrooms. framework for the study in general, researchers agree on the importance of formative assessment and the opportunities constructive feedback offers students in moving their learning forward (bansilal et al., 2010; black & wiliam, 1998; hattie & timperley, 2007; heritage, 2011). research has also shown that feedback is significant and should not be seen in isolation from other instructional activities (enu, 2021). as mentioned earlier, feedback answers three questions: “where am i going? (what are the goals of learning?)” “how am i going? (what progress is being made towards the goal?)” and “where to next? (what activities need to be undertaken to make better progress?).” according to hattie and timperley (2007), these questions are referred to as feedback questions. an attribute that emerges from the questions is that feedback is always aligned to the intended learning goal. this is because it informs students where they are in their learning and what they need to do next. the notion that feedback is an important aspect of formative assessment gives credence to two conditions for effective feedback as proposed by (sadler, 1989). first, sadler (1989) posited that feedback must identify gaps between the desired goal of learning and the student’s present status in relation to achieving that goal; secondly, feedback must provide an opportunity for students to take steps in closing gaps in their learning and understanding. in this study, we were interested in teacher educators’ knowledge and use of feedback because their knowledge of feedback is essential in identifying learning gaps between the desired goal of learning and the present state of their students’ learning. and, their feedback practices would provide evidence as to whether the kind of feedback they give offers their students the opportunity to modify and close gaps in their learning or not. therefore, we were guided by the framework for effective feedback that hattie and timperley (2007) highlighted; the model shows the purpose of feedback and how it can be utilised in clarifying learning discrepancies or understanding. the authors explained in their model how feedback comments might be related to the three feedback questions on four different levels: task, process, self-regulation, and self-feedback (hattie & timperley, 2007). hattie and timperley (2007, p. 90) also stated that “the level at which feedback is directed influences its effectiveness.” in the following, we describe these four levels briefly. 78 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 task level feedback at the task level explains how well a task is understood and performed and may include directions to acquire more, different, or correct information. hattie and timperley (2007) remarked that this kind of feedback is called corrective feedback or knowledge of result and is akin to correctness, neatness, or other criteria related to task accomplishment. process level a deep understanding of learning involves the construction of meaning. therefore, the second level of the model is aimed at processing information or learning processes requiring understanding. this gives insightful information to the individual to improve their work. self-regulation self-regulation involves an interplay between commitment, control, and confidence. it addresses how students monitor, direct, and regulate actions towards the learning goal (hattie & timperley, 2007). this is powerful in selecting and interpreting information in ways that provide feedback. self–feedback feedback about oneself is the least effective among the four feedback levels highlighted by hattie and timperley (2007). it usually contains little task-related information and is rarely converted into more engagement or commitment to the learning goal. figure 1 illustrates the feedback model. figure 1 model of feedback to enhance learning (hattie & timperley, 2007, p. 87) enu & ngcobo: connecting knowledge and practice 79 methodology this paper reports on a qualitative study exploring mtes’ knowledge and use of feedback in mathematics teaching and learning. a qualitative approach was used because it allowed the voices of the participants to be heard and thus facilitated a diverse range of responses (flick, 2016). the data presented in this study were generated in three ways. the researchers interviewed the mtes to understand their knowledge of and use of “feedback” concerning formative assessment. using interviews was considered the best way to capture people’s understanding of the phenomena. instead of closed interviews, semi-structured interviews were conducted to allow the participants to express their conceptions without being restricted to yes/no answers, and to allow the researchers to probe certain responses further. in addition, presentations of lecturers by each participant were also observed three times, for at least one and a half hours. after each observed presentation, there was a follow-up debriefing to discuss any questions or ideas that arose from the observation. three of the participants were teaching first-year students, whereas the other three were teaching students in the second year of their teacher training. the average class size for presentations observed was 39 students. participants were observed teaching different mathematics concepts such as integers, binary operation, statistics and probability, fractions, trigonometry, set problems, relations, and functions. finally, the researchers analysed students’ assessment scripts and looked for evidence on the nature of teacher educators’ feedback on students’ written work. a total of eight marked scripts (assignment and mid-semester quiz papers) were reviewed. the scripts were mathematics scripts with questions on binary operations, percentages, statistics and probability, ratio, and proportion. the data generated from the interviews were triangulated with the classroom observations data and document analysis to explore teacher educators’ understanding and use of feedback in mathematics pedagogy. sampling purposive sampling was used to select three teacher colleges. the selected colleges were in close proximity to each other, and run a homogenous curriculum. they were mentored and affiliated under one public university in ghana’s central region. based on the recommendation of the heads of department, two teacher educators from each selected teacher college who had taught at the colleges for at least two years, who had experience in teaching in the diploma programme, and had transitioned to teaching in the new bed programme were invited to participate in the study. the rationale for selecting two participants from each college was to ensure that each college was represented in case a participant withdrew from the study. in total, six teacher educators were involved in the study: sekyi and emily (from roberkeyta college), wilson and fordjour (from oswald college), and anani and peprah (from philneri college). pseudonyms were used to protect the identity of the teacher educators and colleges. 80 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 data analysis for this study, inductive and deductive data analysis were adopted. the deductive part was guided by hattie and timperley’s (2007) model. the inductive data analysis involved four phases (mcmillan & schumacher, 2014): identifying patterns, categorising and ordering data, refining patterns through determining the trustworthiness of the data, and synthesising themes. the authors first worked separately in each phase, analysing the data, generating codes, and creating their categories. in refining the themes, the authors then met to present their coding before working together to elaborate on, collapse, or distinguish between similar codes. these themes provided a picture of the teacher educators’ understanding and implementation of feedback in mathematics pedagogy. the final phase involved synthesising the themes, which were arranged to align with the research questions. findings and discussion we used data generated from the interviews to respond to research question 1: “what is ghanaian mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge of formative feedback?” the interview transcripts were read and segmented, and responses that reveal teachers’ knowledge were selected. the interview excerpts that illustrate teachers’ feedback knowledge are presented below. mathematics teacher educators’ knowledge of effective feedback in a conversion with anani, it transpired that he considered feedback as means to inform students about their weaknesses and for students to know what they did right or wrong. the excerpts below are extracted from the interview with anani: it is about providing information to students on their shortfalls to be able to make a correction and move forward. he went on to say: without giving feedback, students will not know whether the assignment is done right or wrong or they have done the right quiz. of the same view as anani, sekyi emphasised that effective feedback is about informing students about their weaknesses, hoping that they will understand that they need to improve: if you are working on an activity and you have been made to see that there is something amiss with what you are doing. then certainly, as a human being, you need to improve. on the other hand, emily was of the view that feedback should be about improving teaching rather than learning. this was illustrated in the excerpt below: enu & ngcobo: connecting knowledge and practice 81 if you teach and assess [give a quiz], and maybe 75% of the students are getting below half of the total marks, then it means there is something wrong. so, as a teacher, i have to re-strategise by using a different strategy or method. in response to follow up questions to get more clarity on her about her knowledge of feedback emily said: feedback allows me as the teacher educator to reflect and modify my teaching strategies because when my students have not done well, it means they did not understand. it also tells me where they have gaps. of the same view, wilson had this to say: if i assess [give an exercise] and the outcome tells me that a particular understanding or concept has not been formed well, it helps me to quickly devise a means to help them [the students]. fordjour extended the argument to include that he considered feedback to guide his methodology: it gives you some information about your methodology and shows the way the students perceive your lesson. you try to assess yourself about your method. fordjour went on to say: when students do not do well it gives something to reflect on and plan how to improve. peprah believed that feedback is a way to inform students about their strengths and about opportunities to improve: feedback is about telling students what they have done well and what needs to be improved upon. all the participants were of the view that effective feedback is about improving teaching and learning. however, there were contradictory views on where the emphasis should be based. situating this within the perspective of the framework, we conclude that participants’ knowledge of feedback corresponds to two levels of hattie and timperley’s (2007) framework. for example, anani and sekyi considered feedback as informing students about their knowledge gaps, which hattie and timperley (2007) termed as corrective feedback that places emphasis on helping students understand the task. as mentioned by anani, feedback should be given so that corrective measures can be implemented. both anani and sekyi emphasised that feedback should help students see what they have done right or wrong and that, by helping students identify their shortfall, they will be able to correct them and move forward. although emily, wilson, and fordjour’s knowledge of feedback coincided with anani and sekyi, their knowledge goes beyond it being a corrective measure to encompass 82 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 construction of meaning, which hattie and timperley (2007) referred to as process level. for example, all three emphasised that feedback should not only correct learning it should also inform teaching to help students construct meaning of the taught concept by revising the instructional strategies. in his study, bennett (2011) opined that one’s knowledge of formative assessment should be driven by one big idea: meeting students’ needs driven by the overarching goal to enhance teaching and learning. in the present study, anani and sekyi’s knowledge targets students’ needs; however, their focus is on providing immediate corrective measures with limited attention to future goals and addressing gaps. in addition, their knowledge focuses on students’ weaknesses, not the strengths, as emphasised by alves de lima (2008). extending the argument by alves de lima (2008), heritage (2010) posited that feedback should be seen as a means to provide actionable information for students and teachers. our findings revealed that the other four participants considered feedback beyond attending to learning needs, but only to provide actionable information for the instructors. the participants in this study’s knowledge of feedback is at the task level with limited attention to helping students engage in a self-regulatory level of their learning. black and wiliam (2009) emphasised that beyond moving learning forward, feedback should activate students as owners of their own learning, and activate students as instructional resources for one another. for the participants of this study, it appears that the main aim is to move the teaching and move learning forward because anani talks about making and correction and move the learning forward, and sekyi talks about identifying what is amiss and working towards improving that; emily and fordjour emphasise identifying shortfalls and re-strategising and peprah emphasises that attention should not only be directed to weaknesses but also the strengths as well as opportunities for improvement. the findings of this study revealed that the overarching aim of giving feedback is to correct learning and improve teaching, and not activating students as owners of their learning and resources for others—in other words, self-regulation and selffeedback (hattie & timperley, 2007). mathematics teacher educators’ feedback practices to respond to research question 2: “how do mte’s use and provide feedback in the classroom?”, we use data generated from classroom observation and document analysis. during the classroom observations, the mathematics teacher educators were teaching mathematics to first-year or second-year students. during the teaching and learning process, it was observed that while teaching mathematics, teacher educators provided oral feedback to their students. this feedback sometimes consisted of instructions guiding students on how they could correct their responses. at other times, the feedback aimed at giving students instructions about the steps to follow to get the correct answer or complete the required task. for example, wilson used the question and answer approach to establish students’ knowledge of binomial theorem. while introducing year-two students to pascal’s triangle, wilson kept on correcting and reminding them of the steps to follow, as illustrated in the example below: use the pascal triangle to write down the binomial expansion of (3� − 2)�. enu & ngcobo: connecting knowledge and practice 83 coefficient for expansion with index 5 is always given as: 1 5 10 10 5 1 (3� − 2)� = 1(3�)� + 5(3�) (−2) + 10(3�)�(−2)� + 10(3�)�(−2)� + 5(3�)(−2) + 1(−2)� = 243�� − 810� + 1080�� − 720�� + 240� − 32. he followed up with a series of examples and assessment tasks to assess students’ understanding of the concept. with a different group of first-year students, fordjour used question and answer to elicit students’ understanding. the kind of feedback provided was telling the student whether they were right or wrong in answering the question, as illustrated in the response captured during the observation: fordjour: what is the question looking for specifically? student: i think we are to calculate the angles. fordjour: good, then how do we go about it? student: because we are to calculate the angles, we have first to draw a right-angle triangle then calculate the angles using the trigonometric ratio. fordjour responded by telling the student they were wrong and asking the class how the question could be solved. fordjour’s practice was dominated by telling the student which answers or steps were wrong or correct. where the answer was wrong, corrective procedures were demonstrated on the board for students to copy into their exercise books. thereafter, additional examples to practise what was explained were provided for students. both fordjour and wilson’s practices focused on ensuring students understood the task and guiding them to perform corrective procedures to find the correct solution—with limited attention to helping them construct meaning. according to hattie and timperley (2007), feedback that focuses on whether the work is correct or incorrect (corrective feedback) is at the task level. on the other hand, peprah gave feedback by doing corrections on the board for the whole class. every time students seem not to follow the methods or the instructions; she would redo the example on the board for all the students, and also ask students to assist each other (table 1). she continually used the same strategy every time students failed to find the correct answer. beyond doing the examples on the board, she also engaged individual students to explain their thought process while solving the task. similar examples that students needed to do followed such activity so that she would be able to see if they understood the method. 84 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 table 1 peprah’s instructive example during classroom observation ( example of a task given that, � ((� ∪ � ∪ �)) = 87, � ��� 43, ���� 42, ��� � ��� 47 find � �� ∩ � ∩ �� �, if ��� ∩ � � 15 ��� � � � ∩ � � 21. adopting the same strategy with his first solutions to the task, asking them what they did and why before doing corrections on board as illustrated in table 2. table 2 sekyi’s instructive example during classroom observation ( example of task classroom practices by mte providing the solution sketching the graph for the inequality � � � � �2 the same process was repeated in various activities that he did with his students. he also engaged students in classroom activities to test their understanding; for example, “plot the graph of the inequality x � y working on the task, sekyi moved around the lecture hall, observing and providing verbal feedback. other than providing verbal feedback, he moved from desk to desk to mark students’ individual responses. in some cases, he would pair students to mainly pairing those with a correct response to those with an incorrect response. after attending to each student, he engaged the students in a whole journal of education, no. 87, 2022 peprah’s instructive example during classroom observation (source: enu, 2021, p. 157) classroom practices by mte providing the solution � peprah: using the law � �� ∪ � ∪ �� ���� � � ��� � � ��� � � �� ∩ �� � ��� ∩ �� � � �� ∩ � ∩ �� 87 = 43 + 42 + 47 – 15 – 21 + ⇒ � �� ∩ � ∩ �� 87 � 79 8. adopting the same strategy with his first-year students, sekyi started by checking students’ solutions to the task, asking them what they did and why before doing corrections on board as illustrated in table 2. sekyi’s instructive example during classroom observation (source: enu, 2021, p. 143) classroom practices by mte providing the solution the same process was repeated in various activities that he did with his students. he also engaged students in classroom activities to test their understanding; for example, “plot the $ 4 and shade the required region.” while st working on the task, sekyi moved around the lecture hall, observing and providing verbal feedback. other than providing verbal feedback, he moved from desk to desk to mark students’ individual responses. in some cases, he would pair students to assist each other; mainly pairing those with a correct response to those with an incorrect response. after attending to each student, he engaged the students in a whole-class discussion. he called on type of feedback � � � corrective feedback and guiding students to construct meaning. year students, sekyi started by checking students’ solutions to the task, asking them what they did and why before doing corrections on the type of feedback corrective feedback, guiding students towards meaning making and guiding them towards selfregulation. the same process was repeated in various activities that he did with his students. he also engaged students in classroom activities to test their understanding; for example, “plot the and shade the required region.” while students were working on the task, sekyi moved around the lecture hall, observing and providing verbal feedback. other than providing verbal feedback, he moved from desk to desk to mark assist each other; mainly pairing those with a correct response to those with an incorrect response. after class discussion. he called on enu & ngcobo: connecting knowledge and practice 85 those who had the correct answers to explain the processes to the entire class. as the discussion progressed, he pointed out to students who had the wrong answer as to where they went wrong and explained the appropriate method to get the correct answer. exploring peprah’s and sekyi’s practices showed that their practices of giving feedback focused more on helping students construct meaning of the taught concepts. whereas emily and anani also adopted the whole-class discussion strategy, there was limited engagement encouraged from the side of the students. similar to wilson and fordjour, their focus was on explaining procedures needed to acquire the correct answer, which hattie and timperley (2007) referred to as corrective feedback (grounded on the task level). the findings revealed that most of the mte’s practices of feedback involved providing students with corrective strategies to complete the tasks. instead of focusing on individual attention to students’ weaknesses, most mte’s opted for whole-class feedback to respond to students’ difficulties. although, two mte’s made attempt to engage individual students’ thought processes, the dominant practice was to point out students’ weaknesses and guide them towards correcting it so that they could produce the expected answer. although there was evidence of providing feedback that attended to students’ weaknesses, limited attention was given to outlining the goals to students so that they could know where they were going— and allowing students to establish their progress and let them figure out what they need to do to make better progress as purported by hattie and timperley (2007) and chappuis (2015). what transpired during the observations supported shute’s (2008) conception of feedback as information given to the student to alter their mindset with the sole purpose of improving learning. in contrast with bansilal et al.’s (2010) purpose of feedback that is multidirectional, the findings showed that the dominant practices among the mte’s was unidirectional process that focused on the teacher educator giving feedback for corrective purposes with limited attention given to students to construct meaning or engage in selfregulatory learning or self-feedback which, according to hattie and timperley (2007), should target three aspects: feed up, feedback and feed forward. from the students’ point of view, the formative assessment on a written task or script asks questions like: “what knowledge or skills do i aim to develop?”, “how close am i now?” and “what do i need to do next?” (brookhart, 2017, p. 1). the answer to “how close am i now?” indicates where the students are in the learning process relative to where they started. therefore, formative assessment should focus primarily on what the students have learned instead of what the teacher has taught. chappuis (2015) argued that this question could be answered when students understood the learning goals through descriptive feedback. in view of this, a document analysis in the form of students’ written work was analysed to identify how teacher educators provide feedback when marking assessment tasks. the study established that all six participants use three annotations when marking students’ work: m—a method mark, a—an accuracy mark, and b—a mark for the correct result independent of the method mark. the most dominant form of feedback was the use of these annotations, followed by summing up the correct answers to produce the total mark, which was then written on the top corner of the script. figure 2 presents evidence that the type of feedback given in students’ written work does not explicitly articulate students’ weaknesses (the type 86 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 of mistake they made), their strengths (what was good about their work), and what they could/should do to improve. although the teacher educators indicated what is wrong, and allocated method marks, the feedback does not guide students to future learning. the analysis of the type of feedback provided to students’ written work revealed that none of the levels echoed by hattie and timperley (2007) is catered for when teacher educators provide feedback in the written form. figure 2 example of teacher educators’ feedback type on students’ assessment scripts (source: enu, 2021, p. 175) with ticking and crossing, students were getting feedback about what they did wrong or right with no further information guiding them how to correct it and what they need to do to improve. as indicated in hattie and timperley’s (2007) model, effective feedback should feed up, feedback and feed forward. the findings showed that the type of feedback provided to students’ written work only tells them where they are. these feedback practices do not help students develop deep understanding, or to be able to self-regulate, or help them develop the skill to evaluate their learning process as purported by hattie and timperley’s (2007) model and shaughnessy et al. (2015). as mooted by study kastberg et al. (2020) that mathematics teacher educators’ practices of feedback foreground attention to procedural knowledge. the same was evident with the present study, where the feedback given guides students to see which mathematical procedures they failed to apply correctly. after synthesising the data, the findings showed discrepancy between mtes’ knowledge and practices. the findings showed that mtes’ knowledge of feedback encompass both the task level and process level, however, their practices showed that the most kind of feedback which mtes adopt in their classroom and when marking students work is that of identifying students’ weaknesses and providing corrective measures. according to hattie and timperley’s (2007) model, this is considered to be the task level. for example, during class enu & ngcobo: connecting knowledge and practice 87 observation with exception of sekyi and peprah, all the other mte feedback practices were dominated by identifying students’ knowledge gaps and providing corrective measures towards finding the expected answer with limited or no attention towards helping students construct meaning of the concept or monitoring their learning. their ultimate aim was for students to see their weaknesses. while informing students about their weaknesses and revising instructional practices is important, effective feedback, as purported by many scholars (such as chappuis, 2015, oduro-okyireh et al., 2015; shaugnessy et al., 2015) should go beyond identifying students’ weaknesses. cassim (2010) noted that one’s knowledge of assessment inform one’s classroom practices. in this study, given that most mtes considered feedback to be about corrective measures, the same practices were carried out in the classroom and when marking students’ work. the unidirectional knowledge of feedback contradicts some of the feedback principles stipulated in the ghanaian policy on assessment, which stipulated that feedback is a form of communication to students not about their weaknesses alone, but also about their progress. again, it does not serve as communication to students only, it is also considered as a form of communication to teachers about their teaching (nacca, 2018). implications for teacher education the findings of this study have implications for the current practices in teacher education institutions, especially in ghana. first, the policy on assessment stipulates the guiding principles that should inform practices. however, the implementation has not yet occurred; therefore, interventions are needed to ensure that policy translates into practice. overall, it may be argued that research findings need to enhance the current practices in ghana and that mathematics teacher educators need to be developed towards translating policy to practice, and to understand what research argues for regarding providing effective feedback. the expectation of the assessment policy, which requires teacher educators to prepare pre-service teachers to become assessment literate so that they understand and apply the principles and procedures for sound classroom assessment, cannot not be materialised if teacher educators are unable to provide feedback that encompasses all the levels of effective feedback purported by hattie and timperley’s (2007) model. for example, at the task level effective feedback should address knowledge gaps and provide corrective measures (which the participants of this study showed knowledge of, and executed, during classroom practices). however, the model also emphasises three other levels for effective feedback, namely, the process level that foregrounds giving feedback for the purpose of enhancing deep learning, self-regulation (which focuses on assisting students to regulate and monitor their learning), and self-feedback (which focuses on helping students evaluate their learning). thus, professional development activities are needed to assist mte improve their practices. conclusions and recommendations the researchers concluded that the mtes’ knowledge of feedback was one-dimensional because it foregrounds improving learning. in addition, their knowledge was premised on providing corrective measures for helping students to identify what they had done wrong and 88 journal of education, no. 87, 2022 right only. furthermore, they considered effective feedback as a means to inform students about their knowledge gaps, not as a reflective process for both students and teacher educators. their practices were premised on guiding students towards the development of procedural knowledge, ignoring the aspects of process and self-regulatory learning as proposed by hattie and timperley (2007). based on the findings, we concur with odurookyireh et al. 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(2019). connecting theory and practice in teacher education: english-as-a-foreignlanguage pre-service teachers’ perceptions of practicum experience. innovation and education, 1(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s42862-019-0003-z draft1_13march_ja jill adler is also chair of m athematics education at king’s college london. 1 sitti m aesuri patahuddin is a lecturer in the department of m athematics at the state 2 university of surabaya (unesa) indonesia. the paper has been developed during a post doctoral fellowship at the university of the w itwatersrand. recontexualising items that measure mathematical knowledge for teaching into scenario based interviews: an investigation jill adler and sitti maesuri patahuddin 1 2 abstract this paper interrogates the recontextualisation of available assessment items developed for research purposes that measure mathematical knowledge for teaching, into scenarios for use in qualitative studies related to mathematics teachers’ subject matter knowledge. it draws from interviews with teacher participants in the wits maths connect-secondary project and their responses to two selected items from the learning mathematics for teaching (lmt) project. the analysis shows that carefully constructed multiple choice items in the domain of (mathematics) subject matter knowledge have much potential in provoking teachers’ talk and their mathematical reasoning in relation to practice-based scenarios; and exploring with teachers a range of connected knowledge related to the teaching of a particular concept or topic. we argue that productive use of such items further requires that researcher make explicit the mathematical ideas they expect to explore and assess in the developed items. introduction in their comprehensive survey of assessing teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching (mkt), hill, sleep, lewis and ball (2007) make a useful distinction between “the quality of mathematics instruction” (which has embedded in it, value judgments on instructional approaches); and “the quality of mathematics in instruction” (p.150), where focus is “specifically on the actual mathematics deployed in the course of a lesson”. mathematics in use is thus professional knowledge, deployed for the purposes of teaching, and not for its own sake. what then is entailed in accessing and assessing such knowledge? hill et al. (2007) describe the qualitative research, based on observation of teaching (knowledge in action), and/or task-based interviews 18 journal of education, no. 56, 201218 where tasks are developed from knowledge of practice, and their more recent quantitative research in the learning mathematics for teaching (lmt) project which has focused on developing, validating and then using measures of professional knowledge. despite convergence in appreciation for the multifaceted and complex nature of professional knowledge, these two lines of research remain disjoint. hill et al. (2007) suggest that “. . . qualitative researchers have much to learn from large scale test developers” and vice versa, and that “. . . more cross over needs to occur” (p.152). the work we report here moves into the terrain of crossing over. in the wits maths connect-secondary (wmc-s) project we are concerned with teachers’ mathematical knowledge in use, and its growth through participation in professional development and over time. to this end, we have selected lmt items, and recontextualised them into a semi-structured interview setting. in this paper we interrogate our use of two such items in depth to explore the potential of such recontextualisation for producing what we see as ‘fit for purpose’ readings of project teachers’ professional knowledge. we begin with a selective review of the literature base on assessment of mathematical knowledge for teaching, followed by a description of the research project, and our research and development approach to professional knowledge. we then describe the interviews and the selected items and present our analysis of the teacher interview data. our analysis will show that carefully constructed multiple choice items in the domain of subject matter knowledge (see below) have much potential in (1) provoking teachers’ talk, and their mathematical reasoning in relation to practice-based scenarios; and (2) exploring with teachers a range of connected knowledge related to the teaching of a particular concept or topic. in addition, from a methodological point of view, we will argue that productive use of such items in semistructured interviews requires researchers to make explicit their assumptions as to what knowledge(s) are privileged in their assessments. facilitating hill et al.’s call for greater cross over and accumulation in our research, rests particularly on this latter point. assessing teachers’ professional knowledge – what has been done? research related to mathematics teachers’ professional knowledge (mkt), what it is, its relationship to practice and learning gains, how it grows, and adler and patahuddin: recontextualising item s that m easure. . . 1919 more recently, how it can be validly and reliably measured, has mushroomed. a comprehensive review of research on assessing mkt in the us, focused on “what knowledge matters and what evidence counts”, traces the development of methods for describing and measuring professionally situated mathematical knowledge in the us (hill et al., 2007). briefly, in the 1980s and 1990s methods were geared towards uncovering mathematical knowledge for teaching through observations of teaching practice (e.g. leinhardt and smith, 1985), and/or exploring and describing teacher knowledge in task based interviews (e.g. ma, 1999; borko, eisenhart, brown, underhill, jones and agard, 1992). through studies of expert mathematics teachers, experienced teachers across cultural contexts, and of the complexity of learning to teach respectively, this work has contributed significantly to elaborating the specificity of professional knowledge in and for mathematics teaching. hill et al. locate the recent measures work, and their lmt project, in the context of this qualitative research. they argue that, notwithstanding its advances, a major weakness is that it is necessarily small scale. they build from this work to enable large scale, reliable and valid ways of assessing professionally situated knowledge. the results of the lmt research have been widely published and include reflection on how, building from shulman’s (1986) initial work, the development of measures simultaneously produced an elaboration of the construct mkt and its component parts. as they developed measures, they were able to distinguish and describe subject matter knowledge (smk) and pedagogic content knowledge (pck), and categories of knowledge within each of these domains as illustrated in figure 1. common content knowledge (cck – mathematics that might be used across a range of practices) was delineated from specialised content knowledge (sck – mathematics used specifically in carrying out tasks of teaching) (ball, thames and phelps, 2008). simply, recognising an incorrect answer to a calculation (cck) is not synonymous with being able to reason across a range of responses to a calculation as to their mathematical validity and worth, as task teachers continuously do (sck). within pck, where knowledge of mathematics is intertwined with knowledge of teaching and learning, they distinguish knowledge of content and students (kcs – e.g. knowledge about typical errors learners make, or misconceptions they might hold), from knowledge of content and teaching (kct – e.g. knowledge of particular tasks that could be used to introduce a topic). all their items are presented in multiple choice format, and whether smk or pck, are set in a teaching context. in addition to describing their mkt constructs and exemplifying measures of these, they have elaborated the work done to produce their measures (hill, schilling and 20 journal of education, no. 56, 201220 w e include the figure of ball et al’s components of m kt to assist the reading of our paper,3 as we refer to these through their abbreviations here and later in the paper; it is not as an object of attention in itself. ball, 2004), and reported on positive correlations they found in their study of the relationship between measures of teachers’ mkt, the quality of their mathematics teaching and their learners’ performance (hill, rowan and ball, 2005; hill, 2008). figure 1: domains of mathematical knowledge for teaching (mkt)3 (ball et al., 2008) in their concern for construct validation, the lmt project has subjected its work to extensive critique. a whole issue of measurement (vol. 5, no.2–3, 2007) is turned to this purpose, and makes visible just how complex, and costly, such assessment practices are. invited commentary highlights the limitations of quantitative measurement of professional knowledge. schoenfeld (2007, same issue) argues that any assessment must be explicit and clear in what is being assessed, and that it is not clear what exactly individual lmt items and their distractors do, nor how they accumulate. difficulties entailed in measures work are critiqued within the lmt project itself, particularly pck items aimed at kcs (hill et al., 2007; hill, 2008). the strength of the construct of pck, in their terms, depends on how well it can be distinguished from knowledge of the mathematical content itself. lmt validity tests, including clinical interviews on these items, failed to separate adler and patahuddin: recontextualising item s that m easure. . . 2121 nardi, biza and zachariades (2012)’s study of teachers’ argumentation in task-based4 interviews contributes to this debate. it provides a careful operationalising of forms of argument, and teachers’ practical, yet complex reasoning. kcs from related measures of content knowledge. scores on kcs items correlated highly with cck scores. as alonzo (2007, same issue) comments, this result has the danger of suggesting that all that matters is content knowledge, back-grounding the important work and progress that has been made across the field, in elaborating professional knowledge and particularly sck. hill et al. (2007) and hill (2008) describe additional insights from their cognitive interviews on pck-kcs items that showed that teachers also used mathematical reasoning, and test-taking skills, to decide on the correct answer. teachers were asked to ‘think aloud’ as they talked about each item, their selection of the correct answer from four possible answers in the multiple choice format, and their justification for their selection. in their analysis of teachers’ talk, it was difficult to separate out teachers’ kcs from their mathematical reasoning about their choices, and so their smk in use. hill et al. (2007) conclude that ‘this domain [pck] remains underconceptualised and understudied” (p.395), despite wide agreement in the field that this kind of knowledge matters. their reflection on their detailed pck work presents considerable challenges for the field of mathematics education: the notion of pck is widely invoked in mathematics teacher education research and practice, often without clear and operationalised definitions.4 the nature of the boundary between smk and pck has been critiqued by others researching in mathematics education. huillet (2009), for example, argues from the perspective of the anthropological theory of didactics that there is no ‘common content knowledge’; all knowledge is tied to activity. hence, clear distinctions between smk and pck are problematic. much of the critique on a hard boundary, including huillet, has emerged from qualitative studies with stronger situative perspectives, and focused at the secondary level (e.g. zazkis and leikin, 2010; nardi, biza and zachariades, 2012). wmc-s also has a strong situative perspective, but nevertheless took up the challenges of ‘crossing-over’ and using lmt measures. interestingly, despite our selections of lmt items that assess sck, we too will raise questions about the boundary between smk and pck in teachers’ mathematical reasoning. 22 journal of education, no. 56, 201222 coativ refers to the project on professional competence of teachers, cognitively 5 activating instruction, and the development of student’ mathematical literacy. construct delineation and validation is a strong feature of quantitative research, and central to the work of krauss, baumert and blum (2008) in their large scale study of secondary mathematics teachers’ professional knowledge and its relationship to learner performance. based in germany, their measure development and use in the coactiv project, like hill et al., worked from5 the assumption that professional knowledge is situated, specialised, and thus requires assessments that are not synonymous with tests at particular levels of institutionalised mathematics (be this school or university). indeed, for krauss baumert and blum, secondary teachers’ smk (what they call content knowledge – or ck) sits in a space between school mathematics and tertiary mathematics (p.876), and is clearly bounded from their interpretation of pck. they report on two hypotheses related to professional knowledge and growing knowledge. they conducted ck and pck tests on different groups selected with respect to professional knowledge (i.e. mathematical knowledge in and for teaching): two groups of experienced secondary mathematics teachers with different mathematics pre-service training; other teachers (of biology and chemistry); mathematics majors in university; and students in their final 13th year of mathematics study in school. their results confirmed their professional knowledge hypothesis – experienced teachers irrespective of their teacher education route showed high pck scores. at the same time, however, mathematics major students performed unexpectedly well on pck items. krauss, baumert and blum (2008, p.885) explore this interesting outcome in their study – how it was that mathematics major students, who had no teaching training or experience, were relatively strong on their pck items. we zoom in here to bring into focus the diverse ways in which professional knowledge constructs have been operationalised in the field. for example, some of the examples of krauss et al.’s pck items are more aligned with ball, thames and phelps construct of sck, than with their elaboration of pck. although both research groups include knowledge of students, and knowledge of tasks as pck, their interpretation of these into measures differs. krauss, baumert and blum, for example, exemplify a pck task item that asks: “how does the surface area of a square change when the side length is tripled? show your reasoning. please note down as many different ways of solving this problem as possible”. the sample response given includes both an algebraic and geometric representation (p.889). in ball, thames and phelps’ terms, this response does not require specific or adler and patahuddin: recontextualising item s that m easure. . . 2323 local knowledge of students, nor of curricula, or particular teaching tasks, and hence, in their terms would be sck, and distinct from pck. in other words, knowledge of multiple representations shifts between pck and smk across these two studies. we do not go further here into other studies that have developed measures of smk and pck e.g. teds as reported in tatto and senk (2011), and mt21 reported in schmidt, blömeke and tatto (2011). while they are in themselves of interest, they do not add to the key issue that emerges from a review of measures research in mkt: this construct and its components are differently operationalised in different studies, a point made by hill et al., (2007) and noted as a shortcoming in this research. a major reason for this incoherence refers us back to schoenfeld’s comment that it is necessary that the responses expected on assessment items are made explicit. descriptions of the principles guiding construct delineation on their own are insufficient. specifically, what needs to be made clear are the kinds of knowledge and reasoning, be it mathematical or pedagogical, that are being provoked, at least at the level of intention, in and across items, and thus assessed. readers of quantitative research are not privy to the conceptualising processes behind items exemplified. even though coactiv uses open ended and not multiple choice items, as a quantitative study we do not see the mathematical analysis behind the items, nor the detail of the analysis and coding of teachers’ responses. for this would be to reveal the items, and thus muddy any ongoing research related to the measures. we have done our own mathematical analysis of the items we use, which we will argue is a critical step in their recontextualisation. whether this matches the underlying analysis in their construction is not relevant. however, as most items are confidential, and as will become visible later in the paper, there are constraints on our reporting, and so on developmental cross-over. the wmc-s research and its use of lmt items the two items we describe, analyse and then discuss below were used in a semi-structured interview with 30 teachers participating in the wmc–s project. both were identified as smk in lmt and in algebra (a content focus in the project), one on linear equations and one on quadratics. before we proceed with the detail of the methodology we used, we provide a brief introduction to the project, and our orientation to teachers’ professional knowledge and how this can be read within an interview setting. 24 journal of education, no. 56, 201224 w e are indebted to the generosity of lm t, and the time and resources committed to sharing 6 the lm t knowledge and experience with w m c-s. their workshop at w its, december 2009, enabled the work reported here. wmc-s is a 5-year research-informed and data driven development and research project working with the mathematics teachers in ten schools in one district in johannesburg, south africa. mathematics in use in teaching (i.e. in instruction) is a central focus of wmc-s. its vision and intervention model has been shaped by previous research on teacher development (adler and reed, 2002) and the follow-on work of the quantum project (adler and davis, 2006; adler and davis, 2011), with its focus on mathematical knowledge in and for teaching. wmc-s professional development (pd) work thus aims to enhance teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching. our practice is guided by deliberate teaching focused on key mathematical objects of learning (marton, runesson and tsui, 2004), and thus with a bias towards smk as elaborated by ball, thames and phelps (2008) (i.e. cck and smk), or towards ck and pck in krauss, baumert and blum’s terms; and we are researching this process together with the maths teachers in participating schools. our structuring of the scenarios in the interviews is a function of our orientation to the centrality of evaluation in pedagogic communication (bernstein, 2000). for bernstein, pedagogic communication condenses in evaluation (p.36). while communication about practice in an interview is not synonymous with a pedagogic encounter between a transmitter and acquirer, it nevertheless provokes discussion of school mathematical knowledge, and with this legitimating criteria as to what counts as appropriate knowledge in the interview context. as previously argued, teachers call in a range of knowledge resources in their teaching through which we can read how criteria come to work, and so what knowledge is made available to learn. similarly, what teachers recruit to legitimate what counts as appropriate knowledge in scenario based discussion in an interview setting can be read as their knowledge in use. in this context, the lmt items appeared useful precisely because of their multiple choice format, and the way in which we used these. we asked teachers to consider the scenario and then discuss with us, each of the four multiple choice options offered. based on our engagement with lmt items in a training workshop the previous year, it seemed productive and efficient to6 use available items in our interviews. as interview items, they were necessarily recontextualised. in addition to situational change, we did not ask teachers to choose an answer and then, thinking aloud, justify their choice. adler and patahuddin: recontextualising item s that m easure. . . 2525 nor did we present a scenario, and ask for open comment. we gave the scenarios together with the multiple choice responses to teachers two weeks before the interview, and asked teachers to prepare for the interview by reading the scenario and considering each of its four options. in the interview, we would then ask them to share their thinking about each option within each scenario with us. our purposes here were to set up a context within which teachers would be required to reason, and talk about connected mathematical ideas. we would then be able to develop a dynamic reading of mathematical knowledge for teaching in use in the interviews within and across all the teachers. this recontextualised use marks out its difference from the clinical interviews done for validation purposes in lmt on the one hand, and task based interviews in similar qualitative teacher interviews on the other. lmt has released a set of items for public use. however, the two smk items that we discuss here were drawn from the full set of items to which we had access for use in the project, but which remain confidential. as we hope will become evident, the items we chose have been very productive in eliciting teachers’ talk and so information from which we could read their knowledge in use. however, as with all other reports on lmt item work, we are required to mask the detail of the items here. this inevitably constrains our reporting. as each item was set in a teaching context, our descriptions below include a description of this context or scenario, followed by the multiple choices. we present scenario 1 in detail: its mathematical analysis, coded teacher data and discussion of three teachers’ responses. space limitations necessitate a brief treatment of scenario 2. scenario 1 mathematical analysis: scenario 1 presents an interaction between grade 10 learners on solving an equation in the form ax = bx, a, b natural numbers, and b divisible by a . the2 discussion is focused on why, if you can divide both sides by a, can you not also divide through by x to get x = b/a (also a natural number) as the solution? after the presentation of this situation, the ltm item asks respondents to select the most appropriate response from four learner responses that followed in four bulleted points, each with some reasoning for or against this solution method offered. these related to (1) x being a variable, i.e. divisibility 26 journal of education, no. 56, 201226 by x is not allowed because is varies (2) x being a real number, (3) finding the square root i.e. the solution requires finding square roots, and (4) composite reasoning involving dividing by 0, and the quadratic form of the equation. as already noted, we changed the requirement for selecting the most appropriate response, asking instead that teachers consider and then discuss with us, their interpretations of each of the four student responses. we were interested in using this item in our interviews to see how teachers engaged with each of the four responses offered, and so with the connected and interrelated concepts embedded in this scenario; specifically, what we would regards as subject matter knowledge related to solving quadratic equations. mathematical analysis of the item as a whole involved unpacking the general form of a quadratic equation, its structure, roots, together with attention to those features reflected in the multiple choice responses of statements made about the solution strategy. through this analysis we identified and then coded seven such connected concepts or mathematical ideas embedded in the scenario: (1) the notion of the variable x in the equation (mv), and awareness that division by a variable could include x = 0 on the one hand and thus a constraint on x would be required, and that while x was a variable, its value was an unknown (2) the real number system (mr) with respect to possible solutions and awareness that the fact of x being a real number was not an argument for its divisibility, and again the constraint of x = 0; (3) the quadratic equation and its two solutions (mq), and thus that obtaining one solution indicated that the solution was incomplete; (4) non-divisibility of 0 (mô); (5) understanding of square root i.e. its meaning and conditions (msq); (6) demonstration of a method for solving a quadratic equation (mdm); and (7) the understanding of the logic of a composite statement related to division by zero, and thus the ‘loss’ of one solution (mlg). coding the interview data after a first careful and systematic analysis of all teachers’ talk on this item in the interview, and using the coding above, we found this initial analysis masked the quality of responses, and produced a reading of absences within and across teachers. we thus refined our coding by adding labels positive, zero, and negative to each code. for example, mq+ means the response clearly indicates recognition of a quadratic equation having two solutions. we used mq to indicate that there was insufficient data to claim whether or not0 there was such recognition, and mqwhen the teachers’ talk contained incorrect mathematics. simply, positive (+) indicates correct; zero (0) we adler and patahuddin: recontextualising item s that m easure. . . 2727 the table presents coding for 24 teachers. at the time we did the coding (2011), five teachers7 interviewed in 2010 had moved schools and 1 teacher did not give any answer on this scenario. w e excluded them from our analysis, as they will not be tracked. cannot claim anything with respect to teachers’ smk with respect to a particular concept; and negative (-) indicates incorrect or a misunderstanding. we tested and then applied this coding across the full set of interview text related to this scenario. results of our interview analysis: scenario 1 in the appendix, we present a summary of our analysis against each of the seven key mathematical ideas discussed above for all the teachers. this result7 of analysis shows clearly that whilst the scenario potentially provokes a wide range of mathematical discussion, such discussion was not present across all teachers. teacher t10, for example, confidently discussed the quadratic form of the equation, and demonstrated a method to ensure two solutions were obtained. but, he did not engage with x as real variable, hence the 0 coding for both ‘real’ and ‘variable’. this absence of discussion cannot be taken as an absence of knowing. we move on to present three cases in detail, teacher 19, teacher 10, and teacher 3, each of whom had different qualifications and years of experience, but all are qualified secondary mathematics teachers. while their histories and contexts of teaching are significant in the programme, these are not relevant to our purposes here. we have selected these three teachers because together they illuminate the variation of teachers’ responses on identified key mathematical ideas on the one hand, and how these emerged within the social setting of the interview on the other. the responses of the selected three teachers are summarised in table 1 below, and the coding in the table is used in the analysis of the interview extracts that follow. 28 journal of education, no. 56, 201228 table 1: coding of three teachers adler and patahuddin: recontextualising item s that m easure. . . 2929 in analysing the interview, we saw potential in the above coding for enabling us to track teachers’ professional knowledge related to this item. we were also interested in the dynamics of the teachers’ mathematical reasoning, and the knowledge resources called in and so how the item played out in the interview setting. specifically, we were interested in whether teachers’ responses drew on their smk on the one hand, and how responses were shaped by the way the interviewer presented and then probed in relation to the scenario. in the detailed analysis below we present the full extract from each of the three teachers’ interviews, followed by a brief analysis that connects to the relevant coding categories and highlights key features of the interviews. teacher 19 had, as requested, looked at the scenarios before the interview, and thus was prepared for the discussion about them. 30 journal of education, no. 56, 201230 table 2: teacher 19 interview and its coding interview 19 interview er teacher’s know ledge i : so there’s this little episode in class and then here are some statements. w hat do you think about these statements? b : y ou know with the first statement i think the learner does not understand the, doesn’t know the difference between linear and the quadratic so that is why here he divide everything, he divided everything by a which is fine, right, and then now he got this. t his is a quadratic, but then the learner cannot see that it’s a quadratic. h e divided by x, right, whereas we are looking for x. so he divided by x and then it means he lose what he lose one value of x. so he lost that and then he left with 1 as if it was a linear,. . . i : o k b : so it means the learner does not understand the difference between the quadratic and the linear. i : o k . so what do you think about these statements? b : y ou see these statements i read and then i couldn’t understand. o k , [read bullet 1] . so here if since x is a variable it can differ. i don’t know, i mean yes it can differ because i mean x is a letter, right? obviously because it’s a quadratic you are going to have two different answers. i : right b : so here i don’t understand also… so [r e-read bullet 1] , so of course you can’t do different. i don’t understand that. actually i didn’t understand that. i : i think what they mean here, and that would be interesting to hear what you think, is that what this child is saying is that the reason why you can’t cancel x here and x there is because here x might be 3 and here x might be 2. b : o h, o k i : i mean is that a right kind of reasoning? b : n o, no, no. i don’t know it’s not, it’s not. ... b : ja, but like he says, what did the learner want to say here? h e tried to say you can cancel x here on both sides but then, but because the x can vary, you cannot do that. t hat’s what you’re saying. b ut i don’t know. again i will just insist on saying that it’s because you know what, they just have to know the difference between quadratic and the linear equation. i : o k , alright, excellent. i : so what about this one? [read bullet 2] you agree with that? b : b ut then you don’t know yet. y ou just know that it’s just… you don’t know yet that it’s a real number or it’s going to be a fraction. ... b : ja, so it cannot be a reason. i : o k . [read bullet 3] ? ... b : like most of the time when they were, o k , o k, where did you, when you have something like that you have to get rid of two. ig p ig p ic – ipv interprets for teacher ipr ipsq pck – k cs m q – recognises the quadratic with 2 solutions (implicit) m v +; m q – states she does not understand option 1, reads it, recognises x as variable, then states quadratic has 2 solutions (explicit). m v 0 – recognises flawed reasoning, but asserted not justified m q + – dominant justification m r0 – recognition that the solution could be non real again asserted not justified. (where important idea here is that x could be 0ªr) m sq+ – recognise finding the square root adler and patahuddin: recontextualising item s that m easure. . . 3131 i : right b : so if... still the problem is that if it’s not that .... because once you do that you can see x is there and x is also there. so if you find the square root of ... here you will find the value of x, but then here as well you will find the x, so what are you actually looking for? i : right. it’s not helping. b : so it’s not helping. i : o k . and the last one? b : t he last one, [read bullet 4] . y es i can. . . y ou know what, when i look at this, because these people they don’t understand the difference between b + i : a linear and a quadratic i : so none of these really help i-revoices ipô , r, lg is not leading to solution pck -k cs; m q +; lgq uadratic recognition dominates her reasoning; she did not engage with the composite argument (lg) in b ullet 4. coding: interview er utterances igp – g eneral probe – interview asks what the teacher thinks about each/all statements; ipv, ipsq, ipr, ipô . . . specific probes, following the seven key concepts and codes identified above. ic – clarification related to the scenario what is clear from this interview extract is that the interviewer deliberately led the teacher to discuss each of the four multiple choice statements. for this teacher, we coded three of the key ideas as positive (the notion of variable, recognition of quadratic equation, and the notion of square root); and one negative i.e. her difficulties in understanding the composite statement in bullet 4. we thus see from table 2 that even though the interviewer deliberately asked for response to each of the four statements, three aspects (divisibility by zero, real number system, methods of solving) were coded as zero. this does not mean that this teacher did not know these, but she did not talk about them. the teacher repeats what appears to be her dominant response to this scenario – the importance of recognising that it is a quadratic equation. the interview data here illuminates the recontextualising issues as the item is adapted from asking ‘which one is correct’ to ‘what is your view of each of these statements’. the change opens a space for the teacher to talk about their teaching practice. teacher 19, as she goes through the four options, talks about her learners and what they do, and what she would emphasise in her teaching. as a result, the item which is identified in lmt as measuring smk seems here to provoke reasoning and discussion about students and instruction, and so pck. indeed, it is her pck, one could argue, that shapes the dominant response given, and her lack of attention to bullet 4, which in the multiple choice setting is the correct answer. it involves composite reasoning involving the possibility of 32 journal of education, no. 56, 201232 dividing by 0, and ‘losing’ a solution. it is possible to read her pck focus as a side-stepping or avoiding the mathematics being probed. it is also possible, given her reasoning in the interview, that in a test setting, and having to choose between the four options, teacher 19 would choose option 4, having eliminated the others. interestingly, a number of our teachers found the fourth option difficult to interpret and discuss in the interview setting. thus, from a measurement perspective, the validity of this item comes into question. what begins to emerge from the detailed data and analysis here is that what is produced as teachers’ knowledge in use in relation to this recontextualised lmt item is indeed dynamic and an interaction between the item itself, what the teacher recruits into the discussion, and what and how the interviewer probes the teacher’s responses. table 3: teacher 10 interview and its coding interview t10 (also prepared for interview ) interview er teacher’s know ledge i : [reading the problem] w hat are your views on those statements? j : (laughs) i : o k, let’s go with the first one. w hat do you think of the first bullet? j : [read bullet 1] w ell, i think my approach to this one would be most of these things are not right. if you look at the question there, it’s times a, it’s a times a. once it is this one here it is important for learners to know this is a quadratic thing. h ow many answers? ask your learners. “t wo answers.” g ood, you must get two answers; your x has got to have two, um, answers, real numbers there, whatever it is. so these learners who are saying: “w e divide by x what what what”... yes i understand but that’s not the procedure. t he procedure is it’s a quadratic, ok. b ecause quadratic therefore transposes the x, the bx to the other side, equate it to zero, quadratic equations must be eq ual to zero. do you have seen that quadratic equation? “n o, we don’t have seen.” t hereafter, ok, fine, what do you do next? “look for a common factor.” i : b ut what do you think about that learner who says: [read bullet 1] . w hat do you think of that? j : t hat learner yes is partial because the main idea is for this learner to get x, alright? i : m mm j : so he is saying: “n o, why should i worry? if i eliminate one x but i still going to remain with x then i’m still, i’m still fine, because what is required is an x”. do you see that? i : m mm j : so the argument of that learner there you don’t need to take it lightly, you see? b ut unless you go back to the mistakes of the learners, what are their errors? i : m mm j : t hat one must emphasise it’s quadratic, it must be two answers, right? ipg ipv ipv ipr -partial m q + quadratic recognition m d m – m ethods of solving pc k – kcs m q + adler and patahuddin: recontextualising item s that m easure. . . 3333 i : o k, and if [read a part of bullet 2] ? j : if (reads part of bullet 2) i : m mm j : right? you remain with x on the left. i : m mm j : and no, and no ri… and no x on the right. so you’ve got only one x. i : o k j : y ou get one answer. i : o k j : n o, two answers. so that must be very clear to the learners. you eliminate one x there, fine; you remain with one x, isn’t it? fine. b ecause this learner has a very good reason to say: “hey, i can eliminate the 2, right? d ivide both sides by 2. w hy not dividing by x both sides?” so the one learner who says: “n o, no, i’m not dividing by 2x both sides.” d o you understand? i : m mm j : t he procedure of that learner is not wrong. it’s also correct. b ut it’s quadratic, it must have two answers. t hat one we must make it very clear, because those are some of the things that we need to understand. i : so what do you think about the fourth bullet then? [read bullet 4] j : t hat’s again. t ake, um, taking our learners back to the real numbers and non-real numbers, we have dealt with that one there. i : m mm j : it is not permissible to divide by zero. not permissible at all. t hat’s a mathematical, a mathematical suicide. d on’t ever do it, don’t divide by zero. the situation is undefined. do it on your calculator. divide by zero; error. divide by zero; error. w hy? n ot allowed. you cannot do it. i : m mm j : y ou cannot divide by zero. ipô , r, lg, m q + pck – reasoning about learners, b u t possibility of x = 0 not considered. m ô + – divisibility by 0 we coded t10 as having three of the seven key ideas correct, three as zero, and one as negative. at the same time, while t10 and t19 reasoned in similar ways in their interviews, the interviewer probes were not consistent, and so different ideas were provoked for discussion. table 3 shows that there was no explicit probing of the third option related to the notion of a square root and so this is absent in t10’s interview. also the second bullet or option was only partially probed. as a result, this teacher did not talk about the idea of finding the square root of each side, and therefore we coded zero for understanding of square root. in this context, while the teacher did talk about variable values for x, divisibility by zero and the quadratic equation, his reasoning was shaped not only by the interview probes or non-probes but also the opportunities opened up for him to talk about his experiences of learners and his preferred teaching methods in dealing with this particular problem. as a result, many of the mathematical ideas embedded in this item are coded as zero to indicate that we 34 journal of education, no. 56, 201234 do not have data on these. as with teacher 19, the fourth bullet proved to be difficult for this teacher. however, this option opened up the opportunity for him to talk about the notion of divisibility by zero. it is also interesting to note here that while both t10 and t19 emphasise the importance of recognition of the quadratic equation, they do so in different ways. t19 emphasised learners (mis)understanding; t10 emphasised how to teach. and again, what emerges is blurring of pck and smk in the teachers’ reasoning. what is thus produced as knowledge in use is clearly co-constituted by the item itself, the interviewer probes, and what the teacher recruits. teacher 3 too had prepared, and her responses evidence weaker smk. table 4: teacher 3 interview and its coding interview t3 interview er teacher’s know ledge i : [read the scenario] w hat is your view of each of these statements? t he statements where the teachers asked the rest of the learners to say their views about what these other learners were debating about? m aybe if you look at the first one, [read bullet 1. t : t his one, no. over here we are looking at x as the common factor, as the real… x as the common factor, meaning that as a common factor, as a common variable. so it is possible for them to divide throughout. so the first statement it’s out. if i have 2x… if i have this i can divide throughout by x. and then they say [read bullet 2] . you can say yes it’s a real number but then we don’t know the value of that real number so yes it’s a common factor, we can divide throughout the x. and then [read bullet 3] . b ut then if you take the square root of [], or you say by then, the one thing that if you’re working with square root, most of them, some of them it confuses them… some not most, some. it confuses them. so if they find… especially when they have to find the value of x, they can only. . .they love working with square root, squares and square roots, or cube and cube roots, but then when you have to find the value of x and you get the comma something something, it even looks wrong to them. ... t hen they say [read bullet 4] . m eaning that the value of x that you are dividing with might be zero. [re-read bullet 4] . it’s possible. u nlike when you take the other side, when you transpose the [], then look for the common factor, yes, you’d find two solutions, that x is equal to [], equals to [], and x is equals to []. b ut then you divide both sides by 2x, you only get one solution, [] … i : so at the end of it all, what is your response to this learner number two who says, you cannot divide both sides by x? t : n o, you can. you can divide both sides by x. ig p ipv – ic clarification m v 0 m r0 pc k – kcs m sq0 m ethods of solving – m d m q uadratic recognition – m q real number-m radler and patahuddin: recontextualising item s that m easure. . . 3535 table 4 shows that there was far less probing in this interview – a function of the teacher responding to all four bulleted statements without interruption. at the end, the interviewer asked “at the end of it all, what is your response to this learner number two who says, you cannot divide both sides by x?”, and so goes back to the second option but not bullets 3 or 4. this may be the most critical question for the interviewer, who possibly noticed the contradiction in the teacher’s responses: t3 realised that dividing by 2x lead to only one solution but previously said that “we can divide throughout the x”, an argument she commits to. so here only one of the 7 mathematical ideas – a demonstration of the procedure to solve the quadratic equation – is coded as correct. interestingly this demonstration is offered as the teacher responds to the fourth option. here too we don’t have access to the teachers’ thinking on the correctness of the last statement. we do have access to her view that division by a variable ‘on both sides’ is possible. compared to t10 and t19, t3 engages less with the elements embedded in the item, and the interview shows that only one aspect was coded positive even though it was not accurate. t3 has a clear idea about the procedure of solving this type of equation, but the connected set of ideas related to a quadratic equation is not evident. elaborating our analysis briefly through scenario 2 scenario 2 is in the form of a teacher asking her learners to construct a story that would be appropriately modelled by a linear equation of the form y = ax + b, x= 1, 2, 3, ..., where a and b were given. four possible stories are provided, and in the interview we asked teachers to consider each of these and which would be appropriate for the given equation. the first two of the stories generate the wrong sequence and the next two options generate the right sequence. the stories are obscured for confidentiality and presented in a general from. ! option one uses b as a starting point in the story and plays with the phrase ‘make twice as many’ to produce b, 2b, 2(2b), .... 2^n (b). ! option two also generates a different sequence, here using a as a starting point, to which b is added. this played with the words ‘each time’, to produce the sequence: a+b, 2(a+b), 3(a+b), 4(a+b) .... n(a+b). 36 journal of education, no. 56, 201236 ! option three is the appropriate story playing with the words ‘two more’, and generating the sequence b+2, (b+2)+2, ((b+2)+2)+2 ..... b + 2n, n = 1, 2, 3, .... which is well-matched with the linear equation given. ! the story in option 4 generates a similar numerical sequence but requires a different model. the starting point of the story is the number ‘c’, where c = a+b. so c�a and c�b. it used the words ‘two more each day’, generating a sequence: c, c+2, (c+2) +2, ((c+2)+2)+2 ..... , and thus the same pattern as option 3. however, the model for this is y = c + (x-1)2, which is equivalent with y = ax + b. scenario 2 is also identified in lmt as measuring smk. we have provided as much detail above as possible to reveal the power of this item in the construction of the distractors, and particularly in how language is used in the four stories. for example, while all four ask a similar question at the end of the story, there is a play on ‘two more’, ‘twice as many’, and ‘two more each day’ across the options, thus probing the use of the mathematics register. most of the teachers interviewed found this question difficult. this observation is based on our analysis across the interviews where there was less talk about the item and its options. in addition, some of the teachers stated their difficulty e.g. “these are hard”. zooming in here on t3, t10 and t19, an additional observation is that, in contrast to scenario 1, none of these three teachers recruited pedagogic knowledge (i.e. knowledge of teaching or of learners) to discuss the item. they were preoccupied in understanding the story problems, and their related sequences, and then discussing their views of each of the stories in relation to the given equation. t10 and t19 talked through how they worked out the sequence generated by each story. this then led to them being able to identify the incorrect stories. distinguishing between those that generated the same sequence was more difficult. t10, in fact, was one of the teachers who stated that this problem was difficult for him, and that he does not focus on “word problems” in his teaching. the greater difficulty with this item was evident in t3’s interview where we have no data about her thinking of the four story options. while her engagement in scenario 1 was more limited than t10 and t19, she nevertheless had much to say. here, in scenario 2, however, it seems the teacher struggled and the interviewer did not probe further. adler and patahuddin: recontextualising item s that m easure. . . 3737 w e can posit here (though this is beyond the scope of this paper) that the kind of analysis we8 have done enables us to develop a two-dimensional continuum across which we could provisionally place teachers’ responses in this interview, and that can be contrasted with their responses on these items at a later point, and after participation in the project. w e are still in the process of developing this continuum and clear descriptions of points related to pck and sm k as these emerged in the interview setting. the placing of teachers would, of course, need to include awareness of where we did not have data in these initial interviews, and disclaimers that these are not ‘measures’ of teachers’ knowledge, but qualitative indicators of knowledge in use in an interview setting. this assessment will combine with other teacher data in the project. what is clear here is that the differential familiarity across scenarios 1 and 2 provide different access to teachers smk in the interview setting. this raises questions then about how more difficult items are dealt with in the interview setting. discussion we remind readers that our interest in this paper is not the teachers’ knowledge per se. our interest is in the potential of items, developed and validated for purposes of measurement and correlation with learner performance and teaching quality, for illuminating teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching in an interview setting. we discussed how the use of the multiple choice format suited our project and orientation to teachers’ knowledge in use. we are seeking a dynamic descriptive assessment of teacher professional knowledge; but more importantly, we have interrogated particular items we have used to critically reflect on what such recontextualised use does. what reading is produced about teachers’ knowledge in use? how does this ‘fit’ with our purposes and with what constraints? 8 the first point we wish to make is that, despite the difficulties of not being able to present the items in full, we have shown that in the scenario, together with the multiple choice possibilities that follow, there is a rich set of mathematical ideas or concepts connected to the item. our mathematical analysis of the lmt items shows their mathematical potential, precisely in the combination of a mathematics problem and a varied set of possible solutions, not all of which are correct. the item provides the possibility of exploring a connected sets of ideas with teachers, and so an important element of their smk. working productively with quadratic equations, for example, rests on 38 journal of education, no. 56, 201238 key ideas like: divisibility by a real variable and so too by zero; square roots; as well as a procedure that can be used to solve these equations. secondly, and linked to the first point, is that structuring the interview so that each of the four multiple choice options is discussed not only opens the space for teachers to talk, but it provokes directed talk and related reasoning. looking across the responses of the teachers, both in the appendix and table 1, and the detailed data for scenario 1, we see that the lmt items, as we used them, provide the possibility for teachers to talk about the range of mathematical ideas embedded in the item. this possibility was not evenly realised, in many cases because the interviewing was uneven. not all interviewers deliberately asked teachers to focus on each of the four options in each of the scenarios. what we have learned from our analysis is that optimising the potential of these items in an interview setting requires a semistructured interview that is explicit in what the interviewer needs to ask and then probe. it is possible, with greater structure and consistency in the interview, to create the conditions that all interviewees engage with and have to justify their thinking in relation to a connected set of ideas. furthermore, our analysis of scenario 2 suggests that it might be necessary to further structure the interview when the item is more difficult and less familiar. a probe in the interview on scenario 2, that steers teachers to generate the sequence for each problem before they relate this to the model, and consider its appropriacy, could provide for further smk related talk. we thus contend that there is much to be gained from using carefully constructed multiple choice items in an interview setting. what we point to above, is the importance of being explicit about what is being assessed in the scenario or item, and thus concur with schoenfeld (2007) that the lack of specification of expected responses is a limitation to the measures work. in this work, we need to be clear, at least at the level of intention, at what it is we are attempting to access and assess. in the context of this paper, and hill et al.’s call, development crossover requires such explication. thirdly, our use of the items has shown the complexity in marking out a hard boundary between pck and smk, and sck (specialised content knowledge) in particular. lmt stands by its distinctive categories within mkt, while acknowledging that much work is needed for clearly delineating kcs (knowledge of content and students) in particular. what our interviews have shown is that in the interview setting, the situating of the subject matter adler and patahuddin: recontextualising item s that m easure. . . 3939 knowledge in teaching contexts, particularly if this was a familiar context, lead teachers to recruit pedagogical considerations into their rationales, and these shifted between kcs (thus knowing what to focus on because of errors learners will make e.g. they don’t recognise the quadratic form), and/or kct (how to teach so that learners discern the quadratic form and the related procedure). and this is not simply a function of the interviewer steering the talk in one or other direction. as noted above, for t19 and t10, their confidence with their pedagogical knowledge (t19 of her students thinking; and t10 with what must be emphasised in teaching), was highly visible in the interview. only further probing could elicit whether their pck emphasis in the interview was a mathematical avoidance strategy. the introduction of the item in the interview with t19, and its probing by the interviewer focused directly on interpretation of the options, without reference to the teachers’ classroom. it would require skilled interviewing to focus attention on the mathematics in the item. and again, schoenfeld’s comment has salience. lmt is not explicit in exactly what they are assessing and how the distractors provide for such assessment. our analysis of scenario 1, and then the teachers’ responses to this suggests that it would be possible, perhaps even likely in a test setting that bullet 4 can be selected by elimination, and not through the composite logical reasoning entailed in the statement. it is precisely these complexities of measurement that motived our consideration in this paper, and of course, in our practice, of whether our use of the items is indeed ‘fit’ for our purposes. our reading of smk in use with respect to connections across a range of mathematical ideas and related reasoning across the interviews, convince us of the difficulty of being able to clearly mark out and measure each of smk and pck, and particularly aspects of sck as defined by ball, thames and phelps. that coactiv and lmt use different interpretations and operationalisations of smk and pck in particular, require that as a field, we critically interrogate generalised conclusions about the inter-relation of these domains of professional knowledge. finally, our discursive orientation to knowledge cautions our descriptions by underscoring that what is produced as teachers’ mathematical knowledge through our use of the items in an interview setting is an interaction between the item itself, the knowledge resources the teacher recruits into the interview, and the way in which the interaction in the interview unfolds. assessments, wherever they are, and however they are used, are a discursive product, and not a transparent view into a teacher’s ‘mind’. 40 journal of education, no. 56, 201240 acknowledgement this work is based upon the research of the wits mathematics connect project at the university of the witwatersrand, supported by the firstrand foundation mathematics education chairs initiative of the first rand foundation the department of science and technology and the national research foundation (nrf). any opinion, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the frf, dst, or nrf. we are grateful to the teachers who engage with us so productively in the project, and generously give of their time to our research interests. we also thank the reviewers of this paper for insightful and generative feedback. references adler, j. and davis, z. 2011. modelling teaching in mathematics teacher education and the constitution of mathematics for teaching. in rowland, t. and ruthven, k. (eds), mathematical knowledge in teaching. new york: springer, pp.139–160. adler, j. and reed, y. 2002. challenges of teacher development: an investigation of take-up in south africa. pretoria, south africa: van schaik. adler, j. and davis, z. 2006. opening another black box: researching mathematics for teaching in mathematics teacher education. journal for research in mathematics education, 37(4): pp.270–296. alonzo, a.c. 2007. commentary: challenges of simultaneously defining and measuring knowledge for teaching. measurement, 5(2/3): pp.131–137. ball, d.l., thames, m.h. and phelps, g. 2008. content knowledge for teaching: what makes it special? journal of teacher education, 59: pp.389–407. bernstein, b. 2000. pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: theory, research, and critique (revised edn.). lanham: rowman and littlefield publishers, inc. borko, h., eisenhart, m., brown, c.a., underhill, r.g., jones, d. and agard, p.c. 1992. learning to teach hard mathematics: do novice teachers and their instructors give up too easily? journal for research in mathematics education, 23(3): pp.194–222. adler and patahuddin: recontextualising item s that m easure. . . 4141 hill, h.c. 2008. unpacking pedagogical content knowledge: conceptualizing and measuring teachers’ topic-specific knowledge of students. journal for research in mathematics education, 39(4): pp.372–400. hill, h.c., blunk, m.l., charalambos, y.c., lewis, j.m., phelps, g.c., sleep, l. and ball, d. 2008. mathematical knowledge for teaching and the mathematical quality of instruction: an exploratory study. cognition and instruction, 26: pp.430–511. hill, h.c., rowan, b. and ball, d.l. 2005. effects of teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching on student achievement american educational research journal, 42(2): pp.371–406. hill, h.c., schilling, s.g. and ball, d.l. 2004. developing measures of teachers’ mathematics knowledge for teaching. elementary school journal, 105(1): pp.11–30. hill, h.c., sleep, l., lewis, j.m. and ball, d.l. 2007. assessing teachers’ mathematical knowledge: what knowledge matters and what evidence counts? in lester, j.r.k. (ed.), second handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning. charlotte, nc: information age, pp.111–155. huillet, d. 2009. mathematics for teaching: an anthropological approach and its use in teacher training. for the learning of mathematics, 29(3): pp.4–10. krauss, s., baumert, j. and blum, w. 2008. secondary mathematics teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and content knowledge: validation of the coactiv constructs. zdm, 40(5): pp.873–892. leinhardt, g. and smith, d.a. 1985. expertise in mathematics instruction: subject matter knowledge. journal of educational psychology, 77(3): pp.247– 271. ma, l. 1999. knowing and teaching elementary mathematics: teachers’ understanding of fundamental mathematics in china and the united states. new jersey: lawrence erlbaum associates. marton, f., runesson, u. and tsui, a.b.m. 2004. classroom discourse and the space of learning. new jersey: lawrence erlbaum associates. 42 journal of education, no. 56, 201242 nardi, e., biza, i. and zachariades, t. 2012. ‘warrant’ revisited: integrating mathematics teachers’ pedagogical and epistemological considerations into toulmin’s model for argumentation. educational studies in mathematics, 79(2): pp.157–173. schmidt, w., blömeke, s. and tatto, m.t. 2011. teacher education matters: a study of middle school mathematics teacher preparation in six countries. new york, ny: teachers college press. schoenfeld, a.h. 2007. commentary: the complexities of assessing teacher knowledge. measurement, 5(2/3), pp.198–204. shulman, l.s. 1986. those who understand: knowledge growth in teaching. educational researcher, 15(2): pp.4–14. tatto, m.t. and senk, s. 2011. the mathematics education of future primary and secondary teachers: methods and findings from the teacher education and development study in mathematics. journal of teacher education, 62(2): pp.121–137. zazkis, r. and leikin, r. 2010. advanced mathematical knowledge in teaching practice: perceptions of secondary mathematics teachers. mathematical thinking and learning, 12(4): pp.263–281. jill adler and sitti maesuri patahuddin marang centre for mathematics and science education university of the witwatersrand jill.adler@wits.ac.za sitti.patahuddin@wits.ac.za mailto:jill.adler@wits.ac.za mailto:sitti.patahuddin@wits.ac.za adler and patahuddin: recontextualising item s that m easure. . . 4343 a summary of the interview analysis of 24 teachers appendix: table 3: teacher 10 interview and its coding table 4: teacher 3 interview and its coding exploring the recontextualisation of the discourse of geography in textbooks devika naidoo abstract the review of textbook studies shows that cursory attention has been given to the representation of the nature and structure of the parent discipline in textbooks. this study focuses on how the discourse of geography, is recontextualised in four grade 10 textbooks: two state approved textbooks that support the new curriculum (caps), an older pre-1994 textbook and a uk textbook. the analysis has been framed, at a macro-theoretical level, by bernstein’s concept of recontextualisation and bourdieu’s theory of symbolic forms. at the micro analytical level the discourse of geography as conceptualised by wignell, martin and eggins (1993) has been drawn on. a qualitative approach enabled in-depth multidimensional analysis that uncovered explicit and implicit similarities and differences in the texts. this paper articulates and illustrates an analytical framework for analysing the representation of the knowledge structure of geography in textbooks. it illustrates this framework by analysing the same sub-section: the structure and composition of the atmosphere, in the texts. data analysis shows that the textbooks recontextualise the discourse of geography differently. of the two textbooks developed to support caps, one recontextualises the discourse of geography in a more coherent and differentiated way than the other. it is argued that greater divergence from the discourse of geography increases possibility of gaps in knowledge and understanding. on the whole the paper points to paying attention in textbook studies to how the nature and structure of the parent discipline is recontextualised in textbooks. introduction school textbooks are seen as fundamental for supporting curriculum enactment in schools. textbooks, firstly, set out the parent discipline as “textbooks expound the body of accepted theory [of a discipline], . . . illustrate many or all of its successful applications, compare these applications with exemplary observations and experiments” (kuhn, 1962, p.10) and “aim to communicate the vocabulary and syntax of a contemporary scientific language” (kuhn, 1962, p.136). secondly, textbooks are key resources for 154 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 directing what students learn. apple (2004) holds that textbooks “dominate what students learn”, they “set the curriculum” and present “the facts learned in most subjects” and as such “participate in no less than the organised knowledge system of society” (p.182). thirdly, textbooks present the socially accepted body of knowledge of a discipline. since the entire universe of knowledge of the parent discipline cannot be represented, what knowledge is selected to be included is influenced not only by national curriculum specifications but also by the ideologies of the selectors. thus apple holds that “textbooks signify through their content and form, particular constructions of reality” (apple, 2004, p.182): textbooks . . . signify through their content and form, particular constructions of reality…they participate in creating what a society has recognised as legitimate and truthful. they help set the canons of truthfulness. . . (apple, 2004, p.182). however, textbooks are not just curriculum tools nor mediums for the transfer of ideological messages but also commercial products and economic commodities that compete with other textbooks in the market. thus, since the 70s, apple’s ‘highly influential work’ in books such as teachers and texts (1986) and official knowledge (1993) reveals through critical analysis “the hegemonic processes that characterise the production and consumption of textbooks both inside and outside the us” (crawford, 2003, p.18). another quote cited by apple (2004) encapsulates varied views of textbooks: textbooks, for better or worse, dominate what students learn. they set the curriculum, and often the facts learned, in most subjects. for many students, textbooks are their first and sometimes only early exposure to books and to reading. the public regards textbooks as authoritative, accurate and necessary. and teachers rely on them to organise lessons and structure subject matter. but the current system of textbook adoption has filled our schools with trojan horses – glossily covered blocks of paper whose words emerge to deaden the minds of our nation’s youth, and make them enemies of learning (apple, 2004, p.183). while the public expects textbooks to be ‘authoritative, accurate and necessary’, the above quote points out that the ‘quality’ of textbooks have been declining, or worse textbooks are viewed as subversive. the metaphor of the trojan horse leads one to think about textbooks as ‘something that is meant to disrupt, undermine, subvert, or destroy an enemy or rival, especially somebody or something that operates while concealed within an organisation’. the quote also cautions against being fooled by the appearance of the textbook. textbooks reduced to ‘glossily covered blocks of paper’ naidoo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 155 . . .that lure selectors may ‘deaden the minds of students and make them enemies of learning’. textbooks have been studied from a variety of lenses. marsden’s (2001) three distinctions: of matter, refers to the content of textbooks; method, refers to the context of curriculum and pedagogy within which they are used and mission, refers to wider conceptions of schooling and society, indicates aspects that could be analysed. nworgu (cited by emereole, 2007) developed six indices for the evaluation of the content of science textbooks: topical coverage index that provides an estimate of the extent to which the textbook covers the prescribed syllabus; learning activity index that measures participation of learners; study questions index that measures the extent to which learners are required to think or to receive knowledge; the illustration index that measures the extent to which learners are required to engage in an activity or to view/observe the illustration; and the chapter summary index that measures the extent to which a more permanent understanding of the text is promoted. stradling (2001) developed four categories of analysis, of which the first deals with the evaluation of textbook content that includes questions on coverage, sequencing of curriculum, space allocation, the incorporation of multiple perspectives, cultural and regional identity and omissions. the second deals with the textbooks pedagogic value that includes questions on students prior knowledge, on whether the textbook encourages memorisation or skills of development, on the use of charts and pictures, on the explication of historical concepts in the text and on the facilitation of comparative thinking. in pingel’s (1999) list of criteria for analysis of content, factual accuracy, completeness, errors and extent of differentiation are identified. collada and atxurra (2006) analysed how the objective of the curriculum of democratic citizenship within the european framework and spanish educational reforms is represented in textbooks. from the assessment perspective, yang (2013) compared assessments in older syllabus-based geography textbooks with new standards-based junior geography textbooks used in mainland china. yang found that the new books abandoned the “overwhelming repetition drills”, “the application of geographic knowledge and skills is valued”, “higher order thinking assessments became more numerous” and that “the general quality of assessments in the newer standards-based books improved” (yang, 2013, p.66). many textbook studies focus on the social representation of marginalised groups. emereole (2007) added the under-represented population index, to nworgu’s five indices, for measuring the extent to which women and cultural and ethnic diversity is represented in neutral or biased ways. sleeter and grant (1991) analysed how 156 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 america’s diversity was projected to children through the school day. they examined the question: “how have the writers and publishers. . . selected knowledge of various american racial, social class, gender and disability groups?” (p.281). mckinney (2005) investigated to what extent textbooks are appropriate for diverse learners in sa and found inequity in gender representation, “significant under-representation of rural, poor, disabled and working-class social worlds, though racial diversity was better represented” (p. xi). johnston (2006, p.286) analysed human geography in several textbooks and concluded that “their use as political tools in attempts to promote particular visions of human geographical practices”. textbooks can and have been studied from a range of lenses, and this study introduces a further category of analysis: the recontextulisation of the parent discipline in textbooks. bernstein’s description of the recontextualisation of knowledge from its context of production to its reproduction in schools (bernstein, 1996) provides the overarching conceptual framework for exploring how geographical knowledge is recontextualised in textbooks. bernstein’s (2000) conceptualisation of this process is analysed in his theory of the ‘pedagogic device’ that sees knowledge as being recontextualised from its parent discipline through to the ‘official curriculum’ and to its ‘reproduction’ in schools and in undergraduate tertiary education. the recontextulisation of biology in the south african life sciences curriculum has been explored by johnson, dempster and hugo (2011). in line with these authors and muller (2007) this study is based on the premise that for specialised forms of knowledge to be reproduced the school subject ought to recontextualise the generally accepted basic knowledge structure of the parent discipline as closely as possible. while the process of recontextualisation from the context of production of knowledge to its reproduction context in schools may be studied, this study hones in on what knowledge has been recontextualised in textbooks. in this regard bernstein (1990) argues that the basic question to be asked with reference to the privileging pedagogic text is: does the text focus upon the pedagogic subject’s relation to this text in terms of social class, gender, race attributes or any other discriminating attribute or does the text focus on the internal constituents of the privileging text in the process of its transmission and acquisition at the level of the classroom or school (p.173–174). the relevant point for this paper is the analytical distinction between social representation (class, gender, race attributes) and knowledge representation naidoo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 157 (‘internal constituents’) that could be used as lenses to categorise textbook studies. while the context in which the textbook is used has an impact on representation of content, inaccurate, incomplete, incoherent and insufficiently differentiated knowledge contents would impair understanding in contexts where both teachers and students depend on the textbook as the main resource for teaching and learning the curriculum. in this regard factual accuracy, completeness, errors and extent of differentiation of content may be analysed (pingel, 2000). the object of this analysis is on knowledge representation or the ‘internal constituents’ of textbooks that were developed to support the new curriculum (department of education, 2012) and to compare them with a uk textbook and an older textbook used prior to democratic change in 1994. the analysis has been framed at a macro-theoretical level by bernstein’s concept of recontextualisation and bourdieu’s theory of symbolic systems as ‘structuring structures’, ‘structured structures’ and as ‘instruments of domination’. with reference to the specific nature and structure of geography, the discourse of geography as a discipline concerned with making order and meaning of the experiential world, through observing, classifying and explaining phenomena (wignell et.al., 1993) was drawn on. this paper articulates an analytical framework for evaluating the knowledge structure of geography textbooks. it also proposes a fundamental general criteria to judge textbook quality – the extent to which the essential link between knowledge represented in a school subject textbook and its parent discipline is maintained. geography, symbolic forms, social functions the social function of symbolic forms of knowledge as ‘structured, structuring structures’ has been highlighted by bourdieu (1991). as structuring structures the symbolic forms are instruments for making sense of objects and experiences symbolically. in bourdieu’s words they are “instruments for knowing and constructing the world of objects, as symbolic forms. . . thus recognizing . . . the active aspect of cognition” (bourdieu, 1991, p.164). as structuring structures symbolic forms enable symbolic power, “a power of constructing reality” and one “that tends to establish a gnoseological order” or an order based on knowledge where “the immediate meaning of the world depends on what durkheim calls logical conformism, that is, a homogenous conception of time, space, number and cause, one 158 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 which makes it possible for different intellects to reach agreement“ (bourdieu, 1991, p.166). durkheim designates the social function of symbolic forms explicitly in that he “makes social solidarity dependent on the sharing of a symbolic system”. thus bourdieu states: it is an authentic political function. . .symbols are the instruments par excellence of ‘social integration’; as instruments of knowledge and communication they make it possible for there to be consensus on the meaning of the social world. . .a consensus which contributes fundamentally to the reproduction of the social order. logical integration is the precondition of moral integration (bourdieu, 1991, p.166). an additional social function of symbolic forms is that “they make it possible to reach consensus on the meaning of the social world, a consensus that contributes to the reproduction of the social order” (p.166). furthermore, that logical integration is a prerequisite for moral integration is yet another argument for symbolic forms of knowledge. these structuring functions of all symbolic forms is echoed by wignell et al. (1993), who conceptualised the discourse of geography as a discipline concerned with making order and meaning of the experiential world, through observing, classifying and explaining phenomena. the first procedure to uncover this order and meaning is to observe and describe the experiential world through a technical lexis. the technical lexis refers to the use of terms or expressions within a specialised field that have a field specific meaning. the technical terminology that is core to the field is the means, not only for making sense symbolically, but also for more generally accepted geographic meaning to be attributed to objects and experiences. the technical terms are either unique to the field (mesas and buttes), burrowed from other fields (condensation and transpiration) or drawn from vernacular taxonomies (weather). the vernacular terms acquire a new meaning because they are part of a geographic taxonomy. as instruments of knowledge, “symbolic structures“ can exercise a structuring power only because “they themselves are structured” (bourdieu, 1991, p.166). this aspect aligns with bourdieu’s symbolic forms as ‘structuring structures’ that refers to the use of the language and structure of geography to construct meaning of the experience. this first step of relating to students experience, or directing their experience, aims at rooting the symbolic description that follows in an individual perceptual experience. naidoo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 159 the structuring power of geography as a symbolic form arises from its structure. wignell et al. (1993) hold that the structure of geographical knowledge is that it is made up of many taxonomies. a taxonomy: is an ordered, systematic classification of some phenomena based on the fundamental principles of superordination (where something is a type of or kind of something else) or composition (where something is a part of something else)? (wignell et al., 1993, p.137) taxonomies arise from two principles of classification: super-ordination where something is a kind of or type of something else and composition where something is a part of something else. this binomial classification ‘tells little about the thing itself’ but enables it to be placed in an ordered system of oppositions in relation to other things. an example of superordination is: there are three types of rocks – igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. this principle of classification extends a general concept into its specific types. the principle of composition refers to where something is classified as being a part of something else. it gives detailed description about something but nothing about its relationship to other similar things. take for example the following extract from a textbook: rocks are classified according to their origin. there are three categories of rock: igneous rock: rock formed when molten rock material cools and hardens. sedimentary rock: rock formed from fragments of other rocks that have been compressed and hardened. metamorphic rock: rocks that have been altered by heat or pressure. in the above extract both principles of classification apply: superordination in which the three categories or types of rock are stated and the accompanying information on each type of rock illustrates the principle of composition – the properties of each type of rock is described in greater detail. the distinction between vernacular taxonomies that are either specialised or every day and formal scientific taxonomies (wignell et al., 1993) provides a further criteria to analyse the properties of knowledge statements in textbooks. according to wignell et al., phenomena classified formally and scientifically ‘already have vernacular names and vernacular definitions’. but scientific taxonomising is a process or renaming in order to reclassify the vernacular that also reorders it. for example, with reference to the section on weather and climate, everyday words and vernacular taxonomies are used to describe the weather, which are related to experience of the weather at that particular time – cold, windy, cloudy, etc. it includes a personalised and connotative dimension. however a formal definition of weather ‘weather 160 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 refers to the state of the atmosphere at a local level, usually on a short time scale minutes to months’, is not only general, precise, denotative and depersonalised but it also sets up its difference from the term – climate. from geomorphology, a landform could be described as a kind of hill with steep sides and a flat top. but by naming the landform a mesa, a technical name has been created for the landform and has classified it in a taxonomy that distinguishes it from other related landforms such as buttes. critical sociological perspectives have pointed out that symbolic forms are ‘instruments of domination’. often, such critiques do not give due cognisance to the logical structure and cognitive function of symbolic forms. schmaus argues that the sociology of scientific knowledge must include cognitive goals and not always reduce knowledge to non-cognitive goals and interests (schmaus, 1994). the third geographic procedure to uncover this order and meaning is to explain how phenomena came to be the way they are through implication sequences of cause and effect. technical terms are introduced and defined through an identifying relational clause: an x (technical term – mesas) is a y (definition). technical terms are also defined through causal relations between phenomena. in elaborating on a technical term an additional task is explaining how it got to be that way. where taxonomising tends to focus on things. . .explaining tends to focus on processes. the emphasis shifts from things in place to things in action. to explain how things are, or came to be the way they are, it is necessary to use processes, participants and circumstances. these tend to be arranged in clause complexes which will be called implication sequences (martin, 2006, p.157). martin provides an example of an implication sequence that explains what cold fronts are, the processes by which frontal rainfall occurs and the clouds associated with cold fronts: cold fronts. a stream of comparatively cold, dense air tends to move along close to the ground as it flows towards regions in which warmer, less dense air is rising. this rising air becomes cooler . . .if it is humid, condensation of water vapour will take place. the resulting clouds are usually of the cumulus type. the front edge of the cold air mass is known as a cold front. much of the rain that falls in australia occurs as a result of cold front conditions (p.41). in explanation sequences causal resources such as logical connectors are deployed, such as, if, as a result of, resulting in. wignell et al. (1993) points naidoo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 161 out that transition networks maybe used to model implication sequences. the basic components of transition networks are states (represented by circles) and arcs (represented by arrows showing the direction of change). an example of a transition network linked by arrows shows air containing water vapour, rising, resulting in adiabatic cooling to dew point temperature, resulting in water vapour condensing and cloud formation. the field of geography is thus made up of field specific technical terms for what is observed and experienced, a number of interrelated taxonomies that orders what is observed and experienced and sets of implication sequences that explain ‘how things are’ or ‘came to be that way’. the major task of the geography textbook is to represent its logical structure or its technical taxonomy and enable students to make sense and explain the experiential world in geographical ways (wignell et al., 1993, p.165). context and methodology in the democratic south african era, changes in curriculum policy on knowledge content and organisation set in motion a flurry of new textbooks. against the background of three major waves of national curriculum reforms in south africa in the post-apartheid period: curriculum 2005 (c2005) implemented in 1998, the revised national curriculum statement (ncs) implemented in 2002, and the recent national curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) implemented in 2012, this paper presents an analysis of new grade 10 geography textbooks to see how the nature and structure of geography are recontextualised in these textbooks, in comparison with a uk textbook and an older textbook widely used during the apartheid political dispensation. a qualitative approach was employed as the aim was to subject the same content to an in-depth analysis of how the discourse of geography is represented. in this study four textbooks were analysed. two of these textbooks supporting the new curriculum (caps), were published in 2011 and 2012 and have been approved by the department of education for use in schools and cost r154. the same section in an older textbook used before c2005 and a uk textbook were also analysed. the unit of analysis is the same section the structure and composition of the atmosphere, an aspect of weather and climate within physical geography in all the textbooks. the knowledge 162 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 statements in the textbooks were analysed according to the extent to which the terminology, taxonomy and implication sequences of geography are evident. nicholls (2003) advises that researchers ‘must formulate a framework or criteria for the analysis. the analytical framework, see table 1 has been derived from wignell et al.’s conceptualisation of the discourse of geography. table 1 below shows the attribute of geography, the intellectual process that accompanies it and the main questions that guided the analysis. table 1: analytical framework attribute of geography intellectual process analytical criteria making meaning of experiential world observation, identifying, describing, naming the extent to which each textbook requires students to observe and make sense of the experiential world? a technical lexis naming the extent to which the technical lexis is represented ordering the experiential world ordering/taxonomising/classifying: classification based on superordination and compositional principles the extent to which the geographic taxonomy is represented explaining experiential phenomena implication sequences network diagrams that represent the taxonomic relationship the extent to which phenomena are explained visual images and diagrams to illustrate the section were also analysed. each heading, subheading and sentence was analysed for the extent to which content has been differentiated in terms of classification and compositional taxonomies. naidoo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 163 data analysis and discussion overview of the four textbooks table 2: headings, sub-headings and alternate semiotic modes (numbered as in the texts) the four textbooks textbook a textbook b textbook c textbook d heads and subheadings topic 2 the atmosphere module 1 the atmosphere – weather, climate weather and climate 2 climatology chpt 1 composition and structure of the atmosphere unit 1 composition and structure of the atmosphere structure and composition of the atmosphere 1. troposphere 2.1 the atmosphere 2.1.1 what is the atmosphere? 2.1.2 the composition of the atmosphere 2.1.3 the structure of the atmosphere 1. troposphere 2. stratosphere 3. mesosphere 4. thermosphere 2.1.4 the physical properties of the atmosphere – mass mobility compressibility unit 1 importance of the atmosphere the importance of the atmosphere 2. stratosphere 3. meosphere 4. thermosphere 1. what is the atmosphere? composition and structure of the atmosphere troposphere stratosphere mesosphere thermosphere 2. why is the atmosphere important for life on earth? 3. the composition of the atmosphere. gasses, liquids, solid particles 4. the structure of the atmosphere troposphere stratosphere mesosphere thermosphere atmospheric gasses total headings 11 7 7 10 164 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 number of tables 1 (the gasses and their importance) 0 1 (the composition of the atmosphere) 0 number of diagrams 3 (the composition of gasses in the atmosphere, the structure of the atmosphere, a simple line graph) 3 (the composition of the atmosphere, the vertical structure of the atmosphere, temperature changes in the atmosphere, the ozone in. . .) 1 (the vertical structure of the atmosphere) 4 (the structure of the atmosphere, gravitational pull, mobility, compressibility) images, photographs 2 (the arctic icecap; polar temperatures are colder than equatorial temperatures, volcanic ash from an eruption in iceland in april 2010) 1 (polar stratospheric clouds) 0 3 (meteosat image, baragraph and barometer, anemometer) total alternate semiotic modes 6 4 2 7 the number of headings and subheadings in the texts range from seven to eleven. text a differentiates the sections into four main sections that are numbered from one to four and seven subsections (gasses, liquids, solid particles, troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere and thermosphere) that are written in bold print. the headings indicate progressive focussing on the more specific concepts. text a differentiates the section into seven headings and sub-headings. a higher level heading ‘composition and structure of the atmosphere’ is repeated verbatim later. although not part of the object of analysis the multisemiotic modes of representation are indeed striking and impressive. the use of alternate semiotic modes ranges from two to seven across the textbooks. the three sa texts use alternate semiotic modes to a larger extent than the uk textbook. the new caps geography textbooks and the older text book used before c2005 (text d) show a greater multitude of figures and narrative images consisting of photographs, satellite images, graphs, diagrams that illustrate naidoo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 165 and explain textual meanings. the use of different colours in the new caps texts are not only appealing aesthetically but also illustrate factual details better. diagrams in a variety of colours support linguistic explanations. for example, the use of differing spacing between drawings of air molecules to show gravitational force and compressibility of the atmosphere provide an additional semiotic mode to convey meaning. the photographs and images provide a strong link to the empirical and perceptual/experiential. for example, the photograph of clouds and the barometer provide learners with a direct link to the perceptual and empirical. this is consistent with marsden’s (2001) observation of the “move away from the dominance of text to the use of visual material as complementary” to text (p.317). the common sections are the composition and structure of the atmosphere, the importance of the atmosphere. all four books provide a diagram that illustrates the vertical structure of the atmosphere. observing and making sense of the experiential world of the four textbooks analysed, just one, (textbook a) required students to engage in empirical observation and to make sense of such observations geographically. this has been done by setting exercises or activities requiring students to observe their environment and to respond to questions on the basis of their observations. two examples will be used to illustrate this aspect. firstly, students need to do fieldwork to understand that the atmosphere is composed of solid particles: 1. find a shelf in your classroom that can be left untouched for a few days. 1.1 after three or four days, examine the shelf – wipe your fingers across it. what do you notice? 1.2 in your geography workbook, write a brief report. . . the aim of the activity is to enable students to link the dust particles that settle on surfaces to the concept of microscopic solid particles being part of the atmosphere. 166 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 secondly, to enable understanding of the concept of reflection of solar insolation, students were required to observe and name objects that cause glare: 1.1 when you walk around at school (or at home) what objects cause so much glare that they hurt your eyes? list them 1.2 why do these objects cause glare? the second task requires students to identify objects that reflect light and to draw on what they learned on depletion of insolation to explain absorption, scattering or reflection of light. with reference to observation and explaining the experiential world, this textbook includes everyday experiences that are subjected to scientific observation and inquiry. both examples link common experiences to geographic terms, concepts and processes. it thus enables a key function of symbolic forms, ‘structuring structures’ (bourdieu, 1991) that enable scaffolding of students’ cognition towards more objective geographical sense-making. it also establishes the link between phenomena and experiences to their symbolic representation. a possible explanation for lack of such activities in the three other textbooks could be that authors see this type of activity as a pedagogic responsibility of the teacher (young, 2010), thus making assumptions about the specialised capabilities of the teacher that might disadvantage students taught by less qualified and competent teachers. in this regard bernstein (2003) noted the social class assumptions that underpin invisible pedagogies in which knowledge criteria are implicit. defining key technical terms all four texts provide definitions of key terms. for example a key term in this section – atmosphere – is defined as: the atmosphere is an envelope of transparent, odourless gasses held to the earth by gravitational attraction (text c) the atmosphere is the gaseous layer which envelops the earth and is essential for the maintenance of life on earth (textbook d) the atmosphere is the layer of gasses that surround earth. the main gasses include nitrogen, oxygen, argon, water vapour and carbon dioxide (textbook a) naidoo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 167 however, text b differed in four ways. the meaning of key terms such as ‘composition’ and ‘structure’ in the heading are taken for granted as self evident. then, statements that contain a number of technical terms are not further explained. for example, ‘the separation into layers based on thermal characteristics, chemical composition, movement and density’ is not defined or elaborated on further in terms of how chemical composition, movement and density differ in the four layers. in an accompanying keyword box the term thermal characteristics is defined as ‘temperature changes – how hot or cold something is’, which is a definition of temperature. in this definition ‘thermal characteristics’ is conflated with temperature. key words (insolation, terrestrial radiation, radiation, latent heat) defined in keyword boxes in the margin of the page actually belong to the section heating of the atmosphere or energy in the atmosphere. these disconnections point to incoherence between the specific section and the keywords being defined. lastly, unlike the other three books, text b includes in its representation vernacular terms (wignell et al., 1993) more frequently than technical terms, such as ‘sun block’ in the sentence ‘if all the sun’s rays were to strike down on earth, there would be no life, so the atmosphere acts as a ‘sun block’.’ in this example the use of the vernacular term ‘sun block’ is not co-extended to its scientific term. further, it’s the ozone layer and not the entire atmosphere that performs this function. the excessive amount of ‘greenhouse’ gasses in the atmosphere in large cities results in the ‘greenhouse’ effect and to global warming. these aspects point to factual inaccuracy and incompleteness (pingel, 1999). representing the technical taxonomy contextualisation in disciplinary area the texts analysed differ in positioning the section within the parent discipline. textbook c links the section of ‘structure and composition of the atmosphere’ to weather and climate and to meteorology which is defined as the study of atmospheric phenomena. it then proceeds to define ‘weather’ and ‘climate’. the definitions maintain the link with the atmosphere: ‘weather refers to the state of the atmosphere; it emphasizes aspects of the atmosphere that affect human activity…’ it then goes on to emphasise that both weather and climate refer to states of the atmosphere or the ‘behaviour’ of the atmosphere at local and short time scales, whereas climate explains the longterm behaviour of the atmosphere. 168 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 in text b the section composition and structure of the atmosphere is not contextualised within the section weather and climate and within meteorology. this leads to lack of focus and cohesion. it does state: ‘in order to understand weather and climate we need to know about the atmosphere’. this sentence indicates the reason for studying the atmosphere, however, the taxonomic relation across weather and climate and atmosphere, that we study the atmosphere in order to understand weather and climate that are experienced on a daily basis, are not established. the section thus appears disconnected to the experiential and to the broader section weather and climate and to the science of meteorology. the content present under the heading importance of the atmosphere is general and not related to importance of the various components of the atmosphere for weather and climate. the disjointedness and lack of connection compromises the knowledge structure being represented. textbook c contextualises the section moisture in the atmosphere within weather and climate and the further within meteorology whereas textbook d contextualises the section within climatology. in text c, the ‘structure and composition of the atmosphere’ is orthographically marked by bold and larger font and a different colour. the first line defines the atmosphere as ‘an envelope of transparent, odourless gasses held to the earth by gravitational attraction’. the next sentence gives its dimensions and that since ‘most’ of the atmosphere is concentrated within 16 km of the earth’s surface at the equator and 8 km of the poles, weather and climate is also concentrated in this zone. it goes on to then indicate that while atmospheric pressure decreases with height, temperature changes within the atmosphere are complex and based on such changes the atmosphere is divided into four layers from the earth’s surface upwards. a graph is used to illustrate the vertical structure of the atmosphere – its temperature and its pressure. a table shows the composition of the atmosphere and the importance of each for weather and climate. it distinguishes permanent, variable and inert gasses. its relevance is established as ‘importance for weather and climate’. these multi-semiotic modes of representation provide a range of resources for students to grasp the symbolic meaning and structure of the content more accurately. the two new textbooks (a and b) locate the section in ‘the atmosphere’ and not in weather and climate or meteorology or climatology. this indicates disconnection with the disciplinary context in the two new caps textbooks as well as possible disconnection with more specialised meanings to follow in grades 11 and 12 and tertiary education. naidoo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 169 coherence and differentiation of headings and sub-headings textbooks a, c and d show productive coherence and differentiation between headings and subheadings. text a references the technical lexis of geography. it effects adequate differentiation by listing the significance of the atmosphere separately and by distinguishing between composition and structure and between permanent and variable gasses. it defines key terms such as atmosphere and structure that are connected to the section. text b, however, shows lack of differentiation of main and sub-headings that also lead to lack of differentiation of the taxonomic structure of geography. this book opens in unit one with the heading composition and structure of the atmosphere and repeats this same heading as the second sub-heading. further, two excerpts from text b are illustrative of incoherence between the heading and the content presented: the importance of the atmosphere heat energy and the way in which it is transported in the atmosphere forms the basis of our weather. the atmosphere is vital for the transport of energy around our planet. since the earth is neither warming up nor cooling down, there must be a balance between the amount of incoming insolation and the amount of outgoing terrestrial radiation. the content under the heading describes heating of the atmosphere or energy in the atmosphere. due to the mismatch, the ordering of key content is again compromised – there is lack of statement of the prime source of energy, of short wave radiation and of its link to weather and climate. secondly, under the heading ‘composition and structure of the atmosphere’ the following appears: composition and structure of the atmosphere you need to study the atmosphere to see how energy is transported in the atmosphere. if all the sun’s rays were to strike down on earth, there would be no life, so the atmosphere acts as a ‘sun block’. it allows just the right amount of heat energy needed to maintain life on the planet (p. 2). the correct heading for the content presented would be ‘the importance of the atmosphere’. 170 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 classificational principles of all four texts analysed text b does not represent the core taxonomy of the section analysed. while all three books represent gasses as permanent and variable, text b does not classify gasses into permanent and variable gasses, nor does it define these types of gasses and give examples of each. with regard to the discourse of geography, in wignell et al.’s terms, the classificational and compositional taxonomy are not represented. further, there is insufficient differentiation between different aspects – composition and structure – as both are represented under one heading. an example of a piece of text that illustrates the taxonomic structure of concepts according to both principles of classification and composition from text a is provided below: gasses the atmosphere consists of two main categories of gasses: permanent gasses and variable gasses. permanent gasses do not change significantly in proportion while variable gasses vary from time to time and place to place. . . the first statement is an example of the superordination principle where gasses – a general concept – is classified into two categories and the composition principle where there is further elaboration of the properties of each type of gas. in the above example the coherence across the analytical distinctions of ‘two main types of gasses’ and then what ‘permanent gasses’ and ‘variable gasses’ are is robust and explicit. in wignell et al.’s terms, the taxonomic structure of geography as indicated by classificational and compositional taxonomies has been maintained. text a, c and the older textbook used during the apartheid era reflect the taxonomic structure of geography in similar ways. explaining the experiential world the texts include explanations of processes throughout it. technical terms are introduced and defined through an identifying relational clause. for example, weather refers to the state of the atmosphere at a local level and short time scale. processes are explained through the use of causal relations through the naidoo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 171 use of logical connectors such as because, caused by and is due to. for example, ‘temperatures in the troposphere decrease by 6.4 degrees c with every 1000m increase in altitude. this is because the earth’s surface is warmed by incoming solar radiation…’ the incoherence in text b that arises from insufficient differentiation of its structure impacts negatively on explanations of processes. the text is characterised by more narrative descriptions (bernstein, 2003) rather than the analytical code (bernstein, 2003, taylor, 2009) that characterises scientific knowledge. consistent with wignell et al.’s point, all four textbooks also do not represent explanations through transition network diagrams. table 3: summary of findings attribute of geography intellectual process textbook a textbook b textbook c textbook d a structuring structure: make meaning of experiential world observation, processing, collating and presenting fieldwork findings activity set based on empirical observation not investigative – more content based. very little reference to the experiential not investigative – graded content based. very little reference to the experiential not investigative – more content based very little reference to the experiential a technical lexis naming defines key terms, atmosphere and structure. key concept definition connected to section key terms not defined. less connected to section (compromises the compositional principle) defines key terms, atmosphere, structure. no definitions alongside text. evident 172 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 a structured structure taxonomising: classification based on superordination and compositional principles. distinguishes between composition and structure. distinguishes between permanent and variable gasses. lack of contextualisation in meteorology – represents both under one heading. gasses are not distinguished into permanent and variable gasses. main and substructure evident – meteorology, weather and climate, atmosphere, composition and structure. distinguishes between permanent and variable gasses. main and substructure evident – climatology. weather and climate, atmosphere, composition and structure. distinguishes between permanent and variable gasses. implication sequences – explaining processes use of causal resources. transition network diagrams. evident not used weakly evident not used most evident not used evident not used conclusion this paper articulates and illustrates an analytical framework for analysing the representation of the knowledge structure of geography in textbooks. it has deployed wignell et al.’s analysis of the discourse of geography in the analysis of a section in four geography textbooks. while it is specific to the discipline of geography it proposes that studies of textbook content also pay attention to the rigour of recontextualisation of the knowledge structure of the parent discipline in the school subject textbook. as muller says: “if recontextualisation totally severs any relation (between the parent knowledge structure and the recontextualised school subject), then how are specialised knowledges ever reproduced?” (2007, p.80). with reference to recontextualisation of knowledge, it suggests that drawing on theories of the nature and structure of the specific subject enhances the general sociological views of knowledge as put forward by bourdieu and bernstein. in other words, the use of macro theoretical formulations that provide the framework for studying the functions of symbolic forms and the processes by which they are recontextulised, together with micro analytical frameworks enable more specific analyses of the knowledge structure of symbolic forms thereby enabling establishing the relationship between the macro and the micro and the social implications of micro representations. naidoo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 173 the textbooks analysed indicate different recontextualisations of the nature and structure of geography without a single text representing all three aspects of geography. of the four texts analysed, three recontextualise the subject adequately, whereas text b falls short on representing the terminology, taxonomy and implication sequences of geography. it fails to represent basic, general, universally accepted classifications of the core knowledge structure of geography, is incoherent and factually inaccurate. in this regard johnson, dempster and hugo (2011) note that “curricula need to reflect their parent discipline to a reasonable degree, if the reproduction of specialised knowledges is not to be undermined” (p.27). given apple’s (2004) view that textbooks ‘dominate what students learn’, ‘set the curriculum’ and present ‘the facts learned in most subjects’ the variations in the textbooks would lead to inequalities in students understanding of the subject and in performance in national examinations. it would disadvantage students who come from lower income backgrounds who might depend more heavily on textbooks for the ‘facts’ about the subject. for these children the school is most often the only site of acquisition of the ‘analytical code’ (bernstein, 2003) and well-structured textbooks a necessary resource. as such, the use of text b to support curriculum delivery may impair the cognitive interest (schmauss, 1994) and effect symbolic domination (bourdieu, 1991). uncovering the social class positioning of students using this text has been beyond the scope of this study. given that both text a and b cost the same, the injustice is even greater. just one of the four texts directs students to observe phenomena as starting points for learning its conceptual explanations. the absence of this in the remaining three texts may hinder students from linking their own experiences and observations to geographic terms, definitions and explanations in order to progress to learning how to make sense of objects and experiences geographically. text c represents the technical and taxonomic structure most cohesively and it explains by the use of implication sequences. its weakness lays in not representing geography as a symbolic form that takes its starting point from empirical or experiential objects and in limited multisemiotic modes of representation. the weaker differentiation of concepts in text b when representing the taxonomy of geography is not only factually inaccurate but also incomplete. this would undoubtedly place students using this textbook at a disadvantage in understanding and concomitantly in performance in national examinations. muller (2000) notes that “divisions and distinctions of ideas become knowledge only once they have become systematized or connected to each 174 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 other i.e. once they become formed into schemes of classification. . .” (p.1). given bourdieu’s theory that the learning of symbolic forms enable social reproduction of symbolic forms of knowledge, then the lack of activation of the active cognitive construction of common experiences into general symbolic representations, may impair coherence across experience and symbolic form, thus impairing the ‘structuring structure’ role of symbolic forms. finally the implications of the findings point to the need for high quality textbooks to be developed that represent the knowledge structure of the parent discipline well. this analysis shows, firstly, that a high quality text would: contextualise the section within its overarching discipline; number the main and sub-headings that correspond to the accepted core structure of subject; represent the facts accurately, represent the classificational and compositional taxonomic structure fully, provide full descriptions of the properties of each category, require students to reflect on their perceptual experiences; use multisemiotic modes of representations such as diagrams to illustrate concepts, tables that summarise the text and include images and photographs that make linguistic descriptions real. secondly, that choice of texts to support public education be based on an objective evaluation of the extent to which the nature and structure of the discipline is represented. thirdly, that textbooks be developed by writers adequately qualified in the discipline who would be able to represent the structure of the subject better. given that the majority of south african schools are ineffective (taylor, 2009) high quality textbooks create the possibility of disruption, even if at the level of individual exceptions, of the “correspondence between social structures and mental structures” (wacquant, 2007, p. 7) that is evident in the social universe. naidoo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 175 references bernstein, b. 2000. pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: theory, research, critique. revised edition. oxford: rowman. apple, m.w. 1998. teachers and texts: a political economy of class and gender relations in education. london: routledge. apple, m.w. 2004. cultural politics and the text. in 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(eds), politics of the textbook. new york: routledge. stradling, r. 2001. teaching 20th century european history. strasbourg: council of europe publishing. taylor, n. 2009 the state of south african schools. part 1: time and the regulation of consciousness. journal of education, 46: pp.9–32. wacquant, l. 2007. towards a social praxeology: the structure and logic of bourdieu’s sociology. in bourdieu, p. and wacquant, l. 2007. an invitation to reflexive sociology. cambridge: polity press, pp.1–6. wignell, p., martin, j.r. and eggins, s. 1993. the discourse of geography: ordering and explaining the experiential world. in halliday, m.a.k. and martin, j.r. writing science: literacy and discursive power. the farm press: washington dc. young, m. 2010. the future of education in a knowledge society: the radical case for a subject-based curriculum. journal of the pacific circle consortium for education, 22(1): pp.21–32. devika naidoo faculty of education university of johannesburg devikan@uj.ac.za mailto:devikan@uj.ac.za 178 journal of education, no. 58, 2013 microsoft word bissue76full21oct.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 76, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i76a07 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x teachers’ views on inclusive education for secondary school visually impaired learners: an example from lesotho malehlanye ralejoe schools’ management advisor, bocheletsane combined school, ministry of education and training, lesotho rmalehlanye@yahoo.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6353-1795 (received: 9 january 2019; accepted: 9 september 2019) abstract in this article i consider the views of teachers and their experiences relating to their teaching of heterogeneous learners (including some who are visually impaired) in a secondary mainstream school in lesotho. data was collected using focus group discussions. two groups were formed, one consisting of four regular/mainstream teachers and the other of four support teachers. data was analysed thematically, and the results showed that, generally, teachers preferred mainstream schooling for children with visual impairment, although resource challenges prompted them to think about special schools as alternatives in extremely under-resourced schools. the basotho culture of communalism seemed to have played a big role in teachers’ obligations to take care of all children without discrimination. furthermore, the educational success of learners with visual impairment appeared to be a motivation for the teachers. however, they reported some challenges such as the shortage of equipment and support staff, an examination-orientated curriculum, and a hostile infrastructure. it is recommended that these be addressed by the concerned parties in order to improve inclusive education for the benefit of teachers and learners (with and without visual impairment) in the school concerned. keywords: inclusive education, mainstream school, regular teachers, special school, support teachers, teaching strategies, visual impairment introduction although there are several definitions of inclusive education (ie), it is understood generally to entail addressing and responding to the diversity of the needs of all learners through increasing participation in learning, cultures, and communities, and also in reducing exclusion within and from education (booth & ainscow, 2000), hence ensuring quality education for all learners. in 1990, the united nations (un) assembled in jomtien, thailand, and concluded that it is through education for all (efa) that quality education can be ensured for all people. as a means of realising the efa goals, the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (crpd) was adopted by the un in 2006. article 5 requires that all states “take all appropriate steps to ensure that reasonable accommodation is provided,” ralejoe: teachers’ views on inclusive education . . .129 (crpd, 2006, n.p.). article 24 of the crpd focuses mostly on people with visual impairment (vi) by recognising braille as a way of enabling the inclusion of the visually impaired in regular schools. although lesotho ratified the crpd on 2 december 2008, progress towards complying with the requirements of crpd is still very slow. as an example, article 4 of the convention calls for member states to formulate local legislation in order to adapt the convention to local settings. six years after ratifying the crpd, lesotho was commendable in drafting the disability equity bill 2014. this bill is aimed at promoting and protecting the rights of people with disabilities, including the right to physical access, the provision of education and the creation of a disability advisory council. nonetheless, this bill was tabled in parliament for the first time only on 31 august 2018. considering recent trends of governmental instability in lesotho, resulting in frequent elections and in changes in parliamentary composition, and the slow pace at which things have progressed, it is unlikely that the bill will be enacted soon into law. lesotho’s first legal framework for the education of children with disabilities was formulated in 1989. thereafter, the special education unit was established in the ministry of education in 1991. other important legal tools that followed include the education act of 2010, the child protection and welfare act of 2011, and the education sector strategic plan 2005– 2015. nonetheless, it is worth highlighting that these legal tools do not address specific needs based on different types of disabilities. rather, they adopt a one-size-fits-all approach. this could be problematic because people with disabilities are a heterogeneous group with differing abilities and needs. about eight years ago, lesotho introduced a new education system called the “grade system.” the grade system allows for three years of early childhood care and development (eccd) for learners aged 3–5, seven years of primary education (grades 1–7) for those aged 6–12, and four years of secondary education (grades 8–11) for those between the ages of 13–16; this is followed by higher education. only primary education is free although the government of lesotho provides financial assistance to extremely needy children in secondary school. across the country, children with vi were catered for in two church-owned special schools (a primary school and a secondary one), which offered education exclusively to children with vi. presently, these schools have been transformed into inclusive schools and offer education to all types of children. the inclusive secondary school that is the subject of this study operates more on the premise of full inclusion, whereby learners with vi attend all classes with others full-time. they have a resource centre in the school for both learners with vi and their teachers. problem statement and literature review in this article i investigate the views of secondary school teachers about the inclusion of visually impaired learners in their school. for this study, children were considered to have vi when their vision was such that they relied on audio tapes or the braille system for reading 130 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 and writing. in fact, the degree of visual loss inevitably determines the type of support the child will need and the nature of educational adaptations required to enable the child to access education. drawing on the international classification of diseases (icd)-10 (2016), such children, on the one hand, would have a usable visual acuity worse than either 20/40 or 20/60. on the other, a child is considered to be blind when he/she has completely lost the ability to see. icd-10 provides ten categories of visual function: • category 0: mild to no vi; • category 1: moderate vi; • category 2: severe vi; • categories 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7: varying degree of blindness; • category 8: other specified disorders of eye and adnexa classified elsewhere; and • category 9: unspecified vi. lesotho does not have a clear database showing the prevalence of disability in the country. in the early 2000s, the ministry of education and training (moet) together with the ministry of development planning estimated the population of people with disabilities in lesotho to be around 4.2%. in its 2006 census, the bureau of statistics came up with an estimate of 3.7%. two years later, the ministry of health and social welfare estimated the number to be around 5.2%. according to the 2006 census, the most frequent types of disability in lesotho were vi (blindness), amputations of digits or limbs, congenital paralysis or lameness, deafness, mental illness, and mental retardation. as argued by belay (2005), vi in africa has been viewed as a problem of the individual and very little has been done to improve the relationship between an individual with vi and his/her environment. in lesotho, when a child with visible disability is born, it is traditionally perceived as being a curse to the family (khatleli, mariga, phachaka, & stubbs, 1995). the mother is held responsible since she is regarded as having acted in ways that insulted the ancestors, and, therefore, the ancestors punished her with a disabled child. consequently, to please what she thinks of as the spirits, and to prevent greater misfortune, the mother makes it her duty to care for the child. the coping strategies include education focusing on self-care activities, supported by the extended family since social integration and responsibility-taking are valued highly in basotho societies. thus, children with disabilities are never isolated from others. belay (2005) argues that trachoma, cataracts, and river blindness are the leading causes of vi in most african countries. according to belay, in africa, vi is exacerbated by poor economic, environmental, and sanitary conditions. it is also believed that exploding landmines that remain after wars and civil conflicts in africa also contribute to vi, but lesotho does not have a history of violent conflicts, and therefore it is unlikely that this has also contributed to cases of vi. oculocutaneous albinism is described as an inherited condition that is usually associated with vi. as maintained by yahalom et al. (2012), this condition is usually associated with involuntary nystagmus that causes the eyes to wobble ralejoe: teachers’ views on inclusive education . . .131 involuntarily from side to side, photophobia, poor depth perception, strabismus (squint), poor visual acuity, and refractive errors. specific research on the inclusion of learners with vi by regular schools is scarce worldwide. researchers on this topic (for example, zulch (2010) in namibia and dakwa (2014) in zimbabwe) have reported that the academic achievement of those with vi in mainstream schools is comparatively poorer. these studies show that mainstream school teachers often do not fully understand vi. in their 2014 malawian study about identifying strategies to enhance the educational inclusion of visually impaired children with albinism, lynch et al. (2014) discovered that students who could cope with eye glasses or enlarged print were taught braille because their teachers believed (wrongly) that low vision would ultimately culminate in blindness as they grew up. in south africa, hay, smit, and paulsen (2001) found that teachers lacked knowledge on issues related to ie. the teachers in their study expressed frustration and stress caused by their inadequate pre-service and in-service training in relation to ie. in lesotho, several studies have also reported the ineffectiveness of ie as being the result of teachers’ inadequate skills and knowledge of ie. for example, ralejoe’s (2016) study on regular teachers’ perceptions about ie revealed that mainstream secondary school teachers had a very limited understanding of ie and they engaged in practices that contravened inclusion principles. the teachers expressed both positive and negative opinions about ie. according to ralejoe (2016) and mclean (2008), factors that influenced teachers’ perceptions of ie included the type and severity of disability, prior contact with learners with disabilities, teacher experiences with ie, administrative support, training in special education or ie, in-service training, and the presence of support staff. teachers are considered to be the pillars of ie and this indicates that they are crucial to making ie work. as argued by mukhopadhyay (2013), it is important to investigate teachers’ views since they could shed light on the processes and materials that could be adopted or adapted in order to improve educational access to different groups of people who were previously excluded by school systems. it is against this background that i consider this research pertinent. thus, given the context of vi in lesotho, its prevalence, the educational background of children with vi in the country (a shift from special schools to inclusive schools), and reports from past research about teachers’ ill-preparedness to teach inclusive classes, in this study i endeavoured to investigate, from the teachers’ points of view, the effectiveness of including children with vi in a mainstream secondary school in lesotho. the study was intended to provide a platform for the teachers to express their thoughts and feelings and relate their experiences regarding the provision of education in their school, particularly in relation to teaching mixed-ability classes with some learners having vi and others not. i hoped that this would reveal key areas that need improvement in order to enable learners with vi to access the curriculum and benefit from education similar to that experienced by their peers. i also intended to use the study to inform the relevant educational authorities in lesotho about the current situation with regard to the inclusion of visually impaired children so that they could take initiatives to provide the required support. 132 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 methodology following sharma (2013), i chose a qualitative approach given its strengths in detailing, revealing, and describing occurrences, situations, activities, and events in their natural setting, along with the meaning they have for those who participate in them. i used purposive sampling to identify eight teachers (out of 30) in the school (four support teachers and four regular teachers), all with a minimum of two years’ teaching experience. given the gender discrepancies in the teaching staff of the school (female teachers dominating in number), gender balance did not form part of my selection criteria. the participants were from 26 to 47 years of age and their first language was sesotho. their qualifications ranged from a diploma to a bachelor’s degree in education. of the four support teachers, three had a qualification or training in braille. data was collected using two focus group discussions: one was comprised of four support teachers (three females and one male) and the other four regular teachers (all female). my prompts during the discussions helped to keep their focus on the research topic, thus, in line with burton and bartlett (2005), increasing the trustworthiness of the results. thus, data emerged as the participants discussed the research topic among themselves. according to denscombe (2007), this approach also enables participants to learn from each other. the discussion venues were classrooms chosen by each group. the discussions were audio recorded. sesotho was spoken mostly during the discussions, so the data was first transcribed verbatim, and then translated into english. the translated versions of the data were given to the participants for corrections and approval. the data was then analysed thematically following maree (2007). research ethics were adhered to prior to and during data collection. for example, permission was sought from the maseru district education office to conduct the research and from the principal of the school. informed consent was also granted by the participants. confidentiality was maintained in reporting the findings. however, the anonymity of the school could not be guaranteed since it has been indicated that there is just one secondary school in lesotho that offers braille services to learners with vi. results prior to presenting and discussing the results of this study, there is a limitation that must be considered since it will have an effect on how the results are understood. it is necessary to mention that among the support teachers, none could be described as having extensive training on teaching learners with vi. this study focused on investigating the views of teachers about the inclusion of learners with vi in their mainstream school. data analysis presented four categories: teachers’ opinions about educational placement for children with vi; teaching strategies; benefits of including children with vi in a regular school; and challenges facing the integration of children with vi into mainstream secondary schools. in the excerpts, the following acronyms are used to ensure teacher anonymity: • rt: regular teacher ralejoe: teachers’ views on inclusive education . . .133 • st: support teacher teachers’ opinions about educational placement for children with vi the teachers believed that a regular school is the best placement for children with vi. they discredited the idea of teaching children with vi in special schools since they regarded this as a form of discrimination against such learners. they also thought that special schools promote the isolation of children with vi from their sighted community. it was argued that doing this could deprive them of important social interactions with sighted peers. the idea of special schooling for children with vi was also criticised as giving the wrong impression that children with vi are unique and should therefore not mix with their peers. according to the teachers, this isolation is unnecessary since children with vi have sighted family and community members with whom they live, without any problem, at home. this is how some of these ideas were presented. in my opinion, children with visual impairment should not be taken to special schools. they must be taken to regular schools where they will learn alongside others. (rt) even in their families and churches there are those with and without disabilities, so i do not understand why they should be excluded from mainstream schooling. (rt) however, where regular schools were poorly equipped to meet the needs of children with vi, they preferred special schools. to a certain extent, i think special schools are good for them because that’s where they will find proper services and facilities that will make it easier for them to learn. (rt) teaching strategies the teachers discussed several teaching methods and strategies they found helpful in their teaching of mixed-ability classes (including some learners with vi). to them, the learnercentred teaching methods that were mostly helpful were discussion and presentation. according to them, other teaching methods such as drama, role play, video presentations, discovery, and experimentation could be time consuming while some of them required resources that they did not have. they stated that depending on the topic being taught, they bring to class teaching aid materials that will engage all learners, including those with vi. for learners with vi, the teaching aid material often targeted their senses of touch, hearing, and taste (where appropriate). they commented that verbal teaching was very useful to them since it could reach both learners with vi and those without. the teachers stated that they allowed learners with vi to take their learning equipment to classes with them. the equipment, inter alia, often included perkins (brailing machines) and brailed texts. for learners who required enlarged printing, the teachers wrote for them on large chart paper, using writing that was suitable for them. with learners who used braille, the teachers stated that they used to give them brailed text a day before teaching about the 134 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 contents of that text. this strategy offered the learners with vi ample time to read because braille reading was perceived to be very slow. the support teachers reported that they often brailed text for learners with vi, where none existed. they also used a tracing wheel to make simple diagrams readable for learners with vi. these teachers stated that they seated learners with low vision closer to the writing board, so that they could have a better chance of seeing the writing on it. the teachers also identified some of the benefits of including children with vi in their mainstream schools. as maintained by the teachers, some of these benefits were reaped by the learners (with and without vi), and others by the teachers themselves. benefits of including children with vi in a regular school it was contested by the teachers that mainstream schooling enabled children with and without vi to learn to live harmoniously together, thereby providing a platform for building inclusive communities. it was also maintained that an inclusionary approach could have equipped children with vi with strategies to deal with life challenges, in the same way as it did for other children. the teachers argued that academically good learners (fast-learners), with or without vi, helped slow-learners with school work. moreover, in relation to learners without vi, they assisted those with vi to move within their school campus, and, where there was a shortage of brailed textbooks, they read their normally printed textbooks for them. one teacher argued, through inclusion, children with vi learn to live with different types of people that are found within their communities. while in inclusive schools, those with vi grow the same way as others. in my school, the sighted children assist those with vi to navigate our school campus. they also read their textbooks for them when there are no brailed ones for those with vi. (st) the teachers stated that the uniqueness of their school (as mentioned above, the only secondary school in lesotho that offers braille and other services to learners with vi) has helped them to negotiate with the moet and donor agencies, like non-governmental organisations (ngos) for assistance with equipment and other necessities. they stated that inclusion of children with vi in their school had improved their attitudes towards learners with disabilities. we have learned to have patience and tolerance with learners who learn in ways that are unusual, such as those who use braille. (st) the teachers stated happily that they enjoyed teaching mixed ability classes to the point that they were proud to have chosen a teaching career. they showed that inclusion had equipped them with skills to handle any challenge related to teaching. moreover, it had taken them out of their comfort zone, which had made teaching even more interesting for them. the regular teachers mentioned that they were joyful to see some of their learners with vi succeed in life. they also stipulated that their classroom interaction with learners with vi had familiarised ralejoe: teachers’ views on inclusive education . . .135 them with braille. this had helped them to mark brailed answers in class, which enabled them to give immediate feedback about learning progress for learners with vi. challenges the challenges that emanated from the group discussions included infrastructural barriers, insufficient human and material resources and skills, and a rigid, centralised curriculum. the teachers affirmed that the physical environment of their school was unsuitable for learners with vi. they stated there were certain places in their school campus that were inaccessible to learners with vi. they lamented that in such places learners with vi could easily bump into trees or fall into deep furrows that were uncovered. the teachers disapproved of the random tree planting in their school campus since this was perceived to make the movement of learners with vi unsafe. they also complained about steep stairs at some places and in some buildings, saying that these hampered the smooth movement of learners with vi. however, the support teachers stated they were overloaded with work. it transpired that in addition to their classroom support services, they also had subjects to teach. they stated that despite being only eight in number, it was also their responsibility to braille the teaching materials for all the subjects offered in their school. they objected that this had put pressure on them. one of them said, as support teachers, we are overloaded with work. i am given subjects to teach and i also have to work as a support teacher in some subjects. i braille teaching materials for my own subjects as well as for others for which i provide support. this is too much work for me. (st) both groups stated that children with vi often have additional needs that call for other specialists. so, they believed that if they could be afforded such support, it would make their work manageable. material resources also appeared to be a big challenge in the school. the teachers noted the scarcity of drawing and braille equipment. they stated that under normal circumstances each learner with vi was supposed to have a perkins for brailing, but that this was not the case in their school. the embossers (faster braille machines than the perkins) which the support teachers used when preparing examination question papers for learners with vi, were said to number only two. this increased pressure on the support teachers during the examination period, forcing them to work extra hours. furthermore, the teachers expressed their concerns over the failure of their curriculum to allow for inclusive teaching strategies. they said that the syllabus content was too much for slow-learners and those with vi. they affirmed that learners with vi often required a slower teaching pace since braille reading was comparatively slower. additionally, the teachers asserted that because there was too much syllabus content and a limited time to cover it, learners with vi were often left behind when teaching was done at a faster pace in order to satisfy examination requirements. 136 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 in lesotho, the terminal examination question papers are prepared by the examinations’ council of lesotho (ecol). the teachers believed that the brailed question papers from ecol were ambiguous in terms of diagrams, which their learners with vi could not read. they said that they had, on a number of occasions, unsuccessfully pleaded with ecol to refrain from what they saw as malpractices. the teachers repeatedly emphasised that their curriculum did not meet the educational needs of learners with vi. the other challenges that the teachers raised involved the accidents that learners with vi got involved with while going for eye check-ups outside the school. they appealed to optometrists to travel to their school in order to carry out such check-ups. they also expressed concern over their government’s late school fees’ payment, which resulted in sponsored learners been sent home to collect the fee. the teachers stated that late payment of school fees made it difficult for their school to purchase essential substances such as food and teaching-aid materials. when sent home, these learners lose out academically, they claimed. it appeared that while typing in class during the lessons, the perkins made a lot of noise that disturbed other learners, and the teachers affirmed that they had no strategies to ameliorate this problem. on the same note, the embossers appeared to pose a health hazard to the support teachers. the support teachers insisted that these machines made many spelling errors, which often called for thorough editing that, in turn, strained their eyes. “when printing, the machine makes too much noise [and] that also strains our ears,” they asserted. discussion as explained above, this study investigated the opinions and views of the teachers about educational placement for learners with vi. it also examined their experiences in relation to the teaching of mixed-ability learners, some of whom are visually impaired. the results revealed that the teachers have mixed opinions about the integration of children with vi into mainstream schools. their supportive views towards the inclusion of learners with vi into mainstream schools seemed to stem partly from what they saw as their natural instincts of caring for all children regardless of their disabilities. culturally, basotho believe in bringing up children as a unit, in order to prevent one child from missing out on cultural values and norms as lesitsi (1990) has reminded us. thus, if isolated from others, a child would lose out in respect of the moral aspects of life. moreover, the fact that female teachers dominated in numbers could have served as a benchmark for the inclusion of children with vi. within basotho societies, women are mostly entrusted with child care and nurturing. the teachers’ positive views about the inclusion of children with vi appeared also to be influenced by the positive aspects they had witnessed from this arrangement. they appeared to value the positive interactions between learners with vi and their peers. they stated that ie has enabled the two groups to learn to live with each other and has equipped those with vi with skills to cope with daily challenges. they were also very proud of their former students with vi who had gone on to very good careers because of the quality education they were offered at this school. furthermore, they stated that the inclusion of children with vi in their ralejoe: teachers’ views on inclusive education . . .137 school has made them enjoy teaching by expanding their teaching skills. indeed, past research (see, for example, emam and mohamed, 2011) shows that teachers’ positive attitudes toward ie impacts positively on its implementation in schools. nonetheless, the teachers seemed not to promote reciprocal assistance between learners with vi and their peers. drawing from their discussions, those with vi seemed to be mostly the recipients of help from their peers. this situation is highly discouraged. lamichhane (2017) has stated that the over-reliance by learners with vi on their peers to help them with school work could affect their friendships, resulting in those with vi feeling isolated. it could also affect the confidence of those with vi to do things on their own. the teachers seemed to be very concerned about the lack of resources in their school, which made it difficult to teach learners with vi effectively. consequently, they felt that children with vi could benefit more in special schools, which they believed could be optimally resourced. nonetheless, the teachers concluded that mainstream schools should be properly equipped so that they can accommodate all types of learners. the teachers revealed several teaching strategies they believed helped them to teach their diverse learners. learner-centred approaches to teaching were at the core of their classroom pedagogy. strategies that they employed more were learner discussions and class presentations. indeed, learner-centred teaching approaches are considered to be the core of ie (figueiras & arcavi, 2014). nonetheless, over-reliance on discussions and presentations does not constitute good teaching. they complained about their curriculum requiring them to cover too much content in a short time in order to prepare learners for examinations. they thought that other teaching methods would be time consuming while others would require equipment they did not have. clearly, the latter necessitates equipping teachers with more improvisation strategies while the former could imply a lack of practical knowledge of other teaching methods. perhaps the teachers were more comfortable with these two teaching methods that helped them to cover a lot of content in a short space of time. but, their faster pace of teaching probably left behind many students with vi and, hence, their over-reliance on peers. the teachers discovered that braille reading takes longer, so they adopted a strategy of allowing learners with vi to read ahead of others without this need. a similar strategy appeared to work well for malawian teachers of children with albinism (lynch et al., 2014). the support teachers traced simpler diagrams with a drawing wheel, so that learners with vi could have access to them. the support teachers also brailed teaching materials where none existed, but they complained about having too much work. the classroom seating arrangement appeared to be paramount to the teachers. the learners with low, but usable vision, were seated closer to the writing board so that they could see the writing on the board easily. indeed, this is highly encouraged for teaching learners with low vision (mastropieri & scruggs, 2010). although the perkins produced a lot of noise that disturbed other learners, the teachers allowed their use for the purpose of enabling learners with vi to write in class. indeed, lamport, graves, and ward (2012) have expressed their 138 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 belief that classroom management is essential to enable curriculum accessibility, especially for learners with vi. interestingly, the teachers seemed uninformed about the individualised education plan (iep). iep is a written plan that describes the education programme and services required by an individual learner. it is based on a detailed assessment of the learner’s strengths and needs (ontario ministry of education, 2004). considering the importance of ieps in ie, it is important that this area be improved. the teachers highlighted a number of challenges that hamper progress in their school. scholars have argued that “[in] order to provide a truly inclusive school the physical environment needs to be safe and accessible to all students” (winter & o’raw, 2010, p. 56). however, the teachers described the physical environment of their school as being potentially dangerous to learners with vi because of random tree planting, steep stairs, and deep uncovered furrows. the teachers also mentioned concerns about shortages of teaching and learning equipment such as perkins, embossers, and drawing materials. shortage of resources was exacerbated by the government of lesotho’s late payment of school fees, the teachers argued. the late payment also affected learners academically since they were often sent home to collect the fees. in their tanzanian study, westbrook and croft (2015) concluded that resource challenges to successfully implementing ie overrode other challenges. finally, the brailing machines also led to some challenges. the teachers reported that the embossers made a very loud noise when printing, and the perkins also produced a lot of noise when learners were typing in class; this disturbed other learners frequently. recommendations and conclusion although the teachers were not very much in favour of special schooling, and were proud of their work in relation to teaching classes that have some learners with vi, inadequate resources (particularly for learners with vi) prompted them to doubt whether there could be integration of children with vi into mainstream schools. in lesotho, the moet is the major stakeholder in secondary education. however, several studies in lesotho (see eriamiatoe, 2013; mosia, 2014; ralejoe, 2016) have shown that the government of lesotho has no interest in making ie work. “these few facilities [for implementing ie in lesotho schools] are usually made available at the insistence of disabled people’s organisations” (eriamiatoe, 2013, p. 2). thus, a shortage of funds was not a major impediment for resourcing inclusive schools in lesotho, but moet’s lack of interest in ie is. it is argued by winter and o’raw (2010), on the one hand, that countries that have a capitalist view of education do not see ie as a good investment. could this be moet’s view on education? on the other, this implies a conflict of interest since lesotho is a signatory to the crpd that advocates for ie. therefore, it is recommended that lesotho considers it a priority to fulfil its obligations to ie as mandated by the crpd. moet should collaborate with ngos and various professionals (such as psychologists and ie specialists) to support (inclusive) schools for the purpose of making ie work. indeed, the teachers recommended that professionals from other fields be ralejoe: teachers’ views on inclusive education . . .139 made available to them so that they could assist with equipment, counselling, motivation, and eye-testing where necessary. there is consensus among scholars that examination-oriented curricula compromise inclusion initiatives. thus, it is vital that the current curriculum be revamped in order to give teachers the autonomy to adapt it to individual learner needs. the question papers prepared by ecol for learners with vi were also considered to be ambiguous in terms of complex diagrams and, this way, failed the learners. since it is the responsibility of education authorities to provide conducive learning conditions for all learners (unesco, 1994), it is recommended that ecol collaborates with teachers of learners with vi in order to prepare question papers that can accommodate such learners. the teachers were concerned about the physical environment in their school not being safe for learners with vi. consequently, they appealed to their authorities to ensure that their school ground was paved, steep stairs replaced with ramps, and the trees planted in an orderly way so that the environment is safe for all learners. the support teachers complained about work overload and demanded that more support teachers be hired in order to decrease their workload. it was also desired by both groups of teachers that the regular teachers be equipped with more special education skills in order to make inclusion in their school prosper. the brailing machines were also considered to create some challenges. the teachers reported that the embossers made a very loud noise when printing, and the perkins also produced a lot of noise when learners were typing in class, which often disturbed other learners. while there appeared to be no immediate solution to the problems caused by perkins, the teachers should be provided with ear protection equipment when using the embossers. in brief, it can be concluded that cultural influences had a big impact on the teachers’ passion to teach mixed ability classes despite the challenges they encountered; they believed that it was their responsibility to teach all children without discriminating against those with vi. when they are teaching a class that includes learners with vi, teachers should consider the following: (a) encourage teamwork among learners involving grouping learners so that they can work together in small learning groups. in these groups, learners with vi should be paired with those without vi. (b) use the oral teaching method because learners with vi rely more on their hearing. (c) ensure audibility, with clear instruction and provision of information. avoid making vague statements. (d) adapt writing assessment methods and use assistive technology. learners with vi must be allowed and encouraged to use audio tapes, brailing machines, and magnifiers in order to maximise their participation in the classroom. (e) allow children with low vision to move closer to the chalkboard. (f) provide large-print versions of textbooks and examination scripts. (g) allocate additional time for those with vi to complete school and national examinations (see lynch, lund, & massah, 2014; mastropieri & scruggs, 2010). 140 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 further research on the views of other stakeholders (like the learners, for example) is recommended. research on the moet officials’ understanding and views about ie is also recommended in order to establish exactly how they perceive ie (particularly regarding learners with vi) and what they do to promote it in lesotho’s schools. references belay, t. e. (2005, november). african perspective on visual impairments icts and policies: a personal experience, a variety of perspectives and technological solution. paper presented at unesco world summit on the information society workshop on ict and persons with disabilities. tunis, tn. booth, t., & ainscow, m. (2000). the index for inclusion. london, uk: csie bristol. burton, d., & bartlett, s. 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(2010). including learners with visual impairments in a namibian mainstream secondary school (unpublished doctoral dissertation). stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, rsa. journal of education, 2019 issue 75, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x editorial carol bertram bertramc@ukzn.ac.za http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2961-5645 this issue begins with a conversation between suriamurthee maistry and lesley le grange on quality in scholarly publishing along with judgment and critique of the publishing industry. it is not often that the publishing timeframes of a journal allow for this kind of published conversation, which is, arguably, a hallmark of what academics do: we enter into debate and dialogue with colleagues about the key contentious issues and the competing claims in a particular field. maistry uses the methodology of self-study and critical autoethnography to reflect on his own experience of publishing five articles with the kamla-raj enterprises (kre) publishers, which are now blacklisted by the department of higher education and training as predatory publishers. his stance is to take full responsibility for his choices and poor judgement, while also locating the practice of predatory publishing clearly within the managerial and neoliberal policies that shape higher education. maistry engages with the issue of judgement in two ways. first, he argues that the work of academics is such that they put their work into the public domain and thus must expect to be judged and critiqued by peers, and second, that academics should use their own judgement when making decisions about where to publish. this point was also made in the 2019 academy of science of south africa (assaf) report. le grange’s reply to maistry is challenging and robust. clearly, he does not buy maistry’s need to confess nor does he accept that maistry’s academic reputation has been irreparably damaged. in his response, he recounts a non-confession that he, too, published in a kre journal. however, he feels that the peer-review process was robust; he provided the journal with names of reviewers (who may or may not have been used). he argues that kre journals are not really predatory since they have recently entered into a partnership with taylor and francis. given the huge profits that the big academic publishers make, one could argue that they are also predatory in the sense of making profits off the free labour of academics by selling their own work back to them in journals! le grange’s argument is that we should not be confused by the container (the journal) and must, rather, judge the contents of an article for quality and authority apart from the journal in which it is published. while i agree completely that academics need to have knowledge to make judgements about the quality of every article they read, this does not mean that the journals should not be governed by rules of good practice that can assist academics in making 2 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 these judgements, such as not publishing one author more than once in an issue, and not publishing authors only from one higher education institution. le grange goes on to problematise the practice of peer review and notes that it is not the fixed and sacrosanct system that maistry appears to think it is. le grange notes that we need to strengthen the practice of peer review, and one way of doing this could be to do away with the anonymity of reviewers. i agree (writing as an editor who recently received a one-line response from a reviewer: “this should not be published”), that this would, most probably, make them more accountable for the rigour of their reviewing reports. maistry was then afforded the right to respond to le grange. 1 he points out that he and le grange occupy different epistemological and methodological spaces, but both are committed to positive action that will create a robust and just publishing system of good quality. one of the lessons that we learn from this dialogue is that academics use a range of different theories and discourses to critique each other’s arguments, and that we have different ways of defining what counts as ethical behaviour. what is vital is that as academics we do not take the academic publishing business at face value, but, instead, engage with it critically. in south africa, much of this work about who publishes where is led by johan mouton from the centre for research on evaluation, science and technology at stellenbosch university, and published by assaf. both le grange and maistry urge us to engage with their reports and recommendations because it is vital that we engage with the question of how to create a more rigorous and trustworthy publishing system, as well as a fairer one. this means reflecting on our own practices as well as on systemic publishing ones. moving away from academic publishing, the next article in this issue, by sfiso mabizela and lionel green-thompson, deals with the enduring issue of student achievement in higher education, and particularly in the ways in which national benchmark test (nbt) scores predict success. these authors focus on a medical school cohort whose members completed the degree in the minimum six years of study. it tracks the wits mbbch class of 2011, which was comprised of 183 students in the first year of study of whom 121 completed in 2016. the majority of these successful students attended quintile 5 schools. in the mathematics nbt test all the quintile 5 school learners achieved proficiency, while none of the students from lower resourced schools (quintiles 1 and 2) did so. what the study shows is that there is a clearly defined relationship between nbt scores and academic performance in medical school and that this mirrors the relationship between nbt scores and the school attended. crudely put, if a student attends a quintile 5 school, he or she is likely to achieve good ntb scores and is thus more likely to complete a medical degree in six years. in gauteng, quintile 5 schools charged fees of around r45,000 per annum in 2019. when the average salary in the formal non-agricultural sector is r21,000 per month (statistics south africa, 2018), such fees are, quite clearly, out of reach of many employed south africans let alone those who are unemployed. the findings of the study reinforce the evidence that socioeconomic status is in 1 this reply was not peer reviewed because of time constraints; we wanted to publish the entire dialogue in the same issue. bertram: editorial 3 fact the best predictor of achieving success in higher education since it is usually coupled with family support and financial stability. the next article, by nonhlanha mthiyane, jacqueline naidoo, and carol bertram, also adds to the evidence of enduring inequalities between schools in different quintiles, this time on how this has an impact on the work of heads of departments (hods). the study focuses on jika imfundo, a project supported by the kwazulu-natal department of education and the project to improve learning outcomes (pilo). this initiative aims to support teachers’ coverage of the curriculum by training hods to monitor and support the teachers in their subject department. the authors interviewed 29 hods from 15 kwazulu-natal schools that had been part of the jika imfundo intervention from 2015 to 2017. jika imfundo’s aim is to shift hods’ leadership practices from a merely technical compliance with departmental requirements to providing more developmental support for the teachers in their department. many said that the programme was very helpful in giving guidance regarding the role of an hod and providing tools and training to do this work. however, the study also shows that the majority of hods were not able to do this because of their heavy workloads and overwhelming administrative responsibilities. it was only the hods in quintile 5 schools who had the administrative resources, flat organisational structures, and collegial relationships that enabled them to support the teachers in their departments in meaningful ways. this focus on the work of hods throws more light on just how privileged these quintile 5 schools are. the final article in this issue engages with recognition of prior learning (rpl) in higher education, particularly in the context of library and information sciences (lis) schools in south african universities. rpl is also an issue closely related to equity since it aims to provide people who have developed competence but who do not have access to higher education because they lack formal qualifications. for people working in library and information services, rpl could enable them to move from paraprofessional to professional roles. ike hlongwane surveyed the 10 universities that offer courses in lis to establish the extent to which rpl, in compliance with the legislation, features. while all the official policies in these universities are supportive of rpl, not all of them in fact provide supportive environments to potential students who would benefit if rpl were firmly in place. to rectify this not unexpected policy–practice gap, hlongwane recommends greater monitoring by the council for higher education to ensure compliance. however, this may not be a very productive response if we do not first engage with the question of why many lis schools do not offer rpl opportunities to potential students. the issue closes with a review by sherran clarence of going to university: the influence of higher education on the lives of young south africans (2018) by jennifer m. case, delia marshall, sioux mckenna, and disaapele mogashana. these authors used narrative methodology to interview 73 young people six years after they started a bachelor’s degree at one of three well-resourced urban universities in south africa. 4 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 references academy of science of south africa (assaf). (2019). twelve years later: second assaf report on research publishing in and from south africa. retrieved from http://research.assaf.org.za/handle/20.500.11911/114 statistics south africa. (2018). quarterly employment statistics, december 2018. retrieved from http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/p0277/p0277december2018.pdf microsoft word bissue77dec19.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 77, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i77a09 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x critical performativity for a decolonising curriculum: possibilities in creating emancipatory classroom spaces for exploring alternative knowledge frames sadi seyama department of education leadership and management, faculty of education, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa sseyama@uj.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5234-0555 (received: 17 february 2019; accepted: 8 november 2019) abstract in this conceptual paper, i argue that the decolonising curriculum project at a faculty of health sciences is not achieving the intended purpose of decolonisation, which is to engage alternative african knowledge frames within the programmes’ curricula. in the race to respond to students’ demand for the decolonisation of the university curriculum, in 2017 the faculty took a decision to focus on socio-economic determinants of health as an aspect of curriculum content that would serve the decolonising project. i contend that this approach does not constitute a decolonising project since there is no engagement with what ought to be an alternative african paradigm, in this case african healing as an alternative knowledge frame. drawing on critical race theory (crt) and the notion of critical performativity, i propose reclaiming the rightful place of african identities and knowledges by engaging critical performativity as a pragmatic and progressive pedagogical approach to explore african healing as an african indigenous knowledge system (iks) in politically conscious and authentic ways. keywords: decolonisation, african indigenous knowledge, critical performativity, emancipatory, co-curriculum construction introduction in this conceptual paper, i am concerned with the way in which a faculty of health sciences has undertaken the curriculum decolonising project. in the race to respond to students’ demand for decolonisation of university curriculum and spaces, in 2017 the faculty took a decision to focus on socio-economic determinants of health as an aspect of curriculum content that would serve the decolonising project. i contend that this approach does not constitute a decolonising project since there is no engagement with what ought to be an alternative african paradigm, in this case african healing as an alternative knowledge frame. instead, it is closing a long-standing curriculum gap that should be addressed separately seyama: critical performativity for decolonising curriculum 157 outside of the decolonising project. an understanding of how social, economic, and environmental factors influence patients’ health is necessary because it provides students with a knowledge base from which to treat patients in their individual contexts, thus improving opportunities for better health outcomes. however, considerate of the purpose of decolonisation— offering alternative african knowledges—such an approach is failing to redress the epistemic and cognitive injustice perpetuated by colonisation. consequently, this paper responds to the council on higher education’s (che, 2017) call to rethink the project of decolonising the university curriculum not just to include what is taught but also how it is taught. hence, from the perspective of critical race theory (crt), i offer critical performativity as a pedagogical approach that could create emancipatory classroom settings for exploring alternative african knowledge frames. in this way, students together with academics could bring into classrooms their experiences and knowledge of african healing and begin to create authentically decolonising curriculum content. from this perspective—a consideration of the historical marginalisation of african indigenous knowledge systems (iks) and a recognition that black people still hold this knowledge and continue to use it—it is necessary to begin by engaging a humanising pedagogy such as critical performativity in order to work towards the development of the content of an alternative curriculum. the democratic era in south africa created so-called free spaces for previously silenced and repressed people to raise their voices against the legacy of inequality and social injustice. however, 25 years into transformation, students in higher education realise that there is something fundamentally incomprehensible about a system that still permits colonised spaces and curricula. in reporting on students’ experiences in these institutional settings, mamdani (2016) noted, for the black student in a historically white university, this made for an acutely alienating experience, leading the more perceptive of these students to call for a change in the content of the curriculum, one that would valorize the black (‘native’) experience, and not just relegate it to the domain of area studies. (p. 72) thus, during 2015/2016 students began their protests in the form of the rhodes must fall campaign, “at the root of which was a fundamental questioning of the prevailing social and power relations and a legacy of inequality that students saw as not having been dealt with” (council on higher education, 2017, p. 1). universities are being forced to shift from conceiving of decolonisation as an ideology to a pragmatic process that ought to achieve ideal social change. since what the faculty thought of as its curriculum decolonisation decision, i have been grappling with what factors might have triggered this decision when after more than twenty years of democracy universities have not truly initiated the deconstruction and re-thinking of curricula from an african perspective. several questions emerged: is it a cautious approach to ease people into the process of decolonisation? what does it seek to achieve in relation to conscientising students about african perspectives on health and healing? is it because of limited knowledge frames in relation to african paradigms within the discipline of health? is it a deliberate disengagement with or rejection of african thinking? 158 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 against this background, i begin by reviewing the concept of decolonisation in universities and offer an argument for decolonising the mind in order to begin with sincere decolonisation of curricula. i then engage literature that addresses decolonisation of health sciences’ education. to advance the argument for authentic decolonisation, i appeal to the precepts of crt to highlight the bias to whiteness, which undermines the centring of blackness. this is followed by a brief examination of critical pedagogy as a framework within which critical education is premised. i do this to carve out a place for the relevance of critical performativity as a pedagogical tool in decolonising curricula and follow this with an exploration of critical performativity as a moderate view of critical management studies (cms) that advances performative alternatives and extends it to a possible decolonising pedagogy. decolonisation in universities south african student protests during 2015/2016 reflect mcinerney’s (2009, p. 24) position that, “[w]hen students have little power over their learning, when learning has little relevance to their lives and aspirations, or when they are devalued or marginalised, they are likely to engage in acts of resistance or withdraw their assent altogether from schooling.” on the face of it, the #rhodesmustfall and #feesmustfall protests paved the way for radically transforming the current socio-political trajectory of education curricula by rejecting the universalisation of western knowledge systems. however, it has opened, fundamentally, an assortment of complex problems hidden within the fragile south african democracy where race still matters. the conception of decolonisation is centred on rejecting colonisation by dismantling eurocentric white supremacy domination. mackinlay and barney (2014) view decolonisation as a consciousness that contests the hegemonic singularity of eurocentrism, an ethical position that fights for humanity and social justice for colonised people. mamdani (2016) observes that decolonisation encompasses political, economic, and epistemological dimensions. the political dimension extends beyond just democratic rights to encompassing an extensive transformation of all organs of oppression and inequality. he asserted, the economic understanding has also broadened from one of local ownership over local resources to the transformation of both internal and external institutions that sustain unequal colonial-type economic relations. the epistemological dimension of decolonization has focused on the categories with which we make, unmake and remake, and thereby apprehend, the world. it is intimately tied to our notions of what is human, what is particular and what is universal. (mamdani 2016, p. 79) the decolonisation task facing universities is complex since they are entangled in the double bind of the colonised curriculum and the burden of neoliberal performativity of knowledge production, which has capturing implications. considerate of this challenge, leibowitz (2017) averred that the notion of a decolonised currriculum is not a fragmented process, but should be a university wide project in which all stakeholders (leaders, managers, academics, seyama: critical performativity for decolonising curriculum 159 students) work together to transform epistemologies underpinning academic disciplines. however, what underscores the challenge for universities and academics in decolonising curricula is ingrained white supremacy, the african inferiority complex described by fanon, ([1952]1967) and enduring africans’ subjectification (mungwini, 2016). as such, colonised psyches stand in the way of efforts to decolonise. a decolonising project for universities means that they ought to confront the decolonising mandate through the probing of racially, politically, and historically misinformed epistemologies to enable a re-thinking of existing knowledge and the creation of new epistemologies (maringe, 2017). ngugi wa thiongo (1981) is informative with his position that decolonisation is about centring africa in curriculum in relation to content and to teaching and learning. it ought to be about africans rediscovering themselves outside whiteness and about the repositioning of africans in relation to others and the world at large. in view of the essence of decolonisation entailing the dismantling of dominant ideologies and the offering of an alternative, how do universities materialise decolonisation? garuba (2015) posits two possible ways to decolonise curricula. the first approach relates merely to augmenting current eurocentric curricula with speckles of african content. however, it is still a diluted approach that continues to serve the colonisation mandate. the second approach suggests a deep, reflexive strategy that starts with a critical interrogation of the forms and formations of the ideologies, discourses, and knowledges by which africa and the african is constructed. this approach holds promise for authentic decolonisation since it points to a breaking of the yoke of colonisation that is founded on a singular worldview that offers eurocentrism as the only measure of humanity. in this view, a decolonised curriculum in south african universities ought to reflect a revelation, affirmation, and integration of africans’ beliefs, morals, and ways of thinking and doing (heleta, 2016). wa thiong’o (1981) aptly argues that we cannot reach the apex of decolonisation until the colonising discourses that constructed the african’s being, identity, language, culture, values, intellect, and socio-economic status have been deconstructed. cognisant of the damaging consequences of colonialism’s elevation of western knowledge systems while disparaging african knowledges, as heleta (2016) has pointed out, we are obliged to reclaim african iks. to do this, we ought to raise an african consciousness (nkoane, 2006). we could then be positioned to answer the question, “what does it mean to decolonise curriculum?” taking inspiration from soto (2014), we must note first that the western paradigm’s positivist notion of impartial, detached, unbiased knowledge continues to fail in making the world a better place. the argument for articulating, embracing, and rooting african iks in curricula, is simple. first, it is deeply entrenched in humanity, particularly in these existential times during which inhumanity is increasing. second, the world is not homogenous. it is populated by people with varying beliefs, attitudes, and ways of being, all of which inform their interaction with their immediate world. furthermore, in the context of my argument, the faculty could create the conditions of possibility to correct misconceptions about african healing, for example, 160 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 the idea or belief that african healers or inyangas and sangomas are witchdoctors and that african healing is evil. decolonising a health sciences curriculum the decision to include socio-economic determinants of health as a mode of decolonising curriculum was undertaken by the faculty’s management committee (dean, vice-deans, and heads of departments). the faculty provides health education and training in the programmes of biomedical technology, chiropractic, complementary health, emergency medical care, environmental health, nursing, optometry, podiatry, radiography, and somatology. socioeconomic determinants of health are the conditions under which people are born, live, and work, including their environmental circumstances that influence their health and wellbeing (world health organisation, who; 2018). they include economic status, quality of education, access to housing, transport, and health care services, along with a clean and safe environment. given the huge impact of these factors on health equity, there have been growing calls within health sciences education to include these in the curriculum (thornton & persaud, 2018). hence, the faculty determined that in the context of the south african health system that is struggling to provide an equitable and humanising healthcare, it is necessary to foster students’ understanding of the influence of socio-economic determinants of health on health outcomes. it is unquestionable that such an understanding clarifies the context within which healthcare is delivered, and this could improve the provision of an effective holistic approach to health care. the faculty engaged the services of experts in the field to offer workshops to help guide academics on integrating socio-economic determinants into disciplinary content. of concern is that while the underpinning purpose was to decolonise, there was silence on the historical and political racial context of colonisation and the meanings of decolonisation of health sciences education. pentecost, gerber, wainwright, and cousins (2018, p. 225) raised similar concerns, when they noted that “health sciences curricula are stubbornly ahistorical. apart from including such content for its educational value, integrating an historical and contemporary awareness is essential to fostering the critical lens required for practising in post-apartheid south africa.” furthermore, the faculty did not interrogate the provision of health care training that would prepare students to offer just and equitable healthcare that recognises equally the value of biomedical and african healing approaches. founded on western modes of thinking and practices, the health sciences curriculum excludes the role played by african beliefs, values, and practices, and the use of indigenous medicine in addressing health problems (pillay & kathard, 2015). it is thus questionable that the inclusion of socio-economic determinants of health as a mode of decolonising a health sciences curriculum would begin to reverse the consequences of colonialism and apartheid when there is no mention of african healing that is practiced by more than 70% of black africans. pillay and kathard (2015) cautioned against the depoliticisation of decolonising projects, contending that this is an attempt to maintain western dominance. they argue “that only through strong political (re)conscientising in educational processes will we find new seyama: critical performativity for decolonising curriculum 161 ways of being health professionals who take ownership of developing practices relevant to africa” (p. 194). various studies have made a case for the decolonisation of health education curricula, offering frameworks and empirical evidence for authentic and meaningful curricula transformation. these studies emphasise the what and the how of decolonising health education curricula. in this vein, pentecost et al. (2018, p. 221) have argued for an integrated framework “that includes and equally values the natural or biomedical sciences as well as humanities, arts and social sciences, respecting that all of this knowledge has value for the practice of healthcare.” this curriculum encompasses questioning knowledge hierarchies and decolonising curricula, challenging the image of the health professional, and cultivating a social ethic. similarly, shizha and charema (2011) have advocated for fostering a holistic approach to healthcare and wellbeing that encompasses biomedical and traditional healing approaches to ensure spiritual, mental, physical, and social healing. these approaches offer propositions for a transformed curriculum that is inclusive, humanising, and aligned to the reality of how the majority of south africans experience healing and healthcare. there is silence on how the decolonising project has been unfolding in the faculty because since 2018 the university has shifted towards the exploration of the fourth industrial revolution. academics work in their private disciplines to include socio-economic determinants of health in their modules. they have reported including these as an additional learning unit of a module. a checklist system is used to report on the progress thereof. critical race theory: decolonisation of the mind perhaps our biggest challenge to date is to decolonize our minds. (soto 2014, p. 317) i believe the challenge to decolonise our minds lies in the slow pace at which south african universities have taken up the mandate to decolonise curricula. crt is an appropriate framework within which to probe naturalised assumptions about racial differences that are impeding authentic decolonisation. crt confronts present racialism hidden under notions of neutrality, objectivity, and colourblindness (solórzano & yosso, 2002). it serves to dismantle both the white superiority complex and the african inferiority complex mentioned above. racially conscious individuals, such as steve biko (2004), exposed the violence of colonisation and its active refusal of african identities, knowledges, and practices when he said, “the african child learns to hate his heritage in his days at school. so negative is the image of african society presented to him that he pretends to find solace in close identification with white society” (p. 194). in a society where whiteness is normalised as a determinant of all that matters, i argue that decolonisation discussions are fundamentally a racial deconstruction. based on the notion of white supremacy, black and white people are positioned dichotomously, with black people labelled as an inferior race and white people a superior one (ladson-billing, 1998). such racial positioning accords privilege to whites and disempowers africans. hence, i argue that in the context of south african universities, crt is a necessary framework to analyse and 162 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 position racism in the decolonisation discourse and pedagogy in order to disrupt its hegemony. colonisation and racialism are intertwined as technologies of power and oppression that require us to pose and explore difficult questions pertaining to the empowering and disempowering role of race in all aspects of our lives (dei, 2008). crt addresses the politics of curriculum in education where that politics is owned by whites and which accords them power and authority over african people, dictating what they need to know and how (ladson-billings, 1998). it offers a basis from which to interrogate critically all education stakeholders’ positions and conceptualisation of curricula decolonisation. crt illuminates the embedded disadvantage of africans as the othered in academic arenas and curriculum (ladson-billings, 1998). it accounts for the role of racism in how students and academics construct their identities and worldviews. a deconstruction of fallacious identities, which is an important criterion for decolonisation, can be possible when africans take up a reflexive stance that posits an affirmed african with invaluable insights and commits these insights to rebuilding african dignity. significant as well is nakata’s (2002) argument that decolonising projects will fail unless non-indigenous (white) academics also interrogate critically the paradigms that underpin their identity formations and social, political, and cultural positioning. odora-hoppers and richards (2011, p. 7) have reminded us that the coloniser colonises the mind “through disciplines, such as education, science, economics and law.” hence, i argue for the decolonisation of the mind. it has a rightful place in the genuine pursuit of social, cognitive, epistemic, and economic justice. students and academics could be exposed to different possibilities of being and doing in classrooms. the question is: “how do we begin to do this in classrooms?” i contend that critical performativity through the crt lens could give us a way into the minds and hearts of both students and academics to assist universities to begin a journey of the thinkable and the unthinkable and to find possibilities for a point of collusion between african and eurocentric paradigms and epistemologies. in view of the marginalisation and silencing of black people’s voices in academia and curricula, counterstorytelling is a viable crt tool to use to confront the dominance of western knowledge frames in curricula and allow black people to relate their experiences in their own voices. counter-storytelling is “a method of telling the stories of those people whose experiences are not often told” (solórzano & yosso, 2002, p. 26), thus it imbues authority on the voices of censored black people. from this perspective, counter-storytelling recognises the worth of black people’s experiences in knowledge production and, in a classroom that aims to inspire co-curriculum construction with students, counter-story telling is significant. in the context of decolonising a health sciences curriculum, students’ narratives of african healing could serve to counter or refute normalised narratives of western healing. the critical performativity stance could create a safe zone in which students could offer rich narratives of their experience and knowledge of african healing. moreover, these narratives could get us to realising what shizha and charema (2011) have described as the value of the co-existence of biomedical and african healing approaches where together they could enable authentically holistic healing that caters for the majority of the population. seyama: critical performativity for decolonising curriculum 163 from critical pedagogy to critical performativity a brief reflection on critical pedagogy is necessary to demonstrate my argument for critical performativity. critical pedagogy lays a strong foundation for critical performativity by acknowledging that education is political. it is neither objective nor neutral (freire, 1970). when we seek to transform education policies and practices, we take into account the enabling or disabling historical, socio-political, and economic conditions that influence education. critical pedagogy is celebrated as a humanising pedagogy that re-writes students as agentic, knowledgeable, critically conscious active citizens (mcinerney, 2009). freire (1970) argued that traditional education is dehumanising because it objectifies students and constructs them as non-agentic entities who need to receive passively the knowledge delivered by teachers. to correct the injustice of what freire (1970, p. 72) called “banking education,” he offers “problem-posing education” that problematises and confronts world assumptions underlying content knowledge and classroom and societal relations. this approach is centred on students’ awareness of their oppression, thereby inspiring an emancipatory frame of thinking (mcinerney, 2009), which could radically reform classrooms into more democratic ones for deliberated and meaningful interactions (breunig, 2010). freire (1973) presents the notion of conscientisation as a reflexive approach that questions world assumptions that have normalised certain ways of thinking, of being, and of doing that reinforce domination and control. from this perspective, critical pedagogy is what the decolonising project calls for in order to facilitate the disruption of a colonised thinking. it is important for students to be empowered to probe independently repressive undemocratic political systems, and marginalising social and economic norms (freire, 1973). following freire (1970), teachers ought to create a safe environment in which to affirm students’ experiences and the accompanying knowledge as having been informed by their social and cultural background and use these as frames of reference for engaging with new knowledge. spicer, alvesson, and kärreman, (2009) have defined critical performativity as pragmatic emancipatory performances that destabilise repressive discourses and practices. positioning critical performativity in education purposefully aligns it to critical pedagogy since it “seeks to engender spaces of intellectual openness and inquiry . . . it presents both negative and positive cases in a mutually informative exchange between students and instructors” (fleming & banerjee 2016, p. 270). spicer et al. (2009) proposed the notion of critical performativity in response to the critique that critical management studies (cms) fail to offer a practical way out of repressive organisation conditions. it is conceptualised as an analytical framework that could extend cms from just critique to critical performatives that bring about social change (fleming & banerjee, 2016). fundamental to the ethos of cms is the critique of neoliberal performative cultures that exploit power asymmetries in organisations and society. it offers emancipatory alternative performatives that counter neoliberal performative cultures. spicer et al. (2009, pp. 545–554) offered the following principles or tenets of critical performativity: affirmation, circumspect care, progressive pragmatism, presenting potentialities, and normative orientation. they propose critical performativity as a nonprescriptive approach, which in some way is open to exploration in unlimited ways. it therefore offers wide-ranging possibilities, particularly where institutional or societal change 164 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 is an imperative, including classroom interactions (contu, 2017). it is apparent that decolonising curricula would be an intricate project characterised by a multiplicity of ideas and positions. hence, le grange (2016, p. 6) has suggested that “the process should be embarked upon thoughtfully but [should] also be open to experimentation from which much could be learned.” it is in this spirit that i see value in critical performativity to guide studentteacher classroom dialogue in disentangling colonisation, decolonisation, and african healing and reframing alternative paradigms in curricula. i contend that critical performativity has the potential to facilitate critical education if we reimagine it as a pragmatic tool that could extend critical pedagogy. at its core, critical performativity aims to dismantle the normalised exploitation of power, which excludes and dehumanises those who do not possess it (spicer et al., 2009); it offers an alternative to entrenched colonial and neoliberal thinking and practices that ground much of the meaning of education. critical performativity recognises that critique cannot be effective if it is articulated at a distance from the context under scrutiny (spicer et al., 2009). thus, its intent is to promote closer interaction with the people who experience discomforting discourses and practices. this will help gain deeper insight into that particular context so that the scholar and those in disempowering conditions can explore together, through critical dialogue and deliberation, alternative ways of thinking, speaking, and doing (pillay & kathard, 2015). while critical performativity is conceptualised to engage actively with management in organisations to effect radical change (spicer et al., 2009), it is well suited to the attainment of liberated and pragmatic curricula objectives (dei, 2008) that can lead to alternative epistemologies. in using critical performativity for decolonising curricula, critical performativity calls upon academics to become intellectual activists (contu, 2017) who facilitate closer, open, and critical interaction with students about their beliefs, knowledge, and experiences of their world, particularly their african knowledges. a disruption of the misconceptions about africa, the african, and african healing and iks ought to undergird this facilitation. wicket and schaefer (2015) have offered progressive performativity as an additional dimension to critical performativity; this involves micro-engagements with those leaders who are seen as agents of change. it is a way of working progressively towards social renewal. in the context of south african universities, students are these agents of change since they spearhead the demand for decolonisation. they have to be engaged as the knowers and not as just as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge (freire, 1970). by facilitating microengagements with an existing practiced african iks, academics add momentum to a train that is already in motion. what matters is how the train tracks are cleared to permit of alternative paradigms. reflexive conscientisation then becomes crucial because it stimulates students’ awareness of their own colonised misconceptions that prejudice african knowledges and experiences. in the next section, i examine how each of the critical performativity tenets could be engaged in working towards a co-construction of a decolonised curriculum. seyama: critical performativity for decolonising curriculum 165 materialising decolonisation through critical performativity in materialising decolonisation, we ought to be moving from a non-constructive critique of a colonised curriculum to a critically productive position of affirming decolonisation as a politically imperative project and centering african iks for national and global relevance. spicer et al. (2016, p. 233) felt strongly about extending critical performativity in order to confront controversial public concerns for “a more critically performative approach” that consciously and pragmatically initiates change. the aim then is to reveal alternatives that are critically contemplated and openly negotiated. while it appears that decolonising curricula is just an education issue, from a transformational perspective it is of immense public interest in south africa because it has implications for societal transformation and progression. the critical performativity tenets of affirmation, circumspect care, progressive pragmatism, presenting potentialities, and normative orientation could guide us in our interaction with students in classrooms when we are interrogating curricula decolonisation. affirmation for informed critical enquiry, the tenet of affirmation inspires an acknowledgement of the phenomenon under scrutiny. it aims to achieve a deeper insight and a re-thinking of assumptions (spicer et al., 2009), thereby identifying possibilities for reconsideration or alteration. in the decolonising endeavour, we critique colonisation as premised on eurocentrism. we have to commit to understanding how eurocentrism has managed to produce such persistent dominant thinking and culture after decades of supposed democracy in africa. in this way, we can think of ways to undermine the stronghold of eurocentrism. in attempting to understand the object of critique, suspension of existing assumptions is vital to give those who experience them a fair opportunity to reveal their truths. it could also provide safe and meaningful opportunities for critique. from the position of decolonising curriculum, affirmation could promote the importance of acquiring knowledge about colonisation and understanding of how it affects white and black people psychologically, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. it lays the ground in illuminating the importance of a deep recognition of context and the way in which it undermines emancipation. this, in turn, could allow us to tease out enabling conditions for change. affirmation taken as the premise for decolonisation encompasses academics listening carefully to, and being thoughtful about, students’ views, how they experience university life, curricula, and classroom interactions. with this offering, affirmation is justifiable as a strategy to create an authentic setting that is rooted in accepting the truths and reality of others and according them the significance and respect they deserve. affirmation supports the recognition of difficult realities with which people struggle every day. in this way, it could support an understanding of the violence and humiliation of africans as so-called inferior human beings, highlighting the need for respect and compassion. in view of black south africans being rendered “invisible in the historiography 166 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 of the country: an epistemic injustice” (davids, 2017, p. 24), affirmation is imperative if they are to reclaim their dignity. engaging affirmation is not so much about getting the answers or concrete knowledge about african iks. rather, it is about exploring and clearing the minefield of experiences and knowledges that could be readily usable or not, allowing curiosity to take its course. at the same time, it could offer an opportunity to purge the pain and shame of africans being those thought to have “deficit genes and culture” (chillisa, 2012, p. 17). circumspect care the tenet of circumspect care creates a safe environment in which peoples’ views about their experiences can be voiced and heard, while, at the same time, be gently interrogated (spicer et al., 2009). decolonisation involves caring for students and giving them voice as participants on the fringes of decision-making about curricula. it fosters critical dialogue with students about their views and about how and why they have come to hold them. with circumspect care, academics can become aware of students’ views, which also inform the types of questions they might ask. it offers students and academics an opportune time and ensured safety in which to ask difficult and uncomfortable questions. it could stimulate “reorientations that enable and engage alternative ways of knowing and require university students to deconstruct their own cultural situatedness in academia” (williamson & dalal, 2007, p. 52). as contu (2017) has suggested, academics require a great deal of sensitivity when they encourage students to question their assumptions, particularly when they could be presented with counter arguments. born into a world that distrusts africa and its representation, university students are prone to being indoctrinated into the negative psyche about africa. a level of sensitivity is imperative when they voice beliefs and values that reify western thinking. it is common to hear students voicing doubt about and disregard for africa. we need to expose a system that teaches youngsters that they are better and worthy only insofar as they are speaking and doing things the western way. affirmation and circumspect care could give students and academics points of consensus on aspects of decolonisation that could be exploited pragmatically within the discourses and practices of disciplines. this could lead to rediscovering african iks applicable to current curricula and to identifying those that need further examination. progressive pragmatism the tenet of progressive pragmatism focuses on specific issues and the practicality of possible change that is “progressive insofar as it helps to reduce harmful ideas, create less harmful alternatives and build spaces for deliberation” (spicer et al., 2016, p. 236). progressive pragmatism suggests being explicit about what needs to be achieved with decolonisation, that is, an african way of thinking that should be explicit and practical about discarding misconceptions about africa and removing them from curricula. this also involves being cognisant of the possibility of discord (spicer et al., 2009). however, it is important to identify avenues for micro-emancipations. with academics’ and students’ seyama: critical performativity for decolonising curriculum 167 renewed critical consciousness, new practices could be talked into existence through the performative effects of language (wickert & schaefer, 2015). this entails changing the terms in and through which subjects constitute identities within institutional subject positions (spicer et al., 2016). progressive pragmatism could facilitate an exploration of what is currently in curricula, and provide the chance to re-think epistemology aimed at the greater good. we could search for common everyday traditional practices that we take for granted and make sense of them in relation to their purpose, without seeking evidence to prove them. these established practices have been passed down from generation to generation through storytelling and memory. davids (2017, p. 93) has argued, aptly, “that epistemic marginalisation of historically oppressed communities can be ameliorated by employing ‘emancipatory memory work’.” african healing is already in place as an alternative healing system. more than 70% of africans in south africa use it (hewson, 2015). a lot of work has been done in this area; it is readily available to be included in a health sciences curriculum. wellness, when spirituality is included as a component of holistic health, is a case in point. however, an orthodox health sciences perspective does not recognise spirituality as being central to illness and health in every respect. in african healing, it is the essence of health and illness. presenting potentialities presenting potentialities relates to “creating a sense of what could be by engaging latent possibilities in an organization” (spicer et al., 2009, p. 546). from a decolonising perspective, presenting potentialities involves transcending a critique of eurocentric epistemologies in curricula to seek what is conceivable by exploring the hidden curricula potential in african iks. african iks are not bounded; they offer unlimited potential if we engage with them in an open and expectant way. by accepting that there are novel possibilities, we have to expand our thinking into the future (spicer et al., 2009). from the decolonising position, it is about what it might mean to bring existent african iks into curricula to respond to unanswered questions and work towards resolving current world dysfunctionalities and health-related problems such as the increased manifestation of obesity, autism, cancer, and so forth. we could position african iks in the future, where they become a point of reference for inspiration by exploring with students alternative ways of conceiving of their worlds. hewson (2015) echoed the possibilities for the potential of iks to provide solutions when she argued that “the knowledge, attitudes and skills of indigenous people might hold the answers, at least in part, to the world’s current problems.” she went on to say, “i also believe that until indigenous knowledge becomes a part of the curriculums in educational institutions, we will not be able to remediate the learning difficulties of non-westerners” (p. 4). normative orientation normative orientation involves seeking ideals for good organisation practice by engaging micro-emancipations (spicer et al., 2009). in the decolonising process, normative orientation 168 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 encompasses determining criteria used to judge authentic, undiluted, and meaningful forms to decolonise curricula. in this sense, social, epistemic, cognitive, and economic justice issues and concerns should steer the criteria (leibowitz, 2017). we need a free, deliberated, and negotiated place in which teachers and students can be vulnerable about their prejudiced or misinformed positionalities on knowledge that matters. to work towards such decolonising means that classrooms ought to be characterised by discourse and practice that are counterhegemonic, and that question established world assumptions, honour other ways of knowing, particularly african ways, and treat them and dominant ways of knowing equally. it also involves recognising social, political, cultural, and economic influences on knowledge content and its delivery. this will facilitate an awareness that for every knowledge taught, there is knowledge that is not taught. furthermore, as breunig (2010) has reminded us, classroom relations ought to be grounded in humaneness, affirmation, and respect for african students’ identity and experience. conclusion in this paper, i contend that the faculty of health science’s inclusion of socio-economic determinants of health as decolonising curriculum content is not a decolonising project since there is no engagement with what ought to be an alternative african paradigm, in this case african healing, as an alternative knowledge frame. i am thus concerned with the need for universities and academics alike to question and rethink the wrong mind-set that underscores what are seen to be attempts to decolonise institutions and themselves but that ignore the imperative of decolonising the mind. within the crt framing and counter-storytelling, i am proposing critical performativity through its tenets of affirmation, circumspect care, progressive pragmatism, presenting potentialities and normative orientation, as a decolonising pedagogy. in doing this, i am taking up the challenge to enact and support the decolonising project as both an epistemic and social justice issue. within the decolonising project, critical performativity could achieve humanising social transformation through a pragmatically useful exploration of theories and practices underpinning the current colonised curricula and those informed by african perspectives. in facilitating africans and others to understand the false premise of white supremacy, critical performativity could transform subordinate relations into equal ones. since critical performativity is primarily reflexive, it could enable the interrogation of unquestioned assumptions that form the basis of curriculum development and delivery. when critical performativity criteria are upheld, classroom performances do not reinforce subjugating knowledges, values, and beliefs. in cultivating reflexivity, critical performativity offers possibilities for mysteries to emerge from an extended, critical, and positive exploration of african iks. at the same time, such mysteries could be constructed when we confront the tensions between african and western discourses and re-think african iks to answer unanswered modern-day questions or to solve current complex global health problems. seyama: critical performativity for decolonising curriculum 169 critical performativity could create opportunities for the location of african people and their work in university curricula and incite a positive re-articulation of the african paradigm, thereby debunking black people’s inferiority complex and the related subordinated knowledges. it could be a useful means of strengthening students’ and academics’ intellectual argumentation for decolonisation because it permits a start from a position of comprehensive engagement with colonisation. it is to be hoped that this will address the deliberate ignorance on which the colonised mind-set is based. critical performativity as a possible pedagogical method gives credence to the coconstruction of curricula with students and offers a practical and constructive approach that academics could explore when they are engaging in discussions on decolonisation in their disciplinary arenas. classrooms could be spaces for unprejudiced intellectual interaction and critical interrogation in a democratic atmosphere of possibility, excitement, love, and compassion where students’ narratives of african healing 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(2018). about social determinants of health. retrieved from http://www.who.int/social_determinants/sdh_definition/en/ microsoft word b8300 final.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 83, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i83a01 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x researching higher education in africa as a process of meaning-making: epistemological and theoretical considerations michael cross ali mazrui centre for higher education studies, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa (succumbed to the covid-19 virus on 6 june 2021) logan govender ali mazrui centre for higher education studies, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa lvgovender@uj.ac.za; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2889-2827 (received: 26 november 2020; accepted: 18 june 2021) abstract in this article, we argue for a new way of thinking about knowledge construction in african higher education as a basis for developing new theoretical and epistemological insights, founded on inclusivity, epistemic freedom, and social justice. we recognise coloniality as a fundamental problem that needs us to scrutinise our knowledge of decolonisation (about decolonisation itself) and our knowledge for decolonisation (to make change possible). following bourdieu (1972), such thinking also requires degrees of vigilance that entail fundamental epistemological breaks, or put differently, it requires epistemological decolonisation as a point of departure. thus, the future of tertiary education in africa must be located within a new horizon of possibilities, informed by a nuanced political epistemology and ontology embedded in the complex african experience and visibility of the colonised and oppressed. in short, there can be no social justice without epistemic justice. keywords: african higher education, alternative thinking, epistemological decolonisation, social justice introduction researching higher education in africa raises serious epistemological and theoretical challenges. this is largely because african higher education research has relied on western models, paradigms, assumptions, concepts, methodologies, and procedures, among other research related aspects. western hegemony and ideology have influenced and continue to influence the epistemologies, theories, methods, and outcomes of higher education research 14 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 in africa (oparinde & govender, 2019). western claims to scientific rationality, universality, objectivity, and neutrality have dominated our research paradigms to the detriment of alternative approaches and conceptions of knowledge. more suitable approaches and methods aligned to the african context are often unrecognised and thus underused despite the calls for decolonial research methods (chilisa, 2012). our fundamental proposition is the need to think differently about knowledge construction in african higher education as a basis for developing new theoretical and epistemological insights. we begin with a literature review of emerging decolonial constructs and alternative epistemologies that encompass three generations of scholarship. we then present the key arguments before outlining a conceptual framework to inform higher education research meaning making and practices in africa. we conclude by highlighting the value and relevance of the theoretical and epistemological propositions offered. literature review current literature has highlighted crimes committed by the west in africa: colonial genocides and the notion of the theft of history (goody, 2006), epistemicides (killing of indigenous people’s knowledges) and linguicides (killing of indigenous people’s languages), culturecides (killing of indigenous people’s cultures) (ndlovu-gatsheni, 2018a; wa thiong’o, 2009, 2012). contestation of these crimes has given rise to at least three generations of scholarship. the first generation centred on reclaiming african origins and authenticity by exploring african pre-colonial historical achievements. it emphasised revisiting narratives of the colonial experience (colonial subjugation and exploitation on the one hand, and resistance, co-option, and liberation, on the other), a task undertaken by progressive western africanists and the emerging generation of african scholars (diop, 1954; ki-zerbo, 1994). notable is mazrui’s (1986) triple heritage that distilled the key influences—african culture, islamic culture, and western culture—in the constitution of africa. the second generation was comprised of two streams. the first stream that started with scholars like nkwame nkrumah, francis fanon, leopold senghor, es’kia mphahlele, steve biko, and neville alexander was concerned with the discovery of african unity, négritude, black consciousness, african identities, africanness, and the struggles of the colonised towards liberation. the other stream entailed an intensive debate on the reproduction of colonialism or coloniality in the post-independence period supported by the review of political economy and the new left review. drawing on marxist theories, it focused on the nature of the post-colonial state, power, and the reproduction of neo-colonial forms of dependence and exploitation after independence, particularly in the school of dar-es-salaam (e.g. amin, 1972; rodney, 1972; shivji, 1976), the centro de estudos moçambicanos in maputo (e.g. ruth first, robert davis, barry munslow, and jacques depelchin), and the proliferation of neo-marxist analyses in southern african studies (e.g. dan o’mara, mike morris, harold wolpe, and charles van onselen). with very few exceptions (e.g., jacques depelchin’s and ali mazrui’s critiques), the radical scholarship pursued by this generation bears some responsibility for the western modernity project in africa. cross & govender: researching higher education in africa as a process of meaning-making 15 the third generation entails the search for alternative epistemologies and methodologies more responsive to the social and economic complexities of the continent (e.g., devisch & nyamjoh, 2011; hountondji, 1983, 1997, 2002, 2013; mawere, 2011; nabudere, 2011a, 2011b; zeleza, 1997). it has provided new analytical concepts, including epistemic freedom as opposed to academic freedom, provincialisation of the west, deprovincialisation of africa, epistemological decolonisation, intellectual extroversion to reclaim our rightful place at the global stage, and epistemic dependence, epistemic disobedience, de-bordering, decentering/de-peripherising, delinking, colonial difference, de-westernisation and decolonialising higher education research, and decolonial theory (cossa, 2009; ndlovugatsheni, 2018b). this is very often associated with slogans such as africa [up]rising (displaying a narrative of success) as branch and mapilly (2015) use in the title of their edited collection, african awakening as manyi and ekine (2012) use in their title, along with african revival and africanacity or the african ability to meet every challenge with tenacity, ingenuity, positivity, and creativity,1 without forgetting the on and off african renaissance. latin american scholars, such as anibal quijano, ramon grosfoguel, nelson maldonadotorres, and walter mignolo have also contributed significantly to decolonial thought and the higher education project. grossfoguel (2007, p. 214), has argued that “[b]y delinking the ethnic/racial/gender/sexual epistemic location from the subject that speaks, western philosophy and sciences are able to produce a myth about a truthful universal knowledge.” likewise, quijano (2000), argued for a conceptualisation of the present world-system as a historical-structural heterogeneous totality that he called a “colonial power matrix” that affects all dimensions of social existence such as sexuality, authority, subjectivity, and labor (cited in grosfoguel, 2007, p. 217) significantly, the concept of coloniality has its roots in the writings of latin american decolonial scholars anibal quijano (2000) and walter mignolo (2000); the latter explained that coloniality is the “darker side” of modernity and should be unveiled (cited in seroto, 2018, p. 3).2 common to concerns about de-bordering, de-centering, and de-provincialising is the belief that central concepts and propositions in research do not originate in, or privilege, a single culture, but are derived from, and are relevant to, multiple cultures (rivenburgh & manusov, 2010). at the analysis stage, researchers must be mindful, once again, of the influence of their own cultural mindsets when explaining phenomena in a different cultural setting. 1 absa, a south african bank that serviced a predominantly white afrikaner clientele during apartheid has been promoting this concept in the democratic era, explaining it as a “[n]ew word for our new purpose. there is a way of doing things that is unique to our continent. of meeting every challenge with tenacity, ingenuity, positivity, and creativity. at absa, we call this africanacity: the distinctly african ability to always find ways to get things done.” 2 coloniality should not be confused with colonialism; it refers to the long-standing patterns of power that have emerged as a result of colonialism that define “culture, labour, inter-subjectivity relations, and knowledge production well beyond the strict limits of colonial administrations” maldonado-torres (2007, p. 243). decolonisation refers to the absence of a condition of coloniality. the suffix isation suggests the act of becoming, the process of transcending coloniality, a process that takes place in an interconnected, dynamic, and changing world. for césaire (2000, cited in heleta, 2016, p. 5), “decolonisation is about the consciousness and rejection of values, norms, customs and worldviews imposed by the [former] colonisers.” 16 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 emerging discourses: epistemologies of the south, decolonising methodologies, and other alternative discourses the epistemologies of the south placed the notions of a plurality of knowledges, different knowledges, and multiple locations of knowledge—multiple epistemologies—on the agenda and thus gave recognition and legitimation to the presence of subjugated knowledges or silenced voices. they brought to the forefront the idea “that all groups have a right to speak for themselves, in their own voice, and have that voice accepted as authentic and legitimate” (harvey, 1989, p. 48). the objective of the epistemologies of the south is to allow the oppressed social groups who suffered the destruction caused by capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, archaism, racism, sexism, christian-centrism, hetero-normativity, geographical provincialising, homophobia, and misogyny to represent the world as their own and in their own terms (ndlovu-gatsheni, 2018b; santos, 2014). it is a project that strives for recognition of new ecologies and cartographies of knowledge (barreto, 2014; cross et al., 2019; santos, 2007, 2014; santos et al., 2007). decolonising methodologies opened a new research tradition in the production of knowledge (archibald et al., 2019; cochran et al., 2008; datta, 2018; denzin et al., 2008; simpson, 2001; smith, 2005, 2012; zavala, 2013). methodology has been defined by smith (2012, p. ix) as “the theory of method, or the approach or technique being taken, or the reasoning for selecting a set of methods.” in decolonising methodologies: research and indigenous peoples (2012) she is concerned “not so much with the actual technique of selecting a method but much more with the context in which research problems are conceptualized and designed, and with the implications of research for its participants and their communities” (p. ix). decolonising methodologies aims to disrupt “relationships between researchers (mostly nonindigenous) and researched (indigenous), between a colonizing institution of knowledge and colonized peoples whose own knowledge was subjugated, between academic theories and academic values, between institutions and communities, and between and within indigenous communities themselves” (smith, 2012, p. x). in doing so, this work challenges the institution of research, its claims, its values and practices, and its power dynamics with reference to the content of knowledge, the absences, silences and invisibilities of other peoples, practices and ethics, and implications for communities of research (smith, 2012). decolonising methodologies is not against research but is “for new ways of knowing and discovering, and new ways to think about research with indigenous peoples” (smith, 2012, p. 4). briefly, it is about researching as a self-discovery strategy. the notion of decolonising methodologies rests on a political epistemology grounded in the principles of human rights, democracy, and social justice that takes the value of participation and consultation in knowledge production seriously. inspired by fanon’s (1965) call to voice, linda tuhiwai smith’s (2012) decolonising methodologies challenges the way research has been used by european colonial powers to subjugate indigenous peoples. she lays out methodological principles for indigenous research that do not reproduce the same dehumanising results for which colonial knowledge production has been responsible. quoting lather (1991), smith (1999, p. 3) disrupts “the rules of the research game towards practices cross & govender: researching higher education in africa as a process of meaning-making 17 that are more respectful, ethical, sympathetic and useful versus racist practices and attitudes, ethnocentric assumptions and exploitative research.” in decolonising educational research, patel (2015) calls for ownership and answerability (to indigenous people, to colonised peoples on indigenous land, and to black people on indigenous land). asante (1987, 2015) argued that concepts and methods in western thought are inadequate to explain all the possible ways of knowing because universality cannot be a product of one culture. in other words, since no culture is universal, no culture can generate universally valid knowledge. therefore, all cultures, including the indigenous ways of knowing arising from them, deserve to be respected and valued in their uniqueness. this means that african higher education research, theory, and methods should acknowledge and include the african ways of knowing, and value african ontologies, epistemologies, and ethics (mazama, 2001; oyebade, 1990; schiele, 1994). the argument is that research methods need to be aligned with the intentions, context, and participatory nature of indigenous knowledge systems. in this regard, many theorists advocate for a paradigm, an approach, theory, and methods rooted in afrocentricity (asante, 1987; mazama, 2001). beyond confronting western epistemological and theoretical hegemony, these emerging discourses have shed some light on how knowledge is produced and controlled in our institutions, on knowledge advancement across the continent, and on the interplay of power and politics of knowledge. in similar vein, fataar (2018), called for a type of cognitive justice based on an overhaul and expansion of the western knowledge canon. decoloniality, fataar (2018) argued, offers three curriculum knowledge claims: claim one (drawing on santos, 2014) is based on the centering of an all-inclusive ecology of knowledge approach; claim two, the knowledge and identity claim, is based on the productive recognition and restoration of the full dignity of subjugated peoples aimed at unearthing their full human potential; and claim three pivots on knowledge relevance and contextualisation—the idea that curriculum knowledge ought to make epistemological connections to the knowledges of people, their contextual life circumstances, indigenous knowledge systems, languages, and ways of knowing. thus, these scholars have played an important role in steering the south-south debate, particularly the epistemologies of the south movement, and tackling important issues such as the production and dissemination of knowledge relevant to the african context. they have shown that we can challenge the dominance of eurocentrism without falling into an intellectual and discursive ghettoisation. they have redefined the role of academics, policymakers, and curriculum and programme designers in dealing with coloniality in policies, research, knowledge, and pedagogy. put differently, this is about how to reframe our understanding of, or engagement with, knowledge production, utilisation, and its assessment. in this sense, these discourses are a crusade for self-discovery, recognition, and global scholarly affirmation of africa. there is now increasing realisation that the struggle for positive representation and recognition of africa in the global intellectual arena must mirror the real experiences, needs, and aspirations of african people, not simply the negative and often depressing 18 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 representations of them seen from the perspective of a colonial or western epistemological frame. the time has come for researchers, academics, administrators, critics, analysts, and students of higher education in africa to cast the net widely, flex their intellectual muscles, and refuse to confine their visions, analyses, and praxis to the idea of the university as preconceived and long prescribed by the colonial past. in this sense, the experiences of african people are an important subject, as opposed to being mere objects of study, central to which is an adequate contextualisation of knowledge and visibility of the oppressed. for example, in the course of 2020, african-based medical solutions to combat the covid-19 pandemic have emerged but have met with little serious consideration by the western-dominated mainstream global medical fraternity. part of the challenge lies in the lack of support for indigenous knowledge systems to thrive, including traditional medical treatments that can be used for symptoms associated with covid-19 (yew-siong and ally, 2020). as mudimbe (1985, p. 206) asserted, academics need to establish themselves and their societies “as ‘subjects’ of their own destiny” as well as to reinvent their past and envision their future. however, scholars and education practitioners must take this opportunity to step back and interrogate the discourses embedded in the legacy of critique by the west, and its assumptions about global power dynamics and power relations in the domain of knowledge. the primary challenge in this context is for us to dare recast, redefine, and revise the very notions of research, epistemology, knowledge, and knowledge application to establish a solid platform for meaningful change in our universities and scholarship. argument the argument posits four key claims. first, beyond the current critique of western hegemony, what are urgently needed are not necessarily alternatives but, instead, alternative thinking about the epistemological, theoretical, and methodological foundations of knowledge in african higher education. second, such thinking should be grounded not only in full acknowledgement of the centrality of epistemic freedom and justice, but also in the recognition of “coloniality as a fundamental problem in the modern age” (ndlovu-gatsheni, 2014, p. 185; see also maldonado-torres, 2007; mignolo, 2007b, 2011; mignolo & escobar, 2010; mignolo and vasquez, 2013; ndlovu-gatsheni, 2013, 2014; quijano, 2000; seroto, 2018). third, as suggested by the western scholar, bourdieu (1988), in the domain of social research, such thinking also requires degrees of vigilance that entail fundamental epistemological breaks. this idea was reiterated by mudimbe (1988) in the invention of africa: gnosis, philosophy, and the order of knowledge, where he highlighted the imperative of continually exercising epistemological vigilance. fourth, careful attention should be paid to the nature of the knowledge for and knowledge of transformation—the call for not only a specific political, moral, and ethical responsibility but also adequate and perpetual epistemic vigilance to account for the complexities of the african context in its diversity. overall, confronting this challenge requires carefully considered epistemological, theoretical, and methodological bases, revisiting existing concepts and assumptions, creating more appropriate concepts, and developing assumptions rooted in our histories and experiences. in cross & govender: researching higher education in africa as a process of meaning-making 19 other words, it requires epistemological decolonisation as a point of departure. for santos, (santos, b., personal communication, october 7, 2019) what is needed is a new understanding of the world and alternative thinking as the bases for transformation. epistemological decolonisation grounded in epistemic justice requires scrutinising the knowledges that work with its subjects and work through them. particularly important to this aspect is lange’s (2020) suggestion that transformation implies and is derived from a variety of knowledge(s) that are usually neither explicit nor systematically examined institutionally. these include the knowledge for decolonisation (the knowledge necessary to make change possible) and the knowledge of decolonisation (the knowledge about decolonisation itself) operating in a dialectical relationship that itself needs to be examined if we are to understand the current tensions and risks of institutional and organisational transformation in the african context (lange, 2020). these alternative forms of knowledge are essential for constant deconstruction and reconstruction of social reality as well as social reintegration to respond innovatively, creatively, and responsively to the present and future needs of africa. from this perspective, transformation impacts on every aspect of higher education, from governance and management to student access and support, from outreach programmes, recruitment, and retention to programme development, and from research, scholarship, and the social to teaching and learning environments. re-imagining higher education research in africa: towards a conceptual framework in a relatively recent book chapter, an analytical framework for dealing with the decolonisation challenge, referred to as a major “epistemological and analytical break”, was proposed by cross and ndofirepi (2017). drawing on theoretical insights provided by west (1995), it was argued that political and epistemological decolonisation, on which transformation in higher education should rest, requires working with and through four important concepts: looking to the past for inspiration (lessons); looking inwards for individual and collective introspection (a basis for decolonising the mind); looking outwards to the increasingly dynamic surroundings and global spaces (critical engagement vis-à-vis self-ghettoisation); and looking to the present with a view to shaping the future (cross & ndofirepi, 2017). using the notion of intersecting contexts, the framework points to the different settings in which, or with reference to which, the university in africa executes its functions. below, we discuss the key pillars of such a project with reference to higher education research. looking to the past: identifying and re-thinking critical epistemic experiences embedded in the present looking through the rear-view mirror is perhaps the most important source of inspiration available to human beings as they strive to shape their own future in different and better 20 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 ways. emphasising the role of memory, assie-lumumba (2018, p. 3) argued that “historical consciousness is critically important in analysing the present and in trying to find solutions for our contemporary challenges.” as expressed by clarke (1996), “history tells the people where they have been, what they have been, where they are, and what they are. most important, history tells the people where they still must go and what they still must be” (cited in assie-lumumba, 2018, p. 4). the past is the present and the future since it helps to identify, and re-think critical epistemic experiences embedded in the present and potentially in the future. history is the storage of memory, both individual and collective,3 and without memory there can be only amnesia or ignorance. from this perspective, the pervasive influences of colonial legacies in current crises facing the university in africa can no longer be underestimated. the complicity of the university in africa in shaping these legacies cannot be ignored. the complicity of higher education research in this process cannot be ignored. there is an urgent need to realise that coloniality has been and remains entrenched in the present-day university, and even in some of our own alternative discursive imaginations. in this regard, looking to the past offers unlimited opportunity for learning, unlearning, or re-learning deeply about the challenges confronting higher education today. looking inwards: decolonising the mind and its epistemic logic looking inwards means understanding yourself including the use or misuse of your personal resources, or what foucault (in martin et al. 1988) refers to as “technologies of the self,” i.e. techniques that enable individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection or immortality. (p. 27) foucault attributed two important roles to these technologies. the first is in the exercise of power, authority, and liberty. the second is the strategy through which one acts as an individual to “transform oneself into the subject of one’s ethical behaviour” (martin et al. 1988, p. 27). it is argued here that resetting these technologies goes together with the decolonisation of the mind, as articulated by fanon (1965, 1967) and biko (2002). it involves confronting the most enduring legacy of colonialism, namely epistemic violence through which the colonisers imposed themselves on the minds of the colonised to ensure that their world view manifests in the new, emerging society. 3 individual recollections of private and social experiences are an important part of memory, and so, too, are the collective recollections of a family, and of ethnic, cultural, social and other groups. both types of memory are important historical sources, the one often corroborating the other, thereby helping to provide a more authentic or complete data source. (the african notion of ubuntu is relevant here (see footnote 4.) however, methodological questions need to be borne in mind, such as, “how does individual memory constrain and contribute to collaborative remembering, and how do groups shape individual memory?” (barnier & sutton, 2008, p. 177). cross & govender: researching higher education in africa as a process of meaning-making 21 looking outwards: an encounter with a globalising world there are two basic responses to the question of globalisation and its impact on the academic world, each with its own relative strengths and weaknesses. the first is the marketplace approach through which knowledge order is determined by the competitive flow of ideas, technology, values, symbols, and all cultural imagery regulated by the markets (cross & cloete 1999). this approach does not account for the diversity of the world, the diversity of its experiences, and the plurality of our understandings of them. the second reflects what west (1995) has referred to as the “go-it-alone” attitude that is strongly embedded in narrow afrocentric research strategies, which very often call for an arrogant insularity. as west suggested “it is self-defeating, in that it usually reinforces the very inferior complexes promoted by the subtly . . . mainstream” (p. 167). it would certainly risk scholars confining themselves to self-ghettoisation. the reality is that african universities exist in the context of globalisation. they operate at the interface of both local (african) and global (western) spaces; some imagery that we celebrate in certain discourses can no longer realistically be reclaimed. mutual engagement through suitable dialogue and conversations between the local and the global remains a necessity, particularly when the west seems to have reached a degree of knowledge bankruptcy. in this sense, the african university is a university that takes cognisance of its african insertion in the globalising world “without losing its soul” (downing, 2014, p. 1). this means that an epistemological break is needed in the ways in which the two worlds articulate with (or confront) each other in the knowledge domain. looking to the present: beyond closure and fixed frameworks one of the subtlest expressions of the power of coloniality in the current scholarship, including radical scholarship, resides perhaps in what appears to be an innocent attempt at calming coloniality with coloniality. by failing to acknowledge the coloniality of the very discourses that we claim to be empowering or liberating, the theories, slogans, and ideologies, such as poststructuralism, postmodernism, and postcolonialism handed down by western science have become fossilised as unproblematic in our thinking. in the following sections, we suggest possible ways of dealing with this challenge. revisiting and re-articulating the discursive space of the south and north the prevalence of western epistemic and theoretical hegemony and southern epistemicide (the negation of southern modes of knowing and knowledges) still has severe consequences on the production and flows of knowledge on the continent. complicating this situation is the fact that globalisation has stretched and scrambled the geopolitical boundaries of the south to penetrate western social and discursive spaces. today, what has been perceived to be the problems of the south (e.g. poverty, hunger, disease, crime, migration, violence, etc.) have also become problems of europe and north america and this has triggered a global knowledge crisis. christie’s (2020) call for an “all-world ethics” (p. 206) of how we might live together with all others on the earth we share, has relevance; she argued that grappling 22 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 with the legacies of colonialism and imperialism, the effects of global neoliberalism, ecological damage and climate change demand new ways of understanding and living in the world beyond perceptions of difference and beyond-human. more pointedly, garuba (2015), asserted that fundamental change can happen only if universities rethink how the object of study itself is comprised and then reimagine it for meaningful change. at the core then, is the question of social justice, a re-ordering of power expressed through curriculum transformation and knowledge production. disrupting the toxic agenda of western modernity discourses this possible pathway lies in interrupting what santos referred to as the “monocultures” propagated by northern epistemologies or eurocentric theoretical tradition that has resulted in southern epistemicide. the first is the logic of “rigour of knowledge”—the monoculture of scientific knowledge that proclaims science to be the sole measure of truth and understanding, and the exclusive canon of production of knowledge or artistic creation. the second is the “monoculture of linear time” which proclaims that “at the cutting edge of time are to be found the core countries of the world system and, along with them, the dominant knowledges, institutions and forms of sociability” (santos, b., personal communication, october 7, 2019). the third is the monoculture of naturalised differences that classifies people in the world into categories that naturalise hierarchies. this categorisation includes racial and sexual classification, and the perceived superiority of the white man, seen “to occur naturally, without intentional construction, and [that] renders invisible all other forms of classification, placing them beneath consideration” (moraes & freire, 2017, p. 31). reclaiming the african discursive space in the global context there are numerous common spaces in which we do not need to reinvent the wheel. however, the responsibility and responsive obligations of higher education to the diversity of societies and cultures in the world cannot be ignored. an important warning sign here is the need for vigilance against the adoption of decontextualised approaches and decontextualised theories that are unresponsive to local needs and challenges. in line with mbembe (2015), there is also a need to carry our own innovations to the global stage. this will entail meticulous documenting of solutions rooted in the african experience. therefore, when, for example, african indigenous medical cures are claimed, justifiable evidence, whether in oral or written form, should be produced at global conferences and other knowledge-sharing platforms. the recognition of diversity and its implications for a transformative epistemology also deserves attention. sithole (2016) has argued that what should be advocated are the ecologies of knowledge leading to a pluriversalised idea of the world. thus, it becomes incumbent on us to interrogate the historical, social, economic, and political constructs normalised in the curriculum at the level of knowledge, values, norms, symbols, and other aspects constitutive of colonial oppression, including the historically constituted system within which they continue to be reproduced (ndlovu-gatsheni, 2013; suarez-krabbe 2017). cross & govender: researching higher education in africa as a process of meaning-making 23 acknowledging the importance of epistemic vigilance on epistemic vigilance, bourdieu’s (1990) notion of epistemological break is instructive. he refers to three distinctive kinds of epistemic breaks. first, they entail a break from common sense or everyday life understandings, i.e., breaking from practical knowledge based on everyday experience. second, they entail a break from the objectivist and subjectivist reductionism. for bourdieu, subjectivity is neither determined by nor free from objective condition so researchers need to recognise their personal biases, their values, experiences, and constructions and acknowledge that these may influence the direction of their research (see bourdieu & wacquant, 1992). in the words of zondi (forthcoming, p. 266), “[t]he positionality of the thinker must be declared up front rather than hidden behind the veil of objectivity.” third, they also entail a break from theoretical knowledge that requires researchers breaking from theoretical knowledge whether subjectivist or objectivist. this can be complemented by greater sensitivity to the human dimension, more specifically, the reallife experiences of people in social theory. in south africa, le cordeur (1985, p. 2) referred to the absence of the human condition in social theory as “history without politics” or “history without passion.” in our case, theory without politics or passion is an epistemological approach made up of pre-determined and fixed ideas (theory) which neglect the empirical (real-life experiences of people in their diversity). sithole (2016) also referred to this problem in his chapter, researching the african subject in african politics. the centrality of context and the epistemic value of experience in research understanding the diverse contextual complexity i.e., historical, global, local/national, and institutional influences that impact on academic practice at epistemological and pedagogical levels in higher education, is critical to research and academic practice. for example, prevalent in african communities are modes of thinking embedded in cultural values, such as the african notion of ubuntu.4 african ontologies provide the basis for understanding reality in a relational mode in the context of the interdependence and interconnectedness of the community. they validate knowledge using communally based systems and cultural epistemic standards. central to african ethics is also the strong orientation to collective values and harmony rooted in collective responsibility in a collective ethic that acknowledges that survival of the group is derived from harmony through interdependence and interconnectedness (mkabela, 2005; sarpong, 2002). the question is: “how can these experiences be reflected in african higher education research, and what difference would they make?” one proposal is to delineate the principles and implications of decolonial theoretical insights quite explicitly on, for example, the principle of knowledge relevance, its corresponding epistemological connections to the knowledges of people, their contextual life circumstances, indigenous knowledge systems, literacies, languages, and ways of knowing. further, such connections are elucidated in research practices, recognised as ways of knowing, and made integral to the construction of decolonial theory. thus, epistemologically, 4 we concur with waghid (2017, p. 29) that ubuntu is a form of human engagement, drawing on both individual and collective decision-making and, further, that the individual contributes to the group’s identity and what is agreed on communally represents a collection of individual ideas. this does not presuppose a loss of individuality. rather, the ideas of others aid in developing the ideas of the individual. 24 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 and theoretically, context and experience play a critical role in defining the research approach and strategies. it is through experience that the objects of study attach meaning and gain understanding of their own lives, and thus become subjects of knowledge. as jarvis (1987, p. 164) put it, “[t]here is no meaning in a given situation until we relate our own experiences to it.” given the researcher’s closeness and intimacy with experience, a degree of vigilance, indeed an epistemological break, is always required; excessive proximity constitutes as much of an obstacle to research rigour as excessive remoteness (bourdieu, 1988). working through and working with categories of difference under colonialism, relations of domination and subordination were structured around deeply entrenched categories of social difference such as class, race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, nationality, and other forms of difference that, in the context of african scholarship, remain epistemological blind spots. higher education research cannot be separated from these relations. relationships between the subjects and objects of research are intentionally or unintentionally conditioned by the imaginary associated with these boundaries that have profound implications for knowledge conceptions, formulation, and validation. three important precautionary measures are needed. first, an awareness or understanding of the social experiences of the researched connected to those specific divisions is of utmost importance. second, it is important to make a distinction between the categories of social and political practice and the categories of social and political analysis used by social scientists. a question to be asked in this regard is: “can the master’s tools dismantle the master’s house, or will it be a useless attempt?” (lorde, 1984, p. 44). hountondji (1997: 17) responded to this question with the notion of “endogenous knowledge” that he described as a knowledge approach that “creates bridges, [and] recreate[s] the unity of knowledge, or in simpler, deeper terms, the unity of the human being.” third, knowing how to deal with what bourdieu (2003, p. 13) referred to as “original complicity” also constitutes an important distinction in knowledge production. he used this notion to refer to the researcher’s historico-cultural embeddedness by virtue of class, race, gender, and other forms of social difference that may separate the researcher from the researched. in this regard, awareness and understanding of our social condition as researchers is needed. born into one world and educated into another, how do we negotiate these intersections in research? accounting for marginalisation and symbolic violence in knowledge representation under the present politics of knowledge, where multiple knowledges exist their presence is very often concealed or discarded, either by an over-reliance on universalising or essentialising theories, or under the dynamics of power and interest (cross, 2015). researchers tend to project what they are used to seeing in their own social and intellectual experiences as truthful knowledge replicable in all contexts. hence, the proliferation of silences and misrepresentation. in audre lorde’s words (1984, p. 44): “it is not difference that immobilizes us, but silence. and there are so many silences to be broken.” and silences are directly connected to one's social and intellectual experience that always appears harmless. cross & govender: researching higher education in africa as a process of meaning-making 25 acknowledging the interplay of power and power play in higher education patel (2015) remarked, any text and practice that aspires to be decolonial must be seen as a globally shared responsibility that is necessary but insufficient, as mapping these genealogies does not directly address the repatriation of land and alterations to material conditions. it is a ‘shift of imagination.’ (p. 7) recently a colleague made the claim that a major problem today is that “we are stuck with epistemologies.” he warned that too much emphasis on the epistemological and philosophical dimensions in current african alternative discourses, without enough attention being placed on the changing role of power and power relations in higher education, remains a weakness and needs to be re-visited.5 as bernstein (2000, p. 5) has suggested, the boundaries between different categories of social groups and knowledge are a function of power relations since “power relations create boundaries, legitimize boundaries, reproduce boundaries between different categories of groups, gender, class, race, different categories of discourse, different categories of agents.” maldonado-torres (2007) defined coloniality as the long-standing patterns of power that emerge because of colonialism that define “culture, labour, intersubjectivity relations, and knowledge production well beyond the strict limits of colonial administrations” (p. 243). in this sense, we experience coloniality “in books, in the criteria for academic performance, in cultural patterns, in common sense, in the self-image of peoples, in aspirations of self, and so many other aspects of our modern experience” (mignolo, 2005, p. 6). reclaiming public good and negotiating a new moral and cultural ground in higher education the encroachment of marketisation and the profit motive into the african academy has had damaging effects (academic moonlighting, commodification, and marketisation of higher education) on the african university. for slaughter and leslie (1997, p. 210), it represents “a shift from a public good knowledge/learning regime to an academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime” in which students become consumers and institutions the marketers. this trend is reflected in recent higher education literature in the abundance of epithets used to characterise the present-day university such as the “academic capitalism” to which münch (2014) and slaughter and rhoades ( 2008) refer in the titles of their works; the “exchange university” and the “corporatization of academic culture” to which chan and fisher (2009) refer in their book title, and gmelch’s (1994) take on the transition from “homo academicus to homo oeconomicus” inspired by nostalgia for the old days when knowledge concerns prevailed over profiteering. there is a need to be vigilant about the 5 in south africa, for example, much remains to be done in the transformation of power relations in higher education, in both its representation of the demographic profile of the country, and in having an africa-centred knowledge/research paradigm. as seepe (2017) proposed, besides increasing participation of african/black scholars in academia, there needs to be a deconstruction of the dominant paradigm and the development of an african-based knowledge production and research agenda. 26 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 profound consequences of this movement in african higher education. the conception of education as a public good is under attack, so a new ethical and moral ground in higher education research is required for the common good, particularly at the political juncture where it appears under siege from the neo-liberal market pressures. there is a need to produce knowledge and knowledge practitioners capable of “generating home-grown solutions for african problems while also drawing from global human experiences” (ndlovugatsheni, 2016, p. 41). conclusion knowledge is historically and socially situated. it emerges and rises to prominence in a particular philosophical and historical context that, in the case of africa, has been and remains under colonial bondage. in this regard, we have argued that the notion of decolonisation needs to be reclaimed in current scholarship. without renewed efforts at decolonisation, social justice cannot be fully addressed on the continent. we have outlined a conceptual framework that could inform higher education research meaning making and practices in africa. by looking to the past, the value of recognising the dehumanising results and effects of colonial knowledge production is foregrounded, while the strengths and weaknesses of a rich epistemological and theoretical legacy of african postindependence scholarship as a source of inspiration, is acknowledged. in looking inwards, the value of individual and social introspection is highlighted, given the colonial and apartheid impact on people’s minds in terms of the structures, modes of operation, and contents. in looking outwards lies the challenge of engaging with an increasingly complex and reconfigured global space in which globalisation pre-determines the common place of ideas and knowledge through market forces, inevitably under the knowledge patronage system of the west, and increasingly mediated by new dynamics, such as the fourth industrial revolution and pandemics. finally, in looking to the present, the framework offers possibilities for upending the subtle prevalence of coloniality in all spheres of academic practice with a view to shaping the future. this involves embracing the concepts of knowledge embeddedness and responsiveness and moving beyond closure and fixed frameworks. in essence, we point to a new way of thinking about knowledge construction, one that can serve as a basis for developing new theoretical and epistemological insights, founded on inclusivity and social justice. the alternative thinking and alternative epistemology we propose is premised on four conditions: attention to context, epistemology, theory, and methodology; revisiting concepts and assumptions with reference to history, context, and experience; thinking grounded in epistemic justice; and scrutinising the knowledges, that is, knowledge for decolonisation (to make change possible) and knowledge of decolonisation (about decolonisation itself). it is a call for epistemological decolonisation as a point of departure to enable social justice. cross & govender: researching higher education in africa as a process of meaning-making 27 the future of tertiary education must be located within a new horizon of possibilities, informed by a new political epistemology and ontology, embedded in the complex african experience and cultural web of visibility of the colonised, marginalised, or oppressed. in short, there can be no social justice without epistemic justice. references amin, s. 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accepted: 2 august 2019) abstract the authors’ chosen theoretical framework posits that how black students perceive bilingual instruction in higher education is largely influenced by the various ideological perspectives they have been socialised into in different contexts where african languages are used, and continue to be diminished, for different objectives. through individual interviews, the study explored which ideological frameworks participants drew on when discussing their general perspectives on, as well as perceived benefits and challenges of, bilingual instruction at the university of kwazulu-natal. they were also asked what their recommendations for the policy’s implementation process were. the students who had experienced bilingual instruction explained how they started better understanding the content of their studies as well as the meaning of previously difficult english concepts. students who had not experienced bilingual instruction mainly discussed how they thought the use of isizulu could facilitate better understanding primarily for students who struggle to understand english. however, they warned that an extended use of isizulu would hinder upward socioeconomic mobility for graduates who struggle to communicate in english. in light of the study’s findings and the conflicting ideologies shared in south africa, the authors recommend that when planning their respective implementation processes for bi/multilingual instruction for higher education, national and institutional policymakers should consider students’ various ways of perceiving languages’ differential levels of use and esteem and how this could influence their conceptions of academic objectives. keywords: higher education, transformation, conflict, ideologies, value, mobility 90 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 introduction in 2006, the university of kwazulu-natal (ukzn) included isizulu as an official institutional language alongside english in its policy (ukzn, 2014). the changes outlined therein are in line with the recommendations the democratic government makes for south african public institutions of higher education (hereafter sapihes) in its revised language policy for higher education. in this policy, government encourages all sapihes to develop at least one of the most spoken indigenous south african languages (hereafter isals) in their respective provinces for use as a language of instruction and institutional communication alongside english (ministry of education, 2002). these reformation processes are hoped to create a more pedagogically and democratically sound higher education system in south africa by producing graduates with equitable levels of academic comprehension and multilingual proficiency across races. as it stands, with english language teaching not based on evidence-based pedagogical theories of additional language teaching in black public schools, the language has been found to be a major barrier to some students’ epistemological access and is thus perceived to be one of the main reasons behind black students having the highest failure and drop-out rates, while white students have the highest success and participation rates (council on higher education, 2015; heugh, 2000; macdonald, 1990; masitsa, 2004; setati, adler, reed, & bapoo, 2002). given that this racial inequality was the objective behind the colonial and apartheid government’s design of racially separated and unequal education systems (alexander, 2001; department of bantu education, 1962; elliott & gurrey, 1940; reagan, 1987; van dyk, 1967), the fact that these systems are still in use 25 years into a politically democratic era is considered to be unjust (phillipson, 1996; skutnabbkangas, 2009). to genuinely decolonise and democratise education and socioeconomic systems will require changing teaching and learning processes to be more pedagogically sound, and for all citizens (young and old) to have racially and linguistically appropriate access to participate in any public system in the country (constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996; ministry of education, 2002; ukzn, 2013, 2014). chetty (2013), taunyane (2013), and rudwick (2015) reported that the majority of ukzn stakeholders are resistant to, and frustrated by, the advancement of language reform at the institution. additionally, chetty (2013) and rudwick and parmegiani (2013) reported that most of the black isizulu-speaking students they interviewed for their respective studies insisted that english should remain the main language of higher education because it is the only language that can be more widely used in academic and professional national and international contexts. these frustrations should raise concern for ukzn’s management given that resistance from students could hinder full implementation of the bilingual policy. resistance could also force management to reverse the changes altogether, in the same way that the apartheid government had to reverse the elevation of afrikaans as language of tuition in black schools after the 1976 student protests and subsequent massacre (figone, 2012). deduced from figone’s (2012) notions, this paper suggests that for ukzn’s revised language policy to have a chance of successful adoption, its students need to be willing to learn in isizulu; those who do not know the language need to be willing to learn it and learn in it, and potential students need to be willing to apply to study at the institution. if students perceive madlala & mkhize: the influence of ideology on black african students’ perceptions . . . 91 isizulu as a hindrance to the attainment of what they deem a desirable higher education, they could either protest against its inclusion or simply leave or avoid the institution (figone, 2012). as evidenced by the soweto student uprising against afrikaans in 1976, and by recent national fallist (#feesmustfall and #rhodesmustfall) protests in various sapihes, south african students are capable of rioting against what they do not want in their institutions, and government and institutional managements have been known to accommodate them (figone, 2012; makhele, 2016). if sapihes’ language policies are dictated by students who are opposed to the wider integration of isals in teaching and learning processes, academic language barriers may continue to deny black south african students deeper epistemological access, and prevent the decolonisation and democratisation of the higher education system. if one systematically compares the way arguments in support of, and against, the use of isals in higher education are differentially presented, the opposing ideological beliefs that underpin each side become clearer. arguments for the inclusion of isals generally aim to highlight pedagogical theories about the role of language in learning as well as the tenets of a truly decolonised and democratic state (cummins, 1980, 2000; heugh, 2000; ndimandehlongwa, balfour, mkhize, & engelbrecht, 2010; skutnabb-kangas, 2009). arguments against the inclusion of isals, including those of black south african higher education students, seem to echo utterances of the colonial and apartheid eras (alexander, 2001; department of bantu education, 1962; elliott & gurrey, 1940; reagan, 1987; van dyk, 1967). in instances where black students are reported to be in opposition to receiving formal education in isals, some still agree that when they do receive explanation of a difficult academic concept in their home language they find it easier and quicker to understand because it is being explained in vocabulary that they can more readily relate to and contextualise (chetty, 2013; dalvit & de klerk, 2005). additionally, fallist protests show that black students are aware that the western-based education system is still largely oppressive and exclusionary (figone, 2012). despite this, when it comes to propositions of them learning in languages that are more pedagogically appropriate and that they can thus understand better, they reject these on the basis of those languages seeming to be inadequate for their social and economic aspirations (chetty, 2013; dalvit & de klerk, 2005; rudwick, 2015; taunyane, 2013). the aim of the study summarised in this article was to explore ukzn students’ perceptions of the bilingual policy, and of bilingual instruction at the institution, in order to gain insight into the ideologies that they in particular drew on to contextualise their perspectives. it is hoped this will give policymakers a clearer understanding of the foundations of students’ frustrations, and how to better facilitate negotiations by acknowledging the importance of students’ fears and concerns in addition to their attempts to inform the latter of the need for linguistic transformation. this article starts by briefly describing the rationale provided in government’s and ukzn’s language policies, as well as some of the reported reactions to these. this is followed by an overview of the study’s theoretical framework and methodology, ending with a brief discussion of the findings and recommendations for future sociolinguistic and psychological research pertaining to the national and institutional language policies for higher education. 92 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 the decolonisation and democratisation plans for south african higher education in south africa, until the democratic government came into power in 1994, the choice of the language of tuition used in the different phases of education had been in the hands of a white racially oppressive government. its main aim in providing black south africans with an inadequate formal education was to ensure that those black south africans remained inferior to their white counterparts academically, economically, and socially. in elevating the status of the apartheid government’s own western languages and ensuring their dominance, the state put much effort into marginalising and suppressing isals (department of bantu education, 1962; elliott & gurrey, 1940; reagan, 1987; van dyk, 1967). studies conducted in the colonial and apartheid eras found that learning in a foreign western language hindered epistemological access for black students, but the white government ignored this in favour of elevating the use and esteem of western languages and their speakers (department of bantu education, 1962; elliott & gurrey, 1940; reagan, 1987; van dyk, 1967). with the realisation of democracy in 1994, the new government started amending its predecessors’ discriminatory policies in an effort to elevate the livelihoods of previously oppressed people to be on a par with their more privileged and esteemed fellow citizens. at the extreme end of this dichotomy are black south africans who, at the time of this study, consisted roughly 80% of the population but had the lowest rates of academic and socioeconomic participation and success (constitution of the republic of south africa, 1996; council on higher education, 2015; ministry of education, 2002; statistics south africa, 2013). in the public education sector specifically, government has facilitated the inclusion of all races in institutions where they were previously excluded by whites. before this, academic institutions had been reserved for different race groups according to the quality of education they were mandated and equipped to provide (department of bantu education, 1962; ministry of education, 2002). additionally, after continuing to observe a consistent trend of racial differences in academic performance between white and black south african students in sapihes (council on higher education, 2001, 2015), and because language of tuition had over the centuries been identified as one of the main barriers to academic success for black students, the ministry of education (2002) amended the national language policy for higher education to be in line with the goal towards transformation. this aims to ensure meaningful participation by black students, so that they are not limited to just being physically present in their academic institutions (heugh, 2000; ministry of education, 2002; skutnabb-kangas, 2009; ukzn, 2014). as an equally imperative contribution towards social transformation, government also posits that, by including isals in higher education, educators and students who do not know these languages can have the opportunity to become multilingually proficient and be equipped to teach and learn in their respective province’s multilingual contexts. this could lead to speakers of different languages being able to communicate meaningfully in various contexts in this multilingual and multiracial country, including various social and economic contexts—especially with the majority of the population who madlala & mkhize: the influence of ideology on black african students’ perceptions . . . 93 remain excluded from meaningful participation (heugh, 2000; ministry of education, 2002; ukzn, 2014). a number of studies have reported higher education students’ reactions to this recommended inclusion of isals in different institutions across the country (chetty, 2013; dalvit & de klerk, 2005; paxton, 2009; rudwick, 2015; taunyane, 2013). ukzn students interviewed by taunyane (2013) were resistant to the possibility of learning isizulu, suggesting that learning a language that will not contribute to their degree was unnecessary, and that learning isals should rather happen in pre-primary and primary schools. rudwick (2015), whose research explored language dynamics and ideological constructions in south african higher education, found that the introduction of the compulsory isizulu course at ukzn had alienated some students and staff at the institution. some of the isizulu lecturers reported that their students were resistant, and they themselves saw the teaching of the course as an impractical and useless exercise. some even likened it to the apartheid regime’s attempt to force black students to learn afrikaans, which resulted in the infamous massacre. rudwick (2015) also argued that imposing isizulu in this way upon lecturers and students at ukzn seems to have ideological and political motives rather than a pedagogical one; she suggested that learning isals should rather be fostered in primary and secondary schools, and that trying to force it in higher education is too late. other sapihes seem to be facing similar social dynamics as ukzn. a study conducted by dalvit and de klerk (2005) at the university of fort hare found that students insisted that they needed to learn english in an academic context and to learn primarily in english because it is the language of power and development, nationally and internationally. the students suggested that an education in their indigenous home languages would be useless to them because they would not be able to share their knowledge, no matter how vast, with anyone except people who can also speak their language. this would mean that they would not be able to find work—neither in regions of south africa where their language is not spoken, nor internationally. but, when it came to pedagogical considerations, the same students insisted that the use of their home languages facilitated the understanding of subject content. however, they pointed out that this would only be necessary for junior undergraduates who still needed to get used to the higher education system because, once they progressed in academic years, learning english and learning in english became more essential (dalvit & de klerk, 2005). at the university of cape town, paxton’s (2009) participants relayed a more positive perspective. her study explored the perspectives of isixhosa students who had participated in a multilingual glossary project at the institution, in which they had the opportunity to discuss economic concepts in isixhosa, their home language. in a discussion of their experiences, the students suggested that learning in their home language facilitated their understanding of subject content. they said that this was different to experiences of learning in the more unfamiliar english language, which sometimes brought challenges of not understanding the vocabulary used and thus not understanding the content they were trying to gain knowledge of. these students revealed that in their own study groups, comprised of speakers of the same 94 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 language, they often translated difficult sections into their own home language, and discussed their assumed meanings in it. they pointed out that if they could not figure out the meaning of the english content in their home language, they would resort to memorising the english terms and paragraphs in order to reproduce them verbatim in formal assessments (paxton, 2009). paxton (2009) cautioned that when students translate their academic work into their own languages by themselves, they run the risk of coming up with inaccurate definitions. paxton (2009) suggested it would be more academically sound for educators to do the translations instead. this would ensure that what students learn in any language is standardised and accurate. a few studies conducted in other african countries demonstrated that the educational challenges posed by inadequate proficiency in the language of tuition, for students for whom it is an additional language, are not unique to south africa. a number of these countries are introducing indigenous languages as languages of tuition alongside the european languages introduced by colonial leaders, in an effort to overcome the residue of the colonial education system (adegbite, 2003; akinnaso, 1993; bunyi, 1999; kyeyune, 2003). not all seem to welcome these initiatives. adegbite (2003) suggested that the current dominance of english over nigerian indigenous languages is a result of the nigerian elite’s positive attitude towards english and its negative attitude towards the country’s home languages because english serves the elite’s interests of social and economic advancement. he further suggested that the perceptions of the nigerian public are influenced by those of the elite because the latter is responsible for policy-making in the country and is perceived to be serving public interest. thus, both the literate and pre-literate in nigeria express a preference for learning english and learning in english over their home languages. adegbite (2003) pointed out that nigeria is plagued by underdevelopment in the education sector, with illiteracy and a lack of communication skills further perpetuating the inability of some citizens from participating fully in other national activities, such as political processes. he cautioned that the inadequate use of the more familiar indigenous african languages in education may maintain the divide between the elite and the uneducated masses, especially with future generations because some parents prevent their children from learning in their home languages in preference of the acquisition of english (adegbite, 2003). theoretical framework: the influence of socially shared constructions of language and privilege in south africa the argument put forward in this paper is that interpretations of current conflicting perspectives on the choice of language in higher education should consider that these perspectives are contextualised within the linguistic ideologies of the country’s sociopolitical past, present, and future endeavours. neither side of these arguments should be dealt with as mutually exclusive and as void of ideological influence in discussions of language in education. the fact that languages in south africa are not just mediums of communication and representation, but are also used to facilitate and hinder access to various contexts, continues to obstruct efforts towards transformation in the country (alexander, 2001; heugh, madlala & mkhize: the influence of ideology on black african students’ perceptions . . . 95 2000; phillipson, 1996; skutnabb-kangas, 2009). pedagogy and socioeconomic aspirations should be acknowledged as intertwined, and their relationship should be used to facilitate efforts towards educational and wider transformation in the country rather than be presented as two opposing factors. in contextualising current perspectives, one first has to have a clear understanding of the pedagogical role of languages and know how this was acknowledged but blatantly dismissed by the colonial and apartheid governments in designing an education system for black south africans based primarily on the aim of socioeconomic racial inequality (alexander, 2001; department of bantu education, 1962; elliott & gurrey, 1940; reagan, 1987; van dyk, 1967). this understanding can then potentially facilitate a consequential understanding of how socioeconomic transformation also requires previously ignored pedagogical justice (alexander, 2001; heugh, 2000; phillipson, 1996; skutnabbkangas, 2009). methodology all study procedures were conducted by the first author, under the supervision of the second author. before commencing, ethical clearance was obtained from the institution’s gatekeeper as well as the humanities & social sciences research ethics committee. the research was informed by a qualitative paradigm, which seeks to understand phenomena in the contexts in which they occur, and from a subjective point of view (guba & lincoln, 1989; silverman, 2005; terre blanche, kelly, & durrheim, 2014). within the qualitative paradigm, perspectives explored in this study were situated within the interpretive theoretical framework, which locates and interprets them within their social, cultural, and historical contexts (guba & lincoln, 1989; terre blanche et al., 2014). the sample consisted of 11 black african students from ukzn’s pietermaritzburg campus in south africa, where the first author was registered as a master’s student. they included south african students as well as students from other african countries. in addition, three black isizulu-speaking south african students were sampled from ukzn’s edgewood campus because that is where the only fully bilingual honours class was offered at the time of data collection. the snowball sampling technique was employed to enlist participants. this is a nonprobability sampling technique that is used to identify potential participants, based on the conceptual framework and objectives of the study—those participants identified initially, are then asked to refer the researcher to participants from the same contexts as themselves (silverman, 2005). in this particular study, the final sample was collected based on literature and language policy suggestions that, as black students, they are the sub-category of students who have been and continue to be most affected by language choice in education on the continent (alexander, 2001; cummins, 1980, 2000; heugh, 2000; ministry of education, 2002; paxton, 2009; phillipson, 1996; skutnabb-kangas, 2009). to gather the sample, the first author approached students as they were walking around campus and asked if they would be willing to participate in a single confidential interview about their perceptions of the institution’s bilingual policy. those who agreed gave their contact details to the researcher, and a time and private place were agreed upon for their interview. after each interview, the participants were asked to refer the researcher to other students who might be 96 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 interested. the sample size was not predetermined; the researcher sampled to the point of information redundancy, which is when new interviewees seem to be mentioning the same issues as previous interviewees, and no new critical information is arising (silverman, 2005). a semi-structured interview schedule guided the confidential one-on-one discussions, which were recorded after gaining informed consent from each participant (silverman, 2005). data analysis began from the first interview. an advantage of using a semi-structured interview is that you can also ask follow-up questions like, “please elaborate on that” or “what do you mean by ‘they think you are better?’” in order to gauge clearer responses that cannot easily be misinterpreted during data analysis. theoretically relevant issues raised by each participant were noted by the researcher and explored with that participant as well as with subsequent participants. all the audio tapes were transcribed by the researcher during the data collection period. notes made during the interviews were also summarised on each transcription (braun & clarke, 2006; silverman, 2005). all interviews with participants who had an english-only learning experience at the university were conducted mostly in english as per their preferences, with only a few terms uttered in isizulu, which the researcher typed out verbatim with translations in brackets next to them. the participants from the bilingual honours class each asked to be interviewed in isizulu after the researcher asked which of the two languages they preferred the interview to be conducted in. these interviews were also transcribed verbatim. the extract selected as example for the discussion of findings has been presented verbatim, followed by the english translation. the researcher employed thematic analysis, following braun and clarke’s (2006) six-phase guide, to identify patterns within and across interviews; they stated that the key to identifying a theme is to ask whether it contains crucial information that answers one or all of the research questions. although the guide to identifying these themes is in step-by-step form, the authors highlight that it is a recursive process, where an analyst can move between different steps as needed, and not necessarily in a linear or circular fashion. discussion of findings for purposes of identification, the isizulu speaking participants who had experienced bilingual tuition are represented by the letters “bz,” which stands for “bilingual zulu.” isizulu speakers who had had english-only tuition are represented by the letters “eoz” (english-only zulu). the non-isizulu speaking participants who had only experienced english-only tuition are represented by the letters “eonz” (english-only non-zulu). finally, the latter two groups of participants are represented by the letters “eo” (english-only) when grouped together. madlala & mkhize: the influence of ideology on black african students’ perceptions . . . 97 research question 1: “what are ukzn black african students’ general perspectives on the institution’s isizulu/english bilingual instruction programme?” what became apparent in the participants’ responses is that because learning in a language is intertwined with learning that language, how they perceived the social and economic roles of languages had a great influence on their choices for language of tuition. perceptions of the usefulness and relevance of languages participants tended to base their responses on their perceptions of the usefulness and relevance of languages in south africa and internationally. historically in south africa, english was the language of the white people who had sole possession of the best privileges socially and economically, while being black meant that you were a poor menial labourer who was denied access to contexts of luxury (reagan, 1987). the perspectives provided by the eo participants indicated that they still perceived access to the english language as synonymous with access to social and economic privileges and contexts of luxury, while they perceived knowledge of their own home languages as incapable of yielding socioeconomic benefits. they thus perceived english as the main skill that any black south african student should gain from acquiring an education. eoz4: why come to university if you can’t study in english? eoz2: uhm, okay i think english in itself is a, it’s a power language. if you know english very well, if you can speak english very well, you can write it very well it’s good, uhm, you’re at a level of power nje [just] just by being—when you know people that speak english very very well they are highly esteemed versus umuntu opatanisayo isingisi sakhe and you know oshawa ujoji [a person who struggles with their english and you know sometimes gets it wrong]. that person they actually become ridiculed by society just because they are not very affluent or their accent is not good enough. so english is a very powerful tool. by contrast, the bz participants appeared to be more concerned with how the intended level of use of isizulu at ukzn would elevate its use, value, and relevance in the institution and wider society. bz1: kuyenzeka ngoba izingane, akengithathe njengomzali ozozala ingane manje. uzoyithatha lengane ayise esikoleni sabelungu noma sabamhlophe. lapho esikoleni sabamhlophe uzofika afunde konke mayelana nolwimi lwesingisi, afunde amasiko, okubalwa kuyo inhlonipho, indlela yokuziphatha, ephathelene nje nosiko lwasentshonalanga. uzobe eseyakhohlwa ngalolu olwakhe ngani ngoba akekho omgqugquzelayo, noma akekho omnakelelela ukuthi alukhulume, azi namasiko akhona, ahambhele nezindawo lezi zamagugu esintu akwazulu. kungenzeka kumshaye lokho, agcine nje esewele ngale unomphela, kulolu lwabamhlophe. 98 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 [it does happen because children, let me take a parent who will give birth to a child now. they’ll take that child to a school for white people. in that school, that child will learn everything associated with english, their traditions, amongst them being respect, how one should carry themselves, to do with just western traditions. they will then forget their own, why because no one is encouraging them, or no one is taking care that they speak it, that they know their traditions, and that they go to places that showcase isizulu treasures. that may damage them; they may end up crossing over to the other side for good, the white people’s side.] black south africans are perceived based on their proficiencies in english the second perspective concerns what the eo participants described as the ways black south africans are perceived based on their linguistic proficiencies. they mentioned how, in south africa, black people are ranked socially, economically, and intellectually based on how well they communicate in english. they themselves appeared to use this same criterion to inform their perceptions of the type of students they described as the only ones who needed to be taught in isizulu. they described isizulu-speaking students from former black department of education and training schools as most likely to struggle to understand academic content taught in english, making them the only type of students in need of remedial isizulu tuition. they also stated that isizulu-speaking students who appeared to be more proficient in english (presumably, those from former model c schools) did not need to be taught in their home languages and shouldn’t be forced to. the eo participants described what is perceived as a good proficiency in english as a skill that gives society the impression that, as a black south african, you are capable of learning and performing well academically and, in addition, that you belong to a higher socioeconomic class. in contrast, the participants described a lack of proficiency in english as indicating that one battles to perform academically. furthermore, this means that in the workplace, someone who has an inadequate proficiency in english will be perceived by employers and colleagues as having been unable to learn adequately, and who will therefore struggle to understand and perform tasks. eonz1: well, i mean in the current situation, yes it does. uh, because people, i don’t know, have an association of [english] fluency with intelligence. i think we all do it. if someone’s got a funny accent you’re like, mhmm—you tend to doubt what they’re saying. some participants even suggested that students who struggle to understand english at tertiary level are lazy, and need to make more of a personal effort to improve their language proficiency. eoz5: but i feel as though like, if you need to pass high school with that english then you can learn during varsity. i think we, like, it’s making. i’m thinking most varsities like beebering [the participant meant to say “babying,” as in treating them like babies] people. . . . we’re trying to make society so comfortable so that where everyone madlala & mkhize: the influence of ideology on black african students’ perceptions . . . 99 passes and everyone gets their degree but when people go out into the world then it’s like, okay well, we’re not equipped for this. so i feel as though like, we have to sort of strip away a few things. if people are struggling, i don’t think we can accommodate that. i don’t think we have to change the whole system to accommodate, just to accommodate for this particular time and then afterwards it’s like, okay well you got your degree, goodbye, we’re done. research question 2: “what are the perceived benefits and challenges of bilingual instruction at the institution?” benefits the primary possible benefit that was suggested by all the participants in this study was that including isizulu throughout the institution could facilitate epistemological access for black isizulu-speaking students. bz2: well, studying in english, when you study in english eh—the first thing is the truth is that it’s english and it’s not our first language. even if you do it as a first language in school, but the fact is you won’t be like a white person, you won’t be like anyone who was born with it as their first language. the consequential benefit of this was perceived to be linguistic and social transformation. this includes the inclusion of indigenous south african knowledge systems in formal public knowledge systems that predominantly represent western cultural and knowledge systems. eonz1: so for me i think, uhm, there’s a lot of knowledge, coming from a scientific perspective, there’s a lot of knowledge that is not necessarily documented because we don’t have the words for it. but, learning now in isizulu and english would allow those people to also document what they know, because it’s not that african people haven’t been doing anything—they have—it’s just that they don’t record stuff. this could be a platform, i think, for that. so i think that it has a purpose. challenges the main challenge perceived by the eo participants as likely to result from the inclusion of isizulu as a language of tuition is a decreased use of, and exposure to, the english language for black african students, which they perceived would result in them acquiring education with a diminished value. a second challenge, which was perceived by all the participants, is that because ukzn is a multilingual and multinational university, non-isizulu speaking students are likely to experience challenges while attempting to learn, and learn in, isizulu as a foreign language. eonz1: no ’coz that would mean that i’d have to start from the—from scratch? . . . so, hmm, is it necessary? that that’s the other question that you ask because i know that even in russia, people who get scholarships to go to russia or to go to china or to cuba or whatever, the first question they ask themselves is: “am i, am i prepared 100 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 to learn another language?” you know, and: “will my proficiency in that language affect the way i perform?” so i think that would be the challenge then. research question 3: “what are their recommendations for the implementation of the bilingual policy at ukzn?” the eo participants seemed to either not be sufficiently familiar with ukzn’s bilingual policy, or had different interpretations of it. they expressed frustration with how they thought it was being, and would be, implemented. eoz3: [lets out a big sigh] i actually don’t know how they are kinda conducting the whole thing. how, how is it happening? eonz5: and from my point of view, obviously i think that if a lecturer were to just switch to zulu in the middle of the lecture i’d also be a little confused. . . . so i mean this, the whole point behind this, is to get everyone to start talking and everyone to say, you know—well, this is what i’m thinking, this is how i’m looking at it. eonz3: mm, i think if anything the university should put out a, a memorandum, asking students and the teaching bodies—give everyone the voice that we supposedly have, uhm, as opposed to decisions just being made. uhm, and that will give us or give the s—us as in everybody who’s on the ground level, the grassroots level, the choice and a feeling . . . i think that’s one of the problems, that the the grassroots levels are feeling alienated by the high ranks. because these decisions are being made for them without consensus at the bottom. and they’re affecting everybody at the bottom. and positive or negative is arguable. uhm, but uh, that’s yeah—maybe there should be an open forum that we have, and we can discuss, and for them to put across why they’re doing it, clearly, so that everyone has the same perspective instead of people going and, like, creating these ideas of why they’re doing it. so yeah. yeah, consensus would be great. some of the participants, who had mentioned the benefit of isizulu language development leading to linguistic and cultural preservation, also added that the university should work on improving students’ perceptions of isizulu. the bz participants’ main recommendation was that ukzn needed to direct greater focus on translating academic material from english to isizulu. conclusion to summarise, the study outlined in this article demonstrates that while the eo participants provided their perceptions and perspectives on language use in the higher education system specifically, they also appeared to be concerned with how society in general tends to assign black south africans’ academic statuses and socioeconomic categories based on their english accents. and the participants also stated that these societal perceptions also have a great influence on black south africans’ socioeconomic opportunities. this perceived madlala & mkhize: the influence of ideology on black african students’ perceptions . . . 101 socioeconomic association is regarded by the authors as most likely the main reason why all the eoz participants seemed to distance themselves from black students who could be perceived as struggling to understand english and, therefore, in need of remedial intervention in the form of isizulu supplementation. they all said that learning in isizulu would be harder for them than learning in english. this was despite them suggesting that everyone understands better in their home language, with some of them also pointing out that they themselves often learn by first translating what they have learnt into isizulu to understand it better, or discuss it with their fellow classmates in isizulu. based on these findings, one of the main conclusions reached by the study was that the eo participants viewed language use and relevance at their institution more in terms of each language’s general socioeconomic value, rather than in terms of its perceived or potential pedagogical value. the participants’ arguments demonstrated that improved academic proficiency was less important for them than upward socioeconomic mobility. their aspirations reflected what most black people throughout the african continent primarily strive for, having been excluded and repressed for centuries of white domination, and what students hope to become more able to achieve through obtaining higher education qualifications (alexander, 2001; phillipson, 1996; skutnabb-kangas, 2009). according to the eo participants who opposed the wider integration of isals, the primary purpose of formal education for black people is for them to become more proficient in english, which the participants regarded as the language generally known to be the most legitimate language of academia and commerce. the bz participants, on the other hand, all stated that they found academic content taught in isizulu much clearer and easier to understand than content taught in english. even when questioned about their perspectives on the perceived socioeconomic implications of linguistic proficiencies and language use in south africa, these participants repeatedly emphasised the importance of using, developing, and elevating one’s own home language. to then simply argue that black south african higher education students and lecturers are against the inclusion of isals in their institutions, without contextualising their perspectives within the linguistic ideologies of south africa’s sociopolitical history, seems to paint an incomplete picture. as has been found over centuries, their, and the rest of south africa’s perceptions of languages are socially constructed (alexander, 2001; heugh, 2000). furthermore, it is the view of the authors that it is not enough to legitimise opposing arguments with the circular notion that english is in reality the only means for upward socioeconomic mobility while isals would only serve to segregate the nation and further disadvantage underprivileged black students. instead, it is a necessary exercise to first demonstrate how none of the languages in south africa are neutral entities but, rather, are all value-laden and perceived—based primarily on their pragmatic and symbolic power or lack thereof. this demonstration could, in turn, illuminate how any discussion regarding language in education is inextricable from linguistic ideologies and how, to some black south africans, the former is secondary to the latter. 102 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 in conclusion, while some of the arguments that promote linguistic transformation for higher education also try to promote endeavours for socioeconomic transformation, this paper proposes that their proponents should also acknowledge the need to address current ideological perceptions and socioeconomic processes that impede these efforts. and, while arguments against linguistic transformation for higher education illuminate the current ideological perceptions and socioeconomic processes that appear to make a wider inclusion of isals illogical, this perspective should also acknowledge how past ideological perceptions and socioeconomic processes created the current educational and socioeconomic landscape in the first place. recommendations for empirical studies in light of the theoretical framework and study findings discussed above, the authors’ recommendations for future research are, firstly, that there needs to be further research exploring the ways in which school learners and teachers, tertiary students and lecturers, as well as other stakeholders who are directly affected by language policies for education, perceive language use, relevance, and choice in south africa—and how their perceptions affect language policy changes and implementation processes. history has shown that ideological perceptions of western and south african indigenous languages have had a major influence on which languages are chosen for education, economic use, and development during the colonial and apartheid eras, and during the early years of the democratic era (heugh, 2000; skutnabb-kangas, 2009; van dyk, 1967). now that government and some sapihes are making concentrated efforts to elevate the use, development, and esteem of isals, research needs to explore the ideological perspectives nationally and institutionally that may facilitate or hinder the implementation of this inclusion. this future research should also focus on steps other countries whose indigenous languages were previously marginalised have taken to develop and elevate their respective languages’ levels of esteem. one of the closest examples that could be studied is how afrikaans was developed and elevated to the same level of use and status as english in south africa a century ago. this should also include why, despite its official use nationally, the language’s esteem amongst most black south africans was nonetheless relegated to the point of rejection (reagan, 1987). research that focuses on how bilingual instruction that includes students’ home languages facilitates a better acquisition of knowledge also needs to be contextualised within sapihes where isals are now officially in the process of being used for tuition. lastly, studies exploring the effectiveness of english language teaching to black students in the differentially equipped public schools should explore whether their english proficiencies have a significant effect on their academic performance through the end of tertiary studies. recommendations for policy reported conflicting perspectives of national and institutional language policies indicate a need for studies that explore what informs these perspectives, and how negotiations to reach agreements may be facilitated. eo participants in this study expressed great frustration with what they perceived as a lack of communication from ukzn management regarding the policy content, and implementation plans. their insufficient knowledge regarding the content madlala & mkhize: the influence of ideology on black african students’ perceptions . . . 103 and rationale behind the national and institutional language policies for education seemed to have a great influence on how they perceived the value of bilingual instruction. negative perspectives reported in the media also display the students’ and community’s lack of understanding of the entire contents of the national and institutional policies (ndimandehlongwa et al., 2010; rudwick, 2015; taunyane, 2013). policy evaluation needs to gauge the effectiveness of the communication of ukzn’s policy with all its stakeholders within the institution and in the wider community. some of the eo participants, for example, recommended that management could host festivals, campaigns, and discussions to establish how students perceive the policy, instead of leaving them feeling alienated. conversely, the bz participants appeared to be aware that it is in fact possible to develop any language and elevate its status and esteem and were, therefore, willing to learn in isizulu and contribute towards developing and elevating it further. some of the eo participants, on the other hand, seemed to think that the status of a language is static, implying that the current level of use of languages in this country and in the world will never change, so isals will always lack value and usefulness. additionally, eo participants who recommended that students’ perceptions of isals should be actively addressed by management and government seemed to still view this as more important for elevating the cultural and communicative significance of isals rather than their possible pedagogical and economic value. when considering this, perhaps if government and management in sapihes made more of an effort to educate students about the past ideological constructions of languages, and how these continue to affect current ideological constructions and processes, as well as how it is possible for isals to gain pedagogical, economic, and social value and what it would take for this to happen, black african students might understand the importance of this much-needed reformation and would be more willing to contribute to making it happen. as granville et al. (1998) pointed out, as admirable and well-meaning as a democratic language policy may appear, it will most likely not be readily accepted by the same black south africans it intends to empower if they continue to perceive their languages as stigmatised, under-developed, and useless. study limitations this study only explored the perceptions and perspectives of 14 black african ukzn students, selected using a non-probability snowball sampling technique. this means that their views cannot be generalised across the institution’s widely diverse student body. the study findings also cannot be used to make generalisations about students outside of ukzn. in addition, because of sampling difficulties (detailed in the first author’s master’s thesis; madlala, 2018), the study did not include the perspectives of the other stakeholders at the institution, namely students of other races, lecturers, and management. their perspectives could have further illuminated the ideological constructions and linguistic contexts that frame perspectives regarding the institution’s bilingual policy. in addition, as a researcher approaching the study from an interpretive theoretical approach, the first author did not have an objective perspective of the participants’ views. her analysis of their responses is based on the assumptions of just one school of thought in this field of study. different schools of 104 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 thoughts in various other fields could arrive at different conclusions based on how the data is interpreted within their theoretical viewpoints. references adegbite, w. 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(1967, march). the contact between the early tribal african education and the westernized system of missionary education. inaugural lecture given in the university college of fort hare, alice. mediating early number learning: specialising across teacher talk and tools? hamsa venkat and mike askew abstract in this paper we locate our work in the context of claims of poor performance amongst south african learners in primary mathematics, and gaps in the knowledge base of primary mathematics teachers. our focus is on the analysis of three grade 2 numeracy teachers’ actions with artifacts in the context of increasing resource provision in the south african national policy landscape. using ideas of mediation drawn from the vygotskian tradition, and developed by michael cole and jim wertsch, we identify actions with the artifacts that suggest shortcomings in teachers’ understandings of the mathematical structures that underlie the design of the resources. drawing on the work on modeling and tool use in the dutch realistic mathematics education tradition, we note disruptions in openings for pedagogy to provide ‘models of’ increasingly sophisticated strategies, which might provide children with ‘models for’ working more efficiently (and ultimately ‘tools to’ think with), disruptions arising from teachers presenting only concrete unit counting based models of early number calculations. within a policy context where improving the resource situation is a priority, we argue for more attention to longitudinal support to teachers to develop understandings of number and its progression that allow them to see the significance of the mathematical structures that are figured into the design of the artifacts that are increasingly available for use. introduction performance in mathematics at all levels of the schooling system in south africa continues to be described in terms of a ‘crisis’ (fleisch, 2008). the recently introduced annual national assessment (ana) – standardised national tests taken by all primary grades in mathematics and language – continue to show very low levels of attainment in the foundation (grades 1–3) and intermediate phases (grades 4–6), with, in 2011, national mean performances in the grade 3 numeracy test standing at 28% and at 30% in the grade 6 mathematics test (department for basic education, 2011b). in this context, research and policy attention has shifted back to the primary years with a range of issues cited as factors contributing towards this crisis of 68 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 performance including lack of curriculum clarity and inadequate resources for teaching. policy responses to this situation have resulted in a more prescriptive curriculum together with the provision of resources (artifacts such as abaci and hundred squares) within the foundations for learning (ffl) campaign, introduced in 2009. the policy of prescribing the content, sequencing and pacing – backed up by the increasing provision of standardised termly tests and resources – continues into the recent 2012 introduction of the mandatory curriculum and assessment policy statements (caps) (department for basic education, 2011a). in 2011 we began the 5-year research and development focused wits maths connect–primary project, working with ten government primary schools in one district. our observations during the first year suggested problems with take up of the resources provided. crucially our data suggested that even in the context of tightly prescribed content coverage with provision of supporting artifacts, a lack of in-depth attention to teachers’ understandings of the mathematical structure of number embedded in their talk and in their use of resources to represent mathematical ideas often prevented coherent and progressively sophisticated opportunities to work with early number. in this paper we explore possible reasons for this particularly with respect to teachers’ pedagogic content knowledge. the policy context in recent years the structure and policy presentation of mathematics curricula in the primary years has reverted to a format that incorporates prescription of content, sequencing, pacing and progression. in 2008, a government gazette signaled the introduction of the ‘foundations for learning’ (ffl) campaign (department of education, 2008a). this campaign incorporated the introduction of the ana, alongside the prescription of a minimum of an hour of mathematics teaching each day – which was to include at least ten minutes focused on mental arithmetic skills. ‘daily teacher activities for numeracy in grades 1– 3’ were also detailed in this document, with the following activities specified for whole class work: venkat and askew: mediating early number learning. . . 69 count with whole class according to their level – count using a number square – count on the number line – count forwards and backwards – count forwards and backwards from a given number to a given number – count in multiples – odd and even numbers, etc. (p.17) coupled with these activities, a set of ‘recommended resources for numeracy in grades 1–3’ was also specified (p.18). for display on walls and teacher whole class work, this list included resources like a number line, a large 100 square, and a large abacus. at learner level, the list included an individual 100 square, place value cards, counters, and an individual small abacus. the ffl assessment framework (department of education, 2008b) also introduced the notion of termly curriculum ‘milestones’ – described thus: the milestones (knowledge and skills) derived from the learning outcomes and assessment standards from the national curriculum statement for languages and mathematics (grades 1–3) have been packaged into four terms for each grade to facilitate planning for teaching. these milestones explain the content embedded in the learning outcomes and assessment standards. these milestones have been further written into manageable units to assist you to develop the required assessment tasks per term (p.iii). research findings from south africa show however that provision of detailed curriculum statements and resources in and of themselves may not be a key policy lever for raising standards. the work of ensor and colleagues (2009), for example, presents evidence of teaching that holds learners back through focusing on concrete counting based strategies rather than supporting the shift over time towards more abstract calculation based strategies. the analysis leading to this finding incorporated a focus on ‘specialisation strategies’ (following dowling, 1998), which include specialisation of content and modes of representation. specialisation of content in early number refers to tasks that shift over time from counting, to calculation by counting, to calculating without counting. specialisation of modes of representation correspondingly relates to shifts from concrete representations towards more abstract symbolic representations of number. ensor et al.’s findings indicated a high prevalence (89% of the total time across the grades 1– 3) of counting/ calculation by counting-oriented tasks. the authors noted that ‘concrete 70 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 apparatus for counting, and for calculating by-counting, is visible in all three grades, with sustained use through grades 1, 2 and 3’ (p.21). these findings relating to teaching of early number are consistent with broader findings at the learner level which suggest the ongoing predominance of unit counting and repeated addition/subtraction strategies well into the late intermediate phase (schollar, 2008). policy that provides artifacts with minimal induction into the form and function of such artifacts must either assume that teachers have the pedagogic content knowledge to use the resources in ways that move learners from unit counting, or assume that the specification for skills in the curriculum bridges the gap. however, a central thread of evidence in south africa related to the crisis in performance points to weaknesses in primary teachers’ mathematics content knowledge and pedagogic content knowledge (carnoy, chisholm, chilisa, addy, arends, baloyi et al., 2011; taylor, 2010), with this thread having significant international parallels (ball, hill, and bass, 2005; ma, 1999). carnoy et al.’s (2011) study indicated low levels of content knowledge in relation to grade 6 mathematics content, and significant positive associations between teachers’ content knowledge, pedagogic content knowledge and the time they spent teaching mathematics. this study also noted specific weaknesses in what the authors referred to as ‘mathematical knowledge in teaching’, defined in the following terms: the degree to which teacher can appropriately integrate the use of the instructional techniques with the mathematical concept being taught and its effectiveness on learner learning. this also includes the use of correct language to clearly convey mathematical ideas (p.102). within the broader field of study into mathematical knowledge for teaching, our focus here is on aspects of what hill, ball and schilling (2008) have identified as aspects of ‘specialised content knowledge’, which includes the need to represent and explain mathematical ideas, and ‘knowledge of content and students’, which includes awareness of typical student development sequences. venkat and askew: mediating early number learning. . . 71 the research in this paper we pick up on the issue of teachers’ integration of ‘instructional techniques’ with learning outcomes. our focus is on teachers’ use of artifacts to mediate learners’ developing number-sense. through this focus we examine what this can tell us about teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogic content knowledge (pck). our data are drawn from three grade 2 numeracy lessons and, given the extensive focus on number in the foundation phase numeracy curriculum, we emphasise meanings and strategies related to number sense. analysis of teachers’ practices indicated difficulties in using abaci and hundred squares – both resources advocated within the policy context – as effective mediating means. we argue that these difficulties are linked to limited pedagogic content knowledge regarding number structure and its presentation to learners. our motivation for doing this work is twofold. first, we seek to understand misalignments between teacher talk, actions and artifacts to inform our work in the primary mathematics focused wits maths connect–primary project, and the work of others engaged in teacher development. second, we aim to contribute to the policy process with evidence of some ways in which policy artifacts are being taken up in classrooms and what needs to be done to improve effectiveness within takeup. we begin with a summary of the ways in which number sense is described in the international literature and some of the practices and artifacts advocated for teaching aimed at developing number sense. the analytical base that we draw from is based on the vygotskian notion of artifact mediated action, and follow-up work that distinguishes between artifacts taken up in the ways that build on the meanings connected to the cultures from which they are drawn (ideality) and artifacts taken up in ways that relate to other aspects of their materiality. we do this by linking the work of post-vygotskian theorists such as wertsch and cole with the theory linking models and tools arising from the freudenthal institute. following an outline of the data sources, we present three episodes of teaching involving the use of policy-advocated artifacts and provide an analysis of these episodes based on concepts related to the theory of mediated action. in each case we argue that the teachers’ work with the artifacts 72 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 proceeds in ways that are unlikely to support the development of learners’ number sense. we conclude with a discussion of the ways in which our evidence suggests the need to move beyond both mere provision of classroom artifacts and claims of lack of content/pedagogical content knowledge, and instead to move towards longitudinal teacher support based on the use of artifacts in ways that build on their form and relate to the meanings of number, operations and problem-solving. number sense and teaching for number sense mcintosh, reys and reys’ (1992) widely cited paper describes number sense in terms of three key areas: knowledge and facility with numbers, knowledge and facility with operations, and applying this knowledge and facility with number and operations to a range of computational settings (p.4). application skills based in strong number sense would demonstrate use of operations in ways that are well connected both to the numbers being operated on, and to the problem context. a recurring feature of the application category is the requirement for ‘flexibility’ and ‘efficiency’ of strategy – a point echoed by kilpatrick, swafford and findell (2001) in their description of strategies backed by mathematical proficiency as being both ‘effective’ and ‘efficient’. flexibility depends on being able to adapt selected strategies to a range of problem settings. central to the building of efficiency in early number learning is the adoption of ‘non unit counting’ strategies, which in turn, involve the reification of at least some counting processes into numerical objects (sfard, 2008), or in the words of gray (2008): “a shift in attention from the objects of the real world to objects of the arithmetical world – numbers and their symbols” (p.82). such reification allows initially for ‘count on’ based strategies, and subsequently for the creation and use of strategies based on calculating with grouped numbers – using ‘5’ and ‘10’ in particular within early number learning as benchmarks for calculating ‘through’. writing focused on progression within number sense has noted the importance of representations in supporting this reification of counting processes into numerical objects. askew (1998) draws a distinction between ‘structured’ and ‘unstructured’ materials – with the former viewed as resources that are ‘usually designed to embody a particular mathematical idea’ (p.13). in contrast, ‘unstructured’ resources tend to be everyday materials or objects used for counting or measuring. structured resources include artifacts venkat and askew: mediating early number learning. . . 73 such as dice that support ‘subitizing’ (the immediate perception of small quantities without unit counting) and artifacts that provide experience of a range of representations showing ‘pair-wise’, ‘five-wise’ and groups of ten based number representations (bobis, 1996; gravemeijer, cobb, bowers, and whitenack, 2000) that can support later understanding of operations within the decimal number system. in this view, artifacts such as abaci and 100 squares that provide visual representations of number in the 1–100 range as constitute-able through a quantity-based decomposition into tens and units – e.g. seeing 54 as constituted by 50 and 4, with the 50 further broken down into five 10s (thompson, 1999) – would be structured resources, whereas cubes and counters would tend to fall into the unstructured resource category. given the widespread acceptance of the importance of actions on objects forming the basis for well-connected understandings of number ideas, artifacts that can be operated on, and that lead into and link with representations of these ideas, are viewed as critical to early mathematical learning. thus there is wide agreement that resource provision is an important aspect of supporting the development of numeracy. but whilst representations in early number learning must include actions on objects, early number sense has been described as needing to go beyond this to develop well-connected networks between the language of a problem, the actions on objects that physically ‘replay’ or model the problem, and the diagrams and representations that provide a record of these actions or models, leading eventually to symbolic representations (haylock and cockburn, 2008). in turn, and related to progression in terms of representations, research points to limited number sense being related to representations that are closer to concrete actions and good number sense being related to more compressed symbolic representations (askew and brown, 2003). closely related to this progression of representational forms, steffe, von glasersfeld, richards, and cobb (1983) note that progression in counting strategies can be related to being able to work across a range of count-able units with perceived items at the lowest level through to abstract number units at the highest level of competency. across all these discussions, a common theme is the idea of teachers modelling coherently connected and increasingly sophisticated and efficient strategies for solving number problems, using suitable artifacts and meditating the key structures within these artifacts to represent their problemsolving processes. this teacher modelling provides the basis from which learners can appropriate and use similar actions for themselves, actions that 74 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 latterly become internalised psychological constructs for learners to work with. in the language of the research coming out of the freudenthal institute (gravemeijer and stephan, 2002), the teacher initially provides a model of how to act on and talk about artifacts. for example, a child adding eight and four might count out eight and then count on four. the teacher provides a model of how this can be done on the abacus by using the ten structure to slide across eight beads without counting them in ones and also modelling how the four could be added as two followed by two. there is no suggestion in this model of that what the teacher shows is an accurate mirroring of what the child does: the child’s actions provide the impetus for the teacher’s actions, but the teacher shows how the artifact can be acted on in ways that mirror the child’s actions and, where possible, drawing attention to how the artifact may be acted upon more efficiently. thus increasingly sophisticated strategies are related to gradually more compressed representations, which in turn, need to be based on more compressed actions on mediating artifacts. as the children watch the teacher frequently act and talk in such ways, they begin to appropriate the actions and language for themselves, acting on the artifacts in similar ways to the teachers’ modelling: the artifact becomes a model for the learner to operate on. ultimately, if the artifact is well designed (for supporting reification and mental ‘actions’), this experience of acting on material artifacts supports the development of tools for thinking whereby the learner has internalised the language and actions to the point of being able to operate in such ways without the physical presence of the artifacts. (the theory does not suggest that this interiorisation of tools for is a result of a simple internalisation of the physical action, but studies do suggest that models such as the number line do fit with how the brain may process quantities additively (dehaene, 1999).) analytical concepts the central focus of this paper is on three excerpts of grade 2 numeracy teaching in which artifacts were deployed to support problem-solving on a given task (the problems being numerical calculations the answers to which the learners do not have rapid recall). wertsch’s (1991) concept of mediated action, drawn from his studies of vygotsky’s notion of mediation (vygotsky, 1981), is used to analyse teacher actions effected using selected tools to solve a problem they have set. for wertsch (1995), mediated action rests on venkat and askew: mediating early number learning. . . 75 ‘individual-operating-with-mediational-means’ (p.64) as the central unit of analysis. in this linked agent-artifact formulation, the possibilities for transformation of action are present but wertsch emphasises the need for agent take up of the artifact: this is not to say that the meditational means somehow act alone. an individual using the new mediational means had to change as well, since it obviously called for new techniques and skills (p.67). in the first instance here, the teacher is the individual using the ‘new mediational means’ and, as argued above, the use has to provide an appropriate model of the use of the artifact. there is little point in teachers acting on, say an abacus, in ways that do not make use of the form and function of the artifact, or in ways that could have been done with an unstructured collection of discrete objects. this combined focus on agentartifact is central to our focus on ruptures in the process of take up (in effective ways) of the resources being inserted via the policy landscape, ruptures that appear to relate to a lack of use of the mathematical structure that underlies the design of the selected resource, which in turn is linked to teachers’ pck. cole’s (1996) distinction between ‘artifacts’ and ‘tools’ is useful here, and he draws on the distinction made by bakhurst (1991) between the ‘materiality’ and ‘ideality’ of artifacts to make his point. bakhurst notes that: as an embodiment of purpose and incorporated into life activity in a certain way – being manufactured for a reason and put into use – the natural object acquires a significance. this significance is the ‘ideal form’ of the object, a form that includes not a single atom of the tangible physical substance that possesses it (p.182). the ‘physical substance’ constitutes the ‘materiality’ of the artifact. for cole, an artifact is transformed into a tool when the nature of its use corresponds with the purposes recognised by the culture – i.e. when its use embodies ideality rather than materiality. tool use, rather than simply artifact use, is associated with the transformation of mental functioning, following vygotsky’s (1981) formulation: the inclusion of a tool in the process of behavior (a) introduces several new functions connected with the use of the given tool and with its control; (b) abolishes and makes unnecessary several natural processes, whose work is accomplished by the tool; and alters the course and individual features of all the mental processes that enter into the composition of the instrumental act, replacing some functions with others (i.e. it re-creates and 76 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 reorganizes the whole structure of behavior just as a technical tool re-creates the whole structure of labor operations) (p.139–140). the dutch research inserts a stage into this movement of artifact to tool, from materiality to ideality: the learner’s use of an artifact as a model for carrying out an operation. at this stage the boundaries between artifact and tool are blurred: two learners could be acting in similar ways, but one might simply be mimicking what the teacher has done, while the other could have come to appreciate the ideality of the artifact and be closer to appropriating it as a tool for thinking. the analysis of this movement is beyond the scope of this paper, but we draw attention to it to highlight the importance of teachers appreciating the ideality of artifacts and providing appropriate models of how to act on them. our interest in doing the analysis, within the context of the teacher development work in this project, is to understand the kinds of tasks, artifacts and experiences over time that we might need to provide teachers with access to in order to build settings within which teachers’ understandings are attuned to the mathematical structures that the artifacts are intended to model that are starting to become more available through the policy landscape. data sources the data presented in this paper is drawn from our ‘baseline’ observations of grade 2 numeracy teaching at the start of 2011 as we launched the wits maths connect–primary (wmc-p) project. we observed, videotaped and transcribed single lessons taught by 33 of the 41 grade 2 teachers across the ten schools in our sample – with a view to more broadly gaining insights about the nature of teaching and learning across our schools, and the contexts of teachers’ work. in this paper three episodes from these observations are selected because they are typical of a number of lessons observed that showed evidence of artifacts being used in ways that seemed to bypass the mathematical structures built into their design. in all cases we have other instances in our data of the same kind of actions being enacted by other teachers in the grade 2 sample, suggesting the wider presence of the phenomena of rupture between task, artifact and talk that we seek to describe and analyse here. venkat and askew: mediating early number learning. . . 77 the excerpts excerpt 1 ms. c works in a township/informal settlement school where mathematics is taught in home language. ms. c uses a mix of tsonga and english in her teaching, and often stresses vocabulary across the languages to support children’s learning of mathematical vocabulary in both. in the focal lesson, ms. c announced: ‘today we are going to do subtraction’. the vocabulary of subtraction actions in english and tsonga is introduced in terms of ‘minus’/‘asoosa’/‘minus, we take away something and throw it away’. a large abacus sat on the teacher’s desk and learners each had a small abacus in front of them. the series of examples listed below was worked through, some as whole class demonstration (wc) with the teacher modeling actions on her large abacus, and some set as seatwork tasks for individuals to complete (sw): 5 – 3 (wc) 4 – 0 (wc) 6 – 2 (sw) 8 – 5 (sw) 10 – 5 (sw) across each of the whole class demonstrations, unit counting of beads on the abacus was used to count out the first number, and then to ‘take away’ the second number, and then to count out, again in ones, what was left. in the seatwork tasks, some learners were seen also to be unit counting in this way to solve the problems, whilst others appeared to be adding the two numerals rather than subtracting. ms. c went round checking learners’ abacus representations of each calculation and the actions they enacted to produce answers. she noted the addition representations and emphasised: ‘we are not adding’. following these examples, ms. c announced in english, and then in tsonga: now we are going to minus bigger numbers of two digits minus-ing only one digit. nothing is changing when we minus the bigger numbers. you are still going to use your abacus and count what you will be given, right. she wrote 12–4 on the board, and then said: 78 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 let me show you how we count two numbers that we must minus with only one number. let’s count 12 balls. twelve beads were counted out in ones, as before, with the count now using two rows of the abacus; ten on the top row, two on the one below. she asked at this point: how many lines did i use? the class responded: ‘two’, to which ms. c replied: two lines because it’s twelve. it has to jump to another row right? the teacher then proceeded to take away four through unit counting, sliding back, the two beads (one at a time) on the second row and then two (again singly) on the top line. the remaining beads were then counted out one by one to get eight. excerpt 1 analysis the abacus is the key mediating tool in use in this excerpt. the structure of the abacus – with ten rows each carrying ten beads – provides a physical form of the ‘10–based’ structure of numbers to 100 in the decimal system. however, almost no recourse is made to this structure within the strategies presented by ms. c. further, as noted by ensor et al. in their study (2009), all the calculations presented are solved through unit counting processes involving ‘count all’ strategies. two key questions emerge from this initial commentary. the first, related to the lack of take up of the ’10-ness’ structure of the artifact, is whether the abacus was an appropriate tool in relation to the tasks set? on the one hand the calculations set could be answered with an unstructured collection of discrete objects – which is essentially the way in which the abacus is being used here (the fact that they are beads on a rod simply making it easy to keep track of the unit counting). this would be classified as take up of the materiality, rather than the ideality, in bakhurst’s (1991) terms of the mediating artifact (and consequently, limiting the potential for this laying the basis of a psychological tool). clearly, for some learners in the class who did not yet appear to have made sense of subtraction as an operation artifacts that venkat and askew: mediating early number learning. . . 79 allow for the building of a connection between the ‘taking away’ action being presented here and the subtraction problem in word and symbolic form, would seem to be the priority. the second question relates to whether the structure of 10 was worth pursuing for this set of calculations, most of which involved subtracting single digit numbers from (at most) two digit numbers less than 20. the unit count strategy effectively ‘produces’ the answers to all of these questions. ms. c’s consistent use of unit counting suggests that ‘getting the answer’ was the object of her mediated action, but this leaves aside the notions of flexibility and efficiency of strategy identified as important in the number sense literature. greater efficiency is certainly possible with a grouped count strategy, and the structure of the abacus would support the modelling of 12 in the last calculation (12–4) as a composite number made up of 10 and 2, each of which could be moved across on the abacus as grouped objects with a single swift action rather than in a one-by-one fashion. ms. c drew children’s attention to the fact that 12 required beads from 2 rows of the abacus, but made no explicit reference to the breakdown into a ten and units. her expression of this idea therefore remained at an everyday, rather than at a more specialised level based on the decimal structure of number. further, her actions created the ten and unit values through counting processes rather than as conceptual objects in gray’s (2008) terms. the teacher’s actions were limited in terms of being a ‘model of’ that might provide the basis for learners’ later use of the abacus as a ‘model for’ calculating using the base-ten structure. for efficiency to be pursued, it would appear that teacher and learners require prior experiences with moving interim (1–10) numbers of beads with a single shift, in ways that would support reifications of smaller numbers that could lead into discussion of the 10-ness structure of the abacus, and the ability to very quickly represent 12 as a quantity on an abacus using this structure. in this more nuanced artifact mediated action we see possibilities associated with working with learners at various stages of the counting, calculating by counting, and calculating hierarchy – and actions that learners could appropriate with different degrees of understanding thus encouraging the artifact/tool and material/ideal shifts noted by cole (1996). thus whilst ensor et al. point out shifts in specialisation of representation from concrete to symbolic representations, we suggest that there are gradations within these representational categories as well that can relate to building calculating that is likely to involve some reified number facts and some counting – a feature 80 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 noted as prevalent in children’s work with number across a range of attainment (thompson, 1995). excerpt 2 in ms. k’s classroom, a mix of zulu interspersed with english was used within a lesson focused on addition. the following episode occurred early in the lesson. ms. k had distributed a worksheet with the following table drawn at the top, and two further similar tables (with different addends) below it: each learner had an individual abacus in front of him or her, and the teacher had a large abacus at the front. the following explanation unfolded for how to work out answers using the abacus. t: let us do number 1. we read it together [pointing on the board]. t & class: 4 plus 8. ha! [teacher picked up the large abacus that had eight beads showing on the top row from a previous unit count out activity. teacher held the abacus up and moved back the eight beads before counting out four beads through unit counting with the class.] t & class: 1, 2, 3, 4. is that correct? class: yes. t: plus 8. [with the class chanting, eight beads were counted out one by one on the second row of the abacus.] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. now before you do it, let’s work it out. [eight beads in the second row were counted again with whole class chant in unit count followed by ‘9, 10, 11, 12’ as the first row beads were added in.] twelve! which means the answer is – ? class: twelve. venkat and askew: mediating early number learning. . . 81 the answer is twelve. [teacher wrote 12 into the box beneath 8t: on the worksheet copy stuck on the board.] subsequently, 4 + 16 was also worked out using a unit count of beads across three rows of the abacus – four on the top row, ten on the second and six on the third, as were the remaining sums in the table. analysis of excerpt 2 this excerpt is similar in many ways to excerpt 1, and also based on the use of the abacus artifact. we see once again that mediation relied on unit count based strategies to represent both addends, and counting all to produce the answer. however, the number range was higher, and combined with addition as the operation in focus, resulted in some answers going above 20. a difference of interest relating to artifact use in this episode is the way in which the addition was represented on the abacus. for example 4 + 8 was represented by four beads pulled across one by one on the top row, followed by eight beads pulled across on the second row. in ms. c’s excerpt, subtraction proceeded by taking (in 12 –4) the two on the second row away followed by two more on the first row, which is close to modeling 12–4 as 12–2–2. in contrast ms. k’s modeling, where the two numbers were pulled from two different rows, disrupts the possibility of bridging through 10 at all. therefore, although the numbers being operated on are larger, in one sense, the mediation in this excerpt is more rooted in the realm of concrete counting than in excerpt 1. excerpt 3 ms. s worked in a township/informal settlement school and taught a mixed grade 2/3 class. within the focal lesson, opening activities were based on whole-class chanting of days of the week, and 10s to a 100. the class was then asked to use fingers and/or the individual 100 squares they had on their desks to count in 1s, 2s and 5s to 100 – something that not all learners appeared able to do. 82 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 at this stage, pointing to the large 100 square stuck on the blackboard, ms. s announced: i want to see if you know the number that you count, i’m going to hide a number and i want you to show or tell me [. . .] on our chart i will hide one number and you tell me which i hide. she stuck a small blank square over the number 15 on her 100 chart and asked the class which number was covered. she prefaced learner answers with: ‘did you see which number i hid?’ ‘fifteen’ was audibly called out, but the first two children the teacher asked said the answer was ‘fifty’. the third child offered ‘fifteen’, and the class, in chorus, agreed that this was correct. the blank square was then stuck over the number 44, and the same question posed: ‘did you see which number i hid?’ the following interaction then ensued: lr1: 34 t: is it 34? class: no t: […] is she correct [pointing at another learner]? lr2: 24 t: 24? did you see it well [pointing at another learner]? lr3: 45 class: no. [t asks another learner.] lr4: 44 t: is he correct? class: yes t: let’s count and check starting from 41, do you see it? [the teacher pointed to the numbers on the 100 square from 41, pointing to each number as the class counted from 41– 44.] this was followed by an episode where the number 26 was hidden and asked for, with the right answer given by a learner. the next questions asked were: ‘what number comes after 26?’ and ‘what number comes before 26?’ – with venkat and askew: mediating early number learning. . . 83 both of these numbers visible before and after the small blank square on the 100 square on the board. analysis of excerpt 3 a key feature of ms. s’ work within this excerpt was her recurring reference to ‘seeing’ the hidden number. given this recurrence, we are unsure as to whether the object of the activity was simply to recall the hidden number by remembering what it looked like before it disappeared from view or to use the structure of the square to deduce the hidden number. her mediated actions suggest recall more often than deduction using the 10-based structure of the 100 square, although the episode involving 44 suggests that the teacher did have some awareness of the sequence of number. even within this one section, the explanation that is used to ‘check’ whether 44 is correct was based on reciting the number list from 41 – again, an everyday rather than a specialised form of expression that makes no explicit reference to the ways in which rows of a 100 square are structured and how looking down the columns is an effective strategy: there was no reference at all to the column structure of 100 squares, which, like the abacus, is a representation that embodies the 10based structure. modelling of how to find the number that would use the row and column structure – 44 is in the row that contains all the numbers in the ‘forties’ and the column that contains all the numbers with 4 in the units – was visibly absent. learners’ attempts to identify 44 – with 34 and 24 offered – suggest that for some children the vertical patterns in the square had begun to have some ideality but this was not picked up and worked with by the teacher. within the highly partial take up of the base-ten numerical structure, we see materiality once again within mediation rather than ideality. conclusions in our analysis we have brought together the theoretical concepts associated with mediated action: the notion of an agent working with an artifact to model the ideal in the expectation that learners might appropriate actions and come to achieve a desired object. within each of our excerpts we argue that our analyses of the teacher-artifact mediation observed was likely to restrict any tool use to unit counting. while this may be located in an individualised view of limitations in individual teachers’ pck we also want to argue that there is a 84 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 cultural dimension to these limitations and return to wertsch’s work to examine this. vygotsky’s (1981) assumption about the fundamental role of mediating tools (psychological as well as physical tools) in mental function was that: by being included in the process of behavior, the psychological tool alters the entire flow and structure of mental functions. it does this by determining the structure of a new instrumental act (vygotsky, 181, p.137). here, the presence and use of artifacts is viewed as naturally leading to their appropriation. wertsch’s position (1995) differs somewhat from vygotsky’s by expanding the focus on tools into the sociocultural setting in which they are located, and points out the take-up of artifacts in the dialectic between tools and thinking as reliant on a further condition: the meditational means that shape mental functioning and action more generally are inherent aspects of, and hence serve as indexes of, a sociocultural setting (p. 64). in our empirical problem this second condition is problematic. the push to get resources into schools via the ffl policy suggests that (in poorer schools at least) these resources were not previously a part of the socio-cultural setting, and thus we cannot assume that the mathematical structure of a resource that might be apparent within certain sociocultural settings (including those of the policy makers) is also a feature of the sociocultural setting of these schools. we have shown that material, rather than ideal, use of the artifact was a common feature across all three of the empirical excerpts presented in this paper. the almost complete lack of reference or use of the 10-based structure of both the abacus and the 100 square raises questions relating to these teachers’ awareness of this structure from both a content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge perspective. but we suggest that this is a consequence of absence in the sociocultural setting, rather than deficit in the teachers’ knowledge. our data, collected in early 2011 in the context of ffl with its explicit attention to resource provision suggests that a wider range of resources (including some that embody features related to more symbolic representations of number such as 100 squares and abacuses) are making their way into schools. our analysis shows though that provision of artifacts that support more abstract ways of working with number is insufficient in improving teaching and learning. understanding of the ways in which early venkat and askew: mediating early number learning. . . 85 counting progresses into mental procedures – expressed succinctly by askew and brown (2003) as: ‘count all, count on from the first number, count on from the larger number, use known facts and derive number facts’ (p.6), and how progressive counting leads into more abstract number concepts (gelman and gallistel, 1986) – would appear to be required in the socio-cultural setting, prior to being able to recognise the potential usefulness of these presences in artifacts that model these reified structures. research tells us that carefully structured experiences with children focused on developing more compressed operational understandings and the more abstract notions of number that these are founded on and further develop are possible (askew, bibby, and brown, 2001). our future work is to develop structured experiences for teachers that can work at this content knowledge level whilst working at the pedagogical action level as well. our analysis suggests that this is needed in order to support the development of mediated actions that allow for the ‘specialised’ mediation required to capitalise on the improving resource situation in ways that have impact at the level of children’s learning. acknowledgements this paper forms part of the work in progress within the wits sa numeracy chair project, entitled the wits maths connect–primary project. it is generously funded by the firstrand foundation, anglo american, rand merchant bank, the department of science and technology and is administered by the nrf – national research foundation. 86 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 references 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(eds), sociocultural studies of mind. cambridge: cambridge university press, pp.56–74. hamsa venkat marang centre for mathematics and science education school of education university of the witwatersrand hamsa.venkatakrishnan@wits.ac.za mike askew school of education university of the witwatersrand and faculty of education monash university wits claude-leon distinguished scholar mike.askew@monash.edu mailto:hamsa.venkatakrishnan@wits.ac.za mailto: mailto:mike.askew@monash.edu microsoft word cissue79 full 15june.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 79, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i79a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x exploring pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning grammar: implications for teacher education peter oluwaseun merisi language and arts education, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, south africa. s.christson@yahoo.com (corresponding) https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7753-8034 ansurie pillay language and arts education, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, south africa. pillaya3@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9174-0543 (received: 13 november 2019; accepted: 3 march 2020) abstract in this article, we argue that it is essential to acknowledge the beliefs with which pre-service teachers enter universities since their beliefs could shape how they teach in the future. in our qualitative study, underpinned by metacognitive and attribution theories, we consider english education pre-service teachers’ beliefs about learning and teaching grammar and the implications thereof for teacher education. the findings revealed that participants’ beliefs were shaped by their experiences of the pedagogic practices in their schools. it became clear that the developers of teacher education programmes cannot assume pre-service teachers’ competencies and should take cognisance of their backgrounds and levels of preparedness for university. keywords: beliefs, pre-service teachers, grammar teaching and learning, teacher education, metacognition theory, attribution theory introduction we contend that it is essential to recognise and acknowledge the beliefs with which preservice teachers enter universities as well as those they develop during their teacher education programmes since their beliefs about teaching could shape how they teach in the future. we argue that until these beliefs and their causes are recognised and addressed, if necessary, our current teaching in schools may not improve. naruemon (2013) has noted that it is important to research pre-service teachers’ beliefs since one of the main goals of teacher education programmes is the modification and formation of the beliefs of pre-service teachers. 32 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 furthermore, pajares (1992) has cautioned us to remember that pre-existing beliefs are capable of negating the efforts of teacher education programmes. beliefs serve as a guide for teachers’ selection of their future teaching practices and may contribute to helping them make sense of what they are studying (richardson, 2003). in our study, we considered english education pre-service teachers’ beliefs about learning grammar and the implications thereof for teacher education in south africa. many reviews of school teaching raise concerns about language (and grammar) teaching (cajkler & hislam, 2006; ramsay, 2004), including the need to increase teachers’ knowledge about language. the united states of america, australia, and the united kingdom, for example, have proposed that in teacher education curricula more time should be given to learning grammar (harper & rennie, 2009). in south africa, the department of basic education (1997) has acknowledged that english is very poorly taught, and a teacher union member has noted that african learners are disadvantaged because they are taught by teachers who are not always communicatively and linguistically competent in english (kruger, landsberg, & swart, 2013; mafisa & van der walt, 2002; reed, 2014). furthermore, the majority of these learners, for whom english is a second or third additional language, do not have sufficient exposure to the english language at home. despite numerous attempts to improve the curricula since south africa’s independence in 1994, researchers and curriculum planners in this country are aware of the bleak state of english grammar learning and teaching (henning & dampier, 2012) but we argue that we need to know the beliefs of pre-service teachers before we plan curricula or other improvements. we explore the beliefs that pre-service teachers, who are studying to become teachers of english at a school of education in kwazulu-natal, have about learning grammar in south african high schools and at university. we consider how pre-service teachers’ own beliefs about learning grammar and their experiences of having learned it may influence their grammar teaching practices. we begin by reviewing the literature that has shaped the argument being put forward and then we consider the theoretical framework that underpins the study. we go on explain our methodology before discussing the findings of the study and offering concluding thoughts. literature review the debate on the role that grammar knowledge plays in language learning is pervasive. some scholars believe that language cannot be learned effectively without necessary exposure to the grammar of that language (jones & chen, 2012), while others are of the opinion that language learning has nothing to do with knowledge of grammar, particularly explicit knowledge of it (myhill, 2011; wales, 2009). however, since this paper is not a contribution to this debate on the role of grammar, but an exploration of the beliefs of the preservice teachers of english about the teaching and learning of grammar, we limit ourselves accordingly. merisi & pillay: exploring pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching . . . 33 it is evident in the literature on teacher cognition that language teachers develop their beliefs about language learning, particularly grammar knowledge, throughout their lifetimes (borg, 2011; lortie, 1975). it is clear that pre-service teachers already have established personal theories and assumptions, about, and predispositions towards, grammar learning. one of the more contentious debates in studies about pre-service teachers’ beliefs revolves around what constitutes their core beliefs, as opposed to their peripheral ones (borg, 2006; fleming, bangou, & fellus, 2011; pajares, 1992). core beliefs are those that are capable of resisting changes or new ideas, while peripheral beliefs are those that can be easily challenged or changed (samuel, 2008). previous studies on teacher cognition have revealed three major factors that constitute pre-service teachers’ beliefs about grammar learning or teaching; using borg’s (1999) classification of teachers’ cognitions about grammar instruction, these factors can be summarised into the three categories of schooling, teacher education, and classroom experience. since our study focuses only on pre-service teachers and not on in-service teachers, the first two categories are more relevant to it. studies have found that the pre-service teachers’ own schooling and language learning experiences are important factors in the formation of their belief system particularly in relation to grammar learning (busch, 2010; fleming et al., 2011). pre-service teachers bring with them both positive and negative images of teaching, from which they create categorisations of good and bad instructions. for example, mattheoudakis (2007), in his investigation of pre-service english first language (efl) teachers, found that most of their beliefs about language teaching and learning, particularly in the teaching of vocabulary, grammar, and correct pronunciation, were rooted in their own language learning experiences as learners. lortie (1975) coined the term “apprenticeship of observation” (p. 62) to refer to the quality of time students spend in the classroom acquiring their beliefs about learning and teaching that then serve them as models. lortie added that this period consists of two types of memory: pre-service teachers’ memories of themselves as students or learners; and their memories of their teachers. johnson argues that these memories are powerful because they serve as “indelible imprint[s] on most teachers’ lives and minds” (1999, p. 23). busch (2010) also identified the teacher education programme as another key element of preservice teachers’ beliefs about how grammar ought to be learned. studies have revealed that pre-service teachers’ beliefs about the way grammar should be taught are also influenced by the type of teacher education they receive. altan (2006) and mattheoudakis (2007) have claimed that the teacher education programmes bring no or little change to those already established beliefs. in contrast, however, busch (2010), and özmen (2012) found that teacher education programmes can make a difference to pre-service teachers’ beliefs about grammar learning. mattheoudakis (2007) discovered that pre-service teachers use the information they have learned to reinforce their prior beliefs rather than challenging them. this, therefore, agrees with samuel’s (2008) and phipps and borg’s (2009) argument that pre-service teachers’ core beliefs are resistant to change. studies have offered various reasons why teacher education has little or no influence on the growth of prior beliefs. pajares (1992), for example, mentioned that prior beliefs are formed over a long period of time. despite the ongoing debates on the impact of teacher education programmes on pre-service teachers’ 34 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 beliefs, phipps and borg (2009) have argued that “it is not enough . . . to identify differences or tensions between teachers’ beliefs and practices. rather, attempts need to be made to explore, acknowledge, and understand the underlying reasons behind such tensions” (p. 388). it is against this background that we sought to explore what the beliefs of english education pre-service teacher are, and what they think led to such beliefs. the study was underpinned by metacognitive and attribution theories. the metacognitive theory, proposed by flavell (1979), relates to the individual’s knowledge about his or her most basic mental states such as perceptions, feelings, and beliefs, among others. this theory focuses on the cognitive knowledge that people have about their own thinking (selfknowledge) and about other people, and the regulation of those cognitive processes. we found metacognitive theory to be appropriate for the present study given its focus. attribution theory places importance on people’s explanations of their beliefs and experiences, and the attributions they make through their individual inferences to understand and interpret the causes they believe to lie behind their beliefs and understandings (gabillon, 2013). attribution theory is the systematic study of the perception of causality. according to yang (2009), attribution theory accounts for how ordinary people make causal explanations or, in other words, about how they answer questions beginning with “why?” the theory looks at the impact of human beliefs on subjects’ present and future efforts or practices. this theory posits that people seek meaning in their behaviour and in their world (gabillon, 2013). the theory centres on how the social perceiver generates information about either their own behaviour or that of others, and how this information is interpreted to arrive at causal judgment of an event (försterling, 2001). thus, the beliefs about causes are of importance to the attribution theorists rather than the actual causes of behaviour. attributions are made through certain systematic processes, and when they are made, they influence people’s subsequent behaviours and emotional reactions (försterling, 2001). this theory was deemed appropriate for our study aimed at understanding participant’s explanations for their beliefs. while metacognitive theory helped explain the cognitive knowledge that participants have about their beliefs surrounding teaching and learning grammar, the attribution theory clarified the meanings behind such beliefs. method this study is located within an interpretive paradigm that regards knowledge as a social construct, and is grounded in a qualitative approach, which allows for rich reports that are necessary for interpretivists in order to understand the context (willis, 2007). narrative inquiry, situated within the qualitative approach and interpretive paradigm (connelly & clandinin, 1990), serves as the research design. the main claim for the use of narrative in educational research is that humans are storytelling organisms who, individually and socially, lead storied lives. this research design was employed because it allowed the participants to tell their lived experiences of learning grammar in both written and spoken form. the design merisi & pillay: exploring pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching . . . 35 was useful in the interpretations of pre-service teachers’ beliefs about how grammar should be learned and taught. we used open-ended questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and narratives as the research instruments for data generation. we worked with fourth-year students who were studying english education at the university under study, all of whom were purposively sampled from the english major 420 class (the final module before they graduate) since the inclusion criteria included this along with their being on track to complete their degree that year. these fourth-year students were selected since they would have had almost four years’ experience of grammar learning at the tertiary institution in addition to their prior experience of grammar learning at school. moreover, these students were in the transition stage of being prepared for classroom teaching the following year. questionnaires were administered, with their informed consent, to all the fourth-year students in the english major 420 class. the module lecturer was contacted prior to this period and students were briefed about the study. fifty students initially participated in the study, of whom 39 were african and 11 indian, but only 11 of these continued for the remaining two sets of data collection. the reduction in the number of study participants to approximately 20% of the original total who were recruited for interviews and narratives was because some of them were not willing to be interviewed or to write the narratives in case they made grammar mistakes. the questionnaires aimed to identify the biographical details of the participants and to explore their beliefs about learning and teaching english grammar since they were going to teach this area the following year. the semi-structured interviews and written narratives were employed to delve further into these beliefs. we use thematic analysis, a qualitative data analysis method, to analyse the data as it came in. this kind of analysis is used for identifying, describing, analysing, and reporting themes and patterns within a data set in rich detail (see braun & clarke, 2006; smith & eatough, 2007). we used an inductive thematic analysis approach in order to provide a rich thematic description of participants’ own narratives of their beliefs about grammar learning. using braun and clarke’s (2006) guidelines for conducting thematic analysis, all data emanating from this study was analysed through four stages. the first stage involved familiarising ourselves with the data and the background literature. the second stage involved generating initial codes by using labels that were conceptually meaningful to the data (see duff 2008). line-by-line coding was used to ensure attention to detail in the three data sources. the third stage included memo writing about thoughts that occurred during the coding and thematic analysis. the final stage entailed categorising themes. the average length of the interviews was between 20 and 30 minutes. the interview-based data was transcribed by one of the researchers and two postgraduate students and the transcript was thoroughly checked by both researchers to ensure accuracy. having done this, we analysed the narratives, interviews, and questionnaire data thematically, and chose the themes for analysis according to the frequency of their occurrence. some of the themes that emerged from the analysis included grammar learning, explicit and communicative grammar teaching and learning, and content knowledge of grammar. 36 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 discussion of findings there were two major findings from the study and they relate, as expected, to the pre-service teachers’ beliefs about how grammar ought to be taught or learned, and their beliefs about their knowledge of the construct. hence, in our discussion we focus on these beliefs about the explicit teaching of grammar, and on their beliefs about the communicative approach to teaching grammar. then we look at their beliefs about their knowledge of grammar. beliefs about the explicit teaching and learning of grammar most of the questionnaire respondents were of the belief that grammar should be learned explicitly as a set of linguistic rules. although this finding contradicts the belief of researchers such as myhill, jones, and watson (2013) and wales (2009), among others who emphasise the importance of the pedagogical content knowledge of grammar rather than reliance on the explicit teaching of the content knowledge of grammar, it corresponds with sopin’s (2015) findings about the role of explicit grammar teaching in language learning. in a study on students’ perceptions about grammar teaching and learning in libya, sopin found that all the study participants strongly believed that grammar should be explicitly taught. in the present study, from the 43 questionnaire respondents who answered the question pertaining to the explicit teaching of grammar rules, 34 were of the opinion that grammar can be learned effectively only when taught explicitly. seven responses were opposed to the explicit teaching of rules, while the remaining two were not sure how to answer the question. for example, one of the respondents (qr 40) who believed in explicit teaching declared that “grammar involves many rules and may end up confusing if not taught explicitly.” this view concurs with that of tütüniş (2012) who has said that explicit grammar instruction supplies the declarative knowledge of grammar thereby eradicating confusion in the language learning process. a questionnaire respondent (qr 24) was of the opinion that grammar is rulesembedded and that these rules may not be properly applied without explicit teaching. to this participant, it appears that the main purpose of explicit teaching of grammar is to eliminate confusion in the application of grammar rules. on this note, three others added that the approach has the tendency to eradicate confusion from the minds of the students. for instance, another questionnaire respondent (qr12) stated that the reason why it should be explicitly taught is “because no one is left confused but one gets a clear understanding.” this is in agreement with the position that explicit instruction enables learners to acquire grammar they would not have learned on their own and that explicitness improves learners’ accuracy over what normally transpires when there is no focus on form (see wang, 2010). wang has argued that explicitness is an unavoidable aspect of grammar teaching. it would appear that explicit grammar learning, according to these 34 respondents, is associated with clarity and understanding particularly in contexts in which students are unfamiliar with the english language. of the 11 interviewees, 7 also thought that grammar is best taught through explicit teaching, while 4 said it should not be explicitly taught. for instance, a participant (interviewee 1) argued that grammar has “rules that need to be followed because when i think of grammar, i merisi & pillay: exploring pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching . . . 37 think of rules, i think of whole bunch of rules that need to be applied, and applied correctly in order to express yourself correctly.” another participant included that grammar learning “is a way in which you are taught how to use a language correctly and appropriately” (interviewee 3). proponents of explicit grammar teaching have identified reasons why grammar rules should be explicitly taught. one reason is that explicit teaching compensates for lack of exposure to the target language as well as the lack of time to make learners notice certain grammatical and language forms and structures. thus, explicit teaching leads to the awareness of target language forms during input (noonan, 2004). the relevance of this to our study is that 78 percent of the study participants learned english as their second or additional language. findings revealed that most of them had poor or inadequate exposure to english grammar both at home and at school, and therefore, they might be thinking of explicit grammar as a way of creating awareness, particularly of those aspects they deemed difficult. furthermore, researchers, such as nassaji and fotos (2004) have suggested that another reason why grammar should be explicitly taught is the inadequacy of meaning-focused teaching approaches. they maintain that the exclusive focus on communication is not capable of providing learners with enough accuracy in the target language. for example, some of the study participants lamented that most of them, although they are in their final year of training for the teaching profession, were still making mistakes because of the lack of exposure to rich and explicit grammar instruction. norris and ortega (2005) have argued that explicit teaching leads to better learning of target structures, while ellis (2010) has suggested that explicitness is characterised by a longer lasting effect. other scholars are of the opinion that some focus on grammatical forms and error corrections are necessary for the development of high levels of accuracy in the target language (scheffler 2012; spada & tomita 2010). these opinions were reinforced by the participants’ belief that grammar is best learned and taught through explicit teaching. we need to consider if their beliefs were shaped by their personal experiences of learning grammar. beliefs about the communicative approach to grammar learning thirty-four pre-service teachers answered the question about whether grammar can also be learned through communicative tasks. of the 34 respondents, 25 believed that it could be learned this way while the remaining respondents had the opposite view. this result seems to contradict the largely-held view that grammar needs to be taught explicitly. although these 25 respondents were of the belief that the communicative approach to teaching grammar is effective, they had different reasons for their responses. nine questionnaire respondents said that grammar can be learned naturally. one of the respondents (qr 32) claimed that “learners pick on what is grammatically correct through communication and when they communicate it comes to them naturally.” this view relates to the natural approach to language learning that relies on emphasis being placed on the intuitive process which is presumed to occur when the natural language learning ability is appropriately awakened (krashen & terrell, 1983). these scholars presume that meaning is more important in language learning than form, and this approach encourages students to listen to their teachers from the start of the class when they 38 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 are using the target language. moreover, this approach holds that grammar in a second language can also be learned as was grammar in the first language. here we have evidence of the assumption that through listening, grammatically correct sentences or expressions can be learned or acquired either consciously or unconsciously, and that the ability to apply grammar rules naturally can also come about through communication and not necessarily only through an explicit teaching of grammar. this belief is rooted in the focus-on-meaning approach to grammar teaching and learning. this approach, according to chowdhury (2014), follows the incidentally-oriented classroom instructions with emphasis on meaning in any communicative task. it thus holds that grammar can be learned without explicit teaching and planned activities (in contradiction to the study participants’ previous answers). therefore, emphasis is placed on the learners’ ability to analyse language and deduce grammar rules at a subconscious level, depending on their exposure to correct language input and environment. unfortunately, the situation is not similar for all students in the south african context and for most of the study participants in that they were not exposed to rich and meaningful second language learning contexts. in fact, many of the study participants stated that they had their early grammar learning experiences in schools located in rural areas. unfortunately, a major characteristic of these schools is that english language is poorly taught since some teachers are under-qualified while some do not have the necessary grammar competence (kruger et al., 2013). a pre-service teacher’s (qr 32) argument that through mere listening learners are able to pick up on what is grammatically correct, points to the grammatical competence dimension of the approach. some participants held that the communicative approach is the best method to correct grammar mistakes. another respondent (qr 23) claimed that “it is easy to correct someone when you are having a conversation and it is something they hardly forget.” given this statement, there appears to be a shift here from focusing primarily on meaning to focusing on form. this view is in agreement with littlewood’s (1981) argument that one of “the . . . features of communicative language teaching is that it pays systemic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language, combining these into a more fully communicative view” ( p. 1). this view expands the scope of communicative language teaching (clt) beyond a mere focus on meaning but adds that until the structural aspect of grammar is included, there cannot be a fully communicative view of grammar. this preservice teacher’s argument that learners are able to pick up on what is grammatically correct through listening relates to the grammatical competence dimension of the approach, which chomsky (1957) referred to as linguistic competence. four questionnaire respondents believed that one of the advantages of the clt approach is that it enhances learners’ listening skills and serves as the link between listening and speaking. one respondent (qr 18) said that “pupils listen when we/other[s] speak and are able to speak out grammatically correct sentences from what they hear.” this view relates to the effect of a teachers’ influence on their learners. this influence is what lortie (1975) calls the “apprenticeship of observation” (p. 62). it would appear that this participant was arguing that the communicative approach gives learners an opportunity to listen to how correct merisi & pillay: exploring pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching . . . 39 sentences are constructed and that it gives them the opportunity to practice orally what they have learned. such a view may prove helpful in a classroom setting with a teacher who has a good command of the language, but if the majority of the teachers of english do not have a mastery of the language and teach in schools located in rural areas, this might not be the case (see mafisa & van der walt, 2002; silva, 1997). if the speaker (teacher) is deficient in knowledge of grammar, can one then say that the listeners (learners) will be able to learn how to construct grammatically correct sentences from the conversation? research shows that english language is poorly taught in south african schools and one of the reasons for this situation is the fact that some of the teachers themselves are not competent in the language they teach, as mentioned above. some of these teachers do not pronounce english words correctly while others often skip the grammar lessons since they are not competent in this area (kruger et al., 2013; mafisa & van der walt, 2002). some english language teachers often resort to their mother tongue to teach english grammar. learning to speak grammatically in such a scenario is difficult if not impossible. for instance, in her description of a bad grammar learning experience, one of the respondents (qr 14) argued that grammar teaching is bad “when you plan to teach grammar and you yourself speak bad or poor english and end up confusing the learners.” unfortunately, not only does this use of poor english lead to confusion, but the teacher’s lack of grammar knowledge may contribute to students’ belief system about how grammar should be taught or learned. all these still point to the place of rich and correct language input and environment such as the classroom in grammar learning. one of the interviewees (interviewee 6) lamented her grammar learning experience in school. she said, sometimes teachers used code-switching when they taught us grammar. then, when they teach, there were so many mispronunciation[s] of words and if you get to know the word, you will discover the whole meaning becomes changed . . . [concerning] spelling, sometimes it happen[ed] that the teacher also spelled some of them [incorrectly]. all these form the pre-service teachers’ memories of themselves as learners and their memories of their teachers (see lortie, 1975). in summary, 73% of the pre-service teachers held that grammar should be learned through communicative tasks and only 27% disagreed with this belief. nevertheless, we found that most of those who first supported the explicit teaching of grammar joined those who thought that grammar might be learned through communicative tasks as well. while this looks like a contradiction, it could be viewed more as a recommendation for combining the strengths of the two approaches. this view might have resulted from their experiences of learning grammar both in school and at university. pre-service teachers’ beliefs about their own grammar knowledge although the pre-service teachers who participated in this study had, to an extent, different beliefs about grammar teaching and learning, their responses, when asked about their own 40 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 knowledge of it, seemed to be fairly consistent. we found that most of the study participants believed that they did not have a good knowledge of grammar and they believed that this may impact negatively on their teaching practices in the future. we found that the way the subject of grammar is being approached in the teacher education programme, particularly in the english language discipline, influenced the participants’ beliefs about what constitutes a good knowledge of grammar as well as their beliefs about their own knowledge of the construct. for example, nine of the interviewees thought that they were lacking in the knowledge of grammar and this was attributed to their lack of adequate exposure to the explicit teaching of grammar both in school and in the university teacher education programme. when asked about his experience of learning grammar in school and at the teacher education programme, one participant (interviewee 1) described it as demotivating. he said, “it was de-motivating and especially because i had a bad grammar experience in school. i would have expected to be taught grammar in-depth at the university so that i will be a competent teacher.” this student seemed to be linking competency in grammar teaching or a sound knowledge of grammar to explicit teaching. also, he appeared to have come into the teacher education programme with the expectation of being equipped with the in-depth (content) knowledge of grammar which he believed he was not given in school. this view is similar to that expressed in a narrative essay (ne 9), in which the participant commented that grammar knowledge is essential to us and even the learners we intend to teach. we are expected to teach in schools the very same thing we were not taught at school. we are robbed [at the university] like we were robbed in high school. following from this view, pre-service teachers are expected to teach grammar, but their prior and present grammar learning experiences may put them at a disadvantage in that it is difficult for them to teach what they do not know. another participant (ne 10) who claimed to have had a little grammar content knowledge complained, when i got to grade 10 i realised that the more i practised grammar, the more i understood and applied it, but as soon as i got to the university i lost the love for grammar because . . . there are no specific grammar modules. so, grammar practice and application slipped through the cracks easily. this comment raises concerns regarding what the teacher education programme is doing to remedy the content knowledge-based difficulty that the pre-service teachers seem to have in relation to their preparation to teach grammar. for another participant (interviewee 1), students may lose the desire and passion to teach the grammar section if attention is not given to how the construct is being addressed in the curriculum and how it is being taught to the pre-service teachers. another participant (interviewee 2), while responding to the question about her level of understanding/ knowledge of english grammar, said, i am not perfect in my english grammar. i feel it most especially when i go to teaching practice, where i need to teach grammar. i first have to go back and do merisi & pillay: exploring pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching . . . 41 research because i have only done grammar at school and mostly, i have forgotten how it [was] done. i can say i am not proficient in my english grammar. all these concerns about the participants’ lack of sound grammar content knowledge seem to have been attributed to factors out of their control; such factors include the lack of explicit teaching of grammar in schools and at university. while explaining the factors affecting people’s belief systems, heider argued that in “common-sense psychology, the result of an action depends on two sets of conditions; factors within the person and factors within the environment” (1958, p. 82). heider claimed that one’s belief system is a function of two factors or causes—dispositional and situational. the former, described as internal causes, are attributed to factors within a person, while the latter (also described as external causes) are attributed to factors outside of the person, such as social context and roles (augoustinos, walker, & donaghue, 2007). thus, it can be said that these students believed that their inadequate grammar content knowledge resulted from their prior grammar learning experiences. it could therefore be understood that the participants were concerned that they did not engage with grammar content. one of the questionnaire respondents (qr 29) lamented that “after completing six modules in the school of language, we received nil training,” another respondent (qr 26) said, “i feel i need to be taught more about grammar.” one participant (interviewee 1) believed that he was very good at grammar. nevertheless, he connected his success in grammar learning to personal efforts rather than to the contributions from schools and teacher education programmes. he said, in my second year, i remember i had to do a lot on grammar in my writing practices, yet we were never taught grammar so, it was quite challenging, but at the same time it was really good because i had to go back, and sit with myself and do research and start reminding and teaching myself. yes, i developed myself, so i wasn’t taught by the university. from the above extract, it is clear that this student attributed his success in grammar learning to personal development (a dispositional cause). nevertheless, he still attributed his struggles with the content knowledge of grammar to the failure of the teacher education programmes to provide rich exposure to the explicit teaching approach. the findings above and the disposition of the study participants towards the content of their teacher education programme, particularly in the teaching of grammar, relate to mattheoudakis’s (2007) finding that that none of the study participants found the content of their teacher education programmes useful. we therefore argue that we need to engage with the beliefs of the preservice teachers if we are to make our teaching practices in the teacher education programmes useful and relevant. implications for teacher education the findings of this study have implications for the current practices in teacher education institutions. first, the policy informing the english education curriculum should be revisited. 42 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 the present curriculum focuses only on the communicative approach to grammar teaching without any explicit teaching of grammar whereas the majority of the students we are training to become teachers of english at the university under study are predominantly second language users of english who have little or no access to the language outside of the classroom. the curriculum therefore needs to consider who the pre-service teachers are, and needs to ascertain their knowledge in general, and the grammar knowledge in particular with which they arrive at teacher education programmes. we need to consider how pre-service teachers are taught grammar in primary and secondary schools, and modules need to be designed to enable these pre-service teachers to teach grammar correctly and effectively in the future. we recommend that more studies should focus on how grammar is being taught in south african schools since this will assist curriculum designers in teacher education programmes to identify the knowledge gap, and work to bridge it. second, modules should be designed to address the kinds of beliefs and knowledge that preservice teachers bring with them to the teacher education programmes. doing this will allow the teacher educators to become aware of the challenges facing these pre-service teachers and will enable them to strategise on how to address such challenges. in other words, until english teacher educators see grammar knowledge as an integral part of the teacher education programme and react to this accordingly, we will continue to graduate teachers of english who will teach english grammar as poorly as it is being taught currently in schools. while the study was primarily concerned with the beliefs of pre-service teachers and did not elicit the views of teacher educators or ascertain their beliefs, it is clear that the importance of understanding teacher educators’ beliefs about grammar teaching is equally important. this is, potentially, a follow-up study that could be undertaken. overall, it may be argued that research findings need to inform the teacher education curriculum, and that the pre-service teachers also need to understand what research studies argue for regarding the teaching of grammar. concluding thoughts we re-affirm our contention that it is essential to identify and respond to the beliefs (about the explicit teaching of grammar) with which pre-service teachers enter universities since their beliefs could determine how they teach (grammar) in the future. we argue that until these beliefs and their causes are recognised and addressed, our current teaching in schools will not improve. the importance of metacognitive experiences and an understanding of the complex and contested nature of teaching and learning is apparent in this study. furthermore, we have highlighted the crucial roles of teachers and teacher educators along with the importance of how they shape students’ knowledge base. assumptions by teacher educators of student knowledge and preparedness need to be confronted and interrogated, and engagement with students’ beliefs about all aspects of the subject are essential if we are to ensure that teaching becomes effective in schools. in not ascertaining pre-service teachers’ beliefs and levels of awareness, teacher education will contribute to the 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(2009). using blogs to enhance critical reflection and community of practice. educational technology & society, 12(2), 11–21. microsoft word b8400 fullissue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 84, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i84a04 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x 21st century competencies in technical and vocational education and training: rhetoric and reality in the wake of a pandemic joy papier institute for post-school studies, university of the western cape, cape town, south africa jpapier@uwc.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0003-2079-9430 (received: 25 june 2021; accepted: 13 october 2021) abstract there is general agreement about the need for vocational education and training to embrace so-called modern technologies in gearing up to deliver to young people a broad range of what have become known as 21st century competencies, of which digital literacy, self-directed learning, and adaptive learning are but three. recent technical and vocational education and training (tvet) policies in south africa incorporate the language of future competencies that ought to be acquired by college students through their curricula and delivered by lecturers with appropriate professional training. but in april 2020, confronted by the global covid-19 pandemic and an immediate hard lockdown, tvet colleges went into crisis mode to try to meet a government demand that no student be left behind. while blended and remote methodologies had been employed to some extent in a few college programmes, the pandemic suddenly launched all lecturers into technology dependent teaching and learning. this article is based on a survey of conveniently selected public tvet college lecturers early in the lockdown who were under enormous pressure to continue the academic programme remotely. the snapshot i obtained was one of anxiety and consternation, but also of deep concern for students and their wellbeing under inordinately difficult conditions. their conflicting priorities while they tried to balance remote teaching responsibilities and personal needs were illustrative of maslow’s well-known theorisation of humans and their hierarchy of needs. the limited research i conducted for this article was exploratory at a time in the pandemic when there were more questions than answers in every sphere of social interaction. my findings, therefore, do not seek to be definitive and there was full understanding that the education and training landscape was dynamic and shifting. however, what can be shared here is a moment in time to appreciate the experiences of a critical component of the tvet college sector under emergency conditions, and the distance they would have had to traverse towards official exhortations to leave no student behind. keywords: future competencies, technical and vocational education and training (tvet), curricula, remote learning, blended learning 68 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 introduction the south african government reacted quickly to the initial coronavirus infections and went into a hard lockdown on march 26, 2020. with very short notice students had to leave residences, classes were suspended, and campuses became no-go zones. technical and vocational education and training (tvet) colleges moved from full contact face-to-face programmes to remote learning within a matter of days. to understand the extent of the shift it may be helpful to consider the nature of teaching and learning in tvet classrooms precovid-19, and how official policies prior to 2020 anticipated the direction in which vocational education ought to go, and the reasoning for this. i begin this paper 1 with a general characterisation of vocational teaching and learning that policies on curricula and pedagogy sought to address prior to the pandemic, and global indications of the competencies required by 21st century vocational graduates depicted in a few international studies. thereafter i set out the results of a survey conducted among a convenient sample of tvet college lecturers (vocational educators or teachers in other contexts). survey responses indicate the extent of the leap into technology-based teaching that lecturers were required to make with minimal preparation, and their responses to management expectations that no student be left behind. their interaction with students revealed that the latter were also not ready to acquire high-level skills through modern technologies. after a brief summary of themes from the data, i situate the main findings within a review of emergent literature relating to educator readiness for technology infused pedagogies during the covid-19 pandemic. the comparative literature shows many convergences in educator experiences of teaching and learning in the different contexts across which covid-19 cut. policy aspirations for tvet teachers and learners tvet policies in the last two decades have focused on quality improvement of vocational education so as to enhance the esteem, employability, and portability of college qualifications according to the white paper on post-school education and training (department of higher education and training, 2013). but pass rates since the introduction of the new college curriculum, the national certificate (vocational), in 2007 have improved only very slowly, with high numbers of students not completing their three-year qualifications, or not sitting their examinations, according to the annual performance statistics issued in 2019 by the department of higher education and training (dhet). while the dhet sets yearly performance targets, mostly these are not met, and students continue to perform poorly in critical subjects such as mathematics and engineering science. meanwhile, the expectations of the vocational sector have been increasing, with mounting pressure being exerted on it to absorb vast numbers of out-of-school youth who require learning pathways, as well as school 1 this paper is based on a webinar presentation i delivered in october 2020 during a series entitled re-imagining tvet: the implications of covid-19, organised by nelson mandela university. papier: 21st century competences in tvet 69 students who need second chance opportunities (human resources development council of south africa (hrdc), 2019). the reasons for poor performance in colleges are multi-faceted, as indicated by a few studies that have been conducted on tvet student achievement (jeffery, 2015; papier, 2009). research recommendations made in these studies include the provision of excellent learning materials, more practical training, learning support and so on, but professionally trained educators are seen as key to improved student performance. dhet has recognised this in its legislation of a suite of new qualifications in the policy on professional qualifications for lecturers in tvet (2012), intended to professionalise vocational teaching and enable lecturers to acquire pedagogies appropriate to preparing vocational students for workplace environments in a changing world as described below. the new vocational teacher qualifications, gazetted some eight years ago, are slowly being rolled out by a few universities that are engaging in initial and/or ongoing professional college lecturer development. it is against a background of substantive existing challenges that tvet colleges were thrust into a new reality in which the competencies projected as part of their changing world were suddenly upon them. tvet competencies for a changing world it is acknowledged the world over that a “new technology revolution is fundamentally changing our lives” (schwab, 2016, p. 1). in a major edited reference work on trends and issues in vocational education and training around the world (mcgrath et al., 2019), two extensive volumes convey clearly that the world of work is changing, and that wherever tvet is located it will have to contend with preparing students for a new reality that includes automation, digitisation, artificial intelligence, climate change, greening, and the like. we now know that the future in the aftermath of covid-19 is even more uncertain and complex than initially envisaged (organisation for economic cooperation and development (oecd), 2018). education, along with training, is being called upon to address explicitly the competencies that young people need to survive and succeed in a 21st century context; these are seen, generally, as skills that are relevant across many fields including subject knowledge and particular skills such as the ability to cope with complex problems and unpredictable situations (see ehlers, 2020, and the edited collection of pellegrino and hilton, 2012). finegold and notabartolo (2010, p. 1) offered a useful revised grouping of 21st century competencies that depict the broad categories of skills as “analytic skills, interpersonal skills, ability to execute, information processing, and capacity for change.” the discussion of these groups of skills shows clearly that digital literacy, problem solving, socially interactive skills and so on needed for working collaboratively and ethically, are just a few of the 21st century skills the acquisition of which is becoming urgent. several international iterations of the desired competencies have emerged recently. the oecd’s future of education and skills, 70 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 2030 is a future-focused document intended to provide an “evolving learning framework that sets out an aspirational vision for the future of education” (oecd, 2019a, p. 1). harvard university’s center for curriculum redesign (fadel et al., 2015) has its own education framework that is comprised of the four dimensions of knowledge (what we know and understand); skills (how we use knowledge, what we do with what we know); character (how we behave and engage in the world); and meta-learning (how we reflect and adapt). these competencies are intended to be cultivated deliberately through pedagogies that support deeper, meaningful learning, not at the expense of teaching strong disciplinary content, but for the purpose of being able to discern when, how, and why disciplinary knowledge is applied. lecturers would themselves have to possess the appropriate skills and pedagogies to assist students successfully in their acquisition of the abovementioned competencies. furthermore, college infrastructure would have to be upgraded to enable enhanced online and technological delivery as part of new learning modalities. an education, training and development practices (etdp) sector authority report citing czerniewicz and carr (2014, p. 2) stated that [t]he colleges’ it infrastructure is one clear area that requires attention if open learning platforms are to be used. this will require not only investment in hardware and learning management software, but also training for the it staff and the lecturers to make effective use of these methodologies . . . access to wifi on all college campuses will need to be expanded, with simultaneous ongoing training of lecturers. (etdp seta report, 2019/20, p. 18) however, some strides are being made in, for instance, extending college broadband infrastructure (see south african broadband education network (saben), 2021), improving open online learning resources (see dhet open learning for post-school education and training (pset)), and training programmes for college lecturers, but these initiatives are still in process and rollout has been uneven in the different colleges around the country. in addition, recent tvet college government interventions such as the centres of specialisation (cos) project (modernised programmes that combine institutional and workplace learning in priority trades) had already acknowledged the necessity for new teaching and learning technologies in tvet by the time covid-19 struck. the sudden advent of the pandemic, however, revealed the chasm between future-focused planning and a delivery for which tvet lecturers were largely unprepared since the pandemic thrust most of the college sector into hastily conceived contingency plans to support learners and sustain learning under very difficult conditions. the impact of covid-19 on an already stressed college environment by all accounts, south african tvet college students have struggled in class, even with a teacher physically present, as pass rates over the last decade have revealed (dhet, 2019). tvet college statistics show that the fiscus funded national certificates (vocational) papier: 21st century competences in tvet 71 (nc(v)) exit level 4 had a pass rate of about only 49 percent in 2019 (albeit that pass rates have been improving slowly since). more worrying though, is that across the lower levels of the nc(v) and report 191/national accredited technical education diploma (nated) programmes there is annually a significant drop-off in student numbers evidenced by those enrolled compared with those who sit the examinations in all courses. so, my question is, “how would these students fare with a teacher at a distance, having to rely on resource-based learning, and with less classroom interaction through group learning or practical activities/simulations no matter how inadequate the latter?” given the poor general schooling foundations that many tvet college students have experienced prior to attending college, lecturers perform an essential task in mediating learning content and more particularly in relation to introducing unfamiliar or new concepts. lecturers in various workshops i have conducted have reported how important it is to see understanding dawn on the faces of their students, and how they have revelled in the aha moments, and in being able to read students’ body language that expresses how the learning is being received. these aspects of teaching, so discernible in a classroom situation, did not seem possible when lecturers were many miles away from their students, and when video receptive devices were not readily available, as the evidence i offer later reveals. in the absence of face-to-face contact for mediating essential content with students, lecturers would thus have had to rely on communication and learning affordances that come as close as possible to the physical teaching and learning situation. but here the so-called digital divide was obvious. mpungose (2020), in his study of university students during the pandemic referred to the digital divide as “the gap between those who have and do not have access to computers and the internet” (p. 2), and that hampers the south african move to e-learning in higher education in spite of efforts to provide data and devices to students. his findings showed that the university did not have an e-learning policy in place, and neither was adequate training provided. furthermore, he averred that “many students did not have laptops in spite of the university having provided these, and they preferred their mobile phones with free network data bandwidth for communicating amongst themselves” (p. 7). the difficulties of continuing learning under lockdown and the dilemma faced by tvet lecturers surveyed (and the students) are aptly described as representing a case of “maslow before bloom” (berger (2020) cited in jeffrey 2020, para. 8); see also porter, 2020.) in his well-known theorisation maslow’s hierarchy of needs or human motivations at seven levels—the physiological, safety, belongingness, love, esteem, self-actualization and selftranscendence—describes the transitions or growth that human beings experience in life. at the most basic level humans have to satisfy their bodily needs of food, shelter, and safety before they can move on to focusing on emotional needs, and only then can they consider higher level self-actualisation desires. bloom’s taxonomy, however, with its range of cognitive development across the six levels of knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, refers to stages in the cognitive domain in his theorising of how the brain processes information. by somewhat facetiously juxtaposing maslow and bloom, the point being made is that human beings need to have their basic physical needs 72 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 met before they can be concerned with progressing through cognitive levels. the maslow vs bloom prism was particularly helpful to me in appraising the experiences of college lecturers at the onset of the covid-19 crisis that resulted in an almost immediate lockdown. it was apparent from the survey responses that while the hiatus in teaching and learning was deeply concerning, it was overshadowed by concerns for personal health and safety, and the conditions under which students and lecturers had to function. taking the temperature: tvet lecturer responses to remote teaching and learning early in the south african lockdown in may 2020, i conducted a small, targeted survey of college lecturers located in three provinces, the western cape, eastern cape, and gauteng. the respondents consisted largely of full-time college lecturers who were also postgraduate candidates enrolled in the institution in which i was based, so they provided a convenient sample, especially since they were teaching in colleges across more than one province. the group of thirty college lecturers presented an opportunity for me to learn first-hand how they were experiencing the impact of covid-19 at their colleges early in the pandemic. in this snapshot survey research of limited scope, i was essentially testing the water at a particular point in time when, as a country, people everywhere were at their most vulnerable and most uncertain about the future. i undertook this survey in response to anecdotal reports that college lecturers were struggling to maintain their academic responsibilities, so i intended to gather some empirical data at a time of deep crisis—a situation that always appears easier with hindsight. the sample was by no means representative, but the methodology enabled me to identify respondents across 10 (of 50) public colleges i.e., 6 in the western cape, 2 in the eastern cape, and 2 in gauteng, and to gain consent for their participation. since colleges were about four weeks into the lockdown, it was an opportune moment to find out how they were experiencing the sudden shift and obtain voluntary input from those willing to share their thoughts and feelings on the new modality they were being asked to adopt early in the covid-19 crisis. i decided to pose open-ended questions given the small scale of the survey, and to enable me to elicit authentic, unrestricted, and candid responses. the questions probed lecturers’ views on how their students were coping with remote teaching and learning under conditions of lockdown and on how their colleagues were coping, their impressions of college planning, and their associated feelings/fears/anxieties at the time. i coded the 30 completed questionnaires analytically in line with an interpretive approach, and in terms of the categories of responses obtained for the particular questions i asked. i then undertook a qualitative content analysis in terms of the codes identified and this yielded the themes i report on below. since the intention with this research was to obtain the perspectives of college lecturers, the emphasis was on allowing the data to speak for itself as far as possible. for purposes of this paper of limited scope, i provide only a selection of extracts from the papier: 21st century competences in tvet 73 data (anonymised attributions by means of assigned data codes in order to protect confidentiality) for illustrative purposes. summary of themes extracted from the data the responses from lecturers at the height of the covid-19 crisis in education and training reflect sharply the realities of government’s call to leave no student behind and to save the academic year. the themes i report on below summarise for purposes of this article the main concerns voiced by college lecturers, and then, in the section that follows, i situate them within the broader debates emerging in the literature at the time of the research in 2020. unconducive conditions for remote teaching and learning it was evident from the lecturer feedback in the study that students struggled to continue their learning at home. at a basic level many homes were not conducive to study nor to distance education. connectivity and other affordances were not readily available, some families had lost incomes because of their being unemployed during lockdown, and bereavement following deaths from covid-19 was affecting students. the majority (90%) of lecturer comments were negative about the abilities of students (and staff) to work from home, albeit for slightly different reasons. many (students) are in informal settlements. above all, most learners indicated that they cannot study at home because of overcrowding conditions coupled with high noise levels and it is difficult to have study times within their homes. some students send messages indicating that they cannot learn online and prefer face to face. (lecturer a1) they might be able to, but they won’t for personal reasons and domestic reasons, as the living conditions are mostly not conducive to learning. some learners are unreachable. some have changed cell phone numbers or may have lost the cell phone. (lecturer a4) one of the biggest issues is that staff and students do not have the resources required to work from home. data costs in south africa [are] ridiculously expensive and the majority of our students come from very poor backgrounds. most of the students at our colleges live from hand to mouth and their purpose for studying is to improve basic living conditions. where the majority of our students come from, the areas are worst affected. (lecturer g2) two thirds of lecturers reported they could themselves identify with the difficulties experienced by their students since conditions in their own homes were not conducive to teaching remotely. some had extended family living with them, and their accommodation was too small for them to devote a quiet space to teaching and engaging with their students. women staff members, in particular, seemed to bear the brunt of working from home since they had to tend to their children when schools or day-care centres were closed, and homeschooling them was time consuming. 74 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 in a report on a workshop held at stellenbosch university, bugan (2020) referred to a keynote address by eminent education scholar jonathan jansen with regard to a study entitled “gender inequality in the shadow of covid-19” for which jansen and colleagues conducted research among a sample of women academics at south african universities. in this study the impact of the pandemic on women academics in particular was striking in that women continued to work in spite of having to carry out regular household chores and take care of children in a congested space in which many were competing for broadband. women academics’ productivity was negatively impacted by institutional pressures and their feelings of responsibility to nurture anxious students. there was considerable guilt in balancing work and home lives, but it was remarkable, respondents felt, that, “despite the pandemic, the demand for academic performance from university management continues as if nothing has happened” (bugan, 2020, n.p.). similar feelings of frustration were echoed by tvet college lecturers who felt that college authorities were not being sympathetic to their plight, as the extracts below illustrate. the first extract is illustrative of the majority of lecturers (80%) fearful for their health and safety, while the second reflects more pragmatic views (20%) of the understanding that covid-19 might be around for a long time and there was, therefore, a need to adapt to its continued presence and make the best of a difficult situation. although most of the tvet college sector was not prepared, we have done our best in this situation. perhaps it would be better to freeze the academic year for just one year, or simply take up lost time in the overlap of each year, until we accommodate the time lost due to the pandemic. we should rather focus on the safety and emotional and psychological well-being of the staff. the reality of each college & institution is so different especially with regard to available resources. (lecturer g5) i somehow feel that tvet authorities want to place curriculum ahead of safety. however, it is reality that we will have to get back to work because of the economic situation in the country. thus, we will have to learn to live with covid in our midst . . . using personal vigilance and hygiene. (lecturer g6) inability to learn remotely and independently in responding to whether students would be able to learn using online and remote teaching methods, most (90%) of the lecturers surveyed were emphatic that tvet college students in their courses would not be able to navigate online content without substantive lecturer guidance, especially in the nc(v) programmes in which students were thought to be “too immature to take responsibility for their own learning” (lecturer a9). lecturer a8 (see below) felt that students might be able to learn on their own under certain conditions. a number of students had sent their lecturer messages to say they could not learn online and preferred to be able to “hear the teacher, and to ask questions” (lecturer a23). some extracts from the data further illustrate this sentiment. papier: 21st century competences in tvet 75 no, most of the students will not be able to cope on their own . . . students have already indicated that self-study is a challenge for them . . . to learn on their own and break down concepts. i think it is even more challenging when the course they are studying has a large practical component to it. (lecturer a5) the students in this context will not be able to cope in a platform that requires autonomous learning methods. especially since their lecturer was always present in face-to-face learning sessions. learning independently from textbooks and online learning results in many challenges. students struggle to read and interpret information on their own. (lecturer a3) to a certain extent they can learn independently from textbooks and online, however, only really within a well-conceived blended context. our tvet learners generally do not have the cognitive maturity to handle online learning completely on their own (this is not meant as derogatory) and rely on guided learning. (lecturer a8) nated students can cope when studying independently because they are more mature, but ncv students may suffer because they mostly. . . want to be policed to do and complete their work. (lecturer a7) lack of learning affordances with regard to affordances for remote learning, 40% of respondents mentioned their colleges’ use of the free moodle platform for engaging with learners and for posting learning materials, but high data costs at the time proved prohibitive. whatsapp was the predominant means for keeping in contact with students for over 70% of lecturer respondents, but, according to them, the platform did not lend itself to volumes of information, and the small phone screen was difficult to manage. often, there were no responses from “students who simply kept under the radar” (lecturer a25). students appeared to have access mostly to cell phones for downloading content rather than computers. but the problem reported in relation to unanswered whatsapp messages was that many students live in areas in neighbourhoods where cell phone theft is rife, and phones were often stolen. in addition, students struggled with data or wi-fi capability, as these extracts explain. because of the lack of access to computers the learning takes place on phones. however, adequate data remains a challenge. (lecturer a2) i have received numerous complaints that my students do not have data to go online, besides some of them asked if the college could buy them cell phones as well . . . cell phones are often stolen leaving them stranded. (lecturer a1) online content is the most challenging due to the fact of it requiring internet access. internet access is highly limited as students cannot afford data, and some not owning devices that can access the internet. conclusively, students are not coping well without the face-to-face mediation of the lecturer, based on correspondence with students in the whatsapp platform. (lecturer a3) 76 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 most (60%) of the sampled college lecturers also reported that they had relied on college computer and printing facilities for doing their lesson preparation, and they, and their colleagues, had varying levels of access to affordances like data and devices for working from home, nor could they afford the resources needed to do so. although not all lecturers are in the possession of a college laptop, they willingly use their personal resources due to the intensity of the challenges faced during the lockdown. the main things needed are compatible mobile devices, laptops, internet access, and most importantly, high efforts and dedication. not one lecturer was prepared or trained for such emergency education situations. (lecturer b5) . . . most lecturers have a lack of connectivity hampering their efforts because data is expensive. the college should provide data to the lecturers. although some lecturers are able to use online learning tools, they need re-training or refresher course. it is a catch-22 situation, because the college did not have prior budgets for this unexpected expense. (lecturer b1) deep-seated fears and anxieties: fear of infection and anxiety about the academic year the early days of the pandemic resulted in widespread fear and anxiety as the following extracts, illustrative of 80% of the sample, indicate. fear of infection was heightened among lecturers at the time, with responses relating to the safety of self and their immediate family members predominant, but also to fears for students’ safety. some lecturers and students commute using taxis, and it is worrisome because their health /safety will be undermined if the college and government do not put enough mechanisms to manage this. in addition, lecturers are sceptical about the level of preparedness to re-open particularly in terms of provision of sanitary measures. (lecturer c1) as an asthmatic, i am fearful of contracting covid-19 as i fall in the high-risk category. there are many staff members who are over 60 and with underlying medical conditions that put them at risk. my concern is that tvet leadership is currently not taking the matter seriously and have not come up with a plan of how to deal with this. (lecturer c8) anxieties were also related to how students were coping with the workload without physical access to their teachers, to the accessibility of content for students, and to how exams would be conducted. lecturers were not convinced of their students’ preparedness for examinations. we are anxious because we are not able to reach 100% of learners. this could be because not all learners have access to electronic devices or data. however, in some instances learners have never been exposed to online platforms and are insecure. some learners are not motivated enough to go the extra mile to ensure that they succeed and do not take ownership of their studies. (lecturer c3) papier: 21st century competences in tvet 77 our main anxieties lie with the accessibility of the content for students. not all students have internet access for obtaining online content, making it extremely difficult for learning to take place. readily available data is scarce due to the cost for the students. in addition, some students do not own mobile devices compatible with using whatsapp. (lecturer c4) some are concerned with how the academic year will be saved, especially with regard to the exit level students. lecturers are anxious about the workload with unrealistic deadlines. the way in which examinations will be conducted is also a great concern. (lecturer c6) the 2020 performance statistics will be an important indicator of the impact of the covid19 year on student academic performance, but this will likely be available only in 2022 since departmental statistics reports are produced two years retrospectively. nonetheless, it will be a moment to reflect soberly on what had been demanded from students and lecturers, and the gap that had to be breached in order to meet official expectations. many lecturers felt anxious about their abilities to use computer technology properly, expressing that they felt generally inadequately prepared for what the college was expecting of them. the anxiety stems from the move from traditional to online learning where many feel challenged by technology and its use in online learning. (lecturer c7) i so wish that our tvet sector can be realistic in terms of their expectations. we are all doing our best to flatten the curve, but we still remain scared of the virus. returning to work is never going to be an easy exercise especially for people with underlying illnesses as disclosing your health status is never an easy task. (lecturer g3) a general mood of uncertainty when asked to describe their mood and that of their colleagues, lecturers used descriptors that were simple yet eloquent. a word graphic revealed these commonly used adjectives, from highest to lowest frequency: anxious, overwhelmed, unprepared, daunted (by technology), lost, confused, scared, frustrated, and rushed. about half of the respondents chose to offer more explanatory responses. we are scared and frustrated because we are struggling under normal circumstance so we have no idea what the consequences of these uncertain times will be in terms of our learners’ academic performance (that is my greatest fear). (lecturer f9) generally, the mood is ‘cautious’ and ‘pensive’ about covid and the workplace. however, the majority are keen to get back to a sense of normality. staff are looking 78 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 for a good plan from management that assures their safety and enables students to engage in meaningful t&l. (lecturer f11) summary of lecturers’ concerns what was striking from the survey data was that lecturers across the three south african provinces, from a range of tvet colleges, clearly demonstrated the maslow/bloom dilemma they experienced with regard to their responsibility for teaching and learning on the one hand, and how they were being affected physically and emotionally by the pandemic on the other. the following issues could be distilled from the majority of the respondents’ feedback. • lecturers were conflicted by fears for their health and safety should the college try to return to face-to-face learning prematurely; • lecturers were frustrated by what they perceived to be the authorities’ focus on continuing the learning programme at the cost of compromising staff health; • lecturers were deeply concerned about losing contact with their students due to the lack of affordances for communicating and teaching; • lecturers were anxious about their own access to necessary devices and connectivity and the personal cost thereof; and • lecturers were worried about students not being able to learn without face-to-face contact classes, and possibly losing them through failure or drop-out. the concerns set out above found purchase in the comparative literature, most of which emanated around the time that the local survey on which i am reporting here was conducted, but came also from countries that had been exposed to the coronavirus before it reached south african shores so these writers had more time during which to assess its impact. this short review does not purport to take in all of the extant literature, but it serves to locate the local study within a broader research context. comparative experiences of the impact of covid-19 on teaching and learning it can be seen from the brief round-up of international research that was being done relatively early in the pandemic, that vocational education the world over, even in more established systems, was undergoing experiences similar to those expressed by educators in my local study. the concerns distilled from this local survey were remarkably similar to those reported below. hoftijzer et al., in a world bank blog (2020, para. 2), echoed the sentiments expressed by college lecturers in south africa at the height of the pandemic. the degree to which learning can still take place outside the classroom, including in tvet, is often limited by lack of access to electricity, internet connectivity, devices or media, learning platforms, or the inadequate preparation of instructors and students papier: 21st century competences in tvet 79 for remote education. some students, particularly women and girls, face additional constraints in terms of time availability due to competing responsibilities, such as caring for children and elderly family members and other household duties. adjustments to distance learning can be the hardest in low-income contexts and among vulnerable students. the blog continued to note that tvet learning that should have a focus on practical application and work preparation, may be hardest hit by remote learning, since “remote learning approaches are a weak substitute for practical exercises when they require the use of equipment or materials not usually found inside the home.” (para. 3). another international publication (international labour organisation (ilo) policy brief, 2020a, p. 1) noted that “the shift to online or distance learning during the pandemic should be seen first and foremost as an emergency response.” but it holds that covid-19 definitely opened the door to more flexible learning solutions, albeit ones born of necessity and the acknowledgement that college managements, educators, and students need extensive training and support to engage fruitfully in remote and online learning. across the world in tvet colleges, for instance in europe, russia, bangladesh, and latin america, reports show the emergency measures that had to be taken to continue learning and teaching (ilo, 2020b; ilo cinterfor, 2020). video recordings, free online training platforms, facebook, webinars, public radio channels, and other affordances are some of the examples of the explosion of interventions that resulted from the crisis in education delivery. covid19 has clearly become a catalyst for educational institutions worldwide to search for innovative solutions in a relatively short period of time. diverse stakeholders such as governments, publishers, education professionals, technology providers, and telecom network operators came together to use digital platforms as a temporary solution to the crisis. however, the literature also reveals the huge regional inequities in digital infrastructure and capacity, more so in the tvet and skills sector where under-investment has limited the quality of both face-to-face and online delivery over the long term in many countries. a recent survey by the world bank in central asia found that 70% of countries had minimal distance learning capabilities, with no country having universal online curriculum-linked resources for teaching and learning (world bank, 2020). even european education systems were found to be underprepared for digitalisation, with 40% of european union citizens lacking basic digital skills and fewer than 40% of teachers and trainers receiving training on educational technologies during their initial teacher education (solidar foundation, 2020). alongside the need for digital skills, attitudes and behaviours towards digital learning are also proving to be of major importance. learners appeared to struggle with maintaining engagement in digital courses because of the lack of a supportive context, previous experience, and/or adequate instructional methods. the transition from face-to-face to distance and blended learning has clearly been daunting for both students and teachers. with regard to educators, online learning prior to covid-19 had been anticipated as a means to expand access to tertiary education, with a number of studies being conducted to examine 80 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 its implications for teacher preparation, inter alia. in a study that investigated university teacher educators’ readiness and attitudes towards a change to online learning in their preservice teacher programmes, downing and dyment (2013) found that, “the majority of teacher educators initially reported lacking confidence and competence with the technological and pedagogical skills required to teach online ” (p.106 ). budhrani et al. (2019, p. 98), with regard to lecturer preparation for online learning noted that “course design involves not only preparing materials, course lectures, activities, and assessments in advance, but also providing clear expectations of assignments and/or activities, and anticipating student questions.” cutri et al., (2020) described the sudden transition to online learning by their university in the usa at the onset of the pandemic as “crisis online course transitioning.” few of the lecturers in their teacher education faculty had ever taught online or in blended formats before. with university closures, these staff members had to create and implement online teaching with minimal preparation, and with no choice. the authors concluded that “the conditions of transitioning to online classes during a crisis rendered a longitudinal perspective on readiness and expertise almost useless” (p. 524). brooks and grajek (2020), summarised a series of reports on educator readiness for the sudden move to online learning during the pandemic in the us and commented that there are huge gaps between the work faculty are being asked to do and the tools that are being provided to conduct that work. . . many faculty will be woefully unprepared or underprepared to take on the task of creating quality online learning experiences for their students.” (para. 2) furthermore, they reported that only 6% of faculty prefer to teach completely online courses . . . the institutional support needed to transition faculty to completely online courses is monumental, and that burden could have cascading negative consequences for long-term instructor morale and disposition toward online courses generally. (para. 5) in some institutions they averred that teaching face-to-face has as much to do with teaching philosophy and instructional identity as it does with pedagogical approach . . . one of the reasons faculty don’t want to teach online is that they don’t believe it helps students learn effectively. (para. 6) junus et al., (2021) pointed to the many aspects that must be taken into account in moving to e-learning in their noting that transition to e-learning is the whole process of change, the actual conversion of each course in an institution, including the training of faculty, and the faculty finalizing their courses and then migrating to the new online environment . . . even in normal papier: 21st century competences in tvet 81 conditions, transition from face to face to e-learning is considerably time consuming and changes the faculty’s role and teaching responsibilities. (p. 3) the comparative experiences of the impact of covid-19 on education and training around the world were largely consistent with that of south africa at the onset of the pandemic. in particular, the emphasis on what was needed by learners and lecturers compelled prematurely into remote learning, in terms of resourcing, skills, and attitudes, found resonance in the local study i have described. in contrast with the reflective comparative studies, though, time needs to be taken in south africa to focus on the innovations in tvet pedagogy and practices that have undoubtedly come to the fore since i did the research on which this article is based. concluding comment in this article, i have attempted to offer some insight into the experiences and views of tvet college lecturers in south africa at a moment of intense uncertainty, confronted as they were by an inexplicable global and national threat, and with no idea as to how the situation would unfold after march 2020 when government responded with serious measures to halt the spread of the coronavirus. despite advances in blended and remote learning approaches at the time and interventions for developing digital literacy skills among tvet students in process, when the pandemic struck, tvet institutions were, for the most part, not ready, willing, or able at short notice to substitute face-to-face interactive pedagogies for technology-dependent remote learning and teaching. evidence from around the globe tells a similar institutional story, but also demonstrates the importance of acknowledging systemic weaknesses and collaborating in seeking solutions that address the needs of the most vulnerable. in all crisis situations there are inevitably gains and losses. the sudden advent of covid-19 impelled adaptation and innovation and rendered lessons that need to be reflected in policies and practices in the aftermath of the immediate crisis. as the dust begins to settle for tvet colleges there has to be serious appraisal of the conditions under which learning has taken place, how successful or otherwise it has been (performance statistics for 2021/21 may be an indicator of this), the unintentional learning that did occur, and the physical and emotional toll it has taken on all role-players. acknowledgement the author acknowledges the support of the south african national research foundation (nrf), through the south african research chairs initiative (sarchi) and specifically the tvet teaching and learning chair, which supported her in the writing of this article. all views expressed, however, are the author’s own and are not attributable to the nrf. 82 journal of education, no. 84, 2021 references brooks, d. c., & grajek, s. 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(2016). the fourth industrial revolution. crown publishing group. solidar foundation (2020), briefing note–e-learning: universal access to education at a time of online learning. https://www.solidar.org/en/publications/briefing-note-e-learninguniversal-access-to-education-at-a-time-of-online-learning microsoft word bissue76full21oct.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 76, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i76a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x improving grade r mathematics teaching in south africa: evidence from an impact evaluation of a province-wide intervention eleanor hazell executive manager, monitoring and evaluation, jet education services, cape town, south africa ehazell@jet.org.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0243-0082 garth spencer-smith centre for education practice research, faculty of education, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa garth@kelello.org https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8950-1500 nicky roberts centre for education practice research, faculty of education, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa nroberts@uj.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1910-0162 (received: 17 february 2019; accepted: 24 april 2019) abstract we present the impact on learner outcomes of a province-wide grade r mathematics intervention (termed rmaths) in relation to theoretical frameworks established from a meta-evaluation of evaluations of education interventions in south africa and a review of other meta-evaluation and synthesis studies. we compare the changes in mathematics performance from baseline to end line, of learners in the intervention group (taught by r-maths-trained teachers/practitioners) to the comparison group (learners in schools in the same districts, but whose teachers/practitioners had not yet received the r-maths intervention). the intervention group performed 2.9 percentage points better than the comparison group over the whole marko-d test of mathematical competencies, with a small effect size. the greatest effects on performance were from language of learning and teaching, and district. the r-maths case indicates that a modified cascade model which includes some elements of fleisch’s “educational triple cocktail” (structured learning materials, teacher training, and support) may be successful by working with, and through, department of education structures. whether the effects are retained over time and if these effects can be replicated in different contexts is not yet known. keywords: mathematics, early grade, at scale, marko-d, grade r, evaluation hazell et al.: improving grade r mathematics teaching in south africa 49 introduction in a context of poor education outcomes, substantial spending on education, and limited documented evidence regarding what works, there is a pressing need for evaluation research to be subjected to academic scrutiny and published in the public domain. in this paper, we contribute to addressing this gap. we report on the findings of a quasi-experimental impact evaluation of a province-wide early grade mathematics intervention (termed r-maths). the r-maths project was implemented across the western cape province in south africa in grade r and led by the western cape education department (wced). the intervention aimed to strengthen the teaching and learning of mathematics in grade r and, ultimately, to improve the conceptual understanding and mathematical skills of grade r learners, such that they would enjoy mathematics and be (academically) successful in the foundation phase. the project targeted grade r and a specific learning area (mathematics). its impact on learner achievement is therefore pertinent and we discuss this later in this article. r-maths made use of elements of the “educational triple cocktail” to which fleisch (2018) refers in the title of his book, in that it includes teacher training, learning, teaching and support materials (ltsm), and follow-up support. however, its implementation differed in that rather than training and supporting teachers/practitioners 1 directly, subject advisors were trained and supported and they, in turn, trained and supported the teachers/practitioners. rmaths therefore offers another implementation model for a large-scale (province-wide) intervention in mathematics delivered via existing department of education structures. the findings of the r-maths evaluation are situated in context by our presenting them in relation to the headline findings of review and synthesis studies of evaluations of education interventions that are relevant to the south african context and were recently reviewed by hazell (2019). theoretical orientation there are two aspects that inform our theoretical orientation to this paper. first, we draw on education and, specifically, school intervention literature to present various frameworks for describing interventions and we use one to describe r-maths. second, we draw on impact evaluations of education interventions that are primarily experimental or quasi-experimental in design and that focus specifically on impact on learner outcomes. we use these to identify promising levers for change and indicate which were included or excluded from the r-maths project. 1 teachers/practitioners is the terminology used for consistency purposes to refer to the individuals teaching grade r learners. the majority of the individuals teaching grade r in the western cape (and even more so in most other provinces in south africa) are practitioners with various levels of early childhood development (ecd) training; very few are qualified educators. 50 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 frameworks for describing school interventions interventions that aim to improve learner education outcomes can be categorised in a variety of ways. the level of the intervention, primary target group, intervention type, and conceptual/theoretical basis for the intervention can all be considered. typologies include that developed by snilstveit et al., (2015) who developed a typology of school outcome interventions based on the level of intervention and focusing on the primary beneficiary of the inputs: • child level: school feeding, school-based health, merit-based scholarships, providing information (about education) to children; • household level: eliminating user-fees, cash-transfers, scholarships and allowances, providing information (about education) to parents; • school level: structured pedagogy, computer assisted learning, remedial education, grouping students by ability, providing materials, new schools and infrastructure; • teacher level: teacher hiring incentives, teacher performance incentives, teacher training, diagnostic feedback (providing teachers with information about learners); • system-level interventions: school-based management, community-based monitoring, private-public partnerships and private provision of schooling; and • multi-level interventions: with interventions that may include any combination of those outlined above. in south africa, besharati and tsotsotso (2015) conducted a systematic review and metaanalysis of interventions implemented since 1994 that aim to improve learner performance outcomes. they identified the following broad types of interventions: • learner-targeted support; • teacher-centred initiatives; • provision of ltsm; • management and governance; • infrastructure and facilities; • structural reforms, policies and incentives; • community/family involvement; and • whole school development. their classification mixes the levels of the intervention with the type of support (or what is done for the primary beneficiaries). taking a very broad view of types of school interventions, mcewan (2015), who conducted a meta-analysis of randomised control trials of primary school interventions in lowand middle-income countries, identified three broad types: • instructional: information and communications technology, teacher training, class size or composition, instructional materials, and grants. hazell et al.: improving grade r mathematics teaching in south africa 51 • health and/or nutrition-based: food, beverage and/or micronutrients, and deworming. • incentive-based: contract or volunteer teachers, student and/or teacher incentives, school management or supervision, and informational. this type of classification focuses on what is being done, rather than on which levels of the system or which mechanisms are used. in reflecting on how to describe and classify types of school interventions, mouton, wildschut, richter, & pocock (2013) distinguished between interventions targeting different levels, stages, or phases of schooling, learning areas (school subjects) and non-learning areas (governance, school leadership and management, and curriculum management), and intervention types. homing in on sub-saharan africa, conn (2017) conducted a meta-analysis of randomised control trials and quasi-experimental impact evaluations, and identified five broad types of interventions: • quality of instruction: class size and composition, instructional time, pedagogical interventions (including technology-assisted learning) and school supplies; • school or community financial limitations: cash transfers and infrastructure; • school or system accountability: information provision and management interventions; • cognitive processing: school meals and health treatments; • motivation: student incentives and teacher incentives; and • school type: particular types of schools. here we see a greater focus on levers for change or, in other words, how change occurs. the above are illustrative examples of the plethora of ways in which school interventions are categorised. it appears that most meta-evaluators create their own typologies for classification and that there is little agreement in the field on a systematic way to describe interventions. we found the heuristic and decision framework developed by mouton et al. (2013) to be helpful in distinguishing different components of the descriptive typology of interventions. this conceptualises school interventions according to: • component 1: the target group (which brings in consideration for level of the system; target phases at the school, the domains of learning and the scale in terms of the population of target schools); • component 2: intervention type or mode (which identifies particular levers for change); and • component 3: implementation theory (which includes consideration for how the intervention will work, location, duration, dosage, cost and so on). 52 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 figure 1: intervention design framework (source: mouton et al., 2013) guidance on how to classify and describe each sub-component is, however, absent. this is understandable given that it was intended as an intervention design framework to guide decision-making. nonetheless, we argue that this framework provides a coherent and detailed way of describing interventions and can therefore be used a typology for intervention type. this framework has also been applied elsewhere in relation to mathematics interventions in south african schools (roberts, mostert, & takane, 2015). we therefore apply this to our description of the r-maths intervention. successful interventions and promising levers for change identified from a scan of other studies in this section we present examples, drawn from the literature, that made use of distinct typologies for classifying types of education interventions. first, we provide findings from meta-analyses on what types of education interventions were the most effective in improving learner performance. second, we provide some findings from specific south african education interventions. in our scan of the literature, we were struck by the lack of detail provided in most metaanalyses; their application of typologies varied and focused usually only on one (or, at the most, two) components of the mouton et al. (2013) intervention design framework. across a number of recent meta-review and synthesis studies, interventions that target teachers and aim to enhance the quality of instruction, via the introduction of specific teaching methods and/or capacity building, alongside the provision of ltsm, are identified hazell et al.: improving grade r mathematics teaching in south africa 53 as promising. for example, snilstveit et al. (2015) found that the largest and most consistently positive effects in terms of learner performance outcomes were for teacher-level structured pedagogy interventions. these are described as interventions aimed at improving the content and quality of teaching by introducing new and improved content and teaching methods (for example, the provision of lesson plans and training and support for teachers to use them). structured pedagogy interventions were found to have an average effect 2 of 0.23 on language test scores and 0.14 on mathematics test scores. similarly, mcewan (2015) found that teacher training interventions had the second largest mean effect size (0.12) while conn (2017) found that interventions that aim to improve teaching quality were most successful: pedagogical and instructional time interventions had the greatest average effect size (0.918 and 0.464 respectively). further analysis was conducted by conn (2017) to investigate what types of pedagogical interventions were most effective. evidence was found that (both teacher and computer-led) interventions that assess and adapt to a learner’s level were particularly effective; teacher-training interventions that included mentoring and/or in-school coaching had consistently positive effects; and the provision of materials in local languages featured commonly in successful interventions. remedial education (average effect of 0.19 on mathematics test scores and 0.16 on language test scores) was also identified as a promising approach by snilstveit et al. (2015). the successful interventions described above have some commonalities with the promising levers for change identified by hazell (2019) in the south african context. other types of interventions that the reviews and synthesis studies have identified as promising with respect to improving education outcomes are quite diverse and include for mcewan (2015), interventions that use computers or technology (average effect of 0.15); class size and/or composition (0.12); contract or volunteer teachers (0.10); student and/or teacher performance incentives (0.09); and ltsm (0.08). for snilstveit et al. (2015) these include extra time in school (average effect of 0.09 on mathematics test scores and 0.19 on language test scores), school feeding (average effect of 0.10 on mathematics test scores and 0.09 on language test scores), and merit-based scholarships (average effect of 0.11 on mathematics test scores and 0.04 on language test scores). in a unique study, besharati and tsotsotso (2015) investigated the influence of target phase and found that interventions implemented in lower grades and phases of the south african schooling system have a greater effect on learner performance. further, they investigated differences in terms of intervention scale and found that interventions designed and implemented by academics/researchers for the purposes of research and piloting had greater effects than interventions implemented at scale by the private sector and government. however, they suggested that it may not be the interventions per se that are better or worse, but, rather, that it is more challenging to attain a large effect on learner performance when implementing at scale. 2 average standardised mean difference. 54 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 a challenge in comparing the findings across studies is that researchers, for example, snilstveit et al. (2015) and conn (2017) used different typologies for classifying interventions, thus making it difficult to compare like with like, and few considered the level of granular detail like target phase/grades and intervention scale that the more detailed south african study by besharati and tsotsotso (2015) did. nevertheless, looking across these studies one can find a common thread in that typically the most effective interventions focus on teachers in their classrooms with appropriate pedagogical mentoring/support, and ltsm which are appropriate and tailored to the cognitive level of learners. other interventions were found to be effective by one or two authors, like for example, computers or technology, ltsm (only), incentives and changing class size or composition, but not across contexts. a recent meta-evaluation conducted by hazell (2019) reveals that there have been promising interventions implemented on a variety of scales 3 over the past five years. she found that the two types of interventions that have been evaluated rigorously and that have demonstrated promising results are 1) ones that offer fleisch’s (2018) “education triple cocktail” of ltsm, lesson plans, and individual coaching (fleisch, 2018) and 2) those that commence with diagnostic testing and target ltsm and teaching to learners’ current ability level. an example of the former type is the gauteng primary literacy and mathematics strategy (gplms), which was undertaken in 1,040 under-performing schools in gauteng province, south africa, targeting grade 1 to 7 literacy/language and numeracy/maths teachers, who were provided with just-in-time training, lessons plans and other ltsm, and individual coaching. phase 1 of the gplms was implemented from 2010–2014. the programme was evaluated via a quasi-experimental study that exploited a so-called natural experiment that occurred when some under-performing schools, which should have received the intervention, were left out mistakenly. schools that received the intervention recorded improved learner performance in early grade maths test scores as compared to similar schools which had not benefitted from the programme. significant differences were found between treatment and comparison schools grade 1 and 3 mathematics annual national assessment (ana) test scores after one year, with an effect of between 0.35-0.61 standard deviations (sd), increasing after two years. weakly statistically significant differences were found for grade 2 and nonstatistically significant differences were found for grade 4. a cohort analysis following a sample of learners from grades 1 to 3 found a difference (effect size) of 0.7 after two years, and following a cohort of learners from grades 2 to 4 showed an effect size of 0.5 sd after one year, which disappeared by grade 4 (fleisch, schöer, roberts, & thornton, 2016). the department of basic education followed these encouraging results, by conducting randomised control trials with multiple treatment arms to test the efficacy of different variations of this model including: 1) the relative efficacy of training with ltsm or training with ltsm and individual coaching in improving literacy in home language in the foundation phase; and 2) the relative efficacy and cost-effectiveness of providing in-person or virtual coaching in improving english literacy in the foundation phase. in the first study, the groups were equivalent at baseline and, after two years, learners whose teachers received 3 from small-scale, (i.e. in 5-18 schools), to programmes rolled out at a provincial scale. hazell et al.: improving grade r mathematics teaching in south africa 55 ltsm, training, and coaching were 0.252 sd ahead of the control group, as compared to learners whose teachers received ltsm and training only who were 0.12 sd ahead of the control group (kotzé, fleisch, & taylor, 2018). the second type of promising interventions to which hazell (2019) referred were implemented at smaller scale and have not been assessed as rigorously, but also indicate promising results in terms of helping to address learning gaps. the primary maths research project, a research-based pedagogical intervention developed and evaluated by schollar (2015), was found to be successful in improving learner performance in a custom-designed mathematics test, with grade 4 learners whose teachers received training in the project methodology and ltsm experiencing significant gains (as compared to a control group) after completing the 14-week intervention. a follow-up study conducted three years later found that the learning gains had been sustained. the learner regeneration project trained teachers and community facilitators to support learning and provided ltsm at the appropriate level. substantial improvements were found in literacy and language performance in the foundation and intermediate phases. both these interventions commenced with diagnostic testing and the provision of ltsm and teaching tailored to their level (prinsloo, harvey, thaba, & moodley, 2015). the evaluation studies that reported on the second group of promising interventions were reports, not published papers, and did not report effect size in the same way as did the first group of studies. in conclusion, the effect size of interventions identified as promising in international synthesis studies is often quite small, upwards of around 0.1 sd. interventions identified as promising in the south african context have slightly larger effect sizes (upwards of around 0.2 sd) and the effect is often measured after a period of two years. in some instances, effects found after a period of one year were found to have tapered off a year later. r-maths project description using the mouton et al. (2013) intervention design framework, we describe the r-maths intervention in terms of component 1 (the target group), component 2 (the intervention type or mode) and component 3 (implementation theory). component 1: the r-maths target group the grade r early mathematics (r-maths) project was an initiative led by the wced. mathematics content development, training and support was provided by the schools development unit of the university of cape town (uct). the r-maths project worked with and targeted subject advisors directly, who, in turn, provided support to grade r teachers/practitioners while learners were the group that the project aimed to benefit ultimately. the overarching goal identified for the project was to improve the conceptual understanding and mathematical skills of grade r learners in western cape, such that they would enjoy mathematics and be (academically) successful in the foundation phase. it targeted grade r 56 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 (which is now considered part of the foundation phase) and a specific learning area— mathematics). component 2: r-maths intervention type or mode the project fits a number of the intervention modes identified by mouton et al. (2013): appropriate ltsm developed specifically for the project (in the form of facilitators’ guides and participants’ materials for the training and cluster workshops, a mathematics concept guide, termly guides that provide a curriculum framework, lesson ideas, and teaching aids); training in early grade mathematics content and teaching methodologies, and follow-up support were provided to foundation phase subject advisors. this included what were called “principles of teaching” that promote learning opportunities for mathematics in grade r settings, appropriate practical classroom methodology that encourages thinking and reasoning, as well as play-based teaching that demonstrates how to teach the mathematics concepts, all within, and mindful of, the south african context. the materials were translated and made available in english, afrikaans, and isixhosa. in turn, the subject advisors provided ltsm, workshops, training and (limited) follow-up support to grade r teachers/practitioners in early grade mathematics content and teaching methodologies. subject advisors’ interaction with teachers/practitioners was mainly through cluster-based workshops and training sessions, and via whatsapp chat groups but not individually nor at their schools. although not the focus of this paper, it should be noted that the nature of the learning materials differed from the daily structured lessons offered by the gplms and subsequent studies conducted by the department of basic education. the r-maths materials included structured support on how to train and support teachers/practitioners as well as a weekly rhythm of classroom activities (which, while addressing the core mathematical ideas in the national curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps), did not make use of the suggested detailed learning programme offered in caps). so, the materials were not daily lesson plans, but offered a core teaching focus for each week, and a related set of workstations for group activity that were then repeated over each five-day cycle. the key levers for change that the programme was expected to operate through were: subject advisors would be upskilled in content and pedagogy and resourced to train and support grade r teachers/practitioners; and teachers/practitioners would be upskilled in content and methodology to teach grade r mathematics and resourced to deliver interactive, interesting, age and grade appropriate mathematics lessons. component 3: r-maths implementation theory implementation for this province-wide initiative was through a two-phase, modified cascade model. the first level of training conducted by the uct schools development unit was of all foundation phase subject advisors across the western cape province. the second level was the training conducted by the foundation phase subject advisors of all grade r hazell et al.: improving grade r mathematics teaching in south africa 57 teachers/practitioners across the province. the second level training was carried out in two phases in 2017 and 2018; each phase targeted roughly half the grade r teachers/practitioners. the r-maths project was delivered by the uct schools development unit to foundation phase subject advisors who received initial training over a period of five days (28 hours). the intervention was not a pure cascade model in that the schools development unit team continued to provide support to the subject advisors in all districts after the initial training. this support took various forms, but, most notably, included helping the subject advisors prepare for training the teachers/practitioners through a twoto three-hour dry run held before each cluster workshop and a four-day dry run prior to the block training that subject advisors facilitated for teachers/practitioners. subject advisors received up to 42 hours of additional support following the initial training. grade r teachers/practitioners received seven two-hour cluster workshops (14 hours), and a five-day (28-hour) block training; these were delivered by subject advisors in the language of teaching and learning that the teachers/practitioners used in the classroom. the cluster training sessions served as regular mentoring and support for the pedagogic use of the ltsm. additional support was provided via whatsapp chat groups and some teachers/practitioners received school-based support visits. 4 subsequent to the training, the teachers/practitioners participated in one two-hour reflection meeting and one two-hour professional learning community meeting focused on r-maths. the trained teachers/practitioners were then meant to implement the r-maths content, concepts, and pedagogical ideas in their classrooms. methodology the evaluation had an outcome and impact evaluation component that determined the extent to which the expected/intended short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes (outlined in the programme theory) that were expected to occur at the level of foundation phase subject advisors, teachers/practitioners, teaching and learning, and learners did occur. the focus of this paper is the impact on learner outcomes. to that end, we focus on one of the evaluation questions: did the r-maths project have an impact on grade r learners’ mathematics knowledge and skills (as measured using the marko-d assessment)? changes in grade r learners’ mathematical knowledge and skills were assessed via a quasi-experimental, difference-in-difference design (gertler, martinez, premand, rawlings, & vermeersch, 2010). the evaluation focussed on collecting data in two of the eight wced districts. the two chosen districts—one of the four urban districts, and one of the four more-rural districts— were purposively sampled to ensure that the schools whose teachers/practitioners who were to be trained in phase 1 and phase 2 were as similar as possible in relation to certain key criteria which may influence learner performance in grade r, such as learner performance at 4 the ratio of grade r teacher/practitioners (and schools) to subject advisor is very high and it is a challenge for subject advisor to get to all of the schools/teachers/practitioners they are responsible for supporting to provide individual support. 58 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 grade 3 level in systemic mathematics assessments, language of learning and teaching, school quintile, and enrolment. learners attending schools participating in phase 1 (2017) of the project comprised the intervention group, and learners attending schools participating in phase 2 (2018) made up the comparison group. a simple random sample of all grade r learners in the two case study districts was made. this sampling method was used rather than cluster sampling because of evaluation cost constraints. the final sample was 168 learners attending schools participating in phase 1 of the project and 168 learners in schools to be included in phase 2, in each of the two chosen districts (thus, 672 learners in total). these learners were tested at baseline (february/march 2017) and 8 months later at end line (october/november 2017). the instrument used to assess the learners was the 47-item demonstration (demo) version of the marko-d test of mathematical competencies. 5 the marko-d is an individual oral test of early number concept development normed for children at the beginning of grade 1, but which can be “administered to younger pre-school or grade r children and older children (second graders)” (henning et al., 2019, p. 12). it is an oral one-on-one test administered in the language of instruction of the school. the choice of the marko-d was because it is the only mathematics test for this age group that has been recently developed and which has been validated with south african learners in sesotho, english, afrikaans, and isizulu (henning et al., 2019). one of the ways in which the markod can be employed is to “assess the effects of an intervention, by administering the test before and after the intervention (henning et al., 2019). the marko-d test was administered by 17 trained test administrators (who had engaged with the underlying theoretical model of the test, and the demonstration video, as advised by henning et al. (2019), overseen by one assessment team leader in each district who observed and gave feedback to each test administrator after they administered a test to a learner. the test was marked by the test administrators directly since they completed the answer sheet during the test so there was no need for further coding. since this was not a written test, no moderation of the marking of scripts was possible. data capturers captured the data during the two-week period following the tests using a restricted input system. ten percent of the data captured was checked by a project manager as part of the quality assurance process, and error rates were calculated. at both baseline and end line, the overall error rate was less than 0.5 errors per test captured. all the data was then cleaned by the project manager by checking for blank cells and invalid codes or responses and verifying the number of participant responses captured. 5 the full marko-d has 48-items and was published for use only in south africa in 2019. hazell et al.: improving grade r mathematics teaching in south africa 59 the raw scores obtained from the 47-item (demo) version, were converted into percentages to ensure comparability with the full marko-d for the assignment to the five marko-d conceptual levels within the specified upper and lower bounds, as shown in table 1 below. table 1: marko-d raw score boundaries and levels marko-d level lower bound raw score (%) upper bound raw score (%) level descriptor norm for beginning of grade 1 i ≤ 7 (15%) 14 (29%) counting m – 1sd ≈ 30% ii 15 (31%) 24 (50%) ordinal number line m ≈ 47% iii 25 (52%) 31 (65%) cardinality m + 1sd ≈ 63% iv 32 (67%) 35 (73%) part-part-whole relations v 36 (75%) ≥41 (85%) equidistant number line intervals source: henning et al., 2019, p. 87. the marko-d norms situate the mean at marko-d level ii (m ≈ 47%), with m 1sd being at the top of level i (≈ 30%) and m + 1sd being at level iii (≈ 63%) for children at the beginning of grade 1. it is to be expected that children towards the end of grade r would approach the beginning of grade 1 norms (with an expected mean at marko-d level ii). in terms of analysis, descriptive statistics were calculated per group, and represented as graphs and tables. after the end line was completed, independent sample t-tests to establish the significance of the observed differences in the two districts were conducted. t-tests do not have the power to control for differences between participants such as age, gender, and other factors relevant to testing. nor do they have the ability to hold baseline scores constant or investigate differences between group, district, and language simultaneously. a general linear model (glm) was thus created to satisfy this purpose. it was constructed for each level of the marko-d and the total marko-d so as to determine which factors had an influence on learner performance in the end line test. all learner test statistics were computed using ict software: spss version 24 or excel 2016. ethical clearance was obtained from the university of johannesburg for conducting the evaluation and permission was obtained from the wced to conduct research in schools in the province. ethical guidelines regarding confidentiality of the data (republic of south africa, 2006) were followed. this was a province-wide intervention in which involvement of all wced schools was mandatory. for learners, their experience of the r-maths intervention was through their normal grade r teacher/practitioner, as part of usual school activities. special precautions were taken to protect children involved in the learner test. the testing took place during school time and on the school premises. consent was obtained from the school principal and grade r teachers/practitioners for each learner who participated. since the children were too young to give legal consent, they assented to participate in the study. a courtesy letter was provided to each school, and the school principal was requested to distribute this to inform the parents about the test and provide them with the option to opt out. 60 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 limitations there are several limitations worth noting. the choice of which districts to select for in-depth research was limited by logistical and budgetary constraints. given cost constraints, the agreed sampling approach for the learner test was simple—random sampling rather than cluster sampling. because of the tight timeframes involved, the learners were first tested when implementation of the r-maths project had already been underway for between five and eight weeks. although efforts were made to use the same test administrators at both baseline and end line, this was not possible in all cases. the marko-d test used to assess the grade r learners included questions on number concepts only, whereas the r-maths project covered all five mathematics content areas in the grade r national curriculum. our rationale for its use, despite this limitation, has been argued above. the marko-d was the only assessment found to be suitable for the grade r and grade 1 levels. the marko-d had already been validated in south africa for english, afrikaans, sesotho, and isizulu. in the western cape, administration was required in english, afrikaans, and isixhosa (the translation of which was conducted making use of the isizulu and english versions). the isixhosa version of the test had not been validated at the time of its use; the data collected through r-maths was subsequently used for this purpose. findings here we provide the evaluation findings on the changes in the learners’ scores from baseline to end line. these findings will help us answer the research question, “did the r-maths project have an impact on grade r learners’ mathematics knowledge and skills?” we look first just at the mean learner scores and standard deviations for the marko-d test at baseline and end line by group (intervention or comparison). however, this analysis is limited since it does not control for other variables that may explain the changes such as age and language of learning and teaching. we therefore introduce the findings from a glm conducted on the whole sample since a glm is able to control for other factors. difference-in-difference analysis in each district a total of 622 learners completed the marko-d test at both baseline and end line, divided between districts and groups as shown in table 2. these learners came from 101 different schools in the urban district 1 and 47 different schools in the rural district 2. table 2: number of matched tests, by district and group district number of completed tests (intervention group) number of completed tests (comparison group) urban district 1 160 157 rural district 2 150 155 hazell et al.: improving grade r mathematics teaching in south africa 61 we focus first on the urban district. most learners (≈70-80%) were assessed in english. only a small minority of those assessed in english did not have english as their home language. almost all remaining learners were learning mathematics in their home language of isixhosa. the test results of the learners in the urban district are summarised in table 3. table 3: urban district 1: learner test results table 3 shows that the urban district 1 intervention group’s baseline mean was 37.8% (marko-d level ii) and rose by 19.6 percentage points to 57.5% (marko-d level iii) at end line. the urban district 1 comparison group’s baseline mean was 35.0% and rose by 20.3 percentage points to 55.3% at end line. the intervention group thus improved by 0.7 percentage points fewer than the comparison group. figure 2: changes in mean marko d scores for the intervention and comparison groups in urban district 1 from these values it can be seen that over the 8-month period between the pre-test and the post-test, average learner performance in the marko-d increased considerably in this district for both the intervention and the comparison groups. this was also the case in the rural 38% 58% 35% 55% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% baseline endline intervention comparison 62 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 district 2. this substantial increase indicates that the learners in the sample learnt a great deal of mathematics in their grade r year (but does not, of course, mean that the r-maths project led to this, since these changes occurred for learners in both intervention and comparison groups). the intervention group thus improved less (from a higher baseline) than the comparison group did. independent samples t-tests showed that the net shifts were not significantly different for the intervention group (m = 19.6; sd = 17.0) compared with the comparison group (m = 20.3; sd = 17.9); t (314) = -0.33, p = 0.371; but, nonetheless, this is a negative finding for the r-maths intervention. we turn now to the rural district. most learners (≈75% in the intervention group, and 100% in the comparison group) were assessed in afrikaans. all remaining learners were learning mathematics in their home language of isixhosa. the test results of the learners in this district are summarised in table 4. table 4: rural district 2: learner test results the rural district 2 intervention group’s baseline mean was 42.0% (marko-d level ii) and rose 16.3 percentage points to 58.4% (marko-d level iii) at end line. the rural district 2 comparison group’s baseline mean was 40.7% and rose by 13.3 percentage points to 54.0% at end line. the intervention group thus improved by 3.0 percentage points more than the comparison group. hazell et al.: improving grade r mathematics teaching in south africa 63 figure 3: changes in mean marko d scores for the intervention and comparison groups in rural district 2 the intervention group improved more over time (from a higher baseline) than the comparison group. independent samples t-tests showed that the net shifts were significantly higher for the intervention group learners (m = 16.3; sd = 15.1) compared with the comparison group learners (m = 13.3; sd = 14.0); t (300) = 1.81, p = 0.035 (with a small effect size of d = 0.21). this can be considered a positive finding for the impact of the rmaths intervention. general linear model on the whole sample the two districts were combined and other factors/covariates were taken into account: gender (male; female), quintile (1; 2; 3; 4; 5), home language (english; afrikaans; xhosa; other), language of learning and teaching, language of testing, and age were included in the model as factors (nominal or ordinal variables) and covariates (scale/ratio variables) as appropriate; all these were included as fixed effects. in addition, consideration was given to each of the marko-d levels (i to v). the following findings arose from the glm. the intervention group performed better than the comparison group: 2.9 percentage points better over the whole marko-d test and approximately 5 percentage points better in the three levels where the difference in improvement between the groups was significant. the relative improvement varied between 0.17 and 0.24 sd. in all cases, the cohen’s d effect size was small (d ≈ 0.19 to 0.24). however, the greatest effects on marko-d performance were from language of learning and teaching, and, by proxy, language of testing, and district. it was found that isixhosa speakers 42% 58% 41% 54% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% baseline endline intervention comparison 64 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 and urban learners improved the most from baseline to end line. the effects of language of learning and teaching were of a small to medium size (d ≈ 0.30 to 0.50) and the effects of district of medium size (d ≈ 0.50). older learners performed better than younger learners at three levels of the test, but this difference was also small (d ≈ 0.20). none of the other factors/covariates in the glm were found to be significant. for the r-maths intervention, the biggest effects were evident at marko-d level ii and level iii. thus, the gains evident were mainly at the lower levels of the marko-d scale. greatest improvement at the lower levels was to be expected, since the grade r learners assessed in this evaluation were on the younger end of the spectrum of learners that could be assessed using the marko-d (normed for beginning of grade 1). that the biggest effects are evidenced at marko-d level ii and level iii is also to be expected considering the normed mean is marko-d level ii. when comparing the average effect of the intervention and the average effect of age on marko-d performance at level ii and level iii, receiving the intervention was found to be equivalent to approximately six additional months of age. it should be noted, however, that this refers to six months of general child development and not six months of schooling, since all learners in this study were in grade r. the glm accounts for confounds between language and district. we must, thus, conclude that the effect of the intervention was similar across our case study districts and language groups. discussion and conclusion it is unrealistic to expect large differences in improvements in learner scores (for the intervention and comparison groups) in the eight months between preand post-tests for the r-maths intervention. overall, therefore, the fact that the r-maths intervention had a generally small but positive effect on the mathematics results of children whose teachers/practitioners had been exposed to the intervention —about 2.9 percentage points over the whole test, with a small effect size (d = 0.2; equivalent to 0.17 sd)—is encouraging. grade r children in the intervention group were performing similarly to those grade r learners in the comparison schools who were six months older (when assessed at levels ii and iii of marko-d). put another way, this means that younger intervention group children performed roughly as well as children in the comparison group who were six months older in the same year of schooling. to put the r-maths findings into context, the effect size of interventions identified as promising in international synthesis studies was often quite small: snilstveit et al. (2015) reported an average effect of 0.23 on language test scores and 0.14 on mathematics test scores for teacher-level structured pedagogy interventions, which had the largest and most consistently positive effects on learner performance. in the south african context, promising hazell et al.: improving grade r mathematics teaching in south africa 65 interventions that offered fleisch’s (2018) “education triple cocktail” of ltsm, lesson plans and individual coaching were found to have effects upwards of 0.252 sd after two years. however, the effects of some interventions which initially seemed promising had disappeared after two years, highlighting the importance of assessing the sustainability of learner performance gains. to further understand the relative strength of the benefits obtained through the r-maths intervention, it is worth reflecting on the evaluation of other programmes that have been implemented on the same scale. an analysis of the gplms intervention’s impact on mathematics performance, following cohorts of learners for two years (grade 1 to grade 3) found that learners in treatment schools performed 0.7 sd better. however, whilst learners in treatment schools followed from grade 2 to grade 3 performed 0.5 sd better, this disappeared by grade 4 (fleisch et al., 2016). a key aspect of r-maths that distinguishes it from the typical “educational triple cocktail” model was that in the case of r-maths the teachers/practitioners were not trained and coached directly. rather, the foundation phase subject advisors in the province were trained, and then they offered training and ongoing support to grade r teachers/practitioners through cluster meetings and via whatsapp groups, while at the same time they continued to receive support from the uct schools development unit trainers. while this has the advantage of increased sustainability and enables capacity-development within the provincial education department structures, this approach does create a long chain of effect from service provider to subject advisor to grade r teachers/practitioner to grade r learner. perhaps dilution at each stage of transfer is one of the factors contributing to the relatively small effect size (of 0.2 sd). two further possible explanatory factors for this are worth reflecting on. first, the measurement of learner outcomes took place in the first year of r-maths implementation and one may expect there to be greater capacity and implementation stability in the second year from subject advisors who had already supported the first cohort. second, the preand posttests were conducted within a short (8-month) period. it would be better to have had preand post-tests at least an academic year apart. the r-maths evaluation generated some promising evidence of a small but positive effect on learners’ mathematics performance. it does not yet offer evidence of a sustained impact on learner outcomes; for this to be established, a delayed post-test would be necessary. further, to enhance external validity, it would be ideal for additional evidence to be generated (positive or otherwise) of the effectiveness of the r-maths over time and/or the implementation of the r-maths model in other contexts. further research should investigate how best to increase the benefits that children receive from education interventions and also uncover factors that may improve or reduce the effect of the intervention. it is likely that both the home and classroom, as well as the background and characteristics of both the teachers/practitioners and the subject advisors will have some 66 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 influence on both the initial size of the positive effect of the intervention, and on the endurance of the effects of the intervention over time. in terms of context, the western cape is one of the most urban provinces, and the wced has a generally well-capacitated human resource infrastructure at both provincial and district level capacity (including subject advisors), which has been pivotal to this intervention. in many other south african provinces this kind of district level capacity is lacking and implementing r-maths, using the same implementation model, may not be viable there. nonetheless, such an approach – where attention is paid to multiple levels of the state schooling system and strengthening the internal capacity of the system via a modified cascade model which provides on-going support rather than once-off training may have value for the implementation of other interventions at scale in similarly-resourced regions and countries. acknowledgements the r-maths project evaluation, on which this article draws, was commissioned and funded by the zenex foundation, the elma foundation, and maitri trust. the authors would like to thank the r-maths project steering committee (psc) for their support, guidance, and robust engagement with the evaluation. the psc members were: • luke aspinall, maitri trust; • gail campbell, zenex foundation; • jonathan clark, uct schools development unit; • jo davies, maitri trust; • karen dudley, wced; • lauren fok, zenex foundation; • genevieve koopman, wced; • cally kuhne, uct schools development unit; • bernadette moffat, the elma philanthropies • kirstin o’sullivan, the elma philanthropies; and • gillian van wyk, wced. thanks also to matthew snelling for running the glm, and to hogrefe and the university of johannesburg who gave permission for the marko-d learner test to be used in the evaluation and translated into isixhosa. we are also very grateful to the many grade r teachers/practitioners and learners who participated willingly in the research activities. references besharati, n. a., & tsotsotso, k. 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(2015). zenex foundation landscape review of mathematics interventions in south african schools. johannesburg: zenex foundation. schollar, e. (2015). the primary mathematics research project: 2004–2012: an evidencebased programme of research into understanding and improving the outcomes of mathematical education in south african primary schools (unpublished doctoral dissertation). university of cape town, cape town, rsa. snilstveit, b., stevenson, j., phillips, d., vojtkova, m., gallagher, e., schmidt, t., jobse, h., geelen, m., pastorello, m., & eyers, j. (2015). interventions for improving learning outcomes and access to education in lowand middle-income countries. retrieved from http://www.3ieimpact.org/media/filer_public/2016/07/12/sr24-educationreview.pdf microsoft word bissue77dec19.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 77, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x book review teachers’ know-how: a philosophical investigation (2017) by christopher winch (new jersey: wiley blackwell, 2017. isbn: 978-1-119-35568) wayne hugo school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pietermaritzburg, south africa hugow@ukzn.ac.za robyn mcqueen school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pietermaritzburg, south africa robs393@gmail.com (received: 30 october 2019; accepted: 25 november 2019) christopher winch’s teachers’ know-how: a philosophical investigation (2017) is a mustread for teacher educators, especially where market forces and political expediency are pushing towards an education universe that emphasises market relevant skill sets. in a world in which unemployment and dissatisfaction are high, pushing for a skills discourse does much for those in power. the state can claim to have provided market relevant skills, and so blame the individual for not finding work, saying something like, “we have provided you with the skills so, if you cannot find a job, then it’s your fault, you layabout.” the danger, for us as academics in education, is that this abusive use of skills discourses by the state and its neoliberal disciples can result in a strong sense of repulsion for anything based on skills. exclusion of skills-based discourses from education can result in an overly academic and general picture of education. this exclusion, in turn, can result in teacher education students feeling an existential split between the “know-how” of professional modules and teaching practice on the one side, and more intensely abstract education studies on the other. winch charts a philosophical path that takes the notion of skills seriously and shows us how to integrate skills into the overall picture of teacher education and teaching practice. this book offers a comprehensive guide to the kinds of knowledge and “know-how” educators need. in it, the teaching profession is situated as an occupation, and the major question addressed is how to be skilful as a teacher. winch uses a combination of epistemological theories, finely tuned conceptual frameworks, and extended examples to illustrate how the theory and practices of teaching are inseparable. he is wary of making overly strong commitments to the teacher as producer of new knowledge. since producing 174 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 new knowledge is a highly specialised area of expertise requiring massive dedication and resources, it is not something that can (or should) be added blithely to the many other functions of teaching. a teacher might become a researcher at a certain stage of her or his career, but to somehow expect that researching one's own teaching practice is adding miraculously to the fund of new knowledge in the world is to mistake self-reflexive practice for research. first and foremost, teachers must know how to teach. unpacking what this means in a philosophically principled way is the achievement of this book. teachers’ know-how does this by revealing the necessary collaboration of craft and technical skills teachers need if they are to be effective. the book synthesises many of winch’s points in earlier books and articles into one synthetic and readable whole. at the university of kwazulu-natal, we tried having our honours and masters students read systematically through winch’s articles, but most students got stuck on the arcane arguments of english analytical philosophy over the logical meaning of concepts like “know-how.” the endeavour did not work, and we had to shift to using other resources. but the current crop of post graduates are finding teachers’ know-how lucid and exciting. our whatsapp groups are buzzing, the book is being read, not once or twice, but over and over again, and it is becoming a baseline for our thinking and research, hence this review. our students are also teachers, and their experience resonates with winch’s conceptual analysis on the occupation of teaching, on what teaching expertise looks like, and how to find some kind of occupational equilibrium between teaching as a craft and teaching as an executive technician. teaching as a craft requires more than just the mastery of a skill since a craft requires proud attention to the whole cycle of production—taking something from inception to completion while also paying attention to the multiple demands surrounding the process. a craftsperson produces a worthwhile and useful artefact, often using a tacitly acquired knowledge base, learned through imitating an expert. this conception of teaching as a craft emphasises the need for applied subject knowledge that involves the acquisition of “know-how” on the part of student teachers by observing expert teachers and practising under their watchful eye. winch compares this conception of teacher education as craft to the learning process of an executive technician: the student teacher is given a worked-out curriculum and has to learn how to execute it properly. a teacher technician does not make the curriculum, but, rather, she or he makes sure that it is carried out successfully. teachers conceived of as executive technicians have an ability to grasp and pursue a pre-given end, have a clear understanding of how to achieve the goal, and know why that might be necessary. in the language of both conceptions of teacher—as craftsperson and as executive technician—there is a focus on “know-how” rather than on some academic characterisation of teaching. winch provides us with the philosophical principles to negotiate between these two competing conceptions of what it means to teach and offers much more as well. he does this by going back to ancient greek philosophy, as well as to the modern british, french, and german philosophers. at the heart of it lies the threefold distinction of phronesis, techne, and critical reflexivity. for those of us who remember habermas (1971), this resonates with his notion of the relationship between knowledge and human interests (the practical, the technical, and the emancipatory). teacher education needs to work with all hugo & mcqueen: book review 175 three. phronesis is a type of know-how, a knack of being able to do something, of being able to achieve a goal in complex and changing conditions. this practical and situational wisdom is developed through on-the-job practice. together with phronesis, techne (a conceptual understanding of technical information) creates the ability to reason rationally through technical problems and find solutions based on experience and technical knowledge. however, the success of actually solving a problem depends on critical self-reflexivity (an ability to review the past with an intention to work more successfully the next time) which provides context for the necessary decisions to be made according to learned behaviours that have worked in the past. this way of doing comes with an ability to describe the what, how, when, where, and why of a project which leads to the ability to do and describe the process intelligently. this takes us way beyond a skills discourse in teacher education but does not let slip the need to embody teaching in a philosophical space that is what we might call skill-full. the forms of knowledge discussed by winch in this book apply directly to both general and vocational education—a double bonus! they relate well to the teaching of electrical engineering (which requires teachers to be well-versed in the theoretical and practical information required to build circuit boards, for example, and an ability to learn from past mistakes), but they can also be useful when we are teaching general schooling subjects. for example, when teaching mathematics, teachers need to have a solid foundational knowledge about the subject matter, know how to perform certain technical operations to rearrange mathematical constructs, and how to develop new lessons based on the success of others. a teacher needs to climb a ladder of expertise, just as any other technical or occupational professional does. a teacher needs transversal skills that shift upwards, beyond techniques and skills, into an ability to manage competently the whole process of production. a good teacher is focussed not only on getting through the current lesson but on the lesson sequence, the demands of the term and year, collaboration with colleagues, professional development, parental and community engagement and so on. this is very similar to the demands of any occupation that is held together in a holistic way, rather than being fragmented into isolated skills. rather than a fragmentation of labour that has an occupation divided into isolated skills, winch argues for a division of labour, where specialism is encouraged, but holistic control over the whole process of making is maintained. his advice is that we should not see a need to fragment teaching into skills, but, rather, learn how to hold the whole process together in a principled and integrated way. these insights are vital in a world that is increasingly emphasising vocational education. in south africa, there is currently a massive project underway to improve the quality of vocational education. the european union, in collaboration with the department of higher education and training, has funded a teaching and learning development capacity improvement programme (tldcip), one component of which is the improvement of technical and vocational lecturers through a specialised lecturing qualification. this involves whole new qualifications for technical and vocational education and training (tvet) lecturers, with new curricula specifically focussed on vocational education. teachers’ knowhow provides a powerful and systematic philosophical framework for thinking through what vocational education means. there is a real danger that curriculum writers engaged in 176 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 producing the new tvet lecturer qualifications in tldcip courses will either copy and repeat their existing school teaching curricula, with minor vocational add-ons or attempt their own new version of what vocational education means, based on a hodgepodge of popular synthetic accounts of vocational education. winch provides a useful corrective to both possibilities. teachers’ know how provides a deeply and thoroughly considered philosophical foundation that took a lifetime of work to produce in a way that combines both general and vocational teacher education into a synthetic whole. winch does this, not by taking on the powerful dualisms of plato or descartes, but rather through a sustained elaboration on how “know-how” works in teacher education. those of us involved in the process of restructuring vocational education in south africa should engage intensively with this work. reference habermas, j. (1971). knowledge and human interests. (j. j. shapiro, trans.). boston, ma: beacon press. microsoft word b86 full issue.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 86, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i86a02 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x transforming teacher education: using community mapping to read the word and world deidre geduld department of primary school education: foundation phase, faculty of education, nelson mandela university, gqeberha, south africa deidre.geduld@mandela.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6175-0508 heloise sathorar department of secondary school education, faculty of education, nelson mandela university, gqeberha, south africa heloise.sathorar@mandela.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4947-0885 (received: 21 january 2021; accepted: 24 january 2022) abstract the development of critical pedagogical approaches in teacher education (te) in the south african context is imperative given the deepening crisis in the public schooling system in the country. public discourse and debates amongst scholars suggest that education for critical citizenship and the development of substantive democracy are under threat. in order to advance education in support of substantive democracy, te requires critical reflection and engagement with teaching practices that promote the development of citizenship for critical engagement and participation in the socioeconomic transformation of south africa. this paper argues for the development and application of innovative approaches to teacher preparation that challenge the neoliberal attack on public education and the suppression of emancipatory practices amongst teachers. these approaches include a conscientious examination and application of community mapping as a pedagogical instrument that acquaints student teachers with, and deepens their understanding of, the contextual realities of educational experiences in poor and working-class south africa. drawing on case studies of community mapping, our paper argues for critical engagement in the teaching academy with the theory and practice of teacher preparation towards transformative work and an exposure to educational praxes that better prepare student teachers for a vocation that embraces the philosophies, methodologies, and ethics of critical pedagogy. the main thesis of this paper is that community mapping is a critical and transformative pedagogical tool that should be integral to teacher preparation in south africa. keywords: community mapping, critical participatory action research, teacher education, critical literacy 22 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 introduction public schooling in postapartheid south africa is in perpetual and deepening crisis characterised by poor throughput and high dropout rates, large student-to-teacher ratios, an increase in race and gender violence, a decline in teacher morale, conflict, and protests. 1 in addition to the above, privatisation of education in postapartheid south africa has increased, our public schools have been stripped of resources, education is increasingly being aligned to the needs of the formal labour market, and widening inequality in south african society is reflected, amongst others, in the national quintile system for public schooling. the decline in public education and the neoliberal attack on our public education institutions challenges critical pedagogues together with student teachers, community activists, and social movements to continually pursue pedagogical approaches that build educated resistance, hope, and reflective praxis (baatjes, 2012; giroux, 2007; hall, 2018; klees et al., 2012; malott, 2016; slaughter & rhoads, 2004). as university-based scholars, we argue that our intellectual project should include the development of a cadre of critical student teacher 2 pedagogues. these pedagogues should be committed to education for liberation from our western model of education that, consciously or unconsciously, remains patronisingly paternalistic, colonialist, and cognitively imperialistic—all of which stand as a barrier to the sincere teaching of critical consciousness (johnson-hunter & risku, 2003) and the struggle for substantive democracy. we concur with a number of scholars of critical pedagogy who in recent times have highlighted the urgency to combine socially engaged scholarship with pedagogical approaches that have the potential to reorient teacher preparation towards critical pedagogical practices for social change (deslippe et al., 2016; haworth & elmore, 2017; ledwith, 2016; malott & ford, 2015). this article argues for the introduction and greater use of participatory teacher preparation practices drawn from the twin theories and practices of community participatory action research (cpar) and popular education. for us, cpar serves as the research arm of popular education, and popular education provides the pedagogical approaches and tools for cpar. in cpar, we highlight the need to apply community mapping as an instrument within a larger philosophical and methodological repository. community mapping assists students in the collective organising, refining, and summarising of spatial information in a particular area. it allows them to draw a geographical map of the area and walk through the area with community members to gather information of particular aspects that could be used in their classroom during teaching. it encourages the development of critical consciousness and reflection and the enhancement of student teachers’ ability towards reading the word and the world (darder, 2017a, 2017b; freire & macedo, 1987). reading the word and the world 1 many public schools in south africa have recently been the focus of protests. these protests ranged from issues related to poor (and a lack of) resources, acts of gender and racial violence, and teacher and student abuse. all of these occurred in the context of a broader socioeconomic crisis as highlighted by the jobs summit which took place in johannesburg, south africa on 4–5 october, 2018. 2 foundation phase schooling in the south african context refers to grades r–3. the other three phases are the intermediate phase (grades 4–6), senior phase (grades 7–9), and further education and training phase (grades 10– 12). geduld & sathorar: transforming teacher education 23 involves inspiring students to embrace critical learning approaches that foster students’ interest, curiosity, and appreciation of the contextual causes of their personal circumstances in the world as well as those of others. community mapping encourages student teachers to draw on community realities to make their teaching relevant. we believe that such methodological approaches are important in encouraging liberating praxis and building intolerance to oppression and against the increase of inequalities in society. these approaches, we argue, should be firmly incorporated into te programmes so that teachers are better prepared to confront and respond to some of the challenges in public schooling. this involves the preparation of student teachers in relation to the theory and practice of literacy education (reading the word), the connection between literacy and reading the world, and finally, building networks of solidarity in advancing the struggle for emancipatory practices against the interconnected forms of oppression in society. the context of humanising pedagogy in teacher education in south africa teacher education (te) in postapartheid south africa has been the focus of ongoing restructuring. it has been the subject of rationalisation, improved resource utilisation, ongoing efforts to upgrade teacher qualifications, quality assurance, and efforts towards addressing the vast discrepancies in race-based participation in education (mncube & madikizela-madiya, 2013). various initiatives to address the challenges facing te include the introduction of norms and standards for te, policies, qualifications frameworks, and curriculum reviews (department of higher education and training, 2011). universities in south africa are compelled to engage with, and respond to, policy directives. the nelson mandela university—an institution borne out of a merger process of three historically advantaged and two disadvantaged institutions with different historical and cultural traditions—adopted humanising pedagogy as its philosophical, methodological, and ethical orientation in te (geduld & sathorar, 2016). a significant challenge for academics was the transition from modernist paradigms and fundamental pedagogics to a humanising pedagogical approach as the new framing philosophical paradigm that underpinned te (cullen & hill, 2013; morrow, 2007). humanising pedagogy is broadly understood to be “a deep commitment to the goal of building a better social world, and necessitates active resistance against oppressive structures, ideas, and practices” (roberts, 2000, p. 2). humanising pedagogy therefore connects education to the process of becoming more fully human and thus to be more conscious of the plight of those being oppressed and suffering from social injustices. a humanising pedagogy requires an internal educative process that encourages academic consciousness oriented towards educational practices for progressive outcomes in education. embracing humanising pedagogy requires critical examination and reflection on how academics consider the larger determinants of education—the purpose of education in the south african context, how we perceive our students, how we teach and learn with them as 24 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 collective agents of change. humanising pedagogy demands from both the teacher educator and student teacher a commitment and dedication to contemplate larger metaand mesotheoretical frameworks such as the political economy, political sociology, and ecopedagogy—rather than a narrow focus on technocratic rationality. applying a humanising pedagogy can assist te to build a new vision of democratic schooling and critical citizenship. it requires the adoption of a critical approach to curriculum implementation that encourages self-empowerment and a self-identity of students as active, responsible, and moral citizens of a community (sathorar, 2018). community mapping underpinned by critical pedagogy community life and universities are two formidable sites where the local and the global converge. the university as an institution occupies an elite position in society and has the power to guide public opinion; universities have both a responsibility and an obligation to provide insight and guidance on matters that pertain to public life (giroux, 2012, 2003). student teachers are part of this elite and make up the few in society who are privileged enough to access this level of education. they are society’s role models—both by virtue of their societal position, and by their influence on the youth in schooling communities. accepting this, alexander (2008) argued that it is within the university that student teachers need to reclaim the meaning and purpose of education. it is in universities that students should learn how to mediate critically between democratic values and the demands of a capitalist society. thus, universities need to politicise te within the broader relations of power to raise awareness and inform actions to address how such relations perpetuate inequalities. a number of scholars in south africa have argued for new conceptions of the university as a site of advancing critical citizenship and the adoption of critical engaged forms of scholarship (badat, 2007; baatjes, 2014). swartz (2006) suggested a conception of universities as institutions that are more firmly and deeply embedded within society and that universities, inter alia, need to respond to societal demands, effectively engage within their immediate habitat, and reconfigure their curricula, research, internal organisation, and ways of processing “the intermediations of knowledge and the social” (p. 141). fundamental to this argument is the need for universities to recognise how they are implicated in the crises of the poor and working-class and that “universities [do] not stand ‘outside’ of the social and, reflect the characteristics of their environment” (swartz, 2006, p. 140). we argue that universities are indeed integral parts of the social, political, cultural, and economic life of the communities in which they are located. in south africa, this refers to not just the immediate surroundings of the university but, rather, refers to the broader diverse context of the country. when critically engaged scholarship is responsive to pressing social issues such as the crisis in education, the possibilities for a genuinely democratic and caring society are enhanced (haworth & elmore, 2017; khasnabish & haiven, 2015; mcilrath et al., 2012; munck et al., 2014). geduld & sathorar: transforming teacher education 25 critical pedagogues involved in te have an important role to play in advancing critically engaged scholarship in teaching and learning, research, and engagement. in this paper, we argue for community mapping to be employed as a tool to advance critically engaged scholarship. there are three key aspects to highlight. firstly, central to our vocation, is freire’s concept of conscientisation, which has been the theme of much scholarly work (allman, 2001; darder, 2017b; freire, 2003; roberts, 2013; torres, 2014). for freire, conscientisation is a requirement of our human condition and has ontological, epistemological, ethical, and educational dimensions. from a critical perspective, conscientisation is one of the most important characteristics of authentic learning (nouri & sajjadi, 2014). freire (1970, p. 17) defined conscientisation as follows: “to learn to perceive social, political and economic contradictions and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality.” the process of conscientisation occurs when students and their teacher “know that they know” and they act upon this knowing (nouri & sajjadi, 2014, p. 80). thus, conscientisation involves a type of knowing that includes understanding and also the ability to act on this knowing in such a way as to bring about change. this knowing is supported by a dialectical relationship between reading the word and reading the world; and its relationship to conscientisation is a non-linear and ever-changing process of cognition, reflection, and actions (roberts, 2013). this takes place through critical dialogical education with teachers, fostering a better understanding for the students of the self in relation to others and society— enhancing a deeper awareness of ourselves and the world as unfinished. thus, in a society of incessant change, conscientisation creates awareness and necessitate a restlessness, probing, and inquiring to know that there is always more to learn. community mapping provides an opportunity for teachers to facilitate this critical dialogical education and encourages teachers and students to reflect on their relationship with each other and the world. a second important role for critical pedagogues is the challenge to resist techno-bureaucratic techniques and the ideological demands of the cult of efficiency (collins, 1991; giroux, 2009, 2004). collins offered a stern warning to educators about the “technicist obsession” in pedagogical practice which reduces learning to “situations managed by technical formulations, such as standardised pre-packaged curricula and preconceived needs assessment instruments” put together by “experts” (1991, p. 5). collins (1991) further warned that such deficit practices get in the way of individual learners’ ability to think critically and to evaluate everyday experiences on their own account. all of this serves to usurp “independent, reflective thought on the part of the individual learner” and to “subvert critical powers of insight and imagination” (giroux, 2013, p. 5). one of the main problems with the technicist approach is its portrayal of teaching as a value-free, objective activity whose problems are solvable through the application of the rigorous procedures of scientific methods. however, choices of method, curriculum, language of instruction, and the timing and the location of classes might appear on the surface to be purely technical but they are, in fact, profoundly influenced by the political and economic contexts in which they take place (youngman, 1990). for these reasons, community mapping is proposed to encourage teachers and students to question techno-bureaucratic techniques and curricula and their relevance to different teaching contexts. 26 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 thirdly, giroux (2013) drew attention to the connection between technocratic rationality and the deskilling of teachers that accompanies the adoption of management-type pedagogies. this management-type paradigm, he argued, seeks to “improve” education by “teacherproofing” it. teachers are then relegated to semi-skilled, low-paid workers in the massification of education (giroux, 2009). in addition to this, giroux argued, neoconservatives: want public schools and colleges to focus on “practical” methods in order to prepare teachers for an “outcome-based” education system, which is a code for pedagogical methods that are as anti-intellectual as they are politically conservative. (2013, p. 5) reed and anthony (1992) contributed to this point indicating that: all too often, the educational community has retreated into a narrow vocationalism which crowds out any sustained concern with the social, moral, political and ideological ingredients of education work. (p. 601) pedagogy is therefore reduced to teaching methods and data-driven performance indicators, which are said to measure scholastic ability and improve student achievement. the deskilling of teachers and the emphasis placed on instrumental rationality pose a serious threat to education as a democratising force, the advancement of critical and analytical thinking, and the development of critical inquiry and engaged citizenship. community mapping provides teachers and students the opportunity to resist management-type pedagogies that prevent any engagement with the social political realities of the communities in which they work. the importance of critical literacy in teacher education critical literacy is an important theme within te and is integral to freire’s construct of reading the word and the world. anderson and irvine (1993, p. 85) defined critical literacy as “learning to read and write as part of the process of becoming conscious of one’s experience as historically constructed within specific power relations.” barton (2006) and street (1984) held the view that literacy, as social action through language, contributes to the development of students as agents inside a larger culture (papen, 2005). luke (2000) articulated that, essentially, it moves the reader’s focus away from the self in critical reading to the interpretation of texts in different environmental and cultural contexts. educators and students are thus encouraged to read, evaluate, and reflect on texts, and to engage in the creative process of actively constructing or reconstructing these texts. community mapping facilitates a process for students and teachers to creatively reimage the text that they have read when they interact with society. critical literacy in freirean terms challenges and moves away from the “utilitarian vocational meanings” commonly associated with the functionalist approach to literacy (rassool, 2009, p. 8), towards a pedagogy that aims to develop understanding of our world and how to change it. as part of critical literacy, an exploration of the dialectical relationship between justice and injustice, power and oppression, and so forth, is necessary. literacy, within this framework is geduld & sathorar: transforming teacher education 27 conceptualised as a symbol of power and is linked to a transformative project. in other words, for freire, literacy was political and was no longer seen as a neutral technique as in the functionalist view. critical literacy provides opportunities for students to differentiate between the purposes of texts and also identify the ideologies, values, and beliefs presented in texts (hamilton, 1996). students, as they engage with the text, can accept, can reject, or reconstruct the ideologies presented (cervetti et al., 2001) reflective of their own life experiences (luke, 2000). knowledge construction, deconstruction, or reconstruction allows students to examine their own conceptual understanding and meaning of perspectives and enables them to critically evaluate other aspects of their lives (papen, 2005). as emphasised by morrell (2011), some may interpret this engagement, examination, and critique of texts through the process of reading as a form of activism. community mapping allows students to link the text that they are reading in their classes to what they observe and experience during the participatory engagements. it enhances their activism by allowing them to question the inequalities that they observe. critical literate students develop the ability to examine their ongoing development and to reveal the subjective positions from which they make sense of the world and act in it. according to street (2001), this implies, amongst others, a radical critique of elite culture, selective schooling, state or religiously controlled curricula, and existing unequal power relations among different social groups. we grow up and live in local cultures that are set in global contexts where multiple discourses shape us. critical literacy involves critical engagement with multiple perspectives and discourses (searle, 1999). listening to different perspectives does not necessarily mean changing or denying one’s stance on an issue (alford, 2001) but, rather, leads to an awareness that “truth” is really a partial and limited perspective (harste, 2008), and that no single version of an event tells the entire story (ciardiello, 2004). by engaging students in community mapping exercises, they become aware that not all perspectives are equally powerful, thus exploring multiple viewpoints on an issue, which enables student teachers to realise that there are no easy answers to complex problems (harste, 2008). critical participatory action research and community mapping critical participatory action research (cpar) has a long association with revolutionary pedagogical projects and practices, of which paulo freire’s work has been the most influential (cammarota & fine, 2008; freire, 1982; weis & fine, 2004). freire (2005, 2003)—focused on people’s presumed need to gain knowledge and a process in which teachers engaged in mutual learning with their students. his approach to education and participatory forms of learning emerged as a practical expression of his sense of solidarity with those who experienced poverty. torres (2014) mentioned that this experience brought home to him the powerful relationship between social class and knowledge. 28 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 cpar involves a collaborative approach to research, which immerses all participants in and throughout the research process from establishing the research question, to developing tools to generate empirical material, to the analysis and dissemination of findings (anyon et al., 2009). it is a research framework that aims to address the practical concerns of people in a community and fundamentally changes the roles of researcher and who is being researched (cammarota & fine, 2008). community mapping is a tool of cpar. first, it is understood as the process and product of a community getting together to map its own assets, values, beliefs, and knowledges (anyon et al., 2009). it is about mapping by the community, for the community, using community-based tools such as dialogue and participation. it further emphasises dialogical participant engagement in generating empirical material about the contextual realities and lived experiences within a defined location (lydon, 2003). selvin and buckingham shum (2014) argued that community mapping is a methodology that encourages and empowers the community to explore itself and to advance on action. it is the opposite of mapping by institutional researchers for scholars isolated from the community using scientific methodologies. second, it is an alternative educative and research tool—a participatory approach that provides effective ways of collectively eliciting and examining peoples’ experiences of creating new knowledge and understandings. it produces valid and reliable empirical material that helps community researchers and stakeholders to understand the strengths of a community and its ability to solve its problems (carroll, 2012). third, it is a method that assists students in the collective organising, refining, and summarising of spatial information (preece & shneiderman, 2009). this collective experience positions students as co-constructors of knowledge in dialogical relationship with others in a community of practice. it further provides students with analytical tools that enable critical insight about the context of schooling, the development of teaching practices applied in diverse settings, and building solidarity in struggles to transform public schooling. finally, it helps students to make links to the real world and contextualise theory. this form of collaboration with the community allows for the co-construction of knowledges with students in non-formal learning spaces, and contributes to the bi-directional learning experiences (warren, 2010). the capabilities of academic staff to support these types of transformational learning processes are too often assumed. however, academic staff need to be more engaged in processes that advocate for transformational learning. freire (2005, p. 129) was of the opinion: “[teachers] have much to teach through the example of fighting for the fundamental changes we need, of fighting against authoritarianism and in favour of democracy.” freire asserted that teachers, who dare to take even the smallest steps toward social justice, are “radical”; “we are,” he wrote, “political militants because we are teachers” (2005, p. 104). community mapping in practice community mapping is a participatory activity that enables the gathering of data together with the local people to explore environmental, economic, and social resources (van staden et al., 2006). in brief, community mapping is a systematic walk along a defined route across a community together with the local people to explore socioeconomic conditions by observing, geduld & sathorar: transforming teacher education 29 asking, listening, looking, and producing educational responses that could assist in responding to socioeconomic realities. the purpose of a community mapping exercise is to organise and refine spatial information and to summarise local conditions in the area (carroll, 2012). this experience positions students as co-constructors of knowledge via dialogue with each other, lectures, teachers, and community members as part of a community of practice (lave & wenger, 1991; vygotsky, 1978). community mapping is not meant to teach student teachers new teaching strategies but to provide them with tools that will enable them, through participatory approaches, to reflect critically on their own perspectives and beliefs around what constitutes a school in the south african context for the majority of learners in this country. in addition, we believe that participating in community mapping exercises will advance a possible framework to prepare students teachers to teach in diverse schooling contexts. the use of community mapping and participatory methodologies assists to shape and develop a contextual understanding of the multi-context of schooling (de moor, 2013). our aim through this exercise is to open up the formal educational environments so that the whole community in and around the school becomes a space for and of learning. it is our understanding that students need opportunities to critically problematise and reflect on issues of race, class, ethnicity, gender, culture, and language and how these issues enable educational opportunities—or not (lydon, 2003). we argue that this is particularly important within the past, present, and future socio/economic/political landscapes of south africa. unless students have access to diverse contexts that challenge conventional knowledge, and unless they engage in deep reflection and serious dialogue (freire, 1970) about their own knowledge, beliefs, and perceptions as well as the curriculum they will teach (apple, 1993), they will struggle to develop the practice of questioning mainstream knowledge and practices (barnett, 2017). it is through community mapping, we argue, that students will be able to theorise the effects of these contradictions on the curriculum and pedagogical practices of schooling in a context in which they are increasingly being made aware of the conflicting values and beliefs that underpin schooling practices. as bhaskar (1979) said, “to criticise a belief as false is ipso facto not only to criticise any action or practice informed or sustained by that belief, but also anything that necessitates it” (p. 80). the questioning and critique of mainstream knowledge and practices will contribute to the reinventing of critical pedagogy. case studies on community mapping: insights from the field the experiences of community mapping used in three research sites demonstrates the contribution that cpar tools hold for building critical consciousness. in writing this paper, we carefully analysed three case studies in which community mapping was used for synthesising a thesis that argues why such a cpar approach is beneficial to teacher preparation. the three case studies examined were the winterveldt project conducted by medunsa in the northwest province, the roots driven rural development programme in the bojanala region of the north west province, and the community education project of the 30 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 centre for integrated post-school education and training (cipset), nelson mandela university in port elizabeth. in the sections below, we provide a brief overview of each of the case studies that we used to advocate for the introduction of community mapping into teacher education programmes. winterveldt the winterveldt project was one of the nine sites included in a national study to determine the livelihood strategies of youth with disabilities in south africa (lorenzo & motau, 2014). researchers used community mapping to describe the prevailing social environment of winterveldt as well as to capture the public’s awareness of disability and attitudes toward youth with disabilities. the community mapping helped participants to picture the surroundings of these youth and gave insight into their lives within their community. the mapping exercise assisted participants to identify the challenges and opportunities in the environment that could impact on the livelihoods of the youth. they were afforded the opportunity to know more about the places and spaces they inhabited and, at the same time, they had to address negative assumptions that they might bring to these spaces. it held the potential to raise awareness of opportunities available to youth with disabilities. this resulted in the establishment of partnerships between multiple stakeholders. more importantly, the empirical material highlighted that the community members of winterveldt have initiatives and potential to change their status from being unemployed to being entrepreneurs. participation and collaboration were strengthened amongst the local people and the university partners working on the winterveldt project. this allowed for the co-construction of knowledge that was mutually beneficial to all participants. roots driven rural development programme this case study was conducted by unisa’s department of geography in the rural village of mathopestad, a farming community under tribal authority in the north-west province. participants were taken through exercises designed to make them aware of their existing social, human, cultural, and physical capital (expressed as assets; panek & flok, 2013). the process was meant to help communities to change their thinking from “this is what we lack” to “we are richer than we realised” (panek, 2014, p. 23). being “cartographers” of their own community, mapping added a sense of pride and belonging. participants developed knowledge and skills in participatory development techniques such as community profiling, mapping, transect walks, and community calendars. participants were enabled to best use the community’s resources to promote self-sufficiency. the participatory mapping process had three objectives for this case study. first, empirical material was generated to inform the research design including identifying community boundaries, describing geographic and social separation of communities, and identifying relevant matching criteria. second, the empirical material from these exercises was used to inform the intervention design, to empower participants towards reducing their own levels of poverty and inequality, and to establish their own priorities for sustainable socioeconomic change. finally, the third objective of the mapping process was to build relations in the geduld & sathorar: transforming teacher education 31 community so as to develop small sustainable business ventures. the unisa department of geography, secondary school teachers specialising in geography at the high school, and community members participated in the study. participants were able to examine a range of factors including perceptions of community development purposes, conceptions of community, practice methods, practitioner roles, and the context in which they were operating. some of the participants stated the purpose of community mapping as empowering people “to take collective action to improve the quality of life in their community” (nicolau & delport, 2015, p. 7). the process enabled and enhanced understanding of the resources available for the development of community livelihood. the community education project the community education project (cep) at nelson mandela university is a cpar project initiated to support the development of non-formal education within communities (cipset, 2018). the project was conceived in response to the lack of education programmes in communities of the poor and urban working class that address their immediate needs and interests. working in four communities surrounding the missionvale campus of the university, a group of university-based educators combined with community participants to build a collective to investigate the issues and problems members of the local communities deemed important, what situations or circumstances they were interested in changing, and how non-formal community education programmes could be developed to address these circumstances. community learning and investigation circle (clic) activities such as combined planning, community mobilisation, transect walks, field note writing, coding, decoding, and dialogues were used to lay the basis for the development of non-formal education programmes. community mapping through transect walks formed an integral part of the cpar approach. during the 3-hour transect walks, members of the clic and community members recorded their observations, conducted interviews, took photographs, and constructed detailed narratives that captured key thematic issues within communities. some of these included issues of housing, sanitation, water and water infrastructure, waste, recycling, livelihoods, safety of children, and impacts on the natural environment (cipset, 2018). further metaanalysis, dialogue, and community learning events resulted in the production of resource materials that could be used as part of community education and social action programmes. implications for teacher education the lessons drawn from these case studies are informative, and confirm the benefits that could be derived from the incorporation of cpar methodologies into te. first, cpar provides student teachers with opportunities to collectively gain insights into the social and contextual problems affecting the lives of teachers and learners in public schools and to conceptualise actions toward addressing such problems. it therefore provides an opportunity to acquire the skills of critical enquiry within communities and educational settings. second, cpar encourages student teachers to work as a collective and involve members of 32 journal of education, no. 86, 2022 communities within which schools are located. student teachers can learn that communitybased research is a collective process involving data collection, analysis, dialogue, and reflection. through this process, knowledge is co-constructed and the knowledge that already exists in communities is recognised and forms part of the new knowledge. this forms the basis for actions that offer the possibility for developing praxis for social change (allman, 2001). third, exposure to cpar could contribute to student teachers becoming more immersed in learning about complex power relations, historic and contemporary community struggles, and the consequences of structures and systems of oppression and marginalisation (luckett et al., 2017). such immersion could offer student teachers the opportunity for critical inquiry, unlearning, or denaturalising realities of the social worlds and help them to reconstruct new forms of knowledges for transforming systems and institutions for social justice (luckett et al., 2017). fourth, it will also allow student teachers to engage with the context within which schools are located and create opportunities for them to think more deeply about their practice. for instance, to problematise and reflect on social justice issues, develop a critique of policy in education, and learn to act in solidarity with others to bring about change. it is also through community mapping that student teachers are encouraged to analyse the many contradictions in the curriculum and pedagogical practices of schooling. we realise that the above might sound idealistic but we strive towards achieving this by providing students with assignments and activities that will encourage them to think about their experience. we also engage them in critical discussion about these experiences. fifth, knowledge constructed through cpar is alive and constitutes fertile soil for the development of new ideas, actions, plans, and strategies to initiate social change (kirkwood & kirkwood, 2011). student teacher involvement in cpar could be a vital source of helping to shape the research orientation of teaching practice (kirkwood & kirkwood, 2011; ledwith & springett, 2010; luckett et al., 2017). conclusion in this paper, we highlight three areas of importance that apply to te and their relationship with the use of participatory techniques. student teachers should be encouraged to engage with epistemological curiosity—freire’s construct of reading the word and the world. returning to this freirean construct is imperative in a context of neoliberalism, the everincreasing vocationalism of the curriculum, an obsession with technocratic rationality, the cult of efficiency, and the embrace of technical and mechanical approaches to the teaching and learning of literacy. freire insisted that we resist neoliberal inevitability and argued: teacher preparation should never be reduced to a form of training. rather, teacher preparation should go beyond the technical preparation of teachers and be rooted in the ethical formation both of selves and of history. (2001, p. 23) he further stressed the important relationship between literacy and politics, and argued that (critical) literacy involves critical perception, interpretation, and reflection. freire’s critical geduld & sathorar: transforming teacher education 33 literacy was committed to a vocation of all human beings to become humanised (roberts, 2013). the second key theme is the development of reading the world, which is dialectically related to reading the word. freire (2005) suggested that student teachers should be encouraged to develop a critical analysis of their historical and contemporary experiences. he emphasised that reading the world involves stimulating critical learning approaches that foster students’ interest, curiosity, and appreciation of the contextual antecedent causes of their personal circumstances in the world as well as those of others (freire & macedo, 1987). freirean pedagogy encourages an exploration of the broader context in which schooling takes place, together with an investigation of the immediate environment in which education of students is provided. for many student teachers, a critical examination of the historical, socioeconomic, and cultural contexts becomes an important discussion of how they relate to the political economy of education and society. in this paper, we propose community mapping as a tool to facilitate these critical examinations. the third important theme is the need to link te to action to transform student teachers’ contexts. reading the word and the world combines textual and contextual knowledges that create the potential for student teachers to develop a “disposition to question a constructed reality and subsequently promote a democratic world through praxis” (dale & hyslopmargison, 2010, p. 99). community mapping allows student teachers to link theory to practice and creates the opportunity for them to contribute to societal change in collaboration with community members. we argue that te should be based on freire’s critical literacy of reading the word and the world (freire & macedo, 1987). this, we believe, is fundamental for critical pedagogues committed to the struggle to reclaim public education for critical citizenship in the south african context. based on freire’s (2003) theory of consciousness, we argue for greater use and exploration of participatory approaches such as community mapping in te. we believe that community mapping offers student teachers a variety of benefits essential to building transformative practices in education. including community mapping in the curricula for te could further nurture critically engaged forms of scholarship amongst student teachers, and the production of knowledge that addresses more directly pertinent issues in public schooling. finally, we believe that the use of participatory approaches can contribute to the development of solidarity and praxis that confront the oppressive forces that reproduce marginalisation and exclusion in our society. references alexander, r. 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(2010). grassroots mapping: tools for participatory and activist cartography [master’s thesis, massachusetts institute of technology]. https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/65319/745810511mit.pdf?sequence=2&isallowed=y weis, l., & fine, m. (2004). working method: research and social justice. routledge. youngman, f. (1990). the political economy of literacy in the third world. convergence, 23(4), 5–13. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000209563 microsoft word bissue78.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 78, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i78a06 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x embroidery as method: stitching together narrative becomings and data tamara s. hancock college of veterinary medicine, department of veterinary pathobiology, university of missouri, columbia, united states hancockts@missouri.edu https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6453-6248 (received: 16 september 2019; accepted: 3 december 2019) abstract there has been a shift in gender for the veterinary medical profession, with little attention paid to the affects of women becoming veterinary students. to interrogate women becoming-veterinarians, i tell stories of becomingveterinarian with a story of becoming-scholar, using narrative inquiry. i used data produced with current veterinary students in conversation with a photograph of a whiteboard and me. i embarked on an inventive analysis of sorting data excerpts and producing a new “white coat” with them—embroidering participant quotes onto the white coat i received when i entered veterinary school. this intra-action produced insights about becoming and i (re)present the crystallisation of these analyses into narratives of becoming stitched together. in this story, i interrogate my role and pose questions about learning and becoming. keywords: identity, becoming, narrative, embroidery, veterinarian introduction our subjectivities are “always constructed and stitched together imperfectly.” (haraway, 1991, as quoted in alvermann, 2001, p. 130) mental health is of paramount concern in the veterinary profession. the suicide rate of veterinarians is greater than that of the general population in many countries, including the united kingdom (bartram & baldwin, 2010), united states (tomasi et al., 2019; witte, spitzer, edwards, fowler, & nett, 2019), australia, and norway (reisbig et al., 2012). for example, veterinarians who are men aged between 45 and 64 years have a relative risk (rr) of suicide 5.62 times higher than that of the general population (bartram & baldwin, 2010). this risk is higher than dentists, pharmacists, and other medical practitioners. most alarming is that veterinarians who are women have the highest relative risk (rr = 7.62) when compared with other non-veterinarian women and, moreover, this risk is significantly higher 98 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 than in physicians who are women (rr = 4.54). recent studies have indicated that 34% of veterinary students in north america experience clinical levels of depression, and just over half of those students reported that their symptoms made it very to extremely difficult to perform routine tasks such as taking care of things at home (karaffa & hancock, 2019). other research revealed similar findings with student populations in australia (yang, ward, & fawcett, 2019). yang et al. (2019) reported 53.2% of veterinary student respondents having high or very high scores on a measure of psychological distress, notably much higher than medical students (22.1%), practicing veterinarians (14%), or the general population (11.7%). both yang, ward, and fawcett (2019) and karaffa and hancock (2019) reported that women have significantly higher levels of distress. contemporary research makes clear women in the veterinary profession are disproportionately affected by depression and depressive symptoms, and this warrants further investigation. yet, quantitative descriptions fall short of providing more robust understandings of the lived experiences of women in the veterinary profession. context is vital to grasp the reality of the lived experience. irvine and vermilya (2010) explained facets of the gender work in veterinary medicine, the most feminised of the health professions. their study revealed that although the profession has become numerically dominated by women, it “remains gendered masculine” (p. 58). in their study of veterinarians who are women, irvine and vermilya (2010) identified that many of their participants were drawn to veterinary medicine because it capitalised on their natural talents of being caring and compassionate. indeed, an influx of women into the profession occurred alongside a new philosophical emphasis of bond-centred practice where the focus of veterinary medical practice was on “importance of the human–animal relationship and the status of companion animals as friends and family members” (p. 65). this philosophical shift necessitated the need for emotional work in the profession and accordingly, the veterinarian now “becomes responsible not only for the medical care of the animal patient, but also for the emotional well-being of the human client” (irvine and vermilya, 2010, p. 65). the culture of veterinary medicine does not typically rationalise emotional work in recruitment and training, nor does it monitise it in practice—“the cost of treatment is the same regardless of the veterinarian’s concern for the client’s emotional state” (irvine & vermilya, 2010, p. 65). the veterinary profession “capitalizes on the ‘invisible work’ that many women veterinarians may see as a ‘natural’ expression of who they are” (irvine and vermilya, 2010, p. 65); yet, at the same time, women must remain in control of their emotions as “a necessary part of presenting a professional image” (p. 67). indeed, these competing discourses of competence and caring are well established in medical education literature that seeks to understand professional identity (macleod, 2011). the uneven focus on these discourses in professional socialisation was affirmed by medical students who emphasised the centrality of technical and scientific development over caring, the latter positioned as something “nice to do, but not the “true basis” of medicine” (macleod, 2011, p. 380). in sum, medical professions require women to manage this dual identity in developing professional identities, in becoming-veterinarian. hancock: embroidery as method 99 in medical practices, the materials available and the authority ascribed to them—antibiotics, muzzles and chutes, stethoscopes, white coats, protocols—fundamentally shape both practice and knowledge (fenwick, 2014). fenwick (2014) asserted that “context may be critical, but to understand context simply as an abstract container is to miss the turmoil of relationships among these myriad non-human as well as human elements that shape, moment to moment, particular dynamics of context” (p. 46). with this in mind, many scholars have called into question the conventional metaphors that represent teaching/learning, where knowledge is “acquired” and transferred by individuals (see fenwick, 2014; fenwick & dahlgren, 2015; mcmurtry & mcmurtry, 2016; mcmurtry, rohse, & kilgour, 2016; soffer, 2016). instead, these scholars offered an alternative: sociomaterial theories. these theories can attend to “learning in terms of collective dynamics, participation in social communities and active engagement with material contexts” (mcmurtry et al., 2016, p. 169). mcmurtry et al. (2016) cautioned that sociomaterial theories may at first seem counterintuitive partly due to the tenacity of the conventional notions of knowledge, which position isolated individuals acquiring knowledge against a backdrop of social dynamics and materials. instead, sociomaterial theories look beyond this backdrop, highlighting how learning and doing is inseparable from its fabric. this necessitates recognition that “our solitary standpoint is limited and that embracing another’s viewpoint is essential to our own” (sousanis, 2015, p. 38). veterinary medicine has disproportionate numbers of women practitioners and students who suffer disproportionately from depressive symptoms and are at greater risk for completing suicide. therefore, additional scholarly work is necessary to open up the nature of women’s experiences. in particular, research that can trace the learning and doing, the becomingveterinarian, as threads interwoven among a social-cultural-material fabric. becoming becoming is a theoretical concept that positions the development of professional identities as ongoing, contingent, and co-constituted by human and nonhuman matter (barad, 2003, 2007). barad (2003, 2007) advanced a posthumanist (sociomaterial) theory of performativity that built on the work of scholars, such as judith butler (1990), who have worked to develop poststructural theories of gender performativity. butler (1990) claimed gender is not something we are bestowed—we never get to “be,” but are always in the process of becoming through our performances that constitute and contest the gendered subject produced as an effect. performativity is the repeated stylisations that are performed and congeal over time, and which produce the (gendered) subject within rigid norms. barad (2007) positioned the material elements as agentic alongside humans. in her words, “all bodies, not merely ‘human’ bodies, come to matter through the world’s iterative intraactivity—its performativity” (barad, 2007, p. 152). materials and humans/discursive practices co-produce enactments of agency, where one portion of the assemblage is not privileged over the other. agency is an enactment momentarily borne from the intra-action of 100 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 material, nonmaterial, and discursive practices. in this way material�discursive, 1 and one does not precede the other—they are always already (re)producing each other. therefore, becoming has no definite beginning or end. it is momentary, produced through materialdiscursive practices that differentially and dynamically produce/contest the boundaries of performance and agential intra-action (barad, 2007, p. 141). in barad’s (2003, 2007) theory of agential realism, intra-actions produce a multiplicity of differential becomings. the process of becoming is complex and “rather than merely acting professionally, medical students are expected to become professionals and to embody a suitable professional identity” (monrouxe, rees, & hu, 2011, p. 586). macleod (2011) used discourse as a theoretical and analytical tool to explore the development of professional identities in medical students—the process of becoming-doctor—using discourses of competence and caring. discourses of competence referred to technical aspects of medicine, of knowledge and skills, of knowing the right answers or having the facts. on the other hand, discourses of caring focused on the social aspects of medicine—nontechnical dimensions that may address issues of gender, race, class, or family status, for example. macleod’s (2011) findings affirmed the complex and competitive nature of these discourses, and how discourses of competence tended to be a central concern throughout negotiations embedded within the process of becoming-doctors. reflexivity/diffraction in the writing that follows, i trace a few threads of becoming-veterinarians from a photoelicitation project with women veterinary students. in that project, the innovative methodological process of producing a material white coat embellished with embroidered data and reflexive journaling/memoing were synergistic. “reflexive,” in a literal sense, is “of, relating to, characterized by, or being a relation that exists between an entity and itself” (“reflexive,” n.d.). however, more often than not in qualitative research, reflexivity is a “generalized practice in which researchers attempt to acknowledge their influence on research” (bozalek & zembylas, 2017, p. 115). the use of reflexivity arises out of positivist critiques of qualitative research that suggest practices of reflexivity could “increase transparency and trustworthiness in research” (bozalek & zembylas, 2017, p. 115). diffraction is a similar research practice and the term is derived from barad’s (2007) conceptualisation of difference in the entanglements of matter and meaning. borrowed from quantum physics, diffraction is where waves combine when they overlap and produce different waveforms—waves that can be amplified, superimposed, and different (bozalek & zembylas, 2017). while reflexivity is a practice of cutting apart the entangled apparatus of researcher/researched/data/materials, diffraction considers how this coming together of inquiry combines, intra-acts, and produces difference. in these ways, to be reflexive in this project was to engage in diffraction—to surface partial accounts of entanglements that produced insights inseparable from the fabric and needlework of these stories of becoming. 1 some writing, and some of my writing, uses hyphens to indicate the entanglement, the intra-action between material and discursive. here i use the double arrow when discussing the theory broadly and hyphens in (re)presenting what was produced when thinking with theory. see jackson and mazzei (2012, p. 110) for more. hancock: embroidery as method 101 what follows next is focused on those methods and results of the diffractive aspects of this project stitched together with the matters of the photo-elicitation work. this work explored the following research questions: “how are women veterinary students becomingveterinarians?” “how am i, veterinarian-woman, becoming-scholar?” “how do our stories stitch together?” this scholarship is an intentional focus on the storied intersections of materials and discourse as they produced insights into the complexity of differential becoming (veterinarian) that hides behind the taken-for-granted, material (re)presentations of cultural norms. method/ology narrative inquiry engagement with barad’s (2003, 2007) theory of becoming insists that “our narratives play a part in constituting the relation between the past, present, and future” (rosiek & snyder, 2018, p. 3). narratives emerge with, in, and are of the research process and this produces the possibilities for new becomings. “narrative, as becoming, displaces the concept of ‘understanding’ and ‘experience’ of the other (there is no such subject) or on meaning (since this is always in flux), but on practicing/doing/performing/being in the dance of connectivity and intra-action” (munro-hendry, mitchell, & eaton, 2018, p. 11). (re)presenting narratives involves mutual co-constructions of storied data collages in and of historical, social, material, and cultural traditions. these stories are small “[co-]constructed realities in the process of interactions . . . dialogues” (moen, 2006, p. 5) and intra-actions (barad, 2003, 2007). intra-actions denote the coming together and mutual agency of all matter, human and non-human. altogether, “the storyteller does not tell the story so much as [they] are told by it” (andrews, squire, & tamboukou, 2012, p. 4). “the narrating process co-constitutes the writer, reader, and focus of study” (rosiek & snyder, 2018, p. 7). tamboukou (2012) described narratives as agents that trace the possibilities of becomings for women that cannot be separated from the processes that produced them, and used genealogy with archival data to meticulously trace the complexities and paradoxes of women’s becomings (see tamboukou, 1999, 2000, 2008, 2010, 2012). in these ways, stories that focus on the seemingly mundane activities of daily life provide tracings of the complex and antagonistic caring/competent veterinary becomings. the clothes we wear are as much a part of our stories as uttered words or the words refused, inhabiting our silences. the white coat is a material symbol of medical authority and power. it traces an “asymmetry that derives from educational, technical, social, and economic differences between physicians and patients” (wear, 1998, p. 735). the white coat also is said to represent the “pureness” of a profession, having origins in the late 19th century when the “value of cleanliness and antisepsis was firmly fixed as the core of medical science” (goldberg, 2008, p. 311). yet, to students, white coats are the material subject of white coat ceremonies, rituals that demarcate the formal inclusion into a profession and those duties and privileges nested within this new belonging. when donned, a student is expected to embody 102 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 the identity of doctor. what does it mean to be a doctor? is “doctor” a definable identity, or a fluid space of becoming, or both/and? narrative inquiry desires a method to “work meticulously . . . looking for insignificant details, bringing . . . light [to] unthought-of contours of various ways, discourses and practices” (tamboukou, 2012, p. 88). (re)presenting narratives requires mechanisms to problematise the discursive privilege of authorship and question the simplicity implied in certain (re)presentations. next, i trace narrative entanglements, and what diffracted with and in the materialised narrative inquiry, and situate these possibilities among those produced for those i researched with. narrative entanglements as a woman, a veterinarian, and a specialist who has been entrenched in various veterinary schools over the past 10 years, i have become curious about the nature of the profession. i’ve endured training programmes, packaged my feelings away (through necessity), lost friendships, almost lost my marriage, but also gained a lot in the process. along the way, i’ve found myself wondering, who am i performing for and why? i ask these questions as a scholar: “who am i performing for, why, and how?” my time in veterinary school was challenging—personally, academically. yet, i don’t think i was depressed. i had friends who were. classmates were open and vocal about it. perhaps i didn’t even notice if i was—becoming-veterinarian was supposed to be hard. i lost my first colleague to suicide during my second year out of veterinary school. i noticed a facebook post that morning about “doing what i needed to do:'-( ”and i glibly thought it was about euthanising a pet or patient. it was not. i grieved this loss in multiplicities. i still grieve. i came to this college of veterinary medicine (cvm) as a resident of clinical pathology and master’s student in veterinary pathobiology. for some of the students, i was a teacher in one of their first-year courses and, for others, they may have interacted with and come to know me over the summer at the freshman orientation programme. otherwise, students may know me from interactions on the veterinary medicine campus, or from messages i have sent promoting programmes for teaching and curriculum work. this narrative environment, the cvm, is nested in a larger professional narrative environment: the profession of veterinary medicine. i remained at this university as a doctoral student in the college of education and, during that time, i became a mother and worked hard to perform as if everything was okay. i wondered if a professional woman-mother could actually be successful? was i being selfish to have a child and if so, were the crippling effects of motherhood my wake-up call to this reality? one summer, i came across a whiteboard in a student study room at the cvm and snapped a picture of it (figure 1). for me, it produced many questions. what was happening? who owns these words? whose story does it depict, and is it mine to tell? is it mine to use? this image moved people and i felt that by finding it, the entanglement desired me—and i hope i am worthy of the desiring and the stories it produces. hancock: embroidery as method 103 figure 1: whiteboard image used in photo-elicitation discussions data production students were recruited to participate in a research project centred on the material image of the whiteboard (figure 1). emails that recruited for focus groups with peers were sent to each of the preclinical classes. the message stated the research was about student well-being, curriculum, and would be stories and conversations about a whiteboard. additionally, informed consent with further information about the study was attached and given again prior to the recorded sessions. four women consented to participate, three of whom were third-year students, georgia, sylvie, and caroline; one was a second-year student, alicia (all pseudonyms). the focus group and interviews lasted 30 minutes to one hour, and were semistructured around the image captured of the whiteboard. these conversations were conducted in a small study room in the veterinary medicine campus. in this space, i tried to maintain a friendly connection with the students by making small talk about coursework, shared experiences, or seemingly trivial matters of the day (e.g., the weather). despite this—my attempts to dress casually and emphasise that i was not after any particular/right responses, just those stories they might tell around the whiteboard—i often found myself uncomfortable. i wrote of this in my memos. for instance, after my session with alicia i wrote, “tamara-olympus 2 produces a tension. what are my worries?” i 2 olympus was the brand of audio-recorder i was using as one way to produce a record of these conversations. 104 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 felt that tamara-olympus evoked thoughts of particular ways to be in interview spaces: particular ways to be a researcher. with a focus on an endpoint-to-come, my performances felt shameful, inadequate. perhaps the students and i both felt as though our performances would never be enough, and wondered if the other would notice. narrative needlework focus groups and interview recordings were transcribed verbatim. i sorted and aggregated utterances and sections of transcripts that operationalised discourses of caring or competence and placed these excerpts into a table with labelled columns (i.e., “caring” and “competence”). within this analysis, an additional category, “inside,” emerged. this category referred to the hidden interior of a white coat, where the white coat represents the enactment of professional identities—the (discursive) performance of identity. to don the white coat represents the performativity of normalised skills, knowledge, and personas to “be” a professional. the inside consisted of utterances that referred to dark, personal, or hidden aspects of a path traversed through the structured professional curriculum. these categorical aggregates of quotes or longer stretches of speech were printed onto white paper and cut into smaller pieces so that each data excerpt was on one small slip of paper. these slips of paper, these utterances and data excerpts, were kept with their dimensions: caring, competence, or inside. to engage in narrative as becoming (munro-hendry et al., 2018) the slips of paper were embroidered onto my personal white coat awarded at my college’s white coat ceremony. my white coat symbolically welcomed me to the veterinary profession and the performative expectations therein. this methodologic step also produced a literal white coat with data. a white coat to don in the ways that showcase competence and caring—and hide what is on the inside. this parallels the work of weber (2005) who worked with shoes as a metaphor, a mode of inquiry, and a normative device of (gendered) performance. these material and metaphorical intra-actions produced creative insights and enabled synthesis of these data, my own imbrication. from this synthesis, i produced a first-person fictional narrative of becoming-veterinarian. fiction was used as a tool to (re)present the complex nature of the veterinary school experience (leavy, 2013) and within this effort to portray realness is an effort to reach an audience beyond that of other scholars. fiction permits the use of creative writing techniques and literary tools that are not typically a part of the discourse of social science research (leavy, 2013). throughout the embroidery, i maintained a diffractive journal of what was produced and, in doing so, i traced my becoming-with-others: becoming-veterinarian and becoming-scholar. narrative becomings in this section, i showcase these first-person narratives, side by side. this move is akin to the dialogic give-and-take hamilton (2005) employed in her self-study where she wrote herself in analytic conversation with winslow homer, a long-deceased artist. the duality this device might impress upon the reader should be interpreted with caution. although to place my hancock: embroidery as method 105 narrative becoming alongside the fictitious student narrative becoming does not create a hierarchy of one over another, it does generate a false boundary between them. the nature of our narrative becomings—that they are entangled and not easy to separate—is difficult to (re)present. the side-by-side presentation below—presenting them stitched together—is my attempt to provide minor justice to this issue of (re)presentation and authorship. i conclude these becomings with the methodologic, metaphoric, and material white coat. becoming-veterinarian you know, i almost changed my mind before i got here. getting a 17 on my first organic chemistry test in undergrad almost made me quit. luckily, i got to drop one exam score—my professor was awesome—and so that didn’t stand in my way. looking back, i wonder if i should have seen it as a wakeup call; it was actually easy in undergrad, but i thought i was stressed out then. ha! i had perfect grades. i did all sorts of extra stuff. i actually had a balanced life. then came vet school. you get to anatomy, and physiology, and microanatomy, and neurology and suddenly you’re not making as anymore, you’re making cs. and i don’t feel like i have any time to devote to friendships and relationships. you know, my husband and i only saw each other for dinner and then i’d be studying, and we just never saw each other, and it was really rough . . . it still is kind of rough. sometimes it can feel better, but you know, once i’m here i can’t give up. i guess i feel sort of trapped. i can’t back out now. someone once told me, “as long as you’re still here you deserve to be here,” and i try to remember that but it’s not always easy. i’ve had this reality check recently after going home for winter break. i was visiting with friends and family and like they’re all excited for me, they think i’m becoming-scholar tuesday. the needlework is hard. i only have two quotes sewn on and i’m wondering if i bit off more than i can chew. when i found my white coat from my white coat ceremony—when i started vet school in 2007—it was in the basement. at least it was hanging up. 3 i’m equivalently surprised how well it’s held up—i wore it in the anatomy lab for all of first year, i’m sure it’s radiating something that causes cancer. it was neglected while i was a resident because i got a new coat with my name, dr. hancock, on it. it has some stains that don’t make any sense to me. rust? they seem to emanate and radiate—the fabric in these areas has a different texture. i definitely don’t feel like i know what i’m doing and at the same time, i feel like i know what i’m doing. my husband asked, “what is that?” to which i replied, “it’s research.” the narrative project, in general, has taken over. my evenings after my child goes to sleep are spent reading, writing, or doing needlework. i can’t stop thinking about it a lot of the time. i’ve been doing yoga, running more—that clears my mind. it helps, truly. i don’t know what other people will 3 i find curious, the place and care of the various material entanglements of social status/identities. for comparison, my wedding dress is still shoved haphazardly into a moving box from the move from indiana to iowa 10 years ago. i feel more committed to my marriage than my profession from a personal standpoint. from a scholarly perspective, i feel more committed to unpacking and (re)imagining my profession. 106 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 awesome, and are asking, “oh, are you going to do a residency and specialise?!” so, i explain the internship and residency process to them and then have to admit, you know, i’m not going to do it because i don’t want to, but even more, if i wanted to i don’t have the grades or grade point average (gpa)—the cumulative average of all my final grades where 4.0 is perfect. it’s common knowledge that you need at least a 3.0 or above for even just externships. one of our professors was saying that when they are evaluating candidates for internships or residencies, they separate them out, putting the 4.0 to 3.5 in one pile, and the 3.4 to 3.0 in another, and then everyone else over here. then they start with the highest gpas, then the middle, and they may not even get to the lower gpas even though everybody is a doctor. i’m not good enough to be a specialist and definitely not good enough to be in academia. what’s even harder to communicate to my family and friends is, even though i’m already halfway through the entire curriculum, i could still fail out. they think, well, you’re already halfway through and you’re not going to fail anything. there’s this expectation out there and this expectation in me. i don’t know— it’s really heavy. although it was kind of a joke first year, “oh i’m going to fail out of this class or that class,” the further we get the more real it gets in more ways than one. i’m in the last semester before clinics and thinking about starting over at the beginning— nope. just nope. the curriculum is hard. i mean, obviously it should be, it’s doctor school, right? some people can’t wait for clinics, but me, i’m terrified. i feel like i have no idea. i legit feel like i don’t know anything. i worry i’m going to kill something. all i’ve been doing think. i didn’t even share the true nature of my fiction project with my advisor. i was worried i would scare him. seriously. doing the hard work and then shutting up about it, having a smile and appearing unflappable, flawless— being a good woman. i’ve got that down. it’s hauntingly comfortable. wednesday. i just finished my caring quotes. it’s so weird to wonder how this will all come together when i think, or thought i knew going into it, what it might look like. i’m enjoying the small parts of this. using my creative license to make the stitches however i please. when i started, i thought i wanted to use suture or staples. medical materials. i didn’t have any around and thought about how it’s not medicine that attaches this discourse, these utterances, but creative license to constitutively produce. plus, why not try to make the most out of something—visually intriguing materials that extend beyond the words. my fingertips hurt. this is hard work. when i chose the colours of needlework floss, i wanted to show the two halves of caring and competence and, then, what was produced, the inside of the coat—the people who are (not) present ought to be a blend of these two. i spent a lot of time thinking about these colours—what might they mean? what and why did i choose what i chose? after much deliberation, i arrived at conceptualising through primary and secondary colours. two halves make a new whole. so, yellow and red (primary) halves, when mixed would produce an orange (secondary). the colours that i chose to reflect what is produced are not always orange, or show the influence of other colours, other elements of becoming. the outcomes of difference should not be a hancock: embroidery as method 107 for two years is looking at powerpoint slides and i feel like we don’t get any help learning how to behave like a doctor—or, i guess, even think like a doctor, either. it’s not only understanding all the processes and all the information, it’s now “what are you going to do?” and “how are you going to present it to the client?” and then “what happens if money is an issue?” and how do i even figure out the cheapest methods to do anything—to find a solution? and then, how do i act confident when i don’t know? how do i handle my first euthanasia? what do i say? how do i reassure them? what’s not appropriate? how do i deal with angry clients? or people who just want rabies shots but aren’t going to treat the ear infection? will i even have health insurance at the clinic i work at, or be able to work full time? what about my student loans? the unknown, the darkness, it’s—it’s never-ending. i don’t know. i guess i’m trying to reconcile that hopefully getting to do what i think i love is worth it. i guess, since i’m still here i belong here, right? we lost two students during second year. they were more mental health type issues; i think just the stresses of school did them in. i’m thinking the class below us will probably have some that need to drop out as well. you know how we get paired up with “little siblings” when the underclassmen start? my little sib dropped and so did my friends’ littles. it all just adds up and . . . you can’t handle it anymore. i try to attend family events when i can, but it’s hard. it’s something i have to be willing to take a hit for and sometimes i can’t take that hit. i’m usually studying while i’m there, anyways. it’s nice when professors understand that you have a lot going on. that they acknowledge you’re working hard because when they don’t it feels like it’s not enough. one surprise, or are they? although not intended, when i felt confident about my floss lot and was heading to the checkout, it dawned on me that my primary colours were those of my dvm alma mater: cardinal and gold. the colours that line my veterinary doctoral hood. did i mention my fingers hurt? hurts to type and i didn’t really realise that it was painful until i started to type. to reflect, and write out my experiences. huh. that’s some food for thought. when i was nearly finished with the caring needlework, i realised i had sewed the front and the back of the coat together. it’s not the worst mistake but what i am surprised by is how i didn’t notice when it was happening. i was nearly finished stitching on the next slip of paper when i noticed. at first, i was pissed. how could i have missed that? i thought i was being reasonably careful and checking every so often to make sure i didn’t do this one thing—sew the coat together. sigh. i pondered how i might “fix it” and “make it better” and while pondering, i became aware of what it was i was doing. i was rejecting the becoming of this human-material assemblage—the uniqueness of the trajectory. the coat could still work, but it might be a bit more awkward or uncomfortable if donned—specifically if donned in ways that (re)produce the original expectation of what it means to have or be a “good” fit. how many deviations from the expectations are labelled defective? unworkable? needing to be fixed or made better? what does this look like when we’re talking about students or colleagues? i need to stitch on. i feel like in some ways my stitches are getting sloppy and in others, they’re getting better. i’m finding that a lot of 108 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 of our professors for an 8 o’clock class said, “you know, if you don’t want to show up this will be on tegrity,” that’s like recording things and posting it online. that really takes the pressure off. it’s nice to have that permission to be human. you know, but even that is hard—being a like a person, you know. i feel changed. even when i’m visiting friends on break, trying to relax, and a friend of a friend came to our barbeque with her boxer. making small talk i asked her how old she was, what her name was, etcetera, and then the woman says, “oh and so you’re a vet student, so she’s got this lump on her head . . . ” immediately all i can think is: mast cell tumour or, how this old boxer is probably gonna die of cancer in the next two years. how do i go about talking about that without sounding insensitive? like, i can’t even see a cute puppy or kitten without thinking about the problems they’re going to grow up with and die from. we’re trained in these first two years, “here’s all the problems” and you can’t unthink that. i don’t know how to relate to real people and relax, and my brain needs that. it’s rough but like, i can’t turn off what i know now. i don’t know how to be normal again. i want to feel normal or, i guess, at least happy. embroidery is planning your next move while you make your current stitch/move. i tried my hand at knots— there are two types: colonial and french. i tried both and failed miserably. i tried to make it look like a bow, like it was on purpose. who knows? i’ve been telling myself that the little mistakes are happy accidents. like bob ross, the soft-spoken american painter ans television icon, suggested (ross, 2017). the imperfect stitches are interesting and mean more. are more. i don’t know what, yet. thursday. while working on the white coat tonight i had a blanket 4 on my lap to keep me warm and cozy. i stitched my blanket to the coat. i know i had previously decided to let the happy mistakes live on but i had caught this one immediately. with meticulous attention, i unthreaded the stitch back out of the coat. from there, i realised that it didn’t pierce full thickness through the blanket, so i made some small cuts to pull the thread clean from its partial blanket encasement. i pondered how i worked to keep myself warm and cozy, and couldn’t keep this simple feeling or need separate from this project. monday. this is a work in progress and not my final product. but then again, isn’t that what we all are? i present to you the empty white coat of veterinarians (figures 2 & 3). 4 it was a blanket emblazoned with the name of my university affiliation at the time. hancock: embroidery as method 109 figure 2: the embroidered and empty white coat of veterinarians. the left panel depicts the front, and the right panel depicts the back. not pictured: a mirrored compact in the pocket near the heart, which invites a new intra-action with the white coat as matter and method and metaphor. what is produced when we (do not) see our entangled selves? figure 3: select details of the embroidered and empty white coat of veterinarians. this image depicts stains of unknown origin, embroidered performativity. the two sides of this panel depict what is visible on the outside and what is inside. 110 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 scholarly impressions “thank you for noticing the whiteboard [laughs] i don’t know how many clinicians actually try to focus on the whiteboard” (georgia, focus group). this focus (group) was different than others, and georgia noticed. our constellation of entanglements produced momentary gratitude. in medicine, we talk of constellations of signs that produce diagnoses or those conditions for the generation of certain pathologies. in this constellation of narratives, what else is produced? connections of differential becoming were produced in how each of us struggled with, and in the complexity and uncertainty of, our becomings. we wondered what our becomings—the socialisations we were willingly immersed within—were doing with us, much as pithouse (2005) wondered about what her “privileged school experiences” were doing with her (p. 207). the fictional veterinary student grappled with competing performances of competence in terms of grades and knowledge and caring for herself, friends, and new animal companions in her life. though these internal tensions were shared by the students i discussed the whiteboard with, they were ones i identified with. they were and are a part of my becomingscholar as much as they were and are a part of my becoming-veterinarian. they are our narratives—how knowing/being/doing our becomings are unstable and unknowable, and how we grapple with this flux and this flux grapples with us. the veterinary student feels changed and cannot unthink all the problems and, at the same time, i am preoccupied with the physical pain of my becoming-scholar—of producing a white coat through embroidery while this white coat produces us. the insights produced from my needlework and embroidery were the most surprising dimension of this work. i had not expected these intra-actions to affect me in the ways they did, and how producing this is producing me. the details of using my own coat, the stains of my coat, and embroidery floss selections held space for me to become so much of my own becoming-scholar. the accidents were some of the most insightful areas in ways in which the departure from the expected, the subversions of performativity, produced awareness in and of the departure from a norm. the pull of a rigid adherence to “the way,” rather than a way is curious and something our becomings grappled with differently. in other scholarship, i write of grappling with the myriad entanglements of becoming-scholar and the theoretical concepts that sustain my work (hancock & fontanella-nothom, 2020). how we notice the pressures of the material-discursive world pressing against and forming us in those moments that the moulds fracture. these entanglements fractured the moulds of becoming for these students, this composite student, and me in ways we were and are uncertain about. the order in which i chose to embroider—working first on caring and competence before attending to those inner elements of becoming, the inside. this made visible the notion that what was stitched inside is ma(r)king what is and can be performatively professional. furthermore, in the work with caring, the stitches accidentally collapsed the fullness of the coat and this has implications for what could “fill” or “fit” the coat, impacting how a professional identity could be donned given the nature of caring. for me, my caring for my hancock: embroidery as method 111 child now made my performativity increasingly difficult—it was and is more complex than i imagined. in the ways in which it made me interrogate my own internalised misogyny— could a successful professional woman also be a mother? in the ways in which it made me feel crumpled and imperfect and how i need(ed) to work on accepting what is becoming. this struggle parallels some of those described by medical students, where discourses of competence have influenced them “to the point where [they] are pressured to demonstrate professional identities consistent with discourses of competence at the expense of raising other concerns” (macleod, 2011, p. 390). this raises other concerns: of believing i am now less than—because i am raising others. my agential cut to free the floss from my blanket when they were accidentally sewn together was a generative moment. i noticed my “mistake” immediately and decided to unthread my veterinary attachments from my scholarly attachments. this departure was more than physical, it was ontological, epistemological, and literal. becoming-scholar for me was a paradigm shift. it is a turn from the positivist tradition of biomedical science to (post)qualitative social science. i have embraced an interpretivist and “post” stance on research, and i position my work to interrogate and unsettle the taken-for-granted assumptions of my professions. this work affirms that intra-action with the curriculum produces hardship for some. more work is needed to examine the extent to which our curricula, both hidden and explicit, are integral pieces of the crisis of mental illness and suicide in our profession. indeed, veterinary school is and will be hard. transitions in life are hard. are blackened souls a necessary rite of passage? are they the calluses our fingers form so that we do not feel the pain of needlework? how might these stories effect changes in classroom and curricular practices? should they? more broadly, consider the words of khalil gibran to conclude (as quoted in sousanis, 2015). your children are not your children. they are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself. . . . you are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth (p. 139) putting these words in conversation with this research produces new thoughts. there are so many factors, so many possibilities for differential becoming, we are but the bows from which our graduates, as living arrows, are sent forth. our policies permit and prohibit arrows from being taken up, included in quivers (cohorts of matriculating students), placed and subsequently launched forth (leaping over or circumnavigating hurdles on the way to graduation). we need not to look to our targets (outcomes) but to acknowledge them and their entanglement as we craft our bows. knowing that arrows, in becoming, never truly land and 112 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 self-reflexive or 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(2019). dvm students report higher psychological distress than the australian public, medical students, junior medical officers and practicing veterinarians. australian veterinary journal, 97(10), 373–381. doi:10.1111/avj.12845 microsoft word b8500 full issue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 85, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i85a01 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x practical subjects in the vocational curriculum: a critical review of the literature christine winberg professional education research unit, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa winbergc@cput.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6234-7358 shairn hollis-turner professional education research unit, cape peninsula university of technology, cape town, south africa hollis-turners@cput.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0001-3229 (received: 5 september 2020; accepted: 14 september 2021) abstract there is a growing number of studies in the field of vocational education and training, but not many focus on the practical subjects that prepare students for transition to workplaces. this critical review of the literature on practical subjects in vocational colleges set out to contribute to debates on the relationship between theory and practice in vocational education through a particular focus on the knowledge forms that are evident in curricular and pedagogical practices in practical subjects. the critical review identified the conceptual, procedural, technical, and contextual forms of knowledge in practical tasks and activities. based on these findings and drawing on the concept of semantic gravity in legitimation code theory, we found stronger and weaker forms of semantic gravity in practical knowledge and propose that strengthening and weakening semantic gravity through the purposeful selection and sequencing of tasks and activities enables cumulative knowledge building towards competent practice. keywords: practical subjects; vocational education; vocational colleges; critical review of the literature, semantic gravity introduction: an overview of key debates in vocational education scholars in the field agree that vocational education should support students’ transitions from education to work (e.g., allais & shalem, 2018; billett, 2011; rauner et al., 2012; winch, 2013). however, the purposes, curricula, and pedagogies of vocational education are strongly contested. is the purpose of vocational education to prepare young people for specific jobs or 8 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 is it to prepare them more broadly for employability and citizenship? educationalists have argued that vocational qualifications “have been robbed of their educational integrity and are too narrow, too task focused and too tied to particular jobs” (wheelahan, 2015, p. 127), while industry representatives argue that vocational qualifications should meet the needs of employers and provide the basis for a skilled workforce and occupational progression as rageth and renold (2020) have noted. there is, therefore, an inevitable tension in vocational curricula between the logic of education and the logic of industry. this tension is evident in the connection (or disconnection) between theory (in the form of academic subjects) and practice (in the form of practical subjects and work-based learning). ryle (2009) proposed a distinction between know-how, or practical knowledge, and knowing that, or propositional or theoretical knowledge that has been useful in identifying a knowledge base for vocational education. winch (2013) expanded on ryle’s distinction by pointing to the importance of the interrelationship of “knowing how and knowing that” (p. 281) in vocational curricula and warned of the consequences of neglecting this relationship. that attention has not been paid to the relationship between theoretical and practical knowledge is evident in the ongoing debates about the extent to which the curriculum should be structured by disciplinary knowledge or by occupational standards. should the focus be on the “specifics of the vocational area with minimal curriculum extension and enrichment” (fuller, 2015, p. 232) or should the vocational curriculum include a wider range of academic subjects and civic education? on the one hand, it is argued that theoretical subjects provide the explanatory logic and the principles that underpin practice (wheelahan, 2015), and, on the other, that practical subjects and work-based learning provide context and opportunities to connect theory to practice (billett, 2011). the issue of the relationship between both forms, is, however, under-represented (winch, 2013). geographically, there are differences across vocational education systems, with germany, austria, and switzerland tending towards a broader educational base (rauner et al., 2012), and the uk (fuller, 2015), australia (wheelahan, 2015) and many developing countries tending towards a more narrowly defined vocational curriculum (mcgrath et al., 2020). whether or not a vocational pedagogy exists is debatable, given the varied terrain of vocational education. the classic so-called signature pedagogy of vocational training was apprenticeship, but with the shift towards college-based vocational education (dating back to the early 20th century), scholars identified a disjuncture between the goals of vocational education and the pedagogies most effective for the achievement of those goals (lucas, 2014). rauner et al. (2012) proposed that a vocational pedagogy has to address both propositional and procedural knowledge, i.e., not only how to perform an action but “why it is shaped this way rather than another and how the processes of genesis and design take place as part of the development of society” (p. 20). indeed, studies show that that narrow outcomes “have long been identified as only accounting for superficial learning” rather than “complex performance” (billet, 2011, p. 7). “competence”, interpreted as the “professional competence to act”, plays a major part in the debates in vocational pedagogy and especially in the system of examinations (rauner et al., 2012, p. 20). thus, the ways in which vocational winberg & hollis-turner: practical subjects in the vocational curriculum 9 courses are assessed, and the role of academic staff and practitioners in assessment “has to be viewed as a dimension of the development of professional competence, and to be integrated into a model of competence development” (rauner et al., 2012, p. 32). there are related debates about the settings in which vocational education should take place. should students be primarily located in the workplace with some classroom provision or should it be the other way around with full-time attendance at a vocational college and some opportunities for workplace experience? billett (2011, p. 17) warned of “the cognitive consequences of participating in an environment that is remote from those in which the knowledge to be learned is applied.” clearly, colleges are “not able to provide the full range of authentic experiences required” for competent practice (p. 125), and practical subjects cannot take the place of internships and other forms of work-based learning. in this regard, practical subjects and students’ engagement in practical activities while undertaking vocational studies in colleges is understood not as a substitute for actual work experience, but as a preparation for work placement (rauner et al., 2012). the extent to which practical subjects support successful transition into workplaces and competence-building is the focus of this critical review. in the context of practical training, winch pointed to the importance of mapping “the main kinds of know-how that need to be taken account of” in preparing students for practice (2013, pp. 281–282). while there has been “an exponential increase in articles with a vocational focus” (gessler & siemer, 2020), very few of these studies have a focus on practical vocational subjects. it is thus timely that a critical review of the literature on practical subjects be undertaken to address “the need for review studies for the purposes of systematic knowledge aggregation, clarification and interpretation” (p. 100). the research question guiding this critical review of the literature is: “how do curricular and pedagogical arrangements in practical vocational subjects support students’ transitions to work?” our intention in this study is to contribute to debates on the relationship between theory and practice in vocational education through a particular focus on the knowledge forms that are evident in curricular and pedagogical practices in practical subjects. a theoretical framework for critically reviewing the literature on practical vocational subjects because the focus of the critical review is on the knowledge forms that are evident in curricula and pedagogies in practical vocational subjects, we conceptually framed the critical review with legitimation code theory (lct), a social realist framework that has been widely used to study the knowledge base of different types and levels of educational provision (maton, 2014), including vocational education (e.g., johansson, 2020). lct is multi-dimensional in offering a variety of concepts and tools to analyse practices. each dimension explores one set of organising principles of dispositions, practices, and fields, conceptualised in lct as legitimation codes. an analysis of legitimation codes explores “what is possible for whom, when, where and how, and who is able to define these possibilities, when, where and how” (maton, 2014, p. 18). 10 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 analysing a field of practice involves identifying the semantic structures “whose organizing principles are conceptualized as semantic codes comprising semantic gravity and semantic density” (maton, 2014, p. 2). semantic gravity explains the degree of context-dependence of meaning while semantic density explains the degree of condensation of meaning (maton, 2014). both semantic gravity and semantic density are necessary in a vocational curriculum, and an appropriate relationship between them is key to the success of vocational programmes. a focus on semantic density would foreground the theoretical, abstract components of the programme, while a focus on semantic gravity reveals the contextual, practical, workor occupation-oriented aspects of the programme. winch (2013, p. 282) pointed out that there is “an excessive concentration on skill” in the vocational literature, rather than on “other forms of know-how whose development is vital to any professional or vocational education.” consequently, there is a need “to articulate the main relationships between these different kinds of know-how.” in order to define appropriate forms of know-how, as well as to explain the relations between the different forms of know-how, we drew, as mentioned above, on the concept of semantic gravity. semantic gravity approximates to ryle’s (2009) notion of know-how and it is this practical knowledge form that is foregrounded in our study. winch (2013, p. 283) argued that we should resist “attempts at reduction, either of know-how to knowing that (broadly speaking the intellectualist tradition) or of knowing that to know-how (what is sometimes known as ‘strong anti-intellectualism’).” for this critical review of the literature on practical subjects, know-how or, in this case, semantic gravity, highlights the different forms of practical knowledge and the nature of the relationships between types of semantic gravity in practical subjects that were important to preparing students for transition into work practices. while we acknowledge the presence and importance of semantic density in practical subjects, and generally in vocational curricula, the focus of this study is practical knowledge, and the relationships between forms of practical knowledge in practical subjects. the focus on semantic gravity does not imply that semantic density is absent; there is often an inverse relationship between semantic gravity and semantic density. when semantic gravity is weaker, it is less embedded in its context, thus enabling the inclusion of conceptual knowledge within practice. because of its potential to identify relationships between theory and practice through stronger and weaker linkages to contexts, semantic gravity is pertinent to a study of knowledge in practical training. translation device in order to operationalize the concept of semantic gravity a “translation device” (maton & chen, 2016, p. 28) was needed to form a bridge between the high level concept of semantic gravity and its application to studies of practical work in vocational education and training (see table 1). winberg & hollis-turner: practical subjects in the vocational curriculum 11 table 1 translation device for semantic gravity in practical vocational subjects semantic gravity range knowledge codes descriptors/examples weaker semantic gravity conceptual sgtheory, concepts, and principles that underpin practice. stronger semantic gravity contextual sg+ knowledge acquired in practice. in practical subjects, weaker semantic gravity (sg-) indicates the foregrounding of concepts and principles, while stronger semantic gravity (sg+) is evident in contextually embedded forms of knowledge that develop through practice and that are often tacit and difficult to explain and to teach. the arrow in the range column indicates that weaker and stronger forms of semantic gravity can be positioned along a continuum. the difference between practical work that is undertaken as part of an internship, or other form of workplace learning, and the training provided in practical subjects is the presence or absence of real work. while there are many forms of learning in practical subjects, such as active and engaged classroom learning, problem-based learning, laboratory work, studio work, and simulations, these would not be equivalent to actual workplace practice. however practical subjects are likely to have stronger semantic gravity and might adapt ideas from actual work practices. curricular and pedagogical practices are likely to draw on a range of knowledge types, concepts, and codified forms of knowledge as well as knowledge arising from practical tasks and activities. winch (2013) identified three types of know-how, namely “skill (and its technique component), transversal ability and project management ability” (p. 281). he proposed a “nesting” or “hierarchical relationship” between the three forms of practical knowledge (p. 295). there are two aspects to “skill”, namely “the ability to perform tasks” and the “technique” used to perform them. “transversal abilities” include “planning, communicating, [and] evaluating,” and develop from skills (pp. 287–288). despite their name, transversal abilities are context-dependent because they arise from a particular vocational field, and while they are transferable within the vocational field, they are generally not transferable across fields. finally, project management is an ability to put into effect “relatively long-term sequences of actions” that build on and articulate different transversal abilities (p. 821). we used semantic gravity in the critical review to study curricular and pedagogical practices in practical subjects, determine practice variations across occupational fields, and explain the knowledge forms that underpin the practices. traversing the full extent of the semantic gravity range has been shown to enable students to draw on theoretical concepts in order to formulate solutions to the challenges they confront in practice (maton, 2014). the translation device (table 1) was used to make visible the extent to which the studies focused on different forms of knowledge in practical training and provided the theoretical basis from which curricular and pedagogical practices in vocational subjects could be critically appraised. 12 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 methodology of the critical review of the literature we followed the prisma methodology for critically reviewing the literature (evans et al., 2012). in common with systematic reviews, for eva (2008, p. 853) a critical review presents a “synthesis of a variety of literatures, identifies knowledge that is well established, highlights gaps in understanding, and provides some guidance regarding what remains to be understood.” a critical review is particularly apposite when scholars hold different views, as is the case in relation to the practical training of students in vocational education. the distinctiveness of a critical review is that the results “should give a new perspective on an old problem, rather than simply paraphrasing what all other researchers and scholars in the field have shown or said in the past” (p. 853). the prisma critical review methodology is comprised of four steps: 1) identification of the studies through a transparent and replicable search strategy; 2) screening of the studies for duplications and for relevance to the topic; 3) checking the eligibility of the data extracted against justifiable quality criteria; and 4) critically analysing the data extracted (evans et al., 2012). it is the last step, i.e., the critical analysis of the study data that distinguishes a critical review from a systematic review. in a critical review, drawing on a theoretical framework to provide new perspectives and theoretically informed insights into the studies reviewed, the data extracted is coded and thematically analysed. identification the search strategy included the selection of appropriate search terms and testing them via pilot searches. the vocational education literature does not use standard terms for practical training in colleges, thus a number of context-specific terms were required (e.g., “practical training”, “practical subjects”, “school-to-work”, “pre-apprenticeship”). since practical training is a term commonly used for industry-based training in work placements, we excluded “industry” in the searches. when we searched in generic databases we included “vocational education”, “vocational training”, “vet” and “tvet” in the searches, but when we were searching in or cross-checking vocational education journals, this was unnecessary. we searched six academic databases and cross-checked in a meta-database (scopups) as well as in nine individual journals. we also searched relevant journals that were not in academic publishers’ databases. table 2 provides a schematic representation of the search strategy. we included articles on the basis of relevance, i.e., if they were research studies on the curricula, teaching, learning, and/or assessment of practical subjects or practical training in technical and vocational colleges. the searches conducted resulted in an initial database of 256 articles, books, book chapters, and conference proceedings. screening duplicate or very similar studies were removed. titles and abstracts were not helpful in judging the study’s relevance to the topic since many terms used to describe industry or higher education training are similar to those used in college-based training. consequently, winberg & hollis-turner: practical subjects in the vocational curriculum 13 we read all articles, chapters, and conference proceedings in order to determine their eligibility for inclusion in the study. table 2 the search strategy search terms databases searched cross-checked in (“vocational education” or “vocational training” or vet or tvet) and (“practical training” or “practical subject” or “school-to-work” or “preapprenticeship”) not industry not university not “higher vocational education” elsevier journal of vocational behavior emerald education + training ieee xplore ieee transactions on education sabinet journal of vocational, adult and continuing education and training journal of education scopus international journal for research in vocational education and training (ijrvet) springer empirical research in vocational education and training taylor and francis journal of vocational education & training journal of education and work international journal of training research journals not in academic publishers’ databases search terms as above nordic journal of vocational education and training journal of technical education and training eligibility following screening, 68 studies remained in the database. we re-read all items in it and screened articles on quality criteria. the intention was to include only empirical research studies and research-based evaluation studies. thus, articles that were position papers, reviews, opinions, shorter than two pages, or that lacked a methodology section were excluded, resulting in a final database of 63 studies. we excluded studies earlier than 2010 to keep the database as up to date as possible. included for critical analysis the translation device provided the basis for an iterative process of identifying emergent themes by consensus. finally, we produced a synthesis of the findings, paying particular attention to commonalities across studies. we used the translation device (table 1) to code 14 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 the data. both of us jointly coded and analysed the studies. the literature was managed in an excel database (available at http link). figure 1 prisma flow chart for the critical review of the literature source: evans et al. (2012). s c r e e n in g in c lu d e d e li g ib il it y id e n ti fi c a ti o n records identified through database searches (n = 234 ) additional records identified through other sources (n = 22 ) duplicate/irrelevant (n =188 ) full-text articles excluded on the basis of quality (n = 5) records in initial data base (n = 256 ) records screened (n = 256 ) full-text articles assessed for quality (n = 68) eligible studies (n = 63) studies critically analysed (n = 63) winberg & hollis-turner: practical subjects in the vocational curriculum 15 findings from the critical review of the literature most of the studies (43/63) that we included in the critical review of the literature took place in european countries, with germany, switzerland, and the nordic countries particularly well-represented. asian countries, including china, india, malaysia, and hong kong comprise the next cluster (11/63). we included four studies from australia, two from the united states and three from africa (ghana, nigeria, and south africa) in the data base. the literature included a wide variety of research methods, including surveys (e.g., chandran et al., 2018; dasmani, 2011; dumbrell & smith, 2013), observational studies (e.g., asplund & kontio, 2020; louw, 2013; sjöberg, 2014), interview-based studies (e.g., aakernes, 2018; callan et al., 2015; heusdens et al., 2018), case studies (e.g., gleeson, 2016; kotsifakos et al., 2018), document-based studies (e.g., nylund & rosvall, 2016; rauner et al., 2012), comparisons (e.g., kap, 2014; sappa et al., 2016; schröder, 2019) and evaluations of interventions (e.g., hoareau et al., 2017; shrestha, 2016; yasak & alias, 2017). several studies used mixed-method approaches, such as surveys and interviews (e.g., deitmer & heinemann, 2017; stalder, 2012) and “obser-views” that combined observations with interviews (aarkrog, 2019; hamid et al., 2012). conceptual underpinnings of practical subjects ten studies (16%) focused on the role of conceptual knowledge in practical subjects. studies in this category described different ways in which connections were made between disciplinary knowledge and practical activities, particularly in laboratory-based practicals. most studies in this category were in engineering fields, including automotive (nylund & rosvall, 2016), mechanical (kotsifakos et al., 2018), electronic (kotsifakos et al., 2019) and software engineering (kosmidis et al., 2019), as well as in information technology (gkamas et al., 2019; yasak & alias, 2017) and green technologies (gleeson, 2016). the studies highlighted how scientific knowledge was drawn on in technical tasks and activities. gleeson (2016) made a case for including scientific knowledge in the practical training of heat pump installers, explaining that errors occurred when the scientific basis of a particular practice was not clear to a technician. scientific knowledge was similarly fundamental to laboratory-based practice as kotsifakos et al. (2018) pointed out. they argued that professional competence in software engineering is grounded in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) knowledge. they explained their pedagogy for “in-classroom . . . computational capabilities of the latest versions of the modern software” as attempting “through stem to make students feel the phenomena that surround them in a holistic and interdisciplinary way rather than learning isolated segments” (p. 1). gkamas et al. (2019) explained that teaching students to “analyse domain specific trends and present them as structured information, create code to statistically analyse data, apply data statistics and data visualization” and so on, required the “integration of data science with data practice” (p. 2). 16 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 from routine to complex processes procedural knowledge, or the knowledge of how to do something, is commonly associated with practical subjects and with practical training more generally (sappa et al., 2016). nine studies (14%) foregrounded procedural knowledge in fields such as ambulance and rescue services (andersson, 2016), policing (söderström et al., 2020) and firefighting (holmgren et al., 2019). these are fields that place a strong focus on protocols. in some occupations a period of observation of skilful practice, followed by assisted practice, was required before students engaged in independent practice (rantatalo et al., 2019). in college-based practical training for emergency services, procedural knowledge was often learned in simulated or virtual environments. in such environments, students were able to “virtually experience a police situation, which encourages an inquiry process helpful for interpreting information and negotiating the complexities and challenges they are faced with in the practical training” (söderström et al. 2020, p. 13). in a study of practical subjects in business, it, engineering, and hospitality, it was found that sequencing episodes of practice from simple to more complex tasks, was necessary for the acquisition of specific procedures, techniques, and the development of expertise (sappa et al., 2016). in carpentry, louw (2013) similarly found that the sequencing of activities and tasks as well as the provision of sufficient practical exercises and repetition was needed for the honing of skills to develop competence. procedural knowledge was also foregrounded when the practical subject included training for particular processes, such as “a complex procedure in the biomedical domain” (hoareau et al., 2017, p. 786), project management in structural engineering (bünning, 2013) and construction (deitmer & heinemann, 2017). a rich base of procedural knowledge was necessary in the field of caregiving, where routines were often changing and needed to be “deliberated, thoroughly examined and adapted to face new challenges” (poortman et al., 2011, p. 268). learning the tools of the trade twelve studies (19%) focused on the specific tools and technologies that were central to practical subjects, such as developing hand skills through the use of “smart (skill mentoring and assistance in real time) tools” (akshay et al., 2012, p. 1). smart tools are devices that provide “motion monitoring and audio-visual feedback” to assist students in the skilful use of occupational tools. the smart device “is easily attached to any vocational tool and can guide the user to conform to specific spatiotemporal trajectories and orientation as described by template shape” (p. 1). chandran and colleagues argued that a “haptic simulator, designed to train manual lathe operators with sophisticated skills” provided an “intensity of haptic feedback” that exceeded that of trainers providing feedback on a user hand-wheel and manual lathe (2018, p. 97). in the context of technical computer engineering, augmented reality in the college laboratory “had a positive impact on student achievement in motherboard assembly” (sirakaya & kilic cakmak, 2018, p. 13). in many cases, attaining skilful practice required a purposeful sequencing of activities and tasks, management, winberg & hollis-turner: practical subjects in the vocational curriculum 17 monitoring, refining, and honing before the required level of practice was attained (louw, 2013). occupational technologies were foregrounded in two practical programmes in the hospitality industry, namely baking (callan et al., 2015) and cooking (heusdens et al., 2018). in the baking course, the curriculum was designed “around the use of the technology that . . . bakers use every day” (callan et al., 2015, p. 300). heusdens et al. (2018) similarly structured their cooking course around “conglomerations of all kinds of knowledge required for practising” (p. 436). additional studies pointed out that integrating occupational and educational technologies into practical subjects could support students’ transition to workplaces (enochsson et al., 2020), that could lead to “new interpretations of the expected learning outcomes . . . improved course designs, tasks and tutoring approaches” (holmgren et al., 2019, p. 82). constructing knowledge through practice most of the studies (35%) focussed on contextual forms of knowledge that developed in practical training, particularly when there was alignment between the practical training curriculum and relevant occupational standards (hamid et al., 2012). practical subjects provided “the occupational orientation of the main qualification” (kap 2014, p. 360), and when “purposefully aligned with industry standards and practices” enabled students “to construct meaningful knowledge development, skills acquisition and practical competence” (rauner et al., 2012, p. 152). such curricular alignment in practical subjects facilitated “school-to-work transitions, while at the same time bringing forward specific transition risks before . . . apprenticeships” (stalder, 2012, p. 124). it was important that trainers understood the occupational standard in order to distinguish the “predominantly contextually specific applications of knowledge tied to the context rather than articulating appropriate applications of knowledge from disciplinary systems of meaning” (heusdens et al., 2018, p. 448). many studies focused on curricula, in particular on the alignment of training outcomes with “industry-determined specifications of performance that set out the skills, knowledge and attitudes required to operate effectively in a specific industry or profession” (shrestha, 2016, p. 143). when there was alignment, practical subjects could be used “as a basis for the quantitative assessment of professional competences and competence development” (rauner et al., 2012, p. xv). several studies explained how curricular alignment with industry standards was achieved in specific disciplines. for example, in mechanical engineering tasks are “action-oriented” and consist of distinct phases, i.e., “inform, plan, decide, implement, control, and evaluate” (wilke & magenheim, 2017, p. 484). the sequencing of the tasks provided the curricular logic, while the respective demands of the phases could be supported with appropriate pedagogies, such as “3d representations . . . used to enrich the work with mechanical drawings in the planning phase” (wilke & magenheim, 2017, p. 484). a curriculum in the field of caregiving was similarly guided by typical tasks, in this case, the use of simulated cases each of which had three phases: “briefing, scenario, and debriefing” (aarkrog, 2019, p. 11). elements of work-aligned tasks, such as fault identification, diagnosis, and remediation were key to the logic of practical curricula. for example, “the use 18 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 of competence snippets instead of comprehensive material” was important in preparing students for industry 4.0 (jaschke, 2014, p. 608). “learning hierarchy techniques” was similarly helpful in developing a practical training curriculum (yasak & alias, 2017, p. 183). effective practical training required authentic learning tasks that addressed key vocational competencies. in media and communication, for example, the students worked on authentic media productions (aakernes, 2018); in caregiving a key central issue was “fidelity i.e., the degree to which the scenario matches the practice it is intended to simulate” (aarkrog, 2019, p. 11). in a study comparing the training of nurses and it technicians, ümarik et al. (2010) found several problems in assessment practices, including “fictitious assessment practices, low quality of training and motivation of workplace trainers, and also the lack of correspondence between the school curriculum and the competence base needed in the real workplace” (p. 145). problem-based learning in vocational education and training (pbvet) was seen to have a positive impact on competency development in the field of building construction (fjellström, 2015). ogbuanya and chukwuedo (2017) implemented “varieties of faulty mobile phones ranging from simple or budget phones to high technology phones such as smart phones” in an it technician programme, and in some cases, “faults were deliberately induced in the phones to enable the students to acquire varieties of skills during the training sessions” (p. 103). in police education, the video recording of simulated critical incidents enabled rich learning through debriefing and reflection on practice (sjöberg, 2014). simulation, including 3d and animation required “instructional design of the trade specific learning and teaching materials as well as the readiness of students, teachers and workplace mentors” (ricky & rechell, 2015, p. 96). sjöberg et al. (2019) claimed that students in secondary roles also engaged in deep learning through formulating and providing “feedback to primary participants and through informal discussions and reflection processes” (p. 47). playing secondary roles in police simulation was important in the development of observation skills (rantatalo et al., 2019, p. 490). generic skills that support practice ten studies (16%) focused on the need to include generic skills and abilities in practical subjects. a wide variety of concepts and terms were used to describe generic skills, including: “soft skills” (papier, 2017, p. 45); “general skills” (nyen & tønder, 2018, p. 232); “transversal skills” (gkamas et al., p. 3);, “employability skills” (ogbuanya & chukwuedo, 2017, p. 88), “transfer skills” (kilbrink et al., 2018, p. 464); “transferable skills” (gekara & snell, 2018, p. 107); “collaborative work” (andersson, 2016, p. 245); “21st century skills” (schröder, 2019, p. 87); “social networks” (neroorkar & gopinath, 2019, p. 16); “vocational identities” (klotz et al., 2014, p. 6); the “culture of workplaces” (ortoleva & bétrancour, 2016, p. 179); and “active learning” (deitmer & heinemann, 2017, p. 128). nyen and tønder argued that “there is a need to balance general and vocational skills with vocational specialisation and to integrate school-based and workplace learning” (2018, p. 232). not all the generic skills discussed in the articles were of the same order; some were more basic and others considerably more complex. some skills were linked to learning skills, for example, active learning was found to be important for students’ engagement in practical winberg & hollis-turner: practical subjects in the vocational curriculum 19 training (dasmani, 2011). khaled et al. (2014) claimed that students’ engagement in collegebased practical training built “technical and procedural skills, but also competencies and professional identity” (p. 475). in a technical course, teachers felt that the course was successful “not only if a student had gained an apprenticeship, but also if he or she had been rehabilitated from drug or alcohol problems or if he or she enrolled in another course” (dumbrell & smith, 2013, p. 170). asplund and kontio (2020) argued that students’ “antischool culture” could be mitigated by the introduction of “happy objects” such as smartphones into practical training since the “happy objects” contributed to a positive “future vocational identity as building and constructing workers” (p. 65). students’ dispositions towards their chosen occupation were strongly influenced by their practical learning experiences and the extent to which their experience of practical training supported their identification with the occupation. several studies noted the role that reflection played in practical training. eportfolios were proposed “as a tool for mediating experiences and feedback . . . targeting the learning outcomes” (nore & lahn, 2014, p. 24–25). when eportfolios included “writing and peer feedback in practical training” they had the potential to “integrate the social dimension of learning” and “culture of workplaces” (ortoleva & bétrancour, 2016, p. 179). nyen and tønder proposed the consideration of two main dimensions when one was integrating generic skills into the vocational specialisation, namely, “the degree of shielding from demands and expectations in the world of work and the degree of relevance for the development of occupational skills” (2018, p. 239). interpersonal and inter-professional skills were particularly important in police, ambulance, and rescue services (andersson, 2016). appropriate practical training could support students’ emergent vocational identities (klotz et al., 2014). there were thus advantages in integrating employability skills into the vocational specialisation to provide students with opportunities “to gradually develop a vocational identity” (nyen & tønder, 2018, p. 238). practical training that included site visits to workplaces or college visits from industry representatives became “an intermediary between the industry and the graduates [that helped] build social networks” (neroorkar & gopinath, 2019, p. 16). papier similarly found that including general skills in practical training provided “vital social capital to students who had minimal resources and networks to draw on for employment” (2017, p. 46). discussion: opening the black box of practical knowledge the studies included in the critical review showcased the range and variety of practical subjects in vocational education and the varieties of curricular and pedagogical arrangements and provided critical insights into the complexity of practical knowledge. we categorised the studies according to the relative strengths of semantic gravity evident in the practices described. we identified different types of semantic gravity in the studies, namely, conceptual, procedural, technical, and contextual knowledge forms, and generic skills. while we analysed these categories separately, most studies indicated or implied shifts between stronger to weaker forms of semantic gravity. 20 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 many studies referred to the conceptual underpinning of practice. even in the most practical of activities, the semantic gravity could be reduced to provide more abstract guiding principles. for example, ortoleva and bétrancourt, in their study on caregiving, stated that they provided students “with solid conceptual knowledge along with substantial practical experience” (2016, p. 178). in other words, their students experienced a semantic gravity range. some studies referred to how concepts and practice (or weaker and stronger semantic gravity) were connected in post-practical reflective learning. for example, reflecting on practice enabled students “to turn concrete experiences into relevant integrated knowledge” (schwendimann et al., 2015, p. 367). studies focusing on procedural knowledge explained the concepts and principles that guide the procedures. for example, sappa et al. (2016) explained that although procedural, technical, and conceptual knowledge were distinct forms of knowledge, they were connected in the “process of ‘making sense’ of the practical procedures by means of the conceptual framework . . . learnt in the educational environment” (p. 295). the need to develop both specific technical skills and concepts to attain “integrative knowledge” was a constantly “moving target” (johansson, 2020, p. 875), and practical subjects constantly shifted between the “theoretical groundwork” and the “practical work” (wilke & magenheim, 2017, p. 484). heusdens et al. (2018) found it important to categorise the types of practical work for different occupations in the hospitality industry since each task tended to include different knowledge forms. in another example, it was found that “transfer as learning for new situations did not only occur through practising and making mistakes, but also involved how something worked, and then performing it” (kilbrink et al., 2018, p. 464). in 2010, masodonati and colleagues pointed out that the movement between knowledge forms did not occur only from theory to practice, but from “unstable forms of knowledge” (such as the contextual knowledge developed in practice) toward “relatively stable” forms (such as procedural or conceptual knowledge) (p. 404). many studies focused on the alignment of the outcomes of practical subjects with industry standards and the strengthening of the semantic gravity of practical curricula and pedagogies through industry partnerships. for example, while gkamas et al. (2019) highlighted the importance of theoretical knowledge in their study of practical subjects in it, they also pointed to the importance of regularly updating the practical training curriculum in collaboration with industry partners, particularly in the fast-moving world of it. however, studies also showed that alignment with industry standards was insufficient in supporting “coherence between learning in school and learning in enterprises” (aakernes, 2018, p. 77) because such “coherence” could be attained only through more integrative forms of knowledge building. thus while “outcomes matter”, the “technical procedures or the social and occupational environment, and qualities such as richness, complexity and specificity” were also important (heusdens et al., 2018, p. 437). while most studies supported the integration of generic skills development in practical training, there were concerns that if practical training was “driven with the aim of fulfilling specific employer skills” occupational winberg & hollis-turner: practical subjects in the vocational curriculum 21 outcomes as well as “the quality, depth and breadth of transferable skills” could be compromised (gekara & snell, 2018, p. 107). synthesis in our synthesis of the findings of the critical review, two cross-cutting themes emerged. first, the multi-layered nature of the knowledges in practical training and, second, the shifting relationships between these knowledges in learning through practice. studies reiterated that practical subjects were constantly shifting between knowledge forms. this can be described as “cumulative knowledge building” (maton, 2014, p. 181), which is achieved through appropriate strengthening and weakening of semantic gravity in practical subjects. students engaged in practical tasks could be understood to be continually crossing the boundaries between different knowledge forms such as drawing on principles and codified procedures, learning to use tools effectively, and honing their skills as they engaged in increasingly complex practices. the activities described in the studies of practical subjects included conceptualising, strategizing, planning, preparing, implementing, doing, conducting, reporting, debriefing, and reflecting. these activities required students to access the full semantic gravity range if they were to attain competence. conclusion this critical review of the literature on practical training in vocational education identified the stratified knowledge base of practical subjects, and showed how conceptual, procedural, technical, and contextual forms of knowledge are connected in practical tasks and activities. all knowledge types are essential for each occupation, but their relative importance varies. practical tasks and activities differ across and within vocational fields. tasks with a clearly defined objective, such as “the specification of a solution for a technical problem, require a structured and systematic approach” (rauner et al., 2012, p. 50), thus foregrounding procedural and technical knowledge forms. when there is “an openness of objectives” and more “room to manoeuvre”, such as in problem-solving “activities in diagnostic work processes, e.g., in industrial and technical occupations where error diagnosis plays an important part . . . defined work steps” are less important, and theoretical knowledge is necessary to guide practice (p. 51). the studies showed that practical subjects included a range of learning experiences and activities in which the different knowledge forms are intentionally integrated into practical tasks through specifically designed curricula and pedagogies. cumulative knowledge building requires students’ engagement in diverse episodes of practice that explicitly link the knowledge forms through strengthening and weakening the semantic gravity, thus making explicit the causal links across the different knowledge forms. the studies showed the importance of students’ engagement in authentic and relevant practical tasks to support cumulative knowledge building and enable progress towards competent performance. the studies also showed that vocational educators could facilitate 22 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 competence development in practical subjects through appropriate concepts and strategies, guiding students in the skilful use of tools and technologies and demystifying the tacit and contextual forms of knowledge that are embedded in practice. acknowledgement this project was funded by the department of higher education and training’s technical and vocational education and training directorate. references aakernes, n. 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(2017, november). designing learning materials in tvet: application of the learning hierarchy technique. paper presented at the 9th ieee international conference on engineering education. kanazawa, jp. microsoft word cissue81-full-15dec.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 81, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i81a06 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x continuing the debate on teacher autonomy: a capabilities perspective edwin darrell de klerk senior lecturer, philosophy in education, sol plaatje university, kimberley, south africa edwin.deklerk@spu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0218-5371 emma priscilla barnett lecturer, policy and comparative studies, sol plaatje university, kimberley, south africa emma.barnett@spu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0303-4594 (received: 12 january 2020; accepted: 5 september 2020) abstract whereas much has been written about initiatives to empower teachers, scholars agree that the capabilities approach, which is an important method for empowering teachers in the arena of autonomy, requires continued research. our aim in this research paper is, therefore, to continue the debate on fostering teacher autonomy from a capabilities perspective. we present a south african education policy analysis in which it can be seen that capabilities may empower teachers to be agents of autonomy. having employed a capabilities approach, our study shows that possibilities exist for deepening thinking about teachers’ autonomous education practices in general. the findings show that teachers should focus on self-attention and care for the self to become autonomous beings. the results show that empowering teachers to be autonomous may be regarded as a robust paradigm that can be used even as development challenges and educational priorities shift. keywords: agency, autonomy, capabilities approach, south african education policy, teacher empowerment knowledge is like a garden: if it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested. (african proverb) background and rationale while planning this article, we reflected on our past experiences as teachers so as to explore the extent to which we opened ourselves up to educational development. this is our story. 100 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 when we qualified as teachers in the 1990s, we were very much what foucault (1979) considered docile professionals. to be docile means to comply with the prerequisite that individuals act as skilled professionals who perform duties submissively in order to be labelled high-quality, detailed, and precise (de klerk, 2014). subsequently, we were part of a teaching corps that became a set of scrutinized individuals whose specialized activities were managed to control what we were doing, as well as individuals who complied with government policy requirements. we have been meticulous and hard-working while exhibiting high levels of commitment to our work. having been submissive subordinates, we realised that we were fully compliant with the rules of education policy; we seldom probed the boundaries placed on our own autonomy and capability, among others. the notion of autonomy came into philosophical prominence for the first time in the work of immanuel kant, who was strongly influenced by the writings of jean-jacques rousseau on moral freedom. although rousseau did not use the term “autonomy” in his writings, his views on moral freedom have a clear relation to his (1761) understanding of autonomy, articulated as “obedience to the law one has prescribed to oneself” (p. 176). kant’s view points to the capacity of human beings to be independent, to exercise freedom of the will, to refuse to conform to convention, and even to ignore convention. capability refers to an individual’s freedom to use opportunities to choose what to be and what to do. this implies that individuals can live a life that they can value (sen, 1992). importantly, a link between the notions of autonomy and capability indicates that individuals are enabled to decide freely their own path of development in their careers (binder & binder, 2016) in that they should be willing to pay attention to the self and be capable of taking care of the self (rytzler, 2019). while self-attention implies adopting knowledge and capabilities relevant to an individual’s own development (stiegler, 2010), care of the self implies that individuals use their acquired knowledge to transform themselves in an autonomous manner (foucault, 1981), in this case, in the field of education. throughout our careers, we have been engaged at different levels of education. we have carried out our duties as teachers, department heads, deputy heads, and chief executives while teaching at primary and secondary schools. because of the nature of our employment and despite creating many opportunities for our colleagues to plan on their own and engage in autonomous decision-making processes, we have realized that we have been only partially effective in promoting values such as independence, self-determination, and professionalism. we engaged in educational activities such as organising workshops and running professional development sessions to give teachers the opportunity to understand their strengths and weaknesses, their potential for growth and personal development, as well as their teaching and learning values. nevertheless, as keddie and mills (2019) have noted in a different context, generally, we and our peers have been too careful to act as autonomous people given that we adhered closely to curriculum implementation-based goals and followed educational policy regulations, despite the opportunities for personal autonomous growth. we obtained degrees up to doctoral level, mostly through part-time studies. we are currently teaching at a south african university in philosophy studies in education. it is expected that de klerk & barnett: continuing the debate on teacher autonomy 101 we should be closely involved with national policy procedures to determine how policy makers formulate specific policy statements, such as those that refer to self-government and the standing of teachers as professionals. then we began to read research carried out by barfield et al. (2001), little (1995), smith (2001) as well as baxen et al. (2014). while reading the works of these scholars, our interest in exploring discourses on philosophy and policy research in schooling, among other topics, deepened. it is this special interest in teacher autonomy and capabilities that prompted us to write this paper because we realised that human self-worth should be regarded as grounds for the development of autonomy and fundamental ethical self-esteem by individuals themselves while opportunities for autonomy should be created by the environment (such as the school, in this instance, in which individuals find themselves (hill, 1991). however, although the autonomy of teachers has been linked to professional development, efficiency, and their enablement, there is much room for the reinforcement of arguments for their autonomy (wilches, 2007, in wermke et al., 2019) from a capabilities perspective. applying the capabilities approach to empower teachers the capabilities approach provides a standardised structure for social assessment by highlighting the value of life and the welfare of individuals (powell & mcgrath, 2014) which can, in our view, be seen as a kind of declaration of the self-esteem of teachers. powell and mcgrath (2014) have stated that the emphasis of the capability approach is on providing people with tools to live a life that they value. in doing so, teachers may become agents in their own lives as well as in the educational settings in which they find themselves. in response to the views of powell and mcgrath (2014), we draw on the opinions of nussbaum (1992) who, on the one hand, asserted that the concept of capabilities signifies a person’s valued power that can and should be understood in social action. on the other hand, sen (1992) indicated that capabilities suggest tangible prospects and authentic sovereignty to achieve anticipated ends (see crocker, 1992, in tobias, 2005). while sen (1992) has contended that nussbaum’s (1992) view embodies a probable, but not indispensable, position in a broader capabilities approach, the former has supported the idea that the determination of a set of marginal functions favourable to wellbeing offers a foundation for public policy. education policy, as an object of public action can be seen to be the development of the capability of people to assume respected and appreciated doings and become respected and appreciated beings (sen & drèze, 1989, in tobias, 2005). sen (1999, p. 4) argued further that the “achievement of development is reliant on the free agency of humans” and that “the expansion of freedom is viewed as both the primary end and the principal means of development” (p. 36). here sen’s fundamental belief is that individuals should understand agency and be visualized as agents, implying that individuals (including teachers) need to be empowered to perform in the world so as to do and to be. therefore, by applying the capabilities approach to empower teachers, we support foucault’s (1984/1985) view that one should reason differently, rather than contend that what one knows should be regarded as authentic thought. we argue that foucault’s view should be interpreted as an inquiry into definitive certainties as well as a refusal of grand narratives. some authors 102 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 (forghani et al., 2015; jodamus, 2017) have argued that the refusal of ultimate truths, according to postmodernism, is a celebration of multiplicity and dissimilarity that leads to a much more uncertain and less permanent positioning of bias. significant to this deliberation is how the thoughts of sen (1985), foucault (1980/1989), and nussbaum (1992) are interrelated in a discussion of the capabilities approach in terms of teacher autonomy and agency. whereas nussbaum argued that capabilities signify a person’s valuable powers that can and should be realised in human activity, sen (1985) insisted that capabilities imply real opportunities and actual freedoms to achieve desired ends. however, foucault’s (1980/1989) thought regarding limit-experience that implies an ethics of selfcreation, complements nussbaum’s and sen’s ideas about the capabilities approach. considering foucault (1980/1989), nussbaum (1992), and sen (1985), we argue that teachers should use their powers and the opportunities available to them to develop themselves. in so doing, they would exercise agency and autonomy in that “agency freedom is freedom to achieve whatever the person decides he or she should achieve” (sen, 1985, pp. 203–204). from a kantian perspective, this implies that teachers have the capability to balance power exerted over them (by means of policy regulations) and suggests how they conduct themselves in an autonomous manner through independent choices (kant, 1797/1991). although in this paper we intend to build on the theory of the capabilities approach to foster teacher autonomy, such an approach has some empirical undertones. bringing one’s own voice into an application of the capabilities approach, aligns with baldini’s (2019) view that through words, individuals can recognize themselves in their capabilities and can then reflect on themselves; we will return to this presently. teacher autonomy is a key component of successful schooling and teacher career development as parker (2015) and wermke et al., (2019) have noted. although teacher autonomy depends on several circumstantial aspects such as educational background and the effect of education policy (mølstad, 2015; wermke & forsberg, 2017; wermke & hösfält, 2014), autonomy should be observed as teachers’ independence, ability, and the possibility of achievement in diverse spaces in their lives (parker, 2015). thus, an analysis of south african education policy can be regarded as a way of showing how policy can be put into practice to empower teachers in relation to their autonomy. an understanding of what constitutes education policy to understand what education policy is comprised of, ball (1993), following foucault (1977), set out a definition that emphasised the dual conceptualisation of policy as text and also as discourse. the observation of policy as text is founded on seeing policy opinions as delineations that are encrypted in multifaceted ways while also being decrypted in manifold ways (ball, 1993). ball has asserted that when meanings are found in policy documents, they represent subordinate modification, and this exposes them to clarification and reinterpretation. we regard education policy texts as fundamental opinions of policy-makers and as representative of the politics of policy clarification, because policy texts are de klerk & barnett: continuing the debate on teacher autonomy 103 governmental doings put into practice. our argument aligns with the notion that policy as text comprises the agency side of work, undoubtedly situated in the framework of scholastic practices (gale, 2006; henry, 1993). we contend that a consideration of education policy texts necessitates a deliberation on written inscription and achievement, arguments, as well as discourse of policy text as performance along with what is envisioned in such discourse. gale (2006) has informed us that according to ball (1993), policy text is accompanied by a consideration of policy as discourse, principally to explain what policy text contains with reference to “what can be said, and thought, but also who can speak, where and with what authority” (ball, 1993, p. 14). we are convinced that ball’s (1993) view explicates why foucault (1977) suggested that “discourse is not simply that which translates struggles or systems of determination, but is the thing which, and by which, there is struggle, discourse is the power which is to be seized” (p. 110). given foucault’s observation, policy researchers should obtain information about how individuals are visualised in their contemporary social settings. policies should be regarded as conversational approaches, collections of actions, texts, objects, and practices that speak to broader social developments of teaching, such as the construction of the aim of teaching and the structure of the teacher (ball, 2015). this would be comprised of two critical and connected components: the choice, breakdown and sequencing of the curriculum (content); and the deliberate organisation of learner activities by teachers (assessment and skills development). interpreting both foucault (1977) and ball (2015), we realised that education policy discourse consists of communicating texts that encompass space, thought, and invention for the articulation of views regarding teacher autonomy. with relation to our experience as educators, we are aware that education policy is inflexible; it sets out requirements regarding how schools should function and what teachers ought to do (de klerk, 2014). this implies that the discursive foundations of education policy control teachers’ educational practices and how they are situated in scholastic situations. the controlling purpose of education policy, according to olssen et al. (2004) should be regarded as conversational personifications of the subtleties of several fundamentals that underscore social practices. therefore, we are of the opinion that reading education policy is not an activity that involves just understanding it as the declarations of policy-makers, but also recognising, rather, that “the discursive formations they contain . . . await decoding” (olssen et al., 2004, p. 2). consequently, it is our intention, in applying a capabilities perspective, to analyse a south african education policy that aims to empower teachers to become agents of autonomy. no comma after aims linking agent, agency, and autonomy characterising teachers as agents demands an overview of some conceptualisations of what an agent might be. for sewell (1992, p. 20), “humans are born with a highly universal capacity for agency.” archer’s (2003) description of agents as “possessing assets . . . such as 104 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 thinking, deliberating, believing, intending and loving” (p. 2), seems to resonate with sewell’s (1992) depiction since these could be characterised as natural qualities. giddens’s (1984, p. 3) definition conveys a component of existentialism: “to be a human being is to be a purposive agent.” we argue that agents are individuals who are self-reflecting, selforganising, and self-regulating. these characteristics are useful in a consideration of how teachers as agents project their life course at specific instances during their teaching practice (bandura, 2006). characteristics such as being “deliberating” (archer, 2003, p. 2), “purposive” (giddens, 1984, p. 3) and “self-organizing” (bandura, 2006, p. 64) can contour the intentions and intentionality that are entrenched in acts of agency that direct a human agent’s life course. sewell (1992) regarded agency as a crucial capacity that is indispensable for forming intentions. giddens (1984), however, contended that although it has repeatedly been thought that agency can be described in terms of objectives, he argued that agency refers “not to the intentions people have in doing things, but to their capability of doing things in the first place” (p. 9). biesta et al. (2015) have reminded us that agency is something that people can do and not something that people can have, and that three dimensions of agency should be considered. emirbayer & mische (1998) in biesta, et al., (2015) list three essential points. first, the iterational dimension of agency has to do with the careful selection by actors of previous arrangements of action and thought. second, the projective dimension incorporates the creative cohort of actors. constructions of thought and action may be reconfigured innovatively in relation to actors’ desires, hopes, and fears for the future. third, the practicalevaluative dimension involves the capacity of actors to make concrete and normative decisions in response to the developing demands of current developing situations. in this paper, we regard the iterational dimension as significant. by way of example, past experiences will, through analysis, be rearticulated further on in this paper in terms of the capabilities approach with specific reference to the notions of agency and agent. conceptualisations of agency may expose relationships between agency and structure, that is, in this case, between teachers and schools. drawing on powell and mcgrath (2014), we think that a focus should be on capabilities that have substance to teachers and the degree to which institutional engagements develop or narrow their capabilities. for instance, ingersoll (2003) asserted that teachers’ capacity to apply autonomy may have a progressive e�ect on how the school functions given that autonomy is reliant on which activities they can influence. additionally, teachers’ performance in the school environment is of extreme significance to how well schools function with reference to the degree to which teachers, as well as other participants in the school, become able to control certain behaviours, make decisions, and ask questions (ingersoll, 2003; groener & andrews, 2019). it is, therefore, important to consider how agency shapes the capacities of teachers to be regarded as autonomous agents. if teachers know how to do agency (biesta et al., 2015), they may be positioned to become autonomous agents (de klerk et al., 2012). autonomy as a teacher requires skilful action that includes acting in a sensible manner, creating self-regulating teaching practices, and de klerk & barnett: continuing the debate on teacher autonomy 105 embracing opportunities to develop optimally (de klerk et al., 2012). we believe that autonomous teachers should not be passive actors in life, but that they should, rather, be vibrant agents who establish themselves persuasively by their individual self-control because one of the goals of education policy is to promote autonomous individuals. cuypers and haji (2008) have explained that autonomy as an educational aim may pave the way for selfdirected individuals by offering them the freedom to make independent choices regarding their teaching practices. consequently, from the capability perspective, autonomy emerges as an individual’s freedom to choose her or his own path of development and resist being fixed into a traditionalist view of action (binder & binder, 2016). we argue that the capabilities approach could assist individuals to consider what is valuable and to pursue relevant goals as well as ensure that they make autonomous decisions regarding their own professional development since the capabilities approach offers a broad view of development that focuses on individuals’ agency (buzzelli, 2015). the capabilities approach focuses on the freedom individuals have to use their agency in order to expand their capabilities, which, in turn, can lead to greater agency. for sen, capabilities align with agency in enabling individuals to make reasoned choices and act accordingly, while autonomy is regarded as an adequate level of competence, implying that individuals use opportunities to maximise their freedom of decision and action (sen, 1999). research methodology: postmodernism foucault postulated that “a postmodernist will develop actions, thought and desires by proliferation, juxtaposition and disjunction [and] prefer what is positive and multiple, difference over uniformity, flows over unities and mobile arrangements over systems” (1984, p. xiii). this view of foucault, according to our interpretation, has, as its basis, a questioning of ultimate truths as well as a rejection of grand narratives. it is thus not surprising that tinning (1991) interpreted foucault’s view as multiple readings or interpretations of texts that value eclecticism rather than one way of thinking about them. a referral to multiple interpretations and the rejection of ultimate truths implies that postmodernism can also be seen as a celebration and tolerance of pluralism and difference that leads to a much more ambivalent and less fixed positioning of subjectivity. from a postmodernist perspective, the subject does not exist naturally and pre-formed, but is, rather, a cultural construct, inscribed by discourses as well as the constructive power of language (usher & edwards, 1994). through language, discourse, and texts, multiple meanings can be created and re-created in ways of which we are rarely aware (connor, 1989). to articulate knowledge regarding teacher autonomy through the application of a capabilities perspective, the methodology we applied is supported by a constructionist epistemology. in rejecting the existence of objective truth and the validity of grand narratives, we use two personal narratives of the first author of this paper as well as analysing stipulations from the cptd to generate understanding of the topic under study. we also draw on philosophical perspectives in offering analysis and interpretation of information. our philosophical 106 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 perspectives are inspired by foucault, kant, and sen. while foucault (1977) regards autonomous individuals as beings who are able to reflect independently on their teaching practices and enjoy meaningful options to act, kant (1797/1991) argued that autonomy hinges on action based on moral reasoning, that is, on making decisions about what is right and wrong. sen (1992) argued that capabilities have relevance to values such as efficiency, agency, and empowerment. we argue that autonomous individuals act independently while being committed to being empowered to live the life they value. thus, to continue the debate on teacher autonomy through a capabilities perspective, we analyse below south african education policies that foreground the professional development of teachers. south african education policies for teacher development we analyse stipulations from four south african education policy documents that address teachers’ professional development. first, the national framework for teacher education and development in south africa (department of education [doe], 2006), aims to prepare teachers appropriately to assume their important and challenging responsibilities, to permit them to improve their professional capability persistently, and to promote and deserve the reverence in which they are held by the people of south africa. second, the continuing professional teacher development (cptd) (2008) policy provides for focused high quality ongoing professional development for all enumerated teachers by the south african department of basic education so as to revitalize the teaching profession and recompense educators who commit themselves to the intentions of the policy (doe, 2008). the intentions of the latter policy are to improve the professional development of teachers and to strengthen their subject knowledge base as well as enhance their teaching skills (doe, 2008). third, the integrated strategic planning framework for teacher education and development in south africa (doe, 2011) aims to refine the quality of teacher education and development in order to improve the quality of teachers and teaching. fourth, the teacher professional development masterplan 2017–2022 (doe, 2018) aims to improve teacher education and development in order to improve teachers and their teaching. our view is that these policies aim to foster teacher development so that teachers become self-reliant and self-knowing experts or, in other words, individuals who will know how to be autonomous. the reason for policy analysis while policy is generally considered to be the interaction of resources, values, and interests directed through organisations and facilitated by government (browne et al., 2018), policy analysis is not a straightforward activity because there is little agreement regarding what public policy means and how it should be understood and analysed (peters, 2015; sabatier & weible, 2014). therefore, we agree with olssen et al. (2004) that analysing education policy is not only comprehending its educational setting or interpreting it as a set of declarations of policy-makers, but is, rather, bearing in mind that the conversational foundations contained in such policy await analysis (de klerk, 2014). two kinds of policy analysis approaches come to mind. first, conventional policy analysis provides descriptions of actuality and social integration between teachers and the social world as well as the school and the social world de klerk & barnett: continuing the debate on teacher autonomy 107 (o’connor, 2005). for example, conventional policy analysts tend to describe social problems, discuss competing policy solutions, and consider implementation problems and evaluate possible policy implementations (scheurich, 1997). second, an interpretive perspective is based on an understanding that the world is as it is and on appreciating the important nature of the social world at the level of individual experience (o’connor, 2005, pp. 4–5). in this paper, we implement an interpretive perspective on policy analysis because our intention is to continue the debate on teacher autonomy from a capabilities perspective. this aligns with the interpretive approach to policy analysis because it emphasises consciousness raising and education about policy texts (o’connor, 2005). capabilities for teacher autonomy we analyse stipulations from the four policies indicated so as to provide a more systematic account of meanings that pertain to teacher autonomy. the first stipulations from doe policy documents indicate that “when teachers themselves are integrally involved in . . . reflecting on their own practice (doe, 2006, section 7), they “independently and cooperatively have a high degree of responsibility for their personal professional growth and the identification of their own professional needs” (doe, 2008, section 1). additionally, the integrated strategic planning framework for teacher education and development in south africa “places teachers firmly at the centre of all efforts to improve teacher development and enables teachers to take substantial responsibility for their own development” (doe, 2011, section 7). teachers, therefore, in the same way as indicated by the doe (2011), “will define their own cptd requirements or participate in school-initiated activities” (doe, 2018, section a(d)). we argue that phrases like “reflecting on their own practice”, “identification of [their] own professional needs”, “responsibility for their own development” and “define their own tpd requirements” imply that teachers are afforded opportunities by these policies to make autonomous decisions regarding their own professional development. in this regard, following frostenson (2015), teacher autonomy becomes significant for teachers’ responsibility to influence their own practices and empowers them subsequently to enhance their agency as lennert da silva and mølstad (2020) noted in a different context. considering this, the first author narrates his experience. after my appointment as a principal, i implemented a programme called share-myexperience-share-my-expertise. the purpose of this programme was to put teachers in control of programmes, events planning, chairing meetings, present workshops and manage reading clubs, amongst others. i noticed that, by participating and being in charge, teachers’ managerial and leadership skills developed, almost as if they became the authors of their own stories, [in that] they became confident and unafraid to voice their opinions. by giving [them] an opportunity to take responsibility and be accountable for themselves and school programmes, they developed into individuals who could stand their own ground. here we can see agency becoming visible in teachers being enabled “to participate” and “be in charge” as well as being encouraged “to voice their opinions.” this implies that teachers 108 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 were allowed to do things which they could have done in the first place as giddens (1984) has pointed out elsewhere. if teachers would engage deliberately with the available opportunities with which they are presented to have experiences, to reason, to adopt beliefs, and to act (bevir, 1999) and if teachers would involve themselves in activities as suggested by bevir (1999), an understanding of agency might be established. teachers would be in a position to decide which experiences, actions, and beliefs may be regarded as acceptable or unacceptable. in doing so, teachers would then become agents who exercise agency when they resist being merely obedient followers of stipulations in education policy. notably, if teachers exercise choice and take responsibility for making their own decisions that will benefit the school as an educational structure, we argue that they can be deemed autonomous. little (1995) has explained that autonomous teachers have “a strong sense of personal responsibility for their teaching, exercising via continuous reflection . . . and exploiting the freedom that this confers (p. 179). thus, the autonomy of teachers can be improved when they take the responsibility of participating in developmental practices since in this way they generate opportunities to affirm their practices, value their lives, assert their understanding and abilities, and make their opinions heard as ayers (2004) has noted. we agree with de klerk (2014) that when teachers have been given the chance to become educational participants, they will exercise agency (and become individuals who can do things) in order to be regarded as autonomous agents (or individuals who can be independent) in the midst of the managed processes by which they are guided. second, teachers should be mindful of how to commit themselves to being considered autonomous. this requirement becomes evident in that teachers are encouraged “to continually enhance their professional competence and performance” (doe, 2006, section 1) while the doe will support and facilitate a practice of determined, high quality continuing professional development for all enumerated teachers, to rejuvenate the teaching profession and to reward teachers who commit themselves to these goals (doe, 2008, section 2). this will mean that teachers are capacitated to “identify their own learning and professional development needs and to access opportunities to address these needs (doe, 2011, section 15(1)(a)), and that teachers are allowed to “administer their own self diagnostic assessments in order to determine their content needs and areas of development” (doe, 2018, section a(3)(b)). derived from the above stipulations, phrases such as “continually enhance”, “continuing professional development”, “access opportunities” and “determine their content needs and areas of development” align with the notion of commitment. we argue that an understanding of these phrases is fundamental to teachers’ commitment to providing their own learning opportunities in terms of their professional development. in another study, goodnough (2016) asserted that teachers’ commitment places them central to their own needs and in control of their development, implying that teachers may have the ability to direct their own teaching practices while they make independent choices about their work. this aligns with teachers’ commitment to decide on their goals for their own professional development and the degree of choice regarding their behaviours and beliefs (adolfsson & alvunger, 2017; de klerk & barnett: continuing the debate on teacher autonomy 109 hadfield & jobling, 2016). arguably, teacher autonomy as indicated by adolfsson and alvunger (2017), goodnough (2016) and hadfield and jobling (2016) aligns with teacher agency in that teachers are positioned in terms of what they can do or achieve with reference to their development (nguyen & bui, 2016). in this regard, the first author of this paper noted, when i was head of department at a school, the principal usually approached all staff members to attend development courses offered by the south african department of education (sadoe) in a location far from our school. teachers would not be willing and my hand would frequently rise to indicate my willingness to attend staff development courses such as curriculum changes and planning, assessment methods, and remedial work, among others. on return from such workshops, i committed myself to train the teachers at school so that they could obtain the knowledge i acquired during these staff development sessions. i would then convince our principal to invite teachers from the surrounding schools for training sessions and would afford my colleagues opportunities to take charge of presentations and skills development. upon reflecting, i regarded my commitment to my work as valuable to me and i realised how independently i acted and how i contributed to the capacitation of colleagues so that they could also act in an autonomous way. it is possible that teachers may be influenced by policy demands to such an extent that their choices may be guided by their personal intentions and the search for personal wellbeing. articulated differently, individuals may be eager to invoke values other than personal wellbeing in an attempt to support the welfare of those with whom they are in association (sen, 1985). in terms of agency and drawing on foucault (1981/2005) as well as pignatelli (2015), if teachers commit themselves to participate in the continual development programmes offered by the doe, they may experience particular truths about themselves and recognise a chance to be what they are not yet. such truths, as foucault (1984/1987) called them, “good, beautiful, honourable, estimable, memorable and exemplary” (p. 117) may be referred to as specific aspects about how individuals value themselves and also show how they care for themselves. thus, to be committed, yet autonomous, teachers should position themselves in such a way as to be able to determine who they are, what they can do, and with whom they can exchange information. consequently, drawing on sen (1999) and reflecting on the analyses of stipulations from south african education policies, we argue that the capability approach purports that freedom is a matter of what people are able to do and to be. freedom in terms of teacher autonomy signifies that individuals give meaning and coherence to their lives and take responsibility for the kind of people they want to become (dworkin, 2015 in wermke & salokangas, 2015). fostering teacher autonomy, from a capabilities perspective, is illustrated in the following figure. 110 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 figure 1: doing agency and being an agent: towards teacher autonomy first, to exercise agency (to do), teachers should implement self-attention which relates to a form of self-constitution. this implies that teachers pay attention to their own development and that they are also integrally involved in such development while reflecting on their own practices (doe, 2006). consequently, self-constitution depends on teachers’ ability to decrease the gap between, on the one hand, what they think about themselves and what they have to do to improve themselves, and, on the other, what activities they should engage in to get to know themselves better (gros, 2005). agency may become a reality when teachers act on behalf of their “own practice” (doe, 2006, 17), their “own professional needs” (doe, 2008, 4), their “own development” (doe, 2011, 3) and their “own tpd requirements” (doe, 2018, 19). arguably, when teachers take responsibility to know themselves better and use opportunities to develop themselves accordingly, they become agents who act in favour of their own aspirations. in doing so, they may be regarded as agents of self-attention which constitutes the rational discipline of adopting knowledge or a skill (stiegler, 2010), and which can be regarded as an act of autonomy that correlates with self-efficacy, work-satisfaction, and self-empowerment (lewin, 2018; wermke et al., 2019). second, to help teachers to exercise agency (to do), one ideal might be to provide them with tools to enable them to act in self-reliance. this can be done when teachers act on opportunities to “enhance” (doe, 2006, 13), “rejuvenate” (doe, 2008, 4), “access” (doe, 2011, 12) and “administer” (doe, 2018, 23). when teachers act in this manner, they become agents who are committed and who take care of themselves. in this way, autonomy becomes a reality because teachers take control of rebuilding their professional values (nica, 2015) while making “the fundamental commitment . . . with fundamental characteristics, as a project of inventing, defining, elaborating, and practising a complete care of the self” (foucault, 1984/1997, p. 281). teacher autonomy is possible because teachers can be empowered to develop skills, abilities for independent action, the capability for self-regulating decision-making as well as the willingness and self-reliance to make self-governing choices. for teachers to free themselves to act on behalf of own aspirations to act in self-reliance knowledge own practices own development to be responsible to be committed act on opportunities commitment control doing agency to be an agent self-attention knowledge and capabilities for self-development care for the self knowledge to transform the self de klerk & barnett: continuing the debate on teacher autonomy 111 from educational limitations, they have to appreciate themselves well enough to break free of the bonds of self and find a way to do (agency) in order to be (an agent) autonomous in terms of their own teaching practices. concluding remarks albeit in part a compendium of south african education policies, our aim in this paper was to analyse stipulations in the cptd on teacher development to empower teachers to become agents who foster their own teacher autonomy. our analysis shows that teachers should be aware of how to do (perform agency) in order to be (act as an agent). for instance, if teachers understand how to engage intentionally and responsibly with opportunities outlined in south african education policies, agency will occur as they realise how to become the authors of their own teaching practices in that they are afforded opportunities to describe, analyse, and evaluate their teaching experiences (walkington, 2005). such action would result in teachers becoming agents because to be an agent is to intentionally make things happen through one’s own actions. also, we argued that if teachers understand how to act in self-reliance, they may be committed to participate in continual development programmes in order to become autonomous educational agents. we support earlier findings in the academic literature that refer to policy documents from the organization for economic co-operation (oecd) and the european union (eu). wahlström (2015) found that the ocd and eu policy documents address teacher education and teacher development from a cosmopolitan viewpoint and speak specifically about teacher empowerment and the promotion of human rights and justice in education. similarly, in this paper we have argued that empowerment of teachers in terms of autonomy and agency should be regarded as significant to ensure that they develop and become able to act as independent individuals we have shown that education policy encourages teacher autonomy and agency in that it aims to equip teachers to enhance their professional competence and performance continually, and to raise the esteem in which they are held. importantly, this study indicates that teachers need training regarding the implementation of professional development policies based on an understanding of what it means to be an autonomous teacher. action research on this implication might be worthy research in the future. references adolfsson, c. h., & alvunger, d. 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(2007). teacher autonomy: a critical review of the research and concept beyond applied linguistics. íkala, revista de lenguaje y cultura, 12(18), 245–275. microsoft word bissue82-final.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 82, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i82a02 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x developing a supervisor identity through experiential learning: narratives of three novice academics working in a south african university sibonelo blose school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa bloses@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7328-6383 vusi msiza school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa msizav@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1178-136x freedom chiororo school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa freedomchiororo@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2756-8336 (received: 10 july 2020; accepted: 17 november 2020) abstract one of the critical tasks of academics in any research-intensive university is the supervision of postgraduate students. given the central role of this activity, how novice academics learn to supervise is significant. in this paper, we present our narratives as novice academics, and we focus on our learning of the supervision role. we drew from experiential learning and role identity theories to frame our understanding of this process. using a narrative inquiry methodology, we shared and examined our narratives of lived experiences as novice supervisors. upon examining our narratives, we identified four sources of learning that were significant in developing our supervisor identity: our current or previous supervisors; senior colleagues; meaningful corridor talks; and the practice of reflexivity. we recommend that institutions of higher learning pay added attention to the development of novice supervisors. although structured programmes are significant, other learning avenues need to be explored to assist novice supervisors to develop a supervisor identity. keywords: supervision, novice supervisor, experiential learning, narrative inquiry, role identity blose et al.: developing a supervisor identity through experiential learning 29 introduction the supervision of research is generally perceived to be a process of providing guidance and support to students (mccallin & nayar, 2012; sambrook et al., 2008; yousefi et al., 2015), and it is a key responsibility of an academic in any research-based university. the lastmentioned claim that the supervision process involves many functions, including creating professional relationships, encouraging students to study, providing guidance on their research projects, and assisting them with their personal and general problems. although these functions do not occur in a linear process, they are significant for successful supervision (sambrook et al., 2008; yousefi et al., 2015). according to abiddin et al. (2011), supervision is a complex exercise because it involves two or more parties with converging and diverging interests. when new academics are appointed in a university, there is a common assumption that they know what is expected of them, and as novice academics, we experienced this. manathunga and goozée (2007) have confirmed this presumption and explained that supervisors are expected to become effective automatically once they had experienced the supervision process themselves. because of this, novice supervisors often repeat the supervision approaches that they experienced while they were students (manathunga & goozée, 2007). recently there has been an increased governmental interest in higher degree studies (manathunga & goozée, 2007) and a great emphasis on fast-tracking research and throughput at the postgraduate level (khunou et al., 2019). this is evident in the national planning commission’s (2012) target to increase phd output from the current 1500 per annum to 5000 per annum by 2030. for maistry (2017) this is an exaggerated and unrealistic target that indicates the influence of a strong neoliberal knowledge-economy agenda for higher education in south africa. on account of this neoliberal trajectory, supervisors experience the pressure to meet governmental demands, but this often works against producing high-quality, original research output (lee, 2007). despite this neoliberal knowledge-economy with its pressures, our focus is on supervision for knowledge production. the drive for institutions to produce more research makes the supervision of research more critical. however, the academic staff complement in many universities is not made up solely of senior and experienced academics given the considerable number of novice academics working in them. for maistry, [g]iven that under 35 percent of all academics in south africa hold a phd qualification and [that] the country is characterised by substantial numbers of novice and inexperienced supervisors, the liminal becomes a crucial nexus that will influence the future strength of the south african higher education sector. (2017, p. 132) additionally, the research output in south africa is linked to a financial benefit for institutions so the research-intensive institutions are most likely to become financially stronger and to attract good researchers, while universities with low research output are not attractive to experienced researchers. 30 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 when we conceptualised this paper, each of us had had fewer than two years of supervision experience, and we were working on our doctoral studies. we were already each supervising between 10 and 15 honours students and we were each co-supervising between 1 and 2 masters students. although the employing university offered a structured course on supervision, which two of us attended, we found the course inadequate. it could not cover much information since it ran over only three days and, since delegates were from different disciplines, it provided only an overview of supervision. given the inadequacy of the course, we then explored different ways of learning more about the supervision role and thus gained confidence in how to carry it out. mccallin and nayar (2012) described supervision as a professional activity that may be learned through a combination of improved theoretical understanding and active participation in the process itself. in this paper, we focus on our learning, which occurred while we were actively participating in the supervision process. without suggesting that the structured supervision training programme was insignificant, we reflect on our experiences of supervising postgraduate students to uncover what contributed to our learning of the role. the key puzzle (known as a key question in other methodologies) was: what sources of learning are contributing to our supervisor identity development as novice academics in a higher education institution? preparing novice supervisors for the supervision role the supervision of postgraduate students is regarded as a form of mentoring that enables students to master, gradually, appropriate disciplinary research knowledge (manathunga & goozée, 2007). this process is intellectually and emotionally demanding for both supervisors and students (mccallin & nayar, 2012) so the preparation of those who will become or are becoming supervisors needs to be considered carefully by different disciplines in universities if they are to ensure quality learning and research output. the common requirement from a supervisor in most contexts is the possession of a degree that is, at least, equivalent to, or higher than that towards which the candidate is aiming. in the united kingdom and australia, for example, supervisors are expected to have served previously as associate or cosupervisors and to have supervised to completion (abdullah & evans, 2012). through cosupervision, novice supervisors have the opportunity to work closely with veteran supervisors to help them learn and gain the necessary experience (lee & murray, 2015). apart from co-supervision, novice supervisors can also be prepared for their role through training or through completing a course (abdullah & evans, 2012; frick & glosoff, 2014; mccallin & nayar, 2012). some south african universities offer accredited research supervision courses to their novice academics and to those in fellow universities. (one such programme, “strengthening postgraduate supervision” is on offer through the centre for higher education, teaching and research (chertl) at rhodes university). this programme was developed by research supervisors from south african tertiary institutions (including rhodes university, university of fort hare, university of cape town, stellenbosch university, and the university of venda) in collaboration with a team of experienced research supervisors from the netherlands universities foundation for international cooperation (nuffic), as maistry (2017) has noted. mccallin and nayar blose et al.: developing a supervisor identity through experiential learning 31 (2012) have argued that the formal training of supervisors is significant since it may prevent or at least reduce the number of trial-and-error attempts that novice supervisors tend to make. even where the training of supervisors is perceived to be essential and is held in high regard, novice supervisors in some contexts still feel incompetent at supervising students (frick & glosoff, 2014). manathunga (2005) has argued that the focus of induction programmes should be on pedagogy in supervision instead of on administrative approaches. according to leshem et al. (2013) and chikte and chabillal (2016), there should be formal, consistent, and ongoing capacity building workshops on supervision that are necessarily carried out in research-intensive universities. the team or group supervision practice that has recently become one of the ways in which institutions encourage collaborative learning and motivate supervisors with different credentials and experience to engage in critical conversations (khene, 2014; manathunga, 2005) would meet this need. there are many sources upon which novice supervisors draw in their learning how to supervise. these include their previous work experience, attendance at conferences, studying literature on supervision, and their observations of current and previous supervisors (frick & glosoff, 2014). the last-mentioned resource, in particular, seems to be the most influential factor in the development of the supervisory practices of developing novice supervisors. according to frick and glosoff (2014), one of the principal ways in which novice supervisors gain self-efficacy is through interacting with, observing, and soliciting support from current or previous supervisors. theoretical framework this study is underpinned by two theories: kolb’s experiential learning theory (1984); and stryker’s (1968) role identity theory. we adopted the experiential learning theory so as to understand our learning process as novice supervisors. according to kolb (1984), learning requires individuals to recall and reflect on their past experiences for new knowledge to be acquired. he stated that “the simple perception of the experience is not sufficient for learning; something must be done with it” (p. 42). essentially, new knowledge is developed by transforming and modifying past experiences. this is referred to as grasping and transforming the experiences (kolb, 1984; kolb et al., 2001). from this perspective, learning is conceptualised as a process of engaging with experience, which then results in re-learning (kolb & kolb, 2005). kolb (1984) put forward a four-stage cycle that displays a learning process; it includes the concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation, and active experimentation. first, concrete experiences, dominated by the senses, are regarded as a starting point for learning (see, too, roberts, 2006). second, reflective observation involves breaking down knowledge into pieces before it is internalised (roberts, 2006). third, abstract conceptualisation pertains to the formation of rules, generalisation, and concepts (kolb, 1984; roberts, 2006). finally, active experimentation is about putting into practice the new learnings. 32 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 the role identity theory, engineered by stryker (1968) to help understand people’s selfconstruction in social roles, describes society as a complex, differentiated, but organized phenomenon, and, since people operate in different societies, they are perceived as reflections of the societies within which they dwell. from stryker’s perspective, individuals have distinct components of self for each of the role positions they occupy in society; he refers to role identities that include, among others, familial roles (daughter, son, mother, husband and so on), occupational roles (doctor, teacher, salesman, engineer, etc,), and political roles (political party delegate, party leader, and such like) adding to stryker’s conception, mccall and simmons (1978) described a role identity as a character and a role that an individual devises for him/herself as an occupant of a particular social position; it is an imaginative view of oneself as an occupant of a particular position. similarly, hogg et al. (1995, p. 256) delineated the role identity as “self-conceptions, selfreferent cognitions, or self-definitions that people apply to themselves as a consequence of the structural role position they occupy and through a process of labelling or self-definition as a member of a particular social category.” in this paper, we blend the theories of experiential learning and role identity to try to understand our learning and self-cognition as novice supervisors that occurred largely on the job, and we applied the four-stage cycle of the experiential learning theory to track our learning process. additionally, we perceived being a supervisor as a social role, and, as novices in this role, all our learning contributed to our self-cognition. in this way, role identity theory helped us understand a plethora of factors that contribute to our selfconceptions, self-referent cognitions, and self-definitions as novice occupants of the supervisor role. therefore, these two theories served collectively as our cognitive tool with which we scrutinised and dissected our narratives in order to unearth our learning sources. process and methodology to provide some distance from our personal identities and also to allow for a clear engagement with findings from a researcher’s perspective, we use pseudonyms (musa, sipho, and langa) to refer to ourselves. langa and sipho have known each other for the longest period since, prior to their university appointment, they lived in the same student residence. langa and musa had the same supervisor for their doctoral studies and this supervisor organised regular cohort sessions, so they knew each other from these meetings. in 2016, langa introduced sipho to musa and we become collegial friends. in 2017, langa suggested that we write a paper reflecting on our supervision experiences since we had always shared the challenges we encountered and had sought advice from one another on this facet of our work. we then scheduled several meetings to conceptualise and to work on different components of this paper. we engaged with our experiences as novice supervisors within the interpretivist paradigm. in line with this worldview, we believe that there is no one ontological single reality; there are, rather, multiple realities because individuals develop subjective meanings of their personal blose et al.: developing a supervisor identity through experiential learning 33 experiences and these lead to multiple meanings (cohen et al. 2011; creswell, 2012). the interpretivist research worldview formed a framework through which we engaged with our experiences of supervising postgraduate students in our higher education institution. in line with our research positioning, we adopted a qualitative research method given that this approach, in using various ways, aims to understand, describe, and sometimes explain social phenomena from the inside (flick, 2007). as connelly and clandinin (1990) have asserted, people lead and tell storied lives, so we adopted narrative inquiry because it gave us an opportunity to narrate our stories of lived experiences. this made it possible for us to inquire intimately into our experiences over time and in a university context, which, following clandinin (2013) and clandinin and caine, (2008) was critical to this inquiry. each of us explored his own experience and the experiences of the other two; this resonated with the sentiments of clandinin and caine (2008, p. 543), who maintained that “narrative inquiries begin with inquiring into researchers’ own stories of experience.” given that we were both researchers and each other’s participants, we followed clandinin and connelly (2000, p. 20) who held that “through collaboration between researcher and participants over time, in place, or series of places and in social interaction with milieus” inquiring into and understanding our experience became possible. for clandinin (2013), engaging with narrative inquiry necessitates thinking about the three commonplaces of temporality, sociality, and place during the generation and analysis of field texts (known as data in other methodologies). temporality refers to attending to the past, present, and future of participants (in this case, ourselves). sociality refers to attending to personal conditions and social conditions concurrently—the personal conditions involve participants’ (in this case, our) feelings, hopes, and desires while the social conditions refer to the setting under which participants’ (in this case, our) experiences unfold, such as cultural, social, institutional, familial, and linguistic settings. place refers to the physical boundaries of place or sequence of places in which the inquiry takes place (clandinin, 2013). the relationship we had established among ourselves as close colleagues assisted us in executing this inquiry. we were at the same level of experience, we could share our experiences with ease, and we held a reasonable understanding of one another. this enabled us to attend to temporality and sociality in our engagement with each other’s experiences. also, the inquiry took place at our workplace, which is a significant space for all three of us and this worked to our advantage in that we all understood the space. to generate field texts, we employed an unstructured narrative interview, a pertinent method of doing so in narrative studies, during which a participant is allowed an opportunity to freely relay his or her experiences (adler & clark, 2008; clandinin, 2013; olive, 2014). to this end, we set aside two meetings for narrative interviews during which we each took turns being interviewed by the other two. following the generation of field texts, we each transcribed the interviews. in this way, we ensured that the transcriptions captured accurately what had transpired during the interview sessions. 34 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 in keeping with the narrative inquiry methodology, we analysed the field texts using narrative analysis and the analysis of narrative methods. we exchanged our transcriptions to ensure that each of us did not analyse his own story and, after that, in line with the thinking of polkinghorne (2002), we engaged in the process of constructing coherent accounts of our experiences. in developing these accounts, we studied transcriptions and discovered plots that connected field text elements. these plots were then used to construct a unified episode hereafter referred to as a re-storied narrative (polkinghorne, 2002). when we had completed the first level of analysis, we went through the re-storied narratives so that each of us could check that the narratives were a correct representation of our experiences, and also to examine the narratives with the aim of identifying emerging meanings. we then set aside a week to work on the analysis of the narratives. again, following polkinghorne (2002), we looked at each re-storied narrative during this week and looked across the three narratives to identify themes that responded to our research puzzle. we present the resultant themes in the findings section where we offer selected excerpts from the re-storied narratives. the process of engaging with our experiences and our negotiation between the two roles of participant and co-researcher did not compromise the rigor of the inquiry. instead, the opposite was true. the analysis process in this inquiry followed the verisimilitude principle, which is a criterion for a good literary study and one that aims to make writing seem real and alive. this allows a reader to have a vicarious experience of participants’ situations (creswell, 2008; loh, 2013) achieved through the twofold member-checking of peer validation and audience validation. these processes are indispensable during the process of reconstructing narratives as loh (2013) has observed. during the re-storying process, each co-researcher constructed another co-researcher’s story. following this, we three shared all the stories. at this point, the two receiving co-researchers performed dissimilar roles; the story owner engaged in peer validation and the other co-researcher took on the task of audience validation. this process contributed to the truthfulness, as advocated by loh (2013), of the research presented in this paper. findings in this section, we discuss four factors that emerged from our re-storied narratives: drawing lessons from research supervisors; learning from senior colleagues; the power of informal dialogues in learning supervision; and reflexivity as a learning avenue. drawing lessons from research supervisors it was apparent from our narratives that the experience of having been supervised contributed significantly to the development of our supervisor identity. since we had all been supervised, we found that we all drew from our own supervisors’ practices and advice in carrying out the supervision role. according to kolb (1984), once the experience has been acquired, something has to be done with it. below, musa explains how his engagement with his phd supervisor translated into a useful resource that influences his supervision. he explained, blose et al.: developing a supervisor identity through experiential learning 35 . . . as i did not know much about supervision and had no confidence [in it] i depended on and drew from my experience of having been supervised as a phd student . . . i drew from my supervisor’s approach to reviewing my work, interacting with me, and also [the work related to] guidance. i then tried my best to provide comparable supervision to my students. langa’s learning from his supervisor was twofold; he drew from his master’s supervisor’s approach to construct his supervisor identity and he also solicited assistance from his current phd supervisor, with whom he has established a good relationship. he said, i had to find my foot in the academic arena, which i did by learning different supervision methods. i drew mostly from my experiences of being a student and my relationships with my former honours and master’s supervisors. although my honours supervisor was a bit distant while my master’s supervisor was supportive, they helped me greatly to construct my own supervisor identity . . . i also relied on my phd supervisor, to whom i would sometimes send whatsapp messages or emails enquiring about something or requesting a meeting. in such meetings, we would discuss all my supervision challenges. in the same vein, sipho mentioned that his phd supervisor performed an advisory role in his learning of supervision. when he encounters challenges, he consults with his supervisor to learn more about supervision. he explained, i also share my experiences with my phd supervisor, who subsequently gives me advice. i remember that she even suggested that i write about my experiences as a young academic and novice supervisor. through such conversations, i managed to perform this task called supervision and had my students graduate. additionally, it was during such conversations that the thought of writing this paper was born. it is clear that the experience of being supervised contributed significantly to our cognition of self, as hogg et al. (1995) put it in a different context, as novice supervisors. our relationships with our supervisors constituted a basic supervision experience that formed the basis of our learning and the construction of a supervisor identity. this finding resonates with the sentiments, explained earlier, of frick and glosoff (2014) who asserted that novice supervisors draw from their previous supervisors in constructing and carrying out their supervision role. in addition, lee (2007) has asserted that less capacitated supervisors are likely to emulate the qualities that were demonstrated to them by their supervisors when they were students. our supervisors also played the role of secondary mentors (see lee, 2007). langa and sipho explained that they solicited supervision assistance from their supervisors when they needed it, and these supervisors provided guidance. so, they may be viewed as secondary mentors because they concentrated on providing support for career development in assisting their mentees with work-based problems and in providing coaching. 36 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 learning from senior colleagues when we examined our re-storied narratives, we noted that a drive to learn came across as another contributor to our development as supervisors. we had an eagerness to learn from our senior colleagues, so we solicited guidance and made ourselves available for workshops that senior academics facilitated in the school. for musa, co-supervising with senior colleagues and attending the workshops played a significant role in his learning. as we indicated earlier, some institutions require new supervisors to start from the co-supervisor position (abdullah & evans, 2012) and grow from there. he said, i was invited by two colleagues to co-supervise master’s students with them—one student per colleague. i could not resist this opportunity because i wanted to gain experience and learn more about supervision . . . one more thing about support, there are colleagues in the school who offer supervision workshops. they have facilitated two workshops since 2016, and i attended both. i learned a lot from these workshops. in the same institution but in a different discipline, langa was allocated a mentor. although he acknowledges his mentor’s work, he did not confine himself to learning only from this mentor. instead, he identified other excelling academics and drew lessons from them in seeking to diversify his supervision experience. in this way he constantly engages in the cyclical learning process described by kolb (1968), in that all these experiences with various senior academics are abstracted to develop his learning. he said, i was not restricted to working with my mentor only; i also consulted and learned from other academics, too. my senior colleagues, whom i perceived to be good at supervision, as evidenced by the many students who graduated under their supervision, became my mentors and role models. i have consulted with most of them over the basics of supervision, particularly on how to support and guide my students in this difficult academic journey. sipho also displayed his drive to learn by engaging in many activities with the intention of learning more about supervision. this is what he had to say: supervision is not a straightforward activity but a complex encounter. i now understand supervision as an ongoing learning process for both the student and the supervisor. as a supervisor, i had to consult with senior supervisors to gain more confidence and be able to support, guide, and impart knowledge to students. the senior staff members have always been valuable resources in the development of novice staff members in all sectors; we also took the lead and asserted control for the kind of assistance we required as novice supervisors. we used a bottom-up approach centred around developmental needs in our own learning. as a result, we did not limit ourselves to one veteran staff member or one mentor. instead, we widened our horizons in the quest to generate a self-conception as supervisors. lee (2007) has highlighted a need for supervisors, both new and experienced ones, to uncover their conceptions of supervision and examine blose et al.: developing a supervisor identity through experiential learning 37 them alongside other supervisors who are doing this. lee (2007) outlined various paths that supervisors may explore when they want to enhance their skills, including peer learning and support, mentoring, action learning, and attending specialised seminars. as is clear from our narratives, we have done all this with the aim of learning how to fulfil this role to the best of our ability. the power of informal dialogues in learning supervision informal conversations among colleagues in any workplace are normal and, for us, such conversations formed a significant learning avenue. although we learn from senior colleagues, as discussed above, we also chat with fellow novice supervisors, and, in this way, we assist one another. these conversations informed some of the self-directed requests for development that we made to senior colleagues. according to maritz and prinsloo (2015, p. 974), “the most common way to learn how to supervise is to learn ‘on the fly’, in other words learning by doing.” for sipho, this is exactly what happened. he explained that the university considered only the knowledge i had acquired and then gave me the autonomy and trust i did not deserve. i think that a novice academic requires support, be it formal or informal, in order to survive in the position. as for my experience, i felt like i was thrown in the deep end with little idea of what swimming means and was asked to save a person who also did not know how to swim. however, i managed to learn how to swim along the way. my survival was fostered through corridor talks and the informal support of colleagues who had been in the same position. likewise, langa learned from informal corridor talks, conversations over coffee, and during the school, cluster, or discipline events. apart from this, the power of informal conversations for langa and his colleagues is evident in their having organised themselves, as novice academics, into a forum that plays a significant role in their academic growth. according to kolb (1984), new knowledge emerges when existing knowledge is transformed. langa and his colleagues are engaging in this process collaboratively and, in essence, this enhances the rigor of their discussions. langa elaborated, i do learn from corridor talks and from when a colleague pops into my office for coffee or tea and we have discussions on issues relating to teaching, supervision, and research. apart from this, i am fortunate to be a member of a group of young academics that offers me a brilliant forum in which we meet every week, between wednesday and saturday. in our meetings, we work on our phds, on other publishing projects, and also have conversations about teaching and supervision. i find this very helpful because we are able to learn from one another. musa also pointed out the significance of informal dialogues in his learning how to be a supervisor. he explained that he engages in corridor talks and is also an affiliate in the forum mentioned above. he said, 38 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 there are two further activities from which i generate my understanding of supervision. these include corridor talks and the young academics’ forum. with regard to corridor talks, i like to interact with people; it is in my nature. if i am facing a challenge, i usually go to one of my colleagues and enquire informally about the challenge i am experiencing. i ask them how they perform a task i am finding difficult and they advise me . . . regarding the forum, i am a member of the young academics’ forum on campus. the forum is constituted of a group of emerging likeminded academics. we discuss many issues relating to our job, and supervision is one of them. if i am experiencing difficulty in my supervision, i check with them, and they give me advice. supervision as a role may be viewed as a set of expectations that prescribe behaviour considered appropriate by others (hogg et al, 1995; mccall & simmons, 1978) so, seeking assistance from colleagues formally and informally shows our desire to construct and harness different experiences in order to enact the supervisor role well. furthermore, critical conversations with colleagues and peers about supervision are significant to the efficacy of both novice and experienced supervisors, as pearson and brew (2002) have noted. reflexivity as a learning avenue apart from the extrinsic factors such as our research supervisors and colleagues, we also identified intrinsic learning. as novice supervisors, we engaged in a reflexive exercise regarding our supervision experiences, and the exercise enabled us to imagine and re-imagine ourselves. sipho was fortunate enough to have supervised a physically challenged student; this experience taught him the importance of attending to students’ wellbeing, which is significant to the supervision relationship. khene (2014) has argued that in our supervision relationships, we need to enact a humanising pedagogy, one that is driven by being sensitive to students’ backgrounds and learning abilities. sipho explained, among the students i have supervised, there was one older student who had a disability . . . i had to find ways to accommodate her because i knew how difficult it was to undertake research and to navigate the challenges she was experiencing. at times, i had to give extra support through giving her extended time to complete a task, and, when necessary, i gave her the chance to submit several drafts. apart from this, i also gave her my cell phone number so that she could call for support at any time. my human caring factor ensured that this student was not disadvantaged and did not feel neglected in any way by me. i took her struggles and made them mine, and i supported her until i saw her through the academic line. in similar vein, musa’s supervision experience made him realise that supervision is not only about academic support but also involves social support. as he put it, in terms of support, i provide both academic and also social support to my students . . . socially, i listen to them and advise on social issues impacting on their studies. let me cite one difficult student who always complains about having vast blose et al.: developing a supervisor identity through experiential learning 39 responsibilities. when she comes to my office, she will say, ‘i am working in a school, and i have a lot of work, including marking. after school, i need to go home, and i have young kids. so, when i arrive at home, i must prepare dinner for them as well as my husband. after finishing the house chores, it is late, and i cannot begin reading due to exhaustion.’ in response, i offered her this analogy, and i keep on reminding her of it. i said, ‘if you have your kids at home and your brother sends his kids to visit you during the winter holidays, when they arrive, would you chase your kids away? no. you will create space for the visiting kids, and all the kids will have space in your house.’ i then told her to look at her med studies as her kid and the other tasks like marking, cooking, parents’ meetings as visiting kids because these come and go. i told her not to chase her kid (med studies) to accommodate the visiting kids. this was one way in which i tried to motivate a student. i speak to students’ personal lives so that they feel supported. while the supervision experience triggered humanity and compassion from sipho and musa, langa’s reflexive account was no different. he said, at first, i struggled with wanting to produce the mini-me because when i started, i wanted to produce students who write, argue, and express ideas like me and have similar knowledge. i expected that students would know what i knew when i was a master’s student, and this was my weakness. i was, however, able to overcome this challenge by reflecting and also consulting with senior colleagues. i came to understand that i should use my knowledge and skills to assist my students in growing in their own right. i recognised that academic growth should be nurtured rather than coerced. our learning of supervision and the development of a supervisor identity resulted from various factors, including a rigorous process of learning and re-learning. engaging in reflexivity was a means through which we accessed knowledge within ourselves. this echoes kolb (1984), who, from an experiential learning perspective, described learning as involving, recalling, and reflecting on past experiences so that new knowledge could be acquired. this exercise in reflexivity is key to developing role identity, which has been viewed by mccall and simmons (1978) as an imaginative view of oneself as an occupant of a particular position. concluding thoughts in concluding this paper, we look back to the research puzzle to which we aimed to respond: what sources of learning are contributing to our supervisor identity development as novice academics in a higher education institution? from engaging with our experiences as novice supervisors, we identified four sources of learning how to assume the role of supervision: learning from our research supervisors, from senior colleagues, from informal dialogues with colleagues, and by practising reflexivity. we did not undergo a structured comprehensive programme in preparation for the role of 40 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 supervision. instead, we experienced a unique, cyclical, reflexive, and meaningful learning process. our narratives show that we played a proactive role in harnessing knowledge pertaining to supervision from different sources. this proactive role afforded us control over our learning and cognition of ourselves as supervisors. as soccer fanatics, we liken our learnings and self-cognition to the setting of a scheme. a coach normally sets the scheme, and it involves the choosing and positioning of players for the field. likewise, as novice supervisors, we took a coach’s position and decided on which players would contribute to our learning. our learning as novice supervisors was driven largely by extrinsic factors such as the institution, our colleagues, and the students we supervise. in addition, learning was also driven intrinsically through our reflexivity. these extrinsic and intrinsic factors proved to be equally significant in our learning of the role. in particular, reflexivity was critical in synthesising what we learned from other sources to develop an integrated understanding for ourselves of what it means to be a supervisor. in the quest to best serve research candidates placed under our guidance, we have moved beyond historical learnings (from former supervisors). we exercise agentic dispositions by consciously seeking out potential (re)sources that may enable our further comprehension of how to supervise the knowledge creation process. it is essential to declare that in this paper we do not attempt to render the institutional supervision training programmes insignificant. instead, we bring to light unstructured avenues that contributed to our learning of supervision and the development of a supervisor identity. we propose that structured and unstructured approaches to support novice supervisors could coexist in higher education institutions. acknowledgements we would like to acknowledge, gratefully, the university staff doctoral programme (usdp) for affording us mentorship, capacity building opportunities, and teaching relief to complete our doctoral studies and pursue writing for publication. this programme was administered through the accelerated academic leadership development programme (aaldp) at the university of kwazulu-natal, in the school of education. we further acknowledge that opinions, 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(2015). a qualitative inquiry into the challenges and complexities of research supervision: viewpoints of postgraduate students and faculty members. journal of advances in medical education & professionalism, 3(3), 91. microsoft word b8500 full issue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 85, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i85a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x initial teacher education students’ conceptualisation of inclusive education moeniera moosa school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa moeniera.moosa@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6231-9370 tanya bekker school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa tanya.bekker@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6052-4186 (received: 19 may 2021; accepted: 15 november 2021) abstract policy and legislative frameworks in south africa mandate inclusive education that, given the contextual realities of classrooms, requires teachers to be responsive to diversity. there is, however, an identified gap between policy ideals and enactment that is exacerbated by a lack of conceptual clarity regarding the nature of inclusive education and practice that is still viewed by many as being limited to considerations of special needs rather than broader considerations of diversity as well. initial teacher education (ite) has a role to play in challenging and disrupting teacher thinking to support conceptualisations of inclusive education that position teachers’ responsiveness to diversity. we used the inclusive pedagogical approach in action (ipaa) framework (florian & spratt, 2013) since it focuses on inclusive pedagogy as a way of thinking about and practising inclusion to support the learning of all. we conducted the qualitative research at a public urban university in johannesburg, south africa with 200 third-year preservice teachers. we analysed the data by considering preservice teachers’ reflections on adapting content knowledge, their thinking about learner needs, and their selection of teaching and learning strategies. findings indicate that preservice teachers were engaging with the theoretical foundations of inclusive education; they demonstrated awareness about issues of diversity but struggled to establish learners’ diverse needs and how to address these in practice. this study suggests that preservice teachers’ conceptualisations of inclusive education must be given consideration and that they require robust training on how to enact inclusive pedagogy. we recommend continued support for preservice teachers in building their capacity to enhance responsiveness in inclusive practice through ite programmes and further research. keywords: inclusive education, preservice teachers, planning, pedagogy, practice, conceptualisations 56 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 introduction developing inclusive education systems and schools capable of educating all learners together regardless of ability levels, (dis)ability or specific learning needs, requires (i) the development of ways of teaching that support the learning of all learners by taking into account individual differences, and (ii) that teachers tasked with such teaching be equipped with the necessary skills, dispositions, and knowledge to enact inclusive practices in the classroom (ainscow et al., 2019). larsen et al. (2019), however, have argued that there is a “discrepancy between inclusion as a political ideal and inclusion as a practice” (p. 1049) that impacts on the enactment of inclusion. this discrepancy stems from a lack of clarity in definitions of inclusion and in conceptualisations of inclusive practice and this results in teachers and schools struggling to enact inclusion for all learners (larsen et al., 2019). the challenges of enacting inclusion are illustrated in the education for all 2000–2015: achievements and challenges [global monitoring report] (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization, 2015). this report indicates that despite the international inclusive education agenda, there are still 58 million children (with and without special needs) out of school globally and, in fact, inequality in education has increased. the challenge of transforming education systems to support the inclusion of all learners has particular implications for the education of future teachers. initial teacher education (ite) programmes are an arena in which preservice teachers’ conceptualisations of inclusive education that perpetuate exclusionary practices can be either disrupted or reinforced (berry, 2008). we argue in this paper that ite programmes in south africa should consider how preservice teachers conceptualise inclusive education to harness the potential of ite to disrupt rather than reproduce conceptualisations of inclusive education that fail to support the inclusion of all. the teaching practices that most newly qualified teachers adopt are those dominant practices to which they were exposed in the school in which they begin teaching (mcintyre, 2009). the implication of this is positive in cases in which the dominant practice supports inclusion but less positive in those in which dominant practices do not. this acceptance of less positive dominant practice is unlikely to be challenged by newly qualified teachers if they have not been exposed to alternatives during their ite. it is therefore imperative to start challenging and changing preservice teachers’ views on how to respond to diverse learner needs before they find themselves in school contexts where this is not always being done. therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the conceptualisations of inclusive education held by third-year preservice teachers as demonstrated by their reflection on their own inclusive practice in lesson plans based on an essay they submitted. first, we situate the work within the wider body of research on inclusive education and professional knowledge. we then discuss principles of inclusive pedagogy (florian & spratt, 2013) that were used as the theoretical framework. next, we describe the research context and process and outline the findings. analysis of the data suggests that while third year preservice teachers demonstrated engagement with the theory of inclusive education and were demonstrating awareness in moosa & bekker: initial teacher education students’ conceptualisation of inclusive education 57 thinking about diversity and difference, they found it challenging to consider learners’ diverse needs and work out how to address these in their planning and practice. literature review and theoretical framework after discussing conceptualisations of inclusive education in general, we then focus on the ways in which conceptualisations inform teaching to enable us to consider the implications for practice and for the selection of improved teaching strategies that we then go on to discuss. we draw on existing literature to argue that the ways in which inclusive education is conceptualised has particular implications for practice and that the selection of teaching strategies that are shown to be more rather than less inclusive is necessary to enhance responsiveness to diversity. conceptualisations of inclusive education inclusive education is conceptualised differently by members of the general population, preservice teachers, and in-service teachers (krischler et al., 2019). they found that the general population tended to conceptualise inclusive education primarily as being related solely to the education of learners with special needs. in-service and pre-service teachers, however, were more likely to have a deeper understanding of inclusive education as meeting the social and academic needs of all learners. in-service teachers were found to conceptualise inclusive education more frequently in this way than pre-service teachers. this is significant since, as krischler et al., (2019, p. 632) found, “teachers with more in-depth understanding of inclusive education reported more positive attitudes and felt better prepared to implement inclusive practices.” clark et al (1999) asserted that in order to enact inclusive education, teachers must be given opportunities to construct the meaning of inclusion for themselves and that this can be facilitated in ite programmes. there is a distinction between narrow and broad definitions of the concept of inclusion (ainscow et al., 2006). narrow definitions focus on the inclusion of learners with special education needs. broad definitions, however, focus on the inclusion of all learners and on how schools respond to their diversity. armstrong et al. (2011) put forward an additional category of so-called fragmented definitions that come into existence when inclusion for all is advocated but the notion of what constitutes all is fragmented by the identification of specific groups of learners who require different or additional support. definitions and perspectives of inclusive education have broadened in south africa as evidenced by a policy such as the one outlined in white paper 6 (department of education, 2001) that is situated within a social model approach and that recognises a range of barriers to learning along with a broad spectrum of diversity. white paper 6 is, however, ambiguous in its reconciliation of, on the one hand, broader perspectives of difference that recognise a range of diversity and, on the other, an exclusive, special needs placement paradigm. the introduction of what we might call a levels-ofsupport continuum and policy as indicated in the document, screening, identification, assessment and support (department of basic education, 2014) attempts this reconciliation while unintentionally reinforcing the separate 58 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 provisioning model of special needs resulting in that fragmented perspective on inclusion cautioned against by armstrong and colleagues (2011). this is important in a consideration of the type of preparation for inclusive practice, supported by conceptualisations of inclusive education, that preservice teachers are receiving. conceptualisations informing teaching shifting narrow conceptualisations of inclusive education held by teachers beyond that of special needs requires engaging with teachers’ views, beliefs, and thinking about inclusive education. the goal of providing equitable quality education for all learners is dependent on learners having access to transformative teachers who view diversity as a strength in teaching and learning and who enact learner-centred pedagogy that is responsive to diversity, as suggested by akyeampong (2017). however, south african studies have consistently found that many teachers retain medicalised beliefs and views on inclusive education, and that negative attitudes towards inclusive education and the resulting continued exclusionary practices in classrooms persist (adewumi & mosito, 2019; englebrecht, 2006; muthukrishna et al., 2016). such evidence indicates that despite south african policy imperatives, “teachers find it difficult to make a shift from their current beliefs about what constitutes best inclusive teaching practice” (makoelle, 2014, p.188). we argue that if teachers are to be supported to make a shift in thinking, ite has an important role to play in exposing preservice teachers to reflective activities that allow them to engage with their current beliefs and provide them with opportunities to challenge and shift their thinking about inclusive education in order to bring about social change. christie (2018) suggested that preservice teachers come into ite programmes with a common-sense understanding of teaching. this needs to be challenged and developed into professional knowledge and requires refinement of their critical reflection. sayed et al. (2018) have explained that professional knowledge development is a key focus of ite and have argued for three knowledge sets to frame this development. the first knowledge set connects specialist, specific, and general knowledge to teaching and learning in a particular subject, learning domain, or discipline. subject content knowledge (knowledge of the content of the subject), pedagogical content knowledge (knowledge of how to organise content for effective learning), and general pedagogical knowledge (general management of learning that is not necessarily subject specific) are included in this knowledge set. the second knowledge set refers to knowledge external to a particular subject, learning domain, or discipline including curricula knowledge, knowledge about context, and knowledge about the aims and purposes of education. this knowledge set enables the effective teaching of a particular subject, learning domain, or discipline. the third knowledge set focuses on the affective dimensions of teaching and refers to both technical skills and value dispositions teachers need to act as agents for social justice. the third knowledge set works across and with the other two knowledge sets as the content teachers teach, the manner in which they teach it, and their understanding of the context in which they teach and act as agents comes together (sayed et al., 2018). the primary source of these moosa & bekker: initial teacher education students’ conceptualisation of inclusive education 59 knowledges is the minimum requirements for teacher qualifications (mrteq) (republic of south africa, 2015). in relation to inclusive education, we argue that these three knowledge sets conceptually frame ite to support the development of teacher agency in relation to inclusion alongside the development of inclusive pedagogy for and across specific subjects in particular contexts to enable teachers to “change the status quo and develop social justice and inclusion” (pantić & florian, 2015, p. 333). the role of ite in developing knowledge sets of preservice teachers and in supporting the development of broader conceptualisations of inclusive education is therefore an important focus if preservice teachers are to be equipped to enact inclusive practice. ite programmes, in developing these knowledge sets, have the potential to enable shifts in thinking from those common-sense understandings to informed and critical reflection on social realities of the context within which preservice teachers are being prepared to engage (mcintyre, 2009; walton & rusznyak, 2020). we argue that it must be borne in mind that shifts in thinking do not in and of themselves guarantee a shift in practice. however, a shift in practice is not likely to be possible at all without a shift in thinking. it is for these reasons that we focus on third-year preservice teachers’ conceptualisations of inclusive education after their completion of an inclusive education module to understand the ways in which these students are able to reflect on their own practice and recognise practices that are more or less inclusive. we were particularly interested in exploring how preservice teachers conceptualise inclusive education and think about the importance of adapting content knowledge, what they think about learner needs, and how they select teaching and learning strategies. adapting content knowledge the content knowledge taught to learners in south african schools is mandated by the national curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) (department of education, 2011). the curriculum specifies the content to be taught in each learning area per grade as well as determining the pace at which this content should be taught and how it should be assessed. however, in order to teach content knowledge effectively, teachers themselves require sound knowledge of the subject. content knowledge refers to the amount of knowledge that the teacher has and the way in which that knowledge is organised in their mind. the participants of this study had been introduced to shulman’s (1986) concept of pedagogical content knowledge (pck) along with subject knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and general pedagogical knowledge in their first year of study. pck allows subject content knowledge to find expression in the lesson since it is in this domain that understanding of content, understanding of how best to make that content accessible to learners, and the understanding of learners themselves are brought together. acquisition of pck is supported, developed, and enhanced through practical experience and reflection on that experience (shulman, 1986). informing pck is curricular knowledge (both lateral and vertical) that relates to knowledge of curriculum organisation, how the curriculum of a 60 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 particular subject relates to the curriculum in other subjects, representation, and requirements of particular subjects at specific grade levels, and how this articulates with grades above and below. white paper 6 (department of education, 2001) suggested that the process of teaching and learning needs to be flexible enough to meet the needs of individual learners if the curriculum itself is not to become a barrier to learning. curriculum adaptation refers to the modification of curriculum to meet diverse learning needs in the classroom. the type of teacher thinking that assumes that all learners are different and have different learning needs at particular points in time (florian & black-hawkins, 2011) creates opportunities for responsive teaching in which content is adapted to suit the needs of learners as they are evidenced in particular lessons. this is significant to the study since preservice teachers were asked to reflect on their lesson plans and these reflections provided us with insight into the conceptualisations of inclusive education suggested in the decisions made in relation to adapting content knowledge. thinking about learners’ needs mrteq (republic of south africa, 2015) notes that “inclusive education forms an important aspect of both general pedagogical knowledge and specialised pedagogical knowledge” (p. 11). furthermore, the basic competencies for beginner teachers include being able to understand diversity “in order to teach in a manner that includes all learners” (p. 56). additionally, the national curriculum and assessment policy statement national curriculum statements (department of basic education, 2011) promotes a learner centred approach that necessitates consideration of the context of learners. in the inclusive education module taught to this specific cohort of third year preservice teachers, we engaged with their recognition of diversity in terms of race, religion, language, culture, gender, socio-economic background, dis/ability, and learning ability. this is in line with the south african council of educators’ (sace) code of professional ethics that suggests that teachers should be responsive to “the uniqueness, individuality, and specific needs of each learner” (south african council of educators, 1997, p. 2). a medicalised approach to thinking about learner needs would involve adopting a normative stance and would identify learners with particular needs as being different from those of the majority and who would therefore require specialised pedagogical intervention. in contrast, florian and black-hawkins (2011) advocated for an inclusive pedagogy for all with the acknowledgment that there will be individual differences. these scholars conceptualised this as the provisioning of rich learning opportunities for all at the same time, so that “instead of providing something different or additional for children who experience difficulties in their learning, inclusive pedagogy seeks to extend what is ordinarily available to everybody” (p. 813). this requires recognising pedagogically significant difference and responding pedagogically to this by making support available within the lesson that can be accessed by all learners. for example, recognising as a pedagogically significant difference that not all learners are english first language speakers and responding pedagogically by providing language support that is accessible to all could be part of the general lesson. this is moosa & bekker: initial teacher education students’ conceptualisation of inclusive education 61 significant to this study since we looked at preservice teachers’ lesson plan reflections to gain insight into the conceptualisations of inclusive education that were apparent in the decisions they made in thinking about learner needs. using teaching and learning strategies for inclusive education in order to be responsive and effective, teachers need to have a broad repertoire of teaching and learning strategies. inclusive pedagogical strategies discussed in this section include the concept of universal design for learning, differentiation, and strategies such as cooperative learning. this is by no means a full list, but these serve as examples of the types of inclusive teaching and learning strategies with which this cohort of third year preservice teachers engaged in their course work. the reason for the selection of universal design for learning, differentiation, and co-operative learning as strategies for discussion is that these were recognised as dominant strategies associated with inclusive practice in morina’s (2020) extensive literature review. universal design for learning recognises that the ways in which individuals learn differ and that teachers should, in their planning and teaching, consider many different means of representation, expression, and engagement on the principle of accessibility for all (bedrossian, 2019; hall et al., 2012). this means that instead of planning a lesson first and thinking later about any accommodations and or adaptations for individual learners, lessons that include ways in which support and scaffolding can be built into them to support the learning of all, are planned (coy, 2016). kameenui et al. (2002, p. 7) presented six universal design principles, discussed throughout the book, that support planning lessons that enable diverse learners to gain cognitive access to the curriculum. the first principle is a focus on “big ideas” that are the fundamental concepts and principles that guide decisions on what to teach. the second is attention to “conspicuous strategies” that are the steps for solving problems or accomplishing a task. third, “mediated scaffolding” draws attention to varying levels of temporary support and assistance provided to support the learning of all. the fourth principle is accessing “primed background knowledge” or prerequisite skills and knowledge needed for a new task. the fifth principle of “strategic integration” that involves integrating essential knowledge and skills to facilitate higher level thinking skills. last, “judicious review” provides opportunities for learners to review important learning at different points in the learning cycle. these principles support the learning of all learners in the class by structuring into lesson planning many pathways and opportunities for the cognitive engagement of all. differentiated teaching is another example that affords teachers the opportunity to plan, teach, and assess at different levels of difficulty and to meet the needs of all learners (mctighe & o’connor, 2005; thomlinson, 2003). the distinction between the concept of universal design for learning and differentiated teaching lies in the core purpose. the purpose of the former is to proactively and broadly plan from the beginning for many means of ensuring full participation of all. the purpose of differentiated teaching is more specifically and narrowly a focus on providing instruction and assessment for different levels of task and content complexity. content knowledge enables understanding of levels of cognitive 62 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 complexity associated with the concept to be taught so that thoughtful differentiations can be selected. ideally, all learners work on the same concept or content in a lesson but with differentiated instruction and activities designed to maximize their engagement (mctighe & o’connor, 2005). a traditional means of using differentiation is to sort learners into ability groups labelled as more or less able. in contrast, inclusive differentiation avoids exclusionary practice in the form of labelling and “becomes a valuable strategy for supporting the learning of everyone when it is used in an ‘elastic and creative’ way rather than as a ‘simplistic linear’ means of sorting pupils into more or less able” (nind, 2005, p. 4). this can, for example, be achieved by providing tiered activities that require all learners to engage with key concepts but that offer increasing levels of scaffolding to support that engagement. differentiation has been critiqued, however, for its potential to single out some learners for something that presents as different to others and that carries, therefore, the potential of marginalisation and labelling (florian, 2015; pappano, 2011) co-operative learning is a strategy that can be used when tasks require problem solving that may benefit from collaborative learning efforts as sharan (2010) has pointed out. with cooperative learning learners facilitate each other’s learning and improve social, communication, thinking, and language skills as well as come to appreciate each other as diverse individuals. active participation is a key principle and requires that teachers plan carefully structured tasks. this allows an opportunity for teachers to be responsive in their design of the task because the possibilities for different components of tasks that consider the individual needs of learners within the group are endless. putnam (2009) described positive interdependence, individual accountability, cooperative skills, simultaneous interaction, and group reflection as key principles of co-operative learning. while these principles of cooperative learning create conditions for improving communication skills and enhancing critical thinking and problem-solving in collaborative ways, putnam (2009) suggested that is important to avoid the type of group work during which some do the work and others remain uninvolved. loreman (2017, p. 3) pointed out that strategies such as universal design for learning, differentiation, and co-operative learning share a common lack of prescription since “the majority of inclusive pedagogical approaches are based on principles and strategies that the teacher must then adopt and adapt to the situation.” he argued that this requires far more of teachers than merely following a prescriptive checklist of teaching tips and could therefore be viewed as a drawback but noted that it can also be viewed as enhancing capacity for teacher agency. by exposing pre-service teachers to a range of inclusive strategies such as the above we hope that they are enabled to select teaching and learning strategies that include rather than exclude. this is significant to this study since we considered preservice teachers’ lesson reflections to give us insight into the conceptualisations of inclusive education suggested by the decisions they made regarding using teaching and learning strategies. theoretical framework florian et al. (2013), advocated that the inclusive pedagogical approach in action (ipaa) framework for inclusive pedagogy be used both in and outside ite programmes in order to moosa & bekker: initial teacher education students’ conceptualisation of inclusive education 63 support the development of inclusive education in different contexts. this argument provides justification for the use of ipaa as a theoretical framework for this study. ipaa is based on three key principles that relate to particular ways of thinking or beliefs about inclusive education. the first of these principles is that difference must be accounted for as an essential aspect of human development in any conceptualisation of learning. teachers who hold this conceptualisation of difference have been shown to be more likely to adapt their teaching to accommodate individual differences (campbell et al., 2003; forlin, 2010). ipaa promotes responses to difference that are inclusive of all learners and rejects any strategies that exacerbate difference (florian, 2014). however, inclusive pedagogy does not deny difference in learners’ learning but advocates responding to difference in a way that does not marginalise any learners (florian, et al., 2013) by building the capacity of teachers to exercise professional judgement in deciding on appropriate ways of meeting learner needs while considering how their pedagogical choices will affect all learners in the class. to this end ipaa describes a range of inclusive strategies (florian, 2014), such as differentiation and cooperative learning described in the previous section, that are relevant to this study. the second ipaa principle is that teachers must believe they are capable of teaching all learners. florian (2008) contended that teachers have the capability to teach children with diverse needs but lack confidence in their ability to do this. a strong predictor of preservice teachers’ positive attitudes towards inclusion is their level of confidence in working in inclusive environments (forlin et al., 2009). associated with the assumption that teachers believe themselves capable of teaching all learners is the view that difficulties in learning are considered professional challenges for the teacher and that responding to these challenges requires commitment to supporting the learning of all (florian, 2014). this principle challenges the common view that undermines teacher confidence to work in inclusive classrooms, namely that meeting special education needs requires special teaching that ordinary teachers cannot do (campbell et al., 2003). this is significant for this study since we engaged with third-year pre-service teachers’ conceptualisations of inclusive education and reflections on their own lesson plans for insight into ways in which they conceptualise inclusive education and into their feelings of capacity and/or responsibility for inclusive practice. the third ipaa principle stresses the importance of continual professional learning and developing new strategies for working with others. it is acknowledged that teachers need support in developing their understanding of inclusive pedagogy and how to enact this in the classroom (florian et al., 2013). teacher collaboration as an example of this support is widely accepted as key to implementing inclusive education (ainscow, 2014). in addition, inclusive practice also encompasses the collaboration of teachers with parents, guardians, support professionals, and other stakeholders (forlin et al., 2009). in this study we asked preservice teachers in what ways they feel their lessons were more or less inclusive and we then use these reflections to explore what they draw on either individually or collaboratively in their professional learning that supports their inclusive practice. 64 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 research methods the purpose of this research was to explore third-year pre-service teachers’ conceptualisations of inclusive education based on an essay they submitted. a qualitative interpretivist case study research approach (creswell, 2007) was most suitable because it allowed for an in-depth understanding of participants’ conceptualisations. this approach facilitated gathering a rich description of students’ explanations of what inclusion is and what it is not. the purpose of this paper is not to account for contextual constructions of inclusion although we acknowledge that participants’ conceptions of inclusion have been socially constructed based on their experiences in various classroom contexts during teaching practice, and on their own backgrounds and school experiences. we note that a weakness of using a qualitative research design is that the findings cannot be generalised. we have attempted to compensate for this weakness by including a sample of preservice teachers across different phases and subject specialisations in this study. another identified limitation of this study is that by using essays as the data source, we were not able to probe participant understanding or ask for clarification of views as would have been possible in interviews. context of the study this research was conducted at a large comprehensive public urban university in johannesburg, south africa. all third-year students at the institution complete a compulsory six-week module in inclusive education that includes reference to global and national definitions, historical development, philosophical and pragmatic underpinnings, national policy, and inclusive pedagogy. the essay assessment of this course required students to select and reflect on one lesson plan prepared for their teaching practice and to draw on course material to indicate to what extent, if any, their selected lesson was inclusive. these essays revealed that some student conceptions were accurate, others not, and that some demonstrated serious misunderstandings of what inclusion is despite having attended the module. research questions based on the responses we noted from the students’ essays we developed the following overall research question for this study. “how do third-year education students conceptualise inclusive education as demonstrated by reflection on their lesson plans?” this question is guided by the following sub-questions: • why do these third-year students feel that their lessons were inclusive? • why do these third-year students feel that their lessons were not inclusive? the aim of this research was to explore the conceptualisations of inclusive education that this group of third-year preservice teachers had in relation to their reflections on how they had planned and implemented their lessons. moosa & bekker: initial teacher education students’ conceptualisation of inclusive education 65 data collection third-year students were required to submit an essay that formed part of their course work. participants were purposively and conveniently (creswell, 2007) selected since they were all full-time third-year students registered for a bachelor in education degree. from the total cohort of 580 third year students, 200 students gave consent for their essays to be analysed. participants included students from the foundation (fp), intermediate (ip), senior (sp), and further education and training (fet) phases. table 1 indicates the distribution of participants across phases. table 1 number of participants across phases phase number of participants per phase percentage of participants in each phase foundation phase (grades 1–3) 33 16% intermediate phase (grades 4–6) 38 19% senior phase (grades 7–9) 72 36% fet (grades 10–12) 57 29% total 200 100% informed consent was acquired after the essays had been marked and the marks were officially published at the end of the academic year in 2018. in this way no student could feel that their participation or non-participation in this study would have consequences on their overall academic results. participants were asked to submit copies of their marked assignments by placing them in a designated sealed box after removing the identifying cover sheet to ensure anonymity and confidentiality. subjects taught in particular phases were determined by details provided in their lesson plans. numeracy as a subject was selected by most fp students, a decision for which we cannot account. natural science as a subject was selected by most ip and sp students which may have been because natural science has the highest number of registered students in these phases at this particular institute. english as a subject also has the highest number of registered students in the fet phase at this particular institute and was selected by most participants. data analysis we analysed the data deductively using the sections indicated in the particular university’s lesson plan format. we considered the sections of the lesson plan that dealt with content knowledge, thinking about learner needs, and teaching and learning strategies as core components in relation to the participant’s conceptualisation of inclusive education. based on this we noted participants’ consideration of each of these aspects in relation to how their lesson was inclusive (see table 2). 66 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 trustworthiness and credibility of the study to ensure trustworthiness, the data was analysed independently by the two researchers. we then discussed and compared the categories in order to reach “intercoder agreement” (nunan & bailey, 2009, p. 428) and this enhanced the trustworthiness and credibility of the findings. we immersed ourselves in the data by reading and examining students’ responses in their essays. we then followed the process of crystallisation to identify and articulate patterns and themes that we noticed. we do not view collecting data at one ite institution as a limitation but, instead, view this as an opportunity to develop an in-depth understanding of students’ conceptualisation of inclusive education as demonstrated by reflection on their lesson plans. however, we do note that the findings may not be applicable to other contexts. we therefore recommend that more research be conducted on the aspect of preservice teacher’s conceptualisations of inclusive education and pedagogy at other initial teacher education institutes. findings and discussion we structure the discussion of the findings using the categories we used for data analysis: adapting content knowledge; consideration of learner needs; and teaching and learning strategies. under each category, the research sub-questions of why these third-year students feel that their lessons were inclusive and of why they feel that their lessons were not inclusive are considered. we discuss how third year students conceptualised their lessons in relation to what they felt made their lessons inclusive or not under the subcategories of how they adapted content knowledge, what aspects of learner needs they considered, and which teaching and learning strategies were used in their lessons. table 2 participants overall responses p h a se why do third years feel their lessons were inclusive? why do third years feel their lessons were not inclusive? adapting content knowledge thinking about learners’ needs teaching and learning strategies adapting content knowledge thinking about learners’ needs teaching and learning strategies foundation phase (grades 1–3) n=33 (16%) 13 24 26 5 22 22 39% 73% 79% 15% 67% 67% intermediate phase (grades 4–6) n=38 (19%) 17 34 30 7 24 25 45% 89% 79% 18% 63% 66% moosa & bekker: initial teacher education students’ conceptualisation of inclusive education 67 senior phase (grades 7– 9) n=72 (36%) 28 60 56 12 36 34 39% 83% 78% 17% 50% 47% fet (grades 10–12) n=57 (29%) 17 49 42 14 29 28 30% 86% 74% 25% 51% 49% total n=200 75 167 154 38 111 109 38% 84% 77% 19% 56% 55% adapting content knowledge in terms of what participants felt was inclusive about their lessons, they expressed the importance of adjusting lesson content to accommodate and recognise learners’ diverse academic needs. this included the recognition of learner’s access to content knowledge, having clear lesson outcomes, and a consideration of language barriers. participants foregrounded lesson outcomes that would include all learners by looking “at the purpose of the lesson and [coming] up with key questions and the skills the learners must develop at the end of the lesson” (fet, grade 10, geography). lesson content was adapted by participants in that they “attempted to accommodate the individual needs of each learner by using analogues, images and demonstrations to help allow epistemological access” (fet, grade 10, physical science). participants stated that it was necessary to make “instructions as simple as possible, providing key vocabulary and definitions with examples which are relevant” (sp, grade 8, geography). furthermore, “the choice for examples used were sensitive not to be offensive to the diversity of learners” (fet, grade 10, physical science). content was adapted by “breaking down tasks into manageable chunks.” another participant indicated, “i introduced new content and new vocabulary that learners are unfamiliar with by discussing and explaining. i used scaffolding, reading together with learners for information and looking also to the misunderstandings learners might have during the lesson” (sp, grade 8, geography). significantly, a participant stated, “[i] realised before presenting the lesson [that] learners [had] different cognitive capabilities and they will therefore work at different paces” (sp, grade 9, english). in thinking about ways in which their lessons were not inclusive, participants indicated that their lessons had not considered learner diversity adequately, lessons lacked scaffolding, and, at times, inappropriate examples were used which excluded learners. an example is the statement, i did not demonstrate responsiveness to diversity because my pedagogical choice did not acknowledge and value differences based on gender and socioeconomic context . . . i did not provide a variety of options. basically, teaching everyone does not give the 68 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 same support and does not result in responsiveness that meet[s] the needs of all learners. (ip, grade 5, english) one participant acknowledged, “i can see that my pedagogical content knowledge is insufficient. i did not consider the differences of my learners, by doing this i excluded many. i also excluded some by thinking that all learners have common prior knowledge” (ip, grade 6, maths). another participant noted, “i formulated a bell curve form of thinking which considered the average learners and overlooked the learners on the ends of the curve.” (ip, grade 6, natural science). this is supported by the participant who noted, “i gave all the learners the same amount of time to complete the task regardless of the cognitive abilities. i explained the concept to them as if all of them were familiar with english” (sp, grade 9, english). participants reflected critically on the views they held and one stated, “as teacher i upheld certain deterministic views about learning because i did not focus on what my learners could and could not do but presented the lesson either way” (fet, grade 10, english). positive examples here demonstrate that participants are thinking about adapting content to meet the needs of learners and not merely thinking about teaching to the middle group as associated with bell curve thinking (florian & walton, 2017). there are indications that participants were planning from the beginning to consider ways of adapting content, accommodate for difference, and scaffold understanding and that they were able to recognise in what ways their lessons are not inclusive. what is of concern is that this is the area considered by the least number of participants overall which suggests that adapting content is starting to be but is not yet fully integrated into third-year pre-service teachers’ conceptualisations as a key component of inclusive education. thinking about learner needs in terms of what made their lessons inclusive participants focused specifically on learners’ cognitive, language, cultural, and socio-economic needs and being responsive to these when planning and presenting their lessons. many participants felt that learners’ challenges with “language [as] a huge barrier” needed to be taken into account. in addition, participants noted that “learners are from different ethnic groups and therefore [a teacher] could not code switch in order to not exclude any learners from the lesson” (fet, grade 10, geography). with regard to responsiveness to learners’ needs, participants “felt the responsibility to go back to the topic the following week. [they] noticed that the children in [their] class were different individuals.” in addition, participants “built a bridge between what the learners know and what they face on a daily basis” this was done “to create a learner friendly environment so that all learners would be active participants in the lesson” (fet, grade 10, geography). in contrast, when considering what made their lessons not inclusive participants noted that they had considered only limited aspects of learner diversity; a participant stated, my lesson did not adhere to inclusive principles in a sense that i saw all the learners in my class as homogenous. i did not take into consideration that difficulties learners moosa & bekker: initial teacher education students’ conceptualisation of inclusive education 69 experience in learning. the lesson was not responsive to learners’ diversity rather it turned a blind eye to it (ip, grade 5, history). participants raised concerns about not being able to meet learners’ language needs during lessons since learners come from different linguistic backgrounds . . . i did not make an extra effort to accommodate them. i just incorporated a one size fits all approach without addressing the language barrier, and this might have constrained epistemological access to some learners because of the pedagogical choices i made leading to them not fully accessing knowledge. (sp, grade 9, geography) another concern raised was about perceived lack of capacity to be fully responsive to all needs as seen in this statement: i felt helpless and that there was nothing i could do . . . with regards to disability, i was unable to accommodate a learner with a learning disability; i excluded him from lessons . . . i wouldn’t even ask [for] or check their books as i felt really hopeless. (sp, grade 7, ems). examples of ways in which lessons were inclusive demonstrated a shift away from medicalised thinking as participants recognised their professional responsibility to all learners in their class. this indicates that these third-year students are conceptualising inclusive education in broad rather than narrow terms since there is recognition of the range of diversity that may include disability rather than a focus on disability/special needs in particular (ainscow et al., 2006). there is clear evidence that difference is being accounted for as an essential aspect of human development (see florian, et al., 2013). difference was not being spoken of in terms of disability only and diversity was being recognised. thinking about learner needs is therefore strongly integrated in these participants’ conceptualisations of inclusive education. examples of lessons not being inclusive support this too, since participants recognised the ways in which they had not catered to learner needs. what is interesting to note here is that participants. while recognizing this, did not always feel that they had the capacity to know how to do things differently. this could account for feelings of resistance and being overwhelmed by thinking about learner needs. this is significant as florian et al., (2013) highlighted, in that teachers need to believe they are capable of teaching all learners for inclusive education to be realized. teaching and learning strategies in discussing what made their lessons inclusive, participants pointed to making a conscious decision to select various teaching and learning strategies that included cooperative learning, extending learner engagement, and differentiation. these strategies included using “a game as a revision tool for my lesson, this allowed for co-operative learning in my class” (fet, grade 11, geography). in addition, when selecting strategies, “the learners’ background knowledge was considered. working in pairs helped learners voice out their opinions 70 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 between their partners in a language they all understand” (fet, grade 10, english). conscious decisions were made “not to divide the class into different labelled groups, but rather keep them as one” (fp, grade 3, numeracy). with regard to indications of what was not inclusive participants referred to teaching and learning strategy selections that limited interaction such as using mostly “discussion and explanation” or a more teacher centred approach because of “fear that it might get too loud and uncontrollable.” examples such as these demonstrate that participants are engaging with selecting teaching and learning strategies that have the potential to be more inclusive and are recognising less inclusive selections. participants were mindful of attempting to avoid marginalisation and/or exclusion of learners in the classroom and instead were foregrounding the principle of accessibility for all (see hall et al., 2012). reflection on less inclusive choices indicated that participants were questioning ways in which they could make learning accessible for all. this suggests that teaching and learning strategies are strongly linked to the notion of inclusive pedagogy in the conceptualisations of inclusive education held by participants. insights and implications the data indicated that this cohort of third-year pre-service teachers are starting to demonstrate engagement with the theory of inclusive education and have started developing individual conceptions of what inclusive education would be for them in practice. the findings also indicated, however, that while participants strongly linked thinking about learners needs to inclusive education, they struggled with how to address learners’ diverse needs in their planning and practice. fp participants thought the least about learner needs but were also the most critically reflective about this when they considered what had made their lessons less inclusive. participants across all phases had not regarded the aspect of adapting content knowledge to meet learners needs as an important component of inclusive pedagogy and this has implications for ite programmes since thinking about content knowledge needs to be firmly grounded in conceptualisations of inclusive education if teachers are to be able to consider alternative ways of making content accessible to all. fp and ip students considered the selection of teaching and learning strategies as essential to inclusive pedagogy more than did the sp and fet students which is of concern given the content driven nature of subject teaching in the high school. additionally, and possibly related to this, fet participants also integrated thinking about adapting content knowledge in their conceptualisations of inclusive education the least but were the highest in acknowledging this as a concern. it is evident, given these critical reflections, that participants are able to recognise inclusive and less inclusive aspects of their lessons, that they have an understanding of the principles of inclusive pedagogy, and that this supports conceptualisations of inclusive education. participants do, however, feel a lack of confidence most of the time in their ability to translate this understanding into practice. these findings suggest that continued support in building capacity to enhance responsiveness and inclusive practice is required and needs to be addressed in ite programmes and in future research. moosa & bekker: initial teacher education students’ conceptualisation of inclusive education 71 conclusion in conclusion, we argue that ite has a role to play in challenging and disrupting teacher thinking to support conceptualisations of inclusive education in south african classrooms specifically based on the need for inclusive practice. when preservice teachers are able to engage with the theory of inclusive education as well as with ideas of learner difference they will be in a position, theoretically, to be responsive to learners’ diversity. this indicates the importance of exposing preservice teachers to aspects of inclusive pedagogy that would transform their thinking about what inclusive education really means. poor conceptualisation of inclusive education would impact on ensuring that good quality education is provided for all in order to respond effectively to issues of learner diversity and access in the south african classroom. we recommend that further research be conducted on south african preservice teachers’ conceptualisations of inclusive education in diverse contexts in order to gain more insights into how ite programmes can better support prospective teachers. in addition, we also recommend that inclusive education theory be embedded in all ite programmes so that all teaching is considered to be inclusive and not something separate or optional. references adewumi, t. m., & mosito, c. 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(2020) cumulative knowledge–building for inclusive education in initial teacher education. european journal of teacher education, 43(1), 18–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2019.1686480 microsoft word b8500 full issue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 85, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i85a11 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x personality and self-leadership of school principals as determinants of school performance wk delport high school melkbosstrand, cape town, south africa wkdelport@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6091-6622 leentjie van jaarsveld school of professional studies in education, faculty of education, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa leentjie.vanjaarsveld@nwu.ac.za (corresponding) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9636-8023 branwen challens school of professional studies in education, faculty of education, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa branwen.challens@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1219-4116 (received: 15 october 2020; accepted: 14 september 2021) abstract in this article, we argue that personality and self-leadership are determinants that play a role in the performance of a school. we consider aspects such as the leadership style of the principal, motivation, and support in this regard. we followed a qualitative phenomenological approach in the interpretivist paradigm. we conducted semi-structured interviews with eight principals in both performing and underperforming schools. we found that the principals of both kinds of schools had the same types of personality and concluded that the personality of a principal does not determine whether a school is performing or underperforming. self-leadership occurs more naturally in the principals of performing schools than in those of underperforming schools. furthermore, the self-leadership of principals in underperforming schools is suppressed because of their particular circumstances. it is recommended that principals practise and develop self-leadership. keywords: performance, personality, self-leadership self-management, underperforming schools delport et al.: personality and self-leadership of school principals . . . 203 introduction it is well documented that leadership in schools is the most important factor in the achievement of improvement in school performance (alazmi, 2015; clark & o’donoghue, 2016; oc, 2018). the principal’s leadership, in addition to classroom teachers’ leadership, still has the most important influence on learners (hou et al., 2019). when leadership is scrutinised, several arguments emerge. according to garcía-tuñón et al. (2016), leadership maintains the critical balance between management tasks to conserve the existing culture of leadership initiatives to create new goals, policies, and procedures. for this reason, strong leadership is required. school leaders have to set direction, develop people, and redesign the organisation (raihani, 2008). leadership focuses not only on what people do but, more importantly, on how and why something is done (spillane, 2006). berkovich (2016) has argued that leadership establishes and maintains a sense of direction and purpose for a school. in yet another argument, day et al. (2016) have added that leadership is significant when a conducive and caring school environment has to be established. included in the area of leadership are studies on school effectiveness, leadership, and job satisfaction in schools (botha, 2017; iwuanyanwu-biemkpa, 2017; nganget al., 2015; setwong & prasertcharoensuk, 2013; tschannen-moran & gareis, 2014), studies on schools in general (marcella, 2017), and studies on effective, well-performing, good schools and on ineffective, underperforming, weak schools (kent et al., 2016). however, the personality and selfleadership of school principals have not yet been much explored. the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation and the united nations children’s fund both emphasise access to, equality in, and quality of learning in education, regardless of educational objectives (wilson-strydom & okkolina, 2016). although 543 schools in south africa achieved a 100% pass rate in the 2018 national senior certificate examination, 6,335 schools did not. from 2011 to 2015, only 111 of the 6,772 south african schools achieved a 100% pass rate. from 2012 to 2016, 111 schools did so, and from 2013 to 2017, of the 6,805 schools, 115 achieved this. in 2018, the number of schools achieving a 100% pass rate was greater, at 6,878, but the growth in a 100% pass rate has not been significant. the preceding information about pass rates in schools raises the question of why a 100% pass rate, especially a continual 100% pass rate, is not maintained in all schools in south africa. for the purposes of the investigation on which we report in this article, the assumption is that underperformance is difficult to measure. however, we can claim that schools that do not achieve a 100% pass rate do not perform as well as those schools that do. the purpose of our study was to determine how the personality and self-leadership of the school principal influence its performance. in other words, our aim was to investigate the link between selfleadership and personality. this link serves as the basis for the empirical investigation conducted in a number of schools. in the following section, we present a report on this empirical investigation, followed by a discussion of the findings and some recommendations. 204 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 as mentioned above, this study was based on the link between personality traits, selfleadership, and school performance. first, we explore the notion of personality, what scholars have said about it, and how it plays a role in school leadership. second, we consider selfleadership as a concept and discuss how it plays a role in school leadership. third, we discuss the empirical investigation to understand how personality and self-leadership are linked to school performance. conceptual framework personality several studies have been done on the concept of personality including babyak (2014) and carnes et al. (2015). personality is comprised of those unique traits that individuals possess that distinguish them from other individuals (carnes et al., 2015). these traits determine individuals’ thinking, actions, norms, and values. models, theories, and tests have been designed to gather more information about personality. the big five personality model (carnes et al., 2015) emerged as an example; it has five trait dimensions that have been labelled as extraversion (being outgoing, positive and self-confident), agreeableness (being soft-hearted and caring), conscientiousness (being responsible and hardworking), neuroticism (displaying anxiety and nervousness) and openness to experience (being curious and experimental). other personality tests have emerged over the years, including the disc test (alshehri et al., 2018) that is centred on the four different personality traits of dominance (d), influence (i), steadiness (s), and conscientiousness (c), and de bono’s six thinking hats and 360-degree feedback evaluation (aithal & kumar 2016). it is evident that personality plays a role when it comes to making decisions regarding the appointment of leaders (carnes et al., 2015). one’s personality starts with a view or picture of oneself, i.e., one’s self-concept. asri (2014) conceptualised self-concept “as self-image and self-esteem, which includes all feelings and thoughts of all talents, capabilities, benefits, strengths and weaknesses, through interaction with others” (p. 230). in addition, asri (2014) postulated that self-concept consists of three main components, all of which address the image of an individual regarding their physical appearance, ability or capability, attitude towards the future, self-esteem, and self-owned outlook. when an organisation is involved, it is inevitable that personality traits will emerge when the leader of the organisation has a relationship with their followers. of course, followers have perceptions, expectations, and conceptual prototypes of leadership (babyak, 2014). consequently, the personality traits revealed by the leader will influence their followers. however, leaders and followers are interdependent. this means that although the leader has specific personality traits, these traits will emerge only when there is interaction between and among the leader and the followers. as early as 1929, lide identified specific personality traits of school principals in america. these traits included adaptability, breadth of interest, broadmindedness, considerateness, dependability, enthusiasm, leadership, and punctuality. yet, when these traits were placed in order of importance, punctuality was placed at the top, followed by magnetism (having an delport et al.: personality and self-leadership of school principals . . . 205 attractive personal appearance and a pleasing voice), industry (displaying perseverance and patience) and promptness (displaying efficient dispatch and alertness) (lide, 1929 p. 143). one of the most important tasks of effective and performing organisations is choosing an effective leader since leaders affect not only their own performance but also that of their followers. in this regard, carnes et al. (2015) emphasised the importance of interviews in choosing leaders since “personality information is a desirable outcome of the interview process because it is likely to translate into actual performance” (p. 371). running a school requires specific personality traits that contribute to the achievement of set goals that have to be achieved. according to ali et al. (2011), there is a direct relationship between a principal’s personality traits and their performance. these researchers focused on extroverted and introverted principals. in their study, the principals who were extroverts performed better than those who were introverts. in a study conducted by bakhsh et al. (2015), the results revealed that stress tolerance as a personality trait was a significant predictor of leadership effectiveness. in addition, they found that attractive looks, emotional stability, and selfconfidence played a role in the effectiveness of school principals. their study further revealed that principals who possess and display these personality traits are highly effective in their leadership and can get work done punctually by their followers. in yet another study by balyer (2017) trust was found to be the most important personality trait a leader could have; there is a strong relationship between teachers’ trust in the school principal and better performance of the school. furthermore, respect, reliability, and consideration were found to be the most important personality traits in a principal if school performance was to be achieved. schools are human communities, so these personality traits are essential to good performance. in a comprehensive study of personality traits and leadership styles, hassan et al. (2016) found that leadership styles relate to personality traits so any investigation into the effectiveness of principals should include an examination of the principal’s leadership style and personality since effectiveness, personality, and the style of leadership followed are interrelated. there are two schools of thought about personality traits. one has argued that personality traits differentiate leaders from followers, while the other claimed that personality traits differentiate leaders from effective leaders. effective leadership, however, is not limited to personality traits; it is more complicated than this. there are specific personality traits that emerge when effective leadership is involved—intelligence, confidence, and initiative (ibukun et al., 2011). intelligence is related to how knowledgeable a leader is. when it comes to self-confidence, a leader can show self-confidence in one situation, but this may not necessarily be the case in another. initiative and vision are connected; effective leaders have a vision and use their initiative to achieve it. self-leadership for bryant (2020), self-leadership is about the sense of who one is, what one can do, and where one is going. self-leaders are self-motivated to take purposeful action and, therefore, 206 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 they make better leaders, entrepreneurs, and team members. in influencing oneself to achieve the self-direction and self-motivation necessary to behave and perform in desirable ways, three aspects come to the fore; these are self-awareness that implies one’s intentions and values, self-confidence that refers to knowing one’s strengths and abilities, and self-efficacy that focuses on one’s ability to handle whatever comes one’s way (bryant, 2020). bozyigit (2019) suggested that self-leadership consists of three different types of strategies: 1) behaviour-focused strategies focus on providing specific approaches to identifying ineffective behaviours and replacing them with more effective ones; 2) natural reward strategies explain situations in which the fun aspects of the task or activity are motivated or rewarded by the individual; and 3) constructive thought pattern strategies specify ways of thinking about one’s experiences and habitual ways of thinking. in yet another explanation of what self-leadership entails, browning (2018 p. 16) proposed 12 guidelines: set goals for your life; lead by example; be fearless; honour others; embrace new ideas and opportunities; question everything; do what is right, not what is easy, find goodness and beauty in everyone and everything; actively reject pessimism; be the change you want to see in the world; surround yourself with mentors and teachers; and care for and about people. it is evident that self-leadership has positive effects on work-related outcomes, organisational effectiveness, team building, and group cohesion. reddy and jooste (2015) argued that strategies of self-leadership involve creating ways to make the task more pleasant to perform. for sesen et al. (2017), the crux of self-leadership lies in the relationship between selfleadership and job satisfaction, organisational commitment, and innovation. about the relationship between job satisfaction and self-leadership, they argued that individuals with high self-leadership skills have greater job satisfaction when they have a great deal of autonomy in working places where they can use their self-leadership skills. however, when education departments are involved, the rules and regulations are clearly set out and principals are forced to comply; this means that self-leadership is often not possible. still, the principal can use self-leadership if the situation calls for it. by doing so, they experience a sense of greater freedom and job satisfaction. furthermore, individuals with strong selfleadership skills see themselves as innovative and creative. in today’s educational environment and with the rapid development of technology, it is imperative that principals think innovatively and creatively. in this regard, self-leadership becomes evident. waiting for something to happen is not an option; actual action is essential in the 21st century (sesen et al., 2017). tat and zeitel-bank (2013) have expressed the opinion that self-leadership consists of specific competencies. they note that training the mind to listen increases the ability to concentrate under stressful dynamic circumstances. in addition, active listening is one of the most important skills of a leader (van de mieroop et al., 2020). self-awareness means listening to one’s inner self. van de mieroop et al. (2020) have noted that increased sensitivity to trust oneself may help one to trust in one’s own decisions. also, according to houghton et al., (2003), one needs to overcome one’s inner resistance and engage in positive delport et al.: personality and self-leadership of school principals . . . 207 thought. by doing so, one may be open to new ways of thinking that might help one to be better prepared for new challenges. to conclude, tat and zeitel-bank (2013) stated that individuals are able to develop selected self-leadership competencies through physical experience and awareness along with intellectual reflection. it is well-documented that there is a link between school leadership and learner achievement (badenhorst & koalepe, 2014; carmon, 2009; kythreotis et al., 2010; sun & ni, 2016). the modern school principal can no longer function simply as a building manager tasked with adhering to district rules, carrying out regulations, and avoiding mistakes. according to the wallace foundation (2013), modern school principals have to be leaders of learning who can develop a team by delivering effective instruction. individuals who have self-leadership qualities of managing themselves can better lead and manage their organisations. the link between self-leadership and principalship is clear since leading a school is an entrepreneurial endeavour as well. for this reason, on the one hand, self-leadership is applicable when school turnaround is in question (wallace foundation, 2013). on the other hand, as mcconnell (2017) has argued, although the self-leadership of principals correlates to learner achievement in a small way, it is outweighed by other factors when all others are considered. however, given the multitude of factors that have an impact on learner achievement, even finding a weak significant correlation is important (mcconnell, 2017). following the same line of thought, it can be said that self-leadership is valuable when teamwork is involved since selfleadership has an impact on the team and this influences its overall performance. personality, self-leadership, and school performance according to ali et al. (2011), school principals who are emotionally stable perform better at managerial aspects while neurotic school principals lack managerial skills. other contributions to the study of personality and self-leadership are those of furtner and rauthman (2010) and bailey et al. (2016). for the former, self-leadership correlates with the full set of the big five personality dimensions. people scoring higher on self-leadership could be characterized as open-minded, intellectual, creative, energetic, dynamic, and controlled. they also pursue plans and goals in the long run with perseverance, while not neglecting to self-motivate and self-reward themselves. self-leadership holds potential for explaining motivated and goal oriented behaviors and is also important in more applied fields (e.g., management) (furtner & rauthman, 2010, p. 350). daud (2021 p. 2) postulated that self-leadership is “an approach to self-focus and be[ing] proactive and reactive for the achievement of goals.” self-leaders possess the personality to distinguish themselves from others and thus become superior. long et al. (2017 p. 18) claimed that self-leadership, with a focus on behaviour-focused, natural reward and constructive thought pattern strategies and personality, as well as “openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism or emotional stability”, has an influence on job satisfaction. in another study, mutalib (2017) 208 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 postulated that the extraversion personality trait provides a unique prediction of selfleadership. a study of the interaction between extraversion and stressful environments revealed that individuals who are in high-stress situations are not influenced much by their personality traits to engage in self-leadership. individuals who are most likely to practise selfleadership are those who are highly extroverted in low-stress situations. studies have also focused on the link between personality traits and performance. these include the studies of hakimi et al. (2011) and ali et al. (2011). a few studies have also focused on the link between self-leadership and performance. sarmawa et al. (2017) revealed that work culture is a partially mediating influence of self-leadership on employee performance. consequently, self-leadership has a direct influence on the culture of leadership that has an influence on employee performance, while work culture has a significant influence on employee performance (sarmawa et al., 2017). however, we could find no evidence of a link between the personality traits and self-leadership of school principals and school performance in the literature. research design and methodology we used an interpretivist approach in our investigation. the basic point of departure for interpretivism is to explain human behaviour using a subjective interpretation of that (social) behaviour (creswell, 2012; maree, 2013; mcmillan & schumacker, 2010). qualitative approaches are characterised by intensive studies, descriptions of events, and interpretations of meaning (schunk, 2012). for this reason, the qualitative approach was the preferred approach for this study, and we used this in the form of a phenomenological investigation. sample the school performance report of the 2017 national senior certificate examination (department of basic education, 2018) was used to identify the schools. we selected a purposeful sample of four high-achieving schools (with a sustained 100% pass rate for five or more years) and four underperforming schools (with less than 50% pass rate in the grade 12 examination) in the north-west province. eight principals (six male and two female) were approached to take part in the investigation. table 1 biographical information school principal performance urban or township sex a performing urban male b performing urban male c performing urban male d performing urban male e underperforming township male delport et al.: personality and self-leadership of school principals . . . 209 school principal performance urban or township sex f underperforming township male g underperforming township female h underperforming township female the necessary ethical consent was obtained from the ethics committee of the university and the north-west education department. the necessary documentation regarding disclaimer, anonymity, and volunteerism was sent to the principals to assure them of the confidentiality and anonymity of the research. semi-structured interviews of an hour’s duration were used to gain more insight into how the school principals saw themselves (personality) and the self-leadership they practised. the data was analysed through an inductive data analysis process, as explained by creswell (2012). then we coded the data and identified themes. there was a huge difference in terms of the neatness of the school grounds of the two types of school. the grounds of the performing schools were well looked after while the underperforming township schools were untidy. in the case of the latter, accessibility was extremely difficult given the location of the schools and the lack of reliable resources, such as the internet and landlines that were out of order. in south africa, many schools located in townships are not well-equipped, lack running water, and have poor infrastructure and building facilities. with this background in mind, we offer a discussion of the results that include the words of the participants that are the basic source of the raw data and serve as evidence for the qualitative data analysis. the rich data affords a direct understanding of the participants’ views, experiences, and perceptions. discussion and findings here we discuss the personality and self-leadership of school principals as determinants influencing school performance, and we offer our findings. three main themes emerged during the data analysis: the personality of the school principals; the managerial leadership of the principals; and their perceptions of their self-leadership. personality of school principals although there was a huge difference in the appearance of the schools as already pointed out, all eight principals revealed similar personalities. we discuss only four of these following lide’s (1929) list. all the principals, especially those of the underperforming schools, revealed adaptability. however, the principals of the underperforming schools had adapted to different things than had the principals of the performing schools. participant b from a performing school said, 210 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 i think you have to stay on top of new things that happen with new developments. we are currently in the process of technological adaptations that will keep us going. we are not going into anything. we consider the factors against each other and see what works, what doesn’t. participant e of an underperforming school, focusing more on change, said, one has to be very aware of times that are changing, and [something] that [is] working today does not necessarily work tomorrow. my biggest role in school is thinking ahead, making new decisions, pushing old policies under the table that no longer work. as a leader, you must have a visionary role. where is my school now and where is [it] going? and when i’m no longer here, what will my school look like when a new principal takes over? a leader must have vision. while the performing school principals adapt according to changes in technology, the principals of underperforming schools focus on the future. for them, surviving is more important than adopting futuristic methods of teaching. this personality trait of these principals correlates with asri’s (2014) statement that one’s ability or capability and one’s attitude towards the future are essential to survival. all the principals revealed broadmindedness in their personality. they believed that by developing themselves, reading about the newest trends in education, and attending workshops they could be better school principals. participant d (of a performing school) said, as a principal, you have to read a lot about all the developments around leadership, especially keeping up with all the changes that are taking place in education. a principal must remain proactive and informed. participant h (of an underperforming school) recognised the necessity of knowledge in saying, principals must research the latest developments in schools and keep abreast of what’s going on within the school environment, especially the latest challenges faced by learners and teachers. carnes et al. (2015) argued that the most important aspects of effective and performing organisations lie in an effective leader. however, being only a leader is not enough; a leader must be knowledgeable and well informed. respect, transparency, trust, and motivation were some of the most important qualities related to being an effective principal that emerged in our findings. all the participants agreed that trust was of the utmost importance. first, teachers must trust their principals when decision making is involved. once the teachers see that the decision made by the principal is to their advantage as teachers and not to the benefit of the principal, trust is enhanced. this was especially noticeable at the underperforming schools. in addition, principals must trust their own judgement; in this way, their own self-confidence is enhanced. delport et al.: personality and self-leadership of school principals . . . 211 another personality trait that emerged was insight. yet again, the circumstances of the performing and underperforming schools differed a great deal. however, the insight of the school principals was noteworthy. participant a (of a performing school) stated, in order to make a better place for any institution, you have to be able to mobilise your staff, and how to make those heads move, you have to be able to pull together and transform your staff into something that will benefit everyone affected. participant e (of an underperforming school) explained, schools are different; we are in a school community that serves poor children. you can’t really compare our school to a more affluent school because we are more of a community centre for poor children. that is why our challenges will differ from [those of] other schools. that is why the environment is a big challenge for us, such as where our children live, their background and how they get to school. it was clear that the principals understood the human dynamics of the community. on the one hand, principals of performing schools must constantly encourage their staff members to handle change. on the other, principals of underperforming schools need to keep in mind not only the staff members but the entire community as well. to have insight into the dynamics of being human in totally different circumstances requires being an open-minded leader. this personality trait corresponds with babyak’s (2014) argument that when an organisation is involved, it is inevitable that personality traits will emerge when the leader of the organisation is in a relationship with his or her followers. the fourth personality trait that emerged strongly was motivation. regardless of the circumstances in which the school was located, the principals all agreed that motivation and inspiration were of the utmost importance. however, motivation is not limited to the staff members but also applies to the learners and the principals themselves as participant a (of a performing school) explained, for me, one of the biggest roles of a principal is that you have to be able to motivate. the moment you motivate a child, it means that child wants so much more out of life, with better confidence and self-management skills. in south africa, for example, we have the problem of service delivery. therefore, it is the school’s duty to send the child motivated out here [to] make a difference in other people’s lives out there. participant h (of an underperforming school) argued, as a principal, it is your duty to motivate staff to fill the gap between staff inability and the task at hand . . . the principal must be motivated in performing his or her duties to be a lifelong learner. principals must also have mentors who can motivate them where and when needed. from the above discussion, it is clear that leaders have specific personality traits that distinguish them from followers. what is important, however, is how leaders’ personality 212 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 traits are expressed or suppressed in specific circumstances. favourable circumstances lead to personality traits being clearly evident (babyak, 2014). a principal can have very strong personality traits, but the circumstances may lead to these traits being suppressed. also, unfavourable circumstances can reveal personality traits the principal may not even be aware of possessing (babyak, 2014). in this research, we cannot with definitive certainty that the personality traits of the principals influence the performance of the schools. all the principals had the same personality traits yet some of the schools performed well and others poorly. the problem of underperformance should then be investigated elsewhere. managerial leadership of principals it was clear that the participants definitely linked their personality, or inner traits, to their managerial leadership role. strikingly, there was a misconception that prevailed among the participants from the underperforming schools regarding participatory management. the principals of the underperforming schools were under the impression that they were taking part in participatory management with the teachers but hinted that they would rather place their own dependence in the hands of other schools in search of ideas to improve their own schools. a lack of self-initiative, creativity, and responsibility, and a lack of decision-making skills was evident. however, the participants from the performing schools made it clear that the leadership of one school cannot be compared to that of another. a distinction emerged between the performing and underperforming schools with regard to management leadership. the optimal use of human resources, staff development, and the inclusion of all stakeholders in participatory decision making and management were strongly evident in the performing schools. in this regard, participant a (of a performing school) stated, for me, it is about what the teacher can get out of the process . . . [they] must grow and involve development, because that is the type of person that the principal should focus on as a long-term investment. the goal of participative management is to create a dynamic environment for the principal, teachers, and the community to gather resources so that the learning outcomes for the learners can be of high quality. for this reason, it is important for principals to clearly understand the concept of management. participant i (of an underperforming school) confirmed this in saying, we therefore try to create an environment where everyone can be themselves, can say if something bothers him. the big decisions we make together, as part of a management team. no school will ever be able to escape crisis management. it was clear that crisis management occurred in all the schools, regardless of whether they were performing or underperforming. however, the question was how effectively the different schools handled crisis management. participant a said, delport et al.: personality and self-leadership of school principals . . . 213 in order to make a better place for any institution, you have to be able to mobilise your staff and . . . to make those head moves, you have to pull your staff together and transform it into something that benefits everyone involved. teacher mobilisation facilitates crisis management. in addition, as participant b emphasised, as a leader of the school, i believe i should exercise more control and take a better position. furthermore, participant j (of an underperforming school) explained, as a principal, you must have management and leadership skills. such a school needs a strong principal with the necessary values and knowledge to take the lead, to deal with these challenges. regardless of whether the principal was from a performing or an underperforming school, they all agreed that leadership and management played an important role in schools. however, the participants from the underperforming schools were vague about crisis management. they appear to distance themselves from crises and assume an attitude of not being at fault. but, since crisis management is closely linked to inner attributes and participative management, it seems that the principal must take the initiative, with the support of the management team and school staff, to use a purposeful approach to better planning, organising, guiding, and controlling to deal with crisis management in particular. the discussion on management has shown that the principals of the performing schools manage and handle crisis management better than do the principals of the underperforming schools. this factor could possibly be linked to a cultural group or to gender because, as already indicated, the principals have the same personality traits so the lack of management cannot be linked to the personality of the principal. however, when asri’s (2014) point of view is kept in mind, one could argue that self-image and self-esteem play a role in interaction with people, and for this reason, the principals of the performing schools handle management better than their peers at underperforming schools. it would have been useful to have been able demonstrate their handling or mishandling of crisis through an example. principals’ perceptions of their self-leadership it is evident that management and leadership cannot be separated. for this reason, the results regarding self-leadership are linked to management. looking back at bryant’s (2020) statement about self-leadership, we see that the leadership competencies of self-observation and self-management are connected to the management of relationships. although the participants all seem to practise self-leadership, there is a difference between the principals of the performing and the underperforming schools. for the principals of the former, selfleadership comes naturally, while the principals of the latter try to apply self-leadership. however, circumstances suppress their self-leadership. the great difference in the selfleadership of principals of performing and underperforming schools lies in their actions. for the principals of the performing schools, immediate action is obvious, while the principals of 214 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 the underperforming schools tend to delegate actions or blame others for some actions they have already taken. they tend to practise self-leadership, but then someone else must take over the leadership of the school. participant g (underperforming school) defended his actions when he said, i applied to the department of basic education to teach in this school in the learners’ home language, which could also improve the marks and performance of learners, but nothing came of it . . . if we chase away a learner here, the learner runs to the department and then the education department requires us to re-register the learner . . . the department of education must implement transactional leadership. participant h (of an underperforming school) explained, unsynchronised activities often occur that throw your daily planning around. these are obligations that come up unexpectedly on my table from the education department. the education department is forcing us to quit our jobs and pay attention to their requirements. they do not plan these events in advance. one could argue that if one has self-leadership, one will consistently follow up, be pro-active, and plan and act with confidence in all circumstances. however, the school principals in the underperforming schools lack continual self-leadership while the school principals of the performing schools act with confidence as can be seen in participant a’s statement that in schools, the situation becomes much more complex. next, a school leader must think much more out of the box and show a lot more creativity. for me, a leader is a person who needs to be able to think out of the box; it’s not just someone who counts in an autocratic way, it’s how things are going to happen. the principal must be able to make paradigm shifts with teachers. if teachers do not make paradigm shifts, teaching and learning will not be promoted. in addition, participant d (of a performing school) argued, you have to be able to specifically implement the developments for your school; you cannot go and implement another school’s strategies in your school. you, as a principal, can delegate, but you can never delegate the responsibility. therefore, the principal remains responsible for everything. i believe a principal doesn’t sit in his office all the time. a principal is always outside to see what’s going on, because as a principal, you must always be able to account for what’s going on. you must make sure that when people are appointed, it is people who can do the job. some reasons for not being a self-leader came to the fore. participant f (of an underperforming school) explained that the nature of the school was determined by the type of learner who represented the school as well as the culture of the school. the culture originates from the area where the learners live. if learners do not do their work, this reflects a lack of drive on the part of the teacher. the teacher must set an example for the learners. for example, if the teacher arrives late for school, the learners will also arrive late. delport et al.: personality and self-leadership of school principals . . . 215 what is striking about the underperforming schools is that the principals seek support from other sources, such as the community and teachers, to run the school. participant e (of an underperforming school) explained, we all need to be more than willing to learn from other principals. principals must therefore talk to each other and find their way together. talk to each other like businesspeople; talk about [the] way of thinking. the modern principal needs to get as much information from the outdoors as he or she can to gain new perspective. it is important that i add a voice to the community regarding difficult economic conditions. more in an advisory role, we’re all in the same boat. the school is not just a school for learners but also for the surrounding community to come and ask for help. in schools, accountability is observed, especially among learners and parents. parents have a responsibility to their children to ensure that they are at school on time, do their homework, and meet other obligations to the school. however, especially at underperforming schools, learners do not seem to be adhering to the rules of arriving on time. in addition to being late frequently, many learners neglect their duty to pay attention to their academic work. leaders must lead by example (browning, 2018) and should provide specific approaches to identify ineffective behaviours and replace them with more effective ones (bozyigit, 2019). some principals strive to strike a balance between the humanand task-oriented leadership style in not being too task-oriented or too democratic without focusing on the task at hand. however, it is not easy to satisfy everyone and complete the task at the same time. here, skills are important. principals who do not have the skills to work with people fail in their attempt to get everyone on board. as a result, in most cases, the task is not completed; this is experienced often in the underperforming schools. some of the participants, especially those from the performing schools, stand by what is important to them with regard to cognitive thinking patterns to make the school a better place. the principals of the performing schools are at the forefront, active in the community, and leading the way. it was also noticeable that the principals of the performing schools think innovatively and, in a way, apply selfleadership. participant a (of a performing school) explained, with technology improving over the years, it is very important for a principal to be able to think innovatively. children do not all learn the same way. we can look, for example, at self-directed learning, intertwined learning. this is where i as a principal need to be innovative, have the willingness to be a lifelong learner and be able to think outside the box and be willing to be more creative because nowadays we also have a greater demand for inclusive education in schools. in the discussion above, aspects of personality and self-leadership were supported by verbatim quotations and references to the literature. however, research on personality traits, self-leadership, and the performance of schools as a combined concept is limited. the research of furtner and rauthman (2010) is just one example in which the notions of 216 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 personality traits and self-leadership are linked. in addition, hakimi et al., (2011) link personality traits and performance along with self-leadership and performance. conclusion in this article, we explored personality traits and self-leadership. we found that principals have different personalities traits. some school principals were introverts while others were extroverts. in both cases, the kind of personality was not necessarily positive or negative with regard to leadership and management in the schools. circumstances in the school context cause specific personality traits to emerge more strongly. when people are being considered for the position of principal, for example, or when crisis management comes to the fore, personalities play a very big role. we also investigated the influence of personality traits and self-leadership on performance in schools. we found that principals who are self-confident often apply self-leadership tactics. since leadership is of the utmost importance in schools, continual research on such leadership is important for sustainable effective education. we recommend that principals undergo personality tests since it might be useful to identify their strengths and weaknesses. through standardized personality tests in 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(2016). enabling environments for equity, access and quality education post-2015: lessons from south africa and tanzania. international journal of education development, 49, 225–233. microsoft word bissue76full21oct.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 76, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i76a10 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x millennial science student teachers’ views on decolonisation and culturally responsive teaching thelma de jager department of educational studies, tshwane university of technology, pretoria, south africa dejagert@tut.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6962-7974 (received: 28 january 2019; accepted: 4 july 2019) abstract globally, the striving for decolonised education and acknowledgement of a nation’s values, skills, beliefs, and acquisition of knowledge is being debated. in science education, the integration of cultural values and beliefs into the science curriculum is often ignored, which contributes to students being unable to express their individual views during interactive class discussions. this study therefore aimed to engage millennial science student teachers (n = 120) at a south african university in an action research study to express their views on decolonisation and culturally responsive teaching. the responses were categorised according to the themes of the hernandez, morales, and shroyer (2013) model, which includes content integration, facilitation of knowledge construction, prejudice reduction, social justice, and academic development. the findings indicated that a cross-cultural perspective should be used (with balance between euro-american centric sciences and indigenous knowledge from diverse cultures), that students should be instructed in their mother tongue, and that content needs to be connected to familiar everyday life experiences. the findings further amplified the importance of technology-assisted methods, the application of various integrated learning methods in science education, and inclusion in science curricula of the science role models of various cultures. keywords: decolonisation, cultural, prejudice, technology, indigenous knowledge, values introduction the past 500 years of european nationalism have colonised science information and controlled perceptions, images, concepts, and constructions of reality—contributing to globalisation (ani, 1994). globalisation, which impels a system where local values are not recognised and materialism and individualism are advantaged (hapanyengwi-chemhuru & makuvaza, 2017), has led to an increase in diverse cultural encounters and a need for scientific literacy for all (van eijck & roth, 2011). thus, for student-centred science education that is based on the development of skills needed for the scientific workforce, diverse cultural values and experiences and the acquisition of science content knowledge within the context of the industrial world need to be effectively integrated in science curricula 186 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 (de feiter & ncube, 1999). moreover, mpofu, otulaja, and mushayikwa (2014) emphasised the importance of cultural alignment of the science curriculum with local cultures that includes beliefs, values, behaviours, experiences, and other characteristics of diverse cultures in achieving effective teaching and learning. the connection of science to students’ real-life experiences can be seen as a cultural border crossing (aikenhead & jegede, 1999). dos santos (2009) argued that science teaching should commence where teachers identify students’ cultural needs, and familiarise themselves with the sociocultural contexts in which their students have grown up. this would enable teachers to integrate students’ diverse cultural values, interests, beliefs, and social contexts in science content and to discuss the cultural aspects identified. elaborating on this view, hernandez, morales, and shroyer (2013) used the term, culturally responsive science education, which refers to students’ cultural experiences and their values or interests, and attempts to accommodate diverse cultures in science education. however, in the south african context, as in many other countries, science curricula mostly embrace western knowledge while cultural knowledge is excluded (le grange, 2016). in addressing this concern, the aim is to decolonise curricula by integrating diverse cultural values, norms, everyday life experiences, and historical developments with content knowledge. decolonisation involves the dismantling, unlearning, and deconstruction of the dehumanisation of colonial oppression (hapanyengwi-chemhuru & makuvaza, 2017). globally and in south africa, the need for decolonisation of education is being debated. what should institutions teach? is the content of science curricula relevant to the needs of science students? this debate was enforced in south africa through collective political actions that demanded the decolonising of university curricula by including diverse cultures’ needs, in-sourcing workers and, ultimately, free education (naicker, 2016). decolonisation of academic curricula has become one of the central features of the demands of students and academics, and was evident in the university of cape town’s rhodes must fall protest action. the purpose of this action was to implement african cultural content, languages, and methodologies of education and learning, and to integrate western content whenever relevant to african experiences (kros, 2015). but, on the other hand, jansen (2017) argued that if essential and powerful knowledge is reduced to everyday experiences of students, we deprive them of the quality education that enables them to engage in the world of science. considering the various perspectives of scholars, and the uncertainty about how to integrate decolonisation in science curricula, motivated the author to investigate: “what are the views of millennial science student teachers (growing up in a technology orientated world) concerning decolonisation and culturally responsive learning in science education?” background paulo freire’s (1970) humanistic philosophy acknowledged human values, and regarded knowledge as the product of human practices that transform the world. however, for centuries colonialism and imperialism deprived non-europeans, africa, and other countries, of their humanity and the development of their full potential (settles, 1996). wright and de jager: millennial science student teachers’ views . . . 187 maton (2004) added that colonialism also contributed to cultural division, political subjugation, and the loss of important natural resources. this gave rise to the decolonisation movement against colonial rule during the 1950s. decolonisation can be defined as the process where the history of diverse cultures is recognised, and political independence obtained. the principle of decolonised education is to include all by recognising humanity and diverse cultural backgrounds, and by developing the intellectual capacity of all. in addition, it strives for the independence of a nation’s values, skills, beliefs, and acquisition of knowledge. despite the struggle for decolonisation in education since the end of the apartheid system, content knowledge and epistemologies at most south african institutions have not showed significant changes (mungwini, 2017). curriculum content still reflects eurocentric and western dominance, and privileges the cultures of minority groups (heleta, 2016). the indigenous knowledge (ik) and cultural values of poor communities are seldom considered when teaching curricula (mbembe, 2016). two decades ago, aikenhead and jegede (1999) maintained there was a need to review the pedagogy and development of culturally sensitive science curricula in supporting students to understand abstract concepts. aikenhead (2008) agreed that the development of technology and euro-american centric science have contributed to the development of science curricula and pedagogy that do not always consider diverse cultural norms, values, and ideologies. in addition, gray (2014) argued that various integrated teaching and learning methods should be used to accommodate students’ diverse cultural values (interests) and experiences when learning new science concepts. after the dismantling of the apartheid education system, a period of rapid transformation and democratisation followed. changes in science curricula were explicitly formulated to ensure access to education for previously disadvantaged students and to accommodate diverse cultures. the national curriculum statement for science was constructed, based on bloom’s (1990) behavioural objectives (mental, cognitive, and science processes) and piaget’s theories (reasoning patterns; anderson, reder, & simon, 1996). this was followed by curriculum 2005 (which partially included outcomes-based principles; chisholm, 2003), the revised national curricula statements, and the curricula assessment and policy statements (department of basic education, 2012). the revision of policies aimed to teach relevant content knowledge from students’ own cultural environment and equip them with skills to engage in dialogue with various sociocultural views. dialogue in education is a human requirement to free oppressed people (freire, 1970). during dialogue, teachers and students should be free to express their different views, values, norms, and cultural beliefs without forcing these on one another. however, teaching and communication in english as a second language significantly influences science discourse (pieretti & roseberry-mckibbin, 2016). language is a vital component of culture, and contributes to effective science education. akindele (2014) pointed out that in the nigerian context, students and teachers use english and mother tongue to clarify difficult concepts with one another. in south africa, the majority of students are not taught in their mother tongue, which contributes to students’ difficulties in understanding 188 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 abstract concepts or applying such concepts in real-life situations (ferreira 2011). owensmith (2010) elaborated, stating that most parents still fear their children will not be able to participate in global economic growth if they are not instructed in english. this contributes to the persistence of the language learning barrier. aikenhead (2008) asserted that science is best instructed when it is accessible and sensitive to diverse cultures. carter and dediwalage (2010) concurred, adding that a cross-cultural perspective should be used with a balance between euro-american centric sciences and ik from diverse cultures. this implies that science teachers should select various integrated learning methods (gray, 2014), and choose understandable socio-scientific issues derived from diverse values (sadler, 2011) that could engage students in cultural discussions that contribute to the learning and understanding of scientific concepts (lee, yen, & aikenhead, 2012). therefore, the pluralisation of knowledge is needed, based on an inter-cultural approach where all knowledge forms are included in the instruction of curricula content. in south africa and zimbabwe, ik has been integrated in science classes through discussion of topics such as hiv/aids for gaining perceptions of the nature of science (mpofu et al., 2014). this strategy is applied to address problems experienced locally and globally. student teachers in botswana are generally not willing to engage in discussions that are not within their life experience (koosimile & suping, 2011). the integration of ik (science through art, ceremony and ritual) into western science (use of instruments, standardised techniques, and research) can be related to culturally responsive teaching. le grange (2014) listed a few examples: south african san (bushmen) traced the tracks of animals, and a tracker system was scientifically developed from their knowledge; aspirin was discovered through ik; western modern science and peruvian ik contributed to the creation of an aeroplane. in integrating ik in the curricula, it is essential that science teachers be familiar with the diverse sociocultural backgrounds of students in their classes because students’ backgrounds differ and could affect their interactive engagement in class discussions (suriel & atwater, 2012). ik and western science should be integrated in a curriculum where culturally responsive science teachers are knowledgeable of diverse cultures and learning experiences in their classrooms. theoretical foundation of culturally responsive science teaching the term culturally responsive science teaching can be associated with terms such as: • culturally sensitive science, which recognises cultural similarities and differences that could affect students’ learning, behaviour, and values (aikenhead & jegede, 1999) • culturally responsive pedagogy, which includes all students in equal education where the cultures of students are central for effective thinking, learning, and communication (parsons, foster, gomillion, & smith simpson, 2008) • cross-cultural teaching, where the different cultures are compared and acknowledged by the dominant culture (aikenhead, 2008). de jager: millennial science student teachers’ views . . . 189 considering the different terms used for diverse learning experiences, the term culturally responsive teaching, based on the model of hernandez et al. (2013), was used as a foundation for this study. the model was compiled from a wide range of synthesised literature reviews and piloted among student teachers to investigate whether culturally responsive teaching is successfully applied in practice. it includes the following categorised themes: • content integration: include content from diverse cultures. • facilitation of knowledge construction: relate and construct new knowledge based on prior knowledge, and assist students in developing critical and independent thinking skills. • prejudice reduction: recognise the influence of contextual factors on learning and create a positive learning environment free of prejudice. • social justice: acknowledge diverse cultures, values, and norms in classrooms and adapt to changes. • academic development: create learning opportunities in the classroom that support all students’ needs (hernandez et al., 2013). the relevance of the culturally responsive teaching model can be linked to the south african curricula, which aim to achieve academic success by effectively instructing school science cognisant of diverse cultural knowledge and values, free of prejudice. it is a pedagogy model that provides equitable access to education for students from all cultures and cultural orientations in all facets of learning. methodology the study comprised an action-research investigation of south african science student teachers’ perspectives on decolonisation and culturally responsive learning. participants (lectured by the researcher) in this study were 120 first-year science student teachers at a university in south africa, from diverse cultures and socio-contextual backgrounds. the ages of the participants ranged between 17 and 24 years of age with two participants above the age bracket. data collection the data was collected using an action research approach. according to zuber-skerritt (2005), action research is participatory and collaborative, and typically arises from the clarification of concerns shared by the group. the aim of this action research was to exchange ideas and formulate conclusions on how diverse cultural needs could be integrated in science education. the research proceeded through six stages, as illustrated in figure 1. 190 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 figure 1: the action research cycle in the first stage, the concepts, decolonisation and culturally responsive teaching, were discussed during a class session of the researcher, using the model of hernandez et al. (2013), which consists of five thematic categories: content integration, facilitation of knowledge construction, prejudice reduction, social justice, and academic development. unclear concepts were clarified by the researcher. in the second stage, participants were provided with recommended articles to preread, and requested to use their own resources (additional articles, interviews with family members or academics) in conducting individual research on decolonisation and culturally responsive teaching. during the third stage, students had to construct and summarise their own views on what they had read, observed, or heard during their interviews, being mindful of the five themes of the hernandez et. al (2013) model. in the fourth stage, students were grouped into 12 groups of 10 students, and assigned to discuss their individual findings within their groups. during stage 5, the group collaboratively decided on their views concerning decolonisation and how cultural information could effectively be integrated in science education. in the last stage, a selected speaker from each group was given 10 minutes to present a summary of their group’s findings. during the class discussions, the researcher observed, tape-recorded the presentations of all groups, and transcribed responses in themes related to the culturally responsive teaching model of hernandez et al. (2013). some groups repeated similar views during their presentations. to avoid duplication, views were recorded verbatim once. in assuring that data was valid, unbiased, and reliable, diverse views were assessed according to the observed genuineness and honesty of students’ perceptions. during the data analysis process, the researcher substantiated validity by detecting whether the data accurately represented the posed questions, and by examining contradictory responses. this was done to stage 1 explain main concepts during a class session stage 2 students preread articles before next lesson stage 3 students individually summarise their findings according to five themes stage 4 divide in groups and discuss individual findings with classmates stage 5 the group decide which ideas they agree upon and summarise their findings stage 6 a presenter of the group presents their findings to the rest of the class de jager: millennial science student teachers’ views . . . 191 prevent bias and altered interpretations by the researcher. furthermore, after analysing data, the findings were posted on the students’ online blackboard for them to re-analyse data interpretations. the feedback of participants was important for the researcher in detecting possible false and misinterpreted data. presentation and analysis of data responses to question one: “what is your view on decolonisation?” most of the groups (n = 9) indicated that they needed cultural values, norms, and their cultural experiences to be included in the science curricula and integrated with western science. three groups were totally against the idea, stating that they wished to be part of technology development and globalised content. none explicitly indicated that they supported the idea of a decolonised science curriculum where no western knowledge or technology was included. responses indicated that decolonisation of content would enable african learners to understand who they are, where they come from and currently are: learners should firstly be taught science content related to their own backgrounds and cultures and once they know their own cultural history, they can be exposed to european and western science content knowledge. there are good practices, content, and african cultural traditions that support the upbringing of the young ones, which is important to include in the current science teaching practices. it is imperative to relate content to each learner as a unique individual who grew up with their own life experiences as this is needed as a foundation for further learning. however, the science content instructed in the classroom must also be integrated with the application of the latest and best technology skills so that learners can stay abreast with international development. starting to learn new concepts from your community could improve learning as learners are already familiar with their own learning environment where they grew up. decolonisation is needed where science learners are taught values, norms, and morals and traditions of their own cultures and the environment they live in. the reason being that they could develop a sense of responsibility in making critical decisions that affect their lives and that of the future generations. no, it is a horrific idea. globally, communities are revolving and changing according to new technology and newly discovered content, and we as students will fall behind in developing new skills and science knowledge. 192 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 responses to question two: “how can culturally responsive teaching be enhanced in the teaching and learning of science?” perspectives of participants in response to this question related mostly to the five principles of the hernandez et al. (2013) culturally responsive model. the reason could be that the lecturer had discussed culturally responsive teaching during the first stage of the action research, referring to the principles of that model, which may have guided responses. in addition, during the second stage, students had to preread several articles (prescribed and not prescribed) related to culturally responsive teaching. the model was probably discussed in more than one of these articles. therefore, the principles of the model (content integration, facilitation of knowledge construction, prejudice reduction, social justice, and academic development) were used to categorise the views of participants below. content integration in all groups, it was mentioned that they needed familiar concepts and traditional experiences they had previously learned in their communities to help them understand abstract concepts. thus, most participants indicated that the integration of cultural knowledge in the science curriculum was a requirement for effective teaching: learners feel comfortable to engage in group discussions when they discuss familiar concepts but draw back once they are confronted to discuss unfamiliar culturally related concepts. once they have learned basic skills from their own community, learners will be able acquire content knowledge from other countries. integrate cultural knowledge into the existing curriculum. for example, dung and water can be mixed to pave in front of houses rather than bricks. in the past, our grandparents used to add water or any vegetables to food to remove excess salt. in chemistry, we learn about various types of separation. for instance, if you poured too much salt in the meat you can heat the meat up until the water evaporate in the pot then you take the meat out of the pot and the salt will remain in the pot. existing content should be integrated into the traditional experiences of learners on how to sustain their environment. learners should engage more in collaborative group discussions where they can share their beliefs and cultural traditions with other cultures. facilitation of knowledge construction most groups (n = 10) indicated that learners should be instructed by connecting new content to what they know, and with everyday life experiences. three groups also stated that they needed more technology-assisted methods to facilitate science education effectively: de jager: millennial science student teachers’ views . . . 193 it is important to commence your learning with what you know best and then gradually learn about the rest of the world. science content instructed in class should be assisted with technology methods, and teachers need to receive regular training on the latest available online science programmes. teach learners from the known (community, values, skills, habits, etc.) to the unknown. learners will be able to identify the gaps in content knowledge and construct content knowledge that will best suit their community. use relevant topics in science education to assist learners in developing the skills to work collaboratively in solving problems and participate in the economic and technology development. content should be related to learners’ everyday experiences, such as aids, tuberculosis, malaria, and cultural medications that are developed to treat these illnesses. prejudice reduction of all the themes, prejudice reduction seemed central in many of the discussions, and a variety of concerns and needs were raised by all groups. the groups emphasised that teachers needed to acknowledge the values and norms of diverse cultures, and the injustices of the past, in their classes. they felt that teachers should teach students to respect one another for who they are and use more examples of role models of various cultures who have contributed to science in the curriculum: knowing different cultures and the backgrounds of learners could contribute to effective support for learning barriers. learners should not only know other cultures but also their own culture. growing up in a minority dominated society causes many learners to forget their own heritage and culture. opportunities should be created where learners are allowed to construct content knowledge in investigating scientific phenomenon in the community in which they grew up. learners should be encouraged to question and listen to the cultural stories told by their family members. teach learners that although we don’t all look or act in the same way, we are still all alike and live according to specific values in life. teachers’ teaching approaches should accommodate the diverse cultures in the classroom. 194 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 teach all learners to respect all cultures and the people that they will interact with once they leave school. decolonisation and acknowledgement of diverse cultural values will assist learners to gain confidence and respect for who they are. teachers should acknowledge discriminations and injustices of the past during instruction but teach for the present and for the future as learning content cannot be static. moral values, norms, and traditions of the society should be taught and included in class discussions. teachers need professional training in how to address diverse cultural groups in their classes. include examples of multicultural role models’ contributions to science content to illustrate that all ethnicities contribute positively to education. social justice similar responses were presented by most groups, indicating that participants were in agreement concerning their views on social justice. it was stated that: learners should be allowed to speak in their mother tongue and discuss concepts with their peers in a language that is familiar to them (n = 4 groups). diverse cultures based on differences in values and beliefs should not be judged by the teachers or learners. learners should be allowed to share their experiences, fearless, at home with the rest of the class and allow others to view their cultural traditions and practices (n = 7 groups). teachers should come from different cultures and backgrounds, have enough experience in integrating multicultural features into science instruction, and be a role model by emphasising changes within a democratic society that respects human rights (n = 6 groups). academic development most presenters indicated that textbooks should illustrate more examples of diverse cultures and a variety of science teaching methods should be employed. specific reference was made of enquiry methods into the historical past, which are considered essential for learning more about role models from own cultures who had contributed to science content. student teachers expressed the opinion that academic performance could improve if teachers considered the following aspects: de jager: millennial science student teachers’ views . . . 195 learners who learn what is well known to them grasp content easier and without learning challenges. the classroom environment should display images, traditions, and word charts in different languages of different cultures relating to the science curriculum. the pictures against the walls should not only resemble minority groups, this can help learners to relax and learn at their best. textbooks that we learn from should include more examples with images and content that reflects different cultures that learners can identify and connect their current knowledge with what they have to learn in class. teachers need to use a variety of teaching methods, which includes enquiring methods of the historical past. learners attending schools where their own culture is the minority group could feel they need to set aside their own traditions and norms to be accepted by their peers. this can cause learners to feel left out, and affect their academic performance as they don’t or cannot engage in class discussions, do not develop socially and emotionally. academic performance can be enhanced in using culture-specific related science content and including examples of diverse cultural contributions to science. acknowledging the contribution of diverse cultural content to science education could develop learners’ self-esteem and their academic learning as they do not fear to voice their opinions and are more relaxed in classes when learning. discussion and recommendations the views of these millennials growing up with technology were not surprising; none wanted to be excluded from opportunities to develop technological skills and western scientific knowledge. most participants commented that they needed a science curriculum in which their cultural values, norms, and history were integrated with global knowledge and skills. they indicated that science education should recognise each person’s individuality, allow them to grow up according to african traditions, learn from their cultural life experiences, stay familiar with the historical development of their own culture, teach them the values, norms, morals, and traditions of their own cultures and the environment they live in, and assist them to develop a sense of responsibility for what is expected of them as accountable citizens. these responses coincide with those of le grange (2016), mpofu et al. (2014), and dos santos (2009) who stated that teachers need to identify students’ cultural needs, beliefs, values, norms, and traditions, and include these in curricula content to achieve effective teaching and learning. on the other hand, some presenters indicated that learners also needed exposure to european and western science content knowledge and technology skills in order to stay abreast with global development. although globalisation centres on individualism and 196 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 materialism (hapanyengwi-chemhuru & makuvaza, 2017), students wish to develop scientific literacy and be able to participate in global issues (van eijck & roth, 2011). three groups unambiguously despised the idea of decolonisation, indicating that while globally all communities are evolving and changing, decolonisation would cause them to stay behind in the development of new science content and technology skills. in conclusion, it can be said that participants wanted to remain familiar with their cultural norms, values, and traditions but they also wanted to be part of the other millennials growing up with technology and newly discovered scientific phenomena. responses related to culturally responsive teaching were grouped according to the principles of the model proposed by hernandez et al. (2013). views according to the first principle, content integration, indicated that learners need to acquire basic skills from their own culture before they are able to acquire new colonial content knowledge, and that they prefer to engage in collaborative group discussions where they can share familiar life experiences with other cultures rather than to engage in unfamiliar culture-based discussions. this is important in view of le grange’s (2014) observation that cultural values and ik of poverty-stricken communities are not always included in curricula. the student teachers’ responses accord with those of sadler (2011) and lee et al. (2012), who stated that interesting topics deriving from students’ experiences should be included in curricula in order to encourage active learner engagement in discussions. in addition, participants pointed out that teachers should integrate cultural knowledge and everyday real-life experiences into the science curriculum, for example, dung and water for paving, and food cooking to teach the concept of separation in chemistry. furthermore, gray (2014) and carter and dediwalage (2010) proposed that various integrated learning methods should be employed, where ik and euro-american centric sciences are integrated in the curriculum using a cross-curricular perspective. this is in accordance with the overwhelming response of participants that teachers need to facilitate learning by connecting students’ cultural experiences with science content in their curricula. the comments associated with the facilitation of science knowledge construction reveal that the teacher needs to commence teaching with what science learners know (community, values, skills, habits, etc.) and gradually continue onto unknown content, and relate to interesting everyday life experiences of learners in clarifying abstract concepts. for example, how medication traditionally developed in their cultures to treat or prevent sicknesses such as flu, aids/hiv, tuberculosis, malaria, and others. a plausible reason why most participants requested concepts derived from their cultures could be that curriculum content still privileges minority groups and is dominated by eurocentric and western groups’ cultural beliefs and values (heleta, 2016). although tradition, values, and norms are significant in learning science content, it was also suggested that relevant topics be included in the science curriculum to enable learners to discuss and work collaboratively in solving problems in order to participate in economic and technology growth. this can be aligned with suriel and atwater (2012), who expressed the opinion that diverse backgrounds of students affect interactive class discussions, and could inhibit students from working collaboratively when learning. it is significant that three groups demanded the facilitation of science teaching by using technology-assisted methods. in summarising the responses, the conclusion can be de jager: millennial science student teachers’ views . . . 197 drawn that an inter-cultural approach of ik and modern science could facilitate science knowledge construction. comments related to prejudice reduction suggested that committed science teachers should be able to acknowledge discrimination and injustices of the past, but would teach for the present and for the future. moreover, they should be able to acknowledge diverse cultural values and promote decolonisation by helping learners gain self-confidence for who they are, apply teaching approaches that accommodate the diverse cultures in class, and teach all learners to respect all cultures. these views can be related to culturally sensitive science, where teachers recognise differences and similarities in diverse cultures that could impact on students’ behaviour, values, and effective learning (aikenhead & jegede, 1999). students wished to be taught about their own heritage and culture by investigating scientific phenomena within the social contexts in which they grew up. additionally, it was suggested that they could conduct interviews with older people or family members to tell them more about their own history and cultural traditions. it is noteworthy that one of the groups commented on extra support for learners encountering learning barriers, especially the second language barrier. pieretti and roseberry-mckibbin (2016) propounded that english as a second language could influence science discussions of students significantly. lastly, it was noted that student teachers do not receive sufficient professional training in how to instruct diverse cultures in their classes. views of participants also indicated that there is a need for social justice in classrooms. issues that were raised included: learners be allowed to communicate and engage in discussions using their mother tongue and not a second language; learners should not fear to be judged on their diverse beliefs, values, and backgrounds but should be allowed to share their cultural traditions and life experiences with their classmates; learners should be taught by teachers from diverse cultures who acknowledge and exemplify a democratic society and respect human rights. most of these perspectives can be connected to a culturally responsive pedagogy that includes equal education for all and the centralising of students’ diverse cultures to enable them to engage in effective learning, thinking, and communication (parsons et al., 2008). various effects of culture-responsive teaching on learners’ academic development were raised. it was felt that learners would experience fewer learning challenges when they learnt content that was familiar to them. this is in agreement with sadler (2011), who pointed out that teachers should select understandable socio-scientific topics derived from diverse values. some of the presenters of the groups mentioned that a facilitative classroom environment is important, with word charts written in diverse languages and images illustrating various cultures and not only one culture to ensure learners are at ease when learning. science textbooks should also illustrate images and content of diverse cultures. moreover, in alignment with gray (2014), teachers should employ a variety of teaching methods that include inquiry methods learners can use to learn from their historical past and to develop the self-esteem necessary to engage in class discussions and express their own cultural views. in recognising the contributions of diverse cultures to science education (lee et al., 2012), 198 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 teachers could limit learners’ fear of voicing their opinions in class discussions and help them to develop a positive self-esteem that results in successful academic performance. most presenters said they had not acquired academic success because of unfamiliar content taught in a second language. more than half of the participants pointed out that they wanted teachers to use a variety of teaching approaches, textbooks, and wall charts that illustrated images of various cultures’ role models. one group stated that cultural content should be included in the science curriculum for enhancing learners’ self-esteem and academic development. this study shows that valuing students’ cultural capital (the sociocultural context in which they grew up) is important for effectively engaging students in science education. conclusion the decolonisation movement in which political independence is obtained, and in which diverse cultures, norms, and values are included in science education, was supported by the majority of student-teacher participants in this study. it can be concluded that university teachers need to review their practices to address the needs of students. social justice has to be addressed so that students commence their learning with what is familiar to them, and communicate in their mother tongue to achieve academic success. respondents agreed that prejudice against cultures needs to change so that different cultures respect one another and recognise diverse cultural values, beliefs, and norms. this would contribute to students feeling respected and not judged because of their background when engaging in interactive class discussions. cultural respect can further be enhanced if teachers act as role models of a democratic society and create learning opportunities where students can share their cultural traditions and life experiences with classmates. various approaches could be used by teachers to allow all students to function productively and sensitively when learning in an intercultural environment. for example, discuss and refer to the contributions to science content knowledge of role models from diverse cultures, and use science textbooks that illustrate and recognise diverse cultural norms and values. in addition, as millennials growing up with technology, students also articulated the importance of the integration of technology-assisted methods in science teaching and learning. it follows that a combination of cultural and western orientated learning (inter-cultural approaches) could facilitate science knowledge construction. in conclusion, student teachers indicated that while they wanted to stay familiar with their own cultural norms, values, and traditions, they also wanted to be part of the other millennials who grew up with technology and newly discovered scientific phenomena. they did not want to be left behind, and wished to be significantly exposed by means of inquiring approaches to discover and learn about scientific concepts and to develop the latest technological skills. therefore, diverse technology-assisted teaching approaches that enable students to stay abreast of global technology development should be integrated in culturally responsive science teaching and learning. de jager: millennial science student teachers’ views . . . 199 references aikenhead, g. a. 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(2005). new directions in action research. bristol, pa: falmer press. ready to teach? reflections on a south african mathematics teacher education programme iben maj christiansen abstract in this paper, i interrogate the extent to which a current mathematics teacher education programme at university of kwazulu-natal prepares teachers to teach well in the regional context. in order to determine which aspects to consider in the analysis, i draw on studies of factors correlated to learner achievement in south african primary schools. first, this suggests that the consideration of context should play a strong part in our teacher education. second, it indicates that teacher actions most strongly linked to learning – deep representations, feedback guiding learning and challenging learners on their level – only occur occasionally in kwazulu-natal schools, and with limited opportunity to develop mathematical proficiency. the question i raise is to what extent we prepare teachers to teach in this way, and with awareness of the context. third, i briefly consider what other, perhaps overlooked, competencies our teachers need. in the light of bernstein’s recognition of the centrality of evaluation in the pedagogic device, i have analysed the exam papers in the programme. my analysis utilises a pragmatically compiled bag of tools. first, i distinguish between the knowledge categories in our programme: contextual knowledge, curriculum knowledge, content knowledge, pedagogic content knowledge, and general pedagogical knowledge. next, i explore the extent to which specialised knowledge is foregrounded in our programme, drawing on maton’s distinction between a knowledge and a knower legitimisation code. third, by distinguishing the semantic gravity of the course content, i aim to identify how theoretical or decontextualised knowledge is linked to the practice of mathematics teaching. this enables me to consider the extent to which the programmes favour cumulative or segmented learning. my findings indicate that the programme is strongly founded in a knowledge code, and that it covers all of the five aforementioned knowledge domains, but it needs further exploration how well these are linked within and across courses, thus providing cumulative learning. teaching for deep representations is strongly reflected in the exam papers, both in the content knowledge and the pedagogical content knowledge components, but there is virtually no indication that providing appropriate challenges to learners is important. while students are tested on their recognition and realisation of assessing learners’ level of understanding, this is not utilised in teaching students to provide appropriate feedback, nor is it used to inform the design of activities which can cater for a classroom with learners of 164 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 mixed ability or varying levels of current understanding. furthermore, there is no assessment of the teachers’ preparedness to teach for adaptive reasoning. in that respect, the programme appears not to prepare the students adequately for quality teaching. i discuss whether this knowledge mix and what is not taught can be seen as having an implicit student in mind, thus limiting access to relevant teacher competencies for some students. introduction one assumption behind this paper is that teaching is facilitation and organisation of systematic learning (morrow,1999) of specialised knowledge and specialised gazes on the world. a second assumption is that teacher education should prepare teachers to teach in schools, in terms of furthering their (1) professional knowledge, (2) professional practice and (3) professional engagement (ingvarson, beavis, and kleinhenz, 2007). this implies (1i) knowledge about content and how to teach it, (1ii) knowledge about students and how they learn, (2i) curriculum, (2ii), classroom management, (2iii) assessment, (3i) reflecting on teaching, and (3ii) work with parents and others (ibid.). by interrogating which factors are most related to learner performance according to international studies (next section), and regional/south african studies (subsequent section), questions to be considered in our teacher education programmes are formulated. yet before i go there, i want to engage some issues of the aforementioned assumption. of course, how the first assumption above is interpreted is a crucial and critical issue. if it is taken in its narrowest form, it could be assumed to mean focusing on providing teachers with the content knowledge they will teach, and with a set of routines for transmitting it. in its broadest form, it could be taken to mean that teachers should be prepared to unpack the educational system and its positioning strategies, the psychology of the classroom, the recontextualisation of knowledge, and so forth, and be able to constantly reflect on and adjust their teaching accordingly – a critical stance perspective (ainley and luntley, 2007; cochran-smith and lytle, 1999; hiebert, morris, berk, and jansen, 2007). in my claim that teaching is facilitation and organisation of systematic learning, i am driven to foreground providing learners with access to specialised knowledge above the critical stance. this does not reflect my own position as much as recognition of the need to start somewhere, also considering that learning to teach from a critical stance may christiansen: ready to teach?. . . 165 such as ignoring more formative elements of teaching, or reducing the effect of caring1 relationships and the cumulative effect of learning which tends to disguise the work of previous teachers – a factor not often considered in impact studies. see (lingard, hayes, and mills, 2003) for a discussion of related points. be too great a leap from our current situation (cf. beeby, 1966). yet it is a dimension which should be considered, and i will do so elsewhere. there are obvious methodological as well as educational problems with attempting to assess learning by measuring performance through large scale tests. it is, however, the only measure we have which allows statistical comparisons and correlations with background factors. smaller scale studies are obviously useful in exploring the causal relationships reflected in correlations and in considering competence rather than performance. in this paper, i have consciously and pragmatically taken the simplistic view and discuss effectiveness of teaching in terms of impact on learner performance, despite being aware of the shortcomings.1 another issue is the extent to which teachers should be able to critically engage the selection of content to teach. as sociologists of education have emphasised repeatedly, it is not arbitrary what counts as knowledge (or art), and the selection of content to teach is itself a highly contested area, as is the extent to which the teacher should be a change agent (liston and zeichner, 1987). again, it would be too far reaching to engage that in what remains a first investigation of a programme. the exploration, and with it this paper, draws on a series of analytical tools. some of these are drawn from work which assumes a sociological sensitivity to educational issues, and addresses positioning in relation to different types of knowledge. others are based on existing and widely accepted (though also widely contested) categorisations of teacher knowledge linked to statistical analysis of which teacher actions impact on learner performance. in one respect, they are brought together in a way which can only be defended from a perspective of perspective pluralism (skovsmose, 1990) or a claim to complementarity, in the same sense that descriptions of an electron as a particle or a wave are complementary. in another respect, what unifies them in this study is the extent to which they select, reproduce and position student teachers to do the same to their learners. 166 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 factors related to learner performance according to international studies international impact studies, most of which have been conducted in more developed contexts, indicate which factors explain differences in learner performance. hattie and colleagues’ summary of such studies suggest that learners’ aptitude/ability account for half of the difference in performance; school, home, peers and the principal for about 20%; and the teacher for 30% (hattie, 2003). the obvious problem with this list is not separating out socioeconomic background. “the school is in fact the institution which, by its positively irreproachable verdicts, transforms socially conditioned inequalities in matters of culture into inequalities of success, interpreted as inequalities of talent, which are also inequalities of merit.” (bourdieu and darbel, 1969/1991, p.111). hattie only addresses this by saying that “the major effects of the home are already accounted for by the attributes of the student” (hattie, 2003, p.2). hattie goes on to identify 16 characteristics of ‘excellent’ teachers, whose students perform better: they provide deep representations/content connections; a problem-solving stance to their work; they can anticipate, plan and improvise as required by the situation; are better at identifying important decisions; they are proficient at creating a learning classroom climate; have multidimensional perceptions of classroom situations; are more contextdependent; are more adept at monitoring and assessing students and provide more relevant feedback; are more adept at developing and testing hypotheses about learning and teaching; are more automatic; have high respect for students; are passionate; engage in enhancing learners’ self-esteem and selfregulation; provide challenging tasks and goals for students; have positive influences on students’ achievements; and enhance surface and deep learning. testing these in the usa, his paper claims that the three most important characteristics of teachers whose learners perform significantly better are: paying attention to deep representations, providing appropriate challenges to learners, and giving feedback which facilitates further learning. if teacher education is to take these findings seriously, it seems reasonable that these are the elements of teaching for which we should prepare our students. however, how does this relate to the other 70% of what impacts on learner performance, and how may the weighting of the factors be different in a developing context? christiansen: ready to teach?. . . 167 while this was using the same instruments as the greater study headed by carnoy and2 chisholm (carnoy, chisholm, and et al., 2008), the study was undertaken independently, as part of a project under the kwazulu-natal treasury headed by wayne hugo and volker wedekind. sacmeq is the southern and eastern africa consortium for monitoring educational3 quality, and it is a network of ministries of education. sacmeq undertakes research to monitor, evaluate and inform improvements in education in the region. in 2007, data were collected in grade 6 classes to determine literacy and numeracy levels. learners were selected in two tiered random process, first choosing schools and then learners, resulting in a sample of 9071 learners from south africa. some findings in this paper is from the previous sacmeq study, three years earlier. what furthers learning most in south africa? there have been numerous studies engaging which factors are most strongly correlated with learner performance. most recently, i have been involved in a medium scale study of grade 6 teaching and learning in one south african province. such studies must all be seen in the context of the very low2 achievement of the majority of south african learners as indicated by the timss and other studies. in the sacmeq iii study (hungi, makuwa, ross,3 saito, dolata and van cappelle et al., 2010), 44% of the learners in the province were found to operate on pre-numeracy or emergent numeracy levels, and this applied to even more of the learners in our study. the average score on the learner test in our study, which mostly consisted of grade 5 content, was just over 25% correct. all of this clearly indicates that the learners are operating far below grade level. misconceptions are common (christiansen and aungamuthu, 2012). the sacmeq ii study found substantial variations amongst schools in south africa (sacmeq ii, 2010). this is in agreement with the findings from our own study which indicates that approximately 44% of the explainable variation in learner test performance can be attributed to differences between the classes, and since in most cases only one class from each school was included in the dataset, to differences between the schools. it appears to be a stronger factor than individual socio-economic status (spaull, 2011; van der berg, burger, burger, de vos, du rand and gustafsson et al., 2011), and our data also support this. this is clearly a consequence of the apartheid system with its segregated population groups, where less educated teachers often teach in poorly equipped schools in poor communities. 168 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 with fellow siblings and grandmothers as caretakers being associated with lower4 performance. so while hattie’s (2003) comprehensive summary of the international literature indicates that the home factor is more important than the school location, the situation in south africa may be opposite. while this could simply be because socio-economic status of the home is strongly linked to location, changing school appears to impact strongly on achievement (van der berg, et al., 2011). there are other important factors. one of these is language. this has been discussed extensively elsewhere (setati, chitera, and essien, 2009), so for here it suffices to say that our research in the province indicates that learner misconceptions are more prevalent in african home language learners (christiansen and aungamuthi, 2012); and indeed it makes sense that basic interpersonal communication skills (bics) in a second or third language does not imply the cognitive academic language proficiency (calp) required to learn equally well from instruction in this language (essien and setati, 2007; gerber, engelbrecht, harding, and rogan, 2005; setati, et al., 2009). that the school factor is very influential does not mean that the home situation does not matter. in our study, we also found that the amount of reading material the learners reported having in the home, having been read to as a child, reading at home, as well as who was their primary caretaker had4 significant effect on test scores. the latter was also significantly related to the educational level of the caretaker. preschool education is another factor which correlates with learner performance (spaull, 2011). aspects of teaching linked to learner performance within the school, more related to the teaching, important achievement factors appear to be: discipline/classroom management, feedback, frequency christiansen: ready to teach?. . . 169 in our study, learners not feeling safe in school was statistically significant in relation to5 their test scores. 39% of the learners in the final sample, ie learners who sat for both tests, were sometimes scared of being hurt by other learners, and 4% often; 36% were sometimes scared of being hurt by a teacher in the school, and 4% often. an alarming number of learners do not feel safe in the school environment. violence amongst learners and by teachers may not be uncommon, but learners also fear violence from the surrounding community, such as rape or abduction on the road to and from school; in our study, 36% sometimes felt scared of being hurt by someone from outside the school, 7% often. this is likely why a solid demarcation of the school area is one of the characteristics of resilient schools (christie, 2001). of homework, feeling secure/safe in and around the school, curriculum5 coverage, and presence of questions of high cognitive demand, while choice teaching methods such as direct instruction versus guided learning are less important– all according to our own study and others (reeves, 2005; spaull, 2011; van der berg, et al., 2011). for reading, the availability of textbooks also makes a difference, but this does not apply to mathematics textbooks (spaull, 2011). so while a recent report states that “poor performance of teachers is a major reason for the poor performance of the south african schooling system” (centre for development and enterprise, 2011, p.27), not only is this putting too much of the responsibility on teachers given the impact of previously mentioned factors, it must also be understood which performance aspects of teaching are most important. there are also indications that interventions in poorer schools do not have much, if any, impact – some schools do not manage to turn resources into an educational advantage, and the teachers’ content and pedagogical content knowledge has less impact the more disadvantaged the school is (personal communication regarding a review of school interventions, paul hobden). along the same lines, strong kenyan learners improved their performance substantially when they were given textbooks, whereas the same did not apply to weak or even average learners (glewwe, kremer, and moulin, 1998). to deepen our understanding of this, we engaged detailed analysis of the video recordings of teaching in our study. the study focused on grade 6 teaching and learning, at 39 schools chosen through stratified random sampling within one district in kwazulu-natal. a full set of data from a school consisted in a teacher questionnaire and a teacher test on content knowledge and some pedagogical content knowledge (pck), a learner questionnaire, a learner test from the start of grade 6, a learner test from the 170 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 the notion of mathematical proficiency contains five dimensions: conceptual understanding, 6 procedural fluency, adaptive reasoning, productive disposition and strategic competence (kilpatrick, swafford, and findell, 2001). ally distinguishes between mathematical proficiency, which focuses on the learning, and opportunities to develop mathematical proficiency (otdmp), which focuses on teaching. further development of indicators of levels of otdmp is needed, but the approach looks promising. end of grade 6, a principal questionnaire, a video recording of a lesson in each grade 6 class, and a sample of learner workbooks to give some indication of curriculum coverage. as the data collection was difficult, we did not always get a full set of data from all schools, which limits the validity of our study. yet the preliminary analysis indicates some issues for concern. and these made us ask how great a factor the teacher is in south african learner achievement, and what aspects of teaching and teacher knowledge seem to matter the most. all of this would inform what we foreground in our teacher education programmes. the video recordings were analysed for the practical pck displayed, in particular the extent to which the teacher linked to prior knowledge, encouraged longitudinal coherence, showed more than one approach to a problem type, and identified and addressed errors or misconceptions (ramdhany, 2010). they were also analysed for the extent to which teachers provided opportunities to develop mathematical proficiency (ally, 2012). all6 of these factors were then related to the teachers’ test scores and the learners’ achievement. i will briefly discuss the findings, as they informed the formulation of questions for the interrogation which informed this paper. the teachers generally performed poorly on the test they were given. though we only had both questionnaires and tests from 34 teachers, we tried to see if there was any significant difference in performance on the test depending on educational levels: the anova showed no significant difference between teachers with a formal and no formal teacher qualification, respectively. this agrees with the finding from the sacmeq study which showed that only about 6% of the variation in teachers’ scores on a learner test was related to qualifications. teacher content knowledge is often considered crucial, but the studies indicate that it accounts for little of the variance in learner performance. for instance, an analysis of the sacmeq iii data indicates that a 100 point – or roughly one standard deviation – improvement in teacher score only raises christiansen: ready to teach?. . . 171 this of course should not be taken to mean that conceptual understanding should be pursued7 without procedural fluency etc. though this perception may be prevalent (bossé and bahr, 2008). learner scores by 4.8 points; and this impact is much smaller in the poorer quintiles of schools (spaull, 2011). there were differences in the extent to which the teaching displayed practical pck, and the teachers who displayed more pck were more likely to have a professional teaching qualification or an academic qualification, but the results were not statistically significant (ramdhany, 2010, p.65). more depressing, there was no significant difference in learner achievement gains from test 1 to test 2 between the teachers who displayed more pck and those who displayed less (ramdhany, 2010, p. 65). this is not necessarily the case in other contexts. thus, a german study found that “when their mathematics achievement in grade 9 was kept constant, students taught by teachers with higher pck scores performed significantly better in mathematics in grade 10” (krauss and blum, forthcoming). thus it remains to be seen if pedagogical content knowledge matters more in high performing south african schools, where learners have attained a basic level of comprehension and competency – and are not hungry or in other ways struggling to have their basic needs met. all in all, the opportunities to develop mathematical proficiency in the classes in our study were limited: only in half of the 30 classrooms from which videos were coded for this aspect, was conceptual understanding facilitated, and in 76% of these cases, a concept was simply stated or learners’ attention directed to it. in the remaining 24% of the cases, a concept was formulated through discussion or demonstration and mathematically supported by teachers or learners (ally, 2012). only in about a third of the cases were opportunities provided which clearly clarified the concept with explicit links made to other concepts (ally, 2012). this is not the best quality of teaching, if i go by the claim by hattie that ‘deep representations’ is central to good teaching, as well as the stressing of conceptual understanding in much mathematics education literature from the past decades. we did find a7 significant correlation (at the 5% level) between the highest secondary school qualification obtained by the teachers, and the extent to which they provided their learners with the opportunity to develop mathematical proficiency, in particular conceptual understanding. there was some indication that there was a correlation between learner achievement gains and the opportunity to develop adaptive reasoning yet this is not a reliable correlation since this 172 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 strand was only evident in 9 lessons in the study (ally, 2012). yet, this result is in agreement with the claim by kilpatrick et al, that adaptive reasoning is “the glue that holds everything together” (kilpatrick, et al., 2001, p. 129). while this seems to indicate that teacher education does not make much difference in south africa, we must remember – besides the validity issue from the small number of teachers who actually provided us with all the relevant data – the role of the contextual factors mentioned above. thus, it appears that school location and home factors matter much more in south africa than in the studies to which hattie refers, while teaching quality is generally questionable and therefore the impact of this factor is dwarfed by the general conditions of schooling and living in most of our communities. what does this mean to mathematics teacher education? i engaged our local programme as a case. questions for the local teacher education programme the post graduate certificate in education (pgce) is a one-year postgraduate teaching qualification. students with a bachelor’s degree are accepted into the programme if they meet the entry requirements for their desired disciplinary specialisation. for mathematics teachers up to grade 9, this means having completed more than one course of first year university mathematics, and for teachers for grade 10–12, some second year university mathematics is required. the entry requirements are lower than in many programmes internationally, and this must be seen in the light of the severe national shortage of teachers of mathematics. the programme comprises eight courses: 3 general education courses, 2 practical courses spent in schools (‘teaching practice’), and 3 courses specific to their choice of discipline (teaching specialisations). there are two mathematics education courses available, one for grade 7–9, and one for grade 10–12. both have as their stated purpose to equip the students with pck for teaching the content specified by the national curriculum. the discussion of what south african teachers need seems to indicate that they must be prepared to deal with the broader context to further the resilience of the school (christie, 2001), which may imply taking some form of teacher christiansen: ready to teach?. . . 173 there is much input on this, see for instance (adler and davis, 2006; artzt, 1999; jaworski8 and wood, 1999; langford and huntley, 1999; liston and zeichner, 1987; lloyd, 1999; nakanishi, undated; ohtani, 2003; parker and adler, 2012; rayner, pitsolantis, and osana, 2009; schifter, 1998; yang and leung, 2011). in the south african context, a refreshing perspective is still delivered by (breen, 1991/2). leadership role and extending the teaching to include a stronger ethics of care (grant, jasson, and lawrence, 2010). in the context of literacy in pre-school, prinsloo and stein go as far as to suggest that growing a vegetable garden is part of literacy education (prinsloo and stein, 2004). in any case, it is important that new teachers understand these issues and their impact on education. thus, i was interested in seeing to what extent contextual issues were engaged in our pgce programme. for teacher education to counter the low educational achievement of our learners, it is important that its recognition and realisation rules are within specialised knowledge, not allowing students to rely first and foremost on their beliefs, past experiences, etc. for this purpose, i engaged the extent to which our teacher education programmes reflect a knowledge legitimation code (maton, 2006), where claims to legitimacy are situated within the epistemic rather than the social relation – discussed further in the section on analytical tools. yet students must be provided access into specialised knowledge, and thus it was important to consider how theory and practice were related in the courses. i did so by considering the semantic gravity of the course (maton, 2009). next, i interrogated the extent to which the content of the courses reflected the indicators of good teaching outlined by hattie (hattie, 2003), and how this related to the context just outlined. seeing that opportunity to develop adaptive reasoning may be linked to learner achievement gains, i also looked for the extent to which preparation for this was foregrounded in our programme. the issue of how to convey these issues to the students were not considered presently.8 analytical tools in the study, i operationalised a number of coding systems. first, i considered 174 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 this does not imply that these are necessarily the best descriptors or indicators of pck, nor9 that they are exhaustive. i used them because they are important factors determined in hattie’s work, and because they relate well to previous work on the nature of pck, which i will not go into here. five knowledge domains: contextual knowledge including knowledge of learners’ background; curriculum issues, including meta-questions regarding the nature of teacher knowledge and questions regarding the overall purposes and goals of education; content knowledge; pck; and general pedagogical knowledge. other contributions to this issue have discussed the problems of identifying the knowledge domain of a task or question, in particular in relation to pck (adler and patahuddin, forthcoming; krauss and blum, forthcoming). in order to work around this problem, in a pragmatic way given the preliminary nature of this study, i did this by working with some more clearly demarcated sub-categories. another consideration was that, unlike the questions discussed by (adler and patahuddin, forthcoming), the tasks comprising the data in this study did not have to address one knowledge domain only, so it was possible for a question to fall within more than one category or sub-category. content knowledge was separated into three categories, namely declarative (conceptual), procedural, and ‘doing mathematics’ (stein, smith, henningsen, and silver, 2000). some of hattie’s (2003) 16 characteristics of excellent teachers would be hard to assess outside of the practice of the classroom, but i felt that nine of them could, and these were then grouped either as pck or as pedagogical knowledge. thus, pck was given five sub-categories: assessing9 and giving feedback; deep representations including linking to other content; focusing on key aspects of teaching; challenging the learners; and focusing on deep rather than surface learning. likewise, pedagogic knowledge was distinguished as: facilitating a classroom culture conducive to learning; furthering a multi-dimensional understanding of the classroom; having a pedagogical repertoire with more than one informed approach; and adapting a problematising strand where more information is sought before making a teaching decision. these sub-categories were also not mutually exclusive. second, i focused on legitimisation of knowledge. as has been pointed out by adler and colleagues, the way knowledge is legitimised in education can be revealing. for instance, (parker and adler, 2012) found that a mathematics lecturer legitimised content knowledge by referring to mathematics, but knowledge about teaching was legitimised with reference to mathematics, the christiansen: ready to teach?. . . 175 lecturer’s personal experiences, etc. working with examination papers does not allow me to follow parker and adler’s method. i turn instead to maton, who is interested in the legitimisations of knowledge. he postulates that “knowledge comprises both sociological and epistemological forms of power” (maton, 2000, p.149), and “knowledge claims are simultaneously claims to knowledge of the world and by authors” (ibidem, p. 154, italics in original). two modes of legitimation are worked with, a ‘knowledge mode,’ and a ‘knower mode’. in the knowledge mode, the epistemic relation, the knowledge, is foregrounded. in the knower mode, knowledge is more specialised by its social relations, whether it is who you are or your particular cultivated gaze on the world that counts. to distinguish the legitimation code, i drew on the analytical categories presented by chen, maton and bennett (2011). they distinguish between four: ! knowledge code (er+, sr–), where possession of specialised knowledge, procedures or skills is emphasised as the basis of achievement and the dispositions of actors are considered less significant; ! knower code (er–, sr+), where the dispositions of actors are emphasised and specialist knowledge or skills are downplayed. these dispositions may be considered innate or natural (e.g. notions of ‘genius’), cultivated (e.g. an artistic sensibility developed through immersion in great works), or socially based (e.g. a specific gender); ! elite code (er+, sr+), where achievement is based on having both specialist knowledge and being the right kind of knower; and, ! relativist code (er–, sr–), where neither specialist knowledge nor particular dispositions are important (chen, et al., 2011, pp.131–132). the third tool for analysis engaged the extent to which knowledge in our programme was context dependent or abstract. whereas bernstein made a distinction between horizontal and vertical discourses in the knowledge production sphere (bernstein, 1999), maton is also interested in the reproduction of knowledge and employs a more graduated measure which will allow him to see if a curriculum favours segmented or cumulative learning (maton, 2009). one measure which assists in this is semantic density, which indicates the extent to which meaning depends on context – weaker semantic gravity is associated with vertical discourse and more context independence, 176 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 stronger semantic gravity with horizontal discourse and more context dependence (ibid.). as dowling discusses, it is necessary to start from less specialised knowledge to gain access to the specialised, and the specialised can then be applied (dowling, 1998). in other words, there will be a gradual decrease of context dependence as learners move from the everyday into mathematics, and then an increase in contextualisation as mathematics is applied. maton has picked up on the move towards more abstraction in his 2009 paper, which develops categories of analysis for abstraction. he does not have a similar set of categories for when students are asked to apply more decontextualised knowledge. i therefore developed 6 categories for abstracting and 6 for applying, paired according to increasing degree of decontextualisation. i also added a category for entirely decontextualised, that is, theoretical, knowledge. the coding categories are shown in the appendix, which also compares them to maton’s categories, the extended bloom’s taxonomy (anderson, 2005; anderson and krathwohl, 2001), and (hatton and smith, 1995)’s types of reflection in teacher education. method the current results are from the first, exploratory phase of the study only. for the purpose of interrogating the extent to which we prepare teachers appropriately for teaching mathematics in the south african context, i decided to start by interrogating the evaluative rules of the pgce maths programmes, starting with what the exam papers imply are core knowledge areas and competencies. all papers from the three general education courses (610, 620 and 630) and from the two mathematics education courses (get for up to grade 9 and fet for grade 10–12) were coded in nvivo 9. when comparing the exam papers, the mark allocation was taken into account. this was challenged by the fact that all but one paper allowed students to choose between questions, however i felt that the entire paper had to be considered in determining the knowledge legitimised in the programme. firstly, all questions were coded for their knowledge domain and subcategories, as previously listed. these codes were not exclusive, as one exam question could relate to several categories. to determine the legitimation code of a question, an exam question was coded as dominated by a knowledge code when specialised knowledge was clearly christiansen: ready to teach?. . . 177 required to answer the question, even if there was some allowance for a social gaze with reference to students’ experiences, beliefs and attitudes not informed by specialised knowledge. an exam question was coded as being within an elite code when students were asked to engage their beliefs, experiences etc. in the light of specialised knowledge or vice versa. finally, the knower code was used when students were asked for their individual beliefs and opinions with little or no indication that specialised knowledge must be engaged. these codes were mutually exclusive. finally, each question was coded for its degree of semantic gravity, and next for whether it encouraged students to abstract (weaken semantic gravity) or apply (strengthen semantic gravity). findings it was not unexpected that the knowledge categories assessed strongly depend on whether the course is a general education course or mathematics education course, with the latter foregrounding pck and mathematical knowledge for teaching: 178 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 figure 1: the five knowledge dimensions in the courses in the programme. figure 1a shows the knowledge dimensions in the general education courses; figure 1b the knowledge dimensions in the mathematics education courses. it is unclear how integrated the knowledge dimensions should ideally be, but in my view students would benefit from leaving their teaching education with a coherent message about what is important in teaching. it warrants further christiansen: ready to teach?. . . 179 interrogation about the extent to which the programme as a whole achieves this, across the knowledge domains. as discussed earlier, the broader context of education in south africa has an immense impact on the teaching-learning situation, and appears to be well addressed in the general education courses, but only figures in passing in one of the two mathematics education examination papers. i need to interrogate further the extent to which the issues showing up in our grade 6 study correspond to what is engaged in the courses, for instance if engaging issues of leadership, language, relating to the home, etc. are addressed. if contextual issues are engaged in too decontextualised or general ways, students may not develop practical skills in handling the situation in struggling schools. indeed, one student said that the university trains student teachers for ‘a schools’, but force them to also teach in ‘b schools’ (mari van wyk, presentation to faculty, november 2011). the curriculum also appears more taken for granted in the mathematics education examinations, which do not engage the goals of education at all: figure 2: the percentage of questions in the five exam papers which engaged with three sub-categories of curricular issues in the five courses in the programme: unpacking the curriculum, engaging goals and purposes for mathematics education, and metaknowledge about what teachers should know and be able to do. 180 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 thus, the mathematics courses appear detached from the broader context. in itself, this is not a problem – clearly, it facilitates specialised knowledge in mathematics and the pck of mathematics – but the programme as a whole needs to be clearer on whether there are benefits to making links between knowledge domains and if so how this is best accomplished. looking at questions across the papers which had been coded within more than one knowledge domain, i looked at the frequency of overlapping codes (see table 1). it was clear that content knowledge was most likely to occur in the same question as pck, that contextual knowledge was overlapping most with curriculum issues and general pedagogy, and that pedagogical content knowledge occurred more often together with pck. this indicates a decent degree of connections, but the nature of these must be further investigated. table 1: frequency of overlaps of knowledge categories in the five courses. pck and content knowledge were both assessed in 10 questions. content knowledge contextual knowledge curriculum issues pck pedagogic knowledge content knowledge – 0 1 10 0 contextual knowledge 0 – 7 1 3 curriculum issues 1 7 – 3 2 pck 10 1 3 – 9 pedagogic knowledge 0 3 2 9 – when it came to pck, the mathematics education courses covered a broader range of aspects, though not with equal emphasis: christiansen: ready to teach?. . . 181 figure 3: frequency of the sub-categories of pck in the five courses from the perspective of hattie’s findings (2003) and in the light of the limited extent to which opportunities to develop conceptual understanding were found in our grade 6 classrooms, it is comforting to me to see the strong emphasis on deep representation in the two content courses. yet, the absence of this dimension in the general education courses is ground for concern – where it could have been engaged in a more decontextualised way as a priority. the focus on the conceptual dimension was also clear in the mathematics for teaching courses, whereas it appears that the engagement with the one opportunity to engage in deriving a formula was limited to considering how to show this to learners, and thus did not appear to stress that teaching mathematics can include providing opportunities to develop adaptive reasoning: 182 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 figure 4: the types of content knowledge assessed for in the two mathematics education modules in the programme returning to pck, the second of the three most important types of teacher action, according to hattie, is assessing and giving feedback, and this aspect is addressed in the general education courses, increasing with each course, and also assessed in the mathematics education courses. however, a more detailed reading of the exam questions indicates that questions in this category focus on identifying learners’ level of understanding and not on how to give appropriate feedback. only one question in 630 asks “bearing the theories in mind, describe how teachers in south africa can help to facilitate . . .” and this does not assess the complex process of giving feedback in any substantial way (cf. hattie and timperley, 2007). thus it is clear that in this crucial respect, we are failing in the preparation of our mathematics teachers. this is more reason for concern when i note that feedback in the observed grade 6 classrooms mostly is what has been called task feedback (hattie and timperley, 2007) – simply indicating if an answer is correct or incorrect – and often is tacit. the third of hattie’s most important categories is challenging learners. this is also notably absent, with only the one mathematics education course assessing this aspect, and only in a very indirect way. this question reads: christiansen: ready to teach?. . . 183 you want the learners to draw a histogram based on the data. you are thinking about whether you should give them the relevant intervals or ask them to group the data using their own choice of intervals. there are both several weak and several strong learners in the class. discuss some advantages and disadvantages of each of the options. the students are being asked to consider two options in relation to the mixed ability class, but there is certainly no explicit requirement that they consider how the task could be made to be challenging for the learners (albeit this consideration was discussed in the marking memorandum). thus, there is no indication that the courses have engaged in preparing the students to teach large classes with learners of mixed ability, so that learning can happen for more learners irrespective of their current level. one intervention which took a strict mastery approach to mathematics learning in primary school (schollar, 2008) indicates that such careful challenging of the learners on their current level can be highly beneficial. it is also a pressing issue in the light of the span of abilities in many south african classrooms, in particular in rural contexts. thus, our teacher education programme seems to fall short in this respect as well. with respect to pedagogical knowledge, i expected this to be more prevalent in the general education courses. it was noteworthy that the dimension of creating a classroom conducive to learning was not assessed in the mathematics education courses, which seems concerning to me as it detaches considerations of content learning from overall classroom environment. in this category, i included allowing learners to make mistakes, and with the vast body of research on learner misconceptions in mathematics education (benzvi and garfield, 2004; cuffel, 2009; molina, castro, and castro, 2010; walcott, mohr, and kastberg, 2009) as well as socio-mathematical norms (cobb, 1991; cobb and bauersfeld, 1995), i find it highly surprising that this was not foregrounded in the assessment in the courses. interestingly, general pedagogical skills which some of our students feel they have not adequately developed, are how to use textbooks and the chalkboard well (mari van wyk, presentation to faculty, november 2011). yet textbooks are only effective learning resources if they, besides the content being appropriate and well organised, are used well. none of the questions in the exam papers engaged how to judge the quality of a textbook or even a task, though previous papers had asked students to determine the van hiele geometrical level of tasks, for instance. one question asked students to identify to what extent a textbook 184 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 mathematics literacy is a school subject in south africa, for grades 10–12. 10 task fell within the mathematics literacy curriculum, but other than that, no10 questions examined students’ ability to engage with teaching resources in any respect. it seems likely, then, that this is assumed to be a skill which students possess or develop, without explicit teaching, or that it is something they will ‘pick up’ while on teaching practice in schools. with respect to the legitimation code, all courses were strongly dominated by either a knowledge or an elite code, with only the 610 course having a small occurrence of the knower code. separating the knowledge code into a strong and a less strong knowledge code (‘knowledge’ for short in the table below), it appeared that the legitimation code varied somewhat with knowledge type: table 2: number of exam questions coded as exhibiting knowledge or knower codes in the five knowledge categories across the courses in the programme content knowledge contextual knowledge curriculum issues pck pedagogic knowledge strong knowledge 8 0 1 10 1 knowledge 2 1 2 7 5 elite codes 2 7 6 10 13 knower 0 0 0 0 1 thus, the content knowledge is dominated by a very strong knowledge legitimation code, which is perhaps expected given the nature of mathematics as a discipline. pedagogical content knowledge is more strongly dominated by a knowledge code than pedagogical, context and curriculum knowledge. with the current crisis in education, this is in need of further exploration, because it would be problematic to assume that students develop a trained gaze as a teacher after just four years of teacher education, in particular if the gaze encouraged or assumed at university is at odds with the views of teaching students bring from their own experiences. the semantic gravity of the courses varied somewhat, with the general education courses being more decontextualised from direct experience and the context of application of the knowledge. the relatively context dependent christiansen: ready to teach?. . . 185 activity of providing examples of categories within given frameworks such as the van hiele levels dominated the mathematics education courses, with relatively weak semantic gravity tasks such as discussing/critiquing and generalising/combining being more prevalent in the general education courses. the five courses were almost entirely dominated by applying decontextualised knowledge, in contrast to abstracting general principles from contexts. this could be explained with reference to the professional orientation of teacher education programmes, but it remains an open question to what extent this is the best approach to learning relevant knowledge and competencies, as well as the best approach to assessing them. one way to engage this further is to see to what extent the mathematics of the mathematics education courses is being ‘unpacked’ (adler and davis, 2006), but i believe we need a similar notion for other knowledge domains. conclusion and discussion in this explorative first phase of the study, i contrasted national/regional with international findings about factors most strongly correlated with learner performance. i used this to develop tentative indicators reflecting aims for our mathematics education programmes in preparing students to teach in south africa. i also considered to what extent specialised knowledge was foregrounded in a pgce programme, meaning that students do not rely on their own beliefs and experiences. in this phase, the evaluative rules of the ukzn pgce programme were analysed in order to determine what knowledge is legitimised or valued in the programme. it was found that the programme is strongly within a knowledge code, though with some space given for the students to relate their own experiences etc. even in the examination. the semantic gravity varies, but generally focuses on applying more decontextualised learning. it remains a question for further exploration if this would benefit from being supplemented by more work on abstracting and generalising. the programme covers many relevant aspects, but it needs further exploration in terms of how well they are linked and to what extent they provide a connected and complete teacher education. in particular, it must be considered to what extent the contextual knowledge dimension is linked to the 186 journal of education, no. 56, 2012 disciplinary and pedagogic practice of teachers or operates on a more general level. with respect to pedagogical content knowledge in particular, i found that the programme strongly legitimises teaching for deep representations, and also addressed the assessment of learners, but offers little direction on how to challenge learners on their level, and on how to provide substantial and constructive feedback to learners. in addition, no attention was given to the development of skills related to provide learners with the opportunity to develop adaptive reasoning. in addition, it was found that some aspects which may not have been considered by hattie, who compared experienced and expert teachers, nonetheless could be crucial to include in a pre-service programme. in particular the issue of preparing students to use textbooks and other materials appropriately needs to be considered. the overall approach of comparing what we teach in the teacher education programmes to what we find works in our schools is crucial, and the subcategories of pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge derived from hattie’s work are deemed promising, though they may need adjusting to reflect some taken-for-granted aspects. bringing in maton’s modes of legitimation (knowledge and knower codes) assisted me in assessing the extent to which the courses relied on an implicit gaze or foregrounded the epistemic, and i think this provides a useful insight into our teacher education programmes. so did using semantic gravity, but it was more the direction of the move between high and low semantic gravity that provided a useful insight in the relation between theory and practice in the course, than being able to determine the semantic gravity itself. all in all, this can only be the beginning of the development of a more powerful and theoretically coherent language of description with which to assess what we do in teacher education. christiansen: ready to teach?. . . 187 references adler, j. and davis, z. 2006. opening another black box: researching mathematics for teaching in mathematics education. journal for research in mathematics education, 37(4): pp.270–296. adler, j. and patahuddin, s.m. 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accepted 16 may 2016) abstract the purpose of this article is to describe the different dimensions of the communityuniversity interactions that emanated from a community engagement audit which was undertaken at the university of limpopo (ul) in 2014. the audit methodology followed a quantitative survey research approach. a sample of 278, out of a population of 559 academic staff at ul that included 196 with phds and 363 without phds, participated in the study. spss was used to compute factor analysis. the results indicated the dominant partners that faculties interact with across the spheres of engaged scholarship were multi-national companies, small, medium and micro-enterprises, national regulatory and advisory and sectorial organisations. the types of relationship with external social actors were contract research, continuing education and collaborative research and development projects. channels of information were popular publications, public conferences, seminars or workshops, oral or written testimony or advice prominent. the outputs were new or improved products/processes, scientific discoveries and community infrastructure and facilities. the outcomes and benefits were regional development, improved quality of life for individuals and communities and research focus and research projects, theoretical and methodological development in an academic field, academic and institutional reputation. the main constrains experienced during engagement are lack of academic resources and institutional support and relationships with external social partners. the results provide guiding parameters to improve the scale and reach of ce at the ul and a snapshot of the architecture and terrain of engaged scholarship at a rural-based hei in south africa. introduction this article presents the different dimensions such as the nature of external social partners, types of relationship, the channels, the outcomes and benefit and the challenges and obstacles of the academic-community interactions which were reflected in data that emanated from a community engagement (ce) audit, undertaken from the 11th of november 2013 to the 30th may 2014 at the ul as rural based university. this university as described by 140 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 higher education quality committee (heqc) (2011, p.8) is a “rural based medium-sized” university situated in the rural enclave of mankweng township, ga-makanye and mamotintane villages in the limpopo province. rural-based universities are “historically disadvantaged offspring of the so-called apartheid policy” of “separate development established during the apartheid era in the former homelands” and were “institutionalized through the extension of university education act of 1959” (mavhandu-mudzusi and netshandama, 2014, p.372; nkomo and sehoole, 2007, p.2). alongside teaching and learning and research, ce is identified as one of the core responsibilities of universities as mandated by the white paper on higher education (1997). council on higher education (che, 2004, p.12) defines ce as initiatives and processes through which the expertise of the higher education institution in the areas of teaching and research are applied to address issues relevant to its community. community engagement typically finds expression in a variety of forms, ranging from informal and relatively unstructured activities to formal and structured academic programmes addressed at particular community needs. ramírez, aitkin, kora and richardson, (2005) add that community engagement as continuous process characterised by addressing evolving needs and interests of the community. both these definitions resonate with the university of limpopo’s ce policy that states ce “continuously negotiated collaborations and partnerships between ul and the interest groups that it interacts with, aimed at building and exchanging knowledge, skills, expertise and resources required to develop and sustain society” (ul ce policy, 2008, p.8). ce is also included in the mission statement of the university of limpopo which read “a university which responds actively: to the development needs of its students, its staff members and its communities, through relevant and high quality education and training, research and engagement, and in partnership and in collaboration with its different stakeholders” (ul website, 2016). although the heqc “commends the university of limpopo for its range of community engagement activities carried out by committed staff members” (heqc, 2011, pp.35) the nature, types, channels of information, outputs, outcomes and obstacles and challenges of the academic-community interactions that its faculties has with external social partners remain undocumented. it is therefore, important to investigate different dimensions aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 141 that emerge out the university of limpopo’s academic-community interactions. in this article we briefly explore some of the literature that critically examined the origins of community engagement, the context of engagement, a brief history of engagement in south africa, the perceived benefits of ce to both university and community – and the constraints within the south african ce context, the research methodology used to conduct the study before introducing the results of the audit. origins of community engagement there is mounting interest in the way in which higher education institutions (heis) such as universities confront local, regional and national development needs as echoed in 2009 world bank higher education policy recommendations (nampota and preece, 2012; schuetze, 2010). internationally heis are responding to fundamental changes that are occurring throughout the world by “transforming their functions, role and purpose in order to respond to new needs and environmental conditions” (rowe, 2011, p.5). according to boughey (2014, p.1) in agreement with a “international trend in higher education (arredondo and de la garza, 2007; hall, 2010; kaburise, 2007; shah, 2007; taylor, 2007). south african heis over the past decade and a half have to greater or lesser degrees commenced to address the issue of recognising and addressing ce a legitimate concern alongside teaching, leaning and research. the literature on community engagement suggest two modes of engagement i.e. “a dispersed model” that involves the interaction with external stakeholders of individual staff members “self-initiated projects” (mulroy (2004 cited by nampota and preece, 2012, p.107 and “a coordinated model” that involves the interaction with external stakeholders both staff and students “as teams across and within departments, reflecting the engagement approach” (nampota and preece, 2012, p.107). almost two decades ago, the current focus on ce within south african higher education was catalysed by the publication of the education white paper 3 (department of education (doe), 1997). the white paper states that higher education in south africa should undergo a process of transformation in order 142 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 to contribute to the post-apartheid development goals. it is therefore, crucial heis in south africa “. . .continue to serve as a medium of socio-economic change and emancipation by involving surrounding communities in their research projects in order to provide the necessary skills that will help to improve quality of life” (odeku and meyer, 2014, p.667). the national ambition was reinforced by the world declaration on higher education for the twenty first century that universities should provide service to society as a contribution to reducing social ills such as “poverty, hunger, intolerance, violence, illiteracy, environmental degradation and diseases” (unesco, 1998, p.8). consequently, south african heis gradually began to become aligned to the new mission of responding “to the changes in the demands and needs of society and stakeholders’ (paleari, donina and meoli, 2015, p.370) and work collaboratively with their immediate communities to address and contribute to the developmental potentials of both community and university (nampota, 2011; pratt, matthews, nairne, hoult and ashenden, 2011). the ul also recognises this and through its ce policy. heis have responded to both the national and international (focus) better word may be ‘imperative’ of the engaged university of the 21st century in diverse ways, producing a nascent framework for engagement. the drive to develop redundant adjective ‘architecture’ of engagement that encapsulates ‘good’ scholarship. . .is premised upon the claim that engaged scholarship is inherently ‘good’ scholarship – which we address later in the introduction. the context of engagement although community engagement is an integral, mandated aspect of all heis (including ul), the council for higher education does not prescribe specific modes of engagement at an institutional level, enabling specific institutional contexts to shape the localised identity and nature of engaged scholarship (che, 2006). policies from different heis demonstrate that there are similarities in the modes of structured and unstructured activities and identities of different heis (mcrae, 2012; hall, 2010; westdijk, koliba and hamshaw, 2010). generally, ce in most south african universities (including ul) takes the form of service learning, structured outreach – or volunteerism – and community centred research activities (snyman, 2014; nhamo, 2013; schuetze, 2010; ul ce policy, 2008). in this respect, it is incumbent on each aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 143 institution to formulate their own community engagement mode, often reinforcing the identity of the particular hei through processes of institutional dialogue and procedures, influenced by the mission and vision of the institution and the context/s in which the engagement occurs (hester, adejumo and frantz, 2015; muller, 2010). despite the relevance of these activities, the issue of engaged scholarship which has to be negotiated – if mutually beneficial outcomes are to be sustained – is often contested. a brief history of engagement in south africa since the ratification of the white paper, the south african higher education system policies and legislation has gradually increased the scope and focus of engaged scholarship. the overall focus of these shifts reflects the ambition of bringing community and universities closer together, underpinned by the belief that such ‘closeness’ holds potentials to unlock new forms of knowledge (van schalkwyck and erasmus, 2011; erasmus and albertyn, 2014). the drive to produce knowledge that is both relevant at the local scale and can be used by communities has resulted in the development of some core themes that are intended to take the community-university relationship beyond the traditional pedagogy of teaching and learning and conducting research in the pursuit of knowledge that could be used is believed to reside at the dynamic academic-community interface. the central themes include: (i) the transformation of heis at an institutional level so that they are better positioned to facilitate, implement and disseminate findings from engaged activities (snyman, 2014); (ii) the orientation of both academics and community partners to the relevance and utility of engaged scholarship and (iii) the expansion of specific, niche institutional knowledge areas – such as socio-economic development, environmental concerns and the inclusion of indigenous knowledge. in the last two decades these themes have become operationalised through a diverse portfolio of interactive partnerships between communities and universities which has included both formal and informal community engagement practices such as service-leaning, internships, participatory-action-research and volunteerism. it has been argued – and reported – that the ‘glue’ that holds these unique partnerships together reflects some, or all of the following characteristics: 144 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 knowledge co-generation, horizontal social relations, trust, the sharing of experiences and lessons learnt in a process of community-university praxis from which unique forms of knowledge and ‘knowledge enablement’ have been produced (erasmus & albertyn, 2014). it has been argued from many perspectives that whilst traditional forms of teaching and learning and research add value to many aspects of development, engaged scholarship produces unique benefits as diverse communities intersect with heis. by participating in ce activities students achieve professional development, enhanced learning and develop positive impact on their academic learning by bridging the gap between classroom theories to practice (preece, 2013; netshandama, maluleke and kutame, 2011). heis get improved institutional commitment to the curriculum increase their networks, pedagogical skills and research possibilities and recognition in the community (benneworth, 2015; preece, 2013; briscoe, keller, mcclain, best and mazza, 2009) while the community enhance their knowledge to address their own social and economic needs, members gain in terms of self-esteem, trust, skills acquisition, confidence and problem solving skills (preece, 2013, p.271; ahmed and palermo, 2010, p.1380). the perceived benefits of community engagement the continuous interaction and mutual beneficial partnership between hei and their external actors may have yielded outcomes as “the changes, benefits, learning or other effects” as a result of the interaction (hart, northmore and gerhardt, 2010, p.36) and outputs as “the products and services delivered” as a results of the interaction (cupitt and ellis, 2007, p.6). these include social and economic outcome and outputs including new or improved products, new or improved processes, scientific discoveries, community infrastructure and facilities and traditional academic outcome and outputs including students, academic papers and conference presentations and reports, policy documents and popular publications (kruss, diwu, nyoka, ranchod and manamela, 2013, p.84). it has been argued that the value contained within the community-university interface includes mutual benefits for academics, their institutions and the communities they engage with as heis get improved institutional commitment to the curriculum increase their networks, pedagogical skills and research possibilities and recognition in the community and the community aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 145 enhance their knowledge to address their own social and economic needs.(rowe, 2011; hart & northmore, 2010; mohamed, 2006; muirhead, graham and brown, 2002). through academic programmes such as internships and service-learning the universities claim they are able to add value to both the community and the university as well as leveraging spaces for students to develop values associated with civil awareness and social responsibility – whilst simultaneously acquiring a stock of ‘real-world’ experiences that they can apply in both their academic work and future careers (wood and zuber-skerrit, 2013; kruss, visser, aphane and haupt, 2012; ahmed and palermo, 2010; strydom and mentz, 2010; global alliance on community engaged research, 2009; unesco, 2009). challenges confronting the community engagement mandate practical constraints the historical positioning of ul and other heis in south africa reflects the apartheid legacy which has resulted in an uneven hei landscape and subsequently an uneven community engagement portfolio across south africa. particular constraints that have been highlighted include, inter alia: time constraints to do ce, gaining entry to communities and the negative perceptions of communities about the relevance of universities to marginalised households (levitt, 2014; mabuza, diab, reid, ntuli, flack, mpofu, daniels, adonis, cakwe, karuguti and molefe, 2013; kruss et al., 2013; chimucheka, 2012). these ‘day to day’ constraints tend, however, to be underpinned by a more universal— mosaic of structural and ideological constraints which intersect with the practical constraints outlined above. structural constraints integrating successful and sustainable community engagement activities within the fabric of ul and other heis poses challenges for universities throughout south africa (israel, 2014; wood & zuber-skerrit, 2013; ul ce policy, 2008). both national and international literature suggests that ce is often situated at the peripheries of the institutional hierarchy of importance. it is argued that the ‘second cousin’ (moore and ward, 2010 as cited by 146 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 kearney, 2015. p.27; bender, 2008) status sustains uncoordinated, marginalised and inadequately supported – particularly funded – ce portfolios at many heis resulting in weak and lack lustre institutional impact (pienaar, 2014; erasmus & albertyn., 2014; hall, 2010). it has been argued that this is often exacerbated by the lack of clarity about the ‘meaning’ of ce, rendering evaluation and measurement of the impacts of ce on uncertain ground (mirza, vodden, and collins, 2012; hall, 2010). this claim that measurement cannot be precise if there is no clarity about what is to be measured (impact, commitment, responsiveness, community involvement, partnerships, types of knowledge generated, utility of the knowledge to different parties) is echoed from many quarters (nhamo, 2013; slamat, 2010). it is not just internal institutional inconsistencies that make ce difficult terrain to navigate. historically, universities have been perceived as ’ivory towers’ that are populated by an elite who reproduce elite, mode one knowledge (gibbons, limoges, nowotny, schwartzman, scott and trow, 1994) often with little – if any – practical utility to third sector agencies which are the civil society that include large and small non-profit voluntary sectors including non-governmental community based organisations, trusts, social enterprises and cooperatives (albertyn and erasmus, 2014; corry, 2010; boughey, 2014; netshandama, 2010; bender, 2008). the historical inconsistency remains a dominant influence within the broader ul architecture as an institution that compete for national and international recognition and status – which often favours mode 1 knowledge over other forms of knowledge – through traditional indicators, such as accredited publication outputs and throughput rates (gerber, 2005, p.1398). this terrain, which ce practitioners are as bound to negotiate as any other academic, often produces unintended obstacles that frustrate institutional and individual efforts to facilitate ce. it is not just the contemporary positioning of heis in the broader, international academic context that influences the impacts and outcomes of ce activities. there are internal structural inconsistencies which also have discrete – yet profound – impacts on the ce landscape. one example of a discrete, structural obstacle is highlighted by pienaar (2014) and stillman (2014) who argue that outdated ethics committee protocols – inclusive of implicit epistemological clashes about the validity of different knowledge forms – frustrate the ce ambition. aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 147 we suggest that the existing ce panorama in south africa is an uneven one, influenced by historical, structural and practical challenges – yet despite these challenges a rich, diverse and reflective portfolio of ce activities has been developed within the neighbourhoods of both disadvantaged and advantaged heis. this reflects – albeit through a contested process – considerable individual and institutional efforts to embrace the ce ethos, rather than ignore it. the study was to analyse existing relationships that ul faculties has with external social partners. specifically this study sought to answer the following research question relating to ul’s interaction with its external social actors: what are the different dimensions of the university of limpopo’s academic-community interactions? research methodology a quantitative survey-based research approach using factor analysis was used in conducting the audit to measure and explain different forms of interaction of university of limpopo academic staff “with a wide range of external social partners” (kruss, visser, aphane, & haupt, 2012, p.13; sampson, 2012; bryman, 2012). the research design was appropriate for obtaining relevant information about the different forms interaction with wide range external social partners of the ul academics. the study population comprised of 559 personnel from the university of limpopo which included 196 academics with phds and 363 without phds. a probabilistic simple random technique was used to select a sample of 228 respondents while ensuring that each element of the population had an equal chance of being included in the study (monette, sullivan, dejong, and hilton, 2014). an additional 50 participants were further randomly selected for replacement purposes bringing the total to 278. the sample satisfied the inclusion criteria that of being full/part-time academic personnel involved in teaching and learning, research and community engagement. ethical clearance to conduct the study was obtained from the turfloop research and ethics committee (trec) of the university of limpopo. the anonymity, confidentiality and informed consent of individual participants were ensured. data were collected using an interviewer-administered survey instrument adopted with permission from the individual academic interaction instrument designed by the human science research council (hsrc) (kruss et al., 148 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 2012). “a rigorous process and steps were followed in the adaptation of the instruments, namely: grounding it in the emergent literature in south africa, and in comparative literature on university community engagement, triangulated with instruments on civic engagement used in american and british universities, piloted in two universities with projects leaders, deans, senior managers, and other academics then revised it” (kruss et al., 2012, p.16). the instrument consisted of 2 sections. section 1 captured the demographic characteristics of the respondents which included the faculty, academic rank and qualifications of the participants. section 2 consisted of 6 scales in order to investigate the nature, types, channels of information, outputs, outcomes and obstacles and challenges of the academic-community interactions using with a 4 point likert scale with following options 1 – not at all; 2 – isolated instances; 3 – on a moderate scale and 4 – on a wide scale. the six scales included; the first scale consisted of 29 items and covered identification of the external social partners, the second scale consisted of 22 items and covered the types of interactions, the third scale consisted of 20 items that covered the channels of engagement, the fourth scale consisted of 12 items that covered the types of outputs produced, the fifth scale consisted of 21 items that covered the outcomes and benefits of the engagements and the last scale consisted of 14 items that covered challenges and constraints academic interaction with external social actors (see appendix 1). for example, scale 1 asked: to what extent do you interact through your academic work with any of these external social actors? (e.g. local government agencies; national government departments, clinics and health centres, schools, trade unions, national universities, community organisations, small-scale farmers and so forth). the scale 2 asked: to what extent does your academic scholarship involve these types of relationships with external social actors? (e.g. service learning, research consultancy, technology transfer, contract research, student voluntary outreach programmes, collaborative curriculum design and so forth). scale 3 asked: to what extent have you used each of the following channels of information to transfer your knowledge to external social actors? (e.g. popular publications, public conferences, seminars or workshops, informal information exchange, oral or written testimony or advice etc.). scale 4 asked: to what extent has your academic interaction with external social actors had the following outputs? (e.g. new or improved products, new or improved processes, academic publications, dissertations etc.). scale 5 asked: to what extent has your academic aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 149 interaction had the following outcomes or benefits? (e.g. relevant research focus and research projects, theoretical and methodological development in an academic field, academic and institutional reputation, interventions plans and guidelines, community-based campaigns etc.). scale 6 asked: in your experience, how important are the following obstacles and challenges to your academic interaction with external social actors? (e.g. legal problems, lack of mutual knowledge about partners’ needs and priorities, unequal power relations and capabilities in relation to external social partners, too few academic staff etc.). (see appendix 1). table 1: dimensions of the community-university interactions dimension no. of items identification of the external social partners 29 types of interactions 22 channels of engagement 20 types of outputs produced 12 outcomes and benefits of the engagements 21 challenges and constraints of engagement 14 the statistical package for social science (version 22) was used for data reduction and to produce statistical outputs using factor analysis. because a scalar questionnaire was used, the responses were therefore, grouped into like segments using a factor analysis to evaluate the inter-relationships among items and cluster them together to find out which items/variables load to particular components (bartholomew, steele, galbraith and moustaki, 2008; kaiser, 1974). a factor in factor analysis is a new latent variable which represents many variables. according to field (2009, p.639), factors with relatively large eigenvalues are retained and those with small are discarded because “the eigenvalue is a measure of the substantive importance of the eigenvector with which it is associated”. field (2009, p. ??) notes that kaiser (1960) recommended the retention of all factors with an eigenvalue of 1 because “eigenvalues represent the amount of variation explained by a factor and that an eigenvalue of 1 represents a substantial amount of variation”. this approach was adopted in this study in which only factors with eigenvalues above 1 were retained. 150 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 results results of the reliability tests and kmo and bartlett's test of the scales the kmo is a measure of sampling adequacy and varies between 0 and 1. according to field (2010, p.647) a value close to 0 indicates “diffusion in the pattern of correlations, hence, factor analysis is likely to be inappropriate”; when the value is close to 1, this shows that there is compactness in the correlations such that factor analysis will “yield distinct and reliable factors”. field (2010) avers that kaiser (1974) considers values greater than 0.5 as ‘barely acceptable’; values between 0.5 and 0.7 as ‘mediocre’; values between 0.7 and 0.8 as ‘good’; values between 0.8 and 0.9 as ‘great’ and those above 0.9 as ‘superb’. in this study, the kaiser-meyer-olkin measure for dimensions 3 (.904) and 5 (.913) were excellent and for dimensions1 (.837), 2 (.883), 4 (.868) and 6 (.862) were all commendable. therefore, the entire sample for all the scales was satisfactory for factor analysis and significant at level of .000 (kaiser, 1974). dimension one yielded a good cronbach alpha value of .896, dimension two yielded an excellent cronbach alpha value of .922, dimension three yielded an excellent cronbach alpha value of .903, dimension four yielded a good cronbach alpha value of .862, dimension five yielded an excellent cronbach alpha value of .926, dimension six yielded a good cronbach alpha value of .851. the overall reliability test of the questionnaire yielded a cronbach alpha value .968 which reflects an excellent internal consistency of the scale (bonett, and wright, 2015; eisinga, te grotenhuis, & pelzer, 2013). only group variables with more than one item were reported in this study because factor analysis is about correlations between items. one could consider a single item as an outlier and may warrant removal from the data set because it has low correlations with other items and this can also indicate what field (2010, p.675) calls a “reverse-phrased item” – that is an item which requires an opposite response to all other questions. demographics of research respondents from the four faculties and research administration results, nearly 9% of the participant’s preferred to keep their faculties anonymous. the majority of the participants (35%) were from the faculty of science and agriculture. in terms aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 151 of academic rank nearly 8% preferred to keep their rank anonymous and 38% were senior lecturers. with regard to their qualifications, close to 36% of the participants had phds, while nearly 11% preferred to keep their qualifications confidential. (see table 2). 152 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 table 2: demographic characteristics of respondents variable category responses frequency (n) percentages (%) faculty health sciences 32 13.5 humanities 52 21.9 science and agriculture 83 35 management and law 42 17.7 research administration 7 3 no response 21 8.9 total 237 100 academic rank director 2 0.8 hod 14 5.9 senior lecturer 91 38.4 junior lecturer 83 35 tutor 7 3 academic support service 19 8 non-academic support service 3 1.3 no response 18 7.6 total 237 100 qualification junior degree 5 2.1 honours degree 34 14.3 masters degree 83 35 doctoral degree 85 35.9 post grade 12 qualifications 5 2.1 no response 25 10.5 total 237 100 aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 153 type of external social actors the ul interact with the table 3 below shows the results of the kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) and bartlett tests specifically for dimension one: the external social partners. for this dimension, the kmo value is 0.837 which is considered ‘great’ and we can conclude that the sample size is adequate for factor analysis. barrtlett’s test of sphericity which yielded a chi-square = 2127.447, p 0.000, indicates that correlations between items were sufficiently large for factor analysis. table 3: kmo and bartlett's test kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy 0.837 bartlett’s test of sphericity approx. chi-square 2127.447 df 378 sig. 0 table 4 illustrates that the types of external social partners included firms, civil society, academic, government, households and agencies. it is evident that firms accounting for 21.2% of the variance (and an eigenvalue of 5.939) and civil society (with 11.3% of the variance and an eigenvalue of 3.185) are the main type of external social actors the faculties interact with. these six components had eigenvalues above kaiser’s criterion of 1 and account for a cumulative 61.2% of the total variance while the rest of the variance is accounted for by extraneous factors. the scree plot confirmed these six components. the items that clustered on the component we called ‘civil society’ are led by religious organisations which had a high factor loading of 0.811. in this study, among the social actors were large national firms (with a high factor loading of 0.804, multi-national companies (0.792), small, medium and micro-enterprises (0.714), national regulatory and advisory agencies (0.591) and sectoral organisations (0.570) which were clustered/loaded onto component/factor which we called ‘firms’ (see table 4 below). 154 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 table 4: rotated component matrix on the type external social actors the faculties interact with rescaled component firms civil society academic government households external agencies large national firms 0.804 multi-national companies 0.792 small, medium and microenterprises 0.714 national regulatory and advisory agencies 0.591 sectorial organisations 0.57 religious organisations 0.811 political organisations 0.692 social movements 0.658 trade unions 0.566 community organisations 519 african universities 0.764 international universities 0.731 provincial/regional government department or agencies 0.864 local government agencies 0.784 national government departments 0.617 individuals and households 0.877 a specific local community 0.749 science councils 0.819 funding agencies 0.715 eigenvalues 5.939 3.185 2.526 2.084 1.791 1.616 % explained variance 21.21 11.37 9.021 7.443 6.397 5.773 cummulative % of variance 21.21 32.59 41.61 49.05 55.45 61.22 aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 155 in table 4, loadings of 0.5 and above were considered significant and reported. the extraction method was principal component, with orthogonal (varimax) rotation in which kaiser normalisation was achieved in 6 iterations. (the same applies to tables that follow). there are 19 items/variables remaining because of the substantive importance of factor loadings in which coefficients less than 0.5 were suppressed in line with stevens (2002 cited in fields, 2010) who recommends interpreting only factor loadings with an absolute value greater than 0.4. the rest of the variables were, thus, discarded. as such, in this study, only items with factor loadings of 0.5 and above were reported. field (2009, p.644) argues that “factor loadings are a gauge of the substantive importance of a given variable to a given factor”. types of relationship with external social actors this dimension recorded a kmo coefficient of 0.883, which is also ‘great’ suggesting the sample size’s adequacy for factor analysis. the bartlett’s test of sphericity was also significant at p 0.000 indicating that the data set did not resemble an identity matrix which is composed of zero correlations. the test produced a value of chi square of 1986.912 (see table 5). table 5: kmo and bartlett's test kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy 0.883 bartlett’s test of sphericity approx. chi-square 1986.912 df 210 sig. 0 table 6 illustrates that the component matrix has four factors. notably, the type of relationships with external social actors was mainly concerned with research, education and training and engaged learning. the first factor, research, explained about 33.4% of the total variance in this dimension with an eigenvalue of 7.013 in which contract and collaborative research as well as technology were prominent in the engagements given their high factor loadings above 0.7. under the factor of education and training, ‘continuing education or professional development’ was prominent with a factor of loading of 0.746. these four factors account for 59.98% of the variance in this dimension. 156 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 table 6: rotated component matrix types of relationship with external social actors rescaled component research education & training engaged learning technological transfer contract research 0.788 collaborative research and development (r&d) projects 0.779 technology transfer 0.721 participatory research networks 0.662 joint commercialisation of a new produced 0.644 research consultancy 0.606 community based research project 0.574 continuing education or professional development 0.746 collaborative curriculum design 0.691 monitoring, evanluation and need assessment 0.678 customised training and short courses 589 policy research, analysis and advice 0.569 education of students so that they are socially responsive 0.721 service learning 0.712 alternative modes of delivery to accommodate non-traditional students 0.672 work-integrated learning 0.665 student voluntary outreach programmes 0.525 clinical services and patient or client care 0.72 design and testing of new interventions or protocols 0.671 eigenvalues 7.013 2.312 1.903 1.369 % explained variance 33.4 11.01 9.963 6.158 cummulative % of variance 33.4 44.41 53.47 59.985 aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 157 channels of information this dimension recorded a kmo of 0.904 which is deemed to be ‘superb’ for adequacy of the sample and a bartlett’s test of sphericity which yielded a significant chi-square value of 1647.675 at p 0.000 – with both tests hinting at the appropriateness of factor analysis. (see table 7). table 7: kmo and bartlett's test kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy 0.904 bartlett’s test of sphericity approx. chi-square 1647.675 df 171 sig. 0 table 8 illustrates that four components were extracted, namely technological, research and informal engagements as well as public media – which they have used as the stated channels of information to transfer their knowledge to external social actors. for instance, technological engagements account for 35.6% of the variance in this dimension with an eigenvalue of 6.775, while public media with an eigenvalue of 1.385 accounted for about 7.3% of the variance in this dimension. these four factors accounted for about 59% of the variance in this dimension while extraneous factors accounted for the remaining 41% of the variance. under public media, popular publications (factor loadings of 0.773) and public conferences, seminars and workshops (with 0.724) were prominent. 158 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 table 8: rotated component matrix on channels of information rescaled component technological engagements research engagement informal engagement public media spin-off firms from the university (commercial or not for profits) 0.69 software development or adaptation for social uses 0.679 technological incubators or innovation hubs 0.635 patent application and registration 0.633 interactive websites 0.626 technolgy development and application networks 0.574 reports and policy briefings 0.523 participatory or action research projects 0.699 research contracts and commissions 0.648 demonstration projects or units 0.639 training and capacity development or workshops 0.602 cross-disciplinary networks with social partners 0.598 intervention and development programmes 0.571 informal information exchange 0.755 oral or written testimony or advice 0.748 students 0.6 popular publications 0.773 public conferences, seminars or workshops 0.724 eigenvalues 6.765 1.696 1.399 1.385 % explained variance 35.61 8.929 7.362 7.288 cummulative % of variance 35.61 44.54 51.9 59.185 aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 159 outputs from engagement this dimension recorded a kmo of 0.868 which is deemed to be ‘great’ for adequacy of the sample and a bartlett’s test of sphericity which yielded a significant chi-square value of 1112.387 at p 0.000 – with both tests hinting at the appropriateness of factor analysis (see table 9). table 9: kmo and bartlett's test kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy 0.868 bartlett’s test of sphericity approx. chi-square 1112.387 df 55 sig. 0 table 10 illustrates that the outputs that resulted from academic interaction with external social actors were of an academic, and social and economic nature as the only two factors which were extracted. the items which clustered under the social and economic factor were new or improved products/processes, scientific discoveries and community infrastructure and facilities with factor loadings above 0.7. 160 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 table 10: rotated component matrix on outputs rescaled component social & economic traditional academic new or improved products 0.875 new or improved processes 0.803 scientifc discoveries 0.719 community infrastructure and facilities 0.707 snip-off companies 0.664 cultural artifacts 0.539 academic publications 0.841 dissertations 0.841 reports, policty documents and popular publications 0.733 academic collaboration 0.704 graduates with relevant skill and values 0.657 eigenvalues 3.684 2.95 % explained variance 33.487 26.814 cummulative % of variance 33.487 60.301 aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 161 the results indicate that the social and economic factor had an eigenvalue of 3.684 and accounted for about a third (33%) of the variance in this dimension. the two factors accounted for two thirds of the variance in this dimension. outcomes and benefits of engagement this dimension posted a ‘superb’ kmo value of 0.913 and a bartlett’s test of sphericity chi square of 2452.745 (190) significant at p 0.000. these results also attest to the appropriateness of using factor analysis in terms of sample adequacy and sphericity (see table 11 below). table 11: kmo and bartlett's test kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy 0.913 bartlett’s test of sphericity approx. chi-square 2452.745 df 190 sig. 0 table 12 illustrates that the outcomes and benefits that resulted from their engagement with external social partners were mainly social development and academic. eight items clustered around the social development factor which had an eigenvalue of 8.704 and accounted for about 44% of the variance in the outcomes and benefits dimension. these items range from regional development to incorporation of indigenous knowledge. under engagement clustered items such as intervention plans and guidelines as well as policy interventions. 162 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 table 12: rotated component matrix on outcomes and benefits rescaled component social development academic benefit engagement regional development 0.793 improved quality of life for individuals and communities 0.781 improved livelihoods for individuals and communities 0.761 community empowerment and agency 0.719 community employment generation 0.645 firm employment generation 0.628 firm productivity and competitiveness 0.598 incorporation of indigenous knowledge 0.559 relevant research focus and research projects 0.793 theoretical & methodological development in an academic field 0.79 academic and institutional reputation 0.779 participatory curriculum development, new academic programmes and materials 0.675 cross-disciplinary knowledge production to deal with multi-faceted social problems 0.633 interventions plans and guidelines 0.711 community-based campaigns 0.707 community training and skills development 0.675 policy interventions 0.657 public awareness and advocacy eigenvalues 8.704 2.474 1.935 % explained variance 43.521 12.372 9.676 cummulative % of variance 43.521 55.893 65.569 aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 163 obstacles and challenges to engagement the kmo test for this dimension produced a value of 0.862 which is considered ‘great’. the bartlett’s test of sphericity also recorded a chi square value of 928.680 which is significant at p 0.000 (see table 13 below). table 13: kmo and bartlett's test kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy 0.862 bartlett’s test of sphericity approx. chi-square 928.68 df 78 sig. 0 table 14 illustrates that the main obstacles and challenges experienced during engagement are lack of academic resources and institutional support and relationships with external social partners. four items clustered under the factor which we termed relationship. this factor with an eigenvalue of 4.111 accounted for about 32% of the variance in this dimension. three items clustered under the institutional factor. the three factors account for about 59% of the total variance in this dimension. 164 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 table 14: rotated component matrix on obstacles and challenges rescaled component relationship academic resource institutional legal problems 0.785 lack of mutual knowledge about partners’ needs and priorities 0.759 unequal power relations and capabilities in relation to external social partners 0.73 negotiating access and establishing a dialogue with external social partners 0.709 too few academic staff 0.718 competing priorities on time 0.603 limited financial resurces for competing university priorities 0.595 instutional recognition systems do not reward academic interaction activity sufficiently 0.547 risk of students involvement in interaction with external social partners 0.681 lack of clear university policty and structures to promote interaction 0.67 university administration and bureaucracy does support academic interaction with external social patterns 0.58 eigenvalues 4.111 1.826 1.731 % explained variance 31.624 14.048 13.317 cummulative % of variance 31.624 45.672 58.989 aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 165 discussion modes of engagement it was observed that for the university of limpopo, the interaction with external partners and faculties are primarily with firms and communities which had high factor loadings. these findings concur with kruss et al. (2012, p.31) who found communities and firms as the “most frequent partners . . . reported by academics in south african universities”. the engagement with large firms, multinational enterprises and small, medium and micro-sized enterprises (smmes), highlights the importance of university-industry linkages. the link to community could be surmised to reflect both the rural nature of the university as well as the relevance of community engagement which is developmental in orientation. regarding the types of relationships with external social actors, the most prominent variables which loaded to this factor were contract and collaborative research, technology transfer and participatory research networks. typically such activities are bi-directional and mutually beneficial representing examples of genuine community-university interactions. channels of information with respect to channels of information, software development or adaptation for social uses; technology and innovation hubs as well as patent application were important in the case of ul. these channels of information are direct, formal and arguably knowledge intensive. this opens new opportunities for re-imagining and re-thinking new forms of community-university interactions that are related to technological innovation. in contrast, kruss et al. (2012, p.54) found that “channels of information for rural based universities included welfare and civil society”. outputs resulting from interaction the outputs resulting from academic interaction with social actors were of a traditional academic, social and economic nature. likewise, kruss et al. (2012, p.45) also found that “academic and social economic outputs are the 166 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 two main factors.” this indicates that community engagement provided a feasible platform for knowledge exchange between the university and the community which augurs well for mutual capacity development by enabling the university and the community to further embed conventional knowledge/ development exchanges but does suggest that there is room for more innovative forms of engaged scholarship that fit the challenges of the 21st century (national planning commission, 2013). benefits from the interactions outcomes and benefits which result from community engagement with external social partners represent the purpose of these engagements. the benefits include regional development; improved quality of life for communities; firm productivity and competitiveness; incorporation of indigenous knowledge as well as cross disciplinary knowledge production. this corresponds with findings of, wood, and zuber-skerrit, (2013) and thomson, smith-tolken, naidoo, and bringle (2011). this suggests that community engagement presents opportunities to produce new and creative responses to societal problems through the enhancement of livelihoods. constraints to interactions in this case, the key obstacles and challenges experienced during engagement with external social partners were a lack of academic resources and institutional support. the lack of resources and institutional support suggests that from an institutional perspective, ce is not reaching its full potential because the energy to promote ce; the student/academic benefits – as well as community benefits – are tied to the motivations of individuals, or departments. this corresponds with the findings of holzer, and kass (2015), chimucheka, 2012, thomson et al. (2011) and cyril, smith, possamai-inesedy and renzaho, 2015 who also point towards a lack of resources and institutional support for ce at most heis in south africa on the one hand, the reality that many universities face the challenge of identifying sustainable support for ce emphasises the disorienting space that many have argued engaged interactions are situated, within the broader ce landscape. on the other hand, that argument masks the uneven territory that aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 167 all heis negotiate. it is unquestionably the case that some universities are able to commit funds and support to ce by virtue of either their size or their historical advantages and others do not have that luxury. given that there appears to be a national consensus that the community-university knowledge interface does add value (doe , 1997), there is a logical argument for considering a national re-orientation towards engaged activities for specific universities that claim to be ‘disadvantaged’ or could simply ‘do better’ if the resources were available (selvaratnam, 2013). one avenue could be to identify mechanisms to undertake baseline situational analyses of ce at these institutions and reward innovative ideas to radically improve – in accountable, measurable ways – ce at multiple spheres of institutional activity. such a shift in orientation from heis ‘expecting resources’, to heis demonstrating commitment to coherent and responsive ce in genuine dialogue with appropriate partners might radically alter the ce landscape in favour of institutions that do possess both the institutional will and spirit to rigorously engage. conclusion the article has described the different dimensions of the academic-community interactions of the university of limpopo that emerged from a recent audit. the study set out to answer the following research question: what are the different dimensions of the university of limpopo’s academic-community interactions? the results suggest that although ce is not fully institutionalised at ul, committed academics have close relationships with external social partners that include heterogeneous partnerships amongst civil society and the third sector. the main reported obstacles and challenges experienced during engagement included a lack of resources and intuitional support and a network to identify external social partners. in this regard, the results provide guiding parameters to improve the scale and reach of ce at the university of limpopo and a snapshot of the architecture and terrain of engaged scholarship at a rural-based hei in south africa. the study only used a quantitative survey-based research approach with structured questionnaire. it is suggested that further qualitative research 168 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 should be undertaken to capture and explore the in-depth other factors associated with different dimensions of the academic-community interactions of the university of limpopo. acknowledgements this work is based on the research supported by the national research foundation. this audit was undertaken with funding from the national research foundation (nrf) as part of a broader research project titled ‘community engagement and capabilities: brokering knowledge in a dynamic rural landscape’. any view, finding and conclusion expressed in this article is solely that of the authors and the nrf does not accept any liability in this regard. the authors of this article would like to acknowledge the hsrc for the use of the ce audit instrument, ul community for participating in the ul ce audit 2012-2013 and the ul students, nrf bursary holders and community members who assisted in the data collection. aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 169 references ahmed, s.m., and palermo, a-g.s. 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(2013). palar as a methodology for community engagement by faculties of education. south african journal of education, 33(4), 1–15. 178 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 appendix 1: ul community engagement audit 2013/2014 name of faculty: ______________________________________________________ academic rank: ______________________________________________________ highest qualification: ______________________________________________________ 1. to what extent do you interact through your academic work with any of these external social actors? external social actors not at all isolated instances on a moderate scale on a wide scale 1 2 3 4 1 local government agencies 9 9 9 9 2 provincial/regional government departments or agencies 9 9 9 9 3 n ational government departments 9 9 9 9 4 clinics and health centres 9 9 9 9 5 schools 9 9 9 9 6 n ational regulatory and advisory agencies 9 9 9 9 7 individuals and households 9 9 9 9 8 a specific local community 9 9 9 9 9 w elfare agencies 9 9 9 9 10 n on-governmental agencies (n g o s) 9 9 9 9 11 d evelopment agencies 9 9 9 9 12 t rade unions 9 9 9 9 13 civic associations 9 9 9 9 14 community organisations 9 9 9 9 15 social movements 9 9 9 9 16 political organisations 9 9 9 9 17 religious organisations 9 9 9 9 18 large national firms 9 9 9 9 19 small, medium and micro enterprises 9 9 9 9 20 m ulti-national companies 9 9 9 9 21 small-scale farmers (non-commercial) 9 9 9 9 aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 179 22 commercial farmers 9 9 9 9 23 sectoral organisations 9 9 9 9 24 n ational universities 9 9 9 9 25 african universities 9 9 9 9 26 international universities 9 9 9 9 27 science councils 9 9 9 9 28 funding agencies 9 9 9 9 29a o ther 9 9 9 9 29b specify 2. to what extent does your academic scholarship involve these types of relationship with external social actors? types of relationship not at all isolated instances on a moderate scale on a wide scale 1 2 3 4 1 alternative modes of delivery to accommodate non-traditional students 9 9 9 9 2 w ork integrated learning 9 9 9 9 3 education of students so that they are socially responsive 9 9 9 9 4 service learning 9 9 9 9 5 student voluntary outreach programmes 9 9 9 9 6 collaborative curriculum design 9 9 9 9 7 continuing education or professional development 9 9 9 9 8 customised training and short courses 9 9 9 9 9 policy research, analysis and advice 9 9 9 9 10 expert testimony 9 9 9 9 11 clinical services and patient or client care 9 9 9 9 12 d esign and testing of new interventions or protocols 9 9 9 9 13 d esign, prototyping and testing of new technologies 9 9 9 9 180 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 14 m onitoring, evaluation and needs assessment 9 9 9 9 15 research consultancy 9 9 9 9 16 t echnology transfer 9 9 9 9 17 contract research 9 9 9 9 18 collaborative research & d evelopment (r& d ) projects 9 9 9 9 19 community-based research projects 9 9 9 9 20 participatory research networks 9 9 9 9 21 joint commercialisation of a new product 9 9 9 9 22a o ther 9 9 9 9 23b specify 3. to what extent have you used each of the following channels of information to transfer your knowledge to external social actors? channels of information not at all isolated instances on a moderate scale on a wide scale 1 2 3 4 1 public conferences, seminars or workshops 9 9 9 9 2 informal information exchange 9 9 9 9 3 radio, television or newspapers 9 9 9 9 4 popular publications 9 9 9 9 5 interactive websites 9 9 9 9 6 students 9 9 9 9 7 reports and policy briefings 9 9 9 9 8 o ral or writen testimony or advice 9 9 9 9 9 t raining and capacity development or workshops 9 9 9 9 10 d emonstration projects or units 9 9 9 9 11 research contracts and commissions 9 9 9 9 12 t echnology incubators or innovation hubs 9 9 9 9 13 intervention and development programmes 9 9 9 9 14 software development or adaptation for social uses 9 9 9 9 aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 181 15 participatory or action research projects 9 9 9 9 16 cross-disciplinary networks with social partners 9 9 9 9 17 t echnology development and application networks 9 9 9 9 18 patent applications and registration 9 9 9 9 19 spin-off firms from the university (commercial or not for profit) 9 9 9 9 20a o ther 9 9 9 9 20b specify 4. to what extent has your academic interaction with external social actors had the following outputs? outputs not at all isolated instances on a moderate scale on a wide scale 1 2 3 4 1 g raduates with relevant skills and values 9 9 9 9 2 academic publications 9 9 9 9 3 d issertations 9 9 9 9 4 reports, policy documents and popular publications 9 9 9 9 5 cultural artifacts 9 9 9 9 6 academic collaboration 9 9 9 9 7 spin-off companies 9 9 9 9 8 community infrastructure and facilities 9 9 9 9 9 n ew or improved products 9 9 9 9 10 n ew or improved processes 9 9 9 9 11 scientific discoveries 9 9 9 9 12 o ther 9 9 9 9 13 specify 182 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 5. to what extent has your academic interaction had the following outcomes or benefits? outcomes and benefits not at all isolated instances on a moderate scale on a wide scale 1 2 3 4 1. public awareness and advocacy 9 9 9 9 2 imroved teaching and learning 9 9 9 9 3 community-based campaigns 9 9 9 9 4 policy interventions 9 9 9 9 5 intervention plans and guidelines 9 9 9 9 6 community training and skills development 9 9 9 9 7 community employment generaion 9 9 9 9 8 firm employment generation 9 9 9 9 9 firm productivity and competitiveness 9 9 9 9 10 n ovel uses of technology 9 9 9 9 11 improved livelihoods for individuals and communities 9 9 9 9 12 improved quality of life for individuals and communities 9 9 9 9 13 regional development 9 9 9 9 14 community empowerment and agency 9 9 9 9 15 incorporation of indigenous knowledge 9 9 9 9 16 participatory curriculum development, new academic programmes and materials 9 9 9 9 17 relevant research focus and new research projects 9 9 9 9 18 academic and institutional reputation 9 9 9 9 19 t heoretical and methodological development in an academic field 9 9 9 9 20 cross-disciplinary knowledge production to deal with multi-faceted social problems 9 9 9 9 21a o ther 9 9 9 9 21b specify aphane, mtapuri, burman and mollel: academic interaction. . . 183 6. in your experience, how important are the following obstacles and challenges to your academic interaction with external social actors? obstacles and challenges not important slightly important moderately important very important 1 2 3 4 1. limited financial resources for competing university priorities 9 9 9 9 2. lack of clear university policy and structures to promote interaction 9 9 9 9 3 u niversity administration and bureaucracy does not support academic interaction with external social partners 9 9 9 9 4 competing priorities on time 9 9 9 9 5 t oo few academic staff 9 9 9 9 6 institutional recognition systems do not reward academic interaction activities sufficiently 9 9 9 9 7 risks of student involvement in interaction with external social partners 9 9 9 9 8 t ensions between traditional and new academic paradigms and methodologies 9 9 9 9 9 sustainable external funding 9 9 9 9 10 n egotiating access and establishing a dialogue with external social partners 9 9 9 9 11 u nequal power relations and capabilities in relation to external social partners 9 9 9 9 12 legal problems 9 9 9 9 13 lack of mutual knowledge about partners’ needs and priorities 9 9 9 9 14a o ther 9 9 9 9 14b specify 184 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 marota aphane the rural development and innovation hub university of limpopo marota.aphane@gmail.com oliver mtapuri school of built environment and development studies university of kwazulu-natal simbaomtapuri@yahoo.com chris burman the rural development and innovation hub university of limpopo burmanc@edupark.ac.za naftali mollel the rural development and innovation hub university of limpopo naftali.mollel@ul.ac.za mailto:marota.aphane@gmail.com mailto:simbaomtapuri@yahoo.com mailto:burmanc@edupark.ac.za mailto:naftali.mollel@ul.ac.za journal of education, 2016 issue 66, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za the what and how in scripted lesson plans: the case of the gauteng primary language and mathematics strategy yael shalem, carola steinberg, hannchen koornhof and francine de clercq (received 25 april 2016; accepted 9 november 2016) abstract lesson plans are advocated as useful forms of teacher support because they can expand a repertoire of teaching practices. but what kinds of scripted instruction can effectively guide and improve teachers’ instruction and how can lesson plans achieve that? this article examines the nature and purpose of the scripted lesson plans (slps) used in the gauteng primary education system and then investigates how teachers enacted these routinised slps. through a review of the literature on teaching english language and on slps, the article assesses the opportunities and challenges afforded by the gauteng primary language and mathematics strategy’s (gplms’s) lesson plans for grade 3 english as first additional language (fal). then, through an analysis of an english fal lesson taught differently by two teachers, it points to the many professional judgements made by the teachers as they enact the prescribed teaching routine. our analysis suggests, firstly, that the knowledge resources given to teachers need to be considerably more detailed and, secondly, that teachers need strong subject matter knowledge to transmit the conceptual relations that underlie the teaching routines of the lesson plan. introduction the gauteng primary language and mathematics strategy (gplms) was a four-year, large-scale, government-based, literacy and numeracy intervention (2010–2013) targeting underperforming primary schools and is considered the most innovative recent development programme in south african education. learners’ poor results on annual national assessments (anas) and growing evidence of unstructured teaching practices, in particular in terms of lesson planning, pedagogy and inadequate curriculum coverage, gave rise to this multi-pronged intervention (botha, 2014; fleisch & schöer, 2014). 14 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 the idea for this paper developed from a critical review of the professional development 1 programmes which the gauteng department of education (gde) introduced in the first 20 years of democracy (de clercq and shalem, 2014). the main finding of the review was that until 2009, most of the programmes were targeted at the improvement of a few discrete aspects of teacher practice, to comply with a new curriculum framework. around 2009, the gde turned towards scripted teaching in the form of standardised lesson plans so as to engineer a whole new practice for teachers in order to improve learners’ results. this second phase incorporation was rather controversial for some gde district officials who2 did not want slps in their schools. in addition, the training of school-based hods and district subject advisors to assume the coaches’ role was relatively neglected. championed by the gauteng mec for education in 2010, the gplms targeted close to 12 000 teachers in 1 000 primary schools that scored below the provincial and national average learner results. the aim was to increase the grade 3 and 6 pass rate of languages and mathematics in the foundation and intermediate phases from below 40% in 2010 to at least 60% by 2014 (gde, 2010) through improved teaching and a reduced gap between the intended and enacted curriculum. the intervention was considered successful and was incorporated into the structures of the gauteng department of education (gde) in 2014. 1 the main feature of the gplms were scripted lesson plans (slps) for the subjects of mathematics, home language (versioned into the 11 official languages of south africa), and english as a first additional language (english fal). the slps were accompanied by graded readers, phonics tables, posters, workbooks for learners, ‘just-in-time’ training and ‘ongoing in-class coaching’ for teachers. coaches observed teachers and acted as critical friends, modelling the new teaching routines and assisting with how to plan, prepare and deliver the slps. when the intervention moved into a second phase inside the gde, the district subject advisors and school-based2 hods were tasked with the coaches’ role of supporting and monitoring teachers. this has made gplms slps a central feature of these primary schools. the lesson plans for english fal translate the weekly content and skills set out in the curriculum assessment policy statement (caps, 2011) into core teaching routines (‘greetings’, ‘phonics’, ‘listening and speaking’, ‘shared reading’, ‘group guided reading’, ‘language use’), and specify the pacing of the learning activities with strict daily timeframes, standardised for the whole school year. the slps provide content, questions, activities and forms shalem, steinberg, koornhof and de clercq: the what and how. . . 15 of assessment. they are aligned to formal assessment materials (e.g. assessment tasks, mark sheets) and refer to government-produced/prescribed learners’ materials. by embedding core teaching routines sequentially into a full lesson plan, the gplms developers hoped that teachers would be enabled to “improve time on task and establish new daily and weekly routines” (fleisch and schöer 2014, p.3). the plans are designed as “a practical mechanism to provide knowledge resources to teachers in a direct manner” (needu 2013, p.62) and provide “systematic, paced, and easily accessible lessons for the teachers to follow” (fleisch and schöer 2014, p.3). although evidence cannot yet determine which component of the gplms intervention was most effective (fleisch and schöer, 2014), benchmark test results show that the lower-performing schools in the gplms have improved their scores. small-scale research evidence, based largely on interviews with teachers, shows that some teachers feel they are slowly developing more productive teaching routines of coverage and pacing (de clercq, 2014) and that coaches were instrumental to teachers’ understanding and interpretation of curriculum documents (masterson, 2013). the most recent randomised evaluation of a 9-month implementation of home language slps in setswana (cilliers, fleisch, prinsloo, taylor, & van der berg, 2016) in poor schools showed that the worst-performing learners benefited less from the intervention, and that better-performing teachers improved more. the researchers suggest that for schools located in resource-constrained environments, “the lesson plans need to be further simplified to benefit those schools” (p.13). at present there is no research which examines how teachers enact these slps nor in what ways their enactment is guided by the lesson plans and in what ways by their teacher knowledge. the double question this paper addresses is: what knowledge resources do the gplms slps make available for teachers, and what teacher knowledge do the slps assume for enactment? we believe that this is an important question in view of research which consistently shows that gaps in teacher knowledge is a major influence on the teaching and learning in underperforming schools (hoadley, 2012; taylor and taylor, 2013). drawn from ten lesson observations and selected interviews with five teachers who participated in the gplms intervention, this paper focuses on the enactment of slps by two foundation phase (fp) teachers. the lessons were taught in 2015, the second year after the coaching component was terminated. 16 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 in this paper we first locate and assess the english fal grade 3 slps in terms of two debates: on teaching grammar as an aspect of teaching reading and writing, and on the purpose and nature of slps. then we examine two teachers’ different enactments of the same lesson plan, namely an english fal grade 3 lesson on the topic ‘countable and uncountable nouns’, analysing the decisions they made regarding the content and their modifications of the slp. the two teachers worked with the same lesson plan on the same day, thus enabling the opportunity of an in-depth comparison. teaching grammar in first additional language (fal) tracing the history of the ‘grammar wars’ in england from the 1950s to the 1970s, clark (2005, p.33) analyses how the government policies “abandoned the teaching of standard english grammar and canonical english literature”. she argues that “creative writing, spoken english and contemporary fiction which reflected students’ experiences”, took the place of grammar, with very little attention to “accuracy and correctness”. when in the 1980s, a different government attempted to re-introduce ‘traditional’ grammar teaching, they faced opposition at schools, where teachers did not want to return to a pedagogy of “mechanistic drill”, and at universities, where traditional grammar had been “linguistically discredited” (2005, p.42) by systemic functionalists, who emphasised the meaning conveyed by grammatical structures. this led to an ongoing educational debate about why and how to teach grammar as an aspect of language teaching – pitting the traditionalists, who wanted the formal properties of language to be taught as a separate component of english against the socio-linguists, who emphasised the social nature of language and situated learning. a mediating force were the systemic functionalists who argued for language teaching to include a systematic presentation of language structures as embedded in the meaning conveyed by a text. this three-cornered debate was often simplified into opposing binaries – traditional vs. progressive, standard vs. geographic-determined forms of english, abstract vs. contextual teaching, rote-learning vs. understanding, form vs. meaning, phonics and grammar approach vs. whole language approach, grammar rules vs. language awareness, etc. to overcome the binaries, chall (1967, in stahl 2001) suggested that a ‘mixed approach’ would be a more desirable methodology, which has become a generally accepted route for curriculum and learning materials developers. shalem, steinberg, koornhof and de clercq: the what and how. . . 17 the english home language grammar debates have influenced international debates about how to teach english as a foreign/second/first additional language (efl, esl, fal), generally favouring a communicative approach. but even the most communicative approaches put some grammar into the mix, because when learning a new language, an understanding of basic grammatical structures is necessary to provide the knowledge of “how some lexical items should be combined into a good sentence so that meaningful and communicative statements or expressions can be formed” (widodo, 2006). heugh (2013, p.15) puts forward a stronger position. she warns that communicative language and whole language approaches to teaching english do not work for second language “poor, working class, urban” or “indigenous” school communities, because they are “misunderstood to mean an emphasis on spoken language rather than reading and writing” and they “make no allowance for children from homes with limited literacy practices”. this is particularly an issue in south africa, where for young children learning english fal is intertwined with the acquisition of reading and writing. the national curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) (2011, p.8) promotes an “additive bilingualism”, so children in grade 1 “learn to read and write in their home language” on the assumption that they have a strong oral foundation in it, and then simultaneously “listen to and learn to speak english as an additional language”. this is in preparation for “learning to read and write english in grades 2 and 3”, and then “using english as the language of learning and teaching (lolt) in grade 4”. yet providing only three years for building learners’ bilingualism is unrealistic because it does not allow for academic proficiency to develop in a second language. reeves, heugh, prinsloo, macdonald et al. (2008, p.2) argue that “language and literacy acquisition and development anchor subsequent cognitive development and academic proficiency”. they draw on cummins (1977) who makes a distinction between basic interpersonal communication skills (bics) and cognitive academic language proficiency (calp). calp is the kind of language proficiency necessary for engaging with academic concepts in the language of learning and teaching (lolt). according to cummins, bics can be acquired relatively quickly, whereas, even under optimal conditions, calp requires six to eight years. what supports the acquisition of calp for learners of a second language is a strong foundation in the reading and writing of their home language (to allow for the transfer of linguistic knowledge and literacy strategies to the second language), immersion in the second language at school, and suitably competent teachers of english as a 18 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 second language who simultaneously strongly validate learners’ home language (heugh, 2013). these conditions are generally absent in south africa. for grade 3, the caps english fal allocates time for listening & speaking, reading & phonics, writing and language use. language use should provide “a good knowledge of vocabulary and grammar” (2011, p.17) i.e. 1500–2500 words, plus simple present, present progressive, simple past and future tenses; countable and uncountable nouns; the articles ‘a/an’ and ‘the’ with nouns; the possessive form of nouns; there is/are; comparative adjectives, demonstrative pronouns; question forms (2011, p.22). there is no mention of any teaching approach for vocabulary and grammar, other than that children “learn incidentally through exposure to the spoken language” and there are “specific activities focused on language use” (2011, p.17). as the gplms lesson plans explicitly follow the caps curriculum (botha, 2014), this undefined “mixed approach” continues into the gplms lesson plans. what the gplms lesson plans have done regarding language use is to follow ‘the non-negotiable regime’ provided by caps (botha, 2014) by inserting grammatical structures into the weeks where they were allocated by the national curriculum. in sum, south african teachers have to contend with the tensions within the mixed method in addition to the host of social and linguistic difficulties that form part of their teaching contexts. purpose and forms of lesson plans: teachers’ versus learners’ learning lesson plans (lps) have different purposes, most commonly to ensure that teachers enact the national curriculum which establishes central control and regulates consistency and uniformity across the school system. lps are often introduced to raise low standardised reading and literacy test scores that exist in many parts of the world (reeves, 2010; commeyras, 2007). lps are also envisaged as curriculum resources which can possibly deepen teachers’ subject matter knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and knowledge of how student thinking develops (davenport, 2009), in particular in disadvantaged communities with poorly qualified teachers (beatty 2011, p.410). the literature distinguishes two approaches to the scripting of shalem, steinberg, koornhof and de clercq: the what and how. . . 19 teaching practice which reflect a different purpose emphasis: ‘scripted instruction’, known also as direct instruction (di) (bereiter & englemann, 1966) and ‘educative curriculum material’ (ecm) (davis and krajcik, 2005; morris & hiebert, 2011; hiebert & morris, 2012). direct instruction (di) uses a top-down approach by scripting what teachers need to do and say. for english language and literacy teaching, the national reading panel (2 000) found that di was used for phonics programs (p.107), to “remediate the decoding and phonemic awareness difficulties” (p.147) and also for reading (p.155) and spelling (p.161). in an open access course which teaches the principles of di, athabasca university describes the structure of di as involving “a carefully designed sequence of items that are presented by the teacher one after the other” (‘open module on engelmann and direct instruction’, n.d.). di is built on two premises. first, if ‘technical problems’ such as “ambiguous communication, the learner’s lack of necessary background knowledge, or inadequate practice to master what is presented” can be controlled “the mind will learn [as] it is wired to do so” (barbash, 2012, p.10). second, teachers do not possess the expertise to teach well and they need curricula which are teacher-proof (reeves, 2010, p.244). by building a logical sequence required for the concept at hand, precisely specifying the teachers’ examples and prompts, and allowing for only one correct answer from the learners, di intends to minimise learners’ wrong inferences and/or conceptual ambiguity, making sure that the children will receive the rule of the concepts they need to learn. the prescribed style of instruction is brisk, with the teacher constantly monitoring student understanding (kozioff et al., 2001 in kim & axelrod 2005, p.114) through teacher-directed prompts and modelling. educative curriculum materials (ecm) refers to curriculum materials (including textbooks) designed to develop the multiple knowledge bases needed to enact the curriculum. the conception of ecm intends to engage teachers in “the ideas underlying the writers’ decisions and suggestions” (remillard 2005, p.347). most importantly, rather than merely guiding what the teachers need to do, ecms aim to “speak to teachers about the ideas underlying the tasks” (davis and krajcik, 2005, p.5). hiebert and morris (2012) claim that developing annotated lps (or slps) for teachers would reduce the problem many teachers experience of transferring formally acquired knowledge to classroom practice. they believe that, by following pre-annotated teaching routines, teachers would learn to see the routines in 20 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 interestingly, the topic is not presented to hl learners and usually not part of esl3 programmes until much later. the context of “the surrounding feature of the lesson” rather than as a technique in isolation, and eventually, by testing the routines in their own context teachers would learn to generalise: they “induce that the routine is a more general skill that might play a useful role in lessons not yet taught” (hiebert and morris, 2012, p.96). they envision a case-by-case lesson plan design process which culminates in instructional products – artefacts that are archived and available for public use and revision (2011, p.9). the success of developing ecms would rely on knowledgeable and confident teachers who understand the concepts which underlie the routines and activities of annotated lessons, know how to experiment with lesson plans, and can advise on what needs to change as well as effect the actual changes to such plans. this condensed review of debates about esl teaching and different kinds of lps will now contextualis e and inform our analysis of the gplms english (fal) slps. gplms english (fal) slps the space given to teachers’ reliance on their professional judgement changed significantly from the first democratic era’s curriculum framework (curriculum, 2005) published in 1998 to the caps framework in 2012. c2005 did not provide specified curriculum content and teachers were told to design their own learning programmes as long as they met specified learner outcomes. the curriculum framework was then reworked twice, each time with more curriculum content specification. the current caps specifies content and assessment practices but not the tasks required for the ‘how to’ of teaching and enacting the curriculum. the gplms slps fill this gap. the specific lesson topic under discussion is specified as ‘language use and appears three times at different points of the english (fal) grade 3 syllabus. the content is taken from caps, with the gplms lesson plan providing the teaching activity. the outcome of “understanding ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’ nouns” is formulated very broadly. the rationale for including this topic in the curriculum is not explained. as a loose-standing item of3 knowledge, it has no ostensible purpose or significance, unless the teachers shalem, steinberg, koornhof and de clercq: the what and how. . . 21 choose to create this. the lesson plan demands very little of learners: they simply need to recognise that some things are ‘countable’ and others are not. yet the 30 minutes prescribed time suggests to teachers that a substantial lesson needs to be devised. the naming of the activity (‘language use’) gives teachers licence to interpret it in either a grammar or a whole language approach. the activity of the slp stipulates eight steps, which we refer to as a ‘protocol of actions’. the protocol of actions adopts an ambiguous position regarding the approach to teaching this topic: under ‘resources needed’, it specifies objects from real life and suggests everyday contexts, yet the reference to the grammatical structure ‘nouns’ suggests that teaching a formal grammar concept is appropriate. the itemised presentation of the objects and how they are to be used to generate an understanding of the difference between countable and uncountable nouns falls more into a grammar approach, with the objects serving as a tool for enlivening the lesson and making it memorable, rather than creating a setting for communicative learning. there is no specific indication to help teachers establish whether they have achieved the outcome of the lesson, or that learners have understood. 22 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 the interpretation of the lesson is thus left to teachers, who are required to bring their own knowledge to decide on how to contextualise the slp’s content, which aspects of the topic to emphasise and how to teach it to their specific learners. like di, the protocol of actions in this lesson prescribes the language structure and examples plus the activities, but unlike di, it provides no precise series of questions to ensure conceptual understanding. like ecm, the protocol does not specify a complete script of teachers’ talk, but unlike ecm, it offers no insight into the rationale underlying the protocol of actions. the lesson can be taught by using its content as a starting point for experiential learning in line with the whole language approach or by using a more formalistic approach that conceives of this lesson as focusing on a grammatical structure. these interpretations will be substantially influenced by teachers’ knowledge. teachers can frame the grammatical structure of ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’ nouns by linking it to previous language use lessons or by relying on everyday knowledge as part of larger building blocks of knowledge and understanding. since none of the ‘language use’ topics are accompanied by explanations, teachers are assumed to have this knowledge, be it from teacher education programmes, the caps curriculum or any other knowledge resource they have access to. for each subject and grade, the gplms slps assume teachers will engage with the content, introduce more content, link the concept of one lesson to the content of previous lessons, and adapt the teaching of the content to learners’ needs. total teacher compliance is not envisaged. according to teacher interviews, hods and district officials only monitor learners’ workbooks to establish whether the teachers correctly follow the curriculum pacing stipulated by the slps. analysis of the enactment of the lp on ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’ nouns our empirical research compared how the gplms scripted lesson plan on ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’ nouns was taught by two different teachers in similar schools. the following discussion highlights certain decisions the teachers made that involved professional judgement. to answer our research question of what knowledge the gplms slps make available for teachers and what teacher knowledge the slps assume for a full and orderly enactment, we investigate the following empirical questions: shalem, steinberg, koornhof and de clercq: the what and how. . . 23 the use of articles as a tool for teaching ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’ nouns is usually4 done at a relatively advanced stage of esl training in most esl programmes. 1. how did the teachers follow the protocol of actions specified in the lesson plan, specifically focussing on the decisions they made when they enacted these actions? 2. what knowledge resources are contained in the slp to assist the teachers in making these decisions? relevant information relating to the background of the school, the teacher and class is provided to convey a more comprehensive contextual picture. teacher 1: palesa palesa works in a newly built township school which has overcrowded classrooms but well-maintained buildings. the school offers isizulu as hl and english as fal. palesa has a senior primary teaching diploma and acted as a sesotho coach for the gplms for a few years. her class has 55 learners, making the class quite crowded. the walls are covered in posters and artwork and the blackboard has a large paper clock in the centre, some flash cards on the far left and a cloze exercise on the right. there is not a space in the class that is not overwhelmingly filled with objects and visuals. her forceful teaching style captures the attention of the learners who are attentive throughout the lesson. in the post-lesson interview, palesa explained that every thursday she starts thinking about the lesson plans for the following week. she reads the lesson plans, checking what resources she will need and, if a lesson seems difficult, she decides if she needs to “do more research on that particular lesson plan”. palesa emphasised that ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’ nouns “[was] a difficult topic to deal with, especially for first additional language . . .”. in order to help the learners, palesa said she wanted “to simplify and try to come up with teaching aids, or aids that will help learners to realise, or to see the difference between being able to count something and being not able to count”. palesa used elements of a second lesson, one that is scheduled for several weeks into the future. she decided to use articles (a/an and the) as a way to distinguish between ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’ nouns. it is significant that this was her choice of ‘aid’ and it raises a number of important issues. first, this is indicative of a far more sophisticated understanding of grammar than4 24 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 the correct expression of the rule would have been that both ‘a’ and ‘the’ can be used for5 singular ‘countable’ nouns depending on desired meaning, that both plural ‘countable’ nouns and singular ‘uncountable’ nouns always take ‘the’, and that ‘uncountable’ nouns do not have a plural form and take neither article. this expression of the rule is clearly beyond the level of grade 3 and palesa wisely did not attempt it. any of the three slps on this topic expect. in the later lesson on articles that she chose to incorporate, there is no explicit link to ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’ nouns. from what palesa said to the learners in the lesson and to us in the interview, it is clear that she intended to look at the two sets of grammatical structures relationally, that she thought both were difficult for the learners to grasp and both needed to be acquired independently and together. second, using articles (a/an and the) to distinguish between ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’ nouns suggests that palesa is attempting to make the grammar meaningful by linking the concept of un/countable nouns to how they are used in sentences. she is going beyond simply following the protocol by tapping into what she understands to be the underlying rationale of the lesson plan. in this, she offers a general abstract rule, intended to spell out the relation between ‘definite’ and ‘indefinite’ articles and ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’ nouns. in the first ten minutes of the lesson, palesa effectively offloaded the scripted lesson plan, following the protocol of actions to demonstrate, by means of real objects, that certain things can be counted as individual items (pencils, apples, oranges, books, etc.), and other cannot, because they are present as a mass (water, sugar, flour, milk, etc.). the aim of the lesson at its simplest level (that there are certain things that you can count easily and others not) seemed fairly clear to the learners. had she stopped at this point, she would have covered the lesson plan as scripted. it is with palesa’s introduction of the ‘aid’ that the lesson disintegrated into confusion and inaccurate information. palesa told the class that in english you use ‘a’ when referring to ‘countable’ nouns and ‘the’ when referring to ‘uncountable’ nouns. her statement of the rule was accompanied by flashcards of the words ‘a’ and ‘the’. palesa worked with her5 knowledge of the link between the two language structures in the belief that the link would create a contextual and communicative way of learning countable and uncountable nouns. during the lesson, palesa reinforced her partially incorrect rule by repeating it and by attempting to apply it to examples she or the learners brought for discussion. when a learner offered ‘money’ as a ‘countable’ noun that would use ‘a’, palesa was visibly uncertain about whether to accept that example and shalem, steinberg, koornhof and de clercq: the what and how. . . 25 brushed it aside by asking: ‘and another example?’ the focus then moved on to the word ‘the’, with the admonition of how important and meaningful it is: “if used incorrectly, you will not make sense”. palesa said “we use the word ‘the’ for things that we cannot count” as she poured milk into a glass, and then she asked: “can you tell me how much milk i have in this glass?” there was immediate confusion with some ‘yes’, and some ‘no’ answers. palesa instantly changed the question to: “can you count the milk in this glass?” the confusion abated. palesa repeated the same process with water in a bottle: “can you tell me how much water i have in this bottle?” now the learners unanimously answered: ‘no’. palesa then pointed to a self-made poster depicting several items (three pineapples, two bottles of juice, a bag of oranges, a bunch of bananas and a bottle of milk) and asked the learners to use the article ‘a’ or ‘the’ in front of the pictures. learners wrote on the board: ‘the’ in front of the picture of pineapples; ‘a’ next to the picture of two bottles of juice. in the course of these examples palesa praised the class (‘you were really listening’), but at one point she realised the answers were incorrect within the framework she had created. emphatically she repeated the ‘rule’: ‘if you can count the item, you use ‘a’; if you cannot count it, you use ‘the’. she counted the pineapples with the class. ‘there are three. so which word must come with the pineapples?’ the class answered: ‘the’. however, she ‘corrected’ the answers the learners had given, putting an ‘a’ in front of the three pineapples and ‘the’ in front of the two bottles of juice. realising that there was a problem, she abruptly ended the lesson and said that she will revise the lesson with the class at another time. palesa’s slp modifications indicate that she was attempting to follow the ‘mixed approach’ by teaching the formal properties of language using a communicative classroom interaction. clearly she did not feel restricted by the slp: she treated it as a guide and combined it with own knowledge. um. . .i can say, i use the lesson plan just to direct me what to do on that particular day. and then mostly i use my own knowledge. so i use the lesson plan just to direct me, to say what part of the lesson i should teach for this week. some of the examples that i use in my class are not from the lesson plan. 26 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 teacher 2: sarah sarah works in a poor but well-maintained township school. from 2012, the school has been offering setswana and sesotho as hl and english as fal. sarah completed a bed degree for secondary education in history and human movement science and teaches english as fal to grade 3 learners. the class has 45 learners. sarah, in her post-lesson interview, makes it very clear that she feels it is not only possible but, indeed, important and necessary to deviate from the lp: . . .it’s just a guideline. to me, it’s just a guideline that this is what… this lesson plan, especially the english one, it actually frustrates me. because i think we should be doing more than what the lesson plan dictates. it is so vague. for me, it’s very vague. in her interview, she talked about the constraints of the slp as well as the monitoring system which she feels prevents her from doing a great deal more than the slp requires. she circumvents these constraints by concentrating on how to achieve the lesson outcomes and finding the methods that would accomplish what in her opinion would lead to more effective learning. in response to questions on how she decides on the improvisations and additions to the lesson she enacts, sarah said she has an almost instinctive understanding of how to link topics so that there is a clear logical line in the lesson. she claims she does not do research but thinks about how to present the topic so it will coalesce with prior knowledge and common, everyday knowledge. the way sarah decided to structure the ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’ lesson was through an initial focus on nouns, and then a move to singular and plural nouns. on an otherwise clean board, sarah placed colour-coded flashcards. facing the board, she placed yellow flashcards specifying noun and naming word; in the middle, she placed green flashcards specifying countable nouns and can count. on the right, she placed red flashcards specifying uncountable nouns and cannot count. this structure illustrates her attempt to provide a logical basis for the content: she wanted to teach her learners to think in categories and makes evident her decision to go beyond the slp. she also used the pedagogical technique of colour coding, which she said in the interview creates excitement for learners and makes the categories memorable. shalem, steinberg, koornhof and de clercq: the what and how. . . 27 after a brief revision of what nouns are, not suggested by the lesson plan yet logically connected to the knowledge, sarah proceeded to use realia (like oranges, pencils, books and fingers) to demonstrate the countability of these objects. she placed a number of flashcards under the applicable heading and wrote numbers in front of the words and an ‘s’ after the words to show that these can be used in the plural. in her dealing with ‘uncountable’ nouns, sarah asked the learners if they could think of an example of an ‘uncountable’ noun. this is a question which is not in the slp. the answers from the learners included ‘head’, ‘light’, 'bread' and ‘hair’. these answers suggest that exceptions and more abstract and idiomatic uses of english were readily within the command of these learners, despite them being beginner users of english. these answers from the learners created challenging situations for sarah. sarah had to decide which of these answers were relevant or irrelevant, valid or invalid examples of the rule, and why, and secondly what the best way was to respond pedagogically. her way of dealing with these unexpected responses was to tighten the frame. sarah did not evaluate the examples against the categories of distinctions she offered on the board, instead she corrected them and closed discussion. she did so, for example, by pointing to the ceiling of the classroom and counting strips of neon tubes; by leading questions such as ‘can one say – one water, two waters, three waters?; by conclusive statements such as ‘you cannot say: one sugar, two sugars, three sugars’; by putting her fingers into a cup of water to show learners that water cannot be counted. in her responses sarah avoided complex and ambiguous examples from learners and ignored colloquial forms of expressions that override the general rule. she also did not clarify the confusion that arose from learners’ recognition that ‘uncountable’ nouns were measurable through instruments (cups, spoons, braids, etc.). by teaching grammar through communicative questions and answers, and without offering explanations of the grammar, sarah did not transmit the substance of the criteria she offered on the board. teacher knowledge matters for enactment of slp palesa’s lesson reveals how the slp in its present structure invites teachers to expand and improvise. palesa did not just offload the lesson as it stood, which she could have done and in a fraction of the allocated time. instead, she chose to expose her learners to something more challenging, and which she knew 28 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 they would encounter in the future in modified form. the lack of explicit knowledge input in both of the lesson plans she used meant that palesa relied on her own (partially incorrect) knowledge. had she been clear on the rule and able to convey it adequately, it is possible that she could have enacted a strong and useful lesson for learners. sarah's lesson demonstrated the intricate mosaic created by both planned and immediate professional judgements made during the lesson in response to unexpected answers. the lesson plan is interwoven in sarah’s enactment – she broadly followed its protocol of actions, but she was confronted with learners’ suggestions of words which required her to draw on her knowledge expertise and judge which offering to accept and elaborate, which to ignore and which to redefine. while the slp specifies the protocol of actions to be followed, it does not provide ways in which the concept and different rules around ‘countable’ versus ‘uncountable’ nouns can be transmitted to learners, whether explicitly or implicitly and inductively. ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’ nouns is a difficult grammatical structure to teach. ‘uncountable’ nouns, like water, sugar or flour, depict materials and substances as a mass, not as ‘countable’ individual items. these concrete substances are measurable, and teachers should be able to explain (for example) that it is not correct to say ‘a water’ or ‘the waters’, but it is correct to say ‘a bottle of water’ or ‘the bottles of water’. although both teachers spoke english well, they did not have a sufficient body of grammatical subject knowledge of english to deal with the complications that arose in their interactions with learners. and the slp did not create a logical framework for how knowledge of this topic will assist learners in their use and understanding of english: it was not explicitly linked to any previous grammatically-based lessons and it made no reference to the way in which the content and concept are to be presented or framed for better learners’ understanding. the gplms slp thus relies on teachers having knowledge of english grammar in general, a clear understanding of the concept and rule attached to ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’ nouns in particular and a sense of the communicative significance of the topic. it also assumes understanding of esl principles of how this concept can be taught to grade 3 second language learners, given the sophisticated nature of the concept and the need to keep the explanation simple and within the range of learners’ familiarity with english. research on teacher knowledge maintains that teachers are specialists in what they know because they know it for the purpose of teaching it to others (phelps and schilling, 2004; bertram, 2011). elmore (in city, elmore, shalem, steinberg, koornhof and de clercq: the what and how. . . 29 fiarman & teitel, 2009, p.29) asserts that strong teachers know “the ways in which to sequence, pace and assess the content they teach, the tasks which are appropriate for the content being taught, typical misunderstandings exhibited by learners of that content, and how to scaffold learners’ learning up to the complexity of the task”. clearly, some of these aspects of teacher knowledge can be pre-specified for teachers through the curriculum and with more detail through slps, but knowing and working with learner misunderstandings and scaffolding the complexity of subject matter depends on teachers’ knowledge. this is demonstrated unequivocally in the study on teacher knowledge and lesson enactment by charalambous, hill & mitchell (2012). subject and pedagogical knowledge precedes teaching routines specified by a lesson plan, and enables, or constrains, how a teacher follows the protocol of actions included in the routines. unless they are following the tightly scripted di programme, teachers must be able to analyse, alone or with colleagues, what a lesson plan focuses on, be able to accurately understand the knowledge that is embedded or assumed in the lesson plan and be able to make appropriate decisions regarding how to effectively teach the lesson and its concepts to their specific learners. christopher winch, a philosopher of education, wrote extensively on the differences and relations between ‘organised propositional knowledge’ (formally learned) and ‘practical knowledge’ (such as core methodologies or teaching routines specified by lesson plans or learned by experience). one of winch’s central claims in his work on dimensions expertise (2010, p.104) is that “the possession of relevant systematically organised knowledge is a prerequisite for action”. whilst the debate about which domains teacher knowledge consists of is important in showing that enacting a lesson plan takes place amidst a complexity of teacher knowledges (see ball, thames & phelps, 2008; gess-newsome, 2015; bertram, christiansen and mukeredzi, 2015), what is core to the contribution made by winch on expertise is that the crux of professional practice lies in making professional judgements. according to winch (2010), each profession has a body of deductive and inductive knowledge, i.e. a systematically organised propositional knowledge that professionals follow when they make contextually specific judgements. winch draws a crucial distinction between this systematically organised propositional knowledge and contingent or discrete propositional knowledge. he acknowledges that some professional decisions rely on a “well-established piece of contingent knowledge in a particular context”, which means that these kinds of actions require very little deliberation and do not call for 30 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 professional judgement (2010, p.105), yet arguably, very few decisions in teaching fall into this category. what this suggests is that the possession of organised bodies of propositional knowledge is a necessary condition for action (e.g. for enacting a lesson plan) in teaching. yes, teachers do benefit and should be exposed to a repertoire of techniques and procedures in the form of a protocol of actions, which they can try out and learn from over time, but without the propositional knowledge behind the protocol, teachers are unlikely to know for what reasons one form of action or response is better than another. a systematically organised propositional knowledge provides the ordering principles for the practical wisdom of teaching (shalem and slonimsky, 2013). put differently, teachers’ practical knowledge relies on what they know as specialists in teaching a specific subject and topic prescribed in the curriculum. what they know as specialists about ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’ nouns begins with the grammatical rules about ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’ nouns and its related concepts. then it extends to the purpose of the curriculum they teach, its overall structure, sequence and pacing, why this topic is included in the grade 3 curriculum, which of the rules need to be transmitted to grade 3 learners, and what common mistakes and misconceptions related to the topic they should expect. what teachers need to know as specialists also includes knowledge about the different approaches to teaching english as fal: specifically which of the formal properties of a topic to make explicit and how; when to embed the learning process in an everyday knowledge and when to foreground the language structure embodied in textual meanings covered by the curriculum; when to follow the lesson plan and when it is more appropriate to change to a different routine because that offers a better angle on the topic. all of this propositional knowledge, which is not in the slps, guides teachers when they need to judge the nature of a learner’s response (its clarity and accuracy or how close or far a response is from the general rule or concept underlying the topic under discussion) or when they mediate errors which learners make and decide on how best to respond to those (what to say and when to ignore). conclusion the idea of scripting new teaching routines is understandable in the light of general agreement that many professional development programmes in south africa have failed to make a difference to teachers’ practice and learners’ performance (de clercq and shalem, 2014). an important premise underlying shalem, steinberg, koornhof and de clercq: the what and how. . . 31 the use of slps is that, by following slps and executing the specified teaching routines over a period of time, teachers will experience a new way of teaching, develop new insights into what and how they are teaching and acquire well-structured practices to replace their weak practices. our answer to our research question is that the value of the gplms slps, given their skeleton form, lies ironically with the knowledge the teacher brings to enact the plan. teachers whose organised propositional knowledge is weak will struggle to frame and re-contextualise the protocol of actions in the lesson plans. for these teachers, the conceptual relations between ideas are weak and so are the relations between general ideas and the occurrences which arise in practice, which are hard to predict, but which need to be managed in an educationally sound way. the knowledge resources offered by the gplms slps are a protocol of actions, i.e. aspects of practical knowledge, which are assumed to sufficiently guide teachers on ‘what and how to teach’. this paper argues that following the protocol of actions well, relies on knowing what to teach, recognising distinctions between ways of explaining and representing specific content, and knowing how to apply subject matter knowledge to learners of a specific age and cognitive level of development. being professionals, teachers need to combine their organised propositional knowledge of subject matter with educational considerations such as context, types of knowledge, learning misconceptions, styles of pedagogy, and assessment so as to enact the lesson plans effectively by foregrounding the role of teacher knowledge, we do not deny the general value of slps. we do, however, foreground the interrelation between teacher knowledge and the quality of their enactment of slps. our conclusion is that it is essential to understand which aspects of teacher knowledge can be provided by slps and be acquired through experiencing teaching routines, and which aspects cannot be provided because experience of teaching routines is not sufficient for acquiring that knowledge. slps can provide the knowledge of sequence and pacing of the content to be taught as well as sample routines appropriate for the topic, but they cannot help teachers to know the topic (knowledge of subject matter) and what matters in the topic, nor how to respond to learners who take them beyond the protocol, unless they are vastly expanded. the intentions of completely scripted lesson plans precisely designed to clarify concepts, as in di, as well as ecm type lesson plans that make explicit the underlying knowledge of the lesson could both 32 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 open new possibilities for the redesign of the gplms slp, yet would raise new and important questions beyond the scope of this article. references ball, d., thames, m., & phelps, g. 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(2013). practical knowledge of teaching practice – what counts? journal of education, 58, 67–86. http://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x10393501 https://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs/nrp/documents/report.pdf https://fhss2.athabascau.ca/html/387/openmodules/en/hich/af0/dbch/af37/loch/f0%20gelmann/etpractice.html https://fhss2.athabascau.ca/html/387/openmodules/en/hich/af0/dbch/af37/loch/f0%20gelmann/etpractice.html http://doi.org/10.1177/0895904803260041 http://doi.org/10.1086/428764 http://doi.org/10.1177/1362168810365252 http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/research-outputs/view/4257 36 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 stahl, s. (2001). teaching phonics and phonological awareness. in s. neuman & d. dickinson (eds.), handbook of early literacy research, vol.1 (vol. 1). ny – london: guildford press. taylor, n., & taylor, s. (2013). teacher knowledge and professional habitus. in n. taylor, s. van den berg, & t. mabogoane (eds.), creating effective schools. cape town: pearson. widodo, h. p. (2006). approaches and procedures for teaching grammar. english teaching: practice and critique, 5(1), 122–141. winch, c. (2010). dimensions of expertise. london: continuum. yael shalem carola steinberg hannchen koornhof francine de clercq school of education university of the witwatersrand yael.shalem@wits.ac.za carola.steinberg@wits.ac.za hannchen.koornhof@wits.ac.za francine.declercq@wits.ac.za mailto:yael.shalem@wits.co.za mailto:carola.steinberg@wits.ac.za mailto:francine.declercq@wits.ac.za mailto:hannchen.koornhof@gmail.com mailto:francine.declercq@wits.ac.za microsoft word cissue81-full-15dec.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 81, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i81a04 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x building conceptions of teaching: students’ perceptions expressed through artifacts moeniera moosa studies in education division, school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa moeniera.moosa@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6231-9370 laura dison curriculum division, school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa laura.dison@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1626-4954 (received: 23 january 2020; accepted: 17 july 2020) abstract teacher education researchers have been grappling with the question of how students perceive teaching. this is an issue complicated by inadequate schooling conditions. in this paper, we report on an intervention used in a campus-based teaching experience programme at the wits school of education that involved first-year students producing artifacts that included statues or posters to depict their conceptions of teaching. students drew on their schooling experiences to formulate their ideas. our intention was to provide multimodal opportunities for first-year student teachers to articulate their views and perform, as it were, their understanding of teaching through visual and written forms. we wanted to explore how students, working in groups, developed the capacity to represent their conceptions as they designed and made an artifact to depict the role of south african teachers. interesting findings about the power of representing ideas visually in combination with written reflections emerged from our analysis of their outputs. we argue that the exclusive use of traditional written methods to elicit student teachers’ conceptions of teaching limits the creative and critical possibilities for students to extend and challenge their common-sense assumptions about teaching. keywords: academic writing, artifacts, conceptions, first year students, multimodal, perceptions, preservice teachers 66 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 introduction and background to the artifact building project in this paper, we explore an artifact-building intervention in a campus-based teaching practice programme at the wits school of education in johannesburg. the project began in 2015 during the period of student protests that began in opposition to a statue of cecil john rhodes at the university of cape town (uct). 1 we wanted to work with the symbols of colonisation that came to the fore for students during these protests to promote thinking about their role as teachers. we support jansen’s (2017) position on the decolonisation of the curriculum which is a commitment to interpret the curriculum to students on the basis of their own experiences, backgrounds, politics, and preferences and involves an “active engagement with entangled knowledges” (171). this project was conceptualised and implemented as a means of responding to students’ concern with access to various forms of knowledge, a subject that was debated vigorously during the student protests. south african university student performance has remained consistently poor and findings from the 2013 council for higher education task team in south africa on undergraduate curriculum study indicated that 55% of the total university intake will never graduate. ian scott, in an article in the mail and guardian (2017) on why students fail at university, identified a range of factors that affect student success in higher education. he argued that external factors like poverty and inadequate schooling cannot be overcome in the short term, but that effective educational interventions can address major obstacles to epistemic access and students’ under-preparedness for tertiary study. he highlighted the significance of acquiring academic literacies for successful higher learning in the form of systemic programmes that cater for the needs of all students in the disciplines rather than add-on remedial courses for students thought to be at risk. the move away from students having to acquire a set of generic academic skills to discipline based academic literacies is aligned with ashwin et al.’s (2015, p. 29) position that “we should take into account how talking and writing are bound up in particular social contexts and draw on the available ways of communicating which are used in that context.” academic staff, who designed and implemented the campus-based teaching practice programme, drew on the wits school of education writing centre 2 pedagogies to embed reflection and writing as an explicit part of the teaching programme. a lecturer from the art department provided input in a lecture that included several examples of statues and other artifacts. students clearly benefited from this supplementary input and guidance regarding the physical, spatial, and social practices necessary for the construction of artifacts. 1 student protests started on 09 march 2015 when students defiled the statue of rhodes on the university of cape town’s upper campus. cecil john rhodes had donated part of his estate to build the uct campus but was a british imperialist and colonist. 2 the wits school of education writing centre was established in 2010 to create a visible support structure to improve student writing in education disciplines. it established a contextualised model for enhancing reading and writing practices for education students. moosa & dison: building conceptions of teaching 67 the programme designers believed that knowledge of multimodal forms of expression would provide a generative impetus to students to represent their thoughts on their role as teachers visually and verbally and that this would provide them with ways of expressing their ideas as visual artifacts. according to ormerod and ivanic (2000), students bring with them their values, attitudes, and ways of working based on their experiences. they have argued that while lecturers can shape these activities, they do not exercise as much control as they do in more conventional forms of writing. multimodal activities seem to engage students’ interest and enthusiasm and allow for greater variety of approach. there is an interpersonal dimension that captures the relationship between the writer/producer and the reader of a text. the reader is invited to interact visually and cognitively with the text and the textual object involves the reader in a physical way; this requires reading and treating the text as a material object. introducing a multimodal dimension into the intervention could be an important step towards exploring other forms of expression and towards promoting identity work. kress (1997) argued that the materiality of texts rarely attracts conscious attention from researchers but noted that materiality is a crucial element when one is producing and/or analysing a literacy artifact. in this paper, to provide the context for this research study, we give an account of the theoretical underpinnings of the campus-based teaching practice model used at the wits school of education. we then go on to describe the implementation of the artifact-building project. we explain how we analysed the artifacts in relation to students’ conceptions of the role of teaching based on their interpretation of learning theories. we then go on to discuss categorisations and offer reflections on the nature and range of the diverse images and objects created by the students. with its critical perspective on teacher education, this study is framed by bandura’s (1977) social learning theory. first-year student’s conceptions of teaching first-year education students arrive at university with some idea of what teaching is based on their apprenticeship of observation according to lortie (1975) and on their conceptions and perceptions of teaching as related to their notion of professional identity as knowles (1992) has reminded us. given this apprenticeship of observation or, in other words, their experience of having been taught at school, they opt to become teachers for a variety of different reasons. often, this choice is made without a critical understanding of what teaching, as a profession, entails. one reason could be that their perception of what teaching entails is based on how the profession has been sold to them by others like parents and teachers who have their own perceptions of what being a teacher is about (pugach, 2009; wolhuteret al., 2012) or on students autobiographies according to nieto (2003). added to this could be their lived experiences of being taught from either a positive or a negative perspective. students may have been exposed to dynamic and effective teachers and hence want to emulate their positive aspects. alternatively, they may have been exposed to weak teaching and are passionate about ensuring that the next generation of learners does not have similar experiences and have, therefore, a personal commitment to teaching (pugach, 2009). views depicted in various media platforms as pugach (2009) has noted, also have an influence on 68 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 pre-service teachers’ perceptions of teaching. media depictions of teachers having the power to fulfil a social transformative agenda or of teachers framed as passionate, committed, and hardworking individuals who place their students’ needs first influence students’ notions of teaching. in summary, therefore, perceptions of teaching as a profession are often based on the discourses to which students are exposed and their own lived experiences in the classroom. these multifaceted factors shape perceptions about what constitutes the role of the teacher and make the identification of conceptions and categories of teaching a highly complex process. teaching practice model for first-year students as mentioned above, first-year education students arrive at university with some idea of what teaching is based on their apprenticeship of observation as lortie (1975) has pointed out. hence initial teacher education programmes are not tasked simply with filling in a tabula rasa but often have to correct students’ preconceived ideas that teaching is a simple process. there are various models that are used to engage students with teaching practice in their first year. one is that first-year students do varied forms of micro teaching rather than being placed in a school context at all during their first year. another is what is known as a sink-or-swim model in which students are placed in a school to actually teach within the first few weeks of being at university. generally, the wits school of education teaching practice model has made use of a combination model in which first-year students spend an equal amount of the allocated teaching practice time on campus and in a school context. the decision to adopt this model was based on a research study done by rusznyak and moosa (2014) at the wits school of education that concluded that a campus-based model in which students remain on campus rather than being placed in a school, “offers possibilities for developing students’ understanding of teaching as a complex cognitive practice” (p. s91). theoretical framework this research is underpinned by bandura’s (1977) social learning theory. we believe that first-year students form their views about teaching through observational learning (bandura, 1977). students will look for models who will arouse their curiosity and motivate them to learn (kirschner et al, 1997). since models are, as we know, people whose behaviour can be copied and who provide a guide to appropriate behaviour, for students, their teachers at school or depictions of teachers in various forms of media act as powerful models (bandura, 1977) that represent what it means to be a teacher. for social learning to be effective, students notice what their teachers do in various teaching situations before deciding what to retain and what to discard during the observation process. this is followed by the stage of reproduction, in which students will imitate the model (during teaching practice). students will then experience the aspect of reinforcement of suitable teacher actions which leads to a process of being motivated to repeat these actions. in addition, students’ emergence of the self, their search for a teacher identity, their relationships with others, and the role of culture throughout life also influence their understanding of their role as teachers. clearly, there is an interdependence of these socio-cultural factors on the one hand and observational learning on moosa & dison: building conceptions of teaching 69 the other. in the absence of students engaging with a theoretically sound underpinning of what it means to be a teacher we argue that much of first-year students’ understanding of teaching is based on observational learning. furthermore, ideas about teaching that are socially reinforced are more likely to recur than ideas that are not reinforced. therefore, this research in anchored in the belief that first-year students’ perceptions about the role of the teacher are governed by their experiences through social learning while at school. since there is surprisingly little research that examines the role of observational learning in influencing first-year student conceptions of teaching, we wanted to develop a more nuanced understanding of the kinds of interpretations or misinterpretations of teaching that this cohort of student brings with them into their b.ed. degree. the artifact -building project in may 2015, the campus-based project was introduced to all first-year students in lieu of observing classes in schools for three weeks. as mentioned earlier, the planning committee used material and newspaper articles and commentary from the rhodesmustfall campaign as an opportunity to develop students’ capacity for critical engagement and creativity. designing an artifact was chosen as a compulsory task that all first-year students had to complete as part of an on-campus teaching practice programme. meaningful engagement with the role of statues was behind the choice of this task. during the campus-based teaching practice programme, students were required to design and build, in groups, an artifact or produce a visual poster. they were also required to submit an individual reflection on what they had learned about teacher identity from their personal experience at school and by working with their peers on the creative task. (see appendix 1 for specific task requirements.) the task involving an artifact required students to participate collectively in designing an artifact that depicted their conceptions of teacher identity in south africa. they were given guidance on how to select images and objects (see appendix 1) and were taken through a process of thinking about an image or object that reflected their understanding of teacher identity in the new south africa. they spent three weeks during class time formulating their ideas through conversations, in writing, and in planning and constructing an artifact that would be presented in a public space in what was to be called a gallery walk at the wits school of education at the end of the process. as mentioned above, in addition to the group presentation, students were required to reflect individually on what they had learned from working collaboratively with their peers in terms of both the process and the content. they were also expected to articulate whether their ideas about teacher identity had changed while they were working on the project. each artifact was accompanied by an individual essay from each group member in which they described the artifact in relation to the role of teachers in south african schools. furthermore, they were required to state their reasons for choosing their artifacts. the assessment criteria stressed the importance of the essay being interesting, convincing, detailed, well justified, and logical. we derived some insights from reading these essays, but they were not analysed in depth for the purposes of this research paper. 70 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 research design we conducted this research using a qualitative research design. snape and spencer (2003, p. 22) have argued that “qualitative research covers a broad range of approaches which are linked to different beliefs about what there is to know about the social world and how to find out about it.” following silverman (1993) this research method allowed us to understand how first-year students use visual representations to make sense of their role as teachers. in this way, a qualitative research paradigm helped us gain greater insight into how first-year students perceive teaching as a profession given that each artifact was a presentation of the participants’ independent reality as ormston et al. (2014) have pointed out. a total of 106 groups, with 5 to 6 members per group, completed this task. due attention was given to the ethical considerations of voluntary participation, confidentiality, and anonymity. all first-year students were invited to give us permission to photograph their artifacts and use their individual essays as part of the data offered in this paper. in line with the points made by mcmillan and schumacher (2006), participants were purposively selected since they were first-year students who participated in the campus-based teaching practice programme. participants were required to consent to have their group’s artifact analysed as well as their individual essays and no artifacts were included in this research if any group member did not give consent. our data source relied on photographs of the artifacts as well as an analysis of the accompanying essays from the 73 groups whose members gave consent. in moving away from traditional models of research into students’ conceptions of teaching, we were particularly interested in how students represented their conceptions of teaching through their statues. this led us to formulate our research question: how do students use visuals to represent their ideas about, and understanding of, teaching? when we coded the artifacts, we analysed the data inductively and were guided by our social learning frame as set out by mouton and marais (1993).this allowed us to analyse the data without any pre-exiting notions in relation to our research question. we started the analysis by noting down all the characteristics and patterns of thinking depicted in the images that represented students’ conceptions of teaching. we did this process individually before we compared our analyses so as to ensure the reliability and validity of the findings. thereafter, we constructed the codes and categories of each of the responses which gave rise to the “patterns of meanings” that mcmillan and schumacher (2010, p. 378) have discussed. we wanted to check whether what was written in the essays held up against our initial set of categories. we used a thematic content analysis approach to interpret the content and identify themes in line with hsieh and shannon (2005) that best described the overarching views of students. we found that even though the individual essays presented different information, the core description of the group images remained much the same. although similar images were chosen across categories, we could infer the category from the students’ accompanying written descriptions. so, for example, when the image was of an owl, all participants in their essays mentioned that owls “symbolise wisdom” just like “teachers do.” findings we identified six categories that best explained participants’ conceptions of teaching. the categories were derived from the participants’ choice of images and words. these categories included: teachers shape learners’ lives; teachers are change for developing learners’ cognitive abilities; teachers should embrace diversity and inclusivity; teachers are lifelong learners; and teachers develop learners’ knowledge. what we found interesting was that, despite students teachers, their conceptions of teaching were still based on their observational learning experiences; they modelled their teaching on those they thought of as the experts. teachers shape learners’ lives this was the largest category identified and it described the ideas of 16 groups in total. these groups identified the shaping of the learners’ future as a core function of teachers. images used in this category included roads, trees, classrooms, motherly figures, bridges, and robots. all these images alluded to teachers as individuals who play a pivotal role in “building . . . future generations.” participants stated that “teachers give birth to other professions” and that “great teachers are behind all successful men and women.” in this category, participants viewed their role as teachers to be one of preparing learners to transition into the world of work. thus, for these groups, teachers are “like the roots and a pillar of all successful minds” with “all professions [being] in the hands of teachers.” participants in this category focused mostly on teachers having the ability to stimulate learner’s development and, more specifically, their future career prospects. growth-oriented images, participants showed that they viewed teaching as the “mother of all professions” and felt that “teachers are a source of energy for learners”, and are able to “take learners [from] one point to the next” so that “they c artifacts 1 and 2: teachers shape learners’ lives moosa & dison: building conceptions of teaching we identified six categories that best explained participants’ conceptions of teaching. the categories were derived from the participants’ choice of images and words. these categories included: teachers shape learners’ lives; teachers are change agents; teachers are responsible for developing learners’ cognitive abilities; teachers should embrace diversity and inclusivity; teachers are lifelong learners; and teachers develop learners’ knowledge. what we found interesting was that, despite students’ shift in identity from being learners to being pre teachers, their conceptions of teaching were still based on their observational learning experiences; they modelled their teaching on those they thought of as the experts. s’ lives this was the largest category identified and it described the ideas of 16 groups in total. these groups identified the shaping of the learners’ future as a core function of teachers. images used in this category included roads, trees, classrooms, keys, an octopus, light bulbs, motherly figures, bridges, and robots. all these images alluded to teachers as individuals who play a pivotal role in “building . . . future generations.” participants stated that “teachers give nd that “great teachers are behind all successful men and in this category, participants viewed their role as teachers to be one of preparing learners to transition into the world of work. thus, for these groups, teachers are “like the roots and a pillar of all successful minds” with “all professions [being] in the hands of teachers.” participants in this category focused mostly on teachers having the ability to stimulate learner’s development and, more specifically, their future career prospects. oriented images, participants showed that they viewed teaching as the “mother of all professions” and felt that “teachers are a source of energy for learners”, and are able to “take learners [from] one point to the next” so that “they can reach their goals.” : teachers shape learners’ lives dison: building conceptions of teaching 71 we identified six categories that best explained participants’ conceptions of teaching. the categories were derived from the participants’ choice of images and words. these categories agents; teachers are responsible for developing learners’ cognitive abilities; teachers should embrace diversity and inclusivity; teachers are lifelong learners; and teachers develop learners’ knowledge. what we found ’ shift in identity from being learners to being pre-service teachers, their conceptions of teaching were still based on their observational learning experiences; they modelled their teaching on those they thought of as the experts. this was the largest category identified and it described the ideas of 16 groups in total. these groups identified the shaping of the learners’ future as a core function of teachers. images keys, an octopus, light bulbs, motherly figures, bridges, and robots. all these images alluded to teachers as individuals who play a pivotal role in “building . . . future generations.” participants stated that “teachers give nd that “great teachers are behind all successful men and in this category, participants viewed their role as teachers to be one of preparing learners to transition into the world of work. thus, for these groups, teachers are “like the roots and a pillar of all successful minds” with “all professions [being] in the hands of teachers.” participants in this category focused mostly on teachers having the ability to stimulate learner’s development and, more specifically, their future career prospects. in selecting oriented images, participants showed that they viewed teaching as the “mother of all professions” and felt that “teachers are a source of energy for learners”, and are able to “take 72 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 overall, in this category, students felt that teachers play a pivotal role in preparing, encouraging, shaping, and supporting the next generation of citizens in south africa. thi might (or might not) represent what they experienced at school as learners through their interaction with their teachers in a wide range of contexts. teachers are change agents the second largest category (15 groups) identified was that of teachers pro transformative and social justice agenda. in this category participants viewed teachers as “agents of change” whose contribution makes a difference to society. for these groups, what teachers do has a significant impact. images used in this catego transforming into a butterfly, a chicken and eggs in a nest, hands holding a globe, rain watering flowers, candles, a watering can and plants, and sailing boats. participants felts that “teachers change the world by transforming learners” and “build future leaders of south africa.” they indicated that teachers “in south africa today are the faceless superhero(es) of society.” the reason for this view is that “teach the world because only success is expected of them, hence if education fails, the nation fails.” thus, “teachers play an important role in preparing children for the real world and to acquire knowledge they will need.” in this have an overall responsibility to bring about change in society by preparing children to contribute in a meaningful way to meet the needs of the country. various notions of teachers’ roles from their personal encounters with teachers at school most probably contributed to this fairly widespread view. the nature of this transformative potential was explored more in students’ reflections on their artifacts. artifacts 3 and 4: teachers are change journal of education, no. 81, 2020 overall, in this category, students felt that teachers play a pivotal role in preparing, encouraging, shaping, and supporting the next generation of citizens in south africa. thi might (or might not) represent what they experienced at school as learners through their interaction with their teachers in a wide range of contexts. teachers are change agents the second largest category (15 groups) identified was that of teachers pro transformative and social justice agenda. in this category participants viewed teachers as “agents of change” whose contribution makes a difference to society. for these groups, what teachers do has a significant impact. images used in this category included a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, a chicken and eggs in a nest, hands holding a globe, rain watering flowers, candles, a watering can and plants, and sailing boats. participants felts that “teachers change the world by transforming learners” and “build future leaders of south africa.” they indicated that teachers “in south africa today are the faceless superhero(es) of society.” the reason for this view is that “teachers carry the heavy burden of the world because only success is expected of them, hence if education fails, the nation fails.” thus, “teachers play an important role in preparing children for the real world and to acquire knowledge they will need.” in this category participants felt that teachers in south africa have an overall responsibility to bring about change in society by preparing children to contribute in a meaningful way to meet the needs of the country. various notions of teachers’ r personal encounters with teachers at school most probably contributed to this fairly widespread view. the nature of this transformative potential was explored more in students’ reflections on their artifacts. : teachers are change agents overall, in this category, students felt that teachers play a pivotal role in preparing, encouraging, shaping, and supporting the next generation of citizens in south africa. this might (or might not) represent what they experienced at school as learners through their the second largest category (15 groups) identified was that of teachers promoting a transformative and social justice agenda. in this category participants viewed teachers as “agents of change” whose contribution makes a difference to society. for these groups, what ry included a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, a chicken and eggs in a nest, hands holding a globe, rain participants felts that “teachers change the world by transforming learners” and “build future leaders of south africa.” they indicated that teachers “in south africa today are the faceless ers carry the heavy burden of the world because only success is expected of them, hence if education fails, the nation fails.” thus, “teachers play an important role in preparing children for the real world and to acquire category participants felt that teachers in south africa have an overall responsibility to bring about change in society by preparing children to contribute in a meaningful way to meet the needs of the country. various notions of teachers’ r personal encounters with teachers at school most probably contributed to this fairly widespread view. the nature of this transformative potential was explored more in teachers are responsible for developing learners’ cognitive abilities in this category, represented by 14 groups, participants placed emphasis on teachers’ role in developing learners’ cognitive abilities and building mental processes. images in category included forests, rainfalls, roads, rivers, and an owl, as well as libraries. the common ideas expressed by participants in this category were that children have “bright growing minds” and that teachers are “like farmers” and like “rain [that nourishes even the hardest and [most] concrete of things.” furthermore, they felt that teachers develop and expand learners’ “minds” and the effect that teachers have on learners’ minds lasts for a “long time” because they “help children gro “teachers create magical moments” because they are “transformers of knowledge” whose efforts “are capable of taking learners to different places.” overall, participants in this category viewed teachers as strong support ba understanding and processing information at increasingly higher cognitive levels. it would be interesting to investigate the extent to which these particular students felt supported (or neglected) in their own cognitive journeys at school. artifacts 5 and 6: teachers develop learners’ cognitive abilities teachers should embrace diversity and inclusivity the conceptions of teaching in 13 groups focused on developing the whole child who, as merriam and bierema (2014) have noted, category were concerned with teachers’ development of potential, and their recognition of diversity and valuing of inclusivity. images in this category included rivers, bridges, building blocks, roads, and gardens. participants felt that “teachers see the best in their learners” and “reach out to all learners . . . to help [them] overcome obstacles” and in that way “lay strong foundation and create learning opportunities for learners.” te schools educate children from all backgrounds, races, disabilities” and hence it is important for them to “be unbiased” in order to “educate all learners.” these participants felt that “true teachers ensure that their learners are for a purpose, and they also ensure [that] their learners become better people after being moosa & dison: building conceptions of teaching teachers are responsible for developing learners’ cognitive abilities in this category, represented by 14 groups, participants placed emphasis on teachers’ role in developing learners’ cognitive abilities and building mental processes. images in category included forests, rainfalls, roads, rivers, and an owl, as well as libraries. the common ideas expressed by participants in this category were that children have “bright growing minds” and that teachers are “like farmers” and like “rain [that] nurtures and nourishes even the hardest and [most] concrete of things.” furthermore, they felt that teachers develop and expand learners’ “minds” and the effect that teachers have on learners’ minds lasts for a “long time” because they “help children grow.” participants also stated that “teachers create magical moments” because they are “transformers of knowledge” whose efforts “are capable of taking learners to different places.” overall, participants in this category viewed teachers as strong support bases for learners in their journey towards understanding and processing information at increasingly higher cognitive levels. it would be interesting to investigate the extent to which these particular students felt supported (or itive journeys at school. : teachers develop learners’ cognitive abilities teachers should embrace diversity and inclusivity the conceptions of teaching in 13 groups focused on developing the whole child who, as 014) have noted, includes body, mind and spirit. participants in this category were concerned with teachers’ development of potential, and their recognition of diversity and valuing of inclusivity. images in this category included rivers, bridges, building blocks, roads, and gardens. participants felt that “teachers see the best in their learners” and “reach out to all learners . . . to help [them] overcome obstacles” and in that way “lay strong foundation and create learning opportunities for learners.” teachers in “south african schools educate children from all backgrounds, races, disabilities” and hence it is important for them to “be unbiased” in order to “educate all learners.” these participants felt that “true teachers ensure that their learners are protected, they ensure that their learners go to school for a purpose, and they also ensure [that] their learners become better people after being dison: building conceptions of teaching 73 teachers are responsible for developing learners’ cognitive abilities in this category, represented by 14 groups, participants placed emphasis on teachers’ role in developing learners’ cognitive abilities and building mental processes. images in this category included forests, rainfalls, roads, rivers, and an owl, as well as libraries. the common ideas expressed by participants in this category were that children have “bright nurtures and nourishes even the hardest and [most] concrete of things.” furthermore, they felt that teachers develop and expand learners’ “minds” and the effect that teachers have on learners’ minds w.” participants also stated that “teachers create magical moments” because they are “transformers of knowledge” whose efforts “are capable of taking learners to different places.” overall, participants in this ses for learners in their journey towards understanding and processing information at increasingly higher cognitive levels. it would be interesting to investigate the extent to which these particular students felt supported (or the conceptions of teaching in 13 groups focused on developing the whole child who, as participants in this category were concerned with teachers’ development of potential, and their recognition of diversity and valuing of inclusivity. images in this category included rivers, bridges, building blocks, roads, and gardens. participants felt that “teachers see the best in their learners” and “reach out to all learners . . . to help [them] overcome obstacles” and in that way “lay strong achers in “south african schools educate children from all backgrounds, races, disabilities” and hence it is important for them to “be unbiased” in order to “educate all learners.” these participants felt that “true protected, they ensure that their learners go to school for a purpose, and they also ensure [that] their learners become better people after being 74 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 taught by teachers.” teachers are able to change activities and their teaching strategies like a chameleon is able to change its colours.” overall, for this group of participants, teachers were seen as being responsible for enhancing learners’ best qualities despite their backgrounds. through their experiences of observational learning these participants may have teachers who were positive role models and because of this, wanted to be the kind of teacher who emulates this. some students may have had teachers who were not good role models so suggested the opposite of what they had experienced at school. artifacts 7 and 8: teachers should embrace diversity and inclusivity teachers are lifelong learners with regard to teacher development, six groups focused on their personal identity and professional development as teachers. they felt that teaching involves an “ever process” and that teachers need to be resourceful since these are qualities that successful teacher. a chameleon and a teacher watering a garden were depicted in this category. one group stated that “teachers develop, evolve and grow and during that process they might shed skin and reincarnate themselves.” groups made mention of which teachers learn from their learners in meaningful ways. artifacts 9 and 10: teachers are lifelong learners journal of education, no. 81, 2020 taught by teachers.” teachers are able to change activities and their teaching strategies like a able to change its colours.” overall, for this group of participants, teachers were seen as being responsible for enhancing learners’ best qualities despite their backgrounds. through their experiences of observational learning these participants may have teachers who were positive role models and because of this, wanted to be the kind of teacher who emulates this. some students may have had teachers who were not good role models so suggested the opposite of what they had experienced at school. : teachers should embrace diversity and inclusivity teachers are lifelong learners with regard to teacher development, six groups focused on their personal identity and professional development as teachers. they felt that teaching involves an “ever process” and that teachers need to be resourceful since these are qualities that successful teacher. a chameleon and a teacher watering a garden were depicted in this category. one group stated that “teachers develop, evolve and grow and during that process they might shed skin and reincarnate themselves.” groups made mention of which teachers learn from their learners in meaningful ways. : teachers are lifelong learners taught by teachers.” teachers are able to change activities and their teaching strategies like a able to change its colours.” overall, for this group of participants, teachers were seen as being responsible for enhancing learners’ best qualities despite their backgrounds. through their experiences of observational learning these participants may have encountered teachers who were positive role models and because of this, wanted to be the kind of teacher who emulates this. some students may have had teachers who were not good role models so with regard to teacher development, six groups focused on their personal identity and professional development as teachers. they felt that teaching involves an “ever-learning process” and that teachers need to be resourceful since these are qualities that make a successful teacher. a chameleon and a teacher watering a garden were depicted in this category. one group stated that “teachers develop, evolve and grow and during that process they might shed skin and reincarnate themselves.” groups made mention of the extent to teachers develop learners’ knowledge five groups viewed teaching as a profession that focuses on developing the mind with emphasis on learners’ constructing meaning and understanding for themselves with the aid and support of teachers. participants indicated that “children grow through [the] knowledge” that teachers present to them. teachers create meaningful understandin to think, reflect, and engage actively with the learning activities they create. the images used in this category included stairs, building blocks, brains, towers, and hands. teachers of these participants may have provided them (or processes to best understand the personal meaning the content taught had for them. experiencing and watching teachers perform well may have allowed them to formulate the view that teachers assist learners to r engagement with content knowledge. the opposite may, of course, have been what compelled some of these students to argue as they did. artifacts 11 and 12: teachers develop learners’ knowledge discussion: affordances and constraints of the collaborative statue-building project our interpretation of the students’ material extent to which their conception of the role of teaching in south africa is influenced observations of teaching. aside from the usefulness of analysing the artifacts themselves, the collaborative process of creating each artifact affordances that enhanced the quality of student conversatio artifacts. first, there was evidence of substantial discussion and negotiation in the discipline based groups about the selection of the materials or images as well as the physical design of the artifact and how to locate all t environment. second, in response to the group written task which required them to describe the object and images and provide convincing reasons for having chosen these, students engaged in conversations abou projects to formulate explanations and justify their decisions. moosa & dison: building conceptions of teaching teachers develop learners’ knowledge five groups viewed teaching as a profession that focuses on developing the mind with emphasis on learners’ constructing meaning and understanding for themselves with the aid and support of teachers. participants indicated that “children grow through [the] knowledge” that teachers present to them. teachers create meaningful understanding by allowing learners to think, reflect, and engage actively with the learning activities they create. the images used in this category included stairs, building blocks, brains, towers, and hands. teachers of these participants may have provided them (or failed to provide them) with opportunities and processes to best understand the personal meaning the content taught had for them. experiencing and watching teachers perform well may have allowed them to formulate the view that teachers assist learners to reach their full academic potential through meaningful engagement with content knowledge. the opposite may, of course, have been what compelled some of these students to argue as they did. : teachers develop learners’ knowledge ion: affordances and constraints of the collaborative building project our interpretation of the students’ material-based artifacts discussed above indicates the extent to which their conception of the role of teaching in south africa is influenced observations of teaching. aside from the usefulness of analysing the artifacts themselves, the collaborative process of creating each artifact gave rise to several positive spin affordances that enhanced the quality of student conversations while they produced their artifacts. first, there was evidence of substantial discussion and negotiation in the discipline based groups about the selection of the materials or images as well as the physical design of the artifact and how to locate all this within their surrounding social and physical second, in response to the group written task which required them to describe the object and images and provide convincing reasons for having chosen these, students engaged in conversations about these issues. this forced them to stand back from their projects to formulate explanations and justify their decisions. dison: building conceptions of teaching 75 five groups viewed teaching as a profession that focuses on developing the mind with the emphasis on learners’ constructing meaning and understanding for themselves with the aid and support of teachers. participants indicated that “children grow through [the] knowledge” g by allowing learners to think, reflect, and engage actively with the learning activities they create. the images used in this category included stairs, building blocks, brains, towers, and hands. teachers of these failed to provide them) with opportunities and processes to best understand the personal meaning the content taught had for them. experiencing and watching teachers perform well may have allowed them to formulate the each their full academic potential through meaningful engagement with content knowledge. the opposite may, of course, have been what ion: affordances and constraints of the collaborative based artifacts discussed above indicates the extent to which their conception of the role of teaching in south africa is influenced by their observations of teaching. aside from the usefulness of analysing the artifacts themselves, the gave rise to several positive spin-offs and ns while they produced their artifacts. first, there was evidence of substantial discussion and negotiation in the disciplinebased groups about the selection of the materials or images as well as the physical design of his within their surrounding social and physical second, in response to the group written task which required them to describe the object and images and provide convincing reasons for having chosen these, students t these issues. this forced them to stand back from their 76 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 third, students were aware that the task required them to focus on the process of working as a group and to identify their feelings and attitudes towards the artifact project as a whole. this prompted them to reflect thoughtfully on the personal and educational impact of the project. fourth, we argue that the opportunity for students to present their artifacts to their peers and lecturers in the gallery walk validated students’ interest and increased their motivation to communicate their ideas since they felt that their modes of expression were being acknowledged and valued. the interaction between presenters and audience at the gallery walk encouraged active listening and an exchange of ideas not often experienced by first-year students. the audience members were involved in the outputs and seemed genuinely interested in understanding the rationale for the design and presentation of each artifact. this campus-based project allowed the course designers to reflect on strategies for maximising the value of these student-created objects as visual, material, and verbal representations. although reflection and self-reflexivity are regarded as important competences required for teaching practitioners and for critical academic engagement, there is some concern that students have not developed such capacity at school or in their university studies. a project like this would, therefore, present an ideal opportunity to introduce first-year students to these practices through sustained reflective activities and then inculcate them gradually. some students commented on their peers’ conceptions of teaching but were unable to substantiate these claims with convincing and critical evidence. for example, some students felt that images of apples, trees, roads and bridges were fairly clichéd, but they could not articulate why these were part of a naïve depiction of teachers. a detailed analysis of the students’ reflections will be offered in a later paper, but a preliminary analysis of their reflections reveals a fairly formulaic and limited account of their perceptions of the value of the group process and the learning outcomes. the calibre of their outputs and capacity to self-evaluate would be similarly enhanced if feedback were provided on the objects themselves as well as on students’ reflections as boud and molloy (2013) have suggested. we support huang and archer’s (2017) contention that students are faced increasingly with assignments that require the use of multimodal resources for communicating. they suggest that “student-produced texts need to integrate different semiotic resources according to different principles of organization and even written assignments [need to] take design and layout into consideration” (p. 81). since there is ongoing pressure to find innovative ways of enhancing students’ understanding of particular topics, especially in online and hybrid modes of teaching, visual representations like posters or mind maps could become key assessment strategies in professional teaching programmes. limitations a limitation of this study is that it was done with one cohort of firstyear students at a particular university which implies that the findings will not necessarily be transferable to all moosa & dison: building conceptions of teaching 77 initial teacher education contexts. nonetheless these findings do provide a useful basis for further research on the use of multimodal learning opportunities for university students. on reflection, as the project designers, we are keen to re-implement the statue project as part of the campus-based programme but would integrate “learning-oriented assessment principles and practices” (carless, 2015, p. 27) into the intervention. for example, the collaborative processes need to be better scaffolded and structured as does students’ engagement with the assessment criteria when they assess each other’s participation and artifacts through the application of negotiated rubrics. this would address the possible shortcoming of students’ inadequate skills in observing and evaluating teaching practices that have transformative potential. we need to address the fact that students require more input on reflective writing strategies to avoid the mostly formulaic and generalised commentary that emerged as they viewed the artifacts created during this project. furthermore, we need to select the groups more carefully so that there is a balance of skill since this will allow us, as the designers, to recognise the observational strengths students bring from their previous experiences to the creative process and point more directly to the importance of social learning. conclusion we have showcased how the campus-based statue intervention was conducted and we have shown the potential of creating and implementing multimodal experiences that cater to diverse groups of first-year students. the use of artifacts as a form of expression encouraged participatory learning and critical thinking as well as students’ creative and reflective practices with regard to their understanding of the role of south african teachers. although this project took place a few years ago, students who participated in it have remarked on its having been a turning point in challenging some of their assumptions about their identities as teachers and about the collaborative process itself. they commented positively as did education lecturers on the current value of these striking and thought-provoking representations of teaching in a context of tension and flux. we argue that we lack a theory of what it means to be a teacher and that that many first-year students’ understanding of teaching is based on observational learning. the importance of social learning and observational learning in pre-service teacher’s conceptualisation of teaching cannot be underestimated but should be explicitly integrated into the curricula as an object of learning in first year b. ed courses. social learning in the context of the statue project is intended to provide a framework for thinking about the value of learning in communities of practice in our relationships, our communities, and our organizations as advocated by wenger (2018). this campus-based statue project is a vivid example of how social learning can be embedded in a teacher development programme. it could serve the dual purpose of modelling an innovative experience for student teachers of working collaboratively with their peers on a project and deepening their conceptions of teaching experientially and conceptually. 78 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 references ashwin, p., boud, d., coate, k., hallett, f., keane, e., krause, k., leibowitz, b., maclaren, i., mcarthur, j., mccune, v., & tooher, m. 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(2012). what inspires south african student teachers for their future profession? south african journal of education, 32(2), 178–190. https://doi.org/10.15700/saje.v32n2a570 80 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 appendix 1: campus based programme artifact task in groups of 5-6 in tutorials, you will need to do the following: think about an image or object that reflects your understanding of teacher identity in the new south africa. the image will be presented in an artifact that will be placed at the wits school of education (wsoe) to represent teachers. you need to do one of the following: 1. design a poster that captures the ideal characteristics of a teacher in south africa today. your poster needs to contain the following: a visual representation of the artifact you have chosen � you can draw this, cut it out of magazines (provided) or stick on recyclable items. � you can create a collage of pictures, words and recyclable items. the focus is visual representation so use words sparingly. you also need to write on an a4 sheet: • a description of the object – its physical and other features. if it is a historical object you need to explain its origins. (one paragraph) • reasons why you chose or created this particular object or image. you need to provide convincing reasons for this. (1-2 paragraphs) • reflect on how you worked as a group and how the artifact made you feel. or 1. create an artifact that represents the characteristics of a teacher in south africa today. � the artifact needs to be made from waste or recyclable materials and objects such as newspapers, sticks, stones and wire. consider the imagery and how you will construct the artifact. � remember artifacts are three dimensional and free standing. things to consider: • materials * relationships • how to join the materials • where will the artifact be placed? • how will it stand? moosa & dison: building conceptions of teaching 81 you also need to write on an a4 sheet: • a description of the object – its physical and other features. if it is a historical object you need to explain its origins. (one paragraph) • reasons why you chose or created this particular object or image. you need to provide convincing reasons for this. (1-2 paragraphs) • reflect on how you worked as a group and how the artifact made you feel. planning checklist: how to choose the idea/ image for the artifact. how to plan the design of the artifact. how to construct the artifact, e.g. what materials, pictures etc. to use how to divide up tasks, e.g. 2. descriptive paragraph • does your paragraph begin with a description that identifies the object or image you are about to describe and suggests its significance? • are your descriptions clear and specific? e.g. what colour, shape, texture, size/ dimensions or connection between the parts? • have you put your descriptions into complete sentences? • is your paragraph unified--that is, do all of the supporting sentences relate directly to the topic introduced in the first sentence? • have you followed a logical pattern in organizing the sentences in your paragraph? • have you concluded the paragraph with a sentence reminding the reader of the item’s special significance? 3. providing sound reasons are your reasons for choosing the object or image: • convincing • clearly explained • justified (with evidence) • elaborated (contain enough detail) • interesting microsoft word b80 full issue final.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 80, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i80a06 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x visual participatory methodology as a prompt for agentic creativity: revealing views and visions of a teacher learning journey margie childs faculty of education, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa margie.childs@mandela.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6872-8418 (received: 3 february 2020; accepted: 8 september 2020) abstract by using activities such as visual participatory methodologies, pre-service teachers and university staff members are able to explore and extend their ideas of what it means to be a teacher. in this research project, i sought to prompt a visual dialogue between students and staff. the distance provided when using creative enquiry procedures such as photo-voice, collage, and drawing allows participants, as members of a teaching community, to detach from their assumptions and view themselves, knowledge, and meaning making in more subtle ways. the aim of this creative participatory study was to explore dialogic engagement concerning the learning-toteach journey of bachelor of education (b ed) students at a south african university. the visual-based interaction of student teachers and staff is revealed, and the movements towards the goal of teacherness laid bare. i make an argument for the use of visual and creative approaches as a means of collaboratively bridging complicated and difficult territory, moving beyond boundaries to spaces of creative action. an account of the potential of artful portrayals as both disruptive and coalescing devices is a key contribution of this enquiry. keywords: visual participatory methodologies, agentic creativity, teacher learning, teacherness introduction visualand arts-based approaches offer creative, collaborative spaces for surfacing complex understandings. communities have opportunities to reflect, share their ideas, and, potentially, bring about transformation as they engage with participatory methodologies (mitchell et al., 2017). in an initial teacher education (ite) context, student teachers and university staff have the prospect of engaging closely with each other as participants in a teacher learning community. pre-service teachers are able to explore and extend their ideas about what it means to be a teacher. often, limited and limiting understandings of teaching are transferred during the shift from school to higher education (feiman-nemser, 2001; wall, 2016) creative childs: visual participatory methodology as a prompt for agentic creativity 107 approaches to meaning-making have the potential to prompt “multifaceted knowledge” (van der vaartet al., 2018, p. 1). the distance provided when using creative enquiry procedures such as photo-voice, collage, and drawing allows participants to detach themselves from their assumptions and view knowledge and meaning making in more subtle ways. a creative departure point can provide a stimulus for empowerment and substantial change (de lange, 2008). mannay has indicated that “visual[s] can act as a tool of de-familiarisation” (2014, p. 1). deep thinking can, thus, be facilitated in arts-related research as baden and wimpenny ( 2014) have pointed out. the “inward and outward” journey towards the teacher-self unfolds over time (conway & clark, 2003, p. 465). aspects of the experiences of senior and firstyear students can be captured using visual methodologies so that students can learn from each other, and students and staff members can collectively design guiding maps for the teacher learning journey. feiman-nemser (2001) proposed that learning to teach is a continuum that focusses particularly on initial preparation through to the early years of teaching after obtaining a qualification. within the pre-service phase of professional learning, various stages can be discerned that can be used as what we might think of as stopping places to reflect on the learning-to-teach journey. the moments of contemplation in the learning-to-teach process that are used in this research are tagged as bridging, becoming, being, and belonging (bbbb). the notion of a continuum of learning is confirmed, and extended to include both introspection and engagement with others. (huebner, 2009). visual participatory methodologies (vpm) offer a creative space for enquiry (de lange, 2008). students and staff are able to discover, together, what it means to work towards a sense of belonging as a beginner teacher. framing the journey the metaphor of a journey has been used extensively regarding teacher learning (ayers, 2015). the first part of this learning journey has both informal and formal components (feiman-nemser, 2001). it begins as a learner in school, before registration for a teaching qualification and ends, after a period of study, in certification. personal and professional learning in pre-service years as a key goal of teacher education and reflection is an important element of teacher learning (rauduvaita et al., 2015). opportunities to pause and reflect can offer powerful ways to promote thinking about teacher learning. the concepts of bbbb as a teacher were developed initially as part of curriculum renewal activities in the faculty of education of the nelson mandela university in 2013. originally, the concepts were termed transitioning, becoming, being, and belonging as an acknowledgement of the early childhood sources that stimulated thinking and conceptualisation (australian government department of education & relations, 2009). this early childhood curriculum resource used the concepts of belonging, being, and becoming to underpin early-years programmes. the faculty of education curriculum developers rearranged these early-years concepts to show stages of envisaged pre-service teacher learning as becoming, being, and belonging. young children transition from pre108 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 school to grade 1. similarly, first-year students transition to new stages of learning (i.e. from grade 12 to higher education). “transitioning” was, thus, included as the first stage of student teacher learning in order to show the movement from school learner to student teacher. later, in the interests of onomatopoeia, as well as certain pedagogical considerations, the term “transitioning” was replaced with “bridging.” by 2014, the concepts of bbbb were used by the faculty of education curriculum developers to refer to the integrated learning components of the first, second, third, and fourth year of the bed curriculum. sathorar and geduld (2018) offered a perspective on the use of bbbb to develop a new and emancipatory teacher education qualification. achieving a state of teacherness is more than progressing successfully through several years of study. it includes personal change in relation to self and others and understanding and growth within a community of practice (williams et al., 2012). in this study bbbb are used as identity shifting devices and prompts for engaging with the quest to become an agent of social change within an educational environment. trafford and leshem (2008) explored the notion of what they called doctorateness. their approach can be used to understand the idea of teacherness since the former “combines both ‘doing’ and ‘achieving’ a doctorate” (p. 36). the doctoral candidate is required to demonstrate doctorateness. trafford and leshem further indicated various aspects to be considered when one is determining doctorateness, namely, “establishing conceptual links between findings, synthesising evidence into conceptual conclusions, critiquing the research process, advancing contributions to knowledge” (p. 19). individual teachers are able to reflect on and enact progress towards teacherness by engaging with a range of sources within and outside the educational system. the aim of this enquiry is to consider ways in which student teachers can move beyond the boundaries of their school-based learning experiences to learn from and with other beginner teachers, prompted by various visual activities. the uncertain spaces encountered during teaching practice are investigated. by participating in creative activities, student teachers are able to share aspects of their learning and engage with the experiences of other student teachers. the mutual vulnerability and dependence of students and staff, in turn, affect the environment wherein their interactions occur (fraser et al., 2003). both students and staff have responsibility regarding progress on a journey towards teacherness. in this paper, i use visual and creative enactments to understand this risky, but promising, space. conceptual framework the conceptual lens used in this study brings together understandings of the space and the way in which teacherness could be developed. the environment of learning to teach is envisioned as one of mutual vulnerability and dependence. this space is initiated through agentive creativity. childs: visual participatory methodology as a prompt for agentic creativity 109 mutual vulnerability and dependence keet et al. (2009) used the concept of mutual vulnerability to address the reality of educational inequalities, calling for an educational environment of “shared moderation, learning and critical self-reflection to create the space for renewed and meaningful teaching and learning” (p. 109). mutual vulnerability includes recognition of and care for the “identities, histories and experiences of students and teachers” (p. 111). mutual vulnerability can be paired with the notion of mutual dependence. fraser et al. (2003) referred to the link between human beings and the world as being both mutually vulnerable and mutually dependent. these authors maintained that the environment can be impacted by humans, and that the environment has an impact on its inhabitants. the ideas of mutual vulnerability and mutual dependence can also be employed in relation to teacher learning. for example, staff can abdicate power and authority and adopt a different learning stance in their engagement with students (keet et al., 2009). as these scholars have pointed out, this interrelationship of vulnerability can bring about reconciliation and has benefits for both students and staff. dependence, in the context of teacher preparation, can nurture the reliance between and among students and staff. as parts of a learning-to-teach community that includes student teachers, university staff, school mentors, department of basic education officials, and others, students and higher education staff members can either assist or hamper each other. similarly, in the natural world, plants and animals have a dependent relationship within a living community or ecosystem. the survival of the community is impacted by the interaction and reliance of members of the ecosystem on each other (potts et al., 2010). a learning-toteach ecosystem can be understood as a community of interacting elements that is able to nurture growth towards teacherness. it is a system of interconnected individuals, formed by the interaction of a group of educational role-players, within a particular environment. the role-players (i.e. elements of the ecosystem) considered in this study include preservice student teachers and university staff members. agentive creativity individuals have the capacity for collaborative engagement and agentive creativity as stetsenko (2018) has reminded us. while creativity can be affirming and generative, it also offers the possibility of opposition and critique and of moving beyond the status quo (stetsenko, 2019). the collaborative nature of creativity is recognised and human beings are involved in “co-creating and co-authoring the world” (stetsenko, 2018, p. 44). the world or reality that is co-constructed by students and staff is comprised of alternatives, challenging options, uncertainty, and fear. however, there is also space for determined and optimistic action (stetsenko, 2018). visual methodologies offer the possibility of an innovative exploration of experiences (mannay et al., 2017), seeing in new ways, and moving towards transformed practice (mitchell et al., 2015) as the teacher learning space is traversed. 110 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 methodology and methods de lange et al. (2015) have explained how visual methodologies can be used to prompt transformation. they showed us how to elicit “portraits of change” that can be used to produce an adjustment in thinking and prompt agency and action (p. 16). participatory research has the potential to effect change for and with research participants (pain & francis, 2003). the learning journey of students, as beginner teachers, is explored using a range of visual techniques in this enquiry. photo-voice is used to elicit data from senior students regarding their experiences in schools. an exhibition of this visual work initiates a conversation and involves a learning-to-teach community in an image-based interaction about teacher learning in diverse schooling contexts. collages provide a means for staff members to contribute perspectives and join the conversation on teacher learning. insights prompted by the photo-voice exhibition and collage pieces are then used by first-year students to reflect on their school-based experiences. they communicate their emerging understandings of learning to teach by means of drawings. in the following section, i provide details regarding the creative opportunities used to negotiate and move across the learning-to-teach terrain. photo-voice: seeing, thinking and wondering about being a beginning teacher third-year bed student teachers had the opportunity to reflect on their experiences in schools at the start of the academic year. a prompt, “see, think, wonder (stw)” (a thinking strategy devised by the harvard project zero visible thinking team) as documented by ritchhart (2002), was used to generate images and accompanying written pieces. as part of the formal reflection activities in a bed 3 school-based learning module, student teachers were guided to provide a visual image that depicted either opportunity, hope, or challenge. thereafter, they had to use stw to engage with the image, a total of 319 students completed this reflection activity. responses were assessed and students received feedback on their work. information in the module guidelines indicated that aspects of student work could be used for research purposes in order to improve the delivery of the module. students had the opportunity to refuse to have their work included. the ethical procedures of the university were followed in terms of using student populations as research participants. 1 for the purposes of this research undertaking, only photographs created by student teachers were considered. found photographs, pictures, and drawings by third-year students were not included. in addition to the standard ethics procedures of the university, the ethics of dissemination (see khoja et al., 2015) were considered. students thus had the opportunity to withhold permission to have their work exhibited. following mitchell (2015), both the interests of any subjects in the images and those of the creators were taken into consideration. a random selection of 25 photo-voice pieces was initially made. the aim was to have 12 to 15 pieces for the exhibition. student volunteers made selections using specified criteria as guidelines. the aim of the exhibition was to initiate visual interaction between student year groups and other members of the teacher learning community. ultimately, 12 photographs and their accompanying texts were 1 the ethics number allocated by the university was h19-edu-ere-001. childs: visual participatory methodology as a prompt for agentic creativity 111 included in the exhibition that took place in a lunchtime slot during the university’s teaching and learning week. the university community and visitors were invited to view the students’ work. after we displayed the work in an outdoor communal area, the exhibition was relocated to the faculty of education resource centre. there was an opportunity for those viewing the exhibition, in both venues, to respond to the exhibition. another harvard project zero visual activity was used to elicit such responses, namely the connect, extend, challenge (cec) artful thinking strategy (ritchhart & perkins, 2008). this strategy allowed viewers to speak back to the exhibition (see mitchell, 2015). the prompts, available in handout format, were: how is the exhibition connected to something you know about? what new ideas or impressions do you have that extended your thinking in new directions? what is challenging or confusing? what do you wonder about? audience responses were collected and displayed in a file in the resource centre. visitors to the resource centre had the opportunity to view the stw exhibition and write back using the cec prompt mentioned earlier. alternatively, exhibition visitors could respond in what bean and elbow (2009) termed a freewriting format. first-year students were invited to view the exhibition and written responses before their first school-based learning opportunity at the beginning of their second semester. the exhibition remained up for the duration of the semester and was a reference point for the drawing activity required of the first-year students. collage work: investigating beginning teacher identities the institution’s revised bed curriculum uses the concepts bbbb to designate and describe school-based learning opportunities in each of the four years of study. these tags are also considered as markers of teacher identity along a continuum of teacher learning. hence, a collage process was designed by the research team to establish an understanding of what these concepts could mean as signifiers of a learning-to-teach process. three staff research team members (two academics and a school-based learning administrator) collaborated in the collage process. the crafting and engaging with collage pieces allowed entry into the learning-to-teach conversation. the aim of the bbbb collage activity was to offer a visual and creative perspective regarding what the stages of teacher learning might represent. the collage work included photo elicitation, crafting four collage pieces, and what we have come to call close viewing to highlight emerging meanings. the collage work included both images and text. the primary images were photographs. copyright-free images came from https://www.pexels.com/ using the search phrases bridging, becoming, being, belonging, teaching, and learning. students were seen as becoming members of a community of practice (see sathorar & geduld, 2018). thus, the additional search items of periphery and centre, following lave and wenger (1991) were used to show movement in a teacher learning process towards being centred or belonging. staff members collaborated to select images for each collage piece. the plan was to develop a collage to represent each of the concepts of bridging, becoming, being, and belonging, as described in the bed curriculum and faculty prospectus. the technical descriptor from the 112 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 prospectus and a visual expansion of the concept were used to help students and staff to think more deeply and creatively about the envisaged teacher learning process. the collage pieces were crafted using elicited photographs, curriculum documents, images of the growth of teachers from apprentices to experts, and visualisations of the movement from periphery to centre. in line with butler-kisber (2008), art elements such as colour, shape, line, positioning, and texture were also considered and employed. the collage work was shared with first-year students after they returned from their visits to schools. this offered students an opportunity to reflect on the conceptualisation of schoolbased learning within the bed programme. students were able to place themselves and their recent experiences in schools within a visually depicted space of teacher learning. this visual placement stimulated the first-year drawing activity. after viewing the collages and engaging with the exhibition of peer photo-voice work, students were invited to show, through drawing, who or where they were as teachers. drawing: sketching who or where you are as a beginning teacher bed 1 students had the opportunity to respond to the exhibition of senior student work by participating in the cec activity, or by contributing freewriting responses. additionally, a selected group of first-year students participated in a drawing activity to depict aspects of their learning-to-teach experience. bed intermediate phase (ip) students were invited to participate in a drawing process. this selection was based on convenience sampling since the research team worked in the bed ip programme. of the 164 ip first-year students, 144 participated in the drawing activity. students were invited to create black and white drawings showing either who they were or where they saw themselves as beginner teachers. they were asked to supply accompanying texts of at least 50 words as an initial interpretation of their drawings. it was important to capture aspects of each participant’s work and weave these into a story to communicate back to them. this gave the group who generated the drawings, and a broader audience, an understanding of the emerging insights of students at the beginning of their learning-to-teach journey. a key idea from each drawing was formulated. these ideas were woven into a word tapestry and shared with the creators of the drawings to ensure that each drawing was adequately represented. participants were given the opportunity to suggest alternative written representations of their drawings. the word tapestry could be understood as a collage of written texts. the fragments representing first year work were woven together to make a summative picture of the outcomes of the visual participatory process. findings a creative, participatory process was used to surface views and visions of learning to teach. senior students provided glimpses of their school-based learning experiences in photo-voice reflections. these were shared in an exhibition in order to initiate visual communication in the faculty of education as a teacher-learning environment. staff members joined the visual conversation by creating and/or scrutinising a set of collages that interrogated the childs: visual participatory methodology as a prompt for agentic creativity underpinning ideas of the teacher education curriculum students had the opportunity to view the work of fellow students and staff as a precursor to their school-based learning opportunity. on their return to campus, they communicated their ideas about learning to teach through story about the insights of first crafted. key ideas from this tapestry were distilled and a learning created. two sets of insights emerged from the webs and threads of visual work. the first related to disruption and challenge challenging boundaries and opportunities and challenges were captured, and a sense of hope depicted in many of the evocative images and texts produced by third year students ( figure 1: hope in the cracks of life, by alulutho qundani this picture shows a plant growing in a cemented, cracked wal hope. in this picture, i see children who will come to my classroom with many problems. i think of all the ways i will provide a great, conducive learning space that will help them focus on their future, rather than the problems and f i wonder if i will be able to put the above into action. as previously noted, students, staff, and the community could engage with the stw photo voice work exhibition. the stw visible thinking strategy (ritchhart & perkins, 2008) offered a means of collective viewing and pondering audience members could respond using the artful thinking routine cec, they prompted others to see differently (which is a key affordance of visual methodologies). a particip childs: visual participatory methodology as a prompt for agentic creativity e teacher education curriculum in relation to bbbb. students had the opportunity to view the work of fellow students and staff as a precursor to based learning opportunity. on their return to campus, they communicated their through drawings and accompanying texts. in order to weave a the insights of first year students as beginner teachers, a word tapestry was crafted. key ideas from this tapestry were distilled and a learning-to-teach collag created. two sets of insights emerged from the webs and threads of visual work. the first related to disruption and challenge and the second to collaboration and coalescing. oundaries and seeing differently were captured, and a sense of hope depicted in many of the evocative images and texts produced by third year students (see figure 1). y alulutho qundani this picture shows a plant growing in a cemented, cracked wall. the image depicts in this picture, i see children who will come to my classroom with many problems. i think of all the ways i will provide a great, conducive learning space that will help them focus on their future, rather than the problems and fears they have. i wonder if i will be able to put the above into action. as previously noted, students, staff, and the community could engage with the stw photo voice work exhibition. the stw visible thinking strategy (ritchhart & perkins, 2008) means of collective viewing and pondering on the learning-to-teach process. since audience members could respond using the artful thinking routine cec, they prompted others to see differently (which is a key affordance of visual methodologies). a particip childs: visual participatory methodology as a prompt for agentic creativity 113 in relation to bbbb. first year students had the opportunity to view the work of fellow students and staff as a precursor to based learning opportunity. on their return to campus, they communicated their drawings and accompanying texts. in order to weave a as beginner teachers, a word tapestry was teach collage was created. two sets of insights emerged from the webs and threads of visual work. the first he second to collaboration and coalescing. were captured, and a sense of hope depicted in many of the figure 1). l. the image depicts in this picture, i see children who will come to my classroom with many problems. i think of all the ways i will provide a great, conducive learning space that will help ears they have. as previously noted, students, staff, and the community could engage with the stw photovoice work exhibition. the stw visible thinking strategy (ritchhart & perkins, 2008) teach process. since audience members could respond using the artful thinking routine cec, they prompted others to see differently (which is a key affordance of visual methodologies). a participant’s 114 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 photograph “captures the world” and affords “subsequent knowledge production” (glawet al., 2017, p. 1). responses to hope in the cracks of life (figure 1) included: wow—strange to think that children with problems can make someone feel hopeful . . . she seems confident that she can make a difference—a good idea to teach children to be future focussed. (cec: 5) the collage process undertaken by staff added further voices to the learning-to-teach conversation. once the collages were ready, a close viewing process was undertaken by three research team members. similar to close reading used in literature studies, participants looked with focussed attention at each collage and used sticky notes to comment on meanings arising from each piece. although several important understandings emerged from the close viewing activity, only the idea of not belonging is dealt with in this paper. the official descriptors for school-based learning modules emphasise a movement towards belonging: year 1: starting out as a beginning teacher; year 2: becoming a student teacher; year 3: being a student teacher; year 4: belonging to a community of practice. the close viewing process disrupted the fluid progression conceptualised in bbbb and showed that in working towards teacher learning, episodes of not belonging could be useful. discontinuity of student teacher placement experiences offers important learning opportunities as mesker et al. (2018) have pointed out. discussion during the close viewing analysis process confirmed that most students preferred familiar settings, often similar to those of the schools they attended, which resonated with views of teacher socialisation during their school years (wall, 2016). helping aspirant teachers understand the value of boundary crossing and not belonging surfaced during the collage work engagement. boundary crossing is acknowledged as having significant potential for learning and the development of identity and practice (akkerman & bakker, 2011). although boundary transitions can be uncomfortable, they can have value and can prompt understanding and learning, as evidenced in figure 2. figure 2: challenge, agency, and happiness, by anlou botha childs: visual participatory methodology as a prompt for agentic creativity 115 i started my journey for school-based learning in my 3rd year, at a new school, with a new environment and completely different learners. the first thing to draw my attention was the challenges the school is facing. there are so many different challenges on various levels. one of the major challenges the school encounters is a lack of resources. this affects the learners’ ability to reach their full potential. poverty impacts hard on the school and this makes learning difficult. children sometimes only eat once a day and that is the food the school provides. as a result, learners struggle to keep their concentration on their schoolwork. i see all the challenges the school has to face and all the effort the teachers invest. i think the staff at this school really make a difference in the lives of the children. they try to keep the learners motivated and teach them as best they can with the resources available. after observing this, i am left wondering how long the school can go on like this and remain a functional school. the question remains: what will happen to the children? despite the circumstances, the children seem content. the picture above was taken before school as the learners arrive at school and play together. they seem more than happy with their school. through this piece, it seems that anlou had the courage to move across a boundary towards the less familiar. she indicates a placement for school-based learning “at a new school, with a new environment and completely different learners.” although challenges are obvious, anlou resists a deficit positioning and alerts her audience to the efforts of the teachers who teach, “as best they can with the resources available.” the audience is left wondering about the future of the children and the apparent contradiction of a challenging environment and happy children. the traversing of economic and social boundaries by hard-working teachers may leave a sense of puzzled admiration in exhibition participants. mesker et al. (2018) illuminated the idea of a boundary as being “a metaphor for an experience of discontinuity wherein a socio-cultural difference is perceived as a challenge or obstacle in action or interaction” (p. 1). the clear challenges and apparent contradictions in the school circumstances that anlou highlights have the potential to prompt consideration and conversation within a learning-to-teach community. the quiet allure of the image in figure 2 captures the attention of viewers while the thoughtprovoking text suggests nuances in learning to teach that may linger long after the viewer has left the exhibition. the example of boundary crossing and possible not belonging are clear threads of the learning-to-teach conversation playing out between the exhibited photo-voice work and the collage pieces. first-year student teachers had the opportunity to discern these and other threads as they viewed the exhibition and collage works. they were encouraged to reflect on their own school-based learning experiences and find similarities and dissonances between their view of learning to teach and that of others. this contemplation and consideration prepared students for the drawing activity. for this activity, black and white drawings were created in response to the prompt, “who or where are you as a beginning 116 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 teacher?” the first-year students' drawings and accompanying texts provided another glimpse into the understandings of teacher learning. their visual communication was informed by the images of senior students and staff and their own experiences. the drawings showed both the difficulties and possibilities of the learning to teach terrain. collaborative sense making and situating first year students drew pictures and wrote accompanying texts to assist viewers to interpret their drawings. in order to make sense of the visual conversation that was emerging, a selection of text was extracted from each written piece. as a thread linked to each drawing was extracted, patterns began to form. several focal areas appeared: puzzles and pondering, seeing and gaining insight, growing and making progress, doubting and hanging in, steps and stairways, and contributing and becoming a teacher. after ensuring that participants’ work was adequately represented by an appropriate text-thread, each focal area was allocated a colour. figure 3: colour clues an image depicting the intricate and sometimes messy work of learning to teach was elicited from a copyright free visual source, pixabay.com. the metaphor of a tapestry was chosen to show how strands of understanding were woven together. shades of each colour were used to colour the threads in each area (figure 3). in the case of puzzles and pondering, light orange was used to indicate being unsure and unsafe (a-f). a darker orange shade was used to indicate more confidence (g-k). a bold orange (l) was used to indicate feeling stronger and dealing with apprehension. childs: visual participatory methodology as a prompt for agentic creativity 117 learning to teach word tapestry figure 4: extract from word tapestry the word tapestry served as a visual artefact representing and honouring the journey of each participant. a collective visual representation of students’ drawings and their thinking about their learning-to-teach trajectory had, thus, been woven with words. after scrutinising and sharing the tapestry with students, it became obvious that the seven focal points had some overlap and could be shaped into five distinct areas of emphasis: puzzles and pondering, 118 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 seeing and gaining insight, growing and making progress, doubting or hanging in, and contributing and becoming a teacher. in order to sharpen the understanding of what was emerging from the tapestry, drawings that resonated with each area of emphasis were selected from the first-year submissions and used to create a collage. figure 5: picturing learning to teach the areas of emphasis offer samples of students’ views regarding embarking on the learningto-teach journey. the written and visual texts show their emerging understandings of teacherness. puzzles and pondering shows beginner teachers as hesitant and confused. sbl has left me puzzled. what have i learnt? somethings (and some things), but not enough yet. (1a) i am lost, i am confused. i really do not know what to do. at the beginning of the year, i had it all figured out . . . now i do not know whether i should just continue with the course that i am already in, because i have grown to love the teaching profession and i feel a sense of belonging or, should i change . . . (1e) childs: visual participatory methodology as a prompt for agentic creativity 119 despite students’ uncertainty, responses hint at their willingness to continue on the learningto-teach journey to discover whether or not the profession suits them and what their identity might be. i’m picturing myself in a classroom. i’m wearing a shirt and a tie. that means i am considering going into a classroom but also thinking whether the profession is the right one for me. (1h) my sbl experience was scary at first but in the end, i came out strong. i felt what it is like being a teacher, tackling tasks. i fought my fears. (1l) students’ readiness to accept the discomfort of not fully knowing suggests bravery and resolve, as first-year students begin their expedition towards teacherness. seeing and gaining insight depicts student teachers as developing insights as beginner teachers. it also captures understandings of how student teachers view learners during their school visits. my sbl experience completely opened my eyes to the challenges and various types of learners in the community. it encouraged me to become more open minded and take a step back in order to allow myself to fully develop into a future teacher. (2i) looking at my sketch, we can see it is a thriving ecosystem. (2p) teachers are required to see and welcome learners, and what they bring to the classroom. when there is a mutual valuing of the capabilities of teachers and learners, a productive learning community can exist. growing and making progress reveals that beginner teachers are aware that they have initiated a process. there is a strong sense of beginning, with several stages still ahead. two metaphors dominated the students’ drawings, namely a plant growing and a journey. i have grown as a beginner teacher and i am slowly allowing positive things into my life—things that will change me for the better. (3k) i see myself in the picture of a growing plant in early stages just after appearing above the ground level. i am still delicate, and my growth and direction is much depending on environment factors. (3o) my journey of becoming a teacher—i compare it with natural beings, the rising sun between the mountains shows where i am at now. the river flowing, feeding the green grass and trees, represents my mind gathering all the knowledge, skills and experiences i have had thus far. this whole drawing shows what i have learnt and with the sbl experience i have i feel like the sun is rising in my journey and it’s a wonderful and beautiful journey. (3x) 120 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 teachers with a well-developed sense of awareness are able to attend to their own growth and nurture the growth of their learners. as part of enacting a curriculum, teachers can make space for learners to be present, rather than excluded, to find their place and grow. doubting or hanging in reveals students’ notions of their increasing euphoria about learning to teach being interrupted. in this part of the tapestry, the eye moves over the alluring colours of orange, blue, and green, and is then halted by the sombre grey threads that tell of uncertainties and misgivings. can i take on all the roles? . . . do i really belong in this profession? (4a) the process of becoming a teacher can be tiring at times. my sbl experience reminded me why i am studying education. it’s like children have a direct string attached to my heart and when i become despondent or overwhelmed, it’s my future learners that pull me through. (4d) i did not know what to expect on my first day and this made me a bit scared to be honest. the classroom environment was very calm, and i think this helped me to calm down also. (4f) students’ yearning for a more comfortable place is evident as each grey thread is considered. anxiety shifts towards a calmer, but still hesitant, realisation that teaching might be a good career choice and could even be enjoyable. a safe and invigorating environment is an essential requirement for creating a place for learning to flourish. interaction of elements in the learning ecosystem leads to sustainability and balance. contributing and becoming a teacher provides a final glimpse into students’ perceptions of promises and possibilities. i am imagining myself in a class playing an important role, inspiring, motivating, encouraging, and shaping. (5a) the relationship i built with those kids made me to realise that my community needs new vibrant teachers. i felt ready to be a teacher and serve in my community. (5b) i am beginning to think that this is for me, and i will do whatever it takes to equip myself with relevant knowledge to build up myself to bring the change i want to see in my country and the world at large. (5q) the contributions of first-year students evidence efforts to understand and make meaning of what it is to be a teacher in the complex south african school landscape. this learning to teach terrain is not neutral or necessarily safe. as the tapestry is viewed and threads are read, it is clear that some first year student teachers are still uncomfortable. they have not crossed a bridge towards teacherness. others evidence becoming familiar with and situated in their learning-to-teach journey. their sense of themselves and their place in a teaching environment is emerging. childs: visual participatory methodology as a prompt for agentic creativity 121 discussion collectively, members of the learning-to-teach community (i.e. first-year students, senior students, and faculty staff members) could engage with and shape the visions of what it means to become a teacher. learning to teach is a complex but valuable process. weft and warp threads together make a tapestry (crane et al., 2017). the presented student contributions can be considered the weft threads. the warp strands could represent the staff engaging with the student teachers. together, these weft and warp strands are able to create an artefact of teacher learning with aesthetic appeal and profound social promise. the resultant tapestry makes a strong visual statement. it has the power to promote thinking and spur action. a “tapestry of human potential” appears from the interaction and interdependence of the weft and warp elements (wood, 1995, p. 44). the sturdy and sustainable woven fabric is possible only because of the connection between these threaded elements. this speaks to the mutual vulnerability and dependence of students and staff (see fraser et al., 2003). individual weft and warp threads are relatively weak and vulnerable. however, when woven into a tapestry, their dependence becomes their strength and contributes to the aesthetic quality and durability of the tapestry. the interconnectedness of threads is similar to the interconnectedness within a balanced ecosystem or community. careful and considered interactions of a teacher learning community can result in states of teacherness that have the beauty of a carefully woven tapestry and the balance of a sustainable ecosystem. visual participatory activities gave rise to a conversation about the learning-to-teach journey. students and staff met each other and collaborated in what roux and becker (2016) thought of as a dialogic engagement. interested, respectful communication characterises this engagement as lane and kent (2018) have noted. for this dialogic interaction to take place, there must be “the acknowledgement of situated selves, and the ontological need for, and right to, voice” (roux & becker, 2016, p. 131). this study demonstrates that participant voice and views are possible when visual participatory methodologies are employed. students and staff had the opportunities to use visual and creative processes to position and situate themselves in terms of their understandings of teacherness and consider the way forward on a learning-to-teach journey. the artful portrayals were at times challenging and disruptive. the boundaries described elsewhere by akkerman and bakker (2011) had to be crossed and identities shifted as beauchamp and thomas (2011) noted in a different context. this discomfort enabled the forward movement and transitioning that stetsenko (2019) has commented on. in other instances, the visual activity was more harmonious, and understandings coalesced. collaborative engagement prepared the ground for the agentive creativity advocated by stetsenko (2018). students and staff co-created and co-authored the envisaged teaching world. visual activities succeeded in prompting re-viewing taken-forgranted understandings to which mannay (2010) has referred elsewhere, and familiar notions of teaching could be reframed. 122 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 conclusion visual approaches enable non-linear thinking and can shift the power balance of knowledge creation. as a result of the use of a range of visual participatory activities, both students and staff emerged as knowers regarding teacherness and learning to teach. agentic creativity enabled the challenging of boundaries and seeing differently. subtle shades of meaning emerged when the learning-to-teach journey was considered. the belief in an easy progression through stages of teacher preparation was problematized in the visual responses of students. the visual engagement of students and staff demonstrated that visual methodologies can be used as tools for collaborative meaning making. the familiar and taken-for-granted can be reviewed and borders and boundaries traversed. weaving creative activities with visually based dialogic engagement holds transformative promise for teacher learning. uncertain spaces can be bridged when students and staff form a learning ecosystem and are willing to be mutually vulnerable and dependent. within this environment, there is a space for openness, respect, hope, and courage. references akkerman, s. f., & bakker, a. 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(1995). weaving the warp and weft of occupational therapy: an art and science for all times. american journal of occupational therapy, 49(1), 44–52. microsoft word bissue77dec19.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 77, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i77a08 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x secured, not connected: south africa’s adult education system john aitchison emeritus professor, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa aitchisonjjw@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5226-7709 sandra jane land adult and community education unit, school of education, durban university of technology, pietermaritzburg, south africa sandral@dut.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1776-079x (received: 11 june 2019; accepted: 10 november 2019) abstract in this paper we address an area that has been largely neglected by researchers—state provision of adult education in south africa. we argue that there have been decades of neglect, or, at best, token support for our country’s adult education system, and we look at how the system could be revitalised, both in terms of minimal requirements for immediate basic improvement as well as for a more radical and forward looking transformation of the system. south africa has a history of attempts to provide school equivalent education to black adults through night schools. suppressed in the 1950s and 1960s, they resurfaced after the 1976 soweto revolt, and in 1996 the constitution secured adult basic education as a right. state night schools were renamed public adult learning centres (palcs), and seemed poised to become a powerful delivery mechanism, but continued as inadequate night schools. in 2015 the palc system was ostensibly transformed into a community college one, but this transformation was based on the weak foundation of inadequate palcs. a new 2019 plan for the community education and training college system includes long needed major overhauls that must be made if adults’ right to effective and relevant education is to be finally realised. keywords: adult education; community education; community colleges; public adult learning centres. aitchison & land: secured, not connected 139 introduction just as we suffer the frustration of a computer signalling that it has secured a link to a network, but is still not connected to the internet, we see the current state of south african adult education as secured, in terms of the constitution’s guarantee of adults’ right to education, but not connected in its perennial lack of access to the full education services that would advance adult learners’ knowledge and their life chances. in this paper we review the history of adult education in this country as we look forward with cautious hope to the new possibilities intimated in the incipient community college system for adult education. we draw on document analysis, direct observation, and data we collected in our work as researchers of adult education at the university of kwazulu-natal (formerly university of natal) and at the durban university of technology. in the 1950s and early 1960s the apartheid state forced the closure of church, municipal, nongovernment organisations (ngos), and independent night schools serving black people. state run night schools, called adult education centres or adult learning centres or, more recently, public adult learning centres (palcs), started up again in 1977 after the soweto revolt of 1976. these new state centres were run through 13 of the various late apartheid era education departments, then through the nine post-apartheid provincial education departments, until, finally, they became the legal responsibility of the department of higher education in 2009 and operationally so in 2015. they had gained some measure of legal identity with the adult basic education and training act of 2000, but with the abolition of the act in 2013 and in terms of the further education and training college amendment act of 2013, they were (by legal fiat on 1 april 2015) nominally merged into nine community colleges (geographically one per province) and remain, in practice, unchanged as substructures of those new bodies. since this community college system is being piloted, we need to look at the history of the palcs for we cannot answer the questions “what are we?” and “where are we going?” in respect of basic adult education unless we can answer the one that asks, “where do we come from?” we stay cautioned about the importance of this by george santayana’s maxim, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (1905, p. 284), together with marx’s “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce” (1852, n.p.). adult education in south africa from 1959–2019: snapshots and comments nearly 60 years ago the first author of this article, john aitchison, then a student at the then university of natal, and subsequently a director of the centre for adult education there, recalls, it is 1962 in pietermaritzburg. students from the university of natal run an illegal night school in a local community hall. it continued because the municipal official in 140 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 charge of bantu administration turned a blind eye towards the illegality (i honour you, mr bang) and one of the clerks in the local bantu education department always tipped us off when the police got interested, and “lost” letters from pretoria instructing that it be closed down (i honour you, mr nxumalo). i taught biology. at that time, unbelievable as it sounds, there were no schools anywhere in the pietermaritzburg municipality where a black person could study up to senior certificate level. most of the 60 or so students were mature adults in employment (in fact, to be accepted for the examination as a part-time student one had to be employed). there were only one or two young people. some 19 years later the once night school still survived, having, since 1963, sought refuge on the university campus, but by then was made up entirely of young matric dropouts and failures. in 1982 the university ordered it closed since it had become, in effect, a day-school for the university. forty years ago post the 1976 soweto revolt, the department of education and training (which served blacks in so-called white areas) and what was known as the homeland governments opened state night schools. they tended initially to target schoolteachers upgrading their qualifications but ran classes from literacy to senior certificate (matric) level. in some areas, like, for example, the ciskei, they actually started delivering with some degree of efficiency. we had the beginnings of a state system of adult education centres delivering formal school equivalency instruction. course materials were produced for students at all levels. in the last 25 years: statistics in the palc era by 1994 there were estimated to be 1,440 public adult education centres (palcs) in south africa. centres were categorised as public, state-aided, private, and satellite (the latter not being recognised as exam centres; harley et al., 1996). subsequent estimates of the number of palcs (with or without their satellite centres) vary wildly. a university of natal study in 1998/99 (aitchison et al., 2000) found 3,073 palcs, made up of 1,483 centres with their satellites and state-aided centres in eight provinces (there was no data for limpopo). researchers noted extreme difficulty in gaining reliable information about the number of centres, in spite of there being senior personnel in most provinces responsible for oversight and inspection of all the schools and public adult learning centres based in them. the human sciences research council (2000) count in 1999 found 2,226, of which 2,023 catered for adult basic education and training (abet; equivalent to school grades 1 to 9). the national department of education (doe; 2003) stated that in 2001 there were 2,494. in 2004, the doe gave a figure of 1,895 for 2002, which distinguished between adult basic education and training (abet) and further education and training (fet; the high school equivalent) centres (department of education, 2004). the 2010 master list of the department of higher education and training (dhet) noted 3,083 palcs. the 2012 annual survey of adult education centres found 2,457 (dhet, 2014), but dhet claimed that there were aitchison & land: secured, not connected 141 actually 3,150 centres since a further 693 centres had not responded to the survey questionnaire sent to them! in 2016, dhet stated that there were 2,778 (dhet, 2018, p. 56). when it comes to the number of learners, provincial data since the mid-1990s suggests that learner attendance ranged from slightly over a quarter of a million in 1995 (258,967; doe, 1997b), up to 386,098 for 1996/97, from which date there has been a steady decline from 361,385 for 1997/1998 (aitchison et al., 2000), to 306,378 in 2012 (dhet, 2014), to 275,268 for 2014 (dhet, 2018), and to only 258,199 in 2017 (dhet, 2019). for the period 2000 to 2013 the auditor-general (2014, p. 11) provided an interesting graph for palc student enrolments showing a downward trend. figure 1: annual abet learner enrolment level 1 to 4, 2000 to 2013 source: education statistics in south africa at a glance reports 2000 to 2009 and education management information systems emis) data 2010 to 2013 (dhet, 2017a) note: enrolment numbers reflected in the stats at a glance include grade 1012 learners. aet/abet levels 1–4) enrolment could not be provided separately for 2000–2009 many of the problems in the palc statistics since the mid-1990s have stemmed from the chronic failure (or refusal) to distinguish between abet (equivalent to national qualifications framework (nqf) level 1 primary schooling) learners and fet (equivalent to nqf levels 2 to 4 high school) learners (see doe 2000, 2001). for virtually the whole period it was difficult to establish how many learners were at abet level or fet level and it is likely that for many years fet learners have been either seriously under-enumerated or misclassified as abet learners. both the apparent official statistics and the research statistics concur in claiming something under 200,000 abet learners. although the palc system was supposed to offer adults more attractive learning options than the night schools that preceded it, it did not grow to any great extent, and, indeed, has been on a downward trajectory. although obtaining accurate statistics about the number of abet learners during the era of palcs was extremely difficult (aitchison, 2016; aitchison & harley, 2006; harley et al., 1996), it is clear that this decline was uneven across provinces, 142 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 with gauteng and the western cape, which had the most effective provincial management, suffering the least. sadly, the decline in enrolment was not averted by the kha ri gude (let us learn) adult literacy campaign that enrolled over 4 million learners between 2008 and 2017 and issued most of them with an abet level 1 (grades 1 to 3 equivalent) certificate (dhet, 2017a. although it was hoped that adults who had benefited from kha ri gude would enrol in abet level 2 at palcs, there are no signs that the campaign made any impact at all in increasing enrolment in level 2 or higher level classes in palcs; these learners simply did not go on to the palcs. the context of the kha ri gude adult literacy campaign is that it was proposed by the then minister of education in 2006, launched officially in 2008, and ended in 2016/17. initially, it was a well-run and successful operation that, on the whole, delivered on its programme of very basic alphabetisation (dhet, 2017a). however, the ministerial committee on literacy that had planned the campaign had warned that even the best literacy grounding is unlikely to be sustained unless followed by further exercise of these newly gained competencies. this requires that some form of postliteracy/adult basic education be available, and the committee concurs with the minister of education’s call for a revamping of the abet system to make it more useful to adult learners. evidence from latin america strongly supports this need to have an effective post-literacy programme in place as soon as possible. (the ministerial committee on literacy, 2007, p. 14) four years ago: 2015 magical transformation time at the magical hour of midnight on the 31 march 2015, the palcs were transformed, like a host of cinderellas, each and every one, into a community college, and before the hour had finished striking, merged into only nine community colleges, one per province. back in the townships and rural areas, each palc greeted the light of april fool’s day, like cinderella did the morning after the ball, exactly as they had been before. a field visit in late 2015 by members of a ministerial committee on the review of the funding frameworks of technical and vocational education and training colleges and community education and training colleges to a selection of the supposedly better expalcs in each province found very low enrolment in abet 1 and 2, and heard that this was because learners with very low literacy skills were attending classes run by the kha ri gude campaign. however, there was no influx of kha ri gude graduates into level 2, and enrolment was not high in abet 3. the committee found that it was abet 4, which leads to the general education and training certificate (getc) examination (equivalent to grade 9), that was best attended, and that centres that ran the amended senior certificate (for adults over 21 who have a getc or other nqf level 1 qualification or incomplete senior certificate) were growing. at all these centres the learners tended to be in their late teens and twenties. the ministerial committee also found these learning centres to be inadequate in a number of vital aspects: aitchison & land: secured, not connected 143 • first, most host schools provided only the barest minimum by way of facilities like simply, the use of a few classrooms after school hours. very few palcs had an office or place to store things. most had no budget to pay for any utilities, water, light, or cleaning and maintenance and relied on the host school to provide these. while in a few sites, enterprising school principals found ways to share their thin resources with their palc tenants, these host schools were themselves usually struggling to make ends meet and could not be blamed for the poor resourcing of palcs. • second, staff at all centres complained about the conditions of service: most were on temporary year-by-year contracts so not eligible for any benefits even if they had been in service for more than a decade. they were not eligible for bursaries for further study to improve their qualifications for the same reason, and because they were not mainstream schoolteachers. there was a cap on how many hours they could teach a week, which varied between provinces, in spite of all being under the central control of the dhet, and when some taught extra hours they did so for no pay. because of the poor conditions of service and their perception that adult education was, as a government priority, neglected and dying, the educators generally wanted to get into mainstream school teaching. • third, the situation with materials can only be described as scandalous. some centres had no materials at all, neither textbooks for teachers to use, nor textbooks or workbooks for the learners. at some centres there was one copy of a textbook provided for a few subjects. where there were textbooks for learners, they were totally insufficient and had to be shared among several learners (and hence were used only in class). most of the textbooks were dated and why the department of education bought the particular ones they did is difficult to understand. where textbooks were provided, they were mainly at abet level 4. ironically, three excellent abet level 2 learner books published by the national doe (they were prepared in 2008 by the kha ri gude materials design staff) did not seem to be available. most commercial publishers of abet course materials had stopped producing materials because there were so few sales. no readers were provided in any of the centres. it is alarming that these learners were expected to learn to read with literally nothing provided for them to read. disappointingly, a number of ngos and university-based units that produced readers for abet, and who could have supplied appropriate books with locally based content to palcs had closed down because their books were not bought by state departments. there was no provision of senior certificate materials at all. educators had to get old out-of-date books from schools. learners borrowed prescribed literature from school children. in the past, small quantities of exercise books were sometimes provided. at some sites some printing paper was provided. there was no practical equipment for subjects such as ancillary health care. none of the centres visited offered skills training, though learners generally wanted this. not a single centre had computers for student use. • finally, a serious strain was put on centres by the demands of umalusi council for quality assurance in general and further education and training, which seemed to be modelled on those that are used for conventional schools and are simply unrealistic 144 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 (the centre is meant to have a safe, for example) and onerous on part-time, after-hours educators, who are, with the function shift to full control by the dhet, no longer paid for invigilating and moderating. the effort required for site-based assessment and sending in portfolios was immense, and costly for learners. links with policy in south africa in the 1990s, a discourse about adult basic education (abe), and then abet, replaced the 1980s discourse of non-formal education in which the term literacy was dominant. the universities of natal and cape town were responsible for some of the earliest encouragement of the concept of abe , and this new discourse dominated the next two decades (see aitchison, 2003a, 2003b, 2004, 2013; aitchison & harley, 2006; harley et al., 1996; aitchison et al., 2000). along with parallel policy changes (doe, 1997a, 1997b), this discourse influenced palc programmes, qualifications, curriculum, and materials. more recently, the acronym aet has been used by officialdom, with the word basic omitted from abet. prior to the mid-1990s the state system was immune to discourse shifts. the det and its homeland relatives ran courses at literacy, primary, and secondary levels and provided materials for these. the curriculum was modelled on the conventional, syllabus-based school one. however, with the political transition of the early 1990s and the desire for a large-scale adult education initiative to undo decades of exclusion and discrimination, there was a major policy shift that valorised both abe and outcomes-based education (obe). another stimulus for change came from congress of south african trade unions (cosatu), who took the issue of abe to heart in the late 1980s as part of its vision. it pushed for reforming industrial training, and for enabling workers, deprived through discrimination of the requisite education and certification, to benefit from their experientially developed skills. cosatu was wedded to the idea of general education being provided to workers alongside generic forms of skills training with portable certification. both these issues were strongly present in reports from a national training board investigation (national training board, 1991, 1994) into a new system of industrial training for south africa. from 1991 to 1994, the national training board, through eight committees representative of the state, business, labour, and service providers, worked, inter alia, on a qualifications framework, and on adult basic education. this alliance played a significant role in the policy direction that abe took in south africa in stressing the link between education and training, and obe. one of the main reasons that policy makers in the early 1990s saw the future of abet as lying in the doe rather than in the workplace was the existence of a functioning night school system that used the existing infrastructure of the schooling system (national education policy investigation, 1992). (this is, of course, still very much the case, and school buildings and schoolteachers working part-time after school hours are the major state resource for abet). the attempt to construct a new functional abet system was backed by the new aitchison & land: secured, not connected 145 constitution’s making basic adult education a right but building the new system on top of the old one was not a great success. the new national doe’s attempts at initiating nationally coordinated programmes or campaigns were mainly fiascos. the new national abet directorate, which was understaffed and had only a small budget, tended to engage repeatedly in last minute attempts to start great leaps forward without plans or budgets, with predictable consequences of varying degrees of failure, as witnessed with the april 1995 “strategic thrusts,” the 1996 ten thousand learner units, the 1997 ithuteng campaign, the 1997 multiyear implementation plan for adult education and training (aitchison, 2003a, p. 152). the latter was planned in great detail, but it was essentially an unfunded mandate to all sectors to implement, but without resources. despite the political prominence that accrued to adult basic education as a result of the developments described above, the overall amount of money given to state adult education hardly grew and remained a miniscule proportion (usually less than 1%) of the provincial and the national education budgets. the upshot of all this was that what had been intended as a vibrant amalgam of basic education and training was reduced to a continuation of the previous state night school/adult education centre system offering only formal school equivalency courses of very low quality. two other developments interacted to further disable the state system. these were the conflation of the figures of actual abet learners with fet learners, and the rise of obe. first, because the discourse was about adult basic education, policies, regulations, and, in due course, legislation and the departments involved, confined themselves to adult basic education (that is, primary schooling equivalence). although the previous night schools had also been teaching candidates for the senior certificate (the so-called matric) examinations, and this continued, it was never acknowledged. from 1995 onwards the prioritisation of abet led to many provincial abet sub-directorates not seeing fet in the palcs as their responsibility. plans were made to phase it out, although in reality many provinces had nearly as many fet students as abet ones (aitchison et al., 2000) a dire consequence of this is that education statistics continually added high school level learners to the supposed abet participant numbers (see aitchison & harley, 2006) and for virtually the entire period to date the reported statistics on the adult education system are misleading. indeed, little reliance can be placed on any department of education statistics for abet at all (see aitchison & harley, 2006). second, the rise of obe, with the standards apparatus of the new nqf, resulted in abet being a major pilot of this new approach with devastating side effects. representatives from business south africa and cosatu exercised a powerful influence on the adoption of the obe approach, the former partly because commercial training providers wanted early warning of what the curriculum would be for abet so that they could get into the field first. the fruit of their work was the national adult basic education and training framework: interim guidelines of september 1995. it was a ponderous mix of transformatory rhetoric and dense rules about standards, abet levels, level descriptors, fields of study, assessment, and language rules. it was de facto unusable, though frequently referred to. 146 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 with the imposition of this obe in the late 1990s there was some attempt to provide training in this approach, as well as the development of some materials (both usually designed by contracted ngos). but a curriculum vacuum was the inevitable consequence of the policy insistence that in terms of obe (doe, 1997a, [section 5.5 qualifications]) no core curriculum or syllabus was provided by the doe for the abet learning areas or the broader organising fields. this was an important change from past practice where syllabi and national core curriculum guidelines laid down what should be taught and how it should be taught. in an outcomes-based approach the focus is on the outcomes of learning. how educators enabled their learners to reach these outcomes, and by what particular curriculum, was open and flexible, and educators were simply left to their own devices. this wholesale adoption of obe, with totally inadequate budgets and teacher training, helped lead to the demise of any serious attempt to provide materials. it was blindly assumed that south african educators could interpret the meaning of the unit standards, develop their own lesson plans, and produce contextually relevant materials, despite the fact that they had never had any training nor had they been given any support to help them do this. allied to the obe approach was a tendency of the national directorate to have the abet provision (although it was based on its own unit standards) conform to the schooling system’s curriculum 2005, which was itself heading on its own disastrous trajectory. the reality of the state palc system was that it piggybacked on school facilities after hours and relied almost exclusively on part-time staff made up of some schoolteachers working after hours, and other unqualified people scraping an income from this work. most were not adult educators and there was little if any training offered them; only some received the twoday so-called orientation offered to schoolteachers taking on the task of teaching in palcs (harley et al., 1996). it was therefore unsurprising that with no actual curriculum or syllabus, these teachers failed to demonstrate the capacity they were assumed to have of being able to design a path that would be followed to reach the specified outcomes. there was no real attempt to supply materials, and what were provided were purchased in an incoherent manner in inadequate quantities by provincial education departments. considering that the pirls 2016 study offers solid evidence that by the end of grade 4, some 78% of children in south african schools cannot read with understanding in any language (howie et al., 2017) despite being taught by fully qualified teachers, to expect any success from the adult education system under the circumstances described above was naivety at its most extreme. goodbye to skills training in spite of much rhetoric about the training part of adult basic education and training (abet) there do not seem to be many examples of serious attempts to link abe with training in the state system, though there were plans in the late 1990s to develop abet electives in agriculture and small business development (aitchison et al., 2000). in many cases the actual curriculum of these two electives was perceived by learners to be irrelevant to their needs, which may explain the recent popularity of two other electives courses, ancillary health care and early childhood development, because they offer some hope of employment as health workers or as assistants in early childhood centres and crèches. aitchison & land: secured, not connected 147 coming to the present in spite of the gradual fading away of obe, few further developments in curriculum happened. generally, neither the provincial education departments nor the now dhet expended much energy in relation to adult education qualifications, programmes, the improvement of teaching approaches and methods, nor to the development and distribution of materials for educators and learners. it has taken an inordinate amount of time to get approval for qualifications and curriculum proposals for adults. these include the general education and training certificate for adults (getca), due to replace the general education and training certificate: adult basic education and training (getc: abet) in 2023, and the national senior certificate for adults (nasca), which is supposedly to be implemented in 2021 (dhet, 2019a). for some time, the old senior certificate (nated 550) was used although this was eventually replaced by the ‘amended’ senior certificate). in the mid to late 1990s there was some attempt to provide some guidance on assessment in the abet field, much of it initially influenced by the independent examinations board (ieb) which developed competency-based approach abet examinations and piloted the first of them at level 3 in july 1994. gradually the key position that the ieb had held was eroded, and the provincial departments started to run their own examinations until the centrally examined getc: abet came into operation in 2001. a fair degree of documentation was developed for the running of this examination on the basis of national policy. well, what happened in the new national abet level 4 examinations run through the provincial education departments at public adult learning centres from 2001 to date? what kind of throughput was there? the first 2001 examination results were not auspicious; some 33,025 candidates entered and, of them, only 18,438 wrote and a mere 78 qualified for the getc: abet certificate (though many did gain some credits for individual learning area courses passed). results in subsequent years are hard to assess because the dhet has year by year retrospectively adjusted the figures (generally the numbers of learners who are supposed to have been examined rises). the dhet statistics for the years 2011 to 2016 show a yearly average of 113,043 candidates registering for the abet level 4 examinations, 70,056 writing (62%) and 26,323 completing (38% of those writing, 23% of those registering; dhet, 2018). it remains a somewhat inefficient system. as to the palc senior certificate results, there is never any official release of these by umalusi in strange contrast to the hullabaloo each year at the release of the national senior certificate results from schools. neither the dbe (who set these exams) nor the dhet mention these results. we suspect there are two reasons for this secrecy: the results are devastatingly bad, for instance in 2013 of those writing six subjects, only 2% of those who entered passed; and it may be that the true picture of who enrols for this examination is deliberately not publicised (there is much anecdotal evidence of school principals forcing weak school students into doing these palc examinations rather than the school ones). 148 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 self-judgement in summing up the state of readiness of the palc system to be lifted out of the past cinderella state into the glory of a new community college future, it is nice to be able to quote the state’s own verdict on the system rather than the musing of some hypercritical academic. here is the judgement, the management report of the auditor-general of south africa on the performance audit of the adult education and training programme at the department of higher education and training for 2014 (auditor-general, 2014, 2015), for the years 2011 and 2012. • the concurrent (national and provincial) functions were not performed, partly because of budget inadequacies • monitoring and evaluation visits were not done • adult education and training operations in the provinces were not done • the department did not develop a strategy to deal with or track the extent of underqualified and unregistered educators (and in the years 2008 to 2011 audit checks on five provinces (which excluded eastern cape and limpopo) that the percentages of unqualified educators in a province ranged from 4% to 47%.) • only two provinces had functioning centre governing bodies and the department did not know how many centre governing boards were in place • relations between the school governing bodies, principals and adult education centre officials, were poor at some centres • there were challenges relating to facilities, security and resources • there was no monitoring of the registering of private centres and no checking of the standards at private centres was done • adequate support was not given to provinces • the national advisory board for adult basic education and training was not set up • there was poor liaison with the kha ri gude adult literacy campaign to ensure that kha ri gude learners could progress further • little curriculum development took place between 2008 and 2014 • little support on materials was provided • provincial emis data on such things as learner enrolment and educators per centre were released too late to be useful for operations and planning for either the current or the following year and neither the provinces nor the national department verified the data to ensure accuracy (and there were differences between emis data on learner numbers and adult education and training data) • there was no crucial management information data on such things as pass rates for abet levels 1 to 3, dropout rates, absenteeism rates, etc. • teacher: learner ratios were below the 1:20 norm • programme performance indicators could not be used because of lack of data • an adult education and training framework was not developed aitchison & land: secured, not connected 149 • educators’ conditions of service had not been standardised • average costs per learners differed between provinces (e.g., in 2010–2011, kwazulunatal spent r3,431 per learner, and the eastern cape spent more than r8,500 per learner) and the costs excluding educator payments were even more diverse (western cape r5 per learner, gauteng r1,152 per learner). we sum up. the right to basic adult education has been disregarded and flouted. that right to basic education might have been “secured” in the constitution, but, to use wifi phraseology, there was “no connection.” nothing really changed and nothing was delivered. a minimal programme of reform this palc system is only a pale shadow of what is needed as a south african adult and community education system, and really weak as the foundation of a future community college system that could really benefit the country. as the most minimal programme of reform, repairs and reforms that this foundation needed in the past decade, and still needs, are, as adequately described in the title of brahm fleisch’s book, “the education triple cocktail” prescription for conventional schools (fleisch, 2018). materials this should be a priority. there must be serious curriculum and materials development. the department of basic education proved it is possible to develop quality workbooks for all languages and mathematics for primary schools in less than six months and get them delivered to all schools, and a similar exercise needs to be undertaken for at least core formal courses to be offered in the community college system. scripted lesson plans these are clearly needed because so many untrained, poorly equipped teachers are working as educators in adult learning centres; shockingly, according to figures received in 2019 from dhet’s emis system, 31% (8,329 of 26,756) of educators employed nationally in 2017 had only a school leaving certificate. supportive teacher training this needs to be done regularly, systematically, and, ideally, have elements of one-on-one teacher training. in addition, for this programme of minimal improvement, the following components would also need to be funded. salaries those for educators and administrators would need to provide for more permanent, dedicated, adult education staff, and allow for considerable expansion of the fet component (senior 150 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 certificate/nasca). coordinating and support staff at central community college administrative centres, and the proto-community college nodes at district level that would each serve a cluster of nearby community learning centres (the ex-palcs). support for training universities and other providers of adult educator training need to reverse the disastrous dismantling of this capacity over the last decade and gear up for larger output and various forms of continuing in-service education for educators and administrators, especially for those educators who have only grade 12. (currently, as part of the its teaching and learning development capacity improvement programme, funded by the european union, dhet is funding the development of qualifications for community college educators in at least nine south african universities). monitoring an effective emis system and a professional inspectorate are needed. examinations costs of the getca and amended senior certificate/nasca examinations would need to be met. these measures would ameliorate the most glaring weaknesses of the current ex-palc system and cost only a fraction of what has been allocated by dhet to paying for the education of students at higher education institutions. unless at least this triple cocktail is embraced it is pointless to have universities developing better adult and community education qualifications for a system that continues to be dysfunctional and is disintegrating (with centres being supposedly consolidated, some have been closed down). this is because there will be no work for educators in the ex-palc system if the rhetoric of community colleges floats high above this world. towards a comprehensive programme of reform this rhetoric of community colleges arose from the white paper for post-school education and training (dhet, 2013) and the work of a task team established in 2011 (dhet, 2012a, 2012b) that envisaged an effective south african post-school or community education system seven years ago, and now, extremely encouragingly, finds expression in dhet’s the community education and training college system: national plan for the implementation of the white paper for post school education and training system 2019-2030 (dhet, 2019a). the white paper saw the system playing a vital role in bringing educational opportunities to all, but particularly to those who had been poorly treated under apartheid. it envisaged enabling easy access to different types of learning at different levels to people in both rural and urban areas and affording people across the country learning opportunities related to their life contexts. in 2016, the education, training and development practices sector education aitchison & land: secured, not connected 151 and training authority (etdp seta) contracted the adult and community education unit of the durban university of technology to develop a discussion document on the model of community colleges that would be ideal for the south african context. this document, developed by the authors of this article (land & aitchison, 2017), was discussed in various fora and modified in response to feedback from several quarters. the suggestions made in this document are embodied in the national plan for community colleges referred to above (dhet, 2019a). if this plan is implemented, we will have a truly transformed system that is not only secure but also connected, and, as such, possibly even has some hope of attracting the one million learners it targets for 2030. the model suggested in the discussion document and the implementation plan differs vastly from minimal reform of palcs and proposes (dhet, 2019a) that lecturers in the sector need capacity development and support, and that a capable and responsive quality assurance system is needed. it also proposes a curriculum designed to meet the current needs of the youth and adults that is delivered through a variety of delivery modes including open learning, and supported by the development and/or procurement of quality learning and teaching support materials, including information and communications technologies-based materials. it also points to the great need for development, acquisition, and maintenance of appropriate infrastructure for community education programmes, suggests a robust student and community support service system, and capacity development of councils, management, and student leadership. the discussion document on the ideal institutional model for community colleges in south africa (land & aitchison, 2017) makes similar recommendations and suggests that community colleges should offer an expansion of formal educational options that have been traditionally offered in palcs to include abet levels, getca, and nasca, and a range of learning options to suit people at different stages of life, relating directly to the life circumstances of ordinary people, with a particular focus on safety and sustainable livelihoods. it strongly recommends access to the internet, and to information about accessible resources and different learning options. it envisages community learning centres (clcs) as giving options for people to volunteer for a range of services, like, for example, homework clubs for young children overseen by volunteers who have passed grade 12, and thus gain experience. non-formal learning options suggested in the discussion document include financial literacy; how to use cell phones, tablets, and the internet; voter education; health education; environmental education; conflict resolution; road safety; child care; sports for children as well as adults and pensioners from mini-soccer, mini-netball, and mini-cricket for young children through to soccer and keep fit classes for grandmothers and grandfathers; skills development for income generation; and training in recognising scams and fake news. it suggests that clcs be nodal point of access to communities where local, provincial, and national government departments, civil society organisations, businesses, and ngos/community based organisations (cbos) could cooperate and form alliances for the good of ordinary people, and to achieve collective goals. learning spaces could 152 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 accommodate community activities, possibly serving as venues for mobile clinics and mobile libraries. crèche and preschool facilities at clcs could enable learners to count on the safety of their children while they learn, give children the benefit of preschool learning activities, and give otherwise unemployed youth supervised practical training in ecd. both the implementation plan (dhet, 2019a) and the discussion document (land & aitchison, 2017) point to the imperative for effective educator training and retraining if the old palc system is to be transformed. the implementation plan (dhet, 2019a) advocates fit-for-purpose training to enable educators to deliver the diversity of programmes planned for community colleges. the discussion document notes the need for teaching staff to be well trained in order to be able to respond to people’s needs, to access online material and adapt it to suit their learners, and to design educational events to achieve particular purposes. this training, and access to online material would bring huge relief to adult educators, especially those who bear the costs of providing material themselves (given the paucity of learning materials). the substantial investment by dhet in the development of advanced diplomas in adult and community education and training at many of our universities is a beacon of hope for the future against the bleak history of adult and community education in south africa. initially, funding of a community college system such as this might seem prohibitive. however, investment in education is investment in a nation’s future, and the advantages of investing in this system are manifold. even the brief sketch given above suggests that the model described in the implementation plan and the discussion document, with its access to the internet, would shed the stigma of old night schools and palcs, and be an economical way of achieving various different goals of government since it would • attract far greater numbers of learners, primarily because of the appealing attraction of internet access, but also because of the wider range of learning options; • facilitate the planned rollout of ecd facilities across the country, thus ensuring that children whose caregivers attend have a better chance of succeeding at school; • aid people’s efforts to generate an income for themselves and secure their livelihoods; and • offer cheaper and more efficient management than that of the old palc system. south africa is not a poor country, and one cannot avoid the perception that the main obstacle in the way of the development of a truly comprehensive community college system is an entrenched apartheid style mind set which makes hopelessly inadequate learning options for ordinary people seem normal and acceptable. this mind set is shared, unfortunately, by most of us from learners through educators to dhet officials and planners, and it prevents our imagining and creating an effective adult and community education system. as a nation we are well known for having exceptionally good policies, but, sadly, also known for failing to implement them, and thus failing to benefit from the gains they offer. in this paper, we have tracked the history of our adult education system through its historical blunders and aitchison & land: secured, not connected 153 shortcomings and ended with a view of the far-reaching benefits inherent in government’s new plan for the post school system (see dhet, 2019a). everyone involved in the post school system needs to distinguish, actively and consciously, between remembered past activities and what is possible now, especially given the national plan for the implementation of the white paper for post school education and training system 2019–2030 (dhet, 2019a), and translate the difference into action within our spheres. without that, the system is doomed, and, as santayana warned (1905), we will helplessly repeat the history of offering adult education as it was offered by the apartheid government, thus fulfilling marx’s (1852) description of history repeated as farce. references aitchison, j. j. w. 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(1905). the life of reason: reason in common sense. new york, ny: scribner’s. microsoft word bissue77dec19.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 77, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i77a02 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x implementation challenges influencing the efficacy of group-work tasks that require inductive or deductive reasoning during physical sciences lessons angela stott short learning programmes, university of the free state south campus, bloemfontein, south africa stottae@ufs.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2663-0812 paul hobden school of education, university of kwa-zulu natal, pinetown, south africa hobden@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5610-3971 (received: 12 march 2019; accepted: 2 august 2019) abstract we explore the implementation challenges and efficacy of instructional strategies focussing on tasks that require learners to attempt sense-making using either inductive or deductive reasoning during group discussions. the first author collected data via participant observation of 73 grade 10 to 12 learners whom she taught. she also used field notes, audio visual recordings, interviews, questionnaires, and learner journals. we, as the researchers, underwent the inductive cyclic process of implementation, data collection, reflection, and modification over 20 research cycles, four of which we report on here, over three years. the implementation challenges we experienced included problems related to time-consumption and classroom management, the stress related to impromptu communication, as well as the heavy demands placed on the teacher’s energy levels along with some learner confusion and shortage of content knowledge. we found considerably more variability in these challenges, often negatively influencing efficacy, for the inductive instructional strategy, but a reduction in the extent of these challenges, associated with consistent efficacy, for the deductive oriented strategy. keywords: reasoning, groupwork, science education, induction, deduction introduction current school curricula continue to support the development of collaborative and reasoning skills, both featuring in lists of so-called valued 21st-century skills. the initial introduction of outcomes based education (obe), with associated teacher training workshops, emphasised group work as effective in enhancing conceptual learning and skill development. stott & hobden: implementation challenges influencing the efficacy of group-work tasks . . . 25 however, while group work remains a ubiquitous strategy in our classrooms, there has been much debate about the reasoning strategy to be used in group work that will promote the most effective sense-making. some authorities (see, for example, mahjoob, 2015) have debated whether such instruction should require learners primarily to reason inductively, that is, to draw general conclusions from specific data, or deductively, that is, to explain specific data by referring to general conclusions, while others, such as schuster, cobern, adams, undreiu, & pleasants (2017), have provided evidence that neither approach is necessarily superior to the other. the latter support ausubel, novak, and hanesian’s (1968) assertion that meaningful learning can occur during reception learning when information is presented as a known product, or during discovery learning when learners are required to co-produce the information. as schwartz, lindgren, and lewis (2009) have stated, “[s]ometimes it is important to explore and develop one’s ideas. sometimes it is important to receive direct guidance. the question is not which method is right; the question is what combination of methods is best for a given outcome” (p. 39). from a teacher’s perspective, what best means is influenced heavily by implementation feasibility. despite its centrality in determining classroom practise, existing literature is relatively silent about the implementation challenges associated with the employment of inductive or deductive instructional strategies involving group work discussions in real classroom settings and while operating within the constraints of a highly specified curriculum accompanied by high stakes examinations. in this article, we address this issue since we seek to answer the questions: (1) what are the implementation challenges that affect the efficacy of instructional strategies involving sense-making group discussions that require learners to engage in either inductive or deductive reasoning? (2) how can the efficacy of sense-making group discussions that require learners to engage in either inductive or deductive reasoning be increased? conceptual framework given the centrality of group discussions in this research, we use collaborative cognitive load theory (cclt; kirschner, sweller, kirschner, & zambrano, 2018) as a framework for interpretation in this study. however, we also employ more constructivist views to mitigate limitations in cclt. these include the view that outcomes such as the development of beneficial skills, attitudes, and values are important in addition to the expansion of long-term memory (gresalfi & lester, 2009). we value, in particular, the development of critical thinking skills, namely “thinking that is reliant on criteria, self-correcting, sensitive to context and conducive to judgment” (lipman, 1989, p. 8), since this is necessary for engagement in meaningful learning (konicek-moran & keeley, 2015). critical thinking may be promoted by the employment of ill-defined complex tasks, which offer significant cognitive load, and which can, potentially, provide interest and motivation, thus enhancing learning (herman & gomez, 2009). the value of group discussions, according to cclt, is in the creation of a collective working memory distributed across the collaborators (kirschner et al., 2018). group discussions 26 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 should improve task performance provided that the task’s cognitive demand is too great for each individual’s working memory to cope with and that the disadvantages created by the additional extraneous cognitive load associated with collaboration is less than the advantages afforded by the collective working memory. task features and group work management affect whether these provisions are met, so that it is unsurprising that it takes a number of years of concerted effort, self-reflection, and, preferably, mentorship, for a teacher to develop the ability to manage group discussions effectively (johnson & johnson, 1995). as bennett, hogarth, lubben, campbell, and robinson (2010), concluded in a review of research on group discussions, there is “considerable uncertainty on the part of teachers as to what they are required to do to implement good practice” (p. 91). the difference between the cognitive load offered by inductive and deductive tasks can be understood in terms of the randomness as genesis and the borrowing and reorganising principles (kirschner et al., 2018). borrowing information, followed by reorganising it, from sources such as a teacher, textbook, or peer, is required during deductive reasoning. this offers less cognitive load than does the hypothesis generation and testing required in inductive reasoning. although this suggests that an inductive reasoning task will offer more cognitive load than a comparable deductive reasoning task, this does not necessarily make the inductive reasoning task less effective, since, as already mentioned, enhanced cognitive load can enhance interest, motivation, and engagement in critical thinking and group discussion can be effective in reducing cognitive load through the creation of a collective working memory. further, learning effectiveness is dependent on which outcomes are valued. the outcomes valued in this study are: (a) learners are interested and actively engaged in learning, (b) learners display critical thinking during the learning, (c) tasks are attainable with effort and (d) the curriculum objectives are met. these are therefore the criteria used to determine task efficacy in this study, and used, therefore, as the framework for data analysis. the value of critical thinking has already been explained. the choice of the other criteria is justified as follows. extents of learner interest and engagement have been shown to be reliable indicators of learning effectiveness (bransford, brown, & cocking, 2000). effective learning occurs within the zone of proximal development (zpd), which is characterised by targets being attainable with effort and collaboration (lee & smagorinsky, 2000). finally, since the learners were required to pass high-stakes examinations set within a particular curriculum, it was important that the objectives of this curriculum be met. research approach this study was part of a more extensive action research study that involved the promotion of critical thinking through the design of classroom materials and the use of different instructional strategies (stott, 2008). following cresswell (2003), we adopted a pragmatic approach to research. we chose an action research study because of its iterative process of practice and reflection being well suited to allow for flexibility in response to the real-life problems of classroom complexity (mc niff & whitehead, 2011). both qualitative and quantitative data was collected, with a qualitative approach being dominant. we collected stott & hobden: implementation challenges influencing the efficacy of group-work tasks . . . 27 data through participant observation, aiming to sense the complexities of the case from within as advocated by mc niff and whitehead (2011). see stott (2008) for a detailed description of the numerous action research cycles that were conducted. we acknowledge that the particular classroom context, learner, and teacher characteristics affect which challenges will arise and the efficacy of the two approaches under various pedagogical practices as schuster et al., (2017) have reminded us. rich descriptions are given to allow the readers to form their own judgements about this. the study context a grade 10 physical sciences class was followed through to grade 12 and two subsequent cohorts were followed from grade 10 to grade 11. these 73 learners, in three classes, were heterogeneous in cultural, socio-economic, and educational background, and represented girls and boys approximately equally. the majority were not english home language speakers, although all were taught in english. all the teachers at this school have strong english competencies and teach content subjects in english (as required by national education policy) and expect the learners to read, write, and speak english in every lesson. the school has a language policy that expects learners to speak english to one another at all times for three days a week. the learners involved in this study possessed sufficient language skills to be able to participate effectively in the group discussions. the implementation challenges exposed by this study are not those of a novice teacher struggling with classroom management and mastery of content knowledge. the first author was already an experienced teacher at the start of this study and had been implementing, reflecting on, reading about, was mentored in, and had mentored others on the management of group discussions and the creation of stimulus material for several years prior to the start of the study. she had been teaching the topics for the last 10 years and is considered a very competent teacher by her learners, head of department, principal, and the education department official responsible for science education in her district. throughout the study, learners were given explicit instruction, informed by literature and supported by handouts and posters, in argumentation and reasoning before engagement in group discussions. rich printed stimulus material was used to guide the group discussions. these were in the form of structured worksheets with prompts aimed at providing external conflict, while giving learners opportunities to engage in sense-making activities leading to the development of conceptual understanding. inductive and deductive reasoning tasks throughout the study, content selection and sequencing decisions were constrained by the highly specified national curriculum and the high stakes national school leaving examinations. however, the curriculum allowed for a variety of instructional strategies to be used, thereby enabling a teacher to use an inductive instructional strategy for some periods and a deductive instructional strategy for others. it is accepted that it is rare to find an instructional strategy that requires the use of only inductive or deductive learning tasks 28 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 (prince & felder, 2007). consequently, it is the emphasis placed on each type of learning that is used to label the two types of instructional strategy for this article. in keeping with klahr’s (2013) admonition to provide a clear operational definition when referring to instructional strategies, we summarise what we mean by inductive and deductive reasoning tasks in table 1. in the inductive reasoning tasks the learners were given data and guided, by means of a worksheet, to derive a description of a concept inductively, largely during small group discussion. this is similar to a learning cycle approach that has stages of exploration-invention-application (treagust, 2007). for example, learners were given the data of the position and velocity of a falling stone at various times in its fall. this followed a twoweek period in which they had engaged with, and been taught, the concepts of position, distance, speed, and velocity. the curriculum stipulated that the learners should learn these concepts, as well as the target concept (acceleration), at this time and in the sequence used. the learners were guided using a worksheet that contained statements they had to choose between to derive the concept of acceleration. in the deductive reasoning tasks the learners were exposed to an interesting complex conceptual problem, then taught the main concepts directly, after which they were guided to apply their learning to solve and critique the problem in multiple ways, working in groups. this is similar to the traditional strategy of “inform, make sense of through verification, and practise” (abraham, 1998, p. 513). for example, learners were asked to discuss why an egg might not break when dropped on grass. they were then taught relevant physics concepts such as force, impulse, and momentum. this built on prior learning of kinematics from the previous year and corresponded to the content and concept sequencing stipulated in the curriculum. the learners were guided by worksheet questions about the force and impulse on, and change of momentum of, eggs that land on grass or concrete. finally, they were required to explain what conditions would make it more or less likely for an egg to break and to support their conceptual explanations using graphs and calculations. table 1: characteristics of inductive and deductive reasoning tasks used in this study inductive reasoning task deductive reasoning task how is the target concept introduced? learner derivation from data and/or information to guide reasoning, supported by teacher prompting teacher direct instruction when do the learners use the guiding worksheet? before the teacher teaches the target concept after the teacher has taught the target concept what is the purpose of the guiding worksheet and sensemaking group discussions? to guide the learners to derive the target concept to guide the learners to apply the target concept to explain a particular phenomenon how much time was provided for engagement in the task? as long as it took for the majority of the learners to derive the concept as long as it took for the majority of the learners to apply the concept to explain the phenomenon stott & hobden: implementation challenges influencing the efficacy of group-work tasks . . . 29 when does direct teaching occur? after the group discussion task before the group discussion task does the teacher prompt and guide learner discussion? yes yes data collection cycles table 2 summarises some aspects of four action research cycles which are analysed and the findings presented in this article and which provide similar findings arrived at in the analysis of the full three-year study. in these four cycles, electrostatics was taught to grade 10 and mechanics was taught to grades 10 and 11 in two successive years. the same learners were involved in the first three of these cycles. in the first year, inductive reasoning tasks guided group discussions for the grade 10 electrostatics and mechanics sections. in the second year, deductive reasoning tasks guided the group discussions for the grade 10 and 11 mechanics sections. table 2: four illustrative cycles out of 20 within the three years of the study cycle: grade 10 electrostatics y1 grade 10 mechanics y1 grade 11 mechanics y2 grade 10 mechanics y2 learners 23 23 23 15 strategy inductive inductive deductive deductive example of one task in that topic induce the criterion for determining whether a substance can pick up pieces of paper or not induce the principle that objects of different masses will fall to the ground together if air resistance is negligible explain why a bullet might be stopped by a silk handkerchief but not by other fabric by applying concepts they had just been taught describe, and generate multiple representations for the motion of a man falling 60m onto a car and surviving guiding worksheet provided for this task a partially completed mindmap summarising observations of an investigation into which substances were able to pick up pieces of paper when rubbed selection of the correct claim from the options of each set reveals the induced principle. obtained from braund et al. (2004) learners define taught concepts and then compare the motion of a bullet stopped by silk but not by another fabric using these concepts learners define taught concepts and then use these to describe and represent the man’s motion long-term observation and triangulation and using cycles within cycles were used to ensure internal validity as suggested by merriam (1988). the data collected consisted of 21 video recordings of group discussion lessons, 28 learner journals about their physical sciences learning experiences inside and outside of the classroom, 40 audio recorded interviews/focus group discussions, 15 different questionnaires, analyses of written work, analyses of class 30 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 time usage, and daily field notes. this data was analysed iteratively throughout the actionresearch process as has been suggested by mc niff and whitehead (2011). for example, learner journals were collected and transcribed periodically, and the perceptions revealed in them reflected on relative to the perceptions recorded in the field notes. at appropriate intervals, these perceptions were presented to learners during individual and focus-group interviews and the learners were asked to critique them. coding of data in addition to the iterative data analysis during the action research cycles, data was also coded electronically using nvivo at the end of the 3-year period. the previously listed criteria for determining the efficacy of the instructional strategies were used as broad coding categories. these criteria were subdivided into more specific coding strategies, guided by literature and/or as the need for such subdivisions became obvious during the coding process. for example, the broad coding category of engagement in critical thinking was subdivided into codes for evidence of reliance on criteria, sensitivity to context, and engagement in judgment in accordance with the definition of critical thinking given in lipman (1989). search queries were then run to aid the final analysis process. in the discussion on findings, claims are supported sometimes by an indication of numbers of counts recorded in the data in support of the claim. for example, (20x) refers to 20 counts or instances from the data corpus. the year in which each piece of data was collected is also indicated (y1 = first year of the study, y2 = second year of the study). findings in the discussion below, we outline the implementation difficulties and successes experienced with the use of group discussions with the inductive and deductive oriented instructional strategies. figures 1 and 2 are graphs of class-time usage for a cycle typical of each strategy. figure 1: class time usage in the teaching of grade 10 mechanics (y1) through a predominantly inductive group discussion strategy 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 classroom time (hours) introduction to the tasks direct teaching group discussion individual written work stott & hobden: implementation challenges influencing the efficacy of group-work tasks . . . 31 figure 2: class time usage in the teaching of grade 10 mechanics (y2), through a predominantly deductive strategy figure 1 shows sequentially the total time spent on the instructional activities used for the grade 10 mechanics section in the study’s first year, using a predominantly inductive instructional strategy. figure 2 shows the teaching of grade 10 mechanics, in the study’s second year, using a predominantly deductive instructional strategy. individual lessons were either 30 or 60 minutes in duration, with four hours timetabled for physical sciences per week. each strategy targeted the same core content as stipulated by the curriculum document. each of the mechanics topics using different strategies occupied over 20 hours of teaching time. within this time there were longer activities, of, for example, six hours, and shorter activities of, for example, 1.5 hours. in the deductive strategy the longer activities were broken up into sub-activities, with instruction provided in between, as shown in figure 2. it should be noted that in each case the teacher (first author) made every effort to utilise time effectively and efficiently. learners were regularly given homework in each case and the decision about how much time to allocate for each activity was made according to what was reasonable as was evident from the progress the learners made during the class activities. it should also be noted that classroom activity is complex and rarely occurs as cleanly as a label may suggest. for example, during the periods labelled group discussion, the teacher would often call for the class’s attention, and engage in some direct teaching for a few minutes. similarly, during the periods labelled direct teaching, the teacher would often instruct the learners to discuss something in small groups for a few minutes. a comparison of the two figures makes it clear that during the predominantly inductive oriented instructional strategy, considerably more time needed to be spent on group task discussion for the teacher to be satisfied that the learners had made sufficient progress to continue. this is seen in figure 1 that illustrates longer time intervals devoted to a task without subdivision. this predominantly inductive instructional strategy to grade 10 mechanics (figure 1) took 30 hours. this was almost double the 16 stipulated by the curriculum. in contrast, the predominantly deductive instructional strategy (figure 2) took 24 hours and was characterised by the longer activities being broken up into shorter sub0 5 10 15 20 25 30 classroom time (hours) introduction to the tasks direct teaching group discussion individual written work 32 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 activities. clearly, both these strategies can lead to conflicts if there are demands to cover the curriculum topics in a stipulated amount of time as opposed to moving on to the next topic only when the teacher is confident the majority of learners have made sense of the work. the inductive instructional strategy some of the group discussions that occurred during the inductive instructional strategy were found to promote effective learning, but most were associated with so much confusion that few learners were able to learn the content effectively and many developed a dislike for topics taught in this manner. this high degree of confusion accounts largely for the long discussion times required when one is using an inductive approach. the instructional strategy was also messy and stressful to implement. to support these assertions, two cycles in the action-research process are used to illustrate the use of group discussions within the inductive instructional strategy. these cycles are grade 10 electrostatics and one activity in grade 10 mechanics in the first year of the study. the electrostatics cycle is used to illustrate successes, and the mechanics cycle to illustrate difficulties of group discussions used in an inductive instructional strategy. successes a few learners’ 1 comments (10x) during interviews suggested support for an inductive instructional strategy. for example, “it’s better for us to discuss it because you understand it better if you’ve found it out by discussing it yourself” (laura, interview, y1). additionally, in some cases evidence from classroom interactions suggested that the learners’ having to struggle through the stimulus material to derive the concepts inductively resulted in effective learning. for example, this is implied by the following extract. at the start of this 30-minute discussion lesson the class, using prior experience, had listed some materials which were able to attract pieces of paper when rubbed and others which were not. they then discussed hypotheses of why some objects, when rubbed, are able to pick up pieces of paper, and others not, as well as suggesting ways of testing these hypotheses. helen said it had to do with heat released during friction, and the fact that some materials retain heat better than others. i asked her how she could test her hypothesis. after a while, she suggested that two pieces of the same material be used at different temperatures, and if heat is not the cause of the ability to pick up material, then they should behave in the same way at both temperatures. silindile, in a different group, also suggested heat. i sent helen to her to repeat our discussion. sonja and jennifer suggested texture, and then rebutted this argument, saying that then the smooth metal, plastic, and glass should behave the same, which they do not. marike suggested that conductors could let electrons “run away.” sonja and jennifer, in a different group, referred to conduction and asked, “isn’t wood an insulator?” i told them that it can conduct electricity, especially when wet. i asked them to explain why being a conductor or not should cause the difference. they could not answer. a few learners 1 informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study. stott & hobden: implementation challenges influencing the efficacy of group-work tasks . . . 33 suggested that rubbing transferred “something” between the cloth and the plastic. marike used the word “electrons.” i then got the class’s attention, asked marike to explain what she had come up with, after which i repeated her explanation with slightly different wording. (research journal: y1) the extract above shows that effective learning was occurring according to the criteria used in this study. throughout this section, learners displayed and reported interest in their learning. all learners participated actively. there was evidence of critical thinking in learners’ discussions. for example, sonja and jennifer’s evaluation of their hypothesis related to texture, against the criterion of observation consistency, led them to make a judgement, that is, to reject their hypothesis. the learners engaged in an effortful intellectual struggle. further, the task was attainable and compatible with the curriculum. for example, the scientifically acceptable explanation was reached, in the extract, at least by a significant number of learners, within the 30-minute lesson. further, learners performed well on a test on this section: of the 23, 16 scored over 70% and only 2 learners under 50%. difficulties the group discussions that occurred during the inductive instructional strategy were associated with a number of implementation difficulties and, often, limited learning. timeconsumption has already been referred to. additionally, it was a difficult, strength-sapping experience for the teacher (first author), who reported, i was exhausted by the noise and stress of handling multiple discussing groups simultaneously, the frustration and confusion arising from communication imperfections, and the energy demand of facilitating the slow and messy struggle of the learning processes of multiple groups, simultaneously. further, i often had to answer questions on issues i had not prepared myself for since i had less control over what was discussed than i have during direct instruction. this made me feel insecure and i had to “think on my feet” as opposed to being able to teach according to a carefully prepared plan. i also faced decisions of how long to prolong learner struggle before providing information, how much input to provide at what times, and what to consider irrelevant discussion. further, these decisions were compounded by pressures from multiple groups requiring my assistance, often even on the most basic level and in a repetitive manner, limited time, and classroom noise. further, although learners were generally engaged during implementation of this instructional strategy, it appeared that often the confusion associated with this strategy was too overwhelming for the learners, so that few emerged from this confusion with a clear understanding of the concept that the activity was supposed to develop. these claims are illustrated in the following extract, which refers to an activity from the science enhancement programme’s “ideas, evidence, and argument in science” material developed to promote classroom discussion (braund et al., 2004). this task was meant to lead learners, through a series of claim choices, to see that objects of different mass will fall to the ground together if air resistance is negligible. the relevant concepts had not been taught 34 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 before the task. the task was implemented at the appropriate place within the teaching sequence as stipulated by the curriculum. learners had completed the task individually for homework the night before, and had spent about half an hour discussing their answers in groups by the time of the extract. the 24 learners were divided into five groups. the following interaction occurred between the teacher and the first group to complete the worksheet. guided by the worksheet, they had constructed an argument that two objects of different sizes would fall together if friction were negligible. this discussion was part of the first author’s attempt to make the learners see that mass, rather than size, is the important variable in this argument. teacher: imagine two rocks: a boulder here and a pebble there. now they’re on a slope, and we’re going to push them to get them started . . . no, let’s make them on a flat surface, i’m going to push each of them and make them accelerate. now we push each of them equally . . . equal force. are they going to accelerate equally, the boulder and the little pebble? general: no. teacher: why not? jabu: not the same weight. teacher: which is going to accelerate at the greater rate? sonja: boulder. marike: the one you pushed the hardest. teacher: no, you’re pushing equally. [noise] busi: pebble. teacher: it’s going to accelerate faster initially. marike: but the pebble can go and sit on something and the bolder will just go over it. teacher: if you have a smooth surface. helen: but it’s different if you drop it. teacher: the principle is the same, but it’s easier to think of pushing the boulders to start with. now my point is that the question refers to how big it is, but i could change my question: what if we have a big piece of styrofoam and a small bit of gold . . . and then you push them equally, equal force on a smooth surface, which will accelerate greater? thandiwe: styrofoam. teacher: styrofoam. helen: huh? (audio transcript, y1) stott & hobden: implementation challenges influencing the efficacy of group-work tasks . . . 35 the discussion was messy and confusing. for example, helen’s protests about falling and her interjection, “huh?” shows confusion. i, unwittingly, added to the confusion, by saying acceleration of the lighter object would be higher initially, unintentionally implying that its acceleration would be lower than that of the heavier object later on. i also forgot that real-life observations, which is all that learners could draw on, involve other variables such as friction. for example, i said a big piece of styrofoam would accelerate at a higher rate than a small bit of gold when the same force is applied. however, in the presence of air resistance this is not necessarily so. as the discussion continued, helen continued to protest about the situation being different during falling. she and marike referred to size, rather than mass. this suggests that my attempt to show that mass, rather than size, was the significant variable in affecting acceleration, was ineffective. further, this extract is only part of the interaction i underwent with only one of the five groups. discussions with the other four were similar. in addition to the implementation difficulties highlighted above, this discussion cannot be considered effective in terms of the criteria used in this study. although the learners appeared to show some interest in the discussion initially, this waned as they got lost in the confusion generated, and their interest was later replaced with a general dislike of the topic. although learners were actively involved in effortful learning, which did involve critical thinking, the end point of the task was not obtainable and did not lead to the learning required by the curriculum objectives for the majority of learners. the learners’ dislike of mechanics was evidenced in many negative comments recorded in interviews (26x), as well as comments overheard from learners to this effect throughout the first year, and none to the contrary. this dislike of mechanics seems to have resulted from the instructional strategy rather than the topic itself, suggested by a high degree of positive interest and enjoyment (86x) reported in their journals the following year when a deductive instructional strategy was employed for mechanics. the lack of task attainability and poor correspondence to the curriculum objectives are evidenced by the observation that most learners did not learn the desired concept effectively. even though over an hour was spent discussing this concept, and it was revised later, in the examination only six learners out of the 23 could give this argument correctly. the learners’ poor learning during engagement with most of the inductive reasoning tasks can be understood in terms of the learners’ poor generalisation and pattern-searching skills, and their limited working memory capacity that resulted in their being unable to derive the required concepts during the inductive facilitated discussion in which they were engaging. the extract also shows evidence that the learners were engaging in an intellectual struggle that involved critical thinking. for example, helen’s frequent protests suggest that she was undergoing an intellectual struggle. further, helen and marike’s frequent rebuttals of my explanation, such as “but it’s different if you drop it,” and “but the pebble can go and sit on something” suggest that they were undergoing critical thinking to some extent. this critical thinking was tentative and had little metacognitive character. this can be seen in the learners’ lack of self-direction, as shown by their heavy dependence on the teacher, as well as the vagueness of their remarks. 36 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 the lack of effective learning, despite learners engaging in critical thinking, can be explained by the learning being too confusing and overwhelming to be productive. for example, referring to the mechanics section that was taught using an inductive instructional strategy, tim remarked, “it was like all thrown at me and i had to take it all in big chunks” (tim, journal, y1). he also admitted, “we got into dead-ends, most of us were off track.” the deductive instructional strategy in the deductive instructional strategy, direct instruction was followed by sense-making group discussions aimed at enabling learners to apply learning to solve a problem deductively. we found every instance of group discussion used in this instructional strategy effective in terms of this study. however, most of the same implementation challenges experienced for group discussions used in the inductive oriented strategy were experienced in the deductive oriented strategy, although to a lesser extent. two cycles within the action-research process are used to illustrate and support assertions made about the efficacy of the deductive instructional strategy: year 2 grade 10 introductory mechanics (see figure 2) and year 2 grade 11 mechanics. as can be seen from figure 2, roughly week-long direct instruction of subsections of the syllabus was followed by hourlong group discussions. in these, learners were required to make sense of concepts they had learned throughout the week in order to use them in explaining a real-life interesting phenomenon. these group discussions were guided by worksheets which the learners answered individually, in writing, for homework, during the course of the week. this strategy was associated with decreased implementation difficulties relative to the inductive instructional strategy. it was also effective in terms of this study, as discussed below. successes learners were interested in their learning during both these cycles. numerous interview and journal comments (158x) similar to the following testify to this: “i’m really enjoying science this year” (phindile, journal, y2), and “before i wasn’t really interested in science, but now i’m so interested, and even just in normal life i just mention something to do with science” (agnes, interview, y2). this application to life extended to discussions on the sports field: “i also spoke about it practically with gert and seth when we were playing cricket yesterday (the momentum when we catch the ball)” (cole, journal, y2). in a questionnaire, 86% of the 57 learners questioned reported that they enjoyed a deductive instructional strategy. evidence of active learning (173x) is given in audio-recorded footage of discussion sessions, and comments given by learners and their parents, e.g. “she would discuss it at the supper table’” (parent, personal communication, y2) and “i would think about it before i went to sleep” (sofia, interview, y2). learners displayed critical thinking during the group discussion times after initial direct instruction, as illustrated in the extract below. according to the students, learning throughout the section was characterised by effort (102x). the discussion below also illustrates this. finally, the tasks used in this instructional strategy were also found to be attainable and compatible with the curriculum in that 30 of the 39 written explanations of the discussed phenomena, submitted at the end of the section, implied a deep or reasonably deep stott & hobden: implementation challenges influencing the efficacy of group-work tasks . . . 37 understanding of the associated physics. another eight of the answers were satisfactory, with 1 learner not performing acceptably. in a questionnaire, 68% of learners reported that they learned effectively from a deductive instructional strategy. numerous learner journal entries (106x), following discussions in which groups applied conceptual knowledge deductively to a situation, reported effective learning. a typical example is, “explaining things to people helps to sort out the logic in my mind” (sofia, journal, y2). in the extract given below, a group of grade 11 learners were discussing why a silk handkerchief might stop a bullet. critical thinking can be seen in the learners’ judgements, supported by reasons, and their use of questions to self-direct learning. thandiwe: when they meet. marika: that makes it slow down. thandiwe: that compression force . . . does it make it a newton-3 thingy? marika: no, the same force that the bullet hits the person with, the person pushes back with and this slows the bullet down, i think. thandiwe: well, yes, it does, because if it didn’t, the bullet would have continued through. marika: so it does. lauren: but what i think is, if it’s a jersey, how come doesn’t it stop the bullet? [pause.] lauren: because n-3 applies in the case of a jersey too. thandiwe: doesn’t it . . . friction helps it to . . . (audio transcript: 25/01/y2) before this session the learners had been taught, directly, the mechanics concepts they are using in their sense-making discussion. at this point in the discussion, the teacher explained that friction from a surface acts parallel to the surface, and so there would need to be a component of the bullet’s motion parallel to the surface for friction to play a role in slowing it. thandiwe responded that the indentation the bullet would make allows for this, showing critical thinking while trying to construct her own understanding of the situation, rather than just accepting the teacher’s rebuttal as coming from an unquestionable authority. the success of discussions such as this one is seen to be closely linked to the fact that the learners were able to use deductive reasoning as they applied their general learning to this specific incident. as they did so, they made sense of their learning, and so developed understanding. if the above discussion had been attempted before direct teaching of the concepts, it is unlikely that learners would have been able to engage effectively in critical discourse, since it is unlikely that they would have been in possession of the knowledge needed to do so. relative to the inductive instructional strategy, the deductive instructional strategy was less stressful for the teacher. when she used an inductive instructional strategy, 38 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 she had to prompt and discipline the learners continually in order to keep them on task. in contrast, during the deductive instructional strategy, learners required her input only occasionally. this was with the exception of two groups in the grade 11 mechanics class, who required almost constant help. this reduced need for her input is also thought to have reduced learners’ drifting off task as they waited for the teacher to finish helping other groups. difficulties although all the instances of use of group discussions within the deductive instructional strategy were found to be effective in terms of this study, it did also have difficulties associated with it. these include time-consumption and implementation challenges. this extract illustrates the messiness, frustration, struggle, and communication difficulties the learners often experienced: “i thought the egg doesn’t decelerate when it hits the ground. this made it difficult for me to understand most of my group’s discussion. by the end of the lesson i had a headache!” (busi, journal, y2). the discussion regarding a silk handkerchief stopping a bullet referred to earlier was clearly far messier than the kind of interaction usual in a traditional classroom. this messiness can be seen, however, as a positive indication of effective learning occurring as long as the learner does emerge from this messiness to understanding as bransford et al., (2000) have made clear. the high scores achieved on the target explanatory tasks and the positive remarks about attainability of the tasks suggest that this was so for a large number of learners for this strategy. discussion in this article we have described and analysed four of the 20 action research cycles over a 3year period which have informed our developing understanding that group discussions within both the inductive and deductive instructional strategies can lead to effective learning as defined in this study, although they are associated with implementation challenges. we make three main claims which arise from this study. (1) effective use of group discussions can be time-consuming, messy, and demanding on the teacher’s energy, and her or his classroom management and communication skills, and requires the teacher to have a very good understanding of the content, and an ability to think on her or his feet. these demands seem to be even greater when the teacher tries to implement an effective group discussion focusing on the use of inductive reasoning than when focusing on the use of deductive reasoning. (2) teaching with an emphasis on inductive strategies is more likely to result in learning with understanding in cases where few concepts unfamiliar to the learners are involved, and the teaching does not extend beyond a single contact session. (3) direct instruction, followed by group discussions in which learners are guided to use deductive reasoning primarily, appears to be an effective instructional strategy to promote learning with understanding. stott & hobden: implementation challenges influencing the efficacy of group-work tasks . . . 39 group discussions are difficult to implement, particularly for inductive tasks the finding that the discussion process required effortful involvement by the teacher is consistent with assertions such as those made by johnson and johnson (1995), that group discussions cannot be effective unless the teacher is actively involved during the discussion process. this can be understood in terms of the complexity of the tasks being such that success requires the learners to borrow from the teacher’s more extensive knowledge as well as to use the teacher’s working memory as part of the group’s collective working memory as they engage in the cognitive process of borrowing and reorganising (kirschner et al., 2018). the finding that implementation challenges were reduced in the deductive instructional strategy relative to the inductive instructional strategy can be explained in terms of the reduced cognitive load associated with the deductive tasks, as discussed below. direct instruction, which the teacher provided before the learners engaged deductively with the task, lends itself to greater structure and clarity than inductive exploration does (rosenshine, 2009). the finding that inductive instructional strategies are more time-consuming and more likely to lead to learning in unintended directions, than deductive instructional strategies, echoes driver’s (1983) seminal work. inductive discussions should be short and involve few new concepts a marked difference was noticed in the effectiveness of the mechanics and electrostatics group discussions used to illustrate an inductively oriented instructional strategy. the less effective mechanics task required learners to use numerous abstract concepts they had not yet mastered, such as acceleration, force, weight, mass, size, density, and ratios of weight to mass to derive an argument which did not match common experience, that is, that a light and a heavy object would fall together in a vacuum. this was done over an extended period of time, and over many contact sessions. in contrast, the more effective electrostatics task required learners to use fewer, and more familiar, concepts, such as electrical conductance, friction, heat, and texture, to derive an explanation for a phenomenon most of them had observed, that is, the ability or inability of various substances to pick up pieces of paper when rubbed. this was done in a single contact session lasting half an hour. this is consistent with views that a deductive instructional strategy offers less cognitive load since it relies largely on the load-sharing “borrowing and reorganising” principle, whereas an inductive instructional strategy relies heavily on the very cognitively challenging “randomness as genesis” principle (kirschner et al., 2018, p. 5). it is also consistent with findings that group discussions are less likely to lead to the development of understanding when learners hold incorrect or incomplete prior knowledge (bennett et al., 2010). proponents of constructivist pedagogy generally cite enhanced motivation as one of the strengths of exploratory activities (herman & gomez, 2009). we found that group discussions decreased motivation when learners were required to derive numerous unfamiliar concepts inductively over an extended period. 40 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 direct instruction followed by deductive discussion is effective during the deductive group discussions the learners were interested, actively involved, and they displayed critical thinking skills as they engaged effortfully with the tasks, and almost all the learners managed to achieve the minimum requirements for the task and learn what was required of them according to the curriculum objectives. the collective working memory of the learners appears to have been sufficiently large to cope with the cognitive demands of the task, allowing the learners to engage in critical discourse, resulting in what konicekmoran and keeley (2015) would regard as meaningful learning having occurred. limitations, implications and suggestions for further study the findings of this study may be limited to typical high school contexts in which novice learners are expected to work through a content-rich curriculum in a limited space of time to prepare for high-stakes examinations. also, these classes were smaller in size and had higher english language skills than is the case in most south african schools, suggesting that more typical south african classes would experience the described difficulties to a greater degree as ramnarain, nampota, and schuster (2016) found. this would be relevant throughout the world wherever students have poor language skills in the language of teaching and learning. it is also expected that the more limited the conceptual understanding of the teacher, or the less skilled at handling the kinds of difficulties discussed, the more acutely these difficulties would be experienced. this has some correspondence to klahr’s (2009) caution that the feasibility of implementation of an instructional strategy depends on teacher competence and teaching context. it would be interesting to explore the challenges and gains that more typically traditional teachers, entrenched in lecture-style pedagogy as ramnarain and schuster (2014) have explored, might experience as they shift to a greater use of group discussions involving reasoning tasks. our findings suggest that unless this pedagogical shift focuses predominantly on group discussion within a deductive oriented instructional strategy, such teachers and their students would probably be disillusioned by the experience, as were many south african teachers following their attempts to implement obe in their classrooms as is documented by a number of sources, such as schweisfurth (2013). conclusion while we disagree with the view held largely by disillusioned teachers that effective use of group discussions is not feasible in what they think of as a real classroom, we do acknowledge that it is difficult. this is particularly so when one is using group discussions within an inductive instructional strategy and particularly when curriculum pressure is great. we believe that we have shown that group discussions using both inductive and deductive instructional strategies can work effectively if implemented with careful consideration when the concepts to be taught and the classroom context are taken into account. stott & hobden: implementation challenges influencing the efficacy of group-work tasks . . . 41 references abraham, m. r. 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(2003). research design: qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches (2nd ed.). london, uk: sage publications. driver, r. (1983). the pupil as scientist? philadelphia, pa: open university press. gresalfi, m. s., & lester, f. (2009). what’s worth knowing in mathematics? in s. tobias & t. m. duffy (eds.), constructivist instruction: success or failure? (pp. 264–290). new york, ny: routledge. herman, p., & gomez, l. m. (2009). taking guided learning theory to school: reconciling the cognitive, motivational, and social contexts of instruction. in s. tobias & t. m. duffy (eds.), constructivist instruction: success or failure? (pp. 62–81). new york, ny: routledge. johnson, d. w., & johnson, r. t. (1995). learning together and alone. boston, ma: allyn & bacon. klahr, d. (2009). to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens: what about direct instruction? in s. tobias & t. m. duffy (eds.), constructivist instruction: success or failure? 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(2016). the spectrum of pedagogical orientations of malawian and south african physical science teachers towards inquiry. african journal of research in mathematics, science and technology education, 20(2), 119–130. https://doi.org/10.1080/10288457.2016.1162467 ramnarain, u., & schuster, d. (2014). the pedagogical orientations of south african physical sciences teachers towards inquiry or direct instructional approaches. research in science education, 44(4), 627–650. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-0139395-5 rosenshine, b. (2009). the empirical support for direct instruction. in s. tobias & t. m. duffy (eds.), constructivist instruction: success or failure? (pp. 201–220). new york, ny: routledge. schuster, d., cobern, w. w., adams, b. a., undreiu, a., & pleasants, b. (2017). learning of core disciplinary ideas: efficacy comparison of two contrasting modes of science instruction. research in science education, 48(2),1–47. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s11165-016-9573-3 stott & hobden: implementation challenges influencing the efficacy of group-work tasks . . . 43 schwartz, d. l., lindgren, r., & lewis, s. (2009). constructivism in an age of nonconstructivist assessments. in s. tobias & t. m. duffy (eds.), constructivist instruction: success or failure? (pp. 34–61). new york, ny: routledge. schweisfurth, m. (2013). learner-centred education in international perspective: whose pedagogy for whose development? london, uk: routledge. stott, a. e. (2008). promotion of critical thinking in school physical science (unpublished doctoral dissertation). university of kwazulu-natal, durban, rsa. treagust, d. f. (2007). general instructional methods and strategies. in s. k. abel & n. g. lederman (eds.), handbook of research on science education (pp. 373–391). new jersey, ny: lawrence erlbaum associates. journal of education, 2019 issue 76, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x editorial carolina botha comber, faculty of education, north-west university potchefstroom, south africa carolina.botha@nwu.ac.za http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1693-5575 charl wolhuter edu-hright research focus area, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa charl.wolhuter@nwu.ac.za http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4602-7113 the sixth annual south african education research association (saera) conference in 2018 provided a shared space for collective discourse about experiences, research, and theorising in various research practices and contexts. drawing on the computer metaphor of odora-hoppers and richards (2011), the conference theme contemplated the need to develop a completely new operating system for education—a call for a total rethinking of schooling, higher education, research, and community-based learning. education 01? in search of a new operating system: making education more relevant, responsive, and authentic proved to be a very provocative theme, which encouraged papers and panel discussions that postulated that a mere changing of the operating system and algorithm of education would not have much positive effect. it was hypothesised that changes to both the hardware (schools, universities, funding programmes, etc.) and software (programmes, curricula, textbooks, etc.) were also needed to advance the whole enterprise of research and education—approaches, traditions, assumptions, and theories. this would ensure that, for the sake of knowledge democracy and cognitive justice, education would retain its practical relevance. discourses throughout the conference accentuated the idea that educational programmes should be multidisciplinary in nature, offering modules from various disciplines and paradigms to enable students to be exposed to an ecology of, and plurality of, knowledges. former themes in saera have been along this line, calling for a reimagining and a decolonisation of education. the pertinent question during and after the 2018 conference remains: “how do we make education more relevant, responsive, and authentic?” the articles in this special issue share a number of papers presented at that conference. following the process of double-blind review, 10 papers that unpacked the theme of the restructuring and redesign of education praxis, teacher education, and the field of education scholarship were accepted. 2 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 in the first article, wolhuter and botha introduce the discourse of the conference theme by stating that education in praxis in the world today (and in south africa, in particular), with specific reference to the scholarship of education and the education of teachers, is still stuck in obsolete forms and is clearly lacking direction and innovation. the authors suggest that education praxis, education scholarship, and teacher education need to be redesigned, and that these adaptations could be encapsulated in three words: relevance, responsiveness, and authenticity. to support this hypothesis, 10 radical changes in schools and education praxis are suggested. van wyk explores how various pedagogical strategies can be used to support the learning of economics students at an open distance learning (odl) university. the author highlights the importance of his study as part of the prevailing discourse on the relevance of current university curricula, and on the importance of responsiveness to student support—especially in an odl context. the article further shares findings on ways in which lecturers can support bachelor of education and postgraduate certificate in education students academically and nonacademically in the course, teaching methodology of economics. in their article, hazell, spencer-smith, and roberts review the results of a province-wide intervention to improve grade r mathematics teaching in the western cape. a key aspect of the intervention that distinguishes it from the typical “educational triple cocktail” model was that, in the case of r-maths, the teachers/practitioners were not trained or coached directly. the results indicated that, for learners, the greatest effects on performance were related to language of learning and teaching. the r-maths case indicates that a combination of structured learning materials, teacher training, and support may be successful by working with and through department of education structures. in a self-reflective inquiry of personal practices in art education, meyer addresses her concern about teaching art in isolation from the social realities of learners. the aim of the study was to improve understanding of how students could be introduced to socially engaged art practices to make their teaching more socially responsive, and to prepare art teachers to integrate the principles of social justice in their teaching. after involvement in a critical service-learning programme, students considered including socially engaged art in their teaching and showed potential of becoming critical, accountable, and transformational leaders. madlala and mkhize contribute to pertinent discourse on the influence of black students’ ideology on their perceptions of the benefits and challenges of receiving bilingual instruction at a south african university. their findings suggest that participants tended to base their responses on their perceptions of the usefulness and relevance of languages in south africa and internationally. it was also noted that participants thought that including isizulu throughout the university could facilitate epistemological access for black isizulu-speaking students, but might also hinder upward socioeconomic mobility for graduates who struggle to communicate in english. botha & wolhuter: editorial 3 sathorar and geduld reflect on lecturer dispositions to decolonise teacher education, and propose a framework with guiding questions and suggestions to enhance lecturer disposition with respect to decolonisation of the curriculum. the findings of this study accentuate the importance of lecturers and students engaging in a mutual quest for knowledge and understanding within a new curriculum. the authors postulate the importance of constantly raising awareness through dialogue. they challenge lecturers to not only prepare students to operate in an increasingly diverse context, but also to respond to such diversity within their own sites of learning and teaching, and to offer students a voice in the classroom. ralejoe investigates the views of secondary school teachers and support teachers about the inclusion of visually impaired learners in a school in lesotho. the study explores themes relating to teachers’ opinions about educational placement of children with visual impairments, teaching strategies used, the benefits of including children with visual impairment in a regular school, and challenges facing the integration of children with visual impairment into mainstream secondary schools. the results showed that teachers generally preferred mainstream schooling for children with visual impairment, although resource challenges prompted them to think about special schools as alternatives in extremely underresourced schools. the value of a virtual community of practice is explored in robertson and dasoo’s article on the inclusion of facebook as part of tutorial experiences at a south african university. the authors explored online learning beyond the traditional physical and formal tutorial, and sought to understand the perception of tutors and tutees about the inclusion of facebook to enhance the way in which they tutor. the findings of this paper contribute to both tutoring practices and tutoring policy, and the authors recommend that mobile learning be considered, and that social media platforms such as facebook be incorporated in tutoring practices. dos reis, venter, and mcghie consider whether business economics teachers and university lecturers share the same perceptions of the concept of university readiness for students enrolling in a bcom programme. the study explores the question of adequate preparation of these learners, as well as the challenges and problems that learners experience in the grades 10–12 classrooms. this paper provides evidence that some teachers do not have a clear understanding of the requirements for learners to gain access to university and, more importantly, the role that school curriculum plays in preparing learners for higher education. the importance of a continual discourse between academics and teachers, as well as a shared conceptualisation of school curricula, are accentuated. in the last article, de jager unpacks millennial science student teachers’ views on decolonisation and culturally responsive teaching. a significant finding of the study was that teachers need to facilitate learning by connecting students’ cultural experiences with science content in their curricula. and, although student teachers wanted to stay familiar with their cultural norms, values and traditions, they also wished to be part of the generation using technology and other scientific phenomena. the contribution of this study can be encapsulated in the idea that valuing students’ cultural capital is important for effectively engaging them in science education. 4 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 linda chisholm closes this special issue with a thoughtful review of rebecca swartz’s education and empire: children, race and humanitarianism in the british settler colonies, 1833–1880. she highlights how this illustrative account of black education and childhood during the nineteenth century unpacks the imperial and colonial educational system. her review encapsulates the strengths of swartz’s important transnational work in comparative education. references odora-hoppers, c., & richards, h. (2011). rethinking thinking: modernity’s “other” and the transformation of the university. pretoria, rsa: unisa press. microsoft word bissue77dec19.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 77, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i77a01 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x pacing of knowledge: pedagogic code, pedagogic discourse, and teachers’ experiences devika naidoo department of education and curriculum studies, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa devikan@uj.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7725-0540 (received: 17 july 2019; accepted: 13 november 2019) abstract there is sufficient evidence to suggest that post-apartheid curriculum reform has failed to produce the desired equity in performance for south african learners. research on classroom practice preceding the current curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps; see department of basic education, 2011), showed very slow pacing of knowledge as a cause of poor performance. among other complex changes the caps regulates the pacing of knowledge. adherence to prescribed caps pacing has been enforced in schools via monitoring tools by hierarchical management structures. in this study, i sought to investigate the impact of the new pacing regime on teaching and learning. the study is framed by bernstein’s theory (2004) that pacing carries invisible social class assumptions, and cognitivist theory (spillane, reiser, & reimer, 2002) that teachers’ individual cognition is influenced by situated cognition and policy signals. i ask two questions: “how does the new pacing regime impact the pedagogic code and pedagogic discourse in lessons?” and “what are teachers’ views on how the new pacing regime impacts teaching and learning?” based in a qualitative research design, in-depth interviews with teachers and classroom observations provided the main data sources. data analysis shows that the strong pacing of knowledge has unintended consequences: the pedagogic code is lexicalized and hence impoverished and pedagogic discourse contains far too little elaboration for slower learners to facilitate acquisition. the curriculum policy on pacing and hierarchical monitoring of enactment of pacing distracts teachers from the pedagogic goal of supporting learning. furthermore, teachers are focusing solely on keeping up with the prescribed pacing although they doubt that average and slower learners are learning at that pace. these learners are being left behind and excluded from acquiring the elaborated pedagogic code, its abstract orientation to meaning, and the specialization of their identity. it is highly possible that the current curriculum reform will fail to produce the desired social justice and equity in performance. keywords: pedagogic code, pedagogic discourse, pacing, sense-making . . . the pacing rule carries invisible social class assumptions which act selectively on those who can acquire the dominant pedagogic code of the school through the distributive consequences of the visible pedagogy’s strong pacing and its regulation of the deep structure of sociolinguistic competences (bernstein, 2004, p. 207) naidoo: pacing of knowledge . . . 7 introduction there is sufficient evidence to suggest that post-apartheid curriculum reform has failed to produce the desired higher performance for the majority of south african learners. this does not mean that there are not some successes as maboya (2017), has reminded us. hoadley (2018, p. 6) notes that “the vast majority of the 12.4 million pupils . . . are failed by the dual system of schooling [and that] significant racial disparities in schooling outcomes are still prevalent in the system.” she went on to explain that “around 80% of schools serve poor black communities and produce very weak outcomes, and 20% are mostly former white and currently multiracial, middle-class schools that produce good outcomes.” research on classroom practice in curriculum reforms preceding the current caps showed very slow pacing of knowledge as a cause of poor performance (hoadley, 2018; reeves, 2005; taylor, 2009). a striking feature of most south african classrooms is the snail’s pace at which teachers progress through the curriculum, sometimes reading only two or three sentences or talking about two or three mathematics problems (taylor, 2009). taylor pointed out how time is wasted: teachers do not arrive on time, if they arrive at all; and learners do not arrive in class on time. once in class, teachers do not do much teaching and when they do the pace is very slow since they work at the level of the slowest learner. reeves (2005) found that 47% of her sample of 24 poor socio-economic status (ses) schools experienced a pedagogical approach in which the pace set was very loosely bounded and appeared unconstrained by curriculum expectations. in addition to slow pacing hoadley (2018) has highlighted the undifferentiated pacing in her study of a foundation phase classroom. for her, “the pacing was an outcome of a pedagogy that treated the class as a homogenous whole and pegged pacing at the pace of the slowest student” (p. 192). in the same book, hoadley also noted a communalizing orientation to instruction through which the teacher works with the whole class as a homogenous group, with little or no differentiation of tasks or attention to individual performances. she confirmed the findings of earlier studies (hoadley, 2012; taylor, 2009) that the slow undifferentiated pacing is characteristic of many south african classrooms. research on the implementation of caps as a new curriculum has revealed serious unintended effects. maddock and maroun (2018), for example, found that officials were ignoring teaching and learning and were focussing on checking teachers’ files. (i will return to the implications of this point presently.) although the pacing prescribed in caps was intended to guide teachers so that the grade level curriculum could be completed, moodley (2013) reported that the teachers in her study found the pace advocated in the curriculum in most subjects to be too fast for learners. she found that educators thus rushed through the syllabus in order to complete the content and, in so doing, did not spend much-needed time with slower learners. this means that the slow pacing of the curriculum by teachers leads to much of the prescribed curriculum not being taught and this, in turn, leads to knowledge gaps in later grades. 8 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 in line with international policy on greater regulation of teachers’ work, the current caps (2011) prescribes content, sequencing, as well as pacing and evaluation of knowledge. prescriptions include topic allocation per term, lesson planning, allocation of time to a lesson, sequencing and pacing, and the number and frequency of assessments. caps for grade 10 geography, by way of an example, specifies 36 hours for the topic on the atmosphere and then breaks down the time further for each sub-topic. for the sub-topic on the composition and structure of the atmosphere five hours are specified. teachers’ guides repeat the expected time for each unit and topic. the gauteng department of education has developed an annual teaching plan (atp) for all grades that indicates the percentage of content to be covered, the percentage the teacher covers, educators’ remarks, and hod’s remarks (see table 1). table 1: excerpt from grade 10 geography annual teaching plan year: 2019.1 week ending grade 10 2019 term 3 content/activity % covered geographical skills and techniques % covered educator’s remarks hod’s remarks week 27 12 to 16 08/2019 population movements (using cases to illustrate topics below is essential) temporary and permanent movements including: migrant labour, economic migrants, political migrants and refugees attitudes to migrants and refugees 77.8% interpreting graphs, population pyramids, photographs and models given the detailed prescriptions of pacing in caps and the atp, in this study i analysed pedagogic discourse and code as well as how teachers interpret and enact pacing prescriptions in the classroom in the mediation of knowledge. while, as mentioned above, research on caps shows that teachers rush through the syllabus in order to complete the content and do not spend enough time with slower learners (moodley, 2013), there is a dearth of knowledge about the impact of strong pacing on knowledge codes transmitted in the classroom via pedagogic discourse. in this study, i sought to investigate the effect of the new pacing specifications on pedagogic code, pedagogic discourse, and teachers’ experiences of the new pacing regime. 1 the document the teacher was using was not dated. naidoo: pacing of knowledge . . . 9 strong pacing and social class bernstein (2004 p. 206) has argued that pacing carries invisible social class assumptions that regulate children’s consciousness differentially and invidiously according to their social class origin. pacing specialises time, text, and space for the specialisation of consciousness of learners in terms of the official pedagogic code mediated by teachers. bernstein has explained the connection between pacing rules and the economy of pedagogic discourse. while pedagogic discourse entails the embedding of the instructional discourse (conceptual knowledge and skills to be acquired) in a regulative discourse (character, conduct, manner), in this article i focus only on the instructional discourse in pedagogic discourse. for bernstein (2000) pacing is an attribute of framing, a concept that could be used to analyse pedagogy. framing refers to the nature of control over the selection of knowledge, its sequencing, its pacing, and its evaluation criteria. pacing refers to the expected rate of acquisition or the rate at which learning is expected to occur. pacing is linked to sequencing of knowledge that regulates the progression of knowledge transmission that might vary the speed of the transmission. essentially, pacing is the time allowed for learning the content. strong pacing would be indicated by the teacher exercising explicit control over the time allocated to learning lesson topics and concepts while weak pacing would allow learners greater control over this time. weaker pacing is, therefore, more responsive to learners’ rate of learning. bernstein (2004) has analysed the invisible social class assumptions that underpin strong pacing of knowledge. first, the strong pacing of the academic curriculum of the school is based on the ideal of the middle-class learner who has access to two sites of acquisition—the home and the school. the school’s academic curriculum cannot be acquired wholly in the time allocated to it in school, so time at school must be supplemented by official pedagogic time at home. for this, an official pedagogic discipline in the home is required. but, in the homes of the poor an official pedagogic space, a silent space, is not available. time also may not be available given the time taken up by paid employment, taking care of children, and doing household chores. without a second pedagogic site, acquisition will not be possible, and failure is inevitable. strong pacing thus privileges middle-class learners who have both these sites of acquisition. second, strong pacing affects the transmission of the elaborated code of the school. where the school draws on working-class or poorer learners it will adopt strategies or have strategies forced upon it that will affect both the content and the pacing of the transmission. the content is likely to stress operations—local skills rather than the exploration of principles of the subject, its internal conceptual interconnections, and its abstract, general skills. where pacing is strong, a lexical pedagogic code in which one-word answers, or short sentences relaying individual facts/skills/operations is more likely. this pedagogic code, according to bernstein (2004) is more typical of the school class of marginal, working-class, or poorer learners. a syntactic pedagogic code relaying relationships, processes, and connections may be more typical of the school class of middle-class children. 10 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 the following table that shows bernstein’s (2000) distinction between restricted and elaborated pedagogic codes (cited in taylor, 2009) has been further adapted for this study. table 2: restricted and elaborated pedagogic codes code restricted code elaborated code common term everyday language formal language relation to material base specific, direct less specific, more indirect communication modality narrative analytical relation to context context-dependent context-independent textual attributes dominantly lexical: one word answers or short sentences, relaying individual facts/skills/operations dominantly syntactic: relaying relationships, processes, and connections orientation to meaning practical, direct relation to context, narrative abstract, indirect relation to context, analytical structure segmented inter-connected the curriculum also creates a form of communication that differs from everyday communication. unlike curriculum communication that is more analytical, everyday communication has a more narrative quality. the children of the disadvantaged classes are therefore doubly disadvantaged. there is no second site of acquisition and their orientation to language and meaning—narrative—is not valued by the pedagogic communication of the school in form or in content. thus, the pacing of knowledge “acts selectively on those who can acquire the schools dominant pedagogic code— elaborated and analytical” (bernstein, 2004, p. 207). third, pacing impacts pedagogic discourse. with strong pacing, time is at a premium and this regulates examples, illustrations, and narratives that facilitate acquisition. also, it regulates what questions may be put, and how many, and what counts as an explanation, both in terms of length and form. strong pacing will tend to reduce pupils’ talk and privilege teacher talk since time is scarce for transmitting the official pedagogic message. according to bernstein (2000), pedagogic discourse specialises time, text, and space in the classroom and in the home and enables better learning of the pedagogic code of the school; this is the basis for distinguishing oneself cognitively, socially, and culturally. at the most abstract level, pedagogic discourse specialises time, a text and a space and brings these into a special relationship with each other. . . . this level of naidoo: pacing of knowledge . . . 11 specialistion of time, text and space marks us cognitively, socially and culturally (bernstein 2000, p. 35). while bernstein’s theory directs attention to possible effects of strong pacing, in this study i also sought to understand teacher’s experiences of the strong pacing and its monitoring by management. the cognitivist framework proposed by spillane et al., (2002) for reframing implementation research holds that implementing agents’ sense of policy is influenced by their existing cognitive structures (including knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes), their situation or context, and policy signals. the cognitivist theory moves beyond a behavioral focus and foregrounds that behavioral changes have a fundamental cognitive component. thus, the cognitive approach focuses on individual cognition, situated cognition, and policy signals. individual cognition refers to how the individual’s beliefs, values, and emotions influence the sense making process. individuals interpret and construct new policy knowledge on the basis of their prior knowledge, beliefs, and experiences. the new ideas are subject to the danger of being seen as minor variations of what is already understood rather than as different in significant ways (spillane et al., 2002). situated cognition refers to how the individual agent’s context is critical in shaping her or his sense of the change. a situated cognition perspective holds that the situation is constitutive of the sense making process. the third factor that shapes the implementing agent’s sense of the change is policy signals. policy signals refer to how ideas of new policy are represented and disseminated to schools and teachers. this would include what is emphasized in policy and the strategies in place for implementation and monitoring implementation of the change. the implementing agent must first notice, then frame, interpret, and construct the meaning of policy changes. factors that contribute to policy failure include prior knowledge and sense-making; different interpretations of the same message; new ideas being seen as familiar and assimilated; understanding that may focus on superficial features and not on deeper meaning; and the values and emotions of implementing agents. methodology in this paper, i report on two aspects of a larger study that examines how teachers make sense of and enact the pacing prescriptions of caps. first, my study considered the pacing of knowledge through the perspective of bernstein’s (2004) theory of social class and pedagogic practice. in addition to current curriculum policy prescribing strong pacing, south african syllabus coverage is strictly monitored by management and local governing districts. while strong pacing is based on the ideal middle-class learner, the south african case of school management monitoring pacing is new, and it provides a natural setting in which to test bernstein’s (2004) theory on strong pacing and its effect on pedagogic code and discourse. the second purpose of the study was to develop an understanding of teacher participants’ sense of the pacing prescribed by caps. based in a qualitative research paradigm, i deemed a case study methodology to be suitable since case study enables the investigation of an issue in a specific context. this article is based on data collected at two schools within the larger study. two low performing schools 12 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 were purposively selected for in-depth study. these schools are in close proximity to the johannesburg central business district. according to an official in the department of education these schools had been downgraded to underperforming status last year (2018) because of poor performance in the matric examinations. either i or my assistant researcher visited the schools in the study before we began to collect data. the deputy principal and a head of department (hod) facilitated access to teachers and classrooms. the schools were very open and welcoming of us as researchers. at an initial meeting potential participants were addressed and provided with information about the study, the types of data that would be collected, and the amount of participants’ time that would be required. teachers were assured that ethical standards would be adhered to and that data would be used for research purposes only. participants were also informed of their right to withdraw at any time without any repercussions. the participating schools’ and individual participants’ anonymity and confidentiality has been upheld in this article. in both schools, learners come from surrounding very high density poorer residential areas and informal settlements. they speak isizulu, sotho, and xhosa at home while english is their second language. the schools had been provided with smartboards that were being used by the teachers for power-point presentations of lessons. in both schools, homework is not given much credence as a way of increasing official pedagogic time. homework is set regularly but very few learners do it. in one of the schools, teachers have a book in which learners who have done their homework sign. one of the teachers showed the book to me; it was blank. in the other school this homework record book was signed by two learners only. in each school i observed three lessons of two geography teachers, or, put differently, four teachers were observed three times. the lessons were observed for me to get a sense of the pacing of knowledge, the pedagogic code being transmitted, and the extent and quality of pedagogic discourse communicated by the teacher. lessons were audio-taped and these recordings were used in conjunction with field notes made and learning resources used in the lesson to reconstruct the lesson as it had unfolded in the classroom. during the interviews we sought to gather teachers’ accounts of their experiences with reference to pacing, pedagogic code, and pedagogic discourse. the interviews would provide more data from which to infer how the school context or situated cognition affects teachers’ individual sense of pacing. the interviews were audio-taped and transcribed. the interview guide was made up of openended questions that were employed flexibly during the interview process. beyond the interview guide, we probed the teachers for more about the key aspects they brought up. the lesson observations and interviews were transcribed. the transcript of the third lesson was selected and subjected to deductive analysis. i chose the third lesson because there was less reaction to our presence in the classroom from the teacher and the learners than had been the case during the first and second lessons. the third lesson was divided into conceptual sequences—a group of sentences that address an aspect of the topic differentiated from another conceptual sequence. for example, in one of the lessons the topic was population migration, and seven conceptual sequences were identified: what is meant by migration; naidoo: pacing of knowledge . . . 13 emigration; immigration; international migration; regional migration; rural-urban migration; and forced and voluntary migration. i analysed each conceptual sequence according to the strength of pacing (ranging from very weak to very strong), the pedagogic code it showed (ranging from restricted to elaborated), and the pedagogic discourse illustrated (ranging from extended with many examples and illustrations to restricted with no examples and illustrations). following bernstein (2000) an external language of description was developed to enable better analysis of the data. according to bernstein, a language of description is a translation device whereby one language is transformed into another. we can distinguish between internal and external languages of description. the internal language of description refers to the syntax whereby a conceptual language is created. the external language of description refers to the syntax whereby the internal language can describe something other than itself. (pp. 135–136) the following table illustrates the external language of description employed to analyse pacing, the pedagogic code, and pedagogic discourse of the lesson observation transcripts. table 3: an external language of description concept conceptual derivation variation indicator pacing extent to which teacher controls pacing of knowledge stronger pacing the teacher controlled the expected rate of learning during the entire lesson weaker pacing the teacher and learner controlled the expected rate of learning during the entire lesson pedagogic code extent to which the pedagogic code is evident restricted code lexicalised – short sentences, one-word answers, contextdependent, abstract orientation to meaning elaborated code syntactic – relationships and connections established, contextindependent, practical orientation to meaning pedagogic discourse extent to which pedagogic discourse enables learning of pedagogic code extended pedagogic discourse many examples and illustrations that facilitate acquisition of the elaborated pedagogic code 14 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 restricted pedagogic discourse no or few examples and illustrations that facilitate acquisition of the elaborated pedagogic code the analysis enabled a description of the dominant mode of pacing of knowledge, the dominant pedagogic code, and the dominant mode of pedagogic discourse in each conceptual sequence of the lessons observed. however, it did not illuminate why teachers were strongly pacing in spite of knowing that average and slower learners were not keeping up with the pace. interview data enabled us to understand the pacing regime from the teachers’ point of view. the interview transcripts were analysed in terms of the second key question: “what are teachers’ views of how the new pacing regime impacts teaching and learning?” data analysis and presentation pacing of knowledge in the classroom pacing refers to the expected rate of acquisition, or, in other words, the rate at which learning is expected to occur. all lessons showed that pacing or the rate of expected learning is controlled by the teacher. the lessons also complied with the topics specified by caps that teachers were supposed to be teaching for the third term. the grade 10 geography teacher was teaching population migration as per the caps requirement. this section of the topic on population is allocated 8 hours. across the three lessons observed teachers moved briskly across the prescribed sub-topics. similarly, the grade 11 geography teacher was teaching the section trade and development as specified by caps. both teachers had complied with syllabus coverage in terms of time and percentage or were ahead. in the lessons observed, a shift from very slow pacing to faster pacing according to caps specifications had occurred. one of the teachers in the study explained, i know in the first term this is what we do because the annual teaching plan (atp) does not change, it is the same every year, so i keep to it. that is why i am saying by the time we are about to close (at end of 3rd term) i am already on maybe 78% of the coverage for the term. so, i am always on time. undifferentiated pacing of knowledge undifferentiated pacing was observed in all lessons. teachers addressed the whole class as a homogenous group with little or no attention to individual learning needs. teachers assumed that all learners were learning and understanding content and concepts homogenously. they did not ask questions that would illuminate differences in understanding and learning. all learners were required to do the same tasks and exercises; generally, these were based on recall of facts. naidoo: pacing of knowledge . . . 15 pedagogic code evident in the classroom the pedagogic code of curriculum knowledge according to bernstein (2004) is elaborated, formal, context independent, inter-connected, analytical, syntactic, and it relays an abstract orientation to meaning. in contrast, the general pedagogic code evident in all lessons observed was severely restricted. in a grade 11 class the question, “why is trade important?” was dismissed with one response from a learner: “meet each other’s needs.” the following excerpt from the grade 10 geography class illustrates a lexicalised pedagogic code where oneor twoword answers or very short sentences sufficed before the teacher moved onto the next aspect. t: what is the reason for people to move? l: job opportunities t: yes, what are other reasons? l: urban areas are more advanced. t: yes, what are other reasons? learner responses were not further extended nor reframed by the teacher towards a syntactic pedagogic code that goes deeper into establishing taxonomic relationships and connections within the subject. the dialogue demonstrates an everyday or narrative way of communicating. here the lack of a coherent conceptual structure and vertical and horizontal interconnections places the narrative more in the realm of common-sense knowledge. in other lessons the teacher did reference the concepts of the elaborated code, as required by caps, but did not establish relationships and interconnections. the following excerpt of a grade 11 concluding activity/exercise illustrates the key concepts being referenced and defined but not interconnected. t: what is trade? l: it is the exchange of goods. t: what is a commodity? l: it is goods traded. t: what is international trade? l: trade across countries. t: what is a trade bloc? l: a group of countries. t: why is trade important? l: it causes development. the language in the above excerpt is formal and the concepts are context independent. but the discourse emulated the discrete or segmented nature of the restricted code. it did not relay the analytical structure of the topic, nor were inter-connections within and across each concept referenced. for example, the first concept, trade, could have been further classified into types of trade followed by the definition of each type and then by examples of each. similarly, the concept of commodity could have been classified into the types of commodities 16 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 traded followed by accepted definitions and then by examples of each type of commodity. a further aspect could have been a discussion of the general patterns in commodities traded by developed and developing countries. such classifications, definitions, interconnections, expositions, and analyses of patterns and examples would lean more towards the elaborated code and enrich learners’ understanding of the phenomenon of trade. pedagogic discourse in the classroom pedagogic discourse refers to pedagogic communication that aims to facilitate the learning of the pedagogic code. it includes explanations, narratives, examples, co-extensions of concepts, illustrations, questioning by the teacher, and identifying and correcting misconceptions. pedagogic discourse may be extended or restricted; in these four lessons it was very restricted. consider these excerpts from two grade 10 lessons. t: what is overpopulation? l: many people in an area l: many people in an area, creating too much demand on natural resources the teacher acknowledged the learner’s response of “many people in an area” but did not provide further denotations of the concept of overpopulation and its definition in geography. in the next excerpt, note how the teacher accepts the response “profit” without any further exposition, extension, or illustration. t: what are the benefits of commercial farming? l: profit t: what is negative about commercial farming? l: no fertile soil l: air pollution l: less job opportunities in another example, a grade 11 geography teacher transmitted to the learners a formal definition of the concept of a market without any elaboration. t: the term market is not a physical space or building but a set of systems and structures that makes international trade possible. the definition was not analysed into its component parts to ensure the learning of new knowledge. the pedagogic discourse lacked supporting explanations, examples, illustrations, and narratives that facilitate acquisition. examples of systems and structures that govern international trade were not given. what individual learners understood or did not understand was not evident. naidoo: pacing of knowledge . . . 17 table 4: summary of pacing, pedagogic code, and pedagogic discourse in the third lesson of the four teachers analytical criteria lesson 3 teacher a (no. of sequences analysed = 7) lesson 3 teacher b (no. of sequences analysed = 9) lesson 3 teacher c (no. of sequences analysed = 8) lesson 3 teacher d (no. of sequences analysed = 9) pacing very strong – teacher set the pace in all 7. very strong – teacher set the pace in all 9 very strong – teacher set the pace in all 8. very strong – teacher set the pace in all 9. pedagogic code lexical restricted lexical restricted lexical restricted lexical restricted pedagogic discourse restricted – no examples restricted – no examples less restricted – one example restricted – no examples emergent themes from teacher interviews strategies to keep up with the prescribed pacing all four teachers revealed that they do not cover the prescribed curriculum fully. a few common strategies were employed that undermine coverage of the full prescribed curriculum. the first strategy was teaching according to exam guidelines and not those of the curriculum as one teacher disclosed. interviewer (i): what do you do if you are behind the atp? t: teach what is in the exam guidelines and leave out other sections to avoid learners complaining that they were not taught what came out in the exams. another teacher felt confident to disclose that she teaches what is in the exam guidelines because the hod advised them not to focus on sections that are not in these. the second strategy was not teaching every aspect in the curriculum or asking learners to do it on their own. t: i don’t teach everything. i leave out sections or ask learners to do it themselves. extra lessons after official school time time at school must be supplemented by official pedagogic time at home to meet bernstein’s (2004) recommendation of two sites of acquisition, as pointed out earlier in this article. for these teachers the official time during the school day was not enough to cover the topics prescribed. teachers did not set homework, as i have explained, because the learners did not do it. teachers were thus teaching after the official school day for 45 minutes 2 days a week so that they could cover the content. 18 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 teachers have differentiated extra lessons for syllabus coverage for matric classes from extra lessons in grade 10 and 11 to enable learners to keep up with the atp. the extra lessons were not pedagogically motivated to facilitate acquisition but to catch up with the pacing required in the atp. teachers also indicated that they have other priorities such as focusing on extra classes for matric learners, marking learner’s work, and sports duties that distract from the extra lessons for learners. one of the teachers disclosed that while she does give extra lessons, she finds it very difficult to do so given that she has to mark learners’ work. i: are the extra lessons enabling teaching and learning? t: i do the extra lesson classes but sometimes i do not get enough time. i have to mark as well as prepare for the extra time when i have not finished the ones outlined in the atp. another teacher informed me that he taught to cover the syllabus for matric classes during the extra lessons in the morning before the official school day and then had an extra class in the afternoon. t: we used to have extra lessons, but it was just for grade 12. we needed to cover the syllabus within two terms, so we used to have morning classes. for afternoon classes i gave them extra lessons. it was clear that teachers complied with the practice of extra lessons because they were required to account in writing for what they had done to keep up with the atp. teachers’ sense of pacing the teacher participants’ sense of the new policy is that it is essential to maintain the required pace. a number of official documents emphasise, by way of repetition, the pacing as required by caps. the “grade 10 geography annual teaching plan” (gauteng department of education, 2019) tabulates grade 10 content and activity per week and then, in another column, demands details of the percentage covered. the column for geographical skills and techniques is also followed by percentage covered, and then there are two columns, one for the educator’s remarks and one for the hod’s remarks. all this is repeated in teacher guides and the atp. school districts have another document that tabulates content to be covered per week per term, the number of hours to be spent on that content, the percentage completed, the number of activities to be done and the date of completion. the schools have operationalised the monitoring of the required pacing. adherence to prescribed caps pacing has been enforced by hierarchical management structures in schools via monitoring tools (forms that have to be completed). the extent to which pacing, and school-based assessment is being followed by teachers is tracked first by each individual teacher in a form entitled “educator reporting tool for work schedule and school-based assessment (sba) completion.” two aspects, percentage syllabus completion and percentage sba completion, are tracked. thus, one teacher’s completed forms for the first term showed 23.9% of the syllabus and 25% sba completed. second, pacing by teachers and sba completion is then tracked by the hod using an hod monitoring tool (also a form) in which another reporting tool for work naidoo: pacing of knowledge . . . 19 schedule and sba completion is used. in this form the following aspects are tracked and questions answered by the hod under various headings: verified percentage of syllabus completion; verified percentage of sba completion; names of learners whose books were checked; verify support given to learners; comment on quality of feedback to learners; is there synergy between work schedules, lesson plans, sba, and learners work; support given to teacher and strategies to improve learner performance. this form is then given to the principal who is accountable to district officials. in a surprise visit, district officials, using a phase monitoring tool, monitor the selected teacher and the hod. the hod is checked on 17 items under curriculum management including annual teaching plan, programme of assessment, educators’ file, curriculum coverage, and evidence of completed monitoring tools. the selected educator’s file, assessment records, learners’ books and content coverage are checked. the names of learners whose books have been checked must also be recorded. all the teachers interviewed strive to comply with pacing as prescribed by policy. the main talk among teachers is about keeping up with the prescribed pace, completing the forms required by the hod, and the extra lessons they plan to do to catch up with the prescribed pace. on the days of data collection teachers’ discussions in the staffroom revolved around pacing, where they were, and their plans to catch up. teachers indicated that their main focus was on keeping up with the pace because this is what the hod checks. thus, situated cognition supports teacher’s individual cognition that pacing must be complied with. anxiety of teachers that learners may not be understanding all the teachers expressed concern and anxiety that learners were not understanding what was being taught and that some learners needed more time to understand the content. i quote two typical responses here. i: does the pace of your lesson enable teaching and learning? t: the pace i have to follow does not cater for the needy majority. some learners are able to keep up, but some are left behind. so, it does not really consider the learners left behind. t: i think in terms of the time, it disadvantages the learner at the end of the day because we have different types of learners in the classroom. if the teacher is expected to have finished a certain topic within a specific period of time the teacher finishes it but there are learners who did not understand. teachers were concerned that learners may not have grasped the content they had been teaching. again, i offer two similar responses from teachers. i: have you been able to keep up with the atp? t: not really, i can say yes but then in terms of learners’ understanding no, because i might have done what i am supposed to cover every week, but the issue lies with learners themselves whether they grasped. so, i cannot conclusively say that i was 20 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 able to keep up with the atp because that is not the most important thing, but the important thing is that learners grasp the content. t: i cannot really speak on their behalf, but i can see a challenge. it is quite difficult for them to keep up. some learners are able to keep up, but most are left behind. so, it does not really consider the learners left behind. teachers revealed that they teach as if all learners are at the same level. this reply was in keeping with those of the other teachers. t: in reality we no longer have freedom to make sure learners understand. we are teaching as if all learners are at the same level. learning is no longer authentic. teachers disclosed that hods seem only to be monitoring pacing. one of the teachers was asked what kind of support she gets from her hod. t: managing time, keeping up to time, because to them (management) time is everything . . . as a teacher you have to push but at the same time learners seem not to understand. we are under pressure. another challenge is [that] learners’ cognitive level is not the same; some need more time than others. management of teachers has been reduced to checking whether coverage has been achieved and they are policed to cover the content in time or give extra lessons. the extra lessons are motivated by the coverage demands and not support for learning. a teacher’s words reveal her concerns about the focus of management on monitoring teachers only. t: monitoring . . . a teacher is given an atp . . . most of the time the hods come check. they have a reporting tool. they give you the topics and then you have to tell them where you are, compile own report. the dps do the same. go to the district. how far are the teachers? hods and dps [are] worried about stats and submissions. discussion the teacher participants’ sense of the pacing specifications of caps is the need to comply with the expected pace although they are aware that learners are not learning at the required pace. the main policy signal to teachers is that pacing is paramount. this individual sense of policy is corroborated by the situational context sense and because caps signals pacing as superordinate. pacing is one of the policy requirements of caps that has been operationalised for accountability purposes into forms that require teachers to provide details of the percentage of the syllabus completed and, should they be behind, to say what they are doing to catch up. the general discourse of teachers focusses on pacing because teachers perceive hods as focussing on pacing only. the regular monitoring of pacing by the hod, deputy principal, principal, and government district officials reinforces the teachers’ sense that pacing is paramount. consistent with researchers on caps implementation (maharajh, nkosi, & mkhizi, 2016; moodley, 2013) teachers find the strong pacing is not in the interest naidoo: pacing of knowledge . . . 21 of all learners. this study confirms maddock and maroun’s (2018) findings that officials are ignoring teaching and focusing only on checking teachers’ files and learners’ books. teachers’ individual and situated cognition align with policy signals to make pacing of knowledge more important than learning. teachers’ conception of these pacing requirements affects their pedagogic discourse. because it is pedagogic discourse that mediates the pedagogic code, learners’ access to the pedagogic code is severely compromised. the teachers in this study not only mediated a lexicalised pedagogic code but also provided very few or no examples to facilitate acquisition. this reflects what hoadley (2018, p. 13) refers to as “schooling without learning.” the findings of this study concur with the point made by ramatlapana and makonye (2012) that the prescriptive nature of caps has not only compromised teacher autonomy but has also affected the quality of learning. the undifferentiated strong pacing means that average and slower learners are denied access to the elaborated pedagogic code. in contrast with earlier research accounts of teachers pacing to the slowest learner (hoadley, 2018; reeves 2005; taylor 2009), teachers in the study were pacing knowledge according to caps policy. furthermore, the lack of differentiated pacing that would provide support for individual learning difficulties diminishes learning opportunities for slower learners. the pedagogic code is further diluted by the teachers’ leaving out conceptual content that will not be assessed in the examination instead of teaching the entire curriculum. the rapid pace of the curriculum has a deleterious impact on teaching and learning. teachers have complied with the new pacing regulations so that the prescribed coverage of the curriculum is adhered to. the teachers in the study reported feeling coerced into complying with prescribed pacing in a mechanical manner and they were anxious that not all learners were learning at the pace being maintained. this qualitative study corroborates moodley’s (2013) conclusion that teachers found the pace advocated in the curriculum in most subjects to be too fast for learners. it also appears to provide evidence for bernstein’s (2004) theory that stronger pacing impacts pedagogic discourse. the lexicalised pedagogic code taught compromises acquisition of the elaborated code, which is the basis of a specialised consciousness. while the school timetable is being supplemented by extra lessons after school, many factors render the practice ineffective. like classroom practice, the focus is on the coverage of content and not on supporting learning. teachers admit they do not give the extra lesson the same attention because of the pressure of other work such as marking and preparing for the next day. furthermore, the teachers in this study came to the conclusion that homework is futile since the learners do not do it. this means that there is no extension of official pedagogic time in the home, the second site necessary for the pedagogic specialisation of learners’ consciousness. 22 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 conclusion in this study, i focussed on how the pacing regime advocated by caps impacts the pedagogic code and pedagogic discourse in twelve geography lessons as i tried to understand the teachers’ sense of how the new pacing regime impacts teaching and learning. the strong pacing of knowledge has unintended consequences; the pedagogic code is lexicalised and hence impoverished and pedagogic discourse contains far too little elaboration to facilitate acquisition for slower learners. the curriculum policy on pacing and hierarchical monitoring of enactment of pacing distracts teachers from the pedagogic goal of supporting learning. furthermore, teachers are focusing solely on keeping up with the prescribed pacing although they doubt that average and slower learners are learning at that pace. all teachers in the study foregrounded keeping up with the strong pacing prescribed in caps and the atp. teachers are concerned that not all learners are keeping up but keep to the prescribed pacing because it is monitored by the hod, the deputy principal, the principal, and district officials. average and slower learners are not taught in differentiated ways to support their learning since time is limited and weakening the pacing would lead to falling behind the atp. although caps is a knowledge-based curriculum that has corrected the supposed evacuation of content in prior reforms, the fact that there is a clear strategy for implementation and monitoring of pacing exclusively, makes this the key policy signal. changes in pacing alone are insufficient to enable pedagogic instructional discourse that will facilitate acquisition of the elaborated discourse of the curriculum. thus, the words of one of the teachers, in suggesting that the curriculum needs revision again, sound prudent. caps needs to be revised again and scrutinised and checked [to see] if it is serving the needs of the learners or someone else’s needs, especially [in terms of] the organisation of the content learners are expected to learn in a short period of time and teachers are expected to teach and assess within [that same] short period of time. this case study shows that most of the learners in the study are being left behind and excluded from acquiring the elaborated pedagogic code along with its abstract orientation to meaning, as well as the specialization of their identity. if the findings of this case study are more widespread in other similar contexts, it is highly possible that the current curriculum reform will fail to produce the desired social justice and equity in performance. i am grateful to the peer reviewers and the editor of this issue of the journal for insightful and constructive suggestions on how to strengthen this article. i also acknowledge and thank the teachers who participated in the study. all opinions, findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this article are mine and do not reflect the views of my department. references bernstein, b. (2000) pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: theory, research, critique. oxford, uk: rowman & littlefield. naidoo: pacing of knowledge . . . 23 bernstein, b. (2004). social class and pedagogic practice. in s. j. ball (ed.), the routledgefalmer reader in sociology of education (pp. 196–218). london, uk: routledgefalmer. department of basic education. (2011). national curriculum statement (ncs). curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps). further education and training phase: geography grade 10–12. pretoria, rsa: author. hoadley, u. (2012). what do we know about teaching and learning in sa primary schools? education as change, 16(2) 187–201. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16823206.2012.745725 hoadley, u. (2018). pedagogy in poverty. london, uk: routledge. maddock, l., & maroun, w. (2018). exploring the present state of south african education: challenges and recommendations. south african journal of higher education, 32 (2), 192–214. https://doi.org/10.20853/32-2-1641 maharajh, l., nkosi, t., & mkhize, m. c. (2016). teachers experience of the implementation of the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) in three primary schools in kwazulu-natal. africa’s public service and delivery performance, 4(3), 371–387. maboya, m. j. (2017, february 28). progress on the implementation of the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps). paper presented to the portfolio committee on basic education. pretoria, rsa. retrieved from pmg-assets.s3-website-eu-west1.amazonaws.com › 170228caps moodley, g. (2013) implementation of the curriculum and assessment policy statement: challenges and implications for teaching and learning (unpublished master’s thesis). university of south africa, pretoria, rsa. spillane, j. p., reiser, b. j., & reimer, t. (2002) policy implementation and cognition: reframing and refocusing implementation research. review of educational research, 72(3), 387–431. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543072003387 ramatlapana, k., & mkonye, p. (2012) from too much freedom to too much restriction: the case of teacher autonomy from ncs to caps. africa education review, 9(1), 7–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/18146627.2012.753185 reeves, c. (2005, april). can schools reverse social disadvantage by pedagogy or opportunity to learn? paper presented at the consortium for research on school quality seminar, johannesburg, rsa. taylor, n. (2009). the state of south african schools part 1: time and the regulation of consciousness. journal of education, 46, 11–32. microsoft word bissue78.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 78, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i78a02 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x alone on stage: how one lgbtiq+ educator uses poetic performative autoethnography for social change j. scott baker department of educational studies, university of wisconsin-la crosse, usa jscottbaker01@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3902-2819 (received: 20 august 2019; accepted: 16 january 2020) abstract in this article, i analyse my self-reflexive examination of my poetry performance calling for the need to have lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (lgbtiq+) educators serve as role models in the secondary classroom setting as a mechanism to promote social change. i presented an original poetry collection in front of 400+ high school students and educators advocating for the need for queer educators to come out of the proverbial closet, and here i reflect on this act as both poetic inquiry and performance autoethnography, providing a hybrid methodology—poetic performative autoethnography (ppa), while framing the experience and its meaning to both me as participant-researcher and the audience. i include discussion about the importance of/and political nature of representation, the need for space and dialogue, as well as obstacles facing lgbtiq+ educators in the classroom. keywords: lgbtiq+, performance autoethnography, poetic inquiry, educators, role models introduction ‘begin with a shocking statement,’ i teach my writing class so, i begin, i’m a father of three sons, i was married for 12 years, now divorced, and living, well, barely, a life of my own, as a gay man. baker: alone on stage 25 ‘next, explain why they should care, why your topic is important, universal.’ i continue my lesson, when i made my vow, a lie i kept, not knowing how, to be honest to myself, my wife, my children to come. so, i denied my place among the gays, and along the way, i stumbled, as many of us do, tripping on the truth that must come out. ‘to complete your introduction,’ i preach to my students, ‘in a single thesis statement, admit your purpose, your goal.’ so, here goes. for 18 years i coached competitive speech and debate at four different high schools in texas, and while the outsider’s initial thought of debate focuses on argumentation, logic, and analysis, it also includes the theatrical perspective of oral interpretation; students compete using performance of literature. one of these events, poetry interpretation, is scripted performance of either a single poem or a collection of poetry by theme or author. as a coach, i encouraged students to find their voice and address historic and current issues that face our diverse and changing national culture through verse. many of my students found great success in performance when traditional argumentation was not their strength. however, i contend that a themed collection of poetry on an issue of national or international scope performed in front of an audience is, indeed, a form of argumentation. thus, my argument in the original poetry excerpts provided herein derives from the belief that lgbtiq+ secondary educators in today’s classroom should be what i think of as outrole models for lgbtiq+ students who face the same discrimination, fear, and isolation the teachers face within the educational system. in this article, using a hybrid of performance autoethnography (carver, 2014; spry, 2009, 2011) and poetic inquiry (killingsworth, brasel, & crawford, 2014; mccullis, 2013; prendergast, 2009) as methodological frameworks, i assert that the act of honest spoken performance regarding the need for out educators (tunåker, 2015; wells, 2017) opens a self-reflexive dialogue, which in itself is a mechanism for social change toward acceptance, equality, and workplace protections for all lgbtiq+ individuals in a school setting. standing alone on stage in front of over 400 students, teachers, and parents at creekview high school, outside dallas, texas, on december 10, 2011, i presented the poem that 26 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 appears at the start of this article to begin a 10-minute poetry interpretation performance, asserting that i would no longer be an educator who hid in the proverbial closet. private/public context(s) growing up in the suburbs of houston, texas, i was told by my peers that “gays die of aids,” “faggots are sick, evil, and go to hell,” and “once you go gay, you will never be loved again.” i was terrified of myself. i knew who, or rather “what” i was at the age of 12, but after several failed attempts to come out i resigned my life to the white-picket fences of suburban bliss. i married my best friend after college, and we had three beautiful boys. it was not until 12 years into the marriage that i realised our friendship had diminished. something had to change. in january 2009, i began to live an authentic life. ironically, regardless of other concerns, my biggest fear was about how i was going to live authentically in my classroom. in 2011, several issues led me to perform my poetry performance: (1) i was tired of lying to students, (2) i was not being a role model for my lgbtiq+ students, (3) i was tired of standing by and letting others say what they wanted, while i remained silent, and (4) i had guilt for my silence on recent political and social issues involving the queer community. performance as interactive dialogue after reciting the first poem, i closed the binder from which i read and introduced my performance. in my own words, i offered, current educational researchers argue lgbtiq+ students face hate epithets every 14 minutes of their day—words like homo, dyke, and faggot. while these students suffer, it is often the lgbtiq+ educator who remains silent. this is a poetry performance dedicated to the point at which education and sexuality collide— the gay teacher. and, as for my own students in the audience tonight, i have told you for years to use your voice as your power. in case you’ve forgotten, this is what it looks like. at that moment there was quite a tremendous response from the audience—lots of claps, whistles, and so on that gave me a renewed sense of strength as i stood on stage. reflecting back, i realise that the text of my poetry and the words i spoke in the introduction had invited an open discussion between me and the audience. truthfully, i was not aware that my performance was a shared dialogue until i heard those cheers, whistles, and claps. here, “in those moments when we are forced to encounter the other’s view of ourselves” (styhre & tienari, 2013, p. 206), my understanding of selfreflexivity emerged. the poetic verse was, whether or not i had realised it, written for this audience. i looked over the auditorium to where my 10 students were sitting and winked at them as i opened the poetry binder and continued the performance. baker: alone on stage 27 in my own classroom, as if it meant nothing, a student laughs, “that’s so gay!” oblivious to the pain, another student laughs, too, and says, “yep, that’s so gay!” still, i fear the truth at work, the bullying, the comments, the snickers, not just from students in the halls, but from teachers at the copier, the coffee maker. despite current legislative and cultural shifts regarding equality, “‘questioning’ students, teachers and other workers are often required to hide or defend their sexualities” (addison, 2012, p. 537). reflecting back on my years in the classroom through the poetry, i indicated how unsure i was about how to negotiate the duelling realities of educator and queer man. poetic inquiry and performance autoethnography: a literature review while reading poetry may seem foreign to some in educational research, “the use of poetry in qualitative research is not particularly new” (butler-kisber & stewart, 2009, p. 3). in poetic inquiry: vibrant voices in the social sciences, prendergast introduces the concept of poetic inquiry, offering over 40 terms and phrases already in use in academic writings that incorporate elements of the methodological umbrella, so to speak, known as poetic inquiry. these terms range from “ethno-poem” to “poetic analysis” and “narrative poetry” (2009, p. xx–xxi), to name three. poetic inquiry—the process of using poetry in research—offers a creative method to understand a subject by featuring “poetry in some way as an analytical device, whether in data collection, as a tool to view data in unique ways that can help yield new insight, or as a way of representing findings to peers and the general public” (mccullis, 2013, p. 88). in essence, poetic inquiry is the qualitative research methodology of using poetry to convey data. as researchers have contended, poetic inquiry is the use of poetry in a multitude of manners, including a “methodology of data analysis, by which data is synthesized by way of poetry” or “a data-set of actual poems generated by participants” (killingsworth et al., 2014, p. 169). others have reminded us that in poetry, “the writer chooses the subject, the words, the form, pauses and rhythm and in artistic processes of creation put together what becomes the poem . . . in contrast, in poetic inquiry, the words come not only from the writer/researcher, but from a web of relations in the research process” (görlich, 2016, p. 525). this is where calling my poetry performance poetic inquiry becomes complicated. it is a version of the age-old question: which came first, the poetry or the data? was i a researcher, using my poetry as data, or was i a novice poet, simply writing my lived reality? could i be both simultaneously? 28 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 was i considering how “personal subjectivity influences the investigative process” (holt, 2003, p. 14)? to further my definitional dilemma, spry (2011) has posited that “performance autoethnography is a critically reflexive methodology in a narrative of the researcher’s engagement with others in particular sociocultural contexts” (p. 498). while custer (2014) defined autoethnography as “a style of autobiographical writing and qualitative research that explores an individual’s unique life experiences in relationship to social and cultural institutions” (p. 1), carver (2014) defined the performance element of autoethnography thus: “i write my life story, intertwining the two together, performing life as an academic and an ethnographer of human communication, and writing for the stage” (p. 212). each researcher “starts with a body, in a place, and in a time” (spry, 2009, p. 603) to write about larger social and academic issues, and this moment on stage was my place and time. continuing my uncertainty, i note that blinne (2010) explained that autoethnography is a way to “write myself in time, in space, and in place . . . write myself to belong to something bigger than myself” (p. 189), whereas pillay, pithouse-morgan, and naicker (2017) have asserted that poetry is a “form of research practice and research writing that can be almost as evocative, imaginative and fluid as the act of knowledge creation itself” (p. 264). initially, i believed my performance in front of an auditorium of students and teachers was, in earnest, a performance autoethnography that happened to employ poetic inquiry. adding to the complexity above, my poetry itself is a dataset (in this case a single participant’s response to lived experience) referenced in poetic inquiry scholarship, while my performance simultaneously places me in the realm of performance autoethnography. i could argue that my poetry does not qualify, as others have stated, as deriving from interviews, datasets, and the research of multiple participants. however, “poetry invites researchers to experiment with language and to engage imaginatively with experience” (walmsley, cox, & leggo, 2017, p. 14), which did occur through the writing process. the words themselves do present a single voice, placed in a singular moment, which is data. thus, many qualitative researchers would argue that this is poetic inquiry whereas other researchers would argue that this is performance autoethnography. furthermore, labelling properly a juxtaposition of a performed poetic autoethnography is troubling. this difficulty may be an example of why prendergast (2009) presented over 40 terms historically used to define poetic inquiry. one term referenced in prendergast’s introduction comes from spry’s 2001 article, performing autoethnography: an embodied methodological praxis, in which she references “performative autoethnographic poetry” (p. 709). however, as a former speech and debate coach, in an area in which there are clear delineations between literary genres for performance, i was perplexed. let me explain. smith’s works, twilight: los angeles: 1992 (1992) and fires in the mirror (1993) are both categorised by the library of congress as drama, even though they are clearly written in poetic structure and form. in contrast, russell simmons def poetry jam on broadway (2005), a tony award winning play, is listed by the library of congress as a baker: alone on stage 29 poetry anthology that uses first person perspective in its poetic lines. while smith’s work is performance ethnography, not autoethnography, both works use characters and poetic verse to convey messages. i agree with spry (2011) that performative autoethnography is “based in a negotiation between self/other/culture/language, a system of relationship between body/i/we/word” (p. 412), but i struggle to negotiate literary genres when they are blurred in multiple forms of writing. we can question whether shakespeare’s iambic pentameter in romeo and juliet is poetry or drama. is greek tragedy poetry or drama? where do we draw lines in terminology? how do we know what is poetry as opposed to what is drama? with this in mind, i offer a perspective that allows me as a researcher to be true to my background in competitive speech. since poetic inquiry is the fusion of poetic form and participant data, inasmuch as performance autoethnography is the blend of performance and autoethnography, both these autonomous research strategies derived originally from a union of two research methodologies. however, what happens when these unified methodologies merge yet again? since our new ways of knowing are genetically linked to both parental methodological approaches, names, places, identities, and understandings are negotiated, chronicled, lived, and infused with one another for cohesion just as they are when a child is born. this new progeny has come to be named poetic performative autoethnography (ppa). i suggest in this article that ppa is an offspring (of these two similar, yet different methodologies) in which two entities are united to define, create, and shape both the researcher and other stakeholders in the conversation. through ppa, the use of poetics as a means of data embodies the participant-researcher and those lived experiences. ppa allows me, as the researcher, to focus on the performance autoethnography element of the presentation, acknowledge the poetic nature of the language, and thus not limit myself to a single methodology. further, i argue that it is important for us as researchers to explore the hybridity of research methods, in contrast to their parental methodologies, to negotiate the complexities of our ever-changing world. when i was a speech and debate coach, i always asked my students to find literature in which they saw themselves (making connections with culture, race, sexual orientation, and so on), and, as researchers using that same mindset, we should explore beyond normative social science methods when we are addressing personal issues, so both researchers and participants alike can recognise their own identities in the research process as well. finding and/or constructing a methodological framework that connects with the study should be the goal of a researcher instead of forcing the study into a predetermined methodological framework. 30 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 perspective(s) i grew up in competitive speech and debate (i was a student in the field) and i very much liked the opportunity to find myself in literature. a fundamental skill in performance for competitors is the ability to take the works of others and find themselves in this literature. in my dramatic performance lecture, i teach my students to take us on a ride: 10 minutes of ups, downs, tear out our heart and make us cry. 10 minutes of an emotional roller-coaster. pull the heart and soul of the character, take the most beautiful lines and thoughts, use the power of the language to make us, take us, on a 10-minute journey somewhere else. in my unscripted, unwritten life, without the publisher’s final edits, no determined denouement or climax, i live my life like a 10-minute cutting: ups, downs, and someone always cries. i teach my kids to cut out the mundane— to eliminate the small details— to remove what isn’t needed— to forget the parts that link it together . . . standing in a room with scripts— cut-up, torn-up, lying on the floor, i pick up a remnant i told a kid to forget, and in those words i find us. trying to live my life like a 10-minute cutting, i forgot to make the connections— to find the moments that bond us together, to make sense of the whole story. . . next year, when i teach this lesson again, i will ask my students to hold dear the words we often discard when cutting to the chase— the ideas and phrases that define who we are. baker: alone on stage 31 leggo (2005) contended, “i am convinced that by writing about our experiences, and ruminating on those experiences, and interpreting those experiences, we can become more effective teachers” (p. 441). therefore, when i focused on the writings on coming out, both in private and public spheres, and looked at those poetic pieces as a researcher, peering into the soul that is familiar, yet distant, i stopped feeling sorry for myself, and focused on my teaching. i was, after all, still making a difference in the lives of my students, or so i hoped. stanley (1993) offered that life is never composed of one “person alone” but, rather, of a “variety of social networks of others that the subject of ‘a life’ moves between” (p. 50). thus, ironically, it was at this same moment a boy i will call damian came into my life. damian was a transfer student from another school whom i knew through competition, but not personally. damian was trying to start over in a new school, with a refreshed focus on selfimprovement. i soon realised that for this openly gay student, i was not being a successful role model, an unspoken task expected of teachers, whether we like it or not. i questioned, “does one (do i) have to be queer to be a role model for lgbtiq+ students?” i thought, initially, “no.” yet i realised who, if not me, then performs the role of lgbtiq+ role model in this school setting? educational context(s) denzin (2003) has explained, “in the discursive spaces of performativity there is no distance between the performance and the politics that the performance enacts” (p. 258). therefore, as the performer of my poetry, i was inherently entangled in the politics of being an out educator. in 2011, lgbtiq+ individuals struggled with issues relating to equality regularly seen in political and social mainstream discourse. however, as public opinion in the united states and the world was changing regarding lgbtiq+ issues, these youth frequently found themselves “constructed as an other, or as a problem that needs to be ‘dealt with’” (loutzenheiser & macintosh, 2004, p. 151). my ppa continued. eight years ago, i use to be competent; i knew what to say to anything that happened in the confines of my classroom. i could handle whatever they said, no matter what. when sheniqua, who was riotously laughing, at some smartass comment i made in class, yelled across the room, “mr. baker, you just an m-f.” i knew how to handle that. in a completely heterosexual manner, i twirled around, posed (gaga and madonna would approve) to catch my breath and simply explain to class, 32 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 ‘yes, my wife has children!’ through humor, i knew what to say. eight years later, i am lost, when alex, out of nowhere asks, ‘mr. baker, am i not equal to the others, am i not the same because i’m gay?’ through frustration, i didn’t know what to say. how do you tell a 17-year-old boy: ‘i’m sorry the constitution tells men (like us) we aren’t equal, we don’t have those rights; we aren’t good enough to be married?’ through fear, i didn’t speak, but wanted to say: the relationship you have with your boyfriend, in the eyes of your classmates and others in society is viewed as deviant, an abomination, a sin, even though you and i know that love is simply love. the attitudes of those around us: the blind lawmakers, the fanatical ‘right,’ the bigoted, the oppressors, who suppress our rights feel threatened, scared, and religiously superior. sadly, i feel incompetent, when i am fine with being called a ‘mother-fucker’ in front of my students, but fear being called a ‘faggot.’ for lgbtiq+ individuals, languages in the context of schools can be overwhelming barriers to success. words such as queer, faggot, dyke, or lesbian become explosives “hurled in an attempt to politically immobilize the queer body and render it visible as other” and “to the 12-year old standing at his locker, hearing shouts or whispers of ‘faggot’ from his heterosexual peers is not affirming or enabling” (loutzenheiser & macintosh, 2004, p. 152– 153) student achievement or growth. furthermore, as gust (2007) has offered, “the classroom is not and never has been sexually neutral territory. any queer teacher who resists recognizing his/her sexuality as a present force in the classroom is, at best, probably ‘passing’ as heterosexual or, at worst, perilously unaware of the pervasive (although sometimes subtle) way in which sexuality is never fully absent in any human interaction” (p. 51). baker: alone on stage 33 additionally, as roffee & waling (2016) have clarified, “the existence of homophobic violence” and “hate crimes” against queer people is “well documented” (p. 190). accordingly, as slattery (2006) asserted, “we must address the continuing ignorance, greed, and bigotry that perpetuates sexism, racism, heterosexism, and ethnic divisions; everything we teach is incomplete if we do not constantly foreground issues of prejudice and violence in our schools and society” (p. 144). slattery (2006) added, “the evidence is abundantly clear that the human community is amazingly diverse, and our multicultural diversity is one of our greatest strengths to be celebrated and not a liability to be eradicated” (p. 144). therefore, this pervasive need to protect, as well as appreciate lgbtiq+ youth demands educators who are openly out to be role models. when i wrote my poetry, i imagined standing up for my students in the classroom but was unsure if that would happen. kidd (2016) has explained that poetry offers “space that allows me to re-define and re-present my struggle in ways that make my world accessible to others” (p. 139). through ppa, i was able to present myself in a manner that permitted social change. i was able to open dialogue that allowed my personal story to reach beyond me, into an open space for others. social change for hanley (2013), “performance presents a multilayered and dynamic embodiment of culture that enables focus for audiences and the artist on the multiple, variable, permeable, and subjective intersections of social justice and change” (p. 8). in the midst of my ppa, both me as participant-researcher-performer, and the audience joined in a common space in which a dialogue of progress was initiated. it was in this reflexive space in which i see myself as a queer-poet-researcher-educator who performs, that social change is possible. stovall (2010) has defined social change in education as “the ability to create places where young people, families, community members, teachers, and administrators can critically analyze their experiences, conditions, and contexts while participating in a process to change oppressive conditions” (p. 413) that inhibit cohesiveness in a community. lgbtiq+ educators feel these oppressive conditions and do nothing for fear of retaliation, loss of job, or being told that “teaching is not an appropriate profession for the queer” (endo, reecemiller, & santavicca, 2010, p. 1023). whereas many teachers, lgbtiq+ identified or not, express concern at addressing politically charged issues, these concepts must be addressed in the academic arena to help lgbtiq+ students grow. journell (2016) has contended that “teachers cannot realistically remain politically neutral because teachers are political beings” and those who claim they are neutral are “not so in practice” (p. 102). furthermore, “teachers can use their positions of authority and power” (wernick, kulick, & inglehart, 2013, p. 299) to navigate space for politically charged dialogue that provides safe and respectful classrooms for lgbtiq+ youth. 34 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 hatch (2009) has reminded us that “the challenges [we] face inside the school are connected to and compounded by things that are happening outside” (p. 18). politically charged matters such as violence, unemployment, discrimination, homophobia, and bullying are issues teenagers face in schools. with the difficult outside pressures of life, students, especially those who feel disenfranchised within the system, suffer. “even more tragic is the senseless bloodshed of america’s youth, like lawrence king, a fifteen-year-old student who was shot point blank in the head by another student . . . simply because he was gay and chose to express himself openly at school” (endo, reece-miller, & santavicca, 2010 p. 1023). therefore, providing open space for dialogue should be of primary concern to the lgbtiq+ educator. one way to become an agent of change in schools is through “constructing spaces in which to communicate across race, ethnicity, religion, class, and culture” (weems et al., 2015, p. 843). unknowingly, my poetry performance had constructed a space for discussion, fraught with issues of my own un/privileged identity, my religious beliefs, and my own real/perceived culture(s). however, as lambert (2016) has explained, poetic inquiry offers “a way for an often silenced and marginalized ‘voice’ to be heard, and in that act opened a space in which to challenge oppressive discourses and present a different angle, and type of knowledge regarding what it is like to ‘be’ different” (p. 578). whether those acts included me or not after the presentation, my ppa provided an outlet for all students present to discuss, reflect, and engage with issues of social change. it is this openness, this ability to dialogue, both with others and ourselves, that all educators, especially lgbtiq+ identified educators, must be willing to embrace. we must conquer our fears, open our hearts, write our poetry, and allow our students to engage with us. educational leaders must acknowledge systems of inequity that force lgbtiq+ students into hiding or into fearing their heterosexual peers/teachers. to ensure that schools are welcoming places for lgbtiq+ youth “and for the negative consequences of heterosexism to diminish for all, homophobia, heterosexism, heteronormativity, and heterosexual privilege must all be explicitly addressed and interrogated in students’ learning” (nunn & bolt, 2015, p. 280). role models must be willing to engage, discuss, argue, and even cry for/with/about our students. in modelling what it means to be an active member of society, we must “expose, highlight, and undermine [the] power” (leavy, 2010, p. 240) that continues to push our students down. educators, acting as mentors, “must commit to redefining that reality as dictated by demands for social justice and equality” (zacko-smith & smith, 2010, p. 2). obstacles to dialogue poetic inquiry “involves an epistemological position, in which the researcher is more visible than is the case for traditional qualitative work” (görlich, 2019, p. 403), which opens the door to complicated dialogue where “truth telling, bravery, [and] vulnerability” (prendergast, 2015, p. 683) are present. unfortunately, this bravery comes at a cost for educators who are out. while it is important that lgbtiq+ educators “make themselves available to students as baker: alone on stage 35 they feel comfortable” (roe, 2017, p. 60), multiple obstacles, such as religious and political opposition, confront queer educators from students, guardians, and peers alike. my ppa extends this argument. dusk, saturday, january 5, 2008, i came across a humorous street sign: turn left for gay st., turn right for church st. the light was red. to clarify: i couldn’t go gay and still be on church, i couldn’t go to church while still gay, i couldn’t turn left where i was supposed to be, i had to turn right, to do as expected. sitting at this light along the cumberland river, smiling at the irony on 1st avenue, laughing at the picture i snapped in nashville, i realized a sad, but true reality: i’d been sitting at this light my whole life. i stood on stage and acknowledged my biggest internal conflict between my religious beliefs and my authentic life, knowing religious and political fundamentalists use religious texts as a weapon against homosexuality and queer teachers across the country. michaelson (2010) has pointed out that “it is clear that our readings of the bible have indeed evolved as the human race has evolved” (p. 38), yet lgbtiq+ individuals still endure anger, threats, and hostility from religious people in the name of god (deeb-sossa & kane, 2007). it is this conflict between my religious background and identity with which i most struggled. likewise, queer students may struggle with polarity as they search for their own identity, too. while civil rights have improved since the 2015 unites states supreme court decision legalising same-sex marriage, there are still verbal and physical attacks on sexual minority youth that occur regularly. the 2017 glsen (formally known as the gay, lesbian & straight education network) national school climate survey clarifies realities of lgbtiq+ youth in schools today: “more than 8 in 10” lgbtiq+ students experience harassment or assault in school settings, “nearly half” experience cyberbullying (kosciw, et al., p. 23), and the majority do not report these incidents because of “fears that reporting would make the situation worse” (p. 27) as staff members regularly “did nothing” or told the victim to “ignore” the offence (p. 31). lgbtiq+ students have valid reasons to view schooling as a perilous journey since “violence in several forms consumes and stigmatizes their academic lives and selves” (berry, 2018, p. 507). other obstacles facing the queer community include unrelenting questioning of same-sex marriage and workplace protections, grappling with the legitimacy of our relationships, agonising over the possibility that our employment can be terminated; finding and then using 36 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 the restroom that corresponds with our gender identity, and knowing that many states have current legislation under consideration that would make discrimination against lgbtiq+ individuals legal. this is crucial to understanding the issues of sexual minority youth since “the legal right to marry, and legally guaranteed access to education, career choice, and the achievement of other personal milestones are essential in developing lgbtiq youths’ sense of self-esteem and faith in their future” (dysart-gale, 2010, p. 27). to be clear, the lives of these students are at risk since school-based “victimization contributes to higher risk of suicide, substance misuse, mental disorder, and unsafe sexual experiences” (palmer & greytak, 2017, p. 163). consequently, educators must open as many spaces as possible in which to face heterosexist and homophobic attitudes in the classroom and to teach accordingly. gays scare me, kinda like clowns to end my ppa, i concluded with a true story of an incident in my classroom in the fall of 2011. most of the poems performed had been written over time, but this final poem was written directly as a result of a classroom experience just prior to the performance. this incident was the justification for speaking out. we discuss in my class topics, those that are controversial: illegal immigration, legalization of marijuana, and, of course, same-sex marriage. ‘thank god, gays can’t get married’ one of my upper-middle class white boys states. ‘excuse me?’ ‘thank god, gays can’t get married’ ‘gays scare me, kinda like clowns.’ oh, god, he’s seen my polka-dotted tie, he knows i wear a red, button nose. they all see my over-sized, floppy shoes; or am i not the clown in the spotlight? in an attempt to teach a lesson, in a manner in which he would understand, in an outfit that makes him uncomfortable i dress as a clown the next day in class. ‘as a clown, i find it extremely difficult to be treated like a foreigner, while others have freedoms, legal rights, protections i do not. baker: alone on stage 37 as a clown, i do not have the freedom to marry whom i choose. as a clown, i am an outsider. you laugh, while others say mean things. some say others are glad that clowns just don’t have rights here in texas. some people are scared of me, simply because of my polka-dotted tie. when i am out of make-up, i look just like everyone else. and, while some cultures are not obvious: race, religion, or gender, i stand out with my red nose. my hair shines above others. i am ridiculed for being different . . . i want to be treated like everyone else, i am human, whether a clown or not, i should be treated like every normal nosed man or woman . . . ‘ i step back from the podium in my class, take a deep breath and smile, through the tear-stained fake nose, and the uncomfortable rainbow wig . . . i made a difference for the young, quiet clown, who sits in the back of the room, afraid to honk his nose, afraid to twirl his tie, afraid to wear his oversized, floppy shoes. implications henderson and bigby (2017) have suggested that a self-reflective methodology, such as ppa, “seeks to avoid the pitfall of ventriloquism by amplifying the voice of the individual while also acknowledging the role of the researcher who has played a crucial role in such amplification” (p. 53). here, the written poetry represents my lived experiences as an out educator-participant, while my performance was the mode in which i, as researcher, disseminated data to an audience/my students. in truth, through my experience, both on stage and in my classroom, i realise that all teachers are bricoleurs of knowledge. 38 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 lincoln and denzin (2005) have explained that the teacher/author/researcher becomes the bricoleur—the maker of quilts, who brings together multiple stories, ideas, pieces of a puzzle to create a single work of art. “there are many kinds of bricoleurs—interpretive, narrative, theoretical, political, methodological . . . the interpretive bricoleur produces a bricolage—that is, a pieced-together set of representations that is fitted to the specifics of a complex situation” (p. 4). though i have created a quilt of both my experiences and the methodological approach to understanding ppa, the “epistemological connection between creativity, critique, and civic engagement is mutually replenishing, and pedagogically powerful” (conquergood, 2002, p. 153). i am fortunate to have experienced a moment in which a montage of ideas, thoughts, and beliefs merged together into a single performance before an audience. as i pieced my collection together a small poem of mine almost got cut from the final product because of time constraints but i kept the poem to showcase the idea that out educators will still stumble, make mistakes, and suffer. while it is difficult for a teacher to come out in the classroom, it is vital for educators to be strong because other students, like damian, will stumble, too. as role models, whether we are queer ourselves or not, we must open space for dialogue to safeguard effective learning for all youth. we must remind our students that the measure of a man isn’t determined by his confident stride into a room. the true measure of a man is how well he picks himself up after tripping over the carpet, knocking into the coffee table, breaking the glass top. when i stepped off the stage after the ppa, i was hesitant regarding the possible response of my students who did not know what i was presenting to the audience, and i was afraid of criticism by adults who had no idea they were going to watch an open dialogue on such a politically-charged topic. i walked backstage, entered the auditorium through a side door, and sat down beside damian. he was crying. he would not look at me. he could not. damian knew he was a clown in the back of the room, one who was once afraid to twirl his own tie. references addison, n. 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(2010). recognizing and utilizing queer pedagogy. multicultural education, 18(1), 2–9. microsoft word b80 full issue final.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 80, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i80a08 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x unlearning my communication pedagogy through poetic inquiry wendy rawlinson department of media, language and communication, university of technology, durban south africa wendyrawlinson2@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0980-8113 (received: 15 february 2020; accepted: 15 september 2020) abstract feeling disenchanted with my communication pedagogy to undergraduate students at a university of technology, i searched for a means to improve my practices. poetic inquiry assisted in unveiling how my personal and professional lived experiences had moulded my lecturer self and negatively influenced my communication practices. the reflexive writing of poems created an imaginative space in which embedded values and assumptions could be excavated, and the complexity of my entrenched beliefs made visible. the creative space helped crystallise my thinking and generate fresh insights into my white race and class privilege. new interpretations of how a merging of my personal and professional identities could improve my classroom teaching and learning were evoked through poetic inquiry. furthermore, as a form of analysis, it served to disrupt ingrained instrumentalist patterns of thinking and acting whilst enabling a more imaginative envisioning of my communication pedagogy. keywords: white identity, undergraduate students, poetic inquiry introduction for this article, i drew on the data of my doctoral study (rawlinson, 2019), which explained how i explored my communication pedagogy in relation to diverse undergraduate students. i attempted to unearth the way in which my apartheid socialisation had influenced my teaching and student learning. disillusioned with my ineffectual communication teaching and student learning, i searched for a means to explore why, despite the changing sociopolitical context in south african higher education after the democratic election in 1994, my communication pedagogy had remained unchanged. the communication curriculum i taught at a university of technology comprised prepackaged content transmitted in delivery mode, which was convenient for me because it provided control and predictability. but the material and methods did not allow for the different context and altered student body that confronted me— rawlinson: unlearning my communication pedagogy through poetic inquiry 143 and this needed to be interrogated. self-study methodology offered potential for selfevaluation, for excavating who i was as educator, to improve my practice, and effect social change. i employed an “arts-based self-study method” advocated by samaras (2011, p. 719) because i wanted to symbolise, represent, construct, and deconstruct my thinking about teaching (weber & mitchell, 2004). part of deconstructing my pedagogy would be to unlearn how i thought about and enacted my practices in the classroom. i believed two critical questions would provide a better understanding of how my personal and professional identities interacted in my practices and might shed light on how i could improve. they were formulated as follows: “what personal and professional meanings of self shape my communication lecturer identity?” and “how does my communication lecturer identity mould my practices?” these two questions are set against a backdrop of the injustices of an unfair and destructive bantu education system (christie & collins, 1982) that produced students who, despite physical access, frequently were not able to succeed in higher education. in pursuing the questions, i felt a responsibility as educator to explore my personal life history as a means of bringing to life the diverse dimensions of my lived experience. data sources and methodology my personal history narrative growing up in the 1960s in a white middle-class family in a suburb designated for whites, and where everyone spoke english, was regarded as the norm for me. the segregated system of living where only whites were permitted to live in particular areas was dictated by apartheid policy. racial classifications based on the grouping of white, indian, coloured, and black people were employed by the government to separate and oppress people (clark & worger, 2016). my attendance at a whites-only school didn’t seem strange to me. reading was a family ritual that i looked forward to, as were the speech and drama lessons in which i participated. in addition, having a poem chosen for a school magazine, although exciting, was not regarded as unusual. my training at university, as well as my later teaching experience with an all-white student population went largely unquestioned. my access to resources was accepted without question, and my socialisation groomed me for an all-white world where privilege and benefit was unconsciously expected. my struggles to change from teaching an all-white student body prior to 1994, to a largely black student group of undergraduate students at a university of technology after the democratic election, were reflected in my poor results. i taught the subject, communication, which included communication theory, verbal and non-verbal communication, as well as the writing of english. teaching methods that revolved around imposing one’s personal authority offered minimal student engagement. many students were from low socioeconomic environments, with seventy percent of those at my institution supported by financial aid from the national student financial aid scheme (bhorat & pillay, 2017). in addition, inadequate prior schooling, poverty, and lack of resources often prevented optimal learning at university. research documenting student struggles in south african higher education institutions and 144 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 high dropout rates (letseka & maile, 2008; mngomezulu & ramrathan, 2015), illustrated similar experiences to mine. that research had addressed systemic features of the university but, except for jawitz (2016), did not excavate the underlying racist ideologies perpetuated by individuals. i reasoned that developing a self-consciousness regarding my personal beliefs and behaviours might be helpful to engage a community of learners and provide a space for a conscientisation of the surrounding power hierarchies. i was led to examine self-study (samaras et al., 2004) as a possible methodology to explore my communication pedagogy because it places self at the centre and interrogates what an educator does. as claimed by pinnegar (1998, p. 33), it is “a methodology for studying professional practice settings” in addition to incorporating a call to action (pithouse et al., 2009). as well as personal change, it embraces a “social-pedagogical task” (laboskey, 2004, p. 830). in inviting a variety of methods (laboskey, 2004) such as arts-based methods and memory work that could include metaphor, artefacts, photographs, and poetry, i believed reflexive devices such as these could better reveal my self and my practices. poetic inquiry eisner’s claim (1991) that meaning is mediated by form propelled me to experiment with poetic form. poetry as a “kind of expressive writing,” whose primary function, according to percer (2002, p. 9), can act as research, became an option for me to better enhance and understand the process of unveiling my personal and professional lived experience. prendergast (2009, p. xxi) claimed that “the potential power of poetic inquiry is to do as poetry does, that is to synthesize experience in a direct and affective way.” i decided to pursue this option because i believed it would assist in “an evocative portrayal” (butlerkisber, 2002, p. 232), especially in relation to the communication discipline that i taught. furman et al. (2007) demonstrated how using different poetic forms in conjunction with traditional data analysis methods could result in data that are emotionally evocative and highly consumable. i was encouraged by eisner’s (1997, p. 9) claim that alternative forms of data representation, including poetry, can “increase attention to complexity, feeling, and new ways of seeing.” the two experimental poetic texts i offer in this article are an “an attempt to reveal the many layers of experience and understanding that become sterilised or otherwise reduced when translated into more traditional texts” (percer, 2002, p. 9). they helped represent different dimensions of what i was coming to know about my identity as i employed a poetic inquiry lens. in his discussion of poetry as a tool of social educational research, (willis, 2002) stated that, “poetry is valued as good and useful when it opens up a useful space that is shared between reader and poet,” which is what i intended to make available. in my personal history narrative, i drew on samaras et al. (2004) whose description of this method incorporated “artistic expression such as drawing, photography and poetry.” i followed their suggestion by using photographs, and artefacts to elicit nodal moments in my personal life, growing up as a white girl in apartheid south africa, as well as journal entries. rawlinson: unlearning my communication pedagogy through poetic inquiry 145 barone and eisner (1997, p. 75), maintained that “arts-based research is defined by the presence of aesthetic qualities or design elements that infuse the inquiry and its writing.” it can help evoke thoughts and feelings in others and serve to share insights, which i intended to do. a drawback of poetry is that it is not generalisable, but researchers have claimed that “although it is personal it is the goal to transform his or her personal experience into that which is universal” (furman et. al., 2007, p. 303). secondly, “poetry is often utilized as a means of inquiry—that is, the process of writing research poems helps the author develop new insights” (furman et al., 2007, p. 304). furthermore, attention to the sound of language and form that is required in poetry can contribute to a deeper sensitivity as details of our research experiences are relayed. another quality of poetic inquiry aligns with gunzenhauer’s (2008) argument that providing alternative discourses about the meaning and value of the arts is a way of resisting the normalising systems of education, or of challenging traditional understandings of validity (richardson, 1993). not wishing to replace traditional forms of prose, poetry presents knowledge in a different form because poetry can affect us bodily so that we experience vicariously the emotions and physical effects of our self –reflexive processes (richardson, 1994). in expressive poems, the researcher-poet “utilizes their own observations and selfreflection as derived insights to craft works that attempt to metaphorically penetrate the essence of an experience” (furman, 2004, p. 83). i was further encouraged to employ this method by cahnmann (2003, p. 34) who claimed that “using elements of poetry in our data collection, analysis and write-up has the potential to make our thinking clearer, fresher and more accessible and to render the richness and complexity of the observed world.” i demonstrate in the writing of the poems a “knowing in the making” referred to by badley (2009, p. 108). the two poems i present in this article helped me to explore an imaginative space that constituted a poetic dialogue with my self. employment of “artful portrayals” serving as analytic processes (butler-kisber, 2002, p. 229) were utilised to ensure both engagement of the researcher-poet in a process of self-reflection and rigour, as well as a means to expose biases (cresswell, 2007). construction of my own trencadis mosaic in contemplating my first research question, “what personal and professional meanings of self shape my communication lecturer identity?” i was drawn to a photograph of myself positioned on the trencadis bench in park guell, barcelona. the photograph, taken after a language conference, illustrated a significant lived experience in which i understood how my personal experience was intertwined with my professional practices. the word “trencadis” in catalan means brittle or mosaic—also, cracked or broken. gaudi, a famous architect, devised the decorative technique of placing fragments of tile to form new patterns in situ. this decorative technique could transform an ordinary structure into something extraordinary. vivid memories of this moment seated on the trencadis bench inspired me to build a trencadis mosaic as a means to extend my thinking on the formation of my personal and professional identities. 146 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 preparing to construct the mosaic (see photograph, figure 1), stirred anticipation for insight into new spaces. although initially tentative, i was spurred on by hooks, who claimed that “without the ability to imagine, people remain stuck, unable to move into a place of power and possibility” (2010, p. 61). figure 1: my constructed trencadis mosaic during construction of the trencadis mosaic, i couldn’t help noticing the similarities between my life and the process of constructing a mosaic from broken fragments. the tile shards reflected the social, academic, cultural, and geographic disparities as well as the diverse educational experiences of my life. after completion of the mosaic, i felt compelled to write the poem, “(re)constructing the mosaic text,” which juxtaposes my life as communication lecturer with the constructing of the multifarious trencadis mosaic. the construction was birthed out of a desire to give voice to the meaning making and insights that my teacher identity was revealing. it provoked a desire to employ flexibility, spontaneity, and include the aesthetic as reflected in textural forms. construction of the poems in the writing of my poems, i experimented with words to create rhythm, pauses, and emphasis (leggo, 2008). drawing on my personal narrative as data, i attempted to capture the emotions and activities that constituted my identity construction and communication practices. as part of the deconstruction and reconstruction process, words and phrases were rearranged to match my unfolding understanding. by coding the data patterns, tensions and themes were highlighted (clandinin & connelly, 2000), which i then represented in the poems. these crafted poems were a synthesis and interpretation of the observed data. through the poetic form, serving as a means and an end, i was able to “transfer cognitive and affective knowledge from artist/researcher to reader” (prendergast, 2004, p. 75). i invited rawlinson: unlearning my communication pedagogy through poetic inquiry 147 critical friends to critique and analyse my poems in progress as i presented them in workshops. critical collaborative inquiry (samaras, 2011) in the form of critical friends, and encouraged in self -study, contributed to trustworthiness. the scholarly conversations helped to avoid the pitfalls of navel-gazing, and allowed for diverse interpretations. in the presence of critical friends, i found that reading the poems aloud aroused emotions that accompanied my experiences at the time. experiencing poetry’s performative and creative activity (leggo, 2005), illustrated its ability to move listeners, some of whom could relate the embodiment of my difficulties to their educational and personal experiences. the poems encapsulate the physical, emotional, and intellectual struggle of this process as well as the envisioning of my communication lecturer identity. creation of my trencadis mosaic served to open up my thinking. the process of writing itself became a meditative inquiry space in which to express my emotions and thoughts and to undo my embedded, instrumentalist forms of thinking and enacting pedagogy. employment of the original poetry i created aided in crystallising my thinking (prendergast, 2006) about my identity as communication lecturer, and afforded opportunity to distil the recurring concepts, for example, white privilege, deficit understandings of students, rigid notions of knowledge, and biased beliefs about race, class, and culture. i experienced what leggo argued about poetry’s two-fold ability—that it is not only able to “reveal identity and understanding, but the ways we also engage constantly in constituting and reconstituting our sense of self and identity” (2008, p. 445). the nonlinear format of the free verse poems helped to dissect the layers of meanings that emerged in the process of unlearning my communication pedagogy. the three stanzas of the poem, “(re)constructing the mosaic text,” assisted in analysing the process of unlearning the self. (re)constructing the mosaic text skilfully selecting ceramic segments multiple hues reflecting off shiny surfaces recall visions of a distant time and place. matching colours and patterns of the past—memories of the untold crafting the everyday collage of self what stories count? construction of the trencadis mosaic illuminated the constitutive process of my own life and professional practices and the understanding of myself in a new way (govinden, 1995). selecting personal lived experiences to insert in my narrative, and to position them “under the microscope” was as difficult as selecting the tile fragments. the challenging decisions, emotions, and physicality of the process of uncovery and recovery of self demanded more from me than i had anticipated. i relived what falzon (1998, p. 90) referred to as “having to forsake security and stability and expose ourselves to risk and uncertainty.” the mosaicmaking process reflected my experience of feeling alienated, inflexible, and a misfit in the academic landscape. 148 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 breaking the ceramic bowl against a rock of beliefs wincing as splinters pierce my flesh lingering pain as i nurse my bleeding assumptions placing each piece in situ familiar shapes nudge forward. moulded mosaics struggling to adapt to contoured surfaces why can’t i fit in? i struggled to break the tile into fragments and to then form patterns because of the tile’s unpredictable shapes. the procedure reflected the painful process of smashing my entrenched beliefs, and the splintering of deficit discourses to which i had held on. the demand for honesty (cahnmann, 2003, p. 34) that the poem allowed highlighted my struggle to candidly portray my thoughts and professional experiences. the expressive poetic form offered glimpses of my reduced thinking and understanding that surprised me. the construction process forced confrontation of my beliefs about the nature of an effective lecturer and what constituted my racist perceptions, which west (2009) asserted are difficult to change. squeezing the grouting, sealing the cracks, urgently filling the spaces of my lack how can i connect? sponging off the excess grout residue engaging in an aesthetics—a poetics creating a three-dimensional artwork; merging my multiple selves this stanza speaks to the difficulty of being reshaped in order to transform. my discomfort at conforming to institutional curricula and prescriptive methods is highlighted in the struggle to adapt the tile shards to different dimensions and patterns of the mosaic. i recognised my inflexibility to be moulded to an unfamiliar terrain with a majority black student group whose race, class, and language differed from mine. although confronting my biases was painful, removing the residue of my entitlement brought relief in part, as well as an accompanying understanding that the emotional self could merge with the intellectual self. this enabling space where i could practise my selves as more fluid (flores & day, 2006) spilled over into recognising the less dominant positioning i had adopted with students at times. the space offered opportunity to consider the aesthetic and functional operating together in which a new, connected community could exist (hooks, 2010). my second research question, “how does my communication lecturer identity mould my practices?” points to ways in which my white middle-class privilege, which gave me access to affordances and resources, prevented me from freely associating with members of other race groups. the rules of the apartheid state which, according to haarhoff (1998, p. 10), “denied them access to each other’s experience,” negatively informed my pedagogy by not allowing me to see the benefit of diversity. the entitlement attributed to my race and class afforded me power and the pathologising of my students who sometimes didn’t possess similar resources and cultural capital. my conformity to particular educational systems and practices is reflective of my compliance birthed out of gendered, traditional meanings of being a woman in a patriarchal, apartheid society. rawlinson: unlearning my communication pedagogy through poetic inquiry 149 the second poem, “prying open spaces,” allowed me to problematise my daily, conservative enactments in the classroom and outlines how i tried to reimagine fresh ways of being and doing teaching. it served as an imaginative inquiry process to rethink my pedagogy, and is evidence of how i employed poetry to analyse and organise sections of my data through a nonlinear means (furman, 2006; poindexter, 1998). it illustrates how i made decisions in relation to codes of behaviour prescribed by institutional structures, the expectations of colleagues, and academic discourses. my own perceptions also steered my behaviour in attempting to become a more effective lecturer. in questioning who i was as technicist communication lecturer in relation to my undergraduate students, i interrogated what my limits were in terms of beliefs and biases, especially related to race. i searched for alternative pathways to open myself up to others, knowing that i alone didn’t have the answers. the first two stanzas of the poem, “prying open spaces,” express some of the tensions evident in my attempt to become a more ethical and engaged lecturer. prying open spaces prying open spaces—venturing into forgotten corners rattling settled views on mosaic shards. shifting thought-encrusted tiles resistant to prodding fingers; tremors, whispers—pretending not to hear pushing into occupied spaces. stanza one of the poem sheds light on my desire to open up what had remained closed to me in my communication pedagogy, and to reveal how my assumptions and values shaped my actions. “rattling settled views on mosaic shards” indicates the necessity of rupturing ideas of self as passive woman. “shifting thought-encrusted shards” relates to my normalised assumptions about my methods of teaching and assessment and my reticence to discard these ideas. “resistant to prodding fingers” embodies my discomfort at releasing the sedimented behaviours that foucault (1997) prompted us to move beyond. the excerpt from my personal narrative presented below, also illustrates my struggle to escape from systems that confined, such as the fixed view of knowledge (biggs, 1996) i had endorsed. selecting noncritical course material for the nonverbal module revealed my understanding of knowledge as essentialised, and underlined my perception of students as passive receptors of knowledge (hooks, 1994). as a communication lecturer transmitting knowledge by direct instruction was the norm for me. i wanted an interactive classroom so i tried to make the lesson lively and interesting, but came to realise that by delivering the fixed content that i believed was appropriate, i was not allowing student contribution. i recognised a tendency to provide my own examples of non-verbal communication that i felt were relevant and appropriate. in spite of my espoused desire for engagement—“i wanted an interactive classroom”—my controlling attitude, actions, and my fear to share power is revealed. i saw the limitations 150 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 accompanying my subject position as authoritarian lecturer, and “knowledge producer”— this position as expert precluded student participation. the “whispers” in the poem refer to niggly doubts that students could understand me, and to their dissatisfaction with the material. “pretending not to hear” is evidence of my stubborness to acknowledge any part in my students’ inability to learn effectively, preferring to blame institutional systems or students themselves. “pushing into occupied spaces” illustrates the extent to which my aloof personal stance had moulded my reduced academic self. the second stanza of “prying open spaces” illustrates a recognition of how my familiar, rigid ways of thinking and acting in the classroom had become difficult to dislodge. prying open spaces playfully pulling at familiar patterns; peeling away at pretence. intrusions into shadowy spaces—avoiding exposure. pursuing a path through the clutter of conventions seeking exploratory spaces the stanza also represents my attempt to expose preconceived assumptions. it reveals my desire to disrupt existing behaviours by shifting taken-for-granted discourses (sachs, 2001) such as use of the term “non-traditional” students, and technicist ways of being and doing that eliminate critical thinking and spontaneous interaction. “playfully pulling at familiar patterns” illustrates how i struggled to dismantle embedded practices in an effort to unlearn my disengaged teacher stance. “peeling away at pretense” shows the way in which i confronted the role of my emotional self in an effort to integrate it more with my professional activities. my “intrusions into shadowy spaces” of race and class were tenuous as i admitted how my engagement with diverse black students was not working in my classroom (allen, 2007), and that professing i had a student-centred classroom was inaccurate. i grappled to shed my preconceived ideas as to who i was as white, entitled lecturer (posel, 2001), and who my students were. my uncertainty to venture into unknown areas constituted “shadowy spaces” because they were not prescribed and posed a risk. in “pursuing a path through the clutter of conventions,” i grappled to relinquish the conventions and codes associated with whiteness, race, and position (walker, 2005) to which i was accustomed. my attempt to adopt an ethical stance by trying alternate, engaged ways of practising communication was thwarted as i came up against traditional institutional practices. despite the rhetoric of transformation in higher education, this was not evident in academic departments (badat, 2009) or my practices. in “seeking exploratory spaces,” i illustrate a preparedness to pursue critical, connected spaces in which conversations of race, class, and social justice issues are invited (hooks, 2010). identifying my restrictions i now illustrate how the third stanza of “prying open spaces” enabled me to unveil an earlier classroom situation where some of my privileges and preconceived ideas had played out. i was able to recognise “that part of himself [that the individual must determine] as the prime rawlinson: unlearning my communication pedagogy through poetic inquiry 151 material of his moral conduct” (foucault, 1985, p. 26). focusing on the main factor that restricts one’s thoughts and actions helped to identify how my racist beliefs and biases that were etched into my classroom practices had reinforced racial and class inequities. reflection on the situation described below heightened recognition of my endorsement of a positivist communication course and teaching approach, in spite of the difference in student demographics at the university. in order to reassess the rules to which i subscribed, i was compelled to address the flawed securities to which i had adhered. i recognised “the way in which the individual establishes his relation to the rule and recognizes himself as obliged to put it in practice” (foucault, 1985, p. 27). this critical moment, one that i have written about in more detail (pillay et al., 2019), happened in my oral communication class where race and class were unintentionally foregrounded. i had recognised the need to connect more closely with students (jawitz, 2016) because i could understand the gaping divide between who i was as lecturer and my students. whilst appointed at a historically black institution in 1993, i conducted a communication oral class in which a student presented a speech on bantu education. his passion for the topic was evident as he spoke loudly and emotionally. this excerpt captures a short section of the lesson and is taken from my personal history narrative. student: “we blacks didn’t deserve an education it seems.” the sarcasm in his voice was unmistakable. i could see his rapid breathing as the pitch of his voice rose. student: “less than human! the whites did this—took away our power!” he continued. his anger was palpable. me: i wanted to scream out, “it isn’t my fault!” i finally blurted out “i can’t help being born white!” his voice was trembling, but i felt as if all eyes in the room were fixed on me. me: i cried out “i’m sorry . . . i’m sorry for the enforcement of such an evil system!” i felt as if the temperature in the room rose: as if a giant boiler had been switched on, and i alone was simmering in the suffocating liquid. in the critical moment described above, my perception of my student was as “nontraditional.” his race, class, and experience were representative of my students who were different from me and my previous white students. the situation further reflects my comparison with what i regarded as “the norm.” the race incident exposed my failure to address my whiteness prior to this point and exposed my limitations as i questioned my normalised racial identity, and how it was constraining my view of others. however, through confrontation, i recognised an urgency to view other races in relation to their history and began to embrace new ways of allowing diverse students to feel at home (walker, 2005) in my classroom. 152 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 initially, the student’s utterances about white oppression had disturbed me and i found myself reacting negatively. in assuming the position of ‘innocence’ (steyn, 2001), i denied complicity in apartheid oppression. this is illustrated in my statement: “i wanted to scream out; it isn’t my fault!” my outburst is a reminder of the “self-proclaiming innocence of white english speaking south africans” (west, 2009, p. 102). my final words “i can’t help being born white!” reveal my disavowing the signs of my limitations that foucault (1985) advised is essential for care of the self. i was slowly able to identify my complicity in apartheid policies that privileged one group over the other based on one’s race because i was sympathetic to inequities. i began to transform my thinking on race and my blindfolded stance (posel, 2001). by ignoring my emotions and insight, i would have disabled my choice to adopt an ethical stance advocated by foucault, and encouraged by self-study methodology. in acknowledging that my actions and feelings were undergirded by racist ideologies, i was thrust into a position to heed the ethical imperative to transform. critically looking at the self as a site for change was a catalyst in providing the security for which i was yearning (nussbaum, 1997), which in essence was an assurance that i could fit in. this stance would also serve as a means for me to feel more at home in the undergraduate classroom, and not merely viewed as perpetrator. however, in pondering these new insights i was mindful that self-study methodology requires critique from others, so i called upon a scholarly group from my doctoral cohort, who were trained to provide critique of our research in progress. critical friend 1: the researcher is not seeing herself as teacher in this moment but in her personal race identity. why did you react so irrationally? critical friend 2: this student knows he is safe to express his views. . . . but it is evident that her liberal person notions get rocked to the core. critical friend 3: this situation highlights learning about self in the self-study, where the participant comes from a comfortable environment and moves into alien territory. critical friend 1: don’t be so defensive! stand back! awareness of my race and my middle-class values in comparison to those of my students, had affected my teacher identity. the collision of my white interests and expectations and those of my black students resulted in a strained educational environment (brown, 2004). my subject position of guilty party resulted in a feeling of being targeted (jansen, 2009). my disquiet at having my role of communication lecturer disrupted by confrontation of my white privilege (warren & fassett, 2014) changed my view of self as a good teacher in the classroom (jacklin, 2001). as i grappled with the uncertainty of my teacher identity, evidence of a transitioning in the way i thought was reflected in a critical friend’s comment: “this situation highlights learning about self in the self-study.” thus, the third stanza of “prying open spaces” indicates my movement forward in an effort to transition. rawlinson: unlearning my communication pedagogy through poetic inquiry 153 portrayals of a curious learner; furtive backward glances confronting names and voices lurking in the folds of exclusivity releasing thoughts from their silent thinking moving past the known, propelled to find new places, stumbling into a free space this stanza highlights my eagerness to reimagine my communication practices. the “furtive backward glances” capture the lingering residue of biased assumptions and my reticence to acknowledge where i had failed. “confronting names and voices” of the deficit discourses in which i had engaged, namely, the terms, “disadvantaged” and “esl,” forced me to acknowledge that these namings and actions were “lurking in folds of exclusivity” because until then, they had remained invisible. my sense of being othered prompted my irrational reaction but, in turn, caused me to enact agency. i begin to let go of previous persistent thoughts and perceptions thereby “releasing thoughts from their silent thinking” as i chose to engage as a humane communication lecturer. grappling to unhinge myself from constraining beliefs motivated my desire to be “propelled to find new places.” addressing my entrapment in conservative thinking and practices permitted a “stumbling into a free space” of unconstrained thinking patterns. concerning my teacher self, i made way for the possibility of “stumbling into a free space” in both my thinking and in dominating academic structures. by keeping the personal and professional aspects segregated, i had created unnecessary binaries. privileges i have benefitted from caused me to favour certain classroom practices, structures, and languages above others. discussion the poetic inquiry process illustrates my attempt to shake off the restrictive technicist practices promoted during apartheid and that lack criticality. vale and jacklin (2009, p. 3) referred to “the number of institutional and social developments that have closed off critical thinking in south africa.” separating my personal from my professional practices prevented an enlivened communication pedagogy where i was able to integrate elements of my respective identities and allow the contribution of students’experiences. however, i was willing “to acknowledge and accept my own vulnerability and limitations” (straker, 2013, p. 13) in order to move forward. alternative spaces to rethink race, class, and culture enabled me to reconnect as an embodied lecturer rather than as an educator who fragmented the personal from the professional. reassessing my classroom interaction in which race took centre stage and, in an effort to open myself up to others, the commentary from critical friends assisted in the analysis of my reaction. the challenging of my irrational and instinctive response to the student’s oral on bantu education helped unpack my defensive position and foregrounded my white privilege (steyn, 2001) so that my racial self and my academic identity aligned (jenkins, 2008). although viewed as “knowledgeable educator” by students, i took on the position of novice 154 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 learner of my own race identity and privilege. given that my identity was constituted through this communication (fassett & warren, 2007), the lines separating my personal and professional identities were erased. i perceived the student’s presentation as a subjective encounter exposing my privileged, white woman status (mcintosh, 1990). accepting my defensiveness and acknowledging my white privilege opened up a space for thinking differently. concluding thoughts reflexive poetic inquiry was the tool that assisted in creating an aesthetic space to reimagine my communication pedagogy. engaging in the meditative and creative process allowed me to connect in a meaningful way with my teaching practices as embodied communication lecturer. poetic inquiry and dialogue with critical friends offered a means to imagine inclusive teaching spaces in which race and class are welcomed, and uncertainty and vulnerability possible. i resonate with pithouse-morgan et al. 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(2005). race is nowhere and race is everywhere: narratives from black and white south african university students in post‐apartheid south africa. british journal of sociology of education, 26(1), 41–54. warren, j. t., & fassett, d. l. (2014). communication: a critical/cultural introduction. sage. weber, s., & mitchell, c. (2004). not just any dress: narratives of memory, body, and identity. peter lang. rawlinson: unlearning my communication pedagogy through poetic inquiry 159 west, m. (2009). white women writing white: identity and representation in (post-) apartheid literatures in south africa. david philip. willis, p. (2002). don’t call it poetry. indo-pacific journal of phenomenology, 2(1). https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ipjp/article/view/65661 microsoft word cissue81-full-15dec.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 81, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i81a02 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x impact of funding on academic performance: an exploration of two south african universities angelique wildschut senior manager: research and policy at the national student financial aid scheme (nsfas), cape town, south africa and research associate at the university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa angeliquew@nsfas.org.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0361-3702 ebenezer megbowon previously research assistant at post-doctoral level at the national student financial aid scheme (nsfas), cape town, south africa megbowontoyin@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1319-1304 amanda miselo research assistant at masters level at the national student financial aid scheme (nsfas), cape town, south africa amandam@nsfas.org.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2959-9833 (received: 6 february 2020; accepted: 14 october 2020) abstract empirical evidence on the relationship between student funding and academic performance is unclear. some studies have found a positive relationship, some have suggested a negative one, while others maintain that there is no relationship between them. acknowledging that a range of factors, other than funding, impact on student success, in this paper, we aim to contribute to a small, but emerging, body of literature on the relationship between student funding and academic performance, proxied by the average individual academic mark for the year. we applied descriptive and inferential statistics to a dataset of 29,619 students registered at two south african universities for the 2018 academic year. the results highlight that in an examination of the impact of being funded by the national student financial aid scheme (nsfas) in a bivariate context, it is possible to find a negative relationship with performance. however, at an aggregate level and controlling for the impact of other variables, a positive (albeit weak) and statistically significant correlation between being nsfas funded and average academic performance emerges. keywords: academic performance, student funding, south africa, higher education, average individual scores 30 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 introduction given the massification of higher education (see various international examples such as mohamedbhai, 2014; mok & neubauer, 2016; varghese, 2015) and the growing diversity of student populations, it is of interest to better understand the factors that predict academic performance and success at university. in the south african context, this interest has intensified in recent years since both government subsidies to higher education institutions and the allocation of bursaries and/or loans to financially and academically deserving students from poor and working-class households, have grown steadily and remain a significant proportion of investment and gross domestic product (gdp).1 there is a growing body of extant knowledge on the academic success (proxied by graduation and retention) of publicly funded students in comparison to self-funded ones (de villiers et al., 2013; dhet, 2018, 2019). however, there exists a gap in understanding the relationship between funding and achievement (proxied by academic scores) in the south african context. as noted by naidoo and mckay (2018, p. 160) “despite the extensive funding problems, there are significant gaps in the literature on student funding, bursary allocations, and bursaries in general with respect to south africa.” while acknowledging that a range of factors, other than funding, impact on student success, this gap in understanding does not offer a strong evidence base for policy. at a national level this militates against more proactive funding policymaking, and at an institutional level, against more targeted support mechanisms for at-risk so-called funded students. as noted by alyahyan and dustegor (2020), it is important to understand student success since this constitutes a key metric for the evaluation of institutional performance. furthermore, better and earlier detection of students who might be at risk, along with instituting preventative measures can drastically improve success rates. thus, in this paper, we aim to contribute to addressing these gaps in understanding by evaluating nsfas funding (which constitutes the biggest proportion of government funding of post-school education and training) as a predictor of academic performance (proxied by individual annual average scores), alongside the influence of other variables. literature review to adequately contextualise the contribution of this investigation, it is necessary first to understand extant knowledge on i) the predictors of academic performance at university, and ii) the link between public funding and academic performance at university. 1 the 2019 budget speech maintained that “learning and culture receives the largest share of spending as government continues to provide access to quality basic and higher education, develop skills, provide training and contribute to social cohesion. fully subsidised education and training for the poor is government’s flagship higher education intervention. over the medium-term government will spend r111.2 billion to ensure that 2.8 million deserving students from poor and working-class families obtain their qualifications at universities and tvet colleges” (minister of finance, budget speech, 20 february 2019). wildschut et al.: impact of funding on academic performance 31 the predictors of academic performance at university the literature that considers the predictors of academic performance or success at university covers a broad range of factors: language proficiency (sothan, 2018); lecture attendance and study habits (delaneyet al., 2013); program type (hamoud et al., 2018); class type (mueen et al., 2016); semester period (mesarić & šebalj, 2016); student integration2 (becket al., 2014); and self-efficacy3 (mckenzie & schweitzer, 2018), for example. a recent systematic review, however, usefully summarises predictors in the literature under five broad categories: 1) previous academic achievement; 2) student demographics; 3) student environment; 4) psychological; and 5) e-learning activity as the most commonly reported factors evaluated across countries. of these, previous academic achievement and student demographics were found to be the most influential in predicting academic success (alyahyan & dustegor, 2020). in this study we do not have access to data that will allow us to explore the impact of variables that could be categorised as psychological and as related to e-learning activity, so our literature review focuses on the main insights under the former three categories of predictors. the variables available allow an exploration of the relationship between the demographics of students, student environment, and academic performance at university. furthermore, it is important to understand nsfas funding as a proxy for socio-economic disadvantage, but also, to some extent, for levels of previous academic performance. not only are these individuals from the most financially disadvantaged households in south africa, but they tend to come from communities with poorer levels of schooling, achievement, and overall preparedness for university. as noted by koen et al. (2006), in reference to south africa, disadvantaged students face significant challenges in coping with the academic programme. part of the problem lies in the fact that they often suffer from poor quality basic education which means that they enter university poorly prepared for advanced studies. the literature dealing with previous academic performance as a predictor tends to focus on either high-school grades or university admissions tests as predictors. in the main, the literature has shown support for the relationship between matric score or high school grade and university performance (adekitan & salau, 2019; garg, 2018; hamoudet al., 2018; oshodiet al., 2018). however, some recent research in the south african context suggests, comparably, that university admissions tests might be better predictors of academic performance than matric scores. investigating the predictors of academic performance of nursing students, mthimunye et al., (2018) and mthimunye and daniels (2019) found that admission points, aggregate results in first year, and high school science and mathematics grades had the greatest predictive power, compared to demographic variables. kotze and massyn (2018), focusing on an adult education degree at a business school in south africa, found cognitive abilities 2 schreiber & yu (2016, p. 157) caution that while engagement patterns can be reliable predictors of academic performance, in the south african context “the trends across race and gender suggest that engagement and academic performance remain differentiated along race and gender.” 3 the complex interaction between performance, self-efficacy, motivational and cognitive variables have been highlighted as an area that requires more longitudinal research to unravel (honicke & broadbent, 2016). 32 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 (verbal and numerical reasoning) more consistent predictors of academic performance in comparison with personal competencies (coping with pressure, adapting to change, achieving personal goals, and working with people). waldee and cliff (2016) also found the preadmissions test of learning potential to be a better predictor of the potential of students to cope with their programs of study than the results of the school-leaving test. finally, naidoo & mckay (2018) showed that in terms of student academic performance, grade 12 national senior certificate results were a weak predictor of academic success, while grades weighted by module credits were a statistically better predictor of performance and throughput. malope (n.d), focusing on students who are receiving financial aid at the university of cape town from five different faculties (commerce, science, law, humanities, and engineering and built environment) highlight that psychosocial factors (adjustment, amotivation, intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, intrinsic regulation, self-esteem, perceived stress, and full adjustment scale) did not explain any of the variation in academic performance and that performance at the end of the first year was a strong predictor of performance after three years. in the main, therefore, while the literature has shown support for the relationship between previous academic performance (such as matric score or high school grade) and university performance, differences in predictive capacity and significance is evident across different studies and locations. a broad range of literature covers the impact of what are known as student environment related predictors of performance ranging from field of study, accommodation, programme type, institutional type, and programme length for example (adekitan & salau, 2019; mohamed & waguih, 2017). the impact of demographic factors on academic performance at university is also a topic that demonstrates extreme divergence in the literature. several studies indicate gender (almarabeh, 2017; garg, 2018), age (hamoud et al., 2018), race/ethnicity (ahmad et al., 2015), socioeconomic status (mohamed & waguih, 2017), and parental background or education (hamoud et al., 2018) as important predictors, but, again, the strength and direction varies. while acknowledging the separate impact of demographics and previous academic achievement as categories of predictors, it is important to recognise the correlation of these factors. for example, as shown by miller and birch (2007) the type of school from which students come is related to the socio-economic status of the family and greatly influences academic performance. carlson (2006), in the american context, shows in this regard, that african american males from disadvantaged families will demonstrate poorer academic performance than white males, compounded by the fact that these students tend to come from communities with lower standards of schooling. given the continued confluence of race and socio-economic status and its impact on education outcomes in south africa (kruss & wildschut, 2015), it is likely that our analysis will find similar relationships. wildschut et al.: impact of funding on academic performance 33 the link between funding and academic performance at university literature examining the relationship between funding and academic performance uses various proxies and this makes the comparison and clear interpretation of relationships problematic at times. studies examining the impact on graduation and retention has found support for a positive relationship with government funding, whereas those looking at academic performance have had varied results. the studies considering academic success, tend to use average student results for the year of study, while another common measure is to look at the number of students who complete their studies in minimum time (mckay et al., 2018; naidoo & mckay, 2018). given that in the south african context, students have been shown to take longer to complete their studies, the latter approach is likely to result in an underestimation of the impact of funding on academic success. an important departure is the longitudinal approach4 employed by van der berg (2017) which confirms an overwhelmingly positive impact of funding on student success, although students still tend to take longer to complete their studies. internationally (berlanga et al., 2016; harrison et al., 2018) and nationally (mckay et al., 2018; mngomezulu et al., 2017; naidoo & mckay, 2018), it has been acknowledged that the relationship between student funding and academic performance or success is unclear. in england there seems to be little evidence of a positive relationship between student funding and academic success, while in germany the opposite was found to be the case (glocker 2011; harrison & hatt 2012). in the us, coonrod (2008) found a positive relationship between the financial aid (loans) amount and academic performance, while kerkvliet and nowell (2014) suggested the opposite. in south africa naidoo and mckay (2018) found no relationship between the amount received and performance. south african literature has also presented mixed results on the relationship between funding and performance. mngomezulu et al. (2017), in examining the narratives of students receiving government funding, exposed the social exclusion that funded students’ experience, with clear negative implications for performance. as these scholars indicated, “[h]ow students negotiate alienating dilemmas of being socialised into university environments needs to be opened up for more rigorous enquiry (p. 144). this aligns with earlier findings of scholars who have argued that disadvantaged students fail not only because of financial issues, but also because of the other social and, possibly, psychological challenges they face that impact on their academic performance (koen et al., 2006). in sum then, while the overarching positive impact of nsfas funding in the long term (in relation to graduation, throughput, and retention) has become a dominant narrative in the south african discourse (de villiers et al., 2013; dhet, 2018, 2019), we know very little about the short to medium term impact as measured by performance in modules.5 not only does this have implications for facilitating more proactive policy making at a national level, it 4 this study employed a tracer approach, which followed/tracked students for longer periods of time (for example n years) than would have been the case in a methodology focused on assessing completion in minimum time (on average between 3 and 4 years after enrolment depending on degree length). 5 an individual academic score is also an indicator of the possibility of retention or graduation in minimum time. 34 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 also assists in proper and earlier identification of where support mechanisms are most usefully applied to ensure higher levels of success at university. method data and sample in this study, we employed a cross-sectional research design. data was obtained from two universities in south africa. based on the historical classification of universities given the legacy of the apartheid system, both universities are considered to be historically advantaged (hai) and also part of the group of top research-intensive universities (chet, 2011). based on the university ranking of academic performance (urap), the university of the witwatersrand is ranked 2nd in south africa and 316th in the world while rhodes university is ranked 9th in south africa and 1061st in the world (urap, 2016). the data used for this study contains records of a total of 29,637 actively registered undergraduate students in 2018 who are either south african citizens or south african permanent residents. variables dependent variables academic performance (ap) is the dependent or outcome variable and it is proxied in this study by average annual individual score. the average annual individual score across all modules was generated by dividing the total individual score by the number of modules taken during the academic year. it is in continuous form. this variable is represented by ap (academic performance) in equations (i) and (ii). independent variables in the multiple linear regression analysis, we used 17 independent variables. the first is gender which is a dummy predictor that is set to “0” for female and “1” for male. mode of attendance is the mode through which students are registered which is indicated by a dummy “1” for full-time and “0” otherwise. “field of study” is a four-level categorical variable (business and commerce; science, engineering and technology; humanities; and education). each field is represented by a dummy variable in the analysis (e.g. business and commerce is coded as “1”and “0” if otherwise) for the analysis. year of study was a variable developed by the research team and was calculated from the year of enrolment. institution of enrolment is the last predicting variable, and it is represented by a dummy variable in the analysis as “1” if university of witwatersrand and “0” if otherwise (rhodes university). the major independent variable in this study was the type of funding received by the student. this variable is represented by three dummy variables in the multiple regression analysis as “1” if a student was an nsfas bursary recipient and “0” if otherwise, “1” if the student was a recipient of another bursary and “0” if otherwise, “1” if the student was self-funded and “0” wildschut et al.: impact of funding on academic performance 35 if otherwise. importantly, while we focus on nsfas funding as a predictor, as alluded to in our review of the literature, being nsfas funded must be understood as a proxy for financial disadvantage that is associated with many other forms of disadvantage in south african society. analytical techniques we applied descriptive, inferential, and regression techniques in this analysis. we used measures of central tendency and standard deviations to describe the distribution of the sample. an analysis of variance (anova) was carried out to test the differences or variance in the average academic scores broken down by demographic characteristics and funding status of students. we carried out bivariate pearson’s product-moment correlation to assess the relationship specifically between funding sources and academic performance. multiple regressions were estimated to examine the magnitude of the impact of funding source and other factors on the level of academic performance. below, we illustrate the mathematical representation of the hypothesized relationship between independent variables and academic performance in equations (i) and (ii) i. ��� = �� + ∑ �� � � �� + �� ii. ��� = �� + � ��� + ������� + ������ − ����� + ���, � & �� + �"# & �" + �$%���&�'��($ + �)�*�+�'�,&) + �-.��/ 0&�+ �1.��/ �2,1 + � �.��/ �ℎ/�� � + � .��/ �,�/ + � �.��/ ��4� � + � �.��/ ��5 � + � ����6 − ��&*�* � + � "0'ℎ�/ ��&*�&� " + � $7���� $ + � ) &('�'�'�,& ) + �� note: refer to appendix a, table a1, where variable names and descriptions are detailed. results and discussion descriptive features of the sample table 1 reports the descriptive statistics in frequencies and percentages of selected variables. on average, students in the sample are around 22 years of age. on average, wits students perform better than rhodes students (57% average score compared to 55%). in terms of gender, the majority of the sample was female (56%). compared to the over-all sample, females are over-represented in the rhodes sub-sample, whereas the female representation in the wits sub-sample is consistent with the overall study sample. table 1: summary of descriptive statistics of sample total wits rhodes frequency percent frequency percent frequency percent age mean 22 21.75 23.21 median 21 21 21 mode 20 20 21 36 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 academic performance mean 56.89 57.1 55.81 median 56.48 59 55.71 gender male 12858 43.4 10987 44.5 1871 38 female 16769 56.5 13711 55.5 3048 62 attendance type full time 27620 93.3 23127 93.6 4493 91.3 otherwise 1999 6.6 1571 6.4 428 8.6 field of study science, engineering and technology 13907 47.0 12684 51.4 1223 24.9 business and commerce 5083 17.2 4255 14.2 828 16.8 humanities 7877 26.6 5603 22.7 2274 46.2 education 2752 9.3 2156 8.7 596 12.1 year of study year one 10478 35.4 8813 35.7 1665 33.8 year two 8005 27.0 6552 26.5 1453 29.5 year three 7935 26.8 6423 26.0 1512 30.7 year four 2572 8.7 2281 9.2 291 5.9 year five 323 1.1 323 1.3 year six 306 1.0 306 1.2 funding self-funded 16926 57.1 14344 58.1 2582 52.3 nsfas 8273 27.9 6487 26.3 1786 36.2 others 6085 20.5 5923 24.0 162 3.3 institution witwatersrand 24698 83.3 rhodes 4921 16.7 total 29619 100.0 24698 4921 table 1 further reveals that almost the entire sample (93%) were full-time students, as well as the biggest proportion of the sample (35.7%) being constituted by first year students. this is largely consistent in the institutional sub-samples. the biggest proportion of the sample comes from the science, engineering and technology (set) field (47%), followed by students from the humanities (26%), business and commerce fields (17%) and the smallest proportion from the education field (9%). the wits subsample distribution is largely consistent with this representation, whereas the largest majority of the rhodes sub-sample came from the humanities field, followed by set, business and commerce (b&c) and lastly education. set students are over-represented in the wits subsample and under-represented in the rhodes sub-sample. the representation of students in the b&c fields in the sub-samples is similar to the total population. students in humanities wildschut et al.: impact of funding on academic performance 37 are slightly under-represented in the wits sub-sample, but quite substantially overrepresented in the rhodes sub-sample. while for education, the wits sub-sample’s proportional representation is largely consistent with the over-all sample, rhodes is marginally over-represented. the majority of the sample is self-funded (57%), followed by nsfas funding beneficiaries (28%) and, lastly, those who receive funding through other sources (21%). the constitution of the wits sub-sample is largely consistent with the overall sample in terms of funding source; it is only in the category of “other” funding that the wits sub-sample is slightly overrepresented in comparison to the overall sample. for the rhodes sub-sample, however, selffunded students are under-represented (by 4.8%) and nsfas funded students overrepresented (by 8.3%), and those students receiving “other” forms of funding greatly underrepresented in comparison to the overall sample. determining differences in performance in order to determine whether any mean differences exist in academic performance as a result of demographic factors, an anova was used, and we present the results in table 2. at an aggregate level, the results suggest a significant difference between all the variables examined and academic performance. it is only the difference based on gender that is impacted by funding source. in other words, all the selected variables play a significant role in average academic performance and it is only when funding source is taken into account that the impact of gender becomes statistically insignificant. the anova also confirms a significant difference in mean academic performance based on institution (as alluded to in the descriptive analysis, with wits students performing on average better than rhodes students). (refer to table 1 for the values of the mean for each). table 2: comparative test of mean difference in academic performance by demographic characteristics total nsfas funded non-nsfas funded age 9.018* 3.727* 7.795* field of study 437.694* 43.794* 183.009* gender 283.628* 106.334 180.713 year of study 437.964* 82.352* 306.876* contact mode 203.397* 5.416* 242.567* institution 36.597* 17.912* 65.170* note: * correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). in this investigation, we probed further by looking more closely at funding source and academic performance, and this is presented in table 3. reflecting on the results in table 3, it is clear that the relationship between all funding types and academic performance is very weak, although the strength of association is higher for self-funding and other funding type. the value of correlation coefficients (r) was found to be positive and significant (p<0.01) for self-funding and other bursary types, and negative and significant for being nsfas funded. in other words, this test found that there is a positive and significant relationship between 38 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 being self-funded or receiving other funding and academic performance, whereas the converse is true for being nsfas funded. this relationship remains negative regardless of institution. the negative correlation between being nsfas funded and academic performance remains largely consistent also across year of study (only in year 5 it is not significant). a similar trend is evident for being self-funded, with a significant and positive relationship remaining largely consistent across years (only in year 5 it is not significant). for being funded by another bursary type, the relationship is positive and statistically significant, except only for year 6. furthermore, institutional differences exist with regard to the significance and direction of correlations. at institutional level, the correlations are mostly statistically significant at wits, whereas there is mostly no significant relationship between year of study and funding source at rhodes. table 3: bivariate pearson’s product-moment correlation (r) between funding sources and academic performance funding source academic performance among undergraduate students nsfas -0.094* self-funded 0.170* others 0.200* institution year 1 year 2 year 3 year 4 year 5 year 6 total nsfas -0.043* -0.052* -0.067* -0.087* -0.078 -0.108*** self-funded 0.199* 0.122* 0.130* 0.179* 0.051 0.140* other bursary 0.090* 0.265* 0.211* 0.269* 0.187* 0.77 university of witwatersrand nsfas -0.053* -0.055* -0.067* -0.093* -0.078 -0.108*** self-funded 0.220* 0.133* 0.141* 0.170* 0.051 0.140** other bursary 0.134* 0.332* 0.212* 0.262* 0.366* 0.198* rhodes university nsfas -0.039 -0.053* -0.026 -0.040 self-funded 0.053* -0.039 0.036 -0.028 other bursary 0.006 0.010 0.002 0.000 * correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). the impact of funding and other factors, as well as the magnitude of that impact, on academic performance in order to establish the impact of nsfas funding in a multivariate context, as well as the magnitude of that impact on academic performance, multiple regression estimates were wildschut et al.: impact of funding on academic performance 39 carried out and we present this in table 4. the results of the variance inflation factor (vif) showed that multicollinearity was not detected, suggesting the models are well defined for analysis; this is so following the removal of variables “year 2” and “education field of study” in the total model (column 2). likewise, variables “year 6” and “education field of study” were removed in each of the funding sources models (columns 3, 4, and 5) to prevent collinearity. table 4: multiple regression estimates on determinants of academic performance (disaggregated by total and funding sources) variables total funding sources nsfas self-funded other funding β β β β (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (constant) 52.101* 54.52* 70.96* 55.46* age -0.136* -0.38* -0.13* -0.38* gender (male) -2.316* -2.27* -1.64* -1.77* full-time 1.243* 13.79* 1.40* 4.06* s, e & t 6.044* 3.71* 0.18 11.32* b & c 2.461* 1.83* -4.11* 8.83* humanities 5.187* 4.25* -0.72** 10.75* year one -4.196* -10.06* -13.83* -9.86* year two -6.23** -11.92* 2.69*** year three 2.017* -4.20 -9.48* 1.97** year four 4.688* 0.24 -6.38* 5.27* year five 4.681* 5.40 0.64 2.57** year six 2.815* self-funded 4.549* others 7.623* nsfas bursary 0.575* institution (wits) -1.212* -0.92* 2.58* 6.28* f 367.919 61.55 154.06 149.69 sig 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 *, **, *** indicate significance at 1%, 5% and 10% s, e & t means science, engineering and technology fields of study b & c means business and commerce fields of study from the table, it can be inferred that each of the model estimates presented as significant, with p-values of zero. the analysis reveals that the impact of the independent variables on the 40 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 level of academic performance is almost similar for both the total sample in column 2 and each of the funding models (column 3, 4, and 5). age overall, age is found to be statistically significant and negatively (p > 0.05) related to academic performance at an aggregate level, with a unit increase in age reducing academic performance by 0.14 percentage points. the effect of age is least pronounced for self-funded students and the same for nsfasand students funded by other sources. although some studies (mlambo, 2011; sothan, 2019), found the age of a student does not influence academic performance, or that older students perform slightly better (clifton 1997; richardson, 1994), in this study the results are in line with more recent contributions that suggest that younger students perform on average better than older students (alhajraf & alasfour, 2014; da wan & cheo 2012; nyikahadzoi et al., 2013). gender the impact of gender (being male) is found to be statistically significant and negatively associated with average performance. being a male student reduces academic performance by 2.27 percent, 1.64 percent, and 1.77 percent, for nsfas funded, self-funded, and students receiving other funding respectively. it is noteworthy that this effect is most pronounced for nsfas funded students. thus, consistent with most research, this study found that female students are likely to perform better on average than male students (jackman & morrain-webb, 2019; kolster & kaiser, 2015;). while there is some research that has suggested that the gender difference in performance might be explained by other factors, such as self-efficacy (pirmohamed et al., 2017). in south africa, this finding is consistently supported (see, for example, van broekhuizen & spaull, 2017, who refer to this as the “martha effect”). participation type in the main, the literature suggests that full-time study is positively associated with academic performance (yanbarisova, 2015). the results of our analysis support such findings. at an aggregate level, we found that being full-time has a statistically significant and positive impact on average academic performance. furthermore, the positive impact of this factor is quite significant for nsfas funded students, increasing performance by 13.79 percent. considering this result against all other variables for nsfas funded students, it is noteworthy that this variable has the biggest positive impact on average academic performance. field of study considering the field of study variable, it is evident that being enrolled in the business and commerce field is related to lower levels of academic performance in comparison to being enrolled in any of the other fields of study. wildschut et al.: impact of funding on academic performance 41 the field of study findings are also largely consistent with other studies that have found performance in commerce and related fields to be lower than others (see, for example, masui et al., 2014). we found that being in the set field increases performance the most in comparison to other fields. those receiving funding from other sources have consistently better academic performance on average, regardless of field of study. year of study the results indicate that being in year 1 consistently and significantly negatively impacts on average academic performance, regardless of funding source. the effect remains negative, but less pronounced in year 2, with those students funded by other sources already showing a positive change. overall, as year of study increases, so does average academic performance. this is consistent with the literature that suggests the initial transition into university is the most difficult for students and as they become more capable over time there is a positive impact on performance. consequently, an extensive amount of literature focuses particularly on first-year experience and performance (zandenet al., 2018) as well as on the impact of student integration or engagement with the university as a predictor of performance (beck et al, 2014; mckenzie & schwietzer, 2018). funding source while it remains positive to find a moderate and significant relationship between nsfas funding and academic performance, the results show that nsfas funded students (β=0.57; p > 0.05) on average perform more poorly than those students receiving funding from other sources (β=7.62; p > 0.05) and self-funded (β=4.54; p > 0.05) students. this finding is in line with assertions of scholars such as koen et al. (2006) and thiele et al. (2016) that students from disadvantaged backgrounds can expect to perform less well academically than other students. the fact that students receiving funding from other sources tend to perform better overall must be carefully interpreted as the section on limitations will make clear. the result could be explained by the fact that most other forms of funding in the south african context are merit-based (academic requirements tend to be higher) and/or benefit from focused support in specific areas of practice (see, for example, naidoo and mckay, 2018, as well as the provisions for the funsa lushaka bursary (doe, 2017). institution finally, we reflect on the results for the institution variable, which highlights the interplay between institution and funding source. here we find that the likelihood of nsfas funded students having a higher or increased academic performance is reduced by 0.92 percent as a result of studying at wits university. it is important to note that while there is a negative implication for the average academic performance of nsfas funded students at wits, for students with other funding or who are self-funded, the likelihood of having higher grades increases. this aligns with the insights of others that the institution of study matters for the outcomes of different social groups in south africa (wildschut et al., 2019). 42 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 limitations one limitation of this study is that the results are confined to only two contact historically advantaged institutions, both classified as research-intensive universities in the south african higher education system. the fact that the one ranks lower on both south african and international ranking systems, might offer some comparative insights. however, further research on more universities across more locations as well as on rankings in terms of quality and overall institutional performance would contribute to more robust analysis in this regard. it also bears noting that while the nsfas funding variable is a clear indication of financial and socio-economic disadvantage, it is possible that some disadvantaged students could have fallen into the “other” funding category as well if their performance was meritorious and in line with more selective academic eligibility criteria associated with other funders. this points to the importance of gathering a household income variable for all students to facilitate improved analysis. thus, in considering results in relation to the students receiving funding through “other sources” we must bear this in mind. however, data on the household income of all students applying for university is not currently consistently collected. conclusion this study focused on academic performance, proxied by average scores, among undergraduate students enrolled in two historically advantaged public universities in south africa in 2018. the analysis investigated and demonstrated empirically the effect of funding on academic performance in attempting to provide policy direction in two areas: 1) the impact of student demographics; and 2) the impact of student environment, alongside funding source, on academic performance in south africa. the demographic related (age, gender, and funding source) results confirm the clear disadvantage with which nsfas funded students enter university in terms of the implication for academic performance. the study confirmed the negative correlation between being male and average academic performance at an aggregate level and, further, that this negative effect is most pronounced for nsfas funded students. considering this result alongside the indications of other work that has found that male and african students tend to enter into education and training programmes later than white males (kruss & wildschut, 2015), this is potentially important for policy in pointing to the more extensive support that might be required for disadvantaged male students to enable them to cope academically in the university environment. the student environment related (study type, field of study, year of study, and institution) results confirm the importance of fulltime study for disadvantaged students, especially considered in the light of the fact that this variable has the biggest impact on average performance of nsfas funded students. for self-funded students, the year of study plays the biggest role and for students funded through other sources, field of study has the greatest impact. wildschut et al.: impact of funding on academic performance 43 the study, at an aggregate level, also confirmed that average performance declined as year of study increased, but, since the results do not vary too much by funding source, the extent to which this is impacted by financial disadvantage is not clear. the institution result suggests that where a disadvantaged student studies matters for their average academic performance, especially if we consider that the impact on average performance is positive for both other and self-funded students. however, this finding needs to be considered with caution since the sample was limited to only two universities. these findings suggest a need for further investigation to explicate more clearly the impact of being disadvantaged at specific institutions across a bigger and more representative sample of the south african university system. in conclusion, therefore, although much of this paper concentrates on outlining and contrasting specifically nsfas funded students and their academic performance in relation to students funded through other means, the results illustrate the complex dynamics between and among funding, field of study, year of study, gender, and institution in students’ academic performance journeys and the absolute importance of juxtaposing the impact of funding alongside other influences. this supports assertions of other research (burke et al., 2017; 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(2018). patterns of success: first-year student success in multiple domains. studies in higher education, 44(11), 1–15. https//doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018.1493097. wildschut et al.: impact of funding on academic performance 49 appendix a table a1: summary of variables variable description type of variable academic performance grade, average score for the 2018 academic year continuous gender gender of student (0 = female, 1 = male) categorical/ nominal age age of student as at the end of 2018 continuous mode of attendance mode through which student attend classes. (1= external/special; 2= full time; 3= part time) categorical field of study field of study which student is enrolled in. (1= science; engineering and technology; 2= business & commerce; 3= humanities; 4= education) categorical year of study total number of years that have been spent in the university (1= year 1; 2= year 2; 3= year 3; 4= year 4; 5= year 5; 6= year 6) categorical institution name of institution where student is enrolled. (1= university of witwatersrand, 0= rhodes university) nominal nsfas funded if student is funded by nsfas (0= no; 1= yes) nominal other funding if student is not funded by nsfas but has other internal or external funding sources (0= no; 1= yes) nominal self-funded if student academic study is self-funded (0= no; 1= yes) nominal microsoft word bissue77dec19.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 77, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i77a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x learners’ awareness of their emotions and their engagement with mathematics tasks in a mathematics club jeanne-mari frenzel department of curriculum studies, faculty of education, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa jmdups@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9762-2145 christine erna lampen department of curriculum studies, faculty of education, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa ernalampen@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4379-9242 karin brodie school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa karin.brodie@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3959-7401 (received: 22 january 2019; accepted: 2 august 2019) abstract the role and influence of learners’ emotional experiences on their engagement or disengagement while working on mathematics tasks is under-researched in south africa. cognitive education research points increasingly to the importance of emotional awareness in cognitive activities and learning situations. in this paper, we describe how grade 8 learners gained more awareness of their emotions during tasks by using an emotions lexicon as they participated in a mathematics club. we used observations, questionnaires, and interviews to gather data about the learners’ awareness of their emotions and their engagement and perseverance with mathematics tasks. our results indicate that awareness of emotions through access to an emotions vocabulary has a positive influence on individual learners’ motivation and mathematical engagement as well as on group engagement, but we found, too, that the expected social consequences of engagement in emotionally risky classrooms may vitiate the personal gains. keywords: emotions, engagement, motivation frenzel et al.: learners’ awareness of their emotions and their engagement . . . 45 introduction research in south africa has yet to grapple with the emotional experience of learning mathematics in classrooms. 1 elsewhere, work on emotions tends to focus on general dispositions toward the learning environment, such as finding school or mathematics fun or not, while not much is known about how particular emotional experiences during learning influence learners’ academic engagement (wang & degol, 2014). research about interventions in learners’ emotional states during learning is also scarce (see schukajlow, rakoczy, & pekrun, 2017). internationally, cognitive education researchers are increasingly pointing to emotional awareness as an important factor that enables learners to harness emotional information in order to influence cognitive activities (grewal & salovey, 2005). emotional experience is key to shaping learners’ beliefs about what they are capable of in mathematics (sheldrake, mujtaba, & reiss, 2015) and is indicated as an essential component of motivation (fredericks, blumenfeld, & paris, 2004) and engagement (wang & degol, 2014). engagement is viewed as a metaconstruct comprised of three main constructs, namely cognitive or academic engagement, behavioural engagement, and emotional engagement. if learners are supported to make sense of their emotional cognition as emotions experienced during cognitive practice (hannula, 2002), they are more likely to regulate not only their emotions, but also their behavioural and cognitive engagement. such regulation of personal emotions and behaviour has the potential to lead to shared engagement and awareness of the group’s emotional state. in this paper we describe how learners, using a tool that provided an emotions lexicon, began to identify, name, and relate their emotions to possible causes stemming from their task engagement. we describe how negative engagement patterns of individuals, and of the group, changed as learners gained more emotional awareness. the opportunity to work with learners’ emotional awareness emerged when we searched for ways to intervene with disengaged learners who displayed disruptive behaviour in a mathematics club. we designed an intervention aimed at promoting the cognitive emotional awareness of the club learners specifically through helping them to describe their emotions as they were working on mathematics tasks. in this paper, we ask the following research question: in what way does awareness of cognitive emotions help learners in a mathematics club to engage behaviourally and cognitively while working on mathematics tasks? the mathematics club in 2016, a mathematics club was established at an historically disadvantaged high school. the aim of the club was to build learners’ confidence in themselves as problem-solvers in mathematics. the school chose which learners would participate on the basis of their results, which ranged between 40% and 60% in mathematics at the beginning of grade 8. the study focussed on 19 learners who attended regularly throughout the year. the learners could be 1 we searched multiple data bases using the keywords mathematics, south africa, emotions, affect and motivation but not a single article was returned. 46 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 described as being at risk. they came from poor and gang-ridden communities where often the need to survive and make an income was prioritised above the need for education. the club met weekly on saturdays to work on problem-based tasks. we planned for opportunities for learners to engage by providing hands-on challenging tasks, by listening to learners’ responses to the tasks, and by establishing feedback conversations based on their reasoning and our clear expectations that they should share their thinking. the correct answer was not the primary goal of the problems, but, rather, it was working mathematically, which entails figuring out whether and why answers are valid. the club curriculum was low-stakes in that performance was not assessed, time pressure was eased, and success was formulated and celebrated as individual progress—something learned on a particular day. the learners worked in self-designated groups of between two and five, with constant free-flow interaction among peers and with the club facilitators. there were four facilitators—a mathematics education lecturer and three mathematics education post-graduate students. their role was to engage learners in discussions of their mathematical thinking and problem-solving in relation to the specific task, rather than to provide direct instruction. for many learners, simple calculations were challenging and they tended to disengage early, claiming that they knew the answer once some calculation had been performed. the facilitators would then generate further discussion by asking “why?” or “what if ?” questions that raised the cognitive demand of the task. during the initial club sessions, we observed that although learners were willing and ready to engage at the beginning of each session, a point would soon be reached where they would disengage and become disruptive. they would complain of hunger and tiredness despite having been given food and displaying high levels of energy in their disruptive behaviour. we considered that this behaviour and lack of engagement was a facade for something else— cognitive stress. in other words, we speculated that once the tasks reached a certain level of cognitive demand that the learners struggled to meet, they would experience negative emotions which they did not recognise, could not verbalise, or did not have the strategies to deal with. hunger and tiredness might be proxies—feelings they could explain, act on, and defend. conceptual framing: emotions, motivation, and engagement learners’ enacted emotions provide a window into their reasons for deciding to engage or disengage in mathematics tasks. our initial experience of the learners’ emotions suggested a theoretical focus on emotions, motivation, and engagement as three aspects of learning mathematics that have a constant dynamic interaction with each other. in this paper emotions refer to the cognitive emotions learners reported feeling and directed at their struggle with a mathematics task. we draw on whiting (2011) who has argued that emotion is directed towards an intentional object (such as a mathematics task) even though the complex source of frenzel et al.: learners’ awareness of their emotions and their engagement . . . 47 the emotion is not clear. although there are many factors influencing emotions, and thus motivation and engagement, learners can have stable patterns of emotional reactions in similar situations, such as working on mathematics tasks (hannula, 2012). motivation refers to the willingness of the learners, individually and as a group, to persist with the mathematics task. engagement refers to the observable behavioural action of staying on task and the nature of the participation in the mathematics task, that is, whether learners invest cognitive energy in their work. the notion of emotional cognition supports the idea that emotions and motivation are directly linked (hannula, 2006), suggesting that the motivation behind engagement or disengagement can be better understood if we pay attention to the emotional experiences of the learners. a learner’s motivation to engage at task level is influenced by three components. these are 1) the emotions felt during a mathematics task, 2) the general emotion associated with mathematics, and 3) the expected social consequences of engaging in a task based on the appraisal of similar prior events (hannula, 2002, 2006). should learners experience negative cognitive emotions and lack sufficient coping strategies, they are more likely to lose motivation to engage with the task. this is exacerbated by previous negative emotional experiences of doing mathematics. the relationship between engagement, motivation, and emotions is theorized through jacobs, fehres, and campbell’s (2012) three components of emotions: physiological responses; behavioural reactions; and self-reports of subjective experiences. in our study physiological responses are those responses pertaining to their bodies that learners used to justify their decision to (dis)engage. for example, a learner who was struggling with the mathematics task and feared embarrassment may have claimed a desperate need of the bathroom in order to avoid engaging in feedback or discussion. similarly, as observed in our club, a learner may have given hunger or tiredness as a reason for not being able to concentrate. we do not think that the learners made these claims falsely, but, rather, that they may have experienced the same emotional discomfort as when they were hungry or tired. behavioural reactions refer to observable displays of emotions such as facial expressions, utterances, and physical and noisy disruption of the work of others. self-reports of subjective experiences refer to the narratives of the learners—the stories they tell themselves and us about how they feel and how these feelings affect their motivation to (dis)engage. disengagement can spread through a class, notably through behavioural responses. figure 1 illustrates our view of these relationships. 48 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 figure 1: interactions between emotions, motivation, and engagement with mathematics tasks these relationships were all observable in our club setting. we could observe learners’ physiological and behavioural responses, and, through learner narratives, we were also able to learn much about their beliefs about, and confidence in, their mathematical abilities. data collection given our observations of the learners’ enacted emotions during the club sessions, we decided to work more explicitly with their emotions as part of their task activity and developed a study exploring the extent to which we could guide them to name and engage their emotions explicitly while working mathematically. our intervention began with asking the learners to fill in a structured self-report sheet about their emotional experiences during a task. we asked the learners to name their emotion at three intervals during the task engagement: at the beginning; in the middle when the lowthreshold solution was likely reached; and at the end. they were also requested to write down a reason for their naming of that specific emotion, and, after the completion of the task, to write a short reflective note on their change in emotional state. the facilitators made field notes about observed emotional displays and the engagement of the learners. it became clear that the learners did not have the emotional vocabulary to describe their feelings and they were unable to identify the source of their emotions. learners would write down the same words repeatedly or copy words used by their peers. in some cases, they asked the facilitators to provide them with various emotions words, or used words that are not descriptive of emotions, such as “understand” or “nice.” the learners did not provide any reasons for the emotions they named and their reflective paragraphs were notes of thanks to the facilitators. it was evident that if we were to understand the emotions at play during the mathematics tasks, we would need to assist the learners to find words that accurately describe their emotions, without identifying the emotions for them. frenzel et al.: learners’ awareness of their emotions and their engagement . . . 49 plutchik’s emotions wheel (plutchik, 2001) was adapted for this purpose. the original design of this tool named a large number of emotions, many of which we believed the club learners would not understand. so we simplified the tool to make it more relevant to our study, and included specific emotions identified through research in mathematics education, such as fear, disgust, and interest (hannula, 2002), frustration, annoyance, worry, relief, and nervousness (op ’t eynde, de corte, & verschaffel, 2006), boredom, anxiety, enjoyment, anger, shame, pride, and hopefulness (kim, park, & cozart, 2014; schukajlow & rakoczy, 2016). we also included a column with possible suggestions as to why learners feel the way they do. learners were also encouraged to write their own emotion words and reasons if the lexicon 2 did not provide options that were to their satisfaction. the data from the self-report sheets was supplemented with field notes based on our observation of behaviours traditionally associated with certain emotions (such as crying out as a sign of excitement) as well as verbal cues given by learners (such as reporting the desire to give up). the data was also supplemented by semi-structured interviews with individual learners, during which they were asked to reflect on certain club sessions and elaborate on their emotional state during specific tasks. the five learners who were interviewed were selected based on the combination of their responses on the self-report sheets over four tasks, and their willingness to participate in an interview. we focused on learners who indicated dramatic emotional changes or learners who had, in a particular session, indicated emotions outside of their usual responses. data from questionnaires about beliefs and experiences of mathematics at school was used to supplement the analysis. in conducting the study, we adhered to all the ethical protocols of the university and the western cape education department. learners were informed of their right to withdraw from the club or the study at any point and to refuse to answer any questions, should they wish to. in the interviews, we tried to put learners at ease, indicating that we wanted to hear their perspectives, and asked them specifically if we could use the information in our research reports. in all writings from the project pseudonyms are used and the school’s anonymity is protected. data analysis the data was analysed using a two-way table, based on the conceptual framework for the study. first, the data was sorted according to hannula’s (2002) three components: emotions experienced during a task; the general emotions associated with mathematics; and the expected social consequences of participating based on the appraisal of prior events. this data was then analysed in relation to jacobs, fehres, and campbell’s (2012) three components of emotions: physiological responses; behavioural reactions; and self-reports of subjective experiences. the table below shows the framework for data analysis, with the various data collection methods as they contribute to each cell in the matrix. three cells are not filled in because there was not sufficient data to formulate any claims for these. 2 the lexicon is provided as an appendix. 50 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 table 1: framework for data analysis awareness of cognitive emotions during the tasks general emotions associated with mathematics appraisal of prior events in terms of social consequences physiological responses facilitators’ field notes behavioural reactions facilitators’ field notes facilitators’ field notes and interviews self-reports of subjective experiences emotions lexicon and interviews interviews and questionnaires interviews we discuss our findings in each vertical category of data in relation to each of the horizontal categories. findings awareness of cognitive emotions during the tasks we observed an increase across the four tasks in the variation of descriptive words used by the learners to identify their emotions. during task 1 there were at most eight different responses with no reasons given for the emotions named. of the 16 learners, 11 used the word “happy” to describe their initial feelings. the facilitators explained word meanings to learners to help them make the link between their experience and the words. during task 2, there were 12 different responses, with 12 different reasons and two deviations from the emotions lexicon, indicating greater emotional awareness and individual regard for their named emotions. for example, during task 2, a learner stated that he felt “nervous” because he was “struggling to determine the algorithm of the sum.” this was a very task-specific response and was a deviation from those suggested on the lexicon. during tasks 3 and 4 learners still often compared their chosen words with each other but now such comparisons were accompanied by a discussion of their experiences and subsequent word choices. we observed that the learners displayed increased independent reflection on their emotions, taking time to think about which emotions and reasons they would report to the facilitators. their reported emotional states increasingly corresponded with our observations and interpretations of their emotional states. physiological responses during the tasks there was a large decrease in the demands for breaks and the verbalisation of hunger and tiredness from the second task on. during tasks prior to the intervention, learners struggled to maintain engagement before the break and rarely managed to get back on task after a break. once they started to reflect on their emotions with the help of the emotions lexicon, they frenzel et al.: learners’ awareness of their emotions and their engagement . . . 51 were staying on task for an hour and a half, and sometimes even the full two hours. on occasion we had to call on them to conclude and go for their sandwiches before the canteen closed. furthermore, learners increasingly voiced their physiological needs, such as hunger or tiredness, more effectively by explicitly informing us of their needs and addressing them quickly and then continuing with the task. during the interviews, the learners stated that during later tasks, their hunger did not distract them from their work. it would appear that the learners had gained an awareness of their feelings which led to more effective regulation of these physiological needs. behavioural reactions and self-reports during the tasks self-reports of learners’ emotional states with the use of the emotions lexicon was accompanied by increased engagement, increased on-task discussions among learners, the desire to work more independently of the facilitators, and “figur[ing] things out themselves.” we also observed a decreased spread of unruly behaviour among the groups. even from the first monitored task to the second, their written reports showed a one-fifth increase in reports of pride in their work and their ability to persist. general emotions associated with mathematics self reports we did not observe learners in their school classrooms but conducted a questionnaire and interviewed them about their views on mathematics. at the commencement of the club and this study, most of the learners reported positive emotions associated with mathematics. of the learners 78% agreed with the statement that “mathematics is interesting,” 58% reported mathematics as being enjoyable in high school, while 23% of the learners had no opinion regarding the enjoyment of mathematics. in interviews at the end of the year, the learners’ general emotions toward mathematics were attributed to their interaction with their teacher rather than the actual mathematics content. all five learners who were interviewed stated that they “liked math” as a subject but that the teacher presented the content poorly and therefore they could not enjoy the subject as they had in primary school. two learners stated frustration as an emotion associated with mathematics, because even though they felt they understood the work and knew what to do, they always “got the answers wrong and [didn’t] know why.” three learners reported negative feelings associated with mathematics, stemming from the belief that the teacher treated certain learners with more privilege and care than others and would “give you bad marks if he did not like you.” during these interviews the learners used words they had been exposed to in the emotions lexicon to describe their feelings associated with mathematics in the school setting. they also freely offered reasons for their emotions. none of the learners referred to the club or the facilitators when talking about their feelings about mathematics. to them mathematics referred solely to the school subject and how it was presented by their class teachers. when 52 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 prompted about how they felt about the club, learners said that they enjoyed everything we did at the club. appraisal of prior events in terms of social consequences self-reports during the interviews it became clear that affirmation as well as criticism played an important role in whether or not learners wanted to engage in mathematics, in the club as well as in school. affirmation from facilitators, as well as self-praise through the emotions lexicon, led to the learners reporting increased feelings of pride in their work in the club. however, when prompted to compare working in the club to working in school, the social risk of engagement in a less supportive classroom came into clear focus. one learner argued that in the classroom, where bullying and disruption are part of the classroom culture, it was often easier to disengage and participate in the disruptiveness rather than form part of the minority who engaged and were ridiculed for it. peers jeering and laughing at one another when someone did not get the correct answer or attempted an ineffective strategy to solve a problem were clear sources of emotional distress and disengagement in the classroom. so past experience informed the learners that future participation in the mathematics class would lead to emotional distress. behavioural reactions the potential for social-emotional distress was initially carried over into the club, with learners being disruptive and critical of their peers. despite the facilitators clearly forbidding jeering and ridiculing, such behaviour continued in covert ways and seemed to be socially accepted behaviour among the learners. we worked hard from the beginning to negotiate a supportive classroom culture with the club learners. we asked them to think about a space in which they could learn, and to set the behavioural rules for such a space. they suggested rules like being silent when someone else speaks and respecting each other. yet the facilitators had to remind them constantly of their own rules and call them to order. as they became more aware of their emotions through naming and giving reasons for them, we noticed a change in the group as a whole: engagement increased and disruptive and demeaning behaviour decreased dramatically with only two learners still acting out from time to time. these learners were increasingly ignored or told off by the others. learners began to comply with the rules, laughed at one another less, and started to provide emotional support by complimenting one another more, saying, for example, “you can feel proud.” the case of anthony is a beautiful story. anthony joined the club but refused to engage, often stating “i don’t feel like it” as his reason. it became clear that anthony was mathematically very weak and also placed a lot of value on his social image and position. the risk of being ridiculed while participating in the mathematics outweighed the desire to learn. this changed in one club activity, which was a hands-on pattern-based task. anthony thoroughly enjoyed being able to use his hands and did the task very well. he received affirmation from both the facilitators and his peers. as the sessions progressed, anthony became more willing to frenzel et al.: learners’ awareness of their emotions and their engagement . . . 53 engage with the mathematics tasks and displayed enjoyment of both the affirmation received, especially from his peers, and the tasks. with manipulatives and pattern-based tasks, he came to be seen as someone who is “good at math” and started to state this of himself as well. as a summary of the findings, the completed cells of the analytic framework show the changes observed after the implementation of the emotions lexicon. table 2: summary of data analysis awareness of cognitive emotions during the task general emotions associated with mathematics appraisal of prior events in terms of social consequences physiological responses decreased reports of hunger and tiredness, timely management of physiological needs behavioural reactions more sustained engagement, increased on-task behaviour, increased desire to persevere, less disruption of others decreased disruptive behaviour, increased compliments to others and pride in their own efforts self-reports of subjective experiences increased reports of pride in their work, voiced opinions that it is easy to remain engaged focussed on school, not club, mathematics and social emotional relations with teachers reports of self-pride and selfaffirmation, believing they can solve the problems discussion our study confirms that emotional awareness can support cognition and engagement (hannula, 2002, 2006; kim et al., 2014; op ’t eynde et al., 2006). helping learners to name and identify the source of their negative emotions helped them to acknowledge those emotions and process them so that they were able to engage with cognitive activities. the more this practice of emotional reflection was encouraged, the more positive emotions the learners reported, and the higher the levels of engagement and cognitive tenacity displayed by the learners. this tendency also emphasises the link between emotions, motivation, and engagement as set out in the conceptual framework, and draws attention to the learners’ capacities to interrupt their own negative engagement patterns when they become aware of their emotions. we were able to observe the link between emotion and engagement through the learners’ physiological responses such as decreased complaints of hunger and through behaviour that became less disruptive and more supportive and constructive. with increased use of the emotions lexicon, learners increasingly prioritised cognitive activity as they gained control of potentially disruptive emotion based prompts and actions. the case of anthony 54 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 illustrates clearly the link between emotions, motivation, and engagement. appraisal of prior events had initially hindered anthony’s motivation to engage. a key positive experience changed his beliefs about what he is capable of doing in mathematics. as a result, he showed more positive emotions and engagement. the more he engaged, the more he succeeded, and the more positive emotions and motivation he experienced. slowly, we watched anthony’s confidence improving as his judgement of his mathematical ability began to improve, feeding his motivation to engage. learners’ self-reports suggest that they isolated their club experience from mathematics in class. despite the use of the emotions lexicon, appraisal of prior events in their mathematics classrooms still had learners believing that it was easier to disengage in the mathematics class rather than being ridiculed for what they called “wasted efforts.” they expect the class teacher to act as the custodian of an emotionally safe class. in the club they seemed to have valued the fact that ridiculing was expressly forbidden, and that their emotional experiences were acknowledged, while they attributed their unproductive classroom behaviour largely to the class teacher. gardee (2019) found that learners were aware of instances when teachers did not care about, or show respect towards, other learners, even when they were not personally experiencing negative behaviour from the teacher. negative social consequences for the group tend to create negative emotions in relation to mathematics, and may vitiate personal gains in motivation to engage. in the club where we managed the perceived social consequences through maintaining a supportive learning culture, we observed that the learners’ use of emotion words to support each other may have promoted the social contagion (burgess, ridell, fancourt, & kou, 2018) of positive behavioural and emotional engagement and perseverance that we observed. the use of the emotions lexicon as a tool for raising emotional awareness was the key intervention in this research project. the lexicon assisted the learners in developing the ability to identify and express their emotions and possible sources in words. the lexicon was used flexibly, allowing learners to create their own reasons and specific emotion words if they felt the need. from early on many learners started to deviate from the lexicon to express their emotions freely. the lexicon also assisted the facilitators to respond to the emotions that learners experienced during a mathematics task, and, as a result, they became aware of how to provide appropriate support to learners in order to promote engagement. what we had previously interpreted blandly as lack of motivation, could be addressed when we understood the underlying emotions (see hannula, 2006). furthermore, the facilitators’ ability to provide this emotional support also allowed for the development of trust between them and the learners that, in turn, allowed for more open communication in the club, both task related and social. the use of the emotions lexicon and the requirement to reflect on the changes in their emotions post-task, allowed the learners to become aware of the rewards of persistence in problem solving and regulating initial negative emotions. frenzel et al.: learners’ awareness of their emotions and their engagement . . . 55 conclusion in this paper we have argued that the three aspects of engagement—emotional, cognitive, and behavioural—can be related to emotional awareness while learners are working on tasks. we found that when learners reflected on and learned to name their cognitive emotions during tasks, there was a tendency towards increased engagement and motivation to persist with difficult tasks by individuals, which also spread through the group. this study suggests that there is an urgent need for teachers not only to make mathematics enjoyable, but to support learners in becoming aware of their cognitive emotions during mathematics tasks in order to promote sustained engagement with tasks. we have described how learners took up and extended a lexicon of emotion words to reflect on and regulate their cognitive emotions. in particular, we have shown how learners’ individual awareness of their emotions influenced the group’s behavioural engagement positively, possibly through emotional support shown to each other with the use of emotion words to which they were introduced through the use of the lexicon. although the findings of this study are limited to the context of a small number of learners in a mathematics club and over the span of relatively few mathematics tasks, the findings do suggest that emotions in regular classrooms can be similarly addressed to enhance group behaviour. the reasons behind a lack of motivation and engagement in mathematics classes may be better understood if learners are supported to express their emotional states more accurately, and, thus, to gain awareness of how their emotions fluctuate in relation to specific tasks and different phases in the problem-solving process. the study also found that creating the room to express emotions in the weekly club setting did not influence the general emotions learners associate with mathematics as a subject. this may be because learners spent more time with mathematics in classrooms, where a less emotionally supportive classroom culture is experienced every day. thus, our findings suggest that social-emotional influences and classroom climate are important aspects at play in affective experiences, willingness to engage and persist, and, eventually, in learners’ expressed dispositions toward mathematics. further research is necessary to investigate whether support in expression of emotional states during club problem-solving leads to enhanced cognitive-emotional control in a classroom setting. there may be potential for teachers to provide emotional support to learners that could lead to better social relationships and enhance engagement in the classroom and thus allow for increased engagement and learning. references burgess, l., riddell, p., fancourt, a., & kou, m. 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(2011). the feeling theory of emotion and the object-directed emotions. european journal of philosophy, 19(2), 281–304. https://doi.org 10.1111/j.14680378.2009.00384.x 58 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 appendix: emotions lexicon used as a tool to promote cognitive emotional awareness core emotion specific emotion reason why i feel the way i do happy excited i am excited to do mathematics. i am excited for this class to end. proud i am getting the hang of this mathematics. today i tried my best even though i was struggling. i know my work is correct and i can prove it. enjoyment the maths task is fun and easy. it is fun to spend time with my friends. hopeful i believe i will be able to do the math in today’s lesson. i believe this math task will help me in school as well. relieved i struggled but i managed on my own in the end. the math was easier than i expected. unhappy irritated/frustrated i am struggling with this math. my friends are bothering me and i am trying to concentrate on my work. i want to be done now so that i can go home. angry i am angry at myself because i keep making mistakes. i think this math is a waste of time. ashamed i am struggling and it makes me feel dumb. i don’t know how to say what i mean. i feel like i am asking stupid questions but i really don’t understand. frenzel et al.: learners’ awareness of their emotions and their engagement . . . 59 worried nervous i think the math is going to be difficult. i am scared to share my answers with the class because i am unsure of them. anxious i am unsure of how to do this math task. i am scared people think i am stupid. i don’t know how to make sure that my answers are correct. bored uninterested this math task is boring and i have better things to do. i don’t understand what is going on so i don’t care anymore. this work is too easy and that makes it boring. distracted i am too hungry/tired to think about maths right now. my friends and i have other more interesting things to discuss. i am getting too hot/cold and that makes it difficult to concentrate. journal of education, 2016 issue 66, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za “doing something in life”: rural youth reimagining technical vocational education and training lucky maluleke and anne harley (received 6 october 2014; accepted 29 july 2016) abstract recent post-schooling policy continues to emphasise the importance of technical vocational education and training (tvet) for employability in the workplace, thus largely reflecting the interests of capital. however, the discourse of educating for employability is under increasing attack as unemployment levels rise; and recent policy has begun to argue for a consideration of skills for livelihoods other than formal employment. unemployment disproportionately affects the youth and those living in rural areas, and tvet policy has begun to address this. however, such policy remains firmly within neoliberalism, and does not address the interests or lived experience of rural youth. a reimagining of tvet is required. in this, there is a need to understand what rural youth themselves consider to be most appropriate for local development needs. this article reports on a qualitative study done with ten youth from limpopo province to investigate what sort of tvet out-of-school youth consider to be relevant in their context. introduction in 2013, south africa’s department of higher education and training (dhet) released the white paper for post-school education and training, which sets out “a vision for the type of post-school education and training system we aim to achieve by 2030” (dhet, 2013, p.xi). according to the white paper, dhet’s highest priority is to strengthen and expand the further education and training (fet) college system (which it renames technical and vocational education and training (tvet) colleges). it also creates a new institutional type, community colleges, that will target those who do not qualify for, or cannot access tvet colleges. these colleges will, inter alia, “expand vocational and skills-development programmes” (dhet, 2013, p.xii). subsequent to the release of the white paper, this emphasis on tvet has been enacted through, inter alia, the development of a qualifications framework for tvet college lecturers (dhet, 2015), the publication of 86 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 national norms and standards for funding tvet colleges, and the establishment through legislation of the south african institute for vocational and continuing education and training. thus vocational education and training remains an incredibly strong focus of pset policy and implementation in south africa. however, according to many commentators, tvet policy in south africa operates primarily in the interests of capital, firmly entrenched in the hegemonic discourse of neoliberalism (akoojee and mcgrath, 2003; allais, 2011; motala and vally, 2014; wedekind, 2014). in line with its nationalist agenda (hart, 2013), government continues to argue for the need to address extreme social and economic inequalities in the country; but this is framed always within the prior need for economic growth – and hence an ‘appropriate’ skills base. the tvet discourse thus emphasises skills for the (formal, urban) market place. conversely, unemployment is cast as the result of a lack of these required skills (motala and vally, 2014). however, as unemployment continues to rise, particularly among youth, recent tvet policy discourse has been slightly adapted to include a focus on vocational skills necessary for other livelihoods, rather than purely for formal employment; and to increasingly consider the rural, until now characterised by very low provision of tvet (jacobs and hart, 2012; petersen, 2007). thus the white paper recognises that post-schooling remains grossly unequal, with rural areas in particular being disadvantaged; and also emphasises the critical need to address the over three million young people who are not in employment, education or training (the so-called neets). in addition, beyond arguing for skills for the workplace, the white paper proposes that “we must also find ways to assist those who find themselves outside the formal economy and in need of finding creative and sustainable ways to earn a livelihood” (dhet, 2013, p.2). such arguments are echoed in broader policy – the national skills development strategy (nsds) iii, for example, also argues that rural people must be provided with tvet which specifically speaks to rural needs (dhet, 2011). however, since local livelihoods are themselves heavily influenced by neoliberalism, including in rural areas (petersen, 2007), simply increasing tvet provision in rural areas, and allowing for a focus on skills for livelihoods outside of formal employment, is not sufficient to ensure tvet that addresses the needs and experiences of youth living in the rural areas of south africa. we thus argue that it is essential to ask what a truly reimagined tvet system, responsive to the lived needs of rural youth, would look like. to answer this question it is necessary maluleke and harley: “doing something in life”. . . 87 to ask rural youth what they think – something which is generally neglected in research on tvet (powell and mcgrath, 2014). in this article we report on a study done with out-of-school youth of mavalani village, limpopo province to investigate their views on tvet policy, and what they perceive to be appropriate tvet for out-of-school youth in a rural context. the article first explores the policy framework, and its implications for rural youth, before describing the study, its findings, and implications for a reimagined tvet. tvet policy development and practice in south africa wedekind (2014) argues that south african tvet policy consistently emphasises employability and responsiveness, primarily to the needs of the labour market, whilst also, and to a lesser extent, committing to a wider development agenda. in both of these traits, it reflects neoliberal concerns. neoliberalism is the currently-dominant form of capitalism (harvey, 2011), emerging out of the economic crisis of the 1970s, and “legitimised draconian policies designed to restore and consolidate capitalist class power” (ibid., p.10). it emphasises the free market system, and argues for deregulation, privatisation and fiscal restraint, and an export-oriented national economy, and at the level of private enterprise, labour flexibility, ‘just-in-time’ inventory, and productivity. overall, the system rests, theoretically at least, on high levels of competition – between nations, between companies, and between individuals (harvey, 2011). the underlying assumption is that these mechanisms will lead to economic growth, which is essential for any social or economic development. neoliberalism has had a profound effect on education which is seen as building ‘human capital’, enhancing productivity (allais, 2014) and employability and contributing to economic growth, rather than, for example, allowing people to achieve their human and social potential. education under neoliberalism has seen the emergence of national qualification frameworks, a reshaped curriculum, a growing emphasis on certification, and the ‘privatisation’ of education in various ways. 88 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 tvet has perhaps been the most affected (akoojee and mcgrath, 2003; allais, 2011; motala and vally, 2014; wedekind, 2014) and policy is “closely tied to economic goals through the production of individuals with the knowledge, skills and dispositions necessary to enhance their own and national competitiveness within the global economy” (kgobe and baatjes, 2014, p.2). one of the latest moves in tvet policy development, the fet colleges amendment act, argues that colleges must be more responsive to the needs of the economy so that graduates are more employable (wedekind, 2014). however, whilst neoliberalism argues that increasing education leads to greater employability, it inherently rests on sustained levels of unemployment since capitalism requires a reserve army of labour (harvey, 2011; motala, 2014). unemployment creates social and economic exclusion (motala and baatjes, 2014), and growing inequality, precisely as a result of (always uneven) economic growth (motala, 2014). unemployment disproportionately affects youth, leading to the rise of those now routinely referred to as the neets (not in employment, education or training). the neets are a possible source of social and political instability (acknowledged in the white paper on pset; and, as wedekind (2014) argues, much government policy focuses on issues of inequality and ‘development’). the neoliberal response is two-fold. firstly, it argues that unemployment results from a lack of the skills necessary for employment. education is responsible for supplying the labour market with skilled workers, and individuals are responsible for making themselves employable (klees, 2014). in fact, this is a fallacy – as treat and motala (2014) and motala and vally (2014) show, unemployment is not a worker supply problem, it is a structural function of capitalism. secondly, the notion of individual competition and individual responsibility is used to argue that people need to create their own jobs through ‘entrepreneurship’ located firmly within capitalism – small (or medium or micro) businesses generating profit. the ‘livelihoods’ which have recently emerged in policy discourse are securely framed within this terrain. thus, whilst inequality, poverty and unemployment have been constant refrains in government policy documents (motala and vally, 2014; wedekind, 2014)), the mechanisms to alleviate these, including tvet, remain fundamentally within the neoliberal frame. thus, “the drive for international competitiveness has won out over equity” (petersen, 2007, p.455). this is reflected in rural development policy. maluleke and harley: “doing something in life”. . . 89 rural provision of tvet in south africa since 1994, there have been a number of state initiatives targeting rural areas, including the integrated sustainable rural development programme (isrdp) (2003), the agricultural education training strategy (aets) (early 2000s), the comprehensive rural development programme (crdp) (2009), and the national rural youth service corps (narysec) (2010). many of the earlier initiatives included little or no training, or training which failed to take into account the specific needs of rural people. both the isdrp and crdp have been critiqued for providing “welfarist” (jacobs and hart, 2012, p.3) service delivery, for example free houses, without extending the skills of rural people to participate in this kind of development. an evaluation of the department of agriculture’s aets, specifically intended to train citizens in ecologically and economically viable agriculture (doa, 2005), found that it failed to speak directly to rural tvet needs, and that disadvantaged people had limited access (department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, n.d., p.2). within the last five years, government has argued for prioritising rural development and the provision of skills for rural development (dhet, 2011), and this, together with the critiques of the initiatives discussed above, has sparked increased awareness of the need for specifically-targeted training in rural areas. the national development plan (ndp) argues that an integrated and inclusive rural economy is needed, and that the creation of economic activities, agricultural and non-agricultural, will require the development of capabilities, knowledge and skills, whether vocational or non-vocational (national planning commission (npc), 2011). the nsds iii (2010–2015) thus makes clear that education and training efforts are often not sufficiently directed to rural needs, and that this needs to be corrected: however, we must make a distinction between training of rural people and skills for rural development. the former has tended to train rural people only in order to migrate to the urban areas, whilst the latter will aim to train rural people for development of the rural areas themselves (dhet, 2011, p.7). from 2010 narysec thus specifically offered a two-year vet programme for rural youth to equip them with vocational skills like construction (department of rural development and land reform, 2011), so that youth could build houses and roads in their respective rural communities (gabara, 2010). according to jacobs and hart (2012), by 2012 narysec had made a huge difference in training and skills development for rural youth because it 90 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 allowed young people to further their skills, find jobs in the formal sector, and also create their own livelihoods. however, issues of the sustainability of the programme became increasingly evident, and with budget cuts, a critical review was undertaken (van staden, 2015) and, since march 2015 trainees must have at least a grade 12 (rather than grade 10), be between the ages of 18 and 25 (rather than 35), and live in an area where there are existing projects or institutions, such as agriparks. formal training is conducted centrally at thaba nchu tvet college, and is increasingly tied to formal businesses in terms of workplace experience. in this regard, potential programmes for workplace experience are chosen in terms of provincial development priorities, the skills needed, and the appropriateness of these for rural development. it is thus arguable that narysec has become increasingly tied into the formal, urban economy. however, we still have relatively little knowledge about rural skills development as most research focuses on sectoral or occupational skills, and provision is limited (jacobs and hart, 2012). in addition, many approaches to rural skills development focus on agriculture and other primary sector activities (perret, 2004), ignoring the fact that rural development (and livelihood) is flexible and complicated, involving various pathways (jacobs and hart, 2012). this trend continues in much south african policy, including the npc (2011), which has stated that by 2030 rural communities should be in a position to participate in the socio-economic and political matters of the country; and therefore rural people need to be trained in agricultural skills. provision of tvet to youth despite progressive government statements about nurturing youth in national development, youth remain marginalised, including from the south african and global labour market (bhorat, 2010; dhet, 2012; dplg, n.d.; lam, leibbrandt and mlatsheni, 2008; npc, 2011), and long-term unemployment disproportionately affects young people. by 2013 about two-thirds of all unemployed people in south africa were below the age of 35, with the unofficial unemployment rate for this group standing at 50% (the official rate is 36%). youth unemployment has been referred to as ‘south africa’s ticking time bomb’ (hayes, 2014). many of these young people left school early, and officially 47% of those who do not hold a matric certificate are unemployed; the chances of getting a job with a matric certificate is only 30% (hayes, 2014). the number of neets between the ages of 15 and 24 in south africa maluleke and harley: “doing something in life”. . . 91 is now estimated to be 3.5 million (wedekind, 2014). unsurprisingly, recent tvet policy takes serious note of the challenge of neets (dhet, 2012, 2013). the white paper, for example, creates a new institution, the community college, to cater for adults and youth who did not, for various reasons, complete their schooling, or who do not qualify to study at tvet colleges or universities. these colleges are intended to be far more accessible to local communities (dhet, 2013). with its references to skills for livelihoods, potentially locally-accessible community colleges, and providing opportunities specific to rural areas and youth (dhet, 2013), emerging policy could be seen as offering new possibilities. however, as argued above, such policy is developed by, and serves the interests of, the most powerful in society – for example, when rural education policies are made, rural people are generally not consulted, and their experiences are neither fully understood nor appreciated by policy makers (nelson mandela foundation (nmf), 2005). in the following section, we briefly describe the study which elicited data from rural youth on their views about appropriate rural tvet. the study much research and evaluation on the tvet sector has “displayed a methodological deafness to the voices of learners, lecturers and communities” (powell and mcgrath, 2014, p.7), making sweeping assumptions about what such silenced voices value from tvet. it is thus imperative to consult those whom the system is supposedly designed to serve. the aim of the study presented in this article was to investigate what sort of tvet out-of-school rural youth consider to be relevant in their context. the study thus focused on the views of out-of-school rural youth in mavalani village, limpopo province, and was deliberately situated within the critical paradigm. unlike the interpretive paradigm, which seeks to understand the views of participants, and how they make sense of a particular phenomenon, critical research is concerned with issues of power, both in relation to the phenomenon being studied, and in relation to the research itself. for critical research, other research paradigms are seen as complicit in unequal power 92 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 relations. mies (1983, cited in kirby and mckenna, 1989), for example, argues that research is largely an instrument of dominance and the legitimation of power elites; and kirby and mckenna argue that for many ‘on the margins’, research and knowledge simply don’t reflect their lived experiences. rather, research was about “engineering. . .consent” (p.23). they (and others) thus argue for a kind of research that begins: to reflect the experience and concerns of people who have traditionally been marginalized by the research process and by what gets counted as knowledge (kirby and mckenna, 1989, p.22). in our study, data were collected through a qualitative, participatory approach by the lead author who was born and raised in mavalani village. as a peer of many of the research participants, relations between the researcher and the research participants were considerably (though of course not entirely) equalised. data was inductively coded, and the codes were then categorised to identify dominant and non-dominant themes (welman, kruger and mitchell, 2005). this process ensured that the actual words and ideas of participants are discussed (cohen, manion and morrison, 2007). a critical lens was adopted in making sense of the themes. the research also consciously positioned itself within a critique of the current phase of capitalism, neoliberalism, and the ways in which this system entrenches ruling class power. mavalani village mavalani is a deep rural village of just over 1 200 black african households (mopani district municipality, n.d.) about 15km from the town of giyani in the far north-east of limpopo province. it covers an area of 4.96km (mopani2 district municipality, n.d.; statistics south africa, 2012). it falls under the greater giyani municipality, in the mopani district. giyani town provides the only major employment opportunities, both formal and informal, and the primary shopping and recreational facilities (greater giyani municipality, 2010). the 2011 census shows that the province has not experienced high population growth since 1996, while mopani district as a whole experienced a decline (lehohla, 2012; statistics south africa, 2012). although agriculture is an important economic activity in greater giyani, various structural and environmental constraints mean that mavalani village residents hardly grow their own food and most of the products that people need are purchased from stores in giyani (greater giyani municipality, 2010). maluleke and harley: “doing something in life”. . . 93 except for local schools and churches used as adult learning centres, there is no education and training centre within the village. youth have to leave the area to further their studies or receive training. in giyani there are colleges, such as letaba fet college (public), mass computer training (private) and avuxeni computer academy (private), that offer programmes in computer literacy, motor mechanics, electrical engineering, and office administration, amongst others. a community needs assessment for mavalani village conducted in 2011 found that the majority of youth of mavalani village are unemployed, and are barely trained or educated (milliner, 2011). data collection and analysis the participants were 10 out-of-school youth (five men and five women) between the ages of 18 and 30 who live permanently in mavalani village, and grew up and went to school there. in 2012, when the study was conducted, none were working or studying. the highest level of education that the participants held is grade 12, with two of the ten not having achieved this. data was gathered from the group using community mapping; community timeline; political, economic, social and technological (pest) analysis; and focus group discussion (fgd). the participatory tools were used as the basis for the discussion in the fgd. community mapping allows participants to produce a visual representation of the village, community or place under investigation in order to create a common knowledge base among the participants (melcher, keith, macdowell, foster-fishman, buurma, and rozdilsky et al., 1998–1999). a community map also shows the structure of the community and the resources available, as well as their location and availability (harley and butler, 2009). a ‘timeline’ is a participatory tool or technique used to show the history of remembered events with approximate dates and how things have changed within a particular community or village (chambers, 1994). it helps participants see connections between events, and make future decisions. the timeline was used to locate the community in history; to identify education and training interventions that took place in the past; problems that required education and training; and interventions that succeeded and those that did not. this helped the participants discuss the type of tvet that they thought would be appropriate and relevant to their rural context. in the political, economic, social and technological (pest) analysis, each of these aspects are broken down and considered at local, national and global level, so that their impact on other aspects of society is not 94 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 although some of the terminology used in the 1 white paper is different from that in the green paper, the key concepts remain the same. thus whilst the research explored responses to the cetcs proposed in the green paper/task team report, these are clearly applicable to the community colleges proposed in the white paper. overlooked (bensoussan and fleisher, 2008). freire (1970) asserts that learners need to be able to read the world, not only the word; and pest is useful for this. these participatory methods allowed for maximum participation by the youth, and meant that the process was driven by their own understanding and analysis of their lived experience. most of the data related to the kind of tvet system they believed would better serve their interests was gathered during the fgd. the deep discussion enabled reflection from participants and the collection of in-depth information. the fgd was conducted in xitsonga, the mother tongue of all of the participants, to allow them to express themselves fully without a language barrier. the entire data collection process was recorded, transcribed, translated and then thematically analysed. at the time of the research, the white paper on post school education and training had not yet been published, only the prior green paper. no participants were aware of the green paper, but all had some ideas and understanding about tvet training colleges. current and proposed government policy, up to that date, particularly regarding tvet, was accordingly presented to the group. 1 findings the participatory methods allowed participants to begin from their own, lived experience. the participants identified many context-related problems faced by the youth of mavalani village, including those of poverty, unemployment, and education, which they understood to be interlinked. on the whole, the youth were very critical of the existing education system, both at schooling and post-school levels. criticisms of school focused on the quality of education offered in rural areas: maluleke and harley: “doing something in life”. . . 95 when we look at rural schools, it seems as if the education there is very poor. you find that a matric student passes matric without the ability to use the english language, whether it is to read or write. they experience serious problems when they get to institutions of higher learning. but kids from urban areas are far better than those from rural areas (mujaji). many of the participants spoke about barriers to schooling and post-schooling education, such as the cost of uniforms or transport, high rates of teenage pregnancy (a very significant problem in the area, which made national headlines in early 2014), and alcohol abuse; but also, significantly, the lack of incentive to attend and complete high school, because of high post-schooling unemployment rates: another thing is that some people are weak. their weakness is that when they see older youth who have been to institutions of higher learning staying at home without employment, they use it to explain why they do not need to go to school. they would say ‘so and so went to university but he is not working, so what difference does it make? why should i even bother going to school?’(mujaji). many of the youth also spoke about a lack of guidance about future possibilities, and lack of support and resources: the time we were still at school we did not know a lot of things in terms of education and many other things, or knowledge that would help us make right decisions. you would find that when you wanted to follow a certain career in a certain university or technikon, or wherever, you would find that you knew very little about such a career. in class there is nothing you learn about careers, and at home it is worse; there is no one to guide you. you see, so according to my views, to be in a situation where there is no one to guide us is one of the main problems that we are facing. on top of that, as we said...poverty. sometimes some people have a desire to do something good in life, but you find that their financial situation does not allow them to move forward. some people do wish to go to school, sometimes they receive relevant information about financial assistance, but they cannot afford travelling costs, and you find that they have many other problems. so you find that poverty can be a major problem in our lives as youth (muyisa). 96 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 participants were largely critical of current post-schooling tvet, particularly in the case of fet (tvet) colleges. firstly, they were very critical of the kind of tvet provided by these colleges: yes, fets have been built, there are fets all over. but let us look at the education that people receive at fet colleges. . .they have built fet colleges, but they did not put in place programmes that will help people with necessary skills, the skills that are needed by the citizens who are living at this time we are living in (yila). however, they also argued that there were simply too few colleges to allow sufficient access: although we have a small number of fet colleges. . .if people pass grade 12. . .if indeed the government would put more value on vocational training, and improve the programmes that exist in the existing colleges, would they be big enough to accommodate all people who need access? would all people be accommodated? do we have enough colleges? in other words i can say the government has not made enough effort to make sure that people receive education and training, especially vocational training (yila). as mentioned previously, no participants were aware of the green paper, although all had some idea of what is going on in the education and training system in south africa. they were also largely critical of emerging tvet policy, which they did not see as offering anything new. in fact, youth tended to be fairly negative about government in general: the government is failing to reach out to the people who want to further their education and training. even though people initiate their own projects, it takes a long time for the government to fund such initiatives. in fact the government is useless to young people (mujaji). the youth had many ideas for a reimagined tvet. in many respects their vision contrasts sharply with that proposed in current government policy. they argued for a broader conception of tvet than that offered by the colleges, one that includes not only skills for possible employment in urban areas, but also locally useful, livelihoods-related skills, including agriculture, but also construction, bricklaying, plumbing, motor mechanics, carpentry, sewing, and skills required in beauty salons. they saw these skills as maluleke and harley: “doing something in life”. . . 97 continuously in demand, because they are skills necessary for daily lives. they emphasised the need for both up-to-date technological know-how and locally appropriate technologies: the process of building is unending…even if we can build everywhere and leave no space for new buildings, some people will want to change something, or renovate. the water pipes that have been installed do erupt some times, and they need to be fixed. we, in the rural areas do not even have a sanitary system. there is no sewage system here at mavalani. maybe we can build it. . . if now we wanted to create a sewage system, we call someone from japan to do it for us here at mavalani. but if we can have young people who have learned the skills to sit together, and plan, they can create a sewage system for us. if you can combine plumbing and drawing, drawing is engineering. . . you can do a lot (yila). the youth clearly saw these kinds of skills as part of building a local economy: products can be produced here, and we can buy them from here. if we buy from other places our money goes away. but if we buy locally, the money circulates in our community. for example, there is a place at shayandima in venda where people produce wardrobes. some of these people are people with disabilities. so people from shayandima do not go out to buy wardrobes and the wardrobes that they buy locally are cheaper (mujaji). this is not to suggest that participants did not talk about skills related directly to the market. indeed, many of the participants saw skills as being as much about the broader marketplace as local livelihoods, and argued that tvet needed to include skills related to manufacturing and marketing. so discussions about farming, carpentry and sewing were also related to these broader issues and skills: the issue of farming takes the front seat, not that other things are not important, but farming is basic. it is not bad for us to make tomato sauce. what is wrong if tomato sauce is sold here at mavalani? what is wrong if we make tomato sauce that is sold in the whole country from our village farm? it is not wrong. or there is a firm that 98 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 manufactures baked beans, and the beans are grown in a local farm. what is wrong with that? there is nothing wrong with that. these are the things we must understand, and the process of doing it. we must compile a list of all we need, and it is what must be taught and learned. and the issue of. . . in the secondary sector, we need skills to make things, we must manufacture things. carpentry is a secondary sector activity, it is manufacturing (yila). however, significant emphasis was placed on making things by hand, rather than by machine: i think carpentry can be very important in our village, in terms of developing people. . . and as a way to bring something good to our community. like for example, back in the day i was lucky to see my grandfather doing carpentry. in fact there are beautiful things to adorn the house and they come in different shapes. these days when you look at the headboards, you can see that the art that is used there is not of a machine, but of someone’s hands who gave himself time to craft, to carve, using different kinds of tools (muyisa). something that is made by hands is more attractive than something made by a machine. if there can be people who would do carpentry, they can be able to produce sellable goods. for example, when a radio is playing, no one pays attention, but if one plays the traditional drums, people pay attention and they dance to it. so when it comes to carpentry, people prefer products made by hand, as opposed to those made by machine, because the ones made by hand are more beautiful. as a result of carpentry we can manage to sell things that are made by us (munhu). what is also profoundly different about the youth’s reconceptualisation of tvet was the considerable emphasis placed on inclusiveness – both in terms of different cognitive abilities and also physical abilities: the government encourages people to do science and mathematics. but you find that there are young people who cannot do those subjects. but. . .with their hands, they can do a lot. so if there is something like carpentry, there will be some form of equality because everyone will do what they like, and they will find themselves doing something in life. those who fail to go to university, those who fail to maluleke and harley: “doing something in life”. . . 99 do subjects that are promoted by society, they can resort to something like carpentry if it is their thing, and they will earn a living (khubani). vocational skills like carpentry are good in a community like this one. . .some people are deaf and there is no provision for such people locally. . . a deaf person cannot learn with people who are not deaf, and since there is no provision for deaf people, there must be alternatives. to do carpentry you do not need ears, just your hands and eyes, so deaf people can do it as well (rito). here tvet is not simply a mechanism to build individual ‘human capital’, but a potentially communal, collective endeavour. participants argued that tvet could and should contribute to the general well-being of the village; build social relations; improve communication between people; and develop a broader and deeper understanding of the world: the importance of education is to ensure that when we meet with other people, we are able to relate to them, for example through language and social understanding. education helps us communicate well with other people (rito). the importance of education varies from one person to the next. some people need education just to secure employment, and it is ok to them. . .better job. . .better job. but the importance of education also includes learning the behaviour, how you conduct yourself. but some people want to get jobs, nothing more, and they do not care about self-conduct. but the importance of education is to teach you how to treat other people well, and to get a job perhaps (mujaji). [e]ducation teaches you how to speak with other people in a good way. you do learn that you do not just say anything randomly; you learn a constructive way of communicating with other people (khubani). thus, in their discussion, producing local goods was also frequently tied to preserving and promoting local culture. so, for example, making clothing locally would not simply save money, but also build local culture. 100 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 as discussed, participants felt that tvet in south africa is of very poor quality, does not speak to local needs, and that government has done very little to improve it. since tvet colleges remain the most important providers of tvet, the participants argued that tvet in these colleges needs to be improved, and needs to allow for education that is more than simply ‘to secure employment’ (khubani). in relation to the proposed community learning centres (clcs – connected to community colleges), the youth emphasised that these must be accessible to all: first and foremost it must be in a place where most people can access it, and it must be designed to accommodate everyone. i think that anyone who wants to learn certain skills or skills that will be offered is welcome to attend (yila). it must be accessible to anyone who is interested in attaining some education and training (munhu). participants discussed the nuts and bolts of provision at the clcs extensively, covering aspects such as payment, accreditation and certification, and educator training. while one participant believed that “it must be free because some of us do not have money...[people] may end up stealing money in order to pay because there is no money at home” (rito), the other participants argued that when people pay, they place value on the education and training that they receive, and take it seriously. for people to place value in the clc, not that we want to make things difficult, there must be a certain amount that a person pays. it can be in form of a study loan which people can pay when they start working or when they have started to make production. we do this so that people can place value in their education that they will obtain from the centre (yila). participants strongly believed that qualifications should be accredited and certificated: “some people cannot speak for themselves, so the certificates will speak for them. the certificates will indicate what the person has learned, and their abilities” (munhu). some argued that without certificates, any person can claim that they graduated from the local clc even if they cannot maluleke and harley: “doing something in life”. . . 101 perform a task, and that will bring the local clc into disrepute. moreover, certificates help control the education and training system as a whole: it is like when people pass grade 12, they receive statements of results. if there were no statements of results, we would all move from grade 12 straight to universities and start attending. the universities would be overcrowded to an extent that lecturers would fail to teach. since there are papers, they are able to control the number of people who go in, and people will always know that to gain access they must work for it. people will always know that they have to work hard to get a certificate in order to gain future access in various areas. so if there are no papers it would be chaos everywhere; there will be no system of control (rito). thus certificates help motivate people to study: those who decide not to attend the clc will see the certificates of those who attend, and they will see that they are progressing, so they will be motivated to attend too. but if there are no papers, people will just laugh and say: ‘how do we see that you are learning? where are the papers to prove that you are learning?’(muyisa). two participants argued that accreditation and certification promote professionalism and ‘seriousness’: “certification and accreditation will help with professionalism. . . professionalism means that people will not take our clc for granted, thinking that it is a game” (yila). in terms of educators at clcs, participants argued that local people should be employed as educators at the clcs, and clearly valued the skills that local people possess: i would say that since there are too many of us in the village, if we look for external people to teach, it will not benefit local people but outsiders. since we know what specific individuals can do, for example we know who does some form of carpentry, so we can appoint that person to teach. we know that grandfather goda is a good bricklayer, so we can appoint him to teach people how to build. what will actually happen is that people will be happy to be taught by 102 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 grandfather goda to build because he is good, they will want to build like him (tivani). discussion and conclusion in many ways, the mavalani context is fairly typical to that of other rural youth around the country, facing very similar problems and issues (see, for example, bhana, clowes, morrell, and shefer, 2008; gardiner, 2008; nmf, 2005; macleod and tracey, 2010; pretorius, 2007). so, while the results of this small qualitative study are not necessarily generalisable, the participants’ perceptions are useful in reimagining how tvet might be made more appropriate to local, rural contexts; specifically, that tvet should be not only provide skills for employment, in urban areas, but rather should be locallyuseful and livelihoods-related. such tvet should include a broader understanding of education that contributes to general well-being and improved social relations, rather than focusing on the individual; it should thus be inclusive in nature, and link to local culture. some key provisions of the white paper clearly ‘fit’ the concerns of the participants. improving tvet colleges is welcomed by the participants, as is the suggestion of local community colleges. the creation of community colleges could address issues of accessibility, both in terms of geographic locality and in terms of providing an alternative access route for those who do not qualify for tvet colleges because of poor quality local schooling. community colleges also potentially allow a second chance to those who did not complete their schooling because of teenage pregnancy (although childcare might need to be provided), poverty (although costs would need to be kept low, or financial assistance provided), or a lack of incentive (although, clearly, they would need to find an incentive for a second chance). in their discussion on how new and improved tvet and community colleges might function, their emphasis on accreditation and certification is telling. their discussion reflects the ways in which the labour market ‘judges’ their ‘employability’ – it is clearly not sufficient for people to undergo education and/or training, whether formal, non-formal or informal, and demonstrate the skills, knowledge and attitudes learned, since employers will not accept this as ‘proof ’. however, the youth are clearly very aware that many ways of learning outside of the formal – by watching others, by simply maluleke and harley: “doing something in life”. . . 103 doing – are powerful and useful, as is evidenced by their arguments about who should be allowed to teach in tvet and community colleges. what is clearly critical is the kind of tvet offered, whether by tvet or community colleges. those critical of the neoliberal influence argue for a different conception of tvet, emphasising its importance in broader social development (motala and vally, 2014; powell, 2014; wedekind, 2014). this requires that we rethink education in relation to the kind of society we want, potentially outside the capitalist frame, and draw on notions such as capabilities (powell and mcgrath, 2014), or socially useful work (motala, 2014) in exploring what a new tvet might look like: education and training must relate not only to the diminished possibilities of formal employment but also to socially useful jobs outside of the formal labour market (motala and baatjes, 2014). we also think that the notion of “really useful knowledge”, as opposed to “merely useful knowledge” (which simply serves to retain the status quo, and keep people in their place) is worthy of further exploration in this regard. “really useful knowledge” emerged in the early 19 century from the workerth self-education movement in parts of europe; and has been explored in relation to vocational education by, amongst others, kilminster (1997) and fischer and ziebell (2005). however, there has been relatively little work done in this area, and we would propose this as a fruitful area for further research. this study sought to investigate what kind of tvet the participants find appropriate for local development needs, as opposed to what labour markets and governments think. it is clear that rural youth are perfectly capable of both analysing emerging policy, and proposing alternative models which better reflect their lived reality and interests. in this, they are suggesting a reconsideration of the very purpose of tvet in the current context. we would argue that what the youth have to say is an important part of the process of not simply reimagining tvet, but reimagining it in relation to a new kind of society. participants emphasised the need for tvet relevant to their local context that provided them with both vocational skills and broader education. they wanted skills for the market place, but also for livelihoods, to develop and secure local culture, to improve inter-personal communication, to help them understand the local and wider context. according to the 104 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 participants, education is about communication, social interaction and intellectual development. we need to learn in order to understand our position in society as a whole, and how we fit in, as well as how we can make contributions and changes in the already existing structures, and most importantly, how we can create our own systems: you must understand how you live as a human being, and how the person next to you lives. . . for example you must know that when food is produced, how the systems that are set up in the world operate. it enables you to understand how things work, and how you as a person fit in, and understand how you need to survive as an individual and how your brother/sister next to you survives. that is what i know the importance of education to be. . .education must give you the foundation to understand how the world systems work, or to create new systems of your own if necessary (yila). references akoojee, s. & mcgrath, s. 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(2005). research methodology. cape town: oxford university press. lucky maluleke school for education research and engagement faculty of education nelson mandela metropolitan university lucky.maluleke@nmmu.ac.za anne harley school of education university of kwazulu-natal harleya@ukzn.ac.za mailto:luckymsapa@gmail.com mailto:harleya@ukzn.ac.za 110 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 microsoft word bissue75-fulljun22.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 75, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i75a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x about vicarious blame, containers, and contents: rejoinder to le grange suriamurthee moonsamy maistry school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa maistrys@ukzn.ac.za http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9623-0078 (received: 20 may 2019; accepted: 3 june 2019) abstract in this article, i reflect on le grange’s (2019) response to my article (maistry, 2019) on predatory publishing. i engage with his critique on various levels. while i agree with the notion of embracing positive action, i analyse the usefulness of the dichotomisation of ethics and morality in understanding how this phenomenon should play itself out in academia. i contemplate the “container” versus “contents” debate, and its implications for the south african scholarship context. i also draw attention to the workings of two neoliberal markets at play in the academic publishing space: the neoliberal market for publishing services, and the market for published scholarship and offer some tentative implications for academics who have to inhabit this space. finally, i argue that for debate to reach a high level of robustness, it has to start somewhere. for a phenomenon like predatory publishing, it might mean accommodating multiple perspectives, be they moralising, engaging an immanent ethics, even defensiveness. in fact, immanent critique urges the need to resist the temptation to “moralise” right or wrong approaches to debating this phenomenon. i reflect on how le grange has extended the debate to include predation for publishing, an issue i argue is complexly connected to the historicity of containers (journals) serving as conduits for the propagation of racist ideology. keywords: predatory publishing, ethics, neoliberal publishing market introduction a useful point of entry to this article is to briefly reflect on what i refer to as the ontological and epistemological disconnect between le grange and myself. this is clearly evident in his reference to my narrative as tale (le grange, 2019). recounting one’s personal story using self-study principles is certainly a valid and credible qualitative methodology that has gained significant traction (lassonde, galman, & kosnick, 2009). i am well aware that, as with any methodological approach, self-study research also has its critics. the use of the concept tale, however, insinuates a fabrication of sorts, an embellishment of an occurrence for some sensational purpose. while le grange may not have intended it this way, this unwitting choice of word has implicit effect. in this instance, it purports a subtext that connotes an element of 34 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 fictitious, imaginary recounting. it also reflects a somewhat dismissive othering. lexical articulations are never neutral—they always betray the bona fides of the writer (wodak & meyer, 2009). lorraine (2011) rightly reminded us that so-called legitimate modes of truth telling cannot accommodate “ambiguities of experience” (p. 131). as such, there is a need to be wary of gatekeepers who self-determine what counts as acceptable self-representation. “from a deleuze-guttarian perspective, the truth of . . . experience lies as much in its intensities and potential connections of those intensities to as yet unactualized modes of being as it does in what actually happened” (lorraine, 2011, p. 131). it has been more than a year since scripting the “confessional” article (maistry, 2019), a first step towards a renewal of my mode of being. that it was a traumatic time, and that i was in fact grieving for loss of sense of self-worth and reputation, is without question. while the period of grief is certainly not over, it is worthy of a tentative analysis by applying grief analysis theory given that this might well be what other affected colleagues are experiencing (le grange included). i will consider the moral–ethical dilemma and how it might useful to engage a dialectic—as opposed to pursuing them as binaries. i conclude with a brief account of the markets at play in academic publishing and consumption and a critique of the container–contents debate. about trauma and immanent ethics i draw inspiration from tasmin lorraine’s (2011) reading of deleuze and guattari’s immanent ethics as a process “of affirming the active and joyous extension of our power for action in the assemblages of which we form component parts” (p. 115). she emphasised the coming together of forces into a relatively stable configurations with particular capacities to affect and be affected . . . we are working parts of multiple assemblages at different levels . . . my capacities to affect and be affected relate to the relations i form with others. (lorraine, 2011, p. 12) collective assemblages are akin to a foucauldian (2001) discursive practice, “signifying and interpreting activities we engage in as we carry out our business; they entail enacted rule . . . of the social field” (lorraine, 2011, p. 13). in my view, my association with the multiple assemblages to which i subscribe would have altered significantly. it thus warranted a form of action on my part—that it took on a confessional as opposed to a defensive tone is the result of my perceived academic capital at the time, a discussion of which follows later. a useful point of departure, given its pertinence to the phenomenon under scrutiny, is to perhaps engage a brief deleuzian account of trauma. in essence, trauma is an experience of dissonance at a personal (individual) level—a “disequilibrium in subjectivity experienced as painful” (lorraine, 2011, p. 130), which she terms a deterritorialization of the subject that creates discomfort because it relates to one’s existence in a social space. attending to trauma requires an attunement to “affects, intensities, and subtle nuances of meaning” (lorraine, 2011, p. 130). the individual has to undergo a process of self-transformation—a process of locating points of intensification and seeking out relations or connections that might unblock one’s capacity to affect and be affected in an effort to seek relief from one’s traumatic state maistry: about vicarious blame, containers, and contents . . . 35 (lorraine, 2011). giving vent to the trauma means more than simply articulating or denying, it requires the act of putting trauma in its place, a process of rendering trauma to a diminished status. becoming worthy of the event in deleuze and guattarian terms requires an aesthetic rendering of the past and the harnessing of intensities towards a creative new (lorraine, 2011). the (my) confessional, then, might be considered as first step in a rendering of the trauma, a first tentative line of flight. an ethics of becoming is thus a process of “transmuting sadness into joy, reactive forces into active ones, and a denying will into an affirming will in order to divest power from resisting what is and instead working with what is in ways that enhance one’s unfolding” (lorraine, 2011, p. 133). it was clear that le grange found the confessional to be inappropriate and that assumption of full personal responsibility was, in his view, not helpful because it detracts from an analysis of the adverse, conspiring conditions that created the proverbial perfect storm. note that when the perfect storm happens, it is the individual who has to, at that point in time, harness what resources are available and to take actions that might enable survival given the changed conditions. this socially constructed academic storm (the predatory publishing exposé) certainly triggered varied reaction. mine was to assume full personal responsibility, given the multiple assemblages (disciplinary field, university departments, academic networks, nongovernmental organisations, etc.) i am enmeshed in. every assemblage has its own mechanisms that determine its parameters of participation in which multiple active agents interact. this discursive space is prone to significant discursive events that rupture and disorientate. the assemblage reviews and resets its parameters, developing interventions aimed at rescue from ensuing disequilibria. the review and reframing of the rubric for scholarship in south africa can well be viewed as a kind of intervention. my decision to act can be viewed as invoking an immanent ethics—adopting a “realm of positive action” as le grange (2019, p. 31) urged. note, though, that le grange’s (2019) reading of my intent as advocacy for nefarious investigations into the research profiles of academics is somewhat problematic. it is, without doubt, that south african academics holding a range of positions are affected by the exposé—both implicated colleagues and those who have to work with affected colleagues. note too, that deleuze and guatarri’s (1987) immanent ethics entails striving to resolve pragmatic problems (practical dilemmas) that we encounter. it posits a need for creative resolution as opposed to destructive action that le grange (2019) rightly cautioned against. it would have been useful if le grange had alluded to specifics of positive action that subjects in the assemblage might consider. having said this, there is, however, a need on the part of affected subjects for a disposition of openness—a candidness about current realities as opposed to what currently parades, namely, that of a false congeniality in the assemblage. more than a year has passed since scripting the lead paper (maistry, 2019). it was a time of significant personal trauma. as such, it does have elements of hyperbolic narration, initial signs of my working through the stages of grief (kubler-ross & kessler, 2005). denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance are typical stages of grief people experience in random order (with movements between stages) as a powerful heuristic to make sense of 36 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 responses to personal trauma or loss. it is reasonable to assume that academics affected by the predatory publishing exposé might well be experiencing different stages of the grief that this discursive event has produced. le grange’s revelation and his emphatic denouncement of what he described as “downright dangerous” (2019, p. 28) actions suggests that he is also working his way through the stages of grief. his appeal for a separation of morals from ethics, at face value seems reasonable. it, in fact, suffers from an assumption of a rationalism (a cartesianism), namely, that the (traumatised) subject, in a state of delirium—an acutely disturbed state of mind (as in my case)—has the capacity to easily, and spontaneously distinguish between the personal (moral) and the public (ethical) fields. this realisation might well come through in the end. so, his invoking of willinsky and alperin’s (2011) positive outlook (le grange, 2019) is not incongruent with the positives that might accrue from moving between stages of grief. as stated earlier, these insights might well speak to the experiences of a number of south african academics who currently find themselves in similar positions. deleuze and guatarri’s immanent ethics (1987) is premised on the notion of, in the first instance, recognising and acknowledging what is, with a view to constructing anew. but, we can only get to commencing a process of renewal if the premise is clear—as le grange (2019) suggested, if we tell the full story, if we play open cards. in pursuing this argument, it becomes much more than a simple matter of whether beall (2013) or mouton and valentine’s (2017) methodology and findings have rigor or not. it has to do with the dissonance that it has created for all academics who have to work together—for managers who have to make various kinds of decisions, and for institutions, as they contemplate dealing with the issue. that some prestigious scholars, deans, and executive managers of higher education institutions in south africa might carry perceived “tainted” scholarship in their oeuvre is a south african reality. it begs the question, how to apply an immanent ethics—and the creative resolutions to be contemplated. what is of concern is a paralysis that might come from being stuck for an extended period of time in a stage of denial and defensiveness. it is worth exploring this further. what might be the outcome of defensive positions? (le grange might well argue that he was not being defensive). defensiveness is an almost natural reaction when subjects are under attack, even if it is a perceived attack. for me, taking up a defensive disposition in dealing with this is highly unhelpful—it is degenerative as opposed to regenerative. in the first instance, it is an awareness (by me) of what is controllable (by me). public perception, for example, is beyond my control. my perception of self and the scholarly work i currently do is my salvation. in a sense, it is more than simply reconnecting—it is about deciding what kinds of new connections to the assemblage i want to establish. the freirean (1998) notion of a pedagogy of love has resonance here. in this instance, it is about invoking a pedagogy of self-love, a reterritorialisation (deleuze & guattari, 1987) of the self. the process of reterritorialisation of the self though, depends on how resilient the self might be to the initial deterritorialisation. le grange’s vast oeuvre of exceptional scholarship, his designation as distinguished professor, affords him significantly greater academic capital to confront, with authority, systemic fractures in the national and international scholarship enterprise. this may not be maistry: about vicarious blame, containers, and contents . . . 37 the case for the case for the hundreds of academics affected by the predatory publishing exposé; especially those for whom tainted publication houses make up significant proportion of their career scholarship. this might well explain the somewhat deafening silence on this issue by affected colleagues in the south african higher education context. immanent “rules” guide our actions in any assemblage. academia as discursive practice has traditionally set up implicit and explicit rules that frame our interactions, our daily activities (including scholarly publishing). in applying an immanent ethics, obligation to abide by the parameters of discursive practice depends on how tightly such discursive practice applies rules, or sanctions transgressions. what counts as pushing the limits of acceptability is really the issue at play here. pushing beyond the threshold of what counts as acceptability triggers a reaction in the assemblage. in this instance, legislative and institutional moderators of the code, step in to reframe the parameters of acceptability. academy of science of south africa (2010) and department of higher education and training (2015) have, in fact, have stepped in to reinscribe rules that have become blurred—albeit “new” conditions that subjects in the assemblage might not agree with in their entirety. this is, however, the way discursive practices work. so le grange’s (2019) caution of what he describes as downright dangerous might well be a manifestation of this evolving discursive space. invoking the notion of immanent ethics does not mean that subjects will emerge unscathed. a necessary dissonance that might create anxiety (and even defensiveness) should not be unexpected. instead of conceiving of a fixity of identity, in this instance (errant scholar), subjects have capacity to rework, rethink, reestablish, and renew. so, one is not in a state of permanent paralysis—but what this particular kind of subjectivity suggests, is acknowledgement in the first instance of one’s historicity, notwithstanding le grange’s contention that much of this is still up for debate. this leads me to my next contention, namely, le grange’s (2019) reading of the position i have taken as self-blame, rather than responsibility. about self-blame and full responsibility le grange’s reading of the position i have taken on this issue as “self-blame” (his word, 2019, p. 2) is understandable up to a point, given that there is an element of slippage in the way i used the words responsibility and blame. in fact, the word “blame” features just once in my article (maistry, 2019); the thrust of the argument that permeates the article, though, is that of taking full responsibility. there is a subtle but important difference between selfblame and taking full personal responsibility. the former suggests a hopeless victim (of circumstances) mentality. it also appeals to vicarious blame on institutions and pressures of the neoliberal university (that le grange argues, is culprit), thus locating the issue outside of oneself. it relies on the external (agents) for resolution that may or may not materialise to rescue the affected subject. taking full responsibility, on the other hand, restores the locus of control to within the agentic self—a looking inward for positive action. there might be a lesson to be learnt here for affected colleagues who might be waiting in vain for a systemic readjustment to occur. the position, then, is one that identifies the fractures in the system (as i duly did) without remaining fixated on systemic failure alone, but contemplates avoidable personal failings and what might be positive preemptive action in an academic space where 38 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 judgement is a valued tradition. taking full responsibility also means honouring the multiple assemblages that i am affiliated to. this leads me to a discussion of another somewhat disappointing reading by le grange (2019), namely, that the position i had taken was that of proposing sanctions and witch hunts (his words) against affected colleagues. i want to, once again, assert that this was furthest from my intent. i did however indicate that: research supervisors might have to reconsider nominating examiners. . . . higher degrees committees also have to give due consideration to a more scrupulous examination of this aspect of their important quality assurance work. the composition of . . . higher degrees committees now necessitates some considered discussion . . . it has implications for the appointment of new colleagues to the university, promotion applications, the holding of senior management and leadership positions, and academic decisions as to who might be deemed credible supervisor. these are indeed very disconcerting issues to deal with, but issues that the higher education community cannot shy away from any longer. (maistry, 2019, p. 15). one would expect that the above issues would be a matter of due process for institutions that wish to maintain their academic standing. le grange’s (2019) argument for adopting a realm of positive action is laudable but i find it somewhat inconceivable that institutions might blissfully proceed with addressing predatory publishing vacuous of the issues raised above. addressing these issues in and of themselves might well be regarded as adopting a realm of positive action. perhaps it is worth restating one of the key arguments in the lead article and that is, that academics need to be mindful of the dangerous consequences of what might be perceived as deliberate concealment (maistry, 2019). fuelling the debate on predatory publishing: about contents and containers le grange (2019) was correct in his critique of my uncritical acceptance of beall’s (2013) research and mouton and valentine’s (2017) report. in fact, he is arguably the first local (south african) scholar to contest the veracity of this scholarship. my earlier argument of capacity and academic capital still holds. it would have been akin to arguing on the proverbial back foot, or arguing defensively. le grange (2019) introduced some useful contemporary scholarship to make the case for reading beall and mouton and valentine with circumspection. he offered useful insights into the international world of scholarship production and consumption, and warned us to be aware of the neoliberal market forces at play in the higher education publishing space. having said this, it might be worth sounding the same caution that le grange advanced in his own arguments. this leads me to yet another troubling issue in le grange’s account, namely, the definitiveness of his discounting of the mouton and valentine (2017) report with regard to the standing of the kamla-raj enterprises (kre) publishing house. maistry: about vicarious blame, containers, and contents . . . 39 the selected evidence that le grange (2019) identified, that of a somewhat wonky argument by mouton and valentine in relation to multiple board memberships by dr hiebert, casts some doubt on the rigor and quality of the argumentation on that particular aspect of their report. advertising the names of long deceased editorial board members, though, is difficult to defend. caution is, indeed, required before endorsing a blanket negation of the other compelling evidences about the kre publishing house. in fact, had le grange also exercised due diligence and rigor (before moving to this business’s defence), by simply browsing the kre website (www.krepublishers.com), he would have observed without much effort, telltale signs, that all is not well. one such observation is that none of the journals in the kre stable has a specialist chief or executive editor. there are, however, lengthy lists of members of the editorial boards. a second observation is that each journal publishes 12 issues per year, a somewhat superhuman feat for any chief editor holding an academic position anywhere in the world. the third glaring observation is the inconsistency in language use, together with numerous, somewhat rudimentary grammatical and typographical errors on the landing page of each journal (which, incidentally, is almost the same for every journal). for the journal in which le grange chose to publish his article (journal of human ecology), the following excerpts containing cues of suspicion, were selected from the landing page: the abstract should consist of 100-150 words. the abstract should be written in complete sentences and should succinctly state the objectives, the experimental design of the paper, and the principal observations and conclusion; it should be intelligible without reference to the rest of the paper. (kre, n.d.c, abstract) the above is evidence of a well-constructed instruction. the extracts below, though, are less impressive and, in some instances, unintelligible. this journal uses a double-blind review, which means that both the reviewer’s and author’s identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process. (kre, n.d.a, the peer-review process, s. 2) the referees’ are responsible for contributing to the decision-making process. (kre, n.d.a, the peer-review process, s. 3) the author’s should maintain an accurate record of data associated with their submitted manuscript and supply or provide access to this data when requested. (kre, n.d.a, authenticity of the published content, s. 2) each paper is screened (not reviewed) by the member of the editorial board to check its suitability for favour of publication in the peer-reviewed scientific and research international journal. if it is observed that it can be considered for publication than the corresponding author is asked to complete the initial formalities. (kamla-raj enterprises, n.d.b, manuscript, s. 14) the methodology section should present explain methods used precisely. give when were data collected? what questions were used? if an article is not based on any data 40 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 but a desktop publication as there’s no data collected. however, the author should give explanations about methodology adopted. (kre, n.d.c, methodology) do not place use et al. (not in italics) when there are more than two authors, i.e., give names of all the authors, however you may use et al. after listing at least first three authors. (kre, n.d.c, instructions for listing of references) get the paper check from a professional english language editor to avoid typo errors. (kre, n.d.c, language and typographical errors) i want to emphasise that the purpose of presenting this data is not to ridicule the language proficiency of this academic publishing house. it is more to make the point that in a country (india) where english has been the medium of instruction in major universities for several decades, that high-standing editorial boards are comfortable with this level of carelessness. in fact, i struggle to believe that le grange would accept this and still hold that there is an ethic of high-level rigor. le grange (2019) proceeded to also quite uncritically accept the communiqué by the taylor & francis spokesperson that all is well. it begs the question as to how rigorous taylor & francis was, and is, about the workings of the kre publishing house. it also begs the question as to whether taylor & francis is content with this lower standard (even if it exists only on the landing page) for this publishing house that appears to serve a particular clientele. in essence then, the jury is still out as to the credibility of kre as a publishing house of standing. it follows that it is not a simple matter of disconnecting the contents from the container. like le grange, i stand by the quality of the papers i published in the kre journals (which, incidentally, followed the same peer review protocol that le grange (2019) described). i am however far less convinced than le grange that the container is not so important. le grange (2019) cited the recent article by niewoudt, dickie, coetsee, engelbrecht and terblanche (“ageand education-related effects on cognitive functioning in colored south african women”), an offensive piece that was published in the journal, aging, neuropsychology, and cognition. he rightly used this to describe the frailties of this particular journal’s peer-review processes—the article triggered much anger and reaction from various quarters of the academic community. this revelation was indeed profound because it confirms my argument (maistry, 2019) that the inside-track phenomenon for publishing is still alive and well. it is distinct, unequivocal evidence of how the inside track was effectively applied by a segment of the south african academic fraternity to give credence to racist ideology. it affirms that racism is still alive and thriving in certain sectors of the south african academic community, an argument i lead in an upcoming article in the south african journal of higher education, an argument that has relied mainly on anecdotal evidence thus far. this, however, is tangible evidence from which we can infer that other tainted containers might well exist in the local context. their skill in ticking all the right boxes, as le grange (2019) rightly argued, gives them license to operate in plain sight. le grange implicitly suggested that we should, in fact, be sceptical of both contents and container. maistry: about vicarious blame, containers, and contents . . . 41 most containers (journals) in south africa have their genesis in the apartheid era, a period in which it was perfectly “acceptable” to use race as a gatekeeping criterion for knowledge production. it would be unrealistic to believe that immediately after 1994 (the year of the country’s first democratic elections), that this racist practice would miraculously disappear and that the hegemony over this space would rapidly dissipate. all-white editorial boards were the norm at the time. while the state’s affirmative policies started to take effect in other spheres of south african society, the state lacks the legislative machinery to apply affirmative principles to the composition of journal editorial boards. it is difficult to assess the hegemonic hold that the white academic community still has on south african scholarship. it does, however, raise a pertinent question as to why is it that “culprit” academics (in the predatory publishing debacle) were predominantly non-white colleagues (and from historically disadvantaged institutions), an issue that mouton and valentine (2017) appeared to tiptoe around? while this is a speculative question, it is nonetheless a question that south african academia is struggling to ask, and the answer to which is likely to create much angst—downright dangerous terrain, indeed! i am also not convinced that predatory publishing is a misnomer fabricated by beall on the basis of entirely weak data and analysis. le grange (2019) did, however, rightly alert us to the more dangerous demon that invisibly constructs the economic world of academic publishing, namely that of neoliberal capitalism, incentivised by the long-term potential for profit making. given that the average academic and scholar might not fully apprehend how this works, i offer a brief account of two distinct neoliberal markets at play in the academic publishing space: the neoliberal market for publishing services, and the market for published scholarship. i offer some tentative implications for academics who have to inhabit this space. any economic market is a place where sellers offer (supply) goods or services with utility value, and buyers purchase (demand) such market offerings. in the market for publishing services, numerous publishing houses with various levels of integrity vie for the right to publish a scholar’s work (the supply of publishing services) and scholars (buyers of such services) get to choose from the numerous alternatives available. the market is clearly a differentiated market that offers varying degrees of quality with regard to publishing services offered. high-end publishing houses command higher prices for the services they offer. discerning buyers, and buyers with the ability to pay, are prepared to pay high prices for the perceived value they anticipate they might enjoy from buying such services. less discerning buyers, and buyers (scholars) with constrained disposable income, buy what is affordable— with the knowledge that they may not be buying the best product or service on the market. in the market for scholarly products (published journal articles, books, etc.), buyers include researchers, students, and academics. sellers are again publishing houses that sell their wares (published articles). this market also offers differentiated products, scholarship of different qualities. an analysis of how open access plays itself out in the market place is worthy of some deliberation. open-access publishers charge significantly lower prices for publishing services and make published work freely available online. buyers of these services are 42 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 attracted by the low price, quick turnover, and satisfaction of free dissemination. note, these moves by such publishing houses are certainly not as entirely philanthropic as some might purport. these are businesses with a distinct profit motive. the prices they charge are relatively low, meaning low profit margins. they do, however, cash in on high turnover, 12 issues of 17 journals per annum, with high numbers of articles comprising individual issues (as in the kre case). the taylor & francis and kre partnership reflects another key market trait, namely, that of a producer that has strategically decided to have in its portfolio, products of various qualities. they have, in fact, applied product differentiation quite effectively by identifying that the market for publishing services and scholarly products is segmented according to ability to pay. this is akin to a motor vehicle manufacturer that produces and supplies high-end vehicles (with high specs and safety features) and low-end variants (with minimal safety features). the implications for the production and consumption of scholarship is far reaching and beyond the scope of this response piece. it does call for an awareness of how one plays and gets played in this neoliberal market. le grange (2019) sounded a telling caution that perceptions of the quality of contents and container have to be understood in the context of how the market has come to shape the production and consumption of knowledge. concluding comments it is clear that le grange and i differ significantly on several key issues. while we are academic colleagues, he has maintained his usual critical disposition as he engaged with my work. of importance, is that it was done in a respectful fashion, an ethos that will hopefully encourage further contributions to the debate, rigorous conversations that critically reflect on the (ill-)health of academia as it relates to scholarship, its producers, and its gatekeepers. references academy of science of south africa (assaf). (2010). the phd study: an evidenced-based study on how to reach the demands for high-level skills in an emerging economy. pretoria, rsa: assaf. beall, j. (2013). predatory publishing is just one of the consequences of gold open access. learned publishing, 26, (79–84). deleuze, g., & guattari, f. (1987). a thousand plateaus. minneapolis, mn: university of minnesota press. department of higher education and training (dhet). (2015). research outputs policy. pretoria, rsa: dhet. foucault, m. (2001). fearless speech. new york, ny: semiotext. maistry: about vicarious blame, containers, and contents . . . 43 freire, p. (1998). pedagogy of freedom: ethics, democracy and civic courage. new york, ny: rowman & littlefield. kamla-raj enterprises. (n.d.a). jhe: about the journal. retrieved from http://krepublishers.com/journals/jhe-aboutjournal.html kamla-raj enterprises. (n.d.b). jhe: guide for contributors. retrieved from http://krepublishers.com/journals/jhe-guide-cont.html kamla-raj enterprises. (n.d.c). journal paper format. retrieved from http://krepublishers.com/journals/journalpaperformat.html kubler-ross, e., & kessler, d. (2005). on grief and grieving: finding the meaning of grief through the five stages of loss. new york, ny: simon & schuster. lassonde, c., galman, s., & kosnick, c. (eds.). (2009). self-study research methodologies for teacher educators. rotterdam, netherlands: sense. le grange, l. (2019). on “predatory” publishing: a reply to maistry. journal of education, 75, 20–32. lorraine, t. (2011). deleuze and guattari’s immanent ethics: theory, subjectivity and duration. new york, ny: suny press. maistry, s. m. (2019). (re)counting the high cost of predatory publishing and the effect of a neoliberal performativity culture. journal of education, 75, 5–19. mouton, j., & valentine, a. (2017). the extent of south african authored articles in predatory journals. south african journal of science, 113(7/8), 1–9. willinsky, j., & alperin, j. (2011). the academic ethics of open access to research and scholarship. ethics and education, 6(2), 217–223. wodak, r., & meyer, m. (2009). critical discourse analysis: history, agenda, theory and methodology. in r. wodak & m. meyer (eds.), methods of critical discourse analysis (pp. 1–34). london, uk: sage. microsoft word cissue81-full-15dec.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 81, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i81a01 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x the othering of teacher training in lebowa bantustan: a historical perspective johannes seroto department of educational foundations, college of education, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa serotj@unisa.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1737-719x (received: 10 march 2020; accepted: 22 august 2020) abstract in this paper, i focus on the history of teacher training for africans in the former lebowa bantustan. my discussion of this is informed by the theoretical concepts of othering and structural racialisation, which capture various prejudices such as segregation, marginalisation, hierarchisation, subjugation, and racism. i examined textual data for the period 1970–1994 which included unpublished material, lebowa department of education reports, memoranda, administrative documents, and newspaper articles and journals housed in limpopo provincial archives, polokwane, to elicit meaning and gain insight into the othering of teacher training in lebowa. i established that african teachers were othered from economic, educational, political, and technological power through the bantustan policy and that this othering was interconnected. for african teachers to be inferior, subjugated, and marginalised, they needed to be spatially isolated; they had to receive a segregated, racialised, gendered, and inferior curriculum. this meant that resources were inequitably allocated and distributed across racial groups. further, i argue that to understand the underlying problem of teacher education and other related challenges, we need to interrogate processes, structures, relationships, and the interconnectedness of the various factors and systems that produced a particular outcome. keywords: bantustans, lebowa, teacher education, othering, structural racialisation introduction south africa continues to be characterised by inequalities in health, education, land distribution, and economic status. the histories of the bantustans, where most of these contemporary challenges are located, are critical to understanding and addressing these problems (ally & lissoni, 2017). for this reason, the conversation about the history of the bantustans has re-emerged as evidenced in a special issue of the south african history journal entitled “let’s talk about the bantustans”, a journal that featured chisholm’s (2013) examination of bantustan education history four years earlier. the polemic about the 12 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 bantustans can be traced back to stephen bantu biko, the south african anti-apartheid activist. in his newsletter article, let’s talk about bantustans, biko (1972, p. 23) first argued that “[p]olitically, the bantustans are the greatest single fraud ever invented by white politicians.” when the national party came to power, it introduced a plethora of laws that created new and exacerbated existing political and social ills. in 1951, the bantu authorities act no 68 was introduced and, subsequent to it, the promotion of bantu self-government act no 46 of 1959. these laws sent african people to bantustans (decorously) referred to as “homelands” based on the 1913 land act. the bantu authorities act no 68 of 1951 stated that the entire african population should be divided into ten ethnic homelands or bantustans. lebowa, gazankulu, qwaqwa, kangwane, kwandebele, kwazulu were classified as independent states and transkei, bophuthatswana, venda, and ciskei (tbvc) were given so-called independence status. the two bantustans of ciskei and transkei were created for the xhosa people, lebowa for the pedi (north sotho), venda for the venda, bophuthatswana for the tswana, gazankulu for the tsonga, kwazulu for the zulu, and qwa qwa for the basotho respectively. lebowa was granted internal self-government on october 2, 1972 through proclamation r224 of 1972. the bantustan was responsible for the provision of education to africans in its territory (lebowa government services, 1962, 1976b; republic of south africa, 1972). in 1994 it was reincorporated into south africa and is today part of limpopo province, the fifth largest of south africa’s nine provinces. this province is located in the northern part of south africa and shares borders with botswana, zimbabwe, and mozambique. it had the geographical area of 125 754 km² in 2011 and a population of 5,8 million in 2016 (statistics south africa, 2018). the bantustan is of interest to this study because it was the “problematic child of apartheid—dependent and weak but yet irresponsible and unruly” (jacklin, 1994, p. 1). the bantustan was riddled with mismanagement and corruption issues. the 1990 interim report—the de meyer report— indicated that the bantustan misused funds allocated for the purchase of school textbooks between 1982 and 1990 (de meyer, 1990). in her report to national education policy investigation (nepi), commissioned by the national education crisis committee (necc) in 1989, jacklin (1994) noted numerous upheavals in the territory that led to mass political protest and escalating violence in the education sector of lebowa bantustan. these included a nine-week chalk-down by teachers; teacher defiance supported by the civil servants; a call for better educational facilities and more teachers; protest against the non-provision of school books; and protest against educational grievances unresolved by the government. on june 24, 1990 students at 11 lebowa colleges decided not to pay school fees (jarvis, 1990). the pass percentage of matriculants in the lebowa bantustan was also worrying. in 1986, for example, of 20,284 candidates, only 8,453 (41,1%) passed the matriculation examination, which was the lowest rate in the republic of south africa (hartshorne, 1988). bot (1987, p. 60) argued that “the quality of any educational system is to a large extent determined by the quality of the teacher corps.” very little has been written about teacher education in the lebowa bantustan, of whose people 90% were africans in 1986. seroto: the ‘othering’ of teacher training in lebowa bantustan 13 most studies conducted on bantustans have focused fundamentally on the inequalities that were created as a result of the national party government policy. some scholars of african studies have concentrated on the impact of apartheid legislation on education for africans in general, bantustan education included (christie, 1991; dubow, 1989; hartshorne, 1992; hyslop, 1990; kallaway, 2002; mawasha, 1969). however, there is limited dedicated research that focuses on inequalities created by various bantustan government policies (ally & lissoni, 2017; chisholm, 2013; chisholm, 2018; jacklin & graaff, 1992; lissoni & ally, 2018). in this article, i advance a new interpretation of bantustan historiography by examining how inequalities in teacher education in lebowa bantustan were promoted through the concept of othering. i use the structural racialisation approach that has not been used in bantustan historiography, to understand how these inequalities in teacher education were constructed. the main research question was: how did the apartheid state use othering practices to marginalise teacher training in the lebowa bantustan? i address this question first by investigating how spatial segregation was used to promote marginalisation and othering of teacher education in lebowa. second, i examine how curriculum segregation was used as a strategy for othering and for producing persistent hierarchisation and subjugation in teacher training in lebowa. last, i reflect on the outcome and how various structures impacted on the understanding of how othering created inequalities in teacher education in lebowa bantustan. in order to address the research question, i carried out a textual analysis of selected documents that were relevant to the research aim. my focus was on archival documents (unpublished material, lebowa department of education reports, memoranda, administrative documents, newspaper articles, and journals housed in limpopo provincial archives in polokwane, capital of limpopo province). the period covered in this study is from 1970 to 1994. following corbin and strauss (2008), i examined and interpreted textual data to elicit meaning and to give me greater understanding about the othering of teacher training in lebowa. as already mentioned, to inform my analysis, i used the theoretical perspectives of othering and structural racialisation. i organised the findings into themes related to the central research question articulated above. the four themes that emerged from my data analysis process were (a) how physical spacing promoted the othering of teacher education; (b) how hierarchisation of curriculum and feminisation of teacher education played a role in the othering of teacher education, (c) how racial policies accelerated the othering of teacher education, and (d) how different structures (as defined through structural racialisation) contributed to the outcome of inequality in teacher education in lebowa. theoretical framework the concepts of othering and structural racialisation as discussed in the context of this study, are interconnected. the term othering was introduced by the french feminist, simone de beauvoir, in 1949. according to brons (2015) and jensen (2009), the notion was not entirely new; hegel had developed it in phänomenologie des geistes in 1807. postcolonial writer, spivak, in her 1985 essay entitled “the rani of sirmur” was “the first to use the notion of 14 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 ‘othering’ in a systematic way” (jensen, 2009, p. 7). in this essay she explains othering in terms of power relations. jensen (p. 10) has argued that the term refers to a multidimensional process that touches upon “several different power asymmetries.” drawing on the work mentioned above, spivak identified three forms of othering. she identified the first form as providing an awareness of who holds the power and who produces the other subordinates. the second form is about constructing the other as pathological and morally inferior. further, jensen (2009, p. 10) explained that the other is not only viewed as “pathological and morally inferior” but “uncivilised, uneducated and barbaric.” schwalbe (2000, p. 777) agreed that othering is “the process whereby a dominant group defines into existence an inferior group.” the third form of othering for spivak (1985, p.256) is “manipulative pedagogy” that denies the other access to knowledge and technology. the master (usually the european) is the subject of science or knowledge. in summary, jensen (2011) defined othering as a discursive process during which the subordinate groups are defined in a reductionist way. it is evident that othering fits into a broadly inclusive conceptual framework that captures various prejudices and behaviours such as tribalism, segregation, marginalisation, racism, and differences based on ethnicity, gender, sexuality, language, name, dress, religion or any other differential characteristics (udah, 2019). the concept of othering not only encompasses expressions of prejudice on the basis of group or ethnic identities, it also provides a framework for understanding inequality and marginality. although particular expressions of othering, such as racism and ethnicity, are often wellresearched and documented, the broader phenomenon of inequality caused by expressions of othering is inadequately recognised. powell and menendian (2016) defined othering as a “set of dynamics, processes, and structures that engender marginality and persistent inequality across any of the full range of human differences based on group identities” (p. 17, emphasis added). it is imperative to understand that we are all situated within structures. people are situated, for example, within different infrastructures, institutions, political economic and social settings and these structures and processes interact and produce different outcomes (see figure 1). figure 1: examples of structures that have a bearing on outcomes physical structures social , economic structures etc. political structures outcomes seroto: the ‘othering’ of teacher training in lebowa bantustan 15 our society, as complex as it may be, is comprised of a system of organisations, institutions, individuals, processes, and policies, and these factors may interact and perpetuate social, economic, and political inequity. while we understand that these relationships (structures) exist within a system, it is essential to look for “nodes of influence and power” (powell, 2010, p. 22). the theory of structural racialisation is useful because it addresses interinstitutional arrangements and interactions and it also shows how the joint operations of a system or institution can produce a particular outcome. structural racialisation leads to understanding how different structures are involved in producing, for example, marginalisation (race, gender, etc.) and how these structures produce a particular outcome. powell (2009) defined structural racialisation as a “set of practices, cultural norms, and institutional arrangements that are both reflective of and simultaneously help to create and maintain racialised outcomes in society” (p. 785) this approach helps us to understand inequity, which is the result or outcome when various structures enforcing forms of othering interconnect or relate to each other. the study of the othering of teacher education in the former bantustans is relevant because there are still institutional practices and systems in south africa that help maintain unequal educational outcomes (knauss & brown ii, 2016). physical space physical space is broadly defined as the built environment (e.g., structures like schools, houses, roads, and similar infrastructure). physical space has been used in south africa as a tool to define racial group boundaries and as a way of creating racial hierarchies. certain historical policies were enacted with the sole intention of perpetuating structural racism. the politico-spatial organisation of education in south africa is ascribed to a long political history that began with the arrival of the white colonists in the mid-seventeenth century and lasted until 1994. this political history, characterised by spatialised relations of power, was extended and formalised by national party apartheid ideology in 1948 as christie (2013) has reminded us. lebowa was one of the most rural bantustans. it was comprised of a predominantly large number of settlements that did not have any of the infrastructural advantages of proclaimed towns. as a starting point, there was an unfair and inequitable distribution in that socially valued resources and opportunities were directed to urban areas. there was locational discrimination which was created through marginalisation imposed on africans in the bantustan. this inequitable distribution of space had a bearing on the economic life of those residing in the bantustan. the inhabitants of lebowa bantustan depended on subsistence agricultural activities as jacklin (1994) has pointed out. both crop and animal production were practised as a way of life. most of the population (about 80%) of lebowa had to provide their own houses. kwenda et al. (2020) argued that historical institutions (structures) played a role in bringing about the contemporary socioeconomic outcomes in south africa. in 2018, for example, south africa’s official unemployment rate was 27% and the economy which was othered by the national party government played a role. the non-existence of formal economic opportunities and the disallowance of industrial development in bantustans by government othered the economy in these areas. this situation was exacerbated by a number 16 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 of racially based structural factors. kingdon and knight (2007) noted that africans suffered from the highest share of unemployment followed by coloureds, indians, and whites respectively. inspired by apartheid policies in relation to spatial structures, most citizens residing in rural areas were severely affected. the political organisation of space in lebowa was a particularly powerful source of marginalisation and discrimination in the lebowa education infrastructure. the general school infrastructure was in dire need of basic necessities. in 1993, 58% (1,056, 820) of learners were enrolled at schools in the bantustan and 4,021 teachers were needed compared to the 733 needed in white schools, and 343,105 classrooms were needed compared to the surplus of 20,898 classrooms in white schools (development bank of southern africa, 1994). it was not uncommon to find learners in this bantustan using the platoon system of attending school because of the lack of classrooms. in 1994, this bantustan, with over a million learners, had the highest “classroom backlog” in south africa (sowetan, july 21, 1995, p. 4) and the educational infrastructure in lebowa, inherited by the northern transvaal province (later limpopo province), was weak compared with that of other provinces (jacklin, 1994). teacher education in the bantustan was also affected by these backlogs. when the lebowa bantustan was declared self-governing in 1974, there were five teacher training colleges and by 1990 the number had risen to twelve (lebowa government services, 1976b, 1990). these colleges were all established in the rural areas of lebowa, except mokopane college which was located in a peri-urban area. parents, mostly unemployed, were expected to contribute to what was called the building fund. colleges in lebowa were characterised by overcrowding in dormitories and classrooms and lack of adequate infrastructure like laboratories and libraries. uneven geographical development, marginalisation, and underdevelopment in lebowa bantustan provided a new framework for othering to work through politically inscribed trajectories and it seriously affected provisioning of school infrastructure. curriculum as a socio-political structure educational ideals have been for many years connected to education politics. soudien (2010, p. 2) advised that “the making and remaking of the south african and southern african curriculum begins, and indeed continues to the present, as an important arena in which [this] multilayered politics” should be understood. the structuring of the curriculum in teacher training colleges in the bantustans demonstrated how power was used to other teacher education. the african teacher was to be segregated and unequal. in 1956, a uniform national curriculum for teachers was introduced: the lower primary teachers’ certificate (lptc) and the higher primary teachers’ certificate (hptc). on the recommendation of a small committee comprised of ken hartshorne (department chief education planner) and g. engelbrecht (an inspector of education), a new primary teachers’ certificate (ptc) was introduced in 1972 as hartshorne (1992) has noted. these courses were offered in the teacher training colleges in lebowa. however, there were exceptions: a special one-year teachers’ certificate was offered at mamokgalake chuene teachers training college in 1973 (lebowa government services, 1976) and in 1984, 275 students seroto: the ‘othering’ of teacher training in lebowa bantustan 17 registered at mamokgalake chuene for a special one-year teachers’ certificate (lebowa department of education, 1984b). the vast majority of white students in education courses were prepared at predominantly white institutions of higher learning—8 residential universities, 1 distance institution, 16 teacher training colleges, 8 institutions under the control of the department of higher education, 4 technical colleges and 4 others as chisholm (2019) has documented. until 1978, standard 8 (grade 10) was the minimum requirement for access to a teacher training institution in lebowa. after 1982, a three-year diploma with a minimum requirement of standard 10 (matriculation certificate) was introduced. in contrast, white student teachers obtained teacher qualifications at well-resourced universities. teacher qualifications such as the ptc were not offered in white teacher training institutions. africans were perceived as different and therefore treated as the other. influential leadership positions at these universities were held by loyal advocates of afrikaner nationalism. the other was perceived as being different according to the perspective of the dominant group, the so-called educated, civilised, and superior ones who establish the norm. this arrangement also represented, of course, the current relationship of power. control over the production of black secondary school teachers was monitored through the establishment of segregated universities with education faculties located in the bantustans. in the case of lebowa bantustan, the university of the north (now university of limpopo) served this purpose. the curriculum of the ptc is worth interrogating for various reasons. most students in lebowa registered for this course (see table 1). as can be seen, the primary teacher enrolment in lebowa bantustan was high and the probable reason was that teaching was one of the very few avenues open to african students after they had passed the school leaving examination. the ptc curriculum was divided into four groupings: (1) professional subjects including fundamental pedagogics and didactics; (2) basic teaching subjects; (3) practical subjects and (4) other teaching subjects: health education; social studies; and general science (lebowa department of education, 1981). while the standard of primary school teacher education in the bantustans remained low, government introduced the idea that all colleges should be linked to universities. this benefitted most teachers who enrolled for secondary teacher education courses. table 1: 1 student-teacher enrolment for courses in 1983 (lebowa government services , 1977, 1979; lebowa department of education, 1981, 1983) college ptc jstc 1977 1979 1980 1981 1977 1979 1980 1981 dr c.n. phatudi 354 337 351 309 193 245 kwena moloto 554 537 675 614 mamokgalake chuene 696 585 558 404 modjadji 296 405 498 530 mokopane 847 627 843 885 1 figures stated in table 1 include both firstand second-year enrolments. 18 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 sekhukhune 559 486 652 560 setotolwane 192 173 313 357 curricula taught in various courses and at various institutions were basically different as one would expect. however, an overarching similarity was the ideology and ethos that grounded each curriculum. the aim of education in lebowa bantustan, as stipulated in the lebowa education act no 6 of 1974, was that “education in government schools shall have a christian and non-denominational character” (lebowa government services, 1984, n.p.) and white teacher institutions also advocated christian national education (cne). what was known as fundamental pedagogics became a powerful ideology at african teacher colleges (and in education faculties of historically black universities and historically afrikaans medium universities) from the 1960s to 1980s (le grange, 2008). enslin (1990, p. 86) discussed fundamental pedagogics as practices of subjection, as means of controlling individuals by creating them as subjects of specific kinds, for in fundamental pedagogics we have not merely a false view of education and how to theorize it, but a process which determines how teachers come to see themselves and their actions as teachers. by means of fundamental pedagogics teachers are to become both subjected to a theoretical discourse from which the political had become exorcised, as agents of subjection, perceiving and treating children as helpless, incompetent in need of authority to save them from their own evil inclinations. fundamental pedagogics was synonymous with christian nationalism and it legitimised cne policy (viljoen & pienaar, 1971). penny (1988) indicated that fundamental pedagogics was characterised by preconceived ideas characteristic of calvinistic and nationalistic principles. the concept of cne included christian science and phenomenology as forms of indoctrination (morrow, 1989). enslin (1990, p. 78) maintained that fundamental pedagogics “instilled a passive acceptance of authority rather than providing students with conceptual tools necessary for creative and independent thought.” taylor (1993) concurred. linked to the basic tenets of the masculinist and paternalistic philosophy of cne described by ensor (1999) as the dominant approach to education predicated on authoritarian gender and race relations, it shaped teacher preparation in both black and white universities until 1990. the intention of government was to subject african teachers to a racially segregated ideology which would, in turn, prepare their students for their place in an apartheid society (sebakwane, 1997). the child was regarded as ignorant and undisciplined and as needing guidance from the teacher whose authority was derived from god as conceived and propagated by the dutch reformed church, the dominant protestant denomination in the country at the time. this analogy was also indicative of the ignorance of africans and their need for guidance by white people. didactics, another core discipline in the teacher education curriculum, was also “inextricably bound up in fundamental pedagogics, and [it] played a key role not only in reinforcing cne but also in reproducing it” (le grange, 2008, p. 404). the seroto: the ‘othering’ of teacher training in lebowa bantustan 19 ideology embedded core disciplines in the teacher education curriculum that promoted ideological legitimation for unequal and segregated education in south africa. another feature of the curriculum of teacher education in the bantustans was the feminisation of the teaching profession. lebowa was one of the largest and most impoverished bantustans and teaching was the only career opportunity available for women. table 2 shows enrolment figures of student teachers by gender for lebowa teacher training colleges in 1979. table 2: enrolment figures for the primary teachers’ certificate according to gender in 1979 (lebowa, 1979; lebowa department of education, 1980, 1983, 1984a, 1984b) name of institution first year course second year course totals male female male female male female dr cn phatudi 37 155 35 110 72 265 kwena moloto 110 195 64 168 174 368 mamokgalake chuene 68 194 81 242 149 436 modjadji 49 141 50 165 99 306 mokopane 82 239 85 221 167 460 sekhukhune 81 185 48 172 129 357 certain courses were specifically set aside for women. the special senior primary teachers’ certificate (sptc) was designed for female students who were in possession of standard 8 (grade 10). these teachers were trained to teach in nursery schools and in junior classes of the primary school. the course was offered at mamokgalake chuene (lebowa government services, 1979). the other female teachers’ course was the one-year housecraft teachers’ certificate which was offered at mokopane training college. this course, which was comprised of cookery, needlework, mothercraft, and housewifery was designed for female teachers who had at least two years’ teaching experience. after completion, female teachers were expected to teach housecraft from primary school level to standard 8. in contrast, the junior secondary teachers course (jstc) and the senior secondary teachers’ course (sstc) attracted more male students when compared to the ptc. sstc students could specialise in one of the following: social studies; commerce; mathematics; and science. thus, the state stratified teacher qualifications by gender. this stratification exacerbated gender inequalities, which continue to the present day. chisholm (2019) posited that this curricular arrangement grounded in racism, segregation, and ethnicity increasingly divided south african society and reinforced the gradations of inequality that had emerged in earlier periods. the skewed representation of women in the teaching profession in the lebowa bantustan was compounded by a range of socio-economic, cultural, and political factors. female participation in the primary school phase was high and this was linked to the cultural association of women with primary schoolchildren. the lebowa department of education, 20 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 through the ptc curriculum, encouraged gender inequality and feminisation of the profession by prescribing what girls should do (e.g., needlework) and what was appropriate for boys (e.g., gardening). this was in line with the broader ideology of the national party government hierarchisation agenda. this hierarchisation was not only to be seen between black and white but was extended to gender. although the feminisation of the teaching profession reflected the spirit of the times, the rationale behind this differentiation was to subjugate women to primary school teaching. women were not only subjected to othering or subjugation by those in power as being incapable of teaching at post-primary schools, but they were also gendered by men who regarded and identified themselves as the subject while they (women) were portrayed as the other (de beauvoir, 2011; jensen, 2011). sebakwanemahlase (1994) recorded that women teachers in lebowa were controlled by often hostile committees and committee members who were frequently illiterate. racial policies and structures segregation and marginalisation played a critical role in the institutionalisation of othering by channelling resource distribution inequitably across social groups. the bantu education department established in 1954 held that africans should be responsible for a considerable portion of the funding of their education system as horrel (1968) has made clear. the department of education in lebowa created by the lebowa education act no. 6 of 1974 was responsible for financing teacher education. by virtue of the lebowa education act, the minister of education in the bantustan was charged with the responsibility of determining, analysing, and approving education policy within the framework of the act. throughout the bantustan period, teacher training in lebowa was persistently underfunded. all bantustans were situated far from transport, markets, and sources of electricity and water and lacked any infrastructure for development (united nations, 1970). for many years, the economy of lebowa remained underdeveloped by any standard of measurement. in terms of education, the central government allocated little money to the overall budget of the bantustans. in the 1988/89 financial year, r4,4 billion was budgeted for white education with a total enrolment of 935,903 learners, whereas only r4,5 million was budgeted for education in the lebowa bantustan with nearly the same enrolment of 869,016 learners. this uneven allocation affected primary and secondary school budgets and teacher training. the per capita expenditure on colleges of education in south africa between 1987 and 1992 was chronically unequal. in the financial year 1987/8 the per capita expenditure for teacher training for a prospective white teacher was r9,715 and r2,578 for his/her african counterpart in lebowa teacher training colleges. in 1991/2 the per capita expenditure (r23,718) for teacher training for whites was nearly four times the amount of r6,740 that was allocated for african students according to buckland and fielden (1994). allocation of staff cost units in teacher training colleges was also skewed. in 1990, r95,000 was allocated for a lecturer in teacher training for the (white) house of assembly, whereas r62,000 was allocated for an african counterpart in the lebowa education department as bunting (1994) has recorded. seroto: the ‘othering’ of teacher training in lebowa bantustan 21 the national party government used various ways of ensuring that their othering teacher education remained intact by reinforcing the ideology of hierarchisation in teacher education institutions. since the formal establishment of the bantustan in 1972, the minister of education was assisted by a white secretary of education, who was the permanent chief executive officer responsible to the minister for education and culture in the legislative assembly at the national level. the first african secretary of education, mr kobe, was appointed in 1981 (lebowa government services, 1981). a similar pattern was followed in lebowa teacher training colleges. for example, in setotolwane teachers’ training college in 1981, 23 of the 33 teachers were white as was the principal, mr fitzgerald (lebowa government services, 1981). reserving certain positions for whites in the bantustans was a way of maintaining white supremacy. in this context the national party regarded africans as exotic, underdeveloped, backward, and uncivilised and this confirmed the belief that they needed western powers to deal with what said (2016) described as their perceived otherness. teacher education in lebowa was characterised by marginality and persistent inequality. africans were rendered other—marginal, deviant, strange, dangerous, uncivilized, and unlawful. to promote this categorisation, racial structures that awarded systemic privileges to what were then called europeans (whites) over so-called non-europeans (non-whites) were maintained (bonilla-silva, 2014). in many ways, these inequitable practices legitimised exclusion, marginalisation, subordination, and exploitation as spivak (1985) noted in a different context, and perpetuated multiple inequalities. powell and menendian (2016) argued that segregation is not simply physical separation, but is also a policy attempt to deny and prevent association with another group by denying the latter’s basic humanity. the segregationist government in south africa defended the notion that africans were different from whites, thereby maintaining two opposing categories of othering in terms of the training of teachers (udah, 2019). outcomes of the process of teacher education in lebowa i use the structural racialisation perspective in this section to examine how different related and interconnected structures worked to other teacher education and produce the inequitable outcome in lebowa bantustan. structural racialisation accounts for the cumulative effects of the interaction of various structures. of course, an outcome must be understood in the context of an interaction between the political, social, cultural, or physical systems that i have discussed above (see figure 1). spatial segregation and political dimensions such as marginalisation, hierarchisation, racism, and gender differentiation are forms of othering. these dimensions were used in many ways to divide society into spatial blocs (bantustan colleges and universities and white afrikaans and english medium universities). many teachers in the lebowa bantustan were left underqualified or unqualified. in 1980, for example, of a total of 9,328 teachers employed by the lebowa department of education, 65% had obtained ptc (without a matriculation certificate), 22% had obtained ptc or sstc (plus a matriculation certificate) and only 3,5% had a professional certificate plus a degree (lebowa government services, 1980). jacklin 22 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 (1994) pointed out that in 1994, 62% of teachers in primary schools and 16% of teachers in secondary schools were either unqualified or under-qualified. 2 arguably, the possession of a degree does not guarantee that one is an effective teacher. however, numerous international studies indicate that teacher qualifications have a significant impact on students’ learning outcomes (darling-hammond, 2000; wendt et al., 2017). many poorly qualified african teachers in lebowa caused the teaching standards to drop in the area and inevitably failure rates (especially in secondary schools) increased. in some community schools the matriculation failure rates have continued to be as high as 80% since 1994 as mathabatha (2005) has documented. given the qualifications available to student teachers in the lebowa bantustan, the quality of education they provided to learners was far below par. emphasis was placed on manual subjects, such as arts and culture, needlework, gardening, and sports (lebowa department of education, 1984a). the ptc prepared teachers for all primary school work in general and it did not give adequate attention to the specialised knowledge required to teach in different school phases. the subject matter knowledge obtained in a main subject area provides the knowledge base that underpins pedagogical content knowledge and is more important than general knowledge as depaepe et al., (2013) have documented. student teachers were prepared to meet the economic needs of the apartheid regime. the emphasis that the lebowa bantustan put on manual labour benefitted the apartheid government in the pursuit of its agenda of dominating the knowledge that was the basis of school curricula. insufficient training of teachers in scarce subjects such as mathematics, science, and commercial subjects can still be felt today. teacher education for africans was tailored in such a way that it prepared them to do manual labour while mental activities predominated in teacher training for white students at the prestigious universities. this was a deliberate process of othering: the dominant group used the differentiation of subjects to define into existence an inferior group as schwalbe ( 2000) has made clear. conclusion in this paper, i have used othering, a multidimensional process (spivak 1985), and structural racialisation to describe how teacher training was marginalised in the lebowa bantustan. the institution of the bantustan policy used several forms to other africans: the process of differentiation and demarcation, by which a line is drawn between the powerful and the subjugated; segregation and marginalisation; and the manipulative pedagogy described by spivak (1985). spatial inequality that resulted in othering of teacher education in the bantustan was influenced by a number of factors (structures) all of which form a system. i have highlighted three main systems—those that originate in the political, the social, and the physical. the national party government played a central role in the allocating of geographical areas to blacks and whites based on national party apartheid ideology. teachers in the lebowa bantustan received their training in a rural and poverty-stricken setting 2 unqualified teachers are described as those who do not have a professional teaching qualification and who have fewer years of training than the official norm of standard 10 (grade 12) certificate and a three-year professional qualification (arnott & chabane, 1995). seroto: the ‘othering’ of teacher training in lebowa bantustan 23 whereas their white counterparts were far more advantaged in terms of resources and opportunities. this arrangement was not neutral; it was politically motivated. social and racial inequities were geographically inscribed by the laws that government put into place. in general, african teachers were spatially isolated or othered from economic, educational, political, and technological power through the bantustan policy. this othering was interconnected since, for them to be inferior, subjugated and marginalised, they needed to be spatially isolated, to receive an inferior education, and be dependent on the white economy. i have demonstrated that the curriculum for teacher training colleges in lebowa bantustan was inferior, segregated, racialised, and othered. the subject, fundamental pedagogics amplified the difference in level of competence between african and white teachers. the others were under-qualified and unqualified compared to their white counterparts. the feminisation of the teaching profession at bantustan teacher training colleges expanded the male/female binary. an othered curriculum will necessarily have an impact on schooling segregation practices, educational achievements, the psychological dimension of teachers and learners, job segregation, the economy, graduation rates, and many other factors. it will also have an impact on other structures such as health and economic wellbeing. i have also established that to understand the underlying problem of teacher education, and other education issues, we need to focus on processes, structures, relationships, and the interconnectedness of the systems that create that particular problem of inequitable othering. powell and menendian (2016) have argued that the problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of othering and the only viable solution is inclusion and the fostering of a sense of belongingness. inclusion and belongingness embrace the idea of the “circle of human concern” (rudd, 2013, n.p.). widening the circle of human concern involves “humanizing the other,” where negative representations and stereotypes are challenged and rejected (powell & menendian, 2016, p. 32). references ally, s., & lissoni, a. 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(2017). assuming measurement invariance of background indicators in international comparative educational achievement studies: a challenge for the interpretation of achievement differences. large-scale assessments in education, 5(1–34). microsoft word bissue82-final.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 82, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i82a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x “we’ve been taught to understand that we don’t have anything to contribute towards knowledge”: exploring academics’ understanding of decolonising curricula in higher education mlamuli nkosingphile hlatshwayo curriculum studies, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa hlatshwayom@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9180-8803 innocentia alexander masters in education candidate, curriculum studies, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa innocentia09@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3961-6366 (received: 14 april 2020; accepted: 21 august 2020) abstract universities in the global south continue to grapple with the ethical demands of decolonising and transforming the public university and its episteme orientations. in this paper, we contribute to the emerging body of work in the global south that attempts to make sense of the transformation and decolonisation discourses by exploring academics’ understanding of decolonising curricula in south african higher education. using purposive sampling, we interviewed eight academics from the school of education who teach in a research-intensive university in kwazulu-natal, south africa. we relied on the field theory of pierre bourdieu to think through the notion of a research-intensive university being a contested and structuring field constituted of various actors and agents who are struggling to make sense of, and understand the calls for, decolonising and transforming curricula. the findings suggest that, largely, academics understand the decolonising of curricula as a response to the need to tackle and theorise the eurocentric thought in curricula and to re-centre african epistemic traditions and as well as navigate what they refer to as the confusion, ambiguity, and discomfort of decolonisation. we end this paper with some empirical and theoretical reflections on how exploring academics’ understanding of decolonizing curricula is central to the broader project of achieving social justice in the global south. keywords: decolonisation, transformation, education, academics, global south, curricula, higher education hlatshwayo & alexander: “we’ve been taught to understand that we don’t have anything . . .” 45 curricula remains largely eurocentric and continues to reinforce white and western dominance and privilege while at the same time being full of stereotypes, prejudices and patronising views about africa and its people . . . south africa must completely rethink, reframe and reconstruct the eurocentric and colonial curriculum and teaching methods at universities . . . [the] higher education system requires a fundamental overhaul of the whole epistemological model underlying the current educational system. (heleta, 2018, p. 2) introduction universities in the global south 1 continue to face intensive scrutiny and critique regarding the ever increasing demands to change, reform, transform, decolonise, and, in the indian higher education context, to de-commodify curricula in the academy (dey, 2019; hlatshwayo & fomunyam, 2019a; hlatshwayo & shawa, 2020). common to the above debates is the assumption that the contemporary university in its current constitution not only colonises, oppresses, and marginalises, but also fails to serve the interests of society, and thereby continues to reinforce its structural inequality (heleta, 2016; mbembe, 2016; morreira, 2017). in south africa, the emergence of the #rhodesmustfall student movement in 2015– 2016 became an intellectual signifier in foregrounding the deeply embedded coloniality and epistemic displacements in curricula in the south african academy. various academic fields such as education, english literature, sociology, political science, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, and others came under scrutiny as choosing to privilege the epistemic traditions of the “dead white men” to whom pett (2015) refers in the title of his piece in the conversation, at the expense of knowledge productions from the global south. in this paper, we contribute to the emergent literature in an exploration of the understanding of academics in an education faculty of what it means to decolonise curricula. we suggest that doing so offers us some insight into how academics make sense of and understand the calls for transformation, and to what extent this has implications for knowledge production, pedagogy, assessment, and other struggles in the university. we begin this paper by linking the calls for transformation and decolonisation in the south african academy to the broader struggles in the global south and discuss how south african universities are responding to these challenges, tensions, and opportunities. we then introduce our theoretical framework, bourdieu’s field theory, since it offers useful insights into, and understanding of, the notion of a research-intensive university being a formative structure. the education academics are viewed as competing actors who are grappling with the calls to decolonise curricula. we then outline the research methods of the study and clarify how data was generated, analysed, and theorised. thereafter, we turn to the heart of the paper—the findings and the discussion—in which we consider the three main themes of decolonisation as 1) the dismantling and displacement of a eurocentric curricula, 2) the re 1 by global south, we are not referring to physical boundaries and borders across different countries. we are referring specifically to the epistemic communities and alliances that exist between those who share a common experience and memory of colonisation and apartheid. thus, the alliances are not necessarily physical, but intellectual and epistemic in nature (see chakrabarty, 2009; comaroff & comaroff, 2012; gordon, 1997). 46 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 centring of african epistemic traditions, and 3) as disruption, ambiguity, confusion, and discomfort. finally, building on the views and understanding of academics in the field of education, we suggest how higher education in the global south in general and south african higher education in particular, can begin to respond to the clarion calls for decolonising curricula. transforming curricula: struggles, tensions, alienation universities in the global south are struggling to respond to the ever increasing demands to reimagine the purposes of higher education in a way that moves away from following the colonising neoliberal regimes in favour of embracing democratic institutions that foster social justice and belonging (see badat, 2017; ndlovu-gatsheni, 2013; quijano, 2000). curricula, and curriculum design is at the very heart of this demand, with both academics and students seeing the political economy of curriculum as offering a useful opportunity for dismantling and challenging whiteness (heleta, 2018). universities in india, new zealand, australia, canada, uk, the us, turkey, south africa, latin america, and others are all currently engaged in the struggle to transform curricula, and attempt to provincialise europe (chakrabarty, 2009). this has meant challenging the inequality in global knowledge production, with the global north ceasing to be seen as the epicentre of all epistemic thought, and the global south re-emerging as valid, legitimate, and a recognised producer of knowledge. writing about the challenges of explicating, exploring, and exposing coloniality in the field of anthropology, sanchez (2018) has suggested that there is a socially constructed inequality in the ways in which the history of white people and people of colour is written: if it is to be successful, decolonizing anthropology entails careful thinking about the relationship between power, place and race. a categorization of the world into a simple binary of ‘white people’ and ‘people of colour’ fails to interrogate the edges of racial identities, and the tensions and plurality of experiences within them. it is also not helpful for addressing the intersection of race with structures of gender and class. similarly, a coding of the world into colonized and colonizer does not grapple with the difficult fact that colonialism was not practised and experienced consistently across different times and region. (sanchez, 2018, pp. 3–4) in the south african context, the calls for decolonising and transforming 2 curricula have often suggested that the post-1994 political dispensation did very little to challenge or interrupt colonial and apartheid epistemic traditions, and bring about new and inclusive knowledges in curricula (heleta, 2018; hlatshwayo & fomunyam, 2019a; hlatshwayo & shawa, 2020). the 1990s and early 2000s were shaped and informed largely by a policy framework that sought to open the doors of higher education to all, especially for the millions 2 while there are new and emergent debates in south african higher education on the differences between transformation (which is seen as reforming the system) and decolonization (which is seen as overhauling and restructuring the system), in this paper we have adopted and operationalized both transformation and decolonization as being concerned with changing the system and attempting to make it socially just and inclusive. hlatshwayo & alexander: “we’ve been taught to understand that we don’t have anything . . .” 47 of black 3 students who were then structurally trapped and prevented from accessing historically white universities (badat, 1994; council of higher education (che), 2008, 2016). the emergence of the #rhodesmustfall in the 2015–2016 moment sought to challenge the “dead white men” discourse still prevalent in curricula and to call for the recentring of knowledges from the global south. the movement suggested that there still existed what could be referred to as epistemic colonisation (see keet, 2014), that is, colonisation at the level of thought and thus some efforts needed to be made to reclaim these forgotten and othered epistemic traditions still located at the margins of the academy. what was particularly interesting about the #rhodesmustfall movement was the manner in which the students linked the intersectional struggles of negotiating an alienating institutional culture, spatiality, gender, and heteronormativity to tackling transformative pedagogies since all are dialectically aligned with ensuring that curricula represents and responds to our context (almeida & kumalo, 2018; buthelezi, 2017; chikaonda, 2019). this was significant in that it moved beyond the narrow and nativist conception of africanisation which essentialises and simplifies what it means to be a political african subject (see msila and gumbo, 2016). the student movements called for a broader understanding of transforming curricula beyond precolonial, nativist, monolithic, and indigenous conceptions of blackness (see hlatshwayo & fomunyam, 2019a; naicker, 2016; ngcobozi, 2015). for le grange (2016), an authentic commitment to decolonising curricula is about the rejection of the euro-universalism of thought, as represented by the cartesian duality of cogito ergo sum. the “i” of cartesian duality represents and signifies the colonising european subject who is all-knowing, all-powerful and epistemically representative of the silencing and erasure of the colonised other, including their ways of being, seeing, knowing, and thinking. writing about this dialectical decolonisation, le grange (2016) suggests that decolonisation of the curriculum must involve liberating thought from the fetters of cartesian duality—from descartes’ cogito, ‘i think therefore i am’. he [le grange, 2015] argues that ubuntu (i am because we are) and the active force of currere celebrate the oneness of mind and body and the oneness of humans and the morethan-human-world. rather than subjectivity being individual, it is ecological. a decolonised curriculum is evidenced by a shift in subjectivity from the arrogant ‘i’ (of western individualism) to the humble ‘i’ to the ‘i’ that is embedded, embodied, extended and enacted. in an ever-changing world the pathways for becoming of a pedagogical life cannot be known or defined (le grange, 2016, pp. 8–9). in this paper, we contribute to this emerging literature on south african higher education by exploring academics’ understandings of decolonising curricula in the south african academy. 3 black is used in this context to denote two things. first, we do not use black as an apartheid and post-apartheid racial category and classification. rather, we use black in the bikoist and black consciousness tradition to denote all those who suffered and were discriminated against during apartheid (see morgan & baert, 2018). this includes those who are called black african, and colored, and those of indian and asian descent. second, black is capitalized to acknowledge the real and material challenges that those who are black are still experiencing in the global south (see grier et al. 2019). while we recognize the contemporary debates regarding the biological existence of what is known as race, we do, nonetheless, argue that black is still experienced in all its complexities, challenges, brutalities, and nuances. 48 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 we suggest that exploring this understanding of what the decolonising of curricula entails offers us useful insight into how academics make sense of the struggles to transform and decolonise curricula, and enables us to grasp the implications of some of the struggles, tensions, and ambiguities that academics are facing as well as the many realities they experience as they make sense of these calls. theoretical framings: bringing in bourdieu bourdieu’s theoretical notion of field theory is important if we are to understand the field of higher education and its role in contributing to inequality in society. bourdieu (1986/2011) draws on weber’s sociology of religion to argue that society is differentiated across a number of different semi-autonomous fields such as those of economics, language, education, political science, sociology, and others. these semi-autonomous fields are governed largely by their own rules of the game (maton, 2013) which include, for example, the economies of scale, rewards, and sanctions (bourdieu, 1984, 1986/2011; see, too, naidoo, 2004). bourdieu and wacquant (1974/1992, p. 97) have theorised a field as a “network or configuration, or objective relations between positions . . . [that] are objectively defined in their existence and in the determinations they impose upon their occupants, agents or institutions as well as their objective relations to other positions.” put differently, a field could be referred to as the “structured space of positions in which the positions and their interactions are determined by the distribution of different kinds of resources or capitals” (ihlen 2005, pp. 2–3). thus, a field should be seen as a space in which individuals compete with one another for resources. these resulting contestations and divisions often reflect class divisions, those between the dominant and the dominated class as well as between the economic and the political elites in society. in the field, the struggles are often for the different forms of capital— economic, cultural, and social. economic capital refers to the money, land, and other physical resources to which an agent may have access and/or possess. the cultural capital exists in three forms; in the embodied state through personal attributes, dispositions, taste, and habits (bourdieu, 1986/2011); through cultural goods like books and music that an agent consumes and/or listens to, and theories that an agent adheres to, practices, and inculcates; and through the institutionalised state in terms of qualifications and schooling as well as associations, the membership of which tends to signify belonging, acceptance, and (political) recognition (bourdieu, 1984). social capital refers to the networks and connections that reflect the “aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” (bourdieu 1986/2011, p. 83). in other words, social capital is made up of the connections, networks, membership, both formal and informal, to which an agent has access and from which an agent can actually withdraw. habitus refers to the “the semi-conscious dispositions that people, particularly in their early lives, acquire through social or material interaction with their habitat and through the social relations in their part of the social field” (fairclough et al. 2002, p. 9). habitus can be hlatshwayo & alexander: “we’ve been taught to understand that we don’t have anything . . .” 49 understood as a set of assumptions, the taken-for-grantedness that agents often have in how they make sense of and understand the world. overall, bourdieu offers some insightful theoretical tools we can use to make sense of the field of south african higher education and the contested calls for transformation and decolonisation. scholars such as naidoo (2004), booi et al. (2017) and hlatshwayo (2015) have employed bourdieu’s field theory to analyse and theorise the structural inequality and struggles in the academy, with emerging black academics and black working class students both feeling that they do not have the right kind of capital to navigate a historically white university’s institutional culture with its racism and oppression; this leads to their being marginalised and feeling that they do not belong. the concepts underlying field theory and the different forms of capital and habitus described as existing within that field, give us a rich language of description that enables us to describe a research-intensive university as a contested and complex field within the south african academy. methodological and data generation decisions the study was underpinned by a qualitative interpretivist case study (see bogdan & biklen, 1982; creswell & creswell, 2017; yin, 2017). we were interested in exploring the understanding of academics in education about what decolonising curriculum in south african higher education implies. the question that guided the study was this: what are academics’ conceptual understandings of the notion of decolonising curriculum in south african higher education? the setting of the study was a research-intensive university in kwazulu, south africa, that underwent a merger 4 and became a traditional university. eight academics, ranging from lecturers to senior lecturers 5 were purposively sampled across the school of education. attempts were made to diversify the sample in terms of age, race, sex, gender, discipline background, academic background, and religious orientation. gatekeeper permission and ethical clearance were obtained from the university. all participants were given consent forms and were also informed verbally about their rights in relation to taking part in the study. they were assured that their anonymity was protected, and informed that they had the right to withdraw at any stage. semi-structured interviews were held with all eight academics who participated in the study, and member checking was done to ensure that they were given a chance to go through their interview transcripts to approve, rectify and/or amend them to ensure that what was captured was exactly what had said and meant (see birt et al., 2016; simpson & quigley, 2016; varpio et al., 2017). 4 the apartheid regime sought to create different and fragmented institutions of higher learning across the system that would fit with the broader project of dividing the population through racial and tribal classifications (hlatshwayo & fomunyam, 2019a). the democratic dispensation thus had the ethical responsibility of merging some of the institutions to create a single coordinated higher education system in south africa that was regulated and coherent and that enabled progression in the system (badat, 2004; jansen, 2003). 5 in south african higher education, the traditional rank, hierarchy, and promotion range for academics is lecturer, senior lecturer, associate professor, professor. 50 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 the data was analysed in two ways. first, we began with a thematic analysis in which we coded, classified, and categorised the data in an effort to allow the data to speak for itself before imposing the theoretical framework (see braun et al., 2012; kilgore, 2017). second, we drew on the theoretical concepts of field theory, habitus, and the different forms of capital to see to what extent common (theoretical) patterns emerged from it. findings and discussion decolonisation as responding to (eurocentric) thought decentring eurocentric thought is at the centre of what academics strongly believe is meant by decolonising curricula in south african higher education (heleta, 2019). for the academics who took part in this study, the urgent priority facing the south african academy at the moment is ensuring that we expose the colonial roots of the curricula through exploring the kind of readings that are prescribed and the need to reclaim african historiographies. i think it will start with the selection of readings. who are we selecting and why [are] we selecting them . . . currently. i’m not teaching and what i used to do before [was to] ask myself the questions, ‘who am i selecting?’, ‘why must i select?’, ‘from which regions of the world [should i select]?’ [this was] because i think it is important especially in higher education. there’s a policy draft on internationalisation and i think knowing you and the student exchange was also part of the project of internationalisation [since] we need to expose our students to the different parts of the world. so, for me that was one. (thoko) i would say that it is understanding that you have eurocentric historiographies on [the] one hand and accompanying that [are] african perspectives because of the world that we [are] living in now during modernity. there’s this conflict between eurocentric historiographies and african historiographies and at some point we need to find a balance. so, decolonization is not entirely about doing away with the eurocentric thinking. it’s more about complementing each other so finding out as an african person firstly who are you as an african person and what makes you african. you do actually have agency and you don’t have to . . . be imprisoned by the hegemonic epistemic challenges that we faced as africans . . . so [we must] try to include african scholars in our modules and in our works. even when we are publishing we are encouraged to use african scholars and that way we are also influencing the way we teach and what we teach. (ntokozo) for the academics above, the politics of selecting which particular readings to use lies at the heart of the decolonial project. looking at the often hidden, intimate. and isolated site of curriculum design, or what bernstein (1975) refers to as the site of the discursive gap is critical to achieving the decolonial agenda in curricula. ntokozo’s and thoko’s conception of decolonising curricula reflects the arguments advanced by scholars such as ndlovu-gatsheni (2013), hlatshwayo and shawa (2020) and heleta (2018) who are not necessarily calling for the rejection of all eurocentric scholarship and its epistemic traditions but for the re-centring hlatshwayo & alexander: “we’ve been taught to understand that we don’t have anything . . .” 51 of previously othered knowledge systems, and for this agenda to be prioritized in higher education curricula. for ntokozo, there is a tension between eurocentric and african epistemic traditions, and, for him, the decolonial project is to ensure that there is a sensitive balance between the two. ntokozo’s and thoko’s conceptual understanding of decolonising curricula in the south africa academy reflects mbembe’s (2015) argument that the eurocentric canon is often deeply embedded in the curricula of the global south, and that this is one that “tries to portray colonialism as a normal form of social relations between human beings rather than a system of exploitation and oppression” (p. 32). buhle, below, offers a different conception of decolonising curricula. for her, decolonisation is a dialectical relationship between decolonising the mind as well as the place one is occupying. for her, there is a relationship between the mind and space. she believes that before we attempt to decolonise and transform our environment, we need, first, to focus on the self and make sure that we are transformative intentional actors. she said, decolonising the curriculum is a last resort. i think we first have to decolonise our minds . . . because i can’t get to decolonise the documents or the theories and the philosophies when my mind is still. . . stuck in a colonial way. so, it starts with the individual and [deciding] what is it that needs to be done. so decolonisation is broad and it goes a very long way because [we are] decolonising the space that was previously a white space and . . . we also wonder how people are reading your presence in the space, because when you say you are decolonising the curriculum they will even question what . . . you know about the theories for you to be able to go to the extent of decolonising. it’s all about . . . how are we thinking about the things that we do and particularly in [this] space, and how we are thinking about the things that we are teaching. buhle’s concern about the need to decolonise the mind indicates some of the pain, anguish, and frustration that black academics often have to navigate and negotiate when they make their entry into the academy where they are often seen as bodies out of place (see khunou et al., 2019) and as “space invaders” (according to the title of puwar’s (2004) book) who are neither valued nor recognised. for black academics, like buhle, who do not have the right kind of habitus in the academy, that is, the values, attributes, gazes, and dispositions that are valued and legitimated in it, teaching and learning and changing curricula often bring challenges and meet resistance, resulting in academics being questioned, judged, and deemed potential troublemakers who do not know what they are doing. academics, largely, have understood the decolonising of curricula as not only responding to the eurocentrism in them, but also as balancing the tension between european epistemic traditions and african knowledge systems. this has meant that academics are critically aware and reflective of the kinds of readings they are choosing, and the geographical positions of scholars they are citing. the discourse of decolonising curricula has largely been underpinned by a re-centring of other knowledge systems rather than the replacement of western epistemic traditions. often, academics are aware of the struggles they are confronting in the 52 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 academy and of the need to have the right kind of habitus in order for them to navigate and negotiate the space. re-centring african epistemic traditions in curricula re-centring african epistemic traditions features prominently in the literature as one of the strategies for decolonising curricula in the global south (see le grange, 2016; madlingozi, 2018; zondi, 2018). re-centring african epistemic traditions is also critical to the academics who took part in this study about how curricula could be transformed and decolonised in the south african university. for most of these academic participants, dismantling the eurocentric curriculum and its colonising gaze is not enough. they also expressed some of the excitement, frustrations, challenges, and opportunities that come with attempting to transform curricula. reflecting on this, menzi comments below on what could be referred to as an epistemic and ontological separation in having to dislocate himself and his indigenous knowledge systems that are not recognized, valued, and legitimated in the south african schooling system, in order to negotiate his entry and success at university. he said, i grew up in a context where . . . lots of black south africans can relate to this . . . where my worldview as an african person for instance was completely removed from my education[al] worldviews. as a rural young man i had practices and experiences which were not given attention in the educational system in the classroom so i was taught science and technology in an abstract westernised way which did not have a direct link to who i am as a person. so, my personal world views and my educational views were not meeting each other. there was no interaction and it made me struggle so much in learning science. i will give you some instances; growing up i knew how to ferment a number of foods and locally here you ferment zulu beer and all that so i know how many days particular food items will stay before they ferment. (menzi) for menzi above, there are epistemic and ontological implications that come with having to implement alienating and largely eurocentric and colonising curricula. there was a social disconnection between the indigenous knowledge systems that he was taught and in which he was socialised at home and curricula that kept rejecting him and making him feel inferior in the classroom. as we can see, the traditional cultural capital with which he grew up did not align with that valued by the university and this resulted in conflict. this social disconnection has real and material implications for how he struggled academically given that the curriculum was alienating and, furthermore, inaccessible to him. boughey and mckenna (2016) write about this phenomenon in the south african academy as consisting of methods and strategies that decontextualise learners in that their habitus and cultural capital that they bring to the academy along with their backgrounds, perspectives, indigenous knowledge systems, traditions, and cultural practices are disregarded at the altar of eurocentric methods and their voices are silenced along with their languages. the aim becomes one of inducting students into a specific academic literacy and other forms of colonising regimentation to make them fit neatly and cleanly into the academy. hlatshwayo & alexander: “we’ve been taught to understand that we don’t have anything . . .” 53 continuing on this existential conception of curricula and why they need to be decolonised, sithembile sees this endeavour as africans fighting to be themselves and to succeed in the academy. decolonisation is just decolonisation which is the africa we’ve been taught or made to understand [in which] we do not have anything to contribute towards knowledge. we don’t have any form of systematic learning that existed before hence there is nothing to harness from that, so we were then given a eurocentric kind of way of thinking. so now for me it’s just the reclaiming back of what africa has to ask for in terms of knowledge systems that worked for thousands of years. (sithembile) decolonisation as negotiating confusion and ambiguity, and dealing with disruptions although there is broad consensus in the field regarding the ethical commitment to transforming and decolonising curricula, there are still some disagreements and a great deal of ambiguity and confusion that academics express regarding what decolonisation means and what is demanded of them, and, perhaps more importantly, for them. they need to know how to embrace the call to begin to decolonise their curricula. njabulo and sithembile commented on these challenges in feeling that “they have to” decolonise, and navigating what they feel is increasingly becoming an imposed decolonial “buzzword” for them. njabulo said, i know i have to do it and i think i have kind of. . . an idea how to incorporate it into my teaching and making sure it is part of the course that i’m teaching but i haven’t started doing [this]. it is taking time for me to really get to a deep understanding of what these people mean. when i say what do these people mean, i’m talking about the people who are advocating for decolonisation. to some extent, i got involved in a committee which was involved in curriculum transformation in another university and i discovered there a lot of misunderstandings about what this mean[s]. sithembile said, for me, i always get the sense that people think that there has not been some form of decolonising the curriculum that had been taking place before it became the buzzword. . . for me the fact that in our teaching we draw on our african context . . . although we are [also] speaking in terms of these dead white men. but we also supplement the understanding with our own kind of context so it’s not like i don’t know for me. it’s as if we are acting as [though] it’s something that some people have not done. we’ve always taught our context. you understood where you were at so when you speak and [use] examples . . . you draw from . . . things that will relate to the learners that are in your school. for njabulo, there is frustration, confusion, and animosity surrpunding the calls for decolonisation. she feels that the project has become impositionist in nature, with “these people”—her fellow academics and proponents of decolonisation—forcing her to transform 54 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 and decolonise her curricula. this, we argue, raises the ethics of decoloniality so we have to ask to what extent can we decolonise and transform curricula through the neoliberal individualist framework in which individuals are asked to self-transform and decolonise in and of themselves without any external force or pressure? teferra (2020) echoes sithembile’s and njabulo’s argument above and calls for what he refers to as the shift from “dumb decolonization” to “smart internationalisation” (para. 8) in cautioning against what he sees as the hidden and implicit co-option of the nativist conceptions of the university in rejecting its universal epistemic orientations. although we are deeply troubled by teferra (2020)’s conceptual and philosophical collapsing of decolonisation with africanisation, his critique is nonetheless valid in helping us to align decolonising curricula with the imperatives of internationalisation which would enable south african universities to be competitive and to become centres of choice in global knowledge production. furthermore, beyond sithembile’s suggestion that decolonisation has become a buzzword there is a growing sense from the academics that the calls for decolonising curricula have been rooted in what academics have termed the “disruptive” and “politicised” student protests. reflecting on this, menzi said, disruptive university student strikes sometimes can be politicised and things can get out of hand quickly and easily. you know there’s this usual stuff of stopping lectures and not allow[ing] anyone to come onto campus and all that. so, yes, if that is what disruptive means . . . sometimes . . . when people strike what i ask them is. ‘why strike?’ and sometimes they misinterpret [but] sometimes you see people striking [and]you don’t even know why they are striking and even those that are participating in the strikes don’t know why they are striking! so sometimes they just take management on [with] no prior notice or information or queries or enquiries. and boom there is a strike so there’s disrupt[ion] of academic programs and people don’t go in or come out and all of that but . . . it is disrupting the academic programs and it was stopping people from coming in and going out [of campus]. in the extract above, menzi equates decolonising of curricula with the emergent student protests that have largely disrupted the academic programmes at south african universities. other academics have reflected on feeling vulnerable, isolated, and, at times, depressed in attempting to engage with student protests that have often disrupted lectures and seminar discussions while feeling that they are not getting any support from the university itself. these concerns are further echoed by hlatshwayo and fomunyam (2019a) who write about what they refer to as the underbelly of the #rhodesmustfall that resulted in the increasing militarisation, bullying, entitlement, demands, and contestations in curricula reform in the south african university. conclusion universities in the global south continue to grapple with the increasing clarion calls for decolonising and transforming the public university (see mukherjee, 2017). in south africa, hlatshwayo & alexander: “we’ve been taught to understand that we don’t have anything . . .” 55 the 2015–2016 student movements brought to our dinner tables discussion of the often marginalising and alienating curricula that academics and students often experience and struggle to negotiate (heffernanet al., 2016; hlatshwayo & fomunyam, 2019b). in this paper, we have foregrounded and explored academics’ understanding of decolonising curricula in a research-intensive university in south africa. the findings suggest that academics often understand the decolonisation of curricula as being, largely, a process of responding to and dismantling what is seen to be a eurocentric and colonising one, and the need to re-centre african epistemic traditions such as indigenous knowledge systems. there are still growing concerns regarding the confusion and ambiguity, and the disruption that is brought about by decolonisation with some academics feeling that they do not understand what decolonisation is committed to and what the implications are for them. also, they experience the vulnerability that comes with the increasing militarisation and student protests on campus. based on the above conclusions, we therefore make the following recommendations. • more theoretical and empirical research is still required to explore academics’ understanding of the calls for transformation and decolonisation. there is often an implicit and hidden assumption that academics 1) know and understand what decolonisation is, 2) what is expected of them, and 3) that they all have a singular and monolithic conception of achieving decolonial aims. further research is still required to explore all these nuances, complexities, and potential contradictions. • there is often a conceptual collapse and categorical error that is made in the literature when decolonisation is used interchangeably with the nativist forms of africanisation (see, for example, teferra, 2020; madlingozi, 2018). further theoretical explications are required that will tease out the differences so as to avoid ambiguities and confusion between the two theoretical strands. references almeida, s., & kumalo, s. h. 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(2017). case study research and applications: design and methods. sage. zondi, s. (2018). decolonising international relations and its theory: a critical conceptual meditation. politikon, 45(1), 16–31. microsoft word cissue79 full 15june.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 79, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i79a02 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x developing an integrated, situated model for digital literacy in pre-service teacher education ed campbell school of education, university of cape town, cape town, south africa cmpedu001@myuct.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6430-8202 rochelle kapp school of education, university of cape town, cape town, south africa rochelle.kapp@uct.ac.za (corresponding) https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7878-8721 (received: 20 november 2019; accepted: 15 april 2020) abstract in this article, we draw on the findings of a qualitative case study of the digital practices and perceptions of four pre-service english teachers in order to make the case for an integrated situated approach to digital literacy that takes identities into account. our case study highlighted the ways in which the student teachers’ perceptions of their own digital proficiency and of the affordances of the digital acted as barriers in their classrooms. drawing on insights from new literacy studies and authentic learning theorists, we describe how we used these findings to inform subsequent curriculum design and pedagogy. we argue that in order for student teachers to engage meaningfully with the digital, they need to be provided with models and authentic tasks in the discipline that enable them to explore and then reflect on how to use the affordances of the digital as a tool for learning in their classrooms. keywords: english teacher education, digital literacy, new literacy studies, authentic learning, identity introduction over the past 15 years, numerous studies have shown that while technology is increasingly used in classrooms and often seen as the solution to educational problems, it is not used optimally in school classrooms, regardless of its affordances (burnett, 2011; hughes & robertson, 2013; keating, gardiner & rudd, 2009; lim & khine, 2006; prinsloo & sasman, 2015; ). research by lim and khine (2006) concluded that despite its capability to transform teaching and learning, many teachers experience barriers when integrating technology and campbell & kapp: developing an integrated, situated model for digital literacy . . . 19 this serves to relegate its use to the periphery. and yet, relatively little research attention has been paid to pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the digital and the effects thereof on practices. in this article, we draw on the findings of a qualitative case study on the digital practices and perceptions of four pre-service english teachers who identified their digital proficiency as limited. conducted by the first author, campbell, at a south african university in 2015, the case study was motivated by our difficulties with trying to integrate digital literacy into a course on english methods for pre-service high school teachers during the previous year. the vastly different levels of digital proficiency within the class resulted in varying degrees of uptake and resistance by the student teachers when they were required to engage in tasks. while we attempted to address this through more explicit mediation, the introduction of designated digital literacy classes in the english methods course seemed in some ways to reinforce an already existing digital divide in the class. those students who were already technologically proficient and confident about their use of technology participated enthusiastically and designed interactive innovative lessons, while those who felt less able tended to avoid exploration of the affordances of unfamiliar territory. interestingly, the barriers did not conform to conventional social categories such as social class, gender, educational background, or race and we realised that we needed to know much more about the perceptions and challenges experienced by those who struggled (see campbell, 2016). research in south africa by czerniewicz and brown (2013) has highlighted that, contrary to the generalised description of young people as “digital natives” (prensky, 2001, p. 1), many south african students enter higher education as relative digital strangers. our case study data supports this finding and further highlights the student teachers’ perceptions of their own digital proficiency and of the affordances of the digital, as well as how these perceptions influence their practices. we outline the case study and its findings briefly to provide context and then describe how we used these insights and drew on new literacy studies and authentic learning principles to develop an integrated situated approach to pre-service digital literacy education that attempts to address existing barriers by taking student learning and identity into account. conceptualising digital literacy recent research has recognised the limitations of conceptualising the digital as a set of discrete skills that could be taught to teachers and that would consequently lead to better technology integration by them (chigona, 2013; ivala, chigona, condy, & gachago, 2013; prinsloo & sasman, 2015;). drawing on the work of post-structuralist theorists, in particular new literacy studies (gee, 1990; street, 1984), this research has contested the notion of digital proficiency as a set of decontextualised generic skills, redefining it as a literacy practice located within a particular discourse with accepted, characteristic ways of “sayingdoing-being-valuing-believing” (gee, 1990, p. 142). 20 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 the notion of literacy as social practice (barton, hamilton, & ivanič, 2000), expands the concept to include modes other than written language that are “multiple, multimodal, and multifaceted” (alverman, ruddell, & unrau, 2013, p. 1150). martin’s (2008) definition of digital literacy captures the inextricable connection between the digital and the context in which it is used. [digital literacy is] the awareness, attitude and ability of individuals to appropriately use digital tools and facilities to identify, access, manage, integrate, evaluate, analyse and synthesize digital resources, construct new knowledge, create media expressions, and communicate with others, in the context of specific life situations, in order to enable constructive social action; and to reflect upon this process. (p. 167) this conceptualisation foregrounds practice or what teachers “do” (barton et al., 2000, p. 6), that is, the “routinized” activities that constitute the norm in their classrooms and are considered meaningful and legitimate within their disciplines (reckwitz, 2002, p. 250). in this view, teachers’ digital practices reflect their underlying constructions of the digital and their understanding of its relationship to student learning and disciplinary content. in terms of this research, the conceptualisation of the digital as situated also enables a distinction between those literacy practices that are unconsciously acquired among peers within home discourses and those that characterise the more formally taught “secondary discourses” (gee, 2008, p. 143) that are integral to the ways of constructing knowledge in schooling and academic disciplines (lankshear & knobel, 2011). as teacher educators, this shifts our thinking away from deficit constructions of literacy practices towards considering how to identify and harness the resources that pre-service teachers bring into the teacher education space, as well as how these may be connected to facilitate learning in their classrooms. a significant body of research has described the ways in which teachers mimic the pedagogy that characterised their own schooling and the difficulties experienced by teacher education programmes in disrupting the investment in strongly held beliefs about classroom norms, appropriate pedagogy, and literacy practices that are the consequence of student teachers’ own experiences of school discourses (carrington & selva, 2010; ryan, 2011). the preservice teacher education context is also challenging: student teachers are often intensely focussed on their own performance in the classroom rather than on student learning because they are aware of being constantly observed, monitored, and assessed (fox, campbell, & hargrove, 2011). these insights point to the inextricable connection between identity and learning (christie, 2008; pym & kapp, 2013; walker, 2010). the extent to which teachers can connect and engage with newer literacy practices is likely to influence, in turn, their classroom practices and their constructions of learners and learning. an understanding of how student teachers perceive the role of the digital in their classrooms and position themselves in relation to the affordances of the digital is therefore essential to developing contextually appropriate pre-service teacher education. campbell & kapp: developing an integrated, situated model for digital literacy . . . 21 the case study the case study was conducted over a period of five months. the participants were all females with undergraduate arts and social science degrees and varying amounts of work experience. they were enrolled in a year-long postgraduate certificate in education (pgce) for high school pre-service teachers. the participants were taught by the authors in an english methods course. their ages ranged from mid-twenties to mid-thirties. the data was gathered from four sources: (1) questionnaires providing background on participants’ biographies, perceptions of and experiences with technology; (2) the participants’ detailed lesson plans in which digital literacy had been integrated; (3) written reflections on these lesson plans, which included a rationale for their use of technology, as well as narratives of the difficulties experienced; and (4) a video-recorded, semi-structured focus group interview conducted after their first teaching practice, that focussed on the participants’ perceptions of digital literacy, their decisions concerning the use of the digital in their lesson plans and experiences in the classroom, as well as their observations of mentor teachers’ use of digital technology over a period of five weeks during their first teaching practice session. the first author was responsible for the collection of data. while he co-taught the two digital literacy classes that preceded the data collection period, he was not involved in the assessment of the participants’ assignments and did not engage in regular contact sessions nor in general communication with the students. his minimal involvement with the participants along with his familiarity with the participants’ backgrounds placed him in an ideal position to collect data while still being distant enough from the participants to limit possible coercion, and power differentials coming into play. after ethical approval for the study had been obtained and it had been presented to the class, four participants volunteered to participate. they were guaranteed anonymity and all names used in this article are pseudonyms. although they came from diverse educational, race, and social class backgrounds and had varied degrees of digital proficiency and teaching experience, all four participants stated that they volunteered to participate in the project because they perceived their digital literacy as limited and believed that engagement with the research would benefit their understanding of how to integrate digital literacy into their future classes as practising teachers. the participants submitted their reflective writing regularly. power differentials were further limited through the decision to conduct a focus group interview, rather than individual interviews, as well as the decision to adopt a semi-structured approach. the participants knew each other well and the atmosphere of camaraderie in the focus group enabled open engagement. using the research focus on participants’ perceptions and practices as a guiding tool, as well as the nvivo software system to organise the interview, lesson plan, questionnaire and reflection data, categories were assigned by clustering similar ideas and then assigning themes to the data as suggested by ryan and bernard (2003). while the use of multiple data 22 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 sources over a period of time aimed to mitigate reactivity, we assumed that participants’ perceptions would shift, especially after their experiences of teaching practice. we also assumed that while the first author was not involved in assessment of their work, his role as a digital literacy specialist would likely influence the participants’ responses. however, our focus was on the meanings that the participants attributed to the lessons they produced and their “routinized” classroom digital practices (reckwitz, 2002, p. 250). we were interested in how they viewed their teaching practice contexts, their use of resources, their experiences of the digital, and how they positioned themselves in relation to integration of digital literacy in their classrooms. consequently, we focused on the “activity of identifying” (sfard & prusak, 2005, p. 17) in participants’ reflective commentaries in relation to the actual lesson plans they produced. the patterns, contradictions, and silences produced by this analysis served as a resource for our subsequent curriculum development efforts. pre-service teachers’ perceptions and practices a crucial finding from the research was that, while the participants expressed deep insecurity about their digital proficiency in their reflective commentary and the interview, the background questionnaire showed that all four used a range of digital devices extensively in their informal contexts and had done so for years. the focus group discussion revealed that they measured their digital proficiency in terms of proficiency with specific devices and programmes. so, for example, the fact that their practice-teaching sites were equipped with electronic interactive white boards, often informally referred to in schools as smart boards, with which they were unfamiliar, caused considerable unease and was mentioned on numerous occasions during the focus group interview. this could be seen in a participant’s comment that she was “quite upset” that an “expensive piece of equipment”, the smart board, “was being used as a white screen” in her teaching practice school. when the specific devices or programmes with which they were familiar were not used in their teaching practice contexts, the participants struggled to conceptualise how they would integrate digital literacy in their teaching. this finding points to a conflation of specific digital applications with digital literacy. it suggests that the teachers were focussed less on the use of the affordances of the digital for student learning and more on their own digital proficiency and insecurities about their technical digital skills. another important and related finding was that the participants seemed to conflate digital literacy practices with internet literacy and described their integration of digital literacy into lessons in terms of their use of the internet. they viewed the internet as a starting point for their lesson-planning and preparation, but simultaneously described it as “daunting” and “overwhelming.” for example, one participant stated during the interview, “i think if you’re using . . . if you’re going online for academic purposes there . . . for me there’s all the sudden information overload . . . you don’t know where [spoken with emphasis] to finally stop now . . . to use that information.” in the focus group interview another participant described the tension between the usefulness and overwhelming nature of the internet, saying, campbell & kapp: developing an integrated, situated model for digital literacy . . . 23 i find personally that, and i think it translates the same evidently, that online there is so much information, and a lot of it is nonsense and a lot of it is stuff you could actually use, you know, depending on what you’re looking for. in essence, their lesson-planning focus was on searching, navigating, and evaluating already existing content on the internet. participants spent many hours in this endeavour. while they believed that their internet searches would yield innovative and imaginative ways of presenting their lessons, an analysis of their lesson plans and reflective commentaries showed that their use of the internet tended to be confined to creating visual and/or audio hooks to engage learners, to provide an introduction to their lessons, and to connect to learners’ prior knowledge. while these are all pedagogically sound uses of the internet, it was notable that the participants used the digital in presentation mode. their lessons tended to reproduce and confirm rather than facilitate critical engagement and challenge their learners’ assumptions and beliefs. in general, it seemed that participants’ fears about the learners’ digital proficiency also played a role in their classroom practice. when they felt that their own digital practices were inferior to their learners, they limited learners’ engagement in digital practices. for example, while the participants were all active seasoned users of social media in their personal lives, and their lesson plans revealed that they actively engaged their learners in discussions about social media usage in their learners’ home discourses, they limited social media integration in their lesson plans to academic discussions about social media on topics such as “the dangers of social media” or “how to deal with cyberbullying.” apart from their discomfort with integrating social media as educational tools in their lesson plans, the interviews and reflective commentaries showed that participants wanted to limit their learners’ digital literacy practices in the classroom, mostly because they thought that the learners might also be overwhelmed by the internet, or because they believed that the use of digital media might threaten their ability to exert control in their classes. in the focus group interview, a participant remarked, i think that [searching the internet] could be difficult for students . . . how much time do they spend looking at different sites for information? for us, that time they spent looking, they could have been just reading already what they had. . . in response, another participant immediately connected learners’ digital literacy practices to issues of control by saying, we would be advancing, but then how do you . . . control so that you as the teacher are in control and . . . ‘yes, they have the poem or whatever text in front of them’ and they are not doing something else. these fears seemed directly related to well-documented teacher fears about loss of authority and power in the classroom (mccarty, 2006). what is significant is the ways in which participants’ perceptions and practices restricted and confined the use of the digital as a resource for learning. it seemed that participants were also directly affected by school 24 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 policies and practices. generally, they witnessed very few models of integration of digital literacy in english classes during their teaching practice in schools. they also aligned themselves with localised school policies that banned the use of cell phones in schools. developing an integrated, situated model drawing on these findings, we re-designed the english methods curriculum the following year in order to fully integrate digital literacy and address the digital divide by taking preservice teachers’ digital literacy practices and their constructions of the digital into account. our goal was to develop a model which would view their perceptions and digital practices as significant resources, and which would deliberately move them away from conceptualising the digital as a set of separate skills. new literacy studies provided an important theoretical lens for conceptualising the notion of the digital as situated literacy. gee’s (1990) notion that proficiency in a secondary discourse is attained through both unconscious acquisition and through explicit mediation to enable meta-awareness, was an important underlying framework. through the research process, we realised that in a context like the south african school classroom, where use of the digital is still optional and where its role in the curriculum is confined to functional, decontextualised genres (such as e-mail), we needed to find a way to motivate the teachers to see the value of the digital as a tool for learning in their disciplines. to do so, they would need opportunities to explore, reflect on, and experience the process through tasks drawn from their disciplines and would need to be exposed to models of excellent practice in the discipline. we found that authentic learning, as articulated by herrington (2006) offers a task-based pedagogical approach with which to operationalise the concept of apprenticeship articulated by gee (1990), through its emphasis on situated modelling, scaffolding, coaching, reflection, and authentic tasks. the emphasis on collaborative problem-solving, framed by herrington (2006) as engagement in ill-defined tasks that can be approached from multiple points of entry, seemed particularly helpful since it enabled students to draw on and reflect on their diverse prior experiences, thus foregrounding the centrality of teaching and learning contexts and also building confidence. in order to further aid pre-service teachers in drawing on the strength of their own experiences, our model for digital literacy in english teacher education places emphasis on lessons as “literacy events” (barton et al., 2000, p. 3), rather than foregrounding specific digital skills. barton and colleagues, foremost proponents of situated literacy approaches, define the literacy event as an interaction in which written language is central to its activities. they outline the elements of the literacy event as “settings, participants, artefacts and activities” (p. 17), which are constantly interacting. the digital is therefore viewed as an artefact embedded within the classroom context and highly contingent on other elements in the classroom —elements that are not necessarily viewed as digital per se. we argue that the situated literacy approach, coupled with gee’s (1990) notion of apprenticeship as guiding theory and herrington’s authentic learning (2006) as a method of operationalising these theories in practice, is an effective model for digital literacy in teacher education. the model campbell & kapp: developing an integrated, situated model for digital literacy . . . 25 has the potential to enable pre-service teachers to value their practices and to extend their resources in order to facilitate good teaching practice. below, we provide a brief outline of examples of the ways in which we drew on this model to address student-teachers’ deficit constructions of their own digital proficiency and their perception of the digital as an add-on separate skill. herrington (2006) has stressed that facilitating authentic learning is not just about providing examples from the real world. for meaningful learning to happen, there has to be a sense of purpose and motivation. an important move in the re-design of the curriculum was to shift away from labelling digital literacy a separate additional component of the curriculum and, rather, foregrounding its role in facilitating access to meaning in texts and facilitating critical language awareness, reiterating this through tasks. this approach enabled student teachers to realise the affordances of the digital in teaching textual analysis skills and to realise that they had existing skills and knowledge to offer. the approach inherently highlights the embeddedness and contingency of the digital among other elements within the literacy event (barton et al., 2000). for example, while working on strategies for teaching a play, students worked collaboratively to assess and critically analyse the value of websites that could be used as resources to facilitate engagement with the play and help mediate shakespearean language. the task promoted vigorous discussion about what material was appropriate to use for teaching high school students, thus enabling the pre-service teachers to develop explicit criteria for evaluating websites that drew on their refined pre-reading and overview skills, as well as on their established practices with analysis of visuals, date of publications, context, relevance, authorship, their digital search strategies and their in-depth knowledge of the play and the difficulties of teaching shakespeare. they were provided with additional information about how to assess the authenticity and credibility of websites. this exercise surfaced many of the pre-service teachers’ anxieties surrounding the internet and enabled them to share search strategies and practices. through collaborative authentic activities, they were able to see that many of their established intuitive search and critical analysis skills regarding the internet were valuable. this meant that they were provided with an explicit meta-language to describe and discuss these issues with their own learners, as well as with explicit guidance on how to hone their existing search skills. we also used this task as an opportunity to discuss the potential affordances of using their learners’ knowledge of the then dominating social media platform, facebook, as a resource for the understanding of character, motivation, and plot in othello. this provided an opportunity for student-teachers to address their own preconceptions about the role of social media and to address its potential as an educational tool in the classroom. this discussion was revisited after the student-teachers’ first teaching practice by placing the negative constructions about the role of social media in a prescribed textbook comprehension exercise alongside a more positive article. the activity was used to stimulate debate about constructions of social media, but, importantly, also to develop lessons which stimulated the 26 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 creation of higher order questions on analysing point of view in texts through close textual analysis, comparison, and writing tasks. another strategy was to draw on the pre-service teachers’ knowledge of lesson-planning to enable them to reflect on the affordances of the digital in the context of a poetry lesson. in this instance, the lecturer’s own use of the digital, particularly digital images obtained from google images, was assessed collaboratively by the class. together they reflected on the affordances of digital resources that had been produced by students in previous years. these tasks reinforced the importance of purpose and audience in making choices about when and how to use technology. it highlighted the subjectivity of digital choices, and in so doing, addressed some of the affective issues raised by the case study. student teachers were then required to work collaboratively to produce a poetry lesson. all the groups used the same poem but were allocated different scenarios in terms of available digital resources. this meant that they had to think through the affordances of the digital for facilitating poetry teaching, as well as how to make optimal use of limited resources in underresourced teaching contexts. using a scenario as part of an “activity” in the literacy event (barton et al., 2000, p. 17) enabled multiple views on the limits and possibilities of the digital and also challenged the students not to use the digital as a substitute for critical engagement and/or only as a hook to engage their students. it also encouraged them to make creative use of low-tech resources such as drawing, gesture, and sound. in order to facilitate meaningful acquisition of a situated notion of digital literacy practice, this combination of modelling, collaborative task-based activity, scaffolded reflection and discussion was reiterated throughout the year using content material that resonated with the school english curriculum. in addition to this, the pre-service teachers were encouraged to use and reflect on the classroom activities in their teaching practice. this recursive process of connecting theory to practice through dialogue and reflection is central to the process of developing meta-awareness about the role of the digital in facilitating learning. the approach also stressed critical engagement and explicit discussions were conducted on how to negotiate the digital divide in their classrooms in relation to particular tasks. this was done after the pre-service teachers had experienced different teaching practice contexts. to reinforce this critical engagement and the multiple perspective approach, excellent school teachers from many contexts were invited to the english methods contact sessions to share their digital literacy practices and the challenges of integration. we viewed two teachers bringing their learners in to the english methods class to explain how they had benefitted from digitally-based, peer-learning in their english and history classes as a highlight of our study. through this process we were also able to challenge the relatively conservative construction of literacy as being only about reading and writing in the school english curriculum, as well as the narrow construction of the digital as confined to the use of technology for decontextualised isolated tasks. whereas the activities and tasks during the year were fairly defined and scaffolded through prompt questions, coaching, and modelling, the final task for the year entailed completing an campbell & kapp: developing an integrated, situated model for digital literacy . . . 27 “ill-defined” digital task, defined by herrington as “activities which have real-world relevance, and which present a single complex task to be completed over a sustained period of time” (2006, p. 4), which drew on the digital literacy, textual analysis, and reflection skills developed through the year. this task required the teachers to reflect on their development as teachers or develop a digital classroom resource. they could choose to work collaboratively, so that technically more advanced pre-service teachers could aid those who were not as advanced, in an attempt to compensate for the digital divide, even if just partially. since this was a big task, they were encouraged to collaborate using social media and other digital communication resources (like whatsapp and google classroom), so they could work on their videos outside class. the move from explicit, well-defined, scaffolded tasks to a more open-ended “ill-defined” task enabled pre-service teachers to apply their learning and receive peer feedback within the safe space of the english methods class. conclusion when we set out to integrate digital literacy into the english methods class, we assumed a great deal about our pre-service teachers’ investment in the digital and their grasp of its affordances for learning. the case study illustrated the importance of a focus on student teachers’ interpretation of the role of the digital in their classrooms in relation to their own digital literacy practices. it illustrated how the participants’ perceptions of their digital literacy competence and the strong boundaries they delineated between home and academic literacies played a role in the extent to which they used the digital in their classrooms, as well as in the ways in which they constrained their learners’ practices. the participants conceptualised the digital as a relatively neutral add-on tool and used it as a means to engage their learners rather than as an intentional context-specific resource for learning. the case study thus foregrounded the importance of taking teachers’ identities and conceptions of the digital into account. it illustrated the need to fully integrate digital literacy into our own pedagogy rather than identify it as a discrete skill with the expectation that preservice teachers would figure out how to integrate it as a tool for learning into specific aspects of their pedagogy. thus, our subsequent curriculum intervention focussed on scaffolding, explicit instruction, modelling, and collaborative learning using authentic tasks in order to create opportunities for exploration and reflection and to build meta-awareness (gee, 1990; herrington, 2006). while it is always difficult to quantify the success of curriculum change, our student evaluations have been overwhelmingly positive and our approach in subsequent years has yielded a much stronger take-up in development of wellintegrated creative digital resources as well as critical reflection on the affordances of the digital for learning. the combination of situated, explicit instruction combined with practice and reflection over time and in relation to experiences in schools has enabled the pre-service teachers to view the digital as a legitimate resource for learning and it has enabled a focus on the learners and their prior knowledge, thus challenging the rigid conceptions of the boundaries between school and home discourses. 28 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 declaration of interest statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. acknowledgement this work was supported by the national research fund (nrf) under grant sfh13092346700; and the university of cape town teaching development grant 07/11/2014. references alverman, d. e., unrau, n. j., & ruddell, r. b. (2013). theoretical models and processes of reading. newark, nj: international reading association. barton, d., hamilton, m., & ivanič, r. (2000). situated literacies: reading and writing in context. london, uk: routledge. burnett, c. (2011). pre-service teachers’ digital literacy practices: exploring contingency in identity and digital literacy in and out of educational contexts. language and education, 25(5), 433–499. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/09500782.2011.584347. campbell, e. g. (2016). pre-service teachers’ practices and perceptions: integrating digital literacy into english teacher education (unpublished masters thesis). university of cape town, rsa. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22765 carrington, s., & selva, g. (2010). critical reflection and transformative learning: evidence in pre-service teachers’ service-learning logs. higher education research and development, 29(1), 45–57. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/07294360903421384. chigona, a. (2013). using multimedia technology to build a community of practice: preservice teachers’ and digital storytelling in south africa. international journal of education & development using information & communication technology, 9(3), 17–27. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1071388.pdf christie, p. (2008). changing schools in south africa: opening the doors of learning. johannesburg, rsa: heinemann. czerniewicz, l., & brown, c. (2013). the habitus of digital ‘strangers’ in higher education. british journal of educational technology, 44(1), 44–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2012.01281.x. fox, k. r., campbell, m., & hargrove, t. (2011). examining reflective practice: insights from pre-service teachers, in-service teachers and faculty. journal of research in education, 21(2), 37–54. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1098417 campbell & kapp: developing an integrated, situated model for digital literacy . . . 29 gee, j. p. (1990). social linguistics and literacies: ideology in discourses. london, uk: routledge. gee, j. p. (2008). social linguistics and literacies: ideology in discourses (3rd ed.). london, uk: routledge. herrington, j. (2006, october). authentic e-learning in higher education: design principles for authentic learning environments and tasks. paper presented at the world conference on e-learning in corporate, government, healthcare, and higher education, honolulu, hi. hughes, j., & robertson, l. (2013). the power of digital literacy to transform and shape teacher identities. in h.h. yang & s. wang (eds.), cases on online learning communities and beyond (pp. 68–87). hershey, pa: information science reference. ivala, e., gachago, d., condy, j., & chigona, a. (2013). digital storytelling and reflection in higher education: a case of pre-service student teachers and their lecturers at a university of technology. journal of education and training studies, 2(1), 217–227. https://doi.org/ 10.11114/jets.v2i1.286. keating, a., gardiner, c., & rudd, p. (2009). e-access, e-maturity, e-safety: a learner survey. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242570324_e-access_ematurity_e-safetya_learner_survey lankshear, c., & knobel, m. (2011). new literacies (3rd ed.). berkshire, uk: mcgraw-hill education. lim, c. p., & khine, m. s. (2006). managing teachers’ barriers to ict integration in singapore schools. journal of technology and teacher education, 14(1), 97–125. https://bit.ly/2hghmup. martin, a. (2008). digital literacy and the ‘digital society.’ in c. lankshear, & m. knobel (eds.), digital literacies (pp. 151–177). new york, ny: peter lang. mccarty, t. l. (2006). language, literacy, and power in schooling. new york, ny: taylor & francis. prensky, m. (2001). digital natives, digital immigrants part 1. on the horizon, 9(5), 1–6. https://bit.ly/2ysl1ib. prinsloo, m., & sasman, f. (2015). literacy and language teaching and learning with interactive whiteboards in early schooling. tesol quarterly, 49(3), 533–544. https://doi.org/ 10.1002/tesq.237. pym, j., & kapp, r. (2013). harnessing agency: towards a learning model for undergraduate students. studies in higher education, 38(2), 272–284. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/03075079.2011.582096. 30 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 reckwitz, a. (2002). toward a theory of social practices: a development in culturalist theorizing. european journal of social theory, 5(2), 243–263. https://doi.org/: 10.1177/13684310222225432. ryan, g., & bernard, h. (2003). techniques to identify themes. field methods, 15, 85–109. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/1525822x02239569. ryan, m. (2011). improving reflective writing in higher education: a social semiotic perspective. teaching in higher education, 16(1), 88–111. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2010.507311. sfard, a., & prusak, a. (2005). telling identities: in search of an analytic tool for investigating learning as a culturally shaped activity. educational researcher, 34(4), 14–22. https://doi.org/ 10.3102/0013189x034004014. street, b. v. (1984). literacy in theory and practice. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. walker, m. (2010). critical capability pedagogies and university education. educational philosophy and theory, 42(8), 898–917. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/j.14695812.2007.00379.x. microsoft word bissue76full21oct.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 76, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x book review education and empire: children, race and humanitarianism in the british settler colonies, 1833–1880 by rebecca swartz (cham, switzerland: palgrave macmillan, 2019 isbn: 978-3-319-95908-5) linda chisholm centre for education rights and transformation, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa lchisholm@uj.ac.za (received: 26 august 2019; accepted: 1 october 2019) in recent years, a range of new institutional histories of education have emerged that cast light on south africa’s broader educational history. rebecca swartz’s book emphatically breaks with this trend by coming at the history of education from the transnational rather than local end, centred as it is on constructions of black education and childhood during the nineteenth century. the focus is not specifically on south africa—the lens is much wider— but it nonetheless also illuminates it. the book is an ambitious and highly successful attempt to examine the connections between the imperial and colonial educational worlds: the links between the local, national, and global. in so doing, it is firmly located in new imperial and educational historiographies that seek to think beyond the nation, and to examine educational entanglements at different levels and scales of analysis. as a contribution to comparative history of education, it is significant. commonly, what counts as comparative history takes education policy in the nation state as unit of analysis and examines its external links, or compares two countries, or juxtaposes several national accounts. this has, to date, been the approach in much of the south african educational historiography that has adopted a comparative lens. swartz’s new book goes well beyond the latter both conceptually and methodologically. she traces the movement of people and discourses about race, labour, and education through the networks of empire and across colonial space and time. consequently, the book comprises not just a series of national case studies, but is an integrated analytical account of the uniqueness and differences in policy and practice across different contexts. included in its frame of reference, are the links between educational developments in the british imperial heartland and in the west indies, western australia, natal, and new zealand. the book traverses imperial discourses, colonial contexts, and individual schools and classrooms—highlighting connections and disconnections, continuities and differences chisholm: book review 203 across time and space. but in so doing, south africa’s well-known nineteenth century history of industrial education is placed in a wider context. swartz shows that it was not unique but of a piece with broader interventions across the colonial world. she does not gloss over differences. thus, for example, in her comparison of the west indies and natal, it becomes clear that in both contexts there were similar differences and conflicts between the colonial government, missionaries, and settlers over what education for indigenous people should entail. differences broke over providing a literary or industrial education, with missionaries and colonial governments generally favouring the former while planters and settlers favoured the latter. however, there were differences in each context over the meaning of industrial education. in the west indies, it was tied up with the preparation of former slaves for work on agricultural preparation; in natal, it included basket weaving, brick making, and similar skills. in a superb chapter on the meanings of industrial education in different contexts, swartz shows how it was always subject to negotiation and contestation and that, while there may have been some agreement on the need for a practical education, there was never a consensus on what such a “practical” education might entail. in addition, the types of schools established differed in the amounts of industrial education they provided and the degree to which they focused on it or a literary education. for most missions, whose interest was in preparing teachers and preachers to advance their own denominational cause and who mostly lacked the skills required to provide industrial training, the preference tended towards a literary rather than industrial education. the former signified bringing indigenous people into “civilisation”—the latter, into labour. funding for it was always limited, and parents and pupils did not take to it. in addition to its bold scope, the book deploys a number of highly novel themes to illuminate changing notions of childhood in the colonial project, only a few of which i can highlight here. swartz reconstructs worldviews of a time long gone in their full aspirational complexity, simultaneously revealing their timeand space-boundedness, and intimate connection to a wider colonial project. the first is the theme of humanitarianism. a deeply ambivalent concept, it embraces the recognition that missionaries might have both seen a common humanity among indigenous people and settlers that justified some form of educational provision as well as believed in the superiority of british culture. humanitarianism always involved some form of transformation and a belief in the capacity for change—from “savage” to “civilised,” from “heathen” to “christian.” industrial education itself, she argues, was constructed as “a humanitarian intervention, designed to improve lives” even as it was simultaneously fundamental to building colonial relationships (p. 136). a second theme is that of spatiality, and the role of the rural and urban in the colonial imaginary relating to educational provision. in the imperial heartland, belief in the need for removal of children from families constructed as dangerous was central to growing state intervention. in the colonial context, such as in western australia for aborigines and in natal for zulus, schemes of settlement, reserves, and locations—essentially rural areas—were 204 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 constructed as spaces for educational provision. space, land, and education were linked: children would be safer in rural spaces, removed from urban depravity while simultaneously enabling the meeting of settler demands for land. well-established in the literature is the idea that over the nineteenth century, and especially following the publication of darwin’s origin of the species in 1859, racial ideas hardened into notions of the innateness of race and corresponding segregation of social institutions. again swartz approaches this in an original way. she shows both that the growing rigidity in racial thinking was a feature of changing educational landscapes in colonial contexts and that the shift was not linear and uncomplicated. dissenting humanitarian individuals remained committed to the idea that civilization was attainable by all, and often contradicted and contested other positions. knowledge was produced from different vantage points and with different effects. here, she uses the example of colenso’s short-lived ekukhanyeni school in natal, and responses to florence nightingale’s survey of colonial education—a fascinating story, albeit somewhat tangential to the main theme. in conclusion, this is a highly innovative book. it pushes us towards seeing the multifaceted, janus-faced nature, the complexity and ambiguity, of the colonial educational project. one could hope for similar studies in relation to language in education, to take one example— another area where history keeps on being reinvented. such a study might also take up the relationships across time and space between the ideas of the coloniser and the colonised and the relations between them. here too, there is bound to be a complexity of position that needs teasing out. given the book’s reliance on deep excavation and interrogation of a multitude of colonial sources, it is a pity the publishers chose to exclude the full bibliography of references, and to leave the reader only with the references for each chapter. nonetheless, this is a book that will leave a distinct and distinctive mark on south african educational historiography. microsoft word bissue75-fulljun22.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 75, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x book review going to university: the influence of higher education on the lives of young south africans by jennifer m. case, delia marshall, sioux mckenna and disaapele mogashana (bloemfontein: african minds, 2018) sherran clarence centre for postgraduate studies, rhodes university, makhanda/grahamstown, south africa s.clarence@ru.ac.za (received: 18 april 2019; accepted: 29 april 2019) for the last few years in south africa, and around the world, debates have intensified over the purposes of higher education. versions of a neo-liberal, market-driven, corporate university are pervasive, and their effects are alarming. globally, we witness increasing casualisation of academic labour (andrews, 2016), increased mental illness and burnout in academics from phd-student level to the professoriate (gorczynski, 2018), and increased pressure from industry and government to produce so-called work-ready graduates (mccowan, 2015). this drive towards what is presented as employability, as well as the overarching concern with rankings and metrics, has led many universities to reduce students and staff to statistics on throughput, retention, staff-to-student ratios, and publications, to name just a few categories. in south africa, universities spend a significant amount of effort on improving student retention and throughput, and there are ongoing concerns about the skewed success rates when the graduation statistics are disaggregated along the lines of race and associated socioeconomic status. research by the council on higher education, published in 2013, shows that only 30% of students starting a degree in contact mode graduate within the required three years, and only 56% of the cohort within five. many students are therefore not graduating from the university at which they start—a problem referred to as wastage. there are, then, big questions being asked about the purposes of higher education, given the relatively low participation rates (around 20% of south africa’s population), the uneven success rates, and the pressures from all sides to produce a range of potentially competing outcomes. it is to this fraught area of concern that this book makes a significant and valuable contribution. the authors have used narrative methodology to interview 73 young people six years after they started a bachelor’s degree at one of three well-resourced urban universities 90 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 in south africa. these narratives, that reveal the complex and nuanced internal conversations that these young people have with themselves and the conversations they hold with significant others, are used to guide the reader through an emerging argument about the purposes of higher education in the lives of these students. the authors use a light touch approach to theory, framing their analysis of the participants’ narratives with margaret archer’s concept of “internal conversations” through which humans develop different forms of reflexivity and exercise agency. they add to this amartya sen’s account of the conditions, personal, social, and environmental, needed for people to exercise their agency fully so as to realise their capabilities, understood here as their “ability to choose to live their lives in accordance with what they value” (p. 10). each chapter in the book introduces the reader to different narratives, drawn upon to illustrate and elaborate on an emerging argument about how young people navigate and negotiate their way through a range of personal, social, and environmental conditions to carve out the life they want to live. the first three of the eight chapters in the book look at the ways in which the structure of the current undergraduate curriculum in the higher education context, and in the bsc degrees especially, can prove an obstacle to choice and changes of heart and mind on the path of these students through their studies. they look, further, at the kinds of deliberations in which young people engage when they are deciding where and what to study. the next four chapters consider the broader student experience at university, the effects of not completing one’s degree of first choice and the deliberations in which they engage about continuing with postgraduate study and entering the workplace. finally, the book returns to considering the purposes and role of higher education in the lives of young people. several key insights emerge from the book as a whole. the first is the significance of structural factors in achieving one’s aims through exercising agency. an important instance of this is socioeconomic status and access to stable funding and the freedom that this can offer. many of the young people interviewed who had done well academically, and made it to university in spite of financial constraints, found that financial aid came with hidden strings, and they felt huge pressure to get the degree done because they needed to start working to support their families and themselves. students who had access to funding felt a greater sense of freedom to enjoy university without financial worries. another structural factor, linked to the first, is access to networks and expertise. the kinds of advice and insights that family members with knowledge of higher education could offer young people made an impact on their deliberations and choices; the absence of this advice for students without this kind of capital was notable. networks, either the students’ own or family networks, were important in accessing additional funding, part-time work while studying (and full-time work later), and other opportunities such as internships. students from rural areas and from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds struggle to access the same kinds of networks and associated resources that students in urban areas and from more capital-rich backgrounds can access. what the book drives home very clearly is how success or struggle at university and from there into the workplace, has very little to do with individual motivation and drive. far more influential are deeper structural constraints, such as access to enough funding to study what clarence: book review 91 one wants and for as long as desired, access to family support, advice, and counsel, and access to networks that can help one obtain work, internships, and so on. these social and environmental conditions can limit the achievements of the most motivated and driven students. going to university is about so much more than gaining the right skills to get the right job. university provides students, especially those from poorer home backgrounds, with access to new networks and resources that are hugely valuable in helping them to expand their capabilities. university offers new and different opportunities for socialising and making friends, for engaging in extra-curricular activities, for learning more about who one is and what one wants to do and be in one’s life. far, then, from being wastage, young people who have not yet managed to complete a university degree are gaining a great deal from being part of a disciplinary and social campus community. this book eloquently and accessibly challenges dominant discourses in the broader neoliberal framing of higher education that tends to cast success or failure in individual terms and castigates students who do fail for not making the right choices, or for not working hard enough. rather, the authors show, chapter by chapter, how factors beyond the remit of any individual—many within the control of the university or higher education sector such as the structure of the undergraduate curriculum and student fees—can work to either enable or limit the exercise of agency. in an environment in which students are reduced to metrics and measures, we tend to forget that most of our students are young people making their way in the world. this book offers a powerful reminder of this, and of the responsibility higher education has to ensure, as far as possible, that it creates an environment that enables these young people to build lives in which they can flourish, and, by extension, contribute to the flourishing of the society in which they live. references andrews, k. (2016, november 17). universities are using casual contracts to put profit before people. the guardian. retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/17/universities-casualcontracts-casualised-work-profit-academia-staff-students council on higher education. (2013). a proposal for undergraduate curriculum reform in south africa: the case for a flexible curriculum structure. pretoria, rsa: che. gorczynski, p. (2018, february 22). more academics and students have mental health problems than ever before. the conversation. retrieved from https://theconversation.com/more-academics-and-students-have-mental-healthproblems-than-ever-before-90339 mccowan, t. (2015). should universities promote employability? theory and research in education, 13(3), 267–285. microsoft word bissue82-final.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 82, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i82a07 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x beyond classroom walls: the role of a co-curricular english club in supporting second language learning jennifer sheokarah school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa jennifer_sheokarah@yahoo.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4233-6752 ansurie pillay school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa pillaya3@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9174-0543 (received: 7 january 2020; accepted: 1 november 2020) abstract second language learners of english in south africa and beyond face challenges in acquiring the target language. in this paper, we report on a study during which we worked with an english language club set up as a co-curricular activity at a south african high school. we focus on one activity of the club that took place beyond the classroom walls to help learners improve their spelling. while the activities of the club were underpinned by critical pedagogy, we interpreted the findings of the study using krashen’s affective filter hypothesis. using a critical paradigm, a qualitative approach, and an action research design, in this aspect of the study, as foregrounded in this paper, we aimed to answer the question of how learners’ attitudes towards spelling may be changed by an activity outside the classroom. our observations, fieldnotes, and reflections revealed that learners are able to transcend their fear of the language and increase their participation levels when they are in a relaxed learning environment that values their interests; this increased, in turn, their selfconfidence. we argue for the use of alternative teaching methods to complement conventional teaching and learning. keywords: second language learners, co-curricular, english language club, spelling, relaxed environment introduction in south africa, most schools use an african language as the medium of instruction in the first three years of school and then switch to either english (mostly) or afrikaans in the learner’s fourth year of school as pretorius and stoffelsma (2017) have reminded us. the language profile of 51.7 million south africans indicates, as howie et al. (2017) have noted, 114 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 that 24% speak isizulu, 16% speak isixhosa, and 14% speak afrikaans, while only 10% speak english. in other words, most learners are english second language speakers but are taught their subjects in english as noted by schaefer and kotzé (2019). literacy studies conducted with south african english second language learners reveal poor literacy scores. pretorius and spaull (2016) have recommended that interventions are needed to enhance english second language learners’ literacy skills, in light of the various contextual challenges they face, especially in schools with poor or no resources and with large numbers in classes, and the fact that many of these learners have no access to english resources at home. in addition, learners in south african rural areas are not usually exposed to english in their communities where they speak their home language as schaefer and kotzé (2019) have pointed out. this is the context of the school cited in this study. learners speak isizulu at home but learn english as the home language at school and are taught through the medium of english. in this paper, we reflect on one activity in an action research study that involved working with an english language club to support the learning of english. the four cycles of the study focused on listening and speaking in cycle one, spelling and vocabulary in cycle two, reading in cycle three, and writing in cycle four. we focus here on a spelling activity in cycle two; our research question was: how may english second language learners’ attitudes towards spelling be improved by activities in a co-curricular english club beyond the classroom walls? spelling in any language, including english, is an important foundation for effective reading and writing (fleisch et al., 2017; hashemi & ghalkani, 2016). however, findings by the latter, in their study of spelling errors of a random sample of learners in 100 schools in kwazulu-natal, revealed that most learners could not spell the words they needed to read and write effectively. they recommended interventions to enhance second language learners’ ability to spell. while effective interventions could go a long way towards addressing the challenges of learning a second language, studies reveal that interventions may be hampered by learners’ anxiety when they are learning a language such as english (madonsela, 2015). to overcome anxiety among such learners, a creative, experimental, enjoyable atmosphere needs to underpin the interventional strategies to help eliminate the stress of learning the language and to encourage participation (dewi et al., 2017). with this idea in mind, an english language club (elc) was formed in the school in which this study was located. the english language club (elc) at the school, english, taught as a home language and as the medium of teaching and learning, excludes learners’ home languages and it is presented as the language of power. learners have difficulty using english and seem to lack motivation to learn how to speak it. in many classes, participation in english is minimal. in response to the situation, the elc, which is a co-curricular club open to learners in grades 8 and 9, was created by the primary sheokarah & pillay: beyond classroom walls 115 researcher and first author (an english teacher at the school) to offer learners creative opportunities to engage with english in an environment away from the formal classroom. the elc is comprised of 30 members but the numbers attending each week vary. members meet for an hour once a week and attendance is voluntary, in line with the understanding of alexander et al. (2011) that elcs are usually free, informal, and involve individuals meeting voluntarily to practise english. as co-curricular activities, these elcs include group experiences and differ from the conventional academic curriculum that has “well defined monitoring mechanisms” (pereira et al., 2013, p. 49). the purpose of such clubs includes allowing opportunities for learning in ways that school classrooms do not offer; they foster motivation in a supportive space that empowers learners to read and write and they encourage an experimental and explorative mindset in a warm and welcoming atmosphere so as to stimulate interest in learning and improving knowledge and usage of the language (alexander et al., 2011; pereira et al., 2013). given their ethos, the purpose and composition of such clubs are comparable with the maths clubs set up in primary schools in the eastern cape, south africa, by graven (2011) and the economics clubs set up by acquah and partey (2014) in ghana. like the maths club, the elc in this study aimed at enjoyment even as it shifted responsibility to learners to identify their areas of weakness in the subject. like both the maths and economics clubs, the elc worked as a co-curricular activity that aimed to improve learner competence in the subject. following alexander et al. (2011) and pereira et al. (2013), such clubs foster a safe, stressfree, relaxed, nurturing, non-threatening, and respectful environment in which the aim is not to demand answers or correct errors but, rather, to guide those who join, and to facilitate and encourage the exchange of ideas. simple encouragement and praise, or rewards, prove to be effective as goss et al. (2017) have noted elsewhere. similarly, the elc under consideration in this study used innovative fun activities, sometimes with an element of competition with symbolic rewards suggested by the learners. the club motivated the members to succeed at learning english through its use of competitions and rewards that were linked to the skills the learners needed to develop. dialogue was encouraged during the activities and learners made their voices heard as they took control of their learning. in terms of the spelling activity specifically, on which we focus in this paper, we worked together to find activities that would improve their attitudes towards spelling. learners voiced the need to get out of the classroom and this resulted in a beach spelling activity. theoretical framework critical pedagogy critical pedagogy cultivates democracy, encourages critical thinking, and encourages learning in creative ways rather than through the memorisation of material (halabsaz & hedayati, 2016). for camangian (2015), a principle of critical pedagogy is that of humanisation. humanising pedagogies draw on learners’ experiences and empower them 116 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 socially, emotionally, intellectually, and politically by using cultural references and lived experiences to convey knowledge and skills and to change attitudes. the elc employed a humanising pedagogy by fostering a safe, comfortable, fun, and nurturing environment that encouraged learner participation and improved their self-esteem when they were learning english. in the baseline study with 27 learners prior to setting up the elc, mind-maps reflected the challenges they faced in learning english. these included feeling shy or scared when using the language, the fear of being mocked for errors made, and anxiety when speaking to persons of race groups other than their own. the baseline study reflected that of norton and toohey (2004) who argued that language is not only viewed as a method of communication, but it influences and is influenced by learners’ understanding of their social contexts. the baseline data made clear the need for a humanising pedagogy if learners were to improve their english. other baseline data of interest to this paper is the finding that 21 (of 27) learners who identified spelling as a major challenge, cited a fear of spelling in english along with the poor marks received for spelling tasks in class. the baseline data revealed the need to introduce strategies to encourage their agency so that they could confront their feelings of marginalisation in the english classroom. to foster human agency so as to challenge exclusion, learners were encouraged to question and reflect on activities and experiences. they were asked to decide if and how any of these helped them learn better and how and what they would like to change to increase their motivation to learn english and to improve this learning. we aimed for critical consciousness and learners, in their roles as planners and implementers of activities to improve their english competence, became empowered as they assumed responsibility for their own learning. they did so by thinking critically about their strengths and weaknesses and questioning what worked and did not work for them. in line with the ideas of aliakbari and faraji (2011) and camangian (2015), learning critical thinking skills and developing their critical consciousness allowed them to become aware of what might be done to change their situation as they learned the language. we saw critical consciousness being used to enable a transformative teaching and learning process as learners became active learners, and, by extension, active citizens. dialogue was essential in the elc to engage and actively involve learners in their learning and in their construction of meanings as advocated by freire (1970). a dialogic approach (see camangian (2015) and mazdaee and maftoon (2012)) enabled questions, contributions, and led to a change in their understanding of learning a language. in line with the principles of critical pedagogy (aliakbari & faraji, 2011; batker et al., 2017), learners’ views were heard and respected. they were encouraged to engage actively through dialogue in their construction of knowledge instead of being merely passive recipients. krashen’s affective filter hypothesis while critical pedagogy underpinned the formation of the club, we used krashen’s affective filter hypothesis to analyse the findings of the study. this hypothesis is based on the notion that input is filtered according to learners’ moods. affective variables such as motivation, sheokarah & pillay: beyond classroom walls 117 self-confidence, and anxiety play a role in second language acquisition (kakule, 2016; krashen, 1982; nath et al., 2017). these variables shape the success of second language acquisition as du (2009) and krashen (1982) have pointed out. put briefly, the higher the learner’s motivation, the lower her/his affective filter is, so the more successful she/he becomes. if the learner’s self-esteem is low, the higher her/his fear of making mistakes becomes and this results in the loss of opportunities to practise the language (du, 2009). the lower the learner’s anxiety, the more effective the language acquisition is (krashen, 1982). if learners are afraid of being with others, communicating with others, and taking tests, their anxiety may inhibit language acquisition (du, 2009). with an understanding of the affective filter hypothesis, teachers are encouraged to create classroom environments that are designed to motivate learners to participate in learning english (kakule, 2016). the idea is to eliminate a stressful atmosphere by using relaxed and fun activities to motivate learners and lower the affective filter (abukhattala, 2013; kakule, 2016). nath et al. (2017) have argued that outdoor activities are most effective for doing so. groupwork and social activities are also important since they lower anxiety and boost confidence (du, 2009). both theories worked seamlessly to underpin the elc and to help us understand the findings since the concepts complement each other. the humanising ethos of critical pedagogy empowers learners within a safe relaxed environment, which plays a positive role in language acquisition. enabling critical consciousness creates active learners working in dialogic spaces of respect which allow for an increase in their self-confidence, which further increases their motivation to learn english. literature review becoming proficient in a language requires mastering the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing which may be challenging for second language learners (al-bereiki & al-mekhlafi, 2016). as a result, learners who lack proficiency in english may be afraid to speak because they fear making mistakes or being laughed at by their peers in the classroom. their lack of confidence and their fear of expressing ideas may result from a lack of necessary vocabulary and the related spelling of these words, as has been revealed in the action research study of dewi et al. (2017). similarly, in south africa, madonsela’s (2015) study found that african second language learners who lack proficiency in english suffer similar affective issues. when english becomes the medium of instruction in grade four in most south african schools, teachers assume that learners arrive from grade three with a good foundation in the necessary vocabulary and spelling skills, but, given the ripple effect, there is a significant gap between the words learners know by the end of grade four and the words they need to know in grade five (pretorius & stoffelsma, 2017), and this continues from year to year. there is a strong relationship between attaining a vocabulary and reading. if learners know fewer words, they will not be able to comprehend as much as they need to in order to follow a text 118 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 (pretorius & stoffelsma, 2017). there is also a strong relationship between spelling and being able to read and write (fleisch et al., 2017; sibanda & baxen, 2018). the studies by fleisch et al. and pretorius and stoffelsma both concluded that spelling errors were common among second language learners and pointed to the effect of this on reading and writing. learners, too, understand the importance of spelling. in a study with 75 english second language high school learners in nigeria, aliyu and danladi (2018) found that learners understood the importance of spelling if they were to improve their writing in english. a similar finding emerged from a study in malaysia by al-sobhi et al. (2018) on the attitudes towards spelling of english second language high school learners. if teachers understand the importance of spelling, and second language learners recognise its importance while dealing with the affective factors related to learning a second language, it becomes necessary to consider how spelling is taught. hashemi and ghalkani (2016) found that the strategy of teaching spelling traditionally included teachers providing learners with lists of words, the spelling of which learners needed to memorise. learners were also asked to correct spelling errors in their and their peers’ written tasks. findings indicated that memorisation was short lived, and learners later spelled the words on the list incorrectly. additionally, it was noted that teachers expected learners to memorise how to spell words, in rote-learning fashion, without teaching them the techniques of spelling (hashemi & ghalkani, 2016). in response to such ways of teaching, sibanda and baxen (2018, p. 8) argued for a variety of strategies that move beyond repeating words in “a mechanical rather than a cognitive process” and denkci-akkas and coker (2016) suggested an approach to spelling that is relaxed, that encourages learners to participate, that motivates learners, and helps them learn from each other. as pereira et al. (2013) pointed out, the more conducive and supportive the environment is, the more successful the learning outcomes are because there is a positive relationship between the learning environment and learner motivation. to create a positive language learning environment, the choice of teaching strategies is vital since they boost the learners’ performance of the language (chamorro & paz, 2017). in designing activities, it is important to encourage communication, eliminate constraints, and choose activities that will interest learners (pereira et al., 2013). dewi et al. (2017) suggested the use of non-formal education such as song, dance, tales, theatre, technology, games, and recreational activities that extend outside the classroom so as to provide conditions in which learners learn more effectively. hashemi and ghalkani (2016, p. 736) suggested that teachers offer learners opportunities “with modern and scientific methods and techniques for learning” and provided an example of a personalized instructional technique that had learners making connections between words and their favourite things (like television programmes or cartoon characters). this resulted in the learners making associations between the letters of the word and the things that allowed for better mental storage of the letters that helped their spelling. sheokarah & pillay: beyond classroom walls 119 methodology ethics ethical procedures were followed by our gaining consent from parents and learners. we assured the learners of all their ethical rights including voluntary participation, their right to anonymity and confidentiality and the right to withdraw from the study at any point without penalty. learners were also made aware that they could participate in the elc but choose not to give consent to be a part of the study. all learners and their parents gave consent to participate. while the elc worked with 30 regular members at the time of the beach spelling activity, because of learners’ religious obligations, only 10 learners from grade 9 (average age 14 years) participated in the beach spelling track activity, held on a saturday morning. critical paradigm a critical paradigm emphasises the need for developing social transformation and moving towards emancipation. it provides opportunities which help emancipate those who are subordinated and who lack voice and agency because of feeling excluded by providing more liberating environments and fewer challenging circumstances that serve to restrict people (harney, 2014). this paradigm was suitable for our study since learners in the school come from language backgrounds that are not prioritised in the school, and we aimed to give them voice and enable transformation. qualitative approach a qualitative approach was appropriate since, following cohen et al. (2011) we wanted to work closely with learners to understand their challenges, strengths, and weaknesses and empower them by facilitating their ability to speak and write english. furthermore, a qualitative approach allowed for descriptions and interpretations of the experiences of learners throughout the study. it enabled us to focus on the process of how the study was unfolding in its natural context. action research design this research used a participatory action research design which is useful for understanding and improving practices as cohen et al. (2011) have observed. since the growth of all participants is key to participatory action research, this involved our noticing a challenge, identifying who was affected by it and working together to plan and implement effective strategies to deal with it and then analyse the results of the study. participatory action research was also appropriate in this setting since the process allowed for both the teacher and the learners to attempt to change the teaching and learning environment through active participation and critical reflection, and to do so through the activities of the english club. as part of this process, the teacher attempts to change the way learners learn by better understanding the effects of his/her teaching methods and modifying them accordingly. 120 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 action research involves many cycles, each of which includes the stages of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. each cycle serves to revise the research process and inform the next cycle (cohen et al., 2011). it was within one of these cycles that learners in the elc articulated their fear of spelling. the learners had completed a spelling activity that involved unscrambling words and had just completed a spelling relay activity done in the classroom. the spelling relay activity, involving sixteen learners who were randomly divided into two groups, worked with a list of words that learners had spelled incorrectly in their english classrooms. learners stood in separate lines in front of a table that had a sheet of paper on it for each line. the teacher called out the first word in the list and the first learner from each group had to move quickly to the table and write out the word on the piece of paper, go back to the line and pass the pen to the next learner. once one of the two learners started moving back to the line, the second word was called out. the group to spell the most words correctly was announced the winner of the spelling relay. while the competitive activity was accompanied by much noise and laughter, the reflection activity thereafter revealed learners’ fear of spelling. the learners suggested an outdoor activity that would enable them to practise their spelling in a relaxed environment. a decision, taken collaboratively, resulted in a beach spelling activity on a section of the beach that included a jungle gym, which served as a spelling track. learners had to complete a flashcard activity in preparation for the beach spelling activity. for this activity, learners had to start at one point and take turns to spell a word that was called out. a ball was thrown to them to indicate when they needed to spell the word out loud. spelling the word correctly meant that the learner would move to the next point of the spelling track. if the spelling was incorrect, he/she had to move to the end of the line until his/her next turn. the winner of the spelling track—the learner who spelled the most words correctly and crossed the finish line first—received a box of chocolates and a medal. data generation methods observations this study used observations to generate data from “naturally occurring situations” (cohen et al., 2011, p. 456) by closely noting events and learners’ behaviours. this allowed for documentation of what was taking place as it happened. the observation of the beach spelling track activity focused not only on the correctness of spelling out loud, but also on how the learners responded to their spelling and to one another in terms of their facial and verbal expressions during the activity, and how they responded to the outside environment of the beach. fieldnotes writing our fieldnotes involved objectively recording observations that we made in the setting or immediately afterwards as advised by newbury (2001). our fieldnotes recorded what happened during spelling activities in the elc, what activities were done and how they were done, and how many learners were present at the sessions. we recorded the proceedings sheokarah & pillay: beyond classroom walls 121 of the specific spelling activity conducted at the beach as well as keeping account of related events outside the club that we considered influential to both the club and the research process in terms of how the learners responded to the beach activity. reflections reflection is integral to action research since it is used to inform the research process as we know from cohen et al. (2011). reflections on the challenges or concerns are then used to design the subsequent interventions to address these and other issues. in this study, the instruction sheet advised learners to write a paragraph reflecting on their journey through the spelling activities. they were asked to write about what they had experienced and whether the activities helped them improve their spelling. their reflections also indicated which activities they liked the most and which they liked the least and listed the issues with which they still needed help. data analysis within a qualitative approach, data generated in the form of words provides extensive descriptive detail, allowing for a thematic analysis and the presentation of themes that relate to the data generated. the goal of thematic analysis is to identify themes and to use these to answer the research question and it is, thus, more than a summary of the data (maguire & delahunt, 2017). the data was organised to understand learners’ attitudes towards spelling, and their thoughts and feelings throughout the beach spelling activity. following maguire and delahunt (2017) we first became familiar with the data through thorough reading of the fieldnotes, the observations, and the reflections. thereafter, we identified recurring topics or words and we arranged the themes. the learners’ responses that fit those themes were analysed and written up accordingly. discussion of findings the analysis of the data revealed the following themes: learners’ attitudes towards spelling; learners’ sense of community and positive interactions; learner responsibility; and visual spelling. learners’ attitudes towards spelling while baseline data indicated that learners experienced difficulties with spelling in english, their attitudes towards spelling varied. our fieldnotes revealed that when we were contemplating the possibility of the use of the beach spelling activity, cindy immediately indicated that she would not participate because she was “scared.” her facial expression reinforced her words, and she demonstrated an overwhelming sense of fear of, and concern for, the activity as she explained that she did not want to engage in the spelling competition. this was confirmed by her comment in the reflection activity that she had been “afraid” at the thought of spelling in a competitive setting. it was clear that cindy lacked confidence in spelling, especially in a competitive space. while she was convinced by her peers to attend, 122 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 her reaction reinforced the importance of eliminating an environment conducive to anxiety to lower the affective filter, in line with krashen’s affective filter hypothesis as suggested by abukhattala (2013), by using diverse teaching methods, instead of just pen and paper activities, to motivate learners (du 2009). fieldnotes about the discussion of the beach spelling activity showed that, apart from cindy, the other learners present at the elc that day were extremely excited to hear about going to the beach to practise their spelling. one learner indicated that she “could not wait for saturday” which suggested that getting out of the classroom might have been the start to changing her attitude towards spelling. of course, just the thought of going to the beach might have been enough to generate excitement. nevertheless, these reactions contrasted with fourteen of twenty learners having indicated that they were often bored or sleepy in their classrooms. during the beach spelling activity, observing verbal and facial expressions proved important to understanding learners’ attitudes to spelling. cindy, who had indicated a fear of spelling, spelled very well during the beach activity, having prepared well in advance. observations indicated that she had a smile on her face throughout the activity; this had rarely been seen in the classroom. she threw her hands in the air, shouting, “yes!” after spelling a word correctly, thus indicating that her attitude towards the spelling task had become more positive. ultimately, cindy participated in the final spelling competition at school at the end of the cycle and obtained second place. it is possible that had cindy’s peers not encouraged her to attend and had she not understood her agency in preparing for the activity, she might have continued believing that she was afraid of spelling. it is also important to recognise this evidence of how krashen’s affective filter hypothesis works to lower learners’ anxieties in using a lively, welcoming environment which, in being positive and motivating (du, 2009), boosted learners’ confidence in second language learning. thus, going outside of classroom walls and taking part in a fun activity increased cindy’s confidence and positively affected her attitude towards spelling since she was visibly happy in the beach setting. in fact, the activity improved her competence in spelling overall, so much so that she became able to spell words she could not spell in the classroom. while cindy might have finally succeeded with time and without interventions, her attitude to spelling and the environment in which it occurred, played a role in her success. it also confirms the idea of optimum learning occurring during playful activities, as put forward by zosh et al. (2017). while the beach activity resulted in a winner, the result was just one aspect of what emerged. the winner, lolo, was elated, as could be seen in her facial expressions and words. she also noted in her reflection that she “loves” the club and “going to the beach with her friends”, which, she said, she “had never done before.” she noted that the activity allowed her “to improve in english.” on winning, she danced with a big smile on her face and the other learners clapped their hands to congratulate her. the fieldnotes indicated that “although there was only one winner, all learners were happy with their overall performance” because their spelling had improved from the last time they engaged with this activity in the classroom, and the way they felt towards spelling had changed. sheokarah & pillay: beyond classroom walls 123 the transformation in attitudes towards spelling in the classroom versus on the beach was evident in all learners who participated in the beach spelling track. in addition to the responses of cindy and lolo discussed above, macy said, “the spelling and vocabulary cycle has helped me a lot judging by the way i used to spell and how i spell now.” nqo explained, “it improved my spelling and how to read words.” thus, we could see that lowering the affective filter through a relaxed and fun activity allowed for more input (abukhattala, 2013) which was in this case, correct spelling. the beach activity observations and fieldnotes reflected happy learners who enjoyed a fun-filled morning at the beach and who engaged in activities that helped them to practise and improve their spelling, thus conquering their fear of it and transforming their attitudes towards it. however, this does not mean that learners did not experience disappointment. observations and fieldnotes reflect that minnie, nqo, and jabu had sad faces and that they frowned and used gestures of frustration when they or others got spellings incorrect. this finding echoes the argument by zosh et al. (2017) who noted that a joyful activity is not necessarily detached from negative emotions and annoyance may help learning, as was evidenced in the elc when learners spelled a word incorrectly and could not move on to the next word. the true learning occurred when they figured out the correct spelling after the first failed attempt, albeit with the help of others, and were then happy with the outcome. learners’ sense of community and positive interactions despite the activity being competition-based with a prize for the winner, learners were whispering clues and even answers, when necessary, to the learner whose turn it was to spell. the activity was fun and held at a beach and both factors seemed to shape how learners engaged with the activity which they might not have done in a classroom. however, their responses led to a positive attitude, and they ultimately improved their spelling scores in subsequent spelling activities. the positive interactions and perceptions were associated with learners’ satisfaction and success (garibay, 2015), in line with the principles of critical pedagogy that encourage support and learning from each other (aliakbari & faraji, 2011). linked to this, the affective filter hypothesis addresses the need to encourage social activities for the purpose of boosting learners’ confidence and lowering anxiety (du, 2009). observations and fieldnotes also recorded that learner support was important in making the learners feel comfortable and relieved of the stress of spelling, as was evidenced in gestures of thanks, and smiles on faces. in addition, they learned from listening to and observing other learners. further, being actively engaged in the activity was beneficial since learners often learn well when they are actively involved in solving problems rather than merely being instructed by the teacher (zosh et al., 2017). moreover, learners’ written reflections revealed that the outdoor activity improved attitudes towards spelling while they spent an enjoyable time with friends. lee wrote that she enjoyed “laughing and having fun with others” and nqo wrote that she “[loved] it so much . . . because everyone was happy” and that she learned “how to spell more words.” the responses reflect how learners had linked a happy experience to improving a cognitive skill. they also 124 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 understood how groupwork and social activities boost learning confidence and lower anxiety in line with du (2009) who argued that making use of the affective filter hypothesis boosts learning confidence and lowers anxiety. learner responsibility through observation, it was discovered that a learner, minnie, seemed to have been having a challenging time with the spelling task since she remained behind and was not happy about it. fieldnotes from a previous activity indicated that minnie had not completed the flashcard activity which was meant to assist learners in learning some of the words that were tested. nonetheless, while her presence at the beach activity was positive, it was also evident that learners need to take responsibility for their learning for transformation to be successful. minnie was able to learn this, albeit in hindsight. the importance of learner responsibility in this study was also emphasised in sammy’s written reflection. she indicated that she “really enjoyed the day [they] went to the beach” but indicated that she was “disappointed” about not winning the spellathon at the end of the cycle, despite the beach activity helping her improve her spelling. she noted, however, that she realised that she “did not put much effort in.” the reflection after the cycle allowed the learners to reflect on, and become aware of, their roles in learning. sammy’s reflection showed that she was moving towards critical consciousness since she was able to identify what went wrong and acknowledge the significance of her role in her learning. visual spelling the observation and fieldnotes revealed that three learners, lee, cindy, and lolo, were more comfortable spelling the words by either writing on the sand or writing in the air with their fingers, indicating the need to envisage the word to check their spelling before spelling it out verbally. fieldnotes revealed that this learning strategy was not adopted by learners in the formal english classroom or at the elc at school. it is possible that the formal setting of the school meant that learners responded in ways that are deemed suitable for the formal classroom. it is also possible that since learners more often write out spellings rather than speak them, writing in the sand or in the air was part of a process that was more familiar. conclusion many obstacles, such as the curriculum, overcrowded learning contexts, lack of resources, and language barriers may challenge the learning of english for second language learners. however, creating opportunities for interaction, encouraging participation, using innovative teaching methods, enabling learners to make decisions, considering learners’ differences, and fostering friendliness may address these, and other, challenges (fraser & treagust, cited in barr, 2016). a sense of collegial friendship also proves useful in developing language learning and this can manifest using groupwork which improves learners’ achievements and develops positive attitudes towards learning as goss et al. (2017) have argued. in the spelling sheokarah & pillay: beyond classroom walls 125 activity of the elc that we have discussed in this paper, such principles served as guidelines on how to proceed. while competitions may be frowned upon in some educational circles, in this instance, the young teenagers embraced the challenge of the friendly, supportive, fun-filled competition, and ultimately, changed their attitudes towards spelling since it encouraged them to participate and concentrate on the activity to increase their chances of winning the prize. we argue, therefore, for relaxed, positive environments using innovative interventions to complement or even replace conventional classroom activities and assessment so that optimum learning may thrive. the beach activity revealed that learners were enthusiastic about spelling when their interests and preferences were considered. furthermore, the relaxed, fun activity allowed learners to participate freely and removed the fears that that they shared about spelling, decreased their anxiety, and increased their motivation and self-confidence. however, what is imperative to note is that the beach needs to be recognised for what it symbolises—a relaxed, happy space with minimal rules. such a space or atmosphere may be recreated anywhere, even in a conventional classroom, if necessary. a positive environment should provide the necessary care and support for learners, be inspirational, and encourage learners to be responsible for their learning. references abukhattala, i. 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(2017). learning through play: a review of the evidence. lego foundation. microsoft word cissue81-full-15dec.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 81, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i81a07 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x analysing the hegemonic discourses on comprehensive sexuality education in south african schools lindokuhle ubisi unit 3-49, department of educational psychology, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa lindokuhle.ubisi@up.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5228-6686 (received: 12 june 2020; accepted: 10 august 2020) abstract despite the mixed public responses, the south african department of basic education decided to issue its detailed comprehensive sexuality education scripted lesson plans for testing in schools. i conducted a desktop review by searching for digital newspapers in the online archive sabinet references using six key terms such as “comprehensive sexuality education”, “schools”, and “south africa.” in total, i retrieved 128 newspaper articles and selected 83 for a foucauldian discourse analysis underpinned by governmentality theory. the newspapers reported on marches, letters, and press conferences from various stakeholders such as parents, learners, teachers, and other social figures. some stakeholders were in favour of the rollout while others were against, but of interest was the seemingly neutral position of those whose reporting was presented in a balanced, non-biased manner. in this paper, i aim to make sense of this neutrality in addition to the views in favour of and against the rollout while suggesting implications for educational settings. keywords: comprehensive sexuality education, digital newspaper articles, public discourse analysis, rollout, scripted lesson plans, south africa introduction in spite of the conflicting public reactions surrounding its readiness, public consultation and policy-making, the south african department of basic education (dbe) declared plans in 2015 to pilot its comprehensive sexuality education 1 (cse) scripted lesson plans (slps) in five of its nine national provinces (dbe, 2019). the dbe (2018) used national policy such as the constitution of south africa act of 1996 and children’s act 38 of 2005 as well as curriculum policy including the national policy on the prevention and management of learner pregnancy in schools and integrated school health policy to back up the rollout. based on its 1 cse refers to a long-term approach and investment in inculcating values, attitudes, and skills in relation to safe and healthy sexual practice, gender, power, sexuality construction, as well as consent and communication in relationships across the lifespan (unesco, 2018). ubisi: analysing the hegemonic discourses about comprehensive . . . 119 content and contextual appropriateness, parents, teachers, learners, and other social figures expressed differing viewpoints in support of and in opposition to the piloted rollout (bhana et al., 2019; francis & depalma, 2014a; mayeza & vincent, 2019; mudhovozi et al., 2012; swanepoel, 2020). both local and international literature feature comparisons and offer points in favour of and against the rollout of cse in schools (see aggleton et al, 2011; braeken & cardinal, 2008; jones, 2020; kendall, 2013; and the collected chapters in sundaram & sauntson, 2016). however, there are those individuals who remain neutral towards the rollout for reasons that have not been previously explored in extant research. furthermore, there has been an increase in the readily available news items in online digital platforms as newman et al. (2015) have noted. given the internet and various technological devices, online newspapers and social networking sites are able to circulate information instantly around the world, using news feeds as oeldorf-hirsch & sundar (2015) have reminded us. local and international research indicates that more people, of whom most are young, rely on the internet and other online sources for information about current affairs. not surprisingly, the research also indicates that many of these individuals become more susceptible to fake news, which, in turn, influences their behaviour and conduct (greer & yan, 2011; moosa, 2020; rodny-gumede, 2012). as luu (2019) has stated, “fake news can be deliberately manipulated by those with vested interests to shape and frame and control public opinions, which result[s] in the problematic actions (and inaction) on existential issues, such as climate change or human rights” (para. 7). however, it is not only fake news with which the general public has to grapple. for example, there is national legislation proclaimed by government such as the rollout of cse slps in schools which can elicit all kinds of reactions, including panic, outcry, and approval, or result in general apathy. however, foucault (1979/1991), in his theory of governmentality, maintained that government and other prominent institutions may formulate certain governing rationalities so as to influence the public to partake in action related to citizenship. theoretical framework: governmentality theory for levenberg (2012), foucault’s (1979) theory of governmentality referred to [t]he ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, the calculations and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power, which has as its target population, as its principal form of knowledge political economy, and as its essential technical means apparatuses of security. (para. 4) foucault (1981/1997) as i have explained elsewhere (ubisi, 2020) departs from the capitalist false notion of autonomous, rational decision-making, contending that individuals are subjected to rigid forms of disciplinary power and knowledge. for example, individuals may believe that their ideologies are formed separately from media influence. instead, foucault maintained that individuals create knowledge alongside existing discourses and social norms, which, in turn, influences their own and other’s behaviours, decision-making, and conduct. in other words, the theory of governmentality looks at how subtle, macro-mechanisms (for 120 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 example, government rationalities) and micro control apparatuses (a fallacious belief in a self-regulating subject) aimed at governing individuals, in turn influence their own and other’s behaviour and conduct (foucault, 1979/1991). in essence, governmentality considers “who can govern; who can be governed; what is to be governed; and how” (walters & haahr, 2005, p. 290). in this paper, i examine the hegemonic public discourses reflected in online digital newspaper articles surrounding the rollout of cse slps in south african schools. i employ a foucauldian discourse analysis, underpinned by governmentality theory, to make sense of the apparent neutral stance that emerged. first, i consider what both national and curriculum policy documents such as the children’s act and national policy on the prevention and management of learner pregnancy in schools say about cse and its rollout. then, i discuss the implementation of cse in south african schools. i go on to discuss the public’s response to the rollout while turning to the social psychology of decision-making to explore possible reasons in an attempt to understand the apparent neutrality. national and curriculum policy surrounding the rollout of comprehensive sexuality education in south african schools the constitution stands as a national legislative framework that upholds the rights and responsibilities of its citizens in relation to the state and its governmental bodies. the right to sexual and reproductive health services and information can be identified in the bill of rights under section 27(1)(a) of the constitution. however, the constitution is not clear about the age of consent when it comes to services and procedures such as accessing ageappropriate cse, preventative contraceptives, and the termination of pregnancy. the children’s act 38 of 2005 (as amended by the children's amendment act, no. 41 of 2007) protects the rights of children and makes provision for the physical, emotional, psychological, social, sexual, and legal wellbeing of all children. for example, chapter 2, section 13, taking their age, maturity and stage of development into consideration, states that all children, including children living with disabilities have the right to access ageappropriate cse in an accessible format. in addition, part 3 of chapter 7 in the children’s act, also states that a child may consent to medical services, such as being prescribed contraceptives and having a pregnancy terminated as early as 12 years of age, given their maturity and understanding of the associated risks of these treatments and procedures. the national policy on the prevention and management of learner pregnancy in schools (dbe, 2018), together with the integrated school health policy (2012) remain part of the dbe’s strategic plan to ensure the availability of condoms and contraceptives along with putting in place in schools by 2022, a referral system that includes testing and treatment for tb, hiv, and sexually transmitted diseases. the national policy on the prevention and management of learner pregnancy in schools, which was extended for public comment until 31 july 2018, is intended to extend the sexual and reproductive services for learners in schools (dbe, 2018). these services include access to male and female condoms and oral contraceptives, and options for the termination of pregnancy services to learners aged 12 and above, as determined by the level of inquiry or need. the policy also makes provision for ubisi: analysing the hegemonic discourses about comprehensive . . . 121 counselling and support, instructions for systematic management and implementation, as well as ageappropriate, culturally relevant and human rights based cse. according to the policy, the aim of cse is to equip learners with appropriate knowledge and skills to enable them to make mindful and healthy choices about relationships and the expression of their sexuality. this includes providing practical information based on scientific evidence that is presented in a non-judgemental manner (dbe, 2018). the emergence of comprehensive sexuality education in south african schools according to the dbe (2019), the cse curriculum has been integrated into the school curriculum in subjects such as life orientation and life skills since 2000. in other words, apparently, cse has been part of the south african curriculum for almost 20 years. the introduction of cse into the south african curriculum was a response to the daily challenges that learners face in terms of sexual and reproductive health services, care, and education, according to the dbe (2019). a significant number of young people, especially in the age range of 14 to 24, are increasingly experiencing early sexual debut, being exposed to pornography, and enacting non-compliance when it comes to condom use, and to tb and hiv testing. they are also making use of the available prevention measures to prevent unplanned pregnancy (dbe, 2019; statistics south africa, 2018; unesco, 2018). female students who fall pregnant often drop out of school with limited skills and few career opportunities (dbe, 2019). some may find themselves in poverty and turning to prostitution to survive which may, in turn, leave them susceptible to risks such as contracting sexually transmitted diseases (statistics south africa, 2018; unesco, 2018). the dbe (2019) has maintained that cse provides an opportunity for young people to acquire the knowledge, skills, and resources that will help them avoid engaging in risk-taking behaviours and build, instead, positive constructions of gender, sexuality, and the dynamics of relationships. however, whether cse was ready to be implemented and whether there had been sufficient consultation with experts was debatable (bhana et al. 2019; francis, 2019a, 2019b; msibi, 2015; ngabaza & shefer, 2019; shefer & macleod, 2015). according to bhana et al. (2019), the south african landscape is characterised by specific historical, socio-economic, and cultural differences between and among its learners and their parents (or guardians) and teachers. this means that some of the recommendations offered such as the valuing of compulsory heterosexuality over sexual diversity, for example, may differ from the expectations of learners, parents, and the teachers involved. this is true, too, of the values emphasised in relation to education about sexuality and relationships such as, for example, the insistence on sexual abstinence rather than on informed decision-making. young people have reported that cse is presented mostly from an abstinence focused (msutwana & de lange, 2017), disease-ridden (mayeza & vincent, 2019) and heteronormative framework (reygan, 2016). they have also noted that cse is often offered by embarrassed (pound et al., 2016), unconfident (francis & depalma, 2014b) and poorly trained (wood, 2009) teachers. for most south african parents and teachers, the morality behind the social construction of sex, gender, sexuality, and the teaching of sexuality education has been informed by a judeo-christian worldview (bhana et al., 2019). this moral 122 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 framework, in emphasising an abstinence approach based on heteronormativity, presents a specific culturally and religiously conservative approach to sexuality as shefer and macleod (2015) have observed. as a result, the current cse curriculum has been criticised for its failure to engage with the changes in young people’s evolving sexual identities (shefer & macleod, 2015), the wide range of sexual practices of young people (mayeza & vincent, 2019), and the need of learners of minority (a)sexual identification groups to be accepted in schools (ubisi, 2020). however, according to bhana et al. (2019), ngabaza and shefer (2019) and swanepoel (2020), cse does address other concerns such as the recognition of young people as sexual beings, the importance of increasingly safe sexual practices, and the problems inherent in the culture of sexual violence in schools. it affirmed some values about sex and notes the lack of parental involvement in education that deals with sex, hiv, and intimate relationships. scholars (bhana et al., 2019; francis, 2017; msibi, 2015) have maintained that if cse could be positioned within a framework based on human rights and gender and sexual justice, it has the potential to alleviate the effects of gender inequality, the supremacy of heteronormativity, and the promotion of sexual justice in the education system (bhana et al., 2019; ngabaza & shefer, 2019; shefer & macleod, 2015). public reaction towards the rollout of comprehensive sexuality education in schools according to foucault (1976/1990), the sexuality of children has been an intriguing yet socially sanctioned subject by those in positions of power. he theorised in the “pedagogization of children’s sex” (1976/1990, p. 104) that powerful institutions, namely the state, church, and family unit, deemed what was thought to be the highly sexual nature of children’s sexuality to be dangerous, and, therefore, in need of monitoring and control. foucault suggested that, in response to this belief, these powerful institutions created discourses of children as innocent subjects who should be kept ignorant of any exposure that may might sexualise them into early sexual debut. for philo (2011), in his vision, children below some uncertain age (pre-teenage?) are regarded as sexually innocent, entirely without bodily urges and passions of a ‘sexual’ nature, so much so that any attempt to discuss them as ‘sexual’ beings, or indeed to broach the issue of ‘sex’ with them, is met with widespread squeamishness if not outcry. (p. 124) despite the differences in time and context, many south africans echo foucault’s sentiments about the protection of children’s supposed innocence and take a stand against the rollout of cse slps in schools (swanepoel, 2020). at the crux of these objections is debate about the implementation of cse in schools given the lack of readiness of the cse slps and the extent of public consultation, as the chapters in sundaram and sauntson (2016) have attested. for one, as jones (2020) has pointed out, parents and religious figures have contended that, given the differences in cultural taboos and the various decrees of religious observation, the timing of the exposure to children of either abstinence-only or cse-based sex education should be at their discretion. also, parents along with religious and civil organisation spokespeople have ubisi: analysing the hegemonic discourses about comprehensive . . . 123 maintained that governmental bodies like the dbe have engaged in limited consultation with the general public (swanepoel, 2020). instead, these stakeholders have expressed feeling that government departments tend to rely on decision-making by global intergovernmental agencies like the united nations (un) that do not consider the diverse african landscape (see the chapters in sundaram and sauntson, 2016). at the same time, the dbe (2019) has insisted that national and curriculum policies are not adapted in isolation but with the assistance of an advisory committee panel made up of professional and civil bodies. the dbe (2019) has also claimed that cse is not sex education in which individuals are taught how to have sex. in response to critics against cse, basic education minister, angie motshekga stated, "there's adequate information that says if you teach children sexual education, you're about to educate them about sexuality, not sexualise them" (mokone, 2019, para. 12). in fact, the dbe (2019) maintains that cse is a holistic, value-driven strategy meant to prepare learners to make conscious, healthy decisions about their relationships and sexuality. up to this point, there is limited local and international research that suggests the prevalence of a neutral stance towards the cse rollout. to understand the possible reasons for individual decision-making in social contexts, it is useful to consider theory from other fields such as the social psychology of decision-making that explores the steps and processes taken by individuals and groups in making decisions in social contexts. based on research using simulated scenarios, experts in this field have suggested theories that explain decisionmaking strategies when it comes to prominent issues (ajzen, 1996; branscombe & baron, 2016; minda, 2015). for example, individuals may react to national protocols out of a sense of their citizenship duty in a manner that demonstrates acquiescence, however reluctantly, or as a way of showing obedience to authority in an act of conformity, depending on the required action on their part as well as the perceived consequences (branscombe & baron, 2016). some individuals may employ a decision-making strategy aligned with contrariness or rebelliousness toward national priorities such as, for example, a nation-wide vaccination requirement. according to branscombe and baron (2016), contrariness results from an unwillingness to share a similar view with a perceived oppressive authority figure. then, again, some individuals may openly remain on the fence about national agendas such as a vaccination rollout based on feelings of general apathy or the unwillingness to challenge power (minda, 2015). for example, the individual may believe the government is going to do what it wants to do anyway. however, even in these cases, while an individual may state socially an apparently neutral stance, their personal ideology may demonstrate contradictory beliefs towards the certain issue (tajfel, 1978). methodology sampling and data collection i conducted a desktop review by searching through digital newspaper articles from 2015 to 2019 on the online archive sa media on sabinet references. i used the six broad key terms of “comprehensive sexuality education”, “sex education”, “sexual education”, “sex ed”, 124 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 “schools” and “south africa”. the newspapers reported on marches and organisational positions, and published letters, commentaries, opinion pieces, reports of press conferences as well as pieces on health communication from various stakeholders such as parents, teachers, learners, religious figures, advocates, and civil and governmental organisations. of the128 online digital newspaper articles that were retrieved, i selected 83 for the final analysis (see table 1). the retrieved newspaper articles from newsrooms such as pretoria news, cape times, mail and guardian, and the new age reflect those that made it beyond editorial censorship and represented the journalists’ position, and, to a certain extent, the editorial position, too, of the newsroom at the time. i based the selection criteria for the final analysis on (1) whether the online digital newspaper article responded to or created a discourse about the rollout of cse in schools; (2) if it was published between the years 2015 and 2019; and (3) the newsroom was south african based, or the report reflected a south african context. table 1: number of total captured online digital newspaper articles according to year and the stance taken towards the rollout of comprehensive sexuality education in south african schools data analysis i captured the online digital newspaper articles and prepared them in an excel spreadsheet for analysis. i entered the data according to each subsequent year (from 2015 to 2019) indicating the article name, its author, year of release, newspaper, and page number. following the direction of babbie and mouton (2001), i conducted a thematic analysis based on the articles’ condensed meaning units, codes, categories and identified theme(s). all in all, i identified three themes with their supporting discourses and analysed them using foucauldian discourse analysis. this kind of analysis is concerned with how an individual’s worldview is shaped by how language is used and how relations in power are exercised by the individual in interactions with social institutions (arribas-ayllon & walkerdine, 2008). in particular, this discourse analysis was used to identify hegemonic discourses evident in the public voice as shaped by language and authority bodies towards the rollout of cse in schools. in this case, in line with ferreirinha and raitz (2010), i considered online media platforms as authority bodies that use language and forms of representation to persuade the consumers to accept or reject a certain viewpoint. ubisi: analysing the hegemonic discourses about comprehensive . . . 125 findings and discussion following a public discourse analysis of online digital newspaper articles surrounding the rollout of cse slps, my findings suggest that a number of hegemonic discourses were employed by some stakeholders in favour of and against the rollout (see table 2). as the years go by from 2015 to 2019, most of the views show a particular trend towards being in favour of the rollout, with a gradual increase of a seemingly neutral stance towards it (see table 1). table 2: summary of dominant discourses in favour of, and in opposition to, the rollout of comprehensive sexuality education in south african schools five dominant public discourses in favour of a cse rollout five dominant public discourses against a cse rollout 1. cse is not sex education. 1. parents have the right to choose. 2. cse is a holistic preventative strategy. 2. protection of the innocence of young children. 3. parents have failed in their role to provide cse to their children. 3. inadequate cse policy-making and implementation. 4. youth demand cse. 4. support for abstinence-only sexual education. 5. cse has been part of the lo curriculum for 20 years. 5. cse is a un imported campaign with no relevance to african values. dominant public discourses in favour of the rollout of cse in south african school supporting extracts from online digital newspapers that demonstrate dominant public discourses in favour of a cse rollout in south african schools are indicated in table 3 below. consistent with the available literature, the discourses remain in line with the positions of scholars such as bhana et al. (2019), ngabaza and shefer (2019) and swanepoel (2020) who contend that cse is a holistic strategy rather than just about sex education. intergovernmental agencies, such as the un (unesco, 2018), and some scholars (francis, 2019b; shefer & macleod, 2015) have maintained that cse is a broad curriculum intended to generate early positive values in schooling environments such as the acceptance of sexuality diversity. these discourses corroborate the findings in some literature that parents have failed to offer cse at home for reasons such as discomfort in relation to talking about issues of sexuality (mudhovozi et al., 2012), and that young people require more open communication about less prioritised topics such as dating within same-sex relationships (mayeza & vincent, 2019). i use the tenets of governmentality theory (foucault, 1979/1991) here to examine sources of decision-making, specifically how rationalities have been used to persuade individuals, as 126 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 well as how these governing rationalities influence, in turn, our own behaviours and conduct and that of others. as foucault (1981/1997, p. 291) put it, the subject constitutes itself in an active fashion through the practices of self, these practices are nevertheless not something invented by the individual himself [sic]. they are models that he finds in his culture and are proposed, suggested, imposed upon him by his culture, his society and his social group. since online news platforms have become a readily available source of information, especially for young people, more pressure can be exerted by social institutions such as governmental bodies to influence citizenship to move towards particular forms. in this case, the supporting extracts from the newspaper articles in table 3 show that rationality from governmental departments such as the dbe’s policy outlines, health communications and the reassurance given to the public may have been employed during the process of policy-making to influence the public to support the rollout. such governing mentality raises questions, identified by opponents of the cse rollout, about how extensively governmental departments conduct their public consultations to include a variety of public views. in terms of the implications for teacher education, policy, and the teaching and learning of cse, the extracts below show that despite the dbe’s reiterated objections, cse is considered widely by the public as sex education. this means that to ensure inclusivity in both schooling environments and broader social contexts, teacher education needs to incorporate pedagogy and curriculum knowledge which emphasises that cse is a broad curriculum that is scientifically-based (unesco, 2018), ageappropriate (dbe, 2019) and that it is based within an anti-oppressive, sexual justice and human rights based framework (shefer & macleod, 2015). the dbe needs to clarify, also, the implications of policy such as the children’s act and national policy on the prevention and management of learner pregnancy in schools for stakeholders in communities such as parents, teachers, community leaders, and learners to secure the involvement and cooperation of the broader community that will ensure the effective implementation of cse in schools. in terms of the teaching and learning of cse, the findings suggest that more young people and principals seem to welcome the teaching of cse (mayeza & vincent, 2019). table 3: online digital newspaper extracts supporting discourses in favour of a cse rollout discourses in favour of rollout extracts from online digital newspapers (i) cse is not about sex education “the national policy on the prevention and management of learner pregnancy in schools . . . seeks to ensure accessible provision of information on prevention, among others. where condoms and information on their use cannot be provided in schools, referral to the department's hiv, sti and tb . . . nurses should ensure access to condoms and requisite information and support services, the policy states” (villette, cape times, june 28, 2018, p. 5). (ii) cse is a holistic preventative strategy “the dbe recently passed policy allowing the health department to make contraceptives accessible in schools. dr manala makua from the department said programmes involving community health workers, parents ubisi: analysing the hegemonic discourses about comprehensive . . . 127 and other societal stakeholders were spreading the word of preventing unwanted pregnancies and if everyone joined in and did their part many lives could be saved” (makhubu, pretoria news, november 23, 2016, p. 4). (iii) parents have failed in their role to provide cse at home “the dbe recently directed scathing criticism at parents, saying they [parents] are not doing enough when it comes to sex education [at home]” (abpahams, daily news, august 24, 2017, p. 11). (iv) youth demand cse “principals and pupils requested additional programmes on topics, such as sex education, bullying, and peer pressure” (ana reporter, cape argus, august 24, 2015, p. 5). (v) cse has been part of the lo curriculum "the department wishes to reiterate that there is no new content that has been added to the subject of life orientation. the comprehensive sexuality education has been part of the curriculum since 2000" (ana reporter, cape argus, october 30, 2019, p. 4). dominant public discourses against the rollout of cse in south african schools table 4 below shows corroborating extracts from online digital newspapers that demonstrate hegemonic discourses in opposition to the rollout of cse slps in south african schools. in line with local and international research, the discourses support contentions by parents that it is their right to choose the timing and exposure of their children to any sexuality education, especially when it comes to protecting their innocence (jones, 2020; kendall, 2013; sundaram & sauntson, 2016). existing literature supports discourses opposing a cse rollout based on the dbe’s lack of readiness and consultation and its untimely implementation, given, as mentioned above, that cse is presented by embarrassed (pound et al., 2016), unconfident (francis & depalma, 2014b), and poorly trained teachers (wood, 2009). however, there is limited literature that criticises the discourse in identifying cse as a un import that fails to take into account the diverse african landscape (see the collected chapters in sundaram and sauntson, 2016). according to governmentality theory, disciplinary knowledge from social and academic institutions such as psychology has driven socio-medical and cultural discourses about how parents and teachers should understand the sexuality of children (foucault, 1976/1990). foucault’s (1979/1991) theory of governmentality urges us to consider how the discursive use of language by disciplines such as medicine and religion, as indicated in the extracts below, provide reasons for the opposing stance when it comes to addressing children’s sexuality. for example, at some points in history, talking about children’s sexuality was considered a moral taboo (foucault, 1976/1990). foucault’s theorisation of the “pedagogization of children’s sex” (foucault, 1976/1990, p. 104), a social construction that children are innocent and need to be kept ignorant of sex and away from any sexual exposure lest they become sexualised into early sexual debut, used to be an accepted worldview endorsed by early institutional bodies, including the medical profession. according to foucault (1976/1990), governmentality through disciplinary powers needs to be critically examined. in this case, the extracts reveal how religion has exerted its influence on the maintaining of abstinence-only approaches. foucault maintained that it is necessary to reveal 128 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 any self-serving interests of power so, here, we need to ask why and how religious belief defines what counts as normal sexuality. in terms of the consequences of these findings for teacher education, policy, and the teaching and learning of cse, it is still clear that certain religious views on sexual morality (e.g. that children are innocent and should be kept pure) inform how the public sees sexuality and relationship education in schools. given this, it is teacher education that should be seen as crucial to reinforcing the values and interpretive framework of constitutional democracy that allows for the expression of many worldviews, including those of religious bodies and sexual minorities. for example, teacher education needs to prepare teachers to let go of the fear that the teaching of sexuality diversity in schools will sexualise youth in any way. teachers need to learn that the teaching of sexuality diversity is meant to queer what are considered to be normal gender constructions or views on sexuality (shefer & macleod, 2015), as well as to destabilise compulsory heterosexuality (francis, 2017) the belief in which often leads to oppression like victimisation, homophobia, and transphobia in schooling environments and society more broadly. the integration of national policy in relation to the constitution needs to be foregrounded in the teaching and learning of cse to engender the values of creating inclusive schooling environments and social contexts for all learners, including those of religious and sexual minorities. table 4: online digital newspaper extracts supporting discourses in opposition to a cse rollout discourses in opposition to rollout extracts from online digital newspapers (i) parents’ right to choose “sex education at schools is poorly handled by ill-equipped people. guidance counsellors are non-existent. corporal punishment has been abolished. extramural activities are rare” (kistan, sunday tribune, august 23, 2015, p. 34). (ii) protection of the innocence of young children “linda yates of the [adcp] party said “government promoted what they referred to as comprehensive sexuality education, which taught children and young people they had to be sexual to be normal”” (rammutla, daily sun, august 19, 2019, p. 2). (iii) cse policy-making and implementation “while many teachers are of the highest calibre, there are problems, including sexual abuse, absenteeism and alcohol consumption. so the question arises, are sa teachers in general capable of implementing cutting-edge sex education?” (williams, citizen, may 15, 2019, p. 12). (iv) support for abstinenceonly sexual education “abstinence, faithfulness and late sexual debuts, combined with a mind-set that sex is so special that it belongs in a marital relationship, plus champions who live out that compelling advice, are the only effective means to make it easier for girls to say no and for boys not to push for now” (de neef, witness, june 3, 2015, p. 6). (v) cse is a un imported campaign with non-african values “police were there to keep an eye on the [adcp] marchers, who demanded that the department not import sexual behaviour programmes from un agencies that would “corrupt and poison” the minds of children (matshili, pretoria news, august 19, 2019, p. 5). ubisi: analysing the hegemonic discourses about comprehensive . . . 129 understanding the neutrality towards the rollout extracts are offered from online digital newspapers supporting discourses of seeming neutrality towards the rollout of cse slps in schools, as indicated in table 5. the apparent neutrality was determined by the newspaper’s balanced, non-biased reporting about the rollout. i have employed governmentality theory to suggest how individuals create knowledge, identities, and agency alongside existing discourses and social norms that, they use, in turn, to regulate their own and other’s behaviour (foucault, 1979/1991). however, a shortcoming of governmentality theory is the recognition that individuals are capable of forming new experiences from their everyday interactions and observations that require alternative explanations outside existing discourses related to social norms. for example, the supporting extracts suggest that neutrality may be seen in the ambivalent feelings expressed by principals about the effectiveness of a cse rollout in their schools. to further understand the neutrality discourse, one can also see in operation journalistic ethics that require journalists to represent equally both sides of a certain issue, since reporting in a neutral, non-biased manner is what journalists are trained to do (see the chapters in mcbride & rosenstiel, 2013). however, there are newsroom dynamics based on editorial policies that reinforce censorship of certain content that might affect a journalist’s ability to write freely. there is a new need to recognise that non-biased reporting creates a neutral stance from which the public is invited to consider new outlooks, in this case, on cse, regardless of personal secular and/or religious perspectives. then again, some individuals, based on their personal ideology, may be neutral when it comes to supporting national priorities. for example, some individuals may withdraw into a state of general apathy (feeling that they and their decisions do not matter when it comes to policy making), while others may take the stance of being unwilling to challenge authority (branscombe & baron, 2016). the lesson that could be drawn for teacher education, policy, and the teaching and learning of cse is that both opponents and supporters of the cse rollout might have something to learn from each other. the dbe might need to acknowledge counter-normative stances from religious leaders and parents’ concerns regarding the cse curriculum. a public engagement inviting wider approaches from secular and religious perspectives would allow for the expansion of a diverse approaches and worldviews towards the teaching of cse in schools. however, as it stands, the dbe has maintained that parents can come up with their own sex lessons that will be considered at policy level. the dbe should be proactive in coming up with alternative strategies in cases where offering cse has not been effective, instead of promoting cse as the magic bullet without acknowledging its shortcomings. then again, a neutral stance should also be welcomed in the teaching and learning of cse by multiple stakeholders in the education sector since this advances the enactment of a constitutional democracy. 130 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 table 5: online digital newspaper extracts supporting discourses seemingly neutral to a cse rollout discourses showing neutrality towards the rollout extracts from online digital newspapers ambivalence in the effectiveness of a cse rollout “sapphire primary school principal bruce damons said he has "ambivalent feelings" as he is afraid that learners in his school are sexually active from a very age in his community. … to save a life on the one hand [making condoms and cse available to learners] makes sense. on the other side, will it encourage promiscuity?" (van rooyen, the herald, may 16, 2015, p. 5). reoccurrence of early sexual debut in spite of cse rollout “and the principal has tried everything to deter pupils from engaging in early sex: sex education lessons part of life orientation classes-help from adults like female police officers and nurses; talks and assistance from ngos, religious groups, parents and even officials from the department of education” (sokutu, citizen, october 23, 2019, p. 3). call to revisit new approaches within secular and religious perspectives a daily maverick article on august 2, "… calls for a diverse, multidimensional, integrated and holistic approach to sexual and reproductive health education… the request for a holistic approach calls upon society to give truthful input and to consider all possibilities. religious advice is often marginalised to create purely secular viewpoints. this undermines the core values of children and communities” (“discussion needed on sex education”, cape argus, august 22, 2019, p. 7). conclusion in this paper, i aimed to explore hegemonic discourses surrounding the rollout of cse slps in south african schools. i focused on online digital newspapers because of the reliance by young people on online sources for news (greer & yan, 2011; moosa, 2020; rodny-gumede, 2012). i uncovered a neutral position, in addition to those in favour of and in opposition to the rollout. i used foucault’s (1979/1991) governmentality theory to analyse the data. the findings suggest that social institutions such as the media, government departments, and religious leaders may influence individuals’ responses to, decision-making about, and behaviour towards, the rollout. there may be, however, those individuals who seemingly remain neutral towards the rollout. the findings in this study point to feelings of ambivalence and the lack of reliable evidence supporting the success of a cse rollout. the reported increase in teenage pregnancies, despite learners being offered cse in schools, also cast doubts on its effectiveness. further calls to revisit new approaches from secular and religious perspectives show uncertainty by some individuals with regard to the current state of the cse programme. applying theoretical explanations from the field of the social psychology of decision-making, other possible reasons suggest that neutrality towards the rollout may originate from feelings of general apathy or an unwillingness to challenge authority or take a stand (branscombe & baron, 2016). one of the limitations of this study is that not all newsroom publishers upload their articles on the public database sabinet references. in addition, the newspapers also cannot be said to reflect the public’s actual responses, given that they are also written from a journalistic point ubisi: analysing the hegemonic discourses about comprehensive . . . 131 of view, and are possibly influenced by editorial policy at the time of writing. the findings of this study, therefore, cannot be said to be representative of the various views across the country. future research could use autobiographical accounts and/or a collection of both digital and hard copy newspaper articles to gather a more representative view. references abpahams, m. 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(2009). teaching in the age of aids: exploring the challenges facing eastern cape teachers. journal of education, 47, 127 150. microsoft word bissue78.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 78, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i78a04 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x creative inquiry: exploring teacher researcher selfreflexivity through arts-based self-study kirsten woitek college of education and human development, george mason university, fairfax, virginia, usa kwoitek@gmu.edu https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8341-3756 (received: 16 september 2019; accepted: 7 february 2020) abstract this teacher researcher self-study examines self-reflexive learning using artwork and poetic devices in order to explore my identity as an english to speakers of other languages (esol) teacher. it demonstrates how i developed my creative process and how my artistic research practices deepened my findings. the data includes my reflective journal and analytic memos, my teacher journal, personal notes from students, and teacher/colleague free writes. i also used a mirror cinquain poem as an analytical tool to help clarify my selfassessment. through the analysis of my process and products, i gained perspective about myself as a teacher, explored my lived teacher experiences, and discovered how the use of inventive methods allowed new knowledge to inform my understanding of my teacher self. keywords: artwork, esol teacher, identity, inventive methods, poetic devices, self-reflexive, teacher researcher introduction “not my flag!” many distractions. flags. salvadoran flag on backpacks and t-shirts. lost and confused, they insisted that the israeli flag belonged to him. he was palestinian and wanted to learn spanish more than english— to fit in. in this study, i explore how self-reflexivity and arts-based methods informed my exploration of my identity as a teacher of english to speakers of other languages (esol). in the classroom setting, there is often a tension in the self in relation to others (bullough & pinnegar, 2001). therefore, how a teacher develops an identity, and recognises and relates to woitek: creative inquiry 59 students’ identities, are significant factors in the teaching of english learners (els) in the language classroom. identity is a construct that is both complex and multifaceted and can fluctuate and shift (block, 2007; norton peirce, 1995). accordingly, through an active process of self-reflexivity using artwork and poetry, this study explores some of the complexities and challenges that shape teacher identity. it will be useful to other esol teachers who wish to explore their own teacher identities. the integration and enactment of various arts-based methods will also be beneficial to other researchers exploring identity. this study aimed to explore the research question: “how can the use of artwork and poetic devices inform my understanding of my identity as an esol teacher?” literature review the relationship between identity and language, and the effects of the social and political environment on the language learner, are important concepts in el identity research (block, 2013; norton & toohey, 2011; pavlenko, 2012). language and identity research considers the relationships of the language learner within their surroundings, with particular attention given to the classroom setting. this research often applies issues of social inequality as well as issues of power in relation to language learner identity (kubota, 2004; may, 2012; mckinney & norton, 2008). the research is specifically personal, and primarily associated with the student’s social and cultural setting. therefore, studies that look at teacher identity can further inform language learner identity as it relates to the educational environment, and can help raise awareness about how teachers’ perceptions impact student learning. teacher identity, as it relates to immigrant students, has been studied using various methods. to illustrate, in a study conducted from the perspective of a teacher working with immigrant students, igoa (1995) found that her students’ fragile identities and culture shock caused them to feel shyness and loneliness. in order to overcome these challenges, igoa (1995) reflected on her own position as an immigrant and used that experience to connect to her students. accordingly, the immigrant students preferred igoa’s classroom to others in the school because of the feeling of belonging and security (1995). in a similar finding, pavlenko (2006) stated that many studies have shown that the language learner’s sense of belonging is a significant factor in how students learn. therefore, the teacher’s ability to understand and empathise with the students directly affects a student’s sense of belonging in an academic setting, and it is through studies on teacher identity that this understanding can be explored. more recently, research by rong and hilburn (2017) found that teachers working with immigrants in north carolina, usa, held a positive perspective toward their immigrant students’ academic abilities and expressed genuine empathy toward them. however, the teachers felt hampered by the curriculum and the school setting and, therefore, did not advocate for their students (rong & hilburn, 2017). rong and hilburn’s (2017) study demonstrated how teacher identity affects teacher agency that, in turn, contributes to immigrant students’ academic and social experiences in the classroom. furthermore, teacher identity has been explored from its position of power, reinforcing the relational dynamic 60 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 through which language teachers and students come to know themselves in the classroom (morgan, 2004). thus, the influence of the teacher’s sense of self is paramount to helping els learn. selfstudy research is a way to gain an understanding of one’s self and enables teachers to apply a critical lens to their professional values (samaras, 2011). samaras (2011) stated that as teachers use self-reflexivity, they work to gain a better view of their own teaching as well as the effect their teaching has on students. self-study affects our students’ learning as teachers examine who they are as people and how these characteristics influence their teaching (samaras, hicks, & berger, 2004). the following self-reflexive study expands on language and identity research by exploring teacher identity and its relationship to el identity. personal background my mother’s journey to the united states as a refugee after world war ii, her love of languages, cultures, and people sparked my interest in identity and its relationship to language: my mother, like so many immigrants, came to the united states for a better life because her home and family had been lost through war. therefore, she brought with her a sense of loss, something that i have only in recent years come to fully comprehend. (reflective journal, february 3, 2019) i worked as an esol teacher for five years before deciding to leave the profession to pursue a doctorate in education. in my role as an esol teacher, i interacted with students who were experiencing what my mother had experienced 50 years earlier. they were unable to speak english, and many had arrived in the united states without their immediate family and were living with extended family members in crowded apartments. i was a new teacher in a new setting and hired to teach them english. as a new teacher, i felt like an outsider. i did not know my place and did not understand the rules, schedule, and routine of a middle school environment, all of which helped me relate to the els’ feelings of difference, as well as raised my awareness of how their identities were forming in a space that was, itself, operating in a state of scarcity and fear as the school struggled to meet adequate yearly progress (ayp)—the measure by which schools, districts, and states are held accountable for student performance under title i of the no child left behind act (2001)—after two failing years. this pressure created a feeling of unrest and stress among the teachers and administrators. and it was in this environment that the els were forming their new academic, social, and personal identities. i felt compelled to study this experience in order to gain a greater understanding of my teacher identity. an extract from my reflective journal shows my deep concern for my students and my feelings of institutional stress, the teachers were caring (even though many yelled), and the administrators were fairly open-minded and understanding of the students. as individuals, the teachers and administrators were not bad, mean, or indifferent. however, collectively, they were running a system that disregarded the individual. it felt a like a prison. the woitek: creative inquiry 61 environment valued conformity and compliance. many teachers felt that “these kids” needed this—controlled, limited, and restrained. i could feel myself both resisting and adapting to the setting and i wondered how the students who had to navigate and negotiate both the new school and the new language were developing their second language identity, especially under these circumstances. (february 20, 2019) i wrote the above reflections using memory work (mitchell, 2005; naicker, 2014; pithousemorgan, mitchell, & moletsane, 2009) as i looked back at my first year of teaching. for this study, i also retrieved my old teacher journal and handwritten notes from students from my first year of teaching. method the use of artistic expression allows for the emotional and private to emerge in a way that supports self-reflexivity. therefore, i chose an arts-based self-study method to investigate my teacher identity. an arts-based approach is designed to expand human understanding and allows for an expressive form to be created that helps the individual become an empathetic participant in the lives of others and in the setting that is being explored (barone & eisner, 2011). context my research was situated in both the past and the present. i had a teacher journal and student notes from my teaching experience in 2011. my memory work, noted in my reflective journal and analytic memos, was conducted over a semester in 2019 during my doctoral studies in multilingual and multicultural education. participants self my role as researcher and practitioner is evident in the reflective journal and analytic memos written in the early months of 2019, and my teacher journal written during my first year of teaching provided data from my past. other participants the participants for this study also included the insights and perspectives of two esol teachers and critical friends. the esol teachers were selected through an email inquiry to my former teacher colleagues. the two esol teachers were the first to respond to my request to participate in the study. their participation allowed for multiple ways to represent student and teacher identities, and these diverse perceptions reinforced and challenged the self-study (feldman, 2003). critical friends offered insight and perceptive comments to the practice of self-study (costa & kallik, 1993; klein, riordan, schwartz, & sotirhos, 2008; samaras & sell, 2013; wade, fauske, & thompson, 2008). pithouse-morgan and van laren (2012) supported this approach as an effective way to explore the data by beginning with the self and 62 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 then moving towards collaboration. the critical friends were fellow students in the doctoral programme who provided weekly feedback and data interpretations. this served as a validation process (samaras, 2011). data collection i used multiple data sources: a reflective journal, analytic memos, my teacher journal, personal notes from students, and two esol teacher free writes. as i wrote my reflective journal and analytic memos, and incorporated my student notes and teacher journal from my first year of teaching, the use of creative expression to further my understanding of these data seemed appropriate and ideal. analytic memos are written in the form of reflexivity and as a method of inquiry that reveals something new for the researcher that was not known before it was written (richardson, 2003). critical friends read my analytic memos and reflective journal, creating a dialogue that further informed my study. the two esol teachers participated in the study by providing their responses to free writes related to the visual image representation. the reflective journal was written over the course of a few months in early 2019 during the fourth semester of my doctoral studies, and as a part of an advanced research methods course on self-study. i reflected back to my prior teaching experience, and approached this memory work by jotting down a thought, or thoughts, that arose at various times of the day in different settings. in these reflections, memories of my mother’s immigrant story emerged and i wrote about that as part of my personal history. in addition to the reflective journal, an analytic memo included my search for a visual image that described my students, resulting in the discovery of a painting by frida kahlo. for me, the painting provided an emotional and accurate depiction of my students. these data formed from my own reflective writing exercise, my recollection of my mother’s immigrant story, and a search for a visual image that could represent my students as i saw them. the data emerged interactively and reflexively with one another. after i completed my reflective journal and analytic memos, i retrieved my teacher journal, which i had written during my first year of teaching nearly a decade ago. the journal was a requirement for my teacher certification programme. the time difference between the reflective journal and the teacher journal allowed for the possibility of multiple viewpoints to emerge and for ideas to be cemented from the data. in order to gather data that would relate to my students, i needed to include my students’ voices. therefore, i collected my student thank-you notes from a box i had stored in my basement. i transcribed each handwritten note into a document so that i had all the student notes in one place. i kept the original notes intact, but also extracted frequently used words from them in order to find dominant expressions. i maintained confidentiality by presenting the data in a way that ensured individuals’ anonymity. i also omitted the name and location of the school and any identifying information. the two teachers were given a written consent letter that included the following woitek: creative inquiry 63 information: the participant’s acknowledgement of their voluntary role in the study, the purpose of the study, the benefits of the study, and a statement of confidentiality. each participant was informed that their identity would not be revealed. data analysis wang, coemans, siegesmund, and hannes (2017) emphasised that the process of artistic inquiry is creatively inspired. therefore, in my data analysis, i used a frida kahlo painting and generated data from my past teacher journal and student notes, using poetry. the dualvoice poem (johri, 2011) provided an opportunity for deeper consideration between my students’ voices and me as teacher. i applied an arts-based inquiry to elicit responses from the two esol teachers (wang, coemans, siegesmund, & hannes, 2017). i was able to enrich the data by relating my interpretation of the visual image to their interpretations of the painting in connection with their students. according to savin-baden and wimpenny (2014), arts-related research allows for reflection on various human experiences. i found themes by reading and rereading the data and sharing with my critical friends. the trustworthiness of my interpretations came from my critical friends as well as the positioning of the reflective journal in relation to my teacher journal, which were written eight years apart. i examined the data over a period of weeks, and coded by posing questions and notes to myself in order to identify themes and patterns (saldaña, 2009). by examining multiple sources of data, common themes emerged. quality analysis comes from finding themes in the multiple data sources (pinnegar & hamilton, 2009). i developed support of the themes, and i generated critical friends’ feedback in order to expand the themes. this form of triangulation—my writings, the notes from my students, and the critical friends and esol teachers’ responses—enhanced the trustworthiness of the study. i worked systematically by not reading the student notes or my teacher journal until after i had written both my analytic memos and reflective journal. this enabled the data to reveal pertinent details that may have been missed if i had read my teacher journal before reflection. by separating the past and the present, i was able to return to the teacher journal and reconsider my sense of el identity in the earlier stages of my teacher training. this circular path of transparency revealed that my reflective journal was fraught with layers of my own memories of being a new teacher in a low-performing school. the esol teachers’ and critical friends’ input added a level of reliability that led to authentic and new ways of knowing (brandenburg, 2009). therefore, this integrated process produced a holistic and objective analysis of the data. i used the frida kahlo (1933) painting, my dress hangs there, as a visual image of my students’ experience in my classroom and in america. i discovered this kahlo painting when i was researching images that characterised my students. it depicts various industrial images as well as skyscrapers and a church. in the centre is a traditional mexican-style dress that is hanging on a clothes line suspended between a golf trophy and a toilet, both of which are set upon roman columns. the painting was new to me and yet it quickly became 64 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 emblematic of my study. in order to gain a deeper understanding of my teacher identity, i accessed multiple viewpoints by providing two of my esol teacher colleagues with the image and asked them to describe it in relation to their students, just as i had done. i also composed a dual-voice poem as a way to analyse the data. this method enabled me to present my teacher journal entries and my student notes side by side, demonstrating a dialogic interaction in an inventive way. the poetry included the phrases and words that i catalogued and, through the deconstruction of the data into a format that could be organised through a poetic form, a narrative representation of the data emerged. the use of this artsbased method enriched my research and offered a co-constructed analysis that enabled the data to act together and in relation to one another. this poetic representation offers an understanding of the material that recognises the dialogue as a jointly constructed process between participant and researcher. the use of poetry served as a way to investigate, and more deeply examine, the data (hopper & sanford, 2008). it helped extend my understanding of teacher and student subjectivities. in essence, i was exploring and integrating various arts-based methods in new ways to more deeply explore my teacher identity. this methodological inventiveness (pithouse-morgan & samaras, 2020) allowed for my study to unfold and shift in a way that i had not predicted. the input from my peers (critical friends and the two teachers) and their interpretations enabled me to approach my teacher identity more critically. the teacher journal and reflective journal, combined with my analytic memos, my visual image, and student notes, formed a crystallisation of self-study methods as described by samaras (2011). this crystallisation is a way for multiple angles of each method to help bring a greater understanding to the research (samaras, 2011). in my teacher journal that i had written during my first year as a teacher, i had noted that my students “had a desire to be fluent,” “did not want an accent,” “appeared to love language learning,” and “found it difficult to read, write, speak, and be understood.” from these extracts, i developed a theme that suggested the students had a desire to assimilate. their language identity was uncertain because they wanted to belong to the new language community but did not have the language to belong: “desire for community drew them back to their native language group.” there were some students i had described as “lonesome and isolated” but, for the majority of the teacher journal, i depicted students as “ambitious,” “wanting to learn,” and “high-energy.” in my reflective journal and analytic memos, written eight years after my first year of teaching, my impressions were different. i recalled that “english was hard [for them],” “spanish was dominant in the classroom,” and “they struggled to fit in” and “missed home and missed their grandmothers.” the reflective journal and analytic memos formed themes that described students as ambivalent toward their ability to assimilate. the students were also described as “stressed and struggling,” “missing their home,” and “confused,” with only a few mentions of gratitude: “students felt grateful for the small classroom setting.” from this, themes developed signifying that students’ identity and experiences were inimical to their new environment. woitek: creative inquiry 65 conversely, the two esol teachers who responded to the kahlo (1933) painting and the questions about their perceptions and opinions of their esol students were positive in their responses: “students enjoy learning,” “they have pride in knowing spanish and ixil,” “students have fun playing games,” and “laugh a lot.” the use of a painting and dual-voice poetry helped deepen my understanding of my teacher identity. using each arts-based method allowed me to interpret my data providing a dynamic and interconnected analysis of the data. i used a mirror cinquain (kolodji, 2005) as an analytical tool to help unpack my selfassessment in a concise manner. the two esol teachers’ interpretations of the kahlo painting helped illuminate my subjectivity. the reflective journal, analytic memos, teacher journal, and student notes worked together to provide a story over a period of time. the purpose of using these methods for my self-reflexivity was to expand my ways of knowing using inventive methods that would allow for the emotional and personal expression of my teacher identity to emerge. the next three sections describe more specifically the use of inventiveness using a visual image representation, a dual-voice poem, and a mirror cinquain. method 1: visual image representation i discovered the frida kahlo (1933) painting when looking for a visual representation of my students. i used this painting as a reference for the two esol teacher free writes by asking each of them to describe how the painting relates to, or does not relate to, their els. in linking the painting to their students, neither esol teacher connected their students to a sense of hopelessness. one teacher stated, it doesn’t [relate to my students]. the artist is not impressed by america—she hangs her dress here but where is her body? the brightest thing in the picture is the toilet? my students are more hopeful than this. the other esol teacher interpreted the painting as an optimistic image and aligned it with her students. she commented, the idea of experiences in their home country are very much at the forefront of their minds, as it is in the painting. my students have positive ideas about living in a new place and the promise it holds are all over the painting, as it is in our students’ minds. in contrast, my interpretation from my analytic memo was as follows: i hoped to find an image that would depict identity in conflict with society, just as my students were struggling in their new environment. the lifeless dress surrounded by american images struck me immediately, and connects well with what my students were enduring in their lives in this new country. for me, this painting was a visual metaphor of my students’ identity—its overpowering industrial images and absence of the body in the hanging, empty dress. 66 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 the inconsistency between our interpretations of our students’ identities illuminated my subjectivity in a way that i had not foreseen. that is, the input from the esol teachers required me to self-reflect more critically. as i studied my reflective journal, i found that it contained descriptions of suffering, loss, and lack in relation to my els. moreover, i synthesised the student notes, my teacher journal, and the esol teachers’ interpretations and was able to discern that these data did not consist of despair. my reflective journal and my interpretation of the painting in relation to my students depict a greater sense of despondency than any other data. this finding suggests that memories are uniquely recalled and that they exist in relation to present experiences, thus producing unpredictability. accordingly, the use of the painting as an interpretive image in relation to els helped me gain an understanding of my teacher perspective—in reflection, and how it changed over a period of time. from this reframing of my viewpoint, i realised that my memory tilted the el experience in a direction that did not correspond with the other data. therefore, i determined that i needed to assess the remaining data—the student notes and my teacher journal—in relation to each other in order to evaluate the interrelationship in real time. i chose to use a poetic device for this portion of the study. method 2: dual-voice poem composing the dual-voice poem—using my students’ voices and my journal entries— provided a dialogue of perspectives within the environment we shared. the poetic discourse offered a profound and meaningful way to explore the student voices with the teacher voice, and demonstrated the complexities of identity. identity includes how we perceive ourselves in relation to others (norton, 2000). therefore, the dual-voice poetry is a lyrical representation of mutual recognition between teacher and students, or self and other. i love this class. it’s my favorite class. thank you for all lesson you teach me. you always help me. when i ask, you knew. i wanna say thank you for this year of learning. i swear i’m going to try learning english. language was the primary form of identity. those who were talkative in my class fell silent in other classes. the girl from camaroon and the boy from israel were immediately on the periphery. the boy from mexico and the boy from honduras were teased. my goal was to unify the group through language. here, from the teacher perspective (shown on the right-hand side), the external experience is illuminated as a factor in identity. in my role as teacher, i am actively making sense of the surroundings and recognising the challenges. conversely, the student voices are focused on one external factor—their teacher. my goal was to be a teacher who provided a stable and supportive classroom environment, and this is realised and recognised in the students’ voices. moreover, my concerns about student disengagement are offset by their positivity. the dualwoitek: creative inquiry 67 voice structure illustrates this relationship, and the connection between the voices reinforces the identities that are forming in relation to one another. therefore, the poem shows the challenges of the students’ struggle to find their sense of belonging in the classroom from multiple perspectives. the co-constructed analysis enabled the data to act together, and also shows my teacher identity forming around my perceptions of my students’ needs. the following excerpt connects my interpretation of my students’ identity and the students’ self-identity of lack and dependence: you had patience with me. i wanna say thank you for all the patience that you had with me. i know it’s hard understanding a person that doesn’t speak the same language. thank you so much for the encouragement i receive for you. he wanted friends. he wanted to fit in. asking to eat lunch in my classroom. she slept most of the time. as they learned english, they stopped wearing the flag. expressed annoyance with their parents who do not speak english. our one-room schoolhouse. the students’ use of “patience” and “encouragement” suggests that they feel a sense of deficiency in their inability to speak english, and they are apologetic about it. their gratitude expresses appreciation as well as distress. simultaneously, my entry corresponds and responds to these ambivalent expressions of self by conveying the exchange of language assimilation with native language abandonment—“annoyance with their parents who do not speak english.” this interconnection between language and identity is observable through the use of the dialogue that occurs in dual-voice poetry. moreover, this poem allows for the affective themes of identity to develop, showing optimism and inspiration, as well as the patterns that emerge from my voice which display challenges of assimilation and language ambivalence among my students. therefore, this dual-voice poem incorporates a creative and critical rendering of how teacher identity forms in relation to the students’ identity, and vice versa, in the el classroom. method 3: mirror cinquain according to kolodji (2005), mirror cinquains are two-stanza cinquain (5-line) sequences with syllabic counts of 2-4-6-8-2 and 2-8-6-4-2, respectively. in my self-study, i produced a series of mirror cinquains using the 10-line patterns to reflect my self-analysis with the five foci in the methodological components of self-study. these five foci are personal situated inquiry, critical collaborative inquiry, improved learning, transparent and systematic research process, and knowledge generation and presentation (samaras, 2011). according to samaras (2011), these are guidelines for conducting self-study research. therefore, the title of each set of mirror cinquains is one of the five foci, and its stanzas mirror my self-assessment as it 68 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 relates to that focus. the restrictions of the poetic form’s syllable pattern enforced brevity as well as emphasised contemplation and reflection. mirror cinquains personal situated inquiry my lens, my inquiry. self-assess my practice. role of culture on my theories, impact. journals, from today’s reflections and thoughts to those scribed years ago. inconsistent. re-think. critical collaborative inquiry expand self-study work, collaborate to gain divergent perspectives and views; cf. 1 cf supportive of my self-study. questioning my ideas, which gave me pause. shared thoughts. improved learning impact education for students and teachers. self-study research can help schools improve. so what? teacher identity matters. 1 critical friends woitek: creative inquiry 69 messy but enlightening. changed perspectives over time. transparent and systematic research process data clear, accurate. cf probing questions; open to different perspectives. critique. stories shared, analysis and coding. confront my assumptions. unexpected. new thoughts. knowledge generation and presentation knowledge generated. important for others. contributes to research and thought. useful. teacher ambivalent to changing self. helps me understand them by knowing self. perceive. discussion the methodological components of self-study are also guidelines for teachers to conduct selfstudy research (samaras, 2011). in my self-study assessment, i produced a set of mirror cinquains using samaras’ (2011) five foci to directly reflect (mirror) my role in the methodological inventiveness of this self-reflexive study. personal situated inquiry arts-based research reveals that which may not be obvious, leading toward new understandings (savin-baden & wimpenny, 2014). therefore, the inventiveness of multiple 70 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 methods—visual image, reflection, poetry—was used as ways to understand my own subjectivity in both time and place. critical collaborative inquiry situating the arts-based methods in a dialogic process—visual metaphor with esol teacher interpretations, reflections with original journal entries, and poetry with student notes— provided insight about my own teacher identity by considering it in relation to others. improved learning this study shows how self-reflexive educational research can benefit from methodological inventiveness. for example, the frida kahlo (1933) painting generated contradictory interpretations between the esol teachers’ perceptions of their students and my observations of my students. this discord compelled me to reflect further into my insights through the use of a dual-voice poem and mirror cinquains, providing improved learning about myself and my interpretation of my students. transparent and systematic research process i worked methodically throughout this study. i wrote my reflective journal and analytic memos, which included the interpretation of the visual image by frida kahlo, at the beginning of the process. subsequently, i focused on the student notes and my teacher journal and engaged with those in the form of poetry. arts-informed inquiry focuses on the use of arts as a way to represent and examine the experience of the researcher and participants (savin-baden & wimpenny, 2014). this is depicted in the dual-voice poem that showed ambivalence in the students—as they expressed joy and sadness, excitement and longing— but not a sense of oppression as i had described their experience in my reflective journal and analytic memos. knowledge generation and presentation arts-based approaches to research enable new knowledge to be generated through meaningful forms of artistic expression (weber, 2014). therefore, through the use of artsbased methods in self-reflexivity, this study revealed new insight into my teacher identity through the emergence of data that showed how i allowed my own sense of dislike and discomfort with the institutional inflexibility to be projected onto my students. over a period away from the actual environment, my students—in the passing of time—became more helpless in my mind. this knowledge is enlightening for me as a researcher and practitioner because it revealed my subjectivities in the research and how these positions can conflict with one another. conclusion in self-study research, the researcher allows herself to be vulnerable (samaras, 2011). my point of vulnerability arose after i collected and analysed the data from my critical friends woitek: creative inquiry 71 and the esol teachers, as well as reread my teacher journal. during the process of analysis, i came to know more about myself, which caused me some discomfort because it showed a teacher identity shift in myself that i did not know had happened. this study also brought forth the realisation of how positive my students were in their thank-you notes (something that one of my critical friends had remarked on as well). also, as i reviewed my teacher journal entries, i realised how optimistic i had once been about the students and their learning. however, in returning to my reflections, there are indications that i had got stuck on the hurdles of the institutional stress and rigidity. my memory work recorded in my reflective journal refers to the students’ school environment as “like a prison” and their home environments as “living with strangers in bad conditions,” suggesting a focus on sympathy that could be categorised as pity. this is an important admission and something that teachers (and educational researchers) need to be aware of. as this knowledge revealed itself in the data, it was uncomfortable—and i asked myself: wasn’t i just a caring teacher who knew the suffering of the immigrant story through the stories my mother shared with me? didn’t this position of knowing struggle enable me to be more compassionate and empathetic to those who had lost so much? why wasn’t i so sure anymore? the methodological inventiveness of this self-reflexive study exposed my gaps and lapses of memory. in my teacher journal—written in real-time while working directly with the students—the theme around student identity developed as ambivalent, showing both positive and negative attitudes toward assimilation. but years later, my reflective journal and analytic memos consist of a dismal view of their language identity development: “the institution was more important than the individual” and “[students] only wanted to speak spanish.” however, neither my teacher journal nor the student notes supported this unfavourable view of language and assimilation. it was through the participation of the esol teachers that i first realised that my concern for my students had, in the time lapse between teaching and reflecting, shifted to a sense of despair. the esol teachers’ comments depicted their students as hopeful whereas i summarised my students experience (in relation to the kahlo (1933) painting) as follows: “the lifeless dress surrounded by american images struck me immediately, and connects well with my students’ experience.” when i referred to my teacher journal entries, i noticed that my sense of my students had been more optimistic when i was teaching: “as they learned english, they stopped wearing the flag” and “they spoke english and laughed.” using an arts-based method revealed more questions and generated more uncertainties to my selfreflexive study. according to barone and eisner (2011), this is part of the value of undertaking a study using arts-based methods. importantly, this self-study demonstrates how this swing toward a negative view of my students’ experience arose in the absence of being with the students. when i embarked on this study, i had left the teaching profession and been a graduate student for over two years. in considering the changes that shifted my impressions of the students to a vulnerable state, i had to consider how i had changed. the greatest shift was going from being a practitioner to 72 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 being a researcher. this reinforces the notion that teacher researchers need to stay active in their practice. by combining various arts-based methods into my self-reflexive study, i gained insight into my teaching identity. creating the poem encouraged me to explore relations between the self and practice, personalised my meaning making, and offered an opportunity for critical analysis (samaras, 2010). the multiple creative approaches demonstrated how inventive methods, such as poetry and art, can provide the opportunity to explore ourselves and our teacher identities more deeply. the self-knowledge generated by these artistic methods can help teachers grow professionally. this, in turn, benefits students by improving how teachers relate to and support their students, encouraging students to become more self-reflexive as 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(2014). arts-based self-study: documenting the ripple effect. perspectives in education, 32(2), 8–20. microsoft word bissue76full21oct.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 76, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i76a04 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x becoming (p)art: fostering socially engaged leadership for preservice art teachers through service-learning merna meyer comber, faculty of education, potchefstroom, north-west university, south africa merna.meyer@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8038-6024 lesley wood comber, faculty of education, potchefstroom, north-west university, south africa lesley.wood@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9139-1507 (received: 14 february 2019; accepted: 24 june 2019) abstract to provide a more socially engaged learning environment for preservice teachers in art education, the first author engaged them in a critical service-learning project. in five cycles of action and reflection on the engagement process, she generated evidence about student learning through observations, reflective notes, and visual images to support her self-study on how she could influence preservice art teachers to become educational leaders by adopting socially engaged practices. qualitative analysis revealed that, after completing the module, students considered including socially engaged art in their teaching and showed qualities of becoming critical, accountable, and transformational leaders—and better prepared for teaching inclusively and in diverse contexts. the model developed from the first author’s learning serves as a praxis-orientated instrument to guide pedagogies to increase social responsiveness amongst preservice art teachers to make their future practice more contextually relevant. keywords: action research, action leadership, critical service-learning, participatory artist, researcher teacher (p)art, professional development, socially engaged art introduction in this self-reflective inquiry of my practices in art education, i (the first author) address my concern about teaching art in isolation from the social realities of learners. my aim was to improve my understanding of how i could introduce students to socially engaged art practices to make their teaching more socially responsive. by socially engaged art (sea), i mean education programmes that promote an “awareness of social and political contexts of education and the development of critical consciousness about issues such as race, class, 70 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 gender, culture, language, and educational equity” (howard & aleman, 2008, p. 158). in post-apartheid south africa, education policies mandate that higher education teaching programmes should incorporate situational elements that assist teachers to develop competencies to deal with diversity and transformation, and to work “flexibly and effectively in a variety of contexts” (department of higher education and training, 2015, p. 9). context is particularly relevant in this country where the impact of apartheid is still tangible, and considerable socioeconomic divides still exist. although there is increased recognition that developing teacher capacity for inclusive and socially engaged practices is critically important, there remains little guidance on the pedagogies and curriculum structures that promote these capacities in the professional development of teachers (deluca, delagran, feurguson, & ho, 2011). i agree with wood (2012) that allowing students to exit campus with little exposure to participatory pedagogies in diverse and inclusive learning environments contributes to a fragmentary knowledge of the contexts in which learners live, and leads to a lack of empathic understanding of diversity and social inequalities. my intent is to prepare socially responsible art educators who value the principles of social justice, and understand the importance of integrating them into their future teaching practice. i want students to understand art as a creative, expressive, and beneficial tool for learning that should be accessible to all. also, art can connect different subjects to relevant issues in transdisciplinary engagements, raise critical consciousness, and foster a sense of social responsibility between participants from diverse backgrounds, enhancing empathic understanding and improving intercultural relationships (meyer & wood, 2017). thus, applying art in multidimensional ways, and developing art teachers as leaders, can raise the status of art as a subject in schools—in contrast to the current marginalised position it tends to occupy. in art education, opportunities to educate preservice teachers to be adaptable and open to different contexts, to adopt inclusive stances towards cultures, languages, and ways of living, are under explored (wood & meyer, 2016). in this article, i thus pose the question: “how can i influence preservice art education students to become leaders in their learning environments by adopting more socially engaged practices?” i first provide a detailed account of sea, a socially engaged art approach to active learning and leadership. next, i explain how critical service-learning provides a vehicle for enabling socially engaged art. i then elucidate how i generated evidence to support my claims of having learnt how to develop preservice art teachers’ capacity for taking leadership through socially engaged, inclusive practices. i conclude by reflecting on the significance of such practices for preservice art teacher programmes. socially engaged art approach to active learning and leadership socially engaged art is a transpedagogic educational theory that combines knowledge from a combination of disciplines—in this study, from teacher education, drama, environmental meyer & wood: becoming (p)art 71 studies, and the real-life contributions of artists’ work. it has a strong emancipatory agenda with its roots in the late 1960s feminist education theories (helguera, 2011), and is aimed at “liberating art practices from strict art historical interpretations and contexts” (helguera, 2011, p. ix). sea also aligns with participatory educational practices—engagement with audiences, inquiry-based methods, collaborative dialogues, and hands-on activities, with social interaction occupying the central focus of any activity. sea expands the depth of social relationships by creating a social conscience about a situation and then instigating a collaborative action or experience instead of “[walking] blindly into a situation . . . with little care about the outcomes” (helguera, 2011, p. 8). it involves learning how to moderate a conversation, negotiate interests in a group, and assess the complexities of a given social situation. sea activities promote artistic liberty, but with a strong social agenda. art teachers need to “become more aware of the context and thus allow [themselves] to better influence and orchestrate desired outcomes” (helguera, 2011, p. xv). critical service-learning as a vehicle for socially engaged art practices critical service-learning (csl; rice & pollack, 2000) serves as a vehicle for “connecting students and institutions to their communities and the larger social good, while at the same time instilling in students the values of community and social responsibility” (neururer & rhoads, 1998, p. 321). it has a social justice intent (mitchell, 2008) to transform “structural inequalities” (rosenberger, 2000, p. 29) through complex thinking and reasoning skills, instead of merely providing service to the community (mitchell, 2008). although literature reveals different perspectives about the most distinguishing elements of critical servicelearning (porfilio & hickman, 2011), i agree with doerr (2011) that an understanding of three components are central to critical service-learning: power, privilege, and the identification of the root causes of social issues. as a teacher educator in south africa, i need to provide opportunities for students to understand the power their privilege endows, and how such privilege is a result of years of sociohistorical oppression of the majority of the population. in this case, i guided students through five sessions and eight activity cycles of action learning to help them reflect on the value of engaging in art activities with young people from a children’s home. at the same time, i reexamined my practices and asked questions about my role, thinking critically about my position and presence in guiding students through their learning experience. i view critical service-learning as a progressive pedagogy and instrument to encourage students to see themselves as agents of social change, and to use the experience of service to address and respond to injustices in their immediate communities. to expose students to effective leadership, “both action and learning need to be ignited” (zuber-skerritt, 2011, p. 203). leadership attributes that are developed by csl include selfknowledge, knowledge about the needs of others, and emotional intelligence. i adopted the role of a facilitator who guides rather than directs, focusing on developing students’ capacity, knowledge, skills, attitude, and democratic values. my “other-centred approach” (zuber72 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 skerritt, 2011, p. 231) meant that i set myself on a path where i wanted to enrich students’ lives with vision, passion, hope and empower them for their future careers. the service-learning project i developed the theme, “living my leadership in a diverse and healthy environment,” with the pedagogical intention of connecting students’ learning experiences of leadership to a broader discourse on social responsibility and environmental issues. students and learners were exposed to out-of-class learning sites to address green issues through various art forms, and to raise their awareness about global environmental awareness. the project involved 26 final year students (21–22 years, mostly women and afrikaans-speaking, together with a few white english and black sotho-tswana students) teaching children from a local children’s home. i chose this context because it would allow students to learn that not all people lead lives as privileged as their own. they met with each other on the university premises once a week in the afternoons for two hours over five sessions during the first semester. the 15 children were of mixed race, boys and girls between 14 and 16 years of age, spoke mostly afrikaans but understood both afrikaans and english. we decided to meet at the university because it was convenient for the students who had to fit a busy academic programme into a six-week timeframe. the children’s home management were keen to involve the children with skills-based activities, and offered transportation of the children to the university campus. the first session (relationship building) was held at the university’s botanical gardens, the second (vision planning and design) and third (skills application) sessions, in the vicinity of the arts and crafts studio and, finally, a small-scale exhibition was held at the children’s home premises. the final reflective session for the students was conducted in the classroom (see table 1). meyer & wood: becoming (p)art 73 table 1: participatory strategies used during a socially engaged art project description of participatory strategies purpose and aim data generation techniques and documentation time (hours) session 1: relationship building introduction and orientation introduction of preservice art students and children to one another establish trust and common interests discuss what to expect from the green theme project build trust and site orientation: introduce children to environmental issues informal group discussion activity 1 (conducted by students with children) ice breaker: walk-and-talk activity discussions, guiding and sharing knowledge about the area participants establish perceptions of each other and the site relational skills development: emphatic/sensitising exercises students guide children through a process of discovery and sensory awareness of surroundings what do they see, feel, smell, touch and think? informal conversations participatory group discussions observations and sensory explorations 2 activity 2 (conducted by students with children) playing fun games: pretend to be a touristguide and talk about environmental issues imaginary games: pretend to be a tree throwing a ball and convey something special/funny about themselves team-building game: reflexivity creating a make-believe world, detail context, recognising issues related to the environment projecting own symbolising personal characteristic to become more intuitive and respond to requests, develop inter-personal relationships, sharing likes and dislikes reflexive gestures and interconnectedness informal group discussions narrative reporting interactions observations miming and frozen gestures art-based exercises: making cut-outs and collages secret jar with personal characteristics splatter paint, prints and rubbings building from scratch with mixed media and 3-d materials mapping the problem/issues/need: to find out how participants experience the learning environment, talk about real-life issues and social concerns. start to think about challenges and how they can be solved, e.g., how can garbage be converted into something beautiful? discovery of self—becoming untangled experiment with media and techniques: freedom of expression how is the living environment affected by social ills, how can personal messages of hope be encapsulated in nature? art-based items and art works collages, prints and recycled material student reflections on relational skills, building trust, and sharing awareness 74 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 session 2: vision-building, planning, and intervention strategies activity 3 (conducted by students with children) vision building interactive vision building activity clarification of themes and needs analysis: how do they see the issue being resolved? agendas and aims of project are discussed— challenges, expectations and possibilities mentioned groups explore how they will tackle the issues/problem; identify types of material, including recyclable resources; how will they create and maintain the work of art/artefact? critical skills development determine commonalities of thought—which factors can facilitate or hinder the process of creating an artwork/artefact? do participants have common goals and similar visions? how would they address the issue? discuss, reflect and compromise to reach mutually agreed upon decisions informal group discussions mind maps recycled material 1 activity 4 (conducted by students with children) planning and designing interactive visual/conceptual working process own ideas/planning combined with visual designs of the children discuss and analyse different plans/designs, as well as materials to be used divide groups into different workstations rotate interactive engagement cooperate in finding solutions and a mutual platform to start project organising and team work skills development establish a working relationship identify own strengths—expectations regarding one another’s contribution, knowledge sharing, critical thinking envisage working relationship (divide tasks) negotiate process and positions, working relations planning regarding types of materials to be used informal group discussions students and youths’ collaborative designs interactive discussions 1 activity 5 (conducted by students with children) intervention strategy enhance ideas and consider other possibilities use campus facilities to show different youtube videos about land art, environmental art and sustainable projects revisit previous community-engaged projects with the upcycling theme demonstrate certain skills and functional uses of tools, e.g., spray-painting, cutting-knives exploring other possibilities in the real world— professional skills development establish deeper understanding of real-world applications and own contribution to the final project present and share ideas accommodate complexity and extend knowledge base— investigating multi-media and transdisciplinary work environments research interventions (photographs, pictures, youtube aids) artefacts and artwork 1 meyer & wood: becoming (p)art 75 session 3: skills application strategy activity 6 (conducted by students with children) skills application process interactive teamwork and art-based skills application activity painting, making, assembling, upcycling of available resources, planting of floating planters refinement and adding finishing touches art-based skills in a collaborative working relationship work collaboratively on a product, task oriented: who is doing what? individual and group work—rotating between different materials and tool use complete different tasks in a dialogical manner interactive individual and group participation activities poster/artefact completion by using available resources 2 session 4: exhibition and celebration strategy activity 7 (organised by lecturer; participation of students and children) exhibition and celebration event students and children exhibit their completed work together all stakeholders, e.g., managers, housematrons, lecturers, and participants gather at the premises (the children’s home) students and children present a gallery walk activity and explain the social issues, meaning of their work and their learning experience during the csl engagement process showcasing socially engaged art projects and transformed practices for public display learn to display own work and appreciate others’ works learn more about other viewpoints and methods of expressing social, contextual and environmental issues finalising their work interactive explanations group work performance measurement exhibition 2 session 5: reflection on learning activity 8 living my leadership (explained by lecturer; students complete posters) reflection and evaluation of leadership role students reflect on all four sessions students design an academic poster to showcase leadership and professional development during csl process reflecting on learning process and capturing csl process in academic poster students reflect on the following: what did they learn? how did it benefit them? vision revisited? suggestions? embodied learning captured in leadership poster reflective notes on all five phases poster design 10 76 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 method i generated data from the students’ assignments, which included photos, artwork, and reflections collected after each session with the children. i thematically analysed (braun & clarke, 2006) their reflections after each engagement. i then weighed the emerging themes against my concerns and pertinent research question (saldaňa, 2016) to inform my analysis of the data (ary, jacobs, sorensen, & walker, 2014). i validated my findings through the lens of sea theory, and the relational, critical, collaborative, and transformative intent of critical service-learning (frith & gleeson, 2004) and triangulated the data during the five sessions using various data generation activities and methods (ellingson, 2009). the research process was transparent and complied with the university’s ethics stipulations. in the next section, i provide evidence of how my practice influenced students to become socially engaged art practitioners. to protect the students’ identities, i denote codes to their names according to the age group they are training to teach, for example, senior intermediate phase (si) and further education and training phase art students (sf). discussion of findings the csl engagement project created opportunities for action learning. over four sessions, students became aware of their positional roles and their potential impact on children’s lives. theme 1: students learnt relational skills, and understood the importance of teaching with sensitivity the students met the children for the first time at the university botanical gardens with the aim of establishing a trusting relationship. i suggested the groups start with a walk-and-talk exercise (the long walk, 2013) as an icebreaker to orientate them to their new surroundings, and to create spatial and personal awareness of a natural learning environment. this exercise enabled the students to notice the children’s “shy and inhibited feelings” (si_4), and so they took action to encourage them to open up. one student remarked: they loved walking in nature and talking about the things they saw. they were very interested about the facts that i had to say and the new knowledge that came with it. they were a bit shy at first but as we walked and chatted, they came out of their shell and started asking questions and even answering them among themselves when they could. (sf_7) i found the first relationship-building activity to be a good space to negotiate relations, and to promote communication and trust between the groups. sea theory holds that “conversation is regarded as the centre of sociality, of collective understanding and organization” (helguera, 2011, p. 40). organised talks allow people to “engage with others, create community, learn together or simply share experiences without going any further” (helguera, 2011, p. 41). students learned that relationship building is essential because “team members are likely to experience all sorts of problems that can arise from competition, envy, shyness, meyer & wood: becoming (p)art 77 denial, dominance by some and silence by others, and other personal qualities that can fuel tensions” (zuber-skerritt, 2013, p. 34). this open-air activity prepared the groups for the next level of their relationship-building process, which was more interactive, when i introduced multi-modal activities such as fun team-building and art-based exercises. the arts-based activities resulted in various interactions. one of the groups encouraged spontaneous exchanges to create sensory awareness of their learning environment, by “looking [at the crabs in the pond], listening [to the birds], touching [the plants] and smelling [different flowers]” (sf_10). other groups planned creative art-based lesson activities around art techniques such as printing (of leaves, creating butterflies; sf_18; see figure 1), collage (cut-outs of children’s favourite things; sf_11), making assemblages (pick up own organic and found materials; si_20) and puzzle-building (mason jars filled with objects that the youth identified with most; sf_17). one group used well-known game-play activities such as a spontaneous reflex game known as “ninja-ha” (si_20), “fun-facts quizzes about nature” (sf_4), and metaphoric projections of nature (tree that symbolises the children best; si_10) to get to know each other. drawing from augusto boal’s (2000) ideas of the invisible theatre imitating reality, one group acted as tour guides reciting anecdotes to inform the rest of the group about their surroundings (si_21). students considered the activities to be valuable learning opportunities “to work together and get to know each other better” (sf_6), and to “build a relationship with the children through art and to grow respect for the environment” (sf_18). they became comfortable teaching in unfamiliar open spaces: “teaching out of class becomes a truly free and creative exercise as opposed to classroom teaching methods such as the ‘redrawing of pictures” (sf_12). 78 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 figure 1: (sf_15): relationship-building activity: children experimenting with organic material during art-based exercises students took the lead by presenting playful and creative opportunities for the children to engage on multiple levels to enact meaningful experiences and relations. although students directed the activities and took responsibility for the structure of each activity, they positioned themselves not as experts but relied on the lived experience and shared interests of the children (horton & freire, 1990), designing activities that the children could relate to. students took leadership by exposing the children to trans-pedagogical practices (helguera, 2011), performing arts strategies (boal, 2000), and team-building exercises to encourage convivial and socially engaged practices. they became sensitised to the children’s differences in terms of their ages, abilities, and interests. moving between the groups to ensure that the activities were utilised for relationship building, i observed playful interactions as the children started to become less inhibited and more engaged. some groups decided to conduct more intimate art-based activities—sitting in a circle on the grass (see figure 2) or around tables, cutting out pictures, drawing, or painting while talking. their conversations deepened from convivial group discussions to more personal one-on-one interactions. the children started to share their issues with the students. some students found this overwhelming at first. one student regarded it as an “eye-opener” (sf_17) and was “flabbergasted” when one of the girls admitted that nothing makes her happy: “they [my parents] don’t care what i say, or how i feel.” the student remarked: “the emptiness and numbness in her eyes filled me with brood and distress” (sf_16). this experience taught me that students should gain affective and relational experience before entering their school milieus, in order to understand and appreciate deeply the thoughts and feelings of another. some students began to empathise with the children’s circumstances and noted that “some of the children would be in our schools that we teach one day” (sf_13). meyer & wood: becoming (p)art 79 figure 2: relationship-building activity: sitting in a circle talking or having a one-on-one conversation empathy is an essential attribute for a teacher to enable the creation of an inclusive and enabling learning environment (killen, richardson, & clark kelly, 2010). the emotional state of a child greatly influences the way in which they learn and their attitude towards not only the subject but towards learning and the teacher (valiente, swanson, & eisenberg, 2012). students became more sensitive about the way they communicated during the artmaking process: “as we advised we started engaging differently with the learners, being more cautious of what we say and how we say it” (sf_16). kindness, care, and understanding became important values, “as every learner brings to the classroom their own experience, views on life and emotional baggage” (sf_3). one student, who was opposed to the csl engagement at first, changed her views. she reconsidered her purpose for choosing teaching as a career “to initiate change,” and accepted the fact that “people are fragile and that the way i speak and what i say can be harmful” (sf_3). one student suggested: it is clear to me now . . . we are not just teachers, but we are there to give parental guidance to the learners. we have to enlighten and support them to reach their full potential. learners come from different background, therefore need different attention and care. (si_5) 80 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 leadership qualities started to emerge as students became more critical about themselves and about the way they communicate. they learnt to adapt restrictive themes to the context of the children, and engaged with multitude approaches to enact socially expressive exchanges. theme 2: students developed socially engaged art practices during the second vision-building, planning, and design session, students started “planning their projects, figure out what required to develop a common goal that would guide them through the activities that followed. the student and children groups brainstormed their ideas and visions for their final artwork in collaborative ways to identify the environmental issues they wanted to address. some focused on the “water crisis in the western cape” (si_18), others on land art (sf_7), indigenous art (painting on rocks; sf_12), the evacuation of local oak trees in town (si_ creating a kindness tree that could be decorated with their own expressive tokens of kindness hanging from the branches (sf_18). the participatory process helped the groups to converge different ideas “to eventually get to a solution that everybody approves of” (si_1). one group’s children challenged “healthy living” and reinterpreted the topic, pointing out aspects that contribute to unhealthy living experiences, such as bullying, human trafficking, and substance abuse. the other group became micro environmental activists calling themselves “envi artists, to change their school environment (si_21). they produced functional recycled planters (si_21; see figure 3). figure 3: one group addressed social issues around recreated functional objects focusing on conservation aspects choosing their own resource material, the students showed the children videos of environmental art (sf_8, 16, & 18) and took t rnal of education, no. 76, 2019 leadership qualities started to emerge as students became more critical about themselves and about the way they communicate. they learnt to adapt restrictive themes to the context of the engaged with multitude approaches to enact socially expressive exchanges. theme 2: students developed socially engaged art practices building, planning, and design session, students started “planning to do and how we are going to do it” (si_5). the groups were required to develop a common goal that would guide them through the activities that followed. the student and children groups brainstormed their ideas and visions for their final aborative ways to identify the environmental issues they wanted to address. some focused on the “water crisis in the western cape” (si_18), others on land art (sf_7), indigenous art (painting on rocks; sf_12), the evacuation of local oak trees in town (si_ creating a kindness tree that could be decorated with their own expressive tokens of kindness hanging from the branches (sf_18). the participatory process helped the groups to converge different ideas “to eventually get to a pproves of” (si_1). one group’s children challenged “healthy living” and reinterpreted the topic, pointing out aspects that contribute to unhealthy living experiences, such as bullying, human trafficking, and substance abuse. the other group nvironmental activists calling themselves “envi-tists” because they wanted, as artists, to change their school environment (si_21). they produced functional recycled see figure 3). : one group addressed social issues around the “living in a healthy environment” theme whilst the other group recreated functional objects focusing on conservation aspects choosing their own resource material, the students showed the children videos of environmental art (sf_8, 16, & 18) and took them on a tour to previous community leadership qualities started to emerge as students became more critical about themselves and about the way they communicate. they learnt to adapt restrictive themes to the context of the engaged with multitude approaches to enact socially expressive exchanges. building, planning, and design session, students started “planning to do and how we are going to do it” (si_5). the groups were required to develop a common goal that would guide them through the activities that followed. the student and children groups brainstormed their ideas and visions for their final aborative ways to identify the environmental issues they wanted to address. some focused on the “water crisis in the western cape” (si_18), others on land art (sf_7), indigenous art (painting on rocks; sf_12), the evacuation of local oak trees in town (si_4) or creating a kindness tree that could be decorated with their own expressive tokens of kindness the participatory process helped the groups to converge different ideas “to eventually get to a pproves of” (si_1). one group’s children challenged “healthy living” and reinterpreted the topic, pointing out aspects that contribute to unhealthy living experiences, such as bullying, human trafficking, and substance abuse. the other group tists” because they wanted, as artists, to change their school environment (si_21). they produced functional recycled the “living in a healthy environment” theme whilst the other group choosing their own resource material, the students showed the children videos of hem on a tour to previous community-engaged meyer & wood: becoming (p)art 81 projects that had used recycled, emergent materials. these activities helped the groups to explain and compare the different samples and overcome conceptual barriers such as transforming their ideas into physical art products, to select appropriate materials for the artwork, and to determine the format and structure of the final work. students began to understand that socially engaged art practices could become part of their professional teaching methods: “the most important aspect that we taught them is that art could be used to present a powerful message and address issues” (sf_10). both csl pedagogy and sea theory attempt to foster a critical consciousness (horton & freire, 1990) by examining various social challenges and the impact of personal action in maintaining or transforming those problems. in this case, students worked with the children to create an awareness of critical environmental issues by using an art-based platform to share ideas and discuss common goals towards visionary solutions. the children were enabled to become cocreators of new artworks that conveyed social messages. the impact of creative participation ensured that everybody added their own content to the theme and thus engaged in a “re-enactment of causes to which they personally relate” (helguera, 2011, p. 15). the students encouraged the children to take a critical stance towards topics in order to change and transform their environments. art liberated the children to become self-expressive. students thus engaged the children in various sea forms of participation. with nominal participation, they presented artworks to the learners to observe in passive contemplation. students also directed children to participate in completing a simple task, such as hanging kindness tokens on a cardboard tree (helguera, 2011, p. 15). they encouraged children to participate creatively, contributing to the art work, with their choice of content such as fingerprints and natural elements to leave their mark and collectively combined the artworks in a rock garden structure. students participated collaboratively with the children throughout the process—they shared responsibility of the ideas, content, and structure of the artwork through dialogical interaction (helguera, 2011, pp. 14–15). students realised that “without cooperation the outcomes of the project will not be reached” (sf_7). group techniques and scaffolding processes became “indispensable strategies to get closer to our end product” (sf_5). they valued working in democratic ways and agreed that through communication they could come to agreement that suited all and this came from “understanding each other equally, valuing each other’s opinion and statements” (sf_8). students noticed individual accomplishments and valued everybody’s contribution: “he did fantastic work and i feel proud about how quickly he grasped the technique and the confidence he showed” (sf_6). they saw the collaborative interaction as opportunity to deepen understanding of the children and valued the role that art could play “as therapy and escapism from circumstances and immediate environments . . . they opened themselves towards me and shared their dreams, emotions and aims in life” (sf_18). the usefulness of art to promote communication of “ideas and feelings, and personal, social, environmental, moral and spiritual issues through their creative activities” (si_14) was recognised. students affirmed my belief that art should not be reserved for the talented few only, but can be used as a tool to promote holistic outcomes: “every single learner, regardless whether they have 82 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 the subject art, can do art. every learner is creative in their own manner and could, with the help of examples, create artworks and express their own creativity students developed their professional competencies during the engagement. they shared their knowledge and skills with the children and created a stimulating learning environment, contextualising their knowledge of the csl project theme with the socia children (wright, 2015). their emerging leadership qualities included working collaboratively in respectful ways addressing everybody’s needs through inclusive and socially engag theme 3: students realised the importance of collaborative practices in the last session, the groups participated in an exhibition event at the (figure 4), connecting their teaching to the children’s world to celebra learning accomplishments: “we celebrated because we achieved our goals, the learners reached their learning objectives and we overcame all our obstacles” (si_1). despite challenges such as working within limited timeframes and teaching ch backgrounds, students noticed how the children became more confident towards the end, changing from “no eye contact” to being secure enough to exhibit their own work (sf_5). during the gallery walk, both student and children groups took significance of their artworks. figure 4: celebration and exhibition session: students and children concluded their social engagement with a gallery walk, explaining the meaning of the work. students shared their learning changing the conditions of their teaching practices, such as working in and outside of classrooms and connecting their art “take hands with communities to give the ch passion for art through partnerships with the community” (si_20). they transformed their traditional ways of thinking: “instead of having everything planned and predictable, we must become more resilient and cons rnal of education, no. 76, 2019 the subject art, can do art. every learner is creative in their own manner and could, with the help of examples, create artworks and express their own creativity” (sa_6) students developed their professional competencies during the engagement. they shared their knowledge and skills with the children and created a stimulating learning environment, contextualising their knowledge of the csl project theme with the social contexts of the . their emerging leadership qualities included working collaboratively in respectful ways (helguera, 2011), and starting to realise the importance of addressing everybody’s needs through inclusive and socially engaged art-based practices. theme 3: students realised the importance of collaborative practices in the last session, the groups participated in an exhibition event at the children’s home (figure 4), connecting their teaching to the children’s world to celebrate publicly their learning accomplishments: “we celebrated because we achieved our goals, the learners reached their learning objectives and we overcame all our obstacles” (si_1). despite challenges such as working within limited timeframes and teaching children from diverse backgrounds, students noticed how the children became more confident towards the end, changing from “no eye contact” to being secure enough to exhibit their own work (sf_5). during the gallery walk, both student and children groups took turns to explain the social significance of their artworks. : celebration and exhibition session: students and children concluded their social engagement with a gallery walk, explaining the meaning of the work. students shared their learning experiences with the audience changing the conditions of their teaching practices, such as working in and outside of classrooms and connecting their art-based milieus to larger societal needs, taught students to “take hands with communities to give the children the best experience and to provoke a passion for art through partnerships with the community” (si_20). they transformed their traditional ways of thinking: “instead of having everything planned and predictable, we must become more resilient and consider societal needs” (sf_7). as one student stated: “should the subject art, can do art. every learner is creative in their own manner and could, with the a_6). students developed their professional competencies during the engagement. they shared their knowledge and skills with the children and created a stimulating learning environment, l contexts of the . their emerging leadership qualities included working and starting to realise the importance of based practices. theme 3: students realised the importance of collaborative practices children’s home te publicly their learning accomplishments: “we celebrated because we achieved our goals, the learners reached their learning objectives and we overcame all our obstacles” (si_1). despite ildren from diverse backgrounds, students noticed how the children became more confident towards the end, changing from “no eye contact” to being secure enough to exhibit their own work (sf_5). turns to explain the social : celebration and exhibition session: students and children concluded their social engagement with a gallery walk, changing the conditions of their teaching practices, such as working in and outside of based milieus to larger societal needs, taught students to ildren the best experience and to provoke a passion for art through partnerships with the community” (si_20). they transformed their traditional ways of thinking: “instead of having everything planned and predictable, we must ider societal needs” (sf_7). as one student stated: “should meyer & wood: becoming (p)art 83 my classroom not be a place where learners can break away from life’s issues, a place that could inspire and console them, a safe haven . . . like nature, regardless of their backgrounds?” (sf_14) students transformed their understanding of diversity, they recognised the children’s strengths and weaknesses and are set to teach “around these barriers” (si_1). they realised that personal traits are part of people’s diversity and that they should be more flexible and adaptable and “less critical about people’s body language and expressions” (sf_7). they realised they should consider the children individually: “everybody is unique and shouldn’t be compared with the other” and therefore adjust activities to fit the children’s needs instead of presenting a “one size fits all approach” (sf_4). students learned to respect the different approaches children took: “they will not always do things how you want it to be done but rather allow them to do it to suit their understanding” (si_1). they understood that action learning is synonymous with professional development and becoming better teachers who “never stop learning because life never stops teaching” (si_5), and identified qualities such as tenacity, being humble, appreciative, and hard-working as professional attributes that entail “not to expect everything to fall into your lap, then you will learn . . . what it means to become part” (sf_18). towards the end, their reflections indicated that they became more selfless, humane and caring: i will be able to do something similar in the future . . . it is not about you but absolutely about them and you need to ensure that they enjoy it. it is an unselfish action to engage with something like this. (sl_10) the project was not only to create better future teachers but also to give back to the community by working with different children . . . from different backgrounds. (si_5) students engaged interactively with multi-disciplines and acquired new knowledge and skills through building relationships, working collaboratively, staying action orientated, and utilising available resources. in this way, they connected their teaching to the social realities of the children. the students transformed what they say, what they do, and how they relate to others and their circumstances (kemmis, 2009). although the experience made them feel unprepared initially because “no amount of theory can prepare you for the actual practice” (sf_11), they began to understand that diversity matters as the children brought unique experiences, strengths, and ideas to the project. in the last session, students developed academic posters that displayed their emergent leadership as socially engaged art teachers (see figure 5). 84 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 figure 5: (sa_8 & sf_19). academic posters of students created in the last cycle encapsulating their learning as socially engaged teachers in art education reflecting on my learning the “living my leadership in a diverse and healthy environment” project reflects my attempt at engaging preservice art teachers in critical service-learning to demonstrate how this pedagogy could be integrated into a preservice art education programme with competing content and timeframe demands. although these aspects seem to be constant challenges, and i recognise that csl as pedagogy can seem like a large-scale and overwhelming undertaking for preservice teachers, students need to learn how they can use art to influence the lives of individuals—whether that be in their classrooms, schools, or broader communities (keiser, 2005). while enduring learning was evident across students’ reflections in the study, i assert that there remain areas of continued development and research to refine socially engaged csl pedagogies within the contexts of art teacher education programming. i have learnt three important things that i need to incorporate into my future practice. first, students need more prior exposure to critical service-learning in order to sensitise them to social issues, and to help them deal with the reaction of learners. part of this orientation could involve examining previous projects, for example, best practices archived by institutions, or by exploring social issues that resonate with the lives of the students. second, students are not properly prepared to bridge the gap between theory and practice. this emerged in the reflections of the students when they had to examine suitable theories to frame their experiences. csl preparation should include unified theories that frame diverse forms of social inclusivity, instead of introducing a multitude of theories in sub-disciplinary ways that often result in a “patchwork of learning on discrete issues” (deluca et al., 2011, p. 196). i therefore revised my previous model for art education (meyer & wood, 2017), and added an “introduction to csl” learning unit to orientate students before they start with csl. this model’s cycles constitute different platforms that lead to leadership in socially engaged meyer & wood: becoming (p)art 85 practice: knowledge, relational, creative, working, public, and professional development (see figure 6). figure 6: model to integrate critical service-learning into art education programmes student reflections taught me that they would benefit from a deeper understanding of critical reflective practices and, in future, i will allocate more time to this learning process. i also adjusted the assignment instructions to make the learning expectations clearer. although students worked in groups during the engagement process, they reflected on their own. in future, i would encourage that they also reflect on their experiences in small groups after each session to develop a “community of critical friends” (nieto, 2000, p. 185). conclusion this article has provided my explanation of how i influenced preservice art education students to become leaders in their learning environments by adopting more socially engaged practices to address my concern of art being taught in isolation from the lives and social realities of learners. i created a critical service-learning opportunity for preservice art teachers to engage with children from a nearby children’s home, and guided them through the process. analysis of their reflections supports my hypothesis that critical service-learning, together with a socially engaged art approach, contributes to preservice art teachers’ professional 86 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 development. evidence indicated they became sensitised to learner’s social realities, were able to develop strategies to improve learner engagement with social issues, and started to develop characteristics as critical, accountable, and transformational action leaders. students examined service-learning as a new trans-pedagogical educational activity in critical ways, they took responsibility for their teaching, and constantly reflected on their practices after each session. they worked inclusively with children from marginalised backgrounds and abilities, and became intrinsically accountable not only for the success of the sea project but also for the development of the children’s creative skills, organising and designing activities most suited for the children. their self-evaluation, evident in their changed attitudes, values, and transformational practices, indicated their professional development as leaders in art education. the model i designed explains my pedagogical interventional strategies, serves as a praxis-orientated instrument, and could guide future participatory and critical servicelearning pedagogies to increase social responsibility amongst preservice art teachers before embarking on their careers. references ary, d., jacobs, l. c., sorensen, c., & walker, d. a. 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(2013). how to develop lifelong action learning. in o. zuber-skerritt & r. teare (eds.), lifelong action learning for community development: learning and development for a better world (pp. 29–64). rotterdam, nl: sense publishers. microsoft word bissue82-final.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 82, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i82a04 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x exploring students’ experience and perceptions of the somatology extended curriculum programme at the durban university of technology mokgadi ursula makgobole chiropractic and somatology, durban university of technology (dut), durban, south africa mokgadim@dut.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6530-7079 stanley chibuzor onwubu chemistry department, durban university of technology (dut), durban, south africa 21445599@dut4life.ac.za (correspondence) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4499-1534 (received: 10 july 2020; accepted: 30 december 2020) abstract the south african higher education (he) sector has faced scrutiny in recent years because of its low participation and high attrition rates. in an attempt to address this, institutions have introduced additional programmes such as extended curriculum programmes (ecps). in this study, we followed an interpretive research paradigm to explore students’ experiences and perceptions of the somatology ecp at the durban university of technology dut). semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 individual students out of the 69 graduates of the somatology ecp. the participants believe that social integration and reduced academic workload over an extended period contributed to their academic performance. the participants felt that support subjects such as writing skills and computer literacy and the work done by staff and mentors of the ecp facilitated their academic success. the findings from the study suggest that the somatology ecp was successful, too, in the social integration of students while preparing them for success. keywords: extended curriculum programme, higher education, somatology introduction the higher education landscape in south africa continues to be plagued by low participation and high attrition rates (fisher & scott, 2011). consequently, the continued interest in strategies to ensure that the output of higher education meets the country’s needs are understandable. considering that south africa’s spending on education is one of the highest makgobole & onwubu: exploring students’ experience and perceptions . . . 61 in the world at 6.2% of its gdp, according to the world bank (2013), its low graduation rate of 15% has been described as unacceptable in comparison with higher education systems elsewhere (badat, 2010; fisher & scott, 2011; lewin & mawoyo, 2014). while the council on higher education (che) (2013) has acknowledged that dysfunctional schooling must continue to be the focus of corrective effort, it, however, advocates that the he sector should act on factors within its control to address the systemic conditions that are impeding student success. currently, the debate in south african higher education (hesa) has moved from increasing student access to increasing student success (department of higher education and training, 2013; higher education south africa, 2014; lewin & mawoyo, 2014). according to che (2013, pp.16–17), “[i]t is widely accepted that student underpreparedness is the dominant learning-related cause of patterns of poor performance in he.” consequently, the department of higher education and training (dhet), through its agencies and affiliates, hesa and che, has instituted interventions that aim to enhance the articulation gap between the student entering academic programmes and completing them successfully. while these have taken several forms (such as tutoring, mentoring, and the establishment of writing centres), the extended curriculum programme (ecp) has been seen to be an enduring feature of an evolving he system aimed at “enabling students to develop sound academic and social foundations for succeeding in he” (che, 2013, p. 18). like every other university in south africa, dut was established to meet the diverse needs of its students and to prepare them to fit into the world of work and the social world during their course of study and after graduation. although the ecp programme is being funded nationally by the dhet, each university, therefore, sets its own guidelines for running the programme in order to meet local realities and fulfil the demands of the curriculum. given the limited research done on ecp programmes offered at dut, to date, no research has been done on the impact that the somatology ecp has had on the success of its students nor on its failure to deliver results. research on the performance of the ecp is important because somatology not only aims to have students graduate but also targets the development of specific skills that are crucial for their employability. in light of this, this study aimed to explore the perception and experiences of ecp on students’ academic success in the somatology programme of dut. overview of the somatology programme the word somatology stems from the greek word for the study of the body as rammanhor (2015) has noted. the profession of somatology has existed for decades. prior to 1996, the qualification was known as the national diploma: beauty technology. after 1996 the name changed to national diploma: somatology because technikons wanted to differentiate their qualification from those of private institutions (campbell, 2012). somatology is currently offered at five universities of technology (uots) in south africa and its curricula cover both theoretical and practical modules. the scope of practice includes basic and advanced face and body care, numerous massage techniques, aesthetic enhancement techniques, 62 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 marketing, and managerial skills training (department of chiropractic and somatology, 2017). upon completion of the course and the acquisition of the qualification, a somatologist may find employment in various fields such as in health and wellness centres, spas, pharmaceutical companies, on cruise liners, and in the retail sector. also, they may seek work alongside dermatologists and plastic surgeons, become an entrepreneur or seek a position as a lecturer (borg, 2009). contemporary challenges in south african higher education for most students in developing countries like south africa, a variety of factors such as poor academic literacy and inadequately resourced high schools heighten the challenges that students face in entering higher education (chimbganda, 2011). this phenomenon has been noted in developed countries, too, when immigrants enter universities in these countries (perez & holmes, 2010; wingate & tribble, 2012). in south africa, a different kind of situation has been created by the legacy of apartheid, a system that created wide inequality between the different race groups in south africa with black south africans bearing the greatest burden of extremely low employment and poverty, along with under-preparedness for higher education learning and subsequent low throughput in higher education, (kraak, 2013). to this day, the inequality in the provision of education provision still exists and schools and their learners, disadvantaged by apartheid, still bear the scars of the past as mouton et al. (2013) have pointed out. the argument put forward by these scholars explains the current educational challenges that plague south africa. as they have stated, it is nearly impossible to separate the country’s current educational challenges from the effects of the legacy of apartheid since it was this system that laid the foundation for the low enrolment rates of blacks in academic institutions and their poor academic performance when they do get admitted. academic intervention programmes in south african higher education institutions (heis) lewin and mawayo (2014) have noted that student access and success are the primary concerns of heis throughout the world, and even more so now with the increasing globalisation of education and the strong efforts to increase rates of participation in he. murray and nallaya (2016) reported that the demographic of students studying in universities today has become diverse in terms of their background, culture, age, socioeconomic status, and their entry pathways through which they arrived at university. according to johnson (2017), the majority of these students are underprepared and this limits their access and their success. as a consequence, academic development programmes (adps) such as the ecp, foundation programmes (fps) and/or access programmes (aps) have been implemented makgobole & onwubu: exploring students’ experience and perceptions . . . 63 globally by universities to facilitate the access and success of underprepared students (dhunpath & vithal, 2012). in south africa, for example, fps have been established in the past to widen access and promote success for disadvantaged students in higher education (bass, 2007). among these programmes, the science foundation programme (sfp) and the university foundation programme (ufp) are used as a benchmark for fps. the sfp was introduced in 1991 at the then university of natal (pietermaritzburg) now the university of kwazulu-natal (ukzn) (grussendorff et al., 2004). the sfp offers students without matriculation exemption a yearlong programme. in it, students are offered subjects like physics, chemistry, biology, and academic communications (bass, 2007). the students who complete the programmes successfully are allowed to enrol for any of the specifically related science degrees. however, the ufp established in 1999 at then nelson mandela metropolitan university, now nelson mandela university, offers streams leading to all areas of study—business, sciences and the humanities—as lithauer and wood (2005) have reminded us. typically, students are taught, as the core subjects, english for academic purpose and life skills. these interventions are meant to assist students to cope successfully with the university curricula as well as to redress inequalities caused by the apartheid system (case et al., 2014). nevertheless, the sfp and ufp do not qualify for the department of education (doe) subsidy for fps (bass, 2007). the lack of government subsidy available for these fps may have prompted the development of the ecp. effectiveness of ecps the ecp assists students in transitioning from high school to university and facilitates their integration with other students who are in the full curriculum mainstream as well as facilitating the acquisition of academic literacy among other benefits (borg, 2009; van schalkwyk et al., 2010). according to che (2013), the ecps are a south african higher education intervention designed to deal with systemic obstacles to equity and student success, particularly through addressing the articulation gap mentioned above that has been in existence in various forms for three decades. ecps started in the 1980s as academic support programmes aimed at enhancing access opportunities for “talented but underprepared students for them to achieve sound foundations for success in higher education” (che 2013, p. 70). the understanding then, as now, was that there is a gap between school-exit capacities and the requirements for success in higher education for some students. over the past 20 years, this gap difference has been mainstreamed in the transformed higher education system as a way of achieving equity in, mainly, access. this means that many programmes at universities have course specific ecps while some have general university ecps. ecps are believed to have been successful in enhancing academic access particularly for the group of students who would otherwise not have managed to cope with the rigours of 64 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 traditional curricula (che, 2013). chetty (2014), in assessing the impact of ecp in the physics programme, argued that this has been a success, not only in achieving equity of access but in enhancing student performance. bas (2007) reported on the similar success of the ecp in dental technology at dut. student experiences of the ecps in a study exploring the experiences of an ecp in humanities at ukzn, the students perceived that it contributed to their social and academic integration which, in turn, influenced their academic success (tyson, 2010). similarly, in a report by nala (2010), the ecp students noted that the programme equipped them with the academic writing skills needed to excel in higher education. this meant that they were able to outperform and even assist their mainstream peers in their academic writing. nevertheless, it has been reported that ecp students studying nursing at dut felt stigmatised and lacked confidence because of being placed in the programme (sibiya & mahlanze, 2018). their work supports that of johnson (2017) who noted that this sense of stigmatisation and a lack of confidence among the ecp students gravely affected their motivation and their chances of success. other studies, however, have found otherwise. ecp students at the university of stellenbosch did not feel stigmatised for being placed in the programme (de klerk et al. 2005). in corroboration, bass (2007) found little evidence to suggest that stigmatisation had a negative impact on ecp students in the dental technology programme at dut. equally importantly, johnson (2017) found that the duration of the ecp was of concern to the students given their financial challenges and the stigma associated with being in the programme. according to his findings, many were dissatisfied, they questioned the value of the extra year they had to spend on the programme and considered this a waste of time in terms of their career and in their progress in life. and, equally concerning, and despite the appreciation expressed by the students that the ecp eased their transition from high school to university, many considered the ecp programme as having not been challenging enough during their second and third years. according to johnson (2017), the ecp students noted that they felt that they were lazy because of the reduced workload compared to what was expected of the mainstream students. as a consequence of this, the students noted that they made fewer efforts in their academic work. conceptual framework while we appreciate all the scholarly work that has been done on student access and success, we hope that employing tinto’s (1975) student integration model (sim) will add a new angle to the current debate. the development of tinto’s sim was inspired by emile durkheim’s suicide theory. according to durkheim, an individual’s likelihood of committing suicide is linked directly to his/her level of integration in or isolation from society (tinto, makgobole & onwubu: exploring students’ experience and perceptions . . . 65 1975). the more isolated s/he is, the more likely s/he is to commit suicide but the more integrated into society, the less likely to do so. tinto’s model takes the academic environment as a microcosm of society—a society in its own right. therefore, the level of integration a student experiences in relation to either the social or academic aspects of the academic environment will determine the extent to which s/he is prone to attrition. the more isolated in either the social or academic aspect the student is, the more likely s/he is to drop out. however, for tinto, the balance in levels of integration between these two aspects of academic society is also important since any form of imbalance in integration can cause similar effects to those resulting from isolation such as suicidality (tinto, 1975). over the past three decades, tinto’s model has been revised by scholars analysing the dynamics of student goal commitment and the ability of the institution to meet the needs of the student. according to schreiber et al. (2014), tinto’s revised student integration model (1997) is linked to the pre-university entry attributes to the institutional experience such as family background, skills and abilities, and prior schooling. these scholars noted that the perceived association between a student’s pre-university entry attributes and his/her institutional experience ultimately determines his/her educational outcome, retention, and success. godsell (2013) argued that integrating students’ experiences and history into the educational scenarios would empower them with the critical thinking skills relevant to their experiences and prepare them to resolve their own socio-economic and political problems. dhunpath and vithal (2012) acknowledged that the bridge the institution creates between a student’s culture of origin and his/her immersion is considered to be very significant to students. these authors therefore proposed that the institution must identify, through investigation from the students, what they need by first of all understanding to what they attribute success or failure. however, critics of tinto’s model have argued that social and academic integration do not act as reliable indicators for persistence rates among non-traditional (such as distance learning, mature, minority, and returning) students (mccubbin, 2003). despite the apparent limitation of tinto’s approach, the model we use is streamlined to add value to exploring the perception of ecp on students’ academic success and their experiences in the somatology programme. this model allowed assessment of the participants’ pre-entry attributes, their institutional experience, and their integration levels in view of their pre-determined goal commitments to becoming somatologists. methodology in order to explore the perceptions and experiences of the somatology ecp graduates, we used an interpretivist paradigm which followed a qualitative research approach. we chose this because it allowed us to explore the experience of the ecp graduates of the somatology programme. according to cooper and schindler (2014), an interpretivist paradigm is centred 66 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 on people’s behaviours and how they make sense of the world through sharing their experiences with others through the medium of language. research setting and sampling we conducted this study with graduate students of the somatology ecp at dut. this ecp is a four-year full-time programme offered to underprepared students who show potential to succeed in higher education to gain access to it. students in both the three-year programme (scm) and the four-year programme (ecp) register for the national diploma: somatology. however, the ecp curriculum splits the first year of the programme over a period of two years. as illustrated in table 1, students gain admission into the somatology programme by meeting the minimum requirements after writing a standardised assessment test for access and placement (satap). table 1 entrance requirements for the somatology programme. nsc nsc senior certificate subject nsc rating hg sg english 3 e c life sciences/ biology 4 d b maths literacy or mathematics 3 english (first additional language) 4 the sampling strategy followed a probability sampling process using simple random sampling. according to check and schutt (2011) simple random sampling ensures that every potential participant has the same probability of inclusion in the study. between 2005 and 2010, 122 students originally enrolled in the ecp. of this number, 69 graduated from the programme with a qualification thus representing a 56.56 % pass percentage of enrolled students. the selection involved a process in which a sampling frame was established that included 69 paper slips of the same size and colour, each one bearing a participant’s name. following polit and beck (2004), a blindfold selection was made, and 30 names were drawn. each coded participant was contacted telephonically and invited to an interview at a convenient date, time, and chosen venue. data collection data was collected via semi-structured individual interviews. although all the selected participants agreed to participate in the study, only 15 were interviewed individually because of data saturation, which has been defined by guest et al. (2006), as the point at which no new information or themes are observed in the data. all interviews were conducted by the researchers and lasted from 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the dynamics of each. the interviews were recorded using a smartphone (lg-g4) and notes were written as back-up for the recordings as advocated by maree (2007). all recordings were transferred to a usb makgobole & onwubu: exploring students’ experience and perceptions . . . 67 immediately after the interview and deleted from the phone to ensure confidentiality and the security of the data. the interview schedule consisted of pre-determined questions to elicit appropriate responses about the interviewees’ experiences with and perceptions of ecp. • when you were accepted into the somatology ecp did you know why you were placed in the programme? • how did you feel about being placed in the programme? • did you perceive any differences in your lecturer’s attitude between ecp and mainstream students when you sat in class together? • what was your subject lecturer’s attitude towards ecp students? • which aspect of the ecp did you find beneficial in adjusting to your university studies? • which aspect did you not find helpful? • are there any modules you would have liked to have been added for you to have had a better experience of the ecp? • would you recommend a student to enrol in the somatology ecp programme rather than in the mainstream? why? data analysis the data generated from the individual interviews was transcribed and analysed using thematic content analysis that focused on identifying themes or patterns that emerged from different responses in line with the guideline process developed by saldaña (2015). this entailed using operating coding to create categories to theme the data. all analysis was performed with the aid of nvivo v11 software (qsr international pty ltd., 2015). trustworthiness the trustworthiness of the study is supported by our describing the findings in detail using the data generated during the discussion verbatim. furthermore, the accuracy of the transcription was ensured by listening to the recordings again and comparing these with the transcription. participants were allowed to read the transcription if they wished to and could validate that what was transcribed correlated with what they had said. ethical considerations before the collection of data, ethical approval was obtained from the university ethics committee (rec 88/14). permission to conduct the study was obtained from the research director at the durban university of technology and the head of the department of somatology. an information letter was provided to the participants and written informed consent was obtained from all of them. the confidentiality of the participants was assured by assigning a code in place of their names. 68 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 results and findings table 2 highlights the themes and subthemes that were extracted from the study findings. table 2 identification of themes and sub-themes theme sub-theme 1. factors influencing student throughput and academic performance. * • influence of social integration on ecp student throughput • influence of reduced academic workload and excess time on ecp student throughput 2. factors influencing student academic success. ** • support subjects • staff and mentor support ** student academic success is premised on the fte passed divided by fte enrolled expressed as a percentage. *throughput and academic performance denote the tracks of a cohort of students registering for the first time at a tertiary institution and completing in minimum time (3 years, minimum time + 1, minimum time + 2, etc). theme 1: factors influencing ecp student throughput rate and academic performance the underlying motive behind the ecp is to create access and success for previously disadvantaged students. during the interviews, all participants kept referring to the ecp as the “wellness” programme (wellness refers to the academic literacy aspect of the wellness subject). the term “wellness” was used to identify themselves within the ecp programme. it was used to distinguish themselves from the mainstream somatology (scm). as participant l began, “as a wellness student . . .” whether the use of “wellness” as a term to identify ecp had a positive or negative impact on individual participants was unclear and the significance of this will be discussed later in this article. sub theme 1:1 influence of social integration on ecp student throughput a minority of the interviewees who had graduated from the ecp stated that being on the ecp served as an academic advantage when compared to the mainstream programme. we quote two students here. it was good, we interact a lot as an ecp class, compared to when we are grouped together with the mainstream, other [mainstream] students lost their confidence. but with ecp classes we did a lot of presentation[s] and helped to prepare so when we did presentations with mainstream, we were confident and scored better marks than them. (participant m) makgobole & onwubu: exploring students’ experience and perceptions . . . 69 the fact that we were small in class [meant] we became friends and motivated each other as some of us stayed at res together and we still are friends even now. . . we were like a small family, home away from how as teacher y would say. (participant f) from participant’s f extract it is apparent that good social integration was evident among the ecp students. this was pointed out by the study participants interviewed as one of the factors that had influenced their academic performance. sub theme 1:2 influence of reduced academic workload and excess time on ecp student throughput ecp students have a reduced academic workload based on the belief that a reduced workload will improve student academic performance. a majority of the students remarked on this and appreciated the fact that participating in a programme with a reduced workload gave them more time to focus on their studies and increased their chances of passing all credit-bearing subjects. for participant d, and when you’re getting more subjects then you are bound to fail or you’re prone to failing, but if you’re getting [fewer] subjects you perform better. for participant i, because i had a lot of free time on my hands, i had a lot of time to study the subjects in-depth [and] as there were only 3 [subjects] [i passed] with distinctions. significantly, a small minority of students were of the view that the reduced workload had little impact in their academic performance. to be honest, i did not see it bringing any benefits to me. i think it was one year that i lost out on. (participant c) the modules that were presented in the ecp [were] quite simple. it was modules that i could have done in a fulltime programme, [and] it was not a very full programme where there was a lot of modules. so, there was a lot of free time which was not good enough because you go to campus and you expect to have to have a full day of work and then you have free time in between and then you have to find something else to do. (participant f) factored into the ecp is the intention to allow students free time which they can use to integrate more fully into campus life. however, this was not always appreciated by a few ecp students. i had end[ed] up going, if i didn’t go to the cafeteria to get something to eat, i end[ed] up going to [the movies]. so, it’s not a good thing to have that free time because you can lose track of time and then some people would feel like you know what, let’s just 70 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 go watch a movie and miss the next lecture. so, having those big breaks in between modules is not the best idea. (participant g) participant g’s position was corroborated by that of participant i who expressed a similar view. the first couple of, like probably the first two months [were] interesting [because of] having a lot of time on your hands, not being busy as much, but then after that, it started to just get annoying because you study and then that’s it. throughout the rest of [the] day you would just be done, finished. so, it started out as nice, you have a lot of time on your hands and then, and then it just, everything started to be repetitive. you wake up, go to school and then after that you are done for the rest of the day. so, it started to get boring and very slow. (participant i) however, participant j had a different view from participants g and i. being new in durban and coming from a rural area, after classes i would go to the computer lab or the library with some of my wellness mates to do assignments. if we didn’t have assignments, we would go to steve biko or ml sultan for lunch. sometimes i explore[d] durban with my new friends (chuckle). during my time here i also played for the dut female soccer team. the most noteworthy finding pertinent to this theme is that the way in which students managed their time was critical to their academic performance. it was extracted from the interview data that too much available time for academic activities resulted in laxity among some of the participants. theme 2: factors influencing student success the main goal of the ecp is to create access to those who had been academically disadvantaged at their schools and to facilitate success through structuring the programme over a longer time period as johnson (2017) has noted. thus, the interview questions sought to find out from the participants whether or not the ecp influenced their academic success. the participants’ remarks were as varied as were their experiences. sub-theme 2:1 support subject some of the students stated that the programme had a beneficial effect on their social and computer skills. some claimed that because they came from the rural areas, they lacked basic computer skills and the programme helped to bridge the knowledge gap. the first thing that was exciting was that i was going to do computer. i [come] from [a] rural area so our schools didn’t have that kind of equipment. so, doing computer [literacy], it was ja . . . and there are modules that help [you] to understand about tertiary life including academic literacy, library information studies, [that] teach you makgobole & onwubu: exploring students’ experience and perceptions . . . 71 how to get information from the library, and in academic literacy there are topics that [have] debates on tertiary life that helps you to interact with students. (participant e) participants d and j emphasised how the ecp lecturer assisted in academic and work preparedness. plus, okay, i just want to note this, there’s these subjects, they’re called. . . what do you call these subjects, i forgot it, it’s wellness 1 and wellness 2, the lecturer was x. so, she sort of like teaches you how to plan for your studies and how to reflect on such things as [are] happening in school and how to like be. . . or to assimilate in a tertiary level. so that sort of like helps. (participant d) yes, i can say they [lecturers] did help me, because sometimes you have to be challenged to think about other stuff you do not consider on [a] daily basis, like when it comes to looking out for work, how to draft a professional looking curriculum vitae, and how to present yourself when you are appointed for an interview, and all [that] stuff. (participant j) however, two participants were not challenged by being placed on the ecp. i find [the subject] wellness not challenging. i find it, i really do find that it’s a waste of time. most of what we did, i had already done in high school. i already knew them. (participant f) it was boring as when we attended subject like anp wellness and nutrition wellness. they would repeat the same thing we did when we were with the mainstream. (participant b) it is worth noting upon reflection that participants who did not find ecp support subjects beneficial were english first language speakers while second language speakers of english found it beneficial. the acceptance of english first language students into the ecp would appear to deviate from its raison d’être. sub-theme 2:2 staff and mentors the integration of students into the university and the somatology programme identified by the students was achieved by the collaborative relationship between mentors and lecturers and the ecp students. participant g remarked that lecturers and mentors were cooperative in ways that allowed students to settle well in school. i think mentors played an instrumental role because as much as they gave you [a] guideline of okay this is what you can do, and if you are struggling or you sense a bit of discrimination or anything then you can contact them, it was, lecturers . . . i mean mentors [who] played a significant role in just being there for you as a first year and 72 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 as well as an ecp, because if i am not mistaken the mentor we had was also an ecp [senior ecp student] so she sort of understood what happens in ecp so you could go to her anytime to basically just talk to you if you [were] finding anything that [was] not right or you [were] struggling or anything. so apart from the modules, i really think mentors played a good role for ecp students. participant f echoed student g’s position. the mentors, i found that they helped me a lot because at times i wouldn’t understand you know when you first get into a programme . . . so they helped me a lot, the mentors. they helped me understand the . . . whole programme of the subjects and all those things. discussion the purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions and experiences of the ecp graduates in the department of somatology. as mentioned above, tinto’s (1975) social integration model was used as the underpinning theoretical basis in understanding the perceptions as well as the experiences of the ecp students. the research results showed that the majority of the participants attributed their social integration into higher education to the ecp. with the help of the ecp, the students felt good, interacted better in ecp classes, felt that they were well oriented to the tertiary education lifestyle, and had a good relationship with and support from academic staff and peers. in addition, the students developed their own identity as wellness students, despite the negative connotations of being thus identified, which gave them a sense of belonging. the “wellness identity” was probably used by the lecturers to distinguish the mainstream somatology students and the ecp. as highlighted in the department of chiropractic and somatology’s handbook for students (2017), the wellness module is offered only to the ecp cohort in their first and second year in the dapartment. from the foregoing, and consistent with tinto’s social integration model (1975), it is clear that the participants’ perception of the ecp reflects that they were socially integrated into the institution and this, in turn, promoted better student retention and success. this is in agreement with tyson (2010) who reported that the ecp contributed to students’ social and academic integration which, in turn, influenced their academic success. furthermore, the somatology students’ perceptions indicate that they were quickly oriented to university life and that this had contributed to their success. the support systems students developed with fellow students and staff members is a factor in the ecp’s success. the smaller sizes in the ecp classes enabled the formation of close relationships among the students as well as between students and lecturers that are difficult to cultivate in mainstream studies since large class sizes do not allow the lecturer to interact with all students nor meet their individual needs. makgobole & onwubu: exploring students’ experience and perceptions . . . 73 apart from social integration, another factor that helps to explain the success of the ecp students may be linked to the academic integration experienced by these students. as theorised by tinto (2008), there are two aspects to academic integration. the first is to meet the standards of the institution, and the second relates to the students’ ability to identify with the beliefs, values, and norms of the academic system (schreiber et al., 2014). the somatology students interviewed were of the view that the ecp non-credit bearing subjects that were part of the programme such as academic literacy and computer skills had helped them to learn to write academically and to use computers thus bridging their knowledge gap since they had had no experience of computers nor of library facilities. when comparing themselves to mainstream students they felt that they were better equipped with the kinds of skills that their mainstream counterparts lacked. similar findings were reported by nala (2010) who noted that ecp equipped students with the academic writing skills needed to excel in higher education. as mentioned earlier, nala’s (2010) participants were able to outperform and even assist their mainstream peers in the area of academic writing. this perhaps might also have contributed to the ecp students’ success in the somatology programme. the provision of a dedicated ecp coordinator and senior student mentors contributed to the integration of students into the life of the university as well as into the somatology programme and consequently contributed to ecp student success. it emerged that having mentors and a dedicated ecp coordinator (a staff member) allowed students to have one-onone attention to help enhance their understanding of subject content and to help with academic and social integration. julius (2017) revealed that ecp students in his study appreciated the relationship with the lecturer and the rest of the ecp class. he noted that the students’ constant interactions with one another and the genuine family-oriented mindset provided the students with a sense of belonging. this supports tinto’s (2008) finding that the ability of students to identify beliefs, values, and norms of the academic system contributes to academic performance and, consistent with julius’s (2017) point, this builds trusting working relationships. with regard to mentors, great emphasis was placed on mentors getting to know each student better on an individual level. some ecp graduates made reference to their experiences of the mentors who were themselves graduates of the ecp. consequently, students found it easier to identify with and relate to them and see them as people to whom they could look up and who understood what they were going through and were able to advise them accordingly. this notion echoes donald’s (2002) observation that having important people in their lives greatly enhances knowledge acquisition as well as academic development in university students. giving more credence to this, julius (2017) reported that a caring attitude and supportive learning environment encouraged ecp students to excel academically since they did not want to disappoint their mentors and thus disparage the time and effort invested in them by their mentors; this helped to unlock their hidden potential. 74 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 conclusion and future directions in conclusion, and although the views of the participants in the study experiences of the ecp programmed differed slightly, the majority of the perceptions of the programme were positive. the participants held the view that social integration and reduced academic workload over an extended period contributed to their academic performance. it was also noted that support subject like writing skills and academic literacy as well as the support received from the staff and mentors that helped to facilitate their social integration 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(2012). the best of both worlds? towards an english for academic purposes/academic literacies writing pedagogy. studies in higher education, 37(4), 481–495. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2010.525630. world bank (2013). government expenditure on education as % of gdp %. http://www.http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/se.xpd.totl.gd.zs. microsoft word b8300 final.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 83, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i83a07 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x “i haven’t had the fun that is portrayed”: first-year student expectations and experiences of starting at university moeniera moosa school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa moeniera.moosa@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6231-9370 dale langsford school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa dale.langsford@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9142-5754 (received: 8 september 2020; accepted: 6 april 2021) abstract prospective students have both expectations and anxieties about what their imminent university experiences might entail. in this study, we compare first-year students’ expectations with their experiences of being included and excluded while settling into university life. our participants in this qualitative phenomenological research study were 322 first-year students. we use insights from social and pedagogic inclusion to critique tinto’s (1983) model of the transition of students from schooling to higher education settings. the findings indicate that participants experienced mastery of knowledge, procedures, and structures of the institution as a point of exclusion almost 8% more than they expected. the participants also experienced personal disposition and relationships to be a point of exclusion 24% less than they expected. we recommend that university orientation programmes place more focus on the academic expectations of university since this was an aspect on which participants did not focus much. in addition, these findings also have implications for how universities conceptualise and implement the move to online learning which is often viewed as the solution to increasing access to higher education. keywords: first-year students, inclusion, transmission into higher education, social interactions 128 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 introduction being accepted to study at a university is an exciting moment for those south african learners who meet the admission requirements. it is the moment when they receive recognition for their hard work at school and the support of their parents and teachers. institutions make calls for “bright and hardworking [students who] want to get ahead in life” (university of the witwatersrand, 2020, n.p.) to apply to study towards an undergraduate qualification. many south african first-year students also carry the pride of being firstgeneration university students (vincent & hlatswayo, 2018). they look forward to experiencing university life and all the perceived benefits associated with having a university qualification. additionally, amidst all the euphoria of going to university the transition is also often a period of “uncertainty and volatility” (dias & sά, 2014, p. 300). much research has been done internationally and locally on the academic challenges of and support required by first-year students to succeed at university. the challenges are multicausal in nature and can be linked to personal circumstances and problems, funding concerns, inappropriate course selection, being unable to form social networks, and inadequate preuniversity education (araque et al., 2009; letseka et al., 2010; ramrathan, 2013). these challenges highlight the importance of the academic and social integration of students that might enable their academic success at university (tinto, 1983). to support students’ transition into institutions of higher learning, their expectations, perceptions, and experiences of feeling included and excluded provide insights into the challenges they face. in this paper, we analyse the expectations of a group of first-year students on entry into higher education and compare them with the experiences that made them feel included and/or excluded within the first six weeks of their tertiary studies. context of the study south african universities have become spaces in which students from diverse contexts converge to gain “epistemological access” (morrow, 1992, p. 2) to specialised knowledge and to the skills required in academic and professional fields of study. epistemological access refers to the acquisition of knowledge and skills through formal learning. in contrast, what is known as formal access is physical admission into the institution. despite various orientation programmes on offer, students may not necessarily experience these programmes in the same way because of their diverse educational and socio-economic backgrounds. there must be a synergy between university structures and student agency (case et al., 2018) for all students to succeed in higher education in south africa. consequently, the first few weeks at university can be a period during which students may feel included and/or excluded in various ways. the first semester at university is usually considered a transitional stage in which students are expected to adapt to the new environment at the university as well as cope with the additional pressures (bean & eaton, 2000) of higher education. if students can acclimatise to the new environment, they are more likely to experience a sense of being included in it. moosa & langsford: “i haven’t had the fun that is portrayed” 129 transition from school to university: a stage model the ease of the transition from high school to university is contingent on a complex interaction of factors within a student’s educational and socio-economic background (e.g., camelia & nastase, 2018; dison et al., 2019; ramrathran, 2013), as well as challenges and support that the higher education institution offers to its incoming students (e.g., jones et al., 2008; underhill & mcdonald, 2010). tinto (1983) provided an influential model to explain student’s experiences of transitioning from high school to university that has been used widely as a basis for understanding first-year students’ expectations compared with their experiences at university. to adjust to the university context, students move through various phases: separation; transition; and incorporation (tinto, 1983). each phase encompasses factors that provide an understanding of why students may be at risk of dropping out of university as kwai (2009) has pointed out. in the context of the south african higher education sector, we note that tinto (1983) promotes an assimilation model in terms of which diverse students are expected to adjust to an inclusive higher education institution. the calls for free, quality, decolonised education by students who participated in the #feesmustfall 1 movement highlighted the fact that universities are not always inclusive spaces and need to be more responsive to the lived realities of their student bodies. we therefore engage in a review and critical discussion of tinto’s model of transition. separation phase the separation phase is characterised by a decline in interactions with past associates and a change in behaviour. according to tinto (1983) this is the phase during which first-year students need to dissociate themselves from their past school experiences and transition to a tertiary setting by becoming familiar with its norms and patterns. we agree that it is important for students to make mental and physical breaks from their previous learning context to integrate fully into a new context and adjust to their role, with its expectations, of being university students. yet we note, with concern, that the dominant norms and patterns of many universities have not always met the social and academic needs of first-year students. for some students, the separation phase means developing new friendships as well as changing their behaviours, and learning new bodies of knowledge, and employing new ways of thinking in an intellectual field or professional practice. while students who can adjust to their new environment can create a sense of belonging, it is during this phase that some students experience social alienation and personal challenges. universities must ensure that they have clear transformative support structures and orientation programmes in place to ensure that this separation phase is not severely traumatic for first-year students. students’ backgrounds and their income level are some of the social challenges that can affect their integration into university spaces as camelia and nastase (2018) have reminded 1 the #feesmustfall protests, beginning in 2015, and running into 2016, were based on the two central demands of free higher education and quality decolonised education. 130 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 us. this was one of the challenges highlighted during the #feesmustfall protests. students experience “incongruence” (tinto, 1983, p. 50) when they feel that they do not belong to the social or academic sectors of the university. for many first-year students in south africa, this is a common experience (dison et al., 2019). students also experience “isolation” (tinto, 1983, p. 50) when they are unable to form meaningful relationships or communicate effectively with people (such as peers or lecturers) at the university because of their social or financial background. this could lead to students being unable to access important information and this could lead, in turn, to their withdrawing voluntarily from tertiary studies. students’ income, particularly if it is low, is also a common factor leading to dropout (lassibille & gómez, 2008; ramrathan, 2013) but it can also affect feeling included or excluded at university. in the absence of sufficient funding, students could find themselves without safe accommodation and lacking food security. during the separation phase, personal challenges may influence whether students feel included or excluded. students who are enrolled at large universities can be at greater risk of isolation because of the wide physical spaces, complex administrative structure, diversity of the student body (tinto, 1983), large student numbers (jones et al., 2008), and universityspecific cultures and traditions (kuh & love, 2000). isolation can be further compounded by challenges relating to students’ adaptability to or familiarity with university culture (camelia & nastase, 2018; dison et al., 2019), with these leading to first-year students feeling that they do not belong to the social or academic sectors of the university (tinto, 1983). these feelings of non-belonging can contribute to a sudden disequilibrium which could lead to students becoming reluctant to communicate with their lecturers and seek, instead, academic support from peer networks (norodien-fataar & daniels, 2016). transition phase the transition phase is the period during which students are torn between the past (high school) and the present (university). according to tinto (1983), during this phase, students must acquire the knowledge and skills needed to interact with members of a new group and find ways to adhere to the norms, values, and beliefs (kuh & love, 2000) of the university. the transition stage is not always the same for each student, given their diverse lived experiences (tinto, 1983) and the differences in their social capital. therefore, universities cannot assume that the transition phase will be the same for all students and should be obliged to ensure that their diverse needs are accommodated. furthermore, some students might find it challenging to understand the structural procedures of the university that tend to be far removed from those of school and this could lead to their dropping out. furthermore, first-year students are more likely to drop out if they are unable to integrate sufficiently into the social life of the university to form social networks and manage social freedoms (forbes & wickens, 2005; mostert & pienaar, 2020). the shift in the transition phase is not clearly sequenced so every student’s goals, and these differ naturally among students, and their objectives contribute to making the transition successful (tinto, 1983). it is during this stage that students encounter psycho-pedagogic challenges that include inconsistencies between the academic knowledge and skills that were moosa & langsford: “i haven’t had the fun that is portrayed” 131 prioritised at school and the expectations of university courses (camelia & nastase, 2018; dison et al., 2019; ramrathan, 2013; slonimsky & shalem, 2006). while almost all first-year students experience difficulties in adjusting to the academic literacy level required to function optimally at university (brenner & shalem, 2010; dison et al., 2019), this is of particular concern given the increasing number of students who are not academically prepared for the expectations of higher education enrolling at universities (gabriel, 2008; lassibille & gómez, 2008). hence universities need to have a more transformative agenda as argued for by the #feesmustfall movement. universities expect students to adjust to the level of academic literacy required at university that is described as the gap between lecturers’ expectations and students’ ability to deliver expectations (brenner & shalem, 2010; mumba et al., 2002). this is problematic because school-leavers do not necessarily have access to academic discourses and literacy practices that will allow them to feel included at university. furthermore, students’ expectations of academic challenges as opposed to the actual challenges they encounter might be different. it is thus the responsibility of the university to minimise the impact that various knowledge gaps have on students’ future learning. this would mean that first-year course curricula need to incorporate various academic reading and writing skills. if this were to be done, students would feel more included and, therefore, less excluded from academic programmes at university and their sense of being marginalised would at least begin to evaporate. incorporation phase the final stage entails students’ adjustment and involvement in the social and academic communities of the university. during this stage new interaction patterns are established with peers, lecturers, and administrative staff, resulting in students feeling more socially and academically involved at university. this does not mean that first-year students must adapt to the university’s dominant culture to gain a sense of belonging since the dominant culture could be exclusionary in its refusal to acknowledge the social identities of all students. therefore, universities should ensure that students have various options to socialise—even in sub-groups that share similar norms, values, and beliefs (kuh & love, 2000, tinto, 1983)— to feel included at university. during this stage universities need to ensure that students start to feel more comfortable and included in the university environment because their diverse needs are being met. for this reason, it is important to understand students’ expectations and experiences in their first few weeks at university. theoretical perspective: social and pedagogic inclusion the theoretical framework underpinning this study is social and pedagogic inclusion which is based on the premise that all people should be able to participate in activities as valued, respected, and contributing members of a learning community (florian & black-hawkins, 2011). there are five key aims (freiler, 2001) that are linked to social inclusion and these include: (a) valued recognition and respect for individuals and groups; (b) opportunity for human development and for nurturing the talents and skills of students; (c) involvement and 132 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 engagement in having the necessary support to be involved in decisions affecting oneself and one’s community; (d) proximity in sharing physical and social spaces to provide opportunities for interactions and to reduce social distances between people; and (e) material well‐being. we view the aims of this framework as overarching ideas that are best suited to explore the aspects that make first-year students feel included or excluded from university since the framework focuses on the social dimension of human interactions. in our study, the first aim was linked to student development and to the acceptance of social identities within the university. we interpreted the second aim in relation to experiences that are associated with students’ emotional and academic development at university. we linked the third aim to students’ experiences of navigating the university structures and the fourth to students’ experiences of social interactions at university. we viewed material well‐being as being associated with participants’ financial status. inclusive pedagogy focuses on raising the achievement of all and ensuring that those who are more vulnerable to being excluded or marginalised feel included (englebrecht & green, 2018). for this to be achieved, institutions of higher learning have the responsibility to make various social and pedagogic changes to meet all students’ needs rather than expecting the students to fit in with exclusionary structures and practices (forslund frykedal & hammer chiriac, 2018; makoelle, 2014). in south africa there are various interpretations of inclusive pedagogy as makoelle (2012) has noted. in this study, we define inclusive pedagogy as a teaching practice that encourages the full and meaningful participation of all students given the available learning opportunities. we thus interpreted the social aims listed by freiler (2001) to make links to accounts of pedagogic inclusionary and exclusionary experiences because we believe that social and pedagogic inclusion are not mutually exclusive. we used freiler’s (2001) aims of inclusion to guide our initial analysis of the data, and while we did not use them as specific categories when coding it, they did provide an organising framework for the categories that emerged from the data itself. research methods we selected a phenomenological approach because the study aimed to “[describe] the meaning of the lived experiences of a phenomenon or concept for several individuals” (fouché & schurink, 2011, p. 316). since the study aimed to capture a snapshot of the research participants’ expectations and experiences of inclusionary and exclusionary practices at university and the highly relative nature of such experiences, we agreed that a phenomenological approach was best suited. given the number of research participants (n = 322), we did not conduct the typically long interviews with participants that are usually associated with a phenomenological research design. our research findings are based on participant responses from a much larger proportion of the research population, and this allows us to generalise our findings more widely. while we came to data analysis using freiler’s (2001) aims of inclusion to shape our view of what is relevant data and what is not, moosa & langsford: “i haven’t had the fun that is portrayed” 133 the eventual categories we used to code emerged from the data itself. in this way, we have been able to analyse it using relevant categories that describe adequately this data set. we ensured reliability in this study by giving all the research participants the same set of questions to answer at the same time (in the first and sixth weeks of class). we ensured trustworthiness by dividing the data analysis between us thus requiring us to develop a sharp coding tool to ensure that coding was accurate and precise. sampling and data collection participants were selected from the 2020 first-year students registered to do a bachelor of education at an urban south african university. like all students, they participate in an introductory programme orienting them broadly to the services, structures, and academic expectations of the university. lecturers also introduce students to the expectations inherent in their specific courses. we obtained informed consent from these 322 first-year students to include their responses in this research. we were given permission to conduct this research by the university’s ethics committee. we made participants aware that their involvement in this project was voluntary and that all identifying participant information would be kept confidential. the research participants were asked to answer the following questions during their first week of lectures. 1. what do you think will make you feel included at university? 2. what do you think will make you feel excluded at university? after six weeks, participants were invited to answer the following questions. 1. which aspects have made you feel included into university life? 2. which aspects have made you feel excluded from university life? by asking participants what they expected to make them feel included and excluded and what actually made them feel included and excluded we uncovered their perception of the attributes and knowledge they need to succeed in the academy. the comparison of responses at two points in time reveal differences between anticipated and actual experiences of their transition. data analysis generally guided by the principles of inclusion (freiler, 2001), we categorised the data according to the focus of the response. these various foci that included reference to academic, emotional, and social identities, financial issues, and the navigation of university structures and social interactions emerged in a grounded way from the data itself; through a process of immersion in the data, we pulled out the common foci of the responses (see table 1). 134 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 we soon realised that the data did not speak only to the areas in which participants felt included or excluded. a second level of refinement refocused the intention of the response to show that within a focus, there are different emphases on the various grounds for feeling included or excluded. we found maton’s (2014) distinction between epistemic relations and social relations useful. epistemic relations refer to “relations between practices and their object” (maton, 2016, p. 12). in this study, on the one hand, we understand this to mean the academic practices and university structures that students believe they need to master in order to succeed in higher education institutions. social relations, on the other hand, refer to the “relations between practices and their subject” (maton, 2016, p. 12). in the context of this study, we understand this to refer to the dispositions that students believe they need in order to achieve at university. although all responses emphasised stronger social relations, they emphasised epistemic relations to different extents. for example, responses that had stronger epistemic relations valued knowing about academic practices, procedures, and structures, like, for example, knowing how to write academic essays. when responses had weaker epistemic relations their engagement with the academic practices and procedures of the academy were not the focus of their concern. in such cases, the responses were more concerned with their ways of being and belonging as being important for succeeding at university. we could, therefore, analytically distinguish differing emphases on the six categories of response. table 1 table showing differing strengths of epistemic relations focus of response basis of response indicator example academic epistemic relations are more emphasised, with stronger social relations response emphasises the possession or lack of knowledge about academic practices, procedures, and structures as important in feeling included or excluded in academic activities. “the way of doing things at varsity, i feel like it will take time for me to learn how to do things (referencing, and all that stuff).” epistemic relations are less emphasised, with stronger social relations response emphasises the possession or lack of personal dispositions or interactions as important for feeling included or excluded in academic activities. “when i cope with university work and get used to the norm of the institution.” emotional epistemic relations are more emphasised, with stronger social relations response emphasises the possession or lack of knowledge to feel emotionally secure. “i will feel excluded when i face a situation of humiliation and not being briefed about how to cope and what is expected of me as a first-year student.” epistemic relations are less emphasised, with stronger social relations response emphasises the possession or lack of ways of being to feel emotionally secure or insecure. “having a sense of not belonging, feeling like i am alone, and i have no one to share my academic experiences or even academic stress with.” moosa & langsford: “i haven’t had the fun that is portrayed” 135 social identities epistemic relations are more emphasised, with stronger social relations response emphasises the possession or lack of knowledge to feel that they are being treated fairly or unfairly. “other students know almost all south african languages of which i do not know.” epistemic relations are less emphasised, with stronger social relations response emphasises the possession or lack of ways of being to feel that they are being treated fairly or unfairly. “the background of which i come from. majority of the student body are black south africans, yet i will be excluded due to the fact that i have a private schooling background.” financial epistemic relations are more emphasised, with stronger social relations response emphasises the possession or lack of knowledge of how to cope with student finances. n/a epistemic relations are less emphasised, with stronger social relations response concerned being or not being the right kind of person with or without the right kind of financial security. “i feel excluded since i have to travel from home to university every day. traveling inconveniences me since i use public transport, along the way i encounter discrepancies since public transport is not reliable and i arrive late for my classes.” navigation of university structures epistemic relations are more emphasised, with stronger social relations response emphasises the possession or lack of knowledge in order to navigate or not navigate structural logistics. “i am not familiar with my schoolwork being typed using a personal computer.” epistemic relations are less emphasised, with stronger social relations response emphasises the possession or lack of ways of being in order to navigate or not navigate structural logistics. “being able to access information, participating and attending.” social interactions epistemic relations are more emphasised, with stronger social relations response emphasises the possession or lack of knowledge in order to feel included or excluded in social activities. “i felt included when a lecturer asks questions and ensures that i understand.” epistemic relations are less emphasised, with stronger social relations response emphasises the possession or lack of ways of being in order to feel included or excluded in social activities. “being treated like i know everything and not being asked my opinions.” none “nothing up to so far.” we began the coding process by developing a few categories and testing them separately on the same sample of the data. we then compared our coding to ensure congruence between our interpretations of the data. after a few rounds of this procedure, by gradually sharpening the analysis tool to accommodate the themes in the data, we each coded half of the full dataset. we generated the quantities of each code combination in the initial and follow-up datasets, thereby making trends in participants’ perceptions of inclusion and exclusion over time 136 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 visible. data and shifts which accounted for 5% to 10% of the findings were considered noteworthy, 10% to 15% were considered striking, 16% to 29% were considered substantial, 30% to 39% were considered remarkable, and over 40% were considered eminent. findings the findings discussed below are arranged by focus area. within each focus area, we begin by discussing the overall trends within the data. then, we discuss the data from the initial dataset which asked participants “what will make you feel included/excluded at university?” thereafter, we discuss the shifts that occurred during the six weeks of the study as evidenced in the follow-up dataset that asked participants, “which aspects have made you feel included/excluded at university?” the discussion of the findings refer to the summary in table 2. table 2 summary of findings focus of participant responses at the start of the academic year 6 weeks into academic year percentage in pre included percentage in pre excluded percentage in post included percentage in post excluded emphasis on mastering procedures and structures of the institution 34% 27% 32% 34.4% emphasis on personal dispositions and relationships 68.3% 69% 63% 45% academic epistemic relations were more emphasised 12% 16% 9% 13% epistemic relations were less emphasised 12% 11% 9% 3% emotional epistemic relations were more emphasised 0% 0% 0% 0.4% epistemic relations were less emphasised 2% 5% 1% 2% social identities epistemic relations were more emphasised 3% 2% 1% 2% epistemic relations were less emphasised 10% 20% 7% 6% financial epistemic relations were more emphasised 0% 0% 0% 1% epistemic relations were less emphasised 0.3% 1% 1% 4% moosa & langsford: “i haven’t had the fun that is portrayed” 137 navigation of university structures epistemic relations were more emphasised 8% 6% 9% 11% epistemic relations were less emphasised 3% 1% 5% 5% social interactions epistemic relations were more emphasised 11% 3% 13% 7% epistemic relations were less emphasised 41% 31% 40% 25% none 0% 1% 3% 19% unable to code 0% 0% 1% 1% to streamline the presentation and discussion of findings, we have chosen not to present categories that had percentages lower than 5%, so we will not elaborate much on the emotional and financial categories. we assume that students are emotionally mature and ready to be at university or that they simply do not regard emotional aspects as important ones in their transition to university. we find it very interesting that, contrary to the findings of camelia and nastase (2018) and ramrathran (2013), research participants in this study did not express much concern about inclusion or exclusion in relation to their finances since we consider students who fall into a low-income category as being at risk of being excluded from many social and academic aspects of the academy. our finding is somewhat counterintuitive considering the focus of student protests and struggles of recent years that had a heavy focus on student finances (such as the #feesmustfall movement). it is possible that these participants have access to student funding and hence this is not of great concern in our dataset. for the participants in this study, “fitting in” in relation to social interactions dominated their concern about inclusion on entry into the institution. most of the participants in this study seem to associate inclusion, and what is valued by the academy, with their social interactions. they seem to be more focused on establishing social networks than on mastering academic practices. an eminent preoccupation with social belonging may render actors unaware of the inclusionary and exclusionary power of academic and financial belonging and other aspects of university life. indeed, after six weeks on campus, there was a striking decrease in participants’ concerns about having or not having particular personal dispositions as inclusionary or exclusionary factors. there was also a slight increase in participants’ concerns about mastery of knowledge, procedures, and structures in order to be included after their first six weeks on campus. an example of this is best indicated in this student’s response in its expressing an initial concern about being socially excluded because of being an “introvert” 2 who finds “it difficult . . . to start a conversation.” however, after six weeks, the same student indicated that “the use of computers which i am not familiar with” led to feelings of exclusion because of being unequipped to use the technology because “at school we didn’t have computer labs where you can acquire some of the skills of using a computer.” 2 all participant transcripts are verbatim and have been edited only slightly in the interests of coherence. 138 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 this participant experienced exclusion in relation to the university structures that require students to type assignments. social interactions as key points of inclusion or exclusion the findings of this study indicate that social interactions were expected to be, as well as experienced as, a valued part of feeling included in the university. being part of a social group and knowing which groups to join came up when participants identified what they thought would (or did) make them feel included or excluded at university. the dataset saw an eminent focus on establishing a network of peers when participants were describing their expectations of social inclusion if they were able to “[build] friendships,” and “. . . [participate] in student . . . sports and clubs and [attend] sports days.” participants expected to feel included if they “[knew] people who [would] help [them] when [they] feel lost or confused.” knowledge about the structures and workings of the institution and procedures for getting information was expected to, or did, make them feel included at university. furthermore, a remarkable number of participants expected to feel marginalised if they were excluded because they did not “fit in.” for example, they feared that they would feel excluded if they struggled to “transition or fit in properly,” or were unable to participate in friendship groups, clubs, and other social groups. a noteworthy number of participants reported that, after the six-week period, they experienced social exclusion because, for example, “the language barriers make it quite difficult to make friends . . .” or because they found it difficult to make friends because of the cosmopolitan student body. these findings are in keeping with those of gerdes and mallinckrodt’s (1994) study that showed that social adjustment was a major factor in student success at university. following tinto’s (1983) projection, students felt isolated if they had not yet formed meaningful relationships. academic success as determining inclusion and exclusion participants also came to recognise that academic practices, such as academic writing, referencing, and knowing where to seek help with academic writing and reading, is valued as an important part of success in the academy. they cited academic concerns as being points of inclusion and exclusion in both their predictions about and their experiences of feeling included at the university. a striking number of participants expected to feel included if they succeed academically in the university space, which echoes the findings of gerdes and mallinckrodt’s (1994) study. an interesting finding is that an equal number of participants’ responses emphasised the mastery of knowledge as well as the personal dispositions they regarded as important for expectations of inclusion in relation to academic issues. in the initial dataset, participants expected to be included if they “actually [understood] all the syllabus of all [their] course[s]” and imagined that if they had a good grasp of the content that they were taught in lectures, they would feel included. responses from participants reported that they would feel included if they were recognised for their academic achievement and moosa & langsford: “i haven’t had the fun that is portrayed” 139 fitted into the group of “one of those best students.” a substantial number of participants’ responses expressed what tinto (1983, p. 50) calls “incongruence.” their responses included statements like “[w]hen the lecturer moves fast, being lost/left behind, not understanding the lectures and having a lot of work from different courses.” a noteworthy number of responses emphasised the personal dispositions associated with academic success when they reported that they expected to feel excluded if they were unable to participate in academic interactions, or they would “[not be] recognized for the hard work and effort that [they] enforce to make sure that [they] perform greatly.” we observed a noteworthy decrease in emphasis on personal dispositions when participants were reporting their experiences of exclusion after six weeks. for example, one participant predicted that “being ignored especially by the lecturer if i ask for help where i don’t understand” led to feelings of academic exclusion. after six weeks, however, the same student reported experiencing social exclusion when “communicating with students [who speak] other languages.” participants experienced exclusion when they felt unable to adapt to the new environment, and this resulted in feelings of isolation and marginalisation (see bean & eaton, 2000; tinto, 1983) when they saw “other students looking like they [are] coping with certain courses, [that they] have no clue about,” which made them “feel stupid,” and “[lose] all sense of belonging.” social identities and feeling accepted a striking number of the participants said that they expected that experiences of equity would be a consequence of feeling included at university. following dison et al. (2019) not only did participants expect to feel included if they were treated fairly, but they also expressed fears of feeling isolated because they were not seen to be valued in the university’s society (see dison et al., 2019). at the beginning of the six weeks, participants were concerned about “being treated different because of the colour of [their] skin,” and “having their opinion valued by others.” a substantial percentage of the responses indicated that participants expected to feel excluded if they were treated unfairly if, for example, “[lecturers] will be focusing on excelling students only,” or because “food sold at the canteen does not cater for all ethnic groups.” after six weeks, there was a noteworthy decrease in experienced inclusion because the participants were being treated fairly. participants who did experience a feeling of inclusion because of this tended to emphasise particular ways of being and dispositions in their responses, reporting that “in lectures and tutorials we are all treated equally regardless of our different backgrounds.” there was a substantial reduction of students who expressed fear that they would be excluded on the grounds of their social identity. the trends in our dataset indicate that participants, overall, overestimated the role that equity would play as an inclusionary factor at university. for example, a participant predicted that they would feel included “when lecturers treat me the same as other [students]” but after six weeks, what made this participant feel included was “receiving all the work at the correct time as other students.” this participant, then, shifted their focus from having the right kind of dispositions to be treated equally to knowing how to navigate the university’s structures. whether this was 140 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 because the participant had established a network of peers with similar social identity or from similar backgrounds or they adapted to fit in is unclear, but the participants in this study seemed to experience inclusion or exclusion because they were treated fairly much less often than they expected to be. navigation of university structures when participants spoke about feeling included or excluded in relation to having access to knowledge about campus structures and systems, they tended to focus more on knowledge than on their personal dispositions. they, therefore, acknowledged that a part of feeling included in the institution was knowing where to go and what to do in and around campus. a noteworthy number of participants expected to feel included or excluded because they did or did not know what was happening in and around the campus. initially, they mentioned anxieties about knowing “the protocols and knowing exactly what [they were] going to learn about.” accordingly, they expected to feel excluded if they did not know what was happening on campus, leading to their “feeling lost and not knowing where [they are] or where [they are] supposed to be.” there was a noteworthy increase in the exclusionary experiences of participants because they felt that they did not know or understand the university’s procedures and structures. participants reported feeling excluded because they had difficulties with using technology to prepare and submit their work and felt excluded when they found out about changes to their lectures or assignments at the last minute from others, leading them to feel the isolation that tinto (1983) says accompanies the transition from school to tertiary education. for one participant, being excluded would mean being “discriminated against due to certain differences that [they] might have that other people do not have nor understand,” whereas after six weeks, this participant experienced exclusion in relation to the mastery of knowledge when “navigating [their] way through these huge buildings with weird names.” ‘none’ a substantial number of participants felt that they had not experienced exclusion in their first six weeks of university. one participant said that “there are some moments when i feel excluded by fellow students, but i choose not to allow these moments to affect my overall positive experience of university so far.” while it is not clear why so many participants have had this experience, some possible hypotheses include a belief that students are approaching their new role with a maturity that promotes focus and determination within the university space. perhaps the participants have a sense that they can succeed because they were able to achieve access to the university. it could also be that the university’s structures to support transition have helped these participants. other participants claimed that their motivations come from within, and so “for [them] solitude is bliss,” or “only i can allow myself to feel excluded from anything. how i continue in my experience at varsity is not determined by other people’s experiences and connections.” a final hypothesis, according to the work of alamuddin and bender (2018), is that the first-year orientation programmes have enabled students to find ways to be included in the university space. moosa & langsford: “i haven’t had the fun that is portrayed” 141 discussion the analysis of our data suggests that first-year students’ expectations of what it would be like at university shifted after six weeks. this study has five main findings. first, it would seem that this cohort of first-year students’ biggest anxiety when starting university was social interactions and experiences, and therefore they predicted initially that social interactions would be a key point of inclusion and exclusion at university. for some students, adjusting was seen primarily as establishing a social network, with less initial concern for understanding the structures and expectations about knowledge practices. their responses indicate that, for them, when they fit in socially, they feel that they are included at university. it would seem, then, that either the knowledge practices of the academy are not yet visible to students when they enter university, or that participants are holding firm to that perception of being “bright and hardworking” enough to belong to the institution as advertised on the university’s website (university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, 2020, n.p.). second, participants in this study place less value on financial support as the overarching factor for feeling included or excluded at university. there were some participants in this study who did cite financial issues as exclusionary factors, but they were few and far between. this may not be the case with a different set of students at this or another university. financial and food security is of massive concern in south african universities and in the country as a whole and must be acknowledged as a powerful exclusionary factor for many south african students. third, participants reported that academic success and achievement would make them feel included at university and failure would make them feel excluded. this indicates that participants consider knowing the procedures, structures, and processes is an important component of feeling included in the academy. furthermore, after six weeks, participants seemed to realise the importance of academic conventions and the knowledge of university structures if they were to succeed. fourth, participants’ responses intimated that they feared that they might not be treated fairly because of some personal trait, but after six weeks at university the focus on this aspect decreased notably. last, participants’ responses about their struggles with the use of technology and how logistical navigation of the university’s systems hampered their academic success shows that they valued knowledge of the university’s processes including its technological concerns as part of being included at university. when they were unable to navigate logistical and technological aspects after six weeks at university, they felt excluded. despite these findings, a substantial number of participants reported no experiences of exclusion after six weeks. indeed, participants tended to emphasise personal dispositions in their responses until they were asked what made them feel excluded after six weeks. their experiences of exclusion foregrounded mastery of knowledge, procedures, and processes marginally more than their expectations of inclusion and exclusion, as well as their experiences of inclusion. we postulate that this could mean that the knowledge practices of the academy are not yet visible 142 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 to students, or that the students underestimated the inclusionary or exclusionary power of knowledge at university. what these findings suggest is that first-year students have a limited frame of reference with regard to their expectations of what inclusion in the academy entails. this has been evidenced by their locating social support and participation as a key aspect of feeling included and or excluded as well as succeeding at university. they seem to be highly influenced by media depictions of university spaces as predominantly social spaces. as such, the academic, financial, and logistical demands of being at university have not been a focal aspect of feeling included and/or excluded at university for these participants. conclusion this qualitative study explored the perceptions of inclusion and exclusion of first-year students at a south african university. it compared their expectations and lived experiences of inclusion and exclusion. within each of the focus categories which emerged from the data, we distinguished two bases for the response: responses either emphasised mastery of knowledge, processes, and structures to feel included/excluded or responses emphasised personal dispositions to feel included/excluded. the findings of this study are perhaps best captured in this quote from the data, “honestly, i haven’t had the fun that is portrayed at university from afar.” the experiences of participants after the first six weeks of university are quite different from their expectations of university life. the findings indicate that participants experienced mastery of knowledge, procedures, and structures of the institution as a point of exclusion almost 8% more than they expected. the participants also experienced personal disposition and relationships to be a point of exclusion 24% less than they expected them to be. this paper therefore contributes to the field of knowledge on transitioning from high school to university by noting that first-year students place much more focus on the social aspects of university life. the findings also have implications for how universities conceptualise and implement the move to online learning which is often viewed as the solution to the provision of higher education. we encourage universities to examine their orientation programmes critically to note 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(2018). ties that bind: the role played by social capital in black working class first-generation south african students’ negotiation of university life. south african journal of higher education, 32(3), 118–138. microsoft word b80 full issue final.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 80, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i80a04 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x meeting the challenges first year engineering graphic design pre-service teachers encounter when they read and interpret assembly drawing douglas sotsaka technology education cluster, indumiso campus, durban university of technology, pietermaritzburg, south africa douglassibusiso@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4864-1344 asheena singh-pillay science and technology education cluster, school of education, edgewood campus, university of kwazulunatal, durban, south africa pillaya5@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1540-8992 (received: 13 january 2020; accepted: 4 september 2020) abstract in this qualitative study, we explored the challenges first year engineering graphics and design (egd) preservice teachers (psts) encounter when they read and interpret assembly drawings (ads). vygotsky’s zone of proximal development framed this study. purposive sampling was used to generate data from twenty-one first year egd psts using a think-aloud task and individual semi-structured interviews. we subjected the data to content analysis. the findings reveal that first year egd psts, when they attempt to read and interpret ads, encounter five challenges that have implications for the teaching of egd with regard to scaffolding the development of spatial visual ability in first year egd psts. keywords: assembly drawing, engineering graphics and design, pre-service teachers, read and interpret introduction severe skills shortages among practicing engineers identified in the national development plan (national planning commission (2011)), have been linked directly to the schooling system despite the national education department’s increased education budget for schools (kraak, 2008). the failure of the schooling system to develop fundamental skills required in the engineering field such as the ability to communicate graphically, apply spatial visual reasoning, and read and interpret graphical text in subjects like engineering graphics and sotsaka & singh-pillay: meeting the challenges first year engineering . . . 73 design (egd) has been noted in studies by sotsaka (2015) and konadu-yiadom (2016). it is well documented in the literature that the ability to read and interpret graphical text in engineering courses is dependent on an individual’s spatial visual reasoning skills (branoff & dobelis, 2012; makgato & khoza, 2016). in egd, learners learn to communicate graphically which means being able to read and interpret graphical text. a study by singh-pillay and sotsaka (2017) asserted that many practising teachers of egd lack the pedagogical content knowledge (pck) needed to develop the spatial visual skills required by learners if they are to cope with reading and interpreting engineering drawings such as ads. hence, many egd learners emerging from the schooling system (including, in this case, first-year egd psts) have poorly developed or poorly activated spatial visual skills as branoff and dobelis (2012) have noted. additionally, the national senior certificate (nsc) egd examiners’ and moderators’ reports from 2011 to 2018 highlight matric learners’ inability to read and interpret ads. (department of basic education (dbe), 2011–2018). even though these nsc examiners’ and moderators’ reports are sent to schools the identified area of weakness pertaining to reading and interpreting ad persists. this means that practising egd teachers are repeatedly failing to activate egd learners’ spatial visual skills. taking into consideration the lack of pck needed to develop spatial visual skills in practising egd teachers, this qualitative study pays attention to first-year egd psts who would have studied egd to matric level so would have entered their teacher training course with some prior knowledge of (and preconceptions and misconceptions of) how to read and interpret an ad. 1 in learning how to teach ad, through social interactions with their lecturer and their peers, they ought to be able to improve their ability to read and interpret ads. for lecturers in this course, gaining deeper insight into how firstyear egd psts read and interpret ad will assist them in scaffolding the teaching of these students about how to do so that when they qualify they will be equipped with the fundamental skills needed to activate their learners’ spatial visual skills. knowing the challenges first year egd psts encounter when they attempt to read and interpret ad will encourage teacher educators to explore alternative ways of teaching, and develop and design programmes to help engage psts and prospective learners to overcome the challenges of reading and interpreting ad. in this paper, we report on a larger qualitative study that sought to explore how first year egd psts read and interpret ad. our research question was: “what are the challenges first year egd psts encounter when they read and interpret assembly drawing?” literature review there is a paucity of studies in the field of egd education. the existing literature focuses on challenges associated with students’ attempts to read and interpret engineering drawings. 1 an assembly drawing consists of a number of different parts or components of a machine or system, along with a number of dimensions for clear interpretation. these different parts are given in 3-d and in 2-d. when these parts are interlocked, they form a complete functional machine. assembly drawings may contain some of the following components: one or more views, including sections or auxiliaries; enlarged views to show small details, overall or specific dimensions needed for assembly, notes on manufacturing processes required for assembly; balloons to indicate item numbers; and a parts list or bill of materials (bom). 74 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 challenges associated with teaching and reading engineering drawings according to perez carrion and serrano (2012), the high failure rate among students in their examinations in egd and engineering courses is a result of the difficulty presented by representations of 3-d objects in 2-d that make understanding the mechanisms problematic. this shows that students have not developed their spatial ability sufficiently by the time they leave school. chinonso (2014) found that this high failure rate is associated with traditional teaching methods that do not develop learners’ spatial ability. these methods fail to emphasise the connections between the drawing and the design of the product itself. if students are to master this spatial skill, the teachers must create a learning environment in which students can engage practically in drawing activities. furthermore, branoff and dobelis (2012) noted that the mismatch between engineering professors’ teaching style and engineering students’ learning style was the cause of the high failure rates of engineering students. this view was offered by branoff et al. (2003) when, nearly a decade earlier, they suggested that egd teachers must expose students to the hands-on experience of drafting techniques and conventions that meet the required standards. these competencies can be developed only by engaging students in activities that use a variety of media that offer problem-solving skills and develop the students’ ability to think, see, create, and model 3-d visual images in space or on paper from 2-d blueprints. rote learning or memorising is not and cannot be the solution to the well documented poor success rates. moreover, kabouridis (2010) as well as branoff and dobelis (2012) have recommended that egd students should be trained specifically to develop their spatially related problem-solving abilities. when once the spatial skill is developed it should be improved continually to meet the needs of industry. abdullah et al. (2011) and garmendia et al. (2007) argued that many engineering curricula do not allocate enough time to the advancement of spatial ability, in spite of this being an essential engineering skill. typically, engineering students are given little or no formal instruction that develops their spatial abilities and educators do not teach visual-spatial thinking. furthermore, these scholars have argued that engineering texts present static, orthogonal representations of concepts, theories, and ideas, with little or no explanation of how to interpret the spatial information, essential for the development of students’ spatial ability. while the above studies have emphasised the challenges associated with teaching and reading engineering drawings they do not articulate the challenges students encounter when they read and interpret these, particularly ads. challenges students encounter with reading engineering drawings for azodo (2017), the major challenges engineering students encounter in engineering drawing involve seeing an image in 3-d, understanding the projection view methodology, producing drawings of professional quality, and reading and interpreting engineering drawings. he explained that these challenges emanate from a lack of visualisation skills in students. fenghong and chikun (2011) identified that students have problems imagining the space when they have to observe the 3-d projection drawings of objects of unusual shape. they see 2-d elements in a 3-d surrounding and they visualise the 3-d environment from the sotsaka & singh-pillay: meeting the challenges first year engineering . . . 75 2-d drawing, rotating objects to another plane mentally and visualizing objects in scale. these are all problems related to a lack of visualisation skills. theoretical framework vygotsky’s (1978) theory of the zone of proximal development (zpd) is widely used in studies about teaching and learning in subjects like mathematics (siyepu, 2013) and engineering (sotsaka, 2020). vygotsky’s zpd focuses on the impact of social interactions during learning. for this educationalist, the development of a child is social in that the objects and people surrounding the child influence her or his cognitive development. in other words, teaching and learning are viewed as a social process during which the students bring to the process their own lived experiences grounded in their socio-cultural contexts (in this study their experiences of reading and interpreting ad from school). during the teaching and learning process, students are expected to participate actively in their own learning through the use of communication and interaction with their colleagues and instructors. the zpd is the difference between what a student can do without help and what a student can do with help. vygotsky conceptualised the zpd as a way of viewing what students are coming to know over time. this means that over time children can solve problems beyond their actual developmental level if they are given guidance in the form of prompts or leading questions from someone (peer, guide, or teacher) who is at a more advanced level. vygotsky believed that teachers should focus on teaching students within the zpd since the best learning is that which enables one to develop within one’s range of thinking. while the zpd theory pays attention to cognitive development over a period of time, siyepu (2013) emphasised that tasks can be used as indicators of the knowledge-skills base that the students bring into the programme in relation to a level of development. knowing first year psts’ actual level of development brought with them from school to university in relation to reading and interpreting ad will assist the lecturer to adjust her or his pedagogy, thereby providing learning interventions to scaffold first year psts reading and interpretation of ad, thus creating a zpd. vygotsky (1978) believed that when a learner is at the zpd for a particular task, providing the appropriate assistance will help the learner to achieve advanced understanding. according to chaiklin (2003), vygotsky further asserted that the students’ level of development serves as a theoretical basis for appropriate pedagogical interventions including identification of specific interventions for individual students. since this study focuses on the challenges first year egd psts encounter when they read and interpret ad, vygotsky’s notion of a zpd is applicable. guk and kellogg (2007) asserted that the (potential) zpd can be used as a mechanism to organise the learning environment of learners. put differently, lecturers can bridge the gap between what a pst can do without help and scaffold the reading and interpreting of ad to what a pst can do with assistance. in this study a think-loud task was used to gain insights into first year psts prior knowledge (or lack thereof) of reading and interpreting ad, while a semi-structured interview was used 76 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 to probe their justification for reading and interpreting ad the way they did. the think-aloud task allowed the lecturer to focus on the psts’ methods of making meaning when attempting to read and interpret ad. the notion of the zpd takes into account individual differences among students arising from cultural and historical factors since these factors impact how individuals process information and use it. therefore these need to be taken into account to help address the challenges identified by first year egd psts in reading and interpreting ad. methodology this study embraced an interpretive paradigm. according to cohen et al. (2017), given the ontology of the qualitative interpretive paradigm, it aims to provide a better understanding of how people make sense of the contexts in which they live, work, and learn; it values the participants’ subjective meaning of a social phenomenon. qualitative research attempts to collect rich descriptive data regarding a particular real life phenomenon (in this case, the challenges first year egd psts encounter when they try to read and interpret ad) in order to develop an understanding of what is being observed or studied as yin (2014) has made clear. this study was based on the case study design. yin (2014) described case study research as an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon in its real-life context using different ways to generate data. this ensures that the issue is not explored from only one perspective, but, rather, from many which allows for multiple facets of the phenomenon to be revealed and understood as baxter and jack (2008) have suggested. the specified criteria of the case study design require that participants be purposively selected; here they had to be first-year egd psts. there were 21 first year psts (11 females and 10 males) here referred to as p1, p2 etc, enrolled in 2018 at a south african university of technology to train as teachers of egd. we obtained informed consent from the participants and the university concerned and have ensured their anonymity and confidentiality throughout. data was generated in two stages. stage one involved the use of a think-aloud task 2 on reading and interpreting ad. the lecturer involved designed the think-aloud task activities to begin with what the first year egd pst ought to be able to do independently, based on prior knowledge. this was done with the object of linking this already existing knowledge with new knowledge of what they would be able to perform with assistance. the task was thus based on an egd matric examination question since the content covered in it points to the foundation of learning egd at university. the think-aloud task was comprised of four sections and lasted for an hour. it required psts to identify different sectional views 3 of small and large parts, use data provided in the title block, consider notes outside the title block, and mentally manipulate parts to see how they fit together in order to be assembled. this task 2 think-aloud is a research method in which participants speak aloud any words in their minds as they complete a task. we video recorded students’ engagement with the task for observation purposes. 3 sectional view: a sectional view or a section looks inside an object. sections are used to clarify the interior construction of a part that cannot be clearly described by hidden lines in exterior views. by taking an imaginary cut through the object and removing a portion, the inside features may be seen more clearly. sotsaka & singh-pillay: meeting the challenges first year engineering . . . 77 recalled and applied the south african national standards 4 (sans) code of practice (south african bureau of standards,1993, para. 6) requiring students to “measure and draw all parts in 3rd angle orthographic projection as per given dimensions, plan the layout of the paper by identifying the position of each view as per the question, and use correct line types in the drawing.” participants were asked to say whatever came into their minds as they completed the task. this might have included reference to what they were looking at, thinking, doing, and feeling while completing it. this allowed us an insight into the first year egd psts’ cognitive processes as they attempted to read and interpret the ad in the think-aloud task (rather than considering only their final product) and helped to make sense of these articulated processes. three groups of seven participants each completed the task in different parts of the same room. this was done in order to promote collaborative learning during the task-based activity, to scaffold learning, to enable students to work at their own pace as well as serve as a mechanism for judging the lower level of ability within each group. the advantage of using a think-aloud task here was that first year egd psts were engaged in a real activity that provided us with their ongoing cognitive processes instead of our eliciting data by asking each participant how they would complete the activity, without actually engaging in it. all the groups were video recorded to allow us to revisit each, in line with cohen et al. (2017) who noted that video recordings allow for repeated viewing and checking. the video recordings were transcribed verbatim and sent to participants for member checking and were used for retrospective probing during the second stage of data generation that involved a recorded semi-structured interview with each first year egd pst after the task-based activity. this allowed the first author to further probe the participants’ responses and reactions to them. prior to data analysis the think-aloud task was assessed to identify areas of strength and weakness in how the psts read and interpreted the ad. the transcripts of the video recordings of the task and the interviews were subjected to content analysis. transcripts were read and re-read before coding began. to establish codes the following three questions related to reading the transcripts were asked: what is foregrounded? how is it foregrounded? why it is foregrounded? findings and discussion the analysis revealed that first-year egd psts encountered five major challenges when they read and interpreted ad during the think-aloud task: inability to read and interpret information in the title block; inability to differentiate orthographic and isometric projection and visualise the different views; inability to visualise, see spatial relationships between objects, and rotate objects; inability to measure accurately and apply sans code of practice; and inability to assemble and recognise lines. 4 sans-regulations and codes of practice for drawing structures. 78 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 inability to read and interpret information in the title block the majority of first year egd psts were unable to use all the visual and textual information in the title block when they attempted to read and interpret the ad in the think-aloud task. the title block contained the following information: the title; a description of the object in the ad; the type of projection; the drafting standard used; and the scale of drawing and dimension. data from the semi-structured interviews was used to illuminate how first year egd psts used (or failed to use) the information from the title block and their inability to read and interpret visual information. the excerpts below from two semi-structured interviews reveal how the information from the title block was used by psts. i have forgotten how to make sense of the given information. i remember my high school teacher saying that this is the starting point, but i don’t know how or why. i tried looking around to see what other students were doing but it did not help. it is easier to read words rather [than] diagrams. i have no visual skills; i learn by reading. (p4) it is given that the isometric exploded drawing of the parts can be assembled. scale is 1: 1. it is in the third angle, but sometime[s], when you read these thing[s] you just read them. the words remain foreign [and] you don’t get any clue of how or where or when to use this information. these terms are so hard to understand and remember. (p1) data from the recorded observation of the think-aloud task echoes these participants’ observations. i got the title so i can recognise the drawing. that’s one mark, but what to do with the other information? i just get so stressed when i see all these drawings. where do i use it and how? i wish i paid more attention at school. i barely passed egd. it’s so difficult to understand and read the diagrams. (p7) the excerpts above reveal that first year egd psts were unable to interpret the information in the title block. they were unable to decode, interpret, and evaluate this text so could not use it to make sense of the accompanying visual text. furthermore, they were unable to understand the concepts used in the title block and visual text. studies by azodo (2017) and akasah and alias (2010) have revealed that first year engineering students have difficulty reading and interpreting visual text and prefer tasks that have written text. it is evident that the first year egd psts’ inability to process the information and understand the terms used in the title block gives rise to anxiety that affected their ability to see the link between the text in the title block and the visual text. here, their prior learning experiences of ad in school become apparent. for these psts their level of potential to learn to read and interpret ad is negligible. their preference for written text as opposed to visual text explains the anxiety they experience when engaging with visual text. this preference for written text points to the kind of intervention, the instructions, and the activities necessary if we are to scaffold their sotsaka & singh-pillay: meeting the challenges first year engineering . . . 79 learning to read and interpret ad since, as vygotsky argued, development is enhanced by instruction because instruction creates the zone of proximal development. inability to differentiate orthographic and isometric projection and visualise the different views difficulties in differentiating between orthographic and isometric projection as well as understanding the structure of 3-d objects from different views were encountered by most of these psts as is made clear in the excerpts below from the interviews. i find it very difficult to imagine drawings in 3-d. i try so hard [so] if someone could train me how to do this, i will learn what must i do first. i will go with my gut feeling. i don’t have a strategy to solve this. (p3) i lack imagination, i can’t see things mentally. i need to see an object physically to understand its structure in different views. i will try and see what works [but] it’s frustrating not knowing for sure. (p14) similar views were expressed during the think-aloud task. how do i imagine a drawing in 2-d to its 3-d form, and how must i draw from a certain angle when i can’t imagine the shape? i need to know what steps i must follow. i didn’t learn this at school. this is . . . [breaks his pencil and swears]. (p15) the above excerpts illuminate three major problems first year egd psts carry with them from the school egd context to university and the factors that impeded their ability to differentiate orthographic and isometric projection and visualise the different views. in terms of zpd their actual level of development is exposed. the first challenge is their lack of familiarity with the nomenclature of egd, which results in the inability to differentiate between basic concepts such as orthographic and isometric projection as well as 2-d and 3-d drawings. thus, an egd way to talk and think about ad is, at the outset, outside the first year egd psts’ ability. this inability to understand foundational concepts points to the lack of a knowledge base and skills. of course, understanding the basic key concepts in egd necessarily forms the foundation for all future learning in egd, so, without such understanding, further learning is impeded. it is apparent that future teaching and learning activities need to focus on the nomenclature of egd to help psts make meaning of this language in relation to the visual text of ad so as to scaffold their reading and interpretation of ad and thereby develop their higher cognitive functions. the second challenge when these first year egd psts attempted to read and interpret ad was that of visualising images given to them in different views. most of them were unable to visualise or comprehend the visual information. visualisation is a way of thinking that results in the formation of mental images. this means that for first year egd psts to be able to visualise objects they need to be able to imagine objects in different views. in this regard it is worth noting that felder and silverman (1998) have purported that the ability to form mental images is dependent on a person’s mental schema. thus, it can be argued that these first year 80 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 egd psts either do not have the requisite mental schema or are unable to use it to visualise and develop the view or image/s of an object just as they had to do in the think-aloud task, so they need exercises in visualisation of 3-d and 2-d objects. the third challenge is the lack of a systematic method to analyse visual information. furthermore, these first year egd psts confirmed that they do not have a problem-solving strategy in place (p3 said, “i don’t have a strategy to solve this”), and that they use the trialand-error strategy (p14 said, “try and see what works”) or they rely on intuition (p3 said, “my gut feeling”) when they have to read and interpret ad. it is evident that these psts have inadequate visualisation skills and that this hinders learning how to read and interpret ad. if first year egd psts are unable to visualise they will not be able to master the rest of the content of the module. the above findings resonate with studies by azodo (2017) and ali and nordin (2012). these quantitative studies highlighted that firstyear engineering students encounter difficulties with visualisation when they are engaging with engineering drawings despite having studied egd at school level. a study by garmendia et al. (2007) revealed that the inability to visualise could be attributed to the teaching strategy used in most classrooms which consists of visualisation problems being followed by the solutions to those problems, without any explanation of how to solve them or the reasoning needed during the problem-solving process. vygotsky believed that teachers should focus on teaching students within a zpd by using such appropriate teaching strategies. inability to visualise, see relationships between objects, and rotate objects all these first year egd psts struggled to visualise and see spatial relationships between objects as well as rotate objects as is clear in the excerpts below from the semi-structured interviews. i can see the one view that is drawn, but i battle to imagine the sides that are not drawn. i also cannot see the relationship between some objects. i am hopeless. i want to quit this course before we get any further and it becomes more difficult. this 2-d /3-d stresses me. (p11) i can physically flip an object that is physically in front of me [but] i cannot mentally flip an object, nor can i imagine the hidden sides of an object or imagine how they fit together. with large objects i can try but [with] the smaller object that is almost impossible. i can’t imagine [how] to assemble the small part. it’s easier to do it physically. (p17) it is hard to draw from certain angles as i cannot imagine the shape or view required. (p6) the data from the recorded observations of the think-aloud task confirms the existence of these challenges. sotsaka & singh-pillay: meeting the challenges first year engineering . . . 81 oh god how i hate these drawings. it is a disaster [bangs the table looks around, shakes his head]. i also find it hard to see the movement of all these parts in my head. it is not so easy to imagine how the parts will fit together. (p4) i can recognise a washer here, but i am not sure how to rotate this. i see the difference between the bolt and nut now. i am not sure which sides of the bolt and nut to draw in front view to produce 3rd angle as required by the question. i will lose marks in this section. this is hell. (p8) the excerpts above illuminate the fact that egd requires advanced visualization skills that include the ability to see the relationship between the objects portrayed in the diagram, and the ability to rotate objects mentally. furthermore, the excerpts demonstrate that first year egd psts who lack these skills encounter difficulties in imagining or visualizing the objects or views. they are unable to use the visual information in the think-aloud task to exercise visual discrimination, visual figure ground discrimination, visual sequencing, and visualmotor processing, as well as (re)organising the information to create an understanding of meaningful patterns. first year egd psts’ inability to see the relationship between the objects portrayed in the diagram and to rotate objects mentally has an impact on their performance of the task and on their emotional state. the anxiety experienced as well as the severe challenge first year egd psts encounter when they read and interpret ad impedes their ability to form mental images and translate them into drawings. these findings highlight the effects of the prior learning experiences of reading and interpreting ad that first year egd psts carry with them from high school to university. furthermore, the above findings resonate with vygotsky’s ideas that teaching and learning is a social process and that, in this case, the students bring to the process their own lived experiences of reading and interpreting ad or of being unable to do so. first year egd psts are unable to construct pictorial images of the objects in their minds and translate the images into engineering sketches and multiview drawings. further, they are unable to differentiate between small and large parts. these findings pertaining to visual skills, mentally rotating objects, and drawing resonate with those of gorska and sorby’s (2008) study that found that the predominant challenges engineering students encounter in engineering drawing are difficulties in seeing an image in 3-d and in manipulating objects mentally. in addition, the visual skills needed for manipulating small and large objects seem to differ. first year egd psts’ failure to visualise and manipulate objects mentally ties in with results from other international studies. for example, riza and seda (2017) have argued that to be able to draw objects correctly from different views requires an understanding of the relationship between shape and form. along similar lines, fenghong and chikun (2011, p. 563) contended that “the student should do the space imaging to construct the space conception” when selecting the correct expression of parts. this means that models could help engineering students to visualise and thus nurture their spatial ability. spatial ability is not a fixed innate quality as proposed by piaget (1973) but is, rather, malleable in people of all ages, and training generally has a positive and permanent impact on them (uttal & cohen, 2012). samsudin et al., (2011) found that secondary school students performed better at a given orthographic drawing task after they received spatial visualisation training. proper instructions from the teacher together with a learning environment that 82 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 promotes cognitive interaction among peers when engaging in reading and interpreting of ad can scaffold learning and can create the much needed zpd for first year egd psts who have poor spatial visual skills, and are not visual learners. inability to measure accurately and recall the sans code of practice the skill of measuring accurately and applying the sans code of practice is very poor among the majority of first year egd psts as can be gathered from the excerpts below from their interviews. it would have been easier if you were to just draw as you see it on the exploded drawing, but now the problem is that you have to construct the bolt [so] you need to know how to construct [it]. the new measurements must be accurate, so it becomes a bit complicated when it comes to that. (p2) the data from the think-aloud task confirms the challenge encountered by these psts when measuring and applying the sans code of practice. shucks! do i measure from the edge of the ruler or the first marking on it? i always measure from the edge of the ruler, but i think this teacher was saying from the first marking on the ruler (flings his ruler on the desk in frustration). this is confusing, i wish i could quit . . . hey can you help me here? do you know how to do this? i also don’t know this sans code. (p19) this task is bit difficult and i am not able to remember the . . . i can see here i am required to do construction of bolt and nut. eish! i cannot remember how to do calculations in order to do the construction of bolt. don’t know where to start now. i wish someone can help me. (p5) the excerpts confirm that first year egd psts encounter difficulties with measurements and with recalling the sans codes and some tried to get help from peers while completing the think-aloud task but since they all came into university with similar experiences of learning to read and interpret ad they were unable to assist each other. vygotsky (1978) asserted that higher mental functions are integrally tied to social interaction where individuals learn from more abled peers in a group. accurate measurement is the most fundamental element on which engineering drawings depend. first year egd psts’ inability to measure accurately has implications for the kind of teaching activities (measurements and reading to scale) and knowledge base that needs to be developed in them to scaffold their learning with regard to reading and interpreting ad. inability to assemble parts and draw different lines lines in egd can be construed as letters in written text. lines enable a person to describe the external as well as the internal features of an object. since each symbolic line in the drawing represents a particular aspect, it is very important that they are drawn in a standardised format. first year egd psts are expected to know line types acceding to the sans code of sotsaka & singh-pillay: meeting the challenges first year engineering . . . 83 practice. the excerpts below, the first from an interview and the second from the think-aloud task, bring to the fore the challenges these egd first year psts encountered with line work. i can see that there are centre lines, but i have no idea where to draw the other lines. physical components can help to see this thing. . . (p1) drawing centre lines is not that difficult but i need to identify how many that i must draw such that they are seen as centre lines and in correct position in the whole drawing. i might get some mark for these part assembled, but i am worried about my line work, erasing them and starting all over again might take time. (p20) it is evident that first-year egd psts’ lack of knowledge about the sans code of practice impedes their ability to read, interpret, and draw ad. the deficit in terms of line work suggests that future teaching activities need to foreground line-work as well as the connectivity in each part of the complete mechanical assembly drawing. conclusion first year egd psts encountered the five key challenges discussed above when they were attempting to read and interpret ad. the challenges encountered by these first year egd psts were inextricably linked to their lack of visualisation skills which compounds their inability to grasp how mental images are defined, produced, or transformed. skills which, according to sorby et al., (2013) are part of higher-level thinking, reasoning, and creativity that are related to abilities such as spatial visualisation, mental rotation, and spatial perception. since students come into the egd course with insufficient content background, more attention ought to be paid to vygotsky’s notion of teaching and learning as a social process. teachers ought to focus on teaching students within their own zpd bearing in mind students’ learning styles in order to alter what psts cannot do without assistance in favour of what they can. the findings of this study have implications for the need for teacher education programmes to strengthen the specific subject didactics of technology subjects in order to prepare adequately the teachers of egd and related subjects. the limitation of this study is that it was based on one university so the results may not be generalisable to all psts in an egd course countrywide. based on the findings of this study we suggest the need for large-scale research that would include all pre-service teachers in the egd course across all south african universities offering the bachelor of education programme, with a view to understanding the challenges experienced by students in this course. 84 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 references abdullah, z., field, b. w., & burvill, c. r. 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(2014). case study research: design and methods (5th ed.). sage. microsoft word b8300 final.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 83, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i83a04 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x harry potter and the critical gaze: autonomy pathways in literary response writing glenn jackson montpelier high school, montpelier, vermont, united states of america ajjackson7399@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9668-1629 (received: 30 june 2020; accepted: 10 may 2021) abstract critical literacy studies require both textual reading and a knowledge of power dynamics in context. to achieve in critical literacy, learners need to work with different kinds of knowledge and integrate them. in this paper, i analyse how learners connect representations of social injustice from a popular literary text to issues of social justice in their broader cultural context. i investigate how different forms of knowledge came together in their response to a writing task. the empirical data comes from a critical literary course taught to grade 8 learners in an english class in the southeastern united states. i offer an analysis of an exemplary essay submitted by a learner. in the analysis, i use concepts from the legitimation code theory (lct) dimension of autonomy to show how the essay brought together information from the literary texts and from beyond to support interpretations of the characters’ stances on the rights of elves. the analysis highlights how integration of knowledge drawn from imaginary and real contexts meets both the implicit and explicit critical literacy goals of the task. the findings offer a means for understanding how autonomy pathways can support teachers and learners in recognising and realising connections between texts and broader cultural discourses in ways that align with disciplinary literacy practices. keywords: english education, english language arts, writing instruction, literary analysis, critical literacy, legitimation code theory, autonomy codes introduction the study of literature is not only a means for developing reading and writing skills but involves adopting value positions in relation to the social issues represented in the literary texts (christie & humphrey, 2008). successful literary response requires that learners adopt particular dispositions in relation to the issues in the texts as a way of positioning themselves in relation to issues in the broader culture. when the goal is critical literacy, the study of literature can create opportunities for learners to examine issues about power relations 70 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 between social groups while developing literacy skills used for reading and writing about texts in ways that acknowledge and affirm learners’ cultural identities (wa thiong’o, 1986). in this study i investigated an attempt at a scaffolded model of critical literacy (simmons, 2016) that intended to help learners connect representations of social injustice in a popular literary text to issues of social justice in the broader cultural context. in order to understand how critical literacies may be cultivated through classroom discourse, the broader study investigated the dispositions realised in the critical literary response writing of learners in a grade 8 classroom in the southeastern united states. the essays were the culminating product of a series of lessons designed to facilitate a critique of harry potter as a means for similarly analysing and evaluating significant historical figures in relation to issues of social justice in the cultural context. the harry potter novels, written by j. k. rowling, make up one of the best-selling series in history, and harry’s character has been further introduced to audiences all over the world in the form of a blockbuster movie franchise that encapsulates the entire trajectory of the hero’s journey. harry potter is a fantasy adventure tale whose title character, a boy wizard, is responsible for saving the world from an evil sorcerer who wants to rid the world of nonmagical beings. but uncritical readings of harry’s character ignore or downplay harry’s role in and attitudes toward elvish enslavement in the texts, and resulting interpretations normalise social injustices. in order to develop critical literacies (simmons, 2016), the passages chosen for this unit focused on depictions of elfish enslavement in the novels that were used to engage learners in critical reflection on issues of human rights and social justice in their own cultural context. after a week of analysis, discussion, and joint construction, the series of lessons culminated in an independent writing task that asked learners to compare the views of harry and his two friends, hermione and ron, on the issue of enslavement in the wizarding world of the novels. an example of the character analysis genre (christie & derewianka, 2008), this prompt was designed to elicit evaluations of the characters that positioned the writer in relation to the issues in the texts and in the context. the overall goal of the unit was to help learners identify the ways in which language normalised social injustice in literary fiction and relate these insights to social issues in the broader cultural context. this analysis systematically investigates the ways in which one learner integrated knowledge from fictional and real-world contexts to successfully demonstrate the critical disposition that was the underlying goal of the classroom unit. analysing moves between information about the literary text and other sources of knowledge reveals pathways that supported this learner in constructing a critical response that connected text and context. i use concepts from legitimation code theory (lct) to show how this highly successful writer addressed the stated targets and the implicit goals of the task by evaluating the characters’ attitudes towards enslavement in relation to stances towards slavery in the context of united states history. making these pathways visible offered a means for reflection on and revision of the classroom lessons while demonstrating methods that may be applied in other pedagogic contexts where integration of knowledge from different sources is required. jackson: harry potter and the critical gaze 71 review of the literature the study of literature remains a quintessential feature of teaching english as a subject at all levels of schooling (fang, 2012), and through reading and responding to literary texts, learners come to understand “culturally-valued understandings about life and human behavior” (christie, 2016, p. 158). from the earliest years of schooling, interpreting stories involves aligning with particular characters’ viewpoints and supporting moral evaluations of their actions with evidence from the texts (rothery & stenglin, 2000). narrative texts, such as the excerpts from the harry potter novels of interest here, position readers to adopt particular values in relation to characters and events that are understood to have symbolic meanings (macken-horarik, 2003). literary response requires writers to interpret and explicate these meanings. literary response writing involves evaluating characters in moral and ethical terms in relation to social and cultural norms, such judgments being the overall purpose of the character analysis genre (christie & derewianka, 2008). english as a school subject, and the study of literature in particular, has been characterised as the site of an invisible pedagogy based on the cultivation of values and dispositions towards literary texts and the social issues they represent (christie, 2016; macken-horarik, 2006, 2011). teachers cultivate learners’ attitudes towards cultural norms and values through dispositions towards characters and issues in literary texts, and these skills are assessed on standardised assessments. studies of literary response writing in high-stakes examinations have shown that success requires demonstrating particular attitudes and dispositions toward a variety of texts, phenomena, and ideas using particular forms of expression (anson, 2017; christie, 2016; christie & humphrey, 2008; macken-horarik, 2006). what counts as a legitimate interpretation can vary greatly based on the pedagogic context (jackson, f. 2016), and such qualities are often vague or implicit in classroom instruction and examination writing prompts (christie & humphrey, 2008). despite many models of literary studies purporting to focus on the learner, interpretations and values tend to be cultivated in ways that align with the views of the teacher (fairbanks & broughton, 2002), or uncritically reproduce the values and ideologies of the status quo (sleeter & stillman, 2005). through culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy, however, teachers can use particular forms of discourse to guide learners towards interpretations that promote social justice and that critique dominant discourses (thomas, 2013). critical literary response incorporates strategies of “deconstruction, critique and subversion” (macken-horarik, 1998, p.75) in order to trouble the ideal reader position established in the narrative (macken-horarik, 2003) as well as the connections this makes to discourses in the broader context of culture and pedagogic situation (macken-horarik, 2006). classroom teaching and learning activities can foster critical literacies through an analysis of language choices in texts (locke & cleary, 2011; macken-horarik, 1998), with systemic functional linguistics offered as one means of critical literary analysis in classroom contexts (schleppegrell & moore, 2018; simmons 2016, 2018). sosa and bhathena (2019) have shown how personal knowledge and literacies can be leveraged for critical literacy against 72 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 status quo value reproduction in english lessons by helping learners explore the “moral and social values and commitments one brings to making sense of stories and characters” (p. 224). from the perspective of legitimation code theory (lct) (maton, 2014), the implicit, valueoriented nature of english as a subject is understood as a “cultivated knower code” (christie, 2016, p. 158); this means that the basis of success is not technical knowledge and procedures, but the demonstration of “personal attitudes and the expression of appropriate values” (christie, 2016, p. 159). the gradually-developed ability to recognise and realise accepted ways of interpreting and valuing literary texts can be understood as a “cultivated gaze” (maton, 2014, p. 99), in which dispositions are shaped through interactions with significant knowers—including teachers and other learners—who demonstrate valued ways of knowing (christie, 2016; maton, 2014). in literary response, interpretations deemed successful by the teacher or evaluator provide evidence of the gaze cultivated in a particular pedagogic context. in this study, i set out to investigate the ways in which particular patterns of meaning in literary response writing contributed a critical gaze that demonstrated awareness of different stances on issues of power and social justice. context of the study this study took place in a rural, predominantly white, working class community in the southeastern united states. the middle school was located near the center of a town of 17,000 people and served approximately 900 learners in grades 6–8 (aged 10–14), more than half of whom qualified for free or reduced-price lunch. at the time of the study, i was the instructional coach at the school and my primary role was to work with teachers to develop disciplinary literacy instructional practices. i intended to conduct a study of knowledgebuilding in middle grade english classrooms, and after responding to a flyer, dr. natalie miller (a pseudonym), a highly skilled veteran teacher with whom i had worked for several years, agreed to participate. miller was teaching two advanced english classes, and twelve learners in the two classes assented to participation in the study, with parental consent obtained in accordance with irb guidelines. the essays i analyse in this study were produced as a result of a curriculum unit made up of lessons carried out over the course of seven instructional days, culminating in two days in which the learners wrote their independent essays. the purpose of the unit was to have learners analyse the stances of various characters on issues of power between groups in literary fiction. in order to do this, learners were guided through a language-focused analysis of two passages from the harry potter novel series. the texts were chosen to situate harry’s attitude towards kreacher, an enslaved elf, in relation to his attitudes towards hermione and ron, who hold opposing views on the issue of enslavement. the lessons were adapted from analyses appearing in the work of simmons (2012, 2016), who used discourse analysis to help high school learners develop critical literacies through the analysis of culturally significant texts. simmons’s (2016) model of critical literacy guided jackson: harry potter and the critical gaze 73 our efforts as we designed and implemented lessons aimed at helping learners analyse the ways in which the author’s language choices normalised the practice of enslavement in relation to harry’s character. we began the unit with small group discussions of harry potter book covers and movie posters to introduce the characters, plot, and issue of elvish enslavement in the novels to learners who were unfamiliar with the texts. we then read a two-page passage from harry potter and the deathly hallows (rowling, 2007) that depicts harry, hermione, and ron confronting kreacher, an enslaved elf whom harry inherited. the scene conveys the characters’ mutual loathing as harry treats kreacher, as one learner wrote, “without the least bit of compassion” (text 4). after reading, analysing, and discussing the first passage, miller facilitated the joint construction of a response paragraph interpreting the power dynamic between harry and kreacher in the text. this response interpreted the significance of kreacher’s name, a misspelling that invokes the dehumanizing term “creature” and is compounded by the animalistic description of his appearance and living conditions. this activity involved all learners in writing a critical response paragraph that focused on the power dynamic between the characters and problematised harry’s role as unassailable hero of the story. the second passage, from harry potter and the goblet of fire (rowling, 2000), depicts hermione introducing the abolitionist society for the promotion of elfish welfare (spew) to ron and harry. the characters’ conversation demonstrates hermione’s and ron’s opposing stances on the issue, with ron not only ridiculing the club, but the premise of its goals, as he disturbingly argues that the elves “enjoy being enslaved” (rowling, 2000, p. 224). when presented with an opportunity to take a firm stance on the side of abolition by endorsing hermione’s organization, harry remains ambivalent. despite harry’s apathetic response to hermione’s organization and amusement in response to ron’s explicit endorsement of enslavement, many learners were reluctant to criticise the protagonist in their written responses, indicating resistance to the critical gaze cultivated throughout the unit. while it was made clear to the class that the analysis of the texts concerned issues that extended beyond harry potter, the prompt simply asked learners to “compare the views of hermione, ron, and harry on the issue of elvish enslavement.” verbal directions explained that learners were to write five paragraphs—one each for harry, hermione, and ron, along with an introduction and a conclusion. hitting this target determined success or failure when it came to the teacher’s scoring of the essays. within the data set, however, were essays that stood out because they not only provided information from the literary texts but reinforced their analysis of the characters’ views by relating them to issues in the world beyond the texts. writers who made such moves strengthened their evaluations of the characters while also indicating that they understood how broader cultural discourses similarly normalise injustices perpetrated by historical figures. these movements beyond the content called for in the writing prompt were somewhat surprising but highly valued, with most learners who adopted a critical disposition towards harry’s character incorporating non-target ideas into their writing to strengthen their 74 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 evaluations and position themselves in relation to similar issues in the cultural context. the goal of this study was to uncover the ways in which one high-achieving essay brought together target and non-target information to realise the critical disposition cultivated in the unit, making these highly valued moves more visible, accessible, and open to further critique and refinement. such an analysis offers a means for understanding the ways in which critical dispositions may be adopted and resisted in classroom writing tasks, with implications for pedagogic practice. methodology the analysis i describe below is based on a larger doctoral study that used qualitative methods to investigate patterns of meaning in essays written by early secondary learners in response to a task designed to facilitate critical interpretations of literature. data collection this study presents an analysis of a single exemplary critical literary response text, written by a learner in a grade 8 english classroom over the course of two days and in a single typed draft. this essay was one of five responses i analysed for the larger study. the teacher of record felt that this response represented a high level of success with the task, both with regard to the stated writing prompt and to its connections to issues in the broader cultural context. the essay was provided for analysis without identification. analytic framework what learners are expected to know and be able to do is a central concern in any teaching and learning situation. identifying how learning targets are achieved and evaluated in classroom activities can also reveal discrepancies between the stated and implicit goals of a unit, helping to explain why some learners who are unable to pick up on the hidden curriculum struggle while others may be predisposed to better understand the stated and implicit goals of the task. this study offers an analysis of classroom literary response writing to determine what kinds of knowledge were seen as essential to the task, and what kinds were seen as being off-topic, either in ways that contributed to or did not contribute to the purpose of the task. this is accomplished by viewing the essays through the perspective of autonomy codes (maton & howard, 2018) since these illuminate the ways in which different kinds of knowledge are brought together to construct a critical interpretation. like other lct dimensions, autonomy is made up of two complementary concepts, positional autonomy and relational autonomy. positional autonomy (pa) refers to the strengths of relations around the content (ideas, entities, etc.) that are considered acceptable in a particular text or context (maton & howard, 2018). in this study, pa describes the degree to which meanings in the texts related to the content were identified in the writing prompt. relational autonomy (ra) refers to the strengths of relations around what purposes (goals or aims) are considered acceptable in a particular text or context (maton & howard, 2018). in this study, ra describes the degree to which meanings in the text related to the intended purpose of the prompt. describe the degree to which instances in a text are aligned with the task’s content and purpose, or target (maton & howard, analysing the ways in which different statements in the texts were more or less related to the target content and purpose of the writing task requires a “language of description” or “translation device” (bernstein, 2000, p.132) for moving be positional and relational autonomy and the empirical data translation devices for this study (see table 1 and table 2) were adapted from the generic autonomy translation device introduced by maton a allowed for the description of each sentence of each essay in terms of its strength of relations to the targeted content and purpose of the task. in this analysis strengths in positional and relational autonomy are analysed in relation to the target of the classroom task the characters’ views on the issue of enslavement. table 1 specific positional autonomy translation device for this paper table 2 specific relational autonomy translation device for this p the target of an educational practice, conceptualised within the lct dimension of autonomy (maton & howard, a given practice; and the principles (i.e., purposes) to which these are app target of a pedagogic practice involves establishing the perspective from which the situation is viewed since different actors may see different objectives in a particular situation and therefore call on different kinds of content. in since it was this perspective that would ultimately determine the relative achievement of the written responses as provided through evaluation and feedback. jackson: harry potter and the critical gaze intended purpose of the prompt. these concepts work in conjunction with one another to describe the degree to which instances in a text are aligned with the task’s content and maton & howard, forthcoming). analysing the ways in which different statements in the texts were more or less related to the target content and purpose of the writing task requires a “language of description” or “translation device” (bernstein, 2000, p.132) for moving between the theoretical concepts of positional and relational autonomy and the empirical data—the written essays. the translation devices for this study (see table 1 and table 2) were adapted from the generic autonomy translation device introduced by maton and howard (2018). this analytic tool allowed for the description of each sentence of each essay in terms of its strength of relations to the targeted content and purpose of the task. in this analysis strengths in positional and ysed in relation to the target of the classroom task the characters’ views on the issue of enslavement. specific positional autonomy translation device for this paper specific relational autonomy translation device for this paper of an educational practice, conceptualised within the lct dimension of autonomy (maton & howard, 2021), involves two aspects: the constituents (i.e., content) of a given practice; and the principles (i.e., purposes) to which these are applied. identifying the target of a pedagogic practice involves establishing the perspective from which the situation is viewed since different actors may see different objectives in a particular situation and therefore call on different kinds of content. in this case, the teacher’s perspective was taken since it was this perspective that would ultimately determine the relative achievement of the written responses as provided through evaluation and feedback. jackson: harry potter and the critical gaze 75 these concepts work in conjunction with one another to describe the degree to which instances in a text are aligned with the task’s content and analysing the ways in which different statements in the texts were more or less related to the target content and purpose of the writing task requires a “language of description” or tween the theoretical concepts of the written essays. the translation devices for this study (see table 1 and table 2) were adapted from the generic nd howard (2018). this analytic tool allowed for the description of each sentence of each essay in terms of its strength of relations to the targeted content and purpose of the task. in this analysis strengths in positional and ysed in relation to the target of the classroom task—comparing of an educational practice, conceptualised within the lct dimension of ), involves two aspects: the constituents (i.e., content) of lied. identifying the target of a pedagogic practice involves establishing the perspective from which the situation is viewed since different actors may see different objectives in a particular situation and this case, the teacher’s perspective was taken since it was this perspective that would ultimately determine the relative achievement of the 76 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 from the teacher’s perspective, the writing prompt task, and the prompt directed learners to the evaluation of characters’ views of elvish enslavement in the literary texts. the autonomy analysis focuses on the ways in which the essays related to the writing prompt as that were more strongly or weakly related to this target. therefore, when the focus of the writing is on the literary text, the pa is stronger (pa+) because the content comes from within the target. when the focus of the learner’s writing is on content from beyond the literary text, the pa is weaker (pa intended purpose of the writing task, the ra is stronger (ra+), and when information is turned towards purposes other than that stated in the writing prompt, the ra is weaker (ra–). analysing the texts to determine the ways in which essays move between different coding orientations can reveal pathways between target and non learners demonstrate critical gazes towards the texts. figure 1 autonomy plane with descriptions of coded data taking different strengths of each relation into account creates four coding orientations. these autonomy codes can be represented on a topological plane (maton & howard, 2018; see figure 1). as represented on the plane in figure 1, discourse that was focused on the characters’ views on elvish enslavement may be identified as part of the meaning it is clearly on-topic with regard to both content and purpose (pa+, ra+). the projected code involves meanings that turn the content of the task to a non (pa+, ra–). this occurred when information that was actually related to the intended content failed to contribute to the overall goal of the task or achieved a different purpose. the exotic code refers to discourse that is aligned with neither the stated content nor the intended purpose of the lesson (pa–, ra outside the targeted content fails to contribute to the text’s specific purpose. finally, the journal of education, no. 83, 2021 from the teacher’s perspective, the writing prompt determined what was essential for the task, and the prompt directed learners to the evaluation of characters’ views of elvish enslavement in the literary texts. the autonomy analysis focuses on the ways in which the essays related to the writing prompt as a means of illuminating different kinds of knowledge that were more strongly or weakly related to this target. therefore, when the focus of the writing is on the literary text, the pa is stronger (pa+) because the content comes from n the focus of the learner’s writing is on content from beyond the literary text, the pa is weaker (pa–). similarly, when the writing is turned towards the intended purpose of the writing task, the ra is stronger (ra+), and when information is ds purposes other than that stated in the writing prompt, the ra is weaker . analysing the texts to determine the ways in which essays move between different coding orientations can reveal pathways between target and non-target knowledge that help learners demonstrate critical gazes towards the texts. autonomy plane with descriptions of coded data taking different strengths of each relation into account creates four coding orientations. can be represented on a topological plane (maton & howard, 2018; see figure 1). as represented on the plane in figure 1, discourse that was focused on the characters’ views on elvish enslavement may be identified as part of the sovereign code topic with regard to both content and purpose (pa+, ra+). the involves meanings that turn the content of the task to a non). this occurred when information that was actually related to the intended ntent failed to contribute to the overall goal of the task or achieved a different purpose. the refers to discourse that is aligned with neither the stated content nor the intended , ra–), unrelated to the topic. this occurs when information from outside the targeted content fails to contribute to the text’s specific purpose. finally, the determined what was essential for the task, and the prompt directed learners to the evaluation of characters’ views of elvish enslavement in the literary texts. the autonomy analysis focuses on the ways in which the a means of illuminating different kinds of knowledge that were more strongly or weakly related to this target. therefore, when the focus of the writing is on the literary text, the pa is stronger (pa+) because the content comes from n the focus of the learner’s writing is on content from beyond the ). similarly, when the writing is turned towards the intended purpose of the writing task, the ra is stronger (ra+), and when information is ds purposes other than that stated in the writing prompt, the ra is weaker . analysing the texts to determine the ways in which essays move between different target knowledge that help taking different strengths of each relation into account creates four coding orientations. can be represented on a topological plane (maton & howard, 2018; see figure 1). as represented on the plane in figure 1, discourse that was focused on the sovereign code, topic with regard to both content and purpose (pa+, ra+). the -targeted purpose ). this occurred when information that was actually related to the intended ntent failed to contribute to the overall goal of the task or achieved a different purpose. the refers to discourse that is aligned with neither the stated content nor the intended occurs when information from outside the targeted content fails to contribute to the text’s specific purpose. finally, the jackson: harry potter and the critical gaze 77 introjected code (pa–, ra+) refers to information from beyond the targeted content but turned to the intended purpose. movements around the plane indicate shifts within a stretch of discourse that are closer to or further from the target of the lesson. in this writing task, movements beyond the sovereign code proved the distinguishing factor of the most highachieving response. these translation devices provided a heuristic for describing the ways in which meanings in the texts moved between ideas that related more or less directly to the target content and purpose of the task. coding the entire data set in terms of the relative strength of pa and ra allowed for a detailed description of the pathways between different codes in the essays. below, i discuss the ways in which one high-achieving essay went beyond the sovereign code of the writing prompt and source texts to demonstrate a critical literary gaze that connected text and context. findings writing in response to literature requires learners to demonstrate that they understand the symbolic interpretation of the text valued in the pedagogic situation and context of culture (christie & dreyfus, 2007; macken-horarik, 2006). for this particular task, essays that remained in the sovereign code and focused only on the source texts were viewed by the teacher as less successful than essays that supported interpretations of the literary texts with references to related historical and cultural knowledge. bringing in information from beyond the literary passages and writing prompt allowed learners to strengthen their evaluations of the characters and situate issues of social justice in the texts within a context of actual historical events. while these non-target pathways were not always turned back to the purpose of the task, they were the distinguishing factor of the most highly rated texts in the data set. in the classroom activities that produced this essay, discussions about the class’s analysis of the passages frequently integrated knowledge from the fictional literary texts with relevant historical knowledge. therefore, we did not find it entirely surprising that all essays contained at least one reference to information from beyond the source texts and writing prompt. there were stark differences, however, in the frequency of references beyond the texts in different essays and the ways in which these supported critical evaluations of harry’s character. while sovereign code statements that directly addressed the prompt made up the vast majority of all essays, the most high-achieving learners more frequently brought in knowledge from elsewhere to support their analysis of each character. these moves were identified by miller as attempts by the writers to demonstrate an awareness of the ways in which cultural and historical issues related to the representations of enslavement and oppression in the novels. while all writers attempted such moves at least once, the most highly rated essay included considerably more non-target references than any other text in the data set. the analysis below describes instances of non-target information in pathways that 78 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 went beyond the sovereign code of the writing in the figures. in this analysis, each point on the plane indicates a coded sentence or clause, with pathways represented by connected line segments. the text analysed here is the only essay in the data set this pathway involves a single non both concerned with general issues of morality and individual choice (figure 2). these statements are never connected with the jumps abruptly to the sovereign code in order to introduce the topic that the essay will discuss—the “ongoing debate concerning the injustice and exploitation against the house elves” (text 5, para. 1). this initial non way trip into the exotic code (maton & howard, 2018), which does not directly contribute to the overall goals of the writing task. figure 2 non-target pathway in paragraph 1 of high achievin the next instances of non-target information occur in the second paragraph when the writer discusses hermione’s views on elvish enslavement (figure 3). this autonomy pathway involves two different ‘moves’ (identified as to distinct constituents of nonamerican history.’ the statements in the first non female gender as a factor in rowling’s decision “overcome these prejudicial judgments” related to elvish enslavement. the writer supports this idea using additional nonconquering stereotypes in her male domina the targeted content and purpose of the prompt. this information is then connected back to the purpose of the prompt as the mention of “righteousness and tolerance” reinforces hermione’s position on the side journal of education, no. 83, 2021 went beyond the sovereign code of the writing task. these are identified by lower in the figures. in this analysis, each point on the plane indicates a coded sentence or clause, with pathways represented by connected line segments. the text analysed here is the only essay in the data set to begin outside the sovereign code. this pathway involves a single non-target instance (a) made up of two sentences, which are both concerned with general issues of morality and individual choice (figure 2). these statements are never connected with the targeted content or purpose since the next sentence jumps abruptly to the sovereign code in order to introduce the topic that the essay will the “ongoing debate concerning the injustice and exploitation against the house his initial non-target move exemplifies what we might call a one way trip into the exotic code (maton & howard, 2018), which does not directly contribute to the overall goals of the writing task. target pathway in paragraph 1 of high achieving essay (text 5) target information occur in the second paragraph when the writer discusses hermione’s views on elvish enslavement (figure 3). this autonomy pathway involves two different ‘moves’ (identified as b and c in figure 3), which relate the character -target knowledge, ‘j. k. rowling’ and ‘abolitionists in american history.’ the statements in the first non-target move (b) establish hermione’s female gender as a factor in rowling’s decision to cast hermione as helping the elves “overcome these prejudicial judgments” related to elvish enslavement. the writer supports -target information, claiming that rowling “is known for conquering stereotypes in her male dominated career field,” and moving farther away from the targeted content and purpose of the prompt. this information is then connected back to the purpose of the prompt as the mention of “righteousness and tolerance” reinforces hermione’s position on the side of abolition. task. these are identified by lower-case letters in the figures. in this analysis, each point on the plane indicates a coded sentence or clause, to begin outside the sovereign code. target instance (a) made up of two sentences, which are both concerned with general issues of morality and individual choice (figure 2). these targeted content or purpose since the next sentence jumps abruptly to the sovereign code in order to introduce the topic that the essay will the “ongoing debate concerning the injustice and exploitation against the house target move exemplifies what we might call a oneway trip into the exotic code (maton & howard, 2018), which does not directly contribute to target information occur in the second paragraph when the writer discusses hermione’s views on elvish enslavement (figure 3). this autonomy pathway 3), which relate the character target knowledge, ‘j. k. rowling’ and ‘abolitionists in target move (b) establish hermione’s to cast hermione as helping the elves “overcome these prejudicial judgments” related to elvish enslavement. the writer supports target information, claiming that rowling “is known for ted career field,” and moving farther away from the targeted content and purpose of the prompt. this information is then connected back to the purpose of the prompt as the mention of “righteousness and tolerance” reinforces figure 3 non-target pathways in paragraph 2 of high achieving essay (text 5) the next sentence introduces more non hermione and abolitionists from history. this statement remains in the i contributes strongly to the purpose of evaluating hermione’s character while remaining relatively closely associated with the targeted content. while not entirely cohesive, the references work together to compare hermione favourably wit gender discrimination and fighting to end the enslavement of african americans. this relatively effective non-target pathway was boosted by the connections with sovereign code information before and after the statements, indic and end of the pathway. the writer’s analysis of ron also includes a non between the character’s views and information related to the history of slavery and its legacy in the united states (figure 4). this instance arises from sovereign code information about ron’s views that is reinforced by this comparison to a culturally significant non in this non-target move (d), the writer compares ron to “privileged white m civil rights era,” (text 5, para. 3), a comparison that positions both ron and the dominant culture, represented in this symbolic image, in a negative light. this return trip was another example of turning non-target information to purpose in awareness of connections to the broader cultural issue while aligning a character with negatively evaluated dominant discourses, demonstrating the disposition valued in the classroom context. jackson: harry potter and the critical gaze target pathways in paragraph 2 of high achieving essay (text 5) the next sentence introduces more non-target information (c) through a comparison between hermione and abolitionists from history. this statement remains in the introjected code and contributes strongly to the purpose of evaluating hermione’s character while remaining relatively closely associated with the targeted content. while not entirely cohesive, the references work together to compare hermione favourably with entities cast as overcoming gender discrimination and fighting to end the enslavement of african americans. this target pathway was boosted by the connections with sovereign code information before and after the statements, indicated by the small arrows at the beginning the writer’s analysis of ron also includes a non-target pathway involving a comparison between the character’s views and information related to the history of slavery and its legacy nited states (figure 4). this instance arises from sovereign code information about ron’s views that is reinforced by this comparison to a culturally significant non target move (d), the writer compares ron to “privileged white m civil rights era,” (text 5, para. 3), a comparison that positions both ron and the dominant culture, represented in this symbolic image, in a negative light. this return trip was another target information to purpose in a way that demonstrated an awareness of connections to the broader cultural issue while aligning a character with negatively evaluated dominant discourses, demonstrating the disposition valued in the jackson: harry potter and the critical gaze 79 target information (c) through a comparison between ntrojected code and contributes strongly to the purpose of evaluating hermione’s character while remaining relatively closely associated with the targeted content. while not entirely cohesive, the h entities cast as overcoming gender discrimination and fighting to end the enslavement of african americans. this target pathway was boosted by the connections with sovereign code ated by the small arrows at the beginning target pathway involving a comparison between the character’s views and information related to the history of slavery and its legacy nited states (figure 4). this instance arises from sovereign code information about ron’s views that is reinforced by this comparison to a culturally significant non-target entity. target move (d), the writer compares ron to “privileged white men during the civil rights era,” (text 5, para. 3), a comparison that positions both ron and the dominant culture, represented in this symbolic image, in a negative light. this return trip was another a way that demonstrated an awareness of connections to the broader cultural issue while aligning a character with negatively evaluated dominant discourses, demonstrating the disposition valued in the 80 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 figure 4 non-target pathway in paragraph 3 of high achieving essay (text 5) the writer of text 5 offers a nuanced interpretation of harry’s character, accounting for both positive (e.g., freeing dobby) and negative (e.g., loathing kreacher) actions and ideas. elsewhere in the paragraph, the writer explicitly aligns harry with ron’s perspective on the issue and against hermione’s abolitionist position. later, in the single non paragraph (e), the writer directly addresses harry’s inconsistent treatment of and attitude towards the two elves, comparing harry to “slave owners” from american history. just before this reference, the writer acknowledges harry’s freeing of dobby, but argues that this experience reinforces his “sense of supremacy over the creatures” (text 5, p that the writer chooses to compare harry to “slave owners” as a means of refuting the argument that freeing dobby puts harry on the side of abolition. in the next sentence, the author “directly relates” this idea back to harry’s treatme represented in figure 5 and indicates ways in which the non within the introjected code, but was strongly connected back to the sovereign code. journal of education, no. 83, 2021 paragraph 3 of high achieving essay (text 5) the writer of text 5 offers a nuanced interpretation of harry’s character, accounting for both positive (e.g., freeing dobby) and negative (e.g., loathing kreacher) actions and ideas. ph, the writer explicitly aligns harry with ron’s perspective on the issue and against hermione’s abolitionist position. later, in the single nonparagraph (e), the writer directly addresses harry’s inconsistent treatment of and attitude towards the two elves, comparing harry to “slave owners” from american history. just before this reference, the writer acknowledges harry’s freeing of dobby, but argues that this experience reinforces his “sense of supremacy over the creatures” (text 5, p that the writer chooses to compare harry to “slave owners” as a means of refuting the argument that freeing dobby puts harry on the side of abolition. in the next sentence, the author “directly relates” this idea back to harry’s treatment of the elves. this pathway is represented in figure 5 and indicates ways in which the non-target reference is situated within the introjected code, but was strongly connected back to the sovereign code. the writer of text 5 offers a nuanced interpretation of harry’s character, accounting for both positive (e.g., freeing dobby) and negative (e.g., loathing kreacher) actions and ideas. ph, the writer explicitly aligns harry with ron’s perspective on the -target move in the paragraph (e), the writer directly addresses harry’s inconsistent treatment of and attitude towards the two elves, comparing harry to “slave owners” from american history. just before this reference, the writer acknowledges harry’s freeing of dobby, but argues that this experience reinforces his “sense of supremacy over the creatures” (text 5, para. 4). it is here that the writer chooses to compare harry to “slave owners” as a means of refuting the argument that freeing dobby puts harry on the side of abolition. in the next sentence, the nt of the elves. this pathway is target reference is situated within the introjected code, but was strongly connected back to the sovereign code. figure 5 non-target pathways in paragraph 4 of high achieving essay (text 5) the concluding paragraph included one somewhat disconnected venture beyond the sovereign code, including stops in three codes (figure 6). after summarizing each character’s position on the issue, the writer qualifies the extremely sharp to this point in the essay. in a smooth, cohesive move that invokes the positions described in the previous sentences, the writer clarifies that harry’s and ron’s views should not be judged as harsh the next statement remains in the exotic code, and a step nearer the target, and is not clearly related to the sentence before or after (g). the writer again invokes the connection between the enslavement of elves in the novels and the enslavement of african americans in history, but reference is never connected back to the targeted content or purpose of the prompt and is not cohesively linked with the next sentence. jackson: harry potter and the critical gaze of high achieving essay (text 5) the concluding paragraph included one somewhat disconnected venture beyond the sovereign code, including stops in three codes (figure 6). after summarizing each character’s position on the issue, the writer qualifies the critique of harry and ron, which has been extremely sharp to this point in the essay. in a smooth, cohesive move that invokes the positions described in the previous sentences, the writer clarifies that harry’s and ron’s views should not be judged as harshly as voldemort’s, who is then compared to hitler (f). the next statement remains in the exotic code, and a step nearer the target, and is not clearly related to the sentence before or after (g). the writer again invokes the connection between ent of elves in the novels and the enslavement of african americans in history, but reference is never connected back to the targeted content or purpose of the prompt and is not cohesively linked with the next sentence. jackson: harry potter and the critical gaze 81 the concluding paragraph included one somewhat disconnected venture beyond the sovereign code, including stops in three codes (figure 6). after summarizing each character’s critique of harry and ron, which has been extremely sharp to this point in the essay. in a smooth, cohesive move that invokes the positions described in the previous sentences, the writer clarifies that harry’s and ron’s ly as voldemort’s, who is then compared to hitler (f). the next statement remains in the exotic code, and a step nearer the target, and is not clearly related to the sentence before or after (g). the writer again invokes the connection between ent of elves in the novels and the enslavement of african americans in history, but reference is never connected back to the targeted content or purpose of the prompt and is 82 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 figure 6 non-target pathways in paragraph 5 of high achieving essay (text 5) the pathways described above demonstrate the writer’s emerging ability to integrate non target information effectively into their writing while still addressing the target of the writing task. while the introduction and conclusion included less successful trips into the exotic code, the essay contained several examples of the effective use of information from beyond the prompt to support their analyses of the characters. these pathways beyond the sovereign code were highly valued by the teacher since they demonstrated an awareness of the connections between the issues and value positions in the literary texts and broader cultural discourses related to issues of human rights and social justice. discussion the critical aspects of this literary response task involved an examination of texts in context, and this required that knowledge from different sources be brought together for the purpose of interpreting and evaluating the characters. while learners whose es adhered to the sovereign code were able to satisfy the requirements of the assignment, they were less successful at conveying the implications of the characters’ views. therefore, they were also less successful at demonstrating the criti right side of the real-world issues of social justice represented in the fictional texts. miller and i viewed a resistant reading of harry justice as a critical interpretation not only because it challenged harry ‘good guy’ in the story, but because it also cultivated a disposition critical of analogous viewpoints in our cultural context. in particular, class discussions explicitly connected the value positions taken by the characters in the fantasy novels to positions on human rights and social justice taken by enslavers and segregationists who persist as positively valued figures journal of education, no. 83, 2021 n paragraph 5 of high achieving essay (text 5) the pathways described above demonstrate the writer’s emerging ability to integrate non target information effectively into their writing while still addressing the target of the writing oduction and conclusion included less successful trips into the exotic code, the essay contained several examples of the effective use of information from beyond the prompt to support their analyses of the characters. these pathways beyond the sovereign de were highly valued by the teacher since they demonstrated an awareness of the connections between the issues and value positions in the literary texts and broader cultural discourses related to issues of human rights and social justice. critical aspects of this literary response task involved an examination of texts in context, and this required that knowledge from different sources be brought together for the purpose of interpreting and evaluating the characters. while learners whose essays more strictly adhered to the sovereign code were able to satisfy the requirements of the assignment, they were less successful at conveying the implications of the characters’ views. therefore, they were also less successful at demonstrating the critical gaze that positioned the writer on the world issues of social justice represented in the fictional texts. and i viewed a resistant reading of harry’s character in relation to issues of social etation not only because it challenged harry’s positioning as a in the story, but because it also cultivated a disposition critical of analogous viewpoints in our cultural context. in particular, class discussions explicitly connected the positions taken by the characters in the fantasy novels to positions on human rights and social justice taken by enslavers and segregationists who persist as positively valued figures the pathways described above demonstrate the writer’s emerging ability to integrate nontarget information effectively into their writing while still addressing the target of the writing oduction and conclusion included less successful trips into the exotic code, the essay contained several examples of the effective use of information from beyond the prompt to support their analyses of the characters. these pathways beyond the sovereign de were highly valued by the teacher since they demonstrated an awareness of the connections between the issues and value positions in the literary texts and broader cultural critical aspects of this literary response task involved an examination of texts in context, and this required that knowledge from different sources be brought together for the purpose says more strictly adhered to the sovereign code were able to satisfy the requirements of the assignment, they were less successful at conveying the implications of the characters’ views. therefore, they cal gaze that positioned the writer on the world issues of social justice represented in the fictional texts. s character in relation to issues of social s positioning as a in the story, but because it also cultivated a disposition critical of analogous viewpoints in our cultural context. in particular, class discussions explicitly connected the positions taken by the characters in the fantasy novels to positions on human rights and social justice taken by enslavers and segregationists who persist as positively valued figures jackson: harry potter and the critical gaze 83 in the dominant culture, as evidenced by the resistance to taking down monuments that normalise social injustices. teaching this kind of critical reading of the text in this context depended on keeping these connections to cultural issues outside the official learning targets of the unit. therefore, the task did not explicitly call for a critical stance towards the characters, and the gaze intended by the unit remained invisible. we hoped, however, that the learners’ written responses would exemplify the critical gaze that had been cultivated throughout the unit. the analysis of the essays found that writers who were most critical of harry tended to address relevant information from the passages more thoroughly, but that these learners also tended to connect details from the text directly to the associated cultural issues discussed in class. the analysis revealed that these non-target pathways played an important role in helping this highly valued text achieve its purpose because even when not effectively turned to purpose, these attempts at using non-target knowledge for targeted purposes indicated the gaze cultivated in the unit. while all essays in the data set moved between target and non-target knowledge at least once, the frequency and relative effectiveness with which the writer ventured beyond the sovereign code was a distinguishing factor of this and other highly valued essays. some learners were able critique harry without going beyond the sovereign code but using non-target information allowed some learners to demonstrate an expanded gaze, one that accounted for connections to issues of social justice in the world beyond the texts. while several essays did not adopt critical orientations to harry’s character, the instances of non-target information elsewhere in the essays showed the writer’s awareness of the ways in which the text related to broader issues of social justice and human rights. from the teacher’s perspective, even one-way trips away from the writing prompt demonstrated emerging capacities to connect issues in the text with broader cultural and historical events, themes, and value positions. conclusion this study indicates the need for research into learners’ understandings of what specialised ways of thinking the tasks require of them, particularly with regard to critical pedagogy that examines inequalities of power relations between groups. better understanding the ways in which learners use target and non-target information in their writing to position themselves in relation to social issues can assist instructors in facilitating classroom talk and writing that fosters dispositions aligned with social justice. maton and howard (2018) suggested that learners may “possess different capacities to recognise and generate autonomy pathways required for success” (p. 31). this analysis revealed pathways that can now be intentionally planned for in classroom discourse to help learners develop such capacities. making these pathways visible offers a means of opening up classroom dialogue that can support learners in understanding the ways in which their interpretations of literature align and disalign with value positions related to real world social issues. further research is necessary for understanding how making the autonomy pathways visible in classroom activities may help 84 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 scaffold learners’ abilities to analyse texts critically in relation to culturally relevant issues and ideas. references 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(1986). decolonising the mind: the politics of language in african literature. heinemann. microsoft word bissue82-final.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 82, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i82a09 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x the digital divide at three disadvantaged secondary schools in gauteng, south africa grasia chisango faculty of education and school development, department of curriculum studies, walter sisulu university, queenstown, south africa gchisango@wsu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9951-1120 newlin marongwe faculty of education and school development, department of school improvement programmes, walter sisulu university, queenstown, south africa nmarongwe@wsu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1354-7107 (received: 27 february 2020; accepted: 2 february 2021) abstract in this study, we aimed to explore the extent of the digital divide at three quintile 1 secondary schools in sedibeng west, gauteng, south africa. the rapid diffusion of information and communication technology (ict) has changed the education sector along with others in societies around the globe. technology, and, in particular, the internet, has affected, for instance, the ways in which learners communicate with teachers, learn, and work. with the advent of the internet, teaching and learning is no longer confined to classrooms. however, the digital divide, exposed by the closing of schools because of covid-19 has now become more apparent. we collected data from 48 teachers and 3 school principals through focus group discussions and in-depth face-toface interviews, respectively. we conclude that the three schools whose principals we interviewed, suffer from the inadequacy of ict that creates digital, information, and knowledge divides between schools of different quintiles. furthermore, these schools cannot run online classes during school closures related to covid-19. we recommend training teachers and learners on how to use technology in teaching and learning since this would help to overcome difficulties during the covid-19 pandemic. keywords: digital divide, covid-19, secondary schools, disadvantaged communities, south africa 150 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 introduction information and communication technology (ict) plays an essential role in political, social, and economic sectors in this information age. there is, therefore, a need for individuals to have adequate ict skills for them to function effectively in the information society in times of calamity. schools and universities in south africa and in the rest of the world are currently faced with the challenges of the covid-19 pandemic that is necessarily affecting how teaching and learning are conducted. in order to save the 2020 school year, the south african department of basic education instructed schools to use ict and to adopt online teaching and learning (motshekga, 2020). digital literacies, such as ict literacy, information literacy, and media literacy have been emphasised as the pillars of 21st century skills (chen, 2015). the south african government recognises that digital literacies are essential to teachers and learners, and that digital competencies prepare the learner for the world of work in the information age (department of education, 2004). the ability to use ict is an essential competency among teachers and learners since it functions “as an enabler of teaching and learning” (chen, 2015, p. 2). the use of ict, such as the internet, extends teaching and learning beyond the classroom. while, on the one hand, the use of mobile technology devices, such as tablets, can promote motivation, sustain conversations, and support seamless learning experiences (chen, 2015), access to the internet, on the other, allows for greater and fairer use by learners. but, for this to happen, teachers must have adequate access to ict otherwise they might be forced to resort to traditional teaching and learning methodologies. in this study, we sought to explore the extent of the digital divide at three secondary schools in sedibeng west in gauteng, south africa. literature review with the increase in the use of ict the digital divide, which is defined as “a social inequality between individuals regarding access to ict, frequency of use of technology, and the ability to use ict for different purposes” (ercikan et al., 2018, p. 4), becomes more apparent. the same observation was made by the deputy minister of higher education, buti manamela, who, in noting that a move by schools and institutions of higher learning to online teaching would side-line students from poor backgrounds, said, “no student should be left behind. students who have no study gadgets or internet connectivity should not be treated as though they were the cause of #covid-19” (quoted in njilo, 2020, para. 4). manamela feared that in having schools move to online learning, the divide would be deepened, and this would exclude learners and students from disadvantaged backgrounds. the more the use of ict has penetrated into the education sector, the more the digital divide can be seen in schools in developing countries (chen, 2015). this has been worsened by the advent of covid-19. individuals who are most excluded from the advantages of advances in ict are situated in rural areas in developing countries as the president of the university of chisango & marongwe: the digital divide at three disadvantaged secondary schools . . . 151 johannesburg’s student representative council (src) noted in 2020. in south africa, the digital divide exists between schools in affluent suburbs and the poorly resourced schools in poor areas (department of education, 2004). although ict infrastructure, such as access to the internet, tablets, smartboards, computers, and laptops, has been rolled out at some schools in some disadvantaged communities in south africa, van dijk (2005, p. 4) postulated that “the digital divide is deepening where it has stopped widening.” having access to ict infrastructure does not necessarily mean that an individual has ict skills and/or uses the infrastructure (chisango et al., 2019). concurring with chisango et al. zhong (2011), has argued that digital divide issues have expanded from ict access to other issues concerning opportunities to develop the required skills and capabilities to participate. there are three levels of the digital divide in schools: ict infrastructure; ict usage by teachers and learners in the classroom; and empowerment of individual learners (hohlfeld et al., 2008). factors such as teachers’ attitudes towards technologies and their resistance to new ict hinder the use of technologies in the classroom (chisango & marongwe, 2018; du plessis & webb, 2012). our study investigated the extent to which the already existing digital divide has deepened at disadvantaged schools in south africa during the state of national lockdown in south africa following the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic. our focus is on van dijk’s (2008) access model that we adopted for this study and that we use to discuss the study findings. van dijk’s access model van dijk’s (2008) access model, related to the digital divide, is based on motivational access, material access, skills access, and usage access. motivational access for an individual to appropriate a technology, s/he has to be motivated to use it. individuals who believe that ict is important are most likely to acquire the technology. those who believe that having ict is not of importance are less likely to acquire it; van dijk and hacker (2003, p. 4) have noted that both the “have-nots” and the “want nots” exist in society. surveys conducted in europe and america between 1999 and 2003 revealed that some of the respondents who were not then connected to the internet said that they did not like the infrastructure, that having the internet was unimportant, and that some of them lacked ict skills. it has been argued that there are psychological factors that affect motivational access. these include social factors, technophobia, and the stress and anxiety experienced when they confront, for example, computers (spelman & marongwe, 2018). some individuals believe that the internet is for the working class and that it does not appeal to less educated and lowincome individuals (katz & rice, 2002). 152 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 material access sufficient motivation has been shown to lead an individual to acquire physical access to ict such as having a computer or a tablet. to have material access means having access to ict infrastructure and to the cost of the ict device. hence, material access is closely related to the socio-economic status of an individual. individuals who earn a high income are more likely to own more than one device of good quality, whereas those with low incomes most probably own ict devices that are of poor quality and that sometimes malfunction (van deursen & van dijk, 2018). furthermore, those with low incomes are most likely to have internet connection on a smartphone only, whereas those with high incomes are most likely to have internet connection on smartphones and other ict gadgets such as laptops and personal computers (tsetsi & rains, 2017). students living with high-income parents are more likely to have access to and use ict at home compared to those whose parents have a low income or none at all (debell & chapman, 2006). in a bid to close the material access gap, the south african department of education developed the thutong (place of learning) portal in 2005 in order to provide access to online resources to teachers, learners, school managers, and parents (isaacs, 2007). teachers and learners can share information on the portal through discussion forums and blogs and they can also upload material. skills access the availability of ict does not necessarily mean that an individual uses it since several skills need to be developed for meaningful use of this technology including technology literacy. the creation of ict knowledge and its deepening must occur for this to happen (unesco, 2011). it has been argued that the digital competency of teachers includes the ability to assist learners in becoming collaborators, creators of knowledge, and problemsolvers through using ict so that they become effective citizens in the information age (unesco, 2011). thus, there is need for continuous ict training programs to build capacity among them and sufficient training on ict integration if teachers are to teach effectively in connected classrooms. hsu (2010) has argued that a teacher who is well-trained in the use of ict is most likely to use it in the classroom but those who lack confidence in this area are unlikely to use technology in their teaching (see chigona & chigona, 2010). benali et al. (2018, p. 99) have observed that some teachers are not yet “good enough at the kind of pedagogies that make the most of technology.” digital competencies are influenced by several factors such as attitudes towards ict and contextual factors, like, for instance, curricula requirements (benali et al., 2018). teachers’ attitudes towards ict influence their acceptance and use of it in teaching and learning. studies conducted by sáncheza et al. (2012), suggested that some teachers who have positive attitudes towards ict rarely use the technology in teaching. these teachers require more ict training and adequate ict infrastructure. chisango & marongwe: the digital divide at three disadvantaged secondary schools . . . 153 usage access internal and external factors influence ict usage (shan fu, 2013). external factors include the availability of ict infrastructure and its accessibility, technical support, and time to prepare for classes. the frequency of usage and the number and diversity of applications, among other things, affect usage. internal factors include beliefs and attitudes, motivation to use ict, ict skills, and the confidence to use the ict. for instance, palak and walls’s (2009) findings revealed that a teacher’s attitude towards ict significantly predicted their ict use in teaching and learning and, therefore, their learners’ use. the more positive a teacher is about ict, the more likely it is that they will use the technology. in addition, a study conducted by seraji et al. (2017) revealed that younger teachers were more positive towards ict use in teaching than were older teachers. also, the less experienced teachers had a more positive attitude than did the more experienced teachers (inan & lowther, 2010). however, semerci and aydın’s (2018) findings revealed that there were no significant differences between age and attitudes towards ict and that there were no significant differences between teaching experience and attitude towards ict use in teaching and learning among secondary school teachers in ankara. methodology we adopted a qualitative research approach since in this study we sought to explore the deepening digital divide at some disadvantaged township secondary schools that were purposively selected for data collection in consultation with the sedibeng west district department of education officials. these three secondary schools are situated in the same local municipality—emfuleni—which is under sedibeng west district, in which icts such as smartboards, the internet, computer laboratories and /or tablets had been rolled out by the gauteng department of education (gde) as part of the 2015 rollout since this was our primary selection criterion. 1 the gauteng department of infrastructure development (gdid) member of the executive council (mec) nandi mayathula-khoza stated that providing icts to all learners “[would] assure equity to any learner irrespective of their race, class or gender” (south african government, 2015, para. 7). the roll out of ict infrastructure was accompanied by training, maintenance, and support (south african government, 2015). we adopted a case study design because, following baxter and jack (2008), it afforded us opportunities to explore a phenomenon in context using a variety of data sources. furthermore, a qualitative case study approach is an effective design for investigating and understanding complex issues in real world settings as harrison et al. (2017) have reminded us. also, this approach was valuable to this study aimed at evaluating the adoption and use of ict and developing interventions on how to bridge the digital divides, because of its flexibility and rigor, especially during the covid-19 pandemic. 1 this rollout was part of a five-year plan that targeted no-fee schools in townships (sa government news agency, 2016). 154 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 the schools these schools are in an area that is faced with socio-economic challenges, such as high unemployment rates and lack of access to resources, with most of its inhabitants living below the poverty datum line (molefe et al., 2018). the three secondary schools are all poorly resourced quintile 1 non fee-paying schools (see van dyk and white, 2019), that serve impoverished communities, receive funding from the government and at which learners are provided with meals. school a had 1,431 learners, 50 teachers including the school principal, and 2 deputy heads. there were 2 overhead projectors, 13 smartboards, internet access in the administration block, and an empty computer laboratory. the smartboards were mounted in 7 grade 11 classrooms and 6 grade 12 classrooms. only teachers who taught those grades accessed the smartboards for teaching and learning. it is also important to note that by the time the data was collected, no smartboards were working. school b had 1,368 learners and 40 teachers, including the school principal and 2 deputy heads. available ict infrastructure included an empty mtn ict laboratory, 10 smartboards and internet access in the administration block. the 10 smartboards were installed in 5 grade 11 and 5 grade 12 classrooms. only 1 smartboard was connected to the internet and the rest were not since the routers had been stolen. only teachers who taught these grades had access to the smartboards. school c had 1,481 learners and 60 teachers, including the school principal and 2 deputy heads. it had 25 dysfunctional computers in the laboratory, 10 smartboards, and 2 overhead projectors. only 4 grade 11 classrooms had functional smartboards while the other 3 did not. there were functional smartboards in 4 grade 12 classrooms and 1 classroom had a dysfunctional smartboard. we were informed that there was another smartboard for a grade 12 classroom, but it had not been installed by the time this study was conducted. data sources and collection our sources of data in this study were teachers and school principals. a purposive sampling technique was used for this study because it helped us to select only participants who were willing to provide rich information and who were experiencing the phenomenon under study. this sampling drew 48 teachers and 3 school principals. we conducted 2 focus group discussions at each of the 3 schools. each focus group was composed of 8 teachers who were teaching different grades and subjects. the school principals participated in the individual indepth face-to-face interviews. data was collected before the outbreak of covid-19 and we wrote this paper during the lockdown period in april 2020. we used semi-structured focus group discussions and indepth face-to-face interviews to collect data from teachers and school principals, respectively. we organised the semi-structured interviews around the topic, and, in line with the suggestions of o’keeffe et al. (2016) this helped us lead the conversations in a standardised chisango & marongwe: the digital divide at three disadvantaged secondary schools . . . 155 way and simultaneously allow relevant issues to emerge from the discussions. the use of interviews as part of a qualitative case study design allows participants to share their opinions and experiences, in this case, of using ict in teaching and learning. the collected data was transcribed, organised, coded, and arranged into themes. we use participants’ words, that is, verbatim quotations in our presentation of the data. the van dijk (2008) model was found to be relevant and suitable for this study, especially given the call that was made to schools to shift their focus to online teaching in south africa because of the covid-19 pandemic. as mentioned above, the model focuses on motivation, material, skills, and usage access so we used these categories in analysing the results. ethical considerations ethics refers to “the moral principle and guiding conduct . . . held by a group or even a profession” (wellington, 2015, p. 540). we were given permission by the gauteng provincial department of education to conduct the research. the anonymity of the participants was observed, and confidentiality maintained. we used codes to identify participants and their schools, instead of using real names. the school principal of school a is sa, of school b, is sb, and of school c is sc. focus groups were coded as follows: school a (a1 and a2), school b (b1 and b2) and school c (c1 and c2). findings themes related to the problem statement emerged from the research findings. a discussion of these themes is offered below and quotations from the interviews are included in the findings. insufficient ict infrastructure for teaching and learning it emerged from the interviews with the three school principals that there was insufficient ict infrastructure at their schools as chisango (2019) noted despite the fact that the gde started rolling out ict to schools in 2015. according to these principals, online teaching and learning was not really feasible despite the call made by the gauteng department of education. the principals concurred that most learners lacked ict skills, did not have the tools to manage ict, had no access to wi-fi, could not afford to buy data, and had network connection problems. it can thus be argued that schools in disadvantaged communities were (and remain) unprepared for the demands occasioned by the covid-19 pandemic and are therefore not ready to start online classes as compared to some of their urban counterparts. principal sa said, the school used to be on gauteng online 2 but is now disconnected. tablets are only given to grade 12 learners and all other learners do not [get them]. it is again these 2 gauteng online refers to the paperless classroom project that was initiated in 2015 in a bid to connect all schools in the province. 156 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 grade 12s whose classrooms have smartboards installed in them, so it’s only grade 11 and 12 teachers who use the smartboards. the other two principals expressed similar views as those shared by sa. issues of insufficient ict also surfaced in the focus group interviews. the c2 teachers revealed that “out of the seven grade 11 classes at the school, only four classes had smartboards but no tablets or laptops for learners” (see chisango, 2019, p. 184). only four grade 12 classes had smartboards at this particular school. at school a, we found out that no smartboards were working. a frustrated teacher in b2, who had been given some training, explained, there was no need to be trained [but] both teachers and learners were not given enough ict infrastructure to use when teaching. as was evident in b2 school, insufficient ict infrastructure hinders the adoption and use of ict. both teachers and learners did not have the devices necessary for online classes so this further disadvantages these learners who come from communities where the digital divide has deepened and is continuing to deepen. teachers, as the actual implementers of digital learning, are faced with the reality of inadequate ict infrastructure. as indicated by a teacher in b2 school, teachers and learners were not given adequate ict infrastructure but were expected to implement the online teaching. limited internet access the interviews with the principals revealed that there was limited internet access at schools. principal sc explained, currently, all the computers in the gauteng online laboratory are not functioning. the gauteng online laboratory was switched off by the doe in 2015. the doe wants to refurbish the computer laboratory hence switching off the internet. teachers echoed the views of the school principals that internet access was confined to only the administration block at schools. teachers and learners had no access to the internet at home. the teachers from the three schools confirmed and reiterated the points made by the principals. the three schools were no longer connected to gauteng online. it was revealed that schools were disconnected from it because of the theft of computers and routers (chisango, 2019). a teacher at c2 said, “gauteng online is now gauteng offline.” in addition, a teacher at school b (b1) stated, tablets are useless in class and worse at home. there is no wi-fi for them to get onto the internet so we can’t use them for education purpose when they are in class. furthermore, a teacher at a2 pointed out, chisango & marongwe: the digital divide at three disadvantaged secondary schools . . . 157 the other challenge is that some teachers are trained but don’t implement the acquired skills. some of the activities that they are trained on use wi-fi. the teachers cannot use such programmes because some learners’ tablets are not connected to the internet. it can thus be said that limited access to the internet compounded by lack of skills prevents some teachers from using ict during the lockdown period as necessitated by the covid-19 pandemic. it is clear from the responses above that the digital divide in these schools is deepening even more than before. conditions of some of the available ict infrastructure some teachers revealed that some ict infrastructural components were not in good working order. teacher c1 explained, sometimes they [smartboards] just freeze. today i was supposed to use it for my class and i actually prepared over the weekend a very interesting lesson. when i got there it just froze, it just turned on, but nothing was on. it was just quiet. it couldn’t talk to me and i wanted to communicate with it. additionally, the second focus group at school b revealed that learners’ tablets were of poor quality and broke easily. participants said that only grade 12 learners were meant to be given tablets for a year and added that the tablets would be collected at the end of each year. however, sometimes learners were not given tablets for the year or even for a term. the first focus group at school c echoed the views expressed by principal sb that “some of the laptops that some grade 11 teachers were given by the doe were either not functioning properly or not functioning at all” as chisango (2019, p. 187) noted later. therefore, teachers and learners had to resort to the textbooks. given all this, it is evident that teachers and learners could not turn to online home learning that was considered a nightmare compounded by low internet connections or none at all. theft and vandalism of ict infrastructure at schools there was a high rate of theft and vandalism in the communities in which the schools were situated. ict devices were stolen from schools and homes. according to the principals, security guards at schools were intimidated and tied up by thieves. principal sa said that “the doe rolled out computers in the gauteng online laboratory twice, but all the computers were stolen.” the school principals concurred that learners in the community were also robbed of their tablets. principal sb stated that “since there was no wi-fi at school and at home, learners would go to hotspots at the nearby evaton mall where they were robbed of the tablets or laptops.” principal sc pointed out that “some learners’ tablets were forcefully taken from them when they were either walking from home to school or from school to their homes or [when they were] at home.” these thefts hampered the use of ict in the classroom and at home. 158 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 teachers’ attitudes towards ict use in teaching and learning it is interesting to note that teachers’ views illustrate another common problem that schools in the study were facing. principal sb posited that some teachers were technophobic, so they avoided all use of the technology. echoing principal sb’s perception, teacher b2 explained, icts came when i [had been] 25 years in the profession. generally, my mind, my computer, [my] brain is shut towards [the] learning of new skills. they say it’s an attitude but basically you know we are people who were born before this technology came. so, it is maybe more preferable that if taken as a transition, the youngsters from the universities, you know, put in those classes with technology and then [we] . . . do the chalking in the lower grades where there are no smartboards. in addition, teacher b2 went on to say, i was hesitant, unwilling to use it [a smartboard] but because the learners themselves are experienced, they have got the techniques of using the smartboard, [so] you just let them be in front. make them operate it for you. the teacher will just explain the concept to the learners. limited ict skills among teachers it can be deduced from teacher b2’s response above that attitude coupled with limited ict skills might be a hindrance to the adoption and use of instructional technology. another teacher in b2 school highlighted that “some teachers rely on learners when using technology because they have limited ict skills.” participants felt uncomfortable talking about the challenge of limited ict skills since they viewed this as an embarrassing situation. teachers and school principals all agreed that inadequate ict skills among teachers was a hindrance to the use of ict in teaching and learning. principal sa explained that “some senior teachers were never equipped with ict skills when they were at university, hence they had limited digital skills.” teachers reiterated that some of them had inadequate ict skills. teachers in school c revealed that their ict training was not adequate, and they were trained only in basic skills, so, if learners were to write on tablets, they would not know how to mark these assignments. it also became apparent that in school c, only grades 10 to 12 teachers were trained on how to use ict in teaching and learning, and the rest of the teachers were not. discussion the cooperative governance and traditional affairs (cogta) minister nkosazana dlamini-zuma on 25 april 2020 during the briefing session on risk-adjustment strategy for economic activity indicated that covid-19 had exposed the hunger, poverty, unemployment, inequality and so forth that south africa has been experiencing for a long time. minister dlamini-zuma even made a call for the restructuring of business, education, technologies, and other general ways of doing things. van der berg & spaull (2020) have argued that the poorest in south africa have limited to no access at all to icts such as computers and the chisango & marongwe: the digital divide at three disadvantaged secondary schools . . . 159 internet and, in light of the study findings above, it is clear that even when there is some access, inadequate ict infrastructure, malfunctioning ict devices, teachers’ attitudes to the use of technology, their incompetence, and their general unpreparedness along with theft and vandalism perpetuate the digital divide. these scholars have also pointed out that the lockdown plans for teaching and learning have not adequately prevented losses in learning for learners who do not have access to educational technology at home. the lockdown following the covid-19 outbreak revealed how deep the digital divide is in certain schools and communities. as indicated above, the digital divide at disadvantaged schools means that teachers and learners in these quintile 1 schools cannot have remote classes during the covid-19 lockdown. rolling out ict infrastructure to some teachers and learners and not to others created a material access gap in schools. the gde started rolling out tablets to grade 12 learners only, hence smartboards were mostly in grade 12 classrooms although some were in grade 11 classrooms. some grade 12 classrooms had functional smartboards. for instance, at schools b and c, teachers and learners were able to use the infrastructure during teaching and learning, whereas, at school a, all smartboards had stopped working by the time this study was conducted. some grade 11 teachers at the three schools studied were also given laptops by the gde but some of the laptops were not functioning properly. internet connectivity was confined to the administration blocks of the three schools. this confirms the findings of the national education infrastructure management system (neims) that only 20% of schools in south africa—the elite ones—have internet access for teaching and learning, as parker et al. (2020) have noted. although the gde’s rollout of ict to schools was inadequate according to our research, this was exacerbated by theft and vandalism of the infrastructure. according to van dijk’s (2008) model, material access means accessibility to ict infrastructure and the cost of the ict devices. our study confirms that material access is closely related to the socio-economic status of an individual, family, place, or school. so, those who had no access to ict for teaching and learning resorted to traditional teaching methods of reliance on the chalkboard and the textbook which is now not a realistic option following the national lockdown that closed schools on 26 march 2020 as a result of the global outbreak of covid-19. the digital divide was felt even before the covid-19 pandemic struck given that internet connection was limited to the administration blocks at schools and this meant that teachers and learners could not connect with peers or with educational portals and could not do research online. it also meant that teachers and learners could not learn how to access and use online teaching and learning nor to practise this and the result of all this is a deepening of the digital divide. van dijk (2008) argued that skills and usage access were essential conditions for competent ict operation. it was found that most teachers had limited ict skills; not every teacher was trained on how to use technology in the classroom thus some lacked the digital competencies regarded by unesco (2011) as being essential. instead of teachers assisting learners to become collaborators, creators of knowledge, and problem solvers through the use of ict, some teachers themselves, although supposedly trained in ict use, “relied on learners 160 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 whenever they failed to operate” the ict devices or failed to log on to the internet. this confirms van der berg & spaull’s (2020) argument that most teachers in south african schools lack adequate ict skills. those who were trained need more training since the training received was, quite clearly, inadequate. for example, some supposedly trained teachers lacked the confidence to use ict in the classroom or remotely. this is in line with findings by marongwe et al. (2019) that teachers need more training, and that one-size-fits-all training should be avoided. limited digital skills, which, at best, were what some teachers had, are a limiting factor to the fruitful undertaking of certain online tasks and this further increases the digital divide among the schools that have and those that do not have the infrastructure and the skills. selwyn (2006) noted that inasmuch as the material access was increasing for many people, second level divides in skills and usage patterns were becoming more pronounced. chigona (2018) found that teachers in western cape schools also required more ict training to ensure their effective use of technology in their classrooms. such limited digital skills might result in some teachers and learners abandoning the technology which is very useful in these unprecedented times in which we are living given the covid-19 pandemic. in our study we found that the conditions of the available ict infrastructure deterred most teachers from using the technology. the few tablets that were given to some learners broke easily and laptops that were given to some teachers were malfunctioning. all this, compounded by the lack of access to the internet and being unable to afford buying data, frustrated and demotivated some teachers and learners. the school principals who participated in the study articulated clearly that some teachers were afraid of using ict in teaching and learning. it emerged from our study that such an attitude on the part of some teachers towards the use of ict contributed to the deepening digital divide at schools, especially during the covid-19 outbreak. some seasoned teachers felt that they were too old to be taught how to use ict in the classroom or for remote teaching. this finding concurred with those of spelman and marongwe (2018) and van dijk (2005) who found out that mental factors also affect motivational access to ict. it can thus be argued that those experienced teachers were what van dijk and hacker (2003, p. 4) called technology “want nots.” furthermore, in line with what marongwe et al. (2019) established, teachers’ attitudes towards ict predicted their use of the technology, or lack of it, in the classroom. some seasoned teachers preferred using the chalkboard and the textbook (which was impossible during the covid-19 pandemic because of the lockdown restrictions pertaining to physical distancing) to using ict. this automatically implies that learners taught by such teachers will not be exposed to ict use in their learning and will lag behind while others are progressing. the older seasoned teachers believed that the young teachers from colleges and/or universities were the ones who could use ict in teaching and learning. the schools studied are situated in poor communities where theft is commonplace and such theft obviously also has an impact on the material access to ict for learning. van dijk (2008) stated that material access refers to physical access of icts that can be accessed at institutions of learning, homes, and public places. there are, however, inequalities to physical chisango & marongwe: the digital divide at three disadvantaged secondary schools . . . 161 access as a consequence of disparities to access conditions, access points, and types of hardware among other things. the ict devices at the schools were often stolen and the infrastructure frequently vandalised. for example, electric cables which connected smartboards to the power supply were stolen and so were the routers. computers were stolen so cyber laboratories were empty at the three schools. teachers and learners were experiencing the same acts of theft and vandalism at home, too. tablets were stolen from learners in the community. from this study it is evident that the digital divide is deepening at disadvantaged secondary schools. thefts also occurred when schools were closed during the lockdown and more than 408 schools have been vandalised in south africa (sabc 404, 2020). the department of education spokesperson elijah mlanga stated that such barbaric acts of targeting and vandalising schools was worrying, and these acts left the minister of basic education, angie motshekga, shocked. recommendations we recommend that the department of basic education provide adequate ict infrastructure at schools, including access to the internet which is essential for online learning. the issue of security also has to be addressed. all teachers should be continually motivated and trained on how to use technology in the teaching of their various subjects. this would help in these uncertain times of covid-19 because online learning and teaching could happen if teachers and learners were trained to use ict effectively. furthermore, all learners should be provided with ict devices such as tablets and computers and should receive subsidised data. awareness campaigns on the advantages of using ict in schools should be carried out in the communities where schools are located. such schools could then be benefitting from online classes during the national lockdown period. if the communities take ownership of the schools, this might curb the theft of ict infrastructural items and devices from them. conclusion we conclude that intrinsic factors such as negative attitudes towards ict and extrinsic factors such as inadequate ict infrastructure in these three schools create digital, information, and knowledge divides at them. this confirms what the access model by van dijk (2008) addresses. although the data was collected before the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic the findings are still relevant to what many quintile 1 schools are experiencing. the schools in this study cannot run online classes when schools are closed during lockdowns. we conclude that the outbreak of covid-19 in 2020 just worsened the existing problems and exposed the inequalities that have existed and continue to exist in schools. references adegbenro, j. b., gumbo, m. t., & olakanmi, e. e. 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(2011). from access to usage: the divide of self-reported digital skills among adolescents. computers and education, 56(3), 736–746. microsoft word bissue76full21oct.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 76, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i76a08 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x the mobile learning conscious tutor: incorporating facebook in tutorials diana nadine robertson department of education and curriculum studies, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa 920402475@student.uj.ac.za https://orchid.org/0000-0001-8746-2125 nazreen dasoo department of education and curriculum studies, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa ndasoo@uj.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8671-4340 (received: 17 february 2019; accepted: 8 september 2019) abstract today’s students are digital natives, and advances in mobile technology should impel institutions of learning to revaluate their tutoring systems. our study explored tutors’ potential to introduce mobile learning through the social media application, facebook, in tutorials conducted at the university of johannesburg’s faculty of education. this study further considered the tutors’ potential to motivate students to use their devices for learning on social media through professional communities of practice online. our exploratory qualitative study sought to understand the perception of tutors and tutees about the inclusion of facebook through in-depth reviews of the literature, focus group interviews, questionnaires, and online log data responses. the data was thematically analysed and the results suggest that tutors can encourage students to use their devices for academic purposes through online facebook discussions. our conclusion is that the inclusion of facebook as part of the tutorial experience can support virtual professional communities of learning online beyond the traditional physical and formal tutorial. keywords: mobile devices, tutorials, tutoring, tutors, virtual communities of practice introduction we are living in exciting times for society in general and academia in particular, as higher education institutions (heis) acquire a unique opportunity to shift from traditional teaching and learning perspectives, to positioning themselves at the forefront of adopting, if not designing, technologies for the renewal of teaching and learning. south africa has welcomed mobile learning and, as a result, we have proven to be capable of introducing our own 144 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 contextually significant tools (ivala & gachago, 2012; ng’ambi et al., 2015; veletsianos, 2010). in spite of the inclusion of mobile learning approaches in heis, little research has been done on tutors who incorporate technology and social media for teaching and learning in the tutoring process. current studies on tutoring are primarily centred on evaluating tutorials and enhancing learning to improve the academic performance of tutees (coughlan & stephen 2011; hassan, 2017; shaw, carey, & mair, 2008). other studies focus on the transferring of discipline-specific skills (underhill & mcdonald, 2010), and determining the effectiveness of tutoring in the enhancement of learning (truuvert, 2014). however, there is need to focus on “communication networks through the internet to improve pedagogy” (ng’ambi, brown, bozalek, gachago, & wood, 2016. several south african researchers promoting authentic learning have embarked on documenting the use of facebook in learning practices such as microbiology, engineering (ivala & gachago, 2012; ng’ambi et al., 2015), and education (robertson & dasoo, 2018, p. 65). facebook is widely used to bridge the communication divide (gachago, ivala, backhouse, bosman, & bozalek, 2013). it is a social networking tool that has created an “increase in pedagogical investigations . . . for educational purposes” (ng’ambi et al., 2015, p. 10), and it can create virtual communities of practice across institutions with as online learning spaces to provide opportunities for group problem-solving and peer-to-peer collaboration (council of higher education, 2014). facebook is a social network application that can be used as a discussion forum for collaboration in communities of practice supported and implemented by tutors. the purpose of this paper is to fill a knowledge gap in the tutoring literature that seeks to understand the environment of tutorials and how tutors manage and effectively tutor using technology. the two research questions considered to fulfil this purpose were: “how do tutors use facebook to enhance the way in which they tutor?” and “how do tutees experience the implementation of facebook during tutorials?” the rationale of the investigation the context of this study is the university of johannesburg (uj), which set out to establish new and effective ways of teaching and learning. the university disseminated eight strategic goals to fulfil its mission by 2020. one of these goals is teaching and learning using 21st century technology, and the university stakes its “reputation as a comprehensive institution with a unique identity in the higher education sector [on] the stature and quality of its scientific and technology-rich programs and its scientific and technology-driven research, innovation, and technology transfer” (university of johannesburg, 2011, p. 5). accordingly, the university embarked on the infrastructural changes required to accommodate mobile learning access over its four campuses. according to louw (2015, p. 294), uj boasts to be “one of the largest wide area networks in the southern hemisphere that is wi-fi compliant with various hotspots on its campuses.” the university is thus prepared for the inclusion of technological advancements in education but teaching staff (including tutors) are not fully engaging technology within teaching and learning (louw, 2015). according to brooks (2008) and jaeger (2016), tutoring as instructional method dates back to socrates and the socratic robertson & dasoo: the mobile learning conscious tutor 145 method. this approach consists of a partnership between the more experienced student (tutor) and the inexperienced student (tutee). it ensures that knowledge and practices are simplified and passed on to the tutee. tutors have essentially remained the same, which implies that relationship between tutor and tutee has not changed. this study suggests that traditional approaches to tutoring and digital approaches to tutoring constitute an interesting area for inquiry. accordingly, the study focuses on integrating virtual tutoring with traditional approaches to provide optimal and effective tutoring within and outside the allocated tutorial timeslot. the inquiry focuses on tutors and the inclusion of technological devices in the one-to-many tutorial setting. wireless connectivity makes learning through iphones, tablets, and smartphones possible and enhances students learning experiences anywhere and anytime. this affords functionalities such as facebook discussion forums for educational occurrences that would otherwise not be possible. it is fair to suggest that technology improves the productivity and efficiency of tutors. it prioritises delivery of information in time and in context for their immediate attention (kukulska-hulme, 2010). it is evident that understanding the transformation of tutoring into the digital and technological age within heis is crucial for providing an exciting, supporting, and effective tutor–tutee experience. although one-on-one instruction has been more effective than one-to-many classroom instruction (bloom, 1984), it is not economical to provide every student with an individual teacher or tutor (koedinger & corbett, 2006). tutorials at heis are planned and structured to enable tutors to reemphasise concepts within groups and large class settings. tutorial settings allow for interactive learning; they enable students to clarify and extend discussions and other activities though reading to augment what they learnt from lectures. active student (tutee) participation ensures that meaningful learning takes place productively in tutorial times. kukulska-hulme (2010) indicated that heis’ workforces are adapting to advancements in technology for teaching and learning. heis are identifying exemplars in workplaces to work with the lecturers. these exemplars include tutors whose primary mandate is to support both the lecturers and students (underhill, 2009). tutoring is not without challenges. tutors are often limited to traditional tutoring styles that are far removed from the students’ learning needs. these traditional forms of tutoring are appreciated as a starting point but they are limited in light of changing technology. in as much as institutions are adapting to teaching and learning with technology, so should the tutors. initial training elements are necessary and have a positive effect on tutors because they provide tutors with foundational support and a reference point (underhill, 2009). without proper training, discussions by students tend to revolve around the tutor (cheung & hew, 2009), delayed duties and unavailability of tutors (klimova & poulová, 2015), inadequate skills (alhassan, amoah, & anyanful, 2018), and insufficient support given (sundvik, masalin, & hervonen, 2016). to combat these challenges, a mobile learning approach is considered. as the use of mobile devices has thrived, so has the idea that such devices may be useful in the process of teaching and learning (khaddage, muller, & flintoff, 2016). this paper considers facebook 146 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 as a learning tool using mobile devices in the tutorial environment. although facebook was created as a social networking website, it later expanded into various educational settings (hew, 2011). a platform such as facebook can change the nature of learning because it goes beyond individualistic activity to what siemens (2005) termed connections and connectiveness through networks that emphasise learning and knowledge from diverse backgrounds. the advantage of facebook as a discussion forum is that it allows people to share information, ideas, knowledge, and resources. espinosa observed that sharing knowledge and information online allows students to connect the classroom with speakers around the world . . . bring quiet students out of their shell by asking them to participate in facebook discussions, create study groups to easily connect with each other within their own facebook groups, track down old students or professionals that could come to the classroom as guest speakers, connect with classes all around the world, and discuss classroom ideas with other teachers on facebook. all these ideas can contribute to improve students’ . . . skills. (2015, p. 2207) facebook groups facilitate easy, convenient, and quick information dissemination among students. by accessing their group anywhere via internet-ready electronic devices, students can get notifications and updates on tutorial activity without the need to meet physically with the teacher (mabuan & ebron, 2017). facebook as a learning environment also has the potential for more student engagement; however, the use of social media should be supported by academics in order to build a community and to increase student engagement at heis (toliver, 2011). mazman and usluel (2010) concurred that facebook as an educational tool encourages active participation and collaboration, and daraei (2015) argued that facebook as an educational tool develops team-working skills; could be helpful for both teachers and students when used as a supportive material in lessons; helps teachers and students to know each other better via the profile pages; could make learning more enjoyable; could increase students’ motivation by allowing them to communicate with each other (p. 80). learning communities in the virtual space also create space for shy students’ voices to be heard. these students can feel empowered enough to raise their opinions on facebook, something they might be reluctant to do in class (bosch, 2009). other concerns for educators are lack of control and inability to maintain students’ attention. if a student is not paying attention, he or she is not learning. kirschner and karpinski (2010) concurred that educators want to use technology to expand and strengthen student-learning abilities but have difficulty in maintaining students’ attention. the inability to fully realise the educational value of facebook motivated manca and ranieri (2013) to examine the platform as a learning environment. their study showed that the pedagogical affordances of facebook have not been exploited enough; concerns with the learning environment, teacher robertson & dasoo: the mobile learning conscious tutor 147 and student pedagogies, and cultural issues could hamper the comprehensive acceptance of facebook as a learning environment for students manca and ranieri (2013). one disadvantage of facebook and social networking websites is a fear of missing out (fomo), and is a reality among students—a concern that one might be missing out on rewarding experiences (przybylski, murayama, dehaan, & gladwell, 2013)—but tutors and lecturers can leverage fomo to encourage active and dynamic participation. there are dangers and challenges that need to be deliberated. for example, social networking involves risks that include privacy being violated, intimidation through bullying, and harmful interactions (livingston & brake, 2010). cyber bullying becomes a major concern with online applications, and the inclusion of facebook as discussion forum raises ethical considerations relating to protecting students from abuse in the space. these dangers not only affect students, but to faculty (tutors) too (minor, smith, & brashen, 2013). theoretical framework the notion of communities of practice (cop) was introduced by lave and wenger (1991) who focussed on theories of adult learning. learning in a cop takes place “in a certain context where students interact with and learn from peers rather than in a traditional classroom where there is a clear student-lecturer divide” (wang & ma, 2017, p. 19. participation is an important aspect in a community but the generation of newer or deeper levels of knowledge through the sum of the group activity is even more crucial (wenger, 2014). dialogue and collaborative group learning create opportunities for students to work together to solve problems. this strengthens the formed communities of practice. we use cop in this study to evaluate tutorial environments using mobile learning. the concept of virtual communities of practice (vcop) is rooted in the idea of cop, and implies that group interaction through an electronic network is similar to cop. instead of face-to-face interaction, there is the virtual space. therefore, vcop are virtual places of collaboration using tools (internet platforms) for members to share and create professional knowledge (dudezert, heibült, & boughzala, 2006)—collaboration through information systems without geographical frontiers. however, if cops are small, tight-knit groups consisting of intensive and sustained interactions around a shared practice (wenger, 1998), then vcops should “follow the same pattern, particularly with respect to tie-strength and group size” (murillo, 2014, p. 2). internet-based communities can easily number to hundreds of members (koh, kim, butler, & bock, 2007). the ties between participants in such large and mostly anonymous collectives can hardly equal the strong relationships that characterise cops. members’ contribution to vcops is not based on commenting extensively, nor is it a requirement to share sophisticated knowledge or concepts. for a community to be lively and meaningful, members have to participate and activities must stimulate engagement. online activities can include posting questions for response and comment on discussion boards, engaging in live chats, and video conferencing (face-time discussions; ardichvili, 2008). key cop characteristics involved in face-to-face and virtual tutorial activities include “a shared 148 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 domain of interest . . . engagement in mutual learning and knowledge sharing . . . and shared inventory of resources” (wang & ma, 2017, p. 21). a shared domain of interest vcops are not simply tutees and tutors who have similar basic interests. these participants develop a shared selection experiences, stories, tools, and ways of addressing recurring problems. shared practice that extends beyond the face-to-face tutorial boundaries, and creates possibilities in virtual spaces beyond the venue limitations. a cop is established on the sharing of past and present views that become rituals in the community (barab & duffy, 2000). in this study, tutees from the teaching studies 2 b (tst20b2) module meet regularly for tutorials, and may not realise that their tutorial discussions are one of their main sources of knowledge of the module. mutual learning and knowledge sharing according to delahunty, verenikina, and jones (2014), participants in online communities have a shared sense of belonging, trust, an expectation of learning, and commitment to participate and to contribute to the community. learning in online spaces is embedded in vygotsky’s (1978) belief that students working together in a learning context to create new knowledge collaboratively results in social cognition. members of a vcop have the potential to support and challenge each other with shared knowledge as well as effective and relevant knowledge construction. sustained engagement between groups of students (tutees) will eventually create a cop (wenger, 1998), involving members’ interactions and collaboration to solve problems, develop useful artefacts, and discuss relevant issues. according to hinds and lee (2008), mutual engagement makes vcops task-oriented, setting them apart from fan clubs or socialisation communities. through defining the key issues and problems that need to be addressed, the members collectively discuss these and hold each other accountable (wenger, 1998). shared resources inventory in the mobile learning focused context, the tutees are able to share information, ideas, and viewpoints online. the use of the internet and the facebook discussion forum through mobile devices are useful vehicles to share information (wang & ma, 2017). the notion of “bring your own device” refers to tutees who bring their devices to use actively in the tutorials. in some instances, tutees may use each other’s devices collaboratively to work and assist each other. experiences of members in a community cops and vcops affect the social aspect of learning as members bring their own life experiences to the learning spaces. the activities that members participate in, and which result in learning within a cop, is facilitated by members’ collective interactions and relationships with others (lave & wenger, 1991). when the tutees share ideas or an interest in the tutorial environment and online, their shared experiences strengthen the community. robertson & dasoo: the mobile learning conscious tutor 149 the tutees’ and tutors’ experiences, how they participate, the challenges, and their perceptions inform this study. mediating tools mobile devices enable tutees to learn by exploring their world through communication using technology. facebook enabled tutees to create vcops that support conversations in actual and virtual learning environments. technology through mobile devices in the lecture venues supports rich conversations between tutees as an extension of learning (wang & ma, 2017). tools and mediating artefacts include writing, reading, watching, and discussion. decision-makers members of the vcop in this study are the tutees and the tutors. the role players in the tutorial environment are the tutors—divided into senior tutor and tutors. the lecturer is at the top of the hierarchy but has very limited influence in this study given that the focus is on the tutor as leader of tutorials. leaders have the ability to support practice and set the rules. tutors in this context are considered the content experts and are therefore able to support the practice and set the rules. methodology a qualitative methodology was used to collect data for this case study. mohajan (2018, p. 2) stated that the “qualitative approach is concerned with the individual’s opinions, feelings, and experiences to discover unanticipated occurrences.” the qualitative approach is suitable because it allowed the researcher to work with perceptions and experiences of tutors about mobile learning at the university of johannesburg. however, we have used some descriptive statistics in form of numbers and graphs for illustration. focusing on tutors perceptions and experiences about mobile learning requires a specific approach, hence, a case study was chosen for the investigation. merriam (2009) said that the use of a case study is suited to examining programmes in order to enhance understanding that may influence practice. in this investigation, the case study consists of the tutees and tutors in the second year of the teaching studies (tst202b) module, a bounded context at uj. this study is also an explanatory case study. yin (2009) observed that an explanatory case study examines the research issue at a deeper level. this approach emphasises depth analysis of data in order to explain, in this case, tutors’ perceptions and experiences of mobile learning. the data collection instruments used included questionnaires, focus group interviews, and an online discussion forum. the study used purposeful sampling of 423 undergraduate students (tutees) in their second year of education teaching studies. five tutors and one senior tutor participated in the study. the study used community of practice as its conceptual framework to explain the perceptions of tutors on mobile learning (hashim & jones, 2007). the data from questionnaires, focus group interviews, and an online discussion forum were compiled into an excel spreadsheet, and thematic content analysis was used to analyse it (creswell, 2012). 150 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 an important aspect of research trustworthiness is reliability and validity. miles and huberman (1994) referred to reliability as quality control. when considering reliability, the collection of data should be able to be repeated. validity refers to the accuracy of the findings using certain procedures (creswell, 2012). important tactics to consider are the “multiple sources of evidence, establishment of a chain of evidence, and having the draft case study report reviewed by key informants” (yin, 2009, p. 212). these multiple sources, through triangulation, were considered in order to ensure reliability, validity, and trustworthiness. the combination of questionnaires, focus group interviews, and the analysis of online discussions were checked through triangulation. for example, what was discussed in the focus group interviews could be checked against what was answered in the questionnaires or the online discussion forum responses. for audit trail considerations, we collected data transcriptions, signed consent forms, ethical clearance documents for safe keeping so readers can verify the findings (schwandt, 2007). we engaged with other academics during the research process to obtain critical feedback and different perspectives on our assumptions. ethical considerations included consent obtained from the participants prior to participant interviews, discussions, and questionnaire completion, and after the researchers had explained the aim of the research. participants were further informed that engaging in the study by sharing their experiences would have no impact on their academic grades and their participation in this research was voluntary and without any form of penalty should they wish to withdraw. the researchers have complied with all the ethical considerations. findings and discussions the first research question (how do tutors use facebook to enhance the way in which they tutor?) is discussed below under the following six headings: facebook as catalyst, tutoring in the 21st century, tutors incorporate mobile devices as a tool, the connected tutor, tutors encourage mobile devices for academic use, and tutor as mediator. the second research question (how do tutees experience the implementation of facebook during tutorials?) is discussed thereafter, under the following eight headings: the relevance of facebook, student-structured learning, working communities, fomo, cyber bullying, student participation, more student voices, and authentic learning experience. research question one: how do tutors use facebook to enhance the way in which they tutor? facebook as catalyst figure 1: teaching studies 2b facebook cover page a senior tutor created the teaching all tutees attending the module to join the group and participate in discussions and activities pertaining to the module. by including facebook as a means of communication in a large group, the discussions taking place in the tutorials were sparked by the comments and responses from online discussions initiated by the tutors prior to and outside of the tutorial venue. this allowed tutees to attend tutorials prepared and already part of conversations regarding the topics to be covered, and ready to share their perspectives, understanding, and views. communication between the tutors and tutees improved. questionnaire data revealed that, prior to the inclusion of mobile learning, it was evident that communi and tutees was not effective. tutors experienced several difficulties because of the tutorial setting. first, tutees did not cooperate and there was poor participation. second, poor attendance was a concern—the majority of the time, t the register. the tutees who did was a tacit consensus among tutors that the above was a challenge and a concern, and that was a desperate need to change solution because tutees already had these tools. it was a gamble; the uncertainty of the outcome was intimidating because there was no precedence. it would either be very successful and enrich the detrimental with inconceivable consequences. the tutors experienced feelings of doubt when robertson & dasoo: the mobile learning conscious tutor research question one: how do tutors use facebook to enhance the way in which : teaching studies 2b facebook cover page a senior tutor created the teaching studies 2 b page on facebook (see figure 1) and asked all tutees attending the module to join the group and participate in discussions and activities pertaining to the module. by including facebook as a means of communication in a large ons taking place in the tutorials were sparked by the comments and responses from online discussions initiated by the tutors prior to and outside of the tutorial venue. this allowed tutees to attend tutorials prepared and already part of conversations rding the topics to be covered, and ready to share their perspectives, understanding, and communication between the tutors and tutees improved. questionnaire data revealed that, prior to the inclusion of mobile learning, it was evident that communication between tutors and tutees was not effective. tutors experienced several difficulties because of the tutorial setting. first, tutees did not cooperate and there was poor participation. second, poor the majority of the time, tutees only attended long enough did attend were disruptive, some sleeping during tutorials. there was a tacit consensus among tutors that the above was a challenge and a concern, and that was a desperate need to change the situation. incorporating mobile devices was a relevant solution because tutees already had these tools. it was a gamble; the uncertainty of the outcome was intimidating because there was no precedence. it would either be very successful and enrich the tutorial experience, or be detrimental with inconceivable consequences. the tutors experienced feelings of doubt when robertson & dasoo: the mobile learning conscious tutor 151 research question one: how do tutors use facebook to enhance the way in which studies 2 b page on facebook (see figure 1) and asked all tutees attending the module to join the group and participate in discussions and activities pertaining to the module. by including facebook as a means of communication in a large ons taking place in the tutorials were sparked by the comments and responses from online discussions initiated by the tutors prior to and outside of the tutorial venue. this allowed tutees to attend tutorials prepared and already part of conversations rding the topics to be covered, and ready to share their perspectives, understanding, and communication between the tutors and tutees improved. questionnaire data revealed that, cation between tutors and tutees was not effective. tutors experienced several difficulties because of the tutorial setting. first, tutees did not cooperate and there was poor participation. second, poor long enough to sign attend were disruptive, some sleeping during tutorials. there was a tacit consensus among tutors that the above was a challenge and a concern, and that devices was a relevant it was a gamble; the uncertainty of the outcome was intimidating because there was no tutorial experience, or be detrimental with inconceivable consequences. the tutors experienced feelings of doubt when 152 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 considering facebook. using it as an online discussion tool meant they had to plan thoroughly and meticulously to adjust their tutoring roles to successfully incorporate the platform. the data revealed that being able to do more and adding a different element to the tutorials (that was relevant to the tutors and to the tutees) created a sense of fulfilment for the tutors. this was a leap from the feelings of despair previously perceived. the majority of the responses were very positive and in favour of the facebook discussion forum in tutorials. tutoring in the 21st century tutoring has been altered to fit the tutee of the 21st century. the tutoring structure has changed and, taking into consideration the south african context: language, traditions, and culture, learning should be relevant to tutees at uj. standing at the front of a venue, reteaching information, and asking questions does not constitute meaningful engagement. the shift in tutoring through implementation of mobile learning changed attitudes and perspectives; it gave the tutees a different tutoring and learning experience. responses from the online logs revealed that the 21st century tutees participating in the tutorials were interested in a new, authentic, and technological way of conducting tutorials. a need for training with reference to technological advancements was evident. tutors lacked innovative ways to administer the tutor check-in training sessions and make it more relevant. before the implementation of the mobile learning, tutors attended tutor preparation training, and it is evident from the transcripts that training for for mobile learning was needed. this is in line with underhill (2009) who said that one has to establish how one wishes to use tutors and then establish how to train them for that end. tutors in this study received training to prepare them to tutor in face-to-face tutorials and through the online learning created through the facebook discussion forum. tutors incorporate mobile devices as a tool incorporating mobile devices in tutorials was a new and unique mode of conducting tutorials. a mobile device was seen as a tool to optimise tutorials. the size of mobile devices brought an obvious mobility factor, and participants mentioned the benefit of convenience and portability. the majority of tutees and all the tutors responded that they had a device that would make mobile learning approaches possible; these included handheld computers, mobile telephones, and other devices that draw on the same set of functionalities (traxler, 2007). the convenience of having a learning tool in one’s pocket was supported by tutors. mobile handheld devices have evolved and, with time, have become smaller, lighter, and convenient to carry, which makes them conducive for learning (alsaadat, 2009). the connected tutor the data further revealed that the wi-fi access allowed for connectivity in lecture venues and hotspot areas around campus. the connectivity supported the portability of mobile devices. the tutors all have compatible devices and 96% of the tutees were able to access the internet through their mobile devices. the remaining 4% were unable to access the internet on their mobile devices. with access to wi-fi granted, tutees were able to participate simultaneously robertson & dasoo: the mobile learning conscious tutor 153 and incorporate perspectives from the internet sources. tutees without devices or with incompatible devices were able to share devices with peers and participate in group discussions. the tutors were also accessible outside of the lecture venues through the online facebook page, allowing them to be available and easily reachable. constant connectivity created an always-connected tutor. the exploitation of ubiquitous handheld hardware, wireless networking, and mobile telephony to facilitate, support, enhance, and extend the reach of teaching and learning within and outside of tutorials was thus possible (molenet, 2010). this allowed tutees to be physically mobile while at the same time remaining connected to non-proximate sources of information, instruction, and data communications technology (woodill, 2012). tutors encourage mobile devices for academic use after the mobile learning activities were completed, tutees were asked if these activities encouraged them to use their devices for academic reasons. eighty-five per cent of the 423 tutees used their devices for academic use, and they appreciated the mobile learning approach incorporated in tutorials. these tutees saw the relevance of using their devices for academics. the remaining 15% of the students responded, no, to this question. the majority of the tutees were optimistic about using devices in class for academics. for these students, mobile devices improved the productivity and efficiency of tutors by delivering information and support just in time and in context of their immediate priorities (kukulska-hulme, 2010. however, the 15% of tutees remain sceptical. these students felt that using their mobile devices in class hindered their academic performance (berry & westfall, 2015). tutor as mediator the incorporation of mobile learning through the facebook discussion platform and tutorial group discussions enabled the tutees to realise and appreciate the clarity of concepts, importance of discussions, and that active participation with activities increased understanding. this allowed tutors to interact on a level that tutees enjoyed and understood. it did, however, effect a change in attitude towards the lectures, and the class attendance dropped. it is important to mention the inclusion of mobile learning in this study had a consequence that lead to a different dilemma. the data revealed that as tutorials became popular and interesting, students chose to attend the tutorials instead of lectures. the technosavvy traits of the tutors exposed the lecturers’ limited technological efforts. often, a tutor is placed in the middle of the digital divide that exists between a student and lecturer in the higher education context. this results in efficient tutoring being hindered. research question two: how do tutees experience the implementation of facebook during tutorials? the relevance of facebook initially, communication in the tutorial environment was not conducive to learning. it did not benefit the tutor or the students. student interaction needed to be encouraged by the tutors to ensure that dialogue, exchanging ideas, and clarifying concepts were dealt with. 154 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 incorporating a mobile learning approach through a socia communication online and initiated face online, it was important to establish which social media application would be most beneficial. figure 2 indicates that facebook was tutees. figure 2: social media mostly used knowing that tutees used facebook was a positive result for this study, but their perspective on the implementation of facebook in tutorials was important too. student-structured learning student-structured tutorials were non tutoring merely made sure that content was repeated. incorporating mobile learning turned this negative scenario around. it created sp find useful, and how best they could package it to benefit the tutees experience. the introduction of mobile learning ensured that tutees were more involved. the tutees were aware that the new approach to tutorials was primarily about them and was aimed at involving them more in their own studies. the tutors generally felt that the tutorials were now a success and more suited to tutees’ needs participate effectively. in this sense, it was more tutee structured. and permitted to incorporate new ways of learning that are student focused, then technological advancements such as mobile learning c and provide a unique learning experience (traxler, 2010) working communities the initial data revealed that, prior to the implementation of mobile learning, collaboration was weak. according to the tutees’ responses, the blame for poor collaboratio the tutors. the tutees revealed that their poor participation and non was due to a lack of support from tutors. evident after the online element was introduced in tutoria and spent extensive time planning and strategising how they would cultivate and support safe and friendly communities amongst students. in the focus group interviews, cop was evident as tutors shared their experiences, cha workshops, meetings, and training attended by the tutors motivated and empowered them to instagram 15% linkedin 12% journal of education, no. 76, 2019 incorporating a mobile learning approach through a social media application encouraged communication online and initiated face-to-face discussions. in order to start communicating online, it was important to establish which social media application would be most beneficial. facebook was the most popular social media platform used amongst knowing that tutees used facebook was a positive result for this study, but their perspective on the implementation of facebook in tutorials was important too. structured tutorials were non-existent prior to the introduction of mobile learning. tutoring merely made sure that content was repeated. incorporating mobile learning turned this negative scenario around. it created space for tutors to think about what students would find useful, and how best they could package it to benefit the tutees for a good learning experience. the introduction of mobile learning ensured that tutees were more involved. the he new approach to tutorials was primarily about them and was aimed at involving them more in their own studies. the tutors generally felt that the tutorials were more suited to tutees’ needs and how best they would be stimulated to . in this sense, it was more tutee structured. if tutors are encouraged, and permitted to incorporate new ways of learning that are student focused, then technological advancements such as mobile learning can constitute part of this innov provide a unique learning experience (traxler, 2010). the initial data revealed that, prior to the implementation of mobile learning, collaboration was weak. according to the tutees’ responses, the blame for poor collaboratio the tutors. the tutees revealed that their poor participation and non-interest in collaboration lack of support from tutors. however, the data revealed that cops the online element was introduced in tutorials. the tutors formed a community and spent extensive time planning and strategising how they would cultivate and support safe and friendly communities amongst students. in the focus group interviews, cop was evident as tutors shared their experiences, challenges, and possible solutions (see figure 3). the workshops, meetings, and training attended by the tutors motivated and empowered them to facebook 62% instagram 15% linkedin 12% twitter 11% l media application encouraged face discussions. in order to start communicating online, it was important to establish which social media application would be most beneficial. the most popular social media platform used amongst knowing that tutees used facebook was a positive result for this study, but their perspective existent prior to the introduction of mobile learning. tutoring merely made sure that content was repeated. incorporating mobile learning turned ace for tutors to think about what students would a good learning experience. the introduction of mobile learning ensured that tutees were more involved. the he new approach to tutorials was primarily about them and was aimed at involving them more in their own studies. the tutors generally felt that the tutorials were and how best they would be stimulated to if tutors are encouraged, and permitted to incorporate new ways of learning that are student focused, then constitute part of this innovation the initial data revealed that, prior to the implementation of mobile learning, collaboration was weak. according to the tutees’ responses, the blame for poor collaboration was placed on interest in collaboration he data revealed that cops became ls. the tutors formed a community and spent extensive time planning and strategising how they would cultivate and support safe and friendly communities amongst students. in the focus group interviews, cop was evident llenges, and possible solutions (see figure 3). the workshops, meetings, and training attended by the tutors motivated and empowered them to feel safe enough to ask questions and to work together. another form of cop manifested in the tutorials among students. the tutees had similar interests that allow them to form the basis of a community. they all shared an interest in education, teaching, and learning and in the tst20b2 module. the inclusion of mobile learning activities took collaboration to a new lev tutees felt included and they valued the collaborative and social aspects that became an option within group tasks and conversations online. strengthened further and influenced the communities forme were an example of what they wanted to see in the tutorials; this allowed and encouraged more students to voice their opinions and understanding. they form social ties, which are importa forum discussion provides a collaborative learning environment where students learn from each other. figure 3: working communities encouraged (source: online facebook responses) fomo for students at heis, the fear of missing out is real. the data revealed that there is anxiety of missing out. a contributing factor that leads to the successful incorporation of mobile learning within this study is due to the fomo factor. the idea of the facebook always on and accessible at any time allowed tutees to participate in discussions before, during, and even after a tutorial was conducted. therefore, including a facebook online discussion forum was not only helpful and relevant; it was feeding introducing mobile learning, tutors leveraged fomo to inspire and push tutees to actively participate. quick responses from tutors played into the happening content culture of their world. team-working skills became a useful educational tool for tutors, made learning in the tutorials robertson & dasoo: the mobile learning conscious tutor feel safe enough to ask questions and to work together. another form of cop manifested in the tutees had similar interests that allow them to form the basis of a community. they all shared an interest in education, teaching, and learning and in the tst20b2 module. the inclusion of mobile learning activities took collaboration to a new level as a vcop formed. tutees felt included and they valued the collaborative and social aspects that became an option within group tasks and conversations online. the community that the tutors formed influenced the communities formed among the students. were an example of what they wanted to see in the tutorials; this allowed and encouraged more students to voice their opinions and understanding. when tutees agree with their tutors, they form social ties, which are important for collaborative learning (hrastinski, 2008).the forum discussion provides a collaborative learning environment where students learn from : working communities encouraged (source: online facebook responses) nts at heis, the fear of missing out is real. the data revealed that there is anxiety of missing out. a contributing factor that leads to the successful incorporation of mobile learning within this study is due to the fomo factor. the idea of the facebook always on and accessible at any time allowed tutees to participate in discussions before, during, and even after a tutorial was conducted. therefore, including a facebook online discussion forum was not only helpful and relevant; it was feeding tutees’ desire to know. introducing mobile learning, tutors leveraged fomo to inspire and push tutees to actively participate. quick responses from tutors played into the happening content culture of their world. incorporating facebook as an educational tool developed working skills became a useful educational tool for tutors, made learning in the tutorials robertson & dasoo: the mobile learning conscious tutor 155 feel safe enough to ask questions and to work together. another form of cop manifested in the tutees had similar interests that allow them to form the basis of a community. they all shared an interest in education, teaching, and learning and in the tst20b2 module. the el as a vcop formed. tutees felt included and they valued the collaborative and social aspects that became an the community that the tutors formed d among the students. the tutors were an example of what they wanted to see in the tutorials; this allowed and encouraged when tutees agree with their tutors, nt for collaborative learning (hrastinski, 2008).the forum discussion provides a collaborative learning environment where students learn from nts at heis, the fear of missing out is real. the data revealed that there is anxiety of missing out. a contributing factor that leads to the successful incorporation of mobile learning within this study is due to the fomo factor. the idea of the facebook page being always on and accessible at any time allowed tutees to participate in discussions before, during, and even after a tutorial was conducted. therefore, including a facebook online tutees’ desire to know. by introducing mobile learning, tutors leveraged fomo to inspire and push tutees to actively participate. quick responses from tutors played into the happening-now onal tool developed working skills became a useful educational tool for tutors, made learning in the tutorials 156 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 more enjoyable, and “it increased students’ motivation by allowing them to communicate more effectively” (daraei, 2015, p. 77). cyber bullying it emerged from the data that tutees were aware of safety considerations in online spaces. students are fearful of being exposed to or associated with any negative activity while participating in online discussion forums. safety and rules and regulation participation on the online space were thoroughly discussed, and mentioned before every tutorial commenced. several challenges and dangers were considered and discussed with both tutees and tutors—dangers such as loss of privacy, bullying, and (livingston & brake, 2010). student participation the effectiveness of mobile learning can be seen in the shift from what the tutee perceived the role of the tutor to be, to what the tutors were actually doing, and the change in the tutoring methods that followed. prior to the inclusion of mobile learning, the majority of tutees seemed to be unclear as to what the role of the tutors was. they made several comments on the challenges they experienced with their tutors and the tutorial metho employed. tutees mentioned that tutors just stood in the front of the lecture room and explained the work. the online facebook responses revealed a positive ambiance in tutorials. the incorporation of an online discussion forum created a new space in (figure 4). figure 4: student participation supported journal of education, no. 76, 2019 more enjoyable, and “it increased students’ motivation by allowing them to communicate more effectively” (daraei, 2015, p. 77). it emerged from the data that tutees were aware of safety considerations in online spaces. are fearful of being exposed to or associated with any negative activity while participating in online discussion forums. safety and rules and regulations concerning participation on the online space were thoroughly discussed, and mentioned before every several challenges and dangers were considered and discussed with angers such as loss of privacy, bullying, and harm the effectiveness of mobile learning can be seen in the shift from what the tutee perceived the role of the tutor to be, to what the tutors were actually doing, and the change in the ring methods that followed. prior to the inclusion of mobile learning, the majority of tutees seemed to be unclear as to what the role of the tutors was. they made several comments on the challenges they experienced with their tutors and the tutorial metho employed. tutees mentioned that tutors just stood in the front of the lecture room and explained the work. the online facebook responses revealed a positive ambiance in tutorials. the incorporation of an online discussion forum created a new space for tutees to participate : student participation supported more enjoyable, and “it increased students’ motivation by allowing them to communicate it emerged from the data that tutees were aware of safety considerations in online spaces. are fearful of being exposed to or associated with any negative activity while s concerning participation on the online space were thoroughly discussed, and mentioned before every several challenges and dangers were considered and discussed with harmful contacts the effectiveness of mobile learning can be seen in the shift from what the tutee perceived the role of the tutor to be, to what the tutors were actually doing, and the change in the ring methods that followed. prior to the inclusion of mobile learning, the majority of tutees seemed to be unclear as to what the role of the tutors was. they made several comments on the challenges they experienced with their tutors and the tutorial methods they employed. tutees mentioned that tutors just stood in the front of the lecture room and explained the work. the online facebook responses revealed a positive ambiance in tutorials. for tutees to participate more student voices tutee participation increased dramatically and more student voices were heard in the tutorials and online. tutees further felt that th and different, which made the tutorials enjoyable. tutorial periods allowed tutees to interact more and give their views at any time. there was no time restriction and tutees were allowed to respond in their own time, even outside of the tutorial time. this meant that tutees absent or late for a tutorial could still be part of discussions and have an idea of what had happened. figure 5 shows that the topic r authentic assessment received 301 comments. the responses included video clips, memes, and comments on the topic. figure 5: student voices evident authentic learning experience the students’ learning was deepened and created authentic rel the lecture venues, conversations, dialogue, and engagement continue therefore, mobile learning brings forth a sense of autonomy, agency, empowerment, and authentic learning to tutees that was eviden opens minds to the possibility of a radically new paradigm of teaching and learning that encourages us to abandon the constraints of old habituated ways of thinking, learning, communicating, designing, and reac robertson & dasoo: the mobile learning conscious tutor dramatically and more student voices were heard in the tutorials and online. tutees further felt that their learning needs were catered for, activities were fun made the tutorials enjoyable. the continual discussions in and out of the tutorial periods allowed tutees to interact more and give their views at any time. there was no triction and tutees were allowed to respond in their own time, even outside of the tutorial time. this meant that tutees absent or late for a tutorial could still be part of discussions and have an idea of what had happened. figure 5 shows that the topic r authentic assessment received 301 comments. the responses included video clips, memes, authentic learning experience the students’ learning was deepened and created authentic relations with the content. outside the lecture venues, conversations, dialogue, and engagement continued to meet tutees’ needs. therefore, mobile learning brings forth a sense of autonomy, agency, empowerment, and authentic learning to tutees that was evident appreciated (see figure 6). mobile learning opens minds to the possibility of a radically new paradigm of teaching and learning that encourages us to abandon the constraints of old habituated ways of thinking, learning, communicating, designing, and reacting (el-hussein & cronje, 2010). it opened up new robertson & dasoo: the mobile learning conscious tutor 157 dramatically and more student voices were heard in the tutorials for, activities were fun the continual discussions in and out of the tutorial periods allowed tutees to interact more and give their views at any time. there was no triction and tutees were allowed to respond in their own time, even outside of the tutorial time. this meant that tutees absent or late for a tutorial could still be part of discussions and have an idea of what had happened. figure 5 shows that the topic regarding authentic assessment received 301 comments. the responses included video clips, memes, the content. outside to meet tutees’ needs. therefore, mobile learning brings forth a sense of autonomy, agency, empowerment, and mobile learning opens minds to the possibility of a radically new paradigm of teaching and learning that encourages us to abandon the constraints of old habituated ways of thinking, learning, . it opened up new 158 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 learning opportunities built around each tutee and their personal choices of where, when, and how to learn. this cultivated new learning opportunities that are relevant to tutees’ day day activities, and where tutees can learn together and from each other. figure 6: authenticity is appreciated limitations to the study participating tutees and tutors registered for one module gave insightful contributions to this investigation. the research sample is however limited to tutees and tutors of the tst20b2 module who volunteered to participate. we recommend repeating this study in more modules. furthermore, this study focused on the role of the tutor, therefore, tutors’ personality traits should be considered given that they could lead to a difference in the implementation and outcomes been considered to show whether tutees cyber bullying could not be dealt with fully and conversations around cyber bullying and online safety were limited. we suggest that in any online participation, serious measures regarding the risks involved should be thoroughly examined not withstanding that uj policy on social media. it is important that students are aware of policies as well as safety and risk concerns involving online participation. journal of education, no. 76, 2019 learning opportunities built around each tutee and their personal choices of where, when, and how to learn. this cultivated new learning opportunities that are relevant to tutees’ day d where tutees can learn together and from each other. limitations to the study participating tutees and tutors registered for one module gave insightful contributions to this rch sample is however limited to tutees and tutors of the tst20b2 module who volunteered to participate. we recommend repeating this study in more modules. furthermore, this study focused on the role of the tutor, therefore, tutors’ ld be considered given that they could lead to a difference in the s of mobile learning. grading data of the participants could have been considered to show whether tutees did actually learn. ethical considerations such as ullying could not be dealt with fully and conversations around cyber bullying and online safety were limited. we suggest that in any online participation, serious measures regarding the risks involved should be thoroughly examined not withstanding that uj policy on social media. it is important that students are aware of policies as well as safety and risk concerns involving online participation. learning opportunities built around each tutee and their personal choices of where, when, and how to learn. this cultivated new learning opportunities that are relevant to tutees’ day-to participating tutees and tutors registered for one module gave insightful contributions to this rch sample is however limited to tutees and tutors of the tst20b2 module who volunteered to participate. we recommend repeating this study in more modules. furthermore, this study focused on the role of the tutor, therefore, tutors’ ld be considered given that they could lead to a difference in the of mobile learning. grading data of the participants could have ethical considerations such as ullying could not be dealt with fully and conversations around cyber bullying and online safety were limited. we suggest that in any online participation, serious measures regarding the risks involved should be thoroughly examined not withstanding that uj has a policy on social media. it is important that students are aware of policies as well as safety and robertson & dasoo: the mobile learning conscious tutor 159 conclusion a major finding in this study is that tutors have the potential to influence tutees to use their devices for academic use. a blended learning approach where online and face-to-face efforts are implemented in tutorials has proven most effective. the role of the tutor needs to be restructured and repackaged to accommodate technology to meet tutees’ learning needs. the results presented in this study reveal a growing interest in mobile learning and in facebook, in particular. tutors are mostly employed to assist lecturers to reiterate and clarify concepts, and to assist lecturers with various administrative duties. in this study, we aimed to explore tutors’ potential to contribute more during face-to-face tutorials and online environments. it was evident from the data that tutors could positively drive this dynamic method of learning due to peer relations, their own interest, the use of new technologies, and the acceptance of facebook for mobile learning. the implementation of mobile learning dealt with several challenges that both tutees and tutors faced. the research questions were: “how do tutors use facebook to enhance the way in which they tutor?” and “how do tutees experience the implementation of facebook during tutorials?” the 21st century students displayed an awareness that there should be a change in how tutoring is conducted. perhaps, with observation and supervision from lecturers and senior tutors and with the inclusion of tutor’s ideas, this approach might lead to mobile learning being incorporated in lectures as well. several tutees nostalgically appreciated traditional tutoring methods, possibly because some did not have mobile devices. these tutees suggested that traditional methods of tutoring should remain. it is our view that a blended learning tutorial approach would be a pedagogically and socially just consideration. given technological advancements, there is no question that mobile learning is the way forward in tutoring and tutorials. this, however, does not imply a complete jettison of traditional learning approaches, which retain positive aspects. the successful implementation of mobile learning by using facebook as a discussion forum requires extensive preparation, training, and planning for tutors. a partnership between what the lecturer lectures and what and how tutors tutor will ensure successful implementation of mobile learning. we propose that mobile devices be incorporated in both the lectures and tutorial spaces. also, discussion forums should be established in lectures to create a link that continues into tutorials. including mobile devices requires proper planning for a successful implementation that prioritises content knowledge that is carefully and correctly discussed. planning can allay fears of security risks that arise from online discussion forums. security measures need to be emphasised to the tutees, tutors, and lecturers in order to minimise or eliminate possible cyber abuse. a strong online administrative presence from tutors is required to monitor the online space to ensure the safety of tutees. a strong awareness of online safety policies to protect students ought to be part of this project. the data revealed that tutees and tutors enjoyed collaboration. mobile devices can be introduced and incorporated in group activities. this has the potential to lead to valuable interactions and collaboration within the structured lecture venue and beyond lecture venues 160 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 and times, however, network technologies are essential in enabling practices and sharing among cops (hoadley, 2012). collaboration strengthened the cop formed amongst the students as the activities carried out individually and in groups were solutions to problems in the virtual community based on tutorial rules and community expectations. mobile learning through collaboration, flexibility, teamwork and authentic learning environments underline cop. facebook has great potential to encourage the use of devices for learning. the tutor, however, remains a crucial component of the process. the support and inclusion of tutors at heis is indispensable for the inclusion of technology and mobile devices in lecture venues to succeed. this study shows that tutors remain relevant; if given the opportunity, they can be productive to the benefits of student, lecturers, and the institution. indeed, tutors’ influence reaches to the future of mobile learning and remains relevant to the fourth industrial revolution in which uj as an institution wishes to participate. we propose that this paper contributes to both tutoring practices and tutoring policy. we suggest that mobile learning should be considered, and social media platforms be incorporated in tutor practices and the tutoring processes of institutions’ tutoring policies. there is a need to implement practical training for the 21st century students’ learning needs and practical training on the implementation of technological advances such as mobile learning. the training should include ethical considerations because of online risks such as cyber bullying. there should be stronger emphasis placed on a zero-tolerance policy and cyber bullying should be a behaviour that is emphasised as being a code-of-conduct violation. this, together with the sanctions, should be outlined explicitly in learning guides and learning management systems online for both the students and staff. there is limited research on tutor processes involving mobile learning in south africa, therefore, we recommend that more research should be undertaken in this area. comparative studies with other heis in south africa and africa may help to determine where heis still have to develop and what south africa’s strengths and weakness are compared to other countries in the world. references alhassan, m. n., amoah, a. c., & anyanful, v. k. 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(1998). communities of practice: the social fabric of a learning organization. new york, ny: cambridge university press. wenger, e. (2014). communities of practice: a brief introduction. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235413087_communities_of_practice_a_b rief_introduction woodill, g. (2012). moving from e-learning to m-learning. canadian learning journal, 16(2), 34–35 yin, k. (2009). case study research design and methods (4th ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. microsoft word c8900 full issue 12dec.docx journal of education, 2022 issue 89, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i89a02 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x exploring the use of assessment for learning in the mathematics classroom sizwe b mahlambi curriculum and instructional studies, college of education, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa emahlasb@unisa.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5691-8214 geesje van den berg curriculum and instructional studies, college of education, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa vdberg@unisa.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0306-4427 ailwei s mawela curriculum and instructional studies, college of education, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa mawelas@unisa.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7043-8716 (received: 19 september 2020; accepted: 21 april 2021) abstract assessment for learning is useful in producing feedback that mathematics teachers may utilise to enhance classroom teaching. in this study, we look at how mathematics teachers in alexandra township, south africa, utilise assessment for learning (afl) to create a classroom culture that responds to learners' knowledge acquisition. this study used a qualitative technique within an interpretivist paradigm and a case study design. we purposively selected nine grade 6 primary school mathematics teachers. data, collected through face-toface semi-structured interviews, non-participant classroom observation, and documents, was analysed using qualitative data analysis. results revealed, first, that the participants understand afl as those activities given in class at the end of the lesson to measure learner understanding. second, data revealed that the participants depend on textbooks for afl activities that do not always take learners’ contexts into account. finally, the study revealed afl challenges because teachers teach mathematics in a language other than the learners’ home language. we recommend that in-service teachers attend several assessment developmental workshops to help them focus on pedagogical practices that will improve afl implementation. keywords: assessment for learning, mathematics, grade 6, teachers, transformative learning 24 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 background and introduction of the study in 2003, the first democratically elected president of south africa, dr nelson mandela, remarked that “education is the most powerful tool we can use to change the world.” (para. 13) access to quality education is a human right that is enshrined in the south african constitution (republic of south africa, 1994). quality education equips an individual with the ability to interpret things correctly and to apply the gathered information in real-life scenarios (thangeda et al., 2016). in the case of south africa, a worrying factor, though, is that disadvantaged learners continue to fall behind, leading to situations in which “remediation is almost impossible due to learning gaps over the years” (spaull, 2013: 6). spaull’s assertion is backed up by international results such as trends in international mathematics and science study (timss, 2019) that indicated that south african learners perform among the lowest in mathematics. noteworthy here is the fact that public schools in the department of basic education (dbe), differ enormously with the better performing schools catering to 25% of learners and the underperforming sector to 75% (spaull, 2013). this draws our attention to classroom practices that are meant to improve learners’ academic performance. in this research paper, we look at assessment, especially assessment for learning, as a tool useful for addressing learner performance in mathematics. according to the department of basic education (2011), continuous assessment is integral to the teaching and learning process; it incorporates baseline, formative (assessment for learning), diagnostic, and summative assessments. a vital role of assessment is the development of feedback that is used for a variety of purposes. baseline assessment assists the teacher to discover what learners know and can do. formative assessment points to the improvement of teaching and learning while diagnostic assessment is used to identify learning difficulties, and summative assessment to determine the overall performance (dreyer, 2014). classroom assessments go beyond the teacher merely receiving information about what learners know and what they can or cannot do. umugiraneza et al. (2017, p. 3), suggested that all assessments undertaken should assist the teacher and the learners “to acquire information applied to adjust teaching and learning.” for instance, the use of afl should help the teacher develop feedback that is used to improve teaching and learning (black & william, 1998). mathematics teachers use afl to create a classroom environment that responds to learner knowledge development and supports the learning of mathematics. many learners never develop solid mathematics concepts and skills, and this is evident in the results of large-scale assessments such as timms that is conducted every four years and even previous rounds of the annual national assessments (ana) (department of basic education, 2015). because mathematics is a cumulative subject in which concepts are built upon through grades (department of basic education, 2011), the lack of a properly laid foundation may result in learners finding mathematics difficult (bojuwoye et al., 2014). therefore, creating an environment that links the progression and learning of a concept is vital to the mathematics mahlambi et al.: exploring the use of assessment for learning in the mathematics classroom 25 classroom. teachers have to continually “create a dynamic system in which learning targets, associated learning paths are all subject to continuous improvement to guide pedagogy and curriculum implementation actively” (confrey, 2019, p. 4). therefore, there is a need to create classroom conditions that stimulate intervention for learner support, hereafter referred to as classroom culture. classroom culture has been defined by hussein (2016) as both the learners’ and the teacher’s acceptable classroom instruction behaviour. fat (2015, p. 1) defined it as an association of “values, beliefs, expectations and behaviours which prevails in the classroom, conditioning its performance.” according to garibay (2015), classroom culture is an environment that is conducive to learning, in which learners will feel safe, valued, respected, and encouraged to demonstrate their potential. according to hongboontri and keawkhong (2014), a classroom culture is unique and distinctive in arising from the context to influence how teachers and learners behave. although every grade 6 mathematics classroom is diverse and unique, it is the mathematics teacher’s responsibility to create an enabling learning culture that encapsulates and responds to their classroom realities (banks, 2014). therefore, the quality of classroom culture is crucial to teaching, learning, and responding to the needs of learners. in diverse classrooms, with learners progressing and learning at different rates and levels, interventions should be implemented to aid learning for all. the journey toward creating an inclusive classroom culture that supports teaching and learning is not an easy undertaking. the lived experiences of the teacher and the learners create a unique culture that affects the learners’ social and academic abilities to meet desired goals (zulfiquar & zamir, 2015). classroom culture is inextricably linked to peoples’ view of the world, their identity in relation to the classroom environment, and their thinking processes (hussein, 2016). therefore, as determined by the teacher and the learner, classroom culture will establish how they respond to the material placed before them. corroborating this view, altum (2013) contended that classroom culture is a vital element that influences quality in practice. a classroom culture responsive to learners’ needs is democratic; learners take full responsibility for their learning but ascribe to certain principles such as attentive listening, appreciation, not using put-downs, maintaining the right to pass or participate, and showing mutual respect (hussein 2016). drawing on wojcicki (2002), hussein suggested that all share control in the classroom in which the mathematics teacher works as a facilitator and a teacher and believes that learners can achieve. additionally, the planned curriculum must be relevant to real life and must make sense to the learner. wojcicki (2002) believed that the teacher should model desirable behaviour, exhibit a passion for the subject and/or for teaching, and be seen by learners as fair, knowledgeable, unbiased, willing to help, and easily approachable. although afl application has been mandatory and its effects on learning and teaching documented (black & william, 2018; cambridge assessment international education, 2017; higgins, 2014), a variety of variables obstruct its alignment in classroom practice (carless, 2011; lumadi, 2008; udoba, 2014). among these factors are teachers’ lack of understanding 26 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 of afl practices (moges, 2018), their lack of afl pedagogical knowledge (izci, 2016) and the unwillingness of learners to participate in their learning (aziz et al., 2018). this research was undertaken to probe the matters related to afl practices in mathematics classrooms in more depth. the following research question guided this study: how do primary school teachers in alexandra township use assessment for learning in the teaching of mathematics? in this article, we examine the mathematics teacher’s role in creating a classroom culture using assessment for learning that improves learning. literature review the literature review focuses on afl in the mathematics classroom, teachers’ competency in planning assessment activities, the language of teaching and learning in the assessment activities, the importance of assessment for learning feedback, and integrating learners’ context in the afl activities. we view these aspects as playing an essential role in creating a classroom culture that responds to learners’ needs through afl. assessment for learning in the mathematics classroom assessment is a critical component and is integral to teaching and learning mathematics in grade 6 and assisting the teacher to explore what learners can do. using assessment, mathematics teachers can collect, analyse, and interpret learner information to make informed decisions about the next step in instruction (department of basic education, 2011; jabbafar, 2009). to address classroom instruction, afl has been touted as a tool to engage and assist both the teacher and the learner (yelkpieri et al., 2012). the use of afl in mathematics is meant to develop feedback to improve learning (dreyer & mawela, 2020). moreover, afl helps the teacher to plan for the next teaching step (cambridge assessment of international education, 2017). the core emphasis of afl practice is to assist the teacher in responding to the needs of diverse learners in their classrooms (tlale, 2013) and to move the focus from direct instruction to engaging learners in their learning by helping them construct conceptual understanding themselves (lai et al., 2019). informed by seminal research that afl practices can improve learner achievement (black & wiliam, 1998), the south african department of basic education (dbe) has made significant changes to the assessment policy. the development of the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) is aimed mainly at improving mathematics teaching, assessment, and learning (department of basic education, 2011), by requiring mathematics teachers to use afl to provide feedback to learners and address gaps so that further learning can take place. afl, viewed as a tool teachers can employ to improve learning in their classrooms (black & wiliam 2006; stobart, 2008), adopts a learner-centred approach to classroom instruction in helping the teacher to identify learners’ academic needs (wilson, mahlambi et al.: exploring the use of assessment for learning in the mathematics classroom 27 2005). however, das et al. (2017, p. 41) warned that afl “carried out too frequently, impedes students’ independent learning.” learners become dependent on the teacher and other learners without putting effort into their learning. teachers’ competency in planning assessment activities to be an effective teacher requires a combination of pedagogical skills, and assessing learners is one of them. practical classroom assessment is determined by good planning (arafah & sihes, 2015) to check how learners progress towards meeting educational objectives (maki, 2002). afl is used to determine if learners have grasped the concept taught and to reinforce what is learnt. teachers’ afl pedagogical skills often become visible in planning for learner assessment (kim et al., 2019), where the teacher links the activities to what is being taught (nesari & heidari, 2014). teachers must have a clear objective in relation to what the learner should be able to do and the skills that they want learners to demonstrate. planned assessment, therefore, assists the teacher in remaining focused on the objective of the lesson. another dimension involved in teacher planning is the ability to infuse competency skills in the assessment activities. the caps for mathematics intermediate phase outlines the content and concepts to be taught over the four terms and indicates the cognitive levels for grade 6 that the teacher should consider when planning afl activities). afl activities should be appropriate to the age and cognitive levels of learners (department of basic education, 2011). planned activities, therefore, allow the teacher to ensure that there is a coherent flow of skills between teaching and learning and that this is applied in the activities completed by the learners. according to musingafi et al. (2015), planning a lesson and assessment assists a teacher in many different ways: • the teacher follows correct steps and procedures in teaching; • time is not wasted in the class since the period of one lesson must be used to cover the day’s lesson topic; • meaningful objectives are pursued in the lesson; • activities are related to the content and objective; • instructional materials are adequately selected and utilised; • proper evaluation procedures and tools are used; • a substitute teacher can use the lesson plan to hold on to the class; and • the most important content is identified for learners. (p. 58) commenting on planning, kekahio et al. (2014) suggested that teachers identify and plan to use relevant resources to aid concrete concept development. the use of resources in classroom instruction “enhance[s] curriculum delivery, meets the needs of learners, and enhances [s] pupils’ enrolment and retention” (okongo et al., 2015, p. 140). therefore, using resources assists the teacher in lesson differentiation that includes tailoring the lesson to the different learning styles and capabilities of learners. a study by okongo et al. (2015) concluded that learners were more engaged and that they enjoyed the lessons in which 28 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 resources were used. in planning, the teacher must have a comprehensive perspective of the curriculum flow from learning intentions to assessment activities. language of teaching and learning in the assessment activities language is central to classroom instruction. mathematics assessment requires that both the teacher and the learner communicate effectively (mulwa, 2014). for learners to succeed, they must be assisted to acquire the correct vocabulary of mathematics. the language used in mathematics is both the “means of communication and an instrument of thought” (khalid & tengah, 2007, p. 2). the language of mathematics assessment is relevant because the language of learning and teaching (lolt) in the south african context usually differs from learners’ home language (hl). it is assumed that the learner reaches grade 6 when proficiency in lolt has been reached. however, if this is not the case, this could affect learner performance. this statement aligns with that of henderson and wellington (1998), who pointed to the link between the language used in the mathematics assessment and the quality of learners’ work. this means that the language in which the content is being assessed plays a significant role in understanding the activities they have to complete. rollnick (1998) pointed out that teachers cannot overlook the impact language has on learners’ assessment, and de backer et al. (2019) contended that it is detrimental to ignore the impact of language on learning. the international assessment pirls found that south african grade 4 learners were performing well below the international centre point of 500 (howie et al., 2012). the poor reading ability of south african learners whose hl is not english is related directly to poor mathematics performance (prinsloo et al., 2018). aljohani (2017) proposed that mathematics teachers should consider learners’ language proficiency when developing afl activities since proficiency in lolt plays a role in how learners comprehend content. language proficiency here denotes learners’ ability to communicate mathematically through active engagement with mathematical concepts and vocabulary (moschkovich, 2013). sarabi and abdul (2017) posited that mathematics teachers often neglect the mathematical language learners need to develop. how learners communicate their ideas in mathematical discourse may be influenced by their english proficiency (vukovic & lesaux, 2013; zhu et al., 2015). also, learners’ lack of proficiency in english could limit their ability to communicate with other classroom members. this means that learners have to contend with issues related to lolt and with mathematical concepts and terms (riccomini et al., 2015). according to white paper 6 (department of education, 2001), no south african learner should be disadvantaged in any form. every learner has a right to an education that does not pose a barrier to learning so teachers should be aware of learners’ english proficiency during the teaching and learning process, particularly when developing afl activities (dreyer, 2014). for this reason, every effort should be made to ensure that difficulties with lolt in mathematics in grade 6 do not hinder the progress of a learner. mahlambi et al.: exploring the use of assessment for learning in the mathematics classroom 29 the importance of assessment for learning feedback afl is believed to improve classroom instruction because it provides feedback that the teacher and learners can use to decide the next step in the teaching and learning process. there is consensus that feedback is imperative to support learning and progress (ahea et al., 2016). feedback teaches learners the quality of work expected of them (agbayahoun, 2016; brookhart, 2008); it encourages learning, improves concept development and processing, and motivates learners to perform (davis & dargusch, 2010; nahadi et al., 2015). both written and verbal feedback are essential in mathematics learning. on the one hand, using written feedback, the teacher can correct errors to indicate individual learners’ misconceptions regarding mathematical concepts (razali & jupri, 2016). furthermore, oral feedback provides a platform on which the teacher and the learner can engage, debate, and the teacher can make provisions for learners to justify their assertions (li et al., 2016). integrating learners’ contexts in assessment for learning activities learners’ backgrounds are influential in determining their mathematics performance (lamb, 1997), and teachers’ abilities to support learner performance in diverse contexts have received attention in recent times. since south africa is a multicultural and diverse country, this indicates a need for teachers to acknowledge individual learner demands and trajectories through differentiated instruction. therefore, when mathematics teachers teach and assess learners, they need to understand where learners come from, how they interact with the world around them, and how they relate to the concepts presented through mathematics (fenwick & cooper, 2013). classroom realities such as learners’ language proficiency (cummins, 1979, 1981) and overcrowded classrooms (khan & iqbal, 2012) adversely affect classroom practices. learners’ ability to understand and communicate depends on their language development (khatib & taie, 2016). to understand what is presented in the assessment, learners should be able to speak and write the subject’s registers (cummins, 2000). ayeni and olowe (2016) pointed out that overcrowded classrooms limit teachers from identifying the challenges of individual learners and giving individualised feedback to aid learning. learner experiences are found to either facilitate or hinder their active participation and interaction (mavuru & ramnarain, 2018) with their context, forming a foundation that builds up ideas and understanding of the world around them (lindsay, 2011). for this reason, mathematics teachers should be able to use the context of learners’ cultural background, prior knowledge, and experience (darling-hammond, et al., 2020) in supporting conceptual understanding. theoretical framework we used principles of mezirow’s transformative learning theory (1978, 1991) to investigate how nine grade 6 mathematics teachers from alexandra township use afl practices to create an environment that responds to learners’ academic needs. mezirow identified two types of transformation—epochal and gradual. epochal transformation occurs when the learner’s meaning perspective shifts very quickly, while incremental transformation results from small shifts in the meaning schema that happen over time. mezirow (1989) 30 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 delineated that while social interaction is crucial and desirable, being fully involved remains the learner’s decision. a teacher’s role is to `support and help the learner develop appropriate action to overcome whatever limitations may hinder social involvement. the south african curriculum aims to ensure that learners acquire and apply knowledge and skills in meaningful ways to their lives within local contexts while taking into account global imperatives (department of basic education, 2011). therefore, our theoretical viewpoint resonates with mezirow’s (1978) transformative learning theory based on the psychological perspective of understanding the self, the conventional revision of belief systems, and behavioural lifestyle changes. according to mezirow (1978), transformative theory accepts that transformation occurs when skills and knowledge are no longer functional to deal with anomalies in a new situation. in mathematics teaching and learning, educational objectives are set in terms of the expected teacher behaviour and skills needed to fulfil curricular responsibilities (department of basic education, 2016). according to the personnel administrative measures (department of basic education, 2016), mathematics teachers must plan assessments, consider new approaches, and establish a stimulating classroom environment, aimed at developing a classroom culture conducive to learning. afl practices have been found to assist mathematics teachers in ensuring that their environment (classroom) responds to learners’ needs (banks & banks, 1995). responsive teachers create supportive classroom environments and build developmental connections with their learners to promote achievement. a classroom culture that responds to learners’ needs focuses on teachers’ behaviour, beliefs, and customs that shape learner action and offer insight into sustainable performance improvement (shava & heystek, 2019). research design and methods this qualitative study is part of a larger doctoral study (reference: 19/08/14/6195405/20/mc) that explored how mathematics teachers apply afl to enhance teaching and learning in grade 6 in alexandra township in south africa. a case study is an “intensive, systematic investigation of a single individual, group, community in which a researcher examines indepth data relating to several variables” (heale & twycross, 2018, p. 7). the case study model was chosen because it allowed us to interact with the participants from within and to observe the natural world in practice (see cohen et al., 2018). the interpretive paradigm enabled us to identify teacher meaning making attached to the phenomenon under investigation. according to kivunja and kuyini (2017), this paradigm allows researchers to interact with the participants as they interpret the world around them. sample size and selection criteria purposive sampling was regarded as appropriate to identify nine participants who were, at the time of the study, teaching grade 6 mathematics at different schools. the research participants were purposively selected from nine primary schools in alexandra township that falls under the johannesburg east district in south africa. grade 6 was selected because it is an exit grade of the intermediate phase (grades 4–6). learners are in their third year of mahlambi et al.: exploring the use of assessment for learning in the mathematics classroom 31 learning and being assessed in mathematical skills using english as lolt and not their hl. the researchers, therefore, wanted to explore how mathematics teachers use afl practices to create an environment that responds to learners’ academic needs. data collection procedures face-to-face semi-structured interviews, non-participant observation, and document analysis were used to collect data. semi-structured interviews based on an interview schedule were used to elicit mathematics teachers’ understanding of afl and feedback in creating a classroom environment that responds to classroom needs (creswell, 2010). non-participant observation offered the researchers an opportunity to observe how mathematics teachers and learners interacted and how they used the assessment activities to develop feedback (creswell & creswell, 2018). as researchers, therefore, we had a direct encounter with the participants in the process of documenting the afl application as it happened in the classroom. during the non-participant observation, we sat at the back of the classroom and did not interfere with classroom instruction. we analysed a variety of mathematics teachers’ documents for planning, teaching, and assessment for insight into how the phenomenon under investigation was unfolding (see flick, 2009). the documents under scrutiny were lesson plans, afl activities, and the caps document. we analysed the activities to identify if the caps document’s cognitive levels were being catered for and whether the knowledge dimensions were being met (see kilbane & milman, 2014; krathwohl, 2002). data analysis the findings were generated from the data obtained in nine face-to-face semi-structured interviews, non-participant observations, and document analysis. qualitative data analysis was used to interpret and make sense of the data (flick, 2013; gibbs, 2012). we read the collected data carefully and created themes following creswell (2013) and transformed all this into clear and understandable material (see gibbs, 2012). ethics and consent the university’s ethics committee granted ethical clearance for this research (certificate ref.2019/08/14/61954705/20/mc). written permission to conduct the research was granted by the gauteng province: department of basic education (ref.2018/327), johannesburg east district, and grade 6 mathematics teachers. to protect participants’ identities, we used pseudonyms (mt#1–mt#9). we used data collection instruments, semi-structured interviews, and non-participatory observation for triangulation to ensure the study’s trustworthiness. limitations of the study since this study used a qualitative approach, its potential to be generalised to other contexts is restricted. the research population of nine participants was relatively small, considering the problem under study. we could not do follow-up interviews, and in some instances, interviews had to be rescheduled because of teacher commitments. 32 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 research findings from the data analysis, the following themes emerged: teacher understanding of afl practices; teacher planning of assessment activities; learner context in the assessment activities; and assessment feedback to reflect on teaching and learning. each theme is discussed below. theme 1: teacher understanding of afl practices we believe that afl’s application in mathematics helps to create a classroom culture that responds to learners’ needs. classroom culture is, in this case, a set of identity characteristics and classroom traditions that the teachers and learners use to improve teaching and learning by making use of afl feedback. data collected from the participants during interviews and non-participatory observation indicated that teachers understand the concept of afl in mathematics. when asked what their understanding of afl is, teachers responded by saying: assessment for learning are activities given to learners after a lesson to check their understanding of the concept taught. (mt#4) it is classroom activities that i use to measure how learners are progressing in understanding a mathematical concept taught. (mt#7) their responses show clearly that afl is aimed at helping the learner. however, teachers seem to view afl as a practice that removes them from the equation and that concentrates only on learners even though the literature also indicates that afl helps the teacher to use feedback for planning to meet learners’ needs (alufohai & akinlosotu, 2016). another participant teacher highlighted the need for afl practices to indicate the summative performance of learners in mathematics: it is the assessment that is done on a daily basis to give an idea of how learners will perform in the summative assessment. (mt#6) the participant teachers’ responses that reflect their partial understanding and application of afl, can be linked to the need to develop a better understanding of assessment that incorporates teacher, self, peer, and group assessment. these methods assist the learners and the teacher in developing feedback used to move teaching and learning forward (wiliam, 2013). mathematics teachers’ knowledge of the impact and benefits of applying these methods becomes vital since it will assist in creating a classroom environment that is responsive to learners’ needs and will assist learners in achieving the desired education goals of learning mathematics in grade 6. one crucial aspect lacking in their understanding is how afl assists the teacher in improving mathematics teaching. teachers might receive feedback from afl activities, yet nothing is done about it. observation revealed that feedback is assumed to be about giving corrections on the board and learners copying these into their books. there was no significant interaction between the teachers and the learners on the challenges learners encountered during the completion of the activities. mahlambi et al.: exploring the use of assessment for learning in the mathematics classroom 33 theme 2: teacher planning of assessment activities the non-participatory observation revealed that mathematics teachers give learners assessment activities to complete once a concept has been taught. of the nine participants, only two produced activities they had developed themselves. the other participants used only assessment activities taken from caps-aligned textbooks. this was confirmed by these statements: the caps document tells us what to teach and what schemes to assess, and all my classroom activities come from the textbook. (mt#7) i do not develop afl activities; i usually use the activities that are in the textbooks i use for teaching mathematics. (mt#6) using already prepared material is good because it is readily available, and the activities in the textbooks have been verified and approved by dbe. however, since those approved textbook activities might not apply to the learners’ specific context, it is the mathematics teacher’s responsibility to interact with appropriate activities and make whatever adjustments are necessary. on developing assessment activities, one teacher said, when i develop assessment activities, i start from simple to complex questions; that way, learners can show me what they can or cannot do. (mt#9) the ability of a teacher to ask questions is central to teaching and learning. as stipulated by the department of basic education (2011), the cognitive levels require teachers to use bloom’s taxonomy when developing assessment activities. mt#9, therefore, demonstrates the understanding of applying this taxonomy in afl activities. according to policy, afl has the purpose of continually collecting information about learner performance that can be used to improve their learning (department of basic education 2011). as mentioned previously, informal assessment entails daily monitoring of learners’ progress conducted through a variety of activities. informal assessment should be used to provide feedback to learners and inform planning for teaching (department of basic education, 2011). document analysis indicated that many teachers did not have assessment policies to guide them regarding when and how the afl activities should be developed and administered. yet, it should be noted that teachers were using curriculum-aligned lesson plans and textbooks, and we, as researchers, considered the two resources adequate. theme 3: learner context in the assessment activities during the analysis of the documents, it was revealed that participant teachers did not consider the learners’ context and their environment. the activities did not include the reality and experiences of learners in alexandra township, south africa. for example, while teachers dealt with data handling and analysis and interpreting double bar graphs, most 34 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 comparisons were made between countries and cities outside of south africa or other provinces in south africa. using contextualised graphs would make it easier for learners to understand all this. besides, during the non-participatory observations, we saw that learners struggled with activities because of the language used in them. participant teachers had to spend time clarifying the activities to learners. in some cases, synonymous terms were used for teaching and assessment, and the teacher had to make the link between the terms. when they defined a “mean”, most teachers used the word “average” and explained how to calculate average scores. yet, the assessment activity required the learners to calculate the mean, and at times learners had to answer questions about what it “means” to describe the scores. this presented a barrier in that they had to move between spoken and mathematical registers in english. it should be noted that the participant teachers were aware of the barrier posed by the language because of the contextual factors related to lolt that learners have not mastered. for example, one teacher said, english poses a threat to the teaching and assessment of learners, and without the help of the teacher, learners cannot complete the activity given to them. it is tiring to reteach a concept in the assessment activity. (mt#1) it is evident from the response above that mathematics teachers are frustrated by the lack of language proficiency that is a barrier to learning. the participant teachers’ responses indicate that learners struggle to complete assessment activities in part because of poor language proficiency. this means that the teachers need to consider the learner context in the teaching and learning process, particularly in creating and designing the afl activities. theme 4: assessment feedback to learners it became apparent when interviewing participant teachers that they see feedback as part of their teaching and learning. teachers’ utterances correspond with assessment policy requirements concerning feedback that states that afl feedback should assist “learners and teachers close the gaps in learners’ knowledge and skills and improve teaching” (department of basic education 2012, p. 3). participant teachers responded: well, feedback assists me in knowing how to plan for my class, and on the other hand, the learners become aware of the gaps in their learning. (mt#8) i think feedback assists in stimulating learners’ thinking, helping them in understanding themselves and what they have to do in the future. (mt#1) participant teachers also cited the need to use afl to monitor learners’ progress in mathematics and use the outcome to improve how they learn. mathematics is a challenging subject; afl and its feedback help learners build their self-esteem towards what is expected of them taking control over their learning. (mt#4) mahlambi et al.: exploring the use of assessment for learning in the mathematics classroom 35 it became clear from the findings that the participant teachers understood the value of feedback in driving the teaching and learning process. however, in the classes observed, the feedback was somewhat limited, and corrections were written on the chalkboard. there was a little discussion between the teachers and learners concerning how answers were derived. the classrooms lacked the collaborative engagements suggested in the transformative theory view of afl practice. besides, participant teachers did not check learners’ books for errors or any misconceptions. the feedback provided by the participant teachers did not attend to individual learners’ needs, and the time spent did not make any observable improvements to the learning. learners hurriedly copied what was written on the board without engagement with their teachers and/or peers. according to policy, regular feedback should be provided to learners to enhance the learning experience (department of basic education, 2011) and allow learners to become aware of their strengths and identify their weaknesses or areas on which they need to work. although we agree with the policy’s requirements, the classroom environment did not allow individual learner attention. in addition, classroom overcrowding is of significant concern for the attainment of any educational goals. discussion and conclusion this study was conducted to explore the role of mathematics teachers in creating a classroom culture that improves learning using afl. in this paper, we throw light on teacher understanding of afl in improving classroom instruction. the results show that teachers realise the importance of afl in the teaching and learning of mathematics. they assert that afl activities allow for the development of feedback (dreyer, 2014). feedback is a response to learners’ needs and helps create an environment that attends to learners’ academic needs (lui, 2012). first, this study reported that the focus of afl practices should be the use of its outcome to create a classroom environment that considers learners’ different needs about learning mathematics. kagete (2013) reported that because afl supports learner involvement that resembles teaching more than testing, it indicates that assessment is an integral part of the teaching and learning process. this means that mathematics teachers play an essential role as both facilitators and teachers (see hussein, 2016) in the successful creation of an environment that connects mathematics content with learners’ needs through their practice. second, rather than depending on the textbooks for activities, we suggest that mathematics teachers spend time creating activities that reflect learners’ context along with the content and concepts, but, most importantly, consider the various cognitive levels (knowledge, routine, complex and problem-solving) as outlined by the department of basic education, 2011: p. 296). the department of basic education (2015) suggested that textbooks may inspire classroom activities. however, ewing (2004) warned that most activities in textbooks are poorly thought out and written, focus on repetition, and cover the topic superficially. ewing went on to point out that such activities may be isolated from the learners’ real-world experiences. using appropriate contexts facilitates learner development in making links between ideas and concepts, showing them how mathematics relates to their everyday experiences (brown & redmond, 2017), and ensuring that assessment problems are meaningful (van den heuvel-panhuizen, 2005). 36 journal of education, no. 89, 2022 third, alexandra is a township, and english is the learners’ first additional language, so mathematics is taught in a language that is not their hl, and this puts them under pressure (molina, 2016). if mathematics teachers fail to attend to language challenges, they cannot determine whether learners’ underperformance reflects difficulties with language or with the concepts taught in mathematics (adoniou, 2014). according to cummins (1979), teachers should be aware of the relationship between learners’ language proficiency and academic performance. for learners, the acquisition of appropriate language skills that support academic abilities takes five to seven years (rampton et al., 2008), and at the grade 6 level, learners are only in their third year of learning mathematics in english, having started to do so in grade 4. finally, teachers and learners should use feedback from activities to create an environment that responds to learners’ mathematical needs. if feedback can “stimulate learning and selfunderstanding” (mt#1), mathematics teachers should use it to profile classroom needs aimed at meeting learning goals (weurlander et al., 2012). self-critique should be at the centre of transforming teachers’ practice to meet new classroom anomalies (christie et al., 2015). we suggest that the department of basic education and schools need to make significant efforts to assist mathematics teachers in understanding and using afl practices. the limitations in mathematics teachers’ knowledge of afl, according to this study, indicate a lack of understanding of how it influences their planning and teaching methods aimed at creating an environment that responds to learners’ needs. learners want to learn in a harmonious environment in which cooperation is encouraged and modelled (anthony & walshaw, 2009). therefore, mathematics teachers should examine how their assessment practices facilitate learners’ development in their classrooms (khedkar, 2016). central to transforming the environment and creating a classroom culture conducive to effective learning is the teacher’s ability to reflect on learner experiences to foster conditions that attend to their needs (calleja, 2014). professional development could greatly benefit teachers and help them find ways 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(2015). role of classroom culture in the academic learning of students at the university level. journal of literature, languages and linguistics, 13, 125–141. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.981.8810&rep=rep1&type =pdf journal of education, 2020 issue 79, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x editorial carol bertram bertramc@ukzn.ac.za schools and higher education institutions in south african closed in mid-march this year because of the covid-19 pandemic. this is an unprecedented experience that raises huge questions about the nature and purpose of schooling in south africa. the closing of schools and universities has highlighted very clearly the inequalities in our schooling and higher education systems. suburban schools were able, largely, to move to online teaching since most teachers and children have computers in their homes and access to the internet. thus, for the most part, middle-class children’s schooling has been uninterrupted. this is a vastly different experience to that of learners in rural and township schools who have no access to devices or data, or even network connectivity. these learners have thus lost eight weeks of formal schooling as at the time of writing. similarly, historically white universities have moved to online learning fairly seamlessly, while universities that serve poorer students have not yet been able to do so since many of their students do not have access to devices or to the internet. there are some who argue that this kind of crisis provides an opportunity for educators to embrace technology and who see technology as the panacea to all the challenges facing the education system. others argue that teachers are more vital than ever since they engage with learners and make professional judgements in ways that technology cannot. dominic griffiths and maria prozesky engage with the important question of the role of the teacher in education, arguing that teachers can be a transformative force in society. they use philosopher alasdair mcintyre’s notion of practice to argue that a focus on a practice like teaching, and the way in which this can develop virtues, offers one potential way to move forward in post-apartheid south africa. they argue that societal transformation cannot be mandated from the top through policies, but that we need to better understand how teacher practices may shape and inform moral and social traditions and thus may guide the societal transformation for which we hope. the study by ed campbell and rochelle kapp provides further insight relevant to the current focus on online learning. in the context of a teacher education programme for english teachers, they argue that it is important to start with the perceptions and preconceptions that teachers have about technology before forcing them to use it in their teaching. they make the case for an integrated situated approach to digital literacy that takes identities into account. in their article, they describe a qualitative case study of the digital practices and perceptions of 2 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 four pre-service english teachers. the study was motivated by their wanting to encourage student teachers of english to use technology more in their teaching. they focused on their four participants’ proficiency in relation to using digital technologies, rather than on the affordances that these technologies may provide for student learning. these findings were then used to inform the curriculum of the english methods course the following year which then focused more explicitly on providing authentic tasks that were modelled, and also included providing scaffolded reflections to assess how these tasks would support learning. the purpose was to help the student teachers connect theory and practice through carefully scaffolded dialogue. staying with the theme of the education of english teachers, peter merisi and ansurie pillay focus on student teachers’ perceptions about the learning of grammar. they argue that it is important to understand the student teachers’ beliefs about teaching grammar since these beliefs will influence their practice as teachers in the classroom. fifty fourth-year b.ed english education students completed a questionnaire, and 11 of these participants were also interviewed. of these, 80% have english as an additional language. most of the respondents believed that grammar should be taught explicitly. however, a number also said that grammar could be taught through communicative tasks and this seems to indicate the belief that both approaches are worthwhile. most of the study participants believed that they did not have a good knowledge of english grammar because they had not been well-taught at school and they believed that this may impact negatively on their teaching practices in the future. they had hoped to receive explicit grammar instruction at university, but they did not. this has implications for the curriculum, which currently takes a communicative approach to grammar teaching. still in the context of teacher education, vusi msiza, thabile zondi, and londiwe couch engage with the relevance of peer-assessment in the era of massification of higher education. they ask if peer-assessment is a useful strategy for lecturers to manage assessment in huge classes of students and argue that it is a practice that they should use more often. the context of their study is a teacher education faculty with large student enrolments. they interviewed nine lecturers to understand their perceptions and experiences of using peer assessment in their teaching. of the seven lecturers who used peer assessment, most used it only in fourth year since these students were seen to be more mature and able to assess their peers more meaningfully. some lecturers use it because the process of peer assessment is worthwhile to both the assessor and the one being assessed, and they believe that it is important for student teachers to understand and reflect on the process of assessment. the article by anita de melo and ludmylla mendes lima is also focussed on higher education and looks at portuguese as an additional language and on the possibilities of translanguaging, which refers to practices of language teaching in multilingual spaces and which uses the student’s full linguistic repertoire in the classroom. portuguese is offered at undergraduate level at five south african universities at present. these authors argue that materials for upper level courses in portuguese culture and literature in south africa would bertram:editorial 3 provide postcolonial approaches and interpretations that could lead to a pedagogy of translanguaging. the final two articles in this issue focus on lesotho in looking at the tourism curriculum and at women principals in this country. boitumelo moreeng, mzamane nlhapo, and motsélisi molebese look at tourism as a school subject in lesotho. tourism was introduced as a vocational subject in lesotho in 2011, with the aim of exposing learners to a hands-on and work-related curriculum that would enable them to confront head-on the challenges of poverty and unemployment. however, it became clear that many teachers continue to focus on only the academic textbook objectives of the subject, without addressing its vocational components. the authors report on a participatory study they conducted at a high school. members of the community, teachers, and learners worked together to decide how they could make the curriculum meaningful to the learners. learners were trained on how to make crafts by community members and were given space to sell these items at a nearby lodge. the participants then reflected on this process and their learning experiences, which provided a concrete example of how the subject could be made practical. there is minimal research on women principals in lesotho. moikabi komiti and pontso moorosi conducted in-depth interviews with eight women principals on their personal and professional lives. it is well-known that women’s advancement to senior positions in education is affected by various factors including culture, socio-political conditions, and gender regimes. the findings of this study reveal that family played a significant role in influencing women’s teaching career choices. three of the women actively planned to become a principal, while the others had not planned a leadership career. in line with other studies in this field, it is clear that the career advancement of these women principals was hindered by gendered discrimination at the work place and by family responsibilities. the issue closes with wayne hugo’s review of ursula hoadley’s book pedagogy in poverty: lessons from twenty years of curriculum reform in south africa (2018). hoadley has spent 20 years studying primary school classrooms in south africa and her book brings together aspects of her invaluable research that has been informed by the effect on pedagogy of the many different curriculum reforms of the past two decades. the construction of the african being in south african history textbooks marshall maposa abstract this study is rooted in the move by the south african government at the turn of the 21st century to spearhead the conception of what then president thabo mbeki referred to as an african renaissance. this move entailed cultivating an african consciousness; education being one of the key tools. with textbooks still playing a critical role in the education system, i analysed south african national curriculum statement-compliant history textbooks in order to understand the construction of the african being. i employed a critical discourse analysis methodology to analyse a sample of four contemporary south african history textbooks with a focus on the chapters that deal with post-colonial africa. at a descriptive level of analysis, the textbooks construct the african being as five-dimensional: the spatial, the physical, the philosophical, the cultural and the experiential notions. the interpretation is that the african being is constructed as multidimensional. i use postcolonial theory to explain that while the macro-level of power produces the dominant discourses, the micro-level of the citizen also contributes to the discourses that permeate the history textbooks. indeed, the production of textbooks is influenced by multifarious factors that when the discourses from the top and from below meet at the meso-level of textbook production, there is not just articulation but also resistance, thus producing heteroglossic representation of the african being. background, contextualization and introduction by the turn of the 21st century, the then south african president, thabo mbeki, had espoused the concept of an african renaissance as one of the objectives of his country’s domestic and foreign policy (mbeki, 1999). originally articulated by cheik anta diop from the 1946 to 1960, the african renaissance, in its idealistic sense, envisaged a marked shift in the form of african consciousness on which african unity, renewal and development can be based (diop, 2000). although the appeal of the african renaissance endeavour has diminished since the end of mbeki’s tenure in 2008, one of its significant impacts was the transmutation of the organisation of african unity (oau) into the african union (au) in 2002. 6 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 mbeki’s positioning of south africa in the african renaissance project is noteworthy if one considers south africa’s position on the african continent. south africa boasts one of the continent’s largest economies and its relative political stability has earned the country significant influence. nonetheless, it should be remembered that mbeki is quoted to have said on his return from exile: “it was very clear that something had happened in south african society, something that didn’t happen in any other african society. the repeated observation is that ‘these south africans are not quite african, they’re european’” (adebajo, 2004, p.175). therefore, mbeki’s (1996) i am an african speech of can be viewed as rebuttal of the notions of south african exceptionalism on the continent. it should be noted that the issue of the africanness in south africa is topical even in the present-day and more discussion of scholarly arguments on africanness will be done in the literature review section of this article. discourses at the macro-level also echo the scholarly arguments. for example, president zuma is quoted to have claimed: “even if i live in the highest building, i am an african . . . because if you are not an african, you cannot be a white, then what are you” (city press, 3/11/2012)? yet, despite such an unequivocal pronouncement, the same man brewed a storm with this contentious statement on debate over e-tolls: “we [south africans] can't think like africans in africa. it's not some national road in malawi” (mail & guardian, 22/10/ 2013). the two speeches by zuma quoted above show two things about discourses on africanness at the macro-level. on one hand, they uphold the africanness of south africans, the connotation being that black south africans are african. this discourse is not just unofficial, seeing as official documents in south africa mainly refer to africanness with racial connotations. for example the census results by statistics south africa (2012) stated that the racial groups found in south africa are black african, coloured, indian/asian, white and other. these official categories support the use of the term african with reference to black people. on the other hand, the second speech questions the africanness of south africans (including blacks). this contradiction can then be taken to be reflecting the contending discourses on africanness in south africa. it should be noted though, that there also exists another contending discourse on how everyone who lives in south africa is sometimes referred to as african. this is the case with thabo mbeki’s i am an african speech and the case of the 2010 fifa world cup during which slogans such as ‘we are all african’ were promoted and all maposa: the construction of the african being. . . 7 an example is the mogale city website which was headlined ‘welcome home:1 mogale city welcomes visitors, football fans and the 2010 fifa world cup teams to the city of human origin.’ participants and visitors were told they were ‘welcome home’ on the pretext that africa is from where all humankind, in an evolutionary sense came.1 discourses on africanness are also evident at the micro-level. for example, one khaya dlanga wrote on news24.com (4 january, 2011) that “white people are african too!” this was in response to an article by sentletse diakanyo titled “we are not all africans, black people are!” these social media engagements provide evidence of the debates on africanness in the south african context. evidently, there is no agreement on what constitutes an african being. while people do not necessarily always share the same point of view, there is need for a sustainable conception of africanness considering south africans have to interact with other africans. the interaction between south africans and people from other african countries has increased as a result of intensified immigration. according to statistics south africa (2013), 141 550 temporary resident permits were granted by the department of home affairs in 2012 alone, with the top two contributing countries being zimbabwe and nigeria. this excludes the large numbers of illegal immigrants that have found their way into south africa as economic and political refugees. there has never been any official confirmation of the number of illegal immigrants, but the south african police service (2009) estimated the number to be as much as six million, the majority being africans. considering the schisms that result from immigration, conceptions of the african being are important. harris (2002) assembled a collection of newspaper articles representing african foreigners as “a disease or a plague descending onto the country” (p.176). not only do the media influence its audience; they also write to satisfy a market, meaning that these negative discourses might be acceptable in certain sections of the society. this has been manifested by spurts of xenophobic violence, the worst of which was in 2008 when approximately 62 people died (mcknight, 2008). it should be cautioned though that xenophobia is not an exclusively south african phenomenon as there are numerous other cases throughout the african continent and the world (tadjo, 2008; duponchel, 2013). the issues raised above reflect some of the discourses on africanness within the south african context at both the macro and micro levels. one of the ways through which the tensions evident in such discourses can be eased is through 8 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 education, particularly school history. even the then department of education (2000, p.6) conceded that while everyone possessed a form of consciousness, “the value of the formal study of history is that it aims to develop this latent consciousness into a conscious consciousness”. this means that school history can also develop within learners an african consciousness. the officially sanctioned historical narratives can be found in textbooks. however, my literature search did not show any study that has been done on how history textbooks construct the african being. it is on the basis of such a background that i undertook this research with the following key question in mind: how is the african being constructed in contemporary south african history textbooks? the aim of the study was therefore to analyse the textbooks and understand the nature of the african being that is constructed therein. literature review i consulted literature that deals with discourses on africanness, which is, in other cases, referred to as africanity (dei, 1994; mazrui, 2005) or african personhood (fairfax, 2011). literature shows that the african being is not a straightforward construct. through history, the criteria that have been used to qualify one as an african ranged from geographical location, race, language, culture and attitude to experiences (armah, 1999). at a simple level, reference to geographical location or habitation is often used to determine who a person is. in this sense, for instance, an inhabitant of africa is basically then regarded as an african. while this is an easy criterion for africanness, it should be noted it has its complications. to confirm this, van dijk (2006, p.19) quotes south african writer, zakes mda to have asserted that, “until about 100 years ago the inhabitants of the continent did not generally refer to themselves as africans . . . they recognised and celebrated primarily various identities that were based on ethnicity, clan, family, gender and class.” and with increased globalisation and migration, defining africans by geographical location is now open to further criticism. in an effort to qualify africanness, mazrui (2005, p.70) maintains that all indigenous inhabitants of africa can be classified as “africans of the soil”. in reference to the same classification, dei (1994, p.3) labels himself “a continental african by birth.” while such classifications are meant to reduce uncertainty, both of them unwittingly have a connotation that there are africans of various kinds. maposa: the construction of the african being. . . 9 as noted earlier, bantu literally refers to people, although some linguists have adopted it as2 a linguistic classification. under apartheid it was a collective noun for black people. a related understanding is that africanness is determined by origin, implying that everyone who is of african heritage is an african. the problem with referring to origin from africa is that “not only is africa ‘the cradle of humankind’ but, from a genetic perspective, all people continue to be africans – at least more than anything else” (van dijk, 2006, p.25). while this argument has had scientific support, it remains problematic because there are other aspects – such as race and culture – that continue to be used to differentiate people of the world. regarding race, dei (1994, p.5) categorically states that “african is a race.” this is in line with pan-africanism which also applies africanness synonymously with blackness (mboukou, 1983). however, blackness in itself is an ambiguous concept and it may mean different things in, say the usa and south africa (hollinger, 2005). these differences have meant that some people would then be viewed to be more african than others. an example of a kind of hierarchy developed to determine africanness is illustrated by mazrui’s (2005) typology where native africans referred to as africans of the soil, while those in the diaspora are “africans of the blood” (p.70). the position of arab africans then becomes tricky considering that some race theories regard them to be of “caucasoid stock” thus view them as european in origin (fage and tordoff, 2002, p.7). race issues also get entangled with other criteria such as language and culture. for instance the term bantu, in varying contexts, has assumed both2 linguistic and racial designations (fage and tordoff, 2002). therefore, the use of language proficiency as a determination of africanness is evidently fraught with problems. according to mazrui (2006, p.68) a family only becomes african american “when it loses its ancestral language”. using this logic a european who settles in africa and adopts an african spoken language will have lost their europeanness to become african and as long as they speak their home language they remain european. culture has also been considered as a criterion for africanness. mamdani (1999, p.129) contends that there is what can be called an african culture and the creolised people in southern and east africa are culturally “neither wholly african nor wholly non-african”. the claim here is that, in the case of south africa, people that are categorised as coloured are not culturally african. 10 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 this contention is not limited to mixed-race people only, with north africans being viewed as culturally separate from sub-saharan africans (grinker and steiner, 2005). nevertheless, dei (1994, p.4) claims that africans “wherever they may be” have cultural similarities that can be identified in “social structure, music, burial customs, and folk beliefs”. however, not all scholars agree. william (2003, p.243) warns that “talk of african identity in terms of culture is at best precarious”. and appiah (1992, p.26) further declares that: whatever africans share, we do not have a common traditional culture, common languages, a common religious or conceptual vocabulary . . . we do not even belong to a common race . . .the central cultural fact of african life remains not the sameness of africa’s cultures, but their enormous diversity. there is also a tendency to refer to experience as the missing african common denominator. the argument would be that africans share a common history (usually in reference to western colonisation) and that experience has shaped them to be who they are to the extent of determining an expected african behaviour. william (2003, p.244) claims that an african should have the memory “of a member of an exploited race”. while it might be tempting to generalise the african experience of colonisation, it should be noted that the actual experiences were not the same and lasted for differing spells. the loopholes identified by the arguments thus far show how scholars do not concur on what defines an african being. it also shows that not everything that is in africa is always regarded as african. what is also evident is that views on the african being have been changing over time. appiah (1992, p.73) quotes the novelist chinua achebe to have captured this dilemma, albeit with positivity: “there isn’t a final identity that is african. but, at the same time, there is an identity coming into existence. and it has a certain context and meaning.” this optimistic argument is in line with ottaway’s (1999) view that invented identities such as africa and the african can actually become real. it is therefore important to research on how much africanness is made real in history textbooks. as noted in the introduction, there is a gap in literature on the construction of the african being in history textbooks. history textbooks have been a central part of the teaching and learning of the subject for over five hundred years in western education (apple and christian-smith, 1991; sleeter and grant, 1991; mirkovic and crawford, 2003; crawford, 2000; nicholls, 2006). the south african education system is still also heavily reliant on textbooks as was demonstrated by the limpopo textbook saga whereby some schools in the province were bereft of textbooks maposa: the construction of the african being. . . 11 leading to government investigation, not just in limpopo, but in other provinces such as the eastern cape (madonsela, 2013; chisholm, 2013). the language that is used in the history textbooks is crucial to the construction of what naseem (2008, p.25) refers to as “educational discourse”. the language being referred to includes the “use of metaphors, codes, previously accepted conceptions, connotations, and other semantic devices” (frier, 1998, p.196). the words in the history textbooks are connected with various concepts, consciousness included, and through an analysis of the language in the textbook a researcher can discover how the concepts are constructed and the nature of the text book producer’s thought processes (donlan, 1980; foster and crawford, 2006). in order to understand the language, one should have an understanding of the meaning of text, be it verbal or visual laspina, 1998; janks, 1997; väisänen, 2008. such scholarly views therefore guided me to analyse south african history textbooks in order to understand their construction of the african being. theoretical framework in this study, ‘post-colonial’ refers to a temporal marker while ‘postcolonial’ refers to the theory (st-pierre, 1997). the major contributors in the postcolonial theory include fanon (1961), said (1978), spivak (1993) and bhabha (1994). they challenge the dominant western discourses that they claim to be the foundation of colonialism. critics, however, warn that the effects of colonialism cannot be wiped out and “the return to one’s ‘native’ land is a paradigmatic impossibility” (baker jr., dovey, jolly, and deinert, 1995, p.1047). this therefore makes hybridity a characteristic of postcoloniality (the condition of being postcolonial). in mbembe’s view, (as cited in hitchcock, 1997, p.236), this “‘chaotic plurality’, one in which there is conflict and contradiction are the very mark of postcolonial ‘being’ ”. postcolonialism generally refers to studies engaging with the legacy of european colonial systems. there are different forms of postcolonialism and this study is theoretically framed within discursive postcolonialism. according to hitchcock (1997) the uniqueness of discursive postcolonialism is in that it “assesses the condition of postcoloniality as a discursive construction” (p.233). evidently, the role of theory in this study is to inform methodological decisions, since it foregrounds discourse as a crucial aspect of 12 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 understanding postcolonial constructions. discourse is informed by the linguistic turn, whose basic premise is that “meaning does not exist outside language” (dimitriadis and kamberelis, 2006). therefore since the linguistic turn, text has ceased to be viewed as written language only, but according to halliday (as cited in alba-juez, 2009), “text is everything that is meaningful in a particular situation” (p.6). discourses create and make concepts real through the process of “actualisation” and these ideas are modified into dominant discourses through a process of articulation (howarth, norval and stavrakakis, 2000). therefore educational media such as history textbooks become tools for the dissemination of the discourses from above and the users become “disciplined subjects” of such discourses (dimitriadis and kamberelis, 2006, p.112). methodological considerations employing purposive sampling, i consciously selected four history textbooks from different publishers in the country as summarised in figure 1 below. i chose four contemporary history textbooks for analysis. the sampling was purposive based on the textbooks’ fitness of purpose for the study (babbie, mouton, vorster, payze, prozesky and boshoff, 2008). maposa: the construction of the african being. . . 13 i analysed ncs textbooks as the caps books were not yet produced when this study started.3 the caps grade 12 textbooks were only distributed for use in 2014 and by that time, i had already finished my analysis. title author(s) date of publication publisher textbook 1 (shuters history grade 12) bartels, j. et al. 2006 shuter & shooter textbook 2 (making history grade 12) claire, h. et al. 2007 heinemann textbook 3 (focus on history: looking into the past grade 12) friedman, m. et al. 2007 maskew miller longman textbook 4 (oxford in search of history grade 12) bottaro, j. et al. 2006 oxford university press figure 1: the research sample 3 international trends in textbook research show that researchers more often than not do not analyse entire textbooks. instead they select particular sections or themes in the textbooks which they view to be of relevance to their research focus (cobble and kessler-harris, 1993; holt, 1995; mazel and stewart, 1987; 2003; ogawa, 2004; aldridge, 2006; romanowski, 2009). based on such evidence from literature, i elected to generate data from the chapters which focus on themes on post-colonial african history. the relevant theme in the textbooks featured as ‘uhuru’, a swahili word for freedom. this was the most appropriate theme since it is the only theme in the curriculum that deals with post-colonial africa and my study focused on the construction of the post-colonial african being. i made use of two of nicholls’ (2003) and pingel’s (2010) criteria for analysis: descriptive author’s text (narrative); and visuals (such as illustrations, photographs/pictures, maps, tables, statistics, graphs and other sources). the critical discourse analysis (cda) methodology is not specifically fashioned for history textbook research. however, its relevance is based on its emphasis on language and context. the context within which the textbooks 14 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 are produced influences the discourses of africanness that emerge from the textbooks. the link between power and educational media such as textbooks is explained by the concepts of the macro-level and micro-level of discourse. van dijk (2003) explains how discourses operate at the macro-level of the power holders and at the micro-level of the average citizen. using this thinking, it can be argued that dominant controllers of the context (usually the politicians) purvey certain discourses which play a part in the construction of an african consciousness within the ordinary citizen. at a micro-level, schools and educational media (particularly textbooks) also purvey their discourses which either augment or sometimes contest the construction done from the macro-level. studying from such a perspective helps to identify where these levels meet and van dijk (2003, p.354) calls this meeting space the “meso-level” of discourse. since there are several variations of cda i focused on norman fairclough’s (1995) cda which entails three dimensions of discourse analysis: description, interpretation and explanation. although i and present the findings according to these three dimensions of analysis as i did not analyse them as independent, as one would not make sufficient meaning without the others (janks, 1997). i relied heavily on the article by janks (1997) which is an example of how fairclough’s cda was applied in practice. for the descriptive analysis, i selected five aspects of functional grammar; lexicalisation; referential cohesion devices; the use of nominalisation; the use of active and passive voice; and patterns of transitivity (janks, 1997, p.335). these aspects are linked to halliday’s (1985) systemic functional linguistics. i also applied visual semiotics though which visuals are signs which comprise signifiers that represent a particular meaning (the signified). the interpretation and explanation relied on literature, theory and the context. these methodological moves are fully explained in another article (maposa, 2015). description of findings through the analysis, data was coded and grouped into themes. eventually the analysis produced five major themes. these themes are presented here as notions that actualise the african being. the five notions represent the manner in which the african being is constructed in the textbooks and they maposa: the construction of the african being. . . 15 are: the spatial, the physical, the philosophical, the cultural and the experiential. within these themes there were both constructions and contestations of the description of africanness and there were also some findings that overlapped across themes. the spatial notion of the african being refers to the african as determined by space. this notion revealed that while the continental space was a factor, it was not always the determinant of africanness. there are references to africans both in africa and abroad (textbook 3, pp.49; 90). however, the description also showed that there are some people in africa who might not qualify as africans. for example, textbook 1 (p.101) refers to “whites living in south africa”, rather than saying “white south africans.” the former implies a sense of not belonging to south african while the latter implies belonging through citizenship. the visual text constructed the african being to be either born or found in the african continent, with the emphasis of those from sub-saharan africa. there was also notable exclusion of south africans and people from islands of africa. in fact, both forms of text denote the exclusion of some people on the african continent from africanness, especially so when race is considered. therefore, the spatial notion of the african being is constructed in ambiguity. regarding the physical notion, race features as a major criterion of africanness. the african being is constructed in both the verbal and visual text as black. in fact, all the textbooks use african and black interchangeably. in addition, the textbook visuals feature almost entirely black characters such as kwame nkrumah, patrice lumumba, mobutu sese seko, haile selassie, julius nyerere and idi amin. however, the use of the term “black african” in textbook 3 (p. 95) seems to qualify that there are other africans who are not necessarily black. none of the textbooks explicitly refers to the africanness of racial groups such as arabs. for instance, abdul gamal nasser is mentioned in reference to him being a pan-arabic leader who “believed in unification across borders” leaving his africanness rather ambiguous (textbook 1, p.64), while whites are excluded from africanness. in addition, although there was some female representation, the african is physically represented as largely male. in textbook 3, there are only two mentions of women, the first being miriam makeba, a musician (p.96), and the second being the citation of women’s organisations opposing post-colonial african dictatorships (p.101). 16 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 in the construction of the cultural notion of the african being there was representation of aspects such as language, arts, tradition, religion and, to a lesser extent, ethnicity in the verbal text. textbook 2 and 3 raise the linguistic diversity of africans while english, french and portuguese retain the tag of “colonial languages”. however, the same textbook contradicts itself by regarding soyinka’s novel, the interpreters, (written in english) as “the first truly african novel” (textbook 3, p.95). the visual text focused more on dress and gender roles. even though there were also cases of generalisation of the african being, african culture was constructed as flux, with strong evidence of the acceptance of hybridisation of cultures. figure 2 shows examples of normalisation of hybridisation in terms of attire and accessories. therefore, the african being is largely represented as a cultural hybrid, with a marked representation of the influence of western culture. where a distinction is made, african culture is represented as traditional, while western culture is represented as modern. figure 2: examples of normalisation of hybridisation (textbook 2, p.49; textbook 4, p.88) maposa: the construction of the african being. . . 17 the experiences that make the african being are represented as largely negative. all the four textbooks emphasise post-colonial african problems such as lack of development, wars, poverty, and oppression by both internal and external forces. they identify the 1960s as the only period of notable positive experience and there is little reference to the contemporary experiences of the 21st century. south africans are excluded from most of the negative constructions of africa, the visual text describes some positive experiences such as access to education and cases of gender equality. however, most of the experiences that could be considered as positive are also represented as fundamentally symbolic. there are also contending representations of the agency of the african being in the textbooks as the africans are, in some cases, represented as victims, while, in other cases they are as participants in determining their own fate. the final theme was on the philosophical notion of the african being which was constructed through the representation of concepts and values that were associated with the african being. the concepts in the textbooks include uhuru, ubuntu, harambe, ujamaa and chimurenga. evidently, most of such concepts are in swahili and not from different parts of africa. there are also african variations of otherwise universal concepts. these include “african renaissance” (p.79) and “african nationalist” (textbook 1); “african unity”, “african identity” and “african elite” (textbook 2); “african traditions”, “african literature” and “african novel” (textbook 3) and “african music, art and literature” (textbook 4). here, the representation was that of an african being with hybrid philosophies with a mixture of african communalism and western thoughts. the philosophy of the african being is also represented as ideally progressive and positive, but practically negative, particularly because it has led to the negative experiences previously identified. nevertheless, the african being is constructed as having a positive outlook for the future, which is also idealistic. visually, the african being is constructed as someone who has their own epistemology as revealed by ideals and values of equality, unity and cooperation in some of the pictures in the textbooks. however, practically the african being is constructed as having a philosophy which enables oppression and inequality. interpretation of findings the spatial notion reveals that, on one hand, an african is someone who is from the continent of africa. such a construction tallies with the typology of africanness as presented by dei (1994) and mazrui (2005) who refer to 18 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 africans by birth and africans of the soil respectively. however, the emphasis on sub-saharan africa, thus excluding north africa and the islands, speaks to cases of exceptionalism to africanness, whereby their inhabitants are excluded from the african discourse (grinker and steiner, 2005; mamdani, 1999; collins and burns, 2007). the complication is furthered by the finding that, even in sub-saharan africa, some people are excluded from the african designation. this is especially so in south africa whereby other criteria such as race come into play. it is also on the basis of race that the textbooks, on the other hand, do not delimit africanness to inhabitants of the african continent, but also to the diaspora. as a result the meaning of the spatial notion of the african being is unstable, as was discussed in the literature review, leaving it to other notions to stabilise it. the physical notion showed the african being represented as largely black and male. there is evidence of african nationalist discourse which equals africanness to blackness (mazrui, 2005; mboukou, 1983; william, 2003). it tallies with discourses in south africa whereby black people are officially referred to as africans. this meaning of africanness, leave population groups such as the arabs and whites in a position of ambiguity, if not exclusion to discourses of africanness, while black people out of africa become included. nevertheless, linguistic choice of “black african” (though very limited) can also be interpreted to imply that there are other africans who are not black as contended by armah (1999). the representation of the african as male speaks to the oft referred to perpetuation of patriarchy and as part of a broader problem of women not featuring in history textbooks in general (fardon and schoeman, 2010). the cultural notion of the african being in the verbal text was interpreted to have more complicated meanings. african culture is represented as homogenous on one hand, thus relating to arguments by dei (1994) and grinker and steiner (2010) that there is some form of cultural uniformity amongst africans. on the other hand, it is constructed as multifarious (appiah, 1992; william, 2003). but what further complicated the meaning is that african culture is also represented as hybrid, but is still acceptably african. in fact, the hybrid representation is the most dominant. this construction speaks baker jr. et al. (1995) reminder that returning to native wholeness in a post-colonial society is practically impossible, such that all postcolonial phenomena are invariably hybridised. it can be concluded that cultural hybridity is the hallmark of the post-colonial african being in the textbooks. maposa: the construction of the african being. . . 19 the african being is also represented as having undergone largely diverse, thus hybrid, experiences. but as was the case with the experiential notion of africa, there is evidence of a level of a dual assumption when it comes to the african being. as shown in the description of findings, many of the negative experiences that are attached to the african being are generalised to sub-saharan africans, in this way excluding the north africans, south africans and the islanders. this exceptionalism can be connected to mbeki’s lamentation that south africans seemed not to be quite african (adebajo, 2004). another key finding is that the experiential notion is differentiated between that of the political elite and the african populace. therefore the experiential meaning of the african being in the verbal text is also unstable and depends on to whom it is being referred. this contradicts william’s (2003) assertion that africans should share a common memory of experiences. africans are represented as having together suffered mainly negative experiences. finally the meaning of the philosophical notion of the african being is more generalised than contested within the analysed textbooks. the construction of a largely uniform african philosophy was based on the adoption of concepts such as uhuru as african concepts which can be used as common denominators. african philosophy is also represented as part of the global knowledge system to which it both contributes and from which it borrows (guèye, 1999; gupta, 2012; ocholla, 2007; sefa dei, 2002). the contribution of south africa in this regard is not portrayed as considerable as most values and concepts that are referred to are from other african societies. the interpretation showed that the meanings of africa and the african being were riddled with multiple meanings with hybridity and ambiguity which bakhtin (1981) would refer to as heteroglossis. the strong featuring of ambiguity gives credence to guèye’s (1999, p.247) view that some of the criteria that have often been used to determine africanness are “purely phenomenal, superficial dimensions”. i noted in the literature review that armah (1999) states how aspects such as geographical location, race, language, culture, attitude and experiences have been used to qualify one as an african. the textbooks that i analysed confirmed some of these notions, but other notions also emerged from the analysis. these constructions show how the two concepts cannot be taken for granted, such that while they are sources of emotional contestations, other quarters have even dismissed them as imaginary and non-existent (van dijk, 2006). 20 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 however, other scholars such as ottaway (1999) contend that while africanness is invented, it can actually become real. the constructions in the analysed textbooks manifest this process of the two concepts being actualised through discourses. this interpretation is supported by chinua achebe’s statement that: “there isn’t a final identity that is african. but, at the same time, there is an identity coming into existence” (appiah, 1992, p.73). explanation of findings the description and interpretation of findings showed the ambiguities and the imprecisions that characterised most of the constructions of the african being in the analysed textbooks. in mbembe’s view, (as cited in hitchcock, 1997, p.236), the multiple dimensions of the african being reflect “‘chaotic plurality,’ one in which conflict and contradiction are the very mark of postcolonial ‘being’.” this means that it is impossible to have stable meanings in a postcolonial condition because not all the effects of colonialism can ever be undone (baker jr. et al., 1995, p.1047). it should also be noted that a post-conflict society such as south africa is usually characterised by contending views, especially as it is founded on trying to come to terms with its past through embracing multiculturalism (rüsen, 1991). the findings further showed how the ambiguities construct an african being consciousness that is idealistic rather than fully actualised. discursive postcolonialism further elucidates that since discourses are socially constructed, their meanings are not only contextual but are always in a state of erasure and “always elusive, always deferred, always multiple, always somewhat paradoxical” (dimitriadis and kamberelis, 2006, p.103). indeed, the african consciousness that is constructed in the textbooks is elusive, deferred, multiple, and somewhat paradoxical. the textbooks therefore confirm that the african being is what howarth and stavrakakis (2000, p.8) refer to as an “empty signifier” – an object that is never fully meaningful such that people rely on the meanings that they get from sources like textbooks. exceptionalism was also a key finding in the construction of the african being. although south african exceptionalism was not the only form of exceptionalism, it is significant for my findings because south africa is the country in which and for which the textbooks analysed are produced. as illustrated in the background to this study, the ‘othering’ of africans who are not from south africa, particularly those from tropical africa is evident in maposa: the construction of the african being. . . 21 the everyday contextual discourses in south africa. it is also worth noting that even western and south african discourses tend to generalise tropical africa, thus promoting south african exceptionalism (mamdani, 1999). one of the reasons for such exceptionalism is the time frame of the post-colonial period (mcclintock, 1993). most of the history of post-colonial africa that is covered in the analysed textbook sections occurred while south africa was still under apartheid. however, there are other historical references in other parts of africa that occurred when south africa was post-apartheid. the south african exceptionalism in most representations in the textbooks implies that the textbook users (learners and teachers in the south african education system) are meant to have a unique collective national consciousness rather than a collective african consciousness (rüsen, 1993; soysal, 2006). this is what miller, gurin, gurin and malanchuk (1981, p.495) refer to as a group consciousness which entails “identification with a group . . . regarding the group’s relative position in society along with a commitment to collective action aimed at realizing the group's interests.” this means that the south african learners and teachers who use the selected textbooks may develop a confusion of different types of consciousness which is similar to the double consciousness about which du bois and fanon wrote (moore, 2005). it is not always prudent to be formulaic and determinist about social sciences. nevertheless, i argue that the nature of the african being that is constructed in the textbooks most likely leads to the polar affect, which, according to miller et al. (1981), is a preference of the group one identifies with over others. the evidence is that the only time ‘we’ was used was in any of the analysed textbooks, it was in reference to south africans. according to al-badarin and maagerø (2008) the use of the first person plural (we/us) is common in countries where the educational discourse is dominated by the promotion of a nationalistic group consciousness. this has already been proven with the cases of south african exceptionalism that is found in the analysed textbooks. on the ground in the south african context, nation-building discourses are evident as demonstrated by the common use of concepts such as ‘simunye’ (we are one) and ‘rainbow nation’. literature abounds on how nationalism, for all its positives, can also be malignant through othering (hammett, 2011). in the case of this study, people from the rest of africa, particularly tropical africa, are constructed as the other – just as discourses of othering were noted in the introduction to this paper. if south africans see themselves as different from the rest of the african continent, then they can possibly develop the 22 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 polar affect which has the potential to contribute to misunderstandings such as xenophobia. this possibility of such a development was explained by aldridge (2006, p.663) who argues that silences and occlusion mean that learners are denied “access to relevant, dynamic, and often controversial history or critical lenses that would provide them insight into the dilemmas, challenges, and realities of living in a democratic society. . .” it should be noted, though, that this development is a merely a possibility since, as noted by paxton (1999), learners interpret text in unique ways. nonetheless, because of the contradictions found in the textbooks, the polar affect should not be exaggerated. there are also cases of polar power – which implies contentment or discontent over the condition in which one’s group finds itself. therefore, despite how negative or how positive africans are constructed, south africans are sometimes also constructed in the analysed textbooks as part and parcel of the african situation. it should be noted that the use of the first person ‘we’ in reference to south africans was only seen once and therefore was not a dominant construction. however, the cases of south african exceptionalism were dominant such that the national uniqueness was evident in the analysed chapters. this is unlike the case in germany where soysal (2006) states that the national aspect is almost absent in the history textbooks which foreground the european dimension. conclusion education for sustainability should empower learners to develop into members of society that can contribute to development with minimum exploitation. with reference to this study, learners of history should, through the textbooks, develop a consciousness that enables unity, renewal and development in a postcolonial condition. this study has shown that while the macro-level of power produces the dominant discourses, the micro-level of the citizen also contributes to the discourses that permeate the history textbooks. indeed, the production of textbooks is influenced by multifarious factors that when the discourses from the top and from below meet at the meso-level of textbook production, there is not just articulation but also resistance, thus producing heteroglossic representation of the african being. maposa: the construction of the african being. . . 23 references adebajo, a. 2004. africa, african americans, and the avuncular sam. africa today, 5(3), retrieved 23 march 2011, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4187594 appiah, k.a. 1992. in my father’s house: africa in the philosophy of culture. new york: oxford university press. al-badarin, m. and maagerø, e. 2008. addressing student readers and representation of gender – a comparative analysis of palestinian and norwegian textbooks in arabic and norwegian. paper presented at the ninth international conference on textbooks and educational media: peace, democratization and reconciliation in textbooks and educational media september 2007, tonsberg norway. alba-juez, l. 2009. perspectives on discourse analysis: theory and practice. newcastle: cambridge scholars publishing. aldridge, d.p. 2006. the limits of master narratives in history textbooks: an analysis of representations of martin luther king, jr. teachers college record, 108(4): pp.662–686. apple, m.w. and christian-smith, l.k. 1991. introduction: the politics of the textbook. in apple, m.w. and christian-smith, l.k. 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(eds), the handbook of discourse analysis. wiley-blackwell. retrieved 06 october 2010, from http://au.wiley.com/wileycda/wileytitle/productcd-0631205969.html van dijk, l. 2006. a history of africa. cape town: tafelberg. william, i.w. 2003. social history, african identity and the memory theory. anthropologist, 5(4): pp.237–245. marshall maposa faculty of education university of kwazulu-natal maposam2@uzn.ac.za mailto:maposam2@uzn.ac.za microsoft word bissue82-final.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 82, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i82a05 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x “do all roads lead to rome?”: the influence of two different higher education programmes on beginner teacher identity mické van der westhuizen faculty of education, department of humanities education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa mickevdw@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6649-3723 yolandi woest faculty of education, department of humanities education, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa yolandi.woest@up.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5595-0546 (received: 29 september 2020; accepted: 3 february 2021) abstract in this qualitative case study, we explored the experiences of beginner teachers who chose two different routes—full-time and part-time studying—on the journey to becoming teachers and we report on the influences of this choice on their emergent beginner teacher identities. we purposefully selected two groups of participants, each consisting of three who studied full-time and three who studied part-time. the latter worked part-time at schools or in similar educational contexts while they were studying. epistemologically underpinned by the interpretivist paradigm, we employed the possible selves theory (marcus & nurius, 1986) as the theoretical lens. inductive thematic analysis of data demonstrated three main themes. first, data showed a distinct divergence between the perceptions of initial beginner teacher identity states in the two groups of participants. second, both groups of participants agreed that time is a significant factor in the complex psychological processes required for the construction of a beginner teacher identity. third, both groups strongly considered practical experience as an essential factor for beginner teacher identity development. keywords: beginner teacher identity, full-time student, part-time student, possible selves theory, teacher education programmes introduction the title of our article refers to the well-known saying, “a thousand roads lead a man [sic] forever toward rome” coined by french poet alain de lille, (cited in storey, 2008, p. 965). van der westhuizen & woest: “do all roads lead to rome?” 79 rome was situated at the conjunction of all the main roads of the roman empire, and was, later, the destination of most of the medieval journeys through europe as storey (2008) has reminded us. there are many roads that lead to rome; some are longer, some shorter, some easier or more difficult to follow, but the desired destination is still rome. this saying serves as a starting point to our contribution to the existing debates in educational research around the “theory–practice divide in teacher education” (gravett et al., 2017, p. 370). in other words, we are interested in which of the two teacher education programmes—full-time study or part-time study combined with part-time work in an educational context—taken on the way to becoming a teacher is better or worse in terms of the development of a beginner teacher identity. depending on which teacher education programme one chooses, there are several different views when it comes to this choice. levine (2006) has pointed out that some believe that the teaching profession calls for a vast volume of formal pre-service education as a condition for one to develop into a practitioner, much like becoming a doctor or a lawyer, while others consider teaching to be a skill that is learned primarily on the job, like, it could be argued, journalism. in this article, we explore the ways in which the choice of road towards that metaphorical rome influences the identities of the travellers. to do so, we delved into the experiences of beginner teachers who chose different routes to becoming teachers and we report on the influences of this choice on their emergent beginner teacher identities. our aim was not to compare differences between teacher programmes per se but, rather, to try to understand the lived experiences of pre-service teachers who took these two different routes to becoming teachers and show how these experiences influenced their beginner teacher identities. we consider here the influences of only two different paths (full-time and part-time teacher education programmes) on beginner teachers’ identities. prospective students aspiring to become teachers, enrol in teacher education programmes with certain preconceived expectations of what it means to be a teacher (yuliyana, 2019). then, in many cases, beginner teachers who studied full-time consider their professional courses at tertiary institutions as consisting of too much theory and not sufficient practical knowledge and they have reported a sense of dissonance when faced with the real situation in schools during their early years in the profession (lambert, 2010). however, the influence of the chosen path taken towards becoming a teacher is a much more complex process than prospective pre-service teachers anticipate or understand (beltman et al., 2015; langsford, 2020). in this article, we unpack the ways in which different roads influence beginner teachers and consider what it is that influences that sense of dissonance mentioned by lambert (2010). during the course of their studies, pre-service teachers construct their individual teaching identities, which change later into the teaching identities they need if they are to adapt in the real school environment (yuliyana, 2019). initial beginner teacher identities are vulnerable during the early years in the profession because of the daily demands that they face. much has been written about these challenges and the influences thereof on beginner teacher identity (see, for example, dicke et al., 2014; klusman et al., 2016; kumazawa, 2013). 80 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 tertiary training institutions are the spaces within which pre-service students’ beginner teacher identities, influenced by their perceptions, begin to develop formally. thus, the tertiary training institution of choice should be conducive to growth and development for emergent beginner teacher identities since this development frames, significantly, the process of learning to teach (nomlomo & sosibo, 2016). the experiences of pre-service teachers during their years of study at these institutions might influence their development during their early years in the education profession. having set the scene of this paper, we go on to frame our study in relation to the relevant literary scholarship. then we discuss the theoretical underpinning of the research question in terms of the possible selves theory as suggested by marcus and nurius (1986), and argue for our research methodology, after which we present the findings and a discussion of them. framing our study in literary scholarship in this section we present a discussion of recent scholarly debates involving the key concepts of our paper: initial beginner identity states; the influences of the challenges experienced by beginner teachers; and the role of teacher training programmes as influential on beginner teacher identity. additionally, to provide some background to our study, we provide a brief historical overview of these concepts. the development of beginner teacher identity the effectiveness of beginner teachers is influenced by their personal backgrounds (past self), their formal training (teacher educational programme) and the context of their school placements (practical experience) as hofmeyr (2016) has pointed out. current academic research has started to shift its focus towards the important question of how teachers learn (korthagen, 2017). many teacher educators object to a professional teacher obtaining just practical tools for handling classroom situations and suggest that it is their job to present preservice teachers with a broader view on education and to offer them a proper foundation in psychology, sociology, and other disciplines (korthagen et al., 2001). twenty-six years ago, clandinin (1995, p. 28) called this issue “the sacred theory-practice story” which many teacher educators have understood to be about the conversion of theory on good teaching into lived classroom practice. however, many studies have shown that the transfer of theory to practice is still inadequately achieved or is not achieved at all (abongdia et al., 2015; korthagen et al., 2001; nomlomo & sosibo, 2016). for the beginner teacher, what was understood theoretically, now becomes complex since they must now use practically the knowledge and understanding of the theory to guide their actions, communication, and socialisation in order to fit in with the culture of the school (padua & franca-carvalho, 2019). put differently, a beginner teacher who studied full-time may have the theoretical background provided by their teacher education programme but may lack the practical teaching skills. any attempt to make more explicit the link between theory and teaching practice is pointless without sufficient knowledge about how teachers learn (korthagen, 2017). gravett (2012, p. van der westhuizen & woest: “do all roads lead to rome?” 81 3) argued that “no teacher education programme can prepare teachers for the full complexity of real classrooms, where they take full responsibility for the first time.” in accordance with this statement, feiman-nemser (2001, p. 1,026) noted, new teachers have two jobs—they have to teach, and they have to learn to teach. no matter how good a preservice program may be, there are some things that can only be learned on the job. the preservice experience lays a foundation and offers practice in teaching. the first encounter with real teaching occurs when beginning teachers step into their own classroom. then learning to teach begins in earnest. the conversation about the “the sacred theory-practice story” (clandinin, 1995, p. 28) was continued 19 years later by tamrat and teferra (2020). in an online article in world news, they discussed a “diversified means of educational delivery, in particular a non-residential model, that may become more mainstream, more acceptable and more respectable.” tamrat and teferra (2020) agreed with the views of south african scholars maphalala and mpofu (2019, p. 3), who wrote that “the education system must create conducive working conditions, which will ensure the retention of teachers, especially those with the most experience and with scarce skills.” the independent carter review (2015) found difficulty drawing conclusions about whether one route into teaching is better than the other since both routes had their strengths (practical experience vs theoretical knowledge) although programmes that offered more practical experience brought benefits and delivered important preparation options to improve the quantity and quality of teachers (hofmeyr, 2016). the link between practice and theory in pre-service teacher learning is not exclusively important; the connection with the person of the teacher is significant as well. connecting to your teaching identity through in-depth reflection is an important device in establishing rewarding links between theory, practice, and person (korthagen, 2017). it is in the classroom setting that many of the beginner teachers’ knowledge about everyday life as a teacher is used as a basis for inspiration, and where contextualisation of pedagogical practice is experienced (padua & franca-carvalho, 2019). many pre-service teachers acquire a deeply rooted perception of teaching and learning from their own educational experiences before they start as a beginner teacher which will guide their choice of route (nomlomo & sosibo, 2016). lortie (1975, p. 35) referred to these early ideas formed about teaching as an “apprenticeship of observation”, a view upheld by gravett et al., (2017, p. 370) who posited that the “images of teaching developed during student-teachers’ own school years form the basis for interpreting and assessing conceptual knowledge and their learning experiences as student-teachers.” these moments are imperative to the forming of a student’s identity, and are, in turn, likely to then have an impact on their future teaching identity. challenges during early years: learning to teach in difficult contexts adding to the complexity of the beginner identity construction process is the matter of challenges experienced by beginner teachers during their early years in the profession. as 82 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 early as the 1980s challenges faced by beginner teachers have been documented in scholarly literature in the field. the struggles associated during the early years of beginner teachers in the profession have been described as “transition shock” (corcoran, 1981, p. 19), “reality shock” and “the survival phase” (huberman, 1989, p. 57). the scholarly debate surrounding the demands on beginner teachers are ongoing (friedman, 2000; klusman et al., 2016; stokking et al., 2003). in many cases, beginner teachers feel isolated and perceive school management teams and more experienced colleagues as hostile and unfriendly (flores & day, 2006). additionally, beginner teachers experience conflict with their colleagues since they are unfamiliar with the different ideologies prevailing in the schools (deswita, 2019). they also find it difficult to establish and maintain discipline especially in large, overcrowded classroom contexts which are common in south africa (woest, 2018). often, beginner teachers face difficulties with learners because they have not yet become skilled at problem-solving (deswita, 2019). friedman (2000, p. 182) described the realisation of the chasm between the period of teacher training and the early years of teaching as a case of “shattered dreams.” it is therefore important to take a step back and explore the teacher identity-building experiences of preservice teachers during their years of training. initial beginner teacher identity as a complex construct studies on beginner teacher identity deal with the initial processes of the construction of a specific professional identity as a teacher. the process of learning or developing a teacher identity is imbued with and fuelled by many aspects that are primarily personal, such as one’s own biography, aspirations, learning history, and beliefs about education . . . [including] the hopes, dreams, and ideals that students bring with them to teacher education” (beijaard, 2019, p. 3). positive psychology promotes the consideration of personal qualities, which centre on people’s wellbeing and positive growth and, in turn, influence the formation of their teaching identity (korthagen, 2017). over the last few decades, various researchers have explored the progression of a pre-service teacher becoming a teacher, as well as their first years in teaching (beauchamp & thomas, 2009, 2011; flores, 2017; pillen et al., 2013; yuan & lee, 2016). beginner teacher identity development implies the initial and sometimes volatile psychological, mental, cognitive, and behavioural processes pre-service teachers undergo to arrive at a stable, yet fluid, teacher identity. it is important to note that professional identity (in this case teacher identity) is not fixed or static; it is, rather, a dynamic and continually changing process. in this paper, we consider only one slice of this ever-changing process—the identity states of pre-service teachers during the transitioning process of their becoming beginner teachers. investigation into both the inward and outward manifestations of beginner teachers’ theoretical and actual growth towards becoming a teacher is necessary. how their teacher van der westhuizen & woest: “do all roads lead to rome?” 83 identity develops may be influenced by their own critical self-examination, but attention must also be given to the school environment and to their learners and colleagues since these operate in conjunction with one another (lee & schallert, 2016). during this process, beginner teachers begin to solidify their construct of self as their understanding of the basic nature of teaching grows. accentuating the intricacy associated with learning to teach, darling-hammond et al. (2005, p. 368) specified that “even when observing good teaching or experiencing it for oneself, one cannot easily glean a deep understanding of the complexity of the work.” a thorough comprehension of one’s teaching self contributes to the success of beginner teachers during their early years of teaching and, thus, to a positive career trajectory. the ability to make meaning of experiences and find ways to overcome challenges in an unfamiliar and new professional environment strengthens the sense of the professional self and promotes the resilience of the beginner teacher. we argue that the choice of tertiary education programme is an often-overlooked influence in the process of the construction and development of the identity of the beginner teacher. the role of teacher training programmes in influencing beginner teacher identity the route chosen by pre-service teachers to become qualified teachers is one of many factors that influence their teacher-becoming during their early years in the profession. hofmeyer (2016) suggested that the choice of educational programme is one of the influences on the effectiveness of beginner teachers and that this is based on the balanced construction and development of a stable initial beginner teacher identity. much of what is taught at universities are concepts and conceptual frameworks related to phenomena, principles, and facts. in other words, university learning involves “learning about” (gravett, 2012, p. 3), but learning should also be understood with regard to the development of a teaching identity, i.e. “learning to be” (gravett, 2012, p. 5). to a degree, beginner teachers’ identity is constructed from their initial teacher education programme, complemented by their individual teaching experience; together these motivate and result in the development process of skills and teaching methods (padua & franca-carvalho, 2019). many pre-service teachers in south africa follow the international traditional norms by pursuing a four-year university-based programme. these programmes are provided by 23 universities with either distance or face-to-face education, include both professional and academic modules, and are interspersed with varying periods of supervised teaching practice in schools as part of the preparation for pre-service teachers’ work in schools as hofmeyr (2016) has observed. the idea that universities do not prepare pre-service teachers effectively for the realities of classroom teaching is not exclusively a south african one (gravett, 2012). in some countries a key part of pre-service teacher education has now become the concern of the schools, thus creating a situation in which teacher education takes the form of “training on the job” (korthagen et al., 2001, p. 2). the teacher education curriculum in the united states of america has been divided, historically, between foundations modules, on the one hand, and methods modules on the other (grossman et al., 2009). 84 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 one of the main points of teacher education programmes abroad is that they promote a close relationship between the tertiary institution and the schools that host students for their practical term. there is a system of “studying theory from books and in lectures” and then applying it practically in what is termed the “real world” (gravett, 2012, p. 4). according to hofmeyr (2016), a key flaw identified in university curricula worldwide is the lack of sufficient school practical experience. although all university-based teacher education programmes include many field experiences during the programme (as a requirement in south african initial teacher education policy according to the revised minimum requirements for teacher education qualifications, department of higher education and training, 2015), the gap between what students are taught in university modules and their opportunities for learning to enact these practices in their school placements is often still very large (zeichner, 2010). although student life plays a particular role in higher education since students attend classes with the intention of learning which is made viable by attending classes, but which also occurs in the teachable moments that arise inside and outside the classroom (mitchell, 2014). however, some universities in south africa employ open distance learning, which stipulates that all students (including pre-service teachers) must study part-time (hofmeyr, 2016). part-time students can work even as they study, whereas full-time students become part of the student culture mentioned above. in open distance learning, course and study materials are supplied in the absence of a university intermediary, and students must interrogate these individually and in their own time (hofmeyr, 2016). moreover, working full-time at a school while studying part-time can also be extremely challenging and difficult for students given that they have to “grapple with meeting the requirements of both the university programme and the school-based curriculum, which may be in tension with each other” (chan, 2019, p. 3). limited research about different teacher education programmes in relation to beginner teacher identity development is apparent in the literature we reviewed. incomplete research on the influence of teacher education programmes on beginner teacher identity was pointed out by scholars in the field (beauchamp & thomas, 2009; cherrington, 2017; chubbuck et al., 2001; du plessis & sunde, 2017). most of the past research on beginner teacher identity is based on identities and factors that influenced them (see canrinus et al., 2012; hobson et al., 2009; hong, 2010; nomlomo & sosibo, 2016), except for the influence of teacher education programmes. theoretical framing our research is framed theoretically by the possible selves theory (marcus & nurius, 1986). this theory concentrates on investigating the growth of beginner teachers’ identity as hamman et al. (2010) have pointed out. it also concerns beginner teachers’ establishing their individual beginner teacher identity in their changeover to becoming teachers. the possible selves theory is appropriate because it accounts for the fluctuating states of the professional self of the beginner teacher during the transition process from pre-service teacher to beginner van der westhuizen & woest: “do all roads lead to rome?” 85 teacher. the use of the possible selves theory as a lens through which to view the formation of beginner teacher identity has not been well-researched but see, for example, hamman et al. (2010), lee & schallert (2016), and yavuz tabak (2020); most literature focuses on either beginner teacher identity or on the possible selves theory, but not on both. the limited nature of this research prompted us to use this theory given our belief that it is still relevant many decades later. the possible selves theory (marcus & nurius, 1986) posits that at the beginning of a teacher’s career, they might have a handful of ideas regarding the type of teacher they want to be (future self) based on their past experiences (past self). during their pre-service years and first years of in-service teaching, these identity states will change and evolve as they experience the realities of a classroom setting, are exposed to external factors, and carry out personal experimenting with their teaching identities. the beginner teacher’s identity will therefore have an impact on their identity as moulded in their first years of teaching. the possible selves theory moulds a person’s idea of what they want to mature into. this theory not only illustrates who it is that someone wants to grow into but also who they fear becoming. the possible selves theory illustrates how future-oriented thought is driven by the pursuit of self-relevant goals, and how it delivers identity-relevant information (hamman et al., 2010). possible future selves are characterised by specific, individually unique hopes, fears, and fantasies and are not just any set of fictional states of being (marcus & nurius, 1986). for the beginner teacher’s identity, this includes their own hopes and fantasies as well as their fears about the kind of teacher they want to become in the future. the possible selves theory also includes the beginner teacher’s past self. in this case, these are their experiences from their chosen teacher education programme. when beginner teachers enter the teaching profession, their emergent beginner teacher identities have already undergone some changes marked by previous experiences during their years of training and might at this point be in flux as they start out in a new and unfamiliar environment, (woest, 2018). we build further on this theory in the discussion of our findings. research context and methodology we employed a nominalist, interpretivist, qualitative methodological paradigm, with, following zartman and goodrick (2005), a single case study as research design. a qualitative methodological paradigm is an approach that strives to explore and understand the meaning participants have of their social problem(s) without manipulating the data as creswell (2008) has explained. qualitative research allows for the gathering of stories in a personal environment. in the context of this study, it meant gathering the stories of beginner teachers with different teacher education backgrounds—full-time and part-time. ontology can be seen to relate to our views of the world together with how we perceive reality (denzin & lincoln, 2008) so, for us, a nominalist stance was appropriate because this showcases the importance of participants’ internal and subjective experiences as maree (2016) has noted. epistemology is related to the relationship between the inquirer and the known as denzin and lincoln (2008) have explained. an epistemological perspective can be 86 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 either positivist or interpretivist according to cohen et al. (2007). as snape et al. (2014) have established, interpretivism strives to understand meaningful, subjective experiences as well as the meaning behind social interactions in a personal context. interpretivism allows for a subjective participatory role in the research process, while one is being empathetically and personally immersed in the research (maree, 2016). the participants interpreted their own teaching identities differently so, in being subjectively involved we could better understand what they experienced during their first year of in-service teaching. this deeper involvement in the interviews meant that our findings are rich, extensive, and inclusive of relevant data. from ethical reasons, we were sensitive to our participants’ emotional state since their experiences were likely to trigger unsettling memories. following leedy and ormrod (2005), our ethical considerations included ensuring informed consent and maintaining confidentiality, allowing of no deception, and causing no harm to our participants. we explained the aim of the study and the roles of participants to them during the first interview and all participants signed consent forms. they were also assured that their responses would be handled confidentially and that their identities would be protected by the use of pseudonyms. no deception occurred since the participants were informed about the exact purpose of the research which was not harmful to them and they had the option to withdraw at any stage of the study with no negative consequences if they chose to do so. research design as mentioned above, the chosen research design was a case study (maree, 2016). we argue for the suitability of our chosen design by drawing on the work of zainal (2007, p. 2) who said, case studies, in their true essence, explore and investigate contemporary real-life phenomenon through detailed contextual analysis of a limited number of events or conditions, and their relationships. in this paper, the contemporary real-life phenomenon under scrutiny was the influence of beginner teachers’ choice of tertiary institution on their emergent beginner teacher identities. aligned with zainal’s (2007) view, we acknowledge that there are many factors influencing beginner teacher identity construction, but the focus of this paper is on the choice of tertiary institution as influence on beginner teacher identity. zainal (2007) further described case study research as an in-depth inquiry into participants’ life experiences in terms of the interrelationship between contextual settings and the research question being asked. using a case study research design from this perspective allowed us to gain a deeper understanding of the influences of the choice of a part-time as opposed to a full-time higher education programme on beginner teacher identities. additionally, the case study research design provided us with the opportunity for collaboration with participants within their own environments as advocated by cohen et al. (2007). in this case, the implied environment was the space in which participants found themselves during their teacher training—studying via a part-time higher education institution while working at a school or studying at a full-time higher education institution. van der westhuizen & woest: “do all roads lead to rome?” 87 participant selection participant selection was conducted by using purposive sampling following cohen et al. (2007). in line with the case study as our chosen research design, we opted for a small number of participants since we were interested in data that is detailed, varied, and extensive as suggested by neuman (1997). in so doing, we were able to conduct an in-depth analysis of our six participants’ responses. of these, as made clear above, three had studied at a part-time higher educational institution and three had studied at a full-time one. their ages ranged from 24 to 29 years. at the time of the interviews, all participants were beginner teachers and had three or fewer years’ teaching experience. although we acknowledge other terms for this status, we consider beginner teachers as teachers who have been teaching for three or fewer years in line with fraser et al. (2017), for the purpose of this paper. the only selection criteria we had was that participants had to be beginner teachers and that three had to have studied full-time and three part-time. to aid us with the analysis of data, we grouped the participants informally into two groups. each pseudonym followed by ft indicates a full-time student while pt indicates a part-time student. group 1 consisted of participants nthabiseng, (ft), angelina, (ft), and colin, (ft), while group 2 included participants fred, (pt), hannah, (pt), and george, (pt). participants in group 2 also worked for the duration of their studies either in schools as teaching assistants or in similar school-like educational contexts. the data was collected from participants situated in pretoria, gauteng (south africa) and all participants were employed at fairly well-resourced urban schools. data collection and analysis following cresswell (2008), we collected the data from face-to-face semi-structured interviews. we conducted two interviews of 60 to 90 minutes’ duration with each participant. the interviews were steered by a set of semi-structured questions that included some on the participants’ understanding of their own teacher identity and the ways in which they perceived these identities. in a conversational manner in line with uitto (2012), we also discussed their perceptions of the ways in which their teacher identities had been shaped by certain influences and we funnelled our discussion towards the choice of teacher education programme as primary influence on their emerging beginner teacher identities. finally, a general overview was elicited from participants about their broad experiences during their teacher training and they were free to share any other details or memories with us. to preserve the integrity of the data and ensure that it was interpreted properly, interviews were audio-recorded, and we transcribed them from these recordings and used them repeatedly to go over the interviews and verify what we believed the participants to have said. we used thematic content analysis to analyse the data from the interview transcriptions as advised by braun and clarke (2006) who have pointed out that thematic content analysis involves identifying, analysing, and reporting different themes that are supported by the data that is collected. 88 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 main findings following an analysis of the data, three main themes emerged: diverging perceptions of initial beginner teacher identity states; beginner teacher identity evolving over a period of time; and practical experience being critical to beginner teacher identity. diverging perceptions of initial beginner teacher identity states data showed several differences between the perceptions of participants who studied fulltime and those who studied part-time in terms of their perceptions of their initial beginner teacher identity state. however, certain similarities between the two groups were also evident. participants explained how their initial beginner teacher identities were constantly in flux and were based on the situations that occurred daily in their classrooms. angelina (ft) revealed how she had to alter her teaching identity to be able to handle ordinary classroom situations. she said, “coming from a university you have a certain mind-set of how things need to be, and then when you actually start teaching you see that it’s completely different, you must change yourself.” hannah (pt) noted how she had to adapt her teaching identity to be able to handle day-to-day situations; she explained that “you get thrown into the deep end, but it teaches you very quickly how to swim and how to become a strong teacher.” george (pt) said that “being a part-time student and working in a school environment, gives more clarity on what it truly means to be a teacher.” his sense of clarity made him seem more selfconfident, probably because his teacher education programme permitted him to probe into his beginner teacher identity before he had to really start teaching. it appears that the professional identities of the full-time participants may have been in a more unstable state when they began to teach. they seemed less able to develop their identities without first understanding and maturing their present selves when they found themselves in teaching contexts. this is evident in colin’s (ft) response: “i was not sure of who i [was] when i was a student, only when i started teaching, i became a little bit more sure but not that much.” similarly, nthabiseng (ft) said, “i felt pressure during my years of studies because i couldn’t know how i would turn out as a teacher one day” and for angelina (ft), “i wasn’t really sure what kind of teacher i would be one day, because i haven’t been there really, but it got better only when i was a real teacher.” only after they had found and understood their present teaching self within the profession could they formulate and start working toward their future teacher selves. beginner teacher identity evolving over a period of time our data showed that time was significant in relation to beginner teacher identity. participants from both groups agreed that beginner teacher identity construction and development involved time-consuming psychological processes. they related that the time spent in the practice contributed greatly to their beginner teacher identity. fred (pt) told us how he had “had time to actually make mistakes in class” and could learn from his mistakes by trying new methods. part-time participants showed more secure beginner teacher identities during their first years in the profession and seemed to have a clearer idea of the fact that teacher van der westhuizen & woest: “do all roads lead to rome?” 89 identity is never completely stable. fred (pt) said, “i knew i would still change a lot as a teacher because even now when i see other colleagues teaching, i think about it and try things in my class. i also remembered that from when i was studying and working at a school only as an assistant. i realise this thing will take years.” hannah (pt) explained that by working as an assistant teacher while studying part-time, she could try different ideas about what she thought would work for her. this is apparent from her explanation that “at one point, i was basically the teacher for five weeks in the class. and that already helped me, from an early stage, to identify what works for me as a teacher and what doesn’t work for me as a teacher so that once i graduated it wouldn’t be such a bomb shock for me in class.” george (pt) agreed with hannah (pt), in the sense that his identity was shaped over an extended period. he commented that because he had additional time in a school setting, he had extra time during which to change his beginner teacher identity to feel more self-assured in what he was doing in class. he said, “creating your identity is a process, which i feel is done over a long period of time, and by studying part-time it was easier to find myself and to stand on my own feet in the educational world.” full-time participants agreed that the construction of a beginner identity takes time, and they thought that pre-service teachers who studied part-time had had more time for this process to happen. in some cases, full-time participants viewed this as a distinct advantage of having studied part-time. angelina (ft) said that “all the other teachers starting with me who did it part-time, i feel like they had more of an advantage, and they knew exactly what to expect when walking into a classroom because they had more years working with the kids.” colin (ft) agreed with angelina (ft) and added, “i believe part-time would have been a better choice because even though you are working, you are not a full-fledged teacher. you are still learning, you are learning by observing and doing a little, and then systematically increasing the amount of work you do.” hannah (pt) explained how her choice of teacher education programme aided her to evolve and adjust her beginner teacher identity even though she was busy studying. she said, “i literally got to grow within a school system, and i got to evolve in my way as a teacher because i was constantly busy with teaching every single day.” she said she had additional time to experiment with different ways of teaching and that those teachable instances matured her beginner teacher identity earlier in her years of study. she said that “the institute that i graduated from definitely helped my teacher identity because i went through a trial-and-error stage while i was doing it. i could see what was working for me and what was not working for me.” angelina (ft) made an interesting point about the time available for full-time pre-service teachers when she commented on the demands of being a full-time student by saying, “you know you are studying full-time, so your studies must be the priority. making sure that you pass is really important, you don’t really have time to think about the type of teacher you want to be or will be even if lecturers ask you to think about it.” practical experience being critical to beginner teacher identity although both groups of participants had vastly different experiences, one aspect upon which they all agreed was the significance of practical experience as part of teacher education 90 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 programmes. full-time participants felt that their beginner teacher identity would have manifested differently if they had had more practical experience before they started teaching. angelina (ft) and colin (ft) made several substantive claims in this regard. angelina (ft) said, “i believe that if i had studied part-time and worked as a teacher, my teacher identity would have been completely different. because, then i would have gained more practical experience, working with the kids, hands-on experience.” colin (ft) agreed when he said, “during my short teaching practice, there my teaching identity was formed and shaped, i believe. it gave me the opportunity to prepare for what being a full-time teacher would be. i learned more from teaching practice than i did from my institution.” he added, “i believe that if i studied part-time, i might have gotten the opportunity to learn more and be more prepared. studying part-time would kind of already make you a teacher, so you would have learned from the job.” angelina (ft) stated that she would have valued additional practical experience and that the lack of prolonged practical engagement made her feel lost. as she put it, “when i walked into the classroom, i was completely lost . . . i did not feel that i had enough practical experience to be able to work with the kids.” all participants felt confident about the positive impact the practical experience had had on their beginner teacher identity, whether it was more practical experience in the case of parttime participants or less so for full-time participants. fred (pt) said, “i got my experience from my school, it is out and out because i have been teaching there while i study that gave me the advantage or the experience, to teach like i teach now. they guided and supported me and gave me lots of opportunities.” colin (ft), as a full-time student, concurred with the significance of his practical experience of six months when he said, “it was during teaching practice where we learned, where we worked at schools for six months, there my teaching identity was formed and shaped.” george (pt) commented on the way in which his practical experience now elicits a sense of early success when he said, “i also feel practical experience gave me a head start in the teaching industry where i had a lot of experience because i taught and studied part-time. i already know i will make it in the industry. experience is key to help you find your own teaching identity.” hannah (pt) explained that some of the most important aspects of her beginner teacher identity came from observing other teachers. she said, “i had a lot of examples to learn from, and i had a lot of people that i could grab knowledge from.” nthabiseng (ft) captured the significant role played by practical experience by these powerful words when she said, when i was actually dealing with problems and seeing how the teachers actually react to certain situations, i could either gain from that or decide for myself that i won’t ever handle a child that way. i think there are a lot of influencing factors, that need to be taken into consideration for your beginner teacher identity to grow. but i would definitely label the most important one, the one you cannot go without as practical experience. van der westhuizen & woest: “do all roads lead to rome?” 91 discussion of findings different routes towards the profession influence beginner teacher identity states pre-service teachers’ identities are not fixed, but are, rather, fluid processes involving “interpretation and reinterpretation of experience” (nichols et al., 2017, p. 407). it was evident from our data that early teacher identity states of former full-time and part-time preservice teachers differed in several ways and that they all had unique visions and goals for their future teaching selves. this is in agreement with the view of harrison (2018, p. 4) who noted, we all envisage a range of possible identities for ourselves, framed by factors both within and beyond our control . . . these possible selves are part of building a wider narrative that we use to make sense of our lives in our own social context. the participants who studied via full-time teacher education programmes said that they had not yet formed a clear beginner teacher identity before they started teaching and their responses during the interviews suggested an uncertainty about their emerging beginner teacher identity. marcus and nurius (1986) explained this process as the idea an individual has of what they want to become. full-time participants were not sure of who they were as teachers when they started teaching. when describing their beginner teacher identities, the full-time participants spoke about who they “hoped” they might become. this is in line with the view of marcus and nurius (1986) whose possible selves theory indicates how thoughts about the future has self-relevant goals as its aim and how future-orientated thought provides information relevant to identity formation as confirmed more recently by hamman et al. (2010). both groups of participants expressed individual hopes for the future and spoke about their fears regarding present teaching situations. teaching is a profession in which feelings and motivation play an important role, and to support pre-service teachers’ learning, their feelings, desires, and thoughts must be taken into account (korthagen, 2017). from the findings elicited from our data, it is safe to say that the beginner teacher identity states of fulltime study participants seemed to shift more frequently between perceptions of their past selves and hopeful visions of their future selves. additionally, full-time study participants seemed to take longer to construct a clear view of their beginner teacher identity. for all these particular participants, this process began only after they had started teaching. this might imply that their future self was under slightly more pressure since they had to deal with all the demands made on beginner teachers as deswita (2019) and klusman et al. (2016) have indicated in different contexts, while attempting to understand and get to know their newly emerging professional personas. the group who studied part-time while working in schools seemed to have formed a rough image of what they wanted their beginner teacher identity to be or, in some cases, knew that a strong identity had already emerged. for these participants the shift towards a clearer 92 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 beginner teacher identity seems to have started earlier and they also seemed to have a clearer idea of the current state of their teaching selves. they ascribed this to the fact that they had the opportunity to interact directly with learners and teachers in a schooling environment. this finding correlates with the views of padua and franca-carvalho (2019) and nomlomo and sosibo, (2016) who emphasised the significance of pedagogical practice as the basis of the contextualisation of teaching experience. the perceived chasm between tertiary studies and practice participants from both groups mentioned the magnitude of the difference between what they had been taught at their tertiary institution and their experiences during what they referred to as “real-life teaching.” these differences were mentioned by all participants irrespective of the route they had chosen to become teachers. participants compared the content of what they were taught at their respective initial teacher education institutions to how this translated into their experiences in practice. their views were in line with gravett’s (2012, p. 4) descriptions of “studying theory from books and in lectures” and then “applying” it practically in what is termed the “real world.” participants from both groups indicated that they were not sure how different modules were aligned and failed to understand how theoretical content translated into practice. rusznyak (2015) accounted for this by pointing out that when pre-service teachers failed to understand the fundamental composition of their teacher education programme, they had trouble understanding the relationships between and among the different modules they study. it was evident that the chasm between their tertiary studies and their experiences during their first years in practice influenced their identity formation process. participants entered their new profession with the expectation that they were comprehensively prepared through their tertiary studies to face initial challenges, which was not always the case. it is important to note that although the full-time participants had the essential theoretical knowledge, they just did not yet comprehend how to use it practically. this could have added to the feeling of being overwhelmed that they experienced; they had not yet realized that their theoretical knowledge is just as important as their practical experience. galman (2009) presented another perspective on participants’ responses to what they learn during their tertiary training. she viewed the “ubiquitous grumbling” (p. 468) of pre-service teachers as an indication of a possible positive effect of their teacher education program on their preservice teacher identity development. she argued that a phronesis, or practical wisdom approach to pre-service teacher education, may resolve the theory vs. practice problem and added that such an approach will focus mainly on the expansion of practical reasoning or perception-based knowledge, which will assist in effective communication and decisionmaking in a classroom setting. the experiences of dissonance and the emotions related to being overwhelmed, as was evident in participants’ responses, may suggest that they are wrestling with novel ideas and moving forward in developing a unique and more stable and secure teacher self. van der westhuizen & woest: “do all roads lead to rome?” 93 the critical role of exposure to practice both groups of participants held strong views about exposure to practice being essential to the construction and development of their beginner teacher identities. part-time participants thought that they had had more time to develop their beginner teacher identity than had their full-time counterparts and added that they felt adequately prepared for teaching full-time. the choice of teacher education programme determines the amount of practical experience to which pre-service teachers are exposed (darling-hammond et al., 2015). full-time teacher education programmes struggle to provide adequate time for important practical experience, and thus typically place pre-service teachers in schools for limited periods of time (hofmeyr, 2016). beginner teachers’ identities are formed to some extent by the ideas and approaches promoted by their teacher education programmes (anspal et al., 2012; beauchamp & thomas, 2011). from our data it was evident that full-time participants had limited practical involvement compared to part-time participants who worked full-time at schools. the perceived deficiency in practical experience of full-time participants resulted in feelings of being overwhelmed and lost, which meant they could not focus on, nor see the benefits of, their theoretical knowledge. in contrast, our data indicated that prolonged practical experience during formal teacher training had a strong positive influence on the development of the beginner teacher identities of part-time participants. according to hofmeyr (2016), a key flaw identified in university curricula is a lack of sufficient school practical experience. this is confirmed by the findings of our study. conclusion among other factors not explored in this paper, our findings suggest that different teacher education programmes influence the emergent beginner teacher identity of teachers during their early years of teaching to a considerable extent. our findings show that exposure to practical experience in the school environment played a significant role in the development of beginner teacher identity. consequently, the extent of opportunities for practical experience offered by different higher education institutions might constitute a substantial link to the development of beginner teacher identity. from participants’ shared lived experiences, we were able to recognise processes of growth and transformation in pre-service teachers during their years of study as they experienced the different routes to qualification with some similarities in the experiences of those who chose the same route. although intrinsic desire and motivation of both full-time and part-time students, among other factors, eventually determines their classroom success (hofmeyr, 2016) we hold the view that the choice of teacher educator programmes is a factor that cannot be ignored in conversations about teacher training. additionally, beginner teacher identity may be influenced in a holistic sense by the choice of teacher education programmes in ways that our findings did not show. 94 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 we recognise that the choice of a teacher educator programme is one of the important building blocks that make up the past self of beginner teachers. the past experiences of a beginner teacher cannot be changed or rewoven; 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(2010). rethinking the connections between campus courses and field experiences in college-and university-based teacher education. journal of teacher education, 61(1/2), 89–99. journal of education, 2016 issue 66, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za a capability analysis on the implementation of the school progression policy and its impact on learner performance paul munje and rouaan maarman (received 17 august 2015; accepted 5 may 2016) abstract this paper focuses on the extent and consequences of learner progression in the form of ‘automatic promotion’ or grade promotion for reasons other than academic achievement, as propagated by the existing school progression policy (spp) and how its implementation affects learner performance. the paper argues that, although the advantages and disadvantages of grade retention and automatic promotion, or the promotion of learners that do not possess the required content knowledge, are highly contentious, the spp produces numerous complexities and unfreedoms on learners when examined through the lens of the capabilities approach (ca). based on a study of three quintile-1 (q-1) primary schools in cape town, the paper argues that, although the spp is ambitious and well intentioned, critical implementation and monitoring challenges negatively reconfigures the educational aspirations of primary school learners. the paper also reveals that the implementation of the spp imposes many unfreedoms for both learners and teachers in high poverty level areas. the study revealed that the ca, despite its limitations in terms of conceptualisation, does provide a unique framework to investigate real freedoms and unfreedoms of the spp. statement of the problem although some of the south african government’s objectives in the domain of education, such as access have been achieved (modisaotsile, 2012), others such as finding a balance between enrolment and performance, and between input and outcomes, especially in poor schools, remains an on-going education crisis and debate (spaull, 2013; pretorius, 2014). in the view of maarman (2009), government efforts to improve education have been dampened by existing poverty imperatives, despite acknowledgements of great improvements in the south african education system (crouch and mabogoane, 2001; chisholm, 2004; van der berg, 2006; taylor, fleisch and shindler, 2008; taylor, van der berg and burger, 2012). the current impasse 186 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 of q-1 primary schools interrogates the efficacy of current policy approaches as there is evidence of persistent poor learner performance. the predicament of poor schools in south africa is described as worsening and in need of different ways to understand and address the problem (itumeleng and ldm, 2014; pretorius 2014; bayat, louw and rena, 2014). this scenario is puzzling as since 1994, numerous efforts have been made by the government and researchers alike towards understanding existing predicaments and providing solutions where applicable. however, despite these efforts, the issue of learner underperformance in poor south african primary schools remains an on-going debate, with a seemingly unclear outlook in the near future (pretorius, 2014; bayat, et al., 2014). the existing circumstances are predominantly blamed on poverty, teacher quality and content knowledge, parental lack of education, and poor management skills of school principals (anderson, case and lam, 2001; yamauchi, 2011; hoadley 2012; spaull, 2013). this prevailing view of the causes of underperformance in poor schools has resulted in numerous efforts by the government over more than 20 years to reallocate the necessary resources to meet the needs of such schools, yet, despite this, the issue of learner underperformance in poor schools has not been addressed and moreover remains a cumbersome and contentious issue. this also raises the question of how effectively the democratic dispensation has been translated into benefits for poor school communities (maarman, 2009). in attempting to investigate these unanswered or unsatisfactorily answered questions, it is tempting to ask whether efforts made have been inadequate in scale, or whether the issues themselves have been poorly or incorrectly understood. exploring the spp through the lens of the ca can contribute towards answering the seemingly intricate question of the causes of learner underperformance in poor schools, and contribute to help to address the ongoing concerns of researchers, educationists and policy makers. research aims the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that although the spp is ambitious and well intentioned, critical implementation and monitoring challenges negatively reconfigures the educational aspirations of primary school learners. the paper also aims to use the ca as its theoretical lens, despite its munje and maarman: a capability analysis. . . 187 limitations, to show that although other exigencies exist, the spp leads to certain unfreedoms on learners and teachers that intricately contribute to underperformance. literature review the school progression policy in south africa progression is referred to as “the movement of a learner from one grade to the next, excluding grade r, in spite of the learners not having complied with all the promotion requirements. progression can be used to prevent a learner from being retained in a phase for a period exceeding four years. . .” (department of basic education, 2011, p.xi). although specific requirements are provided to guide learner promotion, the spp is meant to ensure that, apart from spending a maximum of four years in a phase; learners are able to progress with their age cohort. the policy in this aspect stipulates that, since such learners are likely to repeat the new grade, they be given the necessary support to assist them to progress to the next grade, with the intention of promoting learner dignity, self-esteem and the need to encourage socialisation by age (department of basic education, 2012). the spp is regarded as one of south africa’s key transformation vehicles within the education sector, taking into consideration the disadvantaged nature of poor schools as many are a product of “40 years of inferior education. . .” (hartley, 2006, p.98). the critical issues resonating from the circumstances of poor schools as a consequence of historically inferior education are learner underperformance, and a high dropout rate. to offset the existent inequality within the educational sector, and at the same time maintain equity, quality and learner retention rates, the spp is employed as a key tool to give learners the necessary support they require in order to achieve these objectives. the spp is thus regarded as one of those policies or constructs that have contributed to unequal educational opportunities in south africa (maarman, 2009), mainly due to poor implementation and the lack of monitoring and evaluation. since a learner is only allowed to repeat a grade once in each phase, the learner is liable for promotion once he or she has already repeated a grade in a phase. in effect, the policy ensures that, a learner is given the opportunity to 188 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 progress with the age cohort. in this circumstance, “the system is not able to prevent promotion to the next grade or phase even if she/he does not fulfil the educational requirements to be promoted” (hartley, 2006, p.100). the assumption is that, however, the learner will be assisted to acquire the necessary content knowledge that he or she lacks in the new grade, in order to assist that learner to cope in the current grade, as well as, to progress to the next grade (department of basic education, 2012). this approach is assumed apart from restoring learner dignity and self-esteem, it contributes to achieve south africa’s millennium development goal (mdg) of ensuring that all children complete primary education despite their age (statistics south africa, 2013). however, it raises many theoretical and practical concerns in terms of learners’ wellbeing, abilities, opportunities and logistical support during the teaching and learning process, the availability of support systems in place to facilitate the coping process for learners, and the resultant performance. despite existing uncertainties, learner progression within the south african context is viewed as a good systemic indicator of quality education (hartley, 2006). as such, automatic progression is preferred within the south african context considering that retention is regarded as being synonymous with learner dropout (branson, hofmeyr and lam, 2013; hartley, 2006). hartley (2006), though arguing for learner progression, acknowledges the challenges that accompany learners that are promoted without acquiring the necessary content knowledge required for the new grades. progression and performance debates debates around learner progression, retention and performance are on-going, contentious and contradictory. jimerson and renshaw (2012) argue that neither retention nor automatic promotion have the potential to fully assist learners at risk, nor provide satisfactory answers to learner challenges and underperformance, because both approaches harbour a host of disadvantages. educationists, researchers, and policy makers around the world struggle to fully explain learner underperformance. in the case of q-1 schools in south africa persistent learner underperformance is particularly puzzling, considering increasing government efforts in terms of resource allocation, and the introduction of policies such as the spp aimed at promoting access, equity and quality education (hartley, 2006). munje and maarman: a capability analysis. . . 189 the literature shows that these debates advocate either grade repetition or automatic promotion (scott and ames, 1969; alexander, entwise and dauber, 2003). for example, scott et al. (1969) argue that, grade repetition has a noble role to play in the child’s development and ability to perform better, because they repeat a grade and have the opportunity to acquire more knowledge. scott et al. (1969, p.434) added that repeating means going at a slower rate, a process that reduces the pressure on the learner and thus makes things easier for a learner who is having difficulty. scott et al. (1969), however, argue that the process does not ultimately provide a cure for other school problems that the learners might be having. alexander et al. (2003) investigated the advantages and disadvantages of both learners that are automatically progressed and those that are allowed to repeat, in the context of existing support structures both in the new and current grades respectively. they conclude that what matters most is the kind of support structures in place, because the lack of a proper coping process and structures both for those that are allowed to repeat and those that are promoted could result in learners performing worse than they were at the beginning of the year. this view is supported by jimerson, carlson, rotert, egeland and sroufe (1997) who argue that the kinds of mechanisms in place to assist retained learners may result in retained learners performing worse than if automatically promoted. furthermore, pagani, tremblay, vitaro, boulerice and mcduff (2001) argue that there are possibilities for certain characteristics embedded in learners to persist or even become worse than if they are automatically promoted or promoted needing assistance. picklo and christenson (2005) maintain that promoting learners that do not possess the required academic requirements presents such learners with challenges, because they are likely to struggle to cope with the workload of the new grades, a scenario they consider also frustrating for teachers who are exposed to unprepared learners within their classrooms. conversely, jimerson, et al. (1997) hold the view that the negative effects of retention outweigh social promotion and therefore assume that promoting learners, even if they do not acquire the necessary academic requirements, is preferable. jimerson et al. (1997), however, fail to suggest strategies that can be employed to guarantee coping in the new grades for learners that are automatically promoted. 190 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 the capability approach and education the capability approach (ca), a central concept in the works of amartya sen, is used as a theoretical lens to assess the efficacy of the spp because its principles are embedded within the circumstances of q-1 schools. the human well-being factor that underpins the ca is closely, though not directly, linked with education, which, however, still needs to be properly exploited by researchers within this domain (saito, 2003). in recent years, education, as a discipline has increased its use of the ca as a framework for theorising, implementing and evaluating social policy as a matter of social justice, based on the ca’s commitment to social justice, human wellbeing, freedom, development and human agency, and in its practical emphasis on what people are actually able to do and to be (walker, 2006; walker and unterhalter, 2007). this is justified by the fact that the ca focuses on what people are able to do and to be, rather than on their material possessions (sen, 1992). this justifies the quality of life and wellbeing of individuals as the underpinning of the ca. amartya sen (1992), in outlining his ca, considers freedoms and unfreedoms as primary elements in determining achievement, and these are applicable in the assessment of the circumstances and experiences of q-1 primary schools in relation to the spp. sen (1992) postulates that, even where equal resources are provided, and barriers or constraints to achievements exist, there are possibilities of variations in outcomes. the ca is underpinned by constructs such as; capabilities, functionings, freedoms and unfreedoms. according to sen (2005, p.154), “a capability refers to a combination of functionings from which the person can choose one combination”. in the context of this paper functionings relate to human fulfilment; that is, the valuable activities and states that make up a person’s well-being. it can be summarised as what a person actually manages to do or to be. in the view of sen, a person’s wellbeing in society is thus judged by a “person’s capability to do things he or she has reason to value” (sen, 2009, p.231). sen thus lays emphasis on the fact that the ca is controlled by two variables which are the means to achieving what a person desires, and the ends that reflect the actual opportunities accrued after a particular combination. in this paper learner performance is regarded as an end in the understanding of human wellbeing, and the spp as a means to achieving that end, since the ca focuses more on opportunities available to fulfilling ends rather than the means to achieving these. what an individual is thus able to achieve or not achieve is determined by existing freedoms and unfreedoms. munje and maarman: a capability analysis. . . 191 in sen’s view freedoms are crucial in the understanding of human wellbeing because the actual freedoms we have to choose the kind of life we value do undoubtedly influence the ends (sen, 2009). here, sen (2009) identifies two kinds of freedoms; opportunity freedom and process freedom. opportunity freedom articulates the opportunity one has to pursue valued objectives in order to promote valued ends. here the inability of learners to receive the necessary support as indicated in the spp in order to perform means that they were missing out on their opportunity freedom. process freedom on the other hand ensures that one is not “being forced into some state because of the constraints imposed by others” (sen, 2009, p.228). in this paper the spp is looked at from the process approach of freedom, considering the possibility of alternative learner outcomes if other methods other than the spp were used, for example allowing learners to repeat a grade to gain more content knowledge before progressing to a new grade. the ca thus “proposes a serious departure from concentrating on the means of living to the actual opportunities of living” (sen, 2009, p. 233). this paper argues that there is a need to apply the ca as a means of understanding the underlying reasons for the nature of learner performance in south african primary schools, by investigating the real freedoms and unfreedoms embedded within the spp. such an interrogation would incorporate sen’s view that people and communities differ in many ways, and as such, inequalities peculiar to them may positively or negatively influence the institution’s or individuals’ freedoms to achieve irrespective of the amount of resources (sen, 1992). therefore, the spp cannot in itself determine performance, but rather how the various individual schools implement the policy to attain certain functionings (sen, 1985 and 1999). according to the ca, the ability of schools to implement the policy to achieve set goals is influenced by both internal and external factors (sen, 1985). the ca is thus seen as a broad, normative framework for the evaluation and assessment of individual well-being and social arrangements, as well as the design of policies, and proposals about social change (sen, 1989). therefore, interrogating the existing spp within the context of poor primary schools using the ca is considered a valid contribution to the ongoing debate concerning learner progression, retention and performance. the key conceptual shift of the ca is to challenge the common assumption that resources equal achievement. it argues that, in the case of education, individuals or institutions/schools should not be assessed based on the amount of resources at their disposal without considering the salient but silent 192 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 variables (internal and external characteristics) that influence their abilities to achieve what they value in life relating to education. according to the ca, these internal and external features are considered to differ within and between spaces, based on the assumption that every person or institution/school is unique, and thus should be assessed based on the characteristics of individual spaces and capabilities. this view should provoke reflection on how human diversity impacts on assessment of equality and inequality in the domain of q-1 primary schools. sen (1992) argues that diversity enables people or schools to progress differently even in circumstances where they have the same amounts of primary goods. sen (1992, p.xi), in reemphasising the importance of uniqueness (human diversity) in influencing achievement, argues that, it is not advisable to assess or compare two institutions or persons based on the premise that “all men are created equal”, while ignoring the important, salient variables that create the possibilities of other inequalities within and between spaces. such variations in school settings are considered to significantly influence the implementation of the spp and consequently influencing learner performance within schools. the spp is thus interrogated vigorously within this milieu using the ca, to better understand existing learner performance challenges within school spaces. this is aimed at providing new insights into how we think about what people do, why they do what they do, and why they succeed or fail to succeed (terzi, 2005). in this context, the paper investigates the spp in relation to the on-going underperformance within a particular poor school community, using the ca as a preferred theoretical lens. research methodology to address the research aims, a study was undertaken in three q-1 primary schools in an informal settlement in cape town. a literature review was undertaken to understand the various dynamics, features, debates, and contestations surrounding learner underperformance in the selected primary schools, as well as, progression debates. for research purposes, these schools are classified as schools a, b and c. a qualitative study was conducted between april and september 2012, and february and march 2013, to understand the intricacies surrounding learner underperformance in the three selected q-1 primary schools. munje and maarman: a capability analysis. . . 193 these schools have many obvious similarities in terms of learner background, and being located in a community with similar socioeconomic status (ses), and amounts of support received from the government in terms of school resources, considering that they are all q-1 schools. four teachers, twenty learners from each of the schools, and the principals were part of the investigation. mainly grade 7 learners investigated were part of a cohort that entered grade r in 2005 to 2012 when they were in grade 7. however, for the purpose of this paper only data collected through the analysis of learner schedules/report cards as well as, questionnaires and interviews with teachers and school principals was extensively used. interviews were conducted with principals, while 4 teachers from each of the schools participated in focus group interviews. questionnaire questions were administered to teachers and the principals based on their varying responsibilities. the questions asked to principals were centred on their role to enhance and facilitate the conversion of existing school resources into learner performance, especially in terms of the spp. this was also intended to understand the challenges and unfreedoms principals encounter in implementing the spp, taking into consideration the fact that poverty on its own within this community do bring challenges that negatively affect learner performance. questions asked to teachers covered areas such as curriculum implementation, classroom management, unfreedoms encountered in the course of implementing the curriculum, and classroom dynamics in relation to the spp. learner schedules were also scrutinised to understand the nature of learner progression, the implication of the spp on learner performance in the new grades, and unfreedoms inherent within the system, in terms of large classes, ignorance of the existence of the policy and its demands, as well as, monitoring and evaluation. information was thus obtained on how and why learners were progressed, and how they performed in the new grades, taking into consideration the obligation to receive support as stipulated by the spp (see table 1). the data obtained through interview were captured through audio recording, transcribed and analysed to obtain a picture of how the implementation of the spp impacted on learner experiences and performance. interview data were cross-checked and compared with data obtained from learner schedules for validity and reliability. 194 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 discussion structure of the school progression policy the spp provides that, in circumstances where learners display a lack of preparedness for the next grade, but qualify in terms of age to progress with the appropriate age cohort, there is a need to specifically assess them to determine the level of support they would require in the next grade if progressed (department of basic education, 2011). the policy was thus designed to ensure that learner needs are clearly indicated in the report cards/schedules as ‘needing support’; including the appropriate details to ensure that the teacher in the new grade adequately comprehends the nature and extent of learner needs. however, in the schools surveyed the nature of reporting in the schedules in terms of learner needs is in itself vague, because the particular section of the subject in which the learners need support is not specified, and how, when, and who will provide the necessary support is also not provided for. the policy designers expected that various schools put in place their own unique workable strategies to implement the demands of the policy in order to assist learners in need. in essence, the policy theoretically expected that principals through the heads of departments (hods) monitor and evaluate teacher abilities and efforts in implementing the spp (hartley, 2006). however, the lack of monitoring and evaluation by the department resulted in the existence of a blanket policy whereby schools, in the case of those surveyed; either could not correctly interpret the policy aims and objectives, ignored the policy entirely or merely implemented these policy directives in their own unique and seemingly contradictory ways, and thus impeding learner freedoms. implementation of the school progression policy the spp in poor schools is beset by a series of challenges and implications for learner performance due to its lack of a clear cut structure and implementation plan. although the policy theoretically designates that learners promoted based on their age and the number of times they may have repeated a grade are given the necessary support to help them cope with the challenges of the new grades, how and when that support should be given and by whom munje and maarman: a capability analysis. . . 195 remains unclear, often leading to misinterpretation and laxity on the part of the teachers in policy implementation. the policy also does not clearly indicate how the implementation chain works, in terms of responsibilities, monitoring and evaluation of the functionality of the policy in individual schools. although monitoring and evaluation of the spp in schools on the part of the principals ought to be a continuous and developmental process (hartley, 2006), the principals in this study reasoned that monitoring and evaluation of teachers in relation to the implementation of the spp and other aspects of the curriculum remained the prerogative of the hods. this in fact echoes the lack of standardised strategies, and monitoring and evaluation mechanisms on the part of the doe, the principals, and hods. clearly, this scenario indicates that teachers are left on their own to implement the policy in their own unique ways and at their own leisure, thus the adoption of conflicting and contradictory approaches by individual teachers. since there was no official ‘catch-up’ programmes in the schools that rendered the ‘necessary support’ specified by the policy, no clear cut directives on how information provided on learner reports cards ought to be transmitted, and used in the classroom, teachers thought and reacted varyingly towards policy imperatives. the sheer number of learners needing assistance, together with the large class sizes, compelled some teachers to abandon the idea of assisting learners on an individual basis, irrespective of how urgent and/or profound those needs were. others were in fact unaware of the imperatives of the policy, and as such ignored its existence and requirements, and often conducted their lessons as usual without taking into consideration academically disadvantaged learners who needed special support. teachers, who for diverse reasons were unable to assist the needy learners in terms of the policy directives, ended up lowering standards for all learners in their class in an attempt to assist weak learners to catch up, and in the end not completing the syllabus. the principal of school b indicated that educators struggle to complete problems carried over from the previous grades, before starting with the programme for the current grade, often setting in motion a backward trend that at times leads to retrogression. also, educators passionate about learner ability to understand focus on bringing weak learners to speed and in the end unconsciously ignore the syllabus that has to be completed, and the standards that has to be maintained. this clearly leads to learners being overwhelmed with unfreedoms in the new grades (see table 1) due to the lack of preparedness and inadequate coping 196 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 resources in the new grades as enshrined in the aims and objectives of the spp, and as expected by the department of basic education (dbe) (hartley, 2006). an educator lamented that, due to the promotion of academically unprepared learners, some kids in grade 7 have the mind-set of grade 4 learners. without a proper coping process, this dilemma persists and deprives learners of opportunities to learn and chances to perform better. in the schools surveyed, this dilemma can be attributed to the lack of collaboration, and a breakdown in communication between the teachers themselves, between teachers and hods, between hods and principals, and between principals and the dbe, thus limiting learners’ freedoms to learn. this is because learners were deprived of the opportunity to learn what they ought to learn in order to become what they desire to be. in these schools, teachers and principals perceived responsibilities and performed functions their own way despite specifications by the dbe for the development of teachers, and school management personnel and departmental support for personnel since it is regarded as an important facet of achieving set goals (department of education, 2002). some teachers in these schools as a consequence of a breakdown in communication, and the lack of monitoring and evaluation, ignored the entire process on the grounds that they ought to be told at the beginning of each school year the number of learners in their classes with needs, and the specific kinds of needs, while in the view of the principals it is the duty of the teachers to check learner schedules that are readily available for that purpose. however, there were possibilities of teacher effort being dampened by the nature of information contained in the report cards, since most of the information was not explanatory enough as required. another challenge inherent in the implementation of the spp in the schools surveyed relates to the nature of information contained in the learner report cards/schedules, which did not in fact provide a proper description of the kind of assistance required by each and every learner, and in every subject. learner report cards/schedules conveyed inadequate information or vague comments such as, ‘the learner needs support in all learning areas’, ‘needs support in english and mathematics’, ‘needs support in mathematics and languages’, but did not directly, or clearly indicate which section of the learning area/subject the learner was struggling to cope with. this in a way prevented teachers from giving learners the deserved support, thus impacting on their freedoms to learn and pass. despite the fact that teachers were in theory expected to provide a list of learners who they considered needed assistance, with a detailed description of the kind of needs they required for easy munje and maarman: a capability analysis. . . 197 identification and support, that was never the case. as such, many teachers in the schools surveyed interpreted the policy in their own unique and inconsistent ways, and attended to it at their own leisure, although some of them ignored the entire process based on the inconsistent and contradictory processes involved. one of the teachers affirmed that she did not bother to look at learner schedules to know those that came to her class needing assistance, but was able to identify some of them in the course of the year. in addition, in the schools surveyed, emphasis was placed primarily on languages and mathematics, while ignoring other subject learning areas, even if learners struggled to cope in these areas. this scenario made it difficult to identify the particular needs of the learners, thus creating spaces for confusion, inconsistency, and misinterpretation. this in effect limited learner freedoms to acquire the assistance they deserved, and in turn dampened the necessary abilities for coping in the new grades. table 1 below shows three learners that were promoted from grade 6 to 7 in 2011 needing assistance, but struggled to cope and were unable to gain promotion to high school. table 1: learner progression decision at the end of 4 term in grade 7 inth 2012 for selected learners in school a no of subjects 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 progression decision learner a’s final subject codes at the end of fourth term 3 2 1 2 2 3 4 2 3 not ready to progress (nrp) learner b’s final subject codes at the end of fourth term 3 1 2 3 1 2 2 3 2 not ready to progress (nrp) learner c’s final subject codes at the end of fourth term 3 2 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 not ready to progress (nrp) the inconsistencies embedded in the spp create an awkward situation. the principal of school b indicated that teachers misinterpreted the policy and assumed that they have the obligation to repeat the entire syllabus to enable struggling learners to catch up; a process many educators in the schools surveyed considered boring, time consuming, and futile, especially for those learners that genuinely earned their promotion and needed to acquire new knowledge. thus, the nature of the spp and the limited efforts of the teachers 198 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 prevented learners from receiving the necessary support, further deepening existing unfreedoms. the spp has two tenets that gave learners dual options to be promoted, even if they lack the required academic knowledge: the age cohort, and the fact that they can only repeat a grade once in each phase, resulting in a rise in the number of learners promoted needing assistance, especially in poor schools. in the schools surveyed, the number of learners needing individual support, as well as the class size, in essence compelled teachers to abandon the idea of assisting learners individually, irrespective of how urgent or profound their needs were (see table 2). the principal of school a perceived that giving assistance to such academically challenged learners was similar to ‘chasing a shadow’. table 2: number of learners promoted in school a needing assistance from grade 3 to 4 in 2008 grade 3a grade 3b grade 3c grade 3d total number of learners in class 43 41 44 40 168 ready to progress 22 28 20 26 96 ready to progress with support 21 13 24 14 72 not ready to progress 2 4 8 1 15 this is compounded by the fact that the kind of support needed by such learners to meet the required content knowledge went beyond the curriculum (bojuwoye, moletsane, stofile, moolla and sylvester, 2014). as such, these teachers and principals saw the policy as ‘a necessary evil’ because of the effects of unfreedoms that were accumulated on the part of the teachers, needy learners, and those that were promoted genuinely. one of the teachers commented on the impossibility of rendering individual assistance to the numbers of learners needing the ‘necessary support’ stipulated by the policy: the number of learners in each class makes it impossible to assist those in need. i say so because, too many learners need that individual support that we as teachers cannot give to all of them. individual munje and maarman: a capability analysis. . . 199 assistance will mean extra teaching time and resources that we don’t have, especially because the needs of some of the learners are very deep. teachers do try to give general assistance to learners, but not focusing on the actual individual needs that are on the report cards, although at one point that could be crucial to the way they perform. since teachers found the demands of the spp overwhelming, they devised different methods to cope that included repeating a chunk of the syllabus of the previous grade as a means of bringing needy learners up to speed. the effect was that those learners that progressed normally and needed new content knowledge were deprived of that freedom, and also, the probability of not completing the syllabus for the current grade by the end of the school year increased. effects of the progression policy on learner aspirations the spp in essence overburdened already challenged learners by pushing them into new grades where bigger challenges awaited them, especially in an environment which played an important role in their motivation, aspirations, learning opportunities and performance. statistics obtained from school a in 2012 shows that learners who were promoted from grade 6 to 7 needing support struggled to achieve certain functionings. results in the fourth term indicates that many of these learners were hovering between ratings/codes of 1–3 in all subject areas, with code 1 representing not achieved, code 2 indicating elementary achievement and code 3 moderate achievement. all three categories represent achievements below 50%. motala, dieltiens and sayed (2009) argue that learners who are not in the correct age range for their grade are likely to struggle with their work and may be more vulnerable to dropping out. learners in the schools surveyed struggled because they were not being given the individual and special support they required in terms of the knowledge and the academic requirements they had failed to acquire in previous grades as required by the dbe (hartley, 2006). this was exacerbated by the fact that teachers struggled with the dilemma of assisting needy learners with content knowledge of previous grades, while risking neglecting to complete the syllabus of the current grade in the end disadvantaging all learners in their classroom including those that were promoted genuinely. in fact, the existing structural setup of the spp indicates that these teachers are under no strict obligation to provide this support. 200 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 according to the teachers, learners who were legitimately promoted often failed, not because they deserved to, but because they were unfairly denied the opportunities to acquire adequate content knowledge in the new grades. in some instances the time which should have been spent on covering the syllabus of the current grade was used repeating the content of the previous grade with the aim of bringing the weak learners promoted for reasons other than academic achievement up to speed, resulting in incremental unfreedoms for everyone in the classroom. the principal of school b indicated that due to this dilemma, teachers were obliged to either use up more time for revision or taught at a slower pace because needy learners in the disadvantaged schools were often overwhelmed with the workload of the new grade that was often beyond their capabilities, thus plunging the entire class into a circle of failure. in his view, standards were being lowered for all learners in the classroom in an attempt to accommodate the needy learners. it was clear in the schools surveyed that lowering standards in the course of teaching and assessment with the intention to integrate the needy learners was no guarantee of an improvement in learner levels of understanding and in turn learner performance, because these learners were in fact being conditioned to be less competitive. according to the principal of school c, learners performed well in class tests and examinations because teachers set questions based on the limited syllabus covered, but failed in competitive examinations that were set following the official syllabus. in fact, these learners were being trapped in a cycle of underperformance, and often remained at the same level or in some cases regressed. for example, out of a total of approximately 142 learners who were in grade 6 in 2011 in school a, 130 of them progressed to grade 7 needing assistance in one or more subject areas. 91 of these learners partially achieved in more than 5 learning areas out of 9. out of this number 18 of them partially achieved or did not achieve in all 9 learning areas, but were promoted to grade 7 needing support. in effect, 91 learners in grades a, b & c failed to obtain an average of more than 50% in any of the 9 learning areas in the four terms combined, but were promoted to grade 7. according to available records, out of 40 learners in grade 7a, who completed the 4 termth successfully in 2012, only one learner progressed to high school without needing support during any of the school terms or subject areas, while the rest needed support in at least one or more subject areas. statistics obtained from the school records revealed that many of these learners obtained a series of 2s (elementary achievement) and 3s (moderate achievement) but were promoted to high school where the tenet of the spp is not applicable. in essence, the policy formalises and perpetuates learner incompetency within the system, munje and maarman: a capability analysis. . . 201 and increases the probability of learners not achieving the required content knowledge, especially in poor school communities. it also creates room for numerous unfreedoms for learners who are unable to achieve the required or expected standards at the end of each year. the leniency afforded by the policy encouraged the passive and demotivated attitude exhibited by learners, because they knew that, irrespective of their status or results, progression was guaranteed based on reasons other than regular attendance or satisfactory results. although the spp in fact condemns learner absenteeism, it contradicts itself with the age variable, and the stipulated number of years to be spent in each phase, giving undeserving learners a chance to progress while they accumulate additional unfreedoms as they do so. conclusion the spp, though a noble strategy aimed at ensuring access to education, maintaining a reasonable retention rate, and achieving government’s goal of equity and quality education, is a debatable policy considering its actual contribution to learner experiences, abilities and freedoms in the classroom, particularly in poor school communities. the lack of clear cut structures and implementation strategies, and the policy’s over-reliance on abstract rather than practical directives, creates numerous unfreedoms for learners and teachers. in its process the spp ignores the opportunities available to the learners themselves, creating a tension between its intentions and its actual implementation and outcomes on learners in individual schools located in a variety of contexts. although the policy relies on ‘learner support’ to be provided by teachers in the new grades, it fails to take into consideration issues such as the coping process required by learners, variances in the degree of learner needs and challenges, and the number of learners needing support in each grade at a particular time. it also fails to consider teacher capability to offer the required support, and also its actual impact on the teaching and learning process in terms of time needed to assist needy learners in relation to the aspirations of fellow learners that progressed genuinely. here the policy focuses more on the number of learners that are promoted to the next grade, while ignoring the circumstances under which learners have to acquire the content knowledge required for survival in these new grades. this in effect incrementally reinforces and perpetuates learner challenges since inherent in 202 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 the policy is the potential for learners to accumulate unfreedoms as they progress through the various grades based on age and the number of times they repeat a grade, rather than on academic achievement. although poverty and other exigencies undeniably introduce challenges to school performance, unfreedoms enhanced by the spp no doubt illustrate the complexities inherent in the nature of schooling in poor communities (maarman, 2009). references alexander, k.l., entwise, d.r., and dauber, s.l. 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(2011). school quality, clustering and government subsidy in post-apartheid south africa. economics of education review, 30 (1), 146–156. paul munje rouaan maarman university of the western cape munjepaul@gmail.com rmaarman@uwc.ac.za https://www.policyresearch.limpopo.gov.za http://www.jet.org.za http://www.web.up.ac.za mailto:munjepaul@gmail.com mailto:rmaarman@uwc.ac.za journal of education, 2016 issue 66, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za a systems thinking perspective on change processes in a teacher professional development programme bruce brown (received 21 december 2015; accepted 31 august 16) abstract this article discusses the developing practice of foundation phase teachers involved in a three-year professional development programme. a number of substantive changes in practice were noted over this period and these changes were supported and maintained by the interaction of a number of different factors. the article takes a systems thinking perspective to formulate and analyse these changes and their interactions, as a complex system of change. this analysis enabled the identification of a number of closed loop interaction effects that supported and maintained the changes in practice. as well as providing insight into the particular change processes in this professional development programme, the article demonstrates the efficacy of this analytical perspective both for the analysis of the complex systems of change arising in professional development, and for the identification of processes and principles relevant to professional development programmes in general. while remarkable progress has been made in terms of access to education in south africa, the issue of quality education for all has not been resolved. the majority of learners are under-performing (department of basic education (dbe), 2013a & b; spaull, 2013, 2015; national education evaluation and development unit (needu), 2013). the findings of international and national research stress that teacher quality is the most important factor contributing to the quality of learner achievement (organisation for economic cooperation and development (oecd), 2005; barbour & mourshed, 2007; deacon, 2012; spaull, 2013, 2015). of significance to this article is the question asked by taylor (2014, p. 5): is the current system of teacher education producing teachers better able to address the issue of quality education? this is an important question given that evidence gathered over two decades shows that in-service professional development has had little impact on quality (p.5). 38 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 tirosh, tsamir and levenson (2015) assert that the process of teacher professional development is highly complex: they caution that single causes of change should not be expected. this is similar to the view of matos, powell and sztajn (2009) who contend that changes in practice are influenced by a complex network of interacting factors. these include, inter alia: coparticipation in the practice of teaching, developing and expanding teacher communities of practice (kaur, 2015); a balance of content, community and context (zehetmeier & krainer, 2011), and the provision of extensive and ongoing support (desimone, 2009). the research on which this article is based, addresses the issue of the impact of teacher professional development on teachers’ practices. more specifically, it investigated the developing practices of a number of foundation phase teachers enrolled in a three-year professional development programme at a south african university. the first phase of the research followed a grounded theory analysis to identify and describe how teachers’ practices changed and what the influencing factors were (brown, wilmot and paton-ash, 2015). the findings, which are described more fully in the following section, showed that the teachers’ practices changed in a number of substantive ways. furthermore, it was observed that no single factor could be held as the sole or predominant cause of any of the changes that were noted. rather, it appeared to be the interaction of a number of factors that supported substantive change in the teachers’ ongoing, everyday practice. as suggested by tirosh et al. (2015, p.158), such “co-dependency” within a “dynamic environment” may even sustain the impact of the programme over a more extended time frame. this article demonstrates how a shift in the focus of analysis, from influencing factors, to the interactions between these factors, may provide valuable insight into the dynamics of the professional development environment. it describes the second phase of the research, which was oriented within a theoretical perspective that foregrounds interaction – that of systems thinking – and that enables this shift in the focus of analysis. this article provides evidence of how a systems thinking perspective can generate insights for understanding complex change processes in teachers’ practices, that are influenced by the professional development programme. brown: a systems thinking perspective. . . 39 researching the professional development programme this research is concerned with changes in practice identified by teachers who took part in a three-year, part time, professional development programme coordinated by the centre for social development (csd) at rhodes university and attended by 33 foundation phase teachers from two school districts in the northern cape. the programme combined a strong academic component (a three-year, accredited bed upgrade programme) with in-school follow-up and support. each year, the teachers on the programme attended four block contact sessions of one week at the university, during school holidays, as well as workshops at least once a term, held in their school districts. the teachers were required to complete approximately 10 assignments in the first three quarters of each year. these assignments combined course assessment with consolidation of theories and techniques involving the deliberate interrelating of theory and practice. a field officer was employed on this programme to provide teacher follow-up and support. the field officer lived in the districts and the bulk of her time was spent supporting teachers in their schools. she also attended the block contact sessions with the teachers and facilitated the majority of the district workshops. programme academic staff visited teachers in their schools once a year and facilitated a district workshop at this time. at the end of the second year, both teachers and field officer reported a number of changes in the teachers’ practice and some changes in assessed learner performance were also noted. to develop insight into these reported changes, a phased research project into the programme was instituted. the initial phase was a case study carried out in the third year of the programme, focusing of the practice of the teachers. the aim was to identify and describe changes in practice reported by teachers (the students) participating in the programme, as well as particular practices in the programme that may have contributed to these changes. data included a questionnaire completed by all teachers, observations and semi-structured interviews of the academic staff and the field officer, as well as of the principals and programme teachers from a sample of 11 schools that had teachers enrolled in the programme. teacher and principal interviews were carried our during school visits, when the researcher also observed at least one lesson by a teacher on the programme and recorded observation notes on the school and lesson observed. three other teachers and one parent were also interviewed. 40 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 a grounded theory methodology was followed for the collection and analysis of the data. the methodology and results of the initial analysis have been reported in brown et al. (2015). a number of substantive changes in practice reported by teachers and principals (or colleagues) and supported by the researcher’s observations (and in some cases by assessment results) were identified in this phase of the research. broad themes that emerged from the grounded theory analysis included: changes in teachers’ goals, motives and evaluation; a move from presentation to participation in the classroom; projecting understanding and insight onto the world of practice; and improving resources and the classroom setting. in addition, themes that related the programme to constraints and support for changing practice were identified. these were: dealing with an extensive workload; the interplay between theory and practice in the programme, and the influence of the field officer. although teachers were generally confident that they would maintain the reported changes in their practice, the time frame of the research project was such that this assertion could not be tested by the research – a follow up project will be necessary to investigate this issue. the third phase of this research, involving a systems analysis of these changes, based on the same research data, is reported in this paper. a systems thinking perspective of change systems thinking, is a way of viewing phenomena as systems of interacting elements. it involves balancing the analysis of local, small scale details of system elements, with the analysis of global, large scale properties of the system as a whole. this approach facilitates the analysis of interactions within the system and the possible manner in which these interactions may affect the functioning of the system as a whole (steeg, 2000; lemke & sabelli, 2008). according to jacobson and wilensky (2006) a complex systems perspective can contribute to the learning sciences on both the conceptual and the methodological levels. while computational methodologies provide predictive power, analytical and descriptive methods such as network analysis allow the development of conceptual insight into complex educational systems. systems are often specified as networks of interacting elements. here both the elements (particular, small scale phenomena that may be reliably identified and described within the system) and the interactions between the elements (the manner in which each element influences another) brown: a systems thinking perspective. . . 41 are seen as important. a network analysis of a phenomenon involves the identification and characterisation of elements and interactions, resulting in the description of the system as a network of elements connected by their interactions. the network analysis generates an augmented directed graph (consisting of a collection of nodes, where some nodes are joined by links that are directed from one to the other, and a label that augments the link with some information). this graph may be represented visually in a qualitative system diagram (steeg, 2000). a simple, generalised example of such a diagram is shown in figure 1. figure 1 illustrates a network in which identifiable elements are displayed as rectangular nodes, and the direct influence of one element on another is displayed as two arrows with an intervening label, from one node to another. as it relates to our analysis, the nodes are elements of change and the links represent interactions in which one change element serves either to support (maintain) or to conflict with (undermine) the other. as an example of the propagation of influence in figure 1, note first that element a directly influences element b. but any resulting change in element b, would also change the direct influence of b on element c. in this way, element a would indirectly influence element c. figure 1: simplified system diagram illustrating nodes, links and loops. a chain of influence which closes on itself to form a loop may be termed a loop of influence, or a feedback loop. in such a loop, the influence of each element is propagated through the loop and so returns to influence the element itself. such loops require a fundamental conceptual shift in causal analysis, that is evident in systems thinking – a shift from linear to circular causation, where any element may indirectly influence itself, because its 42 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 influence is propagated throughout the system through the interactions between the elements. this has two important implications: first, there is no original cause that initiates and maintains any effect spread though such a loop. that is, the question of original cause is no longer appropriate in this case. second, that a more appropriate question for such a loop of influence is whether any particular response pattern of the system is stable (maintained by the loop) or unstable (undermined by the loop). the move from local to global in systems analysis, is made by investigating the way that the system interactions aggregate, preserve and dissipate properties of elements. based on this, one investigates the manner in which particular response patterns of interacting elements may be changed, or maintained by their interactions within the system. one also investigates the possibility that response patterns may give rise to observable aggregate properties of the system as a whole. of particular relevance for such an analysis are the concepts of ‘emergence’, ‘self organisation from decentralised interactions’ and ‘positive feedback loops’. emergence relates to stable response patterns that may generate observable aggregate properties and is described by jacobson and wilensky (p. 6, 2006) as “how local interactions of elements in a complex system at a microlevel can contribute to higher order macrolevel patterns”. self organisation from decentralised interactions relates to the observation that consistency in arrangements does not occur as a result of a centralised controlling element with the goal of maintaining that arrangement. rather, such a stable pattern is a consequence of the interrelationships of the elements in the system – it is a bottom-up, emergent phenomenon (mason, 2008) and not a top-down goal directed structuring of the system. positive feedback loops can be seen as one mechanism of self structuring. as loops, they are closed loops of interactions. feedback relates to the influence of a property of an element, when it is ‘fed back’ to that element after being transmitted through the loop. positive feedback occurs when changing a property results in an influence that maintains that change after being fed back through the loop. a positive feedback loop will then have the global effect of maintaining, or even amplifying the change of that property, as the system evolves. again, it must be emphasised that this occurs without any centralised, directing control, but rather as a consequence of the local interactions of the system. the result of a change in a property of a system with positive feedback, is generally a change in the global state of the system. brown: a systems thinking perspective. . . 43 the change will continue until it is counteracted by other influences in the system that were less important in the initial state of the system but become more pronounced as the property increases. in the system considered in this paper, the influences of time and workload had such a stabilising effect on system change. this research used the method of network analysis, together with these concepts of systems theory to construct conceptual models of the system of changes identified in the programme. the starting point for this analysis was the collection of elements of change in practice that had been identified as emergent themes in the grounded theory investigation of the first phase of the research. a network analysis was then performed to organise these themes and their possible interactions. it is important to note that these elements of change and their possible interactions were identified as emergent themes in phase 1 of the research analysis data and were not imposed through the systems analysis. in the network analysis, the researcher organised these themes as change elements and their interactions. detailed qualitative system diagrams of the system of interacting elements of change identified through this analysis, were then drawn to depict this system. this was done using the ‘cmaptools’ concept mapping software (cañas, hill, carff, suri, lott, eskridge, ... & carvajal, 2004). once the detailed systems had been constructed, they were searched to identify and analyse circular causation (positive feedback loops) within this model of the system of practice. it is the argument of this paper that these positive feedback loops may be influential in changing the global state of the system, that is, in leading to substantive changes in the teachers’ practice. as emphasised by mason (2008), any global change in a complex system occurs through the interaction of small changes in many factors and it is necessary to attain a critical mass of such changes distributed throughout the system in order to achieve and maintain the global change. lemke and sabelli (2008) identify a number of elements important for the modelling of the dynamics of qualitative change in complex social systems. in the case of the system of practice of the teachers involved in the programme, these include changes in: daily routines; teaching environments; and the understanding and disposition of the teachers. the analysis produces a qualitative local model of the particular changes in the system which should be seen as unique in its individuality as well as, “as an instance of more general processes” (p.121). 44 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 methodology of the second phase of the research the first phase of research identified and described changes in practice reported by teachers (the students) participating in the programme, as well as particular practices in the programme that may have contributed to these changes. each of these broad themes encapsulated a number of specific changes in the teachers’ practice. viewed individually, each specific change had some influence on the global practice of the teachers. but no one change emerged as causing and maintaining the others. rather, each change supported others, which then supported it in turn. it is these combined interaction effects that appeared to maintain cumulative changes in the global practice of the teachers. the second phase of analysis sought to identify and describe these interacting systems of change and the manner in which they contributed to the overall change in teachers’ practice, as well as the possible influence of the professional development programme to support and maintain these changes. the result was a conceptual model of the systems of change, presented graphically as a systems diagram. a process of network analysis was followed in the second phase, to generate the conceptual model. based on the changes identified in the first phase, an augmented digraph was constructed to formalise the network structure of the system. system diagrams (steeg, 2000) for selected subgraphs of this system are provided in figures 2 to 5. the process of network analysis will be presented using examples drawn from these diagrams. as discussed by butts (2009), a fundamental step in this network analysis was the identification of phenomena in the system that could be bounded and described as distinguishable elements – the nodes of the system graph. the scale and the framing of the analysis was important to identify structural system elements and interactions appropriate to the particular research questions being asked about the system. in this study, the criterion used to identify a node was that it should be an element of practice in the school or programme, in which change was noted at some point in the project data, or which had been identified as contributing to change in some way. that is, nodes were identified elements of programme, or practice, that were change related. a formalised description of each element was constructed, that distinguished and identified that element. these descriptions were included as augmenting information for the nodes of the system graph. brown: a systems thinking perspective. . . 45 nodes are represented as rounded rectangles in the system diagrams, with a brief formalising description of the element, inscribed within the rectangle. figure 2 includes nodes such as: ‘changing/maintaining the classroom setting’ and ‘children’s enjoyment of the process’. to improve the readability of the diagrams, some nodes describing similar changes and having similar interaction effects were combined, for example, the combined node in the middle left of figure 2, representing two goals that many teachers developed throughout the programme: ‘1. caring for the health of the child.’ and ‘2. creating a pleasant and respectful environment for children.’ to further improve readability, some nodes displaying functional similarities were displayed as grouped within larger rectangles. although suggestive of certain functional categories in the analysis, these grouping rectangles were included in this paper purely to simplify the readability of the diagrams. once the nodes were identified, interactions between pairs of nodes were then formalised as links in the system graph. in order to facilitate linking, the change related to each element was formulated as the increase or decrease of some property identified in that element of practice. system links were then identified as interactions in which changes in one element would contribute to corresponding changes in the other. links were directed from the element providing the influence to the element being influenced, resulting in a directed graph. reciprocal influences were included as two links. as with the nodes, formalised descriptions were included as augmentation to the links. links are indicated on the system diagrams, by two arrows indicating a path from one element to the other, with the augmenting description of the link shown (with no outlining rectangle) between the two arrows on this path. referring to the earlier example in figure 2, the teachers’ developing goals relating to children’s health and a pleasant and respectful environment, provided an orienting purpose for teacher’s work to change and maintain the classroom setting in goal appropriate ways. this is indicated in the link from the right edge of the ‘teacher goal’ rectangle, through the description of the link ‘orienting purpose for’ to the element for ‘changing/maintaining the classroom setting’. note that change (in terms of increase or decrease in some identifiable property) is fundamental to the identification of both nodes and links in this system graph. for this reason, this conceptual system model will be termed a change system. the definition and construction of such a change system for teacher professional development is a methodological innovation of this research. it should also be noted that the changes and influences are 46 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 identifiable but they are also complex processes and for this reason are not readily quantifiable. the network analysis thus provided a qualitative understanding of this change system and not a quantitative, numerical model of the system process as is the case for block or flow diagrams commonly used in systems analysis (steeg, 2000). having constructed the change system formalised in the system graph, the graph was analysed to identify positive feedback loops, here termed positive loops of influence. for such a change system, the fundamental systems concepts of positive feedback loops, self organisation and emergence (jacobson and wilensky, 2006) are closely related. a positive feedback loop implies that positive change in any element supports positive changes in succeeding elements of the loop and this influence returns to support itself. in this way the local interactions align and support positive and stable changes in all the elements of the loop – a self organisation of change through a loop of local interactions. these aligned local changes may then be identified as a global change in practice that emerges through the self organising effects of the supporting local interactions. due to the complexity of the system, it was found that many supporting loops were richly connected to form supporting subsystems. these subsystems were identified as appropriate global units of analysis. an emergent, global change of practice was then sought to conceptualise and describe the self-organised changes in each supporting subsystem. five global changes emerged in this way from the analysis. they included changes in: the teaching and learning of literacy; the teaching and learning of mathematics; the teaching and learning of life skills; caring for the health of the child; and the classroom as a pleasant place to be. these changes will be discussed in more detail in the following section. each emergent global change incorporated self-organising changes in many local properties that combined to maintain the emergent change. following the links in the diagram provided insight into how the influence of each element propagated throughout the subsystem. supporting links in the system diagram indicated mechanisms through which each change in the subsystem served to support and maintain the rest and thus maintained this as a stable configuration of changes in practice. the professional development programme was an external and time limited addition to the system. to complete the analysis, possible direct effects of the professional development programme on the teachers’ practice were also included in the identified change system. the time limited nature of the brown: a systems thinking perspective. . . 47 programme implied that stable changes in teachers practice would require supporting loops of influence formed only of elements of the teachers’ practice. as a result, the direct influence of these programme elements could only be transient. that is, programme elements may initiate change and help to overcome the initial resistance of the system to change, but stable change requires the effects of changes in practice to independently maintain these changes. analysis and discussion of systemic effects five subsystems supporting changes in practice were identified in the analysis, three relating to the academic teaching practice of literacy, numeracy and life skills in the classrooms. due to the similarity of these subsystems and the fact that the programme engaged most extensively with literacy teaching, only the literacy subsystem is discussed in detail in this article. the other two subsystems identified do not relate directly to the academic programme in foundation phase teaching. but they appeared to have an important impact on teachers’ practice and on both teachers’ and learners’ experience of this practice. the emergent changes in practice identified for these subsystems were: caring for the health of the child in the class; and setting up and maintaining the classroom as a pleasant place in which to be. the following sub-sections present a qualitative system diagram describing each of these three sub-systems and then discuss, the loops of influence that may be identified in the diagram and that may serve to support and maintain the change in global practice. from the network analysis, the influence of the professional development programme in each of these subsystems showed a number of similarities. in each case, it was extensively linked to feedback paths that involved the extended experience of the teachers. because of this similar structure, this aspect of the sub-systems has been presented and discussed in a separate subsection below. this also allows a simplification of the diagram of each subsystem, through the representation of this input and feedback path as a single element (the ‘programme/experience feedback path’). this does require some flexibility in the interpretation of the links from this path, to ensure appropriate alignment with each corresponding target element. 48 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 caring for the health of the child this subsystem of change is shown schematically in figure 2. it involved a number of substantial and clearly noticeable changes in the classroom setting, resources and processes. the primary motivating purpose of the teachers was to improve the hygiene of classroom practices. but they also worked to make these changes in a manner that created a pleasant and respectful environment for children, showing this as a secondary motivating purpose in this work. one supporting loop in this subsystem can be seen on the left side of the diagram. tracing the interaction from the middle left (bold) rectangle, the teachers’ goals to care for the health of the child and create a pleasant and respectful environment, was the orienting purpose for changes they made in the classroom setting and resources, to set up infrastructure and classroom processes for dispensing clean water for drinking, for eating the school meal, and for washing hands and using the dirty water for the gardens. in addition, the teachers worked to facilitate the children’s engagement in, and ultimately self-regulation of, these processes. the contribution of these processes to improving hygiene in the class, was noticed by teachers and by other school staff, resulting in a positive evaluation of their practice in relation to their orienting goal, which then informed and further supported this choice of goal (closing the loop through the bold arrow to the goal element). in addition, the teachers had worked to ensure that the improvements in infrastructure were organised and attractive additions to the classroom. also treating the meal as a social occasion also carried an acknowledgement of the child as a valued member of the society and so increased the respect for the child in the class. this supported the second goal of achieving a pleasant and respectful classroom environment for the child. children’s experience of these processes also formed closed loops of interaction that supported their maintenance. these are evident in the bottom right side of figure 2. first, the children’s enjoyment of these processes encouraged their continued participation. secondly, in keeping with the teaching goals of the teachers (middle right element) the teachers informed the children and facilitated discussions about why these processes had been instituted, during the children’s performance of these processes. this contributed to the children’s developing understanding of germs, health and hygiene and thus satisfied and further strengthened the teaching goals of the teacher (closing the loop to the middle right hand goal element). an additional feature of these processes for washing and drinking is that children brown: a systems thinking perspective. . . 49 quickly developed the skill to be able to do this when they needed to and in this way their capacity for self-regulation was increased – contributing positively to this developing goal of the teachers. the resulting deepening understanding and skill of the children in maintaining these processes also contributed to a deepening engagement in and commitment of the children to the performance of these processes, thus creating an additional two closed loops in the bottom right sector. 50 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 figure 2: system of changes relating to caring for the health of the child brown: a systems thinking perspective. . . 51 finally, the layer of elements illustrated in figure 2 above the teachers’ goals, identify a number of factors that contributed to teachers’ instituting these health systems in their classes. it should be noted that the only feedback path that closes the loop with the elements of this section (and so supports the maintenance of these elements) is that due to extended experience. a fundamental element appeared to be the teachers’ realisation that they had the capacity to institute such systems in ways that were both practical and effective. this, together with the importance of practically caring for the health of the children in their class, were two important insights that received particular stress from the programme’s field worker. her encouragement and practical insights contributed greatly to the teachers’ motivation and their initial efforts to introduce these systems. the programme also contributed to developing a deepening awareness of germs, health and hygiene and increasing skill with developing resources, setting up functional classroom systems and facilitating these processes. but not all the impetus derived from the programme – a number of efforts seemed mainly due to the initiative of the teachers, supported by the field worker. examples of these were the incorporation of social aspects of eating into the school meal, the use of waste water to develop gardens around the classroom, and the improvement of access to and use of the school toilet facilities. the classroom as a pleasant place to be another principle that the programme stressed was that the classroom should become a clean, stimulating and pleasant working environment for children and for the teacher. as well as communicating this principle, teachers were provided with many different practical suggestions and shown examples of how this could be done. in addition, encouragement and practical support for the implementation of changes to the classroom working environment, were provided by the field worker. in this way the programme encouraged teachers to incorporate this principle into their orientation to practice, sought to develop awareness of the possibilities for doing this, and built strategies and skills for implementing these possibilities. sustained support for the teachers was also provided as they worked to implement these strategies. the diagram describing this subsystem of change is shown in figure 3. note that the influence of programme elements on this subsystem is encapsulated in the programme/experience return path on the right of this diagram. this block contributed to supporting loops for this practice, through the enrichment of 52 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 the teachers experience and the contribution of this enriched experience to the maintenance of the developing practice. a more detailed analysis of this return path will be provided in the following subsection. the system diagram shows a number of layers of changes implemented to improve the classroom experience of the child. the top two groups (three layers) detail changes to the classroom setting and resources. changes to the setting included augmenting, as well as improving the state of the furniture – and although some furniture had been greatly improved, some remained in a state of disrepair. classroom furniture had also been rearranged to allow for a number of different activity zones for children to work and relax in. many different resources for the use of the children had also been created or sourced. some specific instances of these developments were identified in the data as important and are shown in the second block. these are table settings for meals, subject resource corners, a reading corner and wall displays. these changes helped form a physical environment that enabled a number of participatory processes, through which the whole child was engaged in the classroom experience. the processes are described in the following layer, and the interaction links show how they draw on the developing setting and the improving resource base of the classroom. a number of different process elements were identified in the analysis and are included in the three composite elements in the system diagram. each of these processes contributed in some way to a rich classroom experience for the children. experiential elements that were identified are shown in the next layer. they include the formation of a positive classroom community, a growing engagement in and enjoyment of classroom activities, and two elements relating to children’s learning: a more meaningful learning experience and deepening self regulation of their own experience. it did not appear as if any particular process elements had a profound individual effect on the children’s classroom experience. rather, the cumulative effects of the many different processes combined to form a richer and deeper experience. brown: a systems thinking perspective. . . 53 figure 3: system of changes relating to making the classroom as a pleasant place to be 54 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 from the interviews it was clear that the teachers and other staff had informally observed the enriched classroom experience of the learners, which contributed to the children’s growing appreciation for and ‘love’ of their teachers, who became the ‘mothers’ of these classroom communities. this awareness supported the developing goals of the teachers: to work for children’s engagement, enjoyment and community in the classroom and to develop meaningful learning and self-regulation by the children. this positive evaluation strengthened these goals and supported the teachers’ continuing efforts to facilitate these participatory processes, to plan and prepare teaching strategies that would generate these processes and to develop their classroom infrastructure in ways that would support and enable this engagement. in this way, three supporting loops were identified, maintaining the changes at different levels of the teachers’ practice. influence of the programme and the return path due to enriched experience it emerged from the analysis that much of the direct effect of the programme could be seen as influencing a particular return path in the system – the path of feedback resulting from extended experience. this influence was evident in the five supporting subsystems identified in the analysis. the system diagram describing these interactions is shown in figure 4 and is discussed in this section. the return paths through experience are shown in bold in the diagram. the critical node, through which all these paths pass, is the element of extended experience (bottom right) – memories of episodes of practice, from which teachers may draw in the future. this element provides tacit support for the continued development of teaching strategies, of the teacher’s orientation to teaching and of the teacher’s identity as a teacher. these three elements relate to personal learning from practice and teachers who learn effectively in these ways could be expected to continually build on their experience to develop and improve their practice. in addition to the tacit support for development, teachers’ extended experience also formed a basis for explicit and directed reflection on practice, which allowed the explicit development of teaching strategies, orientation to learning and teacher identity. brown: a systems thinking perspective. . . 55 figure 4: programme influence and the return path of extended experience 56 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 the transient influence of the programme contributed to a number of elements in this return path. an explicit objective of the programme, was to influence teachers’ orientation to teaching and strategies of practice. strengthening the professional identity of the teachers was also a sustained focus of both the academic and the support components of the programme. this stemmed from the strong professional commitment of the programme staff and the acknowledgement that this commitment was an important driver of their practice. extensive work had been carried out in the programme, aimed at building the capacity of teachers to reflect on their experience and then develop and improve their practice based on these reflections. this development of reflective and reflexive practice was an important goal of the programme. programme staff talked extensively about these efforts in their interviews: they agreed that there had been some improvement in this capacity of teachers, but they acknowledged that this development was less successful than they had planned and they were grappling with ways to adapt the programme to further improve this capacity. written assessments and portfolio reflections were seen as critical for this development and the possibilities for provision of improved support for these processes were being investigated. effectively extending the experience of the teachers was also an important aspect of this intervention. a major goal of the field worker was to encourage and support the professional practice of the teachers and in this way to help the successful implementation of classroom practice. support and encouragement was also provided to help the teachers deal with the extensive amount of work required for the academic programme and for their teaching practice. programme staff were of the opinion that the experience of coping with a heavy workload may have been important to draw on when teachers needed to deal with the pressure of work in their practice. further efforts to extend teachers’ base of experience were evident in the extensive opportunities for mediated discussion by the teachers, as well as the deliberate modelling of skills and strategies in the teaching of the programme staff. in addition, in response to teacher requests to practice particular strategies, programme staff had decided to include supported group experience with particularly important strategies in the academic component of the course. through this mediated engagement, teachers were able to add to their base of positive experience of these strategies, in the contact sessions of the course. a number of teachers reported in their reflections that this experience brown: a systems thinking perspective. . . 57 contributed to their being able to effectively implement the strategies in their classrooms. it is important to note that such practical work complemented a sound and meaningful engagement with theory, aimed at building the teachers’ orientation to teaching and learning. again, a number of teachers noted that their engagement with theory on the course had contributed to their attainment of a meaningful understanding of teaching approaches and strategies that they were implementing. in this way, teachers’ experience of meaning in practice was extended through the programme. literacy teaching and learning the complexity of this subsystem was such that a two level analysis was carried out. the first level identified particular details of the practice that were implemented or changed by the teachers. these included the objects and artefacts used in the practice, particular processes that were implemented, as well as elements relating to people, in terms of both individual capacities and social structuring. to allow effective insight into this highly complex system, these particular elements were grouped to form functional categories and an analysis of the change system at this functional level was performed. this second level, functional analysis will be discussed in this section. it is illustrated in figure 5. an important motive promoted by the programme involved a change in orientation to teaching, from teacher driven production by the learner, to self regulated engagement with meaning in text, by the learner (top centre). this change in orientation motivated the programme’s introduction and development of a detailed and integrated goal set for literacy teaching (below centre). two, quite different, supporting loop structures may be identified in this system. in the first, the positive evaluation of the effects of practice against their specific goals for literacy teaching, served to strengthen these goals, as well as the teachers’ commitment to maintaining this practice. one evaluation effect experienced by the teachers, was the children’s increasing engagement in and enjoyment of literacy oriented activities (above and to the left of the goal element). seeing the children’s increasing engagement in and enjoyment of literacy was a powerful motivator for the teachers to continue to develop and implement goals and strategies that may have led to such engagement and enjoyment. a second evaluation effect involved the results of formal and 58 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 informal assessment of the children’s developing literacy (left centre). based on these assessments, the teachers considered the children’s literacy to be improving and they also considered the changes in their practice to be contributing to this improvement. as a result, these assessments supported the teachers developing goals and practice. brown: a systems thinking perspective. . . 59 figure 5: system of changes relating to literacy teaching and learning 60 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 the second supporting loop structure involved the return path through extended experience that was discussed in the previous section (and is shown at the right of the diagram). in this case, the experience of extended engagement with literacy development, both in the classroom and in supported group work practice in contact sessions. this extended experience contributed to the teachers developing orientation, goals, strategies in practice and awareness of resource and infrastructure possibilities. as discussed earlier, supporting teachers’ developing reflective and reflexive capacities in this area was an important concern of the programme. the professional development programme contributed to both of these supporting loop structures in a number of specific ways. developing a teacher orientation to self-regulated and meaningful engagement with text was a fundamental goal of the programme. in consequence, a sizable component of the academic work in the programme involved the development of effective literacy teaching strategies aligned with this orientation. strategies aimed at extending and improving teacher directed processes in literacy teaching, as well as increasing child initiated and regulated reading, were developed. this was incorporated into the academic programme through the development of appropriate goals, extending insight through deepening theoretical knowledge linked strongly to practice and developing technical proficiency in the teachers’ implementation of these strategies. the academic programme included foci on processes of assessment, planning, preparation, organisation and facilitation. in addition to this, both the academic programme and the school support contributed to teachers’ growing awareness of appropriate ways to arrange their classrooms, as well as to create, source and set out resources for effective teaching of literacy. finally, extensive support for the implementation of strategies in practice was provided, helping teachers cope with the high work load and uncertainty of implementation in the difficult transition period and reach the stage where improvements in children’s enjoyment and results would become evident. conclusion the systems thinking perspective used for the second phase of the research, generated a number of insights relating to changes in teachers’ practice supported by this professional development programme. these could have brown: a systems thinking perspective. . . 61 fundamental implications for the design, implementation and research of teacher professional development programmes. insight #1: it was evident that no single primary factor could be seen as causing the change in practice. instead, a number of different factors influenced teacher change. it was the supportive interaction of these many small changes that supported a generally notable change in practice. these changes were also of many different forms, including changes in goals, motivation and identity, changes in the infrastructure and resources and changes in the dynamic classroom process. these different forms allowed the interactions that formed supporting loops. insight #2: in many cases, the positive evaluation of practice against a teacher’s developing goals formed a return path from operational practice to teachers’ goals and intentions. this evaluation served to both strengthen the goals and to support the practices that contributed to the positive evaluation. through this process, two different types of change were supported. first, it supported the deepening and enriching of the teachers’ goals which allowed a more nuanced and informed evaluation of practice and thus allowed teachers to identify previous unnoticed positive effects. second, it supported the incorporation of adapted processes, resources and resource organisation, which contributed to an improved evaluation of practice. professional development that influenced these loops would thus require a positive evaluation by teachers of the effects of the development against the goals of their practice. support for implementation of changes in practice and in particular, support to overcome the difficulties in transition and to carry the additional workload, was thus a critical aspect of the programme. insight #3: the second return path evident in this research was through extended experience of effective practice. this provided tacit support for development as teachers’ drew on their recollection of experience to adapt and align their ongoing practice. developing teachers’ reflective and reflexive skills enhanced the teachers’ capacity to regulate and control this process themselves and in this way to develop improved agency in their own professional development. developing these capacities was another important focus of this programme and though fruitful, this development was found to be slow and difficult to achieve. insight #4: it should be noted from the system diagram that reflective capacity on its own was insufficient for supporting change: it needed the base 62 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 of extended experience on which to build. again this identifies the necessity of the teachers’ experience of positively changing practice for effective development. these conclusions are specific to the particular professional development programme being researched, but they yield generalisable principles and processes that may contribute to the design of programs that contribute to substantive and self-sustaining changes in practice. this demonstrates the efficacy of this analytical perspective both for the analysis of the complex systems of change arising in professional development, and for the identification of processes and principles relevant to professional development programmes in general. references barber, m. & mourshed, m. 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(2011). ways of promoting the sustainability of mathematics teachers’ professional development. zdm mathematics education, 43, 875–887. bruce brown rhodes university b.brown@ru.ac.za mailto:b.brown@ru.ac.za partnerships in action: establishing a model of collaborative support to student and mentor teachers through a universityschool partnership patti silbert and clare verbeek abstract south african universities have a crucial role to play in helping reduce inequalities in schooling by preparing teachers for working across diverse school contexts. this article examines a pre-service teacher collaborative support programme generated through a twoyear action research process. the programme was designed to support student teachers and their school-based mentors during teaching practice through an existing university-school partnership. using a qualitative analysis of journal entries and separate focus group discussions with student and mentor teachers we describe students’ and mentors’ responses to the collaborative support programme. the findings of the study suggest that a collaborative support strategy pitched at both the university and school is critical to support student teachers during their pre-service teaching, especially in socially and educationally challenging contexts. joint responsibility for initial teacher development requires a reconceptualisation of the role of the mentor teacher, and a shift towards the distribution of mentoring functions from a few designated mentor teachers to include a wider range of teachers at the school. introduction internationally there is a growing body of literature that regards universityschool partnerships as central to initial teacher training. pivotal to the notion of partnership is reciprocity and collaboration – and the development of mutually beneficial relationships (nehring and o’brien, 2012; fink, isabelle and de groot, 2010) to strengthen capacity at both the university and the school. as corrigan (2000) points out, collaboration extends beyond cooperation and coordination and implies that something new is enabled or produced that individuals or organisations could not produce alone. this has direct implications for the role of the university-school partnership in teacher training. 112 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 twenty years post apartheid, schooling in south africa remains sharply unequal, to the extent that it has been referred to as a dualistic or bimodal system (fleisch, 2008; spaull, 2012; van der berg, burger, burger, de vos, du rand and gustafsson, 2011; yamauchi 2011). the need for professionally qualified teachers must be seen in the light of the increasing demand for quality education, particularly in unequal and disadvantaged school contexts. as universities engage in the initial professional development of teachers, they have a critical role to play in helping reduce inequalities in schooling by preparing excellent teachers for working in all school contexts (mutemeri and chetty, 2011; islam, 2011; robinson, 2014, 2015; pennefather, 2008, 2011). a crucial aspect of this preparation involves exposing student teachers to schools across diverse schooling communities during their compulsory teaching practice (tp) enabling them to develop and practise innovative pedagogies within those contexts. however, placing student teachers in challenging school contexts requires careful support both for student teachers and the schools themselves if this is to contribute effectively to the initial professional development of teachers. teaching practice traditionally involves the placement of student teachers in the classrooms of mentor teachers who, as more experienced and knowledgeable professionals, provide important opportunities for professional development through collaboration in planning, teaching and assessment, thus contributing to the construction of personal and professional identities (mukeredzi, 2013; robinson 2015). such support needs to be formal and planned and should link theory to practice through dialogical engagement (mukeredzi, 2013). much of the recent research in the southern african context has pointed out the uneven support offered by such mentors to student teachers (kiggundu and nayimuli, 2009; mukeredzi, 2013; mukeredzi and mandrona, 2013; mushoriwa and mavuso, 2014; mukeredzi, mthiyane and bertram, 2015) and has called for the provision of support for the mentors themselves through ongoing training and development, stressing the need to build partnerships for this provision. the purpose of this article is to describe a two-year action research project that focused on a collaborative programme of support offered to student teachers and their school-based mentors through an existing university-school partnership. the university-school partnership is presented as a vehicle through which distributed support was offered to student teachers as part of their intitial professional devlelopment. silbert and verbeek: partnerships in action. . . 113 the term ‘mentoring’ implies support given by a more experienced teacher for the professional growth and learning of a student teacher. the notion of ‘support’ in this study includes emotional (rajuan, beijaard and verloop, 2008) and organisational factors that contribute towards professional development of both student and mentor teachers. ‘distributed support’ involves acceptance of joint, collaborative responsiblity for initial teacher development by a number of partners including the teachers. providing this level of support reflects a commitment by both the university and the schools to the development of quality schooling in contexts which are historically challenged. it is against this background that the study seeks to address the following questions: 1. what type of collaborative support strategies are possible through a university-school partnership? 2. what are the implications of such collaborative support for school-based mentoring? signalling robinson’s 2014 study in which she calls for a conceptual model of teacher education that supports teacher preparation for diversity, we argue that a generic approach to tp is inappropriate and that the model of support provided by universities needs to be adapted to the specific context in which tp takes place. furthermore, it is not only the student teachers who require support: supportive mechanisms also need to be implemented for the mentor teachers who are called upon to support the students in what might be new and unfamiliar ways. underpinning these two areas of support, we assert that university-school partnerships can provide the type of collaborative engagement through which support mechanisms can be offered both at the level of the university and the school. university-school partnerships in initial teacher training in this study, the notion of the university-school partnership to promote initial teacher training is embodied in the idea of the professional practice school (south african departments of basic education and higher education and 114 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 uspi (university-school partnership initiative) is a pseudonym.1 training, 2011) which refers to schools as professional learning sites at which student teachers are placed for the practical components of their programmes. professional practice schools should be located in a variety of social and education contexts and are intended to provide opportunities for student teachers to engage in learning in practice through preparing, teaching and reflecting on lessons (robinson, 2014). the importance of close collaboration between universities and professional practice schools schools in diverse contexts is underscored in this study. the type of university-school partnership referred to through the professional practice school suggests a transformative relationship between universities and schools where both partners “retain their identities but are willing to learn from and with each other” (teitel, 2008, p.78), assuming joint responsibility for teacher professional development. introducing the notion of ‘hybrid spaces’, zeichner (2010, p.89) refers to this co-constructed engagement as “a paradigm shift in the epistemology of teacher education programes” in which “academic and practioner knowledge and knowledge that exists in communities come together in new less hierarchical ways” in order to create new learning opportunities for student teachers (see also mutemeri and chetty, 2011). in this sense, the school becomes a site in which learning about the practice of teaching and the practices of schooling can occur both through practice and in practice (south african departments of basic and higher education and training, 2011). while all schools used for the purpose of professional onsite learning might be regarded as professional practice schools, the term as used in this study refers to the particular set of schools involved in the uspi university-school1 partnership. these schools fall into the category of what christie, butler and potterton (2007) would describe as ‘mainstream’ schools in south africa. such schools constitute the ‘numeric norm’ (christie, butler and potterton, 2007, p.100) and are situated somewhere between the elite and the extremely poor, populated largely by black students and teachers, with limited physical resources. english is used as the language of teaching and learning, rather than the home language of the majority of teachers and their learners. ‘mainstream schools’ are typical of urban and peri-urban township areas such as those that comprise the site of the uspi partner schools. it is this type of school context plagued by socio-economic problems of poverty, crime and silbert and verbeek: partnerships in action. . . 115 unemployment, for which student teachers need to be appropriately prepared in order to make a positive difference. the role of mentor teachers within the university-school partnership model is reported on in numerous studies (hall, draper, smith and bullough, 2008; hobson, 2002; teitel, 2008; mutemeri and chetty, 2011; stanulis and russell, 2000, amongst others). hobson’s (2002) study refers to mentoring undertaken not merely by teachers assigned as ‘mentors’ but by other teachers at the school. students’ perceptions of their school-based mentoring experience has been researched by a number of scholars (rajuan, beijaard and verloop, 2008; hobson 2002; zanting, verloop and vermunt, 2001, and others). in south africa, recent research on teaching practice has focused on rural schools (pennefather, 2008; mukeredzi, 2013; mukeredzi and mandrona, 2013; mushoriwa and mavuso, 2014), and on the types of knowledge which mentors help student teachers develop (mukeredzi, et al. 2015). the need to provide more effective training opportunities for mentors is highlighted by numerous scholars in the field, including hudson, spoonerlane and murray (2013); hobson (2002); hall, et al. (2008), and mukeredzi, et al. (2015). as robinson (2014) asserts, developing robust mentoring practices is particularly important in a country such as south africa, where mentors help students to prepare to teach in diverse contexts. this has direct implications for the ways in which universities “might best contribute to serving learners in difficult social contexts” (2014, p.115). mukeredzi, et al. (2015) call for committed dialogue between all stakeholders, including teacher educators, education departments and schools on preservice teacher support. according to these authors, “(t)his implies that institutions ought to take a lead in developing and/or maintaining strong partnerships between schools and universities, and in ensuring that appropriate strategies are put in place to enhance mentoring effectiveness” (p.9) . despite the plethora of scholarship, there has been no south african study to date that examines an initial teacher education action research programme as an integral component of an existing university-school partnership. nor has there been any study that considers the possibilities for distributed support within that partnership. 116 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 the university-school partnership initiative (uspi) the uspi was launched in 2012 as one of the university’s strategic initiatives, linking the university to a number of schools in a poor urban western cape township. the overarching aim of the uspi is the development of a strong, responsive university-school partnership as a medium for extending the university’s engagement in schooling in order to contribute positively to longterm change in the classroom. focusing on whole-school development, the uspi’s programmes involve teacher professional development, leadership capacity building and school organisational development. drawing on interdisciplinary university-wide resources and expertise, the uspi collaborates with partners both within and outside of the university including, significantly, the district level provincial education authorities. additional programmes offered through the partnership involve library support; school health services; it development; after-school homework clubs and sports programmes. the uspi’s objective of forming partnerships with other education-related groups within the university and the broader community is based on the understanding that the improvement of the quality of educational provision requires collaboration and involvement of all those involved in education including most importantly, the schools themselves. moving away from the traditional view of teaching practice in which the school is expected mainly to provide a site for students to conduct their practice teaching (mutemeri and chetty, 2011), a collaborative model of teacher development positions the school (and its teachers) as an active partner, and an “essential contributor to the programme” (p.506). this shift in the relationship between the university and the school from limited community engagement to the establishment of deeply collaborative partnerships has been advocated as an approach for improving the practice of teacher training (ramsey, 2000; deppeler, 2006; mutermeri and chetty, 2011; rutgers and reddy, 2013; islam, 2011; pennefather, 2011, mukeredzi, et al., 2015). through strong, mutually beneficial collaboration, the uspi seeks to address inter alia, in-service teachers’ professional development needs within the schools, while providing opportunities for student teachers to broaden their experience in the classroom across a range of school contexts. rather than being an aim in themselves, partnerships are regarded by the uspi as a means to improve the quality of the engagment between the parties. silbert and verbeek: partnerships in action. . . 117 the south african schooling system is divided into different phases: foundation (grades2 r–3); intermediate (grades 4–6); senior (grades 7–9) and further education and training (grades 10–12). this is a pseudonym.3 the strength of this objective lies in its potential to create the space for new types of collaborative support for student and mentor teachers. background to the uspi support programme at the university involved in this study, initial teacher education programmes are offered for the foundation, intermediate, senior and further education and training phases of schooling through a one-year post graduate2 professional qualification (post graduate certificate in education or pgce) which caps an initial undergraduate degree. the school-based component of this qualification requires that students complete two six-week periods of supervised tp in schools. at this university an attempt is made to ensure that this is undertaken in two differently provisioned schools, enabling students to experience diverse school contexts. in both 2013 and 2014, intermediate phase student teachers were invited to apply for placement in the pps programme. the large number of applicants in both years suggested a high level of interest amongst students, all of whom had undertaken their first tp in better resourced schools. financial support for transport was provided as the schools are located 50–60 km from the university. the number of students accepted into the programme was limited by the funds available as well as by the availablility of mentor teachers in the schools: in 2013 a total of six students were involved (two in each of the three partner schools) and in 2014, this number grew to eleven (four in two schools, and three in the third). the programme included support for students by a university-based supervisor as well as by education specialists from the the language and maths development project (lmdp). the lmdp is a university based3 project supporting effective instruction in mathematics, english and isixhosa. in the study, lmdp education specialists played an important role in complementing support given to student teachers. lesson planning, reflection 118 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 and the sharing of ideas took place both in the schools (on at least one occasion during the tp) and on a weekly basis at the university. methodology in this study, the action research methodology is characterised by cycles of action, evaluation and critical reflection by participants on practice (meyer 2000; kemmis and mctaggart, 2000; koshy, koshy and waterman, 2010). participants included mentor teachers, the university supervisor, the lmdp team and the student teachers. the three schools involved were partner primary schools with the uspi. in each school there were two mentor teachers who were selected by the principals and school management teams (smt), and who were receptive to assuming the mentoring role. three of the six mentor teachers were members of the smt and all of the six mentors had been teaching at their school for at least five years. only one mentor teacher had previous experience mentoring student teachers and none had received any prior formal training in mentoring or developing student teachers. of the mentor teachers, five out of the six remained involved over the two-year period of the study, the sixth mentor having to withdraw in 2014 for health reasons. student involvement was entirely voluntary. a presentation on the three partner schools was offered to the pgce students who were interested in these placements. of the eighteen students, two were male, sixteen were female, two were isixhosa-speaking and sixteen were english first-language speakers. an interpretive, thematic approach was used for the analysis of data, allowing for the emergence of dominant themes and patterns across the texts. two methods were used for collection of the student data: in-depth focus group discussions and students’ reflective journals compiled during their tp. similarly, in the case of the mentor teachers, data was collected from focus group dicussions and mentors’ journals compiled during the six-week mentoring short course. written feedback was given by the lmdp which also served as a source of data. quality, validity, accuracy and credibility of research findings were enhanced by repetition of the action-reflection cycle, prolonged engagement with the silbert and verbeek: partnerships in action. . . 119 issues, polyangulation of data and member checking (mertler, 2012). validation was sought by incorporating multiple sources of data from different role-players including interviews, reflective journals, written responses and focus group discussions (stemler, 2001). pseudonyms were used at all times. the analysis that follows is logico-inductive, based on a qualitative action research design and was constructed from data collected over a two-year period. as such the action research process comprised two action-reflection cycles: action reflection cycle 1: 2013 ! interviews with mentor teachers conducted prior to the commencement of the 2013 tp block provided an opportunity for mentors to share expectations and perceptions regarding their anticipated roles as mentors. ! six-week tp and school-based mentoring. ! following the 2013 tp block, separate focus group discussions with the mentors and student teachers allowed both groups to reflect on their experiences. this helped inform future practice. action reflection cycle 2: 2014 ! the mentor teacher short course which took place prior to the commencement of the 2014 tp block was conceptualised to address the mentors’ needs, as expressed in their focus groups discussions in 2013. ! the six-week tp and school-based mentoring included the placement of two student teachers in each class as a strategy to encourage peer support. ! following the 2014 tp, focus group discussions were held once again with the mentors and student teachers, to reflect on and evaluate their experiences. as in 2013, discussions with mentors and students took place separately. 120 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 discussion three main themes were identified from the data across both action reflection cycles. two of the themes, distributed mentorship and distributed support pertain to the professional development of student teachers and support for the school-based mentors in helping the students achieve this. the third theme, imagining mentoring emerged from the first two and refers to the student teachers’ views of mentoring, the mentors’ perceptions – and to possible ways of re-conceptualising mentoring roles. the discussion is structured according to these themes within the two action research cycles. we begin by describing the students’ reflections from the first and second cycles and thereafter consider the reflections of the mentor teachers. distributed mentorship across the schools distributed mentorship involved two broad levels of support by teachers in general: firstly, this pertained to teachers taking responsibility for developing the students by giving them valuable feedback, and secondly, teachers making an effort to welcome students into the school environment. both levels of support were demonstrated in varying degrees both by mentor teachers, and by teachers not formerly designated as mentors (hereafter referred to as ‘nonmentor’ teachers). with regard to the role of the mentor teachers firstly, students generally felt nurtured and cared for, however there were few examples of mentors offering critical feedback on lessons taught by students. one student reflects positively in this regard: she was an amazing mentor in terms of our general well-being and always looked out for us. she had our best interest at heart. she was extremely professional. i never felt confused about what she wanted from us. she was very approachable, and although she did not give a lot of critical feedback she was willing to listen to us when we had questions and was always willing to try answer our questions, which was really good mentorship. she also did do a formal critical analysis for us in the end in a written form, which was very helpful. however, on the whole students felt that insufficient critical reflection by mentors took place after lessons were taught and that feedback seldom went silbert and verbeek: partnerships in action. . . 121 beyond comments such as “that was good, you are doing fine”. similarly students received little input regarding lesson planning or guidance from their mentors before teaching their lessons. as one of the students suggests: i didn’t get advice on what to do. it was sort of “here you go, just do it on your own. just follow the text book and open the teacher’s guide”. so there was no sort of guide on how to do the actual planning. in a different school, a student indicates that although her mentor teacher was present when the student taught lessons, the mentor did not engage with her about the lessons taught: i remember the first time i taught was like, “you don’t even need to be here. they should just give you a certificate”. . . and after that she never really gave me feedback on other lessons that i wuld do, but she would be there in the classroom doing other things like admin. accounts by student teachers of the role played by non-mentor teachers suggest that teachers not assigned as mentors were at times more engaged. students were linked with non-mentor teachers either if the mentor was absent of if the mentor’s learners were writing tests. at other times student teachers were spontaneously invited by non-mentors to teach their classes. students reflected positively on the support given by non-mentors which frequently served to enhance feelings of belonging within the school community: ms simdini, she became our mentor teacher indirectly, like she’d always be there in the mornings, (asking) “how’s everything going? what are you doing today?” she’s the maths hod. she’d give us advice, she’d give suggestions. . . she just fell into a mentoriship role for us. a student (in a different school) also reflected positively on the feedback offered by a non-mentor teacher: the other grade 4 teacher was very nice. i had an art lesson and . . . she gave us good feedback . . . . she gave me feedback as to how i could change it, and that’s what i think mentor teachers should be like . . . i think she would make a good mentor teacher. support by non-mentor teachers highlights hobson’s (2002) conception of the role of mentoring which he argues should extend beyond assistance given by designated mentor teachers to include other teachers whose advice and support may be sought. this underscores the importance of participation by all teachers in the mentoring process and, as shown in the data, signifies the 122 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 value of different levels of interaction and support. instances of hospitality and care for example, were often mentioned, as suggested below: in the schools the staff were all very helpful and accommodating and went out of their way to make us feel comfortable. deepening the concept of the professional practice school, distributed mentoring implies that the whole school is concerned with the professional development and wellbeing of student teachers. at the level of the university, the notion of distributed support similarly extends and broadens the support functions across a wider group of professionals. what follows is a description of the collaborative support programme offered through the uspi, and student teachers’ responses to this programme. distributed support by the uspi prior to the start of the tp in both 2013 and 2014, the lmdp education specialists presented to the student teachers a detailed comparative analysis of the language and mathematics systemic results over a four-year period in each of the three schools. this provided a contextual understanding of the schools and an opportunity for students to gain insight into the performance levels of the schools in which they were to be placed. in addition to the presentations, students were visited informally in the schools on a weekly basis by the supervisor (instead of the usual two supervision visits during the six-week period). furthermore, formalised campus-based weekly reflection and supervision sessions (referred to as ‘friday reflection and planning sessions’) were facilitated by the university supervisor and lmdp. the friday sessions offered weekly opportunities for students to de-brief, reflect, connect and share experiences as well as engage in collaborative lesson planning with each other, their supervisor and the lmdp. often sessions focused on critical incidents experienced by students during the preceding week, thus creating practical examples which were linked to theory. additonally, demonstration lessons and advice on lesson planning by lmdp staff took place during these sessions. premised on the notion of ‘reflectionin-the-midst-of-action’ (sykes and dean, 2013) rather than ‘reflection-onaction’, these friday sessions offered a supportive space for students to reflect on their teaching practice with their university supervisor and members of the silbert and verbeek: partnerships in action. . . 123 lmdp. commenting on the value of the friday sessions, one of the student reflects: i think that for the future it’s actually quite important. you do get to connect … i think that initially, starting out, knowing that you’re going to be connecting every friday, i think is going to make people more inclined to go for tp (in the partner schools) . . . added to this, another student suggests: you might have noticed something one week that you didn’t bring up in the meeting . . . then the next week you come back and you can expand on what you said before so you don’t have to expalin the story fully again. from the perspective of the lmdp, one of the education specialists reflects on their role in supporting the student teachers during the friday sessions: the support that we were able to give to the students during the friday afternoon sessions also seemed to be effective. discussions around the content that they were to mediate, especially being able to articulate their teaching strategies and having us objectively critiquing their ideas served to make them more confident about their lesson presentations. assembling at the university every friday contributed to students’ sense of belonging. functioning as both a ‘communal’ (rusznyak and moosa, 2014) and ‘communicative space’ (eady, drew and smith, 2015), and with the support of the lmdp, the friday sessions provided opportunities within a neutral space for students to connect with each other, and significantly, to connect practice to expert knowledge (darling-hammond, hammerness, grossman, rust and shulman, 2005), which, as these authors advise, must be built into pre-service learning experiences. the value of student teachers working collaboratively with each other, together with their mentors and university educators is frequently regarded as strengthening pre-service practice (rutgers and reddy, 2013; darling-hammond et al., 2005; desimone, porter, garet, yoon and birman, 2002; birman, desimone and porter, 2000; cohen and hill, 2000, 2001; garet, porter, desimone, birman and yoon, 2001). this is further illustrated by the additional support students gave to each other. peer support after the first action reflection cycle, it was agreed that in 2014 students would be placed in pairs in each class rather than individually (as in 2013). 124 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 this shift was intended to encourage students to engage in collaborative planning and reflection, to share experiences (mitchell, de lange, balfour and islam, 2011) and to support each other with regard to classroom management and teaching. the value of peer support was experienced furthermore through students travelling together to and from the township thus providing a regular shared communicative space. after realising that a particular idea she had tried in class was not effective, a student reflects: [it] did not work at all, i will have to come up with a plan . . . i will ask my colleagues for advice. the good thing about travelling with four colleagues is that we do lesson reflections in the car and exchange ideas . . . the reflection in the car, after school, with my colleagues has been valuable. we share our frustrations and achievement, as well as exchanging ideas of improving our teaching. reflecting on her tp in general, a different student comments on the ‘car lesson reflections’: i will miss the car lesson reflections. i learnt a lot from my colleagues. there were times in the morning when i did not even feel like talking but my mood was always lifted up by the stories in the car. support offered by the university supervisor and lmdp education specialists coupled with peer collaboration resulted in students feeling well supported. despite differing experiences from their school-based mentors, students agreed that they had benefited immeasurably from the collaborative support they received. the following extract from a student teacher illustrates this: in some ways (the tp) was easier than i expected. the support from lecturers, the lmdp and the other students . . . made a huge difference. i learnt a lot just from the other students, seeing them teach, hearing how the others tackled issues in class. the guidance we got on lessons and on how to teach them, helped a great deal and i could notice in the lessons i had help with, the difference some input . . . makes. i think this kind of mentoring process will really help the (student) teachers . . . and motivate them too. similarly, another student comments on the value of the lmdp presentation at the start of the teaching practice, which contributed to her feeling well prepared for her school environment: i was more mentally prepared for going to this tp than the first . . . knowing the demographics of the school . . . knowing the statistics of the school such as the learners systemic test results helped to prepare me more. silbert and verbeek: partnerships in action. . . 125 in the foundation phase (grade 1–3) learners are assessed for literacy and numeracy and in4 the intermediate phase (4–7), assessment of language and mathematics takes place. assessments are administered nationally. two students reflected on their teaching practice more broadly in their journal entries: this was an amazing experience and i really feel that i learnt a lot about teaching and about pedagogy. i really feel that this should be offered to future pgce classes. this experience allows student teachers to see what the education of south africa is like and learn how to adapt their teaching styles. this tp has brought me to a firm, absolute, undoubting confirmation that i want to pursue a life in education, that i am truly passionate and committed to teaching . . . this experience has been one of the most valuable to me as a teacher and a person . . . it has changed me for the better and opened my eyes to ‘the bigger picture’, i look forward to seeing where things take me from here. appreciation for the collaborative support was particularly noted in the light of the mentors being preoccupied with other tasks. students frequently commented on their mentors’ busy schedules, noting in particular the multiple roles mentor teachers were expected to play. added to their mentoring responsibilities were admin demands, dealing with parents and preparing learners for the annual national assessments, resulting in high levels of4 pressure (hobson, 2002). imagining mentoring the reality of mentors’ heavy work loads and extra responsibilities led to students imagining mentoring arrangements in which fewer demands could be placed on mentor teachers and in which their roles might be re-defined. in the context of the uspi’s collaborative support programme, students agreed in the focus group discussions that expectations of teachers to observe and comment on as many student-taught lessons could be reduced, especially if two students were placed in each class. recognising that a postive tp requires distributed support and is not contingent on the support from the mentor teacher only, a student reflects: from the teaching practical, i feel that i got a lot of support from people, which made the experience a lot easier. this is something that i wanted to have more of in my first teaching practice. 126 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 having described students’ reflections on support they received during their tp in the first and second action-research cycle, we turn now to the mentor teachers’ reflections. we begin the section by describing how mentors viewed themselves in their roles as mentors. mentor’s reflections of themselves as mentors prior to the start of the 2013 tp, the university supervisor held discussions with the mentor teachers at each of the schools, focusing on their roles and expectations in particular, and more broadly on the desired outcomes of the tp (gravett, petersen and petker, 2014). in all cases during these discussions, mentors’ personal experience of their own tp had left strong impressions on them (hall, et al. 2008). mentors remembered receiving little critical engagement from their own mentor teachers but commented on the friendly assistance when it came to practical tasks. in all cases the mentor teachers regarded their role as practical – that they should “show the students how it’s done”, as one mentor teacher suggested. this as indicated involved sharing practical tips, from demonstrating the use of teaching and learning aids to helping students complete application forms for teaching posts. mentors’ perceptions of their roles (kwan and lopez, 2005), as outlined above, captured before the 2013 tp, correspond with the reflections from both mentors and students following the 2013 tp, namely, that critical reflection, input on lesson planning and constructive feedback generally did not take place. these absences reflected mentor teachers’ insecurity about their roles which they expressed in the focus group discussions following the tp. inspite of the initial briefing session, mentors indicated that were still unclear as to what was expected of them, and as a result requested further assistance from the university in developing their mentoring skills prior to the 2014 tp period. in response to this request, the researchers developed a university-certified short course in mentoring to deepen mentoring practices in preparation for the 2014 tp. support for mentors (2014) the mentoring short course was introduced prior to the commencement of the 2014 tp. the short course aimed to support mentor teachers in performing their mentoring roles more effectively. as agreed, mentoring activities would include scheduling meetings to introduce the mentors to the silbert and verbeek: partnerships in action. . . 127 other grade teachers; discussion of lesson plans with the students; discussion of learners’ responses to the lessons and collaborative preparation for the following week. mentors and students were required to set up an initial meeting to agree on the roles of the mentors and to clarify students’ expectations so to avoid making assumptions (mutemeri and chetty, 2011; hobson 2002; zanting, et al. 2001; gravett, et al. 2014). echoing these authors, it is critical for student teachers to articulate their particular mentoring needs to avoid confusion about roles and responsibilties. in order to derive reciprocal benefits, stanulis and russell (2000) maintain that conversations about mentoring must take place in such a way that perceptions are made explicit and realistic roles can be negotiated. in addition to clarifying roles and expectations, the six-week mentoring course included a work-integrated learning component requiring that the mentor teachers write reflective journals which were reviewed on a one-onone basis with an experienced mentor appointed by the uspi. the course mentor visited each mentor teacher at the beginning and in the middle of the tp period to support the mentors in their mentoring of the student teachers. daily logs of all mentoring activities were used as tools for reflection with the course mentor. analysis of the mentor logs at the end of the practicum period showed that five out of six mentor teachers recorded that their students had “taught lessons well”, however this was not explained or substantiated. furthermore, as noted in the mentor logs all of the mentor teachers felt that they had mentored their students well however only one mentor teacher documented that the types of activities covered in the short course (above) had been undertaken. in developing the mentoring short course the researchers anticipated that exposure to practice-based mentoring would enable mentors to be better equipped to perform mentoring roles as expected by the university. however, data from the second action research cycle suggested that this was not the case. on the whole, the mentoring short course seemed to have produced limited change in mentoring practices compared with the first action research cycle with respect in particular to critical reflection and constructive feedback. 128 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 despite input at the start of the short course on roles and expectations of mentors, evidence from the study suggests that the dominant role played by mentor teachers in their engagement with the students remained at the level of hospitality. expressed through a caring and nurturing attitude, the mentors saw it as their responsibility to ensure that the students were well cared for and that they were granted the opportunity and space to practice their teaching as often as possible. in this sense they played something of an oversight role in ensuring that students were teaching well enough both for the students’ benefit and for learners to achieve the required curriculum goals. reflections of the mentors suggest that they derived both personal and organisational benefits from having been involved in the mentoring process. at a personal level, they reported gaining confidence in their own strengths as teachers through learning new skills, gaining ideas from the students and from feeling strongly affirmed by them. the experience of mentoring students boosted mentors’ self-esteem and, as one mentor stated, made her feel as though she “could make a contribution”. mentors positively acknowledged the impact they made on the lives of the student teachers. as one mentor teacher recounts: i’m a person who is not sure whether i am doing good. but from the experience i had with these mentees i can see that i have affected a change in their lives. at the level of the school, mentors stated that the placement of students had a positive effect on the school’s reputation: the project put the school on the map. word spreads quickly and enrolments increased because there is a perception in the community that this school has some good support from the university and they are getting a better education for their children. mentor teachers appreciated being exposed to alternative sources of information through the use of technology and through sourcing information. perhaps most significantly, mentors agreed that the presence of students in the school encouraged teachers to use more english in their lessons. this resulted in less code-switching in their teaching and in the learners speaking more frequently english. distributed mentorship: from the mentors’ perspective the theme of distributed mentorship emerged once again from the 2014 data silbert and verbeek: partnerships in action. . . 129 as mentors themselves argued for greater distribution of mentoring across the school: “as much as you want to work, others must also be developed”, argued one teacher, while another stated: . . . at the end of the day the results of the system do not depend on us (the mentor teachers). it is a combination of all of us. so it needs us as schools to come to the table together with our managers . . . (mentoring) is more of a school responsibility. however where distributed mentorship did take place, this was not without its challenges. mentors reported for example that at times it was difficult to gather and collate feedback from the non-mentor teachers as this was not always forthoming. a further issue was that some non-mentors regarded lessons taught by students as free periods: . . . the other teachers who now had the mentees were regarding the time students were scheduled to be in their classes as free periods. this needed to be addressed but created an uncomfortable situation. if these teachers are not in the classroom they are not in a position to provide feedback to the students. despite these challenges, mentor teachers agreed that mentorship should be distributed across the school and argued that this might bring about postive changes in future tp placements – for the teachers, the students and the learners. as agreed, exposure by more teachers to alternative styles and strategies would in turn positively impact on learners’ performance levels. conclusion the purpose of this study was to describe a collaborative support programme for student teachers’ and their school-based mentors in diverse school contexts. this programme, anchored within an existing university school partnership, was premised on the understanding that university-school partnerships have a crucial role to play in the initial professional development of teachers and that this is a responsibility that should be shared by both the university and the school. what emerged from the data is that student teachers valued the emotional support offered by their mentors in helping them navigate the school terrain – an experience markedly different to that of their previous tp. upon reflection by the students, they agreed that the support they received from their mentors was more than they could have expected given the nature and circumstances 130 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 of the mentors’ everyday working lives and their daily struggle to cope with the many competing demands on their time. given the contextual challenges faced by teachers on a daily basis, student teachers imagined the possibility of a different model of mentorship. while we fully acknowledge that the role of mentor teachers is crucial in supporting students, especially in challenging situations (pennefather, 2008; hobson, 2002), and that improving “mentoring quality impacts upon the student teacher’s school practice as a whole” (pennefather, 2008, p.91), we hold that in contexts in which student teachers are receiving additional support, it is possible, and indeed necessary to re-conceptualise the role of the traditional mentor teacher. this re-imagining involves the distribution of mentoring functions from a few designated mentor teachers to include a wider range of teachers at the school. in this study, through the uspi’s integrated support strategy, other mechanisms were put in place to support students in their pedagogic needs which meant that students did not have to rely solely on their mentors for this input. these mechanisms purposefully included a range of both school and campus-based activities involving academic staff members; education specialists; school-based mentors and significantly, the students themselves. the on-campus, friday reflection and planning sessions offered a space for student teachers to engage with the lmdp education specialists and their academic supervisor – and to interact with each other through sharing ideas and reflecting on practice. in order to ensure that effective support is offered to student teachers, and that value is added to the school during – and beyond – the tp period, we argue that models of support need to actively include mechanisms that extend mentoring practices beyond the boundaries of the mentoring relationship, so that key mentoring functions are shared. a move to distributing support would enhance the value of using mainstream schools as professional practice sites, thus providing students – and indeed teachers – with an opportuniy to derive maximum benefit from the pre-service practicum. herein lies the significant learning of this two-year pilot project: the extent to which student teachers’ pre-service learning can be significantly enhanced by a model that draws on the combined strengths of in-school support by mentors and teachers, collaborative support between students, and on-campus pedagogic support from the university supervisor and education specialists. silbert and verbeek: partnerships in action. . . 131 in concluding, we argue that the preparation of students for their initial teacher training in a wide range of contexts, requires a robust programme of support, not only at the level of the university, but also at the level of the school. a collaborative, integrated and distributed support strategy pitched at both levels is critical to optimise support for the student and mentor teacher, especially in contexts that are socially and educationally challenging. this would enable student teachers to be better prepared for teaching in diverse school contexts and to make a positive and meaningful contribution in schools where this is most needed. references birman, b., desimone, m. and porter, a. 2000. designing professional development that works. educational leadership, 57(8): pp.28–33. christie, p., butler, d. and potterton, m. 2007. report of the ministerial committee: schools that work. pretoria: department of education. cohen, d.k. and hill, h.c. 2000. instructional policy and classroom performance: the mathematics reform in california. teachers college record, 102(2): pp.294–343. cohen, d.k. and hill, h.c. 2001. learning policy: when state education reform works. new haven, ct: yale university press. corrigan, d. 2000. the changing role of schools and higher education institutions with respect to community-based interagency collaboration and interprofessional partnerships. peabody journal of education, 75(3): pp.176–195. darling-hammond, l., hammerness, k., grossman, p., rust, f. and shulman, l. 2005. the design of teacher education programs. in darlinghammond, l. and bransford, j. 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30: pp.146–156. zanting, a., verloop, n. and vermunt, j. 2001. student teachers’ beliefs about mentoring and learning to teach during teaching practice. british journal of educational psychology, 71: pp.57–80. zeichner, k. 2010. rethinking the connections between campus courses and field experiences in collegeand university-based teacher education. journal of teacher education, 61(1–2): pp.89–99. patti silbert claire verbeek university of cape town patti.silbert@uct.ac.za clare.verbeek@uct.ac.za mailto:patti.silbert@uct.ac.za mailto:claire.verbeek@uct.ac.za the financial assistance of the national research foundation (nrf) for the south african1 research chair in teacher education towards this research is hereby acknowledged. opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at, are those of the authors and are not necessarily to be attributed to the nrf or its partners. the authors would like to thank the western cape education department, the department of2 basic education, the south african council for educators, the south african democratic teachers’ union, and the national professional teachers’ organisation of south africa, as well as other stakeholders for their invaluable support for the project. the authors would also like to thank all members of the centre for international teacher education for providing a consistently supportive and intellectually rich environment to conduct the research. the special contribution of all the fieldworkers, especially xolisa mdleleni, is hereby acknowledged. different rules for different teachers: teachers’ views of professionalism and accountability in a bifurcated education system 1 nimi hoffman, yusuf sayed and azeem badroodien abstract this paper reports the initial results from a representative survey of teachers in the western cape regarding their views of professionalism and accountability. this is the first survey of its kind in south africa. preliminary analysis of the data from 115 public schools suggests that teachers at no-fee schools, who are predominantly black women, report facing the greatest institutional burdens and the greatest need for institutional support, particularly from the state. related to this, they tend to stress pastoral care-work as central to being a professional, while those at fee-paying schools stress their claims to pedagogical knowledge and job prestige. this indicates that teachers at different schools are subject to different and unequal institutions (or rules), where the kind of school that teachers work at often reflects their race and gender positioning. it also implies that the concept of a bifurcated education system, characterised by different production functions and outcomes for learners, should be expanded to include teachers and deepened to include institutions.2 124 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 introduction this paper reports the initial results from a representative survey of teachers’ understandings of their work in the western cape, the first of its kind in south africa. the survey is ongoing; however, a descriptive analysis of the current data from 115 schools is instructive. in this paper, we consider teachers’ understandings of professionalism and accountability. we ask: how do race, gender and class shape teachers’ understandings of their work, and what does this reveal about how their schools function? the paper proceeds as follows. we first sketch debates on professionalism and accountability, and link these debates to literature on the bifurcated education system and the role of institutions in reproducing inequality. we then set out the research problem and design. in the descriptive analysis, we consider the types of educational inequalities surveyed teachers face. we then consider the interplay between teachers’ institutional positioning and their perceptions of what professionalism consists of, whom they feel they should be accountable to, and the obstacles they face in being professionals. we find that teachers at no-fee schools, who are predominantly black women, report facing the greatest institutional burdens and the greatest need for institutional support, from both state and non-state actors. related to this, they tend to stress pastoral care-work as being central to their conceptualisation of what it is to be a professional teacher, while those at fee-paying schools stress their claims to pedagogical knowledge and job prestige. these results add to the literature characterising south africa’s education system as a tale of two schooling systems, one for a multi-racial elite, and the other for an impoverished black majority. the findings suggest that the concept of a bifurcated education system should be expanded beyond learners to include teachers, and that it should be deepened to include institutions that are differentiated by race, class and gender. we argue that doing so lays the groundwork for a causal analysis of how the bifurcated education system reproduces itself. this is in turn useful for identifying counter-measures for a more equitable system. hoffman, sayed and badroodien: different rules for different teachers. . . 125 literature overview the professional status of teachers is a contested one. do teachers occupy the position of the classical professions, such as doctors and lawyers, or are they closer to other kinds of groups, such as nurses or social workers? at the heart of this scholarly debate lie differing views of teachers’ claims to autonomy, knowledge and service (locke, 2004; sexton, 2007; gamble, 2010). the strength of teachers’ claims to autonomy and knowledge is arguably related to how they are perceived and governed by the state and the public in general. the weaker the claim, the less their perceived status and esteem. the stronger the claim, the more they are seen as members of a legitimate profession. the debate over teachers’ professional status is not only scholarly but also political. a number of scholars interpret the debate as an ideological contest over different forms of educational governance (sachs, 2001; stevenson, carter and passy, 2007; hilferty, 2008). this debate is sometimes interpreted in terms of a contest between ‘democratic’ and ‘managerialist’ views of educational governance (sachs, 2001; whitty, 2006; gamble, 2010; hargreaves and fullan, 2013; silova and brehm, 2013). more ‘democratic’ views of educational governance are viewed as according greater value to teachers’ agency and autonomy; they are understood to conceptualise educational excellence as a form of horizontal collaboration between teachers and various constituencies, including learners, parents, unions and the state, where such collaboration enables teachers’ creative autonomy. in contrast, more ‘managerialist’ views of educational governance are viewed as placing less emphasis on the value of teachers’ autonomy; instead they are understood to conceptualise educational excellence through vertical accountability to state and/or corporate actors, so that education is standardised and efficient. insofar as teachers’ claims to professionalism are shaped by situational and institutional factors, their professional standing is fluid and may change over time (day, kington, stobart and sammons, 2006). in this regard, hargreaves (2000) argues that there have been discrete historical phases of professionalism: the pre-professional age, the age of the autonomous professional, the age of the collegial professional, and the post-professional age. for hargreaves (2000), teachers’ claims to professionalism were at its height in the age of the autonomous professional, but have since been eroded. he argues that in the post-professional period particularly, the state has subjected schools to market principles such that they are governed under 126 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 precepts of economic efficiency and competition for students and resources. teachers and their professional organisations are seen as obstacles to the marketisation of education. they are therefore restricted in the scope of their decision-making, coaxed into more temporary contracts and subject to “discourses of derision” that hold them responsible for the alleged ills of public or state education. the effect of all this is to return teaching to a lowstatus, amateur, almost pre-modern craft, where teachers have to deal with centralised curricula and testing regimes and cope with ever-increasing bureaucratic demands that erode their classroom autonomy and judgement (hargreaves, 2000, 167–169). however, such analyses are based predominantly in anglo-american experiences. as de clercq (2013) argues, post-colonial societies that are riven by inequalities in teacher education and working conditions may experience all four periods simultaneously. in post-colonial contexts, teachers’ claims to professionalism do not only rest on issues of knowledge, autonomy and service, but also centrally involve issues of unequal access to resources and conflicts over the exercise of political rights. in a number of african countries, teachers' claims to professionalism and their relationship with the state have been characterised by prolonged struggle and contestation. in the wake of the legacy of european colonialism, african teachers have had little say in determining their conditions of service and status as professionals or workers. thus, although teacher unions in countries such as kenya, nigeria, uganda and zambia were key actors in struggles for independence in the 1960s (govender, 2009), they have had limited success in determining conditions of service and impacting broader policy matters in subsequent decades (kalusopa, otoo and shindondola-mote, 2013). some have argued that this lack of influence was due to constraints resulting from the emergence of autocratic governments linked to the imposition of structural adjustment programmes by the imf and the world bank following balance of payment crises during the 1980s (carnoy, 1995; chisholm, 1999 and kalusopa et al., 2013). recently, a number of states have experimented with several market-based interventions. these include introducing low-cost private schools that use untrained community members to teach scripted curricula via tablets, casualising teacher employment and linking their pay to performance, as well as outsourcing the administration of public schools to for-profit companies (hoffmann, 2016). a number of these experiments have gained significant traction by virtue of their financial and political backing by powerful actors, such as mark zuckerberg (the founder of facebook), the gates foundation, the united kingdom's department for international development, and the hoffman, sayed and badroodien: different rules for different teachers. . . 127 however, this does not take into account school fees. when these are added to the funding3 mix, then historically white schools receive the highest per capita expenditure (motala, 2006; 2009) united states agency for international development. however, they have also been intensely contested by teacher unions and parents' associations (bold kimenyi, mwabu, ng’ang’a and sandefur, 2013), as well as by the united nations' special rapporteur for the right to education (singh, 2016). in south africa, these struggles with the state over educational inequalities are brought into profound relief. teachers’ professional status and levels of accountability remain strongly shaped by race and class, reflecting colonial and apartheid histories of education (vilardo, 1996; kallaway, 2002; ndlovu, 2002). for example, the apartheid education system was designed to produce compliant subjects across the entire population, using race as the primary mediator in the reproduction of social and economic inequalities (turner, 1972; cross, 1986; adhikari, 1993; vilardo, 1996; ndlovu, 2002). in this, the state vested black teachers with substantially poorer quality training, less autonomy, lower wages, and less educational resources, relative to white teachers. these differences found expression in political contestations over teachers’ proximity to the state, and by extension, debates about whom teachers should be accountable to and whether teachers should identify as professionals or as members of an oppressed black working class (vilardo, 1996; kihn, 2002; govender, 2004). in the post-1994 dispensation, the schooling system continues to reproduce inequalities along racial and class lines, despite a raft of policies introduced by the state to equalise schooling, including the rationalisation of government funding (sayed and kanjee, 2013). this is most evident in schools not being3 fundamentally desegregated; with previous white schools becoming home to a deracialised economic elite, and black schools continuing to mainly educate poor black learners (chisholm, 2004; motala, 2009; spaull, 2013; taylor and taylor, 2013). this segregation is accompanied by substantial inequality: learners at black schools have literacy and numeracy scores far below the scores of learners at historically white schools in south africa, or even at schools in other (poorer) african countries (hungi. makuwa, ross, saito, dolata and van capelle, 2011). this context has given rise to strong scholarly and political debates about how teachers can be held accountable and whether unions subvert or enable professionalism and accountability in education (kanjee and sayed, 2013; govender, 2015; spaull, 2015). 128 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 moreover, the history of teacher professionalism in south africa is not only raced and classed, but is also gendered. the interplay between these categories in a south african context complicates historical narratives of the rise of professions in western europe, where a number of authors argue that professionalisation was essentially a patriarchal process in two senses: first, occupations dominated by men tend to have a more 'fully professional' social standing; and second, the process of professionalisation plays a role in the maintenance and development of patriarchal social relations (hearn, 1982; witz, 2013; suddaby and muzio, 2015). since the majority of teachers are women, the status of teaching as a profession is inherently open to question and doubt. in a pioneering study, however, clark (1998) argues that in south africa narratives of gender are deeply interwoven with race and the establishment of a settler regime. clark (1998) argues that only white women were at first allowed to become teachers, with their entry into teaching guided by notions of what counted as appropriate spheres for women to work and move in, ideas of sexual hygiene and comportment, and beliefs about what constituted suitable knowledge for a female teacher (knowledge of cooking, for instance. rather than mathematics or physics). later on, however, black women were allowed to enter the teaching profession, with their entry into the profession regarded as an explicit attempt to reconstitute normative ideas of african femininity, by domesticating and racing black women in particular ways. moreover, in line with their institutional positioning as legal minors, black women were subject to much stricter vertical accountability regimes than white women, their access to knowledge was far more tightly circumscribed and their remuneration was substantially lower. in this context, the relationship between gender, race and class plays a strong analytical role in understanding both normative ideals about teachers and how teachers conceptualise and experience their work. the relationship between teachers’ positionality and their beliefs is arguably central to an institutional analysis of the causal mechanisms underlying persistent education inequalities. the point of departure here is the concept of a “bifurcated”” education system (sayed and soudien, 2005; sayed 2016), in which poor black schools are systematically unable to convert resource inputs into learner outcomes relative to historically white schools in south africa, or schools in other (poorer) african countries. one way of understanding the different processes underlying two education sub-systems is to highlight the role of institutions, which provide the formal and informal rules that are understood and used by different communities and hoffman, sayed and badroodien: different rules for different teachers. . . 129 the focus on institutions is broadly located within new institutionalism, where the importance4 of culture and symbolism is given much greater emphasis in institutional analysis than that found in ‘old institutional’ analyses of organisations and behaviours, which focus only on political and economic factors (ostrom, 2010). that establish the ‘working do’s and dont’s’ for community members (hess and ostrom, 2007). in this, institutions can have formal policies such as the4 amended national norms and standards for school funding that have different financing mechanisms for poor and rich schools (dbe, 2006). institutions can also have informal, tacit rules that guide the behaviour of education actors. for instance, the rules governing acceptable teacher absenteeism might differ across schools resulting in different absentee rates. these formal and informal aspects of institutions can combine to enable and constrain teachers’ behaviour in ways that create and embed social hierarchies. teachers’ beliefs are very likely a key mechanism by which institutions reproduce inequality. while this paper is interested in inequality between teachers, rather than inequality between individual learners, there are a number of experimental studies which demonstrate the general principle that teachers’ beliefs can help reproduce inequality, in the sense that their beliefs about unequal social status can lead to substantial achievement gaps amongst their learners (steele and aronson, 1995; steele, 1997; hoff and pandey, 2004; einav and yariv, 2006). these studies trace the way in which such beliefs reflect institutions, or rules, that establish unequal treatment for different groups, and are invested with particular social meanings through narratives that attempt to legitimise them (hoff and stiglitz, 2010). in light of this, the relationship between teachers' views and institutions matters in two ways. first, teachers’ views can indicate the ways in which institutions (particularly informal aspects) reflect social hierarchies; this is the first step in telling a causal story about how the bifurcated education system reproduces itself. second, understanding how institutions create and reproduce inequality can be useful for identifying counter-measures for a more equitable education system. research problem there is limited empirical evidence in south africa, or internationally, of how teachers understand their role as professionals in the classroom and how they 130 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 perceive this professional role in relation to their accountability to different educational actors, including the state, school management, other teachers and learners (de clercq, 2013; govender, sayed and hoffman, 2016). quantitative studies of schools in south africa focus largely on learners’ performance and socio-economic status, where data on teachers is collected and the focus is on their content knowledge and beliefs about their competencies (khosa, 2010; hungi et al., 2011). consequently, there is a need to gather systematic research on how teachers understand their role as professionals, and how race, class and gender shape their understandings and experiences of what it is to be a professional teacher. the data analysed in this paper comes from a survey of teachers at public schools in the western cape. the survey was designed to elicit teachers’ views on their role as professionals and how they perceive this role in relation to their accountability to different social actors, including the state, school management and learners. a guiding hypothesis was that race, class and gender are important mediators of teachers’ experiences and perceptions. a second hypothesis was that institutions matter to the views and experiences of teachers, and that these institutions reflect race, class and gender inequalities. research design before undertaking the survey, we conducted a literature review, encompassing theoretical and empirical research in anglo-american and african scholarship (including south african scholarship), with a special emphasis on debates concerning colonisation, apartheid and the role of unions in education (govender et al., 2016). based on the literature review, we developed a questionnaire that an external panel of experts then examined. we piloted the questionnaire at three public schools and then revised it, primarily shortening the questionnaire and modifying ambiguous or confusing questions. the survey was designed to be representative of public schools with regard to two important categories: their location in rural and urban districts, and their status as fee-paying or no-fee schools (as captured by their quintile status). the logistical constraints of the study meant that schools were not selected for representivity in other categories, such as school size and phase. 180 schools were randomly selected with 4540 teachers as potential respondents (see figure 1). schools were sampled to allow for a minimum response rate of 51% for hoffman, sayed and badroodien: different rules for different teachers. . . 131 figure 1: distribution of surveyed schools (sampled schools in red, unsampled schools in blue) 132 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 teachers. currently, 52% of teachers and 71% of schools have responded positively, although the survey is still ongoing. ethical approval for the study was obtained from the western cape education district and cape peninsula university of technology. all respondents gave their informed consent to participate in the study. respondents completed a self-administered questionnaire in english or afrikaans, according to their preference (principals at isixhosa medium schools rejected questionnaires in isixhosa, citing relatively higher english literacy). fieldworkers administered the questionnaire after school. teachers typically took thirty minutes to complete the questionnaire, but they were allowed as much time as they wished. the anonymous questionnaire consisted of 180 questions in 8 categories: (1) demographics, (2) professionalism, (3) autonomy, (4) continuous professional development, (5) policies that affect teachers, (6) accountability, (7) teacher organisations, and (8) violence in schools. the questions were in likert scale and dichotomous (yes/no) formats. in addition, fieldworkers completed their own questionnaire concerning their observations of the school infrastructure, their interaction with the principal, and any questions teachers had regarding the questionnaire. drawing from the literature review, the questionnaire focused on five main characteristics of professionalism: knowledge, autonomy, service, qualifications, and political identity. we also asked questions about the main obstacles to being a professional teacher, and here we focused on the social standing of teachers (including their remuneration and community standing), constraints on autonomy, the availability of resources (including both physical infrastructure and knowledge resources), workloads and institutional support for teachers. with regard to accountability, we considered which groups teachers felt most accountable to. we included items on both vertical accountability (such as accountability to the state) and horizontal accountability (such as accountability to other teachers). there are two important limitations to the study’s design. first, since the survey was voluntary, non-response of schools or teachers is plausibly a source of sampling bias. their reasons for declining to participate in the survey may be correlated with their views and experiences of professionalism and accountability (heckman, 1979). second, on the basis of the pilot data, informal interviews with teachers in the pilot study, and secondary empirical hoffman, sayed and badroodien: different rules for different teachers. . . 133 research (hungi et al., 2011), we have reason to believe that many teachers have poor literacy skills relative to their oral skills. this implies a greater cognitive effort to complete the questionnaire, resulting in respondent fatigue and less accurate results. ideally, the survey would have been conducted in interview form, but time and budgetary constraints did not permit this option, so the questionnaire was simplified and shortened as much as possible. preliminary analysis sample characteristics since the survey is not yet complete (71% of target schools had been surveyed at the time of writing), this preliminary analysis treats the data as a population, rather than as a representative sample. however, it is useful to check whether the sample proportions match those of the population. here we report the proportions of teachers at no-fee and fee-paying public schools, as well as the racial composition of teachers. by government policy, schools in quintiles 1 to 3 do not charge fees, while quintiles 4 to 5 charge fees (department of education, 2006). in the sample, the proportion of no-fee schools to fee-paying schools corresponds with that of the population (table 1.1). although the survey was not designed for the racial representivity of teachers, the composition of teachers in the sample corresponds with that of different groups in the population (table 1.2). table 1.1: fee and no-fee paying schools in the western cape and from survey data western cape data survey data school type frequency % of cases frequency % of cases no-fee school (quintile 1–3) 671 46% 51 44% fee-paying school (quintile 4–5) 786 54% 64 56% total public schools 1457 100% 115 100% notes: wced data is missing information for 8 schools, which are not included in this table. 134 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 coloured women are the least qualified and are least likely to send their children to their own5 school relative to all other groups. african women have the largest class sizes, work overwhelmingly at no-fee schools, and tend not to live in their school community. white women indicate greater advantages relative to all black women, save for their disproportionate status as temporary teachers. indian women indicate similar characteristics to white women, but have a much greater presence on the school management team than all other women and a lower incidence of temporary employment than white women. women across racial categories tend to indicate greater disadvantages relative to men, but in some instances white and indian women indicate greater advantage than black men, as noted in table 2 above. table 1.2: race composition of teachers in the western cape and from survey data western cape data survey data race frequency % of cases frequency % of cases african/black 6 888 19% 393 17% coloured 18 370 50% 1 164 51% indian/asian 306 1% 35 2% other 327 1% 37 2% white 10 568 29% 569 25% no response 89 4% total 36 459 100% 2 287 100% what kinds of educational inequalities do teachers face in terms of race, gender and class? a breakdown of teacher characteristics by race and gender suggests that, on average, african and coloured women bear the brunt of educational inequalities, while white and indian women indicate greater advantage relative to other women (table 2). this provides grounds for grouping5 african and coloured women together under the term ‘black women’ in order to investigate the intersection of race and class in a clear and simple way. an analysis of the difference in means for black women compared to other groups provides the following statistically significant and substantive results (table 3): 58% of black women work at no-fee schools compared to 33% of other! teachers ! black women teach classes that are 14% larger on average than classes of other groups hoffman, sayed and badroodien: different rules for different teachers. . . 135 ! 48% of black women have a university qualification in contrast with 65% of other teachers ! 14% of black women have a school leadership role compared with 22% of other teachers ! 47% of black women send their children to their school or would do so if they had children, compared to 51% of other teachers ! 38% of black women live in their school communities while 43% of other teachers do so 136 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 table 2: teacher characteristics by race and gender female african coloured indian white total no-fee school 0.83 (0.09) 0.48 (0.07) 0 (0) 0.18 (0.06) 0.46 (0.05) has a university qualification 0.53 (0.04) 0.46 (0.03) 0.68 (0.13) 0.72 (0.04) 0.55 (0.02) lives in school community 0.36 (0.05) 0.39 (0.03) 0.41 (0.14) 0.53 (0.06) 0.42 (0.03) sends children to own school 0.55 (0.03) 0.43 (0.03) 0.50 (0.12) 0.59 (0.06) 0.50 (0.03) temporarily employed 0.24 (0.04) 0.27 (0.02) 0.24 (0.08) 0.41 (0.03) 0.29 (0.02) on school management team 0.14 (0.02) 0.13 (0.01) 0.32 (0.09) 0.10 (0.01) 0.13 (0.01) class size 40.8 (0.95) 36.6 (0.61) 33.4 (1.29) 28.2 (0.93) 35.3 (0.76) notes: robust standard errors corrected for clustering at school level in brackets. male african coloured indian white total no-fee school 0.75 (0.09) 0.47 (0.07) 0.13 (0.12) 0.10 (0.06) 0.45 (0.06) has a university qualification 0.60 (0.08) 0.59 (0.03) 0.88 (0.12) 0.71 (0.05) 0.61 (0.02) lives in school community 0.40 (0.06) 0.35 (0.03) 0.38 (0.17) 0.53 (0.07) 0.39 (0.03) sends children to own school 0.54 (0.06) 0.42 (0.03) 0.57 (0.19) 0.68 (0.06) 0.48 (0.03) temporarily employed 0.23 (0.06) 0.17 (0.02) 0.25 (0.15) 0.32 (0.06) 0.21 (0.02) on school management team 0.30 (0.04) 0.29 (0.02) 0.38 (0.17) 0.26 (0.04) 0.29 (0.02) class size 41.3 (1.12) 36.8 (0.62) 40.1 (4.05) 27.5 (0.90) 35.9 (0.72) notes: robust standard errors corrected for clustering at school level in brackets. this provides grounds for grouping african and coloured women together under the term ‘black women’ in order to investigate the intersection of race and class in a clear and simple way. an analysis of the difference in means for black women compared to other groups provides the following statistically significant and substantive results (table 3): hoffman, sayed and badroodien: different rules for different teachers. . . 137 table 3: difference in mean characteristics for black women and other groups black female not a black female difference % difference no-fee school 0.58 (0.02) 0.33 (0.01) 0.24 *** (0.01) 76% has a university qualification 0.48 (0.02) 0.65 (0.01) 0.17 *** (0.02) -26% lives in school community 0.38 (0.02) 0.43 (0.02) 0.05 ** (0.02) -12% sends children to own school 0.47 (0.02) 0.51 (0.02) 0.04 ** (0.02) -8% temporarily employed 0.26 (0.01) 0.28 (0.01) 0.02 (0.02) -7% on school management team 0.14 (0.01) 0.22 (0.01) 0.08 *** (0.02) -36% class size 37.8 (0.28) 33.2 (0.29) 4.5 *** (0.41) 14% notes: robust standard errors corrected for clustering at school level in brackets. significance: *** p<0.01, **p<0.05, *p<0.1 these results indicate that black women tend to carry greater educational burdens (working at poorer schools and teaching larger classes) with less institutional power to affect change (less formal education and fewer leadership positions). sending one’s children to one’s school plausibly indicates a basic endorsement of the school. on this interpretation substantially fewer black women endorse the school they work at. many of these disadvantages are institutional in nature and concern the kind of schools in which black women teach. 63% of teachers at no-fee schools are black women (table 5.1), and being a black woman is strongly correlated with teaching at a no-fee school, where this correlation is statistically significant at the 0.01 level (table 5.2). but working at a no-fee school is positively correlated with substantially larger classes, and is negatively correlated with sending one’s children to one’s school and living in the school community, where these associations are statistically significant and substantive (table 4). one way of interpreting these patterns is that the rules of the ‘education game’ are skewed in such a way that black women teachers tend to come out losing, 138 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 so that part of the institutional meaning of being a black woman teacher is multiple disadvantage. this disadvantage finds expression particularly in the close relationship between being black, female and teaching at a no-fee school. table 4: correlates of working at a no-fee school sends children to own school1 lives in school community2 class size3 no-fee school -0.05** (0.02) -0.03*** (0.02) 3.35*** (0.43) notes: robust standard errors corrected for clustering at school level in brackets. significance: *** p<0.01, **p<0.05, *p<0.1. 1. probit regression 2. probit regression. 3. ols regression table 5.1: race and gender composition of teachers at no-fee and fee schools no-fee school fee-paying school black female 63% 38% black male 25% 19% white female 7% 26% white male 1% 8% other 4% 9% total 100% 100% table 5.2: association between working at a no-fee school and being a black woman (probit estimation) no-fee school black female 0.24*** (0.02) notes: robust standard errors corrected for clustering at school level in brackets. significance: *** p<0.01, **p<0.05, *p<0.1 given the substantive differences between no-fee schools and fee-paying schools, and the ways in which these differences are raced and gendered, the hoffman, sayed and badroodien: different rules for different teachers. . . 139 the precise division of this bimodal or bifurcated system is under debate. some scholars6 argue for a division by wealth quartiles (spaull, 2013), while others use quintiles (van der berg, 2008). in this paper, we use the division into no-fee and fee-paying schools, which tracks wealth quintiles. given the nature of likert scales, respondents tend to gravitate towards the centre. we therefore7 focus on the tail-end of the distribution (those who strongly agree) as this is more illustrative of differences between groups. next section considers teachers’ views of professionalism and accountability in terms of whether they work at no-fee or fee-paying schools. this distinction is largely consistent with previous work on the bimodal distribution of schools, in which the wealthiest quartile of schools (25%) performs very differently from the remaining three quartiles (75%), where the wealthiest schools are typically fee-paying historically white schools, and the remainder are typically no-fee historically black schools (van der berg, 2008; spaull, 2013; fleisch, 2013).6 what are the most important characteristics of a professional teacher? respondents were asked to indicate what they believed to be the characteristics of a professional teacher by rating thirteen statements on a likert scale: ‘strongly disagree’, ‘disagree’, ‘agree’ and ‘strongly agree.’ table 6 presents all the ‘strongly agree’ responses. the majority of teachers7 emphasise their identity as classical professionals, stressing excellent content knowledge, intrinsic motivation, collegiality, and an ideal social positioning similar to that of doctors and lawyers. teaching skills and lesson preparation are emphasised by fewer teachers, while a minority stress autonomy in the classroom and in the political realm as being central to their understanding of professionalism. however, there are substantial and statistically significant differences between teachers at no-fee schools and those at fee-paying schools. considerably fewer teachers at no-fee schools emphasise content knowledge and teaching skills, and fewer claim an identity similar to that of doctors and lawyers. instead, many more teachers emphasise placing learners’ interests first, arriving early before school starts, and knowing all the parents of learners. in contrast, more teachers at fee-paying schools report that ‘going on strike’ is incompatible with being a professional. 140 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 table 6: proportion of respondents who strongly agree that professional teachers have the following characteristics fees no fees difference p-value must have excellent subject/content knowledge 75.53 67.06 -8.47 *** teachers are professionals, like doctors & lawyers 59.07 48.31 -10.76 *** must be passionate about teaching 56.16 51.17 -4.99 ** must always try and support other teachers 51.85 52.75 0.90 must always place learners' interests first 43.84 49.68 5.84 *** must fight against policies that are bad for learners 42.96 39.83 -3.13 must always arrive early before school starts 43.4 50.53 7.13 *** must constantly update knowledge and study further 40.05 44.49 4.44 ** must have excellent teaching skills 40.14 35.17 -4.97 ** teachers are professional workers, like social workers & nurses 36.62 39.41 2.79 must prepare lessons in advance 34.51 34.75 0.24 can be ‘political’ & professional 19.98 20.23 0.25 must know all parents of learners 15.76 22.14 6.38 *** teachers are workers, like textile workers & miners 14.61 15.15 0.54 cannot go on strike 11.09 6.57 -4.52 *** must have curriculum freedom 9.6 11.76 2.16 * does not need teaching qualifications 3.43 3.39 -0.04 notes: significance: *** p<0.01, **p<0.05, *p<0.1. 1. these differences suggest that teachers at no-fee schools may see pastoral, care-work as more central to how they understand being professional teachers, which is an area that is under-explored in the academic literature of being professional teachers. which is an area that is relatively less explored in the academic literature. in contrast, those at fee-paying schools tend to focus more on their claims to pedagogical knowledge and job prestige. this is more in line with the normative ideals prevalent in academic literature. one explanation for these differences may lay in the different obstacles that teachers face, which we explore in the next section. what are the most important obstacles to being a professional teacher? respondents were asked to indicate what they believed to be obstacles to being a professional teacher by rating twenty statements on a likert scale: ‘strongly disagree’, ‘disagree’, ‘agree’ and ‘strongly agree.’ table 7 presents all the ‘strongly agree’ responses. while there is some level of disagreement hoffman, sayed and badroodien: different rules for different teachers. . . 141 between teachers at different schools regarding their conceptions of professionalism, the disagreement between teachers regarding their views on important obstacles to professionalism is both more intense and comprehensive. the majority of teachers at fee-paying schools identify low salaries as the most important obstacle to being a professional; in contrast, the majority of teachers at no-fee schools emphasise socio-economic problems in the surrounding community as their chief concern. this is a statistically significant and substantive difference: 62% of teachers at no-fee schools stress socio-economic problems in the community, while only 43% of teachers at fee-paying schools do, where this difference is statistically significant at the 0.01 level. these large and statistically significant differences persist for each item in the survey. many more teachers at no-fee schools stress learner behaviour and home background as obstacles, and indicate less support from their community. resource allocation, in the form of class size, lack of libraries and textbooks and poor infrastructure, features far more prominently for teachers at low-fee schools. many more of these teachers also indicate a lack of effective institutional support from education departments, school management teams, unions and colleagues as being significant obstacles, where greater emphasis is placed on education departments and the school management team. finally, more teachers at no-fee schools identify a lack of autonomy in the classroom as obstacles to professionalism, in the form of administrative burdens and a lack of curriculum freedom. 142 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 table 7: proportion of respondents who strongly agree that the following are obstacles to being a professional teacher fees no fees difference p-value there are too many socio-economic problems in the community 42.67 61.88 19.21 *** teachers' salaries are too low 60.34 59.74 -0.6 my classes are too large 44.88 56.96 12.08 *** i have too many administrative tasks 45.23 52.78 7.55 *** learners' home backgrounds make it difficult to be effective 38.96 52.03 13.07 *** learners at my school are not well-behaved 39.05 45.5 6.45 *** my school does not have a library 26.59 39.61 13.02 *** my school does not have a good library 26.68 37.79 11.11 *** education departments do not treat teachers well 30.92 37.58 6.66 *** the school management team does not communicate well with teachers 22.88 30.41 7.53 *** the school management has a top-down leadership style 20.67 29.34 8.67 *** the buildings are broken and not well-maintained 25 28.37 3.37 *** there are not enough textbooks for my learners 21.29 28.27 6.98 *** the community does not value me as a teacher 22.26 27.73 5.47 *** the education department doesn't provide adequate in-service training 20.23 27.3 7.07 *** unions do not support teachers adequately 20.23 25.91 5.68 *** teachers do not support each other at my school 18.82 25.05 6.23 *** the school management team does not support teachers adequately 17.58 23.66 6.08 *** the school management team does not treat teachers fairly 18.99 22.7 3.71 ** i do not have freedom to teach what i think is best 13.07 22.59 9.52 *** notes: significance: *** p<0.01, **p<0.05, *p<0.1. 1. these differences suggest that teachers at no-fee schools continue to bear historical burdens arising from long-term under-investment in black schools (motala, 2006) and state violence against black people (kallaway, 2002). however, they also suggest that teachers at no-fee schools get less support from education departments and structures within their schools. in the language of institutional analysis, there are likely two kinds of differences related to the informal aspects of institutions. the first difference lies in the informal rules guiding the behaviour of learners and the broader community, related to a history of state violence against black people. the second difference lies in the informal rules guiding the behaviour of support hoffman, sayed and badroodien: different rules for different teachers. . . 143 structures from the state and within the school. consequently, while a policy analysis may reveal that schools are subject to roughly equitable formal institutions, the survey data suggests that there are substantial differences in the informal dimensions of institutions. these differences in institutional environments matter, since they may play a role in shaping how teachers conceptualise their roles as professionals. it is not implausible that teachers who work with learners who are traumatised by historical violence against black communities come to conceive of professionalism as comprising a strong pastoral, care-work component. an indication of this is a simple linear regression of teachers’ views of their profession on their views of obstacles related to social trauma, which indicates that this line of thought is a promising one (table 8). controlling for the race and gender of teachers, as well as the no-fee status of schools, there is a positive, statistically significant relationship at the 0.01 level between teachers’ emphasis on obstacles related to social trauma and their predilection for emphasising a pastoral view of professionalism. here, social trauma factors were roughly represented by teachers' views on the following obstacles to professionalism: the poor behaviour of learners, learners' home backgrounds, socio-economic problems in the community, and community disregard for teachers. a pastoral view of professionalism was roughly captured by teachers' views on how important it was to know all parents of learners, place learners' interests first, and fight against policies that are bad for learners. this does not show that the correlation is not spurious or confounded by unobserved variables, but it does suggest that further research may bear interesting results. in particular, further research could investigate the survey data on teachers’ views of the frequency and intensity of different forms of violence at school. 144 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 table 8: the correlates (linear regression estimates) of emphasising pastoral characteristics of professionalism (i) (ii) trauma 0.04** (0.02) 0.04* (0.02) no fee school -0.17** (0.07) -0.13 (0.07) black 0.14* (0.07) female 0.21** (0.10) black female 0.15* (0.08) notes: robust standard errors corrected for clustering at school level in brackets. significance: *** p<0.01, **p<0.05, *p<0.1. 1. which group should teachers be held most accountable to? respondents were asked to indicate which group teachers should be held most accountable to by selecting one out of the ten options. table 9.1 presents the responses for all ten options. overall, the disagreement between teachers at different schools is more muted than their differences regarding professionalism. the majority of respondents across schools indicate that teachers should be accountable to a state actor – the department of basic education (dbe), the western cape education department (wced) or the south african council of educators (sace). this greater emphasis on vertical accountability nevertheless admits of variation between groups. a much larger proportion of teachers at no-fee schools indicate that sace and the dbe are paramount, where these differences were statistically significant at the 0.01 level. in contrast, more teachers at fee-paying schools identify the school as a whole and the school management team as being the most important for accountability, where these differences are statistically significant at the 0.01 level. very few teachers across schools rate the school governing body as the most important body to oversee accountability. hoffman, sayed and badroodien: different rules for different teachers. . . 145 a very small number of respondents selected “no importance” and it was therefore more8 useful to group “no importance” and “low importance” responses together. table 9.1: proportion of respondents who identified the following groups as the most important for accountability fees no fees difference p-value western cape education department 26.18 25.89 -0.29 south african council of educators 13.88 20.5 6.62 *** learners 19.98 17.07 -2.91 department of basic education 9.07 14.55 5.48 *** parents and guardians 6.01 7.9 1.89 * school as a whole 12.3 7.22 -5.08 *** school management team 5.92 3.32 -2.6 *** community 2.68 1.6 -1.08 school governing body 2.78 1.49 -1.29 ** teacher organisations 1.2 0.46 -0.74 * notes: significance: *** p<0.01, **p<0.05, *p<0.1. 1. these results are largely consistent with teachers’ responses when asked to rate the importance of all ten groups for teacher accountability on a four-level likert scale: ‘no importance’, ‘low importance’, ‘some importance’ and ‘very important.’ table 9.2 presents all the ‘no importance’ and ‘low importance’ responses, and table 9.3. presents all the ‘high importance’ responses.8 almost a quarter of all respondents across schools indicate that the school governing body has no or low importance for accountability, and large proportions indicate that non-state actors, such as unions, communities and parents, have little or no relevance (table 9.2). however, this contains substantive variation between schools. more teachers at no-fee schools stress the importance of various groups for accountability in general, whether to state actors or non-state actors (table 9.3). 146 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 table 9.2: proportion of respondents who attach no/low importance to the following groups regarding accountability fees no fees difference p-value teacher organisations 36.43 27.46 -8.97 *** department of basic education 15.24 9.3 -5.94 *** south african council of educators 21.28 15.75 -5.53 *** community 32.55 27.9 -4.65 ** parents 23.17 19.69 -3.48 * western cape education department 6.94 5.36 -1.58 learners 18.21 16.96 -1.25 school as a whole 15.6 15.86 0.26 school management team 11.81 11.71 -0.1 school governing body 24.71 24.84 0.13 notes: significance: *** p<0.01, **p<0.05, *p<0.1. 1. table 9.3: proportion of respondents who attach high importance to the following groups regarding accountability fees no fees difference p-value school management team 40.13 40.26 0.13 school governing body 29.31 29.65 0.34 school as a whole 39.31 39.72 0.41 learners 43.28 47.16 3.88 parents 32.91 37.86 4.95 ** western cape education department 56.27 58.21 1.94 community 22.27 28.88 6.61 *** south african council of educators 40.58 48.58 8 *** department of basic education 41.3 49.45 8.15 *** teacher organisations 17.31 26.81 9.5 *** notes: significance: *** p<0.01, **p<0.05, *p<0.1. 1 conclusion this study makes two main contributions to the literature on basic education in south africa. first, the results suggest that theoretical accounts of professionalism and accountability should take into account the different positionalities of teachers within the schooling system in terms of categories of exclusion and exploitation – in this case, race, class and gender. hoffman, sayed and badroodien: different rules for different teachers. . . 147 teachers at no-fee schools, who are predominantly black women, tend to emphasise different characteristics of professionalism relative to their colleagues at fee-paying schools. they stress the pastoral and care-work dimensions of their profession, while their colleagues at fee-paying schools stress their claims to pedagogical knowledge and job prestige as central to being a professional. related to this, many more teachers at no-fee schools report facing burdens related to historical under-investment in black schools, social trauma arising from state violence against black people, and a lack of institutional support from the state and the public. we suggest that it is not implausible to see a relationship between the obstacles that teachers face and how they conceptualise their roles as professionals – in this case, dealing with high levels of social trauma and conceiving of their jobs as pastoral care-work – something which future analyses of the complete survey data could investigate more carefully. while several authors argue that the difference in accountability across schools is a key factor in explaining differences in learner performance (van der bergh, 2007; taylor, 2009; spaull, 2015), the survey results indicate that teachers' different conceptions of professionalism do not necessarily suggest different views of accountability, which appear to be roughly similar across school types. instead, the reports of teachers at no-fee schools facing the greatest burdens related to social trauma and historical under-investment in schools, suggesting they need greater institutional support, present an additional layer of potential explanations related to the ways in which teachers at different schools may be subject to different and unequal institutions. this warrants further exploration. second, the results suggest that inequity operates not only at the level of learners, but also at the level of teachers. the concept of a bifurcated education system should therefore be expanded to consider teachers and deepened to consider the ways in which institutions are raced, classed and gendered to create multiple 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accepted: 10 august 2020) abstract in this article, we report on a study of two south african primary school teacher education cohorts undertaken to investigate and understand their readiness to succeed in higher education and to plan support accordingly. using the methodology of portraiture, we generated data from a combination of student questionnaires and examination results. qualitative content analysis enabled the construction of six personas and three main themes. the portraits helped with an understanding of the complexity of the themes, in particular with how an identification of both the malleable and non-malleable elements affecting students’ lives could inform and shape interventions for successful transition into university. more specifically, the dominance of particular characteristics in the personas provided information about which student groups required the most psychosocial and academic support and where it was required. the portraits also helped us to gauge the value of existing firstyear initiatives, such as the educational excursion, for promoting student enculturation and in overcoming their initial anxieties and preconceptions. we argue for more nuanced information about students to inform a multipronged approach to student support that may extend much longer than teacher educators anticipate. keywords: teacher education; primary school; first-generation students; portraiture; student personas; higher education support introduction south african higher education researchers are aware that increasing access for previously disadvantaged students has not necessarily translated into increased academic success or ramsaroop & petersen: portraits of primary school pre-service teachers . . . 83 throughput for the majority. in the scarce-skills area of primary school teacher education we have some idea about what draws students into these programmes, and we have seen a steady increase in the number of students opting for this specialisation. however, despite increased access to higher education and financial support for students since 2018, as a sector we continue to struggle with student throughput and success (council on higher education, 2013; dhunpath & subbaye, 2018). in seeking to tailor an institutional response to student success and throughput, we drew on the growing body of research on support interventions by higher education. at the institution at which we conducted this study, university-wide surveys have provided broad insights into the struggles of incoming students as van zyl (2016) has noted, showing that those from the lowest socio-economic groups (mainly african) struggle with funding, a lack of parental support, and poor academic preparation. informed by conley’s (2017) readiness theory we were of the view that we needed to look beyond generalisations and adopt a process of collecting information that provided a nuanced understanding of the needs of our specific students. in this paper we describe how we used portraiture methodology to generate data that enabled the construction of six first-year student teacher personas to be read in conjunction with reports of student struggles to inform a tailored support programme. we describe how this unfolded and argue for the value of portraiture research in capturing the complexity of first-year student struggles so as to inform interventions for support in primary school teacher education. factors impacting student success at university conley’s (2017, p. 12) differentiation between students’ “eligibility to be admitted” and “readiness to succeed”, and research on the struggles of first-generation students frames the parameters of the literature review. an eligibility model, common to many higher education institutions including south african universities, applies a set of programmatic and institutional criteria for student admission. a danger of the eligibility model is that student gaps and shortfalls that affect success are not always adequately considered. in contrast, a readiness to succeed model takes into consideration both malleable elements, such as the development of particular skills to succeed, and non-malleable ones, such as socio-economic status. it also draws on important but often disregarded information from multiple sources (conley, 2017) that could assist in transitioning students successfully from school to university. this can include, for instance, students’ motivations for pursuing a particular career, their ability to self-regulate, and their familiarity with technology. in our view, the latter model is more suitable to south african higher education, particularly given the growing emphasis on narrowing the gap between access, equity, and success for all students. south african researchers like mdepa and tshiwula (2012) and nyamupangedengu (2017) and their international counterparts such as nagaoka et al. (2013) and sibomana (2016) have revealed that students often come from schooling backgrounds that have not enabled them to develop the requisite academic skills and orientation required for success at university. academic writing, mathematics, and other subject content knowledge are three areas of 84 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 importance for primary school teacher education. however, much research (see leibowitz, 2004; pineteh, 2014) attests to the struggles of students in these areas. there is also a swathe of research that captures first-year students’ struggles with operating in a new environment, especially for those described as first-generation students. typically, as barry et al., (2009) have noted, the first in their family to attend a higher education institution are known as first-generation students. they have been described by richardson and skinner (1992, p. 41) as “uncertain climbers” who require concerted support to help them develop more control and responsibility over their transition from high school to university (see, too, stebleton & soria, 2013). in south africa, most of these students are from previously disadvantaged race groups, and researchers have tended to ascribe their lack of progress to poorly developed academic english language use as bui (2002) has noted. the issue of language is, however, not clear-cut. critical language scholars such as rudwich (2018) have argued that the rhetoric of language policies at south african universities gives rise to contested identity politics, with its own repercussions for students. others, such as mwaniki et al. (2018), motinyane (2018), and mayaba (2018), in arguing for decolonisation in higher education, have addressed the need to transform institutional cultures and language policies at university. they are of the view that universities do not sufficiently address the issue of the multiplicity of languages in south africa. here, madadzhe (2019) has contended that decolonisation projects should move beyond simply including a focus on african issues and make greater use of african languages in higher education programmes at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. heleta (2016) concurred. there are some examples of this being enforced in undergraduate programmes at universities such as kwazulu-natal, rhodes, limpopo, and unisa, and at postgraduate level at the universities of pretoria and venda. putting aside the politics of english as a language of instruction, there have also been studies that have confirmed that while most students, regardless of their home language, have reasonable basic interpersonal communicative skills (bics) in english, when they enter university (see, for instance, van der merwe, 2018), many have low core academic language proficiency (calp), as cummins (2000) put it. a lack of calp as a specialized, abstract, decontextualized language of formal education (cummins, 2000), with complex syntax, vocabulary and discourse practices seems to be one of the main reasons students struggle with progress in higher education (civan & coskun, 2016; seligman, 2008; van der merwe, 2018). this impacts negatively on students’ ability to understand their academic content and convey their ideas. other factors that influence assimilation into university and, consequently, student success include first-year students’ vulnerability (mckay et al., 2018) and their need to develop social networks to transition successfully to university (kantanis, 2000). this is especially difficult for those from poor socio-economic groups since they struggle to make friends as mcloughlin (2012) and van zyl (2016) have observed. an absence of social networks can lead to issues with self-confidence, feelings of isolation, university life in general (kantanis, 2000), and an increasing need for psychological and career support (mckay et al., 2018). ramsaroop & petersen: portraits of primary school pre-service teachers . . . 85 other factors include inadequate study skills (stebleton & soria, 2013) and a need to supplement their income (jehangir, 2010). using a readiness to succeed approach requires understanding among higher education staff of the complex web of institutional, academic, and social barriers that impact on student success and, thus, the resources required to tailor interventions to address them (murphy et al., 2018). this is possible only with the right kind of data to inform responsive and nuanced decision-making. methodology in order to gather detailed information, we used portraiture research and posed the following question: how can research portraits be used to capture the complexity of first-year students’ struggles in order to inform interventions for support in primary school teacher education? following lawrence-lightfoot (2005) and lawrence-lightfoot and davis (1997), our use of research portraits or portraiture stemmed from a desire to capture the dominance of particular characteristics along with narrative descriptors. we used a cohort of 237 students as the basis for creating personas that would allow us to engage “creatively and holistically with research participant data” (golsteijn & wright, 2013, p. 299). research portraits (or portraiture) have long been used as a verbal rather than an artistic medium in qualitative research to reflect participants’ subjective identities and describe what shapes them and their aspirations along with views of the factors that impact their lives. within portraiture research, personas feature as “composite fictional characters” that are constructed to “embody multiple users’ unique characteristics.” such personas serve as “character descriptions” and are the “archetypal representation of an actual user group whose members share similar needs and goals.” in other words, they serve as “placeholders for individuals” (golsteijn & wright, 2013, p. 301). gathering data for the portraits began with first-year students’ responses to two qualitative questionnaires, one of which was conducted at the beginning of the academic year, asking about students’ backgrounds, family expectations, fears, and struggles. a second questionnaire captured their progress after the first six months at university. we measured in part their june examination results, their impressions of the value of the university’s first-year experience interventions, and their struggles in the first six months at university. in analysing the data, we followed a two-step process. in phase one, using procedures associated with content analysis (see patton, 2002) and descriptive statistics (henning et al., 2004) we crafted six student portraits. prevalence in the data helped identify the most meaningful indicators for differentiating between the personas, with each representing a set of characteristics common to a number of individuals from the first-year primary school teacher education cohort (n=237). these included students’ demographic classification, their socio-economic situation, their geographic home background/origins, any financial support 86 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 for university studies and current living conditions, home language, whether or not they were first-generation students, family expectations, their first experiences of social integration at the institution, and current challenges. in the second stage of data analysis we looked for the prevalence of particular items and identified generalised patterns across the data, including how these featured in each of the portraits. from this process, we constructed three themes. presentation of findings in this section, we present the six personas before moving on to a description of the three main themes. while the generalised demographic featured as the basis for each of the personas may be familiar to south african higher education teachers, our interest was in how dominant each persona was in the cohorts and how they could be differentiated from each other in order for us to better understand the three themes. pseudonyms have been used to preserve anonymity. the first persona, nkososana, represents 29.5% (n=70) of the first-year group in the two teacher education programmes. a female student between the ages of 17 and 22, she was from an impoverished rural area. the second persona, lerumo, was a male student from a rural background, who represented 4.6% (n=11) of the cohort. of the 11, 1 was in the foundation phase and 10 in the intermediate phase programme. the third persona, zunaid, represented 0.8% (n=2) of male students who came from a middle-class urban background, and the fourth was thabo, an urban male who depicted 4.2% (n=10) of first-year students from a low socio-economic background. the fifth persona, laura, was an urban female student from a middle-class background who represented 18.1% (n=43) of the first-year group. the sixth persona was the impoverished urbanite, lydia, who represented 42.6% (n=101) of female students. theme 1: moving from being scared and alone to making friends: the importance of first-year experience interventions almost all the data generated at the start of the year provided evidence of students’ feelings of uncertainty, loneliness, and isolation associated with leaving home and entering a strange environment. nkosasana described being overwhelmed since she did not know anyone and was afraid that her impoverished background and inability to communicate with new people would leave her feeling isolated. she believed that “all university students are from rich families.” she said, “i thought my poor background would make people not associate with me.” her lack of confidence was also a problem. describing herself as “a very shy person . . . who finds interacting with people very intimidating”, she was of the view that she would “not make new friends” or “be accepted in groups.” lerumo, thabo, lydia, and laura expressed similar fears, citing reasons such as their unease with “approach(ing) strangers, “being shy” and “quiet” and thus “finding it difficult [to meet] new people or [make] conversations with them.” many feared that “some people would be rude when [we] approach them.” the exception was zunaid, who was looking forward to meeting new personalities but who expressed some reservations about negative influences. ramsaroop & petersen: portraits of primary school pre-service teachers . . . 87 all students credited the first-year experience interventions, and, in particular, a three-day educational excursion, as valuable in helping them move from feeling uncertain and lonely to being welcomed and accepted. for example, lydia and nkosasana described how the excursion “broke the tension and ice between [them] and a lot of students [they] engaged with.” student descriptions of the reasons for this included the “very informal and relaxed environment” of the excursion, the “group activities that involved different cultures and races” as well as being placed in “groups of twelve randomly to share a dorm.” the students pointed out how the excursion helped them address their preconceived notions about other races and cultural groups. lerumo said, “i never thought in my life i would share a meal with other races, we isolated in class” while thabo said. “i was not used to people of other cultures, at excursion i realised they are friendly” and zunaid added, “we got to know each other through group work and sharing rooms.” laura described how she found it difficult initially to communicate with her peers because she “doesn’t understand most [african] languages” but found that the excursion activities provided opportunities for her and other students “to learn about each other’s cultures while interacting.” data generated six months into the academic year showed that most students were no longer as uncertain or lonely as they had been at the beginning of their university studies. drawing on student responses we were pleased to note that the current first-year educational experience contributed substantially to helping them overcome their initial anxieties and preconceptions. theme 2: poverty and hunger drive students’ expectations of academic success the data confirmed that a large percentage of students come from poverty-stricken families. the responses of nkososana, lerumo, thabo, and lydia, were peppered with words such as “poor”, “unstable” or “less privileged” as they described their working-class backgrounds and financial constraints. nkososana and lydia’s group had more often than not been raised and supported by a single mother, grandmother, aunts, an extended family, or siblings. lerumo and thabo also described similar domestic circumstances using similar explanations that included being “raised by our mother. father passed away” and “supported by mum, dad is unemployed, an aunt helps out.” of the students, 75% (n=177 of the 237) reported reliance on external sources of sponsorship or bursaries to finance their education. data from the beginning of the academic year showed that being the first in the family to study at university placed students under excessive pressure to succeed academically. the students were acutely aware of the expectations of their success and this created one of many pressures for 85.5% of the first-year mainly african students. their academic success was key to helping their extended families escape poverty. nkososana explained, “i am expected to study hard and complete my degree in four years so that i can return home to support my family.” similarly, lydia indicated that “the family cannot afford to pay for my fees if i fail or if i lose my bursary.” she was often reminded that “they [the family network] had to take out their last money” to support her. the financial background of thabo’s group, who constituted 4.2% of the students, and lerumo’s, (4.6%), were similar. they, too, described being “raised by a single parent (mother)” and as “struggling financially.” they were expected to “do well” in their studies so that they could support their families, and “come 88 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 home with [an] education degree and bring change at home.” as a result, six months into the academic programme these students reported struggling with the balance “between attending classes and tutorials and leading an independent life.” however, laura, although also a firstgeneration student, did not experience the same kinds of pressure. she, like zunaid, was “focused and do[ing] everything to the best of [her] ability” and “being responsible and making use of this opportunity” in order to graduate and “get a stable job.” it is thus not surprising that failure was one of the greatest fears of thabo, lerumo, nksosana, and lydia. lerumo and lydia were most afraid of “not coping with workload, and . . . not getting a bursary and withdrawing” while nkososana and thabo feared “not being funded by financial aid and going back home” and spoke of “the fear of failing a module . . . as a year will be added.” in addition, some students were afraid that the loss of a bursary would impact their ability to meet basic needs. lerumo said, “i would not be able to buy myself food as i am responsible for any financial need i have.” six months into the year, lack of funding became a reality for many. for example, nkososana explained her dilemma: “i have been struggling with school fees money as there is no one working at home” and “i was declined funza1 unexpectedly.” in contrast, neither zunaid nor laura experienced the financial struggles of the other personas. they come from middle class families with two parents who support them. these were outliers in the data, with zunaid representing 0.8% of the student cohort (n=2) and laura constituting 18.1% (n=43). theme 3: “i don’t understand what the lecturers are saying”: how can i learn? for nkososana, lerumo, thabo, and lydia, the spectre of studying in english, which is sometimes a second but also often a third or fourth language, was a major strain. they all felt that they were far behind the expected levels of verbal communication in english. six months into the academic year, many reported struggling and commented, “it has been a great challenge since i don’t really understand the language.” “[t]hey (lecturers) using big english words.” “[i]t is difficult to comprehend some of the content.” consequently, these students had barely passed (41.5%) english, with 19% failing the subject. since this is a compulsory major this failure automatically extended their studies by six to twelve months. in addition, the lack of english proficiency had impacted on their learning in other modules. for example, nkososana, lerumo, and thabo complained that the “exam was difficult to understand and cost me marks . . . [and] it [the lack of english proficiency] has impacted me badly especially when writing tests and exams.” lydia said, “sometimes it’s a challenge to complete given assignments.” the level of their “threshold english” (seligmann, 2008, p. 45) meant that many also struggled with learning the course content of the teacher education programme properly, and some (30%) failed one or two modules, and sometimes even more (21%). this not only retarded their progress but also placed undue additional financial and psychological pressure on the students. however, it was not only english second language 1 funza lushaka is a bursary programme funded by the department of basic education in south africa aimed at promoting teaching in public schools. ramsaroop & petersen: portraits of primary school pre-service teachers . . . 89 speakers who struggled. zunaid and laura, as english first language speakers who claimed confidence with, and competence in, the language showed only slightly better results than their peers in mid-year examinations. another subject area with which all students in this study reported struggling was mathematics. the reasons they provided ranged from “mathematics is difficult for me” and “i have been struggling with understanding content” to “grasping particular concepts.” in addition, students found difficulty “with understanding how to approach assignments” and “moving from spoon-feeding in high school” to “working independently.” the students’ midyear examination results attested to this. studies with a first-year cohort in the same programmes showed a 37% baseline for primary school mathematics content knowledge (fonseca & petersen, 2015). student results in the last five years show similar patterns. another area with which most of the students report having struggled was the use of technology. concerns raised by nkososana, lerumo, thabo, and lydia included difficulty in learning how to use a computer “to type assignments”, “to research assignments”, and “to submit online assignments.” it resulted in not only taking more “time to do [their] school work using computers”, but students were equally unsure about how the online submissions operated. they seemed not to trust technology, as evidenced in what they said: “the system may give me problems and end up not submitting” and “am unsure about submitting assessments online.” laura and zunaid were also unsure about “the higher levels of technology” required at university and explained that they had “little understanding of online systems.” discussion the first-year pre-service teacher participants in this study, like many other higher education students, were in a liminal phase (turner, 1987) and as turner (1977, p. 37) put it, “betwixt and between” being school learners and becoming university students. this is an intense experience since it necessitates a break from the familiar past, as well as an adjustment to a different environment in which they need to learn, as university students, a new way of working over a concentrated period. their eligibility for admission had enabled them to bridge the first hurdle of entry to higher education. it did not, however, guarantee their success. working with conley’s (2017) readiness to succeed model we realised that we needed much more information about the complexity of the issues first-year students face, in order to plan nuanced and targeted interventions. the construction of six portraits enabled us to identify the malleable elements, such as the lack of academic writing skills, and the nonmalleable ones, such as the particular socio-economic circumstances of students, required to inform and shape interventions to help students make the transition successfully. as is typical in such an adjustment period we were not surprised that the majority of students described their early days at university as lonely and uncertain. what was new to us, though, was the extent of their social anxiety and perceived inferiority that arose given their socioeconomic status. the differences in the responses of lerumo, thabo, and lydia, who hailed 90 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 from impoverished backgrounds, to that of middle class zunaid and laura, are, so to speak, tangible. literature from a social psychological perspective (see manstead 2018) contends that social class and socio-economic status have a great influence on self-concept (stephens et al., 2014) and give rise to particular “patterns of thinking, feeling and acting” (p. 611). the mismatch between someone’s background and their being a university student (see also reay et al., 2009) is most evident in the comment by nkososana, who thought “universities were for rich people.” for first generation students from lower socio-economic status backgrounds, kruas et al. (2017) have argued that subjective social class is linked to and affects social behaviour. this understanding emphasises the importance for us as teacher educators to understand the comments from students such as lerumo, thabo, lydia, and nkososana who are motivated by a deep psychological need to deal with an external fear, the threat of rejection, and feeling out of place. it also means that interventions must create opportunities for students to build the confidence to address their belief that they have little control over how others react or behave towards them (see, for instance, kraus et al., 2009). these students need much more support in building resilience than do laura and zunaid who are in the minority. it is also an issue about which academic staff need to know and address in their interactions with students so as not to alienate them further, especially when they are struggling. in this respect, there is value in first-year experience intervention programmes (harvey et al., 2006; nelson et al., 2011). these range from one-day sessions to week-long programmes in which students are oriented to the logistical, psychosocial, and academic support available to them. we have both at our institution, along with an extended first-year experience educational excursion in which students and staff move off the university campus into an environmental centre for three days of communal living and learning about themselves and their peers as a starting point to becoming a teacher. we have found that the excursion, with its relaxed atmosphere, informal interactions between students and staff, and the shared accommodation is a key mechanism that works to increase opportunities for social networking as the basis of the establishment of learning communities that will endure (arends & petersen, 2018). including a curriculum that emphasises social learning (petersen & petker, 2011) and dissects the impact of social injustice and privilege on educational provisioning also helps students to begin to address the effects of race, class, and culture (batchelor & mahomed, forthcoming). sadly, despite growing up in a democratic, mixed school system, students are not at ease mixing with other races and cultures. given that nkososana and lerumo, as students from rural backgrounds, comprised 34.1% and thabo and lydia who hail from so-called township schools (comprising another 46.8%), where mixed peer groups at school are unlikely, teacher educators have to create deliberate opportunities for first-year students to confront their perceptions about race, culture, and privilege. however, despite its success at bringing together students, a three-day excursion is woefully inadequate in addressing a lifetime of socially learned behaviour. the deep-seated nature of many students’ lack of social and cultural capital means that universities have to find ways of systematically building psychological resilience that helps students recognise that problems are not threats to avoid but are, rather, challenges they can ramsaroop & petersen: portraits of primary school pre-service teachers . . . 91 meet (caricati, 2017; kraus et al., 2011). as lephakga (2017, p. 10) has reminded us, the colonial project of apartheid saw not only the “impoverishment of many blacks in south africa” but also created “a people who are disturbed, exploited and psychologically fearful.” among the interventions advocated in the literature are the creation of a more inclusive culture for students from working-class backgrounds, providing working-class role models, and ensuring that forums exist in which students can express their concerns and interests (manstead, 2018). we have had some success with class representatives who include student feedback at meetings of formal quality committees and in using clear grievance procedures that do not victimise students who speak up, but we find little research that addresses these issues in the south african teacher education literature. without such interventions, students may continue to perform below their true potential. without such interventions, we also risk reinforcing patterns of thinking and action for students from particular social class backgrounds, making it more difficult for them to benefit from educational opportunities, as manstead (2018) has noted, that would increase their social and economic mobility as well as that of their families. given that most of the students in this study feel pressured to graduate and provide support for their extended families (mkhonto, 2018) sometimes referred to as “black tax” as mangoma and wilson-prangley (2018) indicate in the title of their article (see, too, webb, 2018) or family responsibility, it behoves us to pay sufficient attention to measures that lead to student retention and success. students portrayed by the archetypes nkososana, lerumo, thabo, and lydia are at university mostly because of the financial input of a network of family and friends whose hopes of a better future rest on their success. the expectations of family networks add considerable pressure to students who are already struggling in an alien environment. this is something of which not all teacher educators may be aware, and here the provision of resources, such as on-campus wi-fi, inter-campus transport, subsidized ebooks, and meal support by universities is vital, as are opportunities for students to be employed as paid tutors and research assistants. however, it also needs to extend into other areas of teaching and learning so that lecturers learn pedagogical approaches that build students psychologically as well as embrace inexpensive shoestring educational resources, like using recyclable materials, and approaches to lessen the financial burden. the students’ struggle with english, as well as the need for mathematics and ict support also require attention. as howie et al., (2012) have noted, most south african school learners perform poorly on international tests such as the progress in international reading literacy study (pirls), and southern and eastern african consortium for monitoring educational quality (saqmec) (see spaull, 2013). and most school teaching, according to uccelli et al. (2015), does not concentrate on the teaching of english as an academic language for learning. as a result, teacher educators have to find ways to address the students’ acquisition of calp. in this study all students, regardless of their home language backgrounds, appeared to need explicit instruction on academic language conventions. they also require sufficient time to develop their academic language proficiency before entering the schooling system as teachers so that they, in turn, will be able to teach school learners (van der merwe, 2018). similarly, poor mathematics content knowledge has its roots in poor quality school teaching. the south 92 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 african results in the trends in international mathematics and science study (timms) (2011) showed that the average grade 9 south african child performed at levels at least two to three grades lower. if south africa does not succeed in producing a sufficient number of well-qualified teachers for the primary school it is likely that literacy and numeracy goals will not be achieved and this will impact negatively on the achievement of learners throughout the schooling years (green et al., 2011). as with many institutions, we, too, following larkin et al., (2016), have recognised the need for supplemental instruction opportunities in the first year. our once-off support programme in semester 1 of the first year for mathematics resulted in limited improvements in student performance. the literature points to the need for increased support and opportunities for students to engage actively with discussions and tasks as well as help in improving their selfregulated learning strategies so that they are able to assess their abilities and correct conceptual errors (zimmerman et al., 2011). we found similar issues with ict orientation since students need, first, to be comfortable users of computers and other forms of technology before we can expect them to learn how to use these as pedagogical tools in teaching and learning. our programmes emphasise the latter to the detriment of student learning. we have begun to realise that what is required is a multi-pronged and multifaceted approach that extends beyond the first year to subsequent years of students’ study. some of these include academic support, for instance, in the form of individualised and small group tutorials for students who are not coping (paiva et al., 2017) along with strategies for building conceptual knowledge, and student tracking and follow-up (conde et al., 2015). however, it seems that we have not begun to address the assistance students need to cope with how their backgrounds influence the ways in which they construe themselves and how they fit into the university environment. if we are to help students navigate the liminal period of adjustment to university successfully, more emphasis needs to be placed on gaining a national picture of student portraits in teacher education to enable us to plan a system-wide curriculum and offer psychological and social support. the department of higher education and training (dhet) strengthening foundation phase teacher education and primary school teacher education projects are two of the first of these initiatives with teams establishing baseline knowledge in key domains such as english and mathematics (see, for instance, fonseca et al., 2018) to enable them to plan interventions. we do not, however, see much research on the latter and are left wondering if it is an area to which teacher education should pay more attention. our student research portraits, for example, were an attempt to understand this more fully in the context in which we operate. conclusion in this paper, we presented a portraiture of first-year primary school teacher education students at an urban university in south africa, encapsulated in six personas. these personas, we argue, are representative of a group’s generalized characteristics; they provide insights into who first-year students are, what they struggle with, how dominant the complexity of issues is in a particular group of first-year students and how these can be leveraged to support ramsaroop & petersen: portraits of primary school pre-service teachers . . . 93 students optimally. this research has shown that first-year students entering teacher education programmes have not only to catch up with content they missed at school level but have also to be re-socialised into thinking differently about how they see themselves interacting with others and succeeding at university. many of the students come from first generation families with a host of factors, including language, that are likely to impact on their success at university. with these personas in mind, we discussed the consequences for students’ enculturation into university studies, with particular implications for pedagogy and curriculum differentiation in the teacher education programme and pointed to how we might create a more inclusive culture for students who struggle to fit in. these personas provided us with information about which student groups require the most psychosocial and academic support and the particular areas in which such support is required. this research also enabled us to gauge the value of existing first-year initiatives, such as the educational excursion for promoting student enculturation. ultimately, we have learned that the liminality of the students in this programme may extend well beyond the first three months of university studies. teacher educators need to be aware that support may be required for much longer than they at first anticipated and in areas that they may not traditionally expect. references arends, d., & petersen n. f. 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(2011). enhancing self-reflection and mathematics achievement of at-risk urban technical college students. psychological test and assessment modeling, 53(1), 141. microsoft word b8500 full issue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 85, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i85a08 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x a comparative study of knowledge, beliefs, and opportunities to learn afforded to physical science b.ed students david letloenyane school of education studies, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa letloenyanemd@ufs.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6493-9445 loyiso jita office of the dean of education, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa jitalc@ufs.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6871-6820 (received: 11 december 2019; accepted: 10 may 2021) abstract since large-scale studies show country and institutional differences in the preparation of b.ed students, there is growing interest in the determination of the opportunities-to-learn afforded to them and the effects thereof in south african universities and elsewhere. there are, however, few studies that provide a contextually nuanced view of the effects of teacher education programmes on b.ed students. this study therefore compares opportunities-to-learn afforded to physical science b.ed students and their levels of competence that include knowledge and beliefs at four south african universities. quantitative analysis reveals that some universities afforded these students more opportunities-to-learn in agreement with the nature of these universities. furthermore, some opportunities-to-learn afforded to b.ed students are provisionally related to measures of beliefs but they are not related to knowledge measures. our findings suggest that while the b.ed students seem to be afforded sufficient opportunities-to-learn at some universities, this does not readily translate into higher levels of competence. keywords: teacher preparation programmes, opportunities-to-learn, teacher knowledge, teacher beliefs, physical science b.ed students introduction international comparative assessments such as the trends in international mathematics and science study (timss) have shown that south african learners lag behind those in other countries in terms of achievement in mathematics and science (isdale et al., 2017; reddy et 146 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 al., 2016; spaull, 2013). while there may be numerous reasons for this inadequate achievement, the literature suggests that the quality of pre-service teacher education may also be one of the contributing factors (blomeke et al., 2012; taylor, 2014; tillotson & young, 2013). therefore, we need to understand the effects of teacher education programmes on aspects of b.ed students’ competence i.e., their knowledge and beliefs. the teacher education and development study: learning to teach mathematics (teds-m) undertaken by michigan state university under the aegis of the international association for the evaluation of educational achievement sought to fill this gap by using a sample of primary school b.ed students to determine whether and, if so, how teacher education contributes to teacher competence (schmidt et al., 2011). the teds-m study offered scholars the opportunity to determine the relationship between and among teacher knowledge, beliefs, and opportunity-to-learn across different countries. in this study, following blomeke and kaizer (2014), description, opportunity-to-learn refers to all the experiences that are offered by the curriculum in a specific teacher education programme. we focus specifically on two categories of teacher knowledge—pedagogical content and content knowledge as described by shulman (1986). pedagogical content knowledge refers to ways of presenting content so that it is comprehensible to learners while content knowledge refers to the amount and organisation of subject matter that is held by an individual (shulman, 1986). we also consider b.ed students’ beliefs about how they experienced aspects of their teacher education programme. initial analysis of the teds-m results indicated that there were significant differences in b.ed students’ background and the opportunities-to-learn that they were afforded during their training (blomeke et al., 2012). differences in the outcomes measures such as mathematics pedagogical content knowledge and mathematics content knowledge were also identified (schmidt et al., 2011). of importance to the present study is that the teds-m study’s findings indicated that there are significant differences in opportunity-to-learn offered and the subsequent outcome measures between and among universities in the same country (schmidt et al., 2011). since this seems to be the case for mathematics teacher education in the united states, it remains to be seen if this is also the case for science teacher education in south africa. in our study, we compared opportunity-to-learn, beliefs, and test performance (knowledge) of the respondents from four universities in south africa. this strategy allowed for the portrayal of similarities and differences in opportunity-to-learn that may influence b.ed students’ test performance and beliefs. we formulated two research questions: • what are the possible similarities or differences between and among physical science final year b.ed students’ knowledge, beliefs, and opportunity-to-learn offered in selected teacher education programmes? • what are possible relationships between and among the knowledge, beliefs, and opportunity-to-learn offered to physical science final year b.ed students in selected teacher education programmes? letloenyane & jita: a comparative study of knowledge, beliefs and opportunities . . . 147 literature opportunity-to-learn and the curriculum in teacher education programmes researchers have commented on the nature of curriculum in higher education spaces globally and in south africa. according to them, teacher education curricula can be considered to be sectoral/segmental which means that in its delivery it draws on knowledge from various fields of knowledge (luckett, 2001; muller, 2009). this can be seen clearly in the formulation of the minimum requirement for teacher education qualification (mrteq) policy document. mrteq prescribes that b.ed students be exposed to different types of knowledge including disciplinary, pedagogical, practical, situational, and foundational knowledge (dhet, 2015). the intention behind this integration of knowledge appears to expose b.ed students to appropriate experiences for their chosen phase and learning area specialisation. although the integration of knowledge areas seems desirable, researchers have observed that the integration of the types of knowledge as suggested by mrteq in practice is not automatic or easy to achieve (hoban, 2005; rusznyak, 2015). hence, b.ed students may find it challenging to see the bigger picture behind all the experiences afforded to them in their teacher education programmes. although teacher education programmes in south african universities use the same framework (mrteq) to prepare teachers, there will likely be differences in the implementation of the framework because of historical and cultural differences between and among various universities (schmidt et al., 2011). it is therefore desirable to compare the manner in which various universities implement the relevant teacher education policies such as mrteq. the comparisons in terms of implementation allow for the determination of the kinds of opportunity-to-learn that likely lead to science teachers with adequate knowledge, skills, and desirable beliefs (blomeke & kaiser, 2014). furthermore, teachers are prepared at what are known in south africa as traditional universities or at what are called universities of technology. the latter evolved from what were known as technikons and what separated them from traditional universities was that their curricula were designed to expose students to practical aspects of the work place; this was much less the case at traditional universities (council on higher education, 2010). our interest here was to determine if the universities involved in the study offer similar or varying opportunity-to-learn to their b.ed students. in our view, the opportunity-to-learn offered by the universities represents the individual university’s interpretation and implementation strategies of the mrteq policy document. we were also interested in determining if the opportunity-to-learn, as interpreted, and implemented, leads to higher levels of competence. opportunities to learn and pre-service teacher outcomes research regarding b.ed students should, as one of its focus areas, investigate and explore the effects of different experiences offered by teacher education programmes on b.ed students’ beliefs and knowledge (boyd et al., 2009; koc, 2012; roychoudhury & rice 2013; tillotson & young, 2013). unfortunately, a limited number of such investigations appear in 148 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 the literature, and this will always call into question the so-called obvious link between teacher training and teacher quality. there are, however, a fair number of studies that have indicated the kinds of experiences or opportunity-to-learn that b.ed students are afforded, and some studies have provided possible effects of the opportunity-to-learn on b.ed students’ outcomes that, in the context of this paper, include knowledge and beliefs (e.g., ingvarson et al., 2007; taylor, 2014; tillotson & young, 2013). other studies have suggested that there are relationships between b.ed students’ knowledge and beliefs (mansour, 2009) with researchers having suggested that beliefs act as a filter for knowledge acquisition (kutálková, 2017; tondeur et al., 2016). the impact of teacher knowledge domains as described by shulman (1986) on teacher education outcomes that include teacher knowledge and beliefs, is probably one of the most studied relationships in the literature. exposure to the categories of knowledge has been shown to affect the majority of the outcomes including b.ed students’ knowledge and beliefs (see cetin et al., 2014; macugay & bernardo, 2013; santau et al., 2014; tatar, 2015). schmidt et al. (2011) found that there was a significant relationship between pre-service mathematics teachers’ knowledge and the opportunity-to-learn knowledge. opportunity-tolearn advanced topics in mathematics including calculus was found to be related to preservice mathematics teachers’ scores on functions, algebra, data, and number geometry (schmidt et al., 2011). tanase and wang (2010) showed that middle-grade b.ed students’ beliefs changed to an appreciation of learner-centred approaches after interactions with some courses that focussed on subject matter in their respective programmes. an analysis of the curriculum for primary school b.ed students in five case study universities in south africa established that teacher education programmes are aimed primarily at preparing reflective practitioners (taylor, 2014). although taylor (2014) noted that the practice of reflection was an essential part of teacher education, it was not immediately clear what kinds of experiences lead to reflective practitioners; this lends partial support to the notion that there is more talk of reflection than its actual practice in teacher education (beauchamp, 2015). in terms of teaching practice, rusznyak and bertram (2014) found that the teaching practice assessment criteria differed widely in quality, quantity, and context in teacher education programmes. on the one hand, numerous empirical studies have shown that teaching practice affects most of the outcomes of teacher education (e.g., boyd et al., 2009; ingvarson et al., 2007; tillotson & young, 2013). on the other, hancock and gallard (2004) found that engaging in teaching practice left b.ed students believing that learners learnt physical science better through lecturing and memorisation. these researchers observed that b.ed students believed that learners lacked the motivation or skill to implement idealised science instruction in the classroom. coherence is also considered an important feature of teacher education programmes although the ingredients of a coherent programme are not consistent according to the literature (grossman et al., 2008). tatto (1996, p. 176) defined coherence as “shared understandings among faculty and in the manner in which opportunities to learn have been arranged letloenyane & jita: a comparative study of knowledge, beliefs and opportunities . . . 149 (organizationally, logistically) to achieve a common goal.” nevertheless, some literature has shown that coherence helps shape b.ed students’ beliefs and practice (see canrinus et al., 2017; rogers, 2011). the latter reported that the lack of coherence manifests itself in b.ed students who are uncertain about the type of teachers they are expected to be. the reviewed literature indicates that opportunity-to-learn offered in teacher education programmes affects b.ed students’ outcomes and our study specifically sought to compare the opportunity-to-learn offered by various universities and to determine possible relationships between the opportunity-to-learn and b.ed students’ knowledge and beliefs. in this article, we also attempt to establish what these findings mean in the context of teacher education in south african higher education institutions. methodology for this study, we employed a quantitative approach because quantitative analysis allowed for measurement and for statistical treatment of the data (johnson & christensen, 2012). the approach further allowed for the assessment of the statistical relationships that could exist between b.ed students’ knowledge, beliefs, and the opportunity-to-learn that they are afforded in their teacher education programmes. we used non-experimental designs in the form of surveys and an achievement test to collect data. the use of surveys allowed for the collection of information such as opinions, attitudes, and beliefs of respondents and, following creswell (2014), also for comparing or relating the data to a specific variable. four universities participated in the study that drew 112 respondents. table 1 indicates whether respondents were from traditional universities or from universities of technology. the respondents were b.ed physical science students who were in their final year of study. final year students were chosen with the understanding that they would have developed most of the necessary competencies for teaching by that point. the students were randomly sampled, and approximately 70% of the students in the selected institutions participated in the study. table 1 number of respondents per university type of university number of respondents registered class number u1 traditional university 24 30 u2 university of technology 33 41 u3 university of technology 16 21 u4 traditional university 39 54 total number of respondents 112 b.ed students’ knowledge was assessed by means of an achievement test that was comprised of multiple-choice items that measured physical science b.ed students’ pedagogical content and content knowledge. the instrument was adopted from one used by mahlomaholo et al. (2014) to assess teacher knowledge in one province in south africa. the content knowledge 150 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 (ck) measured was school-level physical science (18 items) and the pedagogical content knowledge (pck) (6 items) was limited to 2 aspects of the construct that include misconceptions and the use of teaching strategies. teacher beliefs were measured by means of a likert-scale survey. the instrument was adopted from the teds-m study as described in tatto et al. (2008). the beliefs that were surveyed included those about (i) the nature of science (blf1); (ii) learning science (blf2); (iii) science achievement (blf3); (iv) preparedness for teaching physical science (blf4); and (v) programme effectiveness (blf5). the instrument for opportunity-to-learn was adopted from the teds-m study as described in tatto et al. (2008). the instrument that was comprised of likert scales and yes and no items measured the opportunity-to-learn tertiary-level physics and chemistry (otl1), school-level physical science (otl2), physical science education/pedagogy (otl3), teaching through reflection on practice (otl4), teaching through teaching practice (otl5, otl6, otl7), and learning in a coherent teacher education programme (otl8). data was collected in the first semester of 2017 when the b.ed students were almost at the end of their training. the collected data was subjected to validity and reliability tests such as cronbach’s alpha test (α > 0.66) to determine the internal and external consistency of the survey items (see johnson & christensen, 2012). rasch analysis was used to determine the achievement tests’ ability to discriminate between respondents (reliability indices > 0.66). in line with linacre (2012), the two indices indicated that the instruments were sufficiently valid and reliable. mean scores of the variables were calculated and all the other scores from various institutions were compared with the average score. the opportunity-to-learn data was compared and used to understand data on teacher knowledge and beliefs. in total, 131 questionnaires were completed and returned. the first step was to ensure that the respondents were final-year b.ed candidates. after scanning through the questionnaires, we discovered that 12 questionnaires had been completed by post graduate certificate in education (pgce) candidates and therefore their data was not included in the final analysis. the second step was to look for questionnaires in which the respondents did not complete three or more pages. there were seven such cases and this data was excluded in the analysis. data was subjected to inferential statistics to determine if there were any statistically significant variations among the measured variables. analysis of variance (anova) and post-hoc tests were used to assess the differences between and among the four universities’ data. findings data for the knowledge construct is presented first, followed by beliefs, while the opportunity-to-learn data is presented last. data presented in the findings section addresses the first research question and responses to the first and second research questions are captured in the discussion section. letloenyane & jita: a comparative study of knowledge, beliefs and opportunities . . . 151 knowledge construct mean scores table 2 content and pedagogical content knowledge mean scores of correct responses ck: 18 items pck: 6 items university type of university sample mean sd mean sd u1 traditional university 24 46.6 16.9 56.9 26.0 u2 university of technology 33 71.5 12.6 71.7 19.3 u3 university of technology 16 41.9 22.8 53.1 27.4 u4 traditional university 39 43.0 17.3 52.1 21.0 aggregate mean 52.0 59.1 the content and pedagogical content knowledge mean scores in table 2 show that the percentages of correct responses differ across the four universities. data indicates that respondents from u3 (41.9) have the lowest mean score followed by u4 (43.0) and u1 (46.6) with u2 (71.5) having the highest mean score. pedagogical content knowledge mean scores reveal that u4 (52.1) respondents have the lowest mean score followed by u3 (53.1) and u1 (56.9 with u2 (71.7) respondents having the highest mean score for pedagogical content knowledge. data also reveals that only u2’s content and pedagogical content knowledge mean scores are above the aggregated mean scores. table 3 post-hoc tests for ck and pck variable u_num u_num sig. variable u_num u_num sig. ck u1 u2 .000 pck u1 u2 .098 u3 .850 u3 .933 u4 .882 u4 .800 u2 u1 .000 u2 u1 .098 u3 .000 u3 .041 u4 .000 u4 .002 u3 u1 .850 u3 u1 .933 u2 .000 u2 .041 u4 .995 u4 .999 u4 u1 .882 u4 u1 .800 u2 .000 u2 .002 u3 .995 u3 .999 anova test statistics for content knowledge indicates that the universities’ mean content knowledge scores are not statistically equivalent (f = 22.58, p = 0.00). the games-howell post-hoc test in table 3, which is used when equal variances are not assumed, indicates that u2 (71.5) mean scores are not statistically significantly equivalent to u1 (46.6), u3 (41.9), and u4 (43.0) mean scores. furthermore, the post-hoc test revealed that u1, u3, and u4 mean scores are statistically equivalent. anova test statistics for pedagogical content knowledge further indicate that the universities’ mean pedagogical content knowledge scores 152 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 are not statistically equivalent (f = 5.01, p = 0.00). tukey’s post-hoc test in table 3 that is used when equal variances are assumed, indicates that u2 (71.7) and u1 (56.9) mean scores are in one subset and u1 (56.9), u3 (53.1) and u4 (52.1) are in another. in summary, the data indicates that with the exception of u2, the other universities’ mean scores on content knowledge are below a mean score of 50. this suggests that there may be gaps in the b.ed students’ content knowledge from the said universities if we assume that a mean score of 50 represents adequate achievement. the situation is quite different for pedagogical content knowledge where all the universities’ scores are above a mean score of 50, suggesting that the b.ed students may have adequate knowledge of physical science teaching strategies and diagnosis and correction of learner misconceptions. b.ed students’ beliefs constructs b.ed students’ beliefs were measured using likert-scale items. the likert-scale items for b.ed students’ beliefs were coded using the six responses which were 1: strongly disagree; 2: disagree; 3: slightly disagree; 4: slightly agree; 5: agree; and 6: strongly agree. only the likert scale on teacher preparedness for teaching physical science (blf4) was coded 1: not at all; 2: a minor extent; 3: a modest extent; and 4: a major extent. similar to the teds-m study reasoning, only respondents who chose agree and strongly agree (5 and 6) options were considered to be in agreement with the item and the rest, including slightly agree (3), were considered as not being in agreement with the item. for the teacher preparedness likert scale, only respondents who chose option 4 were considered to be in agreement with the item. the descriptions above are used in the data presentations that follow and the mean score of respondents who agree with the statements are provided. table 4 beliefs mean scores of universities beliefs mean scores (number of items) university type of university sample blf1 (6) blf2 (6) blf3 (6) blf4 (10) blf5 (6) u1 traditional university 24 8.3 33.3 62.5 33.3 37.5 u2 university of technology 33 97 97 100 66.7 100 u3 university of technology 16 31.3 56.3 43.8 75 93.8 u4 traditional university 39 12.8 53.8 46.2 51.3 66.7 aggregate mean 52.0 17.3 39.3 62.5 65.2 table 4 presents b.ed students’ frequencies of desirable beliefs. data indicates that for beliefs about the nature of physical science (blf1), beliefs about learning physical science (blf2), and beliefs about programme effectiveness (blf5), u1 has the lowest mean scores, followed by u4 and u3 while u2 has the highest mean scores. on average, u2 has the highest mean scores for all the beliefs variables while u1 has the lowest mean scores. furthermore, u2 is the only university for which all the mean scores are above the aggregated mean score. letloenyane & jita: a comparative study of knowledge, beliefs and opportunities . . . 153 table 5 post-hoc test for the belief constructs’ mean scores variable u_num u_num sig. variable u_num u_num sig. blf1 u1 u2 .000 blf2 u1 u2 .000 u3 .368 u3 .023 u4 .985 u4 .525 u2 u1 .000 u2 u1 .000 u3 .000 u3 .004 u4 .000 u4 .000 u3 u1 .368 u3 u1 .023 u2 .000 u2 .004 u4 .463 u4 .206 u4 u1 .985 u4 u1 .525 u2 .000 u2 .000 u3 .463 u3 .206 variable u_num u_num sig. variable u_num u_num sig. blf3 u1 u2 .000 blf4 u1 u2 .002 u3 1.000 u3 .016 u4 .969 u4 .111 u2 u1 .000 u2 u1 .002 u3 .000 u3 1.000 u4 .000 u4 .340 u3 u1 1.000 u3 u1 .016 u2 .000 u2 1.000 u4 .993 u4 .564 u4 u1 .969 u4 u1 .111 u2 .000 u2 .340 u3 .993 u3 .564 variable u_num u_num sig. blf5 u1 u2 .000 u3 .006 u4 .132 u2 u1 .000 u3 .814 u4 .007 u3 u1 .006 u2 .814 u4 .319 u4 u1 .132 u2 .007 u3 .319 anova test statistics for beliefs’ mean scores indicates that the universities’ mean scores are not significantly equivalent for all the beliefs variables (p < 0.05). the games-howell post-hoc test in table 5 indicates that for beliefs about the nature of physical science (blf1), beliefs about learning physical science (blf2), and beliefs about physical science achievement (blf3), u2 mean scores are not statistically significantly equivalent to u1, u3, and u4 mean scores. furthermore, the post-hoc test shows that u1, u3, and u4 mean scores are statistically significantly equivalent. there are no clear trends in terms of the universities scores for beliefs about preparedness for teaching physical science (blf4) and beliefs about programme effectiveness (blf5). opportunity to learn in teacher education programmes opportunity-to-learn scales consist of opportunity-to-learn tertiary-level physics and chemistry (otl1), school physical science (otl2), physical science pedagogy (otl3), through reflection (otl4), through practicum (otl5, otl6 and otl7) and in a coherent 154 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 programme (otl8). the scales in the opportunity-to-learn construct are measured using likert-scale items except the opportunities-to-learn physics, chemistry, and physical science that are assessed using yes/no options. table 6 opportunity to learn mean scores of universities opportunity to learn mean scores (number of items measured) university type of university sample otl1 (40) otl2 (21) otl3 (10) otl4 (10) otl5 (1) otl6 (1) otl7 (8) otl8 (6) u1 traditional university 24 0.75 0.95 2.44 2.63 2.60 2.75 2.13 2.77 u2 university of technology 33 0.93 0.97 3.22 3.12 3.39 3.36 3.24 3.56 u3 university of technology 16 0.93 0.92 3.28 3.50 3.47 3.50 3.25 3.72 u4 traditional university 39 0.81 0.84 2.79 2.77 2.79 2.87 2.51 2.96 aggregate mean 52.0 17.3 0.85 0.91 2.91 2.95 3.03 3.08 table 6 presents the mean opportunity-to-learn scores for each university. data indicates that for opportunity-to-learn physical science pedagogy (otl3), through reflection (otl4), through practicum (otl5, otl6 and otl7) and in a coherent programme (otl8), u1 has the lowest mean scores, followed by u4 and u2 while u3 has the highest mean scores. opportunity-to-learn tertiary-level physics and chemistry (otl1) displays a similar trend although u2 and u3 have similar scores. table 7 post-hoc test for the opportunity to learn mean scores variable u_num u_num sig. variable u_num u_num sig. otl2 u1 u2 .001 otl3 u1 u2 .000 u3 .010 u3 .000 u4 .641 u4 .113 u2 u1 .001 u2 u1 .000 u3 1.000 u3 .984 u4 .011 u4 .020 u3 u1 .010 u3 u1 .000 u2 1.000 u2 .984 u4 .075 u4 .037 u4 u1 .641 u4 u1 .113 u2 .011 u2 .020 u3 .075 u3 .037 variable u_num u_num sig. variable u_num u_num sig. otl4 u1 u2 .011 otl5 u1 u2 .099 u3 .004 u3 .091 u4 .472 u4 .964 u2 u1 .011 u2 u1 .099 u3 .819 u3 .969 u4 .192 u4 .155 u3 u1 .004 u3 u1 .091 u2 .819 u2 .969 u4 .067 u4 .144 u4 u1 .472 u4 u1 .964 u2 .192 u2 .155 u3 .067 u3 .144 letloenyane & jita: a comparative study of knowledge, beliefs and opportunities . . . 155 variable u_num u_num sig. variable u_num u_num sig. otl6 u1 u2 .000 otl7 u1 u2 .000 u3 .002 u3 .000 u4 .398 u4 .454 u2 u1 .000 u2 u1 .000 u3 1.000 u3 .905 u4 .008 u4 .000 u3 u1 .002 u3 u1 .000 u2 1.000 u2 .905 u4 .049 u4 .009 u4 u1 .398 u4 u1 .454 u2 .008 u2 .000 u3 .049 u3 .009 variable u_num u_num sig. otl8 u1 u2 .001 u3 .000 u4 .554 u2 u1 .001 u3 .704 u4 .012 u3 u1 .000 u2 .704 u4 .003 u4 u1 .554 u2 .012 u3 .003 anova test statistics for opportunity-to-learn mean scores indicates that all the universities’ opportunity-to-learn mean scores differ significantly with the exception of opportunity-tolearn school physical science (otl2) (p = 0.06) and therefore, a post-hoc analysis was not done for this opportunity-to-learn. the post-hoc tests in table 7 indicate that in most cases, u2 and u3 opportunity-to-learn mean scores are not statistically significantly equivalent to u1 and u4 scores. the post-hoc test further shows that u2 and u3 scale scores are statistically significantly equivalent as well as u1 and u4. the exceptions are opportunity-tolearn through reflection (otl4) and through practicum (otl5) where data for otl5 indicates that the mean scores for the universities are statistically equivalent. in summary, respondents from u3 report that they are afforded the highest number of opportunities-to-learn followed by respondents from u2 and u4 while respondents from u1 report the lowest opportunity-to-learn mean score on average. anova and post hoc tests reveal that u2 and u3 mean scores are statistically equivalent and that u4 and u1 scores are statistically equivalent. furthermore, the anova and post hoc tests reveal that the u2 and u3 mean scores are not statistically equivalent to u1 and u4 scores. discussion of the findings in this study, we sought to compare the opportunity-to-learn, beliefs, and knowledge of the participating universities in order to portray variations, if any, and the possible effects of the variations of opportunity-to-learn on b.ed students’ knowledge and beliefs. data indicates that there are statistical differences between the universities’ data in all the variables tested with the exception of opportunity-to-learn school-level physical science 156 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 (otl2: p > 0.05). the data therefore indicates that there are variations between and among the universities’ knowledge, beliefs, and opportunity-to-learn afforded to b.ed students, similar to schmidt et al.’s (2011) findings. the statistical equivalence of the universities’ opportunity-to-learn school level physical science (otl2) mean scores (see table 7) may be because a significant portion of the content of tertiary level physics and chemistry courses for a b.ed qualification contains topics that form part of the school-level physical science curriculum. the similarities may be the reason why most respondents indicated that they were afforded sufficient opportunity-to-learn school-level physical science topics in their respective programmes and, therefore, this may account for the statistical equivalence in the universities’ mean scores. table 8 mean scores of knowledge, beliefs and opportunity to learn univ ersit y ck pck blf 1 blf 2 blf 3 blf 4 blf 5 otl 1 otl 2 otl 3 otl 4 otl 5 otl 6 otl 7 otl 8 u1 46,6 56,9 8,3 33,3 62,5 33,3 37,5 0,75 0,95 2,44 2,63 2,60 2,75 2,13 2,77 u2 71,5 71,7 97,0 97,0 100 66,7 100 0,93 0,97 3,22 3,12 3,39 3,36 3,24 3,56 u3 41,9 53,1 31,3 56,3 43,8 75,0 93,8 0,93 0,92 3,28 3,50 3,47 3,50 3,25 3,72 u4 43,0 52,1 12,8 53,8 46,2 51,3 66,7 0,81 0,84 2,79 2,77 2,79 2,87 2,51 2,96 ave 52,0 59,1 39,3 62,5 65,2 55,4 73,2 0,85 0,91 2,91 2,95 3,03 3,08 2,75 3,2 table 8 presents the three constructs’ data in one table for comparative purposes and this strategy assists in responding to the second research question. initial analysis of the universities’ scores does not suggest any clear trends (directly or inversely proportional) in the universities’ mean scores. for example, u3’s opportunity-to-learn mean scores are, on average, higher than any other universities’ score but the same university’s beliefs and knowledge mean scores are not necessarily the highest. similarly, u1 has, on average, the lowest opportunity-to-learn mean scores, but the same university’s content (ck) and pedagogical content (pck) knowledge mean scores are higher than u4 mean scores, although u4’s opportunity-to-learn mean scores are, on average, higher than u1’s opportunity-to-learn mean scores. while the literature suggested that some opportunities-to-learn are associated with improved b.ed students’ outcomes (e.g. canrinus et al., 2017; tillotson & young, 2013), given findings of the present study, we suggest that affording b.ed students more opportunity-to-learn may not always translate into improved knowledge and desirable beliefs. the possible explanation may be that, individually, the opportunity-to-learn is associated with improved b.ed students’ outcomes but the improvements may be diminished by the average effect of all the opportunity-to-learn surveyed in this study. the post-hoc tests reveal interesting results in terms of opportunity-to-learn mean scores. games-howell post-hoc tests illustrate that u2 mean scores are statistically equivalent to u3’s scores (p > 0.05) in all the opportunity-to-learn variables except the opportunity-to-learn through reflection (otl4). the post-hoc test also indicates that u2 and u3 mean scores are not statistically equivalent to u1 and u4 mean scores. although the universities cannot be letloenyane & jita: a comparative study of knowledge, beliefs and opportunities . . . 157 categorised exclusively into two subsets for opportunity-to-learn through reflection (otl4) variable, u2 and u3, and u1 and u4 are nonetheless two of the subsets as suggested by the games-howell post-hoc test. data suggests that the universities may be divided into two groups, with u1 and u4 in one group (group a) and u2 and u3 in group b. table 8 and the post-hoc tests indicate that the opportunity-to-learn mean scores for u1 are equivalent to scores for u4, and the same is true for data for u2 and u3. furthermore, group b’s opportunity-to-learn mean scores are statistically significantly higher than group a’s mean scores. the interesting observation about the findings is that group b represents universities of technology while group a represents traditional universities. this observation may be explained partially by the amount of time reserved for teaching practice in traditional universities and universities of technology. for example, one of the traditional universities reserved 23 weeks spread approximately evenly over the b.ed students’ 4 years of training for teaching practice (approximately 6 weeks per academic year). however, one of the universities of technology reserved significantly more time for teaching practice; in the first 3 years, students were allocated approximately 6 weeks of teaching practice time in each year and, additionally, they were expected to spend the first 6 months of their final year of training in schools. this allocation of teaching practice time provides support for the notion that universities of technology expose their b.ed students to significantly more practical aspects of teaching than their traditional university counterparts do. taylor (2014) also lamented that teaching practice time varies considerably between the institutions, but our study findings seem to suggest that the time for teaching practice may vary according to the type of institution. furthermore, traditional universities expected their b.ed students to have passed second year physics and chemistry as a minimum requirement while the universities of technology required their b.ed students to have passed third year physics and chemistry. in terms of the higher education landscape in south africa, the data suggests that the interpretations and implementation of the mrteq policy differs somewhat between the two types of universities. even though the universities are guided by the same policy, the nature of the universities seems to affect their interpretation of this policy to such an extent that the curricula of universities of technology seem to afford more opportunity-to-learn to their b.ed students than do their traditional university counterparts. further analysis of group a and b mean scores reveal that on average group b report more desirable beliefs than group a (see table 8). considering that group b respondents also indicate that they are exposed to more opportunity-to-learn, the data seems to suggest that an increase in opportunity-to-learn may result in an increase in b.ed students’ desirable beliefs (proportional relationship). only beliefs about science achievement (blf 3) violate this observation. data further illustrates that content (ck) and pedagogical content (pck) knowledge mean scores also violate this observation because there are no clear trends between the opportunity-to-learn and knowledge construct mean scores. in summary, the data seems to suggest that there are trends between opportunity-to-learn variables and b.ed students’ beliefs, but no trends (directly or inversely proportional) could be ascertained 158 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 between opportunity-to-learn and knowledge mean scores. this is not to suggest that there are no possible associations between opportunity-to-learn variables’ scores and knowledge scores, but it is to point out that this type of analysis does not reveal any possible associations between the constructs. a closer look at group b’s beliefs and knowledge mean scores reveals an interesting phenomenon. despite reporting statistically equivalent opportunity-to-learn, there are significant differences in the beliefs and knowledge mean scores of b.ed students from u2 and u3. the post-hoc tests reveal that beliefs about the nature of science (blf1), learning science (blf2), and science achievement (blf3) mean scores between the two universities are not statistically significantly equivalent (see table 7). furthermore, the same trend is observed in the knowledge construct. the post-hoc tests reveal that content (ck) and pedagogical content (pck) knowledge mean scores for the two universities are not statistically significantly equivalent. the scores mentioned imply that b.ed students’ beliefs may be related to their knowledge and the converse may also be true that b.ed students’ knowledge may have an effect on their beliefs, as suggested by mansour (2009). it is therefore possible that the interaction of knowledge and beliefs accounts for the variance observed in both knowledge and belief bundles constructs, while opportunity-to-learn is kept constant. the literature provides some guidance on this issue. kutálková (2017) suggested that teachers’ beliefs are shaped by their training and that beliefs act as a contextual filter that assists teachers in structuring their teaching experiences and, subsequently, in adapting their practices. along the same line of thinking, tondeur et al. (2016) suggested that beliefs act as a filter through which new knowledge is screened. our study’s findings, therefore, seem to support the stance that beliefs act as a filter for knowledge construction. the beliefs that serve as filters, according to the findings, are those about the nature of science (blf1), learning science (blf2), and science achievement (blf3). however, a closer look at group a’s mean scores reveals that u1 and u4 mean scores are statistically equivalent for all three constructs indicating that the trends in group a are different from trends in group b. the findings therefore suggest that the observation that beliefs act as a filter for knowledge cannot be regarded as conclusive and, rather, that the said link between knowledge and beliefs may exist only under certain conditions. the condition in the case of this study may be considered to be the significantly higher opportunity-to-learn that b.ed students from group b were afforded. conclusion although this study has provided interesting results, there are limitations associated with the methodology we used. data was collected from final year pre-service physical science teachers who were registered for a b.ed qualification and pgce candidates were not considered. the knowledge test and opportunity-to-learn scale presented some limitations. given the amount of time we had to administer the questionnaire, we could include only a limited number of items. although we letloenyane & jita: a comparative study of knowledge, beliefs and opportunities . . . 159 took care to cover reliably as many topics/opportunities-to-learn as possible, it was not possible to cover all the topics/opportunities-to-learn. only four universities participated in the study so generalisation beyond the participating universities is not possible. the findings from this study suggest that while the participating universities implement the same policy, their understanding of what makes a teacher education curriculum effective is based largely on the nature of the institution. additionally, the findings suggest that there is a relationship between opportunity-to-learn and some b.ed students’ beliefs while no such relationship could be established between opportunity-to-learn and the knowledge constructs. the findings further support the notion that under certain conditions, beliefs may act as a contextual filter for knowledge construction. the next phase of this investigation is to determine the specific opportunities-to-learn that explain the variance observed in the universities’ knowledge and beliefs data. references beauchamp, c. 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(2016). understanding the relationship between teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and technology use in education: a systematic review of qualitative evidence. educational technology research and development, 1–41. microsoft word bissue77dec19.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 77, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i77a04 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x a snapshot of teachers’ knowledge and teaching behaviour with regard to developing self-regulated learning bernadette geduld curriculum studies, research focus area self-directed learning, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa bernadette.geduld@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2050-8541 (received: 19 february 2019; accepted: 3 october 2019) abstract in the persisting south african education crisis, low quintile schools are known for their lack of adequate resources, poorly trained teachers who lack content and pedagogical knowledge, overcrowded classrooms, and a lack of parental support. i used a qualitative, exploratory, descriptive design to explore south african low quintile school teachers’ knowledge of self-regulated learning as well as their perceptions of how they develop self-regulated learning in learners. i conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 purposively and conveniently selected grade 8 secondary school teachers. the participants hold positive beliefs about self-regulated learning but lack pedagogical knowledge to develop this. they also experience departmental pressure regarding curriculum coverage, assessment, and administration that inhibits their time to do so. the participants perceive their efforts to develop self-regulated learning as being weighed down because this is not a priority at school, with high pass rates in the annual national assessment and senior secondary school certificate examinations taking precedence. future research needs more classroom-based studies to determine how teachers might start to become more skilful at teaching self-regulated learning skills since the development of this is not an automatic process but needs to be supported in learners. keywords: metacognition, learners’ self-regulation, teacher behaviour, teacher knowledge introduction self-regulated learning (srl) is a strategy to equip learners with life-changing knowledge and skills, so development of this is crucial. srl is defined as self-generated thoughts, feelings, and actions that are planned and cyclically adapted to the attainment of personal goals (zimmerman, 2000). srl describes how learners consciously take responsibility for their own learning by regulating their cognitive strategies, metacognition, motivation, and environment (pintrich, 2002). srl in school environments increases success in problem solving, academic achievement, intrinsic motivation, and task interest as cleary and zimmerman (2004) have reminded us. geduld: a snapshot of teachers’ knowledge and teaching behaviour . . . 61 many other researchers (see bandura, 2006; moylan, 2013; zimmerman, 2002) have reported on the value and necessity of srl in educational as well as social life, and even beyond. all the srl skills needed for academic achievement, such as planning, goal setting, task analysis, and self-evaluation are also needed if one is to function efficiently in life. since srl skills are teachable as zimmerman (2002) has pointed out, teachers play a vital role in developing and enhancing these. this is particularly important in the south african educational context in which many learners struggle with the demands of the school system. this study focused on srl development of grade 8 learners in two low quintile schools. these schools are in the historically disadvantaged and lower socioeconomic section of the education system and do not charge school fees. i decided to explore the development of srl in low quintile schools since these schools are known for their lack of adequate resources, poorly trained teachers who lack content and pedagogical knowledge, overcrowded classrooms, and a lack of parental support (modisaotsile, 2012). these adversities result in many low quintile schools still underperforming and failing to equip learners with the required knowledge, skills, and values to function effectively in the 21st century as a result of schools in poorer communities still lacking minimum standards because of infrastructure backlogs, textbooks not being delivered on time, and teachers being neither motivated nor supported in their profession, as spaull (2013) has noted. i chose grade 8 teachers as participants since they teach the learners in the first grade of secondary school. at this stage, the learners do not have subject choices; this made the investigation across different subjects taught less complicated. in addition, many grade 8 learners might not have well developed srl skills when they enter secondary school, which makes grade 8 an ideal grade at which to explore the extent to which srl is developed or not. zimmerman (2002), for example, reported that many learners in the us appear to have too few learning skills in place when they arrive in secondary school. however, they seldom receive instruction in methods of study or self-regulatory skills in secondary schools. consequently, there and in south africa, in the absence of assistance, guidance, or exposure, many learners never acquire srl skills and this results in a drop in their academic achievement. although learners learn srl skills at home, in primary school, or in other places (zimmerman, 2002), those who are less self-regulated and do not develop srl skills may experience problems with academic success. in the south african low quintile school context, learners have less exposure to srl because many of these learners do not have parents or other knowledgeable persons who model srl for them (geduld, 2017). i suggest that underperformance could be alleviated, and higher pass rates achieved if teachers become aware of the value of srl and how it could help learners to cope with academic as well as other challenges. my contention is supported by the findings of moylan (2013) and mutweleli (2014), who have said that srl is significant for the development of lifelong learning and that it plays a vital role globally in academic learning. furthermore, these scholars argue that if schools and teachers do not play an active role in the development 62 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 of srl skills, many learners will struggle with the demands of the school system and of their future lives. against the above background of srl in relation to low quintile schools, i ask three research questions in this study. • “what knowledge of srl do the grade 8 teachers have?” • “how do grade 8 teachers perceive their teaching behaviour with regard to developing learners’ srl?” • “how can srl be introduced in teaching and learning in low quintile schools to support education in south africa?” increased interest in the development of srl is based on diverse schools needing to implement 21st-century competencies to prepare learners for a rapidly changing world, as well as in the interest of social, informational, and technological changes (cleary & zimmerman, 2004; van der elst, 2016). eyre (2016) has averred that the focus of teaching should be on developing not only study methods in learners, but also on different problemsolving, metacognitive, and behavioural skills such as being able to take personal initiative, persevere, and be adaptive as well as develop appropriate values and positive attitudes that could better prepare them for a rapidly changing world. in what follows, i offer, first, the background and orientation of the study, after which i present its conceptual framework, followed by notes on the methodology i used and a discussion of the results of the study. i then provide possible strategies for the development of srl based on the results of the study before i conclude and offer future directions for research. the south african education crisis one of the three main priorities of the south african national development plan (2012) is to improve the quality of education and skills development, along with addressing the education crisis in the country. the persistent challenges to education and the consequences of their not being met are discussed widely in the literature and in government reports (see mlachila & moeletsi, 2019; spaull & kotze, 2015; stott, 2018.) roodt (2018) has identified teachers’ poor pedagogical content knowledge as a challenge and a reason behind the underperformance of learners. he has pointed out, furthermore, that international rankings such as the trends in international mathematics and science study (timms) as well as the progress in international reading literacy study (pirls) have revealed that south african learners performed poorly in mathematics, science, and literacy compared to their international counterparts (see also mlachila & moeletsi, 2019). with so many serious issues in the education sector that need to be remedied, one might wonder why the development of srl is significant. i hope that the findings of this research will stimulate discussions with teachers about the position, importance, and usefulness of srl and envision it changing teaching behaviour in ways that will improve the academic geduld: a snapshot of teachers’ knowledge and teaching behaviour . . . 63 performance of the learners. teachers’ knowledge of srl (or the lack of it) and their perceptions about their teaching behaviour provide an explanation for the occurrence (or absence) of srl practices in south african low quintile schools. the findings of the study might also serve as an instrument for reflection and offer some ideas for changing practice. conceptual framework the social-cognitive perspective maintains that srl is influenced by personal, environmental, and behavioural determinants (schunk, pintrich, & meece, 2014). in this model of triadic reciprocality, the three determinants interact with one another as bandura (2006) has reminded us. changes in one determinant result in changes in one or two other determinants. personal determinants represent, particularly in this study, participants’ teacher training, pedagogical knowledge of srl, along with thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and other motivational forces that enable them to develop srl skills in themselves and in learners. environment determinants refer to social and physical factors and contexts that can affect an individual’s behaviour. in this study, these include learners, parents, colleagues, the physical size of classrooms, and the dictates of the departments of education, all of which contribute to the social and physical working environment of teachers. behavioural determinants refer to participants’ teaching strategies, their choice of tasks, and their efforts to develop learners’ srl skills. when it comes to teachers’ behaviour in the development of srl, zimmerman (2001, p. 8) asked five questions. “how do teachers motivate learners to be self-regulated? how do they make learners aware of their self-regulation? how do teachers help learners to achieve academic goals? how do teachers adapt the social and physical class environment to influence srl? how do teachers monitor learners’ srl development?” in answering these questions, the personal, environmental, and behavioural determinants that influence how low quintile school teachers develop learners’ srl should be taken into account. dignath-van ewijk and van der werf (2012) explain that teachers’ ability to teach srl or teach through srl is influenced by their pedagogical knowledge as well as their beliefs about learner-centred learning. moreover, teachers’ knowledge and beliefs influence their perceptions, which, in turn, evoke behaviour that is consistent with these beliefs and this, consequently, influences their teaching behaviour. research on teachers’ knowledge of srl, as well as their perceptions and beliefs about, and their teaching behaviour in relation to developing srl, indicates that the concept of selfregulated learning is vague and unclear for many of them (dignath-van ewijk & van der werf, 2012). despite their positive beliefs regarding srl, teachers, especially inexperienced ones, do not have a broad knowledge of how to foster srl. peeters, de backer, reina, kindekens, buffel, and lombaerts (2014) have noted that, although teachers generally accept the important role they play in learners’ self-regulatory activities, they often do not know how to teach self-regulatory skills or how to otherwise enhance learners’ use of selfregulation principles in the classroom or other learning settings. this lack of knowledge 64 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 stems from several sources such as teachers’ educational beliefs as well as teacher education programmes that typically emphasise content-area knowledge and mastery of pedagogical methods, and focus less on principles of learning, development, and motivation. furthermore, lau (2013) has found that teachers’ behaviour is not only influenced by their knowledge and beliefs but also by external factors such as the school and class variables and features of the subject content. notwithstanding the above findings, many examples of teaching behaviour that promotes the development of srl are prominent in the literature. for example, schunk et al. (2014) have stated that teachers should give learners choices, opportunities to control challenges and to evaluate their own and peers’ learning, along with instrumental support, scaffolding, feedback, and evaluation that is nonthreatening and mastery oriented. paris and paris (2003) emphasised that learners are more likely to become self-regulated when they are able to evaluate their own learning, independently of teacherissued summative assessments. self-evaluation enables learners to evaluate their comprehension of the learning content and learning strategies and make adjustments for similar tasks in the future. furthermore, as radel, sarrazin, legrain, and wild (2010) and schunk et al. (2014) have shown, learners are more likely to attend to and imitate the actions of competent and intrinsically motivated teachers who facilitate srl, as opposed to teachers who seem less competent. to promote srl in classrooms, teachers should teach learners self-regulated processes, such as proximal and distant goal setting, planning, task analysis, and time management (winne & hadwin, 1998). paris and paris (2003) suggested that teachers should model how to use new strategies and provide suitable scaffolding as the learners practise these. zimmerman (2002) noted that teachers should prepare their learners to take ownership of their learning and develop their ability to control how, where, what, and when they study. schunk and pajares (2009) have emphasised high self-efficacy beliefs that lead to increased motivation to set better goals, make more effort to analyse tasks, and plan and use self-regulation strategies, which, in turn, could lead to better academic achievement. cooperative learning and peer learning, according to pritchard (2009), develop srl because of the social and active learning processes during which learners use collaboration and interaction as a strategy to share ideas, clarify uncertainties, and learn from one another. another advantage is that with social support in cooperative and peer learning, learners learn to take personal initiative, to endure, and to adjust their strategies when they seek help from peers and experts (schunk et al., 2014). according to dede (2010) cooperative learning prepares learners for four essential 21st-century skills: collaborating with others; understanding and communicating ideas; thinking critically; and producing quality work. methodology i was guided by an interpretivist paradigm in order to explore grade 8 teachers’ knowledge of, and teaching behaviour in relation to, srl in low quintile schools. because of the philosophical assumptions and investigative nature thereof, i deemed an interpretivist geduld: a snapshot of teachers’ knowledge and teaching behaviour . . . 65 paradigm suitable for this research that sought to explore a contemporary phenomenon in a real-life situation. using this qualitative research design, following maree (2016) i attempted to collect rich descriptive data, with the intention of developing an understanding of the participants’ knowledge and teaching behaviour in relation to srl in two low quintile schools. research setting and sampling i conducted the study in two low quintile schools in the eastern cape province of south africa that admit learners from grade 8 to 12. school a was previously perceived as an underperforming school but improved and had grade 12 pass rates of 87% in 2017 and 78.9% in 2018. school b was still perceived by the community as a declining school because of the falling grade 12 results which dropped to 50% in 2015, but it has also improved in achieving a grade 12 pass rate of 63.3% in 2016 and 69.8% in 2017. the sites were conveniently selected because the participants were able and willing to share their knowledge of srl and how they developed srl in their learners. the schools have adequate infrastructure for teaching and learning, but the classrooms in school a are overcrowded and the learners have to share desks and books. school a has predominantly afrikaans-speaking learners, and the medium of instruction is afrikaans and english. school b has predominantly isixhosa-speaking learners, and the medium of instruction is english and isixhosa. i used purposive sampling to select five grade 8 teachers from each school, based on their first-hand experience of teaching grade 8 learners. the sample consisted of six female and four male participants, with teaching experience that ranged between one and thirty years. eight participants had degrees, and two participants had advanced diplomas in education. all the participants taught the subjects in which they had specialised, except for participant 1. ethical clearance was obtained from the university. i abided by all ethical aspects of conducting research, such as obtaining permission from the department of basic education and informed consent from the participants, demonstrating respect for the participants, and upholding confidentiality and anonymity. data collection data was collected via semi-structured individual interviews. my using open-ended questions in these interviews enabled the participants to give detailed answers, explanations, and interesting information, all of which helped in the thematic analysis of the data as advocated by maree (2016). the semi-structured interviews provided useful information and gave me better control over the type of information i received since i could ask additional questions to elicit information on a specific topic. an explanation of the concept of srl was given when a participant did not have any knowledge or an erroneous understanding of the concept. i asked these broad questions in the semi-structured interviews, which lasted 30 to 40 minutes. • “what do you know about the concept of self-regulated learning (srl)?” 66 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 • “how do you develop srl in your learners when you teach?” data analysis the voice recordings of the interviews were transcribed verbatim, and the resulting texts were analysed by means of content and thematic analysis. following saldaña (2015), i used codes derived from the literature to categorise the responses referring to teaching behaviour that develops learners’ srl. the reciprocal interactions among personal, behavioural, and environmental determinants of participants’ knowledge and teaching behaviours in developing srl were also analysed. i developed nine themes from the literature on srl: (1) knowledge of srl; (2) physical classroom environment and lesson presentation; (3) modelling of learning strategies; (4) goal setting, planning, and time management; (5) developing self-evaluation; (6) responsibility for own learning; (7) motivation and selfefficacy; (8) cooperative learning; and (9) contextual constraints to developing srl. trustworthiness the validity of the study is supported by describing the findings in rich detail, with verbatim quotations so that readers can draw their own conclusions from the data presented. furthermore, i consulted with colleagues in the field who agreed that appropriate interpretations had been made and valid conclusions had been drawn from the data. results and findings the first theme answers the first research question and describes the participants’ knowledge of srl. knowledge of srl three participants indicated that they came across the concept of srl when they were improving their qualifications. one participant said, one person mentioned it in a maths workshop i attended at the stellenbosch university. to me, it is a question of learners being the initiators of learning where you do not spoon-feed them. learners taking responsibility for their learning, and educators are there to guide them. (p4) five other participants said that the concept had been introduced to them in their teacher training. they understood it and knew it by other names such as expert learning, strategic learning, independent learning, or “lifelong learning.” to another participant, whose teacher training had been completed 17 years ago, the concept was vague and unclear. geduld: a snapshot of teachers’ knowledge and teaching behaviour . . . 67 i have never heard about self-regulated learning. in my initial teacher training, we were trained more on content knowledge and the application thereof. we never really focused on developing learners to become independent learners. (p10) this extract supports the findings of peeters et al. (2014), mentioned above, that teachers lack the knowledge and skills to develop srl because teacher education programmes usually emphasise content-area knowledge and mastery of pedagogical methods. this theme revealed that participants’ personal determinants such as their knowledge of srl, training in traditional transmission teaching methods, their continual teacher training, and their pedagogical knowledge, as well as the lack thereof in some cases, constituted the behavioural determinant that influenced their teaching behaviour and their level of ability to develop self-regulated learning in their learners. teachers in low quintile schools are generally labelled as having insufficient content-area and pedagogical knowledge, so it was surprising that most of the participants were familiar with the concept of srl. contrary to popular belief about such teachers, the participants in this study seemed passionate about the teaching profession and their responsibility to develop holistic learners. they had vague explanations of the concept of srl, but they could connect the concept to expert learning, strategic learning, and lifelong learning. the following eight themes indicate the participants’ perceptions of their teaching behaviour in relation to developing srl. physical environment of classes and presentation of lessons the participants’ responses indicated that they used the social and physical environment of their classrooms to create a setting that was conducive to learning and srl and therefore met expectations for learning. two participants perceived a well-prepared lesson, presented in a clean classroom with posters and other resource material, as creating an ideal atmosphere for learning and as being conducive to developing srl. it is evident that the interaction between these two participants’ personal and behavioural determinants influenced their environment determinants, which resulted in the creation of social and physical class environments that fostered the development of srl skills. they said, respectively, the development of srl starts with the teachers’ lesson presentation. if the lesson is interesting, learners will want to learn and will want to achieve. the teacher motivates learners with his or her subject knowledge and passion for the subject. (p4) i keep their learning styles in mind. i bring my radio when i do marketing; learners are more interested then. i do drama and role play in the marketing lesson with learners. it stimulates them. (p3) the theme revealed that the participants believed in traditional teaching that emphasises that competent teachers with subject knowledge should present interesting lessons. the implications are that teachers with such views will raise learners’ task interest and the intrinsic value of learning, both important srl processes (see radel et al., 2010). it is 68 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 noteworthy that only two participants mentioned the value of classrooms that are conducive to learning, even though we know that the learning environment teachers create in their classrooms affects the degree of learners’ motivation to be at school and their engagement in learning. the participants’ ignorance about the value and effects of creating a classroom environment that would foster the development of srl might stem from their lack of pedagogical knowledge of classroom management. this lack in the eight other participants was the personal determinant that influenced their behaviour determinant that is, the inability to create classrooms conducive to learning, which led, in turn, to their environment determinant that is, classrooms that are boring (see lau, 2013). modelling of learning strategies this theme revealed that, in line with other research, the participants used cognitive strategies such as repetition, elaboration, questioning, summarising, and activating prior knowledge to develop srl. other strategies mentioned by paris and paris (2003), such as step-by-step explanations and modelling in combination with direct teaching, were also mentioned by the participants. it was interesting to note that many participants could not describe how they specifically integrated metacognitive and reflection strategies, such as self-questioning and monitoring comprehension and progress in their teaching. this is another example of how personal determinants (in this case, participants’ lack of pedagogical knowledge) influenced their teaching behaviour aimed at creating a learning environment that fosters the development of different learning strategies. one participant indicated that he taught his learners imagery as a strategy, as well as where and how to find resources and another stressed the importance of making summaries. i teach them to visualise the things they are learning about. i give many practical examples. i always try to get my learners [to be] inquisitive. i use direct teaching, step-by-step explanations, guided practice, and many practical examples and let them give examples too. i give my learners still a lot of guidance, for example where to find resources they need. (p4) i tell them to make summaries and i look at [them] the next day. (p7) goal setting, planning, and time management from the limited responses of how the participants developed goal setting, planning, task analysis, and time management, it could be concluded that these aspects of srl had been neglected in most of the participants’ teaching behaviour. similar to the three themes just discussed, the personal-behaviour-environment interactions of participants exemplify, in line with lau’s (2013) findings, how their lack of pedagogical knowledge to develop srl skills can influence their teaching behaviour. the following responses reflect the typical approaches adopted by the participants. geduld: a snapshot of teachers’ knowledge and teaching behaviour . . . 69 i show them in advance how the question paper will be set, the different sections, how much time they must use for the specific mark allocations. i teach them to manage their time. i give them examples of how the same content can be asked in different questions. i guide them on how to set personal goals and to keep up high standards to master all the content. right in the front of their books, they have to write the percentage they want to have at the end of the year in the subject. (p2) i talk to them about their future dreams, what they want to become. as soon as they know it is possible, what the requirements are, they will work hard to achieve it. (p9) this theme revealed that the participants used verbalisation, intrinsic and mostly extrinsic motivation, as well as positive outcome expectations as mechanisms to teach learners to set proximal and distant goals. a few participants mentioned goal setting to a lesser extent, but no references were made to planning and task analysis, which are closely related to goal setting. if goal setting, planning, and time management were integrated into teaching strategies to develop srl, the objectives of the lessons would be clear, learner motivation would improve, learners would stay on-task, and they would be more likely to engage in selfregulation as schunk et al. (2014) have pointed out. the participants perceived the importance of time management as more related to summative examinations and not to everyday planning of study time and leisure time. in general, the participants’ teaching behaviour did not reflect goal setting, planning, and time management as priority strategies to develop srl. developing self-evaluation the participants’ teaching behaviour in relation to developing srl through self-evaluation supports the research of lau (2013), mentioned above. the participants mostly embedded self-evaluation and formative assessment by frequently setting short tests. participants 1, 2, 4, and 8 used short tests for learners to self-assess and peer-assess their progress and to learn from their mistakes. such use of self-evaluation enables learners to learn from feedback and to take responsibility for their own learning. it also reduces anxiety, and errors made are regarded as opportunities to improve. these practices, as described by the participants, give learners the opportunity to reflect on and judge their own understanding and progress in relation to the qualities they, the teachers, and in some cases, the group as well, identify as high-quality work. the following responses summarise the views of most of the participants. i give tests every second week so that they can learn to self-evaluate their understanding and reflect [on] how they will do better the next week. (p4) after tests, i also let the clever ones explain to those who struggle in isixhosa on the writing board at the back of the class. they learn quicker if it is explained in their home language. (p2) similarly to the previous one, this theme revealed that the participants’ teaching behaviour is influenced by personal determinants such as pedagogical knowledge of teacher centered 70 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 methods of drill, practice and questioning (dignath-van ewijk & van der werf, 2012). on the one hand, the contradictory nature of questioning, repetition, and testing is that it is teacherdirected. it imposes a sense of teacher control, but, on the other hand, it could help learners to monitor and self-regulate their behaviour in order to apply themselves to learning and to pass examinations. constant questioning on different cognitive levels helps learners to return to the main idea of learning and to check their progress. according to schunk et al. (2014), feedback can develop srl and lead to the mastery of goal orientation if it communicates that these mistakes are part of learning, and if learners’ efforts are recognised. responsibility for own learning it is remarkable that the participants perceived homework as the only strategy they applied to help learners develop taking responsibility for their own learning. this strategy supports the views of paris and paris (2003) that guided practice of content in class should be followed by independent practice in the form of homework. by giving homework to learners, teachers give them opportunities to practise strategies on their own. however, given the influence of personal-behaviour determinants, which can be inferred from most of the participants’ personal knowledge and experience on traditional content teaching as lau (2013) has made clear, it was not surprising that they had difficulty in explaining how learners were being encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning besides by completing homework. in the context of the education crisis that is characterised by, among other things, underresourced schools in which learners have to share books in class, the question about how learners complete their homework without books arises. one school in the study is poorly resourced in terms of textbooks, which is problematic, especially in cases where teachers, because of poor pedagogical and content knowledge, rely on textbooks. the national planning commission (2012) reported that many south african teachers have insufficient content and pedagogical knowledge. this raises the question of whether teachers in schools with insufficient textbooks and teaching and learning aids have the ability to use any other common, free, or cheap everyday objects to assist with concept development in their subjects. in addition, the shortage of textbooks has implications for homework activities, especially in the socioeconomic context of learners in low quintile schools who come from poor households where the stimulation of reading and any other study material are non-existent. this is what three participants had to say. you just give your lesson, explain what they must do, then give their homework. they must learn to work on their own and be accountable for their wrongdoings if they did not do the homework. (p8) i give them choices of study methods. learners take responsibility for their learning when they write the summaries down and study at home. i also give them homework. (p5) geduld: a snapshot of teachers’ knowledge and teaching behaviour . . . 71 i let them go to the library to find information to work on the internet and to produce good projects. (p9) developing motivation and self-efficacy all the participants perceived their teaching behaviour to be geared towards the expansion of motivation, confidence, and self-efficacy to develop learners’ srl. this comment summarises the participants’ overall perceptions of their teaching behaviour regarding motivation and self-efficacy. i work hard to get the learners motivated. i tell them to persist in difficult times. i have expectations for their success. i support my learners academically and emotionally. (p3) from the participants’ responses, it can be concluded that the fact that they perceive themselves as role models (personal determinants) influences their teaching behaviour (behaviour determinant). therefore, they claim to teach learners to develop effort and persistence, which are both characteristics of self-regulated learners. this finding supports similar findings of schunk et al. (2014), who noted that motivational processes, such as having expectations and emotions, and making attributions help learners to overcome difficulties and sustain motivation. all the participants perceived themselves as role models who were developing motivation, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations in their learners. their commitment to developing motivational beliefs might stem from their own experiences since all the participants had received their primary and secondary school education in low quintile schools and indicated that education was the one factor that had changed their lives. in light of the education crisis in south africa and the resulting high dropout and failure rates, these strategies of the participants to build positive self-motivational beliefs are indispensable. it is especially relevant for learners from poor socioeconomic backgrounds, where parental support and interest in learners’ academic work are often absent since poverty might prevent parents from focusing on anything beyond the most urgent daily needs of the family (malebese, 2013). cooperative learning despite the advantages of developing srl through cooperative learning, only three participants could explain how they used cooperative learning to develop srl. the following responses encapsulate the reluctance of three other participants to use cooperative learning as a strategy to do so. i am not pro group work. i want to see the individual learner’s ability. there are many social circumstances to consider if you give group projects. not all learners have transport or money to meet the group at the library. many learners have to do cooking and cleaning after school. (p8) 72 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 i never do group work in class; it is too difficult with a class of 48 to 50 learners. (p10) the shortage of desks and books makes group work a challenge, and passive learners get lost. it only works to a certain extent. (p3) from the participants’ hesitancy about, and antagonism towards, cooperative learning, i concluded that they did not perceive this to be a strategy in developing srl. the contextual complexities, such as poor infrastructure, insufficient books and benches, and overcrowded classrooms of this particular group of participants from low quintile schools, clearly influenced their beliefs and teaching behaviour. contextual constraints to developing srl in line with the findings of lau (2013), the participants identified factors that affected their beliefs about and behaviour regarding developing srl. the strategies of the department of basic education to monitor differing compliance with the implementation of the curriculum, assessment, improved results, governance, and management seemed to have demotivating effects on these participants. although they indicated that they held positive beliefs about srl, i detected frustration and helplessness in their responses about departmental pressure regarding coverage of the curriculum, assessment, and administration. the participants perceived their efforts to develop srl as being weighed down because the development of srl was not a priority at school, with high pass rates in the annual national assessments and senior secondary school certificate examinations taking precedence. the following responses articulate the views of some of the participants. the workload that we have, and overcrowded classrooms make it difficult to pay attention to the development of self-regulated learning. we are so under pressure to finish the syllabus because the department is standing on your neck. (p9) the school’s focus is more on organisation of the school day, invigilating for absent teachers or for classes where teachers have not yet been appointed. i do not think development of learners’ srl is a priority here. the shortage of textbooks is a problem. i cannot even give homework, and there is not money for paper to make worksheets. (p5) i must focus to complete the syllabus. there are many functions, for example valentine’s day, fundraisings, and meetings, that influence our teaching time. (p6) although most of the participants accepted their responsibility to develop srl in learners, they did not find it easy to implement such practices without support from the school, community, and parents. many of the factors identified in this theme are beyond teachers’ control and point to insufficient support in terms of resources and human capital from the department of basic education. paris and winograd (2003) warn that although most teachers would agree that teaching learners to be more self-regulated in the classroom would be ideal, geduld: a snapshot of teachers’ knowledge and teaching behaviour . . . 73 the practice is not simple and does not come without challenges. this finding is supported by boekaerts and cascallar (2006), who reported that the major obstacle in helping learners become self-regulated is the time required to teach them how to use specific strategies. from the perspective of the model of triadic reciprocality (bandura, 2006), the influence of environmental determinants on personal and behaviour determinants in the last two themes was evident. environmental determinants such as pressure from the department of education, overcrowded classrooms, lack of textbooks and other resources negatively influence participants’ personal motivation and beliefs (personal determinant) about the value of developing srl through learner-centred teaching strategies, which in turn influences their teaching behaviour (behaviour determinant) to develop srl. these findings are supported by dignath-van ewijk and van der werf (2012), lau (2013), and peeters et al. (2014). how can srl be developed in low quintile schools? based on the findings of the study, the following strategies, in addition to the strategies mentioned in the conceptual framework, are recommended for teachers to develop srl in low quintile schools to support education in south africa. modelling is one method through which teachers can develop the setting of goals, planning, time management, and the use of metacognitive monitoring strategies. schunk and zimmerman (1996) propose five types of modelling for teachers to develop srl skills. the first is disposition modelling in which teachers display their own attitudes and dispositions, values, and practices of srl skills. the second is task and performance modelling, during which learners observe teachers’ demonstrations of problems on writing boards, listen to pronunciation in language or reading lessons, or the steps and procedures followed for experiments. with task and performance modelling, teachers should be aware of poor language skills and communication that might restrict comprehension, which could result in misinterpretation and confusion. teachers should support verbal explanations with visual aids to help, for example, isixhosa-speaking learners who have a poor command of english, or afrikaans-speaking learners who have poor english language proficiency. examples and analogies relevant to learners’ cultural backgrounds and life experiences in their communities should be prepared. the third type, metacognitive monitoring, is promoted when teachers activate learners’ prior knowledge, use elaboration and imagery, explain their own thought processes verbally, and explain how they apply srl skills, such as planning, goal setting, self-questioning, and so forth while they are solving a problem (paris & paris, 2003). probing, and asking open-ended questions that promote discussion among learners help to develop srl skills such as reflection, self-questioning, and monitoring of comprehension and progress (paris & paris, 2003). learners’ answers should receive different types of feedback. for example, individualised, interrogative feedback on the resources and metacognitive skills applied, could be offered. 74 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 the fourth type is modelling as a scaffolding technique, which could be useful for struggling learners in low quintile schools. the last type is learner-centred modelling, whereby learners are assisted to learn particular concepts from the modelling of more expert peers (schunk & zimmerman, 1996). to develop learners’ responsibility for their own learning, teachers should ensure that the elements that contribute to learner agency are being incorporated into their teaching. these elements include engaging learners by giving them a voice in the learning process, giving them choices, ownership, a purpose for learning, motivation, and positive self-efficacy beliefs (bray & mcclaskey, 2016). although the type of classwork and homework to be done remains the teacher’s responsibility, i recommend the strategies of schunk et al. (2014). these strategies, suitable as they are for teachers in low quintile schools, such as allowing learners opportunities for leadership roles and the development of a sense of independence and control over learning activities could result in learners taking more responsibility for their own learning. to ensure this, teachers should design multiple, interesting, and novel tasks on the same topic and allow learners to choose a specific task that is of interest to them. in addition, they could be allowed to choose their own study partners and make decisions on how, when, and where tasks should be completed. discussions with learners about a reasonable pace and time for the completion of tasks could develop time-management skills as schunk et al. (2014) have indicated. in light of the poor socioeconomic situation of many learners in low quintile schools, learners should be encouraged to discuss any home or financial constraints that prevent them from completing homework. in such cases, teachers should arrange other venues where learners can complete home-based tasks. teachers need to consider how they could optimise and extend the classroom space to incorporate learner-centred teaching methods, such as cooperative learning. they could, for example, make adjustments in their classrooms by rearranging the desks and chairs. on days when cooperative learning tasks are planned, the restrictive classroom space could be extended outdoors to the school grounds (weather permitting) or to empty classrooms available at the school. the teacher’s classroom could then be used only as the meeting place where the groups present their findings and the teacher concludes the lesson as mays, grosser, and de jager (2016) have suggested. cooperative learning methods, such as more problem-based and discovery activities, could take place outside the classroom. teachers should consider the use of other sources and materials to supplement textbooks. the lack of physical learning resources, such as books, could be overcome by dividing learners into small groups, which allows the use of only one book or answer sheet, or other resources (see mays et al., 2016). for class-based teaching, teachers could design tasks that combine small-group activities with reading, discussion of ideas, and listening, which develop problem-solving and thinking skills. teachers should ensure that the resources the learners would need are available. even though textbooks and workbooks are seen to be core learning resources in schools, teachers should become more resourceful in their use of educational resources. they could, for example, employ simple non-educational ones (tins, cardboard pieces, etc.) or the media geduld: a snapshot of teachers’ knowledge and teaching behaviour . . . 75 (newspapers, advertising pamphlets, fast-food menus, etc.) to promote learning. moreover, many downloadable digital resources available on the internet, resources found in the learners’ local environment, and learners’ own life experiences and knowledge could be used fruitfully in learning tasks that develop srl (mays et al., 2016). given the education crisis in terms of dropout and underperformance, this is one way in which teachers could create classrooms that are conducive to learning and teaching with ordinary resources to develop learner interest and motivation to learn. the use of such resources to enrich the physical environment of their classrooms would positively influence srl skills such as motivation, focusing attention, and task interest (schunk et al., 2014). finally, i suggest that teachers should initiate strategies to bring the parents at low quintile schools to the education table. they could start by contacting parents through home visits, newsletters, or phone calls to create awareness of the benefits of parental involvement. guidelines could be given to show parents how they could develop and enhance srl by engaging their children in cognitively stimulating activities at home by offering motivational and emotional support for homework activities, and by creating stable environments that are conducive to learning for home-based learning activities. conclusion and future directions this study offers a snapshot of how the reciprocal interaction of personal behaviour, and environmental determinants in two low quintile schools influence teachers’ perceptions on developing srl skills in their grade 8 learners. from the results, it is evident that some persisting causes of the education crisis, as mentioned by the national planning commission (2012), are not being addressed in these two low quintile schools. the participants in the study mentioned frustrating factors that inhibit them from developing srl skills that prepare learners for the demands of the 21st century. these factors include an overload of assessment administration, the interruption of teaching time, an increased workload because of the shortage of teachers, a demanding curriculum that puts pressure on them to complete the syllabus, social and environment influences, overcrowded classrooms, insufficient textbooks, and a lack of resources. it is alarming that the vast majority of srl skills, which are part of the general aims of the curriculum assessment policy statement, are not being developed by the participants, partly because of a lack of pedagogical knowledge. this study was subject to some limitations. the sample does not allow for the generalisation of the participants’ knowledge of and behaviour regarding srl in low quintile schools to secondary schools at large. future research needs more classroom-based studies to determine how teachers could start to become more skilful in teaching srl skills. it is essential that the teachers 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(2002). becoming a self-regulated learner: an overview. theory into practice, 41(2), 64–70. http://doi.org/ 10.1207/s15430421tip4102_2 microsoft word bissue78.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 78, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i78a01 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x how calls for research can awaken self-reflexivity and latent interests in scholarly inquiry james a. bernauer school of nursing, education and human studies, robert morris university, moon township, pennsylvania, usa bernauer@rmu.edu https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2480-5087 (received: 12 september 2019; accepted: 16 january 2020) abstract while we may think that we are well aware of our scholarly interests, calls for research can provide the spark that can transform latent and largely unconscious interests into written accounts. in this article. i describe how such calls can incite us to explore phenomena that, while there may have been no conscious interest to do so, serve to incite creative interest. psychological perspectives are integrated with autoethnograhic experience with these calls in order to explore how they can spark creative responses. suggestions for improving calls revolve around understanding to a greater extent the dynamic relationship among calls, creative inquiry, and subsequent transformation into written accounts. keywords: calls for research, constructivism, latent interests, subjectivity, tacit knowledge introduction while academics and scholars appreciate monetary rewards and other extrinsic motivators as much as anybody else, we perceive ourselves primarily as intrinsically motivated and selfdirected. however, i have found that calls for research can be timely and powerful motivators for awakening self-reflexivity in areas that i was not consciously interested in prior to a call. for example, when i (in addition to presumably lots of others) was emailed a call to explore objects, i honestly thought it was both odd and outside of my areas of interest. however, a few days later as i walked rudy (our family beagle) in our neighbourhood, i was struck by the wealth of what i then saw as data that lay all around me such as abandoned swing sets, benches, and garages. in fact, this current article was also spurred by a call because it awakened my awareness that i had been unconsciously ruminating about the impact that calls can have on both self-reflexivity and my latent interests. (i will return to this example bernauer: how calls for research can awaken self-reflexivity . . . 11 towards the end of the article.) writing and publishing is of central concern to many of us and there are both internal and external incentives to publish. it is my intention in this current inquiry to explore how calls for research can bridge both types of motivation and to suggest ways to enhance their effectiveness. the challenges of publishing and not perishing it will come as no surprise to those of us who work as university faculty to be told that promotion and tenure depend heavily on scholarly productivity. unfortunately, perceived pressure to publish can have unintended consequences including succumbing to invitations to publish in journals of questionable integrity and value such as those identified on cabells’s blacklist. 1 bok (2013) described this dual compelling requirement to improve continually as both teacher and scholar and, while, theoretically, this duality can inform both pedagogical practice and scholarly practice synergistically, theory and practice do not always mesh as well as we would like. in fact, in a yet unpublished study, i found that the challenge of trying to become a better teacher while at the same time trying to become a better scholar can cause both stress and feelings of unfairness especially among faculty who see themselves primarily as teachers but who are evaluated primarily in relation to scholarly publications. wolcott (2009) has pointed out that faculty recognise this pressure to publish especially “recent phds who accept university teaching assignments in professional schools or applied fields only to find—as they suspected all along—that advancement depends on sustained ‘scholarly production’ instead” (p. 3). not only is there a need for faculty to identify appropriate research topics based on their interests and qualifications but there is also the challenge of finding and matching these topics with appropriate journals. even though the digital revolution has now made searching for appropriate literature much easier than in years past, a considerable amount of time and effort must still be expended not only in transforming interests, passions, and ideas into articles but also in finding those journals whose criteria match the product of this complex transformation. time and experience can serve to make this process easier but, based on my own experience and those with whom i work, it is a continual challenge that has impacts on both well-being and growth. i have often thought about and actively try to reconcile and integrate my own teaching with my scholarly production and have found support in the work of palmer and zajonc (2010) that, while not directed exactly at this particular concern, struck me as especially cogent. the institution of higher education is notoriously slow to change. but many individuals within the institution have kept the vision of integrative practice alive in their hearts—using heart in its original sense, not just as the seat of the emotions but as that core place in the human self where all our capacities converge: intellect, senses, emotions, imagination, intuition, will, spirit, and soul. (p. 20) 1 see https://www2.cabells.com/ 12 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 this “vision of integrative practice” seems to speak of an environment in which each of our unique proclivities and potentialities for teaching, learning, and scholarly inquiry are both respected and nurtured. it is in that spirit that i now turn my attention to how calls for research can help faculty to publish while supporting integrative practice. the role of calls in igniting latent interests in the introduction, i suggested that while academics value pay, tenure, and other types of rewards, they are more intrinsically motivated by their own curiosity and desire to inquire and learn. in the unpublished study mentioned above, for which i recently interviewed faculty at my own institution, i found that they (especially new faculty members) expressed varying degrees of agreement and disagreement that teaching and scholarly inquiry are complementary. in fact, some faculty members are intimidated by the challenges they face trying to publish while simultaneously honing their teaching craft. in line with both bok (2013) and wolcott (2009) as well as comments from my colleagues, my awareness of the high value placed on publishing increased as i reflected on my own past anxieties when seeking to be released from probationary status. based on the central roles of subjectivity, self-reflection, tacit knowledge, and constructivism in scholarly inquiry and the challenges faced by faculty, i have found that calls for research can play an important role in creating a spark that can ignite the chain of connections among these elements and thereby tap into latent interests. when we talk about something that is latent, we usually refer to those things that are beneath the surface whether they are emotional, physical, or psychological. in the case of latent research interests, if instead of envisioning ourselves and our lives in terms of verbs rather than nouns— living rather than life; growing rather than achievement; learning rather than knowledge—we recognise that we exist in a dynamic rather than a static milieu. while motion of any kind can sometimes be disquieting, it is the only way that we can get from here to there whether we are talking about physical or non-physical space as well as from our imaginings to published work. however, in order to set in motion the chain reaction that enables us to move on and to grow, especially in relation to our latent interests, we may need an external ignition device. this outside source can be the proverbial kick in the pants or more gentle words of encouragement that most of us have probably experienced at one time or another in our lives. i have been the recipient of calls for research via email during the past few years primarily because of my membership in different organisations and, in some cases, it appears that i am sent calls because of previous publishing experience. while i found some of these calls relevant to my interests, most were not. calls can be located using a google search and doing so might be a good proactive practice to follow; a recent google search revealed calls in education and the social sciences as well as other areas. i also found, however, that an online literature search offered little that was related to calls for research per se. it should also be noted that while calls can be viewed as invitations to publish, i have found no shortcuts bernauer: how calls for research can awaken self-reflexivity . . . 13 regarding the peer review process. as egon guba noted early on in the development of qualitative inquiry related to the trustworthiness of findings, it is important to know about the inquirer’s training and experience in reaching a judgment about the trustworthiness of his or her data. this consideration has been omitted from the present paper since it has been assumed that the refereeing of journal papers will continue to be managed by a ‘blind’ method . . .” (1981, pp. 75–76). thus, because of blind peer review, there is no guarantee that responding to calls for research will result in article acceptance. however, compared to traditional approaches, calls can offer distinct opportunities to authors. in my case, perhaps the best way to illustrate the opportunities offered by calls for research is to describe more fully one of my own recent experiences (introduced at the beginning of this article) that engendered in me a new type of methodological inventiveness. i was made aware of a call in 2018 for the educational research for social change journal whose theme was “not just an object: making meaning of and from everyday objects in educational research for social change.” my initial reaction to this call could be summarised via the private speech i had with myself and so i describe this encounter here. self 1: are these people crazy? they want potential authors to look at objects and somehow write something interesting and even useful by staring at them? has the world gone mad? self 2: i hear you. self 1: i know that anthropologists and quasi-ethnographers like myself may use artifacts to inform a small part of their story based on interviews and observation and that makes perfect sense . . . but ‘objects’ . . . it just seems so weird! self 2: right. this brief conversation in which self 2 acted as nothing more than a yes man took place on the day that i received the call via email. that evening this call kept rolling around in my head. the next morning, as i began to walk rudy, i felt a new kind of awareness of my surroundings that started to creep around within me, and which ignited round two of my private conversation. self 1: the swings in that yard . . . don’t they look as though they have not been used in a very long time? in fact, i have never seen any kids in this yard. hmm . . . i wonder if the parents are just too lazy to take these swings down or if they keep them there as a memory of those sweet days of childhood that will never return. self 2: wait, didn’t you do the same thing when your son got older? didn’t you look out of the window at those broken-down swings and think about that time many years 14 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 ago when you and your wife worked for two days to put those swings up? doesn’t that image seem to have resurfaced right now? self 1: umm . . . well . . . yes, i guess i did . . . and yes, i guess it has. self 2 was now taking a more active and aggressive role in this second conversation that was more akin to the notion of bakhtinian opposition (bakhtin, 1981) compared to the first conversation and, frankly, i was a bit annoyed. however, i was indeed spurred to begin looking more reflectively at objects as rudy joyfully walked ahead exploring these objects with me following along behind him. as rudy carefully examined (principally through smell) the many objects that we came across such as benches, christmas decorations, and even tombstones, i too began to take a deeper interest in these objects (i hope in a more esoteric sense) and both questions and thoughts began to arise in me: “i wonder what kind of conversations have taken place on this old bench over the past 50 years?” and “i’ll bet that old garage holds clues about how life has changed from the 1940s till now.” as turkle (2007) has reflected, we find it familiar to consider objects as useful or aesthetic, as necessities or vain indulgences. we are on less familiar ground when we consider objects as companions to our emotional lives or as provocations to thought. the notion of evocative objects brings together these two less familiar ideas, underscoring the inseparability of thought and feeling in our relationship to things. we think with the objects we love; we love the objects we think with. (p. 5) it was these sentiments that had such a powerful effect on me and i now perceive that the call i received by email was the real igniter of my new awareness of the potential of objects to help illuminate my understanding of both life and the changes that occur as a function of time and experience. the surprising eruption of ideas resultant on this call led ultimately to the publication of an article based on my new appreciation and engagement with objects that i previously saw as simply a part of the landscape but that had now come to represent much more (bernauer, 2019). this experience also led me to appreciate the admonition of saldana and omasta (2018) that data analysis should be emphasised “throughout the research endeavor rather than toward the latter stages of it” (p. xxiii). as i walked around the neighbourhood with rudy during the fall and winter months, i now recognise that i began to analyse and interpret data that surrounded me almost concurrently with my observation of objects through an almost magical combination of self-reflection and tacit understanding. later and more formal analysis and interpretation of data incorporated and built upon these initial analyses. i also now recognise fully that without this call for research, i would never have connected my life experiences and methodological proclivities to objects and the new insights that objects afforded me. bernauer: how calls for research can awaken self-reflexivity . . . 15 why subjectivity and self-reflexivity are important in scholarly inquiry my experience with the call for research just described furthered my understanding of why subjectivity and self-reflexivity are integral components in scholarly inquiry whether under the naturalistic/qualitative or rationalistic/quantitative paradigm. the criterion of objectivity has long been revered in research in education and the social sciences. lagemann (2000) has described why and how objectivity and other aspects of scientific inquiry have come to have such a strong influence on education research and why generations of students have been trained to view any signs of subjectivity as red flags that may compromise the rigor of a study (jansen & peshkin, 1992). even though we are into the third decade of the 21st century and believe that the “paradigm wars” of the title of gage’s (1989) article have ended, i work regularly with doctoral students who think that they must avoid any hint of subjectivity in their dissertations less their committee (or at least a member of it) will see this as an indicator of inferior quality. however, some argue that the presence of subjectivity in research is not only quite apparent but needs to be integrated into the very fabric of our writing. as peshkin (1988) has so aptly put it, it is no more useful for researchers to acknowledge simply that subjectivity is an invariable component of their research than it is for them to assert that their ideal is objectivity . . . researchers should systematically seek out their subjectivity, not retrospectively when the data have been collected and the analysis is complete, but while their research is in progress. (p. 17) i do not want to imply that objectivity should be ignored or demeaned. rather, as phillips (1990) concluded, after first critically evaluating the work of those who promote subjectivity, “it turns out, then, that what is crucial for the objectivity of any inquiry—whether it is qualitative or quantitative—is the critical spirit in which it has been carried out” (p. 35). it is also important to note that phillips does not equate “critical spirit” with mean spirited although it is sometimes challenging to discern this distinction among some reviewers who have been entrusted with evaluating academic work in a forthright yet caring way but instead seem to view themselves primarily as bastions of academic rigour. (i describe an example of an enlightened process of article review practiced by the qualitative report at the end of this article.) intimately connected to subjectivity is the concept of self-reflexivity that not only accepts subjectivity as an integral part of research but embraces it as part and parcel of how we as human beings actually go about learning and living. schwandt (2001) defined reflexivity as “the process of critical self-reflection on one’s biases, theoretical predispositions, and preferences” (p. 224). and, because it is a “process” there is a necessary time and experience dimension required in order to learn how to embrace our reflexivity. for example, manfra (2019) has described teachers going about seeking to change their instructional practices using action research, so that “as they engage in systematic reflection, teacher action researchers improve their pck [pedagogical content knowledge] as they reflect on practice, 16 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 modifying and ‘fine tuning’ the knowledge base” (p. 166). these reflections require that we step back and allow ourselves the luxury of finding our own ways of understanding and making sense of things. martin (2010) described the development of self-reflexivity delightfully through the notion of “learning by wandering” in the title of her article as part of an old irish tradition that illustrates why we need to embrace this kind of practice while not forsaking a simultaneous appreciation of objectivity in a digital world. while subjectivity and self-reflexivity are important for changing practice, it is just as important for scholarly inquiry. after i had traversed careers from academe to corporate and back to academe and from quantitative to qualitative researcher, i felt the need to reflect on this journey which resulted in an article in which i explored these transitions and, as indicated in the title, my new “methodological identity” (bernauer, 2012). this article seemed to flow out of my very being although it is only now as i am writing and reflecting on these prior reflections that i realise that this article was a watershed of sorts for me. having been trained as a quantitative researcher, the use of reflection and of the pronoun “i” rather than “the researcher” was indeed a turning point in my methodological awareness. i was not fully aware at the time of this epiphany of the three competing assumptions underlying the socalled rationalistic and naturalistic mindsets as described by guba (1981) that can be thought of as preceding, concurrent with, and following the implementation of an inquiry. these assumptions are respectively: the nature of reality where the rationalistic paradigm sees reality as amenable to partitioning into variables whereas the naturalistic paradigm sees reality as more of an integrated whole; the nature of the relationship between inquirer and participant where the rationalistic paradigm requires distance in order to not contaminate data whereas the naturalistic paradigm accepts and takes account of inquirer-participant interaction; and the nature of what is called truth where the rationalistic paradigm focuses on nomothetic knowledge and generalisability while the naturalistic paradigm focuses on idiographic knowledge and the context surrounding participants and settings and where context-free generalisability is seen as neither possible nor desirable. (see guba, 1981). in fact, it would not be too far a stretch to conceive of generalisability as more of an illusion than a reality (see lincoln and guba, 1985). after reflecting on these assumptions, it became clear to me that the emergence and appreciation of my newly-acquired sensibilities offered new and exciting ways to inquire about phenomena that were of deep interest to me, including learning, teaching, and discovery that simply eluded me prior to writing this article. if writing is another way of thinking, it also enables us to bridge the gap between thinking and feeling which can be quite an experience! as noted above, phillips (1990), who made a strong case for recognising the crucial role of objectivity in research and criticising the position of those who champion subjectivity, came to define objectivity in terms of a “critical spirit” (p. 35) that applies equally to both qualitative and quantitative inquiry. while this conclusion offers a welcome rapprochement, i think it is still challenging for those who embrace concepts and experiences including intuition, insights, and gut feelings as legitimate types of knowledge as polanyi (1958) has reminded us, to be able to define, think about, and communicate these experiences with a critical spirit. rather, it seems (at least to me) that each of us comes to simply appreciate bernauer: how calls for research can awaken self-reflexivity . . . 17 those feelings and insights that we experience with subjective wonderment. perhaps trying to objectify the subjective is like asking children to critically consider the existence of santa claus which just ends up ruining both the joy of childhood while it is being lived as well as those memories of childhood that we cherish in later years and that often translate into actions that serve to make our existence and those around us more joyous. of course, joy is also one of those feelings and emotions that is difficult to explore with a critical spirit; it must simply be experienced to be appreciated and understood. i certainly found that to be the case as i explored objects in the company of rudy the beagle. tacit knowledge and constructivism another reason why subjectivity and self-reflection are integral to academic writing in education and the social sciences is that an honest appraisal of how we live and learn will readily reveal our use of both tacit and propositional knowledge (guba, 1981; polanyi, 1958). while propositional knowledge can be communicated in a linear manner through speech or writing, tacit knowledge is more like an inward sense that can manifest itself in feelings, hunches, gut feelings, and premonitions. when we consider that our emotional, moral, physical, and social selves are often guided by tacit knowledge that reflects our upbringing, life experiences, beliefs, and values in concert with cognitive capacities, we are again confronted by the fact that our lives are neither orderly nor linear; in fact, they are often quite the opposite. if that is the case, should not education and research into education also reflect this reality? unfortunately, what we think of as scientifically based research is still touted as the gold standard in education research (see no child left behind act (2002) in which the very term scientifically based research appears 110 times as woolfolk (2014) has pointed out. as i found while exploring and reflecting on the objects in my neighbourhood, i began to recognise that opportunities for learning surround us and that schooling should try to capitalise on these opportunities. just as we need to fuse objectivity and subjectivity when we are conducting scholarly inquiry, there is a similar need to fuse the concepts of propositional and tacit knowledge. one theory that seeks to do just that is constructivist learning theory that is typically described as having an individual and sociocultural strand. while many have contributed to the development of the individual strand of constructivist theory (including jerome bruner, john dewey, jean piaget, and lev vygotsky) this strand essentially conveys the message that until we come to construct our own versions of facts, ideas, and concepts we cannot fully understand them or move beyond existing knowledge in order to contribute our own unique interpretations and perspectives and thus achieve the oft-cited goal of adding to the knowledge base. piaget and vygotsky are perhaps the two pillars of this theory and while piaget (1954, 1985) examined how individuals go about making sense of their environments through the lens of developmental stage theory, vygotsky (1978, 1986) focused more on a sociocultural perspective. for him, “every function in a child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level and later on the individual level; first between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological)” (1978, p. 57). 18 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 in addition to this individual or personal strand of constructivism, there is also a sociocultural strand that promotes a similar transformation of existing knowledge into new versions through collaboration and other types of interactions that build on the work of vygotsky (gergen, 1997; phillips, 1997). this ability to go beyond existing knowledge under both the individual and social strands of constructivism is intimately connected to subjectivity, reflexivity, and propositional and tacit knowledge although a satisfactory explanatory model of these connections has yet to be developed among and between the cognitive, noncognitive, and emotional dimensions of human learning. the essential point, however, is that when we think about the process of scholarly inquiry beginning with conceptualising and then moving on to design, implementation, and thence to the final step of writing up findings and implications, it seems foolhardy to view this process without genuine wonder and the realisation that we probably cannot fully understand how we got from there to here. it is no wonder then that replication criteria like generalisability may also be more illusion than reality. the call for research described earlier and my subsequent investigation of objects based on this call resulted in my fusing the concepts of constructivist learning theory and tacit knowledge and thus helped me to grow in the understanding of how we learn and how we might be able to reconceptualise schooling. making calls more effective if we accept the premise that research is not complete until it is written up and disseminated, it follows that there needs to be a publication outlet that determines upon examination that the written report is of potential interest to its readers. while peer-review and editorial oversight would seem to satisfy this criterion, what is missing is how the actual production of scholarly work and its publication can be facilitated. in other words, what might we do to help both stimulate scholarly inquiry and support its dissemination? my argument in this article has been that calls for research can fulfil this role. however, if this is indeed the case, what can we do to make these calls more effective? my purpose here is to inquire to what degree calls for research can serve as powerful ways of tapping into the research interests of authors, whether these interests are amenable to qualitative or qualitative inquiry, and whether they awaken latent interests as with the “not just an object” call. i would be remiss if i did not reiterate that i had an awakening that resulted from the call and that this led to writing the article that you are now reading and whose theme is the exploration of possibilities through methodological inventiveness in selfreflexive educational research. this call could not have come at a better time since i suppose i had become sensitised to the potential of calls after my experience with “not just an object.” when eisner (1998) wrote about the “enlightened eye,” he introduced this metaphoric title by saying that it “is intimately related to my life as a painter, and my life as a painter is intimately related to the ways in which i think about inquiry” (p. 1). while i have never been a painter, i, too, have thought imaginatively that painting can convey what we might think of as data in a way that graciously invites both analysis and interpretation and that cannot easily be conveyed using language forms except perhaps by great actors, musicians, novelists, playwrights, or, in the case of quantitative data, mathematicians and bernauer: how calls for research can awaken self-reflexivity . . . 19 physicists who create elegant equations to represent complex variables. however, what is common to all these crafts can be likened to a fallow field that has already been tilled and fertilised through self-reflection and thus is quite susceptible to the slightest effort that might result in a creative endeavour. such was the case with this current call because having been just recently sensitised to the power of calls, it just seemed to me that it was important to share this awakening with others. in addition to providing a necessary spark that can ignite latent interests, calls also help authors to circumvent the time-consuming and often disappointing experience of submitting an article to a journal whose website may seem to invite topics of various kinds, but that might not be accepting some during a particular period of time. having an article rejected because of its being out of phase with a journal only compounds the emotional turmoil of being told in a kind way or sometimes in a not-so-kind way that your work is inadequate (brookfield, 2011). just as important, calls provide timeframes for both the submission of abstracts and proposals as well as the completed article that can help authors allocate their time and efforts more productively and, therefore, further facilitate the creative effort. getting the message out to those scholars and researchers who are most likely to be interested in a particular call for research would seem to be the first order of business. this appears to be a marketing issue since prospective customers are identified and matched based on demographics and past proclivities, which is, frankly, becoming a bit scary in today’s competitive and technologically savvy environment. however, as described earlier, if this fine-grained matching process had been used for the call regarding “objects,” i doubt that i would ever have been identified as a potential contributor since i had never previously exhibited any interest in this topic. the reason that i was not filtered out of the call was that a third party (in this case the qualitative special interest group (sig) of the american educational research association served as an additional disseminator and, because i am a member of this sig, i was a recipient of the call. looking back, i am so gratified that i did receive this call because it was only after a creative urge had been tickled that juices began to flow and my latent interest in objects began to emerge. in addition to professional organisations and sigs, another potentially powerful way to disseminate calls is through our highly trained librarians at university libraries. these professionals are in a unique position to evaluate calls and the journals and publishers who initiate them and to disseminate these calls to faculty based on their academic areas as well as the personal knowledge of faculty members whom they have come to know as members of the university milieu. because university librarians are aware of the breadth of scholarly inquiry and knowledgeable about the technological innovations that connect scholarly inquiry to publishing outlets, they are in a unique position to serve as powerful conduits for connecting scholarly interests to potential publishing opportunities. because of this role, university librarians can also help alleviate the anxieties caused by what has become known as the publish or perish syndrome as well as promote the academic reputation of their institutions making this a win-win situation. as part of the local academic community, librarians are more aware of both departmental and individual interests and strengths and one 20 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 can envision many ways in which the university library could serve as a clearinghouse for matching and disseminating calls to both departments and even specific individuals including newer faculty who would be most grateful to hear about calls that may just be the spark they have been waiting for. while organisations such as aera and the extension of the role of university librarians may help to disseminate calls to a wider audience, these changes do not address tapping into the potential of individuals to create their own call for research whether for a book, book chapter, or themed journal. while some journals and publishers including the qualitative report and the publishing house sage offer these kind of opportunities, it might be helpful if, as part of their website, publishing outlets prominently display a suggestion box feature that invites scholars to present their ideas for calls perhaps through an abstract, proposal, or some other type of standardised format so that suggestions can be evaluated in a timely manner. while conference presentations are usually well-publicised to members of a particular organisation and usually provide wide latitude in relation to an announced theme, here, too, suggestion boxes that give members an opportunity to offer ideas related to conference themes may promote greater member engagement that results, in turn, in a greater number of creative presentations. because technology is an area in which i claim little expertise, i hesitate to venture into this realm. however, i do think that some type of electronic call clearinghouse might enable us to expand our reach to potential contributors across academic disciplines. in fact, clearinghouses might also promote cross-disciplinary collaborations that may result in viewing phenomena from different angles that may then facilitate not only new perspectives and solutions for existing problems but also identify new problems and areas of research that may not have been considered previously. clearinghouses could incorporate both responding to calls as well as suggesting new calls and while a google search can help locate calls, it simply does not offer the kind of support i envision here. again, while the development of such clearinghouses is beyond my expertise, i am sure that given the opportunity, there are literally thousands of individuals who could design and implement quite marvellous and creative technological sites with features not yet thought about in order to spur scholarly creativity. although not restricted to calls per se, another feature of an exemplary call system would be the ways in which proposals, abstracts, and suggestions are evaluated. while peer review in conjunction with editorial overview is probably the best way available for making decisions regarding acceptance, revision, and rejection, it would seem wise to have to undergo some kind of certification process as a prelude to becoming a reviewer. what might be envisioned is something like certification training to meet the requirements of institutional review board compliance. at many universities, including my own, students and faculty must pass assigned online modules from a recognised body such as the collaborative institutional training initiative before they can begin to collect data. why not develop some type of online certification process for reviewers in which modules are developed in line with the specific assumptions and practices of quantitative and qualitative inquiry? if reviewers and researchers share a common base of agreed-upon criteria of what constitutes quality research bernauer: how calls for research can awaken self-reflexivity . . . 21 including research significance, design, analysis, validity, and ethics, it could facilitate scholarship in a more transparent manner. it is critically important to note that i am not suggesting a system whose goal is to homogenise reviewers to the detriment of the unique perspectives that each reviewer has to offer but, rather, i am suggesting a common foundation upon which to build this uniqueness. authors might also benefit if journals considered implementing a practice that is used by the qualitative report. if a submitted article is judged by reviewers as having potential significance but needing additional work, it is placed in a manuscript development program and authors receive a letter something like the following. congratulations, your paper, [title of article] has been accepted into the qualitative report's manuscript development program (mdp). your acceptance into this program means that the editorial team members assigned to your paper have dedicated themselves to work with you to revise your manuscript until it is ready for publication in the qualitative report (tqr). as a result, when you complete the mdp successfully, your completed paper will be published in tqr. this kind of welcoming approach serves to encourage and inspire authors to work collaboratively with the editorial team to identify those areas of the manuscript where improvements can be made in light of reviewer comments. by incorporating a similar protocol into calls for research in addition to other ideas, some of which have been suggested here, it may further serve to expand and enrich reflexivity, latent interests, as well as methodological inventiveness in scholarly inquiry. references bakhtin, m. m. 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(2014). educational psychology (12th ed.). boston, ma: pearson. microsoft word cissue79 full 15june.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 79, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i79a05 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x considering curriculum change: the case for portuguese as an additional language in south african higher education anita de melo university of cape town, school of languages & literatures cape town, south africa anita.pereirademelo@uct.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8381-1575 ludmylla mendes lima unilab universidade da integração internacional da lusofonia afro-brasileira, ihl são francisco do conde, brazil ludmyllalima@unilab.edu.br https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3329-4677 (received: 23 july 2019; accepted: 14 april 2020) abstract in this paper, we reflect on current discussions regarding curriculum change in south african higher education, focusing on the specific field of teaching and learning portuguese as an additional language (pal) in the country. given the reality of south african multilingualism, we consider the possibility of a translanguaging pedagogy in the field of pal. we argue that greater awareness of the full potential of multilingualism is advantageous for a more reciprocal teaching and learning process in relation to pal. we argue that materials for upper level courses in portuguese culture and literature in south africa would provide postcolonial approaches and interpretations that could lead to a pedagogy of translanguaging. as an illustration, we analyse the poetry of mozambican poet noémia de sousa since her ouevre reflects on colonisation, racism, slavery, black diaspora consciousness, and migration in southern africa from a woman’s perspective. additionally, her use of the portuguese language provides opportunities for languages (including local) to co-exist. keywords: curriculum change, noémia de sousa, portuguese as an additional language, south african multilingualism, postcolonialism, translanguaging pedagogy introduction in 2015, students from the university of cape town started the rhodesmustfall protest movement. this campaign demanded the removal of the statue of british colonialist cecil 66 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 john rhodes from the campus. a month after the protest began, the statue was removed. the rhodesmustfall movement encouraged other protests which spread across the country and that evolved into demands for a thorough renovation of higher education, with a particular focus on decolonising the curriculum (bosch, 2016). in the last years we have seen an increasing number of lecturers and authors of articles and books reflect on how to respond adequately to these calls for the decolonisation of education in south african higher education (cordeiro-rodrigues, 2017; leibowitz & bozalek, 2015; luckett, 2016; mampane, omidire & aluko, 2018; voster & quinn, 2017; zembylas, 2018). the university of cape town (uct) launched its curriculum change framework (2018), which was the result of 18 months’ worth of work carried out by a group of academics, staff, and students who participated in discussions on what it would mean to decolonise higher education curricula. the uct curriculum change framework (2018) directed attention to the fact that academics “in every discipline or profession in particular have a responsibility to share with society whatever interpretation they make of these terms [colonisation and decoloniality]” (p. 19). consequently, in this paper we join the ongoing debate by considering curriculum change in the specific field of teaching and learning portuguese as an additional language (pal) in the south african higher education institutions. information on decolonial curriculum practices in the field of teaching pal worldwide and in south africa is scarce, but new research about decolonising the teaching of foreign languages is taking place.1 apart from the lack of support in the form of research, this initial discussion encounters the challenge of thinking about and working towards such curriculum change as the introduction of pal in the unique south african multilinguistic context. we believe strongly that any discussions of, and plans to implement, curriculum change in the field of pal in south africa must first take into consideration the country’s multilingualism. prior to engaging in a discussion on curriculum change in the teaching of portuguese in south african higher education, it is important to note that we empathise with students’ frustration with “the lack of engagement with african languages on campus” (the uct curriculum change framework, 2018, p. 30). we are aware that a paper on teaching yet another european (in origin) language might convey, however erroneously, a colonial attitude. portuguese is a colonial language and in some parts of africa many children are forced into being educated in this language instead of in their indigenous african languages. indeed, we believe strongly that there is room for pal educators in south africa to address critically this fundamental injustice. as macedo (2019) has pointed out, foreign language teachers should become “agents of history” by “engaging in critical reflection followed by knowledgeable action” (p. 34). as pal investigators and educators, not only must we be aware of linguistic imperialism in africa, but we must also facilitate a critical scrutiny of it. in this paper we in no way place higher importance on the teaching of colonial languages over the teaching of indigenous african languages. we believe that decolonial practices of teaching and learning pal in the republic of south africa have the potential to contribute to the discussion related 1 a new book, decolonizing foreign language education: the misteaching of english and other colonial languages, edited by donaldo macedo (2019), is a promising endeavour for the calls of decolonisation in the specific field of teaching and learning foreign languages. de melo & lima: considering curriculum change: 67 to the importance of sustaining indigenous african languages. later in this paper we suggest that critical practices of translanguaging in pal in south africa can be an effective tool with which to reflect on current language demands and policies. the term translanguaging was first coined by cen williams in 1994, but since then it has evolved significantly as naldic (2016) has pointed out. translanguaging refers to practices of language teaching in multilingual spaces. it has also been used as a pedagogic approach for educators who teach foreign languages, in which the use of more than one language in the classroom is allowed. garcía (2017) offered a definition of translingualism that refers to “the use of the children’s full linguistic repertoire to make meaning without thinking of the fact that they have one language that is different from the other.” as a pedagogy, it is a “way of using all linguistic resources in order to make meaning” (00:15– 1:19). furthermore, as questions of identity, power, and communication in multilingual individuals begin to emerge, translanguaging recognises these “multiple identities and languages” through “creating a space where values, culture, language and history can be expressed” (kasula, 2016, p. 111). while we recognise the struggle from translanguaging theory to practice in pal, and that translanguaging is rather a new term in the field of linguistics, we believe that in south africa a pedagogy of translanguaging in the field of pal is an approach that could meet some of the demands to decolonise higher education in the country. a pedagogy of translanguaging in pal can survey these “hybrid spaces of language” while avoiding language ideologies. (pennycook, 2006, p. 114). hence, we suggest that in a pedagogy of translanguaging, materials for upper level courses in pal in south africa would provide postcolonial approaches and allow students to access their multilinguistic backgrounds in order to make meaning and to express themselves. we suggest, too, that such expression could include any creative form of art. in the next section we review the status of portuguese worldwide as a first language, as a second one, and as an additional language, and focus on the african continent and in particular on south africa. then we review south africa’s policy regarding the promotion of local languages and teaching foreign and/or additional languages. we assess south african multilingualism and the prospect of creating translanguaging practices in the field of pal. finally, and as part of a suggestion for upper course materials in pal, we present an analysis of the poetry of noémia de sousa with which we have been working with our south african students. the status of portuguese worldwide a number of foreign languages are currently being taught in south african higher education institutions. portuguese, as the third most spoken language after english and french on the african continent that is originally non-african with its origins in a european country, is one of them. portuguese is the official language of five african countries, namely angola, 68 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 mozambique, guinea-bissau, são tomé e príncipe, and cape verde.2 since the1980s when portuguese became the official language of several african nations, it has been promoted as an african language, with most of its african-born speakers living in southern africa resident in mozambique and angola. the community of portuguese language countries is often referred to as lusophone, with portugal, brazil,3 east timor and the five african countries listed above making up this community. portuguese, along with english, not only has the status of an official language in the southern africa region, but is also a language of the african union (ua) and the southern african development community (sadc). in 1996, the socio-cultural and economic links between the portuguese-speaking countries were made official through the creation of the comunidade dos países de língua portuguesa (cplp). in africa, where lusophone countries gained their independence from portugal as recently as the 1970s, postcolonial discussions and portuguese language planning contributed to the creation of a particular community, the países africanos de língua oficial portuguesa (palop).4 in addition, portuguese has a noticeable presence in the linguistic landscape of south africa where many migrants (african, lusophone, and portuguese) speak it as either a mother tongue or a heritage language. the exact number of portuguese migrants living in south africa is disputable but is believed to be more than two hundred thousand (lelyveld, 1981). mozambican migrants outnumber the portuguese in south africa with a population of more than four hundred thousand (factsheet, 2016). consequently, transnational and transcultural trends coming from the portuguese-speaking country of mozambique are linked to migrations to the republic of south africa. furthermore, the portuguese language has gained a central role in south africa because of the political and economic ties between the republic and brazil, the largest portuguese-speaking country. both south africa and brazil are members of the emerging economies known as brics; the acronym refers to brazil, russia, india, china, and south africa. as a result of globalisation, portuguese has become one of the major languages of the world, one of the most spoken languages in the southern hemisphere and estimated to become the major language of the global south by 2050 (university of coimbra, 2019). the undeniable fact that portuguese is an international central language, and, as mentioned above, the third most spoken language in africa, ensures its dominant position not only in the language market, but also in the cultural and literary landscapes of the world. in being interdisciplinary cores, the linguistic, the literary, and the cultural offer several perspectives to teaching and learning portuguese. 2 the dissemination of portuguese by the colonial power of portugal also contributed to the formation of many creole languages. in some african nations, namely cape verde, guine-bissau, and são tomé and príncipe these creole languages now exist alongside portuguese and some indigenous african languages (vilela 2002). it is outside the scope of this paper to discuss the status of portuguese and portuguese-based creole languages in africa. however, we believe that this is an important discussion for decolonial studies in lusophone africa. 3 it is relevant to point out that brazil is the country with the largest black diaspora in the world. the vast majority of black brazilians speak portuguese. 4 it is outside the scope of this paper to discuss the status and reconfiguration of the portuguese language in the palops. yet, and as in other african nations, the discussions regarding language planning and what constitutes a mother tongue within the palops is complex. for further reading on this topic, please refer to vilela, 2002. de melo & lima: considering curriculum change: 69 pal in the south african multilinguistic context: possibilities of developing a pedagogy of translanguaging practices currently, portuguese is taught in five south african universities at the undergraduate level —the university of cape town, the university of mpumalanga, the university of pretoria, unisa, and the university of the witwatersrand. at the time of writing, graduate studies at the ma and phd level in portuguese are still not offered across the country; currently, the university of the witwatersrand and the university of cape town offer honours programmes in portuguese. undergraduate pal courses that are offered in south african higher education institutions focus on language teaching at the lower levels of study, and at the upper levels—usually in the last year of study— the focus is on reading and writing about cultural and literary materials from the lusophone world. the south african language policy for higher education, first published in 1997, and amended in 2002 and again in 2017, claims to foster multilingualism in higher education in order to, as pointed out by madiba (2010), “meet the goals of equity and transformation. with respect to equity, multilingualism is considered in this policy to be pivotal to promoting equality access and improved academic success of all students” (p. 327). the language policy for higher education does not claim to promote specifically the teaching and learning of foreign languages; its appeal is that indigenous languages also become languages of instruction in south african universities. although this ideal is yet to be realised, the teaching and learning of foreign additional languages enables students to gain a more profound understanding of their own cultures. the south african language policy for higher education (2017) urges “institutions to include in their policies and strategies programmes that encourage the study of foreign languages, in particular those languages that are important for the promotion of the country’s culture, trade and diplomatic relations” (p. 17). the teaching and learning of a foreign language offers students and teachers several opportunities to explore multilingualism. moreover, studies demonstrate that multilinguistic ability adds a vital component to successfully learning another language. for instance, haukas (2015) has pointed out that “multilinguals demonstrate superior metalinguistic and metacognitive abilities, such as the ability to draw comparisons between different languages and to reflect on and employ appropriate learning strategies” (p. 1). hence, one of the roles of pal educators in south africa must be to help students realise that their multilinguistic backgrounds are beneficial in learning portuguese or any other foreign language. in a broader sense, allowing and exploring multilingualism in the pal classroom space can help students think critically about language structures in general and, therefore, become agents of the learning process. however, inviting the use of indigenous languages into the classroom and as part of the learning process might also result in feelings of vulnerability for educators who lack knowledge of such languages; this would include the vast majority of educators at the moment. another barrier to the use of african languages in foreign language classrooms is that, traditionally, languages are approached as separate 70 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 entities since it is feared that there might be so-called contamination from the home language that could interfere with the learning of the target language. however, recent research has shown that the practices of translanguaging result in successful learning across the globe as garcía (2009) has noted. makalela (2015) has warned that these studies are usually carried out in bilingual classrooms, but he also reported that some studies that take national languages in south africa into consideration show positive outcomes from the use of translanguaging among and with indigenous languages. still, translanguaging practices offer very limited options for pal classrooms because at the moment, as already mentioned, pal educators, the majority of whom in south africa are foreigners, lack knowledge of african indigenous languages. in the near future when postgraduate studies in portuguese are implemented in south africa, native south africans will likely be trained to become pal educators and when that occurs, we envision translanguaging as a major tool in teaching portuguese. but we also believe that even in the current context, it is possible to use some translanguaging practices in the teaching and learning of pal in south africa. for example, when south african students of pal are learning a new grammar concept or new vocabulary, they may be asked to access their knowledge of both english and their home languages in order to help with the learning process. some of our afrikaans speaking south african pal students, have reported that one of the first words they learn in portuguese, biblioteca (library), is a cognate word of biblioteek in afrikaans. they have explained that this feeling of familiarity helps to lower their anxiety levels. another example is that modern portuguese has subject/verb/object sentence word order, but it allows many variations of this for stylistic and literary purposes as well as for emphasis. modern english has the same word order but observes it more rigidly. isi-xhosa, however, is like portuguese in this respect. so, isi-xhosaspeaking pal students should be encouraged to access their home language in order to make meaning when they are presented with portuguese sentence word order. most importantly, in order to foster a translanguaging environment, it is necessary that pal educators position themselves as co-learners, instead of perpetuating the traditional teacherstudent hierarchy, in which knowledges and epistemologies are often passed vertically from instructors and print material to students. pal educators must value students’ backgrounds and welcome them into the learning process. for example, if a challenging portuguese language structure is presented, pal instructors tend to contrast english structures with the portuguese, obviously because english is probably the only other language of which both instructor and students have knowledge. although this is a valid strategy, there are certainly other possibilities, one of which is allowing students to think critically about this challenging structure by assessing their own native languages and any other language they might know. as already stated, multilingualism must be recognised as an essential aspect of learning a foreign language, and in order to validate multilingualism, practices of translanguaging must have a place in the teaching of pal. unfortunately, in the specific case of teaching pal in south africa, studies in this field to date are non-existent; we believe that future research about curriculum change in pal must take into consideration translanguaging practices for de melo & lima: considering curriculum change: 71 beneficial pedagogies. the uct curriculum change framework calls attention to the relevance of practices such as translanguaging for decolonial pedagogies: translanguaging in whatever form inside and outside the academy must be encouraged. learning through languages, however, must not be reduced only to decoding english concepts, but must also mean dedicated effort to develop african languages as part of knowledge production. (2018, p. 60) a pedagogy of translanguaging does not necessarily require from pal instructors full proficiency in local languages, but requires, rather, an awareness and consciousness of multilingualism and of linguistic and cultural interdependence. hurst and mona have investigated translanguaging pedagogies in south africa and have proposed that “multilingual pedagogies are a necessary response to the current crisis in south african higher education” (2017, p. 126). they cite the elucidation that makelela provided on translingualism that using a large linguistic repertoire at the students’ disposal is important for identity formation, that is, the choice on who one is and who one becomes. instead of separating the self and the other, translanguaging gives room for both and legitimises their interrelationship to advancing acquisition of new knowledge (cited in hurst & mona, 2017, p. 132). hurst and mona also pointed out that translanguaging must be a “decolonial move” in the current south african higher education landscape (2017, p. 132). in accordance with this idea, we suggest, in the next section, that materials for pal upper level courses be selected in order to encourage a pedagogy of translanguaging that supports the current demand for decolonisation of higher education in south africa. as an illustration of such an approach, we analyse the poetry of mozambican poet, noémia de sousa. material for portuguese upper level courses in south africa: noémia de sousa’s poetry as mentioned previously, pal upper level courses in south africa depart from teaching language structure to focus on the literatures and cultures of the portuguese-speaking world. critical curriculum change must demand that materials for pal upper level courses offer opportunities to (re)think colonialism and the problems and consequences of decolonisation. texts including films, music, and other artistic productions from portuguese-speaking africa usually include strong questions about the different colonialist powers on the continent. in addition, many african portuguese-speaking authors have incorporated vocabulary from african languages into their writings and this creates an opportunity to invite translanguaging practices into the classroom. while watching a mozambican film based on a novel in one of our classes, a venda-speaking student recognised many words uttered by a character who speaks shangani. the venda language shares many similarities with shangani, a language spoken in mozambique that also uses many examples of portuguese vocabulary in its dialect. 72 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 this student reported being profoundly impacted by this use of multi languages in mozambique, which, although similar to south africa, is unique in the portuguese-speaking world in africa. noémia de sousa’s oeuvre denounces portuguese colonialism in africa from a unique position at the time during which she was living. she is the only female poet who, while living under colonial power, had her poems read and shared across lusophone africa, especially among fighters for independence in angola and mozambique. and although de sousa composed most of her poems in the late 1940s to mid-1950s, they were compiled and published in print only in 2001 as sangue negro. since this post-wwii period coincided with mozambique’s struggles for independence from portugal, which was under the dictatorship government of salazar, de sousa’s poems were often mimeographed and distributed among political fighters both in mozambique and angola (de melo, 2012). at the time, de sousa also joined the political struggles of her country by writing for several mozambican papers and literary magazines, such as o brado africano and itinerário. in addition to her political engagement, she is referred to as the first female writer of mozambique and is known as the mother of mozambican poetry. “de souza’s work is imperative to the understanding of colonialism through the female perspective” (de melo, 2012, p. 66). essentially, her poetry denounces colonialism, racism, and slavery; in her work these injustices also coexist and are amplified by the fact that she is a woman. also, de sousa established transatlantic dialogues with the black diaspora consciousness. her poem “a billie holiday, cantora” embodies the meaning of sisterhood. era de noite e no quarto aprisionado em escuridão apenas o luar entrara, sorrateiramente, e fora derramar-se no chão. solidão. solidão. solidão e então, tua voz minha irmã americana, veio do ar, do nada, nascida da própria escuridão . . . estranha, profunda, quente, vazada em solidão. e começa assim a canção: ‘into each heart some rain must fall . . .’ começava assim/ e era só melancolia/ do princípio ao fim, como se teus dias fossem sem sol/ e a tua alma aí, sem alegria . . . tua voz irmã, no seu trágico sentimentalismo, descendo e subindo, chorando para logo, ainda trémula, começar rindo, cantando no teu arrastado inglês crioulo esses singulares ‘blues’, dum fatalismo rácio que faz doer tua voz, não sei por que estranha magia, arrastou para longe a minha solidão . . . no quarto às escuras, eu já não estava só! de melo & lima: considering curriculum change: 73 com a tua voz, irmã americana, veio todo o meu povo escravizado sem dó por esse mundo fora, vivendo no medo, no receio de tudo e de todos . . . o meu povo ajudando a erguer impérios a ser excluído na vitória . . . a viver, segregado, uma vida inglória, de proscrito, de criminoso . . . o meu povo transportando para a música, para a poesia, os seus complexos, a sua tristeza inata, a sua insatisfação . . . billie holiday, minha irmã americana, continua cantando sempre, no teu jeito magoado os ‘blues’eternos do nosso povo desgraçado . . . continua cantando, cantando, sempre cantando, até que a humanidade egoísta ouça em ti a nossa voz, e se volte enfim para nós,/ mas com olhos de fraternidade e compreensão! (de sousa, 2011, p. 134) it was a night and in the room imprisoned in darkness no sooner had the moonlight entered, surreptitiously, and was diffused upon the floor. solitude. solitude. solitude. and then, your voice, my american sister, came from the air, from nothing, born from the darkness itself . . . strange, profound, sultry, oozing with solitude . . . and the song began this way: “into each heart some rain must fall . . .” thus it began and it was pure melancholy from beginning to end, as though your days were without sun and your soul there, without joy . . . your voice, sister, in its tragic sentimentalism, descending and rising, crying then quickly, still trembling, beginning to laugh, singing in your drawled english creole those singular ‘blues,’ of a race’s fatalism and brings pain your voice, i don’t know by what strange magic, chased away my solitude far from me . . . in the darkened room, i was no longer alone! with your voice, american sister, came 74 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 my entire people enslaved without pity throughout the world, living in fear, in distrust of everything and everyone . . . my people helping to build empires and being excluded from victory . . . to live segregated, an inglorious life, of proscription, of crime . . . my people transposing to music, to poetry their complexes, their innate sorrow, their dissatisfaction . . . billie holiday, my american sister, continue singing always, in your sorrowful style the eternal “blues” of our wretched people . . . continue singing, singing, always singing, until an egotistical humanity hears in your voice, and turns at last towards us, but with fraternal and understanding eyes! (williams, trans., 2006, p. 175) billie holliday is the black female voice of the diaspora that comforts, however melancholically, the poet. de sousa identifies herself with the singer to whom she refers as “my american sister,” and holiday’s voice is a consolation to the poet’s isolated state, in that she “chased away my solitude far from me.” de sousa feels a powerful bond of sisterhood with holiday that is documented through communal creative fecundity; it is expressed in music and poetry, and it can affect and engage others as we see in “my people transposing to music, to poetry/ their complexes, their innate sorrow, their dissatisfaction . . .” as the poem develops, the phrase “my people” becomes “our people”, gradually encompassing all humankind, and hoping for the end of injustices, as expressed in the lines “continue singing, singing, always singing,/ until an egotistical humanity hears in your voice,/ and turns at last towards us,/ but with fraternal and understanding eyes!” (p. 175). besides raising ethical questions, de sousa’s poetry triggers vivid mental images thus bestowing unique aesthetic appeal. as de melo (2012) has pointed out, billie holiday’s song [m]aximized the echo of africans’ clamour that was also shouted from the new world through jazz, which challenged the pervading racism and stereotypes about blacks and tried to promote progressive and socialist politics as well as racial and social integration. the themes explored in jazz include the experience of slavery and black identity, and de sousa’s poetry identifies with such a thematic. (p. 68) nonetheless, in lusophone literature her work encompasses ethics and aesthetics that are central to mozambican identity in relation to literary tradition and culture. but her work also communicates understanding about the universal themes of oppression, liberty, and fraternity through denouncing colonialism, racism, and slavery. furthermore, de sousa’s poetry is also relevant to the south african context. some of her themes and characters cross the border between mozambique and south africa and present concerns that are relevant to thinking critically about social inequalities in southern africa. for example, in her poem “magaíça”, the figure of the magaíça is central to the social formation of mozambique. magaíça is an de melo & lima: considering curriculum change: 75 indigenous term that, in this case, refers to the mozambican citizens who returned home from working in the gold mines of the witwatersrand. the poem communicates that these mozambican migrants in south africa work in precarious circumstances in these gold mines and return home with compromised health and little payment to give to their families. the first stanza of the poem depicts the moment the magaíça arrives at the railway station in johannesburg. a manhã azul e ouro dos folhetos de propaganda engoliu o mamparra, entontecido todo pela algazarra incompreensível dos brancos da estação e pelo resfolegar trepidante dos comboios, tragou seus olhos redondos de pasmo, seu coração apertado na angústia do desconhecido sua trouxa de farrapos carregando a ânsia enorme, tecida dos sonhos insatisfeitos do mamparra. (de sousa, 2001, p. 84) the blue and golden morning of the tourist brochures overwhelmed the simpleton (mamparra), dizzy at the incomprehensible hubbub of the whites at the station and the tremulous puffing of the trains, his eyes stared with astonishment, his heart knotted by the anguish of the unknown, his bundle of rags carrying the enormous anxiety that was woven with all his wished-for dreams. (trans. rafael, 2012) the first three verses gradually describe the mamparra’s astonishment. for de sousa, there is a clear difference between the two indigenous terms: magaíça and mamparra are both migrants but, while mamparra is naïve and perhaps filled with hope, magaíça is disenchanted. mamparra, like magaíça, is also an indigenous term; it refers to the mozambicans who migrated to south africa in order to work in the mines of the rand. the english translator of this poem opted to translate mamparra as “simpleton,” which is one of the connotations of the term. however, de sousa chooses mamparra in the first stanza of the poem to denote the hopes of the mozambican worker upon arriving in south africa. as the poem develops further, such hope fades away so de sousa then opts to use the term magaíça, which connotes the disenchanted and abused migrant returning to his home-country. in this case the english translation obscures the linguistic richness of the poem. de sousa incorporates these two indigenous and culturally meaningful terms into the portuguese language with artfulness; these vocabulary borrowings from indigenous african languages 76 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 into the portuguese language of mozambique are meaningful to the comprehension of particular linguistic aspects of the region. the second part of the poem reads, e um dia, o comboio voltou arfando, arfando . . . oh nhanisse, voltou! e com ele, magaíça, de sobretudo, cachecol e meia listrada é um ser deslocado, embrulhado em ridículo. and one day, the train returned, chuffing, chuffing . . . oh, indeed, he has returned! and on the train was the migrant in an overcoat, with a scarf, striped socks, an alien being ridiculously attired. upon his return to his homeland, the mamparra is now referred to as magaíça (note that the translator opts to translate magaíça as migrant this time). as mentioned above, the different connotations of these two terms are vital to de sousa’s poetic purposes, in that magaíça conveys the worker’s demoralised condition. this condition implies that the worker is now returning home after having gone to south africa with high hopes but having met with perilous conditions and low pay; magaíça is, above of all, in a defeated condition. magaíça is no longer perceived by his fellow countrymen as a local, but, rather, as an outsider. thus, the depiction of the condition of outsider unfolds through a criticism of his appearance; he returns home wearing heavy clothes such as scarves and overcoats that are suitable for the south african cold weather but odd choices for mozambicans. his dress includes striped socks, which are considered ridiculous. he is “an alien being ridiculously attired.” when we were introducing this poem to our south african students, most of them said that they were already familiar with the term “magaíça,” but they thought it was spelled with an “s” instead of a “ç”. students also said that “magaíça” for them refers to mozambicans in general, that they were unaware of the immigrant condition implied in this term as it is understood in mozambique. students came to realise that words can transit between african indigenous languages and portuguese, and that they sometimes co-exist in a hybrid space, thus creating meaning, at least in mozambique and in noemia de sousa’s work. hence, de sousa’s poem helps to raise understanding of multilingualism and translanguaging awareness, thus empowering learners, as well as building cultural appreciation and acceptance. our students engaged in story telling about the uses of the word “magaíça” in their own communities, and this activity became a reflection of their identities and multilinguistic backgrounds. de melo & lima: considering curriculum change: 77 fittingly, this particular poem offers an example of how a pedagogy of translanguaging aimed at interpreting pal literary texts in globalised and multilingual south africa can and should take effect. furthermore, for discussions on decolonisation in the specific field of pal, the poetry of noémia de sousa is meaningful and relatable to the south africa context for its germane postcolonial themes as discussed above. conclusion in this paper we proposed starting a dialogue in order to discuss curriculum change in the specific field of teaching and learning portuguese as an additional language in south africa. we have argued that discussions around curriculum change in pal must understand and find ways to work collaboratively with south africa’s multilingual students. linguistic awareness encourages not only the learning of portuguese, but it also values the importance of indigenous languages. in south africa’s unique multilingual space, pal educators must be trained to become aware of the possibilities of inviting translanguaging practices into the classroom so that students can think, make comparisons, and rationalise language structures using every register they know in order to create meaning. but this suggestion has yet to be researched, both theoretically and empirically, in order to validate the kinds of conclusions that can be inferred from this discussion. we are inclined to think that indigenous languages must co-exist, that they have a place in the teaching of pal, and that english should not be the sole means through which portuguese is taught. at this moment, we are incapable of delineating any attempts towards a methodology that fully benefits from translanguaging in south africa pal classrooms. as stated earlier in this paper, there is no research on this subject, and, to our knowledge, this is the first report on this topic in south africa. for upper level portuguese courses, we recommend the use of content that ideally provides postcolonial interpretations as a path to a pedagogy of translanguaging, which is in line with the ideals of curriculum change. as an illustration, we analysed the poetry of mozambican poet noémia de sousa since her ouevre presents an opportunity to reflect on colonisation, racism, slavery, black diaspora consciousness, and migration in southern africa from a woman’s perspective. in addition, her use of the portuguese language provides a hybrid space for languages (including local african languages) to co-exist. through de sousa’s poetry, we have demonstrated that materials that come from portuguese-speaking africa often provide perspectives on both colonisation and decoloniality. references africa check. 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(2018). decolonial possibilities in south african higher education: reconfiguring humanising pedagogies as/with decolonising pedagogies. south african journal of education, 38(4), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.15700/saje.v38n4a1699 hopefulness and suspense in the autoethnographic encounters of teaching in higher education claudia mitchell i remember hearing far off the sound of the tires of a car on the gravel of the long, straight, open road that my family always referred to as the ‘main road’. this main road is some distance from our farm yard, connected by another long and very straight and open lane way. no trees or bushes or anything to block the view of the prairie expanse. for several minutes there is suspense. the tires offer a hopeful sound, breaking the silence, and breaking the monotony of the long summer day of a little girl who longs for something, anything, to happen. first the car is quite a way off. then it sounds like it is slowing down – and i see that it is turning into our lane way. it stops there, and at that moment i am lost in anticipation. i don’t recognize the car. is it going to come up the lane or is the driver just turning around? will there be the sound of the wheels speeding up, kicking up a little dust as it heads back down the main road towards town, or will the vehicle slowly make its way up the narrow passage of the lane way, towards the barn and house? i offer this gravel road memory from my prairie childhood as an example of what might be termed ‘the stuff’ of autoethnography, evoking questions like: where do i come from, how did i get here, and indeed, where is here? as tony kelly (2008) recounts so effectively in his autoethnography of teaching in a rural school in nova scotia, the question, “what are you doing here?” (p.9) is one that is laden with positionality. how do i, in this instance, anticipate the unknown and how do i position myself and the events as hopeful? in this brief essay i consider the role of autoethnography in ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ in our teaching in diverse higher education settings. my own settings are, in and of themselves, diverse, ranging from my full-time work at a large university in a cosmopolitan city in canada to being a teacher (at least on a part-time basis) in universities in sweden, ethiopia and south africa – and, most recently, at another canadian university on its west coast. following from appiah’s (2006) notion of cosmopolitan citizenship, i find myself, like many of my academic colleagues in south africa and elsewhere, 8 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 with opportunities to travel to and interact with students and peers in countries that i would never have dreamt of visiting, let alone working in, all those years ago, growing up on farm in the middle of the canadian prairies in the 1950 and early 1960s, and listening attentively to the sound of the tires on the gravel road. as diverse as the settings are, each setting in itself is filled with diversity. the postgraduate course at that west coast canadian university where i am teaching as i write this, and which draws on the tools of visual autoethnography as central to the course, includes several students from iran, another from korea, a student whose mother gets on a boat in vietnam in 1979 and hopes she will reach thailand and then canada, a student from hong kong, another from chile, one from russia, and a student whose grandparents make their way to the canadian west from scotland – but then, alongside these geographic divisions, there are different cultural and experiential divisions that frame the diversity as they arrive at class each day. several students have very young children and so must always be thinking of childcare and picking up children, a couple are teachers who are preparing for their own diverse school settings that will start up again in a few weeks and so they have a common interest in how they will apply the assignments and so on. how do we anticipate the unique and diverse circumstances of our teaching? what does an autoethnographic stance allow us to do? what difference can the memory of the gravel road, in my case, make to how i approach my teaching, my students, my colleagues and my research? how is it that what i might describe as a memory of convenience allows me to account for what i now want to write about, and how is it a piece of writing that helps me to make meaning of what is, it turns out, a critical feature of my teaching? there are at least three main points that seem to me to be central to autoethnography in addressing diversity in higher education. the first is in relation to what i call the act of commitment, or consciously doing, telling, and crafting meanings in relation to our teaching experiences. the phenomenologist max van manen is well known for the idea of writing as research where the “writing is the writing” (1990, p.92). i would add to this the idea that it is also the looking at, showing of, and talking about, for example, personal photographs or creating an artistic piece about our own practice that can also contribute to the act of commitment in autoethnographic research. the memory of the sounds of the car tires on the gravel road has been with me for years and i have referred to this memory on several mitchell: hopefulness and suspense. . . 9 occasions. i have used it to talk about the sheer boredom of growing up on a farm (versus the romantic ideal of rurality), to account for the ways that i embrace novelty and travel as perhaps a key aspect of my modus operandi, and to think, of course, about sound itself in our research sees as a multisensory component of our existence (pink, 2015) and one that should not be overshadowed by the visual. a second point relates to vulnerability. as i write this essay, several of my doctoral students are in the final hours of completing their own autoethnographies that are also related to higher education. these are moments of vulnerability, both in relation to what they are writing about (themselves and their own teaching), and in relation to the fact that they must put this work out for examination. my work by comparison seems much less vulnerable – but nonetheless it constantly reminds me to ask the question: how can we possibly support this kind of work if we not do it ourselves, and if we do not make ourselves vulnerable? in part it relates to how we respond to the autoethnographic work of our postgraduate students. how do we, often as the first readers of this work, take this vulnerability into account? there are many different aspects of diversity, ranging from race, class, sexual orientation, gender, geography and so on. how do we ask questions that do not close down what are often very revealing aspects of our students’ lives? this is of course a critical issue in south africa, where there remain many racial imbalances, but race is only one part of this, and as i have noted above, diversity embraces many different features of our work. a third point relates to hopefulness and suspense and the need to use an autoethnographic stance in opening up our teaching. here the writing about the tires on gravel seems now to capture metaphorically something of the essence of addressing diversity – the unknown, the anticipation, the suspense that in a sense comes with the beginning days of every new course that we might teach. there is never a time that is quite like the beginning, and quite as dreaded as those first days of teaching a new group of students, for me and for many of my colleagues; i take this up elsewhere (mitchell and weber, 1999). it is in part because we have no idea what is going to happen. the car at the end of the lane way may indeed speed away, but what if it does turn in? how prepared are we to greet the car, its driver and its passengers? i used to think of this hopefulness and suspense stance, as i think i could call it, as somewhat haphazard: whatever happens, happens. however, as i work more with autoethnography in my own teaching, i am coming to realize that 10 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 this stance allows us the luxury of finally having a place to locate and make sense of our experiences. as kathleen stewart observes, “auto-ethnography can be a way of doing something different with theory and its relation to experience” (2013, p.659). for example, we might study the responses, both formal and informal, that we receive about our own teaching from former students or even from other faculty members.this could, on the one hand, be read as some version of the question: how did my teaching have an influence on you? indeed this is a legitimate question in self-study (see for example, whitehead, 1989). on the other hand, and i think that is what this piece has helped me to frame, is the recognition of the patterns and shapes of those responses. just as i was compiling this article, one of my former students, now an accomplished playwright, whom i taught when she was in junior high school in rural nova scotia a number of decades ago, sent me a piece that she had published in brick books, a literary arts magazine. in it she writes wonderfully glowing comments about the impact of my teaching on her writing. “that first day she introduced herself as she wrote ms. mitchell on the board (ms!—none of our mothers were ms.) then whirling around she asked, does anyone here write poetry? the way she said poetry made my heart bump against my chest. before i could put my hand up the class show-off answered, in a tone dripping with disdain, cathy banks does. all heads turned in my direction as ms. mitchell, beaming, strode down the aisle to my desk. ms. banks, she said, i would love to read your poems! for the next two years i dropped newly minted poems on her desk once or twice a week. she never made positive or negative comments about my halfbaked poems (make no mistake i was a very bad poet) she simply treated each adolescent attempt as a poem. she was not the teacher but the reader and i was not the student but the poet. ms. mitchell never suggested that i cut or change a line or even a word. my poems reminded her of the works of margaret atwood, al purdy, earle birney, alden nowlan, p.k. page, margaret avison, jay macpherson to name a few. her response never varied excepting only the name of the poet. she would take me aside in the hall and say, thank you for your poem ms. banks it reminded me of margaret atwood’s work (or nowlan, birney, page) have you ever read margaret atwood (or purdy, avison, macpherson)? of course i hadn’t, so, she would bring me books of poems from her own library and mitchell: hopefulness and suspense. . . 11 thereby introduced me to the works of many of the contemporary canadian poets of the 1960s.” (banks, 2015, p.1) needless to say i was very moved by this writing, recognizing, of course, that i was also benefitting from the superb writing skills of this former student who has gone on to win the governor general’s award for her plays twice in the last five years. when a former doctoral student who is now a teaching colleague asked to read the piece from brick books, she responded with the following. “fast forward a few years and many of us at mcgill could write a similar homage, though perhaps not as poetically. she identifies immediately the qualities of openness, innovation and what-the-heck-let’s-try-it-and-see-howit-goes that characterize your teaching (oh, self-proclaimed “i hate teaching” person). the setting of the table for your students to partake of the feast of learning and doing”. (personal communication, august 18, 2015) of course not all my former students look at me this way. a dear colleague and former chair of my department recently recounted how he had to review, as part of his duties as chair, student evaluations of courses. one, he recalls, of my teaching was from a student who commented that i am given to talking in such a way that i seem to lose my train of thought but that fortunately i always picked up on another train that was going the same way. my reading on these different observations supports the hopefulness and suspense stance, and, at the same time, highlights the place of autoethnography in teaching. how else does one begin to name one’s experiences and, even more critically, see the shape of things? the richness of the diversity of our classrooms – in south africa and canada – is not just about the idea of the inclusive curriculum, though that, of course, is a necessary starting point. we cannot (and should not) be able always to predict what is going to work. there should be some suspense. what we can do is commit ourselves to identifying the moments of learning (about ourselves and our students), and recognize the impact of this work on our teaching and scholarship. 12 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 references appiah, k.a. 2006. cosmopolitanism; ethics in a world of strangers. new york: w.w. norton & company. banks, c. 2015. week 32 – catherine banks and poetry. brick books. 1 kelly, t. 2008. readings from life: rural educators read our rural selves. unpublished doctoral dissertation, mcgill university. montreal, qc. mitchell, c. and weber, s. 1999. reinventing ourselves as teachers: beyond nostalgia. london and new york: the falmer press. pink, s. 2015. doing sensory ethnography. london: sage. stewart, k. 2013. an autoethnography of what happens. in holman jones, s., adams, t. and ellis, c. (eds), handbook of autoethnography. walnut creek, ca: left coast press, pp.659–668. van manen, m. 1990. researching lived experience: human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. london, canada: althouse press. whitehead, j. 1989. creating a living educational theory from questions of the kind, ‘how do i improve my practice?’ cambridge journal of education, 19(1): pp.41–52. claudia mitchell mcgill university montreal quebec claudia.mitchell@mcgill.ca mailto:claudia.mitchell@mcgill.ca microsoft word b8500 full issue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 85, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i85a10 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x determinants of career development self-efficacy: the role of self-directed learning among students at a rural campus in south africa zandile stywayi department of business management, university of fort hare, alice, south africa 201503336@ufh.ac.za https://orcid.org/ 0000-0001-8665-2613 willie chinyamurindi department of business management, university of fort hare, alice, south africa wchinyamurindi@ufh.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4139-4224 herring shava department of management, walter sisulu university, butterworth, south africa hshava@wsu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2094-9585 (received: 2 july 2020; accepted: 24 august 2021) abstract there is a call for studies that explore the concept of career development self-efficacy among people in rural contexts. in this study, we explored the determinants of student career development self-efficacy in a rural context. we were guided by the literature and explored the role of self-directed learning consisting of three subscales, namely a) self-management, b) desire for learning, and c) self-control. we sought to ascertain how the three elements of self-directed learning influence student career development self-efficacy. we adopted a quantitative research approach and designed our study as survey research. we used a convenience sample of 150 students enrolled at a rural campus in the eastern cape province of south africa. data was analysed in our seeking to generate descriptive and inferential statistics. for the latter, we used simple linear regression tests. the findings show that self-management, desire for learning, and self-control influence career development selfefficacy. we therefore recommend, based on the findings of this research, the implementation of interventions that assist the students and those working in institutions of higher learning to develop competencies and environments in which career development self-efficacy thrives. keywords: self-management, self-directed learning, desire for learning, self-control, career development selfefficacy stywayi et al.: determinants of career development self-efficacy 189 introduction there is a call for career development self-efficacy in rural contexts to be explored. the making of career decisions is an important phase in the life of an individual (chinyamurindi, 2016; maree, 2013). through this work of making a career decision, an individual develops a sense of self in relation to who they are (oosthuizen, et al., 2014). this identity work is arguably complex and presents challenges for the individual (vilhjálmsdóttir & arnkelsson, 2013). coupled with this are barriers in the environment that impede the making of career decisions (chinyamurindi, 2016). one such barrier is the aspect of rurality. a number of south african researchers have dedicated effort to understanding what is faced by students in rural communities. these studies have shown how the aspect of rurality acts as a challenge not only in how career decisions are made but also in relation to employability (harry et al., 2018; harry & chinyamurindi, 2019, 2020). the presence of these barriers appears to pose a limitation to the individual in terms of their access to career information and services (pettipas et al., 2016). some scholars have argued that we need to understand the barriers affecting career decision-making (chinyamurindi, 2016; maree, 2016). further, calls have been made to focus on understanding how the challenge of rurality can be addressed in terms of the issues with which rural students in higher education need to deal (harry & chinyamurindi, 2020). based on this background, our set objectives for this study were • to establish the influence of self-management as part of self-directed learning on career development self-efficacy on a rural campus in south africa; • to establish the influence of desire as part of self-directed learning on career development self-efficacy on a rural campus in south africa; and • to establish the influence of self-control as part of self-directed learning on career development self-efficacy on a rural campus in south africa. first, we present a background discussion related to career development, rurality, and selfefficacy. in this section we consider both the theoretical and empirical literature related to career development, rurality, and self-efficacy. in the second section, we present the research design and methodology we followed. the third section is dedicated to the results of the study. we conclude with a focus on the discussion of the results in view of the extant literature and on further implications, based on the findings, regarding possible ways of encouraging individual career development and assisting career counsellors. background to the study the context in which this study was located is a rural university attended mostly attended by black students who, for the most part, attended schools that lack educational resources and have teachers who are inadequately trained (sedibe, 2011). in these schools, little or no career guidance information is available for the students (mathabe & temane, 1993; 190 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 chinyamurindi, 2016). lack of exposure because of factors beyond students’ control limits career choices and thus stifles potential career development (stead & watson, 2017). because rural communities are perceived, largely, to be disadvantaged given the legacy of apartheid, we need to develop skills that can play an important role in solving challenges faced by the country (maila & ross, 2018), even in such communities. rural communities face challenges such as poverty, inequality, and high unemployment (chinyamurindi, 2016) and often they are least served in terms of socio-economic opportunities (badat & sayed, 2014) compounded by the challenges related to under-developed infrastructure (nzama, 2010). theoretical underpinning we considered three main theoretical postulations informed by the constructs under study. first, and at a general level, we considered systems theory framework (stf) (patton & mcmahon, 1999, 2006). stf allows the career development of adolescents to be conceptualised as consisting of complex interactions between the individual influence system (e.g., age, personality, gender, beliefs, interests, and ethnicity), the social influence system (e.g., family, school, peers, and the media), and the environmental-societal influence system (e.g., geographic, political, and socio-economic factors) (chinyamurindi, 2016; maree, 2016). stf has been used previously in south africa to understand the career issues that relate to distance learning students (chinyamurindi, 2016), and high school students (watson et al., 2010). we also considered bandura’s (1977) self-efficacy theory and how the individual uses this to organise and implement actions. from the vantage point of the individual, self-efficacy can be treated as a resource that an individual uses to interact with others and that leads to the ability to succeed (mehdizadeh, 2010). in an academic context, such confidence translates into improved learning and better academic performance (jongsung, 2013). linked to the self-efficacy theory is bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory that places emphasis on reinforcement linked to cognitive development as part of the individual’s learning processes (see smith & berge, 2009). in essence, a student will perform those behaviours in which they have confidence and in a context that is conducive to this. in essence, as argued by bandura (2002), there is not only reciprocity between and among human thoughts, feelings, and behaviours but also causation in relation to these in view of individual and environmental factors and issues. such social and cognitive experiences play a pivotal role in the learning and also the developmental aspects of the student, creating, potentially, a favourable learning environment (nakagawa & arzubiaga, 2014). self-directed learning and career development self-efficacy douglass and morris (2014) defined self-directed learning as a process that happens when the student becomes responsible for the identification of their learning needs and develops learning goals while choosing activities and resources that are suitable to meet these learning needs. the identified activities are implemented, and the process evaluated for effectiveness stywayi et al.: determinants of career development self-efficacy 191 in addressing the identified learning needs (kan’an & osman, 2015). the benefits of selfdirected learning are best described in terms of the type of students it develops. the desire for learning about self-directed learning readiness highlights the personal traits of students as self-directed ones who have the ability to construct knowledge actively (botha & coetzee, 2016). the desire to learn relates to the students’ motivation levels and their ability to seek new information to address their learning needs in a realistic, positive, and enjoyable manner (cohen, 2012). the students who display a satisfactory desire to learn are confident and aware of their challenges and capabilities in their career, a situation that may, at least potentially, affect their prospects post-study. hewitt-taylor (2001) noted that such students are motivated and persistent, independent, self-disciplined, self-confident, and goal-oriented. self-directed learning enables students to be more effective social beings. the literature on self-directed learning asserts that such students demonstrate a greater awareness of their responsibility to make learning meaningful and in monitoring themselves (hayes, 2013). such students are curious and willing to try new things as park (2013) has observed, view problems as challenges, desire change, and enjoy learning (song & hill, 2007). honicke and broadbent (2016) suggested that learning on one’s own requires a complex collection of self-skills and learning skills that not all students acquire spontaneously. gallagher et al. (2017) pointed out that the discussion about integrating career development with learning is, indeed, related to continually learning new skills, but it is much more about the start of a lifelong process of personal development. it is about how the individual tacitly perceives learning as part of their life-focusing self-narrative and how they socially express and negotiate that perception as part of a life-story narrative. from this perspective, career development, rather than being framed by organisational bureaucracy, can be reconceptualised as an interpretive construct used by people (honicke & broadbent, 2016). moreover, there is, potentially, no aspect of one’s interpretive construction of career development that is as critically important as the continuing acquisition of knowledge and skills since this represents the most distinctive feature of the human species (hirschi et al., 2015). the link between self-directed learning and individual careers has been the subject of research; see, for example, the study by de bruin and cornelius (2011). using a sample of first year south african university students, they investigated whether students who had access to university learning through alternative routes found making career decisions challenging. their findings revealed that students who exhibited high self-directed learning scores experienced few difficulties in making career-related decisions. the link between selfdirected learning and career-related issues is becoming crucial in the 21st century. this is exacerbated by the changing nature of work driven by international quests for the world to become a knowledge economy (harry & chinyamurindi, 2020; pope, 2015). the above-mentioned evolution in the world of work has led to a change in the meaning of work (harry & chinyamurindi, 2019). more importantly for our purposes here, this change has also led to a change in curriculum design because the development of intervention 192 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 mechanisms that will see students having more autonomy in their learning and career development-related decision making has become a top priority in higher education (fisk, 2017). in this current era of technological advancement, information has become a major asset, and this has resulted in many jobs suddenly changing in nature (shahroom & hussin, 2018). but technology has also equipped students with tools to manage their learning (khalid et al., 2020). furthermore, access to online tools has improved, and this has led to improved access to information by students and this, in turn, has resulted in knowledge sharing (shava & chinyamurindi, 2018), and possibly more control by students of their learning as saxena (2013) has observed. it could be argued that as students improve in managing their own learning, student career development self-efficacy, or, in other words, the perceived ease with which students can make career development-related decisions, is also enhanced. to measure self-directed learning, we adopted the dimensions of fisher et al (2001), namely self-management, the desire for learning, and self-control. several studies have adopted a similar approach that attests to the robustness of the scale (see turan & koç, 2018; samarasooriya et al., 2019). in light of the above we formulated the following hypotheses: • h1: self-management predicts career development self-efficacy among students; • h2: desire for learning predicts career development self-efficacy among students; and • h3: self-control predicts career development self-efficacy among students. research methodology research approach we used a quantitative research approach in this study to collect data from a total pool of a convenience sample of 200 respondents through a self-administered questionnaire. a total of 150 respondents took part in the study. measuring instruments we categorised the research instrument into five sections with each representing a dimension measured by the study. a five-point likert scale ranging from strongly disagree representing 1, to strongly agree representing 5 was used throughout. the scales used in this study to gather primary data were reliable and acceptable. the self-management scale had 13 items with a cronbach alpha coefficient equal to .73; the desire for learning scale had 12 items with a reliability score of .76; the self-control domain scale with 15 items was found reliable with a cronbach alpha coefficient equal to .81; the career development selfefficacy scale with 4 items had a cronbach alpha coefficient equal to .73; and the career decision selfefficacy scale with 25 items had a cronbach alpha coefficient score equal to .88. stywayi et al.: determinants of career development self-efficacy 193 ethical considerations ethical clearance was obtained from the research ethics committee of the university in question. 1 the principal researcher took time to explain the goals of the study to participants, their right to terminate participation without penalty, and the right to privacy and confidentiality. when all these ethical issues had been addressed, the participants’ consent was sought and obtained. results inferential statistics inferential statistics were performed making use of the simple linear regression technique. a simple linear regression was undertaken to test the hypothesis that self-management does not predict career development self-efficacy among students. in the process, we also evaluated the regression model by making use of the durbin-watson test that investigates whether the first order auto-correlation exists or not. to test the assumption of homoscedasticity, and normality of residuals, special (q-q plots) were relied upon and they indicated that these two assumptions were not violated. the results indicated a weak positive correlation between self-management and career development self-efficacy, r = .347. the results further revealed that self-management explained 12.1% of the variation in career development self-efficacy, r 2 = .121. the resultant model as explained by the f-ratio, f= 20.316, p = .001 is evidence enough to declare the model fit, given the p-value = .001. the durbin-watson d = 1.954 falls between the two critical values of 1.5 < d < 2.5 indicating that there is no first order auto-correlation in the data used for the simple linear regression purposes. estimates of the model parameters reveal that the resultant model is statistically significant, β0 = 1.791, t = 4.120, p = .001; β1 = .529, t = 4.507, p = .001. given these findings, a unit change in self-management results in a corresponding positive change in career development self-efficacy among students equivalent to .529 units. given this result, we have sufficient evidence at the 5% significant level to conclude that self-management predicts career development self-efficacy and we therefore reject the null hypothesis stating that self-management does not predict career development self-efficacy among students. • h0: desire for learning does not predict career development self-efficacy among students. • h2: desire for learning predicts career development self-efficacy among students. the simple linear regression was performed with desire for learning as the explanatory variable and career development self-efficacy as the outcome variable. the results revealed that there is a weak positive relationship between desire for learning and career development self-efficacy, r = .213. the results further revealed that desire for learning explained 4.5% of the variation in career development self-efficacy among students, r 2 = .045. the resultant model of f= 6.970; p= .009 is evidence enough to declare the model fit, given the p-value = 1 an ethical clearance certificate was granted, with ethical clearance number: mc-2018-046. 194 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 .009 less than p = .05. this implies that the model is significantly better at predicting career development self-efficacy of students compared to the use of the mean value. the durbinwatson d = 2.058 falls between the two critical values of 1.5 < d < 2.5 indicating that there is no first order auto-correlation in the data used for the simple linear regression purposes. estimates of the model parameters reveal that the resultant model is statistically significant, β0 = 2.473, t = 5.13, p = .000; β1 = .319, t = 2.64, p = .009. from the results, given a unit increase in desire for learning, there will be a corresponding positive increase in career development self-efficacy equivalent to .319 units in career development self-efficacy among students. given these findings, we have sufficient evidence at the 5% significant level to conclude that desire for learning predicts career development self-efficacy and we therefore reject the null hypothesis stating that desire for learning does not predict career development self-efficacy among students. • h0: self-control does not predict career development self-efficacy among students. • h3: self-control predicts career development self-efficacy among students. simple linear regression analysis was performed with self-control as an explanatory variable and career development self-efficacy as the outcome variable. the results revealed a weak to moderate positive correlation between self-control and career development self-efficacy, r = .401. the results further revealed that self-control explains 16.1% of the variation in career development self-efficacy among students, r 2 = .161. the resultant model of f= 28.340, p = .000 gives enough evidence to declare the model fit, given the p-value = .000 less than p = .05. this result implies that it is significantly better to rely on this model when predicting the career development self-efficacy of students as opposed to the use of the mean value. the durbin-watson d = 2.119 falls between the two critical values of 1.5 < d < 2.5, indicating that there is no first order auto-correlation in the data used for the simple linear regression purposes. the estimates of the model parameters reveal that the resultant model is statistically significant, β0 = 1.701, t = 4.409, p = .000; β1 = .524, t = 5.324, p = .000. from these results, a unit increase in self-control leads to a corresponding increase in student career development self-efficacy equivalent to .524 units. given this finding, we have sufficient evidence at the 5% significant level to conclude that self-control predicts student career development selfefficacy and we therefore reject the null hypothesis stating that self-control does not predict career development self-efficacy among students. from the above findings, the resultant model of the study is presented in figure 1. the model reveals that among the study’s explanatory variables, self-management has the highest influence on student career-development self-efficacy, b = .529, followed by self-control, b = .524. desire for learning has the least effect compared to all other explanatory variables, given b = .319. this implies that mechanisms designed to enhance student career development self-efficacy must be designed around self-management and self-control aspects. stywayi et al.: determinants of career development self-efficacy 195 figure 1 the student career development self-efficacy model source: survey data. discussion outline of results with regard to the influence of self-management on career development self-efficacy, the simple linear regression model analysis revealed that self-management has a positive influence on career development self-efficacy. the results provided sufficient evidence to reach the conclusion that self-management positively influences career development selfefficacy. these results support findings of a study conducted by komarraju & dial (2014) on placing importance of self-management behaviours and how this can assist individuals concerning their professional growth. another study (alotaibi 2015) that corresponds with this one recognised that selfmanagement (contextual control) entails setting learning objectives and managing learning resources, and in order to apply self-management effectively to the career development selfefficacy process, the learning environment (including people, resources, assessment, and time) should be identified and managed. furthermore, du toit-brits (2015) was of the opinion that control does not focus on independence only, but also on cooperation with other individuals in a specific context. empirical studies carried out elsewhere confirm the significance of our statistical results regarding the influence of self-management on career development self-efficacy. in light of these statistical results, we concluded that selfmanagement predicts career development self-efficacy. self-management desire for learning self-control career development selfefficacy b = .529 b = .319 b = .524 196 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 in this study, we also aimed to establish the influence of self-management on the desire for learning. based on statistical results, we found that desire for learning has a significantly positive influence on career development self-efficacy. this was demonstrated by a simple linear regression model summary and overall fit statistics. parameter estimates discovered that desire for learning has a statistically significant positive influence on career development self-efficacy. thus, at the 5% significant level, it is possible to conclude that desire for learning predicts career development self-efficacy. these results were in line with arguments put forward by yang et al. (2016) that people who love to learn do not depend only on the classroom; they seek answers for every question they have. in addition, this result is in agreement with a study conducted by zacher (2014) that one is responsible for one’s own career and one has to reflect continually on where one is, where one wants to be, and how one will prepare for further career opportunities. the objective of this study was to investigate the influence of self-control on career development self-efficacy. here we discuss the findings regarding this. to determine this, a simple linear regression was performed. the parameter estimates show that self-control has a statistically significant positive influence on career development self-efficacy. the results discussed above are in agreement with those of a study conducted by alotaibi (2015) that placed importance on social context in allowing for academic success. priority should also be placed on the development of mental and emotional skills since these affect an individual’s career development. the role of self-control becomes an important professional strategy in assisting individual career development. practical implications the findings of this study add useful knowledge to practice especially by revealing that selfdirected learning has a positive influence on career development self-efficacy. this was evident in most of the students who took part in this study. this suggests that lecturers, departments, faculties, and universities should promote self-directed learning to improve students’ career development self-efficacy. according to douglass and morris (2014), selfdirected learning refers to any form of learning in which the individual is primarily responsible for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of such learning. this implies that universities need to create a conducive environment in which self-directed learning is demonstrated. furthermore, it is advisable for institutions to integrate the topic of selfdirected learning into the university curriculum so as to prepare students with appropriate knowledge for developing their careers. therefore, this study contributes in its shedding light on how important self-directed learning is and how much attention has to be committed to the implementation of career development self-efficacy. limitations and recommendations the first limitation identified in this study is the research setting in that it was conducted in one university, so the research findings are specific and cannot be generalised to other stywayi et al.: determinants of career development self-efficacy 197 universities. the second limitation is the sample size. since the study was conducted in one university, this was smaller than the total population of students from the faculty of management and commerce. the third limitation of this research is the fact that it did not provide for a constructivist perspective on career development difficulties. future research may replicate the study in more than one university to generalise the results to a wider population. the self-directed learning capacity of lecturers was not determined because the study’s aim was to determine the level of self-directed learning of students only. however, the level of self-directed learning of students may be influenced by the capacity of their lecturers to promote self-directed learning in them. factors that influence the high or low levels of readiness for self-directed learning may be explored. it is also recommended that there be ongoing research especially on aspects related to the career development of university students in south africa. this could have a qualitative focus to capture the complexity that accompanies processes such as the career development one. conclusion in this article, we discussed the study that we conducted on examining the influence of selfdirected learning on student career development self-efficacy. we explained the quantitative method that was employed and listed the main objectives of this research that were achieved. furthermore, the article also highlighted the research procedures and the spss tool that we used to analyse the data. finally, the article listed the implications of this research as well as its limitations and made recommendations for further research. references alotaibi, k. n. 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(2014). career adaptability predicts subjective career success above and beyond personality traits and core self-evaluations. journal of vocational behavior, 84, 21– 30. microsoft word bissue75-fulljun22.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 75, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i75a04 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x exploring the association of the national benchmark test results with the academic performance of medical students who completed the degree in minimum time sfiso mabizela centre for health sciences education, faculty of health sciences, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa sfiso.mabizela@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7644-8480 lionel green-thompson dean, school of medicine, sefako makgatho health sciences university, pretoria, south africa honorary adjunct professor, faculty of health sciences, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa lionel.green-thompson@smu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2950-9527 (received: 18 january 2019; accepted: 15 april 2019) abstract the national benchmark tests (nbt) have been used for selection and placement of students in south africa since 2005. the nbt assess students’ cognitive knowledge in three domains: academic literacy; quantitative literacy; and mathematics. in this study we aimed to explore the nbt entry-level abilities in relation to school quintiles of the 2011 class of medical students at the university of the witwatersrand who graduated in minimum time and to explore the link between the nbt domains and academic performance in the first, third, and sixth year of study. the results of students who attended quintile 5 schools (n = 93) show that 31% obtained proficiency in nbt mathematics, 65% in nbt academic literacy, and 79% in nbt quantitative literacy. the academic literacy domain was a consistently significant predictor in all three years of study. the results show that proficiency and intermediate upper levels of all nbt domains are associated with minimum time completion. keywords: academic performance, nbt academic literacy, nbt mathematics, nbt quantitative literacy, nbt domains, medical students background the national benchmark tests (nbt) were commissioned by higher education south africa (hesa), now universities south africa (usaf), to evaluate the academic readiness of students entering university, as marnewick (2012) has reminded us. the nbt are used in mabizela and green-thompson: exploring the association of the nbt results with . . . 45 combination with secondary school reports on learning achieved in content specific courses to assess the academic readiness of students as yeld (2007) has pointed out. the nbt assess students’ readiness in the three domains of nbt mathematics (nbtma), nbt academic literacy (nbtal) and nbt quantitative literacy (nbtql). van der westhuizen and barlowjones (2015) have reported that the three domains have a significant influence on students’ academic performance, and the results are used not only to select students but also to determine the level of support they will require in their selected fields of study. the three domains are criterion-referenced tests; for le roux and sebolai (2016), they measure candidates’ cognitive abilities in clearly defined domains that require comprehensive knowledge and their ability to apply it. the nbtma test is designed only for prospective university students who intend to study programmes that require mathematics, and it assesses the critical components covered in the school curriculum (bohlmann, 2015). prince’s (2016) work on the nbtal as a test of academic reading and reasoning ability that aims to examine students’ ability to engage successfully with the language demands of higher education is pertinent here. the nbtql focuses on the assessment of numeracy as described in adult literacy and life skills as well as on the broader definition of academic literacies as discussed in new literacies studies (prince, 2016; street & baker, 2006). the students’ performance in these domains is placed on three benchmark performance levels: proficient; intermediate; and basic. for le roux and sebolai (2016) proficiency entails that a future student’s academic performance will not be affected academically, while an intermediate benchmark performance level predicts that academic performance may be affected in certain domains. prince (2016) has pointed out that students’ results in the nbt domains are saturated in the intermediate band and this led to the need to split the intermediate band into intermediate upper (iu) and intermediate lower (il). the iu performance suggests that these students will require supplementary support such as additional tutorials, workshops, courses, and language intensive work and il indicates that the student will need placement in an extended programme of study (national benchmark test, 2016). the basic performance level signals serious learning challenges and implies that a student will not be able to cope with the demands of higher education. the nbt results also play a fundamental role in the admission and placement of students in appropriate curricular routes such as mainstream, augmented, or an extended programme (le roux & sebolai, 2016). see table 1 and table 2 below. table 1: national benchmark test degree performance national benchmark test degree performance proficient al = 64%–100% ql = 70%–100% mat = 68%–100% 46 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 intermediate al = 38%–63% ql = 38%–69% mat = 35%–67% basic al = 0%–37% ql = 0%–37% mat = 0%–34% table 2: nbt intermediate performance bands nbt intermediate bands intermediate upper al = 51%–63% ql = 54%–69% mat = 52%–67% intermediate lower al = 38%–50% ql = 38%–53% mat = 35%–51% the opportunity to enrol for a medical degree in one of the nine universities offering medicine in south africa (and around the world) is relatively competitive because of limited spaces available in relation to the pool of applications (bore, munro, & powis, 2009; van der merwe et al., 2016). the selection tests, often referred to as rejection tests, are used widely to assess students’ ability to cope with the demands of higher education in the programmes of their choice. south african history is plagued with economic inequalities and the consequent substandard schooling, especially in rural areas. these disparities influence school leaving grades, which may, on the one hand, adversely affect performance in the selection tests (modisaotsile, 2012; subotzky & prinsloo, 2011). on the other, south africa’s history presents barriers to students from poor backgrounds and poorly resourced schools (van der merwe et al., 2016). venkat and spaull (2015) have pointed out that the south african school quintile classifications system states that quintile 1 is comprised of the poorest schools (20% of the total), quintile 2 of the next poorest (20% of the total) all the way up to quintile 5 which is comprised of the wealthiest schools (again, 20% of the total) and that the distribution of teachers with strong content knowledge are concentrated in quintile 5 schools. as a result, the school leaving results and selection tests may not reflect the true potential of the students who attended lower quintile schools (ross, loeffler, schipper, vandermeer, & allan, 2013). few studies have been conducted to determine the link between admission criteria and academic performance in the medical programme. allers, hay, and van rensburg (2016), found that english, life sciences, and nbt quantitative literacy were the best predictors of success in the first year of study of a physiology premedical subject. in a study to explore the predictive capacity of the nbt and grade 12 mathematics results in the academic performance of first-year economics students, ql and al were found to be the significant predictors of academic success (rankin, schoer, sebastiao, & van walbeek, 2012). mabizela and green-thompson: exploring the association of the nbt results with . . . 47 a variety of selection tests has been used to select and predict the academic performance of medical students. international selection tests such as the american college test (act), scholastic aptitude test (sat), and medical college admission test (mcat) are used in the selection of students, and, as sladek, bond, frost, and prior (2016) have made clear, there is empirical evidence concerning their predictive capacities. in south africa, five universities offering medicine use grade 12 and the nbt results to select students for entry to the medical degree. at the university of the witwatersrand, where this study was conducted, student admission for the medical degree is based on the composite index (ci) which is made up of the combination of the national senior certificate (nsc) and nbt (average of the three domain) results. both the nsc and the nbt contribute 50% towards the ci. there is a paucity of research addressing the relationship between the nbt results and academic performance throughout the degree (van der merwe et al., 2016). as wadee and cliff (2016) have noted, the medical programme at the university of the witwatersrand has a minimum duration of six years for school entrants. the first two years include the basic sciences, anatomy, and physiology. the third and fourth year are regarded as the pre-clinical years and are comprised of a problem-based curriculum (pbl), with nine integrated system organ blocks. the fifth and the sixth years are the clinical years during which students are allocated to the clinical clerkships in four academic hospitals. in this study, we explored the link between the nbt and the academic performance of the 2011 class of medical students who completed their degree in the minimum time of six years. we analysed the nbt proficiency levels by school quintile and explored the relationship between nbt results and grade point average (gpa) of the first, third, and sixth years of study of the 2011 graduating class. the gpa is the average of all subjects for each year of study. methods our purpose was to explore the degree of variance explained by the nbt domains of students’ academic performance. a multiple regression analysis was used to explore the link between students’ nbt results and gpa. the frequency tables and custom tables were used to analyse categorical data in order to understand the profiles of students who completed in minimum time. the regression coefficients of the nbt domains were compared to assess the relative importance of each domain on the outcome variable following polit and beck (2004). the results of the three nbt domains were used as independent variables. the dependent variables were the gpa of the first, third, and sixth year of study. the assumptions of the regression were thoroughly tested before the interpretation of the results. the sample size was reduced (to n = 119 students) after two cases were removed because of missing data. ethical clearance was obtained from the human research ethics committee (hrec, clearance certificate number: m170490). the study used data routinely collected by the university’s business intelligence services (bis). the data for the selected cohort was tracked through their undergraduate studies at first year, and at years three and six. the data describes the progress of the class admitted in 2011 and includes the students’ biographical details and 48 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 academic performance from the first to the last year of study. the mbbch class of 2011 was comprised of 183 students in the first year of study of whom 121 completed in 2016 following the minimum six years of study. of the 121, 44 were male and 77 were female. figure 1: 2011 cohort admissions results of this group of 118 students, 89% ( were international students. the students were from rural (5.9%) 83.3% (n = 99). regarding living arrangements, 67% of students of urban or in private residential areas, and 16% were living in university residences. only 2% of students of rural background were living in private residential areas, and 3% were living in university residences. of the students of urban origin, 78% and of 11% the quintile was unknown. the remaining 11% were students who attended quintile 1 to 4 schools. the clustered bar charts above (see figures 1 and 2) show the number of students admitted and those who completed t relationship of nbt domain to school quintile the results show that of the 119 students who completed in minimum time, 78% attended the best-resourced (quintile attended, and the remaining 26 were spread across lower quintile schools. the nbt mathematics results of 93 students who attended proficiency level, 32% obtained iu, and 14% obtained il level. none of the stude lower resourced schools (quintile results for the nbt academic literacy reveal that 80% obtained proficiency level and 17% achieved iu level. only two students who attended the nbt academic literacy. the results for the nbt quantitative literacy and school quintiles shows that 52% of students who attended achieved iu level and one obtained il. again, n school achieved proficiency level in this domain. journal of education, no. 75, 2019 academic performance from the first to the last year of study. the mbbch class of 2011 was comprised of 183 students in the first year of study of whom 121 completed in 2016 following the minimum six years of study. of the 121, 44 were male and 77 were female. figure 2: 2011-2016 cohort graduates of this group of 118 students, 89% (n = 106) were south african citizens and 11% were international students. the students were from rural (5.9%) (n = 7) and urban areas 99). regarding living arrangements, 67% of students of urban or in private residential areas, and 16% were living in university residences. only 2% of students of rural background were living in private residential areas, and 3% were living in university residences. of the students of urban origin, 78% had attended quintile and of 11% the quintile was unknown. the remaining 11% were students who attended 1 to 4 schools. the clustered bar charts above (see figures 1 and 2) show the number of students admitted and those who completed the degree by race and gender. relationship of nbt domain to school quintile the results show that of the 119 students who completed in minimum time, 78% quintile 5) schools, 13 did not indicate the quintile of the scho attended, and the remaining 26 were spread across lower quintile schools. the nbt mathematics results of 93 students who attended quintile 5 schools shows that 31% obtained proficiency level, 32% obtained iu, and 14% obtained il level. none of the stude quintiles 1 and 2) achieved proficiency levels in this domain. the results for the nbt academic literacy reveal that 80% obtained proficiency level and 17% achieved iu level. only two students who attended quintile 2 schools obtained il level on the nbt academic literacy. the results for the nbt quantitative literacy and school quintiles shows that 52% of students who attended quintile 5 schools obtained proficiency level, 25% achieved iu level and one obtained il. again, no student who attended a lower quintile school achieved proficiency level in this domain. academic performance from the first to the last year of study. the mbbch class of 2011 was comprised of 183 students in the first year of study of whom 121 completed in 2016 following the minimum six years of study. of the 121, 44 were male and 77 were female. 106) were south african citizens and 11% (n = 13) 7) and urban areas 99). regarding living arrangements, 67% of students of urban origin were living in private residential areas, and 16% were living in university residences. only 2% of students of rural background were living in private residential areas, and 3% were living in quintile 5 schools, and of 11% the quintile was unknown. the remaining 11% were students who attended 1 to 4 schools. the clustered bar charts above (see figures 1 and 2) show the he degree by race and gender. the results show that of the 119 students who completed in minimum time, 78% (n = 93) 5) schools, 13 did not indicate the quintile of the school attended, and the remaining 26 were spread across lower quintile schools. the nbt 5 schools shows that 31% obtained proficiency level, 32% obtained iu, and 14% obtained il level. none of the students from s 1 and 2) achieved proficiency levels in this domain. the results for the nbt academic literacy reveal that 80% obtained proficiency level and 17% ls obtained il level on the nbt academic literacy. the results for the nbt quantitative literacy and school quintiles 5 schools obtained proficiency level, 25% o student who attended a lower quintile mabizela and green-thompson: exploring the association of the nbt results with . . . 49 multiple regression results first year of study the nbt domains accounted for a statistically significant 35% of the variance in the academic success in the first years of study (r 2 =.35, f (3, 115) = 20.84, p = .000). the unstandardised (b) and standardised (β) regression coefficients together with squared semipartial correlations for the unique contribution of each predictor in the multiple regression predicting the link between nbt and academic success in the first year of study are depicted below. table 3: first year unique contribution of each predictor variable (n = 119) variables b[95% ci] β sr 2 nbt mathematics .135 [.039, .232] .240 .006*** nbt academic literacy .261 [.089, .434] .268 .003*** nbt quantitative literacy .162 [.035, .289] .238 .013** note: n = 119. ci = confidence interval *** p < .005. ** p < .01. * p < .05 as shown in the table above, the nbt domains were statistically significant predictors of academic success in the first year of study. the effect size of the regression model was large (f 2 = .56). third year of study the nbt domains accounted for a statistically significant 24% of the variance in the academic success in the third year of study (r 2 =.24, f (3, 115) = 12.31, p = .000). the unstandardised (b) and standardised (β) regression coefficients together with squared semipartial correlations for the unique contribution of each predictor in the multiple regression predicting the link between nbt and academic success in the third year of study are depicted below. table 4: third year unique contribution of each predictor variable (n = 119) variables b [95% ci] β sr 2 nbt mathematics .050 [-.027, .127] .120 .199 nbt academic literacy .248 [.110, .386] .343 .001*** nbt quantitative literacy .068 [-.034, .169] .134 .189 note: n = 119. ci = confidence interval *** p < .005. ** p < .01. * p < .05 50 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 the nbtal was the only statistically significant predictor of academic success in the third year of study. the effect size of the regression model was large (f 2 = .38). sixth year of study in the first block, nbt domains accounted for a statistically significant 26% of the variance in the academic success in the first years of study (r 2 =.26, f (3, 115) = 14.03, p = .000). in the table below, unstandardised (b) and standardised (β) regression coefficients squared semi-partial correlations for the unique contribution of each predictor in the multiple regression predicting the link between nbt and academic success in the sixth year of study are depicted below. table 5: sixth year unique contribution of each predictor variable (n = 119) variables b[95% ci] beta sr 2 nbt mathematics .026[-.26, .079] .090 .325 nbt academic literacy .173 [.079, .267] .346 .000*** nbt quantitative literacy .065[-.004, .134] .186 .065 note: n = 119. ci = confidence interval *** p < .005. ** p < .01. * p < .05 the nbtal scores continued to be a strong predictor linked with students’ throughput in the sixth year of study. the effect size of the regression model was large (f 2 = .45). discussion this study found that 78% (n = 93) of students attended quintile 5 schools and of these 65% (n = 78) achieved proficiency level in the nbt academic literacy, a domain that was statistically significant in predicting academic success in three years of study. academic performance of this sample reflects a pattern of privilege as a marker of academic success since most of the successful students attended schools with better resources. the nbt has been used as an additional test to select students for places in the medical programme. van der merwe et al. (2016) have expressed concerns about the capacity of the nbt to predict students’ academic success. while all three nbt domains appear to have an impact on first year performance, only academic literacy retains its influence through to the final year of study. this may be because this domain tests students’ reading and reasoning capacity to engage successfully with the language demands of higher education and this played a crucial role in their completion of the medical degree in minimum time. furthermore, given that english is the medium of instruction throughout the programme, the results demonstrate that students’ (english) literacy in the nblal allowed them to engage successfully with all learning required. although we did not request the students’ results in all the subscales of the nbtal, the fact that 80% obtained proficiency level suggests, in mabizela and green-thompson: exploring the association of the nbt results with . . . 51 keeping with the findings of cliff and hanslo (2010), that they possessed essential cognitive abilities in these subscales and that this had a fundamental influence on their academic success. again, most students were equally prepared to cope with the quantitative demands of medical education since 65% achieved proficiency in nbtql. for the nbt mathematics, 44% and 18% obtained iu and il levels respectively. the students’ performance in the nbt mathematics suggests that they needed additional support in order to cope with the demands of higher education. however, nbtql and the nbtma were significant only in the first year of study. the possible explanation of this could be that subjects that require mathematics and quantitative knowledge are studied in the first two years of a medical school education. the clinical years of study in medicine are characterised by large volumes of content that require greater degrees of clinical reasoning. this may be the reason why academic literacy was a statistically significant predictor. in this study, 78% of students who completed with unimpeded academic progress attended quintile 5 schools. the schools categorised as quintile 5 are well resourced, linked to better matric pass rates, and they cater less to poor learners as venkat and spaull (2015) found. the quintile 5 schools are known to offer education that better equips students with essential academic capabilities to cope with higher education’s academic demands. simmenrothnayda and görlich (2015) reported that social background influences students’ performance in selection tests for medicine. these students are also more likely to perform better if their parents have an academic background. in the south african context, social and economic inequalities and substandard schooling, especially in lower quintile schools, not only compromise students’ matric results but continue to have a negative impact on performance in selection tests and on academic performance (modisaotsile, 2012; ross et al., 2013). in this study, the fact that most students were of urban origin and had attended schools that are more affluent suggests that their family income may have contributed to their completing their studies in the minimum time. in the global context there is little ongoing research linking performance in selection tests to academic performance in studying towards a medical degree. in china, the national college entry examination (ncee), which is used to select students, was found to have a consistent predictive strength in the first year gpa of medical students (zhou et al., 2014). furthermore, mcmanus, dewberry, nicholson, and dowell (2013) found that the united kingdom clinical aptitude test (ukcat) has the potential to predict first-year performance in twelve medical schools when other influencing variables are considered. in this study, the full battery of the nbt range has predictive value in the first year of study but beyond this only the nbtal domain maintains its predictive strength. while students adapt to university life, performance in these tests combined with mediating variables like family support, being first-generation students, financial assistance or the lack of it, living in or out of university residence, proximity to the campus, the quintile of school 52 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 attended, and other variables continue to influence future academic performance. this broader consideration may have implications for university selection processes and the management of students by educators. in this study, only 13 students had attended quintile 1 to 4 schools and five were of rural origin. while these students completed with unimpeded academic progress, other students admitted with similar entry level skills were found to need support on commencement of their studies (le roux & sebolai, 2016). since these 13 students progressed and completed their studies in minimum time, it is important to understand what enabled them to navigate their studies given that they were admitted with relatively low entry-level skills. limitations and implications for future studies the sample was a single cohort of medical students from one south african university, so it is important to guard against generalisation of the results without considering the context and methods. academic and socioeconomic profiles of families are a marker of student success as we know from the work done by steven, dowell, jackson, and guthrie (2016). there are many factors that affect students’ academic performance in south african universities. in this study we were not able to explore these factors and their impact on student success. notwithstanding these limitations, the results of this study offer insights into the profile of students and the importance of entry-level skills to minimum time throughput. conclusion this study confirms the predictive significance for academic performance in a medical degree of the nbtal that assesses students’ ability to engage successfully with the academic literacy demands of higher education. furthermore, the results suggest that a vertical application of knowledge is tested in the nbtal. the students admitted with low entry-level skills in the nbtal must receive additional support to augment their abilities to engage better with the cognitive load. references allers, n. j., hay, l., & van rensburg, r. j. 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(2014). predictors of first-year gpa of medical students: a longitudinal study of 1285 matriculates in china. bmc medical education, 14(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-14-87 microsoft word cissue79 full 15june.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 79, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i79a04 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x the use of peer assessment at a time of massification: lecturers’ perceptions in a teacher education institution vusi msiza curriculum and education studies, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa msizav@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1178-136x thabile zondi geography education, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa zondit2@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1714-5516 londiwe couch curriculum and education studies, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, pinetown, south africa couchlb@gmail.com (received: 2 july 2019; accepted: 8 may 2020) abstract the massification of higher education in south africa has spurred a demand for innovative ways of assessing students. peer assessment is an approach that is rarely used in higher education. in this paper, we explore lecturers’ perceptions of the use of peer assessment at a teacher education institution. using scaffolding as our theoretical underpinning for the study, we used in-depth semi-structured interview conversations to generate data from a sample of nine lecturers from various disciplines. most of the participants use peer assessment although its application varies across disciplines. participants also indicated a number of factors that they take into consideration when they use peer-assessment such as the students’ level of study and the lecturers’ disciplinary knowledge and teaching aims. participants perceived peer assessment as significant in improving students’ content knowledge and assessment skills as future teachers. the findings also indicated the limited use of e-learning-assessment tools. in the context of south africa this work requires further studies to broaden our understanding of peer assessment in teacher education institutions. keywords: peer assessment, lecturers, teacher education, scaffolding 48 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 introduction peer assessment is not a new area of research; it has a long history in basic education as well as in universities, dating back to the 1970s (kane & lawler, 1978; smith, cooper, & lancaster, 2002). since then, there has been a significant growth of research in peer assessment globally (ashenafi, 2017; falchikov, 2001), yet little in south africa thus far. scott, van der merwe, and smith (2005), naicker and bayat (2012), mostert and snowball (2013) and kang’ethe (2014) have, however, contributed to scholarship regarding peer assessment in the south african context. in this context, the 2015–2016 #rhodesmustfall and #feesmustfall movements demanded the transformation of higher education and the decolonisation of the curriculum. the student movements indicated the need for students to become participants and co-constructors of their educational experiences, including assessment. according to luckett (2016) and murris (2016), the principles of a decolonised curriculum should commence at the point of knowledge production as well as be apparent in how the disciplines are constructed. here we take the stance that a decolonised curriculum puts pressure on traditional teaching and assessment methods (mohamedbhai, 2014). when teaching methods are adjusted, assessment methods require equal adjustment to maintain constructive alignment (biggs, 2014). therefore, the traditional ways of assessment during which the lecturer is the sole assessor of students’ work, ought to change. this parallels developments elsewhere since active assessment approaches such as peer, self, and online assessments are increasingly gaining attention in teacher education institutions in the global north (naicker & bayat, 2012). there has been intensified pressure on institutions of higher education from the south african government to achieve the national goals of equality, equity, and transformation through providing access to education to all. this has led to an increase in the number of students enrolled in higher education (council on higher education, 2016) and is referred to as the massification of higher education (mohamedbhai, 2014). countries in the global north have also experienced this phenomenon; it began in the 1980s in the united kingdom and the united states of america (giannakis & bullivant, 2016), while in south africa it began in the early 1990s. the pressures created by the massification of higher education have been felt the most by the academic staff in that they have had to adjust their pedagogical practices and search for innovative assessment strategies that might enable them to cope with large class sizes (selyutin, kalashnikova, danilova, & frolova, 2017). there is thus pressure to find innovative ways of conducting assessment. according to barnard, de luca, and lie (2015), less attention has been paid to lecturers’ perceptions of peer assessment. in light of this, we explore the perceptions of lecturers on how lecturers in a south african teacher education institution use peer assessment to facilitate teaching and learning in a large classroom. our research question is: what are the lecturers’ perceptions of peer assessment at a time of massification in a teacher education msiza, zondi & couch: the use of peer assessment at a time of massification: 49 institution? first, we map an extensive literature review on peer assessment as it applies to teacher education, and then go on to discuss the theoretical framework, the methods and methodology, and the findings, before we offer our conclusion. review of literature peer assessment is often used in formative assessment. according to earl (2006), formative assessment intends to facilitate learning to build understanding and knowledge. peer assessment is one of the methods of formative assessment since its primary aim is learning. for earl (2013), peer assessment is assessment as learning; while students are assessing each other, they also learn the skill and the content. there are many definitions emerging from the literature relating to peer assessment. falchikov (1995), brew (1999), and topping (2009) have defined peer assessment as making judgements and providing feedback on each other’s work which could be offered in a smaller group or to an individual. for instance, individuals could assess others in a classroom or members of a group could assess each other on the work done in the group (scott, van der merwe, & smith, 2005). we understand peers to be individuals who have a similar aspect of identity, such as the level of study. for ashenafi (2017), peer assessment is “a scenario in which two or more students are involved in completing tasks that require fairly equivalent levels of participation for the entire process to be effective” (p. 245). peer assessment is often presented together with peer learning and cooperative learning. in this review, we discuss the two as interwoven since the learning and skills improvement also takes place during peer assessment (topping, 2009). earl (2006) and scott, van der merwe, and smith (2005) have suggested that those who administer peer assessment have an opportunity to learn the content and develop assessment skills. the purpose of peer assessment is a critical component that can make the process successful or unsuccessful. jordan (1999) described peer assessment as process-oriented, as opposed to other types of assessment that are product-oriented, so, for her, ongoing formative peer feedback is significant. assessment is less about getting a good score and much more about the learning opportunities for students (ramsden, 2003). in higher education, both peer assessment and learning are driven by recent approaches to knowledge production and how knowledge is transferred. there is an emphasis on treating students as active co-constructors of knowledge rather than as passive recipients of it (naicker & bayat, 2012; wilson, diao, & huang, 2015). the purpose of peer assessment should be explained to students before they engage in it. this includes providing clear guidelines, rubrics, and training for students on how to provide useful comments as well as critical feedback (kang’ethe, 2014; smith et al., 2002; topping, 2009; wiliam, 2011; zou, schunn, wang, & zhang, 2017). peer assessment can be carried out in various ways; it can be accomplished by providing verbal or textual feedback, and it can be corrective, confirmatory, or suggestive (cho & macarthur, 2010; topping, 2009). a peer providing corrective or suggestive feedback should note the aspects needing correction and then suggest improvements. also, the process of peer assessment can be reciprocal, or it can be one way (topping, 2009). for example, two peers 50 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 could give each other feedback, or a peer could provide feedback without receiving anything in return. given the increasing student enrolment, lecturers are struggling to provide formative feedback, so institutions often resort to the use of multiple-choice questions for assessment as mostert and snowball (2013) have pointed out. while multiple-choice testing may provide an opportunity for in-depth learning if it has been appropriately set, the cooperative learning opportunity is lost. several studies, conducted by dochy, segers, and sluijsmans (1999) and that by topping (2009), have suggested that in a situation where there is a choice, they would prefer to use formative peer feedback with comments since this ensures ongoing learning. while peer assessment provides opportunities for cooperative learning, some researchers have raised concerns about its use in arguing that its benefits are blurred (brew, 1999; kang’ethe, 2014). in a study conducted at the university of fort hare, kang’ethe (2014) found that institutions of higher learning are reluctant about embracing student-centred forms of assessment such as peer assessment. some lecturers view assessment in general as something done to students by the knowledgeable lecturer instead of seeing it as an activity done with students (brew, 1999). literature from south africa shows that lecturers have concerns with the level of study at which peer assessment can be introduced to their students (snowball & mostert, 2013). naicker and bayat (2012) have noted that, at their first attempt at introducing peer assessment with second-year students, they responded negatively because of its novelty. students engaged in peer activities but valued feedback from their tutors or lecturers. there needs to be a pedagogical rationale behind each lecturer’s decision at which level of study to introduce peer assessment and to which group. a study on implementing peer assessment for information systems conducted at the university of cape town demonstrated that introducing students to peer assessment over a long period of time allowed them to acquire assessment skills over the years so, in their final year, they displayed a high level of competency in assessing their peers (scott, van der merwe, & smith, 2005). although there are concerns, the real value of peer assessment, contrary to what many students think, is not that it will reduce lecturers’ marking workload (wilson et al., 2015). instead, the real value is on the learning that comes with the process of allowing students to become assessors and to develop higher order thinking (snowball & mostert, 2013). the earlier they can become assessors and develop such thinking, the better. the emergence of information communication technology (ict) has also contributed to the rise in the use of peer assessment as we see in the use of automated peer assessment tools on e-learning platforms (ashenafi, 2017). in south africa, institutions have begun to roll out elearning platforms (learning management systems). naicker and bayat (2012) administered epeer assessment and found that the current stumbling blocks such as a reliable internet connection, technical support, and institutional recognition of peer assessment as a legitimate form should be addressed before successful implementation of e-peer assessment can be realised. msiza, zondi & couch: the use of peer assessment at a time of massification: 51 smith et al. (2002) have stated that there is resistance towards peer assessment from both academics and students, particularly in relation to its reliability and validity, which terms have been conflated and used interchangeably. several “studies of reliability appear actually to be studies of validity since they compare peer assessment with assessments made by professionals rather with those of other peers or the same peers over time” (dochy et al., 1999, p. 338). to address the validity and reliability of peer assessment, lecturers should be guided by the following questions: what does it mean to assess the work of others? what are the assumptions underpinning such positions? (brew, 1999). also, anonymity should be implemented in peer assessment to ensure fairness and the quality of feedback (wilson et al., 2015). in addressing the problems relating to student bias, collusive marking, and friendship marking, dochy et al. (1999) have suggested that peer, self (formative) and co-assessment (summative) should be combined. we conceptualise the latter as the lecturers’ assessment and contribution after peer feedback (kang’ethe, 2014). scoring rubrics may also be used to improve grading validity (hamer, ma, & kwong, 2005). the use of ict tools to administer peer assessment has contributed towards addressing anonymity, bias, and efficiency (ashenafi, 2017). implementing e-peer assessment with reliable internet connection and security will ensure that bias and anonymity are addressed. ict tools can assist with calibration of grades that are assigned by both the students and the lecturer, although more work is still needed on how to use ict in various contexts (hamer et al., 2005; ashenafi, 2017). peer assessment offers triangulation on the types of assessment that are considered unreliable or valid, and this could address the concerns about validity and reliability (topping, 2009). the legitimacy of peer assessment is contested especially in contexts where the significance of learner-centredness is not acknowledged. naicker and bayat (2012) reported that students often value their lecturers’ feedback more than that offered by their peers since the latter are not seen to be knowledgeable. other challenges are institutional assessment policies that do not acknowledge learner-centred forms of assessment. ict tools are emerging as an alternative for conducting assessment at large, and specifically to facilitate e-peer assessment but that they are applicable only in settings with good infrastructure and cyber security is of concern. nonetheless, the literature (see dochy et al.,1999; topping, 2009) has also shown the benefits of peer assessment such as the learning opportunities for students to develop higher order thinking and for the lecturers to enrich their classes by broadening students’ perspectives. theoretical framework peer assessment gives students practice in learning how to assess and in learning from assessment which enables them to acquire and develop life-long assessment skills (barefoot, lou, & russell, 2011). the development of such skills is especially significant for student teachers who will be assessing learners. van steendam, rijlaarsdam, sercu, and van den bergh (2010) stipulate that lecturers can improve students’ assessment skills by deliberately playing a modelling role for them to learn how assessment is carried out. it is against this 52 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 background that scaffolding theory emerges as a relevant theoretical tool to understand lecturers’ perceptions on the use of peer assessment in a south african teacher education institution. scaffolding originates from the research of wood, bruner, and ross in 1976. it also relates to the theory of social learning (vygotsky, 1978), particularly his zone of proximal development (zpd). vygotsky’s theory of social learning views learning as a social interaction among peers and knowledgeable adults which results in the development of an individual’s learning process (wilson & devereux, 2014). scaffolding, in the education context, refers to a process in which lecturers provide more guidance to students in early learning stages rather than over time. as students master the skills, the lecturer gradually minimises the support provided (stone, 1998). during peer assessment, students can gain new insights from the feedback provided by their peers and the lecturer. after the scaffolding process, the knowledge and competencies of the students are expanded (wood, bruner, & ross, 1976). students learn assessment skills from the lecturer as they guide how peer assessment should be carried out in this process that is referred to as instructional scaffolding. essentially, through scaffolding, students are provided with the necessary support to assess their peers effectively, thus peer assessment results in a more participatory culture of learning (kollar & fischer, 2010). methodology in this study, we adopted an interpretive qualitative research approach to explore lecturers’ use of peer assessment at a higher education institution. qualitative research is concerned with exploring the phenomenon from the participant’s point of view in relation to how they interpret and make meaning (creswell, 2013). we were interested in understanding lecturers’ perceptions on the use of peer assessment and, following cohen, manion, and morrison (2011), we interpreted their lived experiences from their natural subjective positions. using convenience sampling, we recruited participants on e-mail. our target was to have 10 participants and, of the 15 lecturers contacted, 10 responded, of whom 1 subsequently withdrew. all participants are employed in the same teacher education institution, teaching both undergraduate and postgraduate students through a contact mode in various disciplines. the teacher education institution, which is part of a larger university, focuses on training students who will become teachers. the assessment is informed by the broader university policy on assessment that states, “in module planning a range of assessment options should be considered such as peer and self-assessment; criterionand norm-referenced assessment; formative and summative assessment; and continuous assessment, as appropriate to the outcomes of the particular module” (university of kwazulu-natal, 2012, p. 5). the sample included both novices with less than five years’ experience and experienced academics whose time in academia ranged between 2 and 21 years, with ages ranging between 30 and 50 years. comprised of six men and three women, the sample was predominantly male. the details of the participants are presented below. msiza, zondi & couch: the use of peer assessment at a time of massification: 53 table 1: participants demographic details no. name sex race teaching experience in higher education disciplines in education 1 thabiso male black african 11 years sport sciences 2 adam male black african 21 years curriculum studies 3 nancy female black african 2 years creative arts 4 yola female black african 12 years accounting 5 tina female black african 6 years languages 6 elias male black african 3 years leadership and management 7 thuli male black african 3 years curriculum studies 8 paul male black african 11 years social sciences 9 lwazi male black african 6 years curriculum studies informed consent forms were sent to lecturers, indicating the purpose of the study, and requesting their voluntary participation and permission for us to audio-record the interviews. the participants responded by indicating their availability for the interviews. appointments were then set up to conduct semi-structured interview conversations that were conducted individually at the lecturers’ offices; each session lasted between 45 and 60 minutes, and, following creswell (2013), we probed where we needed clarity. the interview conversations had two parts, the first of which established the participants’ background, in the second part, we offered the prompts relating to the topic of this paper. all sessions were audio-recorded, transcribed, and given to the participants for member checking. all the co-authors also read them. we analysed the transcripts using a thematic analysis strategy. braun, clarke, and terry (2015) have pointed out that thematic analysis contains various stages of coding and analysing the data. the stages for our process included familiarising ourselves with the data, creating initial codes, creating subthemes, and formulating broader themes. after that, we read over the transcripts between ourselves to ensure thematic rigour. we upheld all ethical considerations throughout the study. the identity of the participants has been protected though our use of pseudonyms. findings our analysis of the data yielded four themes. 1) the tension between criticism and critique 54 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 2) linking peer assessment to level of the students and the discipline 3) the process of peer assessment 4) peer assessment for learning in the discussion, we provide direct verbatim quotes to illustrate the views of participants. during data generation, we started the conversations by asking for participants’ definitions of peer assessment; this was an important entry point that established part of the contextual background underlying the conversations. we found that their definitions were consistent with the existing literature (see topping, 2009) such as having students of the same level assess each other and provide feedback. in the discussion of the findings, we refer to peer assessment and learning interchangeably. although we are aware that the two do not mean the same thing, we use them in complementary ways, since freeman and mckenzie (2013) have argued that they are intertwined. the tension between criticism and critique what came out strongly in this theme is the importance of having a conversation with the students first and explaining the purpose of the task. for instance, adam, in the excerpt below, noted that communicating the purpose of assessment to students is a starting point to a successful implementation. adam emphasised further that students should critique, not criticise their peers. we conceptualise the concepts of critique vs criticise as a suggestion that students should provide constructive feedback informed by content knowledge and the rubric. according to amin (2011), it is easy for students to confuse critique with its semantic neighbour, critic. providing training for students prior to and during the assessment activity is an essential component of scaffolding which serves to ease the tension between critic and critique. lecturers should introduce peer assessment through achievable steps and encourage them to contribute to the assessment criteria (langan et al., 2005). through this approach, students become active co-constructors of knowledge, lead their learning, support each other, and provide critique which is informed by the criteria (see panadero & brown, 2017; wilson et al., 2015). adam noted, at first, [i] tell them that we are assessing for development and not punishment. i tell them that do not punish the author, but you should develop the person. i tell them that they shouldn’t criticise but critique. thabiso found peer assessment in higher education suitable and useful to enhance the educational experience. but he highlighted the fact that meaningful peer assessment requires sufficient preparation on the side of the lecturer, especially since peer assessment is about students both learning the content and acquiring the assessment skills. thabiso said, of course, if you think about the numbers that we deal with in a he context it’s valuable in that aspect because you can do much more through peer assessment . . . it elevates the whole educational experience. i think you would achieve outcomes or objectives better when you do peer assessment than when you [do] not . . . but i think that for you to have a good peer assessment experience you need to prepare a lot. it msiza, zondi & couch: the use of peer assessment at a time of massification: 55 might not be necessarily on the day that you do a lot of work but there is much that goes behind the scene so that you present a proper peer assessment experience where students can benefit. nancy presented a different perspective to that of thabiso. she highlighted her belief that peer assessment is useful because it has the potential to produce students who are competent at providing and receiving feedback. according to nancy, emotional intelligence and critical thinking are among the skills that students develop during peer assessment. drawing from our anecdotal teaching experiences in higher education, students are resistant towards embracing critique and receive it as an attack. reflecting on her postgraduate module, amin (2011) argued that “students linked the critique of the assignment to a lack of care while i, the assessor, linked critique to intellectualism” (p. 269). this view on critique links to nancy’s; she said, it helps in that way and because we are in he [higher education] we need to develop students to be critical thinkers and we need to teach students to give and receive critical feedback from their peers and lecturers. if we do not open up this space, we will always develop professionals who are one minded, who want to get the marks and move on . . . it develops a level of openness on how people interact, and the goal is to produce professionals with emotional intelligence. linking peer assessment to the level of the students and the discipline given the few studies on peer assessment in south africa, it was important to explore the nine lecturers’ perceptions in a teacher education institution. seven participants indicated that they use peer assessment in their practice and two do not; both groups provided their justification. thabiso considered the students’ level of study when planning for peer assessment, as did participants in a study by scott, van der merwe, and smith (2005). he prefers using peer assessment with final year students (4th-years), because of their level of maturity and familiarity with the learning context. thabiso’s assumption is that they would have received guidance in their previous years of study and do not personalise feedback. according to petersen (2017), novice teachers blame teacher education institutions for not preparing them adequately for their professional roles when they face challenges at work. we argue that the type of scaffolding provided by thabiso, who teaches sports science, is important for developing the student teachers’ assessment skills. he explained, i tend to use in the 4th-years where i know that the students are matured enough to understand that what [they] are doing is an assessment. it’s not just either to score people down or to score them up just because they are your friends. i am not insinuating that students at lower year levels won’t be able to do peer assessment. i tend to use it with 4th-years. yola, who teaches in an accounting discipline, prefers introducing peer assessment to students in the first year of study. she believes that this approach helps the students to learn, develop, and become better assessors of other people’s work. this suggests that at the beginning 56 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 students require more scaffolding and, over a period of time, they are able to transition to milder scaffolding. she said, it was at undergraduate courses where we started introducing peer assessment at the first year of study. by the time they get to third year level they are not the same and they assess fairly. at third year level you can see that they getting closer to assessing their peers like the lecturer. peer assessment is better suited for modules or objectives in which the intention is to connect, learn, and negotiate meaning rather than provide the most accurate answer (rotsaert, panadero, & schellens, 2018). allowing students to engage collaboratively in an activity enables them to develop emotional intelligence and an ability to participate in a large and diverse classroom. apart from the students’ level of study, lecturers’ disciplinary knowledge and teaching aims influence their decisions on peer assessment. using peer assessment on modules that are collaborative such as those in the arts, which are inclusive of plays and performances, require students to plan and debate ideas together. this view seems to be echoed in nancy’s statement: the reason why i have used peer assessment is because of the nature of the module (creative arts) that i teach. they are practically based, students spend a lot of time together, actively engaging physically and intellectually. as noted earlier, not all the lecturers use peer assessment. thuli cites the increased student enrolments as a deterrent for using it and the probable administrative challenges. he said, no, i do not use it at all, i know it’s there but i don’t use it . . . in the institution we are taking a large number of students and it can be difficult to administer such an assessment. lwazi, too, had never used peer assessment before but he saw the possibility of linking peer assessment with a module such as academic literacy. he said, for now, i don’t use it and i have never used it before. but it would be an interesting way of assessing especially for modules like academic literacy, where students need to be critical in terms of how they write academically. the process of peer assessment to emphasise grading in peer assessment is controversial since the focus then shifts from its core business of being a learning exercise to being a summative one (luckett & sutherland, 2000; panadero & brown, 2017). the procedures through which individual lecturers administer peer assessment are diverse and determined by their disciplines and the purpose of the activity. for presentations, elias prefers verbal feedback during which peers do not allocate marks to each other. elias employs co-assessment (see dochy et al., 1999), which allows the lecturer to maintain control and present the final decision in relation to grading. elias explained, msiza, zondi & couch: the use of peer assessment at a time of massification: 57 i allow students to present then after presentations the other peers or the students who were the audience would, therefore, give feedback on what has been presented, though they do not allocate marks for them. innovative uses of peer assessment also emerged from the findings. nancy uses peer assessment for various purposes. her approach debunks the traditional conception of group work for which members are allocated the same mark. how she conducts peer assessment in art, play, and performance discipline is similar to lejk and subramanian’s (2013) conceptualisation of group peer assessment. they argue that when individual group members assess one another and make a contribution to the final product, other members should assess the process. nancy’s approach is suitable for large classes since the students are divided into smaller groups and, within the small groups, there is greater accountability and exchange of ideas. as with elias above, for nancy, the lecturer as an instructor makes the final decision. she pointed out that [i]nitially, they work on the project and in the middle, they are told that they are going to assess each other and keep a record for attendance, their roles and responsibilities. it also helps them to build a portfolio of what they are doing. once they have contributed, completed the portfolio and the practical performance, they are given a rubric for the performance, a rubric for the contribution and attendance. in the rubric, there is space for feedback, and they submit to me. adam explained his rationale. i give them an activity like an assignment, so in my module, we use an online tool and i have a discussion forum there. when the student finishes his or her assignment, they upload it to the discussion forum, then peers make comments and critique the submissions. after they have critiqued it, the assignment is sent back to the discussion forum. i then become a third reviewer and state my position regarding the two reviews. innovations emanating from the information and communication technologies (ict) have found their way into one of the lecturer’s assessment practices. scaffolding is not confined only to a one-on-one process and the combination of peer and computer-based assessment has made it possible and is more suitable to administer even for a larger class, so adam conducts peer assessment online, using the e-learning tools found in learning management systems such as the modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment (moodle). through this tool, he facilitates discussions and allocations online. adam takes over the role of expert between himself and the students. he uses a reviewer system in which he is a third reviewer after peers have assessed the students’ submissions. adam, as a third reviewer, resolves possible clashes and deals with biases and any direction required by students. both thabiso and tina (in languages) use peer assessment through a procedural scaffolding in that students are given rubrics that guide them. in this approach, the lecturers focus on one 58 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 criterion at a time, which, in turn, scaffolds support to students in a large classroom in categorised and specific ways, making it manageable. thabiso said, in a sport science module focusing on injuries i ask students to do a presentation on an injury that we have not done in class. then i give out the rubric to different groups, and each group will do a presentation. using the criteria in the rubric, the other groups will grade them depending on what they saw and what they heard. tina added, i come from languages and with peer assessment for us, it means proper planning where students are writing essays. students write the first draft of their essays. i then use peer assessment in a form of letting the students exchange their work for reading and provide feedback. then we use a criterion for the class, showing aspects they must look for. peer assessment for learning students learn and acquire skills in the process of assessing their peers (ashenafi, 2017; naicker & bayat, 2012). lejk and subramanian (2013) have stated that “the ability to assess peers is itself a learning process” (p. 371.) during peer assessment, students can construct knowledge through giving and receiving feedback from their peers (mostert and snowball, 2013). the lecturer facilitates the learning, addresses the gaps, and directs students towards attaining more competencies. the participants indicated that they use peer assessment mainly because students can learn from each other. according to paul, thabiso, and yola, peer assessment encourages students to appreciate the content presented and other people’s ideas. all three infer that such learning is necessary in a teacher education context since the students acquire assessment skills that are essential for their future. paul explained, when they assess other people, they can learn to appreciate the content that is presented, how students think and maybe learn from that particular process . . . i was conscious of the fact that these are teachers; one day, they will have to go out there. practice what i am preaching, expose learners to peer assessment and ideas. we learn by engaging ourselves in different ideas. for thabiso, i base it on the notion that students learn much better when they learn from each other. it’s the whole idea of promoting learning from each other, which is the reason why i even give out peer assessment tasks. yola added, when students are giving narrative feedback, they tend to use a language that is accessible to the assessed. something that i might not use, for students, my language could be formal and difficult to understand. there is a learning aspect from both the msiza, zondi & couch: the use of peer assessment at a time of massification: 59 lecturer and the student as well. when i read the students comments, i also learn in the process. even those who are assessing are also learning as they need to have skills and values such as honesty, fairness and be less judgemental. according to topping (2009), there is learning happening regardless of whether one is an assessor or the assessed. learning in the process of peer assessment is enhanced more by the quality of comments than by the grading (cho & cho, 2011). yola suggested that reading and moderating feedback provided by students to their peers has changed her perspective. she raised an important issue in higher education—language use. this emphasises that students may learn better when they receive instructions or feedback through everyday language with which they are familiar, instead of professional jargon (see cho & macarthur, 2010). through peer assessment, students can communicate, and language as a component of social learning provides access for the process of scaffolding to take place. the process of scaffolding requires active participation between the one providing the scaffold and the receiver, and this means that during peer assessment there is a shift from the lecturer being the more knowledgeable other (vygotsky, 1978). the lecturer becomes a co-constructor of knowledge with the students and acknowledges their input (falchikov, 2005). furthermore, falchikov’s view is consistent with that of brew (1999) and earl and giles (2011) who argue that assessment becomes an activity lecturers do with the students, during which students become active participants instead of having assessment imposed on them. adam’s view of peer assessment and learning suggests a strong belief in cooperative learning. he highlighted the importance of learning between peers and the potential to produce assertive students when he said, if peer assessment is not used, then students are denied an opportunity to learn and we are producing passive students who are waiting for the master . . . so, i call it assessment as learning because while they are assessing they are learning the content and learning how to write. discussion and conclusion peer assessment in higher education, especially in teacher education, is needed and suitable for various modules as demonstrated in our findings. peer assessment provides opportunities for lecturers to enhance learning and student engagement in their classes. in a large class, students can work in smaller groups, do peer assessment and learn from each other. the significance of peer assessment for teacher education is its ability for students to learn the content, for social learning to take place, and for them to acquire the assessment skill necessary when they become teachers. once the assessment skills are acquired and harnessed through a scaffolded feedback from the lecturer, students are better positioned to participate actively in class, and provide and receive constructive feedback. massification of higher education brings with a diversity of students in terms of race, language, cognitive abilities, gender, and culture (mostert & snowball, 2013). but we want to caution that to some extent diversity could make peer assessment more complex since there 60 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 would be a need to negotiate with students on such issues as common understandings in the group. again, a lack of diversity would not in itself present an argument not to have peer assessment. it appears that peer assessment should, in the main, be driven by the outcomes of the module. we acknowledge that the lecturer reserves academic autonomy to choose the types and forms of assessment in line with the objectives of the module (ramsden, 2003). however, in line with panadero and brown (2017), we are of the view that peer assessment is an essential pedagogical practice. for example, thuli’s and lwazi’s students miss out on an opportunity to learn the content and to practice comprehensive assessment skills. peer assessment has not gained thrust in both the south african basic and higher education systems despite its benefits (reddy, le grange, beets, & lundie, 2015); some of the higher education institutions are reluctant to change their assessment approaches (kang’ethe, 2014). we consider this a gap and think that teacher education institutions should revisit their assessment policies and their staff development workshops. research is needed to understand and broaden the relationship between module outcomes with the types of assessment selected as well as studies that explore ways in which peer assessment could be improved for use in both basic and higher education institutions. seeing the emerging debates on e-learning and e-assessment, institutions should focus on innovative ways of assessment and provide advanced training to its staff cohort. moreover, and this can be seen to be a limitation of this paper, future research should focus on student-teachers’ experiences of peer assessment. references amin, n. 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(2017). student attitudes that predict participation in peer assessment. assessment & evaluation in higher education, 43(5), 800-811. “i see a drawing. i think it is. . .” investigating visual ‘literacy’ among adult learners in kwazulu-natal katherine arbuckle abstract this article reports on a research project in kwazulu-natal which investigated how zuluspeaking adults who attended literacy classes interpreted illustrations from health education materials. individual interviews were conducted in rural and urban areas, where participants responded to a range of pictures in order to assess the effectiveness of different approaches to communication. the research intended to discover whether dated guidelines on illustrating for readers with limited education are still useful, and to offer insights to guide the future practice of illustrators in similar contexts. patterns of interpretation were observed which suggested different levels of interpretation of the illustrations, revealing ways in which participants made and expressed meaning from what they saw. these levels correspond with semiotic theories of visual communication. semiotic approaches to visual analysis provide tools with which to explore the construction of meaning. in this way the article theorises visual interpretation in the context of health education materials designed for audiences with limited education. introduction this article reports on a research project in kwazulu-natal which investigated how zulu-speaking adults who attended literacy classes interpreted illustrations from health education materials. firstly, an overview is provided to contextualise the study. this is followed by a discussion of the literature relevant to the topic, in order to define what is meant by ‘literacy’, summarise what is known about the ‘reading’ of pictures, and contextualise the study in a semiotic framework of visual communication theory. the research methods employed are described, before an example from the data is presented, to enable the discussion of the findings. lastly, conclusions summarise what these findings mean for illustrators and producers of illustrated health education materials. 206 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 context kwazulu-natal is a province with many economic, social and political challenges, including public health problems such as high rates of infection with the human immuno-deficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (hiv/aids) and tuberculosis (tb) (office of the premier, 2012). there is an ongoing need for important information on such issues to be communicated to the public. in education, multimodal approaches to communication can be an effective way to address diversity amongst learners at all levels of education, through combining visuals with word based texts (archer, 2006). illustrated educational print materials generally have definite intended meanings, which the producers attempt to make explicit, because in health education understanding the correct information could sometimes make the difference between life and death. thus, this research sought to gain insights into the ways in which adults with very limited education interpret pictorial information, in order to maximise the communicative potential of illustrated health education materials. in southern africa, education and mass media are still unevenly distributed between rural and urban areas, unlike in developed, “media saturated western societies”, and people who are not used to seeing visual media may not understand the intentions of illustrated messages (lagerwerf, boer and wasserman, 2010, p.3). figure 1 is a photograph of the view from one of the rural literacy centres, at ndodeni, where interviews for this study were conducted. although one does encounter the occasional billboard, advertisement or signpost including a picture, the overwhelming characteristic of this landscape is open space. there is a dramatic contrast between this open landscape and that of a developed urban area. arbuckle: “i see a drawing. i think it is. . .” . . . 207 figure 1: view of the landscape at ndodeni, near creighton, taken from the family literacy project building literature on visual ‘literacy’ and communication literacy and its converse term illiteracy have been recognised as insufficient concepts to describe the multimodal, everyday practice of ‘literacies’ which extend beyond the ability to read and write a language (janks, 2014; kell, 2011; kress and van leeuwen, 2006). in this article, these contested terms are used with caution, with full awareness of the differences between “autonomous” and “ideological” models of literacy (street, 2005). in this research, people’s basic abilities to read word-based text has bearing on the design and use of print media and illustrations. the official south african literacy rate now hovers at round 92.9% (statsa, 2014, p.11), however, there is substantial agreement that the actual literacy rate among youth and adults is difficult to ascertain and is likely to be substantially lower than is officially claimed by government (gustafsson, van der berg, shepherd and burger, 2010; posel, 2011). marginalised groups such as older adults, women, people with disabilities, and those living in rural areas tend to have higher rates of illiteracy (rule, 2006). in addition, there are grave concerns about the low achievements in reading and literacy in south african schools when compared with international benchmarks (howie, van staden, tshele, dowse and zimmerman, 2011; spaull, 2013). thus public education initiatives need to take into account that the audiences of campaigns may not be able to read written text messages. even in the digital era, locally produced 208 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 print materials have an important role to play in basic education and extension activities or media campaigns (goldstein, perlman and smith, 2008; maes, foesenek and hoogwegt, 2008). educational materials have traditionally relied on pictures to convey key information in various ways, particularly in development work targeting adults with limited literacy skills. visual communication has become increasingly dominant, as the rise of the ‘visual’ in global culture becomes a defining feature of contemporary society (avgerinou, 2009). in well-resourced urban areas, it is easy to take this media “ocularscentrism” for granted, for it has become the cultural ‘water’ in which the urban, educated, and technologically advantaged swim (rose, 2001, p.7). the ability to understand (‘read’) pictures is regularly assumed to be an inherent human ability (hoffman, 2000). many unwittingly subscribe to the ‘universality hypothesis’, which suggests there is little difference in the understanding of visuals by viewers with different educational levels and backgrounds) although research into visual literacy and work in development contexts suggests otherwise (carstens, 2004). for example, a comic book about the life of nelson mandela “doesn’t exclude people with low literacy levels” (mohlala, 2008), and a comic on measles was developed for children because comics are “easy to read, even for less literate children” (uys and madlala, 1991). the early literature on visual literacy details plentiful examples of situations where pictures have been misunderstood, “because people do not understand perspective and pictorial conventions relating to scale or size, movement and so on.” (linney, 1995, p.20). there have been many studies worldwide on how “illiterates” interpret pictures, although the findings of different studies are often contradictory, and usually lack “purposeful theoretical orientation.” (hoffman, 2000, p.136). what effect has increased exposure to visual media had on the so-called ‘visual literacy’ skills of people with low literacy, many of whom dwell in rural areas? fuglesang predicted that as development progressed, fewer people would have difficulties interpreting illustrations and the problem of “pictorial illiteracy” would “vanish” (fuglesang,1973, p.12). all visuals which are devised and disseminated for communicative purposes represent something else, be it information, ideas, or instructions. they convey messages by mediating between the viewer and reality (hoffmann, 2000, p.60). this applies widely, for example, to the variety of images used in advertising, to icons on computer screens, to posters promoting healthor other campaigns, and especially to educational illustrations. educational print materials aimed at arbuckle: “i see a drawing. i think it is. . .” . . . 209 adults with limited literacy skills typically use illustrations to support the written text and aid understanding. this is particularly true in the health sector, where pamphlets, posters and billboards address serious problems related to diseases like the human immuno-deficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (hiv/aids) and tuberculosis (tb). paper-based print media still have advantages in contexts where the intended audiences have little or no access to electricity and computer equipment, a situation still faced in many rural parts of south africa (goldstein et al., 2008, p.73). from the design and appearance of many educational print materials, it seems there is a lack of awareness among illustrators and commercial designers that illustrations, like written words, need decoding and are more open to multiple interpretations. moreover, in health education, for example, many concepts are complex and challenging to portray visually. the following advice from a classic handbook on adult literacy for development sums up the early approach: village people gain their knowledge through handling, creating, or looking at actual objects or events. when they see a picture, they expect it to contain what they know about the object and not only what they see of the object. a photograph or drawing of a man in which only one leg and one arm is visible will not necessarily be recognised as a man. a drawing of a truck in which only two wheels can be seen will not correspond to what people know about trucks. in an image which shows perspective, two objects of the same size, one farther away than the other, may be perceived as two objects of different sizes. . . . it should be remembered that pictures which contain shading and foreshortening may be read literally: the person may be seen to have a scarred face or a short limb, or lack the limbs which are not visible. . . . learners need to be introduced to images and taught to read and interpret them, just as they are introduced to words (fordham, p., holland, d. and millican, 1995, p.81). similarly dated local work found that restricting shading (particularly on faces), the use of photographs, and a careful or limited use of background detail were recommended for people who could not read (sejake 1993). criteria for “visual perception and preference in illiterate people” included clarity and context (including viewers’ “own experiences”, and “self-relevance”), and mentioned the need to distinguish between urban and rural dwellers, while cautioning not to assume visual literacy amongst urban dwellers (sejake, 1993, p.25). the extent to which rapidly changing and evolving media has penetrated the deep rural areas of kwazulu-natal since 1993, and the effects of this, is one of the motivations for this study. 210 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 more recent research affirms that illustrations have the potential to focus attention, support understanding, aid recall, and, using the example of health, encourage adherence to treatment. however, sometimes illustrations can be confusing and have the opposite of the desired effects (houts, doak, doak and loscalzo, 2006; katz, kripalani, and weiss, 2006). gaede (2010) reports that people with low literacy had difficulty with recognising objects in nutrition education materials. even so, object recognition does not equate with being able to interpret the intended meaning of the objects depicted (hoogwegt, maes and van wijk, 2010; boling, eccarius, smith and frick, 2004, p.189; bruski, 2011, p.88; carstens, maes and gangla-birir, 2006, p.222). it is notable that more recent investigations tend to shift focus away from technical concerns of matching different illustrating styles to particular audiences, towards theorising visual communication and meaning-making (for example, gaede, 2010; bruski, 2011). visual communication theory semiotic approaches to communication consider the production and exchange of meaning (as opposed to transmission), to account for how people interact with texts and visuals to create meaning (fiske, 2011). semiotic analysis requires understanding of the types and structures of visual signs, combined with the notion of layered meaning making in terms of denotation (a sign’s literal meaning), and connotation (ideas and values associated with sign) (barthes, 1977). c.s. peirce (1932) described signs as being triangular in nature, consisting of a relationship between the sign itself, the object to which it refers, and the interpretant of the sign, seen in the diagram below. arbuckle: “i see a drawing. i think it is. . .” . . . 211 figure 2: peirce’s elements of meaning (fiske, 1990, p.42). the object and the sign together produce the interpretant. the latter is not the viewer/reader of the sign, but rather “a mental concept produced both by the sign and by the user’s experience of the object” (fiske, 2011: 40). peirce (1932) identified fundamental sign categories as the icon, the index and the symbol, also usually depicted in a triangular relationship, as in figure 3, and most signs are combinations of the three types, although one of the types is usually dominant. figure 3: peirce’s categories of sign types (fiske, 1990, p.47) an icon is similar in appearance to the object that it represents, and is thus an essential part of visual communication. there are three different categories of icon: images, diagrams, and metaphors (peirce, 1932). images share basic 212 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 qualities with the object, while diagrams and metaphors are more abstract and conceptual. a diagram need not look like the object(s) it represents but its parts correspond to the parts of the object(s), showing only the elements that are vital to the intended meaning of the object, and leave out the rest. by supressing certain details, a diagram “allows the mind to more easily think of the important features” (peirce, 1998, p.13). a metaphor represents the characteristics of its object through a parallelism in something else (peirce, 1932). an index represents its object through a real connection, or by causing a mental association with the object. common examples include smoke indicating fire, or paw prints showing that an animal passed by, or fever being symptomatic of illness. the sign type ‘index’ is sometimes described as ‘symptom’, for example, in maes et al. (2008). in such cases, there is a physical relationship between the sign and its object, often a situation of cause and effect. a symbol has a meaning determined by convention, that is, a rule that users of the sign share. the appearance of symbols is often arbitrary, that is, they do not look like the thing they represent. examples of symbols include the red cross on ambulances, the red ribbon for hiv/aids awareness, and many logos (fiske, 2011; rose, 2001) any sign is to some degree conventional, even ‘realistic’ icons, and agreed upon conventions are seen as the social aspect of signs (bryson, 1991; fiske, 2011). the meanings of certain signs are more subject to indeterminacy than others, allowing wide variations in interpretation, and this applies particularly to visual signs (gaede, 2010). according to barthes (1977), meaning is layered, firstly through denotation (what or who is being depicted, or a sign’s literal meaning), and secondly by connotation (what ideas and values are expressed, through a sign’s associated meanings). denotation as “the common-sense, obvious meaning of the sign” (fiske, 1990), but connotation is far more complex, working on many levels and in a cyclical relationship with denotation. moriarty (2005, p.231) summarises, and affirms the link with peirce’s concepts: a connotative meaning is “cultural baggage” attached to or associated with the object. it is derived from past experiences or repeated associations between a sign and its object. barthes’ theory is that there is a first and second level of meaning. denotation is the starting point; meaning making then shifts to the second level where connotation takes over and delivers a richer experience of the meaning by engaging peirce’s interpretants. arbuckle: “i see a drawing. i think it is. . .” . . . 213 thus, viewers’ individual experiences, culture and social background influence how they interpret images. the complexity and indeterminacy of visual meaning is described as ‘polysemy’, and images are considered to be polysemous, that is, more open to interpretation than written text (barthes, 1977; rose, 2001). the most common method of addressing this is to include explanatory text with images, in the form of captions, known as anchorage (barthes, 1977). thus visuals encountered in daily life are often accompanied by written text (such as captioned photographs) or spoken words (in the case of television and online digital media, for instance). barthes (1961, in fiske, 1990) suggests that captions control the connotations an image may have, by narrowing the range of possible meanings (barthes, 1961, in fiske, 1990). the concept of anchorage is relevant to this study because the research investigates illustrations that were originally developed to appear in written materials aimed at low-literate audiences. if all visuals, including illustrations, are polysemous, then what happens to pictorial interpretation when audiences are unable to read and understand the anchoring text? methods and process the field of visual communication studies is interdisciplinary and fragmented (hoffmann, 2000, carstens et al., 2006) as is visual research which can mean different things (rose, 2001; mitchell, 2008). to address such complexities, the interpretivist paradigm and a qualitative approach to the research design was used, for its flexibility and the capacity for ‘thick’ narrative descriptions of participants’ interpretations (geertz 1973, in cohen et al., 2011). researching visual communication is not necessarily the same thing as doing what many understand to be visual research, in that data was not collected from participants using visual methodologies. the study was guided by the assertions that the meanings of an illustration can be studied at different sites – the image itself as a site, the site of production (where it is made, for what purposes), and the site of audiencing (how, where and by whom it is seen and interpreted) (rose, 2001). a mixed methods approach to analysis, dubbed “hybrid semiotics” (penn, 2000, p.242), explored the viewpoint of message receivers, and analysed the cues in the message to understand how the message is presented and how it is interpreted (moriarty and sayre, 2005). 214 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 this is congruent with a theoretical standpoint which recognises that audiences are not mere recipients but active makers of meaning, influenced by the intertextuality of other messages and experiences in their contexts. twenty-three individual interviews were conducted, twelve in rural areas and eleven in urban centres. the participants were all adults registered to do level one mother tongue zulu literacy courses at adult literacy centres. four different organisations participated, in order to minimise the influence of a particular organisation’s approach on the results. sixteen of the participants were female, seven were male. their ages ranged from nineteen years to seventy-six years, the majority evenly spread between twenty to forty years of age. fourteen of the participants reported no formal schooling at all before joining the adult literacy class, and, somewhat surprisingly, half of these were among the urban group, and the youngest was twenty years old. since formal education has in principle become more accessible to all, one does not expect to encounter young adults with no schooling at all. participants were interviewed individually, away from the others. each participant was shown twenty-four depictions on which he or she offered comment and interpretation. the interviews were conducted in zulu through an interpreter, and recorded using a digital audio recorder and handwritten notes on a form. illustrations from existing health education materials were separated from their accompanying text, in order to more clearly assess if and how the visuals could stand alone and convey the intended meaning. the decision to investigate the images on their own was taken with some trepidation, because most of them had been developed to be ‘read’ with text, in a complementary relationship. however, the wish to discover more about how images may be interpreted by those who are not able to read written verbal texts superseded this concern and potential limitation. the illustrations were grouped for two different purposes: one group of drawings was chosen in order to assess styles of depiction, such as black and white line drawing versus shading versus greyscale tone. the other group assessed different ways of portraying content, such as ‘realistic’ iconic images compared with those operating at more indexical or symbolic levels (fiske, 2011, pp.45–46). in each group were several sets of drawings, each set arbuckle: “i see a drawing. i think it is. . .” . . . 215 offering alternative ways or styles of depicting the same subject matter and message. the different sets of pictures were mixed up and interspersed with each other, in an attempt to lessen the cumulative effect on comprehension of viewing several pictures consecutively which depict the same subject in different ways. the interview transcripts were analysed inductively, and the patterns that emerged led to further semiotic analysis of the illustrations themselves, in order to deepen the analysis of meaning-making which included message producers and receivers. an example this set of three illustrations (figures 4, 5 and 6, below) depict the human immuno deficiency virus (hiv) using different approaches to show the message content. in practical terms, the purpose of depicting the virus is not to create an accurate visual representation, as it is not critical for people to be able to identify by appearance something never ordinarily visible due to its microscopic size. however a variety of depictions of the virus’ structure and outward appearance are used in treatment literacy materials and training programmes, to aid conceptual understanding of the manner and speed with which hiv reproduces itself in the body and the implications this has for treatment. in tests conducted prior to the commencement of the research, it was clear that an out-of-context image of the virus was extremely likely to be incomprehensible, and therefore the images in the research needed to have some recognisable context or object. the first picture in the set showed a woman standing next to a board, gesturing to a paper with a typical drawing of the virus on it. as a visual cue, the woman wears a t-shirt with the slogan ‘stop hiv’ and a ribbon – supposed to be the red aids ribbon logo. (the intended interpretation would include the following: a woman is standing at a board. she has an aids ribbon on her t-shirt, and she is pointing to a picture of hiv. she is teaching others about hiv.) 216 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 figure 4: first depiction of the virus the next picture in the set depicted a man, looking serious and thoughtful, with a large, detailed depiction of the virus hovering near his head, as he contemplates his hiv status – in other words the virus is there to show what he is thinking about, almost like a thought balloon. the picture was developed with input from members of a local hiv support group who recommended the ‘scary monster’ facial features on the virus shape. (the intended interpretation would include the following: this person looks worried. he is thinking about this scary hiv virus and wondering if he is infected, or, he knows he is infected.) arbuckle: “i see a drawing. i think it is. . .” . . . 217 figure 5: second depiction of the virus the last image in the set attempting to depict hiv had been used to illustrate material on the immune system and hiv, and is visually and conceptually demanding because it attempts to show the reality of something that cannot be seen with the naked eye. the illustration had been supported by text in zulu, the mother-tongue of the target audience, and was recognised from the outset as being likely to be misinterpreted or ignored due its unfamiliar nature. the image featured a hand with a cut on the finger, bleeding, with a drop or patch of blood. a circular shape contained a representation of a microscope image of blood cells including different types, along with hiv. (the intended interpretation would include the following: this hand has a cut on the finger and is bleeding. this arrow points to the blood and shows us what is in the blood: cells, and viruses/hiv. hiv can spread in blood.) 218 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 figure 6: third depiction of the virus these three images representing hiv can be summed up in the following way: figure 4 attempts to show a depiction of the virus by contextualising it in the familiar life situation of a workshop or training session where indeed such a depiction may be used. figure 5 attempts to show hiv using a metaphor, personifying the virus as a monstrous presence which weighs on one’s conscience. figure 6 conflates types of representation to depict in simplified terms the literal context of where hiv is found, and attempts to show both what can be seen (blood) and what can be known but not easily seen (what blood is made of). findings during the interviews it became clear, as fully expected, that few of the illustrations conveyed the intended meanings on their own, without discussion or prompting, and that the participants indeed brought their own experience and differing skills to construct alternative but plausible interpretations. many of the unintended meanings which participants attached to the illustrations were not isolated, in that quite a few of these misinterpretations were similar. both repeated and isolated unintended interpretations were interesting. initially, it was illuminating to examine the alternative readings of the illustrations, and there is a diverting novelty factor in the unexpected interpretations. for example, the hiv ‘monster’ hovering metaphorically in arbuckle: “i see a drawing. i think it is. . .” . . . 219 figure 5 was identified as a watch (by four participants), a sun (five participants), and by one as a pig or porcupine head. one participant remarked on the fact that the person in the drawing had no arms and half a body. four participants articulated that they saw eyes, mouth and/or teeth but did not identify what the owner of those features might be. in such cases, where alternative interpretations become the rule, it is more of a novelty when an explanation approaches the producer’s intended meaning. one participant described figure 5 thus: “i see a drawing. i think its blood cells. this man, i think he is now sick.” an almost ‘correct’ interpretation seems startling amongst the majority of alternatives expressed. in this case the participant was an urban woman, aged forty-four, who reported no prior formal schooling. if her explanation of the picture cannot be linked to formal education levels, then it seems likely that close personal experience combined with increased exposure to visuals and health resources in an urban context equipped her to make this interpretation. (the interview process in this study had not allowed for deeper exploration of factors contributing to particularly significant responses, and one may but speculate and build this consideration into future studies.) regarding figure 6, the hand in the picture was named as such by all but one participant, who noted only that the arrow looked like a road sign, and said of the drop of blood from the finger, “this looks like a hat. i don’t know what it is.” eight participants openly stated that they didn’t know what the circle with shapes inside was. other responses signifying confusion yet attempting to assign a description included “a circle with many things, they look like worms”, “a finger pointing to something from a river”, “. . . it’s either a honeycomb or a cake”, “. . . a spear pointing. looks like it’s pointing at a dish” (indicating blood drops), and “sun, clouds, a heart and a star” . the shapes inside the circle were identified as flowers, trees, and stones, while “decorations” were mentioned several times. a seventy-year old rural woman participant offered a beautifully logical interpretation possibly reflecting experience of craft-making: “this is a hand. a round thing with decorations. the hand is decorating the round thing.” although not mentioned, it is likely the blood drops represent paint in this interpretation. only four out of twenty-three participants mentioned that the hand was cut or bleeding. against expectations, one of these inferred the intended message: “a cut, blood flowing, looks like they want to show that he is infected, the infection can be transmitted to the people through the cuts in the hand.” 220 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 of the three illustrations in this set, figure 4 was the least problematic in terms of generating an initial surface description of the subject matter. all of the participants could give a reasonable surface description of the image which coincided with the illustrator’s intention. all could see a woman. all but three identified the board (one said a “box”, one did not mention it specifically, and one said “i don’t know what this is.”). eighteen of the twenty-three participants inferred that the woman was teaching. eleven mentioned hiv as the theme of the woman’s activity, due to identifying the ribbon on her shirt as the sign for hiv/aids – five mentioned reading the word ‘stop’ written on the shirt. only one participant clearly identified the object pictured on the board as hiv: the urban female participant with the highest level of formal schooling said, “i think she is showing some kind of virus, maybe hiv because she is wearing a sign that says ‘stop hiv’.” responses which suggest the participant was referring to hiv without openly identifying the attempted representation of the virus within the ‘teaching’ illustration were as follows: “destroying cells in the body” and “explaining about soldiers” a metaphor used locally by healthcare professionals when explaining the immune system to hiv-positive patients. alternative descriptions of the virus included “a flower she has drawn”, “a bird’s nest, getting old, or a heart”, and “looks like a tortoise”. summary none of the illustrations in this set were really successful at communicating their intended meaning. however, figure 4 was better understood than the figure 5 and figure 6, in that 8 of the urban participants and 3 of the rural participants interpreted it as intended. no participants actually named hiv with reference to 5 or 6, and both these illustrations were poorly understood. figure 4 was the most ‘literal’, analogical representation. it contextualised the depiction of hiv in a possible real-life scenario. the indexed training situation was understood by 78% of participants. the inclusion of the ribbon symbol helped 48% of participants to make an association with hiv, however, only one participant out of all 23 actually suggested that the picture on the board represented the virus hiv. arbuckle: “i see a drawing. i think it is. . .” . . . 221 the vast majority of participants interpreted the scary creature in figure 5 very literally, whereas, the intended interpretation relied on the metaphor of hiv as a scary creature, figuratively hovering over a person like a thought bubble. figure 6 was confusing to most participants, and again the majority attempted to interpret it very literally. semiotic analysis of the illustration revealed that it is very conceptually taxing, because it conflates sign types to depict in simplified terms the literal context of where hiv is found, and attempts to show both what can be seen (blood) and what can be known but not easily seen (the cells which make up blood). in the light of this, the fact that one participant did manage an almost ‘complete’ intended interpretation seems incredibly surprising. discussion reported education levels seemed to influence participants’ abilities to interpret pictures, but not as significantly as expected. findings suggest that rural participants were more likely to misinterpret illustrations containing symbols and unfamiliar objects, and tended to focus on describing surface details. even though urban participants were more likely to discuss the connotations of illustrations, they often misinterpreted the intended message. previous background knowledge and experience of the subject matter of the illustrations seemed to be the factor that most enabled participants to infer the intended meanings of illustrations. the variety of responses to each illustration in the set (and similarly, for the other sets of illustrations not discussed here), revealed different levels of interpretation of each illustration. 222 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 figure 7: illustration of a man coughing with a painful chest, from a publication on tb the first level was a surface description of the image, the objects or shapes the viewer could identify. as an example, see figure 7, (another illustration from the study) described thus: “this is a picture of a man with his hand on his mouth, and his other hand is on his chest.” the next level was an initial interpretation of the surface description, based on the viewer’s knowledge and experience. to continue with the above example, “he is coughing, it looks like his chest is sore.” and an alternative interpretation mentioned was, “he is singing or praying.” this could be followed by further levels of interpretation and inference, to create a narrative and/or conceptual understanding from the initial descriptions and interpretation. for example, “this man is sick with ’flu or tb.” these levels of viewer interpretations demonstrate the layering of meaning within images described in barthes’ concepts of denotation and connotation (barthes 1977). while most participants could identify iconic depictions of people and objects, far fewer participants described what these depictions were intended to mean. the purposes of the illustrations were often unclear, or open to different interpretations. the polysemous nature of visuals described by barthes (1977) was clearly demonstrated, as these illustrations were revealed to have a wide latitude of interpretation (gaede, 2010), and were mostly interpreted in unexpected ways. when comparing the intended meanings with the participants’ interpretations, it seemed clear that sign types which relate more directly to the object (content) of the message increased the likelihood that participants succeeded in decoding the intended meanings. it was clear that recognising objects and people in an illustration is not the same arbuckle: “i see a drawing. i think it is. . .” . . . 223 as interpreting the intended meaning of the illustration, supporting the notion that the complex underlying ideas of many health messages are difficult to share through visual communication alone (hoogwegt et al., 2010). while there were notable differences between urban and rural participants’ interpretations, there is a risk of creating a false dichotomy if these are overemphasized. there is diversity between urban and rural environments, and the availability of health (and other) resources, as well as the number of visuals encountered in daily life. peirce’s interpretant, is produced by the sign, and the viewer’s associations with the sign and its object, i.e. the message or thing the sign represents (fiske, 2011). this fulfils a vital role in understanding how audiences in diverse contexts interpret certain signs differently, but not others. it also accounts for the few instances where participants who reported no schooling at all interpreted cognitively challenging illustrations astonishingly ‘correctly’, congruent with findings that literacy levels exert less influence on pictorial interpretation abilities than previous experiences (bruski, 2011). conclusion the participants in this study seldom interpreted the illustrations according to their intended meanings. among the possible explanations for this are signifying factors within the illustrations, and external factors to do with the participants and their context, including: ! the viewer’s context background knowledge/life experience ! the information or message that is to be communicated ! how that information is portrayed visually in the illustrations these common factors are explained by semiotic theories of visual communication – how signs and people make meaning. for the message of an illustration to be successfully communicated, the above three factors need to relate closely to one another, similar to the manner in which peirce’s elements of meaning interrelate. illustrations (and visuals more generally) have great potential to communicate, but they also have serious limitations as conveyers of complex 224 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 health messages. this is especially true when audiences have limited basic literacy skills. the cautions and guidelines issued to illustrators in decades gone by retain some value. however, semiotic theory shifts the focus away from determining what types of pictures ‘illiterate’ people couldn’t understand, towards a more balanced understanding of which information can and cannot be reliably communicated visually, and how. illustrated educational materials should continue to be used to support and enhance education and communications in such contexts, but they should not be seen as convenient substitutes for face-to-face discussion and comprehensive community education on important public health issues. bibliography archer, a. 2006. a multimodal approach to academic ‘literacies’: problematising the visal/verbal divide. language and education, 20(6): pp.449–461. avgerinou, m. 2009. re-viewing visual literacy in the “bain d’images” era. techtrends, 53(1): pp.28–34 barbatsis, g. 2005. reception theory. in smith, k., moriarty, s., barbatsis, g. and kenney,k. 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john aitchison (received 3august 2015; accepted 26 november 2015) abstract this article provides a detailed analysis of the data from a range of official sources that have been used to enumerate the number of people who can be described as totally or functionally illiterate and estimates whether illiteracy in south africa can be reduced in the foreseeable future. the study examines the use of years of schooling (conventionally now set at grade 7) as the proxy indicator of a person being functionally literate by the main sources, the general population censuses of 1996, 2001, and 2011 and the annual general household surveys and shows that these sources give somewhat contradictory and discordant estimates of the rate at which there is gradual decline of illiteracy in south africa. other indicators based on self reporting, also used in the census and general housing surveys, show that a large number of adult south africans have difficulty in reading, writing and calculating with numbers. the study also shows that the data presented by these surveys about participation in literacy and adult basic education and training classes is inaccurate. note is made that currently south africa does not make use of any means of direct testing of adult literacy. the article concludes with an exploration on whether south africa is able to reach the goal of halving illiteracy by 2015. the target of such a reduction is necessarily based on what the baseline number of illiterates is as well as decision on whether full function literacy must be obtained or a merely a basic level of alphabetisation. through a detailed estimation of the results of the kha ri gude adult literacy campaign since 2008 a finding is made that the halving of illiteracy will be made, but only at the most basic level, and that attaining full functional literacy for all south africans remains a major task. 112 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 what is the current state of adult (il)literacy in south africa? the answers to this question: ! require an examination of a variety of data (much of it somewhat suspect) ! imply judgements about the successes and failures of the provision of adult education in the twenty years since south africa became a democratic state ! provide the baseline data for the planning of the final eradication of illiteracy ! inform prognostications about how long that process will take. this article, which tries, inadequately, to answer the question, is broken down into two parts, the first looks at the data on illiteracy and the second at the whether the efforts to significantly reduce illiteracy have succeeded (or will succeed) in the near future. the data on adult (il)literacy levels the data on literacy levels in south africa is derived from three types of data: ! proxy measures of literacy based on education (schooling) levels (recorded through census and other surveys) ! self-reports of literacy competency (usually collected through surveys) ! direct measures of literacy skills (usually done through smaller surveys or studies). estimating literacy using proxy indicators conventionally and until recently, unesco has recorded national statistics on illiteracy using proxy measures such as census data on education levels. such proxy measures usually recorded “no schooling” as meaning totally aitchison: proxies and perplexities . . . 113 illiterate and “below a certain grade level” as indicating functional illiteracy. in 1995 harley et al. argued that in south africa an adult with less than grade 7 was likely to be functionally illiterate (harley et al., 1996, pp. 23-25), a position accepted by statistics south africa in its general housing survey reports (see statistics south africa, 2014, p. 24) and by the department of basic education (see department of basic education, 2014, p. 38). the estimates based on census data table 1 summarises figures for the literacy and basic education levels of adult south africans aged 15 and over, using data from the 1996, 2001 and 2011 general population censuses. (the age of 15 is chosen as the lower age limit because this is unesco usage in recording adult literacy levels.) table 1 literacy and basic education levels of south africans aged 15 and over level of education g eneral population census 1996 2001 2011 full general education (grade 9 and more) 13.1 million (50% ) 15.8 million (52% ) 24.3 million (68% ) less than full general education (less than grade 9) 13.2 million (50% ) 14.6 million (48% ) 11.5 million (32% ) none to less than grade 7 8.5 million (32% ) 9.6 million (32% ) 6.9 million (19% ) no schooling 4.2 million (16% ) 4.7 million (16% ) 2.7 million (8% ) these figures show that by 2001 there had been no decrease since 1995/1996 in the percentage of functionally illiterate adults (less than grade 7) and they had actually increased in raw numbers. some 32% of the adult population of about 30½ million could therefore be regarded as functionally illiterate and the functional literacy rate (taking grade 7 education as the criterion of functional literacy) amongst the adult population had accordingly remained at 68% since 1996. there had been a very slight drop in the in the proportion of no 114 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 general household surveys are conducted annually by statistics south africa and collect 1 data from a sample of private households and residents in worker hostels in the whole country. the aim of the survey is to provide government departments and organisations with information on the progress of development in south africa for monitoring and policy purposes. the survey covers six broad areas, namely education, health and social development, housing, household access to services and facilities, food security, and agriculture (statistics south africa, 2015, p. 10). a community survey, by comparison, is a mini census, undertaken in 2007 in south africa, because of the large ten year gap between the 2001 census and the 2011 census. they also suggest lower overall population figures for south africa than extrapolations of 2 the 2001 census data would predict. schooling illiterates but their raw number had increased. all provinces, except the northern cape had increasing numbers of adults with no schooling. these estimates assume the accuracy of the 2001 census figures, which also correspond to similar estimates in october household surveys from the late 1990s. the estimates informed the planning of the kha ri gude literacy campaign (aitchison, 2006). the corollary of these statistics is that the state system of adult basic education and training and its parallels in the business sector and non-governmental organisations had by 2001 failed to reduce the number or percentage of functionally illiterate people in south africa. at best abet provision was keeping the percentage of functional illiterates the same, though their raw numbers continued to grow. however, the situation shown in the 2011 census suggests a startling reversal of the growth in raw numbers of the poorly educated and a rapid decline in the percentage of those with less than grade 9 and grade 7. in addition, a new set of proxy based estimates now also challenge the 1996 and 2001 census based figures (and also, though to a lesser extent, the 2011 census data itself). the estimates based on post-2001 general household surveys subsequent to the general population census of 2001, a number of annual general household surveys present a suite of results of proxy-based estimates1 which generally suggest a lower and declining number of both total illiteracy2 (no schooling) and functional illiteracy (less than grade 7 amongst those aitchison: proxies and perplexities . . . 115 it needs to be noted that every year these figures are retrospectively revised downwards 3 (presumably by reweighting). the original general household survey figures in the report on each year from 2002 to 2013 have these no schooling figures: 11.8% , 11.2% , 10.8% , 10.4% , 10.5% , 9.3% , 8.7% , 7.4% , 7.0% , 6.6% , 5.8% , 5.6% . only 2012 and 2013 remain unaltered. with only some primary education) as seen in table 2 based on figure 9 from the general household survey 2013 (statistics south africa, 2014, p. 23):3 table 2 literacy and basic education levels of south africans aged 20 and over g eneral household surveys 2002 to 2013 date of survey no schooling some primary both 2002 10.6% 17.0% 27.6% 2003 9.9% 15.8% 25.7% 2004 9.6% 15.5% 25.1% 2005 9.4% 15.0% 24.4% 2006 9.5% 14.3% 23.8% 2007 8.6% 14.3% 22.9% 2008 8.7% 13.9% 22.6% 2009 7.2% 12.3% 19.5% 2010 6.8% 12.1% 18.9% 2011 6.4% 11.5% 17.9% 2012 5.8% 10.9% 16.7% 2013 5.6% 10.7% 16.3% the general household survey report starts with an estimate of the no schooling group as having been 10.6% (3 016 000 people) in 2002 (indicating considerable divergence from the census 2001 estimate of 17.9% for those aged 20 and over with no schooling) dropping to 5.6% (1 788 000 people) in 2013, both a percentage decline and a real number decline. the decline in numbers each year (except for 2006 and 2008 when there were small increases in the no schooling percentages) is erratic, ranging from 1% to 116 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 13%. given that the explanation for the decline would presumably focus mainly on the fact that older people with no education would gradually be dying out and younger people who had benefited from the more general availability of schooling would be coming in, the erratic nature of the declines suggests some kind of error, whether of sampling or weighting (and retrospective reweighting – as it is clear that with each successive annual household survey the previous survey figures are retrospectively revised downwards (as shown in the example of the 2009 survey in the table 3 below)). the 2013 general household survey claims a decline in total illiteracy (no schooling) and functional illiteracy (schooling of less than grade 7) among adults aged 20 years and older from 27.3% in 2002 to 16.2% in 2013. table 3 percentage of adults (aged 20+) with less than grade 7 education year ghs of the year ghs 2009 ghs 2013 2002 28.9 27.9 27.3 2003 27.4 26.2 25.5 2004 26.5 25 2005 25.6 24.8 24.2 2006 25.1 23.7 2007 23.7 23.2 22.7 2008 22.4 22.4 2009 19.7 19.7 19.3 2010 19.2 18.8 2011 18.1 17.7 2012 16.5 16.5 2013 16.2 16.2 aitchison: proxies and perplexities . . . 117 table 3 shows that the general housing surveys from 2002 to 2013 indicated a decline every year in the percentage of undereducated adults. the general housing survey of 2013 show how statistics south africa has also retrospectively re-weighted the figures for most years. the department of basic education has made use of these general household survey reports and has issued reports based on their own analysis and calculations of the education statistics in the general household surveys from 2009 to 2013 (department of education, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014) as well as a summary one on the 2002 to 2008 surveys (department of basic education, 2010). their latest summary (department of basic education, 2014, p. 40) of literacy progress using the grade 7 and higher proxy measure of functional literacy is shown in table 4: table 4 percentage of adults aged 20 and above who have completed grade 7 and higher, 2009 2012 group 2009 2010 2011 2012 african 75.0 76.0 78.9 79.1 coloured 83.9 85.5 72.3 86.4 indian/asian 95.5 92.1 92.6 92.0 w hite 99.8 98.8 98.0 97.5 all 79.4 80.0 80.7 82.2 [it might be noted that it is impossible for any country or population group in the world to actually have a 99.8% grade 7 schooling achievement – because there is a percentage (usually at least 3% to 5% ) of every population which is largely uneducable because of major physical or mental handicap. current estimates suggest that as many as half a million disabled south african children may not be in school (human rights w atch, 2015, pp. 74-75).] the department of basic education’s general housing survey (ghs) 2012 report – focus on schooling (department of basic education, 2014, p. 40) states: 118 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 as the department of basic education (2014, p. 38) notes: “an adult who has completed 4 grade 7 and above is regarded as literate. the completion of primary education is used as a proxy for measuring literacy; that is, it is assumed that the person is capable of reading, writing and doing some basic numeracy. this calculation is in line with the unesco institute of statistics calculations.” overall the percentage of adults who are literate across all population groups has increased from 79% in 2009 to approximately 82% in 2012. this may be attributed to the introduction of adult basic education and training (abet) now known as adult education and training (aet), the kha ri gude literacy campaign and other initiatives introduced to improve the literacy rates of adults by government. this statement has a puzzling set of claims about the causes of the reduction in illiteracy (and ignores the most obvious one, the deaths of older illiterates). firstly, the number of abet learners had remained more or less static since the mid-1990s and the output of learners with a full abet grade 9 equivalence was derisory (only 8 221 in the six years from 2001 to 2006). socalled aet is not the same as abet as it includes both abet (grade 1 to 9 equivalence) and adult further education and training (grade 10 to 12 equivalence). further, the kha ri gude literacy campaign, whatever it achievements in reducing total illiteracy, has little impact on functional literacy statistics as its output level is grade 3 equivalence only. 4 anomalies in the post-census 2001 surveys the anomalies in the post-census 2001 surveys are a cause for perplexity. take the following example in table 5 of a comparison between the com m unity survey 2007 and the general housing survey 2007 with the census 2001 figure. the variations in the differences in the separate provincial declines in the number of illiterates are inexplicable (and they certainly cannot be explained away by assuming either systematic sampling, weighting or coding errors in the whole datasets for census 2001, or the two 2007 surveys, or a selective genocide of illiterate adults over the age of 50). aitchison: proxies and perplexities . . . 119 table 5 decline in number of unschooled persons between 2001 and 2007 census 2001 community survey 2007 decline as % general household survey 2007 decline as % kwazulu-natal 1 539 299 645 471 58% 617 000 60% limpopo 858 681 511 714 40% 480 000 44% eastern cape 778 204 366 590 53% 399 000 49% gauteng 515 747 277 285 46% 238 000 54% m pumalanga 468 747 307 740 34% 296 000 37% north w est 437 791 260 381 41% 230 000 47% free state 257 140 132 110 49% 126 000 51% w estern cape 167 619 94 724 43% 84 000 50% northern cape 91 304 76 358 16% 71 000 22% south africa 5 114 532 2 672 373 48% 2 541 000 50% to be noted are the large declines in provinces with the highest illiteracy levels (kwazulu-natal, limpopo and the eastern cape) and the tiny decline in the northern cape. even more alarming are some other results in the general household survey 2009 (statistics south africa, 2010). for example, as shown in table 6, it reports (p. 9) that there were only 18,000 person attending literacy classes at a time when the kha ri gude adult literacy campaign had 613 643 learners registered that year (and of whom some 545 666 submitted their final 120 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 the kha ri gude adult literacy campaign was launched in april 2008 after a two year 5 process of investigation and development. some 357,195 learners were enrolled in 2008, 613 643 in 2009, 609 199 in 2010, 660 924 in 2011, 676 323 in 2012, and 562 926 in 2013. the south african qualifications authority has conducted an annual verification exercise involving a moderation of a sample of learner assessment portfolios that are submitted from every learner and conveyed to the head office for moderation and verification. by the end of 2012 some 2 305 492 learners had passed this assessment and been recorded on the national learner record database. the auditor-general also conducted a verification exercise in 2014. even allowing for some margin of error in the statistics it is incontestable that huge numbers of people participated in kha ri gude classes. assessment portfolio at the end of the six month programme) (south african qualifications authority, 2010, 2013). 5 table 6 comparison between kha ri gude registrations in 2009 and the general household survey 2009 tally of people in literacy classes province kha ri gude ghs 2009 ghs as % of kha ri gude eastern cape 142 671 6 000 4.2% kwazulunatal 133 486 2 000 1.5% limpopo 103 828 4 000 3.9% gauteng 75 678 1 000 1.3% mpumalanga 55 971 < 1000 <1.3% free state 50 984 4 000 7.8% north west 32 193 1 000 3.1% western cape 11 173 1 000 9.0% northern cape 7 654 < 1000 <13.1% 613 643 18 000 2.9% even if one assumes that some literacy learners have been recorded as being in adult basic education and training classes (the survey records 120 000 aitchison: proxies and perplexities . . . 121 the general household survey seems to have been somewhat confused (as many people 6 are) on the distinction between literacy classes and abet classes. buy even such confusion does not explain the overall miscount. attendees), this is still far short of the number of kha ri gude registrations. it6 is a catastrophic miscount. so, on questions of accurate sampling, the general household survey of 2009 hardly inspires confidence. table 7 shows the situation with the 2012 general household survey (statistics south africa, 2013, p. 9) and exposes an equally dire miscounting problem: table 7 comparison between kha ri gude registrations in 2012 and the general household survey tally of people (aged 5+) in literacy classes province kha ri gude ghs 2012 ghs as % of kha ri gude eastern cape 161 155 less than 5 726 less than 3.6% kwazulunatal 148 687 less than 1 688 less than 3.9% limpopo 109 035 less than 1 002 less than 0.9% gauteng 88 821 less than 1 543 less than 1.7% mpumalanga 56 907 less than 659 less than 1.2% free state 52 892 less than 397 less than 0.8% north west 35 917 less than 1 018 less than 2.8% western cape 15 315 less than 3 684 less than 24% northern cape 7 589 less than 162 less than 2.1% 676 323 15 692 2.3% 122 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 so the general question arises: “if the general household survey can get this data so wrong, how can one trust any of these post-census 2001 surveys’ illiteracy statistics?” the problems with the two suites of proxy estimates estimating south africa’s illiteracy levels using proxy measures is complicated by what are now clearly two suites of statistics – the earlier census and pre-2000 household surveys and the new set of community and household surveys. these latter surveys have come up with figures that suggest three options: ! the census figures were wrong ! there has been a dramatic decline in illiteracy ! the recent survey figures themselves are inaccurate. thus, for example, the 2007 community survey, found that the people with no schooling (the comparable cohort of people enumerated in the census 2001 would now be aged 20 and over) totalled only 2,672,373 (an enormous difference of 2,048,253 from the census figure of 4,720,626). the october household survey of 2008 estimated that the number of people adults aged 20 with no schooling was now about 2,451,856. this would suggest that the number of no schooling=total illiterates would be about 9% rather than the 16% of the 2001 census. if these new surveys, using proxy measures, are accurate, then the literacy problem is nearly halved. this may be considered good news, though the raw number of illiterate people is still a huge challenge, even if one now assumes that the actual number of functional illiterates may be less than the census 2001 estimate of 9.6 million, possibly about 8.25 million (25% of adults) (gustafsson et al., 2010, p. 21, p. 14). however, the continuing ambiguity of the statistics affirms the need for a well conducted literacy survey such as those run in kenya and botswana (which both showed the actual literacy levels to be lower than previously estimated) using direct measuring of literacy skills. aitchison: proxies and perplexities . . . 123 one needs to note the caution by posel (2011, p. 43-44) that respondents my over-estimate 7 their literacy competence when faced with yes/no options. self-report measures of literacy some recent south african community and household surveys have made use of self-report measures of literacy, though one should note the caveat of gustaffson et al. (2009, pp. 3) that literacy data from a number of countries indicates that self-reported literacy rates tend to be higher than rates based on proxy measures and may lead to over-estimates of adult literacy. the general household survey of 2008 the general household survey of 2008 asked respondents whether they and their household members could read and write and found that 10.5% of adults aged 15 or over could not read or write, slightly more than the same survey’s proxy measure estimate of total illiteracy at about 8%.7 table 8 cannot read or write. general household survey 2008 age group m ale fem ale both as % 15-19 86000 48000 133 000 3.8% 20-24 70000 44000 114 000 3.3% 25-29 92000 67000 158 000 4.5% 30-34 96000 95000 191 000 5.5% 35-39 84000 125000 209 000 6.0% 40-44 92000 165000 256 000 7.3% 45-49 138000 212000 350 000 10.0% 50-54 138000 257000 396 000 11.3% 55-59 153000 243000 396 000 11.3% 60-64 125000 227000 353 000 10.0% 65-70 127000 223000 349 000 10.0% 70-74 94000 177000 270 000 7.7% 75+ 100000 226000 326 000 9.3% totals 1 394 000 2 108 000 3 501 000 100.0% 124 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 of interest is that the raw number of illiterates peaks amongst people in their fifties and that adult illiteracy will, in the future, become predominantly a male problem, both trends evident from the figure 1. figure 1 these findings are replicated in the general household surveys in subsequent years. the general household surveys from 2009 to 2013 the general household surveys from 2009 to 2013 asked respondents a more nuanced set of questions about whether those aged 15 or more and with less than grade 7 education could write their own name, read, fill in a form, write a letter, calculate the change they should receive, and read road signs on a scale of no difficulty/ some difficulty/ a lot of difficulty/ unable to do (statistics south africa, 2011, 2012, 2013). aitchison: proxies and perplexities . . . 125 table 9 literacy and numeracy skills of adults aged 15 + with no or less than grade 7 level of education [general housing surveys 2009 to 2013] 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 r eading reading n o difficulty 50% 52% 52% 51% 50% some difficulty 14% 11% 10% 10% 10% a lot of difficulty 10% 9% 9% 9% 10% u nable to do 27% 28% 29% 30% 30% reading road signs n o difficulty 49% 48% 51% 54% 58% some difficulty 15% 13% 12% 12% 11% a lot of difficulty 9% 11% 9% 9% 8% u nable to do 27% 28% 28% 26% 25% w riting w riting name n o difficulty 72% 71% 70% 70% 70% some difficulty 5% 4% 5% 4% 4% a lot of difficulty 4% 4% 4% 4% 4% u nable to do 19% 20% 21% 21% 22% filling in a form n o difficulty 32% 28% 32% 29% 29% some difficulty 16% 15% 13% 14% 13% a lot of difficulty 14% 16% 15% 15% 14% u nable to do 38% 41% 40% 42% 44% w riting a letter n o difficulty 47% 47% 47% 48% 47% some difficulty 13% 10% 11% 10% 9% a lot of difficulty 10% 10% 10% 10% 9% u nable to do 30% 32% 33% 32% 34% n umeracy calculating change should receive n o difficulty 67% 71% 73% 74% 76% some difficulty 11% 9% 8% 8% 7% a lot of difficulty 6% 6% 5% 5% 4% u nable to do 16% 14% 13% 13% 12% 126 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 however one needs to note the caveat from gustafsson (2012) who states: 8 ... very importantly, the way people judge their own level of literacy in these kinds of questions where you tell a fieldworker what you can do (as opposed to show what you can do, for instance in a test) seems to be unstable over time. i say this because people with the same level of education, in terms of highest grade attained, provide changing judgements of their level of literacy. specifically, it seems south africans have become more demanding of themselves, so over time they become less and less inclined to say they are literate, when controlling for grade. past standardised tests have indicated that literacy levels by grade have remained more or less unchanged, so people with the same level of education are not becoming less literate in reality, it seems. i suspect that greater social demands to be literate are making people more aware of their own limitations. w hat does this mean for interpreting the data? firstly, one needs to be extra careful when making comparisons over time. no change could in fact mean there’s an improvement, but people are not acknowledging this because they are becoming stricter on themselves. secondly, i think we should present literacy statistics by level of schooling attained to make it easier to identify the anomalies i’m referring to. the kha ri gude literacy campaign ceo, m ckay (2012b) commenting on these two 9 indices noted that: when we designed the questions i had hoped for a more nuanced interpretation. because we used the competences of the b otswana, kenyan and lam p surveys as indicators of different levels of competence so that we could see literacy/illiteracy as a continuum. t he approximate levels that could be denoted based on the other surveys (which were direct testing) were: level 0: the learner cannot write his/her name level 1: the individual can write his/her name, demonstrates some form of emergent literacy and can read shop and road signs or labels on a package. level 2: considered a suitable minimum for coping with demands of daily life. can read a newspaper or book or other extended text. level 3: can do the above and can also produce text in the form of a letter or form. respondent demonstrates higher-order information processing skills. calculating change would say a lot about a degree of numeracy. alarmingly these figures suggest a possibly worsening illiteracy problem amongst people with less than a grade 7 level of education – in 2008 some 27% were unable to read at all, in 2013 it was 30%; in 2008 some 38% could not fill in a form, in 2013 it was 44%. this may correlate with the known8 prevalence of functional illiteracy amongst children at school and people who have been through primary school (smith-greenaway, 2015). statistics south africa developed two possible indices of subjective literacy based on these questions in the 2009 to 2011 surveys. the first index took the no difficulty and some difficulty answers to the questions on whether respondents could read (a newspaper or book) and write a letter. the second index added the question on filling in a form (roux, 2012).9 aitchison: proxies and perplexities . . . 127 in terms of raw numbers, taking the components used in these two indices (reading, writing a letter and filling in a form), those who cannot do these or only with great difficulty are as follows: table 10 functionally illiterates among those aged 15+ with less than grade 7 [general housing surveys 2009 to 2013] 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 read u nable to do 1536000 1 530 000 1 582 000 1 498 000 1 542 000 a lot of difficulty 538000 517 000 491 000 467 000 485 000 t otals 2 074 000 2 047 000 2 073 000 1 965 000 2 027 000 w rite a letter u nable to do 1 662 000 1 760 000 1 786 000 1 641 000 1 737 000 a lot of difficulty 577 000 571 000 533 000 510 000 473 000 t otals 2 239 000 2 331 000 2 319 000 2 151 000 2 210 000 fill in a form u nable to do 2 087 000 2 249 000 2 198 000 2 122 000 2 261 000 a lot of difficulty 800 000 877 000 807 000 747 000 700 000 t otals 2 887 000 3 126 000 3 005 000 2 869 000 2 961 000 these numbers are more or less consistent with these surveys’ estimates of the numbers of number of people with no education or very low levels of education. direct measures of literacy unesco’s institute for statistics is now demanding more direct measures of literacy from member countries (a good african example of such being the kenya national literacy survey of 2007) (aitchison and alidou, 2009, p. 26) that will lead to better aligned policies. gustafsson et al. (2010, p. 3) argue that south africa should periodically test adult literacy levels and would be relatively inexpensive relative to the cost of adult education programmes. 128 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 the kha ri gude literacy campaign had engaged with statistics south africa about testing 10 general housing survey 2009 respondents through reading a paragraph and writing a paragraph but the cost implications proved difficult and the suggestion to have a separate module during the fieldwork to focus on literacy did not materialise (m ck ay, 2012a). gustafsson et al. (2010, p.4) estimate that “ if the quality of schooling in south africa were 11 where it should be (at a level befitting a middle income country), gdp would be r550 billion higher than it currently is, or 23% above the current level. .. poor quality schooling at the primary level, which increases adult illiteracy in future decades, is undoubtedly a large, and arguably the largest, inhibitor of south africa’s growth and development.” in south africa the aforementioned 2008 october household survey and the general household survey 2009 did ask questions about whether household members could read or write (some 3,501,000 adults could not in 2008) and perform certain literacy skills (1,536,000 could not read in 2009) but these were not direct qualitative test-based measures. 10 however a number of direct measures of reading, writing and calculation skills directed at south african schoolchildren have indicated that, when tested with widely used international instruments, the south african schooling system is underachieving in literacy and numeracy (even when compared with other far poorer countries in the rest of africa) (see the summary of these studies in the efa country report of 2009 (department of basic education, 2009, pp. 29-32)). though the testing of reading and mathematical competencies amongst schoolchildren does not directly tell us about adult illiteracy, it does show that “there is a low correspondence between grade level and literacy level” (posel , 2011, p. 41) and explain why many schoolchildren graduate into functionally illiterate adults. this would suggest11 that south africa’s rate of functional illiteracy amongst adults will indeed be very high (indeed higher than the general household survey estimates since 2009 using proxy measures). gustafsson et al. (2010, p. 39) note that one interesting measure is how may hours an adult spends reading each week and suggest that less than a hour could be a useful measure of functional illiteracy (and in which case about 25% of south african adults are functionally illiterate). aitchison: proxies and perplexities . . . 129 the dakar framework for action has two of its six goals address the themes of adult 12 learning. these are goal 3 – ensuring that the learning needs of all young are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life-skills programme, and goal 4 – achieving an improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015 especially for women and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all. reducing illiteracy – have the plans to halve illiteracy by 2015 worked? in 2000 south africa committed itself to the revised (dakar) education for all goal of a 50% reduction in illiteracy by 2015. has this commitment been12 adhered to? setting targets in planning for the growth of a fully literate society one first has to make some further estimates of what reduction in illiteracy is already being made by existing programmes (and of course the death of elderly illiterates) and then, on the basis of the data gained from the various measures of literacy (described above), define the target numbers before planning programmes to achieve these literacy goals. as already indicated, the process of working out how many people in south africa are illiterate is not an exact science. numerous caveats and quibbles must be made about the data from proxy and self-reported measures. in addition all countries have a percentage of the population of sub-normal intelligence or severe mental or physical handicap and it is unrealistic to think that any but those countries with very high budgetary commitment to education can address their needs (in passing it is this problem that renders suspicious any country’s claim to have a literacy level that rises much above the 95% mark). but the bottom line is that, however one massages these estimates, south africa definitely has several million illiterate adults who could benefit from literacy and/or adult basic education provision. apart from contending with the divergencies between the census 2001 and 2011 and more recent household survey estimates, another, more pedagogical issue intrudes – what intervention genuinely guarantees the lifelong acquisition of literacy skills? whilst people with no schooling can safely be 130 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 an auditor-general of south africa report (2014) notes both a 52% decline in public adult 13 learning centre enrolments between 2000 and 2013 (p. 11) and a failure to have kha ri gude learners progress to abet level 2 (grade 5 equivalency) “and continue to achieve functional literacy” (p.12). assumed to be illiterate, how many years of schooling is likely to result in the lifelong retention of literacy competency? harley et al. (1996) in their major survey of south african literacy and adult basic education used grade 7 as the retention indicator (a position that has been accepted by statistics south africa), but possibly many of those who dropped out of school before reaching grade 7 may well be functionally literate (posel, 2011, p. 40; smithgreenaway, 2015). the department of higher education used a more ambiguous indicator for functional literacy of “both read and write with understanding a short simple statement on their everyday life” (auditor general of south africa, 2014, p. 18). the major south african intervention to reduce illiteracy amongst adults, the kha ri gude literacy campaign, only claimed to reach a grade 3 equivalence (abet level 1) and the campaign drew attention to the need for follow up via the state system of public adult learning centres (which did not happen). 13 this leaves one in something of a quandary. if the grade 7 indicator is used then there is no prospect of south africa reducing illiteracy by 50% by 2015. however, if the kha ri gude outcome of grade 3 equivalence is accepted, the target may well be met, and evidence for this is analysed below. what is a realistic target? realistic targets have to factor in a number of complex variables, that will reduce the number of people to far less than the raw statistics suggests. to start with, how many of the potential candidates are in effect uneducable – because of sub-normal intelligence or severe handicap? probably about 1.7 million adults. about 2.4 million adults are over the age of 64. should one invest in people this old? it may not be directly of economic benefit but many of the elderly play a crucial childcare role in south africa and more literate grandparents may have positive long term effects. an obvious first target is to make literate the over 2 million unschooled adults even though they are a hard to reach group and many of the truly uneducable aitchison: proxies and perplexities . . . 131 1.7 million adults are in this group. the other obvious targets are those who dropped out of school after a year or so. it is likely that the bulk of the reachable target will be people who, for whatever reasons, dropped out or were extruded from schooling very early on. (the kha ri gude literacy campaign statistics for 2008 show that unschooled people made up 36% of the learners and the largest group (48%) had only a year of schooling.) making a very rough calculation on the basis of there being probably at least 8.25 million functionally illiterate people, one can deduct the 1.7 million uneducable and be left with a overall figure of 6.55 million. half of this is 3.27 million. that would then be the initial dakar goal related target. however, that 3.27 million would have to be the actually achieved number. because of some inevitable drop-out and attrition from intervention programmes this requires a larger expanded target than 3.27 million. thus, for example, the ministerial committee on literacy report of 2006, which argued for a target of 3.8 million, developed a plan to enrol 4.7 million illiterate adults by the end of 2012 (ministerial committee on literacy, 2006, pp. 17-18). what progress has there been towards such a target? has the current provision of literacy and adult basic education successfully reached over 4 million people? the department of basic education (2014, p. 40) makes the, already noted, claim: overall the percentage of adults who are literate across all population groups has increased from 79% in 2009 to approximately 82% in 2012. this may be attributed to the introduction of adult basic education and training (abet) now known as adult education and training (aet), the kha ri gude literacy campaign and other initiatives introduced to improve the literacy rates of adults by government. let us start with the kha ri gude literacy campaign as it operated from 2008 to date rather than originally planned model (which aimed to enrol 4.7 million by 2012 with double the funding that was eventually granted to the campaign). a number of technical points need to be made. the majority of kha ri gude participants have had no, or virtually no, schooling – kha ri gude is targeting the genuinely functionally illiterate. in the first year of operation (2008) participants who completed the programme engaged in a formal externally 132 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 validated assessment process (overseen by the south african qualifications authority) and of these a negligible number failed. the results from 2009 to 2013 were also externally validated and were equally positive. the graph below shows the enrolments, completions and certifications of success for the campaign for the years 2008 to 2014 (the figures for 2014 are estimates). figure 2 the cumulative totals are 4 111 080 enrolled, 3 326 216 completed, and most of those who completed were certificated as successful – 3 200 000. this is close to the campaign plan’s target of 3.8 million. aitchison: proxies and perplexities . . . 133 the department of basic education (2014, p. 40) statement that adult basic education and 14 training (abet) is now known as adult education and training (aet) betrays a major conceptual confusion (in both the department of basic education and the department of higher education and training). abet refers to an adult equivalent of compulsory general school education and in south africa that is still currently school grades 1 to 9. aet refers to all adult education at any level, both formal and non-formal, and therefore cannot be used as a synonym for formal abet (or even abet and further education and training (fet)). sadly, kha ri gude now appears to be facing serious mismanagement problems and the 15 enormous potential it had to continue as a vehicle to deliver post-literacy education and training largely compromised. we also have to take into account the learners who gain basic literacy through other literacy and adult basic education and training (abet) programmes.14 so far their impact on reducing illiteracy levels has been pretty insignificant (gustafsson et al., 2010, p. 15). table 13 in the efa country report for 2009 records the long standing inability of the department of education to disaggregate figures for genuine abet (up to nqf level 1) and those for students studying for the senior certificate (nqf level 4). one cannot therefore use this table to make reliable estimates on the abet contribution to reaching the 50% reduction in illiteracy. gustafsson et al. (2010, p.15) note a survey finding of about 50,000 per annum in abet classes. the independent examinations board had an average of about 40 000 examination entries over the years 2007 to 2009 (but these come from individuals writing several course examinations) in industry and seta sponsored programmes. the general household survey of 2009 estimated 120,000 learners in “abet” classes. probably one can be generous and estimate 100 000 learners a year in abet levels 1 to 4 programmes – and also assume, also overgenerously, a 50% success rate. whatever the limitations of abet provision, this output would certainly take the overall kha ri gude plus abet class cumulative total past the 3.8 million target. south africa can make, indeed has made, the 50% reduction in total illiteracy. this achievement, albeit much of it only to the most basic level of alphabetisation, could never have been done without the kha ri gude campaign’s first six years of work which were a model of effective service delivery (aitchison and mckay, 2014) and women will have been the main beneficiaries of the progress made. 15 a caveat to this success is that basic literacy acquisition can be rapidly undermined by lack of use and further development of reading, numeracy and 134 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 associated skills. unfortunately post literacy provision shows few signs of being geared up adequately. there is little evidence that the national department of higher education and training has geared up or is capable of further servicing the graduates of the kha ri gude campaign (in spite of the ministerial committee on literacy having warned about this back in 2006) (ministerial committee on literacy, 2006, pp. 52-53). the efa country report of 2009 very frankly acknowledged the failure of the abet system to deliver on scale (only 8 152 learners had exited fully qualified from the system since 2001) and states that “as a mechanism for addressing the learning needs of adults with no or little basic education the apparatus of public adult education governance, provision, curriculum and support has evidently proved unequal to the task.” (department of basic education, 2009, pp. 22–23). the current policy development and plans for a new system of community colleges and community learning centres is still too insubstantial to be evaluated as to its potential for making south africa a more literate society. can any conclusions be made? this article has attempted to analyse the available sources on adult literacy statistics in south africa and found a fair degree of inconsistency among them. some discrepancies are to be expected, particularly with reading and writing and their use in the daily functioning of people in a very complex society with high disparities in education and wealth and general living conditions. in addition we have an evolution of what kind of literacy or socalled literacies are needed to function in modern society. however, one can safely say that a more thorough form of direct testing of literacy capabilities is needed for south africa to have a more reliable set of baselines from which to improve. although some of the data sources (particularly the general housing surveys) have indicated that illiteracy (using grade 7 schooling or equivalent as the proxy for functional literacy) is less of a problem, percentage wise, in raw numbers south africa still has an embarrassingly large number of illiterate people. i would personally estimate that we have a practical target of about 5 million people still to be reached. it is clear that without the efforts of the kha ri gude literacy campaign the number of totally or near totally illiterate people would be about three million people larger. but the follow up to this campaign has been more or less nonaitchison: proxies and perplexities . . . 135 existent. one can safely predict that unless something radical happens to the support and funding of literacy and adult basic education provision for undereducated south africans, this will take a long time. references aitchison, j.j.w. and harley, a. 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(2015). general household survey 2014 (statistical release. john aitchison professor emeritus of adult education at university of kwazulu-natal aitchisonjjw@gmail.com mailto:aitchisonjjw@gmail.com microsoft word cissue79 full 15june.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 79, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x book review pedagogy in poverty: lessons from twenty years of curriculum reform in south africa (2018) by ursula hoadley (routledge. isbn 9780367204068) wayne hugo school of education, ukzn, pietermaritzburg, south africa hugow@ukzn.ac.za (received: 10 may 2020) ursula hoadley’s magisterial pedagogy in poverty: lessons from twenty years of curriculum reform in south africa provides a deeply insightful account of what we have learnt about the powers of pedagogy in the attempt to redress educational inequality in south africa. the book is not the musings of some professor on the subject; every page speaks from a position of engaging with the empirical research, analytical work, and tracking of effects over an extended period of time. the focus of hoadley’s book is a central issue, not only in south africa, but across the world, wherever there is hope that we can use pedagogy to address historical legacies of inequality and discrimination. what are the powers of pedagogy? what can pedagogy actually do? how effective can pedagogy be in the attempt to transform education as a whole? south african reformers engaged seriously with these questions over twenty years and tried to use pedagogic reform as a weapon of transformation, and, when one effort failed, they tried another, and then another, leaving behind one of the most instructive national accounts of the powers (or lack of them) of pedagogy in the world. the south african case is one of the most fascinating accounts in the world, given the systemic legacy of apartheid and the radical attempt to use educational transformation to address the legacy and hoadley’s book is the best account we have of this struggle. much of the research used is her own, done over the last decade and a half by spending months in various schools across the country collecting data from classrooms and schools. the classroom data was analysed through innovative analytical tools that got at how pedagogy actually worked rather than taking an ideological line on what good pedagogy is. in early post-apartheid south africa, flush from a democratic victory, an ideological distinction was made between teacher centred education (which was dictatorial) and learner centred education (which was democratic) and a move was made to enforce more freedom, integration, and equality within the classroom between teacher and learner, between subjects, 116 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 and expanding outwards to schools caught in different socio-economic areas. it took the form of a radical outcomes-based education that gave much freedom to the teacher to design lessons adapted to the conditions and context in which they were working. much hope, effort, and money went into this radical reform, but south africa now has a curriculum that tightly specifies exactly what a teacher must teach every day. how do we make sense of this massive change from a dictatorial apartheid education system, to a radical outcomes-based education, to this current tight specification of what must be taught each day? how do we develop an analytical language that does not fall into the ideological trap of taking some stereotype of pedagogy as the gold standard but, at the same time, also develop an analytical language that has a real ability to make a difference in the lives of teachers and learners trying to overcome centuries of discrimination? and on top of all that, how develop an analytical language that allows a fair and detailed examination of all the pedagogic changes in south african education over 20 years? hoadley manages to do all three with aplomb. her book refuses to fall for a stereotype so there is no blind faith in one type of pedagogy that holds the secret to victory over all others. the tools she develops target improvements in pedagogy that have a real effect on south african conditions. these tools hold analytical power over all the pedagogic transformations undergone in south africa, enabling a tracking of what exactly the pedagogic transformations were under the ideological expressions and hyperbolic hopes. at the same time as consistently developing one of the most powerful analytical frameworks for pedagogy in south africa, hoadley searches for emergent themes that will take her further and deeper and lead to insights she uses later to push the conceptual distinctions to their limit and break through into new ways of thinking and acting. for example, while spending time in classrooms gathering data, she experienced the common phenomenon of a teacher (apparently) teaching, with no actual teaching or learning taking place. it was happening a lot in south african classrooms; i experienced it myself, sitting in on a lesson and realising that even though the teacher was supposedly teaching and the learners were putting their hands up and answering, there was no actual teaching going on. hoadley does not let those experiences just go by; she engages with what they mean, and then tries to get an analytical grip on them. what does it mean to come up with an empty or zero code when you are analysing a teaching event because there was no evidence of any actual teaching going on? rather than just leaving the analysis at that point with some kind of descriptive account (like the teacher did not know what was going on, or was not doing her/his job) hoadley interrogates the phenomenon, asks how we could grasp something that is not present, analyse it, and make its absence present. so, what you get in pedagogy in poverty is the most carefully researched and thoughtthrough account of the mechanisms of pedagogy and how these mechanisms have worked and are working in south africa. i am using mechanism here in a specific way to refer to the refusal to just give a descriptive account of what has happened but to pursue how it is that it works and why it works the way it does, with all its limitations and powers. by pursuing how the mechanism of pedagogy works in conditions of poverty, hoadley hopes to show us the way forward so that we can learn from the last twenty years of pedagogic reforms, not through an ideological defence of some position, but by understanding what pedagogy is hugo: book review 117 actually capable of. therefore, what we have in this book is the most detailed synthetic current account of the effort in south africa to address historical inequality through educational reform that specifically targeted changes in pedagogy over the last twenty years. the first three words in the title of ursula hoadley’s book are “pedagogy in poverty”, and it is this phrase that accurately catches what the book is and does. the most obvious meaning is that the book focuses on how pedagogy happened in an ill-resourced context like south africa. much of the book does have this focus. hoadley gives a historical, sociological, and philosophical account of what pedagogy looked like in south african classrooms over 20 years as we struggled to emerge, somehow alive, from the hell of apartheid. in south africa we attempted a straight jump from hell into heaven, and we thought that pedagogy was the device that would carry us through the fire. hoadley gives a principled account of the consequences of this leap of faith, or as the ancient greeks would have called it, hubris. radical outcomes-based education and its attendant, curriculum 2005, certainly fit the tragic mode of great dreams and aspirations slaughtered in the brutal reality of everyday classroom life. pedagogy in poverty starts to sound more like a lament, more like pedagogy that tried really hard to make a difference but was not up to it. pedagogy was found wanting, not the great healer and fixer, but, rather, mismatched with expectations it could never fulfil. by this account, pedagogy in poverty is about how the rich expectations we held of pedagogy could never be met by a mechanism of such poor resources, reach, influence, and ability. it is pedagogy that is poverty stricken and unable to meet the demands placed on it. perhaps we placed too much hope in the mechanism of pedagogy to overcome poverty, and the south african story is about how we came to correctly measure the strengths of pedagogy, and realise it was no panacea. in south africa, we put our faith in pedagogy to do the educational healing. hoadley gives the account of what happened to this faith, and the big question hanging over her book is whether this faith was misplaced or not. pedagogy has always been associated with poverty and privilege. the original pedagogues were slaves educating the sons of the rich and wealthy—the brightest of those discriminated against teaching the entitled how to continue their entitlement. this was the founding function of pedagogy. in south africa this form of slavery was bastardised by the colour of skin, and pedagogy was weaponised to ensure that black-skinned people learnt only to become gardeners, maids, and to do any other work regarded as too menial for whites. it was reasonable, when the oppressed became masters in south africa, to expect that the same weapon that had condemned them to labour, would be the weapon of liberation. how did a weapon of such devastating power become so useless in the hands of the liberated? the answer on the one hand is obvious; it can be experienced by simply travelling through south african middle-class suburbs at 4 in the afternoon, and observing the many maids and gardeners walking to town for a taxi home. colonialism and apartheid brutally structured south african life. our liberation attempted a softer touch; curriculum could change, pedagogy could change, but established white privilege on the back of black labour remained relatively untouched. with apartheid, pedagogy was part of a large army dedicated to discrimination; with liberation, pedagogy finds itself alone in a poorly resourced school with 118 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 poorly trained teachers trying to make a difference. i exaggerate, and i would like to feminise pedagogy, even though its initial greek reference is masculine—male slaves educating rich boys. the reason i would like to feminise pedagogy is because i want to give her a greek name that i think hoadley would like—sophia. hoadley wants to give pedagogy a spine, and that spine is knowledge, not just any knowledge, but knowledge that can be used in the most difficult of material conditions to produce an uplifting effect. i recognise this hope, this wish, this wager, this principled defence, but when i hear it, all i can see is sophia, the gnostic sophia, who was thought to be one of the feminine aspects of god. this kind of pedagogy occupies the same space currently occupied by more modern versions, named by bernstein (2000) as the pedagogic device or the space that provides transition mechanisms and energies. it is not pure creative insight into the heights, nor is it the material enactment of this vision. it is the transitioning energies between material entanglement and pure enlightenment. ursula hoadley’s book is a modern meditation on an ancient dynamic. we can get a sense of the project by simply taking the first and last parts of the book and placing them next to each other. here is how the book opens with pedagogy in poverty in both senses: pedagogy located in a poorly resourced context and poor pedagogy, stripped of any power and any effect. on the first page of the introduction we read a transcript from a grade 3 lesson in khayelitsha. teacher: listen, on page 63, how a tree lives and grows. it says that . . . what does it say people? how a tree lives and grows. what does it say? learners: how a tree lives and grows. teacher: what does it say? learners: how a tree lives and grows. teacher: what does it say? learners: how a tree lives and grows. teacher: umthi uphula njani ukhube nyani. say it in xhosa. learners: umthi uphula njani ukhube nyani. teacher: say it again in english, how a tree lives and grows. learners: how a tree lives and grows. teacher: there are those who are not talking. i don’t hear you. how a tree lives and grows. learners: how a tree lives and grows. hugo: book review 119 teacher: i don’t hear some [of you], how a tree lives and grows learners: how a tree lives and grows. teacher: i don’t hear you. how a tree lives and grows. (grade 3 classroom, khayelitsha, south africa, 2003) so, pedagogy in poverty refers directly to how teaching happens in poorer communities of south africa. it is clear from the above example that it is not only the poor community that is in focus, but the poverty of the actual pedagogy, or, as hoadley puts it, “no distinctions or judgements are made of individual learners and their activity and initiative and spontaneity on the part of the students is closed down. pedagogy is a form of marking time, a rite of rote” (p 1). this poverty of pedagogy is happening now, not during apartheid, but 10 years after some of the most radical curriculum reforms any country has undergone in recent times. in a detailed historical account of how pedagogy remained in this poverty-stricken state as south africa went through two major reform cycles, hoadley provides a telling dissection of how difficult it is to change embedded pedagogic practices with curriculum reforms. but there is a deeper meaning to the notion of pedagogy in poverty that has to do with the causal strength of the pedagogic mechanism when one is attempting radical change: pedagogy is not the all-powerful conquering force that can be used to transform the world. it has powers, but it is not the superhero many make it out to be. it is the most human of forces in being weak, intransigent, and local. hoadley’s question, given that we have clear accounts of what pedagogy looks like in our poorer communities, and given that many of these accounts show a weak pedagogy unable to overcome the reproduction of inequality, becomes “what can we do to strengthen pedagogy, get it into shape so that it is doing the best it can, even with the limited powers it has?” the last part of this book referred to above is her wager and i quote it in full. in my view, a knowledge-based curriculum is essential for differentiating subjects and delineating the subject-specific skills, concepts and content which need to be taught, especially in contexts of poverty. in this way a curriculum outlines the possibilities for specializing students’ consciousness with respect to different subjects and, consequently, gives access to new and different ways of making meaning and organizing experience. (p. 218) pedagogy needs help in the classroom trenches, and one of the best ways to do so, is through its companion – curriculum – and not just any curriculum, but a curriculum that is clear and decisive, that provides trusted maps of, and ladders to, the academic terrain. correctly combined and aligned, curriculum and pedagogy become a mechanism that connects the downtrodden and exploited with the full power of transcendence and possibility, but always 120 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 caught in the in-between space, never to have the full power of a god, never able to address poverty with a single act, condemned to fight continually in the trenches for small victories. reference bernstein, b. (2000). pedagogy, symbolic control, and identity: theory, research, critique. new york: rowman & littlefield. microsoft word b80 full issue final.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 80, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i80a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x pervasive skills and accounting graduates’ employment prospects: are south african employers calling for pervasive skills when recruiting? favourite mhlongo accounting education, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa mhlongof1@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4951-805x (received: 20 january 2020; accepted: 15 september 2020) abstract in response to the pressures of globalisation and information technology, accounting practitioners are generally expected to demonstrate greater capacity in pervasive or generic skills. universities offering accounting programmes in south africa have revised accounting degree curricula to provide an added focus on pervasive skills. however, it remains unclear whether such interventions strengthen the position of accounting graduates in the job-seeking process, nor is it clear which of the many possible pervasive skills are relevant for employers. through content analysis of online advertised accounting vacancies, this quantitative study sought to investigate whether employers do call for pervasive skills when recruiting accounting graduates and, if so, which of these skills are most sought after. the findings indicate that, indeed, employers generally specified pervasive skills, and that oral and written communication and critical thinking were the most sought-after of these skills for accounting-related employment in south africa. keywords: pervasive skills, work-readiness, accounting education, professional skills, graduate employability introduction higher education, perceived through a social lens, is provided within social and economic contexts to communities, and it should be designed to improve job prospects for university students. preparing students for the world of work is one of the aims of higher education (jackson, 2013), and is achieved by ensuring that the knowledge and skills transferred meet the demands of employers. research studies, however, seem to paint a bleak picture about higher education, with some scholars having argued that it fails to transform parallel with the changes taking place in societies (maclean & ordonez, 2007), and that it fails to guarantee employment to graduates. this has raised concerns and calls for an urgent transformation of university education, globally, to keep up with the demands of the ever-evolving 50 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 communities and workplace. universities, globally, are expected to keep their curricula up to date and in line with the changing needs of employers and a competitive labour market. in south africa, as in other developing countries, many university students seek employment upon graduating with a first university degree. this may be due to the heightened cost of higher education—many students from disadvantaged backgrounds incur massive debts in student loans, yet are expected to provide financially for their families soon after graduation. therefore, the pressure to secure employment and to improve earning potential immediately after graduating with a bachelor’s degree becomes paramount for many students in those circumstances. accounting is one of the specialisations that students select for its perceived ability to secure immediate employment for its graduates. the field has gained popularity with school leavers over the past few years, in spite of its being perceived by some as an uninteresting, tedious, less-creative occupation that is meant for the conservative (jeacle, 2008). the growth in the number of accounting students, coupled with the high rate of unemployment in south africa, has resulted in jobs in this field being heavily contested. research has shown that employers prefer skilled accounting graduates with pervasive skills who are ready to add value in the workplace (aman & sitotaw, 2014; seetha, 2014; singh et al. 2014). “pervasive skills” is a term used in the professional body, south african institute of chartered accountants (saica)’s, competency framework (2009) to refer to what would usually be referred to as generic or soft skills. accounting literature across the globe has used various terms when referring to pervasive skills and qualities; these include generic skills (abayadeera & watty, 2014; boyce et al., 2001; bunney et al., 2015), professional skills (international federation of accountants, 2014), employability skills (altrawneh, 2016; stoner & milner, 2010; tan & fawzi, 2017), soft skills (de villiers, 2010; ramlall & ramlall, 2014), and many others. hence, there is no single definition for pervasive skills given that most definitions are discipline or context specific. this study subscribes to a definition of pervasive skills as being the “interpersonal, human, people or behavioural skills needed to apply technical skills and knowledge in the workplace” (weber et al., 2009, p. 356), which is consistent with the saica (2009) competency framework and accounting literature. the saica 2009 competency framework indicated that “entry-level chartered accountants are required to display the highest proficiency in pervasive skills” (as quoted in saica, 2010, p. 19) and identified skills such as ethical behaviour, professionalism, personal attributes, and professional skills that aspiring chartered accountants should possess prior to entry into the profession (saica, 2017). however, employers have raised concerns about the employment readiness of accounting graduates, linked to their lack of pervasive skills (kunz & de jager, 2019; schulz, 2008); a gap between what they prefer and what graduates possess, suggesting a misalignment. evidence has suggested that students face challenges with applying theoretical knowledge obtained at university to practical workplace scenarios (tempone et al., 2012), and are unable to adapt to the workplace because of their poor command of pervasive skills (wye & lim, 2009). some have attributed these challenges to the inability of accounting education to produce graduates who are ready for professional mhlongo: pervasive skills and accounting graduates’ employment prospects 51 practice (hakim, 2016; mohamed & lashine, 2003). consequently, accounting education has been the subject of many scholarly debates, which have resulted in studies that investigate its abilities and deficiencies in terms of producing graduates who meet the expectations of employers (cory & pruske, 2012). the call for the prioritisation of pervasive skills in the accounting profession has thus attracted much activity for universities offering accredited accounting programmes (jackson & chapman, 2012). pervasive skills may serve as “distinguishing factors” during the job-seeking process and be associated with life and employment success (gibb, 2014). however, because there many pervasive skills that could be important to an accounting graduate, it may prove impossible to be fully competent in all; thus, skills that make graduates marketable to prospective employers ought to be known so that they are prioritised in the curricula. local research studies on this topic have focused largely on the views of academics about their awareness of, and responsibility for, instilling pervasive skills (barac & du plessis, 2014; keevy, 2020; strauss-keevy, 2014; viviers, 2016a), on students’ perceptions of pervasive skills development (kirstein, 2017), and on teaching and learning for pervasive skills development (keevy, 2016; strauss-keevy, 2012; van oordt & sullivan, 2019; viviers et al., 2016). however, the actual pervasive skills that employers call for when recruiting accounting graduates have not been clarified in the south african context. this study, part of a broader study (my doctoral study, in progress) that focuses on the role of pervasive skills in the academic and professional preparation of graduate accountants, sought to fill this gap. an investigation was undertaken to determine whether employers of accounting graduates were indeed calling for pervasive skills (in addition to technical skills) in their advertised accounting vacancies and, if so, which skills were most sought as well as the terminology used to refer to these skills. indicating or itemising the pervasive skills expected of future accounting employees in advertised vacancies is an effective way to communicate the requirements of employers to job-seekers. for the study, 15 pervasive skills were tested for appearance in accounting vacancies: self-management, time management, self-discipline, independence, oral communication, written communication, critical thinking, decision making, computer application, teamwork, stress management, problem solving, lifelong learning, responsibility, numeracy. these skills were selected because they are consistent with the pervasive (or professional) skills prescribed by major accounting professional bodies in south africa and are expected to be integrated into accounting curricula. thus, the objective of this study was to determine the pervasive skills—valuable inputs in the production of economic value as per becker’s (1964) human capital theory (hct)—that employers of accounting graduates call for when recruiting accounting employees. the study was guided by the research question: “to what extent do employers emphasise pervasive skills in advertisements for accounting professionals, and which skills do they specify?” literature review in south africa, three stakeholders determine the attributes of accounting graduates: professional bodies, academic programmes (accounting education), and employers. 52 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 professional bodies are responsible for determining the desired skills, competencies, and attributes expected of accounting graduates through the accreditation process of accounting programmes. accounting education is responsible for ensuring that the desired attributes, competencies, and skills are instilled through the curriculum. employers, on the other hand, indicate their preferred skills, competencies, and attributes in job advertisements for accounting positions (dunbar et al., 2016). many universities in south africa offer professional accounting degrees, most of which are accredited with the leading professional body, saica. students enrolled in accredited accounting programmes in south africa can graduate with a degree after three years of study. those seeking to qualify as chartered accountants further their studies with an additional year of the postgraduate certificate in the theory of accounting (cta), a qualification that improves their prospects of securing a three-year professional training contract with an accounting firm. various employment options are available to accounting graduates, including self-employment, employment in the private and public sectors, and entering public practice with accounting firms. saica has a competency framework that encapsulates the specific competencies for an entry-level chartered accountant. the international federation of accountants (ifac), a global accounting body, through its education committee, also seeks to instigate the production of competent accounting graduates who have “the ability to perform tasks and roles expected of professional accountants, both newly qualified and experienced, to the standard expected by employers and the general public” (ifac, 2014, p. 1). there are many benefits associated with pervasive skills in a professional accounting work context, such as enhancing the application of technical accounting knowledge in situations that are non-routine and complex (bayerlein & timpson, 2017). these skills not only assist newly graduated accounting professionals to apply their university-acquired accounting knowledge but are also beneficial to their smooth transition into the workplace; the transition from the desk to professional life is better facilitated (jones, 2014). moreover, sithole (2015) has suggested that pervasive skills positively influence performance in a work context. in auditing, one of the specialist areas in accounting, pervasive skills are valued because the field requires both emotional and social intelligence (nadziakiewicz, 2016). pervasive skills also have an association with the fostering of lifelong learning in accounting graduates (tan & fawzi, 2017), a crucial aspect considering that accounting standards change rapidly and, accordingly, accountants need to keep abreast of the changes. the roles fulfilled by accounting professionals as engines who drive accounting practices and business today have changed from number crunching to more involved roles such as providing leadership and strategic direction. the changes taking place in the accounting workplace are not merely cosmetic; they are real changes induced by global changes (maclean & ordonez, 2007). heavy workloads and frequent changes in technology, tax legislation, business systems, and professional standards have all contributed to the changes in the professional lives of accountants and the skills required of them (smith et al., 2011). these changes present challenges for new entrants who need to understand the accounting mhlongo: pervasive skills and accounting graduates’ employment prospects 53 profession in order to prepare themselves for a successful career in the field. as new entrants, accounting graduates must “shorten the learning curve between ‘book knowledge and practical business application’” (marshall, 2014, p. 2). it has become apparent that, in today’s global and digital world of accounting, the role of accounting professionals has been reshaped and so have the skills requirements expected so that new entrants are more work ready. their roles are critical to improving company performance and to driving strategy and, as framed by hct (becker, 1964), are instrumental in achieving increased value and competitive advantage. as key role players in business, they are perceived to be critical sources of organisational performance (klibi & oussii, 2013). professional bodies in accounting have expressed the need for accounting graduates to be employment ready in terms of core discipline-specific competencies and pervasive skills (de villiers, 2010; helliar, 2013). however, these graduates are not ready to perform accounting tasks without receiving training from their employers, which then questions their readiness (jackling & de lange, 2009; wells et al., 2009). the technical knowledge of graduates seems to be adequate, but a general lack of non-technical skills frequently surfaces (bunney et al., 2015; sithole, 2015; tempone et al., 2012). wye & lim (2009) pointed out that the hard skills learned at university through various accounting courses are not complemented by the development of pervasive skills, creating a mismatch between what employers expect and what graduates can offer. this affects the accounting graduates’ employability and their ability to generate positive output as human capital in the workplace. pervasive skills have been proven to have a significant effect on the probability of employment (cobb-clark & tan, 2011); correspondingly, employers as direct beneficiaries of the skills of graduates, highly value graduates with excellent pervasive skills (wye & lim, 2009). notably, research has pointed to a link between these skills, development of human capital, and work performance (crocker & eckardt, 2014). generally, employers require accounting graduates who have been exposed to a rounded education system that has prepared them to be team members and clear communicators who are flexible and emotionally aware (daff et al., 2012). employers expect accounting education, whose overall objective is to develop competent professional accountants (ifac, 2014; strauss-keevy, 2014), to inculcate pervasive skills that will enable graduates to offer the best client service, and to cooperate with others in the workplace (evenson, 1999). in terms of hct (becker, 1964), it is the intangible resources (pervasive skills) that are necessary for the attainment of organisational objectives. in the context of accounting, with the right skills set, an organisation can achieve more when the human capital (accounting graduates) use their skills to share ideas for solving complex financial transactions and for making strategic business decisions for the organisation. business expects accounting graduates to enhance the entity’s economic value and earnings upon entering the workplace. thus, these graduates are required to perform at their best level. university training and education are the resources graduates use to reach their full potential in a professional space (kalfa & taksa, 2015). with this in mind, the role of ensuring that pervasive skills are instilled remains a task that accounting programmes take seriously 54 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 (crawford et al., 2011). this task is overseen by professional bodies dedicated to advancing the interest of the profession through an accreditation and review process. as part of this process, accounting education in universities offering saica-accredited accounting programmes is expected to explain how the development of pervasive skills by accounting students is addressed in the curriculum (barac & du plessis, 2014). however, the point often overlooked is that given the intensity of university accounting programmes, which are characterised by challenging academic workloads and a high student failure rate, focusing on all the pervasive skills may prove challenging or even impossible for the academic programme. academics, in addition to teaching high numbers of students, have to include pervasive skills in their learning outcomes, activities, and assessments. they are also expected to teach, using methods that promote the development of pervasive skills such as group work, educational games, class or group assignments/presentations, simulations, role-play, and problem-based learning activities such as case studies (keevy, 2016; reyneke & shuttleworth, 2018; riccio & sakata, 2005; viviers et al., 2016). these approaches, however, work best in classes with small numbers and it can be challenging to find teaching approaches that meet the needs of a diverse group of students with different strengths, preferences, and needs. moreover, pervasive skills, unlike technical skills, are rarely explicitly assessed and their development may, at times be independent of the formal curriculum (chamorro et al., 2010). additionally, the technical orientation of the accounting curriculum can limit the scope for the development of pervasive skills (low et al., 2013). another challenge is expanding an already academically demanding and crowded accounting curriculum (paisey & paisey, 2007). theoretical framework this study adopted human capital theory (hct) as a theoretical framework to underpin the study. hct, coined by gary becker (1964) in his book human capital, has been used in many research studies and fields to understand the value of skills, competencies, and attributes expected by employers from an employee to increase the marketability of the employee as a unit of productivity. the theory provides a way of understanding what makes a unit of productivity more desirable to employers who seek to gain from employees’ technical competence and skills in their quest for value creation in the workplace. the study subscribes to a definition of hct “as investing in both formal and informal education and training, which provides and enhances individual productivity by providing knowledge, skills and attitude and motivation necessary for economic and social development” (woodhall, 1985, p. 15). the central proposition of the theory is that people are considered a form of capital for development (engelbrecht, 2003). following this thinking, education and development are considered to be deliberate investments that prepare the labour force for its productivity. mhlongo: pervasive skills and accounting graduates’ employment prospects 55 research methodology this study was conducted using a descriptive quantitative research design that is appropriate when the researcher aims to “describe the phenomenon and presents a picture of the specific details of a situation, social setting, or relationship” (neuman, 2000, p. 22). to determine the preferences of employers when recruiting, a quantitative content analysis of online web-based advertised accounting vacancies was undertaken because advertised job advertisements presumably indicate what employers require from prospective employees. the use of the internet by users and businesses for advertising has increased tremendously due to the number of people it can reach, and its flexibility in terms of accessing information (lim & lau, 2011). using online vacancies was beneficial in terms of time and cost; however, offcampus network connectivity presented challenges, resulting in a longer data collection period. the use of internet sources for data collection does have disadvantages such as security concerns about the hacking of systems and virus attacks (o’neill, 2004), and it does not allow for retrospective historical analysis of data because data is only available at a particular time (kureková et al., 2015). to overcome some of these limitations, anti-virus software was upgraded to the latest version, and data was stored on external drives. online advertisements were purposively sampled to ensure coverage of all employment levels, specialisations (financial accounting, auditing, management accounting, and taxation), and sectors of employment (public practice, private sector and public sector). a total of 315 advertisements were collected over 10 months, from january 2019 to october 2019. job advertisements are under-utilised, current, and publicly accessible data sources (mathews & redman, 2001). in south africa, it has become a common practice for employers to advertise available positions using web-based or online platforms. three popular online platforms were used: careers24 (www.careers24.com), pnet (www.pnet.co.za) and indeed (www.indeed.co.za). for public sector vacancies, the websites of different government departments were accessed. preliminary scanning of job advertisements was undertaken to determine the titles and descriptions used because terminology could differ from one job advert to another. content analysis involved an examination of the exact words in job advertisements, which were thereafter coded into categories. data was processed and analysed using spss statistics v.25. data collected was from all provinces and from various sectors of the economy. the public sector included all spheres of government: national, provincial, and local. findings and discussion table 1 is not part of the findings of the study but is provided to illustrate the type of accounting positions sampled. in the 315 sampled accounting vacancies, various job titles were used to describe accounting positions. to shorten the list, similar job titles were combined into categories. these categories were determined in order to group job titles into sub-categories through a process of identifying expected vital terms. for job titles with unexpected or new terms, a separate category was created. 56 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 table 1: job titles frequency valid percent cumulative percent valid financial accounting and control manager 2 .6 95.6 asset clerk: asset management 3 1.0 93.7 expenditure analyst: provincial government finance 4 1.3 94.9 assistant financial accountant: finance 6 1.9 97.5 fixed assets clerk: finance 6 1.9 92.7 trainee accountant 8 2.5 100.0 bookkeeper 12 3.8 68.9 finance officer 12 3.8 86.3 tax accountant 12 3.8 65.1 chief financial officer 14 4.4 90.8 financial controller 15 4.8 41.9 financial analyst 17 5.4 82.5 article clerk 18 5.7 5.7 company accountant 19 6.0 21.6 management accountant 20 6.3 27.9 senior accountant 26 8.3 77.1 assistant accountant 29 9.2 51.1 graduate accountant 29 9.2 37.1 accountant 31 9.9 15.6 internal auditor 32 10.2 61.3 total 315 100.0 table 2 reveals the different terminology used by employers in advertised accounting vacancies, synonymous with what this study refers to as pervasive skills. table 2: terms used for “pervasive skills” frequency valid percent cumulative percent valid total 315 100.0 no soft skills on the advert 83 26.3 57.1 recommended skills 63 20.0 88.6 critical skills 39 12.4 19.4 personal skills 12 3.8 68.6 other skills 12 3.8 61.0 skills 11 3.5 93.7 mhlongo: pervasive skills and accounting graduates’ employment prospects 57 soft skills 10 3.2 100.0 key skills 10 3.2 30.8 desired skills 9 2.9 22.5 skills and abilities 6 1.9 95.6 competencies 6 1.9 5.7 personal qualities 5 1.6 64.8 required skills 5 1.6 90.2 key competencies 5 1.6 27.6 personal competencies 5 1.6 63.2 skills and behaviours 4 1.3 96.8 behavioural competencies 4 1.3 2.9 expected skills 4 1.3 23.8 generic skills 4 1.3 25.7 additional skills 3 1.0 1.6 criteria skills 2 .6 7.0 behaviours 2 .6 3.8 additional requirements 2 .6 .6 core skills 2 .6 6.3 desired behavioural skill 1 .3 19.7 important skills 1 .3 26.0 personal characteristics 1 .3 61.6 generic competencies 1 .3 24.4 behavioural skills 1 .3 3.2 extra skills 1 .3 24.1 people skills 1 .3 61.3 it appears that employers use a variety of terms, some commonly used, and others not as clearly descriptive of pervasive skills. in 20% of the cases, these skills are referred to as “recommended skills,” suggesting that they are preferred by employers, and confirming findings that pervasive skills are important for a career in accounting (helliar et al., 2009; nadziakiewicz, 2016). this also confirms the recognition of the importance of these skills by accounting bodies (american institute of certified public accountants, 2005; ifac, 2014). some terms, however, could misleadingly suggest to the graduate that the skills are not as important, for example, “extra skills” and “additional skills.” other terms did highlight their significance, such as “core skills,” “desired skills,” “key skills,” and “critical skills.” it was noted that 12.4% of employers referred to these skills as critical skills, implying that an accountant must be in possession of these skills. then again, 26.3% of advertisements did not indicate any pervasive skills, a result open to different interpretations. it could be that employers evaluate whether prospective employees have the desired skills during other recruitment stages, for example, during the interview phase or the probation period. another interpretation, unfortunately, paints a bleak picture: that employers of accounting graduates are not expecting prospective employees to demonstrate pervasive skills, suggesting they are 58 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 mere add-ons or nice-to-haves, and furthering the ongoing soft skills/hard skills debate. this contradicts de lange et al. (2006), who argued that career success in accounting depends not just on technical competence but on personal characteristics. furthermore, other studies have argued that long-term success in the workplace is only influenced by 25% of technical knowledge—75% is dependent on people skills (klaus 2010), a core component of pervasive skills that is linked to good customer service, which is much needed in all service professions for achieving competitive advantage and returns through human capital (james & james, 2004). on a more positive note, the results revealed that 73.7% of employers called for pervasive skills, supporting hct, which sees employees as necessary assets with intangible resources (their skills) necessary for achieving the best output. in the accounting context, output is quality, timely, and relevant financial reports for making strategic financial decisions that can enhance the earnings value for the organisation. pervasive skills most sought after by employers in advertised accounting vacancies table 3 reports the frequency of appearance of the selected pervasive skills in the sampled accounting vacancies. a total of 1,181 pervasive skills were identified in the 315 accounting vacancies, revealing that employers called for more than one pervasive skill in a single advertisement. table 3: pervasive skills: frequency of appearance responses percent of cases n percent pervasive skills in adverts self-management 12 1.0% 5.2% time management 78 6.6% 33.8% self-discipline 29 2.4% 12.6% independence 53 4.5% 22.9% oral communication 211 17.9% 91.3% written communication 146 12.4% 63.2% critical thinking 143 12.1% 61.9% decision making 74 6.3% 32.0% computer application 136 11.5% 58.9% teamwork 65 5.5% 28.1% stress management 48 4.0% 20.8% problem solving 86 7.3% 37.2% lifelong learning 27 2.3% 11.7% responsibility 32 2.7% 13.9% numeracy 41 3.5% 17.7% total 1181 100.0% mhlongo: pervasive skills and accounting graduates’ employment prospects 59 the findings in table 3 reveal that the most sought after pervasive skill, oral communication, featured as a job requirement or recommendation in 91.3% of cases. that was followed by written communication, appearing in 63.2% of advertisements and critical thinking (61.9%), suggesting that communication skills are essential for securing accounting-related employment—supporting hct, which suggests that communication skills are essential for business growth (holmberg-wright & hribar, 2016). this is in line with the position held by various other scholars in accounting (barratt et al., 2011; camacho, 2015; hancock et al., 2009) who have reported that communication skills are crucial for an accounting career. also in support of these findings, is an argument that, given the level of involvement and interaction with other parties inside and outside the organisation, communication skills are must-haves for accountants (geertshuis et al., 2015). the results confirm that oral communication skills are considered essential by employers of accounting professionals because new accountants spend an average of six hours per week communicating orally with colleagues, clients, and superiors (gray, 2010). and the results are in agreement that written communication is critical particularly, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and language clarity (riley & simons, 2016), given the roles of accountants who write reports to explain how money was budgeted and expended. dale-jones et al. (2013) concurred, quoting the international accounting education standards board, ies 3, which stated: “professional accountants are expected to be able to present, discuss, report and defend views effectively through formal, informal, written and spoken communication” (ifac, 2014, p. 5). furthermore, the high level of communication and interaction between accounting practitioners, clients, accountants, and management is crucial to maintain the stability of the company (cobo, 2013; viviers, 2016b), which is necessary for its growth and success. the findings of this study are in agreement with aldhizer iii (2015), who pointed out that, in audit environments, it is essential to have critical thinking skills, especially when debriefing clients and audit partners about financial risks determined. the results confirm human capital as the value provided by employees who critically apply their knowledge and skills in the workplace (holmberg-wright & hribar, 2016). the findings also support stoner and milner (2010), who suggested that generic employability skills relevant to the employability of accounting graduates include critical thinking. and they endorse the move by many accredited universities in south africa, from theoretical learning to a more applied form of learning (hart research associates, 2015). employers’ calls for pervasive skills according to the level of employment table 4 shows the frequency of call for the selected pervasive skills per level of employment—from entry-level accounting positions to upper management level. in this study, the following criteria were used to distinguish between the different levels: entry: • relevant accounting qualification 60 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 • 0–3 years of related work experience. supervisory: • 3–6 years of relevant work experience • relevant qualification. upper: • postgraduate level qualification • experience—6 years and more. table 4: pervasive skills per job level job level total entry super visory upper pervasive skills in adverts self-management count 5 3 4 12 % within level 4.0% 4.5% 10.3% time management count 33 26 19 78 % within level 26.2% 39.4% 48.7% self-discipline count 18 8 3 29 % within level 14.3% 12.1% 7.7% independence count 24 17 12 53 % within level 19.0% 25.8% 30.8% oral communication count 114 60 37 211 % within level 90.5% 90.9% 94.9% written communication count 75 47 24 146 % within level 59.5% 71.2% 61.5% critical thinking count 68 45 30 143 % within level 54.0% 68.2% 76.9% decision making count 44 21 9 74 % within level 34.9% 31.8% 23.1% computer application count 69 40 27 136 % within level 54.8% 60.6% 69.2% teamwork count 23 31 11 65 % within level 18.3% 47.0% 28.2% stress management count 20 11 17 48 % within level 15.9% 16.7% 43.6% problem-solving count 43 22 21 86 % within level 34.1% 33.3% 53.8% lifelong learning count 11 10 6 27 % within level 8.7% 15.2% 15.4% mhlongo: pervasive skills and accounting graduates’ employment prospects 61 responsibility count 17 9 6 32 % within level 13.5% 13.6% 15.4% numeracy count 25 12 4 41 % within level 19.8% 18.2% 10.3% the results did not show much difference when analysed per experience level, except for critical thinking. oral communication appeared to be consistently desired across all three job levels. the findings are consistent with those of (hussein, 2017), who identified communication skills as one of the five factors of importance for accounting graduates. it was interesting to note that critical thinking seemed to be preferred more as levels increased (54% at entry, 68.2% supervisory, 76.9% upper). in upper management, accountants are more likely to deal with strategic, complex, and non-routine transactions than at entry-level where financial transactions are likely to be clerical. as bunney et al. (2015) stated, with the changes taking place in accounting, there is a greater need for communication and critical thinking skills. employers’ calls for pervasive skills in the different sectors of employment table 5 displays the skills that employers of accounting graduates called for in accounting vacancies in the different employment sectors, public practice, private sector, and public sector. table 5: pervasive skills per sector of employment sector total public practice private public pervasive skills self-management count 1 9 2 12 % within sector 3.4% 6.3% 3.4% time management count 7 49 22 78 % within sector 24.1% 34.3% 37.3% self-discipline count 2 18 9 29 % within sector 6.9% 12.6% 15.3% independence count 9 33 11 53 % within sector 31.0% 23.1% 18.6% oral communication count 25 129 57 211 % within sector 86.2% 90.2% 96.6% written communication count 21 88 37 146 % within sector 72.4% 61.5% 62.7% critical thinking count 16 82 45 143 % within sector 55.2% 57.3% 76.3% decision making count 5 41 28 74 % within sector 17.2% 28.7% 47.5% 62 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 computer application count 22 83 31 136 % within sector 75.9% 58.0% 52.5% teamwork count 4 42 19 65 % within sector 13.8% 29.4% 32.2% stress management count 3 24 21 48 % within sector 10.3% 16.8% 35.6% problem-solving count 12 56 18 86 % within sector 41.4% 39.2% 30.5% lifelong learning count 2 17 8 27 % within sector 6.9% 11.9% 13.6% responsibility count 6 21 5 32 % within sector 20.7% 14.7% 8.5% numeracy count 0 30 11 41 % within sector 0.0% 21.0% 18.6% the findings reveal that oral communication maintained its status irrespective of the sector of employment (86.2%, 90.2%, 96.6%). written communication showed a marginal variation but remained high in public practice employment. in public practice, accountants are involved in audits and are expected to be able to communicate with clients (hesketh, 2011). critical thinking is the third-most desired pervasive skill, particularly in the public sector (76.3%). this finding is consistent with an argument that accountants should demonstrate these skills through an ability to examine issues, theorise, consider options to accounting problems, and provide creative solutions when dealing with complex client issues (gardner, 2017). their ability to offer practicable and creative accounting solutions creates value for the accounting practice and the employer benefits from the human capital, which increases its chances of success (holmberg-wright & hribar, 2016). surprisingly, critical thinking skills were identified in only 55.2% of public practice vacancies. this finding was unexpected given the nature of work in public practice, mainly audits, which require a fair amount of critical thinking. more so, “critical thinking influences the formation and strength of auditors’ sceptical attitudes” (nolder & kadous, 2018 p. 4), a critical factor when conducting audits. critical thinking is a skill that supports the application of professional scepticism by auditors because they ought to dig deeper and cannot take information at face value (karr, 2009). if critical thinking is lacking in the audit human capital, audits will not meet the quality standards and that would negatively affect the audit firm’s ability to create economic value. employers’ calls for other skills and attributes table 6 displays the other skills and attributes that employers of accounting graduates called for in advertised accounting vacancies. “other skills and attributes” relate to skills and attributes that were outside the perimeters of the list of pervasive skills under investigation. mhlongo: pervasive skills and accounting graduates’ employment prospects 63 table 6: other skills and attributes frequency valid percent cumulative percent valid total 315 100.0 no additional skills/attributes 79 25.1 73.7 motivation 34 10.8 48.6 ability to work under pressure 31 9.8 10.8 people management 23 7.3 81.9 creative thinking 20 6.3 26.7 resilience 17 5.4 94.0 training 13 4.1 100.0 conflict management 11 3.5 20.3 leadership 10 3.2 37.8 emotional intelligence 10 3.2 29.8 positive 10 3.2 87.3 business ethics/integrity 9 2.8 16.5 friendly 8 2.5 34.6 persistence 7 2.2 84.1 strategic 6 1.9 95.9 approachable 6 1.9 12.7 empathetic 6 1.9 31.7 ability to discipline 3 1.0 1.0 patience 3 1.0 74.6 research 3 1.0 88.6 business acumen 3 1.0 13.7 confidence 1 .3 16.8 energetic 1 .3 32.1 recruitment abilities 1 .3 87.6 these findings show that employers are evidently seeking more than just the ability to balance financial records from an accountant. some of the desired qualities in these results are qualities that would not typically be associated with an accountant, for example, the ability to motivate others (10.8%)—banishing stereotypes that accountants are anti-social and unapproachable. other more outgoing attributes include emotional intelligence, showing that accountants should be able to understand other peoples’ emotions (daff et al., 2012) as a critical requirement in today’s active role of an accountant. overall, the results confirm that business wealth and success depend on the entity’s ability to recruit the right human capital with pervasive skills. 64 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 conclusion the findings of this study confirm accounting literature that revealed that employers of accounting graduates are seeking more than just technical skills from their accounting professionals. the employers’ calls for pervasive skills supports the central premise of hct and that employees with high levels of skills attained through education and training are believed to be more productive and hence preferred by employers than those without these skills. the results strongly suggest that investing in the pervasive skills most sought after by employers in addition to technical knowledge, may prove beneficial to accounting education and students/graduates. by prioritising the pervasive skills most sought after, accounting education would achieve its mandate to produce accounting graduates who are employable, work-ready, and meet the expectations of employers—the employability of accounting graduates would be enhanced. employers would benefit from the growth in human capital, resulting in higher returns, and that positively contributes to economic growth. this study has demonstrated the central role given by employers to oral and written communication and critical thinking, a finding consistent with similar studies in accounting on this topic. this paper, through its findings, contributes to the existing body of knowledge on the role of pervasive skills in accounting. it hopes to inform and transform the behavioural and educational choices of accounting academics and students through providing evidence about the preferences of employers in terms of non-technical skills of accounting graduates, who, in terms of hct, are tools for creating added economic value in the organisations they 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(2009). perception differential between employers and undergraduates on the importance of employability skills. international education studies, 2(1), 95–105. microsoft word cissue79 full 15june.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 79, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i79a06 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x fostering an integrated tourism education curriculum in lesotho: a community participation approach boitumelo moreeng school of education, department of education studies, sol plaatje university, kimberley, south africa boitumelo.moreeng@spu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3644-3140 mzamane nhlapo khukhune high school, khukhune village, butha-buthe 452, lesotho mzamanenhlapo@yahoo.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7993-2219 motsélisi lilian malebese faculty of education, community based research (comber), north west university, potchefstroom, south africa 33666679@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0449-6229 (received: 16 september 2019; accepted: 5 march 2020) abstract in this paper we report on ways of fostering an integrated tourism curriculum by employing a community participation approach. as a vocational subject, tourism is intended to provide learners with practical and entrepreneurial skills. however, tourism is taught largely as a theory-based subject, and this is not in accordance with the demands of an integrated curriculum that aims to strengthen survival skills and self-reliance. we used a community participation approach to show how much cultural wealth learners and their communities can bring to the learning environment, and the value that this might hold for enhancing their academic performance and empowering them with vital life skills. we employed participatory action research as the methodology to generate our data, and content analysis to analyse and interpret it. we found that the tourism curriculum could be fostered through the learners’ improved understanding of tourism as a vocational subject, collaboration among the stakeholders, and if resources were available and were used properly. keywords: integrated curriculum, tourism, community participation, participatory action research moreeng, nhlapo and malebese: fostering an integrated tourism education curriculum in lesotho 81 introduction in this article, we report on ways to foster an integrated tourism curriculum in lesotho employing a community participation approach (cpa). in 2009, lesotho underwent a process of curriculum change that resulted in the adoption of an integrated curriculum. this move was seen as a significant departure in how to integrate theory, skills, and attitudes (brauer & ferguson, 2015; raselimo & mahao, 2015). an integrated curriculum facilitates the transfer of learning that includes the carry-over of knowledge, skills, habits, and attitudes between and among subjects as a result of social interaction between teachers and learners from different disciplines and backgrounds (graven & schafer, 2013). the interaction between teachers makes it possible to share mutually beneficial information. the core of the integrated curriculum addresses the active construction of knowledge by learners from many perspectives (park, 2008), because it is learner-centred. an integrated curriculum brings to the fore different teachers and diverse disciplines and forges team spirit among them. this allows for the addressing of common themes and topics, depending on their interrelatedness (park, 2008) by taking advantage of the mental capacity to make better connections across different contexts (lake, 1994). according to the lesotho ministry of education and training (moet), every opportunity to relate theory to the outside world should be exploited. this plays a role in using education to emancipate learners from poverty through methods and approaches that encourage creativity, productivity, and entrepreneurship (moet, 2009). the implication for tourism education is, therefore, that it should be taught from an interactive and learner-centred approach, with more emphasis on the vocational aspects, so as to equip learners with creative, practical, productive, and entrepreneurial skills (ezeh & ekemenzie, 2015), so that they achieve self-reliance through solving real-life problems as mahlomaholo (2010) has pointed out. tourism as a school subject tourism was introduced as a fully-fledged subject in lesotho in 2011, as stipulated by the 2009 integrated curriculum (moet, 2009) that supports the fostering of self-reliance through the development of practical and entrepreneurial skills for self-employment by using interactive cross-curricular means to produce knowledge (see brauer & ferguson, 2015) with a greater vocational focus since this equips learners with creative, practical, productive, and entrepreneurial skills to achieve self-reliance (ezeh & ekemenzie, 2015; moet, 2009; omede, 2012). in this study, we agree with chere-masopha (2007) that tourism is said to be an enterprise that offers the immediate practical benefits of improving the lives of learners. offering tourism education in schools and in institutions of higher learning is based on the fact that tourism activities contribute significantly to the economy of a country as lovrentjev (2015) and petersen (2015) have noted, and that tourism can create employment opportunities. this means that tourism undoubtedly plays a considerable role in national development (lovrentjev, 2015; sarkodie & adom, 2015). in south africa, tourism can help to redress some of the injustices of the past as dube (2014) has reminded us. if the tourism industry is 82 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 to thrive and contribute to economic growth and national development, it depends on this subject being available to learners; this makes our study an important one. the introduction of tourism as a school subject has involved challenges that have affected its effective implementation. there seems to have been confusion about the nature of the subject and this information was not communicated well enough to the different stakeholders to ensure common understanding. dube (2014) suggested that tourism is viewed as being of low status in south africa since it is not designated in the list of subjects for university entrance. as a result, schools do not get the necessary support and resources to ensure proper implementation of this subject (shankar, 2014). community involvement in tourism education could also present a challenge, even though it is an important component of the subject, because vocational subjects require a variety of resources (akyeampong, 2002). nkumane (2008) and tsayang (1998) have found there to be a lack of participation by communities in tourism education, the latter in botswana, because communities feared crossing professional boundaries, and because curriculum areas for community participation have never been clarified. furthermore, stakeholders, such as teachers, school managers, and parents have to undergo continual training to improve their understanding of tourism in an integrated curriculum (daly, brown, & mcgowan, 2012; malik & malik, 2011). research problem tourism was introduced in high schools as a vocational subject to expose learners to a handson and work-related curriculum that would enable them to confront head-on the challenges of poverty and unemployment. unfortunately, it has been noted that the teachers continue to focus on only the academic textbook objectives, without addressing the vocational components of the subject (akyeampong, 2002). these objectives are theoretically biased, and do not relate to the integrated curriculum policy document that is vocationally focused, and that emphasises creativity, practical production, and entrepreneurial skills for alleviating poverty along with striving to achieve self-reliance (moet, 2009). most importantly, teaching approaches preclude community members and other stakeholders from entering the classroom to participate in the teaching and learning process. in this paper we attempt to eliminate the gap between what is currently taught (the theoretical content for the sole purpose of passing examinations) and the expectations of an integrated curriculum (the acquisition of productive and entrepreneurial skills that would equip learners with the means to overcome poverty and unemployment, and strive to achieve self-reliance). we raise and examine the question: how can we foster an integrated tourism curriculum in lesotho using cpa? conceptual framework we used cpa in this study to engage ordinary community members as participants in the classroom in order to strengthen the learners’ understanding of tourism primarily for practical purposes rather than academic, and to encourage them to apply their newly acquired moreeng, nhlapo and malebese: fostering an integrated tourism education curriculum in lesotho 83 knowledge and skills to their daily lives. according to dorsner (2004), community participation emerged as a vehicle for the development of poor people in the 1990s, after it became cumbersome for governments and international agencies to provide the necessary support to them. cpa is used to enhance efficiency, accountability, transparency, ownership, and empowerment of people. its purpose here was to assist communities to rise up and develop themselves by being active participants in a tourism-related project as suggested by shepherd (1998) in a different context. cpa is made up of two distinct words—community and participation. community refers to a group of people who live together, who recognise one another and identify themselves in the first person plural, “we”, and who are held together by custom and solidarity. a community is a local social system that embraces social, economic, and political dimensions (inglis & aers, 2008). in general, a community enjoys togetherness, connectedness, belongingness, and commonness of place. however, a community is not always homogenous; it can also be heterogeneous (burkey, 1993; dorsner, 2004; uemura, 1999). in this context, participation means taking part in identifying needs and solving problems so as to improve the livelihoods of community members; it means initiating action, deciding, planning, deciding, and putting those plans into action to help people achieve the goals they set for themselves (aikara, 2011). zadeh and ahmad (2010) have described participation as a vehicle of community development. the justification for participation is multifaceted: it promotes efficiency, accountability, and transparency; and it enhances ownership and empowerment, all of which are paramount to the alleviation of poverty (dorsner, 2004). cpa, therefore, can be defined as active involvement by people who share social, economic, political, and geographical dimensions, to transform or maintain their system. (shepherd, 1998). cpa is about having the power to initiate innovations, take action, and drive a transformative agenda, thereby increasing the motivation, confidence, and self-esteem of community members in their effort to improve their lives. cpa enables better decisionmaking about, and sustainability of, projects or services because the community itself identifies its needs, initiates action, and manages its activities and resources. this also reduces costs, risks, and the likelihood of failure (zadeh & ahmad, 2010). stakeholders influence and guide development initiatives and can allocate resources efficiently and effectively (uemura, 1999). the process of cpa empowers and leads proponents to take control of their lives and confront multiple issues that hinder their development. furthermore, it strengthens and promotes cohesion in the community by increasing inclusion and connectedness, and by decreasing social isolation and division (city of whitehorse, 2014). the result of this is that that problems are confronted together by people in the community (pius, 2013). cpa deviates from the way research was conducted in the past by experts who came into the community to extract information, disappeared, and then used the information for purposes that were not directly beneficial to the community (eruera, 2010). today, community members become part of the research that seeks to uplift them from conditions of poverty and squalor (hlalele, 2014). as pius (2013) has correctly contended, “there can be no community development without community participation” (p. 587). 84 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 in this study, community members, teachers, and learners worked together to work out how to inject meaningfulness into tourism education. these participants had the best view of the various strengths, resources, assets, skills, talents, and experiential knowledge of the community, all of which could be shared with the learners at school and beyond, to promote their survival and self-reliance. we used cpa as a vital link between theory and practice. learners who struggled to understand the theoretical content of the subject found sanctuary in practical work and were motivated to learn by doing. this made education a democratic process, and, following freire (1970) a tool of emancipation. in contrast, a teacher-centred approach uses education as a tool to preserve passiveness in the learners and domination in the teachers (baker, 2011; freire, 1970), because it is authority-driven (petersen 2015). the epistemological stance of cpa affirms that knowledge is historically and socially located within cultural contexts, and that this means, inevitably, that there are different versions of reality, not just one objective reality (graven & schafer, 2013; lincoln & denzin, 2011; mertens & yamashita, 2010). research methodology this study sought to respond to the research question: how can we foster the implementation of an integrated tourism curriculum in lesotho using a community participation approach? to do so, we used qualitative participatory action research (par) in the employment of which, community members come together to solve their socioeconomic or other problems. in this case, community members were invited into the classroom to interact with the teachers and learners. given the interactive nature of this research, it is important to understand the significance, value, and relevance of par. its relevance is that it is people-centred and community-based and it is meant to transform lives, especially those of underprivileged people (amaya & yeates, 2014; le grange, 2001; mctaggart, 1991; mulligan, wilkinson, lusty, dolome, & bong, 2015). the cpa described above was reinforced by our using par, because both approaches aim to transform lives, to emancipate people, and to empower them (le grange, 2001). a qualitative research method allows the actual voices of the participants to be heard, thereby exposing perceptions and attitudes in a social context. this method captures the participants’ lived experiences in complex, multiple realities (check & schutt, 2012). we chose to use a qualitative method for this study because it allowed the participants to narrate their stories (mcmillan & schumacher, 2010). this research method is also compatible with the semistructured interview technique, because this allowed the participants to explain their understandings, perceptions, and attitudes, as well as express the challenges they faced in life, and report on how they attempted to solve these. all this was done through opinion sharing, brainstorming, and discussion. data can be generated through a variety of methods and strategies using par. we generated data through free attitude interviews, participant observation, meetings, and workshops. participant observation involves the recording of human behaviour in a social setting in moreeng, nhlapo and malebese: fostering an integrated tourism education curriculum in lesotho 85 which participants function (munhall, 2003). it is a rich source of data often used in par, and includes seeing, hearing, and is structured to benefit and empower the participants’ real life situation as it unfolds (le grande, 2009). free attitude interviews offer freedom and flexibility to both the interviewer and the interviewees by allowing debate, discussions, and the expression of different points of view on an issue as they elaborate and expand on it, explore various related issues, and negotiate and construct meaning. not only does the researcher ask questions, but she or he listens to the responses attentively, and is sensitive to the cultural norms and beliefs of the interviewees (alshenqueeti, 2014). meetings and workshops were also held to brainstorm suggestions, strategies, and activities that would assist in answering the research question. we used content analysis to analyse the data generated. content analysis is a non-invasive research technique that is used to make replicable and valid inferences by interpreting and coding textual material through examining patterns in communication (krippendorff, 2019). the responses and conversations were transcribed verbatim, and then analysed and synthesised later to make meaning(s). this analysis generated specific themes that were used to structure the findings and the discussions. site description and selection of participants the study was conducted at phela high school (pseudonym) in a rural area at the foothills of butha-buthe district, north-eastern lesotho. the school is situated along the road to mahlasela afri-ski resort, which attracts many tourists. the community around phela high school lives in poverty and depends on subsistence farming to survive. participants in this study included four teachers, five community members, and ten learners. one of the authors of this article worked at the school as a geography teacher. we learned that the teachers helped each other to understand the theory of an integrated curriculum by co-planning and co-teaching topics/themes, and by monitoring how community members taught and trained learners to make craft products from grass, wood, and clay. five parents were selected as participants because of their varying skills and expertise related to tourism. one parent could make craft products from grass/straw, another from wood, and another from clay. one owned and managed a lodge, and one was the chief executive officer (ceo) of the ministry of tourism, environment and culture. after the learners were trained to make the craft objects, the lodge owner provided space for them to sell these. the ceo shared information on the national vision of the economic contribution of travel and tourism and how the community could start community-based entrepreneurial tourism ventures. the ten grade 9 learners were purposively selected because they lived within a radius of three kilometres of the school, and could, therefore, attend research sessions with ease. they were also told that they could withdraw from participation in the research without providing any reasons. however, where possible, the researcher, following silverman (2013) asked them to give him a chance to intervene and try to solve disputes should this be necessary. the university of the free state (ufs-hsd, 2017/0899) granted the ethical clearance to conduct the research. anonymity was assured by withholding the co-researchers’ names, and 86 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 confidentiality was ensured by using pseudonyms. co-researchers were respected and protected and were not compelled to participate or answer interview questions. findings and discussions in this section, we present the findings and discuss the data in terms of the themes that emerged from the participants’ responses and that were supported by the literature. these were knowledge of tourism as a vocational subject, resources, and collaboration. knowledge of tourism as a vocational subject in lesotho, tourism enjoys the same status as geography, history, and development studies, because, like these subjects, it was initially perceived as an academic subject and not a vocational one. dube (2014) has asserted that tourism suffers from low status in south africa because it is not considered a subject for university entrance, as mentioned above. however in lesotho this is not the case; tourism is one of the subjects learners can elect for university entrance so its status is high. therefore, relevant training should also recognise the community’s contribution through its resources, assets, and person power. this recognition is in agreement with the literature that suggests that capacity building is one of the key factors for successful and sustainable implementation of an integrated curriculum. at one of the initial meetings that were held about the challenges of teaching tourism, ms mona (a teacher) articulated this when she said, it is true that one now understands this thing [integrated curriculum] and tourism education a little better. more workshops are needed so that we do what we understand well. in the same meeting, mr sam (a teacher) explained that before we had understood it [tourism] in a similar fashion to geography, history, and development studies, but now we can see and understand that it has a practical side that has to be fulfilled, that can help learners to make a living. dube (2014) suggested that thorough advocacy for tourism education and its benefits should be conducted, and the necessary information disseminated to schools by the education directorate. it should be clear from the onset that tourism is a vocational subject that is aimed at equipping learners with productive and entrepreneurial skills that will give them employment opportunities and lead them to self-reliance. nkumane (2008) has argued that advocacy should involve community members. they should be informed about the new practical subject called tourism, and its value to the learners through the employment opportunities it provides while learners are still at school, and beyond. after all, strategies for the implementation of an integrated curriculum advocate for the development of closer links with the community with a view to capacitating community members to take control of their lives, and the lives of their school-going children, through better decision-making. the ceo moreeng, nhlapo and malebese: fostering an integrated tourism education curriculum in lesotho 87 of tourism emphasised this point during a workshop on ways the department could assist communities, by saying, as a department, we struggle to have communities [understand] what tourism is exactly about and how they can also benefit in the process. so [these] kind[s] of workshops are necessary and will make an impact because [they are] linked to teaching and learning in schools. dube (2014) has claimed that advocacy for tourism has not been loud enough considering its benefits for economic growth and job opportunities. his thoughts echo those of nkumane (2008), whose study in kwazulu-natal, south africa, demonstrated that community members did not think tourism was for them because they had never been exposed to it. they thought tourism was for whites, as had been the case during the apartheid regime, and for wealthy and enlightened blacks. ejiofor, ajake, oba, and okpara (2012) found that rural communities in nigeria lacked exposure, and lovrentjev (2015) found the same situation in croatia. resources a theme that emerged very strongly from the free attitude interviews, meetings, and workshops with teachers and parents was related directly to resources. the responses these participants provided touched on the availability of resources, what they identified that could be viewed as resources, and the proper educational use of such resources. the views of the teachers, as articulated by mr maduna, who was supported by mrs oko, highlighted the lack of resources. when this subject was introduced, i felt discouraged because i saw that i did not have resources. my school is based in a rural context where the community is so poor that thinking of charging parents to fund the buying of resources is impossible. when probed further on what they view as resources and who should supply them, they said, schools should always have a budget to have adequate resources [such as] relevant textbooks, maps, globes, compasses, a television, wall charts, computers, internet, and money put aside for excursions to tourist attractions, a library, and a hall. not all schools have these resources or can afford these resources. these responses demonstrated that teachers have limited understanding of what constitutes a resource in tourism. they do not yet understand the value of seeing communities as a resource that can be tapped into to enhance the teaching and learning of tourism. recognition and involvement of community members as resources will help teachers to recognise the indigenous knowledges, wisdom, lived experiences, talents, and skills of community members as resources (see graven & schafer, 2013; mahlomaholo, 2013). members of the community can be brought into the classroom as a resource to show the learners how tourism could benefit them in a practical way. 88 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 in addition to a lack of resources and a lack of access to them, not being aware of the resources available or how to use them also added to the complexity of the problem. mrs madibo (a crafter) lamented, our kids have not been showing interest in the kind of work that we are doing because it was not directly linked to what they are doing with the teachers. so, these meetings . . . have helped [me] to realise how i can help share my knowledge and resources with the school. mr maduna immediately interjected, i was not aware how rich the environment is with resources that can enhance the teaching and learning of tourism in the classroom. from this response, it was evident that the way the study is structured benefitted and empowered the participants, as is espoused by par (le grange, 2009). involving community members in education strengthens teaching because learners benefit from the lived experiences of the community, and this makes learning meaningful and exciting (aikara, 2011; spaull, 2013). collaboration one of the important attributes and requirements of an integrated curriculum aimed at enhancing self-reliance is collaboration among different stakeholders. this collaboration enables the sharing of knowledge, skills, and resources, which culminates in enhancing the quality of the learning experience (brauer & ferguson, 2015). participants seemed to attach different values to collaboration as a way of enhancing tourism education. initially, a teacher understood collaboration to mean “working together with other teachers to teach different sections of tourism but in a loose manner”, as explained by mrs oko in one of the free attitude interviews. this type of response was given after a workshop that addressed integrated tourism teaching that emphasised a more structured and meaningful collaboration between different teachers teaching tourism. ms mona added, this collaborative way of teaching tourism requires one to talk and share with [one’s] colleagues. it is amazing how much one learns from such interactions. for mr maduna, collaboration also leads to resource sharing and exchange, as illustrated by his response. i could not imagine where all these resources that were needed to make the crafts would come from, but through the help and knowledge of the agricultural science teacher and the parents, my difficulties were resolved. from these responses, it can be deduced that teachers benefitted from working with other teachers who, in turn, had other ideas and ways of tackling the content. this collaborating even resulted in access to resources that would not have been available had we been working moreeng, nhlapo and malebese: fostering an integrated tourism education curriculum in lesotho 89 in isolation. we also observed an improved sense of confidence in the teachers as they all warmed up to the idea of working together in a collaborative manner. it was heart-warming to hear learners and parents in the group affirming the value of working with others, as evident from this response by mpho (a learner), who said, in the beginning we saw subject[s] as stand-alones but after this activity we now see that they are strongly linked, some knowledge from one subject can be used to make sense of aspects in the other subject. i learnt the different types of plants in agriculture and that helped to understand the type of grass suitable for crafting basotho hats. mme pone (a parent) commented, i never thought that a person like me who never went to school could play such an important role in the teaching of learners. i thought my knowledge is not relevant and appreciated. i am just a poor woman trying to make a living with what i learnt from my parents, which is making wooden crafts. from the comments above, we can see how the participants’ understanding of, and the value they attached to, collaboration evolved to a point that was embraced by most participants. inviting community members into the school setting added variation to teaching methods and approaches as brauer and ferguson (2015) have observed. through interaction with community members and making crafts, learning became learner-centred and fun. the crafts were intended for sale to tourists and other customers by learners, thus generating income. theory and practice were well integrated and balanced, and this brought joy to learning, as found by graven and schafer (2013) in a different context. collaboration holds mutual benefits as was expressed by the ceo of tourism in an interview. working together with other schools allowed participants to uplift their lives though the sales of crafts; to the schools through skills’ transfer from community members to the learners; and to the tourism industry since it would employ capable learners with skills and knowledge. upliftment and improvement of life is in keeping with lewin’s (1944) par objective. the ceo expressed his belief that underprivileged people should not be at risk of socio-economic domination. working together in a collaborative way also changed the way learners viewed the parents. they came to respect them, understanding that even though parents were not formally educated they could play an important role in the economy of the country. mpho stated, i now know what my mother is going through in weaving the hats and the baskets. it is a tough job indeed [and] i respect her for that. 90 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 this response seems to be in line with assertions by ezeh and ekemenzie (2015) and raselimo and mahao (2015) that when learners are exposed to new knowledge and skills for solving life challenges caused by poverty and unemployment, their attitudes to manual work become more positive, and they become productive and entrepreneurial. conclusion how can we foster an integrated tourism curriculum in lesotho using a community participation approach? in this paper, we explored ways of fostering an integrated tourism curriculum in lesotho using cpa, operationalised by par. one of the principles of cpa and par is that the endeavour of satisfying the needs of the community should be community-driven. by identifying their problems, and planning and deciding jointly how to solve those, community members are valued and respected. in our study we explored ways of improving how integrated tourism education could be implemented meaningfully by helping underprivileged learners in a single community. community members transferred their knowledge and skills to learners since they wanted to help their children acquire entrepreneurship skills. the selfreliance project of making and selling crafts as a 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(1999). community participation in education: what do we know? washington, dc: world bank. zadeh, b. s., & ahmad, n. (2010). participation and community development. current research journal of social sciences, 2(1), 13–14. microsoft word bissue77dec19.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 77, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i77a05 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x schools as restorative spaces for democratic citizenship education nuraan davids department of education policy studies, faculty of education, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa nur@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7588-5814 (received: 24 may 2019; accepted: 31 october 2019) abstract the rationale for desegregated schools has been accompanied persistently by sophisticated exclusionary policies and practices, often masked by excuses related to language, residential area, and fees. that a number of schools continue to employ dubious learner selection practices is a concern that extends beyond the confines of school halls and holds particularly worrisome implications for conceptions of democratic citizenship. on the one hand is the obvious tension and seeming juxtaposition between parental choice of school and the selection of learners by the school. on the other, is the reduction of learner selection to racial discrimination. this article focuses on two questions: what is necessary for schools to shift their policies and practices of learner selection so that they make a foundational contribution to democratic citizenship education, rather than undermining it? how might schools better position themselves as the custodians of democratic citizenship education so as to play a restorative role? keywords: democratic citizenship education; south african schools; restorative spaces; school governing bodies; inclusion; exclusion introduction despite the widespread educational reform that has accompanied the desegregation of schools since 1992, migratory patterns of learners across historical colour lines have seemingly not led to the types of integrated spaces that were envisaged by opening all schools to all learners. in the absence of empirical data to quantify the full extent of learner migratory patterns, anecdotal evidence, according to woolman and fleisch (2006), suggests that, although significant, the actual number represents but a small slice of the overall learner pie. for obvious historical reasons, it is possible to discern definitive patterns of migration across historically racialised schools from black to coloured and indian, and from black, coloured, and indian to white schools, which have resulted, in some instances, in a complete shift in learner demographics at a number of schools (chisholm & sujee, 2006; mckinney, 2010). 80 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 despite the immense diversity in terms of race, culture, ethnicity, and language that clearly exists at a number of south african schools, these schools have not succeeded in creating and cultivating integrated learning and social spaces (naidoo, pillay, & conley, 2018 soudien & mckinney, 2016). there are numerous and complex issues and tensions at play, some of which can be conceived of in terms of external exclusionary measures, and others that take shape through practices of internal exclusion. on the one hand, schools employ policies of charging exorbitant fees, select the language(s) of teaching and learning, and demarcate feeder zones to keep particular communities of learners at bay. the steady increase in school fees, for example, provides critical insights into the relationality between race and class, and how this serves to perpetuate inequalities. on the other hand, even when schools are desegregated, learners who do not comply with the historic and dominant ethos and look of a school are confronted with the dilemma of either exclusion or assimilation (mckinney, 2010; pillay, 2017). as a result, it is not unusual for learners to experience an entire schooling career in which they encounter only learners like themselves in terms of race, language, religion, culture, and ethnicity. the fact that schools continue to be sites of contestation of both access and belonging for the majority of historically disadvantaged learners and their families, holds particular implications for the society for which schools ought to be preparing learners. if learners are not exposed to different ways of being and acting during their critical formative years of schooling, and if they are never afforded the lived experiences of encountering difference, then how prepared and sensitised are they to engage with, and contribute to, a pluralist society? if schools have a role to play in relation to the advancement of the democratic project of post-apartheid south africa, then what kind of schools ought to be cultivated? presuming that all public schools understand the inextricable link and the shared responsibility between schooling and society, what can schools do to enhance their roles so that conceptions of democratic citizenship are embedded in their purpose, as opposed to practices that should be avoided and maligned? before addressing these and other related questions, i begin by providing an explanation of what contributes to the slow and obstructed pace of desegregated and integrated schools in post-apartheid south africa. school choice and the right to equal education the right to basic education and the right to equal education is enshrined in section 29 of the constitution of the republic of south africa (rsa, 1996(a): section 29). the gravity of this right extends beyond mere access to an equal education. in recognising education as a right, the constitution confirms the right of all individuals to aspire, to improve, and to progress economically and socially. it stands in stark juxtaposition to hendrik verwoerd’s belief that “[t]here is no place for [the bantu] in the european community above the level of certain forms of labour. . . . what is the use of teaching the bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice? that is quite absurd. education must train people in accordance with their davids: schools as restorative spaces for democratic citizenship education 81 opportunities in life, according to the sphere in which they live” (quoted in mcgregor, 2013, n.p.). the right to basic education, therefore, is a recognition of an equal education to all as equals. taking its cue from section 29 of the constitution, the white paper on education and training (doe, 1995, p. 21, emphasis in original) states, “education and training are basic human rights. the state has an obligation to protect and advance these rights, so that all citizens irrespective of race, class, gender, creed or age, have the opportunity to develop their capacities and potential, and make their full contribution to the society.” like the constitution, the white paper (doe, 1995) emphasises the inter-connectivity between education and democratic citizenship and describes the goals of basic education as enabling a democratic, free, equal, just, and peaceful society and encouraging mutual respect for people’s diverse religious, cultural, and language traditions. in turn, the national education policy act (south africa, 1996c) requires provincial ministers of education to provide the guidelines for the admission policy of a school. in line with the rights afforded by the constitution, the white paper and the bill of rights (chapter 2), the south african schools act (doe, 1996, p. 8, emphases in original) instructs that “a public school must admit learners and serve their educational requirements without unfairly discriminating in any way.” but the south african schools act also specifies that “[s]ubject to this act and any applicable provincial law, the admission policy of a public school is determined by the governing body of such school.” it is this latter statement, coupled with a deeply incongruent socio-economic landscape, that brings into dispute not only the instruction to admit all learners, but the idea that learners are seen and treated as equals. the sa schools act (doe, 1996) provides unprecedented levels of decision-making to school governing bodies (sgbs), largely because the sgb is considered to be an embodiment of decentralised participation and inclusivity. in both extending and soliciting support for its democratising agenda, the sa schools act views the sgb as offering a cohesive link from parent to community, to school, and, ultimately, to the state. in addition to managing finances, determining school times, uniform, and extramural programmes, sgbs are responsible for maintaining school grounds, appointing staff, and determining all policies, including those related to language and admission. the extensive decision-making afforded to sgbs is not a matter of merely garnering parental and community involvement. since the sa schools act enables schools to charge fees to cover the costs of education not borne by the state, the power to charge fees creates an incentive to admit as many full fee-paying students as the school can accommodate (mestry, 2016; woolman & fleisch, 2006). the degree of authority vested in sgbs is embedded in a political strategy that would permit redistributive state funding to schools serving the poorest communities, while simultaneously retaining the support of middle-class families (historically advantaged and disadvantaged) who might remove their children from the public school system (chisholm, 2004). in retaining the support of middle-class families, historically advantaged schools are able to preserve existing social capital and create new stores of it (woolman & fleish, 2008). this is evident in increasingly exorbitant school fees that often exclude all extras like books, extramural activities, excursions, and, of course, uniforms. in homing in on class divisions, 82 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 post-apartheid schooling in south africa has made a critical shift from racial to class segregation. patterns of migration to better resourced schools stem especially from black middle-class communities who recognise that economic and sociality mobility are tied to particular social constructs and contexts. on the other end of the spectrum, historic impediments at coloured, indian, and particularly black schools are compounded by dire socio-economic challenges, high learner-to-teacher ratios, and dismal infrastructure. most importantly, in light of the power afforded to parents in terms of the sa schools act (doe, 1996), these schools do not have access to the types of parents with the social capital, which has, thus far, ensured the widening gaps between historically advantaged and disadvantaged schools. the evident schisms in the types of schools and schooling available in post-apartheid south africa, has, unsurprisingly, motivated parents and schools in closing ranks around what they understand to be quality education. it would seem that the array of policies pertaining to learner access that includes the constitution (republic of south africa, 1996a), the national education policy act (republic of south africa, 1996b), and the south african schools act (doe, 1996) have not prevented schools from descending into sites of tension and seeking legal recourse. parents clash with principals and sgbs in ensuring access for their children, while principals and sgbs clash with provincial heads of department since schools are instructed to admit learners, even when these schools may have been over-subscribed (mestry, 2017). as mestry has observed, the contestations and contradictions in the interpretation of relevant legislation and the admission policy relating to learner access have resulted in several court cases between the state and sgbs. although couched conveniently in terms of issues centred on capacity and language, these contestations have exposed the simmering dichotomy between learner choice and school selection. to list just a few: • grove primary school v minister of education & others, 1997 (4) sa 982 (c) • observatory girls primary school v head of department of education, gauteng, 2003 (4) sa 246 (w) • kimberley girls’ high school and another v head department of education, northern cape province and others. 2005 (5) sa 251 (nc). • minister of education, western cape, and others v governing body, mikro primary school, and another 2006 (1) sa 1 (sca) • hoërskool ermelo & school governing body of hoërskool ermelo v the hod of education: mpumalanga and others. case no. 219/2008. supreme court of appeal: rsa • governing body of rivonia primary school v mec for education, gauteng province (161/12) [2012] zasca 194 there are many ways through which to understand the kinds of conflict and litigation captured in cases such as those listed above. one is through the common disconnection between what policy says and what it does. the substantive authority afforded to parents through the south african schools act (doe, 1996), for example, bodes well for a democratising agenda of shared leadership and accountability. however, by assigning core davids: schools as restorative spaces for democratic citizenship education 83 governance responsibilities to parents, the act solicits voices and interpretations that might not be synchronised with the very democracy the act aims to enact. another is to conceive of these tensions not only in relation to a democratic objective (as contained in the policy frameworks), but in relation to a particular historical discourse that lies entrenched in notions and practices of inequality, inequity, and exclusion, and that is, hence, counter-intuitive to a public good. equally true in relation to both these considerations is the realisation that even when learners from diverse groups and communities are granted external access to particular schools, these learners are often expected to adhere to the dominant culture and ethos of the school, which, often, might not be reconcilable with who these diverse learners are. as a result, we are confronted with two challenges: that of ensuring equal access for all learners to equal education; and that of cultivating school spaces in which external access is transformed into internal inclusion and recognition. research confirms that inasmuch as racially and culturally diverse schools lend themselves to challenging discriminatory and exclusionary norms, such schools remain at risk of perpetuating existing hegemonic thinking and practices (ahmed, 2012; berry & candis, 2013; lewis, diamond, & forman, 2015). external inclusion/internal exclusion learners, at different times, in different contexts and given different norms, experience different forms and degrees of exclusion. exclusion occurs on the basis of race, culture, religion, language, sexuality, disability, sex, gender, class, and ethnicity (bakhshi, babulal, & trani, 2017; florian, 2014; meier & hartell, 2009; msibi, 2014), and adopts different forms in relation to the norms of a certain context. in this sense, exclusion, regardless of its form, is always contextualised, and can result in, or perpetuate major structural inequalities. south african schools are littered with numerous examples of structural and systemic discrimination. in 2016, a number of learners at a girls-only school protested against being penalised for speaking “black languages” (isaacs, 2016, n.p.) and having “untidy afros” (pather, 2016, n.p.). in 2017, a geography teacher at a private school told black learners that they were getting good marks only because they sat next to white learners. this was followed by equally disturbing comments directed at black learners, such as, “you disappointed the blacks by getting a good mark” and “well done, you’ve started thinking like a white boy” (anderson, 2017, n.p.). also, in 2017, another girls-only school came under the spotlight when a voice recording emerged of a pupil calling her fellow pupils “k*****s” when, allegedly, they did not pronounce or spell her name correctly (pillay, 2017). at the beginning of 2019, the chairperson of an sgb chair justified the racial segregation of grade 1 learners on the basis that children “who battle with english” are kept in a separate class until grade 3 to give them “special assistance” (govender & hosken, 2019, n.p.). evident from these incidents are deeply entrenched notions of anglo-normativity, which not only denigrates other ways of being and thinking, but associates competencies and intellect with whiteness. 84 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 exclusionary and discriminatory practices do not exist in isolation from other forms of exclusion and often intersect as a learner moves from one space to another, whether it is between a classroom and a sports-field, or a hostel and a drama stage. at other times, learners might enjoy some sense of achievement or belonging, but only insofar as these achievements or belonging do not disrupt the status quo. the shifting trajectories through which exclusion rears its head, as explained by peters and besley (2014), imply the risk of an ubiquitous exclusion and extend into controlling the discourse and the language, as seen in the case of learners being penalised for speaking in a “black language.” of concern is not only the demeaning of a language, but what that language embodies and expresses for an individual. it is the associated shame that learners are made to feel about their language, and hence, their identity, which is especially damaging and irreconcilable with conceptions of citizenship education. it is because of the intersectionality and complex impact of exclusion that all learners should be included, not because they are disadvantaged by historical legacies, norms, and dictates, but because they are at risk of potentially not being able to contribute to society (edwards, 2009). such are the norms and trajectories through which dominant narratives exert pressure and persist, that the examples cited above symbolise rare instances of criticism and outrage. in turn, responses from schools are often couched in defensive discourses, which either seek to adopt a moral high ground in terms of a statement like, “we know what is best for our learners” or dismiss the claims as mere misunderstanding by the learners. in both instances, however, the outrage is less directed at any truth within the accusation, than it is at the learners. these learners are positioned as outsiders, and as such, are required to comply with, and assimilate to the requirements of the status quo: become like us or leave. on the part of the schools there is a refusal to engage with the otherness of the outsiders. hence, the actions of learners are often bracketed as divisive and troublesome so the focus shifts onto the misconduct or misapprehension of learners, rather than on any discriminatory practices enacted by the school. for the most part, however, the majority of learners, teachers, and parents opt to remain silent in the face of structural or interpersonal racism out of fear of being marginalised or excluded. the risk for those who resist these norms are exacerbated by their minority status, both in terms of numbers, and of how they are perceived in relation to the dominant group. as merry (2018, p. 5) has explained, “they have not missed the fact that speaking truth to power in schools most often does not end well for the speakers, especially when these speakers do not inhabit the social identities with the presumptive legitimacy to speak.” at other times, structural hegemonies are so entrenched that what is perceived as an uncontested silence is, in fact, what ahmed (2012, p. 175) describes as a “wall . . . [or] the sedimentation of history into a barrier that is solid and tangible in the present, a barrier to change as well as to the mobility of some, a barrier that remains invisible to those who can flow into the spaces created by institutions.” it is only when you do not quite inhabit the norms, or when you stand outside of the dominant ethos that you notice the “wall” for what it is, as ahmed has pointed out. yet, even when teachers and principals are made aware of the “wall,” they davids: schools as restorative spaces for democratic citizenship education 85 choose not to acknowledge it. this is easier than the critical reflection and willingness required to dismantle it. the kinds of complexities that one encounters in south african schools are, of course, in no way limited to historically advantaged schools, although this may seem to be the case by virtue of the fact that migration has been towards these schools rather than away from them. on the one hand, historically disadvantaged schools, which constitute most schools in south africa have remained largely homogenous in terms of racial, cultural, and ethnic learner demographics. black schools, in other words, have not, and will not, witness an influx of coloured, indian and white learners for the simple reason that these schools remain largely under-resourced, overcrowded, and, despite pockets of excellence (against incredible odds), are associated with a poor quality of education. on the other hand, despite the migration of black, coloured, and indian learners to historically advantaged (white) schools, desegregation has, in most cases, remained enveloped in understandings of external access, rather than internal inclusion and integration. in this sense, as noted by ahmed (2012), diversity management is understood and practised in very instrumentalist terms of racial representation, rather than in inclusive practices of participation and decision-making. there are many dimensions, reasons, and factors that feed into the particular alienating experiences and encounters of learners who constitute minority groups at schools. in addition to inadequate responses to, and management of, diversity, learners seldom encounter teachers from diverse identities and backgrounds, even in schools where the learner demographics might have shifted dramatically (davids & waghid, 2015). and, then, of course, as far as external access is concerned, there is the role of the sgb in relation to the admission policy, which is often used as a gatekeeping mechanism skewed towards the retention of historically privileged social capital, thus bringing into disrepute not only notions of school choice, but equal rights to equal education. it is worth noting mclaughlin’s (2005) concern that a major issue confronting school choice is the extent to which it is, or can be, compatible with conceptions of public education in a liberal democratic society. while public education suggests an education that is open to all, the reality, which has thus far been highlighted, reveals a counter-narrative. the extent to which parents are able to exercise their rights in relation to school choice is contingent on a range of factors. although not explicitly stated on school application forms, external access depends on a particular socio-economic identity, while internal inclusion often hinges on assimilation. in this regard, questions have to be asked about the function of public education in a democratic society. more specifically, questions have to be asked about the extent to which public schools, as discussed in this paper, contribute to or hinder the advancement of a democratic society. following the above, it becomes apparent that despite the substantial educational reform geared at dismantling segregated schooling, and hence, stratified codes of citizenship, schools are neither open to all, nor inclusive of diverse ways of thinking and acting. despite a national curriculum, the curriculum assessment policy statement (caps; dbe, 2013), and a range of correlating policies, all of which speak to the promulgation and cultivation of practices of democratic citizenship education, incidents, and practices at a number of schools 86 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 suggest a perilous state and a deficient response to notions of pluralism and democratic engagement. consequently, first, most of the learners continue to interact and engage only with learners who share their own historically constructed racial classification. second, desegregated schools have not necessarily yielded to and cultivated the types of diversity recognition, respect, and management of which a democratic society is necessarily desirous. as i continue into the second half of this article, i consider what is necessary for schools to shift their policies and practices of learner selection, so that they make a foundational contribution to democratic citizenship education, rather than antagonizing and undermining it. this is followed by an argument about how schools might better position themselves as the custodians of democratic citizenship education so that they play a restorative and defensive role. how schools can contribute to democratic citizenship education implicit in the central concern of this article is a presupposition that schools indeed conceive of themselves as fulfilling an agenda of democratic citizenship education, that is, that they accept that a dominant purpose of schooling is the preparation for citizenship. certainly, such an assumption is not too ambitious if one considers the range of democratizing imperatives that have thus far driven educational reform in post-apartheid south africa. in addition to the legislation and policy frameworks that inform learner access and notions of equal access, there are numerous policies geared towards the development of democratic citizenship in south african schools. using the constitution as its paradigmatic foundation, caps (dbe, 2013) espouses the principles of social transformation—human rights, inclusivity, environmental and social justice, and valuing indigenous knowledge systems. alongside the substantial curricular reform, there have been a number of strategic initiatives and reports such as the report of the working group on values in education (doe, 2000), which seeks to promote the principles of equity, tolerance, multilingualism, openness, accountability, and social honour. shortly thereafter came the manifesto on values in education (doe, 2001, 3), which propagates the values of democracy, social justice, and equality along with nonracism, non-sexism, ubuntu (human dignity), an open society, and accountability (responsibility), as well as the rule of law, respect, and reconciliation. the manifesto was followed by the values and human rights in the curriculum: a guide (doe, 2005), which aimed to assist teachers to address human rights and values in all learning areas, as well as building a culture of responsibility and humanity in our schools: a practical guide for teachers (dbe, 2011). the focus of these policies and strategies are in line with an emerging democracy and indicate attention being paid to how education can contribute to the formation of democratic citizens and the promotion of a democratic culture (biesta, 2011). it is apparent that while the necessary policies and frameworks are in place, there appears to be a reluctance on the part of certain schools and sgbs to enact these policies, or even a disengagement from them. in deliberately keeping particular groups of learners at bay, and by not being mindful of the importance of cultivating mutually respectful school spaces, schools davids: schools as restorative spaces for democratic citizenship education 87 are (un)consciously acting counter-intuitively towards the advancement of democratic citizenship education, and, hence, peaceful co-existence. it becomes necessary, therefore, to consider why it is critical for schools in south africa to conceive of their roles as contributing to democratic citizenship education. generally, democratic citizenship education is espoused as the propagation and cultivation of a set of rights, which speaks to notions of social justice geared towards respectful and peaceful co-existence. while framed within a particular political ideology, and enacted through frameworks like the constitution, democratic citizenship education rests on how individuals conceive of themselves in relation to others in the public sphere. in other words, while structured in a formal political domain, citizenship and citizenship education manifest in everyday life such as social interactions and schooling. this is a view shared by veugelers (2007), who has maintained that citizenship is concerned with how people give meaning to life on the personal, the interpersonal, and the socio-political levels. for young people, much of this meaning takes shape in the spaces of schools. in turn, from a liberal democratic perspective, education is seen as a “social right that secures access to . . . material prosperity and occupancy of those social roles that maximize economic opportunity” (callan, 2004, p. 84). within a context of extended socio-economic disenfranchisement, the quality of statesponsored schooling takes on a momentous personal importance for parents and children (callan, 2004). education, as giroux (2009, p. 15) contends, is not only about issues of work economics, “but also about questions of justice, social freedom, and the capacity for democratic agency, action, and change as well as the related issues of power, exclusion and citizenship.” the role of schools in relation to these conceptions of education and democratic citizenship is at once a formative and summative one. schools are wholly responsible for the type of learners they produce, not only in terms of academic performance and achievement, but also in terms of the type of learner as couched in understandings of independence, responsibility, the ability to engage in rational thought and deliberation, and the exercise of mutual regard and respect. however, schools rely on particular sets of parent and community bodies that constitute their schools, whose members would themselves be the products of particular types of schooling experiences. consider for example, the recent uproar at a top boys-only school outside cape town, where accusations of a culture of corporal punishment and dubious initiation practices were levelled at a number of teachers, including the deputy principal, who is also the head of discipline, that culminated in a probe by the south african human rights commission (sahrc; evans, 2019). the claims aside, what was especially disturbing about this case was the number of former and current parents, as well as learners, who believed that corporal punishment was a necessary means through which to make learners evolve into responsible citizens. in this regard, the role and contribution of schools cannot be limited to the teaching of citizenship. rather, as biesta (2011, p. 1) contended, more consideration needs to be given “to the ways in which citizenship is actually learned in and through the processes and practices that make up the everyday lives of children, young people and adults.” the potential impact of 88 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 citizenship teaching, continued biesta, is always mediated by what children and young people experience in their everyday lives about democratic ways of acting and being and about their own position as citizens. to this end, if learners are being disallowed from bringing their languages, accents, and hairstyles into particular schools, then their experiences of citizenship are neither positive, nor encouraging of their own self-acceptance and sense of belonging. in line with biesta’s (2011) argument, i contend that in light of the newness of desegregated school spaces, and in light of the deeply separate and separated communities with which learners enter south african schools, democratic citizenship education cannot be an abstract reference point relegated to this or that learning outcome. instead, precisely because of south africa’s disparate and dehumanising history, and precisely because of the historical baggage of residential clustering along racial lines—learners might learn together, but not live in shared areas—the attention of democratic citizenship education should be on how individuals come together, so that they might learn how to be together. this means that schools should be mindful of the erasure implicit in notions and practices of assimilation and a preparedness to focus on what biesta (2011, p. 2) referred to as “individuals-in-interaction and individuals incontext” and on “the crucial role that people’s ‘actual condition of citizenship’ plays in the ways in which they learn and enact their democratic citizenship.” by so doing, biesta (2011, p. 2, emphasis in original) showed opposition to connecting citizenship “first and foremost to communities of sameness,” and instead emphasised “the importance of plurality and difference in understanding and enacting democratic citizenship.” by their so doing, the potential contribution of schools lies not only in cultivating integrated spaces of diverse ways of thinking, being, and acting, but in bringing into question the takenfor-grantedness of hegemonies, of dominant cultures, and of normative codes. in this sense, when all schools in south africa, those that have desegregated, and those that have not, consider their roles in relation to the espousal of democratic citizenship education, they ought to do so with an acute attentiveness not to reproduce social, economic. and political inequalities and inequities. the point is, following biesta (2011), that the contribution of south african schools in an emerging democracy cannot be limited to a mere propagation of policies and learning outcomes. it is in their best interest to cultivate and promote pluralist environments so that learners might learn democracy not by learning about democracy, but by learning through and with others. the contribution of south african schools, therefore, resides, first, in the extent to which these schools are willing to diversify so that they come to mirror the pluralism of their society. second, the idea is not simply to have representation of diversity and then to teach about democratic citizenship education. rather, the focus at all schools should be to create the spaces and opportunities through which learners might come to learn democracy by engaging and deliberating with those whom they might not ordinarily encounter. it is this point that makes any idea of segregation so especially problematic, because when learners learn together, they also learn how to be together. the focus on learning democracy, as biesta (2011, p. 4) has stated, “makes it possible to reveal the ways in which such learning is situated in the unfolding lives of young people and how these lives, in turn, are implicated in davids: schools as restorative spaces for democratic citizenship education 89 wider cultural, social, political and economic orders. it ultimately is this wider context which provides opportunities for young people to be democratic citizens—that is to enact their citizenship—and to learn from this.” schools as custodians of democratic citizenship education that south africans are struggling to engage with democratic practices is evident in the far too frequent incidents of intolerance, disregard, racism, discrimination, xenophobia, and exclusion that occur. of course, it is irrational to expect that schools should assume the full and sole responsibility of inculcating democratic citizenship education. according to biesta, lawy, and kelly (2009, p. 9, emphases in original), “young people’s citizenship learning is not just a cognitive function; it rather is a process that is situated, that is relational and that is uniquely linked to young people’s individual life-trajectories.” this means that young people or learners are socialised into particular practices and processes every day, many of which might not happen in the environment of a school, but might occur in the home, with friends, or on a sports field. many young people might not necessarily be socialised into practices and views that are most desirable and reconcilable with democratic principles. schools, therefore, are the only formal spaces that can provide the discourses and practices that serve to promote democratic citizenship education. if we agree with biesta (2011) that democratic citizenship education should not be understood as an attribute of the individual, but has to do invariably with individuals-incontext and individuals-in-relationship, then it follows that schools should conceive of themselves as being in a relationship with and in context with democratic citizenship education. edwards’s (2007) conceptualisation of relational agency is particularly useful in extending biesta’s (2011) argument. relational agency, according to edwards (2007, p. 4) “is intended to capture a capacity to align one’s thoughts and actions with those of others to interpret aspects of one’s world and to act on and respond to those interpretations.” it recognises, as edwards has stated, the importance of pre-existing personal understandings in mediating interpretations of new situations and argues for attention to the negotiations that individuals make as they work in and with the social. therefore, relational agency “occupies a conceptual space between a focus on learning as enhancing individual understanding and a focus on learning as systemic change and includes both” (edwards, 2007, p. 5). following biesta (2011) and edwards (2007), schools are constitutive of the collective of a society, and are, therefore, both producers (learners) and recipients (parents) of the type of society in which they play a critical role. the purpose and responsibility of ensuring the necessary context and ethos for the cultivation of democratic citizenship is not limited to the individual or the school. rather, it has to do with renewed understandings and deliberations of what best serves the collective of a public good in a democracy. the preparation of learners for a democracy, therefore, depends on how the school conceives of a democracy. what school principals, teachers, administrators, and governors do matters to learners. it matters in terms of what they know, how they come to know, and why they know, and it matters not only to how they view themselves in relation to others and their society, but 90 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 how they view others in relation to themselves. schools cannot continue to look inward. by looking outward, argues edwards (2007), the world can be transformed through our collective actions. it is the actual condition of young people’s citizenship, contended biesta (2011), that has a crucial impact on what types of people they become. in conclusion, as a social, moral, and political space, the function of schools cannot be limited to following a curriculum; schools ought to be places for the cultivation of self-belief, belonging, recognition, knowing oneself, and knowing how to be with others. schools, therefore, cannot exist and stand on the side-lines of a democracy; they cannot lay claim to the privileges and rights of a democracy if they are not prepared to fulfil their collective responsibilities in sustaining and holding that democracy accountable. in the end, schools are bound to democracy, in terms of cultivating it, defending it, and questioning it when it neglects to serve a public good. in assuming the roles and function of the custodians of democracy, schools can position themselves as an embodiment of democracy in context and practice. a school, when understood as rightly serving a public good, is in a position not only to 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(2008). democracy, social capital and school governing bodies in south africa. education and the law, 20(1), 47–80 https://doi.org/10.1080/09539960802138269 editorial wayne hugo sometimes, when doing an editor’s work, you come across a review that gets to the nub of a paper in a succinct and telling way. here is one such example, commenting on zain davis’ esoteric work: this article provides a goad to thought for the education community. what i gather it is in the end ‘about’ is the radical incomplete-ability of knowledge, but the intricate argument is couched in a typical seeming-contradiction, which it is the article’s mission to show is not a contradiction at all but a necessary conclusion. the seeming-contradiction is this: it is only by means of a theory, which aims to include everything (a ‘totalising’ theory), that the incompleteness of knowledge can be systematically revealed. a partial theory that only aims at a slice of life struggles for relevance, because life is complicated and a slice is often cut off from surrounding factors. but the more surrounding factors included in a theory, the less range it has to generalise, because the surrounding factors are contextual and localised, and tie the theory up to its local context. the art of theory is to provide more and more factors that are less local and more conceptual – that keep the generalising range of the theory whilst at the same time increasing its density of factors. take education theory as an example. we love using generalising concepts like ‘power’, ‘discourse’, ‘hegemony’, ‘subject’, and so on. this can be a lazy use of theorising, because it is not holding the two key acts of theorising at the same time – extending the range of generalisation and the density of conceptual relation. it is easy to use one generalising concept and show how it applies to education, but this ignores that vast complexity of both context and concept. we have a paucity of abstract theoretical models that show how different factors formally relate to each other. it is also very easy to point out how incomplete the theory is by simply giving your alternative standpoint or theory. this is a weak and unsatisfactory use of incompleteness. contrast this type of incompleteness to the limit point hit in theory as one reaches and struggles for abstract density of relations and finds within it the incomplete-ability of knowledge. here is a far more honest and onerous struggle that finds within its own attempt at completeness a radical threshold. fresh from this internal struggle, the theory then has to show how it relates back to the world it was abstracted from, and here again it hits radical incompleteness, for the profuse richness of the world pours over the analytical distinctions and models, disrupting and warping them. so it is the ambitious 2 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 theoretical project that really gets to grips with what incompleteness means, not by being attacked from others outside who simply posit their position, but by the struggle within its own frontier. both the struggle of conceptually developing a complete internal theoretical language and showing how that dense language relates back to the external world hit radical limits – the first because it starts to generate internal logics that go in contradictory directions; the second because the attempt to externalise the theoretical abstractions hits the full-blooded nature of reality that interrupt and deform its external reaching out. and it is this kind of incompleteness we can be proud of as academics, because its radical disruptiveness forces theoretical and empirical innovation that push us forward rather than entrench us into standpoint positions that shout at each other from across an ill-conceived boundary that is really only a narcissistic mirror. so, please struggle with zain davis’ paper, even if you don’t understand it the first time (like what happened to me), and even if you have to spend time researching what kant had to say about antinomies, or bernstein about the discursive gap. the paper is as elegant and clear as it possibly could be, given its content and argument. carol bertram understands the kind of theoretical struggle zain davis articulates, for she is discontent with over simplified theories that have no real grasp on reality. her own grappling with what a more complete theory can be has resulted in adding more and more specific concepts and key factors into her theoretical toolbox to extend the range and subtlety of analysis. but as the key factors increase, the task of holding them together in a theoretical model that shows how they interrelate becomes exponentially more difficult. bertram’s own reaching towards theoretical sufficiency results in her hitting the incomplete-ability of knowledge. combine this analytical struggle with the ambitious scope of her subject – secondary school curriculum documents from south africa, canada (british columbia), singapore and kenya – and we have a fascinating paper that takes us on a trip through how four very different countries structure their history curriculum. her initial key factors are time and space – how the countries’ curricula work with chronology on the one hand and with local, continental and global histories on the other. all four countries work with chronological time systematically, moving forward from old to new. the first and clearest difference that jumps out is how kenya orders its history curriculum on a national space grid whilst all the other countries use more international ordering principles that go beyond a focus on editorial 3 domestic history. but history also gets more complex as it progresses through the grades, both in terms of historical concepts and procedures. all of a sudden, the paper is trying to hold together shifts in space, time, concept and procedure. how do these four factors relate to each other? the complexity of theorisation explodes. add to this how the paper is working with bernstein’s theory of the pedagogic device – specifically how esoteric history knowledge is recontextualised into curriculum knowledge. all of this is happening in one of the most potent subjects for consciousness formation, resulting in massive political influences on how history is done at school. and carol bertram is holding all of this together whilst at the same time having to negotiate how she uses the theoretical frame to develop an external language of description that fastens the four factors onto the empirical object of history curricula in four countries. doing academic work like this is hard, especially if you want it also to be readable and interesting. it is a struggle. moves are not obvious, and what seems like a simple statement after the theoretical yards have been made has actually taken intellectual sweat and tears. there are theorists who infuriatingly make the job look easy. zizek has been able to take the work of lacan and hegel and show how it helps analyse current culture, politics, and society. anne becker and petro du preez use zizek to illuminate the use and abuse of human rights within education discourses. continuous claims are made that all learners in south africa have equal access to education, and even though we know this not to be true, and we know the claim actively damages those without access, we still don’t actively renounce the claims when made. the illusions of democracy and human rights continuously lie about the lack of access and the non-existence of human rights. anne becker and petro du preez hope that faculties of education take up this struggle, break the illusions neo-liberalism holds us under, and develop a more activist human rights literacy that refuses glib assertions for a more tangible struggle towards genuine human rights that engages with poverty, gender, religion and social justice. social activism has to come with an internalised ability to self-direct learning. to be active outside one has to be active inside. to take initiative and critique facile human rights discourses, one has to take initiative with oneself; to engage with others on how a fuller version of human rights works, one has to engage with disciplines of the self. there are real dangers with social activism becoming an un-critique-able mantra that individuals have to follow or suffer sanction. the tangible absence of self-directed learning with many of our 4 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 teachers and learners is a key problem afflicting south african education, and this is why we have published the interesting paper by elsa mentz and sukie van zyl. how can it be that many of our teachers teach a subject for years but can do little more than barely scrape through tests of their subject knowledge? why have they not taken control of their own learning in the process of teaching others, especially when what they are teaching is what they also need to understand? self-directed learning is a gift that keeps giving, a skill that multiplies other skills, an attitude that magnifies learning capacity, and a navigation device that enables flexibility of movement and decision making at the micro level. in our current caps dispensation with its demand for strong control over the selection, sequencing, pacing and assessment of knowledge there is a real danger that we equate strong control with the endangerment and/or collapse of self-directed learning. if teachers and learners are being told what to do on a daily basis, how are they supposed to develop selfdirected learning skills? it’s a false opposition based on a failure to understand how developing educational systems and internal learning processes work. why? both a developing educational system and mind need a simplified space in which to start to learn and practice the complex skill of self-direction. by restricting and clarifying options a reduction in the complexity space results in an increased ability to focus on the matter at hand, increasing both retention and an ability to make decisions. the danger does not lie in the strong framing of selection, sequencing, pacing and assessment of knowledge, the danger lies in the refusal to use strong framing as an opportunity to simplify and instead proliferate explicit instructions and content to the point where collapse is inevitable. nor should cooperative learning be seen as contradictory to the need to simplify. one can proliferate and over complicate both a strongly framed and weakly framed pedagogic situation; and one can simplify both a strongly framed and weakly framed pedagogic situation. do not confuse strong or weak control with simplification. what we need in south africa is a simplified educational space; for it is here that self-directed learning has the breathing room to find its rhythm. allow me to elaborate on the argument, using patti silbert and clare verbeek’s paper on collaborative support for student and mentor teachers during teaching practice. they found that it helped to distribute the mentoring editorial 5 function rather than keep it tied to a one on one relationship between student teacher and mentor. the reasons for this have to do with the strong possibility that either/and/and the mentor, the student teacher, the school, or the university have dysfunctional elements, resulting in catastrophic failure in the teaching practice. in this developing context there has to be distribution of function to ensure robustness of the system. the danger does not lie in distribution of function; the danger lies in making the distribution too complex and in love with its own elaborations. simple and distributed are not contradictory terms. it is possible to have a simple distributed system, but the temptation is to take advantage of all the possibilities distribution allows rather than stripping it down to its most basic functioning elements. simplification means the acceptance that some things need to be left out to create the space for their flourishing. by trying to include everything from the beginning results in an overcrowded space where limited growth happens. we can see this in anya morris, joanne hardman and heather jacklin’s paper on school science for six-year-olds, where they find the absence of entry-level scientific concepts in the grade r curriculum. curriculum texts at grade r level mostly represent science knowledge in terms of everyday concepts, with very little opportunity to acquire the form or content of scientific knowledge or to develop the cognitive skills needed for formal schooling. the first question we need to ask is why should grade r have simple scientific concepts? is it not enough for the children to be habituating themselves to schooling in a world that is as close as possible to home but still different enough to encourage the shift? the everyday world and its concepts also need a space to become familiar and learnt; for it is not automatically taught or learnt, and this has to be done whilst getting used to many hours away from home in a controlled environment in terms of time, space and physical movement. at six years of age they might be capable of understanding simple scientific concepts, but that does not mean they should. i am not sure i am unhappy to find out there is not much potential science in grade r, but what i am happy about is a clear articulation in the paper about the neo-vygotskian shift from everyday concepts to simple scientific concepts to complex scientific concepts. there has been a tendency in south african educational debates to get fixated on learner centred and teacher centred education, rather than simple and complex systems and how they play out in terms of curriculum and pedagogy. morris, hardman and jacklin provide us with an exemplary account of the shift from everyday concepts to simple concepts and complex concepts. 6 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 it is this shift from everyday to simple to complex that should have been the focus of the malawian curriculum reform in 2007, but that was not the case, instead the reform was all about shifting pedagogy from a teacher centred to a learner centred modality and from a separated curriculum to an integrated curriculum. instead of starting where teachers were in a traditional context used to hierarchical relations and specified content learning, the reform radically opened the relations out and integrated knowledge. no surprises then, that devika naidoo and grames chirwa find the teachers in malawi failed to respond to the reform in any meaningful way, resulting in great disparities between the intended and enacted curriculum, all because there was a refusal to start off the reform by radically simplifying the space. you do not simplify by changing both the curriculum and the pedagogy – you simplify by taking what you already have, stripping it down to essentials, and using it as your base from which more complex possibilities have the space to emerge, slowly and tentatively at first, but with increasing vigour once they find they have the space to breathe. but we have to be very careful about how we simplify something down to its bare essentials. it is never just about a technical reduction of complexity, but also always about the context it is located within. we can use kathy arbuckle’s fascinating account of visual literacy amongst adult learners in kwazulu-natal to illustrate the point. here is an account about the possible difficulties ‘village people’ have with drawings taken from arbuckle’s paper. village people gain their knowledge through handling, creating, or looking at actual objects or events. when they see a picture, they expect it to contain what they know about the object and not only what they see of the object. a photograph or drawing of a man in which only one leg and one arm is visible will not necessarily be recognised as a man. a drawing of a truck in which only two wheels can be seen will not correspond to what people know about trucks. in an image which shows perspective, two objects of the same size, one farther away than the other, may be perceived as two objects of different sizes. . . . it should be remembered that pictures which contain shading and foreshortening may be read literally: the person may be seen to have a scarred face or a short limb, or lack the limbs which are not visible. . . . learners need to be introduced to images and taught to read and interpret them, just as they are introduced to words (fordham, p., holland, d. and millican, 1995, p.81). but even if all of these issues are taken into account, it still does not mean the picture will be understood. so, based on the above quote, we might be fearful that the depicted person has no arms or legs, but solving that issue in no way helps us make sense of the picture. what is needed is the context that the picture is speaking to – in this case the emotional impact of the hiv/aids editorial 7 virus. the issue does not have to do so much with whether arms are missing, but whether the person can read enough to understand the context generating the picture. if the person cannot read, then visual literacy will be of no assistance whatsoever and merely increase confusion. simplification always needs a context. the art of pedagogy is to ensure that the expansion of context starts to shift into larger and more systematic networks that enable meaning making to happen. simplification is not an end to itself; it is about enabling the dynamic growth of organised, complex networks in a space that is not itself overburdened by complexification. wayne hugo school of education university of kwazulu-natal hugow@ukzn.ac.za mailto:hugow@ukzn.ac.za 8 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 microsoft word b80 full issue final.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 80, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i80a02 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x decolonising the university curriculum or decolonialwashing? a multiple case study lesley le grange department of curriculum studies, faculty of education, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa llg@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7096-3609 petro du preez school of professional studies in education, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa petro.dupreez@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9100-6461 labby ramrathan school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa ramrathanp@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9963-0675 sylvan blignaut nelson mandela university, summerstrand campus, port elizabeth, south africa sylvan.blignaut@mandela.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5514-0604 (received: 13 february 2020; accepted: 9 september 2020) abstract in this article, we report on four case studies of how higher education institutions have grappled with the demands of decolonisation of their curricula. in some respects, the cases differ in form and content, and the unique responses to decolonisation of each institution are described and analysed. an important similarity among the institutions was the use of extensive public lectures, seminars, and workshops as a common strategy to deal with the calls for the decolonising of curricula. the inquiry is motivated by our concern that some institutions, in an effort to comply, might resort to instrumentalist and quick-fix solutions to decolonise curricula, which result in decolonial-washing rather than substantive change. we discuss the following themes based on the data and literature: decolonial-washing; decolonising of curricula as a national project; political symbolism; and the need for complicated conversations. we also reflect on the methodology used in this study. keywords: case study, complicated conversations, curriculum, decolonisation/decoloniality, decolonialwashing, higher education 26 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 introduction although decolonisation in relation to education is not a new conversation nor a uniquely south african one, the nation-wide student protests of 2015 and 2016 induced more intense conversations on decolonisation in the country. since the student protests, we have witnessed a burgeoning body of literature being produced on the topic, statutory bodies making pronouncements on decolonisation, and universities responding variously to calls for the curriculum to be decolonised. in response to students’ calls, at a higher education summit held in october 2015, the minister of education of higher education, dr blade nzimande, beckoned all universities to africanise/decolonise. following this summit and in response to students’ calls for the curriculum to be decolonised, some universities (e.g. stellenbosch university) appointed task teams, while others appointed curriculum transformation committees (e.g. the university of cape town) in efforts to explore ways in which the curriculum of south african universities could be decolonised. in this article, we describe and analyse instances of decolonisation at four south african universities with different histories and cultures that are located in different provinces in the country. the question guiding our inquiry was: how have selected south african universities responded to the call to decolonise their curricula in the wake of student protests of 2015 and 2016 and how might these responses be interpreted? the focus of our inquiry is thus on the period following the 2015 and 2016 student protests. it is our contention that the decolonising of university curricula is an imperative. however, we are concerned that efforts to do so might become exercises in what we term decolonialwashing, a term borrowed from the word greenwashing that is used in environmental and sustainability studies to denote processes whereby a company provides a false impression or misleading information about the environmental soundness of its products. decolonialwashing in this instance relates to a university giving the impression that its curricula are decolonised although this might not be the case. we aver that the decolonising of curricula cannot be an instrumentalist and quick-fix process but, rather, that it requires a great deal of individual and collective effort. fanon (1967) forcibly reminded us that there can be no decolonisation without individual liberation. moreover, we contend that engaging in complicated conversations is a necessary condition for decolonising university curricula. aoki (2004) pointed out that conversation is not “chitchat” nor is it a simple exchange of information because neither of these requires “true human presence” (p. 180). pinar (2004) suggested that complicated conversations are premised on a commitment of scholars of curriculum to engage in such conversations with their peers, with their students, and with themselves and that such a commitment is accompanied by “frank and ongoing selfcriticism” (p. 9). le grange (2018) added that frank and ongoing self-criticism mitigates against the effect of hierarchical power relations that could hinder productive conversations from occurring; in such conversations dominant voices and knowledges are decentred. le grange et al.: decolonising the university curriculum or decolonial washing? 27 before we present the cases, we offer a word on decolonisation and decoloniality followed by a discussion of the methodological approach guiding this exploratory inquiry. decolonisation and decoloniality any discussion on decolonisation necessarily requires a discussion on colonisation. ndlovugatsheni (in omanga, 2019) noted that colonisation could be viewed as a period in history that has a beginning and an end. in other words, we can refer to a time when colonists came, conquered, dominated, and administered people colonially, until colonised people fought and pushed back. decolonisation 1 is understood to be the process of resistance by colonised people that results eventually in the undoing of colonial governance at the point when the country in question attains independence. however, attaining independence does not mean that colonialism has disappeared. ndlovu-gatsheni (in omanga, 2019) has pointed out that colonisation institutes colonialism. the distinction between colonisation and colonialism is therefore important. as ndlovu-gatsheni put it, even when you push back colonisation as a physical process (the physical empire), colonialism as a power structure continues as a metaphysical process and as an epistemic project, because it invades the mental universe of a people, destabilising them from what they used to know, into knowing what is brought in by colonialism, and it then commits ‘crimes’ such as epistemicide (where you kill and displace preexisting knowledges), linguicide (killing and displacing the languages of a people and imposing your own), culturecide (where you kill or replace the cultures of a people). (cited in omanga, 2019, p. 2, emphasis in original) latin american scholars such as maldonado-torres (2007), mignolo (2007) and qujano (2007) have been helpful in providing us with a more nuanced understanding of the distinction between colonisation and colonialism by their invocation of the concepts coloniality and decoloniality. qujano (2007) argued that although colonial governance might have been effaced at independence the logic of coloniality remained. in other words, the systems of power that classify, denigrate, and subjugate remain prevalent, and in a contemporary globalising world, these systems of power are more insidious than previous more naked forms of colonisation (le grange, 2019). ndlovu-gatsheni (2013a) averred that coloniality is a global power structure that has been produced and is sustained by asymmetrical power relations between the global north and the global south. in response to coloniality, the latin american scholars mentioned have invoked the term decoloniality as analytic (a critique) of coloniality. ndlovu-gatsheni (2013b) argued that decoloniality is premised on three concepts: coloniality of power; coloniality of knowledge; and coloniality of being. coloniality of power relates to the current asymmetrical global power structure that is a consequence of the benefits of modernisation that have been enjoyed by the west by 1 other scholars retain the concept of decolonisation in discourses on education by distinguishing between political decolonisation and cognitive/intellectual decolonisation. indigenous peoples across the globe also invoke the term decolonisation to challenge the deficit ways in which they have come to be defined and to seek self-determination (for a more detailed discussion, see le grange, 2019). 28 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 imposing the slave trade, imperialism, colonialism, and apartheid on the rest. coloniality of knowledge relates to how the genesis of disciplines in the west resulted in epistemicides in the global south and how africa is now burdened with irrelevant knowledge that disempowers rather than empowers. coloniality of being relates to how whiteness gained ontological density that far exceeds that of blackness and how descartes’s cogito ergo sum (i think, therefore i am) morphed into “i conquer, therefore i am” (ndlovu-gatsheni 2013a, p. 12). although they did not express this in the same terms, nkrumah (1965) and fanon (1967) had a clear understanding of the difference between colonisation and colonialism as evidenced by the former’s coinage of the term neo-colonialism and the latter’s lament at the end of the algerian war that decolonisation had not taken place, only africanisation of colonialism. in other words, they had an understanding of the problem we now call coloniality and knew that dismantling it was a necessary but not an easy task for the reasons articulated by maldonadotorres: [c]oloniality . . . is maintained alive in books, in the criteria for academic performance, in cultural patterns, in common sense, in the self-image of peoples, in aspirations of self, and so many other aspects of our modern experience. in a way, as modern subjects we breathe coloniality all the time and every day. (2006, p. 117) however, we can draw inspiration from some of the giants of africa’s decolonial tradition such as frantz fanon, kwame nkrumah, steve biko, ngũgĩ wa thiong’o, and ibekwe chinweizu on whose thinking many contemporary scholars such as ndlovu-gatsheni (2013b) and more (2014) have built their ideas. in an effort to challenge linguicide, we can draw on a rich history of south african intellectuals who have contributed to the development of african languages through creative literary and lexicographical works such as vilakazi, jolobe, jordan, nyembezi, and those building on their works such as maseko and vale (2016), mona (2015) and zondi (2020). much work has been done to develop african philosophy in collected works such as makgoba (1999), coetzee and roux (2002) and wiredu (2005). and we can draw inspiration from some of africa’s great though little known achievements in science (for more detail see makgoba 1999; le grange 2000). moreover, insights can be gained from contemporary work on decolonising the university in relation to knowledge systems and disciplines (ndlovu-gatsheni & zondi, 2016). despite these sources, inspiration, and achievements, the project of decolonising the university curriculum in south africa as a broad-based one is in its infancy. although much work has been done to develop african languages and qualifications have been developed up to doctoral level, little progress has been made in making an african language the medium of instruction in higher education. in the arena of african philosophy, more (1996), reported that with the exception of the university of zululand, no other historically black university has included african philosophy in its syllabi. this might have changed but would largely still be the case for historically white universities, with the possible exception of unisa and north-west university. a perusal of publications and course guides in the science, le grange et al.: decolonising the university curriculum or decolonial washing? 29 technology, engineering, and mathematics field produced by south african universities shows that very little work is being done at south african universities to decolonise this field. another question that needs answering is whether the decolonial project can be a broad-based project that is embraced by everyone. ndlovu-gatsheni (in omanga, 2019) suggests not because if it is adopted widely it will lose its revolutionary impetus. he said, decolonisation has to remain a revolutionary term with theoretical and practical value. if it is immediately embraced by everyone and it’s easily on the lips of everyone, there is a danger it might transform into a buzzword and a metaphor. there was a time when many academics never wanted to hear about the term especially where i am based in south africa, and were comfortable with words such as ‘transformation’ and ‘africanisation.’ nowadays, everyone runs with decolonisation. (p. 6) this leads to further questions. who can embrace decolonisation? and, if not everybody, is the national project to decolonise the south african university curriculum flawed? and what did ndlovu-gatsheni (2013a) mean when he claimed that decoloniality is not essentialist and fundamentalist and how does this align with his later argument that decolonisation should not be embraced by everyone. we do not provide definitive answers to these questions but do agree with ndlovu-gatsheni (in omanga, 2019) that decolonisation/decoloniality cannot mean anything and therefore nothing in the end. decolonising the university curriculum has, at least, to mean the decentring of eurocentric epistemologies. for us, decolonising the curriculum relates to what and whose knowledge and ways of being are included in education programmes. some may argue that decolonisation is by nature a radical process that involves wholly replacing western knowledge in university programmes and others such as le grange (2016) have argued that decolonisation of the curriculum involves decentring (not destroying) western knowledge so that it is placed on an equal plane with other knowledges such as indigenous knowledges. given the uncertainty as to whether decolonising the curriculum is feasible as a national project, an inquiry into how four universities responded to a national call for their curricula to be decolonised presents interesting findings as to whether there is evidence of a revolutionary project or whether all that has happened has been the creation of a buzzword in the name of which anything can be viewed as decolonisation. methodology the methodology used in this exploratory inquiry was a multiple case study situated in the interpretivist paradigm. case study methods examine an instance in action or “a real-life, contemporary bounded system . . . or multiple systems (cases) over time” (creswell, 2013, p. 97). multiple case studies, unlike single ones, are used when researchers wish to draw conclusions about multiple cases based on an examination of similarities and differences among the cases. following yin (1994), who has observed that one advantage of a multiple 30 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 case study approach is that it enables researchers to analyse data within each case and across the cases, we chose a multiple case study approach because it enabled us to do both. the cases were conveniently selected based on the contexts most familiar to us all. data was generated from institutional documents, archival records, media reports, and formal and informal conversations with staff and students at the four institutions. we also drew on insights from our own experiences since each of us inhabited one of the four institutions. we adopted flexible methods to generate the data since such an approach enabled us to engage spontaneously with participants and analyse the documents. the contexts setting the context of cases is imperative for a multiple case study as cohen et al., (2011) have made clear. we therefore provide a tabulated account of the context of each institution in terms of its vision statement, location, merger history, identity, and demography. thereafter, we discuss each case separately, focusing on institutional initiatives towards decolonisation, student and staff responses to decolonisation, and offer a first level of analysis in each case. we then present a discussion section in which we offer insights based on a cross-case analysis. as authors, we share an interest in how universities have responded to calls for decolonising their curriculum. although all four of us are insiders in our respective contexts, all information and data used to construct the cases were in the public domain, available on the university websites, through google searches, in the media, or in academic articles. table 1: institutional contexts north-west university stellenbosch university nelson mandela university university of kwazulu-natal vision statement “to transform and to position [university] as a unitary institution of superior academic excellence, with a commitment to social justice.” stellenbosch university states that it aims to “be africa’s leading research-intensive university, globally recognised as excellent, inclusive and innovative, where we advance knowledge in service of society.” “to be a dynamic african university, recognised for its leadership in generating cutting-edge knowledge for a sustainable future.” the university’s motto “inspiring greatness” is grounded in its vision of being a premier university of african scholarship, grounded in a research led teaching and learning environment. location 2 campuses in the north west province, 1 in gauteng western cape eastern cape kwazulu-natal merged potchefstroom university for christian higher education (with a satellite campus situated in vanderbijlpark) and university of the north west in mafikeng, formerly known as the university of no merging took place. this traditionally white university merged with a technikon and a local satellite campus of vista university the university was formed through the merger of a traditional white established university (university of natal) with that of a traditional indian established university (university of durbanwestville). le grange et al.: decolonising the university curriculum or decolonial washing? 31 bophutatswana (with its mankwe campus) merged along with the sebokeng campus of vista university. identity traditionally, one campus was populated by mostly white, afrikaans-speaking students and staff members, another campus by mostly black students and staff, and the third campus mostly by english-speaking metropolitan staff and students. traditionally, the university was an afrikaner institution but its monocultural identity has been challenged by imperatives for change in post-apartheid south africa. the merged identity of the university is a work in progress, but the former university was politically conservative and consisted mostly of white staff and students while the former vista university was created for black students. drawn from two different histories, the university is now considered a diverse one, both in student population and staff composition. english is the main language of instruction with isizulu being a conversational language that all students are required to study formally across its undergraduate programmes. demography of the 68,361 students who enrolled in 2019, 68% were african, 26% were white, 5% were coloured, and 1% indian/asian. at campus 2 98% of the students and 80% of staff were african. at campus 3, 7,680 students were registered of whom 84% were african. demographically, the staff is 66% white, 29% african, 3% coloured, and 2% indian/asian. of the 46, 945 students who registered at campus 3, 57% were african, 35% were white, 6% were coloured and 1% were indian/asian. the 1,247 staff members on this campus consisted of 84% whites. (http://www.nwu.ac.za/s ites/www.nwu.ac.za/file s/files/i-institutionalinformation/nwuquick-stats-20192020.pdf) in 2018, 31,765 students were enrolled at the university of whom 58,1 % were white. of the university’s academic staff, 75% is white in a country where the white population is under 10%(https://www.sun.a c.za/english/pages/statis tical_profile.aspx) the demographic profile of the university is diverse with an enrolment of approximately 27,000 full-time and part-time students, of whom most are black. the demographic profile of the university currently is diverse with the majority of students being black in full-time study. approximately 60% of its student population is drawn from quintile 1 to 3 schools. the current student enrolment is approximately 47,000 students on contact mode of delivery, registered across its five campuses. 32 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 cases north-west university case institutional initiatives the #feesmustfall, #rhodesmustfall and #decolonisethecurriculum movements that were initiated in 2015 and 2016 were the driving force behind this institution’s development of a “declaration on the decolonisation of university education: the imperative to transform teaching and learning, the research agenda and community engagement.” 2 the declaration, with specific reference to the university’s positionality pertaining to decolonisation and transformation, was formally released on november 26, 2018. 3 in the preamble to this declaration, the university commits itself to practices that appropriate and encourage decolonisation within relevant contexts: it states that [t]his declaration should be considered in the view of [the university’s] commitment to be an internationally recognised university in africa, distinguished for engaged scholarship, academic excellence, social responsiveness and an ethic of care. these features should be embedded in an organisational culture that has a transformational focus. it would reflect in behaviour that illustrates respect for diversity and inclusivity, together with a values-based, collective identity that promotes integration, participation and collaboration. further characteristics of such an organisational culture would include innovation, joint and individual accountability, open and transparent communication, robust discourse and academic integrity. the preamble also states that the document is not prescriptive since guidelines and strategies for decolonisation are contextual and ought to “reach maturity at faculty level.” in addition, the purpose of the declaration is said to articulate the relationship between transforming curricula and experiences, and decolonisation in and beyond the university. the assumption, as explicitly stated in this declaration, is that transformation and decolonisation are both driven by the trajectory of resistance and protest, and that higher education institutions need to grapple with this reality. the declaration further provided a brief background and context of the decolonisation debate, followed by a section listing definitions. these included: “decolonisation of teaching and learning practices”, “curriculum transformation”, “ethic of care”, and “social justice.” against this background, the declaration statements read: • transformation of teaching and learning o curriculum transformation and social justice o curriculum transformation, inclusion and andragogy 2 http://www.nwu.ac.za/sites/www.nwu.ac.za/files/files/corporate/2018.report.decolonisation_of_university_ education_declaration.pdf 3 http://news.nwu.ac.za/nwu-declares-its-position-decolonisation le grange et al.: decolonising the university curriculum or decolonial washing? 33 o curriculum transformation, inclusion and language o curriculum transformation and curriculum design for access and inclusion • transformation and the research agenda • transformation and community engagement and service learning several public lectures, workshops, and colloquia were held before and after the declaration was released. one such colloquium was organised by the faculty of humanities on november 18 and 19, 2019, and had as its main purpose the discussion of the decolonisation of the humanities curriculum. one of the speakers, dr maerole kgari masondo, from the university of kwazulu-natal explored transforming the curricula for student success. her contribution was summarised thus: dr masondo said that, in the dispensation to construct a curriculum that will bring success to students in higher education, education needs to be relevant, meaningful and applicable to all students. ‘we need to draw from the worldviews of all the students we teach, which means we must decolonise, globalise, indigenise and africanise the curriculum,’ she explained. ‘i believe that, if the nwu is serious about transformation of the curricula, the introduction of a decolonised curriculum should be implemented in quotas of 5%, increasing annually. this does not mean replacing colonial themes or knowledge, but rather elevating african and indigenous knowledge to an equal status with western knowledge,’ she concluded. 4 a public lecture was also held on one campus in october 2019 during which professor ndlovu-gatsheni presented an argument that we should opt for africanisation rather than decolonisation when he suggested that “the methodology of content creation requires a new approach towards decolonisation, and . . . it can be better served under the concept of africanisation as a school of thought and vision.” he also suggested that “curriculum and operational reflection as patterns of transformation at south african universities will require a horizontal internationalisation.” 5 in line with the nwu’s call for curriculum transformation, the centre for teaching and learning organised a colloquium aiming to deepen understanding of decolonisation in the context of the higher education curriculum and pedagogy across different disciplines. this colloquium can be accessed on youtube. 6 4 http://news.nwu.ac.za/nwu-hosts-stimulating-debate-decolonising-curriculum 5 http://news.nwu.ac.za/public-lecture-calls-africanisation-instead-decolonisation 6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxgkge2ben4 34 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 student and staff responses student response regarding the decolonisation process took two different forms. at one campus student voices were mostly absent, whereas at the other two fiery protests took place. 7 the silence at the one campus could be ascribed to its historical context of being previously politically and ideologically conservative, while the other two campuses have always been spaces of contested values, ideologies, and politics. at the time of writing, no evidence could be found regarding staff responses. analysis several points emerged when this case was analysed. these included: • the declaration that was released, together with the various public lectures, workshops, and colloquia that all took place at the end of 2019, could be seen as what jansen (2002) described as a symbolic gesture by the institution to prove that it is doing something about the decolonisation problem i.e. decolonial-washing. in this sense one might rightfully question whether the intention was to actually decolonise any programmes or whether it was just a reaction to a national issue without any concrete action in mind as outlined by tuck and yang (2012) in a different context. • what is also evident is that there is a disjuncture between the title of the declaration and the actual content of the declaration statements. the impression is given that decolonisation and transformation is one and the same thing, or that one is, by default, implicating the other. in this sense, decolonisation is seen to be a metaphor for transformation, and vice versa (see tuck & yang, 2012). decolonisation in such a context, one might argue, boils down to nothing more than just another buzzword used in the larger project of transformation. the question to be asked then is whether decolonisation as national project is indeed feasible. • what is disconcerting is the manner in which decolonisation of the curriculum was quantified in one colloquium: ‘a decolonised curriculum should be implemented in quotas of 5%, increasing annually.’ 8 what was meant by this is unclear, but what is clear is that decolonization, too, has fallen victim to performativity discourses and measurement rhetoric. so, the question then is this: do we value what we measure, or do we measure what we value? • the written and verbal evidence for this case is indicative of the intention to debate and continually revisit what decolonisation of the curriculum means. however, no evidence was available at the time of writing to confirm whether this has, in fact, happened. it is, therefore, unclear whether any complicated conversations like, for example, those that are frank and receptive to self-criticism as advocated by pinar (2004) about decolonising the curriculum have been undertaken. 7 https://mg.co.za/article/2016-02-25-nwu-closes-mafikeng-campus-indefinitel/ 8 http://news.nwu.ac.za/nwu-hosts-stimulating-debate-decolonising-curriculum le grange et al.: decolonising the university curriculum or decolonial washing? 35 stellenbosch university case institutional initiatives calls during the student protests in south africa to decolonise the university curriculum were the trigger for the appointment of a decolonisation task team at the university to explore ways in which the curriculum could be decolonised. the task team delivered its report on july 31, 2017. 9 the report shows that the task team engaged seriously with literature on decolonization/decoloniality and curriculum and made arguably radical recommendations to the university management and council. the task team report provided • a cursory analysis of post-colonialism, decolonisation, decoloniality, curriculum, and decolonisation of the curriculum. based on this analysis, it offered guidelines for addressing the imperative of decolonising the curriculum, after placing it within the broader imperative of institutional transformation (stellenbosch university, 2017). in response to the report, the university management commissioned a “curriculum renewal project” in which selected programmes from each of the 10 faculties were subjected to a process of programme renewal. notice, that although the name of the task team was “decolonisation task team” the curriculum project that unfolded from it is called a “curriculum renewal project.” moreover, in a report to the department of higher education and training on transformation at stellenbosch university, decolonisation is subsumed under the banner of transformation and its implementation is to take place through the curriculum renewal project. as the curriculum renewal project unfolded it became evident that decolonisation was only one of a list of several renewal foci that faculties could draw on. in 2018 it was reported in the media that the curriculum renewal project of the university was comprised of ten programmes that were in the process of being decolonised, one in each of the ten faculties. the headline of a news24 article that reported on these developments at the university claimed: “decolonising education: how one sa university is getting it done” (etheridge, 2018, n.p.). this media report was endorsed by the university. 10 the programmes affected are: conservation ecology; ba language and culture; bcomm mathematical sciences; mphil in higher education; aspects of beng programmes; llb programme; mbchb programme (medicine and health sciences faculty); bmil technology (military science faculty); bsc earth sciences (science faculty); and bdiv programme (theology faculty). during the curriculum renewal process an international expert was invited to the university to conduct a workshop to help staff to better align content, teaching/learning strategies, assessment, and outcomes. in this workshop academic staff members were introduced to the carpe diem learning design methodology (for more detail see salmon, 2014; volschenk, 2017). an analysis of the media report by etheridge (2018) shows that the university’s focus was on programme renewal and not decolonisation. this is reflected in the words of the vicerector for learning and teaching, professor schoonwinkel, quoted in the media report: “we 9 https://drive.google.com/file/d/15f_teilj4317nebr7uhnitthztfatbja/view 10 https://www.sun.ac.za/english/lists/news/dispform.aspx?id=5638 36 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 want to offer them (the programmes) in a fresh and exciting way . . . ” (etheridge, 2018, n.p.). the institution’s focus on curriculum renewal and not decolonisation is evident in the process of developing the new mbchb, for example. in a 71-page report on a workshop to (re)design the mbchb programme, curriculum renewal is mentioned 16 times while decolonisation is mentioned only twice and only in the feedback section where one comment was that decolonisation had not been discussed at the workshop (see volschenk, 2017). moreover, the words of one of the members of the curriculum renewal team of the mbchb, professor hennie botha, provided further support for our contention that the redevelopment of this programme did not focus on decolonisation: “the renewed mbchb curriculum will include much of the same content as the current curriculum, but we will be using modern new ways of teaching and learning that will be student-centred and utilize our teachers in the best possible way.” (cited in stassen, 2019, n.p.) in another media report published two years later the university claimed that it then had 18 programmes on the pathway to being decolonised. the article was entitled, “stellenbosch university forges ahead with its decolonisation drive” (mlamla, 2020). student and staff responses a minority of (mainly black) students at the university has been involved in student protests and calls for the decolonising of the curriculum. given that there is not a critical mass of black and working-class students on the campuses since many black students are postgraduates who study part-time, students’ efforts are often thwarted by the lack of numbers needed to sustain protests and resistance efforts. furthermore, a recent study by kamanga (2019) documents black students’ lived experience of hidden racism at the university, suggesting that claims by the university that it is decolonising are exaggerated. a minority of individual staff members continue to engage with decolonisation in venues where they lecture, and there have been ongoing seminars on decolonisation arranged by some faculties and the centre for teaching and learning. efforts to decolonise programmes have been mainly centrally managed and implemented in a top-down manner. however, a study by costandius et al. (2018) documented, among other things, the settler (white staff and students) perspectives of student protests and decolonising of the curriculum in the context of the university being a predominantly white institution. they found that settler perspectives included ignorance and distance (the notion of “disappear the native”, 11 fear of regression (e.g. that south africa will become like zimbabwe), racism, exclusion, and guilt or what tuck and yang refer to as “settler anxiety” (2012, p. 9). analysis several points emerged when this case was analysed. 11 tuck and yang (2012) argued that this is a method used by settlers to avoid dealing with the process of authentic decolonisation. constandius et al. (2018) averred that this notion was evident when white students asked why black students would not go to “other” universities. le grange et al.: decolonising the university curriculum or decolonial washing? 37 • given its context (described earlier) the claim by this university that it has 18 programmes which are at advanced stages of being decolonised would make any decolonial scholar suspicious. the lived experiences of black students at the university as reported by kamanga (2019) as well as the settler perspectives reported by constandius et al. (2018) suggest that as an institution the university has not even begun the journey of decolonisation. its claims in the media are therefore overstated. • there may be many reasons for the bold claims made. these include symbolic reasons that are not based on any intention to actually decolonise its programmes; settler anxiety (a need to show very quickly that it is doing something); ignorance on the part of a white university management about decolonisation; and a history of complying with national mandates as was done during apartheid, all of which point to, at best, a technical compliance. • there is a clear disjuncture between the content and the name of the task team report and the content and the name of the curriculum renewal project that unfolded. again, there may be many reasons for this. we suggest two possible ones: the composition of the task team (more broadly representative) was very different to that of those (chiefly white senior managers) responsible for implementing the recommendations of the task team; and authentic decolonisation would be difficult to sell to a predominantly white-staffed university in which whiteness and whitely thinking still thrive 26 years into south africa’s democracy. • although innovations including technological ones have been introduced, the understanding of curriculum in the curriculum renewal project remains narrow and focused on what aoki (1999) called the “curriculum-as-plan” to the detriment of the “curriculum-as-lived” (p. 180). moreover, there is very little evidence that any complicated conversation on decolonisation/decoloniality has taken place. nelson mandela university case institutional initiatives a cursory glance at the macro institutional level shows that no single guiding document to steer the decolonisation effort at the university was adopted. this could be regarded simultaneously as a major weakness or an opportunity since it gives different stakeholders lower down at faculty level the leeway to be creative and innovative without having to follow a specific script. on the university’s website though, decolonisation and africanisation are addressed under teaching and learning as follows: “the approach in t&l has been to engage in interdisciplinary curriculum conversations, which provide guidance and inspiration for decolonisation and africanisation of the curriculum. furthermore, the decolonial project is being interrogated by all faculties . . .” 12 the institution has hosted numerous public lectures and seminars on decolonisation that have taken place under the auspices of the centre for critical studies in higher education. furthermore, buildings and student residences have been renamed after individuals who have made a contribution to the 12 https:tl.mandela.ac.za 38 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 struggle for liberation in a consultative process with local communities (news 24, n.p.). 13 this could be regarded as an important signifier and first step in the decolonisation process. many efforts at renewing and transforming curricula at faculty level are under way but the terminology used on the website, namely “transformation” and “curriculum renewal” suggest symbolism or a dilution of decolonisation. in the faculty of education, for example, the reading lists in the languages have been overhauled to include more writers and poets of african descent such as sol plaatje, chinua achebe, gcina mhlope, and athol fugard, among others. in education theory modules a critical pedagogy approach has been incorporated but whether this can be likened to decolonisation is a moot point. we argue that adding african authors to modules or reading lists does not necessarily equate to decolonisation since it does not decentre western knowledge. garuba (2015) has a salutary warning for those who advocate additive approaches to the curriculum since this leaves eurocentric worldviews and the status quo intact. he warns against decorating the master’s living room by adding raffia chairs and argues instead for a rethinking of the theories that frame the curriculum. student and staff responses nelson mandela university has experienced student protests ever since the initial ones in 2015. each year since then, student protests have taken place with the longest one having been in 2016 when the campus was closed for three months. 14 the relationship between senior management and the protesting students has been tense at times but, on november 2, 2015, students were allowed to go and state their case at senate. some faculties have tried to include student voices in their curriculum renewal processes but the process is very uneven and often lacks a critical mass. students seem to mistrust management and accuse its members of diluting the process (of decolonisation) by embracing a conservative language and vocabulary. in the words of a former student representative council president, mzileni (2019), in the eastern province herald: “. . . the student movement must . . . wage a fight against the hijacking of decolonisation by university managers . . .” he continued, “. . . it is just games with nothing substantive and applicable in the actual decolonial turn that the university must . . . take” (p. 9). analysis several points emerged when this case was analysed. these include: • a preliminary conclusion one can draw is that the process to an african-purposed and decolonised curriculum will be a long journey which has only just begun. besides the renaming of buildings one can infer that not much has transpired in the decolonial knowledge project thus far since the institution has merely adopted the rhetoric, language, and vocabulary of decolonisation. heleta (2016) concurred and asserted that the curriculum in higher education institutions has remained largely eurocentric and that it bolsters “western dominance and privilege” (p. 1). we would like to insert a 13 https://news. mandela.ac.za/news/institutional-naming-and-renaming-project-gets-und 14 https://www.enca.com/south-africa/nmmu-closed-after-students-protests le grange et al.: decolonising the university curriculum or decolonial washing? 39 caveat here though. there are small pockets of committed academics and students who embrace decolonisation and who are working hard to make it a reality. • there are staff members who resist the notion of decolonisation and are more philosophically aligned to eurocentric knowledge. an academic asked in a workshop, “how does one decolonise mathematics?” as jansen (2009) has reminded us, one has first to change the curriculum maker before one can change the curriculum. similarly, fanon (1967) regarded individual liberation as a first step towards decolonisation and what ngũgĩ wa thiong’o (1986) has referred to in the title of his book as the “decolonisation of the mind.” • the adoption of a more sophisticated understanding of what curriculum (development) entails in line with our argument that sees the curriculum as a complicated conversation or the curriculum as a “virtuous endeavour” as william reid put it, would lead to a deeper engagement with decolonization (1999, p. 6). reid argued famously that curriculum development and planning has more to do with virtue than with technique; it is a moral practice. university of kwazulu-natal case institutional initiatives curriculum reconceptualisation is an on-going process informed by several stimuli responding to local, national, and international imperatives. the colleges, as academic units, are responsible for decisions about their academic programmes, including that of transforming the curriculum. while the university has its vision and mission statement, the realisation of this devolves to the four colleges. hence, there may be variations in the ways in which curriculum transformation, including that of decolonising it, unfolds across these colleges. curriculum transformation has been an on-going process, largely in response to policy, accreditation, and review imperatives. the decolonial imperative for curriculum transformation was foregrounded by the heightened student protest of 2015 and 2016, initiated by the #feesmustfall campaign which progressed into a call for decolonisation as a liberatory tool for the radical transformation of higher education in south africa as a national project (badat, 2015; ramrathan, 2019). the decolonisation attempts presented here are those of the college of humanities at this university, but we note that there are several activities, including seminars and workshops across other colleges like, for example, the college of law and management. 15 structural and procedural guidelines for the college of humanities are facilitating the decolonisation of the curriculum. the structural arrangements include the appointment of co-ordinators and re-conceptualisation teams across the schools to facilitate curriculum transformation. these co-ordinators are, in most cases, the academic leader of teaching and learning in each of the six schools in the college of humanities. specifically, for the process of decolonisation, the college of humanities has co-opted a senior academic working with three research assistants as the co-ordinator to lead the transformation process. several activities meant to bring awareness to, and generate grass-root conversations among, staff on the discourses of decolonisation and curriculum transformation with a view to 15 https://www.ukzn.ac.za/news/teaching-and-learning-workshop-explores-decolonisation-in-higher-education/ 40 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 informing the decolonisation process have taken place. the activities included talking circles among staff members, workshops on blended learning, student participatory theatre, and chat groups managed through social media. these activities were video recorded and posted on a staff portal to give access to all staff in the college. a bank of literature on decolonisation and curriculum transformation was made available to staff on a specific portal for easy access. student and staff responses of note is that beyond student protest actions no substantive engagement on issues of decolonisation have taken place. the activities over a two-year period that were led by the co-ordinator were not well attended by staff and students and follow-ups on issues of decolonisation did not happen. reviewing the video recordings and field notes taken during the talking circles along with student participation in theatres and workshops that were held across three of the five campuses, revealed that the talk among staff members during the talking circles and workshops were about specific concerns rather than being part of deep curriculum conversations. talk centred on international recognition as a scholar, the need to be globally relevant through the modules taught, what students can and cannot do, and personal aspirations like becoming and being a professor dominated the discussions. conversations on matters of curriculum, despite the prompts, were largely superficial. while there has been a growing body of research on decolonisation among staff that has resulted in publications, these remain largely at the academic and scholarly level in that few, if any, of these outputs by staff filter into the curriculum they offer. some changes have been noted in the domain of language where, for example, masters theses and phd dissertations may be submitted in isizulu and all abstracts of dissertations and theses are translated into isizulu. in the school of education, a number of specialisation modules in the bachelor of education in foundation phase teaching are offered through the medium of isizulu, although this was in response to the shortage of foundation phase teachers able to teach in african languages. in addition, there have been some efforts made by staff to explore and include aspects of their modules in blended learning opportunities. spaces in the university are also being viewed as possibilities for the demonstration of decolonisation. for example, new buildings and lecture theatres have been named after prominent african (not white) individuals to inspire students, as the dean of the school reported, and have them engage with the life contributions of these individuals to education, and more broadly, to the liberation struggle. students were engaged through student led participatory theatre, scripted and performed by the drama students. this participatory theatre was meant to encourage debates on decolonisation and to explore possibilities and ways of doing decolonisation. one of the challenges noted in engaging students through these participatory theatre productions across the three campuses where the college of humanities offers its programmes was a poor response rate by students. the drama students who performed these theatres had to do a great deal to round up students on each of these campuses by singing to attract their interest and then leading them to the venues where the theatre was to be performed. extensive debates le grange et al.: decolonising the university curriculum or decolonial washing? 41 among the students evolved but no consensus was reached on how to do decolonisation. students were encouraged to continue with the discussions and debates through specifically set up twitter accounts, but none participated in any of the conversations. a review of the recordings of these participatory theatres revealed concerns about language, history, basic education, and the issue of how to decolonise the curriculum. students wanted teaching and learning through the medium of isizulu. whose history was to be told and how it was to be told also featured as concerns in the conversation. despite much prodding by the director of the theatre and provocateur located among the students, talk about how to decolonise the curriculum remained at the level of wanting a decolonised curriculum. analysis several points emerged when this case was analysed. these include: • political and ideological differences among staff and students on what decolonisation is and how to institutionalise decolonisation were noted. the low response rate to the opportunities created to engage in deep and critical grassroots conversation on decolonisation and curriculum transformation by staff and students suggests that, while attempts are being made by the institution to generate these grassroots conversations, decolonising the curriculum may not materialise any time soon. with respect to students, it seems that political activism driven by student politics are discrete points where student voices have been raised. follow-on from these points of political activism draws little interest among students in pursuing these crucial conversations to transform the curriculum offered at universities. there are five reasons for these broad findings. • first, the struggle for domination within the diverse semantics of decolonisation was noted. for example, debates on decentring the global north references used in modules pitted against the defence of the internationalisation of academic engagement as a university education norm, emerged as a concern that inhibited actions aimed at decolonising the curriculum. • second, staff rationalisations for what the students can and cannot do emerged as a potentiality discourse. noting the limited resources, poor access to the internet, and the challenges in using digital platforms, staff expressed concerns about student capabilities and their willingness to embrace such major curriculum changes as expected of the envisaged curriculum transformation. decolonising the curriculum would mean a major review of the existing curriculum and some resistance to this was noted in staff. • third, a number of issues were seen to constitute a major stumbling block in moving forward substantially on the project of decolonising the humanities curriculum. these included challenges relating to consensus on the process of transformation, external regulatory frameworks, the legitimacy and ownership of a revised curriculum, the fear of letting go of the familiar, and a lack of confidence in curriculum innovations and buy-in by students and staff. it is evident that decolonisation as a national project will be compromised if these challenges cannot be met. 42 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 • fourth, for students the issue of language dominated the debates on decolonisation. access to quality education also featured as a major concern but the articulation of what quality education is was not forthcoming. school education and the need for it to be decolonised as a feeder to higher education also emerged as a concern. despite prodding by the student provocateur to find ways to decolonise the curriculum, students were unable to suggest how to progress into the doing aspect of decolonisation of the curriculum. • fifth, while opportunities to engage in deep curriculum conversations do occur, opportunities to encourage on-going conversations are not taken up in the schools and colleges. discussion from the discussion on decolonisation/decoloniality and the cases presented there is much that can be elaborated upon. in the space available to us we elicit four themes that provide insights into the project of decolonising curricula in universities that can serve as the basis for further exploration in south africa’s decolonial moment. the themes we discuss are decolonial-washing; decolonising of the curriculum as a national project; political symbolism; and complicated conversations. first, in the introduction we invoked the concept of decolonial-washing. as mentioned, we extrapolate from the term greenwashing as used in environmental discourse. however, we expand the concept to mean more than just that which is misleading or the presentation of misinformation. for us, decolonial-washing also includes all instances in which decolonisation is used as a metaphor, whether deliberately or in ignorance. the most obvious case of decolonial-washing is evident in the stellenbosch university case where the university that remains predominantly white 26 years into south africa’s democracy, publicly claims to have 18 programmes well on their way to being decolonised. an understanding of the institutional context and recent research reported by constandius et al. (2018) and kamanga (2019) suggest that the institution’s claims are probably an overstatement. in all four cases, institutions used decolonisation as a metaphor; decolonisation has been equated with concepts such as curriculum renewal and curriculum transformation. this finding supports ndlovu-gatsheni’s (in omanga, 2019) concern that decolonisation can become a buzzword that means everything and then nothing in the end. in two of the cases institutions changed the names of their buildings or named new buildings for the first time after those who made significant contributions to the struggle against apartheid. changing names of buildings could become exercises in decolonial-washing but can also serve productive purposes. they form part of the hidden curriculum (in a positive sense) of the institution and can become even more productive when the narratives of those whose names appear on the buildings become part of complicated conversations in teaching and learning venues. second, the 2015/2016 student protest re-inspired a national call for decolonisation, this time as a national project by higher education institutions with a decolonised higher education le grange et al.: decolonising the university curriculum or decolonial washing? 43 curriculum being one of its goals. the feasibility of decolonising a higher education curriculum is largely dependent upon how institutions take up this goal. the case studies reported in this paper give us a momentary glimpse into the feasibility of a national project. as with any project, there should be a beginning date and an end date with reviews in between to establish progress or encourage re-direction. the competing interests, the institutions’ vision and mission statements, being globally relevant and the lack of sustained, co-ordinated processes within higher education institutions suggest that decolonisation as a national project is unlikely to materialise. there have been pockets of expression alluding to the intent to decolonise the curriculum offered across universities, but the competing forces may render these expressions merely academic or theoretical. almost half a decade has gone by since the student protest of 2015/2016 and these four case studies reveal very superficial attempts to decolonise the curriculum on offer and, therefore, we question the feasibility of decolonising the curriculum as a national project. third, symbolism was evident in all four cases to differing degrees as alluded to above. political symbolism is a theoretical construct we borrow from jansen (2002) that is used to explain the lack of fidelity between policy and practice in cases where policy implementation is never a serious intention. the data of stellenbosch university suggests that decolonising the curriculum was used as a public relations exercise in the media as the following headline indicates. “decolonising education: how one south african university is getting it done.” at north-west university the following terms are used in the decolonisation declaration statement: “africanisation”, “ethic of care”, and “social justice”, and in nelson mandela university “transformation” and “curriculum renewal” that suggest a softening of the terms used. at nelson mandela university, the student leader accused management of high jacking the process by introducing a conservative vocabulary. in three of the cases (north-west university, stellenbosch university, and the university of kwazulu-natal) it appears that there was a disjuncture between the steering documents adopted and the eventual (curriculum) processes that unfolded. symbolism is akin to decolonial-washing, the term we use to describe the decolonisation efforts at these four universities. in all four cases the process of decentring western knowledge and the insertion of indigenous and african knowledges is still largely absent, hence our reference to symbolism. fourth, we turn to the question of complicated conversations. complicated conversations are not merely an exchange of information (aoki, 2004), but a frank and continual self-criticism (pinar, 2004) that mitigates against hierarchical power relations that hinder productive conversation from taking place (le grange, 2018). our research has indicated that few to no complicated conversations have transpired vis-à-vis the decolonisation of the university curriculum. information was in many instances merely exchanged during public lectures, seminars, and workshops. debates and other forms of conversations were encouraged in some instances (north-west university and the university of kwazulu-natal). however, no evidence of frank and ongoing self-criticism was evident. in the event where hierarchical power relations operate in the form of a top-down approach, for example, the decolonial project might be jeopardised. this might, among other things, result in epistemic injustices. should we take seriously complicated conversations we might be in a more honest position to 44 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 reflect and self-criticise what and whose knowledge and ways of being we include and what we deliberately leave out for whatever reason. a complicated conversation about decolonising the university curriculum cannot take place without the input of students. although there have been attempts to include them in the process, it seems that students have been on the margins of these discussions. conclusion this article is a snapshot at a very particular time and place in the ongoing efforts to decolonise the curriculum at four south african universities. what is clear is that understandings of the decolonisation of the curriculum differ across institutions and that the process and trajectories that each one will eventually take will be uneven and largely dependent on context, institutional will, and the lasting effect of each one’s particular history. the danger, of course, is that institutional efforts might become exercises in decolonialwashing as decolonialisation becomes a metaphor for more palatable concepts such as curriculum renewal and curriculum transformation. this exploratory case study suggests that conceiving of decolonisation vis-à-vis the university curriculum as a nationally driven project may not be desirable given a south african higher education landscape that continues to reflect legacies of apartheid. our concern is that decolonisation will become co-opted and lose its revolutionary impulse. the multiple case study employed here enabled us to gain a bird’s eye view of how different higher education institutions have dealt with decolonisation of the curriculum. we acknowledge that this exploratory study is by no means exhaustive and that it invites further in-depth (single) case studies on work done in institutions such as that of the african decolonial research network which is based at unisa. acknowledgments versions of this article were presented at the conferences of the american 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(2017). mbchb curriculum renewal project workshop report (10–11 august, houw hoek hotel, houw hoek). file:///c:/users/llg/documents/documents/stellenbosch%20university/workshop%2 0report_mbchb%20curriculum%20renwal%20workshop_houwhoek_aug2017_ mv.pdf. wiredu, k. (ed.). (2005). a companion to african philosophy. blackwell publishing ltd. yin, r. k. (1994). case study research: design and methods. sage. 48 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 zondi, n. b. 2020. resurrecting the “black archives”: revisiting benedict wallet vilakazi with a focus on the utility and meaning of african languages and literatures in higher education. education as change, 24(1), 1–20. using legimation code theory to track pedagogic practice in a south african english home language poetry lesson fiona jackson abstract this paper utilises two dimensions of legitimation code theory, specialisation and semantics, to describe and analyse aspects of the poetry pedagogy of a south african home language subject english teacher. the specialisation analysis illuminates how, while the lesson is oriented towards social relations in its focus on cultivating learners’ literary gaze, the teacher’s pedagogy exhibits varying emphases on epistemic relations and social relations in different phases of the lesson. these concepts facilitate more precise description of the pedagogy, which assists in clarifying and explicating the nature of the pedagogy of a teacher working with a cultural heritage orientation to literary instruction. analysis within the semantic dimension enables the tracking of pulses of shifts in abstraction and particularity through the lesson. this highlights the ways in which the teacher moves between more and less abstract and concrete forms of knowledge, which implicitly models ideational networks required for higher levels of close textual analysis. the lesson ed w a r d lu cie-sm it h “your father’s gone,” my bald headmaster said. his shiny dome and brown tobacco jar splintered at once in tears. it wasn’t grief. i cried for knowledge which was bitterer than any grief. for there and then i knew that grief has uses – that a father dead could bind the bully’s fist a week or two; and then i cried for shame, then for relief. i was a month past ten when i learnt this: i still remember how the noise was stilled in school-assembly when my grief came in. some goldfish in a bowl quietly sculled around their shining prison on its shelf. they were indifferent. all the other eyes were turned towards me. somewhere in myself pride, like a goldfish, flashed a sudden fin. 30 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 introduction subject english is a protean beast – multiply defined and highly contested (macken-horarik, 2014, 2013, gibbons, 2009, green, 2008, christie and macken-horarik, 2007). given the variety of disciplinary sources from which it draws (humanities to social sciences), subject english presents a particularly intricate knowledge base. within many school systems it serves as both the medium for knowledge building and communication and the object of study itself (larsen-freeman and freeman, 2008). the complex role it thus performs in such contexts, in providing the communicative means for learners to access wider and increasingly abstracted, formalised systems of knowledge, points to the importance of developing more rigorous, cumulative understanding of the nature of the knowledge practices enacted within subject english classrooms. the insights to be generated from application of legitimation code theory concepts potentially provide access to deep level organising principles useful to the field of english education, and education more widely. teachers and learners often struggle with the ‘invisible’ nature of what constitutes mastery in literary studies. the explication of knowledge practices within english literary processes can contribute to increased consciousness amongst teachers of the range of pedagogic formations available to them, and the implications of these for their practice and their learners’ progress. in this article i focus particularly on processes of unpacking the knowledge practices of subject english poetry instruction. the context of subject english education within the south african school system subject english occupies an uneasy space. historically and ideologically associated with imperial british colonial rule, english yet holds considerable contemporary value for many south africans as a local and globalised lingua franca offering access to economic capital and advancement (wright, 2002). drawing content from a wide set of disciplinary sources, varying temporally and locationally in their influence, the goals and content base of english-as-subject can vary greatly (clark, 2005). these can range from knowledge about language and literature, to acting in, and responding to life, using language (kantor, 2001). curriculum goals for school english range from basic literacy skills through personal growth approaches to literary and critical literacy studies (macken-horarik, jackson: using legitimation code theory. . . 31 2014, sperling and dipardo, 2008, christie and macken-horarik, 2007, morrell, 2005, pike, 2003, marshall, 2003, harley, 1991). subject english teachers consequently work with wide ranging choices for content and process. unsurprisingly, research reveals english teachers’ pedagogic identities as mobile yet contingent on their contexts and deep epistemologies regarding language, literacy, and learning. competing forces and values can thus co-exist within teachers’ beliefs and practices (gibbons, 2009, slonimsky and brodie, 2006, xinmin and adamson, 2003). the task of capturing and understanding the pedagogy of english teachers thus requires attention to multi-faceted dimensions and levels. extant research mostly comprises small case studies using either inductively derived categories of analysis or pedagogically normative lenses, often investigating issues within binary categorisations such as communicative versus traditional, or learnerversus teachercentred (shaalukeni, 2000 in weideman, tesfamariam and shaalukeni, 2003, xinmin and adamson, 2003, slonimsky and brodie, 2006). international case studies have investigated philosophies and subject knowledge of english teachers, via interviews (marshall, 2000, ellis, 2009). local case studies have inductively explored english teacher responses to curriculum change and difficulties in engaging learners in literature study (carminati, 2007, dyer, 2007). there remains a dearth of research, particularly locally, of pedagogically well theorised descriptions of the practices of english teachers, focusing on the nature of the knowledge base of these practices. this paper explores the contribution that legitimation code theory (lct) brings to the task of unpacking how teachers cultivate a literary gaze through their practice. firstly, i briefly outline the broad project of lct, and introduce two of its dimensions, specialisation and semantics. thereafter i demonstrate the insights to be gained from a multi-dimensional depth analysis of key moments in one lesson of a kwazulu-natal english home language teacher, as she teaches edward lucie-smith’s poem, the lesson, to her twenty-one grade 10 learners. 32 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 theoretical contextualisation ensor and hoadley (2004) argue the need for south african classroom based research rooted in pedagogic theory and focusing upon the messages conveyed through the form of disciplinary instruction. without such theory, much analysis of classroom practice works with assumed normative views of pedagogic best practice lacking “in-depth description of any particular aspect of classroom activities” (p.86). they index the need for non-evaluative, theorised analytic schemes, enabling more precise rendering of types of pedagogy. lct offers a theoretically rigorous, supple lens that can spotlight pedagogic issues from both epistemological and relational perspectives. rooted in social realism, lct addresses issues of social practice, working to articulate the underlying organisational principles of social fields. lct aims to build a sociology of knowledge, addressing the gap of ‘knowledge blindness (maton, 2014) in educational research. knowledge is understood as something real, with different types of knowledge varying in structure, properties and effects. lct seeks deeper understanding of how knowledge structures impact upon fields, and of forms of knowledge as a medium of the educational message. that is, it investigates how knowledge practices themselves are structured. describing the principles and legitimation codes controlling educational arenas is a vital first step to explaining educational practices. social practices are underpinned by legitimation codes. these operate as claims for the legitimacy of people’s actions, or, “for the organising principles embodied by their actions” (maton, 2014, p.24). legitimation codes comprise structuring principles with consequences as their inherent structures vary with differing effects. additionally, their form moulds the potential of what can be communicated. the concept facilitates focus on both the sociological nature of knowledge practices and the epistemological nature of potentially legitimate knowledge claims and thus both on analyses of ‘relations to’ knowledge practices and analyses of ‘relations within’ knowledge practices. lct provides a multidimensional set of concepts for the analysis of actors’ social practices and dispositions. i shall focus here on two: firstly, specialisation and subsequently, semantics. within the educational arena specialisation codes are made up of knowledge practices embodying both epistemic relations (er) and social relations (sr). epistemic relations refer to relations between practices and their objects while social relations refer to jackson: using legitimation code theory. . . 33 relations between practices and their subjects or originators. these concepts build on bernstein’s notions of classification and framing (1996). classification refers to the strength of boundary maintenance between contexts or categories. framing refers to the location of control inside contexts or categories. stronger framing points to greater control from above. therefore, stronger epistemic relations refer to practices which place firm boundaries and control around what can legitimately constitute objects of study and what procedures may be used. stronger social relations refer to the placement of strong boundaries and control around who may be recognised as legitimate knowers (maton, 2014). tracking the details of specialisation codes necessitates identifying whether epistemic relations or social relations are more emphasised. maton further argues the need to move beyond dichotomising typologies in educational research, and so visualises epistemic relations and social relations as intersecting continua that generate a cartesian plane. this produces a topological space comprising four specialisation codes – knowledge, élite, knower, relativist, as set out in figure 1 below: figure 1: specialization codes (adapted from maton, 2014, p.30) 34 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 this topological space provides possibilities for separate variations in the strength of epistemic relations and social relations. the mapping of infinite numbers of positions along continua of relative strengths is thus possible, along with tracing shifts of position within quadrants. knowledge codes are those which strongly mark off what counts as legitimate objects and/or methods of study. the personal attributes of those who do the studying is less emphasised. this is schematised as er+, sr–. physics is an example of a code where specialised knowledge of particular objects of study, using strongly controlled procedures, is stressed. in principle, anyone may participate in doing physics, as long as they master the accepted procedures for knowledge building. in contrast, knower codes ground assertions of legitimacy in particular kinds of knowers. there is stronger classification and framing of social relations, with who makes claims being the most important factor. differences between knowers are stressed. wide ranging knowledge assertions, methods and procedures are largely a matter of individual choice. maton identifies different types of knowers, including social and cultivated. social knower codes are based on social distinctions such as class, gender and ethnicity and aim to speak the experiences of knowers, with truth being established via the ‘voice’ (maton, 2014). cultivated knower codes result from long immersion in a particular way of knowing, generating a cultivated disposition. school subject english will most typically fall into the er-, sr+, or knower code quadrant, where social relations predominate in relation to the importance of knowers’ responses to language and literary texts (usually through the cultivation of the dispositions of knowers into a range of possible gazes). the topological ‘space’ thus facilitates fine-grained analyses plotting nuanced variations in such gazes. it can move descriptions of pedagogic practice beyond static tabulations, to accounting for variations within individual teacher’s practices and between different teachers and contexts. the other dimension of lct deployed here is that of semantics. this facilitates focus on what constitutes, and promotes, cumulative theorising and learning, as opposed to segmented thinking. maton asks how educational knowledge can facilitate greater conceptual, integrative hierarchisation, as opposed to segmented learning. he argues that segmentalism [comprising] “a series of discrete ideas or skills, rather than cumulatively building on previously encountered knowledge” (2014, p.107), can limit learners’ capacities to abstract and transfer knowledge. cumulative learning facilitates jackson: using legitimation code theory. . . 35 transfer of knowledge between contexts and through time, while segmented learning often restricts transfer, leaving learners with knowledge locked within the ‘semantic gravity well’ of particular contexts. maton proposes the notions of cumulative learning, semantic gravity and semantic density as key tools to articulate the underlying organising principles enabling understanding of knowledge building processes. semantic gravity refers to the degree to which the meaning of practices relates to their contexts. maton elaborates: this semantic gravity may be relatively stronger or weaker along a continuum. when semantic gravity is stronger, meaning is more closely related to its social or symbolic context of acquisition or use; when it is weaker, meaning is less dependent on its context. one can also describe processes of strengthening semantic gravity, such as moving from abstract or generalized ideas towards concrete and delimited cases, and weakening semantic gravity; such as moving from the concrete particulars of a specific case towards generalizations and abstractions whose meanings are less dependent on that context (2014, p.110). broadly, then, semantic gravity equates to degrees of abstraction and concretisation. in close juxtaposition with semantic gravity, maton proposes the notion of semantic density which refers to the degree of condensation of meaning within socio-cultural practices (symbols, terms, concepts, phrases. . .) . . .the stronger the semantic density (sd+), the more meanings are condensed within practices; the weaker the semantic density (sd-) the less meanings are condensed. the strength of semantic density of a practice or symbol relates to the semantic structure in which it is located (p.129). so, within the study of english poetry, the term ‘iambic pentameter’ is characterised by relatively strong semantic density, condensing information about the stress pattern of english syllables, the pairing of stressed and unstressed syllables in ‘feet’ and the sequencing of these pairs in groups of five feet. ‘iambic pentameter’ is also connected to networked knowledge systems of terms about rhythm and meter in poetry. maton again presents the principles of semantic gravity and semantic density as continua, enabling fine plotting of infinite variations in strengths of realisation of each principle through pedagogic processes and products. combining semantic density and semantic gravity as analytic tools permits the tracking of shifts in the nature and coherence of pedagogic discourse over time, using notions of semantic waves, and degrees of semantic flow which 36 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 in 2008, when this lesson was observed and video recorded, the school of 1200 learners was1 racially integrated, with roughly equal proportions of white, african, indian and mixed-race learners. this class had no white learners. informed ethical consent was secured from the education department, the school and the teacher. the full transcript of this lesson is available at https:ukzn.academia.edu/fionajackson2 can be visualised as semantic profiles (matruglio, maton and martin, 2013). however it is important to remain aware that each principle can vary in strength (and be plotted) independently over time. contextualisation of the analysed lesson this lesson occurred in a formerly all-white, fee levying, state school currently serving dominantly middle-class communities. of the 21 learners,1 most were african boys, with 3 indian boys and 7 african girls. this meant that an english home language curriculum was being taught to a class with a majority of english additional language speakers. the teacher, mrs aldridge (a pseudonym) is a white, middle-aged female, with over 15 years teaching experience. in the next section i firstly present a schematic overview of the lesson, then demonstrate how a specialisation analysis illuminates the forms of legitimation this teacher deploys in her pedagogic process. thereafter i explore movements in strengths of semantic gravity and semantic density and how these contribute to the building of a particular literary gaze. tracking specialisation in one instance of poetry pedagogy the focus of this fifty minute lesson is the development of the learners’ literary gaze, in terms of practical criticism competencies. the teacher’s overall goal is to elicit learner answers to the question ‘what was the lesson learned by the poem’s protagonist?’ the class comprises six phases, summarised below, with the bulk of the time spent on phases four and five:2 jackson: using legitimation code theory. . . 37 1. settling in 2. task orientation: the teacher identifies the lesson as literature, focusing on poetry. 3. academic administration: the teacher instructs learners on the required submission of a prior task 4. a) task orientation: the teacher initiates a brainstorming exercise in response to the word ‘lesson’ b) plenary: teacher led discussion on connotations of ‘lesson’ and ‘life lesson’ (about 10 minutes) 5. a) reading poem: learners read the poem in small groups and discuss the life lesson learned by the protagonist (about 15 minutes) b) plenary sharing: the teacher leads whole group exploration of the difficulties of interpretation and what textual evidence provides support for inferences about the poem (about 12 minutes) c) learner completion of written questions on poem (about 5 minutes) 6. conclusion: the teacher makes concluding statements about the lesson. the tightly structured process moves learners from a pre-reading task into close engagement with the poem’s meaning. the poem can be located within a knower code, that is, an er-, sr+ coding, expressing something of the poet’s unique disposition and voice. however, in the pedagogic arena, the bases for approaching and relating to the text can vary, shifting along both the epistemic relations and social relations continua. at this point, maton’s distinction between the focus and basis of pedagogic practice is useful. epistemic relations and social relations can be used to delineate the focus of knowledge claims, that is, the content of languages of legitimation. while the focus of this lesson can be argued to be oriented to social relations, through 38 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 the cultivation of a particular kind of literary knower, there are variations in the strengths of legitimation codes forming the basis of the pedagogic practice. that is, legitimation codes outline the form of languages of legitimation (2014, p.31). when a poem is approached dominantly as an object containing information to be accurately retrieved and displayed, the specialisation basis tends towards stronger epistemic relations. however, approaching a poem, for example, as a personalised, affective meaning making experience for readers, leads towards a stronger basis of social relations. a specialisation analysis reveals different specialisation code emphases in the teacher’s pedagogy within the overarching project of building the learners’ literary gaze. it enables a more precise description of the pedagogy, which assists in clarifying and explicating the approach of literary instruction utilised. while the teacher initially foregrounds learners’ experiences of ‘lessons’ and ‘life lessons’ (experiential brainstorming tasks consistent with a personal growth model of english instruction) to engage and activate in them her preferred frame of reference, thereby strengthening social relations, she subsequently focuses exclusively on the poem itself, independently of the poet, his life context and the life contexts of the learners. the brainstorming is not a prologue to learners exploring links between the poem and potentially similar situations in their own lives. it serves to make visible the most likely schemas to be activated in response to the title “the lesson”. the teacher then directs the learners to ‘bracket’ these schemas and reorients them to the idea of life lessons. her main focus is on identifying the core meaning of the poem via close textual analysis of its details. thus, while the overall focus of the lesson is on socialising the learners into a literary gaze, the basis of the lesson displays aspects characterised by stronger epistemic relations. this is evident through the teacher constructing the poem as an independent artefact and requiring learners to supply accurate textual information. that is, despite obliquely suggesting connections to real world experience, mrs aldridge engages the poem as a form of semantico-logical puzzle needing accurate decoding. early tasks such as the revision of the concepts ‘denotation’ and ‘connotation’ (from a prior lesson) are characterised by stronger epistemic relations these also feature at critical junctures in the teacher’s later efforts to ensure accurate decoding of key textual details. the teacher constructs such details as the crucial base for establishing the poem’s meaning. an early example of the class’s engagement with the poem is initiated by the teacher’s questions: jackson: using legitimation code theory. . . 39 “what would you say the catalyst is, um, for the speaker in the poem of this lesson? what has happened to him? um, you know he has learned a lesson from something that has happened to him. what do you see has happened to him?” mrs aldridge is asking for accurate identification of an event implied by the poem. in her ensuing exchanges with the learners, she accepts, validates and extends learners’ responses and models elements of a cultivated literary gaze. thus, in response to a learner responding ‘his father has passed away’, she focuses on the supporting textual evidence: “have a look at the first line ‘your father’s gone my bald headmaster said’. presumably he’s in a school context and he was called in by the headmaster to say ‘your father’s passed away.” the teacher signals the importance of clearly linking interpretive inferences with salient aspects of the text. this suggests brief strengthening of epistemic relations as partial highlighting of what kinds of inference and surmising are legitimate. once the learners are working in small groups considering what lesson the poem’s protagonist learned, epistemic relations are strengthened, with the teacher reminding learners of the behaviours and strategies required. she directs learners to: “talk about this because it means that you’ve got to explore the whole poem to work out what the lesson is” and to make notes. such comments explicate some discursive criteria that learners must internalise. she also strengthens epistemic relations in her process of heading off problematic misreading, reformulating instructions with procedural and conceptual additions: “no, no. . . it’s the headmaster who has the bald head and the tobacco jar. . . the poem isn’t concerned with what happened to the father because that is just the catalyst for <???> in his life <???>. the focus must be on what he learns – perhaps about himself from his father’s passing. so don’t allow your selves to go off on a tangent and look at possible causes of the death.” here epistemic relations are stressed in the sense of implying “this piece of content in the poem does not equal ‘x’.” in exhorting learners not to “go off 40 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 on a tangent” she signals boundaries for how to approach the poem, prioritising what the poem itself sets up: “the poem isn’t concerned with what happened to the father. . .” this focus on accurate knowledge of the content of the poem is subsequently reinforced as mrs aldridge realises many learners are pursuing the tangent. consequently, addressing the entire class, she indicates how interpretation is limited by accurate reading of the contents of the poem: “. . .i’ve just got to interrupt something and clarify something really important. the father has not died from smoking – can we eradicate that altogether. um, the poet is not really, the speaker is not really concerned about the causes of death of the father – ah, what you should be focusing on, ah, is perhaps how his father’s death has affected him and what he learns about himself. . . a brown tobacco jar is mentioned but that i would presume is the bald headmaster’s. . . .when he goes to the office he sees – shh – he sees the headmaster has a shiny dome, which means no hair, and there’s a brown tobacco jar next to headmaster, okay. so don’t go off on a tangent now.” these comments suggest the importance of accurate understanding of the relationships between the details of the text, such as the jar, the headmaster, the father’s death and the protagonist’s thoughts in response to it. sound understanding of such relationships is the critical springboard to the macro meaning of the life lesson. her interventions again strengthen epistemic relations in stressing the importance of accurate reading of the text as a key element of her cultivated gaze: correct reading of the micro-details of a text followed by identification of plausible links amongst details before finally reading between the lines of such details. further strengthening of epistemic relations occurs after the teacher asks: “what does the speaker feel he should be thinking about?” learner responses strengthen social relations, relieving the pressure of the hard work in establishing the required meaning, e.g., “freedom!” the teacher’s response also strengthens social relations, with low-key, wry acknowledgment of the comment: “right, that was very unexpected.” responding to further learner offerings she says: “ja, you might have to support the family. but based on what this poem is saying, we don’t know anything. all we know is that he jackson: using legitimation code theory. . . 41 lost the father. but we don’t know anything about the speaker’s – the circumstance. so, um, we can’t really read into something that is not directly in the text. all we know is that he’s lost his father – we don’t know about the circumstances.” here mrs aldridge strengthens epistemic relations, presenting some of her limits of inferential possibility, excluding as illegitimate interpretations that cannot be linked to specific textual details. she reinforces these criteria by reiterating what is knowable from the poem (the father gone) and reformulates her questions specifically around this: “what does he feel he should be thinking about that?” this narrowing of the question clarifies her focus for the learners. when a learner says “his father” the teacher finally validates strongly: “absolutely – he should be mourning his father, he should be presumably thinking – and, and this is why he feels selfish.” in the ensuing discussion of whether a ten-year-old should be judged ‘selfish’ for thinking about the immediate benefit his father’s death brings, the teacher strengthens social relations. her most specific contribution, which she flags as very personal, comes in response to the line: “i still remember how the noise was stilled in school assembly when my grief came in”. after eliciting and validating some learner interpretations of the line, she says: “i tell you what very personally this phrase made me think of. we usually think of ‘when your ship comes in’, you know, when your luck comes in. and i thought about it in that context – that his grief, in a sense, has liberated him from the bullies that continually plague him.” despite her identification of her comment as personal, what she shares is the associative link she makes between the poet’s phrase and a conventionalised phrase (if seldom used in current south african english) – “when your ship comes in.” this sharpens the view of her literary gaze as tending towards the detached, the cognitively associative and the epistemic. ‘very personally’, for her, is a mental link, not an emotional or experiential connection. focusing on where epistemic relations are strengthened thus highlights the teacher’s orientation to literary analysis as a cognitively motivated act, where continual attention to the ideational network of links between the macro 42 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 meaning and the micro-details of the poem are the foundation for legitimate interpretive acts. these relatively stronger epistemic relations are interludes within a lesson characterised mostly by stronger social relations, since the overall thrust is to produce learner-subjects who can identify, experience, and internalise the message of the poem as refined meaning. social relations are strengthened where the focus is on: (a) building desired frames of reference in the learners, (b) creating a bridge between learners’ existing experience and the ‘world’ of the poem, (c) regulative control of learners, (d) relieving the pressure of establishing the desired interpretations amongst the learners, and (e) fostering learners’ interpretive activities. the early brainstorming task, where learners have to “come up with about three or four connotations or personal associations that [lessons] has for you”, foregrounds learners’ personal experiences. in leading the plenary the teacher strengthens social relations in defending a learner’s association: “it’s an amount of things”. challenging learners’ laughter, the teacher asserts: “nobody must laugh at someone’s personal connotation. . . .no one can say your connotation is wrong or right.” this indexes an element of the teacher’s grounds for a personal gaze – associations based on individual experiences. implicitly, this pre-emptively contrasts with the teacher’s later comments on the trickiness of interpreting poems. in shifting focus from connotations of ‘lesson’ to examples of ‘life lessons’ the teacher is building a specific, preparatory frame of reference in the learners. though she has a clear epistemic goal – ensuring learners do not presume ‘the lesson’ to be a formal school lesson, the basis of her process of elicitation emphasises stronger social relations. her responses range from seeking clarification from learners to simply acknowledging the pain of the experience reported. for example, as in: learner: “keep my enemies closer than my friends.” teacher: “ah, that’s interesting. what – how do you do that? how would you keep your enemies closer than your friends?” and jackson: using legitimation code theory. . . 43 learner: “a life lesson i learnt about was <???> a friend <???>. she was constantly running away from home; not going to school and then <???> and giving her parents a hard time. in may i buried my friend.” teacher: “wow, there’s a lot of pathos there. ah, thank you.” social relations are also strengthened at numerous points as a regulation strategy. for example, at the end of an intensive interaction establishing the evidence in the text for the bullying of the protagonist, some learners talk while the teacher is talking. the teacher responds with sarcasm: “gosh, this is an interesting development from someone who said ‘i don’t understand this poem.’ now please [her emphasis] share your thoughts with us, please!” [learners laugh]. a culpable learner responds with: “i praise nosipho and her group!” [louder laughter] the teacher permits this, simply riposting: “she’s not happy with that – she’d like individual credit.” later, at the end of an intensive exchange where the teacher struggled to get learners to see “knowledge which was bitterer than. . .” as identifying an emotion, a similar emphasis of social relations occurs. the teacher has asked: “when you lose your father, savannah, what, what should you be thinking about? or at least, what does the speaker feel he should be thinking about?” an unsolicited learner declares: “freedom!” to which the teacher responds with wry acknowledgment: “right, that was very unexpected.” she quietly ‘defuses’ the potential escalation of learner affect by strengthening social relations without specifically validating the individual. there are not many instances of emphasising social relations in the process of engagement with the poem itself. the clearest example occurs when the teacher directs attention to the second stanza and slightly widens inferential possibility: “. . .he says ‘i was a month past ten when i learnt about this.’ now i think the age is, is quite important – he’s only just ten-years-old. bearing that in mind, would you agree with the speaker that he is being selfish? would you judge him for not thinking about his father?” 44 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 here social relations are strengthened as she elicits learners’ personal opinions on this point, fostering an interpretive gaze involving extrapolation from a piece of text, and using real life knowledge of children, along with personal values about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour for bereaved tenyear-olds. responding to numerous learners’ answers of ‘no’ the teacher validates answers via her own qualified, interpretive elaborations: “alright, so maybe when you’re young you actually, probably – it’s probably a very natural sort of reaction” and “absolutely. and perhaps that to him is a more immediate reality than his father’s death. he’s got to go to school every day and get beaten up by someone.” a specialisation analysis illuminates the interplay between the epistemic relations and social relations in a cultural heritage orientation, unravelling the emphasis on textual meanings in themselves. attention to the play of both epistemic relations and social relations reveals the teacher’s focus upon precision textual decoding as the base for literary interpretation, along with selective strengthening of social relations in order to increasingly orient learners towards literary, rather than personal, interpretations of the text, while offering them fairly detached forms of support in their struggles along this path. tracing semantic profiles utilising the concepts of semantic gravity (sg) and semantic density (sd) in relation to pedagogic practice helps reveal the movements, through time, between particularities and generalities; and denser, more conceptually integrated knowledge and more discrete, segmented forms of knowledge. semantic gravity tracks the degrees of contextual specificity versus contextual independence of knowledge practices. stronger semantic gravity (sg+) refers to knowledge closely tied to its originating contex,t while weaker semantic gravity (sg-) refers to knowledge operating across many specific contexts. semantic density focuses upon degrees of concentration and distillation of knowledge, with stronger semantic density (sd+) referring to greater condensation of knowledge. where strengths of semantic gravity and semantic density are inversely related to each other, this can be represented as a semantic wave. the diagram below shows three hypothetical semantic profiles: jackson: using legitimation code theory. . . 45 figure 2: three semantic profiles (adapted from maton, 2014, p.143) for this lesson, the broad semantic profile is represented below in figure 3: semantic profile: the lesson figure 3: this profile represents a ‘smoothing out’ of many small variations in semantic gravity and semantic density. particularly in phase 4 of the class, represented in figure 3 between the ‘connotations/denotations’ and ‘catalysts’ peaks, many small shifts in semantic gravity/semantic density occur, generating semantic ‘ripples’, or ‘fractal’ waves (maton, 2013, p.17) within the major wave movement. this is partially represented by the lighter line in figure 5 above. two examples of this semantic rippling are explored below. initiating phase three of the lesson mrs aldridge asks learners to recall a discussion on denotative and connotative meaning from an earlier language lesson. semantic gravity is weakened and semantic density strengthened 46 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 (9sg8sd) in her move from providing particular task information to invoking the conceptual categories to be used – abstract terms from the disciplinary field of language studies (semantics). she then strengthens semantic gravity through provision of the specific task focus and procedural directions: “so i want you to start off by giving you one word, the word is ‘lesson’. [she writes ‘lesson’ on the board and circles it.]” she provides precise, locational direction, along with an implicit reason, in telling learners how they will be working diagrammatically with the word. these details strengthen semantic gravity, which is then weakened as the teacher shifts back to conceptual orientation: “but shall we start with denotation first?” as the class moves into definitional revision of the terms, and their application to the concept of ‘lesson’, semantic gravity is strengthened through the provision of definitions. in response to the teacher’s request for denotative definitions a learner offers: “a lesson that you learn through experience”. the teacher’s response, as is often the case in subsequent follow up moves, weakens semantic gravity slightly, via slightly more general rephrasing: “ok, so something [my emphasis] that is learned through experience. similarly, after having requested and received a definition of ‘connotation’: “it’s your own opinion”, the teacher offers qualified acceptance and proceeds to unpack the idea more grammatically congruently, thus strengthening semantic gravity and weakening semantic density: “what you think of when you hear that word”. she then immediately weakens semantic gravity a little by adding: “the associations that word has for you”, by means of the nominalisation ‘associations’. she reinforces this, and elaborates slightly as she then provides specific task instructions for the learners: jackson: using legitimation code theory. . . 47 “i’d like you to come up with perhaps about three or four connotations radiating out from the word lesson. three or four connotations or personal associations that that word has for you.” mrs aldridge, in conjunction with the learners, has thus effected small shifts resulting in the unpacking and repacking of the concepts, from more to less abstract. these differing levels can be schematised as: figure 4: ‘connotations’: ideational network potentially these variations contribute to learners building an ideational network around the concept, and alternative linguistic realisations of its meaning, thus increasing the semantic density of ‘connotations’ for them. a further key semantic ripple unfolds as the teacher nudges her learners out of the everyday and towards a literary gaze of insights for life lessons. semantic gravity is strengthened and semantic density weakened as learners brainstorm, and share personal lessons. semantic gravity weakens, and semantic density strengthens slightly as the teacher generalises that all the life lessons result from some form of catalyst. the semantic rippling arises from the way the teacher handles learner responses: sometimes she defines terms, triggering a downward ripple; sometimes she nominalises verbs, producing a slight upward ripple. overall, these semantic ripples generate slightly strengthened semantic density of ‘school lesson’ and ‘life lesson’. she steadily reinforces her key focus – ‘life lesson’ versus ‘school lesson’, thus indexing for learners the need to transcend the immediacy of their experiences with school lessons, to more distant and abstract conceptualisations, ultimately weakening semantic gravity. 48 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 a significant portion of the section of class identified on the semantic profile as <poem: details’ entails small group discussion by the learners. the teacher moved between groups, scaffolding learners into fuller ranges of interpretation and capacity to ‘wave’ semantically themselves. as she moves the class into plenary, she weakens semantic gravity by summarising the processes just undertaken and thus discursively framing what has been, and will be done: “. . . so essentially this poem is open to interpretation. and it’s quite a difficult process, i think, to interpret a poem. you’ve got to keep asking yourself questions and once you arrive at one answer that generates the next question. so it’s quite a complicated process.” by generalising beyond engagement just with this poem, she has weakened semantic gravity, explicating her understanding that poetry interpretation is a recursive process, requiring a gaze of perpetual inquiry. while there are many more instances of shifts in semantic gravity and semantic density worthy of close attention, space does not permit their exploration here. concluding discussion applying the lct dimensions of specialisation and semantics to the analysis of this lesson’s pedagogy enables nuanced illumination of aspects of its underlying structures and processes. these can be schematised in forms enabling comparision with other lessons, within english and in comparison with other disciplines. (a preliminary schematic overview synthesising both specialisation and semantic analysis of phase 4 of the lesson is provided in appendix one). while it is clear the focus of this lesson is the development of the learner’s literary gaze, and thus oriented more towards stronger social relations, the analysis reveals complex changes in the strengths of the epistemic relations and social relations. epistemic relations are strengthened when the poem is approached as a textual source of information to be accurately identified and displayed. social relations become more strongly emphasised when the ‘meaning’ of the text is used as a stimulus point to the retrieval and sharing of learner experiences and interpretations. a key pedagogic strategy of the teacher was to strengthen social relations to activate selective frames of jackson: using legitimation code theory. . . 49 reference in the learners, as springboard to the poem’s meaning, rather than using the poem as a prism to refract and explore related learner experiences. the focus on semantics clarifies how the teacher moves from the specificities of learner experiences towards the presentation and modelling of potential components of her desired literary gaze. while the lesson begins, and broadly remains at a fairly strong level of semantic gravity, interleaved within this are ‘semantic ripples’, and some small semantic waves, falling within a fairly narrow range. semantic gravity typically weakens around the introduction of abstract, nominalised terms then strengthens through learner contributions and weakens or strengthens slightly with the teacher’s processes of elaboration, exemplification and reformulation. these potentially offer learners multiple routes into the meanings of words, and the construction of ideational networks of related concepts. the extent and nature of learner uptake of these opportunities is an issue for future research. overall the teacher’s approach moves learners from an individualised, personalised sharing of their own experiences towards more abstracted personal experiences and finally, increasingly specialised processes of poetry analysis. conceptually she builds a systematic, structured sequence, beginning with learners’ prior knowledge. along the way she (mostly implicitly) indexes for learners partial components of a poetic literary gaze. at various points she flags behavioural and discursive relations that help create and sustain the pedagogic coherence of the lesson and offer potentially transferable insights to learners on how to ‘do’ poetic analysis. behaviourally she indexes the need for learners to be active note makers, listeners and apprentice-partners co-constructing understanding of the poem with her. cognitively she makes extensive use of interactive questioning chains – pushing learners towards higher levels of interpretive focus and understanding by rendering the more abstract inferential leaps she requires more concrete through her downward semantic waving. both overtly and implicitly, the teacher flags key discursive relations for the learners, articulating her sense of what is needed for poetry analysis. reinforcement of these is also often provided through her strong validation of learner responses clearly displaying such features of the desired literary gaze. these include: 50 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 (a) articulating intra-textual relationships as the interpretive base; and (b) dominantly focusing on the literary text as a self-contained ‘bubble’, with minimal projection of external experiences onto the text. an lct analysis illuminates her construction of poetry analysis as a probing, logical, reasoning process of interpretive inquiry, cultivating an epistemically oriented, relatively detached, cognitively associative literary gaze. it does so by means of a meta-language that potentially facilitates fruitful comparisons with other analyses of pedagogic practice, both within the field of school english (e.g. christie and macken-horarik, 2007), and across other disciplines. such analysis offers teachers sharper insight into the nature of their pedagogy and how it is placed in relation to the range of models of subject english available. this awareness may help teachers widen their pedagogic repertoires, feeding into more conscious decisions as to which models of english literary instruction may be most productively drawn on for particular pedagogic purposes to best meet the needs of specific learners (macken-horarik, 2014). further research is suggested to build an increasingly refined picture of variations in the forms of specialisation and semantic coding within the practice of individual english teachers, and between teachers in varying pedagogic contexts, across different aspects of the subject, and through time. comparisons of variations in forms of specialisation and semantic coding with other home language subjects taught in south africa would also be instructive in identifying how different communities of learners are being inducted into key literacy practices. acknowledgments the national research foundation of south africa for a grant that assisted in the final revision stages of this paper. jackson: using legitimation code theory. . . 51 references bernstein, b. 1996. pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: theory, research, critique. london: taylor and francis. carminati, n. 2007. investigating relationships between english home language curriculum documents and classroom practice. unpublished ma dissertation. south africa: university of the witwatersrand. christie, f. and macken-horarik, m. 2007. building verticality in subject english. in christie, f. and martin, j.r. 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times. review of research in education, 32(1): pp.62–108. weideman, a., tesfamariam, h. and shaalukeni, l. 2003. resistance to change in language teaching: some african case studies. south african linguistics and applied language studies, 21(1+2): pp.67–76. wright, l. 2002. language as a ‘resource’ in south africa: the economic life of language in a globalising society. english academy review, 19: pp.2–19. xinmin, z. and adamson, b. 2003. the pedagogy of a secondary school teacher of english in the people’s republic of china: challenging the stereotypes. regional language centre journal, 34(3): pp.323–337. 54 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 appendix one task orientation brainstorming exercise (a) language fusion – revising denotation and connotation individual learner (l) brainstorming exercise – ‘lesson’ [linking statement – prior lesson] sg[transfer – language focus] sg+ [narrowing – task focus: topic] sg[content] procedural directions – locational, rationale (implicit)] [revising concepts] er+ [collaborative production – definitions] sg[partial teacher (t) validation][t generalizing] [procedural instruction: signals importance] sg+ [l answer] sg+ [qualified acceptance + elaboration – grammatically congruent unpacking] sg[more abstract repacking] [varied redundancy – multiple processing routes. building ideational network] sg+ [specific procedural instructions + time limit] sr+ (b) plenary – sharing connotations of ‘lesson’ sg+ [validation of ls’ experiences] sr++ [explication: personal gaze] [summarizes l contributions] sg[redirects l focus] sg+[expansion of answers: sg+ defines term; explains concept – link: lesson focus sgreformulation of answer – abstraction sgamplification – expansioncause-effect] sg[flags wider issues] sr+ sg+ [procedural instructions –task] sg[topic abstraction + attributes] sg[validation + abstraction: l responses] [narrowing of topic focus] [process comment; ‘we’ shift] sr+ [indexing frame] er+ jackson: using legitimation code theory. . . 55 fiona jackson school of arts university of kwazulu-natal fjackson@ukzn.ac.za mailto:fjackson@ukzn.ac.za 56 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 microsoft word b8300 final.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 83, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i83a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x coping in complex, changing classroom contexts: an investigation of the bases of pre-service teachers’ pedagogic reasoning dale langsford school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa dale.langsford@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9142-5754 (received: 14 september 2020; accepted: 26 april 2021) abstract despite its central role in enabling professional judgements and decision-making in teaching, pedagogic reasoning is a slippery concept and difficult to pin down. although pedagogic reasoning is understood to inform all aspects of teaching practice, we still do not know what pedagogic reasoning looks like. in this article, i present a conceptual tool, using concepts from legitimation code theory (maton, 2014), to explore analytically the differences between the abstraction and context-embeddedness of ideas expressed in the pedagogic reasoning of a sample of pre-service teachers. i argue that pre-service teachers who are able to draw on specialised concepts associated with context-independent principles, may be in a better position to distinguish the “formal elements” from the “material elements” of teaching (morrow, 2005, p. 98). being able to make this distinction is likely, i argue, to set pre-service teachers up to cope in complex changing classroom contexts. keywords: initial teacher education, pedagogic reasoning, changing contexts, legitimation code theory, semantic gravity, pre-service teachers problem: pedagogic reasoning is important, but difficult to teach the core responsibility of teachers is to enable epistemological access to powerful knowledge (morrow, 1992) to all learners, irrespective of the contexts in which teachers find themselves. in his seminal work that reclaimed the role of content knowledge in professional teaching, shulman (1987) presented a model that placed the concept of pedagogic reasoning at the heart of all that the teacher does in his or her professional practice. he draws on the argument that “good teaching . . . must rest on a foundation of adequately grounded premises” (shulman, 1987, p. 13). in this article, i investigate the ways in which a sample of pre-service langsford: coping in complex, changing classroom contexts 55 teachers justify their pedagogic reasoning about an observed lesson. i analyse the sources from which participants draw criteria for their justification of their pedagogic reasoning. first, i argue that pedagogic reasoning is central to the work of teachers, but is difficult to teach during initial teacher education programmes. despite its central role in professional teaching, pedagogic reasoning and judgement cannot be taught in the way that teaching strategies or educational theories can. the ability to engage in powerful pedagogic reasoning in order to promote epistemological access (morrow, 1992) for all learners is not intuitive. pedagogic reasoning and judgement cannot be taught because these are contextand topic-specific deliberations (bransford et al., 2005). a capacity for pedagogic reasoning must be developed in response to a set of ethical principles, understanding of the purposes of the practice, understanding of the processes of teaching and learning, as well as in relation to the specific contextual demands of the classroom (shulman, 1999). drawing on the findings of my doctoral study (langsford, 2020), this research focuses on the development of pedagogic reasoning in relation to the specific contextual demands of the classroom. there are rationales and decisions to be made based on the teacher’s knowledge base that provides the criteria for the decisions. in addition to highlighting the need for and importance of pedagogic reasoning, initial teacher education programmes can teach many of the different knowledge bases from which pre-service teachers can draw the criteria for their pedagogic reasoning. these knowledges usually fall into one of the following categories: “general education theory; pedagogic/methods study; disciplinary/subject matter studies; and school-based experience” (reeves & robinson, 2014, p. 237). additionally, initial teacher education programmes provide pre-service teachers with opportunities to develop these abilities. at one south african university, the development of a “rationale for lesson design” requires pre-service teachers to think systematically about the complexities of lesson planning. the guidelines that are presented to pre-service teachers aim to “[present] decision-making in lesson planning as a complex interplay between the components of [professional teacher knowledge], but [enable] pre-service teachers to work systematically through that complexity” (rusznyak & walton, 2011, p. 280). still, this guideline does not teach preservice teachers to reason or make professional judgements. it provides only scaffolding for pre-service teachers to draw on their knowledge bases to develop their pedagogic reasoning and judgement in situ, and to get feedback from a more experienced other who can interrogate the appropriateness (and legitimacy) of their basis for judgement. it is the responsibility of teacher educators to design opportunities that require pre-service teachers to undertake this knowledge-building work as they learn to teach. initial teacher education programmes can then, at best, set up the foundations of knowledge upon which reasoned rational judgements can be made and justified, but it is ultimately up to the pre-service teachers themselves to reason about their decisions, and act in pedagogicly responsive ways in their particular classrooms and contextual realities. their ability to draw on educational theory, experiences, and practical knowledge of teaching informs their 56 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 “situational appreciation” (morrow, 1996, p. 80) which, in turn, informs their pedagogic reasoning and professional judgement in situ. situational appreciation refers to the teacher’s ability to distinguish salient cues in the teaching and learning environment that require action. situational appreciation is a very important aspect of pedagogic reasoning because without the ability to pick out what is important to consider when planning, teaching, or evaluating a lesson, the teacher is unable to make decisions that are pertinent to the specific needs of the classroom (morrow, 1996). so far, in this article i have argued that pedagogic reasoning is central to the work that teachers do, but is very difficult to teach during initial teacher education. i have made the argument that initial teacher programmes can set up the conditions for the development of pedagogic reasoning, but that the development of the specialist ways of thinking that are required to engage in pedagogic reasoning must happen in response to particular classrooms and contexts. in the next section, i argue that context-independent principles of teaching provide an organising framework in which pre-service and in-service teachers could organise systematic learning in all teaching and learning contexts. the role of context-independent principles to navigate changing contexts given the mandate of all teachers to enable epistemological access to knowledge for all learners in any teaching and learning context (morrow, 1992), what knowledge should preservice teachers draw on in order to engage in pedagogic reasoning? powerful teaching in changing complex contexts requires a process of critical pedagogic reasoning that is informed by educational theory. abstracted principles of teaching enable teachers to “distinguish between the formal elements of teaching (which operate in all instances of teaching and are therefore context-independent), and the material elements which ‘are necessarily rooted in specific contexts’” (morrow, 2005, cited in rusznyak, 2015, p. 21, emphases in rusznyak’s original). when teachers can distinguish between the formal and material elements of teaching, they can draw on the criteria for good teaching that is a mainstay in all classrooms, and not just in particular classroom contexts. the likes of shalem (2014), shulman (1987, 1998), and winch (2012) have argued that educational theory “binds” (shalem, 2014, p. 93) pedagogic reasoning and professional judgement. but these scholars are not advocating the simple application of normative rules in the context of the classroom. indeed, shulman (1987), made a strong argument that pedagogic content knowledge (which has become widely considered to be the definitive base of the professional teacher) requires reasoned amalgamation. simply put, pedagogic content knowledge is the “blending of content and pedagogy into an understanding of how particular topics, problems, or issues are organized, and presented for instruction” (shulman, 1987, p. 8). this blending requires teachers to use their knowledge base (theoretical or situational knowledge) in order to reason about and legitimise their actions (practice), as well as to think relationally about all aspects of the lesson and broader educational environment in order to enable epistemological access to knowledge for all learners. langsford: coping in complex, changing classroom contexts 57 while pedagogic reasoning is not the same as pedagogic content knowledge, the latter is a useful and powerful knowledge base that pre-service and qualified teachers alike use in order to engage in meaningful pedagogic reasoning. shulman (1998) claimed that pedagogic reasoning and its resultant judgements are core to navigating a professional practice like teaching and asserted that the “only way to get from there [theory] to here [practice] is via the exercise of judgement” (p. 519, emphasis in original). teachers need a lens or framework that is informed by educational theory (winch, 2012), with which to understand and reflect on their practice; this is what winch (2012) calls “a conceptual toolbox for thinking about educational problems” (p. 4). hugo (2013) has argued that ideas that are derived from educational theory are non-negotiable informants of pedagogic reasoning and decisionmaking in teaching. when pedagogic reasoning draws on a knowledge base that is derived from personal experiences of teaching, or on knowledge of specific classroom contexts, it is not easily transferrable from one context to another, nor is it systematised. (at best, it draws on educational ideas in a haphazard way, based on the demands of the context in which teachers find themselves as rusznyak, 2015, has reminded us.) while teachers may be able to engage in pedagogic reasoning to enable epistemological access for all learners for a while, it is unlikely that they would cope with a changing classroom context because they do not have access to a systematised, abstracted body of educational knowledge and principles. they are therefore less likely to be able to distinguish between the “formal” and “material” elements of teaching (morrow, 2005, p. 98) when engaging in pedagogic reasoning, and this, then, poses a challenge when they need to navigate different circumstances under which they need to teach. it is important to note that i am not saying that they will not be able to engage in pedagogic reasoning to enable their practice: they may be in a better position to thrive in the kind of classroom context for which they were prepared or in which they have personal experiences. it may be the case that pre-service teachers’ pedagogic reasoning might be constrained because they lack a systematised way in which to think about the demands of teaching and learning in a changing classroom context. i have argued that educational theory and abstract principles of teaching are what enable preservice and in-service teachers to distinguish between the formal and material elements of teaching. i have posited that being able to distinguish between the contextual constraints of a particular classroom and the core work that is a mainstay in all classrooms sets teachers up to be able to cope in a diverse array of classroom contexts. i now go on to present the research methodology for this article. research methodology the research tool, data, and findings of this study are drawn from my recently completed doctoral study. here, i report on one of the findings of this doctoral study—differently qualified pre-service teachers justify their grounds for their episodes of pedagogic reasoning 58 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 (horn, 2010) in different contexts. while my doctoral study used data from a much larger sample and set of findings, in this methodology section i present an argument for the research methodology of this article, which is one strand of the tapestry of my doctoral study. this was a qualitative case study, which approach holds the benefit of avoiding the fragmentation of complex dynamic relationships, and contextual factors at play in specific cases, which require deep investigation (sturman, 1999). while often critiqued because they cut down the generalisability of research findings, qualitative research case studies facilitate the study of situations that quantitative or numerical research simply cannot address adequately (cohen, et al., 2007). 1 participants had completed their initial teacher education programmes but had not yet begun teaching in their first qualified teaching positions. they were drawn from two routes into teaching: four participants had recently completed a full-time four-year bachelor of education degree and three participants had studied either a bachelor of education or oneyear post-graduate certificate in education part-time in conjunction with a learnership model in which pre-service teachers spend their days in a classroom as a teaching assistant. it is important to note that i do not compare the two routes but look, rather, at the implications of different forms of pedagogic reasoning. therefore, the analysis of the data will not indicate which data was gleaned from which participant group. each of the participants was invited to watch the same video of a grade 8 geography lesson on climate that was filmed in an innercity johannesburg school. the lesson was taught by a pre-service teacher, to whom i gave the pseudonym ms mdluli. the participants were asked to respond to ms mdluli’s teaching in a focus group in which they discussed their thoughts about her teaching with colleagues who had travelled the same route as they had. here, i present and compare a piece of data from each focus group conversation. in the focus group interviews participants discussed what they felt ms mdluli should start doing in her teaching, what she should stop doing, and what she should continue to do. i analysed each of the participants’ episodes of pedagogic reasoning from the focus groups using the semantic gravity analytic tool to develop a picture of the ways in which they rationalised their thoughts about the lesson in the video. i chose the pieces of data that are presented in this article because they were a good representation of the overall findings of the semantic gravity analyses of each participant group. in the next section, i present a research tool that can be used to unpack the semantic gravity of episodes of pedagogic reasoning, that reveal the context-embeddedness of the justifications of such pedagogic reasoning. semantic waves as a tool for analysing pedagogic reasoning here, i present the tool i used to analyse how pre-service teachers’ episodes of pedagogic reasoning drew on different contexts or abstracted concepts to justify their thinking. first, i introduce the conceptual framework from which the tool is drawn (maton’s (2014) 1 ethical clearance was obtained from the wits school of education’s ethics committee before participants were contacted and research processes commenced. protocol number 2014ece53m. langsford: coping in complex, changing classroom contexts 59 legitimation code theory, henceforth lct), and offer the argument that lct’s concept of semantic gravity enables one to distinguish analytically between the ways in which episodes of pedagogic reasoning are contextually-bounded or not. thereafter, i present a “translation device” (maton & chen, 2016, p. 27) that is a tool used to analyse the contextualboundedness of an episode of pedagogic reasoning. lct is “a sociological framework for researching and informing practice” (maton, 2014, p. 182), and provides a set of conceptual tools with which to explore the grounds on which social practices are legitimised. lct is a framework of concepts that act as an “explanatory framework,” (maton, 2014, p. 182) that does not profess to lend itself to any specific area of research. since teaching is a socially constructed practice (morrow, 1996) in which teachers (as knowers) work with knowledge, there have been many studies using lct to analyse a range of teaching practices from the teaching of ballet, to music, to engineering. however, there have been no studies so far that seek to investigate the different ways in which the judgements in the context of newly qualified pre-service teachers are legitimised. for the purposes of this article, i use one of lct’s concepts, namely semantic gravity, from its semantics dimension. this property, ranging from stronger (+) to weaker (-), reveals the organising structure of knowledge. i use the concept of semantic gravity to analyse the shifts in the context dependence of beginner teachers' pedagogic reasoning. it is important to note that the semantics dimension describes meaning through two concepts—semantic gravity and semantic density. in my doctoral study from which this paper is drawn, i used both these concepts to analyse pre-service teachers’ episodes of pedagogic reasoning, but for the purposes of this article, i used only semantic gravity. according to maton (2014), all knowledge has semantic gravity (sg); this refers to “the degree to which meaning relates to its context” (p. 2). the easier it is to transfer a concept from the context in which it is given meaning, the weaker its semantic gravity (and the concept is relatively more abstract). the more difficult it is to transfer a concept or practice out of the context in which it has meaning, the stronger its semantic gravity (and the concept is relatively less abstract). semantic gravity enables me to explore the extent to which the justification of the pedagogic reasoning of newly qualified pre-service teachers is grounded in relation to a specific contextual manifestation of teaching. the concept that is used to designate the extent to which the justification is tied to a context is the “situational appreciation” (morrow, 1996, p. 80) that the participants show. it also allows me to conceptualise the extent to which the participants abstract their criteria for good teaching from the context of the lesson. using the concept of semantic gravity, the various ways in which pre-service teachers express their judgements can be described in terms of various strengths of semantic gravity. lct studies use “translation devices” (maton, 2016a) to “transcend the divide between theory and data” (maton & chen, 2016, p. 32) to relate concepts that are being explored in a study “to something beyond a theoretical framework” (maton, 2016b, p. 243). a translation device delineates relative strengths of one concept, in this case, semantic gravity, with indicators for each strength to make the manifestation of the lct concept in the data as clear as possible. for each strength of semantic gravity, i provide 60 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 an example from the original dataset of my doctoral study to further clarify the indicators of the strength of semantic gravity. in this study, four levels of semantic gravity can be defined, as seen in table 1. table 1 translation device for semantic gravity of episodes of pegagogical reasoning strength of sg description example from data weaker sg (sg –) e p is o d e o f p e d a g o g ic re a so n in g d o e s n o t d ra w o n a c o n te x t episode of pedagogic reasoning draws on principle or rule of practice: the episode of pedagogic reasoning is completely abstracted from a context since it grounds its judgement in a principle or rule of practice “. . . instead of just using learners’ everyday examples in terms of explaining temperature maybe start with their everyday knowledge . . . to maybe lead to their understanding of temperature and climate” strong sg (sg +) e p is o d e o f p e d a g o g ic r e a so n in g d ra w s o n a c o n te x t episode of pedagogic reasoning draws on situational appreciation of a hypothetical context (if . . . then reasoning): pre-service teacher shows a kind of situational appreciation by imagining a situation in which a given problem might be apparent. ideas deduced from the hypothetical context are drawn on and applied to a given context “. . . when you call out to a learner, all the learners stop, and when you come back now learners don’t know what you were talking about, you have to restart” stronger sg (sg++) episode of pedagogic reasoning draws on a reallife context (own experience): pre-service teacher shows situational appreciation of own experiences as a pre-service teacher during practical teaching experiences, and applies lessons learned from that situational appreciation to another context “i’ve had rowdy classes where it is just noise for an entire 40 minutes.” very strong sg (sg+++) episode of pedagogic reasoning draws on situational appreciation of a given context (putting myself in someone else's experience): pre-service teacher shows situational appreciation of the given context, and applies ideas learned from that situational appreciation to the given context “. . . she mentioned the headings on each of the worksheets or hand-outs and then said, ‘so that’s what we are going to do today’.” so far, in this article i have argued for the centrality of pedagogic reasoning in professional teaching practice has and have highlighted the problem that pedagogic reasoning is not wellunderstood and therefore difficult to teach. i now move on to an analysis of some data from my original doctoral study as a basis for the argument of this article: pedagogic reasoning can be represented by semantic waves that shift in their context dependence. they enable beginning teachers to distinguish between the formal and material elements of teaching and, therefore, they may be in a better position to cope in changing classroom contexts. langsford: coping in complex, changing classroom contexts 61 an analysis of examples of episodes of pedagogic reasoning and their implications to show first how the tools of analysis were enacted, and second how i deduced the findings that are presented in this paper, i present the analysis of two episodes of pedagogic reasoning from the focus group interviews. i also discuss the findings of the analysis in relation to the literature and overall argument of this article, which is that being able to distinguish between the contextual constraints of a particular classroom and the core work that is a mainstay in all classrooms sets teachers up to be able to cope in a diverse array of classroom contexts. i first present the semantic gravity profile of a typical exemplar episode of pedagogic reasoning from a focus group discussion with group a. this was a discussion between laeticia, ashley, and tshepo, although tshepo did not speak in this part of the focus group interview. the participants were discussing what ms mdluli should start doing in her teaching to improve it. the profile shows little waving between the justification of pedagogic reasoning drawing on the context of the lesson which was observed by participants and other contexts or ideas. figure 1 semantic profile of group a's conversation 62 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 group a’s participants’ conversation is in relation to ms mdluli’s use of relevant examples to make the knowledge more accessible to learners, and so, naturally, the context of the observed lesson is the topic on which their conversation begins; the participants hardly draw on any other contexts to justify their pedagogic reasoning. this means that their pedagogic reasoning tends to be very strongly contextually bounded and does not draw upon lesscontextual ideas or principles to make sense of a teaching and learning event. the detailed analysis of the conversation below reveals how the participants tended to ground their justifications in the context of the observed lesson throughout their conversation. table 2 semantic gravity analysis of group a's conversation group a’s focus group discussion analysis laeticia: so . . . ask thought-provoking questions, and just engage. . . feedback directly in relation to the lesson that was observed. sg+++ ashley: and just . . . agreement that this is appropriate feedback in the context of the lesson. sg+++ laeticia: okay. ashley: ja. that’s what i want for the introduction. laeticia: for an introduction. yes. ashley: it’s not always easy. . . introducing. laeticia: ja, i know it is not always easy, but i think it will go so much better if like she was to get, to make more research. because it, it’s not easy getting visual aids, but just, you read books – you’re a teacher, right? you read books. these days we have access to the internet. find something in the internet that is like, that has better explanation than what you see in a textbook. i think that when you present a lesson, you know, you see a textbook first – you read a textbook. so, go on the internet. just type the word, “climate.” see what comes up. you know, you can… you can even not just define it in a social science kind of point of view. you can start with english. justification for episode of pedagogic reasoning is grounded in a hypothetical context – “if she was to. . . ”; “when you present. . . ” laeticia gives advice that is specifically applicable to a hypothetical scenario. sg+ laeticia’s justification then moves back to the specific context of the lesson on climate that she observed and how her earlier advice is applicable in this lesson. sg+++ ashley: ja, yes. agreement that this is suitable feedback in the context of this lesson. sg+++ laeticia: just say, “you know climate in english means this, but in social sciences we are going to look at it as this, and this, and this, and this, and this… reinforcement of the feedback in relation to the context of this lesson. sg+++ ashley: ja. agreement that this is suitable feedback in the context of this lesson. sg+++ a typical episode of pedagogic reasoning for group a in this study could then be described as having very strong semantic gravity which occasionally weakens to having strong semantic gravity. typically, group a’s participants’ pedagogic reasoning does not abstract to an abstracted principle or rule of teaching. these participants show high levels of situational appreciation (morrow, 1996) since their pedagogic reasoning about a particular learning langsford: coping in complex, changing classroom contexts 63 event is justified by the contextual realities of the learning situation in which the lesson is to take place. the reasons for their decisions about the lesson that they observed often come from their “. . . perception of what is salient in [this] particular [situation]” (morrow, 1996, p. 80). while the likes of morrow (1996) and shulman (1987) agree that developing “professional judgements that take informed account of the details of particular situation” (morrow, 1996, p. 80) is important in the preparation of teachers, the downplaying of abstracted theoretical ideas when they are thinking about teaching may inhibit group a’s participants’ ability to distinguish between the formal and material elements of teaching. it may be that participants in group a do have access to context-independent principles of teaching, but do not explicitly draw on them (or they are latent). however, if the criteria for pedagogic decision making comes from situational appreciation of a particular context alone, the criteria for good teaching are not necessarily transferable to other contexts. when the criteria for good teaching are not transferrable, the possibilities of context switching (that is, organising systematic learning in another teaching and learning situation) may be cut down since the criteria for good teaching are no longer present or look different. the constraints under which decisions about this lesson were made may be different in another lesson, another classroom, another school, or another country. when there is no organising framework (given by context-independent principles of teaching, or what morrow (2005, p. 98) calls the “formal elements” of teaching) brought to bear on a pre-service teacher’s thinking about teaching, teaching becomes organised by the practice itself. figure 2 semantic profile of group b's conversation 64 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 i now present the analysis of a typical group b episode of pedagogic reasoning. first, i present the semantic gravity profile of the conversation to guide the analysis of the episode of pedagogic reasoning. this was a discussion between karabo, shanae, tarryn, and tracy. the participants were discussing what ms mdluli should start doing in her teaching to improve it, but the conversation included things that she should stop doing consequently as well. while group b’s participants’ conversation is in relation to ms mdluli’s content knowledge, and so the context of the video is where their conversation begins, the participants engage in semantic waving, between the context of the lesson and the hypothetical, before abstracting to networked principles at the end of the excerpt. the detailed analysis of the conversation below reveals how the participants created that semantic wave throughout their conversation. table 3 semantic gravity analysis of group b's conversation group b’s focus group discussion analysis tarryn: um, well for me it just didn’t seem like she knew what she was teaching. and if you don't know what you're teaching, you're not able to teach it, and then the learners can pick it up, and they're not able to learn. and you can't answer questions, and she didn't know where she was, or like definitions, i don't. . . so if she just took the time to learn about what she was supposedly teaching, then she would have been able to teach it a lot more confidently as well, and be able to handle discipline matters better, and you know, let the children answer the question. she wouldn't have to figure it out for herself. then she'd be able to know when the fact that the children aren't reading graphs, and that they don't. . . like they don't know that stuff. just by knowing what she wants to teach them. feedback is in relation to the context of the observed lesson. sg+++ the justification for tarryn’s feedback is grounded in a hypothetical context – “if you don’t know. . . ”; “if she just took the time. . . then she would have been able to. . . ” sg+ shanae: i agree with tarryn. um, it felt like she only knew what was in the textbook, and i think that's why she relied on it so much. so, there was no deeper knowledge um into that. and then, um, even right at the beginning of the lesson, when she asked the learners "what is climate?" um one of the learners actually responded with the exact same definition she gave them later on. um, but she had said to the learner that they were incorrect. so, it just i think she was searching for one she was searching for one answer, and maybe it was slightly out in terms of the way they phrased it, and then she just discarded it. um, so ja it was very evident that her, she needs to start reading deeper getting to know content before she actually teaches it. shanae reverts to the context of the lesson by speaking about what she observed as a justification for her reasoning that ms mdluli needs to deepen her content knowledge. sg+++ langsford: coping in complex, changing classroom contexts 65 tarryn: i agree. i think if she, like shanae said, knew her content knowledge, she would be able to pick up that the children have made their own understanding, and that they actually do understand and . . . stuff . . . ja. tarryn justifies this same point that ms mdluli needs to deepen her content knowledge by drawing on another hypothetical context – “if she knew . . . she would be able to. . . ” sg+ karabo: i agree with what you guys are saying uh tarryn and shanae, that uh she should have indeed like prepared the content thoroughly, and i also feel like she should allow the learners to actually feel free to talk more in the classroom and to ask questions. because i felt like that was she did not create an environment where you can feel free to just ask a question. karabo picks this point up, justifying her reasoning by giving another hypothetical of what ms mdluli should do – “she should have. . .” sg+ further justification reports observations of the context of the lesson. sg+++ tarryn: i think that would come with; you know if she felt comfortable teaching then she'd feel comfortable with the learners discussing it. the justification is hypothetical – if she felt comfortable…then she’d feel. . . ” sg+ tracy: i also agree. because when you teach something that you do not understand, it's also a bit difficult to keep uh relevant examples. also feel that even though she was asking those questions, at some point she was also not sure of their answers, because learners get different answers, and she would say "oh, twenty-five degrees, maybe twentysix.” tracy justifies her reasoning using an abstracted principle of teaching which is that examples need to be accessible to learners. sg– she then moves her justification to what she observed in the context of the video. sg+++ shanae: i agree with what you're saying, tracy. um, and i think it also comes down to her lesson preparation. um, there was absolutely nothing in her lesson plan about learner um prior knowledge, or learner misconceptions. and knowing that beforehand would have helped her in teaching her lesson. cause then she'd know which examples to use, um, that would be relevant to the learners. she'd pick up on where they might have difficulty in the lesson. um, so i think only as the lesson went on, then she picked up, "oh they actually don't know how to read off a graph," and then the explanation after that i don't think was good enough. shanae justifies her agreement with tracy by using an abstracted principle of teaching, which is that lesson preparation needs to consider learners’ prior knowledge and experiences. sg– the justification moves back to the context of the lesson which was observed. sg+++ group b’s conversation moves between and among the context of the observed lesson, hypothetical teaching and learning contexts, and abstracted principles and ideas. what sets group b’s conversation and justifications for their pedagogic reasoning apart from group a’s is that group b make these moves between the context of the observed lesson and abstract principles of teaching. when pre-service teachers have access to context-independent, systematised educational theory and theoretical principles of teaching, they are in a better position to be able to distinguish between the formal and material elements of teaching (morrow, 1996). abstracted principles and concepts of teaching are “contextually responsive but not contextually bound” (rusznyak, 2015, p. 21) and enable pre-service teachers to distinguish between the formal and material elements of teaching which “are necessarily rooted in 66 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 specific contexts” (morrow, 2005, p. 98). in the case of group b’s conversation presented here, the participants show not only an awareness of what is important in this lesson, but the criteria for their justification of their pedagogic reasoning is drawn from the lesson itself, hypothetical contexts, and context-independent principles of teaching. in rusznyak’s (2015, p. 21) words, group b’s participants take abstracted principles (which are “not contextually bound”) and use them in “contextually responsive” ways. based on this logic, group b’s participants may be in a privileged position when it comes to being able to engage in intentional decision-making in their own classrooms. because group b’s participants use context-independent principles and theories of teaching, they are in a better position to be able to navigate the changing demands of classroom life because they have a conceptual toolkit with which to make sense of a variety of contexts that they face. conclusion in this article, i have presented a set of analytical tools to unpack the abstraction and complexity of two episodes of pedagogic reasoning. the tool i used is the semantic gravity concept of the semantics dimension of lct. the tool was employed to show the abstraction and context-boundedness of episodes of pedagogic reasoning of two groups of pre-service teachers. i argue that pre-service teachers who are able to access and engage with complex, context-independent theoretical ideas in relation to a teaching and learning context are more likely to be able to distinguish between the formal and material elements of teaching. analysis of the data shows that group a’s participants’ justifications for their episode of pedagogic reasoning indicated that they drew on ideas from the context of the observed lesson itself, and occasionally drew criteria from hypothetical teaching contexts. group b’s participants justified their pedagogic reasoning by drawing on contextual cues from the lesson that they observed, hypothetical contexts, and ideas that are abstracted from the context about which they were reasoning. furthermore, group b’s participants moved between context-independent, hypothetical contexts, and the context of the observed lesson to justify their pedagogic reasoning. i have argued that the ability to make this distinction is likely to enable teachers to cope in diverse teaching contexts. i propose that because they have access to theoretical ideas about teaching, group b’s participants may be at an advantage when distinguishing between the formal and material elements of teaching because 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(2012). for philosophy of education in teacher education. oxford review of education, 38(3), 1–18. microsoft word cissue81-full-15dec.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 81, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i81a08 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x deep conceptual learning opportunities in business studies classrooms devika naidoo department of education and curriculum studies, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa devikan@uj.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7725-0540 mbali mabaso university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa 200573319@student.uj.ac.za (received: 21 march 2020; accepted: 19 october 2020) abstract initial tests of the curriculum design coherence model (mcphail, 2020) indicate that teachers face challenges in relation to engaging deeply with the epistemic structure of their subject. in this study, we discuss the additional difficulty that teachers have in identifying appropriate content and examples that will provide opportunities for students’ concept formation. the key question guiding this study was: “what opportunities for deep conceptual learning and cognitive advance are provided in business studies classrooms?” this analysis of the pedagogic practices of teachers is framed by the curriculum design coherence model (cdc) that is informed by deep learning from the cognitivist theory perspective. this article gives an account of observations of grade 11 business studies lessons in two schools. the lessons were observed, recorded, transcribed, and deductively analysed according to an analytical framework based on the cdc model. while there was evidence of concepts that were taught, appropriate subject content necessary for understanding the concept was not evident in most of the lessons. the dominant pedagogy of direct instruction, reading definitions, and copying notes amounted to giving students the definition of concepts and their basic components in a skeletal way. content that requires students to analyse and infer meanings and make generalisations was lacking. the absence of appropriate content and examples, such as case studies in the textbook, curtailed opportunities for deep conceptual learning and cognitive advance. these practices deny learners access to the formal academic knowledge of the discipline. keywords: deep learning, concept formation, epistemic structure, business studies, curriculum design coherence model naidoo & mabaso: deep conceptual learning opportunities in business studies classrooms 137 introduction the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) for business studies (2011) has outlined the significance of both knowledge and skills. it aims at the “attainment and application of business knowledge, skills, and principles to productively and profitably conduct business in changing business environments” (dbe, 2011, p. 8) and developing learners who will be capable of identifying business opportunities, take calculated risks, sustain employment in the competitive world of work and start their own businesses to reduce unemployment in their societies. it prescribes domain specific subject knowledge to be taught, through which students would acquire skills. it foregrounds the attainment and application of knowledge and skills. it consists of four main topics which are business environments, business ventures, business roles, and business operations (department of basic education, 2011). muhle (2014) has noted that the aim of business studies is to develop valuable skills in learners to enable them to solve a business problem creatively in the business world. researchers working on the business studies caps have focused on pedagogy (muhle 2014; sithole, 2018; sithole & lumadi 2012) problem solving (meintjes et al., 2015) and assessment for learning (gouws & russell, 2013). sithole and lumadi (2012) found that business studies teachers in botswana were facing challenges related to teaching the subject matter and experienced constraints in using entrepreneurial pedagogies. meintjies et al. (2015) made a case for teaching problem-solving in business studies at secondary school level. they noted that although the high unemployment rate in south africa compels potential entrepreneurs to start their own businesses in order to survive, there is little or no formal training or education in entrepreneurship. gouws and russel (2013) focussed on caps assessment and described how to prepare teachers of business studies to practise assessment that supports learning. researching the pedagogical orientation of physical science teachers, ramnarian (2014) found that teachers at township schools have a strong active direct teaching orientation overall, while teachers at suburban schools exhibit a guided inquiry orientation, with concepts being developed via a guided exploration phase. however, there is a dearth of knowledge in the area concerned with deep conceptual learning opportunities in the business studies classroom. deep conceptual learning is the mainstay of higher order thinking skills such as inference, generalisation, application in new contexts, and critical thinking. marzano (2010) argued that although thinking and reasoning processes, such as problem solving and decision making, are not new skills, what is new in the last 20 years is that we have become aware that some cognitive processes are foundational to higher order thinking and that inference is one of these foundational processes. in this study, we focus on the question: “what opportunities for deep conceptual learning and cognitive advance are provided in business studies classrooms?” it is framed by the cdc model that is based on deep learning from the standpoint of cognitivist theory (mcphail, 2020). mcphail pointed out that the emphasis in the cdc model is on curriculum design and not pedagogy. in our research we analysed the pedagogic practices of the teachers according 138 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 to the cdc model. to teach for deep learning teachers must master the skill of identifying the key concepts to be taught in a particular topic and develop meaningful ways to help the learners engage with those concepts and to scaffold the learning. thus, all teachers need pedagogical skills to enable them to theorise the content, key concepts, and skills to be taught. having pedagogical skills is necessary if teachers are to be able to anticipate problematic areas in the content and invent creative pedagogical approaches to scaffold the learning processes of each learner (shulman, 1986). deep conceptual learning the view that deep learning rather than surface learning of information, facts, and formulas should be the aim of education (mcphail, 2020) comes closest to articulating the purpose of education as expounded by tyler (1949). while experts in the field of 21st century skills and the cognitive science literature concur that deep learning should be the aim of education, they differ on the knowledge or curriculum that will enable this. the 21st century skills approach suggests that through learning about real-world problems and acquiring interdisciplinary knowledge, deep learning will occur while the cognitive science literature holds that deep learning occurs when domain specific subject knowledge is the starting point for curriculum design. “deep learning requires understanding the related concepts within the overall systems of meaning and the curricular design needs to reflect the logic of the discipline on which it draws” (rata (2016) cited in mcphail (2020, p. 5). the ability to transfer knowledge to new situations or to apply knowledge in different contexts arises from deep conceptual learning. thus, jensen and nickelsen (2008) have defined deep learning as learning that sticks; it is said to have occurred if the learner comes to understand concepts and is able to apply that conceptual knowledge in different contexts. ark and schneider (2016) of the hewlett foundation also see skills and competencies as arising from a deep understanding of academic content that is used for problem solving in the classroom and in job contexts. deep learning is defined as an umbrella term for the skills, dispositions, and knowledge that students must possess to succeed in 21st century jobs and civic life. at its heart is a set of competencies students must master to develop a keen understanding of academic content and apply their knowledge to problems in the classroom and on the job. (william and flora hewlett foundation’s education program, 2013, p. 9) for vygotsky (1978, cited by mcphail, 2020), learning is the gradually developed ability to think conceptually and apply conceptual thinking in various contexts including the sociocultural world. hattie and donoghue (2016) understood deep learning to mean “pursuing meaning, encompassing ideas, searching for patterns and underlying principles, and evaluating conclusions while examining arguments carefully, and, most importantly, becoming actively interested in subject knowledge” (p. 3). a number of researchers have investigated ways in which deep conceptual learning could be facilitated. the well-known so-called lecture method has been shown to be ineffective naidoo & mabaso: deep conceptual learning opportunities in business studies classrooms 139 (aamna, 2017). in this study aamna compared a concept formation teaching model to the lecture method of teaching. the concept formation teaching model was found to be more effective than the lecture method for clarifying and strengthening concepts. peer teaching has been found to be effective for learning concepts (albert & van der mark, 1981). bender and schreiber (1980) proposed a didactic principle that they called the principle of operative concept formation. they noted further that the traditional instruction for concept formation by definition (language), by giving examples (intuition), and by drawing (construction) were pedagogically and epistemologically problematic. students form a clear understanding of a concept by studying examples of it. parker (2020) distinguished deep conceptual learning about a concept from superficial knowledge of the vocabulary words associated with it. according to parker (2020), [w]hen a student forms a concept from its examples, he or she knows more than the definition of a term (e.g., river: he or she also knows some vivid examples of the concept that add flesh to a bare-bones definition, such as the mississippi, the amazon, the yangtze and the volga. (p. 1) pedagogy that supports concept formation, according to parker, includes “an inductive teaching strategy that helps students form a clear understanding of a concept (or idea) through studying a small set of examples of the concept” (2020, p. 1). writing about physics, aufschnaiter and rogge (2012) differentiated between knowledge that is tied to particular objects and situations (such as descriptions and labels) and conceptual knowledge that refers to the commonalities of several objects and situations, known as context-independent knowledge in bernstein’s (2000) theory. according to parker (2020), a concept is defined by critical characteristics shared by all examples of the concept. he explained, for something to be an example of a concept, it must contain all these critical characteristics. to help students form the concept, the teacher helps them first to see these critical characteristics across different examples and, then to summarize those characteristics in a definition that students themselves write. (p. 1) mcphail (2020) proposed a cdc model, based on deep learning as defined by cognitivist theory, that requires coherence and connection across subject concepts, subject content, pedagogy, subject competencies, and assessment. the cdc model arose out of a research project that investigated the challenges faced by first-year engineering students in a concept rich electrical engineering course (collis et al., 2017). they found that students were able to apply formulae and accurately calculate circuit properties but because they did not understand what the word circuit means they were unable to generalise to new contexts. the cdc model is underpinned by a social realist ontology that the world exists independently from our knowledge of it. the model draws on cognitive theory and hypothesises that subject concepts and epistemic structure (which, according to bernstein 140 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 (1999), refers to the unique vertical or horizontal structure of academic knowledge) are the basis of deep learning. mcphail (2020) proposed a cdc model that requires coherence and connection across subject concepts, subject content, subject competencies, pedagogy, and assessment. the model was tested by primary and secondary school teachers in new zealand and england; initial findings indicated challenges for teachers in engaging deeply with the epistemic structure of their subject (mcphail, 2020). in this study, we note the additional difficulty that teachers have in identifying appropriate content and examples that will provide opportunities for students’ concept formation. the curriculum design coherence model the cdc model hypothesises that for deep learning to occur subject concepts and the subject’s epistemic structure ought to be the focus of curriculum design and ought to be made visible by teachers in their pedagogy. the model is based on four elements: select and sequence the subject concepts; connect concepts to content; connect knowledge-that to knowledge-how; and evaluate knowledge-that and knowledge-how. select and sequence the subject concepts the starting place for curriculum design is disciplinary propositions and concepts (mcphail, 2020). all curriculum topics are underpinned by key propositions and concepts. the relationship of the concept to other concepts within the epistemic structure of the subject topic must be borne in mind. mcphail (2020, p. 7) advised that the next step is that “the design must make visible the interconnections of concepts within the topic because a concept acquires its meaning in relation to other concepts within the epistemic structure” of the discipline. beginning a lesson plan with concepts is important since this supports the interrelationship between context-dependent knowledge and generalising or contextindependent knowledge (bernstein, 2000). concerning knowledge-that (kt), the students’ deep learning depends on gradual awareness of inferential relationships within the whole system of meaning and the connection to procedural knowledge or knowledge-how (kh). the teaching sequence will also be derived from the newly formed inferential relations because, as marzano (2010) explained, “helping students understand when information is implied, or not directly stated, will improve their skill in drawing conclusions and making inferences. inferencing is considered a foundational skill and a prerequisite for higher order thinking and 21st century skills” (p. 80). the ability to make inferences is, in simple terms, the ability to use two or more pieces of information from a text in order to arrive at a conclusion (kispal, 2008). to promote inferential connections the teacher needs to identify introductory concepts and connect them to related concepts in the current topic in a discipline. connect concepts to content the second element establishes the distinction between subject concepts and subject content. identifying appropriate content and examples that enable understanding of the concept is the naidoo & mabaso: deep conceptual learning opportunities in business studies classrooms 141 second element of the model. mcphail (2020, p. 18) suggests three criteria for selecting content. • identify appropriate content material and examples to best clarify the meaning of concepts. • include context of the concept or content about the history of knowledge production to show that ideas are always provisional and subject to challenge and change because they are created by people in academic and practice communities. • question whether the selected material is in the social and political interests of students and society. mcphail (2020, p. 18) emphasised the importance of content since it helps accelerate the cognitive development of students and it is “the raw material for the development of conceptual understanding” (p. 18). connect knowledge-that (kt) to knowledge-how (kh) the third element of design is connecting kt (concepts and propositional knowledge) to kh to enable learners to use or apply that knowledge. it includes performance competencies and judgement competencies. “performance competencies refer to the skills used to apply ‘rules’ in practice and to the student’s ability to assess the performance of those skills in terms of the quality of the performance” (mcphail, 2020, p. 8). judgement competencies lend themselves to solving practical or theoretical problems. they require students to know why something is the case. the activities selected by the teacher enable concept formation and learning about the epistemic structure of the subject. during the lesson design stage, the teacher must create a connection between kt and kh. this, according to winch (2017, cited in mcphail, 2020, p. 8) is “the move from knowledge acquisition to possession where the growing application of skills and techniques occur through the interplay of kt and kh.” connecting kt to kh includes giving students practice in specific skills and techniques during which they apply kt to do the activities. in this way students are provided with opportunities to show that they understand the concept. mcphail (2020) further asserted that this collaboration between kt and kh is the foundation for deep learning and long-term retention of knowledge and competencies in a particular subject area. this understanding, according to mcphail, is classified as knowing why since the student questions the reason behind the acquisition of the specific knowledge or skill. evaluate knowledge-that (kt) and knowledge-how (kh) this element of the model focusses on evaluating judgements or decisions made by the student. they are the “means by which the connection is made visible between the cohering components of the model—knowing that and knowing how to” (mcphail, 2020, p. 9). deep learning requires the teacher to evaluate kt and kh through the competencies of content recall, skill and technique, intelligent know-how, and knowing why. recall requires 142 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 evaluating whether students remember the content. knowing content together with memorising it is very important and must be constantly evaluated. this includes testing whether the student can master the facts, understand the concepts, make calculations, understand and use the vocabulary, and know the conventions of that particular academic subject. evaluating skill and techniques shows whether students are able to apply formula and procedural rules to execute the task or solve problems. intelligent knowing how and why is measured by the extent to which students know why they use a skill or a technique. furthermore, the student’s understanding of concepts can also be tested through generalisation and application of conceptual knowledge. being able to offer justification of their application is also important since this indicates a higher level of understanding. the elements of the cdc model were developed further into an external language of description (bernstein, 1996) to assist with lesson analysis. methodology for this research, qualitative research methodology was most suitable because of its flexible research design that allows emergent contingencies to be accommodated during the research process as thompson (2011) pointed out. according to babbie and mouton (2006, p. 53), qualitative research methods “stay close” to the research subject. in this study, we analysed teachers’ classroom practices in relation to whether they offered opportunities for deep learning in their business studies classrooms. we selected two schools in the johannesburg north district in gauteng for this study. the lower socio-economic status school (lsess) is a non-fee-paying school mostly of black learners and a small number of coloured learners. non-fee-paying schools are the poorest government schools. in addition to higher teacher-learner ratios ranging from one to fifty to one to sixty-five these schools are also not as well-resourced as the fee-paying school. this school, a middle socio-economic status school (msess), is a fee-paying former model c school currently catering for learners from different races. this well-resourced school has lower teacher-pupil ratios ranging from one to thirty to one to thirty-five. in this study, we employed the purposive sampling technique. purposive sampling allows researchers to select research participants who would be information-rich, so we selected teachers who had been teaching business studies for a few years. the two teachers in the lsess will be referred to as teacher a (ta) and teacher b (tb). the two teachers in the msess will be referred to as teacher c (tc) and teacher d (td). the table below illustrates the biographic details of the teachers. naidoo & mabaso: deep conceptual learning opportunities in business studies classrooms 143 table 1: biographic details of the teacher participants ses number of years of teaching business studies qualification presently teaching lsess ta 12 advanced certificate in actuarial science and diploma in special needs grade 11 and 12 lsess tb 9 pgce grade 10 and 11 msess tc 4 bed leadership and management 6-month pd course by department grade 11 and 12 msess td 8 bed grade 11 and 12 for this article, data was collected through non-participant lesson observations since it allowed for what cohen et al. (2011) have called authentic data from a natural setting. the teachers chose the lesson that was to be observed. for this study, we planned to do three observations per teacher but were unable to observe the third lesson for two of the teachers because of school activities that included preparation for the fiscal grade 11 business studies competition. nonetheless, the aim of the observation, to get a sense of deep conceptual learning opportunities, was achieved in the two lessons conducted by these two teachers that we were able to observe. during observations, one of the researchers sat unobtrusively at the back of the classroom and made notes on the pedagogical practices of the teacher and on the interactions that were happening in the classroom. the lessons were audio-recorded and compared with field notes later. all audio records were transcribed by one of the researchers and developed further from field notes to derive a written record of the lessons. we deductively analysed the lesson observation transcripts according to the four elements and pedagogical processes of the cdc model. the table below shows the analytical framework developed from the cdc model that guided data analysis. we developed a data analysis spreadsheet that included an additional column for each lesson. we read each lesson transcript and examined it for evidence of each element of the cdc model. we identified dominant practices such as direct instruction, reading out aloud from the textbook, and copying notes that detracted from deep learning. table 2: analytical framework section a: curriculum design coherence model element evidence in the lesson observation data of: 1. select and sequence the concepts • selection, sequencing, and interconnection of subject concepts • opportunities for students to acquire gradual awareness of inferential relationships within the whole system of meaning and the connection to procedural knowledge or kh. 144 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 2. connect concepts to content • appropriate content, examples, and illustrations • content about the history of knowledge production • content in the social and political interests of students and society 3. connect knowledge-that to knowledgehow • performance and judgement competencies in solving practical or theoretical problems. • students knowing-why something is the case. • activities that enable concept formation and learning the epistemic structure of the subject. • giving students practice in specific skills and techniques where they apply kt to do the activities. • providing students with opportunities to show that they understand the concept. 4. evaluate knowledge-that and knowledgehow • evaluating knowledge-that and knowledge-how through three competencies: content recall (acquisition); skills; and techniques (possession). • opportunities for students to generalize from concepts by applying conceptual knowledge to varied contexts. • ongoing evaluative and constructive feedback that helps students to complete the task successfully as part of the learning process. we adhered to the ethical standards and procedures set out by the university. we applied for and obtained an ethical clearance certificate from the university ethics committee. we obtained approval to conduct research in these selected schools from the gauteng provincial department of education. we obtained signed consent letters from principals that granted us permission to conduct the research in both participating schools. we informed all the teacher participants about the purpose of the study and they consented to it. we assured all participants that their identities and responses would be kept confidential, and that their names would not be used anywhere in the study. most importantly, we made sure that participants were fully aware of their right to withdraw from the study at any time. finally, we informed the participants that the study would make recommendations for improvements in pedagogical practices of business studies teachers. data analysis, presentation, and findings table 3 below provides a summary of the analysis of lesson observation data according to the pedagogic processes advocated by the cdc model. each aspect is elaborated on further in the sections that follow. table 3: summary of data analysis pedagogic process as per cdc model evident or not in 10 lessons comments applicable to all 10 lessons selection of subject concepts evident in all 10 lessons business studies concepts were being taught sequences concepts evident in all 10 lessons sequencing was evident as per policy interconnects concepts evident in 1lesson surface interconnection inferential relationships not evident in all 10 lessons a telling or narrative pedagogy naidoo & mabaso: deep conceptual learning opportunities in business studies classrooms 145 connecting concept to content evident in 1lesson surface connection selecting appropriate content evident in 1lesson one example in one lesson was given by the teacher to enable learners’ understanding evidence of fallibility of knowledge. history of knowledge not evident in all 10 lessons this component of enabling understanding of the fallibility of knowledge was not evident evidence of knowledge in the social and political interest of students not evident in all 10 lessons there was no connection to knowledge in the social and political interest of students connection kt to kh specific methods and skills not evident in all 10 lessons specific methods and skills not practiced validation of understanding not evident in all 10 lessons not evaluated evaluation of kt and kh evident in all 10 lessons recall evaluated evaluation of skill and technique not evident in all 10 lessons skill and techniques not evaluated evaluation of whether students know why not evident in all 10 lessons intelligent knowing not evaluated concept selection and sequencing all four teachers had identified business studies concepts and propositional knowledge to be taught to students. they were teaching the topic “entrepreneurship and social responsibility” from the section called “business ventures and business roles” in the caps. while all the teachers were teaching the concepts as prescribed by the caps, surface vocabulary definitions were provided. for example, teacher c (hereafter tc) in her lessons was teaching the topic “entrepreneurial qualities in business.” at the start of the first lesson, learners received a handout with concepts relevant to the topic to be learned. tc commenced by reading out aloud the full definition of an entrepreneur from the via afrika business studies grade 11 study guide (chaplin et al., 2013). an entrepreneur is someone who starts and manages or organises his/her own business and can either identify business opportunities to make new products or services or identify business opportunities to change existing products or services. (p. 132) tc moved on to analyse the definition by pointing out that “the first thing . . . is that an entrepreneur is someone who first identifies and researches a business opportunity.” she went on to say, the first thing we’ve learned in this topic is that an entrepreneur is someone who first identifies and researches a business opportunity, then later starts his/her own business. in grade 10 we learned that business opportunities are divided into two ventures. what are those ventures? the learners raised their hands and the teacher pointed to two of them to give the answers. l1 replied. “a person can either sell new or old products.” l2 said, “render services to his 146 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 customers.” the teacher followed this up by saying, “let’s clap hands for both of them as they are correct.” the learners clapped their hands. in this dialogue the teacher brings in prior knowledge that connects to the current topic. she continued the lesson by further clarifying the difference between the two types of business ventures mentioned in the learners’ responses. she explained to the learners that some entrepreneurs can offer both goods and services in their businesses. this encouraged the learners to give their own examples, which led to a short class discussion. she provided opportunities for students to understand the two types of business ventures. the handout contained other related concepts such as “opportunity-seeking”, “perseverance”, and “risk-taker,” and these terms appeared below the key concept. tc moved onto a discussion of these qualities of an entrepreneur. she analysed the qualities of perseverance with the learners. she asked, “what is perseverance? a learner replied, “simply means not giving up.” the teacher asked if anyone had a different answer and a learner said, “. . . to continue in a course of action under difficult circumstances.” the teacher responded by saying, “i think i like that one.” she went on to ask, “what are the synonyms of perseverance?” one learner offered “continue” and another said, “persist.” here we can see that several opportunities were provided for learners to grasp the meaning of perseverance as an entrepreneurial quality. tc introduced and defined what an entrepreneur is, spoke about the two types of business ventures, and discussed the qualities of an entrepreneur. through exposition and analysis, she presented definitions of key concepts and their attributes. in going further than merely explaining the vocabulary definition of the qualities of entrepreneurship, tc could have provided more examples of different entrepreneurs. the support provided by government structures or private companies should have been included. learners may then realise that perseverance is just not an individual or innate quality but is also dependent on the social structures that enable it. for inferential thinking to be practised learners require a range of examples from which they deduce the generalisation and its justification. they need to know the empirical variations and complexities that arise in different cases and contexts. teacher d (hereafter td) was teaching the concept of citizenship roles and responsibilities and the sub-concepts of social responsibility, corporate social responsibility, and corporate social investment. in this lesson she began by reading the definition outlined in the gauteng education department’s business studies grade 12 notes on csr and csi 2019 1 social responsibility [is] an ethical viewpoint that says every individual/organization has an obligation to benefit society as a whole. (p. 3) she then went on to read from chaplin et al. (2013) 1 the gauteng education department’s study guide notes are prepared by facilitators to ensure that learners access the same content across the board. they are meant to ensure that teachers do not use outdated textbooks so are revised each year. currently, these have not yet been published but, once finalised the notes will be rolled out to the whole country. naidoo & mabaso: deep conceptual learning opportunities in business studies classrooms 147 corporate social responsibility (csr) is a company’s sense of responsibility towards the community and environment (both ecological and social) in which it operates. (p. 136) td explained to the learners that businesses need to be involved with social responsibility projects to uplift the communities in which they operate. she informed students that social responsibility projects would be discussed later. td then moved to on to read the definition of corporate social investment (csi) in the gauteng education department’s business studies grade 12 notes on csr and csi 2019. “corporate social investment (csi) is the investment of corporate funds/other assets for the primary purpose of achieving social outcomes” (p. 4). in the lesson the definition of the concepts was read out and the teacher established the connection between concepts at a basic level only. the epistemic structure of the subject could have been developed in the section on citizenship roles and the two types of responsibility—corporate responsibility and corporate social responsibility. in each, examples ought to have been provided for concept formation to be enabled. inferential thinking refers to helping learners make inferences when information is implied rather than being stated directly. since the teacher either read out the textbook definitions or learners were given information by the teacher, inferential thinking was not activated in any of the lessons we observed. tc read out all the concepts together with their definitions in the handout. similarly, the other teachers observed in this study also read out the definitions of concepts in the textbook. for deep learning to occur mcphail (2020) has advised teachers to identify concepts in the current topic and to encourage learners to make inferential connections. for inferential reasoning to be activated learners derive the variations in characteristics of the concept by analysing content, such as case studies, on their own. to justify their generalisations, they cite proof. for example, for the generalisation that entrepreneurs start off with very little capital, a learner might cite by way of proof that the airbnb business was founded by its originator, brian chesky, who needed money to pay his rent. the airbnb’s business began when chesky accepted a boarder who provided the required money. the focus on everyday knowledge also detracted from the focus on the concepts and the epistemic structure of the subject. for, example, ta set a task on business roles individuals play in their communities. of the three learners who read their work out, the first learner’s presentation is reproduced below. as an individual i have a responsibility to make sure that the environment i live in is protected. during school holidays my friends and i make sure that we clean local parks by collecting bottles and tins that people litter on the grounds. we place plastic bags around the park and show people where they need to [put] their waste. we also teach kids about the effects of littering [on] the environment. we show them around the park how [the] littering of bottles, tins, and plastics cause damage [to] the grass and future growth of the grass and other plants. 148 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 this learner was followed by others who read out their paragraphs that indicated similar community related work in which they engaged. connecting concepts to content data analysis of the lesson transcripts showed very little engagement with content that illustrated the meaning of the concepts. it was only tc who identified an appropriate example for learners to conceptualise the meaning of two types of business ventures. she gave the example of a salon owner who offers hair services to her customers, and, at the same time, sells hair products inside the salon. the learners could see the connection between the concept of a business venture and a local example that would enable them to grasp the meaning of the concept. the dominant practice we observed on the part of the learners was the copying of notes that the teacher wrote on the board or the copying of notes from the textbook or study guides. the dominant practice of teachers was reading out aloud definitions of concepts from the study guides. for example, tb started the lesson by instructing the learners to copy down the definitions from the textbook, platinum business studies. grade 11, learner's book (pinnock et al., 2012) into their note books as she wrote these on the board. tb copied the definitions exactly as they appear in the textbook. when learners had copied the notes, tb introduced the lesson by reading the definitions out aloud. she then informed the learners that these definitions needed to be learned and memorised for exam purposes. the lesson conducted by tb was dominated by the copying down of notes. during the lesson, she did not provide appropriate content nor examples to enable any understanding of the concepts to take place. her main practice was writing notes on the board. question and answer sessions and class discussions were not evident in the lesson conducted by tb. the topic presented by ta was on citizenship roles and responsibilities. she began by reading a list of definitions outlined at the beginning of the chapter in the textbook. learners highlighted or underlined the definitions in their textbooks as ta defined the two main concepts of social responsibility and corporate social responsibility. after reading out these concepts, ta emphasised to the learners that the definitions needed to be memorised for the term 3 controlled test. ta explained to the learners that the social responsibility projects would be dealt with in greater detail in the grade 12 syllabus. she then continued with citizenship roles and responsibilities, saying, “now that you are aware of the difference (between social responsibility and corporate social responsibility), we will now discuss the citizenship roles and responsibility towards stakeholders. lebo, can you read the first passage for us.” naidoo & mabaso: deep conceptual learning opportunities in business studies classrooms 149 all four teachers read out definitions from the textbook or study guide to learners or got the latter to read them out aloud. the extent to which teachers read out definitions and/or got learners to copy them down was greater in ta’s and tb’s lessons. td taught three concepts (social responsibility, corporate social responsibility, and corporate social investment) under the topic of citizenship roles and responsibilities without examples or content. furthermore, all the teachers observed bypassed the content provided in the textbooks they were using. for example, this case study in the via afrika business studies grade 10 learner's book (bean et al., 2013, p. 115), 2 that deals with a local entrepreneur’s enormous success could have been engaged with during the lesson. case study: ina paarman’s story ina paarman inherited her love of food and cooking from her grandmother who was an enthusiastic cook. ina started working with food by offering cooking classes at night in the garage of her house. the classes were soon popular and ina branched out and began to make her own ingredients. originally, she made mostly salad dressings and sauces, but this meant that she mostly had a summer market. she therefore diversified her range and also began to export to europe and the united states. today, her son, graham, works with ina. ina formulates the recipes for the products and graham manages the factory and the finances. ina believes that a closely knit family is a good basis for a successful business. furthermore, the useful activity that appeared below the case study, based on this case study, that appears in chaplin et al. (2013, p. 203), was also not addressed by any of the teachers. discuss reasons for being an entrepreneur. work in groups and discuss the following statement: “among the people who become entrepreneurs, many are doing so because they cannot find employment in the formal sector of the economy.” furthermore, this case study could have been analysed for other business processes such as diversification, seasonal market fluctuations, and the export of products. more case studies of different types from various sources could have been provided for learners to use to analyse, gather data, and develop a data table. the literature on pedagogy for concept formation shows that concept formation cannot happen without appropriate content and examples. data analysis shows that teachers have difficulty with the key requirement of identifying and including appropriate content material 2 teachers use the resources available to them and most of the learners would have been familiar with the content of this grade 10 book. 150 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 to clarify the meaning of concepts. this leads to teachers reading out textbook content and definitions of concepts as vocabulary words to learners. pedagogically, it amounts to telling learners the definition of concepts in a “bare-bones” way (parker 2020, p. 1). learners were not provided with content that required them to analyse and infer meanings and make generalisations. the lack of appropriate examples of entrepreneurs about whom students could infer deep conceptual knowledge reduced the deep learning opportunities for them. none of the teachers included content about the history of knowledge production to show that ideas are always provisional and subject to challenge and change. for example, both concepts of csr and csi are recent additions to business studies. learners need to know this history of how knowledge is produced since being ignorant of this leads them to accept knowledge as given, objective, and universally true. additionally, the contents of the textbook ought to have been subjected to critical scrutiny. there was no evidence in the lessons of content material aimed at meeting the social and political interests of learners. the lack of differentiation of knowledge and information about different levels of entrepreneurship denied learners the opportunity to learn about future opportunities as entrepreneurs. connection of knowledge-that (kt) to knowledge-how (kh) the third element of the model requires that teachers connect kt to kh; learners must be able to apply the knowledge they have learned. this includes performance and the judgement competencies to solve practical and theoretical problems. since the mediation of kt occurred only at surface level, any connection to kh was necessarily superficial as well. linking kt to kh is vital for learners’ understanding and for application to their everyday lives. this linking activates everyday or common-sense knowledge, examples of which could provide a good starting point, but this needs to be expanded to include other examples as well. successful entrepreneurs in the community, for example, could provide authentic examples to the learners of each entrepreneurial quality in relation to personal experiences, challenges, and threats, and how problems were solved. both topics, entrepreneurial qualities and entrepreneurial corporate responsibility, were dealt with only at the level of definition. learners were not required to exercise performance and judgement competencies. activities and exercises were limited in all classrooms. in tb’s lesson, learners were given a homework activity from the textbook, as part of their formative assessment. tb did not demonstrate to the learners how the key concepts of the topic listed in the textbook and read out at the beginning of the lesson could be applied in a real-life situation, and in different contexts. for instance, the owner of the school tuck-shop could have been invited to share real life experiences of running a business and thus give the learners a chance to ask questions addressed to an entrepreneur whom they know. although the learners were seated in groups in ta’s class, no discussion at all ensued during the lesson. in one lesson, the teacher recited definitions of the following business roles in detail: social responsibility; environmental sustainability; economic prosperity; product naidoo & mabaso: deep conceptual learning opportunities in business studies classrooms 151 stewardship; procurement; product access and dualistic economy; apartheid legacy; and poverty and hiv/aids. the following excerpt illustrates the direct instruction technique she used. she said, learners, it is very important to note that business owners have a mandate to assist the government to uplift communities they operate in. let’s look at each role the businesses play. the first role: social responsibility: what is csr under social responsibility? corporate social responsibility (csr) is a company’s sense of obligation towards the community and the environment (both ecological and social) in which it operates. there are many factors that contribute to local communities requiring social responsibility from the government and the businesses. factors such as inequalities of the past, the ever-increasing population growth, lack of adequate skills which leads to high unemployment. therefore, businesses have a mandate to bring change in the communities they operate in, because the government cannot do it alone. businesses can reduce poverty by donating money or food parcels to the needy and orphanages. also, give away bursaries to those students who wants to further their studies. also organise health awareness campaigns that teaches about hiv/aids. please note that businesses spend their profits when they get involved in uplifting their communities. how else can businesses get involved? a learner responded, “in order to reduce poverty businesses can create more jobs and hire more people in the community, while equipping them with skills.” ta then said, “very good. businesses can also support sporting tournaments. let us move to business role number 2. the second role is environmental sustainability.” she did not show the learners how the key concepts of the topic could be applied in a real-life situation. for instance, she could have discussed a case study that depicted real-life local initiatives in which the local businesses engage to improve the local communities, or she could have shown a video portraying corporate social responsibility programmes. in a nutshell, the learners were not provided with any content to facilitate their concept formation. they were not given a chance to apply the learned concepts and content to other contexts during the lesson. in all lessons, learners were not required to read, analyse, gather, and organise data. three of the four teachers did not provide learners with opportunities for evaluation and validation of understanding of concepts. the further requirement of curriculum design for deep learning to provide ongoing evaluative and constructive feedback that helps students to complete the task successfully as part of the learning process was not evident. all that was required of the learners was to read from the textbook and/or study guide, listen to the teacher read from the textbook, and jot down notes. evaluative and constructive feedback was not provided by the teachers to assist them through tasks to consolidate concept formation. 152 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 evaluation of knowledge-that (kt) and knowledge-how (kh) this element of the model requires the teacher to evaluate knowledge-that (kt) and knowledge-how (kh) through competencies like content recall, skill and technique, intelligent know-how, and knowing why. the first competency of recall requires evaluating whether learners remember the content. all four teachers did evaluate the learners’ recall competency. for example, as noted above, tc asked questions to assess learners’ understanding but there was no progression to questions that would evaluate higher order skills and techniques and understanding such as generalisation, justification of generalisation, and the application of conceptual knowledge. the evaluation of skills and techniques was not evident. learners ’s understanding of concepts was not tested through generalisation and the application of conceptual knowledge. justification of their application that validates, in turn, a higher level of understanding was also not evaluated. discussion the lessons showed that key concepts had been selected and sequenced in a logical way. this finding is similar to that of hoadley (2018) who noted stronger classification of subject knowledge in her research on pedagogy in lessons on reading and numbers. the explicit prescriptions in the caps policy of concepts to be taught and reinforced by the annual teaching programme (atp) that outlines topics and concepts and is monitored by the heads of departments are undoubtedly supporting teachers in the selection and sequencing of concepts. the pedagogical practice of teachers that ranged from direct instruction in the defining of concepts, reading definitions out aloud, and copying notes from the chalkboard hindered deep conceptual learning from occurring in learners. cappy (2016), in her study of teachers in south african secondary schools, found evidence of a similar pedagogy being in place. she found that the most common practice was narrative instruction or telling students what to think and how to act. direct instruction, narration, and telling students what the definitions consist of are ineffective strategies to achieve deep conceptual learning. this kind of direct instruction by teachers is similar to the lecture method that aamna (2017) found to be ineffective for concept formation. bender and schreiber (1980) noted that this traditional form of instruction by definition is pedagogically and epistemologically problematic for concept formation. this study provides further evidence of ramnarian’s (2014) findings that teachers at township schools, an example of which is referred to as an lses school in this study, have a strong active direct teaching orientation overall instead of a guided inquiry orientation, with concepts being developed via a guided exploration phase. furthermore, in most of the lessons, the teachers in this study did not elaborate on the definitions nor did they analyse them at all. failing to identify and establish attributes of the concept served to make its knowledge structure invisible as bernstein (1999) pointed out in his theory of social class and pedagogic practice. the epistemic structure remained implicit since vertical and horizontal interconnections were not explicitly pointed out. naidoo & mabaso: deep conceptual learning opportunities in business studies classrooms 153 the common practice of the teachers in this study of reading definitions out loud accompanied by supplemental instruction hindered higher-level thinking and cognitive advance in their learners. this practice of reading aloud textbook knowledge seems to be quite common in south african classrooms. cappy (2016) wrote about a life orientation teacher who asked learners to read aloud while simultaneously instructing them on the social consequences of pregnancy. another practice that hindered higher level thinking skills and cognitive advance in the learners was their having to copy down notes from the textbook, study guide, or the chalkboard. the practice of such copying down of notes was also highlighted in studies by cappy (2016), hoadley (2018), and probyn (2017). probyn (2017) researched language and learning in south african classrooms and noted the practice of “teachers resorting to writing up simplified notes on the chalkboard for students to copy” (p. 28) that would compromise linguistic access, equity, and social justice. hoadley (2018) also found copying notes to be common in the classrooms she observed. cappy (2016) observed that when teachers covered topics of democracy and human rights, they frequently had students copy down notes without supplemental discussion. their lessons focused on the memorisation of terms rather than on how such concepts can be practised. the practices of direct instruction or telling the learners the names of the concepts, reading aloud from the textbook, and copying notes will not lead to deep learning since “deep learning requires actively pursuing meaning, searching for patterns and underlying principles, evaluating conclusions, examining arguments carefully, and becoming actively interested in subject knowledge” (hattie & donoghue, 2016, p. 3). the second element of connecting concept to content was not evident in any of the lessons. given the lack of appropriate learning experiences—a principle of curriculum design (tyler, 1949)—the understanding of concepts is jeopardised. although content in the form of case studies and activities was provided in the textbook and study guide, these teachers did not include them in their lessons. the lack of appropriate content and examples that would enable concept formation restricted any deep conceptual learning from taking place in the learners. inferential reasoning was not expected of them. the distinction between surface and deep structure of knowledge enables understanding of the form of knowledge that was mediated in the lessons. in her book, pedagogy in poverty, hoadley (2018, p. 4) characterised an “enduring” feature of pedagogy in the south african classrooms she researched as “the knowledge substance underpinning the pedagogy [being] thin or absent.” teachers “mimic the surface characteristics of the task” (macdonald, 2002, cited in hoadley, 2018, p. 4). smith and colby (2007) concluded that teacher participants in their study lacked knowledge of deep learning approaches and settled to teach at surface levels which led to their learners demonstrating surface outcomes instead of deep learning ones. because such findings were common among their communities of teachers and learners, they proposed that “teachers need to understand, value, and foster deep approaches to learning in their students” (p. 205). it would appear, as mentioned earlier, that teachers are focusing on what parker (2020) referred to as “bare-bones definition” without “adding flesh” by failing to provide 154 journal of education, no. 81, 2020 opportunities for learners “to also know vivid examples of the concept” (p. 1). the lack of content and examples that would facilitate concept formation further prevented deep conceptual learning from taking place. a possible explanation could be that teachers have difficulty in identifying appropriate subject content and examples that would provide opportunities for learners’ concept formation. it could be that the four teachers whose lessons we observed do not see the value of subject content as a way of enabling understanding of a concept or they are of the view that providing appropriate content and examples slows down curriculum coverage. a possible explanation for mediating the definitions in such a narrowly restricted way could be that the textbook and the notes from the local governing district lists the concepts and definitions in the same way thus legitimizing teachers’ surface level mediation of knowledge. another possible explanation is that these teachers all teach towards examination and test preparation. in td’s case it was evident that content knowledge was lacking, and this is yet another possible explanation. our results show that these teachers might be having difficulty with the key requirement of identifying appropriate content and examples that support concept formation. the readymade department lesson plans should include content and examples or case studies for teachers to use. without appropriate content that requires analysis and inferential thinking deep conceptual understanding will not be enabled in the learners. these results suggest that most of the learning in these grade 11 business studies classrooms is characterised by surface learning, as hoadley (2018), in her study of foundation phase classrooms, noted. the absence of engagement with content introduces incoherence across subject concept and the third element of connecting kt to kh becomes impossible. the teachers in this study did not include opportunities for learners to solve practical and theoretical problems. furthermore, in the evaluation step, the evaluation of kt occurred at the basic level of recall while the evaluation of techniques and methods and the application to a variety of contexts (kh) was lacking. conclusion we conclude that limited opportunities for deep conceptual learning and cognitive advance were provided in these business studies classrooms. in terms of the cdc model the incoherence across the four elements of subject concepts, subject content, subject competencies, and assessment disrupted deep learning opportunities. instead of coherence across the four elements we found elements two and three to be absent. coherence was evident across the first element—subject concepts— and the basic part of element four— evaluation of kt—at the fundamental level of recall of definitions. the dominant practices of direct instruction, reading textbook definitions, and having learners copy down notes displaced elements two and three as well as advanced levels of element four. since the dominant practices have also been highlighted by other researchers, as discussed above, it is naidoo & mabaso: deep conceptual learning opportunities in business studies classrooms 155 imperative that attention be paid to teachers’ own depth of understanding of subject content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge of deep conceptual learning. since deep learning requires teachers to have a panoramic overview of the subject as noted by winch (2017) in mcphail (2020), for them to be able to teach it well, some effort ought to be made to deepen teachers’ subject content knowledge. we recommend interventions to improve teachers’ capability of teaching for deep conceptual learning based on selecting appropriate content to facilitate concept formation. furthermore, digital resources on the internet could be included in their cognitive horizon (hoadley, 2018) to supplement what is in the textbooks. however, more research is required to establish how widespread the difficulty with selecting appropriate content and examples to enable concept formation is for business studies teachers. the cdc model enables a systematic analysis of different pedagogic processes that contribute to deep conceptual learning. it goes further than general descriptions such as learner-centred and teacher-centred pedagogy into a more detailed analysis of the four epistemic dimensions that require coherence/connection across subject 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(1949) basic principles of curriculum and instruction. university of chicago press. teacher salary differentials using purchasing power parity (ppp): a south african perspective as both a ‘source’ and ‘destination’ country gavin george and bruce rhodes abstract teacher migration is a problem for developing countries as it impacts on delivery of quality education. the potential to earn higher incomes remains the most common factor driving teacher migration. this study seeks to investigate how the south african teacher salary structure compares with the equivalent salary structure in six prominent migrating countries whilst highlighting the economic appeal of south africa from a zimbabwean teacher perspective. using a representative basket of commonly bought goods (including food, entertainment, fuel and utilities), a purchasing power parity (ppp) ratio is used to equalise the international price of buying that basket. our study makes comparisons, using a ppp index, and allows the identification of real differences in salaries for our selected countries (south africa, united states, united kingdom, canada, australia, new zealand, japan and zimbabwe) for selected teaching categories. even when controlling for differences in the cost of living, the incentive for a south african teacher to seek work overseas remains strong and increases with career experience. a worrying conclusion for south africa concerned with keeping its experienced teachers is that as more human capital is gained by experience, the greater the incentive to emigrate. background all countries seek to ensure they provide a suitable standard of education as part of their developmental goals. importantly, possessing an adequate supply of teachers is instrumental in ensuring the provision of quality education (mugano, 2010). maintaining an adequate supply of quality teachers is thus paramount, but can be a challenge for some developing countries. increased globalisation has resulted in the movement of skilled labour, including teachers, from developing to developed or economically stronger countries. it is these emigrating teachers which hamper the ‘source’ countries’ ability to provide quality education, thus compromising their own developmental goals (south african council for educators (sace), 2011). 112 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 skilled labour is enticed from these ‘source’ countries for socio-economic and career gains. skilled professionals are migrating from developing countries to fill the gaps in the labour market in developed countries. research has suggested that this phenomenon is particularly damaging to the economic growth of those developing countries affected by migration (asmal, 2001; louw, 2001a, b). in many developed countries the pool of teachers is ageing due to an inability to attract young people into the profession. teacher shortages peaked in the late 1990s and early 2000s in many developed countries, including the united kingdom (uk), united states (us), canada, australia and netherlands (van leeuwan, 2001). these shortages were as a result of the ageing teaching workforce and, as was the case in the uk, the relative decline of salaries and working conditions of teachers, which resulted in inadequate recruitment and diminishing retention rates (smithers and robinson, 2001). conservative estimates revealed that there was a national shortage of 40,000 teachers in the uk (ochs, 2003). such shortages lead governments to actively recruit foreign teachers (naidu, 2001). these recruitment drives were undertaken by agencies and targeted developing countries where english was an official language (manik, maharaj and sookrajh, 2006). research suggests that the more qualified and more experienced teachers were targeted by recruitment efforts (ochs, 2003). whilst this practice peaked in the late 1990s and early 2000s, teachers will continue to be lured to countries where a financial benefit can be accrued. teaching in south africa appleton, sives and morgan (2006a) argue that the demand and supply of teachers is determined by government policies. migration in south africa (sa) was provided impetus by the perception in the 1990s that there was an oversupply of teachers in the country. in 1997 sa introduced a moratorium which lasted until 2000, restricting newly qualified teachers to temporary positions within the education department. these conditions created fertile ground for those countries experiencing shortages in the supply of educators, to take advantage and lure sa teachers abroad (appleton, sives and morgan, 2006a). teacher attrition, fuelled by teacher migration to pursue socioeconomic and career opportunities abroad (bertram, appleton, muthukrishna and wedekind, 2006; manik, maharaj and sookrajh, 2006), was exacerbated george and rhodes: teacher salary differentials. . . 113 by high incidences of hiv/aids and subsequent teacher mortality (shisana, peltzer, zungu-dirwayi and louw, 2005). this emerging teacher crisis was illustrated by numerous studies with morgan, sives and appleton (2006) estimating that the total teacher population in south africa was approximately 400,000 in 2006 and that south africa needed to recruit 17,000 to 20,000 teachers per year if learner-toeducator ratios of 40:1 for primary schools and 35:1 for secondary schools were to be maintained. despite this warning, teacher training output was only around 9,000 newly qualified teachers per year. low production rates of teachers were compounded by high attrition rates with the education minister concluding in 2004 that each year in south africa 17,000 teachers were leaving the teaching profession (mkhize, 2004). a study in 2005 showed that 27.4% of final-year south african student teachers were planning to teach abroad (bertram et al., 2006). in recognition of the increased prevalence of teacher migration, especially to the uk, the south african government’s response in 2001 was to call for the regulation of teacher recruitment (gilbey, 2001). in the absence of any regulatory force this had little effect. in september 2004, amidst broader concerns about teacher recruitment from developing countries within the commonwealth, the sa minister of education and 22 commonwealth states signed a protocol on teacher recruitment. this was to provide an ethical guideline for the recruitment of teachers at an international level (manik, maharaj and sookrajh, 2006). in an attempt to counter outward migration sa sought to recruit teachers from abroad to fill vacant posts, especially in the fields of mathematics and science, and especially in the rural areas (ranga, 2015). sa actively recruited teachers from india, zimbabwe, singapore, malaysia and uganda (de villiers, 2004). zimbabwean teachers were identified as an under-utilised resource with forde (2007) estimating that approximately 10,000 zimbabwean trained teachers were living in sa in 2006, with 4,000 qualified mathematics and science teachers among them. a further study (sace, 2011) suggested there remained an increasing number of teachers from other african countries (e.g., lesotho, zimbabwe, zambia, etc.) immigrating into south africa due to the country’s relative economic prosperity, political stability and promise of better working conditions and income. 114 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 despite the availability of this teaching resource a policy of restriction was implemented through the use of a system of work and residence permits (wentzel and tlabela, 2006). furthermore, a foreign qualified teacher was required to be professionally registered for teaching in sa, resulted in an additional barrier. according to the commonwealth secretariat (2010), thousands of teachers from zimbabwe are unable to work as teachers as their qualifications are not recognised by south african qualifications agencies. however, 2012 persal data indicates that there are 6214 foreign teachers teaching in public schools within south africa, constituting 2% of the total teaching workforce in public schools. zimbabwean teachers make up 68% of the total foreign teaching workforce (department of basic education (dbe), 2013). teacher migration the ‘big five’ destination countries for sa teachers include the us, uk, australia, new zealand and canada (sunday times, 08–12–2002). in the late 1990s statistics south africa estimated that on average 1,000 skilled people were leaving sa every month (harichunder, 2001). a study of emigration to the uk, us, new zealand, canada and australia suggested that close to a quarter of a million south africans have settled in these countries between 1989 and 1997 (louw, 2001).there are seemingly no reliable figures on exactly how many teachers are leaving south africa, or for how long they are staying abroad. however, figures from the british department of home affairs illustrate the stark rise in teacher migration. only 20 work permits were issued in 1997–1998 for south african teachers to teach in the uk (jansen, 2002), but between 2001 and 2003 4,702 work permits were approved by the uk for sa teachers (caravatti, lederer, lupico and meter, 2014). africans constitute the majority of foreign teachers in the united kingdom (appleton et al. 2006a; manik, maharaj and sookrajh, 2006) with south africa listed as the largest foreign provider of teaching staff in the united kingdom (kok, gelderblom, oucho and van zyl, 2006; morgan, sives and appleton, 2006; caravatti et al., 2014). appleton, sives and morgan (2006a) suggest that between 0.5–4% of all south african trained teachers work abroad. of concern is that the research further suggests that 48% of practicing teachers in south africa intended to migrate and 27% of student teachers were considering migrating upon graduation. george and rhodes: teacher salary differentials. . . 115 reasons for teacher migration the sa education system has been blamed for the disenchantment sa teachers have with the profession. arends and phurutse (2009) suggest the problem lies with the lack of formal structures, policies and strategies for teacher retention. a growing desire from teachers to leave the profession is further aggravated by low morale, low levels of job satisfaction, unpleasant working conditions (shalem and hoadley, 2009) and high levels of job stress correlated with time pressures, educational changes, administrative problems, educational systems, professional distress and pupil misbehaviour (peltzer, shisana, zuma,van wyk and zungu-dirwayi, 2009). manik, maharaj and sookrajh (2006) unpack the problems with the educational policies further, and suggests that the implementation of outcomes-based education (obe) along with the application of the postprovisioning norm (ppn) or teacher-pupil ratio in schools to determine additional teachers, and the instability faced by unprotected temporary educators (utes) have played a big role in unsettling teachers resulting in many exploring the option of teaching abroad. further to these changes, teachers were concerned about their limited career mobility, poor management and increased workloads (manik, maharaj and sookrajh 2006). given the systemic problems described above, the option of migrating must appear inviting. international migration becomes desirable when teachers consider the large wage differentials between potential earnings abroad and domestic wage offerings (appleton, morgan and sives, 2006b). for example, morgan, sives and appleton (2006) observed that south africans were able to earn three to four times more by teaching in the uk than by staying in their own country. further studies have confirmed that the dominating motivator for migration was the opportunity to earn a higher salary and to travel, followed by professional development (rasool, botha and bisschoff , 2012). these ‘pull’ factors (i.e., the lure of the destination countries) appeared to play a stronger role than the ‘push’ factors (i.e., the negative aspects of teaching in sa), including career progression opportunities, the high crime rate and bad working conditions (ochs, 2003; de villiers, 2004; appleton, sives and morgan, 2006a). 116 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 indeed all teachers’ salaries are relative, and south africa benefits from the fact that its salaries are higher relative to those offered by its neighbouring countries. south africa has long been attracting teachers from the rest of the african continent and projections point towards the continuation of such a pattern of migration as long as south africa remains economically dominant and attractive in africa (wentzel, viljoen and kok, 2006). in the financial year of 2009/2010, the south african council for educators (sace) registered 28,723 new educators, and foreign educators registered made up approximately 28% of registered educators; however, the registration of foreign teachers was on a provisional annually renewable basis (sace, 2010). the movement of zimbabwean teachers into south africa has been attributed, in part, to the political instability in their country of origin. while politics may be a reason, research shows that economic reasons are more likely to serve as an impetus, primarily because zimbabwean teachers who come to south africa continue to send remittances to their families back home and commute back and forth between zimbabwe and south africa (makina, 2007; mosala, 2008). this study seeks to investigate how the south african school teacher wage structure compares with the equivalent wage structure in six prominent migrating countries whilst highlighting the economic appeal of south africa from a zimbabwean teacher perspective. careful attention is made to differences in the cost of living between countries using standard purchasing power parity (ppp) indices. methods the extant literature has only examined actual salaries for teachers offered in selected, popular emigrant countries. for more informed comparisons on earnings, we require a purchasing power parity (ppp) index. using a representative basket of commonly bought goods (including food, entertainment, fuel and utilities), the ppp is an exchange rate between two currencies that equalises the international price of buying that basket. foreign salaries expressed in national currency units were converted to the rand equivalent using purchasing power parity ratios published by the george and rhodes: teacher salary differentials. . . 117 international monetary fund (imf). the ppp is essentially an exchange rate between two countries that equalises the cost of living. it is founded on the principle of an international dollar. this is a purely hypothetical currency where one international dollar (earned in another country) has the same purchasing power as one us dollar earned and spent in the us. the ppp for the us is set at 1.0 and acts as a baseline to compare all other countries. examining the cost-of-living adjusted salaries for each of our selected countries allows the identification of financial incentives to emigrate within a given teacher category. the international dollar ppp salaries are presented relative to south africa and are shown in table 2. whilst a useful comparator, the ppp methodology does have the problem of finding a basket of goods that is wholly comparable across selected countries where availability and indeed quality are not constant. in general this is not a strong enough concern to warrant an alternative methodology. income tax rates can also make salary comparisons problematic yet comparing gross with net earnings across countries made little or no difference to the pattern of results reported below. as such the ppp comparisons remain valid. selected teacher categories and countries three categories of state employed teachers – a newly qualified teacher (nqt), a teacher with five years’ experience, and a teacher with 10 years’ experience – were chosen for the international salary comparisons. country choice was based on historical migration patterns where south african teachers tend to target countries such as the uk, australia, new zealand, canada, japan and the united states. zimbabwe teacher salaries are also reviewed due to the high percentage of zimbabwean teachers which constitute the foreign teaching workforce in sa. teacher definitions the defining point for the nqt category is that the worker has a formally recognised teaching qualification. a teacher with five years’ experience requires a teaching qualification and five years’ experience whilst the final category of teacher requires a teaching qualification and 10 years’ teaching 118 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 experience. these definitions are easily recognised internationally and this affords for more accurate comparisons. the data table 1 reports 2014/2015 salaries in national currency units for south africa and selected foreign countries for typical high school teachers in publically funded, state schools. the chosen starting point for each country salary is a newly qualified teacher (nqt) who has obtained a four-year bachelor of education degree or a three-year degree plus a post-graduate diploma. from this point of job entry in either 2014 or 2015 each country has its own salary scale and rules for progression as well as mechanisms to go beyond the basic scale, so potentially a teacher can take advantage of financial rewards through taking on more responsibilities. only the basic scale progression is reported unless otherwise stated. to map how a nqt might progress up a given salary scale during a typical teaching career, two other salary points are reported, which include the salary after five years and lastly the salary after 10 or more years. these were deemed appropriate markers to gain insightful monetary comparisons as a teacher gains career experience. some countries reach the upper end of a given salary scale after 10 years, some take considerably longer. zimbabwe aside, all selected countries have the basic structure of one notch increment per year assuming performance is satisfactory. countries began to diverge with regards to the requirements and speed by which a teacher can advance on higher pay scales that represent specialisation, expertise and other additional responsibilities. salient points of such advancements and other salary scale details pertinent to each country are reported below under the relevant country heading. george and rhodes: teacher salary differentials. . . 119 table 1: basic annual salaries for newly qualified through to experienced teachers for selected countries in their own national currency units (2014/2015) country nqt 5 years 10+ years1 2 2 sa r212,811 r223,674 r235,0773 uk £25,623/£27,543 £35,823/£37,119 £41,247/£45,9054 us $35,870/54,310 $59,150 $69,425 5 australia $55,155 $76,318 $91,7516 canada $44,204/$53,657 $54,896/$64,254 $67,556/$77,0927 nz $40 000/$50 000 $63,054 $68,5918 japan ¥3,360,000 ¥3,479,955 ¥4,525,7409 zimbabwe us$4800 – –10 nqt starter salary beginning in 2015.1 typically a teacher moves up one salary scale notch per year. 2 naptosa (2015) 3 nasuwt (2015)4 sdea, monet (2015)5 aeu (2015) 6 bctf (2015) 7 educationworld.net (2015)8 payscale.com (2015) 9 all africa (2015). salaries reported in us dollar. 10 some figures are pairs rather than single entries. this is designed to capture the significant variation across regions or states. this is discussed further under the country headings below, but as an example, the uk offers higher salaries inside london compared to elsewhere in the uk. this gap was deemed wide enough to be of interest. those countries that have single figures denote little variation. 1.1 south africa the basic requirement for someone to practice teaching in south africa is to have a four-year bachelor of education degree or a three-year degree plus an advanced diploma in education (ade) or a postgraduate certificate in education (pgce). the south african salary scale system is built on a series of over 200 notches. in table 1 the minimum value is taken as the starting salary for a nqt (notch 85) and after 20 years, that same teacher should be on 120 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 notch 105 at least, possibly higher depending upon additional responsibilities. each notch upgrade represents a 1% increase in salary and usually occurs annually although there are other chances for more accelerated progressions (national professional teachers’ organization of south africa (naptosa), 2011). over their teaching career, educators can move from minimum to maximum notches in the salary range for their post, or can be promoted and move to another post to enable further movement beyond the maximum (education labour relations council (elrc), 2011). unlike other countries reported, most south african provinces do follow the same scale although there is some evidence to show that identically qualified and experienced teachers are not on the same notch (elrc, 2011). table 1 shows the relevant notch amount as if each province were identical. 1.2 uk newly qualified teachers in england and wales (outside london) start on the first tier of the main pay scale at £25,623 (nasuwt, 2015). the highest starter salary is found in the inner london area at £27,543; outer london is slightly lower (nasuwt, 2015). once on the main pay scale with satisfactory performance, a teacher can progress to level 6 (after five years) earning £35,823 and £37,119 for outside and inner london respectively (nasuwt, 2015). there is considerable scope to go beyond the basic main pay scale and this is defined by teacher competence and the adoption of specific responsibilities (including line management of other staff) as defined in the job description. this will shift them to the upper pay scale and after 10–20 years a classroom teacher could earn in the region of £41,247 or £45,905 for outside and inner london respectively (nasuwt, 2015). 1.3 us much variation is found across states (teacher portal, 2012; united states department of labor (us dol), 2012). the highest salaries are generally found in california, new york, new jersey, alaska, connecticut and illinois; the lowest include dakota, montana and wisconsin (teacher portal, 2012; us dol, 2012). the nation’s lowest and highest average salaries are found in south dakota and california, respectively (educationworld, 2015). some districts in the us pay higher salaries over the first 5–10 years in an attempt to attract and retain staff. others offer incentives such as relocation costs, housing benefits, or a signing bonus (teacher portal, 2012). the two figures reported in table 1 for a nqt are south dakota and california, respectively and for higher experience, only california (sdea, 2015; monet, 2015). george and rhodes: teacher salary differentials. . . 121 1.4 australia the starter salary packages for newly qualified teachers in australia varies significantly from state to state. the highest earnings are typically reported in the northern territory with the lowest in queensland. those teachers trained abroad require their qualifications and experience validated by the relevant state body to establish the relevant starting point according to whether they are classed as ‘graduate, accomplished or an expert’ (australian education union (aeu), 2015). 1.5 canada teacher salaries vary significantly across the different districts that make up canada (british columbia teachers’ federation (bctf), 2015). as of 2015, a nqt would earn $44,204 in the majority of the districts. with a relatively large increase to $47,816 in fort nelson, $49,239 in haida gwaii and $53,657 in stikine. across the same range; a teacher with 5 years’ experience would earn $54,896 in the majority of the districts. with another relatively large increase to $59,412 in fort nelson, $59,244 in haida gwaii and $64,254 in stikine. teachers with 10 years’ experience would earn $67,556 in the majority of the districts. with yet another relatively large increase to $71,348 in fort nelson, $71,326 in haida gwaii and $77,092 in stikine (bctf, 2015). 1.6 new zealand the average salary for both primary and secondary teachers in new zealand is approximately nz$40 000 to $50 000 dependent upon qualifications and experience with a number of allowances that recognise additional management and other role-specific responsibilities (educationworld.net, 2015). on average, allowances can add about $4,000 to a teacher’s base salary (teachnz, 2015). 1.7 japan japanese teaching salaries reported in table 1 refer to remuneration for k-12 teachers, that is teachers that teach for grade 1 through to 12 or better known as the summation of primary and secondary education (payscale.com, 2015). a nqt will earn ¥3,360,000 whilst a teacher with 5 years’ experience will earn ¥3,479,955 (payscale.com 2015). the highest salary found was for a k-12 teacher with over 10 years of experience, receiving ¥4,525,740 (payscale.com,2015). 122 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 1.8 zimbabwe exact estimates are difficult to obtain, but zimbabwean teachers earn around us$400 per month, which ranks them among the lowest paid civil servants in the country (allafrica, 2015). despite being rated highly across the region for their contribution to the country’s high literacy rate, zimbabwean teachers in government institutions are still among the lowly-paid in the region. results the main results are based on the ppp international dollar comparisons across the selected countries (table 2). the home salaries are presented as national currency units (ncus) thereby allowing for easy comparisons. all ppp ratios use consumer based data collected by the imf (imf, 2015). george and rhodes: teacher salary differentials. . . 123 table 2: teacher salaries of selected countries at us dollar market rates and ppp equivalent for three levels of teacher experience sa uk us aus can nz jap zim n q t n c u 1 212,811 25,623 27,543 35,870 54,310 55,155 44,204 53,657 40,000 50,000 3,360,000 4800 r a n d 2 212,811 468,043 503,115 423,148 640,680 520,207 430,840 522,975 349,748 437,185 335,101 56,624 u s ($)3 18,040 39,807 42,970 35,870 54,310 44,305 36,535 44,349 29,754 37,193 28,413 4800 pp p($)4 37,799 36,552 39,291 35,870 54,310 38,814 35,967 43,659 26,596 33,245 32,497 2381 % ppp ($) gap over sa -3.30 3.95 -5.10 43.68 -2.69 -4.85 15.50 -29.64 -12.05 -14.03 -93.70 5 yrs n c u 223,674 35,823 37,119 59,150 76,318 54,896 64,254 63,054 3,479,955 4800 r a n d 223,674 654,362 678,036 697,776 719,811 535,051 626,260 551,325 347,064 56,624 u s ($) 18,961 55,653 57,667 59,150 61,305 45,373 53,107 46,903 29,427 4800 pp p ($) 39,729 51,103 52.951 59,150 53,707 44,667 52,282 41,924 33,658 2381 % ppp ($) gap over sa 28.63 33.28 48.90 35.18 12.43 31.60 5.52 -15.28 -94.01 10+ yrs n c u 235,077 41,247 45,905 69,425 91,751 67,556 77,092 68,591 4,525,740 48005 r a n d 235,077 753,440 838,525 818,985 865,371 658,443 751,387 599,739 451,363 56,624 u s ($) 19,927 64,080 71,316 69,425 73,703 55,836 63,718 51,022 38,271 4800 pp p ($) 41,754 58,840 65,485 69,425 64,568 54,968 62,727 45,606 43,772 2381 % ppp ($) gap over sa 40.92 56.84 66.27 54.64 31.65 50.23 9.23 4.83 -94.30 salary in own national currency unit. 1 author calculations. south african rands, imf (2015) (average annual market rates sept 2014– 2 august 2015). author calculations. us dollars, x-rates.com (2015). (average annual market rates sept 2014– 3 august 2015). zimbabwe remains unchanged since paid in us dollars. author calculations. international dollar (purchasing power parity, ppp) (imf, 2015). 4 little or no difference in earnings is expected for more experienced zimbabwean teachers having 5 more than 5 years of experience. 124 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 when south african teachers, at any level of experience, use market rates of exchange to compare foreign earnings, differences emerge ranging from oneand-a-half to approximately three times the south african salary equivalent (table 2); australians potentially being the highest payers. if the rand depreciates further against our selected country currencies, these salary differentials will only increase. these large differences reported in rand and us dollars could act as a strong pull factor for south african teachers to emigrate to any of the selected countries except zimbabwe. however, salary comparisons using market exchange rates are misleading especially when examining from the south african perspective. agreeing with theories that exchange rates should move towards their respective ppp benchmarks, the south african rand could be seen as heavily undervalued (the big mac index, 2015). recent years have seen considerable turbulence with the sa rand showing no consistent trend that might lead to significant appreciation against some of the ‘harder’ currencies in table 2. as such, comparing any salaries using the rand market exchange rate will nearly always depress the rand equivalent. the ppp adjusts for living costs and provides the appropriate comparison especially when potential migrants are comparing standards of living across countries. salaries are converted to us ppp equivalent, i.e., international dollars, essentially to equalise the cost of living (table 2, ppp $). overall results show the gap between selected country earnings and south africa increase with experience. comparing newly qualified teachers’ (nqts) ppp earnings across countries gives mixed results. compared to south africa, some foreign nqts can earn less, particularly those from new zealand and japan. however the uk, us and canada vary according to the lower or upper salary chosen with the us providing the highest potential nqt earnings at us$54,310 (over 40% higher than that earned in sa). at five years of experience the results are clear. all country salaries increase but the destination salaries rise considerably faster as shown by the large positive percentage increases in ppp dollars over south africa; the highest is for the uk at 48.90%. this trend continues at the highest level of experience of 10 years or more. even given some of the large upper and lower bounds of some overseas teacher earnings, it is shown that by the time an nqt becomes a teacher with 10 or more years of experience, all selected overseas teachers george and rhodes: teacher salary differentials. . . 125 earn between approximately 4% to 66% more international dollars than their rand-earning south african counterparts, with the uk, us, canada and australia offering the highest. in terms of international dollar earnings, zimbabwe is showing the opposite trend. whilst not varying with experience, zimbabweans can potentially double their income-earning potential at all levels of reported experience by working in south africa. discussion the purpose of this study was to examine whether incomes in destination countries would act as a pull factor for those teachers looking to further their profession abroad. this study illustrates that when adjusting for cost of living differences, the ppp incomes differ less across countries compared to those same differentials calculated using market exchange rates. teachers’ general salaries were compared by experience rather than by subject. whilst there is little evidence that salaries are subject dependent it must be acknowledged that stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) teachers are in particularly high demand globally and most countries face significant shortfalls in this vital area of teaching including south africa (national council on teaching quality (nctq), 2010; lecher, 2013; centre for development and enerprise (cde), 2011). this is being addressed by some education departments but not necessarily through salary incentives (west, 2013; coughlan, 2015; gov.uk, 2015). the problem of long term retention for stem teachers is arguably more acute relative to teachers of other subjects since stem related skills are also in high demand outside of the teaching sector (west, 2013). whether this can be mitigated by offering higher salaries is a point for future research. one small us district in colorado used a more market-based approach where maths and science teachers were paid between 10–20% more than their non-science counterparts. (lecher, 2013). this is believed to be an isolated case and in a strongly unionised labour force, especially that experienced in south africa, an initiative which will struggle to gain traction. we should reiterate that potential income gains were not the only motives for international teacher mobility. studies have consistently reported other 126 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 reasons for working abroad, notably professional development and the opportunity for travel (appleton, morgan and sives, 2006b). similarly the teacher incentive study (2006) found that teachers value the environment in the school along with teacher salaries. that means, when attempting to reduce the numbers of teachers leaving the profession, the environment has to be conducive to help retain them. among the groups of teachers who are most likely to leave are the more skilled and more experienced teachers. our research supports that of armstrong (2009) who points out that the longer workers remain in the teaching profession, the worse off they are relative to their non-teaching counterparts. it therefore becomes increasingly unattractive for teachers to remain in the profession as they gain more experience, and the financial incentives for talented teachers to remain in the teaching force become gradually smaller. up until the age of 28, the monthly earnings of teachers are greater than those of non-teachers in the labour market, indicating that young labour market entrants (graduates, in this case) may, on average, fare better in the teaching profession than in nonteaching professions (armstrong, 2009). armstrong (2009) concludes that teaching is likely to be an attractive profession for workers at the lower end of the skills distribution curve and unattractive at the higher end. the wage structure of teachers in the south african labour market is therefore not conducive to retaining workers who may be considered to be endowed with above-average productive characteristics. salary structures giving advantage to those entering a profession but not competitively increasing with experience, will result in teachers electing to migrate or leave the profession. the study conducted by the mobile task team (mtt) (2005) affirms this by showing that most resignations were around the 30–39 age group. the occupational specific dispensation (osd) agreement, set out in 2007, was an attempt at addressing these problems. the osd set out to reward teachers who remained in the profession by increasing their salary bands and providing alternative career paths for teachers (elrc, 2008). migration, however, should not be viewed as an absolute loss of teachers. a study conducted by bertram et al. (2006) found that whilst 27% of respondents indicated that they were planning to teach abroad, the vast majority (89%) said that they would be returning to south africa. one conclusion from this study is that, rather than perceiving international teacher george and rhodes: teacher salary differentials. . . 127 mobility as part of some permanent ‘brain drain’, it may be better to define it as something that is often transitional. a further study, conducted among teachers from developing countries teaching in england, found that only 38% wanted to settle permanently. manik, maharaj and sookrajh (2006) go further and group migrant teachers into the following categories: (a) ‘goal achievers’ who exited sa on a temporary basis to achieve particular socioeconomic goals; (b) ‘lifestyle emigrants’ who exited permanently for a better quality of life with a view to starting life afresh in a new country; and, (c) ‘transients’, those with no intention of permanently settling abroad or in sa and were at ease crossing national boundaries. whilst the retention of teachers remains a priority, the impact of migration has been viewed qualitatively rather than quantitatively, suggesting that international teacher mobility may not impede the attainment of goals in terms of the quantity of education provided, but it may somewhat erode the quality. this affirms the notion that teacher migration may not be creating quantitative shortages of teachers, but rather results in the loss of teachers who were particularly effective. it is therefore paramount to ensure teacher quality over an absolute increase in numbers. teacher quality is understood to depend on numerous factors, which include who is attracted to the teaching force, the incentives put in place for these individuals to perform well, and whether the best-performing teachers remain in the teaching force (hernani-limarino 2005). the recruitment, performance and retention of teachers is dependent on the ‘opportunity cost’ of being a teacher, and the most important aspect of this opportunity cost is the wage differential between teachers and non-teachers (hernani-limarino, 2005). a pressing question in the economics-of-education literature is whether the remuneration offered to teachers is sufficient to guarantee acceptable teacher quality by attracting, recruiting and retaining the most ‘attractive’ individuals, in terms of productive characteristics. 128 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 conclusion migration peaked in the late 1990s and early 2000s due to a number of factors including government policy and the prospect of a higher income abroad. demand for foreign teachers has been falling as improvements in pay have increased the inflow of native teachers whilst regulations imposed on foreigners have made working abroad more difficult. it has been argued that international migration has not led to harmful shortages of teachers in south africa, but rather ‘creamed off’ the more skilled and experienced teachers. research has supported this notion and suggested that sa teachers receive much smaller returns on additional years of education, experience or tenure, which may serve as a disincentive to invest further in their own human capital, or to stay in the teaching profession. this research has stated that entry-level teachers are at the top end of the earnings distribution, whereas the more skilled and experienced teachers are relatively underpaid in relation to their foreign counterparts. this compression of wages could mean that teachers with the most favourable sets of labour market characteristics will be more inclined to leave the teaching profession, whereas those with the least favourable endowments will find it attractive to stay (van der berg and burger, 2010). it is the more experienced and skilled teachers in particular that policy makers need to pay careful attention to, and attempt to create an attractive, healthy and supportive environment for local teachers or run the 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accepted 29 august 2016) abstract a growing body of research literature indicates that writing retreats for academics are conducive for the development of writer confidence and competence, and for increasing participants’ rate of research publication. can writing retreats also restore a sense of community and collegiality? this paper addresses this question by presenting a case study of a series of small-group, process-oriented writing retreats held at an urban, researchintensive university in johannesburg from 2011 to 2015. data in the form of participants’ free writes and post-retreat written evaluations, as well as facilitators’ reflective dialogues and observations were collected and analysed. dirkx’s (2001) theory of transformative learning provides the main analytical lens. key findings are that such retreats restore the sense of community and collegiality that seems to be fast disappearing in the high stress university environment in which the retreat is located. the authors argue that residential, process-oriented writing retreats provide a safe, accountable and generative space for writers to test their ideas and skills, and draw strength from the experiences of those around them. “to have time and focus. . . to retreat from all else and concentrate on writing.” introduction a growing body of research indicates that writing retreats enhance the production of research publications as well as the writer’s confidence and growth in a university context (thomson & kamler, 2013; grant & knowles, 2010; moore, murphy & murray, 2010). in this article we argue that in the high-stress context of an urban, research-intensive university in south africa, off-campus, residential writing retreats offer a generative and rewarding response to pressures to write. we argue for a particular type of retreat, the ‘process-oriented retreat’ that leads to growth of writer identity and enhanced collegiality, along with research publication. 208 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 purpose this paper addresses the research question ‘what does it take to create and sustain a productive and nurturing writing space in the high-stress environment of a research-intensive university in south africa?’ context spread over five campuses near the centre of johannesburg, the university is at the commercial and industrial heart of the country and plays a dynamic role in the city’s links to africa and the world. johannesburg was founded on the discovery of gold 130 years ago, and has always been a city of opportunity, a city ‘on the make’ (university review, 2014). the landscape around the university is bisected by freeways and surrounded by low-income, high-density apartment blocks, interspersed with commercial buildings. there are no parks or green spaces near the university that are safe to walk in. the road traffic is erratic, noisy and dangerous at all hours. yet it is a paradox of the city that there are also beautiful trees, a diversity of people from all over africa, astonishing projects of courage and creativity, and world class galleries, museums and concert halls, many of them part of the university. over the last fifteen years the university has grown quickly in response to government directives to broaden access to higher education and to ‘transform’ the racial composition of the student body and staff corpus. the number of students has more than doubled in the last decade, standing at nearly 37,000 in 2016, while the staff complement has grown at a much slower rate. the student body has outgrown the infrastructure built for a smaller number of students, and class sizes have grown exponentially. the teaching loads of permanent staff have increased, while the position of tutors and ‘early career academics’ employed in short-term, grant-funded, contract posts grows ever more precarious. recent years have seen policy shifts and changes in leadership style at the university. previous administrations introduced a regime of audit, performativity and competitiveness which has become widespread in universities in the uk, australia and south africa (thomson & kamler, castle and keane: “it was an oasis in a busy life. . . 209 2013; petersen, 2009). this regime has been intensified by the current leadership of the university: managerialism and centralised control have taken a firm hold. in 2012 there were staff protests and strikes over poor pay, long hours and budget cuts, followed by a series of resignations and departures among senior managers. in 2014 and 2015 the academic staff union reported that the number of disciplinary cases and formal grievances against senior managers was growing, with notable increases in charges of bullying, intimidation and poor management (asaxu, 2014, 2015). in 2016 armed security forces were brought on campus ostensibly to protect staff, students and property of the university in the aftermath of the #feesmustfall campaign. all of this indicates an institutional culture in which personal and workplace wellbeing are readily sacrificed. like many other research-intensive institutions in south africa, the university aims to be in the top 200 of world university rankings. to increase its ranking, reputation and income the university needs to increase research publications and academic staff must complete higher degrees. and so the pressures on academics mount, particularly for women whose socialisation may lead them to choose the more person-oriented, nurturing process of teaching over the perceived solitary activity of writing and research (badenhorst, 2010; prozeski, 2006). the problem is evident: how can research and publication rates be improved without losing staff due to unmanageable levels of stress and pressure? how can staff publish more when they are already overburdened? we take up this dilemma in advocating for process-oriented writing retreats. writing strategies many different strategies to promote academic writing are in place in universities in south africa and internationally. some staff development centres and writing centres, such as the university of johannesburg and the university of the western cape, offer short workshops to novice writers on specific aspects of writing such as ‘writing an abstract’ or ‘writing a winning research proposal’. some workshops, such as those offered by the university of stellenbosch, are longer and run over a week or two, dealing with topics such as ‘writing for publication in peer-reviewed journals’. there are also cohort groups working on post-graduate studies, and writing support groups, both formal and informal, in which groups of peers come together to write in 210 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 their own time. in some well-resourced institutions professional writing coaches and mentors are available for consultation. many universities now have writing centres that aim to improve the quality of students’ writing and to stimulate critical thinking and creativity through writing there are also, in many south african universities, specific incentives for publishing, including payment of a portion of the government’s subsidy for research publication into the author’s research account or into a research incentive scheme that pays for costs associated with research, such as participating in a conference. finally, there are writing retreats ranging from a few days to a week or more. writing retreats are becoming increasingly common as a way of providing dedicated time, space and support for writing. in all faculties of the university some kind of writing retreat has been held over the last few years. retreats take various forms, from short, outsourced, workshop-type interventions run by professional consultants, to longer retreats for staff completing higher degrees and co-authoring papers. there are retreats for novice writers and for experienced groups of colleagues – usually from the same department or discipline. not only do the aims and composition of retreats vary but degrees of management surveillance of writers in retreats differ considerably. not all retreats offer a place of refuge, or sanctuary, from the fray of the university. we now offer a framework for the process-oriented centre for learning, teaching and development (cltd) retreat. models of writing retreat all writing retreats offer participants time and space to write. the question is how time and space are conceptualised and used. elsewhere we propose a framework for writing retreats (benvenuti, s., castle, j. & keane, m., 2013) consisting of two prototypes: product-oriented retreats and process-oriented retreats. product-oriented retreats generally focus on preparing participants to write a journal article for publication. these retreats have a pre-planned sequence of writing sessions, with generic content, intended to transmit knowledge, develop skills, guide and correct participants, and generate publications. they are openly performative, designed to prepare staff to meet the demand for increased research publication. typically, writing skills are taught using a prescriptive, ‘how to’ approach. practical exercises may be castle and keane: “it was an oasis in a busy life. . . 211 carried out in short bursts of time, followed by feedback and input from language or disciplinary experts. these activities, carried out in rapid succession, help participants complete discreet tasks, such as writing an abstract, an introduction or a conclusion. the values of productivity, competence, mastery, focus, discipline, management, control, and return on investment are evident in the way these retreats are structured and taught. in benvenuti et al. (2013) we argue that the product-oriented writing retreat is linked to the traditional, or autonomous, model of academic literacy (street, 1984) and to a particular reading of communities of practice (lave & wenger, 1991) which positions facilitators as experts, masters, or full, legitimate participants in a community of writers, with novice writers positioned as apprentices, or peripheral participants in the community. a process-oriented retreat is based on processes and practices which aim to establish or foster participation of a community of writers for the duration of the retreat and possibly afterwards. a process retreat provides a space protected from the persistent demands of the university (grant, 2006). it aims to provide a balance between the solitude needed to write and the social benefits proffered by a community of writers. the structure of the retreat is flexible, often negotiated with participants who may take on facilitator roles from day to day. participants are expected to exercise personal responsibility and accountability in their writing, but surveillance and measurement are deliberately avoided. the values of a process-oriented retreat, including collegiality, nurturing, harmony, trust, creativity and transformation, are reflected in the retreat’s pedagogy and structure, in which solitude and communal activities are interspersed. in benvenuti et al. (2013) we link the process-oriented retreat to the ideological, or academic literacies, model of literacy, and the development of collegial and supportive relationships. literature on writing retreats in the uk and australasia suggests that there is a preponderance of women involved in leading and participating in writing retreats. women enjoy the company of other women and appreciate the opportunity to join together in a supportive space (grant, 2006; grant & knowles, 2010; moore et al., 2010). a supportive organisational culture may be an important condition for them to write (thomson & kamler, 2013). furthermore, women often have more demands placed on them at home, while at work they often bear the burden of heavy teaching and administrative loads. writing retreats, particularly process-oriented retreats, may help them to ‘contain’– psychologically, physically and socially– the demands of the 212 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 family, community and the university for a period of time (macleod, steckley & murray, 2013). nurturing the soul: dirkx’s theory of transformative learning transformative learning, as meriam, caffarella & baumgartner (2007) suggest, has captivated educators who work in formal and nonformal contexts for several decades. as its name suggests, transformative learning is about change: change deeply rooted in the ways people see themselves and the world they live in. although there are several different types, or lenses, of transformative learning, all transformative learning is rooted in the constructivist principle that people learn from and with each other through processes of experience, reflection and dialogue. dirkx (1997, 2001) proposes that meaningful learning is grounded not only in rational, critical, and cognitive processes but in a person’s emotional, imaginative connection with the self and the social world. he calls this ‘nurturing and caring for the soul’ or ‘soul work’. ‘learning through the soul’ involves attending to the emotional dimensions of learning alongside the world of ideas and intellectual tasks. soul work provides a more holistic and integrated way of ‘meaning-making’ than the more rational, analytic and reflective approaches to transformative learning proposed by mezirow (1991, 2000) or the social action agenda of freire (1970). what makes dirkx’s transformative learning different from mezirow’s is both process and outcomes. the process is not limited to rational discourse but engages people in opportunities to talk and listen, share stories, write texts, explore art and music, and in so doing, people learn from and with each other (merriam & bierema, 2014). for dirkx, transformative learning comes about in a place of peace or ‘sacred sanctuary’. it comes from being in touch with the surrounding social and emotional environment, as well as through observing the wonder and mystery of nature. it comes from listening to an inner voice, and understanding one’s place in the bigger scheme of things. as we begin to understand ourselves better, we deepen our relationships with others and the world around us. as we experiment and practise together, we may rethink and change our beliefs, castle and keane: “it was an oasis in a busy life. . . 213 and over time develop a different sense of identity, for example, identity as a productive writer. dirkx’s concept of transformative learning relates well to our concept of the process-oriented writing retreat, and to a retreat held in africa, where interdependent, communal, holistic, and informal learning are more highly valued than individual and autonomous learning, and where social and cultural context shape the kind of learning that takes place (merriam, caffarella & baumgartner, 2007). research design and process we, the authors and a colleague, began work on this article in a four-day writing retreat that we organised for the purpose. we set up this retreat using the design we had developed and facilitated with 107 participants in 24 retreats held between november 2011 and july 2015, but this time we operated from the perspective of educational researchers questioning, reflecting on and writing about the process as work-in-progress. over the four days of the retreat we considered what we had learnt first-hand about participating in and facilitating retreats; what we had learnt from the literature on research writing; what we had learned from written accounts of retreat participants’ experiences and ideas; and what we wanted to contribute to the scholarship of writing development. we were attentive to the requirements of academic research. we kept a record on flip chart sheets of our activities in the four days of the retreat. we transcribed our free writes and early drafts of this paper, as well as mind maps and summaries of readings. we assembled free writes and evaluations written by previous retreat participants, given to us with their informed consent. we engaged in reflexivity around our taken-for-granted ideas and interpretations, and sought to expose ‘blindspots’ (alvesson , 2003). our use of multiple methods, including observations, samples of our own and participants’ writing, and written evaluations completed by retreat participants, increased the rigour of the research (denzin & lincoln, 1994) while creating a richer picture of the cltd retreat. in particular, we wanted to foreground participants’ voices and ‘value judgements’ about the retreat (rule & john, 2011). we sought to produce ‘worthy’ qualitative research that is ‘relevant, timely, significant, and interesting or evocative’ (tracy, 2010: 840). 214 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 we chose the case study approach to write about the cltd retreat because of its versatility and flexiblity, and the insights a case study provides (merriam, 2009; rule & john, 2011). we decided on a descriptive and evaluative case study of the cltd retreat using the methods of participant observation and document analysis. as a descriptive study, we wanted to create a ‘thick description’ of the case and the conditions that led to the form our retreat took. in this way, the case study would have more intrinsic than instrumental value (rule & john, 2011). as an evaluative study we wanted to weigh up the value or ‘worthwhileness’ of the writing retreat as a particular case (bassey,1999). we assembled the document trail we had collected from 2011 to 2015 in the form of free writes, writing and reflection exercises, goal-setting exercises and end-of-retreat evaluations. we used open coding to analyse the written data, as we wanted to allow the data to ‘speak’ to us, and suggest codes. however, as both participant observers and facilitators in the retreats, we also brought our own codes to the data. we anticipated that we would find evidence in the data that the retreat provided stimulation and support for research writing. we believed that the ‘process-oriented retreat’ model could facilitate transformative learning, and that there was credible evidence to support our sense that the cltd retreat could create and sustain a productive writing space and a writing community in the high-stress environment of the university. in order to avoid the trap of seeking data to confirm our most optimistic assumptions, we reflected critically on how our understandings of the nature and value of the retreats differed from, or were similar to, those of participants in the retreat. we examined our own willingness to question our assumptions, challenge entrenched ways of thinking, and consider alternatives. we undertook dialogue and member checks with writing development experts at the university, and presented earlier versions of this article at a national and an international higher education conference. finally, we made a successful retrospective application for ethics clearance to the university’s human research ethics committee (education).this application allowed us to use oral and written data collected from participants in our retreats provided confidentiality was maintained. we constructed the case study which appears below. participants’ (including facilitators’) descriptive and evaluative written comments are presented in italic script. castle and keane: “it was an oasis in a busy life. . . 215 the case study the case, the cltd writing retreat, is an off-campus, residential retreat held several times annually for 8–12 participants who have already completed a seven-day ‘research writing’ course which introduces them to a wide range of techniques, practices and strategies for creative and productive writing. it also familiarises them with practices to foster collegial support (badenhorst, 2007 & 2010; castle & keane, 2012). by the time participants commence the retreat they are comfortable with the writing practices and level of participation we expect of them. they are reasonably skilled in giving feedback in a constructive and sensitive way. this enables us, as facilitators, to run the retreat with a high level of trust, flexibility and co-operation. the retreat aims to provide a pleasant time and space for writing where participants ‘withdraw from the world’ for five days to work on a project of their choice, typically a conference paper, journal article, research proposal, or thesis chapter. it is also a respite from pressures of work and home, an incentive to write, and an acknowledgement of the writer-identity of academics. it is an opportunity to refresh and extend writing skills, to receive feedback on writing and to foster collegiality, trust and enjoyment of writing. participants are more often women than men, and include experienced and novice writers, academics of different ages, length of service, and rank, drawn from different disciplines and fields. participants are expected to motivate their attendance in advance, seek permission from their line managers to attend the retreat, set and monitor writing goals for the week, supply some of their own materials and equipment, and regulate their time. as facilitators we assess the motivations participants submit and are able to accept most applicants. the facilitators are writers with their own writing projects. our role is to mediate writing techniques and strategies, negotiate ground rules and ways forward, plan the daily programme, and help participants to set meaningful goals and to write. the contrast between the retreat environment and the stressful working day of an academic is captured in the free writes below: 216 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 in the office i am multi-tasking, multi-stressing, cutting corners, putting out fires, giving others support, buzzing, producing. on retreat i feel connected to the intellectual ancestors who have brought us to where we are. a retreat is a treat, a looked-forward-to sanctioned time-out. the retreat space feels supportive, with . . . uninterrupted and unhurried stretches of time. i feel acknowledged for what i have studied long to do and be: a writer, a thinker, a teacher, an explorer. at last a free space to be trusted to ponder, and struggle, and share, while all of life makes gentle offerings of encouragement and care. the retreat is held in a guesthouse in a quiet street of melville, a suburb eight kilometres from the commercial hub of johannesburg where the university is located. the guest house offers a welcome environment for writing, removed from the pressures and distractions of the university. we chose a venue which provided a pleasant ambiance in an attractive setting with plentiful catering to avoid an atmosphere of privation, loneliness and anxiety often associated with writing (grant , 2006). the venue is not owned or operated by the university, but is located a short distance from campus, thus avoiding lengthy and costly transportation in and around gauteng. the guesthouse is a collection of colourful houses and outbuildings, protected by the electrified security walls and palisade gates familiar to all residents of the city. it offers spacious bedrooms for private writing, and a large, well-lit boardroom for communal writing, as well as a wide veranda and garden courtyard with shady nooks for writing and consultations. the food is freshly prepared on the premises and served in a small dining room which opens onto an atrium and a courtyard. the writing day normally starts with warm-up activities designed by the facilitators, such as free writing (elbow, 1981), loop or generative writing (boice, 1990), drawing, or mind mapping, done by hand, using coloured pens and paper, in community with others. this is followed by a discussion of writing goals and progress towards them. free writing has been the gathering and beginning activity of each day in both our workshops and retreats. free writing for a few minutes on a given topic releases writers’ block, banishes critical, premature editing, mobilises energy and gets words on paper (badenhorst , 2007, 2010). free writes often lead to fresh ideas for the writer, suggest new directions, and provide delight in one’s writing and the writing castle and keane: “it was an oasis in a busy life. . . 217 of others. we encourage participants to read their free writes to the group (or to smaller groups), with the caveat that a writer may opt to ‘pass’ and not read a particular piece if s/he wishes. the focus on freewriting allows the writing to flow uncensored. this tangential respite from the next paragraph on the laptop gives everyone a rest and a breathing space. in listening to others’ free writing on a variety of topics, some research related, others not, participants discover their own voices, their unique way of making associations and finding insights. as part of our shared-space philosophy and anti-hierarchical collegiality, we, as facilitators, also read out our free writes, as we do our daily writing, and invite feedback from the group. the reading of free writing is valuable in giving everyone an opportunity to have work received with no critical assessment. it is writing for the intrinsic practice and pleasure of writing. participants’ written reflections on writing retreats often emphasise the quality of escape or reprieve which a process-oriented retreat provides: a retreat is a place of silence; silencing the press of a thousand demands and distractions and hurts and invasions. it is a re-connection with who i am but also who i may be. a retreat is a sacred space that lets me be in the rhythm of striving and letting go, of a commitment to purpose and a trust in the human struggle. a writing retreat is a reprieve from the impossibility of tasks that can never be completed, from the people who can never be pleased, from the pressures that will exhaust. after 45–60 minutes of these group activities, writers are free to write on their own. the balance of the morning and most of the afternoon is spent in writing communally or in solitude, occasionally in consultation with a facilitator or another writer. some writers choose to remain in the board room, others go to their rooms, or choose a quiet place to set up their laptops. a retreat is a place of solitude and has a different rhythm from the ever-busy day. when i am alone i meet myself in all my moods and sometimes we sit together quietly grumbling, and sometimes we sit as one contented, at ease and free. it is from this place of steadiness and spaciousness that i 218 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 run out of the usual words and falter for a new step . . . and sometimes the path opens up and sometimes i wait patiently in solitude. perhaps a different rhythm is what writing is about. perhaps the flow and melody and beat are linked to the music of where i am, like a line in the orchestral score, finding my part in the structure and form. at some point i give up composing and slip into being composed: finding my place in the discourse of ideas past and to come. in the late afternoon, writers converge in the conference room in small groups and take turns to read to one another excerpts from the day’s writing. writers are prompted to ask for the specific feedback they want. we encourage writers to give constructive, non-judgemental, but specific and critical feedback to other writers to build the culture of mutual respect, trust and cooperation. the feedback session often fuels a short burst of revision before or after dinner for many writers. in anonymous, written evaluations completed on the last day of the retreat, writers made the following comments about the location and ambiance of the retreat: i love the quiet atmosphere at [the guesthouse] the tasteful, calm, private spaces and the gardens, which give the impression you are out of joburg. the place is quite spacious, well-lit and furnished. there is life in the flowers and trees, birds. tranquility coupled with fresh airaway from pollution. the buildings are welcoming – warm and roomy – good to work in. this is a great venue. the place is quiet and beautiful. i like that i could work in the conference room, in my room and even outside. this freedom has its own way of enhancing creativity. the facilitators were described as ‘warm and resourceful leaders’, as ‘mentors, coaches, facilitators, listeners, and constructive critics’. they provided ‘gentle support and wisdom’ as well as encouragement. one writer observed that “much thought has gone into the design of the retreat”. castle and keane: “it was an oasis in a busy life. . . 219 both [facilitators] were incredibly generous with their contributions, x stretched my writing wonderfully in the early morning warm up sessions. i found y’s advice extremely useful. she helped me sort out a problem i had been grappling with for months. concerning writing exercises at the beginning of each day, most participants observed that they were generative and helped to solve problems of feeling blocked or unable to write: learning and reflection exercises at the start of each day taught me a lot about how i work with and against writing and helped me identify areas for improvement. . . the exercises . . . provoked thinking, writing and [reflection] in ways and on levels we do not easily engage in every day. however, at least two individuals in one retreat did not enjoy the energising and creative writing activities we had planned. one participant asked that the activities be limited to no more than 30 minutes per day, and restricted to research-related writing activities. another complained that she did not need the ‘dummy exercises’ she was asked to participate in. she said she had no inhibitions or blocks preventing her from writing. surprisingly, given their criticisms, both participants applied for a place on future retreats and participated in communal writing activities with no further ado. concerning the giving and receiving of feedback, participants said: i found it a great privilege to be getting feedback every day, both formally and informally. i have also learned a lot from listening to and having to give feedback to colleagues. i enjoyed contributing to others’ research through feedback sessions. i received invaluable feedback from my group. only very rarely did participants remark that they might have benefited more from feedback given by an expert in their discipline. 220 journal of education, no. 66, 2016 most people here do not have a background in [my discipline]. they don’t understand the arguments i make or the authors i refer to. few writers met the ambitious goals they had set for themselves for the five days of the retreat, but most ‘made headway’ or ‘got close’. several writers observed that they made ‘substantive completion of goals’ and that they now had ‘stimulation’ and ‘a framework’ or ‘a plan’ in place to complete them: [the retreat] was a breakthrough for me as i have been avoiding my own research writing for some time. it provided the space and support for me to articulate some of my writing goals and arguments and to identify key areas to focus on (not to feel overwhelmed). i was able to meet my goal of completing a conference paper and had a number of useful insights regarding the theoretical framework of my paper. a returning writer observed that it has been a privilege to attend my third writing retreat/course with this team and i find i have built on the ideas each time. another commented the retreats are really valuable – in terms of productivity and personal identity development as an academic. please continue using this format. i suspect it is especially helpful in develop[ing] women academics. in summary, writers valued the retreats because they provided space to regenerate; ‘ring-fenced’ time away from work to think, read and write; discursive space; and an ambiance conducive to writing. they fostered collegiality and mutual respect among writers, and delight in learning about and from other disciplines. this is over and above the practices, strategies and skills developed in the retreat. castle and keane: “it was an oasis in a busy life. . . 221 reflection and discussion what difference do retreats make, and to whom do they make a difference? as a process-oriented retreat, the cltd retreat provides time and space for writers to work and think, to create and enjoy writing in solitude and community. it balances the demanding work of writing with the need to provide a safe and supportive community in which the vulnerabilities of being a writer can be addressed (murray, 2009). this makes a difference to academics, many of them women, who may feel isolated and inadequate in the high-stress, competitive and driven environment of the university. as in the case of writing groups described by aitchison & lee (2006), lee & boud (2003), and dwyer, lewis, macdonald and burns (2012) we propose that a process-oriented writing retreat, such as the cltd retreat, enhances feelings of ‘mutuality’ (togetherness, reciprocity) and ‘identity’. it builds community among participating writers. it nurtures the soul, and provides sanctuary, in the true sense of ‘retreat’. participants attest that the retreat provides “support ”, “listening” “trust ” and “a stimulating environment ”. they feel able to talk about their issues and problems with writing. they are free to make their own decisions about how to use the time and space provided in the retreat. these process-oriented retreats foster the desire to build and sustain scholarly activity and writer identity. while many retreats, including product-oriented retreats, claim to foster collegial development, the cltd retreat accommodates only a small number of academics, and this may strengthen the sharing and warmth achieved in the retreat. returning writers are welcomed. writers socialise and learn from one another without the struggles over power, authority and status which often characterise academic events in which senior academics often over-ride attempts by others to introduce an alternative culture – a more respectful, constructive and cooperative culture. these forms of collegiality are fast disappearing from the university environment. the cltd retreat actively and consciously promotes collegiality in defiance of the current trend to competitiveness, isolation and autonomy. we suggest that process-oriented writing retreats which ‘nurture the soul’ are vital in the contemporary academic climate that pushes academics to think of writing as a product rather than a pleasure (dwyer et al. 2012). this is particularly the case in the high stress urban environment of the university. castle and keane: “it was an oasis in a busy life. . . 225 street, b. (1984). literacy in theory and practice. cambridge: cambridge university press. thomson, p. & kamler, b. (2013). writing for peer reviewed journals: strategies for getting published. london and new york: routledge. tracy, s.j. (2010). qualitative quality: eight “big-tent” criteria for excellent qualitative research. qualitative inquiry, 16(10), 837–851. university review. (2014). journal published by the alumni association of the university. johannesburg: the university. jane castle school of education university of the witwatersrand jane.castle@wits.ac.za moyra keane school of education university of the witwatersrand moyra.keane@wits.ac.za editorial wayne hugo keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life proverbs 4:23 where do we place the emotional in the analytical structures we have to think about education? the question sounds strange, combining in one sentence emotions and feelings with analysis and thinking. it also sounds dubious, automatically placing the emotional within the analytical when emotions are more like the colours analysis live in. we could use an old favourite like basil bernstein to help us. one of his deep insights was that instructional discourse is embedded within a regulative discourse. by regulative discourse bernstein meant the rules of social order around moral values, behaviour, orderliness, character, identity and attitude. by instructional discourse bernstein meant the way knowledge is taught – the way it is selected, sequenced, paced, and assessed. regulative discourse holds the instructional discourse within it. the moral and social order gives the ordering framework within which the teaching of knowledge takes place. can we place the emotional within the regulative as a subgroup? can we say that emotions are a part of the regulative discourse around “conduct, character and manner” (bernstein 2000, p.34). this could be helpful, as it would give us a place, within the massive architectonics of bernstein for emotions, and it would be a very powerful place. but many of us would balk at seeing the emotional as a part of the moral order. there is something very different about how the emotional works to the moral, although they definitely can come together. there are people who are emotionally intelligent, but morally manipulate this sensitivity. you can be emotionally gifted and morally abusive. also, there have been strong cases made out for holding onto a moral position no matter what your feelings or emotions are about the case. the moral order is about duty to follow a principle, no matter what your feelings are, or so kant would have us believe with the categorical imperative. where can we look to find a theory that holds ‘knowledge’, ‘morality’ and ‘emotions’ together in some kind of synthesis within education? curiously, within the western tradition, we find solid accounts of how knowledge, morality and emotions work together in the ancient greek, christian, and jewish traditions, and these accounts extend into the enlightenment era. 2 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 i am talking about a simplified bernstein used for teaching purposes. he was a master1 theoretician who used the full range, including trichotomies – witness the pedagogic device with its three levels. there are two simple intellectual moves one can make to find these accounts – open out to the wisdom traditions; and shift from binaries to trichotomies – think in threes rather than twos. the ancient masters of trichotomies were aristotle, plotinus, and augustine, and the modern masters are kant, hegel and peirce. i cannot go through them all in an editorial, but we can use aristotle’s rhetoric and his distinction between three artistic modes of persuasion: logos, ethos, and pathos as a looking glass to locate how the instructional, the regulative, and the emotional work together. logos is about how actual content is organised in a speech towards a purpose (much like instructional discourse); ethos is about the character, conduct and manner of the speaker (much like regulative discourse), and pathos is about the emotional tango between speaker and listener. emotions, in this account, are not some subversive obscuring of lucid thought, some boiling cauldron that destroys clear and cold thinking, it is a necessary facet of how a person works towards convincing someone to make a judgement. when we look through the traditions we find that knowledge and morality do not exist alone, they come in an emotional sea that needs to be skillfully stroked through. binaries are a great way to start the quest of understanding how education works as it limits you to two options and this can help when working with multiple distinctions and layers. dealing with just two categories simplifies things. bernstein is really good for beginners in educational theory – he teaches you to think in twos. but working in threes releases all sorts of potentialities: witness god the father, son and holy spirit; body, soul and spirit; thesis, antithesis, synthesis; id, ego, and super-ego. for those of us thinking in an education world saturated with bernstein, binaries can become a default mode – the instructional and the regulative, classification and framing, strong and weak, sacred and profane. knowledge and morality1 somehow feel more energised, alive and complex with emotions added to make a triad. it’s like a whole facet of existence has been left out when emotions did not feature, and we could not feel it. . . because it was emotions being left out. editorial 3 we don’t have to leave out emotions any more – they have been put back on the agenda with the excellent research of carola steinberg, who not only thinks deeply about what emotions in education are, but is prepared to do exacting empirical work that throws up fascinating issues and insights around emotions and education, especially around assessment. here is one insight on emotions around assessment that take four points to establish itself: ! we normally give ourselves credit for a positive outcome we have been involved in; and give others the blame if the outcome is negative. ! this protects our reserves of positive emotional energy. we get a double dose reward when the outcome is positive (positive outcome and credit for the positive outcome); and only a single negative dose if the outcome is negative, as we tend not to take responsibility for the outcome. ! teachers tend to give learners the credit if they do well in an assessment and partly blame themselves if the learner does badly. ! this drains positive emotional energy as you only get a singly positive dose if the learner does well and a double negative dose if the learner does badly (double blow of learner doing badly and taking the blame for it). insight – positive emotional energy is hard for teachers to sustain when assessing, especially if learners are struggling. as a teacher and father i know how important positive emotional energy is in the classroom, both for the teacher and the learner. we need to understand the dynamics of emotions in education and find a place for it in how we train our teachers and deal with professional development. carola steinberg firmly sets us on the path towards it. if steinberg takes us into another dimension, then fiona jackson shows us how to do a nuanced analysis of two well established dimensions of educational analysis – specialisation and semantics – as worked with in legitimation code theory (lct). lct is continuously struggling to get closer to a full and rich but still principled account of how education works. it unusually combines theoretical nuance across a wide array of dimensions with rigorous empirical analysis. fiona jackson gives us a detailed example of how 4 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 to use lct when analysing pedagogy within a poetry lesson at a micro level. pedagogy is medusa like for any interested education academic. it consists of multiple wriggling dynamic strands, each of which risks turning into a rigid and stultified element. medusa was defeated by a mirrored shield that enabled one to see her complexity and dynamism within its burnished surface without getting frozen by seething reality. it is this kind of shield that lct provides, or so one could believe after reading jackson’s intricate analysis that tracks the dynamics of the lesson without turning it to stone. the third paper of this edition – skilled reading in isizulu: what can we learn from it? – contains some vital insights that need wide scale publicity. the way skilled readers read in english has a notably distinctive pattern from how skilled readers read in isizulu, implying that the pedagogy for learning how to read in english and isizulu has to be different. we cannot just take how we teach learners to read in english as the template and replace the content with isizulu. the way isizulu works partly demands a different kind of curriculum and a different kind of pedagogy. it is a similar mistake to how we translated reading books from english to isizulu. what are simple sentences to learn in english can become highly complex sentences in isizulu due to its agglutinative nature. isizulu forms long and complex words by combining elements together. a simple sentence in english is not necessarily a simple sentence in isizulu. we need to differentiate how we teach reading in english from how we teach reading in isizulu. sandra land provides us with key research that helps pursue this vital project. at the heart of what sandra land is writing about is the terrible educational reality that if you speak an african language at home rather than english, then your chances of doing well in school are severely curtailed. this is not only because ‘african language’ is a proxy for strongly disadvantaged conditions in our post-apocalyptic/apartheid world; but because the way african languages are taught and used in south african schools is a travesty. at the same time, we cannot overlook the continued drastic impact socio-economic disadvantage has on educational performance and the way language and disadvantage tango. it seems, no matter what educational option or strategy is chosen, the poorest children in south africa lose out. it’s a wicked problem wrapped up in a social mess. by wicked problem i mean an intractable situation that has all sorts of other problems and interdependencies wrapped up inside of it, where attempts to solve the problem only seem to throw up more problems; much like what happens when trying to chop off one of the editorial 5 new tools for resolving wicked problems is a freely available generic pedagogic text that2 actively teaches how to solve wicked problems using specific tools and steps. see http://www.strategykinetics.com/new_tools_for_resolving_wicked_problems.pdf snakes on medusa’s head – ten more grow in its place. by social mess i mean the following 14 points (horn and weber, 2007, pp.6–7):2 1. no unique ‘correct’ view of the problem; 2. different views of the problem and contradictory solutions; 3. most problems are connected to other problems; 4. data are often uncertain or missing; 5. multiple value conflicts; 6. ideological and cultural constraints; 7. political constraints; 8. economic constraints; 9. often a-logical or illogical or multi-valued thinking; 10. numerous possible intervention points; 11. consequences difficult to imagine; 12. considerable uncertainty, ambiguity; 13. great resistance to change; and, 14. problem solver(s) out of contact with the problems and potential solutions. this is the world we work within when attempting to improve education in south africa – a social mess containing a wicked problem. we see this in how the progression rule is playing out within the further education and training phase. learners who failed in the fet phase were being held back from writing matric because they would dramatically impact on the pass rates of the affected schools. this resulted in a massive spike in dropout rates for learners who had managed to get to the fet phase but were deemed not capable of passing the matric exam. even though the policy was that learners could only be held back once a phase, schools desperately kept learners who had already failed once out of matric. this resulted in unacceptably high dropout rates and forced the department to insist that schools automatically progress learners who had already failed once into matric, no matter what their grade 11 mark. the schools mostly dealing with this issue of progression were the poorest and the most rural, precisely the schools that did not have the resources to cope with the extra pedagogic and 6 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 social demands of dealing with failed and older learners. the impact of this progression rule on the emotional wellbeing of fet teachers has been damaging. worse, in order to cope with the extra pressures of matric teaching, teachers are taken away from teaching grade 10 and 11 to focus on the grade 12s, resulting in the overall problem only getting crueler. how this sorry tale played out in the free state is well told by angela elisabeth stott, hercules dreyer and peet venter in the fourth article of this edition. their clear analysis and warning of the consequences only read more dramatically after the farce around the 2015 results played out in a way that has seriously damaged the credibility of the national senior certificate. the fifth paper on teacher migration by gavin george and bruce rhodes offers sobering comparisons between what teachers earn in south africa in comparison to our neighbours like zimbabwe on the one hand, and more developed countries like england and the usa on the other. zimbabwean teachers can earn more than double their salary if they migrate to south africa; and south african teachers can earn more than double if they migrate to england or the usa. more importantly, as teachers become more experienced, they increasingly earn more overseas due to high salary jumps with promotion. south africa, with its much flatter salary progression paths, risk losing its more experienced teachers, especially if they are emotionally disenchanted and exhausted by south african teaching conditions. this is not to say that, relative to most south africans, teachers earn well. they do, but not in comparison to their professional peers, and not over a twenty year period. the sixth paper by jan heystek and lorinda minnaar focusses on principals’ perspectives of key factors that contribute to sustainable quality education. given that there is a strong drain on the emotional energies of many of our teachers, and that in comparison to their peers in many developed countries south african teachers don’t earn well, it is important to put some emphasis on what does work. just as importantly, we have to continuously ask the opportunity cost question – what is the cost of our choice, given that it prevents us doing something else that is also worthwhile. when resources are spent on one strategy to improve education we should always hold in mind what else we could have used the resources for. when billions of rands get spent on reforms that show hardly any benefit, then it is not only their failure that should concern us, but what else the resources could have been used for. heystek and minnaar argue that we should be allocating our resources very editorial 7 carefully, given how limited they are, and that resources should go to places where strong traction is gained. they put it well: dedicated and well-qualified teachers who teach disciplined learners in a safe environment should receive priority in any action principals and departments of education take to improve and sustain the quality of education in the western cape and possibly in all south african schools. as matthew 13:12 has it in the king james version: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. that sounds wicked to me. references bernstein, b. 2000. pedagogy, symbolic control, and identity: theory, research, critique. rowman & littlefield publishers: london. horn, r.e and weber, r.e. 2007. new tools for resolving wicked problems: mess mapping and resolution mapping processes. strategy kinetics. wayne hugo school of education university of kwazulu-natal hugow@ukzn.ac.za mailto:hugow@ukzn.ac.za 8 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 mailto:bertramc@ukzn.ac.za microsoft word bissue76full21oct.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 76, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i76a09 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x are high school teachers and university academics on the same page? a case of the university readiness of business education learners at two schools and two universities karen dos reis teaching and learning unit, faculty of economic and management sciences, university of the western cape, cape town, south africa kdosreis@uwc.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4625-6004 antoinette venter directorate: curriculum get, western cape education department, cape town, south africa antoinette.venter@westerncape.gov.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7834-4418 venicia mcghie department of academic development, faculty of economic and management sciences, university of the western cape, cape town, south africa vfmcghie@uwc.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0581-3089 (received: 17 february 2019; accepted: 2 august 2019) abstract many studies nationally and internationally continue to find that schools are not preparing learners adequately to cope with the demands of higher education, hence the high dropout rate particularly at the first-year level. we found that, in most cases, research studies conducted in south africa focus solely on a particular stakeholder’s perception to gain insights into students’ readiness for university as opposed to corroborating perceptions of both teachers and academics. thus, the aim of our paper is to explore the perceptions of both business education high school educators and lecturers in terms of how they view the readiness of learners for university, particularly for the bachelor of commerce degree programme. the findings highlight the lack of communication and collaboration between schools and universities. recommendations are proposed to assist the staff of high schools and universities to work collaboratively in order to provide high school learners with adequate foundational knowledge and skills that will ensure that they are ready for higher education studies. we argue that exploring the perceptions of high school teachers and academics collectively could be a step in the right direction towards paving the way for successful learning at university for first-year students in bachelor of commerce degree programmes. keywords: learners, teachers, high school, business education, readiness, higher education, academics, successful learning dos reis et al.: are high school teachers and university academics on the same page? 167 introduction and background the end of apartheid earmarked a new and exciting beginning for democracy in south africa. the previously fragmented departments of education were demolished, and a new national department of education was constituted, with three bands: the general education and training band; the further education and training band; and the higher education and training band (department of education, 1998). however, as a consequence of apartheid, the national department of education inherited an unequal and poorly resourced education system in which most public schools do not equip the learners with the necessary skills and knowledge needed to succeed in higher education (rantsi, 2016; spaull, 2013). given the context of the south africa’s unequal education system, not all learners are adequately prepared for tertiary education because at school there is a discrepancy between the skills and knowledge that students gain in high school versus the skills and knowledge required by higher education institutions. the diagnostic report of the department of basic education (2016) highlights areas of concern in the national senior certificate examination. these include grade 12 learners’ “lack of independent or creative thought, their inability to cope with analytical, evaluative and problem-solving type questions” (department of basic education, 2016(a), p. 7) and the poor language skills of a vast majority of those who sat for the examinations. these are the skills (in addition to subject-specific knowledge) that higher education institutions require prospective students to have when they are admitted to a diploma or degree programme. it is against this backdrop that in this paper we report on one part of a larger study conducted at two high schools in western cape province. the focus of the larger study was on the business education learning area that is offered to grades 10, 11, and 12 learners (referred to as the further education and training phase). the research participants were learners, subject advisers, the teachers responsible for teaching the three subjects (accounting, economics and business studies), and academics at two universities who were responsible for teaching first-year students in their business faculty. here, we consider the views and perceptions of the teachers and academic participants regarding the readiness of business education learners for post-school studies. we begin with a review of relevant literature on the south african public schooling context, followed by a discussion of the higher education context. thereafter, we discuss the theoretical underpinnings of the paper and this is followed by an explanation of the methodological processes, and a summary of the results. we conclude the paper with a discussion of the findings, and suggestions on how teachers and academics could work collaboratively to equip business education learners with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed at university level. 168 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 south african schooling: a tumultuous context? in 2015, the organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd) ranked the south african education system in the bottom two out of the 76 countries on which the organisation reported (nonjinge, 2018). the south african child gauge revealed that a staggering 58% of children cannot read fluently and with comprehension at the end of grade 4 (nonjinge, 2018). out of 100 learners who start school, approximately 60 will reach and write matric, 37 will pass, and 12 will access university. only 4 will complete an undergraduate degree within 6 years. low through-put rates and weak performance in high school is rooted in weak foundations from primary school (spaull & kotze, 2015). moreover, letseka (2014) has explained that because many public schools in south africa are dysfunctional, this has a bad effect on the learners since they do not develop the necessary skills and qualities to read effectively and do well in mathematics. consequently, the failing and repeating rates in schools, especially in grade 10 is high (department of basic education, 2016(b); letseka, 2014). in addition to these grim statistics regarding low literacy and numeracy skills, south africa is also experiencing a shortage of teachers. the country will be in need of as many as 30, 000 additional teachers by 2025 (world education news & reviews (wenr), 2017). what is further concerning is that some of the current teachers do not have the basic pedagogic and content knowledge competencies needed to facilitate learning for the learners while teacher late-coming, absenteeism, and an inability to enact the basic functions of teaching are endemic in many public south african schools (department of basic education, 2016(a); letseka, 2014). modisaotsile (2012) has also included poor teacher-training, as well as unqualified and demotivated teachers as part of the ongoing challenges in the south african schooling system. furthermore, the constant shift in south africa’s educational curriculum reforms remains challenging in some respects. for example, there are problems with content overload and curriculum coverage, and with the poor quality of formal assessment tasks along with challenges relating to understanding how to use cognitive levels, different forms of assessment, the weighting of assessment with regard to time and marks, and the development of 21st-century skills (maboya, 2017). sharing a similar sentiment, goetze (2016) has stated that the most recent curriculum reform, curriculum assessment policy statements (caps), is disadvantaging learners because it is too content-heavy and does not allow for consolidation time, has a rigid approach, includes the over-assessment of learners, and does not develop critical thinking skills in them. because of these disadvantages, learners exit the public high school system without achieving the desired outcomes or being the envisaged learners that caps hoped to produce (rantsi, 2016). consequently, the social demand for better schools, effective principals, qualified and committed teachers, and better opportunities for all poses a huge challenge to provinces and to the state to protect the rights of all citizens (department of basic education, 2016(b)). dos reis et al.: are high school teachers and university academics on the same page? 169 south african higher education: an intricate system? the historically unequal distribution of economic, social, and cultural capital in south africa has created disparities in the manner in which first-year students adjust and succeed at university. according to morrow (2009), research into student access to higher education has illustrated that such access does not necessarily ensure significant academic and social engagement and retention, nor successful learning. this fact lies behind south africa’s pressing need for more skilled graduates to take forward all forms of social and economic development (council of higher education, 2013). the quantity and quality of the country’s graduate outcomes have major implications for social, political, and economic development, particularly in a context of a scarcity of skills. to this end, leibowitz, van der merwe, and van schalkwyk (2009) have explained that the number and worth of south africa’s graduate outcomes could have severe implications for the growth and development of the economy, specifically regarding relation to scare skills’ occupations. in addition, higher education has become more complex, given the increase in student numbers, including what are known as non-traditional students, for example, first-generation entrants, mature students, and students from disadvantaged communities (council of higher education, 2013, 2016). the last few decades have seen the introduction, on a large scale, of bridging and foundational programmes, student support programmes, more career guidance and counselling, different pedagogies, more explicit and transparent expectations and criteria for assessment, and a much wider range of modes of delivery facilitated by the developments in information and communications technology (council on higher education, 2013, 2016). in 2014, there were 26 public universities in south africa consisting of 14 traditional research universities, six universities of technology, and six comprehensive universities (department of higher education and training, 2016). for 2018, a total of 1, 060, 312 students were projected to enrol in public universities with 208, 308 of them being first-time entering students (department of higher education and training, 2016). despite the increase in enrolments for african and coloured students, there is still a huge disparity between the learners who passed with a bachelor pass and the ones who register at a university, compared to the overall population statistics (statistics south africa, 2019). for example, in 2017, 35.3% of white students attended a post-school institution, followed by asian students at 27.1%, while only 10.2% of african students, and 8.2% of coloured students attended a post-school institution (statistics south africa, 2019). this means that 65.3% of african and 81.5% of coloured young people between the ages of 18 and 24 were not attending an institution of higher learning in 2017 (statistics south africa, 2019). moreover, from the cohort of students who enrolled in 2011, an average of 29% completed their degree programmes in the prescribed period of three years (by the end of 2013). another 29% took three more years to complete, while the remaining 42% dropped out, with the largest portion of dropouts occurring in the first year of study (council on higher education, 2016). more specifically, for black students who access higher education, 20% complete their degree in the prescribed time, 30% take a further 2 to 3 years to finish, and 170 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 50% drop out before obtaining their qualifications (council on higher education, 2013). thus, the higher education landscape in south africa is still characterised by a high-attrition and a low throughput rate (fisher & scott, 2011). the alarming statistics above direct attention to the fact that learners who are doing business education subjects (accounting, economics and business studies) at high school should be supported and equipped with a solid foundation and knowledge base so that their chances of succeeding at university or college will be strengthened. a recent study conducted in south africa found that there was a correlation between a high mark achieved in accounting at school and the mark achieved in accounting 1 at university (papageorgiou & halabi, 2014). similarly, an australian study confirmed that accounting as a school subject is beneficial for studying, in particular, first year tertiary accounting (alcock, cockcroft, & finn, 2008). this study highlighted that studying accounting at school appears to be specific only to studying the accounting module at tertiary level. they also found that the curriculum of the accounting done at school was aligned with the curriculum of an introductory accounting module at university, hence, the correlation was expected. rankin, silvester, vallely, and wyatt (2003) were also of the view that prior high school accounting knowledge influences students’ academic performance in accounting modules at university. however, in the case of economics, students who did not do economics as a school subject can successfully pass economics at university level provided there is an intervention programme to support them. dos reis and yu (2018) who conducted a study on an economics’ peer mentoring intervention to provide support to first-year students who did not enrol for economics in grade 12, highlighted this finding. the peer mentoring intervention provided extra tutorial support to bachelor of commerce students who were registered for a four-year degree programme. the intervention was successful in that the students who were part of the peer mentoring intervention outperformed those who were not mentees in both the formative and the summative assessments. thus, this finding provides evidence that learners who do not have economics as part of the business education subjects at school, could be successful at economics 1 at university level through the provision of academic support (dos reis & yu, 2018). the same inference could be made for business studies, which correlates to management 1 at university level. during the first semester of 2017, a language support programme among all the first-year modules was introduced in the business faculty at the university of the western cape. the aim of the support programme was to strengthen the first-year students’ chances of passing all their first semester modules. the results showed that the highest pass rate was achieved in the management 1 module, despite the fact that more than 50% of the students did not do business studies at high school (dos reis, 2017). the success of students in economics and business studies at university level, despite the fact that they did not do these subjects at high school level, draws attention to the provision of epistemological access (morrow, 2009). morrow had advocated that widening university access to formally disadvantaged students has to do, on the one hand, with formal access, which refers to making it possible for students to be accepted into a degree or diploma dos reis et al.: are high school teachers and university academics on the same page? 171 programme. epistemological access, on the other hand, he argues, has to do with the provision of foundational knowledge and skills that will enable students to succeed academically. lewin and mawoyo (2014, p. 56) define epistemological access “as the extent to which students are able to and enabled to access the academic workings and expectations of university study, also described as ‘scaffolding’ and the ‘discourses of learning’”. we suggest that higher education institutions are experiencing high attrition and a low throughput rate because they do not ensure epistemological access to the students they admit. this means that there should be closer liaison and cooperation between high schools and higher education in order to ensure that grade 12 learners are equipped with the foundational knowledge and skills that will prepare them for post-school studies. this is our goal of this paper; we report on the views and perceptions of high school teachers and university lecturers with regard to the readiness of learners for post-school studies in business faculties. the objective is to arrive at recommendations that could be implemented by both high schools and post-school institutions to prepare high school learners for further education and training. theoretical framework it is imperative that first-year students are academically ready for post-school studies, given the discussion in the previous sections and the pass and dropout statistics provided. byrd and macdonald (2005) and conley (2007) have stated that readiness for university education is predominantly associated with high school academic achievement and results of admission tests. after a review of literature on readiness theories in south africa, lemmens’s (2010) readiness and retention model was deemed suitable as the theoretical framework for this paper. this model focussed on the readiness characteristics that south african students present upon entering the university, and the contextual or environmental dimensions in which the readiness characteristics are located. lemmens based his readiness theory on the work of conley (2007). he identified four dimensions of readiness characteristics: • contextual dimension (parental, socio-cultural and financial); • cognitive sub-dimension (skills and abilities, and academic preparedness); • non-cognitive sub-dimension (educational values, self-efficacy, target goal, beliefs and behaviours, and coping strategies); and • biological dimension (gender and race) (lemmens, 2010, p. 279). the overall readiness characteristics of lemmens’s model are “high school achievement, race, language, credits registered for, goal orientation, learning-efficacy, gender, distance from school, reading behaviour, parental education, study choice, distance of parental home, and financial pressure on the student to pay for studies and living costs” (2010, p. 279). his main findings revealed that the readiness characteristics of students show a direct relationship with academic success and intention to withdraw. following conley (2007), lemmens has acknowledged that transition to university or college includes not only key content knowledge, but also cognitive strategies, learning skills and techniques, and knowledge and skills related to the transition to higher education institutions. this implies that high school learners should not be taught only cognitive knowledge, but also soft skills and other 172 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 attributes that would lay the foundation on which lecturers could build and thus strengthen students’ chances of success in higher education. it is also important to note that the four dimensions are interdependent and related, and that, when one or more of these dimensions prove problematic, it could lead to failure and dropout for students (conley, 2007; lemmens, 2010). for the purposes of our study and this paper, three of the four dimensions (contextual dimension, cognitive sub-dimension, and non-cognitive sub-dimension) of lemmens’s readiness and retention model were used as the basis for the analysis of the data, and the discussion and interpretation of the findings. research methodology and design the larger study was situated in a qualitative, interpretive research paradigm. qualitative research, according to henning, hutter, and bailey (2011), allows a researcher to scrutinise the experiences of people in their natural environment in order to identify how their experiences and behaviours are formed by the societal, financial, traditional, and daily contexts in which they live. our intention in this paper is to present what the teachers do to prepare the learners for post-school studies. we then present what academics at universities think of this and conclude whether they think that the learners were adequately prepared, or not, for tertiary studies. following creswell (2014), we agree that qualitative research allows for purposefully selected participants and sites that will assist us as researchers to understand the problem and the research question. our research sites included two high schools and two universities in western cape province. learners at a quintile 1 (no fee paying) high school in a semi-rural community and a quintile 4 (fee paying) high school situated in an urban community participated in this study. there were four different research participants in the larger study, thirty learners from each of the two schools (60 in total), three teachers from each school (6 in total), the fet phase subject advisers (3 in total), and three academics from each of the two universities (6 in total). semi-structured interviews were conducted with the teachers and the lecturers. two teachers (one from each school) were teaching accounting, two were teaching business studies, and two were teaching economics at the two high schools. similarly, two academics (again, one from each university) were responsible for teaching accounting, two for teaching economics, and two for teaching management at the two universities. one university was a traditional university, and the other was a university of technology. numbers and initials have been used as pseudonyms for ethical reasons. tables 1 and 2 below reflect the subjects and years of experience of the teachers and the academics as well as the numbers allocated to interviews with them. dos reis et al.: are high school teachers and university academics on the same page? 173 table 1: interview numbers, pseudonyms of teachers, their subject, and years of experience semi-structured interviews pseudonyms subject years of experience number 1 ab economics 1 year number 2 mn economics 31 years number 3 ah accounting 27 years number 4 tk accounting 4 years number 5 mj business studies 16 years number 6 ns business studies 9 years table 2: interview numbers, pseudonyms of lecturers, their discipline/subject, and years of experience semi-structured interviews pseudonyms discipline/subject years of experience number 1 vg business management 11 number 2 mm 21 number 3 bw financial accounting 5 number 4 lb financial accounting 7 number 5 nh entrepreneurship 2 number 6 wd financial accounting 8 in the larger study, the purpose of the interviews with the teachers was to ascertain the factors that obstruct quality teaching, what knowledge and skills the learners needed to be prepared for university, and which school interventions were in place to support the learners. the purpose of the interviews with lecturers was to establish the challenges they experience with first-year students’ readiness in terms of school pedagogical requirements, subject knowledge requirements, the teachers’ knowledge of university requirements, and the university interventions (if any) that were in place to support the students. only the questions and responses that pertain to the learners’ readiness are reported on here and analysed in the next section. results two questions were posed to the teachers in the semi-structured interviews. these were: • do you think that the school adequately prepares learners for university studies? • what type of challenges and problems are learners experiencing in your subject in grades 10 to12? 174 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 three questions were asked of the lecturers in the semi-structured interviews. the first question asked was if they thought that the schools were preparing the business education learners for a business degree at university. the second question had seven sub-points. the question was: in your opinion, are learners coming to university studies with the following skills: • time management and identification of priorities; • independent working; • problem-solving; • logical and conceptual work, structuring arguments; • communication, in particular, sustained writing and report writing; • reading, note-taking, and listening; and • some aspects of social and interpersonal skills? the third question asked the lecturers to make suggestions about what the schools and teachers could do to prepare learners for university study. the responses from the six educators and six academics to the above questions were analysed with atlas.ti analysis. a deductive thematic process was followed to analyse the responses since we used the characteristics of the first three dimensions of lemmens’s readiness and retention model as described above to identify the main themes and sub-themes (see creswell & creswell, 2018). the themes were: • lecturers’ and teachers’ perceptions of university readiness; • language differentiation; • a lack of critical thinking and problem-solving skills; • workload and time management; and • social problems. the findings are described below. lecturers’ and teachers’ perception of university readiness this theme resonates with lemmens’s (2010) notion of cognitive sub-dimension (skills and abilities, and academic preparedness). one sub-theme was identified from the responses that indicated that public schools are preparing learners in business education studies for higher education studies, and those that did not agree. there was a mismatch between lecturer and teacher perception of student university readiness. irrespective of the years that the teachers had been teaching, the three from the quintile 1 school believe that their school was preparing learners adequately for university. two reasons were that “learners get a good foundation which is very useful at university” (mj), and “the level of education in schools and the teacher involvement and dedication are assisting learners to compete well” (tk), while ab stated that the subject knowledge of economics lays a good foundation to pursue this subject at tertiary level. he said, “[f]rom grade 10 learners are required to do markets, which is the same as the university stuff.” dos reis et al.: are high school teachers and university academics on the same page? 175 in contrast with these remarks, two teachers (ah and ns) from the quintile 4 school did not agree with their quintile 1 counterparts that the school had prepared learners adequately for university studies. their arguments were that “most learners struggle to work independently at university level” (ah) and that “the curriculum is designed for ideal circumstances and we are sitting with overcrowded classes, so it makes it difficult to adhere to time” (ns). the third teacher, mn, did not have a definite opinion about learners’ readiness for university and said, “the schools do try, but not all the learners have the resources to develop their skills.” a similar trend in the responses from the lecturers was noted. the three lecturers from the traditional university indicated that the school curriculum did not adequately prepare the learners for higher education irrespective of the number of years’ lecturing experience they had. in contrast, two of the three lecturers from the university of technology thought that the students were, at least to a certain extent, prepared for post-school studies. they were of the opinion that learners coming from well-functioning schools are better prepared for university. vg stated, it is not only the school curriculum, they have social capital, and there are other aspects that contribute to them being university ready. it is not the school curriculum, per se, it is also the type of school and teachers, all the schools have the same curriculum. certain schools do prepare the students well, but that is the minority. lb put particular emphasis on the discrepancies between the university and school pass requirements and raised this as a serious concern. she explained, learners are allowed to ‘pass’ with less than 50%, which means that some students have passed the school subject but have ‘gaps’ in their subject knowledge, which do cause concerns at university level. furthermore, the responses from the lecturers from the traditional university related more to the subject knowledge of first-year students. mm, who also said, “no, the learners were not adequately prepared for university study,” explained that there were “gaps which the university identified, and, as a result, the university has support modules to help the students overcome the challenges in terms of language and mathematics.” she articulated the concern she felt after the first assessment she gave to the first-year economic students. the student outcomes of the first class test [showed that] the students with no economics background did better than students [who] had economics at grade 12 level. it is about the assessment types at school level, such as define, and match words, and fill in [missing] words, and writing the [misnamed] ‘essays.’ we found these assessment methods to be counter intuitive as students then grapple with providing more depth in answering questions (those that go beyond merely defining) at first year [level]. 176 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 bw, who lectures accounting, shared a similar view as did mm and felt that learners are taught at a superficial level and lack critical thinking skills which are a major requirement of her subject. she stated, my opinion is that schools focus on the application of accounting. in the first year of the accounting module, concepts and principles are taught, followed by the application of these principles. at school level i feel that teachers tend to focus on the application only and the learners become robotic, because they know how to do it, but not why. while nh had mixed responses about how taking the business education subjects prepare learners for the b.com. degree, she said, to an extent yes, [school] does prepare learners who did business studies, economics, or some business management related subjects in high school, because the learners have a basic knowledge and understanding of business principles. to a lesser extent, no, because the students are not well equipped to discuss concepts and apply them in different scenarios. analytical skills are lacking. we found that while teachers and lecturers could provide detailed explanations of the challenges they face teaching their subject, not all of them could provide input regarding the strategies they or the university or school could implement to overcome these challenges. in addition, the results also revealed that both lecturers and teachers could give recommendations about which strategies could be employed but revealed none of their own intervention strategies. language differentiation this theme falls under lemmens’s (2010) cognitive sub-dimension (skills and abilities, and academic preparedness). the teachers from the quintile 1 school reported that a large percentage of learners (more than 90%) at the school speak isixhosa as a home language, which is different from the language of instruction (english). in contrast, in the quintile 4 school, where the languages of instruction are afrikaans and english, the teachers reported that the percentage of learners whose language is different from the language of instruction, was 10% and below. as is generally known, when english is a second or additional language, one of the major learning challenges for the learners is communication and understanding. according to nh, writing essays or discussing a topic is a challenge for students. lb explained that students struggle with writing down sentences and/or documenting their thoughts. wd asserted that “students have to intellectually go through the process of understanding, translating, and retranslating into their native language.” wd added, note-taking is a skill cultivated by understanding what is important vs. supplementary information. in addition, speed in noting and listening is, as a consequence, also affected negatively. dos reis et al.: are high school teachers and university academics on the same page? 177 it is clear that being second language or additional language speakers of english is one reason why learners are not adequately prepared for higher education studies. a lack of critical thinking and problem-solving skills this theme also falls under lemmens’s (2010) cognitive sub-dimension (skills and abilities, and academic preparedness). one of the teachers, mn, was of the opinion that learners struggled with reading and writing. she also said, “the learners struggle with questions that test insight.” she suggested that the curriculum content must be reduced “so that there can be more time for the development of skills.” according to lb, many students struggle with critical thinking. her perception is that students are scared of thinking since it appears that they have been conditioned into believing that it is safe to do rote learning. they have been told, “you will pass when you memorise the textbook.” this leads to students not being able to think critically and prevents them from developing problem-solving skills. wd also shared a sentiment around the problem-solving skills of students. she said, students can solve problems once they get going but they struggle with the initial assessment of the task, clarity of instructions and where to access information, as well as how to package the solution. the answers from both the teachers and the lecturers indicated that the students could not think critically and analytically, and, as a result, they did not develop the problem-solving skills that are needed for university studies. workload and time management similar to the previous two themes, this theme also falls under lemmens’s (2010) cognitive sub-dimension. two lecturers from the university explained that students struggled at university level to come to grips with the workload and to manage their time, mainly because there is no enforcement at university level in respect of study activities. ns felt that the volume of work and the time constraints, with no time for consolidation, hinder success in her subject. wd was of opinion that a lack of time management skills is one of the most noteworthy reasons most first-year students fail. she explained, students need social orientation for various reasons but also need to get a grip with the volume of reading required for university, note-taking, how to manage their academic week whilst still maintaining a balance with healthy exercise, eating, and social life. all six teachers agreed that time management and the ability to work under pressure should be nurtured at high school so that students would be ready for a heavier workload at university level and could succeed. 178 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 social problems a social problem was the last theme identified in the teachers’ and lecturers’ responses as a possible reason why some of the learners did not succeed at post-school studies. this theme recalls lemmens’s (2010) contextual dimension (parental, socio-cultural and financial). both teachers and lecturers spoke about the socio-economic challenges that learners faced such as peer pressure, and drug and substance abuse, and a lack of parental involvement. learners and students who come from different provinces must cope on their own (without the support base of home). mj highlighted that “peer pressure and drug and substance abuse” is rife in his school. ab was particularly concerned about learners’ lack of self-motivation and the lack of parental involvement in the community. she asserted, learners are not motivated and [are] uncertain about future career plans. additionally, this causes a lack of focus. parent’s lack of involvement and social challenges at home and within the community also affect the learners’ ability to perform to their best potential. vg pointed out that students who come from other provinces and are compelled to find their own residences are particularly affected by social problems and made suggestions on how to assist these students. first year is fraught with social and interpersonal problems, especially when students also come from another city and struggle to find residence. however, with assimilation into a group of ethical hard-working students, the student can acquire good social and interpersonal skills and feel supported. it is not only about the cognitive ability, but also to be socially, ethically, and environmentally aware. all three teachers from the quintile 1 school explained that for learners to overcome their learning challenges, they must be encouraged to improve, be positive and do well, and be involved in school activities. last, the lecturers explained in detail what the universities are doing to bridge the gap of a lack of foundational knowledge and skills for first-year students. they reported that both universities have support modules for first-year students, e-learning courses that consist of a range of videos to catch up with topics missed that students could revisit as many times as they want when they have identified gaps in their knowledge. they also provide online tutorials that are completed after every topic and said that mentoring sessions are available for at-risk students. discussion the first finding from the responses of the teachers and the lecturers to the first question posed, indicates that there was agreement among all three teachers from the quintile 1 school and the two academics from the university of technology concerning the learners’ readiness for post-school studies. they reported that the school was preparing the learners for higher dos reis et al.: are high school teachers and university academics on the same page? 179 education studies. similarly, there was an agreement among two teachers from the quintile 4 school and the three lecturers from the traditional university that the school did not prepare the learners adequately for higher education studies. quintile 1 schools are not fee paying schools because most of the learners who are from african and coloured communities come from townships and low socio-economic backgrounds. these are also the schools that have larger class sizes, insufficient resources, and ill-developed infrastructures, with semi-skilled and less qualified educators (department of basic education, 2016(b).) quintile 4 schools, however, are categorised as fee paying schools, are in areas that are more affluent, are well resourced, and have more qualified and skilled educators. in addition, the most recent report released by the department of basic education (2019) showed that the pass rate in quintile 1 schools is significantly lower than in quintile 4 schools, which is understandable given the schools’ contextual dimensions (lemmens, 2010). there is also a cognitive difference between the traditional universities and universities of technology as well as a difference of focus. the traditional universities are more theorydriven as opposed to the universities of technology, which are more practically oriented (department of education, 1998). additionally, the admission requirements of the traditional universities are generally more stringent than those of the universities of technology. it is then not surprising that the lecturers from the traditional university felt that public schooling was not adequately preparing the students for university study, and that two of the teachers from the quintile 4 school agreed. the findings also indicated that the quintile 1 school’s learners had overwhelmingly higher percentage of second and additional language speakers of english as opposed to the quintile 4 school. this means that quintile 1 learners are in a more disadvantaged position given that the medium of instruction and assessment is not their mother tongue. quintile 4 learners have an advantage because they were taught and assessed in their home language (english and afrikaans). these two factors provide evidence for the lecturers’ claim that the learners were not adequately prepared for university study; they came with a lack of subject knowledge and an inability to apply critical and analytical thinking that would have enabled them to understand how to solve problems in accounting 1 or economics, for example. moreover, the students do not learn and do not construct new knowledge in their first language, so this is an additional challenge. the difficulty of having to learn in a different language relates directly to lemmens’s cognitive sub-dimension in that this will hinder their ability to think critically and analytically. given the statistics presented above and the literature reviewed, we infer that the high failure and dropout rates of african and coloured students result from a lack of subject knowledge, the inability to apply critical and analytical thinking, and the fact that many students are second or additional language speakers of english. these characteristics of south african students reflect lemmens’s examples in his readiness and retention model as identified and discussed above. another significant finding agreed upon by most teachers is that time management skills should be nurtured at high school. however, one teacher felt that the current curriculum 180 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 constraints put pressure on both teachers and learners to manage their time effectively. goetze (2016), who is of the view that caps is disadvantaging learners because learners are continually overwhelmed with too much content and can therefore not cope with the workload, has also highlighted this point. given the continual pressure placed on teachers to complete the curriculum, learners are not given sufficient opportunities to complete activities independently in the classroom, nor to collaborate with their peers. the findings also revealed that the learners who participated in this study (particularly from the quintile 1 school) are from disadvantaged communities as are most of the students registered at the universities whose lecturers participated in this study. both teachers and lecturers were of the opinion that students and learners experience socio-economic challenges such as substance abuse by learners and lack of parental involvement. as lemmens has pointed out in his readiness and retention model, without parental involvement and financial stability, learners’ chances of success at higher education studies are slim; the statistics provided in the introductory section of this paper bear witness to this. these factors contribute to the complexity of providing higher education in south africa (department of higher education and training, 2016, council on higher education, 2016). the issues discussed in this paper provide evidence for morrow’s (2009) argument that students in general, and african and coloured students in particular, need academic support and an enabling learning environment if they are to complete their degree programmes successfully. conclusion and recommendations the results of the study show that universities and schools are not working together to solve the ongoing challenges first-year business degree students face at university. the agreement among four of the six lecturers and two teachers that the public schooling system does not sufficiently prepare business education learners for university study should be a cause of great concern for all stakeholders involved in basic and higher education. what should be taken into consideration is that the study of business education at school gives learners the opportunity to enrol for a business degree at a university. this means that schools and business faculties should join forces and work collaboratively so that learners can be prepared adequately for higher education studies. the findings discussed in this paper provide evidence that some teachers do not have a clear understanding of the requirements of learners if they are to gain access to university, and more importantly, what role the school curriculum should play to prepare them for higher education. it would appear that lecturers have little or no knowledge of the school curriculum and the different quintiles from which they come. of particular concern is that lecturers in this study indicated that they and their universities are not taking any initiative to work closely with schools or the department of basic education to help mitigate the school-based challenges they mentioned first-year students are experiencing. there was also no evidence that teachers are working with universities. dos reis et al.: are high school teachers and university academics on the same page? 181 one of the findings of this study reveals that the challenges students face can be traced back to the foundation phase in the public schooling system. second language english learners, in particular, are bearing the brunt of the current system in that the medium of instruction in the foundation phase (grade r to grade 3) is their mother tongue, but from grade 4 to grade 12 all learners have no choice but to be instructed in afrikaans or english. another current major challenge (and this is mentioned in the literature) is the learners’ lack of numeracy skills. this, along with a deficit of linguistic (or communicative) competence presents a serious obstacle to teachers, in the fet phase, in particular, and to university lecturers. these challenges should be enough to encourage business education teachers and lecturers to initiate a community of practice to take appropriate action. we argue that there are numerous mechanisms that could be put in place and strategies that could be implemented to prepare learners to pursue a business degree successfully at university to establish a community of practice, it is imperative that the business faculty leadership take the initiative to establish a platform to ensure ongoing communication with business education teachers and curriculum advisers. we recommend that they meet with these stakeholders in their particular regions to identify current intervention strategies that are already being implemented at both schools and universities to equip the learners with the knowledge and skills needed. we argue that this information could assist them to collaborate to improve the current strategies and to develop new ones. given that lecturers are expected to conduct research in their respective disciplines, this form of collaboration could provide the opportunity to assess the success of current intervention strategies and, given this information, predict the likely success of planned ones. more importantly, their research could also assist in developing a university readiness model for first-year business degree students. another recommendation is to equip lecturers with information about the current school business education curriculum. they need to understand the significance of different schools in terms of their quintile ranking and what it means for learners to attend a quintile 1 school as opposed to attending a quintile 5 school. this information would allow lecturers to understand better the different contexts of their first-year students. working closely with business education teachers and the fet curriculum advisors, lecturers could help develop strategies that will aid learners’ critical and analytical thinking skills. our final recommendation is that the department of basic education should involve higher education stakeholders in the decision-making processes of the development of a school curriculum that will prepare learners adequately for higher education studies in general, and business education studies in particular. the issues discussed in this paper illustrate that education in 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(2017). education in south africa. retrieved from https://wenr.wes.org/2017/05/education-south-africa microsoft word b80 full issue final.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 80, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i80a09 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x their capital has value, too: exploring parental educational support in low-socioeconomic single-mother families carmelita jacobs department of educational psychology, faculty of education, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa carmelitaj32@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6344-1522 doria daniels department of educational psychology, faculty of education, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa doria@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0522-1980 (received: 21 january 2020; accepted: 15 september 2020) abstract parental educational support is a key contributing factor to the educational success of children (epstein, 2018; hill & tyson, 2009; seginer, 2006). however, educational research has shown that schools tend to engage with single-mother families from a deficit perspective, labelling such parents “uninvolved” and “uncaring” (hampden-thompson, 2009; hoover-dempsey et al., 2001; robinson & werblow, 2012). often not considered, are the embedded forms of capital present in single-parent families and the ways in which single parents invest in their children’s education. in this article, we report on the findings of a qualitative multiple-case study of single-mother families from a south african community. six single-mother family units were researched for the contributions they made to their children’s educational success. our theoretical framework was informed by yosso’s (2005) model of community cultural wealth. our findings show that, despite severe societal adversity, these participating mothers invested in their children’s educational and emotional well-being by accumulating alternative forms of embedded community cultural wealth. our findings have relevance for the ways in which schools engage with, and collaborate with, such parent communities to advance positive school–family relationships. keywords: parental educational support, parental engagement, single-mother families, community cultural wealth jacobs & daniels: their capital has value, too 161 introduction parents play an essential role in the education of their children, and their involvement is considered by educationists to be an important predictor of children’s school success (epstein, 2018; hoover-dempsey & sandler, 1997; jeynes, 2011; kaplan toren, 2013; seginer, 2006). many of the world’s children are being raised in one-parent households, mostly female headed (budlender & lund, 2011). society might want us to believe that single mothers do not have a road map to educational success for their children because of a biased perception that one-parent families lack the necessary educational and material resources to support their children’s education. in bourdieusian (2007) terms, such homes are assumed to have limited inherited cultural capital. we argue that such perceptions are perpetuated by educational research that has engaged with parent involvement and support in very specific ways: as financial support of their children’s education, as supporter of schoolrelated activities (lemmer, 2007), and as representation on school governing bodies (mncube, 2009). when parents fail to measure up to these “legitimised” forms of support, they are deemed to be uninvolved and unsupportive parents. this very narrow view of the contributions that parents make to the academic success of their children eliminates other informal and less recognised contributions, that especially marginalised parents make, as being valuable and worthy. most international research on parent support has had the middle-class family as context, and used the two-parent family as norm when researching parent involvement (epstein, 2011; hoover-demsey et al., 2001; lefevre & shaw, 2005). as a result, the educational support experiences of parents from low-socioeconomic communities remain underreported, and knowledge about how these parents navigate and contribute to their children’s educational success remains under explored. we argue that there are sociocultural differences in parents’ educational support strategies, and that family structures impose differing challenges on parents’ contributions (camacho-thompson et al., 2019; daniels, 2017, 2018; epstein, 2011; hoover-demsey et al., 2001; lefevre & shaw, 2005; okeke, 2014). for our discussion, we limit our context to the single-mother family unit. although an estimated 70% of south africa’s children grow up in single-parent households (budlender & lund, 2011), the parent support literature has seen such families as the exception rather than the norm. both national and international educational research has adopted a deficit approach to such families’ ability to be a supportive educational environment (aragon, 2018; baquendano-lopez et al., 2013; koh et al., 2017; newlin, 2017). these families have been described as broken, incomplete family units and presumed to be educationally disadvantaged (gagnon, 2018; hampden-thompson, 2009; hampdenthompson & galindo, 2015; knowles & holmström, 2013; musick & meier, 2010). they have been presumed to be at high risk due to financial and social pressures, and the parents expected to be less involved in their children’s schooling (hampden-thompson, 2009; knowles & holmström, 2013; musick & meier, 2010). our research goal is to disrupt this stereotypical perception of female-headed households as being incomplete and dysfunctional units. by telling the stories of how six single-mother families invested in the educational 162 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 success of their adolescent high school children, we provide opportunities for society to see the investment these parents made in their children’s educational success. studies that used positive, asset-based approaches in their interactions with latino and african-american single-mother families have shown how parents provided educational support to their children in informal and nontraditional ways (camacho-thompson et al., 2019; lopez et al., 2001; robinson & werblow, 2012; vega et al., 2015; williams & sánchez, 2012). our work was informed by feminist learnings, and our goal was to capture both the complexities and the resiliencies embedded in single-mother households. parent involvement, parent engagement, and parental educational support in this article, we use the term, parental educational support, to refer to all those activities and practices at home or school that promote academic and social outcomes (epstein, 2011, 2018; hill & tyson, 2009; seginer, 2006). our understanding of parental educational support is that it is a complex and multidimensional concept, which is influenced by factors such as race, class, socioeconomic status, history, and context. we acknowledge that parents from different ethnic, cultural, or racial backgrounds might use different support strategies (bhargava & witherspoon, 2015; hill & tyson, 2009), some of which may not be accepted as educational support. furthermore, the socioeconomic status (ses) of families could impact on the educational support that parents are able to provide and the effectiveness of that support (bhargava & witherspoon, 2015; rawatlal et al., 2015; wang & sheikh-khalil, 2014). research has shown that parents with a higher ses engage in more parental involvement, and that parents with a low ses engage in less home-based and school-based support—often because of limited material and social resources (wang & sheikh-khalil, 2014). such research, however, has mostly used middle-class two-parent families as norm, and shown families that do not fit that as being uninvolved and deficit in their support and involvement. our view is that traditional views of parents’ educational support are not universally applicable and a broader conceptualisation of parental educational support is needed. our understanding of parental educational support is more inclusive and broader than schools’ understandings, which only link certain parent activities to educational success, namely, homework support, physical presence at children’s extramural activities, and participation at meetings and school functions (green et al., 2007). our stance is situated in a positive, asset-based approach to parents’ involvement and support. we do not limit parents’ educational support to school-sanctioned activities only. our parent support research interests include academic socialisation, which is a more informal strategy that involves communication by parents of their expectations of and aspirations for their children, and its potential to advance strong positive relationships and educational success in high school learners (toren & seginer, 2015; wang & sheikh-khalil, 2014). yosso’s (2005) research in disadvantaged communities has made her advocate for the legitimisation and recognition by society of the cultural wealth present in such communities jacobs & daniels: their capital has value, too 163 and its role in children’s educational success. her theory of community cultural wealth has challenged researchers to discover the alternative or supplementary cultural and social culture present in poor families. by applying yosso’s theory of community cultural wealth as our theoretical framework, we created the space to develop alternative understandings of parents’ investments in their children’s educational success. community cultural wealth refers to the “knowledge, skills, abilities and relationships” that exist in families (yosso, 2005, p. 76). yosso (2005) identified several forms of capital that socially, economically, and linguistically disadvantaged families can accumulate, namely aspirational, linguistic, familial, navigational, and resistant capitals. she explained how disadvantaged communities acquire alternative forms of capital such as skills, abilities, resources, and knowledges that a network of people builds up over time. she described aspirational capital as the ability to maintain a sense of hope in the midst of adversity. children from immigrant communities acquire linguistic capital to serve as brokers of communication for their parents. significant relationships with community members often contribute to the accumulation of familial capital. and, through these relationships, special knowledge or navigational capital can be acquired, which, in turn, can assist children in navigating systems or institutions. yosso (2005) described resistant capital as the skills that individuals develop to assist them in challenging systems of inequality or in resisting their status in life. cultural resources such as family and community members can be utilised to access opportunities such as education. community cultural wealth can therefore be mobilised as active family resources. she further maintained that the “various forms of capital are not mutually exclusive or static, but rather are dynamic processes that build on one another as part of community cultural wealth” (yosso, 2005, p. 77). community cultural wealth theory is the analytical lens through which we interpreted how single mothers from low socioeconomic backgrounds supported their adolescent high school children’s educational journeys. for this article, we drew on the data of a doctoral study (jacobs, 2019) that explored the opportunities and potentialities for educational support in six single-parent, female-headed families. we explored the capital present in these families and the acts of agency from family role-players. the question the article responds to is: “what are the ways in which single mothers provide educational support to their adolescent children?” method and methodology: positioning the mother in the community the aim of the research was to uncover the views, beliefs, and experiences of single-mother households about parental educational support to their children. following the qualitative research tradition, we studied six families living in indigo town, a low socioeconomic, traditionally afrikaans-speaking, coloured community in the western cape province of south africa. two community workers served as go-between and introduced us to several potential participants. from those families, six were purposively selected according to the following inclusion criteria: (a) the family unit had to be headed by a single mother, (b) the family unit 164 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 had to include an adolescent who was in high school, and (c) the adolescent had to raised by a single mother for most of their life. this multiple case study was grounded in a social constructivist paradigm and had as purpose to understand the subjective meaning making of the participants in their real (merriam, 2009). according to patton (2002), it is the quality of the insights generated that is important and not necessarily the quantity of insights. our data collection methods involved individual, semi-structured interviews with the parent and adolescent group discussion with the adolescents. ethical clearance for the project was granted by our institution, and informed consent was negotiated through explaining the aims and goals of the study to the participants, as well as participate. our decisions and actions were guided by our ethical concerns about the vulnerability of the research population and respect for their rights. because the home context and home circumstances were considered impo sought their permission to access their home environments and contextualise their experiences. the data were analysed using thematic content analysis. atlas.ti was used as a tool to code transcripts and field figure 1, we visually plot the six family units and their family members. figure 1: the six family units in this community, most residents own their own homes because the south african government, after 1994, transferred the title deeds of township homes to the rent paying occupants. three of the participating women were homeowners. although most of the residents experienced socioeconomic challenges, there seemed to be a nuanced divide based on whether they lived in the “better” parts or in the “poorer,” “more dangerous” areas of the community. to live in the better part of the township meant you lived in the quieter journal of education, no. 80, 2020 had to include an adolescent who was in high school, and (c) the adolescent had to raised by a single mother for most of their life. this multiple case study was grounded in a social constructivist paradigm and had as purpose to understand the subjective meaning making of the participants in their real , 2009). according to patton (2002), it is the quality of the insights generated that is important and not necessarily the quantity of insights. our data collection methods involved structured interviews with the parent and adolescent, as well as a focus group discussion with the adolescents. ethical clearance for the project was granted by our institution, and informed consent was negotiated through explaining the aims and goals of the s well as what was expected of them should they decide to participate. our decisions and actions were guided by our ethical concerns about the vulnerability of the research population and respect for their rights. because the home context and home circumstances were considered important influences on the parents’ decisions, we sought their permission to access their home environments and contextualise their experiences. the data were analysed using thematic content analysis. atlas.ti was used as a tool to code transcripts and field notes and to identify themes in the data (creswell, 2007 figure 1, we visually plot the six family units and their family members. in this community, most residents own their own homes because the south african ent, after 1994, transferred the title deeds of township homes to the rent paying occupants. three of the participating women were homeowners. although most of the residents experienced socioeconomic challenges, there seemed to be a nuanced divide based whether they lived in the “better” parts or in the “poorer,” “more dangerous” areas of the community. to live in the better part of the township meant you lived in the quieter had to include an adolescent who was in high school, and (c) the adolescent had to have been this multiple case study was grounded in a social constructivist paradigm and had as purpose to understand the subjective meaning making of the participants in their real-world contexts , 2009). according to patton (2002), it is the quality of the insights generated that is important and not necessarily the quantity of insights. our data collection methods involved well as a focus group discussion with the adolescents. ethical clearance for the project was granted by our institution, and informed consent was negotiated through explaining the aims and goals of the d of them should they decide to participate. our decisions and actions were guided by our ethical concerns about the vulnerability of the research population and respect for their rights. because the home context rtant influences on the parents’ decisions, we sought their permission to access their home environments and contextualise their experiences. the data were analysed using thematic content analysis. atlas.ti was used as a notes and to identify themes in the data (creswell, 2007). in in this community, most residents own their own homes because the south african ent, after 1994, transferred the title deeds of township homes to the rent paying occupants. three of the participating women were homeowners. although most of the residents experienced socioeconomic challenges, there seemed to be a nuanced divide based whether they lived in the “better” parts or in the “poorer,” “more dangerous” areas of the community. to live in the better part of the township meant you lived in the quieter area jacobs & daniels: their capital has value, too 165 where fewer incidents of shooting and gang violence were reported. two of the families lived in the dangerous part of indigo town and the other four families lived in the quieter part of the community. findings: “having a road map for educational success for my child to follow” although all six mothers had completed their basic formal education, they, on average, had only completed one year of high school education. most of the mothers were unemployed and lived off their state welfare grants. ntombi and ulin were employed as blue-collar workers. with the exception of mandy, none received financial support from the fathers of their children. in their frustration about their situational challenges, the women often reverted to a patriarchal understanding of family roles in their conversations with us. despite being the sole caregivers of their children and their experience with absentee partners, they still seemed to believe that a male partner would change their home situations for the better. given their circumstances, one could easily conclude that these parents did not have a road map for the educational success of their high school children. however, our analysis of the data highlighted several ways in which the mothers actively worked towards creating and sustaining opportunities for their adolescents’ educational success. in what follows, we present the ways in which these parents navigated their challenges in proactive ways. “i don’t want my story to become my child’s”: rewriting the narrative of disadvantage and discontent in our interviews with the mothers, we gained insight into how their own interrupted schooling had shaped their views of education and the importance of their children’s education. we found that the mothers used their own history with schooling to inspire their children to value education and to work hard to reap the benefits that could come from education. for example, beth left school in grade 7 to become a farm worker like her parents. although she earned a meagre r12.50 as weekly wage then, it made a substantial difference to her family’s financial situation. however, it also determined her destiny as a high school dropout. she explained: “that’s why i am not educated today. i want the best for my children because of what happened to me.” whereas middle-class parents might say to their child: “look at me [my profession] and do what i have done to become successful,” these mothers tell their children: “look at me, i’m a cleaner because i dropped out of school and only completed one year of high school. i want you to complete your schooling because it will give you more options in life.” ntombi, who worked as a tea-lady, wanted her son to see how hard she had to work to support her family. by doing so, she educated her son about the dignity of working for a living, and shared her work struggles as a way to discourage him from following in her footsteps. barbara, who was in the process of obtaining the general education and training certificate through an adult basic education programme, was modelling to her daughters the importance of investing in education. through yosso’s (2005) lens, these are all examples of 166 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 resistant capital that the mothers shared as life lessons with their adolescents to encourage them to complete their formal schooling. they were resisting the repeat of their own histories in their children’s lives. the practices of the mothers can also be described as aspirational capital because they sought to “maintain hopes and dreams for the future . . . and nurture a culture of possibility” (yosso, 2005, p. 78). this message of valuing education was also reflected in the artefacts on display in their homes. beth had a wall dedicated to displaying all her children’s certificates. similarly, in evelyn’s home, what caught the eye were three framed photographs. one showed evelyn with a certificate she had received for a short course, the other two were school photos of her children. we interpreted these as examples of how the mothers surrounded their children with reminders of the importance of investing in education. “i always make a plan”: narratives of resistance, resourcefulness, and hope patriarchy decentres women and positions them as subservient to men. this societal positioning disadvantages single-mother families in that these family units are viewed as incomplete and disadvantaged. although these women were not openly challenging their inequality through political or social activism, they were trying to improve their current life situation. their legacy of racialised oppression was visible in the poverty, unemployment, and unsafe community they described but, within that, the mothers’ efforts to stand up to it is evident too. one way to improve their financial circumstances was to exploit the shortage of housing in their poor township community and to sublet part of their plots to tenants. ntombi had three, and beth had two, additional rental structures on her plot. however, as women living in an unsafe community, they had to be vigilant about who they rented to and had to implement rules regarding visitors and the use of alcohol on the premises. ulin supplemented the family income by trading in rice and other pulses. she bought pulses in large quantities, which she repackaged into smaller quantities to sell in the community. these examples from the data speak to their resiliency to survive by finding ways to supplement their families’ income. these mothers’ efforts to support their families were acknowledged by their children. our analysis further shows that, through their actions, they were fostering an environment in which their adolescents could become resilient over time (ungar et al., 2011). like all parents of adolescent children, these mothers were pressurised to buy them modern technological gadgets such as cell phones. ulin told how she initially refused tommy’s request for an expensive cell phone. however, when he was placed on the top-ten list for his grade at school, she decided to celebrate his accomplishments by acquiescing his request for a cell phone. similarly, ntombi tied her buying of gifts for calvin to his having earned it. both ntombi and ulin’s expensive purchases for their sons could easily be interpreted as inappropriate and extravagant gestures for poor and unemployed mothers. but they were investing aspirational capital in their sons with the message that doing well at school leads to better dividends in later life. jacobs & daniels: their capital has value, too 167 an important support practice the mothers engaged in was daily dialogues with their adolescent children. these conversations mostly focussed on two themes: being vigilant, and being actively engaged with their schoolwork. their actions stemmed from a common concern about the danger of living in a community in which gangsterism and school dropout were rife, and the potential negative influence this could have on their children’s futures. they had no illusions about the negative influences of drugs and gangsterism that western cape township boys fall prey to. they constantly held up the negative behaviour of other youth in the community as examples of negative influences on educational success, and strongly discouraged their sons from forming friendships with high school dropouts. the mothers wanted their children to dream of a better life, and to not accept the lives they were leading as their destiny. therefore, they used their own lives as examples of how incomplete schooling and the lack of qualifications limited career options in life. their conversations with their adolescent children were often about career aspirations and career choices. although ulin’s high school education stopped when she fell pregnant and dropped out of school, tommy knew she had dreamed of becoming an attorney. she wanted tommy’s dream of becoming a mechanical engineer to become a reality and encouraged him to succeed. barbara continually reminded palesa that, “without university training you will not get a good job.” she used herself as an example when she encouraged palesa to complete her schooling: “if you don’t want to work in a kitchen like your mother then you must study to become something.” this resistant and aspirational capital was carefully spent by mothers who believed that their children deserved the best, regardless of their family’s financial circumstances. beth’s words echoed the belief all the mothers had when it came to supporting their children: “through my situation, through everything that we have been through, i have always tried to give my children the best.” “i pray for my child”: narratives of spirituality as support the mothers also drew on spirituality as an important form of support. our analysis shows that spirituality performed several support functions and shaped the mothers’ behaviours in ways that were supportive, too. prayer was a common form of support and power in the families. the mothers seemed to believe that praying for their children’s education was an important way in which they offered support to their children. they also taught their children how to use prayer as hope and perseverance, and to be involved in their church in a proactive way. they and their families participated in formalised religious practices such as the sunday church service. these parents all involved their children in religious practices to accumulate capital to spend on their spiritual well-being, and some had success in advancing spirituality in their adolescents. examples include ntombi’s son, calvin’s, commitment to participate in such rituals. according to her, he rose early on a sunday to prepare for church without any prompting from her. beth said that her son, mikyle, sought support from a higher order when he wrote exams. she quoted him as saying, “mommy, before i write my exam i say to the lord: ‘lord, you know the answers, open my thoughts and my brain so that i can think clearly and answer the questions.’” these examples highlight the ways in which the children used religious rituals and spiritual practices as capital to navigate their own challenges. 168 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 the church was a support they leaned on to cope with their daily struggles. they described how, in difficult times, they drew strength and comfort from their belief system and used prayer and faith as source of strength and hope. other church members mitigated the experiences of depression and hopelessness that mandy experienced. she said, “if it seems as though i am becoming weak or despondent, then they will always tell me, ‘but you have come so far and nothing bad happened to you. the lord has always been there.’” both mandy and barbara said they would not have survived without the support the church provided in their times of need. barbara spoke about the emotional support church members provided when her family was struggling, and recalled the help she received when her family was destitute and she could not feed her children. she had had no choice but to disclose her family’s situation to the priest. she found support in the church community and church members turned up with material resources and food parcels for her family. barbara believed it was her faith that god would help her “through good times and bad times,” that gave her the confidence and courage to raise her children on her own. their narratives show that spirituality was a form of capital that the parents saved for times of difficulty as well as for moments of joy. spirituality, like resilience, was collectively accumulated in the mother-child dyads to establish an enabling environment. “your child is my child and my child is your child”: family and community support networks from existing research, it seems that a common assumption about the single-parent household is that the parent is the sole supporter and provider for the child (hampdenthompson, 2013; knowles & holmström, 2013). our study refutes this viewpoint because these single mothers had access to various support networks, and were not always shouldering responsibilities on their own. their networks of support were situated in their families as well as in the community and involved, amongst others, grandparents, siblings, cousins, neighbours, and church members. we found a reciprocal helping culture in their families and community that encouraged a shared responsibility for children’s schooling. so, for example, evelyn’s sister’s two children lived with her during the school year to give them easier access to schooling opportunities. evelyn’s support to her sister’s children was both an investment in them as well as an opportunity to accumulate familial capital that could benefit her own children’s educational success. this finding validates yosso’s point about the “lessons of caring, coping and providing” and the “importance of maintaining a healthy connection to [one’s] community [or family] and its resources” (2005, p. 79) when you live in economically disadvantaged communities. in most of the families, grandparents were physically and mentally part of the family unit, and performed the very important roles of stand-in parents and co-parents. it is clear that the participants drew support from them to assist with raising their children. ulin’s parents lived with her, acted as co-parents, and often supervised the children’s homework and school projects. in some cases, the grandparents’ financial support was invaluable for the family’s survival and well-being. according to barbara, “granny always helps.” she would request a list of things they needed, which she would buy to send back with them. social contact with jacobs & daniels: their capital has value, too 169 extended family members was important because it provided the adolescents with guidance from role models other than their mothers, for example, therren and calvin had adult relatives in their lives who were university students and who helped them with information about access to higher educational institutions. the women all spoke of the support and advice that siblings, cousins, and community members gave to their children to keep them focussed on their schooling. when therren’s female cousin told her: “don’t take a boyfriend before your time . . . think about your future,” she listened. she wanted to break with the norm of girls in the family dropping out of school due to pregnancy. in addition to family support, these single-parent households also enjoyed support from community members such as neighbours. one of mandy’s neighbours, whose daughter had started high school the previous year, guided her with advice on how to prepare financially for her child’s transition to high school. and one of beth’s friends with connections to a nongovernmental organisation that supports disabilities, sourced the special school shoes mikyle needed because of his physical impairment. we found in our conversations with the adolescents, that social networking provided them with access to scarce resources such as computers and the internet, which their families did not have. community members made their computers available to therren, tommy, palesa, and mikyle when they had to do research and needed electronic information to complete projects and assignments. mikyle’s neighbour sometimes conducted searches on his behalf and printed out the information. described above, are examples of social networks that benefitted the adolescents’ educational development, and that we present as examples of “instrumental and emotional support to navigate through society’s institutions” (yosso, 2005, p. 79). these single mothers’ children’s access to education was mitigated by the informal acts and practices we present here. these acts and practices all facilitated educational access and inclusion even though such links are not necessarily acknowledged in educational discourse. we have presented the forms of support that the adolescents and their mothers had access to in their immediate families as well as beyond, and which yosso (2005) referred to as familial capital. according to yosso, “familial capital is nurtured by our ‘extended family,’ which may include immediate family (living or long passed on) as well as aunts, uncles and grandparents who we might consider part of our familia” (2005, p. 79). support also included community members and sites such as schools and churches that are “form[s] of cultural wealth [that] engages a commitment to community wellbeing and expands the concept of family” (yosso, 2005, p. 79). discussion in this article, we have argued that a broader lens is needed in order to understand the ways parents contribute to their children’s education. our understanding of parental educational support is that it should be much more inclusive and broader than schools’ understandings, which often only link certain parent activities to educational success, namely, homework support, physical presence at children’s extramural activities, and participation at meetings and school functions (green et al., 2007; lemmer, 2007; mncube, 2009). educational 170 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 research has often approached single-mother families from a deficit perspective, assuming that due to a lack of economic resources and poor education, these families are an educational disadvantage for children (aragon, 2018; baquendano-lopez et al., 2013; hampdenthompson, 2009; koh et al., 2017). instead, our research builds on research that has highlighted the stories of marginalised parents who wanted to, and believed that they should, be involved in their children’s educational journey (camacho-thompson et al., 2019; daniels, 2017; epstein, 2011; hoover-demsey et al., 2001; lefevre & shaw, 2012; okeke, 2014). our study of this low-socioeconomic community identified many economic and social challenges that could negatively influence children’s educational pathways. one such constraint is money, which makes the family unit a very vulnerable space to function in, and required the mothers to resort to creative ways to supplement the family’s financial resources. their adolescents’ narratives show that they were knowledgeable about their families’ dire financial situation and were sensitive about not making unreasonable demands on their mothers. the mothers were resilient and intentional in their engagement with educational support practices because they valued education and saw it as a vehicle to empower their children. they support our earlier research of mothers as “involved parents who are engaging with education as an investment in their children’s futures” (daniels, 2017, p. 6) despite their personal and social challenges. in all the participating families, a healthy, respectful relationship existed between each parent and her adolescent child. we found that the mothers considered communication an important part of their investment in their children and a tool to counter the negative influences of community gangsterism and teenage pregnancy on adolescents’ educational pathways. they used their own life stories, and experiences of their own interrupted schooling, to foster academic aspirations and to encourage their adolescents to invest in their education. they wanted their children to be educated because they connected education to a better life and advancement in society. these findings build on international research that has shown that academic socialisation in low ses families often centred on stories from parents’ own past and acts as examples of what not to do if you want to become successful in life (lopez et al., 2001; vega et al., 2015). these mothers’ use of personal stories as encouragement, and their informal, day-to-day conversations with their adolescents, is referred to in the literature as academic socialisation (bhargava & witherspoon, 2015; hill & tyson, 2009; lefevre & shaw, 2012). their daily talks about the importance of education motivated their school-going children to work hard and not give up on their schooling. such conversations are examples of academic socialisation of the children and, through care and support, the mothers built aspirational and resistant capital in their children, which was an investment in their children’s educational journey. this study further identified spirituality as a contributing factor to the quality of the motheradolescent relationship, and advanced intrinsic religiousness among the adolescents as well as greater parental responsiveness to the adolescents’ challenges. our analysis of the family jacobs & daniels: their capital has value, too 171 units’ culture reflects families that live by strong religious values, such as faith in god, thankfulness, and perseverance despite difficult circumstances. it was further evident that the mothers’ religiousness led to self-motivated religiousness in their children as well as a greater sense that they could do something about their children’s challenges when they felt constrained in various ways. we found in these single-parent households, that parent support was a community effort rather than an individual family unit effort. due to their daily challenges and internal struggles, the parents were realistic about their limitations to provide the best possible educational support. consequently, they identified significant adults such as grandparents and community members who could serve as co-parents and who could support their adolescent children’s education. collaborations with the extended family, neighbours, and teachers provided the adolescents with access to adult support and surrogate parent figures alongside their mothers. in this regard, the important role that grandparents play in supporting the single-mother family, and how they often step in as surrogate parents to share the responsibilities of parenting, was illuminated. conclusion in this article, we sought to prioritise and foreground single-mother family units to afford them with an opportunity to tell their stories, and for a different grand narrative about singlemother households to emerge. we discussed how the six single-mother families in this study employed various nontraditional or unacknowledged forms of educational support. the parents, barbara, evelyn, ulin, beth, mandy, and ntombi, accumulated community cultural wealth in the forms of familial, social, aspirational, spiritual, resistant, and navigational capital, and used it in the service of their children’s educational trajectory. as single parents facing challenges with supporting their children effectively, they established social networks of support external to their family units to scaffold the challenges their children came up against in society. the findings suggest that it is counterproductive to engage with single-mother families as broken or incomplete family units simply because the father parent is absent from the family. single-parent families are the norm in society, not the exception. a broader conceptualisation of educational support by society, especially the educational sector, is recommended. it is for this reason that research and critical dialogue about the social construction of single-mother families and their engagement with education is important. educational research that could inform society how these parents support their children’s educational pathways continues, however, to be limited. in the process, educational environments remain uninformed about the strengths and the creative ways in which such family units operate to provide the best educational opportunities for their children. relevant educational research could inform schools about the unique needs for support that such family units have, and the type of support that such students can benefit from. 172 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 our findings have implications for home–school partnerships and collaborations. recognition of the informal and nontraditional forms of capital that are present in single-mother families is important when schools seek to collaborate with parents. intervention home programmes for adolescents should take into consideration surrogate parent support structures and the role that co-parenting plays in the lives of adolescents. thus, instead of focusing on the assumed roles of fathers, rather list parents’ responsibilities and how best the family unit can respond to them. this will allow other strategic family and community role-players in the adolescents’ environment to step in and support the adolescent in meaningful ways. references aragon, a. 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(2005). whose culture has capital? a critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. race ethnicity and education, 8(1), 69–91. microsoft word bissue76full21oct.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 76, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i76a01 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x recasting & rethinking education 01 in south africa: imperatives for making education more relevant, responsive, and authentic charl wolhuter edu-hright, faculty of education, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa charl.wolhuter@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4602-7113 carolina botha community-based educational research (comber), north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa carolina.botha@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1693-5575 (received: 12 february 2019; accepted: 29 july 2019) abstract our aim in this lead article is to establish the framework of the special issue consisting of selected papers presented at the 2018 south african education research association (saera) annual conference that had as its theme “education 01? in search of a new operating system: making education more relevant, responsive and authentic.” we begin with an overview of the societal changes defining the early 21st century. we suggest that, in light of these changes, education praxis, education scholarship, and teacher education need to be re-designed with relevance, responsiveness, and authenticity if it is to meet the critical changes required. keywords: authenticity, education praxis, education scholarship, relevance, responsiveness, 21st-century context, teacher education introduction ever since social scholar alvin toffler’s publication, future shock, in 1970, it has been commonplace to assert that the contemporary world is one in which there is an increase (or alteration) in the rate of change (see, for example, friedman, 2016). social scientist harari (2011, 2015, 2018) authored a trilogy of books highlighting the changes—in many cases until recently unthinkable—facing humanity. the challenges related to these changes have brought humanity to a crossroads. according to ireland (2010) former royal society president martin rees estimates that, in the face of these changes, humankind has a fifty-fifty chance of 6 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 surviving the present century. martin (2006), in outlining 17 mega changes facing humanity, contends that the 21st century is pivotal in that responses to these trends will determine whether humanity will survive as a species, so the 21st century will be remembered in history. it is not only the future of humanity that is at stake, but also the future or survival of the planet. changes such as genetic programming and artificial intelligence are both excitingly promising and frightening. for every promise, there is a fearsome scenario, too. for example, while (at least for some, or on an aggregate level) unprecedented levels of affluence are brought about by the ceaseless economic growth (see mortimer, 2015), inequality continues to increase thus polarising humanity not only in terms of financial means, but threatening political and social stability too (piketty, 2014). humankind has selected education as one of the most important vehicles for meeting this (both frightening and promising) future. judging by policy statements, education acts, and white papers, as well as allocations of public budgets to education and public discourse, it seems that 20th-century humanity has paid heed to the maxim of historian and popular writer h. g. wells that “more and more the future of humanity appears to be a race between education and catastrophe” (cited in kirche, 2015, n.p.). brezinka (1981) wrote almost 40 years ago that “when someone wants to do something for peace, he introduces ‘peace education’, the person wanting to reduce the number of traffic accidents recommends ‘traffic education’” (p. 2) and so on and this is even more pertinent today (see too lutz & klingholz, 2017) since education is tasked with the all-encompassing mission of addressing all that is wrong with society. it is exactly here that a glaring inconsistency is apparent and disturbing design flaws in the vehicle become evident. education is a notoriously conservative sector of society, showing itself and its institutions to be resistant to change. this dinosaur-like depiction of education institutions was perhaps best publicised in benjamin’s satirical book the saber tooth curriculum (1939), which has assumed classical status in education because he brought to the fore in it what he saw as the obsolete and anachronistic features of institutions of education. this accusation is as pertinent today as it was 80 years ago; a very cursory glance at universities will substantiate this statement. traditional lecture theatres, with students sitting in desks or rows facing a professor behind a lectern, characterise the architecture of even those institutions regarded as leading world-class universities. the word “lecture” is derived from the latin word lectura, a reading. ironically, this was an arrangement predating even the invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century when the only way to duplicate literature was for the lecturer to read the text word for word, and for students to copy the text verbatim. sadly, as mentioned above, not much has changed and the lecture is still considered to be the essence of teaching at tertiary level. in addition, the concept of summative assessment is still greatly conceptualised through traditional pen-and-paper examinations. this is so, despite the plethora of technological resources available to lecturers, the profile of the millennial student, and the imperative for more student-centred teaching and innovative assessment strategies. wolhuter & botha: recasting & rethinking education 01in south africa 7 our thesis in this article is that education in praxis in the world of today, and in south africa in particular, with specific reference to the scholarship of education and a subject area and the education of teachers, is still stuck in obsolete and anachronistic forms. it is evident that the world, in being almost two decades into the 21st century and undergoing seismic changes, is calling for radical renewal in many fields, including the various facets of education. we believe that society has failed to design and build an appropriate and efficient vehicle to engage with the future. the design of teacher education programmes that are meant to be the blueprint that will inform and guide education institutions in their learning and teaching brief (praxis) is clearly lacking direction and innovation. this is also reflected in the conceptualisation of scholarship in education and the cultivation of a new breed of academic and researcher in this field. to expand on the vehicle metaphor, the drivers of this vehicle are not sufficiently equipped to handle the everyday challenges they are facing. we suggest that the renewal called for in the design of this vehicle and the execution of its mission, that is, education praxis and theory as well as teacher education programmes, can be encapsulated in three words: relevance, responsiveness, and authenticity. as the title of this lead article in this journal of education special issue, based on papers presented at the 2018 annual conference of the south african education research association (saera), we refer to the theme of this conference: “education 01? making education more relevant, responsive, and authentic.” we believe that education, education scholarship, and teacher education need to be redesigned, with relevance, responsiveness, and authenticity and we describe the key changes required. the changing world of the early 21st century there are a number of forceful societal trends that have an impact on education worldwide in the early 21st century as can be seen from a literature review of works dealing with current societal trends. the first trend has to do with the ecological crisis faced by humanity in terms of global warning and the kyoto protocol (friedman, 2009). the main aspects of the environmental crisis are air pollution (of which global warming is one result), the depletion and pollution of freshwater resources and the oceans, deforestation, soil erosion, and the destruction of biodiversity. this ecological crisis alone is strong enough to put at risk the survival of the human species as well as of the planet. an example of how humanity is overtaxing the stock of natural resources is that every day, according to gribbin (2006), we all use enough water to fill a convoy of trucks lining up from the earth to the moon (482 thousand kilometres) over and above the amount of fresh water replenished by rain (mainly borehole water or groundwater). the factors behind this overexploitation of natural resources include the population explosion, the technological revolution, and growing affluence. throughout the past 80 years, the world has experienced a population explosion (dorling, 2013). although the rate of growth has slowed down remarkably in recent years and decades, 8 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 90 million people are still added annually to the global total population, which stood at 7.7 billion in april 2019. the bulk of this growth is taking place in the countries of the global south, making the distribution of population growth highly unequal. these differentiated growth patterns lead to changing age profiles in different parts of the world. in the countries of the global north, the population is ageing (“greying”), while in the countries of the global south, the population pyramid is becoming mature, that is, it is bulging in the middle age group. these differential growth patterns, together with economic and political factors, further facilitated by the communications and transport technology revolution, have resulted in a more mobile global population. a major vector of this global flow of people is from the countries of the global south to the countries of the global north. the ever-advancing science and the exponential increase in technological innovations will have a significant influence on the near future, if the record of the 20th century is anything to go by (harari, 2015). particular areas of unabated scientific and technological progress are agricultural development and transformation, biotechnology (including genetic manipulation), the robot revolution, the information and communications technology (ict) revolution and, lately, the looming development of artificial intelligence. some forceful trends on the economic front are also evident. the global economic upswing that commenced in about 1990, has proved to be one of the longest and most sustained in human history. in the ten-year period from 2005 to 2015, the global annual economic output has more than doubled from us$29.6 trillion to us$78.3 trillion (world bank, 2016). according to the world bank (2018), the growth was estimated to escalate to us$ 80.684 trillion in 2018. at the same time, there is widespread, albeit diminishing, poverty in the world. some 836 million people in the world survive on less than us$1.25 per day. although focused and successful efforts have led to a decline from the 1.923 billion people who lived in poverty in 1990 (world bank, 2016), these statistics still present an alarming view of the real threat of poverty. regardless of the millions of people suffering, the neo-liberal economic revolution has, since 1990, swept to virtually every corner of the earth (schram, 2015). this revolution entails the downscaling of the range of (economic) activities and regulations by the state and giving the forces of the free market the right of way. the global economy is becoming increasingly integrated, because of, inter alia, the communication technology revolution, the fading of the nation-state (to be discussed below), and the role of the world bank and the international monetary fund. multinational companies are becoming increasingly prominent, and a massive international financial market, which operates 24/7, is evolving. two final economic trends are the fourth industrial revolution and the rise of knowledge economies. whereas the first industrial revolution (from about 1750) was driven by steam power, the second (since the late 19th century) by electricity, and the third (second half of the 20th century) by digital technology, the fourth industrial revolution, currently taking shape, is characterised by a blurring of the physical, digital, and biological worlds or realities (schwab, 2016). scholars of history and economic development distinguish between phases in the economic development of societies. the hunter-and-gatherer economy is the most primitive wolhuter & botha: recasting & rethinking education 01in south africa 9 stage. that was followed, in sequence, by an agricultural economy, an industrial economy, and a service economy. in the contemporary world, the leading economies are now evolving towards the next stage, that of a knowledge economy (unger, 2019). a knowledge economy is defined as a space in which the production and consumption of new knowledge becomes the driving axis of the economy. two similarly strong sets of social trends are visible. the salience of the primary grouping (family) is declining (williams, 2019) and secondary (workplace) grouping in society is diminishing since jobs are no longer guaranteed for life, and work from home, selfemployment, and the informal economy are all growing (world bank, 2019), whereas that of tertiary groupings (functional groupings formed around a shared interest such as a hobby, sport, or common interest) is rising, no doubt facilitated by ict technology. the second set of trends relates to the rise of diverse or multicultural societies. the persistent flow of immigrants from countries in the global south to the global north, the modern-day creed of human rights and the crumbling of the power of centralised nation-states (to be discussed below) have all contributed towards the trend. the long-standing idea of the policy of homogenisation with state imposition of one centralised sanctioned culture that excludes and suppresses the cultures of minority groups which are deemed to be a threat to its power has been superseded by the policy of multiculturalism in which positive recognition is given to diversity (rios, 2018) including minority interest groups such as women’s rights and ecoconscious groups along with other single-issue lobbies. politically, a very conspicuous worldwide trend since 1990 has been the demise of the once omnipotent nation-state that has found its power base diminished by the forces of globalisation, the neo-liberal economic revolution, the empowerment of civil society, and by individual subjects brought about by, inter alia, the ict revolutions (bauman, 2017). in the power vacuum left by the downsizing of the nation-state, the locus of power in modern society has moved in two opposing directions—upwards toward more supra-national structures (like, for example, the european union) and international structures (such as the international monetary fund and the world bank), and downwards towards sub-national and local structures extending right down to the individual. a further political trend is democratisation, which has also made its presence felt on the globe since 1990. from 1990 to the mid-2000s, the number of countries in the world that could be classified as democratic had increased from 35 to 100 (fukuyama, 2019). finally, on the political scene, the creed of human rights, embraced by an increasing number of governments, has arisen, and has assumed the developing status of a new moral global order (prozesky, 2018). in this article, we argue that these trends not only create a new world, but also have a direct impact on crucial areas such as education. the call comes for education praxis in institutions of education, for research in education, and for teacher education to be rethought and recast. as mentioned earlier, the revisions required can be summarised in the three keywords of relevance, responsiveness, and authenticity. first, we will clarify these three keywords, in 10 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 terms of their lexical meaning, before elucidating their meaning for education praxis, for education scholarship, and for teacher education in the context of such a new global order. since an understanding of these concepts is absent or at least deficient in education praxis and scholarship as it manifests itself today, we have eschewed whatever meanings are attached to these terms in education-discipline dictionaries, and have turned, rather, to the general use of these terms in society. conceptual clarification: relevant; responsive; authentic relevance the commonplace understanding of what is meant by relevance includes the notion of its applicability to what is happening in the immediate context of its use. given that education uses a large part of the government budget of all countries in the world and that in many it is the single biggest item of government expenditure, and given that often large portions of household income are allocated to the education of children (highlighted by the fact that this portion often correlates negatively with household income), the question regarding the relevance of education is a legitimate one. the lexical definition of “relevance” includes reference to “to what is happening.” drawing heavily on the depiction of the set of contemporary societal trends outlined above, we investigate, later in this article, the implications of this for education praxis, education research, and teacher education. responsive to be responsive is to express a reaction to something or someone by saying or doing something. the connotations of responsiveness include speed and positivity along with improvement. once again, the priority afforded to education by individual people, families, the government, and society, as is clear from, inter alia, the budgetary allocations referred to above, means that mere relevance (a word used frequently in public and scholarly discourse about education) is not enough. such relevance should be complemented by responsiveness. authentic to be authentic is to be true and genuine and without dissimulation or pretence. we focus on the meaning of responsiveness in education, education scholarship, and teacher education later in this article. and suggest that however relevant education praxis and scholarship and teacher education may be with regard to responsiveness and authenticity, this is not enough; these shortcomings need to be addressed. education praxis before investigating the relevance, responsiveness, and authenticity of education praxis in the world of today, the concept of education needs to be clarified, too. in this article, we use the working definition of education according to the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation’s (unesco) use since unesco was created collectively by members wolhuter & botha: recasting & rethinking education 01in south africa 11 of the global community expressly for the promotion and expansion of education. for unesco (2011. p. 1), • education includes “deliberate activities involving some form of communication intended to bring about learning.” • communication is defined as “a relationship between two or more persons or an inanimate medium and persons, involving the transfer of information (messages, ideas, knowledge, strategies, etc.). communication may be verbal or non-verbal, direct or face-to-face or indirect or remote, and may involve a wide variety of channels and media.” • learning is described as “individual acquisition or modification of information, knowledge, understanding, attitudes, values, skills, competencies or behaviours through experience, practice, study or instruction.” we use these as working definitions (which are by no means above criticism) in this article. there are many stakeholders involved in taking up the challenge of making education more relevant, responsive, and authentic on a national and international level. before the specific role and responsibilities of scholars in education can be conceptualised, the habitus of education and, therefore, the working space of scholars and researchers, needs to be clarified. according to the best available evidence, schools appeared for the first time in egypt and mesopotamia by about 3000 bc. their main purpose was the training of scribes since this was shortly after the invention of writing (bowen, 1982). few scholars, as far as we know, have thus far attempted to explain the origin of schools. however, based on impact, it is worth tabling two theories, that of cohen (1970) and the more recent theory of gray (2013). according to cohen, schools originated in what he calls “civilisation states” (1970, p. 1) formed from the amalgamation of smaller political entities. such states, for example mesopotamia, ancient egypt, china, and ancient athens, had to train an elite or a bureaucracy, and among the members of this elite, loyalties to smaller political, geographical, and social units had to be suppressed and replaced by loyalties towards the new, larger state. for this purpose, schools were called into existence in order to cultivate loyalty and identification with the state. cohen (1970) has also documented the rise of public systems of national education from the 19th century in the newly created nation-states of the world, which had the same goal. whereas cohen identifies a political motive for the creation of schools, gray (2013) offers an economic rationale. according to him, in the centuries after the agricultural revolution had commenced, a new type of individual was needed. the person of the hunting-and-gathering phase of economic development, who could go about autonomously and at leisure, was at odds with the requirements of an agricultural economy that called for a disciplined worker, and schools were created to stifle the will and instincts that yearned for freedom. the goal was to produce docile workers who were submissive to the dictates of society. 12 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 there is a high probability that both these theories contain some elements of truth concerning the origin of schools. such a model, in which schools function as a straightjacket coercing students and an education system that produces thousands of children as similar cookie-cutter individuals, is out of step with the demands of the present context. it is beyond the scope of this article for us to offer an exhaustive comparison of the contemporary school against cohen’s or gray’s model, but we do claim that in this day and age, the school still bears strongly the imprint of these templates upon which it was historically predicated. eminent scholars, such as welch (1991), have argued that the school still functions primarily as a legitimising agent of the political order of the day. furthermore, it seems impossible to advocate changes in schools if the methods and programmes we use to train teachers are not also critically evaluated and ultimately adapted. teacher education the teaching profession is of very recent origin. at the inception of schools in about 2500 bc, it was the clergy, from priest-scribes in mesopotamia to monks and bishops in medieval times and after, who doubled as educators. the first sign of teaching as a stand-alone profession appeared in the aftermath of the thirty years war (1618–1648), when returning soldiers, who were too badly wounded to resume agricultural work, were employed as teachers. the polish claim that the seminary in cracow, founded in 1783, was the first institution dedicated exclusively to the education of teachers. the general historical evolution of teacher education worldwide was initially school-based, and students were considered to be informal apprentices. during the next phase, normal colleges opened in many places, and subsequently, teacher training colleges delivered secondary school teachers to provide for the needs of the country. it was only at a later stage that training was also developed for primary school educators. currently, universities are assigned the responsibility of teacher education. there has also been a gradual extension of the duration of teacher education at universities. first, a bachelor’s degree sufficed, but finland set the trend for requiring a master’s degree, and the european higher education area is following suit (at least as far as the minimum requirement for teachers in upper secondary schools is concerned). even countries as far away from finland as malaysia have been affected by the finnish example. a number of models for teacher education programmes exist. in scholarly literature, the seminal work that steered the global discussion on the content and structure of teacher education programmes surely is the highly cited model of shulman (1987), published in the harvard educational review in 1987. at the time of writing, january 2019, google scholar had 19, 487 citations of this publication. shulman identifies seven categories of knowledge with which he argues teacher education programmes should equip teacher students. • content knowledge • general pedagogical knowledge • curricular knowledge • pedagogical content knowledge (a term that shulman developed to describe knowledge required to teach a particular subject or field) wolhuter & botha: recasting & rethinking education 01in south africa 13 • knowledge of learners and their characteristics • knowledge of educational ends, purposes, values, and their philosophies and historical grounds • knowledge of educational contexts despite the lofty parameters that shulman set for a scholarly discourse on the curricula of teacher education programmes, the fact is that the trend in recent decades worldwide has been for teacher education to change from schooling in the basic foundational disciplines of education (such as philosophy of education, history of education, educational psychology, sociology of education, and the like), to training in a set of competencies regarded as necessary for teaching, much like the training of technicians (altbach, 1991; schweisfurth, 1999). while some scholars, such as zeichner (2013), endorsed this trend, there are several other schools of thought on the format and content of teacher training. authors such as sykes (2004) and darling-hammond and bransford (2005) plead for a professional education for teachers that is based on the conceptualisation of teaching as a profession. two of the distinguishing traits of such a profession is the possession of a body of advanced knowledge not commonly held by people outside of the profession and the practice of not relying on standard answers but on, rather, a specialised body of expert knowledge for making decisions. others, such as connell (2009), consider such a model as unnecessarily costly and call for fast training of teachers according to a standardised script that they can deliver when teaching in schools. after a few years, when a new script is needed or implemented, these teachers can be dismissed quickly and be replaced by others trained in a similar fashion. in south africa, the policy directives of the early 2000s on teacher education, which followed the introduction of outcomes-based education in the country, gave additional impetus to this utility trend in teacher education (wolhuter, 2010). given all the strains of thought regarding teacher education, it is clear that a recasting and a rethinking is needed, on both the local and the global front. such a reconceptualisation should address and reverse not only the increasingly pragmatic slant in teacher education programmes, but should also prepare teachers for a new teaching-learning praxis and for the exigencies of a new era in which the mechanistic application of techniques of the past will not do, but in which student teachers should engage with a body of education scholarship with rigour and depth worthy of that name. rethinking education and schooling in view of the nascent society taking form in the early 21st century, as described above, we suggest the following ten radical changes in schools and education praxis. 1. the fundamental ethos of the school should change from the foisting down of what hegemonic society dictates to creating a space in which creativity, independence, and autonomy of the educand can grow and be realised. while the agricultural or industrial economy required a submissive worker, a knowledge economy, the creed of human rights, and a democratic society call for a creative person who is given the required space 14 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 in which his or her autonomy can flourish. education institutions, schools in particular, should be responsive to the call from society for education for creativity (henriksen et al., 2018) and thus also be authentic, in bringing about learning, in the fullest sense of the word according to the unesco definition of education proffered above. 2. related to this, the school needs to be redesigned to give each individual scope for the promotion of his or her own capabilities (in the sense of the capabilities theory of sen (2010), nussbaum (2011), and others) instead of affording the privilege of (rather narrowminded) socialisation as a student exclusively to a selected few. research in south africa has shown that individual differentiation of learners by teachers is much wanting (de jager, coetzee, maulana, helms-lorenz, & van de grift, 2017). the overcrowding of classrooms results in teachers’ being frustrated that they cannot give individualised attention to each child (muthusamy, 2015), but in the us the report by colangelo, assouline, & gross et al. (2004) identified lack of individualisation as eventually costing the country dearly in terms of unrealised potential. through the capabilities approach, people are given freedom, and the approach is built on the moral imperative that a person can experience wellness through having opportunities or capabilities to do and be what he or she values. therefore, denying such freedom or limiting anyone’s capacity is morally wrong (nussbaum, 2011; sen, 2010), while opening space for such freedom renders the school experience relevant and responsive to the needs of each educand. 3. in the public vernacular, teaching and learning have traditionally been considered as two separate topics, while in the scholarly discourse, the change has been brought about by combining the two topics of teaching and learning into one. this is evident in the name of the field of teaching-learning scholarship. although a new trend seems to be emerging that refers to learning-teaching (that is, privileging the learning side of the coin), schools still remain mostly teacheror teaching-centred. this is true even of model education systems such as that in finland (andrews, 2013; lehtinen, 2004). in south africa, there is evidence of education in classrooms still being extremely teacher-centred (lehesvuori, rammarain, & viiri, 2018). an effort, therefore, needs to be made to shift the perspectives, policies, and practices of schools from teaching and learning to learningteaching, ensuring a more authentic learning experience for the educand. 4. there is ample evidence to suggest that schools and educational institutions in south africa, and even worldwide, may not be living up to expectations. despite vast amounts of public resources invested in education, statistics related to internal efficiency and assessment results are distressing. in the case of south africa, internal efficiency is measured by the national matric examination results. in 2018, 512,700 candidates sat for this examination in south africa—only 51% of the 1,002,500 learners who entered grade 1 in 2007, 12 years earlier. these disturbing statistics are, however, not the picture that is painted by the national government as it proclaims growing success with a pass rate of 78,2%. more evidence to suggest that such a pass rate is not a valid and true reflection of the state of education in south africa can be seen in the poor achievement of learners in international test series, such as the international programme of student assessment (pisa) and the international association for the evaluation of educational achievement (iea). we should be asking if the focus on, and concern about, the allocation of public funding and resources, matric results, and other national testing might be overshadowing wolhuter & botha: recasting & rethinking education 01in south africa 15 the true purpose of education in south africa. education should be the main instrument towards economic growth and be a valuable tool used to instill democratic values in citizens, and open possibilities for the educand. a successful education system will then do more than merely produce good academic matric results and will produce learners with the necessary skills to transform society so as to establish one based on a value system that includes, for example, equality, non-sexism, and non-racism. despite the fact that these aims are clearly formulated in education policy documents, they do not come into fruition through the education taking place in schools in south africa because, among other factors, these values are not properly integrated in curricula (botha, joubert, & hugo, 2016). 5. in view of the diminishing place of the nation-state and the number of compelling global forces shaping 21st-century society, citizenship education in schools that are still trapped within the parameters of the nation-state (torres, 2017), should be replaced or at least strongly complemented by global citizenship education. in south africa the preoccupation with imperatives such as the decolonisation of education and the use of education to promote national cohesion in society—all valid discourses—has distracted attention from the equally valid consideration of cultivating a global mindset. furthermore, solomon and fataar (2011) have expressed doubt in the capacity of schools in south africa to effect any form of civic education because there are just too many societal and education system contextual factors militating against this pursuit of schools; these doubts are shown to be valid by the empirical research of botha et al. (2016). however, to be relevant and responsive to the needs of contemporary society, education in south africa should remedy this lack of performance, and scholars of education should place this goal on their research agenda. 6. in view of the stark ecological crisis staring us in the face, to the point of threatening the survival of humanity and the planet, education for sustainable development should be prioritised and should permeate the entire school curriculum and programme. while the international community did, as part of the sustainable development goals, formulate the incheon declaration in 2015, spelling out a vision for education in the world by 2030 (unicef, 2015), the relationship between these goals and sustainable development should be explicated and this should inform education reform worldwide. as fourie (2018) has argued, south africa, too, should align its societal plan (including its education one) with the global sustainable development goals, in order to set in place an education system responsive to the compelling needs experienced now by the global community. 7. the 21st-century societal context, with quintessential features such as the technological revolution and the nascent knowledge economy, calls for a reconceptualisation of education. this requires a restructuring of education programmes and institutions so that education is no longer a once-off process in the early stages of life, but a life-long one (ogunleye, 2014). 8. although this was not the case a generation ago, information is now freely available on a plethora of electronic platforms, making the mere transmission of knowledge the main driver of educational institutions increasingly obsolete. schools and educational institutions should emphasise, rather, the teaching of critical skills needed to manage, 16 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 analyse, and evaluate large amounts of data and items of information. in this manner, learners and students will no longer be only the recipients of knowledge, and teachers the facilitators of knowledge, but both parties will become equipped to, and confident in, creating new knowledge. this is especially pertinent to the fourth industrial revolution the world is experiencing, as well as in times when the promotion of indigenous knowledge and decolonisation are topical issues (fataar, 2018). 9. the exigencies of the 21st century forced the philosophy of multicultural education to be superseded by that of intercultural education. while many different definitions have been attached to this term, in this article, we use the meaning attached to it by markou (1997, p. 1) who explains the four principles of intercultural education thus: • education with empathy, which means showing a deep understanding for others while attempting to understand their unique position. • education with solidarity that directs an appeal towards the cultivation of a collective conscience and the promotion of social justice. • education with intercultural respect. • education with ethicist thinking that assumes the presence of continuous dialogue. 10. recent turmoil on south african university campuses (see habib, 2019) underlines the need for the development of intercultural dialogue and intercultural education. 11. assessment practices in schools and other institutions of education should undergo a change; the emphasis should move from norm-referenced and criterion-referenced assessment to ipsative assessment. see bansilal and mjobi (2012) and howe (2012) for criticism of the ways in which norm-referenced and criterion-referenced assessment function in the present south african education system. ipsative assessment compares a student’s performance to his or her own previous work rather than seeking to measure his or her performance against either external criteria and standards or the performance of peers. in this manner, the aim of assessment is geared towards a personal best rather than towards a competition against other students, and this ensures that an authentic education is provided to each learner. education theory and scholarship the task of guiding research and implementing the abovementioned changes in schools and educational praxis falls upon members of the scholarly field of education. before such changes can become a reality in the south african and global education system, a vast amount of valid and reliable research needs to be done. many valuable projects, like, for example the research done by de jager et al. (2017) cited above, have already been completed and are on the way. the challenges facing south african and global education scholarship can also be summarised as is the case with education praxis, by a three-part descriptor—the need to become relevant, responsive, and truly authentic. against these needs stand accusations of a lack of academic rigour in education research, challenges in terms of the structure of educational knowledge and academic publications, and a lack of original theoretical frameworks designed specifically for education (furlong & lawn, 2011). there has been a long-standing accusation against scholars of education that much of their wolhuter & botha: recasting & rethinking education 01in south africa 17 scholarship lacks academic rigour, thereby reducing education scholarship to the status of a pseudoscience or to being seen as inferior to other fields of research. this allegation was first made very explicitly by labaree in a journal article in 1998 that was later developed into a book in 2004. this claim was also repeated by critics in south africa, in, for example, a special issue of the journal perspectives in education (34(1), 2016). furthermore, there is a problem with the structuring or packaging of education knowledge. two recently edited volumes on the structure of education knowledge (whitty & furlong, 2017; zapp, marques, powell, biesta, & helgetun (2018) highlight how such structures differ from one national setting to the other and how each is influenced and determined by national-contextual forces, rather than by disciplinary-logical considerations. in south africa, an analysis by van der westhuizen, van der walt, and wolhuter (2011) of reviewers’ reports of submissions to the south african journal of education revealed that one of the major reasons for the rejection of manuscripts was that authors failed to place their research within a relevant and strong theoretical framework. in a further movement, the non-accumulative nature of much education research has been noted locally (deacon, osman, & buchler, 2009), as well as internationally (furlong, 2013). a final problem threatening the various fields of education research is the lack of autochthonous theory. the major theoretical frameworks used by most researchers have been developed by scholars in fields other than education and with no background in this discipline. in comparative and international education, for example, the pioneers of basic theoretical frameworks and most often used paradigms were developed by scholars from fields other than education, like, for example, economic reproduction by economists sam bowles and harry gintis in 1976, the dependency theory by economist andré gunder frank in 1966, cultural reproduction by sociologists pierre bourdien and j. g. passeron in 1977 in 1961, and the human capital theory by economist theodor schultz in 1961. one problem is that such theoretical frameworks do not make central the dynamics of the symbiosis of teaching-learning processes in educational institutions if we take into account the definition of education offered above, and this hampers the value of these frameworks to guide education praxis and contribute towards the quest to make education on all three planes of schools, teacher training, and scholarly research more relevant, responsive, and authentic. conclusion the most recent south african policy directive on teacher education from the department of higher education and training, the revised policy on the minimum requirements for teacher education (2015), known as the mrteq document, with its re-appreciation of the place of foundational disciplines of education, offers the opportunity for a re-design of teacher education programmes in south africa, thus moving away from the dangers of an overly utilitarian approach to this area of study. given the teaching-research symbiosis at most universities, such an adjustment in teacher education programmes may well also open the door to a concomitant quantum leap in education scholarship in not only elevating it in terms of rigour and depth but also gearing it to the exigencies of the unfolding 21st century. this 18 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 would mean that teacher education programmes and education praxis will be supplied with the scientific or scholarly underpinnings needed to turn teachers into professional educators. papers presented at the 2018 annual saera conference provided much evidence that echoes these thoughts. it is our wish that the papers in this volume, each zooming in on one theme, that unpack this notion of the restructuring and redesign of education praxis, teacher education, and the field of education scholarship, will prove to be an incentive for the scholarly community of south africa (and beyond) to rise to this global challenge. references altbach, p. g. 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(2018). european educational research (re)constructed: institutional change in germany, the united kingdom, norway and the european union. oxford, uk: symposium books. zeichner, k. (2013). two visions of teaching and teacher education for the twenty-first century. in x. zhu & k. zeichner (eds.), preparing teachers for the twenty-first century (pp. 3–19). dordrecht, nl: springer. the stories we convey stem from the teaching of two different ‘writing lives’ classes,1 which we taught separately during the fall 2014 semester. we bring them together here to show a shared orientation to the benefits and challenges inherent to our teaching. naked teaching: uncovering selves in the reflexive classroom keith berry and nathan hodges abstract this autoethnography explores our experiences teaching an undergraduate autoethnography course entitled, ‘writing lives’. we, keith and nathan, professor and doctoral candidate, convey narrative scenes and reflections of sharing and analysing our published stories with students, working with students through the process of writing their personal stories, and transformative moments during the course. we emphasise a vulnerable, reflexive, and empathetic approach to teaching and learning that allows students and teachers to uncover aspects of who they are and hope to be in the classroom. this work advocates a number of unique benefits to autoethnographic practices that foster open and intimate bonds. we open our end-of-semester course evaluations and read students’ comments1 this course was difficult, in a fulfilling way. it challenged me to create order out of chaos in my writing and face sensitive emotional experiences head on. most importantly, the course gave me a safe place to practice reflective writing, which i have never done. you provided a nurturing and loving environment that allows for students to feel comfortable to tackle vulnerable topics. how you got a class of people who were different ages, nationalities, cultural backgrounds, and belief systems to open up and share their vulnerabilities and insecurities is beyond me. ‘nurturing’, ‘sensitive emotional experiences’, ‘vulnerable’ – these aren’t words typically used to describe college classes. our students often describe their other classes as sterile, and their relationship with professors and 60 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 students as distanced and impersonal. some students prefer these types of classes, but what happens when professors put their personal guards down and open up about intimate aspects of their lives? who are we and who do we become as teachers and learners? this autoethnography explores issues of vulnerability, reflexivity, and empathy among teachers and students. we, keith and nathan, professor and doctoral candidate, focus on how these issues are lived within ‘writing lives’, a popular undergraduate autoethnography course at our university. first, we provide overviews of autoethnography, relational perspective, and identity negotiation, approaches informing our courses and this article. next, we include narrative scenes of sharing our stories with students, mentoring students in sharing their stories, and transformational moments. lastly, we discuss benefits and risks of vulnerability for teachers and students, including how vulnerable teaching allows for a dynamic uncovering of selves. this article advocates teaching as a site for inquiry and joins ongoing discussions about power and identity in teaching relationships (berry, in press, 2012; bochner, 2014; ellis, 2004; fassett and warren, 2007; pelias, 2000; warren, 2011). writing lives “you’re all here for advanced statistics, right?” i say. students look back puzzled and shake their heads. “no? okay, well welcome to writing lives. i’m nathan hodges and i’m your instructor this semester. you can call me nathan, nate, instructor, or whatever you want as long as it doesn’t offend others.” several students laugh. i watch one student scan me from my chuck taylor high top shoes to my fedora. i sense his surprise at my casual dress and youth. i look around at the circle of students cramped together in our small classroom. we were originally assigned to a stadium-style seating room, but vulnerable discussion can be difficult when you’re looking at the back of someone’s head. “it’s important in a class like this that we build an intimate community, so let’s get to know each other.” we spend the next twenty minutes doing icebreaker activities. students introduce themselves by saying their name backwards, discussing their writing experience, sharing a 6-word story about berry and hodges: naked teaching. . . 61 their lives, and singing a lyric from their favorite song. i participate in the introductions, too. “now that you’ve had a chance to skim each other’s surfaces, i think it’s important for me to share some history about my life. each of you this semester will be writing about challenging, personal life experiences and i want you to feel comfortable sharing your personal stories. i’m a third year ph.d candidate in the department of communication and this is my second time teaching writing lives. i’m the first person in my immediate family to go to college. my dad is an assembly line worker and my mom is a supervisor in a warehouse, but she spent most of my childhood waitressing. my experiences growing up in a working-class family form the foundation for my graduate studies, and also influence how i approach teaching and writing. i consider myself to be a blue-collar scholar, both working-class and academic. i’ve made a choice to go to college but i don’t in any way see this as a better choice than the choices my family made. you’ll get to know more about my history and views on social class throughout the semester, and we will read one of my stories about working in a factory. for now let’s go through the syllabus.” students pull out paper copies of their syllabus. “i’d like you to read through the opening narrative and let me know if you have questions.” i glance down at my copy. this semester you will write evocative stories about your lives as a way to understand, cope with, and communicate social experiences. through personal, reflective writing, we learn about ourselves and society, connect to others, come to terms with and reframe experiences, and create new ways of thinking and living. writing is hard work. to be a better writer you have to write and read a lot. there will be no shortcuts in this class. i believe most deep, meaningful learning is wrought with confusion, doubt, and failure. trust the process. jump off the cliff and expect that you’ll figure out how to land without turning into soup. when you finally reach ground, you might have a few scrapes and bruises, but you’ll have the wisdom and resilience that comes from confronting your vulnerabilities on the page. a few students get out their cellphone after reading, seemingly uncomfortable. i wave at them to put their phones away. 62 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 “any questions?” most students around the room are smiling. a few look scared. “your major project will be a 15–20 page autoethnography, which will go through several rounds of feedback and revision. what is this long, clunky word, “autoethnography”? think of autoethnography as personal narrative, reflection, and analysis that weaves in other voices, often from academic literature (holman jones, adams and ellis, 2013). you will use literary methods – scenes with characters, dialogue, descriptions – to help readers experience an experience, trying to help them see what you saw, feel what you felt, think what you thought, and struggle with the ambiguities and emotional dilemmas you faced. you will also reflect upon and analyse your experience, connecting your personal experience to wider cultural, political, and social experiences. i’ve created an autoethnography handout for you to use as a reference this semester.” i hand twenty-two copies to a student in the front row and ask her to circulate them. autoethnography. . . f is evocative, vulnerable, and reflexive (ellis, 2004; berry and clair, 2011). f aspires to truth, but not certainty. welcome uncertainty and question yourself throughout the research process. autoethnographers realise “truth is contested, partial, incomplete, and always in motion” (tullis, jillian, mcrae, adams and vitale, 2009, p.185). we’re interested in the potential of narrative truth (bochner, 2014), what experiences mean and their utility. f is relational. autoethnography “is an empathic adventure, a quest to try to see into the lives of others. . .even if such a ‘seeing into’ is by nature partial, an interpretive fiction” (doty, 2005, p.161). autoethnography is also applied communication research (berry and patti, 2015) that benefits researchers and others (e.g., readers, audience members). f is critical, allowing us to negotiate socially stigmatized identities and complicate taken-for-granted assumptions, and to imagine more just, inclusive worlds (boylorn and orbe, 2013). f is a process of inquiry. we learn about ourselves and others through the process of writing and revising (richardson, 1994). f can be transformational (berry, 2013, ellis, 2009) as we make sense of ourselves and our experiences through writing. one important therapeutic tool of autoethnography is narrative reframing (kiesinger, 2002), in which we “actively reinvent our accounts. . .in ways that empower rather than victimize us” (p. 107). berry and hodges: naked teaching. . . 63 thanks to arthur bochner for this phrase.2 “don’t worry, we’ll discuss these ideas more throughout the semester. now i want to discuss three words i’ll be emphasizing again and again throughout the semester, ideas that are at the heart of the kind of writing and learning community we’re working to create this semester.” i pull the cap off my dryerase marker and write on the white board: vulnerability reflexivity empathy “as teachers, students, and autoethnographers, i want us striving to be vulnerable, reflexive, and empathetic.” i point toward the board. “what’s vulnerability?” “it’s opening yourself up,” says a male student with long, flowing hair and a soft voice. “yes, being vulnerable is like revealing your personal browsing history. a willingness to open up, to stand naked, to reveal doubts, insecurities, and ambivalences, those thoughts and feelings most of us have, but rarely reveal for fear of being stigmatised and rejected.” “and what’s reflexivity?” i wait out silence, though a bit longer this time. “is it like reflection?” “yeah, but a bit deeper. there are different ways of defining and using reflexivity (berry and clair, 2011). we each understand the world through the unique vantage point of our lived experience. when you're being reflexive, you’re questioning why you think what you think and do what you do, in order to learn from your experiences. you’re thinking more carefully about your actions, feelings, and thoughts and how you came to make the decisions you did, including how your experiences are shaped by social, cultural, and political traditions. as autoethnographers we’ll practice reflexivity, showing our consciousness on the page, questioning and arguing with ourselves.”2 “and what about empathy?” “trying to understand another person’s perspective.” 64 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 “yes, empathy involves trying to feel with a person, without judgment, to understand how someone made the choices they did considering the circumstances in which they lived. good stories involve complex, multifaceted characters. when we set out to blame and vilify, our writing quickly turns into self-righteous narcissism. without empathy, i see no point in writing.” uncovering identity “today we focus on one specific question: “who am i?” i am leading the students through an introduction to some of the ways in which identity relates to autoethnography. “as i shared with you during our first class meeting, i use cultural approaches to study relational communication and identity in my research. i am particularly interested in how the societal problem of bullying occurs and impacts youth’s lives (see berry, in press). a ‘relational’ perspective focuses on the meaning jointly constituted and used between relational partners (gergen, 2009). our worlds come alive together. we create and use communication and relationships together.” students feverishly write down notes, and upon request, i gladly repeat important points. “identity, at the very least, refers to who we understand ourselves and others to be. who am i? i am a relational communication researcher, a student of bullying and identity, an autoethnographer and ethnographer, a gay man, a son and brother, a lover of good dance music, a student of mindfulness, and a best friend.” “what about you . . . who are you?” after a brief pause, several students raise their hands and announce identities: ‘college student’, ‘poor’, ‘christian’, boyfriend’, ‘girlfriend’, ‘manager at work’, and ‘activist’. berry and hodges: naked teaching. . . 65 all names are pseudonyms except for the authors’.3 “excellent list, and because people embody multiple social locations, i suspect this is only a start to the many identities any one person in here could name about ourselves.” “identity is ‘social,’ meaning we come to understand who we are and aren’t within our relational communication. can you think of interactions where this occurs?” the students name several contexts wherein their identities have been formed, including their families, friendships, romantic partnerships, spiritual groups, and sports teams. “yes, good, we form our identities by relating across a diverse range of communication contexts, including this classroom . . .” students smile noting the link between the concept and our class. “also, those identities we have named are only the ones we feel comfortable naming right,” rose says. “what about the ones we didn’t tell? after all, i3 don’t know anyone in here.” “beautiful point. you’re talking about the identities we hide, or try to keep from others, an understandable part of our lives. it’s often hard for some people to be themselves.” a student in the front row, justin, whom i have taught in a previous course, and who rarely talks in class, nods his head to affirm my point. “i want you to begin thinking about how identities are not only formed within interaction and relationships, but are negotiated in those spaces. by emphasising identity as something people negotiate, as a ‘give and take’ of selves, we study how social constraints inform and sometimes govern who we are, and the challenges and delights that persist in being ourselves (see berry, in press yoshino, 2006).” i notice some students smiling, suggesting they have personal relevance to the concept. 66 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 “we will explore identity throughout the semester, so do not worry if these ideas are new to you. for now, know this: this course, autoethnography, and personal narrative, are informed by the idea that we negotiate stories and identities together.” “okay, for the rest of the class, let’s work on applying these concepts to our everyday lives. in your notes, please answer these fill-in-the-blank prompts with one or two words: i am __________. if you really knew me, you would know that i am __________. the person in my life who has most significantly made me who i am today is __________. “once you’ve answered, find a partner, and share your responses with her/him. you should only write what you’re comfortable sharing. yet, remember we’re working to build a space of dialogue in this class, so i hope you’ll be as open and honest as you can.” intimate exposure “good afternoon! let us begin today’s class by discussing my bathhouse piece, embracing the catastrophe: gay body seeks acceptance (berry, 2007). in this piece i use personal narrative to examine issues concerning idealised body types among gay men. i draw on moments from my lived experience in a gay bathhouse, a cultural site for sexual activity and socialising. i focus primarily on standards used by many men in their interactive process of naming certain bodies attractive and acceptable. the essay is an example of autoethnography and personal narrative, one of many different models you may consider for your project.” many students nod their heads. others’ eyes are now wide open, perhaps because i’ve mentioned gay sex. berry and hodges: naked teaching. . . 67 “i wrote this piece because i believe people negotiate identities within diverse contexts, and the bathhouse site has often been overlooked by ‘traditional’ research. writing this essay exposes the context, and in doing so, i expose myself to readers.” “funny,” morgan says smiling. several students chuckle, some grimace, letting me know they recognise my double entendre. “my word choice is meant to be both humorous and meaningful. by publishing this piece and making it assigned reading, i am making myself vulnerable. i am taking risks in terms of how readers will understand and react to me. how will readers evaluate this work? will they accept the ‘me’ i locate on the page? might they reject my ideas, thereby rejecting me?” “this type of writing is personal on purpose,” morgan adds. “yes, and i am your professor, a role that makes this personal work more vulnerable. how many of your professors open themselves up in this way? it is fine if they do not, and sometimes it is not appropriate given their subject matter. it is not uncommon in my experience to hear people suggest that teachers and students can be close, but not too close. exposing myself in these ways troubles common assumptions about boundaries.” some students nod their heads and write in their notebooks. many have the glazed look on their faces that comes from too much abstract thinking. time to move on to the story. “what did you think of my essay?” justin breaks the silence, “i don't know if i can expose myself like this. i think it is brave to share stories like yours. i mean, i do not have anything to hide, but don’t think i can be so vulnerable.” a few students nod their heads. “your concern is perfectly understandable. this process involves putting ourselves on the line and the outcome is rarely known in advance. it can be scary. in this course you only write about experiences, thoughts, and feelings which you feel comfortable sharing.” 68 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 “i think this story is amazing and i learned a lot from it,” rose adds. “thank you. what specifically was helpful?” “for me it is the way you use vivid details about the bathhouse and being there, somewhere i have never been, and how isolated and on display this place makes you feel. there is one moment in the piece . . . well, let me read it out loud.” she flips through the article: i recheck my towel, tighten its grip, and continue roaming through the various corridors on this floor. i walk passed the private rooms, peer inside, and typically see one man in each . . . . standing in front of these doors, which remain open as instances of overt sexual advertisement, i extend up and down glances of my own, often provide a smile, raise one of my eyebrows, grab and rub myself in the crotch, and work to make some form of connection. (berry, 2007, p.272) i smile hearing her read my words. many students have marked this passage as being significant to them when i used the essay in past classes. i also smile because this is the passage about which i feel the most vulnerable. i, their professor, am openly sharing details about fondling myself in front of strangers. thus, i smile in part from the awkwardness of this moment – awkward not because i feel the moment is ‘wrong’, but because this exposure makes me so vulnerable. she continues reading: [my] connection attempts can be futile and deceiving; so many of these men want to be penetrated, and perceived health risk keeps me from delivering . . . i am more often greeted with an uncompromising “no” gesture with the head, perhaps a swift hand and arm gesture telling me to move on, or worse yet, the other – from his bed – kicks the door shut . . . coldness can become frequent in the baths (berry, pp.272-273). “thank you for performing my words so beautifully,” i say joining students in applause. her performance enlivens many students. some sit forward in their seats and appear to be looking for other passages to discuss. yet others look disengaged, fidgeting with their cell phones and doodling in their notebooks. it is difficult to ignore the disengaged. did they not read? are they silent because they disapprove of bathhouses? of someone being gay? i work to let go of needing to know, but their silences stay with me. berry and hodges: naked teaching. . . 69 “so why does this passage stay with you?” i ask. “honestly, the story makes me think differently about you. i think so many of us are not used to knowing this much about our teachers. our teachers care and are involved in our learning, but we don’t really know them. we don’t read about them being rejected by having a door slammed in their faces. we’re really getting to know you.” “i love that you see it in that way,” i say. “it’s not wrong, just different. but i still don’t feel as though i can be so vulnerable,” justin says. “that’s fine. although i will be asking you to learn in ways that will probably challenge your comfort zones, you should be yourselves however it is you bring your story to life. also, just because my experience writing like this has allowed me to be more comfortable with, and even excited by, vulnerability, that doesn’t mean i don’t still get nervous. think about it – i'm standing in front of twenty five students who read about me in a bathhouse. i was a little nervous coming in today.” “the nerves don’t go away?” “the process often gets better over time and with practice. yet, i think some nervousness is healthy. maybe we’re nervous because the things we’re talking about matter so much to us, and we’re unsure how others will respond. i’ve learned to become more at peace with the nerves.” * * * * * “before we begin our discussion, please get out your copy of the article and your body part story.” students get out their paper copies of my article, the american dental dream (hodges, 2015), and their writing assignment – a personal story about a body part. i scan my first page while waiting: the cultural desire for straight, white teeth – is difficult, if not impossible, for poor and working-class people to achieve. in this autoethnography, i brush away the taken-for-granted assumptions about teeth, exploring the personal, relational, and structural consequences of this cultural desire, and showing how social class writes itself on our bodies. i write these teeth tales to show how one might cope with their teeth (hodges, p.943). 70 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 “i share my autoethnography with you, not only as a model for your own paper, but to show you i am also a human being with personal struggles and insecurities. i’d be interested in hearing your connections, stories, questions, criticisms, grade-boosting praise.” several students laugh. “what’d you all think?” “i really like it,” jessica says. “thanks. what’d you like about it?” “i related to it. i grew up with messed up teeth, and i was always so embarrassed by them. i wouldn’t smile in photos or talk in class. it seemed all my friends had perfect teeth. but my parents couldn’t afford braces. once i finally had the money i fixed my teeth.” i wince at her use of ‘perfect’ and ‘fixed’ teeth, implying her teeth were a problem, instead of the problem being the idea of perfect teeth, but i stay quiet and let her story be. “i saw myself in the story, too,” heather adds. “i hadn’t realised how little i thought about teeth until i read the article, but you’re right – our teeth are connected to our social class and we make class judgments about people based on their teeth. even i do.” “i worked at a dentist’s office for seven years and this american dental dream is real,” anna adds. “we’re so obsessed with these perfect movie star teeth. i remember how patients would tear up with joy when they saw their dental transformation for the first time.” “thank you all for sharing your connections,” i say. “i believe this idea of ‘perfect teeth’ several of you alluded to is an illusion. the idea of which teeth are desirable, perfect, or normal, is a cultural ideal. it’s not inevitable and could be otherwise. yet, this cultural desire is powerful. how many people in here have had braces?” all but two students raise their hands. “and how many of you are completely happy with your teeth?” no one raises their hands. “so braces didn’t solve the insecurities with your teeth. you are led to believe your teeth need fixed, and can look better. this deficit discourse (gergen, 1994) is what keeps the capitalist engine running. we create problems needing ‘fixed’ by introducing new products and services. just think about how the introduction of whitening strips and braces changed how we understand teeth.” berry and hodges: naked teaching. . . 71 “after reading your article i went and immediately whitened my teeth,” says melissa. “i know this is the opposite of what you hoped but the pressure never seems to end.” “i hate to be the outlier here but i have straight, white teeth and i’ve never had any orthodontics,” one of my favorite students, dustin, responds. “this seems to be a sweeping generalisation. i don’t really see the connection between social class and teeth.” “well i do say in the article that straight, white teeth that meet the cultural ideal requires good genetics or a lot of money. however, many people have some sort of dental intervention. look at how many people have had braces in here.” “that’s why i think your story is relatable,” says josh. “i had braces but i still have insecurities about my teeth even after my parents spent thousands of dollars on them.” “many of us have these minor bodily insecurities (ellis, 1998) we rarely talk about and we each find our own ways of coping with them,” i say. “when we share our stories with others we can feel a little less alone in these insecurities.” “i felt that connection reading your article,” says tara. “i had horrible acne in high school and we weren’t allowed to wear makeup in my school. i was so embarrassed. i felt like all anyone could see was my acne. it’s like how your mom described her teeth in the article.” “i felt the same way about my ears,” derron adds. “they’re so big and kids used to make fun of me, calling me ‘dumbo’, like the elephant. but then when i found out how to wiggle them, everyone wanted to see my tricks.” “no way,” ian says. “show us!” we laugh as he wiggles his ears up and down. “that’s great you found a way to reframe something you were embarrassed by into something you embrace and makes you unique,” i say. “i related too,” natalie says. the bridge of my nose is pronounced and every time i’m around my grandma she makes comments about it. she even offers 72 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 to pay for plastic surgery to get it fixed.” several students gasp. “but i’ve grown to love it. it holds my glasses up nicely,” she says grabbing her frames. several students laugh. “people make judgments about my nose,” lance adds. “people say i have a jewish nose. i identify as christian but my dad is jewish, and i felt in some ways this was an attack on him.” “i really connected,” says lacey. “i have a slight eye misalignment called pseudostrabismus.” basically my left eye is about two degrees off from my right, making me appear cross-eyed. after reading your story, i realised my eye affects my life in ways i wasn’t aware of, like realising i don’t have any selfies online because it’s most noticeable in pictures. now i want to write my autoethnography about my pseudostrabismus, though a part of me feels it’s a minor problem and writing a 20-page paper about it is blowing it out of proportion.” as she talks, i realise i’m staring at her eyes and look down at my article instead. “wow, thank you so much for sharing,” i say. “your comment reminds me about the double binds of discussing minor bodily stigmas. for example, many of you may have never even noticed my teeth before reading this essay, but i’m guessing many of you tried to get a peek at them today.” the class laughs, my humour resonating. “other responses?” “i admire how you used humour to cope with your teeth. like how you named your snaggletooth and snarled it at people,” erick says. the class laughs. “i also admire your honesty, like how you write about stealing whitening strips from wal-mart.” “yes, your teacher has broken the law,” i joke nervously. “most stores now have them locked behind glass cases because so many people were stealing them.” “this discussion has made me realise we all have something we’re insecure about and afraid to talk about it, making that insecurity even more powerful in our minds,” erick says. “yes, and i hope my openness inspired you to be open with your own stories.” berry and hodges: naked teaching. . . 73 hands shoot up in the air. “your story made me think about… “. . . the moles on my arms.” “. . . being a woman with ‘man hands’.” “. . . the stretch marks on my boobs.” “. . . the gap between my front teeth.” “. . . the scar on my lip.” “. . . being a black woman with ‘natural’ hair.” “. . . my skinny legs.” “. . . my obesity and how i use humour to hide my insecurity.” “. . . being a short man.” “. . . my bowleggedness.” the stories pour out. how much to reveal? “so what are you thinking of writing your final paper about?” i ask rochelle, who shifts in her seat. i meet with each student individually to discuss their autoethnography. in these meetings students share personal stories and we talk through ideas, discussing potential ethical issues, and figuring out what they hope to get out of the writing process. “i have a few ideas but the one i think i have the most to write about is my relationship with my mom,” she says. i nod my head, encouraging her to continue. “she’s crazy.” “what do you mean by crazy?” 74 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 “she’s literally crazy. like she cheated on my dad and completely destroyed our family. now she drinks all the time and goes out to the bar with all these trashy guys. i figured i have a lot i could write about.” “okay, i just want to say before you carry forward with this project that i will be pushing you to consider your mom’s perspective, not to justify her actions, but to hopefully understand more about how she made those choices. part of what we’re trying to do in this class is to write about experiences we haven’t quite figured out yet as a way to better understand, come to terms with, and cope with them. you seem pretty angry at your mom right now. but writing a story that only blames and vilifies doesn’t allow you or others to learn from the experience. i just want you to know that if you stick with this topic, i will be asking you to write through the anger and practice moving toward empathy.” she nods her head. “i understand. like i know she married my dad when she was really young and got pregnant. she’s said before that she didn’t get to experience those party years during her youth because she was a mom and a wife. that could be part of it.” “that’s a good start.” * * * * * “you’ve done some promising work on your final project proposals, and i am thrilled by the plans for your stories. the topics you chose are deep and important – grief from death of a loved one, body image issues, family conflict, racism and homophobia, just for starters. i know you'll be proud of the work you create.” smiles beam across several faces. many were nervous when talking with me about their topic. this class represents the first time many have been asked to talk so honestly and deeply about themselves. “that’s a big statement,”maria says. “it feels truthful to me,” i add. “reflexively writing and telling our stories is often emotionally taxing, because the process asks us to relive past experiences, some of which are difficult and maybe even traumatic. we then resist the human temptation to cover up intimate details, and decide instead to openly share information, baring our selves. there is no secret antidote for berry and hodges: naked teaching. . . 75 doing this work, and storytelling is certainly not a panacea that miraculously fixes our lives.” students giggle, noting my flair for the dramatic. “your proposals also show me more of you are becoming comfortable with writing about personal, intimate details of your life.” “what i am unsure of is how to do it, or actually, how far to go,” alberto responds. “i appreciate and respect your concern. the smiles and head nods from your fellow students tell me you are not alone. they also tell me today’s in-class workshop focusing on self-disclosure and personal narrative is an important next step.” i distribute to each student one half-sheet of paper showing part of a personal story i wrote about bullying. wanting to not discourage them from being honest, i do not tell them i am the storyteller. “please read through and reflect on this passage. as you move through the paragraph, pay attention to what you learn about the author.” students read through the following passage: noman smiles and nods “hello” as he sees me walking up to him during recess. he is a short pakistani boy who usually keeps to himself at school. on this winter day, my eyes are fixed on his coat – a long, thick and puffy winter coat, bigger than any one i have ever seen. “nice coat,” i say sarcastically, as i poke at his chest, by his heart, feeling the sharpness of my fingers attempts to penetrate the puffiness. nearly inaudible, he mumbles back, “(something, i think, about) cold and (something about) snow.” my pokes continue, and i yell, “i cannot hear you, no-man, talk louder!” he acquiesces to my aggression, his body goes limp, and he evades eye contact with me by staring at the ground. still not satisfied, i grab noman by his coat, my boy fingers barely able to cling onto his puffed up coating, and pushed him against the brick wall. “owwww,” he says. his eyes are shut, seemingly to prepare for more roughness. 76 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 “okay, what do you think?” i ask after five minutes pass. “i think the author is honest,” alberto says. “honest?” rose interrupts. “what is honest about this passage?” “well, the author is honest about bullying noman. there are no excuses.” “fine,” rose replies, “but we learn nothing in the passage about reasons why the author bullied noman. we also don’t know what type of relationship they had. were they friends? strangers? knowing this information would help me know how i feel about the violence.” “sounds like you want to know more about what informed this relational exchange, which is important. here’s another question: what do we know about how the author felt, or what the author’s thought process was related to this episode?” “we know very little about that, except for what we might guess.” “right, we know the author attacked noman, but we don’t know how he – i am assuming it’s a boy – felt before, during, or after. he’s a kid, attacking an innocent peer at school, someone smaller and weaker than him. did that make him feel stronger? did he regret the violence? i suspect some of those thoughts and feelings are not pretty, and they can lead the author to feel bad about his actions, or shame. but i want to know more from and about the storyteller.” “why would we want to know more about these things?” multiple students’ raise their hands. “wow, a lot of folks have something to say. this is great. let’s just list off the reasons you have in mind. so, fill in the blank: “by knowing more intimate details, i will . . . ” . . . know what or how i should think or feel about the violence. for example, the situation feels different if he has no concern about his harmful actions. . . . believe the author more, or not. berry and hodges: naked teaching. . . 77 . . . be able to compare it to my own experiences with bullying. . . . understand more about conflicts similar to the one portrayed in the story. “fine work, you explored this so mindfully,” i say. “now let me help you think about these issues in even more specific ways, which i believe will help you in writing your stories.” a few students grab their pens, readying themselves to take notes. “your reasons speak to the importance in autoethnographic storytelling of working to be transparent; of ‘thickly’ describing the lived experience we convey; and of disclosing enough for readers to have a clear and meaningful sense of what it is like to live and negotiate these relational realities and identities (ellis, 2004). overall, it seems, to me, like you want to be drawn in closer to the stories and the storytellers . . . to know both better.” “you make us sound smart,” alberto says. “you are smart, and you can write smartly in these ways. it just takes time and practice.” by the way, i am the author of that passage. noman and i were friends, and i felt terrible about committing such violence!” a few students gasp at my revelation. “i didn’t tell you because i didn’t think you would give all this criticism if you knew i was the author. by covering myself, i figured you might feel more comfortable saying tough things. maybe i should have trusted you and revealed my part in this to you before reading.” the students respond with a range of playful comments: “you got us!” “very sneaky. . .” and “glad i didn’t say what i was really thinking about the bully!” naked emergence “i am going to miss this class.” these words come from sophia, a student who has not said much this semester. her speaking up now feels significant. she continues, “i feel weird announcing this, but i will miss the people in here.” 78 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 the class responds with, “awwwwww” and “that’s so sweet”. “the class has been a very unique experience for me, and i think that has to do with more than just learning about autoethnography. i think it has something to do with how close many of us have become to one another, and who we’ve become together as a result of sharing some heartbreaking stories.” more students nod their heads, though a few others doodle in their notebooks, evading my eye contact. i don’t know their reasons for being disengaged. yet, their response is a reminder not all students will experience vulnerability in positive ways. many uncover less for any number of reasons, including self-protection. “personally, i love what we have created this semester. i cannot remember one class in all of my years of teaching where students have without prompting begun reflecting on the foregoing semester weeks before the class ends. but this shouldn’t surprise us. as i mentioned when we embarked on this journey together, by investing in the course, doing the necessary work, taking risks, and being there for each other, something special would likely form. it has been an honor to work with you.” “well, thank you for being our fearless, towel-wearing leader,” rose says dramatically but sincerely. “you’re welcome, and thank you, you all led – each other, and me – in your own ways. that leadership has resulted in what has become a wonderfully supportive community of storytellers. also, it’s been amazing to see many of you become more open, confident, and creative writers. you, too, have exposed yourselves and lived to tell about it!” “i think i am going to cry. are we supposed to cry in classes?” sue asks. “sure. i should have known to bring a kleenex box to an autoethnography class. thank you all for what you have given me. i have grown as a result of our reflexive and vulnerable learning this semester.” “you have grown, how so?” alberto asks. several others look confused. “yes, many teachers are impacted by teaching, too. as you know i am writing berry and hodges: naked teaching. . . 79 my book, an autoethnographic examination of bullying, youth, and identity, which includes my reflexive stories of bullying from my youth”. (berry, in press) “so what was our help?” “since it has been over thirty-five years since i was a youth, at times i have found it difficult to identify ‘my bullying story’. by witnessing you take risks in writing and classroom discussion by reflecting on difficult experiences of hardship and suffering, i was moved to look more deeply into my bullying past. i heard myself encouraging you, and began to follow my own advice. i began to explore my past more gently and imaginatively. your vulnerability and willingness to tell your stories, stories that matter, encouraged me to stay with my own process and to identify what stories from back then still matter today.” “wow, we did all that?” “you did, and perhaps without even knowing it. that’s the power possible from relating with others in open ways. as i helped you, you helped me see my story in different ways. i am grateful to you for pushing me deeper into my story.” stripping down we sit beside each other looking at the same computer screen. “how do we end? what does naked teaching do for teachers and students?” “i think we become more relatable. rather than being detached authority figures, we are teachers who have personal struggles and identify with students’ struggles. also, through personal writing, students are challenged to explore how their education personally impacts their lives. this isn’t abstract knowledge. this is their life they are writing about. this vulnerable teaching style also allows for multiple selves to be experimented with, performed, revealed and concealed.” “there are also risks to this kind of vulnerability.” 80 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 “yes, the selves performed within this space aren’t always desired or affirming. we’re often working through some distressing issues. yet, the aim is to be ourselves and try to help people better our lives. whoever we become through the process, we convey the joys and sorrows of our stories together.” “we’ve also both had experiences with students that made us realise the risks and limits of vulnerability. for example, i taught a veteran student who never once spoke about his time in the military throughout the semester. during our early semester meeting about his paper he told me talking about these combat experiences in a room full of strangers was impossible, that he could barely discuss them with family and close friends. yet he wrote and revised his autoethnography throughout the semester, at first only sharing his paper with another veteran in the class but eventually he presented his story to the whole class.” “others have worked on stories about deeply traumatic experiences, including homophobia, self-mutilation, and rape. several rape survivors have shared their stories for the first time in my class. many wrote brilliant stories yet could not speak one word about their experience to anyone, let alone deliver a final presentation to the class about their stories. while some critics might say ‘true success’ in this teaching should require students to be fully open, we don’t envision naked teaching that way. honoring these individuals means meeting students where they are. sometimes a one-on-one presentation between student and professor suffices, or sometimes submission of the paper itself is enough.” “the outcomes aren’t always distressing. my students helped me find my bullying story.” “and the most unexpected, affirming experience i had was when a student attached a letter to her paper telling me she loved when i spoke about how being an academic makes me no better than my working-class parents. she said that resonated deeply with her and she now holds that opinion too. this has made me realise how important it is to be my working-class self in the classroom.” “the value of these stories extends beyond writing lives and other life writing courses. shouldn’t any educator consider issues of vulnerability, reflexivity, and empathy in their classrooms, even in courses that don’t explore deeply personal issues? of course what that vulnerability means and berry and hodges: naked teaching. . . 81 how it is performed is contingent on the given context, like what the course is and who the storytellers are.” “are you seeing the parallels between autoethnography and the teaching we advocate? in each, issues of vulnerability, reflexivity, and empathy are vital. autoethnography is more than a writing method.” “it’s an orientation to the world. it’s a way of life” (bochner, 2014). “autoethnography offers educators a more personal, humane approach to teaching and learning, putting students and teachers lives at the forefront of their education.” “autoethnography does more. it is not uncommon today to hear stories about lazy and indifferent students, or a lack of passion in higher education. in writing lives we saw passionate, hard-working students who opened themselves up in ways that allowed themselves and others to grow.” “sounds like we’ve found an ending. let’s start writing.” references berry, k. 2007. embracing the catastrophe: gay body seeks acceptance. qualitative inquiry, 13: pp.259–281. berry, k. 2012. (un)covering the gay interculturalist. in bardhan, n. and orbe, m.p. (eds), identity research and communication: intercultural reflections and future directions. lanham, md: lexington books, pp.223–237. berry, k. 2013. spinning autoethnographic reflexivity, cultural critique and negotiating selves. in holman jones, s., adams, t.e. and ellis, c. (eds.), handbook of autoethnography. walnut grove, ca: left coast press, pp.209–227. berry, k. and clair, r.p. 2011. contestation and opportunity in reflexivity: an introduction. cultural studies – critical methodologies, 11: pp.95–97. 82 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 berry, k. (in press). bullied: tales of torment, identity, and youth. walnut creek, ca: left coast press. berry, k. and patti, c.j. 2015. lost in narration: applying autoethnography. journal of applied communication research, 43: pp.263–268. bochner, a. 2014. coming to narrative: a personal history of paradigm change in the human sciences. walnut creek, ca: left coast press. boylorn, r. and orbe, m. (eds). 2013. critical autoethnography: intersecting cultural identities in everyday life. walnut creek, ca: left coast press. doty, m. 2005. return to sender: memory, betrayal, and memoir. in williford, l. and martone, m. 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(eds). ethnographically speaking: autoethnography, literature, and aesthetics. walnut creek, ca: altamira press, pp.95–114. pelias, r.j. 2000. the critical life. communication education, 49: pp.220–228. richardson, l. 1994. writing: a method of inquiry. in denzin, n. and lincoln, y. (eds). handbook of qualitative research. thousand oaks, ca: sage, pp.516–529. tullis, o., jillian, a., mcrae, c., adams, t.e., vitale, a. 2009. truth troubles. qualitative inquiry, 15: pp.178–200. warren, j.t. 2011. reflexive teaching: toward critical autoethnographic practices of/in/on pedagogy. cultural studies – critical methodologies, 11: pp.139–144. yoshino, k. 2006. covering: the hidden assault on our civil rights. ny: random house. keith berry nathan hodges department of communication university of south florida keithberry@usf.edu nlhodges@mail.usf.educ mailto:keithberry@usf.edu mailto:nlhodges@mail.usf.educ microsoft word bissue78.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 78, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i78a03 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x having fun seriously matters: a visual arts-based narrative of methodological inventiveness marguerite müller school of education studies, education, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa mullerm@ufs.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7620-470x (received: 13 september 2019; accepted: 27 january 2020) abstract my purpose in this article is to explore what methodological inventiveness has made possible for me as a selfreflexive researcher. as south african educational researchers, we need to consider how a better understanding of our own experiences, identities, and subjectivities correspond with a context of rapid change, transformation, and decolonisation. within this understanding it is useful to think of methodological inventiveness as a form of post qualitative inquiry that embraces the possibilities of different educational methodologies to open up and resist pre-determined and formulaic ways of doing and knowing. through a playful engagement with the children’s book zog (donaldson & scheffler, 2010) i create an arts-based narrative to show how my journey of becoming an educational researcher unfolds. i use playfulness and joy to show how methodological inventiveness makes it possible for me, as a self-reflexive researcher, to engage with fluid and complex identities and contextual realities. keywords: methodological inventiveness, arts-based inquiry, self-reflexive methodologies, post-qualitative inquiry, joy the benefit of the not-knowing i did not to know much about educational research methodologies when i entered my postgraduate studies. a lack of knowledge is not something one would usually highlight as an asset in academic circles but looking back i realise that not knowing helped me know differently. i came to the field of education with the mind and training of a fine artist, and, at first, i felt like a traveller who had arrived in a foreign country. my undergraduate studies had exposed me to post-structural scholars and theories that still linger in my understanding of research. the education i had received in the arts prepared me to connect intuition, senses, emotions, and theory in order to create art. however, when i first encountered qualitative educational research methodologies in my post-graduate studies, i did not immediately make the connection between doing research and creating art. i felt as though i were a tourist in a 44 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 distant land, doing all the wrong things, making blunders, and struggling to communicate. i tried to read all the prescribed textbooks on qualitative educational methodologies, and eventually stumbled upon something that seemed to resonate with my way of thinking about the world—narrative inquiry. by using narrative methods, i began to see a path that led towards arts-based, collaborative, and self-reflexive methods. slowly and with much uncertainty i found myself expanding a limited understanding of qualitative methods so that it could grow into something more familiar. when educational research methodologies started to make aesthetic sense to me, and when it started to look like an art form, i found myself full of joy and excited about doing research. in this paper, i explore how my journey with methodological inventiveness unfolded by focusing on the moments of discovery and joy that guided me along the way. in the next section, i consider the value of methodological inventiveness in my specific context. responding to change in novel and inventive ways as south african educators, we work in a context of constant change. within this context we are required to think on our feet and adapt daily to new challenges inside and outside the classroom. think, for example, of the fees must fall student movements. during the course of 2015 and 2016 south africa was rocked by large scale student protest movements that demanded free tertiary education for all. the movements led to greater pressure being put on the national government to provide free tertiary education to students who could not afford tuition fees. fees must fall also emphasised a call for decolonisation of south african higher education institutions (jansen, 2017; mbembe, 2016). one of the consequences of this was that we, as educators, had to consider how a better understanding of our own experiences, and identities, might be relevant in working towards a decolonised curriculum (müller, motai, nkopane, mofokeng, lephatsoe & mouton, 2018). fees must fall highlighted the need to revise and revisit continually our curriculum and pedagogy so that it remains responsive to the needs of the students and relevant in the current context. however, the change that is needed cannot stop at pedagogical or curriculum changes only. change requires us to respond in novel and inventive ways. our research methods should echo our unique and novel responses. yet, responding differently to new and novel questions might mean that we do not always know exactly what to do, or how to do it. as st pierre aptly asked, “why do we think we should know what to do before we begin to inquire?” (2019, p. 4). for st pierre there is a distinct difference between inquiry and methodology. in writing about post-qualitative inquiry, she emphasised that the goal is not to represent, but rather to experiment and create new and novel ways of doing and knowing. when we work with post-qualitative inquiry words like data and analysis become problematic because of the implicit assumptions of representational logic on which they rely. post-qualitative inquiry is strongly influenced by post-structural theories that resist the ontological assumption of a real world out there that can be in any way represented in research (st. pierre 2019). i think of methodological inventiveness as a form of post-qualitative inquiry because it embraces the possibilities that different educational methodologies might open up but resists predetermined and formulaic ways of doing and knowing. müller : having fun seriously matters 45 post-qualitative inquiry, thus, makes it possible to look for new ways to respond, through research, to our unique and ever-changing context. it helps us to engage with our notknowing in order to move towards new ways of knowing. through a process of methodological inventiveness, i came to see educational research methodology as a form of art (instead of a recipe), and this understanding opened up new avenues in which to explore difficult issues. in my phd study i wanted to explore educator identity during a time of change and transformation in the south african higher education context. during the research process i resisted pre-determined ways of doing a qualitative study and opted to have a more organic unfolding of discovery occur. in this article, i reflect on my journey of discovering the flow between subjectivity, methodology, and self-reflexivity through a visual narrative that unfolds in difficult, messy, and sometimes volatile educational spaces. the visual narrative can be seen as situated within an arts-based inquiry that draws on memory (mitchell, strong-wilson, pithouse, & allnutt, 2011), fiction (clough 2002; leavy 2013), poetry (leavy, 2009) and imagination to create a performative (denzin, 2003) and postqualitative (le grange 2018, st. pierre 2019) in which i explore possibilities for being and doing differently. my aim is to explore how a creative engagement with methodology can create productive possibilities to respond to stifling and regulating new-liberal performance regimes of research. the visual narrative responds to the dynamic and fluid nature of professional and personal development as embedded in reflective practice and creative expression. through this, following gannon et al. (2019), i hope to highlight the joy, and playful possibilities of self-reflexive research methodologies that have helped me develop and grow as a researcher, an educator, and an artist. thus, in this article, methodological inventiveness is understood as a form of inquiry, an organic, ever-changing, and intuitive response to growth and change in an educational environment of change and transformation. in the next section i draw on a fictional character called zog to assist me in narrating my journey with methodological inventiveness in educational research. my research journey with a dragon called zog i find much joy in reading bedtime stories to my children. what i love most about children’s books is that they often tackle complex theoretical and philosophical issues in a very digestible, accessible, playful, and aesthetic way. the visual narratives make it possible to speak about complex issues yet keep us (young and old) glued to the beautiful pages. i have become interested in how we may use this technique in writing about educational research. here i use children’s literature to construct a visual narrative trough in which i “reflect on fictionalisation, both as a method of inquiry and as a literary practice in reporting research” (eliastam, müller, müller, & trahar 2019, p. 12). i specifically chose the popular children’s book zog (donaldson & scheffler, 2010) to communicate my understanding of methodological inventiveness and how it might possibly enrich research practice. according to lawrence, “using the arts to present research findings makes the research accessible to a wider audience. reading and writing fiction is one way that researchers can incorporate the arts into inquiry” (2019, p. 110). lawrence collected and analysed data by creating imagined 46 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 dialogues with fictional characters “to promote dialogue in education settings” (p. 123). similarly, i use the fictional character zog, created by donaldson and sheffler (2010), to help me share my experiences of methodological inventiveness in educational research. learning how to . . . madam dragon ran a school, many moons ago. she taught young dragons all the things that dragons need to know. zog, the biggest dragon, was the keenest one by far. he tried his hardest every day to win a golden star. (donaldson & scheffler, 2010, pp. 1–2) zog is a dragon who goes to school to learn everything that dragons need to know. in the same way, i entered my postgraduate studies in order to learn everything i needed to know as an educational researcher. however, both zog and i encountered significant challenges on our educational journeys. in his first year of school zog must learn how to fly. all the dragons in year one were learning how to fly. ‘high!’ said madam dragon. ‘way up in the sky! . . . zog went off to practice, flying fast and free. he soared and swooped and looped the loop . . . then crashed into a tree. (pp. 3–4) just like zog, i crashed into the tree, before i even knew i was doing research. my research journey started in a classroom where i was a relatively young and inexperienced teacher. i describe this moment in my phd dissertation. i suppose all stories have a beginning. this one began one tuesday morning in a very dirty and chaotic high school art room in pietermaritzburg, kwazulu-natal. i was sitting there watching things unfold and feeling utterly defeated and helpless. the room was swarming with grade nine arts and culture learners who were supposed to be doing a painting project, but the whole thing had spun totally out of control and now paint was flying through the air and colliding with grade nine bodies. realising that i had lost control of the situation i sat down on my chair and tried to fight a raising panic and resist the urge to scream. what was i doing here? (müller, 2016, p. 1) i chose this extract from my dissertation to illustrate the way in which a specific difficult experience helped me start a journey as an educational researcher. in that grade nine creative arts classroom i found myself, much like zog, overwhelmed by the task ahead. botha and rens refer to this feeling of dissonance as “reality shock” (2018, p. 1) which is commonly experienced by beginner teachers. müller : having fun seriously matters 47 figure 1: in a messy art room, marguerite müller, 2013, oil on canvas after zog crashes into the tree he is helped by a little girl. “just then, a little girl came by. ‘oh, please don’t cry’ she said. ‘perhaps you’d like a nice sticky plaster for your head?’” (donaldson & scheffler, 2010, pp. 5–6). zog feels much better and he flies off “zigzagging through the blue” (p. 6). what helped me recover from my praxis shock was to write and draw about what had happened in the classroom and paint a picture of it. a reflective practice of writing, drawing, and painting became like that “plaster” for me; it was, and still is, my coping mechanism. by writing about what was happening in class each day i felt more in control of the situation. by painting myself into the classroom space i felt a sense of connection to and belonging in my new role. the experience i had was that i could write and paint myself in and out of difficult situations. putting the chaos on paper made it seem more manageable. later, when i read about writing as a method of inquiry (richardson & st. pierre, 2005) and arts-based research inquiry (leavy, 2009) i realised my coping mechanism or plaster was actually a legitimate research method. i learned to use writings, drawings, and paintings to construct research texts. my understanding of what data and analysis are stems largely from the work of richardson and st. pierre who said that “writing is thinking, writing is analysis, writing is indeed a seductive and tangled method of discovery” (2005, p. 967). writing, painting, and drawing became methods of discovery that helped me make sense of what was happening around me, what was happening to me, and what was happening inside of me. although, i did not formally use the things i produced as research material until much later, i had a sense that the creative process was helping me move forward. the intuitive feeling i had about creative engagement with lived experiences informed the methodologies in which i became interested as a researcher. one such method is self-study— a method to engage with practice in a way that connects “the ontology and epistemology of pedagogy, in that i scrutinise my own “being” as a teacher in order to transform what and how i know and vice versa” (knowles 2014, p. 91). pithouse, mitchell, and moletsane explored “how inquiry into the self might illuminate significant social questions and make a qualitative difference to the shared human experience” (2009, p. 2). furthermore, meskin and 48 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 van der walt have concluded that self-study thereby “offers a home in which we can explore our practice in a way that recognises the complexity of ourselves and create space for interrogating how that complexity drives our pedagogic and creative experience” (2014, 56). in learning about self-study as a research method i began to recognise myself as a legitimate participant in the research process. in a sense, the start of my methodological journey in education helped me to realise how much i did not know about myself. when to roar and when to listen a year went by and in year two the dragons learned to roar. “more!” said madam dragon. “louder, i implore!” (donaldson & scheffler, 2010, p. 7) learning about self-study and self-reflexive research methodologies helped me realise that my own experiences were important in the research journey. for me, the next phase was learning how to communicate these experiences in an impactful and meaningful way. just as zog was learning how to roar, i wanted to learn how to write research texts that could be published as academic work, and, at the same time, transcend academic traditions that exclude creative and aesthetic work. i encountered the work of narrative researchers like clandinin and connelly who expressed their approach to educational research thus: “we see teaching and teacher knowledge as expressions of embodied individual and social stories, and we think narratively as we enter into research relationships with teachers, create field texts and write storied accounts of educational lives” (2000, p. 4). furthermore, chase (2011) described narrative inquiry as research that is focused on life experiences, and as told by those who lived them. narrative inquiry (clandinin & connelly 2000; chase 2011) helped me make connections between life experiences and educational research, but it also showed me how to communicate these in an academic tradition. as i began to communicate and share my own experiences with education, i realised that this was not a simple task. when we bring ourselves into the research story, we become vulnerable (butler, 2004; knowles, 2014) and i often felt alone and lost in the story i was trying to tell. the question of “what was i doing here?” (müller, 2016, p. 1) and “who am i?” (young, 2007, p. 9) stayed with me throughout the process. müller : having fun seriously matters 49 figure 2: getting lost is good research, marguerite müller, 2014, pen and watercolour on paper i got lost countless times in my attempt to do self-study and narrative research. it was only when my story started to connect to that of others, and they became my critical friends (franzak, 2002) that i was able to move forward. the interaction with participants in my phd study showed me how useful formal collaborative reflection is in shaping reflective practice. talking with others about their experiences helped me understand my own experiences differently. ingold has reminded us that “people grow in knowledge not only through direct encounters with others, but also through hearing their stories told” (2011, pp. 160–161). i learned that it was sometimes good not to know where the story was going, and also that listening to others’ stories could sometimes help me find a new path. i had learned that telling my story meant listening to the stories of others. thus, i learned that participatory and collaborative approaches to narrative inquiry were crucial for creating rich and authentic research texts that could correspond with the context in which i work. what art makes possible for zog, the next step was to learn how to breathe fire. “‘no!’ said madam dragon. ‘breathe out fire, not snow!’” (donaldson & scheffler, 2010, p. 11). i wish to draw attention specifically to being attuned to joy and positive affect (gannon, et al., 2019) in methodological inventiveness. the research methods i am drawn to are those that bring me into an affective relationship with the research; in other words these are methods that keep me breathing “fire,” not “snow.” i like writing poems, i like reading stories, i like creating imaginary worlds, and i enjoy drawing and painting. using the things that i enjoy makes it easier to feel excited about my research, but it also helps me to stay connected to what i am busy with. just as zog had to learn how to breathe fire, i had to learn how to find and use the research methods that i enjoy. this might seem obvious and easy, yet it is not in an academic environment that is influenced by “neoliberal ideologies, marketization and performative regimes” (gannon, et al., 2019, p. 48). as creative researchers who want to pursue different ways of knowing, we often find ourselves having to 50 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 defend our methods since they are measured against their more established and well-known qualitative cousins. as zog tried to breathe out fire “his wing tip caught alight” (donaldson & scheffler, 2010, p. 12). i have found that methodological inventiveness requires you to leave the known, tried-and-trusted methods behind and search actively for new pathways that might not always be easy to follow. however, following st. pierre (2019), i have also experienced that a desire to create new and novel ways of doing and knowing helps me find joy, not just in the process, but in building on the unexpected connections it makes possible. zog’s next challenge was to capture a princess. “zog went off to practice. he tried and tried and tried. but he simply couldn’t manage. ‘i’m no good at this,’ he cried” (donaldson & scheffler, 2010, p. 17). like many of us, zog felt defeated and uncertain of his ability to do what was required of him. but luckily the princess helped him out. “‘perhaps,’ she said, ‘you’d like to capture me? i’m princess pearl’” (p. 18). what i learn from the story of zog is that we should resist the temptation to capture or be captured by a method of research. manning (2016) warned us that method is “an apparatus of capture” (manning, cited in st pierre, 2019, p. 3 ). so instead of capturing or being captured we might seek, rather, a reciprocal relationship between the researcher and the research method in which both are willing to change a little in order to move forward. for example, in deciding to use arts-based inquiry for my phd study i really struggled to move from thinking like an artist to thinking like an arts-based researcher. i found myself struggling with a desire to create artworks about the participants instead of creating artworks with the participants. richards and haberlin (2019) have written about the tension that creative individuals might experience when they embark on using arts-based research. according to them, the challenge for the artist-turned-arts-based-researcher is that you have to learn to communicate the art practice as a form of inquiry. barone and eisner have pointed out that you must purposefully use “certain aesthetic qualities or design elements that infuse the inquiry process and the research text” (cited in richards & haberlin 2019, p. 1942). in learning how to become an arts-based researcher i had to abandon much of the initial drawing and painting i produced for my phd. for example, in figure 3 i share such a discarded painting. i created it after an interview with a participant to try to make sense of what she had told me, but in the drawing i found it hard to see her. it was as if she was spinning around in circles as i stood small and helpless at the side of her story. müller : having fun seriously matters 51 figure 3: discarded, marguerite müller, 2014, pen and watercolour on paper i learned that the focus for the arts-based researcher is not on the artwork itself, nor on the meaning behind the artwork, but is, rather, on what the artwork makes possible. i turned to the use of collage and incorporated images brought by the participant and combined them with my own. lahman et al. (2019) have written about the use of collage inquiry and use a collective collage poem to express their experiences. . . . stories emerge in form and color piece-by-piece surpassing anything created with pencils and pad . . . a lost pleasure a satisfying experience research falls out of colourful pages onto paper (p. 1) through the use of collage, i was able to create artworks that focused more on listening to the participant, and less on making or telling (representing). 52 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 figure 4: a portrait of celine, marguerite müller, 2015, collage knowing in a new way in his final year of school, zog has to fight a real live knight. zog and the knight get into an argument about who will save princess pearl, but she interrupts their fight. stop, you silly chumps! the world is already far too full of cuts and burns and bumps. don’t rescue me! i won’t go back to being a princess. and prancing about the palace in a silly frilly dress. i want to be a doctor, and travel here and there. listening to people’s chests and giving them my care. (p. 24) in one short statement pearl gives zog and the knight a lesson in feminism and the transformative paradigm. she also changes the course of the expected narrative outcome of a dragon, princess, and knight triangle by suggesting they should rather work together to care for others. i think of princess pearl as a metaphor for methodological inventiveness since she helps to connect the theory (the knight) with the researcher (zog) in order to work towards transformative outcomes. on my research journey i have realised that theory has to come alive through methodology, and that methodology informs theory. the purpose of methodological inventiveness is to create ways in which we can do educational research that enables us to respond to a rapidly changing education context. the joy and the fun of creation does not have to undermine the seriousness of the issues with which we deal in research on transformation and social change. in fact, joy and playfulness might make it possible to do research that pushes the boundaries of what we imagine the limits to be. creative processes of knowledge production have for long been seen as inferior in the hierarchical understanding of what constitutes serious and scientific thought, and gannon and gonick (2019) have argued that it is precisely for this reason that feminist approaches to research must include creative and collaborative methods that resist regulatory research traditions. thus, i understand methodological inventiveness as a joyful (feminist) resistance to systems that might stifle and regulate us since it allows new pathways to emerge. furthermore, as pithouse-morgan, coia, müller : having fun seriously matters 53 taylor, and samaras have written, “when hope and optimism are supported by experiential wisdom gained through shared creative engagement, we can confidently make a qualitative difference in our work with students and colleagues, and more broadly at the level of programs and policy” (2016, p. 455). methodological inventiveness is a joyful resistance to rigid and regulatory knowledge economies because it allows for fluidity, multiplicity, and new pathways of being and knowing differently to emerge. in the end, princes pearl helps zog to write a new ending for the same old story. methodological inventiveness has helped me as a researcher to continually look for new endings, and new beginnings. kumashiro has reminded me to “learn from the work, but always look beyond it by troubling [my] own authority and the authority of [my] readings and refuse finality” (2000, p. 200). with this in mind, i hope to show how methodological inventiveness helped me look for new, innovative and responsive ways of doing research in my specific context. through a playful engagement with the children’s book zog i used this section to create an arts-based narrative of my journey of becoming an educational researcher. using methodological inventiveness has helped me remember that self-reflexive research is affective, narrative, creative, aesthetic, and collaborative. this understanding helped me grow in my commitment to actively seek new and novel ways of engaging with difficult and complex issues inside and outside the classroom as it relates to education. playing with possibilities in the previous section i drew on the fictional character zog to help me tell my story, and also to remember what happened along the way. i have often thought that fictional characters, if we allow them to, show us the things we have forgotten. by sharing this journey, i hope to foreground the excitement and joy of methodological inventiveness alongside the possibilities that it brings to do research with difficult and complex issues in education. i therefore think of methodological inventiveness as a form of post-qualitative inquiry, because it embraces the possibilities that different educational methodologies might open up but resists predetermined and formulaic ways of doing and knowing. as i mention at the start of this article, i embarked on a journey as an educational researcher without knowing much about it. however, looking back i realise that discovery, risk taking, and experimenting with different methods that i enjoy helped me develop into a self-reflexive researcher. in using playfulness and joy i have discovered that for the self-reflexive researcher having fun seriously matters and playfully thinking how to create gives you new answers to questions you did not think to ask seeing yourself differently shows you things you did not expect 54 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 on the uncomfortable path we carefully tread stepping between the complex experiences that are woven together shaped into something new like a ball of clay in the hands of a child playfully unexpectedly imaginatively unfolding … figure 5: the shape of love, mirabel kruger, 2019, clay and paint . . . to remind me that we cannot have justice without love (hooks, 2000) love and joy help us make connections and methodological inventiveness helps us to remember what was already there long before the word methodology even existed creating, playing, and having fun through art made me realise that to put words on paper to describe my journey of discovery and to frame my thoughts on pieces of coloured paper müller : having fun seriously matters 55 did not mean i had to lose the value of intuition and that having fun seriously matters and that finding joy in discovery of difficult things helps a lot i continue to add layers to my learning work and rework make creative mistakes and try again until the path becomes clear of what to do next or where the path is leading because research for me is not a recipe at all but it is a risky and exciting journey into the unknown where unexpected things await references botha, c. s., & rens, j. 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(2007). the complexity of identity ‘who am i’. in m. adams, l. bell, & p. griffin (eds.), teaching for diversity and social justice (pp. 9–14). new york, ny: routledge. microsoft word bissue76full21oct.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 76, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i76a06 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x reflecting on lecturer dispositions to decolonise teacher education heloise sathorar faculty of education, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa heloise.sathorar@mandela.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4947-0885 deidre geduld faculty of education, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa deidre.geduld@mandela.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6175-0508 (received: 19 february 2019; accepted: 11 september 2019) abstract an increasingly diverse student population is becoming the norm at south african universities with culturally and linguistically complex classrooms being the reality. lecturers are challenged not only to prepare students to participate in an increasingly diverse context, but also to respond to such diversity within their own sites of learning and teaching. most of the current lecturers at higher education institutions (heis) were schooled during the apartheid era, and were predominantly exposed to western ideologies and fundamental pedagogics. this complicates curriculum transformation at heis because lecturer dispositions need to be revisited to bring about the change required to address the needs of the new generation of students. despite the transformation and curriculum renewal efforts at universities in south africa, students still claim that they feel the effects of colonialism in lecture halls and in the rendition of the curriculum—and they call for the decolonisation of the curriculum. changing the curriculum without changing the lecturer is especially difficult under conditions of radical social transformation. changing the curriculum too far ahead of the lecturers who have to implement it, is unlikely to rearrange the epistemological order of things in the classroom. this paper seeks to understand lecturer dispositions to decolonise teacher education, and proposes a framework to enhance these dispositions to engage with decolonisation. keywords: curriculum transformation, decolonisation, teacher education sathorar & geduld: reflecting on lecturer dispositions to decolonise teacher education 109 introduction and background more than 20 years after the first democratic elections in south africa (sa), it is evident that the euphoria of liberation from apartheid has made way for a realisation that the deeply entrenched inequalities and injustices are still prevalent in the country’s social construct. south africa’s private and public sectors continue to battle with this dilemma and public higher education is no exception (suransky & van der merwe, 2014). higher education in the postapartheid era has never been more volatile than it is currently. the higher education sector in south africa currently is very different from its fragmented, insular, elite, and uneven apartheid past. however, the legacy continues to shape and influence the sector in less desirable ways, and the stresses exerted by the challenging socioeconomic context of the country are having a far-reaching effect on the quality of the sector as a whole. bozalek, carolissen, and leibowitz (2013, p. 40) concurred, suggesting that “the apartheid-designed, segregated higher education institutions (heis) continue to have a major influence on students and lecturers in south africa.” for the past two decades, higher education institutions in south africa have been exploring ways in which they can make their curricula more responsive to the needs of the new generation of students and to the community it serves. despite extensive efforts, students still claim that they feel the effects of apartheid in the lecture halls and in the rendition of the curriculum. soudien (2015) highlighted that shifting knowledge regimes is intensely difficult. jansen (2009) concurred with this notion and suggested one of the reasons for this being that lecturers themselves are burdened by their own histories and prior experiences, which influence their ability and preparedness to mediate dialogue on difference. he further postulated that: changing the curriculum without changing the curriculum maker is especially difficult under conditions of radical social transformation. changing the curriculum too far ahead of the teachers who have to implement it, is unlikely to rearrange the epistemological order of things in the classroom. (jansen, 2009, p. 179) it is thus, important to ensure that those who implement a new curriculum have the necessary disposition to bring about the envisaged transformative goals of the curriculum. this paper reflects on the findings of a qualitative investigation of lecturer dispositions regarding decolonising a teacher education curriculum. furthermore, the paper draws on literature regarding dispositions as well as the decolonisation of a teacher education curriculum, and shares the findings of the study. in conclusion, a framework with some guiding questions and suggestions regarding how to enhance lecturer dispositions on decolonising a curriculum is presented. problem statement the recent fees must fall students’ action can be seen as an attempt by students to reject the colonised mentalities they claim prevail in universities and that oppress their knowledge 110 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 through a form of epistemicide (santos, 2014). students voiced the need to make sense of their positionality in a world characterised by the exclusion and marginalisation of black students on the basis of class, race, and gender (fataar, 2018). heis seem to remain vulnerable to ongoing systematic and institutional racism and consequent socioeconomic structures of poverty and privilege (bozalek, carolissen, & leibowitz, 2013). these conditions have only worsened in sa with the steady increase of neoliberal imperatives to control higher education policy and institutional structures. increasingly, students question the relevance of the curriculum they are taught. the lecturers are central to the pedagogic project of the university, and their disposition influences the way they teach (palmer, 1997; sathorar & geduld, 2018). in examining the influences of lecturer dispositions on the curriculum, we must first look at the notion of dispositions. in this context, dispositions are the principles, commitments, values, and professional ethics that influence attitudes and behaviours towards students (the national council for the accreditation of teacher education council, 2006). the challenge with the dispositions of the current lecturers at universities is that most of them were schooled in a colonised system. this thus impacts the way they think about the curriculum and the implementation thereof. banks (2003, p. 6) postulated that lecturers perpetuate their own “political values, beliefs, myths, and meaning about the world” within lecture halls. one way to contribute to the decolonisation of education is by changing the disposition of those who are responsible for implementing the curriculum. freire wrote that humans are conditioned by structural and institutional forces—but are not determined by them; the fact that we are able to be conscious of that conditioning, means that we can transcend it (1994, 1998a, 2004, 2007). he continually emphasised the fact that humans are unfinished, and our unfinishedness suggests our constant search for deeper understanding and social, personal, and professional transformation. therefore, lecturer dispositions are not static and can be changed. in this paper, we strive to understand and explore lecture dispositions in our faculty, and propose a framework to enhance lecturer dispositions to engage with decolonisation. lecturers need to be aware of their own dispositions, which could isolate students through the notions of knowledge construction, power, and mistrust. we used the following three questions to guide our discussions: • what are your beliefs and feelings about decolonisation? • do you believe that you are engaging in decolonised practices in your classroom? • how can we enhance lecturer dispositions to engage positively with decolonising the curriculum? ngũgĩ wa thiong’o (1981) postulated that education is a means of gaining knowledge about ourselves. after we have examined ourselves, we radiate outwards and discover people and worlds around us. in this light, lecturers reflecting on their own dispositions towards decolonising the curriculum becomes crucial to transformation in higher education. sathorar & geduld: reflecting on lecturer dispositions to decolonise teacher education 111 literature review: lecturer dispositions regarding decolonising a teacher education curriculum decolonisation decolonisation as a process allows one to engage with the historical legacies of intellectual colonisation and racialisation and patriarchy in our curriculum (du toit, 2000, as cited by ramoupi, 2014). it involves the reclamation of new ways of relating to one another that entail the co-creation of new possibilities and the transformation of political and personal histories (goulet, linds, episkenew, & schmidt, 2011). mbembe (2015, p. 6) further claimed that decolonising the university has to do with “creating a set of mental dispositions.” the mental dispositions that need to be nurtured are in line with what oelofsen (2015) has been calling the decolonisation of the mind. in this paper, we emphasise the call for academics as transformative intellectuals to make their voices and perspectives heard in the university and in the intellectual landscape. this will require them to be engaged in self-reflection with their own teaching and learning context. decolonising the curriculum can mean different things: it includes a fundamental reconsideration of who is teaching, what the subject matter is, and how it is being taught (geduld & sathorar, 2016). decolonisation asks us to consider how the disposition and identity of a lecturer shape their perspectives. how the design of the lecturer’s modules entails narrating stories and knowledges; thus, we need, as lecturers, to reflect more critically on how these stories are told and knowledges shared. which actors are privileged and placed at the centre of our teaching and learning? whose voices are authoritative and considered part of the core teaching while others are left at the margins (battiste, 2013)? in this paper, we argue that decolonisation is an ongoing process of becoming, unlearning, and relearning of who we are as lecturers, and of taking responsibility for curriculum design and what our students learn. lecturer dispositions bourdieu (1998, p. 87) defined habitus as a “system of continuous and transferable dispositions.” according to him, disposition means the individuals’ positions and tendencies in terms of the particular way they think, feel, act, and understand. furthermore, they embody and internalise—not in a conscious way, but through pedagogical processes and socialisations at the base of the objective social conditions of their existence and of their social orbit (bourdieu, 1998). asimaki & koustourakis (2014) emphasised that dispositions tend to function as non-conscious principles that guide practice and, in general, perception as well as every reaction of the individual. these acquired dispositions define how each person understands, realises, and evaluates social reality because they guide the formation of the behaviours and strategies they choose in the various social fields in which they participate (bourdieu, 1990a). habitus “is not fixed or permanent and can be changed under unexpected situations or over a long historical period” (navarro, 2006, p. 16). 112 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 similarly, villegas (2007) argued that dispositions are tendencies for individuals to act in a particular manner, under particular circumstances, based on their beliefs. in analysing the above definitions of dispositions, bondy, beck, curcio, and schroeder (2017) argued that for them the term, dispositions, encapsulates both beliefs and actions, and they rejected the notion that dispositions are purely based on one’s personality and can therefore not be changed. thus, they defined dispositions as the context specific manifestations, whether mental or physical, of one’s beliefs and actions that, while predictable, are nevertheless capable of being changed over time. splitter (2010) argued that dispositions move beyond what people might know or be able to do at the current moment, and incline towards what may be possible for a person to do in terms of their conscious mental state, thereby alluding to the fact that a disposition can be learned. bondy et al. (2017) posited that certain beliefs, values, and attitudes, when honed and developed over time, can create a certain disposition. lecturers in heis develop dispositions that determine their approach to students, and which are formed as a result of the knowledge and experience they have acquired during previous experiences and actions in the different social fields of their education and training, and from their professional occupation with diverse students (bourdieu, 1977, 1990a; swartz, 1997). these dispositions are incorporated into lecturers’ daily practices and guide their pedagogical choices for the education of students in their classrooms. habitus consists of embodied social knowledge, and is detected in the practical effects of a person’s actions, in their way of speaking, in their perceptions and in the arguments they express on specific issues (bourdieu, 1990b)—such as the decolonisation of education. bourdieu (1977) used the concept hysteresis effect to describe a type of relationship between habitus and field (social structure; asimaki & koustourakis, 2014; mcdonough & polzer, 2012). the dispositions (habitus) of a person are shaped by the social structure (field) and they change “in response to new experiences” (bourdieu, 1977, p. 161). moreover, changes in the rules of a field, such as the decolonisation of hei, will not usually produce quick changes in the dispositions of actors like lecturers. the hysteresis effect is the experience of mismatch caused by the temporal lag between a person’s disposition and a changing social structure (bourdieu, 1984, 1990b, 1998). people tend to maintain the dispositions already acquired—even when they do not fit the new situation. more specifically, bourdieu argued: as a result of heightened consciousness associated with an effort of transformation . . . there is an inertia (hysteresis) of habitus which has a spontaneous tendency to perpetuate structures corresponding to their conditions of production. as a result, it can happen that . . . dispositions are out of line with the field and with the “collective expectations” which are constitutive of its normality. (1977, p. 160) in this light, sardar (2008) was of the opinion that much has changed in the world, however, the underlying structures of oppression and injustice remain the same. similarly, mbembe (2016, p. 32) argued that “there is something profoundly wrong when . . . syllabuses designed to meet the needs of colonialism and apartheid should continue well into the liberation era” in south african heis. therefore, epistemological change at heis is much needed. according to heleta (2018), white academics remain in the majority at heis in sa, whilst one of the sathorar & geduld: reflecting on lecturer dispositions to decolonise teacher education 113 failures of decolonisation has been the lack of curriculum transformation at these institutions. he is of the opinion that curricula at universities remain eurocentric, rooted in colonial and apartheid knowledge systems, and disconnected from the realities and lived experiences of black south africans. thus, changes in the field of curriculum transformation in heis require lecturers to revisit their dispositions regarding decolonisation. consequently, many of the lecturers who work in heis may experience the hysteresis effect, that is, a lag in their dispositions adjusting to the required curriculum transformation in contemporary lecture halls. in this hysteresis, lecturers find themselves in a place of internal struggle that can be categorised into a place of resistance, a place of inertia, and a place of possibility. the place of resistance is characterised by refusal to change—refusal to engage on issues of decolonisation, and arguing for maintaining the purity of the discipline. the place of inertia is a place where thinking has stopped. the person acknowledges the importance of engagement, but the engagement is not translated into action. the place of possibility demands that critical consciousness be translated into action, and requires liberatory praxis regardless of the risks. mitchie (2012) and bondy et al. (2017) suggested that in order to enhance lecturer dispositions, various values should be honed and supported. these values include radical openness, humility, and self-vigilance. in the same light, bautista (2018) proposed that the values of haven, community, love, healing, agency, and creation be honed and supported to develop a transformative lecturer disposition framework. in our discussion of lecturer dispositions, we utilise the metaphor of the butterfly that is centred in love and propelled by the wings of community and healing. the butterfly represents lecturer dispositions that strengthen its wings of community and healing through acts of agency and creation within the context of a haven (see figure 1). in the higher education sector, the neoliberal assaults on people have created toxic and violent environments (ginwright, 2010; gordon, 2010; lipman, 2011) that signal a need for safe spaces for intellectuals to work in. establishing a haven—a counter-hegemonic space that supports the creation of alternative structures, practices, and relationships towards democratic and liberatory aims (darder, baltodano, & torres, 2009)—would enhance the pursuit of transformation in this sector. freire (1970) postulated that an authentic transformation is marked by the communion of people through a collective engagement in praxis. he called for decolonial approaches that decentre colonial hierarchies and dignify the experiences of the people. according to him, this can be marked by a shared commitment to disrupt the tension people experience internally, interpersonally, institutionally, and ideologically. he was of the opinion that, through the promotion of community, the growth of counter-hegemonic spaces is critically disrupted. 114 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 figure 1: a visual summary of the transformative lecturer disposition framework (bautista, 2018, p. 225). darder (2015, p. 49) referred to love, as represented by the centre of the butterfly, as “an intentional spiritual act of consciousness that emerges and matures through our social and material practices, as we work to live, learn, and labour together.” furthermore, she postulated that, it demands “our shared curiosity, creativity, and imagination, giving meaning to both our resistance and counterhegemonic practice” (darder, 2015, p. 50). the aim of the “healing” wing is to facilitate the epistemological healing and unity of the body, mind, spirit, and heart because colonial epistemicides have systematically divided the unity between bodies and minds (de sousa santos, 2014). the acts of agency and creation in the sphere of the haven are means for democratic communities to dismantle colonial institutions and epistemologies through meaningful collective action in order to create a new world. we draw on bautista’s (2018) metaphor of practice to propose a framework to enhance lecturer dispositions to engage with decolonisation. methodology freire (1998a) urged teachers to reject their domesticating role and work to challenge the authoritarianism of standard policies and practices of pedagogy, curriculum, and school administration that require an open process of dialogue. using dialogues as research methodology, we believe, assists participants to tell their personal histories and to access their sathorar & geduld: reflecting on lecturer dispositions to decolonise teacher education 115 political rights. the use of this methodology enabled participants to remain radically open, humble, and self-vigilant. data collection strategy this study was based in the faculty of education at nelson mandela university, and formed part of a bigger process of curriculum renewal. for this particular paper, the data collection was arranged through a series of focus group discussions with 20 faculty members from across all the programmes offered in the faculty. the table below provides an overview of the profiles of the participants. it was important to establish the profiles of participants because we tried to ensure that the participants were representative of faculty staff in terms of gender, race, and age. more than half of the faculty staff at the time of this investigation were older than 50 years. this is significant in that it highlights the fact that the majority of staff members in the faculty were schooled and trained as teachers during the apartheid era when most of the state-funded heis and teacher training colleges were complying with the policies of the apartheid regime. table 1: the biographical details of our participants biographical category participant profile gender female: 10 male: 10 race black: 7 coloured: 1 indian: 2 white: 10 age 50–55 years: 5 55–59 years: 5 60–65 years: 10 previous institutional affiliation nmmu: 5 (joined after the merger) pe technikon: 4 upe: 8 vista (pe): 3 data was obtained from focus group discussions to gain direct responses and views from participants regarding the research questions (lincoln, lynham, & guba, 2011). this allowed participants to “build explanations” (rubin & rubin, 2012, p. 5) from what was being discovered collectively regarding the research questions. leedy & ormrod (2005) maintained that information gained from participants voicing their perceptions and understandings of a topic during focus group discussions can be a useful source of data. furthermore, taylor and medina (2013) postulated that the dialogical engagement during focus group discussions is suited for a critical paradigm because it is characterised by collaboration, active and voluntary participation, and open, frank, democratic communication. in our focus group 116 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 discussions, we evaluated and interrogated participants’ (faculty) agency in trying to understand these questions: • what are your beliefs and feelings about decolonisation? • do you believe that you are engaging in decolonised practices in your classroom? • how can we enhance lecturer dispositions to engage positively with decolonising the curriculum? the questions would assist us in understanding the individuals’ disposition and tendencies in terms of the way they think, feel, act, understand, and which they have embodied and internalised—as proposed by bourdieu (1998). we sought to empower participants by critically looking at the practical implementation of decolonising the curriculum in our faculty. in addition, this look at practice allowed us to self-critique our own practice and provided alternative pathways to improving it. once the research questions were posed, participants were encouraged to freely engage with the questions. these focus group discussions proved to be journeys of inquiry that led us to multiple perspectives and uncharted pathways regarding decolonisation. occasionally, the researchers as facilitators were asked what their opinions were—however, we had to stay neutral and guide the discussion by posing further questions to be reflected on. the researchers posed probing questions that entailed requesting participants to comment or ask questions about what another participant had said. this ensured that the discussion flowed, and allowed for the eliciting of deeper meaning on certain aspects. the discussion resulted in a dynamic and reflexive process of sharing stories and experiences by faculty members on the topic of decolonisation. participants used this space to critique themselves: they drew into debates, challenged their reasoning, and emerged from the discussions with heightened critical understanding of their practice. even before the data was analysed, and just by general observation of the process, the researchers noted that participants—by their own admission—felt that the discussions had allowed them to gain better understanding regarding decolonisation, and how it created opportunities to learn and to try new things. some said that the discussions just confirmed what they already knew and were practising, whilst others admitted that the discussions left them with several questions. the discussions also illuminated the challenges of decolonising the curriculum within a complex higher education space that was not actively supportive of decolonisation, with white academics still being in the majority. data analysis the focus group discussions were videotaped and audio taped to allow us to capture interactions between researchers and participants. miles and huberman (1994) stated that data analysis comprises the interaction and interrelatedness of reducing, displaying, and drawing conclusions from the data collected. after making verbatim transcriptions of the focus group discussions, we checked the accuracy of the transcriptions against the audio recordings (ravitch & carl, 2016). the transcripts were read repeatedly to familiarise ourselves with the data and to identify possible themes. the data was coded, and the initial sathorar & geduld: reflecting on lecturer dispositions to decolonise teacher education 117 themes were handwritten on the transcriptions (braun & clarke, 2006). the dialogic narrative analysis was reviewed at a follow up session and consensus was reached amongst participants that the data was correctly analysed and captured. findings and discussion as described above, this study sought to investigate lecturer dispositions with regard to the decolonisation of the curriculum. in this section, we provide a summary of the analysed data. drawing reference from bourdieu’s (1998) definition of disposition, we asked lecturers about their feelings and beliefs about decolonisation. in this light, freire and macedo (1995) postulated that one knows with one’s entire body—with feelings, with passion, and also with reason. it is your entire body that socially knows. you cannot, in the name of exactness and rigor, negate your body, emotions, and feelings (freire & macedo, 1995). most participants had positive feelings about decolonisation, and highlighted the importance of engaging with the topic. one of the participants made the following comment: decolonisation is absolutely needed in south africa to bring about true change. it will allow both lecturers and their students to think and reflect critically about their practices and to resist the dominance of one culture as well as to focus on bringing about the required change in south africa. additional viewpoints included: decolonisation sets individuals free from ways of thinking that inhibits their creativity and uniqueness. it will empower individuals to realise that they have a meaningful contribution to make to their communities. it will encourage individuals to take responsibility for the retention of their heritage and unique identities by resisting any pressures which outside forces may exert to make their cultures appear less worthy than any dominant culture or language. furthermore, participants also reflected on the role that decolonisation plays in promoting diversity and social justice. the following quote serves as evidence: decolonisation allows for the acknowledgement of different cultures and languages, and highlights the importance of taking note of power relations in the pursuit of social justice. despite the mostly positive feelings about decolonisation, some reservations were raised including how students would manage the matter of empowerment, and whether students know what they needed to learn. participants also reflected on how one would accommodate all the different voices in a class, as can be seen from the following statement by a participant: 118 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 how will one be able to ensure that all voices are equally represented in a curriculum and in class? we further pursued the matter by asking whether the participants believed that they were engaging in decolonising practices in their classrooms, and asked them to cite examples of these practices. there were several examples cited, which provided evidence that some lectures were indeed engaging in practices that supported the cause of decolonising the curriculum in their classes, as can be seen from the following participants’ statements: i teach in the socratic style; i am very disruptive and challenging of existing thoughts. i challenge privilege and other hegemonic ideas, norms and standards. i provide readings which seek to cause discomfort and present alternative viewpoints. i provide my students with provocative text and encourage them to read for meaning by looking for the literal meaning, inferential meaning and the personal meaning. it is the personal meaning that allows them to interact with the text and to ask questions. it is during this process that student voice comes out and where lived experiences are shared. the examples above accentuated the importance of lecturers and students engaging in a mutual quest for knowledge and understanding, that lecturers and students are equal partners in this process, and the importance of constantly raising consciousness through dialogue and problem posing strategies. another viewpoint that was strongly communicated was the importance of involving students in curriculum decisions. a participant had the following to say in this regard: we need to decolonise the way we teach; we cannot proceed as in the past, as valuable information was lost due to the emphasis on western societies and knowledges. participants explained that they encouraged students to think for themselves by drawing on their own lived experience in the teaching process. lecturers need to be open to sharing their power in class with students (freire, 1994). they need to take local content and context into account (sathorar & geduld, 2018), challenge dominant thinking and power relations (freire, 1970), respect and give prominence to all cultures (freire, 1978) and languages—ensuring that language is not used as a tool to disempower specific groups (alexander, 2014). several dissenting views as well as concerns about applying decolonising practices were also raised. some participants indicated that engaging in these practices was time consuming and that sometimes students would get irritated by the process. the following statement refers: many students do not appreciate my problem-posing approach and enquiring methods. they prefer a more direct, transmission style as they do not want to think and reflect on their thinking and understanding of what we grapple with in the classroom. they find self-discovery and engaging in discussions daunting, and i literally have to force them to participate. sathorar & geduld: reflecting on lecturer dispositions to decolonise teacher education 119 the fact that what we teach is determined by prescriptive policies, and how we teach is limited by institutional regulations, also hampers the implementation of decolonising practices. a participant made the following statement in this regard: engaging in decolonising practices is often impeded by prescribed curriculums and restrictive institutional regulations, like timetables. although most participants indicated that they were engaged in decolonising practices, there were several who also indicated that for various reasons they did not address decolonisation in their classes. there were some participants who mentioned that they did not know how to implement decolonising practices in their classrooms as the following statement illustrates: despite having an idea of what decolonisation entails, i find it difficult to put these principles into action in my classes. what became evident is that, in some cases, lecturers used the above excuse to knowingly or unknowingly not engage with decolonising practices. the data analysis also revealed a lack of agency to engage with decolonisation practices. there needs to be a willingness to engage on the topic as well as implement practices that will enhance decolonisation. the study found that people were set in their ways of doing things, and that they found it difficult to engage with the matter of decolonisation. the following comment refers: i am not implementing decolonisation practices to the extent that i should be. i wish i could blame the system of education that produced me, but i can’t. after so many years at the university, i should have no excuses. i need to revise my ways of being, thinking, and doing. based on the analysis provided above, the tension of lecturers being in a place of resistance (not willing to change), inertia (having many questions), and possibility (seeing opportunities to learn) was evident. the above concerns gave impetus to the following question: what is required to enhance lecturer dispositions regarding decolonisation, and how can they be encouraged to participate in decolonising practices? in other words, how can we support lecturers to reach a place of possibility? there was a strong request for support from academic structures through more flexibility in taking the curriculum beyond formal bureaucratic boundaries including fixed timetables and pre-determined assessments. sadeghi (2008) described how lonely and isolated she felt at work when she tried to engage with decolonisation by applying a critical approach in her classroom. she described how she was frowned upon for touching on complex topics, and how difficult it was to examine biased voices in every different context. having a supportive institutional environment (haven or safe space) would encourage lectures to engage in decolonisation matters. participants also made an earnest appeal for exposure to experts on the topic as well as for implementable examples. pruyn and malott (2013) suggested that lecturers would be encouraged to engage in critical practices such as decolonisation if there was strong leadership that believed in the 120 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 power of exposure and collaboration. they postulated that working collaboratively as a community would encourage lecturers to experiment with approaches and strategies in their classrooms that would enhance the decolonisation project. the importance of linking what is being taught in class to the students lived experience was strongly emphasised, and lecturers indicated a need for agency to take what is being discussed in class into the society. suggestions drawing on the above analysis and more specifically on the requirements indicated by lectures that would encourage them to engage in decolonising practices we would like to propose the following framework of practice as a tool to enhance lecturer dispositions as well as their willingness to engage in decolonising practices. the table below indicates elements of the framework that could assist lecturers who finds themselves at various places of the decolonisation project to develop a positive disposition towards decolonisation, and encourage engagement with the topic. the participants committed themselves to the following vision for continuous revisiting of lecturer disposition and the decolonisation of teacher education. as agents of change, we reflect and respond to the elements of the place where our teaching and learning happen. we recognise the inherent political nature of the curriculum, the pedagogies we adopt, and the unequal society we find ourselves in. however, we remain mindful that we will learn, unlearn, and relearn as we move through these places of reflection where nothing is static but always in motion (mackinlay & barney, 2012). table 2: places to enhance a disposition of possibility to engage with decolonisation places to enhance a disposition of possibility to engage with decolonisation p: political l: lived experience and locality a: agency c: critical consciousness e: exposure and engagement s: student and self-interchangeability we formulated a number of guiding questions (freire & shor, 1987) for each letter of the word “places” where lecturers find themselves in the struggle with their own disposition. p: political as lecturers and students, we need to continuously read the world where our work is situated in a society, which we gradually need to look at more critically. the world where our work is situated refers to the haven in figure 1. the haven is intended to be a safe space where lecturers are encouraged to have an opinion and not to be neutral about issues. it is sathorar & geduld: reflecting on lecturer dispositions to decolonise teacher education 121 impossible to separate our roles as teachers from our roles as human beings. we need to be political about education. according to freire (1998b), we need political clarity regarding our stance (which proposes an understanding of man and the world), and to engage dialogically with our students. education does not exist in isolation, disconnected from the community it finds itself in. as a faculty and an institution, it is important that we are consciously mindful that the historical, political, economic, and social systems of a country influence the education system, in general, and subject matter as well as pedagogies used in lecture halls, in particular. as lecturers, we need to ask: what kind of politics do i practise in my lecture hall? who do i favour through my lecturing? how can i be consistent in my teaching practice? this inevitably means that you need to take a stance and have an opinion, whether right or wrong. and be open to students having a different opinion to yours. recognising this supports the idea of a safe haven where people can differ in opinion. l: lived experience and locality nakata (2004, p. 12) asserted that “we might teach ourselves and our children about our ‘locatedness’ or ‘situatedness’ in relation to what is around us, in this case, not environmental elements only, but also knowledge systems” of our respective communities. all knowledge is historical and contextual and must be taught in such a way. our connected learning in heis ought to be connected to experiential learning, contextual learning, problem-based learning, constructivism, outdoor education, indigenous education, environmental and ecological education, as well as other approaches that are concerned with context and the peoples’ value of learning from specific places, communities, or regions. do you openly discuss issues of race, and social justice with your students? which strategies do you employ to deal with students’ background knowledges and lived experience in your lecture hall? to what extent do you incorporate students’ lived experiences in what you teach? thus, through incorporating students lived experiences in the teaching process and acknowledging the local context, a sense of community will be enhanced. a: agency as researchers, we recognise that as a faculty, we need to take individual and collective action to transform our places of learning. we need agency to make it more reasonable and more just and democratic through the content and pedagogies as we reflect on our own dispositions. as agents of change, lecturers need to make an analysis of their own situation, looking at what foreshadows their pedagogies. this demands persons to look at their own historicity asking the questions: how did i come to see things the way that i do? why do i do the things the way i do? how do we assist colleagues who do not understand or agree with the decolonisation project? how do i stay committed to bring about the required change? freire (1970) contended that lecturer agency emerges only through restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful, and critical enquiry with other people. 122 journal of education, no. 76, 2019 c: critical consciousness battiste (2000, p. xvi) argued that if decolonisation is to achieve its principal goals of restoring dignity (healing) and applying fundamental human rights to indigenous peoples, then it must necessarily entail a “complex arrangement of conscientisation, resistance and transformative praxis”—it must entail a consciousness that is mindful that reality needs to be transformed and social change provoked. the places framework requires persons to think critically about their situation, in the world and the faculty specifically, and what actions are open to them to improve their situation. so, how do i constantly create a critical awareness for myself and my students? people need to realise that critical consciousness is an ongoing process of healing, where people are able to stop, reflect, evaluate, and start all over again. e: exposure and engagement the places framework offers participants a space where people can collaboratively engage in meaningful ways, and allows for sharing between different cultures. it becomes relevant to discern how we ensure that the educational content we teach is appropriate to our students’ lives, and that our methods are based on dialogue and respect. how do we include local knowledges, experiences, skills, and values in our curriculum? there are no easy answers within heis, but we need to continuously search for and create new pathways that are useful and beneficial to all. pruyn and malott (2013) encouraged the use of collaborative teams to enhance the implementation of decolonisation practices because they create a safe space to share experiences and learn from each other. s: student and self-interchangeability freire (1978) convincingly argued for a strong partnership between teachers and students— learning from and working with one another. teachers need to see and value students as allies in common struggles for social justice (perry, 2003). in the space of higher education, it is important for lecturers to know when to lead and when to follow using a pedagogy of love (darder, 2017) to encourage student voices. the pedagogy of love, which forms the core of the metaphor butterfly referred to above, encourages democratic classroom spaces as places where the lecturer and the student together constitute a community of inquiry, where the lecturer is also a co-inquirer, a participant who tries to uncover meaning as a co-learner (apple & beane, 2007) collaboratively with their students. or as freire (1978) said, being in communion with one another. how do you as a lecturer exercise your authority without being authoritarian, in a democratic and respectful manner? how do you as a lecturer stay true to your stance, and still respect your students who might think differently, to you? how do you share power in your classroom, and not feel intimidated? we propose that lecturers reflect on these guiding questions as they navigate towards a place of possibility and reevaluate their dispositions towards decolonising the curriculum. sathorar & geduld: reflecting on lecturer dispositions to decolonise teacher education 123 conclusion as we continue to reflect on lecturer dispositions in higher education, we are mindful of freire’s (1994) inspiring call to action and to responsiveness in our places of learning. progressive educators ought to. . . keep their eyes always open, along with their ears, and their whole soul—open to the pitfalls of the so-called hidden curriculum. hence, the exigency they must impose on themselves of growing ever more tolerant, of waxing ever more open and forthright, of turning ever more critical, of becoming ever more curious. . . . the more tolerant, the more open and forthright, the more critical, the more curious and humble they become, the more authentically they will take up the practice of teaching. 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(2007). dispositions in teacher education: a look at social justice. journal of teacher education, 58(5), 370–380. learning for sustainable futures: a human development approach to citizenship education tendayi marovah and melanie walker abstract situated in debates on citizenship formation through higher education, this paper contributes to literature on policy processes and practices in the operationalisation of national and strategic studies, a citizenship education course in zimbabwean teachers’ colleges. this is in order to evaluate the extent to which these practices and processes support the principles of human development which are linked to sustainability. this paper argues that a human development approach focusing on four values: empowerment, participation, sustainability and equity is significant in reimagining policy processes and practices that contribute towards learning for sustainable futures. drawing on interview data of two mid-level policy stakeholders, from a qualitative research study, the results indicate that policy processes undertaken in the introduction and operationalisation of national and strategic studies do not reflect and uphold democratic principles contributing towards human development, social justice and hence sustainability. the contested democratic space in the broader context of the course has a bearing on the policy processes and practises adopted by policy stakeholders. introduction education for sustainable futures has to be understood within the context of complex ecologies that involve historical, structural, political, environmental, and ethical dimensions. ‘human development’ and ‘sustainable learning’ are current ‘catch’ phrases in education broadly, higher education and various other fields. together with related concepts such as equity, for example, sustainability, tend to conceal the absence of precise meaning of what it means to educate citizens for critical democratic citizenship. when used as a catch word, the term sustainable learning loses much of its value in 56 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 understanding the complexities of citizenship formation in higher education. as such, it is necessary to interrogate the notion of learning for sustainable futures, what it means, and why it is helpful in understanding citizenship formation in a higher education context. there is vast literature on critical democratic citizenship in education (mclaughlin, 1992; ranger, 2004; nyakudya, 2007, 2011; mccowan and unterhalter, 2009, 2013; boni and gasper, 2012; boni and arias, 2013; munikwa and pedzisai, 2013), there is limited focus on policy practices and processes linked to sustainability. thus, this conceptual and empirical paper provides a useful focus point for a discussion of policy processes and practice in relation to learning for sustainable futures. the difference between the perceived meaning of sustainable learning, critical democratic citizenship and the ways in which this is translated into policy is one example of how competing critical citizenship claims play out in citizenship formation in higher education. critical citizenship in this case is understood as the form of citizenship which allows active participation of citizens in the political affairs of their country (nussbaum, 2002; 2006; mccowan and unterhalter, 2009; 2013; boni et al. 2010; walker and loots, 2016). this way, citizenship education is so important to today’s conflicting world. as suggested by unesco (2001, p.1) making reference to the ultimate goal of education for sustainable development, citizenship education should seek “to empower people with the perspectives, knowledge, and skills for helping them live in peaceful sustainable societies”. from this claim, this paper argues against processes and practices that avoid active participation of citizens in programmes which affect them. the paper is divided into five sections which start with a conceptualisation of sustainability followed by a brief discussion of underlying four human development values as applied to education. the values are equity, participation, empowerment and sustainability. the third section provides an overview of the study methodology. thereafter, the paper presents empirical data demonstrating how policy stakeholders experience the operationalisation of national and strategic studies. the last section encompasses a synthesis of policy processes and practices showing how the human development framework provides a helpful lens for interpreting the various complexities and contradictions that emerge from the data, and so potentially opens up new avenues for interventions that seek to advance learning for sustainable futures. in the next section, the paper conceptualises sustainability, learning for sustainable futures and how these relate to citizenship education. marovah and walker: learning for sustainable futures. . . 57 conceptualisation of sustainability more than three decades after the world commission on environment and development (wced) (un, 1987) defined ‘sustainable development’ and put the concept of sustainability on the global agenda, the concrete meaning of this term and its suitability for specific cases remains disputed. as noted by marovah (2013) sustainability is usually seen as a guide for economic and social policy making in equilibrium with ecological conditions. it is with this understanding that concepts around sustainability – including sustainable learning are interrogated. sustainable learning – takes its cue from millennium development goals that were later translated into sustainable development goals. stallmann (2010) suggests that sustainability should be understood as more expansive and multi-layered. as such it is applicable in many areas such as development, environment, education and policy formulation. this paper thus relates sustainability to education with a focus on advancing human development, providing access to justice for all and building effective and accountable institutions leading to the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies. learning for sustainable futures is thus understood as learning that seeks to ‘meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (un, 1987, p.8). drawing on the human development framework, sustainability is considered as a moral obligation necessary for the advancement of democracy and social justice (united nations development programme (undp), 1990). in this light, the potential role of citizenship education in advancing human development and the deepening and strengthening of democratic values cannot be underestimated. this means, citizenship should be about empowered citizens who enjoy substantive freedom and equal opportunities to actively participate in decision-making processes in their polity. at the same time, active participation increases citizens’ confidence and participation in conventional political processes, enhancing citizens’ sense of belonging in society, ensuring respect for the law, and fulfilling citizens’ duties towards the state (mccowan and unterhalter, 2013). from a citizenship education dimension, learning for sustainable future should be framed as more than learning about knowledge and principles related to sustainability (unesco, 2012). in other words, it should be transformative in its broadest sense, with creating more sustainable societies as its central goal. 58 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 this paper thus asserts that to achieve learning for a sustainable future, citizenship education should be hinged on “problem-based and exploratory forms of learning” grounded on critical, creative and change-oriented participation (unesco, 2012, p.5). based on this assertion, the creation of stronger, healthier and more equitable communities is central to learning for sustainability, making it imperative to focus on policy processes and practices towards this end. the next section discusses the role of four human development values in advancing policy processes and practice linked to sustainability and learning for sustainable futures. human development values at the heart of the human development framework are four principles, participation, equity, sustainability and empowerment, which this paper considers as linked to learning for sustainable future. the principles are in tandem with unesco’s (2012, p.10) multifaceted approach to sustainability focusing on areas such as “ecological, environmental, economic and socio-cultural; local, regional and global; past, present and future; human and non-human”. the four human development principles also question predominant approaches to policy practice which may turn out to be unsustainable for example the top down approach used in the operationalisation of citizenship education in zimbabwe. through the principle of empowerment the paper advances a transformative approach to sustainability, moving beyond awareness to incorporate real change to values and policy practices in citizenship education. the principle of equity demands a context specific model of engaging citizens simultaneously acknowledging that “there is no one way of living, valuing and doing business that is most sustainable” (unesco, 2012, p.10). in the same manner, the level of participation is not homogeneous for all citizens in different contexts, but is determined by contexts and individual attributes. from this understanding, defining human development as “creating an environment in which [citizens] can develop their full potential and lead productive and creative lives in accord with their needs and interests” advances sustainability (undp, 1990, p.1). therefore, sustainable human development should not be measured by how much material gain or profit is achieved in the process of human activity, but rather by how much value has been added towards improving citizens’ potentials, choices or freedoms to be or to do what they perceive as valuable. however this does not mean that economic considerations should be marovah and walker: learning for sustainable futures. . . 59 neglected (walker, 2012). rather, the point as argued by sen (1999) is that, a country’s gross domestic product does not tell us how the wealth so gained is distributed across the population, nor does it give insights into the quality of growth achieved. drawing on the interconnected human development values: empowerment, participation, equity and sustainability, curriculum innovations at higher education level should endeavour to put people at the centre. not only viewed as skilled manpower, but as the wealth of the nation, and as individuals of moral worth, and not the means of development (including educational development). alkire (2010) and ibrahim (2014) explain that empowerment as envisaged in human development entails ensuring that people are capacitated to make choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes. participation gives space to individuals and groups to be actively and meaningfully involved in the formulation, implementation and monitoring of policy and curriculum as well as pedagogical processes and practices. the participation of citizens including youth/students ensures that decisions made and opportunities created do not jeopardise the choices and opportunities of future generations. equity on the other hand guarantees equality, fairness and social justice so that whatever processes and practices are undertaken uphold these guarantees across different dimensions like gender, age, political affiliation and many others. sen (1999) argues that human development is concerned with the basic development idea of advancing the richness of human life rather than the economy in which human beings live, which is only part of it. this resonates with ul haq’s notion: “the basic purpose of development is to enlarge people’s choices. in principle, these choices can be infinite and can change over time” (undp, 1990, p.10). since people also value achievements that may be unattainable or not necessarily measurable in income or growth figures, such as greater access to knowledge, better nutrition and health services, and a sense of participation in community activities, the objective of development in ul haq’s words “is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives” (undp, 1990, p1). this vision of enlarging citizens’ choices and freedoms to pursue what they value to be or to do is in line with learning for sustainable futures understood as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. the emphasis on choices and empowerment, which other studies on national and strategic studies seem not to emphasise, offers a better perspective for 60 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 the formation of critical democratic citizens (ranger, 2004; tendi, 2010; nyakudya, 2007, 2011; mavhunga, moyo and chinyani, 2007, munikwa and pedzisai, 2013). closely connected to the process of enhancing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices in order to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes, is participation. participation, a process through which all members of a community or organization are involved and have influence on decisions related to development activities that will affect them, is feasible where citizens are empowered. in other words it is not enough to have representation which is voiceless or powerless (fraser, 2009). in the same way, to decide by consensus where there is no equitable distribution of power among citizens concerned is a subtle way of perpetuating injustice and is thus unsustainable. in this case, the human development values under discussion add value to citizenship formation by emphasising empowerment, participation, equity and sustainability. equity extends the notion of the interconnectedness of humanity by enabling the accommodation of marginalised and oppressed minority groups within society. in addition, equity is a way of managing society in a sustainable way since the ability or capacity of something to be maintained or to sustain itself is based on the level of participation, empowerment and distribution of power and resources. a framework which is silent on these values defeats the course of sustainable learning and the formation of critical democratic citizens. turning to its limitations, the human development framework fails to adequately capture institutional and structural arrangements which may enhance or inhibit the realisation of the four values explained above. for example, in the zimbabwean context, whilst advocating for citizens to participate in activities affecting them in their state, citizenship education offers limited discussion on how to deal with structures of power which inhibit participation (ranger, 2004; tendi, 2010). yet, the human development values’ effectiveness in fostering critical citizenship is dependent on the existence of a reciprocal relationship between democratic politics and democratic education. walker (2010, p.221) argues that “higher education is located within society and social change; changes in higher education might influence society as much as society in turn shapes higher education”. accordingly, a democratic system of education is indispensable to further democratic citizenship, in as much as democratic citizenship is crucial for democratic education. although this assumption is normative, it is necessary as a standard towards which we should work. marovah and walker: learning for sustainable futures. . . 61 in the next section the paper discusses the methodology chosen for the investigation of the extent to which national and strategic studies advances human development values. methodology without losing a firm theoretical base influenced by a human development framework, this section outlines the rationale and decisions taken regarding the design, the sample, data collection, organisation and analysis. the process and procedures were iterative, complex and ever-changing throughout the study. this paper draws on empirical data from a doctoral study, collected between february and may 2013. the study was qualitative and interpretive in nature. the aim was to generate an in-depth understanding of practice and processes in the operationalisation of nass in two case studies. while surveys are effective in providing statistical relations between selected variables, they are less effective where an in-depth understanding of perceptions of and attitudes towards a phenomenon are required. thus a case study was preferred despite criticisms levelled against it, in terms of lack of generalisability, because it is more context-specific, and therefore important to understanding a phenomenon in its specific situation (gall, gall and borg, 2003). despite the first author’s positionality as both a lecturer in national and strategic studies and a researcher, the analysis of data was guided by both the particularity of the moment and a genuine commitment to advancing the formation of critical citizens contributing to human development and upholding social justice. he joined the college ten years after the introduction of national and strategic studies in teacher education. at each level of this empirical research: the planning, collection of data in situ and its analysis, philosophical, historical and educational approaches complemented each other by providing: a clear conceptual understanding of issues; the spirit of questioning; and consciousness of the context in which the formation of critical democratic citizens takes place. the study involved 31 volunteer participants, two mid-level policy stakeholders, 24 student participants and five lecturers from two participating primary school teacher colleges. the doctoral study made use of qualitative 62 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 methods that include semi structured in-depth interviews of all the 31 participants, focus group discussions with student participants, class observations and document analysis. participants’ names are anonymised in line with ethical considerations. the focus is on evidence from two mid-level stakeholders, simboti and madamombe. simboti was purposively chosen by virtue of his post at head office of the ministry of higher and tertiary education science and technology development under which teachers’ colleges are administered. madamombe, selected through snowballing, is from the university of zimbabwe which grants associateship status to all teachers’ colleges scattered throughout the country. simboti and madamombe were interviewed at their respective work places after getting approval from the ministry of higher and tertiary education science and technology development. the interviews were on average one hour long each. their experiences are interpreted from a policy perspective. while simboti is stationed in harare, he constantly visits and holds meetings with college principals for various purposes including quality control. madamombe is a lecturer in one of the departments at the university of zimbabwe but is engaged in several duties related to teacher education including external examination and academic writing in the department of teacher education. the fact that there are only two mid-level policy stakeholder views represented in the broad study and in this paper is acknowledged as a limitation since their views are not necessarily representative of all who were involved in national and strategic studies’ implementation. however, this does not undermine the invaluable insights gleaned from their experiences. with the help of the second author, who was the supervisor in the study, the qualitative data was analysed using nvivo software. all qualitative data was open-coded initially to allow participant voices to emerge and guide the identification of themes. thereafter, a second round of thematic coding was also done. the paper focuses on one of the emergent themes -policy practices and processes. the iterative process involving two authors of different backgrounds, enhanced rigour simultaneously limiting subjectivity in the analysis and interpretation of the data. in the next section, the article reflects on the conditions of possibility for advancing policy practices contributing to human development and learning for a sustainable future using human development values to guide the argument. marovah and walker: learning for sustainable futures. . . 63 passed in 2002 and restricted freedom of assembly; to criticise the government and president;1 and to engage in, advocate or organise acts of peaceful civil disobedience. restricted the culture of secrecy prevalent in most democratic systems it suggests that access2 to information is not seen as a right but a privilege that government officials dispense at will, read more on http://www.freedominfo.org/2012/08/report-excoriates-zimbabwe-access-environment/ national youth service was introduced in july 2001 focusing on instilling youth with3 the following five values: national identity, patriotism, unity and oneness, discipline and self reliance. participants spend three months in training camps, after which they are required to complete a one month service project in their communities. (see ministry of youth development: http://www.mydgec.gov.zw/nys.htm) all ministers were drawn from zanu pf senior members who were often members of the4 party’s highest decision making bodies and what was decided in the bodies of zanu pf became government policy (see raftopoulos and muzondidya (2013). the context of the introduction of nass by discussing the context, the aim is to understand the degree to which the context provides a good grounding for advancing critical citizenship which is directly linked to sustainable learning. this is because critical citizenship entails forming citizens who are empowered to actively participate in the affairs of their polity (mccowan and unterhalter, 2009, 2013; fraser, 2009). four developments relate to the context: the introduction of draconian laws like the public order security act and the access to information and1 protection of privacy amendment act, the redefinition of citizenship in an2 exclusionary manner, the introduction of national youth service and the3 revision of the national curriculum (phimister, 2005; raftopoulos, 2009; daimon, 2014). the increased use of executive powers by the president became an important lever through which a directive to introduce citizenship education in tertiary institutions was made using well placed officials. in4 such a context, it is doubtful whether it is possible to teach or learn citizenship for sustainable futures. the interests advanced in this context of limited citizens’ participation, are of those in power. the critical voice provides an opportunity for the citizens to demand their space by challenging structures of power which are repressive. the two informants views about the context in which national and strategic studies 64 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 was introduced, though at times contrasting, provides insights on the level of participation of citizens. although simboti was not explicit on why he was not comfortable with discussing the context, some of his responses provide some hints, “these political arguments do not get us anywhere and this is exactly what made people to resist this course from the beginning.” from his statement it is clear that he regards discussing the context as a political issue and that during the initial stages of the introduction of national and strategic studies, the course was resisted because those who resisted thought the course was political. however, simboti does not deny or accept the allegations that the course was introduced for political expedience specifically to buttress zanu pf support which was waning “so whether the government was beleaguered or not, the idea of coming up with a person who is broad minded is very noble”. he however admits that the context influences the policy processes and operationalisation of a curriculum innovation. how these things [policy processes] work depend on a number of things including how the economy is performing, the social and the political situation. we have a lot of polarisation to the extent that we cannot claim that the people who are teaching national and strategic studies are perfect people. simboti does not mention any relationship between the introduction of national and strategic studies and the commission of inquiry into education and training (1999), which, if it was important, as a mid-level policy stakeholder he would have known. apart from that he does not cite any policy document communicating details of the government’s decision to introduce national and strategic studies. this as suggested by sigauke (2011) means the decision to introduce national and strategic studies was influenced by political motives not necessarily related to policy. turning now to madamombe’s thicker and more critical responses when compared to simboti’s, he explains: there are two different issues that are emerging here, what was intended by those who pushed for it and what then obtained on the ground. i am saying those who came up with the programme are coming from a position where they are saying there are so many forces that are against ‘us’ but us not being the nation of zimbabwe but us referring to marovah and walker: learning for sustainable futures. . . 65 a political party. there was need to help inculcate within graduates from learning institutions a certain kind of thinking. what i commend them for doing is that when we crafted the syllabus for national and strategic studies in the teachers’ colleges we were not influenced by our political orientations, perhaps that justifies the kind of question that you are pursuing that is this perceived or real. the way madamombe separates issues into various dimensions helps us understand different possibilities motivating the introduction of national and strategic studies. at one level are the intended outcomes for the state, which are represented by the mid-level policy stakeholder participants and at implementation level we get insights on what obtained in practice from the lecturer participants and the student participants. which means, the intended goals and what then obtained is different. the disjuncture between official precepts and its practices also emerged in mccowan’s (2009) study on citizenship education involving brazilian cases. a number of factors contribute to these disparities. these nuances help us understand why simboti, a senior official at head office, has been hesitant to discuss the context. he has to be interpreted as trying to be politically ‘correct’. madamombe further suggests that the department of teacher education is free from manipulation by political influences. this claim cannot be ascertained in this paper, however. the issue at stake is whether the processes uphold human development values related to advancing learning for a sustainable future. madamombe provides more insights in the following statements with more emphasis on the fact that our understanding of the context should not overshadow the necessity of the course: but then there are other angles that we can look at it from, where you ask yourself, at what stage was national and strategic studies introduced? this is when the ruling party is beleaguered when it starts to face real stiff competition, opposition if you want. then you link this up with other developments where the border gezi programmes, national youth service is introduced. directly linked to the introduction of national and strategic studies was growing opposition (ranger, 2004; tendi, 2010) and also the introduction of national youth service which madamombe claims 66 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 national and strategic studies has a component of history which has been named patriotic5 history by scholars such as ranger (2004, p.215) “'patriotic history' is intended to proclaim the continuity of the zimbabwean revolutionary tradition. it is an attempt to reach out to 'youth' over the heads of their parents and teachers, all of whom are said to have forgotten or betrayed revolutionary values. it repudiates academic historiography with its attempts to complicate and question. at the same time, it confronts western 'bogus universalism' which it depicts as a denial of the concrete history of global oppression. generated suspicion about national and strategic studies. he adds that the context was so ‘poisoned’ that the teaching of the course was somehow dictated by the politics of the day. to him the timing is quite influential through either giving impetus to the innovation or destabilising it. nonetheless, simboti and madamombe agree on the significance of the new course despite its timing or context. madamombe illustrates how fear infected the context in which, for example, history was taught at various levels of education.5 yes a lot of fear is experienced and we have a lot of empirical evidence of teachers of history in particular who have been abused mainly in the rural areas for instance and they will shy away from looking at these issues critically. the history syllabus extends to the present and the majority of the teachers are teaching it up to 1980, i am talking about o level and a level history syllabus on zimbabwe because of fear of tackling the post-independence era because they realised that it’s not all rosy that they will be teaching, there is a lot of negatives a lot of ‘warts’ that they have to point out and they will not resonate well with certain sections of our society. even where people have not been approached and told don’t teach this, there is self-censorship. that self-censorship is not mere cowardice which cannot be understood. it is understood there has been a lot of violence against these people. people have lost limbs, people have lost lives because of this, that’s my own opinion. on the other hand simboti claims not to be aware of the existence of fear “fear of what? there is no need to fear, there is no need to be afraid of anything”. what is surprising is how simboti and madamombe claim that national and strategic studies seeks to form critical citizens. if madamombe was genuinely concerned about the advancement of critical citizenship, he would realise how difficult it is to teach for criticality in the context of fear, just as he noted in the teaching of history. marovah and walker: learning for sustainable futures. . . 67 this section presented evidence on mid-level policy stakeholder participants’ perspectives on the interpretation of the relationship between the context in zimbabwe and the introduction of national and strategic studies. while simboti chose not to say much about how the context influenced the introduction of this curriculum innovation, madamombe sees the political side of the introduction of national and strategic studies as a response to growing opposition. to him, as suggested by several critics of citizenship education in zimbabwe, it was the desire for political survival by the ruling elites which influenced this innovation (ranger, 2004; tendi, 2010; sigauke, 2011). he sees the fear of the government’s brutality extended to the citizens through various coping strategies in education and society including self-censorship. as a senior official in the ministry of higher and tertiary education science and technology development, simboti seeks to maintain the official position and focuses on implementing what is handed down to him by government without questioning. basing on the importance placed on citizenship participation by sen (1999); mccowan and unterhalter (2009; 2013) and sigauke, (2011), the context in which national and strategic studies was introduced does not provide a secure grounding for the formation of critical citizenship. in addition the context does not offer a good foundation for effective participation by various stakeholders in deliberations leading to the introduction of national and strategic studies. in the next section the paper uses four human development values, directly linked to sustainability, to evaluate policy processes regarding the introduction of national and strategic studies. evaluation of policy processes and practices the following evidence relates to perceptions linked to policy processes and practices. what is striking in the evidence is the absence of any policy document to back claims by the respondents. there was a passing reference to commission of inquiry into education and training by simboti but not as a fore runner of the introduction of citizenship education or national and strategic studies in particular. what simboti first acknowledges is that the strategy used to introduce this curriculum innovation was a top down approach: “well it looks like we used the top down approach it did not come from the bottom. its government which saw it fit to have it introduced.” when asked why that approach in particular and not any other more open and people centred approach was adopted, he said “we are mainly people who follow 68 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 policy, if government says this must be done, that is what we do”. considering that there is a blurred distinction between party and government as explained by raftopoulos (2013), the party ideologies are filtered into the national and strategic studies curriculum. the approach does not provide participants with transformative power, which is the ability to challenge the hierarchies of power which inhibit effective participation of citizens in policy practices and processes (fraser, 2009, unesco, 2012). simboti is suggesting that at their level there is no room for questioning instructions. this is also instructive of the modus operandi of the policy processes. in his words, without any questioning, the instruction went down the chain of command, “so the strategy which we used was that we told department of teacher education that this course is compulsory and every student has to pass national and strategic studies in order to graduate”. more precisely, against the spirit of effective participation and equitable distribution of power and influence (mccowan and unterhalter, 2009; boni and gasper, 2012; boni and arias, 2013), simboti notes that “”. simboti cites a few cases where officials met in regional workshops to claim that other stakeholders were involved “it’s not something that had been done or is done single handedly”. this does not mean that there was open deliberation for the innovation to be taken aboard. for example simboti tells us that: first we had workshops in nyanga, then the other one in gweru, another one in kadoma and then another in masvingo where we invited all principals, and lecturers in that course to an extent that i think that assisted in informing various stakeholders that the course was there to stay. whilst workshops can be participatory and a more open and a democratic way of introducing a curriculum innovation, in the above case, they are also a subtle way of coercion in which participants are informed of what has to be done without inviting any criticism. from simboti’s response, the purpose of the workshop “was to inform stakeholders that the course was there to stay”. those outside the system may wrongly believe that the innovation was discussed and well received. simboti tells us about the magnitude of the resistance which was experienced when national and strategic studies was introduced: marovah and walker: learning for sustainable futures. . . 69 these are lecturers with disciplinary problems usually referred to as acts of misconduct by 6 administrators. of course even in teachers’ colleges there was some resistance when we started, very stiff resistance. it was quite difficult, we introduced a course which even lecturers themselves were not comfortable with, and even the college administrators were not very comfortable with it. at first it was not given much time and importance on the college timetables. besides highlighting the level of resistance, this response also tells us how college administrators and lecturers exercised their agency in negotiating space. the manner in which this resistance was dealt with also tells a story, “there were some problems; we even punished some of the principals for that” (simboti). in turn administrators’ decision to deploy lecturers perceived as ‘problem lecturers’ to teach national and strategic studies also indicates6 that the course was not well received or taken seriously. instituting punitive measures is an indicator that for the authorities, coercion worked better for them in place of deliberations. for this reason, the paper concurs with nussbaum (2011, p133) that “it is bad to treat [human beings] like objects, pushing them without their consent”. for example, workshops organised for principals and lecturers were meant to give directives to participants rather than to provide an opportunity for deliberation. in such a case, lack of equitable distribution of power makes the workshops merely symbolic and perfunctory. given this evidence, the paper proposes that the human development values are a potential vehicle for a genuine devolution of power and decision making in policy processes that strengthens claims to people-focused citizenship curriculum. mccowan and unterhalter (2009) remind us that education is not only charged with values but also promotes the same values. one of the values advanced is empowerment. considering the top down approach used by the ministry of higher and tertiary education science and technology development as reported by simboti, the introduction of national and strategic studies in teachers’ colleges did not meet this basic value. it is not surprising that under such circumstances the course experienced resistance. undp (1993) underscores the intrinsic value of participation by both individuals and groups as a way of widening access to decision and power. participation by citizens in their society has intrinsic value since it buttresses 70 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 democracy. the limited participatory nature in the policy processes and practice in this regard directly affects equity which is interconnected to the distribution of citizens’ basic capabilities that is freedoms, choices and opportunities to decide on the type of citizenship course to be undertaken. thus, power was not evenly distributed to fully account for the principle of equity in the human development framework. subtly, authorities remained in control of both the policy processes and the content of the course. this is not surprising as simboti has already hinted that “it was take it or leave. its either you agree with what we want to do or you are out”. these words depict an inequitable distribution of power. where equity is envisaged, we would expect collaboration not merely consultations where subordinates would be effectively involved not as mere recipients of instructions. this brings us to the last strand of values for our consideration, sustainability of the opportunities and choices that participants have to say, do and be what they value. from the undp (1993, 1994) definitions of sustainability, policy processes and practice that meets sustainability should not be geared towards establishing a transitory state of affairs. instead, they should aim to “sustain positive outcomes over time” at individual, group or national level (alkire, 2010, p.19). because of the urge to maintain power and influence, this does not come naturally in the policy processes; there must be a deliberate effort to remove barriers that sustain oppressive policy practices and structural injustices. alkire (2010, p.19), argues that “decision makers need to know not only who is deprived but also who is chronically deprived” and to what extent. she adds that policy processes and practice must include “support for local initiatives that mitigate vulnerability, expand capabilities and sustain these expansions”. to achieve this, the interconnectedness of the four human development values should be recognised and exercised. without citizens’ empowerment, there is no active participation and the equitable distribution of power will be diminished and ultimately the legacy that is left will derail continual growth which can be referred to as sustainable. in the context of limited democratic space (explained earlier in the paper) in which national and strategic studies was introduced in zimbabwean teachers’ colleges, it can be argued that policy processes and practices for the introduction and operationalisation of national and strategic studies defeats the purpose of learning for sustainable futures. the following factors are notably constraining to this cause: the context of fear, the use of a top down approach with its dictatorial tendencies, limited deliberative space in marovah and walker: learning for sustainable futures. . . 71 ‘consultative’ workshops, as well as punitive measures for dissenting voices. punishment is hardly a good start to make lecturers teach national and strategic studies. in this regard, policy processes and practice in the national and strategic studies curriculum uses a minimalist approach. framing policy processes and practice within a human development framework may go a long way in promoting learning for sustainable futures in national and strategic studies and more broadly. conclusion the paper has conceptualised sustainability as a basis for defining learning for sustainable futures simultaneously linking this to citizenship education. it advanced the human development framework focusing on underlying four values as useful for assessing policy processes and practice in the introduction and operationalisation of national and strategic studies in zimbabwean teachers colleges. the values are equity, participation, empowerment and sustainability. it also provided a snapshot of the study methodology in order to validate the power of evidence provided in support of the paper’s argument. the paper then presented empirical data demonstrating how policy stakeholders experienced the introduction and operationalisation of national and strategic studies in a constricted democratic space. in the last section the paper provides a synthesis of policy processes and practices showing how the four human development values provides a helpful lens for interpreting the various complexities and contradictions that emerged from the data. references alkire, s. 2010. human development: definitions, critiques, and related concepts in human development research paper, 2010/01, undp. boni, a. and arias, b. 2013. ‘people first: rethinking educational policies in times of crisis using the capability approach’, learning for democracy, vol.3, pp.797–815. 72 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 boni, a. and gasper, d. 2012 ‘rethinking the quality of universities: how can the human development thinking contribute?’ journal of human development and capabilities, 13(3): pp.451–470. boni, a., perisa, j., huesoa, a., rodillaa, j.m. and 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(eds), global inequalities and higher education: whose interests are we serving? hampshire: palgrave mcmillian. walker, m. 2012. ‘a capital or capabilities education narrative in a world of staggering inequalities?’international journal of educational development, 32: pp.384–393. walker. m. and loots, s. 2016. ‘social citizenship formation at university: a south african case study’. compare: a journal of comparative and international education, pp.1–21. doi:10.1080/03057925.2014.884920 tendayi marovah university of the free state marovaht@gmail.com melanie walker university of the free state walkerj@ufs.ac.za melanie2walker@gmail.com mailto:marovaht@gmail.com mailto:walkerj@ufs.ac.za mailto:melanie2walker@gmail.com 76 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 microsoft word cissue79 full 15june.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 79, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i79a01 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x reconceptualising teaching as transformative practice: alasdair macintyre in the south african context dominic griffiths wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa dominic.griffiths@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6773-7184 maria prozesky wits school of education, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa maria.prozesky@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9747-037x (received: 21 june 2019; accepted: 25 february 2020) abstract in its ideal conception, the post-apartheid education landscape is regarded as a site of transformation that promotes democratic ideals such as citizenship, freedom, and critical thought. the role of the educator is pivotal in realising this transformation in the learners she teaches, but this realisation extends beyond merely teaching the curriculum to the educator herself, as the site where these democratic ideals are embodied and enacted. the teacher is thus centrally placed as a moral agent whose behaviour, in the classroom space particularly, should, ideally, represent and communicate the values we aspire to cultivate in post-apartheid south african society generally. thus, this notion of what teaching encompasses fits broadly into the conception of a “practice” in the sense developed by alasdair macintyre, in that it is a transformative activity the enactment of which not only benefits the practitioner, but also extends to and benefits the broader community as well. furthermore, practices are grounded in features of social or moral life we hold to be significant and, importantly, it is only through their active cultivation that they can be made tangible and further developed. macintyre’s theory of virtue is based on a three-fold interrelationship between practices, how they meaningfully narrate and shape an individual life, and how, in turn, this builds and sustains our moral and social traditions. using these ideas to analyse post-apartheid south africa, and the structural transformation paradox it is in, reveals the difficult and complex nature of a society that is in this transitional space. the claim is that attentiveness to practices in the educational space, and to the way they shape and inform moral and social traditions, is necessary to more fully understand and guide this societal transformation. keywords: teaching, post-apartheid south africa, alasdair macintyre, practices griffiths & prozesky: reconceptualising teaching as transformative practice 5 introduction of the many attributes associated with transformative teaching, the most crucial ones seem to concern the teacher as a person. for it is essential to success within that tradition that teachers who are trying to bring about transformative changes personify the very qualities they seek to engender in their students. to the best of their abilities, they must be living exemplars of certain virtues or values or attitudes. (jackson, 1986, p. 124) in this theoretical paper, we argue that alasdair macintyre’s conception of aristotelean virtue ethics, by offering a way to think about the role of the teacher as a transformative force in society, can lead to important insights into the south africa educational landscape. for macintyre, ethical values are formed through “practices” where a practice is understood as a complex and multi-layered activity that allows for the cultivation of virtues and character traits which enable the flourishing of the individual in, and as part of, the broader community (macintyre, 1981/2007). we argue that teaching is such a practice—a site for the embodiment and realisation of moral values, and, therefore, that teachers are uniquely placed to contribute to society’s shared moral tradition. 1 twenty-five years after the end of apartheid, the education system is caught in what slonimsky has called an ongoing structural paradox (2016) in which institutions, identities, and pedagogies forged under the apartheid regime have not been fundamentally transformed, but, rather, persist, resisting efforts to bend them into new just and democratic systems, given the entrenched “rotten[ness]” of the apartheid tradition of education (enslin & pendlebury, 1998, p. 261). this “rottenness” forms part of the ongoing structural and moral paradox south africa faces. enslin and pendlebury (1998) presciently observed, just after the demise of apartheid, that education in south africa could not merely be “reformed” because this would imply that something could be salvaged from christian national education and fundamental pedagogics. rather, “only radical, thorough-going and systematic change” could overcome these previous demoralising educational practices. thus, the insistence on “transformation” (p. 261). arguably, a similar structural paradox is evident more broadly in south african society. while many public institutional structures of politics and law have shifted since 1994, it is evident that post-apartheid south africa is still, in many ways, powerfully shaped by unequal economic and social structures made possible because of apartheid (hein, 2011; moosa, 2018; runciman, 2016). south africa’s transition to democracy is what gramsci called a “passive revolution” and he warned us that “no social formation disappears as long as the productive forces which have developed in it still find room for further forward movement” (2000, p. 263). gramsci was speaking about socio-economic structures, but the same holds true, we suggest, for south africa’s social and cultural transition. apartheid-era social structures persist in day-to-day interactions, language use, the sense of shared traditions; in 1 important for macintyre is that these values and their associated virtues are not conceptualised and prescriptive, but emergent and enacted, because they develop from the practices themselves. 6 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 other words, the social imaginary of south africa is still powerfully shaped by apartheid ideology and geography. we suggest that this structural paradox has led to an unarticulated moral vacuity in that south african society lacks a coherent, consensual, moral language. hillard has gone so far as to argue that the legacy of apartheid has created a “moral bankruptcy” which continues to plague south africa, and which creates considerable moral ambiguity in its citizens (2002, p. 438). following the end of apartheid, this problem has been amplified by many of the country’s political and business leaders who should, ideally, exemplify the ethical behaviour they wish their citizens to emulate, but are often themselves morally compromised. 2 perhaps the most important consequence of this ongoing inequality is the evident lack of the communal sense that we share what hannah arendt has called a “common world” in south africa, a lack deliberately engineered by apartheid. this continues to have severe repercussions in how we forge a new democracy, particularly in relation to the ongoing and pronounced inequality of our society. arendt used this term particularly in the context of education. the task of education, she argued, is to prepare our children in advance for “the task of renewing a common world” (1961, p. 196). the “common world” in arendt’s sense is the “shared and public world of human artefacts, institutions, and settings which separates us from nature and which provides a relatively permanent and durable context for our activities” (d’entreves, 2016, n.p.). the task of renewing a common world can take place only through a deliberate praxis that emphasises and reinforces particular traits and dispositions in individuals in order to forge a sense of common identity and collective purpose. however, in the south african context the possibility of forging this common world is especially problematic particularly in terms of south africa’s educational sphere, which is regarded as a primary site in which the beginnings of a new south africa can take root. the difficulty now is finding a productive way to theorise the role of teaching in social formation in order to envisage a praxis that can effectively enable meaningful transformation to take place. in this paper, we argue that a focus on practices, particularly teaching, and the way in which they can develop virtues, offers one potential way to realise how such a common moral language may emerge. a top-down transformation process that relies on guiding ethical, legal, and governmental policy, as well as existing traditions, may seem the obvious starting point. but, for macintyre (1981/1998, 1981/2007), as will be discussed, it was the other way around. meaningful transformation begins firstly with practices, which constitute the first stage of development for a community’s social and moral traditions. practices (macintyre’s definition of which we will discuss in more detail below) then build upon and create the coherence of an individual narrative life, which is the second stage of the development 2 for example, transparency international’s global report on corruption ranks south africa 44/100. countries that fall below 50/100 are considered to have serious corruption problems. transparency international’s global corruption barometer for 2019 indicates that the majority of south africans believe that corruption is increasing (2019). recent work by robins (2020) confirms this, indicating the large ongoing collapse of many municipalities across the country because of entrenched corruption and bad governance. see also pwc’s global economic crime and fraud survey (2020) which ranks south africa third in the world for economic crime. griffiths & prozesky: reconceptualising teaching as transformative practice 7 process. the idea of a “narrative life” means that individual human actions constitute an “enacted narrative” which presupposes an intelligible and unified sense of selfhood (macintyre, 1981/2007, p. 211). thus, the concept of a self “resides in the unity of a narrative which links birth to life to death” (1981/2007, p. 205). finally, the narrative lives of the members of a community then inform the social and moral tradition of that community, the third and final stage of the development. a moral tradition is constituted by a collective, shared sense that an individual’s own unified narrative aligns with the larger telos of the community of which she forms part, and to which she belongs. in macintyre’s words, a living tradition is “an historically extended, socially embodied argument” about the goods which both constitute and are pursued in that tradition, often through generations (1981/2007, p. 222). each of the interrelated stages of logical development from practices through to moral tradition presupposes the earlier, but “not vice versa” (macintyre, 1981/1998, p. 82). practices are central in all stages of a community’s development of a moral tradition because it is through practices that the individual cultivates virtues. therefore, if we frame south africa’s transition within macintyre’s three-fold notion of practice, narrative life, and social traditions, we will see more fully why south african education faces such difficulties, and why the arendtian task of education understood as “renewing a common world” is challenging. south african society does not yet have a “common world” that its members may work to renew, and this remains an ongoing structural paradox in our attempts to transform our society. our argument, via macintyre, is that a closer reflection on the nature of practices and the virtues they embody, which are constitutive of a good life, offers a potential way to forge a common world; we suggest that teachers are uniquely placed in society to actualise this world. first, we explain why macintyre argues for a return to a theory of virtue as part of his critique of western morality. then we explore the role of practices and virtue in relation to education and elaborate on the three-fold structure macintyre develops, centred on practices. last, we discuss and relate these ideas to the ongoing structural transformation that south africa needs, and make tentative suggestions for a way forward. macintyre and the return to virtue macintyre works to re-invigorate the aristotelean tradition of virtue ethics. his fundamental claim is the “disquieting suggestion” that western morality is no longer able to answer the fundamental question regarding what constitutes a good life. instead, he argues that the language of western morality in its current conception is gravely disordered. even though the appearance of morality persists, the “integral substance of morality” has been fragmented and destroyed (1981/2007, p. 5). one symptom of this fragmentation is that in our western culture today (and, consequently, in global postmodern discourse), there seems to be “no rational way of securing moral agreement” (p. 6). macintyre discusses moral examples that demonstrate the insecurity of our rationality, such as just war and abortion, juxtaposing logically valid but rival arguments, and concluding that we have “no rational way of weighing the claims of one as against another” (p. 8). our moral language today is characterised by “emotivism” which means that moral positions are no more than expressions of attitudes or feelings (p. 69). thus, moral persuasion amounts to the manipulation of the 8 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 emotions of others, rather than being based on an appeal to some shared grounding moral framework in which to find rational consensus. the rise of modern western culture’s moral incommensurability is the result of the failure of the enlightenment which tried to replace “traditional and superstitious forms of morality [with] a kind of secular morality that would be entitled to secure the assent of any rational person.” the belief was that by appealing to what was considered “universal” human reason, one could ensure consensus and agreement but macintyre argued that this ultimately failed. instead, what arose was a collection of “mutually antagonistic moral stances”, each claiming to have achieved “rational justification, but each also disputing this claim on the part of its rivals.” these “rational” moral concepts became no more “than useful fictions” and macintyre singled out the concept of human rights and the utility of welfare as examples of this (1981/1998, p. 70). this position of modern moral relativism is also confirmed by charles taylor (2003), who argued that secular morality gives rise to one of the malaises of modernity—individualism or a “centring on the self” at the expense of awareness of “greater issues or concerns that transcend the self” (p. 14). this individualism leads to a narrowing of life and then to moral subjectivism which is the idea that “moral positions are not in any way grounded in reason or the nature of things but ultimately adopted by each of us because we find ourselves drawn to them.” for taylor, this moral subjectivism means, in similar vein to macintyre, that “reason cannot adjudicate moral disputes” (p. 18). the emergence of moral relativism has resulted in a modern cultural morality that is emotivist, and not rational in nature. rather than consisting of a series of rational interchanges, relationships between individuals can be managed only in manipulative ways, often through the “prestige which the concept of managerial effectiveness enjoys” (macintyre, 1981/1998, p. 70). macintyre claimed that social reality is controlled through some appeal to pseudo-social scientific laws, even though these laws do not exist. in fact, social reality is unpredictable, but to acknowledge this is to acknowledge “how much of the claims of modern private and public bureaucracy rest on deception and self-deception” (p. 71). essentially, in a society whose morality is emotivist there can be no genuine distinction between “manipulative and non-manipulative social relation[s]” (macintyre,1981/2007, p. 23). 3 thus, we use each other as a means to our own end because, fundamentally, we have no consensus of what the common, collective good is for which we should strive. macintyre developed this position originally as a critique of western morality, in order to justify his re-invigoration of virtue ethics. however, we suggest that aspects of this notion of moral incommensurability accounts in large part for south africa’s own current moral vacuity. post-apartheid south africa, like all post-colonies, is still shaped by what grosfoguel has called “global coloniality” (2011, p. 13). he has argued that the “heterogeneous and multiple global structures put in place over a period of 450 years did not evaporate with the juridical-political decolonization of the periphery over the past 50 years” (2011, p. 13). in this sense south africa is still profoundly influenced by the western political and social 3 for example, the rise of so-called fake news and the election of donald trump support macintyre’s claim that society is currently characterised by an emotivist and manipulated morality. see, for example, frankfurt’s on bullshit (2005). griffiths & prozesky: reconceptualising teaching as transformative practice 9 imaginaries that shaped it as a colony, especially given the deliberate ethico-legal architecture of apartheid. nakata, nakata, keech, and bolt characterise postcolonial spaces as complex interfaces between “ongoing indigenous systems of thought and ongoing analysis of colonial experience and the ever-changing face of the ongoing ‘western’ knowledge presence” (2012, p. 126). since, as maldonado-torres has pointed out, ethics cannot be segregated from epistemology, politics, and “other areas of human creation” (2011, p. 9), the situation of ethical consciousness in south africa is as fluid and contested as is the nature of valid epistemology. this difficulty, we believe, strongly supports an approach to an ethical framework, and to the building of a consensual moral language that is grounded in practices and virtue praxis, rather than in prescriptive, fragmented, and broken traditions. in order to further support our claim, we examine what moral so-called good education aims to achieve in light of macintyre’s theory. the good of education to situate macintyre more fully within the aristotelean tradition we discuss briefly some central aristotelean ideas that underpin macintyre’s own thinking, framed within an educational context. we then discuss macintyre’s three-stage conception of his virtue theory, beginning with his notion of a practice. one of the persisting and enduring questions in philosophy of education concerns what education is ultimately for. is it, following cornel hamm’s analysis of r. s. peters’s work, “general enlightenment” (1989, p. 33) or is it, as john dewey (and arendt) have asserted, the “renewal of life by transmission” (dewey, 2004, p. 12)? we find seneca writing to lucilius around ce 62, lamenting that we learn for the schoolroom “but not for real life” (seneca, circa ce 62/2007, p. 58), suggesting the perennial disconnection between the institutional framework of schooling, and the successful transfer of those skills and competencies into what we think of as real life. one powerful way to answer this question about education, and human activity generally, is to look to aristotle. in the opening of his nicomachean ethics he wrote, “every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim” (circa bce 340/1996, p. 2). the question of what education is for, then, can be answered in general terms in an aristotelean way. education, as the activity of both enquiry and the transmission of knowledge, aims to realise and sustain those goods which are central, ultimately, to what aristotle calls eudaimonia. this term is often translated as “happiness,” but really means “flourishing”, or making a success of and excelling at the living of life. as macintyre put it, eudaimonia is “a state of being well and doing well in being well . . .” (1981/2007, p. 148). underlying this claim about the centrality of eudaimonia is aristotle’s contention that we are rational animals, blessed with intellect and motivated by our telos to seek out those practices and activities that allow us to live excellently. aristotle distinguished two kinds of activity depending on where the good accomplished by this activity can be situated. first, an activity may be good in itself, practised for its own sake, in which case the end or purpose of the activity is realised in its actualisation; an example aristotle provided is playing the flute. second, an activity may be directed towards a finished end which stands apart from the 10 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 activity itself, such as carpentry, which is desired not merely for its own sake, but for the sake of the completed object it produces. education straddles both these goods in that not only does teaching produce, ideally, an enlightened student, but also teaching is itself is an activity that aims to be done excellently (macintyre & dunne, 2002). the practice of teaching offers the potential for self-cultivation and improvement because it is, ideally, a transformative practice by its very nature. one transforms others and, in doing, transforms and enriches oneself. at the core of this understanding of teaching, then, we find an ethics of virtue, a way of understanding moral behaviour not as prescription, but in terms of lived action, in terms of practices which inform, develop, and promote the kinds of moral behaviour and character traits that enable both an individual and society to flourish. macintyre developed from aristotle this core idea that meaningful action, virtue, and the good are intertwined; macintyre’s oft quoted definition of a practice illustrates this. … any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realised in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended. (1981/1998, p. 83) virtues, then, are those qualities without which the “goods internal to practices” cannot be achieved (macintyre, 1981/1998, p. 83). while it may seem, at first glance, that teaching fits well within macintyre’s definition, he himself, in an interview in 2002 surprisingly contended that he did not think of teaching as a practice, but rather as a “set of skills put to the service of a variety of practices” (quoted in macintyre & dunne, 2002, p. 5). this claim has been vigorously contested, with many commentators arguing strongly that teaching could be considered a model example of a practice, in macintyre’s specific sense (dunne, 2003; fitzmaurice, 2010; higgins, 2011; macintyre & dunne, 2002; noddings, 2003). we accept the claims of these commentators. teaching is undoubtedly “a complex form of socially established co-operating human activity” with “internal goods” which are distinct and central to it, such as the development and success of students. it has “standards of excellence” which allow for both the judgement and improvement of the practice. moreover, engagement with the practice allows “human powers to achieve excellence… [which] are systematically extended.” in teaching, this “excellence” has a “double reference” in that the excellence of teachers extends through and is realised in the excellence achieved by their students (macintyre & dunne, 2002, p. 7). the second stage of development macintyre identified builds on the first stage: virtues go beyond practices to inform and sustain the qualities and character traits— those “human powers” mentioned in the definition of a practice—that are required to “achieve goods which furnish individual human lives with their telos [or sense of purpose].” this telos “derives from possessing some kind of narrative structure” within which these virtues make sense griffiths & prozesky: reconceptualising teaching as transformative practice 11 (macintyre, 1981/1998, p. 72). teaching can become one’s life work, one that can sustain and develop moral and intellectual growth in oneself as teacher, and also inform the overarching purpose of one’s life. this second stage of development draws out the importance of a practice as something socially established and cooperative. individual identity is always embedded within a broader social and historical community, and the virtues, cultivated through practices, form part of this living and extended communal tradition. thus, the practice gives the individual a meaningful narrative which purposefully orientates them in the world. furthermore, commitment to the practice maintains and grounds this orientation by encouraging the practitioner to cultivate the necessary virtues to enable the sustained ongoing development of the practice, and the “good of a certain kind of life” it makes possible (macintyre, 1981/1998, p. 85). there is also clear decolonial potential in these ideas, in light of the claims of grosfoguel, mentioned above. the idea that life has a narrative structure, and that individuals have roles and purpose that enable their meaningful belonging within a community are features of human existence that extend beyond any specific tradition. this leads to the third logical stage which is the social and moral traditions of which practitioners become the bearers, and also, importantly, inform. having a narrative sense of one’s self implies belonging to a broader historical community. here a collective understanding of what constitutes the practice exists, something potentially transmitted through generations (macintyre, 1981/1998). initially partaking in a practice means that the initiate submits herself to the rules that govern the practice and accepts the standards of excellence required to achieve the goods internal to that practice, according to the “best standards realized so far” (macintyre, 1981/1998, p. 85). however, this is a dynamic process, and part of the understanding that characterises belonging to this community is an ongoing argument about which goods should be transmitted. in teaching, for example, corporal punishment in south africa is now regarded as an inhumane, humiliating practice and is not permitted. the reasons for this are not only pedagogic, but reflect the broader, progressive moral and social concerns of the society itself. in south africa’s case these concerns are also clearly outlined in the bill of rights (1996). 4 however, given the complexity of post-apartheid south africa and the ongoing, unfolding questions of coloniality and decoloniality, and tension surrounding western and indigenous epistemes there is, and must be, on ongoing argument, in the spirit of macintyre, about the goods that will constitute the kinds of traditions we want to transmit. for grosfoguel, reaching this kind of consensus can only be the result of a “critical dialogue between diverse critical epistemic/ethical/political projects towards a pluriversal as oppos[ed] to a universal world” (2011, p. 3). we have to work out the claims of cultural and moral diversity, and of identities that are fluid and hybrid in how we situate ourselves within this diversity. the aim is to reach “a common language despite the diversity of cultures and forms of oppression” (2011, p. 28). indeed welsch, as cited in horsthemke, argued that cultures can no longer claim purported homogeneity, but are characterised “by mixtures and permeations” (2017, p. 6). in similar vein to grosfoguel’s “pluriversal” welsch has argued for these new structures 4 see chapter 2, section 12, “freedom and security of the person” in the constitution of the republic of south africa (department of justice, 1996) 12 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 of cultures as “transcultural” in that they traverse and transcend traditional cultural boundaries (cited in horsthemke, 2017, p. 6). any genuine attempt at establishing the kinds of goods formative to and thus transmitted by our social and moral traditions in postapartheid south africa must be cognisant of the pluriversal, transcultural space that we all now inhabit. in moving to the last section of this piece we consider how macintyre’s three-stage conception of virtue, and how it shapes moral traditions, applies to the south african context. south africa’s paradox in south africa, this sense of having enduring social and moral traditions is complicated by the “structural paradox” discussed at the beginning of this paper. for macintyre’s position, prescriptive ethical codes such as the constitution and, within the claims of this paper, a document such as the south african council for educators’ code of professional ethics (south african council for educators, n.d.) which is meant to “guide educators to do the right thing in their working lives” (department of education, n.d. n.p.) cannot, of themselves, inform and transform teaching practices. rather, importantly, it is the already existing institutional forms that are the sites in which social transmission and shaping of the practices occur, and this is south africa’s paradoxical difficulty. the legacy of apartheid educational practices such as corporal punishment, in spite of its illegality, and discrimination based on language, race, gender, and/or religion are a constant feature of post-apartheid south africa’s schooling landscape, regularly making news headlines. prescriptive ethical codes alone are not sufficient to change practices and the beliefs that underpin them that have been transmitted and emulated over generations. this highlights the central role, in macintyre’s theory, that institutions play in shaping practices. institutions and practices exist in tension with each other. practices can exist fully and be fostered only within an institutional framework which is necessary to sustain them. however, part of a practice’s flourishing is its resistance to the dictates and prescriptions from the institution in terms of how it is imagined and exercised. the creativity of a practice is “vulnerable to the acquisitiveness of the institution” and needs to resist its “corrupting power” (macintyre, 1981/1998, p. 87). this resistance is possible because of the central virtues that practices enable, namely, justice, courage, and truthfulness. given the dictatorial and deliberately engineered nature of apartheid education structures it was difficult for public education to resist the corrupting power of the institutions which promoted it. legally enforced segregation and bantu education were two of the many ways in which institutional power enforced and regulated practices in the classroom space, stultifying the creative nature of a practice such as teaching. in this sense apartheid inverted and made static the relationship between institutions and practices. as discussed above, macintyre emphasised that a social moral tradition is informed by its practices, rather than traditions and the institutions they create informing the nature of the practices. in this reversed situation practices are reduced to behavioural dictates and prescriptions, with the aim of numbing and suppressing those central virtues mentioned above. griffiths & prozesky: reconceptualising teaching as transformative practice 13 post-apartheid south african schooling is still unavoidably and problematically shaped by the legal, economic, geographic, infrastructural, hierarchical, and social divisions that were part of the formative and deliberate way apartheid shaped and regulated public schooling. macintyre’s conception of virtue ethics within this three-fold structure offers a perceptive analysis of the ongoing structural paradox in south african education because of the powerful way apartheid traditions and institutional frameworks reverberate into postapartheid south africa. this highlights the ongoing difficulties with the necessary call for radical transformation that enslin and pendlebury urged in 1998, soon after the end of apartheid. if we accept that nothing can or should be salvaged from the demoralising educational practices perpetuated by apartheid, and accept unquestioningly the need for thorough-going transformation we confront a dilemma that remains unsolved: how are we to imagine and enact those practices in the educational space which are going to shape the narratives, traditions, and institutions that will meaningfully inform and contribute to a radically transformed post-apartheid educational landscape? which social and moral traditions could inform these practices that are not already comprised by the apartheid legacy? how are we to work towards and forge the renewing of a “common world” that arendt describes as the central role of education, when we still exist in lifeworlds segregated by apartheid practices and ideologies? and how are we to work meaningfully towards overcoming the moral vacuity and ambiguity that plagues south africa? the simple answer, in light of this paper, is to focus on practices themselves, and decide whether these practices are representative of virtues that enable human flourishing. one way to approach this via nakata et al. (2012, p. 126) is to begin by analytically tracing the confluence of western and indigenous knowledge systems and “their history of entanglement and (con)fused practice,” detailed ethnographic and historical analysis of schooling practices in south africa, for example, would reveal more concretely the ways in which we remain entangled in practices of teaching which are no longer part of the goods of the kinds of traditions we wish to create and transmit. fundamental to this position is that practices “are in fact our ethical sources: they are the sites where aspects of the good are disclosed to us as well as the primary scenes of our ethical education” (higgins, 2011, p. 10). the claim is that teaching, and the goods of teaching are ideally transformative, not only of the individual who embodies them, but also of the communities that encounter the individual in this role as teacher. a directive approach to educational transformation that begins at an institutional level, and is conveyed in codes of conduct, ethical prescriptions, and frequent prescriptive curriculum revisions will further mire and dictate the nature of teaching, and attempt to enforce standards of excellence internal to its practices, rather than encourage the open tension and creative impulse that should exist between, and inform, institutions and their practices. the question then is one of virtues, and the virtues that are necessary for the goods internal to a practice to be realised. our contemporary decolonial and indigenous spaces in south africa will have to guide how we understand and name these virtues. one such virtue (or collection of virtues) is certainly ubuntu which has come to be seen as a panacea for our societal ills, and is in danger of being over-theorised and, given the force of global coloniality, of 14 journal of education, no. 79, 2020 disappearing from practice. nonetheless, a central virtue of teaching, which is also central to the ubuntu ethic, is altruism (higgins, 2011; kohl, 1984; metz, 2007; metz & gaie, 2010). it is a virtue that should both prompt an individual to pursue teaching as a profession and be a further motivation to remain a teacher. however, in south africa today it is often the case that teaching is seen as a last resort for those whose final school marks did not permit them to study anything else. 5 the point is that if one pursues teaching as a career without the requisite virtues that such a profession requires in order for it to be done excellently, and to flourish in the doing of it, then the result will be mediocre, and even cruel teachers, and a general lack of respect for the profession itself. this brings us to the epigraph from jackson which opens this paper. altruism is a virtue that desires one’s own selfless promotion of the wellbeing of others. teaching is ideally placed as the profession which readily and widely promotes this sense of altruism, and thus to genuinely teach is also to transform those who are taught. but that transformation cannot merely be the transfer of knowledge but is, instead, embodied and personified by the teacher, who must be a “living exemplar” (jackson, 1986, p. 124) of precisely those virtues, such as altruism, which makes the transformations of others possible. attentiveness to practices in the educational space in south africa, and the way they can shape and inform moral and social traditions, is necessary to more fully understand and guide our societal transformation. conclusion in conclusion, we argue that macintyre’s three-stage theory of virtue, with its focus on practices themselves and on the goods that emerge from them, offers a thought-provoking way to understand some of the difficulties evident in post-apartheid south african education and society. the claim is that the reliance on prescriptive ethical codes, and the difficulty of south africa’s ongoing structural-transformation paradox hinders meaningful transformation in teaching and prevents us from realising the possibility of a common world. rather, a focus on the practice of teaching itself, and the transformative goods of this practice, such as altruism, would be far more beneficial in helping us reimagine a new tradition of education, and the role of the teacher as a transformative force in south africa. references arendt, h. 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(2019). retrieved from https://www.transparency.org/country/zaf microsoft word bissue75-fulljun22.docx journal of education, 2019 issue 75, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i75a02 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x on “predatory” publishing: a reply to maistry lesley le grange department of curriculum studies, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa llg@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7096-3609 (received: 22 february 2019; accepted: 3 may 2019) abstract i reply to an article in this issue of journal of education by suriamurthee moonsamy maistry entitled, “(re)counting the high cost of predatory publishing and the effect of a neoliberal performativity culture.” in his article, maistry confessed his “wrong-doing” in having published articles in predatory journals. he argued that he alone is to blame for his “trangressions” because academia is necessarily a critical space that demands astuteness and constant vigilance, which he failed to uphold. through showing remorse, he hopes to restore his academic reputation, which he believes has been eroded. in my response, i address four matters: the struggle to be an ethical researcher in the neoliberal university, the contested nature of predatory publishing, peer review as a practice fraught with difficulties, and the invocation of an immanent ethics in becoming ethical. instead of focusing only on issues of moral decline (beall, 2012) and moral failings (maistry, 2019), i suggest that in a digital age we should use the opportunities that open-access publishing provides for democratising academic publishing and making it as affordable to as many people as possible. this requires, as willinsky and alperin (2011) argued, treating the ethical domain as a realm of positive action where one goes out of one’s way to help others instead of focusing on issues such as exam cheating and research fudging—in this instance, “predatory” publishing. keywords: ethics, morality, neoliberal, peer-review, predatory publishing introduction in this article, i reply to a confessional tale narrated by suriamurthee moonsamy maistry (2019) of his “wrongdoing” 1 in publishing five articles in the journals of a “predatory” publishing company, kamla-raj enterprises (kre), based in delhi, india. an electronic search shows that maistry published in the following three kre journals: journal of social sciences, international journal of educational sciences, and the anthropologist. the reason for naming the journals will become apparent later in my discussion. 1 in his article, maistry expressed his “wrongdoing” by referring on two occasions to his “transgression.” i use scare quotation marks when referring to the two words because maistry does not provide a convincing argument of wrongdoing or transgression. le grange: on “predatory” publishing . . . 21 maistry began his confession by stating that he, and he alone, is to blame for publishing in predatory journals and that he takes full responsibility for his decisions in this regard. he stated that to claim “blissful oblivion or naivety” for publishing in predatory journals is ludicrous because “academics are expected to be astute intellectuals, inherently critical and constantly suspicious, possessing robust scientific publishing literacy” (maistry, 2019, pp. 5– 6). self-blame and taking full responsibility for publishing in predatory journals is a refrain in his confessional tale. his confession also has other elements: payment, judgement, sanctions, and redemption. maistry evidently believes that one pays (and should pay) for your “sins” through experiencing personal trauma and loss of academic and professional reputation. in his words: “dealing with the stress and anxiety of losing one’s academic reputation is the more painful price i am having to pay” (maistry, 2019, p. 12). but, in the process of seeking redemption, he also offered to pay back 2 the r72,000 that accrued to his research cost centre from the publications in kre journals. 3 he used “judgement” in different senses: his poor judgement to publish in the kre journals, critique and judgement as necessary qualities of scholarship, and public judgement as a necessary precondition in the scholarly space. besides self-judgement, maistry stated that the department of higher education and training (dhet) was complicit for not having reviewed its journal lists periodically, and for not researching international publishing practices. he stated that the academy of science of south africa was also culpable for not being “sufficiently attuned to how the neoliberal, corporate machinery is at work both nationally and internationally” (maistry, 2019, p. 14). moreover, maistry implied that there is a need for sanctions—that actions need to be taken to rid the academy of the rot that is setting in—for example, that universities should reconsider nominating examiners whose curriculum vitae contain “discrediting” evidence, review the composition of higher degree committees, and that appointments of academics, senior management, and supervisors should come under scrutiny for predatory publishing. in other words, maistry suggested that we should apply sanctions to unscrupulous individuals. why target the individual? because, for him, the individual should exercise due diligence (maistry’s words) when deciding where to publish. but, personally, maistry seeks redemption through a process of confessing his “transgressions” and demonstrating remorse, which, hopefully, will lead to forgiveness and the restoration of his academic reputation. concerning what has been discussed above, i shall make some initial comments and then explore a few more issues in greater depth in the sections of the article that follow. firstly, i accept that, for maistry, his perceived loss of his academic reputation was felt—and i don’t wish to minimise this sensibility. however, there is to date, no solid evidence that maistry has lost his academic reputation—and, thankfully, he has not. i cannot comment with any 2 in his article, maistry referred to “paying back the money” (2019, p. 12) and hinted that this made reference to chants expressed by members of the economic freedom fighters party in parliament for the former president to pay back the money that he benefitted from through corruption. maistry implied that those who publish in predatory journals are engaging in a corrupt activity. 3 in south africa, public universities receive approximately r100,000 (it varies from year to year) from the state per publication unit and, from this revenue source, many universities provide academics with an incentive for every publication unit they produce. this incentive is paid into a research cost centre and, at a few institutions, a portion is also paid directly to the academic as additional income. the university of kwazulu-natal pays an incentive of r18,000 per publication. maistry’s four publication units (two were coauthored) in kre journals therefore amounted to 4 x r18,000 = r72,000. 22 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 authority on his reputation within his own institution but, thus far, there is little or no evidence of a loss of reputation in the broader education community. maistry continues to be appointed as external examiner of doctoral candidates by several universities, continues to be used as a reviewer of journal articles, is invited as guest speaker and to facilitate workshops for staff and students at south african universities. he continues to perform work as a key facilitator of the strengthening postgraduate studies programme presented by rhodes university, and continues to perform work for the quality council on schooling (umalusi), 4 and so forth. the evidence suggests that his perceived loss of academic reputation is perhaps not warranted. secondly, the self-blame expressed by maistry, and the sanctions he proposed for individuals who have transgressed as he did, underestimate the pressure to perform and to be an ethical researcher in the neoliberal university. more importantly, maistry did not present a sound scholarly argument for his self-blame, confession, and the implied sanctions that the academy should mete out against predatory publishing. in short, maistry did not exercise due diligence before presenting his confessional tale. therefore, the sanctions he proposed (and witch hunts they may induce) would be downright dangerous. but, there are specific issues that i wish to give more attention to in my response to maistry. first, i wish to briefly discuss the struggle to be an ethical researcher in the neoliberal university. second, i shall discuss the contested nature of predatory publishing, and point out why maistry (2019) presented a weak case for the position he took on it. third, i shall critically discuss peer review by pointing out that it is fraught with difficulties. i do this because maistry is largely uncritical of peer review. fourth, i shall discuss the idea of becoming an ethical researcher by giving attention to the notion of an immanent ethics (smith, 2011). being in the neoliberal university and being an ethical researcher the reconfiguration of the contemporary university as a consequence of the (re)ascendency of neoliberal politics and policies has not escaped south african universities. the higher education landscape in the country is characterised by performativity regimes—discourses on quality assurance, efficiency, and accountability abound and, so too, modes of regulation based on rewards and sanctions. ball (2003) pointed out that performativity produces fabrications, that is, the presentation of self within particular registers of meaning in which only certain possibilities of being have value. moreover, the digital world that we inhabit (or inhabits us) has opened up alternative avenues for scholarly publishing. we have seen a proliferation of open-access journals, and academics are flooded with e-mails (on a daily basis) from journals inviting researchers to submit papers. in a culture of performativity, we are all victims and perpetrators and the decisions we make inevitably have moral or ethical implications. 4 maistry is member of the umalusi research forum and the assessment standards committee. le grange: on “predatory” publishing . . . 23 in an era of knowledge capitalism, we are seeing the relocation of power (in the production of knowledge) away from the academy to the marketplace (brady, 2012)—creating knowledge assemblages comprising multimillion dollar companies such as thomas reuters (owner of the web of science) and elsevier reeds (owner of scopus), large commercial publishing houses such as taylor & francis, springer, and elsevier, governments who measure their return on research and development spend by the number of articles published in journals listed on the master lists of web of science and scopus by its universities and researchers. to this amalgam, we can add the thousands of open-access journals—some of which, needless to say, are dubious. this is the context in which saltmarsh, sutherland-smith, and randellmoon (2011) argued that the “‘ethical university’ is continually placed under erasure, as managerialism and competitive individualism become entrenched as everyday, albeit contested, aspects of research activities, workplace practices and academic cultures” (p. 294). moreover, ethical norms become realigned with a culture of performativity, and couched in terms of rewards and sanctions. the upshot of this is that academics who inhabit universities sometimes find themselves at sea; they fumble, and sometimes fall, in efforts to navigate competing and new demands. i aver that, in the struggle to be an ethical researcher (in a neoliberal university), emphasis should not placed on moral failings but on a commitment to helps others, to take action that will make the world more just. a need to place greater emphasis on the ethical domain and not on the moral domain informs my response to maistry, and my critical engagement with the notion of predatory publishing. predatory publishing: a contested terrain predatory publishing is a relatively new term, coined as recently as 2010 by a librarian, jeffrey beall, 5 who worked at the auraria library at the university of colorado denver. beall (2012) described predatory publishing as follows: predatory publishers . . . publish counterfeit journals to exploit the open-access model in which the author pays. these predatory publishers are dishonest and lack transparency. they aim to dupe researchers, especially those inexperienced in scholarly communication. they set up websites that closely resemble those of 5 beall has become a controversial figure in higher education. the same could be said about some of his critics. there is also controversy around his website and blog that was taken down. a response to one of beall’s opinion pieces written by his then line manager, shea swauger (2017), is worth reading. in his article, swauger quoted a statement by the university of colorado denver in which the university contested beall’s argument that he was pressurised by the university to take down his website and blog. moreover, the university supported beall’s academic freedom to conduct his research into predatory publishing. but, in the same article swauger, also expressed his concern about beall’s ad hominem attacks on his critics (and vice versa). swauger (2017) wrote: i have become alarmed by the acerbic nature of commentary from both beall and his critics in the course of discussing open access and predatory publishing. when the academic community conflates a human being with something they’ve said, using ad hominin attacks as a way to discredit the ideas they present, the community becomes toxic. beall has engaged in this on several occasions, in his publications, on social media, and on worldcat. he often uses hyperbole and condescension. this is both disrespectful and unprofessional. his critics have sometimes responded in kind. to everyone involved: stop. it isn’t clever; it isn’t helpful. ( p. 605) 24 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 legitimate online publishers, and publish journals of questionable quality. many purport to be headquartered in the united states, united kingdom, canada or australia but really hail from pakistan, india or nigeria. some predatory publishers spam researchers, soliciting manuscripts but failing to mention the required author fee (pp. 275–276). beall (2015) generated criteria for determining predatory open-access publishers, and generated a list of publishers and journals that he considered to be predatory—his blacklist. pertinent here, is that beall’s blacklist included kre publishers and all three journals that maistry published in. my first issue with maistry is his uncritical acceptance of beall’s notion of predatory publishing—his criteria for classifying publishers and journals as predatory—and beall’s lists. this is despite maistry’s claim that scholars should be “astute intellectuals, inherently critical and constantly suspicious” (2019, p. 6). nicholson (2017) pointed out that the authenticity of beall’s list has been questioned. some of the criticisms include the following: beall’s obvious bias towards western subscription-based publications, his disparaging approach to open-access publishing, beall’s perceptions about impact factor or number of citations of some supposedly predatory journals have been debunked, that beall’s analysis relied heavily on publishers’ websites rather than on having detailed discussions with publishers (nicholson, 2017). the latter criticism is important, and i shall return to this later. moreover, in a recent study, teixeira da silva and tsigaris (2018) modelled the false discovery rate for blacklists and conducted pre-study and post-study probability tests to determine whether a journal is predatory. they found that blacklists lack reliability and concluded that blacklists are academically invalid. a first study that analyses the extent of predatory publishing in south africa was conducted by mouton and valentine (2017). in their study, the authors claimed not to have taken beall’s list at face value but undertook a more in-depth assessment of the journals identified by beall’s classification. mouton and valentine (2017) disagreed with some of the journals beall had classified as likely to be predatory and summarised the criteria that they regarded as standard publishing practice, and what they regarded as predatory. but, there is an immediate problem here. their criteria for standard publishing practice were based on what they believed the criteria to be, and their criteria for predatory journals were based on what they found in relation to predatory publishing; these are the words they used in describing this: “we compare the criteria or rules that we believe apply to standard (and ethical) scholarly publishing practices and those that are found in predatory publishing” (mouton & valentine, 2017, p. 2). this does not point to rigorous work. what were their beliefs based on, and what served as the basis for what they found in predatory publishing? in the case of all three journals of kre enterprises that the researchers analysed, the journals show strong evidence for being predatory. this is the evidence that they provided: three of the journals represented in our list (all from kamla-raj publishers)—the international journal of education sciences, the journal of human ecology and the journal social sciences—are examples of blatant false claims in regard to the le grange: on “predatory” publishing . . . 25 members of their editorial boards. for example, prof. kenneth kennedy who is listed as an editorial board member of the journal of human ecology died in 2014 and prof. richard brown who is listed as an editorial member of the journal of social sciences died in 2003. another telltale sign of predatory publishing is the overlap in the names of editorial board members across various predatory journals. dr bryan hiebert who is also listed as an editorial member of the international journal of education sciences is also listed as an editorial member of the international scholars journal— also identified by beall as most likely a predatory journal (mouton & valentine, 2017, p. 4). this is not strong evidence, and not rigorous research performed by mouton and valentine (2017). let us just look at the reasoning that informs the example of the “telltale sign” of predatory publishing that the authors highlighted. bryan hiebert is on the editorial board of journal x; he is also on the editorial board of journal y, which beall says is most likely a predatory journal. therefore, there is strong evidence that journal x is a predatory journal. this is ludicrous. mouton and valentine (2017) evidently did not use the full set of criteria that they constructed (that they “found”) and apply them to a journal or journals so that there was sound basis for determining whether there was strong or weak evidence of predatory publishing and how that inference would be made. instead, what they did was to select only certain criteria and apply only one or two of them to a journal or suite of journals, and also used poor evidence to align with the selected criteria. another weakness of mouton and valentine’s (2017) work and that of beall is that they mainly used websites as their source of data, and did not engage in detailed conversations with the publishers of the journals. what is missing in much of the research conducted on predatory publishing is qualitative data on what the publishers have to say, and what academics who have published in these journals have to say about their experiences. this brings me to another weakness of maistry’s (2019) confession. if you going to confess, then tell it all. what maistry did not provide us with are the details of his communication with the journal (what the review process entailed, etc) so that we could gain a sense of the rigour of the editorial and publishing process. if the process was dodgy, then he should have shared this detail with the reader—as well as if the process had been very rigorous. in the one instance where he did tell us something about the review process, he said the guest editor “followed a due peer-review protocol” (maistry, 2019, p. 11). we might have gained useful insight from a more detailed confession from maistry. however, of my 200+ publications, i published one article in a predatory journal and, incidentally, a kre journal, journal of human ecology (le grange, 2015), which both beall as well as mouton and valentine (2017) viewed as likely (strongly) predatory. here is my tale (and it is not a confessional tale). in 2014, i was looking to publish my work on ubuntu and deep ecology in a different geography to where i had published and shared my work on this theme. i wished that my work would be accessible to different audiences. i had published in “prestigious” taylor & francis journals on ubuntu and environmental education, and had shared my work at 26 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 universities and at conferences in the anglophone world. i wanted to be sure that i published in an accredited journal so that both my university and i could benefit from the subsidy that would accrue. i scanned through all the lists of accredited journals approved by the dhet and, on the ibss list, i found a journal called the journal of human ecology, which i thought fitted my topic perfectly (ubuntu ecology and human ecology). i submitted the article to the journal via e-mail. the fee to publish was about 250 us dollars (about r3,600). 6 this is less than the page fees charged by south african journals and substantially less than the 3,000 us dollars (r43,200) charged by taylor & francis to have an article published open access. in my assessment, i got my bang for my buck. the review process went as follows: i was asked by the journal to nominate potential reviewers and i did; 7 i don’t know whether the journal used these reviewers or not but my article was reviewed by three reviewers through a process of double-blind review. after i submitted the revised version, based on the receiving feedback from reviewers, i was requested to make further (relatively) minor revision to the text, which i assumed the editorial team had requested. the article was published about a year after i submitted the first draft. importantly, i achieved my goal because this work was (and is) read by scholars who had not read my work before, and a spin-off was that i was invited to write a contribution on ubuntu for a post-development dictionary that will be published in 2019. on the whole, the peer-review process was rigorous—as in the case of any reputable journal. most importantly, my self-assessment is that the quality of this article is no different to the quality of articles published in so-called reputable journals. this raises questions about both beall’s as well as mouton’s and valentine’s (2017) finding. but this is, of course, anecdotal evidence. my experience is, however, supported by taylor & francis who signed a copublishing agreement with kre in 2017. it would be fair to assume that taylor & francis did its due diligence before signing an agreement with kre. this is what jane buffham of taylor & francis said to denise nicholson in a personal communication on the matter: t&f entered into a partnership with kre in 2017 after many months of careful research and engagement. we have full confidence in the integrity of this publisher and are delighted to be working with them to support their portfolio of titles. we certainly would not enter any partnership with any publisher we deem to be “predatory” or who did not share our commitment to upholding the highest standards of publishing ethics. we are aware of the kre inclusion on the beall’s list, but having raised this directly with the site, we found the reasoning for the inclusion of kre to be insubstantial and unmerited. suffice to say we wholeheartedly disavow the decision to include kre here. beall’s list has, as you say, ceased to exist. further pursuit of expunging kre from a site that no longer exists is unfortunately an impossibility. i’m aware that archives are 6 the conversion is based on a rand/dollar exchange rate of 14.4. 7 such an approach could be advantageous or disadvantageous. an author could nominate soft, but also the best persons working on the topic. le grange: on “predatory” publishing . . . 27 still available unofficially, but since these are not curated or maintained or have any recourse to amendment, they cannot be seen as reliable; it would be unfair to use these against kre in our opinion. (as cited in nicholson 2017, p. 60) the views expressed by buffham in a personal communication are corroborated by information that appears on the taylor & francis website. this is what appears on their website: from 2017 onwards, taylor & francis will co-publish fifteen of kamla-raj enterprises’ highly regarded journals. kamla-raj enterprises will continue to publish the journals in print and distribute them within the saarc region. the taylor & francis group will co-publish the journals online, manage international subscriptions and market the journal globally. the following journals will be co-published in this publishing partnership: • international journal of educational sciences • international journal of human genetics • journal of agricultural sciences • journal of biodiversity • journal of communication • journal of economics • journal of human ecology • journal of life sciences • journal of psychology • journal of social sciences • journal of sociology and social anthropology • studies on ethno-medicine • studies on home and community science • studies of tribes and tribals • the anthropologist. (informa, 2017) we might wish to question the bona fides of taylor & francis but their statements, and my anecdotal tale, must at least cast further doubt on beall’s as well mouton and valentine’s (2017) research findings. moreover, it brings into question the very assumptions on which maistry’s (2019) confession is based. a more serious issue with beall’s, mouton and valentine’s, and maistry’s work is that they committed a category mistake when invoking the term, predatory publishing—predatory publishing is a misnomer. in response to an article by beall, swauger (2017) argued that predatory publishing is at once a larger and smaller problem than beall claimed. he pointed out that, although he holds that there are legitimate threats to science, he disagrees that predatory publishing holds the gravity that beall suggested—and i would add, what mouton and valentine (2017) as well as maistry (2019) suggested. swauger (2017) pointed out that 28 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 while predatory publishing (beall’s coinage) is relatively new, the category of problem it fits into is not. he averred that evaluating the credibility of a publisher or journal is an exercise in evaluating the credibility of an information source. furthermore, swauger (2017) noted that it is not easy to evaluate how credible or authoritative a source is because the answers to such questions are constructed and contextual. he wrote: just because something was published in a predatory journal doesn’t mean that it’s false or poor research. just because something was published in a prestigious closeaccess journal doesn’t mean that it is true or excellent. authority isn’t about the containers that information comes in, and the solution was never a list of bad containers. (swauger, 2017, p. 604) focusing on the containers is an easy exercise and leads to easy decisions (though dangerous) that categorise journals as predatory or not. this is what beall, mouton and valentine, as well as maistry do. what is required by all of us who engage in academic publishing in a contemporary era is to enhance our information literacy so that we are able to judge what is authoritative. furthermore, we should not implement sanctions, criminalise academics, and so forth, based on assumptions informed by weak research (perhaps even dubious research) and, by so doing, commit a category error by making the unit of analysis the container—and not what is in the container. maistry’s (2019) implied sanctions, and mouton and valentine’s (2017) recommendations to organisations like the council on higher education (che) and the national research foundation (nrf) are downright dangerous and can destroy academics’ careers. for example, an instruction to nrf rating reviewers to comment on whether the author has published in predatory journals is problematic because it could lead to prejudicial judgements about the container, and not the quality of the research represented in the container. to come back to maistry (2019)—his confessional tale may be based on flawed presuppositions. peer review has never been a fixed system and is fraught with difficultly my brief discussion on peer review is because maistry quite uncritically valorised it as if it were sacrosanct and a fixed institution. these are some of the statements that maistry (2019) made: such academics value the rigour of the peer-review process (whether blind, doubleblind, single-blind, or open) and understand that an important conduit for knowledge dissemination is through publication. that this profundity has eluded the average south african academic is indeed a moot point. (p. 15) in academia, credibility and integrity are earned via the peer-review process. (p. 17) peer review, [which is] standard best practice in the world of knowledge production and dissemination. (p. 7) le grange: on “predatory” publishing . . . 29 in an opinion piece, beall (2017) shared what he learned from predatory publishing. in the article, he wrote about a history of scholarly publishing where authority and credibility were known as stable. beall (2017) lamented the decline of scholarly publishing as a consequence of predatory publishing and wrote: at that time [where authority and credibility were known and stable], most journals were generally respected and of good quality, and peer review was taken seriously and managed well (p. 273) the once-proud scholarly publishing industry is in a state of rapid decline (p. 277). in an article published in the journal, nature, csiszar (2016) traced pivotal moments in the history of academic refereeing and pointed out that its history is recent, that peer review did not develop because of scientists’ need to trust one another but as consequence of political demands for public accountability. contrary to beall, he pointed out that peer review was never a fixed institution and that the imagined functions of this institution are in flux. in a direct response to beall, swauger (2017) pointed out the beall’s statements depict a publication system that he contended never existed. he wrote: the history of scholarly publishing is less a meritocracy of ideas and more a reflection of who held privilege in society. access to at least one, and often multiple, intersections of privilege were almost a requisite for being considered to join in the scholarly conversation. who and what got published was largely determined by established power structures that favored maleness, whiteness, cis-gendered heterosexuality, wealth, the upper class, and western ethnocentrism. (swauger, 2017, p. 603) even though this is still largely the case, maistry was silent on the politics of scholarly publishing and peer review as an institution. furthermore, the ethics of peer review has come under the spotlight and there are doubts as to the integrity of the current system (for a detailed account, see cawley, 2011). in his article, cawley (2011) identified nine ethical flaws with the peer-review system that currently dominates academic publishing, and then formulates a principle to address each of these ethical flaws that could be the basis of an alternative peerreview system. i shall mention only the first ethical flaw that he outlines, as an example. the first ethical flaw relates to anonymity. cawley (2011) pointed out that anonymity completely protects the reviewer from any consequences for an unethical act and also protects the reviewer from being incompetent. anonymity enables reviewers to steal an author’s ideas and results, delay a paper to allow publication of their own, and so forth. with respect to anonymity, cawley said that a principle of an ideal ethical peer-review system is: in an ideal ethical system of peer review, the reviewers must be made known to the reviewed and to the public. they should be identified by name, affiliation, discipline and speciality. (2011, p. 206) 30 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 as mentioned, cawley did the same for eight other ethical flaws, and formulated eight principles of an ideal ethical peer-review system for each of the ethical flaws. there is, unfortunately, no space to elaborate on them here. the point of this brief discussion on peer review is that the system is not as sacrosanct and stable as maistry implied; it has never been a fixed institution, it has ethical flaws and therefore should be renegotiated. this brings me to a discussion of being and becoming an ethical researcher. some parting thoughts: becoming an ethical researcher smith (2011) argued that an immanent ethics draws the distinction between ethics and morality. morality is defined as a set of constraining rules that guide and judge our actions and intentions. janning (2015) averred that moralistic questioning aims at leading one in the right direction and that the direction has already been defined before the question is asked. he stated that, in contrast, ethics is a set of assisting rules that help one in evaluating what one is doing, thinking, and feeling “according to the immanent existence it implies” (janning, 2015, p. 495). morality asks, “what ought we to do?” whereas ethics asks, “what might we do?” (janning, 2015, p. 495). not only did beall and maistry base their arguments on flawed assumptions, but they placed emphasis on the domain of morality and therefore do not address matters of ethics and what it means to be an ethical researcher. beall lamented what he perceived to be a moral decline vis-à-vis scholarly publications, and maistry (2019) confessed his transgressions (his moral failings) and sought redemption. in doing so, they did not give attention to the importance of being ethical—instead of valorising current (or past) peer-view systems they (and all of us) should ask what can we do to make the peer-review system more ethical (just). at the time of making final changes to this article, i received myriads of whatsapp notifications of articles that expressed the public’s outcry about recently published research authored by researchers associated with stellenbosch university’s department of sport science. the article authored by niewoudt, dickie, coetsee, engelbrecht, and terblanche (2019) entitled, “ageand education-related effects on cognitive functioning in colored south african women” was published in the journal, aging, neuropsychology, and cognition. the online publication appeared on 28 march 2019. following the public outcry, condemnation from several quarters, and a petition signed by more than 2,000 academics and members of the broader public, the article was retracted by the journal and the authors. most of the criticism focused on the ethics of the research published. the article was published in a journal that is deemed reputable; it was published by taylor & francis, employed doubleblind peer review, was indexed in scopus and the social sciences citation index, and so forth. the article would be judged to have met the best standards of academic quality because the container ticks all the right boxes—it would meet beall’s and mouton and valentine’s criteria for academic publishing. yet, the article was judged by many to have not met the criterion of ethical adequacy (and possibly other criteria)—the contents of the container have been judged to be flawed. the case highlights the limitation of focusing quality criteria on the container of academic articles, the inadequacy of peer review, and the importance of doing le grange: on “predatory” publishing . . . 31 ethical research in an unequal world. the latter relates to doing and reporting research that enhances life (both human, and more-than-human) more than ensuring that research is metrically adequate. it concerns not doing research on or about people, but doing research with people (or the more-than-human world)—in intra-action with others—research where, as researchers, we are part of the world of those who participate in the research we do. moreover, when we judge research, we should place emphasis on the contents of the container rather than the container itself. to return to maistry’s emphasis on the domain of morality and predatory publishing. willinsky and alperin (2011) suggested that we should treat the ethical domain as a realm of positive action, which means that we go out of our way to help someone instead of focusing on their (and our own) moral failings. this would mean shifting the angle of vision by not focusing on failings related to open-access publishing, but finding opportunities that open access affords so as to provide access to as many people as possible at low cost. this does not mean condoning counterfeit publishers who scam academics and students. if i am to say anything about goats, it is that we should not use the containers that hold information as scapegoats for the labour required to judge what is authoritative in academic publishing. there is a belgian adage, “if you put a silk dress on a goat, he’s still a goat”—a poor article is a poor article irrespective of the container you put it in. so too, is the case with an excellent article. references beall, j. (2012). predatory publishers are corrupting open access. nature, 489, 179. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1038/489179a beall, j. (2015). criteria for determining predatory open-access publishers (3rd ed.). retrieved from https://bealllist.weebly.com/uploads/3/0/9/5/30958339/criteria2015.pdf beall, j. (2017). what i learned from predatory publishers. biochemia medica, 27(2), 273– 278. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317604149_what_i_learned_from_predator y_publishers brady, n. (2012). from “moral loss” to “moral reconstruction”? a critique of ethical perspectives on challenging the neoliberal hegemony in uk universities in the 21st century. oxford review of education, 38(3), 342–355. cawley, v. (2011). an analysis of the ethics of peer review and other traditional academic publishing practices. international journal of social science and humanity, 1(3), 205–213. csiszar, a. (2016). troubled from the start. nature, 532, 306–308. 32 journal of education, no. 75, 2019 informa. (2017). kamla-raj enterprises and taylor & francis group announce new publishing partnership deal. retrieved from https://newsroom.taylorandfrancisgroup.com/kamla-raj-enterprises-and-taylor-francisgroup-announce-new-publishing-partnership-deal/ janning, f. (2015). towards an immanent business ethics? asian journal of humanities and social studies, 3, 492–500. le grange, l. (2015). ubuntu as ecosophy and ecophilosophy. journal of human ecology, 49(3), 301–308. maistry, s. m. (2019). (re)counting the high cost of predatory publishing and the effect of a neoliberal performativity culture. journal of education, 75, 5–19. mouton, j., & valentine, a. (2017). the extent of south african authored articles in predatory journals. south african journal of science, 113(7/8), 1–9. nicholson, d. r. (2017). predatory publishing practices: is there life after beall’s list? libres, 27(2), 53–70. nieuwoudt, s., dickie, k. e, coetsee, c., engelbrecht, l. & terblanche, e. (2019). ageand education-related effects on cognitive funding in colored south african women. aging, neuropsychology, and cognition. doi:10.1080/13825585.2019.1598538 saltmarsh, s., sutherland-smith, w., & randell-moon, h. (2011). “inspired and assisted” or “berated and destroyed”?: research leadership, management and performativity in troubled times. ethics and education, 6(3), 293–306. smith, d. w. (2011). deleuze and the question of desire: towards an immanent theory of ethics. in d. w. smith & n. jun (eds.), deleuze and ethics (pp. 123–141). edinburgh, uk: edinburgh university press. swauger, s. (2017). open access, power, and privilege: a response to “what i learned from predatory publishing.” college &research libraries news, 78(11), 603–606. retrieved from https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/16837/18435 teixeira da silva, j. a., & tsigaris, p. (2018). what value do journal whitelists and blacklists have in academia? the journal of academic librarianship, 44, 781–792. willinsky, j., & alperin, j. p. (2011). the academic ethics of open access to research and scholarship. ethics and education, 6(2), 217–223. microsoft word biss80 full issue.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 80, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i80a07 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x restorying lived lives in educational research: storyboarding as a creative space for scholarly thinking in narrative analysis inbanathan naicker school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa naickeri1@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2092-0878 daisy pillay school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa pillaygv@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7152-3974 sibonelo blose school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa bloses@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7328-6383 (received: 13 january 2020; accepted: 9 september 2020) abstract traditionally, a storyboard has been used in the film-making industry as part of the preparatory process of film production. in this article, we focus on its use as a creative space for analysis in educational research. specifically, we make visible our learnings, as social science researchers, about storyboarding as an imaginative, tangible, and reflexive space for narrative inquirers to work with the complexity of restorying lived lives in educational research. we draw on sibonelo’s reflections on using the storyboard in his doctoral dissertation and offer our subsequent dialogues on his reflections as the data for this article. our learnings indicate that storyboarding opens-up researcher subjectivity in the restorying process. in engaging critical friends, it serves as a space for the mediation of multiple perspectives and meanings of participants’ lived lives and is an imaginative space in which to filter creatively large amounts of field texts. we thus suggest that storyboarding enhances verisimilitude in the restorying process. keywords: critical friend, narrative analysis, narrative inquiry, productive ambiguity, storyboarding, verisimilitude, visual research naicker et al.: restorying lived lives in educational research 127 contextualising our research we three are south african academics who teach and research in a school of education at a south african university. inbanathan (inba) and sibonelo work in the discipline educational leadership and management and daisy in the discipline teacher development studies. over the past four years, we have collaborated in a transdisciplinary research learning community providing research support for phd students who are employing narrative inquiry as methodology for their studies. our research learning community is comprised of two research supervisors, inba and daisy, and ten students of whom sibonelo was one. as a research learning community, we met once every six weeks, on a saturday, for a full-day engagement on various aspects of the research process to enrich doctoral students’ knowledge and hone their understanding of, and skills in using narrative inquiry. our work in this research learning community is strongly influenced by eliot eisner’s provocative suggestion to conference delegates at the american educational research association conference in 2012 that we make the research process aesthetic rather than anaesthetic (see pithouse-morgan & pillay, 2013). as pillay and pithouse-morgan have explained, “when we think of anaesthetic, we visualise a lifeless body, a numbing experience, of how we can deaden minds rather than bringing them to life” (2016, p. 4). using this analogy has propelled us as educational researchers to consider how we can interrupt the traditional process of working with people’s narratives of their everyday lives generated in the field and turn this into an enlivening, connecting, and embodied experience. in aligning with eisner’s (1997) perspective on engaging in educational research as aesthetic, ambiguous, embodied, and connected, much of our work in this research learning community draws on arts-based methods such as collage inquiry, metaphor drawings, poetic inquiry, and visual research. at each of our meetings, we focussed on different aspects of the narrative inquiry research process. the workshops in which we engaged included a consideration of ethics in narrative inquiry, narrative interviewing, quality standards in narrative inquiry, generating research puzzles in narrative inquiry, using visual methods to generate data in narrative inquiry, and justifying one’s research in narrative inquiry. the focus at one of our gatherings was on the aspect of narrative analysis, a process in narrative inquiry that many novice researchers find challenging. at this meeting, we introduced our students to storyboarding. storyboarding, normally used in the film making industry, is a visual device that is comprised of frames of drawings and/or pictures that capture the essence of particular scenes in a film. in this article, we endeavour to illustrate the potential of storyboarding as an imaginative, tangible, and reflexive space in which narrative inquirers might work with the complexity of lived lives in educational research. we draw on sibonelo’s reflections on using the storyboard in his doctoral dissertation and dialogues we engaged in about storyboarding as the data for this article. we claim that this article is significant for four reasons. first, the article provides narrative inquirers with a device—the storyboard—with/in which to construct narratives from the large amounts of field texts (data) they generate. second, the article 128 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 demonstrates how the storyboard develops reflexive thinking in narrative inquirers in the restorying process, thereby pushing narrative analysis to a deeper level. third, the article extends the scholarly literature on rigour in narrative inquiry by demonstrating how the storyboard can be used to broaden interpretations and re-presentations of the lived lives of people studied by narrative inquirers. fourth, the article interrupts the traditional linear research process from fieldwork to text work because storyboarding offers a creative material space in which to make visible the researcher’s connection with the field texts generated in the research project. the key question that drives this article is: what are we learning about storyboarding as an imaginative, tangible and reflexive space in which narrative inquirers might work with the complexity of lived lives in educational research? in this article, we begin with an account of our curiosity about the process of restorying lived lives. thereafter, we discuss storyboarding in educational research, storyboarding and narrative analysis, and eisner’s notions of productive resistance. the research process we observed in this study is then clarified, and this is followed by the representation and discussion of our evidence in the form of reflexive dialogues. we conclude the article by consolidating our thoughts and ideas with regard to the key question that guides this article. our curiosity in the process of restorying lived-lives narrative inquiry is a study of stories of lived experience (polkinghorne, 2007). it is a selfreflexive research methodology that seeks to understand and make meaning of lived experiences through stories that people narrate (clandinin & connelly, 2000). “the study of stories and the ‘storying’ process is undertaken by various academic disciplines including literary criticism, history, philosophy, organizational theory, and [the] social science[s]” such as education (polkinghorne, 2007, p. 471). since stories are fundamental to narrative inquiry in educational research, the process of storying the lived lives of participants needs to produce a credible account. thus, the question that confronts many narrative inquirers is this: how do we go about the restorying process to produce a trustworthy re-telling? what devices are available to assist us as narrative researchers in the restorying process? a survey of the research literature reveals a dearth of scholarship on the narrative analysis (restorying) process. maple and edwards (2009) confirm the paucity of literature available that explains how to engage with narrative inquiry analysis. james (2017) recounts the onerous processes she had to endure in “moving from collecting ‘data’ to constructing narratives” (p. 3102). she explained that from conversations with other narrative inquirers it became evident to her that “more detailed accounts are needed . . . in published research” of narrative analysis in narrative inquiry (p. 3103). to address the lacuna in research on the restorying process in narrative analysis as narrative inquirers, we explore, in this article, storyboarding as a space in which to re-construct stories of lived experience in educational research. naicker et al.: restorying lived lives in educational research 129 what is a storyboard and what is storyboarding? originally and predominantly, the storyboard has been used in the film-making industry as one of the preparatory processes in film production (greenberg et al., 2012; hart, 2008). in the film industry, the storyboard is described and understood as a pre-production and previsualization device designed to give a frame-by-frame, shot-by-shot series of sequential drawings adapted from the shooting script. this device gives the production team a visual record of the film’s appearance before shooting begins (hart, 2008). in composing a storyboard, storyboard artists use frames (drawn rectangular boxes) to capture each scene of the film, and within each frame, visuals are used to represent a particular event in the film (greenberg et al., 2012; hart, 2008). storyboarding, the process of composing a storyboard, helps arrange a story in an emplotted sequence as a visual text of images (hart, 2008). in 2011, the storyboard made its appearance in educational research. a group of visual researchers engaged participants in a video production process. to aid data generation, the researchers exposed participants to the storyboard as a device to envision and plan video production (mitchell et al., 2011). since these scholars borrowed the storyboard concept from the film industry, their use of it in research was similar to how it is used the film-making industry. they described the storyboard as a visual outline or skeleton made up of a series of drawings or sketches, where each sketch or drawing represents one camera shot (mitchell et al., 2011). see, also, labacher et al., (2012). these visual researchers perceived the storyboard as a significant device that allows participants to plan, organize, sketch, write, rearrange scenes, change descriptions, modify, add, or delete parts to create the complete story before video production (labacher et al., 2012; mitchell et al., 2011). although the storyboard is understood as one piece of the video production process, the visual researchers pointed out that the storyboard provided critical data that should be read as visual text in a research process. they institutionalized storyboarding as a method of generating visual data. while the storyboard in educational research is currently recognized as a device for data generation, both as part of the video production method and also as a method on its own, in this research we see a different purpose of the storyboard which we explicate further in the section that follows. storyboarding and narrative analysis narrative analysis is about “how the stories are produced” (james, 2017, p. 3104). it is about the process of synthesising field texts into coherent stories by drawing on the three commonplaces of narrative inquiry— temporality, sociality, and place (clandinin, 2013). temporality encompasses paying attention to the past, present, and future of participants’ lives. the sociality commonly refers to attending to a person’s personal conditions (such as their feelings, hopes, and desires) and social conditions (the setting under which people’s experiences unfold, such as cultural, social, institutional, familial and linguistic settings) in the narrative. the place refers to the physical boundaries of place or the sequence of places where the inquiry takes place. these factors influence the way field texts are synthesised into 130 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 coherent, emplotted, restoried episodes of a person’s life comprised of a succession of incidents with a beginning, middle, and end (polkinghorne, 2003). conventionally, when restorying field texts, the researcher creates a plot outline. keeping this in mind, “the researcher fills in and links the data elements to other data elements” to produce a coherent story (polkinghorne, 2003, p. 18). interrupting this conventional view of restorying the text moves us as narrative inquirers to a more reflective, emancipatory approach of employing storyboarding as a visual, material space that aids the restorying process. in reflecting critically on the use of storyboarding, we highlight how representational forms become points of departure for creative thinking and creating the possibility of multiple stories and perspectives in the production of creative knowledge (pahl, 2017). engaging in the reconstruction of the storied narratives as a non-linear process using storyboarding has the potential to create opportunities for narrative inquirers to exercise ethical care and responsibility in the production of the storied texts and, thus, to create something altogether novel (deleuze & guattari, 2014). our article builds on and intensifies the rich debates on the reconceptualisation of the storyboard as a visible, material space for the creative engagement with self as educational researchers, and a way of opening up the subjective meaning-making of personal experiences into a set of multiple truths and perspectives. drawing on eisner’s notion of productive ambiguity drawing on productive ambiguity to conceptualise our collective research process for evoking creative knowledge assisted us in considering how storyboarding as a visual, imaginative, and tangible artefact incites openness and a multiplicity of meaning-making in narrative research and how this might bring about change in our ways of knowing as a community of researchers in the field of education. in this article, we highlight how one doctoral student’s experiment with storyboarding the critical, nodal moments of the lives of the research participants, evoked a more reflective, visual, and material space in which to understand the complexity of lived experiences. storyboarding as a visual representation of selected critical experiences provokes us as narrative researchers to negotiate the iterative between the insider/outsider with “less closure and more plausible interpretations of the meaning of the [everyday] situations” (eisner, 1997, p. 8). in reflecting critically on the power of the visual in storyboarding, we explore its potential to enhance different perspectives rather than that of the researcher only (eisner, 1997). framing the storyboard as a space that invites multiple perspectives provokes us as narrative inquirers to engage with the stories of lived experiences in all their complexity. moving beyond the discourse of propositional language for meaning making, the storyboard, as a visual text, invites ambiguity from an “experiential conception of understanding” (eisner, 1997, p. 7). as a practical meaning making process, it opens up the traditional linear and restrictive restorying process of illuminating the lived educational worlds we wish to naicker et al.: restorying lived lives in educational research 131 understand. the storyboard, as an alternative form of data representation, presents images that acknowledge the variety of ways through which our experiences of the research process are coded. importantly, as a productive, ambiguous space it becomes a point of departure for how the transformation of the researcher’s subjective experience “from the personal to the public can occur” (eisner, 1997, p. 4). redirecting and making available the researcher’s creative thinking in these transformations, makes it a potent and emancipatory site for researcher learning and for the production of creative knowledge of lived lives (deleuze & guattari, 2014; pahl, 2017). our research process the data for this article was generated through a two-fold process. first, we drew on sibonelo’s experience of using the storyboard as a space that assisted with the construction of stories. we worked with his reflections on storyboarding that he recounted in his phd study (blose, 2018). sibonelo’s study sought to explore the lived experiences of deputy principals leading schools in the different school quintiles. he generated field texts from five deputy principals using narrative interviews, object inquiry, and collage inquiry. second, we drew on some of the dialogues that the three of us engaged in about storyboarding and its use to narrative inquirers in educational research. after a three-hour storyboarding workshop facilitated by daisy, sibonelo explored with greater insight and depth how storyboarding could assist him in working with the vast amounts of field texts he generated about the lived lives of the teachers he studied. working visually with the storyboard enabled sibonelo to work practically with the development of the emplotments for the reconstruction of the stories of each of his participants. he used his research puzzle as a prompt to construct a storyboard for each of his participants. critical moments in each of the participant’s lives (their anxiety, desires, wishes, achievements, significant others, and socio-cultural practices) were visually captured by the pictures in the storyboard (see figure 1 which shows an excerpt from one of sibonelo’s storyboards). he opted to use pictures rather than drawing because he felt more at ease accessing pictures from magazines. (the pictures have been blurred for ethical reasons). in developing the visual storyboard, sibonelo sought the help of his peers from the phd research learning community to engage with him in selecting his visuals for it. he was often questioned about why particular pictures were selected and he had to justify these choices to his peers. 132 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 figure 1: an excerpt from one of sibonelo’s storyboards (blose, 2018). to capture sibonelo’s experiences with storyboarding, we decided collectively to (re)present his experiences poetically. we did so for two reasons. first, poetry can be successfully used as a device to condense large amounts of text into a more effective a of it (langer & furman, 2004). sibonelo’s reflections of his experiences documented in his phd were quite extensive, so the poetic format helped us to condense and crystallise the narrative text while retaining the crux of the mes storyboard of nomzamo: a go who am i? learning leadership: my principal my mentor connecting with my learners journal of education, no. 80, 2020 : an excerpt from one of sibonelo’s storyboards (blose, 2018). to capture sibonelo’s experiences with storyboarding, we decided collectively to (re)present his experiences poetically. we did so for two reasons. first, poetry can be successfully used as a device to condense large amounts of text into a more effective and evocative presentation of it (langer & furman, 2004). sibonelo’s reflections of his experiences documented in his phd were quite extensive, so the poetic format helped us to condense and crystallise the narrative text while retaining the crux of the message. second, poetry “brings the researcher storyboard of nomzamo: a go-getter brotherly love and sisterly hate learning leadership: my principal respecting the position not the player the big three walking the talk to capture sibonelo’s experiences with storyboarding, we decided collectively to (re)present his experiences poetically. we did so for two reasons. first, poetry can be successfully used nd evocative presentation of it (langer & furman, 2004). sibonelo’s reflections of his experiences documented in his phd were quite extensive, so the poetic format helped us to condense and crystallise the sage. second, poetry “brings the researcher brotherly love and sisterly hate respecting the position not the the big three walking the talk naicker et al.: restorying lived lives in educational research 133 closer to the data in different and sometimes unusual ways that can yield new and important insights” (butler-kisber, 2002, p. 233). we wanted to connect with sibonelo’s experiences of using the storyboard and, we hoped, through our collective meaning-making, to uncover new understandings of storyboarding as an alternative form of data representation in the restorying process. hence, we selected excerpts from his phd dissertation that reflected why he used the storyboard, how he used the storyboard and in what ways, as a creative, visual space in the re-storying process, it expanded his thinking. we looked through the selected data and highlighted key phrases and words that expressed sibonelo’s experiences of storyboarding. we then used the form of the french-malaysian pantoum poem in our co-constructed “a thinking story writing space” to present the key phrases and words because this type of poem, in being comprised of repeated lines, assisted us, in the words of pillay et al. (2016), “to identify and communicate what we saw as most striking and significant” (p. 4) about sibonelo’s storyboarding experience. a thinking story writing space ease narrative analysis camera shot parts of field texts visual outline of sketches camera shot a thinking story writing space visual outline of sketches develop plots from texts a thinking story writing space parts of field texts develop plots from texts ease narrative analysis following our collaborative poetic inquiry engagement, in a three-day writing retreat we engaged in an analysis of the poem to deepen our co-flexive learnings (pithouse-morgan et al., 2015) about the power of storyboarding as an imaginative space in which multiple interpretations of peoples’ lived lives can occur. we spent the first day of this retreat discussing the pantoum poem. our conversations were informed by three key prompts: what does the poem say about storyboarding? how does the poem say it? why is it worth saying? a version of these three prompts was introduced to us by a colleague who used similar ones to elicit the responses of her english education students to poetry (see pithouse-morgan et al., 2015). on the second and third day of the retreat, we worked collaboratively on the transcription and decided to represent our conversations as dialogues. as macinnes and portelli (2002) have reminded us, dialogues have often been used “for the purpose of discovering information or examining particular phenomena” (p. 33). given our quest to explore and learn about the 134 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 process of storyboarding as an imaginative, tangible, and reflexive space in which narrative inquirers might work with the complexity of lived lives in educational research, presenting data as dialogue suited our purpose. after a few readings of the transcripts, we clustered excerpts into a sequence of dialogues. we colour coded key ideas and issues that emerged from our dialogues and then grouped them into two themes—“the power of the visual” and “the critical friend as sounding board.” we then edited the dialogues lightly to enhance fluidity and coherence. findings and discussion the power of the visual in narrative work, there is a particular emphasis on “how we tell our stories.” as narrative inquirers, how we do this “becomes a window to [our] ways of knowing” (munro, 1994, p. 115). as emihovich (1994) explained, research scholars using storied accounts, become “storytellers” (p. 37) and taking on this role with responsibility and care requires serious consideration of the truth-value and authenticity of the storied accounts. as narrative inquirers, we recognize that our being comfortable with narrative accounts as sites of scholarship frames meaning making as tentative, shifting, and multiple. the dilemma that confronts us as narrative inquirers lies in finding ways to collaborate with others and construct agreement about shared meaning and ensure that the narrative texts validate many voices, multiple truths, and creative knowledge. we, therefore, need to ask ourselves, “what would it mean to engage in interpretative work in which there are no claims to fixed meanings?” one way in which educational researchers might choose to make visible their value judgments according to allen (1995), to ensure the inclusion of many voices and stories, is to interrupt the traditional linear process of field texts becoming research texts in narrative analysis. the use of a storyboard as a visual way of knowing has the potential to make visible the process of data interpretation and meaning making through stories. this visual, transitory process also becomes critical to the educational researcher’s making meaning of people’s lives. storyboarding as a visual way of knowing assists researchers in acknowledging that emotion and reason can work in creative material ways to respond to issues of voice, truth, and representation. the reflexive dialogue below highlights the power of storyboarding as visual knowing. daisy: for me to select each of the visuals to create the storyboard, i have to consider whether the visual best captures that critical moment. because i, and not the participant is choosing that visual, i have to know what story the visual is highlighting and the where and when of it. inba: remember that you have to include particular visuals, and there is deep thinking that goes into selecting which visuals you want. there are certain decision-making processes that take place. for instance, why did i choose the picture of a flower over and above the picture of a leaf? naicker et al.: restorying lived lives in educational research 135 sibonelo: of course . . . visuals trigger thinking . . . they help a researcher to think about and imagine a participant’s story to retell it accurately. daisy: i have to ask myself as a narrator, ‘does the visual in storyboarding help to open up the story?’ inba: what thinking informs my decisions about selecting the images for the storyboard i am creating? is it the research focus and purpose; is it the context in which the research is taking place; or is it all of this? the process of selecting images for the storyboard offers a creative space in which to allow for different meanings. we recognise the risks researchers take to move beyond their takenfor-granted ways of knowing and engage, instead, with curiosity and imagination (allen, 1995). as a visual text demonstrating the intersubjective process in the developing of storied accounts, the storyboard has the potential to invite others to participate in the interpretative process since visual images bring to the surface many stories and voices, all of which may advance scholarly thinking and ideas as pahl (2017) has observed. the researcher’s positionality is made available in her or his actively selecting visuals for the storyboard and composing the emerging plot since value judgments are made visible in this way. the potential impact of the visual in composing storyboards lies in harnessing the power of emotion; the visual and its power to evoke feelings animates the narration, bringing to life the researchers’ active co-interpretation in the narration. storyboarding the researcher’s encounter with the data helps to make the research moment an aesthetic experience. as a form of play, choosing “this leaf or that branch” demonstrates the researchers’ desire for flexibility. the desire “to see more options” (allen, 1995, p. 4) deepens awareness and encourages reflection. thinking visually and making a storyboard involves a practice-based understanding that is an alternative vantage point for productive ambiguity. storyboarding, given the power of the visual, offers a way to acknowledge and make visible the intersubjectivity of interpretation as a creative, imaginative process. according to butt et al., (1992), the relationship of the researcher to the autobiographer (in this case, the research participant), is manifested through the text. as these scholars have noted, making visible the role of the researcher as co-interpreter through storyboarding is crucial. the visual images used to create the storyboard highlight how untold stories can be articulated (pahl, 2017) as material knowledge that, as a way of understanding self and other, differently disrupts the traditional linearity of the text in a process that generates multiple meanings rather than a fixed reality and singular truth (bloom & munro, 1994). storyboarding as a visual representation of critical experiences and lived lives “increases rather than lessens” the understanding of the lives examined (bloom & munro, 1994, p. 110). the power of the visual in the storyboarding activity allows for making meaning of the complexity, ambiguity, and contradictions of lived lives. 136 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 the critical friend as a sounding board a critical friend is a trusted colleague who offers alternative perspectives to the researcher’s views, “asks provocative questions, provides data to be examined through another lens, and offers critiques of [the researcher’s] work as a friend” (costa & kallick, 1993, p. 50). in the literature on self-reflexive research, scholars draw attention to the vital role played by critical friends in the research journey in general and in ensuring rigour in the research process in particular (samaras, 2011; schuck & russel, 2005). however, we have not yet come across any studies that explore the role of the critical friend in developing a storyboard to aid narrative analysis in educational research. in the dialogue below, an exposition of the pivotal role of the critical friend in the construction of the storyboard is illustrated. daisy: i suggest an initial dialogue with a critical friend and then the activity of the storyboard. the conversation with a critical friend is important because that person will ask questions [such as] ‘what are important events in the participant’s life that you picked up?’ without working with a critical friend, i would create a storyboard with only my experience of the data . . . the critical friend is important because i need, first, to articulate orally what stood out for me about this person’s life. sibonelo: as you know, my study generated massive amounts of field texts from participants, an average of 45 pages per participant. therefore, i needed to be very circumspect in selecting parts of field work texts to be included in the research text. i think this is where the critical friend came in for me. inba: then, what is the role of the critical friend? is it that the critical friend would be asking, ‘why are you choosing to depict this critical moment? how does this critical moment tie-up with the research focus and purpose?’ daisy: yah! she or he will ask you why . . . what are you leaving out . . . what are you including? the critical friend is like a sounding board. this is also a reflexive process because you have to explain what you want to include . . . why this particular moment? this is one way to deal with researcher bias. it is about redirecting my subjectivity so that my truth does not dominate the story. inba: the critical friend tries to keep in check one’s positionality and also ensure that the research agenda takes precedence over a journalistic agenda. an integral part of the research agenda is to ensure the believability of the story, so the conversation with a critical friend in the storyboarding process improves the believability of it. when one is developing a storyboard, conversation with a critical friend can help to filter the mass of data generated as field texts (maple & edwards, 2009). instead of having the researcher work alone in piecing together the storyboard and thereby colouring the story with her or his subjectivity, the critical friend becomes a useful sounding board in keeping the researcher’s gaze on key life experiences that are linked to the focus and purpose of the study (schuck & russell, 2005). thus, the critical friend, as samaras (2011) advised, is not just a naicker et al.: restorying lived lives in educational research 137 “buddy” (p. 75) who affirms the researcher’s ontological and epistemological perspectives of the storying process. rather, she or he gets the researcher “to dig beneath the surface” to “provoke new ideas . . . and question the researcher’s assumptions” with a view to constructing a storyboard that portrays a balanced view of the participants’ lived experience (samaras, 2011, p. 75). in essence, it is about galvanising the researcher to focus on significant nodal moments in the lived life of the participants so that key “experiences that were previously concealed” become apparent and “new directions become clear” (graham, 1989, p. 16). developing the plot of the storyboard should be viewed as a dialectical process involving the researcher and the critical friend in the dialectical triad of a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis (popper, 2004). the researcher has to justify to the critical friend what gets included in the storyboard and what is excluded since this is the researcher’s thesis based on the key nodal moments of the participant’s lived experience. the critical friend, while being supportive of the researcher, then provides critique by raising points that the researcher may not have thought about for inclusion or exclusion from the storyboard (whitehead & mcniff, 2006). essentially, the critical friend provides food for thought to the researcher to re-examine her or his decision-making processes and to re-imagine the emplotments in the storyboard based on new information provided by the critical friend. any alternative view of the critical friend about the thesis of the researcher provides the antithesis. through ongoing dialogue between the researcher and the critical friend, the researcher soon arrives at an informed decision (synthesis) of what she or he needs to include in the storyboard. given such rigorous cognitive and, in some instances, metacognitive processes in the construction of the storyboard, the research agenda is strengthened because the research story that is ultimately assembled is the product of deep co-flexive processes (pithouse-morgan, et al., 2015). consolidating our learning storyboarding as a visual space evokes and elicits interand intra-subjective meaning-making in the restorying process. it offers possibilities for creating a dialogical space for the reconstruction of the storied narrative by providing a platform for working with the range of field texts in practical ways to articulate multiple plausible interpretations of lived lives. in this concluding section, we return to the key question that informs this article: “what are we learning about storyboarding as an imaginative, tangible and reflexive space for narrative inquirers to work with the complexity of lived lives in educational research?” we draw three key learnings from our inquiry. first, the process and the product of storyboarding allows for researcher subjectivity. while the storyboard is coloured by researcher subjectivity, it also invites other voices (those of critical friends) into the restorying process thereby holding up the researcher’s selection of visuals of key moments of participants’ lived lives to scrutiny and questioning by others. through storyboarding, the researcher’s voice becomes one of many voices rather than being the sole voice in the restorying process. the storyboard thus becomes a polyvocal, co-flexive space (pithouse-morgan et al., 2015) in which the researcher is able to negotiate and justify 138 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 her or his subjectivity to critical friends based on the field texts generated and the focus and purpose of the study. negotiating one’s subjectivity through reflexive dialogues with critical friends contributes to plausible interpretations of restoried lived lives. our second learning about the use of storyboarding in this process is that a storyboard is more than just a thinking space. in being a space for action as well, it is a form of visual praxis. because the storyboard is a co-creation with the help of critical friends, it becomes a space for the mediation of multiple perspectives and multiple meanings. in the mediation process, the thinking of critical friends becomes a resource to help the researcher to rethink the decisions made in terms of the selection of the visuals. this rethinking may necessitate some form of action on the part of the researcher, to either justify the selected visuals as representative of key moments of the lived lives of participants in light of the focus and purpose of the study, or to go back to the drawing board, as it were, and select other relevant visuals. third, storyboarding fosters a creative and imaginative space in the restorying process. our imagination produces images that take us beyond our field texts. it allows us to understand lived lives in their complexity. our imagination allows us to filter large amounts of field texts through the storyboard. the storyboard as an imaginative space and the field texts produce a third space, one in which lived lives can be reconstructed. our three learnings, as explicated above, contribute to a larger agenda of maintaining rigour and establishing quality in the restorying process in narrative inquiry. our learnings show how storyboarding enhances the verisimilitude of the inquiry so that the stories produced ring true in relation to the lived lives of the participants in narrative inquiry. as a material thinking space, the storyboard contributes to the restoried narratives being real and believable. acknowledgements we acknowledge gratefully grant funding from the national research foundation (nrf) of south africa (human and social dynamics in development grant number 118539). we further acknowledge that any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this 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(2006). action research: living theory. sage. critical agency in the post-apartheid education system nazir carrim abstract this paper looks at critical agency in the south african education system. there has been a consistent linking of critical thinking with critical agency under apartheid, and that this was constructed by a ‘critical struggle’ (touraine, 1985) against apartheid domination. however, this changed significantly in the post-apartheid moment, where compliance with the newly elected government is emphasised, and could be viewed in terms of ‘positive struggles’ (touraine, 1986). these, however, limit critical agency in the post-apartheid formation. there is, nonetheless, evidence of critical agency being enacted in the post-apartheid education system. the importance of highlighting those forms of critical agency is crucial in order to enhance social justice in the post-apartheid educational system and society. this paper also links critical agency in the post-apartheid situation with the postcolonial and postmodern conditions because such conditions affect the possibilities of critical agency not only in south africa but more generally. introduction this paper focuses on critical agency in the south african educational system, and i do so from the lens of social movements. part of the reason for the focus adopted here is the argument that for critical agency to be considered as such, it would need to lead to an alternative order, and not just be at the level of individual’s oppositional actions, whether such actions are discursive or in social practices. another reason for the focus on critical agency and social movements in this paper is because of what seems to be a decline in critical agency in the post-apartheid educational system. however, such a view presupposes several things: from relations between structures and agents; what constitutes alternatives in transformative terms; to individual and collective forms of action. in many ways as well, these presuppositions are being called to question because they point to shifts not only from apartheid to the post-apartheid formation but also to shifts from colonial to postcolonial situations (see mbembe, 2001) and from modern to postmodern conditions (see hall, 1992), locally and globally, and the kind of social actions they enable. 8 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 in the first section of this paper i engage with some of the issues related to critical thinking and critical agency by way of clarification mainly. since the focus in this paper is more on looking at critical agency in the context of social movements, i am more concerned in this paper with looking at what types of critical agency in the south african education system results in what forms of social movement actions and how to make sense of these in theoretical terms. in order to do so i use touraine’s (1981 and 1985) characterisation of social movements and apply this to the south african educational context. in the second part of this paper, i engage with some of approaches to understanding social movements and link these to the typology which touraine provides. in this section, the increasing acknowledgement that social movements are more pluralised and dispersed currently seem to suggest that they are more characterised by ‘positive struggles’ in touraine’s terms. such ‘positive struggles’ are also shown to be linked significantly to the material conditions of postmodernity. in this section of the paper i also discuss how such ‘positive struggles’ have manifested themselves in the post-apartheid situation. in the third section of this paper i focus on equal education, a post-apartheid educational movement in order to demonstrate the complexities of critical agency and social movements in the post-apartheid situation. in the last section of this paper, i focus on the implications for critical agency in the postmodern/postcolonial situation and show that ‘front politics’ and pluralised and dispersed forms of social actions, which may or may not converge into collective forms of actions, are more predominant currently. this requires a reorientation to understanding what may be regarded as collective forms of action. the implications this has for understanding current struggles in post-apartheid south africa are also highlighted. it is important to keep in mind that the focus in this paper is on critical agency in education in post-apartheid south africa. although, it is not possible to engage in such a discussion without also looking at social movements in postapartheid south africa more broadly, my focus in this paper is specifically on education. thus, whilst i engage with some theories about social movements, and these cover various sectors of societies and in varying contexts, my concern in this paper is on the education sector specifically, and on critical agency in the post-apartheid educational system. carrim: critical agency in the post-apartheid education system. . . 9 at the same time, it should also be noted that, in this paper i do not cover various movements in the post-apartheid educational system which may be construed as social movements as well, but focus instead on one educational social movement, equal education, as an illustrative example of the complexities of critical agency in the post-apartheid educational context. at the outset it is also important for me to clarify that due to the limitations of space in this paper i am unable to enter into in-depth and detailed discussions about the various issues i raise in this paper. in this paper, i only use touraine’s characterisation of ‘critical and positive struggles’. i do not provide a full account of touraine’s theory. i also look at some theories about social movements. i do so mainly in the context of touraine’s characterisation of ‘critical and positive struggles’ and in order to link touraine with other social movement theories. i also do not cover all the issues that pertain to postmodernity, post-colonialism or the post-apartheid situation. as such, in this paper i open up the issues for further debate and discussion, and i suggest a possible terrain in which such a conversation may be taken further. the limitation of this paper and the brevity with which i deal with the issues i raise in this paper should be kept in mind. critical agency and critical thinking the idea of critical agency in education came to the fore in stark terms with the advent of critical theory and its applications to education, which drew upon and critiqued early marxism (see for example, usher, 1996). the discourses of reproduction and resistance theories of schooling were noted for their contributions to raising awareness of the how schools are superstructurally manipulated to reproduce capitalist orders, and in the wake also significantly informed a critical view of schooling and schools (aronowitz and giroux, 1986). from bowles and gintis’ (1976) theory of the economic reproduction roles of schooling and its correspondence with the socialisation into hierarchies of capitalist relations; bourdieu’s (bourdieu, 1976) account of the ways in which schools act as conservative forces and reproduce and privilege middle class cultural capital; to gramsci’s (see aronowitz and giroux, 1986) view of the political hegemonic role schools play in reproducing state hegemony as ideological apparatuses of state; reproduction theories of schooling point importantly to the need to be critical about what schooling does in capitalist society. 10 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 critical agency in this view, then, implied being critical of the ways in which schools reproduce, maintain and legitimise capitalism (see aronowitz and giroux, 1986; and dale, esland and macdonald, 1976) and taking action in order to work towards a more just social order. how this was possible began to be debated seriously given the overwhelming tendency towards structuralism in such reproduction theories which seem to have reduced any possibility for agency, critical or otherwise (see also aronowitz and giroux, 1986 in this regard). it is in the debates with reproduction theories that resistance theories which foregrounded agency began to increase in significance. willis’ (1981) argument that all forms of reproduction, in themselves, entail agency was a crucial point in these debates. what willis pointed out was that human beings – agents – in structures like schools are not just automatically reproduced into unequal capitalist orders, but through their own agency enable such reproduction to occur. through his research with all boys’ working class schools in england, willis showed how through their own meaning making and choices the boys in such schools landed up being reproduced in working class jobs. reproduction, then, could not be viewed as divorced from agency, and recognising how people as agents make meaning of the structures they inhabit, the ways in which they negotiate such meanings and the types of strategies they adopt to deal with such contexts were important to understand not only with regard to how schooling works, but also the dialectical relationship between structures and agency (see also aronowitz and giroux, 1986 in this regard). it is also important to point out here that within critical theory and marxism the importance of holding together the macro-sociological and microsociological dimensions of social lives, as well as structure and agency are central to the relational thinking that marxism and critical theory employ. for marxism and critical theory there is a dialectical inter-relationship between the macro-sociological and micro-sociological dimensions, and between structure and agency. the one is not without the other. they entail each other, influence each other and construct a dynamic between them that is dialectical (see craib, 1984). the importance of this cannot be stressed sufficiently because it is the basis for the construction of the problematic of critical agency. understanding how macro-sociological forces construct, enable and constrain agency and the ways in which agency at any level impacts on both the micro-sociological and macro-sociological dimensions of social life are crucial to understand. carrim: critical agency in the post-apartheid education system. . . 11 the contours of these debates reverberated in south africa. kallaway’s (1986) seminal work apartheid and education put forward a set of papers which applied both reproduction and resistance theories of schooling in order to analyse apartheid education. christie and collins (1986) article in this book applied reproduction theories in analysing bantu education, and convincingly showed how bantu education was integral to the reproduction of the apartheid order. molteno’s (1987) article applied resistance theories of schooling to show how western cape students exercised agency in their resistance to apartheid and apartheid education. as such, considerations of reproduction and resistance in education in south africa, as well as entering into debates about the relations between structures and agency, were similar to education discourses elsewhere in the world. critical agency in the terms of critical theory and reproduction and resistance theories of schooling, then, means, firstly, being critical of the workings of capitalism, and as such requires critical thinking and critical awareness. secondly, such critical thinking, it is implied, should also lead to critical agency against capitalism domination. the linking of critical thinking with critical agency against capitalism is a consequence of the marxist maxim which states that it is not enough to merely interpret the world, but also to change it (see mark and engels, 1969). influenced by marxist analyses, critical theory and reproduction and resistance theories of schooling, thus, understood critical agency as changing capitalist orders. as such, such analyses highlighted the need for collective actions and not just individual actions since changing capitalist orders necessitate collective actions which go beyond individual actions. in south african education, however, this was a bit more complicated because of the system of apartheid. being critical of apartheid education meant being critical of both its capitalist and racist forms of domination. thus, reproduction and resistance theory applications in south africa indicated how apartheid education reproduced both capitalism and racism. in such applications apartheid was viewed as a system of racial capitalism, not just as a system of capitalism (see kallaway, 1986). these applications to south african education were significant because they also opened up nonreductionist accounts of both capitalism more generally, and apartheid more specifically (see also wolpe, 1988). a caveat is in order here. whilst marxism and critical theory were significant in bringing attention to the importance of being critical of social orders and 12 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 the need to exercise collective actions to change such orders, it would be incorrect to suggest that being critical and the idea of critical thinking originated with marxism and critical theory. critical thinking was indeed present in plato’s account of socrates’ dialogues in the republic (plato, 1920), early educationists such as dewey (1910) also pointed to the importance of education developing critical thinking, and debates within positivism (see hahn, carnap and neurath, 2001) and interpretivism (see hospers, 1990), which predate critical theory, are also replete with rigorous theoretical argument and critical thinking. in south africa, as the kallaway (1986) seminal book poignantly also indicates, there were types of critical thinking and critical agency that existed in pre-apartheid, colonial times and under slavery. what does, however, seem to be different with marxism and critical theory is the linking of critical thinking with critical agency in order to change the material relations and bases of capitalist orders. it is, thus, not coincidental that marxism and critical theory have been significant in informing social movements in the 20 century, from antiracism, feminism and working classth struggles, throughout the world (see also hall, 1992). however, it should be pointed out here that whilst marxism and critical theory significantly influenced the development of such social movements, these social movements also differed significantly with marxism and critical theory by pointing to other forms of domination and oppression – forms of domination and oppression that were not reducible to capitalism – and, thereby also had the effect of pluralising forms of critical agency and social movements (see also hall 1992 in this regard). my purpose in the above is to clarify some of the assumptions that are at work in accounts of social movements. it is not my intention to go into depth about the many debates and nuances about issues of structures and agency, individual and collection actions and critical thinking. as indicated my concern in this paper is more about looking at critical agency and social movements in the south african education system, and i want to use touraine in this regard. carrim: critical agency in the post-apartheid education system. . . 13 touraine and social movements i have chosen to use touraine in this paper because touraine’s characterisation of social movement is helpful in capturing the shifts in apartheid and post-apartheid struggles, as i will show in this section of the paper. in addition, touraine’s account of social movements, whilst mentioned in other analyses of social movements in south africa (see ballard, habib, valodia and zuern, 2013 for example, and which is referred to later in this section of the paper), has not been used sufficiently in the south african context. carrim and sayed (1992), however, have used touraine in their analysis of social movements in the transition from apartheid to the postapartheid situation and in an educational context, and i refer to the analysis they provided in this section of the paper as well. the purpose of this section of the paper is more to clarify touraine’s account of ‘critical’ and ‘positive struggles’, and not so much to review the literature on social movements. i refer to the analyses provided by ballard et al. (2013), taylor (1997), meer (2001) and hart (2012) of social movements in the postapartheid situation in order to locate touraine’s account of social movements within this body of theories. ballard et al. (2013), taylor (1997), meer (2001) and hart (2012), however, do not focus on education specifically in their analyses, and as is usually the case, their analyses deal with social movements in general and look at post-apartheid society as a whole. ballard et al. (2013) suggest that social movements may be viewed as follows: social movements are thus, in our view, politically and/or socially directed collectives, often involving multiple organizations and networks, focused on changing one or more elements of the social, political and economic system within which they are located. (ballard et al, 2013, pg. 2) social movements, then, are collective forms of action, and not just individual actions, as i indicated at the beginning of this paper. in addition, as ballard et al. indicate, these collective forms of actions are not any oppositional action but collective forms of actions that are directed. they are directed at ‘changing one or more elements of the social, political and economic system’. in the context of this paper, this also means that social movements’ collective actions are instances of critical agency – they are directed at changing something – and, they entail critical thinking – being critical about the 14 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 conditions of one’s life. it is also important to note that social movements are made up of ‘multiple organisations and networks’. this is important to keep in mind because social movements bring together various and varying interests and different types of organisations and enable them to converge on a particular issue. ballard et al. (2013) also suggest that: investigations of social movements commonly build upon three central aspects relevant to our understanding of mobilization: the structure of opportunities and constraints within which movements may or may not develop, the networks, structures and other resources which actors employ to mobilize supporters. (ballard et al, 2013, pg.2) taylor (1997) pointed out that mobilisation theory may be viewed as falling into three categories. “these are the dissatisfaction/deprivation approach, the rational approach and the resource mobilisation approach” (taylor, 1997, p.24). taylor describes the dissatisfaction/deprivation approach as dealing with people’s “experiences of frustration and anger to the relative deprivation brought about by their . . . conditions”, the rational approach as one which deals with “people who are motivated to engage with citizen action out of individual self-interest and not psychological feelings of deprivation” and the resource mobilisation approach as based on the understanding “that since political dissatisfaction and social conflicts are inherent in every society, the establishment of movements centres on the creation of organisations to mobilise the potential for change” (taylor, 1997, pp.2–3). for ballard et al. (2013), however, social movement theory which includes mobilisation theory may be seen as having three branches: the political opportunity branch, which looks at what kind of political situations construct what kind of protest actions. “the second branch of inquiry investigates how social movement organisations are formed, what local networks they build upon, what existing institutions they employ, and what access they have to political and material resources. this third area of social movement studies is based upon identity-oriented paradigms which stress the importance of social relationships for any understanding of movement activity; they therefore bring cultural frames including shared meanings, symbols and discourses into the analysis”(ballard et al., 2013, pp.2–4). my purpose in the above discussion is to point out that there have been, and there are, different ways in which social movements have been conceptualised carrim: critical agency in the post-apartheid education system. . . 15 and approaches to social movements have either attempted to combine elements of approaches or to work with such approaches in more a holistic way. ballard et al. (2013) also suggest a more ‘dynamic approach’ to social movements which not only uses the insights of other approaches but goes beyond them in order to allow for a more fluid and ‘dynamic’ sense of social movements in the contexts of globalisation and the transnational character of contemporary social movements. for me, one of the advantages of using touraine’s characterisation of social movements is that it can be used irrespective of the approach to social movement one adopts. touraine’s characterisation of ‘critical and positive struggles’ does not prevent any approach to social movements that one may want to adopt. in this regard ballard et al. (2013), in relation to touraine, also acknowledge: analysts of new social movements such as touraine (1981) and melucci (1989) have underlined the importance of framing, by focusing on subjective elements such as identity, status and values. melucci reminds us that the same experiences and behaviour can be viewed in different ways; meanings depend upon systems of reference .these shared meanings, defined as framing processes by snow and others (snow et al 1986), are central to any understanding of social movement activity (ballard et al, 2013, pg. 4). as ballard et al. indicate above, touraine’s analysis of new social movements, which refers to contemporary forms of social movements, also focuses on ‘identity, status and values’. these, as will be seen below, are used in his characterisations of ‘critical and positive struggles’ and they are useful in viewing the differences in ‘critical and positive struggles’. they also help in understanding the shifts from apartheid and post-apartheid formations. touraine (1981, 1985) distinguishes between what he terms ‘critical’ and ‘positive struggles’ in order to capture the characteristics and developments of and within social movements. as indicated above these distinctions are used in this section of the paper to demonstrate the ways in which critical thinking and critical agency have shifted from the apartheid to the post-apartheid moments in south africa. it is important, though, to first outline what touraine means by ‘critical’ and ‘positive struggles’ before they are applied to the south african educational system. 16 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 table 1: touraine’s characterisation of types and levels of struggles types of struggles positive critical levels of struggle institutional influence access organisational status defense historicity alternative destroy for touraine (1981, 1985) and in relation to table 1, ‘critical struggles’ are acts of defense against crisis, demands of access and attempts to destroy a “truly social domination” (touraine, 1985, p.90). on the ‘institutional’ and ‘organisational’ levels in ‘critical struggles’ the focus is on getting access to institutions and to defend people rights to be in and to be treated equally within organisations. this is because in ‘critical struggles’ people are denied access and/or subject to misrecognition and domination within institutions and organisations. due to these experiences of a ‘truly social domination’, such critical struggles aim to destroy the existing order of social domination in order to put into place another order, on the level of ‘historicity’. this form of a ‘truly social domination’, of which apartheid was one, provided the focus and framed ‘critical struggles’. this is what characterised anti-colonial struggles and is not unique to anti-apartheid struggles. as osaghae (1990) puts it: the liberation of the state from colonial hegemony. this was generally true of various nationalist movements, but was truer in those colonies where the independence struggle was “revolutionary” and involved liberation wars (osaghae, 1990, pg. 15; also cited in taylor, 1997, pg. 23). in these ‘liberation wars’ the aim was to destroy an existing order. there is a vast amount of literature available about the kinds and extent of struggles against apartheid, and there is no need to recount them here. anti-apartheid struggles covered all sectors of apartheid society, and included an armed struggle which was founded by nelson mandela and for which he was imprisoned on robben island and the basis to outlaw the then african national congress, and other political movements, such as the pan-african congress, and forced them into exile. carrim: critical agency in the post-apartheid education system. . . 17 looking at apartheid education, in particular, not only did south africans (and indeed those in the anti-apartheid movement internationally as well) question apartheid education, and exercise critical thinking in relation to what it provided, they also clearly put forward an alternative of a non-racist, nonsexist and democratic educational system for all. this was the case since the beginning of apartheid education with the formation of ‘cultural clubs’ by the then african national congress in the 1960s, through to the formation of the national education crisis committee (necc) and the launching of the people’s education movement in the 1980s to the provision of policy alternatives by the national education policy investigations (nepi) which was a structure that was formed by the necc. various interests and differing political strands were able to converge in such ‘critical struggles’, and against a ‘common enemy’ – apartheid (education). it is in this vein that carrim and sayed (1992) have also argued that the anti-apartheid struggle, as well as resistances to apartheid education, were within this mold of ‘critical struggles’. in providing such alternatives the anti-apartheid movement was able to demonstrate critical agency at the level of ‘historicity’ and thus provided significant critical agency that questioned the reproduction effects of apartheid education, the inherent inadequacies with the apartheid order and the inequities of the political economy of apartheid. central in these developments were the influences of ‘reproduction’ and ‘resistance’ theories of schooling (cf. nkomo, 1990 and kallaway, 1986) which reinforced ideas about how schooling reproduces inequalities within capitalist societies, and the ways in which educational resistances are enacted. however, due to the generating of alternatives, the anti-apartheid struggles did not ‘destroy’ the apartheid order and through the processes of negotiations, through which the post-apartheid dispensation was ushered in, such ‘alternatives’ were also compromised further and did not quite destroy an old order. this impacted on people’s education and diluted its aims through processes of negotiation and compromise (see levin, 1991 in this regard). the politics of negotiations, and the fact that the post-apartheid dispensation is a result of such processes of negotiation, do not make it is easy to simply describe anti-apartheid struggles as clearly defined ‘critical struggles’. this is because in relation to the level of ‘historicity’ (see table 1 above) critical struggles ‘destroy’ orders, they do not negotiate with it. the politics of 18 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 negotiations seem to be premised on ‘alternatives’ since it is ‘alternatives’ that one brings to the table, as it were, when one negotiates. negotiations, then, and the politics thereof, are more within ‘positive’ and not ‘critical struggles’, at the level of ‘historicity’. ‘positive struggles’ for touraine (1981, 1985) and in relation to table 1, are when people generally have access to social goods and institutions and where the social formation is not characterised by blatant forms of domination and oppression. ‘positive struggles’, then occur mostly in democratic societies. however, struggles in these democratic societies are more about the extent people have ‘influence’ within ‘institutions’, the ‘status’ they occupy within ‘organisations’ and the degree to which they are able to enact ‘alternative’ ways of being and thinking. in ‘positive struggles’ then, position, positionality and impact matter most in order to construct alternative orders. ballard (2005) usefully captures this shift to ‘positive struggles’ in the south african context in the following: whereas the need for adversarial struggle for state capture against the illegitimate apartheid state was clear, such unity of purpose does not emerge in the context of a democratically elected government. today’s social movements are no longer affiliated to a political party working towards the capture of the state, as was the case prior to the democratic transition. oppositional movements of the democratic era are more fragmented on what it is that they oppose and what their political project is. opponents of the state have to overcome the familiarity that characterises the postcolonial situation (ballard, 2005, pg. 1). the postcolonial situation, to which ballard refers, has been viewed by many as struggles around (re)defining ‘the nation’ – a nation borne out of anticolonial struggles, and whose identity needs to be forged. as osaghae (1990) also notes: since attaining independence, the liberation goal has been directed towards neocolonialism … the forging of national unity … overcoming under-development, especially in the economic sphere (osaghae, 1990, pg. 15; also cited in taylor, 1997, pg. 23). in gramsci’s terms such contestation around ‘forging national unity’ are ‘struggles of hegemony’, and are complex and dynamic. they involve various interests and various actors, operating on various levels and in several spaces. touraine’s characterisation of ‘positive struggles’ is useful in this regard because it gives one a sense of where and how such struggles occur. ‘positive struggles’ in these postcolonial, democratic societies are more about the extent people have ‘influence’ within ‘institutions’, the ‘status’ they occupy carrim: critical agency in the post-apartheid education system. . . 19 within ‘organisations’ and the degree to which they are able to enact ‘alternative’ ways of being and thinking, as a new nation is constructed. using a gramscian lens, hart (2012) notes: the hegemonic project of the anc government hinges crucially on official articulations of nationalism and claims to moral authority through leadership of the liberation movement. tapping into popular understandings of freedom, justice, and liberation from racial oppression and racialized dispossession, official articulations of nationalism bolster the ruling bloc’s hegemonic project in crucially important ways. at the same time these articulations are vulnerable to counterclaims of betrayal – and to the reclaiming of popular understandings of what is embodied in “the national question.” escalating popular struggles over the material conditions of life and livelihood over the past decade are simultaneously struggles over the meanings of the nation and liberation – struggles that can and do move in different directions (hart, 2013, pg 316). carrim and sayed (1992) also suggest that the post-apartheid formation is more characterised by such ‘positive struggles’ since in the post-apartheid formation, which is a democratic dispensation, people are no longer denied access as was the case under apartheid. people can now contest the extent to which they exercise influence, the status that they have and the extent to which they can meaningfully construct alternative orders; all of which are constantly struggled over and contested by various people with varying interests. using the above as a lens with which to view the shifts in critical thinking and critical agency from apartheid to the post-apartheid situation it is evident that in positive struggles, which predominate in the post-apartheid situation, the emphasis is on engaging with existing institutions, organisations and orders rather than being fundamentally opposed to them. the emphasis, thus, on the level of ‘historicity’ is about enacting an ‘alternative’ and not to ‘destroy’ orders. the question that arises from the above discussion is whether the type of critical agency that was demonstrated in the anti-apartheid struggles is possible within the post-apartheid situation. put differently, and in touraine’s terms, how does one exercise critical agency in ‘positive struggles’ as opposed to ‘critical struggles’? in order to explore possible answers to this question in the following i use the example of equal education, an organisation that emerged in the post-apartheid situation and which seems to manifest characteristics of both ‘critical’ and ‘positive struggles’. 20 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 critical agency in post-apartheid south african education equal education (ee) describes itself as: equal education is a movement of learners, parents, teachers and community members working for quality and equality in south african education, through analysis and activism (http://www.equaleducation.org.za/ accessed 23 july 2014 at 15h00). ee has monitored the activities of the post-apartheid education ministry and has consistently pointed to the ongoing denial of education rights to many south african learners by the post-apartheid’s government failure to ensure access to education among the poorest of the poor; the lack of basic facilities in schools located in mainly under-developed rural areas, lack of sanitation, electricity and other basic facilities in such schools; and, the lack of adequate teaching and learning materials in such schools. ee has grown in national stature and its constituency extends all provinces in south africa. the current campaign of ee is related to ensuring that the department of basic education (dbe) in south africa establishes and implements minimum norms and standards for school infrastructure. the norms and standards for school infrastructure was the focus of the conference held by ee in july 2014 in johannesburg. ee has petitioned government, made various submissions to the dbe, threatened legal action against the dbe, embarked on many protest marches in all provinces in the country and hosted several public meetings to highlight the plight of those schools who, even in the democratic south africa, continue to suffer the indignities of lack of access to basic school facilities and thus are denied to fully realise their rights to basic education. in the light of the above it is fair to state that ee meets the criteria of a social movement as outlined by ballard et al. (2013) and which was cited earlier in this paper. ee is ‘directed’ and focuses on a ‘single element’ within the system. ee also is made up of various types of actors in different organisational structures across the country. ee also carries with it a ‘critical struggle’ dimension in that it continues with the quest to ensure access to basic and quality education for all – this is continuous with the same demands that were made by the anti-apartheid movement, as discussed above. the focus on access is one of the central http://(http://www.equaleducation.org.za/ carrim: critical agency in the post-apartheid education system. . . 21 demands in ‘critical struggles’ on ‘institutional’ and ‘organisational levels’. ee also ‘defends’ the right to educational access. in doing so, ee also highlights the fact that the new post-apartheid educational system is not working for all. however, ee also manifests dimensions of ‘positive struggles’. in the july 2014 conference, the ee states: the norms & standards for school infrastructure require all provincial departments to submit implementation plans to the minister of basic education by 29 november 2014. the conference will discuss how, where possible, to support the provinces in the preparation and the implementation of those plans (ee conference, fixing our schools 1415 july, conference programme, pg. 9). later in the same conference programme ee states: much needs to be done by government, and with the support of civil society and other sectors a lot can be achieved. to monitor what is happening in all nine provinces, and to support implementation, is going to take a collective effort, and a shared strategy going forward is crucial to ensure that adequate school infrastructure becomes a reality for thousands of schools. this norms and standards implementation conference is geared towards those ends (ee conference, fixing our schools 14-15 july, conference programme, pg. 9). in relation to the above quotations three things become evident about ee: 1) it is located in civil society; 2) its concern is about helping government, the dbe in this instance, about doing things right and for all; and 3) it shifts to partnership with government, as opposed to being critical agents against government. ee, thus, enters into more ‘positive struggles’ types of action which aim at increasing their influence and status with and within government. this also renders its potential for generating alternative ways and modes of being minimal. however, what more could ee be expected to do in the post-apartheid situation other than engage in ‘positive struggles’ that focus on the extent of their influence and status within government and within the educational postapartheid system and community? ballard very poignantly points out: struggles in post-apartheid south africa respond, in the first instance, to particular manifestations of exclusion, poverty and marginality. they are very often local and immediate; they are pragmatic and quite logical responses to everyday hardships. activists 22 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 operate to achieve direct relief for marginalised groupings on particular issues. such activists do not focus primarily on opposing the state’s economic path, although they may do so by default, but rather on more specific struggles. this is not to say that they necessarily agree with the current national programme but rather that they choose to focus their attention on particular gains in relation to particular issues. in such situations, engagement with the state may indeed be on the cards. the country has, after all, installed a democratically elected government and given it an overwhelming mandate to pursue its programmes for overcoming the injustices of apartheid (ballard, 2005, pg. 3). this situation raises a few important questions about the extent to which even the actions of ee can be considered as critical agency. if actions taken do not project an alternative at the level of ‘historicity’ then neither in ‘critical struggles’ nor ‘positive struggles’ can they be considered to be actions of critical agency. part of the issue here is that the post-apartheid government as opposed to the apartheid government is not a clearly defined ‘enemy’. it is precisely because of this that movements like the ee cannot easily project the post-apartheid government as an entity it simply cannot enter into partnership with. but, as should be clear from the discussion above, ee is at best in a critical partnership (a notion that began to be increasingly used since 1996 in south africa) with government. the lack of a clearly defined ‘enemy’, however, speaks to pluralisation of spaces and actions and actors in the postmodern situation, not only in south africa but internationally as well. the complexity of postcolonial struggles also reverberates with the postmodern situation. it is to these dimensions and their impact on critical agency that i now turn attention. critical agency and the postmodern condition the pluralisation of spaces, actors and actions possible in the postmodern condition is due to several levels of developments. although it is not possible in this section of the paper to outline in detail the characteristics of this postmodern condition, briefly it may be seen in the following terms. the postmodern condition opens up spaces on the economic, political and sociocultural levels. in economic terms the ascendency of the global economy, which is currently cast in neo-liberal terms, has impacted on the conditions of people work and is driven by the internet (cf. castells, 2001). politically, this has resulted in carrim: critical agency in the post-apartheid education system. . . 23 supranational organisations and forms of democratic participation which have both increased the spaces for various interests and difference to rise. a ‘politics of difference’ and/or a ‘politics of identity’ has thus come to fore (see melluci, 1989), with various assertions of identities organised in social movements ranging from various religious groups, feminist movements, sex/ual orientation focused movements, anti-privatisation groups, environmental groups and so on. if one needs to get a sense of plurality of movements, interests and actors there are in post-apartheid south africa in relation to this, then the following should suffice: the new generation of social movements appeared in earnest once the anc’s second term in office began. the treatment action campaign (formed in 1998), concerned citizens forum (1999), anti-eviction campaign, anti privatisation forum, soweto electricity crisis committee (2000), the landless peoples movement, coalition of south africans for the basic income grant (2001) and the education rights project (2002), have been amongst the more enduring and visible struggles to have reconstituted a vibrant oppositional civil society. countless unnamed small scale and ephemeral struggles have also emerged across the country (ballard, 2007, pg. 6). in these political developments the types of oppositional actions that seem to predominate seem to be more in terms of alliances that are formed and which are enacted in terms of ‘front’ politics where people with various interests converge momentarily in a ‘front’ as a temporary ‘alliance’ which lasts only in relation to a particular issue that has been identified as in need of reactions and oppositions. soon thereafter such alliances dissipate. crucial to note in this is the transitory character of such collective forms of action (see also melucci, 1985; and, brandt, 1986). on socio-cultural levels, ways of being and thinking are also being pluralised in terms of various and varying forms of identities and which also play themselves out in cyberspace. in this scenario, it becomes difficult to identify a clear ‘enemy’ and to mobilise collective forms of actions that would endure beyond a specific moment. it is at this point, then, one is forced to rethink what in fact critical agency could mean within such a situation, of which the post-apartheid situation is a part. i have argued in this paper that the beginning of critical agency is the development of critical thinking, but critical thinking on its own does not constitute critical agency. in the light of this, the post-apartheid education system needs to at least be viewed critically, and critical thinking about what 24 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 it does and does not do, in relation to what and in which terms will need to be enabled and encouraged. without this any potential for critical agency will be difficult to put into place. but this critical thinking needs to be more substantive than merely being critical about the extent to which government in fact realises its own policies in implementation. it will need to seriously interrogate which ways of being, whose forms of thinking and what types of actions and order it promotes. it cannot only be about the extent to which government implements its own policies. the overwhelming tendency to enter into partnership with government, as is also the case with ee as discussed above, have led some to suggest that implicit in such partnerships with government is a de-mobilisation of civil society. meer (2001) has, for example, argued that it is not only critical agency that is being undermined but the effects of current post-apartheid hegemonic processes is to appropriate civil society organisations and thereby de-mobilise civil society itself. hart (2012) has also suggested that it may be useful to conceptualise these constraints on critical agency as akin to gramsci’s notion of ‘passive revolution’. this then leads to the points i raised and arguments i made in other sections of this paper. critical agency in contexts where a clearly defined ‘enemy’ is not present, where a ‘truly social domination’ does not exist, can only mean what individuals can do in dispersed and pluralised spaces of their lives. such forms of critical agency will include exercising critical thinking about the ideologies to which they are subjected, the ways in which they are positioned and the ways in which their ways of being are circumscribed and/or proscribed. these forms of critical agency at individual levels will be about contesting the hegemonic orders that influence their lives. such critical agency could range from contesting the limits of structures; the ways in which such structures constitute and are constituted; the extent to which difference is acknowledged; the types of epistemic worldviews that are assumed; to modes of representation and modes of participation that are promoted. however, it should be made clear that such individual forms of critical agency will not necessarily cohere into a collective social movement or a collective form of action. as i indicated above, the possibilities for such collective forms of actions will, in the postmodern condition, be in ‘front politics’ form and will be about people coming into an alliance around a particular issue for carrim: critical agency in the post-apartheid education system. . . 25 a specific period of time. thus, collective action possibilities would be transitory and issue based. in these forms of collective actions what should be noted is: 1) they are about a particular issue or event; 2) they are global alliances; 3) local and individual actions are rearticulated in terms of the issue being targeted and linked to the alliance; 4) the alliance disappears when the issue is over; and, 5) actors in each alliance may not necessarily be the same. the implications of what has been discussed above is that critical agency in the current situation requires a critical understanding of one’s own situation and an awareness of global connections. critical agency also needs to focus on not only local but global socio-cultural and political economies. thus, with the pluralisation of spaces in the postmodern and postcolonial conditions, possibilities for critical agency at individual and local levels increase, and at the same time it suggests that alternative struggles at the level of ‘historicity’ are more likely to be global in character. it should be kept in mind that the individual and local in relation to the global are not in bipolar opposition but need to be viewed as being dialectically inter-related. the global influences the local and vice versa. in concluding this section of the paper, it is important for me to point out that what in fact constitutes ‘alternatives’ at the level of ‘historicity’ in touraine’s terms and the actual possibilities (and desirability) of ‘destroying’ existing orders may need to be revisited. part of the difficulty with this is the absence of a clearly defined enemy, as i have argued. another part of the complexity surrounding this is also that the level of ‘historicity’ implies a type of metanarrative. such meta-narratives are critiqued and/or denied in both postmodern theorising and conditions (see for example hall, 1992; and usher,1996, in this regard). it is, thus, difficult to understand what the centrifugal force constructed through such meta-narratives and which allow struggles to cohere at the level of historicity could mean under such postcolonial and postmodern conditions. i have suggested above that one form this could take is in ‘front politics’ but these are transient. further engagement with this will be necessary in order to get a better understanding of critical agency may mean in current times. finally, i also need to indicate that touraine’s typology of ‘critical and positive struggles’ which i have used in this article cannot be viewed as clearly separated from each other. i have shown that ee manifests both elements of ‘critical and positive struggles’. touraine’s typology, thus, remains useful if viewed as over-lapping with each other, rather than being 26 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 distinct. this seems to be more the case in postcolonial contexts, where legacies of neo-colonialism to which mbembe (2001) and osaghae (1990) refer. in such postcolonial contexts, as in south africa, where legacies of apartheid persist whilst constructing a post-apartheid order, ‘critical and positive struggles’ could, as i have shown with ee, operate simultaneously. in this regard, then, i think it will be necessary to realise that critical agency will be continuous with past forms of ‘critical struggles’. critical agency will be also different and discontinuous with ‘critical struggles’ as it is (re)defined and (re)articulated in complex contemporary pluralised societies. what critical agency could mean under such conditions, and in ‘positive struggles’, will also need further engagement. conclusion the primary focus in the paper has been to look at what could be considered to be social movements using critical agency in a post-apartheid situation and the extent to which such social movements may be considered to be leading to alternative social orders. i have argued in this paper is that the post-apartheid situation seems to be more characterised by ‘positive struggles’ and issues of influence and positioning seem to predominate. whilst such positive struggles reflect both critical thinking and critical agency they do not necessarily lead to alternatives at the level of ‘historicity’. looking at equal education (ee), i have shown that ee represents a type of social movement in the postapartheid educational system that manifests both ‘critical’ and ‘positive struggles’, and as such demonstrates a critical agency at moments, but, at other moments, it also manifests tendencies to reinforce the construction of a dominant existing order in its partnerships with government. in this regard, i have argued that the limitations of what may possible to movements such as ee reverberate with the constraints of collective socio-political action in postmodern and postcolonial conditions. in relation to postmodernity and post-colonialism, i have been pointed out that collective actions tend to be more in the form of ‘front politics’ which utilise alliances among various people and groupings, with varying and multiple interests. such alliances also tend to be transient and issue focused. in such a scenario, social movements against a ‘truly social domination’ seem to be less possible. i have also pointed out in this paper that what may be seen to constitute alternatives at the level of ‘historicity’ in such post-apartheid and postmodern conditions needs to be explored in further serious debate and discussion, since moving towards carrim: critical agency in the post-apartheid education system. . . 27 more just social orders, locally and internationally, depend on such theories to inform future critical agency. references aronowitz, s. and giroux, h. 1986. education under siege. massachusetts: bergin and harvey publishers, pp.69 –114. ballard, r. 2005. social movements in post-apartheid south africa. 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(eds), understanding educational research. london: routledge, pp.9–32. willis, p. 1981. learning to labour. new york: columbia university press. wolpe, h. 1988. race, class and the apartheid state. london: james curry publishers. website http://www.equaleducation.org.za/ http://www.equaleducation.org.za/ 30 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 nazir carrim division of studies education wits school of education nazir.carrim@wits.co.za mailto:nazir.carrim@wits.co.za school science for six-year-olds: a neovygotskian approach to curriculum analysis anya morris, joanne hardman and heather jacklin abstract this article examines the forms of knowledge that constitute ‘science’ in the early school curriculum in south africa. we examine curriculum excerpts which represent the subject ‘science’ in key curriculum texts for grade r, the year in which learners are generally sixyears-old. drawing on neo-vygotskian theory, these representations are described in relation to simple scientific concepts, i.e. concepts that are consistent with scientific criteria and function as entry level concepts leading to the acquisition of more complex scientific concepts. the study found that these key curriculum texts do not represent any science concepts in ways that conform to the criteria for simple scientific concepts. instead, these texts represent most science knowledge in terms of everyday concepts while a few concepts are introduced in a way that could potentially prompt the grade r educator to translate an everyday concept into a simple scientific concept, i.e. as ‘potential’ scientific concepts. the implications are that the curriculum is not oriented to giving grade r learners the opportunity to acquire the form or content of scientific knowledge or to develop the cognitive skills required for formal schooling. introduction south africa is concerned. approximately 60% of children do not complete their schooling (klinck, 2013) and high school learners are underperforming in science and mathematics (klinck, 2013; timss, 2011; dbe, 2011d). one of the reasons that children in higher grades are struggling to acquire more 138 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 we have chosen science as the object of our paper because science integrates knowledge,1 mathematics, literacy and critical thinking skills. in doing so, we differentiate between ‘scientific knowledge’, or schooled knowledge, including, for example, history, and ‘science’ as a discipline or school subject. complex science concepts may be found in the way science concepts are1 introduced in the early years of schooling. there is growing research evidence for the claim that children are able to grasp scientific concepts at an early age and that they benefit from doing so. young children can think abstractly and are cognitively more competent than was suggested by developmental theorists in the early 1900s (winklerrhoades, carey, and spelke, 2013; haynes and murris, 2012; fleer, 2010; ginsberg and golbeck, 2004; egan, 2002). neuroscience has confirmed that most of the brain’s physical development takes place before they enter formal schooling (shonkoff and phillips, 2000). according to the longitudinal high/scope perry preschool study (2005), quality early education supports academic, personal and social competencies in adulthood. with regard to science, specifically, sylva, melhuish, sammons, sirajblatchford and taggart (2004) argue that learning about science contributes qualitatively to early education and that a limited exposure to science in the early years may create a barrier to the later learning of science (see also mantzicopoulos, patrick and samarapungavan, 2008). as preschool children are more likely to be exposed to mathematics and literacy in the home than to science, many children begin their schooling with a relative deficit in science (mantzicopoulos, patrick and samarapungavan, 2008). against this background, the study reported here examined how – if at all – scientific concepts are introduced in south african curriculum texts pertaining to grade r, the year in which learners are six year olds. our interest is whether this representation is likely to support the later acquisition of more complex scientific concepts. theoretical framework this study adopts a neo-vygotskian perspective on early science acquisition. this study therefore is located in the dialectical logic of vygotsky, rather than morris, hardman and jacklin: school science for six-year-olds. . . 139 in the more traditional binary logic of classic western theories of development. the neo-vygotskians comprise a large and diverse group. the ideas employed here are drawn from scholars who focused on early child development and knowledge i.e. vygotsky’s russian students and followers such as luria (1976) and zaporozhets and elkonin (1971), and westerners such as hedegaard (2002) and fleer (2010). the study drew heavily on davydov (1990, 2008) whose work spans the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. the ideas of the neo-vygotskians regarding knowledge and learning can be contrasted to piagetian informed discovery based approaches that are relatively common in this field of scholarship and implicitly underpin many south african curricular texts (french, 2004; gelman and brenneman, 2004; ginsberg and golbeck, 2004; lind, 1998; skamp, 1998; doris, 1991). while piaget’s idea of developmental stages is at times interpreted as placing limitations on young children’s cognitive competencies, scholars such as winkler-rhoades, carey and spelke (2013), haynes and murris (2012), fleer (2010), ginsberg and golbeck (2004) and shonkoff and phillips (2000) argue that learning school knowledge can enhance cognitive development. davydov views school knowledge as “. . . one of the most significant sources of the school children’s psychical development’ (2008, p.191) while sylva, et al. (2004) found that learning science contributes qualitatively to cognitive development in the early years (see also harrison, 2011; fleer, 2010; bodrova and leong, 2001). this view does not imply that the majority of six-year-olds can think in terms of complex scientific concepts, nor that they are capable of formal operational thinking. however, it does suggest that, in general, six-year-olds can acquire simple scientific concepts. simple scientific concepts the notion of a simple scientific concept was derived from vygotsky’s distinction between spontaneous concepts based on everyday experience, which we might call everyday knowledge, and scientific knowledge (vygotsky, 1962 and 1978). vygotsky viewed these as two opposing but complementary knowledge structures. it is important to note here that the dialectical logic underpinning vygotsky's work means that spontaneous concepts cannot be viewed outside of scientific concepts and vice versa. an analogy animates this point: when one looks at a piece of string one sees only 140 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 the string, however, the string is made up of fibres. without the fibres there is no string and without the string the fibres cease to have a meaning. the same is true of scientific and spontaneous concepts. for developmental learning to occur, both concepts are necessary. this distinction has been developed in light of neo-vygotskian perspectives on school knowledge (davydov, 1990, 2008; hedegaard, 2002; fleer, 2010). from a neo-vygotskian perspective, everyday knowledge comprises randomly organised isolated ideas that are easily perceived through the senses. scientific concepts, on the other hand, are units of scientific knowledge which can be distinguished from everyday concepts because they have the following features: ! scientific concepts are systematically interrelated within hierarchical academic knowledge systems. ! as scientific concepts are positioned within a hierarchical structure, they are mediated by other scientific concepts. ! scientific concept formation requires higher order thinking and involves abstraction, systemisation and generalisation. ! scientific concepts are couched in academic language. ! scientific concepts are generally acquired through schooling (vygotsky, 1962). vygotsky’s notion of scientific knowledge was extended by the neo-vygotskians in the following three ways: firstly, each scientific concept constitutes its referent in relation to essential and non-essential attributes. essential attributes are the primary attributes of an object or phenomenon which uniquely define and distinguish the object or phenomenon from other objects or phenomena (davydov, 1990). davydov illustrates this notion with the following example: the two essential attributes of a triangle are three straight sides and three angles. the non-essential attributes would be the colour and size of the triangle. if the essential attributes change then the shape is no longer a triangle; if the non-essential attributes change the triangle still remains a triangle. the notion of essential attributes or properties as essential, inherent, and constant is one of the rules governing a scientific concept. in other words: morris, hardman and jacklin: school science for six-year-olds. . . 141 science strives to advance from the mere description of phenomena to the discovery of the essence of their internal connection. it is well known that essence has a content that is distinct from the immediate given properties of objects or phenomena (davydov, 2008, p.76). secondly, a scientific concept is an integral two part structure comprising content and procedural knowledge. ‘scientific knowledge, however, cannot be reduced to the verbal definitions of scientific concepts but should include procedural knowledge relevant to these concepts as well’ (karpov, 2005, p. 182). in the absence of essential attributes content knowledge does not exist, and in the absence of content knowledge procedural knowledge as the related internalising processes does not exist. procedural knowledge is, in simple terms, knowing how to work with a concept. davydov explains: mastering a concept means not only knowing the attributes of the objects and phenomena embraced by the given concept but also being able to apply the concept in practice, being able to operate with it (davydov, 1990, p.11). in simple terms this means, for example, that six-year-olds can sort a group of diverse shapes into ‘triangles’ and ‘other shapes’ by operationalising the two essential attributes of a triangle i.e. ‘does this shape have three straight sides and three angles or corners?’ thirdly, vygotsky’s notion that scientific concepts are acquired through schooling was developed with regard to the relation between scientific knowledge and schooling as specialised contexts of acquisition. thus school knowledge is sanctioned, selected knowledge framed by a particular context for the purpose of schooling children (fleer, 2010; morais, neves and pires, 2004; hedegaard, 2002; rogoff, 1990). within schools, empirical concepts based on experience are restructured as scientific concepts (hedegaard, 2002). the primary feature that differentiates empirical concepts from scientific concepts is that the former are context-dependent e.g. it snows in winter, whereas scientific concepts are universally applicable and transferable across contexts e.g. the seasonal changes in winter are caused by the earth moving away from the sun. within schools there is, ideally, a distribution of knowledge that reflects progression from simple scientific concepts towards more complex concepts. for example, the notion that ‘plants require light and water in order to grow’ introduces a set of interrelated relatively simple concepts that are positioned at the beginning of the scientific knowledge continuum (plants, light, water, 142 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 grow). these underpin more complex concepts e.g. h20 and photosynthesis, positioned further along the continuum. a highly complex scientific concept e.g. e = mc2 is underpinned by understanding complex concepts such as gravity, mass and speed of light; these concepts are, in turn, underpinned by simpler concepts such as speed, size which, in turn, depend on understanding basic concepts such as heavy and light, fast and slow. thus simple scientific concepts bridge the young children from the everyday world into the world of science. we note that everyday and scientific concepts are necessarily dialectically linked but for the purpose of this paper we focus our analytical gaze on the scientific concepts. for purposes of this study, we have drawn on these ideas to develop the following conceptual framework: 1) a simple scientific concept is defined by the following criteria: ! a simple scientific concept has two or more essential attributes ! although a simple scientific concept is couched in language that is likely to be understood by six-year-olds, simple scientific concepts also employ specialised terms that are universally understood to represent the same thing ! a simple scientific concept is part of an ordered, hierarchical knowledge system within which concepts are systematically interrelated. ! a simple scientific concept is transferable across contexts 2) each simple scientific concept has two integral parts: ! content knowledge ! procedural knowledge i.e. the mental processes and activities related to the acquisition of the content knowledge. 3) a simple scientific concept underpins more complex scientific concepts. morris, hardman and jacklin: school science for six-year-olds. . . 143 methodology the study focused on the way science knowledge is represented in the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) grade r beginning knowledge texts, which stipulate the science content for six-year-olds in public schools in south africa. to this end, we analysed selections from three texts: the curriculum statement for grade r, the workbooks that have been issued nationally to grade r learners and the caps curriculum statements for science for grades one to six. the data was organised into three categories as follows: 1. twenty two data segments were selected from the national curriculum statement (ncs), curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) grade r science study area beginning knowledge (dbe, 2011a, pp. 15–21) as the primary data for analysis. the following is an example of a primary data segment, reproduced exactly as it appears in the curriculum text: topic: fruit – 2 hours ! different types of fruit ! tastes and textures of fruit ! where fruit comes from ! colours and shapes of fruit (dbe, 2011a, p.19). the data segments were grouped according to the concept they represented and coded from c1 to c18. 2. four grade r learner workbooks (dbe, 2012a; dbe, 2012b; dbe, 2012c; dbe, 2012d) were issued nationally to grade r children in 2013 by the department of basic education. these workbooks are officially sanctioned grade r resources. selections from these texts function as supporting data sources for this study as they 1) extrapolate and elaborate the 22 primary data segment descriptions which are each limited to between two and six sentences, and 2) function as the internalising agents for the primary data segments. 144 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 3. in order to describe the grade r science concepts in terms of their relations to other more complex concepts taught later (ai: 3) the study needed to look beyond grade r. to this end, we included two relational data sources from the current caps science curriculum for children between seven and twelve years old i.e. beginning knowledge from the national curriculum statement (ncs), curriculum and assessment policy statement foundation phase grades r–3: english life skills (dbe, 2011a: pp.30–67), and the national curriculum statement (ncs), curriculum and assessment policy statement intermediate phase grades 4 –6: natural sciences and technology (dbe, 2011b). the three sets of data above were selected because they are the widely available officially sanctioned texts used by teachers in public schools to teach science to most south african children. the analytic framework the purpose of the analysis was to establish whether text extracts representing science concepts represented these as simple scientific concepts. the analytical framework was developed as follows: 1. the conceptual framework was first translated into the following set of analytic indicators for simple scientific concepts: ai: 1. how does the grade r curriculum represent the defining features of a science knowledge concept with regards to: ! its attributes ! the degree of specialisation of language ! its relation to other concepts ! its relation to context ai: 2. how does the grade r science curriculum represent the structure of a science concept with regards to the relation between content and procedural knowledge? ai: 3. how does the grade r curriculum represent science concepts with regards to the relation between simple and complex concepts? morris, hardman and jacklin: school science for six-year-olds. . . 145 although morris (1992) is over 20 years old the content proved to be a consistent and 2 reliable source of ‘settled’ scientific knowledge. the scientific definitions provided by morris (1992) were concise and simple and therefore could be adapted for the purpose of teaching science to six-year-olds. these analytic indicators needed not only to be present but also to be scientifically correct. for example, the ability to fly might be given as an attribute of a bird, but this is not an essential attribute. this analysis is premised on the idea that there are scientifically correct definitions for the phenomena studied in science. of course, we realise that this is not strictly speaking true. at the level of scientific research, science knowledge is unsettled and constantly revised, and it is appropriate that learners should recognise this. however, school science is primarily concerned with knowledge that is – at least for the moment – settled, and agreed between scientists. for example, scientists agree that not all birds can fly, or that a triangle has three angles and three straight sides. we adapted definitions found in a science dictionary to construct simple scientific definitions of the concepts referenced in the curriculum segments. this enabled us to evaluate, by comparison, whether the descriptions of the concepts offered in the curriculum were correct. for example: grade r beginning knowledge topic the neo-vygotskian notion of simple scientific concept content topic: fruit – 2 hours ! different types of fruit ! tastes and textures of fruit ! where fruit comes from colours and shapes of fruit (dbe, 2011a, p.19) fruit: in some plants the ovary of the plant grows into a fruit after the flower has died. fruit usually contains the seeds of the plant. examples of fruit are tomatoes, apples, avocado, pears, beans, oranges (adapted from morris, 1992, p.888 )2 the following rating scale was developed, based on the indicators identified in the analytic framework: 146 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 2. for purposes of comparison, the rating scale enabled us to quantify the description of each data segment. each criterion was given a score of 2. ! a score of 2/2 indicated that the criterion is explicit and entire. a data segment that scored 12/12 was considered to represent a simple scientific concept because it met all the criteria i.e. 1) the statement included an explicit definition containing two or more essential attributes which uniquely differentiate the concept from other concepts; 2) the representation of a concept included two or more simple scientific terms; 3) there was some indication of the position of the concept in relation to other concepts on the scientific knowledge continuum; 4) both content and procedural knowledge were referenced; 5) the representation of the concept was transferable to other contexts, and 6) the concept potentially underpins more complex scientific concepts. ! a score of 1/2 indicated that the criterion was implied or partially represented in some way in the text. a data segment that scored $ 5/12 #11/12 was considered to be a potential scientific concept. the term ‘potential scientific concept’ is introduced in this study to refer to a concept which contains parts of, and/or infers the features of a simple scientific concept and implicitly leads the teacher towards representing morris, hardman and jacklin: school science for six-year-olds. . . 147 factual but within a specific context e.g. when the educator tells the class that ‘in winter it 3 snows and people wear warm coats’. scientific concepts. the term potential scientific concept does not pertain to vygotsky’s idea of a potential concept, although it does relate in part to vygotsky’s idea of pseudoconcept and to hedegaard’s description of an empirical concept. the notion of ‘potential’ in this context pertains to3 pedagogical rather than developmental potential. realising the scientific ‘potential’ of a science concept rests on the likelihood of the grade r educator interpreting and translating the partially described or implied concept into an actual simple scientific concept, in the classroom. ! a score of 0/2 indicated that there was insufficient or no evidence of the six simple scientific criteria. a data segment that scored # 4/12 was considered to be an everyday concept: it defines an idea in terms of a person’s everyday context-dependent sensory experiences and observations of the visible and obvious features of an object or phenomena. everyday concepts are scientifically unacceptable because they are couched in everyday terms, are not transferable and do not portray the ‘essence’ of a concept. everyday concepts can be erroneous e.g. a child thinks that a whale is a fish because she has observed that a whale looks like a fish and, like a fish, lives in water. 3. the three analytic indicators were each brought to bear, in turn, on each of the primary data segments c1– c18 (dbe, 2011a) and the supporting data in the four grade r workbooks (dbe, 2012a; dbe, 2012b; dbe, 2012c; dbe, 2012d). indicator a1: 3 (how does the curriculum represent the defining features of a science knowledge concept with regards to its relation to context?) was also brought to bear on the related science topics in the grade 1–3 foundation phase life skills and the intermediate phase science curricula (dbe, 2011a; dbe, 2011b). a description of each of the 22 grade r science knowledge concepts was generated. each description was then rated according to the science concept type rating scale and benchmark criteria. on the basis of this analysis, we categorised the data segments into the knowledge types: simple scientific concepts, potential scientific concepts and everyday concepts. this is illustrated in the table below. 148 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 findings and discussion none of the topic statements in the data met the criteria for simple scientific concepts by scoring 12/12, as can be seen in table 1, below, which offers an overview of the findings. seven of the fourteen grade r topic statements were rated as potential scientific concepts ($ 5/12 #11/12). these seven potential scientific concepts have some scientific features and are represented in ways that could prompt the grade r educator into translating everyday representations into simple scientific terms. the following representations in the grade r beginning knowledge curriculum may prompt a simple scientific definition: 1) a topic title that is unfamiliar to the grade r learners e.g. ‘weather’ (dbe, 2011a, p.17); 2) a pertinent question, e.g. ‘what is a wild animal?’ (dbe, 2011a, p.21); 3) images of the concept in relation to the open-ended statement ‘look at the picture and talk about . . .’ (dbe, 2012a, pp.3, 13; dbe, 2012c, pp.3, 13, 23, 42; dbe, 2012d, p.3, 33) and 4) a requirement in the workbook activities that needs to be explained to six-year-olds who cannot read. if the morris, hardman and jacklin: school science for six-year-olds. . . 149 curriculum’s lexicon is very simple the grade r educator may also be prompted into sharpening the concepts into more scientific terms. in the case of potential scientific concepts, the translation of the everyday into the scientific rests on the grade r educator. while this is not specifically stated as an outcome in the caps documents, as we have mentioned, for teaching to be developmental, that is to move students to cognitively new ways of knowing, concepts cannot be left at the level of the everyday. this would lead solely to empirical rather than theoretical knowledge. for example, the topic ‘weather’ in workbook 2 (dbe, 2012b) provides images of snow. one teacher might decide to say: ‘in winter, when the earth tilts away from the sun, the weather becomes colder and in some places rain becomes snow’ (a simple scientific definition). another teacher might say: ‘it snows in winter’. this latter explanation is scientifically erroneous as it does not snow in winter in all geographic areas. educators’ responses cannot be easily predicted. in the absence of explicit scientific definitions and related scientific procedures in the grade r curriculum, the educator is likely to translate the grade r science curriculum representations according to her own science knowledge, her understanding of a six-year-old’s competencies and her approach to early science education. in south africa, very few grade r educators are graduates or pre-primary specialists (umalusi et al, 2010). the majority have an eighteen month part-time level 4 or 5 certificate in early childhood education (ecd) and have been drawn from the field of educare where the focus is on health, safety and the child’s emotional and social well-being. this would suggest that it is unlikely that most grade r teachers would have the level of science knowledge or of science pedagogy that would enable them to translate potential simple scientific concepts into actual simple scientific concepts. instead, there is a real danger that teachers would most often represent these topics in everyday knowledge terms. furthermore, in the south african context, well-resourced schools that serve advantaged communities are more likely to have well-trained specialist teachers than schools in poorer areas. this is likely to exacerbate existing class based inequalities in epistemological access. furthermore, the grades 1, 2 and 3 science subject area beginning knowledge is structured in a similar way to the grade r science curriculum. this suggests that there is a strong possibility that the problems described here, in relation to the grade r curriculum, would also apply to the whole foundation 150 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 phase curriculum. if the acquisition of simple scientific knowledge begins only in grade 4 it is understandable that south african school children score poorly on international rating scales (timss, 2011) and that there is a dearth of grade 12 maths and science learners (dbe, 2011d). everyday concepts seven of the fourteen grade r science concepts presented in the curriculum were categorised as everyday concepts (>4/12), on the grounds that the description of the concept was not only incomplete with regard to key features of a simple scientific concept but also scientifically inaccurate. this means that teachers are not guided by the curriculum towards a pedagogy that potentially realises these as simple scientific concepts. instead, with regard to these topics, the curriculum texts guide teachers of most six-year-olds in south africa towards representing science in terms of everyday concepts. this finding gives grounds for considerable concern. learning scientific knowledge is developmental in that young children develop cognitive competencies and learn about abstraction through the process of acquiring simple scientific knowledge (fleer, 2010; davydov, 1990, 2008; hedegaard, 2002). in other words, in the absence of the teaching and learning of simple scientific concepts young children are unlikely to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for formal schooling. while caps documents focus on students learning through experiential engagement with concepts, we would argue that this leaves the engagement solely at the level of everyday concepts, leading to empirical knowledge. we argue, therefore, that caps is limited in its focus on children learning experientially solely through play and exploration. the kind of knowledge acquired in this way can be very problematic. an example illustrates our argument: a whale, fish and shark all swim in the ocean. therefore, empirically, a whale is of the same species as a fish or shark. a cow bears no resemblance to a whale and therefore is completely different to a whale, empirically. of course, a whale and a cow are mammals, whereas a fish and a shark are not. if one learns only through empirical everyday experiences, the knowledge gained can very often be incorrect. the lack of dialectical logic underpinning caps is, therefore, problematic. for optimal teaching scientific and everyday concepts need to be linked so that children can develop cognitively. morris, hardman and jacklin: school science for six-year-olds. . . 151 as has been mentioned above, there is considerable research support for the claims that six year old children can and should learn to think abstractly (winkler-rhoades, carey, and spelke, 2013, haynes. and murris, 2012; fleer, 2010; ginsberg and golbeck, 2004; egan, 2002); that learning scientific concepts is an important vehicle for teaching abstract thought (sylva, et al., 2004) and that a limited exposure to science in the early years and less than ideal pedagogical practices can create barriers to the later learning of science (mantzicopoulos, et al., 2008).this would suggest that offering learners the opportunity to learn scientific concepts is part of a quality early education, and it is widely accepted that children who have had a quality preschool education are significantly advantaged in adulthood (schweinhart, 2003). grade r science topic concepts rating benchmarks type of science concepts for six-year-olds – the human body (c1, c1.1, c1.2, c1.3, c1.4)) – colour (c3) – weather (c4) – birds (c13) – reptiles (c13, c14) – time (c17) $ 5/12 #11/12 potential scientific concepts each concept representation contains sufficient but not all of the features of a simple scientific concept. although there may be some omissions and scientific countering, the representations may prompt the grade r educator to translate an everyday concept into a simple scientific concept. – shape (c3) – fruit (c8) – vegetables (c9) – water (c7) – domesticated animals (c10 , c11) – seasons as in summer, autumn, winter and spring (c2, c5, c6, c12) – wild animals (c16) # 4/12 a type of factual but context-dependent concept. this representation does not point the teacher towards pedagogic. . . (no segments met these criteria) 12/12 simple scientific concepts while table 1 provides an overview of the findings, we elaborate how we arrive at these findings by animating an example from the research below in relation to the knowledge concepts ‘domesticated animals’: 152 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 the following two grade r curriculum topics, ‘dairy farming’ (c10) and ‘wool farming’ (c11) represent the concept ‘domesticated animals’: topic: dairy farming – 2 hours ! dairy products and the animals they come from ! how we get butter (dbe, 2011a, p. 20). topic: wool farming – 2 hours ! a sheep farm ! where wool comes from ! uses of wool (dbe, 2011a, p.20). these topics and the related supporting activities (dbe, 2012c) were analysed according to the following scientific definitions. the first definition is how scientists think about domesticated animals and is represented in a science dictionary (morris, 1992); the second is a simple scientific definition for six-year-olds created from the dictionary definition for the purpose of analysing the grade r science curriculum’s representation of domesticated animals: domesticated: biology. to control or adapt an animal or plant for human use or life with humans (morris, 1992, p.671). domesticated: animals that humans keep and live with because they are helpful to us in some way (based on and adapted from morris, 1992, p.671). the essence of domesticated (and, its counterpart, wild) is that it pertains to the human perspective e.g. we consider crocodiles who roam freely in the kruger park as wild but, when crocodiles are farmed for their hide, the crocodile has become domesticated in terms of human use. domesticated animals, as in the topics above, pertain to a particular context i.e. the agricultural. pets are also domesticated animals but the context differs. 1. how does the grade r curriculum describe the defining features of the concept domestic animals as represented by the curriculum topics ‘dairy farming’ (c10) and ‘wool farming’ (c11) with regards to: ! its attributes morris, hardman and jacklin: school science for six-year-olds. . . 153 the concept, domesticated animals, which is inferred in the topics ‘dairy farming’ and ‘wool farming’, is made more explicit in workbook 3’s ‘farm animals’ (dbe, 2012c, pp.22–25). the two page introduction depicts images of humans engaging with farm animals for their own use e.g. milking a cow, collecting eggs and honey from hens and bees, and shearing a sheep for its wool (dbe, 2012c, pp.22–23). the open-ended question, ‘look at the picture and talk about what you see’ (dbe, 2012c, p. 23), in conjunction with these explicit images, is likely to prompt discussions on animal domestication in the farming context. the matching activity that follows refers to one of the essential attributes of domestication i.e. ‘draw a line to show what we get from these animals’ (my italics, dbe, 2012c, p.24). teaching six-year-olds the song ‘old macdonald’ (dbe, 2012c, p.25), supports, in part, the concept of domesticated animals by naming the animals. two factors counter the grade r science curriculum’s representation of the concept domesticated animals. firstly, in the absence of a simple scientific definition of domesticated animals in the curriculum, it rests on the grade r educator to: 1) identify the underlying concept underpinning the topics ‘dairy farming’ and ‘wool farming’ and 2) determine the essential features unique to the concept. secondly, the grade r science curriculum confines domesticated animals to one particular context i.e. farming. these two factors are likely to result in conceptual differentiation. in other words: one grade r educator may represent domesticated animals as an everyday concept by taking the topics and related workbook activities at face value e.g. matching the image of a hen to an image of an egg, but another grade r educator may be prompted to 1) provide a simple scientific definition containing the attributes that are unique to domesticated animals, and 2) ask questions that lift out the essential attributes contained in the definition and apply them to another context e.g. ‘why do we keep dogs?’ and ‘are the crocodiles at a crocodile farm domesticated or wild? why?’ in conclusion: the grade r science curriculum’s partially represents the concept domesticated animals in terms of essential attributes. ! the degree of specialisation of language the grade r curriculum employs the context specific terms ‘dairy farming’, ‘wool farming’ (dbe, 2011a, p.20) and ‘farm animals’ (dbe, 2012c, pp.22–31) in place of the more scientifically appropriate ‘domesticated animals’. if the curriculum introduces the topic concept ‘wild animals’ (dbe, 2011a, p.21), the notion of opposites indicates the logical inclusion of its 154 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 content knowledge has four components: essential attributes, specialised terms, relations to 4 other scientific concepts, and context. conceptual counterpart i.e. ‘domesticated animals’. in conclusion: the grade r science curriculum represents domesticated animals in everyday terms. ! relation of topic concept to other concepts in terms of grouping the grade r science curriculum introduces the topics ‘wool farming’ and ‘dairy farming’ (dbe, 2011a, p.20) in relation to one another in term 3. in terms of co-location domesticated animals is isolated from its conceptual counterpart ‘wild animals’ and ‘find out about one wild animal’ (dbe, 2011a, p.21) which is positioned at the end of term 4. in terms of sequence the two related topic concepts domestic and wild are illogically separated by the topic concepts ‘healthy environment’, spring’, ‘birds’, ‘reptiles’ and ‘dinosaurs’ (dbe, 2011a, pp.20, 21). in workbook 3 ‘sea animals’ (dbe, 2012c, pp.32–41), which features wild and domesticated animals, is logically positioned after ‘on the farm’ (dbe, 2012c, pp.22–31) but, counter to the notion of sequence in terms of progression, precedes the introduction of ‘wild animals’ (dbe, 2012c, pp.42–53). in conclusion: the concept domesticated animals is a stand-alone concept in terms of its relations to other concepts. ! relation of topic concept representation to context in the absence of the term ‘domesticated animal’ or its equivalent the grade r science curriculum’s representation of the concept domesticated animals is not transferable. in conclusion: the grade r science curriculum’s representation of farmed animals pertains, in part, to the neo-vygotskian notion of content knowledge4 because the workbook images and text have the potential to prompt the educator into defining domesticated animals, in part, in terms of essential attributes. 2. how does the grade r science curriculum describe the structure of the science knowledge concept domesticated animals with regards to the relation between content and procedural knowledge? having established above that the curriculum relates, in part, to content knowledge, this section considers the related curriculum activities in terms of morris, hardman and jacklin: school science for six-year-olds. . . 155 procedural knowledge. the grade r science curriculum provides one internalising activity i.e. a simple one-to-one matching activity (dbe, 2012c, p.24) which places farm animals in relation to their produce. this activity pertains to the internalisation of domesticated animals by ‘operating’ with the concept but is unlikely to operate according to the law of equivalence i.e. the activity is too simple and therefore familiar to most six-year-olds. in conclusion: the grade r science curriculum represents, in part, the concept domesticated animals as procedural and content knowledge. 3. how does the grade r curriculum describe the science knowledge concept domesticated animals with regards to the relation between simple and complex concepts? the grade r representation of domesticated animals potentially underpins one other more complex school science concept. domesticated animals in the farming context in grade r, is extended to another context i.e. ‘pets’ in grade 1 as in ‘how to look after pets at home – include shelters, food water, animal cleanliness. . . giving exercise. . .’ (dbe, 2011a, p.32). ‘pets’ is, however, positioned in isolation without any references to domesticated animals in the farming context. the following topic concepts counter the notion of domesticated animals in grade r underpinning more complex concepts in later grades: ! the grade 2 topic ‘animals’ (dbe, 2011a, p.43), which describes the simple division of ‘animals’ into ‘farm animals’ and ‘wild animals’, precedes the more complex grade r topic concepts ‘wool farming’ and ‘dairy farming’ (dbe, 2011a, p.21) and ‘wild animals’ and ‘find out about one wild animal’ (dbe, 2011a, p.21). ! the grade 3 topic ‘animals and creatures that help us’ is underpinned, in part, by grade r understanding of animal domestication but it also reiterates grade r content (dbe, 2012c, pp.22–24) by stating ‘animals that give us food and/or clothes – bees – chickens – cows – sheep’ (dbe, 2011a, p.57). ! the simple scientific concept that ‘all animals depend on green plants for food: energy’ (dbe, 2011b, p.39) is introduced in grade 4 whereas the more complex idea of mankind’s dependency on and use of farm animals 156 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 as a source of energy is positioned in grade r (dbe, 2011a, p.20; dbe, 2012a, pp.22–24). ! the concept domesticated animals does not feature in the intermediate science curriculum (dbe, 2011b). in conclusion: the grade r’s representation of domesticated animals does not underpin more complex science concepts. after bringing the three analytic indicators to bear on the grade r topics ‘dairy farming’ (c10) and ‘wool farming’ (c11) related internalising activities (dbe, 2012c), the conclusion was that the grade r science curriculum represents the topic concept domesticated animals as an empirical concept i.e. a type of everyday concept that is factually correct within a particular context. the reasons are as follows: ! the grade r science curriculum insufficiently represents (# 4/12) domesticated animal in terms of the six key features of a simple scientific concept ! the grade r representation of domesticated animal is unlikely to prompt the grade r educator into translating the curriculum representations in terms of a simple scientific concept. table 2: rating for the grade r science curriculum representation of domesticated animals. criteria description and rating scale criterion 1 criterion 2 criterion 3 criterion 4 criterion 5 criterion 6 exploys two or more essential attributes. . . contains two or more specialised terms . . . in relation to other concepts . . . transferable across contexts . . .two integral parts i.e. content and procedural knowledge underpins more complex scientific concepts 1/2 0/2 0/2 0/2 1/2 0/2 rating: 2/12 = everyday concept morris, hardman and jacklin: school science for six-year-olds. . . 157 conclusion this study set out to examine the extent to which the most widely available grade r curriculum documents made simple scientific concepts available to learners. we found that these texts contain no explicit elaboration of scientific concepts. half the topics contained in the documents were coded as 'potential' scientific concepts, leaving it up to teachers to realise these descriptions as scientific concepts. unfortunately, the qualifications profile of preschool teachers leads us to question whether they would be likely to do so. the other half of the topic statements were coded as everyday concepts. while accessing learners’ spontaneous, or everyday, concepts is part of the pedagogic process, no real science learning takes place if learners’ everyday understandings are not revised in the acquisition of – initially simple – scientific concepts. in effect, the curriculum’s everyday representations of science steer the educator away from the idea that the science knowledge that is taught in schools should ideally relate more closely to the scientists’ notion of science (larkin, 2013; ramnarain, 2010; sharma and anderson, 2009; davydov, 2008; hedegaard, 2002). we have noted that caps expressly does not require the elaboration of scientific concepts and in fact promotes experiential learning of concepts through play and exploration. we have argued that this is problematic as it rests on the binary logic that assumes everyday and scientific concepts are two separate things, rather than two dialectically related concepts that are required for cognitive development. relying on experiential learning of concepts can, we have argued, lead to serious misunderstandings for the developing child who is relying on the construction of empirical, rather than theoretical knowledge. van der berg (2014) has shown that expanded preschool education has not thus far substantially advantaged south african learners, 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(eds). cambridge, massachusetts: the massachusetts institute of technology press. vygotsky, l. 1978. mind in society. cole, m., john-steiner, v., scribner, s. and souberman, e. (eds). cambridge, england: harvard university press. winkler-rhoades, n., carey, s.c. and spelke, e.s. 2013. two-year-old children interpret abstract, purely geometric maps. developmental science, 16(3): pp.365–376. available www.wjh.harvard.edu. zaporozhets, a.v. and elkonin, d.b. (eds). 1971. the psychology of preschool children. cambridge, massachusetts: the mit press. anya morris joanne hardman heather jacklin school of education university of cape town anyamorris@absamail.co.za joanne.hardman@uct.ac.za heather.jacklin@uct.ac.za http://www.wjh.harvard.edu mailto:anyamorris@absamail.co.za mailto:anyamorris@absamail.co.za mailto:joanne.hardman@uct.ac.za mailto:heather.jacklin@uct.ac.za microsoft word b8300 final.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 83, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i83a05 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x connecting assessment and feedback: a customised and personalised experience for knowledge-building pryah mahabeer curriculum studies, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa mahabeerp3@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4576-690x fathima firoz akoo student in curriculum studies, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa fatzakoo@gmail.com (received: 30 september 2020; accepted: 12 may 2021) abstract formative assessment coupled with effectual feedback is instrumental in enhancing student-learning experience and contributing to knowledge-building. however, feedback does not always translate into the desired outcomes for students receiving feedback and this compromises educational experiences and goals. in this small-scale empirical study, we worked with five postgraduate honours students at a university in south africa to explore their experiences of feedback on formative assessments in the learning space. we focused in a nuanced way on innovative opportunities and practices of feedback in the digital age. the data collected from the semi-structured interviews revealed that participants understood the value of quality formative assessment and feedback. most participants reacted negatively to assessment grids and feedback received from lecturers. some were unaccustomed to digital formative assessment and feedback as a developmental tool. they recommended a discipline-specific blended feedback approach that incorporates face-to-face feedback to make the digital feedback provided to them more meaningful. this would provide useful feedback that would create a customised and personalised learning experience for students in collaborative knowledge-building. keywords: formative assessment (fa), feedback, knowledge-building, students’ experiences introduction in south africa, the specific context of this study, and globally, assessment and feedback are vital components if successful teaching and learning is to take place in higher education (mulliner & tucker, 2017; munro et al., 2018). when lecturers do not provide the necessary feedback to students, this results in their failure to improve in future assessment tasks, and it 88 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 also compromises the core purpose of assessment and feedback which is to provide helpful advice aimed at improving student learning (ajjawi & boud, 2017). the way in which students understand, interpret, and implement feedback makes a difference to how they learn. koen et al. (2012) have emphasised the distinct link between assessment and feedback. valuable feedback helps students to engage deeply with knowledge, but many consider receiving feedback on their assessments to be one of their least fulfilling experiences at university (west & turner, 2016). many students have reported feeling disappointed with the feedback they receive yet academics often feel that they provide practical and educational feedback (mulliner & tucker, 2017). ali et al. (2018) indicated that students are predominantly discontented with the lack of dialogue in the assessment and feedback process and the lack of personalised and customised examples of how they could improve their work. therefore, they suggested that strategies be put in place to ensure that reflection occurs after students receive feedback to improve their engagement with it. feedback is not limited to lecturers offering it face-to-face but may be digital (online) as well. the university in this study has acknowledged the advancements in technology and incorporates them into the teaching and learning context through online teaching, assessment, and feedback on a digital learning portal to keep in line with national and global trends in education. the use of digital resources, assessment, and feedback is expected in the teaching of postgraduate modules. digital feedback is more trusted by students and motivates them to perform better because it focuses on the task and not on the individual (lipnevich & smith, 2009). however, this leads to a loss of personal interaction and meaningful exchange between student and lecturer (bailey & garner, 2010; lipnevich & smith, 2009). this study could help determine the effectiveness of feedback exchanges taking place online instead of face-to-face and whether the blended feedback approach may indeed be a more useful way of providing effective feedback. in this study, we report on an exploration of postgraduate (honours) students’ experiences in relation to lecturer feedback on formative assessments at a university in south africa. meanings of assessment and feedback “the usefulness and effectiveness of assessment depends on the quality of the feedback” (glazer, 2014, p. 277). an essential aspect of this study draws on the meaning of assessment and feedback, on how formative assessment and feedback remain interconnected to knowledge-building, and on how this relationship contributes to students’ learning experience. for many individuals, the notion of assessment has many meanings but, generally speaking, assessment is a process that assists lecturers to understand students’ achievements and the level of their performance. this is done by using different activities and instruments and is meant to help lecturers report on their students’ accomplishments and, in turn, to help them develop their teaching (black & wiliam, 2004; crooks, 2001). there are two main categories of assessment—formative and summative. summative assessments are fixed at the end of a learning period (at the end of a semester or module) and mahabeer & akoo: connecting assessment and feedback 89 they require students to display the knowledge and skills learnt and whether their long-term learning goals have been achieved but there can be limited or no feedback (glazer, 2014). formative assessments occur frequently throughout the learning process and aims to monitor students’ progress and improve lecturer instructional strategies, thus improving teaching and learning and resulting in a high-quality educational experience for students (black & wiliam, 2004; glazer, 2014; kinne et al., 2014). formative assessment uses immediate feedback that benefits both the lecturer and the student, facilitates program improvement, and provides possible corrective measures at each stage of the teaching and learning process (bennett, 2011; glazer, 2014). while summative assessment evaluates students’ learning to validate a grade (glazer, 2014), formative assessment is rooted in the lecturer’s pedagogical knowledge and operates in a much broader educational context (bennett, 2011; byrd, 2013). in this study, we focused on formative assessment. reacting to feedback feedback is a crucial communication tool between students and lecturers since it regulates the teaching and learning process (lipnevich & smith, 2009) and it is an essential function of knowledge acquisition that improves performance and guides students towards their learning goals (bailey & garner, 2010; dawson, 2017), along with directing them towards the attainment of future goals. ideally, feedback is ongoing student-lecturer interaction. black and wiliam (2004) have asserted that the two critical role-players for realising practical assessment and feedback are the assessor and the assessed. bailey and garner (2010, p.188) described feedback as an interplay between and among lecturers’ “pedagogical goals, students’ learning needs, and institutional and governmental education policies.” in the assessment and feedback process, students should be mindful of how this assists them to achieve their learning goals and improve their performance; in doing so, they need to become more open to accepting and engaging with the feedback received from lecturers (black & wiliam, 2004; higgins et al., 2002). it is not a given that students will make sense of feedback or respond positively to it or use it to enhance their learning (koen et al., 2012). grades or numerical scores do not serve as efficient feedback mechanisms because they do not provide students with the tools to enhance learning. descriptive feedback leads to the highest degree of performance (lipnevich & smith, 2009). these scholars have noted that comments made by lecturers allow students to focus on what is relevant and can work to stimulate their mental performance, while giving only grades can inhibit students’ cognitive processes and slow down their learning. receiving assessment feedback is a sensitive and complex emotional process whereby students’ emotions influence how they receive, process, and action feedback (bowker, 2018). the assessment and feedback process is an emotional one, students invest their time and energy into the assessment activities and lecturers’ feedback responses can have a negative effect on their learning and performance (carless, 2006). for bailey and garner (2010) some students do not understand the purpose or usefulness of feedback, and this leads to dissatisfaction with it. studies across 14 universities in australia observed that over 90% of 90 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 students were dissatisfied with the feedback they received and experienced general inconsistencies in it (scott & morrison, 2006). it was of poor quality, there was not enough of it, and it followed no precise requirements. carless (2006) mentioned that assessment dialogues between lecturers and students is key to demystifying and strengthening the assessment and feedback process, and consequently reducing student discontent and poor performance. there is a considerable discrepancy in the ways in which students and lecturers perceive the feedback the latter give to the former (bailey & garner, 2010; scott & morrison, 2006). on the one hand, students might ignore the feedback because they do not understand it. if they perceive feedback to be ineffective, they might not do anything to benefit from it. on the other hand, some students spend little time reading assessment feedback and this raises questions about whether they understand the purpose and usefulness of it and about how they should use it to improve current and future assessments (crisp, 2007). despite the problems students face in interpreting or implementing feedback, some understand and acknowledge its potential value (higgins et al., 2002). feedback is helpful to students if it is made up of high-quality comments that are usable, timely, frequent, used to avoid repeating mistakes, relevant, detailed, and personalised to the individual student’s work (dawson et al., 2019; glazer, 2014). generally, students prefer individual verbal and written feedback and recognise it as being the most useful (mulliner & tucker, 2017). types of feedback pereira et al. (2016) have differentiated between feedback (what happened at the point of assessment) and feed forward (aimed at guiding students towards achieving their intended learning goals and at encouraging meaningful and quality learning). they add that feedback is internal or external and shapes and transforms students’ attitudes to their learning: internal feedback provides students with knowledge about the “quality of the cognitive process”, and external feedback may assist students to reflect on their learning (pereira et al., 2016, p. 9). their findings show feedback to be more effectual during the performance stage. lecturers use the assessment rubric as a feedback tool to assess students’ work. it usually consists of evaluative criteria, an explanation of the quality necessary to meet the requirements, and a scoring strategy. koen et al. (2012) have explained that while analytical rubrics can be valuable tools for providing feedback, they will be effective only if they assist students to clearly identify the expectations of the lecturer and the specific requirements of the task. using rubrics improves the quality of teaching in providing clear feedback and identifying possible areas for improvement (kinne et al., 2014). however, kinne et al. (2014) have argued that if rubrics are too specific, students might use them only as a way of achieving a successful grade and so the degree to which a rubric improves teaching and learning is dependent on the quality of the rubric and the manner in which it is effectively used. mahabeer & akoo: connecting assessment and feedback 91 in this study, we underline the relationship between assessment and feedback and the use of the assessment rubric grid as a feedback tool in the teaching and learning process in postgraduate modules. our study may assist lecturers, students, researchers, and curriculum developers to refocus their energies towards understanding the interrelationship and significance of assessment and feedback in promoting knowledge-building. the relationship between assessment and feedback feedback and assessment are critical to the learning experience and behaviour of students at university because of their impact on what students learn, how they learn, and how they perceive the learning environment (adams & mcnab, 2013, p.36). assessment can influence students’ learning if they understand what is essential to evaluation (pereira et al., 2016). new and diverse trends in assessment indicate that it should be based on the specific student, and on continual feedback that leads to the student’s self-regulation of learning. this motivates students to regulate and improve their work by using lecturer feedback to help achieve their learning goals (pereira et al., 2016). while assessment is useful in promoting learning, motivating students, improving and facilitating reflection, and identifying errors, inadequate feedback can confuse and demotivate them (higgins et al., 2002). ideally, it should build confidence and encourage students to perform better. as mentioned earlier, if feedback is insufficient, students could ignore it (ferguson, 2011). a review on assessment feedback as seen in pereira et al. (2016) showed that feedback is not always used by the students (li & de luca, 2014), and even if feedback is effectual, students may not always appreciate it (blair & mcginty, 2013). “the amount of detail of feedback; the usefulness of feedback; the extent to which students are only interested in grades; and the fairness of marking procedures” (carless, 2006, p. 230) are key points to be considered in improving assessment and feedback practices. for students to benefit from feedback, it should connect to assessment tasks that encourage knowledgebuilding (koen et al., 2012). to be helpful there must be a clear link between and among the elements of the feedback itself, the assessment activities and guidelines, and the assessment frameworks and criteria (ferguson, 2011). students should be able to see the connection between what they have already achieved and their desired performance. in this way, assessment feedback provides the relevant information needed by students to maximise their educational efforts (ferguson, 2011). the interplay between assessment, feedback, and knowledge-building knowledge-building is not simply about knowing, it is about students gaining a deep understanding as and when they participate in the continual creation of knowledge through the authentic learning processes of sharing, improving, and building on existing knowledge and ideas (scardamalia, 2002; scardamalia & bereiter, 2006). students feel free to “reveal ignorance, voice half-baked notions, give and receive criticism” (scardamalia, 2002, p. 9). 92 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 knowledge-building is similar to a socio-constructivist approach to theory, pedagogy, and technology since it focuses on students’ shared responsibility for knowledge enhancement and collaborative learning development (bereiter, 2002; scardamalia & bereiter, 2006, 2014; yang et al., 2020; zhu & kim, 2017). students’ knowledge-building inquiry, supported by knowledge forum (kf), is a “computer-supported collaborative discourse environment” designed to improve shared ideas (yang et al., 2020, p. 1247). scardamalia (2002) drew twelve closely interrelated principles that depict knowledgebuilding pedagogy and that explain how cognitive, social, and emotional constructs are interconnected (see yang et al., 2020; zhu & kim, 2017). notably, the emotional aspect of knowledge-building is rarely explored (zhu & kim, 2017). the twelve principles are abridged below (yang et al., 2020): epistemic agency emphasised in knowledge-building involves high-level agency when students take the initiative in negotiating their own and others’ ideas and take ownership of goal setting, monitoring, and evaluation in a socially shared context. collective responsibility for community knowledge is valued more than individual performance in the contribution and advancing of ideas. last, all ideas are improvable, and in knowledge-building, learning is progressive and not a predetermined outcome (yang et al., 2020). in knowledge-building, assessment is the process of advancing knowledge, helping lecturers and students understand the knowledge acquired, and identifying any problems as the process of teaching and learning continues (zhu & kim, 2017). assessment is an essential element of knowledge-building and embedded and transformative assessment supports students’ realisation and cultivation of their metacognitive skills (scardamalia, 2002). in one of the limited knowledge-building studies that examines both online and offline dialogue, yang et al. (2020) advanced notions of progress monitoring, interrelated to the principle of concurrent, embedded, and transformative assessment. while formative assessment focuses on bridging the gap between current and expected performance, reflective assessment in knowledge-building centres more on nurturing student agency and on ongoing learning improvement (lei & chan, 2018; yang et al., 2020), as students take an active role in their thinking about assessment and feedback. reflective assessment has been shown to uphold metacognition, and to expand understanding and ideas in a collective social context where students interact and develop social and collaborative capabilities (yang et al., 2020; zhu & kim, 2017). through reflective assessment and the consistent notion of formative assessment and feedback, students can use data continually to guide their collaborative reflection and collective growth towards developing knowledgebuilding (yang et al., 2020). research methodology social research from an interpretivist perspective aims to understand the meaning behind human behaviour and how people make sense of their world (bertram & christiansen, 2014). interactions between the researcher and respondents within their natural setting gave rise to mahabeer & akoo: connecting assessment and feedback 93 the detailed descriptions (remler & van ryzin, 2014). although on a small scale, our qualitative approach, following scott and morrison (2006), allowed us to understand and gather in-depth information from participants by probing beneath the surface and by uncovering the deeper meanings and understandings of feedback within an educational and social context that lay behind students’ personal experiences of, opinions on, and attitudes to feedback. in this empirical study, a qualitative approach within the interpretivism paradigm allowed for this small-scale, in-depth exploration of postgraduate honours students’ lived experiences, opinions, and reasoning related to the lecturer feedback they received on formative assessments. context of the study the study was located in the school of education at a tertiary institution in kwazulu-natal, south africa. the participants were students of various ages and socio-economic backgrounds. participants the sample size was limited to five participants from a single university in south africa. the students purposively selected were bed (bachelor of education) postgraduate honours students in curriculum studies. at the time of the study, these students had completed two compulsory modules of the academic year based on sharing their feedback on formative assessments. convenience sampling (padgett, 1998) allowed us easy access to the participants. as with the findings of most qualitative case study research, this study is limited in generalisability (see cohen et al., 2007). there is potential for an expanded version of this study to be conducted on a larger scale across other disciplines and in different universities in south africa. data collection face-to-face semi-structured interviews allowed us to collect empirical data for this study. we asked open-ended and probing questions to gain insight into the participants’ experiences, perceptions, and understandings as they told their stories (see bertram & christiansen, 2014; padgett, 1998; remler & van ryzin, 2014). “conducting a good interview is, in some ways, like participating in a good conversation: it involves listening intently and asking questions that focus on concrete examples and feelings rather than on abstract speculations” (eisner, 1998, p. 183) that are unlikely to provide meaningful information on the students’ perceptions and understandings (remler & van ryzin, 2014). our interview design included pre-determined questions that were given to the participants beforehand. the interviews were conducted by one of the researchers, a postgraduate honours student in curriculum studies at the time of the study. the interviews lasted fifteen to thirty minutes, were audio-recorded, and were transcribed verbatim. we used thematic data analysis to draw out the crucial implicit and explicit ideas in it as advocated by remler and van ryzin (2014). we focused on students’ experiences and their 94 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 perceptions on feedback following formative assessments to better understand the data and to draw meaningful conclusions as suggested by kashif et al. (2014). following lincoln & guba (1985) and cresswell (2014) we undertook many readings of the transcribed data to better understand it so as to draw out emerging themes. we categorised, compared, summarised, and interpreted the data to provide a thick description of the research findings (see bertram & christiansen, 2014). as lincoln and guba (1985) have noted, the trustworthiness of qualitative research guarantees that the findings are credible, dependable, confirmable, and transferable. using different sources of data ensured credibility as suggested by remler and van ryzin (2014). member checking entailed providing the participants with the written transcripts and initial analysis of the data for verification (see bertram and christiansen, 2014; remler & van ryzin, 2014). this small-scale qualitative study did not aim for generalisability, but the findings could be compared to others obtained in similar contexts as lincoln and guba (1985) and creswell (2014) have suggested. ethical considerations were adhered to in conducting this study. participants were aware of the nature of the research and their rights as participants, and confidentiality and anonymity were guaranteed in our using pseudonyms. a brief biography of the participants in line with the ethical principles of maintaining anonymity, the participants are referred to by the pseudonyms of andrew, letty, noma, pretty, and yolanda. andrew is a 29-year-old african man with four years of teaching experience. he is a second language english speaker, is currently not employed, and is studying full time. letty is a 24-year-old african woman with no teaching experience. she is currently studying full-time and is a second language english speaker. noma is a 47-year-old african woman with 13 years of teaching experience. she is a second language english speaker and has already completed her honours degree in social development. she is currently employed as a grade 4 teacher and is studying part-time. pretty is a 22-year-old african woman who completed her bed summa cum laude. she is a full-time student with no teaching experience and is a second language english speaker. yolanda is a 23-year-old indian woman who has two years of teaching experience. she is a first language english speaker, is currently employed, and is studying part-time. discussion of findings the emerging themes discussed in this section are • feedback as an “eye-opening” experience to improve knowledge-building mahabeer & akoo: connecting assessment and feedback 95 • students’ reflections on the use and understanding of the assessment grid as a tool for feedback • the contentious nature of receiving and interpreting feedback: language and technology as barriers to useful feedback • students’ reactions to feedback received • feedback as a useful educational tool to stimulate the student learning experience • adopting a blended approach to feedback: face-to-face and digital (online) written feedback participants’ responses are presented verbatim. we analysed the data thematically to answer the following research question: what are postgraduate honours students’ experiences of receiving feedback on formative assessments? these students described a diversity of experiences and sentiments on the use of formative assessments and the feedback they received. most of the participants found that the use of formative assessment is “a good thing” andrew said, “the way they were helping us . . . i saw it as a way of developing us.” the variety of assessment tasks was appreciated by students. andrew found these “balanced because they were not only giving you one thing, and then after that you go to the exam.” participants also appreciated formative assessments because, as noma said, “you will be sitting down in your own time doing an assignment” instead of structured examinations. students did, however, experience some difficulty in becoming accustomed to the use of digital formative assessments and feedback. pretty indicated that “it was a bit tricky . . . but it was an experience of learning . . . this was a developmental project because our lecturer with the changes being made, you’ll get this mark.” one participant, yolanda, preferred examinations to formative assessments but, based on the above responses, the developmental nature of formative assessments and feedback were seen to be beneficial for most of the students. all participants, except yolanda, found assessment to be a developmental, balanced, fair approach since it allowed for various learning styles and allowed the students to work at home. studies like that of watling and ginsburg (2019) have suggested a shift towards feedback being more developmental and using the coaching approach in higher education based on a distinction being drawn between the role of the lecturer as an assessor and as a coach. for coaching to be meaningful, students must trust the lecturer and display their weaknesses in order to gain appropriate feedback to overcome their challenges. the coaching approach is practical if both students and lecturers understand the developmental nature and intent of feedback interactions and if they create an environment of mutual trust (watling and ginsburg, 2019). feedback as an “eye-opening” experience to improve knowledge-building students experienced receiving both constructive and adverse feedback from lecturers about formative assessments. focusing on constructive aspects of feedback, andrew described 96 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 receiving feedback as “eye-opening.” he stated, “it’s not like i understood everything but some of the questions or feedback i understood that this is what i need to improve, and i try to work hard.” for pretty, “how you receive the feedback” was critical, “because it wasn’t ‘write this! do this!’ but it was just like, ‘it would sound better if it were this . . .’ so that person is acknowledging where you are.” according to her, constructive feedback was a combination of praise and suggestions for improvement that led to students reflecting on what was lacking in their responses and implementing the feedback received to improve their work. students emphasised that lecturers must be conscious of how they provide feedback to students and must be sure to acknowledge the student’s efforts for them to be more receptive to the feedback. similarly, studies by higgins et al. (2002) and ferguson (2011) concluded that lecturers should aim to provide feedback that is timely, personalised, clear, constructive, with a clear focus on applauding students’ successes and steering them towards future development. importantly, for feedback to be helpful, the student must understand the language used by the lecturers. students’ reflections on the use and understanding of the assessment grid as a tool for feedback to better understand students’ experiences of assessment and feedback, it was necessary to understand their experience and perceptions of formative assessments and the use of assessment grids as a feedback tool since these were the methods used by lecturers in the two modules referred to in this study. the participants responded to the use of assessment grids as a tool of feedback for formative assessments. these grids appeared to be generic for each type of assessment activity; the written assessments had the same assessment grid across both modules and the oral seminar presentations had a different one across the two modules. two participants did not understand the assessment grid in terms of criteria and the calculation of the ranges. noma expressed that she “didn’t understand it because it didn’t help [her] and asked, ‘what was the use of it?’” letty said, “i didn’t understand it because you didn’t get a precise mark. it was a range.” pretty indicated that she understood the assessment grid as a point of reference. she said, “every time i was writing a paragraph, i would just go back in terms of, am i still on the right track, am i still within the theme, within the topic . . . you had a sense of what [percentage] you could get.” however, andrew indicated that although “you can understand that this is what the assessment grid means . . . but now when it comes to writing, you find that you are still struggling.” while two students claimed to have understood the concept of the assessment grid, the other three did not understand how to interpret or apply it to pass their assessments. feedback took the form of tracked changes on submissions and a letter and number on the assessment grid. the grid was, therefore, not helpful to most of the students. perhaps it was not correctly used or adapted by the lecturer or explained to the students adequately, and therefore did not meet their needs, according to letty, andrew, and noma. dawson (2017) underlined that assessment rubrics only become specific depending on their design and how they are adjusted to suit the needs of the lecturer and the students. the assessment grids used as feedback tools mahabeer & akoo: connecting assessment and feedback 97 across the modules were generic and not adapted to suit the needs of each assessment and were ineffective, so the students did not understand their use. it is clear, therefore, that standardised feedback tools such as structured feedback forms and assessment rubrics must be transparent, fair, and consistent across various departments. however, these tools may lead to a loss of personal interaction and meaningful exchange between student and lecturer because if students do not understand and engage with the feedback received from their lecturer, it is of no benefit to them (lipnevich & smith, 2009). only one participant, pretty, had a positive experience with the assessment grid and found that “it was effective, it provided the percentage in . . . if you write like this, you will get this. so, you had a sense of what you could get and what you could not get.” however, most of the participants found the grid ineffective as a feedback tool and of no benefit. andrew indicated that “actually it’s only guiding . . . if you are still struggling in writing, it may not be effective.” noma suggested that the grid confused her when she said, “we had some questions, but we didn’t have a chance to ask the questions.” letty could not understand her progress or how the grid worked. she said, “i felt that it wasn’t understandable for us [because] now the letter will represent something else, and the mark would be something . . . for me, it didn’t tie in.” the students’ sentiments expressed above are supported by dawson’s (2017) point that while the rubric can be used as a form of feedback on assessment, it should be accompanied by feedback information and used as a stimulus for further discussion between lecturer and student. in this case, students said that they received no additional feedback information and thus found the assessment grid ineffective as a feedback tool since it did not provide them with any meaningful information. besides, students found the feedback “confusing” according to letty, since no further discussion took place to provide clarity. likewise, koen et al. (2012) have argued that grades, numerical scores, or ranges do not serve as efficient feedback tools because these do not provide students with any devices to enhance learning or any detailed constructive feedback. arguably, studies suggest that using rubrics has benefits for both the lecturer and the students since rubrics ensure objectivity and fairness in grading, and when shared with students they assist them understand the lecturer’s expectations and help them revise and improve their work before submitting it for grading (kinne et al., 2014). rubrics also provide students with a point of reference when collaborating with lecturers thereby supporting and improving teaching and learning along with knowledge-building (kinne et al., 2014). the contentious nature of receiving and interpreting feedback: language and technology as barriers to useful feedback the participants indicated that feedback is not always correctly understood and could be misinterpreted by students or entirely ignored by them. andrew explained, “i understood but not like everything because . . . they are asking you ‘so what?’ . . . sometimes you don’t know how you can even answer that kind of question.” letty agreed when she said, “you get more confused.” she thought to herself, “you didn’t explain to me what you wanted. i’ve tried to do this according to my own understanding and the points that you are giving me in the 98 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 feedback they are very vague.” studies suggest that students sometimes ignore feedback (ferguson, 2011) because they are interested only in their mark, not in improving it. mulliner & tucker (2017) refuted the idea that students are concerned only about their grades; they argued that students read, think about, and action feedback received, and lecturers should not think that they do not. consistent with the findings of dawson et al. (2019), students’ responses in this study revealed how they become confused when feedback was vague, and comments did not provide meaningful information about what needed to be corrected. effective feedback positively influences students’ actions, involves a dialogue between lecturer and student, and is cyclical so it must be meaningful and correctly understood before students can correctly implement it (ajjawi & boud, 2017). feedback that is not actionable by students, through the lack of resources or the misunderstanding of it, is ineffective. feedback must be timely, specific, actionable, and task-oriented, constructive in guiding students where they went wrong and instructive on how to improve, and it must come from a credible and trusted source (ajjawi & boud, 2017). lecturers should avoid making direct or indirect comparisons to other students when giving feedback to a particular student (shute, 2008). many students in this particular university are second language english speakers and they indicated that they encounter difficulties understanding the terminology or intended meaning of feedback. letty said, “i’ve read these comments; i’ve tried to understand them, but i’m not getting anything out of them.” students do not always address these misunderstandings and this causes a barrier to useful feedback, as can be seen from noma’s statement that “in fact, i didn’t ask any help from the lecturer. i didn’t.” some students preferred to seek help from other lecturers instead. as indicated by andrew, “what i didn’t understand, i went to other lecturers to find out what could i do with this. so they helped me.” letty revealed that she felt “confused” and added, “so you go to this lecturer, and they say ‘no, read the comments that i’ve given you’ [but] i’ve read these comments. i’ve tried to understand them, but i’m not getting anything out of them, so that’s how i felt.” letty reacted by seeking assistance from her peers. receiving quality feedback from peers may be as advantageous as feedback from lecturers (kinne et al., 2014). as letty explained, “i couldn’t edit my work from the lecturer’s feedback but from relying on other people’s feedback explaining to me in the class.” importantly, feedback should be clear and specific to avoid confusion and frustration among students (shute, 2008). the language used by the lecturer should be understandable to the student and should focus on the assessment activity, not on the student, and expounded feedback should be in manageable and comprehensible units to promote learning (higgins et al., 2002; ferguson, 2011; shute, 2008). dawson et al. (2019) argued that feedback should be mediated by considering what students think and do about the feedback they receive on their work and how this relates to measurable improvements. ultimately, feedback should consist of constructive criticism, and the lecturer must use productive and supportive language to ensure that the student feels motivated (fong et al., 2018). mahabeer & akoo: connecting assessment and feedback 99 in addition to language barriers, some students are not entirely computer literate and need to become accustomed to submitting assessments and accepting feedback digitally. “it was really hard because i’m not really a computer-driven person that much. now, i had to learn to adjust to having feedback and then make sense of feedback on [my] own,” said pretty. consequently, she was concerned about “misinterpret[ing] what he meant or what she meant.” sociocultural barriers contributed to some students experiencing technological challenges outlined by pretty because they found it difficult to read, understand, and interpret the digitally received feedback so had trouble responding, and taking corrective action. studies (see yang et al., 2020) suggest that low-achieving and at-risk students are often from varied indigenous and low socioeconomic backgrounds and have scarcer cognitive, metacognitive, and social skills required for educational success. these students experience low motivation, low self-efficacy, and difficulty developing collaborative and productive higher-order proficiencies than do high-achieving students. understanding and using the context of the learning environment is critical to providing valuable feedback. students’ socio-economic background affects their ability to understand and interpret feedback, and lecturers may be unaware of the contextual, emotional, and psychological influences that feedback has on students and assume that correcting their work without further elaboration is sufficient. watling and ginsburg (2019) observed that useful feedback depends on many factors, including building a climate of trust and a clear channel of communication and dialogue between student and lecturer, the social and cultural context, the learning environment, and the lecturer’s ability to observe students. the absence of these factors might lead students to perceive feedback as ineffective, resulting in their seeking assistance from another lecturer as did andrew, their peers as did letty, or completely ignoring the feedback. lecturers may also perceive their feedback to be more valuable and practical than students perceive it to be since many lecturers “perceive feedback as corrective information transmission, and ignore the complexities of a relationship, context, materials, students and the feedback process” (ajjawi & boud, 2017, p. 4). students’ reactions to feedback received there were different reactions to the ways in which students reacted to feedback received on formative assessments. in this section, we discuss the students’ responses to constructive and adverse feedback. constructive feedback received of the five participants, only andrew and pretty experienced and reacted to some form of constructive feedback. andrew noted, “it was not easy, but i try my best to respond to the feedback, and the percentage was improved . . . i did face-to-face feedback . . . and i was able to ask some of the things i did not understand, and it was explained clearly.” andrew’s use of feedback and the subsequent improvement in his mark is supported by ferguson (2011) and crisp (2007) who have explained that feedback can be beneficial only if the students take the time to read and act upon it. 100 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 pretty seemed to have experienced and reacted to feedback positively. however, it was different for the rest of the participants. she felt her work was acknowledged and appreciated, and the feedback guided her towards achieving her learning goals. “when someone says, ‘i get what you’re saying, but it would have been better if it was like this.’. . . so, i saw not only my mark improving but also my writing skills, my reading skills, and even my comprehension skills.” similarly, ferguson (2011) described students as preferring brief, concise comments that highlight the positives and negatives, identify weaknesses, and suggest improvements to guide future progress. students prefer to receive personalised comments about their work that allows them to improve it, correct their errors, and keep them motivated (poulos & mahony, 2008). therefore, formative feedback must clarify the gap between the students’ performance and their goals and encourage improvement by highlighting the students’ strengths and explaining the improvements that need to be made. adverse feedback received students have become increasingly confused and frustrated because of the insufficiency and lateness of feedback received from lecturers (higgins et al., 2002). these lecturers may not be identifying what is right and what needs improving and may grade work only as fair or poor without further explanation (higgins et al., 2002). compacted timetables in higher education and the clustering of assignments across modules at the end of the semester also leads to students being overwhelmed and getting less benefit from feedback (higgins et al., 2002). some students in this study reported having experienced negative feedback from lecturers in some form. andrew was discouraged but eventually acted on the feedback and resubmitted his work. he said, you start to see that you still have to work hard to move to higher percentages . . . i was discouraged but then after that when i see that also i have a deadline so then . . . i was able to respond according to the feedback. students’ expectations of feedback and what they received did not correlate. letty said, “when we got feedback, it wasn’t what we expected.” she explained, “i’ve done the work and felt that i understood it, and i did it to my best, but now i’m getting something that is completely different, very negative.” the negative feedback letty received overshadowed the positive feedback. she added, “in fact, i don’t remember getting positive feedback. the mark would seem positive, but it wouldn’t relate to the comments.” this resulted in adverse reactions towards the module itself. “i ended up not liking the module, especially toward the end [because] now you had to fix a lot of your assignments with minimal feedback, and that was hard.” the gap between what students regard as helpful feedback and the feedback they receive leads to dissatisfaction and demotivation as ferguson (2011) pointed out. similarly, watling mahabeer & akoo: connecting assessment and feedback 101 and ginsburg (2019) acknowledged students’ dissatisfaction in not benefiting from effective feedback. negative feedback decreases the potential learning value since students lose interest in the feedback process. they become overwhelmed and benefit little from such feedback, as is evident in the experience of andrew and letty. higgins et al. (2002) claimed that students understand and acknowledge the potential value of feedback despite the problems they face in interpreting or implementing it. pretty accepted negative feedback objectively and reacted positively to it. she said, “there will be comments that will say or leave you astonished. . . it depends on your attitude as a person in terms of what kind of person are you.” our findings revealed that negative feedback could be overcome with resilience as could be seen in the responses of andrew and pretty. yolanda responded positively and implemented the feedback received but experienced a negative outcome. she explained, “i did take every single feedback into consideration, but . . . it didn’t improve my mark. i did have good comments but mostly negative.” students in this study consistently experienced negative feelings concerning lecturer feedback on formative assessments. according to andrew, they were “discouraged” at not having “the strength to correct everything that they [been] given.” letty felt “confused” about receiving the assessment and feedback, and this confusion continued even after face-to-face feedback from the lecturer. she said, “they [the lecturers] didn’t explain to us what they expected from us. so, we did the work from our interpretation and understanding and maybe discussing with peers in the class.” some students felt despondent after receiving feedback since they had received lower marks than they had expected after putting in an immense effort. for letty, “i didn’t understand why i was getting that mark, why i had worked very hard.” pretty shared letty’s feelings about feedback, and about being “overwhelmed” with feelings of “rejection” and “negativity.” pretty said, “i feel upset, sad that i put so much work into this, and then i get a lower mark.” students are emotionally affected by feedback when it elicits feelings of pride, joy, and success (lipnevich & smith, 2009) but feedback can also lead to shame, disappointment, and despair, as can be seen in the responses of these participants. yolanda said, “it didn’t make me feel good; you start to doubt yourself.” noma added, “i thought that maybe i’m wasting my time studying.” letty said she was “frustrated with the feedback [and] didn’t understand [what] they were explaining” and what she “should do.” letty lamented, “i wasn’t happy with my mark for the amount of work i put into the module.” letty described feeling “stupid”, and yolanda felt “belittled” by the attitudes displayed by lecturers towards them when they asked questions or sought clarity. it appears, according to noma, that lecturers “obviously” assumed students have specific knowledge and skills, which they “didn’t [have].” students voiced feelings of sadness, disappointment, self-doubt, and frustration and reported feeling “overwhelmed” (pretty) and “demotivated” (letty) over adverse feedback comments. in similar vein yang et al. (2020) commented on how negative communication messages 102 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 make students feel powerless and disadvantaged over their learning capabilities and how this hinders growth in their self-efficacy. noma, yolanda, and letty expressed that lecturers’ feedback did not improve their learning experience and performance or guide them towards achieving their learning goals. after receiving feedback, they felt that their performance in the module was a fragmented learning experience. while steps can be taken to ensure a better feedback experience, the experience itself is subjective. ajjawi and boud (2017) have elaborated on the fragmented learning experience and indicated that students who received impractical feedback are deprived of the opportunity to improve their future assessment tasks; the responses of letty, yolanda, and noma bear this out. although he “did not understand everything,” andrew still reacted positively to feedback by implementing what he did understand and seeking clarity from other lecturers. his mark did improve after these efforts. pretty displayed a high level of internal strength and resilience in dealing with negative feedback in particular. she chose to view the lecturer’s feedback as a developmental tool for improving herself academically, even though the comments made her sad and upset. pretty described her enhanced learning as a sense of “reaching” beyond her capabilities or what she thought she could do. she saw improvements not just in her marks but in her writing, reading, and comprehension skills. these feelings described above are consistent with the findings of watling and ginsburg (2019) who pointed out that students can experience feedback as ineffectual and harmful if it is person-oriented rather than task-oriented and that it threatens their self-esteem and triggers negative emotions. lipnevich & smith (2009) argued that students are emotionally affected by feedback and that this exerts influence over student results and influences their future reactions to feedback. crisp (2007) also contended that positive feedback can be ineffective for some students with high grades who may not find it necessary to work harder to improve their work once positive feedback is received, and that some weaker students may become demotivated and disillusioned with negative feedback and may not attempt to improve their work. poulos and mahony (2008) and bailey and garner (2010) suggested that a sense of reservation exists among academics about providing feedback to students and that this filters down to them and results in students not benefiting from feedback and having a fragmented learning experience. feedback as a useful educational tool to stimulate the student learning experience the participants in this study suggested that the criteria and expectations should be clearly explained for each assessment activity to make feedback more effective. noma said, “if they can explain the assessment grid before we write the exam. . . they can tell us what is expected.” pretty mentioned that the involvement of students in the design of the “rubric process” would let them feel a sense of “ownership” of their learning and “ownership of the assessment.” likewise, kinne et al. (2014) concluded that involving students in the assessment process by co-constructing a draft of the rubric gives them a voice in creating the criteria with which their work will be evaluated. mahabeer & akoo: connecting assessment and feedback 103 andrew and letty suggested that students benefit from feedback that can be applied across modules in the same discipline and that such feedback could be beneficial even in the future. letty indicated that feedback could be used across modules and disciplines. she said, “i can learn for my other assignments. . . i should be able to carry it through in the future.” feedback may not be helpful if students complete many modules simultaneously since they may receive inconsistent feedback from different lecturers and become more confused. if feedback across disciplines is not consistent, this can negatively affect student performance and leave them feeling disgruntled (crisp, 2007; scott & morrison, 2006). in higher education, assessment is focal to advancing quality in student learning and development. through assessment lecturers can determine the level of the student’s learning and ensure the attainment of their teaching goals (byrd, 2013). assessments provide lecturers and students with information that could assist them in modifying their learning strategies, eradicate misconceptions, fix mistakes, and motivate them to achieve their goals (lipnevich & smith, 2009). students’ capacity to understand and engage with assessment feedback is essential to how they will act to improve their learning (carless, 2006). it is not surprising, then, that these students indicated that they were more receptive to positive feedback and motivated to act upon it when their work was “acknowledged” or “appreciated” before negative feedback was given, as letty explained. she indicated that lecturers should “acknowledge” students’ efforts. at the same time, andrew suggested that “there must be both positive feedback and negative feedback immediately” since “the purpose of feedback is not to discourage, but . . . is to motivate the student.” shute (2008) also confirmed that helpful formative assessment feedback must clarify what is lacking between the students’ performance and their learning goals, highlight their strengths, and explain suggested improvements clearly. formative assessment and feedback encourage a profound learning experience: how students are assessed influences their learning, and the feedback from the formative assessment is seen as an instrument to improve their knowledge (higgins et al., 2002). students in this study expressed the desire for acknowledgment, dialogic engagement, and inspiring feedback from their lecturers. they valued constructive feedback directed towards their learning goals and indicated how the feedback should be actioned for knowledgebuilding. in line with these views, ajjawi and boud (2017) proposed adopting the socioconstructivist approach to feedback that sees it as dialogic between student and lecturer. constructive feedback assists students to understand learning goals; develop their ability to monitor, regulate, and evaluate their learning; identify criteria, and reflect on their strengths and weaknesses (ajjawi & boud, 2017; koen et al., 2012). moreover, lecturers and students should share their conceptions of useful feedback and what they can do collaboratively for more effective and meaningful interaction between students and lecturers to take place (perreira et al., 2016). 104 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 adopting a blended approach to feedback: face-to-face and digital (online) written feedback the use of technology may provide students with relevant and meaningful feedback and understanding of the process behind their acquisition of the mark (west & turner, 2016). in engaging with feedback, turner & west (2013) revealed that students appreciate online explanations and perceive them as simple to understand. significantly, emotions play an indispensable role in the way in which students respond to feedback and how they will action assessment feedback (pitt & norton, 2017). with online assessment and feedback, emotion control is important since students may experience challenges. therefore, understanding the psychological complexities surrounding students’ experience of online assessment and feedback, and how students are dealing with this experience, is critical (bowker, 2018) and warrants further investigation. the students in this study found difficulty interpreting and implementing online feedback without consultation and face-to-face feedback from lecturers. three of the five participants expressed what they preferred and said that they benefitted from this mixed approach to feedback. andrew said, “when you speak to him or her face-to-face now, you also help that student to calm down, to cease panicking and after that, you can help him [or her].” yolanda suggested that face-to-face feedback could take the form of “focus group discussions,” and noma thought face-to-face feedback was necessary because “if they can call me and tell me what is expected from me then maybe [i] can improve by doing this.” letty, however, felt that face-to-face feedback was not always helpful for students since, in her experience, “the explanation he gave to me was the same explanation he gave in class . . . so, the feedback didn’t help, and the consultation didn’t help.” it is evident that the usefulness of feedback is also dependent on the individual lecturer and student relationship. students may find it challenging to approach a lecturer because of a lack of confidence or a strained relationship with that person (poulos & mahony, 2008). it is clear from the findings that although some students find written comments sufficient, others prefer a combination of digital feedback and face-to-face interaction with the lecturer. with rising pressures and increasing student numbers at universities, and the call for implementing an online virtual space for teaching, this is not always possible (poulos & mahony, 2008). essential to knowledge-building is inspiring students to develop collaboration and metacognition skills to actualise what they are doing and what they should do next (yang et al., 2020). metacognition is socially developed by interacting with others (students and lecturers in this case) and seeing what others think, and it is premised on the principles of agency (critically questioning), community knowledge (working together cumulatively and interactively), and improvable ideas (including problem-solving) that sets in motion the transformation of students’ knowledge and proficiencies (yang et al., 2020). it would be helpful for students to gain a deep and practical learning experience when they are engaging with and acting on the negative and/or positive feedback they have received. of significance, is recognising the reciprocal relationships between the emotional, cognitive, and social mahabeer & akoo: connecting assessment and feedback 105 dynamics of collaborative knowledge-building (zhu & kim, 2017). the student’s ability to engage with and action feedback (digital and traditional), consider their emotional reactions, and use feedback as an educational tool to achieve learning goals is of utmost importance in attaining improved knowledge-building. the successful blending of digital and face-to-face feedback demands transparency of purpose and interactive and collaborative support of students by lecturers if knowledgebuilding is to happen. considering important knowledge-building principles and the findings of the study, we make some suggestions. there is a need to design more integrative and informative assessment tools with authentic and reflective activities to develop agency and collective responsibility (yang et al., 2020; zhu & kim, 2017). lecturers could consider reflective assessment in knowledge-building that facilitates assessment and feedback to nurture student agency and improve their learning (yang et al., 2020; zhu & kim, 2017). students could assess their own and other’s learning collaboratively, and they could take an active role in their rational thinking about feedback and interact and develop social and collaborative capabilities (lei & chan, 2018; yang et al., 2020). furthermore, lecturers could provide opportunities for students to scaffold and improve metacognition by encouraging them to reflect, inquire, and use other diverse lenses to reflect on their work (yang et al., 2020; zhu & kim, 2017). the lecturer who adopts the knowledge-building approach facilitates students to become responsible for their learning, and students participate directly in high-level intellectual work such as “goal-setting, planning and monitoring” (zhu & kim, 2017, p. 1). the lecturer could employ a dialogical approach to engage students continually through reflective and productive dialogues to discuss feedback on formative assessments to improve learning. with the knowledge-building principle of concurrent, embedded, and transformative assessment as put forward by scardamalia (2002) and yang et al. (2020), students can use timely feedback (concurrent assessment) to promote agency and improve their writing, which will enhance students’ self-efficacy and higher-level competencies and help them understand their learning goals. it is crucial to produce an ideal collaborative, productive, and reflective knowledge-building classroom culture by creating a community of students who focus on collective efforts to improve the effectiveness of feedback and promote knowledge-building (yang et al., 2020). in doing so, lecturers can create an environment that offers meaningful and worthwhile feedback using various tools that would enable students to reflect, explain, and action. in a higher education south african context students can become “active constructors of knowledge and managers of the process of improving their learning” (pereira et al., 2016, p. 8). lecturers should try to create alternative opportunities for more collaboration and dialogue about assessment and feedback (peer-peer and lecturer-student), so that any misconceptions can be clarified before students action the feedback (mulliner & tucker, 2017). it is important to nurture lecturer and student awareness of the value and the different methods of feedback, and for students to be engaged actively in the assessment and feedback process from the designing phase (mulliner & tucker, 2017). technology can give lecturers agency in assessing students’ work (yang et al., 2020). accordingly, lecturers must 106 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 develop and transform students’ learning experiences by providing practical assessment and feedback tools to overcome barriers to learning, such as technology and language. lecturers should understand how to use feedback effectively as a valuable educational tool to facilitate face-to-face and online feedback to transform students from passive receivers of knowledge into active participants responsible for their enhanced learning (higgins et al., 2002; koen et al., 2012). feedback is the most influential and powerful aspect of the assessment cycle in improving student learning and performance (dawson et al., 2019; o’donovan et al., 2016). yet, the disjuncture between the purpose and theory of feedback and the practice of providing useful feedback to students has increased (o’donovan et al., 2016). this disjuncture infers that students in some disciplines receive vague and ambiguous feedback messages that might have repercussions beyond merely passing the module. here, the importance of disciplinespecific literacy and feedback is accentuated. students find benefit in feedback that can be “applied across modules” as letty suggested. it is essential for lecturers in the same discipline to provide consistent and standardised feedback, which may be possible through communication between and among lecturers so that students are not confused when expectations of similar assessments are entirely different between two modules. it may be worthwhile to explore why there is a dissonance between feedback provided by lecturers and feedback expected by students. it becomes imperative for lecturers to be mindful of how students receive feedback, the purpose and goals of assessment and feedback to improve students’ learning experience and knowledge-building, and how to motivate them to action feedback and become active in the learning process. conclusion postgraduate students’ experiences, reactions, and sentiments on receiving feedback on formative assessments varied with some students valuing it as developmental. while students unable to comprehend meaningful feedback or action feedback reacted adversely and ignored aspects of feedback they did not understand. some chose to seek assistance from other lecturers and their peers. most of the participants found the assessment grid ineffectual as a tool to provide practical and worthwhile feedback. the face-to-face feedback meant to elaborate on the digital feedback given was ineffectual. factors such as the preference for feedback (traditional face-to-face or digital), the ability to use technology, understanding language, the contextual and socio-economic differences, the student-lecturer relationship, and the emotional, metacognitive, and collaborative capabilities of students and lecturers affect valuable and practical feedback to knowledge-building. therefore, students suggested adopting a blended feedback approach as a more useful tool that customises and personalises feedback for students to action. they suggested that an amalgamation of digital and face-toface feedback exchanges could result in meaningful and effective feedback as part of the process of collaborative knowledge-building that is discipline-specific and that could be applied across modules. mahabeer & akoo: connecting assessment and feedback 107 references adams, j., & mcnab, n. 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(2017). a review of assessment tools of knowledge building: towards the norm of embedded and transformative assessment. knowledge building summer institute, philadelphia, pa. ‘shifting perspectives’: an autoethnographic account of how my learning as a doctoral candidate influenced my thinking as a teacher educator nokhanyo mayaba abstract my journey of becoming a teacher educator in a university has been influenced by the learning gleaned from doing a doctoral study. the experience that i had whilst working with children orphaned and rendered vulnerable by hiv and aids (ovc) changed my perspective as i discovered and learnt about their innate potential. in this article i provide an autoethnographic account of how my learning as a doctoral candidate impacted on the way i think about teaching pre-service teachers who will in turn teach in diverse contexts. i support my insights by data from my reflective journal, drawings and collages. i explain how sen’s capability framework helped me to make sense of my learning. my autoethnographic reflective narrative has implications for how teacher educators might reconsider their practice to help pre-service teachers to think critically about their ideas and practice in relation to ovc. introduction my journey of becoming a teacher in a higher education institution has been influenced by a number of factors, one being the learning gleaned from doing a doctoral study. in my study i worked with children orphaned and rendered vulnerable by hiv and aids (ovc) (mayaba, 2013). this experience totally changed my perspective. instead of viewing these children as objects of pity, i learnt to respect their resilience and i discovered their innate potential. as a black woman i thought i understood the lived experiences of vulnerable black children, but i learnt that i had no real idea of the personal and ecological assets in their lives. i then wondered how my (mostly white, middle class) student teachers who may not have been exposed to the lives of children in poor communities might perceive them and how this might affect their teaching. my study prompted me to think about how i could help pre-service 14 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 teachers to recognise and develop the potential of all children, including ovc. in this article, i provide an autoethnographic account (ellis and bochner, 2000) of how my learning as a doctoral candidate impacted on the way i think about teaching pre-service teachers who will in turn teach in diverse and socio-economically challenged contexts. i first provide background to set the scene for this article, and then describe my doctoral study. this is followed by a discussion on autoethnography as a research methodology. thereafter i present a narrative of my doctoral journey of learning. i go on to describe how the capability framework (sen, 1999) helped me to make sense of this narrative. i explain how my learning impacted on my thinking about how i could adapt my teaching to help pre-service student teachers to think critically about their own ideas and practice. to conclude, i reflect on how autoethnography as a reflective tool enabled me to recognise and explain my doctoral learning through creative means. background i am a teacher educator who has been working in one of the universities in the eastern cape for nine years. i spent three of those years in academic administration, co-coordinating teaching of language education modules for various education programmes in off-campus centres. my role in these programmes was to: develop, revise and write study guides; train tutors who were teaching these modules; set examination papers; and moderate the marking of examination papers. when i began my doctoral journey, i had just been appointed in a permanent position as a lecturer in the faculty of education. this was not my first teaching experience as i was a high school teacher for eight years before i joined the university. when i was appointed on a permanent basis, i taught a module titled ‘inclusive education and barriers to learning’ to third year bachelor of education (foundation phase) students who were training to teach grades r–3. this module explored the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that contribute to barriers to learning in an inclusive classroom. one of the sections in this module dealt with family structures and their effect on learners’ success in learning. obviously, family structures as a possible learning barrier were covered, such as children who grow up in single-parent households, foster mayaba: ‘shifting perspectives’. . . 15 families, child headed households and orphans (pienaar, 2013). what drew my attention to my teaching of this particular section was the realisation that the family structures of children that were being discussed in my module were similar to the participants in my doctoral study, who were children who had been orphaned and rendered vulnerable by hiv and aids (ovc). i became uncomfortable with the way these children were portrayed in the literature in my module which only focused on the risk factors they encountered in life whereas the data generated by the children in my study revealed more positive stories about their lives. before i began with my study i also had a stereotypical belief of who ovc were. growing up, there were assumptions in my black community that these children were poor, marginalised, incapable and in dire need of help. however, as i began to engage with my research data, i noted how my own beliefs and common knowledge were challenged. i also noted my own sense of ambivalence about what i was reading and teaching about ovc, compared to what my data were revealing about them. hence in this article i ask: how can i help student teachers to recognise and develop the potential in all the children they teach? my doctoral study in order to put the reader in the picture, it is important that i give a brief overview of my doctoral study. i conducted an action research study which aimed to explore and describe how folktales might be used to enhance resilience in children orphaned and rendered vulnerable by hiv and aids (ovc) and how these stories might be used by teachers to reach both their pastoral and academic goals. action research is defined as “a cyclical process of action and reflection on and in action which integrates theory and practice, research and development” (zuber-skerrit, 2011, p.6). the point of departure in action research is a concern or problem (wood, morar and mostert, 2008).therefore the problem that i identified from literature was that there was prevalence of ovc in south african schools who needed care and support (smart, 2003; de witt and lessing, 2010) and that teachers perceived themselves as untrained for this pastoral role (ogina, 2010) and considered it to be an added responsibility to their already existing curriculum requirements. in most south african schools there are no referral options as there are no social workers or psychologists (pillay and di terlizzi, 2009). i 16 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 asked myself how teachers could support children to better cope in the face of adversity in a way that could be easily integrated into the academic curriculum so as to minimise the perceived burden of care and support. this study was underpinned by the social ecological view of resilience (ungar, 2011) which emphasises that social ecologies such as schools have a duty to facilitate children’s positive adjustment to adversity. the choice of folktales was influenced by the importance that resilience theory attaches to cultural variables in the resilience process (mayaba and wood, 2015). the participants in this study were twenty two (n=22) isixhosa speaking ovc between the ages of 9–14 years who either lived in a children’s home or with foster parents. i purposefully selected ovc because the intention of this study was to explore ways in which they can be supported as a response to literature that reveals how teachers are struggling to find ways of supporting the increasing number of such children. in the first cycle of the study i generated data with children who lived in a children’s home. the process of research required that i tell them one folktale a week over a period of 24 weeks without any interaction with the story. before and after the storytelling sessions they had to draw and explain how they viewed their lives. based on the findings and reflections on the first cycle, in the second cycle children had to select stories that they liked and then engage with them using drawings, collage and drama. the details of the findings of this study are documented in wood, theron and mayaba (2012a) and in mayaba and wood (2015). this article draws from my doctoral study which met ethical requirements; therefore any concern about the consent from participants would be invalid. as much as the caregiver had given her consent to this research i was aware of the importance of the children’s assent to the research; hence before i embarked on the research process i explained to the children the purpose and the process of the study. in the next section of the article i discuss my journey of learning by reflecting on some of the moments that changed my own thinking about the children who participated in my doctoral study. thereafter i analyse my learning by using the capability framework as a lens to consider how i might help preservice student teachers to think critically about their own ideas and practice. mayaba: ‘shifting perspectives’. . . 17 autoethnography as a research methodology autoethnography as a research methodology (ellis and bochner, 2000; wall, 2006, duarte, 2007, méndez, 2013) seemed appropriate to help me reflect on how my learning as a doctoral candidate impacted on my thinking about teaching in higher education. i always wanted to write about my own learning and research experiences in a way that could be acknowledged as a contribution to knowledge. an authoethnographic approach affords me freedom to explain my learning through creative ways of reflecting on my experiences (duarte, 2007). i was part of a reality and i always felt that i needed to share my experience the way i thought about and viewed it, through producing a narrative, which is a personal story that draws on experiences (wall, 2006) and how such experiences have transformed my way of thinking (ellis and bochner, 2000; duarte, 2007; mcilveen, 2008, méndez, 2013). in this article i present this narrative and illustrate it with data about my thoughts and feelings (tenni, smyth and boucher, 2003). i use reflections from my doctoral research journal in which i captured moments of epiphany during my interaction with the children along with drawings (õzden, 2009) and collage (williams, 2002). using arts based methods such as drawings and collages enabled me to illustrate the changes in my thinking during my research journey and to also make meaning of my experiences since they serve as a stimulus, guide and scaffold for one’s thoughts (õzden, 2009). an important feature of autoethnography is that researchers differ in their emphasis of the self (auto), culture (ethno) and the application of the research process (graphy) (reed-danahay, in holt, 2003). in my case, i am writing retrospectively and selectively (ellis, adams and bochner, 2011) about my learning emanating from my interaction with children in a specific culture (context of poverty and vulnerability) and then analysing using the capability framework (sen, 1999) how these experiences impacted on my thinking about teaching pre-service teachers who will in turn teach in diverse and socioeconomically challenged contexts. robeyns (2005, p.94) describes the capability approach as “an evaluative and assessment framework for individual’s well-being which focuses on what they are able to do and be, on the quality of their life and on removing obstacles in their lives so that they have more freedom to live the kind of life they value”. using this particular lens to analyse autoethnographic data allowed me as a researcher to engage more deeply with data generated during my doctoral 18 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 study (tennie et al., 2003). tennie et al., (2003, p.4) further advise that in order to have quality and rigour “when working with one’s own autobiographical data there is a need to engage in external dialogue with others and anyone else who could be pinned down and who will listen”. coia and taylor (2009, p.8) refer to this engagement process as “co/autoethnography” in which two people reflect on a particular phenomenon collaboratively. since i can claim that my doctoral supervisor and i have a professional, friendly, mentoring relationship and i am open to learning, she was able to critique and challenge me to deepen my thoughts about the narrative presented in this article. autoethnography requires the researcher to use ‘i’ in writing one’s narrative, which “enables his/her voice to be heard” (méndez, 2013, p.282). in my view, using autoethnography is like telling ‘my own story within a story’. admittedly, i have been writing articles that conform to qualitative approaches. however, although i have used ‘i’ in reporting my findings (the other story), i never told ‘my own story’, which is something which autoethnography affords me the opportunity to do. i agree with ellis’s (2007) assertion that autoethnography itself is an ethical practice as it entails being ethical and honest about the events described. in composing my narrative the events described were based on my experiences as a lecturer and a phd candidate. i taught the module i referred to in this article and in my phd, which got ethical clearance, participants were indeed ovc. the focus of the narrative presented in the following section of the article is on my transformation and my thinking about what i learnt during my doctoral study and how this impacted on my becoming a teacher and teaching in a higher institution. an autoethnograhic narrative of my journey of learning my experience of generating data in a children’s home and with ovc changed the way i thought about my participants and how they live their lives. this experience also impacted on how i think about my own teaching. as a black person growing up in rural communities, i had always embraced the script that by default i was marginalized. i never thought that as black children in rural ecologies we were experts and agents of our own learning and that our wealth of resources and expertise resided and were embedded in mayaba: ‘shifting perspectives’. . . 19 the complexity of the rural ecology. however, i am grateful that my parents valued education and were able to put aside money to pay for my university education to study to become a teacher. as indicated earlier, i taught in a rural high school for eight years before i joined the university. during my years in that school, i became aware of learners’ diverse backgrounds and the factors that affected their success in learning. many learners lived with their grandparents since their parents had passed on as a result of hiv and aids. at the time there were no support structures at my school for children who were orphaned and rendered vulnerable by hiv and aids. twelve years later, when my doctoral supervisor invited me to be part of the ‘read me to resilience project’ (wood, theron and mayaba, 2012b) one of my siblings had just been diagnosed with hiv. she was very sick and i was taking care of her. i thought about what was going to happen to her child should anything bad happen to her. for the first time i read a lot about hiv and aids and also about the lives of children whose parents die as a result of this pandemic. during the fieldwork for my doctoral study, i realised that what i thought i knew about ovc and their experiences was limited. my fieldwork experiences also reminded me of the time i was a teacher in high school in the rural areas and made me more conscious of how i had never thought about the significance of getting to know my learners. this made me realise that as a teacher educator who is preparing teachers who will in turn teach in diverse school contexts, i needed to rethink how i could help my students to be able to think critically about their own constructions of ovc and poor communities. as i indicated earlier, all the children in my study were isixhosa home language speakers. isixhosa is one of the indigenous languages in south africa. i identify myself as an isixhosa first language speaker and so i felt it was going to be easy to be immersed in the children’s space since i assumed there would be no language barriers. i learnt from the caregiver that these children mostly came from nearby rural and township areas. growing up in rural areas myself in an extended family of mother, father, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and siblings, i knew that it was not going to be difficult for me to adjust to a home where there were a lot of children and adults. at the same time, i was carrying stereotypical images of children’s homes: children under strict control, a place where there is no fun and a lot of chaos. i did not have evidence of this situation but interestingly, i somehow imagined a children’s home as a very restricted place. moreover, i had read literature stating that ovc are exposed to risk factors (ritcher, 2004). a risk factor is 20 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 any situation that threatens healthy development (armstrong, birnielefcovitch and ungar, 2005). i also read that children who are sent to residential care or children’s homes are reported to be not fully developed socially, as they often find it difficult to adjust to life outside these institutions (phiri and webb, 2002). the following drawing depicts my thoughts about the children’s home and ovc at that time. figure 1: drawing of what i thought i knew about children in children’s homes this picture depicts that as an educated teacher educator who has read a lot of books about the ovc and their lives, i felt that i knew everything that i needed to know and therefore was not expecting to gain any new information. the different bubbles represent different aspects which influenced my thinking: my sense of marginalisation; the literature that i had read and was teaching; my status as a teacher educator – a knower – and my own imagination. mayaba: ‘shifting perspectives’. . . 21 however, on the first day i visited the children’s home i noted how different the situation was. whilst standing at the gate waiting for someone to open for me i noticed children were playing outside. later on, i noted in my journal: the children’s home doesn’t look like how i imagined it. there are two huge houses facing each other, perhaps, one of them is for boys and the other one for girls. or one belongs to the caregiver and volunteers and the children share rooms in the other big house. i was surprised that the caregiver told me that students from the university and surrounding communities often visit the home to play with the children or to teach them a sport like chess. it’s interesting that the girls were playing ‘unophuce’ and others ‘ugqaphu’. they look happy and carefree unlike the children that i imagined in a children’s home (march, 2009). the sight of these children playing traditional games took me back to the time i was a young girl. i also played these games. i remembered very well how much i enjoyed playing ‘unophuce’. (this is a game in which one either draws a circle or digs a hole on the ground and places about ten little stones therein. one then has to remove the stones inside the circle one by one by throwing a bigger stone in the air whilst taking out the others. in this game you have to take out all ten stones at first and return nine, thereafter, you take out all and return eight and so on.) in hindsight, i realise that unophuce was a counting game, which enhanced our thinking ability, as well as being a lot of fun. to me this meant that as much as we were in rural communities, our learning was not only shaped by what was taught at school but also by the indigenous games that we participated in. as a teacher educator, i realised that it is important for me to expose my foundation phase pre-service teachers to such games as methods they could use to teach in their classrooms. when i got inside the house, what drew my attention were the many trophies and framed achievement certificates that were displayed on top of the sideboard. i also noticed a lot of photographs that were pasted on the walls. these photographs reflected the many events that children engage in, for example, birthday parties and ‘braais’ (a south african name for a barbecue). since the venue for storytelling was one of the bedrooms, i saw how neat the bedrooms were and later on i found out that children had routines for household chores. i was a bit concerned about the fact that eight children shared a room, i remember noting in my journal: sometimes when i am at home, i think about them, i always wonder how they feel, whether they are happy in the children’s home. . . .how it feels to share a room with eight other children (author, 2012a, p.134). 22 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 i was however taken aback by the positive atmosphere and fun that permeated that home. i literally felt love and compassion for these children. the following drawing represents the change in my view of my participants. figure 2: drawing about what i learnt about children in children’s home this drawing represents a sense of love and peace that i felt permeating that home. i noticed a number of resilience enhancing factors (ungar, 2011), such as good relationships with the caregiver, peers and people from the community. children displayed a sense of happiness and contentment and there were other people from the community who volunteered to cook and others were assisting children with homework. moreover, during the study children described themselves as developing well, participating in various sporting activities and having good relationship with the caregiver (mayaba, 2013). i also noted during my visits that they had access to material resources such as tv and radio; they also had support from community members who mayaba: ‘shifting perspectives’. . . 23 assisted them with homework and hosted birthday parties for them. faith based organisations also provided spiritual encouragement to these children. in my doctoral study i was investigating the resilience potential of folktales and, in hindsight, i noted that this linked well with a section in my teacher education module which addressed social issues that are barriers to learning. i realised that in my module students were not referred to cultural assets that exist in learners’ ecologies as means to address some of the barriers to learning. my teaching experience and qualifications are in language education. therefore i know the educative power of reading and storytelling (parkinson, 2009). as a child i also experienced first-hand being told traditional stories by my grandparents and parents. i know how much i enjoyed these stories and how they fired my imagination. admittedly, i did not think further about folktales when i was a teacher and before i did my doctoral study. the following collage depicts my fears and scepticism about using folktales at the start of my doctoral study. figure 3: collage depicting my fears and scepticism what distinguishes folktales from other stories is that they are generally stories about the world of imagination, about animals and humans with supernatural powers and abilities like fairies (zin and nasir, 2007; parkinson, 24 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 2009). i was sceptical about how children would react to these stories since i was aware that nowadays children mostly watch television and folktales are no longer part of the traditional culture. my fears were influenced by my experience of collecting these stories from the community members. as part of the research process i had to approach community members to tell me folktales they had heard as children that made them feel strong or ‘enabled’ (mayaba, 2013; mayaba and wood, 2015). most people were surprised that somebody was interested in folktales. however, my father was so excited when i asked him to tell me some of the folktales. unfortunately he did not live long enough for me to tell him more about what i achieved through my study. my father was a history teacher; a political science honors graduate, and later on a reverend in an anglican church. he was one person who always reminded us as children how important it was to value cultural assets, but as we became older we forgot about his teachings. figure 4 below captures my experience of telling folktales at the children’s home. figure 4: collage depicting my positive experience about telling folktales contrary to my fears and doubts, the twenty two participants at the children’s home attended all the storytelling sessions. although i told the stories in a mayaba: ‘shifting perspectives’. . . 25 non-participative way since i was exploring if merely telling them would develop resilience, i could tell from their facial expressions that they were enjoying the stories. moreover, whenever i came to the home they would be singing some of the story songs. the caregiver also told me during informal chats that the children were retelling the stories to one another at night. children also asked me why i was telling folktales during the day because tradition dictates that if you tell a folktale during the day you will grow a horn. this is the indigenous knowledge that i also knew so i had to assure them that nothing was going to happen to them. this was interesting to me as i initially thought that children might think that telling folktales was old fashioned and they might not know any cultural beliefs about these stories. when i used folktales in a participative and educative manner in the second cycle, i noticed that children were having fun and could recall the stories. as tobin and snyman (2008) mention, stories tend to stick in the mind longer than abstract ideas alone. the findings of my doctoral study (wood, theron and mayaba, 2012a; mayaba and wood, 2015) made me realise the value of cultural assets to empower vulnerable children and make a practical contribution to improving the quality of life for children. i also became aware of how cultural assets could help teachers to make a difference, therefore making a contribution in terms of eventual social change. i grew as a teacher educator as i learnt through this study how i could help my students to develop children’s resilience. i was excited about the possibility that folktales could be used in a classroom situation to meet the requirements of the curriculum as well as to encourage the development of resilience in children. i am aware that nowadays these stories are in an adapted and animated form and that many children do not have access to the original oral version of these stories (mayaba and wood, 2015). this means that if schools could work collaboratively with community members by inviting them to tell stories, children’s positive coping responses could be enhanced. this also means that since teachers are overworked and stressed and may not find the time to engage children in participative activities around stories, folktales could be a very powerful tool that could be used and take up no more than 10 minutes in a teaching day. this has implications for me as a teacher educator in terms of how i think about cultural assets as a resource for learning that could be used by pre-service and in-service teachers in their classrooms. 26 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 making sense of my learning using the capability framework in thinking about my experience during my doctoral research fieldwork, i drew from sen’s (1999) capability approach to help me clarify my thoughts on how i could adapt my teaching to help the student teachers to think critically about their own ideas and practice. a core characteristic of the capability approach is its focus on the actual opportunities a person has, namely their functionings and capabilities (sen, 1999, wilson-strydom, 2011; hick, 2012). ‘functionings’ refer to things that a person is able to be or do whereas ‘capability’ is the ability to achieve and the freedom a person has to enjoy valuable functionings (wilson-strydom, 2011). contrary to my earlier assumptions about the lives of the ovc and the children’s home as a restricted area, i learnt that ovc have the ability to achieve and have ample opportunities to nurture their talents not only at school, but among themselves and with community members. this implies that as a teacher educator i need to conscientise pre-service teachers of their own potential as agents of change and how their perceptions about vulnerable children can either support or hinder these children’s success in school and in life in general. this supports the view that sen’s work is underpinned “by seeing each person and each life as valuable and of moral concern and not a means to some end” (walker, 2010, p.491). in my view teachers have a responsibility to bring about change in the schools where they will be teaching through their own initiatives of responding positively to the challenges they might experience in such schools. this means i also have a responsibility to help my students to acquire knowledge that is based on various perspectives on the issue at hand. contextual realities they might face are learners who: have experienced the loss of one or both parents; are neglected, destitute, abandoned or abused; have a parent or guardian who is ill; have suffered increased poverty levels; have been the victims of human rights abuses; or are hiv positive themselves (smart, 2003, p.viii). based on the capabilities lens (sen, 1999), teachers should not measure the well-being of children based on their ‘means of living’ but should focus on what they can be and the opportunities they can have to achieve their dreams and aspirations. i also learnt that there is an urgent need for debates to demystify vulnerability, which is a complex concept. focusing only on the negative aspects of mayaba: ‘shifting perspectives’. . . 27 children being vulnerable may perpetuate stereotypes and the dominant scripts that describe the well-being of these children. for instance, research shows that a number of these children come from families who depend on grants and pensions for survival. as a result, when their parents die, these children have nothing to inherit (ainsworth and filmer, 2002; unicef, 2004). in the capability approach, one would first determine the measurements for poverty before deciding on the context (hick, 2012). second, one would have to “evaluate well-being in terms of what people value being and doing, and to increase their freedom to be in those ways or to do those things” (walker and mclean, 2010, p.850). poverty is viewed as “deprivation of certain basic capabilities” (hick, 2012, p.3). this means capability to experience a good quality life, might in fact not have much to do with economic wealth. my data and observations showed that the children who participated in my study are well taken care of and have clothing and shelter. therefore as a teacher educator i need to be in a position to engage in discussions with my students and fellow colleagues on what vulnerability is and what the concept might mean to pre-service teachers. from my doctoral study i have come to recognise that cultural assets can shape and contribute towards a sustainable learning environment. some of my pre-service teachers might be employed in schools where there are few material resources. therefore it is important that they are aware of the existing assets in the communities in which their learners reside which they can tap into as a resource for teaching and learning. instead of viewing poor contexts as a deficit they could realise that there are existing strengths that are rooted in those communities. as teachers they need to be capable of finding ways to bring those resources and assets into the classroom context for the benefit of the children they are teaching. as the capability framework also addresses the issues of injustice, especially in marginalised communities (robeyns, 2005), i believe that it would be unjust to ignore the resources that marginalised communities have at their disposal (mackinnon and derickson, 2012), in this case, traditional folktales. using folktales as a stimulus for interactive pedagogical strategies could enable teachers to gain deeper insight into the reality of the lives of children in their care (mayaba and wood, 2015) and help to identify pastoral needs that could be addressed through providing access to support structures (ogina, 2010). therefore i learnt that i need to create a space for my pre-service teachers to think creatively about how they could support learners who live in poor communities. 28 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 sen’s (1999) capability approach recognises individuals as agents of change and participants in economic, social and political actions. looking at my journey of learning through this framework also helped me to grow personally. having realised that teachers are agents of change, i also thought about how i could be an agent of change in the home and the schools where i generated my data. my experiences during the fieldwork ignited a sense of compassion and love for the children that i was generating data with. i thought about how i could contribute and make a difference in their lives. hence i was able to establish a reading club at the home and secure a sponsorship of 100 story books which were in isixhosa, english and afrikaans. when i started off with the reading club i invited my friends to volunteer and we would read stories to and with the children every sunday afternoon. i would often invite my cell group members from my church to volunteer to clean the houses at the home. what i learnt from this experience led me to establish another reading home in another children’s home in the city. i have also built very good relationships with the caregivers. we got to know one another and it was interesting to realise that we all had stories of resilience to tell even though we lived in different areas of the city and had different backgrounds. i realised that these stories could motivate my student teachers to persevere in schools and aim towards making a positive impact in children’s lives. an extract from my journal reads as follows: having been at the children’s home, it was going to be impossible for me to not give back to the children as they taught me a lot about who they were. i am a changed person and i no longer judge situations especially when i don’t know anything about those situations. although it has not been a smooth journey but there are substantial and significant lessons that i will carry with me for the rest of my life. thank you les for inviting me to this project (july, 2012). in my journey of becoming a teacher educator, i had to shift my perspective about ovc and their lives and find a way of communicating my findings to the pre-service teachers that i teach. i believe that teaching is a learning experience where students and i embark on a journey of discovery and engagement that is characterised by exchange and sharing of ideas and expressions of individual perceptions and beliefs about the topic under discussion. in this process, i recognise that both the students and i bring different knowledge and draw from different experiences and backgrounds in relation to what is learned during lectures. i am therefore always open to possibilities of disagreements about certain issues. hence i encourage critical engagement that is conducted with respect. the journey of learning continues and i hope during the redesign process of the inclusive education and mayaba: ‘shifting perspectives’. . . 29 barriers to learning module, i will be able to share with my colleagues my autoethnographic story and the lessons learnt during my doctoral journey. conclusion in this article i presented an autoethnographic narrative on my personal experience of how my learning as a doctoral student impacted my thinking about teaching in higher education. i supported my insights with data from my reflective journal, drawings and collages i made to help me clarify my thinking. i used sen’s (1999) capability framework as a lens to make sense of my learning. i learnt that i can help student teachers to recognise and develop the potential in the children they teach by conscientising them of their potential as agents of change, engaging them in discussions that will focus on the positive aspects of ovc and make them aware of the existing assets in children’s ecology. what i learnt from my doctoral journey will help me to better equip preservice teachers to unlock and tap into the creativity of children from poor diverse contexts. i now realise the importance of understanding children’s social realities as the foundation for planning any module that will address diverse family structures or social factors that are barriers to learning. i am not disputing the needs of ovc, but am advancing an argument that there is a more positive side to the story that pre-service teachers can be exposed to. the insights that i gained from my journey both confirmed and contradicted literature i had read about ovc. i found that the children who participated in my study were generally happy and enjoyed good relations with their caregivers, in contradiction to literature that positions ovc as vulnerable to abuse by caregivers (unaids, 2010). although ovc are exposed to risk factors, as discussed in literature, it is important to also note that such adversity can be an antecedent to the development of resilience. as a former teacher and a teacher educator, i now better understand the role played by children’s ecologies in shaping their lives. i feel proud that my study could contribute to the discussions and debates taking place in teacher and teacher education forums on ovc. moreover, using autoethnography as a reflective tool to explain my doctoral learning through creative ways indeed shifted my perspective about ovc and 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it matters if we think about knowledge 1 as a human “capacity for knowing, understanding.” from this perspective, knowledge cannot be entirely detached from the knower, the person who knows or understands. and that person, in turn, is embedded in a web of relationships and encounters that influence and are influenced by individual “knowing in the making” (badley, 2009, p. 108). as eisner explained, “whatever it is we think we know is a function of a transaction between the qualities of the world we cannot know in their pure, nonmediated form, and the frames of reference, personal skills, and individual histories we bring to them (1992, p. 13). if knowing is interconnected with the knower, then can knowledge about education be far-reaching enough without knowledge about the educational researcher? in our continual quest to move forward by creating new knowledge about education, do we pause to consider our awareness of the self who seeks to know? enter self-reflexivity. 1 see the online etymology dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/word/knowledge 2 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 the word reflexive 2 stems from the latin reflexivus, which means “capable of bending or turning back.” in simple terms then, self-reflexivity in educational research can be understood as the researcher bending or turning back to encounter a sense of perplexity or questioning about the self. but, this sense of “unknowing” (vasudevan, 2011, p. 1154) is often absent in accounts of educational research that appear to be disconnected from the uniqueness, complexity, and ambiguity of the researcher’s lived experience. this absence might be because, as badley has cautioned, “too many academics, too many of us, fail to write like human beings. indeed, we may actually have been taught to write like disembodied professionals” (2019, p. 180). but what does it mean to become conscious of and curious about the embodied self who researches? what does self-reflexivity in research look like and feel like? here, it is helpful to turn to stories of lived experience, which can sometimes make a point more vividly and powerfully than can an explanation (badley, 2019). the late jackie kirk, a british-canadian educational researcher and a pioneer in the field of humanitarian aid and development, told one such story about her study of the lives of women teachers in developing contexts. in my own experience, the praxis of reflexivity ‘in the field’ includes a sustained attention to the positions in which i place myself and am placed by others, a listening to and acknowledging of inner voices, doubts and concerns as well as pleasures and pride, and a sensing of what my body is feeling. it implies a constant questioning of what i am doing and why. i start to probe each of these experiences and sensations to ask: why? from where? founded on what? i started to theorise based on my own experiences. (kirk, 2005, pp. 233–234) of particular relevance to this themed issue on “exploring possibilities through methodological inventiveness in self-reflexive educational research,” is kirk’s attention to self-reflexivity not only as a phenomenon but also as a method. she described how, inspired by the literary arts, she created a distinctive form of a vignette (a brief evocative description or story) to enable self-reflexivity in diverse aspects of her research and writing process. in taking such a reflexive approach to the study, it became necessary for me to develop process and form for my writing that was in keeping with my research aims and would do justice to my findings. . . . developing vignettes around my research experience made it more possible to convey powerful, multi-faceted and multisensory representations of research data, analysis and interpretations . . . i wrote and rewrote in order to think through and process the data i had collected, and to reflect on issues of language, position, power, and authority. i completed evocative texts that aim to engage the reader and draw her into the experiences being explored. as part of the analytical process, in the rewriting of these texts, i borrowed from the genre of fiction, most especially for its attention to language, sounds and rhythms, and its power to explore and then provoke an emotional response. i aimed to make the events 2 see the online etymology dictionary https://www.etymonline.com/word/reflexive pihouse-morgan, pillay, naicker & masinga:editorial 3 more meaningful for the reader through attention to a narrative structure and to what i know is the evocative power of the story. (2005, pp. 234–235) although written earlier and in a different context, the words of dadds and hart are applicable to kirk’s designing of vignettes; she was “creating [her] own unique way through [her] research” (2001, p. 166). her literary-arts inspired research practice demonstrates that notion of “methodological inventiveness” (p. 169) identified by dadds and hart in the work of practitioner researchers who “reached out for their own unique ways of doing or writing up their research, in response to the perceived needs of their particular project and their own preferred thinking and representational styles” (p. 3). by practitioner research, these scholars were referring to research intended “to serve professional practices” (p. 169), such as teaching. they asked, “what motivates some practitioner researchers to take an unconventional, innovative direction in their research; to employ their powers of creativity in surprising ways; to think and do differently from the mainstream research they have met?” (p. 1). for kirk, methodological inventiveness, informed by the arts, was interdependent with her commitment to self-reflexivity and social change. her desire to acknowledge and pay close attention to her physical, emotional, and intellectual self, in service of more complex, ethical, and generative ways of knowing, stimulated her creativity and vice-versa. inventiveness 3 has roots in ideas of discovery, of “bring[ing] to light what existed before but was not known.” in kirk’s work, infusing her research process with a creative combination of elements of the literary arts enabled her to bring to light, question, and theorise new selfknowledge. eisner emphasised this close relationship between the arts and self-discovery and growth. through the arts, we learn to see what we had not noticed, to feel what we had not felt, and to employ forms of thinking that are indigenous to the arts. these experiences are consequential, for through them we engage in a process through which the self is remade. (2002, p. 12) in thinking about how the arts can nourish the interdependence of methodological inventiveness and self-reflexivity, we find it useful to draw on understandings of “artsinformed research [as] a mode and form of qualitative research in the social sciences that is influenced by . . . the arts broadly conceived” (cole & knowles, 2008, p. 59). as they elucidated, the central purposes of arts-informed research are to enhance understanding of the human condition through alternative (to conventional) processes and representational forms of inquiry and to reach multiple audiences by making scholarship more accessible. the methodology infuses the languages, processes, and forms of literary, visual, and performing arts with the expansive possibilities of advancing knowledge. (p. 59) 3 see the online etymology dictionary https://www.etymonline.com/word/invention 4 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 in our understanding, although methodologically inventive researchers might not always make direct connections to the arts in their work, their inventiveness is set in motion and nourished by the “imaginative processes that are so characteristic [of the arts]” (eisner, 2002, p. 198). and imagination is a common thread connecting the articles in this themed issue. as a collection, the six articles show how imaginative encounters with the multifaceted self of the researcher can enable generative ways of coming to know about and for education. in acknowledgment of the influence of the literary arts on our ways of knowing as educational researchers (see pithouse-morgan, naicker, pillay, masinga, & hlao, 2016; pithouse-morgan, pillay, & naicker, 2017), we composed a medley of poems to offer a poetic preview of each of the articles that make up this themed issue. in creating the medley, we selected words and phrases from the articles and rearranged them in keeping with the concise traditional japanese poetic format of a tanka poem, which “is concerned primarily with the working out of human emotion and conveying an authentic, personal voice” (breckenridge, 2016, p. 4). awakening self-reflexivity – inspired by the voice of james a. bernauer creating a spark ignites curiosity. a dynamic flow invites a new awareness – living, growing and learning. alone on stage – inspired by the voice of j. scott baker perform poetry hybrid methodology beyond normative avoid ventriloquism open space for dialogue having fun seriously – inspired by the voice of marguerite müller pathways to knowing novel and inventive ways organic response resist, transcend traditions playful and authentic texts imaginative teacher – inspired by the voice of kirsten woitek memory tilted separating past-present! pihouse-morgan, pillay, naicker & masinga:editorial 5 poetry and art multiple voices emerge expand teacher self-knowledge artefacts of thinking – inspired by the voice of tanya van der walt my self-in-action rhizomatic concept map visibility springboards to distil reading to clarify my ideas embroidering becoming – inspired by the voice of tamara s. hancock embroidering quotes tell stories of becoming inventive analysis connections of becoming unstable, unknowable as the poems intimate, the contributions to this themed issue explore both why and how educational researchers across different contexts in south africa and the united states are enacting self-reflexivity through methodological inventiveness. the six articles are written “for human readers” (badley, 2019, p. 180). they are candid and engaging, offering vivid, detailed illustrations and descriptions of the researchers’ experiences, actions, and deliberations. and, by drawing on a range of creative research practices and resources, including embroidery, fiction, narrative, painting, performance, photo-elicitation, poetry, storytelling, and visual mapping the articles exemplify what can be made possible and visible through researching in imaginative, embodied ways. the issue opens with james bernauer’s article, “how calls for research can awaken selfreflexivity and latent interests in scholarly inquiry.” in this piece, he reflects on how particular “calls for research” can produce a spark igniting curiosity, transforming hidden and essentially “unconscious interests” into narrative interpretations. through dynamically integrating psychological perspectives with autoethnographic experience in scholarly inquiry, a new awareness of living, growing, and learning happens. j. scott baker’s article, “alone on stage: how one lgbtiq+ educator uses poetic performative autoethnography for social change” serves to encourage and inspire self-reflexive researchers to use poetic performance as inquiry to promote social change. baker’s piece draws attention to the possibilities generated by creating a hybrid methodology for opening up dialogue and discussion of obstacles facing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (lgbtiq+) educators in secondary schools and beyond. in marguerite müller’s article, “having fun seriously matters: a visual arts-based narrative of methodological inventiveness,” she highlights why and how seeking to become a self-reflexive educational researcher opens up spaces for playful and inventive pathways for knowing self, resisting restrictive traditions, 6 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 and transforming organically in a context of rapid social and educational change. kirsten woitek’s article, “creative inquiry: exploring teacher researcher self-reflexivity through artsbased self-study” exemplifies how reflexively exploring her lived past-present experiences as an english teacher through multifaceted, artistic research practices deepened and informed a different understanding of her teacher self in relation to english learners. tanya van der walt’s article, “‘show, don’t tell’: using visual mapping to chart emergent thinking in selfreflexive research” illustrates how actively engaging in rhizomatic (multidimensional and non-linear) concept maps as visual tools for “designing, conducting, interpreting, and writing phases of a research project” can provide imaginative springboards to distil reading and to clarify research ideas. finally, tamara hancock’s piece, “embroidery as method: stitching together narrative becomings and data” intricately interrogates women’s stories of becomingveterinarians along with her story of becoming-scholar. she highlights why and how using narrative inquiry as a self-reflexive or diffractive methodology holds much promise for understanding the personal-professional self as unknowable, unstable, and relational. overall, the articles in this issue offer a range of unique insights into how the generative intersection of self-reflexivity and inventiveness can contribute to advancing knowledge about education. nevertheless, we are mindful that, as ball (2012) pointed out, in addition to the creation of new knowledge, we must remember that the conduct of research, though necessary, is not sufficient to address social problems, mitigate inequalities, or advance innovative methods of instruction. for this very reason, [the educational focus of our research] demands that we not only advance knowledge about education and encourage scholarly inquiry related to education but that we also promote the use of research to improve education and serve the public good. (p. 284, emphasis added) in looking across the articles, we can see how imaginative engagement to stimulate alternative methodological modes has potential to contribute critically to new and generative ways of knowing self, with wider implications for educational and social change (dadds & hart, 2001). methodological inventiveness in self-reflexive research “can heighten our consciousness that some change for the better is almost always within reach” (pithousemorgan, coia, taylor, & samaras, 2016, p. 455). as eisner (2002) pointed out, “imagination gives us images of the possible that provide a platform for seeing the actual, and by seeing the actual freshly, we can do something about creating what lies beyond it (p. 4). creativity from a self-critical perspective challenges us to reflect and answer bryant’s questions: “how do we transform ourselves, our collaborators, and our readers? what are the implications of our research for social change?” (2015, p. 3). mitchell has called on educational researchers to “[expand our] repertoire of being and doing” to engage self-critically with questions of our social responsibility (2008, p. 365). and as badley (2019, p. 184) has emphasised, “this strategy, perspective, or narrative should also help us deal with social and political problems to embrace change with enthusiasm.” studies presented in this themed issue illustrate how self-reflexivity and methodological inventiveness can illuminate significant issues of social in/justice concerning self and beyond pihouse-morgan, pillay, naicker & masinga:editorial 7 and can point to avenues for exploration and growth in the wider educational arena. for example, in the us context, j. scott baker furnishes a perspicacious account of the potential of poetic performative autoethnography for self and the audience as a mechanism for social change towards the achievement of acceptance, equality, and workplace protections for lgbtiq+ educators. kirsten woitek, using multiple arts-based methods such as poetry and art, makes visible how inventiveness made transparent her subjectivities concerning immigrant english learners as an esol 4 teacher in the us and how enhanced self-reflexivity is contributing to the critical transformation of her teacher self. and marguerite müller, writing from a south african higher education perspective, explores how creativity can lead to a better understanding of personal experiences, identities, and subjectivities in a context in which protests are intensifying for government to provide free tertiary education for the students from low-income households and for the decolonisation of higher education. taken as a whole, this themed issue illustrates the potential of methodologically inventive self-reflexive educational research as a productive space in which researchers may become conscious of and work on themselves in artful and ethical ways. the articles in the issue portray researching as a process that is as important as its products. they bring to light the human experiences, relationships, and emotions that give life and meaning to educational research. crucially, they also call attention to how unknowing and uncertainty in researching can point to significant opportunities for discovery and growth. the “productive ambiguity” of “material . . . [that] is more evocative than denotative . . . generates insight and invites attention to complexity” (eisner, 1997, p. 8), allowing us to see self in multiple ways and offering multi-perspective ways of seeing the world. creative self-reflexive research as ethical practice for re-knowing the self and how we choose to come to know can challenge normative ways of knowing in the service of confronting what troubles us most. reimagining the self of the researcher can open up opportunities for new ways of igniting, conceptualising, and practising research for educational and social change. to close, we offer a composite poem created from the poetic medley. this free form poem, “a rhizomatic spark” expresses our combined knowing in the making as editors of the themed issue and is also an invitation to join us in re-encountering the self of the researcher in imaginative ways—always in service of making a qualitative difference to human experience in educational settings. a rhizomatic spark my unknowable self-in-action creating a rhizomatic spark resist, transcend traditions! open hybrid dialogue dynamic, imaginative voices organic becoming 4 english to speakers of other languages 8 journal of education, no. 78, 2020 dedications we dedicate this themed issue to the memory of jackie kirk (1968–2008), whose selfreflexive methodological inventiveness remains our touchstone, and to the memory of elliot eisner (1933–2014), whose pithy statement, “the opposite of aesthetic is anaesthetic!” spoken in a crowded conference room in vancouver, canada in 2012, was a rhizomatic spark for us. acknowledgment we, the editors of this themed issue, acknowledge gratefully grant funding from the national research foundation (nrf) of south africa (human and social dynamics in development grant number 118539). we further acknowledge that any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and therefore the funders do not accept any liability in regard thereto. references badley, g. (2009). academic writing: contested knowledge in the making? quality assurance in education, 14(2), 104–117. badley, g. f. (2019). post-academic writing: human writing for human readers. qualitative inquiry, 25(2), 180–191. ball, a. f. (2012). to know is not enough: knowledge, power, and the zone of generativity. educational researcher, 41(8), 283–293. breckenridge, j. p. (2016). the reflexive role of tanka poetry in domestic abuse research. journal of research in nursing, 21, (5/6), 447–460. bryant, l. (2015). introduction. taking up the call for critical and creative methods in social work research. in l. bryant (ed.), critical and creative research methodologies in social work (pp.1–25). london uk: routledge. cole, a. l., & knowles, j. g. (2008). arts-informed research. in j. g. knowles & a. l. cole (eds.), handbook of the arts in qualitative research (pp. 55–70). thousand oaks, ca: sage. dadds, m., & hart, s. (2001). doing practitioner research differently. london, uk: routledgefalmer. eisner, e. w. (1992). objectivity in educational research. curriculum inquiry, 22(1), 9–15. eisner, e. w. (1997). the promise and perils of alternative forms of data representation. educational researcher, 26(6), 4–10. pihouse-morgan, pillay, naicker & masinga:editorial 9 eisner, e. w. (2002). the arts and the creation of the mind. new haven, ma: yale university press. kirk, j. (2005). starting with the self: reflexivity in studying women teachers’ lives in development. in c. mitchell, s. weber, & k. o’reilly-scanlon (eds.), just who do we think we are? methodologies for autobiography and self-study in teaching (pp. 231–241). london, uk: routledgefalmer. mitchell, c. (2008). getting the picture and changing the picture: visual methodologies and educational research in south africa. south african journal of education, 28(3), 365– 383. pithouse-morgan, k., coia, l., taylor, m., & samaras, a. (2016). exploring methodological inventiveness through collective artful self-study research. learning landscapes, 9(2), 443–460. pithouse-morgan, k., pillay, d., & naicker, i. (2017). “knowing what it is like”: dialoguing with multiculturalism and equity through collective poetic autoethnographic inquiry. international journal of multicultural education, 19(1), 125–143. retrieved from http://ijme-journal.org/index.php/ijme/article/view/1255/1167 pithouse-morgan, k., naicker, i., pillay, d., masinga, l., & hlao, t. (2016). “sink or swim?”: learning from stories of becoming academics within a transforming university terrain. south african journal of higher education, 30(1), 1–20. retrieved from http://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/sajhe/article/download/561/147 vasudevan, l. (2011). an invitation to unknowing. teachers college record, 113(6), 1154– 1174. retrieved from http://www.tcrecord.org id number: 16136 using participatory research with student teachers in a south african english education lecture-room: methodological implications ansurie pillay abstract this article focusses on the methodological implications of using participatory action research (par) in an english education lecture-room at a south african university. it argues that research with, by and for student teachers may engender their empowerment and transformation. using a system of interventions with literary texts as catalysts, the student teachers worked towards becoming agents of change in their future classrooms. over a twoyear period, the student teachers and researcher worked collaboratively on the study that was framed by critical pedagogy. information was collected using interviews, focus groups, student evaluations, drawings and written work and the data was analysed qualitatively. the study found that using par teaches student teachers important research skills that they may take into their classrooms. further, the use of active dialogue and collaboration in a supportive environment facilitates par progressing successfully. finally, critical reflexivity in par enables the process of change agency. introduction this article focusses on the implications of using participatory action research (par) in an english education lecture-room at a south african university. it argues that research with, by and for student teachers may engender their empowerment and transformation. using a system of interventions with literary texts as catalysts, the student teachers worked towards becoming agents of change in their future classrooms. while the study generated many findings, this article focusses on answers to the following research question: what are the methodological implications of using par in a university lecture-room? the study derives from two sources – the student teachers’ anxieties about entering a seemingly dysfunctional educational system characterised by crisis 74 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 (bloch, 2009) and my concern that student teachers are not taught how to become agents of change and make a difference to their learners’ lives through literature or otherwise. while priestly, edwards, priestley and miller (2012) conceptualise ‘agents of change’ as being reflexive, creative and committed to pursuing and embracing possibilities for change even in the face of obstacles, it is my contention that student teachers need to be developed and empowered to confront the challenges of the many south african realities, including the freedoms and challenges of a relatively new democratic political dispensation. i also believe that student teachers need to be equipped to redress inequalities still carried over by south africa’s past configurations of repression. further, they should be taught to teach to make a difference to their learners’ lives. i entered the research process with the contention that if student teachers are empowered with sound disciplinary knowledge, effective pedagogical tools and an understanding of how to bring about academic and social change, then they can make a difference to the lives of their learners, irrespective of context or resources. i also understood that for the study to enable empowerment and transformation, the student teachers had to have a vested interest in the study and had to be co-researchers with me in determining the course of the study. if they were not empowered with a transformation agenda, it was possible that they would not recognise the forces that shaped and still shape them, and thus would reproduce the existing system. the way teachers define their roles and functions determines what is done in their classrooms. ultimately, if teachers do not recognise that they have the power to exercise agency over who they are, how they teach and what they hope to achieve, then the cycle of disempowerment and failure will continue and society will replicate itself. to enable agency, this study focussed on the literature component of english education where student teachers are taught different literary texts and pedagogical tools to teach texts. while content and pedagogy appear to be taught, student teachers are not taught how to make a difference to learners’ lives through literature, or how to use literature or any other means to address issues that confront learners and their communities on a daily basis. thus, the power of literature to both transform and empower is often ignored. in the study, six literary texts, chosen prior to my being appointed to the university, served as catalysts for change. they were two novels, the madonna of excelsior by zakes mda (2002) and the god of small things by arundhati roy (1997); two plays, sophiatown by the junction avenue theatre pillay: using participatory research. . . 75 company (1988) and the tempest by william shakespeare (1623); and two films, the colour of paradise directed by majid majidi (1999) and much ado about nothing directed by kenneth branagh (1993). this article considers the methodological implications of using par to transform and empower student teachers to build their content knowledge and pedagogical skills and to develop agency. the article discusses the theoretical underpinnings of the study, and provides an overview of the par process and how it was used in this study. the article then engages with the methodological implications of using par in the study. the theoretical underpinning of the study the study was underpinned by critical pedagogy which is founded on the possibility of transformation, and has a critical nature and liberating function. this theory posits that education should be understood in its socio-historical and political context, and should commit itself to transformation towards democracy, justice, equality, and freedom. it focusses on human agency and possibilities for change (biesta and tedder, 2007). critical pedagogy draws on dewey’s assertion that education can function either to create passive, risk-free citizens or a citizenry informed by a concern for justice and equality (giroux, 2009). building on dewey’s ideas, freire (1970) insisted that teachers and students should be agents actively engaged in the process of constructing meaning together. for freire, critical pedagogy should be used to highlight issues of democratic participation, agency, and voice (darder, baltodano and torres, 2009), and, since this study was intrinsically concerned with democratic participation, agency, and voice, critical pedagogy was a clear choice with which to underpin the participatory action research. a brief overview of the participatory action research process and how we engaged with it in the study participatory action research (par) emerged organically during the study, and, incidentally, was not named such until much later in the research process. for this study, student teachers and i used par, a form of action research, to enable social change. our contention was that social change can begin with how teachers recognise and implement their roles and functions in the school 76 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 system. this means that teachers have a responsibility to help learners grow and develop both academically and socially, and to enable learners to challenge and confront the stereotypes and constraints that have shaped their lives. teachers thus have to have agency, serve as agents of change and empower learners to assume agency as well. in a par study, change is possible through theory and knowledge-creation which emerges from dialogue between the participants and the researcher (flood, 1998). par “is a means of putting research capabilities in the hands of the . . . people so that they can transform their lives for themselves” (park, 1993, p.1). it includes voices from groups not normally heard, credits community knowledge, modifies the role of the researcher to listener, works towards social justice, and necessitates recognising the power of and power relations between all participants. for this study, combining critical pedagogy with par was considered a sound decision in pursuing the aim of making research an agent of transformation (swantz, 2008). hall (2005) suggests that the issue being studied in a par study should originate from the group. in this study, while the student teachers were not responsible for suggesting the idea for the research, they embraced wholeheartedly the idea of student teachers of literature becoming agents of change and recognised that it would be important for their future careers, professional identities and professionalism in their workplaces. they also recognised that the concepts of change and change agency were marginalised in their teacher education programme. in addition, they recognised their choices and responsibilities, and the power that they wielded in transforming themselves into agents of change. thus, par was of immediate interest to them, as the outcomes of the research would affect them directly. as is required of par, prior to the research process getting underway, the student teachers and i had to first reflect on and achieve a deep understanding of the historical, social, economic and political contexts from which the student teachers emerged, within which they study and the sociological realities of the schools where they will serve as teachers. thereafter, we had to problematise the issue of how we could work together to use issues in the literary texts to serve as catalysts to enable them to become agents of change, and negotiate possible plans of action (whitehead and mcniff, 2009). it was decided that with each text studied, various literary theories and pedagogical tools would be used and the concept ‘agent of change’ would be unpacked to move them closer to becoming agents of change. they would also consider pillay: using participatory research. . . 77 how the literary texts could serve as examples of how texts could help learners grow and develop. it was decided that we would use interactive, cooperative learning strategies to achieve our objectives. the process was thus a collaborative one involving a spiral of cycles of research, experiential learning and action (boog, 2003) and spanned just over two years, which included four weeks of teaching practice and a visit to a sample of teachers three months into their serving as fully-fledged teachers. each cycle of the par, which typically comprised three weeks of lectures and tutorials, involved an intervention designed by the group to ascertain the extent to which the aims of the study were being addressed, and at each cycle, the intervention was implemented, observed, reflected on and theorised before further action. interventions in the par process used the literary text as a springboard to focus on literary theories, issues under scrutiny (social justice issues, in the main), innovative pedagogical tools, and unpacking of the concept ‘agent of change’. for example, when working with the madonna of excelsior, the literary theories, practical criticism (text-centred criticism with a close reading and analysis), reader response (the reader as an active meaning-maker), marxist literary theory (the economic forces, social hierarchies, individual struggles and larger class interests) and feminist literary theory (gender relations and gender representations) were used. by using various literary theories, we engaged more fully with the text and could read it from various perspectives, while still following critical pedagogy principles. each lecture was placed within a flexible framework and began with either a question or problem posed to the student teachers. the answers helped to reveal what they were thinking and the lecture then explored and built on the answers that emerged from the discussion. within the lecture, specific issues that emerged from the text such as race, class, gender, culture, power and identity, among others, were discussed as a class or in pairs, and answers, in writing or orally, were shared with the class. throughout the lecture, the student teachers’ views were explored and challenged, issues were open to debate, they were encouraged to interrupt the lecture and ask questions, and, i asked questions, both convergent and open-ended. various activities were used in the lectures including short writing tasks, roleplays, problem-solving activities, and reading aloud, and various resources were drawn on including music, digital versatile disks (dvds), pictures, film 78 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 clips, newspaper articles, academic articles, interviews and critiques. at various times, language issues were pointed out incidentally with particular emphasis on the role of language as it constructed realities and social categories, and highlighted or suppressed agency, among other functions. another important aspect of the lectures was to unpack the concept ‘agent of change’ and determine how issues in the text could serve as catalysts for the student teachers to serve as agents of change. initially, we unpacked the concept ‘agent of change’ and shared readings on the concept. throughout the study, we attempted to understand a teacher’s roles and functions in order to understand how to make a difference in the classroom and how to use issues in the text to enable learners’ agency, participation, reflection and voice. generally, the lecture format used various activities to address issues in the text, as pedagogical tools, and as ways to help them realise the aim of becoming agents of change. after each par cycle, which included critical reflection of the cycle, qualitative data collection strategies (interviews, focus groups, student evaluations, drawings and written work) were used to evaluate the interventions and establish the extent to which the student teachers were moving towards becoming agents of change in their future classrooms. the data collected served to inform the next cycle and ultimately informed the conclusions drawn at the end of the study. a qualitative research approach provided opportunities for the student teachers to explore their experiences of the research process, and allowed for an in-depth understanding of findings. thus, the flexible, fluid nature of qualitative research provided a perfect fit for par. while the study worked with and collected some data from all student teachers in the english education lecture-room, some data was collected from a purposeful sample. for example, the lecture-room observations, written work, drawings and student evaluations involved the sixty-six student teachers in the study. however, the focus groups, in cycles two and five, comprised eight student teachers, interviews were held with ten student teachers in cycles three and six, and teaching practice observations were carried out in seven classrooms after cycle five. in this study, a purposeful sample was chosen in terms of student teachers’ race and gender because these two variables represented insights from various perspectives on the phenomena being investigated. pillay: using participatory research. . . 79 the student teachers served as co-analysers, monitors and verifiers of the research process, and the data collection process provided many opportunities to corroborate and verify findings. while par does not aim to be objective and impartial, it does aim for an authentic, credible, rigorous research process. in this study, the spirals of cycles and action-positioned nature of the research ensured that data collection and interpretation coincided, and subsequent spirals of cycles were informed by the assessment and interpretations of data from previous cycles. using an iterative process, the group had to refer back to and reflect on data collected previously. i worked collaboratively with groups of student teachers in the data analysis (different groups for different sets of data), and the groups identified recurring themes and patterns that emerged from the data. further, as qualitative analysts, the groups had to be reflective about their own voices and points of view. to ensure the validity of par, the suggestions made by moser (1975) cited in morrow and torres (1995) were followed in this study. firstly, the par process, functions and aims had to be transparent to the group. secondly, there needed to be compatibility between the aims and methods used to achieve aims. finally, i needed to ensure that i had an in-depth understanding of the situation and truthfully revealed all aspects of the research, including limitations, of which i had become aware. because of the recurring action and reflection, par is often viewed as a work in progress with many unanswered queries and unsolved debates (reason and bradbury, 2006). ultimately, par confronts conventional, established social science research by re-aligning research that goes beyond reflective data produced by external authorities appraising variables to active moment-bymoment theorising, data gathering, and investigations arising in the midst of an evolving, developing structure (torbert, 2004). methodological implications of the study while there were many implications of the study, this article considers the four main methodological implications of using participatory action research (par) in this study. the first methodological implication of using par was that the student teachers were equipped to implement a par process, despite not being formally taught how to conduct the research. they experienced most aspects of the research process and their involvement in the various 80 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 stages of the par cycles has enabled them to conduct research in their own classrooms. they co-designed the research plan that was required to identify problems, and collaboratively planned the interventions, implemented the actions, reflected on them and planned further. in their drawings, collected at the end of the study, they recognised the importance of ‘interactive’ and ‘collaborative’ research environments. they had a vested interest in the research process as they recognised that it responded to their needs and they demonstrated their willingness to be interviewed or to serve in the focus groups. i read this to imply a readiness to involve themselves in the research process that was designed to help them become agents of change. further, despite data being anonymous and confidential, they were eager to reveal which responses from the data were theirs, even if the responses were unpopular ones and thus, were badly received by the others. i identified this finding as honesty on their part to reveal their current ways of thinking so that change may be implemented. when they understood that the study would be adapted in response to their direct needs, they accepted it as their own and ensured that their voices were heard. they embraced the control of the study, were empowered to shape its course, and recognised that issues of change have a strong chance of emerging through dialogue between the participants and the researcher (flood, 1998). when interviewing four student teachers who had graduated and were working in their own classrooms, two of them referred to it as ‘our study’, indicating ownership of the process. a methodological implication of using par is that it put research capabilities in the hands of the student teachers so they could transform their lives for themselves (park, 1993). this implication of using par was, for me, the most liberating aspect of the study as the student teachers’ participation, involvement and control in the different cycles of the study enabled some form of empowerment and transformation. the second methodological implication involved the limitations of the par process itself. i, rather than the student teachers, collected data and chose samples for data collection, for purely logistical reasons. while the student teachers planned the par cycles, co-analysed data and determined interventions, they were not involved in every step of the research process. instead, they were informed about the processes involved in data collection and sampling. in retrospect, their involvement in data collection and sampling might have had an important effect on the findings. in addition, the group was aware that par involved ad hoc planning, not necessarily the norm in research studies. par as a research design has also been criticised for lacking pillay: using participatory research. . . 81 specific methodological practices and a rigid framework (waters-adams, 2006; van der meulen, 2011), and the subjectivity of the group and the relationships that emanate from the various processes make par significantly different from traditional objective research. we thus had to make a concerted effort to work together as research partners, and responsibility for the research process was shared. we followed moser’s (1975) suggestions that the par process, functions and aims had to be transparent to the group and the aims and methods needed to be compatible (cited in morrow and torres, 1995). throughout the study, we reflected upon the process as ethical issues emerged, negotiated, planned and implemented new cycles of research as carefully as possible, and theorised all findings to enable reliable access to practice. the third methodological implication was the significance of using constant, active dialogue and engaged participation. the study was characterised by dialogue between the student teachers and me, and i tried to find nonthreatening ways to ensure comfortable participation for the group. during a focus group discussion in cycle three, the student teachers indicated that they were very comfortable talking in the english education lecture-room with one saying, ‘this is the only class i talk in’. another pointed out, ‘in other lectures, you just try to answer and sometimes, if it’s wrong, people find it funny’. the comments indicated that the student teachers experienced a sense of trust and respect among the group. the lecture-room was thus perceived to be a safe, respectful place for them to participate and share their views. thus, a nurturing, supportive environment may serve to enable voice and democratic participation. moreover, such an environment may engender agency and enable possibilities for change (biesta and tedder, 2007; giroux, 2009). by the end of the study, drawings revealed that the student teachers believed that good teachers ‘asked stimulating questions’; ‘encouraged discussion’; set up ‘debates to encourage higher order thinking’; and ‘ensured that learners’ views were respected’. in a final interview, a student teacher noted, that ‘the questions, discussions and debates’ were effective in ‘making me understand things that you sometimes just accept’. the final reflection of the study indicated that the student teachers would ‘remember to encourage talk and questions so learners learn how to examine issues’ and ‘remind learners that they have a voice and must use it. they must also respect other learners’ thoughts’, affirming the importance of creating space for learners’ voices so that all learners are able to participate in an atmosphere of respect. their 82 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 comments revealed their recognition that dialogue and conscientisation are effective in a study and a classroom with a transformation agenda (darder et al., 2009), and their views are supported by the findings of many researchers (lowman, 1984; golub, 1988; bonwell and eison, 1991). a final and perhaps most important methodological implication involved the use of critical reflections at the end of each cycle to enable us to make informed decisions based on well-thought out ideas and help us move towards change agency. the critical reflections allowed for understandings and improvements of practices and ways of doing and being. a graduated student teacher interviewed after the study expressed her initial experiences of teaching as ‘overwhelming’, but she tried to ‘keep a perspective on things . . . reflect often . . . know why i’m doing this’, indicating her recognition of the benefits of critical reflection in her growth and development. it is hoped that the student teachers’ abilities to contemplate and deliberate on actions, experiences and ideas gleaned from the study have prepared them for similar reflections in their own classrooms. not only did the reflections facilitate deliberations on our practices, it allowed us to question our own long-held views and those of others. for example, while the student teachers could recognise issues of social justice in the literary texts and could explain how they would engage learners on those issues, they often contradicted themselves in their discussions. for example, they would denounce sexism but would accept male behaviour ‘because men behave that way’. thus, while student teachers did not always agree with a literary character’s actions, they accepted and understood them because he was a man. we therefore recognised the inconsistencies in how we judged texts and what we said in our personal capacities, and we had to challenge ourselves to confront stereotypes and biases. we recognised that we needed to be reflexive by engaging in explicit, self-aware analyses of how we influenced the findings of the study (aasgaard, borg and karlsson, 2012). for me as the researcher, the par process entailed daily reflections alone to assess the progress of the study. while i was the facilitator and researcher in the par study, i was also the student teachers’ lecturer and assessor. while the roles of facilitator and researcher were shared with the student teachers, such that data analysis and verification, and critical reflection and planning for the next cycle were undertaken collaboratively, the roles of lecturer and assessor were not. i could therefore wield power within the research process and could arrive with biases related to the research process (waters-adams, pillay: using participatory research. . . 83 2006). i had, therefore, to mediate the research process very carefully, to enable all the roles to function successfully. to ameliorate power imbalances, i attempted to empower myself with knowledge about par and to actively enable inclusion and active involvement of the student teachers in the data analysis and data verification. further, i made a conscious effort to ensure that the researcher-participant relationship was a dialogical one where both the student teachers and i contributed to the research process, to the knowledge generated, and to the evaluation of the process. but, i realised i needed to continue developing my self-knowledge by critically reflecting on my core values, multiple identities, locations of power and privilege, and how these understandings influence interactions with others and with research practices. i understood that my work experiences and interactions moulded my identity, influenced my practices and shaped my values. while i recognised my core values as supportive of my actions, i realised that i had to re-examine my values constantly as i worked through the research process. constant, honest and mindful reflection was therefore necessary to manage the research process. to achieve the transformation of student teachers in the study, i needed to reassert my emancipatory intention and had to ensure that actions were in the best interests of the student teachers. to foreground the intention, ongoing action and reflection had to occur and extend beyond the par activity. the critical reflections exposed a further methodological implication. we recognised that the research was a collective undertaking influenced by many forces within and beyond the academic institution. for example, there had to be an awareness that the student teachers and i work within our own institutional and community environments, which involve our own sets of values and structures of power. we therefore needed to examine power relationships in the research setting, including individual and institutional relationships. we recognised that we exist within wider social, political and economic structures that shape our experiences of race, gender, class, culture, sexual orientation and other aspects of identity. we realised that the par study, in general, and critical reflections, in particular, had brought the group closer together and an ethos of trust, honesty and respect were evident. since we worked as a collaborative group of investigators who were collectively responsible for the study, we had to establish a relationship that was based on open communication and commitment to bring about change. it is possible that the strategies used 84 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 during the study, such as sharing of stories and role-plays, had created a bond between us. in their written work, the student teachers noted that the par process had allowed them to ‘build relationships’ and ‘learn to respect each other’s views’, and i had to ensure that i respected them as active agents of change, mindful of the dynamics of relationships, including the issues of power and hierarchy playing out in the research situation (johnson and christensen, 2007). in addition, the critical reflections enabled the group to be reflexive about their becoming teachers. in the focus group at the end of cycle two, two student teachers noted, ‘this study has made me think about whether i can make a difference to the kids at school’ and ‘how do i become a change agent? you ask us that and i have to think about it. i have to think about becoming something’. the two student teachers identified that they thought about becoming change agents, thus, the possibility for change was highlighted. during cycle five, a student teacher observed that during teaching practice she ‘wanted to focus on the content and methods. but i couldn’t help saying, how do i make a difference to their lives’. in the final focus group, a student teacher noted that ‘the study makes me think . . . who am i as a teacher in south africa? can i create my own identity? can i break the mould?’ her comments reflected that she was thinking deeply about her role not just as teacher but as a teacher who wanted to make a difference. her comments revealed that she was reflecting on her actions, experiences and thoughts, and was determined to forge her own identity. another noted that, ‘there is always some way to make a difference. i feel guilty if i let it pass’ and yet another noted that she ‘didn’t want to dwell on change in learners’ lives but once you are aware, you can’t avoid it’. what the comments indicated is that they were becoming agents of change, whether they wanted it or not. they were aware that they could not avoid making a difference to their learners’ lives. further, they were changing and making a difference to their own lives. freire (2009) points out that while teachers need a firm command of their subject matter and a thorough understanding of the curriculum, they also need to serve as agents of change by setting up opportunities for learners to engage with the subject critically. freire’s views are echoed by fanon who points out that “what matters is not to know the world but to change it” (2008, p.13). finally, a student teacher pointed out that she would use issues that emerged from the literary texts to help learners develop academically and socially, but pillay: using participatory research. . . 85 noted that she would ‘use teaching moments from the texts, but i won’t preach. they must make decisions, think hard, and apply it to their own lives and contexts. it must be theirs’. she continued, ‘if i tell them . . . preach to them, i am, in a way, oppressing them’. while she knew that she was obliged to empower her learners and affirm their lives, she was equally aware that she had to reflect on her practices so that she did not impose her power and advantage on her learners. overall, she recognised that her teaching of literature and the practices that she used had to be supported by well thoughtout philosophical and ideological underpinnings if she was to make a difference to her learners. by the end of the study, anonymous student evaluations revealed that all the student teachers aspired to be agents of change and had a clear understanding of themselves as agents of change who need to have a clear vision of their roles and functions, ethical and democratic principles, and a commitment to improving their own and their learners’ lives. they also understood the need for life-long learning and regular reflection on their professional identities. it is significant that one student teacher noted, in the anonymous evaluation, that s/he did not believe that s/he would become an agent of change, but still believed that teachers needed to be agents of change in their classrooms, signifying an aspiration to an ideal. all others believed they would serve as agents of change and in an interview, a student teacher noted that she had ‘a yardstick to use’ and wanted to be ‘a teacher who has some significance’. in their drawings, student teachers noted that an effective teacher ‘had a passion for making a difference in learners’ lives’; convinced learners ‘to think out of the box’; and ‘instigated change and influenced learners positively’. responses signified that they were committed to bring about change and able to reflect on their thoughts and actions (priestley et al., 2012), were able to “live a critically conscious presence in the pedagogical process” (freire 1970, p. 202), and could recognise their own agency and voice in the process of becoming agents of change in their classrooms so that learners became critical, active human beings (giroux and mclaren, 1996). ultimately, critical reflection played a significant role in shaping who we became. while it is difficult to assess concepts of emancipation, agency, empowerment and democratic participation within the confines of the study, the student teachers did establish and understand, with clarity, what their goals, values, capacities, and functions are, and that represents an important starting point for them to take it further when in their own classrooms. i recognised growth and development in their ability to make choices, pose 86 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 questions and reflect on their actions and words. the impact of the study on the participating student teachers’ could be seen in their use of participatory, transformative discourse. at the end of the study, they were able to use, with confidence, the important concepts of the study. in their final reflection, they considered the importance of taking cognisance of lortie’s (1975) ‘apprenticeship of observation’, freire’s (1970) concepts of ‘banking’ and ‘libertarian’ education and other concepts such as ‘agency’, ‘voice’, ‘hegemony’, ‘critical literacy’, ‘conscientisation’, ‘collaborative strategies’ and ‘humanising pedagogy’. while such concepts, and others, were engaged with through each cycle, they could use them independently and with a clear understanding of how the concepts worked in authentic, practical situations. however, i understood that while they were conversant with discourse, it remained to be seen if the ideas were transferred to real situations. at the end of the sixth and final cycle, the group stepped out of the research process. however, the process of the student teachers becoming agents of change is a long-term one in their school environments. four months into their first year of teaching, at the end of the first school term and during their first school break, four novice teachers, who were part of the study, were interviewed to determine whether the principles and ideas of the study were being transferred to their classrooms. a purposeful sample of novice teachers was chosen based on the race and gender of the teachers and on the material resources at their schools. the classrooms of the four novice teachers revealed varying learner numbers, ranging from twenty-five learners in materially advantaged schools where resources and facilities were of a very high calibre, to sixty learners in materially disadvantaged schools where there was a dearth of resources and facilities. in their classrooms, all the novice teachers used largely learner-centred lessons to engage their learners. of significance were their reasons for choosing strategies. they noted that the home language of many of their learners was not english, and that they chose strategies that would encouraged their learners to speak, practice the language, and hear the language being spoken or read. they also indicated that they questioned and challenged learners’ ideas, and related the issues in the texts to learners’ lives. thus, they were using issues in the texts to help their learners grow and develop academically and socially. all the novice teachers were clear about what they wanted for their learners. the first novice teacher noted that she ‘wanted to use the texts to expose pillay: using participatory research. . . 87 learners to different cultures and social classes and to show them that people have similar needs and wants, despite outward differences’; another wanted his learners ‘to succeed’ and he let them know that he ‘cared about them’; a third tried to help her learners ‘with their problems, academic and social’ and realised that she needed ‘physical, mental and emotional strength to be a teacher’; and the fourth ‘tried to motivate and encourage’ her learners, who mostly ‘wanted to improve their lot’, and she noted that she ‘could not abandon her learners and needed interventions’. the four novice teachers, while teaching in varied contexts and being aware of many different challenges, were committed to and aware of ‘making a difference to their learners’. of the study, all believed that the study had been useful to them, noting that it had been ‘vital’ to their training, taught them ‘how to cope’, ‘transformed their thinking’, showed them ‘how to reflect’, gave them ‘confidence’, and ‘empowered’ them ‘to make a difference’ in their schools. when speaking about the study, one teacher believed that ‘it was the only relevant, significant part’ of his university degree. while the four novice teachers seemed to be implementing a transformation agenda in various forms, the choices made by the others are not known. they left the research process empowered with some of the skills and capacities to continue the transformation of themselves and their learners, and they understood that they needed to continue to interrogate any unanswered questions and reflect critically on their doubts and uncertainties. mclaren (2009) reminds us that empowerment equips participants with the skills and courage to implement changes where necessary. conclusion by using participatory action research (par) in this study, it became clear that research outcomes, action outcomes and critical reflection may be used to understand, confront and improve systems and practices, and may work together to provide practical solutions to issues of concern. ultimately, the use of par in this study taught the student teachers important research skills, and they left the study fairly well equipped to implement a par process themselves, recognising both the strengths and limitations of the research process. further, they recognised the impact of using active dialogue, 88 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 collaboration and participation in a nurturing, supportive environment to achieve aims. however, the most important implication of using par was that while they comprehended the strength of critical reflection to improve practices and understand the research process, they could discern the power of critical reflexivity to interrogate power imbalances and to shape their becoming agents of change in their classrooms. it became apparent that the use of par in a university lecture-room is not just feasible, its role as research of the students, by the students, for the students can prove very powerful in enabling empowerment and transformation. references aasgaard, h.s., borg, m. and karlsson, b. 2012. emancipation or symbolic participation: how can we ‘do’ action research as a democratic process? international practice development journal, 2(1): pp.1–7. biesta, g.j.j. and tedder, m. 2007. agency and learning in the lifecourse: towards an ecological perspective. studies in the education of adults, 39: pp.132–149. bloch, g. 2009. the toxic mix. cape town: tafelberg. bonwell, c.c. and eison, j.a. 1991. active learning: creating excitement in the classroom: aehe-eric clearing 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accepted: 21 october 2019) abstract most initial teacher education programmes include a compulsory teaching practice module and there are various models that could be used for first-year students’ teaching practice. in south africa, the minimum requirements for teachers education qualification document provides guidelines for teaching practice in initial teacher education programmes, but it does not include specific implementation guidelines. to address this gap, a campus-based teaching practice model to prepare and support first-year students was implemented at a south african university. in this article, i explore first-year students’ experiences of this model. i used a mixed methods research design to address this aim. i found, according to their claims, that 89% of participants had benefitted from this model since it provided them with critical insight into what it means to be a teacher. the results of this research could benefit teacher educators and initial teacher education institutions in other places. keywords: teaching practice, first-year students, teaching practice model, initial teacher education introduction in education, the term for work integrated learning (wil) is used interchangeably with concepts such as practicum, teaching practice, teaching experience, professional training or school-based training. all these concepts make reference to the compulsory requirement for pre-service teachers to engage in an authentic classroom setting before they qualify as set out in the minimum requirements for teachers education qualification (mrteq; department of higher education and training (dhet) 2015). in this article, i refer to a wil model used for first-year student teachers during their first teaching practice that is situated in the wider body of research in initial teacher education (ite). first-year university students are particularly vulnerable at university because the transition from high school to university can be a challenging experience for them. student attrition at universities has become a worldwide concern and is viewed as a calamitous problem in south moosa: reducing practice-shock 95 africa (letseka & cosser, 2010). the challenges faced by first-year students are multi-causal in nature and can be linked to personal circumstances and problems, funding concerns, course selection, difficulty in forming social networks, and inadequate pre-university education (araque, roldán, & salguero, 2009; gerdes & mallinckrodt, 1994; ramrathan, 2013; smith & naylor, 2001). one of the reasons for high student dropout rates in south africa is based on first-year students’ under-preparedness for higher education as slonimsky and shalem (2006) have observed. in addition to the demands faced by all first-year students, first-year pre-service student teachers face challenges in relation to understanding and meeting the demands of teaching practice because of their own school experiences. the learn-to-teach literature shows that student teachers often underestimate the demand and complexities of what it means to teach (grossman, hammerness, & mcdonald, 2009; loughran, mulhall, & berry, 2008). this presents universities with an opportunity to close this gap by developing programmes that help to prepare first-year students for teaching practice. our institution has opted for a model that focuses on “procedural” (kagan, 1992, p. 162) and professional development (grossman, 1992) since both aspects are regarded as important for first-year students when they make the transition from learner to teacher. the model is comprised of a structured campus-based programme that offers first-year students the opportunity to develop an understanding of the complexities of teaching in a formal and structured setting as we have learned from rusznyak and moosa (2014). this teaching practice model was implemented with first-year students to provide them with a deeper understanding of the intricacies of teaching. in ite programmes, teaching practice or what is known as learning in practice, refers to the time students spend in a classroom environment as part of their degree course. however, despite practical learning being an essential component of ite programmes, different countries and teacher training institutions use different models of teaching practice. there is little agreement as to what constitutes teaching practice and how long it should take place. the time required for teaching practice in the united states of america is sixteen weeks whereas new zealand requires students to complete a minimum of fourteen weeks, but preferably twenty or more weeks, while in england students need to spend at least twentyfour weeks at this (quick & siebörger, 2005). in addition, according to niemi and jakkusihvonen (2011), in finland the time spent on teaching practice varies depending on the qualification, with up to fourteen weeks for undergraduate degrees and between five to eight weeks for masters degrees. in china students are required to complete eight to ten weeks, in australia eight to nine weeks, in hong kong nineteen weeks, in canada twenty-eight weeks, and in singapore twenty-two weeks (manzar-abbas & lu, 2013) of teaching practice. in african countries like zimbabwe, students complete five school terms according to ngara and colleagues (2013) which equates to about seventy weeks while in malawi, kaphesi (2013) has noted that students complete twelve weeks of teaching practice. as is the case elsewhere in the world, the south african policy is unclear about how teaching practice ought to be constituted and various teacher education institutes in the country use 96 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 different models (see reddy, menkveld, & bitzer, 2008). this is problematic since it fails to ensure uniformity of teaching practice across all ite institutions in south africa. the guidelines for ite programmes regarding teaching practice are set out in the mrteq (dhet, 2015) document, according to which practical learning is one of the principles that should underpin the design of ite programmes. despite wil being a key component of ite programmes, the policy document does not specify how the programme ought to be implemented. however, the mrteq document (dhet, 2015) does state the period for the wil component: “students should spend a minimum of 20 weeks and a maximum of 32 weeks in formally supervised and assessed school-based practice over the four-year duration of the degree” (dhet, 2015, p. 25). it is at the discretion of the institutions how they structure the time, the programme, and assessments for students during teaching practice. with this mixed methods study, i aim to contribute to this field by exploring first-year student teachers’ experiences of a teaching practice model. this model was introduced at the school of education at the university of the witwatersrand in south africa. it was comprised of a campus-based programme and a school-based one. the overall intention of this research was to gain insights into the value of preparing first-year students for teaching practice by allowing them to attend a campus-based programme before they were placed in a school. my goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of this campus-based programme from the perspective of the first-year students who participated in it. their perceptions of the effectiveness of the programme were evaluated against how useful they found the information when they attended their first school-based practicum. theoretical perspective debates in the literature indicate that a primary influence on students’ perception of what teaching entails is based on their observations of their own teachers while at school (chong, 2011; friesen & besley, 2013; grossman, et al., 2009; kelchtermans & hamilton, 2004; luft & roehrig, 2007). this means that first-year teaching students arrive at university with some idea of what teaching is, based on their “apprenticeship of observation” (lortie, 1975, p. 62). they have developed a notion of what the practice of teaching is comprised of through observational learning (bandura, 1977). lortie (1975) has also argued that students’ prior knowledge about teaching is an anticipatory socialisation. this takes place throughout the students’ schooling life, and, more importantly, exerts a powerful influence on their learning journey in becoming teachers as osman, petersen, robinson, and van der merwe (2010) have reminded us. as learners at school, they develop their initial beliefs about teachers’ work, the various teaching methodologies used, discipline strategies, and interpersonal relationships between students and teachers when they observe their teachers. consequently, first-year students’ beliefs about teaching can be laden with “folk pedagogies” (bruner, 1996, p. 44). the students’ perceptions of what constitutes good or bad teaching practices were developed during their own schooling experiences and thus they might “vary greatly in their knowledge and skills before they enter preparation” (darling-hammond & moosa: reducing practice-shock 97 baratz-snowden, 2007, p. 114). this means that the first-year students saw only the instructional phase of teaching as shulman (1988) has noted, which could lead them to believe that their teachers came to class to present information that they found in textbooks. students are rarely exposed to other aspects of teaching such as the managing of learners and ideas and the emotional aspects of working with children. if first-year students’ perceptions of teaching are based on this narrow framework of their own experiences, then it is vital that they are exposed to opportunities that move them beyond these preconceived ideas and uncover the intricacies of what it actually means to teach. students who are inadequately prepared for the reality of being in a classroom for their first teaching practice might “feel overwhelmed, underprepared [and this leads many to] leave the profession after only a few years” (schauer, 2018, p. 1). theoretical lens the theoretical lens that informs this article is constructivism. this theoretical standpoint focuses on what people do with information to develop knowledge (jordan, carlile, & stack, 2008). constructivism proposes that reality is constructed from a perception of one’s environment and that each person constructs a different understanding of the world (watts, cockcroft, & duncan, 2013). according to gray and macblain, (2015) learning is an active process with which individuals engage; knowledge is internally generated by an individual and the environment (cockcroft, 2013). in general, as indicated by geary (1995), people are active learners and develop knowledge for themselves. in other words, constructivism argues that knowledge is not passively received but is built by the cognising subject (applefield, huber & moallem, 2000; jones and brader-araje, 2002). this approach suggests that firstyear students construct knowledge about teaching for themselves either individually or socially as they learn; their ability to make meaning and construct their own knowledge from experience is important for their development as teachers. constructivism has two main domains—the cognitive and the social. cognitive constructivism is the process by which students make sense of the world around them by constructing “their own sense of what is being learned by building internal connections or relationships among the ideas and facts being taught” (borich & tombari, 1997, p. 177). in this particular study, first-year students’ perceptions about teaching are based on their schooling environments, which (as stated previously) are not necessarily conducive to learning and teaching. they make connections in relation to what teaching entails by making sense of what they observed their teachers doing in school. this can be problematic for many students because of the disparity found in their various school contexts. social constructivism emphasises the importance of social interactions and the role played by society and culture in learning (jordan, carlile, & stack, 2008). from a social perspective, first-year pre-service teachers develop notions of what teaching is based on the school environments in which they found themselves as learners—a context in crisis in south africa. from an epistemological perspective, this means that learning to teach requires beginner teachers to think about teaching in different ways from what they have learned through their own experiences (hammerness, darling-hammond, & bransford, 2005). 98 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 ite programmes often have to demystify first-year students’ preconceived ideas about teaching. the reality of being in a classroom for the first time allows students the opportunity to explore their initial perceptions of teaching and how they came to hold such beliefs (borg, 2015; lortie, 1975). if left unchallenged, these preconceived ideas can affect the dynamics of learning to teach and further hamper the establishment of a teacher identity (walkington, 2005). hence a teaching practice model should assist first-year students to reflect critically on their preconceived ideas of teaching in an informed way. the aim of teaching practice is to assist students to become teachers. however, teaching is an intricate exercise with many intersecting factors. teacher preparation is a process that aims to produce an effective and competent teacher who demonstrates an ability to teach (hagger & mcintyre, 2006). furthermore, teaching practice intends to provide students with a safe environment in which they are able to gain the necessary skills and understanding of what teaching entails, so that they become more self-confident (moody, 2009). i argue that placing students in a school too early and without adequate preparation about what teaching entails results in their becoming either skeptical and/ or regretting their decision to become teachers. becoming a teacher can be an “emotional and demanding experience” (hagger & mcintyre, 2006, p. 10). burke (2010) has stated that the overwhelming demands made on first-year students during their first teaching practice can lead to their experiencing what is known as practice-shock. while students cannot be protected from the reality of being in a classroom, they should be given sufficient time and opportunity to distance themselves from their preconceived perceptions and to develop a holistic understanding of what teaching entails. before students are placed in a classroom, they need to have a nuanced understanding of what teaching involves and how to be and act as teachers themselves. teaching practice model this research aimed to explore first-year students’ experiences of a teaching practice model implemented at a particular institute. there were two teaching practice sessions that first-year students were required to attend. each session consisted of three weeks with one session in may and the second in september. the may teaching practice sessions were used for the campus-based programme. structure of a campus-based programme the ite programme used previously at this institution was structured to allow first-year students to go to schools for teaching practice within their first four months at the university. during this time, students were expected to complete an observation assignment, but no university tutor was allocated to observe the students as they taught at schools. however, the supervising teachers at schools were required to mentor and support students as well as to complete an assessment form for each of the students allocated to them. students returned to campus for one day during their teaching practicum in order to meet with a campus-based tutor and their peers. on this day, the students were required to do a micro-teaching session in moosa: reducing practice-shock 99 small groups: the intention was to give them feedback so that they could improve their lessons before they presented them to the learners at their respective schools. rusznyak and moosa (2014, p. s91) have argued that a campus-based model “offers possibilities for developing students’ understanding of teaching as a complex cognitive practice.” this led to the teaching practice programme for first-year students being changed so that these students attended a three-week long campus-based programme that replaced the need for students to attend schools during the may teaching practice session. the shift to a campus-based programme provided what schön (1987) called, more than thirty years ago, a “low-risk setting for novice learning” (p. 17) and, following cochran-smith and lytle (1999), students could engage in a focused manner on knowledge of practice. it also provided an opportunity for students to engage with their initial conceptions of teaching either by demystifying misconceptions or by engaging with new concepts and information before being placed in a classroom as hammerness and colleagues (2005) have suggested. furthermore, the campus-based programme in may provided students with additional scaffolding before they were placed in a school during their september teaching practice. it focused on four skills and knowledge sets highlighted in the mrteq document that could not be covered thoroughly by the curriculum in the students’ first four months at university: the ability to “communicate effectively in general”; “manage classrooms effectively”; “have a positive work ethic, display appropriate values and conduct themselves in a manner that befits, enhances and develops the teaching profession”; and, last, “to reflect critically on their own practice” (dhet, 2015, p. 64). for the second 3-week teaching practice session in september, the students were placed in a school and returned to campus only for a day’s programme. the tutors for this programme were carefully selected. they included ex-school principals, heads of departments, or retired educators from various schooling contexts who mentored the students and provided them with practical constructive examples and comments. in this way, students were able to reflect on their beliefs and start their exploration of teacher identity. the overall structure of the campus-based programme had the students attend a lecture each morning and then move into tutorial groups in which they engaged in discussions and completed written and practical tasks. these tutorials, based on the lectures, were led by experienced teachers. each day the students were required to complete various written tasks, practical tasks, and group-based activities. the programme was based on the two pillars of professional and personal development since these were regarded as crucial aspects for students to start to “think like a teacher” (hammerness et al., 2005, p. 358). the specific sessions for each of these two sections were conceptualised by the campus-based programme team, prompted by comments and recommendations received from schools, students, and tutors about what additional skills and information first-year students need in order to be more adequately prepared for teaching practice. see table 1 for the components included in the campus-based programme. 100 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 table 1: campus-based programme professional development personal development • dealing with challenging behaviours: how to manage bullying in schools including managing learner discipline. • how schools function: learning about general school protocols and procedures. • classroom practice: evaluating and analysing examples of classroom practice. • being a professional: learning about professional conduct and adjustment during teaching practice. • communication: communicating effectively by using appropriate body gestures and voice projection. • representations of teaching: students had to build a statue/model that they felt represented their role as south african teachers. • personal development: sessions on emotional intelligence, healthy relationships, stress and copying techniques were offered. • reflections: all students were given a reflective journal to complete during teaching practices. they were provided with detailed information on the importance, expectations, and requirements for them to complete the journal. • teaching is an emotional job: students attended a presentation and completed tasks on the emotional work of teachers. these skills were included in the programme because first-year students often lacked effective communicative skills, such as how to use their voice and body effectively when presenting lessons. by having them acquire these skills, i hoped to build students’ self confidence in a safe environment before they were placed in a school. classroom management is an aspect that concerns most novice teachers because negative experiences with learners’ behaviour has an adverse effect on teachers’ instructional efficacy as juuti, christophersen, elstad, solhaug, & turmo (2018) have made clear. the session on classroom management was meant to highlight the complexities of teaching, such as dealing with learner discipline and general administrative tasks, so that the students learned that teaching was more than the presentation of content to learners. first-year students are not always aware of these complexities because of their apprenticeship of observation when they were learners at school. additional sessions in the programme included coverage of the following: school protocols; using reflective journals; issues surrounding bullying and aggression; emotional intelligence; stress and coping mechanisms; and professionalism. all these sessions encouraged the students to challenge their preconceived ideas about teaching. the campus-based programme planners consciously chose not to have sessions on aspects of lesson planning and presentation since these skills had been covered during the methodology course, as well as in other first-year courses. in addition, the intention was to cover this aspect comprehensively during the second campus-based session in september. moosa: reducing practice-shock 101 the main question this research aimed to address was: “what are first-year students’ experiences of a campus-based teaching practice model?” in order to answer the main research question the following sub-questions were developed: 1. what are the limitations of the model as viewed by first-year students? 2. how have first-year students benefitted from the teaching practice model? 3. how could the model be improved? these sub-questions will be elaborated on in the findings and discussion section of this paper. research methods and methodology by following cresswell (2008) in using both quantitative and qualitative data to make sense of a phenomenon, this mixed methods study aimed at richer data collection and a deeper understanding of students’ experiences of the practicum model. this research method proved useful in understanding how first-year students benefitted from a campus-based teaching practice model. furthermore, in line with johnson, onwuegbuzie, and turner (2007, this design allowed for depth and breadth in identifying and understanding the limitations of this model and how its effectiveness could be improved upon. the qualitative and qualitative data was compared for common themes and sub-themes and these multiple views, as expressed in the data, enhanced its reliability and validity. participants the participants in this research were students registered for their first year of a bachelor’s degree in education at the university of the witwatersrand in south africa. the participants, male and female, were all full-time students aged between 18 and 56 some of whom were specialising as primary and others as secondary school teachers. participants were from a heterogeneous group in terms of racial, cultural, and social backgrounds as well as in terms of gender, age, and schooling backgrounds. this assisted in enhancing the variability of the data. permission to conduct this research was given by the university of the witwatersrand’s ethics committee. confidentiality has been ensured by not naming any participants. participants were made aware that their involvement was voluntary in this project, and that they could withdraw at any time if they chose to do so. out of 523 first-year students, 490 students completed the questionnaire on their experiences of the model, while 33 students did not attend the campus-based programme. (these 33 students had dropped out but had not deregistered from the degree.) the high number of students who participated in the research increased the external validity of the data. measures and data collection in line with suggestions made by creswell (2013), i used an explanatory sequential design for the study in which both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and implemented in two phases. the initial data collection method was quantitative to allow for “objectivity in measuring and describing phenomena” (mcmillan & schumacher, 2010, p. 21). immediately 102 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 after the three-week campus-based programme in may, the students were asked to complete a questionnaire containing closed questions in which they ranked the various lectures and activities of the programme as “excellent, good, average, or should not be included” (see appendix 1). this data from the 490 participants was collated to form the basis for the quantitative data. in the second phase, a qualitative data collection process, open-ended questions were used. this method allowed the participants to express their views freely in contrast to the predetermined choices they had been given in the first phase of the data collection process. students (n = 490) answered these questions after their second teaching practice session, which was a school-based session in september. 1. what information or skills from the campus-based programme was/were useful during the school-based practicum? 2. what should have been included in the campus-based programme and what should be removed? the students reflected on the highlights of the campus-based programme and provided suggestions as to how this programme could have been improved in the light of their schoolbased teaching practice in september. this allowed them to express themselves freely regarding their teaching experience and to reflect on how useful they found the information from the campus-based programme in practice. analysis the quantitative data was collated to present a numeric account of students’ preferences of the activities offered during the campus-based programme. this information is presented in figure 1. i analysed the qualitative data that had been collected in the form of open-ended questionnaires by looking at each questionnaire on its own, and then in comparison with other questionnaires. in this way codes and categories were derived that gave rise to what mcmillan and schumacher (2010, p. 378) have called “patterns of meanings.” i used thematic content analysis in “the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns” (hsieh & shannon, 2005, p. 1278). themes were derived by means of an inductive approach following mouton and marais (1993), which allowed for the data to be analysed without any preexisting notions. the relevant findings of the quantitative and qualitative data were integrated in order to understand the students’ point of view about the campus-based programme. this was done by coding the data from both data sets separately into themes and sub-themes. thereafter, i merged common themes and sub-themes from both data sets to help answer the research questions. the advantage of integrating the data is that it enhanced the reliability and validity of the findings. findings and discussion the findings are discussed by focusing on the students’ views regarding the limitations and improvements that could be made to the model and the benefits of the model. students’ evaluation of various sessions and activities from the statistical information, which was derived from figure 1, the results were that over 41% of participants found excellent and worth including in follow sessions: oral and kinetic approaches to teac example of good teacher practice; bullying in schools; teaching as a caring profession, and classroom management. the session on teaching and emotions was ranked as excellent by 31% of participants, which means t only 14% of participants found the session on school structures and procedures useful, and this result might mean that most participants were familiar with this topic, so it should be excluded from future programmes. this data showed that most of the students regarded content that provided them with information on how to interact with learners as a priority in comparison to self-development and informative sessions. figure 1: students’ evaluations of the lectures limitations and suggested improvements to the campus in order to assess fully the viability of this model, it is important to acknowledge what students regarded as its limitations. the question referring to the limitations of based programme was left blank by 138 students. the reason for this choice might have been that the students did not identify any of the programme’s limitations or that they opted not to state what they were. for 104 students there was nothing e moosa: reducing practice findings and discussion d by focusing on the students’ views regarding the limitations and improvements that could be made to the model and the benefits of the model. students’ evaluation of various sessions and activities from the statistical information, which was derived from the quantitative data provided in figure 1, the results were that over 41% of participants found six out of the excellent and worth including in follow-up programmes. these included the following sessions: oral and kinetic approaches to teaching; teaching as a holistic profession; an example of good teacher practice; bullying in schools; teaching as a caring profession, and classroom management. the session on teaching and emotions was ranked as excellent by 31% of participants, which means that this session will be included in future programmes. only 14% of participants found the session on school structures and procedures useful, and this result might mean that most participants were familiar with this topic, so it should be ture programmes. this data showed that most of the students regarded content that provided them with information on how to interact with learners as a priority in development and informative sessions. the lectures limitations and suggested improvements to the campus-based programme in order to assess fully the viability of this model, it is important to acknowledge what students regarded as its limitations. the question referring to the limitations of based programme was left blank by 138 students. the reason for this choice might have been that the students did not identify any of the programme’s limitations or that they opted not to state what they were. for 104 students there was nothing extra that needed to be included in moosa: reducing practice-shock 103 d by focusing on the students’ views regarding the limitations and improvements that could be made to the model and the benefits of the model. the quantitative data provided in out of the eight sessions up programmes. these included the following hing; teaching as a holistic profession; an example of good teacher practice; bullying in schools; teaching as a caring profession, and classroom management. the session on teaching and emotions was ranked as excellent by hat this session will be included in future programmes. only 14% of participants found the session on school structures and procedures useful, and this result might mean that most participants were familiar with this topic, so it should be ture programmes. this data showed that most of the students regarded content that provided them with information on how to interact with learners as a priority in based programme in order to assess fully the viability of this model, it is important to acknowledge what students regarded as its limitations. the question referring to the limitations of the campusbased programme was left blank by 138 students. the reason for this choice might have been that the students did not identify any of the programme’s limitations or that they opted not to xtra that needed to be included in 104 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 the programme since “it truly was an awesome experience.” a total of 24 students were critical about the model and stated that they would have preferred to be placed in a school instead of being on campus. students’ views on the limitations of the programme focused on two main aspects. the first was that the content covered in the programme did not focus sufficiently on practical skills (n = 209). second, the students stated that the structure of the programme did not allow them sufficient time for lesson preparation and presentation (n = 66). content of the programme regarding the content of the programme, 106 students wanted more information on classroom management techniques in various school contexts, and 58 students wanted information on how to interact with supervising teachers. classroom management techniques even though the campus-based programme included a component on classroom management and how to discipline learners, some of the students stated that the discipline component lacked information on the following: “practical knowledge on how to discipline learners”; different kinds of “reward techniques”; discipline techniques for “different phases or grades”; techniques to apply to different educational arenas, such as urban, public, independent, township, or rural schools. one of the students wished to “have practised or done role play [activities] based on what discipline strategies would work best.” from these comments it can be concluded that students expected more procedural knowledge on how to manage discipline, which was not possible to do in this programme. the most common concern for new teachers is, as criticos, long, moletsane, mthiyane, and mays (2009) have made clear, how to control the learners in their classes. for conley (2010), this includes how to maintain discipline and how to be prepared and able to improvise with regard to unanticipated classroom management challenges. this is in line with fuller’s (1969) view that new teachers develop in phases, the first of which is to focus on themselves and their teaching. this includes their ability to control the classroom, what their supervising teachers think of them, and aspects relating to the learners’ learning. the main challenge that ite programmes face is how to prepare students so that they can mediate their ways in various contexts, but also how to expose them to as many diverse contexts as possible. this is important in south africa because of the disparity found among schools and the fact that there is no guarantee that students will be placed in familiar school contexts during their teaching practice. interaction with supervising teachers students indicated major challenges while working with their supervising teachers and they sometimes felt ill-equipped to interact with these teachers. one of the students said, “i think the campus-based programme could have included ways or strategies [of] creating a good moosa: reducing practice-shock 105 relationship with a supervising teacher.” another challenge was how to deal with opportunistic teachers who were “demanding” and expected the students to do “extra duties” such as acting as a full-time “substitute teacher” which was contrary to the university’s guidelines. the university guidelines sent to schools clearly state that student first-year students are meant to observe experienced teachers and not act as substitute teachers because they are not qualified. there are debates in the literature concerning the impact of mentoring relationships between supervising teachers and pre-service teachers (see du plessis, 2013; kiggundu & nayimuli, 2009; quick & siebörger, 2005; väisänen, pietarinen, pyhältö, toom, & soini, 2017; yuan, 2016) and the effect this has on students. these debates indicate that supervising teachers need to be better equipped to support students on teaching practice since good teachers do not automatically make good mentors. structure of the programme most recommendations on how to improve the programme were based on structural changes. a total of 313 students felt that the programme should have reduced lecture and tutorial times and recommended that they “do more physical activities.” students expressed the view that the tea and lunch breaks were too long, and they complained about losing interest and attention during long lectures and tutorials. however, some of the students disagreed since they found that the lectures and tutorials covered important and interesting topics, and for them the time allocated was too short. a few students expressed the view that being on campus for three weeks was too long and suggested “two weeks [on campus] and . . . one week for school observation.” a total of 66 students felt that they “didn’t have enough practice with formulating a lesson plan,” despite this having been done in detail during their course on becoming a teacher, which took place before the campus-based programme. mostly, the students made recommendations regarding structural changes to the programme and did not include much about the content. this might be because first-year students are often fixated on peripheral aspects since they have not yet acquired the necessary insights into the complexities of teaching. another reason could be that the programme demanded interaction with peers and tutors every day because students were expected to be active participants in the learning process, and this is somewhat different from attending lectures. furthermore, students did not enjoy aspects that demanded critical self-reflection on themselves and how this would affect them as teachers. these sessions were meant to challenge their preconceived ideas and to help them think critically about their chosen profession. the reason for their discontent could be linked to their preconceived ideas of teaching, which were based on their social observations when they attended schools as learners. the benefits of the model i derived the benefits of the model by analysing students’ responses to the open-ended questions on how the campus-based programme benefitted them when they were placed in a 106 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 school. this data was collected after the school-based teaching practice session in september and within the first week of the students’ return to campus for lectures. the results showed that 5% of participants thought that they did not benefit from the model. some of these participants did not specify any reasons for their views while others stated that the schools they attended for teaching practice did not provide any opportunities for them to implement the skills from the campus-based programme. a total of 94% of participants stated that they had benefitted from the model used during the campus-based programme because they were confident when they were placed in a school during the september teaching practice. one of the students stated that “the campus-based programme . . . gave me so much more focused knowledge specifically for teaching. after it, i felt a lot more confident for the next te [teaching experience] at a school.” overall students’ perception of the programme showed that it minimised their experiences of practice-shock when they were placed in a school. this was also shown by the responses that indicated that the campus-based programme provided them with additional skills and knowledge about teaching, and they felt confident when they were placed in schools during the september teaching practice. furthermore, the programme allowed the students to develop a holistic understanding about teaching and it fostered a critical sense about what it means to be a teacher. improved sense of confidence a total of 287 students indicated that the model allowed them to develop an understanding of how to work with learners, which allowed them to “show confidence” in a classroom setting. the reason for this view was that students felt that they had developed the skills and practised “how to stand and speak in front of a class.” even though these skills were explored in methodology courses and micro-teaching sessions, the programme provided students with additional time and activities to refine these skills. another student stated that because the campus-based session “didn’t just . . . focus on delivering the lesson,” this allowed him to become aware of other aspects involved in teaching such as being “motivated.” the students’ experiences resonated with moody’s (2009) view that students should be given opportunities to develop their self confidence in a safe environment to allow them to improve their skills and to gain a better understanding of teaching. the development of a critical perspective the model provided students (n = 107) with an opportunity to engage critically with their preconceived ideas about teaching that they had developed through observation when they were learners at school. overall, students indicated that the model provided them with an opportunity to gain a better understanding of the complexities of what it means to be a teacher. the model assisted a student to “realise what kind of a teacher i need to be in order to assist these learners in the best way possible.” finally, the overall benefit of participating in a campus-based programme was best summarised by a student who said that this particular model “helped or enabled me . . . even when some of the teachers were trying to discourage me from becoming a teacher.” moosa: reducing practice-shock 107 overall, students indicated that the programme improved their self confidence in a school, but they had been given, too, the opportunity to develop a more critical perspective on what it means to teach. it is important to provide students with an opportunity to demystify their unrealistic expectations of teaching (hammerness et al., 2005). the dedicated time students spent on campus in preparation for teaching practice provided them with an opportunity to develop a stronger sense of what teaching entails. this started the shift from being a learner to becoming a pre-service teacher, thus helping the students to establish a teacher identity as envisaged by walkington (2005). the model allowed students to make sense of what is expected of them as teachers at a social and at a cognitive level. conclusion this model of teaching practice was developed in the absence of specific implementation criteria by way of policy documents. the aim of this model was to induct and support firstyear students holistically regarding the intricacies of teaching so that they did not flounder when they were placed in a formal school context. this research based on the first-year students’ experiences of this model showed that inducting first-year students into the various demands of teaching via a campus-based programme is a viable option. however, students indicated that there were limitations to this programme, too. they recommended that there needed to be a greater focus placed on these issues such as working with specific learners’ needs, lesson preparation, how to interact with supervising teachers, practical skills, and information on how to work in various school contexts. consequently, a campus-based programme should include extra scenario-based and practical activities, with less emphasis on personal development, so that they could be better prepared for their teaching practice. yet, most of the students indicated that they had benefitted from this model when they were placed in a school since they had critical insights into what it means to be a teacher. this article adds to the current literature on ite and possible models that could be used for teaching practice. these finding have implications for policy and practice in that they make a substantiated argument for not placing students in a school at the beginning of their first year. instead, it argues that students need adequate preparation to challenge their preconceived ideas before re-entering the school context. one of the limitations of this research is that the impact of the programme was evaluated with one cohort of students immediately after they had returned from teaching practice at schools. future research could include asking this cohort of students in their final year of study about how this programme informed their teaching practice during their 4-year university course. another possible research focus would be to obtain data from various cohorts of first-year students so as to evaluate this programme over a period of three years and then to compare the findings. furthermore, it is important for additional research to be conducted in other universities on the benefits and limitations of this model for the induction of first-year students into the teaching profession. the findings of this article will be, i hope, of benefit to teacher educators, ite institutions, and help to develop policies on how to implement teaching practice for first-year students in south africa and other places. 108 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 i would like to thank the university of the witwatersrand faculty of humanities research committee for funding this project through an ad hoc grant. references applefield, j., huber, r., & moallem, m. 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(2016). the dark side of mentoring on pre-service language teachers’ identity formation. teaching and teacher education, 55, 188–197. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.01.012 114 journal of education, no. 77, 2019 appendix 1: student feedback questionnaire campus-based programme feedback 1. please indicate how you experienced the campus-based programme for first year students by placing a tick (√) in the relevant block. excellent good average needs to be changed should not be included in future voice and body lecture voice and body activity the a–z of teaching lecture the a–z of teaching activity examples of good classroom practices’ lecture examples of good classroom practices’ activity bullying lecture bullying activity the heart of a teacher lecture the heart of a teacher activity 2. what was the highlight of the programme for you and why? 3. please indicate any suggestions on how the programme can be improved. microsoft word b8500 full issue.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 85, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i85a02 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x child labour is a matter of national concern: what is the curriculum doing about it? anja visser education and human rights in diversity research, faculty of education, north-west university, potchefstroom, south africa anja.visser@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9636-2326 (received: 25 september 2020; accepted: 25 october 2021) abstract child labour has been of national and international concern since as early as the 1860s. in 2019 the united nations general assembly (unga) adopted the resolution that 2021 would be the year by which child labour would be eliminated. however, much must still be done to effect this. by studying legislation and literature, i identified different forms of child labour that i go on to discuss in this article. when i explored the notion of child labour from three perspectives on childhood, namely the romanticised view of childhood, the view that children must participate in child labour, and the belief that children need to be protected from the abuse and exploitation seen to be inherent in their working, i came to understand the tensions in conceptualising this concept. i further problematise child labour as an educational issue. one of the purposes of the south african compulsory school curriculum as articulated in the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) is to facilitate the transition of learners from education institutions to their future workplaces. i argue that caps should provide in-depth knowledge on the meaning of child labour in its different forms. for the purposes of this research, i analysed all the compulsory school curricula documents for grades 1 to 9 by means of document analysis. my main finding is that caps does address some forms of child labour, but it does not address those forms (child work and illegal labour) with which most children would likely be confronted. also, it does not address hazardous forms of child labour nor trafficking in child labour. more research is needed to determine if there are correlations between the results of this explorative document analysis and the received curriculum so that a curriculum response to address child labour can be articulated. keywords: child, curriculum, child labour, child work, trafficking introduction child 1 labour is a multilayered complex concept and takes on different forms in legislation and literature. the term ranges from work that is beneficial to children (bourdillon et al., 2009; fyfe, 1988; nsamenang, 2008) to what is defined as child labour (gallinetti, 2008; 1 a child is defined as any person younger than 18 years of age in south africa. 30 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 south african human rights commission, 2017). it includes legal and illegal labour (south african government, 1997), along with hazardous forms of child labour (international labour organization, 1999), and trafficking for child labour (south african government, 2013). child labour is a matter of national concern and has been an international issue from as early as the 1860s (fyfe, 2007). since 1919, the international labour organization (ilo) has tried to abolish child labour (international labour organization, 1919). however, fyfe (2007) argued that it was only in the 1980s that the global movement against child labour began. between 2000 and 2016, there was a global decrease of 38% in child labour cases. in 2016, it is estimated that 152 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 years were involved in child labour, with half of them (73 million) involved in hazardous practices and that these were more common in the 15 to 17 age group, but that still left 19 million children under the age of 12 involved in them (international labour organization, 2019a). in 2019 the united nations general assembly (unga) adopted a resolution and declared that 2021 would be the international year for the elimination of child labour. unga adopted transforming our world: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development (united nations, 2015). in this agenda, the sustainable development goal 8.7 specifically and explicitly focusses on child labour (united nations, 2015, p. 24) take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms. according to the united states of america department of labor (2020, para. 1), south africa has made “minimal advancement in efforts to eliminate worst forms of child labor.” in this country, children are involved in the worst forms of child labour. the south african government did not include its elimination nor any prevention strategies in either the south african education plan or in the national development plan after this recommendation was made by the united states of america department of labor in 2019. apart from south africa having to deal with illegal child labour, there is a need for “innovation in education to make youths better prepared for a society and labour market which has in many respects changed” (department of basic education, 2019, p. 16). other than learners being prepared to effectively transition from schools to other educational institutions, there should “also be clear linkages between education and training and the world of work” (national planning commission, 2011, p. 296). one way in which education plays a role in addressing child labour is through the delivery of curriculum and assessment policy statement (hereafter caps). caps has several purposes. one of them that is directly related to the concerns of this article is that, overall, caps should be “facilitating the transition of learners from education institutions to the workplace” (department of basic education, 2021). this transitioning could assume many forms such as, visser: child labour is a matter of national concern 31 for example, a learner having the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to adjust to a workplace after having gained at school in-depth knowledge of the meaning of child labour in its different forms. my aim in this article is to explore the extent to which the explicit south african grade 1 to 9 school curriculum helps learners to transition from school to the workplace through addressing child labour. my assumption (and more empirical research is needed to test this) is that if learners were made aware of the different forms of child labour, it would help them in the process of transitioning from school (as an educational institution) to different workplaces. child labour cannot be made to disappear just by addressing it in passing in the school curriculum; learners need to be made aware of the complexity of this issue if they are to be adequately protected against exploitation. this was an exploratory study that aimed to provide some groundwork for further research. i employed document analysis as the research methodology, and this is the first time, to my knowledge, that the caps documents have been analysed in this way. in the following sections, i trouble the conceptualisation of child labour by looking more closely at its different forms. thereafter, i discuss this concept from different perspectives on childhood. i then look at education in relation to curriculum as a response to child labour. this is followed by a consideration of the research design. finally, i discuss the findings and draw conclusions. troubling the conceptualisation of child labour the conceptualisation of child labour is troubling given that this phenomenon has many different forms. as pointed out earlier, child labour refers to child work, child labour, legal and illegal child labour, hazardous forms of child labour, and trafficking for child labour. child work involves “virtually all economic activities, paid or unpaid, in or outside the home, including many chores traditional for children and generally considered part of acceptable child-rearing practice” (bourdillon et al., 2009, p. 107). child work is regarded as positive as long as it does not affect children’s health, personal development, or school attendance (international labour organization, 2019b). types of work can include helping with tasks at home, assisting in a family business, or earning pocket money after school and during school holidays. these types of work are beneficial to children’s development, provide them with skills and experience, and prepare them for adult life (international labour organization, 2019b). not every type of work done by children should be eliminated (gallinetti, 2008) because children need to mature during childhood and should acquire all the skills and the capacity needed to be adults by the age of 18 (sloth-nielsen & mezmur, 2008). child labour is seen to be any work that “affects the child’s enjoyment of his or her fundamental rights: civil, political or economic, social and cultural—particularly the broad right to survival and development of the child” (gallinetti, 2008, p. 323), but child work can 32 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 become child labour. the south african human rights commission (2017, para. 4) defines child labour as . . . work that is inappropriate with respect to the number of hours, and the conditions under which it is performed; work which deprives children of their livelihood, potential and dignity; and which interferes with or deprives children of education. referring specifically to the increasing suicide rate among japanese children, bourdillon (2000) questioned whether too much schoolwork is also exploitative and could be considered as harmful to children. similarly, some household chores and other non-economic activities might be harmful to children and may violate their rights (bourdillon, 2014) like, for example, when a child must do so much work at home that their schoolwork suffers, and they eventually have to drop out of school (gallinetti, 2008). legal child labour has to do with the age group and the conditions under which children of this age work. internationally and nationally, there is consensus that children aged 15 to 17 may be employed to do age-appropriate work that does not put them at risk (international labour organization, 1973; south african government 1997). however, employers are legally prohibited from employing children under the age of 15 (this counts as illegal child labour), except for those involved in the performance of advertising, sports, artistic, or cultural activities (south african government, 1997). there are also hazardous forms of child labour. article 3 of the worst forms of child labour convention no 182 lists the following worst forms (international labour organization, 1999, para. 3): a) all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict; b) the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances; c) the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties; d) work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children. in legislation and literature, trafficking for child labour is defined as “[t]he recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation” (united nations, 2000, p. 2). in this case, exploitation involves forced labour or child labour, and sexual exploitation. this definition differs from others possibly because, in 2000, the protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children (the palermo protocol) was the first international instrument to define trafficking in persons (united states department of state, 2019). when children are involved, this act is considered to be exploitative and is classified as child trafficking (conteh, 2009; united visser: child labour is a matter of national concern 33 nations educational scientific and cultural organization, 2007). this means that if a child is exploited for child labour, the said child is a victim of child trafficking for labour purposes. both the palermo protocol (united nations, 2000) and south african legislation (south african government, 2013) make a distinction between sexual exploitation on the one hand and child labour or forced labour for the purposes of exploitation for which children might be trafficked, on the other. however, as i highlighted earlier, the worst forms of child labour include trafficking and sexual exploitation. as can be seen above, there are different interpretations that can be used when child labour is mentioned. the concept of child labour could be understood from different childhood perspectives, too. conceptualising child labour from different perspectives on childhood the concept of childhood is constructed in different ways, depending on the nation, context, cultural group, and historical background (louw & louw, 2014; nsamenang, 2008). it was believed for many years that child development “follow[s] the same pattern of development in all countries and cultures” (louw & louw, 2014, p. 13). western researchers focussed almost exclusively on their own cultures and made conclusions about their research having implications for all children around the globe. however, recently researchers started to realise that the cultural context is important to the study of childhood. according to louw and louw (2014, p. 14), “[h]uman development is . . . a cultural process. in every society, children are exposed to mostly cultural, not universal, influences.” in this article, i focus on three views that cause tension in the interpretation of what child labour means. the romanticised view of childhood romanticised ideas about childhood exist among societies with high-average incomes, developed infrastructure, and advanced technology. work for children in this context is regarded as “strenuous learning” (bourdillon, 2017, p. 93). children spend much of their time in school, and they cannot participate in adult workplace activities. since the late 18th century, romanticised childhood ideals have fostered an image of carefree, happy children playing, fantasising, being innocent, learning, being free from responsibility, properly protected, and dependent on their caregivers (bourdillon, 2017; cunningham & viazzo, 1985; stephens, 1995). from this perspective, children need to be protected and segregated from the harsh realities of adulthood (stephens, 1995), and they are economic dependents rather than productive participants in the economy (nsamenang, 2008). bourdillon (2017) argued that the wealthy can afford to provide this childhood for their children, but this has come to be seen as ideal for all. in addition, according to nsamenang (2011, p. 235), not only the ideal of a romanticised childhood but also developmental indicators developed in the global north have been “forced” on the rest of the world. the 34 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 romanticised view of childhood has inspired campaigners and advocates against child labour (bourdillon, 2014; cunningham & viazzo, 1985). from this viewpoint, “productive work by children is perceived as inhibiting schooling and hindering development and therefore should be abolished” (bourdillon, 2017, p. 93). according to nsamenang (2008, p. 211), the active productive participation of african children in the economic activities of their families and communities “has been stigmatized as child labour by international advocacy and children's rights interveners.” however, louw and louw (2014) argued that, since children were being exploited, sold into slavery, and subjected to abuse, the convention on the rights of the child and many other movements were born. clearly, there is a tension in the literature, and in reality, regarding what kind of child labour is positive for children's development and should not be abolished and what kind should indeed be eliminated. children participating in child labour as underscored earlier, child labour can be beneficial to children; this form of child labour is known as child work. bourdillon (2014, p. 3) disparages child labour discourse since it “focuses only on harmful aspects of work and ignores the benefits that children may derive from it.” in other words, when the benefits of child work are appreciated, one would not assume that all work is exploitative. when children are viewed with romanticised ideals in mind, they are protected from adulthood, and this creates an artificial dichotomy between adults and children as bourdillon (2017) pointed out. in south africa, as has already been noted, the minimum age of employment is 15 years (south african government 1997). bourdillon et al. (2009, p. 107) urged “re-thinking the ‘minimum-age’ approach” to child work and labour. they make this argument because there is no scientific research to determine the real impact of age-restriction policies on children. in their view, the minimum-age approach is based on romanticised views of childhood and does not take due account of realities: child work that does not restrain children from going to school could help them to finance the cost of their and their siblings’ school attendance. anthropological and child development studies demonstrate that children thrive in a great diversity of childhoods, including many that carry important work responsibilities. the unsupported idea that work itself distorts and corrupts children’s development nonetheless remains popular among both the public and policymakers. in most of the world, children’s participation in work is a common way of learning essential life skills, such as parenting, and major occupational skills such as farming. (bourdillon et al., 2009, p. 110) in africa, the division between adults and children is not that straightforward. children participate in family enterprises, and it is a natural part of their growing up and learning how to live in their social context. according to bourdillon (2017, p. 92), an essential feature of “good-quality child rearing” is to require children to work to contribute to the household and community. not only african children work; many children in high-income countries obtain part-time work like, for example, delivering newspapers or goods or working at food outlets. this broadens children’s experience; they gain an income, they have more social contacts, visser: child labour is a matter of national concern 35 and they learn to deal with the world in which they are growing up. these children value the life skills they acquire through working, and they claim that work teaches them skills and knowledge they cannot learn in a classroom (bourdillon, 2014). some societies consider work to be integral to bringing up a child and even complementary to their schooling (bourdillon et al., 2009). in the african context, children are given the opportunity to engage in tasks, chores, and traditions of adulthood before the age of 18. engaging in these practices is viewed as part of growing up to learn how to assume responsibility and acquire skills to prepare them for life (sloth-nielsen & mezmur, 2008). child work is seen as essential to preparing the next generation, and it is seen to be necessary for their developmental learning (nsamenang, 2011). bourdillon (2014, p. 1) further pointed out that “[m]any african societies run their affairs on the ingrained notion that children must work as part of their process of growing up.” children need to be protected from abuse and exploitation in africa, children have been sold into slavery during inter-tribal raids since the earliest times (louw & louw, 2014). from the 15th to the 17th century, slavery was a lucrative business, and children, men, and women were shipped to various countries. although slavery or human trafficking is illegal today, it is still practised in many countries (louw & louw, 2014). the african continent has the highest proportion of children involved in child labour. approximately 72.1 million children in africa are involved in child labour, and 31.5 million african children are involved in hazardous work (alliance 8.7, 2017). nsamenang (2008, p. 217) stated that “various forms of child labor, child abuse and child enslavement are also increasingly present in the african context.” since children cannot willingly participate in exploitation and are often coerced or manipulated into situations from which they are trafficked and the economic conditions in which they find themselves often lead them to make an unfree choice to participate in trafficked child labour (visser, 2018). it is not only criminals who target children; disease, poverty, civil strife, the complexities of globalisation, and the world trading system all make children susceptible to exploitation (gallinetti, 2008). some child labours are hazardous and hinder children’s development (bourdillon, 2014). in some cases, children are abused in their workplaces, but it is not always clear when child labour can be regarded as hazardous (bourdillon, 2014). some lists identifying hazardous child labour have been compiled and bourdillon (2014) argued that these lists focus on some particularly hazardous work, ignoring situations in which children are abused and do not focus as much on the kind of work they do. furthermore, exploitation is not defined in the context of child labour although, for adult labour, this refers to a wide variety of factors, such as unfair remuneration, harmful working conditions, and so on. when children are employed, the employment itself is defined as exploitation, so, “instead of attending to conditions of work, authorities stop children from working” (bourdillon, 2014, p. 10). the first view i discussed above emphasises an ideal childhood in which children are protected from the harsh realities of adulthood, are not exposed to work and live happy lives, 36 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 whereas the second view focusses on the realities some children face. by participating in child work, they create better futures for themselves and their communities. the third view shows us that children need protection from child labour when such labour is exploitative and abusive. the reality of many south african children is that they will most likely work from a young age, and they might not have the knowledge to identify exploitative and abusive labouring conditions. some children can work and be in school without this being harmful to their development. in fact, this could be good for them and for their future employability but they need to know what counts as being exploitative. in this regard, caps has a responsibility to address the necessity for knowledge about child labour. the following questions can be raised: how does the curriculum prepare children to identify normal versus exploitative and abusive labouring conditions? and how does caps prepare children to know when child work is not abusive and a good opportunity in which to participate? education and curriculum as a response to child labour in south africa, school attendance is compulsory and a human right for all children between the ages of 7 and 15 (south african government 1996a, 1996b). despite it being mandatory for children aged 7 to 15 to attend school, south african schools have a drop-out crisis. nearly half of the learners enrolled in grade 1 drop out of the schooling system before they reach grade 12 (smillie & mobotja, 2019; south african government, 2011). south africa should ensure that all children of compulsory school-going age attend school, drop-outs should be monitored more closely, and individual cases must be followed up (department of basic education 2019). when children leave school, it is often to find a job to support their families (gallinetti, 2008). in 2015, almost 600,000 south african children were engaged in child labour. children in the age group of 16 to 17 are more likely than others to be involved in child labour (south african human rights commission, 2017). although legislation such as the african charter on the rights and welfare of the child (organization of african unity, 1990), the south african constitution (south african government 1996a), the prevention and combating of trafficking in persons act (south african government, 2013), among others is in place to protect children against child labour, children are still exploited in a number of working environments. root causes of child labour are poverty, a poor education system, and cultural influences. to combat child labour, direct interventions such as raising awareness and sound education are needed (international labour organization, 2017). since child labour and education are “inextricably” (international labour organization, 2017, p. 9) linked, support from the education sector is imperative. this is reflected in article 7.2 of worst forms of child labour convention no 182 that clearly stipulates that each member state should take “into account the importance of education in eliminating child labour” (international labour organization, 1999, para. 12). in addition, these member states should ensure access to free basic education (international labour organization, 1999). what is more, one of the four pillars of anti-trafficking interventions is prevention since this is a key component in the reduction of factors that allow trafficking to visser: child labour is a matter of national concern 37 happen. one of the ways of preventing trafficking is to raise awareness through education (department of basic education 2019). given the educational focus on the analysis of caps, more clarity on what is meant by curriculum is needed. curriculum studies can be viewed from a narrow or a broad perspective according to graham-jolly (2003). a narrow view of curriculum defines it only as a syllabus concerned with the selection and revision of content and does not consider other aspects that contribute to learning, whereas a broad perspective takes into consideration a comprehensive understanding of what curriculum is including what happens in the classroom as well as the actual experiences of learners. curriculum, in its broadest sense, should help prepare children to confront many challenges in adulthood (soudien & chisholm, 2021). in curriculum studies, there are two major schools of thought about how to interpret curriculum (du preez, 2017), namely curriculum as knowledge, and curriculum as policy (chisholm, 2005). these schools of thought have different origins and stress different features of a curriculum. the first school of thought, curriculum as knowledge, according to chisholm (2005) stresses knowledge construction and the role of the school in teaching and learning. at its heart is constructivism and outcomes-based education with its learner-centred focus. this approach brings to the surface the “local, hidden, silenced knowledge, and everyday realities of learners” (p. 194). learner-centred education enables the validation of hidden knowledge and everyday realities so that real learning can take place (chisholm, 2005). du preez (2017) argued that curriculum as knowledge can be associated with the conceptual-empiricist paradigm as discussed by pinar (2009). critics of this school of thought indicate that it focusses on the “local, known, and everyday” that is not seen as education, because at the heart of an educational endeavour is “a leading away from the known, familiar, and everyday into universal processes” (chisholm, 2005, p. 194). conceptual empiricism is inclined to make curriculum too context-specific, just as the social construction of knowledge is the focus in the view of curriculum as knowledge (du preez, 2017). the second school of thought, curriculum as policy, places emphasis on the symbolic aspect of policy and on curriculum’s political character, on the history of policy, on the conflicts between curriculum in theory and practice, and on the relationship between curriculum and identity (chisholm, 2005). du preez (2017, p. 107) describes curriculum as policy since the “politicisation of curriculum matters, and the unfolding of symbolic notions embedded in a curriculum.” for curriculum-as-policy scholars, “curriculum is a fundamentally political statement that reflects the struggles of opposing groups to have their interests, values, histories, and politics dominate the school curriculum” (chisholm, 2005, p. 194). according to du preez (2017), curriculum as policy can be associated with the reconceptualist paradigm, as discussed by pinar (2009). reconceptualist scholars are concerned with the political character of education and its historical legacy (du preez, 2017). according to du preez (2017, p. 107), “this movement is less concerned with empirical means to justify curriculum development and quality and more orientated towards metatheory and philosophy of curriculum-related knowledge in larger growth of social science episteme.” 38 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 caps can be interpreted from both schools of thought. south africa is faced with economic inequalities, and therefore schools and the schooling system must continually “make a conscious effort to heal the divisions of the past, foster a sense of south african nationhood and, above all, provide education opportunities that will break down the deep inequalities that still pervade south african society” (department of basic education 2019, p. 4). according to the world bank (cited in department of basic education, 2019, p. 10), “[e]conomic development is recognised as critical for fighting poverty, and in this fight education plays a central role.” caps can also be positioned in a bigger discourse. colonisers developed school systems in africa to model education on the countries of their origin. in doing so, they ignored the needs of the social development of the colonised societies (bourdillon, 2017). throughout the 20th century, schools were viewed as representative of the most, and often the only, legitimate site of learning (bessel, 2017). furthermore, bourdillon (2017, p. 92) argued that “[g]lobal policy on children’s work and education is dominated by two assumptions.” the first of these is that schooling is the best way to secure a future for all children, and the second is that work in general hinders schooling and should therefore be avoided during childhood. local communities are not taken into consideration in these global assumptions that might be true for high-income societies where caregivers take economic responsibility. however, in the african context, these assumptions are not always valid, since african children actively participate in economic activities (bourdillon, 2017). nsamenang (2011, p. 243) stated that, in african cultures, “responsibility is more valued than cognition, per se, in that a child or adolescent cannot be responsible without being cognitive.” according to bourdillon (2014, p. 16), policies have been dominated by “the norms that have been established in the west and are assumed to be ideal for all children everywhere, with little attention to the precise contexts and needs of children in other situations, nor to outcomes in children’s lives.” research design, methodology, and main findings this study involved me in document analysis situated within an interpretivist paradigm. i downloaded all caps for grades 1 to 9 compulsory subjects from the department of basic education’s website. table 1 presents a list of the caps documents that i analysed. the data was generated by a limited set of information; only the explicit curriculum was analysed and neither teachers’ lesson plans nor prescribed textbooks were included. the purpose of the study was to describe how the grade 1 to 9 school curriculum helps learners transition from school to the workplace through addressing child labour. visser: child labour is a matter of national concern 39 table 1 south africa’s compulsory grade 1 to 9 explicit curriculum phase grades subject department of basic education foundation phase grades 1-3 english first additional language (2011a) grades 1-3 english home language (2011b) grades r-3 life skills (2011c) grades 1-3 mathematics (2011d) intermediate phase grades 4-6 english first additional language (2011e) grades 4-6 english home language (2011f) grades 4-6 life skills (2011g) grades 4-6 mathematics (2011h) grades 4-6 natural sciences and technology (2011i) grades 4-6 social sciences (2011j) senior phase grades 7-9 creative arts (2011k) grades 7-9 economic and management sciences (2011l) grades 7-9 english first additional language (2011m) grades 7-9 english home language (2011n) grades 7-9 life orientation (2011o) grades 7-9 mathematics (2011p) grades 7-9 natural sciences (2011q) grades 7-9 social sciences (2011r) grades 7-9 technology (2011s) i carefully analysed all the curriculum documents presented in table 1 and present the findings below. main findings a search for the key term child labour in all the caps documents produced a poor result. inductive identification of concepts discussed in caps that can be related to labour and/or child labour resulted in “career”, “employment”, “job”, “labour”, “occupation”, “slavery”, “slave(s)”, and “work.” i decided to search deductively for these specific concepts by making use of content analysis. table 2 below displays the frequency of concepts related to child labour in the grade 1 to 9 explicit curriculum. 40 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 table 2 frequency of explicit mentions of concepts related to child labour in the compulsory grade 1 to 9 explicit curriculum subject d e p a r tm e n t o f b a si c e d u c a ti o n c a r e e r e m p lo y m e n t j o b l a b o u r o c c u p a ti o n s la v e r y a n d /o r sl a v e (s ) w o r k foundation phase grades 1-3 english first additional language 2011a 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 grades 1-3 english home language 2011b 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 grades r-3 life skills 2011c 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 grades 1-3 mathematics 2011d 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 intermediate phase grades 4-6 english first additional language 2011e 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 grades 4-6 english home language 2011f 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 grades 4-6 life skills 2011g 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 grades 4-6 mathematics sa 2011h 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 grades 4-6 natural sciences and technology 2011i 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 grades 4-6 social sciences 2011j 0 0 1 2 1 0 4 senior phase grades 7-9 english first additional language 2011m 1 1 3 0 0 0 0 grades 7-9 english home language 2011n 1 1 3 0 0 0 0 grades 7-9 life orientation 2011o 46 1 0 0 0 0 27 grades 7-9 mathematics 2011p 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 grades 7-9 natural sciences 2011q 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 grades 7-9 technology 2011s 7 0 9 0 0 0 0 grades 7-9 social sciences 2011r 0 0 0 8 0 35 6 grades 7-9 creative arts 2011k 22 0 0 0 0 0 0 grades 7-9 economic and management sciences 2011l 0 1 2 3 0 0 0 below, i discuss the subjects that address the concept of child labour. creative arts creative arts (ca) explicitly mentions the concept of career (department of basic education, 2011k) with regard to different career paths that learners can take. one of the specific aims of ca “is to expose learners to the range of careers in the arts” (p. 8). table 3 gives the overview of media and careers, one of the topics covered in ca during the senior phase (grade 7 to 9), as it is set out in the caps document for ca. visser: child labour is a matter of national concern 41 table 3 topic 5 – media and careers in ca (department of basic education, 2011k, p. 16) topic grade 7 drama grade 8 drama grade 9 drama topic 5 media and careers exploration: performers the creative team the support team related fields of study accessible and relevant media media forms such as film, television, radio, documentaries and the internet drama elements in the selected media form positive and negative effects of media stereotyping (including typecasting, labelling, stock characters) in stories, theatre, film, television and radio stereotyping according to age, gender, class/status and culture, etc. during the second term, grade 7 learners are expected to write a test on careers and basic drama elements and, in the fourth term, to write an examination on careers and elements of drama. in grade 7, learners are expected to explore: • performing careers, including actors (theatre, film), dancers, singers, clowns, stand-up comedians, etc. (the support team, including the stage manager, stage hands, make-up artists, costume mistress, props mistress, lighting and sound technicians and front of house staff (p. 37). • the related fields of study, including the drama teacher, drama therapist, drama life coach, voice and speech therapist, movement therapist, radio and television presenters, master-of-ceremonies and agents (p. 38). grade 8 learners are expected to learn about dance and related careers, fashion design careers in the arts, and careers in the arts and design fields. in grade 8, learners are expected to “[e]xpress, identify/name, question and reflect through researching careers in visual arts and design using various sources, e.g. books, libraries, internet; formal written response or class presentation (could be group work)” (p. 72). in the third term, they are expected to write an essay or do a presentation on “visual literacy: careers in the arts” (p. 86). in the fourth term, learners are expected to write an examination that includes the topic of careers. in grade 9, the teacher is expected to make use of books on careers. economic and management sciences economic and management sciences (ems) explicitly refers to the concepts of employment, job, and labour (department of basic education 2011l). in this subject, learners study labour, financial markets, and the creation of sustainable job opportunities (p. 14). when learners study the factors of production, they learn about unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled labour, as well as fair employment practices. for one hour a week, during weeks 4 to 6 in term 2 of grade 8, learners are expected to learn about “capital – borrowed and own capital; labour – skilled, semi-skilled and skilled labour; role of workers in the business; fair employment practices; natural resources, entrepreneurship, remuneration of the factors of production” (p. 17). 42 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 languages in intermediate phase english first additional language and english home language, the term “job” is used as part of a list of the text types that should be used to enable all learners to learn how to write an official letter for various purposes, such as “to apply for a job or bursary; to complain, request, etc.” (department of basic education, 2011e, p. 25; department of basic education, 2011f, p. 27). in senior phase first additional language and home language, the words “career”, “employment” and “job” are explicitly mentioned. the first sentence of section 3 that specifically deals with teaching plans states, “the senior phase is, to most unfortunate learners, the end of compulsory education. after grade 9, most learners either go looking for a job or follow vocational careers” (department of basic education, 2011m, p. 55; 2011n, p. 55). employment is used in the context of setting up a curriculum vitae (cv), and one of the elements of a cv is to “address the post for which the candidate seeks employment” (2011m, p. 44; 2011n, p. 44). “job” is also mentioned in the context of setting up a cv: “it is useful to note that every cv must address a situation, e.g., a cv for a particular job should speak mainly of the writer’s involvement in that particular area” (2011m, p. 44; 2011n, p. 44). in addition, “job” is used in the context of filling in a form for various reasons, such as applying for a job, among others (2011m; 2011n). life orientation life orientation (lo) explicitly mentions “career”, “employment”, and “work.” in lo, learners are “guided to develop their full potential and are provided with opportunities to make informed choices regarding personal and environmental health, study opportunities and future careers” (department of basic education, 2011o, p. 8). specific aim 4 of lo is to “guide learners to make informed and responsible decisions about their health, environment, subject choices, further studies and careers” (p. 9). in grade 7, learners are expected to learn about “place or institution of employment” (p. 14). topic 5 in lo is dedicated to the “world of work” (sa, p. 8). in table 2, an overview of the content addressed in topic 5, “world of work”, is provided. visser: child labour is a matter of national concern 43 table 4 topic 5 (“world of work”) in lo (sa, 2011o, pp. 10, 12–14, 16–18, 2023) grade 7 (8 hours) grade 8 (9 hours) grade 9 (11 hours) term 1: weeks 9–10 (2 hours) term 1: week 10 (1 hour) term 1: week 8–10 (3 hours) • importance of reading and studying o reading for enjoyment and reading with understanding o skills to develop memory: ability to recall • different learning styles: visual aural, kinaesthetic, reading and writing o identify own learning style • time-management skills o how to organise one’s work o how to use time effectively and efficiently • reading and writing for different purposes o keeping a journal; summarising and improving reading and writing skills term 2: weeks 6–8 (3 hours) term 2: week 1 (1 hour) term 2: weeks 6–8 (3 hours) • career fields: o qualities relating to each field: interests and abilities o school subjects related to each career field o work environment and activities in each career field o opportunities within each career field o challenges within each career field o level of schooling – requirements for each career field o duration of study for each career field o services and sources for career fields and study information • identify and apply own learning style • options available after completing grade 9: national senior certificate (nsc – grades 10 – 12) and national certificate vocational (ncv – fet colleges) qualifications o implications of choices: choices between nsc and ncv • knowledge of the world of work: rights responsibilities and opportunities in the workplace term 2: weeks 2-5 (4 hours) • six career categories: investigative, enterprising, realistic, artistic, conventional and social o interests and abilities related to each career category o thinking and learning skills required by each career category o school subjects related to each career category • the role of work in relation to south africa’s social and economic needs o identify needs in the community and country o how work can meet social and economic needs in south africa 44 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 grade 7 (8 hours) grade 8 (9 hours) grade 9 (11 hours) term 3: weeks 8–10 (3 hours) term 3: weeks 1–3 (3 hours) term 3: weeks 1–3 (3 hours) • simulation of career related activities o dress code for the career o tools or working equipment for the career o activities related to work environment o place or institution of employment o personality characteristics o school subjects and level of schooling: requirements for this career o where to study and duration of study o related careers • value and importance of work in fulfilling personal needs and potential • relationship between performance in school subjects and interests and abilities o types of learning activities related to different subjects: practical, theoretical, individual or group activities o demands of each subject: thinking and learning skills required • decision-making process o steps in choosing career category relating to individual strength, ability, interest and passion • career and subject choices o subjects in grades 10, 11 and 12 o careers related to different subjects o qualities relating to different careers and subjects: strengths and weaknesses; interests and abilities o decision-making skills: steps in choosing subjects relating to interests and abilities and career of interest term 4: weeks 1-2 (2 hours) • study and career funding providers • plan for own lifelong learning: goal-setting for lifelong learning visser: child labour is a matter of national concern 45 natural sciences and technology in intermediate phase natural sciences and technology (nst), the terms “career” and “job” are found in specific aim 3: “similarly, science and technology can lead learners to a range of career and job possibilities” (department of basic education, 2011i, p. 11). in senior phase technology, the terms “career” and “job” are explicitly mentioned. in technology, the concept of career is explicitly mentioned in the introductory section of the document that states, “it is expected that technology education will provide learners with some experience to help them to make career-oriented subject choices at the end of grade 9” (department of basic education, 2011s, p. 9). career is also used in the section on the unique features and scope of technology. in the latter section, it is stated that learners will have the opportunity to learn “while creating positive attitudes, perceptions and aspirations towards technology-based careers” (p. 9) and also that “[t]echnology education is an introduction to a range of careers that work in similar ways” (p. 11). examples are provided of careers that use design, for example, “[c]ivil engineering – designing a bridge, architecture – designing a house, textile design – developing a textile for a specific purpose” (p. 11). in technology, grade 8 learners are expected to participate in a class discussion on “equitable sharing of resources – industry needs reliable power for job creation; schools need power for lightning and computing” (p. 28). in the senior phase, natural sciences (ns) specifically refers to “career” (department of basic education, 2011q). ns pays attention to different career paths, even though learners are not assessed on different careers in this subject (sa, 2011q). in grade 7, learners are expected to discuss careers in: • the chemical industry, including agriculture, pharmacy or the food industry, chemical engineering, mining [not for assessment purposes] (p. 21); • chemistry, mining, waste management [not for assessment purposes] p. 21); • the field of electricity power generation (coal, nuclear, wind, water) including engineers, scientists (research), artisans, technicians [not for assessment purposes]. (p. 30) grade 8 learners should be: • discussing about [sic] the many careers that require knowledge of environmental studies, nature conservation, zoology, botany, entomology, the study of microorganisms, including agriculture, food industry, medicine [not for assessment purposes] (p. 39); • discussing / reading about careers in inorganic and organic chemistry, mining, engineering, materials development and in the bio-fuels industry [not for assessment purposes] (p. 45); • finding out about careers in electrical engineering, (such as electricians) electronics, electricity supply maintenance [not for examination purposes] (p. 49); 46 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 • discussing about [sic] careers in optics, physics, optical transmission of information (fibre optics) [not for assessment purposes] (p. 51); • discussing the many opportunities in sa for careers in astronomy [not for assessment purposes]. (p. 55) grade 9 learners should be: • reading about careers in the chemical industry, including agriculture, pharmacy, chemical engineering, mining [not for assessment purposes] (p. 69); • discussing the many careers in the energy sector, including electricians, electrical engineers, artisans, it specialists for maintaining and improving the power grid. (p. 76) social sciences in the intermediate phase, the social sciences (ss) curriculum explicitly mentions “job”, “labour”, “occupation”, and “work” (department of basic education, 2011j). in grade 4, learners are expected to learn about “people and places”, including “work: jobs people do in different places” (p. 21). in grade 5, learners are expected to learn about “[t]he first farmers in southern africa”. this topic includes “[t]ools and weapons from iron and copper: division of labour: gender-based activity: men” and “[d]ivision of labour: gendered activity: women” (p. 39). they are also expected to learn that “[t]he entry of farmers did not end the occupation of hunter-gatherers” (p. 39). in grade 4, one of the recommended resources is “[p]hotographs of people working on farms” (p. 23). in grade 5, learners learn about mining and the people who work in mines, more specifically about “[c]hallenges of working in a deep gold mine – such as ventilation, heat, rock falls, dust” (p. 28). learners learn about the first farmers in southern africa and more specifically about “[a] culture of co-operation, e.g., communal work parties during the ploughing season, helping a newcomer by lending calves for a year or two” (p. 39). they also learn about “[t]ools and weapons from iron and copper” with the focus on “[m]etal working (iron, smelting and fire technology, smithery) (p. 39). in grade 6, learners learn about fairtrading, more specifically “[t]he human cost of unfair trade – work and exploitation” (p. 30). in the senior phase, the ss curriculum explicitly mentions the terms “labour”, “slavery”, “slaves”, and “work” (department of basic education, 2011r). grade 7 learners learn about “[t]he kingdom of mali and the city of timbuktu 14th century” and that slaves were traded across the sahara desert (p. 33). the transatlantic slave trade is one of the overview topics in grade 7. when grade 7 learners learn about the transatlantic slave trade, the following content and concepts are covered (p. 34): • west africa before the european slave trade; visser: child labour is a matter of national concern 47 • the nature of slavery in west africa before europeans; • slavery in the american south; • the impact of the transatlantic slave trade on slaves; • the impact of the transatlantic slave trade on the economies of west africa, america, and britain – gains for america and britain, and the negative impact on west africa. moreover, grade 7 learners learn about “[c]olonisation of the cape 17th–18th centuries” (p. 35). in this topic, slaves at the cape and the movement of trekboers with their slaves and servants are covered. grade 7 learners also learn about the abolition of slavery in 1836 and about runaway slaves. grade 8 learners learn about the wealth from slave trade during the industrial revolution in britain. grade 8 learners learn about the industrial revolution in britain and southern africa from 1860 and focus on: • changes during the industrial revolution in britain, focusing on “[t]he mines and factories – child labour in mills and mines” and “[l]abour, resistance, the trade union movement and working class organisations” (p. 37) • southern africa by 1860: indentured labour from india to work on sugar plantations in a british colony of natal and they attend to “[r]easons why labour was imported: zulu kingdom was still independent” and “[c]onditions under which indentured labourers lived and worked” (p. 37) grade 8 learners learn about the mineral revolution in south africa (department of basic education, 2011r). here, they learn about how “labour [was] established and continued into the 20th century” (p. 37). one of the themes they learn about is “britain, diamond mining and increasing labour control and land expansionism” with more attention on “[i]increasing control over black workers: closed compounds and migrant labour” (p. 38). another theme grade 8 learners cover is “[d]eep-level gold mining on the witwatersrand 1886 onwards”, with special attention on “[m]igrant workers” and “[f]orms of labour resistance” (p. 38). mathematics, life skills, and foundation phase subjects languages in the foundation phase do not address any concepts related to child labour. this is also true of life skills for the foundation and intermediate phases as well as of mathematics in all the phases. discussion to explore how and to what extent the grade 1 to 9 curriculum addresses different forms of child labour, i examined all the compulsory caps documents. in this section, i reflect on the main findings from a curriculum-as-policy perspective. caps documents are political, and so is the concept of child labour. the different views on how to interpret the concept of child labour are all supported by a different political agenda. the focus of this article is the expectation that caps should prepare children for the workplace and labour market 48 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 (department of basic education, 2011, 2019). since child labour is a multilayered complex concept, explaining how it is addressed in caps is not an easy task. caps addresses the following aspects: work that is beneficial: there are no direct references to child work that is beneficial for children. child labour: child labour is mentioned once in ss for grade 8 learners (department of basic education (2011r, p. 37). content is provided on child labour in mills and mines during the industrial revolution in britain. legal labour: it seems that caps focusses mostly on legal labour for persons older than 18 years of age. in languages, learners learn how to write a letter to apply for a job and how to create a cv. careers are addressed in creative arts, technology, and natural sciences. ems and nst address job creation. ems focusses some attention on technical aspects regarding labour, financial markets, factors of production, including unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled labour, fair employment practices, and the role of workers in business. ss provides a historical overview of different working environments, such as farming in south africa, mining (gold and diamonds), and metalworking. ss addresses the division of labour as a gendered activity. lo is the subject that devotes the most time to the world of work (department of basic education, 2011o, pp. 10, 12–14, 16–18, 20–23). the main points addressed by lo are: the importance of reading and studying; career fields; simulation of career-related activities; different learning styles; six career categories; the role of work in relation to south africa's social and economic needs; the relationship between performance in school subjects and interests and abilities; decision-making processes; time-management skills; reading and writing for different purposes; options after completing grade 9; knowledge of the world of work; career and subject choices; study and career funding providers; and plan for own lifelong learning. illegal child labour: caps is silent on the issue of children working before they are 15 years of age. hazardous forms of child labour: ss also addresses slavery, child labour, fair and unfair trading, work and exploitation, labour resistance, imported labourers, indentured labourers, the abolition of slavery, and runaway slaves. trafficking for child labour: caps is silent on the issue of trafficking for child labour. it seems that caps, to some extent, is preparing learners for the workplace, but for what type of workplace? is it an idealised one underpinned by a romanticised view of childhood? is it assumed that children will start school in an early childhood development centre, then progress to grade 12, apply for a diploma or university degree, apply for a job in their career of choice, and be appointed to their dream job? what about the children who do not live the reality of such a romanticised childhood and who must work from an early age to help support other family members? visser: child labour is a matter of national concern 49 in this article, i have mentioned that child work can be beneficial (bourdillon, 2014; nsamenang, 2008; sloth-nielsen & mezmur, 2008) and will most likely be the reality for many children in africa, including south africa. what makes this particularly challenging is that south african children have the option of leaving school at the age of 15 or at the end of grade 9 to start working, and even more problematic is south africa’s school drop-out crisis (smillie & mobotja, 2019). like many other children of 15 years of age and older, they go to work so that they can help support their families (gallinetti, 2008). it seems that caps does not consider workplaces for children and how to prepare grade 1 to 9 learners to enter the workplace at the end of grade 9. this means that learners are not equipped to face the realities they might encounter when they drop out of school to start working. those who are fortunate enough to find legal work opportunities should be able to learn how to make themselves more employable by, for example, knowing how to find advertisements for legal work opportunities, how to read a work contract, what the minimum remuneration for employment is, and how to obtain information on legal labour practices for children. apart from not being well-prepared for the world of work, school-leavers at the age of 15 might not know what their rights are in a working environment. this could mean that they become victims of illegal labour, or worse, victims of hazardous forms of child labour or trafficking for child labour. this is a matter of real concern in africa, a country that has the highest proportion of children involved in child labour (alliance 8.7, 2017). education is an important means of fighting the exploitation of child labour (international labour organization, 2017), including hazardous forms of child labour and trafficking for child labour. yet south africa’s explicit school curriculum does not teach learners about the dangers of these forms of child labour. caps addresses some concepts of hazardous forms of child labour but much of the focus on slavery is on adults and not on child slaves. the stark fact is that south african children who do not grow up in a romanticised childhood do not have access to knowledge about child labour. they need this knowledge to help them understand the different forms of child labour and to become aware of hazardous forms of child labour and trafficking for child labour that they might be exposed to when they leave school. conclusion in this article, i provide a broad understanding of child labour from a perspective that focusses on curriculum as policy. caps does address child labour, but the assumptions that appear to have been made about childhood that underpin the curriculum content are questionable and should be interrogated. these assumptions might lead to an understanding of why caps is silent about some forms of child labour. south african children do not have equal opportunities in terms of their employability and future workplaces yet caps does not help these learners transition from school to workplace. empirically based research on teachers to discover more about how the planned curriculum addresses child labour and research involving learners to learn more about the received curriculum on child labour might shed more light on this. more insight is needed from people who have been exploited by involvement in hazardous forms of child labour or child trafficking for labour if we are to 50 journal of education, no. 85, 2021 explore the impact of having knowledge (or not) about these forms of labour. moreover, empirical research is needed to explore how caps helps learners in the age group of 16 to 17 to transition from school to the workplace. finally, more research is needed to determine if there are correlations between this explorative document analysis and the received curriculum so that a curriculum response to address child labour can be formulated. references alliance 8.7. 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(2018). narratives of child trafficking survivors in rehabilitation: conceptualisations of freedom for human rights education (unpublished doctoral dissertation). north-west university, rsa. bernstein and the kantian antinomies of reason zain davis abstract in this paper i draw inspiration from slavoj žižek’s (1993) deployment of kant in his analysis of ideology in order to show that basil bernstein’s theorising of education, specifically concerning the universal-particular dialectic, entails a series of discursive gestures that might productively be described in terms of kant’s antinomies of reason. the inscription of discursive resources akin to the kantian antinomies in bernstein renders the theory necessarily open despite its apparently totalising intent. i believe that the approach used here is more productive than engaging in the polemical bating and name calling that often emerges in discussions of relativistic versus universalist approaches to the production and uses of education theory. introduction this commentary on bernstein is conditioned by slavoj žižek’s use of the work of kant in his exhortation for us to “tarry with the negative” (žižek, 1993) in the face of rampant relativism that besets much of contemporary philosophical and social scientific argumentation. kant’s tarrying with the negative entailed a radicalisation of the critique of traditional metaphysics mounted by hume and the empiricists. rather than reassert rationalist metaphysics in the face of the empiricist attack, kant accepted hume’s criticisms and ended up demonstrating that knowledge was necessarily incomplete, but he did so without having to sacrifice universality (kant, 1994, 1996, 2000). in the field of education, moore and muller (1999) offer an interesting critical engagement with what they refer to as the ‘discourse of “voice”’ and, more generally, of postmodern accounts of knowledge. they argue that the ‘discourse of “voice” ’ is little more than a self-defeating position-taking strategy that weakens the production of knowledge when taken seriously. for moore and muller, the ‘discourse of “voice” ’ is aligned with 10 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 approaches that question epistemological claims about the objectivity of knowledge (and the status of science, reason and rationality, more generally) [and which] adopt, or at least favour or imply, a form of perspectivism which sees knowledge and truth claims as being relative to a culture, form of life or standpoint and, therefore, ultimately representing a particular perspective and social interest rather than independent, universalistic criteria. they complete this reduction by translating knowledge claims into statements about knowers. knowledge is translated into knowing and priority is given to experience as specialised by category membership and identity. [. . .] today, the most common form of this approach is that which, drawing on postmodernist and poststructuralist perspectives, adopts a discursive concern with the explication of ‘voice’. (moore and muller, 1999, pp.189–90) what moore and muller begin to make clear in their discussion is the presence of an impasse in curriculum theory in the form of an opposition between knowledge (in its concern with the production of universal statements) and morality (in its concern with the existential specificity of individuals). in establishing their argument, moore and muller appeal primarily to the bernsteinian distinction between horizontal and vertical discourses – a strategy that i have commented on elsewhere (davis, 2003). i believe that one can address the concerns of moore and muller by siding with the “discourses of voice”, approaching bernstein as a typical instance of the type of totalising theory such discourses rail against, yet demonstrate that, despite its totalising intent, the theory remains necessarily open. bernstein and the discursive gap the arrival, in basil bernstein’s theorising, of the pedagogic device (bernstein, 1990, 1996) with its explicit elaboration of the notion of a discursive gap, announces the completion of the formalisation in the theory of a structure that takes cognisance of the entanglements reason gets into with itself when it attempts to produce universalising statements. perhaps it will come as a surprise to bernstein cognoscenti that i turn to immanuel kant rather than remain within bernstein’s discussion of internal and external languages of description to address the notion of the discursive gap. my interest here is primarily focussed on the initial formulation of the notion in order to draw out the similarities between general features of bernstein’s methodology and kant’s discussion of the antinomies of reason. later i shall return to the discussion of the discursive gap in the context of languages of description to show how it can be rendered in kantian terms. of course, davis: bernstein and the kantian antinomies of reason. . . 11 nowhere in his corpus of work does bernstein directly discuss kant, but it is perhaps due to bernstein’s fidelity to durkheim that kant nevertheless insists in bernsteinian theory (see durkheim, 1953). there is, however, an additional reason for appealing to kant, and that is to bring a measure of coherence to the use of the notion of the discursive gap as expressed in bernsteinian theory. bernstein tends to deploy the term discursive gap in a number of different contexts. first, the discursive gap is used to speak about the indirect relation of knowledge to its material base. second, it is employed to distinguish between order and disorder at the level of knowledge. third, at the level of the semantic, it is used to mark the discontinuity between that which is given to us in sensible intuition (‘the material’) and the transcendental (‘the immaterial’). fourth, as i drew attention to above, between two orders of truth in the context of research, the first being that of the conformity of knowledge to its object (external language of description) and the second, the conformity of knowledge to itself (the internal language of description). with such various uses of the term it might be better to refer to a discursive gap rather than the discursive gap since the notion of a gap is used to connect and distinguish different relations in each of the instances of its use described here. the kantian antinomies of reason in all three of kant’s critiques (of pure reason (kant, 1994), of practical reason (kant, 1996), and of judgement (kant, 2000), he stumbles up against the paradoxes that beset the universal. in relation to pure reason, the attempt to use categories to capture that which is beyond finite experience as we consider the universe as a whole, produces the universe as, simultaneously, finite and infinite and as a totalising causal network that nevertheless contains free beings. in relation to practical reason kant finds that, in formal terms, evil coincides with the good if evil is chosen on the basis of principle rather than stemming from pathological impulses. in the synthesis of pure and practical reason, the judgement, kant discovers that the intersection of beauty and purpose/teleology produces the sublime: that which is neither beautiful nor purposeful, but rather suprasensible; in short, the moral law. however, the sublime, under the aspect of beauty, presents the law in its pacifying function, while under the aspect of teleology it assumes a ferocious superego function, that of our a priori guilt before the law. 12 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 in each of his critiques kant discovers a rupture in the universal which is rendered as a pair of antinomic relations, the so-called mathematical and dynamical antinomies. first, the mathematical antinomy emerges when we are confronted with a series of phenomenal objects, given to sensible intuition which is finite. as soon as we attempt to extend our experience of the sensible beyond finite experience we employ transcendental categories that produce a contradiction: the universe emerges as both finite and infinite. differently stated, all phenomena are subject to experience, but experience is necessarily incomplete. next, the dynamical antinomy emerges when we consider that every phenomenon can be explained in terms of the universal chain of cause and effect (therefore, there is no such thing as freedom), however, phenomena cannot be fully accounted for without the hypothesis of a causality of freedom. in short, the mathematical antinomies are concerned with paradoxes generated by attempts at grasping the totality of phenomena, while the dynamical antinomies emerge from the necessity to posit the existence of noumenal entities beyond phenomena. the different faces of the discursive gap and its ontological priority so, what has any of this to do with bernstein? it is my contention that, on the one hand, a series of bernsteinian conceptual couples (classification and framing; recognition and realisation; voice and message; power and control – all renditions, in different guises, of the relation between the what and the how), in fact index the inscription of the kantian dynamical antinomies in the theory of symbolic control: all phenomena (knowledge; pedagogic subjects, procedures) are caught in the web of control (the universal causal nexus), but only on condition that there exists one who escapes, one who is able to generate a new chain of causes and effects. this structure is redoubled at the level of pedagogic discourse in the relation between the instructional and regulative discourses: while the (re)production of specialised knowledge is dominated by control (regulative discourse), the regulative cannot foreclose the possibility of an alternative regulation, producing in that way an alternative classification (with respect to knowledge, a reconfiguration of instructional discourse). here we encounter bernstein’s version of kant’s dynamical antinomy. davis: bernstein and the kantian antinomies of reason. . . 13 the indirect relation between knowledge and its material base with the elaboration of the theory of the pedagogic device (bernstein, 1990; 1996) the notion of the discursive gap announces bernstein’s version of kant’s mathematical antinomy: the discursive gap, as the marker of the indirect relation between meaning and its social base (the division of labour and the relations within the division of labour), ensures that the field of discursive production (of knowledge) is non-all (that is, necessarily incomplete). bernstein’s obfuscating language when discussing the effects of the discursive gap clearly points to the non-all nature of knowledge when he marks out the production of two classes of knowledge: the mundane and the esoteric, the thinkable and the unthinkable, knowledge of the possible and the possibility of the impossible. figure 1: schematic showing the location of the discursive gap as iitially formulated figure 1 is a schematic representation of bernstein’s initial formulation of the discursive gap, that is, the formulation in which he clearly locates the gap between the material base and knowledge: “the meanings which create and unite two worlds [the mundane and the esoteric] must always be meanings where there is an indirect relation to a specific material base . . .” (bernstein, 1996, p.44). the discursive gap is therefore not, at this point, the name for the distance between the two classes of knowledge, but rather the ontological condition for the very production of knowledge. from a kantian perspective the relation between meanings and their material base are, of course, always indirect since we have no access to things in themselves. like kant, bernstein 14 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 recognises that the discursive gap (qua correlate to the mathematical antinomy) has ontological priority over the relation between the what and the how (correlate to the dynamical antinomy): first the indirect relation between knowledge and its material base, and then the antagonistic struggle for control of that indirect relation (that is, the structuring of the what and the how, starting from the elaboration of the content of the distributive rule of the pedagogic device): i want to suggest that this gap or space can become (not always) a site for alternative possibilities, for alternative realisations of the relation between the material and the immaterial. the gap itself can change the relation between the material and the immaterial. this potential gap or space i will suggest is the site for the unthinkable, the site of the impossible, and this site can clearly be both beneficial and dangerous at the same time. this gap is the meeting point of order and disorder, of coherence and incoherence. it is the crucial site of the yet to be thought (bernstein, 1996: p.44; italics in the original). order and disorder in relation to the discursive gap in the above statement by bernstein we can detect, in a first approach, a slide from the initial formulation of the location of the gap to one that now is, by definition, the empty intersection of order and disorder, the “meeting point [. . .] of coherence and incoherence,” as well as the “site of the yet to be thought” (see figure 2). if we translate these formulations into less obscure terms we might render them, collectively, as a proposition claiming that internal to knowledge itself we encounter a limit. figure 2: the discursive gap as the meeting point of order and disorder now there are various ways of reading this proposition. on the one hand i can read the limit simply as an historically-situated epistemological limit, as us not yet knowing everything there is to know. such a formulation, with its implicit suggestion that perhaps someday, somewhere, we will arrive at davis: bernstein and the kantian antinomies of reason. . . 15 complete knowledge is to be rejected for the reason that such knowledge will void the indirect relation between knowledge and its material base, and so nullify the difference between the material and the immaterial. presumably, once the temporal limit is overcome, we will – in kantian terms – have access to things-in-themselves and therefore the antinomies of reason will disappear. on the other hand, it can be argued that there is always a non-discursive excess of the material over the discursive (dowling, 1998), necessarily rendering knowledge incomplete. this position is similar to that of the first case, but with the added sophistication of a trans-historical externally imposed limitation on knowledge: the non-discursive excess can never be eradicated, no matter the state of knowledge. as appealing as the latter reading of the proposition is at first blush, it too should be rejected. i reject it on the basis that it does not really get at the limit of knowledge. all it is doing is stating, in different terms, that we cannot know things in themselves, which is a fundamental kantian axiom asserting that knowledge and the things of which it speaks belong to different ontological orders. next, we can note that the nature of the internal limit of knowledge is not a simple externally imposed incompleteness but that knowledge itself has no limit. in other words, the ineradicable presence within knowledge of a ‘site of the impossible’ is the reason for the incompleteness of knowledge. figure 3: the discursive gap as the space of disorder within order the apparently paradoxical result is then that the limit of knowledge is not a mere externally imposed limit generated by either the presence of an elusive ‘non-discursive excess’ or a historically experienced temporal limit, but rather that “ stating the case in simplistic terms – the discursive itself necessarily 16 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 a similar result is also apparent in saussure’s discussion of language: on the one hand we have 1 the requirement for semantic closure that says that all signifiers must be presumed to be present in the form of a system of differential relations; that is, the synchronic aspect of language. on the other hand, language also requires that every signifier refers to another in a process of metonymic sliding from one signifier to another; that is, its diachronic aspect. saussure’s resolution of the tension between these two, apparently antagonistic principles of language, was to simply set to one side the diachronic and focus solely upon the synchronic. postmodern deconstruction resolves the same tension by focusing on the diachronic, that is, on the infinite deferral of meaning as language is caught up in the incessant sliding of the signifier. see žižek (1989) for a more detailed and extended discussion of sohn-rethel’s argument. i2 rely on žižek’s discussion in this section. knows no limit and so incessantly chatters on about its object. the1 formulation of the notion of the discursive gap as the ‘meeting point of order and disorder’ should therefore be grasped as locating the point of disorder entirely internal to order. further, we should recognise that the term ‘disorder’ is already a means for rendering, in a pacifying way, the internal limit of knowledge as already a type of species of order. figure 3 is a schematic of the result of our analysis of the relation between order (knowledge) and the discursive gap. the mundane, the esoteric, and the discursive gap let me state upfront my contention that the discontinuity between the mundane and the esoteric in bernstein cannot be rendered as a discursive gap located between the mundane and the esoteric. neither can it be rendered as a discursive gap between the everyday and the academic at the level of pedagogic discourse. in sohn-rethel’s (1978) terms, the material base (the social division of labour and relations within the division of labour) generates a ‘fissure’ between what he calls ‘practical’ (the mundane/the everyday) and ‘theoretical’ consciousness (the esoteric/the academic). the particular productive feature of the material base that sohn-rethel focuses on is the act of commodity-exchange, finding there the generative mechanism of ‘two worlds’.2 first, in his analysis of the commodity-form, marx (1976, p.76) arrives at a definition of commodity fetishism as that of an inversion in which “a definite relation between men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things”. in other words, social relations are expressed in the davis: bernstein and the kantian antinomies of reason. . . 17 value of a commodity, but in a strange way, in which value becomes detached from social relations and appears to be an intrinsic property of commodities in the form of a particular monetary value. stated differently, while the value of a commodity is an effect of social relations within the division of labour, value is treated as though it inheres in the commodity outside of its relation to its social base. however, the key to commodity fetishism is to be found in the production of an equivalent which expresses the exchange-value of commodities: two commodities become equivalents only when one is rendered as though it was always-already, in itself, the equivalent of the other, which seems to be a property of it independently of its relation to the other. the most abstract realisation of such relations is, of course, money. second, let us now turn to sohn-rethel’s (1978) discussion of real abstraction. concluding from his detailed series of analyses of commodityexchange relations, sohn-rethel finds that two fundamental modes of consciousness result: ‘practical’ and ‘theoretical’. however, he argues that the two modes of consciousness are effected by an abstraction that inheres in the act of the exchange of commodities. here we should be careful to distinguish between the consciousness of the individual subjects engaged in commodity exchange and the act of exchange itself. it is the structure of the latter, according to sohn-rethel, that, while it is not thought, has the form of abstract thought. real abstraction is the form of relations between commodities in the act of commodity-exchange; the individuals who relate as exchange agents are, for sohn-rethel, acting as ‘practical solipsists’ while the form of their exchanges is that of theoretical consciousness. what he is driving at here is that in the act of exchange, commodities are stripped of their specific use-values, their empirical qualities, and become abstract units of exchange-value, providing in that way the form of abstraction that is necessary for the elaboration of theoretical reason. this means that the form of theoretical reason is already staged at a moment external to such reason. in terms of my specific interests here, i can then argue that the distribution of the social good, ultimately structured as it is by commodity exchange, already presents in the form of a real abstraction a prefiguring of the form of consciousness that is ‘theoretical’. in other words, the pathological activity of the subject caught up in the act of exchange is the ground for the generation of the transcendental subject, the latter being the support of the web of a priori categories. 18 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 figure 4: the place of incommensurability in the relation between the everyday and the academic the irony of this result should not be overlooked: the circulation of positive contents grounds that which is formally independent of all positive contents! so much then for the simple version of the argument on the incommensurability of the everyday (the mundane) and the academic (the esoteric). let me explain. real abstraction is the name for the gathering together of the radically heterogeneous needs, desires and dispositions of subjects populating the division of labour, through commodity-exchange, into a system of general equivalents that provides the form for theoretical reason. the first encounter with incommensurability is situated at the level of the clash of heterogeneous needs and so forth of social subjects. the ‘solution’ to that fundamental incommensurability is the generation of an abstract, general equivalent in the act of commodity-exchange. the ‘general form of thought’ which is thereby produced is therefore already an amelioration of social incommensurability. in other words, the academic (universal knowledge), which is the thought derived from the real abstraction qua form of thought at the level of commodity-exchange, is a solution to the incommensurability internal to the everyday, returning to the everyday in a recontextualised form embedded in the administration of social life, technologies and so forth. figure 4 shows a simplified representation of the place of incommensurability. davis: bernstein and the kantian antinomies of reason. . . 19 the discursive gap and languages of description in an interview published in 1999, bernstein used the notion of the discursive gap to clarify a methodological point on research practice (bernstein and solomon, 1999, p.275): there [. . .] must be a discursive gap between the rules specified by [a] model and the realisation rules for transforming the information produced by the something [that is, the object of research]. this gap enables the something, so to speak, to announce itself, it enables the something to re-describe the descriptions of the model’s own realisation rule and so change. (italics in the original.) it would appear that researchers are drawn to the representation of the notion of the discursive gap as presented in the above extract, preferring to avoid bernstein’s more obscure formulations of that notion in the context of his discussion of the distributive rules of the pedagogic device (in bernstein, 1990, 1996). the use of the notion of the discursive gap in bernstein and solomon (1999) is that first formulated in the context of bernstein’s discussion of languages of description (in bernstein, 1996) and as elaborated on by dowling (1998). in their discussion of the growth of knowledge in the field of the sociology of education, moore and muller (2002) also appeal to the notion of the discursive gap as formulated in the context of the discussion of languages of description but remain silent on the earlier formulation of the notion. bernstein (1996, p.135) defines a language of description as “a translation device whereby one language is transformed into another”. he goes on to distinguish between “internal and external languages of description”. the difference between the two is the following: “the internal language of description refers to the syntax whereby a conceptual language is created” while an external language of description refers to the syntax whereby the internal language can describe something other than itself” (op.cit., p.136). the selection of theoretical referents that inform the production of the internal language of description is done in ‘dialogue’ with the empirical specificity of the object(s) of research. once the internal language of description has been constructed the researcher needs to produce the external language, the work of which is to “construct what is to count as empirical relations and translate those relations into conceptual relations. a language of description constructs what is to count as an empirical referent, how such referents relate to each other to produce a specific text, and translate these referential relations into 20 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 theoretical objects or potential theoretical objects. [. . .] a language of description, from this point of view, consists of rules for the unambiguous recognition of what is to count as a relevant empirical relation, and rules (realisation rules) for reading the manifest contingent enactments of those empirical relations” (op.cit., pp.136–7). at this stage it might help to reproduce a diagrammatic representation of the notion of a language of description from dowling’s discussion of languages of description (see figure 5). from the theoretical referents, in dialogue with the empirical specificity of the object of research, we produce a series of theoretical propositions. the external language of description proper is constituted by a model, derived from the theoretical propositions, as well as recognition and realisation rules for the identification and interpreting of data, which must be such that the model can grasp the data. however, it has to be borne in mind that the recognition and realisation of data always closes down the initial openness of the information by restricting its semantic potential—the model cannot exhaust the empirical because the latter, argues dowling (1993, 1998), represents a material excess with respect to the discursive (the model). this is why data is shown to reside in a ‘discursive gap’, which is a ‘methodological space’ between that which is internal to the external language of description and that which is internal to it. davis: bernstein and the kantian antinomies of reason. . . 21 in this section i rely heavily on the analysis of kantian thought in relation to lacanian3 psychoanalysis produced by alenka zupanèiè (see zupanèiè, 2000). figure 5: schematic for a language of description (dowling, 1993, p.88) bernstein’s distinction between internal and external languages of description is in effect an acknowledgement that two orders of truth are always operative in the generation of knowledge. on the one hand the question of truth arises3 in considerations of the conformity of knowledge to its object. for kant, this 22 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 aspect falls under the transcendental analytic of pure reason. in bernstein’s discussion, it is the function of the external language of description, which is the mediator between the internal language of description and the object of research. a different criterion for truth is produced by the question of the conformity of knowledge with itself. in other words, we also have a criterion for truth concerned with the internal consistency of knowledge. here truth is to be found at the level of the internal articulation of signifiers rather than at the level of the relationship between the chain of signifiers and things understood as simply external to it. the place of this latter criterion in bernstein’s discussion of languages of description is that of the internal language of description. once again we arrive at the limit of knowledge: the articulation of relations between the signifiers is, in principle, limitless, so that truth at this level, which kant situates under the transcendental dialectic, is not-whole for the reasons discussed earlier. kant refers to the criterion demanding the conformity of knowledge with itself as the “formal criterion of truth” and argues that it is necessary for the evaluation of any statement whatsoever. in other words, the transcendental dialectic enjoys primacy. interestingly, bernstein arrives at a similar position, in which the internal language of description is primary: “the theory, however primitive, has always come before the research. thus by the time a piece of research has been initiated the theory has already been subject to conceptual clarification as it engages the empirical problem. and by the time it has finished there have been further conceptual developments” (bernstein, 1996, p.95; italics in the original). the criterion requiring the conformity of knowledge to its object is referred to by kant as the ‘logic of truth’, and that requiring the conformity of knowledge to itself, the ‘logic of illusion’. here illusion is not to be understood as the false representation of the truth. rather, it is situated at an entirely different level from the criterion of the conformity of knowledge to its object. the ‘illusion’ is that which appears in the place of nothing, which, as i argued in section 3.2, renders the internal limit of knowledge as ‘disorder’ and thereby already begins to produce order ex nihilo. dialectical illusion “involves deception by the simple fact that it is” (zupanèiè, 2000. p.66; italics in the original). so, from my perspective, the discursive gap in the context of languages of description is nothing other than the bernsteinian name for the distinction davis: bernstein and the kantian antinomies of reason. . . 23 during a session of his seminar at the university of cape town (bernstein, 1994; 1997) 4 bernstein was asked by a participant if an ethical pedagogic act was possible. it is interesting that in his response bernstein presented an example directly at the level of the regulative discourse: construct a task for the student to engage with that begins to reveal the principles of their regulation. between the criteria for truth that pertain the transcendental analytic and transcendental dialectic. the pedagogic device and the antinomies of reason finally, we can recognise that the bernsteinian correlates to kantian pure reason and practical reason, as well as the correlate to kant’s judgement are written into the theory of the pedagogic device. the object of pure reason is to complete the universal causal nexus in an effort to extend experience beyond the sensible. here contemporary physics perhaps provides us with a suitably disturbing example of the distinction between the sensible and the intelligible: while quantum mechanics can be grasped as intelligible (as an internally consistent theory), as soon as we attempt to incorporate its results into the functioning of our everyday reality we experience a sense of a loss of reality; that is, quantum mechanics cannot be grasped in sensible intuition. at the level of pedagogic discourse, bernstein’s instructional discourse is that which connects us to the intelligible. next, practical reason in kant concerns the ethical and the relation of the subject to the moral law. in bernstein’s terms, the regulative discourse qua rules of social order are correlative to kant’s practical reason and it is here, at the level of the regulative discourse, that a space opens up for the possibility of an ethical pedagogic act. what is not as4 explicit in bernstein as it is kant, is that the moral law takes two forms: on the one hand, that of a pacifying function and, on the other, of a form directed at the enjoyment of the pedagogic subject: where you are ignorant, you enjoy and so escape the moral law (and therefore are a priori guilty). finally, kantian judgement, the synthesis of pure and practical reason, is rendered in bernsteinian terms as the evaluative rule; that is, the principle structuring pedagogic judgement. with reference to the definition of pedagogic discourse, i argue that the relation between the what and the how structures the relation between the instructional discourse and the regulative discourse along the lines of the relation between pure and practical reason, each with its own particular 24 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 realisation of the antinomies of reason. with respect to the instructional discourse the antinomies emerge as we move from the sensible to the intelligible; with respect to the regulative discourse, the antinomies emerge from the two forms of the moral law (its pacifying function versus its ferocious superego function) and from the possibility of an ethical act qua momentary suspension of the regulative, so producing a new configuration of the regulative. with regard to the esoteric, bernstein makes the empirically sound claim that access to the unthinkable is generally reserved for the upper reaches of the education system (knowledge production): [t]he control of the unthinkable lies essentially, but not wholly, in the upper reaches of the educational system. this does not mean that the unthinkable cannot take place outside of the educational system, but the major control and management of the unthinkable is carried out by the higher agencies of education. on the other hand, the thinkable in modern complex societies is managed by secondary and primary school systems. (bernstein, 1996, p.43; italics in the original.) however, it is my contention that the essential difference between the two classes of knowledge resides in their respective occulting (the mundane) and revelation (the esoteric) of the not-whole character of knowledge. concluding comments if it is indeed the case that bernstein’s theoretical work proceeded in a manner that effectively inscribed the antinomies of reason at every level of the theory in the relation between the what and the how and in the guise of the ever-present spectre of the discursive gap, then the theory cannot be totalising. ironically, it is in the terms of apparently totalising theories like that of bernstein rather than in the increasing proliferation of ‘voice discourses’ (moore and muller, 1999) that education can be theorised in a manner that keeps open a genuine path of approach to the ‘unthinkable’. davis: bernstein and the kantian antinomies of reason. . . 25 references bernstein, b. 1990. class, codes and control, volume 1v: the structuring of pedagogic discourse. london: routledge. bernstein, b. 1994. the first bernstein seminar at the university of cape town. (audio). cape town: university of cape town. bernstein, b. 1996. pedagogy, symbolic control, and identity. london: taylor & francis. bernstein, b. 1997. the second bernstein seminar at the university of cape town. (audio). cape town: university of cape town. bernstein, b. and solomon, j. 1999. ‘pedagogy, identity and the construction of a theory of symbolic control’: basil bernstein questioned by joseph solomon. british journal of sociology of education, 20(2): pp.265–79. davis, z. 2003. bernstein avec lacan: desire, jouissance and pedagogic discourse. in trueit, d., doll, w., wang, h. and pinar, w.f. (eds), the internationalization of curriculum studies. new york: peter lang. dowling, p.c. 1993. a language for the sociological description of pedagogic texts with particular reference to the secondary school mathematics scheme smp 11–16. phd. thesis, university of london institute of education. dowling, p.c. 1998. the sociology of mathematics education: mathematical myths/pedagogic texts. london: falmer press. durkheim, e. 1953. sociology and philosophy. translated by j.g. peristany. chicago: free press. kant, i. 1994. critique of pure reason. london: everyman. kant, i. 1996. critique of practical reason. new york: prometheus books. kant, i. 2000. critique of judgement. new york: prometheus books. marx, k. 1976. capital, volume 1. harmondsworth: penguin. 26 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 moore, r. and muller, j. 1999. the discourse of ‘voice’ and the problem of knowledge and identity in the sociology of education. british journal of sociology of education, 20(2): pp.189–206. moore, r. and muller, j.p. 2002. the growth of knowledge and the discursive gap. british journal of sociology of education, 23(4): pp.627–637. žižek, s. 1989. the sublime object of ideology. london: verso. žižek, s. 1993. tarrying with the negative: kant, hegel, and the critique of ideology. durham: duke university press. zupanèiè, a. 2000. ethics of the real: kant, lacan, london: verso. zain davis university of cape town zain.davis@uct.ac.za mailto:zain.davis@uct.ac.za fostering the employability of business studies graduates shairn hollis-turner abstract higher education is under pressure to enhance the employability of graduates by ensuring that they acquire competencies that make them employable in the labour market. this research project investigated the contribution of higher education towards the employability of graduates within a business diploma programme. a delphi approach was employed with the delphi panel consisting of three types of professionals – employers within the corporate sector, academics in the field of business studies, and graduates with workplace experience in the corporate sector. both quantitative and qualitative data were obtained from three rounds of surveys. the findings show that disciplinary knowledge of information administration, business administration, communication and personnel management, and the simulation of workplace practices as well as work-integrated learning opportunities are significant to enhancing the employability of office administrators and office managers. these findings provided academics with the opportunity to make improvements to the curriculum to foster the employability of the graduates. introduction there is growing pressure on higher education to heighten the employability of graduates by guaranteeing that the learning experiences of students contribute to instilling the attributes, knowledge and skills that will empower graduates to “perform successfully as citizens in the knowledge economy” (nel and neale-shutte, 2013, p.437). south africa is still grappling with developing its economy and also bringing restitution to its black population. the latest unemployment statistics measuring the number of individuals actively seeking employment as a percentage of the workforce shows that the unemployment rate in south africa increased to 25.5% in the second quarter of 2014 (statistics south africa, 2014). higher education internationally, as well as in south africa (e.g. department of education [doe], 1997, 2002a, 2002b), has emphasised the need for increased graduate employability. higher education reports such as the robbins report (1963), the finn committee (1991), the mayer committee 146 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 (1992), the dearing report (1997), the deseco project (organisation for economic co-operation and development [oecd], 2001), the report on employability skills for australian industry (curtis and mckenzie, 2002); reflex project (allen and van der velden, 2007) and confederation of british industry (cbi) universities uk report (2009), all emphasise the role of the education and training sectors in preparing graduates to confront the challenges of a global knowledge-based economy. employability is seen as a symptom of the brisk changes related to globalisation, the liberalisation of trade, developments in information technology, biosciences, new materials and nanotechnology that have fuelled the rise of the “knowledge economy” (davidson, 2007, p.1184). this together with technological advances and global economic dynamics requires that graduates have higher levels of knowledge and skills (nel and neale-schutte, 2013). the education policy in south africa has been intensely influenced by the global mandate that higher education institutions become more receptive to the needs and expectations of industry, the state and society, to guarantee economic and social success (kruss, 2002). the curricular process provided by higher education attempts to facilitate the development of workplace prerequisites and to meet the demands of the knowledge economy by introducing work integrated learning projects, job shadowing and internships (lowden, hall, elliot and lewin, 2011, p.25) to name but a few examples. however, it cannot be assumed that the experience provided either by higher education, or in the workplace, or the fact that a student has completed a vocational course, will somehow ensure employability. the study on which this paper is based argues that employability is about the development of critical, reflective graduates who are empowered to contribute to their future places of employment in order to retain employment and promotion prospects in an ever-changing competitive global society. in order to determine why so many of the graduates of a higher education programme are unemployed, it is necessary to look at the knowledge bases of the curriculum. knowledge matters and therefore the knowledge bases selected for professional curricula can be expected to play a significant role in enhancing the employability of graduates. young and muller (2014) argue that in an age where there is a proliferation of expert occupations, the knowledge that underpins the professional curriculum is of particular significance. hollis-turner: fostering the employability. . . 147 in this respect the study on which this paper is based broadly investigated the contribution of higher education towards the employability of graduates. the research objectives aimed to investigate the knowledge bases of current office management work expertise and the implications thereof for the training of office managers. the findings of this research project provided academics with the opportunity to make improvements to the curriculum and it provided guidelines for the recurriculation of the higher education programme in office management in accordance with the new qualifications framework of the department of education (2007). literature review universities often make a “wish list” (barrie, 2006, p.215) of knowledge, skills and attributes that will supposedly foster the employability of graduates. mason, williams and cranmer (2006) argue that from the viewpoint of employers, employability often refers to work readiness, described as the possession of attitudes, knowledge, skills, and commercial understanding enabling contributions to be made to the achieving of organisational goals after starting employment. it is also defined as the possession of “foundational skills needed to be minimally qualified for a specific occupation” (act, 2013, p.3). yorke and knight (2006) identified four broad attainments on which employability is dependent, namely, knowledge and understanding; general and specific skills; efficacy beliefs and values; and metacognitive understanding. in educational research this position has remained dominant although it has been critiqued for neglecting other factors influencing employability. contrary arguments include the work of mcquaid, green and danson who argue that a broader approach is necessary as it facilitates the “additional consideration of vital demand, personal circumstances and other factors that influence the employability of people in a particular labour market, or at a particular time” (2005, p.194). mcquaid and lindsay (2005) argue that employability is not simply about building the attributes and skills of students by educational organisations as such skills require support of knowledge of job seeking skills and are influenced by health factors, gender, age and mobility. côté and bynner (2008) argue that economic conditions may influence the social status of young individuals and subsequently their employability, while mcgrath 148 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 (2009) recognises that factors such as geographic location influence employability. harvey and contributors (2003) contend that employability should be recognised as a process requiring more than the attributes, skills or experience to empower a student to get a job or to advance progress. the subject discipline selected by the graduate impacts to some degree on the opportunities for employability development. for example, involvement in employability development is considered easier for students studying professional programmes. however, “vocationalism is not synonymous with employability” (harvey, 2002, p.5). in the south african context, the education white paper 3: a curriculum for the transformation of higher education (doe, 1997) described the role of higher education institutions as the mobilisation of human resource development. graduate employability has therefore become a significant aspect of planning by institutional and academic forums since it is beneficial to higher education, employers and graduates’ acquisition of an improved understanding of the causes of unemployable graduates (nel and nealeshutte, 2013). background to the study the focus of this research project is the employability of the graduates of a higher education programme at a university of technology (uot). the uot comprises five faculties with over 32 000 students. uot’s curricula have had a strong heritage in the provision of career-oriented education and focus on the workplace as both a learning resource and a site of knowledge production. in accordance with the national plan for higher education (ministry of education, 2001) the assumption is that the primary focus of the uot will be the cultivation of applied knowledge and job-related skills driven by market forces and entrepreneurialism (imenda, 2005). wheelahan (2010, p.4) argues that the purpose of professional and vocational education “is to induct students into a field of practice” and provide the knowledge that underpins practice. the three-year higher education business programme on office management aims to provide the local and international corporate sector with graduates who are skilled in management, administration and technology. the curricular arrangement for office management studies comprises the work of the profession of office administration in support of people in a range of different hollis-turner: fostering the employability. . . 149 industries. students are required to study the two major disciplines of information administration (which comprises computer theory and practice) and business administration for the period of three years. the programme for office managers includes two years study of communication and one year of legal practice, personnel management, mercantile law, financial accounting and six months of experiential training or work-integrated learning in the workplace. graduates of the programme find positions of employment in a variety of fields in the business world such as personal assistant, administrative office manager, data processor, office administrator at a hospital, and administrative assistant in a personnel department or the accountancy/legal section of an organisation or legal firm. there are approximately 290 students studying either on a full-time or part-time basis. work experience alone does not ensure that graduates develop the “cognitive, social, practical. . . prerequisites” for employment (yorke, 2004, p.7). similarly, the curricular process does not guarantee employability, but it may facilitate it (knight and yorke, 2004). the programme for office management attempts to facilitate employability by providing opportunities for work experience and by bringing practitioners and employers into the classroom. students are required to take part in group work exercises and presentations, co-ordinate seminars, participate in one week volunteer placements in the workplace during the first and second year, as well as undertake six months internship in the third year of study. research methodology this study draws on a delphi approach which is an established method used to harness the opinions of a diverse group of experts (powell, 2003). the research project on which this paper is based expanded on the delphi method by reviewing the traditional delphi view of ‘expert’, as the delphi panel of experts included not only employers, but also graduates of the office management curriculum. it comprised the distribution of three rounds of surveys to a panel of professionals comprising employers, graduates and academics. this provided the opportunity for the testing of knowledge and learning by the professionals as they refined their opinions and reached consensus. the reasons for selecting this research method was to gain the input from the panel regarding the critical skills, generic attributes and discipline specific content which they considered as key to fostering the employability of the graduates. the researcher attempted to elicit judgements 150 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 from the participants on the basis of surveys and focus group meetings, interviews and student surveys which centred on the research questions. for the purpose of this article only the primary data, both numeric and textual, obtained by using three rounds of delphi surveys on the discipline specific content, is discussed. purposive sampling was used for the selection of the delphi panel and provided in-depth information from an interested group of participants. twenty-three business professionals, fifteen graduates and fifteen academics agreed to serve on the delphi panel and participate in the three rounds of surveys over a period of three years. the selection criteria for the business experts, graduates and academics were as follows: ! business experts in the western cape who operated in local and international medium to high technological environments, ! business experts who were co-operative partners of the uot, ! business experts who had employed or currently employ om graduates and/or third-year students (interns) and who are directly involved in their selection and mentorship, ! graduates who had been employed for a minimum period of three years and who were currently in supervisory and/or office management practitioner positions, ! business experts and graduates who were involved in the major sectors of tourism, medical fields, service and retail industries, education, production, government and local government, ! those who spoke various south african first languages (e.g. isixhosa, english, isizulu and afrikaans), ! academics employed in the workplace within the past two to four years where they held positions in the workplace such as accountant, management consultant, administrative officer, training consultant, operations manager and office managers, and ! academics who participated in regular meetings with the business sector to remain informed of the field of office administration and office management. hollis-turner: fostering the employability. . . 151 the strict adherence to these selection criteria enabled participants to evaluate current office management work practices objectively to determine the knowledge areas of the curriculum required by office administrators and office managers. relevant ethical considerations of anonymity were also considered for this research project. the first round survey included the discipline specific content of the higher education programme. the panel was asked to rate the content of each discipline of the three year programme according to which were necessary, essential or critical to foster the employability of the graduate. they were also given the opportunity to list additional skills and knowledge areas omitted in the first round survey. the additional items were then added to the second survey and sent to the panel for rating. the data from the final round survey was analysed and an average of the ratings from each group of the delphi panel was calculated to determine the overall consensus percentage. this data was analysed by examining the responses to the discipline specific ratings of information administration, business administration, communication, personnel management, financial accounting and legal practice. findings the findings are hierarchically ordered in line with the credit allocation of the disciplines of the office management programme. information administration the findings showed that the ms office suite (81%) received the highest degree of consensus followed by word processing (74%), emails and the internet (68%), spreadsheets: excel (57%), the protection of documentation (57%) with the rest of the content of the information administration curricula receiving below 50% consensus. the additional items added to the first round survey by graduates were the need for advanced excel skills and the ability to identify different types of hardware or software and computer security threats. the data from the final round survey showed that the need for advanced skills on excel received 40% consensus of the panel and the ability to identify different types of hardware 152 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 or software and computer security threats received 27% consensus of the panel. these findings imply that most of the panel did not have the same needs for graduates to have these skills. many large organisations have information and technology support staff who would be responsible for the hardware or software installation and have qualified staff with advanced skills in excel. while the knowledge of computer security and back-up procedures are necessary, these can be learned on site and often are particular to specific organisations. information and communication technologies (ict) are considered essential to fostering the employability of graduates (lowden et al., 2011). the international british education and examination board (edexcel) in its report on the global perspective of effective education for employment (playfoot and hall, 2009, p.50) identified one of the qualiies most valued by employers in south africa as being that of a willingness to “embrace technology”. in the south african context there is a significant gap between what graduates bring to the workplace and employers’ expectations in terms of ict skills, with the biggest gap relating to the “ability to find and access information” (griesel and parker, 2009, p.11). the ukces report entitled “the employability challenge” regards employability skills as those which must be present to empower an individual to apply the more particular knowledge and technical skills that their specific workplaces will expect and “using information technologies effectively – operating a computer, both using basic systems and also learning other applications as necessary” (2009, p.6). refer to table 1 below for the detailed results. hollis-turner: fostering the employability. . . 153 table 1: information administration infomation administration consensus ms office suite 81% word processing 74% emails and the internet 68% spreadsheets: excel 57% protection of documentation 57% windows management 44% ms powerpoint: advanced 41% advanced skills on excel 40% computer security 39% back-up procedures and software 36% flow of information 36% management of information technology and systems 30% structuring a document management system 29% management decision-making 29% ability to identify different types of hardware or software and computer security threats 27% risk management: internet and network security 27% production 35wpm 26% while the importance of information administration skills for the fostering of the employability of office administrators and office managers cannot be denied, the challenge is to ensure that graduates are prepared for the technological demands of the varied fields in which they find employment. the field of information technology is constantly changing and it is required of higher education to not only keep up with business practices, but to ensure that graduates are taking innovative ict knowledge into their future workplaces (boud and solomon, 2001; geisler, bazerman, doheny-farina, gurak, haas, johnson-eilola, kaufer, lunsford, miller, winsor and yates, 2001; barnett, 2004). this was supported by the opinions of a number of the employers and graduates on the delphi panel. for example a graduate 154 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 commented, ‘having knowledge alone is not enough’ and ‘simulations of information technology skills will be useful’. this emphasises the need for academic staff to remain current with workplace practices so that they may make use of innovative methods to simulate these practices in the classroom to prepare students for the workplace (jeong, taylor and chi, 2000). business administration the highest rates of consensus of the delphi panel were in respect of items added to the first survey, namely time management (89%), and understanding the critical importance of administration as one of the pillars in any organisation (73%). in the higher education context students are required to adhere to values of time management which mirror those of the workplace such as punctuality, the adherence to deadlines for the submission of tasks and assignments, and the presentation of written and oral feedback reports. the knowledge of administrative procedures (73%) was followed by control of office activities (57%) and an additional item, knowledge of company policies and procedures (53%), which was added to the first round survey. two other items added to the first survey were knowledge of planning, executing and reviewing events such as meetings and workshops, and project management. the rating of consensus of the delphi panel for the significance of these areas of knowledge and skills was below 50%. administration is considered essential in all sectors of business, regionally, nationally and internationally. in the south african context it is listed as a critical skill in the education, training and development practices (etdp) sector education and training authority report 2010/2011. a number of the employers and graduates called for increased simulation of workplace practices and an employer commented that ‘the basic office management skills are necessary in all contexts’ and <should be applied in simulation exercises in the classroom’. this supports the view expressed earlier that students require opportunities to apply their knowledge in simulations of workplace practices. table 2 shows the detailed results of the delphi surveys. hollis-turner: fostering the employability. . . 155 table 2: business administration business administration consensus time management 89% understand the critical importance of administration as one of the pillars in any oganisation 73% administrative procedures 73% control of office activities 57% knowledge of company policies and procedures 53% the office: organisation and supervision 49% human resource management 46% evaluation of administrative systems 44% knowledge of planning, executing and reviewing events such as meetings and workshops 42% financial management 42% understand workplace safety and security issues 37% management functions 36% strategic management 29% project management 29% risk management 27% systems design and analysis 24% marketing and research 22% entrepreneurship 20% business sectors 20% communication the highest consensus ratings for the content of the communication studies were for items added to the first round survey. correct written language (77%); understanding english language and the application of language skills (71%), and documentation etiquette (71%). this was followed by teamwork and small groups (70%), listening skills and conflict resolution (64%); oral communication and presentation skills (63%), and the importance of setting goals and objectives (50%). the rest of the content received less than 50% 156 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 consensus as being significant to fostering the employability of the graduate. the implications of these findings are that an excessive amount of time is spent in the classroom on the study and practice of written communication skills such as report writing (33%), whereas employers pointed out that <workplaces often have their own on-line reporting programmes’. the majority of the graduates and employers suggested that workplace simulations of communication situations should take place in the classroom. refer to table 3 below for the details. table 3: communication communication consensus correct written language 77% understanding english language and the application of language skills 71% documentation etiquette 71% teamwork and small groups 70% listening skills and conflict resolution 64% oral communication and presentation skills 63% goals and objectives 50% telephone technique 45% business letters: letters of complaint, enquiry, invitation, thanks, etc. 43% emails and facsimiles 42% proficiency in at least two official languages 42% meeting correspondence: notice, agenda, minutes 38% cv writing and interview skills 35% report writing 33% intercultural communication 32% organisational communicaion 32% proposals 32% professional self-development 31% website communication facebook, twitter and other digital forms of communication 29% research: referencing skills 29% hollis-turner: fostering the employability. . . 157 the uk commission’s employer skills survey, 2013 (uk commission for employment and skills, 2014) found an increase in skill-shortage vacancies as a result of a lack of communication skills, particularly oral communication, as well as a lack of literacy skills. opportunities for deliberate practice and feedback on performance are necessary for the development of expertise in oral and writing skills, especially in the context of a “professionally relevant task domain” (kellogg, 2008, p.18). for example, the delphi graduates’ comments were that the communication studies should include ‘more presentation skills’ and that ‘communication skills are important and simulations of these skills will be useful’. employers commented that ‘communication knowledge and skills are particularly necessary among secondand third-language english speakers, working in a predominantly english environment’ and ‘technical knowledge and skills … stand for little and are useless unless this can be communicated effectively and applied’ . personnel management one of the items added to the first round survey relating to significance of upholding confidentiality (80%) received the highest consensus rating of the delphi panel. this was followed by knowledge of dealing with individuals (77%), attitudes and behaviour in the workplace (62%), understanding of organisational culture (61%) which was also added to the first round survey, stress management (54%), personal relationships on the job (52%), and knowledge of labour laws and disciplinary procedures (50%). emotional intelligence and the importance of personal development were also added to the first round survey but both received less than 50% consensus rating from the delphi panel. refer to table 4 for the detailed results. 158 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 table 4: personal management personnel management consensus upholding confidentiality 80% dealing with individuals 77% attitudes and behaviour in the workplace 62% understanding of organisational culture 61% stress management 54% personal relationships on the job 52% knowledge of labour laws and disciplinary procedures 50% emotional intelligence 47% personal development 45% resolving frustration and conflict 43% business psychology and human behaviour 42% dealing with small groups 37% human resource management: introduction 30% social and personal perception 30% graduates need to know about dealing with individuals and group dynamics when they enter the workplace. an employer commented that ‘being aware of how to deal with other people . . . can only be developed through practice’. the uk commission for employment and skills (2009, p.6) describes employability skills as including “working together – co-operating, being assertive, persuading, being responsible to others. . .”. financial accounting the highest consensus was received for budgets and budgetary control (60%) and how to read a balance sheet and profit and loss accounts (56%). the panel added items of legislation and financial policies and petty cash management, which received less than 50% consensus. refer to table 5 for the detailed results. hollis-turner: fostering the employability. . . 159 table 5: financial accounting financial accounting consensus budgets and budgetary control 60% how to read a balance sheet and profit and loss accounts 56% results of operations and financial positions 47% introduction to accounting 45% legislation and financial policies 45% analysis and interpretation of financial statements 42% understanding monthly requisitions – to form part of budgets 42% petty cash management 39% income statement 39% stock 37% debtors 36% creditors 36% bank reconciliation statements 31% ledger and trial balance 31% fixed assets 31% cash flow management to balance sheet 31% subsidiary journals 25% a comment by an employer regarding the rating of items such as stock and debtors and creditors, was that ‘one cannot do financial statements without these areas of knowledge and skills and therefore one cannot rate them as more or less important as the other’. a graduate commented that ‘financial accounting skills are not critical for administrative work in the training environment – this function is outsourced’ and an employer commented that ‘apart from budget control and planning for the year ahead the financial management aspect is often based elsewhere as a support service’. lowden et al. (2011, p.12) argue that employers “value numeracy relevant to the post”. the findings show that, while financial accounting knowledge and skills might be necessary for the employability of the graduates, many organisations have specialists who are responsible for these functions. those graduates who 160 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 find employment requiring these skills will have the basic financial knowledge and skills and can undertake further studies if required. legal practice and mercantile law the highest consensus was for the additional area of knowledge of applicable legislation in the context of the working environment (68%), which was added to the first round survey. knowledge of labour law received 50% consensus but 75% of the employers serving on the delphi panel rated this knowledge as critical to the fostering of employability of graduates. comments received from the graduates were that knowledge of their employment rights was beneficial, but it appears that most of the delphi panel did not consider this content as critical to the employability of the graduates. the rest of the content received less than 50% consensus from the delphi panel. table 6 shows the detailed results of the delphi survey. table 6: legal practice and mercantile law legal practice and mercantile law consensus knowledge of applicable legislation in the context of the working environment 68% labour law 50% general principles of the law of contract 43% business law in order to be equipped to start own business 43% intellectual property: copyright, trademarks and patents 32% specific contracts 28% the administration of justice 24% introduction to civil procedure and criminal litigation 24% introduction to the study of law 20% debt collection procedures in the magistrate’s court 20% experiential training syllabus the members of the delphi panel were selected as they are committed to and support the internship programme where students gain exposure to the world hollis-turner: fostering the employability. . . 161 of work and receive mentorship from employers. twice a year they have third-year students allocated to their organisations for the six months internship. this is learning combined with work and includes an organised programme merging applicable work experience with academic study. the practice of entering internships is a valuable training technique for learning skills as it unites observation, knowledge and action with learning from a mentor (kellogg, 2008). research undertaken in the uk on the employers’ perceptions of the employability skills of new graduates (lowden et al., 2011) recognised that internships, work placement and vacation work were effective to enhance graduate employability. this applied across all sectors and sizes of organisations and the duration of the experience of at least six months was considered necessary for students and employers to obtain the full benefits. at a national level, the white paper for post-school education and training (dhet, 2013) emphasises the importance of close co-operation between employers and education providers, especially in professional curricula where on-the-job training, including internships, should be expanded upon. at the uot at which the research was undertaken, an advisory committee is held twice a year comprising of graduates, and employers of the students undertaking the internship. this committee, of which most of the employers of the delphi panel are members, plays a significant role in curricula development and to the fostering of the employability of graduates as they provide feedback on the programme content and make recommendations for changes to the curriculum where necessary. conclusions these findings showed the relevance of the knowledge bases of the office management curriculum and identified what content needed to be added or omitted in order to foster employability and prepare students for the workplace. the discipline specific content considered key to the work readiness of the graduates with consensus ratings of 70% and higher showed the need for information administration knowledge of the ms office suite and word processing; business administration knowledge of time management and the understanding of the critical importance of administrative procedures; communication knowledge of the use of the correct written language, understanding of the english language and its application, documentation etiquette, and the ability to work in teams and 162 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 small groups, and personnel management knowledge of the significance of upholding confidentiality and the ability to deal with individuals. the identification of the discipline specific knowledge considered key to the work readiness of the graduates by the delphi panel provided academics with guidelines for improvements to the curriculum. the simulation of workplace practices and the provision of work-integrated learning opportunities are considered important for the training of office administrators and office managers and contribute to fostering the employability of office management graduates. references act inc. 2013. work readiness standards and benchmarks. http://www.act.org/newsroom/releases/view.php?lang=english&p=2878[27 december 2014] allen, j. and van der velden, r. 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[great britain. committee on higher education. higher education: report of the committee appointed by the prime minister, under the chairmanship of lord robbins, 1961–1963]. london: her majesty’s stationery office. ministry of education. 2001. national plan for higher education. pretoria, south africa: ministry of education. statistics south africa. 2014. south africa unemployment rate 2000–2014. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/unemployment-rate [29 july 2014]. uk commission for employment and skills. 2009. the employability challenge. employee demand for skills: a review of evidence and policy – executive summary. february 2009. uk commission for employment and skills. 2014. uk commission’s employer skills survey 2013: uk results. january 2014. wheelahan, l. 2010. why knowledge matters in curriculum: a social realist argument. london: routledge. young, m. and muller, j. (eds). 2014. knowledge, expertise and the professions. abingdon: routledge. yorke, m. 2004. employability in higher education: what it is – what it is not. learning and employability series one. york: higher education academy. yorke, m. and p. knight. 2006. embedding employability into the curriculum. learning and employability series one. york: higher education academy. shairn hollis-turner cape peninsula university of technology hollis-turner@cput.ac.za knowledge selection in initial teacher education programmes and its implications for curricular coherence lee rusznyak abstract there are a multitude of concepts and techniques that could be important for teachers to learn during their initial teacher education (ite), but indiscriminately including all of them would result in an overcrowded and fragmented curriculum. given the limited time for ite, rational knowledge selection choices must be made if coherent programmes are to be offered to prospective teachers. this paper explores the approaches taken to addressing the critical challenges facing education in south africa and the principles from knowledge selection that arise from these approaches. different conceptions about how best to address these challenges offer directed priorities to guide knowledge selection decisions for ite curricula. examples of knowledge selection principles that variously promote conceptual or contextual coherence are presented and analysed, and tradeoffs associated with each one are considered. although some recontextualising principles are mutually incompatiable, others have the potential to coexist. in a four-year qualification, where sequencing choices can be made, there exists the possibility of introducing different principles at different times without unduly compromising internal coherence. a challenge for those who design ite curricula is to design conceptually coherent and/or contextually responsive curricula fully aware of the affordances and limitations offered by different recontextualising principles. introduction there are a myriad of views about what should be prioritised in initial teacher education (ite) curricula. the knowledge selection for compulsory courses is especially contentious because it is deemed to represent what a university regards as the core knowledge that is essential for all prospective teachers, irrespective of their subject and/or phase specialisations. it might be tempting to give student teachers fleeting exposure to a multitude of theories, tips, techniques, concepts, skills and practices that may be regarded as important for all teachers to learn. however, this approach would result in overcrowded and fragmented, incoherent curricula, which would do little to support the developing practices of teachers. when student teachers do not understand the 8 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 overarching framework/s that informs the internal logic of their ite curriculum, they find it difficult to make sense of the relation between the different courses they do (hoban, 2005). it is the task of curriculum designers to devise a coherent structure that enables teacher educators to select knowledge from the disciplinary field in which it is created, or from the field of practice, and then recontextualise it into a form that can be acquired by prospective teachers during their ite programme (bernstein, 2000). curricular coherence can be enhanced by the intentional use of recontextualising principles that guide decisions about “what [knowledge] gets selected, how it is sequenced, paced and evaluated” (shay, 2013, p.4). ite programme and course designers have the responsibility to “be aware of such [knowledge selection and sequencing] choices and should account for those that they do make” (winch, 2014, p.59). recontextualising principles provide the basis on which some concepts are brought to the fore as explicit objects of study, while other concepts are included but backgrounded, and inevitably, some learning is left for on-the-job acquisition. in addition, recontextualising principles provide the basis on which the internal logic, and relative strengths, weakness and gaps in an ite curriculum can be identified, and comparisons over curricula can be made. while other recent papers on teacher knowledge in south african ite programmes (e.g. bertram and christiansen, 2012; reeves and robinson, 2014) explore how different approaches to ite are based upon different assumed relationships between theoretical knowledge and practice, this paper explores how choices of recontextualising principles brings particular kinds of teacher knowledges to the fore in parts of formal university-based coursework. the main claim of this paper is that recontextualising principles enhance the internal coherence of ite programmes, and offer a gainful approach to addressing the challenges experienced in the south african education system. however, because they bring particular kinds of teacher knowledge to the forefront of teacher development, other kinds of teacher knowledge are inevitably backgrounded. the potential trade-offs associated with each recontextualising principle need to be better understood for the sector to make deliberate and informed choices when selecting knowledge for ite currcula. rusznyak: knowledge selection. . . 9 this differs from other studies that identify the challenge as being teachers’ weak content and1 pedagogic knowledge (e.g. needu study). initial teacher education in south africa: a brief overview the nature of ite curricula offered to prospective teachers is increasingly under the scrutiny, both in terms of analysing the role that inadequate teacher training played in contributing to the current crisis of education in south africa, and the provision of quality ite programmes as a potential means to addressing that same crisis (osman, 2010; reeves and robinson, 2014; taylor, van der berg and mabogoane, 2013). the recently revised policy governing the provision of teacher education, the minimum requirements for teacher education qualifications (henceforth, mrteq) identifies several “critical challenges” facing education in south africa: the “poor content and conceptual knowledge found amongst teachers, as well as the legacies of apartheid” (department of higher education and training [dhet]), 2015, p.11). this is not surprising given that during apartheid, in the worst cases,1 some teacher training colleges offered prospective teachers a rudimentary level of content knowledge, a collection of classroom survival tips and very little conceptual understanding of education, schooling, teaching and learning (welch, 2002). since 2002, when the provision of teacher education was moved into the higher education sector, qualifying teachers are required to hold a bachelors degree and/or a professional qualification. this may comprise either a 3-year academic degree with a one year post-graduate professional qualification, or a four-year professional bachelor of education (bed) degree. to emphasise the importance of producing knowledgeable and responsive teachers for the south african context, mrteq explicitly rejects the technicist approach that characterised much of the teacher training offered during apartheid. mrteq adopts a knowledge-based approach and requires that all ite curricula should include specified proportions of disciplinary learning (which includes educational theoretical knowledge, as well as subject content knowledge and its associated skills), pedagogical learning (including general pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge), practical learning (knowledge acquired from observing, analysing and reflecting on one’s own teaching and the teaching of others), 10 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 the first four of these categories constitute a specialist knowledge base for prospective 2 teachers, and are thus of relevance in this paper. generic (foundational) knowledge has a weak semantic gravity (sg-) and a weak semantic density (sd-), and corresponds to what mrteq (2011) refers to as foundational learning. situational learning (learning about the diverse contexts in which education exists) and foundational learning (the generic knowledge and competences that are not teacher-specific, but might be useful in the day-to-day work that teachers do). despite its assertion that mrteq “brings the importance of2 interconnectedness between different types of knowledge and practices into the foreground” (p.10), the five types of teacher learning are listed by the policy as distinct and separate entities. ite curricula could very well be policy-compliant but still offer unnecessarily fragmented and incoherent learning programmes to prospective teachers if each type of knowledge is developed within stand-alone modules without an overall organising framework. the nature of theoretical and practical knowledge for education the relationships between these different types of knowledge listed by mrteq cannot be derived from policy, nor are they self-evident. i now draw on the semantic dimension of maton’s (2007) legitimation code theory to analyse how types of teacher learning as required by mrteq (dhet, 2015) differ in the respective strengths of their semantic densities and semantic gravities. semantic density is the extent to which meaning is conveyed through abstracted concepts emerging from outside the field of practice, and expressed in a specialist, symbolic language. semantic gravity, by contrast, is the extent to which meaning is fundamentally linked to the context in which the knowledge was created. the discussion that follows is summarised in table 1 below: rusznyak: knowledge selection. . . 11 table 1: table showing the types of teacher learning required of mrteq (2015), the associated knowledges and the semantic densities and gravities associated with each one types of teacher learning mrteq (2015) knowledge to be included in ite curricula semantic density and semantic gravity disciplinary learning education and its theoretical foundations • philosophy of education • psychology of education • politics of education • sociology of education • economics of education • history of education • professional ethics • professional relationships sd+ sg subject matter knowledge pedagogical learning pedagogical content knowledge inclusive education sd+ sg+ general pedagogical knowledge: • learners • learning • curriculum • general instructional strategies • assessment strategies • inclusive education sdsg+ practical learning learning from practice: • craft knowledge from observing, reflecting on lessons of others sdsg+ learning in practice: • tacit knowledge from preparing, teaching, reflecting on lessons sdsg+ situational learning • learning situations, contexts, environments • prevailing policy, political, organisational contexts sg+ foundational learning • communicative competence in additional language/s • information computer technologies • academic literacy sdsg 12 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 the nature of disciplinary knowledge the mrteq category of disciplinary learning encompasses theoretical knowledge that has a very strong semantic density (sd+) because of its reliance on conceptual and symbolic ideas. it has a weak semantic gravity (sg-) because it provides generalisable principles that transcend contextual specificities. mrteq specifies two forms of theoretical knowledge that can underpin rational judgement in practice (shalem, 2014): disciplinary knowledge associated with the study of education, and the subject knowledge that gives rise to school subjects. acquisition of theoretical knowledge requires an understanding of the boundaries and structure of the discipline in which it is produced, the ability to locate concepts in their sub-field within the discipline, and the ability to infer relationships between concepts within that discipline (guile, 2014). theoretical ideas about education cannot be accessed through the personal experiences of student teachers, and are recontextualised into ite curricula from disciplines including psychology, sociology and philosophy. theoretical knowledge is crucial if prospective teachers are to develop systematic, analytical and powerful ways of thinking about schooling, education, teaching and learning (slonimsky and shalem, 2006). although the insights offered cannot be directly applied in practice, they do provide the conceptual tools to think of possibilities beyond the present contextual structures.. in order for teachers to introduce learners to the knowledge practices of the subjects they teach, they need to understand the big ideas that provide organising insights (wiggins and mctighe, 2005), they need to be able to locate concepts within the knowledge structures of the subject, see relations between concepts, and understand the methods of inquiry through which that knowledge is created and validated (winch, 2014). shalem (2014) insists that subject knowledge, like education theory, provides a legitimate epistemic basis for the professional acumen of teachers. subject knowledge dictates the most conceptually appropriate pedagogic choices (ball, thames and phelps, 2008; morrow, 2007). teachers of mathematics, teachers of early literacy, teachers of history or of science draw on different reservoirs of pedagogical knowledge that is specific to their discipline, and to the needs of learners in the contexts in which they teach. the application of pedagogy in practice is therefore logically dependent on content knowledge, and cannot be derived from general principles about teaching. pedagogical content knowledge rusznyak: knowledge selection. . . 13 (pck) is therefore regarded as a specialist professional knowledge (shulman, 1987), with a strong semantic density and a strong semantic gravity (sd+ sg+). the nature of practical and pedagogical knowledge practical knowledge is derived from the cumulative experience of ‘what works’ by those who participate in the practice. practical knowledge is therefore produced by teachers (and other practitioners) working within classroom environments (not outside of it, like theoretical knowledge). it is characterised by a strong semantic gravity (sg+) because it finds meaning in the contexts of practice. it has a much weaker semantic density (sd-) than theoretical knowledge as it relies less on symbolic language and concepts (maton, 2007; shay, 2013). while formalised practical knowledge (what mrteq calls general pedagogical knowledge) may possibly be acquired by student teachers through reflections on their classroom experiences, the ad hoc nature of learning in practice means that this is an unreliable way of ensuring intended learning (gamble, 2006). principles governing practice that have been codified and shared between practitioners can more efficiently and systematically be learnt in formal university-based coursework, in what mrteq refers to as pedagogical learning, and through carefully constructed opportunities to learn from the analysis of exemplary practice. practical learning can thus be acquired formally as general pedagogical knowledge through university-based coursework, or acquired more tacitly from personal experience and the craft knowledge that is transmitted between teachers in situ. the potential for the systematisation of practical knowledge is greatest when acquisition is formalised into university-based coursework, and most contingent when acquired in situ as and when the need arises. the nature of situational knowledge situational knowledge, by its nature, has a strong semantic gravity (sg+), but unlike practical knowledge, it is neither decontextualised theoretical knowledge nor does it arise out of the practices of teachers in the field. it is largely descriptive in nature, although aspects of it may be disciplinary, if a historical framework is used to analyse the way in which the present context came to be. in the context of south africa, situational knowledge is 14 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 considered important partly because the legacy of apartheid has left education in marginalised communities in a state of extreme crisis (gardiner, 2008), and partly because of the considerable diversity of schooling that characterises the south african education system (fleisch, 2007). enhancing curriculum coherence in ite coherent ite curricula are difficult to design because potentially relevant and legitimate knowledge can be selected from vastly different knowledge sources. for example, knowledge can variously be drawn from theoretical disciplines that offer educationally relevant insights; the innovative and shared practices of expert teachers; the perceived needs of teachers in a range of contexts; and the personal classroom experiences of those who teach the teachers (guile, 2014). while theoretical and practical knowledge can both be related through professional practices, they have distinct epistemic roots, and neither one can be derived from the other (muller, 2009; shay, 2013). although mrteq expects that the different kinds of knowledge should come together in an integrated way in the moment of practice, the teacher education literature suggests that that integration of knowledge bases in practice is something that occurs neither easily nor automatically (bertram and christiansen, 2012; hammerness, darling-hammond, bransford, berliner, cochran-smith, mcdonald and zeichner, 2005; hoban, 2005). muller (2009) offers two main routes of promoting coherence in curricula designed to support professional practices: through contextually-driven coherence and through conceptually-driven coherence. contextually-driven ite curricula provide prospective teachers with a set of contingent skills and knowledges directly relevant to meeting the demands of classroom life and the realities of the contexts in which they will practice. conceptually-driven coherence in ite curricula enables prospective teachers to acquire a systemitised body of theoretical knowledge which they can draw principles from for informing rational judgement in their practice. while some recontextualising principles for coherent ite curriculum design will enhance the contextual coherence of the programme, others will lead to a stronger degree of conceptual coherence. in both cases, they provide ways of connecting different courses within an ite programme into a relational ‘whole’. however, because recontextualising principles bring to the fore certain kinds of teacher knowledge, the conceptualisation of coursework rusznyak: knowledge selection. . . 15 follows the logic of that knowledge. other kinds of knowledge may be selected for learning in support of that recontextualising principle, but may not necessarily be presented as coherent bodies of knowledge in their own right. the disciplines that inform education theory, according to bernstein (2000), have horizontal knowledge structures: knowledge of educational theory grows by understanding the insights offered by different theoretical frameworks rather than seeking increasing levels of abstraction. the fact that concepts arising from education theory have a strong semantic density but a weak semantic gravity make it possible to attain some degree of conceptual coherence in ite curriculum design, despite its predominantly horizontal knowledge structure. recontextualising principles suggest different approaches to addressing the challenges in the south african education system which essentially demands a consideration of responsiveness to contextual factors. some approaches are led by knowledge that has strong semantic density and others by knowledge that has strong semantic gravity. in reality, it is not always possible neatly to align different programmes (or the courses within them) with contextual or conceptual coherence, because as shay (2013) points out, curricula that support professional practices need to equip prospective teachers with knowledge that has a strong semantic density and a strong semantic gravity. both are needed for the development of conceptually informed practice. however, the distinction that muller (2009) makes serves as a useful heuristic device that enables an analysis of how particular principles guide knowledge selection and sequencing to support the overall intention of an ite programme. principles for coherent knowledge selection in this section, i draw on some of the literature about teacher education in south africa to extract examples of recontextualising principles that could potentially inform the design of coherent ite curricula. each principle suggests a different approach to addressing some of the ‘critical challenges’ facing education in south africa, and would bring particular kinds of teacher knowledge to the fore in an ite curriculum. while by no means exhaustive, the potential gains and drawbacks of five examples of recontextualising principles will be considered in this section. 16 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 table 2: summary showing examples of recontextualising principles and their implications for curricular coherence and teacher knowledge teacher knowledge that would be foregrounded teacher knowledge that is present but would be backgrounded basis for curricular coherence teachers develop relevant teaching practices when they are prepared for particular kinds of south african schools. situational knowledge theoretical knowledge, subject matter knowledge tends towards contextual coherence teachers develop meaningful teaching practices through a personalised process of selfdiscovery and reflective practice. personal practical knowledge theoretical knowledge, subject matter knowledge tends towards contextual coherence teachers develop realistic teaching practices when they are well prepared for the demands of classroom life. general pedagogical knowledge, situational knowledge theoretical knowledge, subject matter knowledge tends towards contextual coherence teachers develop more socially just teaching practices when they can resist the constraints of present practices that compromise teaching and learning imperatives. theoretical knowledge; pedagogical knowledge personal practical knowledge tends towards conceptual coherence teachers develop effective teaching practices when they are able to provide all learners access to powerful knowledge across diverse contexts. theoretical knowledge, pedagogical knowledge personal practical knowledge tends towards conceptual coherence 1. teachers develop relevant teaching practices when they are prepared for particular kinds of south african schools. this recontextualising principle is located in a wider philosophical position that insists that teaching is so contextually embedded that it cannot be studied and developed outside of the context in which it happens (carr, 2006). it suggests that ite programmes should be contextually specific. an ite curriculum that prepares teachers for rural schools is assumed to need substantially different set of knowledge and skills to that which prepares teachers to teach in urban schools, for example. advocates of this position argue that there are strong urban biases in many ite curricula, and these rusznyak: knowledge selection. . . 17 compromise teachers’ ability to be relevant within non-urban school contexts. in response to the critical challenges in south african education, this recontextualising principle would seek to prepare prospective teachers with particular local knowledge and the specific set of skills they need for teaching learners, within particular contexts (e.g. balfour, mitchell and moletsane, 2008; gardiner, 2008; mukeredzi and mandrona, 2013). a programme that seeks to address the critical challenges using this knowledge selection principle would seek strong contextual coherence, and would foreground the importance of situational knowledge, which would in turn stress the importance of identifying the local knowledge and skills that would enable prospective teachers to teach in ways relevant to local contexts. what constitutes an appropriate pedagogic choice would have more to do with the contextual possibilities than what is best served by the subject matter to be learnt. critics of contextually-specific approaches to the design of ite curricula argue that the particularities of local contextual knowledge can be acquired relatively quickly in situ, but the non-intuitive insights that decontextualised education theory provides cannot easily be acquired outside formal mediation. curricula designed around this recontextualising principle are likely to underestimate the power that abstracted theoretical knowledge has in providing insights over diverse contexts (morrow, 2007). good teaching, it is argued, by its very nature, is responsive to learner and contextual diversity. according to this view, attempts to prepare teachers for specific contexts are more likely to entrench rather than alleviate inequalities, as the emphasis is on contextual relevance and not the powerful knowledge that enables teachers (and their learners) to participate in nationally important conversations that transcend local contexts (wheelahan, 2010; young, 2008). 2. teachers develop meaningful teaching practices through a personalised process of self-discovery and reflective practice. this approach to addressing the critical challenges in education seeks to bridge a disconnect between the students’ personal identity and cultural context, and the decontextualised ideals of schooling. this recontextualising principle privileges the personal development of teachers, and considers their identity, beliefs and motivation to be fundamental parts of their learning to teach (korthagen, 2004; samuel, 2002, 2008). a curriculum designed around this recontextualising principle seeks to enable student teachers to articulate their personal mission and philosophies of teaching, as well as develop their 18 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 professional identities and their teaching competences, so they can make sense of their behaviours in classroom environments. this approach has its roots within a constructivist view of teaching and learning. learning to teach is thus conceptualised as a process of self-discovery that consolidates and builds on students’ personal knowledge and previous educational experiences. it happens to a large extent through guided introspection, accumulated experience and reflection. it seeks to produce teachers who are ‘reflective practitioners’, who learn through trial-and-error, and who depend on their personal practical knowledge to learn to make wise judgements in practice (schön, 1987). the ability to teach is thus primarily legitimised by who teachers are, rather than what they know and can do with that knowledge independent of their personalities and their personally constructed mission for teaching (maton, 2007). this recontextualising principle foregrounds the construction of personalised practical knowledge that can be acquired through personal experiences (of observing, analysing the teaching of others, or through planning, teaching and reflecting on lessons). personalised practical knowledge is by its nature contingent (and therefore not systematic), and contextually bound (and therefore not generally transferable). samuel (2009) argues that ite curricula that do not consider the influence of cultural, racial and gender identities and lived experiences of prospective teachers offer inappropriate models of teaching that do not hold traction when the students return to their communities. education theory is thus not offered as a means to develop a systemitised understanding of the field, but as a means of enabling students to undertake processes of guided introspection and formulate their own philosophies of teaching. while some (e.g. samuel, 2008) advocate the ability of conscious reflection on teaching experience to develop teachers’ practice, this approach is criticised on the grounds that it does little to offer prospective teachers the conceptual tools to take them beyond a common-sense approach to their teaching (shalem, 2014; shalem and slonimsky, 2013) the relativist underpinnings provide a weak epistemological basis for teachers to make rational professional judgements in practice. rusznyak: knowledge selection. . . 19 3. teachers develop realistic teaching practices when they are well prepared for the demands of classroom life. this principle seeks to address a concern that many newly qualified teachers seem to leave teaching within a few years of graduating. in this view, a major reason for the attrition of newly qualified teachers is the disconnect between their expectations of teaching and the realties of classroom life. this recontextualising principle demands a highly relevant ite curriculum where the anecdotal experiences of practitioners and their everyday experiences of classroom life provide the grounds for the selection of knowledge. typically, a range of issues, dilemmas and concerns that arise from students’ experience in practice, or from critical incidents from practicing teachers, form a point of departure (e.g. gravett, merseth and de beer, 2013; petersen and henning, 2010). early exposure to settings of practice is necessary and a thematic approach is used to explore theoretical implications and/or practical solutions to these issues, critical incidents or problems. prospective teachers therefore become equipped with a set of contingent concepts and strategies that together could enable them to be adaptive to the possibilities, limitations and challenges of the context/s in which they will teach. this recontextualising principle foregrounds general pedagogical knowledge and personallyacquired practical knowledge and tends towards contextual coherence. while ite curricula may be directly relevant to classroom life, this approach is criticised on the basis of its anti-intellectualism because it comprises student teachers’ acquisition of a systematic and coherent body of educational knowledge (shalem and slonimsky, 2013; young and muller, 2014). education theory, while present, is drawn on in a contingent manner in service of concerns that arise in practice. this approach may provide immediate coping skills to newly-qualified teachers, but it is unlikely to provide them with the conceptual tools to respond in theoretically-informed ways to limitations and structural constraints associated with prevalent practices. 4. teachers develop more socially just teaching practices when they can resist the constraints of present practices that compromise teaching and learning imperatives. this recontextualising principle is based on the premise that many south african student teachers have come through (and upon qualification, return to) largely dysfunctional schooling systems, where pervasive practices that 20 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 constrain teaching and learning have often become normalised (fleisch, 2007; taylor et al., 2013). such practices include, for example, experiences related to learner exclusion and/or marginalisation, insufficient engagement with conceptual knowledge, limited opportunities for extended reading/writing classwork tasks, and the continuing use of corporal punishment. if newlyqualified teachers return to schools and continue these prevalent but counterproductive practices, they will merely perpetuate the challenges facing the south african education system. one task of ite programmes is to distantiate prospective teachers from their experientially-acquired norms of teaching, to equip them with the conceptual tools to analyse (and where necessary, to revise and/or deepen) their assumptions about what constitutes effective teaching and learning. according to this view, ite curricula should be structured around studies that provide prospective teachers with access to threshold concepts that open up “a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something” (meyer and land, 2003, p.1). they do not merely involve cognitive shifts, but a repositioning of the self in relation to the object of study and enable more sophisticated ways of thinking (land, cousin, meyer, and davies, 2005). studies in education theory have the potential to provide access to such concepts, and therefore set potential conditions for student teachers to develop counter-intuitive insights in practice (craib, 1992). in taking a leading role in curricular coherence, a systematised body of education theory establishes conditions necessary for prospective teachers to draw on conceptually-informed insights when making professional decisions in practice. a theoretically-led approach to ite curricula argues for less time spent building practical learning in classrooms. learning in practice should wait until student teachers have sufficiently distantiated themselves from their assumptions about teaching and have developed a theoretical lens through which to understand the ways in which structural and classroom practices may constrain as well as enhance learning. such programnmes are routinely criticised on the basis that they are contextually remote and that they set up an unrealistic set of expectations and do not prepare newly-qualified teachers sufficiently for the realities of classroom life (gravett, henning, and eiselen, 2011; whitelaw, de beer, and henning, 2008). their under preparedness leads to a ‘shock’ for newlyqualified teachers at the beginning of their careers, something that gravett et al. (2011) suggest is a possible reason why numerous teachers leave teaching within five years of qualifying. hoban (2005) contests this, arguing that rusznyak: knowledge selection. . . 21 newly-qualified teachers get overwhelmed when they don’t have the conceptual tools to understand the complexity of their practice. 5. teachers develop effective teaching practices when they are able to provide all learners access to powerful knowledge across diverse contexts. the imperative to prepare teachers to work productively across diverse contexts provides the next recontextualisation principle. an abstracted concept of teaching which is contextually responsive but not contextually bound is used to consider the essential work that teachers do (alexander, 2000; morrow, 2007). the fundamental purpose of teaching is understood to be making epistemological access to powerful knowledge that resides within organised bodies of knowledge available to the learners in one’s class (wheelahan, 2010; young, 2008). this imperative would not change across contexts, but the way in which teaching is operationalised varies from one context to another. having a strong conception of teaching with a strong semantic density but a weak semantic gravity allows teachers to distinguish between the formal elements of teaching (which operate in all instances of teaching and are therefore context-independent), and the material elements which “are necessarily rooted in specific contexts” (morrow, 2007, p.98). the key question for those learning to teach then becomes “how can i organise systematic learning in this context and [under] these [material] conditions?” (morrow, 2007, p.105, italics my emphasis). understanding the distinction between material and formal elements of teaching enables student teachers to analyse how structural factors may limit or enable the practice of teaching without trapping them into a notion that teaching can only take place under an ideal set of material conditions. a common critique of teacher education programmes that have a strong theoretical orientation is that because teachers work under conditions of change, unpredictability and complexity, formalised educational theory is too removed from the contexts of practice to be helpful in guiding teaching (flores, 2006; hirst and carr, 2005; knight, 2002; schön, 1987; wenger, 1998). far from being irrelevant to practice, hugo (2013) demonstrates how insights obtained from educational theory are crucial for informing the professional knowledge-based decisions that teachers make in their practice: whether to incorporate or exclude learners’ everyday knowledge from a learning process; the grounds upon which subject/topic boundaries are closed or opened to integration; and the epistemic grounds on which teachers make 22 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 knowledge and pedagogic choices (knowledge selection, sequencing and pacing) in the topics/subjects they teach. implications of recontextualising principles for the sequencing of knowledge in curricula the regional nature of education (which involves both disciplinary knowledge and the field of practice) presents unavoidable challenges for the design of coherent teacher education programmes (bernstein, 2000). in the view of some (e.g. cochran-smith and lytle, 1999; levine, 2006) ite curricula constructed to support the acquisition of theoretical teacher knowledge-for-practice demand a very different structure to those that promote the acquistion of contextually-bound teacher knowledge-in-practice. in this view, curricula that support the acquisition of different kinds of teacher knowledge are fundamentally incompatible. others (e.g. bertram and christiansen, 2012; grossman, 1990; morrow, 2007) argue that decontextualised theoretical knowledge for education and contextually-bound practical knowledge make different contributions to support the development of teaching as a professional practice, however neither by itself constitutes a sufficient knowledge base for the development of professional teaching practice. the internal contradictions and inconsistencies that arise in curriculum design are therefore regarded as inevitable within curricula that seek to prepare prospective teachers. recontextualising principles are important because they address these inconsistencies by bringing theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge into relation with one another in particular ways. while some of the recontexualising principles may serve to complement or extend one another, others demand fundamentally incompatiable approaches. for example, preparing students with decontextualised knowledge that offers generalised insights over diverse contexts is fundamentally incompatiable with equipping student teachers with localised knowledge and skills to teach in specific contexts. the former works with an abstraction of the concept of teaching that transcends contextual particularities (and therefore has a strong semantic density), whereas the latter constructs teaching as a practice that is deeply embedded in contextual particularities (and therefore has a strong semantic gravity). preparing teachers by consolidating and building on their personal experiences of schooling is fundamentally incompatible with an rusznyak: knowledge selection. . . 23 approach that seeks to distantiate students from their assumptions about teaching and then use concepts to help them think about existing and potential teaching practices in new ways. the first constructs further knowledge on teaching based on the everyday knowledge gained during students’ own experiences of schooling and therefore sets up a process of teacher learning through assimilation. the latter, in constrast, analyses and problematises students’ assumptions about teaching, and therefore sets teacher learning up as a process of accommodation (piaget, 1976). the process of learning to teach is a complex one, and it is unlikely that only one recontextualising principle will be sufficient. in some cases, it may be possible to minimise the internal inconsistencies that potentially arise from different recontextualising principles by bringing them into the foreground in a carefully considered sequence. in an extended professional qualification, like the four-year bachelor of education degree, there exists the possibility of introducing learning associated with different recontextualising principles at different points in time. a south african study by amin and ramrathan (2009) provides an interesting example of the gains and losses of sequencing choices. in this study, a teaching practicum for first-year student teachers was structured around a principle of contextual relevance (recontextualising principle 1). students observed teaching within contrasting contexts, and then were required to adapt a lesson plan for use in those contexts. the specifics of each context provided the basis for making appropriate pedagogic choices. however, without conceptual foundations provided by subject and pedagogic knowledge, student teachers translated their contextual awareness in mechanical and superficial ways in the lessons and resources they planned. their limited reservoir of content and pedagogic knowledge effectively constrained the potential opportunities for deep and meaningful engagement with the intended recontextualising principle. the sequencing possibilities offered by an extended professional qualification allows for student teachers first to be introduced to teaching as a decontextualised, knowledge-based practice in which appropriate pedagogic decisions are made in relation to both the demands of the content and in response to the diverse needs of learners. once students have acquired more of the conceptual tools for making appropriate pedagogic choices, the organising principle could then switch to one that foregrounds understanding the construction of diversity both historically and sociologically, and students could explore what it means to be pedagogically responsive to that diversity. in a similar vein, when student teachers are introduced upfront to the potential learning barriers that learners experience, it may be intended to prepare them to cope with learner diversity 24 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 and inclusion from the outset. but without access to the subject and pedagogic knowledge to construct conceptually strong learning experiences, such an early introduction may inadvertently promote the technical application of superficial mechanical interventions, rather than a deep consideration of appropriate pedagogic options to support meaningful learning. conclusion when teacher learning is organised around principles that foreground situational and practical knowledge, curricula tend to offer contextually relevant insights, and/or induct new teachers into existing practices; however, the acquisition of a systemitised body of theoretical knowledge is compromised. education knowledge, while present, is selected in a contingent manner. contextually coherent ite curricula are designed around the kind of teacher learning that is most relevant in enabling newly qualified teachers to cope during the first few years of teaching. on the other hand, recontextualising principles that foreground theoretical knowledge offer more possibilities for ite programmes to be conceptually coherent. to this end, the powerful knowledge that is least likely to be acquired through practical experience and personal reflection is privileged in formal university-based coursework. while these kinds of curricula enable prospective teachers to use insights from education theory to make rational pedagogical choices in practice, they may underprepare teachers for the immediate classroom-based realities. it is therefore quite likely that newly-qualified teachers would need to learn some of the more technical and administrative aspects of being a teacher on the job. ite programmes cannot on their own address the full range of challenges facing the south african education system. it is the responsibility for teacher educators to decide which of the many critical challenges their programmes should address and offer internally coherent programmes to that end. the knowledge selection principles discussed in this paper suggest approaches that offer particular ways of addressing the challenges, each with its own set of affordances and limitations. a fundamental challenge for those who design ite curricula is to select recontextualising principles that offer the most purchase for powerful teacher learning in the limited time available. rusznyak: knowledge selection. . . 25 references alexander, r.j. 2000. culture and pedagogy: international comparisons in primary education. oxford: blackwell. amin, n. and ramrathan, p. 2009. preparing students to teach in and for diverse contexts: a learning to teach approach. perspectives in education, 27(1): pp.69–77. balfour, r.j., mitchell, c. and moletsane, r. 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(eds), knowledge, expertise and the professions. london: routledge, pp.3–17. lee rusznyak university of the witwatersrand lee.rusznyak@wits.ac.za mailto:lee.rusznyak@wits.ac.za 30 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 recontextualising principles for the selection, sequencing and progression of history knowledge in four school curricula carol bertram abstract the purpose of this paper is to analyse and compare four high school history curriculum documents with regard to how they select, sequence and make clear the progression of history knowledge. thereafter the aim is to establish if there are any recontextualising principles that can be drawn from the comparison. the paper analyses secondary school curriculum documents from south africa, canada (british columbia), singapore and kenya. a review of the history education literature indicates that the following concepts are productive when analysing history curriculum documents: the purpose of school history, the knowledge structure of the discipline and the distinction between substantive and procedural knowledge (or first and second order concepts) in history. these concepts thus informed a content analysis of the curriculum documents. the findings show that a memory history approach informs the kenyan curriculum, while south africa, singapore and british columbia take a disciplinary history approach. this informs the depth and breadth of the substantive knowledge that is selected, and highlights the first recontextualising principle, which is space. curriculum designers make selections about the extent to which the history content is local, regional, national or international. the second principle is chronology, which is the key organising principle for the sequencing of content in all four curricula. the third principle relates to the conceptual progression of the substantive concepts, which is the extent to which there is progression from generic concepts, to unique, contextualised historical concepts to universal decontextualised historical concepts. the fourth principle is the extent to which the curricula choose to develop procedural knowledge in the discipline. it is not clear how disciplinary procedural knowledge finds progression in these four curricula. research has been done on progression in historical thinking in classrooms, but this is not reflected in these curriculum documents, which do not map progression in procedural knowledge clearly. 28 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 introduction the main purpose of this paper is to analyse and compare how a range of school history curriculum documents select and sequence history knowledge, and to discuss the implications of the sequencing choices for the progression of substantive and procedural knowledge. a second purpose is to identify the recontextualising principles that can be drawn from this comparison. it engages with the question of how school history, as exemplified in a selection of curriculum documents, finds its ‘epistemic ascent’ (winch, 2013). the research question is: what are the recontextualising principles that inform the selection, sequencing and progression of both substantive and procedural history knowledge in a selection of school curriculum documents? the question is a challenging one as sequencing and progression seem to be easier to track in school subjects such as physics, life sciences, accounting, mathematics and economics than in subjects like history and languages. to do so, i draw on theoretical concepts from bernstein and other theories within the field of sociology of knowledge, as well as research within the field of history education. recontextualisation in the pedagogic device the broad theoretical framework which informs this study is bernstein’s (2000) notion of the pedagogic device. the pedagogic device is an attempt to describe the general principles which underlie the transformation of knowledge into pedagogic communication (bernstein, 1996; hugo and bertram, 2009). bernstein describes three fields of activity that make up the pedagogic device. these are a field of production, where knowledge is developed and produced (usually in research institutions and universities); a field of recontextualisation where knowledge is selected from the field of production and is pedagogised and relocated into curriculum documents, textbooks and teacher guides and finally a field of reproduction which is where teachers further adapt and/or adopt the requirements of policy in their classrooms. the pedagogic device suggests that there is a set of rules or criteria (called recontextualising rules) which govern the ways in which knowledge is converted into curricula (maton and muller, 2007; singh, 2002), and becomes educational knowledge, or school knowledge (shay, 2012). http://l bertram: recontextualising principles. . . 29 there are differing perspectives on the relationship between academic disciplines and their school curriculum. knowledge structures are not curriculum structures (maton and muller, 2007) and it is not taken for granted that there should be a strong link between the field of production and field of recontextualisation. the selection of content in school history cannot simply be logically derived from the discipline (yates, 2014), but is also influenced by how a country understands the purpose of school history, by context and by social issues at the time of curriculum design. guyver’s (2007) comparison of the english, new zealand and south african history curriculum engages with the ways in which history content was balanced regarding broad periods of time and place, the issue of national identity and of teacher autonomy in implementing the curriculum. the recontextualising processes are influenced both by logics internal to the discipline of history as well as external logics, such as the role that school history plays in regarding national identity and citizenship (lilliedahl, 2015). literature review in this section, i review the literature and research in the field of history education and curriculum (selection and sequencing of knowledge), in order to develop a set of concepts to structure the analysis of the curriculum documents. the section discusses the following concepts: the purpose of school history, the knowledge structure of the discipline and the distinction between substantive and procedural knowledge (often also called first and second order concepts) in history. the way that a country understands the purpose of school history has a major influence on the selection of content. one approach to school history promotes knowledge of national history and national values in the interests of preserving collective memory and fostering national identity, while another approach is based on a disciplinary focus supported by historical thinking, where the content is not dominated by the nation but has become diversified and globalised (guyver, 2013). similarly, lévesque (2008) makes a helpful distinction between ‘memory-history’ and ‘disciplinary-history’, where he describes memory-history as a ‘factual’ tradition which focuses on commemoration, memory and heritage, where history can be known by remembering it. tosh (2006) uses the term social memory to allude to the same idea, where history is about belief and not enquiry. memory-history is 30 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 often used to support a particular version of a national history. wertsch’s (2002) term for this category is collective history, which is the usable past created by those in positions of power to serve particular political and identity needs. in contrast to this, disciplinary-history is about learning to think historically using specific disciplinary processes, such as “a lengthy immersion in the primary sources, a deliberate shedding of present-day assumptions and a rare degree of empathy and imagination” (tosh, 2006, p.12). it acknowledges a range of different perspectives, recognises ambiguity and separates the past from the present (wertsch, 2002). thus a history curriculum informed by the memory or collective history approach would focus predominantly on a national history, while a disciplinary history approach would select more globalised content. although the two approaches are generally seen as polar opposites, it may be more useful to imagine them on a continuum, as many curriculum documents work with the tension between the two approaches. the selection and sequencing of content is also influenced by the knowledge structure of history as a discipline. bernstein (1999) distinguished between two forms of discourse: vertical and horizontal. he argues that horizontal discourse is akin to everyday knowledge which is context-specific and dependent on context. in contrast to this, vertical discourse “takes the form of a coherent, explicit and systematically principled structure” (bernstein, 1999, p.160), and it is the discourse that is taught officially at school and university. in order to describe the different forms taken by vertical discourses, bernstein provides a distinction between hierarchical knowledge structures and horizontal knowledge structures. he suggests that horizontal knowledge structures consist of a “series of specialised languages with specialised modes of interrogation and criteria for the construction and circulation of texts” (1999, p.162), while hierarchical knowledge structures have a “coherent, explicit and systematically principled structure” (p.161). subjects in the humanities and social sciences like literature, sociology, history and cultural studies are generally seen as horizontal knowledge structures. disciplines differ according to both the way in which they find conceptual advancement and by their form of objectivity (young and muller, 2010). while the vertical knowledge structures (such as the natural sciences) have long sequences of hierarchically-related concepts, a discipline like history has a macro-organising principle which is time or chronology. the object of study in history is social rather than natural, and the more social the object of study, bertram: recontextualising principles. . . 31 “the greater is the limit on the object being subsumed by the concepts of the discipline” (p.21). the distinction between substantive and procedural knowledge in the discipline of history (lee, 2004; lee and ashby, 2000; lévesque, 2008; schwab, 1978) is a useful analytic tool for curriculum analysis. since there are not hierarchical sets of concepts that must be mastered in the discipline, it has been argued that history finds progression and verticality more in the procedural knowledge and less so in substantive knowledge, which tends to be organised in chronological eras or themes (martin, 2007, muller, 2012). substantive history knowledge or first order concepts encompass an understanding of space, place and time. this means knowing what happened, why and when; knowing the propositions of history which are constructed by historians using their procedural investigations. it includes knowledge of the key concepts and periods which make up the content of history – periods such as the ming dynasty, industrial revolution, the cold war and concepts such as communism, capitalism, colonialism, feudalism and monarchy. procedural knowledge, or second order concepts (lee and ashby, 2000), are the organising ideas which give meaning and structure to events in history. these are the concepts that give shape to historical practice and thinking about the past. they are the ideas about the nature and status of historical accounts, about how historians read evidence and construct explanations and arguments using that evidence. the field of history education in britain, the usa, canada and australia now has established a fairly well-accepted set of second order concepts that describe what it means for a student to think historically (lévesque, 2008; roberts, 2013; seixas, 2006). for example, the canadian centre for the centre for the study of historical consciousness describe historical thinking as the ability to establish historical significance, use primary source evidence, identify continuity and change, analyse cause and consequence, take historical perspectives and understand the moral dimension of historical interpretations (seixas, 2006). there is a substantial amount of research now on the principles which inform historical thinking and how these are applicable for school history (lévesque, 2008; seixas, 2006; wineburg, 2001). the underpinning assumption is that school learners need to master both procedural modes of interrogation and substantive knowledge of history, which can only be done by them ‘doing history’ and not simply by learning history (bertram, 2012). 32 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 both forms of knowledge are recontextualised as curriculum designers make selection choices regarding what substantive and procedural knowledge will be covered in the curriculum, how it will be sequenced and paced across the grades. thus the distinction between substantive and procedural knowledge is used in the curriculum analysis presented here, informed by the assumption that there are different principles of sequencing and progression which inform these two knowledge domains. the next section engages with studies that illuminate the principles that may inform the sequencing and progression of substantive and procedural knowledge. with regard to substantive knowledge, adey (1997) argues that there are three key dimensions of progression in a curriculum. these are breadth of content (which is how many topics are covered), the depth of knowledge in each topic and thirdly, the conceptual complexity, which is the most important dimension as it encompasses the relationships and connections between facts. he argues that conceptual complexity is seen when a series of facts are grouped together into a concept, which are then further grouped to higher order concepts. for example, all the facts about vasco de gama’s voyages could be grouped into the topic of ‘voyages of discovery’, which could also be further generalised into an understanding of the concept of colonisation. adey argues that these principles are useful for understanding both science and history curricula (and thus both hierarchical and horizontal knowledge structures). however, he focuses only on progression of the substantive knowledge of a curriculum, and not on its modes of enquiry. he also offers no real in depth engagement with progression beyond these very broad principles and does not engage with the principles of what makes something a higher order concept. referring particularly to concepts in history, haenen and schrijnemakers (1998) identify three types of historical concepts. these are 1) everyday concepts which are not specifically historical but are used in other subjects and in commonsense ways (e.g. century, government, law); 2) unique historical concepts which is a construct that applies to only one thing, person, event or period (e.g. the battle of the somme, nelson mandela, the french revolution; da gama’s ‘voyages of discovery’); and 3) inclusive historical concepts which are universal and inclusive of the unique concepts (e.g. world war, statesman, revolution, colonisation). regarding complexity, it is implicit that universal and more abstract concepts are more challenging to grasp that bertram: recontextualising principles. . . 33 concrete and unique concepts, but there is still no explicit engagement with what might make some inclusive concepts more complex than others. with regard to progression in the procedural or second order history concepts, research on project chata (concepts of history and teaching approaches) in britain has done much work on the procedural knowledge of history, such as how learners develop empathy over time and on how learners understand historical accounts. for example, lee and shemilt (2004) show a taxonomy of progression of how learners might shift from understanding the nature of history as true stories about the past, to understanding the reasons for differences in accounts. at level 1, learners understand history simply as stories that exist, and are unable to engage meaningfully with why two stories about the same thing may be different. their understanding is that an historical account has a one-on-one relationship with the past. at the most sophisticated level 6, learners understand that differences in accounts show that the past is (re) constructed in order to answer questions in accordance with particular criteria. this serves as a clear example of mapping progression in one aspect of procedural knowledge. taking a historical perspective and understanding historical time are key second order concepts. amongst the studies which engage with the concept of time in history, coffin’s (2006a, 2006b) work focuses on students’ writing using the theoretical resources of systemic functional linguistics. she found that as students progressed through the curriculum, they moved away from personal construals of time toward more institutionalised and universal construals of time. this is seen in the way that they start to use concepts like ‘the great depression’ to refer to a particular era in the usa from the late 1920s to the 1930s. essentially this is progression, moving from more concrete descriptions of time, to more abstract, universal and ‘historically labelled’ stretches of time (coffin, 2006b, p.228). also working within systemic functional linguistics, martin (2007) provides a typology of history genres that learners need to be able to write. he provides a cline which describes how genres move from ‘commonsense’ to ‘uncommon sense’, where commonsense genres are personal and autobiographical accounts, and uncommon sense genres are multi-sided discussions which involve judgements (pp.58, 59). coffin’s work points to how using unique and universal historical concepts can signal progression within both substantive and procedural knowledge. 34 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 all of these studies are located within the field of reproduction, focusing on pedagogy or on learners’ written productions. they do not focus particularly on how progression may be described in curriculum documents. the canadian historical thinking project (seixas, 2006) does describe the historical thinking concepts in terms of what learners should be able to do ‘at the most sophisticated level’, but this progression is not clearly articulated. a more recent attempt to map the progression of historical thinking is shown by ford and hibbert (2013) as a response to curriculum policy change in britain where the key stage attainment levels have been removed from the national curriculum. they draw on morton and seixas (2012) and describe how learners may map their own progression to mastery within each concept, but this work is in the discussion phase. in summary, regarding substantive knowledge, research suggests there is progression from everyday concepts to unique events and people, to universal concepts (haenen and schrijnemakers, 1998) but there is little engagement about why some universal concepts may be more conceptually demanding than others, or why (and if) some should be learned before others. research on history learners’ written work suggests that progression is found in the move from commonsense, contextualised, and individual narratives to uncommonsense, decontextualised and universal accounts (coffin, 2006a; martin, 2007). this echoes maton’s concept of semantic gravity, which describes the shift from contextualised to decontextualised knowledge, which he argues is essential to cumulative learning (see matruglio, maton, and martin, 2013 ). the concepts of contextualised and decontextualised knowledge are useful principles for describing sequencing and progression in history. in curriculum documents, this is often seen by starting in the lower grades with narratives that are concrete and embedded in local contexts rather than concepts that are abstract and often ideological. progression of second order concepts have been well researched in classrooms, for example, there is classroom-based research on how learners develop empathy and learn to understand the nature of historical accounts (lee and shemilt, 2004). but there do not seem to be any clear principles of how these may be sequenced in a curriculum document. this literature review points to a set of concepts which can be used to frame the analysis of the curriculum documents. these are: the purpose of school history; the distinction between substantive and procedural knowledge; bertram: recontextualising principles. . . 35 the curricula selected were chosen for a broader study initiated by umalusi, the body1 which maintains and sets standards for education in south africa. the purpose was for an international benchmarking comparative study. breadth and depth of substantive knowledge; the conceptual focus of substantive knowledge and progression of procedural knowledge. methodology the method used for the study is content analysis of secondary school history curriculum documents from the following four countries: south africa, singapore, canada (british columbia) and kenya. the literature review has shown how the set of analytic concepts which informed the analysis were derived from previous studies in history education. no ethical clearance is required as these documents are in the public domain, and the study does not involve any human subjects. the documents were retrieved from the internet and in the case of kenya, from the ministry of education. the currency of the documents was confirmed via the high commissions and the curriculum and resource learning division in british columbia. these countries were selected as they each show a high performance in the international benchmarking tests. the two african countries are similar in1 population size, but south africa has a much higher gross domestic product (gdp) per capita than kenya. canada (british columbia) and singapore are very closely matched in terms of population size and gdp per capita with very high scores on the human development index. the four countries have education systems which differ in terms of resourcing, structure and purpose but all the countries share a colonial past. the study focuses on the official curriculum for the final two years of the canadian (british columbian) school system (grade 11 and 12), the final four years of schooling in kenya (form i– iv), the final three years in south africa (grades 10, 11 and 12), and the upper secondary syllabus in singapore. this is the normal (academic) level at secondary year 4 and the ordinary level at secondary year 5, while the pre-university curricula are higher 1, 2 and 3 (singapore ministry of education, 2012). 36 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 south african department of basic education (2013) education statistics in south2 africa 2011. pretoria. ministry of education (2013) education statistics digest 2013. singapore. british columbia teachers’ federation (2012) 2012 british columbia education facts. vancouver http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/education/pupil--teacher-ratio%2csecondary accessed 21 april 2014 mathews ndanyi, the star. kenya: schools enrolment rises from 7.6 million in 2012. 11 june 2012. http://allafrica.com/stories/201206130125.html accessed 1 may 2014. table 1: comparison of the four countries regarding population, income and schooling2 canada (british columbia) kenya singapore south africa population and economic data size of population 4.4 m 44 m 5.4 m 51.7 m gdp per capita $48 000 $1 800 $50 000 $11 900 human development index 0.991 (v. high) (canada) 0.519 (low) 0.895 (v. high) 0.629 (med) school and curriculum student enrolment (all schools) 620 280 (2012) 7.8 million (2012) 487 342 (2012) 12.2 million (2011) no. of years of schooling k – 12 8 (primary) 4 (secondary) 6 (primary) 4–5 (secondary) 7 (primary) 5 (secondary) student: educator ratio 16.6 29.1 (secondary school) 14.9 (secondary school) 29 school leaving certificate british columbia certificate of graduation or “dogwood diploma” kenya certificate of secondary education at the end of form vi gce ‘n’ level at the end of secondary 4. gce ‘o’ level at the end of secondary 5. gce (advanced level) – pre-university course national senior certificate at the end of grade 12 number of curriculum documents analysed gr. 11 social studies (one doc). gr. 12 history (one doc) (239 pp. for 2 docs) one document for form 1 – 4 (21 pp.) one gce o level document. one h1 level doc. one h2 level doc. (58 pp. for 3 docs) one document for grades 10 – 12 (52 pp.) bertram: recontextualising principles. . . 37 the titles of the documents are listed in the appendix at the end of the article.3 broad descriptive overview of the curriculum documents the four sets of curriculum texts vary in length and organisation. the3 canadian (british columbia) curriculum comprises two very lengthy documents, one for grade 11 social studies, and one for grade 12 history. grade 11 social studies is structured according to themes, for example society and identity, government and politics, autonomy and international involvement and human geography. the year 12 history curriculum focuses on world history and not on the history of canada. content is described in terms of prescribed learning outcomes and suggested achievement indicators and the curriculum provides great detail on possible classroom activities and assessment tasks. all singapore documents have an introduction which describes the broad desired outcomes of education and history education in particular. then the aims, the learning outcomes, the assessment objectives and the assessment format are described. the syllabus outline clearly describes the content according to an overall theme (e.g. for h1, international history 1945 – 2000), then topics within this theme (e.g. the cold war and how it shaped the world), the content that relates to the topic (e.g. the rise of the usa and ussr as superpowers), the learning outcomes (e.g. evaluate the different historical interpretations of the origins of the cold war), concepts (e.g. ideology – iron curtain) and values and attitudes (e.g. preserving peace). kenya has only one brief (21 pages) document for forms one to four. the document provides specific objectives and content for every topic. the objectives are content-based and not skills-based. the main focus of the content is on kenya and africa, with minimal focus on world history. the south african curriculum is the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) (department of basic education, 2011) which was implemented in 2012 in grade 10 classrooms. the caps is a revision and clarification of the national curriculum statements (2003). the caps is 52 pages long, and includes the aims and skills of history, the content topics for grades 1012, framed as key questions, and a section on assessment, which includes the examination guidelines for the grade 12 examination. 38 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 findings the analysis is presented under the following sections: the purpose of school history in the four curricula, the breadth and depth of substantive knowledge, the sequencing and conceptual progression of substantive knowledge and progression of procedural knowledge. the purpose of school history the singapore, south african and british columbian curricula all have a similar understanding of school history primarily as a process of enquiry, or disciplinary-history, to use lévesque’s term. the south african curriculum states that “history is about learning how to think about the past, which affects the present, in a disciplined way. history is a process of enquiry. therefore, it is about asking questions of the past and using evidence critically about the stories people tell us about the past.” (department of basic education, 2011, p.8). singapore takes the same perspective, with both the normal (academic) level syllabus and the ordinary level emphasising the importance of engaging learners actively in historical enquiry, acquiring knowledge and understanding of various eras and understanding different representations of the past (singapore ministry of education, 2013). the canadian (british columbia) curriculum states that the study of history is about analysing primary and secondary sources, assessing the significance of events and demonstrating historical empathy (british columbia ministry of education, 2006). these three curricula have similar objectives, which are closely aligned to the concepts which underpin historical thinking, namely that learners need to: develop the ability to undertake a process of historical enquiry based on skills; develop an understanding of historical concepts, including historical sources and evidence; explain the interplay of cause and effect; change and continuity of historical events and think independently and make informed judgement of issues. these curricula also understand that school history does have a role to play in developing citizenship (at both local and global level), encouraging civic responsibility, promoting human rights and challenging prejudice. the kenyan curriculum understands the purpose of history to be primarily about developing learners’ understanding about the organisation of african bertram: recontextualising principles. . . 39 societies, so that they can understand the present and plan for the future (republic of kenya ministry of education, 2002). i would describe this as a memory history approach, with a strong focus on developing a sense of national pride patriotic citizens committed to the development of the country. the content knowledge focuses on knowing history and government structures and not on developing learners’ historical thinking or understanding history as a process of enquiry. the objectives of the kenya curriculum are that learners should: recognise and appreciate the importance of studying history and government; acquire knowledge, ability and show appreciation for critical historical analysis of socio-economic and political organisation of african societies; understand and show appreciation of the rights, privileges and obligations of oneself and others for promotion of a just and peaceful society; promote a sense of nationalism, patriotism and national unity; identify, assess and appreciate the rich and varied culture of the kenyan people; promote a sense of awareness and need for a functional democracy of the kenyan people and other nations; and derive through the study of history and government an interest in further learning (2002, p.4). so the key difference is that the kenyan curriculum understands school history as memory-history, which takes a local, nationalistic stance on citizenship, while the other three curricula take a disciplinary approach and aim to develop both local and global citizens. the next section shows how the understanding of the purpose of school history influences the selection of content. breadth and depth of substantive knowledge there is a great difference between the four curricula in terms of the nature and the breadth of content that is covered. this is due mostly to the nature of the national history in each country, and the different emphasis that each curriculum places on world history. there are not many topics that could be described as ‘core’ across all four curricula. the common content from twentieth century world history is the two world wars and the cold war. colonisation is covered in some depth in south africa, kenya and singapore and touched on in the grade 12 british columbian curriculum. in history curricula, breadth is determined by the extent of the time period that is covered, as well as the extent to which the curriculum covers regional, national or international history. 40 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 the south african curriculum covers a broad range of content, which is arranged chronologically across the three school years. it starts with the state of the world in 1600 and continues to the present, dealing with issues of globalisation. there is a virtually equal balance between world and south african history. a topic such as ‘nationalisms’ includes both international examples (the middle east, ghana) and south african examples (african and afrikaner nationalism). the content coverage is broad and comprehensive. in canada (british columbia), the social studies 11 curriculum relates only to canadian history. although the themes of politics and government, autonomy and international involvement and society and identity, do cover history, the word ‘history’ is never used. the history part of the curriculum is related to how canada arrived at its present situation – for instance how different groups came to canada as a result of immigration. content is presented in an integrated way, and deals with the social identity of being canadian, on social issues in canada (such as the role of women, the first nation people, globalisation and the environment) and understanding how government works. british columbian history 12 covers world history from 1919–1991. neither grade 11 nor 12 covers history topics prior to 1919, certainly none on world history. the core grade 12 curriculum covers four topics, which are four large chronological chunks from 1919 to 1991 involving the study of most major developments in europe, asia and the usa in each of the chosen time periods. this means that the coverage is wide and the suggested teaching methodology shows a highly constructivist approach is expected with a lot of debates, quizzes, student research and presentations. the singapore normal and ordinary levels cover the same set of topics, which is the world order from 1870 to 1991, dealing with european dominance and challenges. it further focuses on how the world wars impacted on the asia-pacific in the first half of the 20th century and with the impact of the cold war in and outside europe. the curriculum explores how the decline of europe and cold war politics influenced the attainment of independence in asian colonies. the pre-university curriculum higher 1 and 2 covers international history from 1945–2000. it investigates the growth and problems of the global economy with specific reference to asia and the reasons for the dominance of the usa. another theme focus is on conflict and co-operation. it deals with topics such as the rise of religious fundamentalism, instability in the middle east and south asia and the political effectiveness of bertram: recontextualising principles. . . 41 the united nations. it is highly regionalised by looking at global events and how they have impacted on asia. in kenya, the curriculum aims to develop kenyan citizens who have a good understanding of the development of kenya. the kenyan history syllabus is primarily centred on kenya and africa. form 1 focuses on the pre-colonial era, the early inhabitants, contact with the european counties and kenyan citizenship. form 2 deals with the impact of the industrial revolution on kenya and on democracy and human rights. form 3 covers kenya under colonial rule, the consequent rise of african nationalism and the struggle for independence. form 4 is the only section that deals with international events (both world wars and the cold war, but in minimal detail). colonialism is dealt with only in africa and not in other regions of the world such as south america, asia and australia. it emphasises african regional co-operation and identifies the social, political and economic challenges facing kenya and other african states up to 1991. the section is concluded with the functions of government. sequencing of substantive knowledge the selection of content has to be ordered in the curriculum in a particular sequence and the most common principle which informs this sequencing in these curricula is chronology of events. the south african curriculum covers the period of 1600 until the present in three school years (and includes both south african and international history); british columbia grade 12 covers the period of 1919–1991 for international history only in one year; singapore covers 1870–2000 in two years and kenya covers mostly national history from the stone age early man [sic] until 1991 in four years. another sequencing principle which is present in the singapore and south africa curriculum is the use of universal concepts to organise the content. for example, in south africa grade 11, the topic on ‘nationalisms’ in south africa, the middle east and africa is the organising concept, which trumps chronology in this section. similarly, the singapore curriculum organises the era of the late 19th century around the concept of european dominance and colonial rule, rather than strictly chronologically. table 2 below tabulates the differences between the four curricula in terms of the time period that is covered in each (approximate) year of study, and 42 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 whether the curriculum focuses on national history, international history, or engages with international history only from the perspective of the particular country. for example, both the kenyan and singapore curriculum deal with colonisation particularly from the perspective of how this impacted on kenya, or south east asia, respectively. table 2: comparison of breadth of content in the curricula, by time period covered and national/international focus south africa canada (british columbia) singapore kenya year 9 – – – ‘early man’ – 19 c th kenya in africa year 10 1600 – 1913 national and international – – 17 to 19 cth th national and kenya in the world year 11 1900 – 1960s national and international 20 cth canada in the world 1870s – 1991 south east asia in the world 19 c – 1939th national and kenya in the world year 12 1960s – present national and international 1919 – 1991 international 1945 – 2000 international 1914 – 1991 national and international conceptual progression of substantive knowledge this section draws on the identification of three types of substantive history concepts, namely generic concepts; unique history concepts which refer to one person, event or period and universal history concepts which are inclusive of unique concepts (haenen and schrijnemakers, 1998) as the tool of analysis. these ideas are put together with the distinction between contextualised and decontextualised knowledge to create a tool that analysed: (i) to what extent the curricula focused on generic concepts, such as government, which are not specifically specialised to history or on concepts that were particularly specialised to history (unique concepts), and bertram: recontextualising principles. . . 43 (ii) to what extent the specialised concepts related to unique and particular events and people in a specific context, or to universal, decontextualised concepts. the figures below show the different ways in which the curricula work with substantive history concepts. for example in the kenyan curriculum, the generic concept of government is linked to the unique context of colonial rule in kenya. in the singapore curriculum, government is linked to the unique context of colonial rule in malaya, but then this is taken up a further level to a more decontextualised concept which is european imperialism. figure 1: example from the kenyan curriculum showing concepts moving from a generic concept to a specific concept in a particular context. figure 2: example from the singapore curriculum showing concepts moving from a generic concept to a specific concept in a particular context, and then to a universal concept in a generalised space. taken as a whole, the kenyan curriculum has a stronger focus on the level of unique concepts, which focus on the particular context such as the lives and contributions kenyan leaders or the establishment of colonial rule in kenya. 44 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 these are topics particular to a specific time and place, but are specialised to history and are not generic. the singapore and south african curricula deal with unique concepts but also move up to the level of universal, decontextualised concepts. for example, the south african curriculum covers the universal concept of eugenics, which is explored in the context of australia and nazi germany (unique concepts) (department of basic education, 2011). singapore ‘o’ levels deal with colonisation in asia in the specific contexts of malaya, vietnam or indonesia (singapore ministry of education, 2013). thus here ‘colonisation’ is the universal specialised concepts, and malaya, vietnam and indonesia are the particular or unique instances of colonisation (see figure 2). the second section of the singapore h2 curriculum takes a more ‘thematic-comparative and issues-based approach’. the content is also used to develop students’ understanding of key ‘conceptual tools’ such as balance of power, hegemony, colonial rule, independence and nationalism within the case studies of southeast asian countries which gained independence in the twentieth century (singapore examinations and assessment board, 2014). thus in singapore there is a conceptual demand increase from ‘o’ levels to h levels (which are pre-university levels) which focus more heavily on universal concepts. the british columbia curriculum for grade 11 and 12 includes both unique and universal concepts, but the emphasis tends to be on unique events and less on universal concepts. progression of procedural knowledge the singapore, south africa and british columbia curricula all focus on the organising or second order concepts which underpin the discipline of history. these are cause and effect, change and continuity, chronology, multiperspectivity and understanding that history is not the past itself (department of basic education, 2011). however, the curriculum documents do not make clear how these procedural knowledge concepts progress, or develop across the grades. in south africa, the skills described for the end of the general education and training (get phase, that is grades 7–9) are exactly the same as those described in the further education and training (fet phase, that is grades 10–12). it appears that curriculum designers assume that all these skills should be developed at the same time. bertram: recontextualising principles. . . 45 similarly the singapore upper secondary history syllabus (normal and ordinary levels) describe aims and learning outcomes, but gives no indication of the sequence in which these could be developed. in terms of the assessment objectives, at singapore n and o levels, students must be able to work with the key concepts of causation, consequence, continuity, change and significance whereas at h2 levels, they need to also be able to demonstrate understandings of the complexity of issues, and assess different interpretations of the past. thus the attainment demands at h2 are more complex which indicates that there is some attempt to describe progression in the development of procedural knowledge across the years. the british columbia grade 12 curriculum’s prescribed learning outcomes lists three outcomes pertinent for the study of history – analyse sources, assess significant historical events and demonstrate historical empathy – but assume that these will all be developed at the same time. the kenyan curriculum does not focus on the procedural disciplinary knowledge of history. these curriculum documents do not explicitly describe progression or sequencing of procedural knowledge, thus it is not possible to engage with the principles that may inform this progression. discussion using a set of concepts gleaned from studies both from the sociology of knowledge and history education to inform the content analysis of the curriculum documents, this paper set out to describe the recontextualising rules that inform the selection, sequencing and progression of history knowledge. the selection of content is informed by the regulative order within each country, which is to say that the purpose of school history influences how much focus will be on national and/or international history, as well as the nature of topics selected. regarding the purpose of school history, the kenyan curriculum understands school history as memory history and has minimal engagement with disciplinary procedural knowledge. thus kenya chooses to select content that focuses primarily on national rather than world history, as a key aim is to “promote a sense of nationalism, patriotism and national unity” (republic of kenya, ministry of education, 2002, p.4). the other three curricula understand the purpose of school history as disciplinary history and 46 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 thus show a stronger relation to the procedural knowledge within the academic field of production than the kenyan curriculum. there is no universal canon of history knowledge that must be learned in order to be inducted into the discipline, which is the case for school mathematics and the natural sciences. there are three principles which inform the sequencing and progression of substantive knowledge. the first aspect is space, which refers to the move from local to regional to national to international history, which is essentially the expansion of context. a school history curriculum may choose to focus on national history only (such as british columbia grade 11 social studies) or relate national history to international events (singapore and kenya) or focus on both national and international events in similar proportions (south africa). the second principle is chronology, and all the curricula studied here sequence the history content in this way, covering different time periods in different degrees of breadth and depth. the third principle is the progression of concepts from generic to specialised unique concepts within a particular context and then on to specialised universal concepts that are not linked to a specific context. the singapore and south africa curricula seem to engage the most with universal concepts, with british columbia doing so less, and kenya very little. an analysis of procedural knowledge showed that the south africa, singapore and british columbia curricula all embrace historical enquiry and notions of history as interpreted and represented, while kenya did not do so. however, the curricula which embrace procedural knowledge do not make clear how these historical thinking skills should be sequenced across grades. only singapore shows any evidence of progression of procedural knowledge and this is only seen in the learning outcomes of the upper secondary curriculum and pre-university curriculum. thus although it has been argued that horizontal knowledge structures find hierarchy in procedural knowledge (martin, 2007), this hierarchy is not clearly evident with these curriculum documents. perhaps the procedural knowledge and second order concepts of history are just too complex to map hierarchically or progressively. when professional historians engage with historical texts, they used specific heuristics when reading texts, which are sourcing, contextualisation and corroboration all at the same time (wineburg, 2001). from these curricula, it appears that it is simply not possible to require that the one historical thinking skill be developed before another one, for example that learning to work with primary evidence should be done before being able to take a historical perspective. it also appears to be very difficult bertram: recontextualising principles. . . 47 to describe how a 12-year-old might work with primary evidence and how an 18-year-old might do the same thing. perhaps the work of sequencing procedural knowledge can only be done by textbook writers in the pedagogic recontexualising field and by teachers in the field of reproduction, and cannot be done at the level of curriculum documents. the following table summarises the recontextualising principles that inform the selection, sequencing and progression of knowledge. table 3: summary of key findings regarding sequencing and progression of substantive and procedural knowledge british columbia kenya singapore south africa selection of knowledge approach to school history disciplinary memory history disciplinary disciplinary progression in substantive knowledge progression in chronology yes. within 20 centuryth yes. covers early man to 20th century yes. covers 1870s to present yes. covers 1600 to present progression from local to national to international contexts (space) gr. 11 – national gr. 12 – international strong focus on national history, international history only in relation to kenya strong focus on regional history, in relation to international history focus on national, african and international history conceptual progression from unique (contextspecific) to universal (decontextualised) concepts gr. 11 – unique concepts gr. 12 – both unique and universal concepts mostly focus on unique concepts some progression seen in the engagement with both unique and universal concepts some progression seen in the engagement with both unique and inclusive concepts progression in procedural knowledge progression in history procedural knowledge progression not explicit procedural knowledge not present some progression evident across n and o levels and h1 progression not explicit 48 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 in conclusion, this study shows that the regulative discourse is influential in the selection of substantive knowledge, which leads to selections regarding the national or international nature of the content. chronology is the principle that influences sequencing, and there is evidence of progression in the substantive concepts. while procedural knowledge is described in three of the curricula, there are no clear principles which describe its progression. in these three curricula, the selection of the procedural knowledge is strongly influenced by the field of production. it would be productive to analyse a wider range of curriculum documents to explore to what extent these recontextualising principles are common among other history curricula. acknowledgement thanks to the curriculum section of umalusi (council for quality assurance in general and further education and training) in south africa, for allowing me to make use of the curriculum documents, which were collected for the international benchmarking comparative study. bertram: recontextualising principles. . . 49 appendix 1 titles of the curriculum policies analysed 1 south africa department of basic education. 2011. national curriculum statement (ncs) curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) further education and training phase grades 10–12 history department of basic education. history examination guidelines 2014. 2 canada (british columbia) social studies 11. integrated resource package 2005 history 12. integrated resource package 2006 british columbia first nations studies 12. integrated resource package 2006 3 singapore history gce normal (academic) level (syllabus 2195) history gce ordinary level (syllabus 2174) history higher 1 (syllabus 8814) history higher 2 (syllabus 9731) 4 kenya republic of kenya ministry of education (2002) secondary syllabus volume iii: history and government (pp.1–20) 50 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 references adey, p. 1997. dimensions of progression in a curriculum. the curriculum journal, 8(3): 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principals about factors, which have an influence on their work to provide quality education for all children. principals in the western cape were asked to rate key factors that contribute to sustainable quality education in their schools. an online survey was implemented as the data collection instrument and the freq procedure was followed to analyse the raw data statistically. the results showed that dedicated and well-qualified teachers who teach disciplined learners in a safe environment should receive priority in any action principals and departments of education take to improve and sustain the quality of education in the western cape and possibly in all south african schools. introduction the delivery of sustainable quality education for all continues to be an ideal aspired to and pursued by many countries including south africa. since south africa’s first democratic election in 1994, government has focused on transforming education and has concentrated its efforts on achieving equitable and sustainable quality education in schools, largely through the introduction of new curricula and amendments to education legislation and policy. government has also introduced and implemented various programmes, guidelines and action plans in its commitment to both improving and ensuring sustainable quality education. among these are: the new sector plan, which encapsulates government’s response to the priorities, targets and programmes articulated in the national development plan – 2030 (2015, p.50), the national policy on whole school evaluation (2001, p.3), the delivery agreement for the basic education sector, outcome 1 – improved quality of basic education (2010, pp.1–4) and the guidelines relating to planning for public school infrastructure (2012). in the basic education budget vote speech for the 2015/16 financial year delivered by the minister of basic education at the national assembly in 138 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 cape town on 06 may 2015, mrs a m motshekga reiterated the important role that quality basic education plays in a nation’s current and future prosperity, development and growth. she also articulated government’s intention to improve the overall quality of education in south african schools: our focus is to reposition the sector to deliver on the mandate for quality and efficient schooling in the 2015/2016 financial year. we remain resolute in our quest to improve quality and efficiency throughout the schooling sector, with a renewed emphasis on curriculum coverage, improving assessment and strengthening quality, efficiency and accountability in our schools, districts and provinces, as well as in our administrative departments and sectoral partnerships (motshekga, 2015). sustaining quality education, particularly in under-resourced schools, may present a challenge that leaves education officials and policy writers overwhelmed by the many competing priorities and pressing educational needs that simultaneously demand their urgent attention. we acknowledge the existence of a multiplicity of contextual factors that could improve and contribute to sustainable quality education and we argue that it is important for role-players in education to reach consensus on which of these needs (factors) merit urgent attention and ought to be prioritised for budget allocations. in the south african school system, public schools are divided into five quintiles depending on the poverty of the community around the school, as well as on certain infrastructural factors. quintile 1, 2 and 3 schools do not charge school fees, are termed ‘no-fee’ schools and appear to be located in poorer socio-economic contexts, while quintile 4 and 5 schools charge school fees and appear to be located more within middle-class to affluent contexts (western cape education department, 2013). our research assumption was that we would obtain different data from respondents from the five quintiles. our assumption was, amongst other, supported by information gleaned from table 14 of the national senior certificate technical report (2013, p.72), which indicates that quintile, 1, 2 and 3 schools appear to struggle to meet the same standards of academic quality as quintile 4 and 5 schools do, particularly in regard to grade 12 (matric) results. this article reports on quality education, one of seven themes, which comprised a large-scale, exploratory, quantitative, online survey with the title ‘school governance and leadership for sustainable education for all’, which we undertook in public schools in the western cape. in the online survey, we heystek: principals’ perspectives on key factors. . . 139 explored the ability of principals and parent members of school governing bodies to fulfil their various roles and functions as governors. for the purposes of this article, we discuss only 11 factors, which we selected for our study specifically because our area of interest is school governance and management and these factors are governed and managed by principals and school governing bodies. the aim of this article is to show which of the factors school principals perceive as key to sustaining quality education in their schools and to explore if there are any differences in the perspectives of principals from different quintile schools about the factors, which contribute to sustainable quality education. we are of the opinion that school principals are well placed to offer useful insights into these key factors and although we did not include leadership as a key factor, we acknowledge that leadership is important because we specifically gathered data concerning the key factors from principals, who are school leaders. the conceptual challenge: defining ‘quality education’ a problem with which some scholars and role-players in education may grapple is “how do we define quality education?” tikly (2011, p.3) asserts that the difficulties in developing a sense of what quality education encompasses are compounded by the fact that there is no universally accepted definition of education quality. consequently, we deduce that the main hindrance to defining quality education is that notions of, discourses on and approaches to quality are embedded in the multidimensional education systems of developed and developing countries globally. nevertheless, literature alludes to factors, which seem to contribute to quality education in most, if not all countries and contexts. in 2000, the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation (unesco) organised the world education forum in dakar, senegal to identify six measurable goals that would comprise the dakar framework for action and millennium development goals. goal 6 of the dakar framework for action explicitly aimed at improving the quality of education globally, particularly the quality of literacy, numeracy and life skills. its expanded definition of quality set out desirable characteristics such as healthy, motivated students, processes such as competent teachers using active pedagogies, content in terms of relevant curricula and systems such as good governance and equitable resource allocation (education for all global 140 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 monitoring report, chapter 1, 2005, p.29). the report (2005) also makes a strong case for safety and support of learners as a quality imperative within a human rights approach to quality education. school effectiveness studies conducted in industrialised countries identified strong educational leadership, the acquisition of basic skills, an orderly and secure teaching and learning environment, high learner expectations and regular assessment of learners’ work as salient factors that contribute to quality education. introducing of key factors the key factors, which we selected for our study included dedicated teachers, well-qualified teachers, disciplined learners, safe schools, a relevant curriculum, involved parents, sufficient teaching and learning resources, small classes, well-maintained facilities and good infrastructure, sufficient furniture for learners and a comprehensive extra-mural programme. miller (2012, p.36) asserts that the six essential affective characteristics of dedicated teachers are enthusiasm, encouragement, humour, interest, mental health and availability. in south africa, a dedicated teacher ought to fit the profile of a professional person outlined in the code of professional ethics of the south african council of educators (sace) (2000). the code of professional ethics calls educators to acknowledge the noble calling of their profession and to acknowledge that the attitude, dedication, self-discipline, ideals, training and conduct of the teaching profession determine the quality of education in this country (2000, p.1). in regard to teacher qualifications, findings that emerged from a comparative study conducted by carnoy, chisholm and chilisa (2012, p.151) of grade 6 mathematics teachers in botswana and north-west province of south africa, showed that learners’ poor performance and low scores in mathematics tests were related directly to inadequately qualified teachers. in south africa, teachers’ lack of appropriate qualifications seriously threatens the delivery of sustainable quality education in many schools. in response to a democratic alliance (da) parliamentary probe by annette lovemore (sa breaking news, 2014), a spokesperson for the department of basic education (dbe) admitted that there were approximately 10 725 unqualified or under-qualified teachers in public schools in 2013. the implication is that unqualified or under-qualified teachers may negatively affect learners’ learning and lives heystek: principals’ perspectives on key factors. . . 141 with the implication that a significant number of learners are not receiving quality education. further, the executive summary published by the centre for development and enterprise (2015, p.4) shows that in south africa there is a severe shortage of teachers who are qualified to teach in the foundation phase. there is also a significant shortage of teachers qualified to teach languages in all phases, mathematics in the intermediate and senior phases, and mathematical literacy in the further education and training (fet) phase, all of which has a negative effect on the delivery of sustainable quality education. ming chiu and wing yin chow (2011, p.517) advance the notion that variables such as the economic and cultural contexts of different countries, characteristics of schools and family values potentially shape learners’ discipline and their relationships with teachers and one another. it follows that teachers have the ability to enhance the quality of education provided by their schools by maintaining a balance between their teaching and classroom management strategies. this will be possible if they reduce disruptive behaviour and distractions in the classroom on the one hand and challenge their learners academically by keeping them focused on and engaged in interesting learning activities, on the other. in south africa, some schools experience “violence that often leaves educators battling to cope with increasing demands for learner performance in the midst of an inherited culture of violence and intimidation that spills over into the classroom” (bester and du plessis, 2010, p.203). mestry and khumalo (2012, p.102) provide evidence that many schools are not adopting and enforcing codes of conduct owing to the limited knowledge, skills and experience of legislation of many parents serving on governing bodies. despite the introduction of numerous legal measures to ensure learner safety at schools, the culture of violence afflicting many communities in south africa appears to make it extremely difficult for teachers to meet the increasing demands on them to ensure that learners perform well (bester and du plessis 2010, p.203). in respect of the importance of having a relevant curriculum, unesco’s general education quality analysis/diagnosis framework (geqaf) (2015) states: a good curriculum plays an important role in forging life-long learning competencies, as well as social attitudes and skills, such as tolerance and respect, constructive management of 142 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 diversity, peaceful conflict management, promotion and respect of human rights, gender equality, justice and inclusiveness. at the same time, curriculum contributes to the development of thinking skills and the acquisition of relevant knowledge that learners need to apply in the context of their studies, daily life and careers. it is important, therefore, that developing countries design their own relevant curricula that cater for and respond to the needs and priorities of learners, their families and communities optimally (education for all global monitoring report, 2005, p.31). according to the edqual policy brief no. 10 (2010, p.3), “coherence in aims and content within and between phases of the curriculum is key.” in south africa, a single, comprehensive curriculum and assessment policy document (caps) (2011) was developed for each subject offered at schools (available online: http://www.education.gov.za/curriculum/ncsgradesr12/tabid/419/default.a spx). the national curriculum statement grades r–12 lists the knowledge, skills and values worth learning in south african schools and aims to ensure that children acquire and apply knowledge and skills in ways that are meaningful to their own lives. it can therefore be said that the curriculum promotes knowledge in local contexts while being sensitive to global imperatives (national curriculum statement, 2011, p.4). findings that emanated from jeynes’s (2005) meta-analysis, which examined the relationship between parental involvement and the academic achievement of urban elementary school children indicate that parental involvement enjoys an influence that largely transcends differences in socio-economic status, race and other factors. this is supported in the parental involvement data for racial minorities and by gender, which is encouraging in that any group can experience the advantages of parental involvement. however, one of the findings that emerged from a study undertaken by motala and luxomo (2014, p.95) evidences the fact that although south african policy favours parental involvement, parents of learners attending poor urban and rural schools in gauteng and the eastern cape hesitate to become involved in the education of their children owing to their lack of self-efficacy. there is no certainty about the actual direct influence of small classes on academic outcomes although there is a perception that small classes are advantageous to children’s school results. some scholars anticipate the economic ramifications by raising questions regarding the cost effectiveness of small classes while others argue that small classes need to be considered a key feature of educational policy (blatchford, bassett and brown, 2011, http://www.education.gov.za/curriculum/ncsgradesr12/tabid/419/default.aspx http://www.education.gov.za/curriculum/ncsgradesr12/tabid/419/default.aspx heystek: principals’ perspectives on key factors. . . 143 p.715). similarly, ehrenberg, brewer, gamoran and willms (2001, p.1) contend that the number of learners in a class can potentially affect the quantity and quality of time a teacher is able to devote to learners’ individual needs, the quantity and quality of content that a learner learns in class and their level of social engagement and interaction. xaba (2012, p.215) asserts that the significance of facilities maintenance to school functionality is recognised worldwide to the extent that international studies report numerous education departments have organisational structures or units specifically dedicated to managing and maintaining school facilities. in terms of section 20(1)(g) of the south african schools act, no 84 of 1996, the school governing body must “administer and control the school’s property, buildings and grounds occupied by the school, including school hostels, if applicable.” in south africa, school governing bodies are responsible for maintaining school facilities and for providing a good infrastructure within which quality teaching, learning and extra-mural activities can occur. hassell (2011, p.18) asserts classroom space and furniture needs to be flexible to enable teaching and learning by means of teacher-directed instruction, selfstudy, group work, oral presentations, peer instruction and interaction and class discussions. it is disconcerting that in many south african schools, particularly in the rural areas of the poorer provinces, such as in the eastern cape, schools lack adequate desks and chairs for learners. john’s report in the mail and guardian (2012) relates how “eastern cape learners sit on empty mealiemeal sacks, beer crates or bricks, bending over double as they attempt to write in their exercise books. yet they are the lucky ones – some pupils have to sit on bare floors.” in most south african schools, dedicated teachers take on additional responsibilities emanating from their schools’ extra-mural programme. many learners, in addition to their core learning activities, participate in a wide range of extra-mural activities as part of their school day. shulruf (2010, p.594) however, points out that numerous scholars, particularly in the united states, have undertaken studies concerning various aspects of extra-mural activities but none have established empirically a causal effect between extramural activities and educational outcomes. dimech and seiler (2011, p.348) view learners’ participation in extra-mural activities from a social learning theory perspective and claim, “participation in organised sport, particularly in team sport, may play an important role in a child’s social development.” 144 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 research methodology paradigmatic approach for this study, we used a positivistic paradigm to understand the social phenomenon of quality education from the perspective of principals. to achieve our primary objective, we implemented a quantitative paradigmatic approach. according to ivankova, cresswell and plano clark (2007, p.255), the goal of quantitative research is to explain the trends or relationships between variables. by quantifying principals’ responses to questions, which we posed in an online survey on quality education, we were able to identify trends in the principals’ professional perspectives concerning the factors that contribute to sustainable quality education in their schools. although the issues under investigation are difficult to quantify and as concepts, principals hold their own interpretation of the broad issues, the objective was to obtain an indication of the importance of the specific factors linked to quality education. population and sample selection in light of our research assumption, we required access to the total population of school principals across the five quintiles in the western cape. therefore, our sample can be described as large and purposive because it comprised principals of all the public primary and secondary schools in the western cape, a total of 1 433 respondents. according to grinnell and unrau (2008); monette, sullivan and de jong (2005), the sample was purposive because it comprised elements, namely school principals, that contained the most characteristic, representative or typical attributes of the population. data collection instrument: an online survey an online survey was used to collect data, as described and discussed previously by minnaar and heystek (2013). in the specific question on quality education on which this article reports, all respondents, namely school principals from no-fee and fee charging schools within the five quintiles received the same question. they were asked to rate, on a 4-point scale, to what extent they strongly disagreed, agreed or strongly agreed that selected heystek: principals’ perspectives on key factors. . . 145 factors contribute to the provision of sustained quality education in their schools. although there are advantages to using online surveys, for example, as evans and mathur (2005, p.196) mention that online surveys are able to reach participants who have internet access throughout the world, that large samples can be reached and with the internet these surveys can be managed in a time efficient manner, there was a very low return rate. even after it was established that all schools in the western cape were supposed to have functional e-mail addresses, the return of 181 questionnaires was acceptable, yet very low. figure 1: principals’ responses per quintile even with a specific effort to get more responses from quintile 1, 2 and 3 schools, they still had the lowest response rate. the total number of these schools, namely 65 (36%) may provide us with some indications on how these principals experience the factors which provide quality education. 146 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 quantitative data analysis the statistician conducted a quantitative analysis of all the collected raw data by means of the freq procedure. according to sas/stat® version 9.1 user’s guide (2004, p.1431) the freq procedure provides easy access to statistics for testing contingency tables. for the purposes of the survey question on which this article reports, the frequency with which the school principals responded to the eleven factors that contribute to sustainable quality education by clicking the ‘strongly agree’ rating option, was calculated statistically as a response percentage. only the ‘strongly agree’ responses were calculated and used for this article because they obtained the highest response percentages and were therefore statistically significant. validity and reliability according to babbie and mouton (2009, p.122), “validity refers to the extent to which and empirical measure adequately reflects the real meaning of the concept under consideration.” further, babbie and mouton (2009, p.119) explain reliability as “a matter of whether a particular technique, applied repeatedly to the same object, would yield the same result each time.” the validity and reliability of the rating scale question, which we posed to school principals to generate data was established by means of the cronbach coefficient alpha. cronbach’s coefficient alpha estimates the reliability of a scale by determining the internal consistency of the test or the average correlation of items within the test (cronbach, 1951). the rating scale question scored á = 0.920035, an indication of excellent internal consistency. ethical considerations we applied to stellenbosch university’s ethics committee for ethical clearance for the study, which was granted subsequent to the submission of required documentation. the western cape education department’s (wced) research directorate approved the study and granted us consent to conduct the study. heystek: principals’ perspectives on key factors. . . 147 results table 1 (below) shows the principals’ ‘strongly agree’ responses to factors that contribute to sustainable quality education per quintile. table 1: principals’ ‘strongly agree’ responses to factors that contribute to sustainable quality education per quintile factors for quality education quintiles as % 1 2 3 4 5 dedicated teachers 79 85 82 97 93 well-qualified teachers 79 92 77 91 82 disciplined learners 69 84 77 91 84 a safe school 72 92 80 82 82 a relevant curriculum 72 85 64 91 84 involved parents 69 85 77 94 76 sufficient teaching and learning resources 76 62 68 86 78 small classes 66 69 55 76 77 well-maintained facilities and good infrastructure 66 69 73 76 70 sufficient furniture for learners 66 62 59 76 62 a comprehensive extra-mural programme 62 54 62 74 54 average % per quintile 71 76 70 85 77 there does not appear to be significant differences between the opinions of the principals from the different quintiles. principals from the poorer quintiles feel less strongly about these factors, but do not differ much from the quintile 5 school principals. this survey does not make provision to explain the differences, but the potential implications thereof will be discussed. in figure 2 (below), we present all the principals’ ‘strongly agree’ response percentages to the eleven key factors that contribute to sustainable quality education. the response percentages have been arranged graphically in columns from the factor that achieved the highest response percentage to the factor that obtained the lowest response percentage. 148 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 figure 2: principals’ ‘strongly agree’ response percentages to key factors that contribute to sustainable quality education overall, there is a ‘strong agreement’ about all the factors. the importance of the data is therefore, to obtain an indication, which is possibly more important, although all the factors are important to provide quality education. individual schools or departments of education may use the data to prioritise their actions to improve the quality of education. the three key factors, which obtained the highest response percentages, see people as key factors contributing to sustainable quality education, whereas the factors that obtained the five lowest response percentages focus on structural aspects. principals clearly indicated that dedicated as well as well-qualified teachers are the two factors that most contribute to sustainable quality education in heystek: principals’ perspectives on key factors. . . 149 their schools. the edqual policy brief no. 10 (2010, p.3) states that suitably trained and motivated teachers are a “quality input” of quality education. similarly, mart (2013, p.437) asserts: passion matters in that it motivates and inspires the teachers. passion is a motivational factor that affects teacher performance. it drives the teachers for a better student accomplishment. passionate teachers create an effective learning environment and increase learning potential of students. passion leads to creativity; therefore, passionate teachers have the ability to think and produce new notions in an easy way. passionate teachers are committed and dedicated to their schools and a good education achievement is an outcome of this commitment and dedication. therefore, dedicated teachers are more motivated to develop themselves, which has a more direct and positive effect on the quality of education. findings that emerged from a study by heystek and terhoven (2015, p.13–p.14) show that dedicated teachers are passionate about teaching and are motivated intrinsically to participate in professional development programmes, thereby empowering themselves and developing their personal and professional knowledge and skills that will benefit not only themselves, but more importantly their learners, schools and communities. although quintile 5 schools perhaps are able to provide more professional development opportunities for their teachers because they are situated in wealthier areas than schools in the lower quintiles, all the principals strongly agreed that it is important to have well-qualified teachers. principals’ ‘strongly agree’ responses to disciplined learners and safe schools confirm the importance of an orderly and harmonious teaching and learning environment. this finding is supported in literature by the findings of luiselli,putnam, handler and feinberg (2005, p.185), who assert, “when teachers are able to increase, strengthen, and maintain high levels of student academic engagement, there is a corresponding improvement in academic performance and achievement.” le roux and mokhele (2011) collated findings that reveal that violence in schools is brought about by dysfunctional family structures, the presence of gangs and weapons and the distribution of harmful substances, such as alcohol and drugs, all of which affect learner performance adversely. however, even the most conservative code of conduct will not contribute to a safe school if it is not enforced consistently. mestry and khumalo (2012) provide evidence that many schools are not adopting and enforcing codes of conduct because of the limited knowledge, skills and experience of legislation of many parents on the governing bodies. 150 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 a relevant curriculum can be linked positively to dedicated and well-qualified teachers as well as to disciplined learners because such teachers can make the curriculum relevant, which will in turn ensure learners become better disciplined when they realise the importance of the curriculum and of their education. lumadi (2014, p.15) avers, “the efforts to create good schools will depend entirely on the quality of our curriculum, for a quality curriculum responds to the needs of the learners and the country in large.” lumadi (2014, p.14) also refers to the important role played by dedicated and well-qualified teachers by maintaining that, “if schools worldwide are to meet the challenge of educating increased numbers of children with diverse needs, teachers must embrace instruction and curricula that engage and encourage all students.” although involved parents are a people-orientated factor, it surprisingly obtained only the sixth response percentage of the eleven key factors. despite the findings of fan and chen (2001), which point to a strong relationship between parental involvement and academic outcomes, the results indicate that principals in this sample regard involved parents somewhat less important than dedicated teachers, well-qualified teachers and disciplined learners as contributors to sustainable quality education in their schools. one explanation for this finding may be that involved parents is an ‘out-of-school’ factor, whereas dedicated teachers, well-qualified teachers and disciplined learners are school-based factors and principals may have more control over these last mentioned factors. the last five factors can be linked to structural factors. although the western cape education department indicated the need to build more schools and that there are numerous problems with infra-structure and facilities, specifically in quintile 1, 2 and 3 schools, these principals still rate the human factor, that is teachers, as the more important factor in the provision of quality education. this could be an important issue for departments of education because they may prioritise more funds to develop teachers rather than to provide state-ofthe-art facilities for all schools. sufficient teaching and learning resources was the factor that obtained the seventh response percentage. one would expect this factor to have obtained a higher response percentage considering the consternation in the south african media surrounding the delivery, and at times non-delivery, of stationery and textbooks evokes at the beginning of each new school year since the notorious ‘text-book saga’ in 2012 (veriava, 2013). however, it should be borne in mind that 45% of the respondents who responded to our rating scale question heystek: principals’ perspectives on key factors. . . 151 on factors that contribute to sustainable quality education were principals of quintile 5 schools. quintile 5 schools do not appear to struggle with nondelivery of teaching and learning resources as some quintile 1, quintile 2 and quintile 3 schools that are located in poor urban and rural areas do. small classes was the factor that obtained the eighth response percentage, indicating that although principals may be well aware of the academic benefits of small classes as espoused in literature, such as the assertions of finn and suriani (2007), they accord more importance to the contributions of people to the delivery of sustainable quality education in their schools. their line of reasoning may be that teaching a large class of well-disciplined learners will not present an insurmountable challenge to a teacher who is both well-qualified and dedicated in a school where there are sufficient teaching and learning resources. the response percentage for well-maintained facilities and good infrastructure placed this factor in ninth position overall. it appears that although principals acknowledged that having well-maintained school facilities with a good infrastructure is important, it is not absolutely essential for the delivery of sustainable quality education. principals’ response percentages placed sufficient furniture for learners in the tenth position. this low position was surprising, particularly in terms of the poorer quintile 1, 2 and 3 schools because there have been court cases between parents of various schools and the eastern cape province (high court of south africa, eastern cape local division, mthatha, case no. 2144/2012) over failure to provide essential school furniture. from this result, it appears that insufficient furniture for learners does not warrant urgent attention in western cape schools, as in certain other provinces of south africa. a comprehensive extra-mural programme was the last placed factor in the eleventh position. this result was also unanticipated, this time in terms of quintile 5 school principals who contributed the largest percentage of responses. it would appear that quintile 5 principals attach little, if any significance to a comprehensive extra-mural programme as a factor, which contributes to sustainable quality education. yet, findings that emerged from a study by minnaar (2009) in schools previously categorised as ‘model c’ schools, many of which now fall within the quintile 5 category, showed that schools expect high commitment from teachers in terms of extra-mural 152 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 programmes and that teachers spend a very high average of their time on extra-mural activities. the reasons provided by the participants for expecting high commitment from teachers in respect of extra-mural programmes was based on their desire for teachers to get to know learners in a context other than the academic context in the classroom. conclusion it does not seem as if the socio-economic context of the schools affects principals’ perspectives of the importance of specific factors, which may influence their own or their schools’ performance. structural factors undoubtedly contribute to sustainable quality education, but it seems as if factors relating to people are more important. although there is a rank order of these factors, they are all important and they will affect the quality of education. each school and district can determine which of these factors may be the most important for urgent attention to improve the quality at the local context. clearly though, dedicated and well-qualified teachers who teach disciplined learners in a safe environment should receive priority in any action principals and departments of 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pp.215–226. jan heystek school for education studies north-west university potchefstroom jan.heystek@nwu.ac.za linda minnaar private education practitioner lorinmin@gmail.com mailto:jan.heystek@nwu.ac.zaq mailto:lorinmin@gmail.com 158 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 editorial dipane hlalele, adre le roux and june palmer this special edition of the journal of education emanates from presentations of the 2015 south african education research association (saera) conference held at the university of the free state in bloemfontein. saera was established to bring together south african education academics and researchers into a unified research organization. the association provides, amongst others, an opportunity to promote research and academic collaboration, link research policy, theory and practice, encourage the promotion of research quality, and help develop the next generation of researchers. the theme of the conference from which the articles published emanated is: strengthening educational research for sustainable futures. the conference succeeded in providing space to reflect on the nature, purpose and role of educational research at present, in anticipation of unpredictable and complex futures. securing education for sustainable futures has to be understood within the context of complex ecologies that involve historical, structural, political, environmental, and ethical dimensions. the peer-reviewed articles in this edition tackle the theme of the conference in various ways. grounded on postcolonial theory and drawing from the move by the south african government at the turn of the 21st century to spearhead the conception of what then president thabo mbeki referred to as an african renaissance, marshall maposa argues that while the macro-level of power produces the dominant discourses, the micro-level of the citizen also contributes to the discourses that permeate the history textbooks. the author employed critical discourse analysis to analyse a sample of four contemporary south african history textbooks with a focus on the chapters that deal with post-colonial africa. at a descriptive level of analysis, the textbooks construct the african being as five-dimensional: the spatial, the physical, the philosophical, the cultural and the experiential notions. the article concludes that there are ambiguities and the imprecisions that characterised most of the constructions of the african being in the analysed textbooks. 2 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 lesley wood and merner meyer draw our attention to the criticality of participation in service-learning through creative arts education and submit that participatory approaches are likely to yield win-win learning opportunities for campuses and communities. this article reports on attempts to create a service-learning experience that allowed students and community youth to learn with and from each other. data were generated in four cycles of a participatory action research design, using visual, art and text-based strategies. the thematic analysis indicated that the process gave participants a better understanding of each other’s lived realities; that it helped to level out unequal power relations; and that the reciprocal learning boosted development on personal and professional levels. in search of learning for sustainable futures, tendayi marovah and melanie walker advanced arguments for a human development approach to citizenship education. the paper is divided into five sections which start with a conceptualisation of sustainability followed by a brief discussion of underlying four human development values as applied to education. the values are equity, participation, empowerment and sustainability. the third section provides an overview of the study methodology. thereafter, the paper presents empirical data demonstrating how policy stakeholders experience the operationalisation of national and strategic studies. the last section encompasses a synthesis of policy processes and practices showing how the human development framework provides a helpful lens for interpreting the various complexities and contradictions that emerge from the data, and so potentially opens up new avenues for interventions that seek to advance learning for sustainable futures. in addition, frans kruger traverses posthumanism and educational research for sustainable futures. tapping into karen barad’s (2007) concept of intra-action and rosi braidotti’s (2013) nomadic posthumanism, this article to problematised the notion of educational research for sustainable futures, rejected the hierarchical dualism of cartesian objectivism, which places the human above the non-human, and challenged the stable self-contained subject that presuppose a dialectical relation to the other on which most educational research is premised. instead, in drawing on the work of barad and braidotti, subjectivity is posited as always in the process of becoming-other through the actualisation of new relations. in light of such a subjectivity, the article pondered the implications for educational research for sustainable futures. editorial 3 furthermore, four avenues of thought are proposed on how educational research informed by posthumanism could contribute towards sustainable futures. eureta rosenberg, presha ramsarup, sibusisiwe gumede and heila lotzsisitka added a somewhat ‘strong specialisation’ tweak to sustainable futures. the authors argue that education has contributed to a society-wide awareness of environmental issues, and we are increasingly confronted with the need for new ways to generate energy, save water and reduce pollution. new forms of work are emerging and government, employers and educators need to know what ‘green’ skills south africa needs and has. this creates a new demand for ‘green skills’ research. the authors propose that this new knowledge field – like some other educational fields – requires a transformative approach to research methodology. in conducting reviews of existing research, the authors found that a transformative approach requires a reframing of key concepts commonly used in researching work and learning; multi-layered, mixed method studies; researching within and across diverse knowledge fields including non-traditional fields; and both newly configured national platforms and new conceptual frameworks to help us integrate coherently across these. critical realism is presented as a helpful underpinning for such conceptual frameworks, and implications for how universities prepare educational researchers are flagged. the final paper by nimi hoffmann, yusuf sayed and azeem badroodien reports on the initial results from a representative survey of teachers in the western cape regarding their views of professionalism and accountability. the authors note that this is the first survey of its kind in south africa. preliminary analysis of the data from 115 public schools suggests that teachers at no-fee schools, who are predominantly black women, report facing the greatest institutional burdens and the greatest need for institutional support, particularly from the state. related to this, they tend to stress pastoral care-work as central to being a professional, while those at fee-paying schools stress their claims to pedagogical knowledge and job prestige. this indicates that teachers at different schools are subject to different and unequal institutions (or rules), where the kind of school that teachers work at often reflects their race and gender positioning. this implies that the concept of a bifurcated education system, characterised by different production functions and outcomes for learners, should be expanded to include teachers and deepened to include institutions. 4 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 at its fourth conference in cape town towards the end of october 2016, saera once again provides a platform for members to engage head-on with south africa’s educational challenges, and to reimagine a system within which the children, students and adults of our country can flourish. it will focus on institutional cultures, practice-based teaching and learning endeavours, and the centrality of curriculum and pedagogy in revitalising teaching and learning. the conference aims to contribute to a knowledge base that builds on research being done to reimagine education in the light of the complex and diverse challenges that confront education for sustainable change. it seeks to consider research that goes beyond schooling by also addressing current matters concerning higher, further and adult education. the conference focuses, among others, on questions of policy, language and literacy, educational psychology, inclusion, social justice and equity references barad, k. 2007. meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. durham: duke university press. braidotti, r. 2013. the posthuman. cambridge: polity. dipane hlalele hlaleledj@ufs.ac.za adre le roux lerouad@ufs.ac.za june palmer hadedah@ufs.ac.za mailto:hlaleledj@ufs.ac.za mailto:lerouad@ufs.ac.za mailto:hadedah@ufs.ac.za microsoft word b80 full issue final.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 80, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i80a01 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x the emergence of an education policy dispositif in south africa: an analysis of educational discourses associated with the fourth industrial revolution aslam fataar department of education policy studies and currently attached to the transformation office, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa afataar@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6880-9223 (received: 27 february 2020; accepted: 14 september 2020) abstract the notion of the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) has recently entered the public and policy domain in south africa. it has rapidly found resonance in policy discourse and the popular media. it has also entered the language of educational policy and institutions. the impact of 4ir on educational thinking and practice has hitherto not featured in academic discussion on education in south africa except for a keynote plenary session at the annual conference of the south african education research association (saera) in durban (october 2019). the south african education deans forum recently published a call for the submission of chapters for a book on teacher education, 4ir, and decolonisation. in this article, i develop an address that i delivered at the saera 2019 conference as part of the plenary panel. the article consists of four sections. the first offers a consideration of the entry of 4ir discourse into the educational imaginary. i suggest in this section that 4ir discourse has installed a socio-technical imaginary in south africa’s unequal educational dispensation. the second section concentrates on the construction of educational governance. based on research on 4ir-related policy making, i discuss the policy directions taken by the department of higher education and training and the department of basic education in giving effect to ways of engaging with 4ir in each of their domains. the third section features a discussion of the impact of technological disruption on society, the economy and education. the final section presents a discussion of the emerging educational architectures in the 4ir and a critical consideration of the curriculum and pedagogical dimensions of 4ir, which, i argue, are informed by an orientation that prioritises the acquisition of generic skills. sidelining knowledge and concepts as central to the structuring of the curriculum, a generic skills approach succumbs to what might be called a knowledge blindness that holds pernicious consequences for epistemic access in south africa. keywords: fourth industrial revolution, education in south africa, policy dispositif, educational governance, genericism 6 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 the discourse of the fourth industrial revolution’s entry into the education imaginary the notion of the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) has entered our public dialogue over the last five years. it is said to have become then vice-president cyril ramaphosa’s political signature in 2016 upon his return from the world economic forum (wef) meeting in davos. the concept of the 4ir was incubated by the wef president, klaus schwab, through his now renowned 4ir formulations explained in his text, the fourth industrial revolution: what it means and how to respond (2015). schwab explains in this text that [w]e stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. in its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. we do not yet know just how it will unfold, but one thing is clear: the response to it must be integrated and comprehensive, involving all stakeholders of the global polity, from the public and private sectors to academia and civil society. (p. 1) ramaphosa’s subsequent pronouncements reflect the wef’s language, especially since becoming the country’s president in 2018. upon his assumption of the chairpersonship of the african union in february 2020, he called for the establishment of an africa artificial intelligence forum and made a rousing call for advancing 4ir on the continent: . . . the 4ir presents our continent with great opportunities. the uptake of digital technologies will lead to improved competitiveness and provides fresh opportunities for inclusive growth. millions of our continent’s young citizens are digital natives and we must drive a skills revolution to enable africa to take a quantum leap into the economy of the future. (ramaphosa, 2020, n.p.) this followed on from his establishment of a presidential commission on 4ir in april 2019 with the mandate to advise the government on 4ir policies, strategies, and multi-sectoral initiatives. the government’s ambition is to position the country as a globally competitive player in 4ir. the commission advised the president in a preliminary diagnostic report presented in november 2019 on strategies to harness the potential of technology as an enabler for growing the economy and creating much-needed jobs. the discourses associated with 4ir are a good example of how we use language to construct the way in which we come to understand our social world. these discourses produce certain types of understanding of existing social and economic arrangements with consequences for preferred political prognoses and policy responses. bessant (2018) alerts us to the use of metaphors and symbolism in such constructions, which, in the case of 4ir, describe developments in the economy, the impact of technological disruption, and its impact on unemployment. fataar: the emergence of an education policy dispositif in south africa 7 such constructions have implications for the way in which a particular conjuncture is understood. in the light of this, 4ir in south africa is hitched onto the policy path associated with the country’s national development plan (ndp), specifically its skills-development agenda for dealing with youth unemployment. this, in turn, has knock-on implications for education and training, which i discuss below. 4ir discourse has had a decisive impact on the educational thinking of government, educational think tanks, and universities. bessant (2018) explains that a consequence of such constructions is the circulation in the public domain of particular framings of societal and educational problems as well as plausible assumptions about public policy problems and their solutions. she suggests that it is helpful to pay attention to the role that metaphors and symbolism play in shaping consciousness. a powerful example of such symbolism is the recent role of pepper the robot in announcing the 2019 national senior certificate matric results. i contend that the use of the robot signified the ascendance of 4ir discourse in the educational arena. presented as an inevitable hallmark of 4ir in education, the department of basic education (dbe) chose to signpost the core idea that robots will be used increasingly in routine work, with job losses and the changing nature of work as consequences. the use of the robot lodged the idea that education and skills acquisition would have to respond decisively to the impact of technology on economic change and a rapidly changing labour market. the minister of basic education (dbe), angie motshekga, underscored the inevitability of 4ir in a speech in january 2020 by announcing that “as you know, the fourth industrial revolution isn’t a rumour but it’s real.” blade nzimande, the minister of higher education and training and science and technology presented a similar view. he suggested at the launch of stellenbosch university’s centre for data science and computational thinking (july 2019) that the imperative for new skills places unprecedented demands on the government, business, civil society, and universities to cooperate in their use of technologies to advance the country’s development. these governmental positions, from the president and key ministers, posit a particular perspective on development as inevitable and should be taken seriously by education policymakers, institutions, and practitioners. it positions a particular kind of education logic in the social imagination—what avis (2018) has called a “socio-technical imaginary” (p. 338). avis explained that such an imaginary is based on rhetorical constructions of the 4ir which are located in understandings of the economy that are rooted in neoliberalism. avis (2018) claimed that 4ir is an ideological construct with specific material interests and that it has implications for education and training. for avis, a 4ir socio-technical imaginary is based on recurrent themes such as artificial intelligence (ai), robotisation, digitisation, and smart machines. as imagery, the 4ir is saturated with popular culture and media tropes that are founded on the “transformative power of technology” (p. 341). 4ir is presented as holding the promise of addressing and resolving longstanding developmental challenges associated with health, welfare, and climate change. however, as bessant (2018) and avis suggest, what 4ir discourse hides from view is the relationship between technology and 8 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 society, i.e. technology as embedded in social relations. avis has reminded us that we cannot think of 4ir and disruptive technology outside of pre-existing social relations. 4ir discourse continues along the path of eliding the complex history of educational inequality in this country and the african context. it continues along a trajectory of framing educational development in the neoliberal terms that were ushered in by world bankmandated structural adjustments in the mid-1980s on the african continent. since the 1990s, south africa has embarked along a path of fiscal austerity and quasi-market-related educational reforms in educational access, qualifications, and curricula. allais et al. (2019) argued that the country has witnessed the reinforcement of inequality in the post-apartheid period. their analysis is worth noting. they argue that the primary cause of educational failure is not the position advanced in the literature on educational effectiveness that highlights in-school factors such as weak institutional functionality, poor teachers’ content knowledge, and reduced instruction time. instead, according to them, the most important constraint and causal condition is the “socio-economic conditions that structure learners’ lives in south africa today . . . [which] reproduce social and economic relations in ways that make it unlikely that we can improve equality of learning” (p. 106). in other words, educational outcomes can be improved only if widespread poverty is addressed and the social conditions of the majority improved. such a position does not ignore the need for systemwide attention to in-school factors. in this view, poverty-stricken social conditions are regarded, correctly, as the primary cause of educational inequality. the socio-technical imaginary that 4ir discourse installs is oblivious to the dynamics of educational inequality. instead, 4ir is based on the view that closer attention should be paid to the vocationalisation of education and training. skills acquisition is posited as key to educational reform in anticipation of producing workers who are able to work in a changing labour market. the notion of digital skills has quickly become a core framer of policy for the post-school sector. thus, in public policy, amplified by popular media pronouncements, the emerging 4ir imaginary fails to account for the existing educational inequality in broader society. instead, 4ir circulates the view that vocational and digital skills acquisition are the panacea for addressing such inequality. however, as allais et al. (2017) argue, “even if the knowledge and skills of the workforce and potential workforce were radically improved, there is no evidence that this additional supply of skilled workers would create its own demand for labour, and therefore improve income inequality” (p. 106). the key point here is that the 4ir’s focus on skills is presented as standing apart from the deeper educational inequality of which it is a part, and this in turn, has the effect of further deflecting the focus from the depth and complexity of such inequality. the 4ir emphasis on a focus on skills is not unexpected. it comes on the back of concerted governmental attempts to improve the post-school sector during the last ten years. hitched to the objectives of the ndp, the white paper for post-school education and training (department of higher education and training, 2013) made an attempt to place transformation of technical and vocational education training at the centre of education development. likewise, the digital skills strategy published by the department of fataar: the emergence of an education policy dispositif in south africa 9 telecommunications & postal services (dtps, 2017), a key government 4ir policy player, explicitly links 4ir to its digital skills-development strategy. the strategy suggests that “[d]igital skills are one of the key skill sets required for the creation of new kinds of 21stcentury jobs. originality, agility, critical thinking and problem-solving are important 21stcentury skills that must be interwoven with digital skills” (p. 6). the emphasis on skills has emerged in the education policy domain on the basis of a human capital theory (hct) view of education. hct sees “people and their skills and knowledge as ‘natural’ or ‘real’ resources . . . which education or learning enhances, thereby increasing our economic value” (bessant et al. 2017, p. 90). this perspective posits that enhanced education and skills increase people’s employability. hct holds that education increases people’s productivity by supplying them with knowledge and problem-solving skills, which would enhance their capacity to work in technologically changing workplaces. governments have found such a perspective compelling in the light of their faltering national economies and rising unemployment. vocational skills acquisition has become a core feature of south africa’s educational reform during the last twenty years. the increasing focus on skills was presented as part of broader neoliberal solutions based on market-based educational reforms. these reforms have hitherto not addressed the systemic educational inequality in south africa. describing the weakness of tvet structures and policy in south africa, allais et al. (2017) argue that “[skills-]development strategies . . . have been more about posturing . . . than actually planning the development of the skills of the nation” (p. 13). it is therefore likely that the educational policy discourse associated with the 4ir, especially its focus on skills and the overhaul of the vocational education sector, would struggle to produce the type of mediumto high-level creative skills that the 4ir-impacted labour market would require. this would be difficult to achieve in the absence of an overall qualitatively enhanced educational system. a properly functioning post-school sector is unlikely to emerge. the rapid incursion of 4ir-related educational discourses has contributed to the further erosion of a focus on systemwide educational inequality. instead, what we have seen is the introduction of a powerful 4ir social-technical imaginary that is informing the policy making and governance process in education. the definition of discourse that i use in this article draws on the work of ball (1993), who argued that discourse produces the frameworks, meaning-making, and sense of obviousness with which policy is thought, and talked, and written about. policy “set within these frames works to constrain but never determine all of the possibilities for action” (p. 11). in similar vein, 4ir educational discourse is made up of position papers, research, and policy-related grey literature advanced by educational and non-educational actors operating in the governmental sphere. during the last five years, 4ir-related educational discourse has come to speak us. i argue that we need to appreciate the ways in which 4ir educational discourse has assembled propositions, words, symbols, and metaphors to construct certain ways of understanding the world and disqualified other perspectives, as ball has reminded us. in this way, certain possibilities for educational thought and action have become acceptable and normalised. in the next section of the article, i present an account of the nature of educational governance in response to the 4ir imperative. 10 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 discursive construction of 4ir educational governance this section is based on my application of critical policy theory lenses to guide my sensemaking of governmental policy discourse on 4ir. my research for this section has involved what is called policy analysis at an awkward scale, which is a type of distended, fast-moving case study (see ball 2016). i offer what ball (2016) thinks of as a networked ethnography of policy development that emphasises policy mobilities across global/local scales, network dynamics, and the local assemblages of policy meanings. this section is based on my interviews with government officials, as well as on policy documents, grey literature, and media articles, and my participation in 4ir workshops, conferences, and discussion fora. 1 i tried to understand how 4ir as policy discourse has come to be constituted, and how 4ir has become the prevailing educational discourse that now speaks us. the story is picked up from when 4ir was conceptualised by klaus schwab of the wef from 2014. schwab and the wef’s 4ir formulations feature strongly in local 4ir formulations. governmental processes are coordinated by the minister of the newly named, in june 2019, department of communications and digital technologies. minister stella ndabeni-abrahams, an authoritative governmental political actor, leads on 4ir-related activity in the governmental domain. president ramaphosa constituted a 4ir presidential commission with the university of johannesburg’s vice-chancellor, prof. tshilidzi marwala, as its vice-chair and ramaphosa himself as the nominal chair of the commission. marwala is a key 4ir policy player. he is regarded as one of the country’s most important 4ir influencers with substantial scholarly output in the fields of ai, engineering, and innovation. he publishes opinion pieces on 4ir in popular media sites such as the daily maverick, an online news platform. the 4ir commission is meant to develop policies, strategies, and action plans. its 30 members are drawn from a broad range of social sectors dominated by technology, science, innovation, engineering, entrepreneurship, software development, skills, data science, telecoms, and industrial development. the commission’s work is divided into six workstreams: infrastructure and resources; research, technology and innovation; economic and social impact; industrialisation and commercialisation; and policy and legislation. importantly, the sixth is a workstream on human capital and the future of work chaired by beth arendse from the creative industry. this indicates that the educational prerogative of the presidential commission is framed around creativity, skills, and employability. the wef’s future of jobs document (2016) features strongly in the make-up of the framing discourses around 4ir, emphasising the need to adapt the economy to include enhanced computational thinking, transdisciplinarity, virtual collaboration, technological literacy, and entrepreneurial skills. echoing wef framings, the south african government’s policy 1 as mentioned below, i was a member of the ministerial task team of the department of higher education and training from november 2019 that produced a report on higher education and the fourth industrial revolution. the report was formally handed over by the task team to minister blade nzimande in september 2020. i did not interview any of the task team members for this article. this article was written relatively parallel to, and separate from, the deliberations of the task team. fataar: the emergence of an education policy dispositif in south africa 11 documents emphasise 4ir’s impact on the world of work, work disruption, and job losses. the documents also emphasise skills planning, right-skilling the workforce, and future competences. recent government documents are replete with references to scenario planning, governance, statistical projections of jobs, and economic growth. examples of these documents are the national treasury’s journal called the service delivery review (national treasury, 2018) and the national plan for post-school education and training 2019–2030 (dhet, 2019) published by the department of higher education and training. global consultancy firms such as accenture, learning for improvement, and mckinsey actively feature in various discussions on the 4ir conference circuit. local technology and engineering firms have been occupying various discursive and performance spaces in which 4ir is advocated. references to multilateral and multi-country initiatives in info-tech and economic development are also prevalent in 4ir-related conferences and symposia. we have witnessed the mushrooming of a number of advocacy spaces at various urban universities and in business-hosted discussions. 4ir discourse is currently being sold by an intersection of networks active in universities, as well as in the commercial, info-tech, and innovation sectors of our society. the centre for 4ir south africa, for example, was set up by a loosely coupled business-led organisation that facilitates network functioning in and around government. the high-tech community, creative industries, and business innovators are active on the 4ir circuit. university executives are playing a crucial role in generating consent. vice-chancellors at the universities of johannesburg, pretoria and the witwatersrand are, for example, punting 4ir as a way of seeking academic niche advantage. we have seen 4ir-related conferences hosted by university outfits. south africa has seen multiple conferences, workshops, and symposia during the last 24 months, all mainly circulating wef-type 4ir discourses. various actors or what ball (2016, p. 553) calls “policy entrepreneurs”, with reference to strategically positioned people who join up disparate 4ir-related activities, spaces, and initiatives, are central to circulating influential 4ir policy framings. it is interesting to note that little critical discussion has emerged that interrogates the 4ir phenomenon, indicating a sophisticated, yet to be understood, type of manufacturing of consent at play. my interviews with members of government departments prominent in 4ir-related policy development indicate that the wef discourse has become authoritative as a result of the networked interaction between government policy actors, the information technology-related business community, and key university-based players. in this light, the role of digitisation in fuelling technological development and innovation has become central to 4ir governmental discourse. key government documents locate digital and technological skills as one of the main constitutive features of, and a response to, the 4ir discourse, in which education and schooling are positioned to play a central role (see dtps, 2017; dhet, 2019). it is apparent that what peck and theodore (2016) refer to as “fast policy making” (p. xvi) is visible in the assembling of the 4ir policy discourse, constructed as it were on the hoof, in motion, in talk spaces, and in the joining up of disparate activities. it is clear that the global to local flow of discourses end up in government via policy entrepreneurs who join up disparate 12 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 governmental and non-governmental activities to produce the policy discourse. what is clear is that 4ir governmental discourses are constituted by a multiplicity of networked interests and actors across global and local scales which come to influence policy language and positions. the era of a unitary government making policy relatively autonomously in the service of the broad polity is long gone. instead, 4ir policy discourse is produced by networked governance-type policymaking with spheres of influence from outside and inside government. such policy discourse is driven by the commercial logics of niche-seeking activity, and also by universities seeking to position their research and teaching programme offerings in response to anticipated 4ir labour market needs. theoretically, following bailey (2013), what has emerged is captured by the idea of a policy dispositif, which refers to a shifting material-discursive formation that shapes ideas of how to govern. bailey has explained that the notion of dispositif refers to an amorphous policy formation comprised of a multiplicity of heterogeneous elements, including material objects, discourses, practices, and subjectivities. in the case of 4ir educational discourse such a policy formation is the outcome of strategic struggles inside and outside government over the meaning and governing of education. the 4ir dispositif enacts a mode of policy regulation with the capacity to produce, regulate, and govern educational practices and practitioners. in line with avis (2018), cited earlier, it can be argued that the 4ir policy dispositif is a socio-technical formation of government, which informs government’s conduct of conduct in the way it regulates its own behaviour to behave in a particular way, which, in turn, reflects dominant political rationalities. the 4ir dispositif is, however, not a closed formation; it is a strategic battlefield, or struggle, over the governing of education (see bailey, 2013). key to policy dispositif generation, i argue, is understanding how the 4ir dispositif ends up in the educational sectors of government, i.e. in the dbe and the dhet. my interviewees in these two departments displayed what they called some “scepticism” at the “fad” and “hype” over 4ir. statements by interviewees displayed hesitation about uncritical acceptance of the premises of 4ir in terms such as “we’re an implementing agency”, or questioning whether “we’ll now ignore all the policy frameworks that we have recently developed.” they worry over whether new priorities associated with 4ir would override older priorities. the interviewees in the two education departments linked 4ir to prior departmental policies on tvet, skills, qualifications, technology, the setas, open learning platforms, and computing skills. compared to the dbe, it seems that the dhet displayed what was thought of as a cautious micro dispositivity amidst complex post school education and training arrangements. the dhet is developing a set of policy documents that prioritises digitisation and associated skills, which, importantly for them, connects with the department’s broader policy goals of addressing unequal access. former minister of education, naledi pandor, appointed an eightperson dhet ministerial task team in may 2019 to deliver a set of policy and strategy proposals in early 2020. it was made up of academics specialising in ai and digitisation, people from banking, trade and industry and economic transformation, and a journalist who focuses on youth and women’s issues. a person from harambee youth employment fataar: the emergence of an education policy dispositif in south africa 13 accelerator, an outfit that provides employment pathways for youth, was also on the team, representing education and skills expertise on the task team. after questioning the absence of an education and curriculum person, i was appointed in november 2019 to the task team as someone with teacher education and curriculum-related expertise. the digital skills agenda in the department of basic education displays a firmer micro dispositivity. the dbe hitched the 4ir discourse strongly onto its prior commitment to expanding digitisation. the dbe produced a policy paper called digital skills framework grade r to 9 (2019) with strong 4ir framing language. this framework document was written during a 4-day workshop by a 9-person team consisting of a dbe official in the mathematics, science, and technology division, university lecturers in information technology (it), a provincial it coordinator and representatives from edu-tech nongovernmental organisations. the framework document proposes a digital skills for all curriculum as a stand-alone subject to be introduced in the general education and training (get) phase to prepare learners for enhanced living, further study, and employment opportunities in a digital world. the dbe document intends to provide learners with the foundation for future life, work, and careers in computational-based problem-solving fields in the 21st century. its curriculum development emphasis is on somewhat familiar conceptual competence categories based on skills and outcomes, with an emphasis on transfer approaches and learning materials. more concretely, the dbe has developed curriculum statements for the subjects robotics and coding, for each subject per grade. the dbe intended to roll out the teaching of coding for grades 5 to 7 from 2020 in schools across five provinces. in contrast to the dhet, the dbe’s firmer micro dispositivity has thus already led to concrete policy implementation aligned with the dominant digital skills-informed vision of 4ir inside government. in this section, i discussed the discursive construction of 4ir educational governance in south africa in recent times. i provided a consideration of the networked policy influences at play inside and outside of government in constituting 4ir discourse. i suggested that 4ir’s discursive construction is an example of networked governance processes that operate from the international to the local government sphere and that this involved a range of policy actors, institutions, and business-related outfits. the result is the formation of an overall 4ir governance dispositif that has entered the micro-governance terrains of specific departments. i showed how 4ir discourse has been taken up in differentiated ways in the different education departments, depending on their internal policy and political priorities. i argued that 4ir as educational discourse has real effects in public life in respect of the way it has come to impact on the work of institutions. it has had an important formative impact on institutional research and innovation efforts, teaching programmes, and curriculum adaptation. moving from the discursive to the concrete impact of 4ir, in the next section i present an account of the impact of 4ir on society and the economy, with implications for education in the context of rising unemployment caused by technological innovation. 14 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 discourse as real: implications of 4ir for society, the economy, and education since 2015 the 4ir discourse has entered the unequal social and educational circumstances of south africa. initially, it lodged imperceptibly in public policy discourse. during the last two years 4ir discourse has had a formative (real) impact on educational governance via policy initiatives and institutional practices. in this section, i discuss some aspects of the impact of 4ir on society and the economy and its educational dimensions. i argue that the 4ir-related educational reforms are characterised by the rise of what young and muller (2010) label future 2 genericism. this refers to the clamour for a focus on generic skills to underpin a 4irresponsive curriculum and pedagogic platform. emerging from around 2000, the distinctiveness of 4ir compared to earlier industrial revolutions, is the rapid increase in the operating speed that now characterises technologically connected developments. schwab explained that 4ir “is evolving exponentially rather than along a linear path . . . disrupting almost every industry in every country [and] herald[ing] the transformation of entire systems of production, management and governance” (2015, p. 1). suggesting a way to understand the workings of the current age, bessant (2018) argued that what we are living through can be regarded as the onset of a techno-axial age. she explained that “far-reaching and fundamental changes are now underway . . . [and] we are witnessing the end of the order of life and ways of being human” (p. 14). the techno-axial age is based on a cognitive revolution “in the ways human life and activities like productive work, technical activity and play are organised, practised and reproduced” (p. 44). it involves rearranged interactions between humans and technology, thereby changing what it means to be human. bessant (2018) suggested that digital technologies are the “new interface between mind and world” restructuring the memory systems of the brain, memory and retrieval systems, and human consciousness (p. 44). these changes involve how we now enact human action at a distance and the ways in which we are severing longstanding links between human consciousness, labour, and action. these changes affect the basic patterns of the social relations that define our human experience and existence. the traditional nexus between work, labour, and income are being severed. this led bessant to ask what the future of human work would be in the emerging economy, and importantly, how humans would secure their livelihoods. changing labour markets and the nature of available work play an important role in understanding 4ir related educational processes. those who write on 4ir and education agree that central to 4ir is the existence of computing capacity that can store massive amounts of data, which, in turn, ignites deep machine learning as the central motor of systems development (see gleeson, 2018; penrose, 2018; peters & jandric, 2019). the term cyber-physical systems (cps) was coined to describe the “physical and engineered systems whose operations are monitored, coordinated, controlled and integrated by a computing core” (rajkumaret al., 2010, p. 731). cps presages the existence of a single global technical system that, according to peters and jandric (2019), interlocks all fataar: the emergence of an education policy dispositif in south africa 15 corners of the globe into a single planetary system. an integrated cps means that technologically based disruption has become the order of the day. the disruptive effects on the economy and labour market have profound implications for the nature of jobs, unemployment, and the demands for new skills. understanding the nature of labour demand is essential for an accurate depiction of the capitalising logics of 4ir, its productive dynamics and the critical questions that this raises for education. boateng (2008) described the capitalist mode of production that we are living in as a form of cognitive capitalism with reference to the centrality of forms of knowledge based on what he calls algorithmic reason that is fuelling the current political economy. immaterial or cognitive labour, as opposed to material manual labour, is touted as central to the digital economy, which signals significant shifts in the economy involving technological disruption and unemployment. job loss statistics in south africa (see statistics south africa, 2019) show that it is in the repetitive white-collar sector, in finances, banking, law, and accounting that jobs have been shed over the last few years. schwab explained that “in the future, talent, more than capital, will represent the critical factor of production. this will give rise to a job market increasingly segregated into ‘low-skill/low-pay’ and ‘high-skill/high-pay’ segments” (2015, p. 3). sutherland (2020) argued that the automation of work and the loss of jobs are central concerns of 4ir. he quotes from the 2018 mckinsey global institute report that forecasts a rise in job demand for workers with advanced technological skills. this position is corroborated by frey and osborne whose future skills type analysis shows that new work will require a higher degree of cognitive ability, with a corresponding decline in demand for workers with low cognitive skills (2015, p. 89). this is a particularly difficult challenge in a country such as south africa, which has a persistently low-level skills regime and a poorly functioning human resource development sector (see allais 2013). based on the rise of blockchain, artificial intelligence, 3d printing, and the internet of things, job opportunities have emerged in the creative knowledge and data application industries. these industries require integrated multidisciplinary educational platforms based on new combinations of disciplines, parts of disciplines, programmes, and qualifications. computational thinking, data processing, and combinations of work-related knowledge offerings are presented as critical to such an educational platform. following peters and jandric (2019), the critical question raised by 4ir turns on the role and function of education in confronting technological unemployment. these scholars pose this question dramatically to alert us to the ways in which the purposes of education are being re-arranged as a result of the broken covenant between education and jobs. in other words, they force us to think about the public purposes of education in the light of the collapse of a positive correlation between education and employment in the context of 4ir. this consideration must be processed in the south african context where responsiveness to the 4ir imperative has to take into account the prevailing inequality and the existing lack of functionality and quality across the education system. 16 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 4ir education architectures and their curriculum modalities in this final section of the article i discuss some of the main 4ir-related educational reform initiatives that have emerged during recent times. i provide a critical reading of how these reforms have begun to impact on the education architectures of institutions. i also offer a consideration of what can be regarded as the primary curriculum and pedagogical dimensions of 4ir. i argue that the acquisition of creative skills as the foundation of a 4ir education system plays a formative role in defining the nature of the curriculum. such a position is motivated by the need to have education respond to job losses and labour market demand. 4ir-based reforms place generic skills at the centre of educational development, which, i argue, holds potentially pernicious consequences, especially for developing countries such as south africa. 4ir education advocate, bryan penrose (2018) offers a compelling account of the purposes of education in adjusting to 4ir. focusing on an economic rationale for educational reform and the skills demands of the workplace, he has explained that on strictly economic terms, students who are capable of creative insights, collaborating in diverse realms, and navigating through global cultural differences, will be at an advantage in a workplace . . . [this makes it necessary to] develop more interactive forms of pedagogy at all levels and to embrace a curriculum that stresses perspectives from multidisciplinary and cultural perspectives over static swathes of disciplinary ‘content.’ (p. 225) this position by penrose gives pride of place to the acquisition of creative skills, interactive pedagogies, and multidisciplinary perspectives, which would replace a focus on the acquisition and transfer of disciplinary content. gleeson elaborated on this perspective by explaining that “metacognition is important . . . whatever combination [of multiple knowledge perspectives] you apply . . . the bottom line is that creativity is key” (2018, p. 7). essential to such a curriculum perspective is responsiveness to the accelerating pace of technological change. what is required is a drastic reconsideration of the curriculum to enable students to comprehend the role and function of technologies, adapt to them and “be able to thoughtfully analyse and predict the evolution of networked systems of technology, the environment and socio-political systems” (gleeson, 2018, p. 224). emphasising the acquisition of generic skills, 4ir advocates (see aoun, 2017; gleeson, 2018) argue that more than any particular content area, a curriculum needs to help students develop the capacity for ethical reasoning, and for awareness of societal and human impacts. students have to be able to comprehend the impact of 4ir technologies on people, the economy, and the environment, so that they are trained not only to increase our material prosperity but also to improve our social and cultural fabric. penrose (2018) presented such a vision in rousing terms by suggesting that education has to adopt and scale-up “new 4ir forms of education rapidly to ensure the sustainability of our environment and economy” (p. 225). such a view is fataar: the emergence of an education policy dispositif in south africa 17 corroborated by gleeson (2018), who argued that education has a pivotal role to play in shaping the societal transitions necessary to adjust to the 4ir. that such a utilitarian view has come to dominate significant aspects of our reform imaginary is the outcome of broader struggles over symbolic domination in society and education. the dominant curriculum and pedagogic modes that are adopted in education institutions are reflective of these broader struggles. the dominance of 4ir rationales and reform initiatives is facilitated by a range of systemic reforms aimed at adapting existing education architectures, which, according to gleeson (2018), were designed to meet the needs of past industrial revolutions. these systems have to be reformed to meet the needs of the automation economy. in relation to the higher and vocational education sector, a key systems recommendation of 4ir is the idea of what can be thought of as an open-loop education platform on which students are able to combine building their educational foundations and blending their skills acquisition over their early adult careers. blending their on-campus learning with experiences in the workplace is central to such a platform. students can enter and exit the workplace and various real-life situations and return to campus with experience of practice. newer forms of assessment would be a requirement for open-loop education. in addition to connecting education to work, 4ir education emphasises the need for students to update their content and skills to match the rapid tempo of scientific and technological advances (penrose, 2018). lifelong learning is regarded as crucial for keeping employees’ skills updated to meet the requirements of the labour market. the use of technology is regarded as central to the 4ir education platform. icts are key in the delivery of courses. in addition to massive open online courses (moocs) and blended learning, a number of other ict initiatives have emerged to deliver course learning. some of the most prominent are the use of artificial intelligence (ai) in teaching, e-learning technologies for simulation and practical demonstration, on-line information education environments, flipped classrooms, and on-line tutoring. reform in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) has received prominence. it is envisaged that the stem curriculum be adapted to combine the primary sciences of biology, chemistry, and physics with emerging areas of genomics, data science, ai, robotics, and nanomaterials. new courses in life science, engineering, and chemistry would, for example, be designed in combination with applied fields related to the application of emerging technologies. bioengineering and green chemistry are regarded as examples of degree programmes that are located at the interface of various combinations of disciplines and technological applications in order to target the development of innovative research, technologies and skills for resolving health challenges and confronting disease. 4ir advocates are calling for new frameworks to be developed to enable vocational education to respond to the volatility and complexity of work. the sector would have to shift from a preoccupation with routine skills to developing “habits of mind and capacity for creativity within workers at all levels” (penrose, 2018, p. 202). the integration of 4ir technologies is 18 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 regarded as important for developing creative skill sets among students. in response to the changing nature of work, which now requires shorter and more flexible work assignments, a range of shorter training courses should be made available to update workers’ skills and reeducate them during times of unemployment. these courses would aim to keep workers integrated into the changing workplace. an open-loop education is responsive to newer modes of learning to renew skills. it is based on what are described as stackable micro-credentials that students could acquire over the duration of their studies, which they would pursue while moving in and out of education and the workplace. a combination of asynchronous online learning, synchronous face-to-face learning environments involving more than one institution, and workplace learning would be key to 4ir education platforms. key to the viability of such a platform is the accreditation of courses across different educational formats. the argument is that accreditation of hybrid programmes based on the use of different formats would be facilitated by a flexible qualifications framework able to accredit the accumulation of micro-credits across these different formats in an open system of learning. increasingly, therefore, flexible modes of delivery and hybrid programmes delivered by a mix of institutional and workplace arrangements are becoming the hallmark of 4ir-related educational platforms. this leads me to the kernel of my argument with respect to the triumph of a generic skills emphasis in 4ir curriculum and pedagogy. this emphasis is in reference to a curriculum orientation that favours the logic of the acquisition of generic 4ir-related creative skills as the overriding imperative. if the dominant purpose of education is presented as a response to technological unemployment by providing skills acquisition, then it stands to reason that a generic skills orientation is a logical curriculum and pedagogical response. such a view has arisen, as argued earlier, on the basis of a human capital theory view of education that favours skills acquisition as the panacea for employability and economic development. as i show below, a generic skills focus places the emphasis on learners’ acquisition of 4ir skills, while backgrounding the knowledge to be taught and learnt. such a view is borne out by the educational literature on 4ir. genericism has been with us for more than 30 years. it has, however, accelerated rapidly during the last decade. emphasis on generic skills has quickly become a core foundation of education policy, curriculum, and pedagogy. two universities in different parts of the world, northeastern university in boston, usa, and taylor’s university in malaysia, are examples of two institutions with an explicit 4ir institutional focus on generic skills acquisition. joseph aoun, the president of northeastern university, explained “that to stay relevant in the new economic reality, higher education needs dramatic realignment” (2017, p. xii). the university’s curriculum is explicitly organised to address the educational challenges associated with employment and skills in the 4ir. its formal institutional curriculum is an example of an explicit generic skills orientation and pedagogical approach. the university has designed what it claims is a unique human education. labelled humanics, the curriculum is based on experiential and lifelong learning, use of digital technologies, and workplace learning. aouan’s (2017) book describes the university’s explicit focus on the acquisition of three types of literacy and four types of skill. fataar: the emergence of an education policy dispositif in south africa 19 technological, data, and human literacies are touted as the crucial new literacies that students have to acquire during their learning. and regarding higher-order generic skills and capacities, the acquisition of critical thinking, systems thinking, entrepreneurship, and cultural agility are privileged. similar to northeastern university’s generic skills focus, taylor’s university believes that in the face of much disruption in the fourth industrial revolution, the rapid changes in the workplace demand that university graduates exhibit competencies beyond discipline-specific knowledge. the skills that are important are lifelong learning, critical thinking, social intelligence, problem solving, resilience, and adaptability. taylor’s university proceeded to organise its entire curriculum offering to “ensure learners know, develop and culminate these skills upon graduation” (nair, 2020, p. 1). the university aims to produce competent graduates who “possess transferable or portable skills instead of only ‘informed graduates’” (p. 2). northeastern university uses multiple tools to teach with the emphasis on literacies and skills, while avoiding an overemphasis on content. this involves thematic study across disciplines based on hands-on project-based learning and real-world connections. emphasising the importance of active student learning, taylor’s university has developed what it calls a teach less learn more pedagogical approach. this refers to an attempt to accord quality time in the classroom for interaction, opportunities for expression, and developing critical skills. such an approach eschews a preponderance of “face to face teaching and rote learning, repetitive tests, and following prescribed answers and set formulae.” the aim of this approach is to reduce the emphasis on “vast specific knowledge and repetitive tests” (p. 4) and have this replaced by students engaging in active and interactive learning. such a student-centred learning approach was described by biesta (2006) as central to the socalled learnification of education that we have been experiencing since the 1990s. learnification refers to student-centred learning facilitated by digital and online formats as the dominant pedagogical mode. biesta argued that such a view of learning sidelines teaching and teachers, is based on an input-output model, and shifts the pedagogical focus away from the complexity involved in knowledge and skills transfer and acquisition. as preferred pedagogical mode, learnification combines with a focus on generic skills acquisition as the defining features of what young and muller (2010) labelled a future 2 curricular orientation. such an orientation is based on what they call an over-socialised concept of knowledge, a steady weakening of knowledge boundaries, and the de-differentiation of knowledge and institutions. the key point for our discussion is that a future 2 orientation places emphasis on generic outcomes rather than inputs. they explain that future 2 emphasises learner-directed education, the introduction of digital technologies, and the deprofessionalisation of teaching. consonant with 4ir curriculum formats, the future 2 approach emphasises disciplinary integration, facilitative learning pedagogies and, importantly, the stipulation of generic skill outcomes. 20 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 the two universities that i discuss above have an institutional focus on a generic skills-based 4ir curriculum. they are examples of an attempt by 4ir educational platforms to respond to the need to produce highly skilled cognitive labour to work in the 4ir economy. the focus on generic skills, however, fails to account for the necessity of centring knowledge and knowledge boundaries in the curriculum. in contrast, young and muller (2010) have explained the role of knowledge boundaries in the acquisition of knowledge and skills. they argued that there is an “intimate link between knowledge form and curriculum organisation” (p. 20). the sequencing, pacing, and hierarchical organisation of concepts in any curriculum are dependent on an acute understanding of the knowledge of old and new subjects, modules, or courses. this also applies to the newer multidisciplinary combinations propagated by courses and modules responsive to 4ir. the knowledge structure of curriculum combinations forms an important part of their conceptual scaffolding logic, without which conceptual learning cannot take place. the focus of the 4ir curriculum is to emphasise generic skills and student learning, and its de-emphasis of disciplinary learning, concepts, and content knowledge means it falls into the trap of what maton (2014) has called knowledge blindness. such blindness is a reference to the absence of knowledge in the structuring of the curriculum. 4ir’s future 2 type genericism is characterised by skills-based priorities that neglect the acquisition of knowledge and concepts, with the result that the curriculum becomes “conceptually under-stipulated” (young & muller, 2010, p. 22). the critique of future 2 genericism lies in the inability of such a curriculum to provide students access to the conceptual knowledge upon which the acquisition of knowledge and skills depends. in an educationally unequal country like south africa, which does not have a quality system of general education, the move to a curriculum that emphasises generic skills would mean that the majority of its students would not be in a position to obtain access to the curriculum knowledge that would enable them to establish sustainable livelihoods in a complex world and obtain the necessary cognitive skills for employability in the 4ir labour market. conclusion in the first section of this article, i presented a discussion of how 4ir has come to settle on the educational discursive terrain and has established its prominence based on a human capital view of education. in the second section, i focused on the discursive construction of educational governance and its associated policy prescriptions in various parts of government. i argued that the emergence of a policy dispositif shaped the way 4ir became ensconced in educational governance, with implications for governmental policy. moving beyond the discursive imprinting of 4ir and the framing of educational governance in the country, in the third and fourth sections i presented the argument that 4ir has had a formative societal, economic, and educational impact. it is, for example, impacting on government education policy and curriculum as well as on curriculum and pedagogical practices at institutions. fataar: the emergence of an education policy dispositif in south africa 21 the changing profile of the economy and the labour market is in large part the result of the impact of disruptive digital technologies. the rapid increases in job losses in the economy’s repetitive work sectors, on the one hand, and the availability of jobs, especially in the creative sector, on the other, have impacted on the education sector’s response to unemployment. education in the context of 4ir has been adapting to the spectre of the rapid increase in unemployment. education in the 4ir is being built on a range of systemic architectural reforms that are instantiating open-loop platforms for accumulating education credits over a flexible longer-term duration. in such a situation, students would be able to build up their education programmes in more than one institution, spend periods in workplace learning, and engage in a combination of synchronous and online asynchronous learning. these types of architectures are now rapidly emerging in educational institutions, changing the way education is accessed and experienced. in the last section of the article, i presented the view that the 4ir favours a curriculum logic that is founded on the triumph of generic skills acquisition acquired via student-centred pedagogies. i suggested that such a view discounts the role of knowledge, concepts and teaching in the acquisition of bodies of knowledge and skills, and i suggested that such a view, therefore, represents an inadequate account of a curriculum for sustainable and productive living. my normative engagement with the 4ir is based on the realities associated with its impact on society and education. i eschew a politics of refusal that fails to grapple with how education is currently being re-arranged by technological disruption. this article is based on a critical interrogative stance aimed at understanding the social, economic, and educational dimensions associated with 4ir. such an attitude is informed by the need for research-based understanding of the impact of 4ir processes on educational functioning. we have to research the ways in which 4ir impacts on development in science, technology, and innovation. research should also be pursued on the adoption of curricula and pedagogies across the wide range of education institutions. we should attempt to understand whether students are prevented from gaining equitable access to the knowledge and skills necessary for their epistemic becoming. the terms on which we should harness the positive dimensions of 4ir, or resist its worst consequences, especially in the context of educationally unequal countries, remain subject to ongoing debate, dialogue, and struggle. acknowledgement i thank prof eugene cloete, vice-rector: research, innovation and postgraduate studies, stellenbosch university, for providing funding for the project on which this article is based. references allais, s. 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(2015). the fourth industrial revolution: what it means and how to respond. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-what-itmeans-and-how-to-respond/ statistics south africa. (2019). 28,000 job losses in the formal sector third quarter of 2019. department of statistics. http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=12842 sutherland, e. (2020) the fourth industrial revolution – the case of south africa. politikon, 47(2), 233–252. world economic forum. (2016). future of jobs: employment, skills and workforce strategy for the fourth industrial revolution. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/wef_future_of_jobs.pdf young, m., & muller, j. (2010). three education scenarios for the future: lessons from the sociology of knowledge. european journal of education, 45(1), 11–24. microsoft word biss80 full issue.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 80, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i80a05 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x reflecting on bed students’ experiences of unfamiliar school contexts during school-based learning: a proposition for transformative learning deidre geduld head of department: primary school education foundation phase, faculty of education, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa deidre.geduld@mandela.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6175-0508 heloise sathorar head of department: secondary school education – senior phase, further education and training phase and post graduate certificate in education, faculty of education, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa heloise.sathorar@mandela.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4947-0885 muki moeng executive dean, faculty of education, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa muki.moeng@mandela.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9805-766x (received: 13 february 2020; accepted: 16 september 2020) abstract as critical teacher educators, we advocate the transformational potential of school-based learning (sbl). changing practice teaching contexts to accommodate unfamiliar sbl environments for student teachers offers them an excellent opportunity to develop critical skills as transformative intellectuals and agents of change. yet anxiety about unfamiliar placements often prevents them from making the most of potential learning experiences. in this paper, we generated data via world café conversations in which final-year bachelor of education (bed) student teachers described their experiences of operating in an unfamiliar schooling context. the findings suggest that changing the sbl context can enable transformative learning experiences using critical pedagogy principles. student teachers reported that they not only developed classroom skills, knowledge, confidence, and a deeper appreciation of learning opportunities through changing practice teaching contexts, but that they also gained a new understanding of what teacher transformative learning involves. keywords: school-based learning, critical pedagogy, transformative learning 88 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 introduction preparing student teachers for alternative contexts within and between schools is a growing focus in teacher education not only in south africa, but worldwide. exposing student teachers to alternative contexts during school-based learning (sbl) still poses serious challenges to teacher education (botha & baxen, 2018). south africa is faced with many contradictions that continue to plague us more than two decades after our first democratic elections. these contradictions continue to prevail in the schooling system with an everwidening gap that divides rich and poor, black and white, privileged and underprivileged in our schools whose purpose it is to serve society. teacher education should focus on preparing student teachers to “challenge creatively . . . concepts of diversity which transcend respect for difference and confront power and inequality” (botha & baxen, 2018, p. 448). student teachers need to be prepared to be agents of change and transformative intellectuals (sathorar & geduld, 2019). they need to close the ever-present gap between policy ideals of equality and the reality on the ground. we argue that student teachers must be prepared to teach in the range of different schools in south africa (sa), some of which operate without textbooks, computers, internet, and basic items such as electricity, water, and sufficient desks. schools in sa require resilient teachers who are courageous enough to risk, explore, experiment, learn, and change the challenging conditions experienced by many schools (geduld & sathorar, 2016). this paper was inspired by a broader faculty of education re-curriculation process through which sbl was reconceptualised to consider the contexts in which students are placed for their teaching practice. the faculty decided to place students in more diverse school contexts, including those most unfamiliar in terms of their own schooling, in order to encourage them to become agents of change and have a better understanding of transformative learning. this was a purposeful, deliberate, and considered approach to expose students to epistemological dilemmas that would help them create links between theory and practice while developing political consciousness that sensitised them to issues of equity, justice, and social inclusion (favish et al., 2012). historically, students have tended to choose practice teaching placements in contexts similar those in which they themselves were schooled. against this background, this paper offers an illustrative case of how sbl can offer transformative learning opportunities via different school and classroom contexts. problem statement sbl constitutes a major component of the teacher education curriculum. through this exposure, student teachers encounter authentic teaching and learning experiences upon which they are expected to critically reflect (lam et al., 2007). sbl provides an opportunity for student teachers to relate their theoretical knowledge to real classroom practice (shumba et al., 2016). according to the minimum requirements for teacher education qualifications (mrteq), student teachers are expected to learn from, learn about, and learn in practice (department of higher education and training [dhet], 2015). furthermore, such encounters provide fertile ground for the interplay between different types of knowledge and geduld et al.: reflecting on bed students’ experiences . . . 89 practices that can enable student teachers to work flexibly and effectively in a variety of contexts (dhet, 2015). despite the introduction of transformative school policies and various attempts to improve the south african schooling system, structural and systemic inequalities persist in south african schools. according to the schools act of 1996, the new schooling system’s intention was to try to eradicate the inequalities of the past by redressing past injustices and by encouraging democratic citizenship (department of education, 1996). even though more and more south african classrooms reflect the diversity of the south african community, most township schools and some ex-model c schools still reflect the structural and cultural conditions of the past (spaull, 2019). this reality can be a huge hurdle for student teachers to cross when they have to choose schools for their sbl placements. the inequality and disparity in the schooling system encourages student teachers to choose to go to schools that they know, and where they feel comfortable. they select well-resourced schools or schooling contexts that are known to them, and where they believe that they will be supported. they make this selection based on inherent assumptions and unfounded beliefs about alternative school contexts (ravitch, 2020). this creates a vicious cycle of wellresourced schools being advantaged at the cost of under-resourced schools, and further perpetuates the inequalities in the system. in this crisis of ever-increasing inequality in the schooling system, student teachers must be prepared to be courageous and to risk, explore, and experiment to bring about social change. exposing student teachers to different schooling contexts will encourage the development of an inquiry-based mindset that is adaptive, generative, and compassionate. theoretical orientation critical pedagogy is informed by critical theory (freire, 1970, 1996; giroux, 1988; mclaren, 2003). both critical theory and critical pedagogy are concerned with countering oppressive powers and resisting dominant cultures and institutions (nouri & sajjadi, 2014). however, critical pedagogy focuses specifically on education and seeks to provide a response to the oppressive power relations and inequalities existing in many educational institutions (keesing-styles, 2003). according to biesta (1998), the liberatory interest of critical pedagogy encourages a critical analysis of educational practices and theories in order to highlight how they often perpetuate inequalities. critical pedagogy can, through critical reflexivity, provide opportunity to gain a better understanding of one’s lived experiences. exposing student teachers to different schooling contexts creates an opportunity to analyse the oppressive powers in teacher education, particularly regarding teaching practices that contribute to the inequalities that exist and continue to increase in the schooling system. it also creates an opportunity for student teachers to examine their own inherent assumptions through a critical lens that helps them to engage, understand, and relate to the alternative context. 90 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 shor (1992) described critical pedagogy as a student-centred programme that promotes multicultural democracy in schools and society and that views individual growth as the result of active cooperation between the self and society. thus, critical pedagogy links personal growth to public life by developing strong skills of inquiry that are supported by academic knowledge concerned with societal power relations and inequalities. teacher educators thus, need to facilitate a process through which students can identify oppressive actions and then encourage them to question dominating ideologies in order to engage them in liberatory activities on a personal as well as a collective level (riasati & mollaei, 2012). encouraging student teachers to do their sbl in an unfamiliar context allows them to problematise dominant educational and social arrangements, and contributes to the development of multicultural democracy in schools and society at large. critical pedagogy covers a broad spectrum of issues but for this paper, we focus on teachers being transformative intellectuals and contributing to social transformation. as pointed out by mclaren (1998), critical pedagogues agree that their aim is to provide liberation for the powerless and to pursue transformation by eradicating inequalities and injustices. thus, according to foley, the goal of critical pedagogy is not only to expose both the forces of, and the tactics used by dominant groups aiming to marginalize others, but also to develop the ability in less powerful groups to create a counter discourse that may lead to the transformation of master narratives into narratives that are multicultural and multi-vocal. (2007, p. 6) similarly, aliakbari and faraji (2011) postulated that the major goals of critical pedagogy reside in critical consciousness raising and the rejection of all oppressive actions against people. they further posited that critical pedagogy aims to support oppressed people and to free them from being mere objects of education so they can become subjects of their own learning and liberation. fitzpatrick corroborated that view; for him, the purpose of critical pedagogy was to engage learners in the act of “what freire calls conscientization,” which can be defined as “learning to perceive social, political and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality” (2013, p. 124). furthermore, nagda et al. (2003) postulated that educational efforts informed by a critical approach acknowledge that the challenge in educating for transformation involves more than the instilling of knowledge; it requires accompanying action. it thus “requires an on-going process of changing the environmental, cognitive and pedagogical contexts in which teaching and learning occur” (nagda et al., 2003, p. 167). in this paper, we propose action in line with key notions of critical pedagogy by disrupting views of the dominant discourse; student teachers are now required to do part of their sbl in a context not known to them in order to expand their frame of reference beyond the technical aspects of lesson plans. a case for transformative learning according to soudien (2010), there are basically two main approaches to the question: “what is transformation?” the first approach sees transformation as a demographic intervention geduld et al.: reflecting on bed students’ experiences . . . 91 around the imbalances of race, class, gender, and language; the second argues that it is about the nature of privilege and power. the first approach focuses on representation, and the second approach argues that transformation is an ideological process that has to engage with domination and its attendant forces and discourses. both these approaches resonate with the authors, but the second approach informs the writing of this paper. thus, transformation in this paper refers to the distribution of political and economic power in society and the processes through which social inclusion and exclusion are affected. in order to bring about transformation, a process of transformative learning is proposed. mezirow’s (1991) transformative learning theory is linked to critical pedagogy through its aim of bringing about change. he claimed that the theory explains how students make sense of their experience by revealing how social and other structures influence the way they construe that experience; and by showing how the dynamics involved in modifying meaning can undergo change when students find them to be dysfunctional (mezirow, 1991). thus, transformative learning is a process that has as its aim, the changing of one’s frame of reference and, as such, it can bring about changes in perceptions and assumptions (kress, 2011; mezirow, 1997). christie et al. (2015) concurred that the aim of transformative learning is to help individuals challenge the current assumptions on which they act and, if these are found wanting, to change them. this would involve both a mental and a behavioural shift. in his transformative learning theory, mezirow (1991) argued that every individual has a particular view of the world. this view may or may not be well-articulated but is usually based on a set of paradigmatic assumptions that are derived from the individual’s upbringing, life experience, culture, and education. he further claimed that individuals have difficulty in changing worldviews that have become unconscious frames of reference created by habits of the mind. these points of view can become so ingrained that it takes a powerful human catalyst, a forceful argument, or what he called a disorienting dilemma to shake them (mezirow, 1991, 1997). furthermore, it appears that transformative learning is underpinned by conscientisation (christie et al., 2015; kitchenham, 2008) derived from critical reflections of current reality. therefore, transformative learning involves critically reflecting on one’s perceptions and assumptions with the aim of rethinking reality in order to establish change within the self or, as dirkx (1998, p. 2) put it, by ensuring “consciousness raising.” thus, it seems that the aim of transformative learning is to promote and influence personal change by reviewing and questioning current beliefs and worldviews (kerr, 2014). kitchenham (2008) and christie et al. (2015) reflected on mezirow’s (1991, 1997) ten steps that can serve as a guide to enhance the transformative learning process. these steps do not have to be completed in a linear manner, nor do all the steps have to be completed. the steps are as follows: disorienting dilemma, self-examination, sense of alienation, relating discontent to others, explaining options of new behaviour, building confidence in new ways, planning a course of action, knowledge to implement plans, experimenting with new roles, and reintegration. four of kitchenham’s variations of the steps that were of particular relevance to our changing sbl context process were: “being confronted with a disorienting 92 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 dilemma,” “embarking on a process of self-examination (that could be accompanied) with feelings of guilt or shame,” “a critical assessment of epistemic, socio-cultural or psychic assumptions,” and “the recognition that your discontent and the process of transformation are shared and that others have negotiated a similar change” (2008, p. 105). we presented our students with a disorienting dilemma when we required them to change schools midway during their sbl in their final year. they were required to go to an unfamiliar school context. this caused resistance and several students baulked at the requirement. hence, we had to assist students—through discussion and questioning—to embark on self-examination in order to discover why they were not willing to change sbl contexts. students had to identify and acknowledge the epistemic, sociocultural, and psychic assumptions they had about the unknown contexts. we highlighted the fact that they were not alone in this process by getting students to share their realities about their familiar contexts with their peers. to harvest the benefits of transformative learning, we engaged our students in a process of reflection and dialogue. this process assisted students in exploring the depth and breadth of their perceptions and assumptions relating to the changes in school context they had experienced. moreover, they reflected on what was required of them in order to make the change in context a transformative learning experience. through this dialogue, students were allowed to articulate their thoughts about the situations they experienced, and were able to reflect on their concerns after they heard from peers who came from those different contexts. this allowed them to reconsider their previous assumptions and so achieve greater clarity for themselves (christie et al., 2015; mezirow, 1997). the process of changing sbl contexts and engaging in a transformative learning process allowed student teachers to gain insight into alternative schooling contexts as well as into what is expected of a transformative intellectual. giroux (1983), habermas (1981), and freire (1970) defined teachers as transformative intellectuals by emphasising the role they play in the mediation of teaching and learning. freire (1970) further highlighted the importance of teachers in bringing about social change; they should make the pedagogical more political and the political more pedagogical. teacher educators need to expose the reproductive role of education and to instil faith in student teachers to overcome the economic, social, and political struggle and to educate and humanise themselves as part of that struggle (fien, 1993). it is thus imperative that teacher educators create opportunities for student teachers to participate in the learning process by making knowledge problematic, and making the struggle for a better world a conscious educational goal (fien, 1993). this confirms the reason we required student teachers to teach in unfamiliar contexts. research methodology this qualitative study examines the experiences of bed fourth-year student teachers in an unfamiliar school context by referring to critical pedagogy principles through their implementation in mezirow’s (1991) transformative learning steps as research framework. in geduld et al.: reflecting on bed students’ experiences . . . 93 particular, the four transformative learning steps described by kitchenham (2008) as discussed above were used as a critical lens through which the student teachers’ experiences were explored. the faculty of education programmes are offered across two campuses, namely, missionvale campus and south campus. as part of a faculty-wide research-based project on sbl, data was collected from all bed undergraduate fourth-year students through reflective meetings in their respective educational phases. a total of 315 students were invited to these sessions. in this paper, we focus on the data gathered from the bed foundation phase (fp) and bed, further education and training (fet) students because the placement of students from these phases was more diverse with regard to context. the diverse placements in these phases are informed by the mother tongue education requirement in fp and the subject-specific specialisations in the fet phase. the bed intermediate phase did not form part of the research study. fifty-five of the 70 invited fp students, and 43 of the 80 invited fet students attended the respective sessions. attendance was voluntary. thus, the data that informed this paper was collected during the fp and fet meetings, and the participants were the 55 fp and 43 fet students who attended the respective meetings. the world café (http://www.theworldcafe.com/) conversation technique was used to elicit student input regarding their experiences of changing schooling contexts for sbl. this allowed opportunities for all the participants to contribute to the pertinent issues under discussion in smaller groups that would subsequently report back to the bigger group. according to brown and isaacs (2007), the world café conversation strategy is a simple but powerful conversation process that promotes constructive dialogue in groups of all sizes. it allows for conversations to be linked and to build on each other as participants move between groups. moreover, it encourages the cross-pollination of ideas and creates opportunities for participants to discover new insights. furthermore, the world café conversation technique promotes an understanding of participants’ perspectives and can even prompt the reexamination of one’s own beliefs, thereby providing deep learning opportunities for participants (brown & david, 2005). according to brown and isaacs (2007), the world café strategy takes place in the following way: there should be the same number of tables as the number of questions that you would like to discuss. a host should be identified to facilitate and record the discussion at each of the tables. the host will remain at the table when fellow participants move to a different table; this host will then welcome new groups and share the ideas that were contributed by the members of the previous group. participants can join any table discussion to start off with, and will move to different tables after a set time has elapsed. a facilitator will manage the movements between discussion tables and ensure that participants visit all the tables during the process. after the rotation process to the different tables has been completed, the hosts from each table will provide a synopsis of the ideas shared at their table to the whole group. the facilitator allows time for clarification questions and additional input after every host has presented their synopsis. 94 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 we had five discussion questions that assisted us in gathering data to respond to the main research question: “how can exposing student teachers to alternative schooling contexts during sbl contribute to transformative learning?” the five discussion questions were as follows: 1. why did you initially resist the change in schooling contexts for sbl, or why do you think your peers resisted the change in schooling contexts? 2. what made you (students) anxious about changing schooling contexts? 3. what were your perceptions of the alternative schooling contexts where you were placed? 4. what was your best learning experience while doing sbl in the alternative context? 5. how can we use your learning experience during the changing of schooling context to strengthen our sbl module? the data collected during the respective meetings was recorded on newsprint and subsequently typed up. the researchers facilitated the process during the meetings. this research study forms part of a larger faculty wide project regarding sbl. ethical approval for the overarching project was attained from the relevant authority at the university where the study was conducted. ethical guidelines as prescribed by the ethics committee were followed. the data was managed using ethical principles. the authors are co-owners of the data. a digital repository where the data was saved was created and the authors were able to access the data with a password. as stated earlier in this research paper, the fact that the study only focused on data collected from two of the three undergraduate bed groups (for reasons stated above) at one university suggests that its findings may not be generalised to other similar contexts. although the findings may not be generalised, they may contribute towards a better understanding of student teacher experiences in alternative sbl contexts. presentation and discussion of data the analysis of the data set demonstrates that all is not lost in the south african basic education system. an analysis of the data that was gathered suggests that the fostering of transformative learning as a principle of critical pedagogy in teacher education is feasible. sbl experiences as prescribed by the mrteq (dhet, 2015) can play a purposeful role in facilitating transformative learning (sathorar & geduld, 2018). according to mountford (2005), the education of student teachers stretches far beyond knowledge and skills acquisition, for example, the extent of their biases and assumptions must be recognised and, if necessary, challenged during their teacher preparation programmes. this view was shared by posner et al. (cited in boling, 2007), who argued that it is the responsibility of faculties of education to introduce new concepts and ideas in ways that create cognitive dissonance and, where necessary, transform the images, assumptions, and beliefs that their students hold. below, is an exposition of the data collected with reference to kitchenham’s (2008) transformative learning steps. geduld et al.: reflecting on bed students’ experiences . . . 95 step 1: disorienting dilemma students should have a disorienting experience or unsettled situation. it will allow them to critically reappraise or evaluate their ways of knowing, thinking, and understanding. several student teachers in the the bed fp and fet programmes did not welcome the idea of a change in contexts for sbl during 2018. the innovative project was met with many challenges including a lack of student preparation, institutional constraints, and students and schools who resisted the suggested change. some student teachers felt that the mooted change in school context required them to move from the known to the unknown, and that moving into uncharted territory would deprive them of familiar references to draw on. many students angrily voiced objections about the changing schooling context, for example, one student said: i’m not going to the northern areas. these areas are known for gangsterism, high crime rates and drug trafficking. on the other hand, black students highlighted different objections, for example, i am not going to a school consisting of a white-only staff, and where the only black people at the school are either general workers or cleaners. the staff and learners will be prejudiced against me. thus, many student teachers, when confronted with the disorienting dilemma of having to change their schooling context for sbl purposes, refused to engage with the process. they mentioned fears of not being allowed to teach in the alternative context schools they were being placed in. one fet student highlighted: i am afraid that the teachers will not trust my ability . . . most of the times the teachers mention that they do not have time to waste because they have curriculum outcomes to meet and time is money. teachers that don’t know me will not allow me to teach under these circumstances. in response to students’ rejection of going to an alternative sbl context, the faculty unpacked suggestions as proposed by ladson-billings (2006) regarding how to equip and prepare to work in an unfamiliar context, namely, the first thing student teachers should do is educate themselves about both the local socioeconomic and political issues of their school community (e.g., school governing board policy, community events) and the larger socioeconomic and political issues (e.g., unemployment, health care, housing, cultural responsiveness, learner diversity) that impinged on their learners’ lives. we supported this by inviting student teachers from different contexts to share their experiences of living and being schooled in those contexts. student teachers who were placed in schools in these contexts were allowed to ask clarifying questions. student teachers were also encouraged to visit alternative school contexts to familiarise themselves with them before starting their sbl. mezirow (2000) proposed that for student teachers journeying on this road of transformative learning, opportunities to analyse their subjective experiences should challenge previously 96 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 perceived notions of relationships and interactions between their own agency (personal power) and external structures (externally imposed environments and influences). changing schooling context experiences afforded our student teachers the opportunity to become more aware and critical of the role of the broader community around them and of the systemic challenges facing schools. step 2: self-examination the purpose of critical pedagogy is to enrich students’ overall lives. in such an approach, students are given the chance to challenge their own and others’ accepted assumptions and to explore the relationship between their society and the content of their educational environment. critical pedagogy aims to help students be empowered, and to make them capable of achieving self-awareness and self-actualisation in order to transform their inappropriate conditions into something better (freire, 1984). being critical requires one to take action and to reflect on symbiotic relations in order to move nearer to authentic praxis (freire, 1996). the complexity of life and work cannot be summed up in the modules presented at university; student teachers need critical inquiry skills and real-life experiences. freire (2007) mentioned that his life experiences motivated him and that ignorance, illiteracy, and the silence culture are the outcomes of economic conditions and of social and political trends prevalent in society. from his perspective, the educational system is one of the main instruments of maintaining a culture of silence: one fp student elaborated as follows: i wasn’t prepared for the complexity of teaching. i was convinced that my childhood dream to become a foundation phase teacher would bring me closer to live my fairytale. i was not open to dialogue where i felt my assumptions were being challenged. i chose to remain silent and not communicate. i became so much aware of existing social injustices in the school community i found myself, through collaboration with my school community. student teachers’ capacity as teachers to observe, learn, reflect, and create new practices in changing contexts were improved as they were better able to contextualise because they were involved in a continuous process of becoming. an fet student teacher came to the following conclusion: for me, these last two terms were about self-growth and emotional development more than teaching. by emotional development, i do not mean in relation to teaching and my practices but, rather, that it was so much more than just learning how to teach or be a teacher. i learnt what it meant to truly see a learner for who they are and where they come from. i learnt the importance of understanding what makes each individual a person. the above feelings of personal growth were expressed by several students in both groups as the following student statement indicates: geduld et al.: reflecting on bed students’ experiences . . . 97 discovering the importance of knowing the learners in this alternative context, and understanding their background and how it at times manifests in the classroom and the learner’s behaviour, contributed to my development as a teacher. mezirow’s (1991) theory of transformative learning argued that through the processes of socialisation and acculturation, people construct meaningful perspectives that can act as perceptual filters through which new perspectives are mediated. the comment below confirms this. as a white fp student, i was scared to go to my alternative context school. i did not know what to expect from the school nor its community. all i knew about schools in these communities were how young ladies fall pregnant whilst still at school and the drug usage amongst scholars in these schools. also, how lazy the teachers are at these schools and how they are forever on some form of teacher strike. from my standpoint i thought, “why can’t they do what i am doing? they just need to work hard and concentrate on their schoolwork.” my previous mindset forced me to problematise my own upbringing in connection to marginalised communities and structural inequalities. my mentor lecturer and head of programme assisted me as i worked through my anxiety of changing my schooling context. according to mezirow (2000)—as well as freire and shor (1987)—student teachers, through developing a critical consciousness, learn to contest previously taken for granted “truths,” and find authentic meaning amongst the inauthenticities of ruling frameworks that have been held up as unquestionable truths. this is reflected in the following statement by one of the student teachers: i must say the school and its people received me as i am. i really don’t have to pretend to be someone i’m not. i’ve also learned important stuff . . . about understanding culture, social justice and the world. i used to be ignorant about so many issues affecting children’s lives. i just wanted to know how to teach. i was anxious to fill my teaching box with different teaching strategies. changing contexts infused student teachers with positivity via their interactions with schools and their mentor teachers. these interactions were facilitated in formal and informal discussions, during classroom discussions, and during break-time conversations. step 3: self-assessment according to lucas (2012), critical assessment is the ability to look beneath the surface to see what could influence the situation. this capability focuses a student’s attention on the root of a problem and transforms previously held perspectives on the matter. student teachers were encouraged to practice critical self–assessment and to discuss their perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes openly. this step was especially emphasised in active interactions with mentor teachers and engagements with their learners. this is encompassed in the following comment by one of our student teachers: 98 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 the simple understanding of what it means to see the person behind the eyes and show them that they are accepted. it was about laughing together and celebrating with your mentor teacher when the learners start to write their names and tell you the colours. it was about growth both personal and professional. student teachers felt that changing sbl contexts made them become very aware of the oppressive experiences that teachers and learners face in schools. they commented on how this impacted on teaching and learning—and especially on their own lives. they also became aware of the power and strengths in these teachers, for example, one of the student teachers stated that: a teacher is an activist. they don’t limit their role to the classroom, but also consider those factors outside the classroom which affect their learners. i realised how poverty limits teachers and learners within the classrooms. many learners come to school having eaten their last meal at school the previous day. i was encouraged to think differently about the way i teach these learners and to redefine my role as teacher. some student teachers became aware that teaching was not only about reaching academic outcomes with learners but that it also involved an understanding of how poverty can impact teaching and learning. step 4: recognition of learning during sbl, student teachers can feel very isolated, which would be worse in an unfamiliar schooling context. however, as emphasised in mezirow’s (1991) phases of transformative learning, there often is a strong element of sharing the experience with others in communities. in step 4, student teachers were encouraged to share their new understandings with others. this was facilitated by having regular reflection sessions for students to share their experience of the alternative context, which assisted in them feeling less anxious and realise that they were not alone in this process. one fet student teacher said: as i reflect on my own experience of teaching in the alternative context and compare it to what my peers are sharing about their experiences, i realised that i was not alone in this process. that despite my initial fears and anxieties, i learnt from the process. i now see the alternative context in a different light and i am even prepared to consider taking up a teaching position in this context. students also reported that it had helped them to bridge the gap between what they learned in their academic modules and how to implement it in practice. this can be seen in the statement below: thank you for forcing us to change our sbl schools. as much as i resisted this decision, i recognise the insurmountable value and wisdom of the decision made for us to change to an alternative teaching context. more importantly, i realised that if i stayed in my familiar context i would still be uncritical and unconscious of the geduld et al.: reflecting on bed students’ experiences . . . 99 contextual realities that many learners face within the south african schooling context. this experience enhanced the critical consciousness of the student teachers. it allowed them to reflect and examine their assumptions, beliefs, and perceptions through a critical lens. this enabled them to question the status quo and to ask critical questions about the inequalities that prevail in the schooling system. it also made them realise that there is something to learn in every context, and that they are able to contribute to social transformation as transformative intellectuals. summary of findings four themes were identified during the data analysis: resilience, collaboration and support, personal and professional growth, and recognition and respect for others. below is an exposition of these themes. resilience ungar and lienbenberg (2011) defined resilience as a positive adaptation that emphasises an individual’s personal and social skills, such as professional success. it is evident from data collected and analysed that teaching is not only about the content knowledge, the teaching skills, and the values teachers attach to teaching but also, the importance of understanding the different contextual and societal challenges that impact education. through their exposure to an alternative sbl context, student teachers started to question the dominant cultures’ explanations of the existing social order. furthermore, the experience allowed them to develop the ability to adjust and adapt to changes brought about by the demands and disappointments that came with exposure to alternative schooling contexts. this stimulated their own creativity, energy, and freedom to seek ideas and offer suggestions on how to improve challenges faced in their classrooms. it also made them more open to learning offered by seasoned teachers who had a good understanding of the context. student teachers highlighted that they experienced a new sense of purpose, learning about strengths they didn’t know they had as well as challenging their weaknesses. student teachers demonstrated their resilience by confidently communicating their self-belief, openness to learn, and willingness to make a difference. their resilience was evident in the way they reported on how they dealt with the adversities they faced during sbl. exposure to alternative sbl contexts, and students subsequently becoming resilient, supports freire’s (1970) call for conscientisation because the experience provided them with an opportunity to learn to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions and to take action against oppressive elements of reality. collaboration and support student teachers stressed the mismatch or dissonance between the idealism they entertained about teaching and the lived realities they witnessed teachers, learners, and communities experience. they described this realisation as a painful struggle made easier with others. the 100 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 student teachers provided each other with a reality check in that they were able to confirm many of the same feelings and similar experiences. student teachers were an important source of support for each other because they provided the solidarity of persons going through the same experiences. their connectedness with friends, lecturers, and mentor teachers appeared to enhance the student teachers’ general wellbeing. collaboration and support was further enhanced through reflective dialogue. these dialogues were underpinned by freire’s (1970) suggestions that true dialogue occurs under the following conditions: deep love for the world and its people, respect for each other and the world, and a hope for a better future for all. critical dialogue encourages transformation not only of the individual but of the collective. this was evident in the way student teachers supported each other through the process as well as in the relationships they established with the teachers at schools. personal and professional growth this research has shown that the listening and the support provided by mentor teachers and their peers were crucial in improving student teachers’ capacity to cope with workplace challenges. student teachers reported that their mentor teachers provided them with a safe space to talk about what they were experiencing. furthermore, the mentor teachers engaged the student teachers in critically reflecting on the lessons they presented. this mostly served as encouragement and affirmation afforded to the student teachers. informal comments and suggestions about the way lessons were presented and how these lessons were conceptualised contributed to the professional growth of student teachers. student teachers also acknowledged the guidance mentor teachers provided by encouraging them to reflect, critique, and interrogate their practices and to take risks. a reciprocal relationship developed where mentor teachers did not position themselves as knowers but availed themselves to listen to student teachers. this encouraged the development of collegial learning spaces. peters and pearce (2012) confirmed the above by emphasising the key role that mentor teachers play in establishing collaborative learning cultures for the professional development of mentees. critical reflection guided student teachers to self-dialogue and inquiry that subsequently led to improved decision-making skills. this fostered self-confidence, creativity, initiative, and self-esteem. student teachers acknowledged that the experience allowed them to realise that it was not just about achieving their own goals but also about being an agent for social change and contributing to social transformation. there was a consensus that exposure to the alternative sbl contexts was a learning experience that changed students’ lives forever. recognition and respect for others initially, student teachers felt a sense of discomfort when they were asked about their experiences in the alternative schooling contexts. contrary to their initial negative assumptions about these contexts, student teachers were surprised and humbled by their own reflection when they conveyed that the change in context was mostly a positive learning experience. they weren’t used to having their voices recognised and respected, more importantly, they hadn’t recognised and respected the role of their mentor teachers in their understanding of the contextual circumstances impacting on teaching and learning and the geduld et al.: reflecting on bed students’ experiences . . . 101 role schools play in the community. student teachers also acknowledged that even the challenges that they experienced during sbl became opportunities for learning. moreover, student teachers reported that schools and communities in some of the alternative contexts managed to confront injustices and to empower and affirm themselves with a self-defined standpoint of “we want education for our children and a better future for all.” this helped student teachers recognise and respect the resilience and commitment to education in these dire circumstances as well as recognising the knowledge that the community holds that impacts education. they also expressed their appreciation for the valuable insights gained from shared interest and establishing trust relationships. these relationships were not built around the financial resources schools had but, rather, around the valuable contribution of each of its members. freire (1970) argued that education often serves to maintain oppressive social orders, but that it can also be used to liberate people and transform society. we believe that requiring student teachers to change sbl contexts served as a catalyst for liberation and social transformation. conclusion this paper reviewed the body of literature on critical pedagogy and made a case for transformative learning. we attempted to document the qualitative, holistic changes experienced by student teachers as an outcome of the faculty’s decision to introduce alternative sbl contexts. the concepts of collaborative inquiry with communities of practice, critical reflection, dialogue, and critiquing assumptions about learning and teaching were highlighted as vital to the development of personal and professional growth. we are of the opinion that these skills will not only enable student teachers to become successful teachers, but also help them to become agents of social change. we believe that the exposure to the unfamiliar sbl contexts helped to address a passive and unquestioning approach to the acquisition of knowledge, and to a teaching methodology out of tune with the context within which genuine teaching and learning needs to takes place. furthermore, we believe that broadening the schooling context is a promising way to help student teachers build connections and collaborate in ways that examine their assumptions about schooling communities they have not previously been introduced to. the intention of changing sbl contexts was to develop teachers who can become conscious of their presence in the world. the experience allowed student teachers to critically examine the inequalities that continue to prevail in the south african schoolings system. student teachers were able to develop a sense of appreciation for the learning opportunities they experienced in the alternative contexts and, in particular, recognised the support and learning offered to them by their mentor teachers. when confronted by the challenges of unfamiliar cultural experiences, attitudes, and values in the alternative school communities, they had the opportunity to develop and strengthen their resilience in order to become transformative intellectuals who can contribute to social transformation. this process also enabled bed student teachers to deconstruct their notion of what a school is, and to challenge the mental schemas that have informed their notions of what it is to teach and learn and, consequently, how these have influenced the manner in which they expected to be trained as future teachers. 102 journal of education, no. 80, 2020 and, hence, we trust that, where necessary, their previously unquestioned assumptions about themselves and their place in education began to change. references aliakbari, m., & faraji, e. 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(2011). assessing resilience across cultures using mixed methods: construction of the child and youth resilience measure. journal of multiple methods in research, 5(3), 126–149. microsoft word bissue82-final.docx journal of education, 2020 issue 82, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i82a01 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x aligning with feminism: critical autoethnographic reflections of a profeminist heterosexual male teacher educator suriamurthee moonsamy maistry social sciences education, school of education, university of kwazulu-natal, durban, south africa maistrys@ukzn.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9623-0078 (received: 23 april 2020; accepted: 9 september 2020) abstract in the last two decades, education scholarship has made significant progress in advancing the feminist social justice agenda with women scholars having been almost entirely the drivers of this movement. women scholars in teacher education have been successful in establishing and consolidating this disciplinary field of study quite firmly in the teacher education curriculum. despite this, many forms of oppression, including domestic or intimate partner violence and sexand gender-based violence, continue to plague south african universities and society in general. the current covid-19 pandemic’s mandatory home confinement restrictions have further exacerbated the conditions for individuals likely to experience domestic violence. men have been relatively silent and inactive in this social justice project. there is also limited extant scholarship that addresses the role that profeminist men might play in this social justice enterprise. there is also little work that attempts to understand the level of sophistication with which men understand feminism, determine with which feminisms men might align themselves, and the accountability and responsibility that might come with assuming certain positions. in this critical autoethnographic piece, i engage with the questions of how critical pedagogical encounters in a teacher education course might serve as disruptive devices that trouble stubbornly resistant gendered socialisations. i draw on my experiences as a teacher educator as i struggle to locate and identify my own profeminist positionality and the tensions this presents. i contemplate the poststructuralist caution about writing (my)self into a text given that the writing self is an evolving/changing self. i reflect on my attempt to disrupt obliviousness as i contemplate the prospect of self-disclosure as a point of entry for profeminist men’s praxis in a teacher education programme subscribed to by young men (and women) deeply socialised in a patriarchal history and culture. keywords: gender-based violence, critical autoethnography, feminism, pedagogy 6 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 introduction in this paper, i contemplate as a heterosexual male teacher educator, the role i might play in aligning myself with the fight against different forms of gender-based violence in south africa in my work with pre-service and practicing school teachers in a teacher education course. while violence is not peculiar to south africa and that people subscribe to violence to assert dominance to resolve disputes is a universal social issue, in south africa violence against girls and women has become normalised and this normalisation demands disruption as graaff and heinecken (2017) have argued. evidence from the south african context suggests that much of this violence against girls and women happens in homes (kempen, 2019a) in schools (bhana, 2018) and on university campuses (singh, mabaso, et al., 2016; singh, mudaly et al., 2015) with boys and male teachers as pre-dominant perpetrators (beninger, 2013; taole, 2016). violent performances of hegemonic masculinity are of distinct behavioural concern for schools with some activists calling for school-based interventions that become integrated as an essential element of the curriculum (bhana & mayeza, 2016; rasool, 2017), an imperative that i have taken up in the curriculum i constructed for pre-service and in-service teachers. violence in schools is not always unidirectional (male-on-female); girl-on-girl violence is not uncommon. as a way of securing economic resources, it is an outcome of pervasive socio-economic inequality that besets many poor south african schoolgirls as bhana (2008) has noted. also, there is a misapprehension that girls-only schools are safer havens in being free of violence. on the contrary, sexuality, race, and ethnicity are implicated in violent femininities in such schools (bhana & pillay, 2011). while my concern in this paper is with male-on-female violence, i am mindful of shefer’s (2016) caution that crude male-female binarism is unhelpful since it feeds a victim/agent binary that simply reproduces “gendered, classed and raced othering practices and discourses” (p. 211). campbell and mannell (2016) have argued that we have to move beyond man-woman and victim-agent binaries towards understanding women’s agency as distributed, which necessitates an alternative to current policy and intervention strategies. i am acutely aware of my own cisgender framing as proper man and butler’s (1990) challenge to the hegemonic heteronormative matrix, a discussion of which follows later in this paper. i reflect on how i continually attempt to unlearn my own learned prejudice and that even the invocation of the construct of myself as profeminist might well be regarded as a contested signifier (mis)aligned with radical feminism’s mission to eradicate patriarchy as burrell and flood (2019) have warned. i do, however, attempt to engage the notion of selfdisclosure as a first pedagogical step as i broach the subject of gender as a social justice issue in the economic education programme i teach. profeminist men’s activism dates back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (burrell & flood, 2019). the engaging men’s movement has, however, not reached a critical mass. efforts by men as they relate to eradicating genderbased violence have been marginal, sporadic, and inconsistent and have not proven to be sustainable. flood (2011) has reminded us, however, of “a growing consensus in violence prevention circles that to end this violence, we must involve and work with men” (p. 359). maistry: aligning with feminism 7 recent revelations about vicious sexual abuse inflicted on high profile female celebrities at the hands of powerful men in the hollywood film industry, triggered widespread reaction and unprecedented social media networking. it drew attention to the pervasiveness of gender abuse perpetrated by supposedly respected and trusted household names like bill cosby and harvey weinstein. in south africa, the conviction of oscar pistorius for the killing of reeva steenkamp in 2013 was a high-profile, politicised case that drew widespread condemnation (shefer, 2013). these revelations reveal the tip of the proverbial iceberg; this phenomenon continues to be played out in all spheres of society. there is also little faith in the ability of the south african police to respond effectively or to intervene in cases of domestic violence in this country (govender, 2015), let alone showing sensitivity to people identified as queer (müller, 2019). the spate of violence against women (male-on-female violence) under home confinement because of covid-19 restrictions as of march 2020, and the brutal murder of 28-year-old tshegofatso pule, who was stabbed and hanged from a tree in johannesburg, is a reflection of the brazenness with which these atrocities are committed. it has sounded alarm bells with various constituencies advocating for measures to rid society of this scourge. such calls are not new (kempen, 2019b). propositions have been made in the recent past for re-engineering strategies for ensuring that victims have access to resources that ease reporting especially given that the processes for data capture of sexand gender-based violence often compromise the safety of victims who may be subject to further grievous risk that comes with such reporting (davis & meerkotter, 2017). despite relatively vocal local (16 days of activism) and international awareness campaigns (#metoo), there does not appear to be enough impetus to sustain the intensity of such campaigns; sexand gender-based violence continues unabated. sadly, the project of addressing gender-based violence has frequently been used as a political weapon as evidenced in recent south african parliamentary debates on the state of the nation 2020. male political leaders brazenly accused each other of gender-based violence. of concern is that the intention was not to draw attention to this scourge and offer suggestions about how society ought to deal with it; it was, rather, about scoring political points and discrediting it, a display of toxic masculinity with no attempt at disguise. it raises questions about the authenticity of the articulated political will among south africa’s male political leadership. this was clearly not part of a genuine concern for the plight of women but unashamed political grandstanding. while cyril ramaphosa, south africa’s president, (and many others) have labelled gender-based violence the parallel pandemic to covid-19 that afflicts the nation, there is longstanding scepticism as to the state’s genuine political will to move beyond rhetoric and eloquent policy (kempen, 2019b). gender-based violence is not a new phenomenon and the theorisations of its occurrence are multiple. it has been a deplorable feature of societies around the world since time immemorial. grosfoguel (2013) has argued that gender-based violence might well be explained in relation to the self-ascribed epistemic privilege accorded to the western man and has its roots in early colonialism’s femicide—the mass burning of women activists in europe. 8 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 colonialism’s complicity in gender discrimination is well articulated by lugones. while acknowledging the work of anibal quijano (2000) and his theorisation of the colonial matrix of power, lugones (2016), in an insightful critique, argues that the colonial matrix of power is a somewhat limiting heuristic for understanding the complexly layered dimensions of power that coloniality inscribes, especially as it relates to the intersectional peculiarities of colonised women. the gendered experiences of colonised women might be wholly different from those of the western eurocentric coloniser woman (anzaldúa, 1987). in essence then, the complexity of gender as construct renders it powerful yet challenging to apprehend in any universally coherent fashion. almost three decades ago, the un general assembly declaration on the elimination of violence against women (1993) was crafted. it represents an internationally recognised framing of “violence against women” as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life” (un general assembly declaration on the elimination of violence against women, 1993 p. 2). of serious concern is that gender-based violence has escalated and, since it recurs with alarming consistency, it has become an intractable and enduring challenge facing contemporary south african society despite improved legislation (in south africa), increased activism through media (including social media), and awareness programmes of various kinds. different programmes are guided in terms of varying degrees of explicitness regarding the specific gender theory or strain of feminism being invoked. this is a particularly salient point since it points to the dilemma facing intervention programmes in determining programme outcomes and the strategies for their attainment given that the theoretical resources from which they can draw is so rich, extensive, and varied. even so, many interventions are narrow (campbell & mannell, 2016) and bereft of coherent, theoretically-based gender principles (jewkes et al., 2015). negotiating the terrain of feminisms the field of gender research and gender theory is dynamic and replete with contestation (jakobson, 2014). it is beyond the scope of this paper to attempt a comprehensive synthesis of this highly contested field, a field that lorber (2017, p. 7) described as characterised by “continuities and discontinuities.” of importance, though, is that different feminist theories have certainly advanced the gender social justice project in different ways. as can be expected in any contested field, divergences breed robust debate and the development of rigorous theory. several scholars have attempted to categorise the field of gender related work and the multiple approaches to understanding the world of gender. lorber, (2017, p. 16), for example, addresses the gendered social order as being comprised of, first, gender reform feminisms (1960s and 1970s) or second-wave feminisms that include liberal feminism, socialist feminisms, and development feminism. second, gender resistant feminisms emerged from a realisation by women that “sisters had no place in any brotherhood” and that in all spheres of maistry: aligning with feminism 9 economic, religious, political, and social life, inequities remained steadfastly pervasive. this spawned radical feminism, lesbian feminism, psychoanalytical feminism, and standpoint feminism. lorber’s third category, gender reform feminisms include multi-ethnic feminism, men’s feminism, social construction feminism, post-modern feminism and queer theory, poststructuralist feminism. about seeking inspiration from judith butler arguably the most profound departure from mainstream thinking and a seminal piece that has influenced feminist thought in the last three decades is that of judith butler’s gender trouble (1990). its appearance marked a distinct critical moment in feminist work that stemmed from the shift in the understanding of gender as complex and psycho-socially constructed and beyond the physiological male-female binary. butler contests the notion of woman as a gender category. she suggests that gender is implicated by, among others, key structural fixities such as social and economic class, sexuality, culture and ethnicity. as such, the project of understanding women’s subordination has, of necessity, to consider the intersectionality of this complexity. butler’s contribution to the evolution of non-normative gender theory with her seminal theorisation of queer theory has particular resonance for this article. so-called deviant sexualities, like normative gender identities, are essentially social constructions. while butler recognises anatomical differences, she contends that biology is structured by gender norms and not vice versa, arguing that due cognisance should be taken of how discursive practices and legal signifiers accord importance to somewhat random biological differences that cast the male and female prototype, tightly circumscribing what counts as normative and deviant behaviour. institutionally defined norms activate the body. the norm-invested body is also formed and shaped by the norm. she further argues that the “conflation of gender with masculine/feminine, man/woman, male/female . . . performs the very naturalization that the notion of gender is meant to forestall” (butler, 2004, p. 43) as can be expected, perceived deviations from the norm are likely to be met with sanction. given that butler’s theorisations have had a profound impact on contemporary feminist thinking, this brief exposition of the main tenets of her feminist intellectual project is necessary since it informs the later discussion of what pedagogy we might construct from butler’s conceptualisations. in the first instance, butler refutes the notion of any fixity or certainty of woman as a construct, arguing instead for relinquishing socially (and politically) imposed binary categorisations of proper man and proper woman. she suggests that such rigid ascriptions serve only to further perpetuate sexism, in due compliance with the “legitimating practices of identity formation . . . within the matrix of gender norms” (1990, p. 70). in her view, gender identity formation is in a constant state of flux, contingent upon what presents in the social contexts we habituate, perpetually moving between strains of femaleness and maleness, as each context dictates. in contrast to a traditional understanding of our behaviour as internal or intrinsically driven, butler suggests that, in fact, our performances of gender are the result of predefined and anticipated authoritative social scripts 10 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 which we repeatedly enact, a process of fictive manufacture. butler’s theorisations are certainly subject to critique especially as they relate to the (lack of) resonance with the experiences of subjects in the global south, the peculiarities of which are well articulated by theorists like anzaldua (1987) and lugones (2007). butler’s work is pedagogic since it offers a heuristic for understanding how gender is learned and inscribed. importantly, it opens the possibilities for a dismantling and unlearning. in many ways, my gender performance has been precisely what butler described as an enactment of predetermined practices that have long been established for males like me, fulfilling or materialising obligatory norms defined by the binary, socially constructed sex markers. through this paper, i attempt to understand gender in its broadest critical, decolonial, feminist sense (lugones, 2016). i also recognise violence in all its manifestations, beyond overt physical aggression. flood (2011) notes that the proclivity for violent behaviour by men is related to the “constructions of masculinity” (p. 359). a profeminist cue this paper is not meant to be a praise-song or any attempt at romanticising my practice. if anything, it attempts to capture the frailties, discontinuities, and contradictions that heterosexual males (like myself) are likely to experience as they undertake this kind of work especially given that the world of feminisms is vast and often confounding. in an insightful article entitled “which feminism? dilemmas in profeminist men’s praxis to end violence against women”, profeminist male practitioners, burrell and flood (2019) signal the dilemma facing profeminists as it relates to working out which feminism to be accountable to. they note that there are “multiple, incommensurate feminisms, with radically different and incompatible ideologies and practices” (p. 4). profeminist male advocates, in negotiating this dilemma and in constructing deliberative efforts to curb violence against women should, in the first instance, ensure that profeminist work is guided by theory. burrell and flood (2019) offer what they term rudimentary principles as minimum standards for profeminist work towards the elimination of violence against women. they note that as profeminist men, we strive to enact transformations towards gender justice in our personal lives, in the lives of other men and boys and in society as a whole . . . account about our practices . . . take on the responsibility to learn, and to change ourselves and other men in order to live in more gender-equitable ways . . . listen and learn from the diversity of women’s experiences and engage critically and reflexively with a range of feminist theories and ideas . . . consult with feminist women . . . critically reflect on . . . the extent to which the work being carried out is effective . . . we address different forms of men’s violence against women . . . consider (how) we are also personally implicated in, and privileged . . . we recognise the importance of . . . women-only spaces being prioritised and playing a leading role within struggles to end men’s violence against women and gender inequality . . . (which) means working to counteract the potential for men to dominate or ‘take over’ such efforts. (p. 12) maistry: aligning with feminism 11 while these guidelines are not meant to be all-encompassing, and certainly not the only ones, they do, however, offer a critical base to which novice male gender activists might subscribe in order to contribute to and advance both theory and practice as they contemplate the complex agenda of engaging men on gender-based violence against women and gender inequality. this then raises the question about how to construct an appropriate pedagogy and what theoretical and conceptual insights might apply. using (my)self as a point of entry when teaching about learned gender discriminatory behaviour is an approach to pedagogy that i have been experimenting with in recent times. the theoretical weight behind disclosing the fragile and vulnerable self as pedagogical resource is somewhat slight and even confounding in the face of contemporary pedagogical theory that suggests a powerful knowledgeable pedagogue with firm authority over the pedagogical and disciplinary knowledge that she or he wishes to teach her or his students. i do, however, draw on two key theoretical concepts to help shape a conception of how this might be understood and applied. liminality and dissonance are, for me, powerful heuristic constructs worth considering for this kind of pedagogical work. liminality, a construct theorised by victor turner in 2017, (drawing on the seminal work of arnold van gennep), refers to a transitory space between not knowing and getting to know. the etymology here is the latin word limen, a threshold akin to the base of an entranceway one has to cross to gain access to the (social) space one wants to enter. the subjects find themselves in a state of in-betweenness, in a fluid and uncertain milieu in which they have not quite earned the right of passage or crossed the threshold towards the goal of full recognition by pre-existing members of the yearned for social space. this socio-discursive space may not be easily accessible and is likely to be well patrolled by gatekeepers who judge whether the aspirant newcomers meet or have acquired the necessary credentials to engage with credibility on the issues of the field. szakolczai (2009) claimed that novice aspirants endure anxiety, personal conflict, and a poor sense of self in this transitional phase since they doubt their own potential to master the benchmarked competences. furthermore, they are likely to experience a traumatic separation from their existing identity. in negotiating this rite of passage, they are likely to show obedience and humility and simply fall in line with the expected new conduct and behaviour. during this phase, individuals are likely to engage with concepts and new issues superficially, mimicking expected behaviour—their understandings remaining incomplete or partial, causing discomfort and emotional trauma. (maistry, 2017) their experience reflects a dissonance, an emotional (and cognitive) state in which the subjects simultaneously hold contrasting and contradictory perspectives on an issue. the duration of this liminal phase and its consequent dissonance varies. if the subjects choose to forego the aspirant identity, then they return to their original identity and restore their harmony. if the aspirant subjects persevere, they could well remain in the liminal stage for the rest of their lives if the co-ordinates of the aspired for identity remain elusive or are constantly shifting. the concepts of liminality and dissonance are useful for analysing and 12 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 assessing my aspiration for identity as a profeminist man since they speak cogently to the journey i have chosen. a brief description of the programme i teach this postgraduate course (at honours level) has been designed for practicing teachers of commercial subjects. one of the objectives of the course is to provide an opportunity for students to reflect critically on the nature of the discipline that they teach at school. as we know, school subjects like economics, business studies, and accounting have firm roots in neoclassical economics, are underpinned by contemporary neoliberal principles, and accept the current models of western capitalism as normal. neoliberal and neoconservative policies that discredit the notion of a welfare state and social security payments disregard the fact that women (in both developed and underdeveloped countries) are the main recipients of such transfer payments. historical hierarchies as they relate to class and gender are accepted as normal outcomes of capitalism, the theorisation of which has its roots in the work of feminists like chodorow (1978) in the seventies. the neoliberal canon has, however, shown little consideration for its gender discriminatory economic policy outcomes. undergraduate degrees in the field of commerce seldom (if ever) contest the nature of level one economics, for example. a more or less standard curriculum exists throughout the world. students and teachers of economics are rarely provoked into contesting the nature of the discipline. for example, the south african curriculum and assessment policy accepts neoclassical economics as valuable and trusted knowledge. in the postgraduate economics education course i teach, my intention is to provoke students to challenge the basic tenets of commercial knowledge. i attempt to integrate a strong social justice dimension into the programme. an aspect of the broader social justice dimension is a focus on gender in the economic and social world. the hope is that these advanced students (many of whom are currently active teachers) will engage with gender issues in their own classes and will use the curriculum as a site of contestation and critique. to this end, i harness powerful literature that presents alternative ways of understanding the world of economics. this has to be supported by a carefully considered pedagogy. as a point of entry, as teacher educator, i deliberately and consciously adopt the position of vulnerable self. i will present an analysis of how and why i apply this pedagogical frame in a discussion that follows the narrative vignettes below. this university programme is run in the province of kwazulu-natal, south africa. as such, it is historically comprised of students of the predominantly indigenous african population, with a few indian students in some years. the three vignettes below represent the variation of ideal types of male students who have presented in my classes over the last decade. these archetypes are useful for analysis purposes and while these evocative descriptions are meant to represent characteristics typical of these groups, they are not to be understood as representing individuals locked in fixed, rigid categories since much blurring is at play as participants move between and within each category. these derivations emerge from three maistry: aligning with feminism 13 key gender-related questions that i pose in my honours class. for each, i place verbal emphasis on the italicised word and follow each with a question. a) what are the attributes of a man? b) what are the attributes of a good man? (the third question is directed at the males in the class.) c) assuming you are heterosexual, are you likely to marry or partner a woman who earns a higher salary than you do? why as can be expected, these questions trigger animated discussion. the third question creates much angst and dissonance. while there are variations in intensity and conviction, the recurrent overwhelming response is an emphatic rejection of the possibility that the relationship could work. issues of leadership, control, final decision-making, power and even obedience surface as key areas of contestation that oppose such an arrangement. the responses are unadulterated, unfiltered, honest, and brazen and they depict the degree of concretisation of gendered stereotypes that are deeply embedded in these male students; the pervasive power of the masculine in contemporary (south african) society is made manifest (see graaff & heinecken, 2017; kimmel, 2014; morrell et al., 2013). vignette 1 (archetype a): the purist male chauvinist who embodies toxic hegemonic masculinity these are authoritative males who derive their authority exclusively from being male. they show awareness of supposedly superior physicality and the power that comes from this physical strength. they are demanding, they constantly denigrate women using flawed arguments, they make disparaging comments about women, and are patronising. openly confrontational and prone to be publicly vindictive, egocentric, stubborn, they believe that their point of view should be what counts and what should hold and they seldom budge from their positions. insecure and defensive when shown up, they are aloof. they may be intellectually strong and this leads them to believe that they know more and are therefore better than those who know less so they use this to intimidate even in a congenial way. these men often use (african) culture as the main rationale for the position they take. they feel obliged to uphold a strong patriarchal tradition as if they were the guardians responsible for the culture’s perpetuation. they use this to legitimise their perspectives on the role of men and women in society and continue to be strong advocates for the belief that men are the superior sex. they openly and unashamedly declare their gender prejudice and are openly homophobic with little tolerance and patience for non-normative gender discourses. vignette 2 (archetype ‘b’): the congenial chauvinist who is amenable to engaging in superficial alternative discussions about the assumed superiority of men these individuals reluctantly engage with issues of gender equality and participate at a superficial level. they acknowledge grudgingly that gender equity is a matter of concern, and continue to enjoy the power and privilege that comes with being male. less aggressive than 14 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 the purist chauvinist, they also hide behind culture. they recognise the potential of women but are uncomfortable with what this might mean for them and want to remain in control although they are prepared to accept a marginal relinquishing of power and authority. they appear somewhat embarrassed to be recognised and identified as caring about gender issues. vignette 3 (archetype ‘c’): secure, emancipated males these authentic individuals with their deep sense of respect for humanity in general are particularly aware of their maleness and the assumed authority and power that is associated with their biology and the social construct of maleness. they live the gender equity project through their words and actions and are not threatened by strong men or women. they challenge the two archetypes above but prefer not to engage in open verbal combat. in passing, i must mention that in my more than two decades of working with higher education students, i have encountered just two individuals who fall into this category. i acknowledge that the illustrations above are not definitive nor fully comprehensive and that they are subject to contestation (which this paper attempts to invite). i am also aware that this particular pedagogic move might well reify the male-female binarism that butler (2004) and shefer (2016) have cautioned against. i have, however, found that it presents as a somewhat safer brokering and leverage mechanism to enable me to proceed towards more nuanced understandings of non-normative gender. i have discovered, through trial and error, that an important point of departure for this kind of work is to begin with the self through a critical introspective account of my own heterosexualness and masculinity which makes me, inevitably, an historicised oppressor standing on male privilege except that this comes for me with an attempt to confront such privilege as advocated by jackson and mazzei (2008). i draw on the tenets of boylorn and orbe’s (2014) notion of critical autoethnography and gannon’s (2006) insights into the tensions that poststructuralism presents in writing the evolving self. i reflect on my practice as teacher educator as i attempt to integrate genderrelated social justice issues into the curriculum i conceptualise. although this has been a feature of my teaching programmes for more than a decade, i continue to experience varying levels of frustration and only marginal success as i attempt to create and implement a pedagogy that might lead to substantive disruption. the classic poststructuralist position holds that any attempts at discerning a substantiveness of any disruption, serves only to illuminate the extent of its unsubstantiveness. i have come to realise that even marginal shifts in attitude have to be valued and treasured since they indicate, quite powerfully, the enormous size of the challenge that the gender project faces. a methodological note [c]ritical autoethnography is a fitting research method that allows autoethnography researchers to use their personal experiences and sympathetic eyes to analyze and critique injustice pertaining to educational contexts. (marx et al. 2017, p. 1) maistry: aligning with feminism 15 autoethnographic scholarship is gaining traction in the south african higher education sector and is proving to be a compelling approach to research in the country’s multifaceted sociocultural context (see pillay et al., 2016; pithouse-morgan et al., 2017). autoethnography has particular appeal as pedagogic method for harnessing student experience as a resource that might enable the acquisition of desired course objectives (barr, 2018). central to this approach is the autoethnographer’s apprehension of autoethnography’s language of description, its conceptual repertoire, and its discourse which, in the foucauldian sense, entails more than language as signifier of meaning and might include ways of thinking, speaking, and acting in congruence with its (evolving and emerging) tenets which, for the budding critical autoethnographer (like myself), might appear tantalisingly elusive yet powerfully useful. berry and hodges (2015) have asserted that (personal) vulnerability, reflexivity, and empathy are powerful conceptual apparatuses for the study and application of critical autoethnography in undergraduate writing courses. the concepts of vulnerability and reflexivity have particular salience for this paper since they compel the autoethnographer to move beyond mere storytelling. jones (2016) suggested that critical autoethnography invokes “clear and powerful theoretical frameworks for understanding how stories help us write into or become the change we seek in the world” (p. 1). it may also offer an approach to deal reflexively with personal offenses that one may have committed (adams, 2017). as a research and pedagogical strategy, critical autoethnography’s imperative towards reflexivity enables the strategic use of personal narratives to engage with broader social justice issues at play in society (reed-danahay, 2017), as is the case that i report on in this paper. ellis and bochner’s (2003, p. 739) photography metaphor of “wide-angle lens” suggests a looking outward by drawing attention to the socio-cultural dimensions of personal experience, as a prelude to an inward look. this might entail a critical introspection, akin to deleuzian “lines of flight” (deleuze & guattari, 1987, p. 225) in which the possibilities for disruption of the self as well as the cultural normatives become possible. these insights have appeal as outlined in the work of mitchell (2016) who offers useful insights for the autoethnographer’s positionality as she contemplates what might be productive and generative in relation to both pedagogy and social change. i am, however, mindful that claims to, and aspirations for, the measurable productive and generative outcomes of research might be counter-intuitive to the seminal tenets of critical autoethnography, an approach that might well fall foul to a positivism of sorts. the allure (for me) of critical autoethnography is, arguably, its defining feature which is its potential to integrate autobiography, ethnography, and critical pedagogy into a methodology that affords the researcher a milieu within which, for me, his complicity as historically situated researcher (and self-recognition as oppressor) can be intensely interrogated (tilleylubbs, 2016). the writing of the self is always about a vulnerable self. critical autoethnography invites “powerful intellectual and political commitments of critical theory” (jones, 2016, p. 228). i am wholly aware of gannon’s (2006) caution that 16 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 the paradox of poststructural autoethnography is that although autoethnographic research seems to presume that the subjects can speak (for) themselves, poststructural theories disrupt this presumption and stress the (im)possibilities of writing the self from a fractured and fragmented subject position. (p. 474) poststructuralist autoethnography has to, of necessity, trouble the speaking self so as to problematise the self and “to produce evocative, therapeutic stories” while simultaneously recognising the limits of the autoethnographer for understanding the self and the other (jackson & mazzei, 2008, p. 300). foucault’s genealogy has distinct appeal for this kind of introspective account. it allows us to discern how contemporary regimes of truth have come to be. it enables a reflective problematisation of the present with a view to contemplating a transforming future. in essence, genealogy views the present as contingent (foucault, 1979). in assessing how the present came to be, we are better positioned to envisage alternatives for the future as we consider how the unconscious ways in which we think and act have come to be. we reflect on what has shaped and informed the episteme and current discursive formations and how unconscious rules about gender have become so deeply engrained in our thinking that we are hardly aware of them. importantly, we may engage with how particular knowledges have been constructed that realise the contemporary power/knowledge matrix and its subsequent governing of thought, practice, and how power has produced and normalised certain behaviours and actions. foucault’s application of genealogy in the history of sexuality has particular resonance since it illuminates how sexuality is constructed and how a heteronormative sexuality gained traction and currency to resemble a truth discourse of naturalness, kinetically producing a self-censuring, self-scrutinising, and self-regulating subject. in an interesting reading of foucault’s notion of writing the self, gannon (2006) describes this time-old tradition of aspiration for ethical subject development through writing to release, as cathartic growth. in foucauldian terms, it entails a self-care through a selfknowing through tangible linguistic expression. it might entail a dismantling of the self, a metaphorical dismembering of the body with its feelings and cognitive repositories historically fashioned in sociocultural spaces. gannon reminds us that “the authority for the story begins with the body and memories . . . at the scene of lived experience” (p. 478). she argues that “the historical ‘i’ and the presently writing ‘i’ are not the same psych-social body” requiring the autoethnographer to “destabilize the authority of the self who writes and knows himself or herself as a discrete and autonomous subject” necessitating a “scrutiny, revision, and compulsory confession” (p. 479). this is a pedagogic strategy that i attempt to employ as i engage with the issue of gender discrimination and gender-based violence with my students. as teacher educator, i invoke personal testimonio as necessary first stage in attempting to create the conditions and opportunities for exposé and revelation so as to facilitate deep connections through conversation that is not bounded by epistemological circumscriptions of rationalism associated with the disciplinary conventions of economics. i attempt a process of maistry: aligning with feminism 17 candid divulgence, not simply for the purpose of soliciting confessions from my students, but with the aim of getting them to understand how to enter a fluid, dynamic, and productive pedagogic space in which to contemplate their subjectivities and to be comfortable doing so. i invite narrations—oral, written, and/or online—in a context that fosters deliberative narrating and listening. as can be expected, invoking the mind, body, and spirit is in tension with the training that my students (disciples of the economics discipline) have received in their undergraduate courses. i attempt to help my students shift from rational (economic) problem solving using hard data (quantitative analyses) and the search for definitive answers towards understanding the (economic and social) world as uncertain and constructed in ways that contribute to oppression of various kinds and of women in particular. this pedagogic space has to be based on patience as we deal with contradiction and creativity to allow for the negotiation of new meaning that embraces the liminal as a necessary and ongoing condition. i am very aware that in my self-disclosure that follows below, my reference to intimate (and extended) family and acquaintances, although not named or identified with any specificity, does present me with some trepidation for ethical reasons. i draw on my lived experience with this cast from whom i learned to perform. there is a precariousness about this kind of storytelling as ellis (2007) rightly points out. her notion of relational ethics is important since it suggests that despite the noble intentions of the storyteller, the writer (me as autoethnographer in this instance) is always invested (as academic and activist) and that actors implicated in the stories we construct, even when representations are positive, may not always agree with the nuances and embellishments that we introduce. the narration that i present below draws particular attention to gender prejudice. as such it implicates by default and is likely to be unsettling for the implicated (even if they are not identified). while researchers (autoethnographers in this instance) have to work within generally acceptable ethical principles (beauchamp & childress, 1979), the extent to which such principles grounded in the biomedical field have resonance in the socio-cultural research space is a moot point (de castro & valero, 2018). testimonio as pedagogical tool testimonio is a pedagogic practice that has its genesis in oral cultures and has been applied effectively by chicana/latino feminists in social projects aimed at exposing oppression so it has enormous potential for disrupting contemporary hegemonic discourse (cervantes-soon & carillo, 2016). it is an approach to teaching that contests traditional cartesian rationality and its associated patriarchal leanings by “centering the mind, body, spirit, and political urgency in teaching and learning” (p. 291). personal testimonies can be viewed as agentic resources with the potential for confession and reflection, moving beyond just dialogic teaching. cervantes-soon and carillo contend that [t]estimonio offers the ability to critically historicize the body, mind, spirit and experiences, to connect them to larger social structures and thus serve as a point of departure in the articulation and exchange of theory in the flesh. (p. 292) 18 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 at the heart of this pedagogy is the sharing of personal narratives by both teachers and students with the view to building solidarity among them in the target social justice project. about a non-normative pedagogy the classic poststructuralist position of the elusiveness of an absolute reality as it relates to gender identity as argued by butler (2004), implies contemplating a non-normative pedagogy of sorts. it beckons and invites a pedagogy that might be non-rational, eclectic, unconventional, and one whose outcomes cannot be predetermined. this has been my experience of running a programme that seldom delivers as per programmed instructional intent. the inability to apprehend a firm reality is likely to be somewhat disconcerting (for students and even external examiners seeking to establish whether programme outcomes have been attained or not). where then and how might a pedagogic disruption be conceived? in the section that follows, i tentatively present my attempt at this arduous task as i contemplate the notion of selfdisclosure as the first strategic pedagogical move in broaching gender equality issues in a context where unbridled oblivion reigns. self-disclosure: modelling ownership of learned discriminatory behaviour south africa emerged from a system of apartheid in 1994, a system characterised by racial hierarchisation in which the minority white population held non-whites in subjugation, denying them both economic and political rights. in my early days as an anti-apartheid activist teacher and later teacher education activist, my eagerness to want to change the economic and social world resulted in my adopting a somewhat aggressive approach in dealing with people whose views were contrary to mine. as a school teacher of economics, i taught actively about resistance politics through the lens of political economy. i strongly advocated for an ideology that was anti-discriminatory since i firmly believed that antiapartheid propaganda was good because it served a socially just cause. as can be expected, forceful anti-apartheid pedagogy was likely to be received without much contestation from the non-white learners whom i taught at that time. teaching about gender prejudice to advanced honours students, however, presented me with peculiar challenges. i quickly discovered that an aggressive, accusatory pedagogy was not going to be effective especially with archetype ‘a’ male students who already had well-cemented ideas and defences for the positions they held. in fact, an aggressive and accusatory pedagogy served only to further entrench the views i was attempting to disrupt. a naming and shaming pedagogy simply created an unhealthy and risky classroom environment. archetype ‘a’ males reacted with aggression. in one year, an archetype ‘a’ male openly declared that he would write up his assignment (essay) in a way that i (the assessor) would find appealing (since he would say all the right things) so as to achieve a pass score for the course. he was, however, quite clear that he did not subscribe to the gender equality value system i was maistry: aligning with feminism 19 advocating in the course. there have also been instances where male students have walked out of class, declaring that this nonsense was not for them. i came to realise that an open, confrontational approach in my classes was not useful; it was, in fact, counter-productive since discussions between me and archetype ‘a’ males and other students in the class became heated. while a few vocal and confident female students stood their ground, other female students found the situation quite unsettling and threatening and later some commented that aggressive male reaction on gender issues was a regular normal occurrence and that such encounters seldom ended with any concession on the part of such males. if anything, the women students believed that such public confrontation made them feel vulnerable to further verbal abuse later. my naivety was blatantly apparent, especially as it related to the limitations of critical constructivist pedagogy that i so believed in and wanted to practice. it became clear that such theoretical resources had limited currency in this kind of pedagogic arena and with this kind of student profile. i discovered a pedagogic move that presented as far less threatening and this was to narrate aspects of my own gendered socialisation as a resource for deliberation in the hope that it might provoke or initiate a discussion from the diversely socialised subjects in my class. my early gendered socialisation i was born in the mid-1960s into a segregated community of second-generation indians who were brought to south africa as indentured labourers (a british euphemism for slaves). it is clear to me that the social (and economic) world in which i was raised and socialised had shaped my worldview in particular ways. my ancestors (in india) hailed from a hierarchical society in which economic and social class discrimination had been reified through the caste system. patriarchy was (and still is) a defining feature of indian society. apartheid’s mandatory separation (geographic, social, cultural, and economic) of the races meant that much of my learned behaviour was from within a fairly tightly insular indian frame of reference as govender (2018) has pointed out. there is much literature that analyses indian society’s reverence for the boy child and the subservient, non-aspirant status of the girl child (see bhasin, 2013; narayan, 1997). even among the lowest of social and economic classes, the gender hierarchy is a taken-for-granted norm. while south african indian society might have shifted somewhat, especially given the country’s constitutional stipulations as they relate to gender discrimination, these shifts have been marginal, and the traditional gender protocol is still largely in place as bhana and buccus (2016) have noted. religion and culture inherited from the motherland is practised largely along the same gendered lines with limited if any contestation of the status quo. as can be expected, given the prevailing conditions, my learning to be male, to be a man, has been textured and conditioned from my birth, through childhood and adolescence into my adulthood. the typical expectations of males to be leaders in having to assume authority and develop the ability to assert control and exert power over female counterparts permeated naturalised lessons that were freely and easily taught in the south african indian school of life. i must concede that i was a willing learner who seldom (if ever) questioned this kind of social ordering and i was unaware of the patriarchal dividend (connell, 2005) i was reaping. 20 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 willing teachers (both male and female), from my parents to uncles and aunts and from cousins to friends upheld (and continue to do so) this gendered social arrangement. my formal schooling (primary and high school as well as undergraduate study at a university for south african indians) simply mirrored male privilege that played itself out in south african indian society and south african society in general. my learned gendered behaviour was thus systemic, normalised, and affirmed and i was on track towards becoming a firm disciple of this normative cult practice. unlearning: towards a new consciousness through confessional tale (an embattled position) as a young person i learned to perform all sorts of very problematic behaviours. there are so many; one behaviour of which i am still particularly ashamed that i learned from observing others, was to mock and ridicule people of non-conforming, non-normative genders. the people i associated with (including myself) thought it was fine (and fun) to harass, to insult, and to demean. i later learned how very wrong this was. what i was doing was elevating myself above them as if i were the representation of what was supposed to be right, correct, and perfect. i accorded myself the authority to stand above and judge and voice my disapproval about other human beings whom i saw to be different. later i began to question what made me better and so perfect and began to question who gave me any power or authority. i came to realise that there was no basis for this kind of prejudice. this was one instance of unlearning (or learning differently) for me. it is difficult to pinpoint any single trigger that has led me towards a new consciousness. there were, however, multiple critical incidents in my young adult life that led me to question my learned gendered prejudicial behaviour. i must declare upfront that i am not making any claim to be cured of this affliction. the learning to unlearn has been (and still is) an on-going and fascinating process. one of my earliest contemplations of the need for gender equity came out of my own political activist work as a student and school teacher. i was particularly drawn to the teachings of the freedom charter, the black consciousness manifesto, and early anc policy. fundamental to all these was the call for nondiscrimination on the basis of race or gender. i began to reflect on how, within the anc at that time, racial inclusivity based on racial emancipation was the central ambition of the movement. gender discrimination remained largely at the level of rhetoric and played second fiddle to the primary quest for a non-racist society. my experience of working in the then banned anc teachers’ union structures and civic association structures made me realise that many of my comrades were not serious about gender equity but were fixated entirely on nonracism. that this may have been the strategic thrust of the liberation movements at that time is arguably a compelling reason for the somewhat marginal progress made with the gender equity agenda. to me, the contradiction became quite stark and i came to the realisation that i had to reflect on how i envisaged the broader social justice project given that the anc as ruling party (and former liberation movement) constantly traverses a contradictory agenda (see govender, 2008). maistry: aligning with feminism 21 a second compelling trigger that evoked a meta-awareness of the assumed authority of my maleness came to me when i began my first serious relationship with the woman who has been my wife for just over three decades. she brought to our relationship an assertive, selfassured, confident, yet non-threatening disposition, a disposition that did not aggressively challenge my maleness and my assumed privileged position that comes with being male in the family (and community) in which we lived. we both achieved our teacher education qualifications at the same higher education institution and we began work in the same year. at that time, despite being on the same professional level, she earned a lower salary than i did. we both taught at schools managed predominantly by men. her experiences of engaging with powerful men and what it felt like to be controlled by male egos and insecurities helped me to reflect on my own behaviour as male that stands on privilege. i must confess that although i have two sisters, i had not paid attention to how the world had conspired and discriminated against them as women. that realisation just did not occur to me at that time. a third and arguably the most compelling trigger that has accelerated my shifting consciousness about gender discrimination is the life experiences of my two daughters, both of whom currently have occupations in a field (engineering) heavily dominated by males. gender prejudice in this field is particular acute and is reified on a daily basis. learning to understand how this assemblage is constructed has been a distinct learning experience for me as i reflect on how i contribute to maintaining (and, i hope, disrupting) the status quo in the spaces i occupy. raising both my daughters in a patriarchal society (described above) meant that my wife and i, had, of necessity, to adopt a determined against-the-grain approach. it meant defying religious and cultural practices that privileged boys over girls. this meant earning the wrath of family for what was thought of as non-compliance with acceptable behaviour along with their rejection of us as we developed a strategy for managing confrontational individuals (both male and female) who held archaic beliefs about the role and place of women in society. this, as can be expected, remains an ongoing project. the more important project, however, is my personal one, my own journey in the direction of confronting my own learned prejudice and aiming for a sense of integrity and authenticity as i contemplate my cisgender identity. discussion and concluding comments butler’s (2004) insights were valuable in understanding that gender prejudice is learned and performed in spaces where the director(s) and props work to choreograph predetermined practices. the social classroom is set up for this to happen in an almost natural fashion. willing pedagogues and learners are active participants but are, in a sense, unconscious. a nuanced understanding of how this kind of learning happens is powerful since it points to the possibility of disrupting the content, pedagogy, and dispositions of the various actors in the social classroom. in this paper, i attempted to show how engaging the disposition of vulnerable self is a powerful technique with the potential for pedagogical disruptions. this approach decenters the teacher as powerful absolute knower and transmitter and recalibrates the power relations between the teacher and learner. deliberative vulnerability as pedagogic disposition has to be authentic. it emanates from a deep will to alter thinking, a will that 22 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 despite the risks and repercussions for the self, perseveres in its intent in the hope that substantive change in behaviour might be the outcome of the effort. of course, this approach could be accused of being an attempt at self-cleansing or a confessional for personal conscience appeasement. in applying foucault’s (1979) technologies of the self, using the vulnerable self as resource might be regarded as a productive pedagogic strategy in which the subject reflects on its formation and ongoing construction and reconstruction. it follows, then, that reflexivity as a founding tenet of autoethnography as it relates to teaching and learning is powerful since it suggests a move beyond reflection towards some action of advancing the aspired-for social justice project. i contend, though, that this reflexivity might well be followed by a tentative set of new contemplations for pedagogy. at best, they are likely to be a modest conceptualisation-in-process. even the (somewhat disparate) theoretical insights drawn on in this piece (butler, 2004, foucault, 1979, turner, 2017, and cervantes-soon and carillo, 2016) to analyse and interpret are experimental so it warrants a tempered claim to the extent of the generative as it relates to teaching and learning. in pursuing the use of the vulnerable self, it might be necessary to analyse how the self came to the state of vulnerability and, importantly, to discern how the vulnerable self musters the confidence to proceed or, in other words, to analyse the triggers that might move men (like me) out of, and beyond bystander behaviour. i knew inherently that discriminatory behaviour was wrong, but i elected not to make it my business by simply turning a blind eye. living and socialising with known perpetrators of violence against women (at that time) was (and still is) common practice. not having the tools for intervention and the absence of good role models are arguably fragile arguments and conveniently construed excuses. my personal experience does, however, point to their degree of plausibility, especially as it relates to my knowledge of the world of gender theory and praxis. important, though, is that it draws attention to the focus of the nature of interventions that might be useful. dealing with fear, anxiety, external judgement, and being accountable to the male fraternity are compelling factors with which archetype ‘a’ males require assistance, an area that certainly requires further research. fear of losing power is unsettling and disorienting to the powerful. self-disclosure then might entail empathising with the archetype ‘a’ male. disclosing my own inhabiting of the archetype ‘a’ space, revealing the pressures (and benefits) of remaining in that space might be useful in helping archetype ‘a’ individuals to acquire a deeper understanding of how they have come to hold the dispositions that they have, in a non-threatening yet sufficiently disruptive way. how to create a conducive environment for engagement, balancing aggressive and over-assertive approaches with inclusive ones in dealing with archetype ‘a’ males is certainly an area worthy of research. it is clear that the practice of calling out the male fraternity and naming and shaming entire groups is not helpful. it is likely to make the males close ranks and feel threatened and might induce a fight or flight response. this raises questions about how to develop healthy expressions of masculinity, how to disrupt what has become known as common sense and generationally transmitted knowledge. we need to interrogate the default defence that is couched as “it’s my culture.” it also entails unpacking and dismantling the faulty biological and physiological argument and examining the logic that being born with male genitals ascribes to males’ automatic natural power, authority and maistry: aligning with feminism 23 wisdom, an argument that is surprisingly still commonplace even among advanced postgraduate students. references adams, t. e. 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(2017). the ritual process: structure and anti-structure. routledge. united nations general assembly (1993) declaration on the elimination of violence against women, resolution 48/104 of 20 december 1993. teachers dealing with learners’ achievement – what do their emotions tell us? carola steinberg abstract hargreaves (1998, 2004) has clarified the multiple ways in which teaching, including assessment, is an emotional practice. in this article i present one facet of teachers’ emotions in relation to assessment, namely, their emotions towards the quality of achievement produced by their learners. the data comes from teachers who were committed to their profession, talking in focus groups about the range of emotions they experience in relation to various ‘objects’ (nussbaum, 2001) within their assessment practice. the descriptive analysis of their common emotions illustrates how teachers are on an emotional rollercoaster in response to the ‘object’ of learners’ achievement, with positive emotions in response to strong, and negative emotions in response to weak achievement. it also illustrates how teachers see themselves and their effort reflected both in strong, and in weak learner achievement. turner’s (2007, p.99–100) principle that “individuals will make attributions about the cause of their emotional experiences”, with positive emotional arousal tending towards self-attributions and negative emotional arousal tending towards external attributions, makes this self-attribution of committed teachers for not only strong but also weak learner achievement a significant finding. introduction my interest in researching teachers’ emotions in relation to assessment was stimulated by the contradiction between the experienced reality of teachers (and teacher educators) feeling anxious, irritated and despairing about their jobs during exam times, yet when i asked, they advocated assessment as a necessary lever for individual advancement and educational quality. why is something we experience as not conducive to our emotional well-being nevertheless staunchly supported intellectually? i turned to the burgeoning literature on teacher emotions and found that hargreaves (1998, 2000, 2001) presents convincing evidence that “teaching is an emotional practice” which “activates, colours and expresses” (1998, p.838) the feelings of teachers and those with whom they work. he describes how emotions shape teachers’ relationships with students, school structures, 10 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 pedagogy, curriculum planning, parents, colleagues and educational change/ reform. yet he barely mentions emotions about assessment. nor do other researchers who have written about teacher emotions (e.g. bahia, freire, amaral and estrela, 2013; bullough jnr, 2011; james, 2011; kelchtermans, 1996, 2005, 2011; nias, 1996; oplatka, 2007; palmer, 1998; winograd, 2003; zembylas, 2005). as a sub-set of teaching, assessment is also an emotional practice for teachers (steinberg, 2008). assessment is core to the purpose of teaching because it is the mechanism for establishing whether or not learning has taken place. at the same time, assessment is a conflicted aspect of teachers’ work: the curriculum and assessment policy changes frequently, the social pressures are intense, (e.g. learners and parents expect high marks, newspapers blame teachers for low results) and the moral demand for fairness is ever-present. these often conflicting pressures inevitably arouse intense emotions in teachers. emotions as a conceptual lens for research the centuries-old western understanding of thinking as rational and emotions as irrational has been laid to rest by modern neuroscience (damasio, 1994; le doux, 1999), giving rise to the insight that “it is the interaction between cognitive and emotional capacities that makes rationality and memory possible on a human scale” (turner, 2007, p.37). nussbaum (2001) explores this interaction by emphasising that “emotions are about something: they have an object” (p.27) and they “direct us to an important component of our well-being and register the way things are with that important component” (p.135). emotions are intertwined with “complex beliefs” (p.28) and “see their object as invested with value and importance” (p.30). thus, “emotions are acknowledgements of our goals and their status” (p.135). yet in spite of the object’s importance, we cannot control it, and so “the emotion records that sense of vulnerability and imperfect control” (p.43). archer (2000) describes how these ‘objects’ come from different sources: ‘objects’ from the natural order evoke physical feelings like pain or cold and demand our attention to physical wellbeing; ‘objects’ from the practical order evoke emotions like curiosity or anxiety and demand attention to performative achievement; while ‘objects’ from the social order evoke a whole range of steinberg: teachers dealing with learners’ achievement. . . 11 emotions that relate to our self-worth in social interactions. these ‘objects’ and the resulting emotions can often be conflictual, for example, when exhaustion (from the natural order) intersects with feeling responsible for marking a pile of exams (practical order), or when the pleasure at learner engagement during lessons (practical order) co-exists with the fear that engagement may slow down curriculum coverage, resulting in a reprimand from district officials (social order). these emotional conflicts generate an “inner conversation” (p.209) to prioritise concerns and actions for decision-making. nussbaum thus enables the understanding that the intensity of emotion is proportional to the significance of the object in our own scheme of things, while the valence (positive or negative) of the emotion indicates whether we appraise the object’s impact on our well-being as supportive or threatening. archer enables us to see how human agency is shaped by a reasoning process initiated by emotions that arise in response to physical, practical and social demands. in addition, turner (2007, 2010) provides the understanding that emotions are not only a personal but also a social force. “emotions are embedded in social structure and culture” in a two-way process: “emotions are systematically generated under sociocultural conditions and, once aroused, they have effects on these conditions” (turner, 2007, p.66). he develops a conceptual scheme through which he can show how “emotions generated in micro-level encounters are often the fuel for either change of, or commitment to, mesoand macrostructures and their respective cultures” even though “most of the time” personal encounters and institutional processes are constrained by the culture and structure of the level above (2010, p.171). emotions have this power because love/loyalty and other strong positive emotions generate well-being and thus function as “symbolic media”, which, like the symbolic media of money, power, health or knowledge, are distributed by institutional domains (2010, p.173) and once acquired, can be used to accumulate not only more positive emotions but also more of other symbolic media. so, for example, a teacher with a mainly positive emotional valence is more likely to inspire effort and higher marks from learners and then be promoted to hod, thus gaining more money and power, compared to a depressed teacher. this makes positive emotions a valued resource, both intrinsically and socially. yet, like money and knowledge, they are distributed unequally, so that the “distribution of positive and negative emotional energies among members of a population will generally correspond to the distribution of other resources such as money, power, prestige, influence and love” (2010, p.175). so, for example, teachers in a school attended by children whose parents have 12 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 sufficient socio-economic resources will have more opportunities to gain the symbolic medium of positive emotions in response to learner achievement compared to teachers working in schools situated in poor socio-economic contexts. turner enables us to see how personal emotions are both aroused by and become an influential factor in the operation of institutional and societal structures. turner’s sociological theory of emotions also offers two concepts particularly useful for analysing teachers’ emotions towards learner achievement, namely, self-verification and attribution, which will be presented later, together with the relevant data. taken together, nussbaum, archer and turner enable a complex understanding of the functions and effects of emotions, thus making emotions a useful lens for data analysis. emotions provide a value judgement about ‘objects’ that are important to us and initiate inner conversations which motivate decision-making and action. they are also a social factor, shaped by and shaping institutional structures and cultures. positive emotions are intrinsically desirable and function as a ‘social medium’ distributed by institutions such as schools and education systems. using emotions as a research lens thus enables insight into individual as well as institutional perspectives and decision making. research into teachers’ emotions in institutional contexts as mentioned above, there is a growing literature into teachers’ emotions, which provides valuable insights into teachers’ work and identity. i don’t have the space to review it here, rather, i want to draw out one key learning – namely the relationship between teachers’ emotions and the institutional contexts in which they work. hargreaves (1998) emphasises that “the emotions of teaching, their nature and form – be it “happiness” or “anxiety, frustration, anger, guilt and other negative emotions” (p.841) – are shaped by teachers’ “moral purposes” (p.838) and “are therefore inextricably bound up with the basic purposes of schooling – what the purposes are, what stake teachers have (and are asked to have) in them, and whether the working conditions of teaching make them achievable or not” (p.841). hargreaves thus centrally links teachers’ emotions steinberg: teachers dealing with learners’ achievement. . . 13 to their beliefs and ideals about the purposes of education, as well as to their institutional working conditions. kelchtermans (2011) strengthens this argument by explaining how teachers are positioned institutionally in a way that generates vulnerability with intense positive and negative emotions. he demonstrates how vulnerability is a “structural condition of teaching” (p.80) which has both moral and political dimensions and becomes manifest at three levels of the education system. at the level of the system, teachers are politically vulnerable in the face of policies and decisions made by education departments, especially when the designated changes affect their daily workplace context and conditions, yet the reasons and moral norms of the changes are not discussed or explained. at the level of the school, teachers are vulnerable in the micro-politics of the professional relationships in the school, especially when political conflicts arise over resources or organisational procedures that appear to be technical issues, but are actually based on different moral conceptions of what “good education” or “being a proper teacher” entails (p.76). the deepest structure that generates vulnerability in teachers is found in the classroom, namely the “limits to their professional efficacy: students’ learning outcomes are only partly determined by teachers’ action” (p.71). in spite of their moral ideals and their best efforts, not all learners will learn what the teacher presents and “successful outcomes remain uncertain” (p.72). this confronts teachers with “the limits of their impact” as well as “the limits of their professional knowledge and skills” (p.72), generating vulnerability. it is this limited impact and, by implication, limited professional knowledge and skill, that is measured and made publically visible through the results of learner assessment. low learner achievement makes teachers structurally vulnerable: at system level, it may affect promotion opportunities; at school, their reputation is at stake; personally, it questions their sense of what it means to be a ‘proper teacher’. the more emphasis the education system places on assessment, the more the limits of the efficacy of teachers are in full public view. no wonder assessment results arouse intense emotions in teachers. 14 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 research into teacher emotions in assessment the international research studies concerned with teachers’ emotions towards assessment are small in number, yet illuminating. some studies showed teachers grappling with the emotional complexities of their assessment practice. stough and emmer (1998) illustrated how teachers are reluctant to give formative feedback on tests because they struggle to manage the intensely emotional responses from students in that context. reyna and weiner (2001) demonstrated how teachers’ emotions towards test results are interdependent with their attribution for the cause of failure: teachers are more sympathetic when failure is not the student’s ‘fault’, and angrier when they think the student has made insufficient effort. other studies explored teachers’ emotions towards the institutional aspects of assessment. hargreaves (2004) theorised how accountability measures that increase the public visibility of failure might generate emotions that reinforce class differences and are difficult to acknowledge. empirical studies provided clear evidence that externally set, standardised assessments increase the intensity and discomfort of teachers’ emotions (smith, 1991; hargreaves, 1994, 2003; stecher & barron, 1999), while high-stakes standardised assessment can lead to teacher demoralisation, particularly in low socio-economic contexts where students have little chance of success or where the external assessments do not correspond with teachers’ ideals of good teaching (falk and drayton, 2004). teachers’ most intense emotions were expressed towards accountability measures that assess their work directly, like school evaluations or performance appraisals, leaving them angry, ashamed and professionally weary (jeffrey and woods, 1996; mahony, menter and hextall, 2004). occasionally, when teachers are activated by their negative emotions, they can become determined to reveal and agitate against the excesses of accountability (kornfeld, grady, marker and ruddell, 2007). yet generally, the intensely negative emotions and long-lasting effects evoked in teachers by accountability measures left them demoralised and “ontologically insecure” (ball, 2003) long after the evaluation had taken place. i did not find south african studies that dealt directly with teachers’ responses to assessment and learner achievement. yet there are studies investigating teacher stress, which found high levels of resignation, burnout, steinberg: teachers dealing with learners’ achievement. . . 15 cynical attitudes and demoralisation (naidoo, botha and bisschoff, 2013; pienaar and van wyk, 2006; hayward, 2003). this gap in the south african literature increased my interest in how local teachers experienced assessment and what issues arose for them while they were doing and reflecting on it. collecting and coding the data of this study the data on which this research is based came from 7 focus group interviews conducted in johannesburg in 2008/9 with 19 experienced senior phase teachers in functional, urban, public schools, ranging from well-resourced schools serving middle class areas to resource-poor schools serving working class and squatter communities. teachers were recruited into the study through fortuitous connections and post-graduate students who invited their colleagues. the interview asked about teachers’ emotions in relation to: the value of assessment, their memories, assessment policy, learners, marking, report writing, accountability, and managing their emotions. the interview data was systematically coded using atlas-ti and then analysed by thematic content, so this article presents the findings of an interpretative qualitative study. the participating teachers took their jobs seriously: they enjoyed teaching ‘most of the time’ , they experienced teaching as ‘rewarding’ and ‘fulfilling’ because it was ‘good to work and assist the community’ and contribute to something that was ‘essential to the future success of our country’. yet although they ‘loved working with the kids’, they did not appreciate the ‘insane demands of the paperwork’ and they were divided on whether or not to recommend that their children become teachers. as a group, they enabled me to record the beliefs and emotions of committed teachers working within the framework of a functioning system. they did not heroically fight against all odds to change the lives of their learners and community, but they were committed to doing a good job, wanted to make a difference and invested their life energy in their profession. as cheryl said, ‘real teachers’ care about what they are doing: ‘i really think that there is a whole emotional investment. if you’re a teacher, there’s an emotional investment, if you are really a teacher’. they understood ‘real’ teachers as emotionally committed to making an effort so that learners can achieve. 16 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 after much careful coding, re-coding and counting of all the utterances of teachers about assessment that contained strongly expressed emotions, what emerged were three key ‘objects’ (nussbaum, 2001) within assessment that teachers were concerned with and felt strongly about: learner achievement, assessment practice and accountability demands. for the purposes of this article, i am engaging only with teachers’ emotions towards the ‘object’ of learner achievement. presenting the data: teachers’ emotions towards learner achievement the single code that was numerically most prominent was emotions towards the ‘object’ of ‘learner achievement’. in terms of their emotional focus, the teachers in this study were most concerned with the achievement of their own learners, followed by the achievement of the learners in their school and in the nation as a whole. ideally, they wanted all learners to achieve and pass. hargreaves (1998) argues that teachers’ relationship with students is the “emotional filter” (p.842) through which they see the value and rewards of being a teacher. in response to questions about assessment, the teachers in this study illustrated how their emotional filter was substantively concerned with the growth, achievement and success of learners. teachers’ emotions follow the quality of learner achievement teachers were ‘quite involved emotionally’ with their learners’ development and assessment results. weak learner achievement generated palpable distress: it made teachers feel ‘very disappointed’, ‘extremely frustrated’, ‘horrible’, ‘sad’, ‘irritated’, ‘hurt’ and ‘sorry for learners’. teachers took for granted that learner achievement reflected on their own performance and talked about how, when faced with the failure of their learners, they ‘felt like an idiot’ and wanted to ‘hide away’, ‘went mad’, ‘tried to deal with burning anger’, got ‘frustrated’ and ‘depressed’, all underpinned by a helplessness of ‘we don’t have strategies to solve that’. when there was no learner achievement, i.e. when teachers did not manage, through their effort, to enable learning, the teacher-learner relationship could come to an end. celiwe described it graphically: “when they fail, they end up steinberg: teachers dealing with learners’ achievement. . . 17 absconding out of your house, because they weigh themselves as failures, as slow learners”. even if the relationship did not come to a complete end (children are, after all, legally obliged to go to school), the teachers struggled to maintain their motivation to continue teaching. unless learners ‘put their hearts into it’ and performed, it became ‘hard’ for teachers to continue ‘putting in such a lot of effort’ and motivating themselves, because they felt ‘demoralised’, ‘very upset’, ‘deeply disappointed’, ‘absolutely heartbroken’ and ‘very de-motivated’. when the distress over low learner achievement and the resultant self-accusation became too extreme and painful, they considered leaving the profession: we become confused about why all the learners are failing. where is the problem? what is it that i've not done right? so it's very bad, it's painful. you can end up saying, maybe it's because i am a failure, that is why i could not bring the subject closer or clearly to learners. maybe that is why other people leave teaching. (thobile) these feelings intensified when teachers looked beyond the learners in their class to the broader picture nationally, which left them ‘shocked and scared’ because learners ‘cannot write letters properly, they can’t spell properly, they can’t read documents and comprehend properly, so there are these huge gaps’ and they haven’t built the mental capacity either’, which is ‘brewing disaster’ for the country. thobile summed it up: “at the end you cry; there is no help”. the only antidote to this distress was strong learner achievement, which made teachers feel ‘satisfaction’, ‘reaffirmed’, ‘worthwhile’, ‘most wonderful’, ‘rewarded’, ‘having their moment’ and even ‘having a life!’. when learners understood and ‘i can see what i was teaching them’, teachers felt ‘proud’, very happy’, ‘very excited’, ‘so good’ and ‘uplifted’. learner success was the internal motivator that drove these teachers to do their work. when the learners pass you become motivated, like, i want to do this again, and more and more. because you want to see them passing again, at different levels every time. so you become intrinsically motivated because learners do well. (thobile) the quality of learner achievement generates an intense emotional rollercoaster ride for teachers the teachers in this study talked about how they ‘get upset about failures’ and ‘feel good when kids do unexpectedly well’; how, depending on learners’ achievement, they feel ‘like a failure’ or like ‘we’ve done something!’; how they feel ‘enthusiastic’ when learners respond well to an assessment task and 18 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 ‘disappointed and de-motivated’ when learners don’t. the peaks of positive emotions (joy, satisfaction, excitement) when learners achieve motivated the teachers to further effort, yet alternated with sloughs of dark emotions (self-doubt, despondency, frustration) when learners did not understand or failed, which de-motivated teachers. these emotional rollercoaster rides were not under the teachers’ control. teachers were being pulled into the ups and downs by the quality of their learners’ work, by their learners’ emotional responses towards assessment results, and by their own empathy with learners. this interdependence between teachers and learner achievement places teachers in a position of permanent tension. their effort is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for good learner achievement. learners are the ones who need to do the learning, with teachers having a strong shaping influence on, but not control over, their learners’ assessment results. this makes teachers’ continued motivation and effort dependent on a positive response to assessment by the learners. as teachers don’t control the direction of the ride, they are hanging on to the seatbelts of their emotional rollercoaster for dear life. the next quote illustrates how khumbula, even when he is specifically setting out to describe the ‘not gloomy’ feelings about assessment, slides up and down the emotional rollercoaster. i don't think we need to look only at the gloomy part of assessment (laughs). we should also think about the other parts that really make us happy, or sometimes uncomfortable. what makes me happy when it comes to assessment is: when i do the question, the interaction with the learners, asking them questions and the responses i get. ... giving them feedback as well, maybe to add a little bit more on what they've given me, to extend their knowledge, i like that. that's what i enjoy very much, the interaction with them. then what really upsets me is marking low quality work from a learner, after having spent so much time speaking to them or having activities that would really lead to better understanding and you still find some learners are just lethargic, they don't even care (laughs). sometimes they don't even write anything. then you wonder, why is this child not motivated? maybe you also need to think about learners' feelings as well when it comes to certain activities. maybe we bore them; we don't know (laughter). (kg15-k) khumbula sets out to speak about the aspects of assessment that make him ‘happy’, but the word ‘uncomfortable’ follows in the next breath. he ‘very much enjoys’ the ‘interaction’ and ‘giving feedback that extends learners’ knowledge’, but gets ‘really upset’ by learners who are not engaged and give him ‘low quality work’. then he ‘wonders’ why the learners are ‘lethargic’ and ‘not motivated’, which leads him back to his sense of himself as a teacher steinberg: teachers dealing with learners’ achievement. . . 19 and the things he is ‘maybe’ not doing (‘considering their feelings’) or unwittingly doing (‘boring them’). getting such varied responses from learners (both positive responses and lethargy) makes his emotions fluctuate wildly, leaving him concerned and insecure about the impact of his work on the learners. the intensity of these rollercoaster emotions portrays the importance of the ‘object’ of learner achievement to teachers, indicating how close learner achievement is to the heart and identity of committed teachers. the intensity becomes significant in the light of the human need for self-verification. turner (2007) clarifies that “individuals want to have their views of themselves verified” because their “sense of self is on the line during interactions” with others (p.102). the need for self-verification becomes stronger, the closer the interaction is to the core self-conception or the main sub-identity of a person (p.103). the emotional intensity with which teachers respond to learner achievement enables the insight that it is the core professional self-worth of teachers that is verified (or not) by the achievement of their learners. for committed teachers, assessment is an emotional practice that lies at the centre of their professional identity. learner achievement generates much self-reflection in teachers the reflection on their professional identity was particularly prominent at times when teachers’ expectations of achievement were not met. faced with learner non-achievement, they felt ‘embarrassed’, ‘bad’, ‘confused’, ‘inadequate’, ‘apprehensive’, ‘hurt’, ‘pain’, ‘self-blaming’, ‘self-questioning’, ‘unsure’, ‘something wrong’. low learner achievement made them reflect on themselves and their work: wondering why their ‘best’ efforts were ‘not enough’, whether they taught well enough, what they ‘did wrong’, what could have been done differently, what they could ‘adjust’ in the future. at times when learner non-achievement was too frequent or too severe, they even made a judgement of ‘total failure’ about their entire career. hlubi spoke for all when he said: i feel embarrassed and bad if my learners are not performing the way i wanted them to perform. because the main aim of teaching them is to ensure they are well developed, they are well educated. but if they do badly in my assessment, i get confused, to say, what went wrong? or where did it go wrong? then i restart to think again and see what i can adjust, so that they can be able to get some little bit of achievement. 20 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 teachers’ self-reflection in the mirror of learner achievement was grounded in the assumption that a teacher is a person who is responsible for children to learn something. regardless of the socio-economic environment of their schools, the teachers reflected on and judged themselves by how well they had ‘charged’ their learners: i need to take responsibility for those learners. even if it’s a case where they are never going to get a’s, but they’re currently getting e’s and i should get them to c’s. it should be like that, there’s no doubt in my mind. (cheryl, in a school with middle class children) i think assessment is very important. you are going to assess yourself as the teacher, how much did the learner learn from you? (mathoto, in a school with working class children) ‘real’ teachers commit to responsibility for learner achievement turner (2007) argues that in their need to understand why and how things happen, “individuals are constantly making causal attributions as to the sources of various outcomes” (p.97). linking causal attribution to emotions, he presents a principle for the direction that the attributions will take, namely that “positive emotional arousal reveals a proximal bias with individuals making self-attributions” (p.99) while “negative emotional arousal evidences a distal bias, with individuals making external attributions” (p.100). this means there is a general tendency for the positive emotions aroused by success to lead people to attributing the cause of success to themselves (thus giving themselves a double dose of pleasurable emotions), while the negative emotions aroused by failure leads people to attributing the cause of failure to others (thus avoiding the second dose of negative emotions). as i coded and analysed all the causal attributions for learner achievement made during the interviews, it emerged that the teachers were making self-attributions not only for the success, but also for the failure of their learners. table 1: causal attributions subdivided into types of learner achievement teachers’ causal attribution for learner achievement to: learners self system total high achievement 1 2 0 3 low achievement 21 21 28 70 achievement in general 15 20 7 42 total 37 43 35 115 steinberg: teachers dealing with learners’ achievement. . . 21 teachers were primarily concerned with attributing causes for the low achievement of learners (70), they often attributed causes to learner achievement in general regardless of its outcome (42), yet they seldom made an attribution for high learner achievement (3). in terms of self-attributions, they took clear responsibility for the level of learners’ achievement in general (20) and in no way shirked their responsibility for low achievement (21). teachers from all the schools made self-attributions for low learner achievement and there was no discernible pattern across socio-economic levels. making a majority of self-attributions (43) is appropriate, as it means the teachers were taking responsibility for the core of their job. yet they balked at taking sole responsibility for low learner achievement: they attributed blame for failure to both learners (21) and the system (28). issues included in the attributions to the system were education policy, administrative assessment demands placed on them by the department which interfered with teaching, learners’ language diversity, class sizes, colleagues lower in the system, parents, and generally overwhelming low socioeconomic conditions. this pattern of attributions means that the teachers in this study were not following the general human pattern of making self-directed attributions for positive results and other-directed attributions for negative results, but, with regard to learner achievement, were making causal self-attributions not only for success but also for failure, thus accepting the double dose of negative emotions as their due. discussion: learner achievement lies at the heart of teachers’ professional identity like all human beings, teachers aspire to having more of the “symbolic medium” (turner, 2010, p.173) of positive emotions, both for its intrinsic and its exchange value. teachers with more positive emotions are more likely to have positive interactions with learners and colleagues, increasing their emotional energy in the process and becoming more likely to teach in ways that reward them with the success of high learner achievement, which in turn continues the positive cycle. in contrast, when teachers experience negative emotions because of learners’ low achievement, they lose emotional energy, have less emotional symbolic media to exchange and a negative cycle ensues. when this cyclical process is linked with causal attribution, the result is intensification. when teachers receive the positive emotions and energy of 22 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 their learners’ success and at the same time make a self-attribution for that success, they feel doubly good. in the space of this positive emotional intensification, it becomes easy to make additional external attributions to learners for their effort, to colleagues and parents for their support and even to the education department for its guidance. in fact, these positive external attributions entrain others and generate more positive emotions to go around. but when teachers are faced with the negative emotions and loss of energy coming from their learners’ failure, the nature and direction of their attributions really matter. if teachers make a causal self-attribution for low achievement, then they feel doubly bad – not only do they have to deal with their already felt negative emotional response to failure; they also have to deal with the self-recriminations about having caused that failure through their own incompetence or lack of effort. if they attribute the cause of low achievement to an external source, then they still feel bad about the failure, but at least they don’t have to feel guilt and shame about themselves as well. it also matters towards whom the external attribution is directed – if it is directed towards learners, with whom teachers are in daily contact, the negative attribution can cause their relationship to sour, generating even more negative emotions and making the teaching an unpleasant experience. to safeguard the children from becoming the ‘objects’ of their negative emotions, the “inner dialogue” (archer, 2000) of teachers may make external attributions directed towards the ‘system’ – department officials or parents who are seldom seen, or, even better, policy documents or unknown policy makers who cannot fight back. in this light of this understanding, it is a pleasant surprise that the committed teachers in this study went against the general trend of attributions as predicted by turner’s principle. even though they made some external attributions, they did not refuse to accept the double dose of negative feeling that arises from both failure and responsibility for that failure. they remained committed to their “moral purpose” (hargreaves, 1998) of being responsible for the quality of learner achievement. they worked on the assumption that because assessment functions as a summary of what has been taught, it becomes a comment on the effectiveness of teaching, with the results reflecting on the teacher nearly as much as they do on the student. they were thus living in a “structural condition” of “vulnerability” (kelchtermans, 2011, p.80): the more they did what is correct for their professional identity, which is to understand their role as someone who is responsible for generating the achievement of others, the more they ended up facing the “limits of their professional efficacy” (p.71) and taking responsibility for learner failure, steinberg: teachers dealing with learners’ achievement. . . 23 which gave them a double dose of negative emotion. their morally correct position led them into an emotionally uncomfortable place. this resonates with hargreaves’ finding that teachers feel “very insecure as a profession” because of their guilt and fear of “not measuring up” (1994, p.150). conclusion turner’s (2010) claim that positive emotions function as a symbolic medium and resource that every person strives to have more of, makes visible two important implications of these findings. the first implication is professional. as seen through the lens of their emotions, attaining high learner achievement is an intrinsic self-interest for every teacher. too much learner failure generates negative emotions which de-energise and de-motivate teachers. if teachers want to gain access to the symbolic medium of positive emotions, i.e. to have more joy/selfgratification and less disappointment/self-doubt in the course of their work, it means that, (if they want to remain teachers and not move out into management or administrative positions), they structurally have no choice but to care about, take responsibility for, work hard and make the effort to enable good learner achievement. the second implication is institutional. teachers can only remain motivated to do their job to the best of their ability for as long as the highs and lows of the emotional rollercoaster balance each other out, so that the negative emotions of failure are balanced by the positive emotions of success. teachers cannot achieve this balance alone – they are working within an institutional and societal system that shapes their working conditions. sixty per cent to 75% of schools in our country are underperforming (shalem and hoadley, 2009; hoadley, 2013), primarily for reasons arising from socio-economic factors. when failure is endemic for socio-economic reasons, there will be many occasions when the few emotional highs of learner success cannot carry teachers past the long duration of failure lows. this has implications for the emotional health of south african teachers: an overdose of the negative emotions of failure may generate instability in teachers’ self-attribution for learner achievement and weaken their commitment to the effort involved in enabling learner achievement. at those times, teachers would benefit from less public blame and more institutional support (be it emotional, educative or administrative) to lift them into a more capable and hopeful feeling. using 24 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 turner’s language, it is important for societal attitudes and education department regulations to increase teachers’ share of the symbolic medium of positive emotions. references archer, m.j. 2000. being human, the problem of agency. cambridge: cambridge university press. bahia, s., freire, i., amaral, a., estrela m.t. 2013. the emotional dimension of teaching in a group of portuguese teachers. teachers and teaching: theory and practice, 19(3): pp.275–292. ball, s.j. 2003. the teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. journal of education policy, 18(2): pp.215–228. bullough, r.v. 2011. hope, happiness, teaching and learning. in day c. and lee, j.c. 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steinberg school of education university of the watersrand carola.steinberg@wits.ac.za mailto:carola.steinberg@wits.ac.za microsoft word bissue82-final.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 82, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i82a08 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x exploring grade 6 mathematics teachers’ use of the language of learning and teaching in assessment for learning sizwe b mahlambi curriculum and instructional studies, college of education, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa emahlasb@unisa.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5691-8214 ailwei s mawela curriculum and instructional studies, college of education, university of south africa, pretoria, south africa mawelas@unisa.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7043-8716 (received: 8 september 2020; accepted: 2 february 2021) abstract in this study, we aimed to explore grade 6 mathematics teachers’ use of english, the language of learning and teaching in assessment for learning in selected primary schools in alexandra township, south africa. from grade 4, english is the language of teaching and learning for most learners, despite english being the home language of a minority of learners. results of studies have shown that in south africa, in grades 1 to 3, in which learners are taught using their home-language performance appears to be better than in grades 4 to 6 where english as a first additional language (efal) is used for teaching and learning. guided by qualitative case study design, we used semi-structured interviews and non-participatory observation to collect data from nine purposefully sampled grade 6 mathematics teachers. in conjunction with the literature reviewed and the theory underpinning the study, we used themes to analyse, interpret, and discuss the data we collected. this research revealed that learners in grade 6 struggle to understand english as the language of learning and teaching, so, to augment concept development and understanding, teachers and learners use code-switching. in the classrooms observed, this practice has become the norm to improve the performance of learners with limited language proficiency. however, because of the differences between the home language of learners and that of teachers in mathematics classrooms, code-switching is often not enough to ensure understanding. keywords: english as a first additional language, the language of learning and teaching, assessment for learning, mathematics, grade 6, code-switching 130 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 background and introduction globally, there is consensus that the language that is used impacts how classrooms instruction unfolds and how learners develop academically (boulet, 2007; khurana & sharma, 2015; naziev, 2018). researchers agree that learners have the right to receive an education that makes sense to them in a language they understand (riccomini et al., 2015; trudell, 2016). the use of a language understood by learners has significant implications for providing quality education. to achieve educational objectives, learners whose home language (hl) is not english, should be taught “systematically so that they gradually transfer skills from the familiar language to the unfamiliar one” (benson, 2004, p. 2). many researchers have discussed the impact of language on learning and teaching (chikiwa & schäfer, 2016; naziev, 2018; prochazkova, 2013). in this study, we extend the discussion by exploring the impact of language on assessment for learning (afl) and how teachers mitigate its burden on learners whose hl is not english. given that the south african constitution, adopted in 1996, promotes eleven official languages, paying attention to language in education is imperative in the south african education context. hl is the language of learning and teaching (lolt) in grades 1 to 3 but this changes to english in grade 4, which means that most learners are then introduced to the teaching of mathematics in english. therefore, grade 6 learners who are still at a developmental stage of english language proficiency learn mathematics as english second language users as webb and webb (2013) have reminded us. the task of assessing mathematics in learners whose hl is not english is not simple. the basic interpersonal communicative skill (bics) and cognitive academic language proficiency (calp) measurements proposed by cummins (1979, 2000) drew our attention to language development for second language users. bics refers to a learner’s ability to communicate, and calp measures the learner’s ability to understand and use the academic language as khatib and taie (2016) have noted. cummins (1979) pointed to a direct relationship between language proficiency and the academic performance of learners. according to his theorisation of cognitive academic language proficiency (calp), it could take five to seven years for learners to acquire the appropriate skills required for their intellectual abilities (cummins, 2000). for learners to make sense of the content presented, they must have “command of the oral and written academic registers for their learning” (cummins, 2000, p. 67). therefore, the language that teachers use in mathematics assessment in grade 6 should be appropriate to prevent learners from losing content presented to them because of the barrier inherent in the lolt. mathematics is a compulsory subject from grades 1 to 9 in south africa. teachers and learners use these years to build a solid foundation so that those learners who choose to do pure mathematics in grade 10 will have acquired the necessary skills over the previous nine years. if south africa is to meet its envisaged socioeconomic development goals, the teaching and learning of mathematics is essential (wilson, 2015). therefore, the content of what grade 1 to 9 mathematics teachers teach must equip learners who go on to do mathematics in grade 10 with the necessary skills and competencies. to evaluate where the country is in terms of skills and the effectiveness of the education system, south african mahlambi & mawela: exploring grade 6 mathematics teachers’ use of the language . . . 131 learners compete globally in mathematics assessments such as the trends in international mathematics and science study (timss) and southern and eastern africa consortium for monitoring educational quality (sacmeq). in 2015, timss reported that 61% of south african grade 5 learners cannot do the basic mathematics that covers addition and subtraction of whole numbers, that they struggle with multiplication, and cannot solve simple word problems (mullis et al., 2016). according to saqmec in 2016, 34.7% of grade six learners are still at a basic level of mathematics (the south african department of basic education (dbe), 2017). spaull (2013) has observed that the dbe faces poor learner performance in mathematics. the diagnostic report on annual national assessments (ana) in 2014 revealed that around 29% of learners function at the “not achieved” and “elementary” levels in grade six mathematics with only about 11% of learners working at “high achievement levels” (dbe, 2014, p. 76). furthermore, learner performance continues to decline in subsequent grades with about 90% of the learners functioning at the "not achieved” level in grade 9 mathematics and only about 1% of learners working at “high achievement” levels (dbe, 2014, p. 81). several factors such as anxiety could be responsible for poor performance, which is said to lower learner self-efficacy (recber et al., 2018), and which is cited as internationally challenging (oecd, 2019). however, additional factors such as inadequately qualified teachers, ineffective teaching methods, limited instructional materials, and overcrowded classrooms as well as the poor attitude of students and the effects of their home background (dbe, 2014), as well as the problems attached to what sepeng (2013) has called the “foreign” (p. 51), nature of lolt, as far as the learners are concerned, could contribute to lower learner performance in mathematics. it is assumed that by the time the learner reaches grade 6, proficiency in the lolt must have been achieved and, if not, this aspect could affect learner performance (sibanda, 2017). on the one hand, henderson and wellington (1998) pointed out the link between the language used in the mathematics assessment and the quality of the learners’ work. on the other, wellington and osborne (2001) have identified a connection between developing a language and forming mathematical concepts. research findings by henderson and wellington (1998) and wellington and osborne (2001) indicated the importance of language usage in afl activities in mathematics. the way in which teachers use language in the assessment activities and how learners understand this language can inadvertently affect how learners respond to solutions to mathematical questions. in this paper, we explore how language affects learner performance in grade 6 mathematics afl activities. we seek to respond to the following question: how do grade 6 mathematics teachers use the language of learning and teaching in assessment for learning? 132 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 literature review redefining classroom practices: a story of assessment for learning (afl) assessment is an integral element for effective teaching in mathematics classrooms. it allows the teacher to collect information about the learner, analyse it, and implement corrective measures to remedy the identified learning challenges (dreyer & mawela, 2020). studies have shown that assessment for learning (afl) in particular, has a measurable influence on learners’ academic achievement and their self-regulatory learning skills (mehmood et al., 2012; ozan & kincal, 2018; voinea, 2018). afl practice is continuous in assisting the teacher to gather information about how learning is taking place and in bringing back information to the learner’s awareness. black and wiliam (1998, p. 7) articulated that afl “encompasses all those activities undertaken by the teacher and his/her learners, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged.” the assertion of these scholars is that the teacher must work together with the learners to create authentic information about the learning process to help them both reflect back and decide on the next step in the learning process. this helps by bridging the gap between and among the content presented, the learning goals, and the mathematics skills related to the concept. language as central to learner ability in the assessment of mathematics the south african education system has adopted a learner-centred approach to classroom instruction (dbe, 2011). learner-centred pedagogies place the learner at the centre of teaching, learning, and assessment as moate and cox (2015) have asserted. therefore, explicit awareness of the centrality of afl should be made clear to learners to assist them to bridge the language barrier in assessment in relation to how to explain, reason, and articulate ideas mathematically (robertson & graven, 2018). as indicated above, in the south african education context, most learners do not receive their education in their hl. therefore, the debate continues about how to ensure that teaching and learning of mathematics can happen in conditions that present barriers to this. howie et al., (2016) have pointed out that the 2016 results of the progress in international reading literacy study (pirls) paint a devastating picture of south african learners’ reading proficiency; 78% of grades 4 and 5 learners in south africa cannot read for meaning in any language . mathematics uses internationally recognised numbers, mathematical symbols, and grammar as leshem and markivits (2013) have noted. these are linked to the lolt, regardless of what that language might be. according to nel (2012), mathematical vocabulary demands are higher than those of ordinary english. for muller (1993, p. 312), “without an understanding of the vocabulary used routinely in mathematics instruction, textbooks, and word problems, learners are handicapped in their efforts to learn mathematics.” therefore, learning the language of mathematics is an inherent feature of learning mathematics as lane et al. (2019) have made clear. teachers’ ability to explain mathematical language, that is, the mathematics register (trinick et al., 2014; lane et al., 2019) is essential to helping learners construct mahlambi & mawela: exploring grade 6 mathematics teachers’ use of the language . . . 133 knowledge. lane et al. (2019, p. 791) have suggested that “it is a discipline-specific and necessary language for the accurate representation and application of mathematical knowledge.” chitera (2011) warned that the teacher’s command of the lolt is a determining factor in how learners perform mathematics. the findings of yahaya et al. (2009) suggested that teachers whose hl is different from the lolt struggle to support their learners’ development towards understanding the subject content. thus, teachers resort to codeswitching (cs) in teaching mathematics using a mixture of the hl and english as the lolt. in the planning of afl activities in mathematics, teachers need to consider the language development of learners, the content and concept being taught, and the progression of the concept through the grades (dbe, 2011). for van der nest et al. (2018, p. 2), to achieve the aim of “education for all” and “inclusivity”, there is a constant need to expand the “assessment process to include the other dimensions of mathematics and in the process, enable teachers and learners to address these aspects of mathematics in the learning and teaching process.” therefore, teachers need to take cognisance of learners’ language proficiency and ensure that the assessment is accessible to all of them. challenge of mathematics assessment in second language speakers assessment and language are interrelated because all assessments are given through the medium of a language. language mastery inevitably influences how learners respond to the text placed before them.. the mathematics skills that are learned are understood through a language. therefore, understanding the language becomes a precondition for the thought processes that influence knowledge actualisation in the mastery of mathematics (botes & mji, 2010). lack of understanding because of the language barrier results in inefficient knowledge actualisation as vygotsky (1989) might have put it. the incomprehension may, in turn, impact “learners’ attitude towards mathematics and as a result, their self-efficacy” (truxaw & rojas, 2013, p. 1080). teachers need to be aware of the challenges which may emerge from learners having to learn mathematics in what is to them a foreign language. for example, learners may find the academic language more challenging than conversational language, which means that working to understand even a basic instruction in a second language can be exhausting. learners may choose not to participate publicly in activities since asking meaningful questions in a second (or third or fourth) language can be difficult. learners might also lack the opportunity to learn to reason in their hl, which can hinder sense-making. they may face additional challenges when they are presented with unfamiliar representations and contexts, and, of course, learners are likely to appear (and feel) less intelligent than they are (truxaw & rojas, 2013) when they are unable to express themselves coherently. using code-switching (cs) to empower learners in concept development in mathematics assessment to date, studies on cs have grown exponentially and are perceived to be a strategy teachers use to disseminate academic information to learners whose hl is different from the lolt (maluleke, 2019). using cs helps the teacher to explain concepts that might be difficult for 134 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 learners to understand, thus minimising confusion among them (yusob et al., 2018). therefore, it is of great significance to realise that learners’ assessment of mathematics occurs in their use of a language. teachers and learners use the language to interact and communicate, and therefore, extra support is needed when learners use english as the lolt to assess mathematics. according to setati and adler (2000), cs is an essential resource in “multilingual primary mathematics classroom” in the south african context (p. 265). maluleke (2019) stated that teachers use cs to empower learners towards meeting academic goals. yamat et al. (2011) concur and suggested that cs should be used as a scaffolding mechanism through which learners are assisted progressively toward understanding. according to setati (2002, p. 9), because of multilingualism in south african classrooms, mathematics teachers must learn to manage the interaction between and among • ordinary english and mathematical english; • formal and informal mathematical language; • procedural and conceptual discourses; and • learners’ primary language and the lolt. while it is clear that mathematics teachers should assist learners in drawing from their hl towards concept development (setati & adler, 2000), discussions regarding the use of cs have been going on for some time. some researchers maintain that it positively affects classroom instruction (memory et al., 2018; shafi et al., 2020; simasiku, 2016). others argue that it affects educational attainment and cognitive development negatively (chikiwa & schäfer, 2018; mokgwathi & webb, 2013). in their conclusion, chikiwa & schäfer (2016, p. 254) suggested that “that best practices for code-switching need to be established to promote transparent code-switching that is precise, consistent and beneficial to increasing access to mathematical understanding.” theoretical framework according to the social constructivist stance on education, learning happens when there is an increased interaction among learners and teachers (newman et al., 2011). learner-to-learner and learner-to-teacher close interaction has been found to contribute to an increased learner “motivation and enthusiasm” (newman et al., 2011, p. 81). vygotsky (1981) suggested that specific tools such as language, counting systems, and algebraic symbol systems help learners develop communicative and cognitive functions so, what is taught should be mediated through a language that allows the learners and the teacher to communicate ideas (vygotsky, 2002). the socio-cultural theory acknowledges that “knowledge is socially constructed through interaction and shared by individuals” (wang et al., 2011, p. 297). socio-cultural theories explain how cognitive development of a learner ensues through classroom engagement with peers and the teacher in activities using social and cultural contexts (johnson, 2009). teachers should be aware that “every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first between people and then, inside the child” (vygotsky, 1978, mahlambi & mawela: exploring grade 6 mathematics teachers’ use of the language . . . 135 p. 57). through working and communicating with others, the learner develops awareness of self and the skills needed in mathematics. a widely discussed socio-cultural concept is vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development (zpd), that he defined as the “distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with capable peers” (p. 86). vygotsky argued that productive classroom communication and interactions align the teaching of the content within the zpd, helping the learner to develop required skills. however, we must note that this is facilitated through language. the term zpd is strongly associated with scaffolding as mutekwe (2018) has pointed out. according to wood et al. (1976), scaffolding practices help learners to master a concept taught to a point where they can complete a task on their own. the use of more capable peers to overcome the challenges of the weaker learners in mathematics as in other learning areas, is vital to assist them since learner participation aims at concept development and mastery as wells (2015) has observed. research design and methods research approach and type in this qualitative study, part of more extensive doctoral research (see mahlambi, 2020), we explored the impact of the lolt on the assessment of mathematics in selected primary schools in alexandra township, south africa. a single case study was considered to be an appropriate method to collect data from the teachers since, in using a case study, a researcher can analyse a situation intensively within a bounded context (punch, 2009). a case study also allows the researcher to contextualise a phenomenon and understand the participants’ social world (yazan, 2015). for this study, the single case study was comprised of primary school teachers teaching mathematics in grade 6. the interpretive paradigm helped us interact with the teachers as they interpreted the world around them as kivunja and kuyini (2017) have suggested. study population and sampling mathematics teachers who participated in this study were selected from nine primary schools in alexandra township, south africa. purposive sampling was regarded as valid to identify nine teachers who were teaching mathematics in grade 6. following rahi (2017) we used the proximity rule that afforded us greater accessibility to the participants. the criteria used for their selection was that the teacher be teaching mathematics and have a minimum teacher qualification (diploma in education). in total, nine grade 6 mathematics teachers participated in this study. 136 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 data collection procedures face-to-face semi-structured interviews and non-participant observation were used to collect data. we used semi-structured interviews to elicit teachers’ views on the impact of language in mathematics afl activities in their classrooms. interviews allow a researcher to initiate the conversation and encourage the participants to articulate their thoughts and opinions (creswell & creswell, 2018). the semi-structured interviews were done in schools at the teachers’ convenience so as not to disrupt school activities. we recorded the interviews with the teachers’ permission, taking fieldnotes to supplement the recorded information in line with the suggestions made by efron and ravid (2013). nine non-participant observations offered us an opportunity to observe how mathematics teachers and learners interacted using the lolt in afl activities. one of us sat at the back of the classroom and documented observations as the teachers and learners engaged with afl activities. this offered us an opportunity to gather information based on the participants’ lived experiences. data analysis we generated the study’s findings from nine face-to-face semi-structured interviews and nine classroom non-participant observations as noted above. qualitative data analysis (flick, 2013; gibbs, 2012) was used to make sense of teachers’ views. the process of analysing the data was systematised through thematic organisation. during the analysis of the qualitative data, we were able to make sense of the teachers’ views through patterns (gibbs, 2012) and through developing themes as suggested by creswell (2013). ethics and consent ethical clearance was granted by the university of south africa (unisa) with an ethical clearance certificate (certificate ref. 2019/08/14/61954705/20/mc). written permission to conduct research was granted by the gauteng province: department of basic education (ref.2018/327), johannesburg east district, and grade 6 mathematics teachers. to protect teachers’ identity, pseudonyms were used (mt#1 to mt#9) in the reporting process. data collection was carried out in a way that did not disrupt the teachers’ work, and participation was voluntary. findings the following themes emerged from our analysis of data collected through interviews and non-participant observation. • teachers’ knowledge of the use of language in assessment for learning activities; • mathematics teachers’ challenges in assessment for learning activities; and • strategies to foster the use of english in the assessment of learners mahlambi & mawela: exploring grade 6 mathematics teachers’ use of the language . . . 137 theme 1: teachers’ knowledge of the use of language in assessment for learning activities the interview data analysis showed that teachers lacked pedagogical knowledge regarding the use of language in afl activities. how they plan and administer afl practices towards meeting learners’ needs in classrooms lacks cohesion. when asked how they developed and administered assessment for learning activities, the majority of the teachers indicated that the books they use include activities. we have activities in the books that we use, and the language is not difficult to understand. yes, our learners struggle to read english, but i am there to assist them whenever the need arises. (mt#8) to choose activities, i make use of different textbooks that [are] curriculum and assessment policy statement compliant. the department has verified the books therefore the language used in the books is relevant to the standard of our learners. (mt#2) i use the curriculum and assessment policy statement aligned textbooks as well as the annual teaching plan. should the activities in the books be difficult for learners, i then develop my activities that will be relevant to the concept taught. (mt#6) i use the curriculum and assessment policy statement aligned textbooks . . . the caps document tells us what to teach and what schemes to assess, then i get class activities from the textbook. our learners struggle to read english on their own without the help of the teacher. (mt#7) most teachers who participated in this study admitted that they do not plan assessment activities. it appeared that there was an over-reliance on the use of textbooks for learner afl activities. besides, it is evident from the responses above that teachers acknowledge learners’ reading challenges and reading through the exercises aloud is part of what they think of as helping the learners to understand the requirements of the activity. yet, observation revealed that the teachers used time allocated to completing the activity to explain it. the reflections of two participants identified the need to plan afl activities beginning with simple terms that learners can read and understand, and then to build on them to more abstract levels. i use basic language that the learner understands, terms introduced to learners in grade 4, building it to the level of the current grade. this assists me in catering for learners’ language needs. (mt#2) i try and develop the mathematics activities that simplify the complex language in mathematics. (mt#9) 138 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 both excerpts above indicate that teachers understand the importance of language in afl activities. because concepts and mathematical ideas are communicated in english, teachers need to simplify these according to their learners’ language proficiency. for example, the concepts “mean” and “mode” have different meanings according to mathematical and ordinary english. although teachers could not explain these terms in learners’ hl, they used mathematical calculations to simplify them. theme 2: mathematics teachers’ challenges in assessment for learning activities all teachers indicated that the number of learners in their mathematics classroom poses a challenge to applying afl practices. learners often become disruptive in overcrowded classrooms and this creates a sterile working environment. teachers stated that the language used in learners’ assessment also poses a barrier to learner independence (see mahlambi, 2020). the non-participant observation revealed that because most learners struggled with the language and could not work independently, the teachers needed to read through the questions, so they did so while explaining the requirements and pointing to the examples on the board. it was clear that teachers understand the challenges created by language in the assessment. the biggest barrier in assessment is the language used in the assessment activities. learners find it difficult to understand english and, without my help in explaining questions, learners experience difficulties in completing assessment activities. (mt#9) if i take an activity and give to learners without any explanation, very few can attempt to complete the activity. (mt#1) after teaching a concept and having given examples on the board, i still have to give clarity on the classroom exercise. language is a challenge. (mt#7) the observations revealed that in many cases, learners could not complete the activity within the time allocated to it since much time was consumed in having the teachers explain the requirements of the activities. the time (an hour) allocated to teaching and assessing learners was insufficient for the teacher to give feedback that could assist in concept development and help learners improve on their practice. an additional challenge to teachers is that the policy on progression requirements implemented in the intermediate phase creates a challenge in grade 6. one teacher was very concerned about the learner progression policy and said, policy on progressing learners between grades failed to observe the amount of work these learners have to cover in a year. when i teach a topic, i fail to incorporate the building up of the concept from grade 4 to assist the progressed learners. my learners face serious problems; first, mathematics skills and second, the use of language in mathematics. (mt#7) mahlambi & mawela: exploring grade 6 mathematics teachers’ use of the language . . . 139 the statement above suggests that the policy on the progression of learners impacts their performance. the teacher felt overburdened in meeting policy needs in terms of dealing with the mathematical concepts covered in grade 6 while having learners in the classroom who lack the necessary mathematical skills and the language proficiency to engage with these concepts. theme 3: strategies to foster the use of english in the assessment of learners continuous professional development is central to teacher upskilling. teachers expressed the need for workshops that could help them with english skills as first additional language in mathematics. one of the teachers stated, i am not an english teacher, and maybe the language i use doesn’t make sense to the learners. i, therefore, need support from the departmental officials in the district office, especially language specialists. the officials need to come to schools and provide us with skills to simplify the language we use in mathematics. (mt#3) another teacher said, i am beginning to think that my learners do not achieve because they do not understand english. there is a correlation between understanding the language of teaching and learning and the learners’ ability in mathematics. i need guidance from language experts on how to use english to the advantage of learners. (mt#7) other teachers echoed a similar sentiment regarding introductory workshops. the last time i received developmental in-service training was in 2012 when the department of education introduced caps. even then, i was told assessment for learning is informal assessment. the impact of language on assessment was not well articulated enough. (mt#3) i am a registered student with one of the universities, and i must say it has helped me to try and bridge the language gap experienced by mathematics teachers. (mt#4) in line with the above responses, another teacher cited the need for quality in all afl activities in mathematics. i need a developmental workshop that will identify quality rather than quantity as a prerequisite for assessment for learning activities. at the moment it is about the number of activities given to learners. not much is being said about the quality of activities given to learners. i think that kills the whole idea of teaching and learning mathematics. (mt#8) the language used in assessment is vital when it comes to learner engagement and participation. how the mathematics teacher explains and elaborates the concepts has a bearing on how the learners will understand, and therefore, how they will attempt to complete 140 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 the task placed before them. as observed, learners lacked proficiency in the lolt, which obstructed their engagement with afl activities. most teachers elected to read and explain the activities to learners using hl to address learners’ lack of english language proficiency. this lack of language ability affected how learners engaged among themselves in groups, and the majority of learners decided not to engage with other group members. in trying to bridge the gap caused by the language barrier, mathematics teachers had to switch between learners’ lolt and their hl. also, issues have arisen from the translation of mathematical terms. for example, there are no african terms for concepts assessed such as mean, mode, and median. this means that in addition to learners needing to develop english language proficiency, they need to be able to create mathematical discourse. learner proficiency in mathematics depends on their ability to compute and communicate using mathematics-specific terms (gürefe, 2018). most teachers used cs, a mixture of different african languages spoken by learners and by themselves. observation revealed that in most cases, the hls between teachers and learners differed and also between learners. in one classroom observed, the teacher was sesothospeaking, and the learners were a mixture of sesothoand isizulu-speakers. therefore, the teachers’ explanations did not reach the whole class, but only the learners who spoke sesotho. the teacher-learner engagement benefitted only those learners conversant with the language/s used in class since this meant that they could engage and ask follow-up questions. discussions that ensued in groups took place in learners’ hl, and learners’ input could be measured in terms of how well they understood the teacher. most learners worked through the activities without contributing to group discussions, and this could be attributed to their not speaking the same hl as the mathematics teacher. discussion in this study, we aimed to explore grade 6 mathematics teachers’ use of the lolt in afl. as mentioned above, we framed the question as “how do grade 6 mathematics teachers use the language of learning and teaching in assessment for learning?” as we know, the literature concludes that language plays a central role in learners’ academic ability and achievement (craig & morgan, 2015; cross et al., 2018; mulwa, 2014; robertson & graven, 2018). according to riccomini et al. (2015), learner development in the lolt and mathematics vocabulary is necessary to assist them to access concepts and instructions. as vygotsky (2002) asserted, teacher-learner interaction is mediated through a language so, for improved learner interaction, mathematics teachers need to understand the language developmental stages of second language users (cummins, 1979, 2000). to attend to the challenges posed by language, the teachers we observed read through the activity, explained what should be done, and then pointed learners back to the examples on the board. this practice seems to point to their very limited understanding of the notion of the zpd that includes tasks learners can complete without assistance, those they can manage with assistance, and those that they cannot meet even with help (sarker, 2019). mahlambi & mawela: exploring grade 6 mathematics teachers’ use of the language . . . 141 following the notion confirmed by gürefe (2018) that learner academic performance in mathematics is also reliant on their ability to communicate using mathematic-specific terms as well as their ability to complete mathematical computations, we report that understanding the language of mathematics is vital to improving learner proficiency. the learners’ inadequate comprehension of assessment activity requirements challenges their contribution and prevents their completion of such tasks. this means that the use of cs to understand the teaching and learning process and the provision of the assessment activity has become the norm in many south african classrooms where the lolt is not fully developed or is limited in learners (maluleke, 2019). english is used as the lolt in most grade 6 classrooms in south africa. this means that mathematics teaching, learning, and assessment are done through a language that is considered foreign to many learners who are introduced to english as the lolt only at the grade 4 level. however, policy requires that an additive bilingual approach is used in the foundation phase, where the learners’ hl continues to be developed while a second language such as english is introduced (dbe, 2011). the teaching of mathematics requires learners to read, write, listen, and engage in discussions using a language in which they are proficient, which could either be the hl or the lolt. to improve the use of language used in the mathematics classroom to enhance the teaching and learning process and afl in mathematics, teachers should strengthen specific pedagogical skills. it was evident from this study’s findings that mathematics teachers should have well-prepared activities that support learning and take into consideration learners’ language abilities and level of proficiency. mathematics teachers need to make sure that the use of language in afl activities is appropriate and that it supports the learning and development of learners’ mathematical skills. however, if language proficiency hinders learner understanding, cs is a viable strategy that empowers learners to enhance their academic performance in mathematics (lee et al., 2010; maluleke, 2019; setati, 1998; yamat et al., 2011) and prevents the fostering of a fear of mathematics in them. in this small-scale study, mathematics teachers’ use of cs helped learners understand the requirements of the activities. it is through language, whether the hl or the lolt, that a bond will be developed between teachers and learners that will then inspire the latter and build competence in them along with the confidence to deal with any mathematical situation and this will result in a spirit of curiosity and a love of the subject (dbe, 2011). conclusion we conclude from this small-scale study that afl in mathematics is not fulfilling its duty of supporting mathematics teaching and learning. our findings revealed that learners in the participating schools in alexandra face a challenge in understanding mathematics taught in english, which is the learners’ first additional language. we acknowledge that the mathematics teachers who participated in this study need assistance in improving language usage in mathematics teaching. teacher training towards further development is the only 142 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 possible option for addressing this problem. mathematics teachers in grade 6 need in-service training to ensure that they plan their afl activities in the most appropriate language for their learners. important mathematical concepts should be well researched in the learners’ language and presented clearly so that an understanding of their definition makes an impact on their learning of mathematics. relying on the activities in the textbooks is not sufficient since these do not take into account the language context of the learner. acknowledgement we acknowledge the mathematics teachers who participated voluntarily in this study. the high quality editorial work done by dr c. dowse and the language revision done by the university’s language services are highly appreciated. we acknowledge that the opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the authors. references benson, c. 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(2018). code-switching in mathematics classroom: relationship between students’ attention and attitude and their learning success. lsp international journal, 5(1), 59–69. towards a humanising pedagogy: an autoethnographic reflection of my emerging postgraduate research supervision practice suriamurthee maistry abstract postgraduate supervision in south africa is a fraught academic space. the assaf report (2010) indicates that supervisor competence is a key contributing factor in student attrition. the coupling of autonomous student and competent supervisor is far from being the usual pattern in south african higher education. furthermore, postgraduate supervision workshops and courses seldom focus on how particular practices are likely to result in social exclusion, giving far more attention to technical aspects of supervision. this paper considers instead the unwitting ‘othering’ that has occurred in my history as a supervisor and gives an account of ideas and principles that have guided me in seeking to improve my own practice. i focus in particular on those elements or aspects of my practice that are likely to (or do) alienate and marginalise my postgraduate students as i engage with supervising their work. my paper records an ongoing exercise in self-reflexion, shaped methodologically by the tenets of critical autoethnography, as a means to examine potentially subjugating effects that i can identify in my practice as supervisor with a diversity of postgraduate students. in this paper i reflect on two important aspects of supervision: verbal critique and written critique. i probe these two aspects with a view to altering my own trajectory of development in the direction of a more productive level of self-awareness in my practice. i argue that a sustained, careful and considered approach to student supervision that understands and conceptualises writing as a process (rather than a product) has enormous potential for facilitating and developing student academic writing competence. a heightened sensitivity to the debilitating and demeaning effects of careless feedback commentary and embracing research supervision as humanising pedagogy have significant implications for helping students to negotiate the liminal space in which they must master the threshold competences needed for success in advanced higher education research. introduction the aim of this paper is to provide a reflexive account of my induction into the world of research supervision. i attempt to probe my ideological 86 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 orientation by examining how, in its genesis, it came to influence my supervisory practice. i draw inspiration from grant’s application of hegel’s master-slave trope in the analysis of relations of power in the supervision encounter (grant, 2008), reflecting on the way it can potentially enable me to develop heightened self-awareness as supervisor. i begin with a brief sketch of emerging issues, locally, and in the literature, which outlines the chief imperatives that frame my work as supervisor of graduate students. in keeping with the spirit of autoethnographic research, i present a set of relational ideas rather than a conventional set of research findings and recommendations. the university of kwazulu-natal has declared its ambition to be a ‘research-led’ institution. the attainment of this vision depends on the institution’s potential to expand its phd programmes and the capacity of its academic personnel to service these programmes. historically, the minimum requirement to supervise phd students in the ukzn school of education has been a phd qualification. a phd was thus the required ‘license’ to supervise phd studies; attainment of a phd was the right of passage by which an academic became entitled to supervise the knowledge creation process at doctoral level. this is a somewhat myopic perspective as it presumes that mere acquisition of a phd automatically signifies command of the complex set of competences needed for successful phd supervision. to its credit, ukzn does offer a formal postgraduate supervision course that is compulsory for new and junior colleagues as part of its postgraduate diploma in higher education. this course covers a range of competences which includes developing familiarity with internal research policy, processes and procedural issues, going from research proposal development through to thesis examination. a question still to be answered is the extent to which this kind of generic postgraduate supervision course can address, in an appropriately nuanced manner, the notion of research supervision as a humanising pedagogy (khene, 2014). drawing on insights from paulo freire, khene (2014) puts forward the notion of a humanising pedagogy for supervisory practice in developing contexts. in a context such as south africa, where higher education institutions enrol students with widely varying levels of preparedness for advanced phd study, research supervision envisaged as a humanising pedagogy can potentially redirect the focus of supervision so that it centres on the development of the phd student rather than on the ultimate product (the thesis report). this potentially progressive move appears, however, to be under threat, as higher education institutions increasingly shape their policies to conform with a maistry: towards a humanising pedagogy. . . 87 neoliberal agenda centred on competitive participation in the knowledge economy (adkins, 2007). while the notion of postgraduate supervision as pedagogy (clegg, 2014) has gained currency in recent years, evolving scholarship in this field has begun to indicate a need for more nuanced approaches to supervision that go beyond the traditional oxford model (burford, 2014; grant, 2014; wisker, robinson and schacham, 2007). the post-apartheid agenda for higher education in south africa has been shaped by a host of policy documents and reports that have emerged over the past two decades from the centre for higher education transformation, the council on higher education and the centre for research on science and technology and the academy of science in south africa (assaf). recent developments and pronouncements emanating from the national policy commission (2011) and the national development plan indicate a strongly neoliberal knowledge-economy agenda for higher education in south africa. this can be seen in the projected target outputs for phds, envisaged to increase from the current 1500 per annum to 5000 per annum by 2030 (national development plan, 2012). while the assaf report also signals the importance of strengthening the phd profile of the country, it highlights institutional factors that need consideration if this agenda is to be fulfilled (assaf, 2010). an issue of particular concern is that the entities which are expected to deliver on this, namely the higher education academic fraternity in south africa, which is severely under-capacitated in regard to phd-qualified personnel (less than 35% of all academics). to build capacity, a target of 75 per cent academic staff with phd qualifications is envisaged. this presents as a somewhat bizarre and cryptic mathematical formula which suggests that the existing 35 per cent who have phds should in the next 15 years supervise and graduate both the academic colleagues needing to be brought up to phd level to make up the 40 per cent shortfall of adequately qualified staff and supervise the additional 3500 per year of new phd students needed by the national economy. very clearly, the postgraduate supervision context in south africa is a highly fraught academic space. national higher education policy and targets translate into ambitious institutional plans that have already seen a significant rise in new phd enrolments. whether there is sufficient capacity and competence to give effect to these grand plans is another matter. in south african higher education it can by no means be assumed that an ‘always/already’ autonomous student (manathunga and gozee, 2007) will automatically be matched with a competent supervisor, and the assaf report (2010) indicates that supervisor 88 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 competence is now a key contributing factor in student attrition. furthermore, postgraduate supervision workshops and courses invariably focus on technical policy and on the procedural and administrative aspects of supervision (liberal pre-occupations), seldom considering the likelihood that one or another supervisory practice is likely to result in social exclusion. to disrupt this canon, manathunga (2009) urges that we should explore how in supervision, we as supervisors engage both in compassionate, teaching strategies that guide and support our students’ learning and in providing rigorous and challenging feedback … where supervisors must act as both the student’s mentor and supporter and, at the same time, the gatekeeper of the discipline … to discuss, debate and re-think both the cognitive and administrative aspects of supervision practice as well as the emotional and irrational and the unconscious political dimensions (pp.343–344). at the same time, firth and martens (2008) caution that there must also be an appropriate balance between the emotional and the rational elements of supervisory practice the work of a graduate supervisor is clearly a complex undertaking in which ‘risks and pleasures’ (grant, 2003) abound. in the remainder of this paper, i revisit some of the paths by which i have sought to arrive at a heightened self-awareness of how i conduct myself in my role as supervisor in this enterprise, and in negotiating the inherent power dynamics which are at play. a brief methodological note autoethnography as a methodological approach in academic research has gained significant currency in recent years and its credentials as a mode of research are now well established (ellis, adams and bochner, 2011). its maturity as a research tradition is signalled by its multiplying variants, such as analytical autoethnography (denzin, 2006) and critical autoethnography (boylorn and orbe, 2014), to name just two. critical autoethnography has particular appeal for me as it appropriates the tenets of critical theory and autoethnography in a way that gives me a critical frame for exploring my embedded and implicated self-in-practice (boylorn and orbe, 2014). my personal narratives are presented here not as any kind of cathartic confessional but in an authentic attempt at candid self-exposure of my supervisory practice. i attempt to probe my pedagogy, invoking the notion of a ‘poor pedagogy’ (masschelein, 2010) as a means to unveil relations of power at work in my supervisory encounters with my students. in particular, maistry: towards a humanising pedagogy. . . 89 foucault’s inspiration, cited (in translation) by masschelein (2010), that this be accomplished through a process of self-exposure; a self-induced vulnerability and a concomitant disposition of attention, presence and generosity as i engage a reciprocal, formative learning encounter with my graduate students. in particular, i attempt to understand the dominant discourse that shapes my ideological orientation in research supervision with a view to disrupting and deconstructing hegemonic practices in which i have become complicit. critical autoethnography allows me to apprehend ambiguity and contradiction as necessary conditions inherited from the hierarchical normative constructions of the supervision enterprise in higher education. autoethnography is a means by which i can unravel the haecceity, the essence of me in my practice. i take heed of manathunga’s call for supervisors to “engage with a language and ways of thinking and being that enable them to critically and reflexively investigate their supervision practices” (2009, p.345). this, i attempt to do through a process of deep reflexion; through thoughtful, extended, calm yet intense cogitation and profound consideration and contemplation of my practice. i must concede though that it has been a real struggle to give effect to the reflexive project, as reflexion is a high-level competence that is likely to create cognitive dissonance; a traumatic unsettling as one confronts the notion of ‘educating the gaze’ (masschelein, 2010). learning reflexion is in essence a meta-cognitive process, imbued with a temporality that is determined by the extent of one’s disposition to critical introspection. unravelling my own socialisation as writer and research supervisor – a narrative vignette one implicit objective of this paper is to encourage modalities of research reporting that challenge the conventional canon – specifically, the modality of presenting a relational set of ideas rather than a report of ‘findings’ from analysed data. i begin, accordingly, with an attempt to expose my own socialisation into reading and writing – tracing back my early experiences in an attempt to uncover the genesis of my ideas and my identity as reader and writer. without venturing on a full-blown genealogy in the foucauldian sense, i draw 90 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 inspiration from foucault in seeking to understand how my current identity has come to be, with a view to its disruption and dissolution. what set of ‘accidents’ and discontinuities produced my identity? implicit in this powerful line of foucauldian thought is the suggestion that rather than being trapped by our histories we have the potential to actively shape them (feder, 2011). the socioeconomic circumstances of my upbringing, especially during my primary school years, shaped my early attitude towards reading and writing in particular ways. in my own home, there was little to inspire a love for writing let alone the development of any fine writing skill. neither of my parents (children of first-generation indentured labourers) nor my older brother had progressed beyond primary school education, and my older sister dropped out at grade 9 to seek employment so that she could help support our family. my family thus struggled with their own challenges in reading and writing. being read to, or reading for family, were never a feature of our day-to-day life. the only reading material to be found would be the odd comic book (discarded by neighbours) and from time to time a school-issue reader, which i read only if my teachers told me to (and they seldom did). at the state-aided indian primary school that i attended, homework, in those days, did not really come into the picture. and although the medium of instruction was english, the english language curriculum seldom went much beyond technical points of grammar and punctuation. in english classes, we did what was called ‘composition and letter, in a special exercise book for this purpose, on mostly random, decontextualised topics such as ‘a day at the beach’ or ‘my holiday on the farm’, neither of which i could relate to, living in an inland city and never having set foot on a farm. actual composing of text was not a skill that anyone gave any real attention to. if a written piece was free of grammatical and punctuation errors, that was quite enough to earn commendation. my high school reading and writing career was for the most part similarly stunted, with much the same emphasis in the writing curriculum. in my undergraduate degree, i majored in commercial subjects, where sophisticated writing skills were certainly not a priority; much more important was the manipulation of figures and graphs. in the nine years that i subsequently spent as a school teacher of commercial subjects, i focused exclusively on the content of the discipline; it never occurred to me that teaching my students how to read and write might also be one of my responsibilities. in the first few years of my career as a university academic involved in undergraduate teacher education (commercial subjects), maistry: towards a humanising pedagogy. . . 91 my exclusive focus was again on the content of the disciplinary field that i taught, with only limited consciousness of how students gained access, through reading and writing, to the discourse of the disciplines i taught. i was fortunate (or perhaps not so) to have completed my master’s and phd in education with a professor who possessed remarkable english language proficiency skills. he meticulously corrected each of my written submissions using the track changes function in microsoft word – which i duly accepted without contestation. the supervision model was the one-on-one supervision relationship: strong, powerful supervisor and subservient student. with my phd completed, it would be fair to assume that i might by this stage have developed some level of competency in academic writing, but as student i had not developed a level of academic maturity that made me consciously aware, at that time, of the learning-to-write that was taking place, nor, importantly, how this might influence the way i went about helping my own postgraduate students to ‘learn’. in other words, i had not paid any particular attention to the supervision pedagogy being used or to my own thinking about how i was learning. i had not, in other words, developed a meta-cognitive awareness of my learning. nevertheless, successful completion of a phd in the ukzn school of education was a virtually automatic license to supervise master’s and even phd students in cases where staff supervisory capacity did not exist. because i was the only academic with a phd in economic education, almost all master’s and phd students wanting to research in the broad field of commerce education were directed to me by default. my supervision workload was well beyond the school norm (a circumstance that also fed my growing ego – a point on which i have more to say later in this paper). looking explicitly for ways to enhance my supervision skills, my next step was to join the school of education phd cohort supervision programme which was being conducted under the leadership of a group of experienced supervisors. lured by a liberal discourse: cognition – not emotion! the phd cohort supervision model that took root in the newly merged university of kwazulu-natal in 2004/5 was a model inherited from the 92 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 former university of durban-westville. the history of this cohort-seminarbased model has been documented by samuel and vithal (2011: 85), who note that “the pedagogy of research teaching and learning evolved into a mature doctoral cohort model within ukzn. . . (with) emergent philosophies of democracy, scaffolding, ubuntu and serendipity as useful pillars. . .”. the programme had become known as a robust academic space, led by a core group of accomplished and powerful academics committed to increasing the quantity and quality of phds. as a forum, it had a reputation for strong critique (of phd student work), with a developmental nuance, and could point to a string of graduates who had profited from the three-year cohort experience. a culture of frank, candid, open and direct critique was a distinguishing feature of the programme, in which there was much emphasis on structure, timelines, the supervisor-student ‘contract’, timely submissions and a goal-oriented focus as prescribed by the then faculty of education’s policy on higher degrees research. govender and dhunpath (2011), in what they describe as an exploratory study of this phd cohort programme, comment on the extent to which phd students learn both within and outside of the cohort community of practice, and, in a subsequent publication (govender and dhunpath, 2013), they highlight the need for the programme to cultivate academic maturity and student autonomy in the post-proposal defence stage. all three of the well-documented interpretive studies which i have just cited of this particular phd cohort programme were framed by liberal humanist approaches to research supervision (with its assumption of human autonomy and rationality) – a framing that unwittingly masks the subtleties and the subtext of the supervision enterprise. as such, the subtle and sometimes overt ‘violences’ that occur are ‘overlooked’ or outside the focus of such studies (grant, 2003). there appeared to be a relative insensitivity to the fragmentary, splintered, and historically conditioned nature of the human subject in the research learning space. in contrast, post-liberal research on supervisory practices “seeks to problematise language, subjectivity, power and identity in ways that emphasise the fragmented, partial and multiple nature of the self ” (manathunga, 2009, p.344). aside from some anecdotal disgruntlement (somewhat casually alluded to by the researchers cited above) on the part of a few academics affected by the deliberations at cohort sessions, there was relative silence about the ‘regimes of truth’ (foucault, 1979) being engendered with regard to supervisory practice at work in this space. as i have already noted, the defining feature of maistry: towards a humanising pedagogy. . . 93 this phd cohort programme was the high-level, strong, robust critique that students came to expect in the forum. it is important to emphasise that in a high-level academic space of this order critique is a ‘natural’ necessity. where tension can arise, however, is in the manner in which critique is provided or dispensed to the student. in this respect there appeared to be minimum concern for the affective domain or the individual subjectivities of students who were in turn shaped by biography, race, class, language, gender and ethnicity. students were assumed to all have the same degree of resilience to withstand incisive critique and the same capacity to comprehend this critique, particularly in the first two years of the programme where student levels of academic maturity may have been low. while supervisors did remind novice phd students that the critique was not meant to be taken personally, there certainly were instances when critique degenerated into judgmental commentary about students’ cognitive abilities. in my notes after the very first phd cohort supervision session of 2008 with a novice group of phd students, i mused over how several students were ‘cut down to size’ by the experienced supervisors. the power of these supervisors was indeed appealing; a power that i began to aspire towards. a comment regularly uttered to students without due consideration for how it would be received and interpreted (especially to students who had not adequately conceptualised their studies) was the rather blunt and abrasive “this is not a phd, what makes your study a phd?” students who in several cases occupied powerful positions in their own professional work contexts were unwittingly and sometimes deliberately constructed as deficit, as not knowing, and while this phd cohort had become renowned as a vigorous research learning space, it also developed a degree of notoriety. resilient students endure, but not enough is known about how the less resilient, the more sensitive, and the not ‘always/already’ autonomous student responds in such learning contexts (manathunga and gozee, 2007, p. 309). of particular importance for me, though, is my own uncritical assimilation into the discourse and practice of the programme, a willing learning by apprenticeship of observation (lortie, 1975), in which i actively participated. as a new phd graduate and relatively young supervisor i explicitly set out to learn whatever i could about research supervision through my connection with this phd cohort programme. not having come through a phd cohort supervision programme myself, i was initially in awe of the level of engagement that took place and the commentary that emanated from the experienced supervisors. in my notes over 2008 and 2009, i have recorded instances where students’ presentations (written and oral) were systematically 94 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 dismantled to reveal its inadequacies (and strengths in some instances). over the three years, i uncritically assimilated the style of supervision. what i significantly failed to discern at the time was the unwitting violence meted out to phd students in each session. i also began to find my ‘critical voice’ actively participating in the unrestrained critique, flagrantly oblivious to the power that came with my position, gender, race and language. as such, i had scant regard for student biography, personal context or history, believing that these were peripheral to the ‘pure’ research issue that i was critiquing. in my second three-year cycle, i co-led a cohort of novice phd students. i revelled in the power, eager to uphold the historically established ‘standard’: namely, that the phd cohort programme was a demanding space, not for the faint-hearted. as i became more adept (as i thought) at providing critique (sometimes even treading dangerously in fields of study outside my area of expertise), it fuelled my growing ego. i was intent on developing and establishing a ‘reputation’ for being critical – which often just meant being dogmatic, insistent and unapologetic – blissfully unaware of the harm caused by my ‘friendly fire’, which is what it amounted to. the students, in effect, fell victim to my poorly directed attack on the misconceived ‘enemy’: the academic or research issue ostensibly under debate. some might indeed say that ‘friendly fire’ is an inevitable risk in a combat engagement where outcome outweighs costs. for my part, i had adopted and internalised this potentially injurious ideological disposition and was now actively promoting a hegemonic discursive practice. there were moments when i positively relished the discomfort i created, especially when the students on the receiving end were themselves in positions of authority in their own right (and who sometimes carried assumptions of authority into phd cohort sessions). an example of such a moment was when a new phd student, (a principal at a school) reflected on the many accomplishments at the school since her appointment and the amazing relationship that she enjoyed with her staff. her intention was to study her practice. my own response was not to acknowledge this but to offer a cutting and personal attack on the student with the following unwarranted comment: “you appear to be over-glorifying your practice when you should be troubling it. so does anyone on your staff think you’re doing a crap job?” in lacanian terms, i was experiencing a jouissance (zizek, 2008) – a momentary (and questionable) surfeit of enjoyment and pleasure. i was walking a slippery, contradictory line, especially since my self-declared paradigmatic preference has been critical theory. in essence then, i was not ‘living’ the critical project. maistry: towards a humanising pedagogy. . . 95 as a ‘natural’ consequence, i began to carry this relish in discomforting students through to my engagement with my phd students’ writing. when i reflect on the feedback i provided to students on their written submissions (of which i have kept electronic records), the stark, over-zealous, aggressive, and ‘loud’ commentary is plainly evident, resembling a kind of ‘bleeding’ (as one student put it) in the ruptures inflicted by my red ‘tracked changes’ and overabundant comment boxes. typical commentary on students’ written submissions included: what is this????? you appear to be confused! this is unacceptable at this phd level!!! a very cryptic sentence what is the reader supposed to make of this??? unclear???? rephrase!!! this is a poorly constructed sentence!!! not sounding right! this is rather incoherent!!!! i was particularly impatient and intolerant of grammatical, punctuation and syntax ‘errors’, which often caused me to lose sight of the idea and meaning that my students were trying to present. subsequent reflection leads me to see this as a reaction to my own insecurities as a novice supervisor and my own inadequacies as a writer and a teacher of high-level academic writing. a particular turning point was my exposure to post-liberal literature on the research supervision enterprise which i had begun to engage with as a result of my involvement with the strengthening postgraduate supervision programme’ (sps) funded by the netherlands organisation for international co-operation in higher education. it allowed me to reflect on how i had misguidedly attempted to project (or mimic) a competent and confident demeanour, with scant awareness of how this demeanour was being received by my students. i tended to come on too strongly and aggressively at initial supervisory sessions, often ‘over-speaking’ about issues and concepts and over-elaborating on the elevated cognitive competences expected at phd level, much of which was foreign to my novice research students. a critical 96 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 incident was my engagement with one of the key themes in the sps programme, namely, that of ‘social exclusionary research supervision practices in higher education in south africa’. this triggered a recognition of how i had in the past, made only the feeblest efforts to affirm the knowledge base of these high-calibre degree candidates, being more occupied with belabouring the ‘enormous’ gaps in their disciplinary educational research knowledge. such pontifications usually happened at one-on-one supervision sessions with insensitive deficit constructions of my students as reflected in comments such as: “because you lack an educational research background, you have to work even harder, so what will you give up in your busy life to take on this high-level phd study”. this was a typical brusque and crude utterance that constructed students as ‘lacking’ and unable to manage their personal lives. much of this positioning was done in an attempt to assert myself and gain the student’s confidence in my ability, thereby exhibiting my own need for recognition and acknowledgement. in my current practice, i do far more careful and attentive listening and constant self-reminding of how the construction of my feedback might be received and interpreted by my students. in the next part of my discussion, i shall try to analyse the relations of power that might be discerned in the uneasy self-portrait i have just offered. towards a hegelian self-awareness in applying a foucauldian notion of power as relational, one would argue that subjects are never in a permanent state of subjugation: subjectivity is in fact continuously shaped in and through power relations. in constructing subjectivity, individuals (in the present instance, supervisor and student) are always working within a context of constraint. at the same time, individuals are nonetheless essentially ‘free’ to act and react, although navigating relations of power should not be taken to imply that one can completely extricate oneself from the power relations that prevail. there will always be an element of uncertainty as to whether actions and reactions will re-create new relations of power or reinforce those that already exist. however, every ‘localised episode’ has potential to significantly disrupt and it is never certain which point of contestation or which discursive event will create a rupture (foucault, 1979, p.27). in the supervision encounter, both supervisor and student are accordingly ‘free’ to act and react. like grant (2008), i contend, maistry: towards a humanising pedagogy. . . 97 however, that curtailing the analysis at this point leaves us somewhat hamstrung – which was also the feeling i had when, in another paper (forthcoming 2015), i applied a foucauldian framework to an analysis of neo-liberal managerialism in higher education. the assumption that students may have the capacity, the confidence and the constitution to give effect to their inherent ‘freedom’ is slightly problematic since it dilutes the effect of ‘structural asymmetries’ on subjects in the interaction (grant, 2008, p. 11). in attempting to now make sense of the power dynamic in the supervision encounter, i draw on grant’s post-critical work in which she uses hegel’s master–slave trope to analyse inherent hierarchical power relations in postgraduate supervision (grant, 2008) . she argues that the master–slave archetype allows us to discern why it may well be necessary for research supervisors to engage the ambiguity that comes from the trope being “both disturbing and productive for supervision” (b. grant, 2008, p. 10). she argues that it is entirely plausible that a hierarchical bond could exist between a knowledgeable supervisor (an institutionally determined disciplinary ‘expert’ in her field, vetted by the academic fraternity) and the new postgraduate student (being inducted into the field) and that it may be naïve to assume that both subjects can engage at the same level. in the relationship between the supervisor (master) and student (slave), two kinds of self-consciousness are at work. each subject’s self-consciousness is possible only when she is aware of the other’s awareness of herself – when one is able, in other words, to see oneself through the eyes of the other and when there is a mutual recognition of the tension that arises as consequence of one another’s otherness. when these two self-awarenesses engage, there is potential for the creation of a new self-awareness for both subjects. applied to the supervisory encounter, grant suggests that there is a mutuality (of struggle and dependence) that exists between supervisor and student and that this is mediated by the production of the thesis – a dialectical relationship in which they interact interdependently. she acknowledges that although the master–slave trope may well be repugnant as a template for understanding the supervisory practice, it serves nonetheless as a powerful reminder “that supervision is not a free space but one productively, disturbingly too, structured by larger forces” (b. grant, 2008, p.25). what, then, are the implications of the analysis i have presented for my ongoing supervision practice. 98 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 discussion and concluding comments how do i best move to an appropriate level of self-awareness? some of the preceding exposition could well signal a modest move towards selfawareness. but while absolute self-consciousness is elusive, i want to argue that one can nonetheless aspire towards a deliberative, meta-cognitive sensitivity to the way one is invested and implicated in the supervisory encounter. to reach this point necessarily requires a kind of attentiveness; one has to desire “a state of mind which opens up to the world in such a way that the world can present itself to me (that i can ‘come’ to see) and i can be transformed . . . a space of possible self-transformation or self-displacement” (masschelein, 2010, p.44). such a space for possibility may well be attained when we probe our pedagogy, or consider a “poor pedagogy” that may encourage us to explore attentively “practices which allow us to expose ourselves” (masschelein, 2010, p.44). of particular significance for me is foucault’s contention, cited (in translation) by masschelein, “that critique starts with attention, presence and generosity” (masschelein, 2010, p.48). these are particularly germane points of aspiration that might convey me to a higher level of self-awareness, to a level where i can see myself from the perspective of my students and nurture in myself a compassionate empathy for my students’ endeavours to navigate new intellectual terrain. kamler and thomson remind us that “the novice researcher enters what we call occupied territory – with all the imminent danger that this metaphor implies – including possible ambushes, barbed wire fences, and unknown academics who patrol the boundaries of the already occupied territories” (kamler and thomson, 2008, p.29). over-zealous, condescending and dispassionate supervisors (like myself) are likely to compound this challenge. a nuanced understanding and recognition of this is thus important if i wish to create an enabling research learning space. my new awareness of myself in my supervision practice falls well short of an epiphany. rather, it has been a combination of factors working in concert over a period of time that has triggered the revelation of ‘me’ in my own eyes and ‘me’ in the eyes of others. i have been fortunate to have worked in a range of research teaching and learning spaces (seminars, cohort supervision sessions, co-supervision sessions) with colleagues at the university who have commented critically on my style and approach to supervision. their critique was initially not always well received by me, especially during my ‘ego trip’ phase. thinking back, a material trigger was the look of despair that i began maistry: towards a humanising pedagogy. . . 99 to notice on the faces of my various students when they were on the receiving end of the caustic, abrasive, stinging critique that i chose to deliver. another telling trend was the reluctance of some students to make and honour supervision appointments or submit draft versions for discussion. a more overt indicator of my self-alienation was the reluctance of colleagues to nominate me as examiner of their students’ work, either in formal assessment of postgraduate proposals (which entailed an oral defence) or for completed theses. this was an unsettling period for me, with a good deal of angst, since critical introspection and self-diagnosis were not my strong suites. my more recent exposure to post-liberal literature, coupled with readings on teaching writing as process and on the power of formative feedback, has certainly helped me rethink my approach to both my students and my colleagues. with students’ writing, i have become more aware of the need to focus on the ideas and arguments being constructed, and i am learning to resist the temptation to correct technical aspects of language. i also remember to give praise and affirmation where they are due. arguably the most significant ‘adjustment’ in my approach has been a heightened appreciation of the need to create enabling conditions for intellectual development of the human subjects i am privileged to work with, rather than being doggedly focused on ultimate delivery of the technical product (the thesis). i now understand better than before that doctoral study is both text work and identity work, that doctoral students develop their own identities through textual construction (kamler and thomson, 2008). it is still early days to draw any conclusions about the effect that my shifted perspective might be having on my students and colleagues. i have, however, learnt that deep introspection can be traumatic. it has created a kind of dissonance in me that has been quite disconcerting. my learning curve continues to be particularly steep and i do have lapses where i default to my old ways – which, thankfully, seems to be happening less and less frequently. all said, i do not choose to offer ‘recommendations’ (about a humanising pedagogy) such as one might expect in a conventional research paper. perhaps the paper then falls short of expectations when read against its title. but what i do hope is that this reflective account will find resonance with fellow supervisors, both veterans and novices, and that they may find benefit in a raised self-awareness of their presence in the supervisory encounter. contemplation of a humanising pedagogy has been my learning path in the endeavour to be more human in the supervisory encounter. although i have, since 2008, seen through to completion, the work of ten master’s graduates 100 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 (two cum laude) and four phd graduates, i continue to ponder the ‘collateral damage’ i may have inflicted in the process. i am however mindful of grant’s insights that self-awareness develops through a process of mutual recognition and struggle. foucault’s insights continue to be a source of inspiration for me. references adkins, b. 2007. phd pedagogy and the changing knowledge landscapes of universities. higher education research and development, 28(2): pp.165–177. assaf. 2010. the phd study. pretoria. boylorn, r.m. and orbe, m.p. 2014. critical autoethnography: intersecting cultural identities in everyday life. california: left coast press. burford, j. 2014. doctoral writing as affective practice: keep calm and carry on. in bitzer, e., albertyn, r., frick, 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(eds), pushing boundaries in postgraduate supervision. stellenbosch: sun press, pp.69–84. clegg, s. 2014. knowledge questions and doctoral education. in bitzer, e., albertyn, r., frick, l., grant, b. and kelly, f. (eds), pushing boundaries in postgraduate supervision. stellenbosch: sun press, pp.11–24. denzin, n.k. 2006. analytical autothnography, or deja vu all over again. journal of contemporary ethnography, 35: pp.419–428. ellis, c., adams, t.e. and bochner, a.p. 2011. autoethnography: an overview. forum: qualitative social research, 12(1). feder, e.k. 2011. power/knowledge. in taylor, d. 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(eds), pushing boundaries in postgraduate supervision. stellenbosch: sun press, pp.109–122. kamler, b. and thomson, p. 2008. the failure of dissertation advice books: towards alternative pedagogies for doctoral writing. educational researcher, 37(8): pp.507–514. khene, c.p. 2014. supporting a humanizing pedagogy in the supervision relationship and process: a reflection in a developing country. international journal of doctoral studies, 9: pp.73–83. lortie, d.c. 1975. schoolteacher: a sociological study. chicago: university of chicago press. manathunga, c. 2009. supervision as a contested space: a response. teaching in higher education, 14(3): pp.341–345. 102 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 manathunga, c. and gozee, j. 2007. challenging the dual assumption of the ‘alway/already’ autonomous student and effective supervisor. teaching in higher education, 12(3): pp.309–322. masschelein, j. 2010. e-ducating the gaze: the idea of a poor pedagogy. ethics and education, 5(1): pp.43–53. samuel, m.a. and vithal, r. 2011. emergent frameworks of research teaching and learning in a cohort-based doctoral programme. perspectives in education, 29(3): pp.76–87. wisker, g., robinson, g. and schacham, m. 2007. postgraduate research success: communities of practice involving cohorts, gaurdian supervisors and online communities. innovations in education and teaching international, 44(3): pp.301–320. zizek, s. 2008. the plague of fantasies. london: verso. suriamurthee maistry school of education university of kwazulu-natal maistrys@ukzn.ac.za mailto:maistrys@ukzn.ac.za posthumanism and educational research for sustainable futures frans kruger abstract karen barad’s (2007) concept of intra-action and rosi braidotti’s (2013) nomadic posthumanism are employed in this article to problematise the notion of educational research for sustainable futures. in rejecting the hierarchical dualism of cartesian objectivism, which places the human above the non-human, i challenge the stable selfcontained subject that presuppose a dialectical relation to the other on which most educational research is premised. instead, in drawing on the work of barad and braidotti, subjectivity is posited as always in the process of becoming-other through the actualisation of new relations. in light of such a subjectivity, i consider the implications for educational research for sustainable futures. furthermore, four avenues of thought are proposed on how educational research informed by posthumanism could contribute towards sustainable futures. introduction we are posthuman – biotechnologies, genetic manipulation, xenotransplanting, robotics and pharmacology. the list goes on. we live in a world that “is radically hybridised, contaminated and integrated” (snaza, appelbaum, bayne, carlson et al. 2014, p.43). according to hayles (1999) the question of whether we live in a posthuman present is not one of reflection but one that forces us to recognise our position in the world. this recognition, however, has to a large extent not occurred in most educational research that presupposes the human as an ontological given and treats education “as a practice of humanization” (snaza, 2013, p.38). thus, although the notion of the human as an ontological given has been critiqued in a sustained manner for at least the last forty years, as reflected in foucault’s (1994, p.387) ascertain that “as the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of a recent date. and one perhaps nearing its end”, this critique, and the implications thereof, is not reflected in most educational research discourse. in this article i explore the call to treat the ‘human’ as “something other than human” (snaza, 2013, p.50) through a consideration of barad’s 78 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 i refer specifically to philosophical anti-humanism that problematises the notion of a1 universal and unitary human subject (braidotti, 2013; foucault,1994). (2003, 2007) and braidotti’s (2013) positions on posthumanism. this i do specifically in relation to how we conceptualise educational research for sustainable futures. in bringing educational research for sustainable futures into conversation with posthumanism i frame sustainability within a vitalist brand of monism. the vitalist aspect of such a position posits matter, “including the slice of matter that is human embodiment” (braidotti, 2013, p.35), as a self-organising and generative force, whilst monism foregrounds transversal relationality through proposing the unity of all matter. furthermore, in drawing on deleuze and guattari (1994) and bogue’s (2007, 2011) conceptualisation of time, i work from the premise that the future is both now and to come. since the present is both what we are and “what already we are ceasing to be” (deleuze and guattari, 1994, p.112), it allows for an understanding of the future as “the infinite now. . . not an instant but a becoming” (deleuze and guattari, 1994, p.112) and the past as a “memory of the present, a virtual double of the present moment” (bogue, 2007, p.55). for bogue (2011, p.77) such a conceptualisation of time positions the future as now in that it is “the becoming-revolutionary of our present and to come as the goal [movement] of our becoming”. time is thus reconsidered as an entanglement of the past, present and future. by framing sustainable futures within a vitalist monist ontology and understanding time as entangled hold important implications for educational research practices. one such implication, which forms the basis of this article, is that research concerned with sustainability and futurity cannot be based only on human concerns but should reflect the precarious position of what is conceived of as ‘the human’ in the posthuman present. before proceeding it is, however, important to make clear the distinction between the posthuman present and taking up a posthumanist position. although the concepts of the posthuman present and posthumanism are related these concepts should not be equated (braidotti, 2013; wolfe, 2010). the posthuman present describes the radically hybridised world we presently inhabit. posthumanism, on the other hand, draws on anti-humanist, post-1 colonial, anti-racism and material feminist theories in order to critique “the hierarchical dualism articulated by cartesian objectivism” (zembylas and bozalek, 2014, p.39). posthumanism does, however, not reflect a kruger: posthumanism and educational research. . . 79 this term, coined in 2000 by paul crutzen and paul stoermer, refers to the current geological2 age in which the earth’s ecological balance is being profoundly altered by human activity. it has to be noted that the recognition of the current epoch as the anthropocene is still under debate. “chronological progression or historical moment” that signals the end of humanism; rather, it is a position that seeks to problematise ontological and epistemological perspectives that makes possible conceiving of a human in essentialist terms (pedersen, 2010, p.242). as such it reflects “the end of the humanist definition of western man” (weaver, 2010, p.193) through foregrounding the constitutive interdependence of the human, non-human and inhuman along a culture-nature continuum (braidotti, 2013). crudely put, in taking up a posthumanist position one is interested in reconceptualising the relations between matter, nonhuman animals, humans, technologies and the emergence of sense in order to experiment with new (post)human subjectivities (kruger, 2015). such a reconceptualization problematises a humanist understanding of relationality; a relationality that always positions the human (but who is the human of such a humanism?) at the centre of all inquiry. through always centering the human, the notion of human exceptionalism (the idea that humans are unique and should be the focus of concern) and human instrumentalism (that believe that humans have the right to control to world) are normalised and become the dominant discourse (zembylas and bozalek, 2014). this position is rejected in posthumanism. i employ barad’s (2003, 2007) concept of intra-action and braidotti’s (2013) nomadic posthumanism as conceptual persona (deleuze and guattari, 1994) to problematise human exceptionalism and instrumentalism and to consider the implications thereof for educational research practices. thus, in keeping with deleuze’s (2004, p.207) assertion that “[t]here is only action, the action of theory, the action of praxis. . .”, i employ posthumanism as a “vehicle to. . . ground our powers of understanding within the shifting landscapes of the present” (braidotti, 2013, p.75). furthermore, in taking up the work of barad and braidotti i do not claim that their work represent the field of posthumanism. these authors present only two positions within a plurality of posthumanist orientations. what all of these different orientations hold in common is a shared interest to decentre the human subject through re-embedding it in the relational networks that it is composed of. in this article i consider the possibilities such a decentralisation of the human offers us to conceptualise educational research for sustainable futures within the anthropocene. my argument unfolds in two parts: firstly, i briefly introduce2 80 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 the concepts of intra-action and nomadic posthumanism and consider the implications of these for what it means to be human. secondly, i consider the implications of intra-action and nomadic posthumanism for education and educational research, particularly as it pertains to how we conceive of the contribution that educational research can make towards sustainable futures. ontological entanglement and intra-action physics, specifically quantum mechanics, contribute towards dismantling an ontologically identifiable human. based on particle-wave duality and quantum entanglement, barad (2007) proposes that what has become known as ‘the human’ emerges in and as the world self-encounters. this proposition draws on the double-slit experiment that was conducted for the first time by thomas young in 1801. through this experiment young endeavoured to establish the nature of electrons (and other matter); whether they are composed of particles or waves. the double-slit experiment indicated that matter could take on both particle or wave qualities but not simultaneously. this led the physicist niels bohr to propose that materialisation of matter is depended on “the specific material circumstances. . . which is used to measure” (hinton, 2013, p.178) it. for barad this means that any “observation itself is only possible on the basis that the effect of the measurement is indeterminable. . .there is no unambiguous way to differentiate between the ‘object’ and the ‘agencies of observation’” (barad, 2007, pp.113 and 114). the difference that does exist between an ‘object’ and the ‘agencies of observation’ is not a priori (ontological) but only emerges in the entangled becoming of these elements. furthermore, bohr argued that because one cannot “differentiate any subject and object outside of their entangled becoming, the very particularity of what materialises is at once an instance of the whole” (hinton, 2013, p.179). in other words, how matter manifest is intrinsic to the process employed to measure such a manifestation. entities then are not only constitutive of one another but are created immanently through their interaction. this is what barad (2007) calls intra-action. it is of significance that barad employs the term intra-action and not interaction. whereas interaction would refer to two or more separate, pre-existing entities engaging in an encounter with one another, intra-action, in contrast, stresses the ontological inseparability of entities involved in an ongoing becomingwith one another. thus, what we conceive of as reality is not composed of separate things-in-themselves that exists on an ontological level, but rather a kruger: posthumanism and educational research. . . 81 relational phenomenon that is continuously becoming as the world encounters itself. in the words of barad (2007, p.140): “[t]he world is a dynamic process of intra-activity”. what is the implication of this position for how we conceive of the human? as there exists not separateness of ‘things’ from the perspective of intra-action any “spatial, ontological, and epistemological distinction that sets humans apart” (barad, 2007, p.136) becomes impossible. barad’s position also holds important implications for how ethics is conceived. her argument for onto-epistemological inseparability moves ethics from the realm of pronouncing judgment on actions in response to an exteriorised other towards questions of performativity and entanglement. ethics becomes “about responsibility and accountability for the lively relationalities of becoming,. . . the entangled materialisations of which we are part, including new configurations, new subjectivities, new possibilities” (barad in dolphijn and van der tuin, 2012, p.69). thinking ontology, epistemology and ethics as inseparable, argues barad (as cited in dolphijn and van der tuin, 2012, p.69) “makes for a world that is always already an ethical matter”. i return to barad’s ethics of entanglement and the concept of intra-action later as i consider these in relation to educational research for sustainable futures. nomadic posthumanism having considered barad’s (2007) onto-epistemological position, i turn my attention to braidotti’s (2011, 2013) nomadic posthumanism, taking cognisance of how her position relates to ethics. whereas barad draws on quantum mechanics to theorise her posthumanist performativity, braidotti draws on critical, feminist and post-colonial theories to problematise the human of universal humanism. her argument for a nomadic posthumanism unfolds along three lines: nomadic subjectivity, an immanent ethics, and a politics of affirmation. at the heart of braidotti’s (2013) thesis is a rejection of a cartesian bifurcation of mind/body (matter), nature/culture, masculine/feminine, human/nonhuman, etc. that stands central to transcendental humanist thought. instead she calls for a nomadic subjectivity that relinquishes the stable, self-contained subject premised on a dialectical relation to the other for a subjectivity that is always in the process of becoming-other through the actualisation of new relations. in order to achieve this conceptual shift she draws on vitalist monism. braidotti avers that 82 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 deleuze and guattari (1987, p. 503) allude to the notion that life can be articulated in all3 matter by stating that “the organism is that which life sets against itself in order to limit itself, and there is a life all more intense, all more powerful for being anorganic”. furthermore, for them the “minimal real unit” of anorganic life is the assemblage (agencement) and “not the word, the idea, the concept or the signifier” (deleuze and parnet, 2002, p. 51). i take note that deleuze and guattari’s position has been criticised by zizek and badiou to be naïve neovitalism (dema, 2007). i will, however, not take up this discussion here as it is not directly relevant to my argument. for spinoza (2006) there exists only one substance (god or nature). deleuze (1994)4 extends and inverts this position through drawing on nietzsche’s concept of eternal return to posit the interplay between difference and repetition. for deleuze (1992, 1994) the one substance proposed by spinoza is in fact an always-differentiating process of becoming. vitalism allows one to reject the notion that matter is lifeless but to instead view it as autopoietic and filled with life. matter is understood as dynamic, self-organizing and generative. furthermore, through drawing on a3 deleuzean reading of spinoza’s substance monism allows braidotti to posit the unity of all matter; a univocity of being. the vitalist monism that informs4 braidotti position is the foundation of her posthumanist nomadism; an approach that “combines non-unitary subjectivity with ethical accountability by foregrounding the ontological role played by relationality” (braidotti, 2013, p. 93). braidotti (2011) argues that posthumanist nomadism consists of a radical immanence in which the essential distance between the human subject, the social nexus and the environment is suspended (also see guattari, 2000). thus, as outward-bound the subject “is fully immersed in and immanent to a network of nonhuman (animal, vegetable, viral) relations… it is an act of unfolding of the self onto the world and the enfolding within of the world” (braidotti, 2011, p.94). this then is a transversal subjectivity. but even as the nomadic subject is “constituted in and by multiplicity” it is still grounded and accountable because it is “based on a strong sense of collectivity, relationality and hence community building” (braidotti, 2013, p.49). it is this collectivity and relationality that informs the ethical dimensions of braidotti’s posthumanist nomadism. the ethical underpinning of the qualitative shift towards relationality and transversal interconnectedness “involves a creative commitment to maximising connections, and of maximising the powers that will expand the possibilities of life” (marks, 2010, p.87–88). nomadic posthumanism allows for an immanent and pragmatic ethics which seeks to increase joyful passions through multiplying productive relations. in keeping with vitalist monism, the kruger: posthumanism and educational research. . . 83 desire in the deleuzo-guattarian (1983) sense does not refer to a want or a lack but is an5 affirmative force that produces connections. ethics proposed by bradiotti draws extensively on spinoza’s ethics (2006) and deleuze’s (1988a) reading thereof. crudely put, for spinoza the essence of a body (human and nonhuman, animate and inanimate) is its degree of power to affect and be affected. passions, which can be joyful or sad, come from outside a body and is produced when two are more bodies interact. joyful passions increases a body’s power to act, whereas sad passions decreases a body’s power to act. according to braidotti (2010a, p.212) ethical relations constitute relations that are “conducive to joyful and empowering encounters that express one’s potentia and increase the subject’s capacity to enter into further relations”. potentia refers to affirmative and creative power. importantly, this entails that an ethical posture does not take away the power of others to act but instead enables the power of the other “to expand toward unknown futures” (maccormack, 2012, p.2). i argue that such an ethics of affirmation can be brought into relation with the notion of sustainability through the concept of conatus. conatus can be defined as the desire of bodies to preserve their essence, in other words their5 power to act (deleuze, 1988a). put differently, conatus is the “desire to actualise one’s power of becoming” (braidotti, 2010b, p.151). an affirmative posthumanist ethics is orientated towards enabling bodies to experiment with actualising their power to the fullest extent without crossing the threshold of sustainability (braidotti, 2006). within this context sustainability is understood as the place where interconnected bodies enter into a relationship of composition; a relationship in which neither body extends its powers to the point where the assemblage collapses or where potentia transforms into potestas (restricting, controlling power/pouvior). an ethics of sustainability is thus radically immanent and foregrounds the primacy of productive relations, creative interdependence and co-poiesis. this ethics is also postanthropocentric as it posits that all bodies (the human and nonhuman, organic and inorganic) have the power to act, to affect and be affected. it is through such an ethics that we can practice an affirmative politics that “entails the creation of sustainable alternatives geared to the construction of social horizons of hope, while at the same time doing critical theory, which implies resistance to the present” (braidotti, 2011, p.267). having provided a brief overview of the posthumanist positions taken up by barad and braidotti and how their positions inform an ethics of sustainability, 84 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 i turn my attention to why i think as educational researchers we need to take note of the ideas presented in their work. i also suggest possible avenues for exploration and experimentation with educational research in relation to thinking about sustainable futures. the problematics of educational research arguably the majority of educational research undertaken is premised on the belief that the “world is populated with individual things with their own independent sets of determinate properties” (barad, 2007, p.19) which results in dichotomous subject/object relations. it is, however, argued by snaza and weaver (2014) that such bifurcation between subject and object alienates the researcher from the environment and structures hierarchical relations with the knowing human in the position of power. such hierarchical structures promote human exceptionalism and instrumentalism. this leads to the majority of educational research being anthropocentric and speciest as it reserves the centre of the universe, and any conversation about it, to humans. yet as bennet (2010, p.108) argues, in a posthuman world “[to] assume a world of active subjects and passive objects begins to appear as thin descriptions at a time when the interactions between human, viral, animal, and technological bodies are becoming more and more intense”. the posthumanist positions of barad and braidotti offer us the chance to problematise this “divide between speaking-subjects and mute objects” (bennet, 2010, p.108) in educational research. if one takes barad (2003, 2007) and braidotti’s (2013) positions seriously that independent entities do not exist a priori and as such cannot be acted upon but instead participate in their own immanent materialisation through the relations into which they enter, we have to reconsider what we understand educational research to be, what we research, and how we conduct our research endeavours. for example, when we conduct classroom observations, work with ‘objective’ data during statistical analysis, or code interviews during qualitative research, we cannot treat matter (data) as a static entity that awaits signification by humans, nor can we treat matter as “an uncontested ground for scientific, feminist or marxist theories [as m]atter is not immutable or passive” (barad, 2003, p.821). as argued previously, this is because the observer and the observed are fundamentally entangled and ontologically inseparable (barad, 2007). similarly, braidotti’s (2013) brand of vital monism unfolds in her posthumanist nomadism through a relational ontology and nonkruger: posthumanism and educational research. . . 85 unitary subjectivity. in positing a relational ontology humans are neither pure cause nor pure effect but part of a relational becoming-with the world. agency (or the ability to affect and be affected) is not the sole domain of the human but is extended to include all matter. in recognising the entanglement of time and matter and the immanence of life, educational researchers that work towards sustainable futures should take cognisance of the fact that their research practices are not only receptive of the world, but also transformative of it (ingold, 2011). this transformative aspect of research is potentially made evident through a posthumanist position that decentres the human subject in favour of affectivity and relationality. through such a transposition educational research moves from the realm of representation (being receptive of the world) to that of performativity (transforming the world). in following schechner (as cited in vannini, 2015, p.8) performativity in this instance is understood as potentiality “waiting to be actualised”. research as performance thus creates openings for experimentation with “new forms of life” (thrift, 2008, p.14); that is, different world-becomings that decentres the human in favour of emergent and relational networks along a culture-nature continuum. such an understanding of how posthumanism can inform educational research for sustainable futures does not necessarily reject humanistic concerns but approaches it from a post-individualistic, relational and affective perspective. emphasising the performativity of research also potentially allows for the emergence of knowledge beyond the bounds of representation (see for example murris, 2016). this is because such research practices would not necessarily be so much concerned with “representing an empirical reality that has taken place before the act of representation than they are in enacting multiple and diverse potentials of what knowledge can become afterwards” (vannini, 2015, p.12). through broadening educational research practices to not only approach the world through cognition but also affectivity and performance permit experimenting with creating different knowledge and creating knowledge differently (st pierre, 1997). in shifting the focus of examination (and re-presentation thereof) from the actions of humans towards “how relational networks or assemblages of animate and inanimate affect and are affected” (fox and alldred, 2015, p.399), i consider four avenues along which educational research for sustainable futures can travel. this is done with particular reference to the posthumanist positions of barad and braidotti. i. if we, as educational researchers, wish to contribute towards sustainable futures through our research practices, we have to move beyond 86 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 universalistic notions of what constitutes the human and the associated concept of anthropocentrism. this sentiment is also echoed by braidotti (2013), colebrook (2014), snaza et al. (2014) and horsthemke (2009) who argue that any politics orientated solely towards the welfare of the human cannot address the challenges faced in the anthropocene. these challenges include climate change, species extinction, ecological depletion, mass migrations, and increased racial intolerance to name but a few. arguably, to remain relevant within the current global context through addressing the challenges it poses, and the processes through which such challenges arise, educational research and the educational project at large have to become posthuman and postanthropocentric. thus, in thinking about sustainability we need to decentre the human and foreground the material-discursive relational networks with which we and our research endeavours are entangled. doing this, i believe, will allow us to move beyond a politics of representation that seeks to model “the existence of preexisting things” (rotas, 2014, p.76) towards a politics of performativity and co-poiesis. such a politics is founded on a relational praxis and seek to both acknowledge the interconnectedness of the material-discursive field, as well as actively establish productive and sustainable relations. research that draws on such a praxis treats subjectivity as transversal and geo-centred (see braidotti, 2013, pp.8189) and in so doing allows for a broadened understanding of what educational research for sustainable futures could entail. ii. a posthumanist position allows educational researchers the opportunity to focus on how humans are always already constituted in/through the inand nonhuman. this is i believe an important onto-epistemological shift; for educational research and practices that endeavours to humanise the human (as is the telos of most historical and contemporary education projects) is always structurally bound to practices of dehumanisation (snaza, 2013). such dehumanisation occurs through the creation of sexualised others (e.g. women, lgbti community), racialised others (indigenous people, post-colonial peoples) and naturalised others (animals, the environment and other nonhumans) (braidotti, 2013). it is through becoming not-human that we start to see human differentiation more clearly and how ‘humans’ are constituted in and through an interconnected world. this would offer us a chance to reconfigure current humanistic identities and practices that are structurally bound to practices of dehumanisation in ways that produce new subjectivities (assemblages that are composed of human and non-human agents) and kruger: posthumanism and educational research. . . 87 practices that have not yet been coded into hierarchical and dualistic systems (braidotti, 2013). in this context, education for sustainable futures does not merely mean to conduct research that safeguard the position of the human in the future but must involve a more radical project that repositions current research practices in terms of relational onto-epistemologies and entangled time. iii. posthumanism offers an opportunity to experiment with transversal research practices. in thinking about research practices in terms of transversality i draw on guattari’s (2015) use of the term. for guattari (2015, p.132) interdisciplinary research does not avoid the problematics of compartmentalisation and as such cannot “rethink human life in terms of generalised ecology – environmental, social and mental”. in other words, interdisciplinary approaches to most educational research practices are still firmly rooted in a dualistic cartesian logic and as such is incongruent with the relational ontological perspectives from which posthumanism emerges. in response, transversal research practices build on heterogeneity and heterarchy; “producing effect not of universality” (deleuze, 1988b, p.91) and transcendence but of singularity and immanence. this means that research is positioned as a socio-political praxis based on the understanding that the emergence of the world is a continuously entangled becoming (barad, 2007). research practices rooted in transversality supposes that “no theory can totalise the entire field of knowledge and action. a theory multiplies and erupts in a totally different area” (baugh, 2010, p.283). transversal research practices thus encompasses “a transversal movement that sweeps one and the other way” (deleuze and guattari, 1987, p.25) through “lateral affiliations and entire system of networks” (foucault and deleuze, 1977, p.212). transversal research practices draws on an array of fields, including but not limited to critical theory, postcolonialism, feminism, queer theory, critical animal studies, media and cultural studies. for example, research on food gardens at schools offers a way to examine how climate change, structural inequality, gender, agricultural practices, mass consumerism, advanced capitalism, nutrition, curriculum and pedagogy become-with on another (see oosterling, 2013; rotas, 2014). not only do the posthumanist positions of barad and braidotti challenge discreet disciplines (e.g. education, biology, business studies) and the place of the ‘human’ within these disciplines, it also provides grounding to experiment with novel methodological practices. the turn to materiality and affectivity have caused an explosion in what has been labelled post88 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 qualitative, non-representational and post-representational methodologies in recent years (see for example clough, 2008; coleman and ringrose, 2013; fox and alldred, 2015; maclure, 2013; st pierre, 2013, vannini, 2015). these transversal research practices and methodologies allow for a material and affective analysis that enables connecting localised micro-politics of material-discursive practices and phenomena with macro (globalised) structures, flows and intensities through positioning research as receptive and transformative of the world. iv. posthumanism challenges one to let go of an ethics grounded in universal humanism when conducting research and to move towards an immanent and relational ethics. furthermore, because “[w]e do not obtain knowledge by standing outside of the world; we know because ‘we’ are of the world” (barad, 2007, p.185) it is not enough to merely acknowledge our own situatedness when conducting research. from a posthumanist perspective we are always embedded and embodied (braidotti, 2013) in our research practices and context. as such, the knowledge produced through research is not only situated and partial but also performative as “knowing is not bounded or a closed practice but an ongoing performance of the world” (barad, 2007, p.149). because we gain knowledge through unfolding with/in the world, all our research endeavours are affective and as such always already political. that is, they concern power relations (in the spinozist sense). this means that they are also ethical. it is, however, an ethics that moves beyond recognition of the other based on a shared vulnerability towards an affirmative ethics based on interconnectedness, co-poiesis and becoming-with the other. in conducting research, we need to carefully consider whether the relations we enter into, and the relations we make possible through our research – human and nonhuman, organic and inorganic – are sustainable and extend the power of the other to act to its fullest degree. to wonder in difference and repetition, deleuze (1994, p.139) asserts that “[s]omething in the world forces us to think”. it is an interruptive encounter with the unintelligible; it is an affective encounter – “wonder, love, hatred, suffering” kruger: posthumanism and educational research. . . 89 (deleuze 1994, p.139). thought produced through such an encounter is intensive and untimely and challenges one to grapple with the limits of understanding and with that which is unthinkable. this is i believe what posthumanism and postanthropocentrism offer us – to stand at the edge of the “failure of human knowledge to gain access to the world” (snaza and weaver, 2014, p.6) and to set “up conditions in which we can. . . get free of ourselves and the old concepts that weigh us down” (st. pierre, 2013, p.226). this precarious position offers us a return to ‘wonder’ at the becoming-world (bogost, 2012; maclure, 2013). as educational researchers we should not be afraid to disrupt the (humanist) logic that traps educational research within the instrumentalist confines of always asking a variant of the same question: ‘what works best?’ rather, as snaza and weaver (2014) suggest, a posthumanist and postanthropocentric position allows us to turn this question around and ask: ‘best for what?’ this is, i believe, a vital first step in starting to think about the possibilities for what educational research might become as we grapple with the problematics of sustainable futures in the anthropocene. references barad, k. 2001. re(con)figuring space, time and matter. in dekoven, m. 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(ed.). non-representational methodologies: reenvisioning research. new york: routledge, pp.1–17. wolfe, c. 2010. what is posthumanism? minneapolis: university of minnesota press. weaver, j.a. 2010. thepposthuman condition: a complicated conversation. in malewski, e. (ed.). curriculum studies handbook: the next moment. new york: routledge, pp.190–200. zembylas, m. and bozalek, v. 2014. a critical engagement with the social and political consequences of human rights: the contribution of the affective turn and posthumanism. acta academia, 46(4): pp.29–47. 94 journal of education, no. 65, 2016 frans kruger school of education studies university of the free state krugerf@ufs.ac.za mailto:krugerf@ufs.ac.za education for sustainable agriculture: the old and new curricula for agricultural sciences in south african schools moraig peden abstract this article explores the support given to education for sustainable agriculture (esa) by the south african agricultural sciences school curricula. it compares two post-apartheid curricula: the current curriculum assessment policy statements (caps) and the phased-out national curriculum statement (ncs) for agricultural sciences in terms of content, knowledge requirements, cognitive processes and philosophies of education for sustainable agriculture, as well as the role of assessment and the stated purpose of the curricula. while the ncs had a vision of sustainable agriculture and of a progressive curriculum, these aims were not supported in the detail of the curriculum. the caps presents a shift back to more traditional, discipline-based agriculture, with a detailed curriculum, which provides more support for esa in terms of fundamental ecological knowledge as well as sustainable agriculture strategies. however, the caps, has fewer requirements for practical agriculture, higher order learning and engagement with broad socio-economic issues. the paper concludes with recommendations for supporting esa, through teacher education and amendments to the assessment requirements. introduction environmentally sustainable agriculture is crucial for both future production as well as for the broader environment. the twenty-first century faces threats to global food supplies (new agriculturist, 2008) linked to environmental degradation (food and agriculture organisation of the united nations [fao], 2011, 2012). industrial agriculture, based on fossil fuels has contributed significantly to climate change (sachs, 2010; international assessment of agricultural knowledge, science and technology for development [iaastd], 2009), water and soil pollution, the lowering of water-tables, salinization of land (halweil, 2002) and the loss of biodiversity (halweil, 2002; the world bank, 2008; iaastd, 2009). these costs have been externalised in the drive for high yields, profit and low food prices (miller, 2000; halweil, 2002;). ‘business as usual’ i.e. industrial agricultural damages 64 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 the resource base on which it depends. in south africa, industrial agriculture is the default approach, of the state department of agriculture (doa) (national planning commission [npc], 2011). with 82% of the land classified agricultural in 2009 (index mundi, undated), environmental degradation such as habitat loss and water pollution is being caused by agricultural intensification (department of environmental affairs [deat], 2006). this paper explores whether the south african school curriculum is engaging with education for sustainable agriculture (esa) as we enter our third decade of democracy. in order to probe the question further, i analyse and compare the two postapartheid agricultural sciences curricula: the current curriculum assessment policy statements (caps) (department of basic education [dbe], 2011b) and the phased-out national curriculum statement (ncs) (department of education [doe], 2003; 2008a; 2008b) for agricultural sciences in terms of the content, knowledge requirements and cognitive processes, philosophies of education for sustainable agriculture and the role of assessment and the stated purpose of the curricula. i ask the following questions: 1. to what extent does the content of the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) and the caps (dbe, 2011b) support sustainable agriculture as opposed to industrial agriculture? 2. to what extent are the knowledge and cognitive processes in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) and the caps (dbe, 2011b) aligned to the philosophies underpinning esa? 3. to what extent are the stated purposes and assessment of the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) and the caps (dbe, 2011b) aligned to sustainable agriculture and the philosophies underpinning esa? i find that the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) had a vision of sustainable agriculture and a progressive curriculum (learner-centred and experiential), which aligned it to philosophies of esa, but these aims were not supported in the details of the curriculum. the caps (dbe, 2011b) presents a shift back to a more traditional, teacher-centred curriculum with a focus on knowledge peden: education for sustainable agriculture. . . 65 transmission within traditional agricultural disciplines. however the caps (dbe, 2011b) curriculum is more detailed, providing fundamental ecological knowledge as well as sustainable agriculture strategies which support esa. on the other hand, the caps (dbe, 2011b) has fewer requirements for both practical agriculture and higher order learning (based on progressive pedagogies) and less engagement with broad socio-economic issues. the paper concludes that the caps (dbe, 2011b) allows for progressive education for sustainable agriculture although it does not require it. this leads to recommendations for supporting esa through teacher education and amendments to the assessment requirements. sustainable agriculture: a response to industrial agriculture industrial agriculture aims for the highest economic yields and maximum profit. it’s underlying principles are simplification of ecosystems and large scale production in order to achieve greater efficiency. the farmer is not held responsible for social and environmental impacts beyond the farm boundary. high inputs are required, including mechanisation, petrochemical-based fertilisers and pesticides and hybrid or genetically modified seed. strategies include intensive animal production and monoculture (dumanski, peiretti, benites, mcgarry and pieri, 2006; scherr and mcneely, 2008). sustainable agriculture emerged in the 1980s in response to concerns about industrial agriculture. the concept is contested. it ranges from weak to strong sustainable agriculture depending on the level of challenge to industrial agriculture. strong sustainable agriculture aims to transform the broad agrifood system while weak sustainable agriculture attempts to modify but not replace industrial agriculture. objectives include minimising agricultural pollution and resource depletion, reducing energy use and conservation of soil, water and biodiversity including natural habitats (reganold, papendick and parr, 1990; pretty, 1995) as well as engaging in an interdisciplinary way with alternatives to the global capitalist food system (francis, 2005; wezel, bellon, dore, francis, vallod and david, 2009). sustainable agriculture methods could increase production at the same time as protecting natural resources (iaastd, 2009; tirado, 2009). with 82% of land classified agricultural in south africa in 2009 (index mundi, undated), 66 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 farmers could play a significant role in conserving the environment through sustainable practices (mcneely and scherr, 2003; the world bank, 2008; iaastd, 2009). national policies in south africa (doa, 2008b, 2005a, (department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries [daff], 2011; npc, 2011) recognise the need to move towards sustainable agriculture within a low carbon-economy. education is critical in this process (department of environmental affairs [dea], 2010; npc, 2011). agriculture and sustainability in south africa south african agriculture is characterised by ‘two agricultures’, a legacy of apartheid. white commercial agriculture was strongly supported by the state with research, subsidies, markets and education. black subsistence agriculture, where farmers produce for their own household needs only, was practised on crowded, marginal land with little support and low productivity (van rooyen, barnard and van zyl, 1996). little has changed under democratic rule. in 2007 commercial farms produced 95% of agricultural output, occupying 87% of agricultural land but comprising only 20% of farmers (doa, 2008b). four million subsistence farmers move in and out of agriculture as other income sources fluctuate (aliber and hart, 2009). in recent decades declining farmer numbers have caused declining per capita production and south africa has become a net importer of food (dugmore, 2008; baiphethi and jacobs, 2009). the national planning commission (npc) of 2011 sees economic growth potential in the agricultural sector and proposes improved support and training for commercial and subsistence farmers. land-use practice is a key driver of environmental degradation. in south africa industrial agriculture is a major water user as well as contributing to water pollution through chemical and effluent run-off. these issues affect river, estuarine and marine ecosystems. nearly 20% of the natural habitat has been destroyed, mainly for crops and 65% of wetlands are endangered or vulnerable (deat, 2006; south african national biodiversity institute (sanbi), 2013). support for sustainable agriculture comes mainly from the private sector with programmes such as the susfarms (sustainable sugarcane farm peden: education for sustainable agriculture. . . 67 management system) and the biodiversity and wine initiative. state support for sustainable agriculture has been weak. the biodiversity stewardship south africa programme run by the state was initiated by ngos (kzn wildlife, n.d.). south africa has no legal organic standards (saoso, 2014) and no subsidies for organic farmers (barrow, 2006). a history of agricultural schooling in sa agricultural schooling evolved from rudimentary gardening for blacks in mission schools in the 1800s to colonial schools producing labourers in the 1900s. in the apartheid era ‘gardening’ was taught in black primary schools and ‘agriculture’ for the black school leavers’ certificate. with homeland development, ‘agriculture’ became the training for extension officers working in homeland areas (paterson, 2004). in 1994, schooling was deracialised and became the domain of one national department. the national curriculum statement (ncs) (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) ) was developed by the department of education (doe). subsequently, its successor, the department of basic education (dbe) developed the curriculum assessment policy statement (caps) (dbe, 2011b) for all school subjects including agricultural sciences. from 1994 onwards, the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) agricultural sciences was only offered in the final three years of school. the subject is mainly offered in rural, state, black secondary schools (paterson, 2004; doa 2008a) where learners take agricultural sciences as one subject amongst six other nonagricultural subjects. it is also offered in forty-three specialised agricultural schools which also offer two additional agricultural subjects to both black and white learners. the specialised agricultural schools aim to produce commercial farmers and are better-resourced than the state secondary schools. however they comprise only 0.7% of state secondary schools (dbe, 2015; doa, 2008a) and enrolments are limited by high fees. there is a lack of consensus around the purpose of agricultural sciences in schools both within and between the state departments of education and agriculture. the purposes includes “generalist and formative rather than vocational” (doa, 2008a, p.7), preparing learners for tertiary education, careers in agriculture and self-employment (daff, 2011) and the development of practical skills (doe, 2008a). there is a tension between 68 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 learning about agriculture and learning to engage in agriculture. in 2013 agricultural sciences was in the top eleven most popular national senior certificate subjects (dbe, 2013). however, it tends to be selected for its perceived easiness rather than students’ interest in farming (doa, 2008a, paterson, 2004). the pedagogy of agricultural sciences continues to be based on knowledge transmission with little practical work or problem-solving (paterson, 2004). the lack of resources and skilled educators has not improved in the democratic era (doa, 2005; south african agricultural teaching association, 2007; doa, 2008a; dbe, 2009). agricultural sciences continues to be associated with a second class apartheid curriculum, exacerbated by the use of agricultural work as punishment (paterson, 2004). however, in recent years it has gained greater currency in tertiary education with some diploma and degree programmes accepting agricultural sciences as an alternative to life sciences as an entry requirement (western cape government, 2014; mangosuthu university of technoloy (mut), undated; university of kwazulu-natal (ukzn), undated). in the next section i describe the two post-apartheid curricula: the national curriculum statement (ncs) (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) ) and the curriculum assessment policy statements (caps) (dbe, 2011b). the ncs (national curriculum statement) a new post-apartheid curriculum (curriculum 2005) for grades r–9 was introduced in 1998. driven by a political rather than an educational agenda, it had to clearly reject the apartheid curriculum (harley and wedekind, 2004). ‘content’ was replaced with ‘outcomes’ (skills, knowledge and values) based on constructivist methods (mattson and harley, 1999) which rejected memorisation (dbe, 2009). academic and everyday knowledge were integrated to make the curriculum relevant to learners (harley and wedekind, 2004; le grange, 2008). it was criticised for being incomprehensible and lacking content and structured progression. this led to the 2000 curriculum review process which recommended substantial changes. a revised national curriculum statement (rncs) for get (grades r–9) was implemented in 2002. it contained a stronger content focus but the key characteristics of c2005 (outcomes-based, integrated knowledge and learner-centredness) peden: education for sustainable agriculture. . . 69 remained in place. this led to concerns that it was unsuitable for poorlyresourced schools. it’s broad vision neglected realities on the ground (harley and wedekind, 2004). the rncs provided the basis of the new fet (grade 10–12) curriculum, which was introduced incrementally into schools from 2006 to 2008. agricultural sciences was now only offered at fet level and no longer provided at primary schools. in 2008, the first cohort of matriculants completed the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) in agricultural sciences. poor results and the lack of agricultural skills development raised concerns (parliamentary monitoring group, 2009; province of the eastern cape education, 2008). in 2008 all subjects in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) were expanded with two further documents: the learning programme guidelines (doe, 2008a) and the subject assessment guidelines (doe, 2008b). criticisms continued, focusing on poorly specified academic content, concepts and skills and a lengthy, confusing and vague curriculum (harley and wedekind, 2004). in 2009 a review of the ncs (dbe, 2009) led to the proposal of a new simplified curriculum. the national curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) was revised and renamed the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) (dbe, 2011b) and introduced incrementally from 2012 to 2014. the learning outcomes and assessment standards of the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) were discarded. text books are seen as an essential tool for implementation of the curriculum (dbe, 2009; dbe, 2011b). the caps (dbe, 2011b) emphasises detailed foundational knowledge, structured progression and simplified assessment. in the caps (dbe, 2011b) for agricultural sciences, the assessment requires a reduction in research projects. a range of assessment approaches are included in addition to tests and examinations. the caps has a stated aim to develop research, problem-solving and critical thinking skills (dbe, 2011b; dbe, 2009). the caps (dbe, 2011b) still emphasises applied meaningful knowledge in order to enable learners to move from school to the work 70 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 environment (dbe, 2011b). this creates expectations of a vocational component in the agricultural sciences curriculum. conceptual framework in order to address the three research questions, the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) and caps (dbe, 2011b) are analysed in terms of the content, knowledge levels and cognitive processes, philosophies of education for sustainable agriculture and the role of assessment and the stated purpose of the curricula. the content is analysed in terms of whether it supports industrial agriculture (also described as production, chemical and high-input agriculture) or sustainable agriculture. the knowledge dimensions and cognitive processes are analysed using bloom’s revised taxonomy (krathwohl, 2010). the taxonomy is a hierarchy which moves from simple, concrete knowledge to greater levels of abstraction and complexity. generally curricula tend to rely on the lower end of the taxonomy (facts and memorisation) although higher cognitive processes are important in the learning process. curricula are analysed in the two dimensional table below. peden: education for sustainable agriculture. . . 71 table 1: blooms revised taxonomy of knowledge the cognitive process dimension the knowledge dimension 1. remember 2. understand 3. apply 4. analyse 5. evaluate 6. create a. factual knowledge b. conceptual knowledge c. procedural knowledge d. meta-cognitive knowledge totals in the vertical dimension, factual knowledge includes basic terminology and elements of a discipline. conceptual knowledge includes relationships between elements, classification, principles, theories and models. procedural knowledge concerns how to do things. metacognitive knowledge concerns knowledge of cognition including one’s own. the horizontal dimension consists of six cognitive processes: 1. remember: retrieving relevant knowledge. 2. understand: determining the meaning of knowledge. 3. apply: carrying out a procedure. 4. analyse: breaking knowledge into components and identifying relationships and overall structure. 5. evaluate: making judgements based on criteria. 6. create: putting elements together to form something new. 72 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 each statement can have more than one knowledge dimension, but higher levels of the cognitive processes subsume the lower levels. education for sustainable agriculture i contrast the philosophies underlying education for sustainable agriculture with those underlying industrial agriculture education. the description below provides the criteria for content analysis of the curricula. education for industrial agriculture fits predominantly within behaviourist and liberal philosophies of education. behaviourist philosophy aims to transfer a body of knowledge and skills to learners (francis, 2005; parr, trexler, khanna and battisti, 2007). learners are assessed through evidencebased tasks, with examinations providing reward or sanction (walter, 2009). liberal agricultural education, focuses on agricultural disciplines such as soil science, agronomy and animal science which contrasts with the more systemic approaches of sustainable agriculture (bawden, 1995; francis, 2005, walter, 2009). the emphasis is on individual learning and the aim is to respond to global economic demands (clover, jayme, hall and follen, 2013). behaviourist and liberal education also supports weak sustainable agriculture, which aims to modify industrial agriculture. based on his work with workingclass british learners, bernstein (in guthrie, 2013) argues that the traditional forms of education, which are teacher rather than learner-centred are more appropriate for disadvantaged learners. bernsteinian arguments for “powerful knowledge” (young in hoadley, 2011) based on a strongly specified curriculum entered the education debate in south africa with the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) review report in 2009 which led to the development of the caps (dbe, 2011b). education for strong sustainable agriculture engages with progressive forms of education. it advocates humanist and progressive philosophies of education with some streams using radical philosophies. progressive philosophy integrates the principles and application of science with hands-on agriculture (bawden, 1995). it includes ecocentric approaches with humans viewed as part of natural systems (walter, 2009). the educator is a learner-centred facilitator who encourages experiential outdoor learning, experimentation, scientific methods, practical problem-solving, teamwork, internships, democratic thinking and environmental ethics. assessment takes place peden: education for sustainable agriculture. . . 73 through demonstration of knowledge and not only through tests and exams (walter, 2009). humanist philosophy focuses on personal transformation, self-actualisation and happiness (walter, 2009) and promotes systems-based curricula integrating natural and social sciences (parr et al., 2007). it values the connections between humans and nature. it underpins strong sustainable agriculture’s focus on the global food system, which requires interdisciplinarity and systemic approaches (francis, lieblein, gliessman, breland, creamer, harwood, salomonsson, helenius, rickert, salvador, wiedenhoeft, simmons, allen, altieri, flora and poincelot, 2003; parr et al., 2007). some strong forms of esa are aligned to radical philosophy where there is no externally imposed curriculum and learning occurs through participation, action research, debate, analysis and reflection (pretty, 1995; parr et al., 2007) in addition to practical knowledge (perez, parr and beckett, 2010). this entails a shift to situated non-formal learning such as farmer groups rather than formal courses (knight, 2002) such as school agricultural sciences. radical pedagogy, based on freirean ideas has its origins in adult education. the appropriateness of this pedagogy for school learners is contested (hugo and wedekind, 2013).this pedagogy requires specific teaching skills, which are lacking in the south african context, and contributed to the recent demise of the progressive ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) . 74 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 table 2: a typology of paradigms and philosophies for agricultural education (adapted from clover et al., 2013; walter, 2009; guthrie, 2013) philosophy purpose instructor role learning approaches assessment behaviourist knowledge and skills transfer: in order to ensure survival teacher as leader clear boundaries between teacher and learner knowledge revealed by teachers structured external incentives and disincentives (marks, passing/failing) measurable outcomes, evidence-based, examinations liberal intellectual, spiritual, aesthetic, moral development teacher has expertise in discipline discipline-based scaffolded knowledge; book-centred subject matter exams, essays, recitation progressive development of democracy, social reform and the individual teacher as guide and facilitator boundaries between teacher and learner are weakened knowledge discovered by learners learner-centred, handson, outdoor, experiential, problem-based learning. experimentation,internships, scientific method co-operation, community building and ecocentric approaches observation and demonstration humanistic selfactualisation: social, emotional, spiritual and intellectual development teacher as facilitator, promotes personal growth holistic, subjective learning; problemcentred; group work, learner takes responsibility, includes social sciences self-evaluation, individual learning contracts radical liberation from social, economic and political oppression; social transformation teacher as facilitator, coinvestigator, organiser, activist conscientisation through dialogue, reflection, action, problem-posing increased critical consciousness, political action, visible social change peden: education for sustainable agriculture. . . 75 the role of assessment assessment requirements have a powerful influence on how curricula are used, as teachers will teach in order to achieve maximum pass rates. if assessment requirements are predominantly based on memorisation for examinations, progressive teaching which underpins strong esa is unlikely to gain a foothold. progressive education uses assessment as a learning tool, rather than just to evaluate final student performance (chappuis and stiggins, 2002). using practical demonstrations, experiments and self-reflection, progressive assessment prepares learners to practice agriculture rather than merely providing generalist grounding in agriculture (chappuis and stiggins, 2002;walter, 2009). however, although the curriculum may encourage or permit progressive assessment, it is unlikely to be adopted if it is not mandatory. it is more difficult to apply than traditional assessment and thus teachers are likely to avoid engaging with it (barnes, clarke and stevens, 2000; stevenson, 2007). methodology i analyse the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) and caps (dbe, 2011b) by focusing on the three research questions. coding the documents i use a qualitative, interpretive methodology to classify sentences or topics in the curricula. i use the sentence as the unit of analysis as well as topics from lists that occur in the curricula. i code each statement (sentences or listed topic) on an excel spreadsheet. the methodology generates quantitative data, as i count the number of statements in each category and calculate them as a percentage of the total number of statements counted. i consider all chapters and sections that are specific to the agricultural sciences curricula but omit generic sections that apply to all subjects. i exclude tables of contents and glossaries as these are repetitions of information in the curricula. i code repetitions of sections only once, for example the learning outcomes in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b). i 76 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 only code statements that are relevant to the research questions. for question 1, i code statements that refer to or imply a type of agriculture. for question 2, i code statements that refer to knowledge or cognitive processes required in the curricula. for question 3, i code statements about assessment or purpose that refer to sustainable agriculture or esa. question 1: to what extent does the content support sustainable agriculture as opposed to industrial agriculture? to answer this question i code each statement that makes specific reference to a type of agriculture either as industrial agriculture (ia) or sustainable agriculture (sa). in both curricula, industrial agriculture is the default approach, which is promoted nationally by the department of agriculture. i code statements about agriculture which do not indicate the approach, as industrial agriculture. i then code these statements at a second level, indicating whether they provide a broad statement of vision or a detailed statement. the frequent mention of the word ‘sustainable’, particularly in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) is not coded as sustainable agriculture unless the context specifically indicates that it refers to environmental sustainability. the concept is operationalised in appendix a. question 2: to what extent are the knowledge and cognitive processes aligned to philosophies underpinning esa? i use bloom’s revised taxonomy of knowledge to code each statement that refers to knowledge or cognitive processes required in the curricula. in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) documents this includes the definitions, learning outcomes, assessment standards, content and context. statements can have more than one knowledge dimension, but only one cognitive process, as higher levels subsume lower levels. where statements provide content with little information on cognitive processes, i code as the lowest level, ‘remember’, as there is no requirement to go beyond this. the knowledge requirements and cognitive processes are used as a basis for a discussion on the education philosophies underlying the curricula. peden: education for sustainable agriculture. . . 77 the concept is operationalised in appendix a. question 3: to what extent are the stated purposes and assessment aligned to sustainable agriculture and philosophies underpinning esa? in addition to coding statements and topics in the curricula, i use the coding process in question 1 and 2, to code the purpose and assessment requirements of each curriculum. findings question 1: to what extent does the curriculum promote sustainable agriculture as opposed to industrial agriculture? although both curricula are aligned to the default mode of industrial agriculture they also engage with sustainable agriculture. the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) provided a vision of sustainable agriculture that was poorly supported with details. the caps (dbe, 2011b) provides little vision of sustainable agriculture but provides more depth and detail on ecological systems and sustainable agriculture methods. opportunities for critical thinking and engagement with socio-economic issues were contained within vision statements of the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) but there was a lack of detailed support. the caps (dbe, 2011b), with it’s focus on traditional agricultural disciplines, has almost no engagement with these aspects. these findings are elaborated below: the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) provided a strong vision for sustainable agriculture (40% of statements) compared to the caps (dbe, 2011b) (6%), but the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) has a lower percentage of detailed statements (26%) on sustainable agriculture compared to the caps (36%) (dbe, 2011b), suggesting the concept remains an ideal. the caps (dbe, 2011b) has a detailed discipline-based focus on sustainable agriculture (soil science, plant science, agro-ecology, animal science) which contribute to ecological literacy, which is foundational for sustainable agriculture. the caps (dbe, 2011b) includes sustainable agriculture methods such as free range, organic, biological, integrated, small-scale and backyard agriculture. 78 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 the content of the caps (dbe, 2011b) provides more support for sustainable agriculture than that of the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) . in both curricula, industrial agriculture is the default approach, promoted nationally by the department of agriculture. many statements containing agricultural content do not indicate the agricultural approach. unless specified, the dominant mode of industrial agriculture applies. the statement: “poultry: broiler production; and egg production: basic requirements for successful production (housing, management, breeding and nutrition” (dbe, 2011a:25), refers to the dominant intensive production systems. sustainable agriculture systems such as free-range or organic would have to be specified. the detailed support for sustainable agriculture in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) focused on water and soil conservation (7%) which is most commonly aligned to industrial agriculture. there was some detailed support for strong sustainable agriculture such as organic agriculture (7%). the topic ‘organic fertilisers’ illustrates an important difference between the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) and the caps (dbe, 2011b). while the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) contained one statement: “mineral nutrition: organic and inorganic fertilisers” (doe, 2003, p.28), the caps (dbe, 2011b) provides four statements detailing different kinds of organic fertilisers such as green manure, farm manure and compost (dbe, 2011a). table 3: percentage of statements coded by type of agriculture vision statements detailed content or strategies ncs (n=57) caps (n=89) ncs (n=57) caps (n=89) type of agriculture percentage of all statements industrial agriculture (ia) 9 1 25 57 sustainable agriculture (sa) 40 6 26 36 neither the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) nor the caps (dbe, 2011b) fundamentally challenge the industrial food system and tend towards weak sustainable agriculture. while the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) created peden: education for sustainable agriculture. . . 79 some opportunities for critical thinking, e.g. an exemplar assessment task to compare traditional and industrial agriculture, there are few supporting guidelines. many of the sustainable agriculture strategies in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) were compatible add-ons to industrial agriculture e.g. organic fertilisers and integrated pest management (ipm). a controversial topic, such as concentrated animal feeding operations (cafos) is addressed in the caps (dbe, 2011b) with information on animal diseases and management as well as alternative production systems but it does not make use of the opportunity to explicitly critique the industrial food system. socio-economic issues are an important part of strong sustainable agriculture. the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) contained socio-economic vision statements (14%) such as: “learners need to be sensitive towards their natural environment and understand the effects of human decisions resulting from socio-economic and political conditions which have an impact on the environment and on sustainable agricultural production” (doe, 2003, p.13), but these were poorly supported with detailed statements (8%) which include a socioeconomic component within sustainable agriculture. the caps (dbe, 2011b) has little focus on socio-economic issues within sustainable agriculture at either the level of vision or in detailed statements. the lack of critique of industrial agriculture in the caps (dbe, 2011b) reflects the tension underlying the shift from ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) to caps (dbe, 2011b), where the transmission of discipline knowledge has replaced an earlier and largely unsuccessful ideal of holistic, critical engagement. table 4: sustainable agriculture statements with a socio-economic focus as a percentage of the total number of statements socio-economic vision statements socio-economic detailed statements ncs n=57 caps n=89 ncs n=57 caps n=89 14% 2% 8% 2% question 2: to what extent are the knowledge and cognitive processes aligned to the philosophies of esa? 80 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 the knowledge requirements in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) were spread over bloom’s revised taxonomy with a heavier weighting towards the middle and lower end. in contrast to this, the caps (dbe, 2011b) shows a noticeable shift down the hierarchy, with almost double the percentage of knowledge statements at the lowest level cognitive process ‘remember’ compared to the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b). in the caps (dbe, 2011b) there is substantially less spread into the higher levels of the taxonomy. these findings are elaborated on below. the spread of knowledge requirements in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) showed heavier weighting towards the middle and lower end of the taxonomy. the largest proportion of knowledge statements (30%) required no more than remembering factual knowledge. this was followed by understanding conceptual knowledge (23%) and applying procedural knowledge (21%). there were some requirements to work at top three cognitive levels (16%). metacognitive knowledge (knowledge of one’s own learning processes) barely occured in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b). table 5: percentage of statements assigned to each category of bloom’s revised taxonomy of knowledge for ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) for agricultural sciences 2003 and 2008 (n = 411 statements) the cognitive process dimension the knowledge dimension 1. remember 2. understand 3. apply 4. analyse 5. evaluate 6. create a. factual knowledge 30 1 0.2 0.2 b. conceptual knowledge 14 23 1.7 6 6 2 c. procedural knowledge 0.2 5 21 1 1 0.2 d. metacognitive knowledge 0.2 totals 44.2 29.2 22.9 7.2 7 2.2 peden: education for sustainable agriculture. . . 81 in contrast, the caps (dbe, 2011b) shows a clear shift down the taxonomy, with 87% of knowledge statements in the caps (dbe, 2011b) at the lowest level cognitive process ‘remember’ compared to 44% in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b). fifty-five pecent of statements require no more than remembering factual knowledge. twenty-four require remembering conceptual knowledge and 8% require remembering procedural knowledge. the caps (dbe, 2011b) substantially decreases the emphasis on the cognitive process of ‘understanding’ with only 2% of statements falling in this category. the application of procedural knowledge declines from 21% in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) to 8% in the caps (dbe, 2011b). there is substantially less spread into the three highest cognitive processes (2%). metacognitive knowledge in the caps (dbe, 2011b) is at an even lower level than in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b). table 6: percentage of statements assisgned to each category of bloom’s revised taxonomy of knowledge for the caps (dbe, 2011b) for agricultural sciences (n = 1068 statements) the cognitive process dimension the knowledge dimension 1. remember 2. understand 3. apply 4. analyse 5. evaluate 6. create a. factual knowledge 55 0.1 0.0 0.0 0 b. conceptual knowledge 24 2 2.8 0.5 0.2 0.1 c. procedural knowledge 8 0.1 6 1.1 0.1 0.3 d. metacognitive knowledge 0 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.1 totals 87 2.3 8.8 1.6 0.4 0.4 the relationship between the knowledge and cognitive processes and philosophies of esa is explored in ‘discussion and implications’. 82 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 question 3: to what extent are the stated purposes and assessment aligned to sustainable agriculture and philosophies underpinning esa? neither curriculum provides a clear statement of purpose. both include a list of complex statements supporting a vision of sustainable agriculture including socio-economic issues. however, the dominant knowledge requirements in these statements align both curricula with traditional formalistic education rather than the progressive philosophies of esa. the learning outcomes, found in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b), (but not included in the caps (dbe, 2011b) played a more important role than the stated purpose as they were linked to assessment standards and content. these contained higher knowledge requirements consistent with esa but remained at the level of vision. the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) provided nine detailed statements of purpose. four statements addressed sustainable agriculture issues including ethics, environmental care and humane animal treatment; two statements addressed industrial agriculture and seven statements addressed socioeconomic issues (doe, 2003). knowledge requirements were at a low level with six statements requiring the lower cognitive process of ‘understanding’ ; two statements requiring agricultural production skills (‘application’) and one statement focusing on scientific skills (apply, analyse, evaluate). the caps (dbe, 2011b) contains five simplified versions of the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) statements of purpose with a similar emphasis. peden: education for sustainable agriculture. . . 83 table 8: statements of purpose ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b): through the study of agricultural sciences, learners will: caps (dbe, 2011b): in agricultural sciences learners • develop awareness of national priorities such as food security, sustainable livelihoods and the alleviation of poverty, considering both subsistence and commercial farming practices, as well as cultural, aesthetic and ethical issues within plant and animal production • develop an awareness of the management and care of the environment, natural resources and the humane treatment of animals through application of science and related appropriate technology, with responsibility towards the environment and for the health and well-being of all in south africa; develop an awareness of the management and care of the environment, natural resources and the humane treatment of animals through application of science and related technology; • develop problem-solving mechanisms within the contexts of agricultural production, processing and marketing practices; develop problem-solving mechanisms within the contexts of agricultural production, processing & marketing practices; • be aware of the social and economic development of the society at large through personal development in commercial and subsistence farming enterprises by communicating, by working effectively in groups, and by being creative and innovative; be aware of the social and economic development of the society at large through personal development in commercial and subsistence farming enterprises; • become informed and responsible citizens (knowledge and skills) in the production of agricultural commodities (while managing natural resources), caring for the environment (attitudes and values) and addressing social justice issues; become informed and responsible citizens in the production of agricultural commodities, caring for the environment and addressing social justice issues; and • be aware of agricultural indigenous knowledge and practices through understanding agricultural science in historical and social contexts; be aware of agricultural indigenous knowledge and practices through understanding agricultural sciences in historical and social contexts. • develop an awareness of gender inequity and other imbalances that exist in the agricultural industry, encouraging meaningful participation of female learners and learners with special educational needs; • develop social and personal skills through understanding ethical and responsible agricultural practices in the production and processing of food and fibre and caring for crops and animals; and • acquire value through having access and the opportunity to succeed in lifelong education and training. 84 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) also contained four learning outcomes which were the framework around which the curriculum was structured. assessment standards and content were based on the learning outcomes which thus carried more weight than the statements of purpose. all four outcomes included a vision of sustainable agriculture and there was some focus on social issues. they had higher knowledge requirements than the statements of purpose, with all four requiring the cognitive process of ‘understanding’, three requiring agricultural skills development (‘apply’) and three requiring learners to ‘analyse’. however, while the learning outcomes appeared to be more strongly aligned to esa, they remained at the level of vision, and were not translated into detailed statements. the stated purpose of assessment in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) focused on whether learners understood “the application of technology” in agricultural production (doe, 2008b, p.7) and indicated a low cognitive demand not consistent with strong esa. the caps (dbe, 2011b) does not state a purpose for assessment. the formal assessment requirements ultimately guide the teaching process. the annual assessment requirements are similar in both curricula but are more detailed in the caps (dbe, 2011b) (see table 9). both curricula derive the year mark from school based assessment (sba) (25%) and final examinations (75%). although the caps (dbe, 2011b) describes progressive approaches for formal assessment tasks: “science investigative skills. . . hands-on activities or hypothesis testing. . . practical investigations in groups, individually or as a teacher/learner demonstration” (dbe, 2011a, p. 65), it must be noted that only 15% of the sba in the caps (dbe, 2011b) is based on practical tasks, as opposed to tests or examinations. the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) did not specify what percentage of the sba should be practical tasks. the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) specified a mandatory ‘performance assessment task’ focused on the application of agricultural skills and knowledge outside the classroom. sba tasks are more strongly specified in the caps (dbe, 2011b) and include a mandatory practical scientific investigation, but there is no requirement for any agricultural field practicals. all tasks in the caps (dbe, 2011b) may take place in the classroom, laboratory or in the community. in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) there was a mandatory requirement for a practical agriculture task as part of the sba. developing skills in practical agriculture, plays an important role in esa, particularly at the strong end of the continuum. peden: education for sustainable agriculture. . . 85 table 9: assessment requirements in ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) and caps (dbe, 2011b) ncs 2003/8 assessment requirements caps assessment requirements grade 10/11 grade 12 grade 10/11 grade 12 school based assessment (25%) 2 tests 1 examination 3 tasks (projects, practical investigations, simulations or research projects) school based assessment (25%) 2 tests 2 examinations 3 tasks (assignment, project, research task) tasks include a practical agriculture performance assessment task school based assessment (25%) 2 tests 1 examination (10%) 3 tasks: practical, assignment and research project (15%) tasks include a compulsory practical scientific investigation school based assessment (25%) 3 tasks: 2 practicals and 1 assignment (15%) 2 tests (2.5%) 2 exams (7.5%) tasks include a compulsory practical scientific investigation final assessment (75%): end of year examination external examination (75%) final assessment (75%) end of year examination external examination (75%) suggestions for practical assessment tasks in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) included a survey of eating habits, a debate on land distribution and creating a food garden to research abiotic factors. there were tasks to explore sustainable agriculture issues e.g. comparing traditional and industrial agriculture. the caps (dbe, 2011b) task suggestions include exploring climate change and agriculture. both curricula suggest outdoor agricultural activities such as food gardens and farm visits in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b). the caps (dbe, 2011b) suggests a grass collection, making compost and identifying soil horizons. both curricula include scientific practicals such as microscope work in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) and animal dissection and soil sample analysis in the caps (dbe, 2011b). daily assessment in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) showed commitment to scientific skills development, requiring learners to “master their scientific inquiry, problem-solving, critical thinking and application of knowledge competencies” and to conduct practical scientific experiments (doe, 2008b, p.7). daily assessment in the caps (dbe, 2011b) includes “observations, discussions, practical demonstrations, learner-teacher 86 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 conferences, informal classroom interactions” (dbe, 2011a, p.64). however, these are suggestions not requirements as the daily assessment is informal and does not count towards the final mark in either curriculum. discussion and implications of the findings the lack of consensus around the purpose of agricultural sciences in south african schools is reflected in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) and the caps (dbe, 2011b). different perspectives from the departments of agriculture and education include preparation for tertiary education, agricultural careers, self-employment on one side and a generalist education on the other. the lack of clear purpose leads to tension within both curricula. both curricula show a mismatch between statements of purpose strongly supporting sustainable agriculture, in its broader socio-economic context and the lack of critique of industrial agriculture as well as few requirements for hands-on learning. in 2001, 91% of schools offering agricultural sciences were previously black secondary schools, mostly in the rural former homelands (paterson, 2004). these schools do not have an agricultural focus, agricultural resources and have few teachers with agricultural skills. specialised agricultural schools are available for very few learners. for some students, agricultural sciences provides a generalist education as preparation for tertiary education. however, a large proportion of matriculants are unlikely to find full employment or a place in further education. the challenge for the curriculum is, how, in the face of the constraints described above, to awaken in learners an interest in and love of agriculture, leading to the development of useful skills in small-scale agriculture, in order to supplement their livelihoods. although the caps (dbe, 2011b) does not insist on the inclusion of practical agriculture, the assessment component suggests, supports and provides space for practical hands-on learning using higher cognitive processes aligned to esa. however, it is possible for the caps (dbe, 2011b) agricultural sciences to be taught entirely within the classroom with no hands-on engagement with agriculture, if the teacher is so inclined. the concern here is that unless teachers are either highly motivated or compelled to do practical agriculture, they are likely to favour easier forms of teaching towards the type of assessment required in the final examinations. peden: education for sustainable agriculture. . . 87 neither curriculum explicitly supports industrial agriculture, but this is the default approach underlying both curricula. the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) vision of sustainable agriculture was poorly supported with detailed content or strategies. the strength of the caps (dbe, 2011b) is that while it has little vision of sustainable agriculture it provides more depth and detail on foundational ecological knowledge and sustainable agriculture methods than the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b). this supports critiques of the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) that it was visionary but not located in reality. the caps (dbe, 2011b) makes fewer unrealistic claims and has a more detailed, structured approach to factual knowledge, indicating a shift from the political and rhetorical nature of the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b). text books and teaching based on the caps (dbe, 2011b) are likely to focus strongly on traditional agriculture disciplines including some sustainable agriculture strategies, but are not likely to provide a holistic critique of the industrial agriculture system including socio-economic aspects. aspects of this critique were included in the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) but were weakly supported with detailed content. the educational philosophies (progressive and humanist, radical) underlying strong esa require higher levels of knowledge and cognitive processes in order to generate both the practice and development of sustainable agriculture. the shift down the hierarchy of knowledge and cognitive processes in the caps (dbe, 2011b) compared to the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) indicates a shift away from the education philosophies underlying strong esa. conceptual knowledge is required to engage with systems thinking and critique e.g. understanding human actions within natural ecosystems; understanding the global food system. procedural knowledge is required for practical agriculture and scientific experimentation and metacognitive knowledge to engage meaningfully with environmental ethics and for personal growth and positioning. higher order cognitive processes such as apply, analyse and evaluate are required for scientific and experimentation skills, while problem-solving can require the highest cognitive process of creating new knowledge. radical philosophy shifts away from an established curriculum and knowledge transfer and engages with multiple perspectives, critical reflection and the need for new, personalised knowledge. it draws on the highest knowledge levels: metacognition and analyse, evaluate and create. 88 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 the caps (dbe, 2011b) does not require teachers to move beyond formalist transmission teaching. while the use of higher order cognitive processes is desirable in school education (krathwohl, 2010 ) there are arguments, that formalist pedagogy based on discipline knowledge, is more effective for disadvantaged learners than progressive pedagogy in the hands of unskilled teachers (guthrie, 2013). the caps (dbe, 2011b) presents a shift away from the progressivism of the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) which proved difficult to implement with many teachers left floundering. given the shortage of skilled agricultural science teachers, the caps (dbe, 2011b) offers more detailed support than the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) by providing fundamental knowledge required for sustainable agriculture. conclusion and recommendations in many ways the caps (dbe, 2011b) provides a stronger foundation for sustainable agriculture, than the more visionary ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b). the focus on traditional agricultural disciplines in the caps (dbe, 2011b) provides basic ecological knowledge as well as some sustainable agriculture strategies. it is more strongly grounded in details than the ncs (doe, 2003; 2008a; 2008b) which struggled to put the vision of education for sustainable agriculture into practice. the assessment in the caps (dbe, 2011b) b provides and describes opportunities for higher order cognitive processes found in practical work, experimentation and discussions. without further curriculum change, in-service and pre-service teacher education would be the best point of leverage, for supporting sustainable agriculture in the caps (dbe, 2011b). the goal should be to develop the discipline knowledge, and pedagogic and agricultural skills of agriculture sciences teachers. the agricultural sciences caps (dbe, 2011b) could help improve the livelihoods of the many learners who will not study further or find full time employment by including practical agriculture. low cost, sustainable agricultural skills can be taught to both pre-service and in-service teachers, by tapping into the expertise found in numerous ngos and npos, who have been practicing these approaches for decades, rather than government agricultural departments. it would require agricultural training and demonstration centres where such agriculture can be practised and taught. peden: education for sustainable agriculture. . . 89 this learning could be combined with a holistic focus which engages broadly with the socio-economic aspects of industrial and sustainable agriculture in order to empower teachers to engage critically with global food systems. ideally teachers need to promote higher order learning amongst learners. teachers need to personally experience such progressive pedagogies where they themselves are required to question, reflect, problem-solve and learn independently. teacher education needs to practice and teach such approaches. such learning has greater potential to generate the emotional engagement and critical thinking that would enable teachers to teach the caps (dbe, 2011b) curriculum in a more meaningful way. this would require no deviation from the content, but would elevate the cognitive processes beyond the lowest level of ‘remember.’ if curriculum changes are a possibility, a single mandatory practical agricultural task should be included alongside the mandatory science task. this adjustment should go hand in hand with teacher development in smallscale agriculture. mandatory assessment requirements for practical agriculture will work backwards to ensure that practical agriculture is included in teaching. the caps (dbe, 2011b) for agricultural sciences has the potential to support education for sustainable agriculture and make a meaningful contribution to rural livelihoods and food security. the future lies in building up the teachers, not in changes to the curriculum. 90 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 references aliber, m. and hart, t. 2009. should subsistence agriculture be supported as a strategy to address rural food insecurity? agrekon, 8(4): pp.434–458. baiphethi, m. and jacobs, p. 2009. the contribution of subsistence farming to food security in south africa. pretoria: centre for poverty, employment and growth, hsrc. barnes, m., clarke, d. and stephens, m. 2000. assessment: the engine of systemic curricular reform? journal of curriculum studies, 32(5): pp:623–650. barrow, s. 2006. south african 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(undated). south africa unemployment rate. accessed 12 march 2014 from http://www.tradingeconomics.com/southafrica/unemployment-rate the world bank. 2008. world development report 2008: agriculture for development. accessed 31 july 2009 from www.worldbank.org/wdr2008 university of kwazulu-natal (undated). information for high school learners. accessed 12 march 2014 from http://saees.ukzn.ac.za/information-for-highschool-learners.aspx van rooyen, j, barnard, r. and van zyl, j. 1996. agricultural education and training in south africa: an overview. development southern africa, 13(5): pp.713–729. walter, p. 2009. philosophies of adult environmental education. adult education quarterly, 60(3): pp.3–25. western cape government. 2014. elsenburg agricultural training institute. accessed 22 june 2015, from http://www.elsenburg.com/services-and-programmes/elsenburg-agricultural-tr aining-institute#s=higher-certificate-in-agriculture wezel, a., bellon, s., dore,t., francis, c., vallod, d. and david, c. 2009. agroecology as a science, a movement and a practice. a review. agronomy for sustainable development. www.agronomy-journal.org accessed 24 september 2013. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/unemployment-rate http://www.tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/unemployment-rate http://www.tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/unemployment-rate http://www.tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/unemployment-rate http://www.tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/unemployment-rate 96 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 appendix a operationalising coding for question 1: sustainable or industrial agriculture? level 1: a statement provides a broad vision of industrial or sustainable agriculture. level 2: a statement provides a specific strategy or detailed content for industrial or sustainable agriculture. table 10: levels of coding for type of agriculture level 1 industrial agriculture sustainable agriculture level 2 vision statement detailed statement vision statement detailed statement criteria for industrial agriculture industrial agriculture is driven by profit and high yields through efficiency, the simplification of ecological systems, mechanisation and synthetic inputs. environmental and social impacts are viewed as externalities, outside the responsibility of the farmer. for example: industrial agriculture (vision statement) “agricultural sciences aims to expose learners to the various principles in the production of food whether for subsistence or profit” (doe 2008a, p.8) level 1: the word ‘profit’ indicates that the statement refers to industrial agriculture. note: subsistence agriculture should not be equated with sustainable agriculture. level 2: the statement provides specific detail or strategies rather than. a broad vision peden: education for sustainable agriculture. . . 97 industrial agriculture (detailed statement) “factors to increase animal production under intensive farming (broiler production): nutrition/feeding; (dbe, 2011a: 49). this statement refers to intensive animal production, a strategy of industrial agriculture and provides detailed content. criteria for sustainable agriculture sustainable agriulture refers to alternatives to industrial agriculture. it includes the incorporation of conservation strategies into industrial agriculture and attempts to transform the global food system using alternative methods of agriculture, processing and marketing. sustainable agriculture (vision statement) “understand and analyse the relationship between human rights, inclusivity, a healthy environment and social justice in sustainable agricultural production” (doe, 2003, p.25). level 1: this statement refers to the concept of sustainable agriculture. level 2: the statement provides a broad vision rather than specific detail. sustainable agriculture (detailed statement) “conservation of agricultural resources (soil, water and natural vegetation) and management of the environment” (doe, 2003, p. 10). level 1: this is coded as ‘sustainable agriculture’ level 2: this statement is coded as a detailed statement. 98 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 operationalising coding for question 2: knowledge dimensions and cognitive processes the knowledge dimension is identified from the noun or noun phrase. the cognitive process is identified from the verbs that qualify the knowledge dimension (krathwohl, 2010). for example: “the subject agricultural sciences should equip individuals with the knowledge and necessary skills to enable them to make sound decisions based on the principles of sustainable agriculture and living”. (doe, 2008a, p.8) i consider the noun phrase ‘knowledge and necessary skills’ in order to determine the knowledge dimension. i classify these as factual knowledge (knowledge) and procedural knowledge (skills). i consider the verbs used in relation to the knowledge dimension: “equip individuals to enable them to make sound decisions”. i classify these verb phrases as ‘understanding’ (determining the meaning of communication) and ‘applying’ (carrying out a procedure). the higher cognitive process of ‘apply’ subsumes the lower process of ‘understanding’. these are coded in the table below: peden: education for sustainable agriculture. . . 99 table 11: blooms revised taxonomy of knowledge 1. remember 2. understand 3. apply 4. analyse 5. evaluate 6. create the knowledge dimension a. factual knowledge x b. conceptual knowledge c. procedural knowledge x d. metacognitive knowledge when statements contain procedural knowledge without indicating whether learners should perform the process or simply memorise it, i code it as ‘remember’ rather than ‘apply’. for example: “ways to determine, calculate and interpret the bulk density of a soil” (dbe, 2011a, p.34) is classified as ‘remember” because there is no requirement for learners to apply the process. however: “a practical identification of topsoil and subsoil horizons” (dbe, 2011a, p. 35) indicates that the learners are required to apply a procedure and i code this as ‘apply’. moraig peden university of kwazulu-natal pedenm@ukzn.ac.za mailto:pedenm@ukzn.ac.za 100 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 book review maton, k. knowledge and knowers. towards a realist sociology of education. london: routledge. isbn 978-0415-47999-8 sherran clarence the late and well-known british sociologist of education, basil bernstein, claimed that in educational research (although this could apply to many more fields) we need less of an allegiance to a theory and more of an allegiance to the problems we need to solve (maton, 2013). there are indeed many problems in education around the world today that need to be solved and many questions that need to be answered. but in order to tackle these problems and begin to answer our many questions, we need theoretical and analytical frameworks and conceptual tools that we can put to work to look not just at the problems themselves, but at what is beneath or behind them so that we can better understand the nature of the struggles within education, as well as how to bring about sustainable and necessary changes. legitimation code theory, or lct, the subject and focus of karl maton’s book, knowledge and knowers, is such a framework. in knowledge and knowers, and in his work leading up to this book, karl maton introduces us to a way of thinking and working that represents a focus on solving problems with a strong explanatory and conceptual framework that allows researchers to go beyond and beneath what can be seen and understood through a constructivist or instrumentalist lens. his broader aims, in a body of research that reaches beyond this book, are to address a significant gap in educational research left by a lack of strong, generative theoretical and conceptual frameworks and tools, and an inability of much educational research to build on past research findings more cumulatively (something noted by the national research foundation in south africa in a recent report). this lack of cumulative building of knowledge about education and about the nature of educational knowledge and knowing itself is something with which lct is particularly concerned. legitimation code theory, or lct as it is known, is the conceptual and explanatory framework that is the focus of this book. this is a theory, as maton argues, in bourdieu’s sense, where the latter argued that ‘theories are 168 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 research programmes which call not for “theoretical discussion” but for practical implementation’ (bourdieu, chamboredon and passeron, 1991, p.255). this is an important point to understand when reading this book and other papers and books that use lct as ‘theory’ or as a basis for analysis of data. the book draws on data from different studies to illustrate and clarify more abstract theoretical arguments, showing consistently that this is indeed a ‘research programme’ that poses at least as many questions as it answers and that does indeed call for ‘practical implementation’. lct, even though a work in progress, is more than a call to arms, though. it provides researchers with a range of tools, some more well developed and tested out than others, that can be used both within educational research and without to delve into problem situations and attempt to find answers and a way forward in research and practice. lct is a realist framework, and draws on insights from critical realism, critical rationalism and social realism. one of the most important insights, drawn from critical realism, is bhaskar’s layered ontology, arguing for the need to look beyond and beneath empirical reality to understand and see the generative mechanism and tendencies (bhaskar, 1989) or, in lct terms, the organising principles that generate or give rise to that reality. another is critical realism’s three commitments: to ontological realism; to epistemological relativism; and to judgemental rationality (archer, bhaskar, collier, laurie and norrie, 1998). ontological realism holds that we need to recognise that knowledge is ‘about something other than itself’ (maton and moore, 2010, p.4); there is a reality that does exist beyond that which we can behold, and while we can believe in anything we want to, we cannot know anything in the same way. epistemological relativism says that this knowledge that exists independently of us is not universal or unchanging or true. rather, it is socially produced over time in socio-historical contexts and is thus fallible and mediated by and through those contexts (archer et al., 1998; maton and moore, 2010). our knowing is further mediated by these socio-historical contexts. finally, judgemental rationality holds that there are ‘intersubjective bases for determining the relative merits of competing knowledge claims, because some knowledges are more powerful and productive than others’ (maton and moore, 2010, p.4). thus, knowledge is not the same as knowing and can indeed be seen in its own right as an object of study. it emerges from but is not able to be reduced to or conflated with the condition or contexts or minds from which it emerges (maton and moore, 2010). this is very important to understand as a foundation for lct, because clarence: review of knowledge and knowers 169 it is the framework’s realist underpinnings that enable it to be focused on both knowledge and knowing without excluding or being blind to either. lct subsumes and extends parts of the work of two well-known sociologists, basil bernstein and pierre bourdieu. from bernstein, lct takes code theory – bernstein’s educational knowledge codes and their orientation to examining what gives rise to practices rather than just what practices themselves are – as well as the pedagogic device and knowledge structures. from bourdieu, lct draws on field theory, and central concepts of habitus, capital, field and practice. neither bernstein’s work nor bourdieu’s can provide a whole picture in terms of understanding the field of education, and there are gaps left by both of these theorists that need to be filled if we are to solve the problems facing the field in terms of intellectual and educational development as well as pedagogy and student success. but rather than creating a break with these foundations and carving out a new path, lct draws code and field theory into the framework and builds cumulatively on these foundations, using the prior tools and in so doing developing them in new and very productive directions. this is a significant development for the sociology of education, because it creates the capacity for a different kind of research programme – one that builds cumulatively on its foundations, showing how the prior thinking and research can be re-analysed, re-interpreted, developed and also critiqued within a framework that seeks to bring these insights together into a larger whole that has greater explanatory power as well as more conceptual economy. maton begins the book by laying down the aims of the book as well as discussing the broader concerns with which lct is concerned and the framework’s realist underpinnings. the main point of the book, and about lct itself, and one maton demonstrates consistently throughout, is that this book is about ‘building knowledge about knowledge-building’ (p.3) and that rather than a ‘new’ sociological approach, lct is building on and extending prior approaches and in so doing is evolving into a ‘sophisticated toolkit’ (p.3) for research and also for practice. a more practical point of the book is the laying out or unfolding of the framework, or at least the two dimensions of it that are able to be discussed in detail in this limited space: specialisation and semantics. as maton explains in the first chapter, there are five dimensions of lct currently, but not all of these are as developed as the first two dimensions, and much work, research, and development lies ahead. 170 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 what is very clear throughout the book is the process that maton has undertaken to do what he claims lct is designed to do: to cumulatively build on prior tools and foundations and to extend research, primarily into education, in new, exciting and more generative and productive ways. thus, each chapter builds on the one before, and although there is some repetition, this works to keep the reader in step with the text. it also makes the text more accessible, as some of the concepts are fairly complex, and require careful reading. chapter two begins the unfolding of specialisation. in this chapter the legitimation device is explained, about which there is much more to say than i could do justice to here. in essence, all academic disciplines comprise fields, in which there are a range of actors and resources. actors within these fields are either in accord, if they are working together towards the same goals and have the same underlying orientations or principles or, if they do not they may well struggle over these resources, and over the rights to make their orientations and principles the ‘ruler’ for the field. thus, all academic disciplines (and this applies to fields outside of the academy too) are sites of struggles over what counts as legitimate and what does not, and who gets to decide that and when they get to do so. in order to understand the nature of these struggles and the changes and shifts within field over time, we need to be able to see the underlying orientations or principles of the actors and their practices. otherwise we are likely to be working with assumptions about why things happen as they do rather than reasoning based on knowledge and understanding. the dimensions of the legitimation device – the symbolic ruler of consciousness that allows those who control it to set the bar as it were in terms of what knowledge, practices, habituses and resources are valued and why and how – provide these tools. this chapter goes on to explain the first part of the ‘toolkit’, epistemic and social relations and how these can be brought together to create legitimation or specialisation codes. simply put, they allow us to see what it is that counts in particular fields in terms of success and claiming legitimacy or recognition. epistemic and social relations are concepts and also analytical tools that are returned to in subsequent chapters, and simply explained they allow researchers to look both at the relationships between knowledge and its objects (what is known) and knowledge and its subjects (who is doing the knowing) so overcoming both a blindness to knowledge and knowers. this is important to understand when moving on to chapters three and four, where the following two parts of specialisation are unravelled and discussed, namely the epistemic-pedagogic device and knowledge-knower structures. all of these parts of specialisation build quite deliberately on bernstein’s code clarence: review of knowledge and knowers 171 theory, with specific reference to his collection and integrated codes and classification and framing, as well as his work on the pedagogic device as a way of seeing education as comprised of three distinct yet interrelated fields. knowledge-knower structures build quite specifically on bernstein’s later work on knowledge structures. chapter five discusses gazes, using an idea of bernstein’s that was not fully explored in his work, but which has potential in terms of understanding the growth and development of fields that exhibit horizontal knowledge structures. in the chapter maton develops a notion of four different gazes that denote different strengths of the relation of knowledge to its subjects or knowers, and in doing so shows how fields that can often seem segmented, and to be exhibiting weaker ‘verticality’ (muller, 2007) or ability to develop cumulatively over time can actually have the potential to develop cumulatively through the specialisation of knowers rather than of knowledge. there are questions raised by this chapter that have yet to be answered. one such question is whether social gazes, which knowers possess by virtue of being part of specific social groups, really do lead to the fragmentation of intellectual fields or educational knowledge fields in the ways they have in cultural studies (the case used in the book). the differences between social and cultivated gazes, the latter possessed by those who have immersed themselves in a field for a lengthy period of time and thus learned the particular methods and knowledge of a specific discipline, need to be further explored in empirical studies. maton acknowledges very clearly that the framework is evolving, and while he shows explicitly and with reference to data and analysis thereof both how specialisation subsumes and extends particular parts of bernstein’s work, thus building the lct framework cumulatively, there remains much work to be done. this is a strength, because lct is a framework that poses questions as well as answering them, thus driving the research programme on. a second dimension, semantics, comprising the two key concepts of semantic gravity and semantic density, is built on bernstein’s early work on elaborated and restricted codes, and as a further dimension of the legitimation device it does not represent a break with specialisation but rather ‘codes’ different elements of practice. in chapters six and seven maton lays out first semantic gravity and then semantic gravity, connecting them to preceding chapters where relevant and moving towards perhaps the most exciting part of the framework for analysing whole fields as well as parts of them: constellations. using accessible metaphors, and well-known examples of student-centred and 172 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 teacher-centred learning, maton shows how both specialisation and semantics can be brought together to analyse the differences between certain stances taken within fields, and the reasons why some of these may be well-supported and others not, even though those stances not well supported may be sound. in chapter nine, maton moves into newer territory, referring back to epistemic and social relations to develop what he calls his ‘4-k’ model encompassing knowledge, knowers, known and knowing. he also further develops the gazes discussed in chapter five expanding this concept to include insights and lenses. this chapter shows how fine-grained and sophisticated lct can be, and highlights for researchers the potential for developing other parts of the framework in similar directions as needed, creating finer typologies for more nuanced, less fuzzy and more focused analysis and research. however, as maton continually argues, you only need as much theory as the problem requires, and you only need to choose the parts of the toolkit that will help you look at your particular research questions as clearly as possible. thus, while the book is truly a grand journey through what has currently been developed of lct and published, researchers need not feel overwhelmed by the depth and breadth of the framework, because one will never use all of it in one project. the final chapter points quite clearly to the ways in which the framework is still building on the work of bourdieu and bernstein, primarily. it discusses new directions in which lct is beginning to move as a field – and makes quite clear that lct is a field with a growing number of newer and more established voices who are beginning to think in different ways about educational research and practice and also about fields outside of the realm of education. it also points to other complementary frameworks that have been brought together with lct that are leading to productive new forms of research, for example systemic functional linguistics. maton’s own words perhaps sum up best what lct is and can be when he says ‘an adequate working theoretical tradition is not only epistemologically powerful but also socially inclusive. by making visible the workings of the gaze, we have a chance to make that gaze more widely available. we can climb on the shoulders of. . .giants. not only can we then see further, more of us can do so’ (p.147). this book, and the conceptual tools and framework it lays out and discusses, is most certainly an attempt to make visible the workings of this particular sociological gaze, and is aimed at making it possible for more scholars to immerse themselves in the tools they find most relevant and clarence: review of knowledge and knowers 173 productive to their work in order to use this gaze to research substantive problems that need solving. it is a must-read for students of the sociology of education, and for scholars who find that their current approaches may not be providing the answers they need. lct is not the only answer, but it is a very good place to start working from. references archer, m., bhaskar, r., collier, a., laurie, t. and norrie a. 1998. critical realism: essential readings. london: routledge. bourdieu, p., chamboredon, j-c. and passeron, j-c. 1991. the craft of sociology: epistemological preliminaries. berlin: walter de gruyter. council on higher education (che). 2013. a proposal for undergraduate curriculum reform in south africa: the case for a flexible curriculum structure. report of the task team on undergraduate curriculum structure. online at: http://www.che.ac.za/media_and_publications/research/proposal-undergradua te-curriculum-reform-south-africa-case-flexible maton, k. and moore, r. 2010. introduction. in maton, k. and moore, r. (eds), social realism, knowledge and the sociology of education. coalitions of the mind. london and new york: continuum, pp.1–13. muller, j. 2007. on splitting hairs: verticality of knowledge and the school curriculum. in christie, f. and martin, j. (eds), language, knowledge and pedagogy. london: continuum, pp.65–86. ryle, g. 1945. knowing how and knowing that: the presidential address. proceedings of the aristotelian society. 46. the aristotelian society: blackwell publishing. wheelahan, l. 2010. why knowledge matters in curriculum. a social realist argument. oxfordshire: routledge. 174 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 sherran clarence university of the western cape sherranclarence@gmail.com mailto:sherranclarence@gmail.com editorial daisy pillay, inbanathan naicker and kathleen pithouse-morgan more and more, higher education is being recultured in terms of competitive participation in the knowledge economy (adkins, 2007). consequently, many universities in south africa and internationally are being reconfigured as “flexible business entities where academic activities are managed through strategic control and a focus on outputs which can be quantified and compared” (reid, 2009, p.575). when the fundamental purpose of universities morphs into “business-ship” rather than “scholar-ship” (teferra, 2014, paragraph 3), quantitative performance indicators become the standard against which academics are judged. a normative framing, coupled with invasive monitoring and often public shaming for not producing at or above the norm, can weaken or even extinguish vital scholarly attributes such as curiosity, passion, generativity and collegiality (clare and sivil, 2014; maistry, 2015; mayrath, 2008). as we face up to an increasingly likely scenario where higher education becomes “a mode of production, of goods and services, in which all the nonmaterial satisfactions that might come from work [are] eliminated” (schwartz, 2014), academic autoethnographies offer possibilities for “critical interruptions” (pezzullo, 2001, p.4) to corporate discourses that delimit understandings of what it can mean to become and be a teacher in higher education. autoethnography is a self-reflexive research genre in which the multifaceted, contingent self of the researcher becomes a lens through which to study interrelationships between personal autobiographies, lived experiences, and wider social and cultural concerns (chang, 2008; ellis and adams, 2014; grant, short and turner, 2013). as this special issue illustrates, notwithstanding the focus on the self or ‘auto’, autoethnography is not solipsistic or narcissistic (pillay, naicker and pithouse-morgan, in press). the articles in this themed issue reveal how autoethnography in higher education can “deepen and extend our understandings of lived educational experiences through the articulation and acknowledgment of how selves are sociocultural, political, and historical” (pillay et al., in press). collectively, in these articles, we see how autoethnographies of becoming and being teachers in higher 2 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 education can offer socially useful insights into how we can “learn, cope and make our way” (ellis and adams, 2014, p.255) as teachers, academics, and researchers. the special issue opens with claudia mitchell’s reflective essay on “hopefulness and suspense in the autoethnographic encounters of teaching in higher education”. in this essay, she contemplates the potential contribution of autoethnography as offering “a place to locate and make sense of our experiences” in teaching in diverse higher education settings. mitchell’s essay draws attention to the possibilities of autoethnography as a generative mode of what webster-wright (2009) has called “authentic professional learning, [which encourages] a spirit of critical inquiry where professionals can gain insight into their own learning and the assumptions they hold about their practice” (p.272). mitchell proposes that taking an autoethnographic stance to our lives and work as university teachers can enable openness to critical “moments of learning (about ourselves and our students)”, with the aim of making a qualitative difference to our teaching and scholarship. the four research articles that follow illustrate the educative and sociocultural significance of an autoethnographic stance to becoming and being a teacher in higher education. first, nokhanyo mayaba, an early career academic, describes how a retrospective autoethnographic reflection on her learning during her doctoral research allowed her to think critically about her own teaching and more broadly, about educational practices and perspectives in relation to children orphaned and rendered vulnerable by hiv and aids (ovc). mayaba highlights how “using autoethnography as a reflective tool to explain [her] doctoral learning through creative ways indeed shifted [her] perspective about ovc and influenced [her] thinking as a teacher educator in higher education”. next, ronicka mudaly explores her journey in academia as a junior, black female academic and reconsiders her academic self in relation to higher education institutional culture. she recounts how she was reduced to a ‘peripheral professional’ owing to a lack of adequate socialisation into the work of an academic, onerous workloads and performativity demands. through self-reflexive, evocative accounts of her personal and interpersonal experiences, she makes visible how she productively resisted the prevailing institutional culture to become a ‘full member’ of the academic community. to follow, keith berry and nathan hodges work collaboratively to foreground the values of vulnerability, reflexivity and empathy in an autoethnographic account of their lived experiences of teaching an editorial. . . 3 undergraduate module on autoethnography. berry and hodges draw attention to the risks and benefits of vulnerability for both teachers and students and show how a vulnerable pedagogy can allow for a “dynamic uncovering of selves”, thus opening up “teaching as a site for inquiry”. finally, maistry, a senior academic, problematises a process of postgraduate supervision pedagogy in higher education. he draws on tenets of critical autoethnography to engage reflectively and reflexively with his practice as supervisor working with a diversity of postgraduate students. through his personal reflexive account, maistry illuminates his “heightened awareness and appreciation of the need to create enabling conditions for the intellectual development” of his students rather than being single-mindedly focused on a final technical product. an enhanced self-awareness of presence in the supervisory encounter invites him to reconsider his pedagogic stance in an endeavour to be more human in the supervisory encounter. taken as a whole, the articles in this special issue contribute to critical conversations about how and what we want to be as higher education teachers, in spite of or in response to those conditions produced by the design of institutions within which we live and work (schwartz, 2014). the embodied and dynamic autoethnographic portrayals of higher education teachers show us that, although we might be surrounded by pervasive discourses that disembody and disconnect us as units ranked hierarchically, we can still choose to act with hope and to work in relationship with others. 4 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 references adkins, b. 2007. phd pedagogy and the changing knowledge landscapes of universities. higher education research and development, 28(2): pp.65–177. chang, h. 2008. autoethnography as method. walnut creek, ca: left coast press. clare, j. and sivil, r. 2014. autonomy lost: the bureaucratisation of south african he. south african journal of higher education, 28(1): pp.60–71. ellis, c. and adams, t.e. 2014. the purposes, practices, and principles of autoethnographic research. in leavy, p. (ed.), the oxford handbook of qualitative research. new york: oxford university press, pp.254–276. grant, a., short, n.p. and turner, l. 2013. introduction: storying life and lives. in short, n.p., turner, l. and grant, a. (eds), contemporary british autoethnography. rotterdam, the netherlands: sense publishers, pp.1–16. maistry, s. 2015. accountability and surveillance: new mechanisms of control in higher education. transformation, 88: pp.25–35. mayrath, m.c. 2008. attributions of productive authors in educational psychology journals. educational psychology review, 20(1): pp.41–56. pezzullo, p.c. 2001. performing critical interruptions: stories, rhetorical invention, and the environmental justice movement. western journal of communication, 65(1): pp.1–25. pillay, d., naicker, i. and pithouse-morgan, k. (in press). writing academic autoethnographies: imagination, serendipity and creative interactions. in pillay, d., naicker, i. and pithouse-morgan, k. (eds), academic autoethnographies: inside teaching in higher education. rotterdam, the netherlands: sense publishers. reid, i.c. 2009. the contradictory managerialism of university quality assurance. journal of education policy, 24(5): pp.575–593. editorial. . . 5 schwartz, b. 2014 (march). the way we think about work is broken. [video file]. retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_way_we_think_about_work_i s_broken#t-378186 teferra, d. 2014. ‘organised anarchy’ – the enduring paradigm of university management. university world news, 329. retrieved from http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140716075612402 webster-wright, a. 2009. reframing professional development through understanding authentic professional learning. review of educational research, 79(2): pp.702–739. daisy pillay inbanathan naicker kathleen pithouse-morgan school of education university of kwazulu-natal pillaygv@ukzn.ac.za naickeri1@ukzn.ac.za pithousemorgan@ukzn.ac.za http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140716075612402 mailto:pillaygv@ukzn.ac.za mailto:naickeri1@ukzn.ac.za mailto:pithousemorgan@ukzn.ac.za 6 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 skilled reading in isizulu: what can we learn from it? sandra land abstract research on reading in african languages is particularly pertinent in south africa now, in view of the poor reading performance in many south african schools. this paper is based on a study of competent adult readers of isizulu that analysed what its orthography (the way it is written) requires of readers. as an agglutinative language with a conjoined writing system, isizulu carries meaning not only in separate words, but also in morphemes that cluster together, forming long complex words. eye tracking data shows that competent readers of isizulu move their eyes across text in saccades (shifts of the point of focus) that are short in comparison with the saccades of efficient reading of english. it also shows that readers of isizulu fixate on points of text for longer periods than do readers of english. the study links eye movement data to information gained from a stimulated recall process, to discover strategies consciously used by competent readers of isizulu. some of these strategies, such as visualisation, are common to efficient readers of all languages, while others might be peculiar to agglutinating and/or tonal languages. these strategies inform suggestions for the development of effective reading skills in isizulu. the key argument of the paper is that the orthography of isizulu has features that require attention by teachers of reading if their learners are to benefit from the advantages that reading in their first language should bring. introduction many south african children do not develop adequate reading skills in their home language. in kwazulu-natal (kzn), where nearly 77% of the province’s 10.2 million people are first language speakers of isizulu (statistics south africa, 2011), conditions conducive to the development of effective reading skills in the language most familiar to them appear to exist for few children. our education system is beset by a range of debilitating historical, political and practical factors, which frequently combine to impede learning. where these factors coincide with limited preschool exposure to reading (pretorius 58 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 and mampuru, 2007) and teachers’ orientation towards reading as an oral performance rather than comprehension, noted by trudell and schroder (2007), the situation reflected in ana scores (described below) should surprise no-one. however, a crucial and overlooked weakness in the system is that south african teachers tend to be inadequately trained in the teaching of reading (pretorius and mokhwesana, 2009; national education development unit, 2013). perhaps because there is little research on reading in african languages (land, 2015), and an abundance on reading in english, available preand in-service training in teaching reading is shaped by methods favoured for teaching reading in english, whose structure and orthography differs markedly from that of indigenous african languages. yet if children who are first language speakers of isizulu are to benefit from the advantages that reading in their first language should bring, teachers should have a keen understanding of why some features of the orthography of isizulu require particular attention in the teaching of reading. effective teachers of reading enable their learners to develop skills in response to these features, and to use these skills to master the mechanical aspects of reading so that their attention can be devoted more readily to accessing the meaning of texts. thus the aim of the draft policy entitled incremental introduction of african languages (department of basic education, 2013) of strengthening “the use of african languages at home language level” must be applauded. however it is difficult to see how this policy’s suggestion of the addition of another language to the curriculum will facilitate this, especially when learners are clearly struggling with reading in their own home languages. a useful body of research on children’s acquisition of reading skills in indigenous south african languages is growing (e.g. pretorius and mampuru, 2007; verbeek, 2010; van rooy and pretorius, 2013; pretorius, 2014). the study reported on here focuses on the well-developed reading skills of mature readers, so offers a complementary angle, noting adults’ eye movement patterns, and describing strategies they use to read isizulu rapidly and efficiently. it is hoped that identification of these strategies could contribute to the development of pedagogical principles pertinent to the teaching of reading. land: skilled reading in isizulu. . . 59 reading processes that educators should understand researchers recognise reading as “arguably the most complex cognitive activity in which humans routinely engage” (reichle, warren and mcconnell, 2009), yet educationalists often underestimate the complexity of the processes that beginners need to master: decoding visual symbols into language while simultaneously constructing a coherent conceptual representation of meanings contained in text. to decode alphabetic script, readers shift their focus systematically along successive lines of text, registering sufficient features in the text to identify combinations of letters representing successive words or other units of language. to do this, readers match visual patterns in the text with their existing orthographic, phonological and semantic concepts of language (reichle, liversedge, pollatsek and rayner, 2008). so recognition of a word involves responding to its representation in print by thinking of how it sounds (its phonics) and what it means (its semantics). to read with understanding, readers must also accumulate information from the text in short term memory. this process is described by rapp and van den broek (2005, p. 277) as: . . . developing concepts [that] fluctuate in activation as a function of four sources: (a) text input in the current cycle, (b) residual information from the preceding cycle, (c) the memory representation constructed for the text read so far, and (d) the reader's prior knowledge. these fluctuations result in a ‘landscape’ of activations, with concepts waxing and waning in activation during reading. this waxing and waning of concepts relates to readers’ developing mental representations of the meaning of text as they extract information from print, and anticipate the next words, continually confirming or disconfirming predictions as they progress. this was first described by kenneth goodman in his famous definition of reading as ‘a psycholinguistic guessing game’ 60 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 (goodman, 1967). as this view of reading became widely accepted, it inspired changes in the ways reading was taught, since it focused attention squarely on readers’ constructing mental representations of meanings text. an unfortunate consequence was that in many reading programmes, teaching of mechanical decoding skills was abandoned instead of being supplemented by strategies aimed to enhance the construction of meaning. it is likely that higher order cognitive meaning-making processes are similar for readers of all languages. however, at the more mechanical level of decoding print to words, it is apparent that readers respond differently to different orthographies. particularly pertinent to this paper are differences between orthographies where letters consistently and reliably represent the same speech sounds (as they do in isizulu), and orthographies where the relationship between letters and speech sounds is inconsistent. research shows that readers of languages with transparent and consistent orthographies such as greek, finnish, and italian decode text by matching graphemes (letters, or letter combinations) to phonemes (speech sounds). in contrast, readers of opaque, inconsistent orthographies such as english develop other strategies because letters do not always represent the same sounds (georgiou, parrila and papadopoulos, 2008). linked to this is the psycholinguistic grain size theory proposed by ziegler and goswami (2005). this suggests that the letter groupings relied on by readers of opaque, inconsistent orthographies to reconstruct language are significantly larger than the letter groupings relied on by readers of transparent consistent orthographies. this is because speech sounds are represented more consistently by large grain size units of text in opaque orthographies than small grain size units. in other words, while single letters can represent a range of speech sounds, groups of letters forming syllables tend to represent speech sounds more reliably; for example, none of the letters in the word ‘range’ can be counted on to represent particular speech sounds in english, so recognition of whole words such as ‘range’ and ‘anger’ is necessary. orthographies make up a continuum with consistent, transparent orthographies (where spelling predicts pronunciation) at one extreme, and opaque, inconsistent orthographies (where spelling does not reliably predict pronunciation), at the other. the orthographies of isizulu and english, in which most people in kwazulu-natal must develop reading skills fall at opposite ends of this continuum. this has significant implications for acquiring and exercising reading skills, which should be taken into account in the teaching of reading and the training of reading teachers. teachers should land: skilled reading in isizulu. . . 61 be keenly aware of the importance of ensuring that their learners understand the differences in ways in which letters of the alphabet are used in each language. as one example of many differences, ‘c’ can be involved in four different speech sounds in english, none of which remotely resembles the click consonant it always represents in isizulu when learners learn to read in their first language, their existing vocabulary, phonemic knowledge, and understanding of the structure and functioning of the language should aid their prediction and recognition of words. also, their established confidence in using their mother tongue to give and receive information should facilitate their construction of a conceptual representation of a text’s meaning. yet van rooy and pretorius (2013) found that grade 4 children whose first language is isizulu read english faster, even when they need english instructions translated into isizulu in order to understand them. this is in stark contrast to findings relating to european languages with transparent orthographies in which children achieve reading competence far more quickly than english children (georgiou, parrila and papadopoulos, 2008; seymour, aro and erskine, 2003). reasons for this are unknown but may relate to the textual features described below, and/or point to inadequate training of teachers in terms of how to teach reading, and/or to attitudes toward reading, such as the common sub-saharan african perception that reading is primarily an oral performance (trudell and schroeder, 2007). this may prevent many teachers from emphasising reading for meaning and using silent reading exercises in class. in observed reading lessons in local schools in 2013, the only activity noted was reading aloud (mather, 2013; sivnarain, 2014). it would ease the task of teachers to know that short exercises in silent reading, where learners practised the skills of predicting, deducing and concluding, and received immediate feedback, would be a powerful strategy to encourage readers to read for meaning. reading and the orthography of isizulu it has been suggested (de vos and katz, 2013) that symbols representing whole syllables might have been a better writing system for african languages than the roman alphabet. if settlers from europe had not colonised southern africa and invented writing systems for the languages they found there, the ethiopic script might have made its way to southern end of the continent and been adopted by speakers of bantu languages. ethiopic script, an adaptation 62 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 the letters ‘n’, ‘d’, ‘h’, ‘s’, and ‘l’ are exceptions, representing two phonemes as ‘n’1 does in the english words ‘can’ and ‘ink’. of south arabian script, represents a syllabary of 182 symbols, each representing a consonant + vowel combination (comrie, 2003). indigenous south african languages have a general consonant – vowel syllable pattern, so would be well accommodated by syllabic symbols, especially since only five vowel sounds need to be represented, and the restricted number of permitted syllables would limit the number of symbols needed to represent them. such a system would have the advantage of reducing the length of words because single symbols would represent speech sounds that require two or more letters in the roman alphabet, for example, nguand ba-, and even possibly syllables with multiple consonants such as –ntsha and -nywa. this might have the effect of easing and speeding the process of learning to read, and increasing the reading speed of competent readers. thus the roman alphabet might not be the most elegant or appropriate writing system for southern african languages, and it presents readers with particular challenges. however, with the roman alphabet now established and in use for indigenous south african languages and their growing body of literature, it is simply too late to change scripts. at least the roman alphabet carries the benefit of transfer of learning when learning to read in many of the world’s currently dominant languages that share its use. factors that facilitate reading with near perfect correlation between letters and sounds isizulu orthography1 is transparent and consistent. initial acquisition of reading skills is aided by the regular, dependable relationship between letters and speech sounds in shallow orthographies (trudell and schroeder, 2007). children learning to read the transparent, consistent orthographies of greek, spanish, finnish, and italian, can read unfamiliar words aloud correctly at the end of grade 1 (ziegler, bertrand, tóth, csépe, reis, faísca et al., 2010). in contrast, ‘deep’ orthographies, like that of english, are characterised by irregular relationships between letters and speech sounds where single letters represent a range of speech sounds or land: skilled reading in isizulu. . . 63 reading to learn is an organisation that promotes a reading teaching method focusing2 particularly on understanding how parts of sentences and paragraphs relate to each other to create meaning. the comparison is illustrative only of word length, since the validity of the lix3 formula for african languages has not been established. may be unvoiced. unsurprisingly, children learning to read english take three times as long to develop the ability to recognise words as children learning to read in transparent, consistent orthographies (seymour, aro and erskine, 2003). research has not yet established how long it takes, or should take, for beginner readers of isizulu to recognise unfamiliar words, and no benchmarks exist for the development of reading skills in isizulu (van rooy and pretorius, 2013). what is expected of learners at the end of grade 1 ranges widely, from recognition of letters and some single words, to reading short stories (verbeek, 2010). in stark contrast to the plodding pace of reading development in many south african schools, a startling reading to learn2 dvd shot in september 2014 (reading to learn, 2014) shows enthusiastic grade 1 township children successfully reading a whole story and writing the sentence ‘ugogo uyasixoxela inganekwane’ (granny tells us a folk tale) directly from dictation. this indicates that with teaching strategies that focus on decoding and meaning, proceed at a stimulating pace, and take advantage of the benefits of a transparent, consistent orthography, progress can be rapid. factors that may impede reading development the orthography of isizulu poses several challenges for readers firstly, its agglutinative structure and conjoined writing system give it unusually long and complex words. to illustrate, the lix readability formula (readability formulas.com, 2014), designed to gauge readability across languages benchmarks easy to read text at a score of 20, average text at 40, and difficult text at 60. text from newspapers in ten european languages scored between 47 and 65 (björnsson, 1983), but if the formula is applied to text from the isizulu newspaper isolezwe, the lix score is 97. 3 the complex words of isizulu are composed of word stems and affixes, and 64 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 readers must register the meaning of the stem and note its modification by each affix. the logic of psycholinguistic grain size theory (ziegler and goswami, 2005) suggests that readers of isizulu are likely to process small grain size units of text as a sure, quick route to reconstructing language because readers must distinguish between morphemes of usually one to three letters. for example, in the word ‘asimthandazele’ (let us pray from him/her) readers must recognise the five morphemes (a/si/m/thandaz/ele) – a stem preceded by three affixes and succeeded by another. a change of one letter in one affix changes the meaning, (e.g. animthandazele = you (plural) should pray for him/her). this small grain parsing could contribute to the high number of fixations, long fixation duration, and frequent regressions noted among proficient readers of isizulu (land, 2015). the implications of this for teachers of reading is that exercises that stimulate and heighten learner readers’ rapid perception of shifts in arrangements of morphemes, and the concomitant shifts in meaning are important for the development of effective reading skills. exercises designed to develop readers’ ability to instantly recognise high frequency non-agglutinated short words and high frequency word forms with only two or three morphemes would be equally useful. secondly, although tone modifies meaning in spoken isizulu, there are no tone markers in written isizulu. for example, -ngacan have a negating effect in a low tone, but indicate potential in a high tone. so ‘lomntwana angajovwa’ if ngais low toned means ‘this child must not be vaccinated’, but, if ngais high toned means “this child may be vaccinated”. therefore readers must either hold alternate meanings in mind where there is ambiguity until they confirm meaning from contextual cues, or reread phrases to decide on their meaning. this could contribute to the high rate of regressions among competent readers of isizulu (land, 2015). the implication for educators here is that teaching readers to find contextual cues would help them discern appropriate tone in spite of the absence of tonal markers. finally, especially in comparison with english, isizulu has a low number of permissible letter combinations, partly because of the cv syllable structure, and partly because there are no contiguous vowels or double consonants. short letter strings such as zi, ku, ka, or nga, recur frequently, either as distinct morphemes or parts of larger morphemes, with different meanings in different contexts. in a comparison of texts of approximately 25 000 characters each from isizulu and english newspapers (isolezwe and the mercury) 18 three letter strings recurred more than 100 times, and 3 four letter strings recurred more than 100 times in the isizulu text. in comparison, land: skilled reading in isizulu. . . 65 only 5 three letter strings (the, ing, and, ent and her) and no four letter strings recurred more than 100 times in the english text. the effect of this is that words are not as visually distinct from one another in isizulu as they are in english. since new readers take longer to learn to distinguish between visually similar words than obviously dissimilar ones (abadzi, 2011), this feature could have implications for the progress of learner readers, and possibly requires the relatively short saccades and long duration of fixations noted among proficient readers of isizulu (land, 2015). indications from preliminary eye movement data about readers’ responses to this orthography in all eye movement reading research, data are measures of: ! fixations: points in the visual field focused on, and clearly seen; competent readers demonstrate a pattern of consecutive fixations along each line of text. fixations are measured in terms of frequency, position and duration; ! saccades: the movement of the point of focus between fixations; in reading, saccades are measured in terms of letters between fixations; ! regressions: registered if a reader looks backward in the text, shifting the point of focus to the left; regressions are measured in terms of frequency and length. linguistic and cognitive processes affect eye movements (reichle et al., 2008; white, 2008), and studies in different languages show that saccade length and the duration of fixations vary across orthographies (osaka, 1992; reichle, rayner and pollatsek, 2003; liversedge and findlay, 2000). since fixations are linked to attention (paulson, 2005; miellet, o’donnel and seren, 2009) eye movement patterns can yield information about how readers respond to particular textual features, and their reading strategies. eye movement data on competent readers of isizulu, discussed in detail in another paper (land, 2015), suggest that when reading isizulu text, they: 66 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 ! skip 1% of words, apparently recognising them in parafoveal vision since they register their meaning; these words tend to be frequently used, short non-agglutinated words (e.g. uma, nje). ! read 25% of words in a single fixation, thus apparently automatically recognising them; these words are mainly short non-agglutinated words or high frequency words with not more than two morphemes (e.g. kodwa, zakhe, umuntu). ! require a relatively long period to process the text perceived in each fixation compared with readers of other alphabetic languages for which data is available; the average duration of fixations of readers in this study was .3 seconds. ! appear to process small grain size units of text as they read, since their average saccade length was 4.05 characters. ! make regressions as frequently as readers of other alphabetic languages in terms of time, making 1 regression every 1.89 seconds, and with 16% of fixations being regressions; however, in terms of regressions over spans of text they regress more, at 1 regression every 24 characters. isizulu orthography is relatively time consuming to read in comparison with other alphabetic languages for which data is available; reading rates of participants in this study, all of whom demonstrated high competency, ranged from 621–1283 characters per minute (cpm). the average speed of the fastest ten in the sample was 1021cpm. these figures suggest that adept readers of isizulu use decoding strategies that differ from those of their counterparts in english, since in efficient reading of english: ! most words are instantly recognised during reading of continuous text, with 25% – 30% skipped (white, 2008; rayner, 2009) and others recognised in one quick fixation; ! words of up to 9 letters (i.e. the majority of english words (norvig, 2009)) are read in a single fixation, suggesting automatic recognition (new, ferrand, pallier and brysbaert., 2006); land: skilled reading in isizulu. . . 67 with 300 wpm considered competent in english (rayner and pollatsek, 1989) and an average 4 word length of 4.6 letters (björnsson, 1983), competent readers process 1380 letters per minute. so once in two seconds = 1380/30 = once for 46 letters. ! fixations are short, usually .2 – .25 seconds (reichle et al., 2003 p. 446; rayner, 2009; hutzler, ziegler, perry, wimmer and zorzi, 2004); this suggests that readers can quickly glean the information they need from the text perceived in each fixation; ! saccades tend to be 7 – 9 characters, but can be up to 20 characters (rayner, 2009; new et al., 2006; miellet et al., 2009), indicating that competent readers of english process large grain size units of text; ! roughly 10 – 15% of fixations are regressions, made about once in two seconds reichle et al., 2003, p.348; rayner, 2009; liversedge and findlay, 2000), and approximately once every 50 characters.4 ! at 300 words per minute (wpm), competent english readers are reading about 1380 characters per minute (cpm), which is notably faster than the cpm rates recorded by readers of isizulu in this study (above). these figures suggest that although english and isizulu both use the alphabet, there are important differences in what readers must do. the most salient of these differences appears to be that english is most efficiently read by seeking cues for word recognition in considerably larger letter groupings than is optimal for efficient reading of isizulu. this is in line with the logic of psycholinguistic grain size theory noted above. a corollary of this might be that while automatic recognition of words occurs in efficient reading of both languages, isizulu orthography militates against it while english orthography facilitates it. it might be logical to suggest that synthetic methods of teaching reading such as the syllabic method, which works well with isizulu, possibly encourage readers to process small grain size units of text. however, processing small grain size units of text may be inevitably slower than processing larger grain size units of text. the outcome of this may be that reading in orthographies that lead readers to rely on large grain size processing, such as english and french, is potentially faster than reading in orthographies where large grain size processing is not necessary. 68 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 do competent readers of isizulu consciously and effectively use particular decoding strategies? this paper seeks to answer this question by relating details in eye movements mapped onto text to what readers remembered of those particular moments as they read. sample since there are as yet no standardised measures of reading proficiency for isizulu (van rooy and pretorius, 2013), an invitation to readers who saw themselves as proficient, and were interested in participating in research was circulated in pietermaritzburg, and sent to people who regularly read isizulu text in their work, including publishers of isizulu texts, journalists, and lecturers of isizulu. approximately 150 respondents underwent a timed silent reading test (appendix 1). on the basis of their speed and accuracy, the most efficient 25% of respondents (38 of them) were selected, and their eye movements recorded as they silently read four texts described below. the recordings of 5 participants were technically flawed, and excluded. the remaining 33 included: ! 15 women and 18 men ! 24 professionals (11 of whom were part time post graduate students), 5 full time university students and 4 high school students. the group ranged in age from 16 to 61, with 4 under 20, and 4 over 50, and 25 between 20 and 50. instruments instruments used were texts and the swedish-built visagraph eye movement recording system, with reading plus software. the reading plus organisation in the united states created an isizulu language package specifically for this research, which mapped participants’ eye movements directly onto electronic versions of the texts described below. land: skilled reading in isizulu. . . 69 this is comparable to text in the isizulu newspaper isolezwe, calculated to be 7.17 in a5 corpus of 5055 words from articles published in november 2013 from http://www.iol.co.za/isolezwe the four 100 word texts (appendix 2) were extracted from novels written in isizulu. since there is no authorised grading system for isizulu texts (personal email communication 2013/04/12 from sabelo zulu, shuter and shooter educational publishers, sa’s largest publishers of isizulu texts), a focus group was run to select texts for this study. three lecturers in education at ukzn, all first language isizulu speakers, participated, judging a number of texts. they found the four texts used to be representative of isizulu literature, with two texts considered easy to read, and two considered difficult to read. although they relied on ‘gut feel’, their assessment matched measures of textual complexity. the ‘easy to read’ texts had 19 sentences (averaging 1.4 clauses per sentence), and 15 sentences (averaging 1.8 clauses per sentence) respectively. the ‘difficult to read’ texts, had 10 sentences (averaging 2.7 clauses per sentence), and 6 sentences (averaging 4.2 clauses per sentence) respectively. they judged the vocabulary of the easier texts to match isizulu spoken in urban areas, and noted that the more difficult texts contained terms and idioms from ‘deep’ isizulu, spoken in rural areas, and used in formal academic isizulu studies. word length is a key factor in readability formulae for text in european languages, (e.g. smog index, flesch–kincaid formula, gunning fog index, lix), but average word length differed by less than 1 letter across these four texts, at 7.65, 7.47, 8.31, 7.49 letters in texts 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively.5 the texts were adapted in font type, point size, and line spacing to suit the visagraph equipment, which uses infrared differential reflectivity and has a sampling speed of 60 hz (compevo, 2013). recording systems with higher sampling speeds are available, but the visagraph system was appropriate for this study because it records eye movement during natural silent reading of continuous texts, since: ! a flexible 2.4m cable connects the mask to a computer, allowing readers free head movement and natural reading positions not possible in systems where readers rest their faces in a frame; ! the system works in natural light; http://www.iol.co.za/isolezwe 70 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 ! eye movement detectors are in the mask, allowing texts to be read from paper, and not computer screens. methodology readers’ eye movements were recorded as they silently read the four texts referred to above. the reading plus package allows the replay of the recorded movement of a reader’s point of focus (represented by a moving cursor) mapped onto an electronic copy of the text. thus eye movements such as saccades, regressions and pauses, can be examined in relation to the points in the text where they occurred. immediately after reading each text, with the reading experience fresh in mind, each reader recounted what they remembered of the text in order to check their comprehension, and then participated with the researcher in examining the reading experience through a stimulated recall process. this involved following the recorded eye movements and relating features within it to what they remembered of particular moments in their reading experience. information about strategies they used was gleaned from their recollections. strategies commonly used by proficient readers underlying all the readers’ descriptions of their strategies was that they found these strategies helpful in their primary aim of discovering what texts were saying. automatic recognition of high frequency words predictably, readers are far more conscious of what they do when they do not automatically recognise a word than when they do. eye movement data showed that these readers recognised approximately 25% of the words instantly, and that there was a significant correlation (r = .743) between faster reading rates and longer saccade lengths. this indicates that although it appears that readers of isizulu rely on small grain size units of text, swifter, more competent readers have a higher rate of automatic recognition of combinations of small units of text than slower readers do. this enables readers to focus attention on the information in text rather than on the process of reconstructing language from print, thus enabling them to read more effectively than readers with a low automatic recognition rate. land: skilled reading in isizulu. . . 71 reconstruction of speech sounds as a small grain size processing strategy for complex words an extract from the transcripts of the stimulated recall process illustrates this process: sl and how do you manage . . . here [referring to the word kwakungowokuphatha [it was to do with child minding] there are one, two three four five six morphemes in that word. how do you do it in your head? nn i think i read it slowly like kwa-ku-ngo-wo-ku-phatha – then i wanted to understand it. sl you made the reading voice that goes in your head. . . nn yes i say the word. sl . . . and went back to check if you saw it right? nn yes. sl and you listen to it again in your head? nn yes. exactly. that’s what i did. it is noteworthy that this research participant, a journalist on an isizulu newspaper and one of the swiftest and most accurate readers in the group, is conscious of using this strategy to read this unusual construction. her use of it suggests that it is the optimal strategy for decoding the multiple morphemes of complex agglutinated words – and indeed it is difficult to imagine what another strategy could be. looking for morphemes that modify meaning closely linked to the decoding strategy described above is attentiveness to features at morpheme level that modify meaning: sl then you said wazibula ngamawele? [gave birth to twins] 72 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 tm oh yes that …when i read the word zibula i was a bit hesitant. i was not sure whether she or he killed himself, and then i saw that they mean wazibula. . . sl oh – so you thought of ‘wazibulala’ [she killed herself] and –bulala is a more common word. in this instance the eye movement record shows that the reader regressed to the word wazibula when her initial assumption of what the stem was (the much more commonly encountered stem -bulala) seemed odd to her. as miscues indicate incorrect prediction in reading aloud, regressions can point to incorrect prediction in silent reading. pausing and trying out different tonal options pauses reflected in eye movement records show where the reader has paused in the text, but not the reason for the pause. in the instance below the reader paused to consider alternate tonal options, for which the print carries no cue. mg when i see the ungaand i’m reading it but i’m not hearing – i must think ‘am i saying unga(high tone) or am i saying unga(low tone)?’ so i go back and make sure that it’s unga(low tone) the difference in tone that this reader engages with here is vital in her construction of the meaning in the text. she is referring to the word ungakhathazeki (you should not worry) where the morpheme –ngawould be spoken in a low tone. spoken in a high tone in the same position in an agglutinated word it indicates positive potential. here the reader clearly used contextual cues to decide which tonal variant of ‘nga-’ is intended. pausing to integrate elements of decoded meaning among these readers a common reason for pausing was taking a moment to consciously integrate elements of text they had decoded into a construction of the meaning of the text read so far. one said he ‘landed in a safe place to think’. in another instance: sl but you stopped there for quite a long time on this common word kumnandi (it is pleasant) . . . land: skilled reading in isizulu. . . 73 nn i was thinking about this whole article . . . i think i did not understand it very well. while i was reading i was trying to understand the meaning so i found myself stopping somewhere. this suggests a relatively high degree of ambiguities that readers must resolve in isizulu orthography, and/or that its features compel readers to engage in a relatively long integrative process as they reconstruct the meaning in the text. rereading to make sense of text in contrast to pausing, with the point of focus still for a moment, readers often shift their focus to the left in the text and reread some text. in this study, the most commonly expressed reason for rereading was to confirm or disconfirm the accuracy of an initial impression, or to resolve confusion. instances were: sl . . .then you went back to indaba yami (my story) and again you went twice to yami. can you remember why? kz i think i was trying to figure out the meaning. sl . . .then you went back to okuvuthiwe. do you remember that? nn i was trying to understand the word. sl because it’s not normal to talk about umuzi ovuthiwe? (a baked or ripe house) nn yes . . . i was confused, and the word was long. visualisation of images readers’ sustained focus on the meaning of text was evident from their descriptions of building mental representations of meaning in the texts as they read. without prompting, the strongest readers talked about details of clear visual images that came to mind as they read. sl and which schools were those? ml it was a cola primary school, khalipha primary school, isipingo primary school, umbelebele high school . . . all my schools . . . in durban, all of them are built of red bricks. so if i read something of red bricks, it brings back the long block with a veranda. if you say two 74 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 verandas, it will be a veranda this side and other side – that how i got this idea. ml yes. the picture that was in my mind is this rural place, it is some rondavels painted white at the top and the bottom mud with top soil or black mud – udaka. and there are cattle, perhaps a few goats and few chicken all in a small place because i think this place belongs to a farmer. and usually farmers allocate some place to their workers. . . where they can live and plant a few vegetables and then they can keep some animals. so that was going on in my mind as i was reading this. sl so you were constructing the picture as you read? ml yes. linking to previous knowledge the source of information used by readers in the process of constructing meaning is obviously their own experience, or what they have learned from others, or from reading or media. where the information gained from text is consistent with background knowledge, readers can progress steadily through text, but where it is not, readers tend to pause, and/or reread the text. this was evident in this study at points where eye movement records showed readers stopping momentarily, or rereading words or pieces of text, sometimes even three times. excerpts from transcripts reveal their thinking as they did this: tm i was not sure about the sentence because, really i never heard anything about the impi (war) between amangisi namabhunu (the english and the afrikaners). i only know the war between blacks and boers so i said to myself mmh? okay then, to me it is a something new. tm . . . then i went back again on duda because i was not sure umfowabo (their brother) ududa or ududu so, i was asking myself if this is a male how do they call him ududu because that is a female name. sl oh you thought of dudu because it is a common name? tm yes, but i never heard the name of duda. sl so you were making sure? land: skilled reading in isizulu. . . 75 tm yes. sl but it is very clear that is a male? tm yes because immediately they said umfowabo sl so all that previous knowledge of red bricks about the school, it brings it right back so that it actually shapes your understanding of the text. isn’t that an amazing example? ml yes it is, and it makes me keep jumping like this, forward and you want to go back a little bit just to confirm what you are thinking is true or not. implications for educators some of the strategies described by these readers are known to be effective in reading across languages; in fact they exemplify some of the reading activities recommended by the department of education in its national curriculum statement: curriculum and assessment policy statement (department of education, 2011). these include: ! pausing to check comprehension, ! comparing content to expectations, ! visualising what is being read, ! relating what is read to background knowledge, and reflecting on what is read. other strategies that might apply more particularly to the orthography of isizulu are: ! consciously reconstructing speech sounds as a small grain size processing strategy for complex words, in a process that could be seen as a high speed internal version of ‘sounding out’, ! being alert to morphemes that modify meaning in agglutinated words, and ! using contextual cues to select the most appropriate among different tonal options of words read. 76 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 analysis of the orthography of isizulu leads to further considerations that might be helpful to educators. one is that while the common use of the alphabet by isizulu and english allows for transfer of learning in reading these languages, there are complications in this common usage. because of the opacity of english orthography, and the transparency of isizulu orthography, many letters perform differently in these languages. for example, it would benefit learner readers to know that ‘a’ represents just one speech sound in isizulu, but can stand for several different vowel sounds in english, that ‘p’ signifies both an aspirated or unaspirated consonant in english (a feature generally below the awareness level of first language english speakers), but must be followed by an ‘h’ to represent the aspirated consonant in isizulu, that ‘th’ represents completely different sounds in english and isizulu, and that ‘c’ can be involved in at least four different speech sounds in english, none of which is remotely similar to the click consonant it represents in isizulu. it would save new readers of english and isizulu a great deal of bewilderment if teachers were trained to make the differences between use of letters in english and isizulu explicitly clear. this is mentioned in a handbook for teachers (department of education, 2008), but usually it is simply assumed that the differences will be automatically understood by new readers. another basic consideration relates to automatic word recognition. as noted above, there is a strong correlation between saccade length and reading rate, implying that automatic recognition is associated with reading proficiency. sustained practice in recognising high frequency non-agglutinated short words, and high frequency word forms with only two or three morphemes would help learners to gain automatic recognition of high frequency words. practice could be through the use of flash cards, or scanning newspaper text for target words such as ‘uma’ (if/when) or common morpheme combinations such as ‘abaka-‘ (they have not yet). linked to this could be exercises in spotting shifts in meaning encoded in shifts in morphemes, perhaps by pairing constructions with subtle differences and encouraging learners to spot one with a particular meaning as quickly as possible. an example of this might be: owayekuthanda vs owayengathanda (who used to like you/it) vs (who did not like to. . .) ungakhathazeki vs ungakhathazi (don’t worry) vs (don’t cause trouble) land: skilled reading in isizulu. . . 77 another useful strategy for readers of isizulu to learn would be to cope with homographs and lack of tonal markers by looking for contextual cues. for example, the meaning of lezi zincwadi zingatshelekwa emtapweni wolwazi. depends on the tonal pattern: these books can be borrowed from the library or: these books must not be borrowed from the library). this necessitates attending to the meaning in surrounding text, and looking for contextual cues, which few teachers appear to be trained to enable their learners to do; observations in local schools and adult classes indicate that while teachers do attempt to ensure that their readers understand the meanings of individual words, they tend not to direct the attention of their learners to the meaning of whole paragraphs, or the overall meaning of a text (mather, 2013; sivnarain, 2014). they are by no means alone in the assumption that once readers decode words, their understanding of text will automatically follow; a draft reading development course developed by an internationally recognised reading researcher stops at word recognition (abadzi, 2014). where teachers do attend to the overall meaning, they can take advantage of children’s proficiency in their mother tongue, and their familiarity with language features such as concords in identifying referents and inferring information in text. conclusion data from this study indicates that competent readers of isizulu do consciously and effectively use particular decoding strategies. these strategies could be incorporated into reading programmes and brought to the awareness of reading teachers, and several considerations might be helpful to teachers working to develop their learners’ reading skills. one is ensuring that readers who are developing reading skills in both english and isizulu have a full understanding of the differences in the ways that letters of the alphabet are used in the two languages. another relates to the strong correlation between automaticity and reading proficiency. learner readers would benefit from exercises designed to 78 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 develop their ability to recognise high frequency non-agglutinated short words and high frequency word forms in the instant that they are seen. equally useful would be exercises that stimulated and strengthened learner readers’ awareness of shifts in arrangements of morphemes, and the concomitant shifts in meaning. finally, coaching readers to find contextual cues would help them to resolve ambiguities and cope with the absence of markers of tone that modify meaning in speech. in closing, it is useful to note that an unintended consequence of describing useful reading strategies such as those defined above is that diligent educators may forget or not understand that their use is not as ends in themselves, but in reaching the central objective of reading, which is to access the meaning of texts. all the readers who contributed to the compilation of the strategies listed above were very clear that they used these strategies not as ends in themselves but because they had found that their use increased their ability to effectively access the meaning of texts. references abadzi, h. 2011. reading in all languages: the unknown role of perceptual and memory variables. comparative and international education 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an analysis of isizulu and english reading based on eye movements. southern african linguistics and applied language studies, 31(3): pp.281–297. verbeek, c. 2010. teaching reading for meaning? a case study of the initial teaching of reading in a mainstream south african school. phd thesis. pietermaritzburg: university of kwazulu-natal. white, s. 2008. eye movement control during reading: effects of word frequency and orthographic familiarity. journal of experimental psychology: human perception and performance, 34(1): pp.205–223. ziegler, j.c. and goswami, u. 2005. reading acquisition, developmental dyslexia, and skilled reading across languages: a psycholinguistic grain size theory. psychological bulletin, 131(1): pp.3–29. ziegler, j.c., bertrand, d., tóth, d., csépe, v., reis, a., faísca, l., et al. 2010. orthographic depth and its impact on universal predictors of reading: a cross-language investigation. psychological science, 21(4): pp.551–559. land: skilled reading in isizulu. . . 83 appendix 1a: invitation to participate in the study, including a self test of reading rate uyamenywa ukuba uzimbandakanye nomsebenzi wocwaningo lokufunda isizulu. ungakwazi ukufunda lokhu ebhokisini ngaphansi komzuzu owodwa? zikalele ngewashi: uma ungafunda kulelibhokisi isikhathi esingaphansi komzuzu owodwa , kungenzeka uthande ukuba ingxenye yocwaningo lomsebenzi wokufunda imibhalo yesizulu. indlela okubhalwa ngayo isizulu kuhluke kakhulu endleleni okubhalwa ngayo isingisi. kanye namakhono okufundwa kwesizulu awakaqondisiseki namanje. ngidinga abantu abakwazi ukufunda isizulu ngokushesha futhi okulula kubona ukufunda, abangaba nothando lokuvolontiya. ngidinga ukuqopha indlela amehlo abo anyakaza ngayo uma befunda. inhloso yami eyokuhlola amakhono okufunda incwadi yesizulu. uma uzinikezela kulomsebenzi ungsiza entuthukisweni yolimi lwesizulu njengolimi olufundwayo. bonke abazozinikela kulolucwaningo bayothola ulwazi mayelana namakhono okufunda kwabo. ayikho imali ezotholakala ngokwenza lomsebenzi. sandra land centre for adult education university of kwazulu-natal sidinga ukusebenza ngokushesha ukuthuthukisa izilimi zase africa enyuvesi yethu. ukuthuthukiswa kwezilimi zase africa njengezilimi esiphathelene nemfundo ephakeme kubalulekile. sonke sidinga ukuzinikela kuzona. akusiyena uhulumeni kuphela okungafanele abone ukuthi lezilimi zase africa zisetshenziswa endaweni efanele emphakathini wethu. ngokweqiniso lokhu kungumsebenzi wethu sonke. ezikhungweni eziphezulu zemfundo, abathuthukisi bezilimi, kanye nomphakathi wonkana kufanele baqiniseke ukuthi izilimi zase africa ziqinisekiswe. izilimi zase africa zibalulekile kulelizwe. zisivezele ukuthi singobani, futhi sifuna ukuba ngobani, kanye nendlela esifisa ukwakha ngayo i south africa. ukuthuthukiswa kwezilimi zase africa kwimfundo, nakwezemfundo ephakeme, kusemthethweni sisekelo. uthi umthethosisekelo, bhekisisani ukushabalala kwesisindo sezilimi zabantu bakithi kuleli, uhulumeni kumele athathe izinyathelo ezinqala zokuphakamisa isisindo nenqubo yokusetshenziswa kwezilimi zethu. masingavumeli ukuthi izilimi zakulelizwe zishabalale. kodwa masiziqinisekise. 84 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 appendix 1b: english version of the invitation in appendix 1a (not used in the study, but included here for clarification) invitation to participate in a research project on reading in isizulu. can you read the text in this box in under a minute? time yourself: if you can read the text in the box in less than 1 minute, you might be interested in taking part in a research project by having your own reading of zulu text analysed. the way zulu is written is very different from the way english is written, and the skills needed to read zulu text well are not yet well understood. i am looking for people who read zulu fast and easily and who would be interested in volunteering to have their eye movements recorded as they read short excerpts from zulu novels. the purpose of this recording is to discover whether particular patterns of eye movement are common among competent readers of zulu text. participants in this project will be making a significant contribution to research in the development of zulu as a language of reading and learning, and each participant will receive a summary analysis of their reading skills. however please note that there will be no payment for participation in the project. sandra land centre for adult education university of kwazulu-natal we need to move speedily in making the development of african languages a reality at our universities. the development of african languages as languages of scholarship is an imperative that we all need to commit ourselves to. it is not for government alone to see to it that african languages get their rightful place in our society, but indeed this is the responsibility for all of us. academic institutions, language practitioners and broader society should all come on board to ensure that african languages are strengthened at universities and in society as a whole. african languages constitutes one of our most important [forms of] heritage, about who we are and about who we want to be and the kind of south africa we wish to build, including the manner which we use our languages. the development of african languages in education in general and higher education in particular is mandated by the constitution ... [which] states that, “recognising the historically diminished use and status of the indigenous languages of our people, the state must take practical and positive measures to elevate the status and advance the use of these languages” we should not allow our languages to die, but strengthen them if we are not seeking to develop our languages as practitioners in higher education, then who will? land: skilled reading in isizulu. . . 85 appendix 2: texts used in this study (though not in this format) 1. memela, n. (1992). sengikhulile. durban: new readers publishers. unomadashimane igama lami. sengikhulile! awu! akukho okudlula lokhu. ikhulu leminyaka akusiyo into encane. phela ngazalwa ngempi yamangisi namabhunu. abanye babewabiza ngokuthi amadashimane amabhunu. igama elithi nomadashi lasukela lapho. ubaba wayesebenza epulazini endaweni yase-bulwer. kwathi ngokusuka kwempi wathi umlungu kubaba, "ngiya empini. hleze ngingabuyi, ngifele khona. uma ngingabuyanga, ungakhathazeki. ngiwenzile onke amalungiselelo okuthi umesisi anibheke nezingane zakho." umama ngalesosikhathi wayekhulelwe. wazibula ngamawele, umfana nentombazana. bathi kuzelwe amakhosi. bangiqamba igama elithi ngingunomkhosi. kepha ngenxa yokuthi ngazalwa ngempi kwaduma elokuthi ngingunomadashi. ngakhula-ke sihlezi epulazini. sasilima, sisenga izinkomo, kudliwa amasi. kwakujwayelekile ukuthi ingane ekhulele epulazini iwuqale isencane umsebenzi. ngaqala ukusebenza ngingakalihlanganisi ishumi leminyaka. umsebenzi wami kwakungowokuphatha izingane zomlungu. ngaze ngakhula impela ngisebenza kuye lomlungu. 2. nyembezi, s. (1953). ubudoda abukhulelwa. pietermaritzburg: shuter and shooter pty ltd, p.15. lapha kwamsezane kwakwakhiwe ngempela. kwakungumuzi ovuthiwe. indlu yayakhiwe ngesitini esibomvu, esishisiwe. yayinovulande ezinhlangothini ezimbili. indlu yayinamakamelo ayisishiyagalolunye. kwakukhona indlu yokuphola, neyokudlela, nalapho ayesebenzela khona umsezane nalapho ayegcina khona izincwadi zakhe. phela kwakungumfo owayekuthanda ukufunda. kunamakamelo amathathu okulala. bese-ke kuba yikhishi nendlu lapho kubekwa khona ukudla. uma ungena endlini yokuhlala, wawukhangwa upiyane olukhulu, luzisho nje ukuthi olwemali. kwakukhona futhi endlini izihlalo ezithofozelayo, ayethi umuntu uma ehlala kuzo ashone phansi avele ngezindlebe. phakathi nendawo kukhona itafulana elincane kubekwe phezu kwalo isitsha esinezimbali. phansi lapha amapulangwe ayembozwe ngocansi lwabelungu. kwakuyiloluhlobo othi uma uhamba phezu kwalo nezigi zife, umuntu athashazise okukamangobe. ezindongeni 86 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 kwakulenga izithombe ezimbalwa. zonke izinto ezazikulomuzi zazikhuluma ngokusobala zithi kukwamnumzane lapha. 3. mkhize, m. t. (1983). amahlaya alala insila. pretoria: de jager-haum publishers, p.1 umuzi wakubo kachithimpi zondi umfo kankalimba wawunezindlu ezimangaqhugwana amathathu wakhiwe ngaphansi kwegquma. iminyango yezindlu yayibheke ngasenyakatho ukugwema iziphepho ezazivamise ukuqhamuka ngaseningizimu. ngasempumalanga yomuzi kwakunomhoshana okwakwehla kuwo umchachazwana wamanzi owawuze uyongenela emfuleni umzimayi. ntambama kwakuye kuheleze umoya obandayo owawuye ungene ngezi-khadlana zezicabha kwazondi. lamahelehelana ayeqala ngokuphola kamnandi kodwa agcine esebanda ngokumangalisayo lapho sekuphakathi kwamabili ebusuku ikakhulukazi uma kusebusika. ngalelilanga kungumgqibelo ntambama iwona lamahelehelana ayesiza ekupholiseni kwazondi. phela lapha emzini kankalimba ngalelilanga kwakusindwe ngobethole kutatazela omakoti kunjeyaya. okungamakhehla nezalukazi kwakulokhu kubonakala kuphuma kuthi tshobe ngemva kwezindlu kuchitha lawomanzi ayengasadingeki emizimbeni yawo. kulobuhholohholo bomsindo wabonakala ududa umfowabo omncane kankalimba engena endlini nezimbuzi ezimbili ayezibambe ngezimpondo eyokuma ngasemsamo. esemsamo ududa wabatshela abasendlini ukuthi lezimbuzi kwabe kungezani. 4. zama, j. m. (1967). ingwe idla ngamabala. pietermaritzburg: shuter and shooter, p.1 kwakungenye intambama lapho selibantubahle; kusentwasahlobo iminduze seyiqalile ukuqhakaza, mhla ngiqalayo ukuyizwa inguquko empilweni yami ngoba ngakhanyelwa kusukela ngaleyo ntambama ukuthi akukho lutho oluzenzekelayo nje ngokwalo. yonke into emhlabeni inembangela nenhloso ethile kulowo nalowo muntu. leyontambama engiyisusela kuyo lendaba yami ngayiphawula ngoba ubaba, unqakamatshe, wafikisana kanye nathi esangweni lomuzi wakwethu, kwazise ukuthi sasingaveli ndawonye nobaba. ubaba wayebuya embizweni eyayibizwe ngugazi inkosi yethu thina bathembu. thina sobathathu madodana akhe sasiqhamuka kokumba iziphunzi esikhaleni esasisivule ezinsukwini ezingaphambiyana ngokugawula izihlahla ekupheleni kwehlathi elaligudla insimu kamame omkhulu, umabuthelezi. umame omkhulu wayebike kubaba ukuthi isife ayesilima land: skilled reading in isizulu. . . 87 minyaka yonke sase sinciphile ububanzi baso ngenxa yokucinaniswa yimixhantela yezihlahlana ezazimila ezimpandeni zemithi eyayisephethelweni lalelohlathi. thina sasivela kulowo msebenzi. sandra land durban university of technology sandral@dut.ac.za mailto:sandral@dut.ac.za 88 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 microsoft word bissue82-final.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 82, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i82a06 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x research for policy and practice in teacher education: the case of the professional practice schools research project maureen robinson department of curriculum studies, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch, south africa mrobinson@sun.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1963-7629 (received: 25 september 2020; accepted: 18 january 2021) abstract this article starts from an acknowledgement of the complexity of connecting research, policy, and practice in teacher education. using the framework of a practice architecture, i use a case study approach to explore how researchers, policy-makers, and teacher educators experienced a research project aimed at exploring the conditions for the establishment of professional practice schools in south africa. my discussion highlights the importance of seeing policy work as action-oriented inquiry, where the experiences of those directly involved in a policy are taken into central consideration. i outline enabling and constraining factors in supporting positive interconnections in this case study. i end the article by offering a hopeful view of conditions of possibility for further engagement between different sectors in the research-policy-practice nexus. keywords: research for policy, teacher education, educational practice introduction south africa has, over the last two decades, formulated a range of policies aimed at transforming the historical legacy of apartheid education. within teacher education, this has included policies concerning governance and curriculum, as well as qualification pathways (kruss, 2008; sayed et al., 2013). in certain instances, the policy process has been relatively participatory, with government and academics interacting through bodies like the education deans’ forum. in other instances, such as, for example, the merger of institutions, policy has been initiated and planned by government, with teacher educators participating in implementation only. in recent years, there has been renewed interest in research conducted by teacher educators on the implications and implementation of policies affecting them, with various researchpolicy-practice initiatives being established. these include: research chairs; projects on robinson: research for policy and practice in teacher education 101 strengthening teacher education supported by the department of higher education and training and the european union; commissioned research (gravett et al., 2014; robinson, 2015); research by para-statals and consultancies such as the joint education trust (deacon, 2016); as well as a number of edited collections of practice-oriented and self-study research by teacher educators (america et al., 2020; sayed et al., 2018; walton & osman, 2018). a commitment to supporting productive links between research, policy, and practice in teacher education thus seems apparent. however, closer attention needs to be paid to the nuances and complexities of these links. the uncertain relationship between reform initiatives and policy implementation is well known, as mclaughlin (1987) has noted, yet authors have argued that little is known about knowledge mobilization as a research field (cain et al., 2016). common concerns are unreasonably high expectations of research, politics that play into policymaking and practice, and different orientations and values across sectors (hammersley, 2013). the debate is also influenced by a global context which demonstrates an increasing call for evidence-based policies and quantifiable indicators of progress (cain, 2016), a position that biesta (2010) critiques as reducing complexity, and as being neglectful of professional judgement and values. against this background, i explore the relationship between research, policy, and practice in teacher education through the lens of one intervention, the professional practice schools (ppss) research project. this research project spanned all three of the domains of research, policy, and practice, and thus forms an interesting case study of the potentialities and tensions of this nexus. professional practice schools as a policy intervention the proposal for the establishment of professional practice schools (ppss) emerged from a national teacher development summit in 2009 that was held to highlight and address the challenges in teacher education and development in south africa. the summit resulted in a new plan for teacher development in this country—the integrated strategic planning framework for teacher education and development in south africa 2011–2025 (departments of basic education and higher education and training, 2011). activity 4.5 of this integrated plan specified the role of universities as being to strengthen the teaching practice/school experience component of teacher education programmes, with a key proposal being the development of professional practice schools. ppss were described as those schools at which student teachers are placed for the normal teaching practice component of their programmes. according to the plan, these schools would be located in a variety of social and educational contexts and display adequate levels of curriculum and organisational functionality. furthermore, [at] ppss, student teachers will be able to engage in learning-in-practice—preparing, teaching and reflecting on lessons. teachers at ppss will mentor initial teachers in training, ensuring that they receive appropriate support and guidance during their practice teaching periods. over time, sufficient ppss will be identified and supported 102 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 to ensure quality wil [work integrated learning] for all initial teacher education students. ppss will also be utilised as hubs for the development of professional learning communities. (dbe & dhet, 2011, p. 18) no further details or conceptual underpinnings for the initiative were provided in the policy document. nevertheless, the thinking behind such a proposal would appear to resonate with the notion of a “third space” (zeichner, 2010, p. 89) in teacher preparation, in which practitioner knowledge and university knowledge are brought together to create expanded and grounded learning opportunities for student teachers. the intention was that ppss would be identified from within the ambit of existing schools and it was thus important to understand what needed to be in place to be able to designate an existing school as a pps. a research project was therefore commissioned by the national department of higher education and training (dhet) to explore the conditions for the establishment of such schools. the aims of the research were to identify and make recommendations regarding a. minimum standards for effective functional ppss in a variety of social and educational environments, including poor and rural contexts b. key curriculum and organisational factors impacting on the school-based experience of student teachers c. partnership models to support the relationship between ppss, universities and education departments d. resource, training and policy requirements for the effective functioning of ppss e. a conceptual framework to support the development of ppss. (robinson, 2015, p. 5) between 2013 and 2014 nine universities, five primary schools, and thirteen high schools in five provinces of south africa—the eastern cape, gauteng, kwazulu-natal, limpopo and western cape—participated in the research. ethical approval was received from all participating universities and provincial departments of education. data was generated primarily through interviews with mentor teachers and principals at schools, officials in the provincial and national departments of education, and university-based teaching practice supervisors. a final report was submitted to dhet in 2015. the findings were then presented and discussed at several national and provincial workshops and conferences at which key stakeholders participated. framing the study the research-policy-practice nexus of this study can be said to embody a particular set of interlocking professional domains and practices. kemmis (2009) has argued that the study of a practice like education involves a study of connections—of many different kinds of communicative, productive and organisational relationships between people in socially-, historicallyand robinson: research for policy and practice in teacher education 103 discursively-constituted media of language (discourse), work and power—all of which must be understood dynamically and relationally. (kemmis, 2009, p. 24) this relational view of practice invites us to understand the arrangements, or architecture, that hold (or fail to hold) the practice together. a practice architecture refers to the “complex bundlings of arrangements of mediating pre-conditions of practice, ways of saying, doing and relating, and objects and set-ups with which people in the setting interact” (kemmis, 2009, p. 34). these preconditions of practice (the “exoskeleton’ of the practice) include cultures and discourses, social and political structures and dynamics, and material and economic conditions under which a practice is practiced . . . [and which] enables or constrains particular characteristic modes of professional practices, as well as local variations on their more general forms. (kemmis, 2009, p. 33) three aspects form the core of such an architecture. 1. in semantic space, the sayings of our practices are intertwined with cultural-discursive arrangements (in language and specialist discourses) that enable and constrain what we say and how we think. 2. in physical space-time, the doings of our practices are intertwined with materialeconomic arrangements (in the medium of activity and work) that enable and constrain where we can go and what we can do. 3. in social space, the relatings of our practices are intertwined with social-political arrangements (in the medium of power and solidarity) that enable and constrain how we can relate to others and the world. (kemmis, 2018, pp. 243–244) by its very nature, the research touched on the different professional life worlds of these different players—such worlds simultaneously intersecting with, and independent of, one another. how the interviewees, from their different perspectives, experienced the culturaldiscursive, material-economic and social-political factors embedded in the ppss research project provided the framework for the analysis of the data. methodology the purpose here is not to outline the findings of the commissioned research (see robinson (2016) for the findings) but, rather, to discuss the ppss research as a case study that can illuminate the tensions and opportunities of research of this nature in its interaction with policy and practice. in this sense, the research serves as an instrumental rather than an intrinsic case study since the purpose is to surface broader issues beyond the case, rather than to focus on the specifics of the case itself (rule & john, 2011). various reasons support the selection of this case. first, the research had been commissioned by the government ministry responsible for teacher education, thus providing a clear example of research for policy. second, the policy was intended for systemic impact since its purpose was to foster long-term structural change in teacher education, rather than as a smaller 104 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 programmatic innovation. this is set against a concern about the small-scale and localised nature of much research into teacher education (cochran-smith et al., 2015; deacon et al., 2010). third, developments were emerging at both national and provincial level and could be tracked beyond the finalisation of the ppss research report. green et al. (2017) have argued that mainstream education policies treat teacher education as an instrumental field to be managed through regulation, legislation, codification, measurement, and standardisation. in contrast, they call for policy work to be conceptualised as action-oriented inquiry with respect to the primacy of practice, in all its complexity (green et al., 2017). from this perspective, the ppss research project deliberately sought to explore the views of those on-the-ground players who were directly and actively involved in the practice of the policy proposal, namely education department officials, teacher educators, and teachers. twelve interviews were conducted with these key informants; participant observation of relevant networks and forums provided further perspectives. other than the national representatives, all interviewees were based in the western cape, and included • six policy-makers—three in the national department of higher education and training (one who was involved in conceptualising the integrated strategic plan, one who had commissioned the ppss research, and one responsible for the implementation of the research); two in the provincial department of education involved in the implementation of the research at local level; and one who had been an academic in the original research team but who had recently relocated to a government position; • four university-based teacher educators, two from the original research team (as well as the one additional person who had now moved to a government position), and two who were responsible for the teaching practice programme at their own universities; and • two teacher union representatives, responsible for professional development amongst practising teachers. most of the interviewees were active participants in a statutory network established by the dhet in each province to enhance dialogue about teacher education (the provincial teacher education and development committee); a number had also participated in national processes aimed at improving teaching practice in the country. the porous positioning of the interviewees meant that they could offer insights from different perspectives, thus allowing interesting cross-pollination across roles. initially the intention was to analyse the data according to all three aspects of practice architecture as identified by kemmis (2018). however, it became apparent that findings, as gathered through interviews, could not provide sufficient insights into all three of these aspects of the research intervention. thus, the analysis moved to what the interviewees said about the cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political arrangements of the robinson: research for policy and practice in teacher education 105 research. the data thus records the perspectives of the different role-players of the researchpolicy-practice relationship in this research project. sayings in this section, i report first on what participants said about their expectations of the research. responses were consistent across the interviewees; this revolved around the value perceived of providing “evidence for a conversation” that could inform both policy and practice. one teacher educator was of the view that “up to now there has been very little empirical evidence around any of the issues relating to ppss.” from an academic point of view, she felt that research-based evidence carried a higher status than arguments derived from practice-based knowledge. she said, “people don’t listen to you unless you have evidence. the document gave one the tools to start a conversation . . . research findings [are able] to influence our academic conversations.” for one policy-maker looking for concrete outcomes, evidence provided a basis for “a set of recommendations as it takes the next step forward toward the establishment of the ppss.” the teacher educator had a more nuanced expectation in her wish to know “what the possibilities are . . . what the issues and tensions are.” interviewees were also asked about their motivation to participate in the research. a clear action-oriented agenda underpinned everyone’s motivation to participate in that the research was seen as offering insights to improve teacher education through, first of all, addressing a perceived “theory-practice” gap between schools and universities. “there was a sense that university preparation is not strong enough, there is a necessity to create more of a reality experience” (policy-maker); “there was a perception that there is too much theory in the academic programme” (union representative); the research “can really address the gap in communication between the universities and the schools, [this] breaks down the quality of teaching practice” (teacher educator). schools, too, were seen as potential beneficiaries of the findings of the research that can help to “identify a school that can really be supportive of helping student teachers to become quality teachers” (policy-maker). sayings about doings here the material-economic arrangements of the research were explored; this involved probing interviewees’ views on the nature of the research process. on the nature of the research, participants were very enthusiastic. they appreciated that the research was action-oriented, and that a research partnership had been set up between the university and the department of education to inform the implementation of policy and, in the longer term, to enhance teacher education. the execution of the research by a universitybased team was seen as supporting sustainability. for a policy-maker, “if the research is led from within the sector, there is a greater likelihood of strong buy-in, support and participation from the sector.” 106 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 interviewees’ comments on the nature of the research process revealed interesting aspects of their own professional worlds. one policy-maker had valued the opportunity to read about the views of teachers, and the open-ended questions raised since our “focus is usually about meeting targets, policy compliance, to show things are working.” another policy-maker found the qualitative research methods different from what he was used to. he said, “we like data and figures and numbers and then we use that.” the visits to the schools around the country were illuminating for one university-based researcher, who valued time in the field and explained, “i like to not only talk to people but have a lived experience to see what is happening.” less positive were the responses about the material conditions (time and capacity) for conducting the investigation, particularly as expressed by the university researchers. as one teacher educator indicated, “you can’t combine this kind of project with a normal teaching and admin load.” this resonates with accounts of the social organisation of the work of teacher educators in other parts of the world, as mcnicholl et al. (2013) have observed. the most significant response in relation to doings was whether participants had drawn on the research in their own practice. despite the expressed enthusiasm about the practiceorientation of the research, two years after its conclusion, while there had been references to the research in conversations, workshops, and small projects, none of the interviewees indicated that they had drawn on the research in any systematic way. sayings about relatings on social-political arrangements, interviewees offered their views on the systems and processes for carrying forward the findings of the research. two different perspectives were articulated by interviewees— one about discourses, and the other relating to implementation, with the former being more positively experienced. when they were asked about the potential contribution of the research, interviewees were very enthusiastic. they felt that the research had helped to clarify concepts, informed both policy and practice, leveraged the teacher unions, helped to establish more structured relations between schools and universities and between universities and the department of education, and (a point emphasized by many) started a conversation. debate and discussion had been promoted and further required research and action identified. as one teacher educator expressed it, “we became aware of possibilities for the future.” the integration of the academic and policy world was seen to offer potential to both theory and practice. “we need to align our theoretical points of departure with the practical realities out there,” said a former teacher educator, now a policy-maker. in providing what someone called “evidence for a conversation” participants identified a professional as well as a political contribution. the potential for a professional contribution was unambiguous: “the research provides clear recommendations” (researcher); “it has provided a framework for discussion” (teacher educator); “it has created a collaborative space robinson: research for policy and practice in teacher education 107 to devise solutions for the many challenges that are facing good teaching practice” (policymaker); “it is vital to build up a scholarship of teacher education and for this scholarship to be used to critique and inform practice” (policy-maker). the union representative was particularly positive about the political contribution of the research. she said, “we can’t just decide on something because it is politically correct and then there is a mandate; we need research.” she added, “[the research] provides leverage; the department is not going to listen to anybody unless there is sound proof.” she also expressed appreciation for the writing style of the report, saying “it is user-friendly. lots of academic work is not written like that and for the teacher in the classroom, they are able to read and understand it.” one policy-maker, perhaps taking the opportunity to move out of his usual role, was more cynical about the political contribution and said, “the research is meant to justify policy positions.” while the overall feeling about the research was very positive, doubts were expressed about implementation. three comments from policy-makers indicated scepticism about the potential of research to influence any change. they said: “if people’s mindsets don’t want to change, then all our research is null and void”; “nobody wants to see data, they seem to think there are more important things to be sorted out by government”; and “unless an official has a passion for teaching practice, nobody will read it.” the limitations of the policy structures to review and follow through on the recommendations of the research were apparent. as one provincial policy-maker expressed it, “we do not have research staff . . . the focus is on delivery, on operational things . . . what we do is monitor and evaluate, not focus on deep research, deep understanding and then have the ability to change things afterwards.” he elaborated further, “most research projects only deal with compliance and delivery. can we push up the results, etc.” even at national level, research structures were described as “lean in their capacity for doing dedicated research.” as was further articulated, “there are no specific structures for policyoriented research on teacher education . . . policy-oriented research is promoted and enabled on a needs basis and is often dependent on the availability of funds to support the research.” despite these constraints, one policy-maker remained positive about the potential contribution of research: “policy and practice must be evidence-based . . . we must move beyond anecdote and common-sense approaches to what we do, and how we understand the sector . . . it is vitally important to build up a scholarship of teacher education, and for this scholarship to be used to critique and inform practice.” the union representatives were sober about the capacity of schools to absorb the findings of the research. one said, “teachers at school are captured by policy demands . . . there are too many policy requirements.” another believed that “schools don’t have time to have these discussions . . . the system does not allow for reflection or discussion.” as a union representative said, “if you don’t have a budget, you are setting up policy for failure. that is what happens in teacher development.” 108 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 for one teacher educator, implementation would depend on “money, resources and time,” all of which she saw as being in short supply. the implications for action were also treated with some scepticism by another, who said, “i would look at it as a nice research document and it would sit in my office but to be involved in it would be so difficult because it is so complex.” discussion while all participants expressed satisfaction with the recommendations of the research, and appreciation for the valuable conversations, three years later there was little actual movement on the proposal to establish ppss. a few initiatives had emerged; there was, for example, an online teacher mentor programme and a protocol for teaching practice in one province, and several national workshops and round tables towards enhancing teaching practice had been held, but no planning at systemic level had occurred. a relational architecture that can “promote, sustain and extend meaningful actions and interactions across interpersonal and institutional levels” (edwards-groves et al., 2010, p. 53) is influenced by factors that both enable and constrain. the findings from the interviews reveal several factors that enabled and constrained the building of a productive relationship between research, policy, and practice in the ppss research project. at an enabling level, it was clear that there was a commitment across the board to the research, strong motivation to participate, communication and trust across the sectors, positive relationships, an appreciation of the value of collaboration, as well as support and resources from formal policy structures. at a constraining level, however, weak capacity existed in all sectors for mediating or implementing the findings of the research. for the teacher educators these constraints revolved around fitting new initiatives into an already demanding academic workload, for the policy-makers, the structures to follow through on research findings were largely absent, and the teachers themselves were faced with overload in both practical and policy demands. in the language of practice architecture, then, one could say that the interaction of research, policy, and practice in this case study demonstrated lots of saying, quite a bit of relating, but not much doing. put differently, the research had significantly advanced the discursive and social arrangements of the policy intervention but had not strengthened its material and economic arrangements. these findings clearly highlight the difficulty of promoting a productive research-policypractice nexus. a first lesson, then, is the need to acknowledge the limitations of research processes and outcomes and to accept that research is but one resource in a multi-layered interplay of factors in policy development and practical implementation. the limitations of research evidence to impact on policy and practice have indeed been consistently argued (ball, 1998; biesta, 2010; hammersley, 2013). as hammersley (2013, p. 9) put it, “[a] sound evidential base is not all that is required for practical success.” the dynamics at play in the research-policy-practice interaction are fluid and complex, and [t]he project of evidence-based practice therefore urgently needs to be rethought in ways that take into consideration the limits of knowledge, the nature of social robinson: research for policy and practice in teacher education 109 interaction, the ways in which things can work, the processes of power that are involved in this, and most importantly, the values and normative orientations that constitute social practices such as education. (biesta, 2010, p. 501) while the above might constitute a sense of disillusionment regarding the ppss research project, from an action-oriented position on policy formation, a greater sense of hope can be distilled. conversations, debates, and dialogues across sectors had generated respect for the lived experience of the different sectors, a sense of mutual reciprocity and accountability for the process, and a vocabulary for further engagement. in this way, the ppss research project contributed in a small way to the establishment of a relational architecture, characterised by respectful interpersonal and organisational connections, as well as what edwards (2011, p. 37) called “knowledge talk at the boundaries.” such connections and relationships, while positive, are clearly not able to offer a toolkit for implementation. nevertheless, they are important to the notion of action-oriented inquiry. by recognising experiences, insights, and interpretations of those involved in articulating and enacting the policy and the practice, we are able to challenge “a reliance only on inanimate, disembodied, institutional representations of policy” (green et al., 2017, p. 55) and to work from the starting point of the primacy of practice. from this perspective, small-scale local initiatives take on greater significance. even where conditions make it difficult to move to scale, relational agency (edwards, 2005) is built, joint responsibility across sectors is acknowledged, and the resources (and limitations) of different players identified, all of which bodes well for further engagement. conclusion in this article, i have outlined the findings of research into the relationship between research, policy, and practice in the identification and establishment of professional practice schools in south africa. although a single case study, the findings are intended to go beyond the immediate context and to generate questions for further conversation, reflection, and research. the discussion thus pays attention to the complexity and particularity of the individual case as well as to its generative potential for insights beyond the immediacy of the case itself (rule and john, 2015). kemmis (2018) has reminded us that the conditions under which practices are enacted can be changed, and that we can build practice architectures that enable more than they constrain. drawing on the findings of this study, we might then ask three questions: how do we push at the boundaries of existing practice architectures? what are the conditions that enable research, policy, and practice to be mutually cooperative and agentic in teacher education? how do we combine action-oriented inquiry with the larger configurations of politics, power, resources, and capacity? it is clear that the building of a relational architecture that can promote action as well as agency requires a deep appreciation of the primacy of practice and conditions on the ground. this implies more substantial attention to the complex (and expensive) processes of 110 journal of education, no. 82, 2021 communication, dialogue, stakeholder forums, and policy commentaries to better understand the experiences, insights, and interpretations of those responsible for enacting policy proposals. in the instance of the ppss research project, the research design needed, at the very least, to be more attuned to the material conditions of implementation, including resources and capacity. the significance of this research lies in its location in a setting in which policy, research, and practice in teacher education are, unlike in many other countries, already working relatively cooperatively. however, more research is needed to understand the actions and interactions across these three domains, even where there is broad agreement and cooperation towards a common goal. such insights will allow for deeper deliberation on the potential for a threefold contribution to teacher education —informed policy-making, engaged scholarship, and enhanced practice. acknowledgement thanks are due to marie brennan and lew zipin for the very valuable advice provided for my thinking through this study. references america, c., edwards, n. & robinson, m. 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(2010). rethinking the connections between campus courses and field experiences in collegeand university-based teacher education. journal of teacher education, 61(1/2), 89–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487109347671. critical agency in education: a foucauldian perspective dirk postma the personal is political – carol hanisch, 1970 abstract while the neoliberal order is associated with the economy, government and globalisation, as a form of governmentality it effects a particular subjectivity. the subject is the terrain where the contest of control plays out. the subject is drawn into the seductive power of performativity which dictates its agency, desires and satisfactions and from which escape is difficult to imagine. neoliberalism is particularly interested in an education which provides it with the much needed powers of production and consumption. this dependency of the neoliberal order on a particular kind of agential subjectivity is also its weakness because of the indeterminacy of the self. within this openness of the human subject lies the possibility to be different and to escape any form of subjectification. foucault’s account of the critical agent portrays a form of difference that opposes and transcends neoliberal ordering. foucault finds the principle of practices of freedom in the greco-roman ethics of the care for the self. it is an ethics where the subject gains control of itself through the ascetic and reflective attention in relation to available ethical codes and with the guidance of a ‘master’. such as strong sense of the self is the basis for personal and social transformation against neoliberal colonisation. the development of critical agency in education is subsequently investigated in the light of foucault’s notions of agency and freedom. the contest of the subject is of particular importance to education interested in the development of critical agency. the critical agent is not only one who could identify and analyse regimes of power, but also one who could imagine different modes of being, and who could practice freedom in the enactment of an alternative mode of being. the educational implications are explored in relation to the role of the teacher and pedagogical processes. introduction subjectivity is an important terrain of contest in the era of neoliberalism. while neoliberalism is largely used to describe the actions of governments and international corporations and processes of globalisation, it is dependent on particular kinds of individual subjectivities as both its products and its producers. 32 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade. (harvey, 2005, p.2) – italics: author the neoliberal order colonises subjectivity and transforms it into the human resources it requires. in contrast to the experiences of alienation and oppression in the industrial era, neoliberal subjects participate fully and willingly and experience satisfaction, enjoyment and rewards. neoliberalism presents itself as a total system that is not only inevitable but also beneficial to all. it claims to ensure the best of political, educational, social, medical and scientific advances, food security and sustainable development. total subjection to this order is therefore not only for the individual good, but also for the social and environmental good. education is important for neoliberalism since it provides the human capital needed for business and industry, not only in the sense of skills, but also in terms of a particular kind of subject. peters (2001) describes such an ‘enterprise education’ through which the self-monitoring ‘entrepreneurial self ’ is developed. the individual has to take ‘responsibility’ for the self. the curriculum must also be redesigned to reflect the new realities and the need for the highly skilled flexible worker who possesses requisite skills in management, information handling, communication, problem solving, and decision making. (peters, 2001, p.66) although the concept of the ‘entrepreneurial self ’ suggests a self that is in control of itself and actively pursuing its own goals, it remains subjugated to the neoliberal order which narrowly predefines identity, desires, choices, goals and satisfactions. although the neoliberal market promises freedom on the basis of the multiplication of choices, the frameworks within which it operates is narrowly delimited. while neoliberalism contains various rewards and satisfactions, it entails two kinds of deprivation: it shapes humans in the one-dimensional form of the homo œconomicus, and it marginalises and excludes the majority by depriving them from full participation in the world (arendt,1998) while extracting surplus value from them and from their living spaces. it is devastating to humans and to the environment. the neoliberal subjectification is and should be resisted. critical agency is the reclaiming of subjectivity. critical agency is present in many forms and postma: critical agency in education. . . 33 locations of resistance (such as the occupy-events or the zapatistas) and in the literature of critique that draws on marxist, poststructuralism, feminist, anti-racist and postcolonial perspectives. the limitation of acts of resistance is that they often remain within the logic and the problematic defined by the dominant order. the limitation of critique as literature is that it largely interprets and does not change the world (marx and engels, 1969). it is therefore important for critical agency to go beyond resistance and theorising in order to enact a different ordering. although the nature and focus of the resistance cannot be prescribed the critical agent defines the deprivation and the appropriate form of resistance. a persistent question is consequently the nature of, and the resources available to, the agent who drives the critique and transformation. this (postmodern and poststructural) agent does not have recourse to an essential nature or to universal, transcendental or humancentered sources of critique and transformation. a conception of critical agency has therefore to be developed in the absence of universal or transcended values such as truth, rationality or the good. this article explores perspectives that arise from a foucauldian focus on critical agency. while foucault is known for his investigations into forms of domination in prisons and mental institutions related to the power/knowledge nexus of the humans sciences, the underlying interest in the possibilities of freedom which only appeared in his later works, have not received equal attention. we find in the later foucault an engagement with neoliberalism and a notion of freedom that develops from within such a dominant order. it is also a kind of agency that could resist and go beyond the seductive power of the neoliberal culture of possessiveness and consumption. it provides an opportunity to investigate how critical agents could participate in the contest of subjectivity. this article wants to contribute to foucauldian studies in education and to critical education studies. although a large body of research has been done in education on the basis of foucault’s ideas (such as ball, 2013; besley and peters, 2007; olssen,1999; popkewitz and brennan,1998; walshaw, 2007) the notion of critical agency has not been well developed. this foucauldian approach to critical education studies draws on a concern it has in common with marxist approaches of apple, mclaren and giroux by appealing to marx’s (1998) view of critique not as a mental activity, but as historical material action. it will be argued that a foucauldian notion of critical agency provides the basis for the transformation of the discursive and material conditions of freedom. this article investigates the implications of 34 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 foucault’s’ notion of critical agency for a kind of education that focuses on subjectivity that challenges and transform a dominant order. critical agency a foucauldian notion of critical agency provides a closer account of how subjectivity could be reclaimed through its resistance against and transcendence of the neoliberal order. the summary by kelly (2013, p.244) of foucault’s conception of critical agency is used as a framework for this analysis that will be referred to throughout: in general, this conception can be characterized as a subject’s capacities (a) to render sensible and to critique the norms underlying any social, political, moral, aesthetic, or other practices or institutions that subjugate rather than liberate people; (b) to imagine, if not initiate, new norms that would transform the practices or institutions so they desubjugate and liberate people; and, recognizing that liberation carries its own forms of subjection, (c) to sustain this rendering, critiquing, and imagining as a permanent ethos. (foucault, 1990d, pp.154,155; 2007, p.47) this summary could be compared to that of lemke (2002) for whom there are three aspects to critique: problematisation, voluntary insubordination and the audacity to expose oneself as a subject. while (a) refers to foucault’s genealogical critique which identifies and analyses the conditions and discourses underlying forms of domination, (b) and (c) refer to a positive and constructive notion of critique. the insight into the contingency of forms of subjugation (a) contributes towards the possibility to imagine and initiate alternatives (b). but imagining and initiating do not ensure the durability of the liberation which entails a different mode of being as expressed in (c). the question that (c) wants to address is how to live after liberation, or how do we stay true to the ‘event’ (badiou, 2005) of liberation? the continued existence of such a new mode of being is not dependent on a (communist) government, institutions, ethical codifications, or political parties, but on subjects that live an ethos. it is this third aspect of critique that will be the focus of this essay. this aspect presents critique as a life-affirming practice, a way of living within, but also beyond forms of domination. it refers to an ethical kind of life that embodies critique. the positive nature of critique is expressed as follows: postma: critical agency in education. . . 35 i can’t help but dream about a kind of criticism that would try not to judge but to bring an oeuvre, a book, a sentence, an idea to life; it would light fires, watch the grass grow, listen to the wind, and catch the sea foam in the breeze and scatter it. it would multiply not judgments but signs of existence; it would summon them, drag them from their sleep. perhaps it would invent them sometimes-all the better. all the better. criticism that hands down sentences sends me to sleep; i'd like a criticism of scintillating leaps of the imagination. it would not be sovereign or dressed in red. it would bear the lightning of possible storms. (foucault, 1997c, p.323) when i say “critical,” i don' t mean a demolition job, one of rejection or refusal, but a work of examination that consists of suspending as far as possible the system of values to which one refers when testing and assessing it. in other words: what am i doing at the moment i'm doing it? (foucault, 1990b, p.107) the object, rather, is to arm the subject with a truth it did not know, one that did not reside in it; what is wanted is to make this learned, memorised truth, progressively put into practice, a quasi subject that reigns supreme in us (foucault, 1997b, p.102). such a positive approach to critique avoids a tendency (leask, 2012) to separate foucault’s earlier work on subjectivity as subjugation from his later work on ethics, agency and freedom. it is, however, important to maintain the coherence in foucault’s project as expressed by him in a late interview (25 april 1984). although foucault shifted his focus in the later work, his central concern has always been the relation between “the subject, truth, and the constitution of experience” (foucault, 1990a, p.48). according to leask (2012, p.58) power is intensified in the later work of foucault in such a way that it “came to infuse. . . the very subject that might previously have been taken to be a mere effect”. once the coherence in foucault’s work is maintained the relation between the positive notion of critique and forms of subjugation could be explored by asking how it is possible to live an ethos of freedom under the conditions of intensified subjugation? it is important to note that it is the same subjugated subject that engages in critique and develops agency. the basic point foucault makes is that while the contest of subjectivity has become more intense in the neoliberal era the possibilities for critical agency multiply. the basis of the multiplication of possibilities is the ‘care for the self ’. holding the earlier and later work of foucault together is also important in order to distinguish this kind of critical agent from the authentic humanistic or rational liberal subject: the foucauldian subject is not autonomous and free from power relations. it is a non-substantive subject that does not have its own internal law (auto-nomos) by means of which authenticity could be achieved. it is always within and subjected to power relations. 36 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 in relation to the coherence of foucault’s work, the singling out of the third aspect of critique identified by kelly does not in any way negate the first two since the three aspects of critique are dependent on each other. the first aspect relates to foucault’s analyses of regimes of truth in relation to mental institutions, prisons and later on, sexuality. critique is here not the mere judgement that something is wrong in relation to a set of standards, but the making explicit of the underlying norms and mechanisms of truth. but experience has taught me that the history of various forms of rationality is sometimes more effective in unsettling our certitudes and dogmatism than is abstract criticism. (foucault, 1990c, p.82) the purpose of critique is not to unmask an ideological distortion, but to show how a particular regime of truth comes into being. insight into the contingency of the verifying and justifying norms creates the space for the other two aspects of critique: imagining how things could be different (b) and living new forms of subjectivity as an ethos (c). while foucault has been accused of furthering the cause of neoliberalism (zamora, 2014), the basic approach in this article is to follow scholars such as dilts (2011) who points to his more fundamental form of critique that is often overlooked. leask (2012) supports this by arguing that foucault develops an ‘immanent’ form of critique. this means that critique and transformation do not appeal to universal values or theories, but develops through the subversion of the dominant order and the emergence of something new that is not a mere reaction. ethics of the self critical agency should not only be defined in terms of critique and resistance (first element defined by kelly above), but also in relation to an ethos (third element) that appeals consistently to norms that are already present in culture. this ethos refers to an ethics defined by the care for the self which foucault develops in volumes 2 and 3 of the history of sexuality (foucault, 1986, 1990g). it shares with the ‘ethics of care’ (nodding) the emphasis on a relational response to the particularity of the other, but differs in its primary focus on the (relational) self. postma: critical agency in education. . . 37 the central themes in the work of both the earlier and the later foucault, subjectivity, truth experience and freedom should be drawn on to understand the ethics of the care for the self. he relates ethics and freedom as follows: freedom is the ontological condition of ethics. but ethics is the considered form that freedom takes when it informed by reflection. (foucault, 1997a, p.284) the first ‘freedom’ refers to the liberation from relations of domination such as slavery (which could be compared with negative freedom (berlin, 1969). since a person can onl y live ethically (for foucault) in conditions of selfmastery, this kind of freedom is the ontological condition of ethics. the second use of ‘freedom’ refers to an ongoing project through which a life is stylised by reflecting on the self (this could be compared with positive freedom (taylor, 1979)). freedom is exercised here as an ethical obligation towards the self. the ethics of the self is the continuing critique and transformation of the self and of external forms of subjugation. while freedom is the ontological condition for ethics, a positive notion of freedom is realised through an ethical life. this ethics is primarily based on the socratic dictum: “take care of yourself . . . make freedom your foundation, through the mastery of yourself” (foucault, 1997a, p.301). freedom is exercised through reflective and ethical self-mastery. mastery of the self is not the same as the liberal notion of autonomy because the self is always in power relations (described by foucault as governmentality). the self could also not invent the ethical norms of life by. the question foucault asks is therefore how freedom could be practiced within and against the dominant neoliberal morality. foucault finds in greco-roman morality his inspiration for the formulation of an ethics of the self. this ethics is very different from the christian denunciation and negation of the self, and obedience to an e(x)ternal law. the important difference between these two kinds of ethics is the relation of the individual to prevailing ethical codes. whereas christian morality requires subjugation and self-denial, the subject in the greco-roman ethics creates an own life which draws on, but is not determined by, the existing moral codes. ethics is not about the obedience to a moral code through which the self is redeemed, it is rather a concern with the self in relation to the moral codes present in culture (foucault, 1997a). 38 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 foucault expresses this as follows: of course, there had also been certain norms of behavior that governed each individual's behavior. but the will to be a moral subject and the search for an ethics of existence were, in antiquity, mainly an attempt to affirm one's liberty and to give to one' s own life a certain form in which one could recognize oneself, be recognized by others, and which even posterity might take as an example. (foucault, 1990a, p.49) the moral codes are not something that must simply be followed, but are rather resources to draw on in the care for the self. foucault draws on his investigation into sexuality to illustrate this (foucault, 1990g). the grecoroman morality does not simply condemn sexual relations such as those outside the marriage and including slaves and young boys. these relations are harmful in so far as they represent the submission of the self to desires which took control of the self. such relations are not wrong because they transgress a moral code, but because they damage the self. ethics is not about the submission to any power or code besides the particular way the self has to care for itself. the only ‘transgression’ is the lack of care for the self. the ethics of the self is, furthermore, an aesthetics of existence (foucault, 1990a), a stylising of a particular kind of life. to illustrate the aesthetic of the work on the self, foucault points to the artist: this transformation of one's self by one's own knowledge is, i think, something rather close to the aesthetic experience. why should a painter work if he is not transformed by his own painting? (foucault, 1990f, p.14) it was a question of knowing how to govern one's own life in order to give it the most beautiful possible form (in the eyes of others, of oneself, and of the future generations for which one might serve as an example). that is what i tried to reconstitute: the formation and development of a practice of self whose aim was to constitute oneself as the worker of the beauty of one's own life. (foucault, 1990e, p.259) the crafting of such a life requires work on the self, disciplining of the self and self-exercise, a form of ascesis: care for the self is not simply an attitude, a form of living, but a practice, something for which time had to be set apart and which need to be attended to. it was seen as a ‘duty and technique, a basic obligation and a set of carefully worked-out procedures. (foucault, 1997b, p.95) ascetics is understood as an “exercise of self upon the self by which one attempts to develop and transform oneself, and to attain to a certain mode of being” (foucault, 1997a, p.282). postma: critical agency in education. . . 39 this ethical self is therefore not subjected to a dominating order, but it becomes a quasi-subject, a form of self-mastering. foucault also describes this self-mastery as follows: it is to “take up residence in oneself ”, a selfpossession, a self-enjoyment, it is to surpass the self, and a mastery of appetites (foucault, 1997a, p.285), an elaboration of self by self, a studious transformation, a slow arduous process of change, guided by a constant concern for truth (foucault, 1990e). knowledge of and reflection on the self is an ethical search for the truth about the self. truth should not be understood in a metaphysical or universalistic way as what corresponds with reality or what is the same for everyone. there is also no true or authentic self that has to be recovered. truth is gained through reflection and self-knowledge in the mode of greek dictum ‘know yourself ’. this truth has a negative and a positive function. negatively it denies and resists forms of subjugation, and positively it asserts a certain sense of the self. negatively, this truth is different from the knowledge about the self which is produced through various kinds of governmentality within regimes or games of truth. it is a realisation of who one is not, a deidentification from what one is expected to be or coerced into being. it is at the root of the self ’s resistance to forms of subjugation. this self is different from the entrepreneurial self enforced by the neoliberal order. positively, truth about the self is approached through a reflection on the self in the light of ethical norms. it is the truth about the own intentions, motivations, satisfactions and desires. freedom is the finding of and living in accordance with this enfolding truth. in line with foucault’s conception of power/truth, this truth is also an effect of the power of the self over the self. knowledge of and truth about the self are essential to the care of the self. this knowledge is not an attempt to find the ‘true self ’, but rather a distinctive self that is not defined by dominant forms of subjectification. this focus on the self is not a narcissistic withdrawal within a self isolated from its role within historical material practices. the care for the self could easily be confused with the neoliberal investment in the entrepreneurial self or with a ‘postmodern’ playfulness and continuous invention of the self. the crucial difference is that the care for the self entails a care for others. within the greco-roman ethics the good ruler, husband, father, lover or slave owner is one that, first of all, takes care of himself without which one cannot be a good ruler or be ruled in the right way (foucault, 1997a). the abuse or domination of others in any of these relations is an indication that the person does not take care of him/herself since s/he is not in control of his/her 40 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 passions and desires. such lack of control is as disastrous to the self as it is to others. the care for others is therefore a constitutive element of the care for the self. the inclusion of others in the greco-roman ascesis is therefore in stark contrast with the christian ascesis which entail a denouncement of the self, a withdrawal from the world and the prioritising of a vertical relationship with a deity. the care for the self is also directly related to the transformation of the sociomaterial conditions of life. this ethics is directed against subjugated forms of governmentality embedded in social, economic and political relations. the care for the self forms the basis of the resistance against and transformation of the objective conditions of existence. the care for the self constitutes the third element of the foucauldian critical agency as defined by kelly. the critical agent appears here as someone who practices his/her freedom from forms of subjugation on the basis of an ethos. the ‘permanent ethos’ points to a subject that continually detects and resists any form of subjugation however lucrative and ‘satisfying’ it might be. it is a subject set on a path of stylising him/herself in opposition to forms of subjugation within entrepreneurial governmentality. freedom as ‘agonism’ refers to a continual combat, a permanent provocation (foucault, 1982) related to the constant practice of the care for the self (foucault, 1997b). caring for the self takes place against the grain of neoliberal forms of subjugation. it is a continual vigilance in the face of the innovative ways in which the neoliberal ordering takes place. while the ethics of the self draws on existing moral codes, it replaces the imposed morality of a dominant and dominating order as confirmed by armstrong and lemke: foucauldian autonomy, then, is not opposed to social regulation. rather, it consists in the struggle to subvert the project of normalization by wresting the power of regulation from the ends of disciplinary control in order to deploy this power in the service of self-creation. (armstrong, 2008, p.27) the practices of freedom are forms of critique as an ethical activity. thus, critical activity is understood as a way of self-formation a self-formation that is neither an individual option nor a voluntaristic choice but operates in a specific normative horizon, thereby extending and transforming it. (lemke, 2011, p.38) postma: critical agency in education. . . 41 critical agency in education education plays a central role in the contest of the subject. the focus on the critical agent in education is an attempt to intervene in the contested area of colonised subjectivity in order to explore ways in which such agency could be developed. this section focuses on the cultivation of a certain kind of subjectivity as an essential element of critical agency. neoliberalism refers to a kind of social ordering that draws on and produces the will, desires and behaviour of individuals in a holistic way. these subjectivities are dominated in the sense that their destiny is predefined within a particular order. in order for critical education to respond to this, a different relation is needed between individual subjectivity and processes of social ordering. the difference lies in the demand to become a powerful subject that relates to, opposes and goes beyond dominating forms of ordering. the focus in this section is on the pedagogical processes that could contribute to the development of this powerful agency. it attempts to answer questions such as: how could a subject within relations of power become powerful in opposition to forms of domination?; how could education as a powerful process enable the empowerment and freedom of the subject? some of the processes of social ordering and the production of subjectivities through education are related to the role of teacher and the kind of knowledge. a foucauldian approach to the individual and social ordering could be contrasted with that of other educational philosophies. humanist and constructivist approaches tend to deny the normative role of the social order as represented by the power of the teacher and objective forms of knowledge. a freirean approach of equal dialogue does not adequately allow for the powerful intervention of the teacher and for powerful forms of knowledge, either. rational-liberal approaches over-emphasise the presence of a dominant order within which individuals are to be initiated. none of these approaches therefore succeed in maintaining a balance between individual freedom and the social order. they either leave the subject powerless within the limited framework of the self or powerless without a sense of self in a dominant order. it may appear that a foucauldian response does not suffice either because he combines a non-substantive self with the demand to oppose forms of subjugation and to practise freedom. it seems that the self is left without 42 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 resources, such as a true or rational self, in its resistance to domination. it has however been shown how critical agency is possible on the basis of foucault’s view of power, the self and freedom. it is shown that such a nonsubstantive agent can practise freedom by realising an own ethos. this section investigates how critical agency could be achieved in education by focusing on the role of the teacher and on aspects of pedagogical processes. the aims of education the non-substantive subject implies that the aims of education could not be specified in any substantial way in terms such as rationality or self-realisation. this also makes it harder to clearly define an oppositional self and to provide concrete content to freedom that would counter neoliberal forms of subjugation. in spite of this apparent weakness a foucauldian approach to education insists on the development of a powerful self on the basis of an own ethos as a result of the continual work on the self. the powerful self has achieved self-mastery by defining an own morality on the basis of an interpretation and realisation of moral codes. this self is not swayed by fluctuating trends and representations demanded by the constant need for to reinvent the self. critical agency should be developed in education by enabling children to practise their freedom by taking care of themselves (peters, 2003). the aim of education could be defined as the development of the self towards the “full and complete status of subject through the practice of the self ” (foucault, 2001, p.127). although it is not expected that everyone would achieve this state of the self, it represents a fuller notion of being human. the “full and complete status of the subject” refers to a subject that has mastered him/her, know its desires, take care of the self, and live according to an ethos. the aims of education cannot be predefined in terms such as the ‘critical thinker’, or the ‘life-long learner’. such expectations, outcomes and standards cannot prescribe who the subject is to be. the fact that the outcomes or aims could not be clearly articulated does not leave the educational processes without direction and content. an indication of the kind of education that could develop the powerful self is discussed in relation to the role of the teacher and the pedagogical processes of teaching and learning. postma: critical agency in education. . . 43 role of the teacher a foucauldian conception of the role of the teacher provides some insights into the dilemma of power and freedom in education as represented by the dichotomy between the authoritarian and the egalitarian educator. this conception allocates a much stronger role to the educator when compared to humanistic and freirean approaches. the humanist and constructivist teacher plays mainly a supportive role to assist children in the realisation of the inner and authentic self and in the discovery and construction of knowledge. knowledge is constructed on the basis of an own frame of reference that cannot be judged in relation to a superior form of knowledge. the freirean teacher-student, who engages in equal dialogue, refrains from exercising authority and from transmitting knowledge. the rational-liberal teacher, on the other hand, knows what children should become by initiating them into (fairly fixed and established) forms of knowledge. in contrast to these views the foucauldian teacher plays a powerful, but nondominating role. although power is inherent to all human interactions and the tendency to dominate is constantly lurking, the foucauldian teacher walks the tightrope between the exercise of power and the imposition of domination. while the exercise of power is always asymmetrical, it becomes domination when it claims to know who the child is or what s/he has to become. the teacher has to work with the tension between the demand for the child to define his/her own self, and the realisation that s/he cannot do this on his/her own. while education is a life-long process through which the self works on itself, the ‘other’ plays an indispensable role according to foucault. the subject cannot bring about its own transformation (foucault, 2001). the individual needs a master in order to develop the fullness of the self. foucault draws on greco-roman thinking to identify three aspects of ‘mastership’ (foucault, 2001): mastership through example, through competence and through socratic problematisation. since these three forms of mastership are not to be separated from each other, the relation between freedom and power should be investigated through the socratic element within the other two forms. foucault’s emphasis on the essential role of the master points to the presence of (social) power within the heart of the educational process. it is important to investigate how this power functions in non-dominating ways since it strongly 44 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 influences the relation of the child to the social order and the possibility to develop powerful subjectivity. as a model the teacher’s form of subjectivity is an example of the kind of subject a child could become. the master as model could be the teacher in the classroom, heroes from history or ‘prestigious souls’ one encounters in literature and tradition. the model is a person that has developed a ‘fullness of the self ’ by realising an own ethos and by practising freedom and an aesthetics of existence. the socratic questioning implicit in the modelling is the question created within the mind of the child about the particular way his/her life could be stylised. the model is not to be copied but provides an example of how aesthetics of the self could be developed and how cultural codes could be interpreted as part of a personal ethos. while it demands of the child to stylise an own life, it leaves the question open of the way it is to be done. the mastership through competence is the passing on of knowledge and skills. this implies that there is no restriction on the responsibility of the teacher to transmit to children the wealth of knowledge and the levels of available skills. it entails the acquisition of the central concepts and processes through which knowledge is generated and legitimised. foucault therefore does not shy away from notions of transmission and methods of lecturing. when this form of mastership is understood in relation to socratic questioning, it entails a genealogical understanding of the contexts, processes and practices of power through which knowledge is generated and legitimised. while the acquisition of powerful knowledge is not in conflict with the understanding of its contingency, it should give occasion to the imagining of how knowledge could be different (see kelly’s point b). essential for critical agency is the ability to understand various games and discourses of truth in order to be able to play the game differently (foucault, 1997). an understanding of the role of the subject in the practices of knowledge production provides an alternative insight to the dominant emphasis on the consumption and the individualised possession of knowledge. in relation to the care for the self it creates a critical awareness of how the subject and the world are co-produced through knowledge practices. the third element of mastership, socratic mastership, takes place through dialogical questioning that works with the tension between ignorance and memory. postma: critical agency in education. . . 45 pedagogy between ignorance and memory the socratic questioning of the third form of mastership is a pedagogy that mediates the tension between power and freedom. it works with the nonsubstantial self and the demand to develop powerful subjectivity. the emphasis on memory indicates that knowledge is not simply gained from external sources, but through the close attention to the self. all the forms of mastership rest on the interplay and tension between knowledge and ignorance: the problem of mastership is how to free the young man from his ignorance. he needs to be presented with examples that he can honor in his life. he needs to acquire the techniques, know-how, principles, and knowledge that will enable him to live properly. he needs to know—and this is what takes place in the case of socratic mastership—the fact that he does not know and, at the same time, that he knows more than he thinks he does. (foucault, 2001, p.128) children are not freed from ignorance by simply providing them with knowledge. the master cannot know what their ignorance is or what kind of knowledge would contribute towards their freedom. the freedom from ignorance has to employ the memory of the child: . . .memory being precisely what enables one to pass from ignorance to non-ignorance. (foucault, 2001, p.129) memory refers to the subject’s own version of knowledge, an own interpretation of what is given, the own form of subjectivity, an own understanding of the self and the world which is not a copy of objective forms of knowledge. memory is not simply a recall of what is memorised, but both a discovery and an expression of what you do not know you knew all along. it is not simply an expression of the true or authentic self since it requires the ‘effective agency’ of the master. knowledge through memory is not the affirmation of whatever is produced by the child, but the outcome of a masterful process of questioning and prompting. it is not a process that closes the child in an inner self. through a questioning of ignorance the child makes explicit what s/he already knew. ignorance is therefore not the opposite of knowledge. the socratic questioning does not aim to lead the child towards an objective form of knowledge, but to a knowledge that is already within the self. this does not mean that the individual already knew everything there is to know, but that an element of recognition is always present when something 46 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 new becomes part of memory. what is to be retrieved in memory would be unique to a particular subjectivity and is both a process of discovery and construction. socratic questioning is a powerful tool in the hands of the master, but it also curtails his/her power. the power of the master is limited by his/her own ignorance: he is no longer the person who, knowing what the other does not know, passes it on to him. no more is he the person who, knowing that the other does not know, knows how to demonstrate to him that in reality he knows what he does not know. (foucault, 2001, pp.129, 130) while the master transmits knowledge and skills to the child, the questioning focuses on the particular way the child memorises it by relating it to what is already known and by bringing the own subjectivity into play. the master does not know the particular version of the subjectivity of the child, the particular interpretation and realisation of moral codes, or what the subject is to become and the particular way in which the subject would stylise its life. the educator knows that subjectivity has to develop and knows how it should be done, but is ignorant about the particular form the subjectivity could take. while the master remains ignorant s/he works creatively within the tension of ignorance and memory that is essential to the development of the self. the outcome of socratic questioning cannot be predetermined because the knowledge retrieved through memory does not correspond with ideas that may pre-exist in the mind of the master, in culture or in metaphysics. this conception of the teacher provides a way to overcome the dichotomy between the authoritarian and the egalitarian educator. the educator needs not deny his/her own competence and authority when knowledge and competence are ‘imparted’ to children, but has to remain ignorant of the way it is memorised. it also points to how subjectivity could be developed in education in to mediate individual freedom and social order. care of the self another example of the important role of the master is the way powerful subjectivity is developed through the care of the self. foucault draws on seneca’s contrast between stultitia and sapiens. stultitia is the state where the postma: critical agency in education. . . 47 care of the self is absent and manifests itself in the external determination of the self and the lack of an own will. it is state of a mind that is restless and cannot settle on anything and is not satisfied with anything: . . .we can say that the stultus is first of all someone blown by the wind and open to the external world, that is to say someone who lets all the representations from the outside world into his mind. [it is one who] cannot make the discriminatio, cannot separate the content of these representations from what we will call, if you like, the subjective elements, which are combined in him. (foucault, 2001, p.131) external determination takes place where there is no centre of the self and when one’s life is constantly changed through external forces. it is brought about by an inability to discriminate between the different representations the self is confronted with. this discrimination is to be done on a sense of self developed through the care for the self. sapiens is when the will is changed in order to focus on the care for the self. the importance of the relation between the will and the self is expressed as follows: the stultus is essentially someone who does not will, who does not will himself, who does not want the self, whose will is not directed towards the only object one can freely will, absolutely and always, which is oneself. (foucault, 2001, p.133) the individual cannot escape stultitia by him/herself because of the absence of the will to do so. the ‘other’ is necessary for the self to obtain sapientia which refers to self-possession and – control. the ‘helping hand’ of the other, represented by the figure of the philosopher in classical greek thinking, focusses on the very mode of being of the child. conclusion critique and critical agency that focus on the analyses of and resistances to regimes of power are essential but limited because they do not necessarily escape from the frameworks they oppose. in order to challenge the reach of the processes of neoliberal ordering, critical agency has to find a kind of freedom that escapes subjugation. in order to counter subjugated forms of governmentality, it has to appeal to a centre of control within the subject 48 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 itself. neoliberalism does not only have to be taken on at the global terrains of politics, the economy and the environment, but also on the terrain of the subject. the subject in particular is the terrain where freedom could be practiced and control asserted. this attention to the subject is not a withdrawal from the economic, social, political and cultural domains of struggle and transformation. it is rather an attempt to focus in more detail on the agency of transformation. this agent is not a type (rational, autonomous, desiring, oppressed, member of a class or group) but a powerful subject who takes control of itself and who practices freedom in the pursuit of an ethical, meaningful and enjoyable life. the care for the self is an ethical command which requires close attention to the way a style of life is crafted. this self is not autonomous, but always in relations of power. control of the self is a power over the self that replaces the power of others such as a dominant order. this self is not subjugated to external orders, but draws on cultural values in the development of an own ethos. since freedom is a practice of self-mastery it opposes external forms of governmentality on the basis of the care for the self. the care for the self entails the shaping of the own life in order to find and experience the own form of meaning and enjoyment. the development and fostering of critical agency in education has therefore to focus on the ethical self through which a powerful form of own subjectivity could be developed. the care for the self provides the personal, moral and epistemic strength to challenge forms of domination and to practice the kind of freedom beyond domination. the care for the self is not an ascetic withdrawal, but the basis of personal and social transformation. it is a practice of freedom that creates a style of life that generates critique of the dominant order and that anticipates the life after liberation. while the critical agent will always struggle against dominating power, this article explores critique as a constructive, life affirming process which asserts itself within and against the powerful other. a pedagogy that aims to develop a powerful subject has to find the right balance between the mediating role of the powerful (competent) teacher and the emerging independent subjectivity of the child. it focusses on the particular way the child takes care of him/herself with reference to what is of significance in culture. the role of the teacher is to ensure that the child does not get caught up in an isolated self or get lost within a dominating other. postma: critical agency in education. . . 49 these two dangers are uniquely combined in the neoliberal production of subjectivity. in order to contest this subjectivity, a strong sense of the self is needed who have developed the moral resources to craft an own form of life. it has been shown that the foucauldian ‘master’ who provides powerful forms of knowledge and competence and who is limited by his/her ignorance of the mode of being of the subject is a necessary agent in the development of powerful subjectivity. references arendt, h. 1998. the human condition. chicago: university of chicago press. armstrong, a. 2008. beyond resistance. a response to žižek’s critique to foucault’s subject of freedom. parrhesia, 5: pp.19–31. badiou, a. 2005. being and event. 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(eds). 1998. foucault’s challenge: discourse, knowledge, and power in education. new york: teachers college, columbia university. 52 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 taylor, c. 1979. what’s wrong with negative liberty? in ryan, a. (ed.), the idea of freedom. oxford: oxford university press, pp.175–194. walshaw, m. 2007. working with foucault in education. rotterdam: sense publishers. zamora, d. (ed.). 2014. critiquer foucault: les années 1980 et la tentation néolibérale. paris: éditions aden. dirk postma faculty of education university of johannesburg dpostma@uj.ac.za mailto:dpostma@uj.ac.za editorial wayne hugo and carol bertram the founding of the south african education research association exemplifies the breaking away from false necessities. false necessity theory (unger, 2004) rejects the notion that societies must be organised in a particular way and argues that structures can be dissolved and remade. the institutional order of south african education research organisations is not set in stone. it can change and will change, not because of some necessary logic of development but because individuals have the negative capability to imagine things differently, to revise and transcend their context, as well as the commitment to solidify the vision institutionally. this edition of the journal of education publishes research that was presented at the saera conference that took place in durban in august 2014. it is the first time that joe is publishing a special edition emanating from a saera conference, as it is now the official journal of saera. it was a milestone for the new organisation as the constitution for the new association was ratified, and the conference provided a great momentum to push the association forward. it was the second official conference hosted by saera, which was established at a launch conference at bela bela in the limpopo province at the end of january 2013. the theme of the 2014 conference was researching education: future directions. there were 210 papers and panel sessions at the 2014 conference which either presented new empirical research or engaged with methodological and/or theoretical concerns. a new tradition was established at the 2014 conference in the form of the nelson mandela legacy lecture. this was delivered by prof. crain soudien (university of cape town) who entitled his talk ‘the provocation of nelson mandela’ and asked the question ‘how, to put it more starkly, does one make mandela a catalyst for the surfacing of contradiction in one’s and in our general thinking rather than the tranquilising balm for which he is used?’ we have to hold to how mandela challenged the false necessities of the past with a deep negative capability that could imagine a different world and practically pursue its institutionalisation. we have to do this again, now, in different circumstances and changing conditions, but with the same commitment to hard justice that innovates and resists within confining contexts. 2 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 prof michael samuel from the university of kwazulu-natal was the chair of the local organising committee. he set the scene for the three days of dialogue and engagement with his opening remarks, which are published in the last section of this volume. prof. shireen motala’s (university of johannesburg) presidential address, which was a review of the current state of basic education regarding equity, access and quality, is also included here. the publication of the saera president’s address at the annual conference will become a hallmark of the special conference edition as it is important to capture and archive the development and growth of the association. the six peer-reviewed articles that appear in this special conference edition all engage in some way with the tensioned concepts of false necessity and negative capability mentioned in the introductory sections of this editorial. roberto unger has given the best modern formulation of these concepts, articulated in previous generations by marx and keats. in his magnum opus – false necessity – anti-necessitarian social theory in the service of radical democracy (2004) unger defines negative capability as the “denial of whatever in our contexts delivers us over to a fixed scheme of division and hierarchy and to an enforced choice between routine and rebellion.” negative capability breaks with false necessity and shows that the organisation of society can be remade. we have made the world we live in, and we can struggle to remake it. in the first two articles in this volume both carrim and postma engage with these issues of critical agency from a macro perspective. carrim focuses on remaking society through social movements, while postma argues that the individual subject must find freedom and control within the self to resist the long arm of neoliberalism. nazir carrim reminds us that during apartheid, critical agency implied being critical of the ways in which schools reproduced, maintained and legitimised capitalism and racism, but that the meaning of the concept ‘critical agency’ has shifted in south africa after 1994, partly because there is no obvious ‘enemy’. he argues that in the 1970s and 1980s, marxism and critical theory connected critical thinking with critical agency in order to change the material relations and bases of capitalist orders. the social movements that were anti apartheid education could be categorised as ‘critical struggles’ movements to use touraine’s terminology. in the post-apartheid situation it is evident that ‘positive struggles’ predominate, where the emphasis is on engaging with existing institutions, organisations and orders rather than being fundamentally opposed to them. carrim’s challenge is that as education researchers we need editorial 3 to engage more robustly with what critical agency means for us now, where there is no clearly defined ‘enemy to destroy’. critical agency is also the subject of dirk postma’s article. he would argue that the enemy is clear, that it is neo-liberalism. he engages with the issue from a foucauldian stance on neo-liberalism and argues that ‘a foucauldian notion of critical agency provides a closer account of how subjectivity could be reclaimed through its resistance against and transcendence of the neoliberal order’. this article is a meditation on how neo-liberal governmentality creates subjugation, and that in order to challenge the reach of these processes, the individual subject has to appeal to a centre of control within him or herself. thus, he argues that the subject in particular is the terrain where freedom could be practiced and control asserted. if carrim and postma provide a macro focus on critical agency, then jenni case, callie grant and ansurie pillay provide a micro focus, reporting on data gathered through their own university teaching work. for fifteen years, jenni case has focused her research on engineering teaching and learning. here she reflects first on her own practice as an education researcher of a second year engineering course, and second, on her practice as a teacher of this same course some years later. her purpose is to engage with the kind of knowledge that university teachers draw on to improve their practice and what knowledge outputs may be exemplified as sotl (the scholarship of teaching and learning) as opposed to education research (and does it actually make a difference?) indirectly she engages with what it means to be an education researcher and a university teacher who is interested in ‘doing social justice’ in the most micro circle of influence, the classroom, through supporting students’ enduring conceptual learning. the assumption is that what good university teachers do in their classroom in terms of teaching and assessment makes a difference to how students learn, and that the choices that a university teacher makes are more often informed to the contextual challenges of a particular situation, rather than generalised findings from sotl. pillay’s study also focuses on the space of her own university classroom, which is where bed students learn to teach english literature in schools. her assumption is also that her choices as university teacher will make a difference to her students, both in the realm of their commitment to be ‘agents of change’ and in developing their own deep conceptual understanding of the 4 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 subject matter at hand (english literature). she describes a participatory action research project (par) where student teachers are framed as people who need to take agency to address social inequalities and to make a difference in their learners’ lives. her focus is on the methodology of par and how this enables student teachers to recognise their agency over ‘who they are and how they teach’. callie grant has been teaching and researching in the field of leadership and management for many years, with a particular focus on teacher leadership. in this article, she turns the focus to leadership clubs for learners in schools. the data were collected by teachers in south africa and namibia who are also bed hons students enrolled for a service learning module. these teachers needed to initiate learners’ leadership clubs in their schools, and as a starting point had to listen to the learners’ voices as they articulated what issues mattered to them at school. the ultimate purpose was that learners would develop leadership skills by adopting a particular project goal for the year, but this phase is not reported in this article. the assumption is that learners’ should take up agency in their own schools to address the matters that concern them most, a clear example of re-imagining the ways in which schools are organised, which mostly exclude learners’ voices. however, there are cultural, structural and organisational barriers to learners becoming agents of change in their school that would need to be addressed. the final article by meyer and abel engages with the key question of what teachers actually learn from professional development activities, using a hierarchy of outcomes to describe how these activities influence teachers’ practice. in south africa, we have an infuriating tendency to address shortfalls in teacher professional development with ‘one-size-fits-all’ workshops and short courses. no matter how much research comes out pointing to the need for sustained engagement through professional communities of practice and classroom mentoring and support, the quick and cheap fix is continuously reverted to, with the same result – the cheapest solution is not the most cost effective. precious resources of time, goodwill and money are tossed down the drain, along with the reports that chronicle the wastage. if ever there was a competition for ‘best’ form of false neccessity in education then workshops would be right up there. what other false necessities exist in education we leave for discussion at the 2015 saera conference in bloemfontein at the end of october, where, in the words of mao, we hope a thousand flowers bloom. editorial 5 references unger, r. 2004. false necessity: anti-necessitarian social theory in the service of radical democracy, (revised edition). london: verso. wayne hugo carol bertram school of education university of kwazulu-natal hugow@ukzn.ac.za bertramc@ukzn.ac.za mailto:hugow@ukzn.ac.za mailto:bertramc@ukzn.ac.za invoking learner voice and developing leadership: what matters to learners? callie grant abstract educational leadership and management (elm) research overly focuses on adult leadership development at the expense of leadership of learners. framed by the concept of learner voice, this article focuses on learner leadership and argues that learners should be treated as people whose ideas matter. it draws on a bachelor of education honours (elm) elective which required students (practicing teachers) to establish school leadership clubs and involve learners in a reform initiative in pursuit of leadership development. the longitudinal study which informed this article was designed as a multi-case study to explore learner voice and the development of leadership across 44 leadership clubs drawing on three data sources. the study found that while the phenomenon of learner leadership was not common across schools, leadership clubs offered a space for the development of learner voice. learner voice was generated in relation to the school physical environment, english proficiency amongst learners, improved learner conduct, developments pertaining to the extra-mural curriculum, and leadership training initiatives. in addition, the clubs afforded learners the opportunity to initiate and lead a change project in their schools. however, the take-up of learner leadership as a whole school initiative was problematic in the majority of schools. the article concludes with some suggestions for a future research agenda emerging out of the first phase of the project. background and context schools are not working for the majority of our south african youth. we hear, all too often, of the academic crisis in schools; inequalities in educational provision, high failure rates, an increasing learner dropout rate, abysmal mathematics results and levels of illiteracy pervading the system (department of basic education (dbe), 2011; christiansen, 2012; rembe, 2012; collins, 2015). in an attempt to redress the inequalities of apartheid, the south african education system has undergone wave after wave of curriculum redesign whilst, simultaneously, pursuing the global trend of standardisation, measurement and high stakes testing (maistry, 2014). surrounded by discourses of performativity and competition, schools are under enormous pressure to improve learner achievement which has narrowed the purpose of 94 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 schooling, not only in terms of pedagogy and content but also democratic participation (mitra and gross, 2009). westheimer and kahan (2003) describe how there has been a “shrinking of opportunities for students to have a democratic voice in the educational process” (in mitra and gross, 2009, p.525). consequently, many youth, particularly those who feel their lives, beliefs and hopes are devalued and ‘othered’ by schooling and the curriculum, develop hostility to the institution of schooling (mitra and gross, 2009). as jones (1996) so poignantly writes, many youth “have crawled beneath the blanket of despair and are suffocating from a lack of human connections” (in smyth, 2006a, p.280). yet in the context of australia, smyth argues that the so-called dropout problem is mislabelled; for him student dropout is a result of “a lack of system and societal care, respect and indifference towards young people” (2006a, p.283). this too is the case in south africa where the academic crisis in schools is a consequence of an uncaring and degenerating societal system. we are a society which has lost its moral compass (ramphele, 2008) and the group most affected are the youth and particularly those marginalised through poverty, illiteracy, hiv and aids and lack of access to the most basic of human resources (ramphele, 2008; wood and goba, 2011; williams, 2012). it is these learners who most need to be supported and engaged in schooling who are now most likely to be “disillusioned, ignored and even denigrated by the schooling system” (angus, 2006, p.370). however, it is precisely these marginalised learners who school leaders need to reach out to, engage with and learn to understand and accommodate in schools. as early as 1982, the canadian fullan asked “what would happen if we treated the learner as someone whose opinion mattered in the introduction and implementation of reform in schools” (in osberg, pope and galloway, 2006, p.329). building on this idea, osberg et al. ask the thought-provoking question: “how can schools involve students in the introduction and implementation of school reform in ways that best serve them as learners and potential leaders?” (p.343). in direct response to these questions, i want to build a case for the development of authentic learner leadership as one possible way to turn schools around. grant: invoking learner voice. . . 95 leadership and learner voice while leadership is a concept that is well-studied, research regarding adolescent leadership development is limited (whitehead, 2009). this is particularly so in south africa where learner leadership rarely features on the educational agenda and the voices of learners are, more often than not, ignored (mabovula, 2009). in the context of this article, leadership is understood to be relational, a dialectical process which engages the human agency of all members of the organisation (gunter, 2005; angus, 2006). based on dialogue and strong relationships, it is transformative and “can provide opportunities for all children to learn in school communities that are socially just and deeply democratic” (shields, 2004, pp.109–110). thus it is ethical in nature and its moral purpose is to promote the core values of social justice, democracy and equity in the social institutions of schools (foster, 1986; smyth, 2006b; starratt, 2007). framed in this manner, leadership cannot be reduced to managerial coercion but requires of one the courage to buck the rules, challenge the status quo and “worry more about engaging young people in schooling than managing their behaviour” (angus, 2006, p.376). because of the dialogical nature of leadership, the voices of learners are integral to any discussion on learner leadership. the international literature refers to the voices of learners as ‘student voice’ and the concept is used to describe the range of ways in which learners can share in decision-making in schools – the kinds of decisions that will shape their lives and the lives of their peers (fielding, 2001; mitra and gross, 2009). however, because south africa uses the term ‘learner’ to refer to school-going youth, i have chosen to use the concept of ‘learner voice’ rather than ‘student voice’ in the context of my work. learner voice is about true democracy within institutions (shuttle, 2007) and it is a potential catalyst for student agency. as mitra and gross (2009) contend, learner voice initiatives “can broaden the scope of who has a voice in schools and can even lead to student participation in developing school reform efforts” (p.538). however, they explain that schools tend to teach learners to be passive participants in a democracy rather than leaders. teachers and parents generally speak too readily on behalf of learners and often misunderstand or disregard their perspectives (fielding, 2001). and, as mabovula (2009) claims, when learners are given a voice, it is often a mere ‘stamp of approval’ rather than a commitment to democratic participation. 96 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 the establishment of learner leadership clubs as a service learning initiative while research has been growing on the topic of student voice in the international arena (fielding, 2001; flutter, 2006; mitra, 2006; whitehead, 2009; mitra and gross, 2009) it is limited in south africa and other african countries (mabovula, 2009; uushona, 2013). prompted by the need for research on learner voice and leadership development in south africa and guided by the questions raised towards the end of the previous section, i redesigned the elm honours elective at rhodes university with a learner leadership focus. the elective was designed as a service learning initiative, i.e. a teaching and learning strategy which linked the academic learning of the honours students with a community service experience (council on higher education, 2006; hart, 2006). to clarify, these honours students were experienced professionals, studying on a part-time basis while holding down full-time jobs in educational institutions such as schools. thus the elective was designed as a credit-bearing educational experience which required the students to participate in an organised service activity in their institution and reflect on it in such a way as “to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility” (bringle and hatcher, 1996, p.222). from the outset, the service activity set out expressly to treat learners as a serious constituent of the school community. like smyth (2006a), i was confronted with the question of how best to create the spaces within which forms of leadership could be exercised which incorporated the aspirations of learners. learner leadership clubs offered such a space of leadership from which learners could ‘speak back’ concerning what they considered important about their learning. thus these clubs were strategically positioned inside each of the schools of the honours students and organised as an extracurricular service learning activity for selected groups of learners. mitra (2006) reminds us that the way one organises a learner voice group when attempting to make school reforms is critical to the outcome. a leadership club as a structure should not be confused with the legislated ‘representative council of learners’ (rcl) which can now be found in the majority of the country’s secondary schools. in contrast to the rcl, participation in the afterschool clubs was voluntary and membership differed from school to school. furthermore, learner voice efforts through the mechanism of the clubs were grant: invoking learner voice. . . 97 categorically different from the traditional school roles located within the rcl (mitra and gross, 2009). the purpose of the clubs was that of leadership development which, as whitehead explains, requires “a multifaceted approach, which includes techniques that range from formal academic processes to experiential development, or what is described as leadership development within the context of work” (2009, p.856). in the schooling context, the clubs provided learners with opportunities to develop their voice in a space in which they would ‘be heard’, develop their leadership and “learn how to become citizens prepared to actively engage in their communities and participate in democracy” (mitra and gross, 2009, p.522). the design of the elective and the interventionist approach chosen was informed by the work of mitra and gross (2009) and their ‘pyramid of student voice’. their pyramid is designed as a three level structure to illustrate youth opportunities possible as learner voice is increased in a school (figure 1). pyramid of student voice (mitra and gross, 2009, p.523) figure 1: the pyramid begins at the bottom with the most basic (and most common) form of learner voice – ‘being heard’. in the context of the honours elective, this meant that the honours student, a teacher in the school, listened to learners through the mechanism of the learner leadership club to learn about their experiences at school and what mattered to them. this was achieved by getting the learners in the club involved as co-researchers in a simple learner survey. club learners were first assisted by the honours student to design a questionnaire in response to the following two research questions: 98 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 (i) what knowledge, skills and attitudes do learners need in order to be able to lead authentically in educational institutions? (ii) what can be learnt from learners about what matters to them in their institutions? next, club members distributed the questionnaires to learners in their grade and were responsible for the collection of the completed questionnaires. the honours student then assisted the members of the club to analyse the data in response to the research questions. thereafter, the club members, with the help of the honours student, determined the top five common ‘areas that mattered to learners’, in order of priority, in response to the second research question. from this list, the honours student guided the learners in selecting the priority area which would become the focus of the club for the remainder of the year. selection depended on the priority area being doable (in terms of time, resources and person power) and maintaining the interest and enthusiasm of the learners for an extended period of time (seven months). the second level of the ‘pyramid of student voice’ involves the phase of ‘collaborating with adults’ (mitra and gross, 2009, p.523). in the context of the honours elective, this level involved the honours students working with their club members to plan an intervention to address the focus area identified and implement the plan over the remainder of the year. important to note is that the intervention was intended to be learner-driven rather than teacherdriven. guided by shuttle’s (2007) typology of learner involvement in decision-making, rather than informing learners about or consulting them in order to support a decision, the intervention attempted to create an authentic and collaborative space in which decisions were shaped and owned by learners. smyth (2006a) has developed what he regards as the minimalist scaffolding necessary for the construction of spaces of leadership within which forms of leadership can be exercised. three of his ideas were particularly pertinent in the development and exercise of leadership through the clubs in this study: firstly, there was a need to support the honours students in their role as teachers in giving up some control and handing it over to learners; secondly, there was discussion about the importance of fostering an environment in which learners are treated with respect and trust rather than fear and threat of retribution; and finally, there was an emphasis on cultivating an atmosphere of care built around relationships (smyth, 2006a, p.282). grant: invoking learner voice. . . 99 the final (and smallest) level at the top of the pyramid, ‘building capacity for leadership’, includes an explicit focus on enabling youth to ‘share in the leadership of the student voice initiative’ (mitra and gross, 2009, p.524). this final level, mitra and gross (2009) argue, is the least common form of learner voice. at this level, learners can serve as a source of criticism and protest in schools by questioning issues such as cultural and structural injustices in the school. as will be seen from the ensuing discussion, the first phase of this project was designed with the purpose of exploring learner voice at the first two levels of the pyramid. the second phase of the project aims to take an indepth look at these first two levels and then it will attempt an exploration of learner voice at this third level of the pyramid. with this in mind, i now move on to discuss the research project which underpins this article. the research the research which underpins this article is part of a larger research project exploring learner leadership in schools in south africa and namibia. the project was designed as a longitudinal study to track the honours elm elective at the university over a four year period (2013–2016). a qualitative, multi-case study approach was adopted in trying to answer the following research question: do learner leadership clubs (as an extramural activity) contribute to the development of leadership in schools and, if so, how? as already mentioned, the first phase of the project was designed with the purpose of exploring learner voice at the first two levels of the pyramid. this first phase drew on two case studies; the first, a group of 12 learner leadership clubs drawn from the bed honours (elm) elective offered in grahamstown, south africa in 2013 and the second a group of 32 learner leadership clubs drawn from the elective offered in okahandja, namibia in 2014. participants in the first phase of the project included the two groups of honours students, 44 participants in total. data were generated from three different sources: first, the 44 academic journal articles which the students submitted as a major part of their assessment for the elective; second, the student self-reflective journals (the dp requirement for the elective) and third, two focus group interviews (fgi), one with a group of south african students and the other with a group of namibian students. thematic content analysis was used to analyse the data. 100 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 this first phase of the project offered a breadth of understanding on the topic at hand, an overview of what mattered to learners in schools. however, this first phase relied on the voices of teachers to speak on behalf of the learners; it did not access learner voice directly. thus, the second phase of the project, which is not yet completed, aims to select a sample of clubs from the first two case studies and do an in-depth analysis of learner voice and leadership development across all three levels of the student voice pyramid in a small number of schools. in this second phase, learners themselves will be a significant participant group. the purpose of this article, however, is to share the learning from the first phase of the project, and particularly what was learnt from the exploration of learner voice at the first level of the pyramid, ‘being heard’ (mitra and gross, 2009). i show, by means of two case studies (the south african and namibian cases), what really mattered to learners and the ways in which learners shared in decision-making and participated in school change initiatives. discussion what mattered to learners? the south african case study in the south african case study, 12 honours students were involved in the design and implementation of learner leadership clubs as an extra-mural service learning activity in schools during the 2013 academic year. of the schools involved, two were private city schools, one was a private rural school and rural public schools made up the balance. regarding the constitution of the clubs, 11 clubs involved high school learners with only one club involving primary school learners. as discussed earlier, the focus area selected by each of the clubs denoted the priority area which ‘mattered to learners’ and which emerged during the survey done by learners during the initial stage of the initiative. these areas can be categorised in a number of different ways and so table 1 is thus partial and represents but one way of organising them. table 1 uses four categories and a number of sub-categories to group these focus areas. grant: invoking learner voice. . . 101 table 1: what mattered to south african learners? categories and sub-categories of learner leadership club foci category sub-category no. of students physical environment (total 6) a cleaner environment, anti-littering and recycling maintenance (repair and repaint) of hand tennis court addressing water problems 4 1 1 leadership training (total 4) peer mentoring/twinning inviting learner voice opening communication channels 2 1 1 learner conduct (total 1) drug and substance abuse intervention programme 1 english proficiency (total 1) literacy intervention programme 1 in the context of the united kingdom, flutter’s (2006) research has shown that, for her young learners, “the school environment emerged as one of the most important factors affecting the quality of students’ learning in school” (p.184). in line with flutter’s research, the physical environment emerged as an important factor in the south african case study with half of the interventions (6 of a total of 12) focusing broadly, in some way or another, on this area. four of these six clubs were interested in creating a cleaner school environment and they did this through campaigns to do with anti-littering and recycling. the fifth club aimed, through its intervention, to address the water problems facing the school while the focus of the sixth club was the repair and painting of the hand tennis court. this focus on the school environment is unsurprising given the poor condition of the majority of our south african school buildings. like flutter (2006), i contend that the general poor condition of many school buildings reveals the low status assigned to learners and symbolises a lack of commitment to their education, a message which is not lost on learners. it stands to reason then, that this would be an area which learners would like to change. the next most common category consisted of four (of 12) focus areas, all of which had to do with leadership training of some form or another. these included two peer mentoring/twinning initiatives, an initiative aimed generally to invite learner voice and a final one which attempted to open 102 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 communication channels between the learners and the management team. one leadership club in this case study focused on a drug and substance abuse intervention programme which i categorised as learner conduct whilst the final club focused on a literacy intervention programme which i placed in the category of english proficiency. the namibian case study in the namibian case study, 32 honours students were involved in the design and implementation of learner leadership clubs as an extra-mural service learning activity in schools during the 2014 academic year. while a couple of the honours students taught in the local public schools in windhoek, the majority taught in schools in small rural towns and deep rural villages in the lower socio-economic northern regions of namibia. as with the south african case study, the majority of the namibian clubs (29) were located in high schools with only three clubs in primary schools. this statistic across both case studies must give us pause for thought. what does this statistic suggest about the selection process used in our b ed honours qualification? why are so few primary school teachers (both foundation phase and intermediate phase) selected for the honours programme? what does this mean for the development of teachers in these critical phases? whilst these questions are beyond the scope of this article, they are crucial and further investigation thereof is essential. with regard to the namibian case study, table 2 represents my categorisation of the 32 namibian learner leadership clubs. table 2 uses four categories and a number of sub-categories to group the 32 focus areas. three of the four categories overlap with the categories in the south african case study. grant: invoking learner voice. . . 103 table 2: what mattered to namibian learners? categories and sub-categories of learner leadership club foci category sub-category no. of students english proficiency (total 16) speaking, reading and writing english library access and functionality academic performance (including homework club, learning skills) 8 4 4 learner conduct (total 10) drug and substance abuse intervention programme bullying late coming and absenteeism ill-discipline uniform learner pregnancy 2 2 2 2 1 1 physical environment (total 3) littering campaign tree planting 2 1 extra-curricular (total 3) introducing an extra-mural sporting activity improving the lrc election campaign 2 1 unlike the south african case study, the namibian case did not centre on the physical environment of the school as its main category. in fact, only three clubs had focus areas which fitted into this category (two which adopted, as their initiatives, littering campaigns and the third which attended to tree planting as the club project). instead, the most common category (in the namibian case study) was english proficiency with an overwhelming 16 of the 32 focus areas fitting into this category. eight of these sixteen clubs were interested in the speaking, reading and writing of english. interest in reading was also apparent in a further four clubs in this category; these clubs focused on ensuring that their previously dysfunctional school libraries were up and running, accessible to learners and staffed by themselves as learner leaders. academic performance through developing homework clubs and improving learning skills was a central focus for the remaining four clubs in this category. the next most common category consisted of ten (of 32) focus areas, all of which had to do with learner conduct in some form or another. this category was populated with intervention programmes which addressed drug and 104 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 substance abuse, bullying, late coming and absenteeism, ill-discipline, appropriate wearing of the school uniform and learner pregnancy. the final category involved extra-curricular initiatives (3 of 32) including the introduction of new sporting codes in the schools as well as a focus on improving the rcl election campaign at a particular school. what was learnt from these two case studies? from the first phase of the research project, i was able to identify five key areas of learning about learner voice and leadership in the context of our african case studies. firstly, the phenomenon of learner leadership was not common across the two case studies. one honours student was of the view that “it’s an area that has been overlooked so obviously, in my experience at least, i haven’t seen a lot of it in many schools. . . so it won’t be easy to just enforce it; you have to make them accommodate it slowly” (fgi, 2013). the newness of the topic to another student was apparent in the following excerpt: “i enjoy this because it’s a brand new angle for me; i never had to learn about learner leadership. it’s always, as a teacher you must do this, but it’s never about the learner. so that was something new” (fgi, 2013). yet another honours student spoke of “bringing out the importance of the learner because we take things for granted, that we know what is good for the learners and, as a result, they resist” (fgi, 2013). secondly, learner leadership clubs as an extra-curricular activity in the case study schools offered a space for the development of learner voice and leadership. however, these clubs are but one example of a range of structures which can be introduced into schools with a minimum of disruption to draw on and develop leadership in learners. through the mechanisms of clubs, the importance of healthy relationships amongst learners, and between learners and their facilitating teacher, surfaced. one honours student explained that “what matters in schools are relationships, because if relationships are working, any programme that can come can be implemented successfully” (fgi, 2013). another described how, “if learners are given a voice and if the relationship between the learners and teachers is good, there is a harmony in the school and all the beautiful programmes that we try to bring into the school can work out” (fgi, 2013). as a consequence of the club, yet another grant: invoking learner voice. . . 105 honours student described how “now i am looking at my learners from another angle, that they have souls, they are human beings of which they have potential. it’s just that i have to discover who they are, so basically my growing, or my growth, will enable them to grow as well” (fgi, 2013). thus, as a consequence of the clubs, relations were acknowledged as central to the work of schools. smyth (2006b), drawing on the work of warren (2005), calls on schools to invest learners with ‘relational power’ which refers to “the building of trust within and across a range of groups in schools in ways that enable the development and pursuit of a common vision about how schools can work for all, including those most marginalised and excluded” (p.292). in this study, the introduction of learner leadership clubs in schools provided a mechanism through which teachers worked towards making their learners ‘powerful people’ (after smyth, 2006b). the clubs provided the platform for authentic communication and debate amongst learners; they offered a generative and non-threatening space in which learners learnt to lead and they provided the catalyst for the emergence of learner-led school change initiatives. thirdly, learners have leadership potential. when given a generative and non-threatening space, learners were able to articulate what good leaders need to know and do and they were also able to list the values that good leaders aspire to. for example, the members of one of the clubs indicated that in order to execute leadership effectively, learners were required to be self-confident and have a high self-esteem. they also included in their deliberations the need to be caring, motivating, committed, accountable, respectful, flexible and honest. the attribute of being ‘exemplary’ topped their list as the most important leadership trait for learners (student academic journal article). when afforded the opportunity, learners were further able to communicate a vision and then work as a team to initiate a plan of action in response to that vision, with varying levels of autonomy and success. thus it would seem that the development of learner voice is the first step in the development of their leadership. however, angus (2006) challenges us to do more than merely invite learner voice. he calls on school leaders and all teachers to invoke student voice, to “insist upon, enquire into, try to understand, interrogate, and generate student voice as best they can” (2013, p.378). this suggests that the development of leadership is a conscious and active process requiring modelling and teaching. one honours student made the point that we cannot complain about the youth when we have forfeited our 106 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 responsibility to teach them: “we are not involving them. they are not part of the decision-making. and we are not giving them a part to play. we are not giving them the responsibility” (fgi, 2013). another honours student spoke of the different approaches she now adopted with her learners; an internal conversation she had with herself as a reminder to ‘do it differently’: “i’ve learnt a lot, how i interact, how (do) i invite them, how (do) i make them participatory, how (do) i make their voices heard” (fgi, 2013). whilst it was beyond the scope of the first phase of this research project to investigate the levels of success of the various learner leadership clubs, the second phase of the project is designed with this specific intention in mind. however, the findings of the first phase of the project suggest that, in subsaharan africa, learners constitute a latent source of leadership waiting to be tapped. the question that needs to be asked is: how best can we draw on the leadership of learners to assist us in the transformation of our schools? fourthly, and having listened to and ‘heard’ the learners through the mechanism of the leadership clubs, there are a number of issues which mattered to learners in the context of the case study schools. these can be organised broadly into the following categories: i) issues related to the physical environment of schools, ii) a focus on english proficiency amongst learners, iii) improved learner conduct, iv) developments pertaining to the extra-mural curriculum and v) leadership training initiatives. in and of themselves, these focus areas are both appropriate and doable. furthermore, these ‘matters of concern’ to learners are not so different from what matters to good teachers. so the challenge for teachers is surely to learn to really listen to what learners have to say, collaborate more with them and create as many opportunities as possible for learners to speak about what truly matters to them. by so doing, teachers are more likely to be able to draw learners in as allies to the education enterprise and work alongside them as agents of change in the education process. however, and making my fifth point, the take-up of leadership development of learners as a whole school initiative was problematic in the majority of the 44 schools. while permission was granted from the principals and parents for the clubs to operate in the schools (all issues related to access, permission and ethics was formally attended to at the beginning of the project), these clubs were often (mis)understood as the sole domain of the honours students and viewed as a temporary structure in the school. as a consequence, the honours students did not receive the full support of the staff and the take-up of learner grant: invoking learner voice. . . 107 voice and leadership as a whole school initiative failed. one honours student described how the staff “distanced themselves from the whole process” (fgi, 2014). this was perhaps because “they don’t understand and they do not see the importance of it” (fgi, 2014). another honours student recounted how her principal did not like the idea of the intervention and warned her about it: “it must not disturb the programme of the school” (fgi, 2014). this same student also had little support from the teaching staff, perhaps for the following reason: “i think the way the principal introduced the whole intervention to the staff room also let them distance themselves from the whole process, and they thought it’s just this teacher’s thing that she wants for her bed honours, and that is her problem” (fgi, 2014). in retrospect and in line with the view of mitra (2006), as the coordinator of this learner leadership development initiative, i should have done more preparatory work to convince the schools of the importance of learner voice and leadership and garnered more support for the honours students. following smyth’s (2006b) advice, the unit of change should have been the whole school rather than the individual teacher with his/her leadership club. in line with this thinking, mitra convincingly argues that “before students are accepted as key players in school reform and decision-making, however, the concept of student voice must gain legitimacy amongst powerful stakeholders in the school” (2006, p.315). drawing on the work of chan (2000), whitehead (2009) makes the very real point that leadership development programmes are often not well-integrated into the formal school curriculum. thus the challenge facing the university facilitators now during the second phase of the project is to explore ways to get the clubs more integrated into the schools in which the honours students teach. rather than it passing for a ‘tokenistic activity’ (shuttle, 2007), the goal of the facilitating team is to get learner voice and leadership taken seriously in schools. this calls for increased mobilisation on our part through the sharing of documentation on learner voice and leadership with the teaching staff at the project schools and meeting with some of the school management teams to discuss the importance of our leadership development efforts within this project and beyond. in summary, and in the words of shuttle, “learner voice should not act as an adjunct to an institution’s activities, but needs to be woven into all aspects of the institution, not hierarchically but as networks of engagement, thus paving the way towards a leadership model that is increasingly student-led” (2007, p.45). 108 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 researching learner leadership: future directions publication opportunities emerging from phase one there are a number of publication opportunities emerging out of this first phase of the project. while all 44 honours students involved in the 2013 and 2014 case studies submitted academic journal articles (a major component of their elective assessment), about one quarter were of a very high standard. our plan is to work with a few of these students to get their work into a form which can ultimately be published in academic peer-reviewed journals. to further communicate our research, the idea of an edited book on the development of leadership through the mechanism of the learner leadership clubs is appealing. in envisioning the book, our aim is to invite interested honours students, drawn from across the south african and namibian case studies, to contribute chapters in which they will share in their experiences of the leadership clubs they instituted. looking across the 44 academic journal articles drawn from the two case studies, there is scope for a meta-analysis of the data. a cursory read of the articles reveals some recurring themes which become immediately evident. the communication of these findings would offer a valuable contribution to this under-researched topic in sub-saharan africa. in addition, this honours elective has provided the rare opportunity to explore learner leadership as it intersects with teacher leadership. in this regard, the self-reflective journals of the honours students are particularly rich in tracking the leadership development of teachers as they facilitated the leadership development of their learners. this leadership nexus is a hitherto unexplored area in the local literature. research opportunities emerging from phase two as we proceed with the second phase of the project, a number of research opportunities are envisaged. first, two further case studies will be included in this longitudinal study, a south african one in 2015 and a namibian one in 2016. second, there is scope to investigate the levels of success of a sample of learner leadership clubs from the original two cases in terms of their contribution to the leadership development of learners. third, a few students who completed the honours elm elective will retain a learner leadership grant: invoking learner voice. . . 109 focus and continue with their clubs towards their masters degree. fourth, it would be interesting to explore the nature of support needed by teachers to facilitate the development of learner leadership. would the idea of a critical friend or a buddy system work for the lead teacher? this leads into my fifth point which is about the school conditions necessary for the development of learner leadership. this, in turn, raises the sixth and final point – is there a place for parents in learner leadership development? concluding comments while student disengagement from schools is an international problem (mitra and gross, 2009), this article has argued that learners can be a major contributor to school reform and have a key role to play in the change process. however, as smyth (2006b) contends, when we fail to place relationships at the centre of schooling and instead focus on performativity and high stakes testing, we weaken our sense of community and trust and alienate increasing numbers of learners, particularly those already disadvantaged. in so doing, we make the reproduction of disadvantage for these learners much more likely and this works counter to the moral purpose of education and educational leadership which is “to promote in schools as social institutions the core values of social justice, democracy, and equity” (angus, 2006, p.374). educational leadership which promotes these core values of social justice, democracy, and equity is difficult work. it requires a transformative approach (following shields, 2004) which is based on dialogue and strong relationships and the ability to facilitate critical inquiry. such a leadership approach is essential in order to review existing school practices and promote a just, inclusive and meaningful learning environment for all learners. thus, the schooling experience needs to leave learners feeling empowered and enriched rather than disillusioned and denigrated. for angus, the starting point is likely to be when “the school, its teachers and leaders reach out to such children, move to meet them rather than expecting them to adjust to the entrenched school and teacher paradigms, and attempt to engage them in relevant and interesting school experiences in which they can recognise themselves, their parents, and their neighbours” (2006, p.370). 110 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 this article is premised on the idea that the development of authentic learner leadership is critical if we hope to turn schools around. it calls on school leaders and teachers to draw on their own agency and develop strategies to invoke learner voice. this requires of teachers and school leaders “courageous forms of leadership that fearlessly promote the importance of student ownership and student voice in respect of learning” (smyth, 2006a, p.282). this article has argued that learner leadership clubs as an extramural activity in schools offers one such strategy to invoke learner voice and develop leadership. the clubs provide the mechanism – they offer a structure – through which teachers can reach out to learners, meet them and engage them in relevant and interesting experiences in the complex journey to turn schools around. club activities are learner-driven and members take on various roles, including that of co-researcher, planner and intervention implementer in the process of becoming leaders, prepared to challenge the status quo but with alternatives (after smyth, 2006b). in conclusion, i want to comment briefly on the honours elm elective as a university service learning activity and its implications for higher education research and practice. the demanding context of higher education in south africa has placed university lecturers under mounting pressure to find alternative ways to meet their commitments related to teaching, research and community engagement, the three pillars of a traditional university. in order to survive (and thereafter thrive) i have had to work strategically and adopt a more inclusive view of what it means to be a scholar. in line with the thinking of boyer (1991), i contend that knowledge is acquired “through research, through synthesis, through practice, and through teaching. . .” (boyer 1991, p.11) and that these four scholarships – of discovery, integration, application and teaching – are inextricably linked to each other. conceptualising the bed honours (elm) elective as a service learning initiative with an explicit research focus (both for the students and for me) was thus a strategy i adopted to integrate my teaching, research and community engagement commitments. despite some preliminary challenges, this integrated approach has proved successful and the elm elective, conceptualised as a service learning initiative, has been retained within the honours curriculum. time will tell just how much purchase we get from the initiative in terms of school reform and research publication. grant: invoking learner voice. . . 111 references angus, l. 2006. educational leadership and the imperative of including student voices, student interests, and students’ lives in the mainstream. international journal of leadership in education: theory and practice, 9(4): pp.369–379 boyer, e.l. 1991. highlights of the carnegie report: the scholarship of teaching from ‘scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professoriate’. college teaching, 39(1): pp.11–13 bringle, r.g. and hatcher, j.a. 1996. implementing service learning in higher education. the journal of higher education, 67(2): pp.221–239. christiansen, i.m. 2012. ready to teach? reflections on a south african mathematics teacher education programme. journal of education, 56: pp.163–194. collins, m. 2015. partners for possibility: how business leaders and principals are igniting radical change in south african schools. randburg: 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(eds). finding place and keeping pace: exploring meaningful and equitable learning in south african schools. cape town: hsrc press, pp.120–134. wood, l. and goba, l. 2011. care and support of orphaned and vulnerable children at school: helping teachers to respond. south african journal of education, 31: pp.275–290. callie grant faculty of education rhodes university c.grant@ru.ac.za mailto:c.grant@ru.ac.za creating my academic self and space: autoethnographic reflections on transcending barriers in higher education ronicka mudaly abstract this article focuses on my ethnographic self-reconstruction in order to explore my academic journey, by critically evaluating the influence of professional academic cultures on my teaching practice, with a view to understanding my professional identity. i make visible to the reader and myself my suppressed feelings, emotions and ambitions by analysing learning opportunities that facilitate my ‘being’ an academic. drawing on theoretical frames from autoethnography, i engage in personal epistemological vigilance by directing my sociological gaze inwards. i retroactively and selectively draw on diary recordings of my own micro-ethnographies, and my teaching portfolio statement as the data sets. my entry into this slippery, treacherous space evokes feelings of vulnerability and hyper-visibility. it illuminates the struggle of being on the right-hand side of binaries such as disciplinary specialist/ interdisciplinary researcher, experienced/novice academic, and scholar/teacher. this work has implications for other academics who feel undervalued, over-extended and trapped in the labour of teaching. why and how i tell my story in this narrative, i make a conscious effort to understand and make visible my professional experience including my suppressed feelings, emotions and ambitions as a woman academic. this exploration of my academic journey illuminates “educational challenges that have resonance beyond the self” (pithouse, mitchell and webb, 2009, p.43) and creates an opportunity for crafting responses to these challenges. delamont (2007, p.1) argues that “introspection is not an appropriate substitute for data collection” and cannot be used to drive our “disciplines forward”. i contend that my account is not embedded in a solipsistic intention. far from being an endeavour in selfobsession (delamont, 2007), this sharing of my experiences is intended to have transferable implications for other academic identities. i look for cultural meanings of my lived experiences with others, and analyse these using supporting literature. 36 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 i engage in this autoethnographic account using a subjective lens to gain and share new understandings of the interaction of my academic self with the higher education professional culture. spry (2001, p.711) describes the autoethnographic researcher as the “epistemological and ontological nexus” of the research process. autoethnography connects the knower to what is known, and to what is knowable, and thereby links the “personal to the cultural” (ellis and bochner, 2000, p.739). based on the ontological assumption that cultural realities are perceived differently by people who emerge from the same cultural setting, the autoethnographer seeks to offer “narrative truth as pragmatic truth” and strives for “verisimilitude and truthfulness” instead of precision and truth (ashley and peterson, 2015, pp.226–227). entering the world of academia after teaching secondary school biology for 22 years, i enthusiastically entered the world of higher education. my achievements as a teacher had included my qualification with a doctoral degree in education, my appointments to the positions of head of department in science and mathematics education, provincial examiner, senior marker, cluster coordinator for biology, and examiner for the national science olympiads, among other things. i was well-known and well-liked by subject advisors and my peers, and felt confident to take the vertiginous leap into the world of academia. i resigned from the position as a school teacher on a friday, and on the subsequent monday, i began my work as a teacher in an academic institution in the department of science teacher education. i felt that i was given a blank page on which i could make my mark in higher education. little did i realise that the “invisible ink of expectation” (hayler, 2011, p.3) was very real. there was no academic who was appointed to nurture me into the teaching practices at this level. a module file was handed to me and i was requested to teach. i was allocated several undergraduate classes with large numbers of students, and this resonates with experiences of early career academics in other settings (see fitzmaurice, 2013; mcalpine, 2014). the mentor who was assigned to me conducted a lecture visit once during each of three semesters, and wrote a report; this was the limit of mentorship. this lack of “systemic socialization” was also experienced by early career academics in mudaly: creating my academic self and space. . . 37 portnoi’s study (2009, p.187). a small storage room which was located a distance away from offices occupied by staff was allocated to me. an old computer was given to me. i had neither a telephone nor access to a printer or photocopier. my ‘office’ was equipped with two large, old wooden tables and a small bookshelf. in a moment of intuitive perspicuity, i realised that i was literally and figuratively a ‘peripheral professional’. the teaching was exhausting. after the end of teaching, i remained on campus, adapted materials from the module files and generated new teaching materials. there was no joint enterprise in sight and no further sharing of skills and expertise. three weeks after my appointment, i was called to a meeting and asked about my plans for research outputs. having been overwhelmed by teaching responsibilities, i realised i had hardly given any thought to writing scientific papers. i was embarrassed and felt like an unworthy investment because i neglected to attend to that most critical part of being an academic, known as pus (an unfortunate acronym!) or productivity units. unlike early career academics in the study conducted by fitzmaurice (2013), i was not acutely aware of the fiscal austerity which demanded performance in terms of research productivity units. the euphoria of being an academic rapidly atrophied as the reality that i was in an unfamiliar space, which was disordered, descended. this, however, represented a transcendental moment, a moment in which i resolved to create the opportunities to re-orientate in order to navigate the higher education terrain. the first step was to make a conscious effort to understand my professional experience and to locate myself as the “epistemic subject” (greene, 1971, p.3). by becoming fully attentive to my professional life, i would be enabled to perceive new things en route to what phenix (cited in greene, 1971, p.6), refers to as “self transcendence” which enables one to simultaneously be “agent and knower and at once to identify with what (one) comes to know”. in order to chart the academic terrain, i needed to make landmarks visible which presented themselves as questions. how do i meet the requirements of the work of an academic, which included teaching, research and community engagement? what is the critical literature related to my scholarship of teaching? what informs my approaches to teaching and assessment? which philosophies underpin my journey through the academic triad of the teaching, research and community engagement? who are the philosophical giantesses and giants who influence my thinking? what is my research niche area? how does my academic work intersect with what husu (2001, p.178) refers to as the “complexity of women’s academic positions”? how can i become that 38 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 academic whose contribution is not trebly negligible because she is black, a woman and in the junior echelons of the higher education hierarchy? in “stepping back” i examine my “situated self” which is contingent on the socio-political and historical milieu (pithouse, mitchell and webb, 2009, p.44). this personal exploration of “scholarship in and through teaching” (loughran, 2004, p.7) is underpinned by theoretical constructs from “postmodern, feminist and post-colonial paradigms” (laboskey, 2004b, p.818). instead of perpetuating the status quo, my retrospective introspection aims to “provoke, challenge and illuminate” (bullough and pinnegar, 2001, p.20). i position myself as, what laboskey (2004a) refers to, being both actor and spectator. why autoethnography? ellis, adams and bochner (2010) contend that researching thoughts, actions and emotions which are rooted in personal experience, raises the consciousness of readers to identity politics. they add that autoethnography can also remove the shroud of silence around personal decisions related to meeting institutional requirements. maistry (2015) ventures beyond this veil of silence at a south african higher education institution by offering a candid account of how academics are coerced to comply with officially sanctioned performance requirements. he refers to the “dense surveillance network” (maistry, 2015, p.30) to which academics are constantly subjected, and he provides a personal account of his position within that network which he refers to as the “power machinery” (p.31). his commitment to the “understanding of truth telling, or parrhesia” (maistry, 2015, p.25), elucidates an institutional structure which relentlessly unleashes its disciplinary power. the value of autoethnography in understanding identity politics of contemporary academics is evident in the works of several researchers. according to archer (2008, p.387), academic identity development involves non-linear, disrupted processes of “unbecoming” young academics when they cannot contribute to the corporate demands of the university within the fixed time frame. the constant stress and pressure and the real threat of being “rendered illegitimate” erodes at new academics’ sense of self (archer, 2008, p.390). archer’s study (2008) reveals how self-doubt about their competence paradoxically resulted in novice academics’ choice to engage in inauthentic, mudaly: creating my academic self and space. . . 39 contrived behaviours and language, in order to be perceived as authentic academics, and a legitimate investment. dison (2004), who researched students who were enrolled in a research capacity development workshop, found that young academics experienced race and gender prejudices. researchers who were black and female were engaged mainly as field workers, because they were perceived to be familiar with black peoples’ culture and language. however, once the data had been generated, it was to be handed to researchers who were perceived to be more competent to interpret and write – these were white, ‘authentic’ researchers. the effects of racialised and gendered asymmetries of power on becoming (and possibly unbecoming) an academic persist in post-apartheid south africa (dison, 2004; maritz and prinsloo, 2015). autoethnography among teacher educators hayler (2011, p.13) underscores the need to hear voices of teacher educators through “self-narrative . . . lived experience with all its historical, social and cultural contexts . . . it follows that experiences of teacher educators offer insight and illumination in this key area of education”. connelly and clandinin (1990, p.4) assert that a crucial quality of narrative inquiry in education by storying and restorying one’s life is the possibility of generating “stories of empowerment”. this can be enhanced by applying the characteristics of autoethnography, as elucidated by ellis, adams and bochner (2010). these include the production of thick descriptions of experience, both with oneself and with others; the use of methodological tools for reflexive inquiry; writing about critical moments or epiphanies which result in a significant direction in the trajectory of one’s career; the consideration of how other people may have experienced similar critical moments; the accommodation of emotionality and subjectivity in research, the troubling of canonical ideas which underpin conventional research; and the different assumptions which people possess of the world which are based on social markers of difference, such as age, race, social class, gender and level of educational achievement. these characteristics inform the telling and interpretation of my story. 40 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 my story i play my hand and tell my story (hayler, 2011), and in sharing this experience of making sense of my professional life, i hope to contribute to my and other academics’ understanding of teacher education and teacher educators. i do not intend to negate the “poststructural, antifoundational arguments” (denzin, 2006, p.421), which are becoming increasingly conspicuous in the social sciences research landscape. therefore i will not embed my story in parochial philosophical paradigms. i am aware that “reductive analytic analysis and theorization” (canagarajah, 2012, p.258) is considered by some researchers as being subaltern to the rich, descriptive stories which constitute evocative autoethnography. i cannot deny my emotional recall of forgotten motivations and suppressed feelings, experienced as a nascent academic. however, i weave the thread of professional identity as i story my interaction with different academic cultural communities. i am reminded that autoethnography as a methodology is simultaneously ethnographic, interpretive and autobiographical (chang, 2008; ellis, adams and bochner, 2010). therefore, i consciously engage both emotionally and cognitively in order to give an account which is faithful to my experience. my initial professional identity in higher education was a teacher of undergraduate students in the school of science education. i aspired to become more than this. one critical moment which fueled this aspiration came at the end of 2008, after my first eight months in academia. it involved a chance meeting with a senior management member. he was walking hurriedly up a staircase which i was descending. he offered a courteous greeting and while stepping, he said that he wanted to meet me and talk about publications. i said that i had published one article. he stopped climbing. he turned to face me. he enquired about the name of the journal. my reply pleased him because it was an accredited journal. a smile of satisfaction spread across his face and he said how pleased he was, and praised me generously. i was delighted! until this incident, i had little idea about how deeply academic publications (and the authors thereof) were valued. this was a crucial moment and it motivated me to become an academic who taught meaningfully in undergraduate and postgraduate modules, who was a research supervisor, a published author, a principal investigator and participant in research projects. mudaly: creating my academic self and space. . . 41 transforming teaching i begin this reflection on my pedagogy by looking back to my diary entry as a novice academic, sharing thoughts which arose on interrogating my teaching in the interregnum, and micro-movements which signaled changes in the trajectory of my practice. my diary reflection in my first year as an academic provides telling clues to my identity as a novice academic. 29 april 2008 taught nutrition. showed clear, excellent quality pics of people suffering from kwashiorkor, anaemia, rickets and scurvy. students felt revulsion at the scurvy one – bleeding gums! they paid attention. someone asked about different kinds of anaemianice to know that they knew there was more than one kind. am happy with notes – cover everything needed. looking inward, i realised i had become a traditional teacher and was promoting what freire referred to as “banking education”. i was making “deposits” by giving students copious bodies of notes and powerpoint slides, which they were expected to “patiently receive, memorise and repeat” (freire, 1970, p.58). when i stated that the notes ‘cover everything needed’, i meant that the incidence, symptoms and signs, causes and treatment/management, and prevention of each disease were included. and that was it. the end! my discourse was biomedical, based on centuries of eurocentric science and scientists such as james lind (scurvy), daniel whistler and francis glisson (rickets), and cicely williams (kwashiorkor). i was enacting this pedagogy within a socio-politically transforming south african context. this fledgling democracy enshrined grand aims and principles in its policies, such as the national curriculum statement for life sciences (department of education, 2011, pp.4–5), to guide teachers, and these included: ! equipping learners, irrespective of their socio-economic background, race, gender, physical ability or intellectual ability, with the knowledge, skills and values necessary for self-fulfillment and meaningful participation in society as citizens of a free country 42 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 ! social transformation: ensuring that the educational imbalances of the past are redressed ! encouraging an active and critical approach to learning rather than rote and uncritical learning of truths ! infusing the principles and practices of social and environmental justice and human rights as defined in the constitution of the republic of south africa . . . sensitive to issues of diversity such as poverty, inequality, race, gender, language. . . ! valuing of indigenous knowledge systems on reflection, i realised that my pedagogy was discordant with my deeply held beliefs and values about science education and its purpose, which resonated with the preceding aims and principles. my approach was flawed. drawing from fitzmaurice (2013) i see this critical moment as being underpinned by my obligation to students to teach for meaningful change. i realised i was not preparing science teachers to teach for ‘social transformation’, ‘meaningful participation in society’ and being ‘sensitive to . . . poverty, inequality. . .’ as outlined in the policy. as a teacher educator in science, i needed to look outward towards ways which would heighten the awareness of pre-service science teachers, who were my students, about how they could transform their teaching and thereby transform their communities. this change in my stance was not informed solely by education policy imperatives. i also aimed to craft a career which was moulded, in part, by the vision and mission of the tertiary institution which i served. i did so not simply to be compliant, but because these were underpinned by a liberatory ideology, which resonated with my personal views about the purpose of education. i sought to create spaces for my students and i to engage in critical forms of inquiry, to cultivate a spirit of social responsibility, and to promote self-sufficiency and empowerment in the wider society. a focus on socially relevant science education by exploring socio-scientific issues became central to my pedagogy. i sought to model the role of a science teacher through my own teaching. i wanted to deviate from the scientistcentred approach to create a student-centred point of view, which focused on citizens as beneficiaries of science education. my goal was to motivate students to learn and teach science for “social responsibility” (hayler, 2011, mudaly: creating my academic self and space. . . 43 p.362). later, through reading, it dawned on me that i had unwittingly adopted a humanistic perspective to science education (or perhaps the humanistic perspective had adopted me), which was somewhat subversive to traditional school science. instead of values of submission and maintenance of the status quo, i decided to focus on values of transformation and emancipation, and to educate for critical consciousness. i wanted to navigate away from traditional science education with its ‘top-down’ approach, towards a liberating education, not merely for my students but with my students. according to dos santos (2009), a humanistic perspective to science education is underpinned by theoretical constructs from critical pedagogy and aims to transform oppressive contexts. drawing on my experience as a school teacher, i was acutely mindful of the social chasm between working class and middle class learners (at schools) and students (at tertiary institutions). i wanted to raise my students’ consciousness about how they could produce knowledge through human practices in order to address community challenges. borrowing from freire (1976), the following guidelines for a transformative education applied to my practice: 1. exploring students’ socio-cultural contexts and concerns which could be applied to science education. i created the opportunity for dialogue and debate during the lecture periods, and students articulated many social challenges in their communities, including malnutrition and disease, poverty and environmental degradation. based on students’ views, instead of teaching about nutrition in the ‘traditional’ way as i had done previously, i developed a major project titled: nutrition and health through food gardening. students were required to work collaboratively with one another and other knowledge holders and develop strategies to promote self-sufficiency and resilience in their communities, by creating gardens for nutrition and alleviating health problems. borrowing from ferreira and ebersohn (2012, p.32), i positioned the nutritional challenge as a “risk factor” and the student as the “protective resource”. instead of focusing on canonical science content embedded in the traditional scientific approach, my students engaged in a science which had practical utility and focused on social issues. 44 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 2. sharing the world with others. students were required to work with community members, such as health care providers and teachers, to determine the prevalence and management of disease in the community. 3. constructing and reconstructing the world. i engaged the services of a permaculturalist who taught students how to plant crops in a workshop activity (figure 1). i also worked with an indigenous knowledge holder who taught students the value of african indigenous medicinal plants (figure 2). i wanted to trouble the notion that “knowledge systems not rooted in the western mode of thinking are ‘naturally’ subaltern” (mudaly and ismail, 2013, p.173). through this project i sought to create a space for valuing and learning indigenous practices. in order to disrupt the idea that academics who were schooled in the western traditions of science, were the only source of legitimate knowledge, i engaged the services of custodians of indigenous knowledge and nonacademic experts in permaculture. the world of teaching and learning science within the teacher education milieu was reconstructed in these ways. figure 1: permaculturalist as a teacher in higher education mudaly: creating my academic self and space. . . 45 figure 2: traditional healer as a teacher in higher education students engaged in the transformation of the situation in their communities by developing food gardens on the university grounds and in selected schools. for me, multiple personal and professional goals, which were blurred because they overlapped, were met in and through this work. first, students learned how to cultivate gardens using permaculture methods and african indigenous methods, with a view to applying this knowledge when they became practicing teachers to address similar challenges in their school communities. second, indigenous knowledge systems which had been marginalised for centuries were being restored and revalued in contemporary society. third, the perpetuation of superordinate relations of power and knowledge, rooted in epistemic understandings of euro-western education, was being disrupted. fourth, students were being trained for community engagement using the vehicle of science education. here, science education included sciences from different knowledge systems, which was taught by diverse knowledge holders. finally, the traditional ways of learning to teach science were being disturbed through the pursuit of difference, which was navigated by collapsing disciplinary boundaries. through this activity, students were enabled to “develop a critical comprehension of their social reality and transform it” (dos santos, 2009, p.374). 46 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 the following excerpt from my teaching portfolio, developed in my sixth year of service, which expresses the rationale for my teaching approach, resonates with the pedagogy that i have described: 31 january 2014 i create a form of science education which encourages and enables students to reflect on their civic responsibility within the context of contemporary south african society. educating students for critical consciousness by designing teaching and supervision in a way that words, pictures and actions generate a transformable praxis, influence my thinking. my teaching approach resonates with that of paulo freire (1994, p.78), who wrote in his book, pedagogy of hope: reliving pedagogy of the oppressed: . . .let it not be said that, if i am a biology teacher, i must not go off into other considerations: – that i must only teach biology, as if the phenomenon of life could be understood apart from its historicalsocial, cultural and political framework. as if life, just life, could be lived in the same way . . . in a favela (slum) . . . as in the prosperous area of sao paulo’s gardens! if i am a biology teacher, obviously i must teach biology. but in doing so, i must not cut off from the framework of the whole. by inserting science education into human reality, i teach more than physiology and anatomy in biology and science education; i transcend disciplinary boundaries by revealing how teachers can work with learners to co-construct knowledge and create spaces for a transformation of their identities. this re-thinking of my practice occurred because i valued student-centred science education which ordinary people could apply in their daily lives. the following excerpt from my teaching portfolio sums up the theoretical considerations which underpinned the transformation of my practice as a higher education teacher: 15 february 2015 drawing on theoretical insights from aikenhead, ogunniyi, onwu, kyle, weiler, giroux and moletsane i show how teachers and learners can become agents of cultural production and not be passively locked in a process of cultural reproduction. mudaly: creating my academic self and space. . . 47 on becoming a researcher three years after i had joined the university, i was invited to apply for a competitive grant for teaching and learning by a senior colleague who was familiar with my work in the science education department. it is possible that my identity as a higher education teacher in the undergraduate teaching modules, who used unconventional sources and methods, was what motivated my colleague to encourage me to design a research proposal, titled “exploring learning and teaching methodologies in ethno-botany and integrating these in life sciences and natural sciences education higher education curricula”. i was awarded the grant and served as the principal investigator, and worked in collaboration with two senior peers from the science education department. this signaled my move away from the periphery because for the first time, i felt that i belonged to a community characterised by “mutual engagement, joint enterprise and a shared repertoire” (wenger, 1998, p.73). i had entered the community of practice for research. this was preceded by a change in spatial arrangements. although i still occupied the post as a lecturer, i was moved into a large office, which was designed for use by a professor in terms of its furniture, equipment and lighting. i was thrilled and felt that this environment was conducive to my professional development. entering and navigating the postgraduate teaching terrain i continued to feel excluded from postgraduate teaching in the science education department. postgraduate modules were taught by senior academics in the science education department and there was no space for me in that place. borrowing from walker (1998), i remained an outsider in that sacred postgraduate space for years. i felt that i was deemed as too inexperienced to traverse the postgraduate terrain. i was reminded of chrisler’s (1998) studies of higher education institutions which revealed men’s roles as those of scholars, while women’s roles were limited to teaching. the subtle barriers to women’s advancement as scholars in higher education has been welldocumented (mama, 2006; tsikata, 2007; walker, 1998). novice academics in dison’s study (2004) also experienced marginalisation from scholarly work which was the domain of ‘authentic’, experienced, white researchers. it is possible that race, gender and experience, as “technologies of power” (maritz and prinsloo, 2015, p.696), were intersecting forces which made me believe 48 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 that becoming an authentic female academic was impossible. i yearned to be more than a teacher; i aspired to become a scholar in science education. my view was that teaching postgraduate modules would give me the critical edge which would enable me to become a published author of academic work. in order to transcend this barrier, i realised that i had to engage in activities which required “sustained engagement and readjustment” (wenger, 1998, p.53) to participate in the postgraduate sector. i requested a formal meeting with the dean of research in the faculty of education where i indicated the areas of my research interests, and my motivation to work in the postgraduate sector. subsequently, i was invited to serve on committees to examine research proposals which were presented by masters and phd students. there was neither formal training for this work nor any remuneration in the form of workload hours or financial benefit. i read research proposals, and researched theoretical and analytic frameworks, to prepare to participate and “contribute to the negotiation of meaning by being a member of a community” (wenger, 1998, p.55). the following diary entry in the second year of my work as an academic takes me backwards to that experience: 20 october 2009 i reviewed the phd proposal about pregnancy among school going learners. i told the student that he was demonizing pregnant school girls. was that (demonising) a harsh word? maybe i should have said that he was victimizing the girls by positioning them as being ‘bad’. i feel i had used ‘strong language’ in order to impress the panel. that was not who i was, and i felt like a fraud for having used what i perceived to have been ‘harsh language’. this inauthentic behaviour (lechuga, 2012) on my part evoked feelings of guilt and remorse. in retrospect, it now becomes clear to me that i had been a novice academic and was doing all that i could to belong, and was desperately attempting to prove my epistemic credibility. it is possible that i did impress, because subsequently, i was invited to numerous proposal presentations. i was more careful about my choice of words and quickly learned the value of constructive critique. i tried to establish a ‘safe space’ in which students and supervisors could respond without feeling intimidated or humiliated, and i felt a greater sense of peace after such engagement. this deliberate choice to change my approach towards proposal defences emerged after personal reflection, and could signal an example of “emotional work” (lechuga, 2012, p.88) in my academic development. mudaly: creating my academic self and space. . . 49 participation in examination panels marked my entry into the postgraduate community of practice, although this was not located within the science education discipline. i had achieved this by volunteering my time and effort to support students in their preparation for research, by serving as a member of research proposal examination panels. i was involved in “doing, talking, thinking, feeling and belonging” (wenger, 1998, p.56), and in the fifth year of my work, i was requested to serve as chairperson of the panel. the following excerpt from my diary illuminates that experience: 5 march 2013 i chaired the proposal panel today. there was little time to prepare(the administrator) gave me a checklist of things to do. i started by welcoming members of the panel and the student. i told the student that he should not perceive this as a ‘defence’ but that it was a discussion to enable us to see that he had a realistic plan to conduct the research. i said that he needed to assure us that he was capable of doing research and that the panel intended to be supportive of his work. after the student and supervisor left the room, dr s (a fellow panel member) remarked that this was the first time she had attended a proposal which was framed as a discussion, and where the student and supervisor were not made to feel as though they were on trial. i became increasingly conscious that i could maintain the professional standards of the postgraduate community of practice without creating a cold, severely harsh and critical environment. my continued engagement in this community of practice reveals the “transformative potential” (wenger, 1998, p.56) of participation. this participation was not limited to my “engagement in practice” (wenger, 1998, p.57) but has contributed to part of who i have become. on 18 march 2014, based on the recommendation of a senior management member, i was appointed to serve on the college research committee. what began as voluntary participation in postgraduate panels in the school of education evolved into a trajectory which “spanned boundaries” and linked communities of practice (wenger, 1998, p.154). my participation spanned both the school and college communities. my aspiration to teach on postgraduate modules persisted. although i was a member of the community of practice of science teacher education, my participation remained peripheral because i was not involved in postgraduate teaching. the priority to graduate more masters and doctoral students became more urgent with each passing year to meet financial demands of the higher 50 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 education institution. it is crucial for academics to lecture in postgraduate programmes in order to remain relevant and meet the needs which emerge from the “business-like management of higher education institutions” (van laren and mudaly, 2012, p.1081). after one proposal panel discussion, in my third year of higher education teaching, i was invited by a professor to teach on a generic module in the masters programme, which was not located in the science discipline. as an undergraduate science teacher educator, i had built my identity on an interdisciplinary base, where i had merged disciplinary knowledge and knowledge from alternative systems. the generic masters module had little in common with my work with undergraduate students, and i required professional support in order to develop as a postgraduate lecturer. i had to become what laboskey (2004a) refers to as both actor and spectator, and chose to engage with a “boundary trajectory identity” (jawitz, 2009, p.248) in order to sustain my identity across the undergraduate and postgraduate communities of practice. as a novice academic in the postgraduate terrain, i had to gain access to this postgraduate teaching community and to contribute to it in a way that would make it part of my identity. teaching on post-graduate modules is valued because it plays a role in generating income through postgraduate output. i worked collaboratively with three senior academics to teach masters students about designing research proposals. we were a diverse group of professionals from different disciplinary backgrounds. however, we “shared a passion for development of professional and social leadership” (van laren and mudaly, 2012, p.1085) and this created the opportunity for mutual engagement, which connected us as academics. the following diary excerpt illuminates an experience of teaching on this module: 13 march 2010 i am exhausted. i have been ill and had a large number of scripts for med assessment 3 to mark. students’ results seemed to have improved in the data collection plan assignment compared to literature review assignment. there was one piece which was a theoretical study and, on reading it, quite difficult to interpret. i asked (my colleague) to assess it for me. the student obtained 50% and was upset and left the lecture at tea time, and did not return for the rest of the day. the lecturer who helped me mark the script appeared concerned. i felt disappointed about the student not being able to cope with criticism and to learn from it. mudaly: creating my academic self and space. . . 51 i was exhausted because the preparation to teach and assess students’ work was intensive. i had to read and perform desktop studies in order to familiarise myself with the diverse research areas in which students were engaged. however, working with a team of academics in this postgraduate teaching community enabled me to feel that i was in a safe space to request assistance from my more experienced colleague whose areas of specialisation were conceptual and theoretical frameworks. my venturing into this unfamiliar territory was shaped by my own efforts and the efforts of my colleagues. throughout our practice, we maintained a collegial arrangement which was enriched by “reciprocal peer learning” (mudaly, 2012, p.47). the informal commitment of senior, more experienced academics to my professional development through the celebration of my small successes enabled me to reimagine my academic identity as a confident teacher in the postgraduate landscape. i learned that postgraduate students were diverse in terms of age, experience, language and writing proficiency, and personal life responsibilities and challenges, as compared to undergraduate students. i paid increasing attention to hyatt’s (2005) assertions about the deleterious effects of ill-conceived remarks made by academics, and i attempted to be more cautious and sensitive when i interacted with postgraduate students. from teacher to scholar my experience of teaching on the masters module was invaluable. it paved the way for me to be entrusted with supervising research projects of postgraduate students within the science discipline. my postgraduate supervisory experiences were characterised by what hugo (2009) describes as “complex and negotiated dialogical space between the supervisor and student”. my identity as well as the identities of my students were moulded on socio-cultural histories, and involved creating spaces for networking with broader intellectual communities. my attachment to the emancipatory goals of education influenced the supervisory process. i underscored the importance of breathing life into abstract philosophical knowledge, by interweaving these with people’s lived experiences, and developing feeling for people who live and are educated within a particular socio-historical context, with a view to using education as a vehicle for redressing power inequalities. during the last three years of my work, i graduated at least one postgraduate student per year. in 2014, one of my students was awarded her masters degree summa cum laude. 52 journal of education, no. 62, 2015 conclusion the features which characterise autoethnography (ellis, adams and bochner, 2010) permeate this reconstruction of my academic self. i have offered detailed, evocative descriptions of interpersonal and personal experiences which shaped my professional identity during my academic journey. my methodological tools for reflexive inquiry enabled me to see and interpret the meaning of critical moments. in giving voice to my personal and cultural story, i disrupted the researcher/researched hierarchy by iteratively moving between and within both positions. through this personal narrative, i “invite readers to enter the author’s world and use what they learn there to reflect on, understand and cope with their own lives” (ellis, 2004, p.46). interrogation of my micro-movements has illuminated spaces for selfimprovement. this occurred through a process of give and take, advocated by wenger (1998), which involved my volunteering to serve the school in advancing its goals for postgraduate throughput. through these activities, i became more visible and opportunities for interaction with other academics increased. in this personal autobiographic account, i have consciously positioned myself as actor/practitioner and spectator/researcher and located my academic story as a subject of critical inquiry. i have provided insight into my multimembership which spanned several communities of practice, including communities of undergraduate teaching, postgraduate teaching, postgraduate supervision and collaborative discipline-specific research with peers. using what wenger refers to as “brokering”, i selectively transferred elements from one practice to another (wenger, 1998, p.109). in this “nexus of multimembership” (wenger, 1998, p.159), the trajectories of my academic identities became part of one another. my academic identity shifted continuously, and transcended spatio-temporal boundaries, which embodied the past, present and future in “interlocked trajectories” (wenger, 1998, p.158). this work has implications for other academics, who feel that they are the over-worked servants 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cambridge university press. ronicka mudaly science and technology education cluster university of kwazulu-natal mudalyr@ukzn.ac.za mailto:mudalyr@ukzn.ac.za presidential address presented at the 2014 saera conference equity, access and quality in basic education: a review shireen motala (saera president 2013–2014) introduction the democratic government which came into being in south africa in 1994 has shown its commitment to education for all, by ensuring equitable and universal access to meaningful learning opportunities. there has been significant progress towards equity, equality and redress in post-apartheid south africa, and yet a sobering reality, noted by the national planning commission, is that an estimated 48% of the population live on less than 2 dollars a day, and, at 0.67, the gini coefficient is the highest in the world (national planning commission, 2011). in 2014, the unemployment rate was 24.3% or 34.6% discouraged ‘job seekers’. among the unemployed, long term joblessness is at 66%, indicating how exclusion from the labour market undermines skills development. unemployment for those in the 15 to 25 age group, remains a staggering 48.8 % (budget review, 2015). in recent years, key education indicators have shown that mastery of basic competencies is at a very low level, leading to much policy and research, including that of the consortium for research on equity, access and transitions in education (create), which formulated the notion of meaningful access to schooling (lewin and wang, 2011). this expanded on morrow’s notion of epistemological access (2006). in response, much attention has been given to developing numeracy and literacy skills (department of basic education 2011a; department of education, 2009) including some specific strategies focussing on specific sectors such as the youth into science strategy 2006 (arends, et al., 2014). the overriding objective of all these plans has been to improve the quality of educational delivery, particularly for historically under-served groups, and to achieve steady improvements in educational outcomes that will support other areas of growth and development. 160 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 this paper critically assesses access, equity and quality as key indicators of progress towards achieving the goals of post-apartheid education reform. it argues that despite improvements in both quality and practice, and significant resource allocation, educational access in south africa remains incomplete in terms of attendance, limited in terms of grade progression, unsatisfactory in terms of the age grade norms, poor in terms of quality and inefficient in terms of learning outcomes. equipping educators with better skills will significantly enhance cognitive skills amongst learners. finally a much more explicit, proactive and equity driven approach is needed, which prioritises the neediest and most marginalised, so that we have an inclusive education system, based on the principles of social justice and fairness. the policy context twenty years after the demise of apartheid, labour demand continues to be greater among those who are highly educated, with the long-term unemployment rate for degree-holders at only 4.2%. this is nearly eight times lower than the mean unemployment rate for individuals with only grade 8–11 schooling. unemployment rates for those that have completed grade 12 and for grades 0 to 7 are 25.9% and 23.8% respectively. the south african labour market is systematically oversupplied with those that have relatively low levels of education. the responsiveness of the labour market to certain education levels poses a number of key issues. firstly, unemployment with regard to those with only a high-school education is significant, as they make up most of the unemployed population. the long-term mean unemployment rate for the grade 8 to 11 cohort is 30.9%, while those who have qualified with a matric or grade 12 also show a significant level of unemployment at a mean of 25.9% (bhorat, cassim and tsheng, 2015). there are two aspects that may explain the high levels of unemployment observed. firstly, highschool enrolment over the past 20 years has meant that more young people are entering the labour force and that the labour market is unable to absorb the numbers. secondly, the quality of school-leavers’ education has not afforded them vast employment opportunities. in terms of schooling, research shows that poorer children enter school with a ‘cognitive disadvantage’, because they have not had access to the resources and stimulation that well-off children enjoy (van der berg, burger, burger, de vos, du rand, gustafsson, shepherd, spaull, taylor, vanbroekhuizen and von fintel. 2011). south africa has a quasi-federal system, with nine provinces. the provincial motala: equity, access and quality in basic education: a review. . . 161 governments have legislative responsibility for schooling. the country has a population of 47.9 million of whom 79.6% are black african. just over 15 million children are of school going age; 12 million learners between the ages of 5 and 19, of whom 49.8% are girls, are at school. education is compulsory from 7 to 16 or to the end of grade 9. the schooling system is divided into the primary (grades 1 to 7), junior secondary (grades 8 and 9) and senior secondary (grades 10 to 12) sectors. in 2010 there were, including 1,086 independent schools, 26,065 ordinary schools (as distinct from schools for learners with special needs) in south africa. there were about 12 million learners in public ordinary schools, 352 000 learners in independent ordinary schools and a total of 394 000 teachers (department of education, 2009). the attendance of children aged 5 increased from 40% to 62% and of children aged 6 from 70% to 84% (government gazette, 2010). the percentage of 7–15 year-olds attending schools improved to 98% by 2011, and participation by 16 to 18 year-olds has also increased steadily, to 85% by 2011 the government aims to achieve full participation of 5 year-olds in grade r preschool education by 2014. however, while preschool coverage has improved, good quality provision is uneven, with a lack of qualified teachers in grade r classes. the independent or private schooling system, which incorporates institutions charging a very wide range of fees, comprises about 2.8% of the overall schooling system. its coverage extends to poorer learners in areas where there is insufficient state provision (national planning commission, 2011). education ministers since 1994 have contributed to education reform, each with a distinct emphasis. minister bhengu (1994–1998) focussed on developing frameworks to address the inequalities inherited from apartheid, at the same time creating a broad based vision for the education system. the second period, overseen by minister kader asmal (1999–2004), broadened policy to include areas not previously focussed on, such as equality and social justice, and inclusive education with a specific focus on early childhood and special needs education. the third phase, under minister naledi pandor (2004–2008), marked a distinct departure from previous initiatives. with questions of access on the way to solution, attention turned to quality. continued underperformance in basic literacy and numeracy led to the foundations of learning campaign (2008–2011), emphasising a back to basics approach. 162 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 since 2009, a fourth phase has been under way, with new policies emerging and significant changes in how the education system is managed on a national scale. the national department of education has been reorganised into two departments: the department of basic education (dbe) (headed by former gauteng executive council member for education, angie motshekga) with responsibility for primary and secondary education as well as early childhood development centres and the department of higher education and training (dhet), under blade nzimande, which oversees technical and vocational training, adult education and tertiary education. during this fourth phase, several trends can be identified (sayed and motala, 2012). these include 1. setting output targets: the action plan 2014: towards the realisation of schooling 2025 established key output goals, supported by guidelines which advocated a more utilitarian approach to education. ten of its output goals focussed on improving numeracy and literacy, in a clear response to poor ongoing learner performance in the grade three and grade six national assessments and in the regional sacmeq and international timss and pirls surveys. there is also a strong focus on regular testing, in the form of annual national assessments (anas) which test the quality of language and mathematics learning in all public and government-subsidised independent schools. 2. introduction of curriculum and assessment policy: the outcomesbased education (obe) system, introduced incrementally since the late 1990s, has come under critical scrutiny. in 2009, the outcomes-based revised national curriculum statement was reviewed by a ministerial committee, and a new curriculum document, the curriculum and assessment policy (caps), came into effect in january 2011, signalling the end of a 14-year attempt to focus teaching and learning primarily around outcomes rather than processes or inputs. teachers as agents of change: policy has begun to give systematic attention to the notion of teachers as agents of change. on 5 april 2011 the national departments of education jointly launched the integrated strategic planning framework for teacher education and development in south africa, which aimed to improve both initial teacher education and continuing professional teacher development, with training for caps a specific priority. the establishment of the national education evaluation and motala: equity, access and quality in basic education: a review. . . 163 development unit in 2011 indicated a more dedicated focus on the monitoring and supervision of teachers. 3. focus on skill development: the separation of basic education and higher education at national departmental level has led to more focussed attention to skills development as evidenced in the national skills development strategy iii 2011–2016 and the green paper for postschool education and training. the sector education and training authorities (setas) were transferred by presidential proclamation 56 of 2009 (department of higher education and training, 2011) from the department of labour to the dhet, a move intended to improve coherence across the university and college systems (department of education, 2010). 4. establishing norms and standard for funding: finally, a number of amendments have been made to the national norms and standards for school funding (nnssf), allowing for an expansion in the number of no-fee schools to 60% of all schools and for the widening of school feeding schemes. the most recent nnssf amendment came in 2011, allowing schools to apply for compensation for fee exemptions each year, based on a formula determined by the dbe. this is a clear propoor development, though even more substantial adjustments will be required if current inequities are to be fully addressed. currently close to 20,000 schools benefit from the no-fee policy. another important propoor initiative is the national school nutrition programme (nsnp), which by 2012 provided a total of 8,756,893 learners in 20,905 primary and secondary schools with a funded lunch (statistics sa, 2013). in 2015, the proposed allocation to basic education will reach r650 billion, and continue to grow at an annual average of 6.3% .from a high point of 6.8% of gdp in 1998, education spending now comprises 5.3% of the gross domestic product (gdp) and about 17% of consolidated government expenditure, making education the largest category of government disbursement. in comparison to other developing countries, education spending in south africa as a proportion of gdp is high although it is less than the unesco benchmark of 6%. it has been noted that these relatively high levels mainly reflect expenditure on educator salaries with spending on other inputs being below international norms (department of basic education, 2010; department of basic education, 2012). in 2015, 17% of the total expenditure was in educator salaries. 164 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 there have been improvements in funding equity between provinces and between schools as subventions were impacted by pro-poor funding norms. however questions continue about the impact of this funding shift, with some arguing that the impact has been less marked than expected in terms of real education opportunities and education quality. in particular the quintile system has come under scrutiny, with evidence that the ranking system is not an adequate measure of the socio-economic status of learners in schools, often disadvantaging the funding base of schools in which there are a larger proportion of poor learners (wildeman, 2008, sayed and motala, 2012). kanjee and chudgar (2009), using empirical evidence, show that the quintile system is not an effective benchmarking measure, and that schools in the middle quintiles (q3 and q4), are often worse off than quintile 1 schools. south africa’s commitment to the millennium development goals is premised on the right to basic education enshrined in its constitution (rsa 1996: section 29(1)). unlike a number of other developing countries, in south africa there is near universal access to formal public schooling to the end of the compulsory phase (perry and arends, 2003; statictics sa, 2006; chisholm 2011). estimates of a gross enrolment ratio of 99% in primary grades and 87% in secondary grades place south africa above what are seen to be feasible targets for middle-income countries (lewin and wang, 2011). however, while south africans enjoy substantial physical and structural access to schooling, this does not guarantee that learners have equal experience of or access to quality education. the specific policy challenge for meaningful access in south africa is less one of enrolment in formal public schooling and more one of retention, attendance, achievement and completion on schedule for age, all of which contribute to quality outcomes. how much do children learn? in the department of education’s systemic evaluation of grade 6 in 2005, learners obtained a national mean score of 38% in language, 27% in mathematics, and 41% in natural science (department of education, 2008). eight years later, the results of the 2013 annual national assessments show little improvement. in the latest assessment of almost 6 million primary school learners , grade 3 learners achieved an average of only 35% for literacy and 28% for numeracy, while grade 6 learners managed 28% for languages and 30% for mathematics (department of basic education, 2013,). international motala: equity, access and quality in basic education: a review. . . 165 tests such as monitoring, learning and achievement (mla) administered to grade 4 in 1999, the southern and eastern african consortium for monitoring education quality (saqmec) written by grade 6 learners in 2005, the trends in international mathematics and science study (timms) administered to grade 8 learners in 2003 and 2009, and the progress in international reading literacy study (pirls) conducted with grade 5 learners in 2006, suggest that south african schools are among the worst performers in mathematics and literacy in comparison to their southern and eastern african counterparts (bloch, 2009). in the 2011 pirls test, 43% of south african learners were not able to reach the low international benchmark (howie, et al., 2012). saqmec iii (2011) focussed on education inequality, and noted that the poorest 20% of learners in south africa perform far worse than their peers in other african countries. in the fifteen countries in the region, the poorest learners in south africa are at 12 place for reading, andth 14 for reading. th more recent research which reviews 20 years of timms data, suggests that although south african learners were acquiring mathematics and science knowledge, they were doing so at a slower pace than learners in other countries. therefore, children were learning, but the amount that they were learning in a given year was far below international norms. most striking though, was that three quarters of south african learners had not acquired the minimum set of mathematical or science skills by grade 9. a problem that persists in south africa, and is specifically relevant to mathematics and science, is that emphasis needs to be placed on the fundamentals of instruction in the earlier grades, to reduce the large numbers of learners who lack the basic knowledge of mathematics and science on grades 8 and 9. as the authors of the review note “it is worrying that these learners are stuck at the shallow end of skills acquisition” (reddy, et al., 2015). earlier research has also noted the absence of prerequisite skills continues to be one of the main barriers to learner achievement. the diagnostic report (national planning commission, 2011) notes that apart from a small minority of learners who attend former-white schools and a small minority of schools performing well in largely black areas, the quality of public education remains poor. learners in historically white schools perform better, and their scores improve with successive years of schooling. in contrast, in the majority of schools with black learners, learner scores start lower, and show little improvement between grades 3 and 5. where there has been some improvement as measured by the pass rate – 70% – of those who 166 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 sat the 2011 matriculation examination, only 23% achieved a university entrance pass (department of basic education in national planning commission, 2011). in the matric class of 2013, there were 562 112 full-time candidates, of whom 439 779 passed, yielding a matric pass rate of 78.2%. but how many pupils were there to begin with? spaull (2011) looking at the 2013 grade 12 cohort, notes that there were 1,111,858 pupils in grade two (in 2003), 1,094,189 in grade 10 (in 2011) – but only 562 112 in grade 12 (in 2013). this suggests that 549 746 , dropped out of the school system, along the way. inequalities in learner achievement disaggregated results of 2005 assessment varied markedly between provinces and among quintiles. across grades 1 to 6, learners in quintile five schools received scores 10–15% higher than their counterparts in other quintiles. van der berg (2010) has argued that inequalities in schooling outcomes are manifest in subsequent incomes, perpetuating current patterns of inequality. while poverty is often related to education outcomes, and achievement is strongly correlated with learner socio-economic status, recent research indicates that the effectiveness of the schools in which the learners are located is an important factor (spaull, 2011). other research also shows that high performing schools can contribute significantly to learning opportunities for poor learners. taylor and yu (2009), controlling for learner and school socioeconomic status, demonstrate that african language learners in historically white schools out-perform those in historically black schools. the achievement of equity has to be qualified since there are limits to how far education expenditure can be redistributive, since teacher salaries are based on qualifications and experience, and better qualified and more experienced teachers tend to be present in the better off schools. sayed and ahmed (2011) suggest that while for the state, equity/quality is conceptualised in a simple input-output model, it is in reality far from clear how these processes converge and diverge at the policy level and whether both are being addressed. the failure to come to a clear conclusion on the development of infrastructure and on minimum norms and standards for schools illustrates that much greater investment is required if the state’s equity interventions are to be meaningful. moreover, social equity and education equity need to be motala: equity, access and quality in basic education: a review. . . 167 addressed simultaneously, so that the low quality of education offered in poor communities does not continue to perpetuate their exclusion. important progress is being made through the delivery of social grants (bhorat and cassim, 2013), which address poverty and inequality: patel (2013) argues that there are real long term benefits to this social investment. there should be an attempt to treat educational and social provision as an integrated platform for an assault on poverty and underdevelopment. recent research (reddy, et al., 2015) shows that better off learners an advantage over children who were poor, although results for quintiles 1 to 4 were very similar. this pattern is in line with earlier studies of south african education conducted for different phases of the schooling system (van der berg 2005, 2008). in contrast, quintile 5 schools achieved results that were comparable to results for independent schools. resonating with earlier research (motala and dieltiens, 2011), age and quintile rankings had different results depending on socio-economic status. children from more affluent schools and independent schools were younger than children from poor schooling environments. this age differential seems to point to higher levels of grade repetition among learners attending resource-poor schools. curriculum delivery and reform curriculum 2005, which fundamentally shifted the content and pedagogy of the old syllabus-based system and introduced outcomes-based education, required substantial adaptation by role players, not least by the government officials implementing it and the teachers teaching it. however, its complex terminology, its lack of alignment with the orientation of learners and skills of teachers and its poor implementation support required a decade of revision and gradual introduction into all phases of schooling. the new revised national curriculum statements (rncs) give more emphasis to basic skills, content knowledge and grade progression, and combine a learner-centred curriculum requiring critical thought and emphasising democratic values with an appreciation of the importance of content and support for teachers (motala and dieltiens 2011). it also aims to reduce the administrative load on teachers, and to provide guidance and consistency of approach for teachers. the needu report (2013) notes that the problems of absenteeism, late coming and disruption to the timetable still persist, and that the role of school 168 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 leadership is critical for efficient time management and supporting a culture of teaching and learning. there has also been a more distinct focus on assessment in curriculum 2005. quality assurance, certification and exit points, and control over norms and standards for curriculum and assessment, were important measures that complemented curriculum changes. chisholm and chilisa (2012) note that while botswana and south africa both adopted outcomes based curricula, they differ considerably in the content and results of the change. the biggest contrast between the two systems was that while in the curriculum model in botswana learning and assessment were heavily aligned, in south africa there was great emphasis on various forms of continuous assessment to support a relatively underspecified curriculum. since 2008, the south african government has focussed more systematically on national tests, aligning curriculum and assessment more carefully. recent research has focussed more sharply on classroom practice. in the create numeracy tests, learners performed way below the levels expected of them (pereira, 2010). prior learning for the majority of learners was poor, i.e. they were not on the expected level for their grade, and specific numeracy outcomes which required deeper analytical skills were poor. there are serious gaps in the pedagogical content knowledge related to many learning areas including mathematics in primary schools. attention has increasingly turned to teacher skills and pedagogy. the content knowledge of teachers, in particular in mathematics and english, tested in saqmeq111 showed low levels of achievement particularly in more complex topics in mathematics which had higher cognitive demands (taylor, 2011). chisholm and carnoy (2012) identify a complex set of interrelated variables related to a teacher’s knowledge and ability to teach as contributing to differences in learner performance across botswana and south africa. patterns of progression and school delays most learners in south africa enrol in and complete primary education, despite numerous barriers to success, and even though substantial early childhood education and pre-schooling provision remain to be achieved. a negligible percentage of children of school-going age have never been to school, approximately 4% of learners drop out before completing primary school (grade 7), and 92% of learners finish basic education (grade 9) (department of education, 2008). girls also persist longer through the higher motala: equity, access and quality in basic education: a review. . . 169 grades, unlike in a number of other developing countries. however, net enrolment rates drop significantly after grade 3, suggesting that many learners fall behind age-grade norms. in addition significant numbers of children take more than nine years to complete grade 9 (deacon and dieltiens 2007). distinctive features of the south african context are ‘school delays’ (hallman and grant, 2004), slow progression (anderson, 2005) and differential and inequitable access to public schooling (motala 2006). what is clear is that patterns of progression are an increasingly important predictor of learning outcomes. as in a number of other developing countries, massification of education has not led to an improvement in education quality. while it is true that fiscal resource inputs are not the only means to achieve the desired educational outcomes, they do, however, have an effect on learner performance. fiscal resources do not necessarily translate into scarce real resources (qualified teachers and school management) required to improve school performance, and even where resources are available, their effective utilisation is not guaranteed. nonetheless, according to van der berg (2007), equity of educational outcomes requires both well-targeted fiscal expenditure and efficient schools. the 2011 carnoy chisholm study showed that teachers in the north west taught only 52 of the 140 daily lessons scheduled for the year (40%) compared with 78 in botswana (60%). given that unwarranted teacher absenteeism in south africa is unacceptably high (particularly in certain parts of the school system) the department should be encouraged to clamp down on negligence. an enabling infrastructure home support for learning reflects the racially divided and class stratified nature of south african society, with poorer parents lacking the time and cultural capital to support their children’s education adequately and middle class parents more likely to encourage learning and to send their children to higher performing schools. and yet school-going is highly valued by parents, to the extent of making the best of what one has, or keeping one’s child in a school one does not like but which is better than no school at all (luxomo and motala, 2012). 170 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 poor children have limited access to reading material in their homes. usually, their parents have lower levels of education and they often live in communities that lack public libraries or learning centres. research suggests that children from impoverished homes in south africa begin school at a distinct disadvantage, perform systematically worse at school and have fewer career opportunities beyond school (branson and zuze, 2012). early patterns of disadvantage may remain if not addressed appropriately. one potential area of improvement is in the school infrastructure. schools in south africa vary with respect to level of infrastructure and resources. there are often vast differences between communities where schools are situated. many schools are located in areas with high levels of poverty and unemployment and have to contend with a lack of basic resources. although the presence of modern facilities cannot guarantee that children will learn better, it is absolutely critical that basic services are in place. some south african schools are already equipped with modern facilities but many school facilities remain inadequate. according to the national education infrastructure management systems report (department of basic education, 2011b), nearly 80% of schools are without library or computer facilities and nearly 15% do not have access to electricity. violence is a widespread phenomenon across south africa and can pose a major challenge to the physical and emotional development of children (barbarin and richter, 2001). exposure to violence is commonplace for a large number of south african schools, ans school safety, particularly for girl learners is receiving much attention. teachers teacher and learner attendance have been identified as important factors for academic success (gottfried, 2009; miller, et al., 2014). learners with good attendance records achieve better results and learner attendance has even been used to represent the quality of the school (coutts, 1998 ). while emphasis on teacher content knowledge is often a key component in international education studies, less attention is given to the way teachers view their profession and how they perceive their competence. and yet increased commitment levels among teachers are strongly linked to low teacher turnover and positive attitudes among learners (day, et al., 2005). such factors are also motala: equity, access and quality in basic education: a review. . . 171 directly related to how committed teachers are to remaining in a profession that is already experiencing critical shortages (arends and phurutse, 2009). sayed (2015) notes that the most single important instrument or tool or resource any country has to effect equity is teachers and yet it can be an important neglected aspect of policy. the international experience is relevant here, suggesting that in the classrooms of the most effective teachers, students from disadvantaged backgrounds learn at the same rate as those from advantaged backgrounds (hamre and pianta, 2005). nye, konstantopoulos and hedges (2004) also show that teacher effects are higher in low socioeconomic status (ses) schools than in high ses schools and that in low ses schools it matters more that teachers are effective than in high ses schools. a meta-analysis of research conducted from 1990 to 2010 on the school-level factors influencing student outcomes in developing countries concluded that more knowledgeable teachers, teachers who are less likely to be absent, and teachers who assign homework, are among some of the few school variables with a consistently positive relationship to student outcomes (glewwe, et al. 2011). concluding comments this address shows that a number of strategies have been put in place to address the many intractable problems in education reform and the delivery of quality education. as always, policy is one thing: implementation another, and it is apparent that necessary conditions of the delivery of quality education are adequate finance and human resources, involvement and a sense of ownership by role-players, regular monitoring and evaluation and sustained effort. at school level, institutional functionality, a focus on instructional leadership, a clear-sighted emphasis on reading, writing and professional development and professionalising the divisions of the civil service dealing with education are critical to success. above all, it is essential to embed the notion of education as a public good, and foreground the view that equality and social justice must drive educational reform. widespread community mobilisation is required to ensure that the undoubted gains in terms of education access and participation in schooling become the foundation for meaningful learning which offer real life chances for our young people in further and higher education and in the labour market. 172 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 references ahmed, r. and sayed, y. 2009. promoting access and enhancing education opportunities? the case of ‘no-fees’ schools in south africa. compare: a journal of comparative and international education, 39: pp.203–218. anderson, k.g. 2005. 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[teaching practicum] assessment rubrics”. it is not only in south africa that the assessment of student teaching is regarded as “contentious” and “complex” (reddy, menkveld and bitzer, 2008, p.146). in the united states, raths and lyman (2003) argue that many incompetent students graduate, because “it is difficult to make a high-stakes judgement about an individual student armed only with vague decision rules” (p.208). they thus suggest that it is important to define what constitutes incompetence in student teaching. another study in new zealand found that some practicum assessors disregarded formally articulated criteria to make decisions about the teaching performances of student teachers in relation to “what they personally believed to be the important elements of a performance against standards they personally deemed appropriate” (hawe, 2002, p.103). hawe (2002) insists that there is a significant difference between making an assessment judgement of the competence of student teaching based on whimsical, personal preference and a professionally-based judgement that is informed by evidence ruszynak and bertram: knowledge and judgement . . . 33 and has a rational basis. as gatekeepers to the profession, teaching practicum assessors need to have clearly articulated and principled reasons for why they deem student teaching to be as competent or not. it is not surprising then that the assessment of student teaching has been described as “one of the major challenges facing practicum supervisors and teacher educators in general” (reddy et al., 2008, p.155). in this paper we analyse the tp assessment instruments used by five south african universities in 2012. our study rests on an assumption that the criteria and rating scales of these assessment instruments provides insight into knowledge that assessors are expected to use when they make judgements about students’ teaching competence. we use two concepts as the lenses through which to analyse the five tp assessment instruments. the first concept is that of teacher knowledge, which we analyse as either general (that is, general pedagogic knowledge that is applicable across all phases, content subjects and school contexts) or specialised (that is, pedagogic content knowledge that is specialised to particular subjects, phases and learners). an engagement with knowledge for teaching is important because reasoned and intelligent action rests on a knowledge base (muller, 2012; winch, 2014). the second concept that we will use is that of judgement. we analyse the extent to which it is sufficient for assessors to verify that students are able to implement a set of ‘tips for teachers’ in a technical way or whether the tp assessment instruments demand that the assessment of student teaching considers the extent to which they use their teacher knowledge to make contextually appropriate judgements. the first section of the paper reviews the literature on the nature of professional knowledge for teachers and different ways in which the links between knowledge and judgement are understood in initial teacher education programmes. we then engage with the challenges of assessing student teaching within the south african context. we describe the methods we used to analyse the teaching practice assessment instruments and present the findings using the concepts of knowledge and judgement to structure the presentation of the analysis of the data. 34 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 knowledge base for teachers debate about the nature of the knowledge that teachers need was brought to the fore by the work of lee shulman who formulated his highly influential categories of the knowledge bases for teaching in 1986 (shulman, 1986; shulman, 1987). since shulman’s seminal work, research in the field of teacher knowledge has developed steadily (ball, thames and phelps, 2008; banks, leach and moon, 2005; gess-newsome and carlson, 2013; verloop, van driel and meijer, 2001). grossman (1990) reduced shulman’s original seven categories of teacher knowledge to four domains, namely contextual knowledge, content knowledge, general pedagogic knowledge (gpk) and pedagogic content knowledge (pck). in grossman’s model, knowledge of context refers to the teacher’s knowledge of the milieu in which she teaches, including the curriculum to be covered, the school policies and environment, and the learners’ contexts. the second domain, content knowledge, comprises both the propositional knowledge and the procedural knowledge that the teacher has of the subject she is teaching. the domain of general pedagogic knowledge (gpk) refers to a teacher’s knowledge of a range of lesson planning, classroom organisation and assessment strategies, as well as her ability to use these strategies effectively. gpk is the general classroom knowledge that is shared by teachers irrespective of their subject or phase specialisations. the fourth domain, pedagogic content knowledge (pck), is understood as the teacher’s knowledge of how to teach specific content by using conceptually sound explanations, analogies, models or activities that are both accessible to learners and address their common misunderstandings about the topic. in the south africa teacher education sector, there is much contestation about the relative importance that these four knowledge domains should play in preparing competent teachers. we identify three main orientations, namely programmes that foreground the importance of general pedagogic knowledge; those that foreground specialised content and pedagogic knowledge, and those that emphasise the importance of contextual knowledge for teaching. we consider each of these in turn. first, programmes that focus more on the development of teachers’ general pedagogic knowledge support the idea that pedagogical knowledge and skills are applicable across all contexts, phases and subject domains place strong emphasis in developing students’ general pedagogic knowledge (gpk) (reeves and robinson, 2014). in universitybased coursework, prospective teachers are presented with a range of ruszynak and bertram: knowledge and judgement . . . 35 pedagogical theories, principles and approaches that they select from according to their school context and subject. textbooks, like getting practical (gultig and stielau, 2009), embody this approach, presenting strategies for whole class teaching (such as explanations, demonstration, questioning and discussion) and strategies for small group teaching (such as problem-based learning, projects, role-play and simulations). a general approach may also require students to adopt a privileged form of pedagogy or theory of learning, such as a constructivist and learner-centred approaches (reeves and robinson, 2014, p.246) without interrogating whether or not this approach is appropriate for the concept and subject being taught. second, those who advocate for a specialised knowledge approach to teacher learning criticise generally focused initial teacher education programmes because they “pay insufficient attention to what is to be taught, to construe teaching and learning as generic activities, with scant reference to the content of what is being taught or learned” (morrow, 2007, p.82). the key assumption is that the practice of teaching draws on conceptual knowledge that is specialised to the subject/phase that is being taught. thus teachers of mathematics, teachers of early literacy, teachers of history or of science need to draw on different reservoirs of pedagogical knowledge that is specific to their discipline. theorists in this tradition (e.g. craib, 1992; shalem, 2014; winch, 2014) also emphasise the importance of a theoretical educational knowledge that enables a practitioner to develop non-intuitive, organising insights in interpreting and responding professionally to practice-based contexts. according to them, it is educational propositional knowledge (and not only accumulated experience) that enables rational professional judgement over a range of diverse contexts (shalem and slonimsky, 2013). in this way, teaching is conceptualised as a complex, principled practice requiring specialised disciplinary-based knowledge that enables professional judgement. in turn, the emphasis on specialised knowledge in south african teacher education programmes is criticised for being too decontextualised, urbancentric, and not sufficiently preparing student teachers to teach in underprivileged or rural contexts (balfour, mitchell and moletsane, 2008; gardiner, 2008). proponents of the third orientation argue that knowledge of contexts and individual personal development of prospective teachers in those contexts should be the driving force of initial teacher programmes. this position insists that teaching is so contextually embedded that it cannot be understood outside of its context (carr, 2006), and therefore decontextualised 36 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 initial teacher education programmes do not generally prepare teachers to link general concepts within the curricula to locally specific issues and concerns. from this perspective, student teachers should be encouraged to construct personal theories and/or philosophies from their contextually-specific practical teaching experiences, usually through conscious self-reflection and experience of community engagement. because these approaches to initial teacher education place emphasis on different knowledge domains, the assumed basis for professional judgement is also constructed differently. in the case of the first approach, judgement is made in relation to principles arising from practice and/or one’s experiences from practice. in terms of the second, judgement is made in relation to specialised theoretical constructs, and in the third, judgement is individual and contextually embedded. these three approaches have enormous implications for how assessors might be expected to use their own knowledge and judgement when assessing the competence of student teaching. assessing the competence of student teaching within the south african context there is contestation in south africa teacher education sector about the relative importance of different knowledge domains and the relationship (reeves and robinson, 2014). it cannot be assumed that all supervising teachers and/or university tutors have a shared set of internalised criteria of what constitutes effective teaching. many of the present university tutors and supervising teachers undertook their initial teacher education during the apartheid era, when the provision of initial teacher education was fragmented over 19 different government departments. it is not surprising then that the quality of initial teacher education programmes varied. at worst, teacher training programmes offered students little more than technical skills for coping with classroom life and a rudimentary level of content knowledge (welch, 2002). even in the more rigorous teacher training programmes, a dominant theoretical discourse was the inherently authoritarian fundamental pedagogics which actively discouraged critical reflection, analysis and the development of innovative teaching strategies (enslin, 1990). many teachers were “[actively discouraged] from engaging in any form of dialogue about why they were doing what they were doing, what the alternatives might be in their teaching and how their interactions with learners and colleagues might ruszynak and bertram: knowledge and judgement . . . 37 be different” (robinson, 2000, p.214). classroom practice in the majority of south african classrooms continues to be dominated by teacher talk; a low level of learner participation; rote learning; a lack of meaningful questioning; a lack of lesson structure; an absence of engaging learning activities; little meaningful interaction between learners; and few tasks requiring reading/writing (hoadley, 2013; taylor and vinjevold, 1999). given this historical context, it is not sufficient for school-based and university-based assessors to draw only on their personal experience of teaching to make judgements about what constitutes effective teaching. context of this study in an attempt to consolidate the sector, initial teacher education became relocated into the higher education system in 2002. it was hoped that a single policy would help unite the sector and increase the content and pedagogical knowledge of qualifying south african teachers. the first post-apartheid teacher education policy, the norms and standards for educators (nse) (department of education, 2000) claimed to be premised on an integrated, holistic understanding of teaching, but the implementation of this policy was generally atomistic and technical (dhet, 2011). the focus was more on the outcomes (roles) that teachers needed to demonstrate, than on an acquisition of a coherent and systematic body of professional knowledge needed by teachers. many teacher educators who moved from the college sector into the higher education sector located their legitimacy to contribute to the professional preparation of new teachers in their practical expertise and previous classroom-based experiences (robinson and macmillan, 2006). we argue that relying exclusively on one’s practical experiences as grounds for understanding what constitutes competence in teaching in the context of a post-apartheid south africa is not unproblematic. a revised policy, the minimum requirements for teacher education qualifications (henceforth, mrteq) (2011) urges all teacher education programmes explicitly to “address critical challenges facing education in south africa today – especially the poor content and conceptual knowledge found amongst teachers, and the legacies of apartheid” (p.9). it rejects a “purely skills-based approach [that relies on]. . . evidence of demonstrable outcomes as measures of success, without paying attention as to how knowledge must underpin these skills for them to impact effectively on 38 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 the broader study is managed by jet education services, and conducted with the2 support of the department of basic education, department of higher education and training, and the education deans’ forum. learning” (dhet, 2011, p.7). according to mrteq, for example, beginner teachers are expected to possess “sound subject knowledge”; “know how to teach their subject(s) and how to select, determine the sequence and pace content in accordance with both subject and learner needs”, and they must “know who their learners are and how they learn” (dhet, 2011, p.53) (authors’ emphasis). this emphasis on ensuring that student teachers develop theoretical, practical and professional knowledge bases for teaching stands in stark contrast to the skills-based approach which characterised much of teacher training during and immediately after the apartheid era. in light of curricular changes to initial teacher education programmes in response to these policy shifts, it is an opportune time for teacher educators to re-examine the assumptions about teaching embedded within their tp assessment rubrics and the implication of these for student teachers and for assessors. this paper hopes to make a contribution in informing this important sectoral discussion. methodology this paper emanates from a qualitative documentary analysis of the tp assessment instruments used during 2012 (before curriculum changes required by mrteq) by five south african universities that offer initial teacher education programmes. this paper is a small part of a comparative study into the initial teacher education programmes offered by five higher education institutions.2 institutions offering teacher education differ according to geography (urban/rural), language of instruction (afrikaans/ english), merger history (some experienced mergers of former teacher training colleges or technikons with universities) as well as resourcing. the five universities were purposively selected in order to characterise the complex range of histories, mergers and contexts of heis in south africa, but with the understanding that ruszynak and bertram: knowledge and judgement . . . 39 the data cannot be generalised beyond the institution itself. in this paper, the participating universities will be referred to as follows: table 1: descriptions of participating universities university a formerly advantaged english-speaking university, located in urban context. initial teacher education is offered in full time contact mode. university b university offering teacher education on multiple campus sites. teacher education programme under review is located in a formerly advantaged afrikaans speaking campus. initial teacher education is offered through partial distance learning and full time contact modes. university c university offering teacher education to students through distance learning. initial teacher education is offered through distance learning. university d formerly disadvantaged university located in a rural context. initial teacher education is offered in full time contact mode. university e technical university offering teacher education, on multiple campus sites. initial teacher education is offered in full time contact mode. in order to analyse what tp assessment instruments from different institutions expect of supervising teachers/university tutors, we developed a set of 22 questions to deductively guide our analysis and comparison of the five tp assessment instruments (see appendix). we analysed both the structure of the tp assessment instruments and the criteria for effective teaching they present. guided by these 22 questions, each tp assessment instrument was described and analysed in detail with frequent inter-rater checks to increase reliability of the analysis. the draft analysis was sent to each participating university for comment to ensure the accuracy of our analysis. we identified similarities and differences between the structure and criteria of the five tp assessment instruments. we then applied the conceptual lens of professional knowledge and professional judgement to consider expectations of how supervising teachers and university tutors draw on their knowledge of teaching to make judgements about the competence of the student teaching they assess. in presenting our findings, we examine the implications of how the design and criteria of tp assessment rubrics establish conditions for university tutors and/or supervising teachers to make judgements in relation to a set of given criteria when they assess the competence of student teaching. 40 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 limitations and possibilities of this study the purpose of this paper is not to yield generalisations about tp assessment instruments in south africa. rather, we seek to illustrate design features that establish the potential for more and less professionally based assessment decisions about the competence of student teaching. the scope of this study is limited to consider what assumptions tp assessment instruments convey about what knowledge is required for assessing student teaching and grounds upon which assessment decisions are made. the analysis is based solely on what is stated in the ‘official’ tp assessment instrumentation used by university tutors and/or supervising teachers in assessing student teaching. we did not access concepts in coursework used to prepare student teachers for the practicum sessions, and the access of university tutors to that coursework. we are mindful, too of the logistical constraints experienced by institutions of higher learning in terms of allocating university staff to observe and assess every student teacher. for all these reasons, our findings are necessarily partial and our interpretation is provisional. findings in this section we present the findings according to particular themes that emerged as we compared the five sets of documents. we draw examples from the various tp assessment instruments to illustrate our analysis. who holds the knowledge required to assess the competence of student teaching? from the instruments analysed, we find three structural ways in which the input from university tutors and supervising teachers differs: first, where the assessment is done exclusively by school mentors or by university assessors; second, where the school and university staff complete different sections of an assessment; and third, where a joint assessment is done collaboratively between university and school staff. in contexts where student numbers are very high, or their distance from campus is too far, individual practicum supervision of each student teacher by a university staff member is unfeasible (e.g. universities c and d). supervising teachers, their heads of department and/or principals are ruszynak and bertram: knowledge and judgement . . . 41 in the case of university a, provision is made for separate assessments to be submitted in3 cases where a consensus assessment between the supervising teacher and university tutor cannot be reached. required to complete all assessment relating to student teaching. when this structural feature of these tp assessment instruments is logistically (not pedagogically) determined and as such we cannot draw inferences about knowledge for assessing students from this structural arrangement. however, this arrangement might also be a pedagogic choice of programmes that prioritise contextual knowledge for teaching. where supervising teachers and university tutors are asked to complete different sections of an assessment (e.g. university b), supervising teachers are not expected to share a common language of practice with university tutors. university b requires that supervising teachers assess students’ extra mural involvement, inter-personal relationships, and general professionalism over an extended period of time. university tutors, on the other hand, observe lessons and assess the extent to which a student teacher draws on her university coursework in her planning and execution of lessons. supervising teachers are not assumed to have access to the preferred methodologies student teachers learn in their university-based coursework. when joint assessments of student teaching competence are required by the institution (e.g. universities a and e), university tutors and supervising teachers are expected to be in contact with one another during the practicum. there is an expectation that they should seek consensus, and bring their particular perspectives together to enhance the overall assessment (such as the extended time that the supervising teacher spends with a student and the more global view of student teaching that the university tutor brings to bear on the assessment). the consensus model of joint school-based /university3 assessment assumes that effective teaching (as embodied in the stipulated criteria) should ideally be evident to both university lecturers and teacher mentor. furthermore, such an arrangement suggests that they either share common understanding of the grounds upon which competence is recognised, or if not, that such principles are made explicit in the tp assessment instrument. 42 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 what knowledge bases for teaching do supervising teachers/ university tutors need to assess through the practicum? in this section, we consider what tp assessment instruments convey about the professional knowledge and judgement that university tutors and supervising teachers are expected to recognise, support and assess when ascertaining a student’s teaching competence. drawing on grossman’s (1990) four domains of teacher knowledge, we consider in particular categories relating to students understanding of the subject matter knowledge they teach; general pedagogic knowledge; pck and contextual knowledge. we find significant differences in the way that the importance of content knowledge and pedagogic knowledge are prioritised in the instruments. this has important implications for the knowledge that assessors are assumed to have. all tp assessment instruments carry criteria that required student teachers to devise and teach lessons that move a class of learners through stages of an intentionally structured learning process. without exception, all tp assessment instruments analysed include criteria that relate to students’ understanding of the subject/content knowledge; teaching and learning strategies used; learning and teaching support materials; assessment; language and communication; consideration of learner diversity; professionalism and relationship with learners. although there is much commonality of the kinds of criteria listed, what is demanded of student teachers in relation to those criteria is highly variable between institutions. although no participating institution used specialised tp assessment instruments for particular content subjects, some institutions (universities a, c and e) provide different instruments for pre-primary and/or foundation phase students, and only one provides a different assessment instrument for intermediate and senior phases (university e). student’s understanding of content knowledge some instruments required that students possess ‘sound’, ‘sufficient and accurate’ content knowledge (universities b and c), whereas others specify what student teachers are expected to do with that knowledge. for example, comprehensive and well-organised conceptual knowledge enables students to ‘foreground main ideas’ in their explanations (university a), use appropriate examples from the ‘real world’ (university d), and inform their pedagogical choices (university a). ruszynak and bertram: knowledge and judgement . . . 43 a key issue emerging from our analysis is the differing importance that content knowledge plays in the perceived effectiveness of student teaching across institutions. for universities a and e, students’ understanding of content knowledge is considered a non-negotiable, where misunderstanding of content knowledge constitutes justifiable grounds for a ‘no credit’ result. at least one of the assessors would need to have either a subject specialisation or a working knowledge of the demands of different subjects and their pedagogic implications. in comparison, a sound grasp of content knowledge is one of many criteria that contribute a portion to a students’ overall mark in universities b, c and d. the weighting of students’ understanding of the content they teach ranges from 5–8% of the total mark allocated. it is conceivable then that in such assessments, students could misunderstand thecontent they teach but still obtain a credit for their teaching practicum on the strength of other dimensions of their teaching. general pedagogic knowledge and pedagogic content knowledge in relation to subject and phase specialisations, we distinguish between criteria that are expressed as general components of teaching over all subjects and phases, and those that require specialist subject and/or phase specific knowledge. we present a summary of how the same criterion can be phrased differently to present teaching as a practice underpinned by general pedagogic knowledge (gpk), or a specialist one where pedagogic content knowledge (pck) demands a simultaneous consideration of the demands of the content knowledge and the learning needs of children. 44 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 table 2: examples that show how criteria for effective teaching are constructed in terms of a gpk and pck knowledge base. component of teaching teaching informed by general pedagogic knowledge teaching informed by pedagogical content knowledge (italics shows focus on knowledge specialised to subject or phase) language and communication appropriate language level to explain, instruct and question (a, d, e) uses and develops learners’ ability to use subject discourse (a) teaching/learning strategies uses a variety of teaching strategies effectively (b) thoughtfully selects and effectively uses teaching and learning strategies appropriate to both content and learners (a); lesson introductions [should] have an appropriate contextualisation and include relevant activities (b) learning/teaching support materials (ltsm) effective use of ltsm to enhance lesson presentation (a; b) relevant ltsm are used to develop learners’ understanding of key concepts (d) assessment student monitors and probes learner understanding (a; b) act on the assessment data to remediate conceptual misunderstandings (d; e) classroom management creates positive/safe environment in which children can learn (a; e) no examples in the data inclusivity be responsive to diverse learner needs (a; b; e) no examples in the data from table 2, it can be seen that a non-specialist assessor would be more easily able to work broadly with general criteria, but they may very well miss the nuances of deliberate teaching decisions that a student teacher may or may not have taken informed by their developing pck. the more specialist phase or content knowledge is emphasised in the tp assessment rubric as a core part of the knowledge that informs teaching competence, the more crucial it becomes for at least one of the teacher mentor and/or university lecturers who are assessing student teachers to be phase/subject specialists. this is particularly for high stakes decisions (e.g. the final assessment of student teaching competence prior to qualifying). ruszynak and bertram: knowledge and judgement . . . 45 situational/contextual knowledge in all the tp instruments, criteria that made reference to contextual knowledge considered the extent to which the student teacher works productively within a particular school environment; her ability to recognise aspects of learner diversity within that context, and be responsive to the diverse learning needs of children in her class/es. the tp assessment instruments analysed reflect different understandings of the term ‘diversity’. university d’s tp assessment instrument associates diversity with ethnicity and gender. similarly, university c requires that student teachers have an ‘accommodating attitude’ towards learners who are different to themselves. university a and e made explicit reference to the pedagogical implications of diversity within a class – such as making pedagogical choices that considered potential differences in learners’ prior knowledge, vocabulary, reading competence, attention spans and so on. notwithstanding the arguments by those who advocate for a contextually driven teacher education, the five institutions’ tp assessment documentation made very little provision for the way in which student teachers respond to the limitations, challenge and opportunities within the context of their school placement. this observation may be because university based lecturers (and the designers of the tp assessment instruments) may have a less nuanced understanding of the contextual limitations and possibilities that school-based mentors would presumably have. our analysis identifies this as a significant oversight in the criteria for assessing competent teaching, especially for students who undertake their practicum sessions in particularly challenging contexts. to what extent are assessors required to evaluate the appropriateness of the professional judgements students make in their teaching? certain criteria express an expectation that the students should employ a preferred approach, teaching strategy, or type of resource. these normative expectations are exemplified in the second column of table 3. the importance of students’ developing professional judgement is minimised in such criteria and expectations are expressed as technical application of particular principles/strategies. the assumption here is that the assessor would 46 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 have knowledge of these preferred techniques, and be able to judge their correct application. in contrast, other criteria require consideration of the ways in which content knowledge and pedagogy intersect to enable students to make of conceptually-informed pedagogically appropriate choices. recognising the role of professional judgement phrasing of criteria indicate that certain choices are better than others, as can be seen from the examples in the third column of table 3. while words such as ‘appropriate’, ‘relevant’ and ‘selects’ imply that a deliberate pedagogical choice has been made, an observer would only have access to the grounds for such a choice if the lesson preparation contains an articulated rationale for the lesson design in ways that show their deep conceptual understanding of the content they are teaching, as well as their understanding of the learners’ levels of understanding and social contexts (rusznyak and walton, 2011). the assumption underpinning these criteria is that the assessor/s would have sufficient content and pedagogic knowledge to recognise where in/appropriate pedagogic choices have been made by the student teacher. table 3: examples that show how criteria for effective teaching are constructed in terms of a technical application of a preferred technique or an application of a reasoned judgement. component of teaching technical application reasoned judgement teaching/learning strategies apply principles of cooperative learning (e) linking with prior knowledge (c) thoughtfully selects and effectively uses teaching and learning strategies appropriate to both content and learners (a) learning/teaching support materials (ltsm) use media correctly (e); lessons have quality handouts (c) relevant ltsm are selected and used to develop learners’ understanding of key concepts (d) assessment use of formative and summative assessment strategies; marking of learning tasks (c) student is able to act on assessment data to remediate conceptual misunderstandings (d; e) ruszynak and bertram: knowledge and judgement . . . 47 to what extent do assessors need to rely on an internalised sense of competence in making assessment decisions? in this section, we consider the extent to which the rating scales and level descriptors given in the tp assessment rubric are made explicit to assessors. in four of the tp assessment documentation (universities b, c, d and e), student teaching is assessed on a four or five point rating scale. levels of competence range from excellent/outstanding/highly developed on one side of a rating scale, to not achieved/unsatisfactory/poor at the other. without detailed descriptors of what constitutes excellence, satisfactory or inadequacy against each criterion, the assessors of student teaching (either supervising teachers or university staff) are assumed to have an internalised sense of what constitutes competence at the specified levels of competence. while the use of a checklist of criteria along with a simple rating scale may seem like a userfriendly way to structure the assessment of student teaching, it relies on all supervising teachers and a large number of university tutors being able to interpret each criterion at different levels of competence. given the concerns articulated about the fragmented history of initial teacher education in south africa, and the dismal quality of many initial teacher training programmes, the use of a simple rating scale may not adequately provide many university tutors and supervising teachers with the necessary support to make informed assessment judgements. thus these assessors can only rely on their own experience of what ‘good teaching’ is to make a judgement. furthermore, given the extreme diversity within the south african schooling system, simple rating scales do not allow consideration of the different (and often profoundly uneven) school contexts in which students teachers are encouraged to undertake a practicum session. the standardisation of student assessments using simple rating scales over different contexts is thus compromised. the excerpt below shows how the supervisors for university c will need to rely on their own personal experience to assess whether the criteria are achieved or not, since the instrument does not provide explicit descriptors. 48 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 rating scale: 1 – not achieved; 2 – partly achieved; 3 – average; 4 – above average; 5 – excellent category criterion mark student’s mark % comments planning and writing out of lesson situation analysis (relevant and effective) lesson outcomes (clear and achievable) lesson phases (all phases accounted for) 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 /15 lesson presentation (learners must be brought into contact with new outcomes and content) beginning of lesson linking with prior knowledge authentic examples 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 /15 middle phase revealing new content (effectiveness) teaching and learning activities (appropriateness) formative assessment 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 /15 etc. figure 1: excerpt from university c instrument: assessment of student performance by supervisor in contrast to the others, university a provides highly explicit descriptors to define what constitutes each level of four levels of competence against every criterion, ranging from what a student’s teaching would look if he/she was ‘not yet coping’ to ‘thoughtful and insightful teaching competence’in terms of each criterion listed. it relies less on assessors using their tacit understanding to interpret what constitutes competence in student teaching at each level and against each criterion. for example, four levels of students’ understanding of content knowledge is described as follows: ruszynak and bertram: knowledge and judgement . . . 49 also termed work-place learning; teaching experience.4 not yet coping emerging teaching competence developing skilled teaching competence thoughtful insightful teaching competence knowledge and understanding of content inaccurate content or misunderstands concepts frequently knowledge often limited to what learners need to know research evident, demonstrates sound understanding of topics beyond what learners need to know comprehensive, well organised knowledge of topics; foregrounds main ideas; networked examples formulation of purpose limited consideration or understanding of lesson’s purpose purpose of the lesson is unclear or vaguely formulated clear purpose in terms of key questions; skills; attitudes and values purpose is subject specific, reflecting the knowledge, skills and dispositions of the subject discipline conceptualisation of lessions incoherent lesson steps not aligned with purpose lesson steps often disjointed without links between steps lesson steps coherent but not always thoughtfully scaffolded thoughtfully conceptualised and scaffolded lesson steps etc. figure 2: extract from university a instrument: formative assessment for teaching experience in this example, each criterion is unpacked explicitly, and in so doing, provides a language of description for assessing teaching practice in ways that a straightforward five-point rating scale cannot. the extent to which judgement of competent teaching requires assessors to undertake a holistic assessment of student teaching in all cases, teaching practice is a compulsory university course for which4 student teachers must register and thereby requires a course mark for promotion. while university a required a numerical mark only for the final practicum session before qualifying, other universities require that assessors 50 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 provide a numerical mark, either for every lesson observed or for each teaching practicum session. this section considers the extent to which assessors are prompted to consider components of teaching as separate competences or as an integrated whole in order to arrive at an assessment decision/course mark. three tp assessment instruments analysed present a list of criteria which are each awarded a mark or rating, whose arithmetical sum then reflects the overall mark awarded to the student (universities b, c and d). this structure transmits a notion that the practice of teaching is reducible to a list of discrete observable competences. the integrated nature of teaching as a coherent practice is largely hidden as a consideration during the assessment. the excerpt in figure 3 below shows how an assessor allocates a mark from 0–5 for each criterion and then adds up the marks to achieve a mark out of 100. ruszynak and bertram: knowledge and judgement . . . 51 5 4 3 2 1 0 a lesson introduction 1 ability to introduce topic, learning outcomes and lesson outcomes to be achieved at the end of the lesson intelligently 2 effectiveness in motivating and arousing interest in learners 3 efficient use of learners’ previous knowledge to achieve assessment standards 4 linking lesson contents with reality for meaningful learning b lesson development b1 communication skills b1.2 ability to use voice, gestures and eye contact and movement to enhance teaching effectiveness b1.2 ability to use main language of instruction to explain, describe and discuss key concepts b1.3 ability to mediate learning in a manner that shows awareness of the cognitive development of learners b1.4 create and maintain learning environments that are interesting, challenging , orderly, safe, purposeful and supportive. b2 classroom management b2.1 ability to facilitate occasions where learners are taught in groups, pairs and individuals b2.2 ability to use a variety of discipline strategies well matched to the situation and the learner b2.3 ability to create a positive learning environment for student learning and involvement b2.4 abiltity to demonstrate openness to student challenges about information and ideas b2.5 ability to manage time (for him/herself and learners) and maintain lesson momentum etc. hd = highly developed/very satisfactory 75–100% c = competent/satisfactory 60–75% d = developing/almost satisfactory 50–59% e = experiencing difficulties/unsatisfactory 01-49% figure 3: excerpt from university d instrument: bed/pgce summative classroom observation and evaluation form 52 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 by way of contrast, our analysis of the data shows three ways in which two tp assessment instruments (universities a and e) encourage a more holistic assessment of student teaching. firstly, we notice a network of relationships between different criteria. for example, in the tp assessment instrument of university e the ‘quality of learning’ is considered in terms of ‘learner participation’, ‘learner understanding of lesson’s concepts’, an ‘emphasis on content knowledge’, and the ‘achievement of outcomes’. in this example, a criterion is expressed in terms of a relationship with others, so that the internal connections between criteria are made explicit. however, the potential of assessment rubrics to transmit a view of teaching as a networked, integrated practice can be undermined by the linear structure of the rubric that requires that a mark is awarded against each criterion. when a student’s mark is calculated by adding together the discrete marks awarded, the view of teaching as a coherent whole is compromised. although in several cases, ‘coherence of teaching’ is listed as one out of many criteria, the structure of the tp assessment rubric suggests that it is not. a second way in which holistic assessment is undertaken is through assessors awarding students a global impression mark, after rating their teaching performance on a checklist. this method might work if all assessors had strongly internalised criteria of what constitutes competence in student teaching. although there is no direct relationship between the checklist profile and the mark awarded, the grounds for the awarded mark are highly subjective, and this method would be difficult to standardise across large numbers of university tutors and supervising teachers. a third way in which holistic assessment of student teaching is enabled is through a tp assessment instrument designed as a two dimensional grid that plots a student teacher’s knowledge, understanding and thinking against the effectiveness of her classroom performance (university a). this structure conveys to students and assessors alike that effective teaching involves both a cognitive and a performance dimension, and that if one component is weak, the effectiveness of a student’s teaching as a whole is compromised (rusznyak, 2012). ruszynak and bertram: knowledge and judgement . . . 53 implications of findings recent research in the field of teacher education supports a more holistic understanding of teaching as an integrated knowledge-based professional practice (darling-hammond and bransford, 2005; hoban, 2005). the mrteq policy (dhet, 2011) follows this trend, explicitly rejecting an exclusively skills-based approach in initial teacher education, and in its recognition of specialised pedagogic and content knowledge that informs effective teaching. there are several implications for the assessment of student teaching, which we now discuss. first, if university-based coursework presents teaching as an integrated, complex practice but student teaching is assessed as a collection of discrete skills or general competencies, then internal coherence within the teacher education programme is unduly compromised. the use of te assessment instruments that do not adequately support student teacher professional development in planning conceptually strong and well-executed lessons not only misses an opportunity to support students’ professional development, it may also perpetuate the prevalence of technicist guidance provided to them during their practicum sessions. second, if theoretical developments and policy shifts both support the idea that teaching requires a specialist knowledge base and the development of professional judgement, then the use of general criteria that do not recognise the importance of a specialist knowledge base is problematic. however, expressing criteria in terms of a specialised knowledge base requires that at least one of the supervising teacher and university tutor has access to that specialist knowledge base, and understands its use to make appropriate pedagogic choices. while recognising the logistical constraints of placing large numbers of student teachers under the mentorship of specialist supervising teachers, and the enormous demands placed on specialist university tutors, this may be one area where institutions and government allocate additional funding resources to ensure that specialist mentoring and assessment of student teaching is not compromised by logistical and budgetary constraints. third, supervising teachers in schools may potentially work with student teachers from different institutions at different times over a year. the high variability over expectations contained in tp assessment instruments may 54 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 undermine the potential for the teacher education sector as a whole to introduce a coherent language of practice into school communities. the lack of sector consensus presents a challenge to the teacher education sector to interrogate itself and understand more clearly the tensions that lead to variability and contestations that characterise conceptions of effective teaching within the sector. conclusion internationally recognition of the importance of content knowledge for making appropriate pedagogical choices and the role of pck in informing subject-based pedagogy has prompted policies and teacher education programmes to shift from a technological orientation to an academic one, and from conceptualising teaching as a generic practice to a specialised one. however, it does not make for coherent initial teacher education programmes if these shifts are made in university-based coursework but are not carried into the practicum and how competence in student teaching is assessed. as significant players in influencing the discourse of how the nature of teaching is portrayed to the wider profession, it is an urgent imperative for teacher educator robustly and critically to analyse the conceptions of teaching embedded and transmitted by the tp assessment instruments. we distinguish between design features in the tp assessment instruments analysed that encourage a more technical approach to verifying the competence of student teaching, and those that promote more of a professional judgement. our analysis suggests that a technical approach to assessing teaching is fostered when assessors simply need to verify that students have complied with a list of specified requirements as they teach. such criteria are expressed as a normative application of particular preferred strategies or expectations. because a collection of techniques need not add up to a coherent practice, this approach tends to determine the competence of a student’s teaching by the sum of criteria each one verified in an atomistic manner. in contrast, a more academic approach to the assessment of student teaching is encouraged where criteria are explicit in how students are required to use their content and/or pedagogic knowledge to make appropriate choices and decisions in their planning and teaching, and provide a rationale for these choices. a professional approach also demands that teaching constitutes a coherent practice, and would require a holistic assessment of teaching where ruszynak and bertram: knowledge and judgement . . . 55 the judgement is based on principled grounds, rather than a global impression mark based on an assessor’s personal sense of a student’s teaching competence. references balfour, r.j., mitchell, c. and moletsane, r. 2008. troubling contexts: toward a generative theory of rurality as education research. journal of rural and community development, 3(3): pp.95–107. ball, d.l., thames, m.h. and 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(eds), knowledge, expertise and the professions. london and new york: routledge, pp.47–60. ruszynak and bertram: knowledge and judgement . . . 59 appendix: questions guiding the analysis of tp assessment instruments structure of tp assessment instrument/s 1. who completes the overall tp assessment instrument at the end of a tp session? 2. is there one overall assessment instrument used for all students? if no… ! are there differences in the assessment instrument used for junior students/senior students? if so, what are these differences? ! are there differences in the way students in different phases are assessed? if so, what are these differences? ! are there differences in the way students specialising in different subjects are assessed? if so, what are these differences? 3. what levels, descriptors or rating scales of teaching competence are used by the assessment instrument? how explicitly or implicitly are these competence levels defined? what explanation does the documentation provide about what is meant by each level of competence? 4. is assessment of the students’ documentation (e.g. preparation file/ lesson planning/journal etc.) included in the assessment instrument, or is this done separately? is the supporting documentation assessed by the same person who observed the students’ teaching? 5. are criteria listed or clustered into groups? if so, how are the criteria clustered? 6. what is the logic informing the sequencing of the criteria? formative and summative assessment of student teaching 7. what formative feedback about their developing practice could students obtain from the assessment document/s? (ie. what they are doing well, what they are struggling with and what they need to do to improve their tp)? 60 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 8. when are marks for tp awarded? how are the marks determined? how are criteria weighted? 9. are the grounds for a distinctive performance in tp implicitly or explicitly conveyed by the tp assessment rubric? if so, please elaborate. 10. are the grounds for a fail in tp implicitly or explicitly conveyed by the tp assessment rubric/s? if so, please elaborate. 11. how user-friendly is the tp assessment document for teacher (outside of the university staff) find difficult to use the form? what might a supervising teacher find easy to complete/understand? what might a supervising teacher find difficult to complete/understand? 12. to what extent does the documentation encourage articulation between the lesson observations reports and the formative/summative assessment of students’ tp? domains of teacher knowledge 13. what does the assessment instrument convey to students about the importance of their content knowledge? 14. what does the assessment instrument convey to students about general pedagogical knowledge? ! classroom management/organisation ! inclusion, diverse learner needs ! teaching strategies ! teaching resources ! language competence ! relationship with learners ! other? 15. what does the assessment instrument convey to students about working with curricular documentation? ruszynak and bertram: knowledge and judgement . . . 61 16. how does the instrument promote an assessment of students’ pedagogical content knowledge? 17. what is privileged about how students are expected to plan their lessons? 18. what does the assessment instrument convey to students about what is important in assessing learners’ understanding? professional reasoning and judgement 19. how does the assessment instrument prompt teachers/tutors to consider the students’ ability to make justifiable pedagogical choices? 20. how does the assessment instrument prompt teachers/tutors to consider the students’ ability to reflect in and on action? 21. what does the assessment instrument/s convey to students about what constitutes ‘teacher professionalism’? 22. to what extent does the tp assessment instrument/s consider the way in which students’ lessons are internally coherent? lee rusznyak school of education university of the witwatersrand lee.rusznyak@wits.ac.za carol bertram school of education university of kwazulu-natal bertramc@ukzn.ac.za mailto:lee.rusznyak@wits.ac.za mailto:bertramc@ukzn.ac.za 62 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 productive pedagogies in expressive arts lessons in malawi devika naidoo and grames chirwa abstract the national government in malawi implemented a new curriculum: the primary curriculum and assessment reform in 2007. the purpose of this study was to investigate the enactment of one of the learning areas, expressive arts in three urban and three rural schools in zomba district where teachers were first trained to teach expressive arts. the study is framed by the productive pedagogies framework (lingard, hayes, ladwig, mills, bahr et al., 2001). following a qualitative research design, data were collected through observation and post-observation interviews. data analysis showed limited productive pedagogies in most lessons. the majority of lessons were predominantly characterised by lower intellectual quality, a focus on instrumental knowledge, integration at a superficial level, dominance of communalising and gendered practices rather than ‘engagement with difference’, prevalence of localising discourses ‘rather than connectedness to the world’ and a pedagogy aimed at national examinations. it appears that dominant pedagogic practices in the expressive arts classroom serve to position learners in parochial orientations and issues. there was an obvious disjuncture between the intended curriculum and enacted curriculum. the overall findings is that the enacted curriculum gave students limited opportunities for the acquisition of knowledge and development of skills, values and attitudes required for them to actively participate in the changing malawian context and to be able to compete successfully in other contexts. introduction to improve the quality of education in malawi, the national government embarked on curriculum reform in 2001. the primary curriculum and assessment reform (pcar) implemented in 2007 intended to improve the quality of education in the country by addressing the weaknesses of the previous curriculum. the previous curriculum was seen as overloaded with content due to a wide range of subjects and teaching and learning was examination rather than learner oriented (khomani, 2003). the pcar is outcomes based and advocates integration of subject knowledge within 164 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 themes in 9 learning areas, a facilitative pedagogy and continuous assessment. expressive arts is one of the nine learning areas in the 2007 national curriculum. it is an integrated curriculum using themes such as body movements, conveying cultural messages, multi-cultural performances and dances to integrate across multiple subject disciplines including creative arts, physical education, music, drama and needlecraft. expressive arts differs from its predecessors in that they were designed around objectives rather than outcomes, emphasised content rather than skills, advocated didactic rather than facilitative pedagogies and assessed students through formal summative examinations rather than continuous assessment. through pcar, the government aimed to shift education from content-based to outcomes-based education. following the introduction of the new national curriculum in malawi in 2007, the purpose of this research was to explore the extent to which the expressive arts curriculum is being implemented as intended. the key research question posed in the study was: ‘how do expressive arts teachers teach expressive arts two years into the implementation of the curriculum in malawi?’ although literature on malawi indicates that teachers in the primary school sector face enormous constraints, mhango (2010) observed that there are not many studies that investigated, in a crucial way, how such constraints impact on teachers’ classroom practices in implementing a curriculum innovation. in this connection, croft (2002), who studied the use of songs in english lessons of lower classes in primary schools in malawi, argued that most of donor-funded research in the country focussed on factors affecting the quality of education rather than classroom practices. she therefore recommended a more critical investigation of how teachers implement the school curricula. owing to the limited number of studies in this area, this study aimed at learning how teachers enacted the new expressive arts curriculum to meet the state’s goal of improving the quality of education in malawi. productive pedagogies the notion of productive pedagogies emerged from the school reform longitudinal study (srls) which was conducted in queensland schools, naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 165 australia between 1998 to 2001 (zohir and razak, 2010). the theory was developed by lingard, et al. (2001). the theory is not a neutral framework. it has an ideological basis. it aimed at advancing the education of children of under privileged background in australia. it emerged as a research tool for exploring classroom practices that promote a high quality education for all students, regardless of background. previous classroom studies indicate that classrooms high in intellectual quality help students to perform well academically (boaler, 1997; hayes, ladwig, lingard, mills, bahr et al., 2006; oakes, gamoran and page, 1992). productive pedagogies framework has four dimensions, namely; intellectual quality of lessons; engagement with difference; connectedness to the world outside the classroom and supportive classroom environment. according to the productive pedagogy framework, the dimension of intellectual quality stresses the importance of all students, regardless of background and perceived academic ability, being presented with intellectually challenging work. challenging work is of particular importance for students from traditionally underachieving background, for example, students from low socio-economic backgrounds. according to lingard, et al. (2001), there are many structural practices in schools, for example, streaming, which work against all students experiencing intellectually challenging work. lingard, et al. further argues that it is mostly students in ‘disadvantaged’ schools who are most likely to be ‘drilled or skilled’ in ways that do not encourage high level thinking and critical engagement with knowledge. the intellectual quality dimension is indicated by six indicators: higher order thinking, deep knowledge, deep understanding, knowledge as problematic, substantive conversation and meta-language. the dimension of engagement with difference stresses on making lessons relevant for students by basing the lessons on their own cultures, as the background knowledge which they already have, if genuine understanding is to be achieved. according to lingard, et al. (2001), basing the lessons on the students culture is particularly important if the curriculum is to accommodate the needs of low achieving students. the dimension of engagement with difference has five indicators: cultural knowledge, inclusivity, narrative, group identity and active citizenship. in the productive pedagogies framework, connectedness to the world beyond the classroom also stresses on making lessons relevant for students by basing the lessons on what the students already know if genuine understanding is to be achieved. the connectedness to the world beyond the classroom dimension is indicated by four indicators: connectedness to the world, background knowledge, knowledge integration and problem-based 166 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 curriculum. the dimension of supportive classroom environment suggests that students be given a voice in the classroom in order to have some say over the direction that activities take within lessons. lingard, et al. (2001), argues that while care of students is central to good teachers’ work, care must become more than charity or control, it must become a relationship in which those who are cared for (pupils and even parents) have agency, dignity and a voice. lingard, et al.further argues that in developing positive and mutually supportive relationships, the importance of breaking down the power imbalances between teachers and students is particularly important, given many students’ resistances to being overpowered and controlled (p.6). lingard, et al also argues that in a supportive classroom environment, an explicit criteria should be provided to students so that expectations are clear, and that a classroom environment is created where students are prepared to take risks with their learning. according to lingard, et al. (2001), explicit criteria however have to be both related to students’ school work and to their performances of being a good citizen, as the notion of a good student should include one who is not just concerned about academic achievement but also being a positive member of a democratic community. the supportive classroom environment dimension has five indicators: student direction, student self-regulation, academic engagement, social support and explicit quality performance criteria. the four dimensions of productive pedagogies and their indicators are summarised in table 1 below: naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 167 table 1: productive pedagogy dimensions, items and key questions addressed dimension indicator key questions asked to detect the presence of the indicator intellectural quality higher order thinking • are students required to manipulate information and ideas to arrive at new meanings? • is critical analysis occurring? • are students required to combine facts and ideas in order to synthesise, generalise, explain, hypothesise or arrive at some conclusion or interpretation? deep knowledge • does the lesson cover central ideas and concepts in any depth, detail or level of specificity? deep understanding • do the work and responses of the students demonstrate a deep understanding of concepts or ideas? substantive conversation • does classroom talk lead to sustained conversational dialogue between students, and between teacher and students, to create or negotiate understanding of subject matter? knowledge problematic • are students critically examining texts, ideas and knowledge? to what degree is knowledge presented as constructed? meta-language • are aspects of language, grammar and technical vocabulary being given prominence? connectedness to the world beyond the classroom connectedness to the world • is the lesson, activity or task connected to competencies or concerns beyond the classroom or real-life contexts? background knowledge • are links with students’ background knowledge made explicit? • are there attempts to explore students’ prior knowledge? knowledge integration • does the lesson integrate a range of subject areas? problem-based curriculum • is there focus on identifying and solving intellectual and/or real world problems that have no specific correct solution? 168 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 engagement with difference cultural knowledge • are there explicit attempts to bring in beliefs, languages, practices and ways of knowing non-dominant cultures (e.g. in terms of gender, ethnicity, race, religion, economic status, sexuality or youth)? inclusivity • are there deliberate attempts to increase the participation of students of different backgrounds? narrative • is the style of teaching principally narrative, or is it expository? group identity • does the teaching build a sense of community and identity for different groups within the classroom? citizenship • are there attempts made to foster active citizenship? supportive classroom environment engagement • are students engaged and on task?; are they attentive, doing the assigned work, contributing to group tasks and helping peers?; or are they sleeping, day-dreaming, making a noise or otherwise disrupting the class? student self regulation • are students regulating their own behaviour, or is the teacher involved in giving directions on student behaviour? student direction of activities • do students have any say in the pace, direction or outcomes of the lesson? social support • is the classroom a socially supportive and positive environment? • does the teacher convey high expectations for all students, including the expectation that they take intellectual risks and try to master challenging academic work? • is there a climate of mutual respect? explicit quality performance criteria • are the criteria for judging the range of student performance made explicit? hugo, bertram, green and naidoo (2008) basing his arguments on bernstein’s theory of knowledge and control in british schools contends that although there are serious differences in the quality of schooling across different social classes within britain, most schools are functioning entities naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 169 with adequate resources and staffing, unlike schools in south africa. for bernstein the difficulty was explaining how inequality was being reproduced when schools in britain were mostly delivering the content of the curriculum. a major part of his answer was to point to the different ways teaching and learning were relayed – to the modalities of pedagogy. if the message was tolerably the same, then the source of inequality lay in the different forms of its transmission, and these differences could be tracked to similar formal divisions in social class (hugo, et al., 2008). just like bernstein, mclaughlin (1964) emphasises the importance of both knowledge and pedagogy. according to mclaughlin, the form of the message and its content formats consciousness of learners. for this reason, ‘forms of knowledge in the curriculum’ as postulated by moore and muller (2001) was used as the lens to explore the forms of content knowledge which teachers taught. in this dimension, the distinctions of intrinsic and instrumental knowledge provided sharper categories of knowledge taught. according to moore and muller, instrumental curriculum has content knowledge that seems to aim at imparting to the learners knowledge and skills that are prerequisite for entering a particular profession, accumulating power or influence or creating things (including ideas) of utility or beauty. the knowledge in an instrumentalist curriculum becomes a tool through which the needs, aspirations, interests and objectives of the society are articulated and addressed as learning experiences for the development of the individuals through teaching/learning process. the knowledge is supportive of what is seen as the needs of both the society and the economy and learners have to be socialised to the culture of the society and the world of work and the schools is seen as a source of useable knowledge. instrumental knowledge is thus knowledge that is a means to an end, not an end in itself. intrinsic form of knowledge on the other hand is knowledge that is an end in itself. it is traditional subject discipline based knowledge which is aimed at developing the mind of an individual rather than for answering to the needs of what is seen as the needs of the economy and for preparing individuals for the global and more competitive knowledge-based economy of the future. data collection data were collected during a five-month period through prolonged 170 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 engagement in interviews with twelve case study teachers and also persistent observations in their classrooms. at least a minimum of five lessons were observed in expressive arts for each of the twelve teachers in standards 7 and standard 8 at each school. this paper however is based on classroom observations as the primary source of data. two techniques were used to record data. a digital recorder was used to audio tape teachers and learners voice and field notes were made to capture what was done in the classroom. the audio tapes of lessons, transcribed by the researcher, generated more than three hundred pages of transcripts. the 71 lesson transcripts were scrutinised for evidence of the indicators of productive pedagogies. participants the data was collected in six schools over a period of five months, from january, 2010 to may, 2010. in all, twelve expressive arts teachers drawn from the six state schools in zomba were studied. the teachers represented standards 7 and 8 in a school. all the teachers in the study were qualified. their teaching experiences ranged from 5 to 20 years. their ages ranged from 34 to 52 years. seven of the teachers in the study were females and five were males. all 7 teachers were trained in the normal training programme of the teaching of expressive arts. the school and teacher samples used in the study are summarised in tables 2 and 3 below: table 2: summary of study schools school a b c d e f type rural urban rural urban rural urban roll 1333 725 761 1156 604 2743 teachers 21 25 16 34 8 61 teacher-pupil ratio 1:63 1:29 1:95 1:34 1:75 1:45 number of teachers participants 2 2 2 2 2 2 naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 171 table 3: teachers of expressive arts biographical data gender age teaching standard academic qualification education qualification teaching experience experience in expressive arts school 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 female female female female female female female male male male female male 45 40 34 35 39 40 37 38 52 36 40 42 8 7 8 7 7 8 7 7 7 8 8 8 msce msce msce msce jce msce msce msce msce msce msce msce t2 t2 t2 t2 t2 t2 t2 t2 t2 t2 t2 t2 20 years 14 years 13 years 10 years 16 years 17 years 14 years 16 years 10 years 14 years 15 years 20 years 1 year 1 year 1 year 2 years 1 year 2 years 2 years 2 years 2 years 2 years 2 years 2 years f a b b f a d c e e d c data analysis data analysis involves the researcher understanding and interpreting the data collected in order to generate findings, make conclusions and recommendations on the phenomenon under investigation (merriam, 2002). the unit of analysis for data was productive pedagogies practices of teachers as postulated by lingard, et al. (2001). the categories from the framework were applied to the entire data. each category contained all pieces from the entire data body that were relevant to that category. the goal when analysing the data was to establish the lessons in which productive pedagogies were evident; specific teachers whose lessons illustrated productive pedagogies and variations in pedagogies within lessons. this meant continuously moving backwards and forwards among the transcripts data. this process is like that described by glaser and strauss (1967) as the development of ‘ground theory’, the production of analysis and explanation which is grounded in the data. 172 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 a sample analysis of an expressive arts lesson using productive pedagogies framework is provided at the end of this article as an appendix. findings the intellectual quality of lessons although a few lessons contained elements of higher intellectual quality, the majority of lessons were characterised by lower intellectual quality. didactic teaching was very much the order of the day and little opportunity, if any, was provided for reflection and discussion with the pupils. higher order thinking data analysis showed that higher order thinking was hardly evident in the majority of the lessons. there were minimal possibilities for higher order thinking by the learners, as most of the expressive arts teachers did not encourage the learners to think deeply. the learners responses were restricted to two or three words without elaboration. below, an excerpt of an expressive arts lesson in a rural school that illustrates lower order thinking is examined. teacher: in today’s lesson, we are going to look at sounds used to convey messages. in your communities, if you hear different sounds, you should be able to know that a certain type of sound conveys a certain type of message. can you now be in your usual groups and discuss sounds which are produced in your communities which can be used to convey messages. (the learners made four groups with one group consisting of boys only. i listened to the discussion of this group. there was very little discussion going on in the group. the only discussion taking place amongst the learners in the group was that one learner said, ‘drum is produce dancing’, and another learner said, ‘whistle is producing wedding’. the teacher then called group leaders to write on the chalkboard what they had discussed in their groups). naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 173 (representatives of the groups wrote the following on the chalkboard) group 1: drum – dances, ambulance – to take patients. group 2: drum – dancing, whisle –‘nyau’. group 3: drum is produce dancing. group 4: cock is telling time. the discourse in the above excerpt showed that learners are involved in lower-order thinking. the low-level questions which the teacher asked did not encourage the learners to think deeper in the teaching and learning process. while higher-order thinking was weakly evident in most of the lessons, some of the lessons observed showed some possibilities for higher-order thinking. of the lessons observed, 39 percent (28 lessons out of 71) showed possibilities for higher-order thinking. below, an episode illustrating the opportunity for higher order thinking in the lessons is examined. teacher: yesterday, we discussed about the roles of the leaders. we talked about the characteristics of a leader and their leadership styles. can you list the leadership styles which we discussed? learner: autocratic teacher: do we have characteristics of autocratic leadership? learner: only the leader’s voice count. what the leader says is the only thing which can be done. nobody can say or can give ideas. no other ideas are welcome. only the leader says this and so the people do whatever their leader tells them to do. the people just follow what the leader is telling them to do. the above excerpt illustrates greater possibility for higher-order thinking. learners were responding to their teachers’ questions. in the extract, the teacher asked open-ended questions which required learners to manipulate information and ideas to respond to the teacher’s questions. deep knowledge generally, very simplistic, unstructured, community, local and everyday discourses were being discussed. below, an episode illustrating superficial depth of knowledge taught in the lessons is examined. 174 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 teacher: from yesterday, i have seen that most of you do not understand the meaning of mirroring and so i will continue looking at it again and again. what we have been saying is the definition of mirroring? who can try, anyone? yes? learner (reading from the text book): mirroring is an activity which someone can copy from somebody. teacher: yes, that is what we have been saying is the meaning of mirroring. mirroring is an art of copying an action, words or expressions. . . in the above excerpt, the concept of ‘mirroring’ has been very poorly co-extended. for example, the teacher explains the meaning of the main idea or concept to be covered in the lesson by asking a learner to just read from the textbook. the teacher does define the term ‘mirroring’ as an act of copying an action, words or expressions but does not elaborate or shed more light on each forms of mirroring and other concepts which have been read by the learner from the textbook. instrumental forms of knowledge generally, ‘instrumental’ forms of knowledge were evident in more than half the lessons observed. the excerpt below, from a lesson conducted by teacher 3 at school ‘b,’ an urban school, illustrates ‘instrumental’ forms of knowledge in the expressive arts lessons observed. the lesson began at 7:30 a.m. there were 41 children present that day. as part of the introduction of the day’s expressive arts lesson, the teacher formally greeted the learners and began the lesson as follows: teacher: today we will discuss about songs, about singing. o.k., can you just sing one song that you sing at your homes or here at school that expresses happiness or enjoyment. sing one song. i want you to sing using soprano, tenor and bass. (the teacher led the learners in singing the song: we are walking in the light of god, allelujah, we are walking in the light of god. we are walking in the light of god.) naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 175 teacher: we are walking in the light of god allelujah! learners (singing together): we are walking in the light of god. we are walking in the light of god. teacher: have you enjoyed? learners (collectively): yes teacher: thank you for enjoying. sometimes we need to enjoy. in the above excerpt, the teacher must be commended for producing ‘enjoyment’ in the classroom. she is teaching the skills of singing and walking to the beat of the song that reflects what is valued by the local culture. the singing skills are apparently being taught to enable the learners to participate effectively in the social lives of their communities or societies. teachers were thus observed to be focussing their teaching on those sections of the expressive arts curriculum which were on ‘ethnic culture’ of their communities or societies. deep understanding generally, deep understanding was hardly evident in the majority of the lessons. most of the learners demonstrated understanding involving the coverage of everyday knowledge which they could easily remember and were able to provide feedback to the teacher, but there was lack of progression to conceptual knowledge that required the learners to do much reasoning, explanations and arguments. the questioning by the teachers in the lessons did not facilitate deep understanding on the part of the learners. an in-depth analysis of data revealed that 87% (62 out of 71) of the lessons showed superficial understanding on the part of learners. the 62 lessons showed that the learners did not understand what they were being taught. for example, learners either failed to answer teachers’ questions or in cases where they were able to answer their teacher’s questions, their responses were mostly one-word answers which were mainly recitation of fragmented pieces of information which did not show understanding of what the learners were learning below, an excerpt that illustrates learners’ superficial understanding is examined. 176 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 teacher: do you now understand roles of a village head? learners: no teacher: ntchito za amfumu a m’mudzi simukudzimvetsa? (translated as: is it really true that you do not understand the roles of a village head?) learner: mm. teacher: ntchito za a mfumu a m’mudzi simukudzimvetsa zowona? (translated as: are you really serious that you do not understand roles of a village head? learner: mm. teacher: kumudzi kwanu nkuti? (translated as: where do you come from yourselves?) learner: lilongwe teacher: ku lilongweko sikukhala a mfumu? kuli mfumu mazengera kumenekuja yotchuka. ndiye mfumu suyidziwa, tiwamvere chisoni eti?(translated as: so there are no village heads in lilongwe. do you not know that there is village headman mazengera there? you should feel ashamed yourself). the above excerpt shows that the teachers’ presentation of the lesson, including questioning did not facilitate deep understanding of the lesson on the part of the learners. for example, teachers’ remarks such as, ‘is it really true that you do not understand the roles of a village head?, ‘are you really serious that you do not understand roles of a village head?, and ‘you should feel ashamed of yourself’, shows that learners seemed to have been unable to answer even those questions which the teacher considered as simple, to the extent that the teacher rebuked and shouted at the learners, thinking that the learners were just being rude to her. although much of the pedagogy in the lessons was unproductive in deep knowledge coverage, there were some elements of deep knowledge coverage in some of the lessons. data analysis revealed that 30% (21 out of 71) of the lessons were characterised by deep knowledge, below, an extract illustrating deep knowledge in the lessons is examined. teacher: we have seen the leaders of different styles. the leaders who practice democracy and the leaders who are dictators. the different types of leaders have different successes and challenges. challenges is the same as problems. the leaders meet successes and challenges. those leaders in your villages for example meet naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 177 some issues which they are able to resolve without many difficulties. those are what we call successes. however those leaders again meet some issues brought by their villagers which are difficult for them to resolve. (those issues are what we call challenges). so we want to look at those things. [i sat with one group which was composed of four girls and one boy. the learners wrote down the following facts; when leaders face challenges, they should not give up but they should find solutions to their challenges. the leader should practice justice. the leader should encourage people to work in unity and should not take any sides]. the above excerpt shows that deep knowledge is being covered in the lessons because there is greater analysis and classification of leadership styles. these analytical classifications are successes of leaders, problems or challenges of leaders and solutions to the challenges which leaders face. learners’ responses in their groups also showed that they were developing deeper knowledge of leadership styles. this is evidenced from the fact that they are able to expound on the central ideas and concepts they have been assigned to work on. substantive conversation generally, substantive conversation was hardly evident in the classroom in the majority of the expressive arts lessons observed. there was more teacher talk and there were very limited two-way interactions between learners and between the teachers and the learners. learners answered in a word or two to the teacher’s questions. in-depth analysis of data revealed that 80% of the lessons were characterised by lack of substantive conversation between the learners and between the teacher and the learners. the excerpt below, illustrates lack of substantive conversation in the lesson. teacher: can you mention some of the garments which can be used to convey cultural messages which we discussed yesterday? learner: white dress teacher: what else? learner: black garments teacher: can you go into your groups and open your expressive arts text books on page 10. can you discuss the materials which were used to make the garments which are shown in the pictures on page 10. 178 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 [i listened to the discussion of one of the groups. one learner said, “chishango are animal hide.” another learner responded, “nyau dance is carton.” there were three boys in this group who were not participating in the discussions of the group. the three boys were rather involved in some kind of play which seemed not to have been related to the activity which they had been assigned to work on]. in the above excerpt, there was little substantive conversation taking place between the learners or between the teacher and the learners. for example, in the entire nine minutes of group discussion in the above excerpt, there were only two responses made by the learners to the task given them. during much of the time, the learners seemed to have been engaged in off-task activities. while substantive conversation was generally hardly evident in the majority of the lessons, there were a few lessons in which there were more substantive conversations. data revealed that substantive conversation was evident in 20% (14 out of 71) of the lessons. the excerpt below, illustrates ‘substantive conversation’ in the observed lessons: teacher: now in your group, you can just identify one type of dance. for example, a group can have beni dance. and another group can have another type of dance. can you identify those dances? just one, one dance per group. [i sat at a group composed of four girls and one boy. the boy told his colleagues ‘kandiyandiya’ (translated as: it is kandiyandiya dance). one girl told the group, ‘likhuba’ (translated as: it is likhuba dance). another girl asked her colleagues, ‘is a likhuba a dance? the boy in the group responded, ‘ee, ndimayesa ndi dance?’ (translated as: yes, i really thought this is a dance). the girl asked further, ‘koma amavina nthawi yanji?’ (translated as: but at what time of the day is this dance performed?) the boy answered, ‘kaya’ (translated as: well, i don’t really know). the girl enquired further, ‘ndiye iwe sukudziwa?’ (translated as: so you don’t know as well). another girl remarked, ‘likhuba dance’ (translated as: it is likhuba dance). the rest of the members of the group agreed with her and they wrote in their note books, ‘likhuba’ dance]. naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 179 in the above excerpt, there was substantive conversation taking place amongst the learners because the learners were asking each other questions which were open-ended and had possibilities of sustaining the conversation amongst them. each learner in the group was participating actively and making a contribution to sustain the discussion in the group. knowledge as problematic generally, knowledge as problematic was hardly evident in the majority of the lessons. in the majority of the lessons, all knowledge was presented as ‘given’, in an uncritical manner where there was no argumentative discussion on information between learners and teachers; the learners accepted almost all information given by the teachers instantly. the excerpt below illustrates lack of presentation of knowledge as problematic in the lessons. teacher: (reads for the learners from the teacher’s guide). o.k. different body movements can convey specific messages. for example, a person might wave a hand like this rather than saying hello or nod his or head in agreement with whatever somebody is saying. the body movements can be useful in expression and communication because they are a big way to convey thoughts and feelings without speaking. there are certain messages to be conveyed and expressed by body movements. these messages are very important in any cultural setting. this is because it enhances cooperation amongst members of the same community. is this clear? learners (collectively): yes the above excerpt shows that the teacher presented knowledge as ‘given’, in an uncritical manner. the teacher did not create an opportunity for any debate or argument on the information presented to the learners. the teacher conducted a monologue and read the content of the teacher’s guide to the learners. the above excerpt again illustrates the general practice of most of the teachers in the study that the teachers simply transmitted information to learners and that learners received information passively from their teacher. 180 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 metalanguage teachers discourse showed little evidence of instruction of metalinguistic concerns. teachers did not really take into account or give feedback to learners’ usage of language. they proceeded with their lessons without alerting learners to their own or learners’ use of language. in the observed lessons, only one teacher corrected the learners’ incorrect pronunciation of the word ‘pottery’, which they were wrongly pronouncing as ‘poultry’. summary of intellectual quality of lessons findings on intellectual quality dimension of productive pedagogies found in the 71 lessons are summarised in table 3 below. table 3: summary of episodes in the indicators of high intellectual quality dimension dimension indicator 1 indicator 2 indicator 3 indicator 4 high intellectual quality higher-order thinking deep knowledge deep understanding substantive conversation percentage of lessons 39% 30% 13% 20% engagement with difference generally, engagement with difference was hardly evident in the expressive arts lessons observed. a detailed analysis of each indicator of engagement with difference dimension of productive pedagogies as observed in the lessons is presented below. cultural knowledge from the observations, generally, cultural knowledge coverage was evident in the lessons. however, only the cultures of the dominant ethnic groups in malawi were recognised and emphasised. there was generally no explicit naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 181 recognition, valuing or clear appreciation of cultures of small ethnic groups in malawi or the cultures of other people outside the immediate environment of malawi. the extract below illustrates that only the cultures of the dominant ethnic groups in malawi were emphasised in the lessons observed. teacher: it is now time for expressive arts. we are going to learn about multicultural performances. who can define the term multicultural? who can define the term multicultural performances? yes? learner: multicultural performances are performances for difference culture. teacher: so can you give me some examples of popular ethnic groups found in malawi? learner: yao teacher: yao, yes? learner: lomwe teacher: o.k. thank you very much. some of the popular ethnic groups found in malawi are lomwe and yao. these are some examples of popular ethnic groups found in what? in the above excerpt, the teacher tells the learners to discuss folk dances from lomwe tribe, one of the dominant tribes in malawi. this shows that there was no explicit recognition or valuing of cultures of other small ethnic groups in malawi in the lesson, other than the dominant cultures. although coverage of cultural knowledge of small ethnic groups in malawi was weakly evident in the lessons, the cultural knowledge the teachers brought to the classroom had some positive influence on teachers’ practices in the classrooms. some teachers occasionally used cultural tools such as songs and dances to help students participate in class. inclusivity generally, lack of recognition of small ethnic groups and non-dominant group participation in the lessons observed suggested that there was no inclusivity in the classrooms. only teacher 2 once in a while during the teaching and learning process made some attempts to get learners of different sexes actively involved in the lessons. 182 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 for example, the excerpt below illustrates some inclusivity in the expressive arts lessons observed. in the lesson, the teacher encouraged learners to form groups with equal representation of boys and girls. teacher: yesterday, we learned about mirroring. we said that mirroring are activities which somebody can mirror from his friends. can you tell me what we said mirroring is? learner: mirroring is an activity in which somebody imitates a friend. teacher: yes, mirroring is an activity which you copy from a friend. 12:02: can you be in groups of ten. i do not want to see groups of boy teacher: only and girls only. in the above excerpt, the teacher was making explicit attempts to include learners of different sexes in the lesson when she said that, ‘i do not want to see groups of boys only and girls only’. the teacher thus encouraged learners to make groups which were inclusive of different sexes. on the other hand, 83% (66 out of 71) of the lessons showed lack of attention to gender inclusivity. the excerpt below illustrates lack of ‘inclusivity’ in the observed lessons: teacher: i welcome you to this lesson this morning. today the topic is posture and body movements. open your books on page 12. what i want you to do is to study the illustrations in the learners’ book, secondly identify postures and body movements that express cultural values, and lastly, describe each posture and body movement. i want you in your groups to do this. [one group composed of boys only. in the group one boy said, ‘this picture shows respect.’ another boy asked, ‘kodi’ (translated as: can i be enlightened) to show respect ‘ndikuwonetsa ulemu, eti?’ (translated as: what does to show respect mean?). a third boy asked, ‘nanga ichi, chikuwonetsa chiya?’ (translated as: what about this, what does it mean? number b, ‘chikuwonetsa chiya?’ (translated as: what does this number b, mean?]. in the above excerpt, there was no attempt by the teacher to include learners of different sexes in the group activities. boys and girls were working on their own. naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 183 group identities in a learning community generally, the majority of expressive arts lessons showed few explicit attempts by teachers to help learners from different backgrounds feel part of the learning community in the classroom. only one of the lessons observed showed an explicit attempt to build a sense of a learning community for learners of different backgrounds in the classroom. the excerpt below illustrates this. teacher: of course we kneel down in order to show respect to the old people. today’s topic will be cultural dances. o.k. there are some people here who can dance manganje. can you please come forward and demonstrate how to dance manganje. but i want other learners who have not danced manganje before also to come forward and join in the dancing. the teacher acknowledged those learners who come from a tribe which dances ‘manganje’ to take a lead in the dancing of ‘manganje’ and at the same time, he also encouraged other learners who are not from such a tribe to also participate in the activity. in this way, the teacher created a learning community in which learners with different backgrounds felt part of the activities of the lesson. narrative the original model of the productive pedagogies framework states that ‘some non-mainstream learners, particularly indigenous children (of australia), may learn best through narrative method, because of strong oral traditions and narrative practices extant in their communities.’ this argument is also true of malawi. most malawian children may learn best through narrative method, because of strong oral traditions and narrative practices extant in the country. data showed that narrative as a teaching style was seldom used in the lessons. of the lessons observed, only one lesson had an element of narrative pedagogy. the excerpt below shows that the teacher used narrative teaching in the lesson. 184 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 teacher: tsopano mvetserani nthano iyi [translated as: now listen to this story]. there was a king in israel called solomon. two women from the same house came to the king each with a baby in her hands. one of the women was carrying a dead baby and the other woman was a carrying a living baby. the woman carrying the dead baby told the king that it was not hers but the living one and that the other woman said so too. therefore, they were quarrelling over the living baby. so the king commanded that the living baby should be cut into two to be shared equally between the women. the woman whom the living baby was not hers agreed, but the other woman pleaded with the king with a motherly compassion not to kill the baby. eventually, the king gave the living son to the compassionate woman. all who heard this respected the king. in the above excerpt, the teacher used narrative teaching. this is so because the teacher included telling a story (a biblical one in this case) to illustrate the moral lesson which she wanted to teach to the learners through the day’s lesson on types of leadership. active citizenship generally, this topic was not taught by teachers. just one teacher discussed citizenship rights, responsibilities and practices of good citizenship. teacher: can you tell us the story behind this picture? what is the picture about? what is the person doing there? yes? learner: vandalising the bridge teacher: do you think removing wood from the bridge is good? learners: nooo! teacher: it is not good to vandalise bridges because we are the same people who use the bridge. in the above excerpt, teacher 3 made an attempt in her lesson to promote ‘ideals’ of good citizenship like patriotism, loyalty to the nation and respect for the rule of law. summary of engagement with difference the percentage of lessons and number of episodes indicating presence of naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 185 engagement with difference dimension in the 71 lessons are presented in table 5 below. table 5: percentage of lessons and number of episodes indicating presence of engagement with difference dimension in the 71 lessons. dimension indicator 1 indicator 2 indicator 3 indicator 4 indicator 5 engagement with difference cultural knowledge narrative teaching expository teaching inclusivity group identity in a learning community number of episodes in the 71 lessons 92 1 70 6 1 percentage of lessons 92% 1% 99% 7% 1% connectedness to the world beyond the classroom generally, the majority of the lessons observed showed little connectedness to the world beyond the classroom. only 43% (31 lessons out of 71) of the lessons showed connectedness to the world beyond the classroom. a detailed analysis of each indicator of connectedness to the world beyond the classroom is presented below. connectedness to the world although a few lessons contained elements of connectedness to the outside world, the majority of lessons were observed to have no connection to the world outside the classroom. in addition to this, the few lessons which contained activities with connection to the outside world had those connections restricted to the immediate environment of the classrooms, such as the cultures of the community from which the learners came and some national crises affecting the learners in the country. there was thus dominance of localising pedagogic discourses in the majority of the lessons. 186 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 the excerpt below illustrates some localising pedagogic discourses which characterised the majority of the lessons. teacher: choose something which you can draw. may be a tree, may be a school, a house, people who are sick because of hiv/aids, the cutting down of trees or any other problems affecting you in the country. you can think of those things. also things like a school girl or a school boy. you can draw anything which you can think about. the above excerpt is one of the examples which characterised the majority of the lessons in terms of their connectedness to the world beyond the classroom. the excerpt shows that although there were some attempts by the teachers to connect their lessons beyond the classroom, these connections were restricted to the immediate environment of the classrooms such as some national crises affecting the learners in the country. this practice deprived the learners the opportunity to develop knowledge, skills, attitudes and values which would enable them to deal with the challenges of their everyday lives and to enable them actively participate in the changing malawi context. background knowledge generally, most of the lessons made some reference to learners’ background knowledge, either to learners’ daily experiences or their community. of the observed lessons, 82% (58 out of 71) made some reference to the learners’ background knowledge. the excerpt below illustrates connection of the lessons observed to the learners’ background knowledge: teacher: yesterday, we discussed about the garments which convey messages. i would like to ask you a few questions about what we discussed yesterday. in our societies, if a woman puts on black dress, what does it symbolise, or what does that tell you? learners: funerals teacher: right, when you see a woman putting on black dress, normally it symbolises that somebody or a family member has died. naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 187 in the above excerpt, the teacher related the lesson to the learners’ knowledge of their culture. for example, the teacher began the lesson by asking the learners about what they knew about the culture of dressing for different occasions such as funerals in their societies. the teacher thus built the lesson on the learners’ background knowledge which they brought with them to the classroom. however, some teachers made no reference to learners’ background knowledge, either to learners’ daily experiences or their community. for example, the excerpt below illustrates lack of connection of some of the lessons to the learners’ background knowledge. teacher: today, we are looking at contemporary music. we are specifically looking at some of the things that are found in music. we are especially now looking at tempo and dynamics. are we together? now, first of all let us look at the term tempo. what is it? what is tempo? o.k. we are saying tempo. these are marks indicated at the beginning of a song. so these marks ndizo zimamuwuza munthu uja kuti [translated as: these punctuation marks indicate that] the tempos can be fast or slow. in the excerpt above, there is no connection of the lesson to the learners’ background knowledge. this is so because the teacher began the lesson by talking about concepts of contemporary music without building the topic or the subject matter of the day’s lesson on learners’ background knowledge, such as the learners’ cultural songs or music. knowledge integration generally, most of the content taught by the teachers was limited to one subject discipline. of the lessons observed, only 18% (6 out of 71) attempted to integrate knowledge. the excerpt below shows one of the few examples of integration of knowledge. teacher: then we identified one dance for which we sung the song, chule anafera kwa mkazi wake koma maliro anapita kwawo [translated as: the frog died at the in-laws village but it was decided that he be buried at his own village of origin]. now, what is the importance of this song? learner: unity and cooperation. 188 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 teacher: yes, it teaches us about unity and cooperation. teacher: now we shall be performing this dance known as manganje. we shall be in three groups but each group will perform manganje and sing a song of their choice during the performance. now let us go outside and perform manganje. we will use this tin as a drum because we don’t have a drum. can you please compose a song in your groups and sing and dance to those songs using gestures. [learners went outside and were in their three groups singing their songs of manganje. one group one sung the song, tipewe aids chifukwa ilibe mankhwala (translated as: let us avoid aids because it has no cure]. the above excerpt shows some conceptual integration of knowledge. the teacher integrated knowledge from music, dance and life skills education, when he asked the learners to come up with a song on any contemporary or cross-cutting issues and match the song with manganje dance steps. however, although learners recognised some connections between classroom knowledge and situations outside the classroom, but they did not explore the implications of these connections, so they remained abstract or hypothetical. in the above excerpt, when the teacher asked the learners about the significance of the song they sung, the learners mentioned issues like promotion of unity and cooperation among people. but the teacher did not actually engage the students deeply in any critical analysis of what they meant by unity and cooperation. the learners thus just mentioned the issues without making explanations of their thoughts. problem-based curriculum problem-based curriculum was weakly evident in the lessons, as learners were not engaged in solving real-world problems in the twelve classrooms. the lessons lost the rhythm of higher-order or critical thinking associated with high intellectual quality teaching and learning proposed by productive pedagogies. naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 189 summary of connectedness to the world beyond the classroom the percentage of lessons and number of episodes indicating presence of connectedness of lessons to the world beyond the classroom dimension in the 71 lessons are presented in table 6 below. table 6: percentage of lessons and number of episodes indicating presence of connectedness of lessons to the world beyond the classroom dimension indicator 1 indicator 2 indicator 3 connectedness to the world beyond the classroom connectedness to the world background knowledge knowledge integration percentage of lessions 24% 82% 8% supportive classroom environment this dimension was weakly evident in most of the observed expressive arts lessons. only 27% (18 out of 71) showed evidence of supportive classroom environment, although some parts of the lessons had some of its indicators. a detailed analysis of each indicator of supportive classroom environment dimension of productive pedagogies as observed in the lessons is presented below. student direction in all of the observed lessons, teachers determined students’ activities during teaching and learning process such as listening, doing exercises in notebooks, group discussions and presentation of group discussions. social support seventy five percent (46 out of 71) of the observed lessons showed very limited social support. 190 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 the excerpt below illustrates lack of social support in the observed lessons: teacher: let us go to the ground to practice doing some of the mirroring activities which we discussed yesterday. teacher: can you be in groups of 10. i do not want to see groups of boys only and girls only. can that group demonstrate running on one leg from there to there? can the rest of the groups do exactly what you have seen your friends doing, running on one leg for 20 metres and back? you two, you are very stupid. why are you doing your own things? why are you not running? in this excerpt, the teacher did not provide social support to the learners. this is so because firstly, when the teacher noticed that the learners were engaging themselves in some off-task activities, the teacher disapproved their actions by reprimanding them, ‘you too, you are very stupid. why are you doing your own things? why are you not running?’ this may have left the concerned learners embarrassed and eventually dropping out of the lesson. secondly, the teacher did not use or employ any other ‘social support’ techniques to teach the learners to listen attentively and concentrate on the teaching and learning task at hand, apart from the teacher rebuking the learners. however, some teachers did try to give moral support and encouragement to the students. of the lessons observed, only 35 % (25 out of 71) were characterised by social support. the main form of social support provided to the learners was praising them when they made a contribution in the lessons, showing them that their contributions were important. the ideas of learners were acknowledged by the teacher in such a way that the learners felt involved in class discussions. when a learner gave an incorrect answer, the teacher called upon other learners to come to the rescue of a colleague who had either given a wrong response or made no attempt to give an answer to a teacher’s question. engagement students engagement in the teaching and learning process was hardly evident in the majority of the lessons. only 27% (18 out of 71) of the lessons showed academic engagement of learners. in the remaining 73% (53 out of 71) of the lessons observed, much of the teaching and learning time was spent on classroom management, with a lot of time spent controlling students’ behaviour. naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 191 the excerpt below is an example of a situation with little academic engagement of learners in the teaching and learning process. teacher: o.k. today, we are going to continue our work. have you got your materials for making the drums? learners (collectively): yes [one group had 26 learners. one of the boys in the group complained, ‘mukundipwetekatu’ (translated as: you are hurting me colleagues. another boy agreed, ‘pachuluka anthu apa’ (translated as: we are too many here). a third boy complained, ‘ndikuyesa ndikuchita kukankhidwa’(translated as: i am also being pushed). a fourth boy agreed, ‘inde pachuluka anthu apapa ntchito ikumativuta kugwira’ (translated as: it is true, we are too many here, it is difficult for all of us to participate]. in this excerpt, there is little engagement of learners in the learning tasks of the lesson. this is so because firstly, the complaints of the learners, such as, ‘you are hurting me colleagues’, ‘we are too many here’, ‘i am also being pushed’, ‘it is true, we are too many here, it is difficult for all of us to participate’, show that there were too many learners in one group and as such it was difficult for each one of them to participate actively in the assigned work. secondly, there was disruption of the class as learners were pushing and hurting each other leading to very little learning taking place in the groups. this was created by very large numbers of learners in the class. explicit quality performance criteria most of the teachers did not make the criteria for quality performance explicit. however, some teachers tried to gauge the quality of the learning of their learners by assessing their performance at the end of the lessons. for example, teachers 2 and 10 assessed their learners’ learning at least twice during their lessons. only 6% (4 lessons out of 71) showed some evidence of assessment for learning taking place within the teaching and learning process. however, the assessment activities were observed to be merely aimed at recall of facts. 192 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 the excerpt below, illustrates some assessment, but only of factual recall. now can you take note books and quickly answer these questions. [teacher wrote the following questions on the chalkboard] 1. what is mirroring? 2. mention two activities which you can copy from friends? [the teacher went around the classroom marking the learners. she did the marking for about five minutes]. teacher: most of you failed to answer the questions correctly. the above excerpt shows that the teacher involved assessment of learners when she gave learners a class exercise, marked the exercise and gave them the expected responses to the questions. however, the episode shows that the assessment activity was based on simple recall of facts that were learned in that lesson and in the previous couple of lessons. this assessment activity, like the other three observed in the lessons, was different from that of the teacher’s guide. the standard 7 teacher’s guide that the teacher used suggested the following assessment tasks for students: 1. what are mirroring activities? 2. why are mirroring activities significant? 3. describe some mirroring activities that you do at home and at school. 4. how do mirroring activities differ from other ordinary activities? while teacher 2’s task only involved students to recall facts, the same task in the teacher’s guide goes beyond simple recalling of facts. for example, the third and fourth questions of the task in the teacher’s guide makes connections to students’ lived experiences. yet the teacher’s assessment task did not make such connections. summary of supportive classroom environment the majority of expressive arts lessons showed little engagement of learners in the teaching and learning process. the percentage of lessons and number of episodes indicating presence of supportive classroom environment dimension in the 71 lessons are presented in table 7 below: naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 193 table 7: percentage of lessons and number of episodes indicating presence of supportive classroom environment dimension in the 71 lessons dimension indicator 1 indicator 2 indicator 3 supportive classroom environment engagement social support judging student performances percentage of lessions 27% 35% 6% interpretation and conclusion through a recursive categorisation of the research data, eight themes emerged as significant in the pedagogical practices of the expressive arts curriculum teachers in grades 7 and 8. these themes are: generally lower intellectual quality lessons; the prevalence of localising pedagogic discourses; pedagogy for communalisation and subordination; pedagogy for syllabus completion; pedagogy for public examinations; weak integration of knowledge; limited connection of lessons to the outside world and over-dominance of instrumentalist knowledge. these themes are discussed below: lower intellectual quality lessons this study found that the lessons lacked high intellectual quality in terms of in-depth coverage of the subject matter thus compromising possibilities for higher-order thinking and deep understanding on the part of the learners. this result is consistent with other studies on the practice of productive pedagogies by teachers. for example, the study confirms what was found by zohir and razak (2010). zohir and razak, in his study of the classroom practice of productive pedagogies of malaysian secondary school geography teachers, found that the level of intellectual quality in the geography classrooms were very low, as students were less involved with higher order thinking skills as most of the teachers did not encourage the students to think deeper and get actively involved during the teaching and learning process. the teachers in zohir’s study were observed to have been asking lower-level questions to the students. students were observed only to receive information passively from their teachers most of the times. 194 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 there are three major possible explanations for these findings. these are presented in the following sub-sections. (a) teaching for public examinations results of this study showed that teachers were teaching for and to high stakes examinations. the classes were to sit for public examinations in the year (2010) when this study was being conducted and the following year 2011. mandatory examinations may therefore have influenced classroom practices of teachers because the state uses grade eight examinations as the only tool for selecting students for secondary school education. this study’s finding support what other authors and researchers, for example whitaker (1993), have argued that standardised testing forces teachers to teach in a way that will prepare learners for examinations, and this can affect the achievement of the broad goals and objectives of the curriculum. (b) assumption of deficit model the teachers hold a ‘deficit’ belief about their learners. teachers revealed that their pupils were slow learners and ‘empty buckets’, and as such, they need to ‘give’ the learners knowledge. this finding is consistent with the findings of sarangapani’s (2003) study of pedagogic practices of teachers in low-income, under-resourced schools in india. sarangapani (2003) found that teachers in his study held a ‘deficit’ picture of their learners, and also employed expository teaching methods to give sufficient knowledge to their learners. (c) influence of english as language of instruction although teachers used english as a medium of instruction, they often switched to the vernacular whenever they noted that learners were not following. this increased the participation of learners. the slight improvement in participation of the learners in lesson activities when a teacher switched to vernacular indicates that the english language skills of the learners may be an obstacle affecting the participation of the learners in the lessons. mkandawire (2004) found that students’ participation reduced drastically whenever the class teacher switched from a local language to english. kaphesi (2001) also found that the use of local language in grade five mathematics class greatly increased students’ participation in lesson naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 195 activities. these significant research findings suggest that the use of english as a medium of class instruction in the malawi primary school classrooms reduces students’ active participation. limited connection of lessons to the outside world this study found that teachers seldom made connections with the outside world. as many writers correctly observed, effective teaching is about making connections between classroom lessons and the outside world in which the students will be expected to display competent skills in active participatory life (see barton and levstik, 2004; cogan, grossman and mei-hui-liu, 2000). in fact, this kind of connection is what cogan et al, and giroux and mclaren (1999) contended that is important for providing students with the skills in critical thinking and development of positive attitudes about the real world. similarly, remy, anderson and snyder (1976) also observed that the greater the connections between the curriculum and the outside world, the higher the likelihood that the students can transfer the classroom experiences to the real life situations. however, the twelve teachers in this case study did not make links classroom activities and the world outside their classrooms. yet the curriculum documents encouraged teachers to make such connections using resource persons, experts in various fields. such lack of connection between the lessons and the outside world divorces education in malawi from the knowledge society and the world we live in. over-dominance of localised knowledge data of this study showed that the majority of the expressive arts lessons observed were characterised by dominance of localised knowledge, particularly ‘ethnic culture’. there were thus more episodes in which the lessons observed covered ethnic or local cultural beliefs and practices of the learners. interview with the teachers revealed that the teachers stressed cultural knowledge in their lessons because they did not want learners to forget about their cultural roots and identity. the legitimatising of ‘ethnic’ cultural practices can be considered to be good in its own right as it gives learners cultural identity as explained by the teachers. but authors like young (1997), have criticised localising of knowledge for resulting in an education that is 196 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 balkanising, and which divorces a country from the ‘knowledge society’ and the information age learners live in. weak integration of knowledge across subject disciplines the expressive arts curriculum documents, such as the teachers’ guide, stipulate integration of knowledge as one of the most important principles of teaching expressive arts as an integrated learning area. however, most of the content taught by the teachers in the majority of expressive arts was limited to one subject discipline without linking the knowledge with content of other subjects comprising expressive arts. this was followed up in post-lesson interviews. teachers cited gaps in their own knowledge of the content of some of the subject disciplines which form expressive arts as the main reason for their failure to integrate content of different subjects in their lessons this is consistent with what naidoo (2006) found about challenges which teachers face in implementing an integrated curriculum. naidoo noted that one of the challenges of implementing an integrated curriculum is that teachers may not have knowledge of all the disciplines integrated in the curriculum they are implementing. in her study on teachers’ perceptions of the integrated learning areas for the junior secondary school curriculum of the south african national curriculum statement (2002), naidoo found that the majority of teachers in her study lacked confidence and were not able to teach integrated learning areas due to gaps in their own knowledge (of the various disciplines informing the learning areas). this result is also consistent with the findings obtained by zohir and razak (2010). they found that most of the content taught by the geography teachers in the secondary schools in malaysia was limited to the subject itself without linking the knowledge with other subjects’ content. pedagogy for communalisation and subordination the study found that generally students did not take and active role in any of the 12 classrooms. naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 197 students never asked their teachers questions whenever the teachers gave them the chance to do so. the students were always ready to answer questions from their teachers, but not asking them questions. thus, although all the teachers knew the importance of involving all students in lesson activities regardless of their gender, their social-cultural backgrounds seemed to have ruled supreme in the decisions they made in the classrooms. viewing from the lens of productive pedagogies theory, the socio-cultural experiences that both the teachers and students brought to class affirmed malawian cultural epistemologies and ontologies that included subordination of learners, the young to the older. the implication of this affirmation of malawian cultural epistemologies in the pedagogy of the teachers was the creation of a classroom environment that had very limited interactions between the teachers and the learners. this resulted in very limited or low intellectual quality of the expressive arts lessons observed. this result also concurs with tabulawa’s (1998) study. tabulawa’s study, conducted in a senior secondary school in botswana, sought to establish the practices of teachers in the implementation of learner-centred pedagogy advocated by the ministry of education in botswana. as in malawi, attempts to improve the quality of education in botswana have included an emphasis on a learner-centered pedagogy. tabulawa’s study found that attempts at implementing the learner-centred pedagogy have produced disappointing results because much attention in preparing for the implementation of the learner-centred pedagogy focussed on provision of resources and training of teachers, but ignored the effect which the beliefs which teachers and learners bring to the classroom would have on the implementation of the learnercentred pedagogy. the findings of tabulawa’s study indicated that teachers’classroom practices were influenced by many factors other than technical ones: the teachers' assumptions about the nature of knowledge and the ways it ought to be transmitted, their perceptions of students, and the goal of schooling. it also emerged that the teachers’ beliefs were incongruent with the basic tenets of the learner-centered pedagogy. tabulawa concluded that the results of his study indicate that disregarding the effect of the beliefs which teachers and learners bring to the classroom on classroom practices when effecting change can lead to disappointing results. these results have some implication on the productive pedagogies theory. one limitation of productive pedagogies theory is that it does not clearly stipulate the actual contexts of classroom interactive processes necessary for the development of skills in critical thinking and problem solving which it 198 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 supports. from that perspective, this study suggests that creating an interactive classroom environment that treats students as rational beings is not a simple process as the theory assumes. there are factors that impinge on such processes, the critical one being the socio-cultural context in which a curriculum is being implemented. this research used lingard’s et al. (2001) concept of productive pedagogies to explore the pedagogic practices of expressive arts teachers in the primary schools in malawi. the overall picture from the findings of this study is that classroom atmosphere in the twelve classrooms gave students limited opportunities for the acquisition of knowledge and development of skills, values and attitudes required for them to actively participate in the changing malawian context and to be able to compete successfully in other contexts. it appears that dominant pedagogic practices in the expressive arts classroom serve to position learners in parochial orientations and issues. therefore, there was an obvious disjuncture between the state’s intended curriculum and the teachers’ enacted curriculum. the results of this study show that malawi would probably have done better by not taking the outcomes based education considering the implementing problems it is facing which are associated with an obe curriculum. the implications of these findings for malawi education have been raised. the most salient of these implications include the need for malawi institute of education, the main change agent of primary school curriculum in the country, not only to consider revising the expressive arts curriculum but also to focus on the development of teachers in line with their needs for deeper content knowledge and learner-centred pedagogic strategies. naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 199 references barton, k.c. and levstik, l.s. 2004. teaching history for the common good. london: lawrence erlbaum associates. bernstein, b. 1971. on the classification and framing of educational knowledge.in young, m. 2001. knowledge and control: new directions for the sociology of education. london: collier macmillan, pp.441–461. boaler, j. 1997. when even the winners are losers: evaluating the experiences of ‘top set’ students. journal of curriculum studies, 29(2): pp.165–182. cogan, j.j., grossman, d. and mei-hui-liu. 2000. citizenship democratic imagination in a global/local context. social education, 64(1): pp.48–53. croft, a. 2002. singing under a tree: does oral culture help lower primary teachers be learner-centred? 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(ed.) handbook of research on curriculum. new york: macmillan. remy, r.c., anderson, l.f. and snyder, r.1976. citizenship education in elementary schools. theory into practice, 15(1): pp.31–36. sarapangani, a. 2003. ethnography of learning in a northern indian village. international journal of educational development, 30(2010): pp.297–304. naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 201 tabulawa, r. 1998. teachers’ perceptions on classroom practice in botswana. implications for pedagogical change. international journal of education, 11(2): pp.20–30. whitaker, t. 1993. curriculum theory, design and assessment. vancouver: grant mc ewan college press. young, m. 1997. the curriculum of the future: from the new sociology of education to a critical theory of learning. london: routledge. zohir, m., razak, n. 2010. exploring the clasroom practice of productive pedagogies of the malaysian secondary geography teacher. journal of review of international geographical education, vol.2, no.2, summer, 2012. 202 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 appendix 1 sample analysis of an expressive arts lesson using productive pedagogies framework transcription of lesson 2 of expressive arts taught by teacher 2, in standard 7 at school ‘a,’ a rural school on 08/01/2010 analysis 11:50 a.m.: teacher: good morning class learners: good morning madam teacher: how are you? learners: we are very well madam and how are you? teacher: i am very well. sit down learners: thank you madam teacher: yesterday, we learned about mirroring. we said that mirroring are activities which somebody can mirror from his friends. can you tell me what we said mirroring is learner: mirroring is an activity in which somebody imitates a friend. teacher: yes? learner: mirroring is an activity which you copy from a friend teacher: yes learner: mirroring is an action of copying. teacher: yes, what else? learner: mirroring is activity which someone can copy. 11: 55: teacher: mirroring is an art of copying an action, words or expressions. yesterday, we looked at some of the activities which you copy from friends. can you mention the activities which you copy from friends? learner: running teacher: yes, another one? learner: jumping social skills-instrumental social skills-instrumental naidoo and chirwa: productive pedagogies. . . 203 teacher: what else? learner: dancing teacher: yes, you? learner: singing teacher: the activities you have mentioned are some of the activities which we said yesterday that you can copy from each other. 12:00: teacher: let us go to the ground to practice doing some of the mirroring activities which we discussed yesterday. 12:02: teacher: can you be in groups of 10. i do not want to see groups of boys only and girls only. can that group demonstrate running on one leg from there to there. can the rest of the groups do exactly what you have seen your friends doing, running on one leg for 20 metres and back. you two, you are very stupid. why are you doing your own things? why are you not running? 12:10 teacher: you, three of you come here. you are going to show to the rest what we are going to do next. two of you are going to hold hands and someone is going to sit on your joined hands. you are then going to run from here to there. can you do that? can you be in threes and practice lifting each other on joined hands and run.. 12:15: teacher: now we will do another activity which combines a song and dancing. the song is called “nzamazama”. do you all know this song? learners: yes teacher: can you make a circle and move around the circle while you sing the song “nzama-zama.” 12:20: teacher: o.k., thanks, can you go back to class. intellectual quality – low order thinking-knowledge is represented as facts and there is no sustained conversation between the teacher and the learners engagement with differenceinclusivity unsupportive classroom environment. knowledge integration 204 journal of education, no. 64, 2016 – the lesson illustrates low order thinking – this is so because learners provide short one word answers and there is no evidence of substantive conversation between the teacher and the learners and amongst the learners themselves. -there is knowledge integration of physical education, dance and singing. – there is no supportive classroom environment in the lesson. this is so because some learners are involved in disruptive behavior and the teacher reprimands the learners harshly. – there is also engagement with difference in the lesson. devika naidoo grames chirwa university of johannesburg devikan@uj.ac.za grameschirwa@yahoo.co.uk mailto:devikan@uj.ac.za mailto:grameschirwa@yahoo.co.uk editorial wayne hugo teacher education is one of the key causal mechanisms that can make a difference to the development of south africa. one good teacher over a lifespan of teaching reaches around four thousand learners (100 new learners per year x 40 years). good teachers have a positive impact on learning and character. effective learning leads to higher educational performance, improved educational performance lays the groundwork for increasing specialisation, specialisation of function results in a more differentiated system that can respond effectively and productively to the demands of an increasingly complex world. how are we, in south africa, using this vital lever of development? what are we doing to ensure that our initial teacher education (ite) programmes are producing good teachers? what are we doing to ensure that a multiplier effect of 1 to 4000 is as good as she can be? a fair amount i would say. we have shifted teacher education away from a mostly dysfunctional college sector into a mostly functional university sector; we are offering serious bursaries to attract good candidates; we are investing in infrastructural programmes to increase institutional capabilities; and we have a teacher education policy that sets out minimum requirements for teacher education. research on teacher education in south africa is strong and growing, but still has a long way to go. in this edition of the journal of education we publish two articles that contribute to our understanding of ite. lee rusznyak has spent much of her professional and academic career on ite, and it is starting to bear fruits, both in terms of her professional abilities to organise ite programmes and research on how ite works. in the lead article to edition 60 of joe, rusznyak provides a number of conceptual categories drawn from bernstein, muller and maton to help us understand the dynamics of ite programmes across south africa. her key insight is that there are mutually interacting and sometimes conflicting ordering principles at work across ite programmes. some ite programmes define themselves against existing traditional practices in schools and teach liberating pedagogies and critical thinking that challenges the status quo. others emphasise the development of relevant practices that are contextually specific 2 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 and adapted to given local contexts (like rural schools and multi-grade teaching). a third type of programme orders itself around personalised processes of self discovery that produce genuine and meaningful teaching practices. a fourth emphasises access to powerful knowledge structures and orders the programme around how best to access knowledge. finally, a fifth takes a realist and pragmatic stance and inducts the students into the policies and practices currently existing within the schooling sector. rusznyak refuses to fall into an all or nothing gambit, where one principle necessarily trumps and excludes all others. teacher education is a complex professionalising process that demands a number of ordering principles to work together, with different principles foregrounded or backgrounded at different times. just because one ordering principle is dominant does not mean it cannot allow for and use other principles, only that it does so in particular ways. key to getting this right is time, time for students to develop both theoretical insight and practical implementation know how. careful attention to the selection, sequencing and pacing of the ite programme within and between years is key to allow the different principles to consolidate and for an integrated picture to emerge of what good teaching is, especially in our bimodal education landscape. there is a real danger in ite that one ordering principle swallows all the others and that this is allowed to happen across different campuses, each with a different tyrannical principle that insists on its pristine purity and all encompassing glory. for example, powerful knowledge as an all encompassing principle can argue that it has built into its functioning all the other principles, making them redundant. in south africa, with caps, powerful knowledge is a key organising principle students need to be introduced to. proponents of powerful knowledge would argue that it is liberating and results in social justice by providing access to powerful knowledge structures, obviating the need for specific social justice pedagogies that merely waste time and clutter the educational terrain with obfuscating ideologies; it lifts the students away from the trap of being caught in localised practices that lock learners into a limited world; it answers issues of bimodality by offering explicit steps to all, ensuring there are no hidden expectations that obscure the ladder climbing ever upwards. it is a principle that towers above all others, and either one must bow or fight. other ite programmes can insist on other principles as their sole driver – demanding a personalised self discovery path; urging a social justice pedagogy; driving the reproduction of whatever current policy is in place; forcing an immersion in local contexts. we could land up in a world of extreme ite practices that editorial 3 impoverish more as their claims to enrich become increasingly shrill and solitary. we need to learn how to respectfully negotiate the terrain of ordering principles within education and lee rusznyak provides some indications of how to take this difficult process forward. the second article shifts focus to assessment practices within ite, specifically around teaching practice. the profession of teaching requires a period of time where students go into a school and teach for a while. these lessons are observed and ‘critted’ by mentor teachers and academics, who write up reports that evaluate the performance of the student teacher. what do these reports look like? what criteria are used for evaluation? given a student cannot qualify as a teacher if she (she/he) fails the teaching practicum; what evaluation instruments are used? if we had to take all the student teacher evaluation instruments from all the education schools across south africa, what motley crew would we find and how could we make sense of them? what mirror would it lift up to the practices of teacher education? lee rusznyak and carol bertram have attempted to answer the above questions, although, unlike the evil queen of snow white fame, they do not actually ask which of the instruments is the fairest of them all, albeit i suspect, they have their favourite. their article knowledge and judgement for assessing student teaching: a cross-institutional analysis of teaching practicum assessment instruments discusses what conceptual categories should be used for teaching practice assessment and then analyses five education institutions teaching prac forms. it is a vital engagement that sits at the core of how teacher education conducts itself. i leave you to the substance of the article, but wish to raise an issue it left me contemplating – the absence of any sense of long term collaborative process in the forms. there was no indication of a return or reworking of a lesson to make it better and no sense of a community of practice trying to do the improvement together. in lesson study, for example, the same lesson is worked on with peers and practiced until it is perfected. in instructional design, to give another example, lessons are repeated to explore if mistakes and misunderstandings have been addressed. there was no demand, in any of the forms, for a feedback loop that went backwards to the already completed lesson with the instruction – do it again, only this time better. am i being unfair? is teaching practice not caught up in the pressures of daily teaching where present and pressing issues are always at the forefront at the cost of revisiting the past or envisioning the future (lortie, 1975). are the teaching practicum forms not summative in nature, or maybe the forms themselves do 4 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 not give an indication of the actual practices of mentorship? probably. but there is not even a hint of any attempt to craft an excellent lesson where all the small details are thought through, where each individual step, each implication sequence, is carefully interrogated; and there is certainly no indication of this being done in a community of practice. maybe these kinds of practices cannot be caught with these types of instruments, but if we do not develop instruments that track the long term and collaborative process of designing and teaching effective lessons, then we have little chance of breaking the stranglehold of presentist, conservative and individualised practices that characterise everyday teaching at schools. the third article of edition 60 provides a history and current analysis of the state of the subject ‘agricultural science’ in south africa. it used to be the infamous subject ‘gardening’ in black primary schools and ‘agriculture’ in high schools during apartheid times. with the transition to democracy, ‘agricultural sciences’ arose with a strong vision of ‘sustainable agriculture’ within the curriculum statement – the only problem was that no sustainable agriculture could be found in the actual content. granted this was partly due to there not being much content at all, but the content there was all about industrial agriculture. the transition away from outcomes based education (obe) and learner centred pedagogies towards increased specification of content and pedagogy within the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) resulted in a stripping away of the broad vision of sustainable agriculture and replacing it with micro specification of what had to be learnt, where and when. ironically, moraig peden’s analysis shows that this increased specification actually provides some of the basics needed to understand how sustainable agriculture works. obe gave the vision without the substance; caps gives the substance without the vision. if peden tracks developments in the agricultural sciences, then kathy johnson, along with edith dempster and wayne hugo, track developments in the life sciences curriculum. dempster and hugo (2006) had argued for the importance of using the highest ordering concept of biology – evolution – as a structuring principle for school biology. this argument was taken seriously by penny vinjevoldt, who asked dempster to assist in the process of reorganising the life sciences curriculum. this resulted in a far more coherent and structured pathway within life sciences that worked towards learners coming to a full and substantive understanding of how evolution worked. johnson, dempster and hugo (2011) tell the story of this change up until 2009. the current article updates the analysis of the life sciences to editorial 5 include caps. given the tumultuous changes within the life sciences over the past 20 years, it is with some relief that the current iteration of curriculum revision shows broad stability in terms of content. this has allowed for a more micro focus on the details of selection, sequencing and pacing, enabling more intricate engagement. the stabilisation of the life sciences curriculum is a vital development in our turbulent history of curriculum transformation. it allows teachers and learners to establish memory and routines. providing a stable and worthwhile curriculum will never solve all the problems of education, but it does make the battle waged on a daily basis to provide access to powerful knowledge slightly easier. if schools in south africa were fulfilling their functions properly and providing a good baseline for access to powerful knowledges, then we would not have the persistently low and racially skewed completion rates in higher education. universities have to deal with the failure of basic education to provide students who can cope, never mind thrive in higher education. some solution has to be found, and bruce kloot critically explores the current council for higher education’s (che) proposal for extending the current three-year degree to four years by adding an extra 120 credits of foundational provision. the che is not recommending an extra foundation year at the beginning of the student’s academic career, but that these 120 credits should be integrated into the academic programme in a flexible way. to be honest, when i hear the word ‘flexible’ attached to academic development i get very nervous. academic development within higher education is a highly dedicated and focussed undertaking. to expect mainstream academics to take over this function is dangerous, especially in the current climate that rewards research over teaching. if academic development has a low status in our universities, then work on upgrading their funding, status and skills, not integrating their functions within the mainstream. possibly my own experiences of foundation year programmes are contextually limited, but what i have seen are dedicated academic development staff working intensively with students who really need specific and ongoing assistance. the term ‘flexible provision’ in no way helps this deeply committed endeavour. but then, as bruce kloot points out, perhaps the bigger problem is ‘embracing curriculum modification as the panacea to the ills of higher education’. it is pointless reshuffling the chairs on the deck of an ailing ship and that is what flexible foundational provision sounds like to me. the final article of edition 60 focusses on the issue of how to enhance the employability of graduates by making sure they have competencies the labour 6 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 market needs. my own academic history is in post modernism, deconstruction, ancient and medieval philosophy, semiotics, bernsteinian sociology of education, complexity theory, and legitimation code theory. these have all made me highly desirable out there in the labour market. hollis-turner provides an analysis of what knowledge and skills are key for employability in office management, almost none of which i have. she describes a key process where the university of technology he works at has an advisory committee comprising of graduates and employers who provide feedback on the curriculum that focus on improving the employability of graduates. given that our students are not all destined to become professional academics like us, taking this process of employability seriously rather than joking about it or dismissively critiquing it might be a good thing. hollis turner shows us one route on how to do this. so edition 60 provides an interesting set of papers that run from teacher education to school curriculum through higher education to issues of employability, all done in ways that combine theoretical engagement and intricate empirical analysis to deepen our current struggle to use education as a force for good in our increasingly beleaguered world. references lortie, d.c. 1975. schoolteacher: a sociological study. chicago: university of chicago press. dempster, e. and hugo, w. 2006. introducing the concept of evolution to south african schools. south african journal of science, 102(3/4): pp.106–113 johnson, k., dempster, e.r. and hugo, w. 2011. exploring the recontextualisation of biology in the south african life sciences curriculum, 1996–2009. journal of education, 52: pp.27–57. wayne hugo school of education university of kwazulu-natal hugow@ukzn.ac.za mailto:hugow@ukzn.ac.za exploring the recontextualisation of biology in the caps for life sciences kathryn johnson, edith dempster and wayne hugo abstract this study is concerned with the recontextualisation of biology in the most recent version of the south african life sciences curriculum, the caps (curriculum and assessment policy statements). the following aspects of the curriculum were assessed: the balance of canonical and humanistic material, the inclusion and weighting of the core concepts of biology, and the overall curriculum coherence. the results were compared with those for earlier versions of the curriculum, and the implications for south african students are considered. the study reveals that, according to these criteria, the content material of the caps faithfully reflects the hierarchical nature of its parent discipline biology. introduction since 1994, researchers, policy makers and practitioners have been grappling with how best to transform the education system in south africa in order to realise the goal of social justice. outcomes-based education, exemplified by curriculum 2005, was initially touted as the means to this end and was a deliberate move away from the positivist nature of apartheid curricula. the disastrous consequences of this approach in terms of learner performance led to a series of curricular reviews, resulting in several versions of the national curriculum statement, the most recent being the curriculum and assessment policy statements (caps). the subject of this study is the caps for life sciences. as someone whose life’s work was driven by a deep concern for social justice, basil bernstein developed a sociology which has informed educational research in many contexts worldwide (e.g. moore, arnot, beck and daniels, 2006; neves and morais, 2001), as well as in post-apartheid south africa (e.g. bertram, 2008, 2009, 2012; green and naidoo, 2006; hoadley, 2005; johnson, 2009; nsubuga, 2008). bernstein’s concepts of the 102 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 recontextualisation of knowledge in the pedagogic device, knowledge classification and hierarchical knowledge structures provide the framework for this study, while schmidt, wang and mcknight’s (2005) concept of curriculum coherence suggested a method for applying some these concepts to the curriculum. in the context of their application to the sa curriculum, these concepts have been elaborated on in some detail elsewhere (johnson, dempster and hugo, 2011) and will be described only briefly here. conceptual framework the recontextualisation of knowledge in the pedagogic device relates to the movement of knowledge from the field of production in tertiary academic institutions to the field of reproduction in schools, via the official recontextualising field of the curriculum (bernstein, 1990). knowledge is transformed as it moves through these fields of practice and is subject to the influence of the ideologies of agents of and stakeholders in curriculum construction; as a result, a school subject is different from its parent discipline. if the differences are too great, the ability of schools to reproduce specialised knowledge will be undermined, and learners – particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds – will not be inducted successfully into the formal knowledge of the discipline (muller, 2007). knowledge classification refers to the strength of the boundary between such formal disciplinary knowledge and everyday knowledge (bernstein, 1996). in strongly classified knowledge systems the differences between formal and everyday knowledge are made explicit, and knowledge progresses from concrete examples to more abstract general principles or core concepts. according to bernstein, strongly classified knowledge is more highly valued by society and thus empowers those learners who are inducted into its realms (hasan, 2004). this is particularly regarded as true for what bernstein referred to as hierarchical knowledge structures, exemplified by the natural sciences including biology (bernstein, 1996, 1999). hierarchical knowledge structures are shaped by an internal logic (christie, 2007) towards increasingly general theories or propositions which serve to integrate the knowledge of the discipline. within biology, for example, the theory of evolution is widely johnson, dempster and hugo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 103 regarded as the principle which integrates and makes sense of all other aspects of the discipline (e.g. dobzhansky, 1973; gould, 2002; mayr, 2001) curriculum coherence was a concept utilised by schmidt, wang and mcknight (2005) to assess science content standards in the united states. the authors argued that in order to facilitate students’ understanding of the subject matter of a hierarchical knowledge structure such as science, the curriculum must be coherent. by this they mean that foundational knowledge should be laid down before new topics are introduced, that the knowledge content must progress from particulars to deeper structures or from more concrete to more abstract knowledge, not simply be repeated from grade to grade, and that sensible connections should be made between topics both within and between grades. these principles can serve as criteria for assessing how faithfully hierarchical knowledge structures are recontextualised in a curriculum. science curriculum revision arguably one of the most revised curricular areas (donnelly, 2006), science as a school subject (incorporating biology/life sciences) has tended to shift in emphasis over time and place between its more ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ forms, variously expressed as a pendulum swing between a ‘science of life’ versus a ‘science for living’ (rosenthal and bybee, 1987), ‘science for future scientists’ versus ‘science for all’ (bennett, 2003) or a ‘traditional/canonical’ versus ‘humanistic’ approach (aikenhead, 2006; johnson, 2009). the traditional/canonical approach could be seen to equate to a strongly classified knowledge system sensu bernstein (1996), while the humanistic approach would equate to a weakly classified knowledge system. shifts between the two emphases have typically reflected both the dominant educational ideology of the day (rosenthal and bybee, 1987), as well as the priorities of the agents of and stakeholders in curriculum construction (e.g. barberá, zanón and pérez-plá, 1999). consensus has not been reached as to which emphasis better serves the needs of the learner and the cause of social justice, with aikenhead (2006) for example arguing in favour of a more humanistic approach, and donnelly (2006) arguing for a more traditional approach. 104 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 the biology/life sciences curriculum in post-apartheid south africa the biology curriculum in post-apartheid south africa (i.e. for grades 10–12, known as life sciences since 2006) has been subjected to a series of revisions (dempster and hugo, 2006; doidge, dempster, crowe and naidoo, 2008; johnson et al., 2011). the interim core syllabus of 1996 (kwazulu-natal department of education and culture, n.d.) was replaced by the national curriculum statement (now known as the ncs 1; doe, 2003) in 2006, and the ncs content specifications (for life sciences only) were reworked and promulgated as a ‘new curriculum framework’ (now known as the ncs 2) in 2007 (doe, 2007). johnson (2009; see also johnson et al., 2011) performed a comparative analysis of the content specifications of these three versions through the lenses of bernstein’s concepts of hierarchical knowledge structures and the recontextualisation of knowledge in the pedagogic device, the balance of canonical versus humanistic biology, and the degree of coherence within the subject matter. the analysis was used to try to assess whether each successive revision represented an improvement on the previous version in terms of how faithfully the curriculum reflected its parent knowledge structure. the conclusion was reached that of the three versions, the ncs 2 had achieved this most successfully. the ncs 2 was short-lived; however. in july 2009, the new minister of basic education appointed a panel of experts to investigate the many complaints regarding shortcomings in the implementation of the ncs (doe, 2009; umalusi, 2014). one of the main areas of concern was the proliferation of curriculum policy and guideline documents. the result of this process was the development of the curriculum and assessment policy statements (the caps; dbe, 2011), which were intended to replace the multiplicity of curriculum documents with a single document per subject to guide teaching and assessment. the caps were implemented in grade 10 in 2012, and were examined in the national senior certificate for the first time in 2014. the caps for life sciences has already been subjected to scrutiny. mnguni (2013) investigated the grade 11 life sciences curriculum according to schiro’s (2008) four categories of curriculum ideology. umalusi (the council for quality assurance in general and further education and training) undertook an in-depth study of the entire curriculum in order to establish its strengths, weaknesses and overall quality, and to make recommendations for johnson, dempster and hugo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 105 its improvement to the department of basic education and training (umalusi, 2014). the specific intention of the present study is to examine the relationship between the content specifications in the caps for life sciences and the parent knowledge structure of biology, according to the criteria established in johnson’s (2009) study, namely the balance of canonical versus humanistic biology, the inclusion and weighting of biology’s core concepts, and the coherence of the subject matter. these results are placed in context by comparing them with those found for the three previous versions, namely the ics, ncs 1 and ncs 2, in order to assess whether the caps represents a further improvement on the ncs 2 in terms of how biology as a hierarchical knowledge structure has been recontextualised in this latest version of the life sciences curriculum. methods the material analysed was the content specifications of all three grades in the curriculum and assessment policy statement grades 10–12: life sciences (hereafter known as the caps) (dbe, 2011; pp.10–65). in the curriculum these are listed grade by grade, using four ‘knowledge strands’ (life at the molecular, cellular and tissue level, life processes in plants and animals, environmental studies, and diversity, change and continuity) as organising devices. within each knowledge strand, the content appears under the column headings time, topic, content, investigations and resources. for the purposes of this study, only the text in the topic, content and investigations columns was analysed. the methods used to analyse the caps were the same as those used in the previous study in order for valid comparisons to be made between the curricula (johnson et al., 2011) and will be described below. the text in the content and investigations columns was divided into ‘statements’ – one or more sentences, phrases or words which deal with a unit of information – and imported into separate rows in an excel spreadsheet. the statements were then assigned to two sets of predetermined categories using a numerical code. the initial analysis coded the statements as being either ‘canonical’ (pertaining to canonical biological knowledge, or the development of skills which could be regarded as being specifically related to science) or ‘humanistic’ (pertaining to the development of more generic skills, or to applications, attitudes and values, and science as a human enterprise). appendix 1 elaborates on criteria used to assign statements to either canonical 106 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 or humanistic biology, and provides examples of how various statements in the curricula were coded. a second analysis coded the canonical statements according to seven broad themes in biology, namely life at the molecular and cellular level, inheritance, evolution, diversity, plant structure and functioning, animal structure and functioning and ecology. these themes were previously established as basic categories which represent core concepts in biology in the field of knowledge production (see johnson, 2009 or johnson et al, 2011). appendix 2 lists topics which may be incorporated within each theme. the weighting of each theme was determined by calculating the number of statements related to each theme as a percentage of the total number of canonical biology codings. in this analysis, only the statements regarded as canonical knowledge were included, and not those relating to the development of scientific skills. in order to assess the coherence of the subject matter, the text was then mapped grade by grade (after the draft concept maps of project 2061’s atlas of science literacy, 2006), with the four knowledge areas forming columns on the maps. this serves to provide a clear visual representation of conceptual progression, the extent to which topics are connected, and whether or not there is repetition of material from grade to grade. topics (i.e. those listed in the topic column in the curriculum) were placed into individual boxes, which were joined by solid lines if connections between them are explicitly stated in the curriculum (for example, ‘link to tissues’, p 25). if, according to our judgment, the topics are connected but this connection is not explicitly stated, the boxes were joined by broken lines. results in the case of the first two analyses, the results obtained for the caps are given alongside those previously obtained for the ics, ncs 1 and ncs 2 (johnson et al., 2011) in order to facilitate comparisons between the curricula. in the case of the conceptual progression map, only that for the caps is included here. the maps for the other three curricula can be found in johnson et al. (2011). johnson, dempster and hugo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 107 balance of canonical and humanistic biology four hundred and twenty-two statements were identified in the caps. of these, 296 (70.1%) were coded as canonical and 126 (29.9%) as humanistic. if this result is compared with those previously obtained for the ics, ncs 1 and ncs 2 (johnson, 2009), the following trend is revealed (see figure 1): figure 1: relative percentages of canonical and humanistic biology statements in four consecutive versions of the south african life sciences curriculum. the number at the base of each bar represents the number of statements coded in each curriculum. (results for the ics, ncs 1 and ncs 2 from johnson et al., 2011). weighting of core themes in biology table 1 below shows the weighting of the seven core themes in biology within the text identified as ‘canonical’. in this analysis, only the statements 108 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 regarded as canonical knowledge were included and not those relating to the development of scientific skills. this explains why the number of statements coded (245) in the case of the caps is less than that for all canonical statements (296). table 1: weighting (%) of canonical biology themes in four consecutive versions of the south african life sciences curriculum (n = number of canonical statements coded) theme ics (n = 265) ncs 1 (n = 52) ncs 2 (n = 310) caps (n = 245) life at the molecular and cellular level inheritance evolution diversity plant structure and functioning animal structure and functioning ecology 13 7.6 0 29.8 5.9 34.9 8.8 13.3 6.7 20 4.4 6.7 20 28.9 16.2 7.2 9.6 13.4 10.3 33.3 10 23.7 8.6 13.5 10.6 6.9 25.3 11.4 curriculum coherence figure 2 shows the result of the mapping of the content topics in the caps. note that only the text under the column heading topic in the caps was included on the map due to space constraints. solid lines connecting the topics boxes mean that connections are explicitly referred to in the curriculum: the directive “link to. . .” (for example “link to nutrition and grade 9”, p.23) is given over 40 times in the content specifications. broken lines connecting topic boxes indicate that, even though no specific directives have been given, the topics are connected according to our judgment. for example, we have connected dna: the code of life to the topic meiosis which in turn we have connected to genetics and inheritance, as the former two topics provide the foundational knowledge required for the latter two. johnson, dempster and hugo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 109 110 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 discussion this study has examined the content specifications of the caps for life sciences according to three criteria – the balance of canonical versus humanistic biology, the inclusion and weighting of seven core themes in biology, and the coherence of the curriculum. these criteria were employed as tools for assessing the relationship between biology as the parent knowledge structure and the knowledge in the official recontextualising field, represented by the caps. the results were compared with those found for the three previous versions of the life sciences curriculum implemented in south africa since 1994 (johnson et al., 2011). the balance of canonical versus humanistic biology (figure 1) provides an indication of the strength of the boundary between formal and everyday knowledge in the curriculum. the ics, based as it was on the ‘christian national education’-inspired, ‘white’ south african biology curriculum, showed extremely strong knowledge classification in containing almost no humanistic content (4%). curriculum 2005, governed by the philosophy of outcomes-based education (obe), deliberately collapsed the boundaries between formal and everyday knowledge on the premise that this would best serve the social justice imperative; however, it was shown that this had the opposite effect in increasing rather decreasing inequalities in terms of educational performance between advantaged and disadvantaged students (chisholm, 2000; muller, 2000). nevertheless, the ncs 1, implemented in 2006, was still governed by the principles of obe and contained only 36.1% canonical biology content, indicating that the knowledge it contained was weakly classified. the revision of the content in the ncs 2, and now the caps, has shown a trend back towards a more strongly classified knowledge system. the ncs 2 practically reversed the canonical/humanistic ratio of the ncs 1 by increasing the canonical content to 60.5%, while the present analysis reveals that the proportion of canonical content material has been increased even further in the caps, to 70.1%. this was also noted by mnguni (2013) in his study on the balance of curriculum ideologies in the caps for life sciences, grade 11. he found that a multi-curriculum ideology has been adopted in the caps, with scholar academic (roughly equivalent to canonical in the terminology of this study, though relating more to teaching and learning) and studentcentered (more closely aligned to humanistic, but relating more to methods of johnson, dempster and hugo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 111 teaching and learning than content) ideologies dominating and the social reconstruction ideology (strongly humanistic) the least in evidence. the assessment of the weighting of core themes in biology (table 1) provides a means of comparing knowledge in the curriculum with that in the parent discipline, as the themes were originally derived from sources in the field of production (the writings of biological philosopher ernst mayr, interviews with two biology professors and an analysis of two tertiary level textbooks; see johnson, 2009 for details). in the caps animal structure and functioning is weighted the most, but has decreased from one third (33.3%) of the material in the ncs 2 to just over one quarter (25.3%) of the material in the caps. the theme life at the molecular and cellular level has increased from 16.2% in the ncs 2 to 23.7% in the caps. all other themes in the caps have not deviated by more than 4% above or below their levels in the ncs 2. plant structure and functioning, at just 6.9% of the content matter, remains underrepresented. in general these results suggest that in the caps there has been an attempt to balance the core themes more equally than in previous curricula, especially the ics and the ncs 1. there had been some dramatic swings in emphasis of the core themes between the ics and the ncs 1; this was particularly notable in the themes evolution (0% to 20%), diversity (29.8% to 4.4%), ecology (8.8% to 28.9%), and to a lesser extent animal structure and functioning (34.9% to 20%). the map of the content topics (figure 2) reveals that the caps largely conforms to schmidt, wang and mcknight’s (2005) concept of curricular coherence. the material prescribed for grade 10 is mostly foundational; this is particularly evident in the knowledge strand life at the molecular, cellular and tissue level where the material is hierarchical, starting with organic chemistry and continuing to cells, tissues and organs. in the knowledge strand diversity, change and continuity the foundational principles of biodiversity and classification are laid down in grade 10 and are followed by biodiversity and classification in microorganisms and then of plants and animals in grade 11. similarly, the topic history of life on earth in grade 10 leads to the study of evolution in grade 12. the caps has de-emphasized the concept of body plans that was a vital component in the ncs 2 for laying down the foundations for understanding the theory of evolution in grade 12. in the knowledge strand life processes in plants and animals the more abstract and hence cognitively demanding topics of photosynthesis and cellular respiration, which had appeared in grade 10 in the ncs 2, have been moved to grade 11, swapped with the more ‘concrete’ topics of support and transport 112 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 systems in plants and animals which have moved from grade 11 in the ncs 2 to grade 10 in the caps. conceptual progression rather than simple repetition of topics is another component of curriculum coherence to which the caps appears to have complied, unlike the ncs 1 where topics were repeated from grade to grade, particularly in the knowledge areas of environmental studies and diversity, change and continuity (johnson et al., 2011). one apparent exception to this is in the repetition of the topic of human impact on the environment which appears in both grades 11 and 12, though in fact this is intended to be taught in grade 11 but re-examined in the final grade 12 examination. whereas the ncs 2 taught and examined the canonical knowledge of community and population ecology in grade 12, the caps examines the grade 11 humanistic topic of human impact on the environment in grade 12. the predominance of solid connecting lines between the topic boxes reveals that the architects of the caps were concerned to make the links between and within the knowledge strands and grades explicit; this is another of schmidt et al.’s (2005) criteria for a coherent curriculum. this is also in keeping with the nature of disciplinary biological knowledge which, according to campbell and reece (2005, p.ix), “is more like a web of related concepts without a fixed starting point or a prescribed path”. conclusions and implications using the criteria established by the conceptual framework of this study, our study suggests that in terms of knowledge classification, the inclusion and balance of biology’s core themes, and the coherence of the curriculum, the caps for life sciences does reflect the hierarchical knowledge structure of its parent discipline biology. what are the implications of these findings? following the logic of bernstein and others (e.g. maton and muller, 2007), this should have positive consequences for south african students, inducting them successfully into the powerful knowledge of the discipline of biology. but whether a more canonical or more humanistic approach is more empowering for students remains a matter for debate. aikenhead (2006) held that a humanistic approach is the best means to foster student self-identity, achievement and empowerment, while mnguni’s (2013) findings led him to conclude that the johnson, dempster and hugo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 113 grade 11 caps for life sciences would serve to advance the discipline, but not empower students in relation to current social challenges. assessing these more abstract consequences of a curriculum would be valuable, though challenging. a more direct (though arguably flawed) measure, is to consider student academic performance. in terms of matric results, for example, table 2 below reveals an interesting trend. table 2: percentage of students who passed the final matric examination with over 40% in four consecutive south african biology/life sciences curricula curriculum year of matric examination percentage of sudents who passed above 40% source ics biology ncs 1 life sciences ncs 2 life sciences caps life sciences 2007 (last year examined) 2008 (first year examined) 2011 (first year examined) 2014 (first year examined) 68 39 46.2 48.9 doe, 2007 doe, 2008 dbe, 2014 dbe, 2014 numerous factors obviously account for student performance in matric examinations, and direct causation is not intended to be implied here. nevertheless, it is still interesting to note that the percentage of students who passed with over 40% was highest for the curriculum in which knowledge was the most strongly classified i.e. the ics, and fell to just 39% in the weakly classified ncs 1. this figure rose to 46.2% for the first year of examination of the ncs 2 and again to 48.9% for the caps, in which the proportion of canonical material increased, core concepts were included in reasonably balanced proportions, and curriculum coherence is in evidence. in terms of future study and career opportunities for students, good matric results are certainly empowering, and though a pass rate of only 48.9% is hardly a 114 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 cause for celebration, the increasing pass rate for life sciences is encouraging. this is not to conclude that this latest version of the life sciences curriculum has reached the end of its revision trajectory, however. while our study has revealed improvements on previous versions according to the criteria we selected, it was conducted at a fairly broad scale. an examination of the content in greater detail (dempster, johnson and griffiths, in prep.; umalusi, unpublished report) has revealed several problematic aspects in the section on evolution, biology’s most integrating proposition and one which still proves challenging for south african teachers (stears, clément, james and dempster, 2014). this section will require attention in future versions of the curriculum. references aikenhead, g.s. 2006. science education for everyday life: evidence-based practice. new york: teachers college press. barberá, o., zanón, b. and pérez-plá, j.f. 1999. biology curriculum in twentieth century spain. science education, 83: pp.97–111. bennett, j. 2003. teaching and learning science. london: continuum. bernstein, b. 1990. the structuring of pedagogic discourse volume iv: class, codes and control. london and new york: routledge. bernstein, b. 1996. pedagogy, symbolic control, and identity: theory, research, critique. london: taylor & francis. bernstein, b. 1999. vertical and horizontal discourse: an essay. british journal of sociology of education, 20(2): pp.158–173. bertram, c. 2008. curriculum recontextualisation: a case study of the south african high school history curriculum. unpublished phd thesis, university of kwazulu-natal, pietermaritzburg. johnson, dempster and hugo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 115 bertram, c. 2009. procedural and substantive knowledge: some implications of an outcomes-based history curriculum in south africa. southern african review of education, 15(1): pp.45–62. bertram, c. 2012. bernstein's theory of the pedagogic device as a frame to study history curriculum reform in south africa. yesterday and today, 7: pp.1–22. retrieved june 02, 2015, from http://www.scielo.org.za campbell, n.a. and reece, j.b. 2005. biology (7 ed.). san francisco:th pearson education inc. (benjamin cummings). chisholm, l. 2000. a south african curriculum for the twenty first century. report of the review committee on curriculum 2005. pretoria: department of education. christie, f. 2007. ongoing dialogue: functional linguistic and bernsteinian sociological perspectives on education. in christie, f. and martin, j.r. (eds), language, knowledge and pedagogy: functional linguistic and sociological perspectives. london: continuum, pp.3–13. dempster, e.r. and hugo, w. 2006. introducing the concept of evolution into south african schools. south african journal of science, 102: pp.106–112. dempster, e., johnson, k. and griffiths, m. (in preparation). evolution in the south african school life sciences curriculum: an evolving story. department of basic education. 2011. curriculum and assessment policy statement grades 10–12 life sciences. pretoria: department of basic education. department of basic education. 2014. national senior certificate examination 2014 diagnostic report. pretoria. department of education. 2003. national curriculum statement grades 10–12 (general). life sciences. pretoria: government printers. department of education. 2007. a new content framework for the subject life sciences as listed in the national curriculum statements grades 10–12 (general). circular 67/2007, 25 september. johannesburg: department of education. 116 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 department of education. 2007. report on the 2007 senior certificate examination. pretoria: department of education. department of education. 2008. abridged report: 2008 national senior certificate examination results. december 2008. pretoria: department of education. department of education. 2009. report of the task team for the review of the implementation of the national curriculum statement. pretoria: department of education. dobzhansky, t. 1973. nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. the american biology teacher, 35(3): pp.125–129. doidge, m., dempster, e., crowe, a. and naidoo, k. 2008. the life sciences content framework: a story of curriculum change. proceedings of the 4th biennial conference of the south african association of science and technology educators, 1–4 july 2008. donnelly, j. 2006. the intellectual positioning of science in the curriculum, and its relationship to reform. journal of curriculum studies, 38(6): pp.623–640. gould, s.j. 2002. the structure of evolutionary theory. cambridge, massachusetts: the belknap press of harvard university press. green, w. and naidoo, d. 2006. knowledge contents reflected in postapartheid south african physical science curriculum documents. african journal of research in smt education, 10(1): pp.71–80. hasan, r. 2004. the concept of semiotic mediation: perspectives from bernstein’s sociology. in muller, j., davies, b. and morias, a. 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(n.d.). interim core syllabus and provincialised guide for biology grades 10–12 higher grade and standard grade. maton, k. and muller, j. 2007. a sociology for the transmission of knowledges. in christie, f. and martin, j.r. (eds), language, knowledge and pedagogy: functional linguistic and sociological perspectives. london: continuum, pp.14–33. mayr, e. 2001. what evolution is. new york: basic books. mnguni, l. 2013. the curriculum ideology of the south african secondary school biology. south african journal of education, 33(2): pp.1–11. moore, r., arnot, m., beck, j. and daniels, h. 2006. knowledge, power and educational reform. applying the sociology of basil bernstein. london: routledge. muller, j. 2000. reclaiming knowledge: social theory, curriculum and education policy. london: routledgefalmer. muller, j. 2007. on splitting hairs: hierarchy, knowledge and the school curriculum. in christie, f. and martin, j.r. (eds), language, knowledge and pedagogy: functional linguistic and sociological perspectives. london: continuum, pp.65–86. neves, i. and morais, a. 2001. knowledge and values in science syllabuses: a sociological study of educational reforms. british journal of sociology of education, 22(4): pp.531–556. 118 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 nsubuga, y. 2008. a bernsteinian analysis of the integration of natural resource management in the curriculum of a rural disadvantaged school. southern african journal of environmental education, 25: pp.98–112. project 2061. 2006. retrieved 5 september 2006 from http://www.project2061.org rosenthal, d.b. and bybee, r.w. 1987. emergence of the biology curriculum: a science of life or a science of living? in popkewitz, t.s. (ed.), the formation of school subjects. the struggle for creating an american institution. new york: the falmer press, pp.123–144. schiro, m.s. 2008. curriculum theory: conflicting visions and enduring concerns. los angeles, ca: sagepublications. schmidt, w.h., wang, h.c. and mcknight, c.c. 2005. curriculum coherence: an examination of us mathematics and science content standards from an international perspective. journal of curriculum studies, 37(5): pp.525–559. stears, m., clément, p., james, a. and dempster, e. 2014. in south africa, teachers’ conceptions of evolution vary according to their religion. paper presented at the 15 ioste conference, borneo, september 2014. th umalusi. 2014. what’s in the caps package? natural sciences. pretoria. umalusi. 2015. a comparative analysis of the amended senior certificate (asc) and the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps). unpublished report. johnson, dempster and hugo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 119 appendix 1: criteria used in categorising statements as being either canonical or humanistic category elaborations examples from the caps canonical (scientific knowledge and skills) humanistic (generic skills; applications of science to everyday life and society; attitudes and values; science as a human enterprise) – scientific facts, concepts, principles, hypotheses, theories and laws – skills, abilities, methods, techniques and processes specifically concerned with the study of science and doing scientific investigations, such as observation, hypothesis formation, data collection and processing, laboratory procedures, and the communication of scientific findings – preparation for future studies and careers in the sciences. – generic skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, communication and co-operation. – understanding and solving problems regarding the scientific or technological apects of daily life; science as a means for solving problems in society and the environment, as well as the limits of science in solving problems, and the potential for the applications of science and technology to harm the individual and the environment. – attitudes and values such as objectivity, respect for evidence, critical thinking, openness, honesty; the fostering of positive attitudes towards science; satisfying curiosity; promoting appreciation and respect for nature; ethics. – the nature of science; the history of science and scientific discoveries grade 10: • carbohydrates monosaccharaides (single sugars), e.g., glucose and fructose (p.24) • explain and demonstrate how a light microscope works (p.25) grade 11: • hormonal control of blood sugar levels (p.43) • composition of inspired air vs. expired air – analyse data (p.47) grade 12: • dna – location in the cell; chromosomes, genes and extranuclear dna (p.54) • perform a simple process to extract dna and examine the threads (p.54) grade 10: • the nature of science: science involves contested knowledge, and non-dogmatic inferences based on evidence and peer review (p.10) • analyse nutritional content indicated on food packaging: vitamins, minerals and other nutritional content (p.23) grade 11: • the number of people affected by diabetes in recent years (p.43) • draw up a public survey form to test the public opinion about culling (p.49) grade 12: • discovery of the structure of dna by watson, crick, franklin and wilkins (p.54) • dna fingerprinting/profiling (case study only) (p.54) 120 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 appendix 2: seven broad themes in biology with some of the topics incorporated in each (after johnson, 2009) theme topics incorporated 1. life at the molecular and cellular level 2. inheritance 3. evolution 4. diversity 5. plant (angiosperm) structure and functioning 6. animal (mammalian – human) structure and functioning 7. ecology • the chemistry of life (biological compounds and nutrients) • the microscope; cell structure and function • diffusion and osmosis • mitosis • cellular respiration • photosynthesis • meiosis • dna, rna and protein synthesis • genetics • basic principles of evolution (lamarck; darwin; sources of variation; • adaptation; speciation; natural selection) • biogeography • the geological time scale • the fossil record • extinctions • human evolution • concept of biodiversity • classification as a system of organisation in biology • viruses, bacteria, protists and fungi • plant and animal diversity (examples and basic features of major groups) • tissues and organs • structural support • movement of water through the plant, from uptake to transpiration • translocation of manufactured food • responses to the environment • gaseous exchange • reproduction • tissues • structural support (skeleton, joints and muscles) • transport (heart, blood and lymph) • responses/ co-ordination (nervous and endocrine systems) • nutrition • gaseous exchange • excretion • reproduction • immunity • basic ecology (biosphere, biomes and ecosystems; biotic and abiotic factors; trophic relationships; energy flow; nutrient cycling) • population studies (population parameters; estimates of population size; population regulation) • community interactions (competition; predation; parasitism; mutualism; commensalism) johnson, dempster and hugo: exploring the recontextualisation. . . 121 kathryn johnson school of life sciences university of kwazulu-natal johnson@ukzn.ac.za edith dempster wayne hugo school of education university of kwazulu-natal dempstere@ukzn.ac.za hugow@ukzn.ac.za 122 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 consequences of the progression law in the fet phase: a case study angela elisabeth stott, hercules dreyer and peet venter abstract the progression law, which restricts grade repetition to once within each of the four phases of basic education, has only been enforced in the further education and training (fet) phase since 2013. the first cohort of progressed learners reached grade 12 in 2014. we investigate the extent of progression in 2014 in various school quintiles and the observed and speculated future consequences of the progression law in the fet phase. our mainly quantitative data includes numbers and pass rates for the entire free state (fs) province, with a focus on the motheo district. we also draw on some qualitative data in the forms of questionnaires and reports from teachers and mentors working in 22 low quintile schools in motheo. our findings show marked differences in extents and impacts of progression between the school quintiles, with low quintile schools acutely impacted and with difficulties likely to escalate in the next few years. introduction both promotion and progression refer to the movement of a learner to a higher grade. in the case of promotion this is due to the learner having attained the minimum pass requirements stipulated for the grade by the education authority. in the case of progression this is despite not having attained these minimum requirements. the term repetition, in contrast, refers to a learner remaining in a grade instead of moving on with his/her peers. the term retention is sometimes used as a synonym to repetition, but we have chosen dbe (2008)’s use of retention as the antonym of dropout. the terms social and automatic promotion are taken as synonyms in this paper, and refer to the practise of learners of a particular age cohort progressing through school at the same rate as one another, with their progression determined by their age rather than their academic performance (brophy, 2006). in this paper we use the term social promotion loosely to allow for limited repetition, as is the case in the south african (sa) context. 90 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 in 1998 the sa department of education (doe), now called the department of basic education (dbe), adopted a policy which limited grade repetition to once within a phase (doe, 1998). we refer to this as the progression law. the progression law legislates social promotion until grade 9 and again from grades 10 to 12. it is common knowledge that there has been general compliance with the progression law in the general education and training (get) phases for a number of years. however, it seems that the progression law has only been implemented en masse in the fet phase since 2012, in response to a circular issued by the minister of basic education (dbe, 2012). according to doe (2007b), learners who achieved certain rather stringent requirements in grade 9 would be awarded a get certificate and then exit formal schooling or enter the fet phase. the fet phase would be comprised of an academic stream, i.e. grades 10–12, offered by high schools (dbe, 2011; doe, 2004), and the vocational national curriculum, nc(v), a more practical stream, as offered by tvet (technical and vocational colleges) (doe, 2007a). only learners who were promoted (i.e. achieved the stipulated promotion criteria), condoned (according to lesser criteria, given in the policy document), or had achieved qualifications equivalent to the get certificate, were to be admitted into the fet phase. for the nc(v) stream, additional provision was made for recognition of prior learning (rpl). it is unclear what the intention was for the remainder of the learners which, in our experience in the low quintile schools in which we work, is the majority. despite a massive reconceptualisation of and financial boost to tvet colleges from 2005 to 2009 considerable challenges remain regarding enrolments and throughput rates for these institutions as well as the image employers have about graduates from such institutions (cosser, kraak, and winnaar, 2011). perhaps because of these, the promised get school leaving certificate has never been implemented and a large-scale transfer of learners from an academic to a practical stream in the tvet colleges, or into the job market, at the end of grade 9, has not happened (branson, hofmeyr, and lam, 2014), with multiple consequences. these include the problem of what to do with learners who have not passed grade 9 according to the stipulated criteria, and yet who are unwilling or unable to enter an education stream alternative to the fet phase of schooling. it appears that the response of the dbe, as well as many schools acting independently, has been to disregard the policies’ stipulation that a learner may only be enrolled in grade 10 if he/she had met the promotion stott, dreyer and venter: consequences of the progression law. . . 91 requirements of grade 9. consequently, progression (lekalakala, 2013), or upward manipulation of grade 9 marks to mask progression as promotion or condonation (see, for example padayachee, 2014), of learners from grades 9 to 10 has followed. this has resulted in a large number of learners currently being enrolled in the academic stream of the fet phase without having been promoted to this point through their own academic achievement. further, since the start of implementation of the progression law in the fet phase, these learners may only fail once within the fet phase, and otherwise must be progressed automatically. the first cohort of progressed learners reached grade 12 in 2014. it seems probable that this contributed to the decrease (of 2,6%) in pass rate in 2014 compared to 2013 (motshekga, 2015). in this article we explore the extent of progression in 2014 and consequences of the progression law, in the fet phase, as we draw on data from all fs schools, with a focus on a subset of 22 low-quintile schools (i.e. schools serving learners from low socioeconomic homes) in the motheo district, to answer the following questions: (1) what was the extent of progression to grade 12 in schools of various quintiles in the fs in 2014? (2) how has the progression law in the fet phase impacted pass rates and teaching conditions in schools of various quintiles? (3) how can the progression law be expected to impact learner profiles, pass rates and teaching conditions in low quintile schools in the next few years? literature review the debate about the relative costs and benefits of repetition is hot and polarised. surveys suggest that most educational practitioners, as well as the general public, frown on social promotion (alexander, entwisle, and dauber, 2003). however, in the academic world, proponents of social promotion coupled with remediation, abound (e.g. holmes and matthews, 1984; jimerson, 2001; smith and shepard, 1987). we examine both sides of the argument and the contexts in which they are made relative to the sa context, as a framework for interpreting the findings of this study. 92 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 the social promotion debate proponents of social promotion cite studies which show that repetition has social and academic costs and few if any long-term benefits. holmes and matthews (1984) conclude their meta-analysis of the repetition of elementary and junior high students by stating that: “those who continue to retain pupils at grade level do so in spite of cumulative research evidence showing the potential for negative effects consistently outweighs positive outcomes” (p.17). these negative effects include an increased likelihood of dropping out of school before graduation (jimerson, 2001) and behavioural problems, including truancy (jimerson, carlson, rotert, egeland, and sroufe, 1997). the economic costs of repetition are also high (alexander et al., 2003). these include not only the costs of having additional learners in the system, but also the lower earning-potential such learners will have once they drop out of, rather than graduate from, school. smith and shepard (1987) state that repetition and ability grouping “[help] advantaged groups, [create] further barriers for the disadvantaged, and [promote] segregation and stratification” (p.133). this is possibly worsened by the somewhat arbitrary nature of promotion, progression and repetition decisions, particularly in developing countries (brophy, 2006). proponents of social promotion admit that learners may show an initial improvement in academic performance relative to matched controls on the short term, but point out that this benefit disappears in the long term (manacorda, 2012). opponents of social promotion may argue that promotion on merit, as defined by school curricula, serves all children’s interests by channelling learners into areas most suitable for their ability. alexander et al. (2003) refute this argument by stating that ability is not static and school assessment not infallible, and so potential to succeed cannot necessarily be determined by performance in school assessments at a particular time. teachers are the main opponents to social promotion. their concerns are sometimes belittled by researchers as being only informed by practical knowledge of the short-term benefits of repetition, rather than by rigorous research of both shortand longterm effects of repetition (brophy, 2006; haidary, 2013). the problems teachers associate with progression are well summarised in this frequently quoted statement by the american federation of teachers (1997, p.5): social promotion is an insidious practice that hides school failure and creates problems for everybody – for kids, who are deluded into thinking they have learned the skills to be successful or get the message that achievement doesn’t count; for teachers who must face stott, dreyer and venter: consequences of the progression law. . . 93 students who know that teachers wield no credible authority to demand hard work; for the business community and colleges that must spend millions of dollars on remediation; and for society that must deal with a growing proportion of uneducated citizens, unprepared to contribute productively to the economic and civic life of the nation. one of the concerns mentioned above is that if learners know that they will be automatically progressed they will not be motivated to work hard due to the loss of the threat effect of grade repetition. proponents of social promotion deny the efficacy of the threat effect of grade repetition in improving learner performance since they consider the assumptions that it is based upon to be faulty. these assumptions are that learners who fail are underachievers who do not apply themselves, rather than low achievers who already work hard, and that the threat of failure is motivating, rather than demotivating (brophy, 2006). belot and vandenberghe (2014) found empirical support for this renouncement of the threat effect of repetition amongst french-speaking belgian grade 10 learners. these learners showed no difference in performance for those who knew they would be socially progressed, relative to those who had the possibility of failing their grade. the south african context whether such findings are generalisable to sa learners is not known. most of the available studies on repetition have been conducted in developed countries (brophy, 2006) and so their findings may not be applicable to the sa context. for example, the social and psychological consequences of repetition are likely to be reduced in situations where a large portion of a class repeats the grade relative to where the repeating learner is more likely to be isolated and marginalised due to the majority of his/her peers having been promoted. additionally, the likelihood of a learner dropping out of school because of having repeated a grade some time in their schooling history is reduced in contexts of poverty if the school offers shelter and food which would otherwise not be available. factors such as these clearly contribute to the fact that black schools in south africa exhibit high enrolment and retention rates despite having high repetition rates (branson et al., 2014; lam, ardington, and leibbrandt, 2011). countries which practise social promotion include those listed by the sa minister of basic education, angie motshekga, in her speech regarding the 2014 matric results (motshekga, 2015). these (finland, sweden, denmark, japan, korea and the united kingdom) are all developed countries who have 94 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 strong remediation systems in place and who perform very well in international comparative tests. they exhibit very different classroom conditions to those experienced in typical low quintile sa schools. motshekga admitted that sa’s education system lacks the necessary remediation required for social promotion to be successful when she pointed out that “we need to strengthen our support programme for [progressed] learners” (motshekga, 2015, p.4). it is well established that in typical low quintile sa schools the undue emphasis on grade 12 has the effect of reducing the occurrence of remediation in lower grades and is detrimental to normal school functioning. see, for example clark and linder (2006). the united states, which does experience pockets of problems similar to low quintile sa schools, has experienced a popular move away from social promotion in recent years (national science teachers association, 2003), but still exhibits low rates of repetition in general, although repetition rates of minority groups in certain areas are high (brophy, 2006). brophy (2006) lists grade repetition rates for various countries and regions throughout the world, with 22% per year, recorded for sub-saharan african countries, being the highest. however, branson et al. (2014), report that as many as 80% of 2008 grade 10 learners in the lowest quintile schools in south africa had not reached grade 12 by 2010. their data show dramatic increases in repetition and drop-out rates between grades 10 and 11 and grades 11 and 12. this is unsurprising since the progression law was not yet being implemented in these grades at the time their data were collected. it is known that not all of this repetition was legitimate, but was rather part of a practise referred to as gatekeeping (dbe, 2012). gatekeeping in this context means preventing learners from being promoted to grade 12 despite having met the promotion requirements, albeit poorly, if they are likely to fail the final examination, and so lower the pass rates of the school in the national grade 12 examination. it is understandable that gatekeeping was a common practise (chisholm and wildeman, 2013) before implementation of the progression law in the fet phase since there is considerable emotional, financial and political pressure to ensure that pass rates are competitive. in situations where educational pathways alternative to grade 12 are not present, gatekeeping, as well as repeated failure to meet the promotion requirements, can result in learners dropping out from the education system with low skills and therefore low levels of employability. stott, dreyer and venter: consequences of the progression law. . . 95 methodology sample and data collection to answer the first research question we used quantitative data from all the 2014 grade 12 candidates in the fs province. these data were obtained from the dbe, and are used with permission. quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 22 low quintile schools within the motheo district to answer the second research question. we refer to these schools as the project schools. qualitative data comprised open-ended questionnaires and daily and quarterly reports. the reports, dating from january 2014 to may 2015, were provided by 15 highly experienced and qualified master teachers who work as mentors, visiting classes and supporting teachers, in these schools most days of the school term. the questionnaires were administered in june 2014 to all mathematics, physical sciences and accounting teachers at these schools, although only 33 responses out of 95 (35%) were returned to us. additionally, the quantitative data used for the first research question informed the answer to the second research question. to answer the third research question we collected quantitative data about enrolment and progression numbers in the fet phase from the project schools. we also used quantitative data about numbers of overage learners per grade, for the entire motheo district. this data were also obtained from the dbe and used with permission. data analysis quantitative data analysis involved simple statistical procedures as guided by each research question. for example, in answer to the first and second research questions, data analysis involved calculating and graphing numbers and percentages of learners who had been progressed, compared to promoted, to grade 12 in 2014, and the grade 12 final examination pass rates for each school quintile. qualitative analysis involved forming coding categories which were grounded in the questionnaire and mentor report data, followed by coding and summarising the relevant entries according to these categories. 96 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 results extent of learner progression of the 26 439 grade 12 candidates in the fs in 2014, 3 919 (14,8%) had been progressed to grade 12 from grade 11 at the end of 2013. we refer to these learners as progressed learners. figure 1 shows that of the 79 motheo schools who had grade 12 candidates in 2014, 28 had no progressed learners while for 17 schools more than 30% of their candidates were progressed, to as much as 58,5%. as shown in table 1, higher quintile (wealthier) schools have a significantly lower occurrence of progression. there are only 17 quintile 5 schools in the motheo district and 64 of the 109 progressed learners in these schools were within only two of these schools. if these two schools are disregarded, the fraction of progressed learners in quintile 5 schools in motheo drops to a mere 2%, in stark contrast to 27,7% in quintile 1 and 2 schools. figure 1: extent of learner progression to grade 12 in 2014 in the motheo district per school stott, dreyer and venter: consequences of the progression law. . . 97 table 1: number and percentage of progressed learners in motheo district per quintile quintile no. of learners no. of progressed learners % progressed learners 1 & 2 2967 822 27.7 3 1963 347 17.7 4 1033 80 7.7 5 2605 109 4.2 effects of learner progression as shown in figure 2, the fs promoted learners’ pass rate was relatively high, at 88,7% (n = 22 520), with little variation between the districts. however, since only 49% (1 934 out of 3 919) of the progressed learners passed, the overall (n = 26 439) pass rate was depressed by 5,9 percentage points to only 82,8%. this is 4,6 percentage points lower than the 87,4% the fs achieved in figure 2: pass rates of progressed and promoted 2014 free state grade 12 candidates, per district, according to whether progressed or promoted 2013. the progressed learners’ pass rates vary noticeably between the districts from 31% (53 out of 171) for xhariep to 72% (668 out of 924) for 98 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 thabo mofutsanyana. of the 51 motheo schools which had progressed learners, 27 had pass rates below 30% for their progressed learners. as shown in table 2, the pass rate depression caused by the progressed learners was significantly lower for schools of higher quintile. table 2: pass rate in the motheo schools according to quintile quintile pass rate of promoted learners pass rate of progressed learners pass rate of all learners effect of progressed learners 1 & 2 82.4 31.4 68.0 -14.4 3 85.6 51.3 79.5 -6.1 4 89.3 58.8 86.9 -2.4 5 94.4 73.4 93.5 -0.9 two of the 33 teachers who completed the questionnaire (out of 95 teachers to whom the questionnaires were given) were from a school which was not yet complying with the progression law. the remainder all expounded on the difficulties they experienced due to progression. the recurring themes in their open-ended responses include that the progressed learners are slow, making it difficult for the teacher to keep up with the pace setter, unmotivated, disinterested, ill-equipped, ill-disciplined, unable to cope, often truant from class and extra classes and do not do their classand home-work. these claims were verified by all of the mentors who identified additional themes which include: shortages of resources such as desks, chairs and text books due to increased class sizes; burn-out among teachers due to having to give extra classes in the afternoons and weekends; demoralisation among the teachers due to the poor performance of the progressed learners and pressure from the dbe to get these learners to perform better; reports of teachers resigning (9 teachers), threatening to resign (3) or refusing to teach classes containing progressed learners (2) as a result of the difficulties caused by the progression law. an example from these reports, referring to an exemplary grade 12 mathematics teacher, is given below: she is demotivated due to the meeting she had with the committee from the department yesterday. they wanted an explanation why four of her matrics failed last year. they have failed since grade 10 and were promoted to grade 12. another recurrent theme in the mentors’ reports was the focus on grade 12 at the expense of lower grades, particularly in the third quarter, when a number stott, dreyer and venter: consequences of the progression law. . . 99 of camps and extra lessons were arranged for grade 12 learners. these took grade 12 teachers out of their other classes. examples include: “the grade 12s started with marathon sessions again this week. the grade 12 educators must leave their other classes again and concentrate on the grade 12s”; “educator couldn't teach grade 10 and 11 last week, he had to teach grade 12s. grade 11s are about three weeks behind schedule.” “the grade 8 and 9 learners are left on their own, the teachers use the periods for teaching grade 11 and 12.” projected effects of learner progression figure 3 shows the numbers of learners and percentages of over-aged learners per grade for the fs for 2015. there is a sharp increase in both numbers and percentage of overaged learners from grade 9 to grade 10. over 20% of learners in each grade of the fet phase are overage (more than two years older than grade age). each of the ten low quintile project schools shown in table 3 has considerably higher fractions of progressed learners in 2015 than in 2014, with a total increase of 18 percentage points. one school has an increase of over 150%, from 34,7% to 88,8%. figure 3: numbers of learners, per grade, for free state schools, 2015. bubble sizes and values show percentages of overage learners in each grade 100 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 table 3: numbers and percentages of learners promoted / progressed to grade 12 in 2015, compared to 2014, for ten low quintile schools in the motheo district botshabelo school progressed 2014 progressed 2015 % progressed 2014 % progressed 2015 b1 70 259 47.7 71.7 b2 15 34 17.6 27.4 b3 53 242 33.3 64.5 b4 107 98 58.5 48.0 b5 70 171 35.4 53.3 botshabelo project schools 315 804 41.2 58.1 thabanchu school progressed 2014 progressed 2015 % progressed 2014 % progressed 2015 t1 15 46 33.3 48.9 t2 46 150 34.7 88.8 t3 0 23 0.0 11.9 t4 73 89 40.8 44.7 t5 69 31 35.3 40.8 thabanchu project schools 203 339 29.2 46.9 total 518 1 045 36 54.0 discussion extent of learner progression the extent of learner progression amongst the candidates who sat the grade 12 examination in the fs varies greatly between schools, with some schools displaying little to no evidence of progression, and others displaying moderate to high levels of progression. in the motheo district 35% of the schools (n = 79) had no progressed learners in 2014 and 28% had more than the average stott, dreyer and venter: consequences of the progression law. . . 101 number. in some cases this is due to noncompliance with the progression law in 2013. the percentage of progressed learners increases with a decrease in quintile. in motheo this ranges from 27,7% in quintile 1 and 2 schools to 4,2% in quintile 5 schools. what is not clear from this data is whether high quintile schools implement selection or repetition policies which account for the observed data. by definition, high quintile schools draw learners from higher socio-economic homes. such learners tend to have enjoyed better educational support at home throughout their lives, and therefore should be expected to be less likely to have the educational backlogs common in poorer communities (timæus, simelane, and letsoalo, 2013). it is also well established that higher quintile schools employ teachers with better content knowledge and pedagogical skill, and perform administrative functions more effectively, than do lower quintile schools (shalem and hoadley, 2009; stott, 2013). it is therefore to be expected that great differences in the need to progress learners exists between schools which serve the sa middle class and those which serve poorer communities. effects of learner progression it should be noted that the data used here have already been adjusted by the regulatory body, umalusi. it is likely that this would mainly have applied to upward adjustment of the poorer performing candidates, i.e. the progressed learners. nevertheless, it is clear from figure 2 and table 2 that pass rates for the progressed learners were dramatically lower than pass rates for promoted learners from the same district and from the same school, and that the pass rate depression caused by the presence of the progressed learners was more marked for lower quintile schools. in quintile 1 and 2 schools in motheo the pass rate of the progressed learners is 31,4%, (n = 822) compared to 73,4% (n = 109) in the quintile 5 schools. the low pass rate combined with the high percentage of progressed learners had a devastating effect on the overall pass rate in quintile 1 and 2 schools, depressing the pass rate of promoted learners of 82,4% by 14,4 percentage points to 68%. in quintile 5 schools the depression is only 0,9%, due to the higher pass rate and lower proportion of progressed learners. it appears obvious, therefore, that the decrease in pass rates of the fs province from 2013 to 2014 can largely be attributed to the implementation of the progression law in the fet phase. the pass rate of the promoted learners, alone, would have been 88,7%, which is 1,3 percentage points higher than the 87,4% of 2013. 102 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 few if any of the progressed learners would have sat the grade 12 examination in 2014 had it not been for the introduction of progression law compliance. however, just under half of these learners did pass, with nearly three quarters passing in thabo mofutsanyana. factors which may have contributed to progressed learners managing to pass include: mark adjustment by umalusi, which may be devoid of implication to enhanced quality; extensive focus on the education of grade 12 learners; grade 11 pass standards being unreliable predictors of grade 12 success. the difficulties which the teachers and mentors reported are typical of the problems which teachers report regarding social promotion in developed countries (e.g. national science teachers association, 2003) and developing countries (e.g. haidary, 2013), and correspond to findings from studies performed in other provinces of south africa (e.g. lekalakala, 2013). the counterargument which proponents of social promotion generally apply to such reports is that they are based on practical knowledge of the short-term effects of social promotion rather than on rigorous research which includes evaluation of long-term effects. these criticisms are applicable here too. however, the extent of the problem in the low quintile schools we have focussed on is clearly so acute as to make teaching an unpleasant and almost impossibly frustrating and exhausting task. further, the long-term benefits reported on in the literature have been documented in developed countries, and may not apply to developing countries. therefore it seems reasonable to question whether the speculated long term benefits could be worth the observed short term costs in the sa context. it seems reasonable to assume that the progression law would have made schools even more likely to focus on grade 12 learners to the detriment of lower grades than before. it is ironic that this attempt at a short-term solution to the problem of underperformance and progression may very well be contributing to the fact that learners learn poorly in the lower grades, decreasing performance throughout and making progression necessary in order to comply with the progression law. a greater neglect of lower grades, in the name of supporting grade 12 learners, in lower quintile schools relative to higher quintile schools (clark and linder, 2006), may contribute to the reason why progression has to occur to such great extents in lower quintile schools, but is virtually unnecessary in high quintile schools. stott, dreyer and venter: consequences of the progression law. . . 103 projected effects of learner progression the high numbers of over-age learners present in grades 10-12 suggests that there are a large number of learners within the fet phase who have repeated previous grades and will shortly be progressed to grade 12. therefore, for the next four years we can expect particularly high numbers of progressed learners to reach grade 12 and impact grade 12 pass rates. three reasons for this are: (1) some schools only began implementing the progression law in 2015. (2) since it appears the law was only implemented from 2013 onwards, the 2014 grade 12s had probably only been progressed once (i.e. from grade 11 to grade 12). however, from 2015 onwards, grade 12 candidates will include learners who will have been progressed twice or more. (3) since it appears that progression from grade 9 to grade 10 occurs to a large extent, from 2016 onward we can expect learners to reach grade 12 who have never passed a grade throughout their school careers. conclusion in summary of the results and discussion given above, we propose the following assertions in response to the research questions of this study: ! approximately 14,8% of the candidates (n = 26 439) who wrote grade 12 in the fs in 2014 had been progressed from grade 11. there is a relationship between quintile and extent of progression, with a range from 4,2% for quintile 5 schools to 27,7% for quintile 1 and 2 schools. ! the progressed learners depressed the fs province’s 2014 pass rate by 5,9 percentage points. there is a relationship between quintile and extent of pass rate depression by the progressed learners, with a range from a depression of 0,9 percentage points for quintile 5 schools to 14,4 percentage points for quintile 1 and 2 schools. ! the presence of large numbers of unmotivated, ill-disciplined and ill-prepared progressed learners places an immense emotional burden and increased work-load on teachers who are working in the already difficult context of low quintile sa schools. 104 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 ! the impact of the progression law, as observed in 2014, can be expected to intensify over the next few years as the proportion of progressed learners, including those progressed multiple times, increases. implications, limitations and suggestions for further investigation in this paper we have highlighted a dire situation which in all likelihood will worsen with time, particularly over the next few years. therefore we caution a general refrain from setting unrealistic targets for grade 12 pass rates for the next few years. for example, the fs dbe had announced a 90% grade 12 pass rate target for 2014 (sabc, 2014). the following reasoning shows that this was an unrealistic target: if it is assumed that 50% of the progressed learners could pass, the promoted learners would have had to have achieved a 97% pass rate for the province as a whole to reach the 90% target. this would have required nearly 10 percentage points increase from the fs’s 2013 pass rate, which had placed it the highest performer among the provinces. the dbe has proposed a number of strategies of dealing with the challenges associated with progression, and has invested much effort and money into remediation programs for the 2015 progressed grade 12 learners. see for example fsdbe (2015) and dbe (2008). we wish to highlight two strategies we consider particularly important: ! implementation of a campaign to ensure that teachers provide quality teaching and sufficient contact time to lower grades throughout the year. this should help decrease the need for progression since more learners should be able to be promoted on merit. ! provision and promotion of alternative pathways to the academic stream of the fet phase, in the forms of tvet colleges offering vocational courses, so that it is reasonable for less academically gifted learners to exit school at the end of grade 9 so as to continue their education in a vocational stream. this corresponds to the february 2013 launch of the decade of the artisan by the south african minister of higher education and training, blade nzimande. it is true that this study necessarily only reports some of the short-term effects of the progression law in the fet phase, whereas most of the literature-claims stott, dreyer and venter: consequences of the progression law. . . 105 in favour of social promotion refer to long-term effects. consequently, this study has the limitation of reporting effects which can be expected to show bias towards the problems associated with social promotion. this study was also necessarily limited in its scope. qualitative data were only collected from lower quintile township schools. also, findings for the fs province are not necessarily generalisable to the rest of the country, particularly provinces such as gauteng and the western cape which may have been more successful in promoting pathways alternative to the academic fet stream. the percentage of 2015 grade 12s who are progressed learners is only 9% (n = 55 893) for the western cape, opposed to the free state’s 28% (n = 35 496). only 7% (n = 294 052) of grade 11 and 12 learners in gauteng are progressed learners in 2015. this is according to data available on the dbe website. unfortunately comparable statistics are not available for the other provinces. further investigation could attempt to bridge the gaps created by the limitations to our study. this could include surveying teachers, and observing practises, particularly regarding teaching quality for, and time spent on teaching, lower grades, and admission and repetition policies which may influence whether progression is necessary or not. as time passes, studies on the long-term effects of the progression law will be possible. assuming that umalusi does not adjust future grade 12 results to the extent that our predictions cannot be valid, it will be interesting to observe whether the prediction we have made that grade 12 results should decline over the next few years does occur. we hope that instead of this happening, however, sa is able to provide solutions to the problems created by the progression law. acknowledgements we gratefully acknowledge the financial support of old mutual, anglo american, absa and murray and roberts. we are also grateful to the fs dbe for the permission to use the quantitative data used here, and to the teachers and mentors who supplied us with the qualitative data. 106 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 references alexander, k.l., entwisle, d.r. and dauber, s.l. 2003. on the success of failure: a reassessment of the effects of retention in the primary school grades. cambridge university press. american federation of teachers 1997. passing on failure: district promotion policies 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hoadley, u. 2009. the dual economy of schooling and teacher morale in south africa. international studies in sociology of education,19(2): pp.119–134. smith, m.l. and shepard, l.a. 1987. what doesn’t work: explaining policies of retention in the early grades. phi delta kappan, 69(2): pp.129–134. stott, a.e. 2013. south african physical sciences teachers’ understanding of force and the relationship to teacher qualification, experience and their school’s quintile. african journal of research in mathematics, science and technology education, 17(1–2): pp.173–183. timæus, i.m., simelane, s. and letsoalo, t. 2013. poverty, race, and children’s progress at school in south africa. the journal of development studies, 49(2): pp.270–284. stott, dreyer and venter: consequences of the progression law. . . 109 angela stott hercules dreyer peet venter school partnership project university of the free state stottae@ufs.ac.za dreyerha@ufs.ac.za venterpa@ufs.ac.za mailto:stottae@ufs.ac.za mailto:deyerha@ufs.ac.zaq mailto:deyerha@ufs.ac.zaq 110 journal of education, no. 63, 2015 knowledge for teaching, knowledge about teaching: exploring the links between education research, scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl) and scholarly teaching jennifer case abstract the relationship between education research and the scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl) is still debated, while a distinction has been made between scholarly teaching and sotl. this study compares and contrasts two programmes of work that took place in a particular 2nd year engineering course, both led by the author. the first programme was an educational research project investigating student learning in the course. the second programme was a period of teaching, leading to some sotl output. analysis of the knowledge drawn on in teaching, confirms that good university teaching is not a direct application of research findings but rather draws on a broad and largely tacit practical base of knowledge. the article also offers a deliberation on whether it is productive to maintain the distinction between education research and sotl. introduction the idea of a ‘scholarship of teaching’ (later expanded to ‘scholarship of teaching and learning’, sotl) arrived on the academic scene in the early 1990s with the publication of scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professoriate, by ernest boyer (1990). its arrival was timely. boyer had been concerned that the increasing status accorded to research in the academy was at the expense of a focus on teaching, and this concern resonated with the growing academic (also termed education) development movement, which argued for the necessity of improved university teaching to deal with the needs of a massified and increasingly diverse student population (clegg, 2009). the idea of sotl grew quickly, within the us but also within other anglophone contexts, spawned conferences and a journal, and has started to show influence in some university promotion policies (chalmers, 2010; vardi and quin, 2010). in south africa, the setting for the present study, there is substantial interest in sotl given the current pressures to improve student http://l 54 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 learning outcomes and a consequent focus on professional development for academics as teachers. however, it needs to be noted that from the outset, there has been a debate on what actually constitutes sotl and this debate continues to the present. a recent contribution by kreber concedes that sotl is still a “contested concept” (2013, p.857). this article therefore starts with an overview of the conceptual work to date in this area. boyer had formulated ‘scholarship of teaching’ as one of the counterpoints he offered to the ‘scholarship of discovery’, his description of the traditional research valued in the university. in defining sotl as one of the forms of scholarship (research), it might be assumed that sotl is a subfield of educational research. on the other hand, boyer’s actual (brief) description of the ‘scholarship of teaching’ suggests that by this term he had in mind a particular approach to teaching, a scholarly approach. acknowledging this potential conceptual confusion, in an influential article hutchings and shulman (1999) proposed that a distinction be made between ‘scholarship of teaching’ and ‘scholarly teaching’. to do this they start with a focus on ‘excellent teaching’, which they argue is the obligation of all academics – engaging students, and facilitating learning. ‘scholarly teaching’ they define as a form of teaching which builds on excellent practice but goes beyond this to be informed by current literature, to collect evidence in the classroom, and, on the basis of this, to engage in high level reflection. ‘scholarship of teaching’ has three additional characteristics in that it is “public (‘community property’), open to critique and evaluation, and in a form that others can build on” (p.13). it focuses inquiry on student learning. working with these clear distinctions, richlin (2001) sees a progressive process which begins with scholarly teaching and all the reflective and deliberative processes which this entails, whereafter the potential exists for the teacher to take this further to develop sotl: the scholarship of teaching, in my view, builds on the end product of scholarly teaching. having completed the process to the point of evaluating the results of the teaching intervention, the professor must decide whether or not to proceed with turning the findings into the scholarship of teaching. clearly, this would depend on the significance of results. the professor may also consider, however, whether the extra effort to write up the material, subject it to another peer review, and disseminate the resulting manuscript would be worth the time required in terms of faculty rewards. (p.61) case: knowledge for teaching, knowledge about teaching. . . 55 sotl, read in these terms, has a very close relationship to educational research more broadly, and some scholars have sought to clarify this relationship. crucially, sotl emerges from the (university) teaching context, and is usually conducted by the teacher. in this regard these debates could potentially be productively informed by the significant literature on practitioner research in the school teaching context (cochran-smith and lytle, 2009; lunenberg, ponte and van de ven, 2007). with regard to sotl, established education researchers have sounded cautions around the possibility that university academics with no prior social science or humanities education can quickly move to producing knowledge in a new field (school teachers typically have had significant exposure to the disciplinary field of education), and concerns have been raised about the quality of some sotl work that has thus far been presented at conferences brew, 2011; elton, 2009). prosser (2008, pp.2, 4) offers a fairly explicit position in this regard, stating that sotl is “not research in the traditional sense” but rather “evidence based critical reflection on practice to improve practice”. inasmuch as prosser recognises the value of an ‘interplay’ between these two activities, he argues for maintaining a clear distinction between sotl and education research. trigwell and shale (2004, p.534), in considering such a conception of sotl (as a form of practitioner research) and returning to boyer’s original intentions to promote the status of teaching as an activity in the academy, are concerned that an enterprise that gets academics to focus on sotl outputs, could be at the expense of an actual focus on (scholarly) teaching: however, we have argued against a conception of scholarship of teaching that places too great an emphasis on the production of pedagogic knowledge. it potentially displaces teaching practice, and pedagogic resonance, from the apex of a conception of scholarship of teaching to its margins. thus they argue for a distinctive approach to sotl, much along the lines of prosser – one that does not conflate it with education research, but keeps it squarely focused on classroom concerns. they go on to write further: we see teaching as a scholarly process aimed at making learning possible (ramsden, 1992). it, therefore, follows that we see the scholarship of teaching as about making transparent, for public scrutiny, how learning has been made possible. (trigwell and shale, 2000, p.525) in an attempt to contribute to this debate, the present article takes as a departure point the explicit distinction between scholarly teaching, 56 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl), and education research outlined above. sotl, although it has much in common with education research and could be considered by some as a sub-field of this domain, is defined by a form of enquiry that emerges from a particular teaching context, and is usually conducted by the teacher, who may or may not also be an established education researcher. in acknowledging the potential significance of these three distinct activities, this analysis will look to interrogate the forms of knowledge that they both draw on and produce. the article presents a case study of a course in which i, at two different periods, adopted firstly the role of education researcher (working in conjunction with the course lecturer) and, approximately a decade later, took on the role of teacher in this same course. in the first engagement, as an education researcher (phd student at that point), i had an explicit intention to produce education research on student learning. in the second engagement, as a university teacher, my focus was towards teaching and learning, and the focus of this study is on whether any aspects of scholarly teaching or sotl could be identified in that work. this case study allows thus for an interesting comparison of education research, sotl, and scholarly teaching, all conducted by the same person albeit at different points in time, in the same university course context. knowledge and teaching to take this discussion further, it is important to consider the relationship between knowledge and professional work, with professional work in this instance referring to teaching. here there is a growing literature mostly emanating from the school context, often with a departure point examining the formal pre-service education of teachers (ball, 2000). early work by lee shulman (1986, 1987) outlined a range of knowledge types that teachers need to be able to draw on in their practice. clearly, at whatever level, teachers need knowledge of the subjects that they will teach. at a university level, this is often considered the only really important qualification for teaching, one’s disciplinary knowledge. shulman’s key contribution was to note that for teaching one requires a reworking of disciplinary knowledge that transforms it into what he termed ‘pedagogical content knowledge’, an orientation which also includes knowledge around student learning in this disciplinary area. case: knowledge for teaching, knowledge about teaching. . . 57 for the purposes of this investigation, however, we are more concerned with what might be termed pedagogical knowledge, knowledge around teaching and learning. what knowledge do expert teachers draw on, in addition to their (pedagogical and disciplinary) content knowledge, when planning and when executing teaching? a central influence for conceptualising this kind of professional work has been that of donald schön, who highlights the centrality of reflective practice (schön, 1983), seen also in a conceptualisation of scholarly teaching laid out by brew (2010). in recent work on the sociology of professional knowledge, young and muller (2014) contend that although reflection is no doubt a key orientation in professional work itself, to focus entirely on this activity is to evade the significance of the knowledge bases that professionals recruit to their reflective practice. thus, although much professional knowledge might be ‘tacit’, as recognised by polanyi, it is nonetheless a knowledge base in its fundamental structuring and orientation to the world. the sotl literature does offer some recognition of the complexity of accounting for the knowledge that teachers draw on in teaching. kreber (2013) refers to the aristotelean typology of ‘intellectual virtues’ to signal the importance of phronesis (pragmatic and contextual judgement) rather than episteme (scientific knowledge) for sotl. here it is worth linking to flyvbjerg’s (2001) contemporary conceptualisation of phronesis, in the context of a broader consideration of social science. flyvbjerg argues that a phronetic social science is centred on the following three questions: ! where are we going? ! is this desirable? ! what should be done? in summary then, however conceptualised, the literature is clear that teachers draw on a complex range of knowledges, both disciplinary and pedagogical, some tacit and some explicit, to inform their teaching decisions. we can now turn back to the sotl literature. with the university as a site not only of knowledge acquisition/transmission but also of knowledge production, it is not surprising that the sotl discussion is centred not only on the knowledge to be drawn on in teaching, but also on knowledge outputs from scholarly activity in the teaching arena (a key definition of sotl as outlined above). the implicit assumption is that these knowledge outputs will be useful inputs 58 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 that others will draw on in informing their teaching; in fact the definition of scholarly teaching defined earlier gives prominence to the idea that the scholarly university teacher will inform themselves on ‘current literature’. there is also an emerging literature on the ‘research-teaching nexus’ that sees research and teaching as closely intertwined and mutually supportive activities – with an underlying joint concern for the process of learning, whether it be at the student or at the research community level (bowden and marton, 1998; elton, 2001; healey, 2000; rowland, 1996). the present article seeks to interrogate these assumptions closely. it needs to be emphasised that drawing on knowledge to inform teaching, and producing knowledge in the context of teaching, are subtly different activities. what knowledge(s) do university lecturers draw on in their teaching? what is the relevance of sotl or education research outputs in this regard? how is sotl different to education research? the research questions directing the present investigation can thus be formulated as follows: 1. knowledge for teaching: what knowledge(s) do university teachers draw on and how might this relate to teaching that is defined as excellent or scholarly? 2. knowledge about teaching: what knowledge outputs would constitute scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl) and how might these differ to education research (or not)? to what extent can these be productively used to inform scholarly teaching? the case study that informs this investigation focuses on a particular course and my involvement in the different roles of education researcher (termed phase 1) and teacher (termed phase 2). the case study this study is located in the context of a second year chemical engineering course at the university of cape town in which, at different periods, i was firstly an education researcher, and later the course convenor and lecturer. in 1996 i was appointed to an academic development post in the department with the explicit mandate to focus on improving student learning in the case: knowledge for teaching, knowledge about teaching. . . 59 programme. my attention fairly quickly gravitated towards this second year course which had a history of relatively high failure rates and was widely regarded as posing particular conceptual challenges to students. i proceeded to formulate my phd work in the context of this course, which involved two years (1998–99) of extensive participant observation of class sessions, documentary analysis of student work, and interviews with students and the course lecturers (case, 2001). following completion of my phd i began teaching in the first year of the programme as well as in another second year course and conducted a further piece of educational research with third year students. in 2009 i was given the opportunity to take over the convenership and lecturing in the very second year course in which i had focused my phd attentions a decade before. for three years i convened and taught most of the course and thereafter moved into a more minor teaching role in the course. as of 2014 i have no involvement in that course and am teaching mainly in the first year of the programme. these experiences provided a particular vantage point from which to explore the similarities and differences between conducting education research, performing (scholarly) teaching and engaging in the scholarship of this teaching. in this case study we have the same person as education researcher and teacher, at different points in time, but on essentially the same course (there were no curricular changes to this part of the programme over the period of investigation). it must be noted, however, that the passing of time meant that in many respects it was not ‘the same person’ doing academic work a year later, nor indeed exactly the same students or course context, given especially the dynamic context of post-apartheid south africa. furthermore, the literature on sotl tends to assume that the person conducting this work has a disciplinary research focus other than education. in this case, education research has been my main research focus, even though the somewhat unusual academic development post has meant that my teaching work has predominantly been in chemical engineering and thus i have some degree of subject specialisation also in that area. methodologically, there are always challenges in work that is essentially autoethnographic (denzin and lincoln, 2011). to build rigour into the process i analysed the documentary trail that i left from these two periods of work. for the education research and the sotl this was relatively straightforward; to focus the analysis i selected one journal article from the phd (case and gunstone, 2002) which i could compare to the journal article from the later sotl work (collier-reed, case, and stott, 2013). for the 60 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 teaching work i used the trail of course documentation as well as some university and conference presentations relating to innovations in the course. the analysis began with tracing an overview of these two periods of work in the different roles of education researcher and then teacher. the analysis proceeded to focus in on the knowledge used for teaching, comparing this with the knowledge outputs in the two phases of work. outlining the different roles and associated orientations phase 1: as education researcher on the course the research project began from a conversation with the course lecturer, who was concerned about the quality of student learning in the course and felt that this was due to insufficient emphasis on the importance of conceptual understanding. she was keen to shift her teaching to increase this emphasis, and, with some input from me, she formulated the following innovations which she began to implement: ! reduced and more focused content (the course content was reduced by 25%) ! more interactive teaching (she used various techniques to build student participation into the class) ! reflective journal tasks (these required students to reflect on their learning and on their conceptual understanding) ! conceptual assessment items (tests no longer just required calculations) ! one unlimited time test (students could take as long as they liked over one particular test) i was interested to research how students responded to this new course context, specifically as to whether they shifted their study behaviours towards building the conceptual understanding that the lecturer prioritised. from the student learning literature in higher education i came across the notion of approach to learning, with its broad polarities of deep and surface approaches case: knowledge for teaching, knowledge about teaching. . . 61 representing whether conceptual understanding was prioritised by the student or not (ramsden, 1992). from the science education literature, i found the idea of metacognitive development, which represented, i argued, the process of making a shift in approach to learning (biggs, 1986). i thus formulated a research design working with a small purposively selected group of students to identify the approaches to learning prevalent in the course, and particularly to track any shifts in these approaches, and how these might relate to their perceptions of the course context. following a sustained period of interviews over a semester, coupled with an analysis of student work, both deep and surface approaches were identified in this group of eleven students, as well as a third approach, termed a ‘procedural approach’, where students focused on completing problems that had been assigned in the course as is typical in science or engineering courses. exploring the ways in which students’ perceptions of the evidently time-pressured course context might be related to their choice of approach, those taking a deep approach felt that they should invest time in building understanding in view of long-term benefits – they felt that taking time to understand ultimately saved time. students using the procedural or surface approaches tended to avoid conceptual tasks as they felt these were too timeconsuming and rather focused attention on meeting the deadlines for course submissions. the results that these students achieved in the course confirmed that the course did actually require students to grasp the conceptual foundations; only those students who ultimately used a deep approach to learning also passed the course. in conclusion, the results of this study were fairly damning for a course structure which retained significant time pressure but required students to change their approach towards a deep approach, if they were not already using it at the outset to the course. doing research i was concerned with what was happening in the course, but i channelled these concerns into a project which sought to establish new knowledge, not only for potential use in my context but also for a broader literature on approaches to learning. inasmuch as it was distressing to interview a student who was failing on the course, as a researcher i was interested to find out what perceptions they held that were related to an approach to learning that was not associated with success on the course. even though it was clear that students appreciated the opportunity to chat with someone, in the student interview situation i was not able to do much to modify their understanding or approach apart from engaging empathetically and, to some degree, prompting reflection. 62 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 phase 2: as teacher on the course in analysing the foci for my teaching over this period, i began by a comparison with the innovations that i had followed closely in this course during my earlier phd study. some of these had been dropped during the period when someone else was teaching the course, and i had reinstated the reduced and focused course content. i also reintroduced the journal tasks. i continued with a relatively interactive teaching style as i had seen exemplified by the course lecturer i had followed during my phd. i kept the same assessment structure that had been in the course all along; significantly i did not change the time pressured assessment, as had been one of the implicit recommendations of my phd. from the document trail, two main innovations can be identified during my period of teaching on the course: designing an integrated project as part of the assessment, and introducing lecture recording (termed here ‘lecturecasting’, referred to in our journal article as ‘podcasting’). these are now described and analysed in terms of the apparent motivations for these developments and the contexts in which they were implemented. the integrated project followed a general move in engineering to introduce more project work which helps students see the significance of the theoretical material, and also to start to develop engineering skills (grimson, 2002; walkington, 2002). a key challenge that i was aware of, given my experience teaching in the first year of the programme, related to students’ general struggles with doing work in groups, especially in the context of a culturally diverse class population, coming out of what is still a relatively segregated society with uneven school educational outcomes. to address this challenge, i designed a set of project tasks and arranged the course schedule such that all project work in groups actually took place in class. i made attendance of these sessions compulsory and i monitored and worked closely with groups as they grappled with the work, mediating in instances where groups were not interacting productively. the lecturecasting was a response to a longstanding concern about students’ ability to maximise their learning during lectures. with a large proportion of the class speaking english as a second language, i had been concerned about over reliance on fast verbal delivery and had developed a teaching approach involving extensive ‘board work’ (now on the tablet) to support this. case: knowledge for teaching, knowledge about teaching. . . 63 lecturecasting allowed for a relatively simple recording of the board work with accompanying audio, using camtasia® software. students were able to download these recordings as mp4 files from the course website, and could listen to portions or entire lectures at their leisure. i had a range of methods of obtaining feedback from students, ranging from immediate feedback during informal chats, through to anonymous ‘minute papers’ where on a weekly basis students gave general feedback on what they were struggling with, as well as the regular mid-semester and end of semester course evaluations (containing fairly standard closed and open-ended items, as well as customised items to gauge the impact of particular innovations). with regard to the lecturecasting activity i had begun discussions with a colleague who was launching a similar innovation in another engineering course. we decided to construct a more formal enquiry in this context and to this end we recruited a postdoctoral research assistant to conduct focus groups in the class. in the context of the present article this is considered an exemplar of sotl although at the time we would have most probably described it simply as ‘education research’, given that both of us had backgrounds in this research area. both innovations were well received as shown by detailed course evaluations. for the integrated project i was well aware of negative comments that would usually be made about random group allocation and was pleased to see these decline somewhat and being replaced by comments valuing the opportunity to work with others in class. the lecturecasts were used regularly by just over half the class, and in the focus groups these students expressed that this resource had significantly assisted them in grasping the material in the course. on completion of my teaching work in this course my reflections in a talk given to university colleagues showed that i still felt challenged by how best to facilitate as many students as possible achieving the necessary engagement with the material – not only in class – but especially also out of class. i was pleased with the levels of engagement with the lecture that i had noted in observations and feedback, but i also noted that students only seemed to work out of class intensively in the few days before a class test. following the previous lecturer in the course i had introduced a mini-test every second week, but these tests, counting for less marks in the overall assessment, did not seem to stimulate the required ongoing engagement in the course. 64 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 students were juggling competing demands in multiple courses and my course only got a ‘look-in’ when a deadline was looming. analysis drawing from the detailed data summarised above, the analysis proceeded to respond to the two research questions framing the study. with regard to ‘knowledge for teaching’, the analysis focused primarily on phase 2 when i took the role of teacher in the course, and sought to identify the knowledge that i drew on during this period, including the question of to what extent education research (including that which i had conducted in phase 1) was drawn upon. the question of ‘knowledge about teaching’ compares the knowledge outputs from these two phases of work, specifically looking to characterise any differences between the education research outputs from phase 1 and the more sotl type outputs from phase 2. knowledge for teaching when i took over responsibility for teaching on the course, my central concern was to get students learning at a level that was required in the course. as can be seen above, all my actions were explicitly directed towards activities that i thought would ‘work’ and would make a difference. many of my teaching decisions here were determined by the logistical constraints in a given course. for example, i had limited class slots and only a regular lecture theatre where i could run the group project, and so i selected groups of three, putting students together so that there was at least one laptop in each group, and arranged them in the lecture theatre so that with ease i could check attendance in each project session. all these decisions were informed by the ‘art of the possible’. lecture recording required me to purchase and develop some facility with the software but was relatively easy to implement, and so i couldn’t see any reason not to do so. it did have one constraining influence on my teaching, which was that i had to keep relatively close to the laptop microphone and thus had to change my style for conducting interactive discussions in class. teaching was focused on getting learning to happen; i needed to be able to give evidence for my immediate community. significantly, there was no simple and direct ‘application’ of research findings in teaching. the teaching case: knowledge for teaching, knowledge about teaching. . . 65 innovations identified here can certainly be seen to link to contemporary education literature which signals, for example, the value of ‘authentic enquiry’ (the project work), and the significance of using technology to enhance teaching (the lecturecasting). however, the actual implementation of these innovations was not driven by the research literature. the formulations and the execution appear guided by complex and certainly tacit knowledge derived from experience of teaching, and informed continually by evidence of student learning recruited from the context. in this instance then of university teaching, it can be seen that while there is some evidence of innovations being informed by broad currents in the literature, it is more important to note how teaching decisions were largely driven by tacit, contextual knowledge, in a framework of reflective practice. in terms of the strict definitions given earlier then, it would be hard to term this ‘scholarly teaching’ and it would sit more easily in the category ‘excellent (or ‘good’) teaching’ given evidence of the success of these innovations within a broader framework of course delivery. i am making this judgement on the evidence that the research literature was not the major driver for the full range of teaching decisions and actions noted over this period. knowledge about teaching this stage of the analysis aimed to compare the knowledge outputs from these two different periods of engagement with the course, first as an education researcher and then (defined here as) as a teacher engaging in the scholarship of teaching and learning. for the sake of the comparison this analysis looked closely at one journal output as representative of these two activities, an article from my phd co-authored with my supervisor (case and gunstone, 2002) and an article on the inquiry into pod-casting co-authored with two colleagues (collier-reed, case and stott, 2013). for easy reference the abstracts of each article are reproduced here: in this article it is argued that metacognitive development can be viewed as a shift in the approach to learning used by a student. this theoretical position is used to investigate the metacognitive development of a group of students on a course which was aiming to develop deep approaches and conceptual understanding. considerable diversity was found in the approaches used by students, and also in the degrees to which those not initially using a conceptual (deep) approach were able to develop this approach. in those students initially using an algorithmic approach, one was able to make this transition fairly early on in the course, while others changed to different degrees at later stages. the students using 66 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 information-based approaches did not display any appreciable metacognitive development during this course. the study confirms that the promotion of metacognitive development (i.e. the use of deep approaches) is not easily achieved, and suggests certain aspects of the course environment that are either supportive of or detrimental to metacognitive development. (case and gunstone, 2002) there is a growing literature on the educational benewts of using podcasting of lectures in higher education, but to date little research that interrogates closely its impact on student learning. the present study investigated how students used lecture podcasts produced in two engineering courses at a south african university. the wndings conwrm much of the growing consensus in the literature. firstly, a majority of students in the courses elected to use the podcasts. secondly, the study notes that lecture attendance, in contexts where lectures are seen as benewcial, is not adversely affected. thirdly, few students use podcasts in the mobile mode but most rather use them as an additional resource in their private study spaces. there is intense use in the build up to tests and examinations, and there is a particular benewt for students who are not wrst language speakers of the medium of instruction. this study also points to the existence of both deep and surface approaches to engaging with podcasts, with substantial evidence of many students using podcasts as a means towards better understanding. (collier-reed, case and stott, 2013) both articles report on work which had as its origins some pedagogical innovation in the second year chemical engineering course at uct, with the 2013 article also drawing in data from another course in the faculty. both articles sought to explore students’ perceptions of these innovations and worked with qualitative data collection methods, with the phd representing a significantly more sustained process of data collection. both conceptualised student learning in terms of approaches to learning, with the phd linking this also to literature on metacognitive development. at a deeper analysis these outputs do show some quite notable differences. the 2002 article located itself within a broader literature on students’ approaches to learning and thus drove towards findings that were not so much about students’ perceptions of an innovation, but which sought to say something potentially broader about student learning in higher education (this noted also in the choice of journal). this is evident even in the abstract to this article which departs from a general position on student learning and proceeds to deliver findings which are represented in fairly general terms. the lecturecasting article maintained a focus on the implementation of this technology in a course and confined its findings to that pedagogical issue, reporting ultimately to a more disciplinary focused journal audience, even though using in conclusion the language of approaches to learning. case: knowledge for teaching, knowledge about teaching. . . 67 discussion and conclusion in comparing the two phases of this study – the role of education researcher followed by the role of teacher – it can be seen quite clearly how these different roles played out. as a researcher i was focused on building new knowledge and concerned with having something to communicate to a wider research audience. as a teacher i was focused on getting learning to happen and most of my deliberations were focused towards this end. the sotl-type inquiry into lecture-casting emerged from the teaching context and to some extent validated the impressions i had already formed while teaching. significantly, there was no simple and direct ‘application’ of research findings in teaching. the teaching innovations identified here can certainly be seen to link to contemporary education literature which signals, for example, the value of ‘authentic enquiry’ (the project work), and the significance of using technology to enhance teaching (the lecturecasting). however, the actual implementation of these innovations was not driven by the research literature. the formulations and the execution appear guided by complex and certainly tacit knowledge derived from experience of teaching, and informed continually by evidence of student learning recruited from the context. in terms of the strict definitions offered earlier, we therefore cannot really term this ‘scholarly teaching’. the analysis becomes even more vexing when we compare the knowledge outputs of work that was straightforwardly defined as education research (the phd study) and that which for the purposes of this investigation could be considered scholarship of teaching and learning (the lecture-casting article). both activities delivered journal outputs in the education literature; both conceptualised student learning similarly, and both drew off qualitative data of students perceptions of the course innovation. subtle differences were evident in the intended audiences for these outputs, with the phd study clearly aiming for a potentially more generalisable contribution to the student learning literature while the pod-casting study appears to speak more directly to a practitioner audience. these differences aside though, we ultimately need to decide whether there is value in calling this latter work ‘scholarship of teaching and learning’ when it could also be described as ‘education research’. adendorff (2011) points to this dilemma in reporting on the work of nine academics at a neighbouring south african university: 68 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 the interest of this study was in the experience of academics that use teaching and learning literature for rexection, dialogue and systematic inquiry into their own teaching practices. although the respondents conceptualised their work as educational research rather than sotl, the study was initially framed using the sotl literature because this literature offered useful descriptions of the range of activities and difwculties associated with academics’ efforts. (p.306) in conclusion then this case study brings a useful light to bear on the debates around the meanings of sotl that were outlined briefly in the opening of this article. if sotl is to be a scholarship, in other words, a form of research, then it needs to be directed towards the objectives of research. this research can certainly be in the context of teaching and learning challenges, but it will be aiming towards knowledge production. this activity is simply not going to be able to deliver actual changes in the classroom. the activity that is centrally directed towards improving students’ learning is good teaching, and even if informed by some of the literature (defined here as ‘scholarly’), it will always have its focus on a particular set of challenges in a particular context, and the considerations at hand will go beyond this knowledge. some of the considerations in the teaching challenges offered up by a particular context are going to require professional knowledge that will not necessarily be of interest to a broader scholarly community. in summary therefore, this study raises questions about the notion of ‘scholarly teaching’ as defined in the literature. it has been shown how good university teaching draws on a range of knowledges, many tacit and contextual, and it has been suggested that formal research outputs might not play such a significant role in this regard. if our aim is to facilitate high quality student learning, there might be a significant danger in focusing too much on sotl outputs at the expense of recognising the complex of deliberations involved in teaching. case: knowledge for teaching, knowledge about teaching. . . 69 references adendorff, h. 2011. strangers in a strange land – on becoming scholars of teaching. london review of education, 9(3): pp.305–315. ball, d.l. 2000. bridging practices intertwining content and pedagogy in teaching and learning to teach. journal of teacher education, 51(3): pp.241–247. biggs, j.b. 1986. enhancing learning skills: the role of metacognition. in bowden, j. 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(eds), knowledge, expertise and the professions. london: routledge, pp.3–17. 72 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 jennifer case centre for research in engineering education department of chemical engineering university of cape town jenni.case@uct.ac.za mailto:jenni.case@uct.ac.za microsoft word b8300 final.docx journal of education, 2021 issue 83, http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i83a06 online issn 2520-9868 print issn 0259-479x revealing shifts from mastery of knowledge to problem solving in assessments of a tertiary physics programme alan cornell department of physics, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa acornell@uj.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1896-4628 kershree padayachee science teaching and learning unit, faculty of science, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg, south africa kershree.padayachee@wits.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7015-5962 (received: 15 october 2020; accepted: 17 june 2021) abstract there is an increasing pressure on lecturers to work with two goals. first, they need to ensure that their undergraduate students have a good grasp of the knowledge and skills of the intellectual field. in addition, they need to prepare graduates and postgraduates for careers both within and outside of academia. the problem we address in this paper is the way in which assessments may reveal a shift of focus from a mastery of knowledge to a work-focused orientation. we examine this shift through a case study of physics and the sub-discipline of theoretical physics as intellectual fields. the evidence is comprised of assessment tasks given to students at different points of their studies from first year to doctoral level. by examining and analysing the assessment tasks using concepts from legitimation code theory (lct), we demonstrate how the shifts in the assessments lead students incrementally from a pure disciplinary focus to one that enables them to pursue employment potentially both within and outside of academia. in doing so, we also highlight the usefulness of lct as a framework for evaluating the preparation of science students for diverse workplaces. keywords: physics education, legitimation code theory, epistemic relations, assessment introduction the higher education landscape has shifted dramatically over the past 20 years. worldwide, staff and student demographics have changed, and the very purpose of higher education is being challenged. the world of work is also currently in a state of flux, with requirements for new so-called 21st century skills and competency emerging constantly (bao and koenig, 112 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 2019). the result is increasing pressure for lecturers to shift curricula that focus tightly on disciplinary knowledge and procedures and provide greater opportunities for students to develop broader cross field competencies that will equip them for a wide range of potential careers (ashwin & case, 2018; roberts, 2015). the branching out of the academic pipeline, with graduates (especially those with higher degrees) entering workplaces that are vastly different from the academic environment in which they have been prepared has implications. these include the need for graduates to develop both in-depth and highly sophisticated understandings of the knowledge of their disciplines so that they can apply this knowledge to a broad range of contexts and fields of practice (acker & haque, 2017). it may also have implications for the type of identity graduate students develop, based on their intrinsic motivations and their intended career paths. higher education, therefore, needs to adapt in response to the shifting socio-economic pressures and requirements to enable the development of graduates with flexible dispositions that would allow for easier integration into new contexts and easier application of disciplinary knowledge in fields of practice beyond academe. however, while undoubtedly necessary, it is possible that such shifts may present challenges for the development and training of students in pure hard science disciplines such as physics and specialised subdisciplines such as theoretical physics. in this paper, we first analyse what is valued in the discipline at different stages of theoretical physics education. we then draw on the analysis to highlight the epistemological shifts that occur in the process of theoretical physicist identity development as students move from first year to phd level in the discipline. last, we discuss how these shifts incrementally develop students’ abilities to create new knowledge and apply the knowledge of physics and theoretical physics in other fields over time. progression in the learning of physics physics is regarded as a discipline in which progress is attained by seeking greater levels of abstraction, such as universally applicable laws that govern natural phenomena. terms are generally precisely defined and there are similar bodies of knowledge taught in introductory physics courses in different institutions. on these grounds, physics can be described as having a generally hierarchical knowledge structure in which there is broad consensus on precisely defined concepts and relationships between them. in fields like these, knowledgebuilding happens through the integration of foundational concepts with more abstract and universal claims (bernstein, 1999, 2000). this means that the undergraduate physics curricula tend to follow similar topics and sequences across different settings. this curriculum format is deemed necessary to ensure that students become familiar with the foundational knowledge and procedures of the discipline. first year physics classes generally include students registered for engineering and medical degrees, as well as those intending to major in physics or chemistry. an introductory course in physics would usually include topics relating to newtonian mechanics, waves and optics, electromagnetism and so on. at this level, the curriculum would also include the development of thinking and reasoning skills involved in enquiry, experimentation, and cornell & padayachee: revealing shifts from mastery of knowledge to problem solving . . . 113 evidence evaluation. the transition to the more specialised sub-disciplines of theoretical physics occurs in the latter years of the undergraduate programme and requires greater conceptual understanding and knowledge integration. compared with general physics courses, specialised sub-disciplines such as theoretical physics focus on the more abstract generation of theoretical models, require more complex mathematical knowledge, and demand a higher level of logic and critical thinking. in this respect, critical thinking skills are expanded to include inference and argumentation, the ability to systematically explore a problem, formulation and testing of hypotheses, manipulation and isolation of variables, and observation and evaluation of consequences (zimmerman, 2000). in the process of becoming increasingly specialised, experiential aspects of physics are left aside in favour of a greater emphasis on conceptual understanding and the development of particular mental models and procedural knowledge. there is, accordingly, a gradual development of increasingly complex conceptual understanding that occurs in the education of theoretical physics students, evolving from conceptual knowledge acquisition to an understanding and comprehension of the knowledge and the specific procedures that are underpinned by these. in other words, students are gradually inducted into the discipline and the practice of knowledge production, gaining foundational knowledge and learning to think like a physicist during undergraduate studies (conana, 2016; conana et al., 2020; van heuvelen, 1991). lecturers thus aim initially to construct disciplinary knowledge in a hierarchical manner by beginning with hands-on experiential work through laboratories and practicals that quickly become a repeated testing of invented threshold concepts (wisker, 2018) such as newton’s laws etc., to see if these always hold up under scrutiny, as well as the constant development of students’ understanding of complex representations and their uses in physics. this repeated testing and questioning that characterises undergraduate studies is a key aspect of the physicist’s identity, founded on dewey’s notion of “competent inquiry” (dewey, 1938, cited in towne & shavelson, 2002, p. 51). it can also be associated with popper’s critical rationalism amongst other scientific philosophies (towne and shavelson, 2002). the key point is that the scientific laws that we seek to formulate are abstract ones that must be tested constantly. in the context of theoretical physics, this is captured in the lecture series entitled “character of physical law”, by feynman (1965), that explains how he saw physical laws; he suggested that a theoretical physicist attempts to write down, in the language of mathematics, a simple and beautiful explanation for nature. feynman pointed out, however, that this is, at best, a model, one that will have only a certain regime of applicability. physicists test the range of this model, while refining and improving it, in a search for new laws and broader or deeper understandings and applications, making this the cornerstone of physics education. physics education, therefore, needs to be underpinned by an appreciation of the nature of science and a solid conceptual foundation from which the skills of abstraction, critical thinking, and new knowledge production can emerge. the undergraduate physics curriculum, therefore, requires a solid conceptual foundation that includes critical thinking skills for subsequent abstraction and knowledge production. the role of the physics lecturer is, 114 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 consequently, to facilitate access to, and engagement with, the concepts in a way that leads students to ever more complex levels of abstraction and criticality, and in the process, gradually shape a scientific identity and the “trained gaze” (maton, 2014, p. 186) of a theoretical physicist. in this sense, a gaze is a specialised way of seeing, perceiving, and thinking in the knowledge practices of physics and has been developed through interactions, including assessment tasks that emphasise the mastery of specialist knowledge and skills. conana (2016) and conana et al. (2020) have explained how a process of knowledgebuilding of specialised knowledge and skills typically occurs in first year physics lectures, and how a deliberate interplay between everyday knowledge enhances understanding of physics concepts and procedures. this approach enables students to see the application and broader relevance of concepts from the discipline, making engagement with the concepts more meaningful for students studying physics as a pre-requisite for further study in the related fields of medicine and engineering. it also triggers interest and curiosity in students who intend majoring in physics. it can be argued, however, that it is summative assessments in the curriculum that ultimately drive students’ focus and determine their success, by signalling to them which knowledge mastery and graduate attributes are valued at each stage of study (boud & falchikov, 2006). in the case of physics and theoretical physics, the shifts towards increasing complex conceptual understanding, greater levels of intellectual independence, and demands for disciplinary ways of thinking and reasoning as key outcomes of the courses, should, therefore, be reflected in the demands of assessment tasks. it is, therefore, crucial to our endeavour to analyse how the physics and theoretical physics assessment demands vary to promote the students’ ability to develop and then apply the knowledge of these disciplines in different ones and in work contexts. analysing knowledge practices, like shifts in assessment tasks in an intellectual field like physics, however, requires a conceptual framework that can reveal changes in what is valued for achievement over different levels. it is for this reason that we turn now to the conceptual tools offered by the specialization dimension of legitimation code theory (lct) (maton, 2014). epistemic relations and learning physics in higher education lct offers a sociological approach to researching and analysing knowledge practices. it offers a multidimensional conceptual toolkit that enables “both the exploration of knowledgebuilding and the cumulative building of knowledge” allowing “knowledge practices to be seen, their organizing principles to be conceptualized, and their effects to be explored” (maton, 2014, p. 4). this is achieved through the selective application of the different dimensions of lct, each of which is comprised of “a series of concepts centred on capturing a set of organizing principles underlying dispositions, practices and contexts” (maton, 2016, p. 11). the specialization dimension provides concepts that reveal the extent to which the basis of achievement in a practice or intellectual field lies in the mastery of a body of specialised knowledge and/or the acquisition of specialised dispositions and ways of thinking cornell & padayachee: revealing shifts from mastery of knowledge to problem solving . . . 115 or being. conceptual tools from lct have been used to analyse assessment tasks in chemistry (e.g., blackie, 2014), student understandings in physics (e.g., georgiou, 2016) and knowledge-building in earth sciences (e.g., maton & doran, 2021). in this paper we use the strength of epistemic relations and knowledge-based insights to consider how the focus on knowledge and procedures shifts in the assessment of physics at various levels in a higher education setting. the specialization dimension of lct arises from the principle that knowledge practices are oriented towards a part of the world and are enacted by actors. this principle sets up two relations: epistemic relations (er) between the practice and its objects of study; and social relations (sr) between the practice and its subjects. epistemic relations are defined by relations of the knowledge to its object of study (i.e., the relation between the knowledge and the part of the world or disciplinary field to which the body of knowledge is directed). in contrast, social relations are defined by relations between the knowledge practices and the subject (i.e., the relations between those making the claim to the knowledge). when the epistemic and/or social relations are highly significant as a basis for achievement in the knowledge practice, relations are regarded as being stronger along a continuum of strengths. when the relations matter less as a basis for achievement, the relations are said to be relatively weaker. different intellectual fields and different fields of professional practice may thus be characterised by the relative strengths or weaknesses placed on epistemic and social relations which may be indicated by + or -, respectively. the concepts and codes of specialization provided the language and tools to analyse the logics that underpin the development of theoretical physicists as a starting point for a deeper exploration of what is valued as the basis of achievement in this field. moreover, in this study we focus on how cognitive demands in assessment tasks shift over time as students move from undergraduate to postgraduate physics courses. we are especially interested in what knowledge insights are developed through shifts in the epistemic relations of the knowledge practices of physics. for this reason, we focus on the epistemic plane of lct which gives us the means to analyse how epistemic relations change strength and form in the assessments at different stages of a theoretical physicists’ education, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. the epistemic relations of knowledge practices may be specialised according to the extent to which the field determines legitimate objects of study, and the procedures by which these objects are investigated (maton, 2014). the epistemic plane enables deeper consideration of the object of study of one field relative to another through considerations of the relative strengths of the ontic and discursive relations. ontic relations (or) describe the extent to which the object of study in the field is bound to the field, i.e., the what of its knowledge practices. the ontic relations, therefore, reflect the strengths of relations between knowledge practices within the intellectual field and their demarcated object/s of study (maton, 2014). the term, discursive relations (dr), however, refers to the extent to which there are clear and uncontested procedures that determine how those object/s are studied. discursive relations therefore, set up relative strengths between knowledge practices associated with a particular 116 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 intellectual field (in this study, physics) and procedures used to investigate problems in other knowledge practices (maton, 2014). in short, discursive relations consider the how of knowledge practices. maton (2014) explained that a field’s ontic and discursive relations can also be combined to illustrate the continuum of strengths of relations on the epistemic plane, resulting in four analytically distinct quadrants representing four insights of epistemic codes, viz., purist, doctrinal, knower/no and situational (figure 1). • knowledge practices dominated by purist insights are generated by fields that “strongly bound and control both legitimate objects of study and the legitimate approaches” used to study them (maton, 2014, p. 176). such fields in which the object of study and approaches are strongly controlled by the field, are said to be characterised by strong ontic fidelity and procedural purism. • in comparison, knowledge practices characterised by doctrinal insights (or-, dr+) are generated by fields in which the object of study is less determined by the field (weaker ontic fidelity) but specialised procedures are of greater significance for achievement in the field (stronger discursive relations). • situational insights (or+, dr-), however, develop in knowledge practices where the object of study is controlled by the field but there is greater potential for application of multiple approaches or procedures to address a particular issue or problem. • knower insights or no knowledge-based insights, in contrast, are generated in practices in which neither the objects of study nor the procedures used to study them are dictated by the field. these insights are characterised by generally weaker ontic and discursive relations. figure 1 the epistemic plane of lct, showing four codes that form the basis of knowledge-based insights (maton, 2014) cornell & padayachee: revealing shifts from mastery of knowledge to problem solving . . . 117 the epistemic plane thus provided a useful analytical framework for analysing the assessments in order to reveal the knowledge practices that are foregrounded in the education of theoretical physicists, and the extent to which the programme prepares students for diverse workplaces. methodology in this paper, we offer a qualitative analysis of assessment tasks designed for undergraduate physics courses as well as assessments from theoretical physics honours courses, masters, and phd projects in theoretical physics. these were designed by the first author, a theoretical physicist specialising in high energy particle physics and gravitational physics at an urban university in south africa. supporting data was also derived from a closely focussed conversation between the first author and the second, an educational developer based in the faculty of science of another urban university in south africa, in which the first author reflected on the nature of the assessments and the reasons for the assessment strategies adopted at different levels of study. the assessment artefacts and the transcript of his reflection on the types of questions were first analysed using a soft eyes approach (superficial examination) to determine the dominant specialization code. this was followed by a more rigorous confirmation of the dominance of the specialization code using a translation device that was developed to identify and distinguish between epistemic and social relations and the relative strengths of these. having determined that epistemic relations were emphasised much more strongly than social relations in our data, a second translation device (table 1) was created and applied to evaluate the relative strengths of the ontic and discursive relations. table 1 the translation device used to evaluate the relative strengths of the ontic and discursive relations in summative assessments and in the transcript of the lecturer interview ontic relations (or) theoretical concept code indicators example knowledge or++ (very strong ontic relations) the focus is on what is being studied (disciplinary knowledge). there is a notion of right knowledge. the objects of study are tightly defined, strongly bounded, and very strongly classified. how matter moves and interacts in an idealised way or+ (stronger ontic relations) the emphasis is on the understanding of physics-based concepts and principles in settings beyond physics. how matter moves and interacts in everyday settings or (weaker ontic relations) there is less emphasis on disciplinary knowledge with concepts and contexts beyond physics. the interactions and relationships of objects beyond the focus of physics 118 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 discursive relations (dr) procedures dr++ (very strong discursive relations) there are few connections to, and/or integration of, other knowledges. scientific method, testing hypothesis through empirical observation and controlled experimentation dr+ (stronger discursive relations) the emphasis is on integration and application of and procedures from other subdisciplines within the same field or closely related scientific fields. using differential equation to model a system, e.g., circuits dr (weaker discursive relations) there is possible application of a wide range of procedures from various disciplines (beyond closely related fields). applications that lie beyond experimental methods, analysis of observed or measured variables a limitation of the study presented here is that we focus on the analysis of questions from one summative assessment in each of the undergraduate and honours years of study. the choice of assessment question presented in the findings that follow were chosen by the lecturer who set them as being exemplars of the kinds of questions typically posed to students at each level. findings the first phase of the analysis using both the soft eyes approach and the application of the translation device to distinguish the types of questions and the relative strengths of the social and epistemic relations in the assessments, confirmed the existence of stronger epistemic relations and the dominance of the knowledge code in all the assessments at all levels. no questions required explicit demonstration of particular knower attributes, with the focus lying, instead, on the demonstration of conceptual and procedural understanding. this was expected and is supported by the literature on physics curricula (bernstein, 1999) and studies on the teaching of undergraduate physics (conana et al., 2020). the in-depth conversation between the authors also revealed an emphasis on concepts and procedures assessed at different levels and the reasons for the incremental shifts, and there was little mention of knower dispositions. social relations in the data were consequently much weaker overall compared with the strength of the epistemic relations. the confirmation of stronger epistemic relations and weaker social relations in all the assessment tasks enabled us to assign what we call a knowledge code to the tasks in the initial analysis of the assessments. this raised the question about what knowledge-based insights were developed through the assessment tasks. this allowed for progression to phase 2 that involved the examination of the topography of the knowledge practices found in the assessments for different years of study, on the epistemic plane. this examination revealed the dominance of purist insights (or+, dr+) at all levels except phd, where students may either choose to remain within the field of theoretical physics or opt for projects requiring the application of disciplinary knowledge in different intellectual fields, the latter resulting in a shift into a situational insight (figure 2). cornell & padayachee: revealing shifts from mastery of knowledge to problem solving . . . 119 figure 2 a visual representation of the shifts in the strengths of ontic and social relations in the epistemic plane (maton, 2014), evidenced in final summative assessments and postgraduate projects, as well as the lecturer’s reflections on what was foregrounded in these assessments. the shifts illustrated in figure 2 can best be exemplified in the following excerpts from the data, where, as highlighted in table 1, at first-year level problems are highly idealised and focused on simple problems involving one idea. example 1 illustrates this type of problem, in the form of a multiple-choice question. example 1 3685 g + 66.8 kg = a) 7.05 x 10 9 mg b) 7.05 x 10 4 mg c) 7.05 x 10 7 mg d) 7.05 x 10 6 mg e) 7.05 x 10 5 mg in this example and all others that follow, the basis of achievement lies entirely in the mastery of units of measurement (stronger epistemic relation) and does not require any specialised disposition or attribute of the students to succeed (very weak social relation). the emphasis is on the recognition of the differences in the units of mass and the student’s ability to convert to the same unit and only then add the values. the focus of knowledge is clearly demarcated, and the four options of a possible answer show that students must convert both masses to milligrams. in addition, students are required to know how to use the mathematics notion of the power of ten. the knowledge focus of the question thus relies on both a mastery of knowledge from physics and knowledge from mathematics (as mentioned by feynman (1965)), and reiterated by the first author in the focussed conversation with the second. mathematics is recognised as the language of physics . . . the sub-discipline of theoretical physics is always focussed on a mathematical model building and testing of physics. the example above also highlights that the procedures required to answer this question are specified and strongly bounded and therefore the discursive relations are strong (dr++). 120 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 other questions in the first-year assessment papers similarly focused on one specific concept or procedure at a time, with a very specific right answer expected, as shown in example 2. example 2 in an inelastic collision between two objects: a) the kinetic energy of the system is conserved. b) the momentum of each object is conserved. c) both the momentum and the kinetic energy of the system are conserved. d) the momentum of the system is conserved but the kinetic energy of the system is not conserved. e) the momentum of the system is not conserved. a question like this exemplifies the statement by the first author that at first year level, “memorisation is probably enough to pass.” the first-year assessment questions thus tend to be characterised by very strong ontic relations (i.e., high ontic fidelity) as well as very strong discursive relations (i.e., procedural purism), clustering tightly on the top right-hand corner of the purist quadrant of figure 2. as students progress through subsequent years of study, the data shows that the assessment questions become more realistic and can be applied in wider and wider contexts in which discussion and conceptual understanding is tested more. for example, at the second year of study, a student may be asked the question shown in part b of example 3. example 3 (a) show that the wave function ��x�=� e �� ℏ solves the time-independent schrodinger equation for a harmonic oscillator potential ��x�= ��ω�x� and find the corresponding energy. (b) the allowed energies of the harmonic oscillator are e� = �n + 1 2�ℏω, n = 0,1,2,… explain why the energy you found in the first part of the question (a), isn’t among the allowed energies. example 3 would require explaining why, among the allowed energies, a particular result is not physically acceptable. questions of this nature require demonstrating an understanding of the application of the theory to a physical, though still quite abstract, situation. progressing further along the qualification, students choosing to major in physics are likely to encounter fewer questions based on single concepts and procedures, with questions shifting towards a wider application of concepts and procedures and increasingly, including questions requiring problem solving, formulating inferences, and making deductions, as shown in example 4 below. cornell & padayachee: revealing shifts from mastery of knowledge to problem solving . . . example 4 here students are required to compare quantum and classical situations, and then to discuss and deduce behaviour from this. this is particul reflection and transmission probabilities and compare to the classical ones). the ontic and discursive relations are, therefore, both slightly weakened compared to first but overall, the purist code still dominates at this level of study. at the honours level, there is a further weakening of the ontic and discursive relations in the summative assessment questions. example 5, for instance, requires students to apply the techniques and tools of particl the usual scope of such a course. as explained by “students would not have seen principles of particle physics being applied to a condensed matter system.” a question of this sort presents an opportunity for students to apply the conceptual knowledge gained in the course in a sight “any notions of compartmentalised knowledge are going out the window. students need draw from many previous concepts without explicit prompting. padayachee: revealing shifts from mastery of knowledge to problem solving . . . here students are required to compare quantum and classical situations, and then to discuss and deduce behaviour from this. this is particularly evident in part 5 (i.e., deduce the reflection and transmission probabilities and compare to the classical ones). the ontic and discursive relations are, therefore, both slightly weakened compared to first still dominates at this level of study. at the honours level, there is a further weakening of the ontic and discursive relations in the summative assessment questions. example 5, for instance, requires students to apply the techniques and tools of particle physics to a condensed matter system, a topic lying outside the usual scope of such a course. as explained by the first author, with an example like this students would not have seen principles of particle physics being applied to a condensed a question of this sort presents an opportunity for students to apply the conceptual knowledge gained in the course in a sight-unseen way, to a different field, and any notions of compartmentalised knowledge are going out the window. students need draw from many previous concepts without explicit prompting.” padayachee: revealing shifts from mastery of knowledge to problem solving . . . 121 here students are required to compare quantum and classical situations, and then to discuss arly evident in part 5 (i.e., deduce the reflection and transmission probabilities and compare to the classical ones). the ontic and discursive relations are, therefore, both slightly weakened compared to first-year questions, at the honours level, there is a further weakening of the ontic and discursive relations in the summative assessment questions. example 5, for instance, requires students to apply the e physics to a condensed matter system, a topic lying outside , with an example like this students would not have seen principles of particle physics being applied to a condensed a question of this sort presents an opportunity for students to apply the unseen way, to a different field, and any notions of compartmentalised knowledge are going out the window. students need to 122 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 example 5 example 5 illustrates that, in honours, the problems used in assessments require students to draw on multiple concepts and procedures from one field and to apply these potentially in a neighbouring or related field. the ontic and discursive relations are thus substantially weaker than in undergraduate assessments. the progressive weakening of ontic and discursive relations is further evidenced in the types of master’s and phd projects supervised by the first author. a master’s level dissertation, for example, has the student “studying the quasinormal modes of black holes using artificial neural networks.” such a study requires the integration of concepts and procedures from computer science and data analysis with advanced ideas from gravitational physics, demonstrating the weakening of ontic and discursive relations. nevertheless, the guiding principles are based in physics and mathematics, hence the overall insight remains purist. at phd level, the progressive widening of the scope of application is advanced further to situations in which problems are now completely real world, using concepts and procedures taught in physics but applied elsewhere or in multidisciplinary ways. this is exemplified in the comment by the first author that “a good physicist should be able to solve a problem six different ways.” the expectation is that the phd student should be able to respond in seminars to questions posed by experts from different disciplines by drawing on a broad range of concepts and procedures gained in previous years of undergraduate and graduate study. such expectations of phd students to apply knowledge creatively and innovatively to a range of problems in different fields is seen in the example of a phd graduate under the first author’s supervision who completed a phd on black hole physics and subsequently used the machine learning techniques learned during the phd work to produce, in collaboration with medical specialists, a cardiology study that was a cross-disciplinary research article accepted cornell & padayachee: revealing shifts from mastery of knowledge to problem solving . . . 123 for publication that resulted in employment in industry. this example of a phd highlights two important points: 1) the weakening of discursive relations towards procedural relativism, to the extent that there is now a shift towards a situational insight, and 2) the value placed on problem solving and critical and creative thought as core outcomes for a theoretical physicist graduate at phd level. discussion the examples from assessments cited above, together with figure 2, demonstrate that the knowledge-building process in physics begins with a strongly classified first year curriculum with high ontic fidelity and procedural purism to ensure that students gain the requisite conceptual foundation needed for subsequent abstraction and knowledge production. as students demonstrate a certain degree of mastery of these foundational concepts, they are able to progress into the more specialised sub-disciplines of physics such as theoretical physics, where a different type of mastery, viz., application and conceptual integration, is valued as the basis of achievement (see figure 2). further study develops the students’ abilities to integrate and apply concepts in increasingly complex ways, in ever wider contexts, and to develop gradually the skills of enquiry required of all scientists. there is, hence, a gradual process unfolding during the different levels of study in which students are exposed to both the depth and breadth of the discipline over time. it is also in keeping with the notion of inducting students into the discipline through internalisation of foundational knowledge and having them learn gradually to think like a physicist (quan, 2017; van heuvelen, 1991). this study also demonstrates, through the exploration of the relative strengths of ontic and discursive relations foregrounded in the assessments, how they are constructively aligned with the intended outcomes of the curriculum (biggs & tang, 2015). the findings show that the curriculum structure underpinning the learning journey to becoming a professional theoretical physicist is one that is grounded in mastery of the concepts and procedures of physics and the closely related intellectual field of mathematics. we suggest that it would be worthwhile for this incremental approach to knowledge-building (and the intrinsic connection with mathematics) to be explained to students so that they are able to envisage the learning journey ahead of them and engage accordingly. the findings also highlighted the embedded expectation that physics graduates should, in the course of their undergraduate and graduate studies, develop the ability and skills to think critically (i.e., they should concurrently develop the skills to systematically explore a problem, formulate and test hypotheses, manipulate and isolate variables, and observe and evaluate consequences (bao and koenig, 2019). it is these skills that enable graduates to transition into fields of practice outside of academia (wang, 2018). interestingly, the assessments and the interview data suggest a view of critical thinking as a set of skills that develops as a result of engagement with disciplinary concepts and procedures in increasingly complex ways (aligning with the views of bao and koening (2019) and zimmerman (2000)), rather than the possibility of critical thinking as an innate ability or knower attribute. we note this as a potential avenue for further exploration in the next phase of the study that will seek 124 journal of education, no. 83, 2021 to both deepen our understanding of assessment in relation to knowledge-building in physics and related science disciplines. the analysis of the assessments in this case study using the epistemic plane and knowledge insights of lct also enabled us to confirm that critical thinking and cross-field application of disciplinary knowledge is indeed incrementally developed in physics and theoretical physics courses and programmes. however, the analysis also revealed that application and cross field integration of disciplinary knowledge is only explicitly emphasised and addressed from the second year of study, and foregrounded only in the higher degrees. the analysis, therefore, also revealed aspects of the assessments that could potentially be improved by greater clarity and clearer communication of intended outcomes. making the underpinning rules of the game more visible and explicit to students at every level of study could lead to enhanced learning and improved student performance, especially for “cue sensitive” students (gibbs, 2010, p. 2) who may strategically direct their study efforts based on perceived signals of value in assessment. conclusion this study, conducted using lct, enabled us to examine the underpinning logics of the assessments in physics and theoretical physics, thereby allowing us to reveal the extent to which the undergraduate and postgraduate curricula are aligned for the preparation of theoretical physics students for diverse workplaces. the examination of ontic and discursive relations enabled us to identify and reveal the underpinning logics of the summative assessments, and to thereby demonstrate how the assessments shift students from a pure disciplinary focus to one that elicits potential for employment both within and outside of academia. the findings also showed that while students exiting with the apex qualification of a phd should be able to apply the disciplinary knowledge to solve a wide range of problems in unrelated fields, students exiting with the base qualification of the bachelor’s degree may not be as well equipped to apply their knowledge in unrelated contexts. this has important implications for students who should be advised during the course of the undergraduate qualification of the potential limitations of exiting at the level of the bachelor’s degree. even so, this study demonstrates that graduates who do exit at this level will have developed the capacity to think critically. finally, we note that while limited in scope and the extent of generalisability, this case study highlights the potential value of the concepts and tools of lct to reveal the extent to which assessments are constructively aligned to achieve mastery of knowledge and responsiveness of curricula to the needs of employers and society. acknowledgements we are grateful to lee rusznyak (wits lct hub, university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg) for her guidance in developing this paper. cornell & padayachee: revealing shifts from mastery of knowledge to problem solving . . . 125 references 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(2000). the development of scientific reasoning skills. developmental review, 20(1), 99–149. hastening slowly: insights about teacher development from an evaluation of courses at the wced’s cape teaching and leadership institute susan meyer and lydia abel abstract in the area of teacher professional development, south african education administrators face the challenge of reconciling two imperatives that have entirely different implications for programme time frames and budgets. on the one hand, there is an urgent need to improve the pedagogic content knowledge of many teachers to improve the overall standard of teaching and learning in the public school system. considering the scale and urgency of the matter, centralised course-based in-service training seems to be the only affordable alternative. on the other hand, researchers have long warned that once-off course-based training on its own has limited impact on teachers’ practice, and has to be accompanied by further professional support in the school and classroom, or be abandoned in favour of more enduring professional learning communities. the western cape education department (wced) has grappled with this dilemma in the department’s various professional development initiatives for teachers, a mainstay of which is the training offered by the cape teaching and leadership institute (ctli). this paper presents some of the data and findings from an external evaluation that ort sa cape conducted in 2011–2012 of courses offered by the wced at the ctli. the hierarchy of inset outcomes proposed by harland and kinder (1997) was applied to record changes in the practice of 18 teachers at eight schools. the progress of five of the teachers is discussed to illustrate the interplay between school-level factors and the experiences of individual teachers which influenced the impact of ctli training on their teaching. introduction this article presents insights gained from an external evaluation by ort sa cape of teacher training courses at the cape teaching and leadership institute (ctli) the evaluation was commissioned by the western cape 116 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 the authors gratefully acknowledge the wced for permission to publish the data which is1 reported in this article. the views expressed in this article are those of the authors and should not be attributed to2 the wced, nor ort sa cape. education department (wced). here we discuss findings from the1 evaluation (meyer and abel, 2013) which followed a sample of teachers over a two-year period (2011–2012). we present vignettes of five teachers that illustrate some of the personal and contextual factors associated with teachers’ successful take-up of training, as well as factors associated with poor take-up. our research found that ctli training had a positive impact on the practice of some participants, but made no significant or lasting difference to the practice of most.2 scope of the research the original brief from wced required evaluation of ctli’s delivery model which changed in a number of respects in 2011, through specific evaluation of six courses in language, mathematics and school management. to create scope for multi-level analysis, ort sa cape opted to focus on individual teachers within their school context as unit of analysis. the evaluation covered a number of research strands. the following are relevant for the purposes of this discussion: 1. a preand post-test written by one cohort of teachers attending each course in 2011 and in 2012, i.e. ±300 teachers per year. 2. case studies tracking 18 teachers from 2011 course cohorts in eight schools – one school per district (2011–2012). 3. analysis of results the schools achieved in the wced diagnostic tests (2002–2011). ctli’s delivery model alongside various provincial and district-level in-service training initiatives, ctli’s offerings could be considered their mainstay of continuous meyer and abel: hastening slowly. . . 117 professional teacher development (cptd). annually, ctli offers extensive programmes of short courses and conferences for teachers. the courses are 1–3 weeks in duration, and run during school terms. teachers from underperforming schools are the primary target group, but teachers from all public schools may apply. the target subjects for curriculum courses are language (home language and first additional language), mathematics and natural sciences. a range of management courses are offered for principals, deputy principals, hods, aspiring principals and entire smts of select schools. until 2010, ctli courses included a follow-up support component which entailed two classroom visits by a trainer to each teacher after the training to provide the teacher with feedback on implementation. in 2012, this follow-up support was replaced by an assignment which participants completed back at school as proof of implementation. context of the evaluation it is worth mentioning two features of the broader policy and institutional context in which the research was conducted: ! at the time (2011–2012) the curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) was being implemented in the foundation phase (fp), but was still due to be introduced into most grades in the intermediate (ip) and senior phases (sp). an important implication for interpreting the data is that the revised national curriculum statement requirements for coverage of the various content areas were far less structured than in the current context of caps. ! standardised assessment of learners had become a prominent feature of the education policy context in the western cape. grade 3 and 6 learners have written the annual wced systemic tests in language and mathematics since 2002 and grade 9 learners since 2010. these tests are administered and marked by external service providers and each school receives a report early in the following year, which gives a breakdown of the results by grade level, content area etc. 118 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 literature review to locate our research within recent and current debates about cptd, we give a brief overview of south african and international studies that have informed our thinking. insights from international research international research on in-service education of teachers (inset) and – in recent years – continuous professional development of teachers (cptd) shows that teachers’ take-up of new knowledge and skills from training has been a long-standing concern (e.g. adler, slonimsky and reed, 2002; avalos, 2011). since the 1980s, cptd practitioners and researchers have moved away from conventional inset models of once-off workshops or course-based training towards more multi-faceted professional development models to avoid the deficiencies of ‘single-design’ training, such as the following: ! inset has often taken a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach and lacked depth. ! training has been disconnected from teachers’ practical experience. ! the ‘cascade’ model whereby teachers are expected to pass on inset outcomes to colleagues at school was not effective, mostly because new learning was diluted beyond significance. the inset model proposed by joyce and showers (first in 1980 and updated in 1995 and 2002) addressed these concerns. it was very influential in south africa (sa) and internationally. based on extensive empirical research on different inset programmes in the usa, the authors suggested five components required for training to effect a positive difference in teachers’ practice: ! presentation of theory and content ! demonstration (modelling new methods and techniques) ! repeated opportunities for practice during training ! structured feedback and reflection ! coaching during the implementation period. meyer and abel: hastening slowly. . . 119 they documented the impact of these five inset elements across different studies to substantiate their argument that longer-term, in-depth teacher development is more cost-effective than short, course-based interventions. their research had shown that 10–15 opportunities to practice a specific skill or teaching strategy, with feedback, are needed to enable teachers to use this strategy effectively. while their inset model informed the design of many teacher development programmes since the 1990s, it must be remembered that the model was based entirely on research conducted in the usa. many differences noted between sa and the usa, suggest joyce and showers’ model cannot be applied indiscriminately in south african contexts. worldwide, researchers have grappled further with the challenges of producing models and/or suggesting research methodologies to do justice to the complexity of cptd. harland and kinder (1997, previously cited by webb, boltt, austin, cloete, england, feza, ilsey, kurup, peires, and wessels,1999) mapped three of their nine ‘outcome types’ onto the inset components proposed by joyce and showers. however, evidence from empirical research in the uk did not support some assumptions that underpinned joyce and showers’ model. they concluded that a more multi-dimensional model was needed to accommodate the complex range of variables and outcomes involved in teacher development, and added six further ‘outcome types’ to their proposed hierarchy. to emphasise the non-linearity of their model, they clarified that individual teachers followed unique pathways through the different outcomes, while progressing through the three orders of change. although they did not claim that teachers must achieve all nine outcomes to demonstrate significant impact on their practice, “it was generally the case that the larger the number of outcomes met the greater the probability of a change in teaching behaviour” (p.80). harland and kinder clarified that categories in their typology might need to be expanded or refined, depending on the purpose for which the training is designed. for example, knowledge and skills could be elaborated to reflect the specific types of knowledge such as procedural, situational, propositional and practical knowledge. in 2002, joyce and showers published a revised version of their original inset model, based on more recent empirical research studies in the usa. they proposed school-based peer coaching as an effective alternative to mentoring and coaching by external specialists, a very costly option. structured feedback was omitted from their revised model, as research showed that it led peer coaches to slip into a supervisory/monitoring role 120 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 rather than a mentoring role. in peer coaching, teachers would alternate the roles of both the subject (the teacher whose lesson is observed) and the coach to develop a collegial cptd culture in schools. the authors reviewed the effectiveness of the remaining four training components – theory, demonstration, practice and peer coaching – and concluded that complex cptd designs which include all four of these training components are much more successful than ‘single’ training designs or even those which include the first three components but exclude peer coaching. a major challenge is that schools with traditional school management structures and cultures need to adopt far-reaching innovations to accommodate co-operative planning and collective learning – hard to achieve in south african conditions. anderson (2004) noted that a standards-based curriculum demands complete transformation in teachers’ lesson planning. whereas teachers traditionally focused on classroom activities aimed at teaching select curriculum content as their starting point in planning lessons, a standards-based curriculum requires them to plan ‘backwards’ from the specified assessment standards and create opportunities for learners to achieve the expected outcomes. a standardsbased curriculum demands that teachers have a clear understanding of the prescribed standards in terms of concepts and skills to be taught, as well as knowledge of their learners’ current levels of knowledge and skills, so that teaching can start from the familiar and challenge learners to engage with more advanced knowledge and skills. this implies intermittent diagnostic assessment of learners’ work to inform teachers’ planning, whereas assessment was traditionally used primarily to determine learner achievement to qualify for progression to the next grade or phase. opfer and pedder’s (2011) review offers insight into the challenges that affect the development and evaluation of cptd projects and programme. they explain why and how the process-product logic, that dominated cptd for 20 years, has had limited explanatory value. this tended to disaggregate information about the teacher, the school and the learning activities. they argue that teacher development should be conceptualised as the “concatenation of practices, learning orientations, and individual and collective learning contexts that must occur for teacher learning to take place” (opfer and pedder, p.394). to do this complexity justice, they propose that cptd programmes should be designed and researched as ‘complex adaptive systems’, within which the teacher, the school and the learning activities exert reciprocal influence on each other in the course of the developmental process. meyer and abel: hastening slowly. . . 121 from the above review, the following insights and ideas appear to have particular value for cptd in sa: ! teacher training and development are complex, contextually situated processes. ! course-based training has proven ineffective in the absence of follow-up support (coaching and mentoring). ! peer coaching has become a preferred form of follow-up support, but requires fundamental change in bureaucratic school cultures and the conventional individualistic nature of teachers’ work. ! the role of assessment as the driver of teachers’ planning is critical and often neglected in favour of serving learner progression or promotion. findings from south african research over the last twenty years on the basis of empirical studies in sa over the last two decades, researchers and cptd practitioners employed a number of concepts and conceptual frameworks for designing and studying cptd programmes. abel (1997) described the structure of teacher development as a spiral and indicated that teachers must master both the skills of deconstruction and reconstruction of knowledge for the process of professional development to make a positive difference to their practice. in their overview of 35 education research projects undertaken in the 1990s for the president’s education initiative (pei), taylor and vinjevold (1999) commented on the lack of empirical studies and impact evaluations in many cptd and school improvement projects. in 2003, these researchers proposed a multi-level intervention model to improve quality through systemic interventions (taylor, muller and vinjevold, 2003). effective curriculum delivery was placed at the centre of the model, with the emphasis on conceptual learning and a set of 42 indicators was proposed for monitoring and supporting development in four areas: social organisation of the school, language learning and proficiency, curriculum and pedagogy, and assessment. the rural education project (rep, 2007–2008) targeted teachers in 38 western cape schools, combining two years’ part-time study towards an 122 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 advanced certificate in education (ace) with classroom support by a specialist coach. following lerman (1998), gamble and kühne (2010) applied the analytic device of a series of conceptual lenses to examine the project’s outcomes. the researchers applied five lenses in their analysis: internal accountability in schools, interpretation of diagnostic test results, “instructional practice as a shared public good”, knowledge-based teaching and “systemic synchronicity” (pp.17–18). they the authors adopted the term “proceduralised process”, also applied by taylor et al. (2003), to describe superficial or administrative ways in which many teachers interpreted and applied new knowledge. in our subsequent cptd work, including the study on which we report here, we have found the concept of ‘proceduralised process’ valuable for distinguishing between teaching and curriculum management practices creating meaningful learning opportunities for learners from those demonstrating compliance with minimum departmental requirements, monitored by district officials and school management. adler and reed’s (2002) findings from teachers’ take-up of cptd are informative for cptd initiatives in sa. between 1996 and 1999, they conducted a three-year longitudinal study of 25 teachers participating in the university of the witwatersrand’s further diploma in education (fde) programme. participants were from 25 schools in gauteng and the former northern province and taught mathematics, science or english. it was striking that their main findings pertained to the effects of language on teachers’ efforts to incorporate new knowledge, into their practice. they found increased use of code-switching by teachers and learners in most classrooms. more code-switching by mathematics and science teachers than english language teachers, was seen. adler and reed attributed this to greater focus on modelling correct english use in primary language classes. teachers’ use of codeswitching was “intentional but dilemma-filled” (p.50) when outcomes-based education (curriculum 2005) was introduced there was widespread take-up of cooperative learning techniques such as group work creating more opportunities for “learning from talk” (p.50), i.e. learners talking about the work in their everyday language. however, most teachers did not facilitate the shift to “learning to talk” (p.50) i.e. challenging learners to express their learning in formal, subject-specific language. although the above-mentioned patterns were common to all teachers, there were significant differences between teachers working in different contexts, at different levels (grades and phases) and subjects. meyer and abel: hastening slowly. . . 123 the authors avoided making strong claims about the project’s effectiveness due to3 limitations in the research design. concerning methodology, the researchers endorsed the value of “fuzzy generalisations” (p.48) proposed by bassey (1999), as a cost-effective approach to documenting findings from qualitative studies of cptd programmes. bassey was trying to address the context-bound nature of cptd. he observed that findings from cptd studies are often too specific to be applied in different contexts and proposed the term “fuzzy generalisations” for qualified statements about findings, which acknowledge uncertainties in the research. by extrapolating series of “fuzzy generalisations” from research about cptd, it is possible to build an increasingly informed and coherent picture of what works and what doesn’t. the gauteng primary language and mathematics strategy (gplms) was designed as a large-scale multi-dimensional intervention which would provide extended in-depth cptd to primary school teachers. between 2011 and 2014, it supported teachers in about 830 schools in 15 districts in gauteng. the model focused on three overlapping components: pre-designed daily lesson plans for teachers, high-quality learning and teaching materials and individual instructional coaching of teachers. the national education evaluation and development unit (needu, 2013a) identified the gplms as one of only two large-scale cptd projects in the country that promised to bring about significant, lasting improvement in schooling. fleisch and schöer (2014) reported tentative findings that the project had demonstrated modest impact in learner achievement. despite these positive findings, the gplms was3 terminated midway in 2014, reportedly because it had proven unaffordable. the wced’s literacy and numeracy intervention was planned as an eight-year cptd project, targeting language and mathematics teachers in all primary schools in the province. the intervention, introduced in 2009, provided block training and school-focused follow-up support to teachers in successive cohorts of approximately 250 schools in two-year phases. this project also received a positive review by needu (2013a). the wced terminated the intervention in 2015, reportedly because its activities were no longer aligned with the department’s strategic objectives. findings from recent large-scale empirical research projects have confirmed the range and scope of challenges facing those aiming to improve the quality of teaching and learning in sa’s schools (needu, 2013 a and 2013b; taylor 124 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 gauteng was omitted from the study as the research time-frames conflicted with dates4 allocated for administration of provincial tests. et al., 2012; venkat and spaull, 2015). they underscored the importance and urgency of effective, targeted cptd programmes. needu (2013b) identified a shortage of subject advisors (sas) able to bring all teachers’ practice up to the necessary standard for effective caps implementation. the authors argue that school-based cptd is the most promising alternative, but acknowledge a problem – that teachers ‘don’t know what they don’t know’, which places a question mark over how and by whom teachers’ development needs would be identified. the national school effectiveness study followed the academic progress of a cohort of 8 383 learners in 268 schools in eight provinces from 2007 to 20094 (taylor, van der berg and mabogoane, 2012). the researchers found that teachers’ and learners’ proficiency in the language of learning and teaching (lolt) was a determining influence on teaching and learning and they reaffirmed that teachers’ subject knowledge remains a key priority for cptd in sa. they granted that training which focuses on teaching methods could bring about short-term efficiency gains, but predicted a low ceiling on these effects. investment in in-depth subject-focused professional development was identified as critical. the authors cited ctli block release courses as some of “the few programmes that have been shown to impact significantly on teacher knowledge and learner performance” (taylor et al., 2012, p.24). two consecutive external evaluations of ctli courses had shown substantial improvement in the subject knowledge of teachers who attended training (de chaisemartin, 2010; meyer and abel, 2013). the national education collaboration trust (nect, 2013) is a large-scale public-private partnership initiative which has been designed as a multi-year intervention, targeting specific districts in five rural provinces of sa. the programme will consist of various components, including cptd in target subjects such as language and mathematics, school development, district support and parent/community involvement. spaull (2015) argues that there is an urgent need for “developing a comprehensive plan for meaningful teacher development”. deciding what should comprise such a plan is the biggest challenge. the very different approaches taken in recent projects such as the gpmls, the wced’s litnum meyer and abel: hastening slowly. . . 125 intervention and the nect initiative, show there is no consensus on the most effective form of cptd to improve the quality of education in sa’s schools. the department of basic education’s action plan to 2019 (dbe, 2015) constitutes a comprehensive education development plan within the government’s national development plan. alongside related areas such as improving functionality of underperforming schools, the plan identifies cptd as a high priority for state investment and intervention over the next five years, with a particular focus on four aspects: ! standardising and strengthening curriculum messages to teachers ! creating a stronger enabling framework for teacher-initiated professional development activities, particularly professional learning communities. ! promoting more opportunities for teachers to attend external in-service training of good quality, focusing on subject knowledge and teaching methodology ! increasing teachers’ access and educational use of digital resources. the following insights from the above-mentioned sa literature are valuable for further work in the cptd field: ! “fuzzy generalisations” (adler and reed, 2002) are a useful methodology to develop our collective understanding of cptd through qualitative research such as case studies. ! “proceduralised process” (gamble and kühne, 2010) is a helpful concept for understanding superficial take-up of cptd by teachers and schools. ! teachers’ and learners’ competence in the lolt – particularly english require priority intervention to ensure teacher take-up of cptd. ! school-focused cptd interventions seem to hold most promise in the sa context. ! coaching by specialists is not an affordable teacher development strategy for the public school system. 126 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 there are insufficient sas in the system to provide cptd on the scale! and at the depth required in sa schools. peer coaching is the most viable option, but identifying teachers’ development needs would be a challenge, as teachers and principals “don’t know what they don’t know” (needu, 2013b). ! to address the cptd challenges that research has identified in the sa school system, investment in in-depth subject-focused professional development will be critical. it is evident that the dbe action plan has been informed by several of these research insights, e.g. the emphases on teachers’ subject knowledge, the quality of external training and promotion of school-based teacher development. however, the plan specifies only priorities and indicators for monitoring implementation by provinces. by implication, the various provinces will have the freedom to design their own cptd interventions within these broad guidelines. at this stage, it is not clear whether the dbe will prescribe or recommend that specific approaches adopted in teacher development programmes should take research findings such as those listed above into account to improve prospects for sustained impact. research design the data that is presented here was obtained through case study research which drew upon multiple data sources. the analysis was framed by the hierarchy of inset outcomes proposed by harland and kinder (1997). sample and methodology we report on the take-up of ctli training by five of 18 teachers working in four of the eight schools. the case studies (2011–2012), were designed to document teachers’ take-up of new knowledge and skills from ctli courses. the research covered teachers’ immediate knowledge gains assessed by preand post-tests, implementation following teachers’ return to school after training, as well as evidence of sustained take-up after one year. we also wanted to explore the relationship between dynamics in schools and the impact of ctli training in more depth. although the ctli data presented meyer and abel: hastening slowly. . . 127 here was collected three years ago, the findings we report here are still relevant, as we grapple with the same issues today. apart from selecting one school from each district, the eight schools were broadly representative of different types of schools in terms of their size, the communities they serve (e.g. location, socio-economic status), the language profile of the learners and how frequently their teachers had attended ctli courses over the years. additional data was collected about the overall functioning of the school, curriculum management, teachers’ professional development and district support. in both 2011 and 2012, the researchers observed a lesson taught by each of the 18 teachers and analysed all written work completed by two learners in each teacher’s class during the first two terms of each year. each teacher completed a questionnaire. a structured interview was conducted with the principals in both years. during the two research visits, the researchers conducted school observations, using structured observation schedules and analysed the school improvement plan (sip), ltsm inventories, teacher registers and timetables. in 2011, semi-structured interviews were conducted with one or two members of the circuit team responsible for each school. theoretical framework the hierarchy of inset outcomes, put forward by harland and kinder (1997), was applied to analyse the data from 18 teachers who worked in eight case study schools. this hierarchy is represented in figure 1, with one adaptation: the impact of inset programmes is considered at the level of observable classroom practice and as measured learner achievement. the harland and kinder framework proved useful in previous research projects, because it provided unambiguous criteria for assessing impact of training and other professional development on teachers’ work. its key strength is its hierarchical nature that allows for impact of teacher training to be assessed incrementally. it makes specific reference to the institutional context of the teacher, whereas other frameworks focus mainly on the individual teacher. nearly all items in the diagram (figure 1) are self-explanatory, but ‘value congruence’ and ‘individuated code of practice’ require some clarification. these refer to teachers’ personalised versions of the curriculum and teaching methods that correspond to the inset providers’ messages about ‘good practice’. harland and kinder (1997) differentiated between three orders of 128 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 impact of teacher development programmes which teachers go through during their professional development. they noted that the more outcomes teachers attain, the greater the likelihood of impact on teaching and learning quality. figure 1: a hierarchy of inset outcomes, adapted from harland and kinder (1997) the following criteria were used to rate the professional development of 18 teachers in eight case study schools according to harland and kinder’s hierarchy of inset outcomes (the criteria are marked with asterisks to indicate their weighting in rating teachers’ progress): ! immediate knowledge gains, indicated by post-test score compared to group average* ! volume of work in learners’books in 2012, compared to 2011* meyer and abel: hastening slowly. . . 129 ! increased coverage of curriculum content areas that were not covered/inadequately covered in 2011*** evidence of improved teaching of concepts and skills, and/or! implementation of teaching methods**** ! quality of teachers’marking, and written feedback to learners*** ! evidence of differentiation in feedback to strong and weak learners, and its frequency** ! new knowledge or teaching methods shared with colleagues in the grade/phase/school** ! evidence of mentoring and/or coaching of colleagues at school or in the district*** analysis of the data about teachers’ progress table 1 below gives a summary of the outcome levels the 18 teachers attained according to our analysis, having applied the above-mentioned criteria and weightings. 130 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 table 1: levels of professional development attained by teachers in case study schools, following harland and kinder (1997) levels of professional development attained by teachers in case study schools following harland and kinder (1997) 1 order outcomes 2 order outcomes 3 order outcomesst nd rd placement of teachers g16 a38 a39 c40 e13 f37 f41 g42 a4 b15 b28 b46 d10 d17 e21 e31 h22 h45 total number of teachers 1 7 10 vignettes of five teachers for the purposes of this paper, vignettes of five teachers are presented: the teacher who was judged to have achieved first order outcomes, two teachers who achieved second order outcomes and two teachers who achieved third order outcomes. these teachers were selected because they represented particular types in terms of diverse training needs, different responses to training and the influence of different school contexts the teacher who achieved first order outcomes teacher g16 was the only teacher of the 18 rated as having achieved first order outcomes in terms of implementing knowledge she had learnt at ctli. the data indicated that she was a dedicated and fairly competent teacher, and meyer and abel: hastening slowly. . . 131 ‘class teaching’ involves a teacher taking one class for all subjects – general practice in the5 fp, ‘subject teaching’ refers to teachers teaching certain subjects to several classes in a grade or phase, typically in the ip and sp. the ctli ip english home language course helped her to improve her practice further. in 2012, she made adjustments to ensure more balanced coverage of the curriculum, emphasising comprehension and writing exercises. she applied methods and techniques learnt on the course and used a range of ltsm and scaffolding techniques to support learning. some choral answers were observed in her lesson in 2012, but her questioning techniques were sophisticated. she challenged learners to explain answers and allowed time to absorb new concepts before moving on. her most persistent weakness was inconsistency in the quality of marking. less than half of weak learners’ written work was marked with little or no comment, whereas most of the strong learners’ books were marked with regular, positive comments. although relatively isolated in a rural district, school g was a relatively well-functioning school where curriculum management was prioritised by smt. apart from regular monitoring, which was the order of the day in all case study schools, the school had taken some significant steps to implement its literacy and numeracy strategy. in 2012 the time-table was adjusted to effect a shift from class teaching to subject teaching in languages and5 mathematics from grade 4, and in the same year the school library was established. the school was also experiencing some of the challenges observed in other schools, but these difficulties did not did appear to affect the work of teacher g16 negatively. in particular, there was a mismatch between the mother tongue of xhosa-speaking learners and the lolt of the school (afrikaans); however the 6% of affected learners were mostly in the fp, so the problem did not (yet) affect the classes of this teacher, who was teaching in the ip. the principal indicated that teacher g16 returned from the training full of enthusiasm for teaching and for sharing benefits from the ctli course with her colleagues. having done a presentation – in english during the course, she presented a demonstration lesson at the school, based on caps. some of her achievements attracted recognition from the subject head and in general, strong collegial and managerial support was evident in the school. two teachers in other districts had kept in touch since the ctli training and shared methods and ideas. in 2011, the school received six visits from the fp and ip sas, who met teachers, supported them in class and checked files and 132 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 documents. however, teacher g16 did not mention having received classroom support from a subject advisor (sa). the principal reported that sa’s visits mostly focused on monitoring – checking teachers’ files and other documents. in an interview, the relevant sa also mentioned long distances and a lack of staff as challenges facing this rural circuit. two teachers who achieved second order outcomes teacher c40 attended the ip mathematics course in 2011. her post-test score showed a marked increase, almost doubling from 27.3% in the pre-test (the class average was 40.2%) to 63.6% (the class average increased to 55.8%) – evidence of substantial knowledge gains on the course. she reported that the practical approach to measurement and the division/multiplication methods helped her build a strong knowledge base. she noted some content areas were less well covered than others; and that her peers had contributed significantly to her learning. when she returned to school, she shared worksheets she had received with ip colleagues. she had regular contact with a fellow participant at another school, with whom she shared ideas on lessons and assessment tasks. in her grade 5 lesson (2011), this teacher did not use any planned resources. learners were not allowed any discussion and the researcher reported that little teaching and learning took place. choral answers were prevalent. however, in 2012 the teacher modelled correct answers, and used textbooks which were systematically referenced in lesson plans. assessment activities in lesson plans met the expected outcomes of lessons. in 2011 dbe workbooks were only for homework, which was given fairly regularly, but unmarked; in 2012 minimal, controlled homework was given and dbe workbooks were used more effectively. the volume of work in learners’ books more than doubled in 2012. there was a shift from numerous half-page exercises to more full pages of written work. curriculum coverage was more balanced with more than twice as many numbers, operations and relationships exercises compared to 2011. however, fractions and some of the basic operations, particularly division, were still poorly covered. there was a marked improvement in teacher-learner interaction with more learners answering questions and giving explanations. although learners still often answered in unison, there were many more instances of learners asking meyer and abel: hastening slowly. . . 133 questions about the lesson and actively participating. the teacher encouraged learners to respond and modeled correct responses. her method of teaching mental mathematics had improved and covered a more extensive range. in 2011, the teacher asked learners to illustrate quick operations on the chalkboard using only her methods. in 2012, she allowed learners more creativity in the lesson. the teacher marked all work and gave questions for follow-up. informal corrective feedback was given to learners as well as comments to encourage struggling learners. teacher e13, the fp hod, rated the roles and responsibilities of hods course as excellent and said it had specifically benefitted her curriculum planning and time management. the teacher’s school management portfolios had changed very little over the two years of the study. in 2011, it was iqms, litnum, netball and music. in 2012, it included iqms, head of fp, non-teaching staff, netball and the hiv programme. this relative continuity in her work allocation allowed her to develop her knowledge and skills in certain areas of school and curriculum management over time. as iqms coordinator, she was also potentially in an influential position and had the opportunity to direct teacher development at the school. on her return to school, she shared her learnings with the other fp teachers, focusing on lesson plans, class diversity, class visits, lesson observations and control of work. however, one year after the training, she had not yet conducted any lesson observations. in her own teaching, she referred to the ctli training materials and found them very useful. initially, she kept in contact and shared ideas with others from the course, but this was not sustained. she reported that the focus at quarterly fp department meetings was on improving learner results. the school’s part-time lsen teacher provided input and extra lessons were offered on weekends and school holidays. although recent documentary evidence showed improvements in meeting structure and minute-taking, agenda items were of a general nature with little reference to curriculum. the teacher reported on a new curriculum management system such as a year plan for the phase and checklists. however teachers who were interviewed were not familiar with these documents, e.g. they had seen no year planner by september 2012. as phase head, the hod moderated exam papers and gave feedback. files were checked at the start of each term and demonstration lessons given. this was done in a helpful and supportive manner. control of teachers’ work was still a concern. teachers’ late submission of work remained a problem and a culture of non-compliance persisted, despite reports that she was an excellent manager and easy to get 134 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 along with. although there had been no support or encouragement from the district, she reported a strong interest in attending further workshops and courses. several second order changes were evident in this teacher’s work, one year after she attended the ctli hod course: her enduring motivation and confidence, as well as her efforts to bring about institutional changes in administration and management of the fp department. two teachers who achieved third order outcomes teacher b28 attended the fp english home language course. she taught grade 1 for the first time in 2011 and she appeared to be lacking in confidence. class size (39), language barriers and disparity in the ability levels of learners were noted as difficulties. she found the course valuable, but only achieved small immediate gains in subject knowledge (her pre-test score was below average, and only slightly above the score she achieved in the post-test). the teacher used course notes regularly to guide her teaching of reading. lesson planning and structure had improved, but learner interaction and involvement remained poor. there was little mediation or explanation during the observations and weaker learners were not supported. discipline was poor and the lesson that was observed in 2012 was unstructured. learner engagement in the content had decreased since 2011 and monosyllabic and choral answers increased. quality and variety of ltsm declined with worksheets, readers and story books dominating. the observations suggested that the teacher’s post-ctli enthusiasm had declined by 2012 and teaching was becoming increasingly procedural. in the 2012 interview she stated that she felt powerless and lacking in support despite having mentioned that she had received support from teachers and parents, as well as management. the volume of written work completed by this teacher’s class was well above the group average in both 2011 and 2012. in language, curriculum coverage leaned more towards phonics and words (71% of learners’ written work), with coverage of writing still inadequate at 29%. the teacher marked work regularly, with minimal comment and input, and no differentiation in the feedback provided to strong and weak learners. dbe workbooks were used meyer and abel: hastening slowly. . . 135 for homework and checked by parents, but were not marked or signed by the teacher. third order outcomes evident in this teacher’s work were regular reference to the ctli course materials and better lesson plans. however, she had lost the renewed enthusiasm she had gained from the training and she had failed to implement new methods to manage her class more effectively and to create opportunities for learners to participate actively in lessons. ip mathematics teacher e31 was impressed with the knowledge and competence of the ctli presenters and rated the course highly. she achieved 13.6% in the pre-test (the group average was 32.1%) and her post-test score of 22.7% showed some knowledge gain, but lower than the class average of 49.1%. she reported that the course enabled her to improve her content knowledge, but that she needed further support with fractions. after the course she gave feedback to colleagues in her phase, specifically on 2d shapes and 3d figures. she kept in contact with others who completed the course to share ideas and methods. she had not received district support since attending the course. she tried to involve the parents in the supervision of homework, using the dbe workbook about once a month. this was not very successful as most parents were uncooperative. learners’ books showed that less work was done in 2012 than 2011, although the percentage of written exercises covering different content areas remained constant. numbers, operations and relationships made up 80% of the work covered in the first half of the year, as in 2011. the other content areas received little attention. in 2012, learners used textbooks more than half of the time, but not effectively. assessment appeared unplanned, and the lesson was inconclusive and not recorded in any form. there was evidence of control marking and there were some remarks in the stronger learner’s book, but none for weaker learner’s. in 2011 both the stronger and weaker learners’ books contained teacher’s comments. discussion of findings analysis of the five vignettes cast some light on individual and institutional factors that hindered or promoted the teachers’ professional development. 136 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 different levels of outcomes achieved by teachers it is striking that teacher g16 achieved the distinction of having been rated most successful out of the sample of 18 teachers, despite having performed very poorly on both the pre-and post-tests. there is no straightforward explanation for this paradox. she demonstrated poor subject knowledge prior to the course and no immediate knowledge gains by the end of it, but aspects of her teaching practice improved markedly over the subsequent year. one possibility is that she needed time to assimilate the new knowledge she had learnt on the course; her limited proficiency in english could be another. although she wrote both the preand post-tests in afrikaans, the course was aimed at english home language teachers and was presented entirely in english, and she teaches afrikaans home language. all teachers rated as achieving second order outcomes, demonstrated ‘affective outcomes’, such as renewed motivation and improved confidence. these self-reported outcomes were largely confirmed in the empirical data collected from other sources such as perusal of learners’ written work and lesson observations. teachers in this group were implementing new knowledge and teaching methods they had learnt on the courses and most had made adjustments ensuring more balanced coverage of the curriculum. these improvements were sustained for at least a year after training, suggesting they would maintain these good practices in future. however, after the two-year study, it was still too early to have certainty about their future performance. teachers who attained third order outcomes also returned to school with renewed enthusiasm and increased confidence in teaching their subjects. however, these claims of increased professional competence and confidence could not be substantiated. lesson observations and perusal of learners’ books in 2012 showed serious shortcomings in teaching and/or their learners’ written work. in some cases no improvement was seen since 2011 and in others, teachers’ practice had deteriorated. a limited curriculum, geared to the lowest common denominator rather than the grade level required, and a lack of cohesion or progression in lessons pointed towards poor planning which was not identified through the school-level or district-level monitoring processes. teacher e31 attended the ip mathematics course, which the evaluation team rated as outstanding, and the best of the five ctli curriculum courses that meyer and abel: hastening slowly. . . 137 were evaluated, she achieved only third order outcomes. one possible conributing factor seems to have been her own limited prior subject knowledge. although she reported increased confidence, she avoided teaching most content areas (apart from number, operations and relationships), as she had done before. the relationship between teacher development and school management the research identified several links between school functioning and teachers’ practice that appeared to support or undermine cptd. for example, school-level factors may have contributed to teacher g16’s progress. despite some problems, school g appeared to be a well-managed school: curriculum management was efficient with a strong culture of collegial and managerial support. on the other hand, the efforts of some of teachers rated as having attained second and third order outcomes, appeared to be hamstrung by conditions in the schools in which they work. the evidence showed that the efforts of some, such as hod e13, were hindered by sub-standard performance by others at school. links between teachers’ knowledge and their work allocation school managers differed in the extent to which they allowed or encouraged teachers to develop specialised knowledge in the subjects they teach. school g was one of two schools in the study that changed from class teaching to subject teaching in the ip and sp in 2011–2012, acting on the advice of district officials. the intention was to make better use of teachers’ specialist knowledge (and enthusiasm) – especially in challenging subjects like mathematics and natural science. the disjuncture between the lolt and learners’ mother tongue at several of the schools, many learners do not speak the lolt as their mother tongue. this presents formidable barriers to reading and learning. school b was the most striking example, but this problem was also present in school g. at school b there had been a gradual demographic shift in the learner population, so 30% of learners – 50% of grade 1s, the grade taught by teacher b28 – were xhosa speakers learning through the medium of english 138 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 home language. despite this growing problem, the school had not developed any useful measures to help learners address this barrier. halfway through 2012, the smt started to discuss possible solutions, such as introducing a xhosa stream in the fp. schools’ approaches to professional development of teachers in most case study schools, ctli courses constituted the main or only teacher development strategy. some principals, like at school g, recognised that teachers returned with new enthusiasm and ideas for improvement, but they were not sure that ctli training was making a real difference. on the other hand, the principals of schools b and e seemed to assume that increased motivation on the part of teachers after ctli was evidence that their teaching practice would improve. the evidence did not support this assumption. in three of the four schools, the data collected indicated that ctli training had little or no impact on most teachers’ practice. of the five teachers in this study, only teacher g16 participated in substantive school-based inset activities. in addition to reporting back at meetings and sharing new knowledge with colleagues, she presented a demonstration lesson, based on caps to other teachers in the phase at school. the other teachers reported back at subject meetings and teachers c40 and e31 passed on some specific ideas and worksheets to colleagues. in schools b, c and e, it was unlikely that new knowledge would be embedded systematically in the practice of teachers across subjects and phases. the knowledge base in the institution would not grow, even if individual teachers benefited from training. links between resource management and teaching availability of appropriate and sufficient resources for teaching and learning might contribute to teachers’ ability to implement new knowledge learnt in their classrooms. the teachers in the study, rated as achieving second order outcomes, all had access to ltsm and made effective use of these in their lessons. it is noteworthy that the leadership of school g, where the two teachers in the study attained second and first order outcomes respectively, demonstrated significant commitment to provision of resources to support strategies to improve literacy and numeracy. in 2011, the establishment of a school library was prioritised in the sip and teachers undertook the meyer and abel: hastening slowly. . . 139 preparatory work to qualify for wced allocations of infrastructure and reading materials. conversely, several teachers who attained third order outcomes reported that their teaching was hampered by a lack of sufficient ltsm. for example, there was evidence of mismanagement of resources at school e: unopened boxes of textbooks were seen in a classroom in the third quarter of the year, in spite of obvious textbook shortages. effective management of classroom resources is a related but separate aspect and can impact significantly on the quality of teaching and learning. instances were noted where sufficient and appropriate ltsm were available, but teachers lacked the knowledge and/or experience to utilise these effectively. for example, teacher e31 had sufficient mathematics textbooks available for use in class, but they were not used effectively to explain the concept being taught nor were learners given an opportunity to engage meaningfully with the concept in order to attain the outcomes set for the lesson. district support apart from the complaint about declining district support for the fp at school b, the principals and teachers at all the schools reported adequate support from district officials. however, the main purpose of sa’s visits was monitoring (checking teachers’ files and documentation) rather than training, supporting or mentoring. none of the 18 teachers received follow-up support from district officials after they had completed their ctli courses. a partial exception was teacher c40, who reported the valuable support from the mathematics sa in 2012. he gave her and her colleagues some guidance in the design of formal assessment tasks and provided standardised mathematics question papers for all ip and sp teachers in the circuit for the june examinations. the same teacher also reported having attended a mathematics course in the district earlier in 2012. 140 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 the systemic test results and external accountability pressures on teachers and schools none of the five teachers indicated that they had personally engaged with the results their schools’ learners had achieved in wced systemic tests. however, schools c, e and g were implementing stricter monitoring of teachers’ work in response to pressures associated with these tests. at schools b and e, teachers offered extra lessons for grade 3 and grade 6 learners after school or on saturdays in 2012 to prepare for the tests, written every november. concluding remarks the analysis of data from the five teacher vignettes led to some sobering insights, which resonate with findings from other south african studies cited earlier (adler and reed, 2002; needu, 2013a and 2013b; taylor et al., 2012). the five teachers, all from underprivileged schools, clearly benefitted from the ctli training, although to varying degrees. two of the five teachers (teachers g16 and c40) left training energised by new and deeper understanding of concepts and skills in their subjects. by 2012, these teachers had succeeded in many of their efforts to move away proceduralised practice, e.g. eradicating choral responses in their classes and restricting learners to prescribed methods for solving problems in mathematics. both were able to implement a range of new scaffolding methods and techniques to create opportunities for learners to ‘learn to talk’ about the concepts taught. there was also a significant improvement in teacher c40’s design of assessment tasks and the quality and frequency of corrective feedback given to learners. by contrast, teachers b28 and e31 whose prior knowledge in the subject/phase was poor, benefitted little from training. these teachers achieved third order outcomes only, and training made little difference to their practice. they could not translate what they had learned on the courses into well-structured lessons, they continued to demand limited written work from their learners and they gave little corrective feedback, especially to struggling learners. teacher e31 was one of several teachers in the full sample whose post-test scores in mathematics remained low, suggesting their prior subject knowledge did not provide an adequate basis for engaging with new concepts on the course. particularly in mathematics, there appears to be a need for meyer and abel: hastening slowly. . . 141 differentiated courses, for example, a foundational course in each of the phases to cater for teachers without any formal training or inadequate pre-service training, in teaching the subject. in different ways, the teacher vignettes highlighted the importance of follow-up support after training to help teachers embed new knowledge and practice in their practice. notably, the three teachers who had been rated as having achieved first or second order outcomes found or sought out further sources of professional support to help them consolidate and extend their knowledge. they kept contact with teachers who attended the ctli course with them (even teachers in other districts) or worked with colleagues in their own schools and/or neighbouring schools. only one of the five teachers (teacher c40) specifically mentioned that she had received support from a sa after the training, which she found valuable. the sa responsible for school g, acknowledged that she visits schools in the circuit infrequently, mainly due to the distances she has to travel. one teacher who achieved third order outcomes (teacher b28) complained that she felt unsupported, despite support from the school management and parents and the other (teacher e31) mentioned that she had received no support from the district. these findings appear consistent with needu’s observation (needu, 2013b) that the numbers of sas in the system are insufficient to provide the support at the levels and frequency needed by teachers. the experiences of teachers from three of the four schools in the study suggest school-based inset is not practiced at most underperforming schools. arguably, a policy initiative to promote school-based inset and peer coaching as the mainstay of cptd in south africa, as needu has proposed (needu, 2013a), would have to include school development interventions of sufficient depth to shift schools from ‘minimalist’, compliance-based curriculum management to more developmental and professional cultures. as in other sa studies, we found the mismatch between the lolt and learners’ mother tongue to be a major impediment to effective teaching. in this set of vignettes, the matter stood out as a challenge not only for individual teachers, but for schools. if schools do not address demographic shifts in the intake of learners speaking a home language other than the lolt, the problem can escalate over a few years, as was evident in school b where teacher b28, expressed a sense of exasperation and hopelessness despite the support she received from management and parents. 142 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 teacher e13 tried to apply new knowledge she had learned on the hod course in her fp department, but with little success. this teacher’s experience suggested that training in management skills, dissociated from subject-focused cptd (or strong subject content knowledge prior to training) might achieve no more than minimal efficiency gains in curriculum management. the resistance she faced from colleagues despite their declared respect and personal regard for her – also indicated that a culture of compliance and minimalist attitudes are deeply ingrained in the culture of the school. unless uneven standards of professional commitment are addressed by managers of schools such as school e, the persistent malaise would undermine the enthusiasm and renewed professional commitment of returning teachers after training. although our findings were drawn from a limited sample, they underscore the importance of taking the complexities of cptd into account when designing teacher development programmes. the experiences of the five teachers discussed here suggest that block-release training without ongoing follow-up support and targeted school development interventions, is inadequate to bring about real and lasting improvements in teaching and learning. the least costly option might not be the most cost-effective. references abel, l. 1997. teacher development mediation: a cognition-based reconsideration. unpublished phd thesis, university of the western cape, bellville. adler, j., slonimsky, l. and reed, y. 2002. subject-focused inset and teachers’conceptual knowledge-in-practice. in adler, j. and reed, y. 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(eds). 2009. professional learning in the learning profession: a status report on teacher development in the united states and abroad. usa: national staff development council. de chaisemartin, t. 2010. evaluation of the cape teaching and leadership institute. unpublished evaluation report. johannesburg: jet education services. department of basic education. 2015. action plan to 2019: towards the realisation of schooling 2030. taking forward south africa’s national development plan 2030. http://www.education.gov.za/linkclick.aspx?fileticket=hhmknb78z7q%3d &tabid=54&mid=1167 [14 august 2015] fleisch, b. and schöer, v. 2014. large-scale instructional reform in the global south: insights from the mid-point evaluation of the gauteng primary language and mathematics strategy. south african journal of education, 34(3): pp.1–12. gamble, j. and kühne, c. with others. 2010. rural education project: a school improvement initiative, 2006–2009. unpublished research report, sdu, university of cape town. harland, j. and kinder, k. 1997. teachers’ continuing professional development: framing a model of outcomes. british journal of in-service education, 23(1): pp.71–83. joyce, b. and showers, b. 1995. student achievement through staff development: fundamentals of school renewal (2nd edition). white plains, ny: longman. joyce, b. and showers, b. 2002. student achievement through staff development. virginia, usa: association for supervision and curriculum development. 144 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 lerman, s. 1998. a moment in the zoom of a lens: towards a discursive psychology of mathematics teaching and learning. in olivier, a. and newstead, k. 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(eds), getting learning right: report of the president’s education initiative research project. johannesburg: joint education trust. susan meyer lydia abel ort sa cape susan@ortsacape.org.za lydia@ortsacape.org.za mailto:susan@ortsacape.org.za mailto:lydia@ortsacape.org.za 146 journal of education, no. 61, 2015 curriculum reform as a driver for change in higher education: the case of south africa bruce kloot abstract a recent proposal by the council for higher education (che) outlines a solution to the persistently low and racially skewed completion rates in south african higher education. this involves lengthening the curricula of all qualifications through the insertion of 120 credits of ‘foundational provision’. this article provides a critique of this strategy by exploring its origins and placing south african efforts at improving student access and success in the international context. it draws on the narratives of two academics, one a top research professor and the other a foundation programme lecturer, employing the theoretical lens of pierre bourdieu to examine higher education as a social space or field. this analysis suggests that the power structure of higher education itself is likely to constrain the effectiveness of the che’s proposal and ultimately fail to shift the low and racially skewed completion rates that plague south african higher education. introduction higher education has experienced remarkable growth in the last half-century. across the globe, the proportion of school-leavers attending higher education institutions has increased fivefold since 1970 while the population has but doubled (unterhalter and carpentier, 2010). according to schofer and meyer (2005, p.918) increased democratisation, the scientization of society and the rise of national development logics have brought about what is today a “highly expanded, and essentially global, system of higher education”. this has eroded the autonomy of higher education institutions. on the one hand a post-fordist work order has resulted in a call for the development of “high skills” (finegold and soskice, 1988) in the economically active members of the population, placing demands on higher education to produce “knowledge workers” (bell, 1975) for the global economy. on the other hand, in the wake of increased democratic participation and the expansion of human rights, the state is pressing higher education more than ever to deal with issues of equity. the call to improve access or to ‘widen participation’ for students from 124 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 ‘non-traditional’ groups has become an important thrust of education policy, especially in the uk, europe and the united states. unfortunately, greater access has not translated into more equitable outcomes; while participation rates have improved, retention rates have been more difficult to shift. a recent study conducted for the higher education funding council for england (hefce) that examined the effectiveness of widening participation initiatives in six nations revealed that, in general, students from “target groups are less likely to complete their studies” than students from traditional groups (2013, p.33). this contributes to a body of literature exploring the effectiveness of efforts to improve the performance of non-traditional or ‘minority’ students (tinto, 1975; clewell and ficklen, 1986; banks and banks, 1993; rollnick, 2010). while there is no clear solution to the problem of high attrition among non-traditional students, there is consensus that “systemic/structural change within the universities themselves” (morey, 2000) is required if the equity agenda is to be taken seriously. the difficulties associated with bringing about systemic change are no better demonstrated than in the case of south africa, one of the countries included in the hefce study referred to above. compared to australia, the united states and three european nations, south africa is singled out as having “considerably lower” completion rates (2013, p.33). the south african report notes that drop-out rates “remain a huge concern with approximately 50% of students (undergraduates and postgraduates) not completing their qualifications” (wangenge-ouma, 2013, p.28). this is attributed to “the architecture of the apartheid education system” (hefce, 2013, p.18) and the difficulties in transforming higher education in the post-apartheid era. although the legacy of apartheid education is unique, there are many ways in which south african higher education is comparable to education systems in other parts of the world. firstly, the foundations of south african higher education were transplanted from scotland in the 1800s and institutions developed along the lines of universities in the uk (phillips, 2003). secondly, there was opposition from within higher education to the policies of separate education and transformation efforts in a number of universities began a decade before apartheid was dismantled. finally, education policy in south africa after the fall of apartheid, after a period of robust negotiation, reflects the forces of globalisation impinging on higher education systems worldwide (davies, 1996). a review of higher education policy after 10 years of democracy in south africa noted that kloot: curriculum reform as a driver for change. . . 125 the term ‘black’ in the proposal and in this article refers to those categorised as non-white1 under the apartheid government. this includes those classified as black african, ‘coloured’ and indian. it is acknowledged here that ‘race’ was used as a construct to institutionalise oppression in south africa and such references are not intended to entrench racial classification. however, given the subject of this article, it is impossible to avoid the use of these designators. discursive tensions between equity and development were sustained in the debates of stakeholders. the ‘economic rationalist’ position was endorsed in a policy focus on the development of higher skills to meet the needs of economic development and global competitiveness. . . the ‘popular democratic’ position was endorsed in the declared commitment to a programme of redress (che, 2004, p.232). the endeavour to widen participation in the south african context, and to ensure that the students from non-traditional backgrounds who have gained access to higher education also have a reasonable chance of success, is therefore relevant to education systems worldwide. this article deals with a recent proposal by the council for higher education (che) in south africa to reform the national curriculum. a critique of such a proposal is timely given the recent attention to the need for universities to adapt their curricula for the global marketplace (blackmore and kandiko, 2012) through curriculum various reform initiatives (pegg, 2013). the che proposal is outlined below and the theoretical tools of pierre bourdieu are used to understand how academic practice will be affected, especially in relation to teaching. while many of the issues are addressed in the literature on curriculum reform in the context of a diversifying student body (ognibene, 1989; morey and kitano, 1997; warren, 2002), it is hoped that a more critical approach will shed light on the difficulties associated with curriculum reform in the context of a research-intensive university. the intention is to deepen the conversation about the likely effectiveness of such a large-scale curriculum reform exercise and to prompt reflection about strategies to improve success in higher education in other contexts. the flexible curriculum proposal the proposal (che, 2013) begins by providing updated data on the participation and completion rates prevalent in the system. it confirms the findings of previous studies (scott, yeld and hendry, 2007) that participation rates are both low and racially skewed. in 2011, only 14% of black african1 126 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 this for all threeand four-year undergraduate qualifications, excluding those offered2 by unisa (university of south africa), one of the largest distance education institutions in the world. youth, the non-traditional – and majority – population group in the south africa case, attended higher education compared to 57% for whites (che, 2013). in terms of completion rates, the proposal draws on the latest cohort analyses to show that only 48% of all students registering for undergraduate qualifications in 2006 at the contact institutions graduated within five years2 (che, 2013). not surprisingly, these figures are skewed by race: only 42% of black african students as opposed to 61% of white students graduated within five years. “the net result of these disparities in access and success is that under 5% of african and coloured youth are succeeding in any form of higher education” (che, 2013, p.15). based on these numbers, the proposal argues that the curriculum should not be structured for the minority who complete their studies in minimum time but instead for the majority who take longer than this to complete. the proposed solution is thus a large-scale curriculum reform strategy that entails adding a year to all tertiary qualifications: “it is not feasible to substantially improve graduate output and outcomes without extending the formal time of core first degrees and diplomas, in the interests of the majority of the student intake” (che, 2013, p.19). however, since an “appreciable minority” of students are able to graduate in regulation time (three years for most degrees and diplomas or four years for a degree such as engineering) the proposal makes provision for such students within an ‘accelerated stream’ which is to run alongside the extended version. disciplinary exemplars are provided in the proposal to demonstrate how the regular and modified curricula structures can run in parallel. in essence, what is being proposed is a flexible curriculum structure that establishes new mainstream parameters of duration, starting point and progression pathways – allowing for coherently-designed curricula that meet the needs of the majority – and that also makes provision for shorter pathways within the new norms (che, 2013, p.19). rather than adding a year at the start of all qualifications – the foundation programme model – the strategy is to insert what is known as “foundational provision” at strategic points to ensure that developmental work is threaded through the curriculum. the “only way” of overcoming obstacles to progression, the proposal argues, is to “put forms of developmental provision kloot: curriculum reform as a driver for change. . . 127 in place at appropriate stages of the curriculum” (che, 2013, p.18). in a newspaper article, shay (2014) explains how this will shift completion rates: the flexible degree enables curriculum space (an extra 120 credits) for ‘foundational provision’ where foundational provision is spread, perhaps rather thickly in first year but threads its way through years two, three and four with particular provision for those ‘killer courses’, courses which are notoriously difficult and present real bottlenecks for students. if this ‘foundational provision’ ‘works’ – and there are 30 years of educational development experience to draw on – fewer students fail, completion rates improve. it’s simple. in order to properly engage with the strategy outlined in the flexible curriculum proposal, it is necessary to understand its origins. this requires a brief foray into the ‘30 years of educational development experience’ referred to above. elsewhere in the anglophone world, education development mostly refers to staff development (amundsen and wilson, 2009) but in south africa, concerns about equity and student development are a distinct emphasis (brew, 2002; clegg, 2009). the fact that this movement – actually more often called ‘academic development’ in south africa – started 30 years ago, means that it began in the mid-1980s, a full decade before the dismantling of apartheid. it is significant that, early on, foundation programmes emerged as the principle strategy of this movement. in the uk, foundation degrees generally refer to qualifications designed with the help of employers to combine academic study with workplace learning degrees (harvey, 2009). however, in the south african context, foundation programmes are curriculum interventions aimed at assisting educationally disadvantaged students to make the transition to higher education. as such, they are entry-level, credit-bearing programmes catering for full-time students, most of whom are experiencing tertiary study for the first time. as mentioned above, foundation programmes initially referred to the insertion of an additional year at the start of a qualification. this shifted over the years as academic development evolved and, as will be explained in the next section, foundation programmes became more integrated with the ‘mainstream’, the term used in south africa to designate the traditional offering. although it is not possible to go into all the details, it is argued here that the foundation programme strategy contained the seeds of the flexible curriculum proposal. 128 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 foundation programmes as a strategy of academic development foundation programmes were developed not only for students to ‘bridge the gap’ from an inadequate secondary school background, but to “build a foundation for meaningful learning” (grayson, 1996, p.993) for their tertiary studies. early on, it was argued by academic development (ad) practitioners that the mainstream needed to adjust to cater for the needs of a diversifying student group. it is maybe less well known that foundation programmes were also intended to pave the way for large-scale curriculum reform: . . . if bridging programmes are successful in drawing in ever-increasing numbers of students, the time may come when they become the ‘norm’ and may be incorporated into the regular academic structures of the university. there are in any case already some strong arguments in favour of adding a year to our current degree programmes; bridging programmes may prove, in future years, to have paved the way for this development (scott, 1986, pp.24–25). although he calls them ‘bridging programmes’, scott (1986) distinguishes these programmes from adjunct (separate, pre-first-year) bridging programmes that were a popular approach at the time. in order to understand the significance of this distinction, it is necessary to provide some context. although black students were officially prohibited from attending so-called ‘white’ universities during the early decades of the apartheid era, small numbers of black students began trickling on to the campuses of english-medium universities in the early 1980s. this set of institutions, which had some history of opposition to apartheid education, established small inter-faculty units called academic support programmes (asps) to support these students. adjunct bridging programmes became a popular approach for dealing with the situation in the early 1980s; another strategy involved the provision of extra tutorials, the ‘concurrent’ support model. however, both of these approaches were deemed unsatisfactory by many practitioners and it was in this context that ian scott, director of the asp at the university of cape town (uct) at the time, wrote his paper entitled tinkering or transforming? (scott, 1986) from which the quotation above is taken. although he was not the first to do so (see stanton, 1987), scott asserted that a particular form of bridging programme, one that properly articulated with regular courses within specific discipline areas, was required if the academic support movement was going to have a meaningful impact. kloot: curriculum reform as a driver for change. . . 129 this is actually page 24 of the paper. pages 23 and 24 are mistakenly swopped around.3 the advantage of this strategy, according to scott, was that these programmes would not be bound by the parameters of regular courses like the concurrent tutorial support model and their integrated nature would mean that they were more appropriately forward-looking than separate bridging programmes. they could thus provide the opportunity to concentrate “on addressing the students’ fundamental learning needs, and. . .thus provide a solid foundation for real competence and independence” (scott, 1986, p.23, emphasis added). these3 programmes came to be called ‘foundation programmes’. scott also mentions the issue of accreditation, describing it as a “major problem”, suggesting that “every effort should be made to persuade the university to grant at least partial credit” (1986, p.23) for these programmes. the events in the 1990s leading up to the democratic transition prompted tertiary institutions to take ownership of the phenomena of ‘disadvantage’ and ‘underpreparedness’, signalling the shift from the paradigm of academic support to academic development (volbrecht and boughey, 2004). while university management at english-medium white universities had always been sympathetic towards academic support, ad meant an official acknowledgment of the issues and recognition of the importance of organisational structures (i.e. academic development units). this was accompanied by developments at the theoretical level among academic development practitioners who argued for a more ‘infused’ approach to student support (boughey, 2012) and thus changes to the mainstream. at this stage there was a more widespread implementation of programmes to try to deal with the issues. while most programmes at the (now so-called) ‘historically’ white english-medium universities followed this trajectory, practitioners at many of the historically black and white afrikaans-medium institutions attempted to ‘reinvent the wonky wheel’, in the words of chrissie boughey (2007), implementing adjunct bridging programmes or concurrent tutorial support courses. some universities sought the help of more experienced practitioners at english-medium universities and in this way there was some sharing of ideas but, according to kotecha, allie and volmink, practice was “institutionally based and fragmented” and there was “little consolidation of ideas” (1997, p.4). 130 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 this fragmentation was perhaps inevitable given their origins, the historical divisions within the sector along the lines of ‘race’ and language, and the minority status afforded educational development in general. it also has to do with the autonomy of higher education relative to the political realm and the inordinate amount of time that it took for the new department of education (doe) to implement a co-ordinated strategy of redress. foundation programmes – or what were called ‘extended curricula’ – were included in the 1997 white paper and were to be given “due weight and status as integral elements of a higher education system committed to redress and to improving the quality of learning and teaching” (department of education, 1997, section 2.34). however, it took six more years before extended curricula were included in the higher education funding framework (saunders, 2011). ian scott (2001) argued for public funding for extended curricula, one of the criteria being that they contain “additional foundational elements [that] articulate successfully with the standard curriculum” (p.6). after a few rounds of ‘foundation grants’ to pilot the model, the ministry of education released funding for foundational provision in formally approved programmes (doe, 2006). according to this framework, which drew heavily on the recommendations of scott (2001), only formally accredited programmes extended or augmented by some form of foundational provision component would benefit from the substantial funds allocated, some r367m for the 2007/8–2009/10 triennium. moreover, the foundational component had to be “formally planned, scheduled and regulated as an integral part of the programme” (doe, 2006, p.3). after two cycles of earmarked funding allocated on the basis of institutional applications, funding for extended programmes was transferred to three-year rolling cycles in 2013 which means that they are now funded in the same way as other higher education courses. it is in this socio-historical and policy context that we must consider the flexible curriculum proposal. the evolution of foundation programmes from bridging programmes to a foundational provision component which is linked with regular programme offerings through funding and policy seems to suggest that the next step is a large-scale curriculum reform strategy. indeed, the proposal itself (che, 2013) contains a review of the developments described above and a discussion of the successes and limitations of extended programmes in order to make a case for mainstream curriculum reform. these limitations are explicitly linked to the low status of foundation programmes. consider the following excerpt: kloot: curriculum reform as a driver for change. . . 131 however, the problems inherent in the current extended programme model, arising primarily from its minority and marginalised status, impose intractable limitations on its success. it is interesting that early writing about foundational provision, going back to the 1980s, indicates that the model was not seen as a permanent solution but rather as paving the way for mainstream curriculum reform (che, 2013, p.90). the urgent need for decisive intervention in south african higher education, the apparent inevitability of the step towards mainstream curriculum reform and a concrete solution in the form of the flexible curriculum proposal are a persuasive combination. indeed, the proposal can be considered the destination of the educational development movement in south africa, the culmination of three decades of struggle for the transformation of higher education. if the proposal is implemented, the words of scott (1986) will have proven to be remarkably prescient. the remainder of this article focuses on whether modifying the curriculum to accommodate the majority of students will be an effective driver for change. this is to be accomplished using bourdieu’s theoretical tools to analyse academic development practice in the context of the field of higher education. the proposal suggests that lengthening the curriculum for all core undergraduate programmes is a “necessary condition for improving student learning” (che, 2013, p.107) but from a field perspective, what is important is how the curriculum is enacted. how seriously will mainstream staff, who will largely be responsible for teaching the redesigned curricula, take its aims and intentions? will they have the required understanding and the will to change their practice (boughey, 2013) in line with the intentions and aims of the proposal? theoretical framework bourdieu is well known for the notion of ‘cultural capital’ which he uses to explain the tendency of students from privileged backgrounds to outperform working class students in assessment tasks because of their familiarity with middle class culture (bourdieu and passeron, 1977). however, rather than focusing on how the cultural capital of students influences performance in education generally, this article focuses on the social space of higher education and how this shapes the practices of academics in relation to undergraduate teaching. central to this analysis is the notion of fields, a concept that bourdieu uses to describe the ensemble of relatively autonomous social spaces within society. maton (2005, p.689–690) explains that fields are 132 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 autonomous in that they generate their own values and markers of achievement but this autonomy is relative in that these values “are not alone in shaping a field; economic and political power also play a role”. the focus of this analysis is thus on the field of higher education as a social space, distinct from the political realm and the field of secondary education. in homo academicus, bourdieu (1988) identifies the two forms of power operating in the university field – academic capital which corresponds with the heteronomous principle and intellectual (or scientific) capital which corresponds with the inward-looking, autonomous principle of ‘knowledge for its own sake’. these forms of power are simply economic and cultural capital respectively which have been reinterpreted in the university field. academic capital is more temporal and is linked to the instruments of reproduction and corresponds with position in the institutional hierarchy (bourdieu 1988) while intellectual capital is linked to ‘scientific renown’ and is governed by the ‘logic of research’. according to bourdieu, social action within a field can be characterised as a game that agents ‘play’ as they attempt to dominate the field through accumulating the forms of capital available. agents struggle to accumulate these forms of capital to improve their position relative to other agents within the field. as they engage in struggle and conflict, the configurations of power relations in fields are inscribed on individual bodies as habitus, what bourdieu defines as transposable “mental and corporeal schemata of perception, appreciation and action” (bourdieu and wacquant, 1992, p.16). while habitus largely determines social practice and is moulded by fields, it is also generative and acts as a ‘structuring structure’ (bourdieu, 1990) in that agents are able to transform or reinforce the structure of the field as they struggle over its rules, limits, recognised forms of capital etc. fields mostly tend to reproduce their structure because those in positions of power, who are able to exert control over the field, employ strategies to conserve field configurations in order to continue reaping its rewards. those in dominated positions on the other hand, tend to engage in struggles to transform the structure of the field. such agents draw on alternative discourses that originate outside the traditional modes of thinking of the field (robbins, 1993) to challenge the status quo. the nature of the struggle is therefore not only for the forms of capital that are present but for the conservation or transformation of the structure of the field: kloot: curriculum reform as a driver for change. . . 133 for a fuller discussion of this point and the nature of the field of engineering education, see4 kloot (2011). every field is thus the site of an ongoing clash between those who defend autonomous principles of judgment proper to that field and those who seek to introduce heteronomous standards because they need the support of external forces (wacquant, 2008, p.269). methodology this work draws on a broader study in which 21 semi-structured interviews were conducted with mainstream professors, academic development managers and foundation programme academics at two south african institutions (kloot, 2011). through the use of narrative analysis (polkinghorne, 1995), the career trajectories of multiple agents were analysed to determine the structure of the field, the forms of capital that are valorised as well as the struggles and conflicting discourses that shape the field. for a number of reasons, engineering educators were interviewed for this study but the universality of the forces shaping the habitus of these academics was found to be far more significant than the characteristics of the disciplinary context of engineering.4 for this reason, these findings have relevance beyond the context of engineering and, indeed, beyond the context of the institutional boundaries of the universities chosen as case studies. the use of narratives risks revealing respondents’ identities which has certain ethical implications. to address this issue, respondents were asked to review the findings to check the factual details of the data and to confirm that they had not been misrepresented in some way. one respondent (who is not included in the 21 mentioned above) felt uncomfortable with how he was portrayed and it was agreed that his interview would not be used. however, most of the respondents were satisfied with how they were depicted and many contributed information in follow-up discussions or through email contact. pseudonyms were used to protect the identities of the respondents. the perspectives of two academics from a research-intensive university that we will call emerston university, are contrasted in this article. the choice of emerston can be considered a ‘paradigmatic case’ (flyvbjerg, 2001) since, paradoxically, it is both one of the strongest research universities in south africa and is also committed to the academic development project. this is not an unproblematic state of affairs as will be demonstrated by the contrasting 134 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 narratives that are presented below. the entrenched positions of these agents indicate the deep-seated struggles over the structure of the field of higher education which has implications for the mode of curriculum reform proposed by the che. findings and discussion the first academic is prof andrew edmund, one of the top research professors in south african higher education and an international leader in his field. he holds a research chair, supervises large numbers of postgraduate students, has published prolifically and is well cited. these are all indicators of the large volume of intellectual capital that he possesses. as will be seen, andrew’s devotion to research, something that he describes as ‘unbelievably time-consuming’, shapes his practice. consider the excerpt below in which he frankly discusses the impact this has on his approach to undergraduate teaching: i feel the tension, i feel the demand for time. . . now i have to make a choice: do i want to be remembered at emerston as being this great undergraduate teacher who students all like because he’s so helpful and he’s always available or am i this crusty old professor who seems to brush us off the whole time. . . .i’ll do my best as a teacher – no, no, i’ll do what’s required to get most of them through but i can’t get all of them through because student success rate doesn’t entirely depend on my ability or inability or my time i’m spending on the students. it also depends on the time the students themselves spend on the subject. . . it is clear that andrew’s dedication to research causes him to resist anything that may draw him away from it, including undergraduate teaching. while the potential conflict between research and teaching in higher education is not a new observation (wong, 1995; marsh and hattie, 2002; pan, cotton and murray, 2014), bourdieu’s framework provides a fresh perspective on this issue. since academics have a good deal of autonomy in terms of how they structure their ‘time-economy’ (bourdieu, 1988), the amount (and quality) of time they spend on activities must be understood in terms of the structure of the field and the associated system of reward. while andrew keenly feels the ‘tension’, the ‘demand’ on his time due to activities related to undergraduate teaching, he consciously limits the time he spends on these activities and is prepared to be a ‘crusty old professor’ in the eyes of his undergraduates precisely because of the satisfaction and recognition that he gains from his research work. kloot: curriculum reform as a driver for change. . . 135 whereas the autonomy of the field of higher education is aligned with research – as expressed by the maxim ‘knowledge for its own sake’ (maton, 2005) – teaching is more closely associated with the field of secondary education and thus does not provide access to such reward. the impact on academic practice is profound. bourdieu (1996) goes so far as to suggest that, because of the social definition of their office, university professors have “no other choice but to reject every practice that might make them seem like secondary school teachers lost in the corridors of higher education” (p.99). it is also important to note that andrew’s disposition is coupled with a certain posture towards student autonomy, exemplified by his point that student success does not only depend on the time he spends with the students but also on the time the students themselves spend on their studies. this is in stark contrast to the habitus of academics that are employed on extended curriculum programmes. such individuals are generally committed teachers (niven, 2012) who dedicate time and energy to getting the very best out of their students in the hope of helping them overcome their educational disadvantage. this is certainly the case with the second academic who will be considered in this article, mr richard de vos. richard graduated with an engineering degree from emerston and commenced his postgraduate studies in a traditional engineering field. during his masters he began tutoring and enjoyed it so much that he ended up running a tutoring programme for the engineering foundation programme at emerston. after a few years he encountered problems in his masters research but it was really his growing love for teaching, and full-time employment on the foundation programme that his masters came to a standstill. in the excerpt below, richard explains the focus of the staff on the extended curriculum programme: first and foremost, term time we teach; so everything we do in term time is about the lecture we’re going to give, the workshop we are going to design around that, the contact time with the students. . .our priority is the teaching side of it for the students and that’s what we have been employed to do and that’s what we take very seriously. . . whereas andrew was clear that he would not do his best but would ‘do what is required’ as a teacher, richard is dedicated, loves his work and sees teaching as the purpose of his job; what he is ‘employed to do’. 136 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 since undergraduate teaching in itself is neither very highly regarded nor well rewarded in the field of higher education – there is no such thing as ‘teaching capital’ – such a habitus is at odds with the dominant logic of the field. in the south african case, this habitus is generated and sustained by the oppositional discourse of academic development which has traditionally drawn on concerns about student equity and redress, as explained above, in order to entrench itself. bourdieu’s lens shows that this struggle for legitimation is a clash between those who defend the autonomy of the field and those who draw on alternative discourses in an effort to transform the structure of the field. the foregoing narratives give a glimpse of the deep-seated tensions that exist between research-oriented mainstream professors and foundation programme lecturers. what is at stake in this struggle are the forms of power that are valorised and the underlying structure of the field. given its humble origins and its history as a “highly mobile and fragmented profession” (niven, 2012, p.139), it is not difficult to understand why academic development in south africa has such a strong oppositional stance. luckett, for example, notes that “due to early experiences of polarization and marginalisation, ad discourse tends to stereotype academics as autonomous, uncaring teachers and self-interested researchers” (2012, p.350). however, in favourable institutional contexts, academic development discourse can ‘carve out’ a niche within the field of higher education (kloot, 2011) to enable the teaching-centred modes of practice described by richard. within such spaces, staff are insulated from the powerful effects of the field, especially the pressure to engage in research, and are able to devote themselves to the needs of their students. nevertheless, an unintentional consequence of defending the foundation niche from the influence of the field is that it limits the impact of academic development on its structure. despite certain instances in which foundation work appears to have prompted change in the mainstream (inglis, akhurst and barnsley, 1994; clarence-fincham, 2013), these changes are always localised and do not succeed in substantially transforming the structure of the field or the practice of mainstream academics. even where progression and completion rates of students on foundation programmes is proven to be about the same as, or even better than, students from traditional entry groups (donald and rutherford, 1994; de villiers and rwigema, 1998; garraway, 2009), the sustainability of such instances is disappointing. in fact, a recent statistically robust study shows that positive foundation programme kloot: curriculum reform as a driver for change. . . 137 completion rates are not significant when the entire qualification is considered (smith, 2012). this article suggests that the bridging programme model, although it has evolved in terms of its relation with the mainstream curriculum, has reached its conclusion as a foundational provision component within the flexible curriculum proposal. moreover, a field perspective reveals this evolution in terms of a decades-long struggle over what is valorised by higher education. on the one hand is the desperate need for south africa’s universities to address the stubborn patterns of educational disadvantage that plague the sector. this paradigm values ‘knowledge for the sake of others’ and has driven the development of the kind of curriculum proposed recently by the che which requires the kind of teaching exemplified by richard. on the other hand, deeply embedded in the field of higher education itself, lies the valorisation of research which is underpinned by the maxim ‘knowledge for its own sake’. this drives academics in the pursuit of intellectual capital and the kinds of approaches to teaching exemplified by andrew. this paradigm is sustained by a global network of scholars engaged in the production of knowledge. given the freedom that academics have in terms of how they wish to align themselves with these competing paradigms, the inevitable conclusion is that an alternative undergraduate curriculum cannot drive change – it cannot not compel mainstream academics to do anything differently. while ‘30 years of educational development experience’ can be seen as a resource to aid the success of the flexible curriculum, it is important to interrogate whether what is being proposed will be able to accomplish what 30 years of educational development has not. it is difficult to imagine that the shift from foundation programmes to foundational provision in the mode of the flexible curriculum proposal will transform the structure of the field. indeed, this analysis suggests that entrenched modes of academic practice, in harmony with the high status of research and coupled with a particular approach to student autonomy – that the responsibility ultimately rests with the student and not with the lecturer – reinforce the operations of cultural capital to the extent that the effects of foundational provision on graduation rates are negligible. rather than bringing about fundamental change, it appears that what will be gained on the swings of the foundation programme will be lost on the roundabout of mainstream. 138 journal of education, no. 60, 2015 conclusion the sociological analysis presented above suggests that the underlying reason for the seeming lack of effectiveness of curriculum modification strategies is the power structure of higher education itself. the structure of this social space assigns a low status to undergraduate teaching and tends to resist the efforts of educational development to transform it, perpetuating modes of practice that are oriented towards the production of research outputs. while academic development in south africa has managed to alter the structure of the field under certain circumstances, such as by carving out a foundation niche, the forms of power at work have prevented it from meaningfully transforming the structure of the field. given the strong relationship between academic development, foundation programmes and the flexible curriculum structure proposed by the che, this analysis casts doubt on the likelihood of the proposed reform strategy shifting undergraduate completion rates. even if the recommendations in the proposal regarding staff development and capacity building (che, 2013) are adopted, this analysis highlights that practice is governed by what is valorised in the field and the associated systems of reward. employing more staff or providing opportunities for upskilling in relation to curriculum design and development will do little to change the attitudes and practices of the staff already in the system. as far back as 1988, muller drew attention to the futility of an asp strategy that failed to pay attention to “reward and other structures that shape academic work” (1988, p.120). given the heavy workload already on staff, it is quite possible that in many contexts the principles of the flexible curriculum will be superficially adopted and its noble intentions marginalised. more broadly, this article highlights the danger of embracing curriculum modification as the panacea to the ills of higher education. perhaps south africa is unique in terms of its long 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